Come Hell or High Water (Hellcat Series Book 5)

by Sharon Hannaford

  “’Tis alright, lass, ’tis under control. Th’ rest ur bein’ rounded oop,” he assured her.

  As she squinted around the ruined church, she realised the feel of the place had changed. It was brightly lit and much calmer; the only scuffle left was Kyle subduing the man who’d shot her. Another captive sat trussed at Ross’s feet while Butch attended to one of his Pack mates who’d also been wounded. The rest of the Werewolves milled around, looking slightly dazed and confused, but many of them had healing score marks across their faces, arms and hands. Adriana was out of the cage, a large hole ripped in one side. Razor was back at her side, purring in concern as he pressed up against her, worry for her pouring from him. She dragged a sleeve over her nose, it was as though the tear gas had opened a tap up in both nostrils. Ugh, delightful. She coughed, turning her head to spit out vile-tasting phlegm.

  “Where’re the rest of them?” Gabi wheezed. “The humans?”

  “Hopefully th’ wolves ootside caught them,” Fergus grumbled. “Thay oop ’n bolted as soon as thay realised we hud them. C’mon, we need tae dae something aboot that bleedin.”

  She nodded, finally allowing him to steer her out of the church. Something was niggling at the back of her mind, though, and finally the thought broke through.

  “Mac,” she gasped. “Mac is here and I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  “Aye, dinna worry, lass, I’ve already sent ’im back.” Fergus pushed her down onto a low concrete wall. Someone had brought a vehicle to the front of the church and put the lights on.

  She drooped wearily onto the wall and then sat up so fast the pathway undulated in front of her eyes. “What about you?” she demanded.

  “A’m fine,” he assured her, with a barely concealed chuckle. “A’m auld enough ’n’ scared enough of yer Consort nae tae ever taste ye without yer explicit instructions.” He carefully peeled her fingers away from her shoulder just as Kyle poked his head out the ruins of the church door.

  “Fuck it, Gabs, I think you’ve finally one-upped me,” he said, shaking his head as he jogged down the path toward them. “Even I haven’t managed to get myself shot before.”

  Gabi showed him the middle finger of her bloodstained left hand.

  “Where’s Adriana? Is she okay?” Gabi asked when her brain wouldn’t provide her with a smart-ass comeback.

  “She’s safe and on her way to the Estate to get checked out by Ian, but I think she’ll be fine,” Kyle told her. “She’s very shaken up, but the Pack is with her, and they won’t let her out of their sight for a while. It’ll help.”

  Gabi was about to ask more about what was beneath the church when her phone rang.

  She knew that ring. She’d finally gotten around to assigning ringtones to certain people, and this was a call she absolutely did not want to take right now.

  “I’m fine, Julius,” she said for what felt like the twentieth time. “Yes, Fergus is here with me. Okay.” She sighed and held the phone out to Fergus, who took it without expression.

  Kyle had loped off, probably to check on the aftermath.

  “Aye, Sire,” he greeted. “Aye, she be awright. Twas a shot tae th’ shoulder. Thro’ and thro’, it looks tae me. Nae, Sire, a bit worse than a scratch.” He paused, listening, ignoring the foul look Gabi was directing his way. “Aye, I think nothin’ major damaged, but only Ian kin tell us fur sure. Aye. Aye, she haes lost too much blood, Sire, I’m workin’ on getting her back noo. Nae, I sent both th’ others off tae th’ interrogation rooms wi’ th’ two humans we captured. Th’ rest managed tae escape. Maybe if we’d brought mair Vampires…but ye ken th’ situation.” Concern furrowed his brows as he listened to Julius. “Of course, Sire, I’ll mak’ sure none but Ian ’n’ Alexander ur near her ’til she stops bleedin’.” A sly grin twitched one side of his mouth. “Aye, Sire, I’ll strap her doon if I hae tae.” Mischief gleamed in his eyes as he reassured Julius one last time before handing back the phone.

  “Thaaaanks,” Gabi said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

  “Anytime, lass, anytime,” he responded with a semi bow. “Th’ boss will check in wi’ us in a while again.” His expression of outright devilry tugged the long scar across his face in a macabre sort of dance. And then something he’d said registered in her pain-addled brain.

