WE HAVE CONTACT (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 12) (9 page)

Mark pulled his tablet up and jotted down the picture number.

One down, eleven to go.

“They really see them this way, don’t they?” she asked, in a whisper inside the quiet room.

“See the guys?” Mark said. “See them as something more? Yes, I have a lot of images with the ladies in the background. Some, like say,” he pointed over to Darryl’s monitor, “the woman at the top right?” Cheryl Lynn nodded her head, “she obviously is looking for a hunk of man meat, but the one next to her? She just wants to see what a good guy is like. The second lady is going to go home satisfied that they are real, and maybe she will find her own version of Darryl. The first lady?” Mark smiled, “She’s going home frustrated.”

“Frustrated?” Cheryl Lynn asked, turning her head, “because she can’t get Darryl’s attention?”

Mark shrugged, “Cheryl Lynn,” he looked to her, “none of the women got the guy’s attention. At least, not in a romantic way. These guys were there, they enjoyed themselves because, why not?” He shrugged, “They were nice, they were polite, but they weren’t interested in any of the ladies who showed up.”

Mark leaned back to the table and played with the mouse and a couple of keystrokes. The first monitor, the one with John’s pictures, went black for a second before coming up with just one image. It was John looking to his right, his chest on display but you could see he had someone in his eyes that was making the smile genuine. If that didn’t make a woman want to tack his picture up on the wall, Cheryl Lynn didn’t know what would.

“I caught John looking over at Jean when she wasn’t paying attention,” Mark explained. “Some of the best pictures were when I was doing one of the guys, and another happened to be close, thinking I wasn’t paying attention to them at all. The image of Scott handing the child back?” Mark looked over to make sure Cheryl Lynn was listening. “That was during a session with Eric, not Scott.”

He leaned over and started messing with the keyboard and mouse again, on Scott’s monitor one single image came up. In it, Scott was smiling, but it wasn’t like John’s, no it was a smile of longing, of something just out of his reach. His face caused her heart to ache. She wasn’t sure what or who he was looking at, but it was clear he was looking at someone.

Cheryl Lynn vaguely noticed Mark doing something again when he spoke, “I took four pictures, one I zoomed a little further out.”

Cheryl Lynn’s breath caught in her throat, the new picture came up, and she looked to see who Scott was looking at. It seemed a little rude to her, like she had a page of Scott’s personal diary up and was reading it. But, it was worth it.
 

Scott was staring longingly at her.

“You didn’t know?” Mark asked softly into the quiet, the only noise coming from the hum of the monitors.

Cheryl Lynn wiped a small tear that had formed at the corner of her eye and shook her head, “No, I didn’t know. I’m a divorcee with two children, and a history of choosing bad men. What does he see in me?” She wondered aloud.

Mark looked at her face in the darkness of the room. The light coming off the monitors highlighted Cheryl Lynn’s head, making him wish he had his camera here with him. His answer came out, unbidden and unexpected.

“Love.”

Clan Temple Near Shennongjia Peak, Hubei

Stephanie Lee looked over the assembled clan members from the small dais in the temple room.

Hewn from rock countless eons ago, the room comfortably held the one hundred and twenty or so that made up her guard and those she had placed in authority.

There was an open row down the center, which Ting came down, head hung low. The rumors had already made it around the Clan, and they watched as she walked down the aisle towards the Leopard Empress.

She must be made an example of
, Yin spoke.

Yes, strength is everything. No weakness. It has been this way before your world was finished cooling.
Yang agreed.

Stephanie Lee kept her thoughts to herself, listening to the two Kurtherians as Ting approached.

Now, we have problems, due to her failure.
Yin continued.
The political structure in this country will attack this location. They are going to take away your power, strip it and use us as experiments.

Too early in our plans,
Yang agreed.

Silence
, Stephanie Lee said,
My country, my rules. There is already one Kurtherian whore on this planet, I’ll not be another one. I decided to send Ting and the General to acquire contacts based on your input. You two couldn’t tell me he was lying, so keep quiet and deal with it.
 

