Inhuman Heritage

by Sonnet O'Dell

  I sat back in the chair, squeak, and started to stroke my chin as I thought.

  “So if someone, not a candidate, got hold of the seal and forced the anointer to say the words and stamp him…” Simian’s eyes filled with horror, growing large and round.

  “Then he’d be king, we’d have to follow him.”

  “That means,” I said jumping to my feet, “that Sorin isn’t safe. They’ll try for him again tonight. I’ve got to get back to him.” I ran out the door leaving the devastating light of realization shining over Simian.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The community hall was dark. I pushed the main door open slowly and peered into the foyer. The torches were all out but I could still just about make out the shimmer of the water pool thanks to a stream of moonlight through the window slits. I closed the door careful not to make any sound a werewolf-bitten or not-could hear. I wished I had gone with Brie to the kid’s room, then I would know exactly where it was I was rushing to. I didn’t want to relight the torches either just in case I would alert them. I wanted the element of surprise. I didn’t know right now–even if the adrenaline was pumping through me-if I’d have enough strength to take on a werewolf and if there was more than one, I’d have no chance. Surprising them would be best. I followed the line of the wall around the pool and down the left hand corridor where I found the door was ajar. Someone had been this way before me. The gap was just large enough for me to slip through without disturbing the door further and I almost tripped over the first step. I steadied myself taking a deep breath before inching down a step at a time. I came down at the end of a long hallway in the middle of which two torches were lit either side of one of the doors and a shape lay sprawled across the floor. From the clothes he was wearing, black on black and the large contusion steadily seeping blood on the back of his skull, that he’d been put on guard outside Sorin’s room. I moved quickly and quietly to his side. His pulse was still good so he was just out cold and would probably recover given a little time and some bandages.

  There was a commotion in the room behind me so I crab-walked to the frame and peeked around. Another man was in the room, he was on his hands and knees snatching at something under the bed. Sorin must have hidden under there, smart boy. I pushed myself up the wall to my feet and readied myself to attack. I didn’t think much about it, once I was in the room I leapt onto the guy’s back wrapping my legs around his middle and forcing my arm to lock under his neck. I put as much pressure as I could on his throat. He reared up, startled, and tried to throw me off. On his feet the guy had to be at least six foot and my head was brushing the ceiling. He tried to reach back behind him pulling at my clothes to get me off but I was sticking to him like a barnacle.

  Soon he began to realize that he was losing air and opened deep red rivets on my forearm trying to pry me loose. I increased the pressure. Gasping and flailing he dropped to his knees and finally fell face down on the floor. I held on just a little longer to be sure he was out. I released my grip and pressed my ear to the back of his chest. His heartbeat thrummed and his breathing was shallow but good. I slid off him and looked under the bed.

  “Sorin? Sorin, it’s Cassandra. It’s okay now.”

  There was a flash of movement under the bed and I was bowled over onto my butt by the weight of his small body hitting mine. I held on tight to him smoothing my hand over his curls and murmuring things to him. The light turned on above us and I blinked at the harsh glow. Simian had caught up and he looked a little out of breath. He looked between the guy on the floor and the small boy nuzzling my chest sobbing softly.

  “Do you know him?” I could see in the light now that the other man was blonde, fit, wearing tight blue jeans and a plaid shirt over a white T-shirt. Simian nodded sadly.

  “I do and his sponsor. He’s only been with us for three moons.”

  “That just makes him an easy target for manipulation especially if he’s still angry about being turned.”

  “Is he dead?” asked Simian unsure.

  “No, just out cold. I figured we can question him when he regains consciousness.” I lifted Sorin slowly and sat him on the edge of the bed. He rubbed at his eyes that were wet and red.

  “Why do they not like me?” he pleaded.

  “Oh honey, it’s not that. They want you to do something for them but you absolutely mustn’t.”

  “What do they want?” he sniffed. Slowly telegraphing my intent so as not to frighten him further, I pulled the leather thong around his neck up out of his shirt.

  “They want this. You must promise me that you will not use it, not speak your words until the ceremony with the right people, no matter what they say.”

