Risk Be Damned

by Natalie Grey

  “I will get them out,” he told Nathan. He looked over at Irina. “Our pack will.”

  Irina shook at the mention of the pack. She had long ago given up being a part of her pack. She had told Hsu that she wanted her family to believe she was dead. But all of that self-pity would do nothing for the prisoners downstairs. They needed her strength, not her regret. She started down the stairs beside Stoyan, and felt strength course through her at her newfound sense of purpose.

  We will protect them. We will be their shields.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  >>I would like to inform you all that this is, statistically speaking, a very bad idea.<<

  “Yes, thank you, ADAM.” Jennifer checked her weapons as the elevator ascended. She saw Nathan grin at her polite response, and she flashed him a smile back.

  >>It looks as if there is a set of cages being lifted by freight elevator onto the helicopter pad.<<

  Everyone in the elevator exchanged a glance.

  “Cages?” Jennifer asked.

  And why didn’t you tell me there were freight elevators? Stephen asked ADAM privately.

  >>It’s an entire room, I missed the part where it was enabled with hydraulic lifts.<< If ADAM was capable of sounding annoyed, Stephen was sure he would.

  The AI switched to a broad channel a moment later. >>Along with the defensive systems coming online, another set of orders has been dispatched through the system — presumably to any transformed Wechselbalg.<<

  Nathan frowned, “Is it dangerous to any Wechselbalg, or just theirs?”

  >>I am not certain, but it appears to be tracking several chips that may or may not be variants on the tracking chips. It seems that they are part of the control mechanism. However, I would recommend being cautious. I will send the elevator back down.<<

  “NO!” Jennifer, Stephen, and Nathan said in unison.

  >>If you die and Bethany Anne deactivates me in retribution, I will find some way to haunt you.<<

  “We’ll be dead, too,” Jennifer pointed out. “And I don’t think an A.I.—”

  >>To quote you, ‘I will find a way.’<<

  “I wouldn’t worry.” Stephen’s mouth was twitching. “This is exactly the sort of stubborn shit we tend to do. She won’t blame you. In fact, I’m sure her eulogy would include a great many choice words about the quality of our decision-making skills.”

  Nathan nodded in agreement.

  >>Right, well, if you’re all determined, I see no alternative.<<

  “Exactly.” Jennifer frowned. “Besides, you said you weren’t able to get all the information we needed. Doesn’t that mean we should take a shot at Hugo?”

  >>Again, statistically speaking, that is unlikely to work.<<

  “But if we found a way….”

  “If we find a way, we’ll do it,” Stephen agreed. “Doesn’t seem likely, but it’s possible, I guess.”

  >>I can open the doors whenever you’re ready,<< ADAM informed them.

  “Ready,” three voices said.

  The doors opened.

  And all hell broke loose.

  —

  Arisha ran through the streets, hand in hand with two children she had found in the stairwell. She had not seen anyone who seemed to know them, and she had not had the courage to ask them where their parents were—but she could at least stay with them now. Stoyan circled the loose collection of prisoners, calling commands to his pack mates.

  Her heart rose every time she saw him.

  Before, he had been a man defeated. Now he was a man with a purpose. He did not hesitate as she had seen him do before.

  He was in constant motion, looking for enemies and making sure no one fell behind. He caught her eyes once, and she saw him smile. She looked back only once. Her eyes were shielded as she looked up at the concrete building.

  Jennifer and Stephen were somewhere in there with Nathan. As the helicopter on the roof spun up, Arisha spared a moment to pray that her friends would be safe.

  She let the little boy pull her onward, and she smiled down at him and squeezed his hand. He had endured things no child should ever see, but there was hope in his eyes.

  The sound of the gunshot echoed overhead and Arisha didn’t think. She threw herself to the pavement, shielding the children with her body. Screams sounded all around her. Clothing ripped and snarls sounded as the Wechselbalg around her transformed. One of the children wavered in her arms.

  “No.” Arisha cupped her face desperately. “Stay with me. We’re going to have to disappear, and if you look like a wolf, people around here might shoot you. Stay human.”

  “Arisha!” It was Stoyan’s voice. Gunshots were ringing out all over the place now. “Get to the Pods! Take the children!”

  “I will!” Arisha flinched as a bullet whizzed overhead, and took a deep breath for courage before looking at each of the children in turn. “Ready? We’re going to have to run as fast as we can.”

  Both children nodded. Arisha gripped their hands, stood up, and sprinted for the outskirts of town, resolutely not looking back to where Stoyan’s pack was covering their escape.

  —

  She hadn’t transformed. Jennifer settled into a crouch, gun drawn. Precise shots picked off her enemies with silver bullets, and she kept count under her breath. Each life was one Hugo Marcari owed her. Each was one she would never forgive.

