I was still oriented towards the work mode, although I could do something lighter, but I hadn't yet figured out what. But then I actually got excited when Adam said we were going on a cruise. The cruise would last four weeks.
He and Bran would have alpha meetings, and Damon was a little busy scrolling through his phone. He'd only said a casual hello. Now, there was no enthusiastic welcome, but that didn't matter.
Although we weren't under Bran, Adam was the alpha, and he kept in touch with the others. There would be very many of them on this cruise from all over the world.
I sat in the living room in Chicago, in my favorite armchair, and thought about everything. I looked at Damon sitting on the couch, scrolling through his phone, messaging. I don't know if it was to women or other vampires.
We had had heated encounters when I had pulled sniping and killing sprees, and then, well, he had taken his own list and done it. I was just thinking about the upcoming cruise, and as usual, my mind wandered from one thing to another like butterflies in a summer meadow. Damon ignored my searching gaze.
I didn't know what was bothering him, and I didn't care. I wasn't interested in Bran either. We were hardly on civil terms. I had my own plans for the cruise that I wouldn't share with anyone.
When I was in the killing business well, I got to know people, and we exchanged phone numbers, etc. Bran always wanted to know all my contact details, but after that little alpha trick and that cage job, I didn't bother to give out contact details or even talk about them.
Bran's reputation had taken a big hit with my network when Magnum told me what Bran did to me. I had seen the video myself and was frankly shocked now at how fucking terrible shape I was in.
Anyway, I had befriended the street gangs sort of by accident. Some gangs were werewolves, and they were the ones who wanted nothing to do with Bran.
They were a great asset, but to get their attention and respect, you had to show a little of what you were capable of. Fight, that is.
They always have such a good look on their faces when I march into headquarters,5'10" tall and often under 50 kilos, and challenge the leader or the best fighter. And then I won.
My network had come about as if by accident, and this was the formula for how I always made new friends. I didn't seek all the werewolves, not by a long shot. The official packs wouldn't get into this stuff, and I didn't trust everybody but these gangs, the tough guys who wouldn't bow down to Bran or anybody but their own alpha.
They were the ones I went to and told who and what I was, what I'd been through. They gave me the idea of fight clubs. They're often illegal, and they're very nasty people, but on the other hand, you get a hell of a lot of money and, even better, fame.
You can't put on your CV that you've won all these clubs, but the word gets out on the streets, and if you get an excellent reputation, the clubs open so many doors you wouldn't believe.
I had told my friends about my experiences in the medical facilities, and they promised to spread the word about what to look out for, how to spot it, and, above all, how to destroy it.
We could get shifters, for example, to join the gang, and also certain arms dealers, and they had some pretty nice explosives. Also, there were a few hitmen who would be very good at recruiting on our side.
Since our network had already expanded considerably, we needed resources in both Europe and America. We got something every time we raided and destroyed medical facilities, but rarely were there explosives or weapons in such large quantities.
I had explosives for Reddington, but now I wanted to be independent in this area because not all the gigs had anything to do with Reddington. I had taught a few gigs in Europe when we were doing them, but as my network expanded, people wanted to get involved because everywhere, there seemed to be victims of the medical establishment.
These were relentless, and often, the targets were the supernatural. When they needed to be investigated and tortured. My little network was growing into a pretty decent resistance movement, and it took a hell of a lot out of me, too. Jarod called my friends' fleas and said I was their fearless leader.
Adam was my second in command, but he was also an alpha, a werewolf, and he had his own business, a werewolf crisis, to deal with now and then, so I had to keep up to date with what was going on.
The only problem with the fight clubs was that it was very difficult to leave home for a fight club, especially now because Salvatore keeps a pretty close eye on me, and we've been pretty physical, so if I didn't heal, the bruises would be hard to explain.
And Damon can be strict if he doesn't like something I do. He even threatened to drug me for a week if I was a crappy wife. But if Damon goes to other women, then it might be easier.
But Damon has his bad times, too, but I just noticed that he'd had a fantastic season now. No manic ranting; not once had he gotten so angry that he smelled like a wet dog, and he was cold and insensitive.
Damon's bad habits, well, if he's not stalking me for weeks on end and making me feel like someone is chasing me, then he's kidnapping me and tying me up, causing fear and terror while medicating me with a dental substance so that I'm a mess. The result was that both times; I was actually scared of him. Yes, Damon always got it to subside, but it took time.
However, the last two gigs in the shed were physical torture unless you count Damon's speech diarrhea as mental. He talked all the time, and to this day, I still don't understand why, and then he enjoyed the fact that I was in pain.
I sighed and tried to think about why I was rewinding all the old stuff about Damon and those bad habits. Shouldn't I be happy when nothing bad has happened for a long time?
Not that I really missed the crazy times of the Lord, not at all. Damon shifted positions on the couch, put his feet up on the table, and leaned back on the couch. He furrowed his eyebrows irritably at the phone, but ignored my probing gaze as I watched my husband analytically.
