by Petra Landon
Taking a deep breath and a firmer grasp of the flashlight, she played it slowly over the animal in the cage once more, all the while trying to keep the light away from its eyes. A huge dark gray wolf lay still in the cage. She could discern no obvious signs of injury on him though his breathing seemed labored from what she could tell. Not that she was an expert on animals or Shifters by any means. Tasia approached the cage cautiously. The wolf made no move to get up. Instead, he watched her cautious approach carefully. She played the light softly towards his eyes. This time the eyes seemed to reflect more pain than ferocity. The eyes were an unusual bluish-green in color with an almost human intelligence to them. It was strange to see such human eyes peeping out from a wolf’s face.
“I’m here to help you” she whispered, watching his eyes carefully for any sign of comprehension.
The wolf watched her steadily without making a move. Tasia flashed her light over the cage bars. It was bolted from the outside. Hoping that she wasn’t making a mistake she’d regret, she unbolted the cage slowly. She glanced once more at the wolf before moving away from the cage to wait discreetly by the door. Her father’s voice sang in her head.
Shape-shifters are some of the most dangerous of the Chosen – human and beast engaged in a constant struggle to keep the other in check. Shifters unable to keep their beast under control go feral and are killed by their Pack or other Shifters to keep from breaking the Supreme Edict that all Chosen follow - always protect the secret of your existence from the humans. Be very wary of a wounded Shifter - he is at his most vulnerable then for that is when the human is not in complete control of the beast.
Tasia had known that this whole venture tonight was risky. Yet her gut told her that the Shifter would not harm her. As for what had compelled her to come here tonight, Tasia didn’t need to ponder too deeply at her motivation. She knew only too well why she’d felt impelled to assist an injured Chosen who she sensed was special like her.
The wolf watched her move away from the cage to a safe distance before he made a move. He stood up in one fluid move to stalk out of the cage although Tasia noticed a slight limp in one hind leg. He came to a standstill a foot away from her to stare into her eyes. There was an expression in those eyes that made Tasia a tad uneasy. She could swear that there was a hint of amusement lurking in those remarkable eyes. She put her finger to her lips in the universal sign for silence and the wolf cocked his head at her in response.
Tasia moved into the corridor followed by her silent lupine shadow. The two trod silently to the open window that she’d used to enter the house. That was when it struck Tasia that exiting through the window might prove difficult. Not for her, but for the wolf. As she stared at the window pondering their predicament, the wolf’s big frame seemed to stretch for an infinitesimal second. Tasia stared in consternation as the wolf underwent a transformation before her astonished gaze. Skin and bones shrank and tightened in horrific fashion to spit out a big gray hawk in place of the wolf that had stood there a moment ago. The hawk stared back at her with the unmistakable bluish green eyes of the wolf. This time though, the eyes showed the strain of the recent transformation. The sheer speed of it shocked Tasia. She’d always understood that a transformation was a painful and slow process for a Shifter – something that needed minutes and not mere seconds to accomplish. And then there was the issue of a Shifter having two animal forms. She’d never heard of such a thing! Before she could ponder the mystery though, the hawk rose in a flutter of wings to perch on the window sill.
She would unravel the mystery later, Tasia decided. It was critical to make their getaway before the missing wolf was discovered and the alarm raised. Tasia hopped onto the sill to grab the branch she’d wedged against the ledge and swung herself expertly onto the tree. The hawk hopped off the sill in an awkward dive to glide down the rest of the way to the ground where it waited for Tasia. Fifteen minutes later, Tasia sped home as fast as she could coax from the decrepit engine of the ancient Civic. The hawk sat majestically on the passenger seat beside her with its claws digging onto the seat for purchase.
Streaks of light from the breaking dawn had just appeared in the sky when the young man dashed up the stairs to the fourth floor at inhuman speed to burst precipitously into the Pack Room. He glanced around the room to zero in on a tall man who stood in conversation with an older white-haired gentleman whose noble features denoted his native American ancestry.
