Killer Cruise (Project 26 Book 11)

by Mark Woods

  “Apparently all this, all this you see before you now is the result - just one small part of something much bigger; something they call ‘The Project’.

  “This ship, whole ship, this is just one great, big scientific laboratory and from what I can gather, we…we were originally supposed to be Herr Doktor’s next test subjects.”

  “How, how do you know all this?” Toneye demanded, but Viktoryia just smiled.

  “I told you,” she said. “I just hear things…”

  “In that case, we need to get out of here, off this ship, and quickly,” Scott said. He indicated the noise above their head. “The sirens and klaxons, they your work?”

  “Nyet,” Viktoryia said. “No doubt it is the work of the Vampyre-child, the little girl from up top with her ‘mother’, yes? There is a reason The Vampyre Council does not allow the turning of children into Vampyre; it is because they are not yet fully emotionally developed, and thus prone to impulsive and impetuous acts – what you would call ‘temper tantrums’. They have an insatiable appetite and often do not know when to stop feeding, even long after they have quenched their thirst.

  “No doubt, right now I imagine, the ‘mother’ is probably dead, and the girl has probably gone into blood frenzy and is running amok above us even as we speak. We should use the distraction to our advantage and just go, yes? Lycanthrope and Vampyre together, put aside the petty differences between our two species and work together to just get the hell off of this ship, what say you?”

  “I’m not going without Lottie,” Lukaas said, and then suddenly remembering something else. “Wait a minute. Where is Lottie? Wasn’t she with you when you were led below decks earlier?”

  “You mean the little human bitch that you fucked and marked as one of your own?” Viktoryia asked, toying with him. “Are you trying to tell me that you can’t track her, Wolf-boy? That you’ve lost her scent?”

  “I can still feel the mark,” Lukaas said, “but it’s just…faint, that’s all. Almost like she’s blocking me somehow. But she’s not Lycanthrope, she’s not Pack, she shouldn’t know how to do that…”

  “Your little bitch is a lot tougher and a lot cleverer than you think she is,” Viktoryia told him. “A lot smarter too. She is a fighter, and a survivor, yes? One tough cookie, as the Americans say. A fast learner too; she has probably been blocking you some time now, subconsciously, without even realising it. A defence mechanism, no doubt, to help keep her safe from you; prevent you from finding her until she was ready to face you again, if ever.”

  “WHERE IS SHE?” Lukaas snarled, starting to lose patience now.

  “Easy, Wolf-boy,” Viktoryia said. “She is safe, at least for now, two decks up. The guards have her and the other woman who was with her secured in a cabin; keeping them both safe, no doubt until everything blows over when they can go back to using them in their experiments.”

  “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go,” Lukaas said, and started moving towards the staircase at the other end of this deck that would lead them all the way back upstairs again.

  “One second,” Viktoryia replied, and with her Preternatural strength, began breaking the locks on all the enclosures and cages that held the results of the scientists’ mad experiments inside.

  “You three,” she said turning to Scott, Toneye and Roma, “help me out here freeing these poor specimens.”

  “You are joking, aren’t you?” Toneye said, suddenly speaking up. “If we open up their cages and let these things out, they’ll tear us apart. Look at them – they’ve turned savage, the lot of them. They’ve been driven stir-crazy by their imprisonment and everything else that’s been done to them and will only end up turning on us if we break them loose.”

  “You have nothing to fear,” Viktoryia told them. “It’s not you that they are angry at; not you that they feel hatred towards or wish to do harm to – they are angry only at those who have imprisoned them, and experimented on them. Those are the people who should be afraid. Can you not feel their anger, and their hatred radiating off them? Oh no, I forgot; you are just dumb wolf. You only believe in that which you can smell, or that you see right in front of you…”

  Toneye snarled at her.

  “Dumb wolf, heh?” he growled. “How about I show you who’s afraid? Better yet, why don’t you and me go at it right here, right now, and I’ll show you who’s a dumb wolf?”

