Queen Bitch (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 2)

by Michael Anderle

  This was the question Bethany Anne was working this whole conversation to get to. "Agent Bosse, I'm here to quell the problems your team knows about, those you don't know about and fix problems a thousand years in the making. If the supernaturals don't get their act in gear they better find a priest. Most of these Para-humans only understand strength and violence, and if it is one thing I'm good at, Dan…”

  He was looking at that beautiful, raven haired beauty when her face lost the angelic look and his hind brain started freaking out in gibbering terror. He had been through a hundred operations and had seen forsaken and two different vampires from the family. He still occasionally woke up at night sweating from dreams related to the worst operations.

  However; he became a believer when he saw the absolute personification of destruction and torment looking at him with blood red eyes and fangs sticking out of her mouth.

  A malevolent, deeper voice replied, ”I am good at delivering violent messages. Any questions?"

  Agent Dan Bosse just shook his head back and forth.

  Her fangs retracted and her eyes turned back to their natural color. She waited a few seconds for his heartbeat to settle down, "So tell me, who and what is the story behind the pricks that are the focus of the operation tonight?"

  Agent Bosse had walked into the tent, a commander sharing information with, at best, a qualified support specialist. That changed. He proceeded to give the presentation as he would to a powerful partner who had the ability to rain death and destruction to the enemy.

  For the first time in ten years, he was wishing he could suit up and be on the sharp end. For the four agents going in with this woman were going to come out changed. He was sure their stories were going to become legend.

  Dan cleared his throat and started giving her the background. They had two Nosferatu, as far as they knew, holed up in the following square mile of Everglades he showed on the map. They couldn't track them down to get to them during the day. Somehow, they were protecting themselves from the sun. The best guess was with mud. It had taken a while to get a satellite tasking priority when it was only suspected that a couple of people had been eaten by alligators.

  Then, a group of teenagers had been out sneaking some alcohol and having a drinking party. They claimed they saw a zombie kill a man fishing and then drag him out into the water where they both submerged, the man’s body still kicking.

  The news turned it into a story about an Everglades serial killer and their priority for the satellite, which was on screen two as well as eyes in the sky with incredibly sensitive FLUR cameras, suddenly became the priority and so tonight was their first chance to do this operation. The Florida state police and state guard were planning an operation through the Everglades in 36 hours. The preparation was happening now and the news was focused on that operation. The government was trying hard to let the populace know that something was being done about the serial killer.

  They needed to get this solved quickly, before it became a fuster-cluck.

  Bethany Anne asked how they would operate when Bill was with the team.

  He explained that normally Bill would take point and the rest of the team was there to help with support. Basically, if anything got around Bill, they would try to either kill it, contain it, or turn it around back at Bill who would then kill it.

  “Ok, I get it. I’m the point. My job is to take down the baddies and my team’s responsibility is to help watch my back while I do it. Should I get overwhelmed, they do what?”

  “Well, we haven’t had too many issues with that happening, yet. Unfortunately, Bill’s last encounter was the one which told us that bad things had escalated. Generally, the team has a point person and you will need to work out the details with him.”

  “Who will be my point person?”

  “John Grimes. He picked you up earlier.”

  “Oh.”

  “I had both John and Eric pick you up to get a read on you. You were an unknown and they had to get a relationship, whatever it could be, situated as quickly as possible. I have to admit I am surprised you bonded so rapidly. Bill would talk with the team members when they first got introduced, but over time he became more and more quiet. Just coming in, doing the op and leaving. That reminds me, you don’t have a Carl equivalent with you.”

  “No. Carl is missing, if you didn’t know that. I’m hoping that we don’t have to get too technically advanced.” She pointed to the monitors showing the weather, spy and FLUR information with her eyes. “I think you might have it covered at the moment.”

  He looked back at the setup. While it seemed pretty advanced, especially with the Everglades as the backdrop, he would have felt more comfortable with Carl’s equipment and skills to back them up. He sighed.

  “I hope so. It has been hell since Bill got taken down. I keep wondering when the other shoe is going to drop.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dan’s face got a pensive look to it. “I think that first attack with Bill was just the opening move. Our ops have been more frequent and more dangerous since that happened. Here, let me show you something.” He turned to the agent behind the monitors. “Barry, would you pull up the map with the operation locations pinned on them?”

  Both of them moved behind Barry, looking over his shoulder as he pulled up a mapping program on the left monitor and made it full screen. The locations started in Northern California and continued throughout the Mid and Southwest finally ended in Florida.

  Bethany Anne grunted, “Huh, can’t take the show into the Atlantic. So either this is possibly a big one or they will turn and go up the coast.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. It is one of the reasons I was relieved to get any help from your group. If this is going to be bad, I’m going to need all of the help I can get.”

  “How have you setup the play?” She looked up at Dan, getting a sense for his emotions as well as his logic.

