To Hell And Back: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Trials And Tribulations Book 3)

by Natalie Grey

  “Winter camping…like, in the snow?” Eric asked, incredulous.

  Ecaterina rolled her eyes, “Yeah, like in the snow. Come on, Ashur, you and I know how it is.”

  Ashur smiled at her.

  “Everyone ready?” Bethany Anne asked them all. They nodded, and she gave a grim smile. “Right. Let’s go show some stupid assassins that breaking my rules can be dangerous for your health.”

  Gordes, France

  The Pod touched down in the woods, a little ways from the facility. The door slid open with a hiss, and Stephen climbed out, reaching back to offer Jennifer his hand as she stepped down.

  She grinned at him. The unconscious mannerisms of his past were adorable to her. No one had ever treated her that way before. The other Wechselbalg in Denver wanted to treat her either as a helpless woman who enjoyed soft, feminine things or as a warrior with no other facets to her personality.

  She liked that Stephen seemed to realize she could be both.

  “It’s quiet,” Stephen murmured to her, his voice far too low for an ordinary human to catch.

  Jennifer nodded as they moved silently through the underbrush.

  “There are no animals. I’ll bet what they did in this facility scared everything off.”

  “You think so?” Stephen asked her, surprised.

  “Definitely. Animals are way smarter than humans that way. They see something dangerous, smell poison or hear screams, and they head the other way. Humans want to go look and see what’s up—they don’t trust their instincts.”

  “Maybe they want to help the people that are trapped in there,” Stephen pointed out. “Like us.”

  “That’s an awful lot of credit to give most humans.” Jennifer snickered softly.

  They both drew into the shadows as they reached the edge of the trees.

  The facility was surrounded by about fifty yards of cleared ground on each side, with high fences edged in barbed wire. Floodlights swept over the grass in what seemed to be random patterns.

  Stephen looked at Jennifer, assessing her profile as she looked at the facility. This place was a prison, and while a paltry distance of fifty yards and a fence—even with barbed wire—would never stop a healthy Wechselbalg, it might well keep in one who was malnourished, beaten, and being tortured by the command waves used to give orders.

  “How do they justify it to themselves?” she asked quietly.

  “They won’t for much longer.” It was the best he could give her. “They’re going to see Gerard get what he deserves, and then they’ll be judged, too.”

  They made their way around to the main gate, careful to stay within the shadow of the trees, and put on the last pieces of their uniforms—a suit jacket for Stephen and a lab coat for Jennifer. The backpack that held Jennifer’s Wechselbalg armor converted to a stylish handbag, and Stephen tugged slightly on his suit jacket to keep the outline of the pistols from showing.

  They swiped the counterfeit badges ADAM had created, and the gates began to shudder open.

  “How long do you think it will take before someone tries to stop us?” Jennifer asked. “I can’t decide if I think they’ll want us to save them from Gerard…or if they’ll be trying to attack us at his command.”

  “Maybe a little of both,” Stephen suggested.

  They walked up the gravel driveway to the main door, surrounded by silence.

  “Something is wrong,” Stephen said quietly.

  “I’ll second that.” Jennifer looked around herself. “But what? Lights are on, the building’s running.”

  “No patrols,” Stephen pointed out. “Haven’t seen anyone in the windows, either.”

  Jennifer gave him a worried look and swiped her badge at the main door. The lights flickered green, and she pulled the door open, half-cringing as she waited for an alarm. Alarms hurt when you had an especially good sense of hearing.

  But no alarms sounded.

  They walked down a long hallway lit by fluorescent bulbs, lined with age-stained but otherwise-clean linoleum. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t left scorch marks and bloodstains, the way it had at the other facilities.

  But there was still empty silence.

  Then they got to the second floor.

  Jennifer pressed a hand over her mouth with a little cry. Blood spattered the walls and streaked along the floor. She started running, stopping in each laboratory, but the cages were empty, and there was blood in every room.

