After Tim was Joel Holt. Joel was the fourth son of a pack leader in Virginia and he didn’t particularly like the family business. Pete figured that Joel was the opposite of him. Where his dad had given him too much, Joel’s dad had given him too little. Too little time and too little attention. Pete wasn’t sure that Joel’s efforts to leave the pack life, and specifically his dad’s pack, wasn’t a way to try and get just a little attention from his dad.
Rickie Escobar was next. Pete had talked with Rickie for a while. Rickie was funny, loud and a bit of a cutup. Pete wasn’t sure if Rickie was going to make it past the first week. Not because he was weak but rather because he didn’t seem to take anything seriously. In the Guard, serious went to a new level or someone got killed. Not being focused led to deaths, your own, or worse, a teammate’s.
After Rickie, Pete spent some time with Joseph Greggs. An intense and quiet guy, it was a little difficult for Pete to figure out Joseph’s reasons for leaving the pack. Finally, it all came together when Pete had made a comment about the Pack political system. It took ten minutes for Joseph to finally step down off his soapbox once Pete opened up that controversial topic. Pete wasn’t very politically minded himself, so it wasn’t a great stretch to admit he didn’t have much to say about the subject nor could he really judge the merits of Joseph’s points. But Joseph didn’t seem like a political nutcase, so Pete would give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
Finally, the best conversation of the trip happened with Matthew Tseng. Matthew was a rarity in America, an Asian Wechselbalg from immigrant parents. Typically, Wechselbalg from Asia, any of the countries in Asia, didn’t come to the US. It had been rare enough that the Pack Council had watched them covertly for years to ascertain if they were a plant in America or not. Strangely enough, the fact that the child of the couple was wanting out of the Pack put to rest the fears of a few council members who still considered his parents suspect after three decades.
Matthew had an easy demeanor and was fast as hell. They had played slaps for a while and Pete couldn’t win. The rest of the guys got involved and even Tim had to admit Matthew was preternaturally fast. Matthew gave off a completely guileless vibe. If he didn’t agree with something, he just stated the disagreement. He never sought to prove his point unless you chose to discuss the issue further. Pete tried to answer some of Matthew’s questions about TQB. The more they talked, the more Matthew seemed to… fit… in Pete’s mind.
Tim was staring out the window as they approached the ship. He was an adequate swimmer, but all of this water was causing him a little distress, increasing his anxiety. He heard Rickie say something about the size of the yacht being a compensation mechanism. None of the others laughed at his joke and Tim heard the ‘tough crowd’ comment under his breath.
That was when Tim spotted the sniper in a well-concealed location at the top of the large ship. As he looked around, he spotted others at strategic points. In his mind, it was a carefully orchestrated effort to look normal that would fool most people not seeing it from above. From above it was obvious every person on deck had every other person within their line of sight. He had heard about the spec-ops feel from those who had been at the New York meeting with the vampire, but he hadn’t realized just how organized this team was. Tim wasn’t a professional, but he had studied as much as he could on the internet and from what he could see, they weren’t in Kansas anymore.
The Black Hawk touched down and Pete opened the door. There were two humans waiting for them, an older fit man in a suit and a huge man who topped even Tim’s height by four or more inches.
He was fighting back the desire to go over and slug the guy. His alpha personality was working overtime over something as simple as the man’s larger body size and height. He had to get a grip or he might end up being thrown overboard. Pete had made sure to remind them Bethany Anne was now the final law and she absolutely could and would slap their heads clean off their body if they fucked up too much.
There was a saying if you killed someone who needed it on land, they had a backhoe to bury the body. Here, there wasn’t a need as the water would swallow you up and no one would be the wiser. It helped Tim keep a tight leash on his anger.
Even Rickie was momentarily stunned and silent. Joel was checking everything out, Joseph had his mouth open and Matthew just jumped off and looked around. Pete touched Bobcat’s shoulder as he exited and closed Shelly’s door.
Dan didn’t try to talk at all this close to Shelly, he just dipped his head in acknowledgement and waved everyone to follow him.
