The woman talked to the bear as if it could understand her. She watched in fascination as it laid down, and then, suddenly, a naked man was in its place.
Her breath caught in her throat. The woman told the bear to get some clothes, because she was awake.
Nathan jerked and she could tell she was now the focus of both the bear man and Nathan.
The man with no clothes was familiar. “Uncle Alexi?”
She really got knocked on the head. Her uncle was rarely seen. He was a favorite of hers, but she hadn’t seen him in, what, eight years?
“Yeah, it’s me, Ecaterina. Do you happen to have anything that I might wear?”
Nathan, his voice above her, spoke instead. “Hey, I’ve got the pants I had on earlier this morning. They might be a little big, but they’re about a hundred meters away. If you want to, go get them.”
The woman stopped, turned and looked over at Nathan, “Which direction?”
Nathan took an arm from around Ecaterina and pointed behind his tent. “Back that way, there’s a ravine about forty yards in. There’s a dead wolf. The clothes will be about thirty yards downhill from there.”
The woman was gone. The man, Algerian, seemed to come out of his lethargy and jumped up and started in Ecaterina’s direction. Ecaterina could feel Nathan tense up, getting ready to do something when Algerian seemed to fly back to his original location and a big Bowie knife appeared in his hand pinning it to the dirt. He screamed in pain. The lady appeared at his side, pushing the knife further into his palm, ignoring his useless effort to pull it out.
She tossed the clothes to Ecaterina’s uncle, who stood up to put them on. Ecaterina averted her eyes.
She looked down at Algerian. “You really don’t learn very quickly, do you? I explained what I’m going to do. If you don’t remember, or you decide that you have other, more important things to do, I provide that object lesson to keep you focused. Now, I had promised you tree limbs, but I really liked the Bowie knife. So, let’s keep this right where it is or I’ll use it to find a five inch tree to use as my next stake, do you understand me, Algerian?”
Her voice was calm, as if she was discussing the fact that they might get a little shower later in the afternoon.
The man was sweating now, in spite of how cool it was, and his hand was swelling up.
She got up and walked over to Ecaterina. Nathan’s arms tensed around her. He seemed to know more about this woman and certainly seemed concerned for Ecaterina’s safety. So far she wasn’t sure why. Well, except for the whole disappearing, stronger than she should be, soft talking as she stabbed people’s hands into the dirt part.
Yeah, maybe this knock on Ecaterina’s head wasn’t allowing her to think clearly. She knew she should be terrified.
Ecaterina looked up into her eyes; they seemed soft, caring. The woman took a knee in front of Ecaterina. “My name is Bethany Anne. How are you feeling?”
Ecaterina’s voice, a little weaker than normal, answered her question. “Fine, mostly. My head hurts, but a bigger issue is that I’m confused. Why is my uncle a bear? Why does that guy have his hand impaled in the dirt, and I can see a wolf with a missing head over there.” Ecaterina raised her chin in the direction of the wolf’s body and was reminded that sudden movements caused unreasonable pain. She closed her eyes.
Bethany Anne looked where Ecaterina was trying to point and turned back to face her. “Well, to tell you the truth, he’s a werewolf like our friend Algerian over there.”
Ecaterina could feel Nathan tense again, a motion that wasn’t lost on Bethany Anne. “Is there a problem with me explaining that to Ecaterina? You know, I never got your name.”
“Nathan, Nathan Lowell.”
“Ah, a fellow American. So, care to share why you’re so tense?”
“It’s, ah…” Nathan dragged the word out searching for a tactful way to say it wasn’t a normal vampire command.
“Mr. Lowell, I’m not very politically correct amongst the vampires. In fact, I think you’ll find that I’ve had about as much bullshit from Michael as I care to take, and since he left me to clean up some of his mess, my words, not his, I don’t have any rats’ asses left to give about what any of the rest of his children think.”
Nathan seemed to be completely befuddled by Bethany Anne’s statement. Ecaterina could feel his jaw open and shut at least three times.
Hell, Ecaterina was taking it better than the werewolves, even that her uncle was a werebear, than he was about her being upset with her some guy named Michael.
Nathan seemed to get it together on the fourth try. “It’s standard procedure, dictated by Michael and enforced by all of his children that any human coming into contact with the UnknownWorld will have their experience wiped. You’re saying that you won’t do that?”
Bethany Anne stood up, walked over to the man and pulled the knife out of his hand. He grabbed it to slow the bleeding. Bethany Anne calmly reached down and wiped the knife clean on his jeans.
“Mr. Lowell, it sounds like you are someone I want to talk to. Someone that has a more intimate knowledge of how things were working around our little ball of sunshine before Michael decided to change the tune.” She turned back to look down at Algerian again and continued. “However, to answer your question, no, I am not going to do that. I doubt a woman of Ecaterina’s caliber is a problem for me.
“Algerian, why did you really try to kill my good friend Nathan over here?” She waved the Bowie knife, catching his attention. Without saying it, she was suggesting that anything less than the truth would probably end in something painful.
