by Selina Woods
Chelsea continued her examination of my shoulder. “They’re deep, but I can suture them. Can you lift your arm, Declan?”
I did, though it hurt like hell to do so.
“Good. I have some antibiotics to give you, so take them religiously. Now, time to get you stitched.”
She washed my wounds with clean water from the sink, then swabbed them with pure alcohol. That stung like hell. I stiffened, determined not to yell out, even when she stuck the needle through my torn flesh. Jae held my hand, her expression worried yet supportive, and spoke to me in a soft voice throughout the ordeal. I barely heard what she said, focused as I was on not screaming or fainting.
Neither was an act I could face while Morgan watched me. I would not show weakness.
“There.” Chelsea wrapped my arm and shoulder in a clean bandage. “I’ll change the wraps for you every day. Jae, can you get him some water to drink? I want to give him a painkiller and an antibiotic.”
“No painkiller.” I swallowed hard. “Will dull my instincts.”
Jae brushed my hair from my sweaty brow. “We have help now, babe,” she said softly. “You need to sleep.”
“I don’t trust him.”
Jae and Chelsea glanced at Morgan, who leaned against the wall and watched me.
“I don’t blame you,” he said, his voice soft. “I wouldn’t, either. But know that I would die to protect you, Declan.”
“Like hell you would.”
I knew my voice slurred, and I was close to passing out, with or without the pain killers. My mind hazy, I swallowed what Chelsea offered me and felt both girls help me into Jae’s bed. I closed my eyes, thinking I would snatch only a quick cat nap, then be ready to guard my lady. The swirling blackness took hold and dropped me down in its embrace.
I didn’t wake up until nearly noon.
Chapter Eight
My left arm in a sling, I sat at the table and ate Jae’s cooking as Jae, Morgan, and Chelsea sat around the small apartment with their plates on their knees.
“Morgan did most of the work,” Jae explained between bites. “He dragged the bodies out to the alley and tossed them in a dumpster.”
“We cleaned up the worst of the blood,” Chelsea added, “but I can’t live there anymore.”
“There’s a vacant unit just down the hall,” Jae told her. “We can still be neighbors.”
“Cool.”
My shoulder, arm, and back ached something terrible, but I would not admit to it out of fear Chelsea would force another pain killer on me. I hated the helplessness of their effects, the inability to run and escape if danger threatened, the dampening of my sharp gut instincts. To distract myself from the pain, I said, “What do you want to talk to me about?”
The girls hesitated, shifting their eyes between me and Morgan, who stood watching out the window as he chewed his food. He eyed me askance, then swallowed. “While I am under oath to not reveal certain things,” he said slowly, “I came here to find you.”
“What for?”
“I am to take you to Denver.”
My eyes flew to Jae’s, and I almost choked on my eggs. “Denver?” I squeaked at last.
“I am one of a secret brotherhood sworn to protect certain people,” he went on. “You are one. We have been searching the world for you, Declan.”
Jae’s eyes glowed as she laughed. “I told you that you were special, Declan.”
I scowled. “Just how special am I?” I demanded of Morgan.
“Very,” he replied. “Although when I came here to Cheyenne, I hadn’t immediately realized the difficulties in leaving with you.”
“No shit,” I muttered. “We’ve been trying to figure that out.”
“You’re going to escape this place?” Chelsea asked, her face shining with hope. “Will you take me with you?”
“Damn right,” Jae answered, defiant. “She will come with us, Declan.”
“Sure,” I said, my eyes on Morgan. “Just who wants me in Denver?”
He cut his eyes from mine. “I am not at liberty to say.”
“My mother?”
Though he didn’t speak, from the way his gaze flicked to me and away again, I knew I was right. He kept his expression rigidly under control and did not look my way again.
“I’ve been dreaming of her,” I said. “She calls to me.”
Jae glanced from me to Morgan and back. “Your mother sent him?” she asked, astounded. “Just who are you, Declan?”
