Damned Into Hell: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Trials And Tribulations Book 2)

by Natalie Grey

  She turned back to track the Pods’ progress through the atmosphere. Even after having seen another mission, she could still hardly believe how quickly the Pods moved. Even free fall through the atmosphere was nowhere near as fast.

  They were approaching the drop point.

  Despite herself, she held her breath. She could try to assist and respond as quickly as humanly possible, but when it got to this point, she could only watch and pray.

  Catalonia, Spain

  Bobcat caught the sight of the descending Pods out of his peripheral vision and took a sudden, sharp left onto another road.

  He couldn’t let the driver of the truck see those Pods. So far, he didn’t think they’d figured out that Bobcat was leading them in circles, but that illusion wouldn’t hold for very long if they saw alien technology coming to hover over a nearby hill.

  “’Try to draw them off,’” he muttered, mocking Marcus’s voice. Was the man insane? Did he think Bobcat was happy to just drive around with a target practically painted on his back?

  The truck honked. He looked over his shoulder and saw that they were motioning for him to slow down.

  They were clearly frustrated that they were getting nowhere, and he was almost tempted to see what they had to say.

  Except, what were the odds that they would just shoot him?

  The truck swerved and put on a burst of speed, jolting dangerously over bumpy ground beside the dirt road, and the driver leaned out the window to yell.

  “You should surrender!” he called in English.

  Bobcat snorted.

  In reality, he wasn’t pleased to realize that the only thing keeping the truck from coming up alongside him was that they were afraid of driving off-road. This wasn’t good for him.

  “We’ve called in backup!” the driver yelled. He pointed to the curve of the hills. “We have another truck there—just surrender now, and we won’t hurt you!”

  While they might make that claim, they were inevitably planning to turn him over to Hugo, who definitely would hurt him.

  Which made this guy a liar.

  A damned liar.

  “No thanks!” Bobcat called over.

  “Just surrender!” The driver was clearly frustrated. “You know you’re going to have to sooner or later!”

  Except he’d seen those Pods coming down, and he was pretty sure he’d just seen one go back up in his rearview mirror.

  “ADAM? Is the castle clear?”

  >>Yes. All of our personnel are out, and the building was entirely cleared before they left.<<

  “And could you, ah, could you arrange for some sort of poison or something to take out these guys as soon as they arrive?”

  >>Lethal or non-lethal?<<

  “Lethal. They’ve had their chance to back down, and they just lied to try to get me to surrender to Hugo.”

  >>Noted. I can take care of it.<<

  “Thank you.” Bobcat looked over at the truck and grinned at the driver. “Tell you what,” he shouted. “I’ll race you back to the castle. You know, so you can see the wolves.”

  The driver went white as a sheet. “Wolves?”

  “Yeah! Wolves! Hugo’s been breeding these really big wolves.” Like hell he was going to admit what they actually were.

  “There are actually wolves?”

  “Sure!” Bobcat spun the wheel and nearly jolted his teeth out of his head with a bumpy ride back to the road. “Come on! You should definitely see them!”

  There were shouts as the truck accelerated away, back toward the castle, leaving him in the dust.

  Bobcat laughed until his sides hurt. Then he wiped his eyes, turned the car, and headed for the drop point.

  —

  “This way.” Marcus held a child’s hand so they could climb up into the darkness of the Pod. The first was already away, and the other four were loading quickly.

  “Where are we going?” the child asked him. His dark brown hair lay in soft waves against his head. Behind the bruises and the too-thin frame, and beyond the instinctive fear he had learned in the labs, he had the curiosity of any child. He wanted to be going someplace good, even though he’d stopped believing that would really happen.

  Somehow, that hope made the rest of it even more heartbreaking.

  Marcus tried not to clench his hand around the boy’s fingers. He wanted to leave, go to the lab, throttle the scientists with his bare hands.

  How dared they do any of this?

