“He’s handsome, Mom, and he’s always been nice to me,” the daughter whispered.
“Pretty face, ugly insides, Penny. Boys like that only want one thing from pretty girls like you,” her mother replied.
“Well, I’d let him have it,” the daughter teased.
“Not funny, Penny. After what he and his sister did, they should be in jail, not out having breakfast among normal people.”
“What they did? Mom, they got fired. By their grandfather. They weren’t even cops long enough to do anything. Also, I seriously doubt they cheated. They’re both brilliant. I’m not buying it.”
“Well, if they cheated, and their grandfather fired them, then he must know the truth. I don’t want you associating with them, Penny. Hear me?”
I sipped my coffee and looked up at Sin. He rolled his eyes, then smiled at Missy as she brought our plates. “Thank you,” I said to her. She didn’t even look at me, just leaned over enough to give Sin a look down her shirt as she put his plate down.
“Hope you don’t get boob lint in your eggs,” I said to Sin and Missy jerked back upright, glared at me, and stormed away. “Well, at least she can hear me. I was beginning to think I was invisible.”
Sin smirked and shook his head before he sat up and started to eat. We were both quiet for a few minutes, just eating and listening to the various bits of gossip around us.
“Wow, did you know I’ve slept with all of the male and half of the female graduating class at the university?” I said, eyes wide. “I wonder when I was supposed to be able to do that. Was it before or after I got valedictorian?”
“And I’m supposed to be a drug dealer. I’ve created a brand-new drug and it makes anyone who takes it, want me,” Sin said. In the back corner, two guys we knew from Benny’s crew, burst out laughing at Sin’s comment and gave him a thumbs up. It would appear that they were the only shifters in the restaurant.
“Gee, Sinclair, I didn’t know you had to drug your dates,” I teased. The food was good, but the bullshit we were listening to was ruining my appetite. “You almost done enough to get this show rolling?” That last bit was barely breathed in my brother’s direction.
He gave me the faintest of nods.
“You know this is all your fault, right?” I said, my voice pitched slightly louder than normal.
“How is this my fault? You’re the one who wouldn’t kiss the old bastard’s ring,” Sin said.
“It wasn’t his ring he wanted me to kiss. But you can kiss his ass all you want,” I said.
“We’ve already got the money, I’m not kissing anything. In fact, after he decided to lie about us and take our badges, he can kiss my ass,” Sin said and finished his coffee.
“I think we should just celebrate our freedom. Shop, party, whatever we want,” I said.
I could hear the indignant whispers of how we were clearly spoiled brats with no sense of civic duty. If they only knew.
“Sounds like a plan to me, sis,” Sin said. “Let’s go.” He dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the table and we got up and left.
Whether he ever called Missy, it wouldn’t matter. She just made eighty bucks.
Sin
It took every bit of my control to not respond to the whispered comments we both could overhear in the diner. Every ounce of my acting skill to keep the smirking smile on my face. To play the spoiled rich brat. Sid and I went to pick up a few things at the stores, then headed home. We couldn’t keep the farce up long enough to do lunch in public. I picked up some Chinese food and we settled in the living room with the TV tuned to the local news. Small town news usually revolved around high school sports, local politics, community events, and local crime. Today, the news showed a story about a supposed wild animal attack on an off-duty BPD detective. The detective received treatment at the medical center and was released. Name withheld pending further investigation.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Stumpy. “Hey Stumpy, it’s Sin. You okay?” I put him on speaker and set the phone on the coffee table. “Sid’s here too.”
“I’m fine. Fifteen stitches that’ll be healed up by tonight, but I’ll have to pretend otherwise. How did you know it was me?” Stumpy said.
“Just saw the newscast and had a feeling. They started with your car, they’re going to keep escalating until they take you down,” I said.
“Or until we take them down first,” Sid said.
“I’ve heard that you kids put on a good show at the diner. A couple of calls came into the station for us to, and I quote, “keep an eye on you two” because you were cop trained and looking to cause trouble. You’re not going to cause me any trouble, are you?” Stumpy asked.
