My Ride is a Bitch (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 13) (4 page)

She took the scabbard off, “Eenie meanie miney moe, Dieter, my friend, you can go.” She was ten feet away and then Gunter and Klaus jumped back because she had stabbed Dieter through the gut with her sword. Her left hand was choking him, as she easily held him off the ground, while he struggled. She looked over her shoulder and spoke to the man behind her, “I told you, much cleaner here.”

The big man shrugged, “All I said is it would be easier to get the wife’s location from people that were alive, even if you had to leave them alive.”

When she turned around, Gunter and Klaus took another involuntary step back. The figure in front of them was from a nightmare. Her face had red glowing eyes, her teeth had grown, and she smiled at them like they were snacks. “I never said I had to have live people to get my answers, John. I can always ask them when I kill them the second time.”

“She’s in a warehouse!” Gunter screamed, “On the East side out by Green Valley in Vegas, I swear!”

“Shut up, Gunter.” Klaus hissed, “That is our only negotiation card.” Scared or not, Klaus knew that the woman was one thing that might get them out of this predicament.
 

Dieter had stopped struggling in her grip. His lifeless body was still above the ground, his blood puddling at her feet. She seemed to finally notice he had expired. “That was uneventful,” she muttered, acting annoyed and tossing the body aside. Both men were shocked. Dieter’s lifeless body had been thrown twenty feet away into the mist. She never noticed his weight.

The frightening woman took a step towards the two men, “Who paid you to do this?”

Klaus spoke up, “Will you let us go if we tell you what we know?” His voice, usually assured, was cracking.

“Klaus Weber,” her voice changed, softer but unyielding, “stand still and tell me what you know. Who paid you to do this?”

Klaus bit down hard, trying to keep the information to himself. He kept hearing her command resonating in his mind, he played what he would say to her over and over and finally stopped thinking about it when she said, “That is enough, you don’t need to tell me multiple times.”

Her man spoke, “Bethany Anne, we don’t have time to track all of this down right now. We need to get back to the ArchAngel. We have a meeting with the Japanese pretty soon.”

She looked disgusted, “Ok ... fine. I don’t think this prick knows anything, sounds like a typical dark web merc job. I know someone bored who needs something to do.”

Why? What do trophy wives do except check on truant children and blow up houses?

Shut. Up. TOM.

Klaus, aghast that he had been talking the whole time he thought he was keeping the secrets to himself never saw the flick of the blade that cut his head off.

Gunter, his mouth open as Klaus’s body dropped to the ground, finally recognized she was cleaning her sword on Klaus’s shirt. Her face, eyes normal, looked up to him, “and now, we come to miney moe.”

—

Mason Jayden woke up, his arm numb from Anne’s tight grip. He heard people coming down the hall outside his room. His mind foggy, he was trying to remember how he and his daughter had ended up in here and realized he must have nodded off for a few minutes.

Then he heard it, he heard her voice, “Sheila?” he whispered. He couldn’t quite make out the words the voice was speaking, it was still too far away, but Mason thought it was his wife. He looked down to figure out how to extricate himself from his daughter, but she was already waking up.

“Mom?” she called out, eyes half-closed, “MOM?”
 

She pushed her chair back when they both heard a ‘baby?’ come from down the hallway and another, louder, “Mason?”
 

Mason’s chair shot back to the wall, he grabbed Anne’s hand as they reached the door and came around to see Sheila running down the hall, crying. The family reunion was intense as the three hugged, all crying pretty loudly.

“Ma’am?”
 

Bethany Anne turned around. She and John had left some personal space for the three to reunite. “Yes?”

The woman, one of the base logistics and planning employees who had been helping, smiled. “Ma’am, what do you want me to do for the family?”
 

Bethany Anne turned towards the family. John noticed she frowned and whispered to herself, “I hate this.”

Her eyes went vacant for a second, then she frowned. “Well, fuckity fuck.” She sighed, “Call ArchAngel. We need this family with us,” she told her, “John and I will grab Ashur from the cafeteria and head out. When Mason asks, tell him the Queen has said she will be able to protect his family much better than those who failed him.”
 

“Yes, ma’am.” She said.

