Damned Into Hell

by Natalie Grey

  >>Marcus and William have been informed that these trucks are holding allies,<< ADAM told her. >>We will begin extraction at once.<<

  “Thank you, ADAM. And, where’s Bobcat?”

  >>Bobcat is in a warehouse. I cannot trace its ownership and neither Marcus nor William seems to know what he’s doing there. He claims it’s important.<<

  “Well, there’s only one thing that’s important to Bobcat, you know,” Jennifer said with a grin. “Beer.”

  >>Most interesting. I had not considered that.<<

  “I wasn’t serious. Bobcat wouldn’t risk his neck for beer.”

  >>Are you sure?<<

  “…No.”

  —

  Gerard was three floors up when he heard the door open again, and footsteps beginning to climb the stairs behind him.

  They’d sent an assassin, had they? He drew into the shadows to wait, and when his footsteps stopped, so did those of his pursuer.

  There was a pause, while they tested each other’s resolve.

  And then the pursuer’s footsteps resumed.

  Gerard’s lip curled. Whoever was doing this was a fool.

  He waited until they were halfway up the flight below him and then he stepped into view, gun pointed.

  He stopped. The Chinese scientist? He felt a rush of satisfaction.

  “The truth, if you please.” He kept his voice light and controlled. He knew she would give some tedious speech about ethics and helpless animals, but he wanted to know what her plan had been. He wanted to hear her say that he had been right.

  He only wished Hugo were alive to realize that Gerard had been right all along.

  But he was wrong about her. She didn’t give a tedious speech. Her face hardened, her arms rose, and there was the crack-boom of two shots.

  She’d seized her best opportunity, but it wasn’t enough. Gerard had already been aiming for her, and all he had to do was squeeze the trigger. Hsu hit the wall with a cry of pain and slid down it, leaving a smear of blood as red spread across the shoulder of her white lab coat.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The bullet had torn the skin on his calf.

  Gerard waited, blood soaking into his pant leg and dripped down his leg. The pain was surprisingly hot, as if the bitch had touched him with a poker instead of shooting him.

  And he still didn’t have her answer. He was never going to hear her say that he had been right about her. He hated that almost more than he hated the pain.

  His hand trembled on the gun. He wanted to empty the rest of the bullets into her out of sheer spite, but he might need them. He’d heard the fight beginning on the first floor.

  They were going to keep coming, these people. They were not going to rest until they had won.

  Or until they thought they had won.

  He smiled slightly.

  His satisfaction did not make him sloppy, however. His gaze did not waver, and he did not move. He waited while the stain spread slightly across the scientist’s lab coat, and she did not move and did not cry.

  Then he turned and took the stairs as fast as he dared. He had to get to the roof.

  She wouldn’t be the only one coming for him today. He was sure of it.

  —

  So much pain. Heat spread through her until it almost became a chilling cold, and pain followed in its wake.

  Shot. No coming back from that.

  As Gerard’s footsteps receded, Hsu fell to one side, gritting her teeth against a cry. She was not going to scream. She was not going to give herself away.

  Pushing herself up took everything she had, and then she realized she had left the gun on the ground. Her right shoulder was a mess, and the fingers wouldn’t close around it. She grabbed it awkwardly with her left and dropped it into her pocket.

  She knew she should press her hand over the bleeding in her shoulder, but her legs were shaking so hard that she had to haul herself up the stairs, using her left arm to pull herself along the railing. She didn’t look back at the bloody fingerprints, and she didn’t look up at the number of stairs she had yet to climb.

  Wherever Gerard went, he would hurt people.

  She wouldn’t let him leave. All that mattered was ending this.

  —

  Bobcat watched the crates being brought out onto the warehouse floor. Each crate of hops was carried carefully, wafting the fresh scent across the room. His supplier, Resi, checked each crate carefully for damage and then lifted the lid to peer inside. They were weighed, painstakingly.