  “The rest of them got away?” she demanded. “How could humans escape a pack of Werewolves?” Nothing was making any sense.

  “They’re a bunch of rats and they had a rat run ready,” another male voice said, coming nearer. “They blew up the tunnel they used to escape. It’ll take us a while to dig our way through and by then who knows where they’ll be. We’ll lose their scents in the tangle of human stench.”

  Gabi turned her head to see Butch, a grizzled, hard-bitten-looking Werewolf who Gabi had fought beside a couple of times. He’d even patched her up after Alexander’s kidnapping and near-death experience a few weeks before. Healing criss-cross burns scored one side of his face and down his bare arms. He was carrying two squeeze bottles of water, some clean towels, and had a medical bag slung over one shoulder. “Use the water to rinse your eyes; it’ll help the stinging. Then rinse your mouths before drinking,” he told them, putting a bottle and a towel on the step next to her and holding the rest out to Fergus. “Here, I’ll take over from you,” Butch told the Scotsman, dropping the medical kit on the ground and rummaging for a moment before pulling out some large gauze pads and a roll of bandage.

  Fergus released the pressure he’d been keeping on either side of Gabi’s shoulder and she couldn’t hold back the gasp of pain as blood began to flow again. Butch made a quick inspection, swiftly cutting pieces of her shirt away from the wounds, and then packing the pads over them and reapplying pressure.

  “Good one.” Butch sounded impressed.

  “Better than the Vampire bite?” Gabi asked, trying to catch her breath and slow her breathing. Shock was trying to set in. She pulled the water bottle’s pop-up top with her teeth and squirted some into her mouth, swirling it around and spitting it out before taking a grateful swallow and then running water over her face and into her still-burning eyes.

  “They’re both impressive in their own ways,” Butch mused. “This one’ll take longer to heal, though. You’re lucky it was a through and through; otherwise your Vamp doc would have to go rummaging around to find the bullet.”

  Gabi squeezed her eyes shut, mopping the snot and tears from her face with the towel as he tightly bandaged the surgical pads in place, strapping her arm to her chest in the process. “Do ya want me to send someone to look for the bullet?” he asked. “It’d make a great necklace.”

  Gabi cracked one eyelid to see that he was teasing her, but suddenly she liked the idea.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “If someone can find the cursed thing, I’ll have it made into a freaking necklace, just for the hell of it. It’s probably even made of silver.”

  ********************

  “So we only have two of the bastards?” Gabi’s eyes narrowed as she watched the two humans on the large monitor. She sank gingerly into a comfy recliner in the small, familiar room. On the screen, hooked up to a bank of electronic equipment with enough wiring for a TV studio, she could see two men shackled to metal chairs in the interrogation suite of Julius’s secret lair, as she’d dubbed it. One of them was the man who’d shot her. Her shoulder throbbed a little harder at the memory. She was drowsy with the effects of strong painkillers and still a little shaky from the shock, but her nose and eyes had stopped streaming mucus at least. Some days you just had to focus on the little blessings.

  “Yeah, the rest of them escaped down the tunnel before they caved it in. The search area is just too large and too populated to find where they came out. Probably a sewer.” Kyle sounded disgusted, and Trish took a moment to turn away from the computer she was typing on to run a soothing hand down his arm. He caught her hand, giving it a quick squeeze before continuing. “They might think they’re smart and innovative, but we’l
l track them down eventually. We’ll be better prepared next time.”

  Gabi studied the men on the screen. Neither of them would’ve drawn a second glance from her if she’d passed them in the street. Both of medium height and build; one a Caucasian with a scraggly beard and dark blond hair that could do with a cut; the other had darker skin, not the true dark of Tabari, who Gabi now knew was from Central Africa, but maybe South American or some exotic mixed heritage. His dark hair was cropped close to his head, and long, dark lashes accentuated chocolate brown eyes.

  “What have we got out of these two?” Gabi asked, shifting in the chair, trying futilely to find a comfortable position; the whole upper right quarter of her body radiated pain despite the medication.

  “Nothing much, they’re holding their tongues at the moment,” Kyle told her.

