His other businesses were all relatively tiny and inconspicuous. None of his other efforts were beyond local except one. Restaurants here and there that he was a silent partner in, or a few installation and blue-collar businesses that his partners ran. He had a pretty involved real estate effort run through a couple of shell corporations that should hide his involvement unless one of the big state agencies took it upon themselves to get interested in him. Typically, the UnknownWorld wouldn’t get involved with the government beyond what they were doing there in America. But the non-family Vamps in South America and Africa were known to get closely connected to the more despotic dictators. Third world country politics didn’t typically bother the major world powers and if something curious was mentioned in their newspapers that seemed unbelievable, the powers that be couldn’t be persuaded to get involved when their constituents couldn’t locate the country on a map.
He connected his security apps to the sensors he left behind and they confirmed no one had been in his room since he’d left to go to the pub.
He considered whether it was safe to sleep in the room that night. So far, his watchers were being pretty circumspect and while he had talked with Ivan about trekking, that wasn’t a strange request for someone like him. In fact, it probably would have been even more telling if he hadn’t tried to get out into the wild at some point. Doing it on his first day in town was just about the best cover he could have come up with.
He knew that the bear was a Were, and he could sense the age and power just from the smell he left on the clothes. He hoped that the Were hadn’t gone completely over to his alternate self for too long and would be able to give him some insight into the happenings around here.
The rumor was that Michael was from here. Well, the Michael that everyone knew about, anyway. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Michael had brought his new choice for a child into this area but it did speak about it being remarkable. His child that lived on the nearby coast hadn’t been seen awake in three years, so he wasn’t involved in making this change.
That just left Michael as the new sire, which meant he was starting a new family with a female as the head. This was going to be a serious change to the family.
Nathan couldn’t realize how right he was going to be, not only regarding the families, but the whole UnknownWorld. There were changes coming and similar to Michael’s requirement of following his strictures, a Were’s choice would become swear allegiance, hide or die.
Because, according to the rumors, vampires were dead and if Bethany Anne were dead, then death becomes her very well indeed.
16
Carpathian Mountains, Romania
Bethany Anne woke up to a splitting headache which went away pretty quickly.
Sorry about that, I couldn’t gauge your pain levels until you woke up.
“What the hell?” Bethany Anne was getting her bearings again, waking up in the pod for a second time.
Well, we have a little problem with the organic computer. Your species is a little complicated to connect appropriately so I couldn’t debug your interface while you were asleep. I’ve engaged the core functions but we have to work on the other interfaces as time permits.
“Why did I have such a horrible headache?” She reached over and turned the lock, opening the door and getting back out of the pod. Looking down, she verified her legs looked just as long as before.
OK, she thought, I might be a little vain here. She went over to the bench and started dressing.
It seems that the organic computer and your synapses aren’t exactly compatible. I’ve had to create some intermediate filters to try to get you connected at all. Without your input, in this case your pain, I couldn’t assess if I had done things correctly or not.
She finished dressing, grabbed her coat and started for the door. “So, anytime you work on the interface to the computer, I’m going to have to suffer?” She continued out to the hatch that led outside. She keyed in the sequence to activate the locks once she left.
Stopping five feet out of the craft, she slowly turned around and now looked at an area she would swear was empty. It was as if the craft took the area around it and created a virtual camouflage. “How did I just know how to set the security?”
It would seem at least one of the connections related to ship functions is connected appropriately.
Bethany Anne could hear the surprise in TOM’s voice, much clearer now than ever before. “TOM, do you think this computer is facilitating our communication?” She went over to touch the ship. It was still there, but it was like touching a high definition screen: you wanted to reach into the forest, but your hand was stopped.
That is a possibility. I don’t know of any experiment trying to interface one of our organic computers with another species.
Bethany Anne considered his response. She was thinking about the fact that she just volunteered to be the universe’s first guinea pig between a human, a Kurtherian, and a Kurtherian organic computer.
Her normal reaction would have been to blow her top. She didn’t feel that way at the moment. What she felt was analytical. Whilst not a normal sensation, she knew she was like this whenever she was working on her cases for Martin before her fateful new assignment led her to this situation. She considered the fact that she was still alive, mostly functioning, with an unknown organic computer integrated in her brain with nothing negatively affecting her thinking. She hoped.
She turned around and started walking toward the cave in the cliff that would, eventually, take her back out to the other side and towards the town Michael was supposed to have visited before his mysterious disappearance.
She didn’t think the trip would take long as most of their time getting there was spent walking around in circles as Michael tried to locate the right cave entrance.
She found her way out the other side and spotted the light pollution from the southeast. She started heading in that direction. The lack of light didn’t stop her from seeing everything just fine. Picking out little animal trails, Bethany Anne started down the mountain.
Seemed like every time she was on this mountain, it was snowing.
