Roc

by Robert M Kerns

  I wasn’t sure what to make of her question. I suppose it could have been a thinly veiled advance, but at the same time, maybe all she wanted was to talk about how I was settling in. Might as well find out.

  “Sure. I do believe I could spare the time, and shifters are always hungry.”

  “Oh, you have no idea,” she replied over a playful wink. Then, she sauntered off to take charge of her associates.

  A familiar scent heralded the arrival of Gabrielle right before her arm snaked around my waist and pulled me tight. I leaned over and kissed her in greeting.

  “She’s going to be trouble,” Gabrielle remarked, after returning my kiss with one of her own. “I’ll have to speak to Karleen about her.”

  “Where is Karleen? I thought she’d be here to help soothe Sloane’s nerves.”

  Gabrielle leaned into me for a moment, then took a half-step back so she could lift her gaze to meet mine. “She was still finishing breakfast when I left the diner, but don’t worry. She’ll be along.”

  A big yawn took me by surprise.

  “Bored with us all so soon?”

  I chuckled. “Not even a little bit. I didn’t get a lot of sleep after the two of you spent several hours wearing me out.”

  “Go get some food; there’s still time. You still skip breakfast too much. A human can get away with it for the most part, but shifters can’t. Seriously… do you want to pass out while you’re addressing the councilors?”

  There was no denying she had the right of it. Or even worse, what if I sat down to await the call to speak and nodded off? That wouldn’t look so good, either. “Okay. You win. I’ll dash over to the diner for some quick food.”

  “No need,” Karleen said, and the smells of Gladys’s diner accompanied her words.

  I turned and found Karleen standing a few feet away. She held two food containers that Gladys used for to-go orders. Right that second, I wasn’t sure which I was happier to see: Karleen or the food.

  “Gladys told me she hadn’t seen you in the diner yet,” Karleen continued, “and she wouldn’t let me leave without sending your breakfast favorites with me.”

  I gave Karleen a quick kiss as I snagged the food and flopped in the aisle seat of the top row. The world soon faded around me as I sated my hunger. By the time all the councilors arrived, the sustenance had buoyed my spirits, and I no longer felt like finding a convenient shade tree to go back to sleep. I conveyed the containers to a convenient trash receptacle and joined Gabrielle, Karleen, and Alistair in the stage-left side of the front row.

  “The councilors will expect you to present the case, as it were,” Alistair said as I arrived. “Are you ready?”

  I nodded. “It’s not that difficult. My favorite advantage shifters have over humans is our ability to tell when a person lies. I’ll explain the circumstances as I know them and turn the floor over to them to go where they will with it.”

  “Is Sloane aware they’ll ask her to shift? I don’t see how they’d go through with all this without it.”

  Karleen took this one. “Yes. We’ve spoken about it. Frankly, it’s been so long since she’s felt safe enough to shift without it being an emergency that she’s looking forward to it. You might want to whisper to them that they should hold off on that request until they’ve asked her everything they want. The way she talked, I wouldn’t put it past Sloane to go for a joy ride… er, flight… with it being her first shift in quite a while.”

  The sound of a gavel striking a surface drew my attention, and I saw the feline shifter tapping a striking block.

  “Be it known to all present,” she spoke in a hall-filling voice, “that I hereby call this exigent crisis council to order. Alpha Wyatt, please approach and present the matter that called us here today.”

  I took the few steps necessary to stand at the unoccupied edge of the conference table and conveyed all that I knew of Sloane’s situation, including both my and Karleen’s assertion that we detected no lies when Sloane told her story. When I played the recorded interrogations of the black ops people, I saw a wide range of reactions: fear, anger, anxiety, amusement, and more.

  After I concluded my remarks, the feline councilor said, “Regardless of whether Sloane is one of us, we have a treaty with the Americans for just this reason. I personally feel there can be no doubt that this requires a direct and unambiguous response, and neither do I feel we should dawdle in delivering it.”

