Justice Served Cold: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (Rewriting Justice Book 1)

by Martha Carr

  “It doesn’t make them an enemy either,” Leira argued. “What do you want me to do? It is obvious you have something in mind, since you wouldn’t have come here just to give me intel.”

  “We want you to enter the sanctuary and apprehend or kill as many of them as possible. The larger the numbers of these creatures, the more likely we are to end up in a full-out battle. We want to strike while the iron is hot; get to them before they even know we were on to them. Preferably we’d have you bring Lucius to us, but if you must kill him then do so.”

  “Senator, with all due respect, it seems that you don’t remember the conversation that we had last time I was here.” Leira sighed. “The shifters have made no foul moves toward us, and in some cases they have gone out of their way to protect us. I respect Lucius.”

  “Respect,” Brownwood scoffed, making Leira gaze at him with irritation. “I’m sorry but you respect some wolf/elf hybrid who spent hundreds of years tormenting people in this void you people have, only to break free and wreak havoc on everyone.”

  “He was cursed and full of dark magic,” Leira replied. “But that has left him, and I don’t blame him for going out and finding his family. He was a great warrior on Oriceran, one of the best there was, and now he is back to that state. If he wanted humans dead they would be dead. I understand fully what he is doing, and I will neither set foot on his land nor disrespect his kind.”

  “You are so stubborn, Berens,” Thatcher replied, slamming his folder shut. “One day this choice will literally bite you in the ass, and you will have to look back and think about how you could have stopped it.”

  “The only way to stop it is to stop you and your people from going after them and taunting them out of fear because you don’t understand who they are,” Leira said, standing up and drawing an orb into her hand. “Relax, Brownwood, it’s a portal.”

  Leira opened the portal and stepped through, not even turning around to say goodbye. The portal shut with a bang, sparks landing on the carpet of the boardroom and fizzling out. Thatcher put his hand to his chin and leaned back in his chair, not happy at all with how the meeting had gone. It was the second time they had asked Berens to help them with this issue, and she had shut them down cold and hard again.

  “I thought she was like muscle for hire,” Brownwood remarked. “She doesn’t seem to want to get hired.”

  “She would rather gain moral points than dollars.” Thatcher sighed. “I’m afraid if we are ever going to get her help it will have to be on her terms, not ours, and I know how much that chaps the government’s ass.”

  “Why don’t they just get rid of her?”

  “She is the most powerful magical being we have access to. She might be stubborn, but she is very much needed, even if she isn’t working directly for us.”

  “What about the shifter problem?” Brownwood asked. “They are getting more numerous by the day. Without Berens, though, we can’t just sneak in and take out the Alpha.”

  “No, we can’t, but we don’t need someone who’s not behind the cause,” he replied. “We are going to send our own men into the sanctuary and handle this situation on our own once and for all. When Berens sees we don’t need her help she will loosen up on terms.”

  Leira walked through the portal into the living room, plopping down on the couch next to Correk. She reached into his box of Twinkies and pulled out two, dropping one in her lap and opening the other. She took a big bite and slumped down, staring at the television.

  “Meeting go south?” Correk asked.

  “They just can’t seem to get it through their heads that I am not going to help take down the shifters, not without a really good reason to do so,” she grumbled. “I know they are afraid of them and I know they think Alan’s death was partly the shifters’ fault, but they are wrong.”

  “That’s why you are on your own.” Correk patted her leg. “So you can choose what is right and what is wrong.”

  “But if they don’t start wising up they are going to miss what’s important, which is learning how to integrate magic on Earth, and when those portals open it will be pure chaos.”

  “Turner thinks they will wise up, but it’s going to take a big event to make them see it,” Correk told her. “I’m really hoping that’s not true, because wherever there is a big event you and I are there.”

  “Last time I slept for two days afterward.” She smiled.

  “That was definitely magic I had never seen before,” Correk replied. “You were on the edge with the light and you took too many chances, but you saved our lives.”

  “It was like the magic just took over.” Leira twisted her bracelet around her wrist. “It was like my subconscious was doing the work I was struggling to get my conscious mind to do.”

  “It comes naturally to you, and the magic is very strong. It seeks a release through you, but it also knows ultimately you control that,” Correk explained.

  “You sound like Tucker.” She smiled.

  “Well, I am the new Fixer, after all.” He put his arm around her. “And I guess I got Turner’s students.”

  Leira gave him her best dead fish look. He laughed, pulling her close and putting his feet on the coffee table. Leira leaned into him, enjoying his warmth and familiarity. It was nice and something she really liked—and something she didn’t do enough these days. Correk picked up the remote and flipped through the channels, landing on Survivor Man. He turned his head to the right, watching the guy starting a fire.

  “I just don’t get it. Some of the things humans struggle with are basic ways of life on Oriceran, and from what I have been told it used to be normal here on Earth too.”

