"Wow, that was some reward," Michael whispered with a smile as they headed downstairs, they had left Susan and Trevor alone in the room and closed the door behind him.
"She's been through a lot," Helena replied in an equally soft voice, "if someone doesn't give her something to hold on to, she might not make it."
"What happens then?" Michael asked looking at her with a worried expression.
"Oh, don't you worry about it none," Margaret smiled, "Come next year, I bet you she's married my Trevor and when he leaves for college, she'll be able to go back to her degree."
Mark smiled at that, "That would make all of us very happy."
"Can't argue with that," Michael agreed, and turned to look at Margaret, "You know Ma'am, we could use a man like him in the agency. When he goes to college, you might want to steer him towards criminal justice."
"Because he's a lycan?" she asked looking at Michael curiously.
"Because he risked getting in trouble, or worse, to save someone in trouble that he didn't even know." Michael shook his head, "Yeah, we can always use more people like that."
"Why thank you, Agent Sikes."
"You sound like a recruitment poster," Mark chuckled.
"Eh, I'm young and good looking; so they send me out to the colleges during the job fairs. Pretty depressing what you see there these days."
"You know, I have a couple of daughters looking for a husband," Helena mused giving Michael the eye. "Maybe you should come visit sometime."
Mark almost laughed at the wild look in Michael's eyes, but they came into the kitchen where Steve, Mary, and Sheriff Clayton were still sitting with Deke, saving Michael from further embarrassment.
"Everything okay up there?" Deke asked looking up.
"She's got a good chance, Hon," his wife Margaret said going over to stand by him, "I think she'll make it."
"Is it really that tough?" Mary asked looking over at Mark and the rest of them.
"It can be," Helena said with a sigh. "It's not just the fact that you're not human anymore, that can be hard enough. Your body changes, your needs, even some of your desires, change. You're stronger, faster, tougher. Some just can't deal with all that, some start to think that they're better now, privileged, and go down some dark paths."
"Does that happen often?"
"Often enough that most don't want to take the chance when it comes to changing people," Margaret spoke up and headed over to the refrigerator and started to pull out a bunch of beers. "Mark there turned out alright, so Helena here must know what she's doing. Which is why I didn't say anything when she put my son and Susan together like that."
"How did the cabin get burned down?" Mark asked, as Margaret handed him a beer and he found a seat as she handed the rest out to the others in the room.
"I did that," Deke said. "Susan said that this guy would be coming back, and I didn't want him thinking she had survived and tracking her back to our house. So I drove up there with a couple of my boys and a few cans of gas and we torched the place."
"Probably a good idea," Mark agreed as Helena also got a beer and sat on his lap. "If nothing else, it definitely put a kink in his plans."
"So, what did you learn about our perp?" Steve asked.
Mark spent the next several minutes recounting the interview.
"Well, we can call for a raid on his shop," Steve said.
"Stop and think about that a moment," Mark warned. "We have a purebred wolf lycan, and about a half dozen turned wolf lycans."
"So? We take him out with silver bullets, and once he's dead we rescue the women."
"It don't work like that, Agent Hughes," Deke said shaking his head. "You attack this Craig guy, and the women will all go into a frenzy to protect him. Like him or not, he's their pack leader. They'll fight to protect him."
"And silver doesn't hurt purebreds," Mark said.
"Wait, what?" Steve said looking up at Mark from the kitchen table.
"I thought silver killed lycans?" Mary put in.
Mark shook his head, "Common myth. Only those who've been turned are affected by silver. It got started because it's usually the turned that go crazy and have to be hunted down."
"So how do we take him down?"
"Overwhelming firepower, do more damage than he can easily deal with, then cut his head off while he's trying to regenerate," Mark suggested.
"With a machete?" Michael asked.
"You're learning," Mark said with a smile and tipping his beer bottle at him.
"That still leaves us with the women, how do we deal with them?" Steve sighed. "They're victims, we can't just shoot them."
