by Laura Taylor
Feng was in the kitchen making coffee, and Andre shifted as he came in the door. “Genna’s gone northeast, towards Penrith,” he told Feng, skipping the usual pleasantries. “I’ll head out after her this morning.”
A raised eyebrow was the only sign that Feng was surprised by his discovery. “You’re going alone?”
“With one or two others. Genna’s proved to be rather unpredictable of late, and I don’t want any more surprises.” What Feng didn’t know was that with the Sight playing havoc with his vision, driving a car wasn’t currently particularly safe, so at the very least he’d need a driver to get him where he needed to go. He’d been intending to ask Caroline, once he’d got a clear direction.
“I think it would be wise to take a few more than that,” Feng said, leaning against the counter and staring into his coffee mug. “There’s a small but real risk that Genna may decide to go back to the Noturatii. As yet we still haven’t got any real information from her about their first meeting, so we have to assume that a second one isn’t out of the question. And if you run into that sort of trouble, even you might find yourself in need of assistance.”
In terms of simple fighting skills, no, he wouldn’t. But problems could well arise if he was forced into a confrontation in public. The need to keep the shifters a secret from humanity was more important than any other consideration – even with their species on the brink of war – and if Genna had fallen captive to the Noturatii, or if she refused to come quietly, then having a backup team was a sound idea. However much Andre disliked it.
“Fair enough,” he agreed. “How many people did you want to take?”
Thando sat at a small table outside a non-descript café, quietly sipping a cup of coffee. It was sweeter than he liked it, the waitress having put in two spoons of sugar instead of the one he’d asked for. She’d realised her mistake a moment too late and apologised profusely, offering to make him a new one, but he’d declined, telling her it was fine and taking the cup with a smile and a ‘thank you’. It was clear she’d been having a hard day, and he hoped the simple act of kindness – or not even kindness, really, as all he had actually done was refuse to make a fuss – would bolster her mood a little.
Thando had his phone out and was randomly tapping the screen, scrolling through some photographs and old text messages – all fake, of course. There was no way he would carry around anything that could either incriminate him or give away any clues as to his identity, mission or location, either past or present. But everyone had a phone these days, and at times like this, it was a useful diversion. He could sit here for half an hour, enjoy his coffee, fiddle with his phone, and by the time he was finished, he would have a much clearer understanding of the layout and external security measures of the building across the street from him.
The café was in east London, a small, unnoticeable place that picked up the majority of its customers from amongst the commuters and office workers hurrying past. As for the building across the road, he’d already noticed the security camera that guarded the main entrance and the guard stationed in the lobby. There was a side door further down that was locked, but less closely guarded, that might provide a discreet means of entry. The windows were all reflective glass, not allowing him any kind of view of the inside of the building, but the roof was relatively low, only eight storeys high. Several of the neighbouring buildings rose several storeys above it, making him think that accessing the interior via the roof might be the easiest option.
Thando sighed and chewed on the edge of his paper cup. As an assassin for the Council, he was used to carrying out missions with the utmost discretion, years of training honing his abilities until he was one of the most skilled killers the world had ever seen. But even he would have to admit that this mission was going to be pushing it.
His assignment was to break into the Noturatii’s main British base – the unassuming building just across the road – and then locate and liberate a captive Russian shifter and get the two of them out of the building and back to safety while remaining completely undetected. It was a noble quest, and Thando had offered prayers and incense to Sirius as he requested the assistance and protection of the divine wolf spirit.
But the far more likely reality was that there would be no rescuing. Security was tight – the first five minutes of this reconnaissance trip had confirmed that; there were a multitude of civilians in the building who could firstly not be harmed in any way as a result of Il Trosa’s war with the Noturatii, but more than that, could not even be allowed to suspect the slightest detail about the wolf shifters. And if working around those two restrictions wasn’t hard enough, he would then have to deal with the very likely scenario that the captive would be too badly injured to make it out of the facility alive.
Thando’s fall back position was grim – if the shifter could not be freed, or if he was discovered during the rescue attempt, then he was to euthanise the captive and make his own escape as best he could.
And if even that failed? Well, that was why he carried the capsule of poison in the ring on his left hand.
Sitting in the back of the van, Tank stared out the window, watching the miles roll by. Up ahead in one of the Den’s sedans, Andre was doing whatever special assassin shit he did to track down Genna. Little had been said about what he’d done last night, or what exactly he was doing this morning, and to make himself feel better about it all, Tank just told himself that it was some odd manifestation of the shifter magic. Just like Caroline could force people to shift, or Kwan could manipulate electric currents. How else did you just point in a random direction and declare that Genna was over there?
The truth was, he was already feeling far too uneasy about this mission, and focusing on controlling the nausea rolling in his gut was easier than contemplating the dark mysteries of Il Trosa’s assassins. In general, Tank had nothing against Andre; he was a talented warrior and an asset to their cause, but there was also something preternatural about him that put Tank on edge.