  They ran up the stairs, through the rest of the laboratories, and kicked down the doors to the conference rooms.

  Nothing. No one.

  “Stephen, people are loading into vehicles on the far side of the building, and the helicopter engine just started.”

  “Get to the roof!” Stephen took off, streaking down the corridor. “ADAM, do whatever the hell you have to. An Act of God if you have to, call down a storm, I don’t care, keep that helicopter from lifting off!”

  “I will do what I can.” ADAM, having learned something about tone of voice, did not point out that he was not able to call down storms or acts of God. “I am attempting to scramble their guidance and communications, which may keep them from lifting off while they troubleshoot.”

  “You’re a genius, ADAM.” Stephen managed a grin.

  Jennifer pulled into the lead, her eyes narrowed. She yanked off her lab coat, careless of the buttons, so she could have free access to the two pistols, and burst out onto the roof with a yell, guns pointed at the chopper.

  At the empty chopper.

  Jennifer and Stephen stared at one another, chests heaving.

  “The trucks! Go!” Jennifer yelled.

  They ran to the edge of the roof and—with a brief check for guns and debris below—jumped.

  “The fire!” Stephen yelled behind her. A bonfire blazed off to one side.

  “I saw it!” Jennifer landed with a gasp and a thud and rolled on the gravel. The trucks were already gone into the night…

  Beside them, in a flaming heap, were bodies. Dozens of bodies.

  They froze. Jennifer looked as if she were about to lose her lunch all over the gravel.

  Then, to Stephen’s shock, she leaned forward and sniffed delicately. A curious look came over her face.

  “What is it?” Stephen asked her.

  “I don’t think any of these are Wechselbalg.” Jennifer looked at the pile of bodies, then back to Stephen. “I think these are the guards and the scientists.”

  Stephen jerked his head back to the pile. “Do you think Gerard is in here?”

  “That’d be some good luck for a change,” Jennifer muttered. “ADAM? Any way we could find out?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have very good news,” ADAM reported. “A message was just sent to all scientific facilities, saying that Gerard will be arriving shortly to collect the ‘experiments.’ It says that any further communications from Hugo are not to be trusted.”

  “So if those aren’t the experiments…and all the guards are dead…” Stephen frowned. “Were there any commands executed before we got into the facility, ADAM? Can you tell?”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t. I can offer no conjecture, only the same facts you have observed: somehow, Gerard is still alive, and he has the Wechselbalg with him.”

  “Maybe he’s a captive,” Stephen suggested.

  “Maybe.” Jennifer gave him a look. “And maybe he’s fed them some lie that he’s the one saving them from all this, instead of the truth that he was Hugo’s right-hand man. And if they believe him? They’re going to fight us to keep him safe.”

  Stephen took a deep breath to steady himself.

  “We have to evacuate those other facilities,” Jennifer told him. “Right now. Before he has the chance to grow his army. Then we can worry about the people who are loyal to him.”

  “Good idea. ArchAngel, standby—we’ll be back to the Pod in a few minutes. And tell anyone who’s back on their feet to get ready for a ground assault. We’re clearing those facilities out tonight.
”

  4

  QBS ArchAngel

  Hsu winced as she pulled on slacks, a blouse, and a lab coat. Her shoulder was mostly healed, much to her surprise. She’d become used to the ridiculously fast healing abilities of the Wechselbalg, but this was even beyond that.

  The doctors on board had worked some magic in the medical lab.

  She brushed her hair out of her eyes and frowned in surprise at herself in the mirror. Really, she was looking better than she had in years. Her face was smoother, and she had less grey in her hair.

  That had to be her imagination, right?

  She looked at her shoulder again and bit her lip. She was fine. She was here. But back in the stairwell of the labs, back on the roof as Stephen leaned over her and promised her she would be safe, Hsu had been certain she was going to die.

  She felt like she kept cheating death—something she felt she had no right to do.

