by Natalie Grey
Those broke her heart.
She sat on the floor in the corner of the lab, not visible from the window at the front, and considered.
And then she did the thing she’d been terrified to do.
“ADAM? Can you get me in touch with Stephen?”
There was a pause. Then, >>Yes, of course. One moment.<<
The next pause seemed so long that she could swear she was going to go out of her mind with worry.
“Jennifer?” Stephen’s voice was tight with worry.
Jennifer pressed a hand over her mouth and tried not to let the sob out. It took two deep breaths before she could speak. “Hi.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” She clenched her hands together. “But I miss you, and I’m sorry about what I did.”
She thought she heard him sigh slightly, and her heart fell. Sometimes she felt very young compared to Stephen.
“I understand why you did it,” he said at last.
“What? Really?” She hadn’t expected that.
“It was pointed out to me, by a certain queen we know, that you did exactly what I would have done if I thought I had the opportunity.”
Jennifer gave a watery laugh.
“She reminded me of what you are,” Stephen said.
“And what is that?”
“A warrior, and a fine one. One of her best. A woman who won’t let danger stand in her way.” Stephen paused. “Please tell me you’re safe.”
“About as safe as I’d be getting into shenanigans with you,” Jennifer pointed out.
Stephen laughed. The sound was genuine, full-throated, and Jennifer leaned her head back against the wall, smiling as tears leaked out of her eyes. She’d missed him.
“You’re not angry?”
“Not anymore. You gave us the final key to nail this guy. And we’ll see each other soon, won’t we?”
“Yeah, we will.” Jennifer smiled. “And in the meantime, I’m doing as much as I can to get their research moving backwards. ADAM’s been invaluable. I’m just trying to see if there’s any way I can get into the rest of their servers so I can screw up everyone else’s results, too.”
“We’ll see what we can manage.” Stephen sounded amused. “Or we could just shoot them in the face.”
Jennifer tapped her lips twice, “The hell with my plan, let’s go with that.”
“Just promise me one thing.”
“Sure.”
Stephen hesitated a moment. “The next time you jump into the unknown like that? Take me with you. It’s killing me not to be fighting my way out of there with you.”
“It’s killing me, too.” Jennifer’s lips twitched in a smile. “I promise. I’ll see you soon—and then we’ll never do this sort of thing again.”
“Deal,” Stephen said emphatically.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Catalonia, Spain
“Arisha, right?” Gerard’s voice was as smooth and pleasant as she remembered. He strolled closer, hands in his pockets.
Arisha froze. She told herself to keep breathing. Gerard knew nothing, she told herself fiercely. He hadn’t seen her at Velingrad.
He knew nothing.
She smiled, as brilliantly as she could, as if she were delighted to see him. She made her accent strong and turned his name into a question. “Gerard? You are from here?”
“Didn’t you know that already, my dear?”
There was a definite threat in his eyes. Arisha shook her head. “We never got our dinner, remember?” Her mind raced. How would she normally react if a man didn’t call her? She settled for arching an eyebrow. “Did you find more charming company in Sofia, then?”
Gerard paused, his brow furrowing. He had seen her at Velingrad… hadn’t he? He had seen her on the security feeds. He was sure of it.
“Neither of us stayed in Sofia that night,” he said simply.
“You did,” Arisha pressed. “I saw you in the hotel, coming back around eleven.” She crossed her arms. “What else am I to think, but you found a better way to spend your night? Or do you have so many women that you cannot remember where you were?”
She was walking a delicate line here, she knew. Getting information out of Gerard would mean that she had to pretend she hadn’t been at Velingrad, and that she was disappointed not to have spent the night with him—but if she were too petulant, he would hardly want to spend time with her now.
She gave a nervous laugh and looked away. “I am sorry. It is not my place to be upset with you.”
Silence. She did not dare to sneak a glance.
“In fact, I know it is not my place to ask anything of you.” She looked up to meet his eyes at last, and tried not to shiver at how cold they were. “But if this is, indeed, where you live, perhaps you could let me know which places might be best for a tourist. What should they see while they are here?”
“What?” Gerard was thrown off by this question.
“I write travel articles,” Arisha explained. “Do you not remem—never mind. If there is anywhere you would recommend, I would simply be pleased to try it.”
“I thought you wrote travel articles about how terrible it was in the Eastern Bloc after countries left the Soviet Union.” Gerard was testing her now. “How did you like Velingrad?” He laid the trap smoothly.
He had to swallow his anger when she opened her eyes wide. “Sir, I see now why you are confused. We met in Sofia.” She lifted a shoulder. “I quite liked Sofia, really. It was charming, did you not think so? But I had to write a bad article anyway. I begged my editor, I said, ‘if you only send me to bad places, people will think this is not really a travel column.’ He agreed to send me somewhere I could say was nice. Like this.” She let her smile fade slightly. “I do not mean you to think I am… stalking? I do not mean you to think I chase you. I will go.”
“No.” His hand closed around her arm like a vise.
