The Real Italian Alphas (13 page)

“Yes, boss,” the other men agreed.

“This is so much more fun than a day at the mall,” Betsy told Gabriel as he took her hand in his. “At least down here we don’t have to wait in the cashier line.”

“And you don’t have to call yourself Mrs. Lupo,” Gabriel added, and chuckled when she gave a little shudder at the thought. “Now maybe the list you were working on might come in handy.”

“How so?”

“To remind you why we want to survive, my bella,” he said as he slid a hand over her belly. “What else?”

CHAPTER FIFTHTEEN

“We must have been down here over an hour by now,” Betsy pointed out later on. “The moon is sure to have risen. Why haven’t any of us changed to werewolves yet?”

“It is odd,” Gabriel agreed. “I don’t even feel the little tingles I normally get when I could become a wolf but choose not to. Perhaps we are too far beneath the surface to feel the moon’s effects.”

“But that can’t be it, boss,” Rico told him. “The moon influences the entire planet with its gravitational force. Being at the core itself would still allow for that pull. There must be some sort of way they are keeping us from transforming—some energy or specific type of metal or something.”

“You know, I still don’t know quite how this whole werewolf deal actually works,” Betsy mentioned. “So you’re saying it’s the magnetic force of the moon that somehow transforms us? I thought it was some kind of magic or something.”

“No, no, it’s all very scientific,” Rico assured her. “Just a science that we as humans haven’t quite grasped yet. In the werewolf blood there are large concentrations of certain elements that react with the moon, like we have magnets in a way. Only when these particular magnets interact with the moon’s magnets, it sets off signals in our DNA that tells it to change.”

“Magic,” Betsy repeated with a smirk.

“Yeah, magic,” he conceded, shaking his head. “Anyway, somehow that magic doesn’t seem to be happening. But the real question is, do the Alphas have immunity to the dampening field, or are we all going to fight as humans?”

“That’s an interesting point,” Gabriel said. The two looked over at him and saw that he was examining the wall closely and he had begun to scrape something free from the dirt.

“What are you doing, Gabriel?” Betsy wanted to know.

“Investigating,” he said, then handed a chunk of rock to Rico. “What is that?”

“It looks like metal ore of some kind,” he confirmed.

“The place is loaded with the stuff,” Gabriel said. “Do you think it may be the culprit?”

“Even if it is, there’s very little we can do about it except to get through the area it’s in,” Rico pointed out. “And the sooner the better, all things considered.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Betsy. “There’s something really creepy about this place.”

“Creepier than hell-hounds and traveling with a pack of werewolves while anticipating the arrival of other werewolves who want to eat us for dinner?” Gabriel asked. “
Ma bella
, don’t you find that creepy enough?”

“Does anyone else smell that?” she persisted. “It smells like sulfur or something. Like maybe there’s lava around here somewhere.”

“Considering the fact that we have no idea how deep in the ground we are, you might not be far off,” Rico told her.

“You are not making me feel any better,” Betsy complained. “Speaking of which, where are we supposed to go to the bathroom around here?”

“Go inside that little cave,” Gabriel suggested.

Betsy turned and saw a small opening in the rock wall. She cautiously stepped inside and took care of business, then tore a small portion of material of the bottom of her t-shirt to wipe with. A strange clanking sound reached her ears, and she turned to look further down the tunnel to see what it might be.

“You guys, come in here,” she called out to them. “I think I may have found another way through.”

The men filed into the small cave, and Betsy pointed down the tunnel she’d just been examining.

“That sounds like some sort of machinery,” said Rico.

“It sounds like a printing press,” Gabriel said. “I’ve worked with one before.”

“Do you think Lupo’s got people down here counterfeiting money?” Vito wanted to know.

“Well, it makes sense,” Betsy said. “He’s had me out depositing the bills all over the place. They have to come from somewhere. And there’s no way the Feds would come all the way down here looking for the evidence. It’s the perfect place for it if you think about it.”

