I scanned my group, who all responded in the affirmative. The Secretary of State, the Director, and Deputy Director Nathanson did likewise. Sarah beamed a smile as she turned and led us out of the conference room.
15
Sarah led us down the hall and into the West Wing. We passed through a series of hallways until we arrived at our destination. If I had felt intimidated at the thought of meeting the President, meeting the President in the Oval Office only added to it. The fact that I had just saved her from harm, maybe even saved her life, did nothing to lessen the intimidation factor.
When Sarah opened the door, we found the President leaning against the Resolute Desk. She righted herself as we entered and walked straight to me.
“Thank you,” she said. “I… that knife…”
“Please, ma’am, don’t give the matter any further thought. I’m glad we were there when he finally felt cornered. How many meetings are there when it’s just you, him, and other Cabinet-level officials?”
“Too many to bear thinking on,” the President replied, then gestured to the sitting area. “Please, everyone, be seated and comfortable.”
We chose our seats but waited for the President to sit first. I noticed a couple meaningful looks pass between the President and Secretary of State, and I suspected hugs would be exchanged once they were alone and could be just two women who’d been friends since elementary school.
“So, as I recall,” the President said, “you wanted us to look into the black ops organization that’s hunting one of your shifters. I have no problem with that, even if it were not part of our obligations under the treaty. Did they ever explain why they were hunting her?”
I couldn’t keep from sharing a glance with my ladies before turning back to the President. “They collected numerous reports of a woman who could turn into a giant bird, ma’am. They wanted to collect her for ‘study.’”
The President blanched. “Oh, my. Even if those rumors were true, that’s horrible. I’m glad you brought this to our attention.”
I wanted to tell her they weren’t rumors, but it was Sloane’s choice whether she be included in the shifter database. I didn’t know if Doc had included me in there yet, but if this ‘Consul’ nonsense was going to stick, he might as well. It might make future discussions easier if people knew they sat across a table from a thousand-pound sabertooth cat.
“I also understand that Miss Magnusson brings a matter of Magi concern, but before we get to that, I would like to see greater contact and communication between shifters and the government. Would you accept a consular office in Precious?”
Oh, shit… this was getting way, way out of hand. “Ma’am, with all due respect, I’m not sure Precious is the right choice. The Shifter Council meets in Chicago, and I would think they would be the natural and best focus for a consular office.”
“Please forgive my interruption,” Lyssa interjected, “as Wyatt introduced me earlier, I am one of the feline representatives on the Shifter Council. As such, I was both a witness to and a participant in the discussion that established the position of Consul of the Shifter Nation, so I feel it incumbent upon me to clarify a misunderstanding. The Council of the Shifter Nation of North America intended the position of Consul to be on par with other heads of state such as yourself, so Precious is very much the place to establish a consular office if you feel such is needed or desired.”
Well, damn. She threw me under the bus… again.
The President looked from me to Lyssa several times. Her expression soon betrayed her curiosity, and I wondered if Lyssa would yet again speak up. This time, though, the lioness seemed to think silence was the better part of valor.
I turned to the Secretary of State. “If you are directed by the President to establish a consular office in Precious, I recommend you contact Alistair Cooper. He is essentially my right hand in managing the town, and I suspect I’ll lean on him even more in the future once this ‘Consul’ nonsense fleshes out into a full-time headache.”
And just like that, the light of understanding flared in the President’s mind. At least she chose her fate. The Shifter Council pretty much drafted me. The Secretary of State and the President shared a quick glance before the President cleared her throat and looked to Vicki, asking, “And what matter did the Magi Assembly wish to address?”
Vicki produced a manila envelope and laid it on the coffee table between her and the President. “That envelope contains memory cards with a recording of a meeting I was summoned to by agents of the federal government. A second memory card contains pictures of the people we spoke with and interacted with, as well as PDFs of all email communications… including the email that delivered the coordinates to which I was to portal for the meeting. If I had not asked Karleen to accompany me, I would now be detained in some government black site as an enemy combatant with no due process or notification of my family, because I refused to surrender the Magi formulae for -bane weapons and ammunition.”
