by Laura Taylor
“Preserving our species. Shifters have always been big on record keeping. We can trace our history back to the ancient Greeks. There were shifters in Britain during the time of the druids, the Picts, the Celts, the Gaels. We had shifter advisors to some of the ancient kings. We have records of historical events that you won’t find in any museum or history book anywhere in the world.
“We’re suffering from some significant setbacks at the moment, but the Council insists that the shape of the modern world is all the more reason to preserve what we have. Since the technological age began, no one has ever seriously researched the potential of the shifter genome. We could hold the cure for cancer in our DNA, or treatments for devastating diseases. We can manipulate matter in ways that physics has never considered. No one really knows how we shift, in scientific terms, or what happens to our bodies when we do, because we’ve never had the chance to study these things without the risk of someone busting into our labs and shooting us all.
“So that is what you’re preserving. That is what you can lay claim to. As a shifter, you are an integral part in passing all that history and potential forward to the next generation.”
Dee was speechless as Mark fell silent. “I guess you have a point after all,” she conceded after a moment. “And for what it’s worth, you weren’t the ones who took my old life away. The Noturatii did that. I could be a little more grateful that you’re trying to give me a new one.”
“That, at least, is something you have in common with everyone here,” Mark acknowledged. “We’ve all got our own reasons for hating the Noturatii. We’ve all lost friends and loved ones to the Endless War.”
Perhaps he’d just revealed a little too much, as Dee suddenly looked up at him speculatively. “Who did they take from you?” she asked, and Mark felt a new wave of bitterness swamp him. For a moment there, he’d just about believed his own rhetoric on the value of the shifters’ lives. But the stark reminder of what he’d lost dragged his mood straight back down again.
“Luke,” he said, not looking at her. “About three weeks before you arrived. He was a good friend.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Look, I have things to do, and Baron will be down for your lessons soon.” He stood up and turned to leave. “I’m not really sure if that helped,” he said as an afterthought, aware that he was leaving things on a rather grim note. “But however tough it gets, just keep in mind that we’re all here to help you through it. You’re not alone.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Melissa was in Jacob’s office, standing firmly at attention, waiting for Jacob to finish reading the file on his desk. She’d been called into this office four times in the last few days, to make various reports or recommendations on the findings of the now-dead lab team and how to proceed with the experiments they’d been working on. In that time, she’d come to respect Jacob’s strict, no-nonsense manner, having had little to do with him before this current disaster had happened.
Jacob had been in charge of the British arm of the Noturatii for nearly ten years, and what he had achieved in that time was incredible: the expansion of resources, recruitment of new members, playing politics with the powers that be in order to secure their continued funding. He was something of a legend among the new recruits, and an object of awe even for more seasoned members.
But when he finally finished and closed the folder, Melissa’s heart kicked up a notch as she saw her name printed on the cover. Her personal file. Was she in trouble? Had she done something wrong? But before her mind could get too carried away, Jacob spoke.
“I’m putting a team together to take over from where Andrews left off,” he said, oblivious to her agitation. “Philip O’Brian is going to be leading it.” Perhaps her surprise registered on her face, and Jacob seemed to misunderstand the cause of it. “The man’s a wet blanket and a coward,” he went on, “but he’s also a brilliant biochemist, and we don’t have the luxury of being choosy.” He placed a hand over the file, a smug smile on his face. “I’d like you on the team. It says here that you graduated with first class honours in biology. Impressive.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, trying to pull herself together. Promoted? But she’d been with the Noturatii for only a single year, and by her own reckoning, she hadn’t achieved anything of significance in that time.
“O’Brian will be running the trials – we want to see if we can replicate what Andrews did, convert another subject – but I want you in charge of reporting. Make notes, double and triple check everything. You have an eye for detail and a stomach for what is necessary.” He looked her in the eye, with a hint of what she might dare to call affection if she didn’t know Jacob better than that. “Don’t let me down.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, positively glowing at her first real opportunity to contribute to their cause. But… “There is one other thing I’d like to discuss?” she said cautiously, not wanting to rock the boat, but knowing that this was too important to overlook. “I saw a report on the news last night. Subject eleven. She’s been officially pronounced dead, killed by an escaped serial killer. The story is completely fake. So that means she has to be alive.”
“Our team picked up on the story,” Jacob told her smoothly. “We’re aware of the implications.”
“I’ve done some thinking on how we could track her down,” she went on, hoping she wasn’t overstepping her bounds. But the idea of recapturing their escapee, yet another abomination they’d accidentally let loose on the world, was both urgent and exhilarating. “The most likely scenario is that she’s been taken in by the shifter pack in northern England. I thought perhaps we should start-”
“Melissa.” There was no anger in his tone, no reprimand for her distraction from the task at hand. But there was plenty of disapproval, disappointment even, and Melissa felt the weight of that even more keenly than she would have felt his anger. “Miller and his team are already making enquiries, tracking her possible movements. They’re trained soldiers. You’re a scientist. Let them do the hunting while you invent miracles in the lab.” It was equal parts praise and condescension, and Melissa willed herself not to blush as she was politely put back in her place.
