Duel Nature (24 page)

I didn’t tell him the interesting ideas that
Grim had shown me about the satellites overhead. Better to hold
some things back.

***

With Stewart and gang gone, Tanya and I made
sure Gramps was okay, a condition that was obvious by the energy
and vigor he showed cleaning up the kitchen. He then insisted on
heading out to see how his farm was doing.

I looked at my vampire after Gramps had
driven off in his beloved six-wheeled ATV. “You probably added
several years to his life by giving him your blood,” I stated.

“It may be more than that.
Dr. Singh thinks that my blood is several magnitudes more effective
than other vampires. I may have added several decades to his life,”
she answered, smugly. Her blue eyes narrowed, focusing on my throat
and the pulse in my neck. “But I would rather talk about
your
blood,” she said with
a sly, hungry grin.

I put one hand over my neck and attempted to
look scared. She laughed. “Of course if you’re reluctant, I could
always see if one of the Pack wants to donate. Werewolves are so
very fit!” she said, lasciviously.

I growled involuntarily at
the thought, then
moved,
scooping her up and hauling her to my old
bedroom.

***

After Tanya’s snack and all that followed, we
visited the Pack next door to see how they were getting on.

Kelly showed off the transformed milk room
which had become the production facility for the line of natural
pemmican bars she and two of the wolves made. The modern pemmican
recipe that I had shown her had been tweaked and improved, quickly
becoming a big hit through the New York Pack’s chain of sporting
goods stores. Lupine Sports had initially placed the product in the
hiking and camping section of their stores where it was a good
addition to the other hiking foods. But the energy dense treats had
found favor with the martial arts side of the store as a quick pick
me up.

“Beef is the mainstay, but venison flavored
is in the most demand. We’re just about ready to roll out bison and
elk flavors,” Kelly told me while I looked over the sales numbers
she had provided me. My review was cursory as I had faith in the
weres and I wasn’t overly concerned about my investment in the
business. The startup money I had supplied had been found money;
money realized from a bet.

Tanya took the report from my hands and
analyzed it in a glance.

“Kelly, your sales have tripled!” she
said.

The tall Alpha looked pleased at her words.
“Yeah, we really can’t keep up. This space isn’t big enough,” she
said with a sigh.

“You should expand,” Tanya said. Our link
told me that her business sense was thoroughly intrigued.

“That’s an issue. I’ve been trying to talk
Brett into getting a loan from his father. I found a mothballed
meat packing plant nearby that would be perfect and fairly cheap.
Getting a bank loan is out of the question, none of the local banks
will entertain the idea…too new. Brett is reluctant to ask his
father for anything more than the distribution help he’s already
provided. Now I’ve got other sporting goods companies asking for
the product and I can’t supply it.”

Tanya and I exchanged a glance. “We’ll loan
you the money. Write up a request and shoot it to Chris by email.
Rates are low right now, so ask for enough to really do what you
need to,” she said.

Kelly looked excited. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. I’ve actually
seen the in-store response at your father-in-law’s headquarter
store, plus these numbers look great. I’ve….
we’ve
got money sitting around not
earning enough interest so this would be good for us as well,”
Tanya said.

I’m okay financially, but Tanya’s wealth was
in the big leagues. I didn’t pay much attention to money, letting
my grandfather manage my trust and letting Tanya handle my Coven
pay. All of my living expenses were handled by the Coven, so I
wasn’t even sure how much money had built up in my vampire run
accounts.

Kelly looked at me for confirmation of
Tanya’s words. “Don’t look at me – she’s the financial genius!”

“It’s true, he doesn’t have much interest in
these matters,” my vampire sighed, giving me a mock glare. I
shrugged – what could I say?

The sound of a vehicle engine caught my ear –
Gramps on his ATV approaching from the trail to the farm. Thirty
seconds later he roared up in a cloud of dust and virtually hopped
out of the six-wheeler. Kelly looked thoughtful as she watched the
spring in his step then glanced first at Tanya than me. Tanya
suddenly found the three page report to be utterly fascinating and
I wasted no time intercepting my spring chicken of a
grandfather.

