by Mason Sabre
"It's a shame you weren't there, you know? You could have seen your brother's heroic efforts to save my life. The way he took my fall." He nodded. "It really was commendable. Maybe you can give him a medal. Do they still award hero medals to the dead? I mean, I don't know how it works over here."
Lee clenched his fists, but he kept his gaze down at the crushed form of the Human. Stephen laughed as he stepped back and when Lee rose, he moved to let him pass. Not that he needed to move. Lee could walk right through him. Force of habit, he supposed.
The Humans moved too, except they were Lee's target and Stephen was only sorry he couldn't enjoy the scent of their fear because it was sure as hell there. It was in their face, in their eyes, in every part.
Lee’s eyes had a tinge of green and yellow to them. They glowed brighter than the eyes of a born shifter.
“Oh, you’re both in for it now.”
Lee wasn't doing so great regarding grief, or emotion, or whatever the hell it was that was wrong with him. The colours of his eyes flecked with shades of green and the control he usually had was slipping. Maybe the death of someone he cared for was too much for him. Stephen sure hoped so. He hoped it kept the fucker up at night. He could wake up in a cold sweat and then cry himself back to sleep, just the way Helena had done all those times.
She’d thought Stephen didn’t know, but he’d heard her. He had heard her so many times and tried to reach her, and that was enough to scar his soul because no matter what, he couldn’t get to her. A cruel game with the Humans when he was caged. Make it so he could see and hear everything but put up barriers, so he couldn’t do anything about it.
“I will repay everything you did.” If Lee got two-fold of what he’d done to them, it would never be enough. There was no pity as sorrow washed over Lee. Anything he felt would never match the pain he had caused others. Not even if it choked him.
There was nowhere for the Human to go, but he tried to back away as Lee got close to him. Stephen had to give him some credit for at least trying. He could have made a run for it up the steeper embankment, not that he’d have made it, but at least it was trying. He squared his shoulders, though, and faced Lee. Brave … brave and bloody stupid. Lee started to shift … he was a half-breed now.
It was hard to understand which part of this situation the little Human didn't get to realise he was in great danger. Not that Stephen was complaining. Another less Human was a good day at work as far as he was concerned. But the colour of Lee’s eyes should have been enough to send the Human running, if not that, at least the growl that was emanating from Lee’s throat.
“I mean, come on … he will kill you, man. Can’t you see that? You could at least try to run.” Stephen folded his arms across his chest and waited. “Fine. I’ll just watch. It’s not gonna be pretty.” No. It would be a glorious bloodbath in a rendition of Picasso with claws … if he painted in blood and guts.
The scars across Lee’s face moved. Little red worms embedded into his skin as he scowled at the Human in front of him. He was going to shift forms. Never in his life had Stephen got to witness the shift so up close and personal to a half-breed. It was one thing with other shifters like himself, but half-breeds had not been born for this. He’d seen one half-breed in his life, had even shifted with him. Phoenix, a bitten wolf his friend had found, but this … this was so much more than that. He was almost thankful for his predicament, just to watch the anguish wash over Lee’s face like a damn good, fuck you.
Lee slid his jacket down his back and then folded it into a neat pile which he put on the ground beside him. He didn’t break eye contact with the Human as he did. A real hunter who didn't look away.
As Lee removed his tie and then unbuttoned his shirt, understanding formed on the Human’s face. A sudden realisation that what was in front of him and what would happen. He put his hands up again. “I didn’t mean anything. You were talking to someone. I thought it was me.”
“Does it bother you I was? Is it any of your business who I talk to and when?”
“No, but—”
A sneer. Lee’s Human teeth were still in his mouth, but his tiger teeth were also a little visible—small fangs that grazed over his bottom lip as he spoke. He must have nicked himself too because a tiny droplet of blood bubbled on his lip and he licked it away.
