Shifter Wars Complete Series

by Sarah J. Stone

  "Yo, Carlos," the second gorilla said. "Come in, man. We gotta go, like, five minutes ago."

  A moment passed.

  "I ain't getting' anything."

  "Fucker knows where to meet us. And if he gets caught, then he ain't gonna last long in Riker's. Remember what that asshole said? ‘You get busted, you're as good as dead.’"

  "Pretty fuckin' cold, man."

  "That's the shit we signed up for. Okay, let's get the fuck out."

  "Freeze!" I shouted, raising my gun at the two gorillas.

  They both turned slowly. The men both had ugly mugs and were dressed in black and white tracksuits. In their hands were pistols.

  "Well, what the fuck we got here?" the first man asked, walking toward me with a cocky swagger, totally fearless.

  "Looks like one of the Sapiens slipped through the cracks," the other said, a grin forming on his face.

  "You know, I'm thinkin' Carlos isn't gonna make it back after all."

  "Too bad, but then again, that means more pay for us, you know?"

  "Oh, I know."

  "Tell me who the fuck you two are, and who the fuck you're working for," I said, keeping my gun steady.

  "Now, why the hell would we do a thing like that?" the first man asked.

  "Because otherwise, I'll paint the windows with your brains," I said.

  "Whoa, we got a tough girl here," the second man said, stifling a chuckle. "Sorry, girlie, but we ain't exactly in the business of ratting out our contracts."

  So, they're mercs, I thought. Lions hiring mercs to take out other lions. Just what the hell is going on here?

  "How about this deal," the first man said. "you put down that gun and we drop you with pistols. Nice and clean. Otherwise, we gotta go all ape on you, and that won't exactly leave a pretty body for your next of kin. You know what I mean?"

  "Yeah, be a shame to wreck a sexy little piece like you," the second man said. "Send you into the afterlife lookin' like Rocky Dennis or some shit."

  "Last chance, assholes," I said, keeping my gun steady. "Drop your guns and surrender, or I put a round right in the same place where I dropped your friend."

  "Girlie thinks she's in a position to demand!" the second man said. "And she ain't droppin' that gun."

  "You know what that means, then," the first said.

  "Sure as fuck do."

  My options were out. I pulled the trigger and fired a round. It went wide, hitting the first man in the shoulder.

  "Fuck!" he shouted. "Let's kill this bitch and get the hell outta here."

  The two shifted and stormed toward me. I got off a few more rounds, but none did any good. I knew my last chance was to shift and hope I could fight them that way.

  But before I could do anything but change my form, I felt the crushing impact of the body of one of the first gorillas. I fell backward, slamming into the far wall.

  And then there was nothing.

  CHAPTER 3

  HARPER

  When I finally opened my eyes, it was like everything was covered by a glossy film. The lights around me were sterile and bright, and I recognized them immediately as the med bay of Sapien HQ. I felt groggy, and my body was raw and aching. I tried to raise my hand to rub my eyes, but throbbing pain kept them at my sides.

  "She's coming to," I heard a familiar voice say through the fog of half-consciousness.

  A pair of white forms—doctors, likely—rushed to my sides.

  "Easy, easy," one said.

  "You took a hell of a hit," the other said.

  "Where's…my team? I asked, my voice weak.

  My vision started to unblur, and the medical room where I was being kept came into sharp focus. Sure enough, a pair of young-looking doctors were at my flanks. At the end of the bed was my commanding officer, Richard Armitage, staring down at me with a look that was equal parts hard and concerned. His hands were on his hips, and his usual crisp business wear seemed slightly disheveled. His bald head caught the light above, and his limpid brown eyes were narrowed under a knitted brow.

  "They're gone," he said.

  The words hit me harder than the blow that put me here. My blood ran cold, and all that I could think about was getting out of that bed and ripping limb-from-limb the fuckers who'd done this.

  "Easy!" Armitage said, holding up his palms. "You've been out for twelve hours. You try to get out of that bed and you're gonna fall face first into your bedpan."