  “With you, I figure a 5 person team. You plus a group of four. Grimes, Escabar, English and Jackson. I have an additional 6 shooters here with me and I’ve got medics. Recently I’ve added a second medic with as many injuries as we’ve taken.”

  “Ok, where is my gear and I’ll get suited up. We have some daylight to go and I want to get ahead. Maybe we will get lucky.”

  Dan yelled out of the tent, “Grimes!”

  John came over from the group of three men he was with, finishing the rest of his comment to them, “… see that I don’t. I’ll bet you $500 I get off clean. You in?” Eric was the only one who declined the bet. “Yes sir?”

  “Can you get Agent… Can you get Bethany Anne her gear? If she says she checks out on something and wants it, see if we have it in the weapons locker.”

  John carefully kept his face blank. “I’ll do that sir.” John hadn’t known any stories where he hadn’t encountered some frosty attitude for the vampire contacts from Agent Bosse. He seemed to be thawing around her. Well, she got him comfortable with her in one car ride, so he was only a little surprised that she was able to work with Dan.

  Dan left the tent heading for one of the White cargo vans that was a separate command area.

  He walked over to Bethany Anne, ready to set the right tone. He smiled at her and said in a loud voice that carried well outside the tent. “Hey, fuck-face, what kind of guns do you want?”

  You couldn’t hear a pin drop from ANYONE within hearing distance.

  Bethany Anne looked up at John who was smiling down at her. She replied in a loud voice as well. “Listen gutter ass, you had better do better than ‘fuck-face’ when you try that, or I’ll make you get down and give me 50 with me standing on your back. You feel me?”

  John stopped smiling, but the sparkle was still in his eye, “Yes ma’am. Just how heavy are you?”

  Bethany Anne shook her head. “Don’t you know never to ask a lady what she weighs? Shit John, if you aren’t that aware of social rules I’m not sure you’re going to work too well out in the ‘glades. Wait, nev
er mind. Out there I need muscle and testosterone. You’re good for that much, right?”

  John started with, “Lady?” He noticed Bethany Anne’s eyes went very narrow. “I mean, Yes ma’am!”

  She smiled and said in a quiet voice, “Good. Now you better give me half of that score with those two newbies out there or I’ll yank your dick up through your throat, got that?”

  John swallowed. “Uh, Yeah. I got that Bethany Anne.” He pulled the box of her combat fatigues from behind the table where he had placed it before they left to pick her up. He still couldn’t completely wipe the smile he had going as he exited the tent. The fire-teams faces, except for Eric’s, were priceless.

  —

  The Everglades had a musty smell occasionally enhanced, if you could call it that, by stagnate water. Bethany Anne, however; was hoping that she could smell the Nosferatu before they woke up. It was getting to be late in the afternoon and they had covered the search area pretty well. For a while, they were able to use a couple of john boats. Now, they had found a sizable mound and were poking and prodding into all sorts of nasty areas.

  Before the team left, Bethany Anne introduced herself to them. John and Eric she already knew and that went a long way to reducing the concern and some fear that Scott English and Darryl Jackson felt.

  Agent Scott English was an ex NYPD SWAT team member. At 5’10” he was the shortest team member. However; his chest was massive and his arms were illegal in three states. He had been a part of a particularly nasty event in Staten Island three years before. The SWAT team was called into what they thought was a nasty hostage situation on the fourth floor of a tenement at half past 10 pm. The bottom two floors had been evacuated, but the team found blood all over the third floor and could hear screams on the fourth as they made their way up the stairs on both sides of the building. They were unprepared to witness the carnage and gruesome situation at the top.

  One violent 32 year old stock broker, black male, had literally started ripping people apart and biting them about 9:30pm that night. The cops were called. The found the perp eating a small girl on the fourth floor landing. Even after emptying their sidearms into David Aldwabi, he was able to grab the first officer, Lieutenant Matt Sanchez. Sanchez, a 9 year veteran, was killed when Aldwabi was able to easily overpower him. Aldwabi bit through Sanchez’s neck while he screamed in pain. Aldwabi held him while he bled to death. His partner, Sergeant Anthony Roberts was able to call for backup before being killed by Aldwabi when he tried to help his partner. Aldwabi was too fast for Roberts as he tried to backpedal, he tripped over a dismembered arm. Aldwabi reached down and grabbed his head and quickly broke his neck.

  Scott and his team found Aldwabi cradling Roberts and slowing petting his head staring vacantly in the distance. Unfortunately, Scotts team lead yelled to Aldwabi to ‘Freeze’. All that accomplished was snapping Aldwabi out of his unfocused state and the screaming and gunfire began. Aldwabi was finally killed when the combined firepower of 4 SWAT rifles pulverized his chest and head. Scott’s team leader lost his left eye and ear because he followed protocol with a Nosferatu.

