by Petra Landon
“Is it the young witch?” Maartje inquired curiously. “Does she have any influence on his decisions, do you think?”
Duncan, aware of Raoul’s soul searching to some extent when it came to his actions towards the young wizard, contented himself by saying soothingly. “She’s just the catalyst, Maartje. This was an event waiting to happen. Raoul, with his abilities and heritage, was never going to be content to sit back for very long.”
Even Duncan was unaware of how very prescient his words were to be. The young witch, as Maartje called her, was destined to be the catalyst for a lot more than awakening Raoul from his long sleep. Soon their world would be embroiled in turmoil, the likes of which the Chosen had not seen in a long time. Tasia would be one amongst a small group of Chosen fated to play the roles of both instigator and assuager of the strife and tumult headed their way.
When Tasia awoke again, the room was bathed in bright sunshine. She turned her head to the chair by the bed, half expecting to see Sara like before. To her great surprise, it was Caro who stood up from the chair to gaze down at Tasia in relief.
“Caro” she exclaimed in surprise, instinctively glancing around the room again to make sure that it was still her old room at the Lair.
Yep, Caro is in my room at the Lair.
“Special permission from the Alpha. I’ve been allowed to visit with you while you recover” Caro responded with a smile, correctly interpreting Tasia’s surprise. “How do you feel, Tas?”
Tasia sat up slowly. She felt fine although she had a vague memory of feeling dizzy and weak the last time she’d attempted the same with Sara in the room.
“I feel fine. What happened to me?”
“You were kidnapped and held hostage in the Registry” Caro stated soberly.
“Kidnapped!” Tasia stared at her friend. She remembered walking into the Registry to request a meeting regarding her Mfector license. Someone had announced her name and directed her to a room on the second floor. And that was the last memory she could dredge up before waking up in this room with Sara by her side.
“You were drugged and put under heavy sedation, so you might not remember much” Caro warned gently.
“How long have I been out?”
“Four days, Tas.”
“Four days” Tasia exclaimed, shaking her head in consternation. “I remember waiting in a room at the Registry for someone to see me” she said slowly as the memories danced around the edges of her mind. She glanced around the room again, even more confused than before. While events at the Registry were hazy for her, moving out of the Lair was not. She had a very clear memory of that particular event. That daunting confrontation with the Alpha would be etched in her memory for a very long time.
“How?” she gestured around the room mutely.
“The Pack” Caro’s response was succinct.
“The Pack?” Tasia repeated blankly.
“They rescued you, Tas.”
Tasia stared back at her friend, confused and bemused by her statement. The Pack and she had parted ways – there was no confusion in her mind about that aspect of her life.
“When you didn’t make it back from the Registry, I suspected that you might be in trouble, Tas” Caro explained. “So I came here to ask the Alpha for assistance.”
Tasia glanced instinctively at the walls around them. Confusion or not, there was one thing every wizard knew. Registry implied wizard involvement. And if word got around to the other wizards that Caro had talked to a Shifter Alpha about wizard business, she’d be in a world of trouble that even her Dad’s considerable influence would have a hard time mitigating.
“News of me walking into the Lair to request a meeting with their Alpha has probably spread throughout the Pack by now” Caro quipped in amusement, correctly interpreting Tasia’s fleeting glance at the walls. “I doubt it’s a secret hereabouts anymore, Tas.”
“The Pack will close their ranks on this” Caro added confidently to appease the apprehension in Tasia’s eyes. “You know how it is, Tas. You lived with them! And this is Raoul Merceau’s Pack. He’s probably already put the fear of God into his Shifters in his own inimitable way.”
“Caro” Tasia spoke softly, concern and worry writ loud on her face.
“Don’t worry about me, Tas. I’ll be fine” Caro assured her friend more soberly. “The Alpha pretty much assured me that the wizards will never know of my involvement in this matter so as to cause no blowback for my Dad.”
Tasia gazed back at her friend, overwhelmed by what Caro had done for her.
