Freya's Founding: Book 2 of the Winging It Series

by Sonja Bair

  Nick nodded in approval. “Getting better at your questionin’, darlin’. But to answer your question, let me quote an old friend of mine, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ How can someone who soars in the wind with wings of an angel question that there may be someone out there who doesn’t fit typical definitions?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Again, he laughed. “Yes, indeed, you are gettin’ better at this game.” He thought a moment before answering. This time, the twang underscoring his tone abruptly disappeared. “I am something that has not yet been defined by the known world. Would giving you my proper name and title do you any good?”

  “Fine, you don’t need to give me a title, but you can give me a description of what exactly your powers are.”

  “The Earth has circled the Sun many, many times since I first came about. But only recently have I been known as Nick Smith. No matter what name I use, however, I sustain myself less on food and water and more on the folly of mankind. When discord prevails, I thrive. And just as you have a skill of installing false memories added to your ability to rise above the mortal world, I too have an extra ability to dismiss people from conversations at will.”

  His words caused my stomach to drop as I realized that I hadn’t heard a word from Elin during this whole conversation. I whipped around to check on my sister. She smiled a half smile and nodded reassuringly—she was fine, just letting me lead the conversation.

  “I said that I wouldn’t use my powers on anyone,” Nick huffed. From the snappy tone of his voice, the man appeared to be insulted that I would suspect him of breaking his word. Odd.

  “So you did. My apologies. Next question—did you in any way prompt Jerry to attack Viktor?”

  “Another good, specific question,” he nodded. “Did I whisper in Jerry’s ear sic ‘em right before he lunged? No. Now, perhaps there was a small domino way up the chain that I may have nudged to see where the blocks would fall. That, on the other hand, is much more my style.”

  “I’m seeing you nudge a lot of dominos right now—meeting with the Elders and Alphas, for example. Is there a particular result you are prompting?”

  “One powerful European supernatural species entwined with an American supernatural species with a predilection for violence. At the nexus of this meeting is a beautiful, intelligent woman who has caught the eye of two dominant males. I deal in chaos, but, my dear, you had chaos blooming before I arrived. I am merely taking advantage of the situation and playing my little game. Perhaps with the right nudges I can bring down this supernatural house of cards. And then the consequences of this one conference will grow and spread throughout the world. Have you heard of the schöpferische Zerstörung theorem, Miss Holm? No? Let me explain.”

  He took a second to gather his thoughts. In that moment, I wondered about this new Nick I was seeing. His down-home act had dropped and now his words were precise and clipped, with a slight accent I couldn’t place. With his sophistic tone and now-sizable vocabulary, he could have been a professor at a university. But his off-the-charts readings on my creep-o-meter remained.

  “Schöpferische Zerstörung translates to creative destruction. It was developed from Karl Marx’s work on economics…” He paused and sighed in apparent admiration. “Now there was a gentleman who knew how to create some fantastic chaos… But it works in regard to history, as well. At some points in the past, civilizations have become stale. There is limited growth in knowledge or culture; there is no progress in society. Then along comes a conqueror—think Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan. While this, perhaps, was not the actual aspiration of these great generals as they sweep down upon the unsuspecting masses, their acts of destruction wiped away old inbred ideas and allowed a new, more sophisticated world order to flourish. True, it’s a horrifying time to live through if you are part of that stagnant civilization, but the good that emerges on the other side of the annihilation cannot be denied.”

  “And you plan on being the next Alexander the Great and destroying the supernatural culture,” I said in horror.

  “No, Alexander the Great was an egomaniacal ass. I, on the other hand, prefer to work in the shadows. And as for destroying the current state of supernatural culture, I don’t need to impose much destruction. You people are doing a fine job yourself. I merely desire to be the spark that starts the conflagration. This is the type of chaos in which I specialize.”

  “Why are you telling me this? Haven’t you seen any James Bond movies? The villains always tell their evil plan, only to have Bond use that information to thwart them at the last moment.”

  “Are you complaining that I am giving too much away?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “No. Your forthcoming is fabulous, I suppose. But why?”

  “It would be almost too easy to topple this current regime. And as I have told you, I thrive on discord, not pain. You, my dear, shall help me create this discord. I fully expect you to try your hardest to prevent me from stirring up trouble and that, in itself, will be a source of disorder. But in the end, the Alva control over Europe and beyond will fail and your striving will only have caused prolonged and increased chaos. You are to be my unwilling accomplice.”

  “I don’t believe the current order is so unstable that this one conference will cause the whole downfall of the supernatural community.”

  “Oh, but it is that unstable. Within the Elders, sides have been chosen and the Flock is dividing between them. A house divided falls, and if that falling house is the dominate species, there will then be a power vacuum. Trust me when I say there are plenty of other supernatural groups that would love to take the mantle of power from the Alva. Some would be willing to take it violently.”

