by R. Lee Moore
Kala's response was a hateful poison-filled hiss of rage.
“I mean it,” Tamina continued. “As much sympathy I may have for the two of you at the moment, I will put you down if I have to. Without hesitation.”
Kala didn't respond at first, but Tamina could hear her on the other end raging and hissing angrily. She couldn't blame her, she'd probably have felt the same way in her place. The difference was, while Kala would almost certainly get her vengeance, it wouldn't end there. The moment she stepped out of the Preserve she'd be fair game, and whether Tamina sympathized with her or not, it would end up getting the woman killed.
“Did you kill them?” Kala finally asked. She'd calmed down a little.
“Every last one of them,” Tamina replied. “Look, you know what's going to happen with this. She's been bitten, and if she or any of the other women we're pulling out of here survive, it's not going to be easy. On any of them. They've been turned.”
“Where are they taking her?” Kala asked softly. There was resignation, and fear in her voice now. It had completely replaced the rage.
“Don't know,” Tamina replied. “Probably a facility at Twenty-Nine Palms. You won't be able to see her for a while. Not until they're certain. You know that. But I'll find out what I can and see if I can figure out a way that you can keep in contact with her. She's going to need you. If you two are what I think you are, you're going to be the only thing in her life that hasn't just completely gone to hell.”
“Thank you,” Kala whispered. “Why are you doing this?”
Tamina sighed.
“If I had the time, I'd tell ya,” Tamina replied. “But I don't. So, hold tight, and I'll get a hold of you when I can. Stay in the Preserve. I don't want to have to hunt you down, but I will if you force me to.”
The line went dead in her hand, and Tamina let out a heavy sigh. She hoped she'd gotten through to the snake-woman. If not, well, she'd deal with that when she needed to. She made her way through the courtyard towards her car, stopping only when she noticed the elderly lady she'd met when she was scouting the complex out standing somehow unscathed in front of her front door.
Tamina gave a questioning look, but the only reply the old woman gave was an approving smile and a nod of her head before she scurried back into her apartment and closed the door behind her. Strange, Tamina thought. She couldn't dwell on it though. There was still a werewolf out there killing people, and she had a partner she needed to check up on. This was going to be a long day, she thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It took a while for the Strike Teams to fully secure the area and sound the all clear, but once they did, state and local agencies from all over began to swarm to pick over what remained of the complex. Everyone who could conjure up even the slightest bit of justification for being there would be scouring over the area for days, weeks even to dig up whatever scraps of Intel on the cartels and their operations that they could. Even the Supernatural Affairs Diplomatic Office had shown up to gauge and mitigate whatever potential political fallout there was going to be. Raids like this didn't often happen, so when they did, everyone took advantage.
For Tamina, everything was relatively straight forward. She'd given her statement to Captain Ramirez, watched as the trafficking victims got handed off to the LAPD to deal with, then waited for the transport vehicles to come and pick up all the women who'd been bitten.
She tried keeping herself calm once the specially designed trucks rolled up, but it wasn't easy. A good number of the women being loaded up into the backs of those trucks weren't going to survive. That was just statistics. Either they'd eventually succumb to their wounds like Hailey almost had, or their minds would break during their first change. When that happened, they'd have to be put down.
Those few that did survive, were going to have a long arduous road ahead of them even after they got settled into the Department facility at Twenty-Nine Palms. The people there would do what they could, but it was still going to be a fight. Their whole lives had been torn apart and irrevocably changed.
It wasn't long before a steady stream of Federal Agents and local police were hauling out carloads of electronics out of the apartments all around her. With a little luck, someone would be able to find some information that pertained to the case. Tamina wasn't hopeful though. Even if there was something there, two murders was going to be low priority for everyone but her. It'd filter down eventually after everyone else got their turn, but by then it might be too late.
Tamina got what information she could from the officer in charge, then went to check on Carson. The medics had done what they could to patch up his injuries, but he was going to need to spend some time in the ER regardless. As skilled as they were, medics were only good for patching you up and keeping you alive in the field. They were a stop gap. If you wanted more than that, you were going to end up in a hospital sooner or later. Besides, Striker medics didn't usually have the best beside manner, and they certainly weren't gentle.
She offered to stay and wait when she dropped Carson off at the emergency room, but the man had politely but firmly informed her that he'd made other arrangements. He was nice about it, even if Tamina could sense his displeasure with both her and the situation she'd gotten him into. Whatever, Tamina thought to herself. Risk was part of the job. If he couldn't handle it, then that was his problem.
After that, there wasn't much else for her to do. For as much good as she'd felt she'd done going into that complex, Tamina still felt like she hadn't made any progress. She found out the cartel had been involved, but outside that there was nothing. She was getting nowhere, and that irked her to no end.
Enough that on her way home she stopped off at a corner liquor store and picked up a few more bottles of vodka to kill the pain she knew was coming. The rush of combat had worn off, and she was starting to feel the effects of the last several days of hard use on her body. She was going to need something to deal with that. Alcohol usually worked, and it had the added benefit of calming her nerves. Usually.
