When Dan had approached Bethany Anne with the idea to use these helmets yesterday as an option for the team load, she called and got the manufacturer’s rep who spoke to the both of them on a conference call.
Fortunately, the manufacturer had a distributor in the Miami area which had a case of ten of the helmets. She just told them to ship them all via hotshot delivery and Dan and Scott had worked with them last night and passed them to the team before they took off that morning.
Hopefully, adding this new gear wouldn’t be a problem. But they needed it because they didn’t have the overhead support and other capabilities they usually enjoyed. The small drones were up there, somewhere. Frank was online but wouldn’t interrupt unless he had intel.
They spread apart as the team arrived twenty-five yards from the opening and all of them dropped sensors to help watch their back door. They approached the entrance which was twenty feet wide and ten feet high. Nothing but concrete spray painted with graffiti and gang symbols. Ricochets might be a bitch.
They walked through the entrance on their side of the bunker. No ambush occurred. Darrell and Scott just lost their $50.00. It was now between Eric and Bethany Anne.
Eric believed they’d get hit right before they went into the tunnel. Bethany Anne chose last and suggested something might happen during the talks. She knew Nathan wouldn’t be involved in a double cross. Not only would his life be forfeit, he wouldn’t turn his back on Ecaterina. At least, that was how Bethany Anne was reading him.
So, that meant Gerry would be playing fair and therefore the main meeting was on the up and up. She had a phone call with Gerry, Nathan and another alpha they had in the car by the name of Jonathan. She discussed with him a personal issue for just a quick minute. She said she would talk with him later, assuming they got through this meeting.
The meeting was set for 4:00 PM. At this time of the year, Bethany Anne knew the sun would start to create long shadows in another hour. It should encourage the Weres’ desire to get through the meeting quicker.
The general belief was vampires and Weres were stronger at night. Neither was really true. Bethany Anne knew that the etheric changes which Wechselbalg went through were equally powerful night or day. But vampires were so secretive that no one realized that this was also true for vampires as well. The team here might be thinking she wasn’t as strong as she could be in a few hours and would want to hit early.
Since Gerry and the main council shouldn’t be a part of it, they unfortunately would be in the crossfire if not actively targeted. Or, they could think it would be a wonderful time to strike while she was weaker. It was a calculated risk either way.
Gerry, Nathan and one more, who she presumed was Jonathan, were approaching from the other side. She could see beyond them thirty to forty additional Weres. That group stayed at the other end of the tunnel. For the first part of the talks, the agreement was for the main three representatives to talk in the middle with Bethany Anne and her protective detail.
Both sides agreed if there was to be an ambush during the talk, this should get them to spring it.
The headsets for the team included military grade bone conduction technology from BAE Systems. This technology used vibrations that passed through the team’s cranial bones and directly affected the cochlea. This allowed for information to be given to the team and significantly reduced any chances of the Weres hearing her team’s communications.
Frank’s voice came over the comms. “We have movement. We have ten incoming from behind you and I see a group of twelve joining the large group at the other end of the tunnel. That group is making their way through to the front. So far, that’s it. Twenty-two tangos.”
Bethany Anne knew all of her team heard the message, but Nathan, Gerry and Jonathan weren’t in the game, yet.
They had agreed during their conversation that if Bethany Anne’s group was attacked from behind her side, that Gerry and his team would start the ball rolling and Bethany Anne’s group would support him. If it got too nasty, she would get involved.
If the troublemakers started in on Gerry’s side, then her team would start the ball rolling to support the existing Council and she would get involved with the first blood on her side again.
Unfortunately, she had to stay out of it until someone drew blood or was stupid enough to target her directly. She argued against these rules. Both John and Nathan insisted that they were playing for bigger stakes this time and she should just be a little patient and trust them.
They closed in to ten feet apart of each other. She put her hand up to her ear while looking at Nathan and mouthed, “Ten behind me, twelve behind you.”
