hellcat 05 - come hell or high water (26 page)

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

“They’re getting antsy,” Henry told the small group.  The Kresniks weren’t the only antsy ones, Gabi thought as she watched Henry pace the tiny strip of free space down the middle of CenOps.  It was probably time to pull him out.  She’d returned to CenOps at Henry’s call, worried by his anxiety.  “I need to be able to give them something. I can’t keep making promises and not keeping them.”

“Don’t worry, Henry,” Trish soothed, spinning back to her computer.  “Kyle and I have been working on this, and we finished it off this morning.  I think it’ll suffice.”  A video popped up on the monitor to Gabi’s left.  They all turned to watch.  It was grainy and dark, clearly at night in an urban alleyway, and there was no sound.  A man was visible in the gloom, acting erratically, pulling at his hair and his clothes, pacing restlessly back and forth.  The vantage point of the camera seemed to be somewhere above the scene.  It reminded Gabi of security-cam footage.  With a sudden lurch the man hunched over, his head tucked up against his chest.  Though it was impossible to make out his face, or even his build or clothing, Gabi knew it was Kyle.  She rolled her eyes; he was making a real show of it.  After some more contortions, he ripped the shirt off his back, then collapsed to all fours.  He writhed and squirmed for another several seconds and then he exploded into wolf shape.  It was still amazing to see; despite having seen it a hundred times before, it never failed to move her.  A magnificent brown wolf stood panting in the alley, its intelligent eyes scanning the alleyway intently.  Then it lifted its head, mouth open in a howl, before loping from view. 

“Holy cow,” Henry breathed.  “Sorry.” He was immediately apologetic, though Gabi wasn’t sure why.

“Nice
overacting,” Gabi drawled, and Trish burst out laughing.

“I told you,” she said at the same time Kyle muttered, “Shut up, big mouth.”

Even Henry joined in the laughter.  The unexpected comradery gave Gabi the warm fuzzies.  Warm fuzzies that disappeared when Henry sobered and asked, “So if this is genuine, how do we make sure they can’t upload this to the Internet and distribute it?”

“I’ve embedded a special code in the file,” Trish told him.  “I’ll give it to you on a USB stick.  They’ll be able to view it and test it to check for tampering, but if they try to copy it or upload it to the Internet, the file will become corrupted.  They’ll only notice if they try to view it after they’ve copied it.  If this happens while you’re there, you can just assure them you’ll recopy it for them. It’ll appear that the USB drive is at fault.  It should be enough to get you an invite to the show.”

“And don’t forget, loads of deodorant or aftershave, and don’t let the Lieutenant get in a position where he can watch your face,” Gabi reminded him.  They’d already discussed how to disguise his lying and deception from the Vampire.  It was good to have knowledgeable Vampires on your side, and it was excellent that Henry was a naturally high-strung person.  His continually elevated heart rate and state of excitement meant it was hard to discern the telltale signs of a lie, even for a Vampire. 

“I won’t forget, I swear.” He grinned.  “Maybe if I pick the right aftershave, it’ll even impressed Lady Helsing.”

“Don’t go full-on Johnnie Utah on us now, see?” Gabi teased, reminding him that if
Point Break
was to be believed, it was easy to be swayed into thinking that the bad guys weren’t all that bad.  She didn’t want him falling under Lady Helsing’s spell.

“No, ma’am.” Henry stood and saluted her with a grin.  “No sympathy for the bad guys, I swear.”  He pocketed the USB stick and headed out of the bunker, a spring in his step. 

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

Gabi opened the front door of the mansion as Kyle loped up the steps; the light evening rain had dampened his hair. She glanced into the darkness towards his van, but he was alone.  He’d called half an hour ago to say he had some news and was on his way over.

“Trish is still hard at work,” Kyle told her, noticing the direction of her glance. 

She nodded and preceded him inside, a yawn escaping as she led him down the airy corridor towards the conference room.  She tugged out her phone to see that it was well past midnight already.  She’d been so deep in discussions with Julius, Alexander and Fergus that she’d completely lost track of time.  They’d spent most of that time debriefing Julius on every detail of his meeting with the Princeps, then moved onto discussing the encounter with Chica and her male companions.  But, after Kyle’s call, they had moved onto more immediate problems.  Julius agreed with Fergus, that any final decisions about the Princeps’ task force could wait a few more days.