  "How bad am I?" I asked.

  "Pretty good shape," Armitage said, "considering you took a goddamn gorilla hitting you at a full run. You're damn lucky you managed to shift before he hit you; if you would've gotten tackled in human form we'd still be wiping you off the walls."

  Armitage had been my CO since I'd been in the Sapiens, and before he started piloting a desk he was one of the top investigators in the force. Every bit the wolf he was, Armitage was crafty and sharp, with a brilliant, calculating mind. And though he preferred to work with his head, he wasn't afraid to bare his teeth every now and then.

  "Always a way with words," I said.

  "Hey," Armitage said, "since when have you ever been the one who needed to have things put delicately?"

  Good point.

  "I don't have time to lie around in bed," I said. "Get me some crutches or something and let me get after those assholes."

  "You…need to listen to your boss," one of the doctors, a fresh-faced blonde girl with cherubic cheeks, said. "You didn't break anything, but you're pretty dinged up."

  "Yeah," the other, a dark-skinned man with a patchy beard, said. "At least wait for the pain meds to wear off so you can walk straight. Your muscles need a little time to wake up along with the rest of you."

  I hated being stuck here like a damn invalid, but they were probably right.

  "Both of you scram," Armitage said. "Thanks for everything, but scram."

  The two doctors scurried out of there. Armitage was one of the most respected COs in the Sapiens, and these kids looked barely out of med school.

  "I'm gonna kill those fuckers," I said, my voice razor-edged.

  "I know you want to, but I need to talk to you first. You're the only survivor of that fucking debacle and I need all the details I can get."

  I racked my brain, trying to think of what I could. I told him about the strange smell, the bodies of the lion guards, the death of my team, and the slaughter of the lion VIPs.

  "One of their three was in that room," Armitage said. "But I'm sure I didn't need to tell you that."

  The words stung like hell. Not only did my team die under my watch, but I'd failed the op.

  "Don't take it too hard, kid," he said. "That was a hell of a situation you found yourself in, from what we've been able to piece together."

  "Mercenaries," I said. "Mercenaries hired by lions."

  The events were starting to come back together. Everything that had happened just before the gorilla went all linebacker on me was muddy, but I was starting to remember.

  "Gorilla mercs."

  Armitage nodded. "That's what we'd been thinking. Gorillas don't usually go for assassinations like this, unless they're getting paid. The only question is, by who?"

  "Lions," I said. "They mentioned that they were getting paid by lions."

  Armitage's eyebrows raised, and his hands dropped to his sides. "You're serious?" he asked. "You're positive you heard that right?"

  I was. A detail like that wouldn't have appeared out of nowhere. "I am."

  "This," Armitage said, "this is some serious shit. Right now, the lion society is going absolutely fucking bonkers trying to figure out just who was behind this shit. And you know that things have been tense as hell between them and the wolves recently; they're probably looking for any scrap of evidence they can that'll put the blame on them."

  "Then we have to let them know right away that it's not true."

  "'We' aren't doing anything," Armitage said, taking on his stern, "I'm-the-boss" voice. "I'm going to go over what we
do know about last night, try and figure out what I can. You're going to say here until those meds wear off, at the very least."

  "But—"

  "Not another word. Take a night's rest if you need it. Hell, take the week. You've been through some serious shit; we've got plenty of agents chomping at the bit to take this case."

  "Yeah," I said. "But none of them lost their entire team."

  Armitage looked away for a brief moment. "Get some rest, Harper," he said. With that, he left.

  And then I was alone, just me and my thoughts, endlessly ruminating about the failure that I'd just gone through. Katie, Hunter, and Jacob—all gone, and it was all my fault. I should've done better recon, I should've kept the team closer together, hell, I should've at least had the damn decency to die with them in the line of duty. But here I was, helpless and weak in bed, being subtly ordered to just let the whole thing go while other agents clean up my mess.

  I wasn't having any of it.

