by Jeff Hale
“You won’t sleep with anyone who isn’t your girlfriend. Lucien told me. He knows I hate relationships, and that I had been lusting after you. He was trying to warn me that if I wanted you that badly I’d have to make a sacrifice. After the other night, I thought maybe he was wrong. Guess he wasn’t.” She gave me an appraising look.
“It’s true. It’s just a rule of mine. One I don’t plan to break again anytime soon,” I confirmed for her. A stab of guilt went through me when I remembered that I had broken it, just a few nights ago, and with her. That wasn’t going to happen again.
“You do realize that your rule could be considered either feminine or really old fashioned?”
“Let’s go with old fashioned.” I laughed.
“Agreed,” she said, right as Dave’s cab pulled up.
I gave the cabbie enough to cover the estimated fare, and then doubled it if the cabbie agreed to see Dave up to the apartment.
“So, what now?” Lily asked.
“I don’t know. I was thinking about taking a walk,” I said, shrugging.
“How about a drive?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. I think it’s better that we just stop here. We can be friends, but that’s it. I really am sorry,” I said, still feeling horribly guilty.
“Okay. Well you know where to find me if you want a good time.” She blew me a kiss before sauntering to her truck. I shook my head and started the long walk home.
______________________________
I awoke the next morning, took one look at the time of six forty-five, and rolled out of bed. I was not a morning person, and since I was my own boss, I would set the schedule to reflect that if I could. But I had to work when I would actually have potential clients come into the office, which meant semi-normal business hours.
I got ready quickly and grabbed my morning cup of coffee on the way out the door, extra strong since I’d quit smoking when Kat and I were together. Transportation to the office was the public bus system, which I hated. It was warm outside, and as long as the temperature was within a certain range, I could just teleport, but it took a lot of energy to do it, energy that I might need for a case. One of these days I might just finally break down and get my driver’s license… maybe.
Our agency was just inside the Summerlin area in one of those strip-mall complexes that also included several fast food restaurants, a gas station, several small specialty stores, and a grocery store of some type or other. When I got there, I could see that Raven had been busy. There was new silver lettering on one of the windows. It read:
Knight & Angel Services
Security, Investigations,
and
Renegade Exterminations
I hated the name, but Raven had insisted that it would make for good advertising since people would feel safe coming to a knight and an angel with their problems. The suite was a nice, small and personal affair, which was perfect for what Raven and I wanted. There was a small waiting area, and two smaller offices. It had a light, open feel to it, partially due to the fact that windows started at about knee height and went all the way to the ceiling, as well as the skylight in the waiting area.
As I opened the door and came into the building, I could tell that it was already going to be an interesting day. Raven was in her office and had her blinds closed, which meant only one thing: vampire. The blinds we had on our offices were magically enhanced to block sunlight so that we could see vampires during the daylight hours.
Vampires, contrary to popular belief, could be awake and active during the day. If a vampire client wanted to meet with us, Raven would go and pick them up and drive them to the office if need be. Raven could shroud a small area in shadows, providing enough cover for a vampire to not burst into bloody flames. I meant that in the literal sense. Vamps exploded in bloody boils when in direct sunlight. It wasn’t pretty.
I turned towards my office and noticed someone sitting in the waiting area on the other side of the windows. I changed directions and headed around the corner from the lobby to the waiting room and was surprised to see that it was Dave. He slouched tiredly down in a chair, watching the small TV that was mounted in one of the upper corners.
“Uh, Dave? Something up?” I asked. I hadn’t even realized when I left that he hadn’t come home yet.
“Oh, dude, I was wondering when you’d finally get in.” He stood and yawned, then took a step towards me. He looked a little worse for wear. His shoulders were slumped, making him look a little shorter than his six foot, and he weighed maybe one-fifty if he was lucky. His hair was dirty-blonde and had grown back out to just past his shoulders, and currently looked frazzled and unkempt. His brown eyes looked unusually tired and worried. He wore a pair of ragged black denim jeans, black combat boots and a t-shirt that read ‘Let’s flip a coin. Heads I get tail, tails I get head.’
I guided him to my office. Once inside, I shut the door and walked over to sit behind my desk. Dave sat in one of the chairs on the other side of my desk, then took a large, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly.
“What’s up, Dave?” I asked again. “You weren’t home last night when I got in and you look like shit that took a bath in pig spit.” I let my concern for him show. It was odd that he hadn’t be home since I’d made sure he got in that taxi and even tipped extra to make sure he got into the apartment.
“It’s Nina. I think she’s gotten herself into a lot of trouble,” he said, finally breaking down. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and shook his head. “She’s… she’s been going to this warehouse in downtown. There’s… werecreatures... and I think she’s somehow involved with them. She doesn’t know what she’s doing with those things. She’s…. confused, and she won’t listen to me, she says she’s drawn to them. I think they’ve got her under some spell.”
“Okay, okay. Bro, calm down. I’ll look into it, and if there’s anything I can do, I will. You know that.” What I didn’t say was that she was likely one of them, or would soon be one of them if she was involved with them. You usually didn’t get drawn into a shifter den otherwise; I learned that much from Kat. The day went from interesting to dangerous in less than ten minutes. “Look. Go home, or stay here. Let me know where this warehouse is, and I’ll go see what’s going on,” I said as I stood up.
