Come Hell or High Water (Hellcat Series Book 5)

by Sharon Hannaford

  A sense of calm enveloped her; Julius had felt her pain through his defences and was trying to comfort her.

  Wait…Julius…of course.

  “Henry,” she said urgently. “I can try to save you, but I’m not sure if it will heal everything.” She took one of his hands in hers and lifted it to her face; his flesh was cool. “I can get a Vampire here. You’ll…you’ll be like them. Like Mac. Do you understand? Do you want that?” She was so relieved he was conscious enough for her to ask, but she already knew his answer, knew what decision she would’ve made for him. He was so young, had so much to live for, had so much to still experience.

  “Thank you,” he said, the smile growing on his bloodied face, “but no.”

  “What?” Gabi asked, not sure she’d heard right. “But you’ll still get to be here, be part of the Clan, part of us. It’ll be hard at first…”

  “Shh…” He hushed her prattle, but any words were cut off by a wet, choking cough.

  Gabi gently moved his body so that his face turned towards the floor. Frothy red bubbles flowed from his mouth. She wished she had a blanket or something to pull under his head.

  He swallowed weakly, clearing his throat. “It’s okay,” he repeated. “I can see the way. I’m ready.”

  A sob tried to bubble out of Gabi’s throat and she gulped it back down.

  “You all did so much,” he continued weakly, but his expression radiated absolute joy, the antithesis to his terrible injuries. “You restored my faith. My soul is ready. Thank you.” His gaze lost focus and drifted towards the ceiling.

  Pounding footsteps had Gabi laying his head down to spin and face the threat, but it was Kyle who appeared out of the dark haze. She turned from him back to Henry, determined to convince him to let them Turn him, but as she crouched down again and put her hand to his face, she saw that he’d already gone, the joyous smile still firmly in place. Kyle put a hand on her shoulder and reached around her to gently close the man’s eyes.

  “You can’t win them all, Hellcat,” he whispered, pulling her away and into a bear hug. “Sometimes people are ready for the next stage. Sometimes it’s not up to us.”

  Kyle had always been wise beyond his years, but this time she wished he wasn’t right.

  ********************

  “Just kill me now,” the Vampire lisped through his heavily protruding fangs. “I won’t tell you anything.”

  Julius watched him without emotion. He’d carefully tucked all emotion away in a back corner of his mind. Fergus and Tabari stood close on either side, but not touching the Vampire. The yard out the back of the factory was devoid of life. The rain had stopped, but they were all soaked, water dripping heedlessly from their faces and clothing. They could take their captive back to the interrogation chamber at the Estate, but it might prove more useful to use the threat of staking him out here to await the dawn. That might further addle his mind, allowing Julius easier access, more chance of getting the information he needed without killing him in the process. Some older Vampire minds didn’t react well to his intrusion. He’d killed a couple of Dantè’s Clan like that.

  “Nothing you do to me could be worse than what they would do.” The Lieutenant spat a glob of blood out of his mouth. The injuries to the side of his face were healing, but slower than Julius would’ve expected.

  “They,” Julius breathed the word. “So you are working for a greater power.”

  The other Vampire hissed, baring his fangs, but didn’t lunge at Julius again.

  “Didn’t they tell you what I was capable of?” Julius asked mildly. “What my strength is?” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Or perhaps they think the stories of my abilities are exaggerated. Hmmm…” It seemed the Lieutenant’s Masters had made a rookie mistake, and that didn’t make any sense. He shrugged the thought away; he needed information, contemplation could come later.

  Bracing himself, he focused on the kneeling Vampire and imagined taking the man’s mind in his and applying pressure. The Vampire screamed, grabbing at his head as though to rip his scalp off.

  “You see?” Julius breathed. “Do you understand now?” His own voice had gone hollow as the beast inside him took control.

  “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t!” The Vampire was tugging at what little remained of his hair. “You don’t know what they’ll do. It’s you that doesn’t understand.” Blood had begun seeping from the corners of his eyes and his nostrils.