  Another councilor—this one a bear shifter—nodded her agreement. “Undoubtedly. I for one would rather go to war than be some scientist’s experiment in a lab. Beyond that, I would like to hear from the aggrieved party, but I want to be very clear in that I am not doubting Alpha Wyatt’s honor or integrity at all. It is simply that I feel all of us need to scent and hear the truth of her words from her own mouth. It is one thing to challenge Alpha Wyatt’s veracity, however stupidly foolish that might be, but no one would challenge all of us.”

  Heads nodded around the table, and the feline councilor looked from one side to the other before nodding as well. “So be it. By general acclimation, this crisis council calls Sloane Martinez to speak her piece.”

  I yielded the floor and returned to sit between Gabrielle and Karleen, and each was quick to claim one of my hands with one of theirs, despite the formal ambiance of the proceedings.

  Miles leaned close and whispered something to Sloane, then she nodded and stood. She approached the conference table and adopted a relaxed stance.

  “Please, begin,” the feline councilor said, adding a gesture.

  Sloane recounted her story, taking the councilors through her time at the Higgins farm including the arrival of the black ops people. Then, she described the following months she spent looking for Karleen because she wanted to disappear from the world, and finally concluded with the events that led her to collapse on a road outside of Precious.

  “Is there any truth to the belief that you are an avian shifter?” a councilor asked. She seemed especially earnest on the topic, but I guessed that had something to do with her being an avian, too.

  “Yes,” Sloane answered simply.

  Now, the councilor’s poker face slipped, and eagerness suffused her expression. “Will you show us… please?”

  Sloane took a deep breath and nodded. Without waiting any further, she proceeded to strip and crouched. When she shifted, I felt like I knew what Gabrielle must’ve felt all those weeks ago when I had my first shift in the diner. Sloane’s bird was huge, easily twelve feet tall if she was an inch. Each toe of her feet looked at least as thick as the business end of a Louisville Slugger, and her feathers were a russet brown with faint black mottling. Her head and beak held hints of hawk, falcon, and eagle, but it was like recognizing a child in the child’s great-grandparent.

  The councilors’ expressions all betrayed shock, with hints of a wide range of additional emotions. The avian councilor gazed at Sloane in rapt adoration. The audience looked on in thinly veiled interest, but their exposure to a Smilodon trotting through the town’s park and hills might have adjusted the bar for what it took to produce shock.

  “She’s beautiful,” escaped Gabrielle’s lips in a loud whisper tinged with awe.

  Sloane turned to look at us and bobbed her head in an exaggerated nod of thanks.

  Before I realized what was happening, Miles stood at Sloane’s side, his hand held up as if to touch her as he said, “May I, lass?”

  Sloane turned back to him and bobbed another nod. Miles stroked the feathers along Sloane’s side as his eyes trailed from her head to her feet.

  “Och, such a beautiful èan ye are, lass. It’s been long, long years since I last beheld one of yer kind, and I feared I never would again. A beauty like ye deserves to be in the air. Go. Enjoy yerself.”

  Sloane cast a glance at the assembled councilors who were only now regaining their composure.

  “Never ye mind about them. If they have an issue that persists past Wyatt’s defense of ye, they’ll face me, and I
promise ye they do not want that at all. So, off wi’ ye now. ’Tis a beautiful day for flying methinks.”

  It didn’t escape me that Miles slipped as he spoke with Sloane and allowed his odd accent to color his speech more than usual.

  Sloane bobbed her head in one last nod, and Miles backed away to give her room. Sloane stretched her wings, shadowing a span of at least thirty feet, and leaped into the air. Each flap of her wings carried her higher, and when she was far enough away, she cried her joy to the world, a powerful scree that would’ve ruptured eardrums if she were still in the amphitheater.

  It was Buddy Carrington who filled the awed silence that blanketed the area after Sloane’s departure.

