by Natalie Grey
There was an orange glow there.
He wasn’t going to die, at least not immediately. Filip slumped against the wall of the building for a moment, relief making his legs shaky. It took him a moment to realize that the guard hadn’t even noticed his escape. The man was staring at the sky, as worried as everyone else.
Filip stared for a moment. He looked around himself. No one had noticed him at all. He took one cautious step to the side, then another, and then he broke into a run. He pounded down the pavement and around a corner, and made for the first building he saw: the Hotel Sofia.
Inside, he tucked the knife into his pocket and stood for a moment, legs still shaking. He could use a drink, that was for sure. He made his way to the bar and ordered a vodka before slumping his head onto his arms.
“Fucking wolves,” he muttered, louder than he’d intended to.
“I beg your pardon.” The voice spoke exquisite Bulgarian, though the foreign accent was unmistakable. “Did you say wolves?”
“Oh.” Filip looked up at the suited gentleman sitting at the bar. “It’s … nothing.”
“Really.” The man gave him a slow smile. “As it turns out, I’ve had my own problems with wolves lately. Can I buy you a drink?”
—
“Pull up, we’re heading back.” Javier banked, watching until Matias and Alejandro followed suit. “We go to stealth in one minute.”
“Yes, sir.” The chorus came back over the line.
Javier paused, looking at the radio. They were usually not so formal, but all of them were unsettled by what they had done tonight. He clenched his hands and took a deep breath, and then punched the button to call back to headquarters.
“Yes?” Hugo’s voice was curt.
“It’s done, sir.”
“Excellent,” was their boss’s only response.
—
“Stephen.” Lance smiled as he strode down the hallway that led to the docking bay. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you,” Stephen replied. He looked Lance up and down. “Good to see you back in uniform, too. It suits you.”
Lance laughed, “Thank you – although I think some of that is just me looking younger now.” He nodded to the rest of the group. “Good to see you, Jennifer. To all of the rest of you, I’m Lance.” He noted the names they murmured, and the despairing look on the faces of the men.
He beckoned Stephen to walk with him away from the rest. “What happened?”
“The facility we got the lead on was destroyed,” Stephen explained. “Stoyan and his pack were searching for family there. It looks like all of them were killed.” He rubbed at his forehead and sighed. “We’re waiting for ADAM to help us find more targets, and in the meantime, I want to go back to the Meredith Reynolds. It looks like this bastard has bigger plans than we thought.” He nodded to Stoyan. “Stoyan will come with us as a representative, but he wants his pack mates taken back to Sofia when it’s safe.”
Lance nodded, “We’ll get them a Pod back down as soon as we’re sure the airspace is clear. I may come back to the Meredith Reynolds with you. I want to get to the bottom of this, and Bethany Anne will as well.”
Lance glanced over his shoulder before turning back to Stephen, he lowered his voice, “Why does Jennifer look like she’s about to rip your spine out?”
“We might have gone into the facility after telling her she wouldn’t miss anything.” Stephen looked uncomfortable. “And she might have promised to kill me painfully if I did that.”
Lance whistled a moment and took in a deep breath before exhaling. “Well, good luck with that.”
“You could help me out by talking her down,” Stephen pointed out.
Lance only guffawed. “Get between a pissed off Wechselbalg and the person they’re righteously pissed at? No way. I’ve got some loose ends to tie up here and I’ll meet you at the docking bay in two hours to head out to the Meredith Reynolds. You know, if you’re still alive.”
“Very funny!” Stephen called after him. He turned around and looked at Jennifer. “Well, go on. Go ahead. Tear me a new one.”
“You know….” Jennifer tilted her head to one side. “I think I’m gonna save this one. Just keep it in the bank.”
“What, so the next time I do this you can tear me two new ones?”
“Next time? Oh, no.” Jennifer gave him a sweet smile. “The next time you do this, you’re dead.”
Stephen groaned as Arisha stifled a laugh with her sleeve.
Jennifer took Arisha to get cleaned up as Stephen stepped away. Arisha looked over to her, “What can you really do to him?”
Jennifer looked over her shoulder to confirm Stephen was not nearby, biting her lip she answered, “Him? Nothing at all.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Filip’s voice was slurred. Four drinks ago, he had been sure that he wouldn’t tell anyone about Stoyan—after all, he didn’t want to be called crazy and hauled off to some institution. So he’d just taken the offered drink and made small talk with the suited man at the bar. Then had come another drink, and the man had waved off Filip’s offer to pay: “I have a business card. My company is very generous with my expense account. Don’t worry.”
Filip knew he should have declined, but he was drinking top shelf vodka and he told himself that it had been a difficult few days. He lifted his glass in a silent toast to Toma and drank the vodka in a gulp. Drink number three had arrived almost before he set down his glass, and it had been halfway through that one that Filip asked what sort of wolf problems his companion was having. The man waited for the bartender to go into the back before he answered.