  “You can and you will,” Julius continued, the empathy of his human side obliterated by the part that lurked in the deepest shadows of his mind. His inner psychopath. The part that he kept chained, bound and gagged except in the most exceptional of circumstances. Circumstances where those he cared for were under threat. Circumstances like this. “That was just a taste of what I can do. Speak the truth and I’ll kill you cleanly.”

  The Vampire became more distraught with every word. He shrieked, his hands trying to claw his eyeballs. Fergus and Tabari moved to restrain him.

  “No, no, no, no,” he howled. “The Magus, the Magus, I can’t say the words.”

  The rage built in Julius’s chest. He hadn’t wanted to do it the hard way; it took so much more effort to rip the images from another’s mind. Scaring the truth from them was far easier, but he would do whatever it took to protect his Clan. And his Lea. He quickly scanned the yard again, ensuring she hadn’t found him. He’d felt her pain at Henry’s passing, and then he’d cut himself off from her once more. She must still be busy inside or his wall was strong enough to keep her from finding him. He stepped forward, reached out and grasped the Vampire’s chin, forcing his face upward, where Julius could look into his eyes.

  And then he hammered the full brunt of his power into the Vampire’s mind, locking onto his memories, inexorably ripping them from the dark bubble of protection where they lurked. They hadn’t thought he was strong enough to counter the Magi spell. They knew nothing of his true strength. That pleased the beast.

  Julius’s back arched and his head flew back as the weight of the memories assailed him.

  Women. Children. War. Blood. Death. Love. Hate.

  Every memory across more than three hundred years of existence pounded into his mind like a tidal wave. He was barely conscious of Fergus’s steadying hands and the consistent stream of energy that flowed to bolster him, bringing him back to the surface.

  He waded through the dregs of remembrance, sifting for the images he wanted, the ones that had been in the very centre of the magic bubble.

  Visions of men and women: all different, none familiar. Ten. The Ten. Yes, the Decuria. Julius focused his energy on these, committing them to his own memory. But some of the faces were smooth and featureless. The Lieutenant knew of them, of their existence, had received orders from them, but didn’t actually know who they were or what they looked like. They were from all parts of the world and the Lieutenant was not privy to their exact locations.

  Frustrated, Julius dug further, expanding his search. The ten of ten. The Hundred. The Centuria. Ahh, this was home. This was what the Lieutenant had craved. For decades. He had worked tirelessly, done awful, horrible things to be noticed, to be chosen. The Centuria. The foot soldiers. The ones that carried out the orders of the Ten. The ones who moved the world to make it what the Decuria decreed.

  But what drove the Decuria? He needed to know more, go deeper. Why where they after Julius and Gabi? Julius knocked aside memories of the conquests, of the assassinations, of the manipulations the Lieutenant had perpetrated to please his masters. Looking deeper, into the blackest mists. He could only access what the Lieutenant himself had deduced over the decades of rejoicing in his position, but it would be something to go on. The man wasn’t an idiot; he had to have some idea of what drove his masters. But as Julius reached for that dark tangle of memories, a sharp noise broke his concentration.

  “Sire,” Fergus shouted.

  Julius felt his body pound into the ground as further shots rang out and bullets pepper
ed the cracked concrete around them.

  “No.” Julius desperately clawed at the images beginning to fragment and crumble. “Protect him,” he ordered his men, even as pain exploded in his leg and abdomen.

  But it was too late. Tendrils of the visions slipped from his grasp like smoke. Fading into nothingness.

  “Get the shooter,” Julius roared, throwing Fergus off of his body.

  The Scotsman grunted, and Julius could scent the blood pouring from wounds on all of them. Anger burned away the last of the confusion from being locked in someone else’s memories. Tabari rolled away from the body of the Lieutenant, whose head remained in contact with the rest of him by only a thin, gory chunk of flesh and skin, his eyes were already vacant. Before Julius could reach him, the body began to wither and shrivel. With reason returning, Julius spun to search for the shooter. Fergus made it back to his feet, but one of his legs was a mangled, bloody mess.