Stephanie Lee kept her head held straight up, regal, she thought as she looked over her people gathered here. It was time to take control.

Sometimes, sacrifices had to be made.

Ting walked to the front of the room and knelt down before Stephanie Lee who said, “We have before us Su Ting. One who has been devoted to the Clan, one whose parents, and grandparents, have worked in obscurity for generations to achieve the accession of the Sacred Clan. We are now at the beginning of our time to take the lead into our world’s future. The Sun has risen in the East on our efforts, and those in power are aware of us. Unfortunately, General Sun Zedong was able to provide unsanctioned information to those with whom he was speaking during his efforts to find us allies within the military.”

Stephanie Lee turned her head down, “Su Ting, stand.” Ting stood up. Stephanie Lee put her left hand on the top of Ting’s head and her right on Ting’s throat. “Su Ting, do you accept the judgment of the Leopard Empress, your ruler?”
 

Ting swallowed, feeling fingers grabbing her throat. She spoke loudly, “I do.”

“Su Ting, your family has been faithful for generations. You have been faithful in your efforts, but insufficient to the challenge. Now, the Sacred Clan must move early, when we are not ready yet. Take my love with you…”

Ting barely knew what was happening when Stephanie Lee’s hand changed, growing claws that quickly eviscerated her neck, ripping out the flesh. Stephanie Lee allowed the body to drop to the floor, twitching. Her hand staying in her leopard form, dripping blood, Stephanie Lee spoke to her people. “Call in the Clans from the fields, from the towns, and from the cities,” She looked around.

“We Prepare for War.”

QBS ArchAngel, meeting room

“Well, that’s all of the images I chose,” Mark told Cheryl Lynn, who was quiet. “Is there something wrong?”

Cheryl Lynn turned to him, “No!” She turned back to the sixteen images they had finally selected, “Holy Shit we are going to sell millions of these. Those guys are going to need guards. I can’t believe it. You even made Eric look good.”

“What’s wrong with Eric? He’s a handsome fellow.” Mark asked. He was busy jotting down the image numbers on his pad, “I thought the picture of him in the volleyball game was pretty intense.”

“It was, it’s just a new side of Eric. The guy I know is a bit of an air-head. I don’t know, maybe that isn’t the right way of explaining it. More like he just moves through life bouncing off of situations, not through it with determination. Yeah,” she nodded her head, “that’s it. He didn’t seem to move forward with a plan.”

“What’s your plan, if you don’t mind me asking?” Mark said.

“Mine?” Cheryl Lynn frowned, “Try to keep on top of the P.R. nightmare named Bethany Anne. That woman is a typhoon of trouble, a hurricane of hassle, and a tornado of torment all wrapped up in a bow.”

“No,” Mark pointed to where Scott’s picture was located, “don’t ignore the opportunity that is sitting right in front of you.”

“Mark,” she asked him her shoulders slumping, “did I miss ‘match-maker’ on your business card?”

Mark smiled and reached to get his wallet out, “Actually, I do support relationships.”

“Figures,” she stepped to the side, pulled out a chair and sat down, “so, what do you think my problem is?”

He put his wallet back in his pocket, “You don’t believe that you are good enough. You have some past history that colors your belief in yourself and Scott doesn’t have that filter.” Mark turned the third monitor back on, “Here, let me show you something.” Mark went through and quickly clicked six pictures and pulled them up on the screen. Cheryl Lynn looked into his eyes and nodded her understanding.

She put a hand on Mark’s shoulder, “I don’t know how you do with existing relationships, Mark. But maybe, just maybe, you have given me enough belief that he won’t laugh in my face.” She looked one more time at the images before setting her jaw and turning towards the door, “Now, I just need to go find Mr. English and give him a piece of my mind.” In a moment, Mark was alone.
 

Mark pulled out his tablet and tagged the six images, sending them via email to Cheryl Lynn’s personal address. He put his phone away and finished his notes related to the calendar and started humming a tune to himself.

QBS ArchAngel

Cheryl Lynn walked into Bethany Anne’s suite after passing through the security in front. Bethany Anne was laying on her bed, a hand on Ashur, looking at a tablet.