Moving sideways, Lee circled his prey slowly. They were so dumb they didn't even notice the very basic stalking moves he was using. The quiet Human just watched, but he had his companion to thank for what came next. Lee was too far gone now. Even Stephen would have struggled, and he was his maker.
“Slower,” Stephen said, inching closer to them all, wanting in on the action. He was almost trembling with the anticipation of it all. He envied Lee a little. It had been a long time since he had hunted anything in the wild. That thrill … the chase. God, he could nearly feel the wind through his fur.
Lee didn't drop to the ground as Stephen expected. The bones in his back and arms rippled. He'd taken off his shirt and put it with the jacket. Now he stood with his arms out, head back, eyes on the target as his teeth came down and claws came out from under his nails.
It was just then when the Humans grew balls and tried to run. Too little, too late. The quiet one went first, spinning out of the path, and then he tried to climb out of the way. The other Human followed, and as survival kicked into them, they pushed each other out of the way, fighting for the only spot that could save them, but with their fight came doom and delays, and Lee leapt into the air and brought one clawed hand down into the quiet one’s back. He wasn’t quiet as the claws came out of his chest. His scream was loud, high-pitched, music to Stephen’s beastly ears. Then he fell with a wet slop, and his innards pooled in front of him.
Lee tossed him away like nothing … a rag doll with no meaning, no purpose. Lee’s eyes went to the other Human, and he muttered something inaudible as he ran.
The other Human charged to get up the embankment, but Lee grabbed him by the ankle and tossed him down with the same ease he would have done if the man was a child. He jumped down and landed with perfection, straddling the Human’s waist. The Human brought his hands up to defend himself, but Lee caught the back of his hand, knocked his arms out of the way, slashed again, and took with it a claw full of nose and an eye. The Human screamed, grabbed for his own face and left his chest bare for Lee to slam his hands down and take out his heart.
Stephen was proud.
Chapter 8
“Well, that kind of went a little sideways,” Stephen said, rocking back on his heels and taking pleasure in the tormented expression that had frozen Lee into place. Hands dripping with blood and eyes so wild, even Stephen would have stepped out of the way for him. Lee moved with such rigidness, his back straight, his shoulders bunched around his ears. The man was well toned; Stephen had to give him that. Some strips that had been carved into his flesh spread wider where he had bulked up his muscle.
Lee’s glance was a piercing gaze across the veil of space, and Stephen waved a hand again, making sure the other man couldn’t see him. “You hear me, don’t you? You can hear what I am saying?”
Flared nostrils. A frown so deep it brought Lee’s brows together in a sinister expression. He rubbed at his ears, and pressed a knuckle into one, smearing blood across the side of his face. “Get out of my head.”
Stephen laughed, but at the same time, he played over the possibilities of what this meant and how it was even possible. Right then, though, he couldn't have been given a more significant gift, and he circled Lee, watched him. He resisted the urge to lean in and whisper "Boo."
Along the bridge where the bus was, tyres sounded, giving a rubbery thump as the wheels bounced over the gaps between the planks. Lee heard it too, and the very sound seemed to make him relax and remember that he was a man and not the beast he had half shifted into.
By the time Councillor Benjamin Norton, Lee’s uncle, stood at the edge of the road where the earth sloped down, Lee had shifted from his
half man, half tiger back to himself and he’d put his shirt on and fastened it to the button before the top.
Ben Norton stared down, taking everything in like the king of shit.
“Oh, you’re in trouble now,” Stephen offered. He clasped his hands behind his back, pushed out his chest and scoffed out a sound.
Lee spun on his heel, eyes going wide. “How to fuck …” His eyes had gone back to their normal colour. Funny really, they didn’t glow like usual half-breeds. Bitten shifters were almost always distinguishable as to what they were. Their animals burnt wildly in their eyes constantly. When Phoenix had completed his transformation from Human to Other, his eyes had gained a bright blueness to them that was both striking and marking, but Lee … the colour faded back to his usual. “I can hear you,” Lee said, ignoring his uncle’s arrival. “Stop being a coward and show yourself.”
