Niklosi's Nightmare (First Wave Book 10) (7 page)

The odd silence that followed did
nothing to soothe any of the curiosity or unease of anyone in the room, and BJ
had enough of it. She cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention.

“We really do want to help. We
won’t let anything happen to our people. If I’d known Nik and Traze were our
people, this wouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry,” BJ assured the nervous group.

“I think we all just need to share
some information,” Grai said. “Are there more of our people here?”

“Of course. But not all of them
want to meet you. They won’t need to in order to help,” Bess said as she set
some foam cups in front of Blade, Grai, and Tricia. “I’m pleased that you will
respect their wishes.”

Grai reached for a cup and tried
not to be unnerved by the woman’s intuition, gift, or intelligence. He had to
admit he could see why Traze was freaked out and wondered himself about the
extent of their abilities.

“We don’t believe in making our
people do anything they choose not to. If they wish to remain unknown, we will
leave them in peace,” Grai said with a nod of respect.

He was surprised when Bess laughed
at him.

“You are an excellent ambassador
for your people, but even you cannot hide your secrets from me. You will take
my daughter and my son from me, and I will allow it because it is their future,
but you will leave with no one else,” Bess said and ignored the gasps of her
children.

Before anyone could react to the
woman’s strange statement, the door opened and two large men fought to get in
at the same time, shaking the newly built wall that covered what used to be the
garage doors.

“Damn it, Irwin!” a beefy
red-haired and heavily-bearded man muttered as he huffed inside.

“You damn bastard! If you’d go on
that damn diet you keep talking about!” a much smaller, dark-haired man groaned
as he stepped inside.

Both men ran a hand over their heads
as they faced Bess and looked over the strangers intently.

Dennis, the large red head was
almost as large as Grai, and he quickly surveyed the room, singling out what he
thought would be the greatest threat, and moved to stand near Traze. Irwin
moved through the crowded room and stood protectively beside Bess.

“A room full of talented people who
can do a lot of damage to one another, but I don’t think that’s why you’re
here,” Dennis noted as he crossed his large arms over his chest and looked over
Grai, Blade, Nik, and Traze.

“Are they
your
people?”
Irwin whispered in awe as he looked at the strangers in a new light.

“Yes, they are, and we’ve nothing
to fear from one another, it’s the government coming. This is Niklosi Jevasari,
our BJ’s mate. Grai T’Alq and his mate, Tricia, are the ones responsible for a
lot of the things we hear in the world that we’ve always wondered about,” Bess
began as she gestured to each person in turn. “This is Traze T’Alq, Grai’s
impulsive but well-meaning brother, and Blade Djornav, another multi-talented
one like us.”

Blade nodded to the woman in
respect, and Grai felt unsettled about the woman’s incredible abilities.

Could she be a prime and not a
hybrid?
he wondered.
I’ll ask Tricia later when Bess isn’t dropping
in and out of my mind.

“What happened?” Dennis asked as he
eyed Traze for a moment before getting a cup of coffee.

“Hobo-Cop over there decided—”
Traze began before he felt another rough slap to the back of his head. “Damn
it!”

Nik cleared his throat and decided
to throw the man-child a bone.

“We were chasing a group of Relians
who’d tried to detonate a bomb at a community daycare center. I just got the
last of them, but it was right in front of BJ here, and with her energy
shielding and the circumstances, our prints were ran through the system before
Bess could let everyone know we were not enemies. Now the government is coming
for us,” Nik decided to leave out the smaller details for later since they
didn’t appear to be necessary for them to formulate a plan.

“Oh my,” Bess said with a concerned
gaze.

Irwin’s mouth just kept opening and
closing as he looked at the Valendrans in the room.

“Well, hell,” Dennis said with a
hearty laugh. “We ain’t had no fun around here in forever! Bunch of pansy ass
government spooks ain’t gonna shake us.”

Dennis grinned over at Traze and
elbowed him a little roughly with his enthusiasm.

“It’s been years since we got to
have any fun with the spooks! Ha Ha!” Dennis said, surprising only those who
didn’t know the jovial man well.

