“They shot you with a dart to knock you out. We believe they stuck you in a dumpster to keep you safe.”
“I was in a dumpster?”
“Yes. It makes sense in a way. They told us where to find you and we brought you here.”
“Am I going to be free to leave?”
The Superintendent closed her notebook. “I’m told there is nothing wrong with you. However, I have to ask you to not write the story you paid a high price to get.” Rodriguez held up her hand. “I’m not saying that we can’t work something out. Your information is the first we have on what is happening. The team you saw last night are foreigners, they cleaned out a total of fifteen of these drug crazed murderers.”
“Who are you trying to lie to? I’m not the public that is willing to accept whatever you say instead of what I saw. Normal drugs do not result in people whose eyes glow red.”
Rodriguez had to give this young lady credit, she wasn’t going to be pushed around with the official line. “It is how I must talk about the situation. As I was saying, they killed fifteen of these things. We had a group of five of our police officers get attacked by one of them. We lost two of the men, another might not live and the other two are seriously hurt, but will survive. Our team is presently canvassing the neighborhoods to see if anyone will talk to us. So far no one is. They believe that if they talk to us, this group of foreigners might either come for them, or worse, not help them any more.”
“Why are you working to find out more about them, don’t you already know who they are?”
“No. But you might be able to help me. While I can’t authorize you to write your story, I will give you greater access to what I know and you will be able to write some of what is going on. Enough that it will help your career. Are you interested?”
“Why do you need me? Don’t you have people in the force willing to do whatever you need done?”
“Yes, but they are part of the agency. If I use them, and this other group finds out, they might leave and we cannot risk that happening. But if they are followed by a reporter, what could we do about it? We have freedom of the press.”
Giannini made a face that called that statement into question.
“Ok, when we have a chance of our city going up in flames from everyone feeling they are not safe, we will not allow inflammatory newspaper articles.”
“I haven’t even written the story yet.”
“Yes, but you would. The problem is that you have your own experiences backing up your story and people might start to believe you. We would be fighting in the streets at night, and fighting the people during the day.”
“Actually, I understand. I’m not going to incite anarchy, but if I help you will you promise to help me? Not the police force, but you personally. Will you help me with this story and stories in the future?”
Superintendent Rodriguez sighed. Why were reporters always the hardest to work with? “Yes, I personally will help you when and as I can. This isn’t an agreement that I will tell you whatever you want, but I will help as my responsibilities permit.”
That was all that Giannini was going to receive from the Superintendent. It was more than she had yesterday and the best she could salvage from her brush with death.
19
Frankfurt, Germany
Ivan had been surprised at how quickly Stephen had gotten Terry’s agreement to help. It seemed she had been terribly afraid for her life and had been surprised how easily Mathis had been rebuffed by Stephen in the club the previous evening.
She was concerned when Stephen explained that she would have to invite him to her apartment, but he gave her his assurances that Mathis would not be allowed to bother her again. Ever. She decided to not ask any questions for answers she didn’t want to know. She knew that without Stephen’s help, Mathis would never stop stalking her and was afraid that she wouldn’t survive. If Stephen didn’t make this happen, she would leave town the next day.
Stephen told her that Ivan would stay with her in a suite at the Hotel Hessischer Hof. They would be provided two suites next to each other under assumed names.
Stephen and Ivan took a taxi to her apartment complex, which had three floors. The taxi waited outside as the two men went upstairs. She let them in and gave them a quick tour before Ivan took her downstairs to the taxi that delivered them to their hotel for the evening.
When Ivan checked them in, he was happy that Stephen was picking up the bill. Even with his monthly salary for working and helping Stephen, this was beyond his means.
Stephen looked around the apartment. It was small, having one bedroom and a kitchen. Instead of a separate area for dining and living room it had a larger living room with a bar. Stephen needed her apartment for two reasons, the first was if Mathis was smart enough to confirm her name and address. The second was for her scent.
Mathis would be controlled by his urge to take the woman. When he opened this door, her scent would overwhelm him and he would lose a lot of his ability to think clearly. It was the same experience for human men, but pushed harder by his vampiric abilities and temperament.
Stephen found an Apple iPod on a speaker in her bedroom. He looked for and easily found some romantic music. It seemed the lady who was so bossy at the club was a romantic at heart. He liked her taste in music. He picked her ‘Romantic Interludes Vol 1 - English’ selection which started off with The Righteous Brothers Unchained Melody. He set it loud enough that Mathis would believe she wouldn’t hear him come in, and Mathis would certainly hear it out in the hallway. He left the door unlocked and then went across the hall from her bedroom and stepped into her small bathroom to wait.
Set the right bait, indeed.
He got a text from Ivan that he and Terry were in their rooms at the hotel. It was half past three o’clock, so Stephen went online. He found Terry’s Facebook page. Facebook had taken over the previously most popular social media website StudiVZ. He made a request to friend her. She hid most of her posts from the general public, so he would have to see if she noticed the request anytime soon.
