The appearance of a simple, gnarled tree branch faded from Vicki’s staff without apparent prodding. In its wake, we saw the staff in its truth. The staff’s wooden shaft was blacker than night, seeming to draw in color and light around it. A pointed ferrule that looked to be gold capped its base, and at the top, a ferrule shaped like a dragon’s claw grasped a clear, crystal shard. The staff radiated an emptiness… no… a hunger. A hunger so deep and unfulfilled that even all the souls in the entire world might not sate it.
Each of us shouldered one of Gladys’s packs, until only Earl, Paul, and Lyssa remained pack-less, and Vicki led us to the street. Apparently, creating a portal in the dining room of a restaurant just wasn’t done. As soon as we gathered around her, Vicki took Lyssa’s hand and asked her to concentrate on her sisters. Then, she recited a series of words in that ancient language. Within seconds, a portal once again graced the center of Main Street, and we stepped through it.
20
As soon as I oriented myself after stepping through Vicki’s portal, I had my first look at Hampstead. The town itself didn’t seem that different from Precious. Main Street seemed to serve as the heart of the town. Vehicles ranged in both age and level of maintenance, and more than one local walking either sidewalk gave our group odd looks, if not the full-on hairy eyeball.
“Come on,” Lyssa said, gesturing down the street. “We should say hello to Alpha Steve before going to my sister’s place.”
“Will he give us any problems?” Gabrielle asked, as the group followed Lyssa down Main Street.
Lyssa shook her head ‘no.’ “He shouldn’t. Megan told him Cindy asked me to hire the Huntress.”
“Maybe so, but you arrived with a little more than just me.”
Lyssa smiled. “Yeah… I did. You have no idea how much it means to me that all of you came out to help find my niece.”
Gabrielle pulled Lyssa into a one-armed hug. “This is restrained, as far as Wyatt’s concerned. If he was really worried about our chances of getting your niece back, we would’ve arrived through a Magi assault rift with three-hundred-fifty shifters in a war party.”
“That is still on the table depending on what we find,” I remarked.
“You know, brother mine, we should probably discuss stationing a few Magi who are Master-certified in teleportation in Precious if you plan to make a habit of this. Otherwise, the law of averages will eventually catch up with you, and I won’t be available when you call. Now, granted, I’d drop what I was doing if it were a true emergency, but if we had a… oh, I don’t know; call it an embassy… in Precious, that would cut down on response time and almost guarantee availability of portals and assault rifts.”
“An embassy, sis? Really?”
Vicki beamed her innocent smile. “Why, of course. I hear you’ve recently come up in the world, what with being named Consul of the Shifters of North America. A mere office would never do. No, no, no. Only a Magi embassy would show due respect to your new gravitas.”
I gave my sister a flat look to which she replied with her bright, innocent cheerleader smile. Oh, well… maybe picking at the title the Shifter Council foisted onto me would divert her attention from scratching posts, litter boxes, and other feline-themed prank gifts. That was a fair hope, right?
As more people noticed Lyssa in our group, the expressions directed toward us softened. I fought the urge to smile. In towns like these, having a ‘local’ with you made all the difference. We walked down the sidewalk, and as we neared a tall, steepled building, I saw ‘Loch County Courthouse’ chiseled over the main entrance. A trio in sheriff department uniforms stood on the steps of the courthouse, looking our way.
“So, how far are we from Dodge City?” I asked.
Lyssa gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Oh… around ninety minutes north of it, give or take. It really depends on how you drive. Ah, there’s Alpha Steve now.”
Lyssa led us straight to the trio; the center person looked to be an older man. The wind carried three shifter scents to us, all lion.
“Alpha Steve,” Lyssa said as she approached the foot of the steps.
The ‘older’ man gave her a flat look that carried hints of humor around the edges. “Alpha Steve, is it? I don’t remember you calling me Alpha Steve while you and your sisters chased Sandy and Brian around the backyard.”
That was all the prompting Lyssa needed. She almost launched herself into the sheriff’s arms. “Hi, Uncle Steve. How is everyone?”
