Tales from the Kurtherian Universe: Fans Write For The Fans: Book 3

by Michael Anderle

  The red patches covering his body faded. They shrank to nothing, leaving behind unmarred skin. Even a small rug burn Del had forgotten went away. By the time the sun came up the next day, he was in the best health of his life. He woke up a short time after dawn.

  He sat up and looked around. “Who are you?”

  Doctor Ivo jerked, having fallen partially asleep, and said, “Ivo Wahner. I’m the doctor of the show. Please lie back down.”

  He stood up and checked Del over. The worst of Del’s injuries and the pervasive smell of death were gone. In fact, he could no longer find any signs of injury. As he checked the boy over, Doctor Ivo removed the needles from both of them. The needle hole, in each case, closed before more than a few drops of blood dripped out.

  “You’ve made a full recovery. Congratulations.”

  Del grinned at the doctor. “I feel great! So…uh, can I go now?”

  Chuckling, the doctor helped Del down from the table and opened the door of the trailer for him. Del hopped out.

  Both his parents, who were sitting on the ground a few feet away, leapt up and ran to hug him. Crushed between them, Del asked in a muffled voice, “Can we go see the horse show now?”

  Author Notes Logan Caird

  Thank you for reading one of the first, though hopefully not the last, of my writings in the Kurtherian Gambit Universe. I’ve been telling stories for almost twenty years at this point though most of them have been in the form of Dungeons and Dragons games. Last January, though, my mom died, and it gave me a bit of a shock. Since then I’ve actively focused on planning a writing career. Life is too short to do anything less than what you love, and I love telling stories.

  Writing this story was a bit different than the others I wrote for Fans Write because the POV character changed halfway through outlining it. Originally, Dr. Ivo was going to be the main character in the story. Not only did that change when Del came along, but the entire plot changed! I’m happy with the result, though, because I think this is a better story than would have come from the original idea.

  I hope you liked it! I look forward to telling more. If you liked it enough to want to hear from me, please stop by my site LoganCaird.com and sign up for my mailing list, or follow me on Facebook at Logan Caird. I’ll let you know through both of those when I write anything new.

  Haiku From The Kurtherian Universe

  ADAM and TOM try

  to impart sense to BA

  Thankless job, ain't it?

  Don’t Mess With Mine

  By Lisa Frett

  It was a beautiful fall evening in Vermont. That is until she finds out that her man, er, wolf is missing, and an enemy from her past has returned. Well, that's just unacceptable. Now Jenny has to sharpen her fangs and do something about it!

  Dedicated to my son Michael, who has to listen to this fangirl’s musings.

  — Lisa

  Don’t Mess With Mine

  The state of Vermont was, by and large, a beautiful place. For a few weeks during the fall, the mountains exploded with color. As Jenny walked out of her home, she was greeted with the brilliant oranges, reds, yellows, and greens that adorn the trees. Even during twilight, with the sun below the horizon, her vampire eyes could see all the amazing colors of autumn.

  Jenny (short for Guinevere) stretched her five-and-a-half-foot-tall, lean, athletic body, working out the kinks of her daytime sleep. She then turned on her tablet to check the news of the day. All the feeds were filled with images of black cargo containers heading into space. This had to be one of the most fantastic things she had ever seen in her centuries of being alive. It was Jen's understanding that this is the doing of the Nacht Bethany Anne and her group. She had to laugh when the cameras focused in on one of the containers where the words, Bite me NASA—Marcus were printed. She didn't know who Marcus was, but he was her hero.

  Jen hadn't paid much attention to vampire society and politics since her turning several centuries ago. But Bethany Anne, the “Queen Bitch”, had piqued her interest. Before she’d arrived on the scene, Michael had been the head of all things in the UnknownWorld. If you broke Michael’s rules, you died. Some might have deserved it, but it was too radical of an approach for Jen.

  Jen had her own interests outside of vampire society. She was able to amass a small fortune in the several centuries since her turning. As a female, it was difficult at first.

