CONTENTS
Dedication
Legal
Image
Timeline
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Nomad Mortis
Author Notes - Craig Martelle
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Craig Series List
Michael Series List
Social Links
They say behind every great man, is a great woman,
but what if the woman is a Werewolf?
DEDICATION
We can’t write without those who support us
On the home front, we thank you for being there for us
We wouldn’t be able to do this for a living if it weren’t for our readers
We thank you for reading our books
Nomad Avenged
The Terry Henry Walton Chronicles
Team Includes
BETA / EDITOR BOOK
Leo Roars, Diane Velasquez, & Dorene Johnson – they read this in the
draft stage and caught enough that made us do a complete rewrite.
JIT Beta Readers - From both of us, our deepest gratitude!
John Raisor
James Caplan
Micky Cocker
Kimberly Boyer
Alex Wilson
Joshua Ahles
Kelly ODonnell
Ginger Sparkman
Micky Cocker
Thomas Ogden
John Findlay
Paul Westman
Sherry Foster
Keith Verret
Mike Pendergrass
If I missed anyone, please let me know!
NOMAD AVENGED (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2017 Craig Martelle and Michael T. Anderle
Cover by Andrew Dobell, www.creativeedgestudios.co.uk
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
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First US edition, May 2017
Version 1.0
Editing by Mia Darien, www.miadarien.com
The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2017 by Michael T. Anderle.
Find the high-res version here:
http://kurtherianbooks.com/timeline_jeff/
TIMELINE
World’s Worst Day Ever (WWDE)
WWDE+20 years – Terry Henry Walton Returns to humanity
Nomad Found
Nomad Redeemed
Nomad Unleashed
WWDE+23 years – Terry & Char get married in New Boulder
Nomad Supreme
WWDE+24 years – The move to North Chicago is complete, Kaeden & Kimber join Terry & Char’s family
Nomad’s Fury
WWDE+25 years – Cordelia is born
Nomad’s Justice
WWDE+50 years – Terry Henry is taken prisoner
Nomad Avenged
WWDE+50-100 years – Nomad Mortis
WWDE+125 years – Nomad’s Force
WWDE+145 years – Nomad’s Galaxy
PROLOGUE
One month before the WWDE…
Gilbert Kirkus had never been the strongest, but usually was the brightest. Addicted to knowledge, his face was always in a book. Along with being gifted, he studied hard. Columbia for his undergrad and MIT for his PhD. He had no equal in his class.
Everyone had been bigger and stronger than Kirkus, but he refused to be intimidated by size.
Kirkus had become one of the top engineers with a defense contractor. His ambition started to outweigh his thirst for knowledge. He didn’t understand why he hadn’t been vaulted into the CEO’s corner office. Kirkus learned what it was like to hate.
One evening, the company met with a group of strange people who had a different air about them. The leadership of Kirkus’s firm seemed to be afraid of this group. Kirkus had simply been curious. He was invited as the senior engineer, despite his newfound abrasiveness, because the group had some interesting proposals and a short timeline for implementation.
The group, headed by Mister Smith, would only meet at night. Kirkus didn’t believe that was the pasty-looking man’s real name, but he had the appropriate clearance, which meant that he’d been vetted.
Kirkus didn’t care about any of that. He was fascinated by their claims of working with certain technologies, like nanites that worked within the bloodstream and anti-gravity for propulsion. Kirkus was taken by both.
Mr. Smith’s small entourage showed some of the math and discussed just enough of the engineering to convince Kirkus. No one else understood. The contractor’s leadership considered the information to be theoretical and were dismissive. They remained fearful. Kirkus could see it in their eyes. They only wanted the group to go away.
Not Kirkus. He believed, and he was smitten.
When the meeting wrapped up at midnight, the group invited Kirkus to join them at a downtown club. Although he’d never been interested in Washington D.C.’s nightlife, he didn’t want to miss an opportunity to question them further about the math and science.
He almost forgot his ambitions when these new challenges appeared.
That night, he learned Mr. Smith’s true nature. That night, he learned the most important lesson of his life—that he could never go back.
***
Kirkus woke in a strange bed, in a strange room.
The change.
The nanocytes coursing through his body. He could feel what they were doing to him.
Or was it only in his mind?
Kirkus gripped the edge of the bed as his mind and his body wrestled for control.
Jekyll and Hyde. Bela Lugosi as Dracula. Visions raced through his mind on a river of pain.
The hunger. His stomach twisted in knots. It wanted what it wanted, nothing that he’d ever tasted before but had to have.
