No Werewolves Allowed

by Cheyenne McCray

  We didn’t risk the chance of taking an elevator and having anything happen—like getting stuck or even gassed. Who knew if word had gotten to Johnson and he was expecting us.

  The Weres’ boots, along with Adam’s and Olivia’s, clunked on the marble floor of the center’s lobby, the sounds echoing in the enormous area. Obviously Weres had a problem with making noise when not in wolf form.

  They were even louder as they pounded up the stairs to the fifth floor.

  Harkins stumbled a lot as Olivia and Adam dragged her up with us. Her face was red with exertion and she constantly mumbled things like, “It’s too late,” and “All of Satan’s spawn will soon be exterminated,” and “You abominations are already dead.”

  I wanted to club the back of her head with the hilt of one of my daggers.

  The Weres were quieter when we reached the door from the fifth-floor stairwell but Beketov growled when they discovered it was locked.

  Beketov was about to try to bust the door in with a kick when Joshua grabbed the alpha Were’s arm. “Hold on, mate.”

  With a growl Beketov jerked his arm to get out of Joshua’s grasp. But nothing was holding him as the Shadow Shifter faded. Angel caught Joshua’s flail before it clattered to the concrete stairs. It was so heavy it probably would have taken a chunk out of the stairs, but Angel handled it like it was as light as a yo-yo.

  A large shadow moved away from Beketov, then passed through the space beneath the door. Not even a moment later and a loud click bounced off the stairwell’s walls and the door creaked open.

  I winced at the sounds, hoping Johnson and his team of junior scientists hadn’t heard. It was possible he’d brought techs for protection, too.

  It occurred to me that Harkins might yell to warn the scientist despite the gun at her back. When I cut my gaze behind me, I saw Olivia stuffing a roll of white surgical tape into her front pocket and Harkins looking furious with tape from the roll covering her mouth.

  “Good look on you,” I said to Harkins before I turned and followed everyone out of the stairwell.

  To my surprise, Beketov’s team moved with military precision, as if all of them had been in a branch of the armed forces.

  Angel handed Joshua his flail as she passed him and he gave her a short nod that she didn’t see because she was so focused on our mission.

  The hallway we crept into was long and sterile. I shuddered from its eerie familiarity. It looked too much like the hallways at the NORAD facility Johnson had converted into his own personal research center to use for perverted means.

  Everything was silent as we moved into the hallway. The Weres held their rifles high, ready to take the first shot they had. Each of them had a handgun sheathed at his or her waist.

  Adam and Olivia had their handguns drawn, holding them in two-fisted grips. Angel, Ice, Joshua, and I held our own weapons. My Kahr was gone, but I gripped one of my daggers, Angel grasped her whip, and Ice was prepared with his throwing knives. Joshua had a tight hold on the handle of his flail, the spiked ball at the end of the three-foot chain swinging back and forth in an almost hypnotizing way.

  We had just entered the hallway when Adam signaled to the others and pointed to cameras positioned in several places down the hallway. All of us pressed ourselves against the wall, everyone looking grim. The five cameras that I could see extended about four inches from the ceiling and were aimed in enough directions to keep us from moving by without being spotted.

  My heart pounded a little harder. How careless of me not to think of cameras, especially after being locked in that room.

  “Catch,” Ice murmured as he moved by me and I barely snatched his weapons belt as he shifted into a white falcon.

  He was the fastest Shifter I’d ever seen. He skimmed the ceiling of the hallway and I was pretty sure he was above the cameras’ range of sight.

  Ice landed on one extended camera, peeked over its edge, and started hammering at the lens with his beak. Impressed, I watched him punch holes in the lens until it shattered. Then he moved on to the other four cameras that we could see and took care of them, too.

  He flew lower when he returned and he shifted into his human form again without having to land on the floor first. One moment he was in the air, the next he was standing beside me, tall and lean.

  “Excellent,” I said as he took his belt from me.

