Risk Be Damned

by Natalie Grey

  The woman considered this. “Fine,” she said at last. “Which way was the rendezvous point?”

  Hsu pointed.

  “We go wide around it,” the woman ordered. “I don’t want to take the chance of anyone seeing us.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So why, exactly, did Stephen come all the way back in the middle of a mission?” Nathan watched through the floor-to-ceiling window as the ship slid into one of the smaller hangar bays of the QBBS Meredith Reynolds. The shuttle that ran between the Archangel and the Meredith Reynolds was sleek, big enough to give passengers a good living space for the trip from Earth, but still small enough that it was dwarfed by the base ship.

  “A few reasons.” Bethany Anne kept her face non-committal. “They need to stock up, there might be a connection between the facility and our trouble in Spain….” She waved a hand. “A lot of small things.”

  Nathan shook his head as the two of them set off for the docking bay, “Yeah, that totally makes sense for coming back here rather than just talking Etherically.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way, too,” Bethany Anne called over her shoulder.

  Nathan gave an appealing look at Ecaterina, who was seated at the bar. She only laughed at him, though, before taking a sip of lemonade. “The only way you’re going to find out the real reason is to go with her. You know that.”

  “You’re no help,” Nathan grumbled as he hurried after Bethany Anne. He caught up with her near the door and gave her a slight frown. “You’re being very cagey about this, you know. And you’re not nearly upset enough about Spain.”

  “I told you, I am leaving the world to its own devices.” She shrugged as the door opened and they strode into the docking bay. “Mostly.”

  “Uh-huh.” Nathan shook his head as he followed his Queen. She had wanted him to come along in the interests of meeting a possible new Wechselbalg recruit—and learning just what was going on with the abductions in Eastern Europe.

  With Ecaterina and Stephen, Nathan had ties now to the Wechselbalg network in that part of the world, but between Area 51, China, and Antarctica—not to mention South America, he hadn’t yet had time to investigate what was going on with the disappearances.

  Until now, he’d half-believed that the Wechselbalg who were disappearing were just trying to set up rival packs. It wasn’t uncommon.

  It seemed they’d been wrong about that. Nathan cursed himself. No matter how much he told himself that they’d had other matters to attend to, matters that would have been urgent no matter what, he did not like the fact that he had ignored what could be a massive threat to them.

  There were always a few mad scientists over the years, doing experiments on Wechselbalg— even a few of Michael’s great-grandchildren had joined in at one time or another, especially in South America— but those experiments had been crude, constrained by the scientific advancement of their time.

  Now there was the possibility that someone could make real progress. Nathan would have to talk with this Wechselbalg and learn what was going on. He’d question Jennifer later, as well, to make sure that the story wasn’t being embellished. If it was urgent enough, he would go back with them.

  The docking bay doors slid open with a hiss, and a dark-haired man stepped through with a smile.

  “Hi, Dad.” Bethany Anne smiled at Lance Reynolds. “Glad to have you back.”

  “Well, as much as I want to keep an eye on what’s going on in Bulgaria, I also wanted to see the progress here.” Lance cast an approving glance around the docking bay.

  “And…?” The Queen raised an eyebrow.

  “All right, and taste some of the new beers,” Lance admitted. “I’ll be going back with them, though, to be on hand on the Archangel.” He turned to look as the rest of the passengers disembarked. “Stephen will tell you more. He’s … very worried. I’ve never seen him like this.”

  Bethany Anne nodded seriously, “We discounted Spain. Maybe that was a mistake, but I still cannot find any trace of this in their official networks. It isn’t the military, and it isn’t their politicians. The servers they’re using are definitely in Spain, though. ADAM was able to locate them, and— mine!” She broke away from Lance and ran up the gangway to snatch a box out of Stephen’s hands.

  “What?” Lance looked ‘round, and then sighed. “Is that box what I think it is? You know, I’d wondered how we got a ride back here so easily.”

  “I have no idea what you mean.” Stephen smiled blandly as he came to stand with Lance and Nathan.

  “What is it?” Nathan looked over to where Bethany Anne was peering excitedly into a red box, Jennifer at her side, and then gave a groan. “It’s shoes, isn’t it?”

  “Custom-made, with—the coup de grace, of course—a matching bag.” Stephen frowned. “A very special sort of bag. Beech something. Birch?”

  “Birkin,” Bethany Anne and Jennifer said in unison.

  “Ah, yes.” Stephen cast a look over his shoulder. “I had them make the inner pockets the right size for your clips.”

  “I love it!” Bethany Anne exclaimed. She closed the box and looked around at the newcomers, then seemed to remember something. Her eyes came to rest on the new Wechselbalg recruit, and she spoke in flawless Bulgarian. “You’re Stoyan, yes?”

