Dimitri covered the main goals and made sure each member knew their role and the plan. He rolled his shoulders and several others cracked their knuckles.
“All right. Load up and let’s go.” He turned to Oksana and in a rare show of passion, he grabbed her and dipped her low and kissed her deeply. When he righted her, her cheeks were crimson, and her chest heaved. Oksana threw her arms around him and murmured in his ear. Kat felt bad for her uncle; the only ones left behind at the campsite were Oksana, Rebecca, Claire, and Granny. Every single member of the family was needed for this endeavor. Their numbers were thin enough. This wasn’t just a recon mission or a grab and go. They needed to do real battle and take the Barotkoffs out. The best protection the family could provide for the women was for Christopher to shift the campsite proprietor into believing he must keep any visitors off the campsite property and protect it with his life, whatever the cost. Fortunately, the man was a good old Southern boy and had his own rifle and ammo at the ready. The women were also armed. Claire had taken her training seriously and was the best shot of all, but Oksana and Rebecca could hold their own if need be.
The other couples also shared brief moments of passion before Dimitri cleared his throat and lassoed his index finger in the air. “Let’s go! May God bless us in what we must do.”
Oksana gulped a sob as they left.
When Kat climbed into the backseat of the car next to Christopher, she swiveled and saw Oksana and Rebecca holding each other in the light, surrounded by the darkness of night. Claire stood close to them, her arms wrapped around her torso in a rigid posture. Granny remained ensconced in her RV working with her gamers. Kat turned to face front as the two cars bumped down the dirt pathway that led to the front entrance of the campsite. The lead car, driven by her uncle, stopped and approached the proprietor, who had set up a barricade of sorts. After talking briefly with the man, he moved the barricade aside and let the two cars pass with a wave before putting the barricade back in place after they pulled through.
Robert drove the car Kat rode in and turned the radio on to an AM news channel.
Kat heard reports that the President was recovering well and expected to be discharged from the hospital today, the would-be assassin’s name was released, and he remained under supervision in a psychiatric hospital. Another cyber-attack had occurred against the largest tech company in the world. Their Asian operations were severely affected. The news from Europe was grim. The financial markets that were open this time of night were in a tailspin, which was expected to affect Wall Street when it opened. The words “world-wide depression” were bandied about. Kat pressed her hand into her stomach and took deep breaths.
“We’ll fix this,” Christopher murmured.
“Dang right we will,” Steven replied loudly.
Kat glanced at her younger brother and saw that his jaw quivered in the light from the dash. His bravado was a show and she knew it. She reached over and squeezed his knee. “I know. We got this.” She leaned closer. “Relax for now, Steven. You’ll be all right.”
Steven clenched his jaw and nodded. His shoulders relaxed against the seat. “Okay.” He let out a jagged breath.
They drove for almost an hour to reach the far northwest perimeter of the compound’s location. The cars pulled behind a thicket and the passengers climbed out. The vehicles were covered with branches and the group huddled together while Dimitri doled out final instructions with hand gestures to disperse the group to their designated zones.
“Testing, testing, testing,” he whispered.
Kat heard her uncle’s voice loud and clear in her ear and gave him a thumb up, as did every other member.
Dimitri snapped his fingers and they dispersed into teams.
Kat and Christopher bent over and crept along the darkened landscape to take their positions, her heart hammering in her chest. She took a deep breath to calm herself. All her senses were on high alert as they crept closer and closer in the darkness until they reached their appointed spot.
“Check,” Christopher whispered.
Soon, every team had checked in that they were in place.
“Now,” Dimitri whispered.
Kat looked at Christopher, whose eyes started to glow. A dense fog appeared on the ground and moved with slow stealth around the trees and toward the open meadow that led to the Barotkoff compound. Christopher kept it slow so that even in the darkness it would not be noticed. At least, they hoped it wouldn’t be. Kat watched with rapt attention as the fog emerged from the darkness of the trees and crept into the meadow until it reached the base of the structure’s wall. Then it expanded upward until it reached the roof line, then the treetops.