  Scott and Roman did their best to calm him by putting both their hands on his arm and gently holding him back.

  “Easy,” Roman said, “this is neither the time, nor the place…” and Scott concurred with him.

  “Roman’s right,” he said, “and so is the Vamp. We’re all going to need to work together if any of us are going to have any hope of surviving.”

  He turned towards Viktoryia.

  “Are you sure this is such a good idea?” he asked her.

  “They will help provide a distraction,” Viktoryia replied. “While the soldiers are busy with them, fighting them and trying to get them all back under lock and key, they will be less concerned with us, yes? But if we are going to do this, we need to hurry, before someone up there starts getting organised and taking charge and they put the whole ship under lockdown. If they do that, none of us are getting off this ship.”

  Lukaas reluctantly came back and joined his wolf-brothers, partially transforming his hand, and using his claws to help slice through the steel of the padlocks securing the prisoners within. When all of the prisoners were finally free, the five of them – the four wolves and Viktoryia - headed back towards the staircase leading up to the next deck.

  “Don’t forget,” Lukaas growled. “First we get Lottie, and then we get the hell off this ship.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Viktoryia, keeping her own reasons for wanting to rescue Charlotte to herself for now, and playing her cards very close to her chest. “Believe me, I don’t intend to go anywhere off this ship without rescuing your little bitch.”

  “Don’t call her that!” Lukaas snarled back. “You’re the only fucking bitch around here!”

  “Oh Wolf-boy,” Viktoryia said, smiling back at him, a big grin upon her face, exposing her fangs in all of their glory. “You have no idea…”

  Seven

  When the Vampyre, Viktoryia, had attacked, the remaining guards had quickly escorted Jaqueline and Charlotte away.

  Currently, the two of them were locked away in a cabin together.

  It was a small berth, barely furnished, with no more than a single bunk bed, a small sink, and a mirror inside.

  The guards had locked them inside, telling them to stay inside no matter what they heard outside, and assuring them that someone would come for them when they were sure it was safe again and the current emergency situation had been resolved.

  If the Vampyre and whatever else might be currently loose on the ship did come for them, their guards assured them, both women would be safe inside and there was no need to worry. Standard procedure on-board the ship was to keep all weapons loaded with silver ammunition at all times and as everyone knew, silver worked just as effectively on Vampyre as it did on werewolves.

  It was okay, the guards repeatedly told them. They had this, everything was all under control. There were procedures in place for this, if one of the preternatural attacked or broke lose, along with about a hundred other different scenarios, and the two guards had specifically been trained for this.

  Both women had nothing to fear.

  They almost – almost, mind – Jaqueline thought, sounded convincing.

  A couple of minutes later, the sirens and klaxons had commenced.

  “Yeah,” Jaqueline had muttered when they started. “It really sounds like they have this all under control.”

  Through the thick, metal door, the two women could barely hear anything.

  At one point, both women had thought they had heard the sound of gunshots, and someone screaming from somewhere near by – several someone’s in fact – but that had been ov
er ten minutes ago and there had been nothing since.

  Charlotte had begun rocking in the corner when the sirens started, whimpering,

  “Not again, not again, please not again…” under her breath, but the one time Jaqueline had tried to comfort her, Charlotte just looked up and snarled at her and since then, Jaqueline had wisely chosen to keep her distance.

  Charlotte, meanwhile, was trying to keep a lid on the beast currently trying to fight its way out from deep inside her. The pills her late husband, Henry, had given her several hours before, were only now starting to wear off. She could feel the power of the full moon’s pull, awakening the savage beast that normally lay dormant inside her – even though, by now, it must surely be close to daylight outside - and whilst she only had the vaguest of knowledge of what it was that she was fighting, or what might be happening to her right now, still somehow Charlotte knew, allowing that inner beast to go free, especially here in this cabin, would most definitely end up being a mistake.

