by Ellie J Duck
“I think you have a fever,” Summers says, ignoring me.
“Could be why she smells different too,” Brody throws in, totally not helping my case.
“I feel fine,” I lie, not liking the amount of fuss going on because of me. “Can we please just have some breakfast and stop focusing on my weaknesses. Don’t we have a job to do? Like tracking down that bloodsucker and driving stakes through his heart until he’s properly dead?”
“Cranky too,” Tara comments and I narrow my gaze on the team when they share a loaded glance whose meaning I’m not privy to.
“You would be too if a vampire told you he wanted to avoid killing you in one sitting so he could drink from you repeatedly because he liked the rush of experiencing your thoughts and emotions. I want that bastard dead. Properly dead. Dusted, finished, never to walk the earth again, gone! And Summers, if you can’t find him, I’m just going to wander out there and track him down on my own,” I warn my boss seriously, grateful to have something to focus on that doesn’t involve my wellbeing or Hilton’s convenient memory loss.
“I think we better get some food into her,” Brody comments. “She looks ready to take a bite out of one of us.”
“Would that class as cannibalism given that we’re technically not the same species?” I ask Greg, suddenly curious.
“And on that note,” Mitch laughs, “Anna gets the crazy award and breakfast before I find her gnawing on my arm while I sleep.”
∞ ∞ ∞
“Anna; Tobias; did you notice anything out of the ordinary while you were in the woods last night?” Greg asks a half hour later after we’ve all had breakfast. I glance up at him in confusion from where I’m sitting with most of the team watching a movie before our mid-morning workout is due to begin. He’s just come out of the coms room and his eyes are wide with concern.
“You mean, other than being out there in the middle of the night wearing next to nothing and totally unarmed?” I ask him, wondering why he looks so panicked.
“I mean like strange noises or scents? Anyone else around?” Summers says, shooting me a quelling look for my sarcasm.
“Yes,” I answer. “I thought I heard footsteps and heavy breathing, but when Hilton listened, he couldn’t hear anything, so we dismissed it,” I answer honestly.
“Anything else?”
I bite my lip, glancing at Hilton.
“I thought I heard a scraping sound, but it was probably just my imagination,” I admit.
“Tobias, did you smell anything?” Greg asks, his tone all business and not at all asking for kicks. The tension in the room begins to climb.
“Not really. Thought I got a whiff of blood, but I figured it was Cane’s cut foot. Why? What’s wrong?”
Summers descends the stairs, drawing some weapons as he does.
“I’ve just noticed something on the playback of activity during the night on the surveillance cameras,” Summers tells us as he signals that we should also draw our weapons and follow him out of the base.
“There are 24-hour cameras on this place?” I ask, my face paling in horror as I wonder what might’ve been caught on camera from the night Hilton and I were compelled to hook up. Dear God, have I been lying for nothing when there is footage out there of us pashing all the way into the base from the carpark?
“You can never be too careful, Anna,” Greg tells me, nodding as he glances at me.
“And you didn’t get anything on those from Hilton’s memory loss episode the other night?” I ask, my voice tight.
“No. Something went wrong with the equipment the minute you two drove through the gates. A glitch that meant we couldn’t see anything. When you mentioned Novikov compelling you to do something, I began to suspect that whatever it was, he made sure to include in the magic that there would be nothing to bring back Tobias’s memory of the incident.”
I breathe a mental sigh of relief, although I catch the way Hilton narrows his eyes on me suspiciously, knowing for sure now that I’m hiding something and, based on my blush, that I really don’t want it caught on camera for anyone to find out.
“What did you get on the cameras last night boss?” Tara asks curiously, far less interested in Hilton’s amnesia compared to the tension currently rolling off Summers.
“This,” he says as we all reach the gates and he scans his retina to open it.
Outside the gates is a grisly message meant specifically for the team and I almost gag at the sight. The mutilated and decapitated head of a cow has been dragged here and mounted on a spike dug into the ground. Staked into the head via a wooden spike to the unseeing eye is a note.
The human is next!
An involuntary shudder runs down my spine and I turn away from the sight of the rotting head in horror.
“So, they all know I’m here and have a huge problem with it,” I sigh, choosing to focus on the number of crisscrossed footprints and paw prints from several different kinds of Shifter that can be seen in the soft dirt of the road. At least it’s better than looking at the mutilated cow head.
“How the hell did we not hear them driving the stake into the ground or hauling the body up here?” Tara asks, dismayed and sounding furious.
“Body?” I ask in confusion, having only seen the head.
Mitch silently points upwards and I glance up in horror to see that suspended and dangling from the nearby forest trees is the beheaded body of the cow in a state of decay and looking like it’s been mangled and savaged.
“Oh, gross! What is wrong with some people?” I say, curling my lip and feeling mildly ill at the sight. A puddle of blood can be found beneath the body, though from the scuff marks I can see on the road I suspect that the parts were driven to the gate already dead and then dragged the short distance to the trees.
“I told you they’d take this personally, Greg,” Hilton growls, his face bearing a dark expression.
