Death Becomes Her (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 1)

by Michael Anderle

  Alexi had finished undressing. One second he was a man, the next he was a huge brown bear again. He walked calmly off into the bushes ahead of Ecaterina . The other man walked into the bushes after him.

  A minute later Ecaterina heard a roar that felt like it shook her insides and the horrible sounds of a wolf and a bear fighting. There was a sudden, sharp bark and a loud thump as a body hit a tree and slid down. Two more loud noises and then she could hear the bushes being brushed aside as a large body came back out into the light.

  Alexi had a few scratches on him, but he didn’t seem too concerned.

  Bethany Anne looked down at him. “Alexi, I’m going to make sure that Ecaterina is watched through the night and we will leave for Brasov in the morning. I am expecting you to join us. You are free to make preparations as necessary for a week’s absence. Make sure you dress comfortably. Not that it matters, but I completely approve of your reasons for taking Algerian down. All it takes is good men to look the other way to allow evil to get a foothold in our world.”

  She turned towards Ecaterina and Lowell, “I will be back in another hour or so. There are a few things I want to retrieve and then we can talk.” She looked down at Ecaterina. “Are you feeling OK?”

  “I am, thank you. I could use some aspirin and food right now and while Mr. Lowell is terribly warm, I think I would like to change clothes and freshen up a little.”

  “Very good, I’ll see you both soon.”

  And with that, she walked out of the clearing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Carpathian Mountains, Romania

  Bethany Anne left the party in the clearing and quickly opened up some distance from them running around the north side of the lake. She wasn’t sure how sensitive the were-humans were, but she didn’t want them to see any weakness from her, and right now, she felt incredibly weak as she disgorged everything from her stomach. The disgusting regurgitation along with the smell would cause her another round of stomach convulsions. She would run another fifty yards or so away each time, trying to get away from the smell.

  Tom was trying to say something, but she couldn’t listen right then. Mentally, she was prepared to do everything, including eating people, whether human or wolf at the time, to acquire the energy she needed to protect Ecaterina and Alexi.

  Until she had enough energy to be in top form, she would allow nothing to come between her and her need to protect them. That included being completely grossed out by her actions. She turned off that part of her thinking and took almost an analytical perspective as she would do what was necessary.

  The payment, in this case, was throwing up over parts of Alexi’s mountain. She hoped he didn’t mind if he ever found out.

  She found a little stream and cleaned her mouth and cheeks, finding a log to sit on for a moment to consider her next step.

  Unfortunately, the lack of information she had, due no doubt to making sure that she didn’t have too much information if her transfer went ‘wrong’, was a real problem right then.

  Michael could never have considered just how different her conversion would be. Since he had never had any conversation with Tom, and no frame of reference to what the spacecraft was when he stumbled upon it, he must have originally thought it was voodoo magic. He had never explained his thoughts to her.

  However, after the last one hundred years, he must have reconsidered the truth of his own origin and realized it wasn’t, probably, an evil device. Since Tom has so horribly messed up the first transformation he had tried, without communication and substantial pain, it was no surprise that Michael hadn’t brought anyone else to the ship.

  It was a little curious why Michael could create change.

  “Tom, how can Michael and his children create new vampires?” She let her senses roam while she sat there, listening to the abnormally quiet forest. The longer she sat there, the more she could sense the animals deciding she wasn’t on the hunt. She wondered if they could sense her mood?

  I speculate that if you exchange enough of the blood of a changed human with enough of Michael’s or one he changed, the blood will become saturated enough with the nanocytes which facilitate the enhancements. A smaller amount would just help a human with any intrinsic body abnormalities and never acquire enough to overcome their bio-programming and replicate to essentially complete the transformation.

  Bethany Anne pondered this information. “So, if we do a reverse transfusion, can we ‘undo’ the Kurtherian change?”

  No. The changes we implement in a human body, once saturation is achieved in the first place, eventually replace all essential cells and a blood transfusion would not exchange the cells that have replicated into the organs, especially the brain.

  “What about for a new transfer?”

  Possibly. If the nanocytes have been following the programming, it is possible to interrupt the transition if you reduce the saturation point before they make too many inroads into the inner organs.

  “What is the programming you are referring to?”

  Stage 1: The nanocytes must first heal the body of any injury. Stage 2: the nanocytes review any DNA level issues, similar to your leg modifications. Stage 3: Once those changes are complete it will then integrate with all core body functionality. Once the core body changes are complete there is no going back.

  “What would happen if injury occurred during stage 2?”

  Well, we figured that a body would be in our ship during these changes so we didn’t necessarily consider what would happen. I would imagine all changes to the DNA would stop at an appropriately safe stage while every other effort would be made to go back and resume taking care of the stage 1 prerogatives.

