SUED FOR PEACE (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 11) Read online

  Peter looked over the group, “I’ve asked for an additional resource for Beta team, he has agreed, and his Pod will be here momentarily. Joel will lead Beta Team for the Guardians.”

  Additional Resource? Jennifer thought and noticed the change in air pressure. She turned to see a Pod slide through the opening and come to a stop thirty meters from them. The door opening and he stepped out, dressed in black military fatigues as if he wore them daily.

  Peter stepped over to him and shook his hand, “Stephen, I appreciate you having Barnabas take over.”

  Stephen smiled, “Not a problem, who am I taking my cue from?” Jennifer was surprised that Stephen was allowing himself to be directed at all, much less by a young Wechselbalg.

  Peter waved Joel to come over. They knew each other, so introductions weren’t a problem as they chatted a moment. Joel turned to his group, “Let’s move out.” The ten wolves started heading towards the front, and those in Jennifer’s team did as well. She watched as the ten wolves went out in rows. That wasn’t something you saw every day, she considered as her team went out into the night.

  —

  The fear was faint, yet steadily grew stronger. Xi had his rifle pointed towards the direction someone would come if they were arriving from the hanger. He looked over to see his partner sweating and looking behind them. Xi wasn’t sure if it was to make sure no one was coming up behind them, or he was considering leaving.

  Xi sure hoped he didn’t bolt, because if he did, Xi was supposed to shoot him and how could he blame the man? He was thinking of doing the same thing himself. He turned back to the front and started praying to his ancestors.

  —

  Gabrielle hated the grating feel of fear coming from behind her. It was a constant annoyance to have to fight against, even for her. However, the team felt it was a great way to make sure anyone attacking them was fighting at a disadvantage, and it worked.

  She had killed twenty-seven so far with her sword or with a single shot to the head of her enemies. Most of them were begging for release. Four had opened fire, but their aim had been off. A damned good thing they didn’t have automated weapons in this base or shit might be a little tougher.

  Organic opponents for the win!

  She smiled, she could feel Bethany Anne’s annoyance at being surrounded by her team, and there was a bet to see how long she stayed a good little Queen and allowed them to guard her.

  She had already lost. Gabrielle had figured it would happen before they left the hangar.

  Right now, John was in the lead, but his time was about up, as well. Darryl had the next five minutes, then Eric, Scott and finally Akio had the last. Akio felt that as a leader, she would understand the necessity of staying protected.

  John snorted at that comment and patted Akio on the shoulder, “You will learn Grasshopper, you will learn,” he had told the newest addition to their group.

  “HOLD!” Bethany Anne commanded. Gabrielle looked around the passage, not sensing anyone ahead of her. She listened before turning quickly to see Bethany Anne slowly spinning in a circle, her eyes closed before pointing in a direction. She opened her eyes, red with anger, her face slowly being consumed with the red veins of power when she was drawing powerful amounts of Etheric. “Those that killed Alexandra are in that direction,” her voice, malevolent behind her red glowing eyes.

  Gabrielle considered the two passages they had passed and turned to see none in the next thirty meters in their general direction. She switched to jog past the four and winked to John. She hadn’t left the ranks yet, but she could sense it was coming. With about thirty seconds to go, tho’, she doubted John would win.

  Two minutes later, four more dead and Gabrielle felt the power surge past her, too fast for her to deal with when she wasn’t fully vamped up and turned around to see the five men, their faces grim.

  Darryl won.

  —

  Peter watched the Beta team jog out of the hanger. He appreciated Stephen being prepared to help backstop his team. They needed the experience the vampire had, and his willingness to not be an ass as well. Barnabas could have been a good choice, but he still had bouts of ‘vampire elitism’ at times. It was rare, but on an Op, Peter didn’t need to cope with the challenges that Barnabas might present. Stephen understood cooperation and teamwork, and would seek to help Joel lead well.

  And be there if it all went to shit.

  He turned to his men, watching them and took off his shirt, “Guardians, are you ready to follow the Queen into battle?”

  “Shit,” Joseph said as he took off his shirt, “If we don’t hurry, all we will get are the Queen’s scraps!” Everyone chuckled.

  “Then, let’s get our own tonight. Maximum …” Peter changed into his Pricolici form, towering over the men and women there, “Carrrnnnagggeee!” He howled and the team yelled as they followed him into the second entrance hallway to the base.

  —

  Dong held his rifle tight, he could feel a small amount of fear when usually he was as cool as ice. His partner Cheng winked at him, “It’s a good night to kill, isn’t it?”

  Dong shrugged, “I’d sooner the killing wasn’t on the way to my bed, which all things considered, I’d rather be in right now,” he whispered back.