“Hey Chris, Len came up with an idea. Can you
leave these two alone for awhile?”

I glanced at the ladies. “They probably won’t
get into too much trouble…”

Tanya crossed her arms. “Bullshit, Gordon!
You and your devious grandsire are like kids in a dynamite
store!”

I took a moment to reflect on how very far my
vampire’s snark factor had come since I met her.

She smirked at me.

“And remember….he’s supposed to be resting!”
she admonished. Gramps rocked on his heels, hands behind his back,
trying to look innocent.

“Yes Dear,” I said, earning myself a much
darker glare.

Gramps and I hopped into the six-wheeler, the
old man spinning the little rig around in a circle, then sending it
rumbling down the rutted path.

“So whatcha got?” I asked.

“Whadda ya know about EFP’s?” he asked.

“EFP’s? Is that related to ESP?” I asked
puzzled.

“Not even remotely. Come on –time to hit the
workshop!” he said, making it sound like the Batcave.

Chapter 24

We found Len in the farm’s workshop which
looked like what you would get if a carpenter and a mechanic went
into the employment of a mad scientist. Mostly used to fix various
tractors and mechanical farm gear, with the occasional building
repair project thrown in, it also housed my Grandfather’s reloading
equipment and acted as storage for outdoor gear.

Len was using a machine press to punch out
little discs of copper from some old metal roofing. He had various
sizes of them ranging from an inch in diameter to some that must
have been three inches across. Near his left elbow, an Apple iPad
was propped up on its folded cover, looking incredibly out of
place.

Taking off his safety goggles, Len looked my
way, then beckoned us over to the bench.

“EFP’s Chris, ever heard of them?” Len asked.
I shook my head.

“Explosively formed projectiles. It’s a
variation of a shaped charge, used to attack armored objects from a
distance,” he said.

“Okay, I know that modern anti-armor rockets
usually have one or more shaped charges to blow holes in tank
armor, but a shaped charge has to be actually touching the surface
doesn’t it?” I asked. Growing up the table talk at the farm would
have been considered very masculine, covering everything from
politics, sports, hunting season, to modern warfare methods, with
the occasional farm topic thrown in for good measure.

“Right. EFP’s turn shaped charges into
distance weapons,” Len said.

I had seen them use shaped charges to blast a
field boulder into pebbles and remove a giant tree stump. Shaping
the explosives into a concave cone directed the explosive forces in
the direction of the open end of the cone. Flower pots were perfect
forms for packing with plastic explosive because of the cone
shape.

“Here’s the difference,” Len said holding up
a disc of copper. “A slightly concave liner of copper or steel is
placed over the end of the shaped charge. When triggered, the
explosive punches the metal into a bullet shape lump of molten
metal traveling at supersonic speeds. They tend to punch through
armor and spall metal bits all over the inside of armored vehicles.
Big problem for our troops in ‘Stan and Iran.”

Gramps picked up the iPad and triggered a
video that was already cued up. The display showed a graphic of how
the projectile was molded by the explosion and then displayed many
real life examples of the effects on US vehicles.

“So you think I should be making up explosive
devices?” I asked, scratching my head.

They both shook their heads, but Gramps was
the one who answered. “No, we thought maybe you could pretty much
duplicate the explosive part,” he said, waving his hands in the air
like the talent show magician.

“Oh!” I said, suddenly catching on. “Oh!
Maybe I could at that.”

It took the rest of the afternoon to figure
out and develop some degree of skill, but by focusing my aura the
right way, I could turn a three inch disc of copper into an inch
and a half diameter bullet that easily punched through two inches
of cold rolled steel plate.

The best technique was to dimple the disc
with my fingers so it was slightly concave. Then if I stood it
upright on a fence or wall (chewing gum provided a field expedient
stand) with the raised dimple pointing at me, I could clap my aura
encrusted hands together and fire off the projectile. I had used
the clap before to squash hellhounds and other nasties so that part
was easy. The aiming part was a lot harder.