I watched Alpha Steve hold Lyssa in a tight hug, and the only way his regard for her would have been more obvious was if he carried around a large neon sign the size of a billboard.
“As well as can be expected, Lyssie. This mess has been tough on a lot of us.”
After a few more seconds, Lyssa released her vise grip on the man, and she turned to face us. “This is Steve Westridge, Alpha of Hampstead and Loch County… and my uncle. These two with him are Mike and Sam, deputies and my cousins.” She then proceeded to introduce our group, saving me and my sister for last. “And this is Wyatt Magnusson, Alpha of Precious and Godwin County and Consul of the Shifters of North America. Beside him is Victoria Magnusson, Heiress of Clan Magnusson, Heiress to the House of Merlin, and Bearer of Requiem, the Black Staff of Ruin. Did I get all that right, Vicki?”
Vicki smiled and added a nod. “Yes, you did.”
Steve eyed me ever since Lyssa mentioned that ‘Consul’ nonsense. After a moment, he scanned the faces around me, saying, “Welcome, everyone, to Hampstead and Loch County. Thank you for coming. I wish the reasons for your visit were better. Sam, call Kent and ask him to send a couple vans down here, please.”
The female deputy withdrew a cell phone from one of her belt pouches and made the call.
“So,” Alpha Steve said, his tone artificially nonchalant, “you finally pushed through your Consul idea, huh?”
What? My head turned toward Lyssa like a tank turret swiveling for target acquisition. She caught my movement, and her complexion blushed red. Not quite ripe tomato red, but certainly Gala or Honeycrisp apple red.
Steve noticed the byplay, too, and he quirked his eyebrow in silent question as he said, “From the looks of things, your acceptance of Consul was less than enthusiastic?”
I nodded once. “Much like being Alpha of Precious and Godwin County. Neither were my idea or preference.”
Alpha Steve chuckled. “Ah. I see. Lyssa and a couple of her friends on the Council have been fighting for that ‘Consul’ business ever since word came in of a feline primogenitor.” Lyssa let out a strangled squeak as Alpha Steve kept right on talking. “Seems there’s some kind of old document or scribblings or something that predict the next feline primogenitor will be some kind of Grand Poobah or some such. Don’t ask me if there’s any truth to it, but a lot of shifter scholars have been digging through all the old archives ever since you showed up.”
By now, Lyssa’s cheeks were the color of a ripe tomato as she growled out, “Uncle, you don’t have to tell everything you know. You realize that, right?”
A pair of white vans came down the street and made a U-turn to pull up to the courthouse steps as Steve shrugged and replied, “Ehh… I figure the boy needs a little fair warning. You and your friends sometimes seem to treat people like pieces on a chess board.”
Well, thank you, Alpha Steve. Glad I wasn’t the only one to notice that little behavioral quirk.
A frowning Lyssa pulled me to the first van where Alpha Steve climbed into the passenger seat. Lyssa, Gabrielle, and I sat in the second row with me sandwiched in the middle. Vicki dismissed Requiem as she, Karleen, and Earl moved to sit in the third row. Everyone else piled into the second van, filling it to capacity.
As the vans rolled out, Alpha Steve turned a little in his seat to speak to us better. “Okay. So, here’s what we know. Bonnie—Lyssa’s niece—has been missing a little over four hours. At the time of the disappearance, her mother—Cindy—heard her scream for help, but by the time Cindy made it
outside, there was no trace of her. Not even a scent trail. There is, however, a faint magical aura throughout the area.”
When Alpha Steve paused, Vicki spoke into the silence. “Depending on the effect used to mask the trail, there’s a chance that nothing will be there even after I break the masking. If it was a hedge wizard charm like the abduction cases back in Washington, everything will be there, but there are higher order protections that prevent tracks and scent trails and all that from being laid in the first place. Lyssa said Cindy believes her ex-husband took Bonnie?”
“Yes,” Alpha Steve answered, nodding. “She’s a clerk in the county records office, and everything there is public information. None of us can think of anyone with motive to take Bonnie other than that deadbeat Oliver Price.”
“That’s the dad and ex?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Alpha Steve replied.
“And Cindy, Bonnie, and Oliver are all lions?”
