“Ah, damn. Uhhhh, let me call Gerry and get the lay of the land and then I’ll talk with Frank. Do you want to talk with either of them?”
“Not yet. I don’t mind you updating Frank about what’s going on, but I don’t want him to think that I need anything from him right now. Hell, maybe never, considering what was in the accounts.”
Yeah, that was true, thought Nathan. When Bethany Anne shared that she was officially independently wealthy, he was simultaneously relieved and concerned. If Michael had given her access to that much wealth, it could lead one to believe that he wasn’t expecting to be around for a while, if ever. She had access to all of Michael’s holdings all over the world. She had asked him to keep the particulars to himself, but that he should share the suppositions and concerns regarding Michael he had with her.
“Nathan, once you talk with Gerry and Frank, I think we need to make further plans. I’ll understand if you need to go back to the States. Ecaterina and I will follow you as soon as I finish with Stephen. I value everything you’ve done for me and I hope that we can stay friends?”
Nathan was surprised. So far, Bethany Anne had been very aloof since they had met. This was the first time she had offered the hand of friendship in his direction. “So, if I ask again, how you got back up with a hole in your stomach I could see the wall through you’ll tell me?” He smiled at the memory.
Bethany Anne smiled back, “Yeah, OK.” She put her fingers really close together. “Maybe only one minute away, Mr. Lowell.”
She started getting out a pair of jeans and a shirt. “Give me a couple of minutes to get dressed and you can use my compartment. Check the compartment for bugs before you call. I’ll go hit the restroom and get a bite to eat.”
Nathan just smiled and stepped out of the compartment.
Bethany Anne set her hat on her head and then opened the door. Nathan was getting up from a seat a few feet away. She stepped out and let him go into her sleeping compartment to talk with Gerry and Frank.
She walked up towards the bar/buffet car. With her Premier ticket, the food was included. She hadn’t any previous experience with eating on a train and was enjoying it. It looked pretty posh to her.
The seats were all in a deep red velvet, with white table linens and red drapes around the windows. There was a huge amount of polished brass in the car and it was certainly an upscale experience. She sat down at a table with two places. She didn’t want to be rude and take a whole booth for herself. She wasn’t sure how long Nathan would be on the phone. She had been pretty strict earlier about not allowing him to check in. Now, she was going to have to suffer the consequences for requiring Nathan to stay out of communication.
The waiter came and enquired what kind of wine she might like. She smiled and just asked him to surprise her. With her hat on, an affectation she had to admit she enjoyed, all people could see was her mouth and chin. She sat a moment and watched the countryside slide by.
She had a lot to accomplish. Now, Michael had afforded her with the means to do anything she wanted. She had the money and accumulated wealth a thousand years can bring and frankly, she was overwhelmed.
She thought back to the basics. Shelter, water and food. Well, she didn’t suffer from a lack of shelter if she trusted Michael’s homes across the world. Just leafing through the documents she found multiple domiciles on all of the major continents and a few very secret places in South America and Africa. She guessed that made sense with his forsaken children in that area.
But did she want to use them?
Her wine came and she thanked the waiter and took a sip. A very nice Chianti Classico from Italy, she had been told. It was nice. She noticed a black rooster design on the neck of the bottle before he took off the seal.
She was still trying to understand her life. She needed to consider short-term goals, such as talking with Stephen and connecting with the UnknownWorld while still planning for the far future when the world would need to be able to defend itself.
TOM, what do we need to produce the parts for our ship?
Our ship?
You keep calling this our body, it makes sense to me.
She sensed that TOM was a bit befuddled. Ever since the organic computer had been placed in her head, she was getting a better and better connection with TOM.
OK. I guess that makes sense but it is a bit much to understand. I’m in your body, so we are sharing it. The ship was mine, but I can’t take control of it back without a body, so I guess you’re right.
Back to the question, TOM.
Well, it needs two structural joints that were destroyed when landing. Without them we can’t get the landing legs to retract into the body and then we would not have a craft that would work without atmosphere. Other than that, the whole body will need surveying and patching with some rather sophisticated alloys I’m not sure your world has available yet and of course, there is the jump-engine and anything that might have been affected when I came in on the last jump. I didn’t have time to do a full diagnostic on the engine and you can’t do one while in atmosphere.
So, to summarize, with the landing gear fixed we can go out of the atmosphere. But what about here on the ground? Why didn’t you ever move the ship after you landed?
I’m not sure what other pieces were broken and while it had power, I didn’t want to chance crashing it completely with another ascent and descent. When Michael came to the ship within thirty to forty solar turns I believed I was in a good enough place. I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t see anyone else until your arrival.
Bethany Anne considered his statement. It seemed the ship was probably capable of making a trip to a hangar she could acquire. There they would look into ship refurbishment and reverse engineering. But, how was she going to accomplish this without getting the tinfoil hat groups or governments involved? She knew that her own government would grab the ship and stuff it into a black hole even she would have trouble getting it back out of. It spoke to why powerful people worked with smaller and more easily manipulated governments.