  “I promise.”

  “Now they’ll try to scare you but remember they can’t hurt you because this,” I said holding up the brand, “is just a stick without you.”

  He nodded and gave me a weak little smile. I hugged him because that seemed to cheer him and praised him for being so very, very brave.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed next to Sorin smoothing my hand over his hair and his damp cheek before stepping back to kneel by the unconscious werewolf. I slowly rolled him over. His hair was that dirty medium blonde and when I lifted his lids I could see he had very pale blue eyes, the kind that from a distance might seem gray. He looked young with his face, slack from sleep, almost innocent. The guard in the corridor would contest against his innocence most strongly if he were awake though.

  “Can we get a replacement guard and get him some help? Also, is there any way to restrain this guy that he won’t break out of?”

  “Silver chains, it won’t burn him in human form but it will weaken him and stop him from shifting.”

  “Excellent. Where do we get some?”

  “I’ll get some while I take Colin out here to the infirmary and call in one of the medics, shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

  Simian knelt down next to the fallen wolf with the scalp laceration-Colin-got his arm under his shoulder and started to drag him down the corridor. His feet slowly slid out of my view. I rolled the unconscious Were back onto his front and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket to look at his driver’s license. Phillip Danvers. Twenty-eight. He lived in an apartment block that housed most of the single Weres and shifters. Families had homes, you on your own got an apartment. Homes didn’t come up for sale very often because, bar accidents, werewolves can live a very long time. The community didn’t have a lot of land left to develop without taking out some of their hunting ground.

  Simian had said Phillip had only been with them for three moons. He wouldn’t have been drawn into this plot straight away but it means there had been a division within their pack that they hadn’t known about for at least that long. A bitten werewolf wanted to rule and I was betting Phillip would know exactly who. Sorin looked down at him with pity.

  “He hates what he is. He is on a path of destruction one way or another.”

  “Did he touch you then?”

  “He put his hand over my mouth. It was horrible, it tasted salty.” I examined the werewolf’s hands, they were clammy with sweat. He’d been scared and nervous to be kidnapping a young child. Perhaps that guilt could be used as a window to break him into revealing the bigger conspiracy.

  “How could anyone hate themselves so much?” I sidled closer to the bed and patted Sorin’s leg.

  “It depends on the mind-set towards preternaturals before they turn. If you were scared of them, fear leads to hate and if you’ve just become what you hate, it can be hard to deal with.”

  “So if you liked them it would be okay?”

  “Sure, but it’s not all one way or the other, it’s the people in the middle you can never guess with.” That applied to me for instance. Although I didn’t dislike preternaturals and was in fact fond of several in particular I wasn’t an avid fan. Finding out I was preternatural had thrown me through a loop. I felt I h
ad enough problems without adding all the baggage of being a different race-a race I knew nothing about. But I’d also felt intensely guilty for thinking of being preternatural as being bad. Sure you got your bad ones but just like humans there were all kinds of both good and gray creatures. I had to remember that. I had to know more about myself before I could cast judgments.

  “Father E says you can either become who you are meant to be with grace or you can become nothing.”

  “This father E sounds like a very smart man.”

  “He is. He’s my teacher and one day I hope to be just like him only less wrinkly.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I was still chuckling when Simian came back into the room with a length of silver chain.

  “What’s so funny?”

  I wiped at my eyes realizing they’d started to water as Sorin shrugged.

  “Kids say the darndest things. You got some padlocks with that too?” Simian opened his palm to reveal two sturdy looking padlocks and a set of keys. I pulled Phillip’s wrists together behind his back.

  “Wouldn’t in front be easier?”

  “Easier yes, safer no. One thing I have learnt from working with the police is you never bind a potentially violent offender with his hands in front.” I bound the chain round one wrist and locked it into place and then coiled it around his other wrist, looping it around both of them again and again. When I ran out of chain I padlocked it into place. We dragged him between the two of us so he was sitting up against the wall by the door. My ear twitched and my body went rigid with defense as I heard another set of feet come running down the corridor towards us.

