Cloak of Wolves

by Moeller, Jonathan

  Unless, of course, I Cloaked, walked up behind Brauner, and shot him in the head…

  Nope. Wasn’t doing that. Not unless he crossed some lines first.

  Well, I would talk to Russell, and we would figure something out.

  I expected trouble from Brauner if we waited too long.

  I did not expect trouble the very next day.

  Riordan was in the UK again, dealing with a problem for the Shadow Hunters. I had driven home, slept well, exercised hard, showered, and come back to the Moran Imports warehouse. Until the High Queen had a job for me, I was going to work full-time at the company, and she hadn’t given me a task since that business with the dragons and the cyborg. Which surprised me – I thought she would use me a lot more. Not that I minded. Maybe she kept me in reserve for serious problems. Which meant that when she did have jobs for me, they would be serious – like that business with the dragons and the cyborg.

  Cheery thought.

  It was about 9 AM, and I was on my second mug of coffee and working my way through a stack of paperwork when Robert burst into the office. He was only breathing a little hard, and he was in good enough shape that meant he had sprinted to get here.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “Homeland Security’s in the parking lot,” he said. “They’re arresting Jacob.”

  “What?” I said. “All his documents are correct, they’re…”

  Then I remembered my conversation with Hawley yesterday.

  “Shit,” I said, surging to my feet. “Shit, shit, shit.” I grabbed my black navy pea coat and threw it on. “We have to deal with this right now.” I reached to the table, grabbed a camera, clipped it to my lapel. “Actually, I better deal with it.” I synced the camera to my phone and selected network storage. “Come with me but let me do the talking.”

  “What?” said Robert.

  “Because I need a witness, and I don’t want you to get arrested,” I said.

  I hit the RECORD button on my phone and dropped it into my pocket. I opened the file cabinet we used for employee records, grabbed the file for Jacob Boyer, and headed out the door, Robert following.

  I rushed into the parking lot. It was an icy November day, and the chill sliced into me, all the more since I was holding my magic ready in case this went ugly. On the west side of the parking lot was a concrete slab with some picnic tables, and the warehouse workers tended to have cigarette breaks there. Right now, a crowd of a dozen workers stared in alarm at two Homeland Security officers, who were in the process of cuffing an alarmed Jacob Boyer.

  Jacob was…how do I say this? Jake was a bit of a weasel. He finished his six-year enlistment as a man-at-arms of Duke Tamirlas with an honorable discharge, but he never got promoted because of his habit of starting fights with people who annoyed him. Most men-at-arms picked up useful skills while serving, but Jake had been too busy screwing around and drinking. When he had been discharged, the drinking had gotten worse, right up until he drove into a tree. Nobody had been hurt, so he avoided a more severe punishment, but the fine had bankrupted him, and he had gotten ten lashes on a Punishment Day video.

  Because of that, it was hard for him to get a job. But he was a good worker when he was sober if someone kept an eye on him. You might wonder why we hired a guy with a drinking problem (even if it was under control), but it’s really hard to find reliable people for warehouse jobs. The thing about warehouse work is that it’s difficult, exhausting, and doesn’t pay very well, so the minute that someone can make better money doing something easier, they do. Russell and I couldn’t be too picky about our warehouse workers. Half of them had criminal records of some degree or another, a few of them severe enough that they had suffered terms of enslavement to Elven nobles for a few years.

  “But I didn’t do nothing!” Jake said as I approached. “Boss, tell them, I didn’t do nothing.”

  The two Homeland Security officers glared at me, and I took a dislike to them at once. One was in his later twenties, young and buff. A former man-at-arms and new recruit, one who probably spent a lot of time in the gym. His nameplate read KIRBY, and he watched me with hard eyes. The second man was older, in his middle forties, and a bit thicker about the middle, but he had the stone face of a veteran law enforcement officer. His nameplate read HOPKINS.

  “Ma’am,” said Hopkins in that flat voice Homeland Security officers used. “You’re going to want to step back.”

