To Hell and Back (Hellcat Series Book 4) (24 page)

“
Go ahead. That one isn’t loaded,” he offered, inclining his
head towards one that looked much like a miniature version of a
compound bow, about as wide as her forearm. She reached for the
sort-of-bow and tentatively lifted it from its precisely moulded
resting place. Each item was meticulously clean and nestled snugly
in a hard foam casing matching each weapon’s shape exactly. There
were a few empty spaces in handgun-shaped casings; Mac must know
the strict policy on firearms in the City. Gabi held the small bow
up to the pale moonlight to get a better look; instead of a simple
string action running through a basic pulley system, this one
sported a maze of tiny cogs and gears linking the cocking mechanism
to the bowstring. A small barrel, like that of a revolver, hung
from a hinge at the base of the bow. The weapon was simply but
beautifully made, and, if she knew anything about weapon
construction, she’d guess by the weight that it was constructed
largely of carbon fibre. A small, sleek dart with tiny, tufted
feathers at the back end appeared in front of her.

“
It’s really a dart gun of sorts, though a little more
powerful than the ones you use,” Mac explained as he showed her how
to fit the small almost bullet-shaped dart into the revolving
chamber and snap it into place. “Of course, I haven’t ever filled
mine with Werewolf saliva, as I’ve never taken on demons before,
but I reckon we should be able to do that with these. I usually
reserve these for Werewolves.” He didn’t elaborate as to what he
filled them with, but glanced surreptitiously at Kyle. When there
was no backlash, he continued. “You see the gears tension the
string, providing a much harder punch than a crossbow or even a
normal compound bow, with very little effort from the wielder. This
has a fair bit more oomph than your dart guns, which are based on
air-gun technology. These darts travel at close to a thousand feet
per second, just a bit less than the speed of a bullet from a .22
calibre rifle.” The pride was clear in his voice, as though he were
speaking of a favourite child.

He pointed to a tree about three hundred feet away; it was a
solid chestnut tree, its trunk at least a foot thick. Gabi glanced
at him, checking. He nodded and took a step back. The trigger
mechanism looked simple enough, so she carefully cocked it, making
sure she had the others’ attention and no one would get in her line
of fire. The gears shifted in virtual silence, each cog expertly
fitted together, the entire mechanism oiled and primed for
immediate use. The dart shunted from the revolving chamber into a
narrow rut in the centre of the weapon and then settled backward,
almost disappearing, its tiny feathers resting against the
bowstring. Gabi set her forefinger on the trigger and aimed towards
the tree, sighting by lining up the small, white marks on the front
and rear of the bow. The weapon was lightweight and easy to
balance, and the trigger moved smoothly. The crossbow made a tiny
phutt of noise, and the dart whistled crisply as it exploded
forward. Almost simultaneously the noise of the impact with the
tree trunk caught their ears. As one, they moved towards the tree
to inspect the damage.

“
Shit,” Kyle exclaimed, leaning down to squint into the neatly
drilled hole in the tough bark. “That’s darn near gone the whole
way through.”

Gabi turned the small bow over in her hands, marvelling at its
inventiveness and efficiency. “Do you have any more of these?” she
asked Mac, her mind already racing.

“
Unfortunately they are all currently one-of-a-kind items.
Made especially to my specifications by a friend who prefers to
remain very anonymous,” Mac said regretfully. “But I haven’t
exactly had the time to take out patents on the design yet…” He
left the sentence hanging suggestively.

“
So if our technicians were to accidentally see these, you
wouldn’t be able to stop us reproducing them?” Gabi played
along.

“
Savannah would be able to duplicate these quicker than anyone
else I know,” Julius put in. “She’d probably be able to make
improvements as well.”

Gabi knew he was right. With Savannah’s lab and staff combined
with her unique flair for innovation, they might just have the
kinds of weapons they needed to hold their own in the coming
war.

“
What else have you got?” Julius asked, following Mac, who was
heading back to the truck.

“
Well, this is my go-to weapon for Vampires,” he said, lifting
a larger crossbow-style weapon out and showing it to Julius. It
didn’t have the design modifications of the compound bow, and Gabi
wondered what made it special. Mac reached back into the truck and
pulled out a handful of long crossbow bolts, each one as thick as a
man’s finger and as long as a forearm. Four razor-thin, triangular
blades graced each tip, gleaming viciously in the dim light, and
the end of the shaft where the blades were attached was about twice
as thick as the rest of the bolt, the tip itself was hollowed
out.

