Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1

by Mark E. Cooper

  “I want to create something a bit like the Y,” he said and flushed as Ronnie burst out laughing. “Shut it,” he growled, his voice deepening and his eyes flaring to amber in the dark of the car’s interior.

  Ronnie’s eyes flared golden, but she did quit laughing.

  Taking an interest now are you? About time you got with the program!

  Our She tests her boundaries, Mist said with pride and approval clear in his thoughts. We must let her run, but not too far or fast. We are Alpha to her as well as the pack. She must respect us, as we must respect her.

  He could agree with that at least.

  “You want to create a YMCA for shifters,” Stephen said carefully, not laughing but obviously wanting to. “And you feel this would be beneficial, why?”

  “I do. I even know what to call it.”

  “Oh?”

  “NSPCL. It stands for the National Society for the Protection and Conservation of Lycanthropes.”

  “National? Getting ahead of yourself aren’t you?”

  “No point in thinking small. Obviously I can’t roll this out nationwide overnight, but I can start here in LA and fold other cities into the network over time.”

  “And start a war with those cities in the process,” Stephen pointed out. “The packs won’t let you get this idea off the ground.”

  “They will. When they see the benefits the Society will bring to all shifters. I’m not interested in empire building, or creating a super-sized pack. This will be an entirely opt in, not for profit organisation. Like a guild.”

  Lawrence snorted. “Your experience with guilds differs from mine then. They’re definitely in it for profit. Political profit, financial profit, but profit.”

  “Hmmm,” Stephen agreed. “I can’t think of a single guild that doesn’t require paid membership.”

  “The Society will tithe,” he said reluctantly. “But the books will balance to keep its NPO status. The income will be redistributed to members as loans and used to provide the services they need like cheap insurance, medical, and other stuff. There will be some overhead. No way around that but I’ll employ non-humans to run most of it, so that’s employment for quite a few people.”

  “Fine. Let’s say you do this. What is your goal?”

  “Helping shifters and making their lives better,” he said and Ronnie rolled her eyes. He pushed on. “We can’t get loans, we can’t get decent insurance, we can’t start businesses without either one. Most companies can’t or won’t employ us, and those who do take advantage of us with low pay and bad conditions. I want to change that.”

  “A noble goal, but hard to achieve. Shifters have few rights, and my people have none,” Stephen said. “How do you intend to address that?”

  “Politics isn’t on my agenda.”

  “Then you will fail. As long as it’s legal to discriminate against non-humans nothing will change. The law as it stands supports those who take advantage of us. What will your society do for us on a practical level?”

  “Start businesses and employ shifters, offer loans to them to start their own. I want a chapter of NSPCL in every major city in the Republic eventually. There will be a call centre and free advice. Representation provided by us in the courts and attorneys to sit in interview when the cops hassle us. Did you know the guilds won’t accept non-humans? If you’re in one already and then catch lycanthropy they kick you out without compensation!”

  “I was aware of that, yes,” Stephen said dryly.

  “So if the cops arrest me, I can’t even have a guild rep in with me. The attorneys they offer us on their so generous preferred credit terms are sub-par shysters in it for the consultation fees.”

  “Lawyers are the lowest form of life,” Stephen agreed sombrely. “Demons in human form.”

  David frowned. “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you? You think I’m being stupid.”

  “Not stupid. Naive. You don’t think we know how badly we’re treated? You go on as if you’re the first person to realise our inequality and are revealing it to us! I can’t vote or own a business in my own name. I can’t instigate a lawsuit or protect myself from one. After all, dead men can’t own property, can they? Without proxies and front men like Edward, I would have nothing in this world. You think I haven’t dreamed of changing that? Of course I have. I would give almost anything to change it!”

  “Then help me.”

  “We are allies. Of course I will help you, but I must know what form that help is to take. You need money? Not a problem. You need influence with the Mayor? Definitely a problem.”

  Ronnie snorted.

  “There’s nothing anyone can do to stop us. The Mayor, the cops, the state government... none of them can legally prevent anyone from setting up an NPO. It’s the lack of funds and insurance that really hurts shifters, and causes their businesses to fail.”

  “And a lack of customers,” Lawrence pointed out.

  “That won’t be an issue. If we do this right, our customers will be the non-humans that everyone currently rips off. If we offer fair dealing, they will flock to us. Stephen is known for it. With him backing the Society no one will doubt us.”

  “I’m so glad my reputation will be useful to you,” Stephen said dryly.

  David flushed. “I didn’t mean for it to sound so cold-blooded, but you have to admit my reasoning is sound.”

  “It is sound. This project is long term, you realise? It will take years. Before you can start, you’ll need to take matters in hand at the club with your own pack and then expand rapidly with the unaligned shifters in the city. We must secure the borders and my power-base, or I won’t be around for my reputation to be of help to you.”

  He nodded and turned to Ronnie. “Who are you considering as candidate for your second?”

  “Martina.”

  That would have been his guess, but why hadn’t Ronnie simply named her at the conclave? “You’re not sure she’ll want the position?”

  “She challenged me and lost. My guess is that she’ll fight the others for it, and try me again. After I kick her butt a second time, she’ll settle down as my second.”

