Under other circumstances…
He shook his head and set to the task of chaining the lieutenant, whose face still showed no surprise or questioning. But his penis was beginning to grow and harden as the general snapped the manacles closed and made sure they were locked. He stepped back and gazed admiringly at the young man, his eyes roving over every centimeter of the superior body.
The future of the Reich.
And so was Hydra.
The general sighed, stepped back and nodded at the elderly guard, who left the room. He heard voices from beyond the doorway, one of whom he had heard just that afternoon. The general then nodded at the lieutenant. “You know your orders already, Untersturmführer.”
Hair began to sprout along the young Aryan’s arms and shoulders, and his eyes started to swirl like kaleidoscopes flitting from color to color, and by the time Beutner’s penis had become engorged and his body had begun to transform, the general backed out of the room. He shut the door behind him and waited.
The doors were solid in the bunker, several inches of steel-lined wood reinforced with additional bands of metal. Two, then three minutes passed. The sounds he heard were muffled, but audible enough that he could visualize what had happened. The lieutenant had been carefully briefed. The unusual circumstances and his glorious role in them had been outlined. Von Stumpfahren felt the floor beneath him shake slightly, and more dust sprinkled into the waiting room from the ceiling cracks.
Time is of the essence.
He could feel the stranglehold tightening as avenues of escape began to close. He checked his watch, a fine old Swiss timepiece with impeccable time. With luck, there were still hours available for him to finish all his tasks. He forced his upper-class calmness to overwhelm the urge to fidget. He kept away from the two SS men and their weapons, feeling some heat washing off them, but not enough to cause him undue distress.
Events were unfolding now, and there would only be the one chance.
Suddenly the door was thrown open and the elderly guard gestured wildly, his eyes wide and crazed.
“Inside!” the general ordered, and the two SS men preceded him into the office. At a glance, he saw the old man bent over the bloodied body of the Führer in one corner. Nearby, was the naked lieutenant, still manacled but only barely, with two bloody hands freed from the shredded metal handcuffs. Patches of coarse hair seemed to flow over his muscled body. His penis was still swollen.
“Guard,” VonStumpfahren commanded, “check the prisoner.”
“But, Herr General, the Führer—”
“Never mind the Führer, he is fine! Check the man who has done this and whose hands are free!”
“Jawohl!” The guard stumbled toward the blond Lieutenant Beutner and when he hunched over him, VonStumpfahren said, “Fire!”
The SS men emptied their MP-40 magazines into the two figures, the silver slugs sizzling as they ripped through the lieutenant’s body. Suddenly there was silence as the last of the spent brass stopped rolling on the concrete floor. Both men were shot to bits, but the lieutenant’s body seemed to be roasting from the inside, his skin sizzling and the smell of scorched flesh and blood permeated the air along with the haze of cordite.
“Quick, take them in these blankets and carry them up the stairs and into the garden.” VonStumpfahren handed the stunned SS men two folded cloths. “Your Führer commands you.”
They slung their Schmeissers onto their shoulders and set to the disgusting task, their faces screwed up in horror as the lieutenant’s body continued to combust from the inside. The general had made sure ahead of time that the MP-40 magazines they’d been issued were filled with the special silver rounds. He followed now as they dragged and half-carried the bloody, ruined bodies up the staircase. Once outside, the Soviet shelling now impossibly close, the General gave them two cans of petrol and a lighter, the order obvious.
“For Germany,” he said, “and for the Reich!”
They obeyed as they had been trained, and in seconds the bodies in their blankets were engulfed in fiercely-burning flames that shot sparks a dozen feet into the air. Nearby buildings shook as Russian shells seemed to creep closer.
Where the hell are the Americans? The general knew the plight of Berlin would be less dire with the easy-going Yanks. The Soviets were sadistic devils who delighted in torture and rape like barbarians of old, their ancestors. He looked forward to personally killing a few before making good his escape, nevertheless he wished his beloved city could have been spared the destruction and death they would gleefully mete out.
The SS men stood away from the flames, watching the bodies burn. It was enhanced petrol, so they burned brightly and the remains were thoroughly consumed. The men, hardened as they were, held hands over their faces to avoid inhaling the horrific stench.
VonStumpfahren shot them both in the back of the head.
He reholstered his P-08 Parabellum and kicked the corpses onto the flames.
He descended the stairs to the bunker level again, fulfilling one last mission for his Führer. In less than a half hour he climbed out of the staircase and closed the hidden door.
Then he made his way through the ruined gardens, shells raining down all around the block—the Reich Chancellery was in their sights now—and found his command car miraculously still in one piece.
Hydra would begin as soon as he gave the word.
Part Two
Chapter Fourteen
Heather
She stretched languidly in the near-darkness. The last rays of the sun had set in the corner of the floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the squat converted warehouses of Milwaukee’s Third Ward. She had left on mood lighting here and there, dimmed lights in recesses that provided a facsimile of lighting without brightening any of the room. Several dozen candles ringed the king-size bed in the center of the cavernous bedroom chamber of her secret double loft, their stuttering flames making flickering shadows on the dappled skin of her bed partner.
