“You’re not surprised are you?” Baxter said.
“Listen to me. Don’t tell anyone what you think you know, don’t discuss it, don’t ask questions, don’t dig… for your own safety, don’t dig. You have no idea how dangerous these people are and it’s not just them. If certain powerful people were to find out—”
“Don’t threaten me,” Baxter growled.
“I’m not. I’m warning you. You don’t know how seriously these people take this. They won’t care who you are. They would kill me or anyone for breaking secrecy on this.”
Baxter dismissed him and walked away.
“Baxter… shit,” Barrows growled and stalked outside to find Nancy waiting by the car. “Get in, it’s not locked!”
Nancy climbed in. “What did I do?”
“Nothing,” he snarled and tramped his foot on the accelerator. The car burned rubber out of the parking lot and onto the road. Cars beeped horns and veered aside. “Sorry. I’m just in a bad mood.”
“I noticed that. Still nothing from Doug?”
“No.”
“Maybe he couldn’t get the authorisation.”
“No. If he hadn’t got it he would have called to tell me. Try him again.”
Nancy pulled out her link and used the autodial. She listed for a few minutes and shook her head. “No answer.”
“He switched it off?”
“No, it’s ringing. He just doesn’t answer.”
“I don’t like that.”
“He’s probably just busy. O’Neal is dead. His head was between his feet on the gurney when they took him away. He isn’t going anywhere. Doug will be okay.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. Baxter told me what happened. They filled O’Neal’s killer with silver and it didn’t slow him down. I think it was Arcadian himself.”
Nancy was quiet for a moment. “Drive faster,” she said checking her weapon.
He floored it.
“How do you want to play it?” Nancy said. She had her back to the wall next to the main entrance of the morgue and was peeking around the corner and through the glass doors at the body of the security guard lying behind his desk.
Barrows crouched to make himself a smaller target and pushed the door. It opened easily. “Cover me. I’m going for the desk.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
He slid forward between the doors. He stilled trying to listen. The foyer was silent and empty of people except for the possibly dead guard. He glanced up at Nancy and she nodded that she was ready. He took a deep breath and bolted at top speed for the security desk. He watched the corridor leading off the foyer for a moment then checked the guard for a pulse. He found one. It was strong and steady. There was a strong smell of ozone in the air. Someone had stunned him at close range and not long ago either. He waved and Nancy hurried to join him while he covered the corridor.
“He’s unconscious, stunner blast to the throat.”
“Could have killed him.”
He nodded. Stunners could kill even when not set for that if they hit the wrong spot.
Nancy scooted to the end of the desk and peered along the corridor toward the elevator. “Nothing. Doug must be downstairs. We should call the others in. We might need the help. If something happens and they don’t know where we are…”
“You’re right. Call Tuck. Tell him what’s going down.”
Nancy nodded and pulled out her link. While she was doing that, he decided to position himself nearer to the elevators. Nancy was probably right about Doug. The labs and operating theatres were below ground. If Doug had succeeded in getting the authorisation, he would be down there overseeing the removal of O’Neal’s body from storage.
He watched the indicator above the elevator carefully, but it was the stairway he was thinking about. There was no way he was getting into the tight confines of the elevator when there was a chance that Arcadian was in the building.
“They’re on the way.”
He nodded. “Screw the elevator. We’re going down the stairway.”
“Fuckin-A,” Nancy said with feeling.
He led the way. He felt an urgent need to find Doug, but he knew from hard experience that you don’t rush into danger. Getting shot or worse before he reached him wouldn’t help anyone. Two flights down a notice on the door proclaimed that they were in the right place. He opened the door just a crack. What he saw made him dive through without thought for the consequences, as if he hadn’t just been cautioning himself not do exactly that. Nancy’s gasp of surprise behind him made him check his steps abruptly, but he was already out in the open by then. If there had been someone with a weapon, he would have died right there in the morgue. Convenient. As it was, the only persons present were Doug and another guard lying upon the floor. Both were unconscious just like the guard upstairs. Good news, but odd. Arcadian invariably killed adversaries.
“Check the offices on the right. I’ll take left.”
Nancy nodded, but five minutes of checking proved the offices were vacant. Barrows went back to check on Doug. He was groaning and slowly coming around.
“What happened?”
Doug squinted and felt the back of his head. “Don’t know… there were two of them. EMTs. They had a body bag to log in. One of them sprayed me in the face with something.”
“They’ve got to be through there,” Nancy said nodding at the last door. It was the cadaver storage area.
He eased the door open in time to see someone leaving via the fire exit. “FBI! Stop where you are!”
“That never works,” Nancy muttered as they piled through the door and across the room in time to have the door slammed in their faces. “Damn! He jammed it shut with something!”
Barrows ran back the way they’d come shouting over his shoulder. “Look after Doug!”
He sped up the stairs and made his gasping way outside, but by the time he ran around the side of the building to the loading ramp, they were gone. Bent double gasping for breath, he wondered what the hell was going on in this city.
* * *
Angel pulled off her ski mask and shook out her hair. “Good job,” she said to her crew in the back. She grinned, coming down from her adrenaline high. “Damn, we’re good!”