“Coward? From the man who locks up Others and puts them in shackles.”
Lee narrowed his eyes and peered at the direction of Stephen’s voice.
“What happened here,” Ben said when he came down. He’d got himself down the embankment managing, somehow, to not scuff his neatly polished shoes. He saw then, the full extent of what had happened, and it was amusing to watch his expression change as he took in every detail of this scene. “I struggle to find the right words to ask the right questions. And I struggle to understand what went on here.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Lee waved a hand and dismissed his uncle. “It’s all dealt with.” One wound on Lee’s face had opened a little, and it wept. He pulled a tissue from his trouser pocket and dabbed it. “I’ll send a clean-up crew over when I get back to the office. Give those sweepers something to do for a change.”
“It’ll take more than a couple of sweepers to get this mess removed.”
Lee gave a shrug and a momentary glance to his uncle. “I’ll pay them extra.”
Ben was in front of one Human Lee had taken out and he tapped at him with the tip of his shoe, then he screwed up his face. “It needs cleaning up right away. Before someone discovers it and finds one of our buses hanging off the side of the road.”
“This road isn’t busy. It took a day to get notice that anything had gone wrong.”
"Maybe not, but the less attention we get, the better. Tell the sweepers to make this a priority and they will be greatly compensated." A sneer … a hidden secret in that sadistic smile, but then it was gone almost as fast, and his face was back to businessman.
Maybe it was a skill people gained when they reached a certain age. For as long as Stephen could remember, his father had always held his face still and gave nothing away even when the worst disaster was about to hit his fan and spread out like a piece of shit.
“As you wish,” Lee said. He picked up his tie and his jacket but put neither of them on. His tie, he stuffed into a pocket and the jacket he held draped over his arm.
“A day has passed already …”
"Yes. I know." Lee was looking for something or someone. Stephen kept out of their way and remained silent. He just wanted to watch them. To listen to them. They were both arseholes in their own games, but it seemed, out of the two, Lee was the honest one, but then he wasn't a politician, and Ben was.
“Do I need to remind you of the meeting next week? Of the importance of it?”
Lee circled his uncle, kicking bits of dirt over the blood, burying it half-heartedly. “No. I get it.”
Ben came forward, closer to Lee. “Do you?”
Lee paused, so did Stephen, waiting for whatever else Ben needed to say, except Lee sighed with it.
“You treat this like it is of little importance. Without me, you—”
“Without you, I wouldn’t have to listen to this drivel and go to pointless meetings. I could do things my way.”
“Your way? You mean like this?” Ben fanned his hands out to the horror scene around his feet. “I left you in charge of the tiger and look what happened. Where is he? And the woman?” Then he paused and let his eyes sweep across the bodies again. “Perhaps we could use this to our advantage. Tell the world Nick did this and all his wrongdoings. It created quite a stir the last time amongst the money hunters.”
Money Hunters … they were the wrong version of sweepers. They had no sides, no morals. The only thing that bothered them was money, and how much of it they could get. It didn't matter what the task was if the price was right.
Xander had been a money hunter when Helena had found him. He’d been injured, lost his eye when his place of business had been destroyed. But he had spent a few years roaming the roads for anyone out after curfew and then pitching them against others in a battle to their death. Only victory gained freedom for anyone he caught.
“People will question,” Lee said. “They will ask what we were doing.”
Another shrug. “Perhaps, but then it really depends on how it is all portrayed. If we scare people enough, the mobs will do our work for us. Take this idiot here.” Ben kicked at the Human Stephen had landed on and Lee jolted. Surely Norton had to know who that was, if he was Lee’s uncle, then he had to know the man on the ground. “Father of two,” he continued. “Slaughtered while ensuring the safe transportation of Nicholas Mason. Now he leaves behind a dutiful and heartbroken wife, and two children will grow up without their father. We touch on their bleeding hearts. The women will fear, and the men will act, and that tiger won’t be able to move an inch without someone aiming a silver bullet at his head.”