Drying sweat, clammy sheets, the heady scent of sex in the air, the burning of the wicks and the blending aromas of the candles… Heather Wilson could have purred.
Pain was a distant memory etched into the nether regions of her brain, but it didn’t take much to transport her back to where her pain had been her whole life. Every movement, every position, every thought had been given over to the pain that coursed through her veins as she’d healed once again from wounds that had seemed like the edge of an abyss, an abyss that could have swallowed her whole—if she’d let it.
But Heather Wilson wasn’t anything if not a survivor, and she’d nursed herself back to health…and faster than she’d expected.
She’d had some help, but it hadn’t been much. They would have let her die, she knew, except for one of them and what he had told the others.
“Without her, we might not have gotten them,” he had said.
Rich DiSanto was sweet, and she knew he was sweet on her. She smiled sarcastically in the dark, mocking his almost childlike crush and how easily she had manipulated him because of it. Although the fucking had been good, very good. Still, it had been nothing more than a chess move, at least on her part. She knew she needed an ally in their camp.
“What are you thinking?”
The voice was soft, but Heather could feel the steely edge in it. Hell, it was one thing she liked about it.
“Oh, I was just reminiscing about some friends,” she said, letting her hand slip onto a lean but muscular thigh and following the smooth curve up to the perfect buttock that crowned it. “I was just thinking that sometimes it’s best to leave some friends behind. You know, when new ones come along and take their place.” Her fingers made circular patterns on the warm skin, and she enjoyed the candlelight’s playful chasing of their shadows.
“That feels good. Haven’t you had enough?”
The steely edge was replaced by gentle mocking and, for a second, Heather forgot who this was. “I never have enough, darling,” she murmured. Her h
ands pried open the willing thighs and she climbed over and between them, positioning herself so she could look up into the dark eyes that held hers as her lips approached the beautiful vulva blooming before her. “Never enough,” she muttered before getting to work.
The woman’s sighs were stimulus enough, but her fragrant wetness drove Heather crazy with desire, and they rocked to their own rapidly increasing rhythm. Long, slender hands caressed Heather’s head as she lavished attention on her lover until thighs squeezing her informed her the moment had arrived, and they rode it together, up and down its peaks and valleys.
When Heather was finished, she climbed up like a panther—but she was more than that, wasn’t she?—soft, sweat-slick skin sliding on skin, and they kissed deeply and at length, nestling comfortably together. Then the other woman reached out and with her hands gently guided Heather where she wanted her, first straddling her breasts, then Heather’s sex slowly approaching her open mouth and her reaching tongue. When Heather was positioned immediately above her lover’s face, she squatted downward and felt the wiry tongue plunge upward, inside her. Tilting her head back, she growled her pleasure but was able to keep her true growl under control. The woman’s long fingers spreading wide on her buttocks, she ground herself into the eager mouth below and focused on how the warm, wet tongue worshiped her inner and outer lips and sought out her bloated clitoris.
This woman knows her stuff, she thought, her eyes almost crossing from the pleasure.
“Oh, God,” she said, her head tilting backward so her hair became a golden cascade. “Oh, yeah, right there…”
Too bad I might have to kill her.
Colgrave
The condominium association meeting frustrated her beyond belief, and she couldn’t wait to pour herself a large drink.
No, wait, a hot chocolate laced with dark rum. That would warm her up—the chill she felt was as much the cool weather as it was what she felt from her fellow owners. She was a thorn in the board’s side, she knew it. She wanted things done right, meetings run like real meetings, not free-for-all discussions and love-fests. She wanted problems tackled, not put on a list for future consideration. And when she called them on their many missteps, she felt their animosity—the board’s because she was too rigid, and the other owners’ because they loved their friends, the board members. Something about a church they all attended. Colgrave was a cop, single, an atheist, a hardnose—she wasn’t into just sitting around counting your toes for fun.
So every damn meeting was an exercise in frustration. This one had ended with open hostility toward her. Some of the owners whined: Why don’t you just leave them alone? They don’t get paid.
That’s no excuse for incompetence, cronyism, and near-bullying, she’d retorted.
It didn’t matter. Deaf ears.
She put her key in the door and flicked on the lights. It was chilly inside, too, and she shucked her leather coat and swapped it for a thick sweater. Got some water going for instant hot chocolate and measured out a generous ounce and a half (maybe it was two) of Bacardi Select.
Shit, she couldn’t get rid of the image of Nick Lupo standing in her doorway. Talking to her, keeping her happy as part of his team?
She stirred the thick chocolate-like liquid—she liked a lot of powder—and poured in the rum. Instantly, she felt warmer.
Maybe it was Nick Lupo’s image in her mind…making her decidedly warmer. The big lug was sexy, mostly because he didn’t seem to be aware of it. Maybe he wasn’t aware of the musk or the sex pheromones or whatever it was that he gave off. Maybe it was because of what he was.
But thinking of Nick Lupo also brought back those other images, the ones that had affected her life more than anything she could ever have expected. Expected in a normal life, anyway.
She shook her head and sank into her favorite well-worn leather chair with the mug, keeping most of the lights off.
