Awakened Alpha

by Chloe Vincent

  What if she had completely screwed up her mission? She now thought. She should have stopped them from going into the cave in the first place. What if there was no possible way for her to help them and they were both killed along with all those other lions? She found an actual tear sliding down her face and shook her head, wiping it away.

  Those are the breaks, she told herself. Sometimes, shit happens. Sometimes-

  “KAAAAAATZ!” Delilah screamed.

  Katz appeared next to her, blipping into view, his hands shoved into his pockets as he stood there on the hillside in front of the cave that looked out over Hollywood. He usually looked happy to see her. At worst, he might look concerned. But right now, he looked sad. He looked like somebody about to break some bad news and Delilah tensed up, bracing herself.

  “What do I do?” Delilah asked, shakily. She sniffed but pretended as if she hasn’t been crying. “How do I free them without, ya’ know, pissing off the Council of Three? I can’t just let them out, I’ll get in trouble. I know that, I know. But what do I do then? Katz…”

  “Hey.” Katz grabbed her hand and squeezed it and he looked into her eyes. To her mind, Katz had very pretty eyes. They were a rich deep brown and they gazed at her steadily until she found herself becoming calmer. “It’s going to be alright, Delilah.”

  “Is it?” Delilah said, not feeling very hopeful. “I assume that means you have a solution then? Gimme something to work with here, Katz.”

  “I don’t have more than what you’ve thought of,” Katz said, sounding way too defeated. “You go in there, you unlock the cell, deactivate the ward. They’re free.” He shrugged, as if it was nothing. But Delilah knew better. Or she had thought she did.

  “What are you saying?” Delilah said, clearing her throat. “I can just do that? The Council of Three would be alright with that?”

  “No,” Katz said, with something almost like a laugh. But he gazed on her sadly. “You can’t do that. I just have no other ideas for you. You can’t defeat Basil yourself. That’s even worse. But there’s no way to free them without inserting yourself too overtly.”

  She shook her head. She felt confused. She must be missing something, she thought. Surely Katz wasn’t telling her that there was simply no solution. Every mission had to have an answer, a way to solve the problem. Besides that, it had all been so easy up until now. She was missing something, she was sure.

  “You’re messing with me,” Delilah said, curling her lip. “There must be something I can do. There must be…”

  “There is something you can do,” he said. “You can defeat the wizard yourself, or go in there and let them out.”

  Delilah felt like he was playing a game and she wasn’t understanding the rules. She scowled at him. “Yeah, and what happens if I do that? What happens if I just let them out?”

  “Then…” Katz sighed and gave her his steady gaze again. It wasn’t making her feel any calmer this time. “Then they’ll demote you. They’ll put you in another department. I don’t know what it’ll be, but it won’t be as good as this. And you’ve already been transferred once. They could put you on… I don’t know. Something much worse. And it will also extend your redemption timeline. You’ll have a lot more to make up for.”

  “What do you mean, something much worse?” She murmured. She had a cold feeling on the back of her neck.

  “I don’t know!” Katz said. “Like...escorting people to the Underworld levels. Those are people who go on a waiting list for redemption. You don’t want to meet them in a dark alley, Let’s put it that way. Plus, you’d have to live in the Underworld levels.”

  “Katz,” Delilah whispered. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand what my options are.”

  “The… The options,” Katz said slowly, “are that you let them out and get penalized for it. Demoted and punished. Or you don’t...and they get killed. Delilah…” He took a deep breath and regarded her sadly. “I’m really sorry. But that’s all there is. There is no other option on the table. If you toss them a key to the cell, it’s the same result.”

  Katz was really failing to make Delilah feel any better. She now felt much worse. It seemed impossible that there was truly nothing she could do to accomplish her mission. She found herself now feeling a sense of empathy for Sam and Gwen, and empathy was hardly something she was used to. Sam, in particular, deserved love and happiness, she felt. He deserved to live the rest of his life by his mate’s side. And Gwen was such a good person. She helped people learn to walk and move again for a living. That was her whole life’s purpose. And besides that, she had spilled blood to wake Sam up. That was supposed to happen, wasn’t it?

  “What was I supposed to do?” Delilah said, turning to glare at Katz. She wanted to blame him for this. She at least wanted to blame somebody and wasn’t he some form of deity? Maybe not omniscient, but he must have had some pull with people who could affect things from on high, she thought. “Tell me what the answer was? I was supposed to stop Gwen from going in the cave, right? Is that it? I should’ve stopped them, I should’ve-”

  “It’s not your fault,” Katz said. “This would have happened anyway. This is what happens to Sam and Gwen.”

  “What do you mean this is what happens?” Delilah said sneering. “You’re saying, no matter what I tried, they would have ended up like this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there’s no way to fix it that’s not totally against the rules and gets me screwed over,” Delilah said.

  “Yes,” Katz whispered.

  Delilah looked at him and burst out laughing. She laughed so hard, she had to lean over and hold her knees. When stood up again, she shook her head and looked at Katz who was not laughing at all. “Well...thanks, Katz. You’ve been a real help. Cheers!”