“Caro” she said spontaneously, holding out a hand to her friend. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Of course, I should have” Caro responded immediately, clasping her friend’s hand. “You’d have done the same for me, Tas.”
“Thank you, Caro” Tasia said soberly. She understood and appreciated the enormous courage it had taken her friend to walk into a Shifter Lair to ask the Alpha for assistance. Then there were the wizards. If word got out that Caro was hobnobbing with Shifters, the wizard world would shut her out. That is how the Chosen still worked. Twenty-five years of co-operation since the formation of the CoC had not changed that aspect of Chosen life. There was a little more information sharing at the top between the various CoC Representatives who spoke for their kind but it had not trickled down to the grassroots. Occasionally at the local level, the individuals who headed their respective Chosen factions would manage to forge a working relationship although even that was few and far between.
“You’re welcome.”
“But the Pack” Tasia exclaimed. “What made you come to the Pack, Caro? I told you that we’d parted ways.”
“I was at my wit’s end, Tas” Caro acknowledged quietly. “When I realized that you’d gone missing inside Registry premises, I was left with few options. If my suspicions were right about who had you in his power, I desperately needed someone capable of and willing to stand up to a very powerful Chosen.”
“Who was it?” Tasia inquired, curious for the first time since waking up in the Lair. Until now, she’d been preoccupied with the other puzzling aspects of this incident. The twin revelations of the Pack coming to her rescue at the Registry and Caro informing the Shifters of her plight had thrown Tasia into such confusion and consternation that the matter of who had kidnapped her had gotten buried in the deluge of bewilderment and disorientation.
“A Guardian” Caro explained succinctly, secure in the knowledge that the term itself would be sufficient explanation for a wizard. The Guardians and the GCW wielded enormous influence in the wizard world. One could even say that they collectively held more influence than the First Wizard who represented them on the CoC. Before the office of First Wizard had been created by the formation of the CoC twenty-five years ago, the Guardians had been the only protectors and enforcers in the wizard world. Guardians had protected wizards from other Chosen and from their own bad eggs for centuries. They were held in enormous awe and respect, not only amongst wizards, but also in the wider Chosen diaspora.
“Why?” Tasia asked baldly, her astonishment clear. Surprisingly, she felt no fear at the revelation.
What would a Guardian want with me? They don’t even know that Papa had a child after he was presumed dead.
“From what I understand, he mistook you for someone else” Caro said slowly. “He kidnapped you by mistake, Tas.”
“Mistake” Tasia straightened up slowly. This was getting weirder by the minute.
“Those mercenary Shifters you told me about, Tas? The ones the Pack was hunting. It turns out that it was the Guardian who hired them. They were following his orders when they mugged wizards here in San Francisco. The details are a little fuzzy but the Guardian was searching for a female wizard he believes is hiding here. Once the Pack started hunting them, the mercenaries offered you up to the Guardian to get him off their back. Apparently, the mercenaries didn’t want the Guardian to find out how badly they’d messed up with the Pack. It was their way of kil
ling two birds with one stone.”
Tasia stared at her friend, shocked and flabbergasted by the revelation.
So the Alpha had been right after all, she realized. He had been suspicious of the mercenaries’ presence on his Pack’s turf. His insistence on her staying at the Lair until he was satisfied with the Pack’s debriefing of the rogue Shifters had been spot on.
“The Guardian was searching for a female wizard?” she asked Caro cautiously.
“Yes, he confessed as much to my Dad” Caro acknowledged. “He’s the reason I couldn’t go to my Dad, Tas. Dad would never have been able to wrest you away from a Guardian. The only person I could think of with the power to do so was the Alpha. That’s why I came to him.”
Caro leant in to whisper into her friend’s ear.
“Not only did he bring you back safely, but rumor has it that the Alpha broke the Guardian’s leg after he refused to release you to the Pack.”