  Ice shrugged and Beketov’s team of five, along with my team of six that now included Adam, started working our way down the hallway.

  We neared a set of double doors. Windows were in the top half. The doors no doubt led into the lab.

  A mixture of feelings that had been balled inside me began to unravel.

  Fury at what was being done by the scientists, hate for Johnson, fear for the pups and human children, and even terror for all paranorms who could be exterminated if we were too late to stop Johnson. The feelings were almost overwhelming, almost dizzying.

  We reached the double doors and kept low as half of our number crouched so that they wouldn’t be seen as they moved to the other side of the doors.

  Beketov gave the signal to go through the doors, to break them down if we had to.

  Shots echoed in loud bursts in the hallway.

  My ears rang.

  One of the Weres shouted. Collapsed onto the tile. Blood poured from the center of his chest.

  Ice dropped as well.

  A red stain expanded on his white T-shirt.

  Over his heart.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Ice!” I cried out when he hit the floor.

  He lay motionless.

  Goddess, no. He couldn’t be dead.

  Adrenaline pumped through me as shots zinged in the air, dented the door, chipped paint off the walls.

  Harkins made muffled sounds of terror behind the white tape as Adam and Olivia jerked her down to the floor.

  Angel dropped her whip. She shifted into a much smaller target, her squirrel form, and scampered along the hallway. Her small blue eyes searched the hallway, looking for locations where the attacks could be coming from.

  Despite the rain of bullets, Beketov tried to open the door to the laboratory.

  Locked.

  He growled. He slammed his shoulder against the door again and again. It didn’t budge, but he created a good-sized dent in the metal, the dent growing with every hit of his shoulder. He didn’t seem to feel the bullet that caught him in his hip. He didn’t stop trying to break down the door.

  I almost tripped over the flail that lay abandoned on the floor near the doors. A shadow passed under the double doors to the laboratory.

  “Where is the gunfire coming from?” Olivia said over the noise.

  Angel reappeared close to me. “Above,” she shouted so that everyone could hear. “Let them have it!”

  I shot my gaze up and saw rifle barrels pointed through the suspended ceiling tiles that were low enough for duct work—and hiding scientists or techs.

  Everyone on our two teams who had handguns or rifles raised their weapons and let loose a storm of bullets up and down the hallway ceiling.

  Beketov continued to slam his shoulder into the door.

  Blood began to drip from tiny holes at various points in the ceiling tiles as the Weres’ bullets hit home.

  Enemy fire stopped.

  The laboratory doors opened just as Beketov slammed his shoulder into it again, and he stumbled forward into an open area. No sign of Joshua, who must have been the reason for the doors suddenly opening.

  We scrambled into the laboratory with caution but it didn’t matter.

  Beketov had gone completely still the moment after he charged into the room. My eyes followed the path he was staring down and I went cold and still, too.

  The scientists. Johnson and two others had all three pups with two other green-suited scientists beside them, yellow armbands encircling the arms of their suits. The five stood in front of a laboratory table with a sink, a large microscope, and empty glass beakers on i
t.

  The scientists holding the pups each held a syringe filled with green fluid—the needles ready to jam into the Werewolf pups’ necks. The pups were held tight to the scientists so that they had solid grips on the little Weres.

  The pups’ eyes were wide and filled with fear. They didn’t move at all. It was the first time I’d seen the pups, and fear for them was hard, like a ball in my chest.

  Behind Johnson stood five more men. Techs, by the blue armbands on their suits. With the scientists and techs, there were ten of them. Without Ice and one of Beketov’s males, there were nine of us. When I realized Joshua wasn’t standing near us, I almost started with surprise. I changed my count to eight.

  Where was Joshua? A slight feeling of hope dared enter my bloodstream when I saw the Shadow Shifter was nowhere in sight. We had an inside man. Would he find some way to get to Johnson and save the pups without the little Weres getting hurt or jabbed with whatever was in those needles?