The President and the Secretary of State shot each other a confused look before Lucy asked, “I’m sorry, but would you mind explaining what ‘bane’ means in this context?”
“Sorry. That is kind of a Magi thing. So… for centuries, Magi have developed and maintained formulae to create imbued items, basically embed magic into items to achieve a desired effect. I have a ring of elemental protection right now; I’m never too hot or too cold. As long as I wear it, I won’t suffer heat exhaustion or frostbite. We have many, many formulae for imbued items, but the recent unpleasantness in the Pacific Northwest brought -bane weapons and ammunition to everyone’s attention. Everyone knows the so-called werewolves have a vulnerability to silver, right?”
Heads nodded around the room, even the protection agents.
“Wrong. I could shoot my brother with a silver bullet, and it wouldn’t do any more damage to him than a hollow-point or armor-piercing bullet in the same caliber… which is almost none. In fact, given how soft silver is, it would probably do less damage than regular bullets. Shifters are damned hard to kill… unless you use a shifter-bane weapon or shifter-bane ammunition. Same thing with the intelligent undead. Holy water just makes them wet, and my grandfather witnessed a pope trying to hold a vampire at bay with a crucifix. The vampire ate him before the pope made it ten words into his chant.”
“Which pope was that?” the President gasped.
Vicki looked at me, and I could see the gears turning. Then, she turned back to the others. “Uhm… Damasus II, I think? Maybe? It might have been Pius III. Grandpa said he was young at the time, and it was before he met Grams. But getting back to the -bane weapons, the Magi Assembly has no intention of releasing the formula for them in any way, shape, or form. Further, the guy in the meeting assured me that his people already have a Magi to do the work; they just needed the formulae. The Magi Assembly wants independent verification that—if this Magi exists—he or she is not being held against his or her will, like these people attempted with me. Much like the Shifter Nation, we agreed to the co-mingling of Magi among the American citizenry with certain provisions, but if the government prefers a more distant relationship, the Assembly is willing to go that route.”
“It seems we have some work to do,” the President remarked, “not to mention relationship repair.”
I looked to each of the government people before settling on the President. “I would think a month is more than sufficient to expect a preliminary investigation report… on both of these issues.”
The Director and Deputy Director Nathanson gaped at me. When he spoke, the Director’s voice was almost a squeak. “A month? There’s no way you can expect us to deliver a report in a month.”
“With all due respect, sir, you haven’t seen the depth and breadth of the evidence we’re handing you,” I countered. “We’ll retain custody of the black ops team, but your people are more than welcome to visit Precious to interview them. I honestly don’t care what you do with the black ops group. I just want Sloane’s name and record cleared, s
o she doesn’t have warrants plaguing her, and I want this group to stop hunting shifters. Personally, if they had built their base inside one of the shifter enclaves, I would never have brought the matter to your attention; they’d be dead now. But as I feel very confident that the base is within United States territory, I do not want to endanger our relationship.”
The Director turned to Nathanson. “What are your thoughts? Since both of these issues fall squarely inside your side of the house, your people will take point on them.”
Nathanson leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees as he stared at the carpet. When he resumed a sitting posture, he answered, “We should put a team together under Special Agents Hauser and Burke. Hauser earned SAiC not long before that kerfuffle with the child trafficking operation, and both agents have experience and a good rapport with both the shifters and the Magi. They’re still technically liaising with the shifters and Magi on the child trafficking thing, but I haven’t heard any new developments lately.”
“The entire operation has gone to ground… hard,” Vicki offered. “We have Magi who specialize in fugitive location and retrieval working the case alongside shifters with similar expertise, but it’s been a hard slog. We have cut off the one point of access we know where they obtained charms from a hedge wizard, but that hasn’t shaken anything loose as of yet. How are the abduction rates? Have they remained steady, increased, or dropped?”
