Bite This (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 4) Read online

  “So, at that time, Anton and David might have been working together?”

  “Well, I suppose so. Although for different reasons. David would be concerned about Germany, not so much the Third Reich. Anton on the other hand was embedded in the Third Reich and he had close ties to Adolf Eichmann and Joseph Mengelle. He was instrumental in the creation of The Ahnenerbe in Germany in ’34 or ’35. He had plans to use his own vampire skills to support the illusion he was a true nordic, despite his less than blond hair and white skin. Unfortunately for him, it became obvious Germany was eventually going to lose the war so he left for South America where so many of the Nazi Germans fled using the rat-lines. I think he used his abilities to persuade the captain of a U-Boat to take him to Argentina and left.”

  “Well, a submarine would keep him out of the sun.” Bethany Anne felt she was on to something here. However, it was time that Gabrielle got involved. She could hear noise, but it sounded more like… yup, there was a zipper. Thirty seconds later, Gabrielle came down the hallway.

  “Sorry for being late.” She flashed a smile at her Papa who rolled his eyes. He was the one known for going out with the ladies, and yet here Gabrielle was the one hooking up. How much had changed in just a few hundred years between the two of them!

  Bethany Anne asked Gabrielle, “Will Ivan have enough strength to join us?” She cocked an eyebrow at her.

  Gabrielle looked shocked, “I didn’t drink from Ivan!”

  Bethany Anne just shook her head and pursed her lips. “Wasn’t asking about blood loss, more like is he sleeping now?”

  “Ah… Maybe?” She winked at the guys. John and Eric tried to turn their heads to hide their smiles and failed completely.

  Bethany Anne turned to Stephen. “You know, I was expecting this from you, not her. I don’t suppose Ivan needs to hear this anyway.” Gabrielle went and sat down by Stephen. John and Eric were comfortable enough around some vampires now; however, it was a guy thing not to sit too close when other seats were available. It might have been considered a step up on human - vampire relations that they chose not to sit next to him for such a normal reason.

  They didn’t sit near Bethany Anne for a completely different reason. She had a habit of flicking their ear if they made a wisecrack and they were within easy reach. Bethany Anne wouldn’t normally get up and zip across the room to do it.

  “Ok, add to the conversation if you have something important, otherwise let me get through the short story and we might be able to figure out where Michael is, or isn’t.” Stephen cocked his head slightly and looked over at Gabrielle in question. Bethany Anne continued, “Gabrielle might have mentioned we spoke about this on the plane if she hadn’t been competing in horizontal Olympics instead of welcoming her loving dad.”

  Gabrielle put her head in her hands, “I’m not going to hear the end of this, am I?”

  “Probably not. Now be a good little wank-bait and stay quiet while I talk.” Gabrielle’s mouth dropped open. Bethany Anne smiled as she realized she'd scored on the older woman and at long last found one of her sensitive spots. After a few hundred years, you probably didn’t have as many hang-ups as most others. Gabrielle’s eyes narrowed at Bethany Anne.

  “I much prefer the term ‘Pin Up model’ to ‘wank bait’!” John and Eric’s heads moved from one lady to the other as if they were watching a tennis match.

  “I’m sure you do; however, that is so ’70s. Maybe you would prefer boner gypsy?”

  “No!”

  “Jizz Queen?”

  “No! I don’t even know what jizz is!” Now, Gabrielle was getting a little red. She hadn’t kept up with slang in a while.

  “How about Wank Conductor? Boner Barn? Dick Harmonica? I have more.” By now, John, Eric and Stephen were having trouble keeping their sniggering in control.

  “No, no and hell no! Stop already! Alright, alright I give up, I won’t play hide the sausage before meetings, ok?” Gabrielle looked like she had just been reprimanded by her Mom and was blushing at the attention.

  Finally, all three men burst out laughing as the younger Bethany Anne finally got the older Gabrielle to capitulate.

  “Good, all things in their right time and that time is not before my meetings.”

  Gabrielle turned on her dad and slapped him, hard. Both John and Eric knew that if she hit them that hard, they would feel it into next week and quickly tried to get their laughing under control. Stephen? Not so much. It just made him laugh harder. Finally, John and Eric couldn’t keep a straight face and started sniggering again only to have Gabrielle turn to eye them both. They quickly got their mirth back in control and Gabrielle focused back on her dad.

  “Look, you reprobate! I can’t believe I’m the one getting raked over the coals here while YOU have the gall to laugh at me!” This only made Stephen laugh even harder. Apparently, hundreds of years of pent up harassment can take a few minutes to be released. Finally, Gabrielle just sat back in the couch and ignored him. A couple of minutes later, Stephen got it under control.

  Bethany Anne arched her eyebrow, “Are we better, Stephen?”

  “Yes, sorry, but that has been centuries in the making. Oh my lord, I never thought I would live to see that.”

  Gabrielle spoke straight ahead, not looking over at him next to her, “You might not if you keep this up.”