  The two shared a smile when they heard one of the last sounds they ever expected to hear inside their base.

  The howls of wolves reverberating down the hallways. Then, Dong’s blood ran even colder as he heard a guttural voice, one out of monster movies following the howls, “Iiiivvee commee tooo feeast onnnn theee meeatt ovv mmmy eennnnimmmieesss!”

  Dong and Cheng both turned slowly to look the same direction as a beast running on two legs came around the corner. They pulled up their guns to fire. Cheng got off two rounds before his gun was yanked from his grip. The monster used it like a club to hit Dong in the helmet, smashing him into the wall, before moving quickly past the stunned men. Cheng was looking after him still when two wolves, much larger than anything that was normal in his country, came slashing through in pursuit of their leader. The second animal bit Cheng on the neck, puncturing his arterial blood vessels, leaving him to attempt to slow the blood flow when two humans came running by. They each put a bullet into the two men and kept running.

  Dong and Cheng never heard one of the men bitching and yell out to those in front to ‘slow the fuck down!’

  —

  Peter was enjoying himself. He could smell the men in front of him, hear their heartbeats and know where they were hiding. The Pricolici form was a drug, and he remembered the warnings.

  Mostly.

  He slowed to a stop and put up his hands behind him as the two in wolf form caught up. Listening carefully, the sounds of at least two handfuls of men spaced out in a larger room could be heard. He wouldn’t be able to take these on by himself.

  So he waited for the rest of the pack to join him.

  —

  Joseph jogged out to the left, and commanded his team of wolves to split up, but to communicate with howls. He wanted to find the expected exits, if possible, and to make sure they didn’t already have anyone trying to escape his Queen’s retribution. The ten wolves set out. The command was to run hard for a thousand meters or so, then turn to their left and search. Eventually, they would cross the arc of the wolf in front of them, and they would continue in a different direction.

  Someone should find something.

  Joseph turned to find Stephen behind him, just searching the area, “Thoughts?” he asked the older Vampire.

  Stephen stepped closer to Joseph, “Good idea, but what about our own protection? He looked around, “we are pretty sure that we got everyone, but find the three areas that had ambush teams and see if they came from here,” he pointed at the broken front door.

  Joseph chewed on his cheek. Stephen was right, and he wished he had thought to include him in his preparations before he sent the wolves out. Now, the change in strategy required three more wolves. He pointed,
“Jennifer, Tonya, and Mark - I need you to switch to wolf forms. Stephen’s right, we need to check the three areas. Stephen, do you mind partnering with them and checking one out?”

  Stephen shrugged his shoulders, “I’d be honored.”

  Joseph caught himself trying to figure out how the vampire meant that, and how it would bite him in the ass before he clamped down on the thought. The old thinking wasn’t going to help him right now. “Thank you. If you will go with Jennifer, and Bobby and Sarah, if you would go with Tonya and Mark that would work. Radio back if you get anything.”

  The others nodded, and the three told to switch to wolf form started handing their equipment to their partners.

  Stephen ignored the higher heartbeat rate he heard coming from Jennifer, tried doubly hard to ignore her scent.

  He was mostly successful as he turned his body to give her privacy as she stripped and changed. While Weres didn’t consider nudity a big deal, an attractive female or two stripping would probably confirm he wasn’t dead.

  He smiled to himself, Embarrassingly so.

  —

  The fear was hard to fight, but Jai was getting through it. Li had yet to look behind them, and Wu had only looked once. Jai felt more than saw Liang glance in his direction. The men up front were on either side of the hallway, ready to lean out and shoot down the corridor. He and Liang had pulled over some tables and made a decent defensive position that could see down the hallway. They were five meters further into the larger cafeteria room. Another group of four were five meters behind them but displace to each side by three meters so they didn’t shoot Jai’s team in the back. At least, he sure hoped they would not.

  The next few seconds lasted no time at all, and yet seemed to take all the time in the world.

  Jai first recognized something was wrong when Wu screamed in pain and shock at finding a dagger suddenly stuck through his shoulder and embedded into the wooden wall. Li echoed instantaneously, ineffectively trying to pull the matching blade out of his own arm.

  Jai tried to keep up with the flashing carnage, but it was too fast. He turned to check the group on his right, but the only traces of the men that had been there just moments ago was the indescribable pieces of bodies that had been blown apart. The cries of the men, the crashing of furniture damage were the only noises he could hear. The sounds of more death sounded from behind him, as he turned to his left to look the other way.

