Shifter Legacies Special Edition: Books 1-2

by Mark E. Cooper

  He knows… he knows where Ryder is! If his heart pounded any harder, it would jump out of his chest! He’s lying his tail off!

  Chris clenched her fist so hard her bones creaked. “Don’t mess me around, Eddy. I’m a shifter. I can tell when you’re lying. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I can do now.”

  Ed stood, preparing to leave. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve wasted my time.”

  Chris was up and across the room in a fraction of a second. She slammed Ed back into his chair, and held him there easily with a hand on his chest. He struggled, but she was much stronger than she looked.

  “Listen to me,” she spat. “Ryder killed five men, and he nearly killed me. You will tell me what you know, or so help me I’ll rip your heart out and eat it!”

  Stephen winced. “No need to be so dramatic, Chris. Just break his fingers one at a time, and then work up his arms. He’ll talk eventually, and besides, I would prefer you didn’t get blood on the carpet.”

  She smiled at Ed’s sweating face. “You see how it is… you do, don’t you?”

  “I can’t,” Ed whispered fearfully. “If I give up a source, I’ll never work in this city again!”

  “No one will know.”

  “It will come out, Chris, this stuff always does! It would finish me!”

  “Chris,” Stephen said. “Let him up.”

  She glanced at Stephen, and backed off.

  Stephen tapped Eddy on the knee with one finger to gain his attention. “Mr. Davis, is your career your only concern?”

  Ed sneered. “Don’t try to appeal to my better nature. I don’t have one.”

  Stephen smiled. “I already knew that. You have misunderstood me. I was going to say that if your career is your only concern, I can easily safeguard it for you.”

  “How?” Ed asked suspiciously.

  “Only those in this room will be privy to what you tell us. You will obviously tell no one, and we have no reason to tell. That only leaves your assistant. I can fix that problem for you.”

  Ed’s cameraman jumped to his feet. He backed hurriedly toward the door. “Now wait a damn minute!”

  Marie was suddenly behind him, and holding his arms. Chris blinked in shock. Marie had moved too fast to follow. One second she was sitting at her ease on the couch, the next she was across the room holding the cameraman in a grip of iron. Her eyes shone silver, reflecting the light as if a pair of chrome orbs had somehow replaced them. Chris shivered, wishing Marie would put on her sunglasses.

  “Stay calm. You will not be harmed,” Marie whispered soothingly, ignoring the cameraman’s struggles.

  Ed was breathing fast, and his eyes were wide with panic. “What are you going to do?”

  Stephen chuckled. “Not kill him… unless you would prefer us to do that?”

  “No!”

  “As I thought. I can guarantee that he will not tell anyone what occurs during this meeting. Let me demonstrate.” He turned to look behind him. “Marie?”

  Marie swung the cameraman around, and stared into his eyes. A second or two later, his shoulders slumped. He stared at Marie in a trance and she released his arms.

  “What is his name?” she said to Ed.

  “Sam.”

  Marie cocked her head and studied Sam. “How are you feeling, Sam?”

  Sam smiled dreamily. “Fine… I feel good.”

  “That’s good, Sam. I want you to remember that you feel good. You are not afraid. You are relaxed.”

  “All right,” Sam mumbled.

  Marie smiled, and continued in a slow dreamy voice. “Whatever I tell you to do, you will do. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Marie nodded in satisfaction. “That’s good, Sam. Very good. When I tell you to do something and you do it, you will feel happy and relaxed. Just the way you feel now. The thought of disobeying me fills you with fear. Thinking of disobeying me makes you feel very bad. It is wrong to disobey me. You don’t want to, and even thinking about it makes you feel guilty. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Marie smiled and continued in a slow and serene voice. “Yes, that is right. Relax, and remember how good it feels to obey. I want you to forget everything you heard since walking into the club. You will remember accompanying Ed, but he left you watching the show. You enjoyed yourself, while he had his meeting. Afterwards, you asked him how it went, but he wouldn’t tell you very much. All he said was that the meeting went fine. You know nothing else about it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very good. Sit in your seat and wait for me.”

