Inhuman Heritage

by Sonnet O'Dell

  “Ah,” I said pulling out his form. He lived in the bottom half of a maisonette not far from where I was now along the back wall. I could walk there in ten minutes, have a poke around and be back before Simian even knew I was gone. I filed the papers back properly after noting down the address on a memo pad I snatched off the desk and quietly used my power to relock the door after me.

  The maisonette was dark and looked quiet. The upstairs windows were open slightly and I could hear snoring floating out from the tenant above sleeping his night away. The bottom floor windows were closed but the blinds and curtains weren’t drawn so I peered through the glass. One looked right into the bedroom and it was empty, the covers thrown aside like whoever had climbed out of it had done so in a hurry and hadn’t come back to even pull the covers straight.

  I walked around to the entrance way, there was a flower box along the side of the house that was filled with dead plants and the paint was flaking on the door. It looked like Seth wasn’t particularly house-proud. The door was locked but rather than use magic I did as Simian had at DJ’s; I looked for the spare key. It was buried in an inch of dirt just under the dead plants which I supposed was the only reason he’d kept the plant box around. The dirt got under my nails as I brushed the mud out from between the grooves of the key so I could slide it into the lock. It clicked quietly and I pushed the door open carefully. I stopped in the hallway and listened. There was no sound and no movement from inside. I flicked on a flashlight I grabbed from a broom closet on my way out of the community building and shined it along the hall. Men’s work boots sat in a row along the side of the wall and various coats and jackets hung on pegs above them. I was surprised to see a gun holster hanging from one. I didn’t know the community security forces were armed. That was slightly unnerving.

  A changed wolf had to get close up and personal to kill you, a gun could take you out from a distance. I would have to be extra careful. I slid through the doorway to my left into a living room that was arranged like there had been some sort of meeting there in the last few days. Chairs had been brought in from another room making space for ten to fourteen people in there. Since one had died out there on the road and Phillip had died before he could talk, that left about twelve possible people in on the plot.

  There were some papers on the table, schematics of the community building but these could have been issued to him as part of his security job when they were expecting a foreign dignitary. I turned the flashlight on the far wall. There were two doors on either side of a corner, and one I knew had to lead into the bedroom.

  I had no interest in going into this guy’s bedroom so I went for the other door, it led into a kitchen which was unusually clean. I mean it was immaculate which was unusual to say the least considering a man lived here. I would have expected some dirty dishes at least. Curious, I couldn’t help but look in the fridge. It was neat too, full of Tupperware containers of leftovers, fresh vegetables and fruit. Maybe Seth was very health conscious. The strangest thing was the freezer shelf at the top, it was full of ice trays, and what could he need that much ice for? Was he planning a margarita night?

  I closed the fridge swinging the light around the kitchen to find there was another door at the back which had several padlocks down the side of it to stop nosy visitors looking inside. I was not deterred however. I ran my finger down the catches using my power like a jack knife watching the locks flip off and the latches fly loose. One thing I knew about people who had locked doors in their home meant they had something to hide. I carefully pulled open the door; it looked like some sort of workshop. There was a work bench that had a bowl of slightly melting ice on it, something that looked like pipes and some large chemical bottles. I moved in closer to take a look.

  “Hydrogen peroxide and paint thinner.” I pulled my phone out. I’d gone for one of those smart phones with the Internet connection and stuck them into a Google search engine. I flipped the bottle of paint thinner so I could look at the ingredients-acetone. Hadn’t I seen something like this on CSI? My phone beeped and I looked at the results. Acetone peroxide when cooled took the form of white crystals and was highly explosive. Perhaps enough to blow a car off the road. It was all the makings of a homemade bomb. I let the torch sweep the floor, there were traces of the white powder on the floor, and each step in here could be deadly. I started back stepping carefully making sure not to touch anything else, sliding my phone into my pocket and making for the door. It was clear in my mind that Seth had created the bomb that had blown the truck off the road and I was pretty sure that his voice was the one that he’d badly tried to conceal from me at the barn. I thought he might just have been involved but now I was pretty sure he was the ringleader.

  I stepped back over the threshold letting go of the breath I had been holding and pulled the door shut behind me. Everything had to be exactly as I found it, no tipping him off before we could move on him. I had to get back to Simian and fill him in.

  I was snapping the locks back into place, trying to leave everything as I’d found it. My only warning that there was someone behind me was a sharp intake of breath before a solid object met with the back of my skull. I had no time to turn or to call out for help as I crumpled to the ground and the blackness fell over me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  My head was pounding when I woke to a chorus of voices around me. I didn’t open my eyes for a few while I did a mental checklist. I was sat sort of slumped against something, a cold metal bar ran along the edge of it and I was on the floor. My wrists were bound behind my back with rope and were attached to the bar was well. My feet were unbound but from the floor I’d have no purchase for a kick that would do any damage to whoever was holding me. I picked up the sound of chains clinking to my left. Slowly I opened my left eye to get a better look. I was momentarily blinded by the bright florescent light above me but my vision cleared after a minute. The chains were silver and they were securing DJ and Farir to a wooden post that supported the ceiling.