They noticed that the big man waited and followed them. None of them were going to somehow get ‘lost’ on the way to wherever they were going. Not that any had thought there would be a boat big enough to worry about getting lost on. Both Tim and Joel had seen another yacht with a helicopter not too far away. It was a big one, but not as big as the one they were presently on.
Everyone on the ship sized them up and then promptly ignored them once they saw the guys escorting them.
All of the Were creatures were wondering just what they had jumped into, and where was the scary vampire?
Dan took the new recruits into the large conference room and waved them all to chairs. Two more of the big guys with the same patches as Pete showed up, grabbed their bags and took them away. One was white, one was black. A few seconds later a tanned guy with the patch showed up and took a position in the back corner.
The middle-aged guy went to the front and got their attention.
“Good afternoon, gentleman. My name is Dan Bosse and I am the head of the military arm of TQB Enterprises. Previous to my present lofty position, I worked for the US Government for three decades. Half of that time was spent on special teams hunting young, vicious, mindless vampires called Nosferatu. Have all of you heard that term?” He received a bunch of blank stares. “Damn, what are your elders teaching you guys about vampires?”
Matthew raised his hand; Dan called on him, “Yes Mr. Tseng?” Matthew was shocked that the man knew who he was.
“Not to mess with them and to run like hell if you know of one in the area.”
Dan grunted, “Well, I guess I can’t really argue that strategy, it’s a perfect lead in to the first part of my presentation. Eric, would you hit the lights?”
The lights dimmed and the built in LCD TV in the wall came on. “What I am about to share, outside of TQB Enterprise personnel, is not known. I spent a large part of my life making sure the sacrifice of these men was never attributed to the UnknownWorld.”
Dan went through a list of men, their ages, and their service records ending with when and how they had died. It made an impression on each of the Weres, but their bias couldn’t be broken that easily. These were humans, maybe tough humans, but they didn’t have the stamina, strength, or speed of a Wechselbalg. It made sense that Bethany Anne would want to bring on a team of werewolves to help fight these things.
In fact, the werewolves reacted pretty much as John had called it a while back. They respected the deaths of the human agents, but felt it wouldn’t have happened to them.
The lights came up and Dan got their attention. “What you are probably thinking is that if you were the ones fighting, you would not have died like these agents did. No amount of explaining or additional video will likely persuade you otherwise. So, please raise your hands if you believe that you can’t be beaten by a human.”
Dan looked around. “Mr. Tseng? You don’t have your hand up.” Everyone looked over at him.
“I’m just cautious, Mr. Bosse. I’m willing to fight anyone you want me to, but I’m not willing to believe no human can beat me, just because I’ve not met anyone who could.” That got a little chuckle from everyone at the table. John calculated that this one was probably going to be the toughest fight they had.
“Fair enough. Unfortunately, the only vampires we have with us wouldn’t be a good way to introduce you to a Nosferatu. The vampires who are on these two ships, both females by the
way, would have you on the ground so fast you couldn’t learn anything. So, you get the pleasure of going against the Queen’s Guard. There are five of them, and five of you. One of the guard, as you already know, is Pete. So if any of you want to call foul we will place a human, if you leave any of them left, in for a second round.”
Tim thought this seemed fair enough. Personally, he wanted a shot at the big guy—that one looked like he might last a couple of rounds.
They all left the meeting room and Dan took them to the workout area. He gave them a change of clothes and let them have time to warm up and stretch their muscles.
The Queen’s Guard were doing the same thing, and playing AC/DC. It was weird to hear them screw it up and sing, “But Bethany Anne’s got the biggest… balls of them all!” and then laugh their asses off. Until the Weres knew differently, they weren’t going to get sucked into anything that could get the vampire, wherever she was, pissed off at them.
Dan called Rickie up, “Mr. Escobar, you have the floor. Eric from the Queen’s Guard is going to be your Nosferatu for this session.” He looked at all of the new recruits. “Now, please understand that while most Nosferatu are mindless about attacking something to eat it, it doesn’t lack intelligence or at least a cunningness at times. If you permit an advantage, it is likely to use it. Do you understand this, Mr. Escobar?”