“Not any more than we usually do,” I said.
“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say,” Stumpy sighed. “Look, your dad wants me to take a couple of weeks off and get lost in the woods. I’m going to do just that. You know how to reach me and I won’t be too far.”
“We understand, Stumpy. Stay safe and we’ll see you in a bit,” Sid said.
“Talk to you soon, Stumpy,” I said and disconnected the call.
“Well, at least he’ll be safe with Dad and Grampa,” Sid said. “I was starting to wonder if we were going to get a call that he’d been taken out. He didn’t tell us much, on purpose, because who knows who might be listening.”
“Do you want any of this sweet and sour chicken?”
“Gods, how can you focus on food when there’s so much going on?”
“Look, Sid. First off, there’s some excellent food here. Secondly, we’re stuck waiting until we hear about a meeting of the League. Until they call us for backup to protect Keith Roberts, we’ve got nothing to do but pretend to not be cops. Have some of this chicken and later we’ll go for a run or something, okay?”
Sid flopped back on the couch and sighed. “I cannot stand sitting around. Patience may be a virtue, but I’m not that virtuous a woman.”
I almost snorted a noodle. “Virtue, ethics, morals, they’re all things we hold dear. But some more dear than others, eh?”
“I’m good with all of them except patience,” Sid said. “But then, you know that.”
I tossed her an egg roll. “Eat, watch television, read a book. Then we’ll go for a run.”
Sid opened the package and bit into the egg roll, then leaned forward and dipped it into a hot mustard sauce. “Fine, I’ll eat and watch TV. Then we’re going for a run. I can be impatient, but I’m not going to let myself get fat.”
“Sid, you’re part shifter. You would have to eat like ten thousand calories a day, for weeks, to even get chubby. Relax.”
We watched a couple of movies, then went for a run. It wasn’t until nearly ten at night when the phone call finally came. There was a meeting of the Purist League in two days.
Sid
Seven at night, this time of year, was twilight. We found ourselves dressed in black tactical gear, in position around an old, one-story elementary school that had been converted to a community center. Tonight, it was being used by a group registered as The Cultural Exchange Commission. According to the center’s records, the group numbered about thirty to forty members. So far, we’d seen about twenty go inside. The first five that went in about an hour ago carried food trays and bags, so that was the setup and prep crew. After about twenty minutes, people started showing up in singles or small groups. Sin had a camera that was grabbing shots of each person and we’d already identified Professors Angiers, Lang, and Lang’s son, Samuel. A few of the expelled cadets went in, then Lord James showed up. He got out of a black town car with another man that looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
I heard an intake of breath through my earbud, though, and then Sin said, “Sebastian LeFleur. Talk about deep fucking pockets.”
Dad spoke through the coms, “Keep focused, everyone. Things just got real interesting.”
“Isn’t LeFleur a witch?” I asked.
Grampa Walsh answered, “He is, an
old and supposedly powerful one, but I have never seen him do much to prove that. A lot of hearsay because there were powerful ones in his family. So, LeFleur for the witches and James for the shifters.”
Sin spoke into the coms then, “Keith just went inside with two other young men.”
Sett answered, “I’ve got the recording going here in the van. Clear and loud.”
Auntie Sett was in the command van while Dad, Grampa, Sin, me, and a dozen of Grampa’s people were spaced around the center. If Keith got into trouble, we could be inside in moments and back him up. We weren’t expecting to need to do that, but better to plan for it and not need it.
“Okay, Sid. You go back to the van with Sett. I don’t want her there alone in case someone comes sniffing around,” Grampa said.
“Yes, sir,” I replied and slowly made my way back from my position towards the van. I nodded to Tasha Campbell as she moved in to take my place. Tasha had helped with a couple of the Academy shifter classes as an assistant teacher and was a solid team member to have on our side.
