Return of the Real Italian Alphas (6 page)

“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” Desmond wanted to know.

“Oh, you won’t want to miss out on this,” Gabriel said then. “It’s sure to be entertaining. We’ve got the use of Gordral’s lance.”

“You’ve actually found it, then?” Desmond gasped. “I can’t believe it.”

“Not only did we find the lance, we even found Gordral himself,” Betsy added. “That bastard has messed with us for the last time.”

“Now all we need to do is figure out how to get everyone to New York,” said Gabriel. “I wonder if Rico would be able to get us a really big plane.”

“Wait, how many people are you trying to take?”

“About thirty, I think,” Gabriel said. “That’s including a small army of apostates and a bunch of us Alphas who possess some nifty little stones to help us stay alive.”

“Right,” said Desmond skeptically. “Anyway, I was only asking since the plane that brought me here can seat twenty, and the pilot is in this very facility waiting for me to bring you back.”

“Rico can fly a plane,” Gabriel mentioned. “I don’t think we’ll need your pilot friend for this trip.”

“Yes, I quite agree,” Desmond said with a grin of understanding. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Just let me know when it’s time to leave.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

         
The group of twenty-five passengers crammed into the small plane could easily be described as the strangest party ever assembled. What with several apostates including Gordral, one much disguised demon who had transformed himself to avoid scaring any spectators, and a group of Alpha werewolves, one of them female, the journey took almost a day and was a rather cramped endeavor.

Of course Rico knew better than to land at the airport or at Lupo’s private air field so he had to decide on another spot to put the plane down. This was much more complicated since they were flying in from off the coast, meaning they were expected to be boarded in search of persons not in possession of proper paperwork, of which they had a few.

In the end, he landed about a state too far north and they had to hijack a bus to get everyone where they wanted to be, but he didn’t seem to mind. It had been a while since he’d done anything naughty, and he seemed to enjoy the thrill.

When Rico stopped the car and told everyone to get out and head inside, Gabriel did not pause to question him on the matter. But once all of them were safely in, he rounded on the man with all his questions eagerly waiting to be asked.

“Why have we stopped here, and where is ‘here’ anyway?”

“Calm down, Gabriel,” he said with a smile. “We were in no danger, I just thought that since we’ll be entering the caves soon we may as well get some rest and gather a few supplies before we do.”

“Where are we supposed to get supplies?” asked Gabriel, confused now.

“In the basement, of course,” he chuckled. “This is one of my safe houses. I have them all over the city.”

“You own this place?” Gabriel clarified.

“Yes, but not under my own name, which would be quite foolish if you wanted a place where you could hide, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, of course it would,” Gabriel replied with a smirk. “Rico, you never fail to surprise me.”

“Thanks, boss,” he said with a grin. “Shall we go downstairs now?”

Gabriel nodded, and the two of them headed for the stairs. When they reached the bottom Rico gasped with indignation as he looked at the mess all over the floor.

“Somebody looted my stash!” he growled as he stalked across the room and began to straighten things along the way. He opened a safe in the wall that was hidden behind a shelf and saw that the contents were still inside. “Not somebody who knew what was really here, it would seem. Now to find out who our visitors really were.”

“You have surveillance?” Gabriel smirked.

“Of course I do,” Rico grumbled. “Doesn’t everybody?”

“Nobody that I know of,” Gabriel smirked. He followed Rico into another room where a video and audio feed were connected into some surveillance equipment, and a yellow light indicated all occurrences of activity in the room. This first one obviously being their own entry, he flicked a button and they waited for the machine to play the second.

Two young men had come down there about eight months earlier and dug through the stuff on the shelves, eating foods out of cans and smoking some of the weed they found there. Then they took the rest of the weed with them and left again, laughing all the way.

“Just a harmless prank, I think,” said Gabriel with a shrug.

“Harmless?” Rico grumbled. “They made off with three hundred dollars’ worth of product. I wouldn’t precisely call that harmless. If I wasn’t rolling in money already that could have really broke my bank. Those two are lucky I don’t know who they are or I’d really give them a piece of my mind.”

The yellow light was still on once the clip had been shown, so Rico pressed the back button one more time. He expected to see the kids again, or maybe others of a similar nature, but that wasn’t what greeted his eyes.

“Lucretia?” Gabriel mouthed, unable even to say the name. “How would she know about this place?”

