by Natalie Grey
Claws raked, and his fists moved fast enough to crush the men’s chests with brute force.
They had bullets?
Bullets were nothing.
Stephen was one of the first of Michael’s line, and he had been given new life by the Matriarch.
No armor, no weapons these men had could protect them from him. They raised their guns to fire and he was on them in a blur. They died choking on their own blood, or quickly as their necks snapped, or in a sudden wave of pain as their focus on Stephen blinded them to the threat of the wolf.
When it was over, Stephen stood, his claws coated in blood, his coat torn. He looked around at the faces of the men who had stayed true to money over honor.
And then he looked back to Jennifer, and handed her his coat.
She smiled at him as she slipped it on, and walked unconcerned through the field of bodies and toward the stairs.
“I wonder if there’s any fun left to be had at the lab,” she suggested.
“Quite possibly.” Stephen smiled as he followed her down the steps. “They had three dozen of the new soldiers, not two. I say we take the trucks and make a grand entrance.”
“I do like that idea.” Jennifer smiled over at him. “Just as long as no one tries to shoot you in the back again.”
“Between people trying to shoot me in the back and earning your ire, and people trying to use you as an experiment and earning mine, I see this being a bad day for just about every one of them,” Stephen joked. He handed over her weapons and swung up into the seat of one of the trucks. “Race you there?”
—
Hsu made her way down the hallways, quietly determined.
She was ready.
The idea had come to her in the middle of her first night here, with astonishing clarity. She knew what she had to do, she just had to hope that it would work.
The panel that controlled the commands was lit up, glowing strongly in the dark room. Hsu sat down at the desk and gave a look over her shoulder at the wolves. She could see the gleam of their eyes.
It occurred to her that, much like the last time, she might find herself at their mercy once again. Hopefully not.
She took a deep breath, and typed the commands into the computer. It had taken her some time to find a way to do this. The system really wasn’t set up for it. When she pressed the button, it was with a silent prayer.
There was a clang from behind her as the commands took hold.
Or, really, suggestions.
There are men here in all black, with guns. They are not your friends. But there are also those who are Wechselbalg, like yourselves. They have come to rescue you. Transform back into humans, open your cages, but stay in the labs until your allies come to tell you the hallways are safe.
She watched the power from the generator die until it barely had any strength left for the end of the message.
She looked toward the door in indecision. Should she risk trying this again?
The sound of footsteps decided for her. Hsu sank down behind the desk so that no one passing by would see her, but tried to sneak a glance at the window.
Her heart stopped.
Gerard was walking past, quickly, making for the back of the building.
She was glad she’d stopped to pick up the gun. Legs shaking, Hsu made her way to the door, and followed him into the darkness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The drive should have been pretty, through rolling hills filled with vineyards and gnarled olive trees. The dust on the road kicked up into a clear blue sky.
Maurice could enjoy none of it.
He spent the rest of the drive in a state of paranoid hyperawareness. Every car that approached him produced a spike of fear, and when they passed by without trying to run him off the road, he felt dizzy with the rush of relief.
The three drivers did not talk with one another. Maurice imagined the other two also white-knuckling their steering wheels. They just wanted to get through this.
He was so tired. The others must be, too, but no one suggested they stop. Maurice opened his window to let the winter air buffet him, waking him up with the chill, but it was already fading into a pleasant warmth; it had been a mild year.
They came to the town around midday.
The directions for drop off had been very exact, but he found himself doubting them. They weren’t even on a proper road.
They kept driving, skirting the edge of the town and, at last, turning into a hollow clearing in the hills.
There were two men waiting. No car.
The back of Maurice’s neck prickled. Something about this wasn’t right. He almost shrank away as one of them approached his truck.
“Bonjour.” His French was perfectly accented, and he continued flawlessly. “Are you Maurice?”
“Oui.” Maurice stared at him. “I didn’t know you would speak French.”
“Mais oui.” The man flashed a smile. “You can unhook your trailer and continue into town.”
He seemed so friendly that Maurice felt himself relax. More than anything, he wanted to stretch his legs and sleep. He didn’t care about the order. But he also thought he would help this man. He opened the cab and climbed down.
“I can help you load the goods when your trucks come,” he offered.
“That won’t be necessary.” The man’s pleasant smile didn’t waver. “But thank you. You didn’t have any more trouble on the road after those cars, did you?”
Maurice stared at him, chilled again. “How did you know about that?”
The man’s eyes slid away from his. He clearly wasn’t prepared to answer that. “I am sorry,” he offered. “We didn’t think you would be quite such a, er, target.”
“Thank you for everything,” the other man cut in. He gave the first one a sharp look. “I’ll help you unhook your cab, and you can be on your way. The money should already be transferred to your employer’s account.”
Maurice swallowed. He nodded jerkily as the second man started unhooking the lines to the cab.