  But he stopped when he realized that a pistol was stuck into his face, noticing from the corner of his eye that there was a matching gun aimed at Liung. The woman in front of him was not possible. Her eyes glowed red, her face streaked in red lines emanating from her eye sockets, her voice like gravel. Her head pivoted to Liung, “You killed no one, you may die in peace.” The squeeze of her trigger made little sound, but the violence of Liung’s body slamming backward was enough for Jai to know she had killed him as completely as if the noise of the shot had been massive.

  “You,” her malevolent voice called his attention back to her, “are the leader of those that attacked my people, shot my researcher, and killed her unborn daughter.” Jai’s attention was on this entity in front of him, her words escaping his thoughts until he latched on, belatedly, to her final few words.

  Her unborn daughter.

  Jai knew without any doubt, he and his team were dead, the only question being how long it took before this apparition of Death took his life.

  “You follow a government that seeks the benefit of the government, not the people. They use you and throw you away as nothing but resources, callous in their disregard.”

  Jai’s body slammed, the back of his head exploding in a fan of red behind him as she turned her attention to Wu and Li. Jai never heard her final comment in his drop into death, “Never follow those that do not cry for the people of their country.”

  Bethany Anne walked slowly over to the last two. John was by one, Gabrielle by the other. Both wounded men had been stripped of their weapons, but the knives pinning them to the wall had been left in place.

  “Now I come to you,” Both men eyed her, fear allowing them to forget the pain for a moment, “The two that killed Alexandra and her mother, Anjali. Shot instead of subdued,” she turned to Li, “and I now understand that you killed because it was an option, just for the sake of shooting.” Bethany Anne’s left hand raised the pistol up as John stepped back around the corner.

  Wu’s head exploded as the metal slivers Jean’s pistols shot out went through his skull and blew into the wall behind his head, exacerbating the violence as the rock shards shot back out of the wall. John looked down to see the splatter and decided that the next wall over would be cleaner for the second shot.

  Bethany Anne, however, holstered her pistols and walked over to the last one, to Li. “You,” she said, voice dripping with anger and scorn, “Would kill for most any reason.” She grabbed her knife and pulled it out of his arm. Gabrielle caught him before he sunk down and held him up.

  Bethany Anne looked over the wound and the amount of blood this man had lost so far. “I understand gut wounds are some of the worst to deal with due to pain. You may die when your body gives up on your worthless ass!” Bethany Anne slashed her knife across Li’s stomach, opening his muscles and simultaneously pushing him into the Etheric with her left hand.

  Bethany Anne’s eyes began to dim, and she walked to the other side of the wall to pull out her second knife, jumping away as Wu’s body dropped to the ground. Turning to walk back to the way from which they had come, she seemed lost in a dark thought. John and Gabrielle looked around at the carnage one more time before following her. She made her way to Akio, who had taken the rear position and nodded to him.

  She smiled grimly and said, “Sorry, I tried.” He nodded and turned with her to continue walking. While she may not have stayed between the guards where the Queen was supposed to stay, Akio understood the idea of violence and punishment delivered personally.

  It was in his family’s history, and he would never doubt the honor of his Queen and her decisions to personally carry out her retribution.

  As was her right.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  South America

  Tabitha cracked her neck and spoke to Ryu, “Keep him out of trouble, will you?” She finished her comment with a wink as she dropped the bullet-protective vest over her chest, “Damned, how does Bethany Anne deal with this?” She tried to cinch up the vest with difficulty.

  “I believe,” Ryu told her, “that your sweater puppies are larger than Bethany Anne’s,”

  “Hell,” Tabitha grumbled, “no self-respecting South American Latina is going to allow some white lady American vampire to have a bigger set of ta-ta’s than her. And don’t get me bragging about the junk in my trunk…” she grumbled as she was trying to figure out how to lock her vest down without rubbing her nipples wrong before she stopped and looked at Ryu in surprise. “Wait a minute, who told you to call the ta-ta-twins ... sweater puppies?”

  Ryu looked at her with no expression, “Peter.”

  Tabitha blinked a couple of times before asking, “Why is Peter talking to you about Tabitha’s ta-ta’s?”

  “Ah,” Ryu started then looked to Hirotoshi, who slowly shook his head in the negative before Ryu looked back at Tabitha, “Because of that.” He told her while pointing at her ample cleavage on display since she hadn’t finished buckling the vest all the way up.

  Tabitha looked down, “Well, I’ll have to say the twins do get the boys talking, but damn.” She finished buckling the last few clicks and took an offered shirt to swing over her vest. “I know the undershirt helps, but I think I want some band-aids next time. The vest is rubbing the little nibblies wrong.”

  “Kimosabe,” Hirotoshi interrupted the two, “are you in the right mental space to take care of business tonight?”