Rico was blushing slightly. “I believe I may have brought her here once, boss. I’d forgotten all about it. But I’m not sure if she was there on Lupo’s orders or if she had an entirely different reason.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when we started working with her again, it kind of brought back a few things between us from the past—things you probably don’t want to know about,” he explained. “This is the place we went to—resolve some of them.”

“So you’re telling me that you slept with my ex-wife here, and you were foolish enough to bring the entire party to the same place now?” Gabriel asked incredulously. “What were you thinking? Lupo could have this place watched, bugged even. He may be aware right now of just how many of us there are and where he can find us. How much more stupid could you be?”

“Calm down, Gabriel, it can’t be that bad,” Rico said. “She’s by herself and just looking around. If she’d been there on business her henchmen would probably have been with her.”

“I don’t think I’m willing to take that chance,” he said stubbornly. “Since when has Lucretia ever been someone we could trust? Clearly I never could if you’re telling me that things went on between you in the past as well.”

“I never meant for it to happen, you know that,” he insisted. “But damn, Gabriel, the woman may be a bitch but she’s really hot. I’ve never understood how you could have dumped her in the first place.”

“You said it yourself, she’s a bitch,” Gabriel said. “I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.”

Rico nodded. “So, do we stay or do we go? We could easily grab some things and head out.”

“Yes, I believe we must go,” Gabriel decided. “We are too close to the completion of this mission to take a chance on Lucretia’s whims.”

“All right, I’ll tell the men to gather supplies and we’ll be on our way,” he agreed. “Boss, I hope this doesn’t change things between us. I really do love you like a brother. I would do anything for you. You must know that.”

“All is fair in love and war,” Gabriel said wryly. “You are welcome to her, my friend. See if you’re able to tame her where I could not.”

“As to that, I don’t know if she wants me,” he replied. “The last time we spoke we had an argument because I wouldn’t switch sides to Lupo’s team. I told her that loyalty was much more important than love could ever be and she stormed out in a huff. Something tells me it wasn’t exactly the right thing to say.”

“You’re probably right,” Gabriel smirked. “And yet, she came back, as you can see.”

Lucretia had picked up something from the laundry basket that had been left sitting near the washer and dryer on the far side of the room. It appeared to be one of Rico’s T-shirts, and she rubbed it to her cheek as she inhaled its scent. Tears sprung up in her eyes, which she wiped onto the shirt as well.

“I may be a bit of a cynic, but that doesn’t look like the face of a woman who has given up,” Gabriel pointed out.

“No, it doesn’t,” Rico agreed. “But that doesn’t change anything, does it? I’m still going to do things the same way. I promised to help you destroy Lupo and that’s exactly what I aim to do.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

 
The bus stopped just inside the outskirts of northern New York City. Rico didn’t think it would be a good idea to park the thing anywhere too conspicuous, so it was a good twenty yards away from the nearest entrance into the Alphas’ lair. He led everyone inside in groups of five at a time, instructing them to refrain from looking around lest they alert the guards who knew must be around somewhere.

“Stealth is going to be a really big issue,” he explained once everyone was inside. “We go quick, and we go quiet, and we should probably not stick to one group. Obviously Gordral, Gaal-det, Betsy and Gabriel should be among one team, so they can do what we came here for. I will lead the way with another team. The rest of you can divide as you please and follow behind us a bit. I will place Desmond as another leader, since he has at least been down here before.”

“Damn, I wanted to be on the demon’s team,” Desmond teased with a grin. “But I can see your point.”

“Good, now let’s move out.”

The caves were almost completely dark, so that even the wolves, with their low-light vision, had trouble seeing the walls. For a while, the floor descended fairly steeply, but finally it leveled out so they could traverse more easily. So far, they hadn’t run across a single Alpha, and they had to have been walking for over an hour.

Just as they were beginning to think the caves were abandoned completely they heard voices up ahead. They followed the sound and located the source. Probably forty people were seated around a banquet table in a large cavern at the end of the smaller cave they’d been following. They were toasting something but then the man who held up his glass froze in mid-boast and looked directly where they stood.

“Intruders!” he growled angrily, and jumped up onto the table, pointing. The party he spotted was Rico’s, so Betsy and Gabriel’s party was a bit further back. When Gabriel realized there was going to be a fight, he told his group to hurry, since its members were among the strongest. They surged forward and quickly joined the fray as mayhem erupted.

“Don’t let any of them escape,” Rico ordered. “They could forewarn the ultimate quarry.”