“That’s the right idea!” BJ said
with a huge grin. “That’s exactly what we saw! Remember back in the 70s when
you guys chased those poachers and trappers off? And in the 80s when you got
rid of the land developers? We need that tactic again.”

Dennis whooped and hollered in glee
as Irwin shook his head nervously and Bess sighed.

“What exactly are you talking
about?” Grai asked nervously.

He was definitely uneasy around the
strange people even if they were his own, and he didn’t like not knowing what was
going on around him.

Mojo chuckled casually and looked
over at Traze.

“All those stupid things you
thought were real about us? They’re all about to come true for those poor
spooks,” Mojo said.

“Wait . . .” Traze said, struggling
to understand. “You guys are going to play all crazy inbred people to the
spooks?”

BJ, Mojo, and Dennis had devilish
grins on their faces as they nodded in unison.

“I’m the inept cop; my brother is
my assistant,” BJ stated with a grin. “Dennis is the district attorney and normally
one of the brightest legal minds you’ll ever find, but not for the spooks.
Irwin is the local mayor who loves his farm animals and all scary analogies
associated with them, and the rest of our people know exactly how to play their
parts.”

Irwin made a sound eerily similar
to a squealing pig, and Traze felt a shudder run up his spine while Dennis
slapped him on the back and cackled.

“This is going to be more fun than
we’ve had in years!” Dennis proclaimed.

Bess covered her eyes for a moment
and looked as if she was struggling to compose herself before she looked at BJ
and Mojo in turn.

“You’re sure this is the only way?”
she asked, hoping it was only one of several successful scenarios her children
had seen.

BJ and Mojo looked at one another
and shook their heads sadly.

“No, Mom,” BJ admitted. “They all
ended in disaster when we tried other means. We have to play on their fears and
weaknesses, or a lot of people will die.”

“Varying degrees of disaster,” Mojo
added, “with unacceptable casualties on all sides. We have to run them off; we
can’t fight them. At all. No rounds can be fired, no punches thrown, or it’s
over for us.”

“How do you know this?” Grai asked
until Bess cocked a brow at him. “Never mind that. Are you sure there are no
other options?”

“No. The moment your people do
anything, it’s over. You can’t be here at all; you will all have to leave and
let us handle this,” BJ explained.

Nik was OK with everything he’d
heard up until that moment. Their predicament was just as much his fault as
anyone else’s, and he was not going to leave the pretty cop to fight the battle
without him.

“I’m not going anywhere!” Nik
stated, daring anyone to tell him otherwise.

Grai looked at Nik for a moment
before he turned to Bess, the obvious leader of this little pod of his people.

“I also do not feel comfortable
just leaving you like this. There are too many things that can go wrong, and we
have a way to evacuate any who may need it. It may even be wise to let us take
any sick, elderly, or children while this is being resolved,” Grai suggested,
not feeling right about this tactic at all.

He was used to being the tactical
leader and leaving these defenseless people to deal with the brutal military
unit that would likely be coming didn’t sit well with him at all.

Bess, BJ, Mojo, Dennis, and Irwin
all laughed until Bess turned an eerie gaze to Grai.

“I can assure you that you will sit
this one out. Not all things are under your control, and you would do well to
be reminded of that,” Bess said, her words were soft but the meaning hit home.

Grai was a little taken aback by
her words, and his mind stumbled for a response. Luckily, Tricia’s mind was
very clear.

“I can understand your feelings,
but if you’re correct, and BJ and Nik are mates and your children will come
with us, then
you
would do well to understand the people you are
entrusting your children to,” Tricia said, carefully choosing her words. “We
don’t want to run this. We just want to be nearby to lend assistance in case
you need it. We can stay in the ships above you and be on the ground in
seconds.”

When Tricia saw she had Bess’s
undivided attention, the lawyer in her pressed her advantage to her jury.

“Let Mojo work with Fiorn’s people
to muddle the information that went through the NCIC so he can see how we’ve
been working and can do the same if he chooses to stay. Nik can be close to BJ
so they can get to know one another,” Tricia added to the exasperation of both
BJ and Nik.