  >>Jennifer, is something wrong?<<

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Jennifer murmured under her breath. She still didn’t have the hang of talking to ADAM the way Stephen and Bethany Anne did, and she didn’t want Stephen to notice her.

  She watched as he jumped over two wolves and slammed down on a third that was trying to leap for him. The wolf, used to being faster than its opponents, made the fatal error of assuming that Stephen would stay in the same place. Instead, Stephen met him in midair with a punch that broke through the wolf’s chest cavity. It howled in pain, and the light died from its eyes a moment later.

  Its body was limp on the concrete, pathetic and empty. Jennifer saw the furious look in Stephen’s eyes as he turned to take on his newest opponents. He, too, was never going to forget or forgive.

  >>The helicopter is getting ready to leave.<<

  “Fuck!” She had meant what she told Stephen.

  They had come here to help the prisoners escape and get the data. Hell, if they killed Hugo before they knew everything, parts of this enterprise might just keep going. She knew that wasn’t what she wanted. Still, hearing that he was ready to escape, after all she’d seen downstairs, after all of the innocent lives she’d had to take, she was filled with fury.

  She had an idea.

  “ADAM! Can you feed me enough information that I could pretend to be one of their scientists?”

  >>Almost certainly.<<

  “Yes or no, ADAM!” Jennifer picked off a wolf that was trying to sneak up on Stephen, and spared a glance for Nathan, who was holding his own against four of the experiments.

  >>I’m an AI. The probability is good, but I can’t guarantee anything. Why?<<

  “Let’s just say I have a plan.”

  >>I have a bad feeling about this.<<

  “Did you just quote Star Wars? Never mind, no time. Stephen!”

  Stephen bashed a hand sideways across an attacker’s jaw and threw him onto the ground. His head came up. “What?”

  “I have a plan! I got this. I’m going to get the information from Hugo.”

  He looked confused for a moment, “Wait—what plan?”

  “Just….” Jennifer shook her head. “Trust me, and I’m sorry!”

  “Huh? Sorry about what?”

  There was no other way to say it. He was going to kill her for this. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, even knowing that he might not hear it. “I love you.”

  He would see her lips shape the words.

  She hid her last gun as well as she could under her shirt and dashed around the edge of the elevator block and onto the open helipad as the chopper start
ed to rise into the air.

  While those in the helicopter would think she was running to get on the elevator, she was really trying to outrun her Vampire boyfriend who was going to be really, really pissed.

  —

  A sorrowful yip, and one of the last wolves slumped to the ground. The light died from its eyes, showing a flicker of sentience as the Wechselbalg passed away.

  There was not enough pain in the world for Hugo Marcari. Nathan swung his head to look around himself, drenched in blood, his clawed hands dripping. For a moment, he did not see Jennifer at all, and his heart squeezed with fear.

  And then he saw her running, getting close to the helicopter. Then, Nathan caught Stephen exploding out from behind her.

  —

  “Form a line!” Stoyan’s voice was a roar. “Petar, Radomir, flank right, Vasil and Ilia, to the left!”

  He said a pained goodbye to his clothes. There was no time to put them on with the guards approaching. What had happened to most of them, Stoyan wasn’t sure. But a dozen or so remained, and they had the glint in their eyes of people who’d been hired because they liked fighting.

  Well, they were in for a surprise. Because Stoyan liked fighting, too—when it was people who’d imprisoned and tortured his family. And the Wechselbalg these bastards were facing down now weren’t in cages or in manacles.

  They were free, they were pissed, and they were protecting children.

  The guards had no idea what they were getting into. Stoyan didn’t give them time to think about it, either. He leapt as soon as he had shifted, snickering when they raised their guns.

  A single bullet wound was not going to stop a shifter. He realized only in midair that these guns were likely to have silver in the bullets, and twisted away desperately as one of the guards raised his gun and fired.

  A line of agony scored across Stoyan’s shoulder.

  He cursed himself for his stupidity. He wasn’t going to dwell on his mistakes, though. Trusting that the rest had noticed his unusual pain at the bullet, Stoyan continued the fight without pause.

  His claws raked down the man’s side and Stoyan’s teeth clamped around his arm. He ripped the man limb from limb as the rest of the guards looked on in terror.

  You should never have taken the job here. Stoyan curled his lip in a snarl. In his peripheral vision, he saw Radomir and Petar take down one of the guards and rip him apart with snarls.

  The rest of the guards broke and ran, and the Wechselbalg followed. Stoyan leapt, easily, and tumbled over and over with one of them until the man flopped to the ground, neck broken, blood streaming from his wounds.