“Hawk’s downstairs, Alpha” he announced, the quiet words successfully bringing all discussion in the room to an abrupt halt.
A young girl with dark hair sitting forlornly in a chair to the side, perked up at the announcement. Hope blossomed in her beautiful face, successfully banishing the tiredness and anxiety that made her appear older than her age.
The Alpha Protector directed his oddly cold eyes at the young man by the door, his eyebrow arched in inquiry.
“He’s on his way up. Needed a few minutes to get decent” the young Shifter added with a grin.
At the Shifter’s words, the Alpha glanced at Duncan. The big Shifter, whose habitual impassiveness usually rivalled the Alpha’s, met his gaze with an expression of unmistakable relief.
“I’ll take my leave now, Alpha” Atsá said softly, drawing his Alpha’s attention back to him. “I am happy that Hawk has returned to us” he added, his wise gaze meeting the Alpha’s unusual eyes, the color of old gold.
The Alpha nodded respectfully to the older white-haired Shifter. When he had made the decision to sound the alarm for Hawk and rouse his Shifters to go hunting for their Pack mate, he’d made it a point to personally inform Atsá. He knew how much emphasis the powerful Were-Alpha placed on tradition and he’d thought it only right to inform him personally of Hawk’s disappearance. Plus, there had been no keeping the information from the wolves. So, it’d been imperative that Atsá hear the news from his Alpha before he learnt it from any of the others.
As the older Shifter moved towards the door, Hawk came barreling through it. He stopped abruptly as he caught sight of Atsá, directing a short nod at the Were-Alpha after an infinitesimal pause. Atsá inclined his head in dignified acknowledgement before making his way out of the room.
Hawk glanced at the Alpha Protector.
“Alph, you’ll never guess what happened to me” he announced impetuously as the young girl rushed forward to throw her arms around him.
“Hawk” she whispered, her voice indicating a mixture of fear and relief. “I was so worried.”
An affectionate smile lit up Hawk’s attractive face as he returned her hug. “I’m indestructible, Sara mia” he stated with cocky self-confidence. “You shouldn’t worry about me.”
“Beware, little stripling! That kind of cockiness has been known to bring better men than you onto their knees” drawled a gorgeous green-eyed woman, her voice rife with amusement.
“I’m no mere man, Elisabetta” Hawk countered lightly. “I’m a Shifter.”
One of the male Shifters in the room laughed aloud with genuine mirth.
Hawk responded with a grin before extricating himself gently from the young girl. As she walked away from him back to the seat she’d vacated, Hawk turned his attention back to his Alpha.
“Alph” he began.
“Close the door, Hawk” the Alpha directed imperiously.
Reminded of protocol, Hawk hurried to close the heavy door to the Pack Room. The room was now shielded from the rest of the Lair.
“What happened to you, Hawk?” Duncan inquired.
“Alph had me chasing down some reports of non-Pack Shifters in the city. I caught up with them this afternoon in an abandoned warehouse in Oakland. There were three of them. They ambushed me and we fought. I killed one and the others locked me up in a cage.”
“Hawk, my man, don’t tell me that you couldn’t break though one tiny cage” queried a red-haired man with the hint of an Irish brogue in his voice.
“The bars were reinforced with silver” Hawk’s response
was blunt. “They burnt my skin when I touched them.”
A charged silence descended on the room full of Shifters. Silver was like kryptonite to Shape-shifters. It sapped their power and strength and was even known to kill on prolonged contact.
“How’d you get free?” the Alpha’s voice was sober.
“A young girl helped free me.”
“Human?” Duncan inquired, his voice sharp.
“No” Hawk shook his head. “She’s Chosen. I was in my wolf form in the cage and she knew what I was.”
“She was frightened of me and of being discovered in the house” Hawk continued. “Yet she helped me get out of there. I spent the remainder of the night at her place, conserving my strength to fly back before dawn. I did snoop around a bit before I left - wanted to find out who she was. There was correspondence addressed to her from an address I recognized.” He paused dramatically. “The Registry!”
“A wizard came to your aid” Duncan exclaimed while the Alpha remained stonily silent.
