by R. E. Carr
“Like I care about a human,” Bam-Yin hissed.
“Come now – you aren’t the only one with spies. I know who you like to visit when you think no one is watching, Nephew,” Arthur said. “And I’m sure you’ll come to realize that the werewolves did this. It’s just their nature, right?”
Bam-Yin stopped as if he were considering the question. “She can take a bullet,” the Lung lord growled.
“Boys, guns on the DeMarcos, please. Shoot them both if the Lung disappears or tries anything funny.”
Paige counted five guns now trained on Georgia and Steve, not counting the one in her mother’s hands. She looked to Nadia and Kayleigh who both shook their heads.
“Bam-Yin, listen to me. You know that I am a reasonable vampire. Werewolves are not reasonable. That one over there was married to Lorcan and your son couldn’t save him. What do you honestly think they would do to a bloodsucker that failed them?”
“Kill them,” Bam-Yin said, turning slowly toward the pack. “They would kill my son.”
“We didn’t kill anyone!” Paige barked. “Listen to me.”
Bam-Yin lunged for Paige, grabbing her by the throat. He didn’t squeeze however, as his mouth quivered. “Jaeger . . . coming,” he grunted. “Just a little . . . more . . . time. Lorcan . . . is—”
“Oh come on, old man,” a new, English-accented voice called from above. “You know who you really want.”
Paige and Arthur both looked up to see a shadow curled on the roof, red talons wrapped around the terra-cotta tiles. Finally, a pair of solid black eyes came into view.
“Did you really think it’d be that easy, Arcturus?” the shadowy figure asked, a hint of Irish creeping into his voice.
“Come down here, boy,” Arthur commanded.
“Sorry, old man, I don’t take orders from you,” the shadow taunted.
Paige’s jaw dropped as a tall, blond figure jumped down into the courtyard. He bared a huge set of fangs as the shadows seemed to curl around his blood-soaked body. “Morgan,” Paige choked out. “No—”
“Is that really you, boy?” Arthur asked. “My how you have grown.”
“Lorcan!” Paige screamed, but it was too late. As the werewolf extended his claws toward Arthur, Maria turned her gun to her own temple. “No!” Paige roared, but it was drowned out by a thunderous bang.
15
“Georgia!”
Georgia grimaced, still in shock as the pain radiated through her shoulder and arm. “That was stupid,” she choked out, as she saw the blood. The gun went off again before a vaguely human-shaped streak crashed into both Maria and Georgia. Georgia screamed as she saw a fist clock Maria squarely in the jaw.
“Get Lorcan!” Georgia heard. A second streak attacked Estella, allowing Klaus to join the fray. A blitz of vampires, werewolves, and humans swept throughout the courtyard as more red soaked into Georgia’s shirt.
“Ow,” she said, slumping onto the ground. She had the presence of mind to collapse onto the loose firearm, while Maria DeMarco fell unconscious – a grazing wound on her forehead.
“Damn it, get Lorcan. Nothing else matters!” Arthur yelled.
The world continued to spin, and Georgia fought to get her bearings. Her right arm remained limp at her side, while a burning sensation radiated from her shoulder. A pair of solid black eyes stared at her.
“Morgan?” Georgia asked, confused. Morgan promptly picked up Pablo the pool boy and tossed him into the other house guards. The fight resumed, with bodies moving too quickly for the stunned Georgia to follow anymore. A pair of bloody hands grabbed her.
“Sweetheart . . . Georgia?” she heard as the pain only grew. “Georgia!”
“Fuck, that hurts,” she spat out. “Steve?”
She tried to keep track of the chaos, but she ended up closing her eyes. She flopped against a chest - the whooshing sound in lieu of a heartbeat betraying it as Steve’s. A mix of languages rang through the air, followed by more gunfire. Georgia screamed as the shock fully wore off.
“We gotta get out of here, Sweetheart,” Steve told her as he dragged Georgia back to her feet. “Come on, babe. We gotta move.”
“Mom!” Paige cried. Georgia opened her eyes again to see her blood dripping on Maria. Paige stumbled to grab her mother, but ended up collapsing and grabbing her back.