  “At least she flew toward the forest and hills. As big as she is, she’d crack a windshield if she dive-bombed a car.”

  6

  Silence reigned in the amphitheater for several minutes while we all watched Sloane fly into the distance. Once she was little more than a speck on the horizon, the feline councilor cleared her throat and tapped her gavel once more.

  “I think it’s safe to say we have just witnessed the first avian primogenitor in recent times. I open the floor to my esteemed fellow councilors to begin debate on the best course of action regarding Sloane’s situation with mortal law enforcement.”

  The avian councilor was quick to speak. “It should go without saying that we defend her. I mean… would any of you let some shadowy black ops group railroad Alpha Wyatt or Primogenitor Karleen or any other shifter into a black site’s laboratory?”

  “No,” the bear councilor—a sassy, no-nonsense woman from Manitoba—replied. “If we allow them to do that to one of us, it won’t be long until they’re doing it to all of us, but we also need to handle this respectfully and with care. The black site identified in Alpha Wyatt’s interrogation lies outside shifter territory, and if we gather the Nation and attack, we will be committing an act of war against the United States. We have shed blood, lost shifters, lost friends, lost family protecting the United States ever since its founding. Attacking them now—even over something like this—is not how friends, let alone allies, treat one another.

  “Now, I may be an old bear who isn’t current on all the new fads and phases of global society, but I try to live my life according to one axiom that is as fundamental as water being wet and the sky being blue: treat others as you want to be treated. I think that should be our first step. I think treating them like we would want to be treated—in this instance—takes the form of telling them what’s happening and giving them the chance to stop it.”

  Whether the other councilors agreed or were just reluctant to challenge a polar bear shifter, they soon nodded their assent.

  “Should we take that to mean you support sending a delegation to Washington, D.C., to speak to someone in the US government?” the feline councilor asked.

  The bear councilor replied with a sagely nod. “Yes. We might want to read the text of our treaty with them to see who our point of contact is and start there.”

  I immediately saw a potential pitfall with that idea. I stood and raised my hand.

  “Yes, Alpha Wyatt?” the feline councilor asked.

  “Councilors, it is possible that the point of contact specified in our treaty may no longer exist. I don’t know precisely when we signed the treaty with the United States, but the government has gone through a lot of shuffling and re-organization down through the years. We may have to track whatever office is specified in the treaty across the successive years to learn where the responsibility now lies.”

  The bear councilor frowned. “It hasn’t been that long since we signed the treaty. Surely, someone would know who’s responsible for maintaining relations with us.”

  It took all my willpower to keep from grinning. “Esteemed Councilor, while I would never be so rude as to ask a lady’s age, the United States Constitution has been in effect for around two-hundred-thirty to two-hundred-forty years. Sure… that’s nothing to shifters or even some Magi, but regular humans even three generations back didn’t personally experience the founding of the country. I give it even odds that whoever we’re supposed to contact doesn’t even know shifters exist, let alone that we have a treaty with the United States. Does the Shifter Nation of North America even have an ambassador to them? That’s who would normally handle approaching the government about this.”

  Now, the councilors all looked to one another. I heard whispered questions back and forth on the ambassador issue, but apparently, none of the current councilors’ tenures extended back to World War II, which was the last time the Shifter Nation had any formal contact with the United States government.

  After several minutes, the feline councilor turned back to me. “Alpha Wyatt, you raise excellent concerns. It seems we must examine the text of the treaty before we can proceed. Will you shelter Sloane Martinez until such time as we can devise a best path to rectifying this matter?”

  “She will always have a place here with us as long as she’s a good citizen,” I replied, “but if I may, I would ask that the Shifter Council not take too long determining the best path. It won’t be long before the black-ops people’s superiors question why they haven’t checked in, and I would hate for the matter to escalate due to simple inaction.”

  Several councilors’ eyes narrowed at my statement and implied challenge.

  “Should we take that to mean you intend to act on your own after a given period of time?” the bear councilor asked.