  “Why are you arresting him?” I said.

  “I didn’t do nothing!” Jake protested.

  “Why are you arresting him?” I said again.

  “You heard him,” said Kirby, his flat stare turning into a glare. This wasn’t a man used to being questioned. “Step back immediately.”

  “This is my building, and you’re going to tell me why you’re arresting one of my employees,” I said, shifting so the camera on my lapel was pointing at him.

  Anger flashed through Kirby’s eyes. I think he wanted to take a swing at me, which made me dislike him more. I could have killed everyone around me with a few spells in about two seconds, but he didn’t know that. What he knew was that I was a foot shorter than him and less than half his weight, and he was going to intimidate me.

  Ha. When you’ve had a wraithwolf rip out your guts a few thousand times, your threshold for intimidation gets just a bit higher.

  I had a sudden vivid image of blasting off the top of Kirby’s skull, but Hopkins cleared his throat. Kirby stopped and glanced at the older officer.

  “Mr. Boyer has failed the terms of his probation,” said Hopkins.

  “Has he?” I said. I suspected this was the first of Brauner’s attempts to intimidate us, and I was right. If Boyer had robbed a gas station or started drinking again and passed out on somebody’s porch, that was one thing. But the terms of his probation included going to regular alcoholic counseling sessions, and I knew beyond all doubt that he went. The administrative assistant of the addiction counselor emailed us the attendance records every week, and Boyer was up to date.

  And that meant Brauner or one of his goons had told Homeland Security to make trouble for us, and they had latched on to the easiest target.

  Anger flashed over Kirby’s expression, and if there hadn’t been so many witnesses nearby, I think he would have punched me, and then arrested me for using my face to assault an officer’s fist. But Hopkins cleared his throat again. I think he was smarter than Kirby, or at least he had spotted the camera clipped to my lapel.

  “Arrest order came through this morning,” said Hopkins. “Mr. Boyer failed to attend his last mandatory addiction counseling session, and…”

  “But I didn’t!” said Boyer. “I went for the whole goddamned ninety minutes! I even missed the first half of the football game.”

  “Guys, there’s been a mix-up,” I said, opening the folder and pulling out the counselor’s report. I turned it so the camera on my coat would pick it up and then showed the document to Hopkins. “Boyer here went to all his counseling sessions.”

  “He still violated his parole,” said Kirby with a snarl.

  “No, he didn’t,” I said. “Here’s the proof.”

  “Let me see that,” said Hopkins, holding out his hand.

  I handed over the report. I half-expected him to wad it up and throw it into my face. Good luck with that – I still had electronic copies. Hopkins produced his phone, scanned the report, and then handed it to me.

  “Stay here for a second,” said Hopkins to Kirby, and he walked a dozen yards away and made a phone call.

  We waited. Boyer kept twitching. Kirby alternated between glaring at him, glaring at me, and glaring at the other warehouse workers. Then he saw the camera on my lapel, and his eyes went wide. Seriously, he hadn’t noticed it before? Then he started to get angry again. He really didn’t like being recorded.

  Hopkins finished his call, returned the phone to its holster on its belt, rejoined us, and unlocked Boyer’s cuffs.

  “You’re free to g
o,” he said.

  Boyer scuttled several steps away from the two officers.

  Kirby started to protest, but Hopkins spoke first.

  “You had better be careful, Mrs. MacCormac,” he said. “A new business like this…there are a lot of violations that might cause you trouble. Better take care of them.”

  I got the message just fine. I had better deal with Brauner, or else his friends in Homeland Security and the state government were going to find ways to make trouble for me. I was getting really pissed off, but I wanted to calm down before I did anything, and I wanted to talk to Russell first. It was mostly his business. I was just keeping an eye on it for him until he could turn his full attention to it.

  Hopkins and Kirby turned, got into their waiting blue Homeland Security SUV, and departed.

  They did not bother to use the turn signal when turning out of the parking lot.

