by Natalie Grey
>>They were released without charges,<< ADAM informed her.
“That’s it,” Bethany Anne muttered. “I’m buying more shoes. It’s either that or start wholesale government slaughter.”
John knew the face Bethany Anne made when she was talking internally. “Who and what?”
“ADAM and he said the officials have been released.” She responded.
John’s face darkened. Every time he thought that the world was beginning to hold its extremists accountable, he was proved wrong.
Bethany Anne stalked along the hallway, her voice rising with every word. “This is why I don’t trust that group of teabag-faced wrinkled cock-less sacks of fuck faced cooch–virgins to run their own shit!”
“At least Stephen’s taking care of Bulgaria.” Bethany Anne stabbed at an elevator button. “I don’t think I could cope with another thing going wrong. I have tried, and I have tried, and I have tried to turn the other cheek, but each time they….” She took a deep breath. “We’ll go through the gate soon,” she said distantly.
“Actually, I came to talk to you about Stephen.” John got into the elevator with her. He ducked out of habit. He was used to Earth, where nothing was made for a man as tall as he was. He kept forgetting that the QBS ArchAngel was made with the Queen’s army in mind. “Peter and Nathan are worried about Jennifer.”
“What are they worried about?” She asked him.
“They think Stephen brings out a reckless side in her.” John expressed their concern.
His Queen snorted. “Those two have no right to make an accusation like that.”
“I know, but they are worried that she and Stephen might be outnumbered. They want to send backup.” John shrugged.
“Stephen will ask for backup if he needs it,” she stated.
John opened his mouth to protest and closed it at the look on Bethany Anne’s face. “I trust both Stephen and Jennifer,” Bethany Anne told him. “There are no slackers on my team. There are no pansy-asses, either. They’re going to be fine.” She snickered. “Or, they will be if Jennifer doesn’t kill him.”
Sofia, Bulgaria
Arisha Orlov was watching the door of the hotel. She had been drawn to this town by reports of monsters in the mountains, and the sound of screaming carried on the wind.
Most people would shrug their shoulders and forget about it when no explanation emerged. Or they would remember the stories their grandmothers had told them and be afraid once more, even though they tried to convince themselves they didn’t believe in the old myths.
Arisha knew those myths were true. When she was ten, her cousins had come running into the house, claiming that they had seen a wolf that was bigger than any man. While everyone else laughed at them, Arisha saw from their eyes that they were telling the truth.
They didn’t want to tell her where they’d seen the wolf because they thought she’d get killed, but she made them by threatening her cousin that she’d tell his father just who had stolen one of his magazines with the naked girls.
When she went into the forest, she saw the trail of something bigger than a bear, but with the paw prints of a wolf. And she’d found a man whose eyes looked older than her grandmother’s, even though his face looked like he was only twenty. He sent her home, telling her the forest wasn’t safe. She went, but she vowed to find him again.
She remembered his eyes. She remembered the way his words were gentle, but he still seemed angry, somehow, like he had a pent-up fury struggling to get free.
She’d followed those stories to a job at one of the newspapers, and now she was traveling all over Europe. She sent back the stupid columns her boss wanted about the failure of NATO and the terrible conditions in the countries that had foolishly left the USSR all those years ago.
She didn’t need to see those places to know what he wanted to hear, she just wrote the same article over and over again, sent it back and she knew that it was published in the state papers.
Then she went out at night and tried to find the other stories. The strange stories. Ones she never wrote up for the paper.
When she heard the rumors, she told her boss she wanted to do a story about Bulgaria, and he bought her a train ticket to go to Sofia. She wrote the story he wanted on the train ride and a reminder to send it to him a few days later, so he’d think she had been working the whole time.
Then she went out to the bars, the really bad ones, the ones where the bums and the drunks went. They were the sort of people who saw a lot more than your regular nine to five type of person.
So far, she’d heard nothing except that an exceptionally wealthy man, James Dillon, had just booked into the Grand Hotel Sofia. Most people seemed to think he was an American, but they just seemed to assume that because he was rich.
They spat when they said it. Filthy Americans.
The world had new people to hate, like the CEO of TQB Enterprises, but old habits die hard. People were used to hating Americans here. But she had only needed to see the man once to know that he wasn’t American. Only the old nobility walked like that. Arisha had seen some of them over the years.
She knew.
He had absolute confidence in himself. He walked like the world was his and he expected everyone’s obedience. He had to be from one of the houses of Europe, but no amount of searching had turned up any James Dillon.
