Duel Nature (6 page)

Chapter 6

I hate weasels! Actually, I only hate
wereweasels, the regular wild kind don’t bother me. But the six
foot, mongoose-quick, were-kind evoked an immediate response in me.
Grim was suddenly in control, the sandwich in my hand now a
potential weapon. Tanya woke instantly, probably from both the
smell and my own response.

Wereweasels are the go-to assassins of the
supernatural world. They live to kill and are incredibly good at
it. Lacking the muscle mass of the wolves, bears, and big cats,
they made up for it in speed and insatiable blood lust. A single
weasel assassin had once killed a vampire in a bar, then killed
everyone else in the place, just for fun. Were weasels on board the
ferry couldn’t be a coincidence. Last time I met a weasel it killed
me…or came pretty damned close anyway.

My vampire and I looked at each other, our
interpersonal link clicking into a higher level, just a hair shy of
the eerie yet seductive level of oneness that happens to us in
combat. We both moved to the back of the room, standing and leaving
our seats fast enough that most of the people around us missed
it.

Looking out the rear windows we could just
see the last row of cars on the auto-deck below. An older-model
grey panel van was parked second from the right, looking like a
child-molester special, lacking only a ‘free candy’ sign on the
side.

“Excuse me? Did you see who was in that grey
van?” I asked the two corporate types. They turned, slightly
startled to find me suddenly in their part of the lounge, then
straightened as they caught sight of my companion.

“Actually we were just talking about them.
Five or six guys in really awful track suits got out. They had some
argument with the security guys, but must have passed inspection,”
the shorter of the two said, his eyes flickering between Tanya and
I, mostly straying to her.

“I, personally, wouldn’t have let them
onboard,” the tall one said, giving Tanya a practiced smile.

“Why?” I asked.

The shorter one answered as the tall one
suddenly looked uncertain in the face of Tanya’s complete lack of
response. She was in combat mode and the dangerous vibe that
emanated from her presence was powerful enough to penetrate their
beauty-addled brains. The oldest part of the human mind, the bit
that closely resembles a reptilian brain, picks up cues that the
newer evolved, ‘smarter’ sections don’t always catch. Danger cues,
like the ones my uber-vampire was giving off.

“They gotta be drug addicts, the way they
were all herky- jerky, just about shaking,” he said.

“Ah,” I said, remembering their earlier use
of the word jittery. Weasels are high energy, even for weres, and
their movements reflect that. They end up looking like a drug
addict with a bad case of withdrawal. They also possess predatory
eyes, the eyes of killers, which is another cue for most humans,
though they assume it means the weasels are just the
run-of-the-mill violent, criminal sort of addicts.

The weasels weren’t in the first class lounge
so we headed for the ferry’s regular class cabin. The quicker we
took the fight to them the better it would be for us and everyone
on board.

Moving out of the lounge, we headed through
the narrow passageway to the regular cabin, operating in silence.
Our link’s bandwidth had increased to the point that I was
‘feeling’ her movements before she made them and she felt mine.

There were four doors from the auto deck up
to the upper passenger area. All four led to stairwells that
emptied into the two parallel passageways that bracketed the
economy class cabin with its rows of airline style seating. The
twin hallways then lead further forward to the premier cabin which
we had just left. We both entered the standard cabin at its forward
most doorway, immediately spotting three shifty, dark-eyed weasels
diagonally across the cabin at the last entry on the other side.
Dressed in mismatched combinations of track suits, they all had
sharp pointed facial features and herky-jerky movements. All three
were in the process of leaving the cabin, but the last in line
noticed us and grinned, his teeth looking sharper than they
should.

Tanya cut straight across the cabin, moving
fast enough that her supermodel looks didn’t attract as much
attention as normal. I headed back into the corridor, moving toward
the stairwell to the auto deck. The ferry company and its crew had
been clear that no one was allowed on the auto deck during the
trip, even posting staff members to keep an eye on the stairwell
doors. The crew member at the top of the nearest stairwell nodded
at me as I moved past him. The next stairwell on that side of ship
was unmanned; the door was unlatched and open a bit. The ship’s
officer who was supposed to be watching was slumped, unconscious,
in a pile on the stairwell.