  She stayed with her father, a son of David’s, for several decades after becoming a vampire. Unlike David, who was a complete asshole, her father was kind to her. He saw to it that she had everything she could ever need and taught her how to be independent and take care of herself. Some of what he taught her was business and martial skills. Her favorite lessons were hand to hand combat. But she became very proficient in business and swordsmanship as well.

  Unfortunately, Jenny didn’t get along well with the other vampires in the house. A couple of her brothers didn’t believe that her lessons were appropriate for women. Jenny disagreed. She was always getting into altercations because of it. It became so bad that she and her father thought it would be best if she left.

  Her father made certain she would be well taken care of. He opened several bank accounts for her under male aliases. If it was ever necessary for someone to be present at the bank, she had a trusted friend that would show up as her proxy.

  Shortly after arriving in the Americas, Jenny began investing in businesses and property. She used a proxy up until the beginning of the twentieth century, when it became a little easier for women to be actively involved in business.

  Knowing that there really were things out there that went “bump” in the night, she’d kept up with her dad’s lessons. She continued training and practicing for any incident that might occur.

  Jenny liked to train in her everyday clothes. Her rationale was to get used to fighting in what she would be wearing if she ever had to defend herself. Today she was in her comfortable jeans, a white tank top, and a black leather jacket. Her long brown hair was in a ponytail, and she had on her favorite New Balance running shoes. On her one hundred-plus acre property, she had laid out several obstacle courses. After a quick stretch, Jen took off for the closest one.

  The first obstacle was a ten-foot wall. She easily grabbed the top and pulled herself up and over using her upper body strength. From the top of the wall, she jumped to the ground and landed in a forward safety roll. Next was a series of varied-height vaulting stones, followed by a railing that she jumped onto and balanced the length of.

  When she reached the middle of the railing, she sensed someone to her right and recognized the energy of the person running toward her. A disheveled young girl around nine years old bounded into her and knocked her off the beam.

  “Sammy! What the hell?!” Jenny exclaimed.

  Glancing at the young girl, she said, “You look awful. Are you OK?”

  Sammy was her neighbors’ foster daughter. Jen's neighbor Dan could have passed for a male model. Jen thought of him as beefcake. Her beefcake, since they had been a couple for several decades. Dan and Sammy were werewolves, and they’d separated from the North American pack so that he could be with her. Jen had been upset when she’d initially heard that they left but had been selfishly happy they had. She couldn't imagine her life without those two.

  They lived separately, since Dan worked out of the house during the day when Jenny slept. He knew it wasn’t necessary to have separate homes, but he kept his office at his property so there wouldn’t be a chance to bother Jen, and out of respect for her. It was very thoughtful of him, but she really wished he would be there when she woke up.

  Jenny gave Sammy a serious once-over. Something bad must have happened.

  Looking at the young girl she saw that she was covered in dirt. She had on canvas tennis shoes with sparkle designs, jeans, and a blue unicorn tee shirt with a torn flannel shirt over it. She had tear tracks smeared on her face where she had obviously been crying. And was that blood? Who did Jen have
to beat up? The poor girl must have run all the way from her house. Where was Dan? He should have been there with her. Jen didn’t know what had happened but whoever had done this to Sammy was going to pay—most likely with their life.

  “You have to get them, Aunt Jenny!” Sammy always called Jenny her aunt or auntie. “They broke into our home and took Daddy. They said he had something they wanted. Daddy wouldn’t give it to them, so they shot him in his legs and dragged him away. I tried to stop them, but they kept pushing me off. I sneaked away when they weren’t looking and hid. They took him!” Sammy started to cry again.

  Jenny pulled Sammy into her arms and hugged her close. “I’ll take care of this. Tell me who ‘they’ are?”

  “I think it’s the Renegade werewolves auntie. I recognized one of them.” She wiped a tear away. “Someone kept saying that the ‘boss will be mad if they don’t find it.’”