“Did you tell him the part about what she said at the end?” Gabi asked Alexander when she
rejoined the conversation and heard Chica’s name.

“The bit about ‘they’, you mean?” Alexander guessed. 

She nodded. 

“Yeah, Julius agrees with us, even without that comment, it reeks of some kind of higher power behind their arrival.”

“You think it’s the Shadow group?” she asked Julius. 

“Well, we have to hope so, Lea.” Julius looked pained.  “Otherwise we have yet another enemy testing us.” 

There was a round of reluctant nods at the table. 

“What do you have for us, Wolf?”  Julius redirected the conversation.  Gabi didn’t want to divert resources away from the more subtle threats to the Clan, but she also felt Julius’s reluctance to pull Kyle into things that were purely Vampire matters. 

“Trish and I have been in contact with the other Alphas, and we’ve been discussing the simplest way to draw the Kresniks out, preferably all of them.  We’ve come to the conclusion that putting a Werewolf out there for them to capture would be the answer.”  He held up a hand as Gabi made to interrupt.  “If we send an experienced Werewolf in, we’ll have the advantage.  It makes the most sense.” 

“We’ve tried that before, and it was very nearly a disaster, Wolf.” Gabi finally got her word in. 

“But it also proved the solution, didn’t it?” Kyle pointed out.  “Derek’s injury was purely coincidental; it could’ve happened to anyone.” 

“He makes a gud point, lass,” Fergus said.  “If we control who they capture, we control th’ final showdown.” 

Gabi wanted to argue, but she’d been the one to say it was time to take the fight to them.

“The Alphas are in agreement,” Kyle said, tugging on his ear in slight embarrassment.  “The only thing up for debate is who to send in.  I think it should be me, as I’m the one who can control my wolf the best.” 

“Don’t be stupid,” Gabi admonished.  “You’re an Alpha now, and you have people relying on you.  You took on that responsibility and now you get to act like a grown-up.” 

He folded his arms and glared at her, his eyes narrowing as he searched for a reason to disagree with her.  But there wasn’t one; she was in the right.  There were a dozen other wolves who could do the job who were far more dispensable. 

“Right, so who are the other options?” Alexander asked, easing the tension in the air. “Have you got any volunteers?” 

Kyle ran off a short list of names, and Gabi knew most of them.

“The
forerunners for me are Matt and Butch,” Gabi said before anyone else could get a word in.  “Matt stands out as being
hands down the best option.  He’s
been a Hunter for years, he can Change to wolf and back almost as quickly as Kyle, and he can do it several times on the same day if he needs to.  And there aren’t many situations that would throw him with his Hunter experience.”  Matt and Kyle had become Hunters for the SMV at around the same time, so he’d been taking out supernatural rogues for even longer than she had.

“Gabi’s right,” Kyle admitted reluctantly.  “Matt would be the best wolf for the job.  We’ve also worked with him often enough that we all instinctively know what the others would do.  If it’s not going to be me, I’d back Matt.”

“And he wants to do it?” Julius checked. 

Kyle chuckled.  “Actually, when we spoke to him earlier, he practically offered to pay me to give him the job.  I don’t think retirement suits him.”

CHAPTER 15

The USB drive nestled in the back pocket of Henry’s jeans as he settled into the car.  He was so acutely conscious of it that it felt as though it was radiating heat.  He’d been anxious that this meeting wouldn’t happen, but finally he’d got the call from Big Dog just after four a.m., telling him to meet them at a club downtown at closing time.  Who knew that downtown clubs only closed at five a.m.?  As he sat back in the back seat of the car, he hoped this was the last time he’d have to don the blindfold.  Since he’d been kidnapped by the crazy Dark Magi and almost sacrificed on their altar, he didn’t much like the dark.  He’d never admit it out loud, but he’d taken to sleeping with the light on in his tiny apartment.  Not that he was complaining about his apartment.  It was light-years better than the squalid room in the
bunkhouse he’d been living in for more than two years. 