“If I told you, you would say I’m insane.”
Filip set down his glass. He told himself that the man was not talking about werewolves. Normal people didn’t believe in werewolves, and crazy people didn’t become very rich and successful, as this man clearly was. But he realized he didn’t have to say anything about his own experiences, and he was curious. “I won’t think you’re insane,” he promised.
The man considered that. He looked at Filip, and then held out his hand for a shake. “I will trust you, then. You seem like a nice man. If you think I’m insane, will you agree not to turn me into the police?”
Filip snorted. “Trust me, friend, I have no love for the police.”
His drinking companion laughed. “Then I will tell you. I have had problems recently with a group of criminals, and I have reason to believe that some of the old stories from this part of the world are true, and that they are Wechselbalg—shapeshifters. They turn into wolves.”
Filip stared at the man, swaying slightly. The vodka was burning in his blood. He couldn’t have heard those words correctly, could he? “What did you say?”
The man looked embarrassed. “Nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything. Enjoy your drink.” He left an absurd amount of cash on the bar and walked away.
“No, wait!” Filip pushed himself up and hurried after the man, drink still in hand. He finally caught the man by the elevator. “Wait, you said shapeshifters, right?” He leaned in. “I know who you’re talking about. I’ve seen them.”
“You have?” Something that looked like triumph flashed in the man’s eyes and was quickly gone. “We should talk about this somewhere that no one will overhear.”
Filip was invited upstairs, to a room far nicer than anything he’d ever stayed in. Hell, it was nicer than anything he’d ever robbed, either. He gave a look at the man, who gave an artful shrug and then strolled over to the sideboard. He uncorked a bottle of vodka and poured two glasses.
He smiled and held one of the glasses out to Filip, “As I said, my company is very generous.”
“Fucking Stoyan,” Filip muttered. He took the glass and settled back on the bed. He was very tired. His head was spinning.
The man lifted the glass to his mouth, but then pulled it down. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
Filip grimaced, “It’s nothing.” But his heart was pounding wit
h fury, and his free hand had clenched. Stoyan had been keeping him chained to a bed with the assurance that he was keeping Filip safe. Safe from what? From free drinks? From nice hotel rooms? His mind worked slowly, made sluggish by the alcohol.
Stoyan had wanted to take all of Filip’s contacts and then get the rewards for exposing the facility. Stoyan knew Filip was heading for a big payday and he wanted to steal it all. He shut Filip away and tried to keep him quiet with lies.
“Tell me what you know about the shifters.” The man’s voice was suddenly authoritative.
Filip looked up and swallowed hard. The man’s eyes were cold. He held the vodka glass, but hadn’t taken so much as a sip. In fact, Filip couldn’t remember if he’d seen the man drink anything downstairs.
Maybe Stoyan had been right after all.
In a blink, the cold expression was gone and the man was looking at him with concern. “Are you alright? You looked frightened for a moment.”
“Uh…” Filip looked down into his vodka. The change was so fast that he wondered if he’d actually seen the anger. “What did you ask?”
“I asked you to tell me about the shifters.” The man crouched down to look up into Filip’s face. “I don’t want you to have to relive bad memories. You’re just the first person I know who’s believed they were real.” He gave a sigh. “I shouldn’t be selfish. I’ll go get you a glass of water and you can be on your way.”
Filip decided he had definitely been imagining the angry voice. This man had been nothing but nice to him all night. “It’s okay, I feel … okay.” He took a gulp of vodka to show he was fine. It tasted strange for a moment, and then the weird flavor was gone. “See? Bulgarians can drink, eh?”
The man gave a laugh and raised his glass in a toast. “That you can. You have this Spaniard outclassed. Do you want another?”
“Of course.” Filip spread his arms, a bit unsteadily. He watched as the man poured another glass, and he drained it down quickly. He grinned as he held it up. “You stay here, you will learn to drink like we do.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Not entirely.” The man seemed to find the idea amusing.
“Huh?” Filip steadied himself on the bed. The room’s spinning seemed to have picked up speed.
“Tell me what you know about the shifters. Tell me everything.” The man’s voice was cold again.
This time, Filip spoke without hesitation. He told the man about how he’d met Stoyan, and everything Stoyan had told him about a missing cousin, about his family. He told the man about the reporter who was asking around about Wechselbalg. He told the man about the man staying here, in this very hotel, and the meeting where Stoyan had shifted into a wolf and Toma had been killed—and about the building nearby where Stoyan’s bodyguards held Filip captive. He told the man everything he knew, and then he pitched face down off the bed.