He tore from the room, singularly focused on one thing. No one was there.
Kirkus was all alone. But there were sounds, noises from outside.
He yanked the door open to a fading sunset. The brightness of the setting sun slammed into him like a shockwave.
He was thrown back and landed heavily. Kirkus crawled to a dark corner, out of th
e light and away from the pain as he nursed the burns on his tender skin. He passed out.
When he woke up, it was the middle of night, dark outside. Hands were fumbling through his clothes. The man jumped back when he saw the glowing red eyes.
“Whoa, buddy, sorry. We thought you was homeless just like us. You know how it is. Nothing personal, friend. We’ll leave you be,” the other man said as he finished going through Kirkus’s pockets.
Kirkus grabbed the man by the throat in a crushing grip. He stood and lifted the stranger until his feet dangled above the ground. The first man tried to run. Kirkus kicked his feet. The man stumbled and fell. Kirkus held him down with his foot.
The hunger, it pulled him in. He knew what to do without ever having done it before.
His body knew.
Kirkus’s canines extended, hollowed, and he bit deeply into the man’s neck, finding the carotid.
Nourishment. So much more than eating.
Kirkus threw the shriveled corpse to the side as his body reveled in the strength surging through his veins. There was more he could eat, but not yet. His mind came back to him, seeking to regain control.
“Not yet, my friend, but I have plans for you,” Kirkus told the terrified man squirming underfoot.
Kirkus picked him up, punched him a few times to settle him, and carried the man upstairs where he locked him inside the room in which Kirkus had earlier found himself.
He had found a new him. The pain had unleashed something incredible.
***
Kirkus only saw Mr. Smith one more time, on the night before the WWDE. As a fellow Vampire, Kirkus was one of the newcomers, subordinate to Mr. Smith, who had shared his nanocytes and allowed Kirkus to change, become one of the elite.
One of the Forsaken, as others called them.
“What do you think of our ride?” Mr. Smith asked from within the small hangar on the outskirts of a rural Virginia town.
“Not very aerodynamic,” were the first words out of Kirkus’s mouth.
“Stop thinking like a Neanderthal,” Mr. Smith had cautioned. “What if air resistance was eliminated by creating a bubble around the ship, by accelerating by way of anti-gravity device using standard Newtonian physics?”
“It’s not theory?” Kirkus asked. Mr. Smith backhanded Kirkus across the face.
“I thought you were supposed to be smart. We don’t have time for me to paint a picture for you. Accept what you see and we can continue.” The Vampire looked down at him. Kirkus was appropriately chastened, while at the same time invigorated. He was being intellectually challenged. His body had become something incredible.
And his mind. He found that he heard wisps from other people’s minds. He erected walls to stop the bombardment of nonsense. He didn’t want to be bothered by their limited understanding of the universe. Mr. Smith was a telepath, a rarity in the Unknown World, of which Kirkus had only recently been made a member.
“Exactly,” Mr. Smith said aloud. “We can’t be bothered by the trivial. Rise above it all, my son. Know that we are higher on the food chain. Normal humans are beneath us. Now and for all time, they will be beneath us. They are beasts of burden, tools, and food. Nothing more.”
Kirkus nodded his agreement. He could see the wisdom in it all. The pain was gone. He’d survived his rite of passage, while reducing the homeless population of D.C.
They were food. Nothing more.
“The Sacred Clan Weretigers brought us this gift, a pod that they claim they stole from Bethany Anne’s people.” Mr. Smith made a face, “We believe it is technology from New Schwabenland, but either way, it is more advanced than anything with regular propulsion.”
When the world collapsed, Kirkus was still in the remote town studying the pod, as they called it. He’d been assigned a watcher from the Sacred Clan itself, a beautiful Chinese woman named Yanmei.
Vampires, Weretigers, and technology so advanced that only science fiction had dreamed of it.
Kirkus found that he didn’t care if humanity survived or not. He waited a couple weeks, dining regularly on looters who stopped by the hangar. It was convenient that food came to him, almost like room service. He laughed as he gained strength.
Yanmei started training him how to fight. He’d never had to before and figured that he would be able to overcome any enemy, simply because of the power within.
The Weretiger told him that a time would come when that wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to fight and fight well.
She remained distant. He expected they’d become lovers. He learned quickly that that wouldn’t be the case, and would never be the case. She kicked his ass so hard, it made him question who was higher on the food chain. She liked it that way, but he improved quickly until he could stand his own against her.
In no time, he discovered that he was faster and stronger.
Vampires.
The top of the food chain.