  “So how are we going to make them talk?” she asked. She was betting on the blond one caving first; his eyes were all but darting around the room and his legs were jiggling so badly that the manacles around his ankles clanked repetitively against the chair leg. The other one sat calmly staring at the camera, only a slight beading of sweat at the edge of his hairline gave away his anxiety. “It could take days, if not weeks, to get a Magus here. We’re not going to torture them, I assume?” Gabi wasn’t sure she was against that. Working for the SMV, the rules were clear, no torture or inhumane treatment of any kind, but the SMV no longer existed, and they were making up their own rules. A heady but precarious position, and now that she was faced with it, not one she was enjoying.

  Kyle snorted. “We don’t need to torture them. You’ve obviously forgotten what Vampires are good at, your personal protector in particular.”

  Gabi frowned, cursing her drug-induced brain fuzz. Then, on the screen, a door opened and Fergus strode into the room. Both the men cringed in their seats; Fergus, despite not being any taller than average, was an intimidating man.

  “Ah.” She smiled evilly as her mind finally kicked into gear. She sat forward in the chair. “Come on, let’s go down there,” she begged, her pain almost forgotten. “I’ve never actually seen Fergus roll a human before.”

  Kyle vetoed the idea before it was fully out of Gabi’s mouth. “Nope,” he said emphatically, “Fergus’s rules: no bystanders in the room, including you.”

  Gabi was crestfallen, a petulant outburst held in check by the narrowest of margins. She really wanted to be close enough to know whether she could feel when he used his Vampire ability. She sensed when Julius used any kind of power, whether to control a Vampire or use his Magi abilities. It could feel like a whisper of warm air across her skin or the nip of biting ants or even the searing burn of a naked flame. Her curiosity over whether she could sense other Vampires’ power besides Julius’s was an itch that needed scratching.

  Another day, she decided, Fergus couldn’t say no to her forever. Wearing people down had been one of her fortes as a teenager; she resolved to resurrect the talent.

  “Will he be able to make them both talk at the same time, do you think?” Trish asked, rolling her typist chair closer to the central monitor, her fervent interest betraying her anger towards the men who’d endangered her Pack.

  Gabi went to shrug and yelped in pain. The gunshot might not have been life-threatening, but it hurt like shit.

  “Are you okay?” Trish asked, turning to her in alarm.

  Gabi waved her concern away, she might be a walking disaster area, but she’d live.

  “Watch,” Gabi said, nodding towards the screen.

  Fergus had walked up to the men and sat in the chair facing them, only a flimsy metal table between them. Trish pressed her lips together, studying Gabi for a long moment, but her curiosity won out and she turned to watch as well.

  Both captives reacted at the same instant; their eyes glazed over and their bodies sagged, as though they’d passed out, only they were awake and staring at Fergus.

  “Who ur ye?” Fergus growled, his words soft but distinct, “’n’ why ur ye attacking Werewolves?”

  “We’re Kresniks,” the blond man said, his voice devoid of emotion, but a little hoarse, as though the words were being squeezed from him.

  “Kresniks,” the darker man echoed.

  “Wolf men are abominations. They must be stopped,” the blond one continued impassively.

  “That is our mission: expose and destroy,” the dark one inserted. “The world must know what hides in the shadows. The truth must be made public. We have a right to know.” The other man was no longer as robotic as before, passion tinged his words and ferocity tightened his features.

  Trish gasped, her hands gripping the arm of her chair, and it was Kyle putting a calming hand on her this time.

  Sleep was grabbing at Gabi with large, fluffy, pillow-like hands, trying to pull her down into its welcoming hug. It was less than an hour to sunrise and it was way too long since she’d last seen her bed. She’d snuck in a cat nap on the drive back to the Estate, letting Kyle drive the BMW while one of his Pack members followed in his van. Fergus was strangely stubborn about driving even though Gabi had repeatedly offered to teach him. It was warm and comfortable in the large easy chair in Julius’s office, with Razor curled up alongside her, his paws protectively on her lap, purring quietly.

  The jingle of an incoming call roused her from sleep’s greedy clutches. She forced her eyes open and pressed the video button on the computer.

  “Good morning.” Julius’s voice sounded a little fuzzy over the VoIP connection, and it took the screen a couple of seconds to bring up his face. Well, wasn’t this just a little surreal, she mused, sitting forward and repositioning her arm to ease the pull of the stitches. Once she was comfortable, she stroked Razor’s big fuzzy head, soothing him back to sleep, and smiled thanks to Fergus for the large glass of genuine, well-aged port and a plate of cheese and crackers he’d placed on the desk near her left hand.