Everyone on her team was already alert. Darrell and Scott had stepped over to the walls and knelt down ready to pivot and point their weapons behind them. John and Eric just looked past the group in front and watched the group farther back. Bethany Anne’s responsibility was for the group directly in front of them.
20
New York City, NY, USA
Nathan caught Bethany Anne’s message there were twenty-two uninvited guests joining the meeting. Her desire to keep the bloodshed minimal probably wouldn’t happen.
He had been studying the four tac team members in her group. He didn’t know where she got them, but they were pretty fucking serious. Personally, he was glad they were here.
With only Bethany Anne and her detail present, more might try to join in the fight thinking to overwhelm her. He had finally decided Jonathan wasn’t going to turn on them. With the eight of them it was going to be an interesting fight.
The two behind Bethany Anne stepped sideways and took a knee, ready to turn around and support Gerry’s group going the other way. He imagined they also made sure no one in his group turned around. They were the guys responsible to protect the team’s back and he didn’t sense any hesitation they might have being around a bunch of werewolves.
Gerry stopped five feet from Bethany Anne, and looked at each of her team and then Jonathan and Nathan and back to Bethany Anne. “Plan ‘B’?”
Bethany Anne sighed. “Yeah, looks like it. Sorry about the breakage. I tried.”
Gerry gave a sad smile. “I know. If we can keep it down to just the uninvited, we will have had a small victory. Unfortunately, I’m not sure you really would be able to make a good point without something like this happening anyway. I have to tell you, I’m happier being on your side than not.”
Her smile lit up the tunnel. “You know, Gerry, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
He looked perplexed. “Really? Where have my manners been?”
She replied, “In a sock drawer, probably.” Bethany Anne looked over at the two others. “Jonathan, nice to meet you. Nathan, you irredeemable nut plonker, Ecaterina wants me to say ‘hi.’” She smiled because whatever Nathan decided to say, Ecaterina would hear him back in the plane. Both she and Bobcat were in listen-only mode. Dan was as well, back in Florida.
Nathan just smiled. “I’ll see her soon enough, I’m sure. Did I tell you I’m getting a house down in Miami?”
That busted Bethany Anne up. She barked out a couple of laughs before getting her act together. What a way to woo a girl; let her know in the middle of an op that he was being a stalky-stalker.
Then she heard Ecaterina’s voice in her ear. “Tell ‘friendly pooch’ that he better get his game mask on.”
Bethany Anne leaned a little to her left to look down the tunnel towards the other group. It seemed that all of the faces she could see in the front were ones she hadn’t seen before. She leaned back again. “Well, it looks like this is about to start. Other than Ecaterina wanting me to tell ‘friendly pooch’ to get his game mask on, anyone got any last words?”
Gerry stifled a snort and Bethany Anne could see that Jonathan, John and Eric were all smiling. That was the result that Ecaterina was probably going for. Everyone was loose going into the showdown.
“No? Not you either poochy-boy? Nothing, you got nothin
g? OK. Let’s sit still until they kick it off. You guys got your ear protection?”
All three of the Weres reached into their pockets and casually put in earplugs.
“Eric, you ready?”
Eric brought his hand out of his pocket, showing Bethany Anne the flash-bang he had brought along. It was Darrell’s idea and a brilliant one. Since Weres could increase their hearing sensitivity he had suggested they might try to disorient them right away. Most of the ‘just frustrated’ group would be trying to listen in to the talk and straining their senses to the max.
The flash-bang would deliver a 170+ dB noise to rock their world and since they would be looking into the tunnel, she hoped their eyes would appreciate the sudden eye-searing brilliance. Darrell got Nathan’s attention and tossed him one.
Bethany Anne was getting impatient. “Well, fuck. What do these asswad badgers want? A fucking invitation?”
John smiled next to her. “Really? Asswad badgers? That’s the best you got?”
“Give it a shot, you wanking crap herder.”
Jonathan couldn’t believe his eyes and ears. This vampire was drop dead gorgeous, but what an incredibly foul mouth she had.