  Watching her inner struggle from a distance, Jaqueline thought Charlotte must just be having some kind of a panic attack or something, and so did her best to try and offer assistance from afar.

  “Try doing a breathing exercise,” she suggested. “It’ll help regulate your heartbeat and help keep you calm. I often do them before a show, to help cure my nervousness before I go up on stage. Look, try it with me now – breathe in while you slowly count to four, then exhale and breathe out, to the count of three. Like this…”

  She demonstrated what she meant.

  Charlotte attempted to do the same, her fists clenching and unclenching as she fought to repress the animalistic nature building inside her, threatening to consume her. She was pleasantly surprised when it actually seemed to work somewhat, but knew that as soon as the sun set again and night started to fall, she would be right back to square one. The meditation, deep breathing exercise, whatever it was, was only helping because it was slowly getting light outside and the moon’s effect on her was always less during the day, but come the night, Charlotte knew, she would surely end up paying for what she was doing now and her mental transformation would only end up being much more severe.

  A sudden disturbance from somewhere outside broke Charlotte out of her thoughts, and suddenly the door to the small cabin they were in was wrenched open.

  The Vampyre, Viktoryia, from back on the lifeboat, stood there in the doorway, along with the small group of Lycanthropes that they had seen up on deck earlier, having been rescued from their own lifeboat a little while before them. As the cabin door flew open, one of the Wolves pushed his way to the front.

  “Lottie!” Lukaas exclaimed. “Thank God. Thank the Lady, you’re safe…I was so worried about you.”

  Charlotte stood up and shrank back.

  “Get away from me,” she cried out. “Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Me. You…you monster. You killed Henry, you killed my husband, stay away from me, you…you…you beast.”

  Distraught, Charlotte started to sob.

  “Lottie, please…I can explain…” Lukaas tried to say to her. “It was self-defence. He tried to kill me - shot me with a silver bullet - and I just ended up losing control. The wolf inside me just took over…it took control of me, and there was nothing I could do. I’m sorry. I never meant to kill him…”

  “FUCK OFF!” Charlotte screamed as he attempted to draw close. “JUST. FUCK. OFF. GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, DON’T EVEN TOUCH ME!”

  Viktoryia grabbed Lukaas by the arm, and pushed him back out in the corridor.

  “Okay, Wolf-boy,” she said. “Just give her some space, okay? Give her some time and maybe, just maybe, she will come around, yes? But not like this. This is neither the time nor the place, you understand?”

  Lukaas reluctantly nodded, and Scott pulled him further back, away from the doorway.

  “Hate to say it, but she’s right, Wolf-brother,” Scott said. Toneye and Roman both nodded in agreement.

  Viktoryia stepped back into the cabin.

  “What the fuck is this? What the fuck is going on?” Jaqueline demanded. “What is all this? What’s happening? Who are those guys? And what the fuck is going on on-board this ship? What’s with all the sirens and alarms?”

  “This ship,” Viktoryia said, doing her best to try and explain, “is being used to conduct illicit and illegal experiments and this, this is our attempt at a rescue. Those men behind me? They are not actually men – they are wolves, as in werewolves, they are with me, and all of us are getting off this ship. As for you, you can either come with us, or stay here and die. It is no concern of mine. Her though…” and with this, Viktoryia pointed towards Charlotte, still huddling in the corner. “She is coming with us, with or without you, yes?”

  “Why her?” Jaqueline asked. “What makes her so special?”

  “Because I made her a vow,” Viktoryia said, “back on the lifeboat, that I would protect her and keep her safe, and I always keep my promises. You, I made no such promise…so come, or stay, but if you are coming with us, you need to decide now because otherwise we leave you here behind when we go, yes? You understand?”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Jaqueline spat out. “And neither is she. You’re one of those…things…like back on The Bellastaria. A vampire…”

  “This is true,” Viktoryia nodded, “but right about now, what other choice do you have? The girl is coming with me regardless, I promise you that – even if I have to go through you to get her. As for you, well I am probably your only hope of ever getting off this damn ship alive so if I was you, I would probably think about treating me with a little more respect.”