"Odds are, they'll probably have to be killed anyway," Sheriff Clayton pointed out. "If the man who's controlling them is a nutcase, they're all liable to be unbalanced now as well."
"Still, they deserve a chance." Steve sighed, "We're supposed to be the good guys here. There has to be something we can do."
"I think we should talk to the clan heads," Deke said looking around the room. "If we sent in a bunch of our own alpha males, they could overwhelm those girls, and get them under control once he's dead. Then they could bring 'em back here, and see if any of them can be saved."
"Why here?" Steve asked.
"Us naturals are stronger and tougher than the turned are." Deke shrugged, "not like they could really hurt us, and being surrounded by lycans, people who understand them and care, maybe we can save a few."
"And if not, we're capable of dealing with the problem," Sheriff Clayton said, taking a long pull off of his own beer. Mark could tell he wasn't happy about the possibility of anyone having to 'deal with' such problems. It wasn't something anyone was comfortable talking about, especially not in front of a bunch of humans.
Steve sighed and shook his head, "The paperwork alone for this is going to be a nightmare. But you're the experts, we're still just learning. We'll have to go back to DC and talk with our boss, Agent Woods, and get the ball rolling on this today."
Steve turned back to Mark.
"What do you think this 'Sage's house' he was talking about is?"
Mark shook his head, "I have no idea. It could be anything from some hidden sacrificial altar, to some special place of his. Though I do wonder if there is a creature, or even a person, whom he gives the women to once he's done with them."
"Great, another problem," Steve sighed.
"Well, let's deal with the one we know about first," Mark replied. "After we take out this Craig, then we can come back here and spend some time searching the forest for wherever it was he took that girl Kerry that Susan told us about. It can't be too far from the cabin, or he wouldn't have been going there in the first place."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"Sounds like a plan," Steve agreed.
10: Virginia tech / Blacksburg
Twelve hours later and Mark was sitting in a hangar at a small airport in Blacksburg. The entire team was there, and they were all armored up and armed. There were also eight of Sheriff Clayton's 'deputies', a group of quiet older men, sitting off by themselves. They were a rough looking lot, Mark had to admit, and they just exuded 'calm and in control.' This of course meant that the rest of the team had slowly gravitated away from them rather unconsciously.
"Gentlemen," Agent Woods was addressing them, "I want to personally thank you for your help, as you've already been told, we believe there are approximately six young women inside the building. Without your assistance tonight, I don't know that we would be able to save them."
"Let's just get this over with, I got work in the morning," one of the men growled.
Mark smiled, Agent Woods didn't even flinch, he definitely had brass ones. "You have been told you that you will all be paid for your work tonight, correct?"
"Actually, no, we haven't," the one sitting at the front said.
"Stop by Sheriff Clayton's office when you get back home, we arranged the payments through his office, as you're all technically his deputies. I know you're d
oing us a favor, and I hope that if we should ever need your help again in the future, or if you should need ours, that we can work together."
The one sitting in front just nodded, the others just looked at him indifferently. Mark smiled and nodded to Agent Woods as he walked over to join the rest of his team, who were gathering around the coffee dispenser.
"So, you're that turned cougar out of Portland who took up with Jacob's daughters?" The one in front said to Mark as he walked up.
Mark nodded and pulled up a chair, "Yeah, that's me. I'm Mark."
"Did you really kill a bear with a machete and a stick?" He asked looking Mark over.
"Well, the stick was on fire," Mark said grinning.
"I'm Zeke, Deke's older brother," Mark listened as Zeke introduced the rest of the men with him, each giving him a nod as he did so. They all looked to be in their thirties, which meant they were probably more like in their fifties, and they all had that no nonsense look that Mark had come to associate with authority that had been earned and not just awarded.
"So how did you end up working with these boys?" Zeke asked him, giving a nod towards Agent Woods and the rest of the FBI team.