“I told you I heard something,” I can’t help blurting out, directing my words at Hilton and unable to keep from rubbing it in just a little that I heard them, and he didn’t.
“How the hell did she hear them when you didn’t?” Brody asks, looking baffled and mildly concerned by my ability to hear this taking place outside the gates with my inferior human hearing.
“If they’d been here doing this when we were in my cage, I’d have heard them,” Hilton snaps. “Don’t glare at me like I knew about this.”
“Did you?” Brody demands, and I glance between the bruin and the Lycan. Brody’s always seemed kind of fond of me and more than willing to defend me against Hilton since I arrived, but I’m beginning to think that even though most of the time they coexist with a closeness of brothers, the rivalry of their animal counterparts sometimes shows through, pitting them against one another and making them suspicious and distrustful of each other.
Hilton responds by punching him for even doubting his loyalty and I can’t help but agree with the summation. For all that Hilton can be a jerk about me being on the team, he’s improved enough that he’s occasionally nice to me, like last night when he piggy-backed me back to the base rather than making me walk. I could’ve walked fine on my own, though it would have sucked. But instead he insisted on letting him carry me and on patching me up when we got back.
“Tobias would never betray the team this way, Brody, so curb your suspicious nature,” Greg admonishes. “While it’s unusual, this isn’t the first time Anna has heard or perhaps felt the presence of other Shifters near the base when the rest of us were unaware of them.”
“You think she has an affinity for it?” Tara asks, looking surprised. I raise my eyebrows in confusion when the whole team eyes me speculatively.
“She might do. Her heritage certainly makes it a possibility,” Summers says.
“My heritage?” I ask. “You think the fact that Mum was a bruin somehow makes it so that I have better hearing than a full blown Lycan?”
“While the abilities of being part-Shifter would certainly allow you to h
ear better than a regular human, no, your hearing wouldn’t outdo that of a werewolf. However, your father’s heritage is another story entirely,” Summers explains, leaving me with more questions than answers. “But we can discuss that later. Right now, we need to deal with this mess before the wildlife comes to investigate. We also need to investigate the case and find out who was behind it. I’ll be reporting this to the Council to get something done about it. They signed off on Anna joining the team and they need to know that the local population of Shifters are reacting in violent and threatening ways. I don’t doubt that given the opportunity, they will find a way to harm you Anna.”
I sigh heavily again, annoyed by the entire idea.
“It’s a little immature, don’t you think?” I ask. “I mean, if you’re going to threaten me, come up to my face and say your piece. Don’t sneak around in the dead of night leaving grisly and ineffective messages about it.”
The rest of the team eye me as though I’m crazy.
It’s not that I’m unafraid. Quite the opposite. Their tactic of sneaking here at night and leaving mangled body parts and a note that I’ll be next is utterly terrifying, but despite that I’m kind of annoyed about the entire thing. After all, they think I’m just a puny human.
“They realize that if they mount an attack on her they’ll be considered rogue and be put down, right?” Tara asks of Summers, glancing at him when he looks puzzled by my response to the message.
“I imagine they think they’ll get away with it because the Council didn’t make a formal announcement to let everyone know Anna would be joining the team.”
“Why would they?” I ask. “And more importantly, how does everyone know? There are very few people who know that I’m Magnus Cane’s daughter, less still who even know he has a kid. And we’re a Kill Squad of assassins; they shouldn’t know who we are and what we look like. They shouldn’t have any idea who we are until we’re hunting them down.”
“They’ve all been made aware of the fact that this team and others of the same kind exist and that the Council is monitoring their behavior. Local paranormals close to the base of operations for each team make it their business to know who the cops are. To them we’re not so much CIA as beat cops,” Mitch explains to me. “We get paid more, and we’re licensed to kill on sight, but we must follow the laws as much as anyone else. If we were to go on killing sprees against a Shifter that rivals our own species, or against Vamps without provocation and without them having gone rogue like the coven in the city, we’d be put on trial and probably killed ourselves. It’s why there are such varied species on each team.”
I nod in understanding, not wanting to think too hard about the logistics. I find it easier to simply do the job I’m paid to do by killing what needs killing. Rather than asking any more questions I holster my guns and stomp over to the cow’s head. Despite the smell and the grisliness, I take hold of it firmly and jerk it up off the spike.
“What do you want us to do with these, Summers?” I ask Greg, who is eyeing me as though waiting for a breakdown. “Might as well just leave them in the woods, right? What’s one more dangerous animal possibly hunting me beyond the fence?”
Before he can give me an answer, I lob the head with all my might into the forest beyond the gates, surprised when it doesn’t just flop to the ground a few feet from me. It flies beyond view and I flinch a little at the wet smacking thud it makes when it hits the ground.
“I’d rather not lure predators to the gate,” Summers says with a strained smile. He's clearly annoyed with me but recognizes my foul mood is because of this latest debacle and thinking better of suggesting I retrieve the head to dispose of it properly.
“I’m already achieving that enough, you’re right,” I reply, annoyed beyond belief over this rubbish.