  Sam turned, still staring into space, and went back to his seat.

  Chris realised she was gaping and closed her mouth. She shook herself and turned back to business. “There, all done. Now tell me what I want to know before I ask Marie to steal it out of your head. If you make me do that, I’ll see to it that you get nothing.”

  Ed licked his lips. He was sweating and very pale. Marie’s little show with Sam had obviously impressed and frightened him, but he was made of sterner stuff than Chris realised. He still had balls enough to try to negotiate.

  “I get your story?”

  “I said you would. Do you need it in writing?”

  “In writing would be good…” he said, and Chris scowled angrily. “Okay! I was only kidding.”

  “You weren’t kidding, Eddy. I know you.”

  Ed smiled crookedly. “I know you do. Your story, tempting as it is, isn’t enough for me. I want in.”

  “In?” she asked in confusion. “In where?”

  “Don’t take me for a fool. I saw your little impromptu news conference outside your place. Nice touch making it seem off the cuff like that. You and he,” Ed nodded at Stephen. “Are working with the Amendment Lobby.”

  Stephen smiled. “Actually, you’re quite wrong about that.”

  Chris nodded. “He is the Amendment Lobby… or its leader at least. You’re slipping, Eddy. Even I figured that out on my own.”

  Ed looked at them both in confusion. “But I thought Lephmann…”

  “Our current spokesman.” Stephen said. “David is an ally, and a good friend of mine. He agreed to front for the lobby. Not a hardship, as he believes passionately in our goal.”

  “Unbelievable,” Ed whispered. “No one suspects. I would know! No one suspects you’re pulling Lephmann’s strings.”

  Stephen smiled wryly at Marie. “Anger or amusement?”

  Marie grinned. “Amused, definitely amused.”

  “What?” Ed asked, frowning in confusion.

  Stephen shrugged. “I was just wondering what David’s reaction would be. I can assure you that no one controls David. He doesn’t have strings to pull, and if he did, I wouldn’t be the one to risk pulling them.”

  Ed shrugged, obviously not very interested in Stephen’s explanation. “Do we have a deal?”

  Chris glanced at Stephen, and he nodded gently. “All right, Eddy, you’re in.”

  “Great,” Ed said in satisfaction. “It will almost be like old times.”

  She sighed. If he truly understood, he would never have gotten involved in this. He had been in contact with Ryder, maybe knew where he was, certainly knew he was responsible for five murders, and yet he had said nothing to the police. By keeping Ryder’s location secret, he was an accomplice to murder. By rights, she should hand him over to Ken, but she needed him. She was going to let him get away with it, because it suited her purposes. That didn’t make her feel good; not at all. She shook her head wishing things were different.

  “Are you all right with this deal?” Stephen asked.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Hey! You can’t back out now,” Ed said angrily. “I get your story, I get interviews with Stephen and his vamps, and I cover all the Amendment Lobby’s functions. That’s the deal.”

  She snarled. “The deal is what I say it is! I haven’t heard squat worth listening to fro
m you yet.”

  Ed stuck his chin out belligerently. “Sit down and listen for a minute and maybe you will.”

  Chris took her seat and waited for answers.

  “Good.” Ed said, and collected his thoughts. “The first thing you have to realise is that I’ve known Doug Ryder for years.” He nodded at her surprise. “Didn’t know that, did you? You thought I was just using him for a story. Just goes to show you aren’t as clever as you like to think.”

  “Get on with it.”

  “I knew him before he ran off to join the army. We were in high school together, so when he turns up asking for a favour after all these years, I was surprised, but I said okay for old time’s sake.”

  Chris frowned. “What was the favour?”

  “He said he was doing research for a book he wanted to write and needed a cover story in case people checked up on him. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t interested enough to ask a lot of questions. He’s the kind of guy that starts writing and ten years later only has a couple of chapters to show for it.

