I knew my hair was blowing around my head. Angela and Dima watched me with both fascination and fear. My Vampyre was showing…
"The Dragons are working with the Council?" Dima asked, surprised as she kept her eyes glued to me.
"Holy shit," I groused. "Why in the hell are you on this mission? Do you not have any of the intel?"
"My intel seems to differ from yours," she said, glancing over at Angela with suspicion. "I'm here to take out the alpha Dragon and you're supposed to help me."
I stared up at the clear blue sky for a long moment. My need to tear something from limb to limb was dangerously close to the surface. The sparks flying off of Hank didn't bode well for anyone. The smoke wafting from the Dragon's nose was a clear indication all hell could break loose any moment.
"Listen," Angela said reasonably. "The goals all match up. There was no reason to brief all of you on every little piece of the puzzle. The Alpha is apparently the mastermind behind the crossbreeding. He needs to go. We also think he's the one funding the part of the Council that is fighting for the reveal of the Wolves to the humans. If we take him out we can go into his financials and figure out who he's paying. We stop the crossbreeding and we nail the Council. The Weres stay hidden and everyone wins."
"Angela, the whiskey has finally eaten your brain. Why in the hell would the alpha Dragon's financials be available to us if we off him?"
"Because I'm his daughter and I'm next in line for alpha," Dima said with eyes as dead as I'd ever seen.
"It’s lovely you want to kill your dad and all—I'd expect no less from a Dragon. However, this plan is sucktastic and is a death trap waiting to happen," I said as I pulled the squirt gun from my belt.
"You know nothing of me or my family, Wolf," Dima snarled.
"Enlighten me," I said sarcastically.
"My father killed my mother and my five brothers brutally—in front of me. He tried to kill me throughout my entire childhood, but failed because my mother always outwitted him. He leads our people as a dictator and he's stayed entirely too long at the fair. I plan to find him and kill him. It will hurt and he will suffer just like my mother did. I have no plans to fail. You are wanted by the Dragons… both of you," she said, referring to Hank and me. "They can't understand your power—and quite honestly, neither can I. But I don't care what you are so long as you help me kill him."
Her story shut me up for a moment. Dima's life had sucked, but it was not my problem to fix. I had no intention of letting anyone in on my Vampyre blood secret. Ever. However, I did have a few pertinent questions.
"What’s with the crossbreeding?" I asked.
"The crossbreeding thing is utter bullshit. A few rogue idiots trying to take over. From what I understand they were taken out…" Her look to me was questioning. "It was you?"
I nodded curtly and she smiled with satisfaction.
"Outstanding. You will be very helpful."
"Let's get something straight here, Dragon. We are not working for you. If you behave and drink your medicine we might let you tag along," I informed her coldly.
"Does he speak?" she asked, referring to Hank.
"He's a man of few words," I replied.
"Nice," she purred as she looked him over from head to toe. "I like a man of action."
"While that's incredibly awesome to know," I said in a voice that drew her startled eyes right back to me, "he's taken. His mate is wildly jealous and occasionally unstable. If you so much as touch him you'll lose a body part… starting with your hand, followed by your overly inflated left boob. Afterwards his mate would probably rip out your entrails and shove them down your throat. She wouldn't kill you… she'd play with you. Once a limb or knocker started to grow back she rip off three more body parts to compensate. You understanding where I'm going with this?" I inquired politely.
"Got it," Dima choked out and avoided Hank completely.
"That was appetizing," Angela said with a chuckle and a gag. "Back to business."
"You actually think we're going to take directives from you?" I asked as I gathered up all the weapons and handed half to Hank.
"Um… yes?" she answered hesitantly.
"Wrong," I snapped as Dima laughed and Hank grinned. "You are not in charge here. I need the names of the Council members who know the details of this mission."
"That's not protocol," she said indignantly.
"I can assure you that you don't want to know what Essie will tell you to do with your protocol. Certainly after her description of what touching me results in… I'd think twice about making her unhappy," Hank said with a deadly smirk on his face. "Spit out the names or I'm quite sure you'll be choking on your protocol for days."
"Months," I added. "And your throat is not the only place I plan to shove them."
"Aramini, Gades, Weterman and Dahn," Angela offered quickly.
"Breakdown on how they side on the reveal?" Hank demanded.
"Aramini and Gades want the reveal. Weterman and Dahn do not."
"Was that so hard?" I asked sarcastically.
She shook her head in defeat, reached into her pocket and retrieved a piece of paper. "I'd suggest you memorize this and then eat it," she advised as she held it out to me.
"What the hell is it with people wanting me to eat paper lately?" I asked as I took it from her slightly shaking hands. "What is this?"
"I'll eat it," Dima volunteered.