“I was told to do it.” She got down and stared at him at eye level.
“By whom, Algerian?” Her voice went soft over the steel. Ecaterina wanted to answer the question, she felt compelled to answer the question but didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.
“Petre.”
“Who is Petre, Algerian?”
“He is the second son of Stephen, he is responsible for this territory. He is the one who will help protect us from Stephen if he wakes up.”
“So, Stephen doesn’t know that Petre is encouraging your pack to behave this way?”
“No.”
“And did you have a legitimate concern with Mr. Lowell being here?”
“No, he called and got permission to visit. Petre was in our offices when it happened and told us to approve the request. Petre thought he was searching for Michael and his new child candidate.”
“Do you know why that would be important to Petre, Algerian?”
“They are vampires, it is best not to be too curious.”
“Hmmm, good to know that’s a universal consensus, although it speaks to a general feeling of a group known for being bullies if you ask me, which you didn’t.”
Bethany Anne stood up, cocked her head for a few seconds and turned to Alexi. “Do you have any questions you might want answered?”
Alexi answered, “Not from him, but if I can be so bold, one from you?”
“If I can answer it, sure.”
“What are your plans for Algerian?”
“He has been condemned by his own actions in the fight earlier. He was told to change back to human or die. He chose death by trying to strike down Mr. Lowell here.”
“Do you need to be the executioner?”
Bethany Anne thought about that for a moment. Did she? It was her word that he would die if he failed to follow her commands. But did she need to personally carry it out, or would it be OK if she just confirmed it was accomplished?
“Do you have an outstanding issue with him?”
“He came on my land, he attacked and hurt my family, his pack shot me twice and if you hadn’t interfered, I would probably be dead right now. But if you mean before today, then no.”
“Well, you getting shot happened before he ignored my command, so I’m OK if you want to take precedence on implementing your desire for retribution. But he must die now or I will take care of
it.”
Alexi started getting undressed again. Bethany Anne turned back around to the man who seemed to not be listening to anything going on around him. “Algerian.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to prepare for combat in the bushes where I found you. When you hear a bear’s roar, change back into your wolf form and you may fight until your dying breath, do you understand my command?”
“Yes.”
“Make it happen. You have provided me with the information which stayed my hand earlier.”
Alexi finished undressing. One second he was a man, the next he was a huge brown bear again. He walked calmly off into the bushes in front of Ecaterina. The other man followed him.
A minute later Ecaterina heard a roar that felt like it shook her insides and then the horrible sounds of a wolf and a bear fighting. There was a sudden, sharp bark and a loud thump as a body hit a tree and slid down. Two more loud noises and then she could hear the bushes being brushed aside as a large body came back out into the light.
Alexi had a few scratches on him, but he didn’t seem too concerned.
Bethany Anne looked at him. “Alexi, I’m going to make sure that Ecaterina is watched through the night, and we’ll leave for Brasov in the morning. I expect you to join us. You are free to make preparations as necessary for a week’s absence. Make sure you dress comfortably. Not that it matters, but I completely approve of your reasons for taking Algerian down. All it takes is good men to look the other way to allow evil to get a foothold in our world.”
She turned towards Ecaterina and Lowell, “I’ll be back in another hour or so. There are a few things I want to retrieve and then we can talk.” She looked down at Ecaterina. “Are you feeling OK?”
“I am, thank you. I could use some aspirin and food right now and while Mr. Lowell is quite warm, I think I would like to change clothes and freshen up a little.”
“Very good, I’ll see you both soon.”
And with that, she walked out of the clearing.
22
Carpathian Mountains, Romania
Bethany Anne left the party in the clearing and quickly opened up some distance from them, running around the north side of the lake. She wasn’t sure how sensitive the were-humans were, but she didn’t want them to see any weakness from her, and right now, she felt incredibly weak as she disgorged everything from her stomach. The disgusting regurgitation, along with the smell, caused her another round of stomach convulsions. She ran another fifty yards or so after each episode, trying to get away from the smell.
TOM was trying to say something, but she couldn’t listen right then. Mentally, she was prepared to do anything, including eating people, whether human or wolf at the time, to acquire the energy she needed to protect Ecaterina and Alexi.
Until she had enough energy to be in top form, she would allow nothing to come between her and her need to protect them. That included being completely grossed out by her own actions. She turned off that part of her thinking and took almost an analytical perspective.
The payment, in this case, was throwing up over parts of Alexi’s mountain. She hoped he didn’t mind if he ever found out.
She found a little stream and cleaned her mouth and cheeks, finding a log to sit on for a moment to consider her next step.
Unfortunately, the lack of information, due no doubt to making sure that she didn’t have too much information if her transfer went wrong, was a real problem right then.
Michael could never have considered just how different her conversion would be. Since he had never had any conversation with TOM, and no frame of reference to what the spacecraft was when he stumbled upon it, he must have originally thought it was voodoo magic. He had never explained his thoughts to her.
