Sharkbait Down Under Ch. 41-50

The lead vehicle picked up speed, tires squealing as it made the turn and crashed through the fence. The other SUV's stayed right behind it as it raced for the entrance. It didn't stop, crashing through the glass doorway and into the entry. The remaining werewolves stopped outside, running into the newly-created opening with their weapons up and ready.

The second half of the vehicles veered to the right, the lead vehicle crashing through a closed garage door and into the warehouse. Two dozen vampires jumped out of the cars, moving in a blur through the opening.

I kept my eyes on the windows as the assault continued. The gunfire sounded like thunder, mixed with the whoosh of the flamethrowers. A burst of light caught my attention; a burning burst through a window on the ground floor, rolling on the rocks outside. I took three shots, putting two into the vampire's head, and he stopped moving.

Nicholas Corcoran's POV

When I saw that Leo had put me in the fourth of the five vehicles, I was pissed off. Vicki was MY mate, and I should be first in the door to rescue her. I made my objection known, loudly and publicly, before our mission brief. Leo then demonstrated how a mantled Alpha handles dissent.

I was on my back with his hand around my neck, defeated before I knew I was in a fight. I tried to get free, but he was strong as an ox, and his fingers were crushing my neck. I stopped struggling and bared my neck in submission. He let go of my neck, then helped me up. "There are reasons behind my decisions, Nicholas. There are ways to ask for them without questioning my judgment." I just nodded, not wanting to get him angry again. "Each car has a purpose. The lead car does a forced entry into the building. They will fan out and eliminate any guards at the front of the building. Car two owns the warehouse entrance; they will have to hold back a hundred vampires to keep us safe. Car three owns the front stairway; they have to keep the vamps from ambushing us and clear the upstairs offices with a team coming in the back. Guess what car four does?"

"The stairway to the basement."

"Exactly. Now, do you want to switch cars, or do you want to trust me to put you where you need to be?"

"I'll trust you," I said.

"Good." I kept my mouth shut during the mission brief. Being an Aussie, I didn't have experience with firearms like the Yanks did, and they weren't going to trust me with one. Leo was leading Car Four, and he handed me a big pair of bolt-cutters, two small breaching charges, and a pry bar. "You open the door, we take out any vamps, then you bust the girls out," he told me. "Turn the breaching charge on and push the button, and it blows three seconds later. Use the tools if you can, but decide quickly on how to do it. We're sitting ducks on the stairway."

"I'll handle it," I told him.

Waiting sucked; I couldn't sit still, and I couldn't eat. Some of the warriors recognized what was going on and talked me into a card game. It worked to distract me, and I ate some snacks while we were playing.

Once we loaded into the cars, the leaders of each group briefed their team on the plan. Leo brought Emily onto our team after discussing it with the other Masters. "We can't use flamethrowers or firearms once we hit the stairway, or we risk harming the girls," Leo said. "Tom, Dick, you'll be with me to clear a path to the door and hold it. You'll stay and secure the stairs. Nicholas opens the door, and Emily goes down first in case a guard is on the stairway. Our contact said there is another gate at the bottom, and then the door to the cell. Nicholas, you follow Emily down to get the gate, and I'll follow you. We get through the gates, free the girls, and get out."

Emily picked it up from there. "Our priority is to get the girls out. Once we have them, the rest of the teams will collapse around us as we head to the cars. Any vampires remaining won't be our responsibility."

It all made sense. As we sat in the parking lot, I used the breathing exercises I learned for diving to calm myself. When the SUV started moving, I opened my eyes and looked out. "What's going on with the people," I asked as I saw them standing around, staring up the road.

"Mermaids," Leo said. "Hang on."

The engine raced as Tom accelerated out of a hard turn. We raced into the parking lot, screeching to a halt. Emily had the door open and was out before I stopped moving; I ran out, following behind my team. Gunfire was everywhere as we ran inside, and I ignored it as I stayed behind the rest of my team.

I shoved the pry bar into the door gap just above the handle and wrenched it open. Emily rushed in with me behind her. "VICKI!"

"WATCH OUT!"

Ch.49

Nicholas Corcoran's POV

I felt someone grab me by the belt and haul me backward just before automatic weapons fire came up the stairway. Fiona's warning, and Leo's quick reaction, kept me from being turned into a casualty.