  Instead he forced a smile. “You’re going to a ship,” he said seriously. “It’s called the Archangel. There are people there who will make sure the people who hurt you can never hurt anyone else. Ever again.”

  The kid gave a trembling smile.

  Behind him, a woman laid her hand on his thin shoulder. She had the same eyes as his, large and dark, and she’d wrapped a blanket over her naked form. She ushered him into the darkness, but stopped to look at Marcus.

  “Why are you helping us?” she asked him.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” Marcus told her simply. “Someone who hurts people like that? They have to be stopped. Don’t worry—where you’re going, you’ll be safe. I promise. And Hugo is going to die.”

  The woman smiled then. “I know. I met the people who were going to kill him. Thank you.” She pushed her way into the darkness.

  “All Pods are loaded.” The communications officer on the Archangel spoke quietly in Marcus’s ear. “Should I begin extraction?”

  “One moment.” Marcus gave one last look around the interior of the Pod and a tentative thumbs up. Once everyone in there gave a thumbs up back, he stepped back to let the door snap closed. He checked the other three as well. “All right, we’re good. Take ‘em away.”

  “Stand by.”

  The Pods rose into the air with astonishing rapidity, and Marcus stumbled forward in the rush of air they left behind.

  William was just hopping down from the last storage container. He tapped his ear. “Take ‘em up fifteen feet.”

  The Pods rose into the air and hauled the storage containers along with them, creaking slightly in the wind. Devices gleamed at regular intervals along the sides. They were blocking the tracking signals embedded in the containers.

  “Sec….” William pressed a button on a control pad.

  The sealant systems snapped closed around each one of the shipping containers, and the control pad blinked green.

  “Ha!” William gave Marcus a high five. “Take ‘em up! Let’s get those shoes in orbit!”

  The containers shot skyward, following the Pods full of escaped Wechselbalg, and the two guys shaded their eyes to watch them until they disappeared from view.

  They turned as the sound of a car reached their ears. A few seconds later, Bobcat’s GTO pulled into view and screeched to a stop. Bullet holes and dents pockmarked its sides, and everything in it—including Bobcat, himself—was coated in dust.

  “What the hell happened to you?” William asked.

  “Marcus decided I should be the bait in a car chase,” Bobcat explained. He gave Marcus a look. “Which I have not yet forgiven him for.

  “You enjoyed it,” Marcus said, grinning. “Bet you had fun yelling insults at them.” He frowned. “Speaking of which, where are they?”

  “Oh, they’re on their way to the castle. I think they’d heard there might be wolves, so when I mentioned wolves—”

  “You told them about the—”

  “Let me finish. As I was saying, when I told them about the wolves at the castle, they went racing off. They won’t find anything,” Bobcat added. “But ADAM will have a nice surprise waiting for them when they get there.”

  “Nice as in…” Marcus raised an eyebrow.

  “As in, lethal.” Bobcat gave them a look. “They tried to get me to surrender to Hugo, the bastards. ‘We won’t hurt you.’ Yeah, sure, you’ll just turn me over to a mass-murderer who runs torture labs. Don’t ask me to feel sorry for them.” He waved a hand as William wen
t to pick up one of the boxes. “No! No. I’ll get those.”

  “Why?” William asked suspiciously.

  “Just because. No real reason. You, ah… you hook up the car. And don’t look in the crates. They’re filled with… spiders…”

  Marcus and William gave the crates a side-eye, but they hurried to hook the car up for its shielding.

  “This thing’s beaten up enough that it’s going to take forever to restore,” William muttered.

  “Yeah, but how could you not?” Marcus questioned. He patted the flank of the car affectionately. “It’s a car with rocket launchers.”

  “Yeah, I see your point.”

  A few moments later, they heard Bethany Anne’s voice in their earpieces.

  “Is everything good to go? Because it looks like your friends in the truck might have realized they made a mistake, and those police cars followed the truck at first, but now they’re calling in backup to where you are.”