  “Jesus, boss,” said Boyer. He was trying to smile but there was a tremor in his voice. “I thought I was screwed. I mean, I went to the stupid counseling session and listened to that prick of a counselor for an hour and a half, but they wouldn’t have believed me.”

  I let out a long breath. “Let’s go back inside.”

  With that, we returned to the warehouse, and work resumed.

  ###

  The next morning, I arrived at the warehouse to find more trouble.

  We had to use refrigerated trucks to ship some of the fruit, for obvious reasons, and so far we had used refrigerated trailers. That way a standard truck cab could simply connect to the trailer, which cut down on costs a little. When I had left the night before, there had been three trailers parked in our docks.

  During the night, all three of the trailers had their tires slashed.

  “Goddamn it,” I said, glaring at the trailers.

  “We have to get those fixed right now,” said Robert. We both stood outside the truck dock, the cold November wind whipping past us. “We’ve got deliveries due out in three hours. By the time we call Homeland Security and get a report filed for the insurance, it’s going to be late.”

  “No,” I said. “We’re not calling Homeland Security for a report.” I wagered that some off-duty Homeland Security officers or some of Brauner's other friends had slashed the tires. “Call the tire place and have them deliver some tires out there. I can replace them myself if you help me.”

  Robert blinked. “You know how to replace trailer tires?”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t tell him that I had spent a few decades in the Eternity Crucible driving the same semi truck over and over again. Sometimes the tires had burst, and I had taught myself how to replace them. “But they’re too heavy to move by myself, so I’ll need your help. Get a couple of the warehouse guys to give us a hand. And once we’re done…I’m going to deal with this.”

  Robert frowned. “Deal with it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s start getting those tires off.”

  Changing trailer tires in November weather was not the most enjoyable thing I had ever done, but it definitely wasn’t the worst, either. The truck arrived from the tire place just after we removed the last ruined tire, and Robert and I wrestled the new ones into place and inflated them.

  We finished with about five minutes to spare.

  “You know,” said Robert, “when you and Russell hired me, I didn’t think I’d spend the day changing truck tires.”

  I grinned at him as we watched a truck cab connect with the trailer. “Still beats getting chased through Venomhold by wraithwolves, yeah?”

  “Can’t argue with that,” said Robert. He gave me a serious look. “What are we going to do about this? If a guy like Arnold Brauner is putting pressure on us, it’s only going to get worse.”

  “I know,” I said, reaching for my phone. “I’m going to make a call.”

  I pulled out Hawley’s card, punched in the number, and waited.

  Hawley picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “This is Nadia MacCormac,” I said. “My brother and I are going to meet with Governor Arnold tomorrow.”

  “One moment, please,” said Hawley.

  I waited, and then Hawley returned.

  “Mrs. MacCormac, Governor Arnold would be pleased to meet with you and Mr. Moran tomorrow at 10 AM,” said Hawley. “He’ll be at Brauner Farms. You know the location?”

  “I do,” I said. “Thanks.”

  I terminated the call and slid the phone into my pocket.

  “Are we getting in bed with a guy like Brauner?” said Robert. “Everyone knows he’s crooked.”

  “He is,” I said. “We’re not getting in bed with him. We’re both married, for God’s sake.” Robert snorted out a laugh. “But we have to deal with him. He’s too powerful to ignore. Can you take charge here for the rest of the day?”

  “Sure,” said Robert. “Where are you going?”

  I grinned at him. “I’m going to make sure Moran Imports has a favorable bargaining position.”

  ###

  If Brauner wanted to play hardball, I would do it right back.

  I did a little research on a burner phone, got what I needed, and set off across Milwaukee.

  Arnold Brauner had three main residences in Wisconsin. He had an apartment in downtown Madison when he went to the State Capitol on business. He had a condo in the fanciest building in Milwaukee. But his main residence was in the suburb of Shorewood, and I arrived there a little before 5 PM.

  It wasn’t all that far from my old master Lord Morvilind’s mansion, which had passed to the High Queen after he died. Brauner’s house was a mansion set in an acre of lawn. Probably six bedrooms, and a four-car garage. With all the leaves falling, it looked autumnal and picturesque. There was even a festive display of pumpkins on the front porch.