Alpha Steve nodded. “Yes.”
I looked to Gabrielle and said, “So, the first step is for Vicki to break the masking and see if anything appears?”
Gabrielle stared out the window and nodded in an almost absent-minded manner. “Yes. If it’s like the abduction cases back home, breaking the masking will make this so much easier. Frankly, I’m hoping for that. Worst case, I’ll track the magic. I’ve done it before.”
“Is there any chance that breaking the masking will remove all magic traces and make it impossible to track them if no tracks appear?” Lyssa asked.
“No,” Gabrielle answered, turning to lean forward just enough to make eye contact with Lyssa. “My first hunt for the Council involved a shifter and Magi working together, despite the tensions. The Magi used the more powerful protection, and I saw currents and eddies in the magic even after the Magi working with me broke the protection, which I used to track the bad guys.”
“That’s why they call her the Huntress,” Karleen opined from the third row. “From what I’ve heard, that little ability is beyond rare.”
I saw Gabrielle look away, turning back to the window, and it made me think she still wasn’t used to having the reputation in shifter society that she did. Heh… I knew that feeling. But I didn’t like her to feel embarrassed or anything like that, so I took the focus off her.
“So, how are you and your deputies going to run with us? And does Cindy have a scent article of some kind?” I asked.
Alpha Steve retrieved a plastic container of flavored toothpicks and popped one into his mouth. Then answered, “Cindy runs a horse farm. Stabling services, training, and that kind of thing. The deputies and I will mount up and ride with the crowd.”
A thought popped into my mind. “And they’re regular horses? Not horse shifters?”
He gave me a weird look. “Of course, they’re regular horses. It wouldn’t be fair for horse shifters to compete against regular horses in races and what not, and besides, that would just be demeaning to them.”
“Didn’t mean to step on anyone,” I replied. “I should probably shift as soon as we arrive and test the horses with me.”
“Why? They’ve been bred around predator shifters for several generations.”
I pointed to my chest. “Smilodon. Sabertooth cat. Not a regular feline predator. I doubt I smell anything like lions or tigers or really any other feline predator shifter the horses have encountered. I’d hate for them to panic and hurt themselves or someone else.”
The intensity of Alpha Steve’s expression faded as his eyes unfocused, his entire demeanor advertising he was deep in thought. “Yeah… hadn’t thought about that. Not a bad idea. I would run it by Cindy, but she’s not having a good day. I’ll ask Ted as soon as we arrive. He’s the ranch manager.”
* * *
The conversation fell away as the vans left the town behind. I saw why Hampstead and Loch County appealed to families of lion shifters. It was probably as close to the Serengeti as a lion was going to get in North America. Hampstead itself was a small farming town surrounded by miles and miles and miles of wheat fields, broken only by highways and train tracks. Some of those fields laid fallow, covered with tall grass and other non-wheat plant life. Most did not, and those fields gave me a much deeper and more honest understanding of the ‘amber waves of grain.’
We drove for about thirty minutes before we turned off the highway. Our new road split fields as far as the eye could see in either direction, but about fifteen minutes after leaving the highway, the fields fell away on the van’s right side and revealed a horse ranch that was rather impressive in its size alone.
A gravel lane connected the road to the ranch house, and fenced pastures bracketed it. The lane ran a couple hundred yards before it opened into a courtyard with a roundabout that had a massive flower planter in the center. The main house was a single-story ranch-style dwelling with a porch. A large barn stood off to the left, and a garage and what looked like a small bunkhouse stood off to the right. Two women—who bore a resemblance to Lyssa—stood on the porch.
The van slowed to a stop, and Alpha Steve opened his door as Gabrielle hauled open the sliding door. She and I cleared the way with alacrity to permit Lyssa’s urgent egress and dash up the steps to throw her arms around the two women I believed to be her sisters. Even from the short distance I stood, I could see how tightly Lyssa hugged them.
A crowd formed in the courtyard as the passengers vacated the second van and collected around us. Everyone in our group seemed to look to me for what to do next, and I fought the urge to sigh. This wasn’t my circus. Either Lyssa or Gabrielle was the ringleader… or maybe both of them were. But I guess my people looked to me because I was their Alpha, so I should probably get to Alpha-ing.