CHAPTER ONE
WWDE + 50 years
The room was darkened. It was meant to be, as most prisons were. Kirkus had gone to great lengths to prepare this room for this very purpose.
Great lengths and great sacrifice, but the Forsaken’s trophy was there, hanging in the chains. Kirkus was both triumphant and furious.
Terry Henry Walton winced in pain and gasped for air. His nanocytes fought to keep up with the damage done to his body, but they were losing the battle.
The chains cut into his wrists; blood dripped slowly down his arms. One shoulder was dislocated. He’d hung there too long, feet barely touching the ground, unable to support himself when he passed out.
The Forsaken looked at his prisoner, pleased that the feeding marks still shown waxy red, but that didn’t outweigh his anger. He was furious that Terry’s nanocytes had killed one of his minions.
The bite that killed.
Kirkus considered himself a genius for not attempting the first feeding on the enhanced Terry Henry Walton. That he made a minion do it.
The Forsaken had yet to ask Terry any questions. He didn’t need to. At the moment, Terry passed out and the instant when he returned to consciousness, he was vulnerable and Kirkus exploited that. Even with the anguish of being in chains, Terry maintained enough mental discipline to hold back most of the Vampire’s probes.
Once Kirkus was inside Terry’s incredible mind, he explored much that the human thought about, his enhancements at Bethany Anne’s hand, his exploits with the FDG, and his work with Akio.
Especially his work with Akio.
Kirkus had seen TH’s moral compass, and it made his Forsaken hair stand on end. Kirkus had never met an individual like Terry Henry Walton. A pure soul, some would call him. A person who knew Forsaken and didn’t hate them. He considered them people who deserved a chance to prove themselves.
He saw the colonel joking with the one called Joseph. A Forsaken and the human, having a laugh. Kirkus made a fist and drove it into TH’s ribs. The colonel grunted as his head lolled on his sweaty chest.
Terry’s tongue felt like a dry rag stuffed in his mouth. The air didn’t come quickly enough, and he stopped fighting it, letting himself slip into the darkness.
And Kirkus dove back in at that moment of weakness.
North Chicago
Char’s eyes locked on Timmons’s, the purple flaring. Without warning, her fist lashed out, shattering his eye socket and sending him sprawling. She growled, more animal than human.
“If you fucking limp dicks had done your job, Terry wouldn’t have been captured. HOW IN THE FUCK DID YOU LET THAT HAPPEN?” she screamed, spittle flying from her mouth. The pack had failed her, had failed the entire community.
She viciously kicked a withering body.
“Look at this shit! He fought this fucking army by himself,” she snarled. Eight Forsaken lay dead, shredded by whip and knife. TH had not gone easily. No whining, no running. He had fought, toe-to-toe, but in the end, there had been too many. She studied the marks on the ground. At least four of them had carr
ied Terry into their ship.
“We heard it take off, but we didn’t hear it land. How?” she wondered, but none of the pack knew.
“Cory?” Char asked her daughter.
Cordelia had grown into a near twin of her mother over the past twenty-five years.
Time had been kind to them both. The only difference between them was in their eyes and the faint scar that trailed to the edge of Char’s mouth from the fight with her former mate decades earlier.
Cory’s twenty-six-year-old body was lean and hard. She carried herself confidently and spoke intelligently. Her blue eyes sparkled, just like her father’s. Her hair was almost like her mother’s. She had the silver streak down the side, except Cory’s hair was black. Her mark of the Werewolf was her furry wolf ears.
She considered that her cross to bear, especially since she wasn’t a Werewolf.
It wasn’t a very heavy cross, though, and she wore her hair long, to keep her ears covered as much as possible.
“It is Dad’s blood, but not a terrible amount. He was unconscious when they carried him away. For whatever reason, I know in my heart and soul that he is still alive. We must move quickly, overwhelm them as they overwhelmed him. Is Akio on his way?” Cory asked.
“Soon. He told us yesterday that he would have to deal with a small Forsaken infestation in China. It cannot have been a coincidence. I don’t care why, except in how that will help us know where he is. Then we go get him as soon as possible. All of us.” Her last statement was aimed at the pack--Timmons, Ted, Adams, Merritt, Shonna, and Sue. She also included the Weretiger Aaron and the Werebear Gene in her piercing gaze.
No one disputed her. She was the alpha, and her mate had been taken.
The sun was just starting to rise. The ship that had carried Terry away should not have existed. It had been almost fifty years since the fall, the World’s Worst Day Ever, and industry was starting to make a comeback, but not enough to build airplanes.
Nomad Avenged: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Book 7) Page 1