"Eh, I work for the church taking down devils and the nastier demons. The FBI has been begging them for years now to let me train their new team as I'm an American and a veteran, and well, they finally said yes."
"The church hires lycans?" Zeke said a little surprised.
Mark nodded, "If it's got a soul, it's worth saving. That's their basic stance on things."
"Well that's good to know. What about these guys?"
Mark shrugged, "They mean well, but the sooner we've got some of our own people working in the agency, the happier I'll be. Took a while to get it through their heads that keeping you all out of their database is a good idea."
"Oh? How's that work?"
"Simple," Mark smiled, "I told them that if people could look you up in their files, they wouldn't have to actually come to them for help. I appealed to their sense of self-importance."
Zeke chuckled softly, "Yup, that will make any bureaucrat happy. So, now that we got the pleasantries out of the way, what do you need?"
"I need to figure out where the hell this lone wolf came from," Mark said lowering his voice. "I admit I don't know a lot about you guys, I mainly deal with the kinds of evil things that the church goes after. I want you guys to sniff around this place after we get in there and see if you can figure out just where this guy came from."
"In case there are any more of him out there, right?"
"Exactly. This guy just lit up the entire lycan community in West Virginia, and I want to know why he came here."
"You want to know, or your boss wants to know?" Zeke asked quietly.
"Me. I'm not going to share this unless I have to. I've got kids too; last thing I want is a campaign against the 'shifter menace' or the 'lycan scourge.'"
Zeke nodded, "We're all pretty worried about this guy too, we've got calls out to every clan we know about, to see if anyone's got a boy that's gone missing."
Mark nodded, "Thanks," and standing up he gave Zeke a clap on the shoulder and went over to join his new teammates.
"Any problems?" Michael asked softly as Mark joined them.
Mark shook his head and took the cup of coffee Mary handed him, "No, just chatting a bit, making sure we're all on the same page. Wolves are big on team work, they may not be happy to be here, it goes against the lycan philosophy of laying low and not drawing attention, but they know what's at stake and they'll do their part."
"Their part being to make sure we don't have a bunch of crazed female wolves running around a college town wreaking mayhem," Agent Haines said.
"That and getting them bundled up and out of here, and taken someplace where they can be rehabilitated," Agent Woods agreed with a sigh. "Sooner or later the oversight committee is going to want a report on this. If we can tell them that we saved those girls, helped them to get their lives back together, and home to their families, that'll go a long way to getting our budget increased."
Mark resisted his temptation to say anything snarky, Agent Woods was right, if the team could show that they were successful, they'd get more money. If they couldn't, they'd get less. Right now, the FBI did seem like the lesser of evils.
"Everybody does love a winner," Mary agreed.
"Well, its go time, let's get everyone mounted up and going," Agent Woods said looking at his watch.
Everyone nodded and Agent's O'Brien and Waters went over to the deputies to lead them out to their cars. Mark got into the first car with Michael; they'd be two to a car, except for the deputies who would all be in the last two.
The plan was fairly simple, they'd encircle, and Mark would lead the entry team. As it was two in the morning, there wasn't any traffic and hopefully the line of black SUV's with FBI painted on the sides wouldn't be noticed.
"I see you got your machete," Michael commented as he turned onto Main Street, heading into town.
Mark smiled, "Almost had a fight with Woods over my carrying it."
"What, he doesn't like knives?"
"He doesn't like non-agency issued equipment," Mark chuckled. "He only relented when he found out there weren't any in the armory. Then he ordered two dozen. Gotta say, he's awful quick on the uptake, you explain something to him once, and he takes care of it."
Michael nodded, "So, Mark, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"
"Won't know until you ask," Mark said looking out the window as they drove through town. It reminded him a little of home, the streets were almost empty, very few people were out and about.
"Are your daughters as cute as your wife?"
Mark turned and looked at Michael in complete surprise, "Are you serious?"
