Beasts and Burdens (27 page)

“I tried not to tell her,” Heaton croaked. “She just wouldn’t let up.”

Daniel’s jaw clenched, but he focused his attention on the damage he could see.

“Shh, it’s okay Heaton,” Cori assured him. “We don’t blame you. We blame that sadistic bitch,” Cori said coldly, and for the first time since she was lying under Gypsy Grace, she wanted to kill someone. Cori winced and huffed through another contraction.

“Baby?” Heaton looked her over.

“Yeah, I thought I’d complicate the situation a little more.”

“Daniel!” Nevia barked from the windows again. “Hurry this along; they’re trying to double back. Either get Heaton fixed, or get Cori back in commission.”

Daniel looked over Heaton. Aside from his bruises, the only thing left to fix was internal, and he couldn’t fix that right now. Heaton was in too exhausted to expect him to be useful. “Okay, baby mama, your turn.”

Cori frowned, as he picked her up. She wasn’t quite as ready for her turn as she thought she would be. He carried her into the spare bedroom and set her on the edge of the bed. She groaned through another contraction, and spurted a cry that she couldn’t contain.

“Okay, Cori, your job is really simple. Just wait until it feels right, and then push as hard as you can.”

Cori shook her head, but she wasn’t sure why. She knew there wasn’t any way around this.

“Yes, you can,” he answered her unspoken objection. “I know this isn’t the way you want to do this, but I need that not fragile girl right now.” Cori nodded feebly and leaned back on the bed in preparation for her brave performance.

She closed her eyes, too mortified to watch as he lifted her gown to proceed. She felt a stinging sensation and she was vaguely aware of the blood dripping down her legs.

“Okay, Cori, are you ready to start pushing?” Daniel asked soothingly. She had never thought of Daniel as sincere, competent, or gentle, but at that moment she would have told him she was ready to paint a gorilla with superglue as long as he asked nicely.

74

“Stop! Stop pushing mama!” Daniel popped up from between her legs and grabbed her shoulders. “Cori I need you to stop.”

“I can do it!” She said determined to finish what she had started.

“Yes, you can, but there’s a problem.” He saw her eyes widen with panic. “No, no, nothing I can’t fix, I just need to back the baby up a little. He’s crushing the cord. I need to apply some pressure and reposition the cord. It’s going to hurt like hell.”

“It already hurts!” She cried.

“I know, but just for a bit, okay.”

“Daniel!” She sputtered his name, but all at once her face cleared and she nodded. “Okay.”

“Good girl.” He ducked back down to offer the manipulation that he needed to un-pinch the baby’s oxygen flow.

75

Somewhere between freeing out the baby and pulling out the afterbirth, Cori passed out. Daniel decided to speed up her healing process so she could help defend the farm when she woke up.

The baby squealed beside him, but he couldn’t worry about that yet. Heaton crawled in as he was fixing up Cori and scooped the baby into his arms. He looked to be in as much pain as his bruises claimed, but he smiled and cooed at the baby to get it to quiet down.

“Daniel! I’m out of bullets!” Nevia yelled.

Daniel broke away from Cori. He was already past the marathon run stage and bordering on heat stroke. He would have to finish healing her up later. Heaton gave him a thumbs-up on the way out letting him know that the baby would be fine with him.

Daniel ran out to the front room and swung open the door. He was overheated and ready for a cool down. The immediate outbuildings were easy sacrifices to his anger. The swirling mix of wood particles and paint chips dissipated revealing six werewolves. He slowed his destruction to a precision that cooled his body back to a normal level. The resulting affect removed several layers of skin from his targets and virtually crumbled their weapons.

“Frederique!” Daniel screamed at the top of his lungs as bullets attempted to hit him from behind the barn. He wouldn’t destroy the barn, too expensive to rebuild, but he did disintegrate the gun and hand that snuck around the corner. “I will kill you for this!”