Basically, I could hit stuff ten or twenty
feet away, but further than that and my chances dropped like a lead
balloon.

After my third miss, I turned to find Tanya
watching from behind the two old men. Noticing my stare, they
turned to find her within a few feet of them. Len jumped, clearly
not comfortable with her stealth. Gramps just sighed.

She smirked at their reactions.

“Trying to induce another heart attack, T?”
Gramps asked. Len was nowhere near that nonchalant. He understood
what she was and knew, theoretically, that she was on our side, but
Len had lived through a lot of dangerous times by listening to his
instincts. I’m pretty sure his instincts screamed at him everytime
she was near.

Tanya frowned at my grandfather’s words, then
slid forward like smoke. She patted his check, leaned in close
holding his eyes with hers and said, “Never. Ever!” Then she smiled
and continued on to me.

“Can I try?” she asked. I raised both
eyebrows at the thought, then gestured for her to take a stab.

Inspecting the various discs, she selected
one of the smallest, about an inch in diameter. A slight touch of
one well-manicured, steel hard fingernail dented the disc like a
miniature Chinese hat.

She examined my launch station, which to the
uninformed might appear to be a two-by-four driven end on into the
dirt on the small handgun range just outside the shop. Wrinkling
her perfect nose at the wad of peppermint chewing gum on the top of
the post, she bent over to position her disc.

As her back was to us and her jeans were of
the low-rise, tight fitting type, our gazes simultaneously dropped
to the perfect form on display.

Without turning around, she tsked. “Men!”

Len and Gramps immediately looked embarassed
but I just grinned at her with one eyebrow raised when she finally
glanced back. My link told me she was far from offended.

The disc set up to her satisfaction, she
stepped back three feet, bent over again (which caused another
round of involuntary head tilting on my part, the old men were
careful to look away) and sang a single note.

While my hearing is well beyond human, I
still remain tone deaf, so I can’t tell you what range the note was
in, but the effect was a folded projectile moving slightly faster
than the speed of sound that twanged off the armor, leaving a
respectable gouge.

She frowned, clearly disappointed.

I patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, you have
other talents,” I said with a smirk then danced away. She was
faster than I, her open handed smack on my shoulder sounding like a
gunshot. Okay, note to self: do not patronize vampire princess.

“I should be able to do better,” she
hissed.

Len, who looked very pale, cleared his
throat.

“Why?” he asked, then hurried on at her
glare. “I mean why try to make a projectile at all? You probably
don’t need them.”

“Explain, please,” she said, still frowning
but interested.

“Well, you have control of your voice right?
Theoretically, the sound waves you form should be just as deadly,”
he said.

Just what the hell were these guys reading at
night? I made a note to check to coffee table for textbooks.

Gramps was nodding. “Popular Science had an
article about directed sound weapons the military is exploring.
It’s in the house somewhere.”

“Directed sound weapons?” Tanya asked
intrigued.

“Yeah, the military is looking at sound as an
area denial weapon that’s nonlethal. Certain levels of sound that
create discomfort and pain. You could likely do that, but what I
was thinking of was a small sorta ‘packet’ of sound that would
punch a hole in something hard,” Len said, still nervous.

“Like when you blew a hole in the rock in
that mine…in Mexico,” I said.

Her frown cleared like a raincloud blown away
in a breeze. “Oh! I had forgotten that. I was very angry at the
time,” she said, thoughtful.

Gramps and Len exchanged a glance with
eyebrows raised, clearly not comfortable with the mental image of
an angry Tanya.

The vampire in question was lost in
recollection, but after a moment she got a ‘eureka’ expression.
Walking close to the metal plate that was her target she started to
bend over, stopped and glared back at us then stood straight
instead. She sang a note. The metal sang back. She tried another
note, with more power. The plate tinged in response. Nodding to
herself, she ran up the scale and back down stopping at a
particular note. A deep breath, a slight bend at the waist and a
single powerful tone exploded out of her throat. The metal
‘spanged’, a bright spot of light showing in its center.