“Where to?” Ash said, watching his mirrors for pursuit.
Flex moved forward from his position at the rear doors and poked his head over Ash’s shoulder. “Keep your speed down, man. I ain’t explaining to no damned traffic cop why I’ve got a headless corpse in the back.”
Ash slowed the van to just below the speed limit. “No tail,” he said as answer, but hung a left at the next intersection, and then a right a little further on. “Where are we going?”
“Hold on and I’ll tell you. Just chill and drive nice,” Angel said and used her link to call Spence. It rang three times before he picked up. “It’s done.”
“Any problems?”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle. Put him on?”
“He’s in the back covering the windows. I’ll get him,” Spence said and Angel listened as he took the link to Gavin.
“Angelina?”
“Mister Gavin, I have the corpse for you. Where do you want it delivered?”
“You have it?” Gavin said in disbelief, and Angel grinned imagining him counting to ten. “You risked yourself to get the body?”
“Not much of a risk, it was easy.”
Gavin snorted. “I’m sure. Take it to Stephen at Lost Souls, do you know it?”
“Sure I know it. I don’t think he’ll like me dragging a body bag through his doors though.”
“Don’t concern yourself with that. I’ll call him now and tell him to have someone meet you.”
Angel turned to Ash, “Lost Souls,” she said and Ash nodded already looking for the right road. “Okay Mister Gavin, we’re on the way there.”
“Good, and Angelina?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” he said and broke the connection.
/>
Angelina smiled and put away her link.
* * *
Part III
20 ~ The Underground
David would never have believed that living among so many strangers, and underground at that, would feel comforting. Underground! But it did, it really did. His life had changed beyond all recognition and he regretted his losses—he still missed working in medicine, but the feeling of community here at Lost Souls was a compensation he had never expected to feel.
He inserted a finger in his book and glanced around the barracks, but didn’t rise. He had a few minutes yet before he needed to dress for work, and it was relaxing just lying on his bed reading an old leather bound text instead of paging through the electronic version. He thought of the dorm room as a barracks because what else were they really—all the shifters living here—than Stephen’s personal army? They certainly acted as if the vampire was their General. Even he said how high when the vampires said jump, but it was a little different for him, or he felt it was in any case. Maybe he was fooling himself. Who knew? Everyone working for Stephen might feel as he did and just be putting on a show of subservience, but he didn’t think so.
Since the night he first changed, his abilities and senses had grown in leaps and bounds. Mist was responsible for that. The wolf was very good at sensing things around them and articulating what it all meant to him. The more David read about shifters and non-humans, the longer he was exposed to them, the better he felt he understood and was better able to cope with his duality. Mist was like a real person to him, not just another facet of his own personality. Books he had read disputed that point of view, insisting that shifter madness was literally that—a form of mania. He was no psychologist, but he knew that he wasn’t mad. Shifter craziness wasn’t a medical condition; he was certain of it. They were just different, that was all. The authors failed to realise that their own bias, their own very understandable but wrong human point of view, was skewing their understanding. It was like a marine biologist insisting he knew what a jellyfish was thinking and feeling. Not possible; they were too different.
What humans failed to understand deep down was that shifters weren’t human. Oh, they professed to know that monsters were monsters, and they certainly discriminated against anyone not like themselves with gleeful abandon, but then they about-faced and were all indignant and horrified when elves, dwarves—and yes, shifters and vamps—acted like themselves and not like decent humans! Ridiculous double standard. Either they were not human and shouldn’t be held to human standards of behaviour, or they should have the same rights as humans and then be expected to adhere to human obligations and standards. They couldn’t have it both ways.
He turned his attention back to his book. It was called Children of the Gods and attempted to explain how and why shifters were blessed with the ability to shift their shape. It went on to document each of the known types, which had been interesting, but for all of that it was the biggest load of hogwash he had ever read. It was full of mystical bullshit. The appendix was good, the types of shifter and their abilities also, but the explanation for those abilities? Laughable!
Why are you angry?
In his mind, David saw a wolf lying within the entrance of a cave—a cave that only existed in his mind. Mist’s golden eyes stared at him, and his tail beat an uneven and irritated tattoo on the ground.
“I’m not angry,” he said, trying to put his feelings into words for both of them. “I’m frustrated. It’s just people’s ignorance that makes me like this. They just don’t understand.”
Manthings have never understood us.
“By that you mean shifters,” he said but felt Mist’s rejection of that. “What then?”
Manthings do not like us; they hunt us for no reason.
“You mean wolves then. Do you have memories of a time before we were joined?”
I remember.
“What do you remember?”
Mist rolled onto his back kicking his legs playfully in the air. He smiled to see it. He could see him so clearly in his mind. The wolf was radiating happiness and his mood lightened under the influence.
I remember running across the snow. A storm is coming. The mountains call me home, but the pack is in need. I hunt to feed the pack and my cubs. I remember blood scent on the wind. There are manthings close and they have fire—fire is dangerous. They do not see me, but I see them clearly.