Tasia’s mouth hung open in sheer shock. Landing any kind of blow on a Guardian was unheard of, even for a Shifter. The magic that a powerful wizard could command was usually more than sufficient to protect him from physical harm.
“Exactly” Caro commented with quiet satisfaction at the shock on her friend’s face. “Got to hand it to your Alpha, Tas. He waltzes in cool as you please, into a wizard institution to threaten a Guardian over you - another wizard. He delivers a clinical beat down of the Guardian before handing him over to the local wizards to be punished for his crimes against them. Then he walks out calmly with what he has come for - you” Caro finished, admiration tinged with a trace of awe in her voice. Say what you will about the Shifters, she thought. The Pack always protected one of their own – unlike some of the other Chosen.
“He’s not my Alpha” Tasia muttered, reeling from Caro’s revelations.
“Could’ve fooled me” Caro responded cheerily. “He certainly seems to think so and I don’t believe he’s the type to get confused about something like this.”
Caro sobered up a little at the bewilderment reflected on Tasia’s face.
“I was at my wits end when I came here, fully prepared to plead your case with the Alpha. Imagine my surprise when I didn’t have to say a word to persuade him. I asked him point blank about your status with the Shifters and he claimed you as Pack without even a hint of hesitation. I have to admit that it surprised me after what you’d told me about your mutual disengagement. But Tas, I was so relieved and so desperate that I didn’t question it at all.”
Caro’s words threw Tasia into renewed confusion. Caro had come to the Lair to ask the Shifters for assistance. That in itself was extremely rare. The Alpha, in turn, had ordered the Pack to protect the secret of Caro’s involvement in the matter. Rarer still but probably a reflection of the Alpha’s working relationship with Caro’s father. The Alpha had then confronted the Guardian at the Registry over her. This, after they’d already parted ways in a rather bruising encounter.
I turn my attention away for a few seconds and the world is turned upside down. What the hell is going on here?
Caro laughed aloud, enormously relieved by Tasia’s confusion. This she could handle. Tasia had made it unscathed through the storm. And what a storm it had been! For a while there, she’d been worried sick that no one with the chops to take on a Guardian would bestir themselves for her friend.
“God, Tas!” Caro blurted out, as she hugged her surprised friend, her relief obvious in her voice. “You had me worried for a bit there.”
Taken aback by the spontaneous hug, Tasia nevertheless returned it to her friend’s satisfaction.
“You’d better start at the beginning, Caro, for I’m completely befuddled as to what happened” Tasia confessed candidly.
Caro pulled her chair closer to the bed while Tasia leaned back against the headboard, prepared to listen to her friend unravel this crazy maze of events.
Chapter 13
The Alpha offers Tasia a new deal
Duncan glanced up as the Alpha strode into the Pack Room from the smaller ante-room set aside for his private use.
“The mercenaries have been delivered into Faoladh’s custody” the Alpha remarked.
“Do you mind giving them up, Raoul?” Duncan was candid as usual with his friend.
“No” the Alpha shook his head. “We’ve had plenty of time to debrief them and David Hamilton is very satisfied with the access we allowed him. Faoladh will mete out a punishment that befits their crime.”
“The night at the Registry is all the Chosen talk about” Duncan remarked after a searching look at the Alpha. “I’m assuming that was your intention.”
Raoul could easily have kicked out the Guardian’s henchmen from the room before the confrontation. That he’d allowed them to stay on to witness the enfolding events made Duncan confident that that had been Raoul’s intention all along. The Alpha never made such amateurish mistakes, mused Duncan with a hint of pride.
Raoul nodded briefly, the gesture one of agreement.
“To send the message that no trespassing on your turf will be tolerated and that the perpetrators, no matter how influential, will be punished” Duncan noted shrewdly.
“That was the general idea. I also calculated that if I publicized the Guardian’s misdeeds, he’d have a harder time brushing them under the carpet” Raoul added, frank as usual with his friend. “There was another motive as well - of getting the word out that he’d been incompetent enough to kidnap the wrong wizard despite his best efforts.”
