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  “Well, I hope that solves itself before you get back to Bravos. You know you could just marry some girl and that would fix it, right?”

  “Oh God, no! I will call dad on my way out of town. Thank you for reminding me what might happen if my mom hears about this on the phone. You said I’ll get paid?”

  “Yes. I checked how bad you screwed over Nathan. How could you charge him that much?”

  “Hey, I was looking out for Ecaterina. Rich American, what was I supposed to do?” Ivan was certainly smiling again.

  “Yeah, ok. I’ll tell you what. I’ll pay the same amount for each month your here helping my friend.”

  “And partial months?”

  “Yes, and partial months!” Bethany Anne had to laugh. Ivan was in negotiation mode and not even dimples were going to get her off the hook.

  “Ok, anything special I should know about your friend?”

  “Well, his name is Stephen…”

  “Bethany Anne, you did not just negotiate for me to train technology to a…a…Uh…”

  “Yes, yes I did, Ivan. Now be a man and own up that you just got snookered by the dimples and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Ok, but I’m holding you accountable if I’m not safe.”

  Bethany Anne was able to smile, “Ivan, I think you will be one of the safest Romanians in Europe while you’re here. I guarantee it!”

  They hung up.

  “Stephen, let’s go to the hospital. I feel a miracle is about to happen.”

  “How do you want to get there?”

  “Let me guess, you don’t have a car?”

  “Yes, I did learn how to drive. But I imagine the gas is probably bad after this many years.”

  She pulled her phone out again, “Well, let’s use the miracle device and find a taxi.”

  Stephen couldn’t help it, with Bethany Anne around he found he rather was looking forward to living again. It seemed like his hope had been rekindled.

  “By the way, Stephen?”

  “Yes?”

  “If anything happens to Ivan, I will come back over here and beat the shit out of you, with your own arms.”

  “My lady, if anything happens to Ivan while I am around, I’ll already be dead.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  “I understand, I’ll not fail you.”

  For once, Bethany Anne felt like there was a little light at the end of the tunnel. At least here in Europe. They continued to talk about what changes needed to happen and changed to normal topics when the taxi got there.

  Constanta, Romania

  The hospital was almost a non-event. When they showed up it was still early evening and the hospital administrator was on the premises. When Stephen explained that as the foundations executor, he wanted to see how the hospital was using their funding, he immediately received preferential treatment.

  Bethany Anne was amazed to see that he still looked like he was slowly getting better. He moved like a spry 70 year old as they walked around the hospital. She had her hat on again and loved the air of mystery it provided her.

  Plus, she looked damn good in it.

  Stephen was overjoyed with her company and wouldn’t allow Bethany Anne to do anything but be on his arm the whole way through the hospital. He knew that she approved of his funding the hospital and was very proud that he could make her happy. At the end, Bethany Anne switched her voice and gave the administrator instructions to have someone place the 25 liters of the freshest blood in a secure room and leave it there. She then told him to work at least three more hours and waited in the room with Stephen until the blood was delivered. She ‘told’ the hospital worker that the blood was picked up and that he couldn’t remember who it was to.

  Once the worker was gone, she turned to Stephen.

  “Ok, I have some information to give you. I am trusting you with this information and expect you to keep it a secret unless I tell you otherwise, or in your best judgment the risk is worth the reward. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, of course.” He looked at the quantity of blood. It was a lot of blood. Way more than he could possibly drink.

  “As you know, when you change a human the act of making them a vampire rejuvenates you. What you don’t realize is that there are infinitesimally small genetic machines inside your body that need energy to work. When you suck the blood out of another human and then force it back into their body, what you are doing is putting these machines into their body and those machines will then turn them into a vampire. For you, however; it provides your nanocytes with needed energy so that they can fix your body again. This is what turns you young.

  When you exchange the blood with a human, you drain about 4-5 liters of blood at a time. I purchased 25 liters because I don’t know how potent the blood is and how much energy you will need.”

  TOM chose that moment to interrupt.

  Bethany Anne, you might make this easier by mixing your blood into the bagged blood. If we wait a little while, then the nanocytes will already start propagating in the blood mix and possibly allow it to be more effective.

  She thought this through. She didn’t want Stephen to have too many of her nanocytes, but she didn’t want to be here all night, either. She was pretty sure the ether was gathered by the whole body, not just the blood where it was focused.

  “Ok Stephen, I want you to start consuming the blood. I am going to mix one of these bags with mine and depending how long it takes, you will consume it later.”

  It took two hours for Stephen to consume three bags of the blood. The fourth liter was the one Bethany Anne had mixed her own blood with two hours before.

