Welcome to Zell

by K. D. Fryslan

  “Good, thank you. Now we must figure out how we can break out any prisoners in the facility, I do not intend to leave any supernaturals behind, no matter the place that they call home or the species they owe first allegiance to. This is especially tricky because they have more knowledge of us than previous government wackos. They have a very secure bunker like building in teh desert, have the ability to hide their scent and clean up ours, and tranquilizers that work almost instantly on every non human as far as we can tell. They are also armed with traditional ammunition should they decide they can experiment on our bodily materials as easily dead as if we were alive,” she said.

  Bianca looked at Gideon. “And you took the body of this Grimsley jackass that was trying to take Liesel to this hole in the ground?” she said looking for confirmation.

  “Yes,” said Gideon. “He has thorough knowledge of the operations but is only concerned about finding and capturing non humans. I do not know the status of individuals so I cannot put anyone’s mind at ease.”

  “But we know enough to try and break them out, right?” said Trish, looking back and forth from Gideon and Liesel.

  Liesel held up a hand palm forward. “Whoa, slow down. Yes, Gideon knows enough that we can try to formulate a plan and I am all for that. However,” she paused and again looked at each individual in the room in turn, “this is a government facility with better resources than any I know of having been faced against before and we will not have back up. The Council of Stewards will cut my family and everyone in this town loose if our plan fails, hell, they might do it just to punish us for making waves by trying. I also don’t think we will have any help from outsiders, no matter their species. There isn’t enough time to gather additional support and even Aurics in the area who have been targeted sent only on representative they figured they could burn if he got caught,” she said.

  Jamie crossed his arms and scrunched up his face in a childish frown as he leaned back against the far wall where he had been when Liesel first came into the room. Amber took Jonah’s left hand in her right and smiled in Liesel’s general direction. Jonah looked over Liesel’s shoulder, no doubt communicating wordlessly with Gideon with a look only he would be able to decipher. The werewolves pulled in closer to Pearl who sat straight backed in her seat, chin lifted. The werecat twins had their heads together, whispering back and forth. Michael looked at Bianca and nodded sharply, then Bianca angled her body to again face Liesel.

  “The phereins of Zell will back and participate in any attempt to retrieve non-humans from this hell hole,” said Bianca formally before standing and walking up to Liesel to put a hand on her arm. “We are with you, sugar. That Council can say you aren’t qualified to be a Steward but what do those dried-up old skanks know about anything but paper pushing and money counting?”

  Pearl made eye contact with Liesel. “There is no question we will retrieve John. We will assist in the rescue of any ally as well,” she said before looking to Zachary.

  “Our people will join this fight. They may not have any of our kind there that we know of but we cannot sit by as the government tortures our spirit cousins and tries to use their bodies to make super soldiers or whatever horrific plan they have,” said Zachary.

  Jamie shrugged and stood upright. “Obviously, I was sent to get our guys back and the pussy cat is right, it ain’t like the bastards are trying to find a cure for cancer. If we don’t stop them now, this will grow and become a cancer on its own,” he said.

  “Let’s get planning then,” said Liesel. The group went into the formal dining room rarely used by Gertrude but occupied by a massive table suitable for the number of people. Bianca and Liesel pulled office supplies and reference materials from Gertrude’s office, the secret one under the pantry. The lesser werewolves were sent to get provisions for the group that was no extremely hungry with no idea when they would emerge from the home again. Jonah had a brief private conference with Gideon in another room before he and Amber left. On the way out of the door, Amber hugged Liesel tightly and spoke into her ear. “Your strength is being tested but now you will know what you are capable of. Trust that Gideon is still Gideon and will look after you,” she said. Then she left, holding on to Jonah’s arm, without giving Liesel a chance to reply. Once the room had been stocked they began to work out a plan of attack to not only retrieve any surviving prisoners, regardless of species or origin, but also any remains they could identify and to destroy or somehow make unusable any data or materials collected.

  They determine night is the best time to break in and try to break the non-humans out because there is a lighter shift, no office style personnel at least, just security and light jailer and science and maintenance staff.

  Gideon pretending to still be Grimsley will bring in Liesel pretending that she is being brought in for questioning as if she had complied earlier instead of having to be abducted. Grimsley (really Gideon) will say that Martinez and he were attacked by werewolves when they entered Zell and he lost track of Martinez. That Liesel was horrified by the attack and came with Grimsley willingly to discover what was going on and help how she could, playing dumb at her Grandmother’s role in the attack if questioning has to occur to keep up the ruse. Gideon as Grimsley’s vehicle will not be searched so he will bring Jamie in the back of the SUV but cannot bring anyone else inside without imprisoning them because security must be passed inside. Therians will be waiting in the area outside of the security perimeter along with some phereins. The therians and phereins will provide muscle to both fight the humans and to help the non humans escape if they could not under their own power.