  “Oookay,” he said, wanting to protest yet another fight, but he was wise enough not to voice it. She would ignore him anyway. “So we’ll have a lot of agitated wolves to deal with when we get home.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Lawrence agreed.

  “Have you got your link on you?”

  Lawrence nodded.

  “Call ahead and tell them what’s happened.”

  “Is that wise?” Stephen said.

  “I would rather arrive after they’ve settled on who will challenge us. I don’t want to fight them all one by one.”

  Ronnie grinned. “Now you’re thinking like a shifter.”

  “No,” Stephen disagreed. “He’s thinking like an Alpha. Very well reasoned, David. I’m impressed.”

  He grimaced. Why did anything he did that felt wrong or uncomfortable to him impress them? He had a feeling that if he ruthlessly killed everyone who stood in his way they would cheer him on, yet if he talked his way out of trouble they would frown in disapproval. He preferred compromise to violence, but he knew those opposing him would choose violence as their first choice. So be it. He would deal fairly with those who dealt fairly with him, deal peacefully with those who preferred negotiation, but if they chose violence, he would respond in kind. Ronnie was right; he needed to think more like a shifter, but not because he was one. He needed to think like one because he would be leading an entire pack of them. To do that effectively and lead them well, he needed to understand them. He was no psychologist, but by understanding himself he should be able to apply that knowledge to them.

  The pack is all. That is all we need to know.

  You say that as if it’s literally true, but there’s more to this than a single pack’s welfare. I want to make things better for all packs.

  “Make the call,” he ordered and Lawrence pulled out his link.
>
  David settled back and closed his eyes, trying to relax. The trip to Lost Souls would take no more than an hour if that. He wanted to take this time to think. There wouldn’t be much time for it at the club. He listened to Lawrence’s quietly murmured conversation, and tried to ready himself for the fighting to come.

  * * *

  25 ~ Convalescence Sucks

  Eleven days into her medical leave had Chris climbing the walls of her apartment. She hated the thought of being desk bound, but she would have preferred that to this torture. Goddess she was bored! She had tried wheedling Cappy into letting her come into Central and work her desk, but he wouldn’t let her, pointing to the regs. She had tried blackmail and promises, no joy there either. She’d been reduced to begging in the end. She hated begging! He’d just laughed her offers off as if she were joking. She hadn’t been, not at all. Her offer to run errands and do reports for the guys, though a horrifying thought to her a few short weeks ago, was looking like a damn fine deal about now.

  “I hate this!” she snarled to the empty apartment.

  She missed the bustle of a busy department, and she missed the guys. She felt cut off from everything, and no one had time to talk when she called them on her link. She knew how that was. They were busy with their cases while she languished unable even to work her inactive files. Her active cases were an even bigger frustration to her; they had been reassigned. At least John had taken them on with Raz’s help. That was better than giving them to someone who knew nothing about them. John knew as much as she did being her partner, but still. She couldn’t help thinking that only she could handle them exactly right; arrogant to think so. No one was indispensable, but that’s the way she felt.

  The regs were screwing her over, and Doctor Carey had not helped with his assessments of her mental stability. As if he knew what stable was. She snorted. No cop she knew could pass his definition of stable! They would all have to be clerics or psychs like him to pass some of his stupid tests.

  The medics had been more reasonable. Her heavily scarred neck was still tender under the bandaging, but it was healing well. They said she could undertake light work no problem at all. She considered her desk and maybe interviewing suspects as light. No actual pursuits of course. Chasing bad guys would be bad for her stitches... probably, but interviews and paperwork would have been fine in her opinion.

  Carey had vetoed the idea. He said traumatic experiences such as hers mandated eight weeks minimum leave followed by psyche sessions to evaluate performance once back on the job. Eight flaming weeks! She was barely into her second week and already climbing the walls. On pay or not, it was bloody ridiculous and she was determined upon another opinion. Getting the term cut in half was her minimum goal.

  Thwack thwack!

  Chris brightened. A visitor... or the mailman. Hopefully a visitor with a distraction. Goddess she needed something to take her mind off her situation, and that was a fact. She answered the door, to find a tussle-haired Baxter in the hall.

  “Well well, look what the cat dragged to my door. Road kill.” Baxter grinned at her. He had a manila envelope in his hand but there was no doughnut box in sight. “No sugar?”

  “I can give you some sugar,” he said making a kissy face.

  She snorted. “I’m going to tell Mary Pat on you.”

  “She knows I’m a lech.”

  Chris chuckled. “Don’t stand there like a lump. Come in.”

  “I was waiting for the invite,” he said entering the apartment and looking around. “You’re a slob, you know that?”

  She looked about blankly and then flushed. She hadn’t tidied in a while, and there were clothes from washday piled on the sofa. Her face reddened when she noticed her panties on display. She grumbled under her breath as she snatched them up to hide them, and Baxter chuckled. She scooped everything up and entered the bedroom. She didn’t bother putting it all away in drawers. She dumped it all on the bed and closed the door firmly. There. She looked about again, and started picking up dirty plates and cups. Baxter helped take them into the kitchen.