  “Sometimes when we progress in one area we regress in another.” Leira smiled. “We are a world of technology now, and everything has a remote. Everything has a way to make it work without getting your hands dirty. There are smart lights, smart fireplaces, instructions on how to do anything right at your fingertips. Over time the human species has lost touch with its roots, I guess. Now we see surviving in the wilderness as something to be learned and maybe watched on television as entertainment.”

  “Well, I’m definitely entertained.”

  22

  Captain Showguard stood next to the Humvee, staring out over what seemed to be nothing but a burnt wasteland. He turned his head from side to side, unsure what he was supposed to be looking for. The soldier next to him pointed toward a ragged old tree in the distance.

  “Watch the horizon. Watch really close, and you will be able to see the magic,” he advised. “It shimmers, like one of those domes in Harry Potter.”

  The captain looked at the soldier and lifted his eyebrows, obviously never having read any of the books or seen the movies. The soldier sighed and pointed to the open space just as the air wavered, emitting a small glimmer.

  “See? Did you see that, sir?”

  The captain squinted and the waves in the forcefield around the sanctuary moved slightly. He blinked and stepped to the edge of the road. The soldier grabbed his shoulder before he could go any farther.

  “Sorry, sir, but if you hit the forcefield you will set off the alarms,” he said.

  “Can they see us?”

  “We aren’t really sure, sir.”

  “So what you are telling me is they might be right on the other side of that ditch just waiting for us to walk into their territory, and if they aren’t a magical siren will go off and they will immediately start hunting us.”

  “Uh, yeah, that’s about right, sir,” the soldier agreed.

  The captain put his hat back on and rolled his eyes, turning and walking to the other side of the Humvee. “I should have volunteered for war,” he grumbled, “with humans. Real humans, with no magical powers.”

  The soldier followed him down to where the special forces troops were gearing up with no fear on their faces. They had all been brought in and specially trained to fight magical beings if necessary, but the training was more of a guess than anything else.
They’d had some wizards come in and give exclusive information where they could, but none of them were happy to work alongside the human government.

  “All right, boys,” the captain began. “We’ve got hundreds of shapeshifting dogs on the other side of this magical fence.”

  “Uh, sir?” the soldier interjected. “They are wolves, like werewolves, capable of standing on their back legs.”

  “Right, so we have really big, really smart dogs over there,” the captain agreed. “The leader of the pack is Lucius, a former Light Elf warrior from Oriceran. Apparently this sonofabitch spent a good long stretch in the World in Between and came out jonesing for revenge. His actions, coupled with those of the now-deceased dark wizard Sirius, cost the life of one of our agents, Alan Cohen. We have been hunting these boys for a while now, and there are a whole lot of them right on the other side of that ditch. Now, if you take the Alpha they should fall in line or retreat, so do your best to find him. He’s big—real big—and the only one who can do magic.”

  “Do we have permission to shoot to kill?” one of the agents asked.

  “You sure as hell do,” the captain agreed. “Now go get ‘em, boys.”

  The shifters were gathered on the main hill in the center of the property, going over different techniques of defense. They were wolves in a fight, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t use their brains along with their brutal claws and razor-sharp teeth. It was all about how they moved and how they could dodge the magic that the dark families might use on them. They were harder to hit because they were fast, low to the ground if needed, and fearless when in their wolf form.

  Lucius stood at the front of the group watching them spar, rolling and sliding back and forth, looking for the perfect moment to lunge and push their opponent to the ground. Disarming the magic was important—unless they were elves—then dodging and getting in close enough to take them down was required. While Lucius put their fears to rest by telling them disabling was key, in the back of his mind he knew it would be a kill-or-be-killed scenario almost every time.

  You want to use your muscles as an advantage, Lucius sent to the crowd as they sparred. Slash with your claws and push forward on your hind legs, overpowering them with strength and pain. Use your teeth as last resort, and always, ALWAYS, if you do bite, go for the kill. Don’t play around. You can disable with your claws, then strike them unconscious.”

  He watched a pair of larger male shifters on their hind legs slapping at each other. The smaller one pushed forward, his leg muscles twitching and growing until the larger tipped over on his back.

  Lucius nodded. Very good. You are smaller than your opponent and probably weaker, but because you utilized your attributes you took him down. That is the point when you decide whether to maim or kill.

  Both wolves looked at him, yellow eyes shining brightly. They watched the wolves next to them struggling against each other for a moment, rolling across the ground in a whirl of fur and spit. Lucius chuckled to himself, glad that they were giving it all that they had even if their form wasn’t quite perfect. Suddenly his ears perked and he could feel that familiar heat burning into his chest. The rest of the wolves stopped as well and turned quickly toward Lucius, waiting for his word.

  There are intruders. Lots of them, he sent, rolling his head. Man your posts.

  The soldiers rolled through the outer protections, caught slightly off-guard when the scenery instantly changed to lush rolling lands instead of the burnt landscape they had seen from the outside. They stayed low among the grasses, pointing their weapons forward as they moved toward the center of the property. They knew that the alarm had gone off even if they couldn’t hear it, which gave them a very short window to get the upper hand.