  Jen nodded, giving thought to what Sammy was telling her. The Renegades weren’t really a pack, they were an illegal group of werewolves that had either been kicked out of the North American pack or had left because of irreconcilable differences. As an afterthought, Jen asked, “Do you know what ‘it’ is?”

  “No. But Liam, a guy who works with daddy, came by the other day with a case that had a bunch of bottles in it. He said that what was in the bottles could eat stuff or something. I don’t know what they were talking about, but he seemed really excited. They went into Daddy’s office to talk and closed the door, so I couldn’t hear what they were talking about.”

  Normally, a werewolf like Sammy would be able to hear through a closed door, but Dan had built his office with that in mind. He had soundproofed it so visitors to his home wouldn’t be able to listen in if he had business to handle.

  “Let’s go to your house and see if we can find some clues as to where they might have taken your dad, and what they are looking for. I’ve got to head into the house and get a few things first.”

  In the basement of her home, Jen placed her hand on a part of the cement wall that looked a little worn. She needed to fix that. An observant person would notice it.

  She pressed the worn spot and pulled back a piece of the wall, which opened into a room filled with gear of all kinds. One wall held shelves containing different kinds of handguns, shotguns, and rifles. Her bugout bags were on the ground in front of them. Another wall held swords, knives, and other martial weapons. A third wall had a rack of tactical clothing and armor.

  She put on black tactical pants, a black shirt, and combat boots. A black nylon duty belt supported a combat knife (silver-plated for good measure), two holsters for her Colt 1911 Government model .45s, and several pouches filled with loaded magazines for the Colts.

  She looked at her sword collection and chose a katana that her father gifted her. The blade was silver-plated. Her dad expected that she would have to fight off vampires and werebeasts throughout her life. He wanted her to be prepared. She placed it in a sheath with a shoulder strap.

  In the event she came across a vampire or werewolf, Jen threw some extra magazines with silver frangible bullets into the thigh pockets of her cargo pants. She also had two pair of silver-plated handcuffs, a couple rolls of duct tape (every bugout bag needs duct tape), and a silver chain for good measure. She placed the items in one of her backpacks and went back upstairs.

  Jen and Sammy climbed into Jen’s SUV, a black Range Rover Sport SVR with dark-tinted windows, and headed to Dan’s and Sammy’s house.

  Dan’s two-story farmhouse was at the end of a long gravel driveway. Jen exited the vehicle, checked her.45s and slung her katana’s sheath over her shoulder. Last she put on her backpack. She turned to Sammy, “Stay in the SUV while I check out the house. Keep the doors locked.”

  The young girl nodded.

  Jen examined her surroundings but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Three stairs led up to the front porch, where two wood Adirondack chairs flanked a picture window beside the front door.

  Not knowing what to expect, she cautiously walked up the steps and slowly opened the door. Once inside, she knew that she wasn’t alone. She could hear movement. Jen drew one of her .45s.

  Vampires’ senses were more enhanced than humans’ and Jen put them to use. She listened carefully, there was movement in the basement. When she got closer she sniffed. She thought she could smell dog. No, she thought, not a dog, werewolf. She sniffed again. It’s not Dan. They smell different. She quietly removed her backpack and placed it on the floor.

  Knowing that there was a Were in the basement, Jen didn’t feel the need to be silent anymore. If she could hear and smell him, then he could definitely hear and smell her.

  “You can make it easier on both of us if you come upstairs now. I just want to talk to you,” she yelled

  A gravelly male voice laughed below and said, “You have no idea what you are up against, little woman.”

  She just rolled her eyes. When it came to chest-beating and testosterone-filled rants, Weres were some of the worst, whether in human or animal form. It didn’t bother her. She’d never met a werewolf she couldn’t take in a fair fight.

  She heard someone coming up the stairs. She saw a burly man dressed in the flannel shirt, jeans, and mud boots that were standard Vermont attire year-round.

  He looked her over. “You really are a little lady.” He sniffed the air. “Oh! This is too good! You're a vamp. Little bloodsucker, you're out of your league, and you’re about to die.”