  “Shit!” Bobcat hurried to load the last crate into the Pod. “Come on, guys! Move! And someone figured out how to take out an armored truck!”

  “We’ll handle that with some pucks,” Bethany Anne informed them. “You all get your asses out of there. And Bobcat, get ready for an explanation as to why you went into town and got an armored car chasing you in the first place.”

  Bobcat swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  They hurried into the darkened interior and everyone leaned back in their seats as the door snapped closed and the Pod began to ascend.

  And then, in the darkness, Bobcat heard two noses sniffing at the faint, herbal scent wafting out of the crates.

  “Bobcat,” Marcus said conversationally.

  “Yeah?”

  “You know you’re going to have to share those hops with us.”

  Bobcat sank his head into his hands as Marcus and William started laughing.

  Back to square one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  His leg was aching fiercely.

  Gerard swore as he limped around the roof, readying his escape. A video monitor near the door showed a view of the town, quiet and quaint.

  And the pile of explosives in the village square.

  The people of the town didn’t know what they were, but his pursuers would—and this would buy Gerard his escape.

  It would buy him more than that, over the years to come. For far too long, he’d lived in a world that held back the strong and lifted up the weak. It was why he had been glad to serve Hugo. One could only restrain the natural order for so long. It was best that the strong were allowed to rise, and establish themselves.

  But he had been held back, too, by Hugo’s antiquated ideas of honor.

  There were only two kinds of people in the world: the strong and the weak. Those who used others, and those who were used. The weak had no other purpose but to be pawns in the games played by the strong.

  Hugo had always been going on about the duty of lords to their serfs. True, he demanded their service—and at times, their lives—but he believed that his obligation to provide them with peace and prosperity was absolute.

  Gerard had no such ridiculous ideas.

  He would create the world he wanted. For him, not for some outdated notion of chivalry.

  This was why Hugo was dead, and Gerard was alive. He would be flying away from here, safe, while the scientists bled out downstairs. None of them had been strong enough to try to win on their own.

  He paused. Except, of course, Hsu.

  He admitted to himself, grudgingly, that he could at least admire her somewhat. After all, she was the only one who’d had the courage and the brains to persist in her goal.

  Yes, he could admire that. She’d lost, of course. That was what happened when you played a game you weren’t strong enough to win.

  But at least she had played it.

  The rotors on the helicopter shuddered into motion, and Gerard smiled. Where Hugo delegated everything to pilots and secretaries and administrators, Gerard would do everything himself. He would not be sitting in the helicopter, yelling for someone to take off. He would fly the damned thing himself.

  Now that he thought of it, it really was incredible that it had taken this long for Hugo to be assassinated. The man had been a complete idiot.

  Gerard shook his head and checked the fuel and pressure gauges one last time.

  He didn’t even hear the shot. He just felt the blinding pain as he tumbled sideways out of the helicopter and hit the concrete. His arm was on fire, and there was a ringing in his ears. He turned his head slowly and saw a mess of blood.

  He’d left his gun on the seat of the helicopter.

  He pushed himself up woozily and turned.

  “You?”

  “You were pointing the gun right at me and you didn’t think to shoot it again?” She spoke Bulgarian with a sneer, making him translate rather than deigning to speak his mother tongue. “Idiot. You deserve to die for that alone.”

  Her finger tightened on the trigger.

  He threw his hands out. “Wait!”

  “Do you really think anything you say now will sway me?”

  “Yes.” He began to laugh. The sound was too high; he really was losing a lot of blood. “There are bombs in the town. If I’m not still alive in twenty-five minutes to give a command to the computers, they’ll go off. Do you know how many people live there?”

  Her hand tightened on the gun, but she swallowed. “You’re lying.”

  “Look at the monitor.” He pointed.

  She waited a moment, looking at him like she was sure it was a trap.

  It was, but it wasn’t a lie. The trap was her own honor.

  “It’s up to you,” Gerard said conversationally. “Do you want eight thousand lives on your conscience, or do you just want to let me go?”

