hellcat 05 - come hell or high water (13 page)

“Are the cameras rolling?” a male voice shouted over the general din.  “Someone check the cameras are rolling.”

“Holy Lord and Lady…” Gabi fumed. What the hell was going on?  Razor had begun a piteous yowl next to her; the tear gas spared no one, it seemed.

“Gabi.” It was Mac’s rough shout.  A tearing sound, followed by the tinkling of tiny bits of metal falling to the wooden floors. The weight of the net lifted from her left, from where it seemed like Mac’s voice was emanating. Squeezing her eyes shut against the agony of stinging smoke, she began working her way towards him, keeping Razor between her feet as she went.  More tearing, less weight, and soon she bumped into the solid mass of a male body.  Vampire.  Mac.  She was so relieved to find him she nearly hugged him right then and there. 

“Humans,” Mac coughed the word.  “Attackers are human.” He pointed upwards. 

Through bleary, tear-streaked eyes she looked up and saw large chunks of electronic equipment embedded in the ceiling.  Some of it had to be camera equipment, by the shouts she’d just heard.  The humans were what?  Taping the attack?  Mac’s arm shot out and deflected something hurtling towards Gabi’s head. 

“We need to get out, regroup,” Mac wheezed.  “Come.”  He turned, obviously meaning to lead her out of the mayhem.

“No way,” Gabi choked out.  “Get Adriana.  The cage is silver. Weres can’t touch it.”  She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he sighed before turning back.  Having adjusted somewhat to the sting of the tear gas, Gabi tried to make sense of the senseless.  Now that the place was lit, she could make out wires and cables running in swathes across the walls and over the ceiling. Cameras and other recording equipment dotted the walls at shoulder level. 

Men shouting in apparent pain and panic drew her attention. Several of the Werewolves were floundering on the ground, covered with sheets of the metallic netting, others were trying to pull it off, and howling in pain as they did so.  The scent of Werewolf was strong enough to be noticeable even over the tear-gas stench.  They were going to start changing if they didn’t get the silver away from themselves soon.  She didn’t fancy being in a fight with unknown Werewolves backing her up.  They were as likely to attack her as the bad guys.  Speaking of bad guys.  She looked around, wiping the tears from her eyes, to see several men and women in dark clothing pouring from several rough trapdoors in the ground.  They were wearing gas masks and held weapons that looked a lot like handguns. 

Julius would’ve been so useful right now; his ability to move the air would’ve cleared the gas in seconds.  Nudging Razor towards the busted back door, she made a run for the nearest struggling Werewolf.  It was Matt.  Gabi grabbed one side of the net and screamed at him to lie flat.  Even overcome with the pain inflicted by the silver, he obeyed her command.  Quickly she flung the net to one side and dropped to check on him.  He was panting, his face and hands blistered to the point of bleeding, his wolf so close Gabi could see the faint blur around him.  She squeezed her eyes shut as she used her ability to control animals to force the wolf back, calm him, reassure him, settle him.  No sooner had the wolf receded than Matt’s hand waved weakly at her.

“I’m fine,” he gasped. “Go.” 

She took him at his word and moved onward, Razor at her heels, ignoring her command for him to leave.  Fergus was yanking a net off Kyle, and Tabari was collecting the last of the gas canisters, his shirt pulled up over most of his face. He drew his arm back and expertly lobbed the small metal containers out of one of the broken windows. 

“Tabari,” she yelled, “break more windows, then secure the exits.  No one gets away.” 

He nodded that he’d heard her and Gabi turned again.  Kyle was back on his feet; he too was blistered from contact with the net, but he was calm and the look in his eye was a rare streak of annoyance. 

“Humans,” he grumbled in disgust.  “What game are they playing?” 

“I don’t know, but we need to contain them,” Gabi replied, retching again and spitting up foul-tasting bile from the back of her throat.  “Any idea how many there are?” 

Kyle used a sleeve to wipe his eyes, carefully avoiding the bleeding welts on his hands.  “At least ten, could be more.”

“Do you think they have an escape route from underground?” Gabi asked.  “I don’t want any of them getting away.” 