  “Yes.” Stoyan nodded his head. He was having trouble believing that this was the Queen Bitch he’d heard so much about. She smelled strange, not at all like Michael’s brood. In fact, from the stylish clothes to the long legs, she wasn’t at all what he’d expected.

  Probably, he’d expected someone who wouldn’t squeal delightedly over new shoes.

  “I have news about your cousin.” Bethany Anne called up a hologram, spinning in her palm: it was a map of Bulgaria. On the sea of blue, Sofia was picked out in gold, with a smaller dot for the facility. A little ways away, a red dot shimmered. “Thanks to Jennifer and Arisha, we were able to get a toehold in their computer system. It turns out that the facilities installed tracking chips in some of the Wechselbalg they abducted. We think their plan was to release them and follow them to their packs. Now, the Sofia facility was theoretically destroyed, but two chips are still active: your cousin, and a woman named Ying Hsu.”

  Stephen interrupted, “What’s a Chinese woman doing in the facility?”

  “We don’t know.” Bethany Anne shook her head. “The other thing is that we seem to be the only one looking at this data currently. ADAM is still trying to find out if it’s safe to get the chips out.”

  Stoyan was staring at the dots in shock. “Irina is still alive?”

  “We believe so. The dots are still moving.” Bethany Anne hesitated.

  “What? What is it?”

  “We tried to make contact with them,” she explained. “We dropped food and supplies and left coordinates for them to meet a Pod and be brought aboard the Archangel. They received the supplies … but they didn’t go to the rendezvous point. We don’t know why.”

  “So go down and get them!” Stoyan turned to the ship. “I need to go back. Right now. I need to find her.”

  “We can send her a message for you,” Bethany Anne offered. ‘We have eyes on their position and we sent communications devices. I think it would be best if you spoke to her first. We’ll set that up in a few minutes. Right now, though, I need you to speak with Nathan and my father and tell them what you know about the people who took Irina. I know you want to save her, but this may be far bigger than just your pack. Anything we learn about these people might give us what we need to find them and figure out their plans. As of a couple of days ago, we know that they have fighter jets. We need to know what else is going on.”

  Stoyan hesitated. Everything this woman said made sense, but all he could think was that Irina was out alone, and that she had not made the rendezvous. Was the other woman holding her hostage?

  Was she hurt?

  “Stoyan.” The Russian woman touched his arm. She looked up at him and smiled tentatively. Was she blu
shing? “We should tell them what we know. It is important to catch Gerard now so that he doesn’t send more operatives against Irina.”

  That made a lot of sense. Stoyan nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Good,” Bethany Anne said crisply. “You all head to the conference room to talk to ADAM. I’ll meet you there in a few.”

  “Where are you going?” Nathan called after her.

  “These are part of a new line.” Bethany Anne held up the red box as if it was entirely self-evident, and blinked out of normal space.

  “What does that mean?” Stoyan asked before he turned to the General, “And did she just disappear?”

  Lance sighed, looking at the empty space. “It means she’s going to buy one of each.”

  —

  Dr. Gulnara Aliyeva calibrated one of the dials carefully, double checking against the notations on her clipboard. There was no room for error at this facility, that had been made clear both by the man who ran it, and by her fellow scientists.

  She had no intentions of being sloppy with her work. She took pride in all of her results. But she was even more careful here than she had been at any other job. She turned back to the naked man on the floor. It really didn’t make sense to keep dressing and undressing them, so they were generally kept naked.

  He was shivering, probably trying to make her feel sorry for him. He did not understand what they were hoping to accomplish here. He did not understand what he could become. Gulnara shook her head slightly at his defiance. It was sad, really.

  The shifters, in their normal state, did not listen to the scientists’ commands as readily as they did in their human form. Where humans could be broken quite reliably through well-honed techniques, the shifters seemed to regain some of their autonomy when they changed forms.

  They were less likely to take orders once they had shifted. The work the scientists did would change that.

  It would turn monsters into weapons.

  She knew there was no point in explaining this to him. She had tried to change the minds of many of the shifters here. She explained, over and over again, that their powers were meant to be used, that they should be in service to something larger than themselves, but they refused to understand.

  Gulnara walked into the side room and locked all of the doors before pressing a button to release the man’s restraints. He flung himself at the bullet proof glass, screaming for her to let him out, and she had to work hard not to flinch. She was a professional. She would not be swayed by his words.

  She pressed the button on the machine and the sound of the screams changed. Now they were filled with pain.

  “Please! PLEASE!”

  He was resisting the change. Gulnara waited the required thirty seconds before she pressed a second button and returned her eyes on him. She made sure to take careful notes. A further thirty seconds ticked away slowly on the clock while the man writhed on the floor, and she pressed the third of the eight buttons.