The five men worked in silence. Maurice’s fellow drivers gave him sharp looks, clearly questioning what explanation he’d been given for everything, and Maurice could only shrug helplessly. These men seemed fairly nice. They hadn’t demanded anything else before payment, and they hadn’t even looked in the trucks.
They’d even seemed genuinely sorry about the armored cars.
How had they known about that, though?
Unless….
Unless they had been the ones who somehow ruined those cars and made them drive off the road.
Maurice redoubled his efforts. He was even more terrified now. If these men could do that, he wanted to be gone from here as soon as possible.
The three drivers climbed into their cabs with a quick farewell to the man, and drove away without another word. No questions. No jokes. You didn’t ask questions of people that had clearly gotten a shipment of weapons, and you definitely didn’t joke with them.
It was only when he was halfway back to the town that he noticed the missed calls on his phone—eleven of them, from Henri. With an oath, Maurice picked the phone up and dialed Henri’s number, and he was not surprised when Henri picked up at once.
“Tell me you’re still driving,” Henri said immediately.
“No. We left the trucks.”
Henri swore, inventively.
“What? What happened?” Maurice felt anger start. “Did they not pay?”
“Oh, they paid,” Henri assured him. “But we had another offer. The same amount, to delay as much as possible and stay with the trucks. The offer was from the Chinese government, if you can believe it. Can you go back?”
Maurice shook his head before remembering that Henri couldn’t see him. He chose his words carefully. “Henri, we were attacked on the road, and the attack vanished, as if by magic. These people have powerful enemies. They are powerful, too. It is best to take the money we have, and not get in the middle of their fights. You don’t want t
o be a witness to any more of this. I say we liquidate the company and take new names. Make it difficult for them to find us later. I don’t know what this was, but it must have been bad.”
He had never contradicted Henri like this, and he could tell that the other man was surprised.
But, finally, the other man said, “I understand. Whatever was in those trucks, it is best if we never know more about it.”
Maurice nodded as he hung up.
It would be a long time before he stopped looking over his shoulder, he decided. It would also be a long time before he stopped wondering what had been in those trucks. Drugs? Weapons? There was no way to know.
He could only go to church, beg forgiveness, and then try to start over.
He was lucky he had escaped with his life.
—
William scrambled up to the top of the shipping container and opened a small window to peer into the darkness.
The radio at his side crackled. “How do they look?”
Bethany Anne. He suppressed a smile.
“Everything looks all right from here. They’re in the boxes, and the boxes are wrapped to keep out moisture.”
“Tracking devices?”
“I’m sure of it,” William answered without hesitation. “But we have a few things up our sleeves that they aren’t expecting. As soon as Bobcat’s back, we’ll be able to get all of this taken up immediately.”
It was risky to have the Pods come down in the middle of the day, but after the attacks on the road and the “accident” with the blown tire in the Pyrenees, they had decided that it was best to extract the shoes while Hugo’s new hired soldiers were busy at the castle and the labs, fighting off Stephen and the rest.
Bethany Anne gave a small sigh that transferred through the radio in a tiny puff of crackling. “And we still don’t know why they were trying to destroy the shoes?” She sounded one part contemplative, one part mortally offended that anyone would even think of destroying designer shoes like that.
“Not the faintest idea,” William admitted. “We thought they wanted to track them.”
A shout came from below. Marcus waved up at him and cupped his hands to shout. “Sixteen tracking devices so far!”
William shook his head as he climbed down from the shipping container. “I really don’t get it, then. Maybe they just wanted to piss you off, ma’am?”
“Well, they’ve succeeded.” Her voice changed. “Wait. Why are you waiting for Bobcat? Why isn’t he with you?”
“He said he had to get something in town,” William explained. “I’ll tell him that the trucks are here.”
“Do that,” Bethany Anne advised. “Tell him we don’t have time to fuck around on this one. As soon as you’ve disabled those tracking devices, the shoes need to come up. ADAM just intercepted a transmission from the Chinese. They’re trying to hire mercenaries. I’d get out of there soon if I were you.”
William swore. “Thanks. I’ll get our devices up and working, and I’ll tell Bobcat to get back here. I don’t even know what the hell was so important that he had to go back for it.”
—
Bobcat’s phone rang, and he fumbled to pick it up while keeping his eyes on the road. He was coming into town now, and in this sleepy little town, the road was dotted with chickens, goats, and people ambling to and fro.
He honked and swerved.
“What is it?”
“The shoes are here,” William told him. “And we have to leave soon, because the Chinese—get this—are calling in mercenaries.”
Bobcat rolled his eyes as he swerved again and took a corner too hard. He waved a hand at an old lady who shouted after him in Catalan.
“You need to come back,” William said urgently. “Right now.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Bobcat hung up before William could say anything more. His phone started ringing again a moment later, but he didn’t answer it.
The warehouse was only three streets away. The warehouse… and his seven crates of rare hops. His supplier had refused to leave the warehouse to bring him the crates early, so Bobcat was just going to have to retrieve them himself.
Except that, as he came around the corner, he realized why the supplier had said they couldn’t leave just now.