  Getting the three of them inside the gates immediately without conflict was ideal. Gideon would, of course, sabotage and misdirect from inside as much as he could masquerading as Agent Malachi Grimsley before outright conflict began. Jamie would use his abilities as an auric, basically a psychic vampire, to subdue as many people as he could at the first outer layers of security allowing the therians and pherols to break in easier as well as identify the living missing people were and give them a better sense at the time how many were truly in need of rescue. His knowledge as an Emergency Medical Technician also gave him a surprising amount of knowledge on how to hurt or maim people, even kill them, without actually fighting them with weapons or hand to hand combat. Liesel would not be able to bring weapons through security and Gideon would only be able to carry enough for him as Grimsley, an agent would not come into the office loaded for bear after all. However, Liesel could use guns she picked up from fallen agents if they were carrying and she had a great arm and could accurately and dangerously through knives, hatchets, and other small objects. She was also small and acrobatic so evasion was possible given the right circumstances. She planned to sneak in a flash drive that would copy as much information as possible from their computers while downloading a virus that would destroy their hard drives. Gideon, as Grimsley, was going to connect it to his work station given he should have the highest or close to the highest security clearance and access in the facility. The therians were pure muscle of course. The phereins could fight by increasing their adrenaline or producing projectile acid, they could also release pheromones that would cause people to pass out or fly into a rage, although the latter could back fire. They can also help calm or care for injured rescue victims and carry weapons like normal humans.

  Gideon used Grimsley’s knowledge of the internal layout and procedures to help them devise a plan as they asked questions and made notations for themselves.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  All of the town elders and representatives cleared out of the homestead, the big house anyway, leaving only Liesel and Gideon. They were standing in the entry way watching the headlights of Bianca’s luxury car, with Bianca and Jamie inside, getting smaller and smaller in the distance, bouncing along the rutted dirt road. Gideon took Liesel’s hand, drawing her back away from the door so he could close it with his other hand.

  “Are you staying the night?” ask
ed Liesel, then she blushed stammered, “I mean to keep an eye on me, on the property, you know because I don’t, there isn’t a security system or anything and no time now to… get it or one installed.” Her voice trailed off toward the end and her blush became even more embarrassingly red.

  Gideon slowly smiled, transforming his face from hard to softly amused. He did not step in to rescue her from her own blabbering though.

  “Ugh!” she grunted loudly, pulling her hand away and stomping into the living room recently vacated by half the town. “I have never been this self-conscious in my life!”

  Gideon followed her and put his hands on her shoulders to turn her around to face him again. Liesel didn’t look in his eyes, just rolled her eyes for effect and looked around the room, waving her hands about aimlessly. “Awkward yes, hell yes, inappropriate sure, all the time, nervous, everyone gets that way some times but what the hell is this verbal vomit bullshit? Oh my god, I …”. Gideon cupped Liesel’s face in his hands and put is thumbs over her mouth to stop her talking. “Shhhh…” he said. She finally met his eyes, her pupils expanding as she did.

  “I am hoping your sudden difficulty with language is a positive sign for me,” he said with a smirk. Moving his thumbs from her mouth but still holding her face in his hands.

  Liesel snorted indelicately and rolled her eyes, but did not move away from Gideon. “You just can’t cut me a break can you?” she said.

  His smirk turned into a grin. “What would be the fun in that?” he said. “You expect nothing less, you might think I’m sick or something, check me for a fever.”

  When Liesel met his gaze again, the smile dropped to a more serious expression on his face. “I could say I wanted to stay for security reasons but I’m pretty sure there are some Dixon offspring prowling the property,” he said.

  “Yeah, don’t freak if you see glowing eyes in the bushes, right,” she said weakly.

  “I didn’t want to scare you away,” he started to say. Liesel frowned. “I was afraid you would distance yourself from me and I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “We just hung out, barely, I can’t really give you the ‘I need space’ speech, right?” she said.

  “You do whatever you want to do,” he said, his eyes searching her face.

  “How would you know?” she asked, still not moving away. He just smiled in response.

  “Call it a lack of restraint, or an impulse control problem, I get that a lot,” she said. Again Gideon didn’t speak, he gave a small brief smile. His eyes watched as his thumbs returned to stroke her bottom lip. Her breath hitched at the sensation.

  “Why?” she asked, short of breath.

  “Why what?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Why stay, the real reason,” she said. “Why risk being a creeper?”

  “Because I need you to see me, in this body, as Gideon, only Gideon. Tomorrow I have to act like Grimsley, it would break me if that made you doubt, if it made some part of you always have a lingering sense of Grimsley instead of Gideon,” he said earnestly. “You need to know it is me and you can trust me to do right by you.”

  Liesel felt the warmth of his hands, the warmth of his body, seeping into her as she sunk into his eyes. She leaned closer until her hands coming up to rest on his chest were the only separation between their bodies. Gideon leaned down to kiss her, pressing his lips against hers, one hand moving to gently hold the back of her head, the other sliding down her shoulder and then side of her torso to rest on her hip. Liesel shivered as the skin along the route of his hand erupted in goose bumps. Her eye lids drifted closed and she made a small sound in the back of her throat and pressed her lips back against his while her fingers dug into his pecs. His tongue licked ran along the seam of her lips and she opened her mouth with a sigh. His tongue swept through her mouth tasting her. She sucked slightly on the tip as he pulled away.