  “Hey.” Irina stuck her head into the room. “You ready? They said we need to get going ASAP.” She pronounced the acronym a bit awkwardly. “What is ASAP? I know what it means, but...”

  “A-S-A-P, As Soon As Possible,” Hsu explained. American idioms had made their way all over the globe, even into the labs in China and Bulgaria.

  “Oh. I see.” Irina wiggled her jaw and tapped at her ear. “I’m not sure how I like this implant. It’s really weird not to understand the words that are coming out of my mouth. I mean, I know what I am saying, but you see the point.”

  Hsu nodded, “I do.” She looked around the small bunk. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “You’re not taking any weapons?” Irina asked.

  “I don’t have any,” Hsu pointed out. “Anyway, it’s hard to hide a gun under a lab coat when you’re this small. I should be able to talk my way into the facilities without needing to shoot people.”

  “Oh?” Irina fell into step beside her as they walked down the hallways. “What’s your plan?”

  Hsu grinned. “Use their biggest fear against them. They’ll practically run to get into the trap—and then we can waltz in and free the shifters.”

  Gordes, France

  Hidden on the roof underneath a heat shield, Emeric Carre watched as a black object shot into the sky.

  The forest was eerily quiet, and the sound of the trucks had faded away.

  Emeric considered what he had seen. The two on the roof had not been humans—a shifter and a vampire, to judge by the smell.

  And they wanted to kill Gerard. More than that, they had known as soon as the helicopter started. That had been part of Emeric’s plan—see what would happen if he tried to take off.

  Now he knew. He would not use the helicopter. He would sneak away to join his brethren at the other facilities. And he would warn them of the people he had seen.

  Who were they?

  He had heard stories of shifters who debased themselves to become assassins for human drug lords. If they were both shifters, he would have said that these two served Hugo.

  But he had never heard of a vampire doing such a thing.

  A vampire involved usually meant one thing, and one thing only—that the Rules of Honor were being enforced. The vampires must have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that they would handle this. They would dispense justice, and they would take Hugo and Gerard down. When it was over, they would expect Emeric and the rest to just forgive and forget when the whole world had enabled what happened to them.

  He had no intentions of letting that happen.

  They would have their revenge.

  Istaravshan, Tajikistan

  “Good evening.” Hsu allowed the door of the Istaravshan facility to bang open as she strode in.

  Stoyan stood at one shoulder, Irina at the other. The two cousins glared at the guards as they all looked at one another.

  “Who are you?” A flustered woman with ruddy cheeks and flyaway brown hair pounded down the stairs and strode up to Hsu.

  “I,” Hsu said, “am your salvation.”

  She just had to get through this without laughing.

  “What the hell does that mean?” the woman demanded. “I am the administrator of this facility. Talk fast before I have you removed.”

  “I will leave immediately if you want.” Hsu gave an artful shrug. “But you should know Gerard is on his way to this facility, and he has been instructed to have all staff executed. You have...” She checked her watch. “Seventeen minutes until the poison vents open.”

  A ripple of alarm spread through the group. Two of the guards dropped their weapons and turned to run–most likely to warn the rest of the facility.

  “Wait!” the administrator snapped. She turned back and gave Hsu an unfriendly look. “We don’t know that she’s telling the truth. After all, Hugo sent word that Gerard was not to be trusted.”

  Shit. Hsu had forgotten that. She scrambled for a cover.

  “Yes, and didn’t you wonder why that was?” That should buy her a moment.

  The administrator looked around at the others. No one seemed to have an answer to that.

  “Why was it?” she asked finally.

  “Because...” She really should think of something to say. “Gerard is now employed by one of Hugo’s rivals.” That worked. “And his rival wants this operation shut down permanently.”

  The woman paled. “We will lock him out of the facility.”