Michael blushed, "Dude, your wife is seriously hot! Sorry for noticing and all, but she did strip in front of me."
Mark sighed and rolled his eyes, "You do realize that any trip to my place to meet my daughters is going to end up with you getting bit, right?"
Michael glanced over at him, "What? Really?"
"Mike, my wife is looking for husbands for our daughters. That means you become one of us."
"What, no mixed marriages?" Michael asked sounding surprised.
"We can't crossbreed, if you're not a werecougar, you can't get a werecougar pregnant. And before you ask, wolves and cougars can't crossbreed either."
"Huh, I didn't know that. So who gets me, the oldest?" Michael chuckled.
"Beats me," Mark said, "ask Helena if you really want to know. I doubt she'd hook you up with just anybody, she'd want everyone to be happy."
"So," Michael chuckled, "are they?"
"Are they what?"
"Hot?"
Mark shook his head, "I can't believe we're having this conversation, but yes, they're rather good looking, they all take after their mom, thankfully."
"Hey, you seem pretty happy with it," Michael pointed out and pulled around the corner and stopped. "Well, we're here."
Mark nodded and watched as all the cars in the convoy split up to take their assigned positions.
"There is that," Mark said adjusting the headset for the radios they were all wearing. He got a kick out of that, radios, headsets, body armor, the HK 417 he was carrying; the FBI got a lot of fun toys to play with. Quite a difference from what he was used to.
"The others are set, let's go," he said opening the door.
"Aren't you going to wear your helmet?" Michael asked as they got out of the car.
Mark shook his head, other than the flack vest; he was wearing as little armor as possible. "I don't need one, now, let's go."
Mark led the way as they trotted down the back street, turning down the alleyway and coming up to the back door. There were fire teams assigned to cover each of the three doors, in case Craig tried to make a break for it. Mark would have preferred to have Helena backing him up, she'd be able to lay a smack down on any of the girls that might be
inside, should they get in the way, but Agent Woods had vetoed that immediately as they had the group of wolf shifter deputies on loan.
He hadn't been happy when he found out that Mark had taken her along to Marlington, but she'd gotten results, so he'd quickly accepted it. Again, Mark was surprised at how well Woods rolled with the punches once he saw something worked. He was definitely a good pick to lead the unit, appearing to be quite willing to 'think outside the box.'
Also Agent Woods had told Mark that he did not want a civilian in what could very well turn out to be a gunfight. Mark wondered briefly if he should have asked Sheriff Clayton to deputize his wife as well as they took their positions.
Michael kneeled down in front of the door and pulled out a lock gun, picking the deadbolt first, then the regular door.
"Entering," Mark said softly into the headset.
"Roger," Agent Woods' voice acknowledged from the command vehicle.
Opening the door, Mark saw a hallway with a staircase at the end, on the left, just as the building plans they'd gotten had showed. There were large framed pictures on the walls, women models in bathing suits, or nude, but arranged to make the shots not much more than cheesecake photos with strategically placed towels or plants. It looked every inch the photography studio it was advertised to be.
He entered carefully and quietly moved down the hallway. Michael took up station just inside the doorway with Steve and Mary coming up from behind to back him up.
When he got to the stairway he could see it went both up and down, again, just like the building plans said, and went up. There were more pictures arranged on the walls, but these were all landscapes and forest pictures.
At the top of the staircase, he turned right. According to Susan, the room to the right of the staircase was Craig's; the room to the left was the living room. The doors on the other side of the hallway were a kitchen, bathroom, and storage. The dorm room where his 'bitches' lived was in the basement, at the bottom of the staircase.
Mark crept up slowly to the door; lycans had better hearing than humans, even while in their human forms, however, they also moved quieter. Especially the cats.
"Ow!" Mark heard through the door, "You bit me?!" A shocked women's voice said.
Wolf Killer (The Hammer Commission) Page 8