But if she was going to make a difference she would eventually need to be able to work with the major powers. All of them—the US, China, Russia, India and the Europeans. If she decided to start with a smaller country, it would make it harder for any of the big governments to get involved, but not impossible. Plus, she doubted that as much pull as she might now have, she had more than the biggest governments.
What a freaking headache. She finished off her glass of wine.
“Would the beautiful lady allow me to provide her second glass of wine?”
Bethany Anne looked up through the veil to see a spectacular example of a well-groomed and cultured European gentleman in front of her. With dark hair, an Italian suit and shoes, gold cufflinks and a glass of wine in each hand, he stood on the other side of her table, a smile in his eyes. God, she thought, this man was smooth. “And how, dear sir, do you know that I am beautiful?” She had to smile in spite of the interruption to her conversation with TOM. It wasn’t like this man had a clue. He looked familiar.
You saw him sitting two rows behind Nathan when you left your sleeping cabin.
She forgot that TOM saw and remembered everything, and it was damn useful right now. So long as he didn’t become an ‘I told you so’ pain in the ass, she would deal with it.
“Madam, anyone who would block their beauty to save the rest of us from the sadness of no longer being permitted to view their face is not only beautiful on the outside, but is truly beautiful inside.”
No wonder American women loved Europeans. While it was so much beautiful bullshit, they certainly made it smell as wonderful as springtime with flowers. She reached out to accept the wine and the gentleman sat down. The waiter was right there to take away her extra glass. She took a sip of the wine.
Bethany Anne, this wine has an additional chemical compound that was not present in the one you just drank.
Bethany Anne frowned, not letting the concern reach her eyes.
What do you mean?
I mean that this wine has other chemicals that the glass you originally drank did not. Let me see what it is doing to you and I’ll let you know.
You do that.
“May I introduce myself?”
“First names only, please.”
He smiled. “Certainly. My name is Rafael and yours?” He seemed to be even more sure of himself as he sat down. Was that due to her acceptance or something he put in the wine?
“Bethany Anne.”
TOM, hurry the fuck up.
“How has your trip been so far? Are you going to Romania, or returning to Romania? You are an American, correct?”
“Going back, Rafael, and yes, I’m an American.”
Got it, Bethany Anne. It is a set of chemicals that are working on your cognitive ability, making you less able to function. You would have started seeing effects about twenty to thirty minutes after you’d drunk the wine.
Can you get rid of it?
Absolutely.
OK TOM, I am upgrading you to less-than-pain-in-the-ass status.
Does this mean I move off of the couch?
Hell, no.
Well, I tried.
Bethany thought through her options. When she slipped into ‘Vamp speed’, everything slowed down around her and she was able to complete a significant amount of activity, physical or mental. Considering this asswipe just tried to roofie her, one of her options was to throw him off the train while it was still rolling. But with her luck, they would do some sort of passenger count, find out they had a missing person and stop the train. Of course, he could be working for someone and trying to kidnap her.
She still liked option one. Violence was never too far from the top of her preferred options.
Her voice slipped to silk over steel.
“Tell me, Rafael, what is your real name?”
The man first started to look scared, then his whole face took on an almost blank expression.
“Paul, Paul Rutherford.”
“So, you’re not Spanish at all, are you?”
“Some, my mother was Spanish, and my father was English, but we lived in France.”
“And what were you expecting to do with me, Mr. Rutherford?”
“Once you were under the effects of the drug, I was going to have you come to my sleeping cabin for the night. There, I was going to go through your purse and steal your money and credit cards. I would have you share with me your PIN codes as well.”
“How many times have you done this, Mr. Rutherford?”
“Three times.”
“Why have you not been reported and apprehended before?”
“The ladies don’t remember because of the drug and I stop using the cards within seventy-two hours. They often are too embarrassed to pursue it with the law.”
Bethany Anne switched their glasses of wine. “Drink up, Mr. Rutherford. I think you are about to have a poor night.”
Paul drank the glass of wine, almost finishing it in one long gulp.
After getting his sleeping cabin number, she commanded him to go and sleep in his cabin and stay there until the train got to his stop. At that time, he was to go to the nearest police officer and admit his crimes. He stood up to leave and while he was turning around, he bumped into Nathan coming down the car from her sleeping cabin. Paul ignored Nathan and stepped around him, making a beeline towards his cabin.
“What was that all about?” Nathan sat down.
“He just tried to roofie me. He dropped Rohypnol into the wine he bought me. Apparently, he has a small dick and a smaller amount of talent. He finds rich women susceptible to a few good lines and slips them a drug-laced drink.
Nathan just sat there, keeping a completely blank face.
“Nathan, shut up. I was trying to be nice to someone. He was interrupting my thoughts and I was trying not to be a raging bitch to the man and look what that got me.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t throw him off of the train. Without his arms.”
“I considered it. I’m still considering it, actually. I know where he sleeps.”
“I take it that the drugs don’t affect you?”
