by John Conroe
“Should we feed the, er, prisoner?” he asked.
She shook her head, swallowing again. “It’ll weaken her. We want her to stay weak,” she said, pausing to wash down her ziti with a long draught of milk straight from the jug.
“You must be used to this,” he said.
“No. I’m not. We—that is, the team I work with—mostly fight demons. That’s pretty shitty too. Maybe worse. But I’ve never had to kill a were in close combat before. Trained like hell for it, but never done it. This pack is fucked up. Twisted beyond repair,” she said, taking another long pull of milk.
“Oh. You seem so calm,” he said.
“Not calm. I’m operating on training and experience, but I’ve never done this on my own before. Without my team I mean,” she said. Now he could detect the tiny trace of uncertainty in her voice.
“You saved all our lives,” he said.
“We saved all our lives,” she said.
“Shorty and Carl did some good shooting, but we wouldn’t have made it away from the dinner table if you hadn’t killed that first one. Then it was your shotgun that gave us the extra weapon we needed. Plus it was your senses that kept Shorty from heading outside and joining Olson in instant death. You organized us,” he said.
“Thank you, Hutch. I guess I did okay. But I will be happy when my backup gets here,” she said.
“Your Declan is on his way, then?”
She smiled at his choice of words. “I hope so, and probably breaking speed limits. I really hope he can stay under the radar. It would be bad if a cop tried to pull him over.”
“Can he do that?” Hutch asked. “Stay off radar?”
“Probably. It’s hard telling what that boy can do, but I’ve learned never to underestimate him,” she said, then tilted her head into her listening pose.
“What is it?” Hutch asked, instantly alarmed.
“Helicopters. Two of them. I’d say the feds are here,” she said.
Twenty seconds later, Hutch could hear them too. Forty-five seconds after that, they appeared over the treetops, a big Blackhawk first, followed by an Apache attack helicopter.
Lights flooded down from above as the Blackhawk lit up the night. Shorty and the others came running outside in time to see the Apache line up on them, its 30mm chaingun swiveling to cover all five of them.
“ON THE GROUND, NOW! FACE DOWN!” a voice boomed from the Blackhawk.
Stacia was the first to comply, dropping to her knees, then lying face down on the cold, hard ground. Around her, she heard and felt the others following suit.
Rotor wash shoved them harder into the soil, and her sharp ears heard at least six people zip down rappelling lines. Moments later, hard hands bound her arms with heavy metal cuffs that immediately weakened her. Another set was snapped to her legs, then she was left in the dirt while feet pounded around the site, into the lodge, the cabins, and the Quonset hut. Five minutes later, she was hauled up by two sets of hands and placed on board the metal deck of the Blackhawk.
“Trapper returning to forward base,” she heard the pilot. Despite the engine and rotor noise she heard the reply.
“Wolfhound will remain on station.”
“Good hunting, Wolfhound,” the pilot replied, then the Blackhawk spun up and lifted from the ground with a smooth lurch.
About fifteen minutes later, they landed. She was bodily yanked out of the helicopter and basically stood up on her feet. Agent Adler was standing in front of her, slightly bent over, the spinning blades above making him crouch. His eyes were hard, but she could see a grim satisfaction in his eyes.
“You can walk or be dragged, Reynolds. Your choice,” he said.
She didn’t say a word, studying his face, smelling the rage and anger wafting off him and listening to the race of his heart. He was on edge.
They were in the parking lot behind the Sheriff’s office, so she turned and shuffled toward the rear door of the building. He turned away toward the other people in the chopper, but she still caught a glimpse of disappointment flashing across his expression. He had been hoping for a struggle.
Her escort into the building consisted of a burly DOAA agent on each side and one directly behind her with a short-barreled Benelli semi-auto shotgun. She could smell the tension in the office as soon as she entered. Half a dozen deputies looked up, expressions flashing anger before closing down, one by one, to rigid blankness. Hutch, Carl, Shorty, and Mrs. Dox were herded into the room behind her, although none of them wore handcuffs or leg shackles.
“I want statements from each of these people, and I want them recorded,” Adler said from the doorway. “Except her. Leave her alone. We’ll deal with her later.”
“Why is she under restraint?” Sheriff Grable asked, voice cold.
“Because she’s covered in blood and there is at least one dead civilian. And because I say she stays under restraint,” Adler said, voice just as cold.
“She saved our lives,” Hutch said. “Killed one werewolf and incapacitated another by herself.”
“And I used her gun to kill another,” Shorty said.
“So let me get this straight: she identified and captured our first suspect all by herself. Then she killed another and captured a third. And you all killed another?” Sheriff Grable asked.
“We killed two. Carl shot one as well. But we wouldn’t have survived or been armed if she hadn’t been there,” Shorty said.