“I’ll get the guys outside to sweep for any runaways,” he assured her and jogged away towards the closest exit.  He didn’t take time to open the door, he just lashed out with his foot and took the entire door off its hinges, letting a blessedly crisp, clear night breeze flow towards Gabi.  She gratefully drew in a deep lungful of the fresh air and then a sharp noise split the air.  It was soon followed by more.  The world slowed down as adrenalin flooded Gabi again. She knew the sound, she’d heard it before. Shots.  They were shooting.  She had an eternal second to spin in the direction of one of the shooters and then something impacted her shoulder hard enough to knock Nex from her grip. 

Someone had hit her with a cudgel, no make that a spiked cudgel.  Numbness and then pain, her whole arm and upper right side of her body seemed to vibrate with them both.  She glanced up to see a man standing on the far side of the now empty cage, a gun pointed directly at her, his eyes gleaming with excitement through the gas mask.  Right up to the second that Razor launched himself at the man’s arm and sank his none-too-gentle fangs into flesh and bone. 

The man screamed; Gabi didn’t have the breath to.  Holy smoke, she’d just been shot.  With a bullet.  A real live, fucking man-made bullet.  What was the world coming to?

********************

The plane touched down just as Julius awoke from his daysleep.  He had become skilled at waking himself whenever he needed to.  These days he rarely slept more than seven or eight hours.  Before he’d begun taking blood from Gabi, he’d found it difficult to get by on less than ten.  Most Vampires needed at least twelve, and newer Vampires closer to fourteen. 

He dressed quickly as the plane taxied to a hangar at the small private airport.  Once he felt the engines shut down, he left the narrow, partitioned cabin and tapped on the door of the one Kimberley rested in. 

“I’m awake,” she told him through the door and he could hear her gathering her bags.  He moved along to the back section of the plane, where a larger cabin housed several bunk beds.  Derek was already awake and stretching; he’d slept in his jeans and a T-shirt and looked rumpled but alert.

“A light meal will be served in the dining area up front,” Julius told him.  “Please help yourself and tell Kimberley to do the same.  Our ride will be here in about half an hour and I’m not sure when you’ll next get the chance to eat.”

The man nodded, briefly leaning down to adjust his prosthetic limb before gathering his bags and exiting the cabin without a word.  Julius waited until he heard the other man engage Kimberley in conversation and their voices travel towards the front of the plane before moving towards his guards.  They lay as unmoving as corpses in the bunks. Something about seeing another Vampire daysleep always made him uncomfortable; he wasn’t sure if it was the blatant reminder than he was no longer human, or if it was the stark reality of his vulnerability when he was in the same position. 

He roused them one by one, using a reserve of his own power.  They would feed that power back to him once they were awake and moving.  It was an exhausting exercise, especially as he had three to wake, but it meant they could get to the castle earlier, and that would give him time to catch up with Xavier and get a feel for what they were about to walk into.  One by one they came awake like a drowning person suddenly reaching air.  In a few minutes Charlie, Quentin and Rat were standing, ready to leave.

The transfer to the limousine took place in the shelter of the hangar.  Julius exchanged a few words with his pilots before leaving.  They would remain with the plane until it was time to leave.  If they needed any supplies in the meanwhile, they knew who to contact, and they knew what to do in an emergency. 

Julius settled back into one of the dark leather seats near the front of the extravagant car.  Kimberley, wearing Gabi’s face and clothing, and Derek shared a seat right at the back, a respectable distance between them.  Charlie was near the door, while Quentin and Rat, the newest addition to Julius’s personal guard, took up seats on either side of the town car. 

The windows of the car were so dark that it was almost impossible to see the scenery outside as they drove through mid-morning traffic in the city of Kiev.  He wondered if he should put Savannah’s name forward to them so that they could also make use of her ingenious inventions, but then he remembered that Savannah preferred to be left alone, and decided against it. 

The longer they drove and the closer they got to the castle, the more Kimberley’s heart rate and breathing increased.  She’d been peering out of the window, trying to make out a little of the foreign city around them, but the first glimpse of the real European castle looming over the eastern side of the city seemed to have finally driven home the magnitude of her daunting task. 

Derek noticed her anxiety as well, and he casually tossed his jacket from one arm to the other and used that to surreptitiously take Kimberley’s hand in his.  She flashed him a grateful smile and made a conscious effort to calm herself. 