“Thanks, man. Look how much do I owe ya? I could just waive your rent for however long to pay you back.”
“No need. On the house. You guys have been like family to me for a long time. I owe you this much. Both of you.”
“It’s okay, I know you have a business to run.”
“No, seriously. On the house. Look, if not for you and Nina, I have no idea where I’d be right now.”
“Alright, man. Just… bring her back safe. Okay?” Dave took another big breath before giving me the details of the situation.
I headed out afterwards, taking the bus to the address Dave had given me, and not entirely sure what I was going to do when I got there. Shifters could be dangerous in the extreme. They had powers beyond being able to turn into seven to nine-foot tall furry killing machines with claws and teeth the size of kitchen knives, especially when defending their territory. Not that they needed much beyond that to be a threat.
I could handle myself when it came to fighting one of them in close. It was those extra abilities that I was worried about. They were unique and could not be compared to sorcerer abilities. Or even mine for that matter. They still worked off the Aether, it was just so far into left field that no one was quite sure exactly how they worked or what they could do, but I knew emotion control was part of it.
The warehouse ended up being near the Strip, squeezed onto a small lot behind one of the casinos. It used to be a nightclub of some sort, judging by the outside of the building, but it was now serving as a storage building for the nearby Circus Circus. Or at least that’s what everyone was meant to believe. Obviously the shifters of the city had managed to work out a deal and make it their own.
&n
bsp; I glanced around, looking for any obvious sentries. Nothing. I crept up to the building and tried to look into one of the windows. It was painted black, preventing anyone from seeing inside. I knew they were in there, though. I could feel the raw, feral energies they exuded flowing from within the building.
I moved towards the set of glass double doors that had obviously at one time been the entrance to the club. They, too, were painted over in black. I tested one gently, and found it unlocked.
I snuck in, ready to call forth my weapons at a moment’s notice. I used to have conduit daggers that I could channel my powers into, creating fire blades. I had to turn those in when I was released from MAGE. Didn’t matter though; I could call forth those flame blades on a whim now, and I had perfected calling forth not just fire, but ones of ice as well.
Part of the perks of being a Sentinel. I got multiple elements to play with, not just the element of my Zodiac sign. In my case, as a Paragon, I could call the element of my birth sign, which was fire, as well as the element opposite of mine, which was water. But I could only call it in a specific form at this point. In my case, ice.
The entryway of the building was small. There was a door to my right, and a small hall that led to the left, with a faded ‘Bathrooms’ sign above it. The lights here were dim, but I could make out a silhouette beyond the door to my right. It was smaller than myself, and had a feminine shape to it. The window on the door was covered with some form of paper, so I couldn’t make out much more. I could hear the general clamor of multiple conversations coming from the other side.
As I knelt there, pondering my options, a scream cut through the air, erasing all other routes I might have taken. I would recognize that voice anywhere: Nina.
I rushed the door, put a shoulder into it, and channeled Aetheric energy into the blow, blasting the door into a fine glass dust. I called forth my weapons, a blade of fire in my left hand, and one of ice in my right.
Whoever was on the other side of the door was not expecting my sudden and rather violent entrance as I bowled right over her. I heard her yelp in pain and surprise as she rolled to my left. I glanced and caught a glimpse of a familiar face, but I didn’t have time to register whoever it was.
The sight before me thoroughly confused me. There were a couple dozen people, or rather shifters, all in various forms: wolves, a Doberman, a puma, and two tigers, and an alligator. Otherwise everyone was in human form, all in various states of dress or undress, depending, except for a man in a black trench with a fedora pulled low over his face who leaned against the wall in one corner somewhat apart from the others. The original booth tables and benches were intact, and most of the shifters occupied those, though there was one big table in the center.
Handcuffed to a metal beam above that table was Nina. She hung down to the point that she probably could have sat comfortably on that table, if she hadn’t been straddling a rather large, naked man that was lying down on said table.
Not that she had a stitch of clothing on her either. It was a scene I was semi-familiar with. I had caught her in a similar position in the bathroom at school a little over a year ago. Well, Katelyn had actually. That was when I had found out Nina had been cheating on Dave.
What I wasn’t expecting was that there was blood on Nina’s inner thighs. I wondered at that for a second, before it dawned on me that the guy was big, probably close to nine feet tall, and proportioned for his sized too. I shuddered for a second, then looked around a bit more, realizing that everyone was looking at me, except for the big guy and Nina, who were in throes of ecstasy.
“Hey, Henry. We’ve got company,” the man in the trench and fedora said.
“If it’s another babe wanting a piece, get her over here. If not, it can wait. Damn these new bitches are always tight,” the naked man on the table grunted, ignoring everything else but Nina. He reached up with a huge hand and grabbed one of her breasts, squeezing it so hard she moaned.
Nina’s eyes opened and lit on me and surprise crossed her face, followed quickly by what seemed to be embarrassment. She pulled herself off of big Henry and fumbled at something dangling from one cuff, then used it to unlock them, then tried vainly to cover herself. Usually she was rather open about this sort of thing. Something was different this time.