  I parked my car six blocks away, and I donned a hair net and a ball cap, a mask over my nose and mouth, and leather gloves over my hands. It was only a small risk, but I didn’t want to leave any hair or usable DNA behind in Brauner’s house. I got out of the car, used the Mask spell to disguise myself as an elderly woman in a tracksuit, and walked to Brauner’s mansion. I strolled around the block, noting the security features. There was a black metal fence around the property, and a motion detector over the gate to the driveway, along with a security camera. I spotted more motion detectors, floodlights, and cameras on the house. But there weren’t cameras along the entire fence. I did see a pair of security guards in dark suits sitting in a booth by the garage, but that wouldn’t be a problem.

  After one walk around the block, I had what I needed. Brauner’s security was good, and it would stop most conventional thieves and seriously slow down any armed attackers. Likely he had designed it to stop any business rivals who were annoyed that he was playing rough with them.

  But it wasn’t sufficient to stop someone like me.

  I levitated over the fence, landed on the other side, and cast the Cloak spell. Invisible, I walked across the lawn and to the base of the house behind the garage. I dropped the Cloak spell and levitated up to an upper-story window. As I had suspected, the windows on the first floor had alarms, but the ones on the second floor didn’t. I used a telekinesis spell to undo the lock, slid open the window, and climbed inside.

  I found myself in a guest bedroom. It had a double bed, a chair, a table with some prepackaged toiletries, and a small bathroom off to the left. I slid the window shut behind me, cast the Cloak spell again, and took a quick stroll around the house.

  It was a nice place. A big formal living room, with stairs leading up to a balcony and the bedroom. The themes of the formal living room, I suspected, were patriotism and the political power of the Brauner family. There was an enormous portrait of the High Queen, looking stern. The picture didn’t really capture the icy weight of her eyes. There were pictures of Brauner and all his sons in the uniforms of men-at-arms. A large picture showed Arnold Brauner getting sworn in as governor, his wife beaming at his side. I saw a dozen pictures of Brauner with
Duke Tamirlas, who always looked mildly constipated in pictures.

  I walked into a large dining room with a fancy table, probably for when the full Brauner clan and all the grandkids came. Off that was a TV room that looked far more relaxed than the formal living room. Various sports memorabilia adorned the walls, along with pictures of Brauner grandkids, and two recliners faced a big TV. The end tables on either side of the recliners had the sort of lived-in clutter that the living room and dining room lacked. I suspected that Brauner and his wife spent most of their time here when they were home.

  I sat against the wall in the corner by the TV, crossed my legs, and held the Cloak spell. I can only hold the Cloak spell for eleven or twelve minutes while walking around, but when I’m motionless, I can maintain it indefinitely, and it’s not even that much of an effort.

  I only had to wait about an hour.

  At 6:30 PM, Arnold Brauner and his wife Tansy walked into the room.

  Former Governor Arnold Brauner looked like a dairy farmer, which made sense as that was how he had gotten his start. He was a big, red-faced man of about sixty, with thick arms, a big chest and a big gut. Right now, he wore a flannel shirt tucked into old jeans and carried an open can of beer in his right hand.

  Tansy looked like a former beauty queen who had kept in shape as she aged. In fact, I think she had been Miss Dairy or Miss Butter Wisconsin or something thirty years ago, which was how she and Brauner had met. They sat down, turned on the TV, and talked about inconsequential things – what one of their grandkids was doing, or how much of the family was coming for Thanksgiving, or whether they should have Christmas at Martin’s house or Luke’s. Looking at Brauner and listening to his conversation, he sounded like a prosperous farmer and businessman, not a ruthless racketeer.

  But I suppose I don’t look like what I really am at first sight, either.

  Tansy held the remote control and flipped through the channels, while Brauner read a paperback novel, something by a guy named Louis L’Amour with a picture of an Old West cowboy on the cover.