Rico pulled out a gun and gave it to Gabriel, and he gave him a funny look. “I thought these bullets would only wound them.”

“We analyzed the lance,” he explained. “It was the Riconite, only blended with aluminum. I had a few bullets made once I knew, but there are only a hundred so aim carefully.”

“Are you sure they’ll work?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” said Rico, then he shot at one of the Alphas, and the head practically exploded. “Yes, they do,” he answered then.

“Well, all right, then,” said Gabriel with a determined sneer. He aimed and shot ten of the Alphas before one managed to land a glancing blow on his shoulder. In response, he shot that one in the face.

“It’s a good thing we aren’t doing this under a full moon,” said Desmond tiredly as he passed Gabriel by. “I don’t want to even imagine what that would be like.”

“Ugh! Don’t remind me!” said Gabriel as he shot yet another enemy. He didn’t see any more to shoot after that, so he perused the room and saw that they’d all fallen. “Rico, are we good?”

“It seems like it, assuming nobody heard the guns,” he said. “The silencers do a decent job, but you never know since we’re in a cave.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to keep our eyes open then,” said Gabriel.

“There’s still plenty of space between here and Lupo’s cave,” Rico reminded him. “It’s a fair bet that by the time we get there it’ll be night time. It’s three days till the moon is full, but some of the more powerful wolves may be able to transform tonight. Keep yourself frosty.”

“Oh, I intend to transform myself, as soon as I am able,” Gabriel told him.

“So do I,” he said with a grin. “You can bank on that.”

#

Another hour passed and then another. They were under the heart of the city and the lack of Alphas was beginning to disconcert them. Rico called a halt when they reached yet another area that should have been populated and didn’t find a soul.

“There’s something strange going on here,” he told them all. “I’m not sure what it is but the Alphas are obviously all elsewhere. We could be walking straight into a trap.”

“Even if it is some sort of a trap, there’s little we can do about it now,” Gabriel pointed out. “We’re going to have to press on.”

“I want you all to make sure your guns are loaded and your stones are securely against your skin,” said Rico with some urgency. “If any werewolf manages to feel the urge to turn, do it. The stronger we are when we get there, the better.”

Various voices went up in agreement, and then they all joined together to continue forward in the gloom. Gabriel took Betsy’s hand in his and gave it a squeeze as they went.

“If this doesn’t go the way we planned, I want you to know I love you very much, ma bella,” he told her.

“I love you too,” she told him with a smile. “Always and forever.”

“How very sweet,” scoffed Lucretia from somewhere behind them. They turned to see her leaning casually against the cave wall, watching the rather large group pass her by. When they looked ready to pounce, she straightened up and walked casually in their direction. “Now that’s not very sporting, so many of you against one lone wolf. Don’t bother. As you may have guessed, I came here to talk.”

“What are you doing, Lu?” Rico demanded as he crossed his arms over his chest and glared.

“I’m just being myself, I suppose you’d say,” she practically purred as she stepped past him, running a finger down his spine along the way. “Since this is what was so important to you I thought maybe I’d turn a blind eye to it—at least for now. You see, my Alphas and I had important business, so we weren’t down here when this rather large army passed by. Now, what do I get for being such a good girl?”

“What do you want?” Rico asked.

“A piece of the power, of course,” she said.

“You can have it,” Gabriel said. “I’m just here to get my family back and be able to go home afterwards. I could care less about your precious power.”

“Now Gabriel, don’t be so hasty,” Rico said. “I don’t think being in charge of everything would be such a bad gig. You might grow to like it.”

“Rico, my friend, if you think so then perhaps you should take the job yourself,” Gabriel suggested.

Lucretia’s eyes rounded, just for a moment, and then a satisfied smirk settled across her features. “You know, that may be the best news I’ve heard all day. What a wonderful idea you’ve come up with, Gabriel. You should be commended.”

“Boss? You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yeah, boss, I am,” said Gabriel with a grin. “So I take it that means there’s nobody between here and Lupo’s door?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” she replied. “I have a lot of clout around here, but it doesn’t extend quite that far. You’ll still have need of those bullets. Fascinated to hear more about them, by the way.”

“Perhaps another time?” Rico suggested as his army began to fidget.

“Oh, yes, very sorry,” she said. “Wouldn’t want to keep you from taking care of business. Most pressing matter, to be sure.”

“Extremely pressing,” Gabriel said sternly.

“See you later, then,” she answered, her glaze flicking from Gabriel to Rico and back again. “Good luck.”