To scream, or not to scream? Arisha looked over at him and saw him force a charming smile. The effect was terrifying.
“Let me show you around tonight,” Gerard said. “I promise, I won’t stand you up again.”
Despite the fact that she knew she should see if she could create a weak link in Hugo’s defenses, or see if she could learn something useful, there was only one instinct in her head: get out! Arisha stammered, “You don’t… you don’t need to—”
“I insist.”
“I, ah… let me get a coat.” And pray that someone sees me leave with him, so I don’t vanish.
—
“Tell me more about this proposal you have for me.” Hugo strolled through the courtyard at the center of his castle. Once, this had been a place of beaten earth, smelling of horses and hot metal from the forges. Now, when battles were fought with computers and squads of elite soldiers, he had ordered that the courtyard be made into a garden.
It was an homage to his family, with statues of his forebears surrounded by flowers, the meaning of which he had chosen carefully. His family’s crest stood out on the banners that fluttered around the walls.
“You have spoken very strongly against TQB.” Diego Garza, a politician from Madrid, walked nervously beside him. “I am here to see if I cannot persuade you to change your mind.”
Hugo gave the man a look. He wore an ill-fitting suit and seemed out of place in the opulence of the garden. Hugo could tell that this man was “self-made”—just a new way to say that he was a commoner who wanted to rise in the world.
From his nervousness, it was clear that the commoner realized he was out of his depth.
Hugo’s father would have had the man killed for coming into the family’s estate and asking a lord to change his mind on an important matter. But Hugo liked to be magnanimous. He liked to give people a chance to change their minds before he enacted punishment.
“Why do you think I should change my position on this matter?”
The politician seemed surprised by Hugo’s openness. “Ah, uh….”
; Hugo only waited. He stopped before a statue of his great grandfather and looked up at the man’s stern face. This man had begun to see the world change, as industry emboldened the merchants and gave the commoners a false sense that they could have everything they wanted—even control of their own governments.
“Have you heard stories of the technology TQB wields?” the politician suggested finally. Hugo had the sense that he had expected to be thrown out, not given a chance to speak.
“I have.” Hugo did not look away from the statue.
“You know that this technology could aid the whole world with regards to medical science, astrophysics and space exploration, energy sources, communications.” The man was fairly babbling with excitement. “This could be the next great leap in our world.”
“Could it?” Hugo said simply.
The man faltered in the face of his coldness. “Y-yes.”
“Do you believe this, despite the fact that they have not shared this technology with us?”
“They do not yet trust us,” the politician said.
“And we cannot trust them. Mr. Garza, I am not a lone holdout against some utopian future. I am a skeptic for good reason. If TQB wanted to help the world, they have had ample opportunity to do so. Instead, we have reason to believe that they had undertaken many missions against sovereign governments, in defiance of all international laws.”
“And we have evidence that those governments were conducting illegal research, and provoking those attacks,” the politician argued. “There is also evidence that attacks on sovereign territory do not constitute attacks on those governments. It appears that rogue elements might be attempting to mimic TQB’s technology for nefarious purposes.”
Nefarious. Trust a commoner not to understand. Hugo smiled coldly. “Nefarious purposes such as…?”
“Attempts to seize power,” the man explained. “Why, even within the governments themselves, different factions are trying to use this issue to seize power—with aspirations of global power.”
“And you believe that…” Hugo looked at him, amused.
“That TQB seeks a united world,” the politician argued. “The CEO’s statements, though they are very few, seem to suggest that she does not trust the world with these technologies yet. If she thinks we are worthy of them, however, if we show that we are worthy of them—”
“So, if we bow and scrape in order to conform to her idea of ‘honor.’” Hugo did not bother to disguise his contempt. “I think you will find very few allies if this is your course of action.”
“It is not bowing and scraping!” The man drew himself up. “Our world has problems, Mr. Marcari, very severe problems. If we show that we are committed to fixing those problems, to building a world that can understand honor and responsibility, we will open the door to a future far greater than any we can imagine. That is not bowing and scraping, it is rising.”
“You are a fool,” Hugo told him simply. “You are a naïve fool who does not realize that TQB seeks to overturn the natural order of things. But there is only so much the world can take. The issue now is that the governments of Earth are too fractured within themselves to make any meaningful choices—and that problem is not only intrinsic to such governments. It will solve itself.”
“Mr. Marcari—”
“Get out of my house.” Hugo did not look at him.
The man, to his credit, did not argue. But at the edge of the courtyard, he turned and looked back.
“You say you are not the lone holdout,” he said defiantly. “But you will be. Others are listening. They understand what I say. All you do is rob the people of the world of what should be theirs—and I will not stop telling them to demand it.”
He left with the air of a man who felt he had won an argument, and Hugo stared after him, chilled.
He could quite easily gain the loyalty of the governments, he was sure of that. Once the first few rebels had been put down like dogs, the rest would fall into line.
But a concerted uprising of the people, however doomed it might be against armies of shapeshifters, would be bloody. It would rob him of his workforce in huge numbers as he was forced to execute them, and it would give the governments an excuse to question him.