  “You’ll set them off anyway.”

  “You know I won’t. How does that benefit me?”

  “How does it benefit you if you’re dead?” she snapped.

  “If I’m dead, I don’t give a damn if the whole world burns,” he told her flatly. He tried not to sway into the side of the helicopter. He was losing blood, but she was worse off. “What’s it going to be, Hsu? Me and them? Or is everyone going to survive?”

  She hesitated, and that was enough. He took two quick steps and grabbed his gun, and she dove out of sight behind the monitor as he shot. Her own answering shot went wild and he hauled himself into the helicopter, laughing.

  He threw his head back with a feral grin as the blades picked up speed and the craft rose into the air.

  There were only two types of people. And underneath all of that resolve, Hsu was weak.

  That was why she would always lose.

  He set the course into his computer and reached over for the med kit.

  Now he just had to make it to the airstrip, and then to the facility, before the blood loss got him.

  —

  On the roof, Hsu hung her head. Tears splashed, hot, over her hands.

  She’d missed her shot. There was no way she would ever forgive herself for this.

  The door behind her burst open, and a man ran out onto the roof, followed by a wolf. The man swore as he watched the helicopter recede.

  “Not. Again.” He forced the words out through gritted teeth.

  Hsu tried to push herself up and found her legs were too weak. She fell, blue sky above her.

  “Are you all right?” The man’s face swam into view. Handsome and young, it would have been flawless if it hadn’t also been spattered with blood.

  “He said… bombs.” Hsu felt her face screw up and she let out a sob. She hadn’t wanted to go out like this, crying like a baby, but she had failed at the one thing she swore she would do to clear her honor.

  One thing.

  “What?” The man said something rapidly over his shoulder. His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear him, and he bent close. “Who said what? Gerard?”

  Hsu nodded. She didn’t see the point i
n saying anything else, but he really seemed to want to know. “He said there were bombs in the—oh, God, it hurts—in the town.”

  She could have sworn she saw something plummeting out of the atmosphere toward her, a tiny speck of black that was growing larger…

  She closed her eyes. “He said he had to be alive in twenty-five minutes or the bombs would go off and everyone would die and I… I fell for it.” Her voice trailed off in a sob.

  The man lifted his head, almost as if he were listening to something she couldn’t hear. Then he looked down at her again.

  “There are bombs,” he said gravely. “I’ve just had it confirmed.”

  “How—”

  “No time. We need to get you medical care.”

  Something whistled nearby, and hit the ground with an audible shake. Hsu looked over to see a black metal orb. It snapped open and spat something out onto the ground: a bag, which the wolf picked up delicately in its teeth and brought back. It nosed at Hsu, a strangely comforting gesture.

  “You remember Dr. Yordan,” the man said as he rummaged in the bag.

  Hsu’s eyes went wide. “You’re…. You were a shifter? The whole time?”

  The wolf sat down. It was grinning. It seemed very pleased with itself.

  “Dr. Yordan—actually, her name is Jennifer—is the reason we were able to find the facilities,” the man said conversationally. He took out some scissors and began to cut the cloth away from Hsu’s shoulder.

  “Shouldn’t we—Gerard—the bombs—”

  “Ah. That’s being handled. We have one more thing to do, but first, you need to be stabilized. Now, I’m afraid this is going to hurt.” He grimaced at her, and then his hands darted, faster than humanly possible, into her shoulder.

  She screamed, and he held up a bullet with an apologetic wince.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll make that shoulder as good as new. Now, what’s your blood type?”

  “O-negative.”

  “Ah, the rarest of the rare.” He rummaged in the bag and pulled out a container of blood, which he hooked up to her. A moment later, a cool bandage settled over the wound on the front of her shoulder, and he levered her up carefully to lay another bandage against the back. He smiled at her. “It’s going to itch horribly, but it will heal. I promise. No infection, no scars, no nothing.”