He opened up Tinder and started looking through the app. He had yet to swipe on any of the women so far, but he loved just browsing. Since he was in Germany, he filtered to those around him.
He got a ping on his phone from Facebook. He quickly turned off the sound on his phone and chided himself for missing the audio switch earlier. The last thing he needed was his phone to give him away. He noticed the time, it was fifteen minutes to five o’clock. Terry had accepted his request to friend him on Facebook. He felt giddy, the thrill of the hunt hadn’t waned for him in all the centuries he had been alive. He wasn’t sure he was capable of being with only one woman in his life. He had no problems giving his allegiance to Bethany Anne, but that was not the same as settling down for decades with the same woman.
If he made no promises, either way, it worked for him. It wasn’t only the modern women who would have dalliances. Women in the far past had informed him before that he was a casual fling. Even the count’s daughter knew she would be a political prize and was happy with who she was going to eventually marry. He was a casual roll in the hay, so to speak. He took their love and gave in return for a night and expected nothing else the next morning. Except, perhaps, angry brothers. Fortunately, it didn’t look like that would be a problem in the present day.
He turned his phone off and waited in the darkened bathroom. Almost ten minutes later, while Percy Sledge sang, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ on the iPod, Stephen heard her front door open and Mathis speak her name out loud, just not too loud. The door closed and the footsteps came closer.
Stephen’s face broke into a smile. As he heard the footsteps enter the open door to her room, he flushed the commode. If he were Mathis, he would jump into the room and quickly strip and get into her bed. Hopefully the idiot had at least one small romantic bone in his body and brought roses. Stephen peeked out of the bathroom. Yes, her door was closed.
Stephen stepped out, went over
to the bedroom door and opened it. Mathis was under the covers. Stephen enjoyed the shocked expression on Mathis’ face. “What Mathis, no flowers? Didn’t I tell you to stay away from humans, Mathis? If I can’t trust you with this one simple command, then I simply can’t trust you.”
Stephen closed the door behind him. There was one short shriek and then silence.
Twenty-five minutes later, a white Mercedes Benz van rolled up to the front of the apartment complex and put on its hazard lights. Three of the four men in the van went into the building and came out less than ten minutes later carrying something heavy wrapped in bed linens. One came down behind them and threw in two garbage bags. Two went back up and brought down a mattress that seemed stained. They got in their van and pulled back into traffic.
The next day, they would open the linen per the instructions and Mathis’s body would receive the full sun. Within the next few hours, his body would disintegrate. The Weres then dug a grave and unceremoniously dumped Mathis’s remains inside. Until the previous day, they had been a part of his underground. They had been made to do this as an object lesson as to what they should expect if they chose to ignore the vampire Stephen’s command.
For these three, they re-committed themselves to the pack. They had become believers that any other choice would be death.
Stephen had called over to the hotel and was able to find a taxi in time to get to the hotel and go out shopping for a new mattress and a new set of linens with Terry. She didn’t want to know why her mattress and linen needed to be replaced. She had a good enough idea what had happened. The shopping was done in time for a late dinner with Stephen, which she enjoyed.
He was mysterious, which attracted her. But he was obviously very dangerous and right then, Terry needed to feel a little less danger in her life. She wished him well from her hotel room. Stephen knocked on Ivan’s door and let him know that he would go back to his own hotel room for the night. He would catch up in the morning. Ivan was enjoying his room and agreed to take a taxi back to their hotel by eleven the next morning.
Stephen turned around and went downstairs. It wasn’t the first time that he had to take care of business and have it mess up a good thing. It wouldn’t be his last, he was sure.
He had the name of the vampire in Paris. He would deal with that problem after he went to talk with Clarita’s children.
He spoke with Bethany Anne and gave her a quick update. She was very pleased with the results and commiserated over his loss of the woman. “Don’t give up hope, Stephen, she might just need to get over her reaction to everything. She knows someone was killed in her apartment.”
He agreed and decided he would see if Terry needed to move in the morning. It was the least he could do for her helping him as his bait. They hung up and he went back to his room. His somber mood was noticed by everyone on the floor, and also that his friend wasn’t with him. The gossip speculated that his friend must have gotten lucky and he was shot down. Three of the women were quick to say they were willing to make sure he was feeling ok, but they all knew Stephen had requested to be left alone unless he or Ivan called.
The manager had caught one of the ladies, Felicity, when she seemed to be heading to the door that Stephen always used. He quietly told her to either go to the other side of the hotel, or go home and stay home.
Washington D.C., USA
Lance and Frank met in the restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental. Frank’s research programs had finished the morning before and together they went through the results.
It seemed the esteemed Congressman William Pepper was up to his eyeballs in communications to South America. They had their guilty party, and they had the beginnings of a plan to have Congressman Pepper work for them.