  I struggled in bed, demanding my muscles respond, demanding that I work the meds through my system that we keeping me stuck in place. Over the next hour I fought and fought, working through the pain until I was able to move my feel, then my fingers, then my legs, then my arms. And when I felt ready, I heaved myself out of bed and onto my feet, nearly toppling over into the bedpan, just like Armitage said.

  But I steadied myself quickly, shucked off my hospital gown, and put on the beaten clothes that I'd been wearing during the op. With slow, careful steps I left the roof, the doctors in the hallway looking at me with wide, attentive eyes.

  "I'm fine," I said. "Just let me get the hell out of here."

  I struggled down the hallway, my steps becoming a little more sure-footed as I went. Soon, I was able to reach the front desk, check out, and push open the double doors leading into Sapien HQ.

  The place was bustling with activity, even more than usual. The tall, cylindrical shape of the lobby was as grand and overwhelming as ever, the many floors stretching up high, terminating in the logo of the Sapiens in a massive mural above the lobby. And as I made my way to Armitage's office, agents looked at me furtively. They all knew what had happened, and found myself wondering if they viewed me as the same fuck-up that I considered myself at that moment.

  But I didn't care about what anyone else thought. All I was concerned with was getting to Armitage and telling him that it'd be over my dead body that he'd give this case to anyone else.

  So, when I rapped on that big wooden door of his, he didn't even need to ask who it was. "Get in."

  I opened the door and stepped inside. Armitage was poring over information about the attack last night, his spectacles barely hanging on the end of his eagle-beak nose.

  "Sit down."

  I made my way over to one of the fancy, high-backed chairs in front of the large, curved sweep of oak that was his desk. It still hurt to walk, but I'd be damned if I let him see that. His eyes flicked to me as I sat down, and I could see that he was watching me to find out just how easily I could slide into the chair without any pain.

  "You're still hurting," he said, turning his gaze back to the papers.

  No sneaking anything past him, I thought. Should've known better.

  "It's nothing."

  "I'll bet."

  He sat back in his chair and weaved his fingers together on his stomach.

  "No chance I'm gonna get you to take a breather and let some other agents handle this, huh?"

  "Not a chance in hell."

  He shook his head. "Most agents I'd just send home as an order. But knowing you, Dupree, that'd be the fastest way to see you crawling around the city playing PI."

  He knew me all too well.

  "So, you're gonna let me take it?"

  "Yes. And no."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  He raised a palm, as if to indicate that my tone was a little sharper than he'd like. "I don't mind you sassing a little here and there, but at least pretend that you know that I'm you're CO, all right?"

  "You have the kind of night I did, and you tell me how even-keeled you are."

  He shook his head and looked away. "What a fuckin' nightmare," he said. "Three agents dead, and shit with the lions is about one gentle poke away from a full-on explosion. This is the exact kind of situation that the Sapiens are here to prevent from happening."

  I said nothing.

  "And now people are talking about the lion murder from a year back, thinking it's connected."

  "And what do you think?"

  "I think there's no such thing as a coincidence."

  "Then I'll investigate. I'll start tonight, not gonna waste a second."

  "What're you gonna do, head down to south Brooklyn and start knocking on doors in gorilla territory?"

  "I'd use a little more subtlety than that."

  "My point is, you don't have any leads. None of us do. And the lions are keeping shit locked down tight at the scene."

  "But we're Sapiens; we've got say over interspecies crime scenes like that, right?"

  "Normally, yes. But when it comes to members of species' Three getting offed, all bets are off. They're at DEFCON One over there, and they don't want us meddling in their affairs. They're even playing the religion card, saying that his body can't be disturbed until they've done whatever the fuck ceremony it is they have in mind. I think it's bullshit."

  "That sounds like a good way to ruin whatever leads we might be able to find there."

  "And you'd be right about that. But these lions don't exactly have an orderly investigation in mind. They want blood, and the wolves have got a big, red target painted on them. Maybe the lions will even take a take a trip down into Brooklyn and collect a few gorilla scalps while they're at it."