Before John could reply, there was a screaming voice from behind Gerry. Everyone was careful to keep watching their area.
“You won’t let me join you, Gerry? I’m not good enough for the Council? Well, say hello to my little friend!” With that, the guy behind the voice started to bring up an old Thompson machine gun.
Who the hell brings a Thompson submachine gun to a party anymore? What the fuck was this about? Before numb-nuts could bring his gun level, Bethany Anne had already shot him twice in the arm holding the gun, spinning him around where he fell on the ground. He was a big target.
She looked over at John, who was exasperated with her as he asked, “Who was supposed to fire first?”
“Oh don’t give me any lip! He was quoting Scarface for Pete’s sake. Doesn’t he realize what a dick move that is?”
John should have expected that Bethany Anne would break the rules. Nathan noticed her team lead’s irritation and just smiled to himself. Welcome to my world.
Everyone continued their vigilance as Bethany Anne and her team lead ‘had a moment’ about following the agreed rules of engagement. Finally, the Scarface wannabe was able to stand back up and started to scream, “Kill them all!”
Well, that should cover the rules just fine, she thought.
Eric let the flash bang fly. Gerry, Jonathan and Nathan took off towards their side of the tunnel while Darrell and Scott turned around to cover them. Eric and John went to the sides of the tunnel and Bethany Anne just dropped to the floor. There wasn’t a good reason to be standing at that moment. All of them shut their eyes.
Two of the new group had listened and started to pull pistols from under their jackets. All of the Weres were looking into the tunnel when the flash-bang went off. The tunnel focused the sound. Many of the Weres immediately fell down, their hands over their ears, grimacing in pain. A handful either fell to their knees or didn’t go down, but none of them were immediately able to start firing down the tunnel.
Unfortunately, Weres heal a lot quicker from any sort of damage. Three of the twelve were already trying to just blindly fire into the tunnel.
Bethany Anne heard the flash-bang go off on the other side of the tunnel.
Bethany Anne blew the brains out of the one in the middle while John stitched the one to the left up the torso and Eric put a three round blast into the stomach of the one on the right. All three went down. Silver really makes a Were lose focus.
Bethany Anne suddenly appeared in the midst of the group. She would grab a Were, stab him with her Bowie in the gut and fling him into the tunnel. John and Eric would grab the Were, who would be trying to deal with the sudden pain, and zip tie them. John popped one on the head when he tried to kick him.
The last Were on the ground before Bethany Anne was Paul Gleason, Scarface wannabe himself. Gerry had given her a quick synopsis of the possible party crashers and Paul had been the obvious ringleader making noise. He was also very easy to recognize from Gerry’s description.
Everyone else had taken a step back leaving Paul and Bethany Anne alone.
His arm was healed. He was at least three hundred pounds of muscle and fat. His arms were huge. She wondered if she could just arm wrestle him for the win?
“You cunt-licking bitch!” His face was flushed red in his anger.
Apparently not.
Paul was getting his prodigious weight off of the ground. Figures, she had to fight a Were that was strong as a fucking ox. He had some blood coming out of his ear.
She heard a shot and then Eric yelled at one of the guys behind her. “I told you to fucking stay still! Now you get to feel that shit until we unzip you. Don’t be a fucktard, ace. We’re trying to get you all through this without killing anyone, you asshat.”
“Stay down, Mr. Gleason, I’ll only ask you politely once.”
He continued getting up and held his Thompson in his left hand. She let him stand. Might as well make an object lesson out of this one, she thought. Most of the other Weres that had been hurt by the flash-bang had healed. Two in the front of the blast had a couple of friends trying to help them out of the line of fire.
She heard Darrell and Scott each fire. Must be entertaining back there as well.
Paul just had to get his idiot on. He started screaming again at Bethany Anne, spittle flying, “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you want, bitch. No vampire is going to take away my rights!”