  “It is far, far too late for that,” Hsu told her. “He’s bringing mercenaries, and he’s already hacked the facility. I am here to get you all out, and—God willing—shut things down and extract the experiments before irreparable damage is done to this program. So.” She drew herself up. “Are you going to let me do my job, or should I leave you to your deaths? I’m happy to do either but believe me when I say that I do not intend to be here when Gerard arrives.”

  The administrator had been caught the moment Hsu mentioned Gerard. There had never really been a chance that she would throw Hsu out.

  The woman was visibly panicked now. “How do I get everyone out in time? The experiments—”

  “Focus on your staff,” Hsu said simply. She forced herself to smile as she added, “It’s more important that we be able to reproduce the experiments than that this set gets out.”

  The woman nodded in relief. She clearly considered the lives of the experiments an acceptable loss.

  Hsu had to force herself not to reach out and throttle her.

  “Tell your personnel to evacuate immediately. Arisha will direct them to a safe point in the forest.” Hsu gestured to Arisha, who was hovering by the door. “My associates and I will attempt to disable the poison vents and evacuate the experiments.”

  “Right away. Of course.” The administrator practically ran for the elevator.

  Hsu allowed herself a small smile.

  Within two minutes, the stairs were full of escaping scientists and security personnel.

  Irina pushed her way between them. She was trying not to lash out at them—at their monstrous selfishness, leaving the Wechselbalg to die in their cages.

  She opened the first laboratory door, however, to find a scientist pinned against the back wall while wolves advanced on him.

  The Wechselbalg swung their heads to look at Irina and took a sniff. They hesitated, uncertain.

  Irina was also uncertain. She had seen this before.

  “How did they get out of their cages?” she asked the scientists in Tajik.

  “I-I let them out,” he stammered.

  Irina looked at the wolves. One nodded its head.

  “Why?” Irina asked him sharply.

  “They were going to be left to die! There’s no time to evacuate them, and it wasn’t right!” The man held his hands up, babbling now. “I never—never wanted to…” His voice trailed away.

  “Suppose for a moment that I am not part of this corporation,” she suggested. “Suppose that we’re here to trick the scientists into leaving—whereupon they will be tried and possibly executed—and to free the shifter
s.”

  The man’s jaw hung open. “I… What?”

  “I was once one of them.” Irina pointed. “At a facility in Bulgaria. I am here to get them out, and I will be one of the judges who decides if we spare any of the scientists. So why don’t you explain to me why I shouldn’t kill you, and I will decide if your explanation is good enough.”

  “I, I...” The man looked like he wanted to throw up. He took a deep breath. “I took a job here three months ago. I didn’t realize what I was going to be doing until I arrived. I requested a transfer, and Administrator Nabiyev warned me that he would pretend he hadn’t heard the question, but if I asked again, he would have to turn me in. He told me that no one left.”

  Irina frowned, “I thought the administrator was a woman.”

  “It is now,” the scientist explained. “They thought Nabiyev was too soft, and they had him executed in front of all of us.” He gulped. “But not before he told me that the local police were all in on this, and some of the international inspectors. Hugo…he bribed a lot of people.”

  “So you stayed,” Irina said flatly.

  “Yes, but not like you think! I fabricated my results, I never ran a single experiment!” He looked at her wildly. “I mapped out the facility to see how I could get out, and I was collecting documents so I could expose this place. They’re over there, in that filing cabinet—I swear, go look!”

  Irina walked between the press of wolf bodies and pulled open the drawer.

  The papers were there, as he had said, though she couldn’t make head or tail of the technical readouts. She saw letters and emails, however, some implicating officials.

  “Is what he says true?” she asked the wolves.

  One of the wolves transformed into a woman. She stood up awkwardly, arms shielding her chest.

  “It’s true,” she said. “He would talk to us. He told us that he would give a signal when we were to transform, a hand signal, like this.” Her fingers fluttered. “And he would pretend to press the button, but he wouldn’t really. He said if we just pretended, we would buy him time to get us out of here. We thought...” She swallowed. “We thought he might be lying, but he wasn’t torturing us. So we went along with it.”