  I thought of Ice’s body in the hallway and prayed he wasn’t dead. He had lain there so motionless that I didn’t know if I dared to have hope.

  One man was huge—and had his handgun trained on me.

  The same man who had beaten me so badly. Sanderson.

  Good. I was going to take care of that bastard myself.

  Whatever way we managed to figure this out.

  To get my bearings, my gaze quickly swept the room that was filled with gleaming white and silver equipment so high-tech that I couldn’t even guess at what most of it was.

  The hammering of my heart increased when I saw the rows of small silver cages to the left. Three human children with tear-stained faces pressed themselves to the back of their cages, obviously terrified.

  When I swung my gaze to Johnson, he smiled. A cool, self-assured smile of a man certain he had nothing to fear and everything to gain.

  Johnson didn’t look like the insane man I was certain he was. No, he had an expression that appeared to be like any scientist devoted to his work while experimenting to find a cure—or in this case, a biological weapon.

  “Guns, knives, and anything else dangerous, toss into a pile in the center of the floor.” Johnson nodded to a space about six feet from us. Johnson, the other scientists, and Sanderson were another to six to seven feet beyond that. He looked at Angel again. “That includes the whip.”

  Both Beketov’s team and my own started to disarm ourselves. No one was willing to take a chance with the pups’ lives by not obeying him.

  Standing next to me were Olivia, Adam, and Angel. Olivia and Adam had Harkins in a tight grip between them.

  Johnson noticed Harkins for the first time. At first a startled expression crossed his features as he took in the rips and tears and blood on her suit, her face that was not covered. Accusation and anger flashed in his gaze.

  His voice was loud through the microphone. “You have been in the possession of these beasts. You brought them to me. And you are now contaminated.”

  Harkins’s eyes widened and she shook her head. A movement that was a plea, not denial. She made sounds behind the tape covering her mouth, trying to say something.

  “Sanderson.” Johnson gave a slight nod in Harkins’s direction. “She must suffer no misery or spread any contaminants.”

  The intern only had a moment for a brief attempt at a scream behind her taped mouth. Olivia and Adam started to push Harkins onto the floor to get her out of the line of fire.

  The barrel of Sanderson’s gun followed the movement with deadly precision. The sound of the gun discharging rang in the air. He shot her once. Twice. Both bullets went into Harkins’s head. The wall behind her splattered with red that trickled down its surface.

  Johnson’s cruel disregard of a loyal employee’s life shouldn’t have surprised me after what he had done to Lawson. Yet my stomach churned as Harkins sagged between Olivia and Adam, the intern’s eyes wide and glassy in another silent scream.

  Johnson motioned to the floor. “Release her.”

  Olivia and Adam both looked grim as they let Harkins’s body slump onto the floor.

  Johnson brought the needle closer to the neck of the pup he gripped tight to his body while the group started tossing weapons. The rifles, handguns, daggers, and whatever else the Weres and my team were wearing made clattering noises as they hit one another. A pile grew. And grew.

  “I have discovered the one.” Johnson acted like he hadn’t just had his lead intern murdered. “The virus that will destroy all perversions attempting to invade God’s world.”

  It clicked with me then that the pup Johnson held had fur the same bronze shade as Beketov’s hair. Like the alpha Were, the pup also had large tawny gold eyes.

  Without a doubt in my mind, I knew the pup was Beketov’s son.

  I glanced at Beketov from the corner of my eye. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Showed no expression that might give anything away. Not even fury. Blood stained his jeans where he’d taken a bullet in his hip. No sign of pain was in his stance. He stood solidly and did not favor that side of him.

  “Go on.” Johnson looked at each one of us. “Drop the weapons. My patience lasts only so long.”

  Johnson looked genuinely pleased to see Angel and me. “You remember how short I am on patience, don’t you? It must have been unpleasant to have bullets tear into your flesh when answers were not provided as fast as I requested.”

  We said nothing, just stared at him while disarming.