  Katz reached over and squeezed her shoulder and she only glared at him. “What are you going to do?” He asked softly.

  She threw her hands up. “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”

  “Hmm.” He pursed his lips, regarding her, and nodded once. He looked up toward the sky, as if silently wanting to consult the Council of Three even though, strictly speaking, the Angelic Dimension was not in the sky at all. “I gotta go.”

  “Pfft.” Delilah kicked at a rock. “Alright.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Helpful, Katz, real helpful.”

  He cast her an apologetic look and then he was gone as quickly as he had appeared and she was alone again with her impossible decision.

  Delilah squatted on the ground and folded her hands together, staring at the entrance to the cave. It looked completely unremarkable from where she crouched under the blazing sun of a Los Angeles afternoon.

  There has to be some other way, she thought.

  It seemed as if the Council of Three was trying to trick her with their rules. The rules just seemed so arbitrary. Why was dropping the name of that curse into Gwen’s lap acceptable but unlocking the cell was not acceptable? Why was one so much more “invasive” than the other? She supposed they were immortal omniscient beings and all that. It was safe to assume they knew more of how the universe should be run than she did. But from her tiny spot on a tiny planet in the middle of the universe, she felt she was right.

  The rules were stupid.

  She stared at the entrance to the cave and found herself somewhat enchanted by the black maw of its entrance. Sam and Gwen deserved better, she decided. That was indisputably true. They could simply not be allowed to die. Yet Katz had assured her that the only way to save them was to take an action that would punish her. She wondered what the demotion would be like. She didn’t know much about the Underworld levels of the afterlife, but she had heard enough. Just having to stop by there could be extremely unpleasant at best. And if she had to live there…

  Also, she would get time added on to her redemption timeline. It was long enough to begin with.

  But Sam and Gwen deserved better.

  Delilah found herself standing up and walking to
ward the cave without actually having made the decision. Her body just sort of decided on its own but once she was walking, her mind went along with it.

  I guess I’m doing this, she thought.

  She didn’t think of the possibility of an infinite timeline of always seeking redemption for her crimes on Earth as she walked into the cave and felt the tingle of the spelled shield on her skin. She didn’t think about the possible torment of working in the Underworld levels. It wouldn’t be like working in the Angelic Dimension at all. There weren’t going to be any nice seafood restaurants or cute dive bars. Worst of all, Katz wouldn’t be there. She wasn’t feeling overly appreciative of Katz right now, but she did like Katz. She liked Katz very much. If she was honest. she very much liked her job too. It was fun to visit Earth and stick two people together and watch them fall in love and beat the odds. Now she found herself with a lump in her throat again as she all too easily found the keys to the cell on one of the long work tables where Basil was plotting his nefarious scheme.

  She sighed and pointed the Oracle device back toward the entrance. “Oracle, deactivate that shield.”

  An angry red swirl spun in the middle of the screen. That meant the device could do what Delilah was telling it to do, but it didn’t want to.

  “Oracle, I know it’s against the rules,” Delilah said firmly. “I know what’s going to happen. I don’t care. Deactivate the ward. Do it!”

  The red swirl spun faster and Delilah grunted, frustrated, and slapped the side of the device. “Oracle! Deactivate it right now!” All at once the circle turned green and spun much slower. To Delilah’s mind, it seemed sad. She watched the entrance where a shimmering wall revealed itself and then disappeared.

  “Okay,” Delilah said, sighing. She spun around and stomped over to the cell in the back of the cave where Sam was asleep on his side with Delilah curled up in his arms. She slipped the key in the lock and it turned easily, the cell falling open with the loud creak that made Sam and Gwen stir. They were awake now, and they were freed.

  And Delilah was screwed.

  She licked her lips and made her way out of the cave, hoping she could at least escape their notice. She dropped the keys on the table and as she made her way out of the entrance, she noted that she no longer felt the tingle of the ward.

  They were free now.

  19

  Gwen

  “Sweetheart…”

  Sam was whispering in her ear. Gwen was half asleep and now she stirred. She had put her clothes back on after they’d made love and they had curled up into each other, stumped for any ideas of how to get out of their confinement. Now Sam was sitting up, leaving her cold. But he tapped her shoulder and whispered for her to wake up.

  Gwen sat up, rubbing her eyes. She was confused for a moment as she got her bearings, and it all came rushing back. They were Basil’s prisoners. He was going to kill all the shifters! He was going to take over Los Angeles! They were going to die!

  “Gwen, the door is open,” Sam said, his voice loud enough to ring in her ears in the silence of the cave. Gwen smoothed back her hair and blinked, looking around, and seeing the cell door open, she gasped. “The door is open.”

  What if it’s a trick? She thought immediately. And yet, she didn’t care. They had to try. There was no other way. If it was a trick, she supposed they would chance falling for it. Sam stood and helped her to her feet and her body ached from having sex on the floor of a cave, but she only rolled her neck and followed him out into the lair, warily looking around for some kind of boobytrap.

  “What the hell?” Gwen muttered.