“He didn’t have a wife, or—”
"I know, but no one will check. Give them a good enough sob story and fear will take over. Give them something they can relate to, and that same fear will niggle at them until they act."
“You’re sick,” Stephen said.
Lee looked, paused as if he was listening and then said, “I am not worried about where he is just now. I’ll find him. He’ll show his face sooner or later. That sweet wife of his, she’ll come begging.”
“You cannot be sure of that.”
“And you can’t rely on the manipulation of the people. They’re not all idiots. It takes one to look. One to check, and then we’re done. I will get Nick back myself, and I will get those children. I find him, and I find her.”
“You make it sound simple.”
There was a flicker of colour in Lee’s eyes as his tiger reared. Even Stephen felt the rush of fur against his skin. “It is. She has a mother’s instinct. We get Nick, we get her, and then we have everything.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Lee moved away from his uncle, and he pulled the cracked ball from his pocket. "I am."
Chapter 9
Norton would do precisely what he proposed; play to the hearts of the thousands and manipulate them into believing more of his corporate bullshit. It would probably work for him too. People like Benjamin Norton always fell into a vat so deep with shit, they were lucky they didn't drown in it. Then, the next day, forget the roses, they got up stinking like an entire florist.
It didn't seem like Lee cared for his uncle's proposition, but he said nothing about it to him when they parted their ways. When he got into his car, he also didn't notice the silent passenger who got in beside him. Stephen kept his mouth tight and his words stuck in his chest, vengeance strumming the bows of his heart. But it was hard. Watching Lee, watching his uncle, it made Stephen's skin burn with the fury he had no way to release. He stared out of the window, again, as he'd done so many times already on these journeys in Exile. Lee was driving in almost the same direction the bus had been heading except, instead of going along the main road, he pulled off into a side lane that dipped, and when the main building came into view, instead of going around the main gate and through the security, Lee took a turn down a path, which ran under the facility—a cave.
There were two signs on the wall closest to the door that led into the building. One of them read, Benjamin Norton and the other, Lee Norton. Lee pulled into his own space, yanked up the handbrake, an
d sat in his seat for a good moment before getting out.
If this was anyone else, anyone but Lee, Stephen might have thought the man behind the wheel with his head back against the seat was leaning back and thinking about all the wrong he’d done. Perhaps he would even go over the guilt he was feeling. But this was Lee, and Lee had no feelings.
Stephen got out of the car. He had the advantage he didn't need to open the door. He slid sideways, put his legs out and stood. It was scary really, how soon he had been accustomed to travelling through walls and objects. Maybe this was what death was like. Maybe one day, when he really took a final voyage, he'd be able to wander through the world passing through walls, buildings, cars, people. He supposed it would grow tiresome. It explained to him why things such as poltergeists existed. Where would the fun be spending an eternity being able to walk with the living and do little else? He was almost looking forward to that part himself.
The place was an underground garage, except the only cars to go in there belonged to anyone with the name of Norton. Family privileges, Stephen supposed. Three doors went off the garage. One of them was close to where Lee had parked his car, another was a double-door which Stephen surmised went down to the basement, another basement. The last one was just a plain solid thing, probably nothing more than a closet full of secrets.
When Lee got out of the car and went into the building, Stephen followed behind him like a shadow lurking in the dark. Even though Stephen had spent two years in the facility, he’d never been in this area. “I’m hurt,” Stephen said, peering around at the plush carpet, the whitewashed walls and the pictures hanging in frames dotted along the corridor. “Lived here with you for two years, and you never gave me the grand tour.”
Lee stopped, brows drawn together as he looked around for the source of the voice. He used the knuckle of his finger again and poked it against his ear to clear out whatever it was, and with a shake of his head, he dismissed what he’d heard and carried on walking.