I tapped twice on the back of the van, then opened the door just enough to slide inside and shut it quietly behind me. I pulled off my helmet and glasses, stuffed my gloves into the helmet and found a seat next to Sett. She handed me a headset so I could hear the audio while we watched the live feed from Keith’s button camera.
“This is pretty good quality,” I said, my voice kept low.
“Your Grampa doesn’t mess around. Best equipment he can find, we get to use,” Sett said.
We watched as the gathering made their way to rows of chairs while Grandpa Boudreau and Mr. LeFleur went up to a table in front with four chairs on one side. They sat down and a young man brought them drinks and a plate of snacks. Another set a carafe of coffee and a pitcher of water on the table, with two more cups.
“Who else do you think sits up there with them?” I asked Sett.
“Two more rich assholes?” Sett snarked. She handed me a bag of my favorite chips and a can of cold espresso, then popped her own open and sipped. “The best part about surveillance. The snacks.”
I laughed and pulled the bag open.
“You know who LeFleur is, don’t you?” Sett asked.
“Other than an old, rich, witch? No.”
“Over the past fifty years or so, LeFleur has made about twenty offers on the Fortin farm. Each one was incrementally more generous. And each time, the answer has been ‘no fucking way’. And he doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“Do you think he’s behind this Purist League crap? Like Lord James?”
“You mean, are they the two that started it up? No. They’re the bankroll and the muscle. We haven’t yet figured out who is the one pulling all the strings.”
“What do we know?”
“About thirty years ago, a decade or two after the Species War, the racist crap started to ramp up significantly. It wasn’t just bigots screaming about this side or that being better, but targeted attacks on both sides. A witch-owned store gets firebombed. A shifter family gets harassed until they move out of town. Back and forth until people were starting to worry about another full-on war coming again. The SPD and Academy were still pretty new at that time and they had their hands full trying to get things to quiet down. They arrested a lot of low-level punks who were behind the antics and the most they ever got out of any of them was that She would be coming for them. We still have no idea who She is or was. The SPD cracked down hard, again, about twenty years ago, and cleaned up most of the active gangs. Then, Liam Walsh was murdered, and James Boudreau took over the SPD. Hindsight being what it is, we can see now that from that point on, it was a slow, insidious growth of this Purist League, and the division and breaking down of the basic tenets the SPD and the Academy were founded upon.”
Sett stopped talking as the meeting started to come to order. The two seats beside LeFleur were still empty. A microphone was handed to Lord James and he got to his feet.
“Good evening, everyone,” James said. “Welcome to the monthly meeting of the League for Purity Among Species. If this is your first meeting, please stand up,”
Keith did us the favor of turning around to look, so we got to see two young women giggling as they stood and a stoic, older man. I got on the computer and sent the images to Tasha’s brother, Tino. Antonio “Tino” Morales, a recent graduate of MIT and technological genius, was back at the house he shared with his sister. One room of the house was a tech junkie’s dream and wholly Tino’s world.
While we watched the video of them going over the previous meeting’s minutes, Tino did his magic and was soon sending us back his results.
“The girls are Inez and Jana Peters from Sorsyville who attend the university and live on campus. They’re listed as witches. The man is Michael Burley, a shifter who does handyman work around town. Came to town about six months ago from the city. He’s been mostly hired to work on James Boudreau’s properties.” I read off the information so everyone on the coms could hear it. “So, what? Lord James can’t get enough locals to follow his bullshit ideas, he has to import them from elsewhere?”
“Either that or new folks coming into town are easy pickings,” Dad said over the coms.
“You’ve all been given your assignments. I want to congratulate Mr. Angiers and Ms. Lang for achieving the rank of Deputy after their work in removing the Boudreau twins from the SPD roster. Mr. Samuel Lang, please stand up,” James said.
“Assignments? We’ll have to ask Keith what those are and how they get them,” I said.
Samuel stood from his seat in the front row.
“Mr. Lang,” James continued. “In light of your excellent work, you will be partnered with Mr. Roberts in the next phase of our plan.”