  Meanwhile, Bobcat was practically bouncing with impatience.

  Under his breath, he let himself mutter, “Hurry it up!”

  This was taking forever, and he didn’t have forever.

  Although he wasn’t using his time well, either. He should be using this delay to come up with a good enough excuse that Marcus and William wouldn’t want to look in the crates. And a good enough excuse to put the crates somewhere they couldn’t smell them.

  So far, he hadn’t come up with anything.

  Bobcat. Bethany Anne’s voice.

  Uh-oh.

  “Yes?” he managed. He hoped his voice didn’t squeak.

  What the hell is taking so long? Marcus and William say the trucks are there, the trucks with the Wechselbalg are on their way, and you aren’t returning their messages. Is this the fourth grade?

  “No, no. No. Of course not.” Bobcat managed a laugh. “I’ll be back. I just needed to get a… thing. Equipment. Thing.”

  What sort of equipment thing?

  “Uh…”

  Let me be very clear. Bethany Anne’s voice was sweet. If I lose even one pair of my shoes because you were off doing God-knows-what, I am going to make you sorry you were ever born. I am going to make you clean the entire asteroid with a toothbrush, and I am going to make you do it while wearing the most uncomfortable pair of heels I own, and then I am going to make you replace those heels once your big feet have stretched them out. And then, if I do not feel you are appropriately contrite, I am going to make you paint every single one of your helicopters pink. Are we clear?

  “You wouldn’t—”

  Am. I. Clear?

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bobcat hurried over to Resi. “You know what? Five crates are good. I’ll be leaving right fucking now.”

  She frowned at him. “You’re going to have to wait anyway.”

  Bobcat felt his heart sink, “Wait for what?”

  With an impatient sigh, she went to turn the video monitors toward him.

  Bobcat sank his face into his hands. Outside, on the street, was a barricade. The last twelve soldiers had taken up position, weapons aimed at the doors of the warehouse.

  Resi shrugged. “We’ve got a long wait, friend. Unless you think you have some way to get out of here without them noticing.”

  Bobcat frowned, an irritation in his voice. “Well, that’s not exactly my style…”

  —

  Jason Velley waited impatiently, his grip tightening around the stock of his gun.

  The street was entirely silent. The residents had complained, but in the end, they allowed themselves to be evacuated into the nearby town center. The name “Hugo Marcari” seemed to be magic around here.

  The soldiers had all thought it was going very smoothly. Of course, that was until nothing seemed to happen. There wasn’t any shouting or clanking from inside the warehouse, and their tech support back at HQ didn’t seem to be able to figure out what the warehouse was for in the first place.

  They kept claiming it was for beer supplies.

  Jason rolled his eyes. Under the layers of body armor, sweat was starting to drip down his back. His knee was aching against the cobblestones, and it wouldn’t be too long before his back started to cramp. He wasn’t a sniper, for God’s sake, just a normal hired guard, and what he had thought was going to be a fun shootout, the sort of adrenaline high he lived for, was turning out to be a lot of waiting instead.

  He was a professional, though. He knelt, mot
ionless, and waited for the warehouse doors to swing open. As soon as they did, the people inside would see that they were surrounded.

  Jason smiled to himself. The successful capture of arms traffickers was going to look very good for his firm—and for him.

  He was sure he was going to get a raise by the end of the summer.

  —

  They were on the third floor when they caught up with the bulk of the new forces.

  Most of the scientists had, apparently, fled this way as well.

  >>I see forty-eight heat signatures on this floor,<< ADAM informed Jennifer. >>It appears that all twenty-four of the remaining new guards are here, as well as fourteen scientists and ten of the old security force.<<

  Stephen asked, “What about Gerard?”