  “Is that why you made Jerry attack Viktor? Because Viktor is a leader who could stabilize the scenario?”

  “Let me reiterate, Freya,” he said with a disapproving click of his tongue, “I do not make anyone do anything. I merely provide an impetus towards an action already festering in a person. But to answer your question, I thought it would be more entertaining to remove the one person with whom I have dealt with previously. Wisdom dispels disorder, and that simply will not do. And anyway, Jerry did not kill Viktor thanks to your quick and violent reaction, so your Elder is still in the equation, albeit in a reduced capacity at the moment. So we shall see what role he takes in this drama.”

  We arrived in front of my house. Turning to ask another question, I was interrupted by the sight of Nick subtly transforming from a well-spoken, suave man discoursing on history to the Nick I first met. A shoulder dropped, his weight transferred to one side and his belt buckle suddenly became much more prominent as his hips pushed forward. The color of his skin appeared to change to a ruddy hue, although it could have been a trick of the streetlight.

  “We have arrived at the end of our little stroll, ladies. Walkin’ in the beautiful evening air with you sweethearts has made it a pleasin’ evening, to be certain. I’ll be sure to catch up with you at some other time.” He grabbed my hand and kissed it before I had a chance to react. When he let it go, I barely refrained from scrubbing it clean on my jeans. He moved to kiss Elin’s hand but she rotated her wrist and held it steady, only allowing him to shake it. He tsked in disappointment but shook her hand nonetheless. He turned back to me and leaned in close, whispering in my ear, “And may I tell you a secret? One that I hinted at, but haven’t yet told the Alphas and Elders? Gina will be the pivot point of the werewolf crisis.”

  He leaned backed, smiled toothily, stuck his hands in his pockets, and then rocked back slightly on his heels. “I just couldn’t keep that tasty piece of information to myself anymore. And I’m sooo lookin’ forward to seein’ the big ol’ pivot.”

  “Maybe. Maybe I can believe that. But how is she the pivot point?” I asked, but he had spun on his heels and was walking away from us before I had finished my question.

  “Now, now. Th
at would be givin’ too much away too soon, princess,” he called back, gave me one more wink, then puckered his lips, started whistling, and continued walking away. He disappeared from the circle of light cast by the streetlight, but his tuneless whistling continued to drift back, getting fainter and fainter as he walked down the block until the final notes disappeared into the dark air.

  Chapter 26

  Elin broke the hypnotizing silence that lingered after Nick’s departure by asking what he had whispered in my ear. Physically and mentally shaking myself to remove my oppressive thoughts, I filled her in on his last words. We headed toward the house but, aware that Gina was inside, stood on the front porch discussing, in hushed voices, the possibilities of how Gina was the “pivot point” of the werewolf problem. Elin agreed that there must be some connection between Gina’s dreams and whatever Nick was referring to, but where to go with that information was eluding the two of us. After about ten minutes of hashing and rehashing every angle, Alrik walked up the front sidewalk. Since his shoulders were still tense and his movements still precise, I gathered he hadn’t run into Nick like we had.

  There was hardly any visible reaction from Alrik after we told him about our night’s adventure—perhaps a jaw muscle twitched slightly, but I couldn’t be certain of that movement in the dim light. After two minutes of statue-like silence from him, Elin forced casualness and leaned back to meet my glance behind his back.

  “What’s up with him?” her eyes asked.

  “He’s dismembering Nick tendon by tendon in his imagination,” I replied with my eyes.

  “Thanks, Freya, that’s a fabulous image. Should we interrupt him, or will we get torn from limb to limb as well?”

  “No, don’t interrupt. Let him get the anger out and he’ll return to Strong, Sensible Swede in a second.”

  Breaking eye contact for a moment, she glanced into the distance and jumped slightly.

  Barely contained panic flooded her eyes as she looked back at me. “David. David is coming this way right now,” her eyes said. “Is this going to be trouble?”

  Turning, I looked down the sidewalk and confirmed what I saw in Elin’s eyes. I glanced back at Alrik and his ramrod-straight back. “Crap. Probably. Alrik isn’t done mentally tearing Nick apart yet. And David is likely to be a good surrogate.”

  “I’ll take Alrik inside. You detour David.”

  Before Elin and I could act on our ocular conversation, Alrik cleared his throat and spoke. “David Waterstone. What are you doing here this late at night?” His voice was low and steady.

  Normally, I would be impressed by Alrik’s ability to detect David without seeming to see or hear him, but the already crescendoing tension in the air thwarted any compliments.

  “I heard from a concerned Alpha that Nick had walked Freya and Elin home. I wanted to check and make sure they made it safe.” David’s tone was pitched so casual, I wondered if he was aware of how close Alrik was to losing it.

  “They are fine. You can return home.”