“Ah… honestly, I’d have to call for that information,” Nathanson replied. “It’s not something that normally crosses my desk.”
“Since Hauser and Burke are already liaising with the shifters and Magi,” the Director said, “and since they seem to be in something of a holding pattern at the moment, I see no reason they can’t assemble a team to investigate these two matters.” The Director made eye contact with the President. “Ma’am, with your permission, I’ll direct Deputy Director Nathanson to implement that tasking with orders that Hauser and Burke report both to us and the Magi and shifters.”
The President nodded once. “Yes. That sounds like an excellent idea to me, and Director, please copy me and the Secretary of State on all reports associated with both investigations.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“I don’t suppose you’re interested in being Attorney General?” the President asked, a slight smile curling her lips.
The Director swallowed hard. “Uhm, ma’am, I’m happy to serve in whatever office or capacity you need, but I am rather happy where I am.”
“Ah, well,” the President replied, “like my undergraduate Composition professor told me, nobody’s perfect.” Amused expressions circled through the group. “Do we have any other official business?”
Everyone looked to one another. I said, “I think we’ve discussed all the shifter-related business I came to discuss. Vicki?”
“We’ve addressed all the Magi business.”
Neither the Director, Deputy Director Nathanson, nor the Secretary of State had any business.
“Very well, then,” the President said. She stood, and we followed suit. “Director Ames, Deputy Director Nathanson… thank you both for coming today. Lucy, do you have time to discuss the consular office further?”
“Of course, ma’am,” the Secretary of State replied.
The Director and Nathanson thanked the President for her time and bowed out of the Oval Office. As soon as the door latched, the President turned back to us, her expression once more akin to child-like delight as she asked, “How rude would it be if I asked to see your Smilodon?”
I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. “Well, I don’t consider it rude, myself, but I don’t know how born shifters see it.”
Gabrielle and Karleen leaned into me from either side as Gabrielle said, “Oh, we never mind any reason to get your fur on.”
I pointed to the door over my shoulder. “What’s through that door? I could shift right now, but I’d destroy my clothes. Vicki could spin me a new set, because she created these, but doing so might alarm your protection detail unnecessarily.”
“That door connects to a private dining room,” the President answered. “I don’t mind passing word to the staff that the room’s off limits for a time, but I’d really like to see you shift if you don’t mind. Frankly, I’ve been fascinated with shifters ever since I read the brief… something like a week after my inauguration.”
“Mind spinning me up some new threads, sis?”
Vicki grinned. “Not at all, brother dear.”
I stood and moved away from the sitting area. I stood in an open space that allowed access through a couple doors and tried to eyeball the dimensions. The space looked wide and long enough. I turned my attention to my audience, asking, “Ready?”
The President and Secretary of State both nodded, their expressions eager.
I touched that part of my mind that was no longer human and willed the shift.
Olivia Williams almost couldn’t believe she had a shifter in the Oval Office who was going to shift for her. It took all her willpower not to squee like a teenage fangirl, despite being in her mid-40s. Ever since she read the brief and sat through the initiation that humans were not alone on the planet, she wanted nothing more than to meet a shifter. And now…?
Wyatt’s clothing exploded. Strips of fabric and shoe leather flew everywhere. Where a handsome young man stood just moments before, a massive cat unseen on Earth in thousands of years now stood. His shoulders were taller than the back of the sofa, and she could see his coloration was very similar to modern African lions. Unlike the modern lion, though, Wyatt had tiger stripes a deeper tawny color than his coat. Wyatt padded around the sofa, and Olivia decided he had underestimated the length of his incisors; they were closer to eight inches long. He stopped about two feet away from the President and sat on his haunches, then lifted one forepaw. She could actually see the tendons and muscles flex in his paw to extend five claws that glistened in the light. She stood and leaned closer for a better look, marveling at the claws’ size. She reached a finger toward his right incisor.