She had settled down in the doorway of a building across the street to wait. She also wondered why he looked worried. Honestly, there wasn’t much connecting him to this except a hunch and the fact that she had no other leads to follow.
At last, he came out of the hotel again, with a woman. The woman moved like an athlete, but not like he did. Maybe she was a trophy wife?
Arisha ignored her.
The man himself was young. That surprised her each time she saw him. She’d caught glimpses over the past couple of days. His hair had only a few strands of gray in it, but he carried himself like he was much older. A possibility occurred to her, and she brushed it away. She’s collected all the stories she could find about Wechselbalg, and this man just didn’t seem like one of them—not like the man in the forest had been, all those years ago. She told herself there was no way to know, that she was an idiot, but still, she wondered if she was watching the wrong man.
On the other hand, if he wasn’t Wechselbalg, what reason would he have to track the same story she was tracking? She ran for a cab, herself, splashing through puddles on the street and dodging a car. “Taxi! Taxi!”
Whatever his reasons were, she was going to find them.
—
“He’s coming.” Filip set down his phone and settled back in his chair. “Now we can finally get to the bottom of this.”
Toma only grunted. He thought this meeting was a mistake. Filip was foolhardy if he thought he could play around with things like this and not get hurt. He only wanted a prize, a story to sell to the pretty Russian who’d been asking questions around town lately.
He wanted more than a payout for the story, Toma knew. Filip only thought about two things: sex and money. It was why he made stupid plans like this. Toma wondered if maybe he should have left Filip to make his own mistake this time.
“Have some rakia.” Filip poured a glass for Toma without getting up, “It’ll make that sour mood of yours go away.” He bit down on his anger.
Toma had been sulking for days, letting Filip know that he thought he was making a mistake. More than putting him in his place, though, Filip just wanted him to be quiet when their guest came.
He was proud of himself for arranging this meeting, no matter what Toma thought. It was Filip who’d noticed the pretty reporter in the dive bar on the outskirts of Sofia, asking questions you wouldn’t think a reporter would ask. He peeked at her notes, too, when he snuck a glance down her shirt. She’d written down San Jose, but he didn’t know what that meant. And then he’d heard that a rich American was asking some of the same questions. The American seemed to know some things, too.
/> If Filip could find out what they were, he could get the reporter her story.
He licked his lips. He was willing to bet she’d be grateful—very grateful.
A door opened on the other side of the room, and Stoyan came in. Toma looked to Filip, “You invited him?” Toma and Stoyan had never gotten along. Toma thought the man was a bad influence. Stoyan never said much of anything, but it was clear he thought the same of Toma.
“He did,” Stoyan answered for Filip. He looked angry.
Then again, he always looked angry.
“I wanted some protection.” Filip gulped the glass of rakia Toma hadn’t taken. “I am being careful.”
Stoyan held the door open, “Not careful enough, Filip.”
Three other men came into the room. Stoyan was taller than most men, but these men were all as big as he was. Their muscles bulged at their biceps and they didn’t look happy.
Stoyan gave a command. “Tie Filip up.” He jerked his head at Toma.”You should go.”
“What is this?” Filip demanded. He stood up, swaying slightly from the alcohol. He wished he had not taken the drink. He could feel the danger in the room. He tried to step away from the two men coming for him but did not get out of the way in time. They grabbed him and tied him to the chair.
Behind him, Toma pulled out his gun and tried to run for the door as he took aim.
One moment, Filip was looking at Stoyan, and the next moment there was a wolf.
Filip screamed.
The beast leapt across the room easily and caught Toma at the door. Filip couldn’t turn to watch, he was tied up too tightly, but he heard the sounds of flesh ripping, a mans throat torn out.
“What is this?” His voice was high and frightened. The wolf padded across the room. Filip could feel the heat from it and smell its fur, he gave a pathetic whimper when it put its jaw by his ear and snapped. There was a ‘chuff’, almost as if the wolf was amused, and it padded around to stare at him.
None of the other men, Filip noticed, seemed to be surprised at all.
“Stoyan?” Filip was shaking so hard he was feeling lucky he was tied to the chair. He would have fallen out of it if he were not held upright. There was only one thought in his head: if this was his friend, he needed to make Stoyan remember that.
They’d had many nights out drinking together. Stoyan wouldn’t kill him. “Stoyan?”
He hated the way his voice was shaking.
“Yes,” one of the other men said shortly. He seemed amused by Filip’s fear, but also impatient. “He’s Stoyan. Now shut up.”