Emily launched herself down the stairs, and I heard a loud crash when she reached the bottom. The shooting stopped, and Vicki was yelling my name. "It's safe," Emily said.

I let Leo look down the stairs before I did. Emily was near the bottom of the stairway with a dead vampire at her feet. Leo checked it for himself before he sent me down. We could see the dead vamp's head leaning against a gate at the bottom.

Emily had taken a half-dozen shots from the M-16 rifle the dead vamp had fired. "Are you all right," I asked as I reached her. She was a bloody mess.

"It could have been a lot worse. I'll heal in a few minutes," she said. Emily removed the knife stuck in the dead vampire's arm and looked at it before tossing it to the ground. "Great throw, and thank you. Get the door open, Nicholas. Your mate needs you."

Hell yeah. I looked at the door and thought about blowing it. "Check the pockets, wolf boy," Emily said without turning around as she walked up the stairs.

Yeah, that was smarter. I found a key ring and opened up the gate. The girls were waiting for me as Leo followed me into the space outside their cell. "The bars are silvered," Vicki warned.

Leo went up to the bars, his eyes looking over the girls. "We're getting you all out of here. Is anyone hurt?"

"Vicki's on bedrest," Fiona said. "The rest of us are fine."

I found the right key and pulled the door open. The five girls didn't rush out; instead, they waited for me to get my mate. "Hey, my love," I said as I picked her up.

"I never lost hope you'd come for me," she said. She buried her face in my chest as we walked out of the prison cell. "I lost our baby."

"I know." Leo was using the bolt-cutters to remove the silvered collars from us, and I could feel their joy as they rejoined the Pack link. When Vicki's collar came off, her love and loss almost overwhelmed me. "Let's get out of here," I said.

The other girls walked ahead of us on the stairs, avoiding the corpse at the bottom. I didn't feel her weight in my arms as I carried her up; such was my happiness at having her back. There was a cheer as the girls entered the office building, everyone clapping and welcoming them back.

"Thank you all for coming to rescue us," Vicki said for them all. "I'll never forget your courage and sacrifice."

Leo had to handle some things with the vampires; after all, we'd just had a firefight, complete with grenades, flamethrowers, and automatic weapons in the middle of an industrial area. Even with the Mermaid's help, you couldn't hide a battle like this.

It was time to get out. The warriors who remained were tending to the wounded. As we walked towards the door, I saw people leaving their weapons in a pile for the vampires to dispose of. There was no point in trying to bring them back into the States, much less Australia. "Leo, our teams have finished clearing this building," a man said. "The Vampires have control over the warehouse and have captured the remaining vampires. We only have a few minutes before the police arrive."

"Thank you, Ivan. Evacuate the wounded and retrieve our dead," Leo replied. "The vampires will take care of their kind."

"You should know Chairman Carver didn't make it," Ivan said as he pointed over to the bodies near the rear door before he walked away.

I looked over to see Leland Carver's armor-clad corpse as wolves zipped it into a body bag. Five other body bags lay next to him. Leo took one last look at the bodies, then turned back to the staircase.

There was a shriek of happiness as Fiona jumped into Joseph's arms. He cupped her butt as she wrapped her legs around his hips and kissed the hell out of him. "We've got to go," I said, and Joseph didn't let her down as he walked outside with us. Amy, Makani, Noelani, and Carly all looked around longingly for their mates, their faces falling when they didn't see them. "Sorry, girls," Leo sent over the Pack link to them. "The SEALs are still training, and Michael Kanoheh is in Cancun with your Mom, Carly. You'll be able to talk to them soon."

The crisp mountain air felt great as we walked out to a waiting SUV. Vicki stayed in my lap, and our driver took off as soon as the doors closed. "Do you need a hospital, love?"

"No, I just need you and a few days in bed together," Vicki said. "Sleeping."

I snorted at this. "I'll make sure you're healed up first," I promised.

Fiona touched my arm. "The vamps took two pints of blood from each of us, and we're still recovering. A nurse gave Vicki a drug to end her ectopic pregnancy. I didn't get the name of it, but the nurse said it was working, and she's been getting better."

"Are you all right, Fiona?"

She let out a breath and leaned back into Joseph's arms. "Physically, I'm healing. I'll never get back what those bastards took from me, and I'll never be able to give my mate the purity I saved for decades. I can't even get my revenge because the vampires killed them."