“Ready,” Christopher whispered.
Kat and Christopher advanced into the meadow with the fog as cover. Even though the pair couldn’t see the other teams, they knew they were also moving according to the plan. Once Kat and Christopher reached their destination, they hunkered down and waited. Kat stared into Christopher’s eyes, which glowed brightly in the darkness, and he gazed at her. He reached out and grabbed her hand. She squeezed his firmly. They didn’t speak a word.
This was it. Either they won, or they lost it all.
Kat drew in a deep lungful of air. Christopher stroked her palm with his thumb.
“Ready,” Peter’s voice whispered into their ears. “See y’all on the other side.” He, along with Julia and Anna, would remain on radio silence for the duration of their part of the mission.
Kat and Christopher nodded and counted to thirty in silence. At twenty-five seconds, Kat’s muscles clenched, and she readied herself.
“Now!” Dimitri hissed into their ears.
Christopher and Kat whipped around and took aim at two security cameras, both firing their Glocks with precision. The discharge of the weapons was muted by the silencers. The loudest sounds came from the cameras as they shattered in the dark Georgia night. Several similar sounds echoed as the other teams fired at other security cameras.
“We’re on the wall,” Robert hissed. Kat and Christopher waited for the soon-to-follow instructions. In under a minute, it came. “Christopher?”
“I’m on it.” Christopher turned his attention to the stone wall, which hid the courtyard that Kat had spent time with Boris in. His eyes glowed like the sun and storm clouds formed directly over the courtyard. Soon, there was a deluge of rain like a flood pouring into the courtyard. Water seeped out of drainage spouts along the bottom of the stone wall, but they were insufficient to remove the water because Robert and Dimitri had plugged them. The courtyard would soon fill enough to prevent any doors from opening onto it, thus forcing the occupants out another way.
A muted explosion was heard, followed by another, and another as Anastasia and Steven dropped tear gas cannisters down chimneys and any other openings they found on the roof. They were going to flush the Barotkoffs out like the prey they were.
Shouts and screams were heard inside the compound.
“The hornet’s nest has been stirred,” Anastasia whispered. “Get ready.”
Kat tensed onto the balls of her feet and waited. She knew Robert and Mariya, as well as Dimitri and Alexander, were covering the doors that led from the main above ground building to the outside. Out of the corner of her eye, Kat saw flashes of light through the fog; her family shifted in preparation for the onslaught. She was to wait until she knew who her target was before she shifted. The brightness of her shimmer would alert the Barotkoffs to her location. This was where she would play her part as the bait. Kat could sense tension radiating from Christopher and her glance flickered toward him briefly. He was as tense as she had ever seen him. She nodded at him, then readied herself to do battle.
Moments later, the doors of the compound flew open. Shouts and cries of rage filled the night sky as a horde advanced on them. Kat’s eyes whipped around as the fog quickly dissipated and revealed the approaching enemy.
Kat focused on the small crowd that ran straight for her. She p
ulled out her Glock, took aim, and fired until it emptied. Each person she shot dropped like a fly. Four large men roared as they drew closer. Kat shifted into a large gorilla and attacked the first man to reach her. Her large teeth tore into the tender flesh at his neck. She felt the sinewy muscle and bone give beneath her strong jaw as the head separated from the body and dropped, limp, to the ground. The other three men attacked her. One jumped on her back and pummeled her with his fists, which felt like a beating from an angry and weak child. The other two flung themselves at her, kicking and swinging. She took the head off a second attacker, then tore the third in two with ease. She grabbed the attacker on her back and dispatched with him just as easily. Others replaced the ones she had killed, but when she reached for her seventh attacker, just as she was going for his neck she caught sight of his eyes.
They weren’t glowing.
In a split second, she stopped and held him at arm’s length. The attacker continued to flail and buck in her arms, his face filled with mindless rage. Kat detected not even a trace of fear.