  The shifter Brie threw herself into the doorway, her blonde hair was down flowing over her shoulder and she looked like she was in workout clothes, a baggy grey sweatshirt and Lycra leggings in aqua and pink.

  “Simian I got your message. What happened?” She looked to Sorin on the bed, to me and to the bound wolf on the floor then into the corridor. “Where’s Colin?”

  “Infirmary. The kid was attacked. We need you to stay with him.”

  “Sure thing, Simian, but you know I can’t take on a werewolf physically.”

  No, I smirked, all they’d have to do was chase her up a tree. I turned away from them while I tried to fight my smile.

  “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about another strike tonight, right Cassandra.”

  I turned back my face now under perfect control.

  “Not if we catch whoever is responsible quickly.”

  “Why does that not reassure me?” said Brie looking at me miffed. I searched in my pocket for chalk and came up with a small piece.

  “You want reassurance, I can do that.” I drew a ward quickly on the door, pierced my skin and grabbing her finger jabbed its tip with my nail till it bled.

  “Ow!” she complained as I pushed our fingers into the center circle. The room vibrated with magic and then settled.

  “Only you or I should be able to open this door now.” After a few turns of Simian trying to open it from both the inside and the outside, Brie was relatively reassured. She turned to Sorin who’d watched the whole process with apparent fascination.

  “Looks like it’s going to be just you and me for a little while.”

  “Cheese!” he said grinning. Brie gave an exasperated little sigh and bent over him.

  “No, Sorin, my name is Brie.”

  I laughed and her fierce eyes looked at me through the tresses of her hair. She was quite plainly telling me that the kitty cat had claws.

  “The kid knows that, he’s just messing with you.” She looked back to Sorin who was nodding enthusiastically. Brie straightened heading for the cupboard.

  “Shall we see what entertainments they packed in here for you.”

  I shut the door on her and quickly went over to Simian to help him support the dead weight of the unconscious Mister Durrant.

  “Where do we take him?” I asked as we started down the corridor going the opposite way from where I’d come in.

  “There is a room for this sort of thing further below. It has not been used for some time so some of the implements may be rusty.”

  “Implements?” I must have looked as shocked as I sounded but before Simian could answer me there came a groan from between us. “Looks like Rip Van Winkle’s forty winks are up.”

  “Let’s get him downstairs before he wakes up enough to struggle.”

  I agreed and we increased our pace heading to the lighted area in front of the main chamber. The torches on the wall flickered in a turf war with the shadows across the walls.

  “Who lit up the place?”

  “I did coming in behind you, I took the route I thought you would have known best but you were too far ahead of me.”

  “Oh man,” moaned Phillip waking up further. We made it into the middle of the room when the lights around us were all doused without warning.

  “Hey what happened?” I felt a bump to the bodies on my right and Phillip’s weight became a lot more. “Simian?” I couldn’t see anything in the sudden darkness. A blow to my gut sent me spinning towards the floor. I hit it with a bump slightly scraping my face.

  “Simian?” I called but got no answer. I pulled my magic to me. “Lights!”

  The torches on the wall exploded back in flame but there was no sign of our attacker. Simian was groaning on the ground near the stairs holding his head. I’d been pushed back towards the corridor we’d just exited and lying between us with his throat ripped out was Phillip’s lifeless body. His eyes were glassy as the blood began to pool on the floor under his chin and his silence was complete.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Simian lay on a cot nursing his head. The medic had said he was going to be fine but I was worried by the blood gushing from his temple where he’d bashed it against the stone stairs. I sat on a stool next to him trying to ignore the medic fussing over my arm that was barely injured.

  “Did you see anything? Smell anything?” I asked him in a low voice. Simian opened one eye to look at me, started shaking his head and then groaned closing his eyes.

  “No, it was too fast. But it seems clear what their goal was.”

  “Yes. They must have had someone watching for him and when you brought in chains and the medic…”

  “They knew he’d failed and that we’d make him talk,” he said interrupting me. The medic finished with my arm and I pulled it in to wrap over my stomach, the new bandages brushing the old.

