He quietly told the driver to take the very long way to his house. He had the money to make this last a little while longer and he was going to do it.
New York City, NY USA
Waking Ecaterina up in the limousine wasn’t the struggle Nathan thought it would be. She was instantly awake and quickly looking around. He realized she was acting no different than she would out in the forest.
God, he really loved this woman.
The driver grabbed all of the bags, only two of them were Ecaterina’s, and placed them on the doorstep of his brownstone. Two bags to move to another country. God, he really, really loved this woman.
What Nathan didn’t know was that Bethany Anne had another 3 boxes being shipped across that Ivan had taken care of. Some of the things Ecaterina wanted to take along were not easy to place on a commercial flight. They really frowned on firearms and ammunition. They weren’t wild about traps, either.
Bethany Anne wasn’t concerned and figured Ecaterina had an emotional attachment to the equipment so she got on her phone and rented a place outside Newark and had the boxes shipped there. Personally, Bethany Anne had an emotional attachment to the bear trap and had gone back to get it. She tracked it down to one of the Pack members who was quick to give it up. They never could do something too fast for Bethany Anne. She supposed they might have finally made the link between the unknown vampire and her.
Nathan had paid and tipped the driver before waking Ecaterina up. He had thought he might have to carry her in. Nope. In fact she was ready to explore the neighborhood in the dark. He hoped the cleaning ladies had been there while he was gone. They did a good job, mostly. His only complaint was that they stuffed EVERYTHING in his kitchen into the pantry. Every single time. It made his kitchen look pristine, but he would find moldy bread there a week later because he forgot he had it when they ‘cleaned’ for him and would buy another loaf. Eventually, he smelled the bread and would find all of the food and bring it back out. No telling what he would find this time.
He carried the bags inside as Ecaterina walked around the house, checking all sorts of curios and knickknacks he had out. He showed her the guest bedroom on the first floor, behind the kitchen. It had its own bathroom and shower and small closet. He knew the bed in that room was the best in the house as it was the room he gave to most of his visitors.
She smiled at him and gave him a peck on the cheek for bringing in her luggage. She wouldn’t have expected him to, but being curious to see the house she didn’t think about it until it was too late.
“Thank you, Nathan. I’m sure I will only be here a few days until Bethany Anne arrives and we will be going… somewhere. She used to live in Washington D.C., is that far?”
He smiled at her. “No, maybe 4-5 hours by train. Shorter for a plane and car, of course. My home is your home. Whatever you want, grab it. Don’t make me tell you again, please?”
Her radiant smile was with him as he climbed the stairs all the way to the third floor, which was his room. He showered and got ready for bed. On the nightstands by the bed were two pictures. One of his son and himself, and one with his wife, son and himself.
He grabbed the one with the three of them and looked down at it for a couple of minutes. He walked to his closet and pulled down a box of pictures. It was time to move on, he figured. Life has a way of finally healing all hurts in time. He placed the picture frame in the box and put the lid on before placing it back up in the closet.
He shut off the lights and went to sleep.
Down on the first floor, Ecaterina was wishing that he had asked her to come upstairs. The distance between them seemed like a thousand miles. But, she was happy. Impatient, yes. But very, very happy.
Hopefully Bethany Anne wouldn’t get finished too fast, she thought as she turned off her lights to go to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Everglades, FL USA
Bethany Anne was treated with kid gloves from the landing at the Air Force base to the forward operations center an hour and a half away. The Jet taxied right into a hanger where they picked her up in a blackened SUV. She felt they must be filming an episode for a Hollywood movie. She had to laugh at the whole presentation. Black SUV, black leather, bullet proof glass and super dark tint on the windows. Who did they think they were transporting?
As the only passenger in the back of the Limited Edition Explorer, (go Ford, she thought), she only had the driver and his shotgun support to talk to. These guys were professionals. She asked why the tint was so dark on the windows and they look confused before the driver, Eric, confessed that it was for her. The guy in the right front passenger, John, followed that he was under the impression that the ‘agents from her group’ had an aversion to sunlight like their previous contact, Bill.
Eric was in a dark suit with white shirt and dark red tie. John followed the prescribed dressing regimen but substituted a classy medium blue tie. At least they weren't MIB, she thought. Well fuck, maybe she represented MIB since she was the one with the alien.
"Did you guys work with Bill very often?" She wasn't able to get Carl to open up about Bill very much on their flight to Romania, so she was curious on the agents’ insights on a 'true' vampire. While Bethany Anne knew everyone considered her a vampire, she wasn't in the classic sense. Not what most considered a vampire to be, anyway.
John took up the talking and let Eric focus on driving. "Yes ma'am, I probably worked with him on about eight operations. He was scary as hell, no offense, ma'am."