  “Beer?” she asked as she stuffed everything into the washer.

  “Empire?”

  “Of course Empire, what else? You’re not in some dive on 104th street now.” The uppity Brits might be a pain in the arse, but they knew how to brew good beer. “Check the refrigerator. Get me one too.”

  Baxter collected two bottles of brew and set them down on the island. She handed him the opener and he popped the tops off both. They took up a bottle each and clinked them together before taking a long pull of the nectar. Baxter sat beside her on one of her stools, drinking his beer in silence.

  Chris eyed the envelope hungrily where it lay atop the island, but said nothing about it. He hadn’t offered it to her, but he wouldn’t have brought it with him if it didn’t contain something interesting he wanted her to see. Finally, he finished his beer and slid the envelope closer.

  “The feds are still sniffing around,” he said without glancing her way. “They’re not satisfied with Ghost being dead.”

  “They’re not satisfied! Well screw them, I’m not satisfied! They lost my perp’s body! Where the hell do they get off not being satisfied?”

  Baxter shrugged. “Barrows was pissed, yeah, but he’s lucky he didn’t lose anyone. We nearly lost you, Chris. We were all lucky that night.”

  She shifted uncomfortably at the emotion she heard in Baxter’s voice, but she was still fuming at Barrows’ incompetence. How did it happen that after all her team’s work they lose the body? More to the point, what was special about it to make someone steal the damn thing? O’Neal had simply been a run of the mill vamp like any other hadn’t he? She wondered if Barrows knew why, if not who was behind it? He couldn’t know who had snatched it. He would have been after him already if he did, not bugging the guys at Central.

  She finished her beer. “Another?”

  Baxter nodded.

  She fetched them, popped the tops, and handed one of the bottles over. She didn’t sit this time, but leaned back against the island facing the opposite way to Baxter in order to see his face.

  “So, apart from my excellent taste in beer, what brings you to my door?”

  He gestured at the envelope. “That.”

  “And that is?”

  “Something I’m not supposed to have.”

  She raised an eyebrow and reached for it tentatively. He nodded and she snatched the envelope up quickly in case he changed his mind. Inside she found a disk and some papers. She emptied everything onto the island, but ignored the disk for the hard copy. There were half a dozen still photographs, obviously frames isolated and printed from a security network. She recognised them as coming from the morgue. She would have been hard pressed not to recognise the location. She had been in there a depressing number of times. She paged through them, studying each one. Baxter had obviously tried to get the best angles, but none of them was very enlightening. Oh, she could tell what they were supposed to be showing her. It was the raid on the morgue. She knew some of the details already. How an unknown group had posed at EMTs logging in a body, and had stunned the guards and gassed the feds. She would have laughed if it hadn’t been her body they were stealing.

  She glared at the photos. “These are useless. I can’t see faces.”

  “You think so?”

  Okay, now he was being coy. What was she missing? She frowned and studied each photo side-by-side, staring hard at each one. No faces, so she looked for other tells. Reflections? No, none. The weapons? K6 stunners they should not have had or been able to procure, but no surprise they had managed it. The gas? She peered closer, but it was a simple aerosol canister with a long lever-like trigger. She didn’t know the agent used to knock out the fed, but it must have been potent and quick dispersing. None of the fake EMTs wore gas-masks. Maybe a tailored nerve agent then? The users could take the antidote orally before using it. Pop a pill and you were good to go. Mil-spec stuff that was, but everythin
g was available on the streets for a price. Bounty hunters used it quite effectively on shifters she’d heard. It didn’t keep them down long, but even a minute was enough time to get the runecuffs on if you were good and on the ball.

  “What’s on the disk?”

  “The recording of that night. DD hacked in for me to get it.”

  Chris whistled. “How much did it cost you?”

  Baxter grimaced. “Two.”

  “Two? That’s not too bad—”

  “In the dugout,” he said sourly.

  “Oh man!” she said in commiseration. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah well, you owe her one of them.”

  She spluttered.

  Baxter grinned and prodded one of the photos. “You’re not seeing it, are you?”

  She eyed the picture, still smarting about the ticket to the ball game. They weren’t cheap dammit, and she didn’t see how what Baxter had bought was worth the cost. The photo he’d chosen was of one of the thieves carrying Ghost’s body from the freezer to the emergency door. She still didn’t get it. She said so.

  “That’s Flex,” Baxter said without hesitation. “I know it’s him.”

  She looked up in surprise, already shaking her head.

  “It is,” he said without a trace of a doubt.

  She tried to see why he thought so, but apart from height and general build, there was nothing else to go on. “I’m not seeing it. The build is right, but what else are you basing it on? There must be thousands like him.”

  “True, but pair him up with a chiquita like this, and who do you immediately think of?” He slid one of the other photos her way.

  Chris picked them both up. Separately the people shown could be any one, but yes, put together they matched the builds of Angel and Flex. The problem was they also matched her and Baxter, or any number of people! This was a stretch, a serious stretch, like a rubber band stretched from one end of Manhattan Island to the other kind of stretch. They couldn’t move on this! It was utter crap. Just one man’s hunch... but Baxter’s hunches had served her well recently.