“Yes. And she might be in trouble because of it. Alph, when those Shifters discover that I’m missing, they might guess who helped me escape. Her being there tonight was not a coincidence. For all we know, that might lead them directly to her” Hawk said urgently to his Alpha.
“It might be a trap, Hawk” Duncan pointed out mildly. “She could be working with those Shifters.”
“But what if she isn’t?” Hawk encountered impassionedly. “She could be in danger.”
The Alpha gazed at Hawk, his expression grim. He knew very well what Hawk was asking for – some kind of protection for the girl. She'd come to the aid of one of his Shifters, helping to extricate Hawk from a sticky situation. The girl deserved to be safeguarded from any consequences that might arise from her singular kindness to a stranger.
“I want to meet her. Bring her to me and I’ll see what I can do” he stated noncommittally.
Chapter 2
An invitation to meet the Alpha Protector
Tasia awoke with a start the next morning, woken by a persistent ringing that echoed through her small studio. By force of habit, she glanced at her clock to switch off the alarm only to realize that it was her cell making the racket. She groaned, forcing herself off the bed to reach for the phone. The caller id indicated Caroline.
“I won’t be able to make lunch today, Tas” Caro announced regretfully.
The two girls had a standing date for lunch on Tuesday every other week. Caro was one of the first friends Tasia had made when she arrived in San Francisco. They’d met at the Wizard Registry where Tasia had gone to register herself on her arrival to the city. Caroline Hamilton was a Level Eight wizard and surprisingly down-to-earth with it. Scion of a powerful local wizard family, Caroline worked at the family firm which specialized in providing wizard consulting services.
“Don’t worry about it, Caro” Tasia responded. “Shall we try again next week if you’re available?”
“I should be able to swing that, Tas. Hey, I was planning to talk to you at lunch today but, well. There’s something really weird going on with some of the female wizards. They’re being mugged at alarmingly high rates. I know that you do a lot of night time gigs, so be careful, hmm.”
“I will. Mabel had a chat with me yesterday.”
“Oh good! The Registry is warning wizards then. Wasn’t sure if they were - they’re usually such a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a constant source of wonder to me that the place actually manages to function. Okay, well … talk more next week. Gotta go, my next client is here and clamoring for my attention. The price of being popular!”
“Bye” Tasia said with a smile in her voice. Interactions with Caroline were usually akin to being swept away by a benevolent force of nature. Exhausted after her late night, the conversation with Caro had rejuvenated her, readying her to face another long day. It was a stroke of luck that she worked the afternoon shift at the restaurant. After her exertions the night before, Tasia wasn’t sure that she’d have made it to the restaurant any earlier.
Late night exertions. Beast man able to take multiple shapes. The hawk sitting on her ratty couch to gaze at her with pain-filled human eyes.
Oh my God!
Tasia rushed out to check the couch. The hawk she’d left resting on it last night was gone. A gray feather lay hidden under a pillow to one side of her couch, the only sign of his presence. If you discounted that one piece of evidence, it was almost as if she’d dreamt up the whole adventure from the night before. They had driven back to her apartment without incident. The hawk had followed her up to her studio. He’d hopped onto her couch and given her a surprisingly human look of gratitude before settling himself to rest with his head buried in his feathers. She’d heard that Shifters preferred to be in their animal form when injured because it speeded up their process of healing. She also knew that they expanded a lot of energy when healing. Since Tasia had been unsure of what kind of sustenance to offer a hawk, she’d settled for leaving a bowl of water by the couch.
The bowl still lay where she’d placed it last night, emptied of its contents. Hopefully, her hawk was fine. Tasia hoped that she’d see it again someday. She’d been warned to stay away from other Chosen while in hiding. Despite the warning, she really hoped to see the hawk again.