After giving the sisters a couple minutes, I headed for the porch, Gabrielle and Karleen on either side of me with Alpha Steve on my far left and Vicki on my far right. My shifter hearing informed me that everyone else fell into a loose group that followed us. Lyssa broke the hug and stepped to one side as we approached, and she gestured to me like a game show hostess.
“Cindy, Megan… this is Wyatt Magnusson, Alpha of Precious and Godwin County and Consul of the Shifters of North America. The lady on his left is Karleen Vesper, the North American dire wolf. The lady on his right is Gabrielle Hassan, the Huntress. The lady to Gabrielle’s right is Wyatt’s sister, Vicki. We brought two bear shifters to assist with tracking, plus a small wolf pack if we need extra muscle.”
Lyssa’s sisters’ eyes widened just enough for me to notice when Lyssa introduced me, and those same eyes became tea saucers at the introduction of Karleen. As soon as Lyssa stopped speaking, the woman closest to her of the two took a half step forward as she said, “Welcome. I’m Cindy, and this is our other sister, Megan. I’m not sure I have the words for how much it means to me that all of you would drop what you were doing to come here and help us. ‘Thank you’ seems so insufficient.”
I stepped forward and offered my most encouraging smile. “We’ll do everything we can to see your daughter returned to you, ma’am. I promise you that.”
Alpha Steve stepped to my side, saying, “Cindy, is Ted around?”
“No,” Cindy replied, adding a shake of her head. “He had this week scheduled as vacation, but Rory should be around.” She grabbed at her belt for something that wasn’t there. “Drat… I don’t have my radio.”
Megan pivoted and strode into the house, saying over her shoulder, “It’s right here, Cindy.”
Moments later, Megan placed it in Cindy’s hand, and Cindy summoned Rory to the porch at the roundabout. After clipping the radio to her belt, she asked, “Why do you need Rory?”
Alpha Steve gave a little cough as he answered, “We… uhh… have an unusual shifter breed as part of the hunting party, and we thought it might be best to test the horses around them before we head out. Come to think of it, we have two.”
“While the three of you check the horses, is it okay if Vicki goes ahead and breaks the masking?” Lyssa asked.
<
br /> Cindy frowned. “Breaks the masking?”
Vicki lifted her right hand, and Requiem in all its foreboding glory winked into existence within her grip as she stepped forward to join me. Both Cindy and Megan blinked as Vicki said, “I am Magi, and I can break whatever effect is masking the scents and tracks of Bonnie’s abductors.”
“Yes, please,” Cindy replied as she gestured toward the house. “They took Bonnie from the backyard and fled west through the fields.”
Rory arrived right about then, and it seemed to be time for me and Karleen to don our fur.
21
Gabrielle, Karleen, and I stepped into a mud room as Alpha Steve waited outside with Rory, and everyone else followed Lyssa and her sisters through the house to the backyard. Karleen and I stripped and shifted, and Gabrielle collected our clothes into a duffel she had removed from her pack and unrolled.
As the Loch County sheriff, I thought Alpha Steve would’ve possessed decent skill at keeping his emotions from showing in his expression, but maybe Karleen and I were just that striking. As we padded off the porch, Alpha Steve gaped. Rory outright paled, and Deputy Mike took a step back as his hand went to his sidearm.
Nice to know we attracted attention.
I watched Rory take a cautious sniff and resisted the urge to smile as he shuddered.
It’s good that the cougar recognizes a true predator, the growly voice opined. Saves me spending the effort to educate him.
Rory glanced from us to Alpha Steve and back again several times before he said, “Uhhh… I’m not sure how this will work out. Yeah… they scent like a wolf and feline respectively, but she doesn’t scent anything like any other wolf I’ve ever met. And don’t even get me started on him. Just the sight of those teeth makes my cougar want to look for the tallest tree and stay there until he leaves… the state.”
Alpha Steve chuckled. “My lion isn’t exactly calm, either. Might as well get this over with. Have your hands gathered the trail horses?”
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