  The lions were one of the, if not the most powerful species in the city. Comprised of a dozen or so clans, all backed by old, old money, they were mostly situated in a few blocks of high-rise luxury towers in the Upper East Side. Lions tended to mind their own affairs, most of them being of the opinion that the sort of squabbling that the—in their mind—lesser species got into over strips of territory here and there was unbecoming of them. But they weren't scared of war, and when they decided on a fight, they were all in.

  Wolves, on the other hand, were one of the less powerful species, and hated direct, open fights. So why they would goad the lions into a war…it just didn't make sense.

  "I don't like any of this," I said. "It stinks."

  "Stinks like shit," Armitage said.

  "Glad we're on the same page."

  He gave a grunt and a nod.

  "Then what've you got in mind?" I asked.

  "I was worried you'd never ask."

  Armitage brought his hands over his keyboard and pecked out a few keys. Moments later, a man's face appeared on the large TV on the side of the wall.

  A gorgeous man's face, I might add.

  "You know this man?" he asked.

  "Nope."

  But part of me wished I did. The image on screen was waist-up shot of a man with coal black hair long enough to cover his ears, piercing blue eyes, and full, red lips all set among a face of hard angles and fair skin. He was wearing a tight V-neck t-shirt that hung tight on his lean, muscular body, and a leather jacket. His stunning features formed up into an expression of something like scheming, or intense concentration. I had a hard time taking my eyes off of him; he was beautiful.

  "That's Agent Jerrod Carter."

  "Wait," I said. "The name sounds familiar."

  "That's because he's one of us. Was one of us," he corrected himself.

  "What, did he get fired or something?"

  "No—quit."

  "Oh?"

  "It's…a long story. And one that knowing him, he'd be, ah, let's say, displeased, to hear that people were discussing behind his back."

  "Oh."

  "But he's not here, and this is some need-to-know shit."

  I sat up in my seat, taking my eyes off of the picture.

/>   "Agent Carter was, way back when, partnered with another agent- Sophia Marcuse, was her name, I think. Anyway, long and short of it is that the two hit it off. And I mean really hit it off."

  Armitage tapped a key and brought a new picture onto the screen, this one a candid shot of Agent Carter with a beautiful, dark-haired woman. The picture appeared to have been taken from a distance, and the two of them looked to be leaving a restaurant. Broad smiles were on both of their faces, and Agent Carter's arm was wrapped tightly around the woman's waist. The happy smile on Carter's face was a sharp contrast to the near scowl he had in the previous picture.

  "We all knew it was a bad idea to have a couple work as partners like that, but they were a damn good team. And Carter'd been suggesting that they were thinking of getting married, with Agent Marcuse taking an early retirement so they could start a family. So, we figured we'd keep ‘em together, just for a little while."

  "I already don't like where this is going," I said.

  "There're those killer instincts of yours," Armitage said with a wry smile.

  Another keystroke, and the happy picture was replaced by one of the young woman, now a cold body on a morgue slab, a towel draped over the left side of her face.

  "Died in the line of duty. Gunshot wound right to the head. Believe me, you don't want to see what's under that towel."

  "And Carter?"

  "He got lucky. Well, if you can call it ‘luck.' The perps had the two of them lined up execution-style for the kill. The shot for Marcuse killed her on the spot, but the round intended for Carter went clean in and out. He was still alive when we found him, believe it or not."

  "Wait, he survived a gunshot wound to the head?"

  "Yep," Armitage said. "I thought that meant an instant kill, too. But evidently, if you miss the, ah ‘critical real estate,' as Doc Silver down in the lab put it, like the brain stem, thalamus, and ventricles, you can make a full recovery. Helps if the shot's from a pistol at close-range, too. In and out, as clean as you can get with something like that."

  "Incredible," I said. "He's lucky to be alive."

  "Not sure he'd agree, but I understand the sentiment. Anyway, he recovered, and as soon as he was back to normal after a few months, he took his medical leave and never came back. And I can't say I really blame him."