  Even before he consumed the last bag, he looked like he had dropped another twenty years.

  By the end of the fourth bag, which took another two hours as it was very difficult to consume anymore and it was obvious that he wasn’t going to need any extra blood.

  “Huh, I guess I went over-board on this, didn’t I.” She looked at the additional 21 bags of blood in the coolers.

  Stephens vitality was up again, it looked like he had just consumed a Thanksgiving turkey, by himself.

  “No, my lady. It won’t go to waste. I will donate it back to the hospital and ask them to set aside a revolving stock of fresh blood to have available 24 hours a day. If I had known that rejuvenating was possible without needing to make a vampire, I might have considered doing this before. I can’t be sure. Until you came along I was ready to just rest a final time. I appreciate all you have done for me.”

  Bethany Anne smiled at him, “Don’t worry, Stephen. You will work diligently to get Europe back on track. We are going to make this work, and work well. I’m happy to have been here to help you and I’m happy that I didn’t have to rip your arm off.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Ivan will be here tomorrow. He has a phone and knows my number. You know that small room next to the linen closet in your home?”

  “Yes, I believe so. To the right or left?”

  “Left. It has a small bed in it right now.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, I want you to remove the bed and lock the door. Only allow someone to clean it once a quarter. If you need me, I’ll come to you.”

  “How will you do that?”

  Bethany Anne reached over and grabbed one of the packages of blood. “Why, like this.” and then she disappeared.

  Stephen stared at where she had just been for a minute before realizing that she could instantly move her body to different locations. She must need to be sure no one was in the same space in order to be safe. He would make sure the room was safe for her.

  In fact, he decided, he would make sure all of Europe was safe for his Queen. He grabbed the icebox of blood under his arm and left the room. Even feeling rotund, no time like the present to get started.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Washington, D.C. USA

  It was 3:30 in the afternoon when Frank’s phone rang. It was an unknown number.

  “Hello,
Frank Kurns.”

  “Hello Frank, this is Bethany Anne.”

  He straightened in his chair, “Hello Ms. Reynolds, I appreciate the phone call.”

  “Not Ms. Reynolds any more, Frank. The Nicht don’t have last names, we surrender them when we change.”

  It was a quick and efficient way to inform Frank that he wasn’t speaking to the lady that left America any more, this was a new woman, a different woman altogether.

  “Yes, I see.” No, he really didn’t. But he needed to get his game hat back on. For almost a year he hadn’t been speaking with any vampires or Carl, and he remembered how particular they could be. “Bethany Anne it is, then. I appreciate your call. Are you here in the States?”

  “No, I’m presently at a train station in Romania. I was considering taking a commercial flight back and realized we might be able to work together. I want a fast way back to America. However; I’d like a flight were I’m not concerned about mayhem happening to random people. I know you want me back there quicker to see how I might be able to help with both your operations and the Were problem. Do you happen to have a potential solution?”

  “Um, mayhem?” What was she into already? How did she get involved where mayhem could occur on a commercial flight?

  “Yes, it seems that Mr. Lowell and I were tagged on a train from Switzerland to Romania and I’ve had someone try Rohypnol on me already. While I know I can take care of myself, I tend to be a little extreme in the way I dish out retribution.”

  Frank considered his responses. So, his guy was made on the train, so he should come clean about that and he needed to see what he could setup for a fast trip across the Atlantic.

  “Well, I can update you on the train incident. I had an agent trying to find Nathan and you to get some more information on what was going on. Nathan talked to me during the trip and I sent my guy a message to drop off before contact.”

  “Was his name Paul Rutherford?”

  “No, it wasn’t, why?” Frank penciled in the name Paul Rutherford with a question mark beside it on a scratch pad. Something to look up later.

  “Just confirming something.”

  “Ok, as to the transportation, I feel confident that I can get you here. I have an operation going down tomorrow night. If I can get you here in time, are you willing to take it on?”

  “Most likely, what are the parameters?”

  “We have a situation in the Florida Everglades. We think we have two forsaken down there. The alligators are getting the blame for people disappearing and I can’t have a major military effort as it’s too obvious. My smaller team is good, but these guys have been on the sharp end of this stick four times in three months and frankly, they are wiped. They have lost two men recently.”

  “We have forsaken in the U.S.? Those ass-maggots. Yeah, I’ll be happy to go down there if you get me there, I’ll help them. Just make sure you have the right gear for me. I didn’t buy any sets of ‘Florida Everglade Fatigues’ and I’m not ruining my Louboutins in that swamp.”

  Frank just wanted to pull his phone away from his ear and look at it, ‘ass-maggots’? Bethany Anne was a whole lot of different than who he was accustomed to working with. He had a short voice message from Nathan this morning to treat her like ‘the real deal’ and to not piss her off.

