by Lisa Edmonds
“Yes!”
He laughed. Despite the lead ball of worry in my stomach, I had to smile.
I took off my jacket, wadded it up, and put it on the center console between us. I laid down across the jacket, resting my head on Sean’s thigh, and shifted with a pained grunt as the stupid vest and cup holders dug into various parts of my anatomy.
“That can’t be comfortable,” he said, gently brushing my hair back from my face. “Why don’t you climb in the back seat for a bit and lie down if you’re tired?”
“I’m not tired,” I lied. “It’s not even midnight.” I wiggled a bit until I found a position that was merely uncomfortable instead of painful. “Tell me a story.”
He rested his hand on my hip. “I’d like to tell you the story of how I became the alpha of our pack.”
“I’d like that.”
A pause. “In order to explain how I became the alpha, I have to tell you how I became a werewolf.”
I put my hand on top of his. “If you’re ready to tell me, I’m ready to hear it.”
He took a deep breath. “I was twenty-two. My friends Danny and Matt and I decided to go camping. We packed up and drove out to the middle of nowhere, then hiked for a half a day to find the right spot to camp. Nobody had cell phones back then, not that you’d be able to get a signal out there. We had compasses and balls and we figured that was all we needed. We wanted to prove how tough we were, I guess.”
When he went quiet, I glanced up at him. Sean was staring into space, as if looking back through time. “The first couple of days were great,” he said. “We sat around and bullshitted each other the way twenty-two-year-olds do, with all our big plans for the future. We fished for food and swam in ice-cold water and shared the couple of bottles of vodka that we brought.”
Another pause. I waited.
“It happened on the third night. We were asleep when they found us. It was two werewolves—a mated pair who didn’t belong to any pack. They were lurking on the edge of the Tomb Mountain Pack’s territory, hunting. It was a full moon.”
I grimaced. At any other time, werewolves could shift back and forth between their human and wolf forms at will. But on the full moon, they were forced to shift at the moon’s rise and stay in wolf form until dawn. They were at their most feral and violent.
“I didn’t even know what happened for a long time,” he said finally. “I was asleep when we were attacked. All I remembered was teeth and claws and blood and hearing Danny and Matt screaming. They tore us apart. The next morning, I woke up. The others didn’t.”
I squeezed his hand.
“When I came to, the first thing I saw was Henry, the Tomb Mountain Pack alpha, standing over me. The sunlight was blinding. I could hear every rustle, every little sound. I didn’t understand what was going on. Then I saw his eyes. They were gold. He told me to sleep, and I did.”
“The next couple of days were basically a blur. I shifted to my wolf and back a half-dozen times without having much control over it. Henry or his beta, Seth, were always with me. Without them, I don’t know what I would have done. When I was finally able to stay in human form and think clearly, Henry told me Danny and Matt were dead. Apparently only one of the werewolves who attacked us was capable of transmitting the virus. Whichever one it was bit me. The other one killed Danny and Matt. That’s why I lived and they didn’t.”
His voice was heavy with sorrow. I entwined our fingers and waited for him to continue.
“The werewolves who attacked us got away. They must have realized what they did and left the region. A park ranger found Danny and Matt’s bodies two days later and called in the feds. They looked for me for a week. In the meantime, I stayed with Henry until I had enough control to go back. I went to the feds and told them what happened. They ran tests, determined I was newly turned and not responsible for my friends’ deaths, and sent me on my way.”
His hand tightened on mine until it hurt, but I stayed quiet. “I was so afraid to go home, afraid I wouldn’t be able to control my shifting. I told my parents I was upset about Danny and Matt and I was going to take a road trip. I went back to the pack and stayed with them for six weeks. When I felt like I could control myself, I went back home.”
“When did you finally tell your family?” I asked.
“Four months after the attack, when I hadn’t shifted involuntarily in more than two months. They took the news pretty well, all things considered, except they were angry that I’d kept it from them for so long. I’m lucky. They accept me and they love me. A lot of werewolves get disowned by their families, or worse.”
We sat quietly for a while, holding hands and lost in our own thoughts. I imagined Sean, young and afraid, a new werewolf who couldn’t control his shifting, having to rely on complete strangers to help him adjust. “At least you had Henry and the pack,” I said softly.
“Henry could tell my wolf was very dominant,” he said. “He was old, and he knew someday soon he wouldn’t be able to run the pack anymore. I’m not saying he helped me entirely for selfish reasons, but he knew what he was doing when he brought me into the pack. He told me later that he saw the potential for me to be the alpha someday, even in those first few days. If something happened to him, he needed to make sure Seth didn’t become the alpha.” His tone changed when he said Seth’s name.
“What happened?”
“About ten years ago, Henry turned eighty. He was still strong and sharp and a good alpha, but Seth and a couple of the other younger males thought he was too old and weak. Seth ambushed Henry during a full moon and killed him. Technically it was his right to do so under shifter law, but most modern werewolf packs don’t fight to the death to establish a new alpha. Simply defeating him would have been enough, but Seth wanted to make a point. He killed Henry, then dragged his body into the open so we could all see it. That was the sort of alpha Seth wanted to be. He liked to kill. He wanted to rule by fear, and he thought all the females in the pack should belong to him first, even before their spouses.”