“To protect Tasia?” Duncan inquired, acknowledging that he’d suspected the same.
“The bastard did warn me that he isn’t alone in whatever he’s up to with the muggings. If he does have allies, I want to make it clear to them that Tasia Armstrong is not the one they’re searching for.”
“What was he up to with the muggings, Raoul?” Duncan asked curiously. “Did you manage to get a sense of it from him?”
“If he’s to be believed, they’re interested in a Chosen hiding out in this city as a low level wizard. He also implied that the Chosen he hunts can be identified by analyzing her blood” Raoul’s eyes were steady on Duncan.
“You believe him?” Duncan’s voice reflected his skepticism.
“Of course not” Raoul responded scornfully. “Something like that would throw the entire Chosen world into a tizzy. What’s the point of following the Supreme Edict if a single drop of your blood is able to identify you as Chosen to the humans! The Guardian makes the same mistake all wizards make when it comes to us Shifters – they think that our brains reside in the feral beasts within us.”
Duncan narrowed his eyes on the Alpha. “You’ve figured out what he was looking for” he remarked abruptly, correctly interpreting Raoul’s confident air.
“When the smug bastard was feeding me that lie, it suddenly hit me that the truth has always been staring us in the face. What did he ask of the mercenaries he’d hired - a sample of blood from the witches. Forget everything else and just focus on the blood sample, Duncan. If you were searching for someone, how could their blood sample help you identify them?”
Duncan stared back at Raoul in growing comprehension.
“DNA” he ventured cautiously.
“Precisely! As simple as that.”
“Then why take a box full of blood from Tasia? One vial would be sufficient to either identify her or rule her out.”
“Aah! That threw me off at first too. Then I thought more about it. Put yourself in his shoes, Duncan. He’s hired a Shifter and his cohorts to get him blood samples from everyone on his list of suspects. From his perspective, the Shifter has been doing a stellar job of sending him samples at a steady clip without causing any waves in the city. Then they inform him of a wizard who’s managed to escape their attempt to mug her. That arouses his suspicions that perhaps she’s the one he’s been searching for. Matching her DNA will take a little time. So he takes a blood sample from her to do so but for now, he decides on a quick and dirty way to dete
rmine if she is who he suspects her to be. He told me that the witch he was here for was hiding in the city as a low level. I took that to mean that she has more power than she wants to reveal. What is the easiest way to determine how much magic a Chosen has?”
“The more the magic that flows through a Chosen, the harder he is to kill” Duncan said slowly.
“Exactly! So he drains the witchling of her blood. My guess is that if she’d survived the night, he’d have been reasonably sure that he’d found the right person. Then waiting for the DNA match would have been a mere formality to prove it beyond a shadow of doubt.”
“If you’re right, he was looking for someone very powerful” Duncan remarked thoughtfully. “Doc says Tasia was in very bad shape when she was brought in.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“You suspect that he’s searching for Tasia, after all?”
“I think it’s a distinct possibility. She meets the criterion and was on the list he’d provided to the mercenaries. And she certainly possesses power in spades.”
“What a remarkable coincidence that would be, Raoul” Duncan was incredulous. “If they were indeed hunting her, it means that they just happened to stumble upon her by sheer chance.”
Raoul nodded grimly. It had not escaped him that if Caroline Hamilton hadn’t come to him in time, the Guardian would’ve had the witchling in his power. And she’d have been done for. No amount of magic is of any use when you’re unconscious and unable to use it!
“Like I said, I hope to have mitigated that to some extent, Duncan. There’s an additional advantage in delivering the Guardian into Hamilton’s custody. The news that the mercenary Shifter he hired to do his dirty work duped the Guardian into targeting the wrong wizard is probably spreading like wildfire right now. If he hadn’t realized it before, the Guardian is certainly aware by now that the mercenaries double-crossed him.”
“He probably rues tangling with you over the wrong wizard.”