Brasov, Romania
Before daybreak, Nathan swept up all of his sensors and put them back into their cases. He grabbed two sets of clothes and left the rest of his gear in the room. He was careful to make sure he wasn’t taking any bugs along and used one of his compact, cheap bags to put it all in and slung it over his shoulder. He was meeting Ivan down in the hotel lobby to go and get his gear from a storage area he rented, then they would meet Ecaterina out of town before backpacking into the mountains looking for tracks.
Ivan met him downstairs, looking a little worse for wear. It was obvious he wasn’t a morning person.
“Sorry, I don’t do too good before a liter of coffee, or noon. Both would be preferable.” He smiled and held out his hand for Nathan to shake.
Taking the hand and shaking, Nathan adjusted his backpack and followed Ivan who walked rapidly out of the hotel to a waiting vehicle. Ivan sat in the front passenger seat, so Nathan took the back seat.
Ecaterina was the driver. “Good morning!” Nathan was pleasantly surprised to see her in the car already. Sliding over, he closed the door and set his bag on the seat.
Ecaterina pulled off the curve and started towards the storage unit.
“Good morning to you, too. We were never appropriately introduced. My name is Ecaterina Romanov and I know you have met my brother, Ivan.” She steered the old Mercedes Benz through the early morning dawn.
“Ivan was good. I have to admit that setting me up with him to do your negotiating was a trick I hadn’t run across before. Not sure about around here, but I wouldn’t have dismissed you out of hand if you had explained you could help me out on the mountain.”
“Is, how you say, not a problem. I run into Americans who make assumptions about barmaid too many times not to find a solution. Is only practical way. I do the same for Ivan when he has females to deal
with as he can’t seem to think his way past pretty smile and dimples. Dimples cost him very much every time.” She glanced over at her brother who seemed to be a little redder in the face than the cold warranted.
“It’s true,” he admitted. “I would be the knight in shining armor to every ‘pretty, dimpled face’ that came my way if it wasn’t for Ecaterina. Fortunately, she has shown me how to be nice without being foolish. It is always easier to give back the money than to get it after the job.”
They turned into a narrow alley that opened up to a small building with a padlock on the door. Ivan got out of the car, telling them to wait and unlocked the padlock from a large set of keys. He swung open the door to reveal bags hanging from the walls and boxes on the floor. He grabbed a couple of hiking backpack rigs and started filling them from around the small room. Ivan was quickly filling both rigs up.
Ecaterina spoke from the front, “Don’t worry, Ivan knows what we need for a three-day hike. He will make sure there is no extra weight, but will have enough extra supplies if we get caught up in a storm.”
Nathan, paying attention to Ivan’s efforts, barely caught what she said. “No, I’m not worried. It was obvious from our conversation he knew what I needed as much as I did. In fact, a little more since he knows the conditions on the mountain better than I do.” Personally, Nathan knew he could always switch to his other form and make it out of the mountains if he had to. But that would mean Ecaterina was dead, she knew more than she should, or something bad was happening and he needed to draw the threats away. Like a certain really large, really powerful bear.
Finishing the packing, Ivan grabbed both harnesses and carried them to the back of the Mercedes. He locked the storage room and got back in the car.
“Gott Verdammt, it is cold out here.” Ivan blew on his hands.
Nathan, always warmer than humans, was only slightly bugged by the weather so far. He knew up in the mountains it would be more uncomfortable but it would take a lot to truly make him miserable.
After three hours, Ivan dropped Ecaterina and Nathan off at a place close to a trail she knew. Nathan grabbed his rig and followed Ecaterina up the main trail. He realized it probably would become cold enough to be uncomfortable to him pretty soon. What had Ivan said? Oh yeah, ‘Gott Verdammt!’
Ecaterina watched as Nathan pulled his backpack on. Two things became immediately obvious, he was incredibly strong, lifting an eighty pound pack with one arm, and he had worn this type of backpack before. He grabbed the straps and buckled them without even looking, obviously from a lot of previous experience.
He didn’t look too inconvenienced by the snow and cold. While she wasn’t too bad off, she had grown up around it. She waited until he was finished and took off up a trail.
Ecaterina had enquired as to what he wanted to see, and he wanted to go where the big bear tracks had been seen last. She let him know that it would be illegal for him to shoot anything and he told her he didn’t have anything big enough with him that he trusted not to just piss off a bear.
She carried her own rifle. While it had a pretty large bore, she had no desire to be shooting at a large bear. She might, with a lucky shot, stop a bear but she wasn’t too comfortable with trying it. But it had plenty of stopping power for most of the other animals on the mountain and she was a very good shot.
Ecaterina smiled to herself. She was being paid well enough for this trip to get the other rifle that had been on her wish list. Ivan had played Nathan well enough that even if nothing else came of this trip, she was set until early next year. She walked ahead of him. He might as well enjoy the view, such as it was, under her gear. Follow the cheese, little mousy, she thought to herself.