“Ask him,” I replied, irritated. “He knows more than I do.”
“I told you, I’m sworn to silence,” Morgan said, his eyes on the floor. “My brotherhood has been searching for her, and for her sons, for years.”
“That’s the mark on your face, isn’t it?” I guessed. “The lightning bolt.”
Morgan nodded. “The mark of The Faithful.”
“I won’t ask what that’s about,” I snapped, annoyed. “You won’t tell me, anyway.”
“I can’t, Declan. All I can say is that I will help you get out of here and to Denver.”
“That’ll be a trick and a half,” I grumbled.
“Look,” Jae said, standing to put her empty plate in the sink, “I have to be to work soon, and I want to help Chelsea into her new apartment. After she’s settled, we’ll get to The Tiger’s Paw and talk some more. Got it?”
Morgan and I nodded as the girls washed the dishes, then vanished out the door. I popped an antibiotic and ignored the painkiller on the table, then ignored Morgan. Wondering if I dared lie down for a while, I sat in the chair and burned with pain, trying to imagine my mother being such an important person that she had a devout band called The Faithful following her.
Sounded like an ancient rock group to me.
Morgan watched out the window as I dozed in the chair, startling awake when Jae opened the door. “Declan, maybe you should stay here and rest,” she said, eyeing me and my weakened condition.
“Like hell,” I growled, standing. “Where you go, I go.”
I donned my peacoat with an effort, then worked hard to maintain a decent pace with Jae as Morgan followed a step behind. For the first time, I felt grateful for his immense presence to guard us both as we headed to The Tiger’s Paw. People stepped respectfully out of our way, and few goons looked as though they wanted to challenge us.
Fortunately, we arrived before the bar opened. Chad took one look at us and dropped his broom to the floor with a sharp bang. “What the hell happened? Who’s this guy?”
I sat, exhausted, on a stool as Jae explained what had happened and who Morgan was. “He’s going to help us get out of this town,” she said. “Declan’s mom sent him.”
Chad eyed me sidelong. “Who the hell are you, Declan?”
I flapped my hand wearily. “Nobody, Chad. Just a street kid.”
“Street kids don’t have secret societies protecting them,” he replied, picking up his broom and sweeping again. “Any thoughts on how to escape this place?”
Sitting on my stool when I wanted to curl up on the floor and sleep, I said, “Explosives.”
Morgan stared, and Chad almost dropped his broom again. “How do you mean?” Morgan asked.
“A distraction,” I answered, rubbing my face with my good hand. “Send the roadblocks out into the prairie while we sneak past them.”
“Possible,” Chad commented, sweeping again. “Except that may draw more from the city to investigate, and then we don’t have just the border guards after us; we have Raphael and his entire horde tagging along.”
“We can take out the roadblocks,” Morgan said. “Sneak up on them, kill them.”
“Chad, you should have seen Declan.” Jae’s admiring gaze rested on me, and her smile made me squirm. “He killed a huge lion last night.”
I hung my head. “He wasn’t that big.”
“He was savage and a killer,” Morgan added. “You were outmatched, but you fought well. I was impressed.”
I glanced up to find Chad ey
eing me as he swept, a small grin on his face. “I suspected there was more to this skinny kid that met the eye.”
“Can we please talk about how we’re gonna get out of here?” I complained. “The roadblocks have semi-automatic rifles. We don’t. We’ll need vehicles, extra fuel, loads of food to survive out there. How are we gonna get all that?”
“I think we want to avoid a firefight with the patrol,” Morgan replied, taking a drink from the soda Jae set in front of him. “I know how to use them, but I have no way of teaching anyone else how to without firing them, and that would bring hell down on our heads.”
“With stealth and cunning,” Chad continued with a nod as he finished his task, “we can kill the goons on the road. Then we drive on past.”
“And if we’re hit by another blizzard?” Jae asked, putting a soda in front of me. “We’re in trouble.”
“Just about any winter storm can block the road,” I said. “What if we led the way with a big plow?”