  “It is an immense pleasure to have you both join me again.” He smiled. “We can finish what we started.”

  I leaned down to set my unsheathed daggers on the floor before pushing them to the edge of the growing pile. I straightened again. “This meeting will give me a chance to make sure you are put out of our misery.”

  A scowl blossomed on Johnson’s features, his face suddenly going from pleased and rational to dark, furious, and definitely irrational. Insane even. “You abominations, you beasts, you evil creatures. You will be out of all of mankind’s misery soon.”

  I wanted to scream that I was so tired of hearing those same words coming from him and from the techs and interns. Over and over and over. I wanted to fold his face in on itself into a tiny piece of paper, hack it into pieces the size of confetti—and burn every piece with my fire element.

  Adam had placed his handgun on the floor a foot away from him before kicking it to the other weapons as Olivia did the same. They both added their sheathed knives by tossing them onto the pile, each landing with a thunk. Adam added his police baton when Johnson ordered him to.

  I didn’t remove my buckler and thank the Goddess that Johnson said nothing about it. Storm looked like a large belt buckle, not the dangerous weapon it was.

  A lot of firepower, daggers, and other weapons were in that pile…but paranorms don’t necessarily need weapons. We have our own ways of dealing with situations. I was counting on that.

  Something had to happen to set things in motion.

  But what?

  Johnson’s face relaxed. “I want the phones, too.”

  Eight cell phones hit the pile. As I unholstered mine, I tried to push the emergency button that would reach Rodán, but my finger slipped and Johnson was staring at me.

  Goddess.

  My phone made phone number nine. “Let the pups go, Johnson.” I tried to keep my voice even as my phone landed with a thud. “They’re just children.”

  Johnson’s expression kept changing from rational to irrational so fast it had to have screwed with his mind. He snarled and spittle flew from his mouth. “How dare you call these monstrosities children?”

  “Shut. Up.” I couldn’t help myself. I said it with enough venom that I felt the words alone could have killed Johnson. More and more I thought my head would explode from hearing those words—to put it as Olivia would—so many fucking times.

  Johnson’s gaze was narrowed at me. “Under the microscope, this serum attacked and destroyed the weak gene of samples of both your and the b
lood of the ‘Doppler,’ as you call it.” He nodded to Angel. She kept her expression neutral.

  His next gesture was meant to include the Were children as he tipped his head slightly toward the other scientists who held pups. “The blood from these three beasts reacted in the same way.”

  We said nothing as he continued. “In each case, the blood turns the entire slides black, within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, proving the virus will destroy you all once I inject these beasts.”

  Muscles in each adult Were twitched or flexed but they kept their faces expressionless. Adam’s jaw had tightened. Olivia was the only one who couldn’t seem to control the emotions on her face. Her glare was deadly as she stared at Johnson. I knew her mind was working through every scenario she could think of.

  The dryness in my throat made me want to swallow and I was almost afraid to make even that small movement. Yet I wanted to keep him talking to give us time…time to figure out what we would do. And what Joshua might be doing and have planned.

  “What about humans?” I glanced at the poor norm children caged to the side.

  “Their blood has no reaction.” Johnson looked pleased. “Unfortunately I did not have time to test this virus on the human children themselves or these abominations.” A slow smile spread across his face. “But with the blood-test results I have no doubt I have found the one.”

  That burst of hope I’d felt earlier with Joshua nowhere in sight broke like a soap bubble as Johnson moved his gaze from one of us to the next and said, “Where is the beast who managed to gain entrance to this laboratory?”

  When no one answered, Johnson’s face took on that mad expression again. “We will inject one of the pups now if you do not cooperate.”

  Damn.

  Joshua rose from a shadow in a corner not far from the scientists, and the expression on Johnson’s face was between horror and hate. “Child of Satan. Abomination of Hell.” He almost screamed at Joshua as he said, “Get with the others. Now!”

  Damn, damn, damn.