by C. T. Adams
She leaped over the top of the slight overhang where they’d parked and issued a command to Yolanda who was surrounded by a cloud of ammonia-scented panic. “Go, go, go, go! I’ll keep him busy!”
Dropping the binoculars, her friend obeyed with wide eyes and frantic movements—just managing to get in the truck and close the door before the snake whizzed over the top of the hill.
Cara risked a glance behind her. Her pursuer put on his own burst of speed and, now that he was on level ground, caught up to her when she looked. He threw himself forward and tripped her, sending her into a tumble that would have her pulling rocks from under her skin for a week, if she survived at all. She wound up smashing headfirst into the trunk of an old live oak, hard enough to send leaves scattering down into her face.
“And now, wolf beetch, you’re going to tell me everything I want to know.”
She shook her head, trying desperately to clear it from the pain and fuzz. The snake was poised over her, smelling of dark glee, his fangs already showing a drop of venom at the tip. Sazi venom could easily paralyze, or even kill, her. And from what she’d heard in Wolven, a skilled snake could inflict a slow, painful enough torture that other agents had revealed every secret in their head.
Shit! She struggled to stand but there was no room to get her feet under her and her legs weren’t working right from the tumbling fall. He was going to torture her. Her mind worked frantically while the snake flicked his tongue and waved his upper body in triumph, readying for the first strike. A wild thought crossed her mind. What if he can’t bite me?
As pack leader, she could hold her wolves from changing on the moon, in case they were in danger of being seen. She could also use her magic to call them back from their fur. Could that work here? She concentrated, forcing every ounce of her will, every bit of her remaining strength, into a single ball of energy inside her. Then, when the snake reared backward, she sent it forward, striking the snake in the chest. She didn’t know what he looked like as a man, so she concentrated on the shape of a human and pressed a violent wave of magic in and through the snake, forcing him to shift back.
He wasn’t expecting an attack like that and couldn’t counteract it fast enough. He shifted to human, revealing a slender clean-shaven Latino man with nutty brown skin and nearly golden eyes. He rested on his hips, his limbs flopping uselessly. She knew the arm and leg bones hadn’t yet hardened after the transformation from cartilage. It was something she learned while sparring with Agent Mbutu. The snake was now both at his most vulnerable, and his most dangerous. He could use each limb like a separate snake, wrapping them to choke or crush. She memorized his face in the brief moment she knew she had before he could orient himself to shift again. He had a number of healing scars on his torso, reinforcing that he and the birds weren’t getting along too well. But then she noticed a black tattoo on his inner forearm. It was in the shape of a triangle with wings, with a wavy line cutting down through the center.
He laughed, his voice deeper than in his snake form. “That was a useless waste of energy, muchacha. And one I weel make certain you pay for.”
The growing roar of panic in her head as he prepared to shift turned out not to be in her head at all. The man quickly twisted his head until it was completely around like a scene from a bad horror movie. A burst of surprised scent rose into the air, followed by ammonia panic, just before he started to slither away from her. Too exhausted to move, all Cara could do was close her eyes and brace herself as a sparkling chrome truck bumper came racing toward them at breakneck speed.
Chapter 19
ADAM COULD ONLY stare into the hole in the paneling with increasing fury. Pinned all over the walls were photos of girls—dozens of them—some who appeared to be as young as twelve. None of them looked happy. In fact, most of them had a look of abject terror on their face. Lucas tapped his shoulder. “Move that light to the left, over by the file cabinet.” He did so, but Lucas pointed up to about head level on the wall. “A little higher.”
Adam realized just where he was supposed to stop, because when he reached the right spot, he paused, his mouth suddenly dry. For there on the wall were two photos he recognized. One was of Jennifer, Tommy and Jill’s fifteen-year-old daughter. And the other—
Lucas’s voice sounded as angry as the scent that rose from him in a choking cloud, mixed with the sharp, sour scent of disbelief. “Now, what in the hell would the pack leader in Minnesota be doing with a photograph of Ziri on his wall?”