  “Oop there, Sire.” He indicated a hill visible on the far side of the railway line, several hundred feet away. There was no one on it now, but it was obvious it had been the shooter’s vantage point.

  Julius caught the growl before it escaped his throat. They wouldn’t catch the sniper now. He turned his attention to Fergus and Tabari.

  “Let’s do something about those injuries.” The words had barely left his lips when a woman burst from a fire escape, her auburn hair streaming out behind her as she ran, a wicked short sword in one hand. He could sense her panic, the sheer terror that she was too late. He firmly clamped the beast’s shackles back in place and turned towards her.

  The silver cage had become a holding cell once again. This time for those of the Kresniks who had been ingesting Vampire blood. They were proving to be a serious headache. Not only were they still stronger and faster than the rest of the humans, but they were also impossible to mind-wipe. For both Vampires and Magi. Not even Fergus’s considerable skills were enough to make a difference. No one knew if the effects would wear off in time or if the mind protection was permanent. So for now they’d be kept under lock and key, probably at the SMV’s old HQ. The building still belonged to the company formed by Gabi’s father and Byron when they’d begun the organisation. Gabi would be speaking to Byron about opening the building up to Kimberley and Derek for them to start their Teen-help group, but in the meanwhile they could use it. She wasn’t sure how she would feel walking corridors empty of the usual hustle and bustle of the SMV.

  She blew out a breath and chewed her bottom lip as she watched the captives through narrowed eyes. Darkstalker, Lady Helsing and three other men. They were subdued, and in Lady Helsing’s case, sullen. Stripped of her coat, her hair was mussed, her make-up smudged and she had some fading bruises on her face and neck. Just looking at her made Gabi’s blood pressure spike. She was having to repeatedly remind herself that they were only puppets. Puppets of a much bigger enemy, and it was that enemy who needed to pay, not the handful of humans in the cage. It had been so very hard to keep that in mind when Kyle and Patrick had brought Henry’s body downstairs on a stretcher.

  Casualties at the hall down the road were at a minimum, she’d heard—mostly bruises, and many simply needing to sleep off the effects of the tranquiliser. One or two bad reactions to the sedatives, but it was simply a long process of the Erasers one by one replacing the junior Kresniks’ memories of the night with a new memory of an illegal rave party, doing some drugs, drinking and getting rowdy. This fabrication fitted in easily with any side effects of the tranquilising drug and would explain any bruises or sore muscles without further intervention by Healers.

  The biggest job of the night was gathering the guns, the expended bullets and the bullet casings. Luckily they could call in extra Werewolves for this part, as long as they wore padded gloves to protect themselves from the silver. There wasn’t much that could be done about the damage to the building; Patrick, Kyle and Alexander were busy debating the merits of setting fire to the place. Vans had been brought in simply to cart away the cache of weapons. They’d be stored at Julius’s secret bunker until they could figure out what to do with them. Fergus was travelling with the vans in case they were stopped by cops, it would be amazingly difficult to explain the presence of over a hundred guns in a City where the weapons were banned.

  “Gabi?” a feminine voice called out. “Feathersticks, this place is a labyrinth,” was muttered under the woman’s breath.

  “I’m here, Trish, just follow my voice. I’m on guard duty,” Gabi called out. She assumed the guys had left her to oversee the prisoners because her unadulterated fury was stamped so clearly on her face that they wouldn’t even think of trying to escape. So far, it seemed to be working, but she wouldn’t put it past them to try something the instant her back was turned. Trish’s version of cursing, as she picked her way through the machinery and debris, almost made her smile. She needed to teach that girl some real swear words.

  “Oh, there you are.” Trish looked relieved when she appeared from behind one of the machines Gabi had used as cover. She had a computer tablet in one hand and a Starbucks coffee in the other. “Coffee Angel on duty.” She grinned, brandishing the steaming cup under Gabi’s nose.

  “Ah, you absolute lifesaver.” Gabi inhaled the scent of coffee and caramel with something akin to reverence.

  “We’re nearly wrapped up,” Trish said. “Kyle asked me to tell you that the van to transport the Vamped ones is on its way. As soon as they’re loaded, the Vampires will need to head home. Sunrise is less than an hour away.” Well, that explained why she suddenly felt exhausted.