As I discovered this, my bond to Tanya told
me she was experiencing a similar set of circumstances in the other
corridor. Separated though we were, I knew we were moving in
lockstep as we descended the stairwell. And we both knew we were
heading into a trap.

Most of the human security team that the
Coven employs are ex-military and mostly ex-special ops types. I
hang with them more than I do with vampires and I’ve listened to
their discussions of small group tactics. On the topic of ambush
and traps their opinions are fairly consistent. If you know the
trap exists you can avoid it, take an alternative approach, or
intentionally trip it. If caught in an ambush you attack. With more
time we could have taken a different approach, maybe from the open
rear of the auto deck or something. But time was short, Awasos was
alone in our Tahoe, now surrounded by as many as six weasels, and
as strong as he is he is still less than a year old. So we tripped
the trap, so to speak, but we did it at speed.

Linked as one, we simultaneously rocketed
through the closed doors at the bottom of the stairwell. Even
sturdy ships doors weren’t meant for that kind of abuse; they both
tore free from their hinges, each smashing into the closest parked
car. Car alarms sounded their strident wail, but the fight was in
full swing before the electronic squeal was complete. Six weasels,
each fully Shifted into twisted ropes of fur, muscle and teeth,
waited for us, standing on their discarded track suits. But even
with their preternatural speed, they weren’t prepared for our
tactics. Instead of each turning to fight the closest furred
killers, we blasted straight out the doors, diving across the
cavernous space, using vampire energy techniques to extend our
dives and speed our flight. I leapfrogged the nearest car, which
also happened to be the one to get smashed by the door. Stretching
out in a forward dive I cleared the other two cars as Tanya did the
same. We crossed over the parked cars, passing each other before
slamming into the threesomes of corded muscle and fur that were
already reacting.

The weasel facing Tanya’s stairwell was fast
enough to turn completely around just as I smashed into him. Both
clawed front feet raked my rib cage as his head darted toward my
throat. Shocked at his speed, I managed to arrest his fang strike
by the simple expedient of driving my right bladed hand, covered
with an edge of hardened aura a single molecule in width, straight
through his throat and neck, decapitating him instantly. Rolling
forward and off the still kicking body, I dropped and spun on one
knee as the other two slammed into me from either side. Fangs
scored my skull on one side and my shoulder on the other, but both
of my outstretched, aura-edged arms had completed their passage
through the dense bodies of the weres, like helicopter blades
cutting through a cloud.

I stood up meeting Tanya’s eyes as the last
of her opponents slid free from the silver blade in her hand, while
my last two fell apart with meaty thunks. She had killed two in her
diving flight across the room, slipping silver tipped death into
their brains in mid-flight. Her latest weapon was a variation of
what’s known as a tactical pen. Usually made from hardened aluminum
or titanium, these pointed pens are fully functional for writing,
look expensive, but make excellent fighting spikes. Tanya’s were
made of titanium with the spike layered in silver which in turn was
covered with a peel away coating of rubber like plastic. They
easily passed security in every airport we had used, but in her
hands they were deadly killers. Her knife was a small solid
titanium blade, inlaid with enough silver to be lethal to were-kind
and vampires alike.

Blood dripped off my arms, but Tanya was
barely mussed. She only needed to wipe off her three blades to be
clean. My cleanup was gonna be a bitch.

“I gotta start using blades,” I muttered to
her. She arched one exquisite eyebrow and pointed at the two cars
whose alarms were going wild.