  >>I am not able to tell if Gerard is on this floor. I can see a difference between guards and scientists because of the amount of metal and electronics they carry, but I have not identified individual heat signatures.<< There was a pause. >>There are two figures in the back stairwell. One is ascending faster than the other.<<

  Stephen and Jennifer exchanged a look. They didn’t need to talk in order to understand the other one’s thoughts. Neither of them had any intention of letting Gerard slip away—and if someone was weaseling out of the fight, it was almost certainly him.

  They nodded to one another.

  Jennifer turned to Nathan and the other Wechselbalg. “As soon as we reach the stairwell, Stephen and I will split off and follow Gerard to the roof. The rest of you…” she smiled.

  Stephen also smiled, coldly. “Can judge those who are here,” he finished. “There may be those, like Hsu, who have been captured and forced into work—and who have dedicated their efforts to ruining the research efforts. But if any should stand between you and your duty, you will do what you do.”

  “And even those who were captured may not be worthy of survival,” Irina said quietly. She looked at Nathan and Peter, and her chin trembled slightly. “I saw those who should have fought, who were also captives and should have been on my side, work for Hugo instead. They started to enjoy hurting us. Hsu was one of the only ones who tried to work against Hugo. I don’t know if there will be any here, beyond her, who should be spared.”

  “Do not worry,” Nathan told her gravely. “My Queen has been accused of many things, most of them lies—but being too lenient on dishonorable people isn’t one of those things.”

  Peter laughed softly.

  The Wechselbalg transformed, and Stephen opened the door to let them slip through.

  The corridors were eerie and silent. Red emergency lights gleamed at regular intervals, but in between, doorways and alcoves lay in shadow.

  Jennifer’s nose twitched as she used all of her senses to determine what was ahead. ADAM would not always be there to give her a layout of the battlefield, and, in any case, she was accustomed to figuring it out herself.

  Also, it never hurt to be cautious. She would rather overestimate her enemy than underestimate them.

  Of course, after their performance in the castle, she didn’t think much of these guards.

  There were several ahead and to the left. She could not quite hear their breathing, or smell their fear sharply, so they must be some ways along the corridor.

  With Peter at her side, she padded to the corner and peered around.

  There was a shout, and bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the wall. Jennifer and Peter chuffed at one another. The shots hadn’t even been close.

  “Let me handle one or two of them,” Stephen suggested from behind them. He waited for them to dip their heads, and then snuck a peek. He laughed as well when the second burst of gunfire was no more accurate than the first. “Idiots,” he muttered.

  And then he moved, a blur in the darkened corridor. There were screams, and the deeper noise of a pistol shot.

  Jennifer did not wait for an invitation. She came around the corner and broke into a run. One of the gunmen looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened.

  He was swinging around to face her when she jumped, and had only turned halfway when she pushed off him and leapt again, over Stephen’s head where he was fighting. She landed hard, already turning, and her jaws clamped around the leg of one of his opponents.

  He went down with a scream. The armor was made to repel gunfire to the torso, and the rest of it was full of weak places. Places a wolf’s teeth could sink into and rip out.

  Weakness was fatal.

  And then Peter and Nathan were in the fray, Stoyan and Irina joining them scant seconds later.

  Stephen moved in a blur as he ran for the door to the stairwell. “Jennifer! This way!”

  She stood on her hind legs to tear down a man who was aiming at Stephen’s receding form, and then stepped daintily over his body to follow her boyfriend.

  Stephen was laughing at her when she arrived. “You’re so delicate about stepping in blood, but you’ve got it all down your jaws.”

  Shrugging was difficult as a wolf. Jennifer lifted her muzzle and practically pranced past him into the stairwell, accompanied by the sound of his laughter.

  “Right,” Stephen said, when he managed to catch his breath. “Let’s go fuck Gerard up, shall we?”

  —

  There was a clatter from inside the warehouse, and the sudden revving of an engine.

  Jason gripped his gun and exchanged a quick look with the rest of the men.

  It was finally starting.

  His eyes narrowed as he looked at the door.

  “Come on,” he muttered. The second those doors started to swing open, he was going to start firing.