“Move,” Georgia heard. She put one foot in front of the other, Steve holding her. Something was pressed into her shoulder. She yowled but kept walking, moving bit by bit toward the hall. A purple blur grabbed both Paige and Maria. Georgia stared in awe at the gun shoved in her pants and the surprising amount of blood she could leak from one little hole in her shoulder.
“Move faster,” she heard, this time from a faintly Scandinavian accent.
Something pressed into the shoulder again, and Georgia yelped in protest and pain. Steve, however, managed to say with surprising calm, “You’re gonna live, Georgia, if you can just stay in the game. It’s not that bad, Sweetheart.”
She nodded and staggered forward again. She could hear Steve mutter things like “pressure” and “exit wound”, but it blurred as much as the chaos in the villa. Kyle poked at her at some point. Next thing she knew she was tipped over the couch and there was even more pain. A door slammed.
“Hey, Georgia, can you hear me?” Kyle asked.
Her eyes focused on the big, redheaded werewolf who was now the one pressing a throw into her very sore shoulder. She protested weakly. Kyle pressed and pressed while there was more commotion.
“Hold this. You need to keep pressure on the wound,” Kyle ordered.
“I’ve got this,” Steve said, wrapping more improvised bandages around her shoulder and arm. “I’m sorry babe,” he said as he promptly spit into the hole in her chest. Burning pain flared through her arm again.
“Fuck!” she cried again.
“I know it hurts, but it will help stop infection, Sweetheart,” Steve explained, even as her world spun faster.
“Arthur is currently distracted. We need to move,” the Jaeger said. “Ditch the dead weight and let us go.”
“No one is getting ditched,” Steve snapped.
“Then we need to move,” the Jaeger replied.
“Steve, have you got Georgia? Kay, get Maria; I’ve got Paige,” Kyle ordered.
Now it was Steve’s face blocking her view. He bit his lip. “Come on, you gotta get up,” he said softly. She wrapped her good arm around his neck and leaned against him.
“Next time . . . let the vampire take the bullet,” he chided.
“Deal,” she muttered as she started moving again. As the burning increased in her shoulder, she rolled her head to one side and confessed. “Steve, I am an idiot.”
“Well, you’re officially my idiot now, so don’t make this a habit,” he said, the smallest of grins returning to his face.
Georgia pushed through the pain and picked up the pace slightly. She stumbled as they reached the stairs. Fortunately, Kayleigh had enough strength to both hold Maria, and keep Georgia from tumbling into others.
“This does not seem like the right way,” Georgia mused, just as Paige said, “Where are we going?”
“Hurry, into the library,” Klaus said. “Brynjulf, you take it from here.”
“Pops!” Steve cried.
“Arthur is not making a mockery of this house,” Klaus growled. “Brynjulf will get you out safely. I must try and win an escape route for Mor—”
“Pops, he ripped apart Dr. Pang!” Steve protested.
Klaus nodded grimly at his son. “Steven, protect your family. I must protect you,” he said. Before Steve could say another word, Klaus looked to Georgia. “You have to get her out of here, Son. If Mordred cannot be saved, she might be our only hope.”
“This can’t be good,” Georgia muttered as a stone-faced Steve helped her down a long flight of stairs. By the time she was staring at walls made of skulls, she was too dizzy and weak to even be alarmed.
The Jaeger hurr
ied them through a heavy iron gate. As Georgia stumbled past, he leaned in and sniffed her wound, then sneered at Steve. “Next time, bite,” he growled.
The Jaeger began barking orders in Latin, and the librarians ran as if possessed. Soon Georgia and the others were carried along in a flood of white-robed panic, until they finally found themselves hustled out another gated passage in the back. It was only when Georgia was dumped in the back of an old army truck that she finally had a moment to appreciate just how cold and numb she had become. Steve helped her onto some burlap sacks, while Paige found a first-aid kit that looked like it had expired sometime before Truman was president.
“Jesus, Steve, how hard did you hit her?” Paige asked, as Maria remained out cold.
“Vampire blood is a sedative,” Kyle said, sniffing Maria’s breath. “And if it’s doing a whammy on you, it knocks you out hard. Just keep an eye on her while I take care of the gunshot.”