  Stephen took that as his cue to shove his mirth back in a box to be enjoyed later. “Of course, decorum should be maintained.” He winked at Bethany Anne who almost lost it herself. With iron willed determination and seriously biting down on her tongue she was able to abstain from laughing herself.

  “Ok, glad you got that out of your system, the both of you.” Gabrielle just raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Here’s the story. Bill, over in America, got killed by three Nosferatu; however, they were a special type who could be controlled beyond their lust for blood. You could, in some way, program them with this special serum. Michael mentioned he thought the knowledge of how to make the serum had been lost in 1945 when the US bombed Japan. However the video clips Carl had showed that, somehow, at least three of these special Nosferatu had been created. If this serum is either in production or even if it can be created in small batches we have a serious fuster-cluck on our hands. My working theory is that whoever was working on it in Japan might have moved a copy, incomplete probably since we hadn’t seen it before now…”

  Eric jumped in, “On the I-52 to U-530 transfer in 1944!” Eric was a private History Channel junkie, he even loved Ancient Aliens.

  John spoke, “What the hell? Why is this the first I’ve heard of this?”

  Bethany Anne answered her team leader, “Because we have had enough on our plates. Until Frank and my Dad got on board, I didn’t have the resources to break down all of the existing issues Michael left me, and start isolating their sources. When Clarita attacked me using Adrian, we finally fingered Anton as the source of our issues in America. That Adrian was the one responsible for trapping and killing Bill then gave away who he got the nasty Nosferatu from.”

  Eric piped in, “Yeah, but none of the other Nosferatu we fought exhibited any kind of special programming. They were all fast, strong and pretty much what we’ve fought for years.”

  Bethany Anne nodded, “I spoke with Dan. Frank had a copy of Bill’s final operation which Carl had shared with him. Dan confirmed he had never seen any Nosferatu hold it together as those three had done. When they exploded their bombs, nothing suggested they cared about dying. They looked like really intelligent zombies.”

  John looked a little ill, he hated zombies. “Really?” Bethany Anne just smiled at her huge body guard.

  Stephen piped in, “So, somehow it allows a Nosferatu to be, what, mind controlled?”

  Bethany Anne frowned, “I don’t think so. From what I understood from Carl and Michael, the serum helps prepare a human before the change to accept the nanocytes and they are more likely to survive the change with less pain. Unfortunately, it also makes them v
ery susceptible to commands from whoever turned them.”

  Gabrielle finally got back into the conversation, “So, they could theoretically act more normal?” Stephen looked over at her.

  Bethany Anne shrugged, “I suppose so. I’ve seen the video and I would say that they looked slow, you know? Like someone who was less intellectually capable?”

  Gabrielle was warming up to her theory, “So, if you made ten of these things and put on bomb vests, nothing is going to stop them from entering anywhere since they look normal and then ‘boom’?”

  “Probably. I don’t know if they can talk. Provided no one asks them a question, maybe?”

  Stephen took up the conversation, “You know how I couldn’t smell the vampire in you?”

  John and Eric were back to watching tennis, again.

  “Yes?”

  “Will these Nosferatu smell like vampires?”

  “I think so. Or they at least smell like something. I remember Frank said that Bill smelled a lot of bleach in the room - why?”

  “Well, if we can figure out what they smell like, maybe we can create some sort of detector?”

  It was Gabrielle’s time to consider her dad. She was surprised by his willingness to use technology as he normally ignored it as much as possible. Hell, he still had a real bell on his door. It showed how far along he had come in the last three months. Eric piped in, “Too bad we couldn’t just use a dog. That way at least two of us could be running the show, one dog per person.”

  John shook his head, “Yeah, but the dog could be killed easily. I don’t know how fast we could train it, and then we have to get it to obey commands only to have a Nosferatu kick its head right off and we find it in an alley.”

  “Kick a dog, that’s low man.” Eric didn’t like the idea of his imaginary dog already dead at the hands of a Nosferatu.

  Bethany Anne

  Yes, TOM?

  There is no scientific reason we can’t use nanocytes on canines.

  Why, is there a non-scientific reason? Wait, I got it. Your talking ethics again, right?

  Right.

  Hey, they’re going to die in the future if we do, so I guess if we can find some that work with vampires I don’t have a problem with it. Hold on one second.

  “If we had a way to make a dog more resilient, how would that help in the field?”

  John took this one, “You’re kidding, right? If we had trained animals that could help us detect, locate and take down Forsaken, we might not have even needed you in the ‘glades.” John smiled at that. It wasn’t the least bit true, but he figured he had scored at least two points with that dig.

  “I suppose I could make a couple of Forsaken if you want a second try with that, Mr. Grimes?” Annndddd... she just spiked him! Final point to Bethany Anne!

  “Nope, I don’t think my chest needs to feel my own knife again. All kidding aside, if we had, maybe... What, Eric? Two of them?” John looked to Eric for confirmation.