That, he could not allow.
He took his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. When the person on the other end answered, he did not bother with pleasantries. “The man who is leaving the castle. See to it that he does not make it back to Madrid. And get a story ready for the papers, that this man was assassinated by TQB.”
—
The sound of huffing and puffing was harsh in the evening air as Bobcat, Marcus, and William scrambled up one of the hills outside the town.
“You know what I like about the Meredith Reynolds?” Marcus commented wistfully, his breath puffing. “All the floors are flat.”
“Judging by how much you miss that, you could use the exercise.” Stephen strode behind them with a grin, one eyebrow raised.
“I don’t see why you had to come along,” Marcus muttered. “You’re not working on the shoes.”
“For one thing, ADAM is presently working his way into the computer systems, which is something I cannot help with. For another, my distance vision is superb.” Stephen looked over at the other man. “Try breathing deeply. Panting won’t help anything.”
“How would you know? When was the last time you had trouble doing anything?”
“Several years ago, before I met Bethany Anne.” Stephen looked amused. “I was, functionally speaking, about ninety years old. I could hardly walk.”
“Then have some sympathy,” William croaked.
“Part of your problem is that you’re still hungover,” Stephen explained. “Hydration is key, as I understand it.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll take that into consideration next time.” Bobcat squinted across the valley then squatted, trying to get line of sight into the hills. He pointed. “I’m thinking right there for the extraction. They shouldn’t be able to see it from the castle.”
“There isn’t a road that leads there,” Marcus protested.
“The ground is relatively flat. We’ll just bribe some police officers to look the other way.”
“You’d better use an intermediary,” Stephen advised, “or they’ll assume you’re stupid foreigners, take the bribe, and then stop the truck, anyway.” He shrugged at the expressions on their faces. “I’m happy to go away and take my advice with me, but I do know a fair amount about most European cultures. Centuries of experience will do that.”
“Could you deliver the bribe?” Bobcat asked delicately.
“That’s the first sensible suggestion you’ve made yet. Actually, I lie—that place looks very good for extraction. And yes, I will arrange the bribe.” Stephen grinned. “It’s been awhile since I got to do any fun accents.”
“Right, well, that’s settled.” Bobcat waved to Marcus and William. “Come on, let’s get back to the hotel.”
“I’ll meet you there in a bit,” Stephen said. “I have something I want to do before heading back.”
Montpellier, France
Maurice awoke to the sound of his phone ringing insistently from the other side of the room. He stumbled through the semidarkness, swearing.
“Maurice.” Henri’s voice was abrupt. “Are you with the truck?”
Those had been the instructions: stay with the truck at all times.
Maurice had taken one look at the tiny bunk in the back of the cab, and decided he wanted nothing to do with that. Henri was crazy if he thought Maurice was really going to sit in a baking-hot truck for the next two days until someone got him a tire.
But Henri liked to say that things had to go ‘by the book.’
“Yeah, I’m with the truck.”
“Good. Someone’s coming with a tire. You’ll need to head out immediately.”
“What?” Maurice cast about in a sudden panic. He held the phone with his ear as he hopped around on one foot, trying to put
on his pants. “Tonight?”
“Of course, tonight. The client wants the truck in Catalonia by midday.”
“Catalonia?” Son of a bitch. “I thought I was going to Madrid.”
“Catalonia will be quicker, no? It’s closer.”
Maurice stared at the phone in pure hatred. Catalonia might be closer, but the remote villages of that region lay along tiny, winding roads, often unpaved. He was going to have to drive all night, with no breaks, and stay very awake while he did it.
He shook off the last of his sleep. “Fine. I’ll start out in a few. I have to, ah… go pay the person who let me park. In case I’m not there when the guy arrives.”
“I said not to leave the truck,” Henri said ominously.
“Then you should have arranged payment, shouldn’t you? I can, ah… see it from here.” He pulled on his shirt, still holding the phone with his ear, and tried not to make the floorboards creak as he made his way to the stairs. It had been a bitch and a half to get a room anywhere, and the one old woman who offered him her attic was so clingy. He couldn’t afford to have her wake up. “Send a text with the town in Catalonia. I’ll be back with the truck in three days.”
“Make sure you get there by noon,” Henri advised. “Or we don’t get paid. And then I don’t pay your petrol.”
Maurice swore and hung up as he hurried down the stairs.
Who were these people? And what was in the damned truck that they needed so badly?
Only a sense of self-preservation stopped him from opening the truck to peek inside. If the police stopped them—which was seemingly more and more likely—it was best to know nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bulgaria
“Thank you for hearing me out.” Nathan turned slowly as he spoke, to meet the eyes of every pack member. “I would take more time with this, but we do not have time. What we have is a problem that needs solving.”
Karliman Zukanov crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. Since Irina and Stoyan left, the latter taking four strong fighters with him, Karliman’s grip on the pack had been tenuous. Even with the false stories he’d put out, six members leaving was a sign that he could no longer maintain control of the pack.