Bess narrowed her eyes at Grai.

“What of you?” she asked. “Will you
use your big corporate money and throw it around here to make things better for
us? Is that how it works for you? Because we don’t want or need the very thing
that’s corrupting and ruining this world. It’s not how we do business.”

Grai was surprised by her vehemence
and the agreement of her children and the two men. He was at a loss to respond.

“What do you need?” Tricia asked,
quickly trying to fill the silence.

Bess turned a smile to Tricia.

“It isn’t what we need; it’s what
you need. But your mate and I can discuss the terms of trade with our people as
you sit in your ships and watch the visions of my children unfold before your
eyes,” Bess said with a mischievous grin.

Grai wasn’t sure whether he
disliked Bess or respected the hell out of her. He’d dealt with some
hard-headed people before—Fiorn being at the top of his list and Traze not far
behind—but this woman invented the term, and her abilities made her far more
dangerous than anyone he’d ever encountered.

“It’s a little of both you feel for
me, as well you should,” Bess whispered through his mind, sending a shiver up
Grai’s spine.

“There is one thing you can loan
us,” Bess said aloud as her hazel eyes gleamed.

Chapter Six

Grai paced like a caged beast in
the transport hovering above the nearly nonexistent downtown area of Baker’s
Creek while a group of 354 hybrids and humans thought to take on a trained
military killing unit by themselves. He wasn’t happy in the least.

The only thing keeping him sane at
the moment was Bess’s request to use Gibly and any of the sibiox cats who would
volunteer to help. The fact that she even knew of the cats was creepy enough,
but when she wouldn’t explain what she needed them for Grai became even more
curious about the unusual hybrids and their plan.

He’d just spoken to Gibly minutes
before and learned the cats were being treated like royalty among the Baker’s
Creek residents and hadn’t been informed of any plans yet. Bess and the
townspeople were still waiting for the military unit to arrive and had decided
to determine their course of action then.

“I think we need to be down there,”
Nik said as he stood angrily next to Grai.

Grai rubbed the back of his head,
not really in the mood to try and hold back an angry mate—especially not one
who was unwilling to admit he’d even found his mate.

“Nik, I understand where you’re
coming from, but we have no right to tell them how to do this. These are their
people, their town and their rules—and you know it. I don’t like it any more
than you do, but our hands are tied until they need us,” Grai explained.

“You can’t expect a bunch of
backwoods, inbred, nut-jobs to be able to pull off something like this! We need
to be down there!” Traze yelled out in frustration.

Grai rounded on his brother and
clenched his teeth for a moment until he calmed himself. This whole damn area
had his energy vibrating oddly, and it was setting his emotions on edge.

“Do not talk to me of inbred
nut-jobs when I saw the high definition footage of every part of what happened
on that road through the dash cam footage you didn’t even know she was taking!”
Grai growled back before he looked between both Nik and Traze.

“Both of you handled this badly!
Nik can be understood because that’s his mate, even if he is too thick-headed
to admit it. You!” Grai said turning to his brother. “You were reckless and
irresponsible! You should have called someone the moment the situation turned
badly.”

Nik and Traze both lowered their
heads and sighed. They knew Grai was right; they’d both made stupid mistakes which
led to the current situation getting out of control—and both of them were more
determined than ever to get back on the ground and help fix it.

“We need to help,” Nik reiterated.

Grai chuckled and shook his head.

“You will when the two of you go
down there tonight. Nik, your presence for dinner has been requested by Bess.
She would like you to begin courting her daughter properly,” Grai said and
almost laughed when Nik’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“Oh, dude!” Traze whispered. “That
crazy bitch is going to like hold a shotgun to you or something! Or watch you
have sex with her daughter to make sure the deed is done! These people are sick
and weird! Don’t do it, man!”

Grai struggled not to smack his
brother in the back of the head. He didn’t succeed.

“Ow! Damn it!” Traze snapped after
receiving the hard slap.

“If I were you, I’d shut my mouth
because Bess has requested your presence as well,” Grai told his shocked
brother.

“What the fuck for?” Traze erupted.