Seven trucks of hired guards had come into town the night before. Two had gone to the castle. Three had gone to the laboratories. One had gone to the drop point.
And one was here.
Waiting. In the town.
Bobcat took a hard left and swerved around the back way, picking up speed. He heard a shout behind him and swore. With one hand, he tried to dial the number of his contact here.
“Si?”
“Open the warehouse back doors,” Bobcat shouted into the phone. “And be ready to close them immediately!”
It occurred to him, vaguely, that most people would have turned around and made a run for it.
But most people, in his opinion, didn’t care nearly enough about beer.
—
Peter transformed as he loped up the corridor, and he opened the door into one of the labs cautiously. His eyes swept the room and stopped at the prone figure of a scientist, a tall man whose head had been crushed in an animal’s jaws.
He could not see the Wechselbalg.
But he could hear them, faintly. They were waiting to see who he was.
“I am one of you.” Peter gestured to his naked body, and then transformed, quickly.
They came out at once, and he transformed back.
“We were told you were coming,” one of them said in Spanish. “Are the hired guards dead?”
“Not all of them,” Peter admitted. “But we have two trucks coming to take you to safety, and there is a safe path to the outside.” He paused. “Who told you we were coming?”
“One of the scientists. They told us through the machine.” The woman pointed to the switchboard. “Could you not hear it?”
“The labs are shielded from the outside,” another one explained to her. “If you aren’t in the room, you don’t feel the signal.”
“I thought you needed a chip to feel the signal.” Peter was worried now.
“No. It can be done to anyone.” The woman shook her head. “It isn’t safe in these rooms. We need to get all the prisoners out as fast as we can.”
Peter nodded decisively. “We’ll move quickly. Go to the right when you get out, take those stairs, and exit out the back stairwell. Two people will arrive in armored trucks. We’ll handle any fighting.”
The Wechselbalg hesitated.
“There was another facility like this in Sofia,” Peter told them quietly. “In Bulgaria. They decided to stay and fight, because they wanted the scientists and guards to suffer. All of them were killed. We don’t want that to happen here. We will make sure that these people pay for their crimes, but we want all of you to escape as well.”
The Wechselbalg nodded. They had seen proof that Peter was one of them, and they understood the necessity of getting their children out. They might regret not striking the killing blow themselves, but they knew that it would fall.
“Thank you,” one of them murmured, as they took their children and joined the stream of Wechselbalg in the halls, following Irina to the back exit of the facility.
They were moving quietly, but Peter knew it was only a matter of time until the rest of the guards here found out about them. In the darkness, he picked out Nathan’s form as he started ascending to the next level, using the stairs at the other end of the hallway.
Peter nodded to Stoyan to follow him to the other set of stairs.
He could smell the coppery scent of blood in the air. The Wechselbalg had already taken their vengeance on the scientists.
Now it lay to the Queen’s followers to take care of the guards.
—
Jennifer parked the truck outside the back doorway and left it running as she moved to haul open the doors into the interior. Stephen park
ed beside her and left his truck running as well. He moved quickly and efficiently as he prepared the inside of the truck to hold as many escapees as possible.
Jennifer smiled. It seemed especially satisfying to be using the guard’s own equipment to help the Wechselbalg who were trapped here.
She looked around when the back door opened slowly and Irina poked her head out. The woman smiled when she saw Stephen and Jennifer, and motioned some people out into the alleyway.
They moved quickly, blushing at their nakedness, and Jennifer made sure to meet their eyes and smile as they piled into the truck. One or two of them recognized her, and one man told her, “I am glad they didn’t figure out what you were.”
“They did in the end,” Jennifer said. “Well, Hugo did. But I took care of him.”
There was a ragged cheer from the group of escapees.
They kept streaming through the doors, and soon both trucks were packed.
Jennifer handed the keys to one of the men, who was dressed in a thin, ragged shirt and pants. “Here. There’s a map in the front seat, and I marked it with where to go and leave people. There should be three trucks and three guys there. I’ll call ahead to let them know that the people in the armored trucks aren’t the guards.”
The man laughed. “Thanks. I’d hate to get shot at by allies. I’ll come back with the truck to get the next set, too.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Jennifer explained. “There are three more trucks here. We can take those.”
They waved as the trucks drove away, and then waited for Stephen to bring back the other trucks. His coat was enough to make Jennifer look normal while she drove, but she would definitely turn some heads if she tried to walk around the building and to the parking lot in just that.
When the rest of the Wechselbalg were loaded into the trucks, Jennifer gave them directions and they drove, truck by truck, into the hot noonday sun and toward freedom.
>>Marcus and William have been informed that these trucks are holding allies,<< ADAM told her. >>We will begin extraction at once.<<
“Thank you, ADAM. And, where’s Bobcat?”
>>Bobcat is in a warehouse. I cannot trace its ownership and neither Marcus nor William seems to know what he’s doing there. He claims it’s important.<<