“And you all did what? Lost our suspect?” Sheriff Grable said, turning to Adler. Stacia noticed that he carefully avoided mentioning the dead DOAA agent, but Adler’s face went red and he crossed the room to get right up in the sheriff’s face. Immediately, every deputy in the room put their hands on their side arms and the seven or so DOAA agents shifted and grabbed a hold of their own weapons.
“We lost a good man tonight, and lycanthropes were involved. She’s lycan, so she stays wrapped up until and if I say so. Who knows what happened out there. They left three dead lycans and a new prisoner out there,” Adler said.
The florescent lights overhead flickered and several went dark.
“Which is why it makes absolutely no sense to have Stacia locked up,” a new voice said softly. Stacia’s head snapped up to look at the front of the room and her eyes locked on a pair of bright blue ones framed by unruly dark hair.
Oh Shit, she thought.
Chapter 19
The front of the building had a secure entryway where visitors had to wait to be buzzed in by an officer who looked at them through the bulletproof glass. The electronically locked and armored door was wide open and a tall, lean young man stood in the front of the room, staring straight at her. The officer at the window had been watching the sheriff. Now he just looked confused.
Immediately, she felt ashamed to be found restrained and under guard. But she brushed that off, remembering what she had gone through in the last few hours. Only then did she take in the young man’s stance and the hardness of his expression. Uh oh.
“Who the hell are you? What kind of security do you have here, Grable? The high school students are bypassing it,” Adler said.
“How’d you get in here son?” Grable asked, flashing an annoyed glance at Agent Adler.
“Why, the door just popped right open, Sheriff,” the kid said with a slight grin. Stacia wasn’t fooled. The grin didn’t reach his eyes. “But back to my point. The weres came out in force to attack what? A hunting lodge? Not much sense in that. How about they attacked the biggest threat to them in the area? Another werewolf who was routing them out?”
One of Adler’s men raised a smart phone and snapped a picture of the kid, a frown on his face like he was trying to recognize or remember something.
“How do you know all that? For the last time, who are you?” Adler asked, glowering.
“I’m her partner. And you’ve trussed up your best asset like a Thanksgiving turkey, gift wrapped for the Loki Spawn who wants her dead. You need to let her loose and you need to… who did that to h
er face?” The young man suddenly pointed at her.
Confused by the comment, she glanced at Hutch and Shorty. “You’ve got blood on your face,” Hutch whispered even as Adler and two of his men advanced on the young man. The temperature took a sudden drop, the room chilling down for no good reason.
“Hey, my coffee just froze,” a deputy said, holding his mug upside down.
“Is that…” Hutch asked Stacia.
“Yup.”
“Should we be hiding under desks?” Carl asked.
“Possibly, but I’m not sure it would help,” she answered before raising her voice. “Declan, the blood isn’t mine. Sheriff, he’s with me.”
Declan, for his part, had been ignoring the agents, staring at Stacia, eyes bright blue with anger. At her words, he paused. “One of the weres you fought?” he asked, as if no one else was in the room.
“Yes,” she said, holding his eyes with her own. He was balanced on a needle point and if he fell off, people were going to either get hurt or get dead.
“With her, huh. Casey. Brannigan. Restrain him,” Adler said.
The two agents moved on Declan, forcing him to look at them rather than Stacia. Dark shapes writhed across his skin, sinuous black tattoos forming on their own, climbing up from under his collar to twist around his neck and jaw, wrapping around his bare forearms like snakes.
“What the fuck?” one of the two agents asked uncertainly. The other one pulled a Taser from his pocket.
“Oh great,” Stacia said, although it actually wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.
The agent with the phone and the frown suddenly sucked in a deep breath, his head snapping up to stare at Declan. “Ah, sir?” he started, but Adler ignored him and the two other agents stepped up to within a few feet of Declan.
“Get on the ground, kid, or I’ll tase you.”
Declan slowly held out a palm, almost as if he was making a calming motion, but it didn’t match the fierce smile on his face.
“SIR?” the agent with the phone tried again.
“My name is Declan O’Carroll,” the young man said and lightly flexed his fingers. The Taser fired itself, the agent holding it looking at it in confusion, trying to figure it out. The barbs struck Declan in the middle of his hand and the gun hummed with power. It had no effect, except maybe to make Declan’s grin wider.
Then he pushed his hand outward and a blue arc flashed up the wires, back into the gun, and shorted out into the agent holding it. The agent stiffened up, shuddering, eyes rolling up and body collapsing.
The other agent snapped out a collapsible baton, but he no sooner had it extended when another blue arc jumped from Declan’s hand to the metal baton. He too jerked like a fish in a frying pan and fell to the ground.
Adler’s other agents drew handguns, all except the one with the phone, who immediately raised his voice. “STOP! STAND DOWN! STAND DOWN!” he yelled frantically.