The fact was she dreaded going to sleep. She dreaded being awakened by the nightmares. She knew they lurked always behind her lids, beyond her view and control. She wanted to knock herself out with the rum, so she could snatch a couple hours of bad sleep out of a usually sleepless night.
What she’d seen in that strange house in the center of Minnesota’s northern lake country was just too much. She had seen the men turning into monstrous wolves.
Impossible.
Impossibly.
Yet, she had seen it, and like Rich DiSanto, she had shot at them with the hot MP5s. It was like a fucking movie, except she’d lived through it and it was no movie. She’d seen the jaws full of fangs, the fur, the monstrous size of the wolves that had been human.
Then they’d rescued that Wilson woman, the TV journalist, who had seemed to be barely this side of death, but who had started to heal magically as soon as they had gotten her out of the clutches of the bastards—no, they were truly monsters—who had her.
The place, a sort of gargantuan homage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs, had been decked out with high-tech control stations for the drones the bastards had highjacked right under the military’s nose. She had seen it all herself, though she barely believed it.
Then they’d destroyed the house with explosive charges. Fuckin’ movie again.
But what she’d seen there lived with her still, every night.
And what she now knew Nick Lupo to be—one of them—both bothered and excited her. And this confused her, which added to the fear. Colgrave had never been one to shrink from anything. She’d been fearless, some would have said reckless, in every one of her violent encounters—and she’d had more than most. But this was different, and it had put her in a kind of tailspin.
Now she forced herself to sit in the dark, with her cooling mug in hand, and waiting for sleep to take her…knowing something else would take her then, too.
Her eyes closed; soon the images came unbidden but inevitable. They coalesced into nightmares filled with monstrous teeth tearing human flesh. And spurting blood.
She fought the images but they won, and when dawn came she opened her eyes, grateful but exhausted.
Lupo
Blind.
He mouthed the word with a sense of fear he hadn’t felt even when going up against heavily armed Alpha teams of mercenary werewolves, or the hit squad Wolfpaw had sent to his house. He hadn’t felt any fear when raiding the mobsters’ compound, being targeted by drones and their Reaper missiles.
Blind. Fucking blind.
Besides the paralysis and the pain that wracked his body, he couldn’t see.
And he couldn’t visualize his change, usually leading to the DNA realignment.
The Creature was locked up inside his damaged body with no way to manifest, and—more importantly—start to heal Lupo’s human body.
Okay, now what?
He attempted to think rationally, but it was an irrational situation to begin with, and outside his experience.
Plus, Ghost Sam was not popping in with his homespun humorous suggestions, or directions. Lupo half-expected to hear his friend’s ghostly voice, and he longed to. But there was nothing from the ghost, whom Lupo tended to believe was his own mental reflection of his friend’s influence, brought about by the trauma of his death.
“Sam?” he asked calmly.
“Sam!” he shouted, when the calmness wore off. “Sam!”
He sniffled as he whispered the name once more. “Sam?”
He shrugged. He’d have to soldier on without Ghost Sam, it seemed.
The cabin fire seemed to have slowed, maybe even burned itself out. While that was good, it meant it was actually possible no one would have spotted the smoke, or would have thought it was a bonfire on some Indian’s property. If neither the rez fire department nor the Eagle River FD were alerted, then no one would be coming, and if none of the distant neighbors had heard the blast or seen the smoke, ditto.
Lupo reached for his phone with the one hand that worked okay. Not in his pocket. He slapped himself silly, but the comforting an
d familiar flat rectangle was not in any pocket.
Shit.
He’d had it in his hand when he reached the back door. Now he remembered switching it to the other hand.
Maybe he could drive the Mustang out of the garage and get himself on the road even if he couldn’t see. But…he couldn’t feel his keys, either.
That was because he’d carried both his keys and phone with him when the door had exploded and sent him through the air like a puppet flopping off a stage. Which meant they might be laying around along with the hot debris. He propped himself on one shoulder and patted the ground around him, sharp gravel digging into his palm.
Nothing. Jagged pieces of wood siding and glass were scattered around him, but nothing that felt familiar.
Not much chance of that kind of luck, was there?
Ghost Sam might have led him to the phone, but it seemed that was not to be.
He remembered he’d rolled off the deck. Maybe he should work his way onto the deck, if he could get himself back up the three steps?
He was determined to try, but he realized it was very likely the keys and the phone had landed much farther away, which meant that he might never locate them no matter how much he tried. At least not until he could see again.
Dammit, I’m trying anyway.
It took him a half hour to crawl back onto the deck. All he felt along the way was still hot sharp bits of wood and a carpet of glass shards. His hand bleeding and riddled with splinters and scratches, he gave up and snorted blood out his nose again, too, just to keep things interesting. The stream gushed out over his clothing, but it was the last thing on his mind.
He was gasping by the time he got there, throat dry.
He paused to rest and reassess. Then, despite still laying on the deck, he tried his best to turn his face to three directions, hoping some light would seep through his sudden darkness, but it was no good. The light was probably going fast in any case, but he wasn’t seeing even the glow or a halo or anything to indicate his sight was beginning to return.
Wolf's Blind (The Nick Lupo Series Book 6) Page 12