  Liesel opened her eyes and licked her lips. “I don’t think Grimsley would have let me picture him naked,” she said in a low voice with a coy smile.

  Gideon’s look was so smoldering, it could have melted the polar ice caps. Then he leaned in again, nipped her earlobe, and smiled when she shivered. “You are right, he was a boob man,” he whispered back to her.

  Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. Then she punched him in the shoulder and started laughing. Until Gideon licked the shell of her ear and gripped her hip tighter. She groaned faintly. He pulled away slightly, just enough to rest his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling. “Trust me,” he said. “Let me prove to you that you are safe with me,” he continued. Liesel nodded. They stayed that way for a couple of minutes, each regaining their composure, at least Liesel was and Gideon was too much of a gentleman to push. Then she stepped back as far as his hands and thus the reach of his arms would allow. She took hold of the hand he had at her hip and he dropped the one behind her head. Then she walked around him, leading him by the hand to turn and follow her out of the room and up the stairs to the bedroom she was using.

  Later they spooned on the bed, relaxed but neither felt the pull of sleep, too wired about the coming fight.

  “Tell me about Gauners,” she said into the darkness.

  Gideon rubbed his cheek against Liesel’s hair. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

  “Anything. Um,” she said, then thought for a moment. “Amber is Jonah’s wife right?” she asked.

  “Mm hmm,” he replied.

  “Do Gauners normally get married? Like is it a thing?” she asked.

  “We form monogamous life bonds,” he said.

  “Ooh, that sounds sexy,” she said in a deadpan voice.

  Gideon pinched her in retaliation. She flinched but giggled. “Hush you brat.” He said. “Getting married in the human world is done to provide protection but is tied to a physical form not our true identity. So Johah is married to Amber in the human world as a cover and in case something happens to one of them, there are rights conferred but their bond extends beyond that, they are still life partners should Jonah should have to take another form. A new marriage or legal arrangement would have to made with his new public form though.”

  “Okay, that makes sense,” she admitted.

  “What else do you want to know?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to ask another question when he used his free hand, the one not trapped under her body, and lifted her chin to look at him. “But I am not telling you where Gauner babies come from,” he added. She stuck her tongue out at him playfully so he snapped his teeth as if he was going to bite it, then leaned in to lick her cheek when she squeaked and pulled her tongue back in quickly.

  “Fine” she muttered. “How old are you really?” she asked instead.

  Gideon sighed heavily. “Old enough to look like a pervert if I tell you,” he said, one eyebrow lifting.

  “Maybe I should start calling you Grandpa in bed?” she asked cheekily. Then she shrieked as he pushed he pushed her onto her back and pinned her down. He lowered himself until his face was so close to her their noses nearly touched and might still if one of them breathed too heavily. He glowered at her with narrowed eyes and made a growling like sound in his throat. Liesel’s eyes were wide and she smiled up at him.

  “Big Daddy?” she said questioningly.

  “You are determined to get yourself in trouble, aren’t you,” he said, his voice deep with arousal.

  “I can’t help it,” she said. “I try to behave but, you know, bad upbringing or whatever.” The last word was said with a gasp as he began kissing his way along the sensitive skin of her neck.

  Gideon lifted his head and arched an eyebrow. “Blaming the parentage are we?” he said.

  Liesel smiled slowly in response. “You know how it is, no father figure, absent and disapproving single mother. Getting attention in the wrong ways, that is me.” She said.

  Gideon shook his head side to side. “You are something else, Liesel Bohm. I cannot decide if you are spoiled rotten or neglectfully depriv
ed but you certainly are in need of a keeper,” he said. Then he lowered his again and continued were he left off kissing and caressing his way down her body.

  They spent the night that way, in a cycle of sexual activity, cuddling and talking and sleeping. Sometime in the early morning, Liesel nuzzled Gideon’s chest as he held her. “This is nice,” she said.

  “I should hope so,” he said. “Rather embarrassing if it didn’t at least qualify as nice.”

  It was Leisel’s turn to retaliate and she hit him playfully. “No you perv, it is nice to have someone around that I don’t have to remember a story for that doesn’t make me feel awkward,” she clarified.

  “It is,” Gideon agreed, stroking Liesel’s hair. “It is very nice.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Liesel and Gideon awoke the next morning and went through the typical morning rituals, coordinating smoothly without commentary, as if they had a long standing routine built over a course of years. Someone from town had dropped off clothes that would fit Gideon’s new body and had taken his suit to be dry cleaned. When Liesel came down the stairs in her running clothes, Gideon was leaning against the kitchen island drinking a cup of coffee while another mug sat on the island next to him. She suspected it was the Dixons that had offered up clothing because he was wearing gray sweatpants and a white wife beater undershirt. He was bare foot. He smiled at her then looked her up and down taking in her outfit.

  “Running gear?” he said, then sipped his coffee.

  She shrugged as she walked all of the way into the kitchen and reached for the mug next to him. “Running clothes are comfortable, give full range of motion, and wick away sweat so I don’t feel icky,” she said, before drinking from the mug. She smiled. “You are quite good at making coffee, maybe I’ll keep you around,” she teased.