“You’re a shifter—”
“Don’t remind me,” she muttered.
“—you can’t go in dressed like that.”
Stupid. We don’t like him.
Chris agreed wholeheartedly. “One way or another, I’ll be going in, but I’ll give you a break. Go tell the manager that Lieutenant Humber insists on seeing him.”
He frowned, trying to work out what he should do. He decided on caution. “Follow me.”
“Good boy.”
He ignored that.
He led her inside toward a reception area where people were leaving their hats and coats. She stared at the scene. There were two women wearing sequinned dresses taking the items, and giving the patrons a ticket in exchange. They were hatcheck girls, or would have been hatcheck girls a hundred years ago. She supposed they called themselves hostesses or something now.
“Wait here.”
She turned to see the doorman hurrying toward a door marked Staff Only. She was tempted to follow him but restrained herself. She was here in need of information and help. Antagonising the management wouldn’t be a good start. She thrust her hands deep into her pockets and took in the view. She frowned. The patrons were all exceptionally good looking. Perfect people made her uneasy. They were too good to be true. Most were shifters, but she scented humans among them. In addition, there were a couple of vamps. She glanced at the main doors and noted the sun was down. It had to be for them to be awake. They had a distinctive scent that she could never confuse with anything else. It was dry and musty with a metallic tang to it. She kept a wary eye on them as they made their way into the club proper.
“Mr. Tansey will see you,” the doorman said, reappearing at her shoulder.
“Where?”
“Go through that door and up the stairs. You’ll be met.”
“I bet,” she muttered, wondering by what.
The doorman went back to his post, and Chris crossed the foyer to enter the door he had indicated. As expected, there were stairs leading up. She climbed them to the first landing where a woman waited for her. She was dressed for a party in a long backless evening gown. On one wrist she wore a gold charm bracelet, and on the other, a tasteful watch with jewelled strap. Her hands were small and graceful, but her nails looked wickedly sharp. She had chosen a blood red nail polish and lipstick that contrasted sharply with her dead white complexion.
She smiled, revealing a hint of fang. “I’m Danyelle.”
Chris wanted to back up and pull her boomer, but she forced herself not to move and avoided Danyelle’s eyes. Chris’ passenger growled unhappily as Danyelle’s scent—unsuccessfully masked by expensive perfume—wafted to them.
“Lieutenant Humber,” she said belatedly, realising Danyelle was waiting for a response.
“I know who you are. What do you want?”
“I think that’s between Mr. Tansey and me, don’t you?”
“Follow.”
Chris followed Danyelle up to the manager’s office.
Opposite the door, a spartan desk dominated the room. Behind it, there was a single large window through which she could make out the club proper. A man was sitting behind the desk when she entered. By his scent, she judged him Human, but there was something underlying it that said he was more than that. She was too new to all the strangeness to make a determination about him. She decided to put him on the monster side of her list of acquaintances. He would stay there until she could figure him out.
He rose to his feet when she entered. “Welcome to Lost Souls, Miss Humber. I’m Edward Tansey, the day manager.”
“That would be Lieutenant Humber.”
Tansey smiled; it didn’t reach his eyes. “Would it? May I see some identification?”
“I need to see your owner,” she said, and flashed her badge for him. Tansey glanced at it, obviously not really interested.
“My employer is a very busy man. I shall enquire.” He rounded his desk again and reached for his desktop link.
She hadn’t meant it like that. She had meant the owner of the club, but his stress on the word employer told her all she needed to know about him. No wonder he didn’t feel right. He was Edmonton’s familiar. A vampire’s familiar was his eyes and ears in the daylight world. There were all kinds of mystical bullshit associated with them. She didn’t know fact from fiction regarding that stuff, but if only half what she had heard about familiars was true, it was more than bad enough. Some called them Human servants, but quislings were what they really were.
Tansey stared at Chris and nodded at something he heard over the link. “Seems to be… no, Danyelle is here with me. You think that wise? Fine then, I’ll tell her. Bye.” He sat back and smiled. This time there was real amusement behind the smile. “Danyelle, please escort Miss Humber to Stephen.”
There was that Miss Humber again. Was he trying to annoy her on purpose? There was nothing to indicate surprise on the vampire’s perfect marble-smooth face, but she was surprised all the same. Vampires, as a general rule, do not breathe unless they want to talk, so changes in Danyelle’s non-existent respiration wasn’t what clued Chris in. No, she had picked up the subtle change in Danyelle’s scent.
How do I know what it means?
We know.
Chris swallowed the sarcastic rejoinder that leapt to her lips. It was bad enough that she was hearing voices; she wasn’t about to compound things by making the conversation public.
Danyelle crossed the room to another door and opened it. She looked back when Chris failed to follow her through. “Stephen is waiting.”
“Why can’t he come here?”
Tansey stood and rounded the desk again. “Why should he? You asked for this meeting, Miss Humber. Common courtesy—”
“This isn’t a courtesy call. It’s police business.”
“But you aren’t on duty. Are you, Miss Humber?”