“She said she thinks she has much
to teach you,” Grai countered.

“Like how to fuck my cousins or
weave my ass hair into coasters? Are you fucking serious? And you agreed to
this?” Traze demanded angrily. He wasn’t having any more of the crazy-eyed
woman. No way.

Nik couldn’t contain his laughter
no matter how hard he tried, and Grai rubbed a hand down his face as he heard
Disc, Tricia, and the others on board the transport laughing as well. He had to
put a stop to Traze’s mouth—and quickly.

He had no idea if the crazy woman
could be listening to them and getting angry at the lack of respect. Not that
he could blame her, and not that he didn’t find himself just as leery and
creeped out as everyone else appeared to be.

“We have eight, I repeat, we have an
eight strong military convoy heading our way, 70 miles out,” Disc called out.

Grai could almost feel the tension
in the craft as the countdown began to what they feared would be a disaster.
They knew the townspeople weren’t going to be prepared for the brutal way the
military unit would handle them, and he hated feeling helpless as the
townspeople unknowingly waited on what had to be certain death or arrest and
detainment as conspirators.

Grai had tried to talk reason into
Bess, but the stubborn woman had stomped her foot on the floor with her hands
on her hips as her hazel eyes swirled with power. Her voice boomed out “No!” so
loudly that Grai’s beast, Death, had recoiled from the energy. He immediately
backed off and grudgingly applauded the woman’s ability to make him retreat so
easily.

Grai had no idea what Bess was, but
he knew on an instinctual, primal level that she wasn’t a normal hybrid. She
was something he’d never encountered before, and Death was prowling around
restlessly in his head trying to understand what they were dealing with.

This whole area vibrated with a
strange energy and power that he’d felt few other times before, all in
different parts of the world. He made a mental note—all of the areas where he’d
felt that kind of power were permeated with ancient cave systems so deep and
extensive that they’d not discovered even a tenth of a percent of them. It was
something he felt needed more research.

*****

BJ sighed heavily as she pulled her
hair out of her pony tail and began fussing with it. She loved and hated the
times when they’d had to do this, and if the circumstances had been different,
she would have enjoyed the games that were about to begin.

“Stop, my baby girl. Do not let
your mind confuse the truth with fear,” Bess said as she hugged BJ to her.

“I’m a little scared, Momma,” BJ
admitted, not thinking of the military but of Nik and her uncertain future when
it was all over.

Bess only laughed and hugged BJ
harder for a moment before she pulled back and looked into eyes that were
identical to her own.

“You know there is no need. I would
never let you go if I didn’t think it was what will be best for you. Even if
you can’t see your future, I can, and it will be the most amazing journey
you’ve ever taken. Now, get ready, we’ve not much time,” Bess said as she
smiled at BJ and moved across the station where Dennis, Irwin, and Mojo were
getting ready as well.

Buford came in the door and set a
duffel bag on the floor as he grinned at the commotion around the room.

“Everyone is ready! We’re expecting
them to arrive right at daylight, so we’re good to go!” Buford said as the
excitement oozed from him.

BJ shook her head and smiled as she
felt the energy around them increase with the level of excitement now
permeating the town as the time of their performance neared. She couldn’t help
but get swept along with it and found herself grinning as she pulled her hair
back into two lop-sided pigtails, her loose curls making them stand out
comically.

“Throw me the black wax!” Dennis
called out.

Buford dug through the duffel bag,
fished out a small tin, and threw it over to Dennis.

“I need that after you!” Mojo added
as he twisted his hair into odd little fluffy balls all over his head.

“Clothes, everyone!” Bess called
out as she clapped her hands together.

BJ nodded, untucked her uniform
shirt, and worried the fabric until it looked rumpled as the others also made
various wardrobe alterations and Buford handed out items from the duffel bag.

“OK, I’m ready!” Mojo said as he
cracked his knuckles and began typing on his laptop. “High definition camera
footage is being altered by that Fiorn guy and looking awesome; internal
cameras here have been knocked out and rendered as dummies but will be viewable
by the transport ship above us.”

“Buford, did Johnny give you the
ashes from that hog roast?” BJ asked.