“Not the small amount I drank before I, well, before I could tell he slipped the drug into the wine.” She wasn’t going to let him know that TOM was the one who figured it out.
Thanks a lot, I get no appreciation.
Shut up or it’s back to the dog house.
Fine, fine.
“That’s a piece of good news, maybe the only good news for a minute or two. So, I have bad news and even worse news. Which do you want first?” Nathan got the waiter’s attention and found out they had both steak and lamb available. He ordered both with a double side of vegetables.
Bethany Anne raised her eyebrow at his double order of vegetables.
“Don’t say a word. Just… don’t.”
She pinched her fingers together and made to zip her mouth shut. It was the least she could do, considering Nathan had just suggested ripping Mr. Rutherford’s arms off. It was a stellar idea and she was giving it some serious thought.
5
Zurich, Switzerland to Brasov, Romania
They sat at their table for a minute in companionable silence as Bethany Anne had a fresh glass of wine delivered. A minute later, the waiter was back with Nathan’s food. Nathan, she noticed, had very good table manners.
He gave her a discreet update while he ate. “Our DC contact is having a lot of problems. He’s lost a lot of men without Bill’s support in the dangerous operations. He’s getting heat from a few higher ups in the law enforcement/ military hierarchy since he can’t provide any resources except information. The rest of the family won’t talk with him without Carl as go-between. So, no one here in Europe is getting any help either. The problems are starting to jam up, and with so many deaths happening it won’t be too long before someone is going to realize there’s been a substantial increase in deaths with unexplainable causes.”
Finishing his meat, he started on his vegetables. “Now, we move to Gerry who’s having a problem with the young and stupid and full of testosterone within the Were community. They’ve never liked the rules Michael put in place. The rumor mill is full of speculation that Michael is dead and there hasn’t been anything from the vampire community to squelch that rumor in America. So, the Council is having more and more problems keeping a lid on the troublemakers. At least here, the Council has had an incident with vampire involvement. Well, involved proactively. Everyone knows if you go and tweak a vampire you should have your life insurance paid up. But in the States, the problem has been that they aren’t doing anything without direction from Michael, or Carl in this case.
“Stephen isn’t awake, supposedly, and Barnabas hasn’t been seen in a dozen years or more. Peter is awake in Asia, but he takes care of that area without Michael’s involvement. The last one, David, has been over in Russia for the last five years and I have no information on him. I know he has one more, but I can’t remember his name.”
Bethany Anne set her drink down. “I’ll have a discussion with Stephen. He isn’t on my good list since he hasn’t been paying attention. Petre was a fine example. I’ll get him motivated.”
“How do you plan to do that? It isn’t like you can just throw him into the sun like Petre. He’s the only other vampire that the sun doesn’t affect.”
“Nathan, everyone has a pressure point. If they don’t, and I can’t trust them, then I can always elevate someone else within the organization if a sudden opening at the top of the family occurs.”
“You know, you kinda scare me when you do that.”
“What?”
“Act like Michael. Where killing is always the first, last and potentially the only solution.”
“Nathan, I don’t want killing to be my first choice. But at the moment it’s the only punishment that most of the family seems to understand.”
As the waiter approached, they kept quiet while he took
Nathan’s plates and returned with coffee for both of them.
Bethany Anne continued, “You should notice that Michael had a weak spot. Except for the forsaken, he hasn’t directly punished his own children when they’ve had less than exemplary conduct.”
“How would you attempt to do that? No offense, but going after Stephen, Barnabas or any of the rest is going to be too much for you.”
“Nathan, have you ever had any kids?”
“Yes, but I lost him in Vietnam.”
Bethany Anne was reminded just how old Nathan really was. He looked like he was in his late twenties or a very young thirty. “Sorry to hear that. Did you have any problem punishing him?”
Nathan sat back, thinking back over the years that he grew up. “Yeah. They say that little girls can tie their fathers around their fingers. It was good that Adam wasn’t a girl, he had me tied up pretty good anyway. His mother had to punish him because I’d just slap his hand.”
“Then you understand Michael’s situation. He recognized a character trait in himself that wasn’t working for everyone. So, he made a change.”
“That change was you? How is bringing in a sister going to change the brothers?”
“That’s just it, Nathan. I’ll let you in on a secret, one that you will keep on pain of death. He didn’t create a sister, but rather a mother. As his mother, I’m about to school Stephen on how upset ‘Mom’ really is.”
Nathan could see her eyes glowing red behind her veil. Oh, fuckity-fuck, he thought. He had been concerned when he believed Bethany Anne to be a powerful vampire for her age. Someone that Michael might have a ‘talk’ with when, and if, he ever came back. Now he wasn’t sure that Michael could, or even would, correct her if he came back.
Nathan desperately needed to get Gerry and the Council to get the troublemakers in line and circle the damn wagons. He was pretty sure that if Bethany Anne had to come fix things, it was going to be another bloodbath they would be talking about in another 150 years.
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 25