At that suggestion, three sets of eyes stared at me. Defensive, I went on. “Look, they’re there. I don’t think they run, but couldn’t we get one running?”
“The kid is smart,” Chad muttered. “Too smart, maybe.”
“We’ll have to obtain vehicles,” Morgan added with a grin, “why not add a plow? If we enlist the help of an engine mechanic, we offer him his freedom from this hell hole in exchange for his know-how.”
“Do we know any mechanics?” Jae asked, leaning her elbows on the bar.
“I don’t know him as such,” I said slowly. “But I know of a wolf who works on cars. Unfortunately, he does a lot of work for Raphael and his goons.”
“If he’s unhappy with what he’s doing,” Morgan said, his tone speculative, “he may be interested in escaping to a free city.”
“But how can we ask him without warning him of what we’re doing?” Jae asked. “He could turn around and squeal to Raphael.”
“I’ll take my truck to him,” Chad replied. “It needs work on it, anyway. I’ll carefully sound him out.”
“If he’s willing,” I went on, “he may point us in the direction of cars or trucks we can steal. Not from citizens, though, just vehicles in good running condition from the enforcers.”
“So where can we get the food and fuel tanks?” Jae asked.
Moving carefully as just about anything I did hurt like hell; I pulled the jewels and the last of the cash from my pocket. “Sell these?” I suggested, pointing at the jewelry. “Then use the money to start buying what we need?”
Chad shook his head. “Barry had those on his person,” he told me, “they might be recognized.”
I counted the cash. “This won’t take us very far.”
Jae snapped her fingers. “Doesn’t Raphael have his own private stock of food? Keeps it in a small warehouse near his place?”
Chad lifted his brow as he considered. “I think I did hear than someplace. But it’s time to open the bar up, so we’ll have to finish this discussion later.”
We shifters heal quicker than ordinary folks, and I was no exception. Twenty-four hours later, my pain had mostly gone away, but at Chelsea’s insistence, I still popped the antibiotics. After the bar closed, Jae, Morgan, and I planned to scope out Raphael’s stockpiles of food. “We don’t want to steal it yet,” Chad warned as he locked the bar. “No sense in tipping our hand yet.”
Shifting into our lion bodies, we loped down the alley as Chad started up his truck to go home to his family. “Raphael lives in the ritzier part of town,” I said, leading the way. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find cuz he has guards all over the place.”
A pack of three lions, even with one as small as me, was enough to deter marauders from pestering us as we traveled across town. Even so, we still kept to the shadows, and we hid from the single renegade group we saw until they vanished from sight. “Pity they don’t overdose and do us a favor,” Jae muttered, crouched beside me as the mix of lions and wolves disappeared down an alley.
“We can but hope,” Morgan replied. “Let’s go.”
Though I seldom came to this part of town, Raphael’s mansion wasn’t difficult to find. If it had been damaged in the wars, he had repaired it, for it showed little damage. It was huge and well maintained with a vast lawn and a three-car garage. His goons in cars and on foot patrolled for blocks around, faithfully guarding their master.
“How are we gonna slip past them?” Jae asked as we hid behind a pile of rubble strewn from a bombed structure two blocks from the house.
Gazing upward, I spied no enforcers up on the roofs above. “From up there.”
Slinking away, I led Jae and Morgan away from the goons and to a shattered building several streets away. Climbing the piles of broken cement, I leaped upward to enter it through a busted window. Behind me, Jae managed it without much effort, but Morgan, less agile, grunted and swore as he clawed his way in.
“Being smaller has its advantages,” he grumbled as he followed me through it to the roof.
“I always thought so,” I replied absently, bounding out the broken door and onto the roof. “Be careful where you put your feet. This roof is weak, and your heavy weight can send you tumbling.”
It creaked ominously as we headed for the edge to leap over to the house next door. “Shit,” Morgan muttered. “You weren’t kidding.”
From roof to roof, we crossed silently, finding no squads patrolling upon them. “This is a serious security breach,” Morgan observed. “Why doesn’t he have enforcers up here?”