Oh, no! Kat thought. These aren’t Barotkoffs, they’re human!
She glanced around. They were all human! They had been shifted and were being used as cannon fodder, just as she predicted. Another person leaped on Kat’s back and tried to strangle her, but the man’s arms barely reached around her neck. Even if they had, the force would not have been strong enough to cause her any harm.
Kat’s large, furry head swung around and took in the scene before her. All around her were dead, maimed bodies. She saw even more of the same the farther away her eyes went as she saw her family dispatching with their attackers. Her first instinct was to shift back and tell her family they were killing humans, but if she shifted to human form, these humans would kill her. Screams and cries of pain resounded as one sickening, unending chorus.
Kat was trapped. Another human attacked her, and she held him at arm’s length while her mind raced. She didn’t want to hurt another person; they had no idea what they were doing.
Kat’s breathing became labored as she agonized. Suddenly, a thought occurred. She shimmered and shifted into a rhinoceros. This form was large enough that she wouldn’t have to do anything to protect herself from their onslaught any more than a human would have to fend off an attack by a fly; it was merely a nuisance. The humans that attacked her fell to the side, then moved in a different direction. One roared and tried to climb on her back but could not. Kat ignored him and tried to corral the ice in her chest to do her bidding. She had to try something she had never done before.
She lowered her large head and groaned with effort. The ice responded, then resisted her efforts. Kat turned her gaze to the largest crowd on her right. There were multiple flashes coming from the center of it. Kat ground her teeth and made guttural sounds. Kat did a mental with the ice. She and the ice thrusted, lunged, and parried with each other. By sheer force of will, she won out and felt a shot of cold so fierce that her mind went numb for a moment. Inside, she screamed. Outside, she emitted a deep guttural groan as she pressed and forced the ice out of her. Those around her instinctively shielded their eyes from her shimmer. The ice flowed from her in a wide arc and she pressed it as far from herself as she could. She must reach the last human she could. This had to stop.
When she could take it no longer, her rhinoceros form shriveled, and she became her human self again. The attackers fell away as she blocked the Barotkoff’s effect on them. The rage was replaced by bewilderment which quickly became fear. The screams of rage turned to screams of terror as the shifting effect was removed from the humans. Most of the humans fell to the ground, then scrambled either on two feet or on all fours to escape the horror around them, unable to comprehend it. Many staggered off into the woods screaming at the top of their lungs.
“Stop! Stop! They’re humans! They’re not Barotkoffs!” she cried hoarsely into her mouthpiece. Her whole body shook, and she felt as weak as a newborn kitten.
Urgent whispers filled her ears, but she couldn’t hear them. She quivered and collapsed to the ground on her hands and knees and felt her strength leave her. She was utterly spent.
Without warning, more shouts filled her ears, but it sounded as though it came through a tunnel. Kat fought to remain conscious. She struggled to draw her breath in and let it out. She could not stop now. The fight continued! Had she not reached them all? Had more shifted humans been released? Kat’s fingers curled into the moist soil and she attempted to find some reserve of strength to continue.
Suddenly, strong arms encompassed her and lifted her over equally powerful shoulders. Christopher must have found her. She sighed with relief. He moved in a zigzag pattern over the terrain. Kat couldn’t tell which direction they were headed. He was probably taking her into the trees to rest and fortify herself.
He ducked, and Kat discerned a stark difference in atmosphere. They had not entered the trees. Kat pressed her hands into the back and tried to push up to look around, but was too weak to do so in the upside-down position she was in. Gravity was not her friend. The air went from humid to dry and...air-conditioned? Kat’s senses perked up, even though she remained weak. Why had Christopher brought her inside the compound? That wasn’t part of the plan.
They stopped moving, and she was pulled back over the shoulders and righted. She was held in a pair of very strong arms. Kat’s half-open eyes beheld a face mere inches from her own.
Her savior wasn’t Christopher. And he wasn’t her savior. He was her captor.