  “And you're a comedian.” Jen brought up her .45 and blew out both of the Were's kneecaps. She chuckled. “See? This is funny.”

  He collapsed and thrashed around on the ground. “You fucking bitch! That fucking hurts!”

  Jen shot him in the gut. “Keep talking, Fido. I can do this all day.”

  She knelt and put her face near the Were's neck. “Now, you're going to tell me where you took the man who lives here.” She pulled back briefly and he saw her glowing red eyes and fangs. “Or you're going to be dinner. Make that breakfast, since I just woke up.”

  “Bitch!” He was hurting, and the silver of the bullets was keeping him from healing fast, but he still tried to stand. That is until he realized that there was a knife strategically placed below his stomach near his favorite body part.

  “You will tell me, or you will lose your favorite play toy.”

  Not wanting to lose his man-, err, wolfhood, he quietly obliged. “Yeah. OK. They're in a house near the border, close to Newport. I'll give you the address. Just please, don't…do that to me.”

  Jenny’s eyes were still glowing red. “We’ll see.” She really didn’t want to kill him. But he didn’t need to know that.

  She removed a pair of silver chains and some duct tape from her backpack.

  Jen had the Were turn onto his stomach. She wrapped duct tape around his wrists. She then placed a pair of her silver-plated handcuffs over the tape. The cuffs were designed to hold against a werewolf’s strength, the tape should keep the silver from burning the werewolf’s flesh.

  “You can try and get out of these, but I doubt you’ll succeed. Those handcuffs are silver. Fighting against them will, most likely, cause them to come in contact with your skin. I’m pretty sure that will ruin your night.”

  “It's all good. I promise, no fighting. I don't want to die, or...” Fido paused.

  “Or lose your little friends.” Jenny grinned as she finished the statement for him.

  He grimaced. “Right.”

  She turned back to Fido. “Now, let’s finish this…” She got to work securing him.

  Before leaving, Jen admired her handiwork. It was good, if she did say so herself. In the middle of the basement floor was a werewolf in human form sitting in a chair. His hands were cuffed behind his back. Excluding his head, he had been thoroughly secured to the chair with duct tape. He wasn't going anywhere. His mouth had a clean cloth stuffed inside and secured by duct tape. For good measure, she took her silver chains and wrapped them around
the werewolf and further anchor him to the chair.

  “I'm sure you understand that I can't have you leave to warn your pack that I'm on the way.”

  He made a “Mmphft” sound.

  Before leaving, Jen made a quick sweep of the house for any sign of the bottles with the mystery substance, but she couldn't find anything odd or out of place. Except, of course, the werewolf duct-taped and chained in the basement.

  She hopped in her Range Rover and took Sammy to Rogan's house. Rogan was an old friend of both Jen’s and Dan’s. Sammy always enjoyed visiting Rogan, and she felt very comfortable leaving Sammy with him.

  Jen put the address given to her by the werewolf into her phone and headed for the house. Sure, she would incur international roaming charges by keeping her phone on, but she could afford the cost.

  Vermont has a lot of long, winding, graveled dirt driveways, and this one was no exception. Unfortunately for Jenny, this one had several guards alongside it. She couldn't see them, but she could “feel” them. Because of this, she parked her SUV on the side of the road and exited the vehicle before the driveway.

  In the back of her Range Rover, Jen had a hidden and locked compartment where she kept a few extra items, including body armor and gloves. Once she’d armored up, she slung her katana over her right shoulder. She didn't want to take any chances, not when she was walking into a Were den.

  When Jen sniffed the air, she could smell a Were in wolf form a short distance ahead of her. She knew he could smell her too, so there would be no element of surprise. Her best bet was to get to him before he raised the alarm. Which, for a wolf meant she had to keep him from running. It probably wouldn’t be too big a problem though since most Weres felt like they had something to prove. So, Jen appealed to the Were’s nature, and straight-up challenged him.