  “What about Wilfred?” Jaqueline demanded. “The other guy who was with us back on the lifeboat. The one with the silver hand. The one who helped save me back on The Bellastaria. What about him? I’m not going anywhere without him. Or that other couple too – the mother and child. Have you seen either of them? If we’re going, getting off this ship, we should all go together, just as we arrived.”

  “I have not seen any of them,” Viktoryia told her. “And by now, it is probably too late for them anyway. No doubt the mother is already dead, and as for the little girl? She is no girl but instead that rarest of things, a Vampyre child. I have no way of knowing for certain, but I suspect she is probably the reason for the alarms. One of the reasons we never turn children is because of the insatiable appetites they develop as Vampyre, and by now, no doubt, I would imagine she is probably hungry and desperately needing to feed. I would imagine she has probably gone on a killing spree – hence the raising of the alarms - but this is good thing, no? Helps provide us with one more distraction to better enable our escape.”

  “As for your cripple? I have seen neither hide nor hair of him, and cannot seem to sense him either. Before we were all taken below decks, I saw him talking to one of our captors so maybe, just maybe, you don’t know him as well as you think you do and he is part of this also? I do not know, but if he is not and he has any sense, no doubt he will hear the alarms and try to make it back up top so that he can join us on the lifeboats, no?

  “Either way, we cannot afford to wait for him. The longer we wait here, the longer we risk being recaptured, no?”

  Viktoryia was lying, Jaqueline was sure of it, but reluctantly she had to admit, the Vampyre had a point.

  “Okay,” she said, after a single second’s pause. “We’ll come up with you, back up to the top deck, but I mean what I say. I’m not getting back on the lifeboat we arrived here on without Wilfred. He didn’t leave me behind, back on The Bellastaria, and I’m not leaving him.”

  “Your call,” Viktoryia said, and led the two women out into the corridor. Lukaas went to move towards Charlotte again, but Roman and Scott held him back.

  “Later,” Roman told him. “For now, let’s just do what the Vamp says and concentrate on getting off of the ship for now.”

  Viktoryia was lying.

  In actual fact, she could sense Wilfred, somewhere up
above them, one deck up. But she could also sense that he was hurt, and badly, possibly dying, and didn’t think this was something she should particularly share with Jaqueline and the others right now.

  Not if she wanted to avoid a scene and get all of them off this ship alive.

  The guards, or the soldiers, whatever they were, on-board would be getting themselves organised soon, and taking back control of the current situation would no doubt be their first priority.

  “He’s not a part of this, I know he’s not,” Jaqueline insisted, still talking about Wilfred, following Viktoryia up the corridor. “He can’t be, and I warn you now, I mean what I say - I’m not leaving this ship without him.”

  “That,” Viktoryia said, “is your decision, but I warn you – if he is not up on deck when we get up there, I am not waiting for him. The rest of us will be leaving, with or without you and that is another promise I fully intend to keep.

  “For now, help me with her,” Viktoryia said, indicating Charlotte who was starting to lag – still fighting the inner turmoil boiling inside of her. “We are wasting time, and really need to be getting out of here, like now, yes?”

  “I don’t need any help,” Charlotte said, suddenly pushing herself back up and standing up straight. “Just keep him…” she pointed back towards Lukaas, following behind them, “the fuck away from me! I don’t want him coming anywhere near me!”

  Viktoryia turned back towards the Wolves.

  “You heard her,” she said. “Keep him under control. If we are going to do this, and get off this ship alive, then we all need to work together, no? ”

  “Who put you in charge?” Jaqueline asked. “And how do we know we can trust you?”

  Viktoryia looked at her and grinned, revealing her fangs in all of their glory.

  “I did,” she said. “And as for how you know you can trust me? You don’t.

  “But right now, I don’t see that any of you have much other choice, do you?”

  ***