They walked slowly through the long tunnel and entered a larger cavern on the other side. Sure enough, they found a battery-operated press running at the other end. Gabriel eyed it suspiciously. “Don’t touch anything. It may be a trap. Why would Lupo have this press down here unguarded, running off copies right when he knows we’ll be in the area?”

“You’ve got a point there, boss,” Rico agreed. “Still, all that money sure does look tempting.”

“There’s another tunnel off this way, boss,” Vito informed him then.

“
Andare,
we must go from this place,” Gabriel decided. “It is much too convenient for my liking.”

Rico sighed as he walked away, but he knew that Gabriel must be right. “Just the sort of thing Lupo would do, boss. Setting bait for his little lab rats.”

“Just so,” Gabriel agreed. One of the men accidentally ran into one of the boxes with money in it with the side of his foot, and four long, silver blades sliced through the air, nearly cleaving the hapless man in half. They all turned away from his shocked expression. “Quickly, get out of the room,” said Gabriel then. As they ran, another set of blades sliced, and then another. One of them nicked Desmond in the arm, making him yelp with the pain of it.

“Damn it, that’s going to fester big time,” he complained as they all reached the opening to the next tunnel.

“Duck!” Gabriel shouted, and they all fell to the floor and crawled through as one last set of blades sliced past above their heads.

“He must have had a lot of time to plan this trap,” Betsy muttered.

“About a century, give or take,” Gabriel said with a grimace. “Everyone, you must be much more careful where you step from now on. The last thing we need is to leave a trail of bodies for the Alphas to follow straight to our position.”

“Yes, Signore Gabriel,” the remaining men chimed in unison.

“Can you see anything, Rico?” he asked as the man crouched and moved slowly forward, examining the walls closely.

“I think that may have been the last of them,” he said. “At least for now.”

“How very reassuring,” Gabriel smirked. He motioned the men forward, preferring to bring up the rear with Betsy instead. At her look, he explained, “Whatever he has in store for us next, it’s certain to be somewhere up ahead.”

“Wonderful,” Betsy said dryly. “I can’t wait.”

*

Gabriel was certain there must be an ambush up ahead. There could be no other possible explanation for the lack of enemies all through these caves. Perhaps they were waiting for the group to become tired from walking so far, and then pounce upon them when they reached some far off, designated area.

The others were beginning to become complacent, the longer they walked, but he was still as alert as ever. He knew the Alphas were out there, knew that they were watching and waiting for them. It was only a matter of time before the battle commenced.

“Are we still fairly close to following your map, Rico?” he asked.

“That’s difficult to say, boss,” said Rico with a little shake of the paper. “When we found the counterfeiting machine, we went off course. I tried my best to compensate for that, of course, but still one never knows.”

“We need to know for certain,” Gabriel told him. “At some point we’re going to come up out of this maze, and when we do we’ll have to decide upon a direction to take. While I trust your guesses more than some men’s absolutes, that’s not going to find the amulet for us.”

“He must have moved it by now,” Rico insisted. “He’s not going to just leave it where he knows we’re headed. The thing is much too valuable for that. It isn’t going to matter what my map said at all if the thing isn’t even there.”

“I’m going to bank on the notion that he didn’t bother to move the amulet because he doesn’t think we’ll be able to get out of this labyrinth,” said Gabriel. “I think he knows exactly where we are, and so do the Alphas we have yet to encounter.”

“Yes, I expect them to attack any time as well,” Rico agreed. “The only problem is, what can we do to be ready for them? We can’t even turn to wolves to defend ourselves down here.”

“I can’t help thinking there’s some way to get past that dampening field,” Gabriel insisted. “Something we’ve missed somehow.”

“Short of digging out all the stones and putting them somewhere else, not likely,” Rico told him.

“Desmond, how is that arm?” asked Vito when they heard the man groan.

“Terrible, of course,” he answered.

“I wonder,” said Gabriel thoughtfully, and he went to the wall to dig out yet another piece of the strange ore. He walked over and rubbed it on Desmond’s wound, and within seconds it disappeared completely. “I thought as much. The Alphas aren’t coming after us because of this ore, not because of any plan Lupo may have set up. Perhaps if it can heal us, it might just as easily be used to harm them.”