"Um… okay," I said as I scanned the typed information.
It was names, addresses and habits of the alpha Dragon's homes and businesses. I handed it to Hank.
"Isn't this information Dima already knows?" I asked my boss.
"Well, yes… but since she can't defend herself I'm not sure how long she'll be around. And I wasn't sure if she would willingly give you the correct intel," Angela explained.
"Well, isn't that special," Dima ground out through clenched teeth.
"And yet you thought it was a brilliant idea to pair someone you clearly don't trust with us," I said so quietly Angela had to lean forward to hear.
"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds awful," Angela groused and yanked on the little bit of hair she had left.
"Look, it's a bad idea all around," Dima stated the obvious. "But you need me and I need you."
"Who did I screw over in a former life to deserve this?" I muttered as I committed the information to memory.
"The sun god?" Angela suggested.
We all gaped at her. She simply shrugged, pulled her flask from her cleavage, and took a healthy swig.
"Open up, Dragon," I instructed as I aimed the squirt gun at her very full and redonkulously pouty lips.
"You're really going to do this?" Dima asked with narrowed eyes and a disgusted shake of her head.
"I am really going to do this," I replied with a wink.
She had no clue what my experience with Dragons had been thus far and I wasn't keen on informing her. I was slightly uncomfortable leaving her completely defenseless, but she could earn her weapons back as she earned our trust.
"Where are you staying?" I asked the Dragon as she choked down the vile solution.
"Wherever you are," she replied with an evil little grin and a very unladylike burp.
The burp almost made me like her, but her words… not so much.
"How about no freakin' way?" I yelled. "You are not going to… "
"Oh thank god, are you guys Wolves?" a stressed out female voice called to us.
"Um…" I stammered as she and her husband and about fifteen large children approached us like a freight train that had run off the tracks.
It was a family of Werewolves and they were a mess. They were dressed loudly and sloppy. The kids were smacking each other and had remnants of popsicle and chocolate all over them. The husband appeared bored and was trying to pretend he wasn't part of the motley crew. He stood slightly off to the left and stared at his fingernails.
The overly made-up and exhausted woman sniffed the air and sighed with
relief.
"I knew it," she sang out and slapped two of the more unruly kids in the head. "I knew there were Wolves here. We're visiting from out of town and we got our credit cards stolen. Do you have any money we could borrow for a taxi back to our hotel and possibly a little extra for a bottle of Jack?"
"Is she for real?" Hank asked.
"Um… I think so. Do I give her money?"
"Normally I'd say no, but we need her and her brood to leave. Give her a hundred."
"Those kids are damn big," I mumbled as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wad of cash.
As the woman reached greedily for the money, my instincts kicked in and a horrid feeling of dread shot up my spine.
"That's because they're not kids." Hank yelled as he pulled his weapons.
It happened so fast I was unsure if I was seeing it correctly. All hell had broken loose as the ragtag little family from out of town drew baseball bats and knives and syringes. What the hell?
"Duck," I hissed at Dima and Angela as I took aim and prepared to fire.
Dima was close enough to pull behind me, but Angela got swallowed up in the melee.
I had expected trouble from the Dragon or my boss, not from a group of garishly dressed Werewolves from out of town. We couldn't catch a break lately if it bit us in the ass.
"Do you know these freaks?" Dima hissed as she grabbed one of her knives and planted it in the head of a Wolf that was beating on Angela with a bat.
"Hell to the no," I snapped as I picked off two who were running at us with syringes held high.
Syringes? Who were these people? And what in the hell was in the syringes?
Hank used his fists. Dima hurled knives and I vacillated between throwing stars and daggers. A gun would draw entirely too much attention. I was shocked and grateful we hadn't attracted an audience.
As fast as it started it was over. In all the confusion and screaming not one of us realized several of the children had come up behind us. I felt a horrific burning as a large needle pierced my spine. My knees buckled and I saw Hank falling forward as the poison entered his system. Turning my head with inhuman effort, I realized Hank and I might have gotten off easy. The sound of the bat connecting to Dima's head was something I would have a difficult time forgetting. It caved the back of her skull in and she dropped to the ground like lead. Thankfully the blow wouldn't kill her, but it was awful to see. Bright red blood saturated her red locks and her eyes remained open. She looked dead.
"What's happening?" I whispered Hank as I tried to move.
"They injected us with something that paralyzed us," he grunted. "I think the Vampyre blood is the only reason we're not completely knocked out."
Dwayne comes through again…
"Who in the hell are they?"
"Don't know. Essie, even if you can move, stay still. The Vamp blood might negate the crap they shot us up with. We don't want them to know," Hank instructed.
I did as told and searched the thinning crowd for Angela. Had she been injected? Was she dead?