“I don’t know,” Adam said through gritted teeth, “But I think we need to find out. Let’s get down to the pack clinic and wake that bastard up.”
Lucas nodded thoughtfully, tapping his fingers on the edge of the ripped paneling. “First, I think we need to find out the scope of what we’re dealing with here. Let’s get this out of the way so we can get inside. Since the computer is just on hibernate, we might get lucky and not need a password to get to the files. All we really need is a couple reams of paper and we can have specifics to confront him with.”
Adam stood and backed away from the wall. “I can handle that. We just bought a bunch of new office supplies before I left. They’re in the storage room in the basement.” He motioned toward his brother and then toward the hole in the wall. “How about you take care of getting this paneling out of the way while I’m downstairs? Lucas, can you—” He snapped his mouth shut, realizing he’d just about ordered the Wolven chief around like one of his pack members. Lucas wore a bemused expression, rather than an angry one, and the carmelized coffee scent of his anger had a brief touch of citrus.
“No, that’s fine. Wolven’s role is to be an asset to local packs affected by crimes. What would you like me to do… Alpha?”
A slow deep breath blew between Adam’s lips with the startling realization that he was the Alpha now. Whether he stayed here or went back to Texas, he was the Alpha Male of a pack, and it felt really good. “It’s just that everything is happening so damned fast. This is a major crime scene, but I can’t call any of the people I normally would to help. Could you… would you mind taking some photos of this room before we touch anything? I want credible, untouchable evidence to prosecute his ass before the council. We have some good photo equipment in the cabinet in the reception, if it wasn’t destroyed in the battle.”
Lucas nodded and waved a hand toward the hole in the wall, and the photos beyond with a disgusted look on his face. “Consider it done. You might also consider checking any of the other computers in the building for signs of… this sort of crap.”
“Will do.” Adam raced from the room and the sound of splintering wood followed him down the stairs at the end of the hallway. Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he suddenly felt dizzy again, his head swimming and vision fuzzy. He paused and put one hand on the wall to steady himself as a wave of fatigue overcame him in a flash. It passed quickly, but his heart started pounding and he had to struggle to breathe for a moment. Wow, what was that?
Shaking it off, he walked down the short hallway to the storage room. He had to look around twice before he found any supplies. Nearly all of the items he’d put down here personally just a few short days ago were missing.
“Yah, there are definitely going to be some changes around here.” The words were said almost under his breath as he picked up two reams of laser paper, but they were no less true for having no other ear to hear them. He shook his head and turned out the light.
Halfway up the staircase, his vision narrowed and his heart started to pound in his temples again. This time a sensation of fear accompanied the fatigue, as though from a distance, and a feeling of desperation panicked him.
But why am I panicking? Could he be getting some residual visions from being attached to Jill? He felt his eyes go wide and his breath come in short pants as the reams of paper dropped out of his arms onto the stairs, splitting open and raining paper down to the bottom. He clutched at the slender wooden handrail and tried to call out to the others. But no words wou
ld come as fear became terror so great it seized his throat.
Oh, Yo… no please… you wouldn’t! Adam couldn’t figure out what the thought even meant, and though he struggled to keep his grip on reality, he felt a tearing sensation deep inside his stomach that was both painful and pleasurable. A swell of powerful emotions—anger, fear, hate, and something even stronger engulfed him just before every bit of his energy was pulled forcibly from his body. A grunt escaped him like something impacted his chest, and the same something then lifted him and threw him through the air. He felt himself falling and knew there was nothing to be done. Strangely, though, as pain filled his body and the world went black, part of his brain accepted the sensation as good and right.
IT WAS NEARLY dark when David held out another stack of papers, still warm from the laser printer. Adam absently tucked them under the pile already in his lap with an incredulous shake of his head that shot pain through his forehead.