Wyatt pulled back at the same time one of Wyatt’s associates said, “Stop!”
Olivia froze and turned toward the woman who spoke. “What’s wrong?”
“Shifter blood and saliva—either one—are almost guaranteed to turn a regular human into a shifter,” the woman Wyatt had introduced as Gabrielle explained, “and since Wyatt is a primogenitor, there’s no telling what breed of shifter you’d become.”
“Oh,” Olivia said. “May I pet him at least?”
Wyatt bobbed his head in a nod at the same Gabrielle answered, “Sure. We love the texture of his fur.”
Olivia placed her hand on Wyatt’s head between his ears and stepped closer as Wyatt stood so she could slide her hand along his spine. She glanced at Agent Harald and saw he looked a little wild around his eyes. When she brought her hand back to scratch Wyatt’s head between his ears and Wyatt gave a huge, contented yawn, poor Agent Harald looked ready to have a coronary.
“Be careful about scratching him, too,” Karleen opined. “If you hit the proper spot, you’ll put him right to sleep, and good luck moving him for a couple hours.”
“Having a sleeping Smilodon in my office wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
Karleen scoffed. “You say that now, but you haven’t seen him shed.”
16
Nadine Givens exited the passenger side of her family’s SUV and took in the small-town ambiance. In so many ways, Precious reminded her of the mining town where she and her siblings grew up. A town long since abandoned as economic realities evolved.
The convoy of five SUVs bearing her immediate family drew more than the occasional long look from passers-by, and Nadine popped a piece of her mother’s home-made peppermint candy into her mouth. Since her childhood, peppermint had been her go-to weapon in the fight when her nerves became unsettled.
Nadine felt that even peppermint might not be up to the task this time around, though. No… th
is time, the peppermint candy faced its most fearsome foe yet. Not bills. Not a child’s health scare. Not a disagreement with her mate. Oh, no. Those were easy compared to this. The source of her unsettled nerves now was none other than her baby sister, Karleen.
Walt, her mate and husband and father of her children, walked around the front of their SUV and stopped at her side. “So, tell me again why moving the family get-together to Precious without even asking Karleen or the local Alpha was a good idea?”
Nadine closed her eyes, counted to five, and huffed a sigh. “Walt, if we don’t take some drastic action, we’re going to lose her… possibly forever. You weren’t there the day I told her about Rick’s newest and how the kids always ask about Aunt Karleen. Our absence in her life is a hole in her heart, and it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s not how wolves live. Family is our bedrock. I don’t know how she made it sixty-odd years by herself alone; I would’ve thought that would drive any wolf shifter insane.”
Walt didn’t quite grimace, then shrugged. “Well, I hope she spares you for the children’s sake at least. Goodness knows, she’s never met me. I’ll go to the hotel and ask them about any vacancies they have.”
* * *
As with every other time the family traveled together, getting everyone and all the luggage out of the vehicles and into the hotel was just slightly less complex than the invasion of Normandy. Fortunately, Precious’s sole hotel had sufficient vacancies, because the Vesper clan took up an entire floor between rooms for children, parents, and grandparents. The wolf shifter working the front desk—a sweetheart named Melody—made the process as easy and straightforward as possible. She even recommended the local diner.
I leaned back against my seat after clearing my plate. Visiting the capital was nice enough, and if I’m being honest, it was great meeting the President. But there’s nothing like home, including Gladys’s diner. Gabrielle told me one time that we weren’t the only shifter family that used the diner as their sole source of food. As much as shifters had to eat just to ‘break even,’ most families would’ve had to have at least one person almost live in the kitchen full time. Plus, when comparing Gladys’s prices versus a grocery bill plus time spent cooking or preparing meals, there wasn’t that much difference in the dollar amount. It might have been different if the cost of living had been higher or if it was a more urban area, but it was the rare shifter or group of shifters who chose urban life full-time over one of the shifter territories across the country.
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