Daniel heard glass breaking from inside and his mother screamed. He ran back in the house and found Frederique inside the living room with two of her goons holding his mother and Nevia. He noticed that the door to the spare bedroom was shut. Heaton he thought.

“Don’t even think about using your power Daniel or they’ll snap their necks.” Daniel didn’t even bother trying to think of a rebuttal. He had no clever plans. Even if Nevia could get free, his mother wasn’t quite that nimble. He needed a clear shot, or he had no shot. Frederique was starting to figure him out. His power was hot and heavy and all encompassing, or distinct and measured. He couldn’t kill her without setting off the others. He couldn’t kill them all, without killing his mother and fiancé with them.

“What do want now?” Daniel asked.

“Nothing. I’ll settle for your death, and hers.” Frederique nodded to Nevia. “If I get that, then no one else has to die. I’ll leave your mother and your friends alone.”

Daniel stared down at the floor, wondering how big of a hole it would take to swallow both of them up. If he was going to die, he might as well take her with him.

“And I thought your sister was a bitch,” Cori said startling everyone.

Daniel jumped forward to get to Cori, but Frederique was between them. She put up her hand effectively stopping his approach. She stared quizzically at Cori. She looked exhausted and positively crazed. The yellow nightgown was splattered with blood, and her hair was disheveled. She might as well have just stepped out of the nut house.

“Did you just give birth?” Frederique frowned.

Cori grimaced and tears pricked her eyes. “Yes, I guess you can add another to your list of casualties.” Maggie gasped from her position in her captors arms. Daniel was almost positive that Cori was faking to protect the child, but the part of him that was unsure thought immediately of Ethan.

“You might as well, snap my neck too, because as long as I walk the earth, I will never stop hunting you.”

“Oh, girl, you are so trying. All of you. Such a cavalier attitude when you are so far out of your league. Don’t they teach you anything at that prison, Cori?” Frederique stepped toward Cori and grabbed her neck. “Fem-wolves are not to be messed with.” Daniel tensed, prepared to knock everyone into the back wall together and see who stands back up. It was only the small smirk on Cori’s face that stopped him.

Frederique’s grip lifted her off the ground. Cori grappled at her neck, but couldn’t offer more than a massage for the fem-wolf’s thick muscular neck. Even the futility of her fight didn’t keep Cori’s smile from growing. “What are you smiling about, you…” Frederique coughed. “What…” She coughed again, spurting a spray of water as she did.

Daniel took his opportunity and threw Nevia and her captor into the back wall. His mother’s captor was ready to rip her head off, but a precision attack peeled his face sending him stumbling back screaming.

Frederique’s intermittent expulsion of water forced her to drop her prey. Cori kept her hands in contact with her neck, while she watched her writhe in pain from the endless ocean in her lungs. He didn’t know how it was possible, but he sensed Cori was experienced in this particular torture.

Nevia stabbed her captor in the eye with a shard of glass and he shoved him back again when he tried to lunge at her. Nevia watched the scene of Frederique drowning with the same concern etched on her face that she had the other night after watching him almost rip her apart.

Daniel felt the same way from this perspective, and yet what could they do, she was never going to stop hunting them. However, seeing the eye patch that Gypsy had forced on her, he decided that she could be an example. An example that might once and for all, end this battle with the council of the moon.

The question was which was more humane.

“Cori.” Daniel stepped over to her and held his hand over hers, not touching, but forcing her to break concentration. “Let me take care of this. This is our mess.” Daniel glanced to Nevia. “Let us clean it up.”

“But she’ll never stop,” Cori objected.

“There is one thing that will stop her.”

76

Cori was impressed that one phone call to the number on Daniel’s black card could cause the uproar that was transpiring at the farm. Within twenty minutes a helicopter arrived with sharp shooters to discourage the errant werewolves from leaving the scene of their crime. Within an hour, two more helicopters arrived with enough weapons and soldiers to collect the remaining werewolves and deliver them back to where they belong.