When she got back to her apartment, she'd put on some music, cracked open her bottle, and started stripping down her AR12 to figure out what needed to be done to fix it. Shoving it into the gaping maw of a raging feral werewolf probably wasn't the best thing to do if you wanted to keep a weapon in working order, but it had been kind of necessary at the time.
It was going to have to be cleaned, and several parts had to be replaced. Luckily however, Tamina always made a point to keep spare parts on hand for all her equipment. She had everything she needed on hand, it was just going to take some time to get the shotgun back in full working order.
Several hours later when the knock on her door came, Tamina was so engrossed in her work and the bottle in front of her that she nearly missed it. It was only after the second round of knuckles rapping insistently at the door that she began to fully pay attention. It wasn't her landlord at least, she thought. If it was, she'd have heard him screaming her name all the way up the stairs. Other than that, she didn't get many visitors. Most people knew better.
Picking up her sidearm from the table in front of her and carrying it loosely at her side, Tamina made her way to the door and peered through the peephole. She instantly recognized the vaguely distorted image on the other side, and a well of conflicting emotions pulsed through her.
“Where the hell have you been?!“ she demanded, throwing open the door.
There was an instant flash of something the moment her eyes met Giovanni's. A kind of heat that emanated in a rolling wave from the tall werewolf in front of her. It washed over her body, sending a tingle rushing through her and catching her breath in her throat. There was that same hungered intensity in the man's eyes, and for a moment that intensity was all that Tamina could focus on. Everything else seemed to just drift away.
“I have something you need to see bella,” Giovanni said softly.
The tone of his voice broke her concentration and dragged her forcefully back to reality
. The intensity in his eyes dimmed so effortlessly, so subtly that Tamina wondered if it had even been there in the first place. Maybe she was just seeing something she wanted to see.
“You know I've been sending you messages for two days now,” Tamina said tartly. “What gives?”
He didn't speak when he pressed the slim black tablet into her hands and brushed past her uninvited into her apartment.
“Sure just come right in like you own the place,” Tamina grumbled. “You go anywhere near my bedroom, and I'm going to shoot you.”
She irritably slammed her door shut and curiously looked over the tablet he'd given her as he silently walked over to and leaned against the kitchen counter. He was acting odd, she thought. Every other time she'd seen him he'd made some sort of move on her, or at the very least made barely veiled suggestive comments. He wasn't even looking at her now though. He'd turned his gaze down and away and was remaining uncharacteristically silent. She found that slightly disconcerting.
“What is this?” she asked as she swiped across the screen with her fingertips.
He didn't answer, he didn't need to. The logo that popped up on the screen said enough. It was a circle made from a pair of wolves chasing each other's tails, the same mark that she'd found on Amy Lynn and Albira Adams. She stood there in shock, staring down at the brightly lit screen in her hands with a million thoughts racing through her mind.
“Where did you get this?” she whispered as she began to thumb through the contents. “Didn't have to kill anyone for it did you?”
“They're still alive,” Giovanni replied without emotion.
There was something in the sound of his voice that made her think she'd hit closer to the mark than she'd intended. She'd just been being snippy, Giovanni's response however told her that some level of violence had occurred somewhere along the way. Not her problem, she decided. The results were what mattered. Besides, she thought, she was better off not knowing. She might have to do something about it if she did.
“You'll need to sit down,” he said. “There's video. Quite a few of them actually.”
That sounded ominous, Tamina thought. Without taking his advice, she thumbed through the contents of the tablet and opened up a folder that contained numerous video files. She tapped one open at random and watched as the screen filled up as it began to play.
It showed large room decorated in pure white. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, even the bed and its covering were all colored in the same vibrant and pristine white. The whole setup struck her as odd and hard to watch. The bright lights combined with the absolute void of any other color made her eyes strain and begin to ache just looking at it.
Hand in hand a man and a woman entered the frame, and Tamina found her focus drawn to them instantly. The lack of color everywhere else seemed to highlight the tones of their skin, the colors of their hair, and the brightness of their eyes. Everything about the couple just seemed to jump out with such clarity and focus.
Then there it was, that same mark of two circling wolves emblazoned bright and fresh on the woman's wrist. The camera seemed to focus on the mark for longer than Tamina thought was necessary. The whole screen seemed to fill with it briefly before zooming back out to show the couple in their entirety surrounded by the field of stark white.
She still thought the complete lack of color in the background was an odd choice, but it appeared to work regardless. There was nothing to distract from watching the two of them writhe and entwine with hungered passion in each other's arms. She looked closely, but she couldn't recognize either of them. The man was a complete mystery, and the woman was neither Amy Lynn nor Albira Adams. It was someone else entirely.
“You brought me porn?” Tamina said flicking her eyes up from the screen in irritation towards Giovanni.
“Just watch,” he replied flatly.
She wondered why he wasn't just telling her what she was supposed to be watching and looking for. It became clear quickly enough all the same. She could see the normal coloring of the man's eyes begin to bleed away as he rocked back and forth into the woman. The woman's eyes rolled into the back of her head and deep throated husky moans of pleasure were pouring from her lips. She couldn't see the eyes above her beginning to shift into that all to familiar amber. In her state, the woman might not have cared if she did notice.