“C’mon John, let’s fetch the white wonder dog and get back to the ship.”

The two walked past the woman, who continued to wait patiently a distance away from the reunited family. She listened to Bethany Anne and John talking as they walked down the hall.

“Did I understand,” John started, “that Ashur is looking for a bitch or is that your idea?”

“Nice, nice play on words, Mr. Grimes.”

“I try my best,” he said while smirking, “when speaking to trophy wives.”

“John,” she heard Bethany Anne say as the two tracked around a corner, “I swear if you keep up that shit, payback will be a bitch.”

“Oh, you pray to him, too?” his voice trailed off.

QBS ArchAngel - Above Japan

Tabitha's Pod slowly moved through the gravitic shield blocking the air from leaving the Pod bay on the Archangel. She noticed Barnabas waiting for her as the Pod settled down and the doors cracked open. She unclipped herself and smiled to him.

“Hey you, Big ‘B’!” Her grin grew a little bit when she noticed Barnabas frowning a little at her new nickname for him. She had decided that if she was going to live for the next few hundred years, she was going to do her dead level best to tweak him just a little bit each and every month.
 

Her newest effort was giving him little pet names since you always have to be hacking and testing what you think might work,. She wasn't sure if this new name was going to last for more than a couple of months, or hell, it could last well into the next century.

Barnabas turned his grimace into a smile, understanding that she had just laid down a challenge. "Hello Tabitha, I trust your trip was enjoyable?”

She followed him as he walked towards the Pod bay exit. He looked over his shoulder at her and asked, "Do you know why we wanted you to join us here on the ArchAngel?”

She shrugged, “Honestly, Big B, I figure you've got something that needs accomplishing, and you need just the right sass and ass to get the job done.”

Barnabas hung his head. Tabitha might be more of a challenge than he had ever encountered in his many, many centuries. "I don't recall too many ladies ever telling me that they have the right, and I quote, sass and ass, to get the job done. Usually, they tell men to stop looking down there and that their faces are up here.”

Tabitha shrugged, “Hey, I can't help it if European women don't understand just how over-empowered they are compared to men. We not only have the brains, but we also have the bodies to confuse the best of them and, in the fog of war, men are putty in our hands.” She thought for a second, “Ok, some women have the brains, not every one of us.”

Tabitha finally caught up with Barnabas so that she was walking beside him, so he glanced sideways at her and asked, “The fog of war, Tabitha?”

"Sure, anytime a man is around an attractive woman, it's war. You might not think it, but their wives know it, their girlfriends know it. It just happens. It's chemical. Do I have to pull up the physiological books to discuss this with you? I would think after a thousand years this would be old news to you. Hell, you’re practically a talking cadaver that’s walking around.”

Barnabas snorted. "I am not, nor have I ever been, a cadaver,” he stated.

Oh, this is so delicious. Tabitha just gave herself three points and figured that she was up five to two so far. Barnabas had earned two secret points for making her catch up to him.

“Big B, I bet I wasn't even alive the last time you got horizontal and did the mambo. I'm probably willing to bet you weren't even assaulting with a friendly weapon when my parents were children.”

“Tabitha, please remember I was living in a monastery until relatively recently. What are you talking about?”

“Buttering the biscuit? Checking the oil? How about doing squat thrusts in the cucumber patch? No? Damn number one, just how long were you in that cave? All right let's try filling the cream doughnut? No? Posting a letter? Of course not, you probably don't even remember or know what letters are.”

Barnabas grunted, “Yes Tabitha, I have been around to know what letters are. You do realize letters are something that happened many centuries ago, yes?”

She had to be up twelve to two, at least.

"Fine, I'll try to see how far back I can go. Latina women are good at euphemisms, and I have a ton. I'm just trying to remember which ones an old dried up husk of a man like you might know. So, let's try this Dr. Acula - how about shrimping the barbie? Oh, crap, that's something from Australia, never mind. Slamming the clam? Taking old one eye to the optometrist? Sorry, I forgot an optometrist is the last couple of hundred years. How about something more fantasy driven. Let's try taking the bald headed gnome for a stroll in the misty forest? No? Taking the magic bus to Manchester? Here's one for someone of your age, how about cleaning the cobwebs with the womb broom? Fuck, Big B, didn’t you ever just screw a chick?”