Left to fend for himself at sixteen by a drug-addled mother, with no idea who his father was, or even if his mother knew that, had been rough.  With little schooling and no employable skills, he’d done whatever he could to survive.  Anything legal, of course.  He wasn’t going down the road his mother had taken.  Not that.  Never that.  At first he’d begged, he’d done the rounds of the shelters, even those for children, until he’d managed to get some late shifts at the meat works, and when they laid off staff, he’d found some other temporary stuff.  Enough that he never actually starved and only slept on the streets a handful of times. 

None of his
new-found friends had any idea of his life before now.  And he had no intention of letting them find out.  Just as he had no intention of letting them down.  Ever.  They’d had no reason to help him.  No reason to look out for him.  And they certainly could’ve offered him the indignity of charity rather than a job and a genuine step up in life.  They treated him as an equal, someone worth their time and friendship.  They had restored his flagging faith in humanity.  How paradoxical when none of them were human, not in the way humans defined it, anyway.  How ironic that the most benevolent people he’d met were the ones humans made horror movies about. 

Not that he was under any misassumptions that the monsters could indeed be monstrous if they chose; he’d seen both sides of that coin.  But he would defend his new-found friends from those who would hurt them, even if it meant going against those from his own race. 

His pounding heart and the sweat under his checked cotton shirt mingled with the strong aftershave in the vehicle and he fought back a grin as he heard Gabi’s reminder echo through his head.  The Lieutenant wouldn’t stand a chance against him tonight. 

The car pulled to a stop and the engine died. 

“We’re here,” Big Dog’s gruff voice told him.  “You can take off the blindfold.” 

Henry did as instructed and climbed out of the older model sedan into an underground parking garage.  It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the bright, artificial lighting, and then he had to scamper to catch up to Big Dog and the other, so far unnamed, Kresnik, who were striding towards a stairwell.  He took it as a good sign that he’d been allowed to remove the blindfold earlier than at his previous visits.

The building was somewhat smaller than he’d envisioned it, only having seen the one room, which was a spacious conference room.  The corridors were narrow, and the cubicles they passed were small and cramped.  Bare workstations with no stamp of personality huddled in every available space. This was no custom-designed space for the Kresniks, just something convenient.  This was just another market stand, and even if the Werewolves found and raided it, they would find nothing of use, and it wouldn’t affect the Kresniks’ greater operations. 

The conference-room door was ajar.  Whatever company had used this space prior to the Kresniks had valued their senior staff far above their office-level staff.  Why didn’t that surprise him?  Another point of difference between the monsters and the humans.  There hadn’t been disparity like that at SMV HQ.

“Ah, Henry.” Lady Helsing herself was already in the room, tracking his arrival with hooded eyes.  “So glad you made it.”  She had her back to the catering table and was leaning against it, with one foot resting on the seat of a chair. 

Henry swallowed, so heavily that he wondered if everyone in the building had heard him.  The woman was sex personified.  Her outfit was outrageous; a full-length black leather coat adorned with silver chains and pointed studs, a high-neck collar
and cutaway at the front to showcase the length…or lack thereof…of her
minidress, which exposed smooth, tanned, muscled legs that seemed to go all the way to…oops. 

He blinked and forced his eyes to her face.  Don’t lose focus…don’t lose focus…

Her blood red lips curved into a smile that didn’t touch her eyes; those hard, knowing eyes.  She was intimately aware of the effect she had on males and wielded it like a weapon.  Tonight Henry didn’t fight the embarrassing things the sight of her did to him; any extreme emotion would cloak his lies from the Vampire.  The Vampire who was also already ensconced in the room, lurking in a dimly lit corner; a hungry
tunnel web spider waiting for a juicy cricket.  A powerful Vampire too if he was still active this close to sunrise.  Henry stuck his hand in his pocket and fidgeted with the USB drive to distract himself from the need to get a better look at the Lieutenant. 

“Good day, Lady Helsing,” he managed politely.  “Has it been a good day?  I’ve had a great day.  It’s such pleasant weather this time of year, at least when it isn’t raining.  And it isn’t.”  The runaway train that was his mouth appeared from nowhere and without warning.  He thought he’d been getting a handle on it lately, but now it broke free of its chains.  He so badly wanted to shove his fist in his mouth, but then they might just have him committed instead of seeing what he’d brought to show them.  “Um, is Darkstalker coming today?  I brought the evidence.  Just like we agreed.  You guys aren’t going to back out now, are you?”