It was Boris.
Kat bit back a scream.
Boris’ face stretched into a cruel smile. He pressed his mouth to hers hard until she tasted her own blood. When he drew back, his eyes gleamed with pure evil.
“Hello again, sweet foolish Kat. I’ve missed you.” He reached up and caressed her cheek. She recoiled from his touch. “Oh, how I’ve missed you. I’m sure you missed me, too, didn’t you?” One hand snaked under her shirt and grasped her sore ribs.
“Bring her,” A harsh, deep voice barked.
Boris looked off to his left and chuckled. He stared into her face again. “Let’s have some fun, shall we?”
Kat tried to struggle, but her strength was thoroughly tapped. All she could manage was a pathetic wiggle.
Boris scooped her into his arms and carried her over to the voice. Kat turned her head and saw Vladimir. He looked like a maniacal madman with the wide, bright eyes that only the criminally insane possess.
“Ah, here is our wayward guest. You did not like our hospitality, Katherine? That’s a shame. Well, we must remedy that.” He turned to the side and picked up an object just outside of Kat’s line of sight. He held it aloft between his thumb and forefinger as though he were holding a precious and rare jewel. It looked like a jumbo-sized, misshapen bulbous microchip about the size of a light bulb. “Do you know what this is, Katherine?”
Kat stared at him and didn’t answer.
He continued. “This is an exquisite device, an extraordinary invention that we have created.”
A distant scream and loud thump sounded somewhere close by, probably outside.
Vladimir ignored it and stared at the lumpy piece of metal. He twisted his wrist and looked at the object from different angles. “It’s...how can I say this? It’s a great negotiator. Yes, that’s it. It’s the most amazing negotiator in all of history. And yet, it’s so small.”
Kat felt her strength return by a mere inch. She worked to call forth the ice, but it had weakened along with the rest of her and couldn’t respond.
“It was never intended for you, you understand. But,” he shrugged, “here we are. One must always remain flexible in one’s approach if one intends to win and fulfill one’s destiny.” He turned his gaze on Kat and she shivered. “I intend to win, dear Katherine. You see, this device, when crushed becomes an amazing...shall we say...deliverer of death in the most painful way one can imagine. It enters into your system as both a poison and a dagger. Bits and pieces of it sli
de down your throat and into your lungs to shred your airway. At the same time, the poison burns your blood vessels like fire from the inside.” He let out an hysterical hyena laugh. “We Barotkoffs know about fire, do we not, Boris?”
Boris chortled and nodded.
Another thump sounded, this time louder.
Vladimir’s gaze snapped to the sound and his face hardened. “Come.” He hurried past them, still carrying the device aloft.
Boris bent down and bit Kat’s neck hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to break the skin. “I was going to go easy on you, sweet Kat. No more. You will still be mine, if you survive.” His voice was a growl.
I’ll die first, Kat thought. And take you with me, you sick animal. Her strength returned another few inches, but she remained limp. It hadn’t returned fully enough to make a difference, and she didn’t want to let on that it returned at all.
Boris whipped around so hard that Kat’s head snapped to the side. She bit her lip to remain silent, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing her make a sound. He marched after his uncle. They turned to the left, then to the right and up a set of stairs before she felt and smelled outside air. They must be on the roof. Kat heard the sounds of fighting carried on the air. She couldn’t tell who was winning or losing, only that there was a battle down below.
“Here. Get her in position,” Vladimir ordered.
Boris unceremoniously dumped Kat’s legs onto the floor of wherever they were, stood behind her, and held her arms and torso in a vice grip with his powerful arm. With his other hand, he clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Light!” Vladimir yelled.
Kat was momentarily blinded by a bright light.
“STOP!” Vladimir roared. “I will kill your precious Katherine if you do not stop right now!” He held up the piece of metal. “This device will kill her slowly and painfully.” He turned toward Kat.
Revelations: The Shifter Series: Volume Three Page 22