Anger simmers in my blood at the very idea. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than a bit afraid at this point, but this is just outrageous. On the one hand I totally understand the amount of animosity coming from the paranormal community. If I found out that I would be hunted down and killed by a werewolf for killing a werewolf, I’d be pissed. Of course, being a weak little human I’d more than expect that to be the case. In fact, when I think about it, it’s kind of arrogant of the paranormals to be so aggressive about this.
If I kill something unlawfully, I more than expect to have the law and possibly others of that species want to hunt me down. The fact that the paranormal community is in an uproar about it makes me want to knock some sense into them.
“Anna?” Greg asks a few minutes later when I set about slashing the ropes holding the cow carcass up in the trees, watching the decapitated body plummet to the ground where it lands with a sickening wet thud.
“Yes, sir?” I ask of my team leader without looking at him as I pull out the large hunting knife I usually keep sheathed to my belt under the back of my shirt. It was a gift from Dad when I turned fifteen and it’s currently proving wickedly useful at butchering cattle.
“Is there a reason you’re hacking that cow body apart?” he asks me and I get the feeling I’m making them nervous with my noxious mood. I’m too furious to express my concern, but I imagine that being able to smell pheromones means the paranormals I live with are getting a nasty mixture of fear and rage.
“Well, it’s a rather large body and I’m just a weak little human so I can’t lug it away in one piece,” I explain, aware of the sarcasm and the forced sweetness in my tone as I try not to lose my cool entirely.
“I see,” Greg says, and I think maybe he is shocked by my reasoning. I suspect he’d begun to think I was simply expressing my fury. “Well, if you wanted to save yourself some effort, I’m sure the others can lift it with relative ease… you know, without so much mess.”
I pause midway through tearing open the cow’s ribcage with my bare hands, finding the destruction alarmingly therapeutic.
“I don’t mind the mess,” I inform him, noticing that Tara looks mildly amused by my behavior while Mitch looks a little horrified. Brody seems to be too curious about the entire situation to know how to react and Hilton has a look in his eyes that makes me nervous.
“You’re enjoying that, aren’t you?” Tara asks me a moment later when Greg seems to give up on trying to talk me out of hacking the cow apart.
“I am,” I admit to her, not ashamed of this display despite its serial-killer overtones. “It’s therapeutic to imagine that rather than some unfortunate cow, this is instead the mutilated carcass of whichever arrogant bastards have the nerve to come here and threaten my life. I can understand some annoyance over the idea of a human hunting down a Shifter for killing a human, but it’s entirely arrogant of them to think that shouldn’t be the case.”
“Arrogant?” Hiltons demands, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeballing me dangerously. “How is it arrogant? Humans are an entirely inferior species to all the higher paranormals. Why should they fear retribution at the hands of a human if they kill one?”
“Do you really need to ask me that?” I demand, stopping mid-hack as I try to saw through the cow’s backbone. “It’s arrogant for anyone to think that killing any other being without fearing retribution is alright! If I were to go out tonight and slaughter some Shifters without provocation, I don’t for a second doubt that the family and friends of those Shifters would hunt me down and seek revenge. Why should the victim being human instead of paranormal make that any different?”
“Do you expect these cows to hunt down their killers?” Hilton counters. “Do you expect that every time you eat a burger there are other cows plotting their revenge?”
“Statistically, more people in the U.S. die from cattle-related accidents than from attacks by most other predators actually,” I inform him, “but that’s not the point. The point is that cattle are kept and bred as a food source for smarter and stronger predators because they are incapable of the forward-thinking higher predators like humans, paranormals and some of the world’s apex predators possess. Do you
really mean to tell me that to paranormals, humans are the equivalent of big dumb beasts whose only use is in meat and materials?”
“Paranormals are smarter and stronger predators than humans,” Hilton points out, using my own argument against me.
“That may be, but humans also have just as much capability of forming emotional bonds to their counterparts as paranormals do. Why should the paranormal community rage over the notion that if they murder humans, I might be the one to put them down? Why should they be given that degree of leeway when it comes to humans? They already know that if they break the law, go rogue and kill a human, they will be hunted down and killed. Why should it matter if you pull the trigger or I do?” I demand of him. “What makes it so much more acceptable to them for you to do it instead of me? I have just as much right to take a life. Just as much license to punish them for their crimes. How dare they come to the place where I live and threaten my life? I might be just a little human, slow and weak in comparison to a Shifter or a vampire, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have the right to protect my people from yours.”
“And what about protecting our people from yours?” Hilton asks me. He doesn’t look annoyed so much anymore as intrigued.
“Statistically, how many paranormals are killed by humans every year?” I ask of Greg, glancing at him to see he too is watching the discussion with interest.
“About three percent of paranormal deaths are a result of being persecuted by humans. A further two or so percent is a result of accidents such as Shifters on the full moon being hit by a car or mistakenly shot with silver by paranoid hunters. Though that’s largely due to the consensus among humans that magic and paranormal beings don’t exist,” Greg explains. “However, there are a group of religious fanatics amongst humans who know of our existence and who routinely hunt down and kill paranormals wherever they find them.”
“Really?” I ask, wrinkling my nose in disgust over the very idea. “Are they being prosecuted for murder?”