“
Exploding tip bolts,” Mac explained, handing one to each of
them and showing them small red capsules that were stowed
separately. “Primed with a tiny charge of C4, one of these to the
head or the heart and there’s not much chance of
recovery.”

Gabi glanced from the bolt to Mac with a raised
eyebrow.

He shrugged, a little apologetically. “I’m human. I had to
find ways to even the playing field,” he was speaking to her and
avoiding eye contact with Julius and Kyle.

Gabi nodded. It made sense, and as deadly as his weapons were,
she doubted Kyle or Julius would hold their purpose against Mac.
They all knew the destruction a rogue supernatural could bring
about in a human population.

“
That would work against many of the demons too,” Kyle said,
reaching to take the bow from Mac and inspecting it. “Hunters will
need to work on their crossbow accuracy, though. I wouldn’t want
one of us taken out by friendly fire with one of these.”

“
Those are my two preferred weapons. I generally try to avoid
getting too up close and personal with my target,” Mac continued,
reaching back into the truck, “but if I do end up in close-quarters
fighting, this is always a good backup.” He lifted out what Gabi
could only think of as a ray gun. Except it wasn’t. It was a bit
bigger than the average handgun, with a much larger barrel. He
handed it to her, taking back the crossbow bolts and stowing them
meticulously back in their places. “Face it away from you and pull
the trigger,” he suggested.

Gabi hesitated for a moment, not sure what to expect from the
strange-looking gun. Mac’s smirk told her she’d be surprised but
not in a bad way, so she turned the gun away from all of them,
aiming for the tree again and depressed the trigger. A thick, metal
spike exploded out the front of the barrel, but didn’t actually
detach from the weapon itself. She froze, uncertain if it had
misfired.

“
Now double-tap the trigger,” Mac said, his smirk growing
wider.

She obediently pulled the trigger twice in quick succession.
Immediately the spike began to spin. At the same time tiny metal
teeth splayed out from near the tip in two neat rows, turning the
already deadly weapon into a macabre miniature version of a
tunnel-digging machine.

“
Holy shit,” Kyle exclaimed, walking forward to get a closer
look, as though he couldn’t believe what his eyes were
seeing.

Gabi touched the trigger again, and the whirling spikes slowed
to a stop. She handed the thing over to Kyle. The thought of what
that would do to living flesh… Now Gabi understood how Mac, as a
human, had lived so many years as a Slayer.

“
Inventive,” Julius commented dryly. “You and Savannah will
get along very well.”

“
Do you think she can replicate all of these in a couple of
days?” Gabi asked, unable to keep the excitement from her tone. She
was feeling a little lift in her spirits for the first time since
the meeting with the Magi Council.

“
With Mac’s guidance and perhaps some extra staff.” Julius
nodded.

“
Mac, will you work with Savannah for us?” she asked, turning
to the older man. “This could be the advantage we need. These
weapons could make all the difference in what we’re about to
face.”

“
You don’t need to hard sell it to me, Hellcat,” he drawled
with a rueful sigh. “I’ve had a taste of what’s coming. I’d be
happy to help. Even if it means I have to stay away from the action
for a couple of days.”

Gabi tried to hide a grin.

“
You can’t keep me out of it forever, but for now you get your
way,” he conceded, not fooled by her excuses.

“
I’ll contact Savannah,” Julius said, “to make arrangements.
Lea, can you get Nathan on the phone? Tell him he’s to escort Mac
to the lab; tell him its priority one.”

“
You know,” Kyle said, chewing his lip thoughtfully, “there
isn’t much about weapons that Doug doesn’t know.”

“
You’re right,” Gabi said. The Shape-shifting Hunter was the
most knowledgeable weapons expert she knew. “And if we get him
involved on the design and manufacture side of things, he won’t
feel like he’s not contributing.”

“
Yep, two birds with one exploding arrow,” Kyle quipped. “I’ll
get hold of Byron and update him, run the Doug thing by him, and
suggest he gets Derek to start bowmanship training immediately.”
Kyle gingerly gave the spike gun back to Mac and loped off to his
van as Gabi and Julius pulled out their phones.