  Another man died fumbling for his gun, and the last one stumbled and screamed for mercy.

  No mercy. Not for the jailors. Stoyan crouched over his body, eyes narrowed, and ended the man’s life with a snap of his jaws.

  —

  “And you’re sure she knows enough?” Hugo snapped. He was not pleased. Gerard had defied his orders and brought a woman whose story was almost certainly false. “How did you subdue the shifter you brought from Bulgaria, and why go on foot?”

  “Drugs keep them … not conscious,” the woman explained. Her Spanish was not as good as her Bulgarian. “I had the gun with the bullets made of silver.” She stumbled over the construction of her sentences. “I kept away from places with people, in case she shifted. No one could see.”

  It hung together, and certainly, the administrator of this facility had been a coward who had hidden part of his research from Hugo. He sat back in the chair with a scowl. The facility was in chaos, and the odds of getting to the server room were slim to none.

  “Fine. Take us up.”

  “Wait! Wait!” A young woman was sprinting across the helipad, pursued by one of TQB’s attackers. A bloodstained lab coat flapped open to reveal a slim, strong body, and Hugo raised his eyebrows. He was used to scientists who were small and mousy, but this woman was a knockout. She looked over her shoulder at where the experiments were keeping TQB’s attackers at bay. “Please wait! They’re killing the scientists!”

  She jumped as the helicopter rose. How she made it, Hugo did not know. He stared down at the figure on the floor, and saw that his bodyguards had their guns out. The girl shivered, held her hands up. She looked at Hugo and Gerard appealingly. Behind her, the man was yelling as the chopper rose, and the woman squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.

  “I’m so sorry. Please. I know I don’t deserve to be here—I just don’t want to die!”

  “You’re a scientist here?” Gerard asked quizzically. “What’s your name?”

  Jennifer gave the first name that popped into her head. “Irina Yordan.” She’d have to hope they didn’t know the names of their prisoners, but she would be shocked if they did.

  “So you’re the new researcher,” a Chinese woman said.

  Both men looked at her.

  Of course, Jennifer realized. This was Hsu—and she was covering for Jennifer. She knew Irina. She knew that Jennifer was a friend.

  “Yeah,” she said awkwardly. “Administrator Fedotov spoke very highly of you, Mr. Marcari.”

  The men exchanged a glance, and then Hugo saw the TQB operative back up and start sprinting for the ‘copter again, getting ready to make a wild jump for it.

  “Cuffs on her,” he ordered. “And take us up higher, dammit!”

  —

  “NO!”

  But the helicopter banked away and picked up speed as Stephen decided to stop pretending… fuck it. Trust or no trust, he was going to go for it. He backed up quickly, eyeing the helicopter.

  He readied himself for the jump out into nothing, to grasp the bars and haul himself into the interior—and found himself slammed down onto the concrete. Nathan’s eyes making sure Stephen knew it was a friend. He stood up, offering Stephen a hand.

  “Why—”

  “You could never have made that jump.” Nathan looked at the chopper as it soared away. “She must have a plan, Stephen. And we’re tracking her. We’ll know where she goes.”

  Stephen sank his face into his hands. He’d become intimately familiar with despair over his centuries, but he had never felt fear like this.

  >>Stephen. We will get her back. We need that information, and she has a plan.<<

  Are you trying to comfort me?

  >>I do not want you to be afraid.<<

  Stephen let his breath out slowly. His shoulders slumped and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “We’ll get her back,” he agreed quietly. He looked up to watch the receding shape of the helicopter. “We’ll get her back.”

  Stephen wiped his sleeves down as he watched the helicopter recede into the distance. He could have jumped in a pod and chased her easily enough, but he needed to learn to trust.

  He turned away from the helicopter and headed towards the stairs, “We’ll get her back,” he said one last time as he started down the stairs, “then I’m going to reprimand the fuck out of her for her stupid-ass plan,” he promised.

  FINIS

  Author Notes - Natalie Grey

  Written March 1, 2017

  There are so many people to thank that I honestly don’t even know where to start. The response to BELLATRIX blew me away. This is truly one of the best groups of readers ever. You’re all so passionate and so welcoming.

  Thank you!

  A huge thank you also to Michael, who invited me into the Kurtherian Gambit world and who has been an invaluable resource and mentor since then – including introducing me to an amazing team! Stephen, Andrew, the DDs (you ladies are wonderful!), Steve, and all of the readers who have helped me make RISK BE DAMNED a worthy entry into this universe.

  Last, but certainly not least, a thank you to my husband for putting up with all the authorly weirdness!

  -Natalie

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  Written March 1, 2017

  Once more I sit down to say, with humility, ‘thank you’ for reading these notes!