  “What happened with the video feed?” Gabi asked as she took a long, slow sip of the sweet coffee. She hadn’t had the chance to ask anyone yet.

  “Oh.” Trish blew a breath, puffing out her cheeks. “That was a close one. The darn software failed the first time I set it up. I actually had to rewrite some of the code to get rid of the bugs, which of course took some time, and by then the feed was already relaying. Luckily I had an old programme, a kind of tracker that could latch onto the outgoing feed. As soon as I had the blocking software working, I tracked down the feed that managed to escape and embedded a worm into the code, corrupting the video and giving me the IP addresses of all those it reached. So in the end it probably wasn’t a bad hiccup. If you want, we can track down the computer users and mind-wipe them, but without the video feed even if they did see anything, they won’t be believed.”

  Gabi hadn’t really understood anything Trish had just said, but her friend’s cheerfulness meant it had to be good, so she smiled and congratulated her.

  CHAPTER 18

  After finishing the clean-up operation, checking on the humans in the hall, and moving their vehicles to appear as if they’d gone to the hall for a rave, Julius left in the last remaining helicopter, heading back to the Estate a little after sunrise. Gabi, Patrick, Kyle and Trish had then taken the exhausted Werewolves, Magi and Shifters for breakfast at a nearby diner. Bellies full and exhaustion setting in, Gabi and Patrick had driven back to the Estate, where she’d showered and collapsed into bed next to Julius and fallen into virtual unconsciousness until well past sunset.

  When she finally woke, Julius was already up and gone from the room, the sheets cold on his side of the bed. Razor purred and nudged her with his head, radiating hunger. She dressed and took him downstairs to feed him in the kitchen before looking for Julius. She found him in the entertainment room with a handful of others. Alexander lounged in an easy chair, the footrest up and the seat back down, looking for all the world like a male model posing for the camera. Julius crossed the room to pull her into his arms and kiss her thoroughly. Alexander’s snigger made her pull away and make a beeline for the coffee maker behind the bar counter. Fergus stood near the door, his ever-present air of readiness and barely leashed violence obvious as always. Gabi rarely saw him seated, and he only relaxed when he was in daysleep, and even then his body seemed to radiate an unconscious tension. His version of ‘at ease’ w
as his arms folded across his chest. He wasn’t at ease tonight. None of them were, not even Alexander, for all his display of nonchalance.

  “What’s up?” Gabi asked, wondering what she’d been left out of this time. “Is there fallout from last night?”

  “No, not really,” Julius replied. “A few of the smaller news stations reported the fire that razed the place, and interviewed some police, who are looking into it as a suspected arson.”

  Gabi was sure it would keep the authorities occupied for several days and then they’d move the file to the ‘too hard’ basket. Insurance would pay out and the factory would be rebuilt instead of revamped, no biggie. Relieved, Gabi opened a cupboard to find what she needed for her coffee.

  “What about the video clips that made it out?” she asked as she placed a coffee capsule into the machine and shoved a mug under the spout.

  “Trish tracked down and bugged a handful of them, but nothing had made it ‘viral’, and only a few smaller forums are discussing it. Nothing to worry about,” Julius reported. “Ian discharged the last of the humans who were hospitalised for reacting badly to the sedatives, and says that none of them have any residual memories of the gunfight, the Kresniks or Vampires and Werewolves. The rest will be monitored over the next few days to be sure the mind-wipes were fully effective.”

  “What about Darkstalker and the rest?” she checked as she pressed the right combination of buttons to get the machine hissing and gurgling. She knew that the Lieutenant had been shot by a sniper, and it was possible whoever had taken out the Vampire would try to take out the others as well.

  “Those five are locked away in secure facilities until we have the time to deal with them,” Julius assured her.

  “So what are you guys all looking so serious about, then?” she demanded.

  “We’ve been discussing the Princeps’ request,” Julius told her as the aroma of Ethiopian blend rose from the stream of espresso coffee trickling into the mug.