  Both of them looked a little worse for wear, bloody and bruised from several beatings. Neither of them saw my open eye, they were too busy trying to talk to each other without being noticed. I opened both my eyes blinking the painful light away until I could focus straight ahead of me. I could see the back of Sphynx boy, his burns looked better but I could still see his face was marred by them. He was limping slightly and sounded wheezy. I was hoping both were my doing. I counted nine bodies in the room all huddled together talking in hushed voices. A few of them gesticulated signals that to me said fear and that they had gotten in too deep. I looked to my left again and this time I caught DJ’s eye. He looked relieved that I was awake. I was too, I could feel the bump-even now healing away-on the back of my head. I wriggled, testing my ropes, they were bound pretty tight. I opened my mouth and felt a new sting on my cheek. I tried to look at it but could only just make out some red. I turned to DJ turning my right cheek to him.

  Cut, he mouthed at me from where he was and I took a moment to silently fume. I had to have caught it on something on my way to the floor. Once I had control of myself, I stared at Sphynx’s back and coughed loudly. I was done with being ignored. He looked over his shoulder briefly before turning away again.

  “She’s awake,” he grumbled in his deep baritone. The people parted like the Red Sea for Moses and Seth Brogan stepped forward. He smiled at me, twisting his beard in unpleasant ways.

  “I should have known all along it was you.”

  “Yes. But then again you didn’t trust me from the start or you wouldn’t have chosen DJ.”

  “I chose DJ because he didn’t eye fuck me the minute he met me, plus your beard just screams Machiavellian shit head.” He continued to smile at me and walked to the end of my feet squatting to be at eye level.

  “My boy tells me he cut you up pretty badly but yet you keep coming.” He reached for where the bandage peeked out from under my top and ripped it off. I grunted as the tape pulled at my skin. Seth stared at the va
guely pink marks across my skin.

  “Barely touched me,” I snorted.

  “Gave you a haircut though didn’t I, bitch?” He wheezed and I smiled nastily at him.

  “Sounds like you got a nasty cough there. How’s your chest?” He growled at me. Seth raised his hand in the air.

  “Enough! Frank had blood on his claws, I saw it myself,” he said narrowing his gaze at me. “What are you?”

  “None of your business.” He ran his hand slowly up my leg.

  “But I’m so very curious.”

  “That hand goes any higher and I’m going to have to insist you buy me dinner.” Seth chuckled but his hand stopped moving. Cheapskate. He looked over my face carefully, leaned close and licked the blood from the scrape on my cheek. I heard DJ growl and struggle uselessly against his bindings. Seth shuddered from his head to his toes, his eyes fluttering shut. When they opened again they had bled to wolf eyes. Predatory and hungry.

  “You taste like the best dessert in the world, all spicy and sweet.”

  “Down Fido,” I growled as he leaned close again, this time to sniff the skin just above my collarbone.

  “Something about you…so enticing…” He shook his head seeming to snap himself out of almost a dream. His eyes went back to that of a man. “I won’t let you distract me.”

  “Why, Seth?” shouted DJ. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because the system isn’t fair,” snapped Seth, his eyes turning on DJ. “I am just as much a wolf as you but when it comes down to it I can’t advance as long as there is a pure blood in my way.”

  “So you’re going to change all that?” I said drawing Seth back to me which seemed to calm him. He looked at me like I might understand.

  “Yes, once I’m king then I will make things fair.”

  “Will you really? Or will you just make things the way you want?”

  “Things have to change.”

  “But is this really the way? Will you be what is best for your people? When you’re willing to terrorize a small boy to get what you want.” Seth looked at me considering my point for a few moments.

  “It doesn’t have to be like that if you’d just talk him around to my side.”

  “If I talked to him?” He cupped my chin with his fingers and tilted my face towards his.

  “Shall I make you an offer you can’t refuse?”

  “Only if you want a real rude suggestion about what to do with it.” Seth threw his head back and laughed. His mouth was brimming with white teeth with very sharp canines. I was beginning to believe that maybe unnaturally sparkly teeth were a preternatural perk. It gave me something to look forward to.

  “So what do you plan to do with us now?”

  “You are my guest my dear, you will not be harmed,” he said smiling and ignored the growl that came from Sphynx boy behind him. “As for those two they will soon enough be my subjects and their compliance will be mandatory. When I am king perhaps you will find yourself more kindly disposed towards me.”