  “Why are Michael’s children less powerful, and each generation substantially more affected by sunlight?”

  I would assume that the nanocytes are a little less pure having to move from one human to another. The nanocytes already have the DNA changes from the previous host, so changes from Michael to his first level offspring, then those children’s nanacytes have two sets of DNA changes when they change a third level and so on. I’m sure the purity of the DNA in a child could potentially help or hinder a transformation as well as the purity of the nanocytes that they receive themselves.

  As for the sunlight issue, I can only perceive that each generation must be exchanging the epidermal layer with confused nanocytes. It must have happened in Michael’s skin and although he isn’t affected, it was a submissive trait that became dominant in most of his children.

  “Yeah, he has one, David, that isn’t affected. I think that is the only one.”

  Bethany Anne went quiet for a couple of minutes, trying to digest everything. “Tom, why are you qualifying your statements so much?”

  I’m not sure of the answer. I thought that was normal not to state something you didn’t know as truth?

  “No, it isn’t. What I mean to ask is you seem to be unsure of your answers more than I would have thought you would be, since you had the responsibility to implement the solutions.”

  Well, I am a pilot first, a scientist a somewhat distant second. In our race, the truly intellectual had an overdeveloped sense of curiosity with a substantially higher level of risk aversion. To be willing to rush into the unknown, we had to find those with intelligence, but no so much they realized their own peril was a given. We had to have some ability to deceive ourselves to be willing to try taking a spaceship, by ourselves, and going out into the Universe without even a map.

  Bethany Anne was surprised, she hadn’t given Tom the respect that he probably deserved. While she was still a little sore over the fact she became his taxi, she was put into a rare position to be able to make a difference in more than just a few cold cases and now had, potentially, a thousand years or more to make a difference.

  Thinking about her own situation right now, she knew that information was her first priority. She was effectively safe, she had at least two sources of information and a third she was going to visit. Whil
e Petre wasn’t an immediate child and therefore almost assuredly wasn’t a physical match for Bethany Anne, hell, maybe none of the children could match her in a fight, he wouldn’t be unprotected.

  Especially if he was dealing under the table against his father. The children might not support Michael’s black and white version of the world, but she couldn’t imagine that they would countenance a child working with the disowned or other groups that actively participated in attacking anything of Michael’s.

  She supposed she could talk to Stephen first, but that wasn’t her style. The UnknownWorld would certainly create their own opinions of her and she knew that it would be from the stories told about her. While she might change a few opinions, there was no way she would be able to get ahead of gossip. That was probably the only thing that could be faster than the speed of light. She smiled at that thought.

  She needed to find out what happened with Michael, if he was actually either dead or captured or just AWOL. She frowned at that thought. It would piss her off more to find out he had purposefully left her behind than if he was dead. That wasn’t a nice thought, if she were honest with herself, but she had some heightened level of abandonment issues. Could be why she was a little aloof with personal relationships as most guys in their twenties had their own issues with being dependable in a relationship.

  She also had the issue that Michael was tracking down. The new type of vamps that were somehow connected with the situation in World War II. If Michael wasn’t personally dealing with that, and at the moment she couldn’t assume he was, she would have to handle it.

  Plus, some group was actively trying to get rid of her. It was obvious from Algerian’s comments that Petre didn’t want Nathan getting involved.

  Without Carl, she was seriously hampered in information acquisition. She needed to find a core group who knew more about the UnknownWorld and could help her understand what she could and couldn’t accomplish with the movers and shakers in that area. If Carl and Michael had both been taken out of the equation, she would need to build her own team. She had some people she could contact from her previous life, but that would be chancy as hell. They would have split allegiances and her friendship wasn’t going to trump their allegiance to the US.

  Then, she would need funding. Her previous Bethany Anne Reynolds finances were probably already dispersed, especially after her going away party she and her father put on her credit cards that last night. That might have been a little irresponsible in light of what had happened to her so far, but it had been a hell of a night! She would have to see what was in the accounts Michael had Carl setup for her.

  Her father was certainly on her side. But getting in touch with him would be a real problem. Any contact would certainly be expected and she would need to be careful before getting him involved. The same would be true for Martin, if she could convince herself that it would be safe to confide anything in him.

  She stood up, moving her head from side to side, cricking her neck. It was time to get back and find out what resources she did have. As far as she knew, she had a wolf, a bear, a pretty Romanian girl, and the name of someone who could supply information.

  Well, she had wanted to be on the sharp point, it didn’t get any sharper than where she was. She considered her options and the amount of challenges ahead. Oh well, she thought, no time like the present to get her information and let Petre suffer for his sins.

  She set off back towards the camp.