"We'll get a doctor to check you all out when we're safe." I didn't say much else; I didn't have to. My wolf and I poured our love for Vicki through the bond as I held her close. She fell asleep in my arms as I rubbed her back through the scrubs they were wearing.

We were twenty minutes away and nearly back to our hotel when the driver got a call. "Understood," he said. Hanging up, he did a U-turn.

"Where are we going?"

"Change of plans," the driver said. "Leo wants you all at Master Vespucci's mansion."

"WHAT," Fiona asked. "Why would we go there?"

"You'll have to ask him," the driver replied.

I tried to reach Leo on the link, but he was too far away. "What happened up there," I asked Joseph.

"Most of it went just like we planned," Joseph said. "We'd use auto shotguns, rifles, or flamethrowers to incapacitate them before the trail wolves took their heads off with the swords. I was in the group holding the entrance to the warehouse, and that was a fucking bloodbath. Do you have any idea how much damage a flamethrower can do against a group of people?"

I could just imagine. "How many survived?"

"Maybe twenty. The vampire masters and their people hit both sides of the warehouse concurrently, and they waded in and parted the crowd like Moses. Heads were rolling everywhere, and the smart ones followed the order to give up. Some tried to escape to the office, but our flamethrowers took care of them quickly. The older vamps ended their suffering, and it was all over in less than a minute."

Damn. Over eighty vampires dead in less time than it took us to get down to the girls. I was glad those Masters were on our side!

We'd been driving about five minutes when the sky lit up, and I could see a huge explosion in the distance. "Was that ours," I sent out to everyone over the Pack bond.

"Yes," Leo replied to us all. "The vampires stashed all the bodies down in the cell, then set off a gas explosion and brought the whole building down onto it. Master Emily is going to stay behind to make sure the investigators write the explosion off as natural gas line leak. The mermaids made sure there were no human witnesses."

"Damn. The Masters can pull that off?"

"Emily assures us she can steer the investigation that way, and I have no reason to doubt her."

It was a handy power to have. I narrowed the link down to just Alpha Leo. "Alpha, why are we going to Master Vespucci's house?"

"You're not questioning my orders again, are you?"

"No, but we're all trying to figure out why we're going from the frying pan to the fire."

I could sense Leo's amusement at this. "We're going to imprison the girls in Vespucci's basement, of course." With that, he closed the link.

Ch. 50

Consuela (Mardona) Vespucci's POV

I stopped under a streetlight after walking a few blocks from the warehouse and looked through my purse. I still had the bottle of bloodroot extract in there, and I couldn't afford to get caught with it. It was too valuable to throw away, so I compromised. I grabbed a syringe from my medical kit and filled it with the deadly poison. I tossed the empty bottle into the trash, then capped the needle and slid it into a pen holder in my purse. If I had time, I'd taint some of the other blood bags.

I got back to the mansion about six-fifty at night. I waved to the guard at the gate, then walked into the mansion. I needed to shower and change, and all my stuff was now in Master Vespucci's bedroom. I was just about to the stairway leading there when Hector, Master Vespucci's right-hand man, stopped me. "Paco said he needs to see you immediately," he said.

Shit. "Did he say why?"

"He doesn't have to, bitch. Get your ass downstairs and find out." I could see that my new marital status hadn't gained me any respect among the older vampires. At least he didn't smack me around, which was an improvement. Our Master was sure to be a jealous husband and wouldn't want his property damaged unless he did it himself.

I turned around and headed for the library instead. Opening the hidden door, I walked down the narrow stairway and waited at the bottom until the door opened. Paco was waiting for me at the security desk.

"You asked to see me?"

"I ordered you to see me, Consuela. Don't forget your place."

"Yes, sir," I said.

"You've been a naughty little girl, haven't you?"

My stomach dropped. Was I caught? Did he know? I looked around for other guards, expecting I'd be dragged off and tortured until I spilled my secrets. "What are you talking about?"