Gerard looked at the prone body for a moment. So, that reporter was here for the same reason, was she? She knew things about Wechselbalg, did she?
A thought occurred to him, sudden and chilling: what if she was the one who broke in and accessed the mainframe from his computer? No. He shook his head. She didn’t know enough. That was the work of someone else. It reeked of the Queen Bitch. But he was on their trail now. He stepped over Filip’s unconscious body and picked up his phone, dialing Hugo’s number.
—
The last echoes of the bombing died away, but Hsu still stood frozen amidst the trees, afraid to move at all.
For two days now, she had looked over her shoulder every few minutes, sure that guards would be coming after them. When the alarms had started to go and the guards burst through the door, Hsu had been sure she would be killed. She had never seen the wolf at the height of her powers, however. The five guards never stood a chance—and there were no others who came to back them up.
With screams echoing throughout the facility, the wolf took off down the side corridors that led to the outside world, and Hsu followed without a thought.
Hsu wasn’t stupid. It was clear now that there had been a plan between the Wechselbalg.
Whether they had forged it during their forced fights, or in the chained lines that led them for shots, blood draws, and meals, she did not know. She knew only that they must all have escaped their cages at the same moment.
The door of the wolf’s cage, the wire mesh, had been getting more rickety each week, harder to lock. Hsu had thought nothing of it … until the breakout. So the facility had been taken down from the inside.
But Hsu knew the types of weapons the guards carried. She knew how many of them there were. She knew the wolves weren’t going to win, no matter how fast they were.
She had been waiting, for these two days, for the guards she knew were coming. Even cleaning up after the fight wouldn’t occupy them for long. They would realize two bodies were missing, or they would see what had happened on the security cameras.
But now, the facility was gone. Hsu didn’t doubt for a moment that it had been the castle that was bombed, and even though she had never heard that sound, she knew it instinctively. The booms and crashes had echoed through the mountains—distorted, and yet also entirely recognizable.
Even if anyone had survived the fight at the facility, they were dead now.
Her heart leapt suddenly. What if that had been Gerard’s revenge for their carelessness? What if he didn’t know Hsu had survived? She turned to say that to the wolf—and gasped. The human stood there, swaying slightly. Fading bruises covered her skin.
Every day that she was out of the facility, she seemed stronger. Hsu hurried to get her clothes from the pack, and held them out warily. As strange as it was, she had become accustomed to the wolf.
The giant claws and teeth were terrifying, but at the same time, had come to be comforting—defense against the people Hsu figured were coming after them. And a wolf couldn’t talk, couldn’t accuse, and certainly couldn’t ask questions about why Hsu had done what she had done at the facility.
The woman just snatched the shirt away from her when they heard the faint whistling noise of something plummeting out of the air nearby. There was no time to run. Hsu sank down into the snow, heartbroken. Her last thoughts were going to be that she should have run sooner, that she had died without ever redeeming herself, and—
Whatever it was hit the ground nearby with a crash of trees … and no explosion. Hsu exchanged a quick look with the woman, and they took off together through the undergrowth to find a heavy bale of something wrapped in canvas.
“What on earth is this?” Hsu walked around it carefully, and crouched down by a series of letters. “TQB.” She frowned. “Who is that?” The wolf-woman raised her eyebrows, apparently shocked that Hsu didn’t know.
“I was captured ten years ago,” Hsu explained.
The other woman was hardly paying attention. She unhooked the ropes and the canvas fell away to reveal the things that had haunted Hsu’s dreams for two days: warm boots, thick coats, mittens, and food. Clean water, fire starters, everything a person could want.
“There’s a note.” Hsu opened it and read it. Her English was’t good, but whoever TQB was, their employees apparently spoke Bulgarian and Russian. “They want us to meet them, they said we will be taken to safety.” She looked up at the other woman. “Can we trust them?”
The other woman nodded.
“Then we should get moving.” Hsu began to pull on one of the new coats. “It’s not far, half a kilometer.”
“I’m not going.” The woman’s voice was rusty with disuse. She had long ago stopped talking in the lab, sinking into despair and silence.
Hsu stopped. “You said we could trust them.”
“I do. I’ve heard things about them—they come for people who do things like … you did. They bring justice. But I’m going to the other facility. I’m not going home. I don’t want them to patch me up and send me back.” She swallowed. “I don’t ever want my family to know what happened to me.”
Hs
u bowed her head. The horror of what she had done was overwhelming.
“Then I’ll come with you, if you’ll let me.”
“What?” The woman turned to look over at her.
“I told you that I was going to redeem myself before I died,” Hsu reminded her. “I was one of those who did those things to you. Use me for bait. Use me for a shield, I don’t care—though I can probably talk us into that facility if you’ll let me. I’ll do whatever you say.” Her head bowed, “I need to earn absolution for what I did.”