Rickie mouthed off and made a joke out of understanding the rules, “One Nosferatu coming up and one Nosferatu going to go down!” Rickie put his hands up in the air as if this was a foregone conclusion. Rickie saw that the Guard Eric seemed to put himself into a strange walking motion that looked both painful to accomplish and reduced his walking speed by at least half. This was going to be too easy.
Dan spoke up one more time, “Is there anything you want to know about your Nosferatu, Mr. Escobar? Anything you want to make sure they can or can’t do?” Dan stood there patiently, waiting for his answer.
Rickie was feeling pretty cocky this time. “Sorry, just need to know how long you want me to make this fight last? Like, should I allow him to last for at least a couple of rounds before he goes down?” Rickie was smiling.
“That’s your final question, Mr. Escobar? Yes? Ok, then the answer is you may win quickly or take your time, but remember that taking your time will just give the Nosferatu time to keep after you. You may try taking out the Nosferatu, Mr. Escobar.”
Rickie’s smile got wider and he looked around, hamming it up for everyone. When he turned to face Eric again, Eric shot him in the stomach.
Rickie went down yelling in surprise, “Motherfucker!” Eric jump-limped over to Rickie and used the 9mm Luger to pistol whip Rickie’s head. He was knocked out by Eric’s blow to his temple. Everyone was stunned.
Eric stood up, jacked a round and went to pick up his shell casing. Pete went over to Rickie and grabbed him by the shoulders. He looked over at Joseph. “A little help here? He’ll be ok, the shot was lead.” Joseph helped move Rickie to a pad. Pete heard him mumble under his breath, “Still going to hurt like a motherfucker when he wakes up.”
Pete answered him, “That’s the point, isn’t it?” Joseph realized there were five pads on the floor, and five new Wechselbalg recruits. Oh fuck, he thought.
Since Tim was the last one up, none of the guys got to see him ask for John. It wasn’t even a fair contest. Tim might be big, strong and fast, but unlike John, he hadn’t worked out with vampires nor had he been on operations against the Nosferatu. Fact was, John was stronger, almost as fast, and substantially better trained and ready. Tim went down in the first five seconds. John didn’t put his lights out until the third time. When Tim woke up, he would know that he had his ass handed to him.
As Pete and John carried Tim over to a waiting pallet, Pete called out to Eric, “You shot him? Damn, that’s cold even for you, Eric.”
Eric smiled. “Yeah? I bet he remembers to ask more pertinent questions next time.”
Everyone chuckled at that. They all believed the werewolf with the mouth would use it to make sure he understood how the rules worked the next time.
It took no more than ten additional minutes before the Weres began waking up. By then, even the 9mm bullet was ejected by Rickie’s body.
Dan wanted them all to see the wounds, so he didn’t want any cleanup done until after the video viewing.
Once they were all awake and provided with water, it was a quiet walk back to the conference room. When Rickie woke up, Dan had gone over and had a private conversation with him. He grimaced, but shook his head.
5
The second part of the meeting had them watching the Nosferatu video, Bill and other, rather bloody footage.
Dan didn’t need to make the point that the first humans had been killed by Nosferatu. The humans who had taken them out had beaten the Nosferatu. If the Weres weren’t good enough to beat the humans, they certainly could be Nosferatu dinner. It was sobering for the usually brash young men.
The picture of Bill in all of his vampire glory was a little startling to everyone. Here was one of the boogeymen, one of the vampires that mothers used to get their boys to mind. It made an impression before Dan continued the video and showed them other attack footage.
At the end of the video, food was brought in and Dan dismissed them to get into a fresh set of clothes.
Dan and John were pleased. While they hadn’t planned on shooting anyone, it was an object lesson every one of them would remember and it was only slightly painful for Rickie. It was more of an embarrassment than a pain since he had been in more shock than pain when Eric pistol-whipped him into unconsciousness. He didn’t feel much of anything until he woke up.