CHAPTER 15

“
Food first,” Gabi told Nathan as she climbed into the
passenger seat of the Range Rover. “I’m starving.”

She’d decided to go with Mac and Nathan on the trip to the lab
after Julius relayed a message from Savannah that her new BMW was
ready for collection. As much as she loved the McLaren—what was
there not to love?—it did draw attention, and she had the feeling
they would be trying to keep things on the down-low in the coming
days. Nosey human bystanders were likely to end up dead, maimed or
seeing something they shouldn’t, a nuisance no matter which way it
went. She was at a loose end anyway; Julius had a business meeting
that he insisted had to be sorted tonight. Gabi’s intuition told
her he was making succession plans, putting things in order in case
something happened to him in the coming days. She couldn’t blame
him, but the thought sucked the warmth out of the tiny spark of
hope she’d only just nurtured to life. After that, he had his first
training session with the Magi, something she knew he wasn’t
looking forward to.

Mac was following behind them in his truck, Razor ensconced in
his passenger seat. Much to Gabi’s surprise, Razor had made the
choice himself, and Mac had seemed both startled and
pleased.

“
Of course, my Lady,” Nathan said. As one of Julius’s most
senior Clan members, he held the official title of Head of
Security, though he relinquished this role to Patrick, the
Werewolf, during the day. He was one of the first of Julius’s Clan
that she’d met; he’d been part of the elite group sent to kidnap
her when Julius wanted to meet her. When two of the group had tried
to kill rather than kidnap her, Nathan had been the one to try to
stop them. His brother, Liam, was also one of the Clan and was
Julius’s business manager as well as the Clan representative on the
SMV Council. There was no doubt that the two of them were brothers;
they were alike enough to be twins: both heavyset men who moved
with quiet grace. Nathan had a deep voice and a mild manner, until
he had reason not to be mild-mannered anymore, and then he was an
entirely different animal. He never failed to treat her with deep
respect, and he was one of the few people she didn’t tease. It made
him intensely uncomfortable, and she liked him well enough not to
want to make him unhappy.

“
Where would you like to stop? Sit in or drive-through?”
Almost every Vampire she knew had a bizarre fascination with
watching humans eat. She was getting used to it, but still found it
unnerving at times. If they were driving, Nathan would have to keep
his gaze on the road.

“
There’s a chicken place with a drive-through not far, just
hang a left at the lights,” she told him, glancing in the side
mirror to check that Mac was following close enough to see their
change of direction.

The food took the edge off Gabi’s irritable mood, and she was
discussing the pros and cons of the BMW with Nathan when they
turned onto the narrow, country lane leading to the lab. When they
arrived, Savannah was still the bubbly, sanguine, slightly
eccentric woman Gabi now knew to be the real Savannah, not the
cool, collected, elegant personae she apparently donned for special
occasions and large gatherings. She welcomed them all into her
workplace. Kyle and Doug had beaten them there by a few minutes.
She didn’t so much as blink when Gabi introduced her to a Werewolf,
a Shape-shifter and a human, but Gabi couldn’t help but notice that
she assessed Mac just a little longer than she assessed Kyle and
Doug. And not in the way that a hunter sized up prey, but more in
the way a woman sized up a man. She was glad she’d remembered to
explain Savannah’s mind-reading skills to the rest of them before
they arrived. Hopefully they’d practised the art of singing
mindless songs in their heads on the way here.

Gabi’s second car stood near the front of the open workspace.
It was far more understated than the McLaren, but by no means
sedate or boring. Savannah proudly showed off a specially modified
harness safety belt for Razor, which could be attached to any of
the existing human seatbelts, as well as an additional one in the
rear of the car for a large dog or wolf. There was also a mesh
screen that could be fitted to separate the rear section from the
seats; it was imbued with just enough silver to keep Werewolves
from touching it. Kyle raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Razor
hopped inside to investigate, but the look he gave the safety
harness led Gabi to believe it may take some convincing to make him
wear it. Secret compartments had also been installed in the
rearmost space for concealing her weapons and other combat gear,
and the state-of-the-art computer and GPS console would take Gabi
weeks to learn how to fully operate. Savannah lost Gabi entirely
when she tried to explain the diagnostic software.