We watched the video as Keith stood, a few rows back and across the aisle from Samuel.
“Meet with Mr. LeFleur after we break for refreshments to get your assignments.”
“Yes, sir,” both men said, then took their seats.
“Remember, everyone. Keep your eyes open and your mouths shut. Do your assignments and contact your team leader when it is done. For you new folks, that’s Mr. Angiers for shifters and Ms. Lang for witches. Now, line up and come get your bounty.”
James sat back down and LeFleur got up and moved to stand in front of the table. A man dressed as a bodyguard set a cardboard file box down on the table and took off the lid. LeFleur reached in and pulled out a handful of envelopes and started passing one to each person as they came up to him. Keith got his envelope and wandered off to a position against the side wall and opened the envelope so we could see what was inside. Ten crisp, hundred-dollar bills were in the envelope. He folded the envelope up and tucked it inside his jacket, then went to get a bottle of water while he waited with Samuel to speak to LeFleur when he was done.
“Did you know Keith was getting paid a grand every time he went to a meeting?” I asked.
“Yeah, he keeps offering to turn it into the team and we keep telling him to just keep it. He’s the one taking the risks, he should get to keep the cash. Not like any of us are hurting for it,” Sett said.
“That’s cool that he keeps trying to share it, but better that he keeps it. What if they asked him to buy something and he told them he didn’t have the cash?” I said.
“See? That’s why you’re on the team. Details focused,” Sett said.
“That’s the only reason, huh?” I teased.
“Keep yapping when we’re supposed to be listening and it will be,” Sett teased back.
I sipped some water and watched the last few get their envelopes before LeFleur gestured to Keith and Samuel to join him away from everyone else.
“You two have been chosen, based on the good work you’ve done so far,” LeFleur said.
The two young men glanced at each other, then back to LeFleur.
“I also wanted only witches. Can’t truly trust something that turns into an animal now, can you?” LeFleur said.
Both g
uys chuckled and nodded.
“Samuel, you keep working with Jolie Fortin. Keith? I want you to figure out a way to get Sidonie and Sinclair Boudreau up to their grandfather’s place. Mrs. Sullivan wants to speak with them.”
“There’s nothing left for me to do with Jolie. She’s already made the potions and the woman is weak and dying. If I keep hanging around, they’ll figure out something’s up,” Samuel said.
“Then get Jolie out of there and bring her to my place. She’s the key to me taking over that farm, once and for all,” LeFleur said.
I almost dropped my bottle of water when Sett snarled. I reached out a hand to squeeze her arm in warning. They were still talking.
“Which Mrs. Sullivan, sir? The gardener’s wife?” Keith asked.
LeFleur laughed at Keith and sighed. “We’re reduced to working with idiots. I swear,” was muttered before he looked back at Keith. “No, you idiot. Mrs. Margot Sullivan. The woman living in James Boudreau’s house as if she were his wife.”
“But isn’t she a witch?” Keith asked. “And he’s a shifter?”
“Eh, she’s too old to breed. A hole’s a hole once they can’t make babies,” LeFleur retorted.
I hissed into the coms, “We can’t take them down tonight. We need to let Keith take us to the manse. It’s the easiest way for us to get in there and finish this.”
Grampa Walsh spoke then. “I agree.”
Sin added, “I’m with Sid on this one.”
“Alright, wait for Keith to leave and scoop him up, then everyone back to the barn,” Grampa Walsh said. “Sett, you and Sid can get Keith. Sin? You and Tasha leave once the meeting is completely done and Keith is clear. Everyone else? Back to base. Oh, and Sett, make sure Tino gets everything from tonight. LeFleur just made our case for us.”
We all commented that we’d received our instructions and I sat back to watch the rest of the feed, my mind whirling. I looked over at Sett and there were unshed tears in her eyes. “Auntie?” I asked.
Shifters Gone Wild: A Shifter Romance Collection Page 160