That’s when I felt motion from behind me. I didn’t even have time to register that someone had managed to sneak up behind me, let alone the fact that it was Dave, before he made it half way to the table.
Henry was sitting up and cussing up a storm about his fun being wasted. As he placed a hand across his body to prop himself up and look towards the door, Dave was already there with a lead pipe. The blow caught the big guy completely by surprise. Dave laid in with his best shot, letting none of his momentum, or weight, go to waste. If it had been a normal person, they’d be at the very least concussed, but more than likely they’d be in the hospital as a drooling mess slurping their meals through a straw for the rest of their lives after that shot.
Henry was not a normal person, though. He was a shifter. And a big one at that. I could only guess at what type he actually was, though I already had a horrid idea at the possibilities. Henry took the shot, and grinned, grabbed Dave by the top of the head, stood, and threw him into the wall next to me. I heard a sickening crunch as Dave slid to the ground.
“Dave!” Nina cried out, hopping down from the table and running towards where he lay.
Henry started to move towards them, not even acknowledging me. That would not do. I stepped in front of him and dropped into my fighting stance.
“You’d better pray to whatever force or deity you believe in that he lives through this unscathed. If he doesn’t, I’ll make sure that you’re eternally regenerating your limbs every hour on the hour as I cut them from you. Slowly,” I growled through clenched teeth. Dammit, Dave wasn’t supposed to follow me. But I was not going to stand by and watch my best friend get hurt either, no matter how badly he’d fucked up.
“Ha!” Henry barked out the laugh, “You think you can do anything to me, sorcerer? I’ve killed dozens of your kind. Even killed one of MAGE’s vaunted Councilors once. What have you got? Some puny elemental weapons? That Councilor put up more of a fight than you can hope to. What are you, an apprentice, journeyman at best?” He pulled on his pants nonchalantly as he boasted.
I just let a slow grin cross my face. He had no idea. “So tell me, Henry. Those dozen. Were they one at a time or all at once?” I asked, playing into his game. I had to; shifters were big on intimidation of any kind.
“Took on three of them at one time. More than enough to take you out,” he said confidently. Then all of a sudden he was lunging at me.
I easily side-stepped to the right, and brought both blades out horizontally to my left, slicing upwards into his dive. I caught him in the stomach and the blades went through easily, cutting him nearly in half. I brought both blades in a full arc, kneeling as I did so. I then jumped, bringing both blades into another arc, back to the left, cutting into Henry’s back with both blades, using the momentum to push him face first into the floor. He’d be dead, if he weren’t a damn shifter. Already the four wounds I had caused him in less than two seconds were closing up. Henry’s face clearly showed his complete shock.
I called on my powers and iced the wounds over, making them freeze so they couldn’t close up. He wouldn’t bleed out, but the wounds were deep enough to cause muscle damage, weakening any potential attacks he might make, or so I hoped. He landed with a loud crash onto the cement floor. I put my fire blade against the back of his neck, and put my foot on his back.
“Is this a good time to let you know that I am not a sorcerer? Or to tell you that I eliminated two of MAGE’s top squads. At the same time. Or how about the fact that I’ve fought and defeated a demon. Oh yeah, and I’ve killed fae.”
Granted, they had been lesser fae, but Henry didn’t need to know that. I hated bragging like that, but I knew it was important to shifters to claim your victor
ies. It put you in better standing socially with them if you impressed them.
I was hoping that Henry would take the smarter route and stop fighting at that point. I guess he thought that with my accomplishments, if he could beat me, that’d be the crowning achievement for him, because with a sudden movement, he pushed me off him. I stumbled for the briefest of moments before I caught my footing and a wave of fear went through me. It came at me from an outside source, as though someone was trying to make me run, and it rattled me slightly before I shook it off. By that point Henry was already halfway through his transformation. My previous idea as to his animal was borne out, and much to my chagrin I was one hundred percent on the mark.
Bear.
Damn.
I backed up a bit, and readied myself. I had no idea what he was capable of now. He towered at over twelve feet tall and probably weighed in at near a ton. He was in his Aspect form, which was the form that everyone thought of when they thought of werecreatures; that form that incorporated both animal and man.
Ever seen a grizzly on its hind legs, rearing to intimidate those in its territory? Yeah, now amplify that by about another hundred percent and give it the reasoning and intelligence of a human, and now make it really, really pissed off. That’s what I was facing down. And laughing about it. I think Azryel might have hit me on the head a bit hard.
Henry the bear took a lunging swipe at me with his right paw. I barely ducked in time, and in the moment it took me to stand, his left paw and huge maw was diving towards me. I rolled to the right, and sprang into a flip over him as he went onto all fours.
That was a mistake. He took a double step back and stood suddenly, bringing both paws up in an uppercut swipe that caught me in mid-air. The momentum, and his size, caused me to slam into the ceiling. As I fell to the floor, he swiped out with his left paw, sending me into the wall across the room. I landed near a tiger, which took a swat at me. Knowing now that I might be facing multiple opponents, I didn’t hesitate.