"Hank, I can't move at all. Can you?"
"Nope, not yet."
The family backed away and formed a circle around us effectively blocking out anyone who passed by. Angela lay on the far side and was a bloody mess. My gut clenched in disgust with myself. I never should have taken her weapons. She looked half dead. She could have killed a couple of the bastards if she'd been armed. What the hell had I been thinking?
"Essie, do not second guess yourself," Hank reprimanded harshly.
"How did you know I was?" I asked, surprised. Son of a bitch, could he read my mind too?
"I know how you think," he said. "Angela will live. A beating will not kill her."
"Well, at least we know she's not the bad guy."
Nope, she was not the bad guy and the family was only the hors d'oeuvre for the bad guy. The bad guys had finally arrived. There were four of them and they were huge.
"God damn it," Hank growled. "I should have known."
"It's some of the Council, isn't it?"
"Yep. It's the top guards for the Council members themselves," he said as he watched them closely. "Can you move yet?"
"No."
Ignoring us completely, the guards went directly to Angela and continued the beating—her body flailed about like a rag doll. My stomach roiled and my heart was beating so hard I was certain it would burst from my chest. Was she being punished for communicating with us off the grid? Did the Council not know about Dima? Were they planning on killing her in front of us? Were we next?
"I need to move," I grunted as I tried desperately to make my useless muscles work. "I have to kill them. They can't do that to her. It's my fault she's unarmed. I have to protect her."
Hank's fury and frustration flowed off of him in waves. The utter insanity of what we were watching made no sense. How was this happening?
"Little bro bro? Essie?" Junior's voice boomed through our heads. "I'm in the zoo. Where in hell and tarnation are you?"
"Junior," Hank gasped with relief in his voice. "We're at the reptiles. Totally surrounded by Council—four major dangerous guards and around twelve to fifteen lesser targets. We've been injected and paralyzed. You alone?"
"At the moment, yes, but I can have a posse in about six seconds. Hang tight, Baby Bro, I'm on my way."
"Move it, big Bro. It's ugly here and getting uglier."
"Be there in ten," he said.
"Minutes?" I shouted. Angela would be dead in ten minutes.
"Seconds, little girlie. Ten seconds," Junior promised with a grunt of laughter.
"Thank god," I groused in relief.
"Any humans around you?" Junior asked.
"Negative," Hank answered. "Only Were."
"It's going to be okay, Essie," Hank whispered as Angela's violent beating continued in the background.
"Do you swear?" I demanded in a harsh voice as I forced myself to watch my boss's blood run red over the pavement.
"I do. I swear. Junior might be off his damn rocker, but he's one of the smartest and deadliest sons of bitches I know."
"I hope to hell you're right," I muttered as Dima moaned in pain beside me.
"I know I am, baby. I know I am."
Chapter 16
"Holy sheeeot on a stick in a hula skirt! Is that Brad Pitt shootin' a fight scene for a movie?" Junior bellowed as he and about forty Were Pigeons in both human and bird form came barreling toward the circle from hell we were trapped in.
I knew Were Pigeons existed, but I'd never seen them until now. There were only three known Packs of Pigeons in the world—Chicago, New York and London. In their Were form they looked like Pigeons on steroids—about four times the size of a normal pigeon. However, the razor sharp and unnaturally long fangs were a dead giveaway that they were not typical birds.
Half of the group was in bird form and the other half in human, but with fangs and claws flying. Holy shit, it was an Alfred Hitchcock nightmare on crack.
"Jesus H Christ," Hank gasped as he took in the deadly circus descending on us.
"And then some," I muttered. "Wait. What does the H stand for?"
"What?"
"I mean, I've always wondered. It must stand for something because everyone uses the same initial."
"Um… Henry?" Hank guessed.
"Nice try, Henry James Wilson." I laughed. "I was thinking it might stand for Hesus."
"So his name is Jesus Hesus?" Hank asked, confused.
"I suppose it is a little weird and rhymey," I admitted. "Gross. I think I just got pooped on."
"It's good luck," Hank explained as he tried to move his still useless body. "I just sure as hell hope Junior was clear on who the bad guys were when he briefed the flying, crapping time bombs."
"I'll second that," I mumbled as I watched the drama unfold.
"I love Brad Pitt," an adorable female Pigeon screamed at a decibel that made every Were within a surrounding mile wince in pain.
She tore through
the circle along with two dozen others and jumped on the back of the largest, most violent Council guard. He tried to throw her off, but her sharp little claws were embedded tight.
"It is BRAD PITT," she wailed, and then triple-winked at her delighted bloodthirsty friends. The guard was still trying to shake her off when she began pecking a rhythm in his neck that made my teeth hurt and the guard swear in fury and pain.
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