“And that’s why Henry made sure you survived and joined his pack, so someday you could protect the others from Seth.”
“And that’s what I did. The same night Seth killed Henry, I fought Seth and I killed him.” His fingers stroked mine. “Does that bother you?”
“Of course not.” I squeezed his hand again. “It wouldn’t have been enough just to beat him. Someone like that…they would never have accepted you as their alpha. He wouldn’t have stopped trying to kill you.” I looked up at him. “What made you want to tell me all this now?”
“I’ve been thinking about telling you for a while. After the conversations we’ve had tonight and given everything else that’s going on, it seemed like the right time to put my cards on the table.”
“I’m glad you told me.” I wiggled until my head and neck were nestled comfortably against his leg. “Tell me about some of the people you’ve worked for. I bet you have all kinds of funny work stories.”
Sean ran his fingers through my hair and told me about an investment banker who had three girlfriends who found out about each other when they showed up at his apartment at the same time. The catfight that ensued involved a lot of screaming and broken glassware.
I closed my eyes and laughed softly as he described how his employees tried to separate the women from the banker and each other.
“Three girlfriends at the same time? What an idiot,” I murmured sleepily when he finished.
“I agree,” Sean said. “You find the right woman, you only want the one.”
“Mmmm. Tell me another story.”
He described some of the misadventures his employees had while attempting to upgrade the surveillance cameras at Nyx, a vampire burlesque and sex club near downtown.
I dozed a bit as he talked, not wanting to sleep, but feeling secure with him watching over me. Eventually, not long after Team Three arrived at midnight, sleep stole me away.
14
I napped until three thirt
y, then stayed awake to watch for John Doe.
We remained parked in front of the motel until just after dawn, but there was no sign of anyone trying to get into the room. At seven, with Team One getting ready to come on duty, I decided to call it off and we headed back to my house. Sean met briefly with his people, then joined me in bed for a few hours of sleep.
I was in the shower when Sean knocked on the bathroom door and stuck his head in. “Cyro just sent over the navigation records for John Doe’s Infiniti.”
I shut off the water and reached for a towel to wrap around my hair. “Tell me there’s good news.”
“What’s that? I can’t hear you through the shower curtain.”
“Uh-huh. So much for werewolf hearing.” I grabbed another towel off the rack and pulled the curtain back. He was leaning against the counter and grinning. I rolled my eyes and stepped out of the shower. “Can you hear me now?”
“Loud and clear.” He kissed my forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than you, I’m sure.” Unlike me, Sean hadn’t slept during the stakeout and we’d only napped a few hours at home. I sniffed the air. “Do I smell coffee?”
“There’s a whole pot in the kitchen with your name on it.”
“Awesome,” I said fervently as I dried myself off. “What were you saying about the records from the car?”
“Cyro came through with the navigation data. It looks like John Doe regularly cleared his history in the car, but that data never really goes away. It’s stored on a server somewhere.”
I draped the towel over the rack and started dressing. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense…where are we going?”
“A self-storage company on the west side. John Doe was last there two days ago. Cyro went ahead and got into the company’s records and found out he’s renting the unit under the name of Ted Nickerson.”
“Tom Nelson, Ted Nickerson,” I mused as I pulled my shirt on over my head. “Same initials. Might be a clue to his identity. Let me dry my hair and finish getting ready. We’ll be able to roll out of here in about fifteen minutes if you’ll pour that coffee into a travel mug for me.”
Sean went back downstairs, humming “Eye of the Tiger” under his breath. I chuckled and reached for my hair dryer. It looked like I wasn’t the only one excited about finding out what was in John Doe’s storage unit.
Twenty minutes later, with Jack and Karen following us, Sean and I were on our way to the west side. I’d spent the extra five minutes consuming a breakfast burrito that he’d whipped up in the time it took me to dry my hair, put on makeup, and get downstairs.
“You’re trying to fatten me up,” I accused him as we drove. “I tasted butter in those eggs.”
He gave me an innocent look. “How else are you supposed to make them?”
I sighed and guzzled coffee. “I don’t have a werewolf’s metabolism. If you keep feeding me like one of your pack, I won’t be able to run after anyone if I have to.”
“That was hardly a werewolf-sized meal. A werewolf would have eaten four of those burritos. Besides, you were hungry, and you ate every last bite.”
“I was just being polite,” I huffed.
He laughed. I put my hand on his leg and sipped my coffee.
Our destination turned out to be a medium-sized self-storage business that looked like it had been built in the late eighties.
“Interesting,” I said as we pulled into the drive. “I was expecting something a lot more high-tech and secure for someone who runs a burglary ring.”
“The high-end places have a lot more security and a lot more traffic,” Sean pointed out. He pulled up to the gate, rolled down his window, and punched a four-digit code into the small keypad. The gate rolled open.
“You get that code from Cyro?”
He nodded. “Yes. When we’re done here, I’ll let him know and he’ll erase the security cam footage of our visit.”
“Great.” I was still uneasy about Cyro, but I couldn’t argue that having a master hacker on call was advantageous.