I was the wife. Sometimes, it's hard to believe that I actually married Damon. We'd been married for a while; the vampire wedding with the Elders was pretty special, me being a virgin again and all, but hey, such is life. Damon says the word wife with great pleasure. When he's got the jackpot. Well, I was a slow catch. I kept my feet together for almost two years and all that, but I wasn't such a good catch.
Damon is. I watched him with amusement as he scrolled through his phone, still finding it hard to believe that an even more gorgeous, divinely handsome, noble, dangerous, seductive creature was actually my husband. Even though we swore an oath, I can't even remember what it said. Loyalty and love and all. I know Damon isn't as loyal as one might expect. No vampire is.
Damon likes to fuck and drink, and when there's a party. Damon is becoming a fuck machine. This means he'll fuck just about anyone he can catch. I've learned that, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I have informed all the men in the pack that if they have a party, this girl is out of there. I usually buy a house somewhere because I've already worked so hard that I can actually always buy a house here and another one there. And if the fight clubs help with that, too, all the better. And oh boy. I've been shopping. I even have an island.
I was looking at my phone when I felt a vibration on my hip. I dug out my work phone. This Damon didn't have a number. Fine, another flea problem.
Damon was still sitting on the couch, engrossed in his phone. Adam was in his office taking care of Alpha Cruise business, so I got up and went to my downstairs bedroom.
I shut the door. Then I grabbed my work laptop as I was last here planning six gigs in Germany and Italy. I went to sit on the bed and investigated what the fuck was the problem.
There were rumours that the pharmaceutical companies were testing different metals now. They'd gotten liquid forms of the metals, and several victims had died when Dresden or Constantine hadn't got there in time.
Good to know. Sark was involved in these experiments, and oh, how I wanted to make sure that bastard was nailed to death. I discussed this problem for a while on our private channel and came to the conclusion that it's good to know, but there's not much we can do about it yet.
Then Brutus had put up a message that usually cruises with a lot of supernaturals have a fight club, so I'd have a chance to show my claws there. Nice job. I could have gone to the gym for some training, but that might have been weird as this cruise was sold to me as a shopping spree. Fine.
I read the material that had been sent to me about the liquid metals, and most of it was autopsy reports obtained from naughty medical facilities. Yeah, I did read a lot of medicine, but there were a lot of terms that I wasn't sure what they were about.
For example, it said that cobalt caused, " Significant apolexia of posterior arachnoid mater resulting catastrophic event which lead subject loss of astrocytes and also resulted severe ataxia. The subject had signs of severe hypoxia on the caudate nucleus."
I wasn't at all sure what this meant in the end. I knew there was some brain damage, but what would cause it in small doses, I didn't know.
There were tests for Iridium. Rhodium. Cobalt, Vanadium, and some novel compounds of silver. Nitrogen silver.
It caused some kind of mental illness and hallucination where the patients thought they were characters in TV shows or movies.
I tried to study the reports and didn't notice the door open until Damon's voice in my ear said, " What the hell are you investigating here?"
I panicked and tried to close my laptop, but Damon grabbed it out of my hands, looked at the reports with furrowed brows, and said, " Where did you get these?"
I said, "They were found in a raid on the medical facilities. The patients were dead, and Brutus and Henry warned me about these. New weapons for the bad guys, just trying to study what they do."
Damon was still holding my laptop and said, "Nothing good for you, baby. You better watch out. You don't get these on you; your reactions differ greatly from the others."
Adam walked into the room with a frown and said to Damon. " What's the problem?"
Damon handed over the laptop and said, "Miss was reading what Brutus and Henry had sent her. I don't know if Miss was going to share the information."
Adam read for a moment and said, "Fine, I'll take care of it. I'll let Colin know and make sure this information gets where it needs to go. "
He walked away with my laptop.
Damon sat down on the bed and said, " Yes, I know you're the leader, but trust me when I say you don't have to read through everything, send the reports on from now on. Yes, Colin or Samuel. I can also look through them and let you know if there's a problem for you."
I asked, " Why shouldn't I read the reports?"
Damon sighed and said, "You have a splendid memory. You remember everything, and those can be such that they may even come to you in your dreams. I don't think you want any more nightmares. Besides, you're not doing anything about it. Just give the information to the medical people so they can start gearing up and thinking of a solution. Learn to delegate the information to the right place. I know you're curious, but you don't need to fill your head with nonsense."
I nodded and said, " Yeah, I guess not. Fine, I'll make sure things go where they need to go, but do you have any ideas on how to handle it if I get cobalt?"
Damon thought for a moment and said, " The teeth, that would be my number one solution, but the information is going to Colin and Samuel and his team, so we'll see what they come up with."
Then Damon stood up and said, "I'm sure the cruise will be nice for you. You get to shop while I have to politic and talk to everyone."
I nodded and kept my thoughts firmly in check. I remained sitting on the bed as Damon walked out of the room.