He saw it all as Mist spoke. The men wore furs and sat huddled around a small campfire. They were primitives. They had darkly bearded faces and carried bows not guns. To one side he could see shaggy ponies with their heads down trying to shield their eyes from the wind.
I remember the hard-footed four feet. They taste good. My belly is empty, but manthings are dangerous. I remember my mate and that my cubs hunger. I remember manthings are dangerous. I remember everything.
That was the most Mist had ever said to him at one time before, and the implication was staggering. He had instinctively always known that Mist was a real person, but this... it meant the wolf had been alive as himself in the far past and somehow was reborn in him. They were one.
We are one, Mist agreed happily, now and forever.
The implications were incredible! Many believed in reincarnation, but he never had. Sedona’s clerics did not hold that view, though the Goddess could do anything she wished of course. He believed in her, he had followed her calling after all. She was the patron of healers and he had always known he wanted to heal the sick. As a boy, he had been devastated when he learned he was devoid of magic and could not be a healer or healer cleric, but it hadn’t stopped him from finding a way to reach his goal. Medical school had been his way into Her service.
He watched the shifters getting ready for work and contemplated his changed life. He could not be a healer any more. They, the authorities, wouldn’t let him. Where did that leave him? Here at Lost Souls doing whatever jobs came up, doing what he was told? Now yes, and until he could fix Georgie and maybe Raymond as well, but after? He really didn’t know. He had no goals any longer and was adrift. Everyone here felt that way he was sure. They were all lone wolves... or shifters at least. There were a couple of people whose beasts weren’t wolf. He knew of two cats—one a tiger, and one a lynx—and there were a couple of non-humans that weren’t shifters at all. Half dwarf he thought one was. The other could only be an elf, but not full-blooded. It didn’t matter. They were like family, living as close as they did.
The pack is good the pack is all.
“Is it though? We aren’t really a pack here.” He felt Mist’s rejection of that and wondered at it.
We are Stephen’s pack. He is Alpha.
“The leader you mean.”
Mist agreed.
Well that was true at least, and he was definitely an alpha personality, but Mist meant Stephen was their pack leader. Alpha with a capital-A. A vampire leading a pack was... odd. In other cities, vampires were at the top of the food chain and ruled their territories like feudal lords, but they weren’t considered pack. They treated shifters and other non-vampires like cannon fodder, and they could make it stick, but here in LA things were different. There were a couple of reasons for that. One was that Stephen and the other powerful vamps had treaties and alliances with each other. They didn’t fight, but instead supported one another against outsiders, keeping the city to themselves and relatively peaceful. LA was a little vampire paradise. It was like an island sanctuary in a sea of chaos that was the rest of the Republic. Vampires fought and contested for territory all over the Republic, but never here. Another reason for the status quo was that the LA shifter community was very strong in terms of population. A war between vamps and shifters here would be very bloody, but the vamps would lose in the end. Elsewhere that wouldn’t be the case.
To be fair, he didn’t think Stephen would want it any other way. He was very modern and progressive in his thinking for a centuries old vampire. He liked living free of conflict, but that didn’t mean he was
safe. Flare-ups of violence did still happen from time to time when outsiders tried to muscle in, and AML was always a danger of course. Stephen had to maintain a strong defence; hence the underground and the shifters living here between the surface and the vault on the deepest level where the vamps had their apartments. He had yet to see Stephen defend his territory; he had missed the last attempted takeover by a few months, but he didn’t doubt the vampire could be ruthless when the need arose.
He would win, Mist agreed. Stephen is a good hunter. He will protect us.
David frowned. Stephen did that for everyone here, but his protection wasn’t free. The latest news spoke of unpleasantness brewing in the city, and they were on the lookout for trouble. Something to do with the South Central Ghost had the vamps worked up. Not that they would tell someone like him what the problem was; he was just one of the help, one of Stephen’s many minions. He just had to do what he was told and enjoy the protections afforded him by doing so. He could leave at any time. Yeah right, and go where, do what?
He sighed and opened his book to continue his reading.
A few minutes later, Mist spoke up again. Farris comes.
David looked toward the entrance. Farris was Lawrence’s wolf, or Lawrence was Farris’ human? But he wasn’t human... person then? He shook off the strange thought and the mood it brought it on. They were one, just as Mist and he were one. They were together now and forever.
We are one, Mist agreed sounding very satisfied with the arrangement.
Lawrence entered the barracks and paused just inside, obviously looking for someone in particular. He was alpha as David himself was, but lesser. Not in body, oh no. Lawrence was something a little bit special in the size and good looks department—according to the females anyway, and even David who was a staunch fan of the female gender and hetero himself, could admit there was something there. Lawrence was a rare breed of shifter in that he actively worked hard to improve what Farris and the lycanthropy virus bestowed upon him in such abundance. David had asked him once why he put himself through so much work and pain to overcome the virus’ reluctance to allow modifications to its host. Lawrence replied just a little grimly, he now thought, that when everyone else could tear a car in half too, being average no longer cut it. Well, Lawrence was not average in body or power. He was alpha, just not the Alpha. Stephen was that, but David was also stronger than Lawrence. Much stronger, but that was all Mist not him.
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