“Yes, sir,” she agreed obediently. “I’ll start reviewing Andrews’ notes right away.”
“You have potential, Melissa,” Jacob told her, as she headed for the door. “Don’t get over-eager. This war has been raging for hundreds of years. It can wait another month or two.”
“Yes, sir.” She let herself out of his office, careful to close the door gently behind her. But as much as she respected and admired Jacob, she also disagreed with him. There was no time to lose, not one day they could wait while these abominations spread across the country, across the continent. Because with each new day, they could recruit another hapless victim, turn another innocent human into a demonic perversion. And every single life was a life too many.
Energised by her renewed determination, Melissa headed for the lab. She would read through Andrews’ notes again. Prepare for the experiments to start over. So that when they caught the next wolf, the one they would use as a sire for the new converts they hoped to create, she would be ready.
Jacob had barely turned back to the report he was writing when there was another knock at the door, and Jack Miller stepped inside.
“You have news?”
Miller snapped a crisp salute – an old habit from his army days, though no one in the Noturatii had ever asked it of him. But then he hesitated before speaking, which was unusual for him. “I do, sir. But there was also something else I wanted to mention.”
“Go on.”
“Let me firstly reiterate that I have the utmost respect for your abilities and insight into our cause. But in light of the recent breach in security, I have serious doubts about the wisdom of continuing to operate the lab here.” Jacob didn’t reply, which Miller took as leave to continue. “I realise you’ve increased security, but the shifters know the location of this l
ab. And given the state of play between us, it can only be a matter of time before they return.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Jacob agreed. “Our security systems were substandard, our guards were not adequately prepared, and the shifters are well known for being tenacious bastards. But to simply give up our position here would be overlooking an important opportunity.”
“Sir?”
“Have you ever heard of the Satva Khuli?”
Miller was instantly on guard. Good. He had, then. “I’ve heard the term.”
“What do you know of them?”
“Nothing, save a few rumours. It loosely translates as ‘Blood Tigers’. Most people believe they’re nothing more than stories told to keep Noturatii members in line. They actually exist then?”
“They do.” The Satva Khuli were an elite branch of assassins, selected as young children and trained their whole lives to become the Noturatii’s last and most deadly line of defence. They were single minded, unencumbered by moral concerns, and were taught from an early age to embrace the thrill of the hunt, the satisfaction of a kill. Few in the Noturatii had ever met one and lived to tell about it, and they usually worked as lone operatives, hunting down rogue shifters or Noturatii members who betrayed their cause. Their abilities were rumoured to border on the supernatural and, given the nature of their enemies, Jacob wasn’t entirely convinced that was a bad thing. “I’ve contacted headquarters in Germany. They were understandably disappointed with our recent losses, but they’re eager to help advance the progress we’ve made, so they’re sending one of the Khuli to join us.”
Miller didn’t reply. Beneath his carefully neutral expression, Jacob saw a tremor of fear – such was the reputation of the Khuli, that even a battle-hardened soldier like Miller should fear them.
“The shifters will return to this lab,” Jacob went on, “either to burn it down, or to steal what secrets we’ve learned about them. It might take them weeks, months, or even years. But they will come back.” Jacob allowed himself a smile, already imagining the bloodshed to come. “And when they do, the Khuli will be here. She’s bringing a squad of assassins that she’s trained personally. They will be our new security force.”
“And what about the risk that they might murder us all in our sleep?” Miller blurted out. It was unusual for him to be so rattled.
Jacob laughed. “No guarantees. But that’s half the fun, isn’t it?”
Miller swallowed. “If you say so, sir.”
“Now,” Jacob went on, completely ignoring the soldier’s disquiet. “What was this news you were coming to tell me?”
Miller pulled himself together quickly. “One of our informants in the police force sent through a report, sir. There’s a lot of noise in the feed, so it took us a while to take notice of this one. About a week ago, a woman was snatched off a busy London street. She was described as small, brunette, wearing ‘those green hospital clothes’ and covered in blood. The witness was worried she was injured and said she was taken by a large man in a white Ford Transit van. We ran the plates, and they’re registered to the owner of a blue Mini in Cornwall.”
“Our convert?” It was the first real lead they’d had on the woman.
“Can’t guarantee it’s her, sir,” Miller replied predictably, never one to leap before testing the water depth. “But given the location she was spotted, it would be a good bet. North and slightly west of the warehouse district.”
“And the van?”
“We’re tracking it. Checking traffic monitoring cameras, CCTV, anything we can get our hands on.”
“If you don’t come up with anything useful, put out a news report. Girl gets kidnapped off the streets in broad daylight. Someone must have seen something useful. This girl is the greatest breakthrough the Noturatii has seen in years. I want her found.”