He must have winced, because Lucas looked him over critically. “Adam, you look like crap after that fall. You doing okay?”
Adam nodded and took a deep breath, feeling a dull ache radiate through his ribs. It reminded him of getting the flu when he was ten. Every muscle and joint felt stiff and sore. He moved his hand to the back of his neck to rub away a little of the tension. “Marginal. I still feel like a truck hit me. I haven’t blacked out like that since I worked a triple shift during a hostage standoff… probably a decade ago.”
David stood up and stretched his back, which shifted his shirt enough for Adam to finally see the series of deep bruises that covered his torso. “You’re damned lucky you didn’t break your neck, tumbling down the stairs like that.”
He shrugged. “I’ll heal. Let’s just finish this up before I get so tired I forget to be pissed. What in the hell did Josef think he was doing?” Each page he scanned was worse than the previous one.
Lucas ran fingers through his hair in frustration. His voice held the same furious astonishment that Adam was feeling. “And how many fucking years has this been going on? How could he have hidden an operation of this magnitude from everyone?” He turned glowing golden eyes to them and lashed out with magic, causing the bulb in the table lamp to flare momentarily. Adam braced for pain, but it stopped just short of hitting either he or David.
“I swear to you there was no hint of this, Lucas. You already questioned everybody who showed up at the meeting tonight and nobody lied. We have to face the facts… none of us—the council included—ever conceived that Josef was capable of running a child slavery ring over the Internet. But it does explain why he was willing to use the pack to kill Bobby and Tony when they came knocking.”
David tapped another series of keys and the printer started to spit out pages again. “And it explains why he had to get rid of you, too, Adam. Having the council pay attention to our pack meant his every move was being watched. He had to get attention away from himself. Killing you and starting an investigation down there would have done it.”
Now Lucas started to tap his fingers heavily on the wooden chair arm, nodding in agreement, the scent of his anger no less, but now other emotions added to it. “It’s those two pictures that make me wonder most, though. Jennifer said Josef had never spoken a word to her when her parents weren’t present. She didn’t attend pack meetings and, while she was starting to show symptoms of turning, she hadn’t had her first change yet. Was she just a potential target? Did he change his mind when she started to smell of fur? And how did he get a picture of Ziri when all that just happened?”
David’s voice held frustration when he turned away from the computer screen that had been hurriedly moved from the secret room to the desk here. “I haven’t been able to break the password on his Internet e-mail yet, and he hasn’t used any of our pack accounts for this… business. I’m wondering if he might be trying that new trick that some of the terrorists are using. There aren’t any e-mails sent between the parties. They just start an e-mail and save it as a draft. Then the other people log on with the same username and make their additions to the information before saving it again. Since the e-mail is never sent, there’s nothing to trace—no partners or contacts to find and without the password, or a court order to open the account, we’re screwed.”
Adam added his thoughts to the mess after picking another slice of pizza out of the box and taking a bite. A black olive slice dropped off the crust onto the top page and he tossed it in the box with the others. “Even worse, there’s no way of knowing if Josef is supposed to log on at a specific time to keep the ball rolling. We might be risking sending his contacts scurrying by taking the time to read all this.” He picked off a couple more olives and then finished the slice in three bites. Supreme wasn’t his favorite, but he hadn’t been the one paying.
Lucas sighed. “There’s no helping that. Tony called from the hospital. He wasn’t able to find a thing. Josef is still in the deep coma the healer put him in, so there’s no mind to touch right now.” He paused to flip the edges of the growing stack of papers and then motioned for Adam to pass over the pizza box. “We’ve got better code-breaking software at headquarters. I’ll get someone there to start on the e-mail account.” Opening a new bottle of water, the elder wolf took a long drink before taking the last slice, then looked Adam from head to toe while he chewed. “We might as well call it a night and start again in the morning.”
Adam picked up the stack of papers, stood, and deposited them on the desk in front of Lucas, fighting off a yawn. “How do you want to secure the scene? We can’t just let pack members wander through here. And everybody has a key to the place.”