I channeled a burst of aura into each car,
silencing the alarms and likely shorting most of the electrical
systems. The actual fight had only taken a couple of seconds, so
the alarms hadn’t been going off very long. Still, we hadn’t much
time to clean up the scene. I started tossing chunks of weasel off
the back of the ship, trusting their very density to make them
sink. I did it fast, the bodies a mere blur and since I threw them
into the turbulence that the high speed ferry’s jets threw up,
there wasn’t much impact spray. Tanya meanwhile hosed the deck at
full vampire speed with a handy firehose, then hosed me off as
well. I did a rapid clothes change at the Tahoe with a pat or two
for a sleepy Awasos who had missed the whole thing. Two minutes of
intense activity and we were done. The damage cars and broken doors
would have to be a mystery as would the driverless grey van that no
one would ever claim. I felt bad for the cars owners but it could
have been a blood bath with a six weasel team in a kill frenzy.

Hearing approaching footsteps, we darted
forward to the other stairwells, climbed almost to where the
crewmembers stood watch, then jumped up to the ceiling of the
stairwell. We held ourselves above the head of the young employee
that suddenly bounded down the stairs, talking excitedly on his
radio. As soon as he was clear, we lowered ourselves back down, and
reentered the premier cabin, reclaiming our seats. If anyone
noticed my change of clothing they didn’t mention it. Likely they
didn’t as my vampire claimed most of the other passengers’
attention.

Tanya curled back up and I finished my
breakfast snack, while using my abnormal hearing to monitor the
suddenly frantic crew who were trying to figure out how two autos
and two doors got damaged, and two crew members rendered
unconscious. Anxious white uniforms appeared in the doorways
checking out the passengers, while trying to remain inconspicuous.
It didn’t work as a low buzz of excitement spread among our fellow
travelers.

An hour and fifty minutes later, the ferry
docked. The captain had us stay in the cabin till the owners of the
damaged cars were found, then we were directed to drive off the
ship and park near the line of police cars that met the ship at the
dock. Since our car was near the front of the line we were closest
to leaving, stopped only by a Michigan State Police car parked in
front of us. Everyone was told they had to remain till police could
question them, but we decided to speed things up. Tanya approached
the closest huddle of uniformed officers, capturing their immediate
attention. She spoke a couple of quick sentences to them and then
they were hurrying to move the cruiser. She climbed back in the
Tahoe and we drove off.

“Jedi voice tricks?” I asked, already knowing
the answer.

“Letting us go, they were happy to be,” she
replied in a perfect Yoda voice.

Chapter 7

We drove out of Muskegon, heading northeast
for three hours before pulling into an economy motel. I paid with a
Coven credit card, using a fake driver’s license, then drove the
Tahoe around back to room 23, where I woke Tanya, grabbed our bags
and let Awasos out to pee. A maintenance type driving a zero turn
lawn mower paused to watch my large canine friend stretch his legs,
then just shook his head and kept mowing. Back at the room I found
Tanya had roused herself enough to text a detailed account of the
weasel attack to Lydia. Then she hit the bed and was out cold.
Seeing as it was noonish, Awasos and I split a party platter of
Subway subs I had picked up on the way, then I showered, shaved,
and crawled into bed next to my mate. Questions about the
assassination attempt chased each other through my brain till the
overworked lump of grey matter refused any further thinking and I
passed out.

When I next peeled my crusty eyelids open,
five hours had passed. Tanya was just coming out of the bathroom,
hair wet from her shower, dressed only in French lingerie that cost
as much as a new refrigerator. She paused in full view to answer a
text on her iPhone, before coolly raising her eyes to meet
mine.

“I’m hungry,” she said with a slight
growl.

Awasos immediately padded to the door and
looked at me to go out. Feeding Tanya almost always led to bedroom
games and our bear-wolf was decidedly prudish about being anywhere
near us when we got frisky. Which was fine with us. She let him out
then launched herself the fifteen feet from the door to the bed,
pinning me to the mattress, fangs fully extended. Oh darn, held
down by the hottest girl on the planet. Poor me!

Quite a bit later, I finally got dressed and
took my furry friend for a ride to pick up more food for him and
me. As I paid the steakhouse bill of $238.15 for takeout, I
reflected that it was a damned good thing the Coven paid our room
and board. Feeding two metabolisms that burned over 8000 calories a
day each wasn’t cheap. Luckily, calories are easy to come by in our
nation of fast food and oversized portions as long as you have the
dinero.