  “Lea.” Julius’s eyes found hers first and a little knot of something uncomfortable inside her eased at the ache behind his gaze. I love you too, she wanted to say, but there were too many people around for sappiness. The message seemed to get through, though, he nodded just the tiniest bit, and his tight expression eased. “I’m gone for less than a day and you get yourself shot?” he said at last.

  “Would hate you to think I wasn’t living up to my reputation,” she replied. “And besides, Jonathon was looking bored.”

  Julius actually cracked a smile, and she grinned back.

  “Are you at the castle?” she asked, though the question encompassed more than that.

  “Yes,” Julius said, “we arrived a few hours ago and settled in. Kimberley did well for the journey here. She’s asleep in Derek’s room and he’s sharing a room with Rat. We have a more opulent suite than the last time.” His lips thinned in wry humour. “It seems we are not under suspicion this time.”

  “You’ve sealed the room?” Gabi checked, suddenly worried someone at court would hear him talking with Gabi when Gabi was supposed to be asleep in his bed.

  “Of course,” Julius assured her, “and Charlie has swept the place for bugs and other surveillance equipment. We’re being extremely cautious, I promise.”

  Gabi believed him, the last thing he wanted was any excuse for them to drag the real Gabi to Court. She sat back, allowing him to see the others in the room.

  “Sire.” Alexander stepped forward, and Fergus, Kyle and Trish joined him.

  “Tell me what happened tonight,” he ordered. “Is this connected to the Shadow group?”

  “We’re not quite sure,” Gabi confessed. “The two that we captured told us everything they knew, but that really wasn’t very much. They’re both fairly new recruits to this group. They call themselves the Kresniks.”

  Julius made a kind of snorting noise.

  “What? Does that mean something to you?” Gabi asked.

  “A Kresnik, or more accurately Krsnik, was a type of Slovenian shaman who was reputed to be able to spirit walk in the
form of an animal at night. Legend has it that they hunted evil creatures like Vampires and Werewolves,” Julius explained.

  “Well, that makes perfect sense, then,” Kyle said. “This lot are a group of humans who decided to out Werewolves to the rest of the world and then to go about capturing or killing the lot of us.”

  “These groups do pop up every now and then,” Julius said. “There’s always a human who slips through the net and witnesses something they can’t explain away. It just takes one with the right, or wrong, personality traits to stir up a village. There have been a lot of supernatural events in the City lately; it would almost be impossible to have kept every single sign of it hidden from the human population. What do you know about the leaders of the group?”

  Gabi sighed. “They all have code names, things like Selene and Blade.” She rolled her eyes. “The so-called leaders are referred to as Darkstalker and Lady Helsing. Original…”

  Julius nodded sagely, apparently he’d heard it all before.

  “They meet in secret locations, which change all the time. The members get details of the meetings through texts usually only an hour or so before the time. They seem to have strict safety measures in place.”

  “How are they finding their targets?” Julius asked.

  “They have a handful of different ploys,” Kyle explained as Gabi sipped her port. “Most are centred around getting people to touch silver. Somehow they’ve found out what silver does to Werewolves. I guess it is one of the well-circulated theories. It’s a pity this one happens to be accurate. Their most common tactic is to set up at casual and outdoor marketplaces with a jewellery stall. They act out a standard routine of overzealous salesperson and try to touch each person that passes with silver. If they get a violent reaction from the person, or, as in Adriana’s case, they touch her and are able to actually witness the effect of the silver on her skin, she’s marked by operatives hanging out in the area. They follow the marked person, using anything from tracking devices on vehicles to hacking the City’s information network to trace home addresses and workplaces. Adriana’s case was the first success as far as Tweedledee and Tweedledum know. Any others have either been false leads or have managed to evade their tracking attempts. They don’t know whose idea it was to use her for bait, or even if that was the main objective of tonight’s little fiasco. They had definitely planned on filming her turn wolf, though that was meant to be live streamed to hundreds of computers. Just from the exposure aspect this could be a bigger problem than we initially thought.”