Kyle used his claws to rip away the temporary bandages. Georgia endured another round of burning saliva mixed with whatever horrible disinfectant Kyle had found. “Don’t worry, I’ll do a better job later,” he said as he patched her up. She almost screamed as he closed the wound on her back. “Oh god, vampire spit doesn’t numb you,” Kyle said, as Georgia doubled over in pain.
“I really hate being me right now,” Georgia whimpered. “Come on, hurry it up.”
Kyle finished with werewolf speed. Georgia curled on her undamaged shoulder and watched Kyle move on to cleaning the relatively minor wound on Maria’s forehead. Paige took Georgia’s good hand.
“Squeeze it if you need to. I can take it,” she said.
“Right now, I’d really like to drink that disinfectant. It might take the edge off,” Georgia muttered.
“Hey, you took a bullet for my mom.” Paige said. “I’ll never forget that.”
“No worries,” Georgia said. Her eyelids grew heavy. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. . . I think I’ll pass out.”
Paige growled softly as she sat between the two unconscious women. Nadia took the helm, along with one of the librarians who seemed to be from this truck’s wartime era, while the rest of them piled into the back. The engine roared to life, and soon the entire motley crew rolled out of a cave and onto the narrow country roads. The Jaeger remained perched on the back gate of the old army truck – keeping a lookout for anyone following the group.
“I couldn’t move,” Paige whispered, looking over to an equally miserable-looking Steven DeMarco. “She had the gun . . . and I couldn’t . . .”
“I couldn’t either,” he said. “If Georgia hadn’t—”
“I’m going to get strong again,” Paige growled. “I’m going to get strong again and I’m going to kill him.”
“Paige—” Steve started.
“I don’t give a shit about your vampire rules, Steve,” she snarled. “If he comes at us again, I’m ripping his face off.”
“And how do you plan to do that, Little Wolf?” The Jaeger asked, turning back to look at the seething Paige. “He is only going to get stronger. I would suggest you take my advice and stay out of his way.”
“If we’re lucky, Lorcan has already done the job,” Paige snapped. Kyle gave her a strange grimace.
“Um, Paige, about that—”
Before Kyle could finish the thought, Maria groaned. Paige got as close as she could while Kyle checked her out. He flashed the light from his phone in her eyes, but Maria didn’t quite focus. Kyle motioned Paige back. She turned back to Steve.
“Do you think that he just stopped us?” She asked him. “I mean could Arthur just—?”
Steve shrugged. “The old vamps are afraid of him. Now I see why. I could hear his voice in my head, ordering me to stand still and shut up. I can ignore it sometimes, but when I saw Maria and the gun, I panicked. Ugh, I have one hell of a headache now.”
“But Klaus is old, right? He’s a badass who can—” Paige started.
“The Beast served once. It is only a matter of time before he serves again,” The Jaeger muttered.
“They will get away,” Paige insisted. She flicked her claws in and out, in and out, waiting for their truck to take them to wherever they were headed.
After a short, awkward ride, the truck rolled into a tiny airport just north of town. The Jaeger led them toward a small plane. He looked to the librarians and gave more orders in what sounded like Latin. He then turned to Paige.
“I will take you back to the United States of America,” he said flatly. “Go wherever you want, but do not tell me your plans, and I will go my own way.”
“Hey, what about Po . . . Klaus and Mor . . . gan?” Steve asked.
“If they escape, the Beast has his ways, as do I. Now, I promised to see you back to your precious colonies, nothing more. Get on the plane,” the Jaeger ordered.
“You have a plane?” Kyle asked incredulously.
“How do you think I got here in the first place?” The Jaeger fired right back. The door to the plane opened and an imposing gentleman dressed in black lowered the steps. The engines began to spin.
Paige balked at the door. “Are you sure we should just leave?” she hissed at Steve.
“Tactical retreat, Pip,” Steve muttered as he carried Georgia into the plane.
“Tactical retreat,” Paige said, defeated. Once they were all strapped in, she looked over to a pensive Nadia.
“What just happened?” Nadia asked.
“We got our asses handed to us by one vampire,” Kayleigh replied. “I’m kinda glad to be back to our old wheelhouse of running.”
“Silence,” the Jaeger barked. He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Accept Video Call from Unknown?” his screen read.