Sean drove through the gate and rolled slowly down the passageway between the long storage buildings. “We’re looking for unit 303.”
I looked around. “These look like buildings one and two. Building three is probably on the other side.”
Behind us, Jack and Karen entered through the gate and followed us around the back. Building three was on the left. Unit 303 was third from the back.
Sean parked in front of the unit. Jack backed their vehicle against the fence so he and Karen had a clear line of sight down both passageways.
We got out of the SUV and went to the rolling door of the unit. Sean pulled the key from his pocket and reached for the padlock.
“Wait. There are wards.” I placed my hand on the door and felt the wards pulsing against my skin. They were much more powerful and intricately made than the wards on Esther’s house. “I need Malcolm’s help.”
“Has he been back since you took the other retrieval spell out of him yesterday?”
I shook my head. “No. I can still sense him, so he’s okay. I guess he just needed some time alone. I’ll see if he’s ready to talk.” I found the familiar blue-green trace in my mind that connected us and gave it two gentle tugs.
A few seconds later, I felt the telltale buzzing in the crystal on my bracelet as Malcolm jumped to me. I touched the crystal. “Release.”
Malcolm appeared beside me. He looked better than yesterday, and some of the sparkle was back in his eyes. “Hey, Alice. Heya, Sean.” He glanced around. “What are we doing here?”
I explained how we’d ended up at the storage unit and why I’d paged him.
He floated over to the wards and studied them. “It’s air magic, obviously. More complex than the other ones, but not anywhere near expert level.” He frowned. “These other wards are, though.”
“What other wards?”
“There are black wards inside the door. They’re masked to you, but I can see them.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Black wards. Fantastic.”
“They aren’t that bad. I’m thinking he hired someone; they seem…generic.”
I tapped my lip with my index finger. “Do the wards go around the perimeter of the unit?”
“No, only along the door. How big of a circle can you cast without drawing a line?”
“Why?”
“If you can control the flare, I’m pretty sure I can break the wards rather than spending hours unweaving them.”
“I can tap a ley line to hold a circle big enough, but what if there are landmines?” I worried aloud, thinking about the hidden curses that had almost taken me out the last time I’d tried unweaving someone else’s wards.
He shrugged. “Landmines don’t seem to affect me much. They’d have to be specifically made to target ghosts, and I doubt these were. I can’t imagine he’d be too concerned about a ghost getting into the storage unit.”
“As soon as we break the wards, he’ll know we’re here, assuming he’s still alive, that is.”
“How dangerous is what you’re about to do?” Sean asked.
“About a three for her,” Malcolm told him. “Unless I’m wrong about those landmines, about a one for me. Relax, dude. This is a walk in the park for a couple of bad-ass mages like us.”
I was glad to see Malcolm getting back to his old self after the scare with the retrieval spell and yesterday’s unpleasant search for additional spells. I didn’t like seeing him upset, especially if I was the cause of it, either directly or indirectly.
I gestured. “Sean, you need to stand over by the SUV.” He moved to where I pointed. “Let me know when you’re ready,” I said to Malcolm.
He gave me a grin. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said he was having fun. “Ready.”
The city was located at the intersection of two ley lines, which was one of the reasons I’d chosen to move here after leaving my grandfather’s compound. As an earth mage, I could make better use
of the lines than air, fire, or water mages. I rarely did, however, because it hurt like hell and because I hadn’t really had the need to siphon that much power. It also had the potential to attract attention, but I wasn’t planning on tapping the line for very long.
I closed my eyes and reached out to find the closest ley line. It felt like a high-voltage wire on the edge of my awareness. I breathed deeply, exhaled, and grabbed the line.
The sensation was pure power, like one of those cartoons where someone gets electrocuted and they light up like an incandescent bulb. My hair stuck straight out with the force of it. Every cell in my body seemed to vibrate. It didn’t hurt yet, but it would.
I envisioned the bubble I wanted to create around the door of the storage unit and focused my magic and the ley line energy. With a heavy pop sound that only I could hear, the bubble formed. Pain sizzled along my skin, a familiar sensation.
Malcolm didn’t need me to tell him when the circle was in place. Only seconds after I’d formed the bubble, he broke the air magic wards. The energy hit the barrier of my bubble. I gritted my teeth as it crackled and faded. That wasn’t so bad, I thought.
Then Malcolm broke through the layers of blood wards. It was like the difference between a little Fourth of July popper and three bundles of dynamite going off one after the other: blam, blam, BLAM. On the third wave, the discharge of energy made me stagger and fall to my hands and knees. I set my jaw and didn’t yell, but that hurt. I barely registered the gravel that bit into my palms through the pain of the wards bursting against my containment bubble.
Despite their power, the broken wards dissipated quickly. As soon as the energy faded, I released the ley line and dropped the circle.
I couldn’t get up right away, not because of the pain, but because conducting that much power and focusing it left me disoriented. When I’d lived at my grandfather’s compound I’d worked with ley lines regularly, but since I’d been in the city, this was only the second time I’d tapped into one. Using ley lines regularly or for very long got you noticed by local mages and harnads, and I had no desire to come to their attention.