  I gave them my best innocent grin as I said, “Esteemed Councilor, I would like nothing better than to live my life separated from all the politics and stupidity I have witnessed since becoming a shifter… just like Primogenitor Karleen did for many years. But since the Shifter Council decided in its supposed wisdom that I should be Alpha of Precious and Godwin County without my consent and against my wishes, I see no reason to act in any other way than how my conscience and personal values dictate. If that means using my contacts to approach federal law enforcement on my own, then I shall do so utterly unconcerned with how ineffectual or pointless it might make the Shifter Council appear.”

  The bear councilor’s expression shifted into an angry glare. “You dare challenge us in such a manner? Especially no older than you are? I will—”

  “Before ye finish that sentence, lass,” Miles said, moving to stand beside me, “ye should take a moment to step back and consider just how precarious yer intended path may be. Polar bear or not, I would put my money on the lad here in any confrontation between the two of ye. It might not be the wisest course to see a challenge where none exists. Instead, perhaps this be merely a consequence of forcing a primogenitor into your power structure.”

  “And just who are you to be inserting yourself into these discussions?” the feline councilor asked. “This is the second time you’ve interfered.”

  “Lass, I be known in this time and place as Miles. I work as a groundskeeper on the estate of the lad’s grandparents.”

  Miles lifted his left hand and wove his fingers and thumb through an intricate series of gestures that he made seem as nothing, a well-trod path he knew as well—or better—than his own face. When he finished, I noticed a sigil etch itself into the conference table’s surface, though I was at the wrong angle and distance to see it.

  The councilors, however, saw it just fine. By the time the sigil completed its appearance, every councilor was pale. The feline councilor’s jaw trembled. The bear councilor’s eyes looked wider than a saucer in a tea service. The avian councilor looked primed to sprout feathers and flee the area.

  “As for who I be, ye may consider that me calling card.”

  After several minutes of silence interrupted only by the sounds of Nature around the amphitheater, the feline councilor took a breath, saying, “Please, sir, forgive any slight we may have given you.”

  Now, I really wanted to know what that sigil was and what it meant.

  “Lass, after ye reach a certain age, all but the mos
t grievous of insults becomes little more than the pitter-patter of raindrops. I would ask ye, though, not to discuss what ye’ve seen. Ye’ve no idea how insistent annoying youngsters can be with their worship when they think yer one of their heroes.” Miles started to turn away but stopped and turned back to the councilors. “And no, I am not a hero, just in case any of ye be thinking otherwise.”

  With that, Miles turned and left the amphitheater. When he was halfway up the stairs, the sigil carved into the tabletop vanished as if it had never been.

  “At this point,” the feline councilor said, “I believe the only thing we can do is adjourn this discussion until we have examined our copy of the treaty. Alpha Wyatt, I ask that you give us three days to do so and formulate a response. If you haven’t heard from us by then, you may feel free to handle this as you see fit.”

  “That’s fair. I have no problems giving you three days.”

  “Then, we’re adjourned,” the feline councilor replied, adding a crack of her gavel.

  The councilors all stood, and by the time they reached the stairs out of the amphitheater, half the audience was already gone.

  I leaned against the conference table in silence as I watched everyone leave, thoughts swirling through my mind about the situation. Both the potential, snarled furball over our official contact with the federal government and just the whole situation in general. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was not going to be a simple matter, and I feared Sloane might be lost amid the impetus to normalize relations between the shifters and Uncle Sam.

  The arrival of Karleen and Gabrielle at my side pulled me out of my concerned thoughts. I leaned close and kissed the neck to my left—Karleen—before turning to kiss the neck at my right—Gabrielle. Not too long after we decided to try a formal relationship between the three of us, Gabrielle and Karleen sat me down for a discussion about how shifters viewed female shifters in relationships, especially females in relationships with Alphas, and I left the conversation even less enthused to be shifter than I was going into it.