“I always consider myself on duty, Mr. Tansey. Where is Mr. Edmonton?”
“He is attending a function arranged by an associate of his. It’s a purely business affair. Stephen assures me you are quite welcome to join him.”
She glanced at the statue Danyelle had become then back at Tansey. This didn’t feel right. They were too eager for her to join Edmonton.
“Just give me the address. I’ll make my own way there.”
Tansey’s smile faltered. “Ah… that won’t be possible I’m afraid. Your invitation is contingent upon an escort. Danyelle will accompany you, but if you would prefer not to go, I’m sure Stephen will understand. I can make an appointment for you to see him in a few days. Shall we say this coming Thursday?”
She scowled. Anything could happen in that time. She had Trigger and Cruz to find, and then there was Tina. The stupid girl had started all this by hanging out with a shifter. If Chris didn’t find her quickly, there could be another body cluttering a dark alley tonight.
“Lead the way,” she said, joining Danyelle.
Danyelle turned and stepped through the door.
Chris looked back to find Tansey watching her. He nodded and smiled. She didn’t respond. Instead, she pushed through the door and followed a vampire into what might be a trap. Following a monster without backup... again! Was she nuts? She snorted. Of course she was, she was hearing voices wasn’t she?
She caught up with her escort and paced by her side. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. There’s no need to be frightened, not yet.”
“I’m curious, not frightened.”
A frown marred Danyelle’s lovely face. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why aren’t you frightened of me?”
Chris pursed her lips in thought. That was a good question. “I’m not sure. Look, don’t take this wrong, but you don’t look very scary.”
“But you know what I am. What I look like should make no difference.”
That was true. Vampires fed on people. They were evil, and Chris doubted Danyelle would mind snacking on her. Sh
ifter blood might make a nice change. Who knew?
“Okay, but what can you really do? You can’t make me into one of you. Shifters are immune.”
“I could kill you.”
She shrugged.
“Everyone fears death.”
Danyelle opened a door leading to a short flight of stairs and led the way down. At the bottom, another door led outside into an alley running behind the club. The alley was dark, but Chris’ eyes were keen these days. They penetrated the gloom easily. A short way along, a limo awaited them. Danyelle opened the rear door and Chris ducked to enter the car.
Danyelle halted Chris with a touch on her arm. “Everyone fears death, everyone,” she said as if trying to reassure herself.
Chris shrugged her off and climbed into the car.
Danyelle hesitated only briefly before joining her inside.
As soon as they were seated, the car started and pulled smoothly away. There was a partition between the driver and passenger compartments, but Chris didn’t doubt another vamp was doing the driving. She ought to be worried about that, but all she could think about was her coming meeting with Edmonton and finding Tina. Cruz and Trigger were a side issue as far as she was concerned. She would get them out of the fix they were in if she could, but Tina came first.
After leaving the city, they drove east for roughly an hour on I-215 toward Adelanto. She hadn’t expected to leave the city. There were places more convenient where monsters could hold their sorority meetings—the waterfront had plenty of rundown buildings to choose from, so why travel outside the city? The desert wasn’t somewhere she would have chosen, but she supposed they had their reasons. It didn’t have to make sense to her, only to them.
Their destination was the long abandoned George Air Force Base. She knew because faded signs still pointed the way; the desert storms had failed to sandblast them into complete illegibility. The base was closed at the end of the last century as a result of budget cuts. Civilian pilots had continued to use the airfield for a while, but even that limited use was in the past. George AFB was a ghost town now; the living quarters, once housing airmen and their families, were home only to cockroaches. The only things moving on the runways and taxiways these days were tarantulas and coyotes.
The car turned onto the aptly named Phantom Street, through what remained of the main gate, and onto the base. Off to her right, she could make out a group of huge fuel tanks. They were still white after all these years, and seemed to glow in the darkness. A small brick building stood separated from them by a broken down fence. To the west lay the flatlands of the desert, barren except for scraggly sagebrush, and beyond that lay the mountains and eventually Los Angeles.
She stared into the darkness. Deserted streets and houses gave way to a few tumbled down administrative buildings. A road sign came and went. Sabre Boulevard it proudly announced.
“Why here? Why not somewhere in the city?”
Danyelle looked at Chris measuringly. “It’s easier to hide the bodies.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. It’s time you realised something.”
“Oh yeah? What would that be?”
“We, you and I, are not Human.”
Chris stared, but Danyelle was serious. “Oh that little thing. Boy, I’m real glad you’re here to tell me these things.”
“You mock, but you don’t really understand what it means to be one of us.”
“By one of us you mean one of the monsters.”
“If you like.”
Chris scowled. “I don’t like as it happens, but not liking it means nothing.”
“At least you realise that. You are one of us now. Pretending you are not will gain you nothing but pain, and it might bring much worse.”
“See, now you’ve gone and lost me again. I’m not pretending to be anything. What you see is what you get with me.”