Bethany Anne delivered the following comment with the most sophisticated English accent she could pull off. "John, you’re going to have to grow a fucking pair if you’re going to cuss around me. There isn't a cuss word you butt-munches have ever said that could possibly offend me, and I give ten points to whoever can make me laugh."
Eric had to pull the SUV over to the side of the road. He was laughing so hard, tears were flowing down his face obscuring his ability to see. John was rolling in his seat. It didn't take too long before the radio came on with a request from the op center asking if everything was ok? Their car GPS showed that they had stopped. The voice seemed a little worried.
Bethany Anne took the Mic from Eric who couldn't stop his laughing long enough to answer the request. With both of her escorts incapacitated, she clicked the mic and spoke into it. "Ops center, this is Bethany Anne. I need to stretch my legs after flying for so long. We will be back on the road in 5." She clicked off the mic and stepped out of the vehicle to walk around, leaving John and Carl a moment to compose themselves.
They had needed just this kind of relief valve after their last half a year. Frankly, the team needed all of the help they could get and they were on eggshells around Bethany Anne. They didn't know what kind of personality their contact was going to have. They knew that she was a vampire and they knew the type of creatures that they were fighting.
Both John and Eric had been in the hanger when the fighter taxied right through the door. As the canopy disengaged and pulled back, the figure in the back stood up and turned around and stepped down the stairs. Both of them had enough presence not to say anything in case she was paying attention, but they had not realized that they were going to be picking up a female who made their eyes want to bug out.
She took off her helmet and handed it to the ground support guy, John and Eric noticed he never closed his mouth. John watched as two others helped take off all of the support pieces on her flight suit. She had waved to the pilot with a smile, walked over to the SUV and got in.
Inside the car, John and Eric could hear ops center ask, to no one in particular. "Did she just say she was going to walk around outside a bit?"
A few minutes later Bethany Anne heard John roll down his window and speak in a normal voice, 'Ma'am, we have our fucking shit together whenever you’re ready." She smiled and turned back to the vehicle and walked the 50 yards at a normal speed. No need to freak them out when she had just got them settled back down.
She sat down
in the back seat, "Home James." Both John and Eric smiled and Eric pulled the SUV out onto the two lane freeway and quickly gunned the engine to try and make up the lost time.
God, John thought, it feels good to have hope again. The two agents spent the next hour telling her stories of their time with Bill and trying to throw in various cuss words to see if they could surprise her. They didn't, but she almost made Eric pull back off the road one more time. John was just happy he wasn’t driving.
New York City, NY USA
Gerry was going to strangle somebody before this day was through. He was presently in his office in Queen’s. Nathan had made it back in town the previous night and was supposed to get with him at mid-day. However; he had been taking a huge amount of calls from the local pack for the last week while Nathan was out of town. Irene had tried to help him out, but the amount of butt kissing was pissing him off.
He had assumed that there wasn’t a large amount of politics in his pack when he talked with Nirene and Nathan weekly. They never mentioned it. What he figured out was that the pack members had found out that Nathan hated ass-kissing, intimidation or any other forms of manipulation. One idiot had tried blackmail only to find out that all of the darkest secrets he was hiding were completely shared on his social media accounts.
Further, he then received an email from an anonymous source that told him that his financial accounts would be hit next. Did he want to continue this ‘black mail’ effort? As the story got around, no one considered trying blackmail on Nathan again.
Gerry’s phone rang; it was another pack member that ‘just needed to see him’.
Gerry’s face broke out into maybe the first genuine smile he had all week. “Max, I understand but I am really busy through today. Tomorrow? No, I am not available tomorrow but Nathan is back in town and I am sure he will talk with you. Should I tell Nathan you will call? Don’t bother, you will get in touch with him? Fine, I’ll let you do that.”
Gerry hung up the phone and smiled in satisfaction. Maybe today wasn’t going to go so bad after all.
Now, if he could just throw Nathan at the Councils problems life could get back to being good again. Unfortunately, as the Lead Alpha of the Council it was his burden to bear. Nathan left him a short phone message that morning that Michael wasn’t found. But that if the Council didn’t get their act together they were going to wish he was. Gerry couldn’t understand that message at all. Who would possibly make them wish for Michael to be back?
It couldn’t be the new vamp, could it? He had heard some rumors in Europe that she was involved in the event in Bravos and had taken out another vampire, but he would wait until he heard from Nathan before believing those rumors.
Anyway, he would know more in a few hours.
Everglades, FL USA
Agent Dan Bosse heard the front tactical lookout, euphemism for sniper, in his ear. "Sir, I have the agent’s vehicle in site."