Frank had spoken with Bethany Anne and she explained they needed someone on the inside, and a congressman who was already dirty just voted himself ‘to become my sock puppet bitch; I want to move my hand and he speaks my words.’ Frank made sure to write down that phrase for his book. While there were certainly good men and women on both sides of the floor in Congress and the Senate, it was also true that some were as dirty as coal.
That one was about to change his allegiance to become her dirty politician didn’t bother Bethany Anne at all. At least she would allow him to support his constituency as he should, and if he became involved with anyone else she would kill him. She was a jealous blackmailer who wouldn’t allow any freelancing for her congressman.
She explained she was looking for ways to get to Anton and Frank shared all of the telephone calls they had traced back to South America. “Out-fucking-standing. Can you figure out where they go?” He could, he allowed, but it would take a few days.
She told him that wasn’t a problem, they were stuck in San Jose with the Nosferatu issue. So long as no one fucked with them, they might be out of San Jose in a few days.
Lance drank the coffee the waitress had poured for him. It was good, but the two-bit pancake house they went to the other morning had better. “How do we persuade Pepper to fight the good fight?”
Frank smiled as he used real sugar in his coffee for the first time in ages. With his body recuperating, he doubted a few calories of the good stuff was going to do too much damage. “By giving him a package delivered by hand courier with all of his bank accounts and the tracing info. He’s over a barrel and it isn’t good. If I were to give this info to the press, his goose is cooked.”
“What?” Lance asked with a faked look of shock on his face, “We aren’t going to bring in my daughter to talk with him? What the hell, we’re going old school?”
Frank raised his mug to Lance. “Who are you calling old, you geezer?” Lance had to laugh, with Frank’s hair coming back dark, he certainly looked younger than Lance. After his haircut, which got rid of his grey hair, and with his almost ever-present grin Frank looked less than half his real age.
“I’d tell you to respect your elders, but you’re older on the inside than this new coat of paint, jackass.”
“Ass-munch.”
“My daughter would have you doing push-ups for the consistent use of the same cuss word.”
“What, are you going to tell on me?”
“Hell no, you cock stain on a two-bit whore’s Thursday panties. I’d hate to see your heart burst. I’m warning you, fuckhead.”
They burst out laughing and the others in the small restaurant looked over at them. They got their outburst back in check.
Lance took a sip of the coffee. He was wishing they had gone back to the other place. “So, we ship a copy of the papers without it getting traced back to us. What then?”
“We leave Washington and go back to Miami is my suggestion. Hole up in the house while we let the bastard sweat like the little greasy pig he is. We can’t possibly do more to upset his sense of well being than him knowing someone has that information and waiting for them to get in touch with him.”
“You’re a real son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. Did I tell you the time that I had one ass… hole spouting off shit and I wanted him to focus on something else? No? Well, it turns out he was diddling three women at the same time. I got all three of them…”
“Oh hell no, you didn’t!”
“Yes I did.”
“How did it end up?”
“One of the women stabbed his ass with a butter knife if I remember correctly. Worked out better than I could have hoped.”
Lance slapped the table laughing and people looked over at them again. He wiped a tear away and called for the check. “God, that’s great. Oh, shit. This has to be one of the funniest meetings I’ve been a part of… since breakfast at the pancake house.”
Lance’s phone started ringing, he looked down at it. “Frank, one second, it’s Patricia.” Frank just nodded and sipped on his coffee. “Good morning, Patricia. No, I’m in Washington D.C., so I’ve been up a while already. No, I’m not playing ten toes up and ten toes down with anyone you hussy, how could you think someth
ing like that? Ok, you got me there, it is probably one of the only reasons I might come to D.C.. No, it’s on business. Yes, I was serious when I mentioned a job for you if you ever decided to quit the military. Why, what’s changed your mind? Oh, rumors the base is being closed down?”
Lance looked at Frank and raised an eyebrow. Frank signed the check and pulled out his laptop. He should be able to get into some different databases to find out more about this development.
“Certainly, but you might have to move. I travel a lot. Well, I’m based in Miami right now, but that could change to England or it might change back to near there. I can’t tell right now, you would probably have to consider living out of a suitcase for the foreseeable future. Salary? How about twenty percent higher than what you make right now, plus another thirty percent for travel. If we stop traveling so much, you will lose that added amount. God, what are you now, your own agent? What kind of bonus are you talking about?”
Lance winked at Frank who had looked at him over his laptop. Frank realized Lance was as happy as he had seen him lately.
“Fine, but not all at once. I’ll approve a 10k bonus when you sign on, and an additional 10k at ninety days and another at one year. Damn, what now? You want cost of living assurances? When did you leave the military and become a mercenary? Uh huh, you know the pain in the ass you will be working for? Just for that I should hang up. That’s what I thought, kidding me my ass. Yes, that’s fine. Call me back when you’ve put in for your transfer to TQB Enterprises. Yeah, I’ll have my present secretary send you tickets. No, she might not have been with me as long as you, but she has a very sexy accent. Hell, I just call her to hear her read me the paper.”
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 80