But after the last hundred years, he must have reconsidered the truth of his own origins and realized it wasn’t necessarily an evil device. Since TOM had so horribly messed up the first transformation he had tried, with no communication and substantial pain, it was no surprise that Michael hadn’t brought anyone else to the ship.
It was a little curious how and why Michael could create change.
“TOM, how can Michael and his children create new vampires?” She let her senses roam while she sat there, listening to the abnormally quiet forest. The longer she sat there, the more she could sense the animals deciding she wasn’t on the hunt. She wondered if they could sense her mood?
I speculate that if you exchange enough of the blood of a human with enough of Michael’s or one he changed, the blood will become saturated enough with the nanocytes that facilitate the enhancements. A smaller amount would just help a human with any intrinsic body abnormalities and never acquire enough to overcome their bio-programming and replicate to essentially complete the transformation.
Bethany Anne pondered this information. “So, if we do a reverse transfusion, can we ‘undo’ the Kurtherian change?”
No. The changes we implement in a human body, once saturation is achieved in the first place, eventually replace all essential cells and a blood transfusion would not exchange the cells that have replicated in the organs, especially the brain.
“What about for a new transfer?”
Possibly. If the nanocytes have been following the programming, it is possible to interrupt the transition if you reduce the saturation point before they make too many inroads into the inner organs.
“What is the programming you are referring to?”
Stage 1: The nanocytes must first heal the body of any injury. Stage 2: the nanocytes review any DNA level issues, similar to your leg modifications. Once those changes are complete it will then begin Stage 3: Integrate with all core body functionality. Once the core body changes are complete there is no going back.
“What would happen if injury occurred during stage two?”
Well, we assumed that a body would be in our ship during these changes so we didn’t necessarily consider what would happen. I would imagine all changes to the DNA would stop at an appropriately safe stage while every other effort would be made to go back and resume taking care of the stage one prerogatives.
“Why are Michael’s children less powerful, and each generation substantially more affected by sunlight?”
I would guess that the nanocytes are a little less pure having to move from one human to another. The nanocytes already have the DNA changes from the original host, so changes from Michael to his first level offspring, then those children’s nanocytes have two sets of DNA changes when they change a third level and so on. I’m sure the purity of the DNA in a child could potentially help or hinder a transformation as well as the purity of the nanocytes that they receive themselves.
As for the sunlight issue, I can only conclude that each generation must be exchanging the epidermal layer with confused nanocytes. It must have happened in Michael’s skin and although he isn’t affected, it was a recessive trait that became dominant in most of his children.
“Yeah, he has one, David, that isn’t affected. I think that’s the only one.”
Bethany Anne went quiet for a couple of minutes, trying to digest everything. “TOM, why are you qualifying your statements so much?”
I’m not sure of the answers. I thought that was normal not to state something you didn’t know as truth?
“No, it isn’t. What I mean to ask is you seem to be unsure of your answers more than I would have thought you would be, since you had the responsibility to implement the solutions.”
Well, I am a pilot first, a scientist a somewhat distant second. In our race, the truly intellectual had an overdeveloped sense of curiosity with a substantially higher level of risk aversion. To be willing to rush into the unknown, we had to find those with intelligence, but not so much they realized their own peril was a given. We had to have the ability to persuade ourselves to try taking a spaceship, alone, and going out into the Universe without even a map.
Bethany Anne was surprised, she hadn’t given TOM the respect that he probably dese
rved. While she was still a little annoyed over the fact she had become his taxi, she was put into the rare position of being able to make a difference in more than just a few cold cases and now had, potentially, a thousand years or more to make a difference.
Thinking about her own situation right now, she knew that information was her first priority. She was effectively safe, she had at least two sources of information and a third she was going to visit. While Petre wasn’t an immediate child and therefore almost assuredly wasn’t a physical match for Bethany Anne—hell, maybe none of the children could match her in a fight—he wouldn’t be unprotected.
Especially if he was dealing under the table against his father. The children might not support Michael’s black and white version of the world, but she couldn’t imagine that they would countenance a child working with the disowned or other groups that actively participated in attacking anything of Michael’s.
She supposed she could talk to Stephen first, but that wasn’t her style. The UnknownWorld would certainly form their own opinions of her and she knew that it would be from the stories told about her. While she might change a few opinions, there was no way she would be able to get ahead of gossip. That was probably the only thing that could be faster than the speed of light. She smiled at the thought.
She needed to find out what happened to Michael, if he was actually dead or captured or just AWOL. She frowned at that. It would piss her off more to find out he had purposely left her behind than if he was dead. That wasn’t a nice thought, if she were honest with herself, but she had some heightened level of abandonment issues. Could be why she was a little aloof with personal relationships as most guys in their twenties had their own issues with being dependable in a relationship.
She also had the matter that Michael was tracking down. The new type of Vamps that were somehow connected with the situation during World War II. If Michael wasn’t personally dealing with that, and at the moment she couldn’t assume he was, she would have to handle it.
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 17