“What’s the issue, Spencer?” Adler asked, staring at Declan over the sights of his Glock.
“Facial recognition identified him as an Oracle subject. He’s on the special watchlist,” phone guy said, watching Declan nervously.
“You gotta be wrong on that, Spencer,” another agent said, his own eyes watching Declan through an electronic sight mounted on his M4. “That list applies to just a few… you know.”
“Chris Gordon and Tatiana Demidova?” Stacia asked although she knew the answer. She was scared for Declan. She had seen his magical shields stop bullets before, but he was facing a whole lot of firepower at the moment.
“Let me see that,” Adler commanded, moving over to Spencer so he could see the phone’s screen.
“What is the special watchlist?” Sheriff Grable asked.
Adler didn’t answer, but Stacia spoke up. “It means they’re probably not to engage, apprehend, or antagonize the subject without higher authorization.”
Adler swiveled around to stare at her while the sheriff rubbed his chin and looked at Declan. “Higher?” Grable asked.
“Probably General Creek or someone like that,” she said.
“Really?” Declan asked, looking surprised, too.
“What did you expect? You really caught the eye of that NSA director, and Stewart was impressed with the whole centipede thing,” she said. “Gina told me.”
Adler lowered his gun and waved his men to do the same. Declan instantly brushed by him and walked across the room straight to Stacia. Adler watched him but did nothing violent, only pulling his own cell phone and placing a call, frowning at Stacia and moving into the sheriff’s office. He closed the door so even she wouldn’t hear.
The first thing Declan did was to touch her face, nodding to himself when he saw the blood flake off. She stayed quiet, her eyes on his while his looked her over for damage. Then he touched the arm restraints, and they both snapped open. He did the same with the leg shackles, letting them lay where they fell.
“You guys are Directorate,” Declan said, turning to Adler just as the giant agent came out of the sheriff’s office. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, and you’re interfering with our investigation,” Adler said. “You’ve assaulted my agents.”
Declan tilted his head and Stacia saw a Bluetooth unit in his right ear. She hadn’t noticed it before.
“She’s safe, Father. See? There is no need for a war,” a youngish sounding voice said in his ear. She was the only other one to hear it. Father?
“If I understood the Sheriff correctly, it appears you all are interfering with their investigation, which was actually achieving results. You, on the other hand, have lost a suspect and a team member. You then restrained the best investigator in the area. Sharp work,” he said.
“Declan, I’m alright. They just bound me. No abuse,” she said.
“You’re her witch, right?” Grable asked, a thoughtful look on his face, whereas Adler still looked ready to explode.
Declan smiled an honest smile at that. “Yup. I’m her witch.”
“Is it witch or warlock?” Buck Thompson asked.
The tattoos suddenly faded on Declan’s skin, disappearing before their eyes.
“Witch is appropriate,” he said.
“We have a crime scene right next door, but we’re having… issues with it,” Sheriff Grable said casually, as if two agents weren’t lying, twitching, on the floor.
“Issues?” Declan asked.
“Cameras malfunctioning, fingerprint dust not adhering, and… well, the crime scene techs are having trouble staying in the room,” the sheriff said.
“What?” Adler asked in disbelief, distracted from his anger and his downed men. “Why haven’t I heard of this?”
“It’s true, sir,” Agent Spencer with the phone said, glancing at his boss although his eyes kept coming back to Declan. “I couldn’t stay in the room. You were busy with the incident at the hunting camp.”
“Fear? Or forgetfulness?” Declan asked Spencer.
Spencer looked a little startled to be addressed. “Forgetful sounds right. I kept finding myself back outside with no idea why I had left the room.”
“Well, let’s go have a look,” Declan said.
“All right, follow me,” Grable said, heading out the front, Declan following with Stacia right behind.
Buck touched Stacia’s arm as she went by. “Is he stable?” he asked in a whisper.
“Relax. He likes local law enforcement types. I already told you about his step-aunt. Got issues with feds though,” she said, glancing at Adler, who had moved over to his tased men.
“Don’t we all,” Buck said with a nod, falling in line behind her.
Chapter 20
The old factory next door had been renovated with a new classy front door that stood wide open, a pool of light from the ornate door lamp illuminating the entrance. A woman with a sheriff’s department jacket stood just outside the door, looking confused. Declan came to a sudden stop at the same time Stacia felt her crystal amulet rise in temper
ature against her skin. The air was heavy and oppressive.
The sheriff turned back when Declan stopped, and now he just raised his grey eyebrows in question.
“You’ve got another witch,” Declan stated.
Stacia sniffed. “And an older werewolf. Male—alpha. The girl is much younger. Maybe our age,” she said.
“Feel the air, Sheriff? Like this is the last place you want to be?” Declan asked. “Like you need to be anywhere but here? Like something bad is going to happen?