Baron sat in the manor’s expansive IT office, watching the video feed of the cages. The room was dim, with one wall taken up with screens, some monitoring areas of the estate, some showing a continuous feed of the news channels, others connected to the computers. This was the nerve centre of Skip and Alistair’s scheming and plotting. Three of the most powerful, most up-to-date computers money could buy sat on a shelf, processing data, running internet searches, and monitoring the news for key words that would alert them to a breach in security and the need for Alistair to invent a story to cover their collective arses. In years gone by, most mistakes by the shifters could be dismissed as superstition, discredited with a little simple science. But now that everyone’s phone was also a video camera, now that CCTV was everywhere, and information travelled at the speed of light, they were forced to counter the outpouring of technology with a barrage of their own.
But for today, there was only one screen that Baron was interested in. On the screen that showed the cage room, the camera was zoomed in on Dee. As he watched, she shifted into a wolf. It was a smooth transition, the crackle of electricity minimal, a rolling wave that started at her head and flowed back over her body. Once she was in wolf form, she pranced about a little, as if checking that each part of her body worked, and glanced back to check on her own tail – eliciting a chuckle from Baron. Many a new convert had spent hours trying to figure their tails out, the appendage almost like an extra limb that the human mind had no immediate analogue for. Some fell into the trap of turning in circles again and again, trying to get a better look at it, and then being mortified as they realised they’d been caught literally chasing their tails.
Dee didn’t go quite that far, but she was certainly finding the thing disconcerting, and he wondered what kind of conversations she was having with her wolf about it.
Satisfied that everything was where it should be, she would then shift back into a human, only to repeat the exercise again and again.
The door behind him opened and Caroline stuck her head in, then came all the way in when she saw what he was doing. She stood beside him, watching the video over his shoulder.
“Seems like she’s got it down pat,” Caroline said after a minute or two.
“In private, yes,” Baron agreed. It was for this very reason that new converts weren’t told about the cameras. Knowing they were being watched led to a universal case of camera shyness that had prevented new shifters from practising their shifting, stage fright leaving them self-conscious and stunting their development.
“She still maintains that she and the wolf are separate entities?”
“That’s right.” Baron watched the video for a moment longer, then turned to face Caroline. “I’d like to let her out of the cage,” he said without preamble. Actually, he wanted nothing of the sort, but a heated conversation earlier that day had left him with little choice but to suggest the idea. And to push for it, if necessary.
“She can’t control her shifting, and she hasn’t merged with the wolf,” Caroline replied immediately. “It’s too soon.”
“She’s been caged for nearly two weeks. She’s not showing any signs of aggression or mental deterioration, she’s learned to communicate with the wolf, and she’s got a serious case of cabin fever.”
Caroline raised an eyebrow. “Two weeks isn’t overly long. You were caged for three weeks when you were converted.” He must have looked offended, Baron realised, as Caroline’s expression grew suddenly defensive. “What? I’m not saying that as a criticism. It’s just a fact. Ergo, two weeks for an untrained lab-bred stray isn’t too long.”
Baron rolled his eyes. “All right, let’s assume for the moment that her situation, however odd, isn’t going to change,” he suggested. “All indications are that, by some bizarre quirk of nature, she’s not one person, but two. If that is the case, then what do you need her to do to prove that she’s not a threat to the Den? That she’s not going to go mad?”
“It’s not about her going mad, at this stage,” Caroline said. “If she was going to do that, we’d have seen signs of it by now. What I’m worried about is her wolf getting out of control. Okay, she can communicate wi
th it, but she has no control over it. She’s said as much herself. What if we let Dee out, she takes a walk down the road and shifts in front of the local farmers? Can you imagine the chaos and panic that would cause? The trouble with the Council? They could shut our whole Den down. What I want to see is some proof that she can control her shifts, some kind of assurance that her wolf isn’t going to run off at a moment’s notice and accidentally destroy our entire species.”
“I’m not talking about letting her loose on the general public,” Baron said. “But the wolf keeps insisting it wants to go outside. So, we secure the grounds, lock the gates, and take her outside. See how the wolf reacts. If she can control it, great. If she can’t, then we cage her again, or if we’re lucky, we might stumble on a clue that will help her figure it all out. Either way, we’re making very little progress the way things are.”
Caroline didn’t look convinced. “But if she does get out of control, we still have to catch her again. Most converts have years of training. They know the rules. They know what to do if they get into trouble-”
“But not all of them. Look at Mark. He didn’t have years. He only had a couple of weeks to live until the leukaemia would have killed him. He had a week’s training while he was lying in a hospital bed, and then suddenly he’s a wolf, roaming the estate.”
“And I wasn’t alpha then,” Caroline said sharply. “Just because it worked once doesn’t make it a good idea.”
“So, what, then? You’re going to keep her in the cage for two years until she’s finished her training?”
Caroline rolled her eyes at him, then went back to watching the screen. “Fine,” she said finally. “But I want Silas out there with a tranquiliser gun and sentries at every gate. If she gets loose, it’s all of our heads on the chopping block.”
Baron turned back to the video feed. “I totally agree about the guards. And Tank and I will stay with her at all times. I don’t want this going wrong any more than you do.”