Tabitha finally realized that Barnabas was barely able to contain a smirk from showing on his face. His eyes, however, gave him away. “How long have you known what I was talking about?” She asked, annoyance coloring her voice.

He finally let loose with the smile he had been holding, “Since five to two.”

“What?” She asked, confused. “Hey, I didn’t say that out loud…” she stopped in the hallway as Barnabas kept walking. She closed her eyes, “Fuuuuuck!”

She forgot he could read minds.

She jogged to catch up to him and find out about her new case, right after she tried to apologize...if only a little.

TQB Base - Colorado, USA

Mason held his wife’s hand and carried Anne. For a twelve-year-old, she was still quite small and light.

Thank God.

His arm was dying a second time.
 

“Mason,” Sheila whispered, “what is happening?”

The family had time to spend together, to just enjoying being a family. The lady here at the base had provided all of the food they wanted. Anne had sat in Sheila’s lap the whole time. No matter how much Mason tried to convince Anne differently, she was sure that her mom had been taken because she’d been ugly to her. Mason had tried to tell her, that arguing with Mom’s is what girls her age did.

Now that Anne had her mom back, she was the most obedient daughter ever. Or at least until she wasn’t scared anymore of her mom being taken a second time.

Which led Mason back to Sheila’s question.

“We are going to TQB’s home base,” he equivocated, “I’m to speak to the CEO.”

“I thought the lady said you need to talk to the Queen?” Sheila asked as they followed Jasmin out of the main office doors into the early evenings darkening skies.

“Same person, apparently,” Mason said, “Her group has pulled off of Earth, so she is setting up a monarchy.”

“Why does she want you?” Sheila continued.
 

Mason noticed the black shipping container with two men, both with weapons, standing at the back, one door open.

“I think she wants answers,” Mason admitted.

“Why did they help us, is it your job?” Sheila asked, “I know I’m not supposed to ask, but you have to give me something here. Those men were looking for information from you.”

“Yes, they did and no, I don’t think they were helping us because of my job. I don’t know why they are helping us.”

Anne squirmed in his arm and lifted her blond head, “I asked.”

“What?” Mason said, looking down, “Asked who?”

Anne flipped her head, blew on some errant strands and then used her left hand to pull the last hair out of her face, “I sent a letter to Ms. Bethany Anne, asking for help.”

“How did you do that?” Mason asked.

“I heard the men talk to you when Mom first disappeared. I used my crayons to write a letter and send it. No one at school asked me about it. Well, Josephine made fun of me a little saying I was writing to Santa Claus.”

Sheila chuckled, “I imagine she did.”

Jasmin nodded to the two men, “These are the three the Queen wants to speak with, VIP soft delivery.”

“Aye ma’am, VIP soft delivery,” answered the first guy. He was blond with huge arms, Sheila noted. He smiled at the family.

“My name is Scott,” he nodded to the other gentleman with him, “He is Darryl. Trust me when I say you will absolutely be safe with us.”

“Not to be rude,” Mason asked, “but in a container?”
 

Scott grinned and turned his hand over and pointed up, “No. The Queen said VIP soft delivery.”

Mason and Sheila looked up. Four sleek fighters were hovering a hundred feet in the air. “Are those…” Mason’s question stopped.

“Yes, those are Black Eagles,” Darryl spoke for the first time. “There is nothing on this Earth, that I’m aware of, that is going to get through your guard. The Queen wants you safe. We tend to go overboard for her.”

“I see…that,” Mason admitted. His group had tried to pull as much information about these ships as they could. With what he did know about them, and what he knew about his own group’s abilities, he had to agree with Darryl.

These four planes could probably decimate a small country.

Darryl spoke up again, “Sorry, we don’t have our best quality multi-seat Pods yet. Those are in production. But, if you would jump on board? We need to be over on the ArchAngel in about twenty-five minutes before we all drop back in.”

“Drop in…where?” Sheila asked as Mason stepped ahead of her and into the large black rectangular box.