  “Maybe it’s that...person,” Sam said. “The one who put the basil out in the kitchen?”

  “The one who put the Post-It on your diary,” Gwen said, nodding. “Maybe.”

  They found their phones on the table, next to all the maps and plans for Basil’s scheme. Gwen took another look at the map. It looked like the origin of his fire spell would be the Observatory itself. How long had they been asleep? Had they failed already?

  They pocketed their phones and gave each other one last determined look before clasping hands and running for the entrance to the cave. No ward stopped them. They didn’t even feel a tingle as they ran outside where the sun was just beginning to set. There was no sign of Basil.

  “We have to warn the shifters first,” Sam said, pulling her along through the thorny brush of the hillside. She staggered after him, thinking they should shift. Except that if they wanted to warn shifters, who might already be on their way into the hills for the solstice, they would need to use their phones.

  They took out their phones, walking carefully along the steep hillside as they texted every shifter in their contacts, though Sam knew many more than her. She hoped there were enough shifters still in human form to receive the message, though once it got out to a few people, she knew everyone would quickly be alerting each other to the danger. They would stay, she assumed.

  “Everyone gathers behind the Hollywood sign for solstice around this time,” she said, pocketing her phone. She had to run now to keep up with Sam’s long legs, but he kept looking back to make sure she wasn’t struggling.

  “Oh God,” Sam said suddenly, and stopped short so that she bumped into him. “Do you smell that?”

  She sniffed the air and her shifter senses found an odor like a campfire, except this was a bit metallic and chemical. He had started already. They saw now a kind of amber glow growing from the crest of the hill, brush darkening though it was not obviously aflame. Faster and faster it grew, and she felt Sam’s hold on her tighten.

  “Shift!” He said, and immediately, she changed her form, though the fear that coursed through her slowed it for a moment or two which in itself frightened her. She didn’t usually have the slightest trouble shifting. But fear and stress, she had heard, could wreak havoc with shifting at times.

  She inwardly barricaded her heart and mind to fear. They were out. By some miracle, they had been freed. Sam was a guardian and he would know what to do. They would face the danger together, and when it was over they would start their lies together.

  In lion form, she felt stronger and surer, and she chased after Sam through the tangle of brush and chaparral. It was about a half a mile along the hill to the Hollywood sign and the fire was spreading. It was doubly frightening though to see a fire that spread without an angry lick of flame. It moved in silence, a passive kind of blush along the hills turning everything black, eating up the land. It was headed towards them. She wondered if it would eat up the whole hillside and the Observatory too, and what else could it do that might be even worse? There was no telling when dealing with something as darkly magic as this.

  She was going to help him redecorate his whole house, she thought, even as she ran with him through the hills. His house was for the old Sam who had been so infinitely sad. He would always grieve for his pride. She had read his diary and besides that, she knew him well enough now. But she was sure he was ready to build a new kind of life for the two of them. His house was stripped bare. He had told her this was because he wanted to live a Spartan kind of life because that was useful as a warrior. She knew the truth, even if he had been shy to admit it. He didn’t believe he deserved a real home. Besides that, his home had died with his pride. But they could be each other’s home now. She would turn his house into a place that felt like people lived there, and more than that, people who loved each other deeply. She would put up pictures of his best friends who had given their lives to protect others. She would fulfill her promise to make his house look something like his diary. Because when she walked through his house, it felt so cold and empty and humorless. Yet when she read his diary it spoke of someone sad but warm. It spoke of someone who wanted to be happy again. She would turn the house into their home, she thought. She realized she was already thinking of herself as living there with him. But that didn’t feel at all strange. It felt only like the way things were supposed to be.

  She heard a
yowl from far away; the call of another mountain lion. She saw Sam turn his head. Distracted, she found herself tripping over a rock, and she went tumbling down the hillside, not far but enough to discombobulate her and knock the wind out of her. She felt thorns and brambles catching in her fur and she twisted, getting her paws under her, her body turning to right herself. Sam was close by. She could sense him and then he was stopping the momentum of her body with his own, as gravity tried to pull her further down. Gwen found her feet and Sam helped her get up again and he licked at her ear, nuzzling her for a moment, as if asking if she was alright. She nuzzled him back, which meant yes. He nodded shortly, and they were off again, running through the grasses and brush as the glow of enchanted fire spread.

  She heard more yowling as they ran and she could smell them; shifters. There were shifters coming from everywhere. She actually smelled more shifters than she could ever remember seeing at a solstice and she wondered now if there were more of them in L.A. than the wizard had counted on.

  20

  Sam

  Sam had been helped in the past by certain phantoms he couldn’t explain, but this one seemed stranger than usual. He had received notes and clues directing him towards big bads who needed to be defeated and respected the privacy of who were brave enough to help and likely stayed hidden because they had too much to lose. This phantom, the guardian angel, whatever it was… It seemed different somehow. This phantom had directed Gwen to his diary and to the curse and now it had helped them escape. This phantom seemed bent on bringing them together and helping them defeat the wizard. He just couldn’t figure out why. Though he would never dig to find out. Some things were better left unknown.