“That is not true. It’s not true of any of us, and especially not true of a shifter like you.” Danyelle cocked her head and studied Chris for a long moment. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Chris muttered sourly.
“I see someone who doesn’t know herself. Someone who pretends she’s Human and wants desperately to make it true. Hiding what you are from humans might work—they see only what they want to see—but trying it with us will not. It might get you killed.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, and if you had bothered to learn more about us you would realise it. You still think like a Human. You cannot afford that, especially not here and now. In our world, you are either one of those who rule or one of those ruled. There is no in between. Which one you will be depends on how strong you are.”
Chris shrugged. “I’m not into status games.”
“You don’t understand—”
“And I don’t want to.”
“You need to hear this! We’re nearly there.”
“Let’s talk about something else. What’s this meeting about?”
“You might not be into what you call status games, but I assure you the rest of us are. Our lives are defined by it. Yours will be too. You have got to stop thinking in the old way!”
“What are we doing in the middle of the desert?”
Danyelle sighed and shook her head pityingly. “You have a very rude awakening coming. I hope you’re strong enough to stand it. As for this meeting, Stephen was asked to mediate a dispute between packs.”
“What’s the argument about?”
“The usual—territory.”
“Since when do shifters need help with that?”
“Since we all agreed that the coming amendments are a good thing, and that a war between packs would put them in jeopardy.”
Chris grunted; politics again. She remembered Mark talking about it... it seemed like years ago, but it was only a few weeks back. She ought to take a greater interest now that it affected her directly, but she couldn’t summon the enthusiasm.
The car took another turn. Chris looked out the window in time to catch sight of their destination. It was one of the base’s old hangars. Dozens of cars and trucks were parked in no particular order outside it. The huge hangar doors were open a few feet and light spilled out into the night.
The limo rolled to a stop next to another one. Edmonton’s maybe, or maybe not. It wasn’t the only limo. There was another one parked some distance away separated from them by a sea of Toyota’s, Fords, and Chryslers. Danyelle opened her door and climbed out. She stood by the car tensely scanning the night. Chris joined her and waited to see what would happen. Were they waiting for an invitation? Perhaps there was some other protocol involved that she didn’t know about... another escort maybe?
“What are we waiting for...” she asked but then felt it.
Danger!
She was crouching before she knew it. She had pulled her boomer instinctively, but she had no target. Danyelle stood as before still searching the night. Chris’ neck hairs lifted as the scent of dozens of shifters flowed over her. Her lips rippled back and she bared her teeth in a snarl. She was growling like an animal from deep in her chest, and couldn’t stop.
Danyelle looked sharply at her. “Do nothing, or we both die.”
Let me out and I will protect us.
“No.”
“You must do as I say.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Chris said and would have explained, but Danyelle nodded as if she already understood. She probably did. She must know other shifters.
“Put it away. It will do you no good anyway.”
“Don’t give me orders,” Chris growled, but she did thrust the boomer back into her pocket. “What in the nine hells are they doing out there in the desert?”
“I told you in the car why this place is so useful. Work it out for yourself.”
Danyelle had said George AFB was good for... hiding bodies? She looked sharply at the vampire and thought she saw a flash of amus
ement just leaving her face.
Danyelle nodded toward the west. “Here they come.”
Chris turned in time to see the night come alive. She was confused when what she took to be a pack of dogs flowed across the runway toward her, but the surprise lasted only seconds. Her eyes might be fooled, but her nose wasn’t and neither was her passenger. The newcomers were shifters. They weren’t werewolves, she knew enough to know that. Werecyotes? Were there such things? The evidence before her said yes.
“Who are they?”
Danyelle smiled briefly. “Locals. They look after the place for us, and keep prying eyes away. The base is part of their range. Coyotes are very territorial you know.”
The werecoyotes didn’t stop coming when they found Danyelle and Chris in their path. The pack simply split in two, flowed around them, and merged into one again just before pouring through the hangar doors. One or two of the beasts were curious enough to turn their heads to look up at them as they passed, but none stopped.
She was just congratulating herself on staying composed in the middle of a shifter stampede, when the night played a dirty trick on her. The last of the coyotes had just trotted past, when the darkness vomited up a pair of horrors. Her thoughts flashed to Ryder and the dirty alley where her life had ended in blood and pain.
“Calm,” Danyelle said tensely. “Stay calm. Your fear will excite them, and me come to think of it. It affects all of us the same. We’re all hunters in our way.”
It was all right for Danyelle to say stay calm. One of these things hadn’t ripped her apart. Chris forced her fear down and tried to distract herself with questions.
“Why do they look like that and not like the others?”
“They’re alphas. Do you know what that means?”
“Alphas are the strongest.”
Danyelle nodded. “The strong lead and the rest follow if they know what’s good for them. The stronger you are the more control you have over the Change.”
“You mean they want to look like that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Chris asked incredulously.
Danyelle looked at her as if she were dense. “Which is more frightening, a coyote no different to a mundane one except in size, or one of those things?”
Shifter Legacies Special Edition: Books 1-2 Page 68