  “Anyway, I fixed him up with a position at Channel 5, and gave him a few props to make him look the part of a freelancer. You know the sort of thing. Press pass, guild membership card, one of my old headsets… that kind of thing. I swear to you, Chris, that I had no idea that he was the killer.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  Ed shrugged. “I don’t care if you do or not, but remember this: it wasn’t until after the fifth murder that you released Ryder’s name and description. You got that from the Hodges girl, didn’t you?”

  She nodded reluctantly. Sandy Hodges gave her Ryder’s description, and confirmation of his name. Vincent’s message disk had given them the name much earlier. Releasing Ryder’s name alone would have achieved nothing. At least, that’s what she had decided back then. Now? There was no telling, but she doubted Ed would have come forward.

  “So you set Ryder up as a journalist, and sent him on his merry way. Where is he?”

  Ed raised his hands. “I’m coming to that. The first couple of times he dropped by my place and left me a few things. Good stuff, all of it. I offered him money, but he laughed at me. Said he had no need of money. Anyway, after the first couple of times he started getting paranoid. Acted real cagey, and wanted to meet me in public places. His stuff was good so I humoured him. The problem is, he got worse fast. He starting calling me on my link, and telling me where to pick up stuff.”

  “A dead drop?”

  “That’s it. He put a disk in a case and dropped it in the garbage behind a burger joint. It was disgusting. I had to root through a ton of stinky stuff to find the damn thing. I wasn’t going to do that again.”

  Chris smiled. She knew where this was going, and it was perfect. “Who did you use to watch the bin?”

  Ed nodded at the comatose Sam. “Who else?”

  “When did you decide to start having Ryder followed?”

  Stephen and Marie looked at each other in surprise. Stephen raised his point first. “That would have been very dangerous.”

  Marie nodded. “He could have been killed. A shifter should have been able to track him by scent alone. A strong one like Ryder should have sensed him.”

  “Not so dangerous,” Ed disagreed smugly. “Sam is the best cameraman I’ve ever had. Some of his stuff is amazing. He’s a nut about the latest tech.”

  “You used remotes.” Chris frowned as she realised something important. “This was after you figured out Ryder was the perp.”

  Ed shifted uneasily in his seat. “Just before you were attacked.”

  “But you guessed it was him before that.”

  Ed nodded reluctantly, but then he brightened. “But I didn’t know where he was; it wasn’t my fault, you see?”

  “It never is,” she said bitterly.

  “I couldn’t give him to you, Chris. I didn’t know where he was!” Ed insisted again, more vehemently.

  “Yeah, yeah. Relax. I only have one man in mind to blame, and that’s Ryder. You’re in the clear.”

  Ed sighed in relief. “Sam’s little gadgets followed him back to where he was staying. What a dump! I couldn’t believe it at first.”

  She tried to quell her excitement, but her voice betrayed her anticipation. “Where is he staying?”

  * * *

  18 ~ Taking the Offensive

  Chris parked the shiny black four-by-four she had borrowed from Stephen, and peered into the darkness. Rain fell in a torrential downpour that looked set to last through the night. Griffith Park appeared in a flash of lightning, and then submerged itself in darkness once again. The observatory building seemed deserted; it had been “temporarily” closed for renovation years ago, but as with other things in Los Angeles, the money had dried up before the work could be completed.

  The main building, still sheathed in scaffolding, would probably remain derelict until someone decided to pull the entire useless edifice down. The observatory grounds, where pristine lawns once grew, were now a barren and abandoned construction site. What surprised her about Ryder’s choice of hiding place was that unlike the observatory, the zoo, museums, Greek theatre, and other attractions, were still popular with tourists. It was not the sort of place she would have chosen for a hideout.

  Chris opened the car door and stepped out into the storm. The rain plastered her hair to her skull in seconds, but she didn’t run for cover. Instead, she pulled up the collar of her borrowed coat and turned in place. Although she saw everything in shades of black and grey, her eyes—a wolf’s eyes—pierced the darkness easily. Lightning flashed again, and thunder rumbled seconds later. The rain drummed upon the ground hard enough for raindrops to bounce back into the air. She had parked well away from the fence that surrounded the site, and it was a moonless night. She had no fear that Ryder would either see or hear her coming, and in the rain, his nose would be useless. It was falling so heavily, she felt like she was trying to breathe under water.