  “He’s not going to be talking now.” I looked across the room, just past where the unconscious guard lay, to another cot with a blanket over the dead body of Phillip Durrant.

  “This is getting very serious, Cassandra.” Simian was looking at me now, both eyes open and filled with concern.

  “I never thought it wasn’t but whoever they are they’re getting desperate now. The ceremony is in the morning.” Simian tried to sit up but I put my hand on his chest forcing him back down on the cot. “You lie still. You might have a concussion or something. I want you to rest.”

  “Cassandra, you can’t go after these people on your own. DJ is gone and now I am out, who does that leave to protect you?” I smiled down at him, I didn’t want to insult my friend by telling him how little I needed to be protected. I was quite capable of taking care of myself.

  “Of course I won’t. Now you get some rest or I’m going to have to call Sophie.” He cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “Try me.”

  He closed his eyes and gave in. Simian didn’t fear his wife until someone was sick. She’d panic and fuss and drive him completely insane. Werewolves didn’t get sick often and when they did it was usually very serious which would only make her worse. I could imagine why Sophie would get like that. I watched his breathing fall into a constant rhythm and his eyes fluttered under their lids as he nodded off. I stood slowly nodding to the medic as I went out the door back into the corridor.

  No one had cleaned the blood off the fl
oor yet. It lay pooled in the middle of the large hall in front of the main chamber. I stood at the edge of the floor leaning against the wall looking at the shimmering dark red stain. I felt sorry for Phillip Durrant. He’d had no time to repent, he died when he didn’t have to and now he would be buried as a traitor. I didn’t know what they did with the bodies of enemies and I had the feeling it wasn’t something I wanted to know. But it made one thing certain in my mind; whoever was in charge of this coup was ruthless-I suppose that’s why they thought it okay to go after a kid.

  Standing there in that corridor looking across the way something struck a chord in my memory. Phillip Durrant’s face had seemed very familiar to me, his eyes especially striking. I had seen him before, just the day before in fact, in this same corridor arguing with another man. A man with dark colored hair and a face that had screamed bad to the bone. He’d been talking to Seth Brogan, the other security person for the candidates. The only other person who would have known all the details of our arrangement, where we were going and when. He was also a turned Were not a pure blood. I had to know more about Seth Brogan, he was the most likely suspect I’d had all night. I considered waking Simian but he needed his rest and I didn’t want him to get knocked around anymore tonight, he had a family that couldn’t do without him. It was best to just leave him where he was but I was still going to need his help. I started back towards the infirmary past which was several offices, one of which belonged to Simian. Simian worked in PR which in his case stood for both Press Relations and Personal Relations. He handled dealings with the outside world as well as internal dealings such as new comers, sponsors and housing. His office door was simple wood with a frosted glass window and a small gold nameplate underneath that stated who the office belonged to. Across from his door was another that belonged to Brie and adjacent to it was an office for the king. I had a feeling that they adjoined.

  I tried the handle to find the door was locked for the evening as it should be. I had no problem with that. With a smile I placed my hand over the lock, unleashed a little thread of power and heard it click open. I turned the handle and stepped inside the dark office. I could make out a desk in front of the window at the far end and some bookcases and filing cabinets lined an entire wall. I skirted around the desk slowly as not to trip on any wires or anything and snapped on the desk light. A dim glow illuminated the desk and chased the shadows up the wall above the filing cabinets. I didn’t know where to start. There were applications sitting on his desk for new wolves who wanted to move into the community. It was one of the few safe places for werewolves to live without fear of constant persecution. They couldn’t take everyone of course, so Simian had to sort through looking for people who had skills that could really benefit them. Seth however was not new, he had to have been in the community for a while to have worked his way up being big in community security, probably how he had gotten to the turned gate guard-Sphynx boy. However, as Seth was not a pureblood he would not have been born in the community so at some point he too would have had to apply for a house, so there would be paperwork with his address on it. I tilted the lamp to shine it on the filing cabinets scanning the labels. The third one in was listed as housing applications. I set the lamp back up straight and jimmied the draw open flipping through the alphabet looking for Brogan.