A pall fell over the plane. Even the normally snarky Steve watched in horror as the face of Arthur appeared on screen. “Why hello there, Brother,” the king said with a grin. “Is now a bad time?”
“Arthur, what do you want?” the Jaeger asked.
“It’s so disconcerting, not seeing you. The Lung are working on cameras that can detect us, but they are still years off, I’m told. Isn’t that right, Bam?”
“Yes, years,” the voice of Bam-Yin Lung said. Arthur panned the camera, but there was only a slight haze on screen. He whipped the camera back to himself.
“Maybe one day I’ll get used to this whole living thing again, but for now, I’m having fun,” Arthur laughed. “Now, I know that this weekend didn’t go quite how any of us expected, but I can’t thank you enough for helping me relearn and test my abilities. Father is most pleased. Also, I can’t thank you enough for helping me get my son back. Say hello, Lorcan.”
He panned the camera over to show Morgan’s body wrapped from shoulder to waist in duct tape, and then wrapped again in chains. A ball gag filled his mouth.
“Oh, he can’t talk,” Arthur said. “You know, I never thought they would make sex toys that would hold up to a werewolf, but this one has been excellent. He’s only been able to go through two so far. I am going to write one hell of a review on Amazon.”
“Lorcan!” Paige cried.
“Oh, is the sweet little wife-wolf there?” Arthur asked. “He was whinging for a while, but we came to an arrangement. He agreed to come with me, and in exchange, I am letting you all go. Let it be known that the justice of Camelot remains to this very day. Enjoy the freedom he bought for you, Paige. However, if you get in my way, consider this deal to be off.”
Morgan’s eyes flickered between black and blue and he occasionally grew hazy on camera. He snarled as best he could with a big red ball in his mouth.
“Now, our Father is returning to the Arce and will make sure that any surviving staff are welcomed back for their service to the Pendragon this day. The Beast has seen reason as well, and will stay for some time to think about his strange and disloyal actions. I’m certain that we will have much to talk about, all in good time. As for you, Brother, I am sure that you have no further quarrel with me.”
“None
at all, Arthur,” the Jaeger said, even as the werewolves seethed around him. “You will excuse me, however, if I choose to retire to my domain. There has been enough conflict over the past few centuries. My war was with your son, and now that you have him, I am certain you will teach him manners again.”
“Indeed,” Arthur said. “Oh, is Steve with you? I just wanted a quick word before I left.”
The Jaeger tilted his phone over, so that his blurry bit of nothing could be replaced with the equally blurry bit of nothing that was Steven DeMarco on camera. Arthur sighed deeply. “Is that you, DeMarco?”
“I’m here . . . Ren,” Steve said bitterly. Arthur snorted with laughter.
“How is married life treating you?” he asked. “The look on your face must have been priceless.”
“What did you do to me?” Steve asked.
Arthur pulled an injector pen out of his pocket and smiled. “Oh Steve,” he sighed. “The wonders of modern technology. I’m inside you now, and I plan to stay in there for a very . . . long time. Enjoy finally having the woman you’ve always wanted, but you’re never going to get to enjoy her. She did survive the gunshot, didn’t she? I didn’t think to ask.”
“Damn it!” Steve said. “You—”
“Oh, she lived. You don’t look quite indignant enough for her to have died. Please let her know that this is what she gets for leaving us. I could have opposed that writ from my brother, but after seeing the thinly-veiled contempt she had for you, I made certain to file the order with the Cesare already. I hope that she is just as miserable as you, Little Steven DeMarco. You both are getting exactly what you deserve.”
Steve tossed the phone back to Lord Jaeger. They all heard Arthur laugh as Brynjulf ended the call. Paige let out a frustrated howl.
“This is not good,” the Jaeger said. “The Beast may able to resist for some time, but without Mordred—”
Kyle cleared his throat. The Jaeger only continued with, “You should probably run. As unique as Miss Sutherland is, she is not a vampire and there is no way to know if her abilities would stay the same if she were turned. She would also be insufferable forever—”
“I can’t believe that Morgan, I mean Lorcan, just gave himself up,” Paige said. Kyle tried to speak again. “Now we have to figure out how to rescue him. . .”