Lucas nodded. “I’ll be staying here. I don’t really plan to sleep, but the couch in the rec room folds out if it comes to it. That’ll do, and I’ll know immediately if anyone comes in. But I want to get as much information as I can tonight. Charles is pulling the council together for a conference call in the morning, so I can bring them up-to-date. You guys go ahead and take off. Oh, and try again to get hold of Cara before you hit the sack, Adam. I’m a little worried she hasn’t returned any of our calls. Not even the official ones David left at her work number, pretending to need information on an active case.”
He nodded, trying not to let on just how worried he really was at her silence. Adam knew logically that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but something was chewing at the back of his mind. It was probably just his imagination, but he had the feeling something had gone very wrong today.
It wasn’t until he and David were walking to the truck to go home that his brother commented on it. There was no particular scent attached to the question, and he kept his voice carefully neutral. “You’re worried about her, aren’t you?”
Other than his mother, his brother was the one most likely to spot a lie. But an acknowledgment wouldn’t hurt. He looked up at the starred sky as he opened the door. They weren’t as bright as down there. It was something he’d noticed when he was hunting the deer. He shrugged. “She’s tough. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“It’s a damned slippery slope.”
He didn’t comment further, so Adam turned to him after they were both in the cab and buckled up. “What is?”
David started the truck and turned on the headlights. “It was during that three-alarm fire last fall for me.” Adam looked at his brother questioningly as they turned out of the parking lot. He’d just opened his mouth to ask, when David continued. “I knew Bonnie was on shift that night, and when I started to hear calls for ambulances—” He paused and stepped harder on the accelerator to bring them up to speed on the road. “I know a bunch of guys at the fire-house… shit, I have friends in three firehouses, don’tcha know. But I was only listening for one name on the box when they reported the roof collapsed.” He turned his head after they were stopped at the red light and had a small smile on his face. “Her hair still smelled like smoke when I asked her out on a real date the next day. Like I say… slippery slope, bro.”
&nbs
p; Adam couldn’t think of any response, other than, “Fer sure.”
Chapter 20
CARA MOANED AND moved the flexible white ice pack to a different bruise, letting the cold seep into her skin to numb it. The timer flicked on the porch light and Yolanda reached over to turn on the lamp next to her feet. She moved her legs on the couch slightly in automatic response and winced. ¡Madre de Dios! Even her toes hurt!
“Do you want me to put some more ice in a sandwich bag or something? The doctor said it would help with the swelling. Or will they all be healed before I could make it back from the kitchen? It’s just fricking weird to see bruises disappearing while I watch.”
She opened her mouth to reply, and felt the side of her lip split again—then glared at her friend, who hadn’t been much of a friend today. “I cannot believe you actually hit me with my own truck!”
Yolanda waved her finger in a teasing way, even though she smelled contrite. “Ah-ah-ah. A goat butted you into the truck. Don’t screw up the story. And I hit you to save your life. You might have bruises—”
She raised a finger, her eyes still closed as she tried desperately not to breathe deeply. “And cracked ribs. Don’t forget about the cracked ribs, because I sure can’t.”
“But,” Yolanda continued strongly enough to make her open her eyes. “You are not snake bit… or dead.”
Cara heard a noise on the front porch and tried to sit up, but Yo waved her back and peeked out behind the curtain cautiously with her hand resting lightly on the grip of her sidearm. She turned her head and spoke in a normal voice. “It’s cool. Will’s back.” She walked to the door and let him in before returning to sit down in the old wooden rocking chair with a low, pitched creak.
Will looked down at Cara over the back of the couch. There was concern in his scent, despite the blank, professional look on his face. “You’re looking a little better. That gash on your forehead is nearly healed. We can probably cut those stitches out any time.” Then he turned to Yolanda. “This is why we don’t go to doctors. Don’t ever do that again.”