They were pretty tired by the end. Pete showed them to their rooms and let them know the area was expected to stay as clean as it was at this moment. All cleaning would be done by them. He also mentioned they might want to get as much rest as possible. John Grimes, the big guy, was known to get new recruits up early.
He closed the door to their shared suite at approximately 10 PM. Four hours later, John Grimes came in banging a trash can lid rousting all of their sorry asses out of bed. The whole Guard was with him as John used this time to get them back into the gym and running laps with stop, drop and give me twenty pushups, spread throughout the morning. Both guards and the new recruits stopped at 4 AM and John told them they had fifteen minutes to be ready for breakfast.
Every one of the grumps and complaints John heard only caused his smile to get bigger.
After breakfast and another session on Nosferatu training, John told the new guys to get ready for a sparring session. This time, all five were a little more cautious getting ready.
The time was 10 AM, now came the final test.
Tim, Joel, Rickie, Joseph and Matthew came out in their white workout clothes, Pete came out in a black set with a patch on his shirt. Darryl, Scott and Eric were standing together, their arms crossed. Pete was the only guard who started stretching and warming up. John got their attention.
“Listen up! You guys are obviously a new team, we are moving through this training operation for the first time. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t train you to be ready to work together if something happens tomorrow. Because we don’t know what will happen, I’m not comfortable that you guys can pull together and work as a team. Therefore, you guys are going to decide who is going to be the lead of your team. I don’t know how a leader for a Wechselbalg team is chosen exactly, but since I don’t care who it will be I’m not going to push a particular choice. To make this as even as we can, the four of us are going to leave. Pete has decided he wants a shot at the leadership of the Wechselbalg, so he’s going at it as well. The only rule we have is any unnecessary or capricious damage will be counted against you and it might take only one such display to get you tossed off the boat. How badly you act will determine whether we toss you off with a life jacket or not, so don’t fuck up. There are video cameras around the room, we will not be taking someone’s opinion. If I
can’t make a decision, it goes to Dan. Dan will get Nathan’s opinion and if together they can’t make a decision it goes to Bethany Anne.”
Tim spoke up, “Are you the lead for the humans?” Tim would feel a little better if he had been beaten by the head of Bethany Anne’s team, at least that way he could perhaps believe that he wouldn’t have lost to every one of these guys. He had watched all of the fights before his and had been impressed with all of the Guards, but had secretly felt that he would have done better. John had dissuaded him that he was as good as he thought.
John looked at Tim. “No, not anymore. Our lead is a female and trust me, you don’t want to go up against her by yourself. We will often test the four of us against her. We’ve almost fought her to a draw, but we’ve never beaten her yet, so don’t push yourself to try that anytime soon, Tim.”
John looked at all of them, including Pete. “You guys need to figure this shit out for yourselves. The lead isn’t the strongest, he’s the one who is going to get you guys through the dark and out the other side safely and accomplish the mission. Remember that as you discuss your choice.” John turned around and waved the other guys to follow him.
Team TQB wanted Pete to take this lead, but they couldn’t do anything about that now. Nathan had explained that Wechselbalg would follow only strong people. It didn’t mean that they would follow the strongest physically to the detriment of intelligence or wisdom, but they couldn’t and wouldn’t follow someone who wasn’t in the top as a fighter. It was built into their DNA. They, of course, didn’t realize that was absolutely the truth. Their DNA had been manipulated and they were unable to follow weak leaders.
When Pete informed John and Gabrielle he wanted to drive the new team, they both asked him all the questions they could think of to make sure he was doing it for the right reasons. Both were satisfied with his attitude and emotional stability. Gabrielle had spent eight grueling hours training Pete one on one. Driving him to the end of his abilities and then kicking him while he was down. Asking him each time he was on the ground, his body mending the broken bones, dislocated shoulders and minor cuts she had delivered with her swords if he was willing to take this pain for his team?
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 87