  Eric looked over at Bethany Anne. “What do you think they could do? Would they be faster, stronger or take damage any better? How about commands? I would hate to have one of them be used against me.”

  Bethany Anne mused on that for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about this and see what we might be able to accomplish. The idea is a good one, Eric. I’m sure we can build a detector like Stephen is suggesting, but we'd have the problem of carrying it and a dog is able to move and nose around.”

  Gabrielle piped in, “Well, that means that the Wechselbalg can smell them, as well. They would be able to do this in their human form, I imagine.”

  “That’s a good point. Nathan and Pete are back in the States and we aren’t supposed to meet up until we get to Miami. Anton - and I am assuming that Anton is the main leader at this point - might have some of these things here in Europe, and until we look for them we won't know. Vampires can smell them, Wechselbalg can smell them and we can build either canine detectors or electronic detectors. We possibly need to do both.”

  John was on the edge of his seat at this point when he asked his question, “How are you going to train either the dog or the digital sniffer?”

  The Ship can help with that.

  “We can probably use the spaceship’s medical room to help with that. Between Gabrielle, Stephen and I we should be able to reproduce the smell.”

  Thanks, TOM

  De Nada

  Bethany Anne just shook her head. Where TOM came up with his Spanish response would have to be investigated at another time.

  Stephen looked over at John and Eric, “Are you two guys hungry? With Ivan not here to remind me, I forget about human food requirements from time to time.”

  Both guys agreed that food did sound good. Bethany Anne told Gabrielle to go see if the sleeping wonder wanted food or wanted to stay in bed. She; however, was to stay out of the bed. Gabrielle started to provide a snappy comeback on how a bed wasn’t strictly necessary, then decided that staying quiet was a wiser choice.

  She came back thirty seconds later to say Ivan would be out of the shower in five minutes.

  They all went to go freshen up for a minute. Bethany Anne decided to go to her room and talk with TOM while she brushed her teeth.

  TOM, what do you think about changing canines? I could imagine a few ways we could really use them.

  I’m not sure why it couldn’t be done. We need to test, obviously, and the issue with charging them from the etheric might be a problem to overcome, unless drinking blood is ok for them?

  I rather doubt it’ll be a problem. Bloody meat isn’t. Actually, wolves eat freshly killed animals. I imagine dogs do in the wild as well, but I’ll double check that. Are you suggesting we will need something like live rabbits to keep these guys fed?

  Yes, anything that they can consume as ‘fresh’ as possible.

  What do you think you can change?

  Pretty much anything genetically. Once we have a test subject, we will have to study it a bit and keep it under for a while. Enhance its speed, strength…

  What about intelligence?

  Ah, that’s a tricky one. I haven’t studied anything in that arena and nothing I’ve watched gives me any indication.

  I’ll have to research that next time I get a chance.

  Why are you so interested in modifying canines? Wouldn’t an electronic testing device work as well?

  Sure, if you want to be right next to the Nosferatu when you figure it out. If these things have any ability to think, and the video I saw suggested they do, then if you are too far away and it audibly alerts you, then it might figure out what we are trying to do and fade into the background and leave us. A dog would be capable of walking around and most people wouldn’t mind.

  Well, provided that its eyes aren’t glowing red and the teeth aren’t growing even longer fangs.

  Yes, true, there is that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Lance Reynolds was politely shown into the meeting room. While it was nice, it was certainly not a large boardroom with wood on the walls and expensive carpets on the floor. Lance preferred the more utilitarian look. Scott stayed outside the door and Darryl came into the room and stood in a corner.

  Lance had argued with Dan and John for Bethany Anne to be given a protection detail, citing a number of sound reasons. He was particularly happy that his daughter - and make no mistake, vampire or not she was his daughter - was subsequently argued into accepting she needed protection as the CEO of TBQ Enterprises. When she used the same arguments against him as the COO going around the world, he wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic. However, he couldn’t ignore the same logic without Bethany Anne throwing off her protection detail.

  So, he screwed himself over.

  Darryl and Scott were good guys, but Lance hadn’t needed ‘protection’ in the Military and it seemed like he was making himself out to be more important than he was. Bethany Anne had told him to stuff his ego and get over himself.

>   Leave it to his daughter to not be very impressed with any of his titles or accomplishments.

  Lance wasn’t too concerned with the CEO of Patriarch Research not showing up to the meeting right away. He was early and this was more of a research call, anyway. Nathan had some issues trying to hack their systems and he said they might have really good defensive capabilities but without a face to face meeting he couldn’t tell if there was something shady going on or not.

  So, Ecaterina set up the meeting and Lance hooked a flight with Bobcat on Shelly to Jamaica where he caught a flight to Dallas then on to Las Vegas. The three of them went first class though Lance had argued it was a waste of money. Ecaterina explained that Bethany Anne said they needed to ‘look important’ and that meant others needed to see the trappings of his importance. At $7,000 an hour for their G550 plane flights, first class tickets were considered cheap. When she explained it that way, he felt downright frugal flying first class.