Her version of Gabi was flawless, it still amazed Julius.  If it wasn’t for the lack of a mental sense of her…a spear of pain suddenly lanced through his mind.  So sharp that it stole the air from his lungs and left him gasping.  He knew immediately that the pain wasn’t real, that it wasn’t his pain.  His guards reacted immediately, lunging to form a protective wall around him.  He didn’t have the breath to tell them that something terrible had happened back in the City.  Something had happened to Gabi.

CHAPTER 8

Not for the first time she truly wished she could just pass out at will.  Just close her eyes and make the world cease to exist.  But that option apparently wasn’t open to her tonight.

“Shit, Gabi.” Kyle’s voice broke into her reverie.  “You’ve been hit.”

“Help Raz,” she tried to say, but her voice came out more like a ragged gasp.  She was standing, but the world was swaying nauseatingly.  Razor was still laying into the guy with the gun.  For a moment Kyle looked almost comically dubious, but when she didn’t fall over, he obeyed and rushed to Razor’s aid. 

A distant part of her mind told her that the gunshot wound wasn’t life-threatening.  Not that she knew a whole lot about gunshot wounds, but the burning agony was centred in her shoulder, and she didn’t think anything vital resided in her shoulder.  Clamping her hand over the entry wound and biting down on her lip to hold back the howl of pain wanting to escape, she bent to retrieve Nex, forcing her fingers to close around the hilt.  As she rose, the world dipped and spun a little.

“Gabrielle.” Fergus’s booming voice reached her just as another shot rang out. 

She tried to jog towards the sound of his voice, but that pushed the bounds of even her capacity for pain.  She stopped, gasping for breath.  A strong arm curved around her waist. 

“Gotcha, lass,” Fergus said at her ear.  “Let’s get ye oot of ’ere.” 

“No, wait,” she protested, digging in her heels. She couldn’t leave yet.  She was having trouble remembering exactly why that was, but she was absolutely certain she couldn’t. 

“’Tis alright, lass, ’tis under control.  Th’ rest ur bein’ rounded oop,” he assured her. 

As she squinted around the ruined church, she realised the feel of the place had changed.  It was brightly lit and much calmer; the only scuffle left was Kyle subduing the man who’d shot her.  Another captive sat trussed at Ross’s feet while Butch attended to one of his Pack mates who’d also been wounded.  The rest of the Werewolves milled around, looking slightly dazed and confused, but many of them had healing score marks across their faces, arms and hands.  Adriana was out of the cage, a large hole ripped in one side.  Razor was back at her side, purring in concern as he pressed up against her, worry for her pouring from him.  She dragged a sleeve over her nose, it was as though the tear gas had opened a tap up in both nostrils. Ugh, delightful.  She coughed, turning her head to spit out vile-tasting phlegm.

“Where’re the rest of them?” Gabi wheezed.  “The humans?” 

“Hopefully th’ wolves ootside caught them,” Fergus grumbled.  “Thay oop ’n bolted as soon as thay realised we hud them.  C’mon, we need tae dae something aboot that bleedin.” 

She nodded, finally allowing him to steer her out of the church.  Something was niggling at the back of her mind, though, and finally the thought broke through.

“Mac,” she gasped. “Mac is here and I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.”

“Aye, dinna worry, lass, I’ve already sent ’im back.”  Fergus pushed her down onto a low concrete wall. Someone had brought a vehicle to the front of the church and put the lights on. 

She drooped wearily onto the wall and then sat up so fast the pathway undulated in front of her eyes.  “What about you?” she demanded.

“A’m fine,” he assured her, with a barely concealed chuckle.  “A’m auld enough ’n’ scared enough of yer Consort nae tae ever taste ye without yer explicit instructions.”  He carefully peeled her fingers away from her shoulder just as Kyle poked his head out the ruins of the church door. 

“Fuck it, Gabs, I think you’ve finally one-upped me,” he said, shaking his head as he jogged down the path toward them.  “Even I haven’t managed to get myself shot before.” 

Gabi showed him the middle finger of her bloodstained left hand.

“Where’s Adriana?  Is she okay?” Gabi asked when her brain wouldn’t provide her with a smart-ass comeback.

“She’s safe and on her way to the Estate to get checked out by Ian, but I think she’ll be fine,” Kyle told her.  “She’s very shaken up, but the Pack is with her, and they won’t let her out of their sight for a while.  It’ll help.” 

Gabi was about to ask more about what was beneath the church when her phone rang.