By the time the militant fashionista Gypsy Grace arrived, most of the questions had been asked and answered. An assessor had even been through the house to determine the damages that Mrs. McGrath would be suing the Council of the Moon for. Cori wasn’t sure anyone had been thinking about restitution—since the gunshots were so distracting, but the litigation seemed to be a high priority; even more important than prosecuting the criminals.

Gypsy stepped through the open front door crunching the glass beneath her boots. She looked over the scene, settling on the each of the exhausted faces she had been
introduced
to the other night. A man handed her a clipboard and she glanced over the scribbles that filled her in on the details of the event without actually speaking to anyone. “What’s this?” she asked folding the paper over the metal clamp. The second page seemed to disappoint her just as much as the first. “You still didn’t kill her?” Gypsy turned her question to Daniel. He was happily lounging in an arm chair he had flipped back over.

“No,” Daniel responded despondently peering at Gypsy through hooded eyes. Cori was exhausted—with good reason, but the worry of the last few days had definitely caught up with Daniel. “We didn’t want the council trying to avenge her death.”

“We also didn’t want to martyr her,” Nevia said from behind Gypsy at one of the broken out windows. Her skin was spotted with perse bruises, and she was shaking, but she was still clutching her gun—perpetually on guard, despite the presence of thirty or forty well-armed soldiers meandering through the property.

Gypsy looked back at her. Cori expected her to return with a smug condescending smirk directed at Nevia’s behavior, but she was inexpressive. “I see you finished what I started, though.” She scanned the document. “You blinded her and two of her henchmen. Six of them are going to the burn unit for skin grafting. Not to mention a few shattered knee caps.”

“That was her.” Daniel pointed accusingly to Nevia, but she didn’t seem to mind the attention for her good aim.

“A couple of those were from Mrs. McGrath.” Nevia passed on the blame and glory to Mrs. McGrath, who stammered behind Daniel for a moment before surrendering a shrug.

Gypsy smiled at the elderly woman, before resting her eyes on Cori and her fresh bundle of joy. She reflexively pulled the child a little tighter to her. “My men are checking out Heaton as we speak. If he needs surgery we will airlift him to Dublin immediately.” Gypsy paused eying her cautiously, but with a hint of the ever present amusement that Cori would forever associate with her psychopathic nature. “Would you like them to check you or the baby?”

Cori narrowed her eyes, but stopped when she realized, it was a perfectly reasonable request. Her nightgown was covered in blood and all manner of unpleasantness. Her clammy skinned baby was obviously fresh into the world. She glanced at Daniel, unsure of what to say. He seemed to understand her reluctance, but only gave a noncommittal shrug. “Thank you, I think we’re good.”

“Let me know if you change your mind. We’ll be here for a while.” Gypsy glanced over the report once more before pulling an envelope from beneath the layers of paperwork and offering it to Maggie. “Mrs. McGrath, this should tide you over until the council can provide restitution.”

Mrs. McGrath snatched the envelope. Her staunch frown disappeared as she peeked inside the envelope. “Oh, sweet Jesus.” She signed the cross before promptly stuffing the envelope in her blouse.

“As for the rest of you,” Gypsy tucked the clipboard under her arm and pulled a canvas pack from her side cargo pant pocket. She pulled out a pinch full of hundred dollar bills and handed it to Daniel. “You can distribute that as needed, hotel, flight, whatever. Needless to say that also goes as hush money.” She winked at Daniel as he took the wad of cash. He eyed it coolly before turning his lazy gaze to her.

“Seriously, who the feck are you?” he asked unceremoniously.

Gypsy smiled. “We are new and not yet affiliated with your group.”

“Yet?” Cori asked.

“We hope to be.” Gypsy bowed her head slightly. “There is a lot of paperwork and red tape left to go, but one day we might have a mutual goal.”

“Which is?” Daniel asked.

“If you are the hunters, we would be the enforcers for the remaining supernatural beings living amongst the human population. The police if you will.”