  The change was swift and violent. Where there had been a man, now there was a wolf. It crouched on the floor, hanging its head. It was panting with pain.

  She flipped a switch, and a cage descended from the rafters above. Inside huddled one of the useless captives: born to a shifter family, but not a shifter, himself. The man cried out when the door of his cage slid open. Gulnara leaned forward to speak into the microphone. “Kill him.”

  It was time to see if the latest variation on the experiment would work.

  —

  Filip opened his eyes and blinked in the sunlight that slanted in the window. His head ached fiercely, and the smell of eggs and bacon made his stomach heave.

  “Where….”

  “You’re on a plane.” The voice was businesslike. The man from the hotel sat across from Filip, looking fresh and well-dressed in a fitted suit. “There’s coffee and water, as well as food. I’d start with the water. And some aspirin.”

  Filip frowned. “Where…are we going?”

  “To Spain.” Gerard gave him a small smile. “My employer wants to hear your story firsthand.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Eduardo Lopez settled into his chair with a sigh. He had come to work for Hugo Marcari three years ago, burned out from a finance job in Madrid.

  At first, being a trader on the European Stock Exchange had seemed like a dream come true. There were long lunches in the lazy afternoons, endless parties at night. Eduardo wore tailored suits and drank with the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.

  Then, slowly, it all began to seem like a nightmare. He found himself longing for the fresh bread his grandmother made, for simple breakfasts while looking out over the countryside. He even found himself wondering what it would be like to return to a home with the same woman every night.

  And perhaps, children.

  The few colleagues he was comfortable enough to share these feelings with all told him the same thing, that he was being ridiculous. He had everything here, he couldn’t just walk away. What was there for him in the country? Nothing. Was he going to be a farmer? If he wanted to get married, they told him, then he should get married, get it out of his system, learn his lesson when he was young. But get a good prenup. They laughed and bought him a round of drinks and told him that the feeling would pass.

  Then came the letter: an offer to work for a man named Hugo Marcari. Eduardo’s family had served the Marcaris many generations ago, the letter said. Eduardo could do so again, fulfilling an ancient tradition.

  If he worked hard, he would be rewarded. There was housing, food, a job far from the clamor of Madrid. At the time, the job had seemed heaven-sent. He had gone to Mass every day for some time after that, thanking God for rescuing him from the life that was slowly draining him of hope and joy.

  Though the work was varied and often simple, Eduardo was eager to prove himself, and the world of finance had taught him to work quickly and without mistakes. He rose quickly in Hugo’s esteem.

  But, this job was beginning to seem like its own trap now. Tension had been growing for days. When Eduardo was ordered to decommission a series of tracking chips, he began to wonder just what he had gotten himself into.

  He remembered getting his own chip, thinking it was odd and yet still being too relieved by his job change to think much of it.

  Now, he wondered.

  But Hugo was in one of his moods, and it was not a good time to ask questions. Eduardo paged through the records, decommissioning each chip and wondering what an entire branch in Bulgaria had done to get shut down. Maybe it was one of the research facilities, he thought. He had never seen one of those, and he was curious. Everyone was. By midafternoon, he was finished with his work except for one item. He approached the office tentatively and cleared his throat. Hugo did not look up.

  “Mr. Marcari, the chips are decommissioned except for two exceptions.”

  Still nothing. Hugo kept working, as if Eduardo had not even spoken.

  “It says here that all chips should have stopped transmitting four days ago, but two are still active. They appear to be located somewhere in the mountains outside Sofia.”

  Hugo stopped typing at last. He looked up at Eduardo. “What did you say?”

  “There are two chips still active.” Eduardo held out the dossiers. “A satellite facility, I assume.”

  Hugo considered this for a moment. “Send five of the security team in Sofia,” he ordered finally. “Cordova hired them while he was there, they shouldn’t be busy with anything else. Give them the coordinates, and tell them to find the targets and bring them to the second facility. They will be questioned there. If they resist, they are to be eliminated.”

  “Eliminated?” Eduardo frowned.

  Hugo’s face was stony. “Were my words unclear, Mr. Lopez? Are you unable to follow simple instructions?”

  “No, sir. Of course not. I apologize. I’ll do it at once.” Eduardo bowed and left the room as quickly as he could without seeming to run. It couldn’t mean what he thought, he told h
imself. No one ordered two people killed that casually. It was probably a euphemism for being fired.

  He hoped, anyway.

  —

  Stoyan stood staring out into the black. His discussion with Bethany Anne and Stephen had been disconcerting. He was used to the old days, when Michael’s rules of honor were in force.

  Bethany Anne, however, did not seem to require formality. She listened to Stoyan’s opinions, even when they differed from Stephen’s, and she seemed to take the abduction of Wechselbalg, even from a minor clan, very seriously.