It was almost midnight when Tasia trudged home from the bus stop. It had been a busy day after two back-to-back gigs. Her afternoon gig was at a Middle Eastern fast food place that mostly offered take-outs. In the evening, she was a waitress at an upscale Italian restaurant in North Beach. Both restaurants provided free meals for the staff. That usually took care of her meals but the hours were long and hard on her feet most days. Today, she had found her mind wandering to the wolf-and-hawk man whenever she’d had a few moments to spare. The Shifter could easily be a woman but something she’d glimpsed in those uncannily human eyes made her almost sure that he was male.
Lost in her thoughts, it took Tasia a few minutes to realize that she wasn’t alone in the alley that divided her apartment building from the one beside it. The alley had a narrow sidewalk to one side that had cars parked tightly on it. The other side was dotted with dumpsters. That left a narrow pathway for cars and the occasional pedestrian to navigate between the parked cars, dumpsters and the dirty brick walls ingrained with decades of dirt and graffiti. Tasia was caught half way between both entrances to the alley with nowhere to run. In an act born of instinctive self-preservation, she opened her magic senses. The two Shifters from the cleanse job last night were in the alley with her. They’d probably been following her from the bus stop, she realized. She allowed her magic to cast a slightly wider net to check for the presence of other Chosen in the vicinity. To her relief, she could only sense the two in the alley.
The Chosen following her didn’t possess much magical power. But Shifters had other abilities that made them very dangerous – preternaturally fast, supernaturally strong and possessed of the cunning and instincts of a predator. She’d have to handle these two without using any of her considerable powers. Or using it in a way that left them unaware of the use of magic against them. Protecting her secret from the other Chosen was paramount. Tasia knew that the best way to do so was to avoid any direct confrontation. What she needed was a distraction to help her escape the alley before they caught up with her. They probably already knew where she lived if they were lying in wait for her here. But they’d never try anything if she made it into the building – too many potential human witnesses. Once she reached the safety of her apartment, she could figure out her next move.
Tasia took a calming breath, to focus her power on sensing their approach. Timing would be everything! Tracking their approach was a difficult feat since they were inhumanly silent in their hunt. The only noise she could hear clearly was the thudding of her own heart. Once they were close enough, Tasia called out with a quaver in her voice.
“Who’s there?”
The quaver wasn’t assumed – the pounding of her heart had onl
y intensified. Although a powerful wizard with a host of special powers unavailable to most Chosen, Tasia understood the difference between using her magic under the guidance of a powerful teacher in a controlled environment and deploying it against a couple of Shifters out for her blood. She’d had plenty of experience at the former and absolutely none at the latter.
The Shifters inched towards her silently in the semi-darkness of the alley. If they were surprised by her turning around in the dark alley instead of making a run for it, they didn’t bother to indicate it. Tasia concentrated on setting the stage for the first part of her plan. A slow mist rose to swirl around the men, very thin and wispy at first. Tasia expelled some more magic and was rewarded with the mist getting heavier.
The big hairy Shifter was the first to notice the mist.
“What the hell!” he muttered in surprise. “Grab the witch before we lose her.”
The other Shifter reached for her in a move that was so quick that Tasia had no time to even gasp at the suddenness of his action, let alone evade it. He grasped her by her shoulder to fling her towards the wall with a casual flick of his hand. She flew a few feet though the air to hit the wall at some height with a jarring thud of her shoulder. As she slid down the wall, Tasia attempted frantically to break her fall, landing in a heap on one out-flung hand on the dirty ground. Her left palm stung on contact with the rough ground. A trickle of something that she suspected was blood seeped into the ground. The sudden sting of the cut snapped her out of her petrified stupor. She glanced towards the Shifters. The mist was now an amorphous white cloud that enveloped the two Shifters, managing to block out everything. The drops of her spilt blood had enhanced her magic to buy her a few extra seconds.
Tasia pondered her options frantically. The original plan had been to make a run for it while the men flailed about in the mist. She was in no position to do that now. She wasn’t sure how hurt she was and the thick magical mist she had conjured up demanded her proximity to it. Before being flung against the wall, she might have made it safely out of the alley, even with just a thin mist to confound the Shifters. Now, she couldn’t chance it. Dimly, she heard the Shifter’s voices through the mist.