  —

  Alexi was sitting on the log around the what was now mostly just ashes and tossed in a couple of small logs, considering the situation.

  Obviously, he had found Michael’s new child, and she nothing like he was expecting. Well, mostly not.

  She had the scary-as-hell-kill-you-dead part down pat. His wolf would normally have issues with any challenges, but she was so far above him that the wolf just accepted her alpha-ness. He only accepted Gerry as an alpha because Gerry never pushed it. He would ask Nathan to do something for him and Nathan was as happy at the relationship as he possibly could be.

  Until this little trip, his time working with Michael’s group was high-risk, low-probability. So, he only had to keep his head down for a short time to come out ahead and the risk had been more than enough to keep him out of everything else related to the pack.

  It seemed he had lost the throw of the dice now. If he ever got out of this situation, he would have to admit that Gerry had played the better, longer game. Nathan’s markers had all come due and the bill was going to be significantly more than he thought he would ever have to pay. That tended to weigh down the scales on the ‘I’m so screwed’ side.

  However, Ecaterina was on the other side of the scale and so it was possible he would come out ahead. One should always look for the sunshine peaking over the mountain in the morning. The view was breathtaking.

  Speaking of breathtaking, Ecaterina was presently kneeling with her head inside her tent and the rest of her body outside the entrance and the view was causing him problems, serious focus problems. My god…

  “What is it, exactly, that has your attention Mr. Lowell?”

  A little red-faced, Nathan had forgotten about Ecaterina’s uncle who had cleaned up the bodies and dumped them away from their site. He quickly pulled his attention back to the flame and blurted out the first thing on his mind.

  “The woman vamp.”

  “Ah.” Alexi sat down on a log to Nathan’s left. He had gotten dressed again after the vamp left and had been a little scarce for a while. Nathan must have really been distracted to not hear him coming back. Now he was blushing again at his mistake.

  He was acting like a stupid teenager again, and it kinda felt good. At least he wasn’t so old that he wasn’t capable of being pulled in by a fantastic female. She was the right package of outdoors and smoldering heat and he was trying like hell to figure out what the price tag might be. Not that he cared, if he had what it cost, he was spending it for the chance to know her better.

  He just had a thousand pounds of uncle to deal with, a vamp that wasn’t going to let him just move on with his life and someone or someone’s trying to take down his company. He needed his head screwed on straight, but his hormones were making that a cold-bitch to do. He had to grin at the reality that the world was going down the deep, dark hole of perdition and he was going to smile on the way.

  Alexi carried on with the conversation, “Yah, she is a package. I wasn’t sure what happened. She just appeared, took care of the first wolf without paying any attention to me and continued into the bushes to you guys like she was getting a little fresh air. Of course, with all of that blood on her arm and face, it was a little frightening, even to me.”

  Alexi pulled the old coffeepot out of the ashes and retrieved a cup nearby. Pouring some dregs out of the pot, he cupped the mug with both hands and took a small drink.

  Carrying on the conversation, relating his experience, Nathan continued the story. “I was in a bad straight. I was in a horrible tactical position thinking I might try to join up with you against all three of them when in the middle of our fight she walks in, takes out the first wolf and demands we change. I’m a betting man, Alexi, but I never bet against vamps. I knew who she must be, but coming here, walking in the day surprised the hell out of me. I’m not ashamed to say I just laid down as quick as gravity would take me and changed like a pup would.”

  Alexi looked over at Nathan. Taking in his size and stature, this man was a killer. If he was fighting two wolves, including that alpha and was mostly holding his own it was a testament that he was no pushover. To have dropped his head and subordinately shown his neck explained he knew power and respected it. That he had stood up for Ecaterina when questioning the vampire was something Alexi still considered.

  It was obvious to Alexi that Nathan liked his niece. Hell, most everyone liked his niece, but she had wander lust, she wasn’t going to stay here in the Brasov area. While he wouldn’t want her to get caught up in this world, if sh
e wasn’t going to be wiped, she probably wouldn’t find a better relationship for protection than this Were and the vamp. Well, if the vamp cared to protect her, that is. He needed a chance to talk to Ecaterina and explain what was going on.

  He got up, it was time to talk with her.

  Nathan watched Alexi put his cup down and start walking over to Ecaterina. While he could sit right there and listen in to the conversation with his hearing, that would go badly when she realized what he had done later. He was sure that she would clue in eventually and then she would feel like he hadn’t been respectful of her privacy. He stood up, went over to his rig and got the last shirt.

  Yelling over to Alexi to let him know he was going to wash up a little, he left the clearing heading for the lake.

  That was where Bethany Anne found him.

  Carpathian Mountains, Romania

  Ecaterina wasn’t doing much in her tent. Mostly, she figured, she was hiding from the situation.