Outside the window, the rolling hills gave way to rows of houses, and Tank forced his mind back to the issue at hand as he realised they had arrived in Penrith. It was where he’d picked Genna up a day and a half ago, the fulfilment of his promise to help her if she ever needed it. But he hadn’t helped, had he? Less than twenty-four hours later, she’d fled. Even though she was from the Watch and not Il Trosa, every wolf knew the consequences of desertion. And yet, after learning that Sempre had arrived at the estate, she’d run away at the first opportunity. What did she fear about Sempre that was so bad she would rather risk assassination than stand and face it? She’d asked for help, and somehow he’d completely failed to help her. The guilt gnawing at him over it was agonising. Especially since he didn’t even really understand how he’d failed.
Finally, long minutes later, the van pulled into a parking lot and rolled to a stop, and Tank felt a strange mix of hope and dread as he realised just where they were. Baron hopped out of the driver’s seat and opened the sliding door of the van, and they all piled out – Tank, Heron, Feng and Paula. Eleanor had come in the sedan with Andre, and Caroline had come on a motorbike. Just in case they needed a vehicle that could move at high speed with superior manoeuvrability. Tank felt his gut lurch as he imagined all the disastrous scenarios that could lead to needing that sort of solution.
As the rest of the shifters milled around, Tank stared across the parking lot at the building, his mind racing. It seemed he hadn’t failed Genna after all. But if he didn’t do something fast, he was about to.
“The magic I’m using is a little complicated,” Andre was explaining to the group, as they put their heads together to devise a strategy to recover Genna, and Tank listened with half an ear. “As it stands, I’m still able to track Genna, but the moment I actually find her, I lose that ability. The hows and whys are far too complicated to explain, but usually it’s not a problem, given that the normal reason an assassin is hunting someone is to kill them. In this case, we want Genna alive
.”
“We know Genna’s inside,” Eleanor took over, nodding to the building across the way, “but we currently have no idea who she’s with, or whether or not she might be persuaded to come back with us. So before Andre goes in, we need every single exit covered. We may meet resistance, but if the Noturatii are here, neither of us are going to want to deal with this in public. Which means that whichever group manages to leave first will inevitably be tailed by the other until we reach an isolated spot, and then we’ll have a fight on our hands.”
“Let me talk to Genna first,” Tank suddenly interrupted, though he still hadn’t quite figured out how he was going to convince Eleanor to let him do that. All he knew was that he owed it to Genna to try. Eleanor turned to him with a predictable look of confusion on her face.
“We don’t just need her to come back with us,” he explained, thinking fast. “We need her to choose to cooperate with any discussions about the Treaty, and we need her to tell the truth. Currently she’s terrified of Sempre, though we still don’t know exactly why, and the fact that she ran away says she’s not too convinced about Il Trosa, either. When she left the Watch, she called me first. She trusted me enough to believe that I could help her. That I would help her. If we go in there, all brute force and coercion, we could just be shooting ourselves in the foot.” He glanced around at the others, watching on with expressions of doubt on their faces. “It would make the future a whole lot easier if we can get her back on our side now.”
“What makes you think she’ll listen to you?” Eleanor asked.
Tank glanced over at the building. ‘The Station Hotel’ was printed on a large sign by the door, which swung in the light breeze, creaking softly. “Because she came back to the exact same place where I met her two nights ago.”
A weighty pause followed, then Feng said, “That’s all well and good, but one of the risks we wanted to avoid was that she could change her story before we got to speak to her. Your Den is at risk, because of her actions. Why should we trust you, when we wouldn’t let Sempre have the same opportunity?”
It was a harsh, but realistic question. “My Den is at risk, yes,” Tank replied. “But so is the future of our species. Ask Caroline if I’m trustworthy. She very nearly became a Councillor, not so long ago. On that basis, surely you must trust her opinion?”
“Fair enough,” Eleanor said, after thinking the idea over, then she turned to Caroline. “What would you say about that?”
Caroline didn’t hesitate before answering. “I would trust Tank with my life, with my Den and with the future of generations to come,” she said determinedly. “I believe he’s more than capable of seeing the bigger picture and not corrupting the discussions on the Treaty for any kind of personal gain or bias.”
Eleanor said nothing, but she, Feng and Paula looked at each other, silently weighing up their next course of action.
“I’d agree to Tank speaking to Genna,” Feng said finally. “He’s right: things will go much smoother if she’s willing to help, rather than just being an angry captive.”
“It’s no worse than any other plan we’ve got,” Paula said, not exactly supportive, but not disagreeing with the idea.
“Then go to it,” Eleanor said finally. “Get her somewhere private before you discuss any sensitive information, and try to persuade her to come out as soon as possible. If you notice anyone acting suspicious, let us know immediately. It’s entirely possible that we’re too late and the Noturatii have already arrived.”