“That’s a long shot, boss, but it might just work,” said Rico.

“Men, I know you’re all getting tired, and we would all love to sit a while, but we aren’t going to rest just yet,” Gabriel told them. “First we’re going to gather up a bunch of this ore and bring it along. When those Alphas attack, we’ll try using the stuff on them.”

“I wonder if that metal is easy to smelt,” commented Desmond, then. “We might be able to make some sort of crude weapons from it. I used to make my own bullets. Making a blade can’t be much more difficult. We can dig out molds in the dirt and put melted metal into them.”

“How are we supposed to cool it down?” asked Betsy unthinkingly.

“With the only liquid we could possibly have down here,” he pointed out, making her blush. “Yes, urine, lady. I know it sounds crude, but desperate times require desperate actions.”

“Very well, then,” said Gabriel as he gave his wife’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s get busy.”

#

As it turned out, the most difficult task wasn’t the digging of the ore, nor was it the digging of the molds. It was finding enough burnable materials to create a fire. Having realized there was little they could do on their own, they decided to follow their noses instead. They had been smelling sulfur for a while by then, and avoiding it lest they discover some form of impassable molten rock. But now that they required a bit of heat they looked for it instead.

It took about an hour to find the stuff, but finally they were near a very hot pool of magma, barely able to tolerate the fumes. They were trying to figure out how to melt the ore and get it into a form. Obviously they couldn’t just throw the rocks into the pool or they wouldn’t be able to get it out.

Finally, Betsy dug a shallow trench right up to the edge of the lake and some of the stuff flowed into the hole. When the makeshift mold was full, she lumped some dirt back over the edge so the trench was closed off again.

“Hand me some of that ore,” she said to one of the men, and he threw it into the hole for her instead. They watched as the rocks quickly melted down.

“That’s actually working,” Rico marveled.

“Well, now that we melted it, we need to cool it down. Anybody need to pee?” Betsy smirked.

“
Ma bella
, why don’t you go wait where it is cooler while the men and I do this?” Gabriel suggested. “I do not think you wish to know the men quite so well as that.”

“You’re right about that,” she agreed, and did as he said.

Sometime later, the men rejoined Betsy with several weapons cooling in their hands. Gabriel wryly gave one to her and said, “I made this one myself.”

Betsy nodded sheepishly as she took it, not certain this pronouncement made it much better. Yet, having a weapon in her hand made her feel a bit more in control of the situation than she had been before. Now they were ready to look for the way out. At least they would be after a bit of rest.

Once they had found the way back up to a higher level, away from the heat and fumes, the exhausted group rested for a while. They needed to gather a bit of strength for the inevitable battle they were to face when they tried to ascend from the labyrinth and up into the caves above. Rico busied himself with figuring out their probable position, but he couldn’t be sure his calculations were correct.

“I’m sorry about this, boss, but if I only had another point of reference I would know for sure.”

They’d been down here roaming around for quite a few hours, meaning it was probably very close to midnight, maybe even closer to one in the morning. If they wanted their werewolf powers to be useful at all against the Alphas, they needed to get going.

“Boss, I think we’re wasting precious time on this map,” Rico said as he rolled it up again. Everyone was lying on the cold stones wherever they could find a comfortable—or not so comfortable—place, and one of the men was snoring lightly.

“Yes, we must not linger here,” Gabriel agreed. “Wake up, everyone. We must find a way above now.”

With a few groans of protest the four men got to their feet again. Gabriel went over to Betsy and helped her to her feet as well. She gave him an encouraging smile as they all began to walk again.

Gabriel surveyed the small group of seven with the eye of a strategist. He knew without a doubt not all of the men would survive the battle, but he couldn’t allow himself to think about that just then. The only thing that mattered was Betsy, and their unborn child. Somehow, he wasn’t sure how, she needed to make it through all of this alive.