  No one tried to piss her off when she was human. In light of her super-lethality anyone trying to piss her off was having a certifiable moment of stupidity. Frank hadn’t lasted this many years by making too many mistakes.

  However; Nathan’s comment got him wondering just how powerful had she become? Apparently it didn’t take as long to grow into her powers as he thought it might.

  “I’ll call you back in 15 minutes with the transportation details. Send me your clothing sizes and I’ll have someone prepare a set of fatigues ready for you at the site or maybe sooner.”

  “Ok, that works for me. I’ll be at the main pickup location for the train station. Just a warning, don’t send an ass-munch to pick me up, you might not get him back, bye.” Bethany Anne hung up her cell phone and dropped the blood bag into a trash can as she walked to the main pickup area.

  Frank looked at his phone before hanging it up and pulling up his computer. Yeah, she hadn’t changed too much from what he had researched. Well, except now when she said ‘you might not get him back,’ he was pretty sure she didn’t mean that figuratively.

  Now, he had to get busy if he wanted to make sure the team had the best shot for all of them to be alive tomorrow night.

  He sure hoped the team remembered to mind their P’s and Q’s when she got there. She was a pretty good looking woman from her pictures he had and those Spec-Ops guys thought they walked on water. That might not work too well around a woman that might just be able to walk on water.

  Atlantic Ocean

  Bethany Anne had been picked up in a black sedan by a female captain. The captain asked no questions, was very polite to Bethany Anne and took her onto an airfield about an hour and a half away. In the car was a flight suit and boots in Bethany Anne’s sizes. She changed in the car and hated leaving her outfit behind. She asked the Captain if the car had a box anywhere so she could bring her change of clothes on the plane.

  Looking a little confused, the Captain explained that in a two-seater fighter jet, there wasn’t much room to change your mind, much less carry an extra load of clothes. She would see that the box of clothes got shipped red-label Fed-Ex the next morning.

  Bethany Anne was a little surprised that Frank would provide a fighter jet for her transportation. She later learned by talking with the pilot that pilots always had to have enough flying hours. He was a little short for fighters as he had been mostly dealing with larger transportation planes. When the chance came up to get some F-15 hours, he jumped on it. Had he known he was going to fly a gorgeous model to the United States, he would have slit his wrist for the chance. She could hear the smile in his voice, it wasn’t like some of the more scuzzy comments she received when working in Washington D.C.

  She took the compliment as it was intended and thanked him. They were going to refuel in the air and fly straight to Florida. She zoned out and allowed TOM to pay attention for a while. She noticed that she lost her ability to ‘feel’ what direction Stephen was about midway across the Atlantic, however; she could still tell he was alive. She wondered if this ability would stay with her or would she lose it as her blood worked its way through his system?

  A couple of hours later, the pilot came over the headset and directed Bethany Annes attention to the Azores Islands as they passed over. The flight was peaceful. As peaceful as you can be in a jet flying as fast as they were. She finally decided to just go to sleep.

  A few hours later, she woke up with the coast in the distance. She missed the mid-air refueling, being completely zoned out. The pilot was amazed she was able to sleep through the whole thing. All he knew about his passenger was that he needed to get her to Florida, fast.

  She had been moved so quickly from his plane to the car he never got a chance to ask her for a phone number.

  New York City, NY USA

  Ecaterina was looking around at all of the strange and exciting city lights. Nathan had brought her over on first class tickets and had made sure that a limousine was waiting for them, with her name on the placard, when they came out of the security gate at John F. Kennedy.

  Security was a two hour nightmare for them. Especially since Ecaterina had never before been out of her own country.

  Nathan was able to get them through the security, finally. She was excited to be in the limousine and he had the driver go through Times Square. It added an additional 45 minutes to their trip, but he didn’t care. Her face radiant with delight was all of the payment he needed.

  She finally came over and sat by him when they left Times Square. She gave him a shy smile and gently took his hand and rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes.

  My god, he thought, I love this woman.

 
It had been over 30 years since Nathan had any type of serious relationship. His first wife had suffered when their child had been killed in Vietnam. She was never the same. While she eventually got through the grief, and a serious depression, she was never the same vivacious woman he married.

  His first wife hadn’t known about him being a Wechselbalg. Although it wasn’t a serious problem in the relationship. It meant that Nathan was always aware that their relationship wasn’t completely transparent. Now, due to Bethany Anne more than anyone, he had a chance to really enjoy a relationship and this time there would be no secrets.

  He felt like the most special pillow in the world that moment as he listened to her breathing as she slept against him.