  The other partner, Darryl Jackson, was a black ex-special forces recruit. Darryl came to the team in the last six months due to the massive amount of openings. Agent Bosse had contacted Frank to help him recruit and he located Darryl working in the pit overseas. His time was coming due on his third rotation and before he signed up again, Frank was able to convince him that his special skills could, in fact, be used in the United States to protect the innocent.

  Darryl had only thought he had seen the worst of the fighting with ISIS and how they behead those in the cities and towns they took over. Their reign of terror was nothing on a Nosferatu.

  He had been in three operations so far. One each in Alabama, Louisiana and Oklahoma. No one was sure why they skipped Texas.

  Darryl had never been on an op with one of the ‘good’ vampires. Well, if you didn’t presume that ‘good’ was equivalent to ‘dead’.

  Darryl was trying to keep an open mind. Unlike the stories he had heard about Bill, this one was both talkative and hot to look at. Bill, on the other hand, was said to be large, quiet and usually destructive as hell.

  Unfortunately, Bethany Anne seemed a little small. Darryl wasn’t too sure she was going to ‘cut it’.

  Bethany Anne was staring into the distance when she heard the high keening behind her.

  It seemed Darryl had awoken a forsaken who had been hiding during the day in a pile of detritus and rotting vegetation. By the time he had jumped back and thrown the stick to his side to grab his AR-15 in its quick sling, His ears were ringing with the reports from Bethany Anne’s .45.

  Generally speaking, most vets agreed there wasn’t a pistol that had enough terminal damage ability to stop a determined opponent. The 9mm rounds were universally castigated by the men and women in the sandpit and the Army had been looking to replace their M9’s.

  Regardless, when Bethany Anne was able to squeeze her shots fast enough to make it sound like an automatic. Darryl’s ears were ringing. She stopped shooting, holstered her right pistol and reached into the mess to pull out a very disgusting human looking body. Half of the head was blown off and the other eye socket was draining fluid. Holstering her other gun, Bethany Anne took out her MKIII knife and quickly cut off the head.

  Darryl just stared at her, amazed at the death and destruction he witnessed in the few seconds since he first uncovered the Nosferatu. All of his previous concerns were completely forgotten.

  She turned around to him and casually tossed the head fifteen feet away. “Stupid leg-humping cock-splurt wiper. Why did you scream like a little girl?” Her smile lit up her face as she quickly reloaded her pistols and policed her rounds.

  He couldn’t help it. He busted out laughing at her cussing and got his shit back together. The keening was a new experience for him and he had frozen for just a second. He had heard about her filthy mouth. So he decided to try his hand at giving it as good as he got.

  The rest of the team was laughing as Darryl had to pump 10 push-ups while Bethany Anne stood on his back. She made him think of a unique course word every time he raised up. She would have had him do 50, but they needed to get back to it and she felt it was enough to get the adrenaline worked through their system.

  During Darryl’s push-ups, John had been giving the command ops an update on what happened. Bethany Anne hadn’t been paying too much attention to the radio, so she reached down and put the earphone in her left ear. They stayed a little closer as a group over the next half hour. They tried to make sure no one was outside of an easily accessible support person. When the sun officially went over the horizon and it was getting darker, they pulled together letting Bethany Anne have the lead position.

  Two things happened at the same time. Another forsaken burst up out of the ground about 35 yards to her right and she could hear talk back in the op center from the drone warning they had twelve rapidly approaching tangos coming at the ops center.

  Agent Bosse had been right. They were in the middle of an ambush and their ‘help’ was miles away.

  Back in the Command Ops Van, Dan figured that he wasn’t going to outlive his regret for not being better prepared.

  —

  Bethany Anne realized the base was going to be screwed if she didn’t get back over there. However; she had the new Nosferatu to take care of and it had just gone into the water.

  Fuck.

  Agent John Grimes hated command decisions like this. He had three other agents for what he hoped was one Nosferatu. The guys back at the camp needed Bethany Anne.

  “GO!”

  Bethany Anne stopped looking at the water trying to figure out a way to easily predict where the Nosferatu was hiding and looked at John.

  John had only seen Bethany Anne in fun moments or at least none-stressful situations. The woman looking back at him with the red eyes and fangs glistening made him start for a second. Realizing that there was intelli
gence behind the feral face, he told her again. “Go! We got this one wanking spunk butler. Help the team back at ops!”

  Bethany Anne grinned at him. A weird situation when you have fangs he decided and then suddenly disappeared. “Holy Shit!” The other men were professional enough to continue watching their quarter and ignored his outburst.

  “Ok guys, let’s take this one Nosferatu down so she can take care of business.”

  Eric, watching his area finished the thought. “Yeah, four of us against one Nosferatu. Bethany Anne against twelve Nosferatu. Seems fair.”

  “Well”, Scott added, “we wouldn’t want her to think we gave her the easier task because she’s a girl, right?”

  Darryl just grinned and added, “I wouldn’t let her hear you say that.”

  “Fuck no!”

  They all laughed at that response.

  CHAPTER TEN