He dared her to do something, anything. He was about a foot taller than her and more than twice her weight. Paul had bested eighteen other Weres in fights, and had downed twelve humans in a bar fight back in his hometown. She didn’t look like she could hurt an old man, much less him.
One issue with fighting big people or obese people is it takes a huge amount of strength to actually hurt them if you punch them in the stomach. Part of the problem is just how much distance to the stomach you have to travel through fat before you can hurt them.
She was trying to keep this as death-free as possible. If she personally killed Paul, others would use it as a political tool for years.
Bethany Anne pivoted on her left foot and kicked Paul in his right kneecap, shattering it. His fibula broke out of the skin. Paul never saw her move. He went down again, and the Thompson dropped off to the side. Now his cussing got a lot louder. She walked over and picked up the Thompson and considered breaking it. What a waste that would be.
She looked at everyone standing there. She turned back and walked over to Paul and looked down at him.
“Which part of ‘don’t stand up’ didn’t you understand? I personally don’t give a shit what you say around anyone in the Were community. But if you let the humans know about the UnknownWorld? I will kill you, Mr. Gleason. Or, if you’re man enough, you can try right now. How about it? Are you brave enough without your twenty-one other goons to take on the little-bitty girl vampire?”
At this point, Bethany Anne’s patience broke. Fuck ’em.
Everyone who was watching her face took one or two involuntary steps backwards. Three guys in the back turned around and ran. Paul looked up into Bethany Anne’s face as her eyes turned red and her teeth grew out. He couldn’t think straight anymore, she wasn’t a tiny frail woman. He started to pull himself backwards, away from her, in fear.
She reached down and grabbed Paul’s left leg, the one not trying to mend itself. Her voice was dark and deadly. “Come with me.” Paul was grabbing the ground, sticks, holes in the concrete, anything. He struggled, kicked, yelled and cursed as he tried to break the vampire’s grip on his leg. She just kept pulling him down the dark tunnel.
John watched as she came walking into the tunnel. He could see the glowing eyes in Bethany Anne’s outline. That was fucking cool.
He and Eric had already tied up the eleven stabbed guys, taken all of their weapons a
way from them and triple zip tied them.
One idiot had decided to show how Weres could huff and puff and break the zip ties. So Eric shot him in the gut and zip tied him again. He was moaning in pain and sweating like a sonofabitch at the moment.
All of them were sitting with their backs against the wall and watched as the tiny looking vampire pulled the kicking and screaming Paul Gleason down the tunnel, all heads turning in unison.
She tossed the Thompson to John and kept going down the tunnel.
Eric looked over at him from the other side of the tunnel. “He is a cluster-fuck experiment.”
John laughed. “Hey, if she didn’t hear that…”
They could hear Bethany Anne yell over Paul’s sobbing cries. “I heard that.” She was halfway to the other entrance at that point.
John smiled. “Dammit! That was a good one!”
Nathan, Gerry and Jonathan took off towards the other entrance. They saw Bethany Anne’s people pivot to point up the tunnel. Jonathan sure hoped they were good shots.
Jonathan had gone to Gerry with mixed emotions. He had a really good idea what was going to go down. He wasn’t sure what he would do, but he thought his only choice was going to be to try and kill the vampire. If he didn’t, he feared his only child would be executed.
Pete was stupid, immature, spoiled, and a list of other things. But at the end of the list he was still his son. He felt so much guilt for bringing him up so poorly. What he hadn’t counted on was a vampire you could actually talk to. In the car, he decided that staying with the Council and trying to make this work with Bethany Anne was the path he would take. She hadn’t promised him anything other than they would talk after this incident. Gerry had confided with him earlier out of Nathan’s hearing that Nathan had told him he would leave before taking sides against her.
On the phone, she seemed… human? Well, good enough. She didn’t seem like the cold, aloof vampires he was familiar with. God knows if it had been Michael he would have tried to just hide Pete. If Pete didn’t like it, well that’s what drugs are for. Maybe by the time he had figured where his dad had shipped him to and how to get back to America he would have grown up a little.
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 40