“Sure did, I switched out the
evidence bags and gave the Relian ashes to . . .” Buford shrugged. “You know
what I did with them.”

“Excellent!” BJ said with a grin. “Everyone
else?”

“The whole community is ready to go,
and all of our own security protocols have been put in place,” Buford answered.

“This is going to work great,” BJ
said as she sat down at her desk and sighed.

“Hey! The guy in the ship is
sending us the information on the military people coming,” Mojo interrupted.
“Some guy named Major Kyle Morris heads up the unit that hunts our people.”

Mojo turned his laptop around so
that everyone could get a good look at their enemy. Dennis let a growl rumble
through his chest as Bess walked over to get a better look. Her eyes scanned
the picture, and she smiled broadly.

“Oh I think we’re going to do OK
with this one,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

“What are you getting, Bess?”
Buford asked his sister.

“I don’t think this one is what he
pretends to be at all. But I won’t know more until he arrives. Remain
vigilant!” Bess warned them all.

“Mary says we’re ready in the
hollers,” Buford relayed the message from his wife to the others.

“Town is ready,” Dennis added.

“I think we’re ready here too,” BJ
said.

Mojo laughed out loud and turned to
the others.

“We’re ready on the video. They did
a great job on this; I got to see their set up,” he admitted, a little
awestruck of what Fiorn had been able to accomplish in such a short time.

“Is it believable?” BJ asked,
peeking over his shoulder to look at what was on his screen.

“If I hadn’t seen the original, I’d
be convinced,” he told her.

“Good enough for me,” BJ said with
a relieved sigh.

Her nerves were wound tight, and
she struggled not to pace the room in order to expend some of the expectant
energy and adrenaline coursing through her. She knew she shouldn’t be so
nervous; she’d seen how it would go, and there wasn’t anything to worry about.
At least not that day.

As long as nothing changes
dramatically, it will all go as planned
, BJ tried to convince herself.

She knew that the one thing that
could screw up a vision was free will. All it would take is for one player in
the game to do something different than she’d seen in order to mess up the
entire outcome.

“Stop worrying,” Bess warned then
clapped her hands together.

“Everyone get ready. They’re
driving into town now,” Bess told everyone and smiled as the excitement level
increased around her.

BJ took one more look around her
station and sighed at what they’d done to it. It no longer resembled the
organized, clean, and competent station it had been only hours before.

It’ll all be fixed when this is
over,
she told herself, wondering why it would matter if she wasn’t
going to be there to run it.

Her heart stuttered with a momentary
sense of loss before she heard tires braking dramatically and doors slamming
outside.

“Showtime!” Dennis whispered
through the shengari’.

*****

Major Kyle Morris looked around the
area with a sense of disgust and disbelief as he got out of the unmarked black
SUV in front of what appeared to be the police station.

“Are you sure we’re in the right
place?” Kyle asked the driver, Captain Greg Stillman.

“Sir, this is where the coordinates
led us. Sign says Baker’s Creek Police Department, so this has to be it,” Greg
replied.

“What the hell would they be doing
out this way?” Kyle muttered.

He also couldn’t help but wonder
how anyone from a place like this could catch not one—but two—of the dangerous
aliens he’d been hunting.

Although barely seven a.m., the
humidity was already becoming uncomfortable, and the small-but-neat block-long
town was already coming alive. Unwilling to spend any more time in Baker’s
Creek than necessary, Kyle turned to his men.

“Surround the building and get
ready to transfer the prisoners,” he called out.

Kyle watched his men do as ordered
then strode confidently into the police station and stopped dead in his tracks.

Irwin gasped and clutched his chest
dramatically as Major Morris came in the door followed by Greg and another four
soldiers.

“Oh, the Lord Jesus does perform
miracles,” Irwin whispered as he dramatically sashayed over to Kyle and held
out a limp-wristed hand.

“I’m Mayor Irwin Jenkins,” Irwin
said as he fluttered his eyelashes at Kyle.

Kyle looked at Irwin’s hand in
disgust and took a few steps back from him as he surveyed the unbelievable
scene he’d walked into.