17
Carpathian Mountains, Romania
Bethany Anne was coming down from the cave, heading for a lake about three miles away.
She had spent a little time making sure that she could find the entrance again. She piled a couple of cairns that would help her in the future in some not so obvious places. TOM explained that he would be able to recall any images she needed. She used the trip to update TOM with all of the information she remembered from the conversations with Michael and Carl. He failed to inform her he could get into her memories just fine. He considered she would be a little sensitive about sharing some of her information.
She had found a grove of trees about thirty minutes down from the entrance. There were some saplings and she thought if she were to break enough of them it would make a significantly obvious focal point in the future. So, taking her time and starting at the smallest she tested her ability to punch, kick and strike trees until it was Bethany Anne twelve, trees zero. Even the four-inch thick tree went down. The bone upgrades were apparently well worth it. The amount of force necessary to shatter the tree would have shattered her human bones as well.
She hadn’t been out in the real world for a significant time. It was snowing when she came in and snowing when she came out. So, somewhere between seven and ten months was her guess. Based on TOM’s calculations, it was closer to seven but until she talked with someone she wasn’t going to commit.
She kept one of the long limbs and broke some of the smaller branches off. If she needed to defend herself, it wouldn’t be as good as a Bow, or better yet a pistol, but it would allow her the option to choose between close combat or not. Sure, she would survive probably anything the mountain threw at her, but she didn’t want to waste the time, energy and annoyance of fighting a cat up here and dealing with the scratches she would probably get, or a bear. With a good stick, it would just be ‘batter up!’
One thing her new abilities didn’t provide was expert guidance in choosing the right path. She made one choice that ended up in a blind valley and no amount of superior abilities was going to let her go up that cliff without some tools.
She lost some time, but it wasn’t overly concerning to her. Without the need for food and water, careful planning and packing became a less sensitive issue.
With the lake in her view, she estimated she was within ten to fifteen miles of the town.
The wind carries all sorts of knowledge, if you know what you’re smelling.
Alexi was in his bear form. He preferred it, actually, to anything human and for most of the time he stayed in it, especially during the winter. Hard to beat a thousand pounds of furry fat.
The largest known brown bear in the Carpathian Mountains was almost eight hundred pounds, so in his Were form he was about thirty percent larger than any brown bear in the area. Enough that he never had to deal with fights. When he had in the past, no animal was able to overcome the weight and intelligence deficit.
This morning, he was smelling trouble. He could smell the girl, she had been all over his mountain many times, but this time she had another with her, a non-human. He doubted that she knew it; her scent had no flavor of fear that would almost be certain if she knew.
His area was claimed by a wolf pack out of Brasov, but his mountain was off limits. They didn’t bother him here and he wouldn’t go find them and make them eat their ass for claiming his area. He didn’t give two seconds of thought who claimed his mountain. They could claim all they wanted, it didn’t hurt his feelings. But coming onto his mountain was a completely different proposition and this new wolf was going to need to be looked into, especially since he was heading towards his lake.
He started out of his den towards where his niece, Ecaterina, liked to spend the night. Wolves can be too temperamental, he thought.
Ecaterina was able to keep at it all day. Nathan admired her ability to move forward even under her own loaded backpack. It explained her shape, and all around excellent health.
They had stopped for an early afternoon meal, nothing cooked, just packed meats and cheeses. They drank water and kept moving. They didn’t actually talk much as both enjoyed the outdoors and were lost in their own thoughts.
As they neared the lake, Ecaterina took him a little away and up to a small clearing that provided
some cover and a wonderful view. There was a small area already cleared for a fire with a circle of stones and some logs under a tree.
“You can set up your tent under either of those two trees to the right, I’ll set mine up under this group here.” She pointed towards a nice area under some pine trees.
Nathan considered his reply and just nodded his head in agreement. He might want to find out more about this woman, but being forward was probably not the best option. He felt sure it was the choice many guys had already made and had failed at miserably. Besides, he needed to figure out how to contact the owner of this mountain. He had been smelling him for the last two hours and knew he travelled here often. With the wind at their backs all morning and afternoon, he knew that the bear should already know he was around. Unless he was pretty far away, and the comments from the guys back in the pub suggested that wasn’t true.
He went to his area and took a few minutes to comb the ground and make sure no rocks, pinecones or anything that would make a pretty uncomfortable bed were present where he would set up his tent.
It didn’t take him long to erect it and stow his gear inside. Ecaterina had a small, personal tent up under the other trees and had come out into the clearing where she was starting a small fire in the pit.
Fortunately, she was burning oak and not pine. He had seen a few of those on their trip up here, so that wasn’t too surprising. He much preferred the smell of oak to burning pine.
He grabbed a small metal coffee pot and got out the grinds and filled the chamber. Topping it with water, he walked over to the fire and handed it to Ecaterina. She took the coffee pot and set it to the side of the flames. She would wait until she had more coals before nestling it down in the fire to make coffee.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 14