Tank nodded, though he wasn’t really listening to her well-intentioned advice. He’d been in enough tight spots to know how to do a security sweep before planting himself in the middle of a bad situation, and he also knew that Eleanor had missed the point of his chat with Genna. Trying to rush her into coming outside was likely to have the exact opposite effect. He was assuming at this stage that she was either terrified or furiously angry, and the only thing that would help in either of those situations was sitting down with her and patiently listening to everything she had to say, her accusations, her doubts, her fears. He was going in there with the intention of being a true friend to Genna, an opportunity he’d somehow missed before, and when he came out, he wanted it to be because Genna had chosen to trust him of her own free will, not because he had successfully manipulated her into it.
He mentally braced himself, gave a parting glance to Baron and Caroline, and headed for the door.
Genna sat at a table in the hotel’s dining room, thinking that perhaps she was enjoying her breakfast a little too much. She was effectively on death row, after all. But the food in front of her was simply too tempting for her to dwell on her unfortunate situation. Sausage, eggs, bacon and toast sat on her plate, and she’d already finished off a bowl of cornflakes. She had her own small pot of tea, and there were pastries on the side table, if she was still hungry at the end. The price of breakfast had been a little steep by her standards, but there’d been enough money left over after she’d paid for the room to afford it, so she’d figured why not? She’d been hungry for too long to not take advantage of the opportunity now.
But at the same time, she was aware that her money was running low. If she wanted to stay here another night she’d have to steal more. How long did it take for an assassin to find a target, anyway? Would she be here a day? A week? Or even longer?
She’d finished most of what was on her plate and was about to order a second helping of toast when she froze, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as she felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched. But was it an assassin or the Noturatii? She tensed for a moment, reaching out with her wolf side… and yes, there it was. She could detect the faint tingle that signalled that another shifter was nearby.
Well. That was quicker than she’d expected. She deliberately picked up her cup and sipped her tea, contemplating what to do next. The assassin wouldn’t kill her while she was in public, and on a whim, she waved the waitress over and ordered that toast after all. If this was to be her last meal, she might as well make the most of it. Should she look around and see if she could spot him? It wouldn’t give anything away; assassins were trained well enough that he’d have known the instant she realised she wasn’t alone. She concentrated harder and pinned down the odd waves of static as coming from the doorway over her right shoulder. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been sitting with her back to the door, but given that she was expecting someone to come and kill her anyway, it hadn’t seemed to make a big difference.
Did she really want to see the person who was going to shoot her the instant she was alone? Or should she just quietly take a walk into the lane behind the hotel and let fate have her?
In the end, her curiosity got the better of her. She turned to look over her shoulder… and nearly dropped her cup in surprise. It wasn’t an assassin standing in the doorway. It was Tank!
Now that she’d seen him, he crossed the room without waiting for an invitation, seating himself opposite her. The owner of the hotel must have let him in. And why not? The middle-aged couple who ran the place would have little reason to be suspicious of someone who could no doubt tell them her name and give them a very accurate description of her.
She had no idea what to say, various vague sounds emanating from her mouth as she tried to make sense of Tank’s sudden arrival, and in the end, she simply closed her mouth and waited for him to explain himself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As Genna gaped at him, Tank was grateful to see that she wasn’t trying to run away. Not yet, at least, but it gave him a chance to make something useful out of this mess.
“Are you okay?” he asked first, his voice low, the question a genuine one, and Genna looked both grateful for his concern and confused by it.
“I’m fine,” she answered quickly. Then after a pause, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk to you.”
She gave him a look of pure scepticism, and he shrugged, not seeing the point in hiding anything fr
om her. “The others are waiting outside. I’m sorry I have to ask this, but… have you contacted the Noturatii again since you left the estate?” The dining room was relatively empty, the nearest other patrons two tables away, and while he knew he couldn’t discuss too much here where they could be overheard, he felt the question was important enough to ask now.
“No,” Genna replied quickly. “Doing it the first time was stupid and naïve. I know enough about them now to know they’re never, ever to be trusted. They don’t broker deals with us, they just…” She glanced at the nearby diners. “Well, things don’t go well.”
Tank nodded, relieved at the news.
“So that means,” Genna went on, “that since I’m without a decent backup plan, one way or another, I suppose I’ll be going home with you.” She sighed and chewed a nail. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again. I thought that when people like me run away…” Another stray glance at the diners. “…then more professional sorts of people are sent to find them.”
“Andre is a professional,” Tank replied. “And he conveniently lives on our estate.”
Genna rolled her eyes and swore, and Tank took that to mean she’d temporarily forgotten about Andre. “So they sent you in first to sweet-talk me into… what? What do you want from me? Why haven’t they just…? I’m a criminal, after all.”
“Is there somewhere more private we could talk?” Tank asked. Veiled references to what they really were were all well and good, but it made for a rather stilted conversation. Not to mention a very strange one, for anyone who might overhear them.
“No,” Genna replied flatly. “I figure I’m safer here than anywhere else right now.”
She had a point. “Two days ago,” Tank said, trying a different tack, “you called me on the phone and asked me to help you. So I took you home, and then, when I was in the middle of trying to do just that, you ran away. Why?”