“Watcha’ doin boss?” Cheryl Lynn asked as she dropped her folders on the small desk Ecaterina had brought up from the Florida house. Even in their security-conscious neighborhood in Florida, they had been having problems keeping out the people who had been stalking Bethany Anne.

They had decided it was time to close down those houses.

“I’m trying to figure out where that alien son-of-a-bitch is,” Bethany Anne answered, without looking up from her tablet.

“How, osmosis?” Cheryl Lynn asked as she pulled out the chair at the desk and sat down, “Perhaps hoping the whatever-you-are-looking-at is going to magically start speaking to you?”

“Have you ever played Battleship?” Bethany Anne asked, ignoring Cheryl Lynn’s question.

“What? Oh, keep marking off areas until you narrow where the ships are?”

“Yes, but instead of it being like, what, a hundred spots? This is damn near infinite.”

Cheryl Lynn put a hand up, “Stop right there, you hired me for public relations. I’ve looked once, twice and three times at my work contract, and there is absolutely no requirement for math anywhere in the document.”

Bethany Anne looked up, “What? Math? How is this math?”

“Anytime you start throwing numbers like one-hundred and then infinite there is math in between the two numbers which needs to be figured out. Go discuss this with Marcus. Or hell, go discuss this with Frank and Barb. She’s very good at finding people and stuff, maybe she might have a good idea or two? Hell, they probably need a break from trying to find Stephanie Lee.”

Bethany Anne scowled, “That bitch is going to be found, and I intend to slice off her fucking arms and feed them to her when we finally nail her bony ass to the wall.”

Well
, Cheryl Lynn thought,
someone still has an open wound.

“Yes, ok, but they might have that all working and need another task. It’s just a suggestion, not a demand.”

Bethany Anne leaned back into her pillows, “I get that, but her still being out there, somewhere, is pissing me off. It’s like I can’t leave that shit behind and move on without closing that door. Preferably, on her head, multiple times until it bursts like a watermelon.”

“You are going to close the chapter on Michael?” Cheryl Lynn spit out before thinking it through. She rolled her eyes when she realized how tacky that was to say.

Bethany Anne had already resumed looking at her tablet as she answered, “No, I’m going to close the chapter on the Illuminati. Michael had better get his ass back to me, or I’ll find a way to get into the afterlife and kick his ass so hard he will skip across the River Styx back to the living. Then, I’ll catch up to him and kiss his boo-boos better.”

“Not so much worried about Cerberus?” Cheryl Lynn asked. She was surprised when Ashur raised his head in her direction and barked before putting it back down on the bed. “Guess Ashur isn’t.”

Bethany Anne was looking at her dog strangely. “I swear he is growing in intelligence. We were watching the History Channel the other night on mythology, and now it seems he recognized the Cerberus in the show and your comment.” She roughed up Ashur’s head, “Has anyone told you lately you are one damned good-looking dog?” Ashur chuffed at her, “Well, I just did. Don’t let your ego get so big your head can’t fit out the door.” Ashur chuffed at her again, “Yeah, well we could Etherically walk, but it would be a pain in the neck. What if we translocate to a small room, and your head hits a wall and explodes?” Ashur whined, “Yeah, see, so watch out how big you let it grow.”

Cheryl Lynn just watched Bethany Anne and Ashur for a moment and shivered. The communication between the two was either earth shattering…

Or Bethany Anne was starting to lose it.

“Um, boss?” Bethany Anne turned back to Cheryl Lynn and raised an eyebrow, “When is the last time you spoke to someone normal?”

“You, one second ago.” Bethany Anne replied, holding any trace of a smirk from her face.

This time, Cheryl Lynn made an overly dramatic gesture of rolling her eyes, “I’m not normal!” She waved a hand around the room, “Who else is up in the Earth’s atmosphere on a Gott Verdammt space battleship? That alone would cause someone to question my normalcy. Add that I have a vampire queen for my leader and an honest-to-god walking badass for a boyfriend, and you might decide I am so far from normal that…”