"Sit down, Mrs. Vespucci." He gestured to a chair next to him, and I sat down. He pulled up security camera footage on his computer screen. I froze when I realized what it was; I didn't even know there WERE cameras in the storage room with the refrigerator. He hit play, and I recognized the feed from earlier. "I went back and reviewed the tape after you left tonight. Imagine my shock when I saw you unload your blood from the hospital, then go into the segregated storage for the werewolf blood." The video played on, showing me pulling out the syringe and injecting into the two bags of Vicki's blood before re-crimping the bags. Paco didn't say anything as it kept playing; he watched me replace that blood, then swap out the rest of the werewolf blood with human blood I'd marked as werewolf blood.

I was so fucking dead. I mean, I was a vampire, so I was technically undead, but soon I'd be REALLY, no shit, 100% fucking DEAD. Master Vespucci would make an example of me.

I was afraid to say or do anything that might set Paco off. I nervously grabbed my purse, moving it to my lap. I moved a finger towards the syringe; killing myself would be better than what they would do to a traitor.

"As I said, you've been a naughty girl. I went into the fridge and swapped the blood bags back, all except the two bags of Vicki's blood. I know that you tampered with them. What I want to know is what you put in there?"

I just shook my head, unable to even move my lips. Paco turned on me, grabbing me by my neck and slamming me to the floor. My head spun from the impact, my vampire healing clearing it a moment later. "WHAT. WAS. IT."

He knew I'd poisoned the blood, so there was no getting out of this. "Bloodroot extract," I said.

He pulled me back up, dropping me back into the chair. "The same poison Vicki used to kill Master Alexander."

"Yes. It eats the body away from the inside, and by the time you recognize the poison, it's too late to save you."

He didn't say anything; he just leaned back and looked at me. "Did you ever wonder why Master Vespucci married you this morning?" I nodded my head. "Oh, it's official. The priest filed the paperwork when the offices opened, and as far as the Mexican Government is concerned, you're now his wife. It's going to be a very short marriage, I expect. Has he even consummated it yet?"

I shook my head, no. "He used my mouth before I went to work."

Paco laughed. "Well, he's more of an ass man, but I expect you already know that." I did, as every female vampire did, and most of the males. "Back on topic. Vampire masters often get married to another vampire for purely financial reasons. With our long lives, they accumulate fortunes in the human world that must be protected. We can't die, and we don't age; humans will figure out something is wrong eventually. That means the Master has to do what every three to five decades?"

It was so obvious, and I hadn't thought of it. "Change his identity and maybe his location," I said.

"Exactly. Master Vespucci is getting ready to make a change. He will challenge and defeat Master Cyprian and take over the New Orleans Coven. With the move, Hernando will fake his death here and reappear in the United States under a new name. Hector's promised the Mexico City Coven, but he won't get much of Vespucci's money. After the Master's tragic 'death,' his estate will turn over to you, his grieving widow. His plans require a legal wife, thus the sudden marriage ceremony."

It suddenly made sense why he wanted me kept safe. "When is this happening?"

"After the new year," Paco said. "Now, for the rest of the story. Master Vespucci doesn't care about you; you are unremarkable, young, and weak, and he is incapable of love. He picked you because he can command you to obey him, and you aren't as unstable as the newly turned. After your move to New Orleans, Master will force you to marry him under his new name to regain his fortune. After some time passes, you'll have a fatal accident. He gets the money, and you die after serving your purpose. What do you think about your future now, Consuela?"

"I didn't know," I said. "I didn't ask for this."

"It doesn't matter whether you know or not. Like your marriage this morning, you have no choice in the matter. Master will command, and you will obey. I'll give you a choice, though, IF you help me."

"How?" How could I help Paco, and more importantly, why would I aid a man who was so cruel to me?

"Hector and Hernando have their deal, but it leaves me out. I want Mexico City. You want Hernando dead while you live. Our desires intersect here, and if we work together, we can both get what we want. You make sure they drink the tainted blood, and I will be the one marrying the widow and taking over the Vespucci fortune. In return, I'll set you up with a business that provides you a good income and allow you to operate independently in a smaller Mexican city. You'll be free from me and any Coven responsibilities. Are we in agreement?" He held out his hand to me.

"Yes," I said as I shook it. What choice did I have? If Vespucci ever saw that video, I'd spend months in agony, begging for death.

"Good. Get out of here, kid." I stood up, my legs shaking so badly I hand to put a hand on the table to steady myself. I was just starting to move when motion alarms started going off. Paco took one look at the cameras and hit the alarm button. "We're under attack, dozens coming onto the property," he said over the internal speaker system to the entire mansion.