  She ran quickly across the open space, keeping low, and swarmed up the chain link fence. Once over the top, she let herself drop to land in a crouch in the mud. She searched the darkness, but the building remained quiet, protected by the skeletal piping of the scaffolding and the rotting tarpaulins draped over it like shrouds. Her eyes pierced the dark keenly, but she still felt blinkered without the scents her nose could normally detect. Everything smelled the same; the storm had washed all trace of Ryder away, and replaced it with the clean scent of autumn rain. She had lived all her life without the benefit of a shifter’s sensitive nose, but already she had come to rely on the edge it gave her. She felt vulnerable without it.

  Keeping low, she ran for the nearest scaffold. She had no intention of going up the steps and through the front door.

  Your little gun won’t work against him.

  She gritted her teeth and struggled up the scaffolding. Under her breath she said, “I remember.”

  She climbed mainly using her arms. There were no toeholds for the first fifteen feet or so, and the cross supports were too far apart this close to the ground. She went up the scaffold, quickly pulling herself up, leaving her legs kicking free below her. The pipe was slippery, and it took longer to climb than it would have on a dry night. It was a shame the ladders had all been stolen.

  Do you want to die?

  “Don’t you know?” She hooked a leg over the first walkway, and dragged herself up. “I thought you knew everything about me.”

  She ran along the boards to one of the tall narrow windows. She peered into the building, but it was as dark inside as out. Lightning flashed, and she caught a glimpse of the once-splendid interior. There were puddles and ruination, but no sign of Ryder. Lightning flashed again and again. The storm raged at its height, and the wind was coming up. She clutched one of the pipes to steady herself, before moving on. She needed to get onto the roof.

  Sometimes you want to die, but at other times, you do not.

  Chris found a hole in the walkway above her he
ad, and pulled herself up. “Yeah well, that’s Human beings for you. Confusing, isn’t it?”

  Yes, Smoke said, sounding very serious. Let me out.

  “Nuh-uh. We’ve had this conversation.”

  All the walkways had an opening where the ladders used to be. Reaching the fourth level, she was pleased to find them still in place. She found her way up quite easily after that.

  The footing on the roof was treacherous. Much of it had fallen in, leaving only the supports for her to walk on. With the rain pounding her and making everything slippery, she would have to be crazy to try crossing. She grinned at the thought and stepped onto the beam.

  “I don’t plan to die tonight.”

  Few plan to die.

  She moved carefully along the beam, but wobbled and had to stop to regain her balance. To her left there used to be a glass section; a sort of skylight. She remembered it had been pyramid-shaped with a square base. There was nothing but a hole now. Far below, lit only by flashes of lightning, she could see the main foyer. Hanging from a steel cable attached to the roof beam, there was a badly corroded brass sphere. It looked like a huge pendulum in some great clock—a broken clock for it was still. Below the sphere was a pit full of broken glass and rubble, probably the remains of the skylight.

  I do not want you to die.

  Chris wobbled again. “Of course not. You would die too.”

  You fight against the bonding. You weaken us.

  She shook wet hair out of her eyes. Smoke was in her head for the Lady’s sake. What could be closer than that? Thunder boomed in the heavens, and a gust of wind caught her. It blew her into that inviting abyss. Quicker than thought, she made a grab for the beam and caught it, but her left hand slipped on the wet metal leaving her dangling from only one hand. Lit by lightning like a faulty light bulb, death awaited her on twisted metal far below. Her heart was pounding, and she was shaking, but it wasn’t from fear. It was excitement. Adrenaline rushed through her veins, adding even more strength to her muscles. She tried to reach the beam with her free hand, and laughed when she couldn’t. It’s true what people say about shifters being crazy. Her situation proved it. She swung back and forth on her single hand, until she could finally reach the beam with the other. Swinging her legs up, she finally clambered back on top.