“Arrogance,” I answered, staring over the edge in an effort to find a property where Raphael might store his supplies. After checking all four corners, I finally jerked my chin at a structure, a smaller version of his house, two streets from the big mansion. “That one looks awfully healthy. Think that could be it?”
To either side of me, Jae and Morgan gazed at the undamaged house. “I don’t see any guards on it,” Morgan replied. “There are those guys over there, but they don’t seem to be patrolling near that place.”
“I suggest we check it out.”
Leaving the rooftop via the attic, I led the way down the stairs to the ground floor, then slunk from shadow to shadow toward the spacious and graceful house. Constantly sniffing the still cold air and listening, I found nothing more dangerous than a rat creeping away from our immense threat to its safety. Little light revealed us to our enemies, but the bad guys were also concealed from us if they were there.
Unchallenged, we stalked through the big back yard of the house, peering in through the windows. Shifting forms, I tried the doorknob. “Locked,” I muttered. Heading to a window, I also found it locked. “There has to be something in there,” I whispered. “No other reason to lock doors and windows unless it's occupied by someone.”
“How do we get in without raising an alarm?” Morgan asked. “Especially if someone lives here.”
“We don’t,” I replied, spotting an old coal chute. “I do.”
“Declan,” Jae hissed. “You’re not going alone.”
“Watch me.”
Wriggling my way through the narrow opening, I slid down into the basement of the old house.
Chapter Nine
Changing forms with my keener senses, I crept through the dark and quickly found the stairs leading up. Hearing nothing save my own breathing, I entered the kitchen, which held no odors of cooking, yet was pristine, clean, and well ordered. Almost as though someone lives here. But I don’t smell anyone. I padded from the kitchen to the dining room and discovered it stacked from floor to ceiling with crates.
Sniffing them, I didn’t scent much at all. Canned goods maybe? The former sitting room held refrigerators and freezers filled with fresh and frozen food. Meat, seafood, packets of vegetables, jars of pickles, eggs in containers. Sacks of potatoes and onions hung from the ceiling. Jackpot.
Though I didn’t need to investigate further, I did so anyway to eliminate any potential surprises later. The second floor held s
upplies of blankets, sleeping bags, folded sheets, warm clothing. “What is this guy preparing for?” I muttered. “War?”
The third floor held crates also, but these were filled with rifles, handguns, boxes of ammunition. Explosive devices filled as many as twenty others. Uneasiness crept over me. It almost seemed as though Raphael planned an invasion of another city. But where? There was no other occupied town within hundreds of miles of Cheyenne.
“Surely he’s not dumb enough to attack a free city like Denver? Is he?”
Not having any answers to those questions, I returned to the basement and shifted forms so I could crawl back up the coal chute. Jae greeted me with a sharp gust of relieved breath and rubbed her muzzle against mine the instant after I shifted forms.
“What did you find?” Morgan asked as we crept silently away from the house.
“Plenty.”
As we loped away, I told them about the caches of food, weapons, and the other supplies. “It’s almost as though he’s planning an invasion,” I said.
Morgan stopped dead, forcing us to pause with him. “Denver.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I replied. “Expand his power.”
“He’d only do that if he thought he was going to get his hands on the source of magic,” Jae gasped. “He really thinks it's here.”
“Shit,” I gritted, trotting southwards through the alley. “We have to get out of this town. Barry might be found at any time, and once he is, Raphael will start killing.”
“We have to set fire to that house,” Morgan added, his voice grim as he caught up to me. “We have to destroy those weapons.”
“And bring his every enforcer down on us,” I snapped. “Good plan.”
“Even if he has no magic,” Morgan continued, stubborn, “he still poses a danger to other free cities. We must kill him and destroy that house.”
“Oh, boy,” Jae commented. “That’ll be fun.”
“Without his ambition and supplies,” Morgan went on, “the goon who replaces him will just be another gang lord.”