  Except they never did swing open. With the sound of splintering wood and a revving engine, the antique car they’d seen earlier came crashing out of the warehouse, fishtailed, and accelerated down the street as the guards stared after it, mouths hanging open.

  Jason recovered first.

  “To the truck!”

  Shit, shit, shit. They could not lose this guy. He gestured urgently for the men to pile into the back of the armored truck.

  “What was he yelling?” Sean demanded.

  Jason hesitated. He couldn’t possibly have heard it right, could he?

  Because it really sounded like the driver had been shouting, “FOR BEEEEEEEEEEER!”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Dust and gravel shot out from under the wheels as Bobcat pushed the GTO to the limits of the big 389ci engine. Ordinarily, it would have been almost an ideal day to take an old car on country roads and see what he could make it do, but the gunfire made it a little less fun.

  No, actually, the gunfire made it more fun.

  Except for the part where the bullets might ruin some of his cargo. He shuddered at the idea of hot bullets burning the precious hops, and jammed his foot down as hard as he could on the accelerator.

  A scatter of gunfire hit the road to his left and he ducked to make sure his head was entirely behind the headrest. He’d outfitted this car with every kind of toy he could think of—even missile launchers—but the bulletproof seats and doors wouldn’t help if he wasn’t behind them.

  He swerved as he led the truck down the road. As an armored vehicle, it wasn’t made for pursuit—which was good, because no matter how gorgeous it was, the Pontiac couldn’t possibly compete with one of today’s sports cars.

  A round of shots came far too close, one hitting the other seat’s headrest and sending a shudder through the car. Bobcat kept swerving, trying to keep his movements as erratic as possible. They were almost out of the town now, but—

  Were those police lights behind them?

  Oh, shit.

  He pressed the phone to his ear., “Come on, come on, come on. Pick up.”

  “You’re finally on your way back, huh?”

  “Marcus!” The wind tore his voice away. “Yeah. I have company.”

  Marcus swore. The captive Wechselbalg had just arrived and were waiting for their Pods, and none of them were exactly dres
sed for combat—nor did he want them transforming and taking the chance of getting hurt. Not now. Not when they were so close to getting away entirely.

  “Get back in the trucks!” he yelled to the crowd. At least they could shelter there for a while.

  He thought furiously, and came to a conclusion. “Bobcat?”

  “What? I’ll be there in a few.”

  “No, don’t!”

  “Don’t?” Bobcat practically screamed the word into the phone. “I am in a ‘65 Pontiac GTO and I am being followed by an armored truck! I am being shot at!”

  “Yeah, see if you can lead them off for a while.” Marcus could see the two puffs of dust approaching. “I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come back. I’m going to call in extraction.”

  Bobcat sputtered, “Did your mother make it with… with….”

  “Yes?”

  “A box of rocks!”

  “No,” Marcus informed him seriously. “Or if she did, I don’t want to know about it. Thanks for helping out.”

  He hung up the phone on Bobcat’s yells of protest and called up to the Archangel.

  QBS Archangel

  The call button on Phillips’s desk buzzed.

  “Phillips.”

  “Slight change of plans.” The computer identified the voice as Marcus. “Can you get those Pods down to us ASAP? I’m thinking five for the evacuees and then the three with the shielding for the shipping containers. And one for us, with shielding for the car.”

  The team had developed an airtight shield that would snap closed around a suspended shipping container, keeping the delicate glue and leather safe during the ascent into space. A few tests in some remote areas of Canada had shown that the process worked well.

  They had wanted to do this at night, so no one would notice the Pods, but that plan had been abandoned as soon as the mission got moved up. They had also not wanted to do this during a shootout, but it looked like they weren’t going to get that wish, either.

  Phillips would normally have raised her eyebrows at a request like this, and told the ground team to stick to the plan, but she had been informed that any request from the ground team was likely to be made because things had gone sideways.