  “Your power would only reach as far as the wolves and it’s not assured yet.” Seth gave me a smile that had very little to do with humor. It was the same sort of smile that I’d seen on Sphynx boy’s face that he was thinking of all the things he’d like to do with me if he could. I noticed the same look on a couple of the other faces in the room too. It was nice to be so popular. Seth singled one of them out to stay behind as guard and he seemed more than pleased to be of service as the others rallied to go out. I watched them file out slowly, Sphynx lingering at the back with Seth as they passed me heading for the door.

  “I know old friend, your pride is very important to you but I wish for a,” he chuckled, “coronation gift. When I am through...” Sphynx boy snorted an agreeable laugh. I shuddered at the prospect. The guy they had left to watch us waited a beat after they had left before disappearing in through a door towards the back of the bar that had a small porthole window in it. I turned to the only two men left in the room.

  “Are you two okay? What happened to you?”

  “I went back to the farmhouse to call in for more help,” said DJ and he growled a little, “but Seth wasn’t answering his phone and then the guy who owns that land up there-he’s a bitten Were-clunked me over the head.”

  “When I went to find him, I got the same treatment,” said Farir in his gruff voice. Neither man looked very happy about being taken out so easily.

  “But you got away with the kid,” said DJ starting to smile a little. “That really pissed them off. Where did you go?”

  “I got a lift for us back to town. We laid low at my place for the day.”

  “They beat on us trying to find out where you’d gone, if I’d sent you to a safe house or if I knew where it was you lived but I didn’t and even if I had known I wouldn’t have told them.” DJ seemed proud that he withstood their beatings to protect me. “So when is backup getting here?”

  I looked down at my lap.

  “Cassandra, what is it?”

  “There isn’t any backup,” I said and I explained about how we’d caught Phillip and then someone had taken him out, knocking Simian down in the attack and how I’d gone to Seth’s place on my own getting knocked out before I could even telephone anyone to let them know.

  “So what are we to do now?” Farir asked. “They are going after the boy again.”

  “He’s fairly safe. I put a spell on the door to his room, only Brie or I can open it. How likely is it that she will open the door for Seth?”

  “If she knows that someone in our pack is after the boy it might make her cautious but Seth is second in command in security here. She might trust him enough,” said DJ pulling at the restraints again. I could see the locks; they would be easy enough to break open with a little magic if I could just get my hands on them. It looked like I had to get free first.

  “Sit tight guys, I’ll see what I can do.” I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the ropes behind me. They were tight, cutting off circulation to my hands slowly but I thought I could twist one off my wrist just enough. I wriggled it around carefully trying not to chafe my skin too badly. Rope burns hurt. I managed to move one wrist around enough so that I could flatten my hand so it was palm up. Warm wind blew around my body.

  “Cassandra,” said DJ in a voice only just above a whisper. “What are you doing?”

  “Shhh,” I told him and twitched my fingers saying the word to help me concentrate. “Ignis.” I brought the fire to my hand. It was only little but this close to the rope it began to smoke as the strands singed from the heat. The rope began to fray.

  “Come on,” I muttered, “faster.” I tried to make the fire larger, brighter, hotter but I didn’t want to accidently set the bar behind me on fire. The door at the back swung open again and I winced as I had to close my fist around the fire extinguishing it. I opened my eyes to look at the man standing in the doorway, his eyes met mine and I could see the unmistakable mood in his eyes. Lust. Just bloody perfect.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  DJ must have caught the way he was looking at me too because a deep growl started in the back of his throat. Either DJ was more into me then I had thought-which would be odd seeing as we’d only really just met-or he was a gentleman that believed in protecting any woman’s virtue. Our guard stepped behind the bar, took a beer out of the fridge and popped the cap off on the edge of the wood. I watched as the cap spiraled up through the air and went spinning off along the floor. He took a long swig then taking a chair from one of the tables dragged it so he was sat in front of me, a couple of paces back but he wanted me to know that he was watching me. I turned my head like I was embarrassed by his attention and fell into my thoughts.

  Perhaps, just perhaps I could use this to my advantage. If he came close enough I could disable him and we wouldn’t have to worry about making so much noise trying to get free. Once the guard was taken out, we could get free, and get out of here and after Seth. I so badly wanted to kick his ass especially for th
e comment about making me his coronation gift. I turned back to the guy on the seat and gave him a little coy smile. He had his beer to his lips and he arched an eyebrow at the smile. He looked like he was trying to work out what that smile meant. It was enough for him to open a conversation with me.

  “I saw you in the paper. Aren’t you dating a vamp?”

  DJ turned to look at me. He looked like he was curious about what my answer was going to be as much as the guy across from me.

  “I dated one a little but we’re not currently an item as far as I know.” He stroked his thighs and took another swig of his beer before turning to point the neck at me like you would a finger.