This had to be a nightmare, Filip thought, but he could not seem to wake up. “Why are you doing this?”
“He wants to meet the man you’re meeting. I said shut up.” The man repeated.
The wolf punctuated this by snapping its teeth again, and Filip whimpered in fear before he could stop himself.
“I only wanted to meet him because he was asking questions about a … about a….” Filip’s voice trailed away in horror. About a giant wolf in the mountains. The wolf laughed again, that hollow chuffing noise.
“I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know it was—was it you?”
The wolf hunched down at that, a growl building in its chest.
“I’m sorry!” The words were almost a scream. “I didn’t know!” Filip wailed.
“It wasn’t him,” one of the men explained. “It was his cousin. Irina.” He looked out the window. “Sir, he’s arriving.” The wolf nodded and settled into a crouch.
“What—what are you going to do to him?” Filip couldn’t stop looking at those claws.
“We’re going to ask him why he’s looking for Irina,” the guard explained. He strode across the room and grabbed Filip by the front of the shirt. “And you’re going to be silent. When this is over, you’ll help us find her.”
“What if I—I don’t actually know—” He stuttered.
“You’ll use all those connections I hear you’re always bragging about,” the man said shortly, paused a moment, then shrugged indifferently.
“Or we’ll kill you. Understood?”
CHAPTER TWO
Outskirts of Sofia
Stephen stepped out of the car. “Thank you,” he told the cab driver formally. He had spent the time to make sure his accent was correct.
The language implant fed him the words, but Bulgarian was an easy language to stumble over - especially when he had spoken Romanian for so many years. The two languages were quite different, and he tended to speak the words with an accent that was instantly recognizable to the locals.
Bethany Anne teased him that he was overly formal, Stephen would retort that he liked to make a good impression. The truth was, his failure to rule Europe appropriately, to discipline his children, meant that there were many here who would not accept him as Bethany Anne’s deputy.
They would speak and continue to try and plot behind his back. He wanted to know what they were saying. He would not allow any danger to come to his Queen.
“I still don’t understand why we’re here.” Jennifer stood beside him, adjusting her light jacket around her fighter’s body. She looked up at the run down building. “This is a good place for an ambush. Plus, those wankers had us followed here.”
“That cursing,” Stephen informed her, “is uninspired. Bethany Anne would not be impressed.”
She smiled at him, showing a hint of a dimple. “I prefer to say it is the art of brevity, of elegance.”
“Then you might end up doing a lot of push-ups ... with Bethany Anne standing on your back ... in high heels. While you’re deafened by AC/DC.” Stephen adjusted his own suit coat.
William and Jean Dukes had both made modifications to it, creating thin, light armor plating for him to wear under his shirt. The cut of the jacket hid two revolvers. They looked old-fashioned, with what appeared to be polished wood for the grips.
Wood, however, might not be able to handle the force of the gun, and so they had created something to appeal to Stephen’s “old-fashioned, stuffy sensibilities,” as Jean Dukes called them.
He had smiled and bowed then kissed her hand.
John had been glowering at him ever since, with only a slight smirk to perhaps give anything away.
“Shall we go in?” He looked at the doorway. “Normally, I would say ladies first. But you’re right,” he glanced around at the windows above him, “this does look like a good place for an ambush.”
Jennifer glared as she went to wrench the door open, “Why are you always so stuffy?”
Stephen grinned as he followed her. It had been sad to give up on the delights technology afforded—a delightful app called “Tinder” being just one—but he had no regrets.
Jennifer was exactly what he wanted in a woman. He hoped he would be able to convince Nathan and Peter of that. Both of them seemed very protective of her.
He followed her into the dim foyer. Stairs wound up into the darkness, a few bare bulbs lit the way. The place was dusty and the floorboards smelled of rot. Stephen wrinkled his nose at the neglect. Even when he had been asleep for dozens of years at a time, he’d made arrangements to have his house kept clean.
“I don’t think this man even knows anything,” Jennifer said as they climbed the stairs. She sounded prickly. She had been hoping for a fight as soon as they got through the door. She’d been itching for one, in fact, since they heard the rumors coming out of Bulgaria.
A secret research facility. Gunshots. An area that had had too many of its Wechselbalg go missing over the years. Jennifer felt her heart pounding with anger.
She had wanted to kill someone when she heard that news.
A door on the second floor stood ajar. Both of them stopped, the hearing of both vampires and Wechselbalg was unusually acute, and they could identify the sound of a man trying not to sob. Pain or terror? Their noses also caught the faint tang of blood.