Tamina hadn't ever seen anything like this before, and she found herself a bit transfixed by it in spite of the little voice in the back of her mind giving whispered warnings. It was definitely shapeshifter on human porn. Even if she'd missed the eyes, she couldn't have missed the way the man's flesh began to ripple and tear all up and down his body. His own pleasured moans becoming threaded with deep rumbling animalistic growls from the depths of his chest.
She watched the woman's eyes flutter back open and look up to the man above her. At first there was a tremble of fear that flickered across the woman's eyes and rippled down through her body. That was to be expected, Tamina thought. It was one thing to fantasize about a big werewolf grinding on top of you, the reality of it was quite another thing altogether.
Whatever fear and trepidation there was though, didn't last. The werewolf made sure of that. Tamina could see his hips moving at a rhythmic pace driving into the woman beneath him as his hands slid up her arms and entwined with hers. With a gasp of both fear and pleasure combined, the werewolf pinned the woman's hands almost violently above her head. It wasn't long before the woman got lost within the sensations intoxicating her. Her head dropped back against the pillows, and her body began to relax and move with her partner completely surrendering to the pleasure she was being given.
Tamina expected it to stop there. She thought the man would hold back on his change in spite of the agony that would cause, but he didn't. She could hear the cracking of his bones. See the writhing of his flesh as the beast within forced itself to the surface. His skin split and tore itself open dropping little bits and pieces of bloodied meat on the pristine bed coverings revealing dark tufts of fur hidden beneath.
In between pleasured growling moans, the man's face tore itself apart and shifted itself away from its human form, and into the bestial. His features warped and twisted. His now fang filled mouth gaped open impossibly wide, and began narrowing and extending out ever so slowly. A rush of dread pulsed through Tamina as the realization struck her. She knew with a cold certainty what was going to happen. There was no doubt in her mind.
The woman must have sensed it too. Her eyes suddenly refocused and saw what was happening above her. Her reaction, her screams told Tamina that this wasn't what she was expecting. She tried to struggle and fight, but the werewolf above her had her locked within its iron grip. Even as his body was changing, he never stopped driving himself into her. In fact, it seemed to become more frantic, more violent as each second passed.
Tamina couldn't understand what the woman was saying, but she didn't need to. The tearful pleading with someone just out of frame didn't need translating. The screams and tears were all that was needed to know what she was saying.
Her cries and pleas fell on deaf ears. There was no one that was going to help her. No one was going to stop what Tamina and the woman both knew was coming. The woman's screams reached a fever pitch the moment those massive bestial jaws opened. She struggled against the inevitable, but there was nothing she could do.
The wolf lunged forward, and with a single powerful bite sank its teeth into the woman's flesh and began to gnaw and chew through the meat and bone with reckless abandon. It was almost as if the beast had lost itself in a frenzy. Like it couldn't control itself or the hunger inside it. The wolf tore its jaws away from the woman's throat sending vibrant splashes of red splattering against the blank canvas all around him. It was then that Tamina realized the true intent behind all the pristine white that surrounded the performers. It made every drop and spraying mist of blood stand out in sharp, vivid contrast.
“'Ak'eed,” Tamina swore, throwing the tablet violently away. “T
he fuck!”
She screwed her eyes tightly shut in a vain attempt to block out the images and keep them from filling her thoughts, but it wasn't enough. She could still hear the gurgled wet sounding screams the woman was making. The heavy and hungered growling sounds, the crunching of bone, and the tearing of meat still rose up into the air in spite of the source being thrown away. She could still hear the horrific sound of that woman being devoured alive.
Tamina pried her eyes open and rushed to collect her opened half empty bottle. The burn of the liquid down her throat blurred her vision. It scattered the images that had filled her head enough for a moment's peace. Mercifully, Giovanni lifted himself from his position, scooped up the tablet, and ended the nightmare playing through its speakers. So many questions filled her thoughts now. Was that what happened to Amy Lynn and Albira Adams? Were they taken into that same white room and murdered just like the woman she'd just seen? It was abhorrent to think that their last moments had been filled with such savagery and horror.
“How-how many are on there?” Tamina demanded. She could barely get the words out.
“Twenty, twenty-five,” Giovanni said simply. “It was enough to see one to know what the rest contained.”
“Holy hell,” Tamina whispered.
Twenty-five, Tamina thought with a shiver. That many women butchered, and they'd only found two of them. How in the hell had they missed that? How could they not have found the remains? The bodies had to be out there somewhere. Bodies of young men and women torn apart and left to rot all alone, and they were only just now finding out about it. That wasn't right.
“Tell me,” Tamina said with a hard edge creeping into her voice. “Everything.”
Giovanni shook his head.
“I can't bella,” he said softly.
Tamina whirled on him in a rage. She knew the look she was giving him was hot and intense. She could feel it, could see his reaction when he immediately turned his gaze from hers.