  They stayed close to the ground, the long tall grasses waving around them. When they had reached the halfway point the leader put up his fist, signaling for them to stop. The soldiers looked ahead of them, squinting and watching as the grasses rippled, bending almost in half. Fur was visible just over the edge of the grasses and the men began to slowly back up, aiming their weapons into the field.

  The squad leader took a knee, aimed his gun, and slowly pulled the trigger. The gun sent a bullet whizzing into the fields, and it struck an animal. The leader crept forward, having seen the fur disappear into the grass. He stopped just feet away and looked down, careful at first and then angrily pushing through the grass. He held up a rabbit with a bullet hole in its chest.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Watch out!” A wolf leapt and tackled the leader, rolling him through the grass. It reached back and scratched the soldier across the face, before jumping up and rejoining the others.

  Hundreds of wolves came at the soldiers from all directions and surrounded them. Lucius stayed in the back, directing magic at their weapons, pulling them to the ground.

  The soldiers moved in, using their combat skills to go head to head with the shifters. The furry beasts towered over the soldiers, using their strength to push and take them down. A collective whimper rippled from the crowd as a soldier dragged a knife across a shifter’s chest. Lucius threw an orb of light which struck the soldier in the arm, sending him through the air to land hard in the field behind him.

  The soldiers began to back up, dragging their injured with them and the shifters lined up, slowly walking toward them, growling and snarling. Lucius watched for a moment, and then put up his paw.

  Let them run in terror, he called telepathically. Let them go back and tell the captain how we spared their lives.

  The soldiers watched carefully as the shifters stopped, staring intently at them. When they got far enough away they began to run, throwing their injured over their shoulders and making a break for it. The shifters had been too much for them, even without the Alpha’s magic.

  Lucius stood tall on the hill, changing back into his elf form, smiling and rubbing his hands together as they fled the scene. He knew it was not the end of it. That the government might try again one day, but for that moment they were victorious, and they would only get stronger.

  The captain stood next to the Humvee outside the sanctuary, typing on his phone as he waited for the soldiers to come back after defeating the shifters. The sound of a howl could be heard through the magical barriers, pulling the captain’s attention back to the field in front of him. The magic wavered, almost vibrating. Then human screams echoed, putting fear into the captain’s heart. He grabbed the radio out of the Humvee and called for backup.

  “What do you mean, these are the best we’ve got? I can hear them in there.”

  “Pull them back,” the person on the other end advised.

  “I can’t. They are inside, I am out,” he replied, “and I am not going in there alone.”

  As he spoke the magic around the sanctuary shimmered more and more. He looked up as someone walked through and dropped the radio. It was the leader, and he was limping and had a long gash across his face. The captain ran forward, stopping at the edge as the rest of the special operations team came streaming through, some being carried, others dragged. The team looked terrified, beat up, and no longer fearless and stoic.

  “What the hell happened in there?”

  The leader shook his head, breathing heavily, and leaned on the Humvee. “There were so many of them and so few of us. The Alpha disarmed us with his magic and then it was just hand-to-paw combat. Those things are strong.”

  “How many did we lose?”

  “None.” The leader shook his head. “They could have killed us all, but they spared our lives. When it got to be a no-win the Alpha called them back, and they let us make a run for it.”

  “Why?” the captain asked angrily.

  “Honestly? I don’t think they wanted to kill us,” he replied. “They were protecting their land and each other, but they didn’t want to take lives.”

  “Bullshit,” the captain snarled, slamming his hand on the hood. “The bigwigs told me they were bloodthirsty beasts, hell-bent on taking any
life they could.”

  “Not these, sir,” the leader retorted, shaking his head. “There were houses on the hill; a community, almost. It looked like they were there because they had nowhere else to go. Honestly, sir, we attacked them and they defended themselves. They weren’t the beasts we were briefed on.”

  The captain nodded, looking up at the magical barrier as it faded back to invisibility. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered to himself. “Guess it’s not the first time the government got something wrong.”

  23

  Senator Thatcher sat at the table, his hands to his lips, not sure what to say. The captain stood nervously by, awaiting his response. He had pushed for that position, thinking it would be something fun and different on his way to retirement. It was definitely different, but fun was not part of the vocabulary he would use to describe the new position.

  “Honestly, Thatcher,” Brownwood exclaimed. “You are one of these magical creatures, so I thought you would know better.”

  “I’m a wizard, and not a particularly strong one, if we are laying it all out here. I thought the shifters would kill, or fight to kill at least. I never thought they would hold back and show mercy, not when we invaded their space.”

  “You sent my men in there to be slaughtered?”

  Thatcher looked up at the captain but didn’t say anything, not really sure what he had been thinking when they’d made that call. It had been desperation. Berens had turned them down and he couldn’t think of another way so in they went, but that outcome had never crossed his mind. Where should they go from here? Magic was coming whether they liked it or not, and they were nowhere near being prepared. It could easily be a disaster on Earth’s side if they didn’t put their noses to the grindstone.

  “Where do we go from here?” Brownwood asked.