"Understood, how does everything look?" Dan was at least hoping for the sniper to report he had two, very alive, agents in the front seat. This contact was unknown and although he was told she wasn't a meat-eating monster, he was paid to worry and bring his men back alive. Unfortunately that meant working with these contacts to help his crew take down other monsters that made even his men lose sleep at night. It was a shame he couldn’t just napalm the whole area and save his guys the risk of dying tonight.
Dan had worked with Bill for 15 years and during all of the operations which Bill was a part of, he had only lost two men. Now, he had lost two men in the last month, not counting the others in the last 12 months.
After working with Bill for so long, his team had attributed more of the success to their part of the operations than they should have. He hated to admit it, but his guys were getting slaughtered. If he needed to work with a monster to take down other monsters he would do it,
"Sir, I have them on scope and you aren't going to believe this."
"Spit it out, Killian”
"Sir, the agents are laughing and smiling. I can see the pickup and holy shit sir, she is a looker."
"Killian, keep it professional. If you mouth off around one of these, agents, you could lose your head."
"Yeah, but what a way to go."
Dan just shook his head. At least he had two agents alive and apparently in good spirits. It was the first piece of good news he had received that day. Well, that wasn't true. That comment on the radio when she said she was going to step out of the car to walk around in the daylight was a good piece of news.
So long as she was even remotely as good as Agent Bill had been he was golden. Her ability to walk in the sun would give his team a huge tactical advantage.
He walked out of the command tent when he heard the SUV approach. He stood there and watched when Eric got out of the driver’s seat and stepped back to open the passenger door.
The woman who got out of the back seat was not what he was expecting. Maybe if he was at a fashion show, perhaps. But not here in the Florida Everglades and he was further surprised to notice that Eric seemed to respect her. He wasn't treating her just like a lady. Most of the guys who grew up in the South had those kinds of manners. No, he was treating her with respect. Like he would a superior officer that he got along with.
Shit, if he didn't watch his step this woman was going to have all of his hardened men eating out of her hands. Well, if Eric and John were any indication.
Now, if she can just fight his night might not be so bad. He went over to introduce himself.
CHAPTER NINE
Everglades, FL USA
Bethany Anne appreciated Eric opening her door. He did it because he wanted to, not because it was a proper and required way to act. It touched her and made a very deep impression on her.
She noticed the Agent In-Charge come out of the tent and start walking over to them. She waited for him to come to her. She didn’t know for sure what he was thinking, but she had a good idea. After the stories that Eric and John shared, she knew any of the agents from 'her' agency had often been accepted as a tactical expediency. It wasn't until Bill died, no replacement occurred and the massive amount of injuries and deaths had occurred on ops had it became obvious they were overmatched without help.
So, she figured that this agent was hurting not only from the deaths in his group, but his pride and he had to be wondering if she was going to be an asset, or a prima donna pain-in-the-ass problem.
She hated not just walking over to him, but by making him come to her, it set the right precedent.
He reached them and put out his hand to shake, ”Agent Dan Bosse."
She met his grip with the same amount of strength as they shook hands. "Bethany Anne, Agent. I understand we have an infestation we need to get rid of quickly, is there any way you believe I can help?"
Agent Bosse was flummoxed for a couple of seconds. He had expected the agent in front of him to, be, well not this exactly. She was professional, polite and radiated capability. He had three decades on the teams and he could tell she had been in the pit before. "Yes, I think you can Agent Anne. Please come with me and I'll get you up to date and I have your requested clothes as well." Dan turned around and started walking back to the tent. If he didn't know better, from people he trusted with his men's lives, he would not believe this woman was more than what she looked like, a sophisticated model.
By the end of the operation, Dan Brown would know that he never, ever wanted to piss this lady off. Then he was going to go pray that she would be the only agent he would have to work with for the rest of his career.
"Agent, it is just Bethany Anne. One name, no last name and I am certainly not an agent."
Dan turned around to look over his shoulder as he was walking, "Oh?"
"Not like you are probably thinking, Agent Bosse. I will help your team through the same contacts that you are familiar with, but I don't have the same position in the Family as Bill did before me."
They went into the large tent being used for the
operations center. There were two laptops and a couple of large screens setup to show weather radar and it looked liked real time satellite tasking on another.
"If it isn't inappropriate, can I ask what your role in the Families happens to be?”
"It hasn't been formally qualified, Agent Bosse. But I think by the time I get to meet everyone, I'm confident some will call me Bethany Anne and to some others I will be known as the 'Queen Bitch'."
He smiled at her, ”with affection?" Dan was trying to figure out when this meeting went off track.
"Oh God, I hope not. If I don't have some upset with me, then I am not doing my job correctly."
Dan couldn't help himself. She was providing more insight into the other side than Bill had in his whole career. "What job is that?"
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…”
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