  Alrik turned and looked David up and down. Without thinking, I jumped between them, my hands springing up to stop them from getting closer. It felt as if I was holding back two brick walls, but underneath both hands, I could feel heartbeats. Alrik’s was pounding furiously. David’s heartbeat, on the other hand, was steady and strong, but not particularly rapid.

  “Actually, I was thinking that it was time for you to return home,” David said. “The Elders haven’t provided enough support to justify their presence. In fact, Tilde and her crew are starting to stir up even more trouble. It’s time for you to leave.”

  “David, stop it. Tilde is trying to help. We merely need to figure out how to, umm, harvest her energy.”

  Ignoring me and speaking directly over my head, Alrik practically growled at David, “And you and your pack are the reason why Freya is in trouble in the first place.”

  “Thanks for the concern, guys, but I’m fine. Oddly enough, Nick behaved himself the whole walk,” I said, trying to break the tension, but the two men continued to stare at each other, unhindered by my interruption.

  “And has Alrik been behaving, Freya?”

  Beneath my palm, I felt Alrik take a deep breath and tense his muscles. The underlying sense of violence grew. David took a step toward him. My own heartbeat rocketed at the threat of a fight between these two dominant men.

  “Gentleman, please behave yourselves,” I said, employing my best commanding teacher voice and racking my brain to come up with a way of diffusing the situation. The timing of David arriving while Alrik was already pissed off was terrible… too terrible, in fact, to be a coincidence. I jumped slightly in realization. “Nick mentioned both of you tonight. He’s trying to use you guys to create more chaos. He’s playing you off each other. You’re being used.”

  I let my words sink in for a second before continuing. “Look, Alrik was sent on a wild goose chase tonight looking for Nick, by Nick himself. But where was the bastard? At a meeting with Alphas, and, David, you were sure to get a call about Nick’s presence. What’s the only possible outcome? You guys both showing up at the same place, pissed off and frustrated. Use your heads. Stop taking it out on each other. Nick’s the bad guy here.”

  It took about a minute before I felt David rock back on his heels from the balls of his feet, and a few moments more before Alrik’s heartbeat calmed and I felt him sigh. Dropping my hands from the two men, I took a step back.

  “And yes, Nick did behave him…” I said to David.

  “Good. I trust you can take care of yourself,” he interrupted, directing his words to Alrik as much as to me.

  “Ahh, thanks,” I said, puzzled at his need to boast of my skills to Alrik. “But the odd crux of our conversation was the final comment he made about Gina. According to Nick, Gina is the ‘pivot point’ to the werewolf dilemma.”

  “How does he know this? And how is she a pivot?”

  “How does Nick know anything? And I have no idea how she is the solution.”

  “But Nick didn’t say solution, did he?” Elin joined the conversation. “He said pivot point. That could mean many different things. It could mean the ability to open up a whole new set of problems. And that is something that Nick would get excited about.”

  I pondered her guess for a moment and it rang true, although it still didn’t answer the question of how.

  “So Gina could create more problems or she could solve the problem. Maybe Nick can’t even tell. I don’t think he’s an all-knowing creature. Based on our conversations, I think he’s only well-informed and possibly very old. So does this mean that we tell Gina or hide it from her?”

  A gush of air blew my hair back as the front door was yanked open.

  “Holy hell.” Gina’s surprise to see us seemed to be genuine. “You guys are all hanging out on the front porch. What in the world are you doing, and why are you all looking at me like I grew horns? Whatever; doesn’t matter. Since ya’ll are too busy with negotiating world peace or whatever instead of answering your phones, I got a call from someone in the Maine pack. Henry was trying to subdue Crazy Tasha but he couldn’t. And now instead of him just taking care of the problem like he should have, we have a psycho werewolf on the loose in San Luis. Everyone’s being called out to find her and control the situation.”

  “Where was she last seen? What was her behavior like? Did she have any rational thought or is she going after anyone?” Alrik easily slid into the officer-in-charge role.

  “She was up by the Cal Poly stadium. They were running the stairs to try to get her to blow off extra steam.”

  “And that means she is now running loose on campus,” I said, clenching my fists in horror.

  “Well, let’s go,” David said. “And let’s hope that this only becomes a college legend of a rabid wolf and not a bloodbath.”

  Chapter 27

  Cal Poly’s stadium could seat eleven thousand, but was small enough that we and the other assembled werewolves had searched the
place in less than ten minutes and determined Tasha wasn’t there. Our next step was to split into teams and spread out to search the rest of the campus. Since the SLO werewolf pack was the only one who knew the area, we split ourselves into different groups. I ended up with Gina, Henry, and two other werewolves in my search party. We headed northeast, walking as fast as we could without clueing people in that we, or at least I, was close to panic. All around us were the signs of normal late-night college life—bicycles flew by, kids loaded down with massive bookbags trudged past, and a large cluster of students meandered past, all with electronic devices held up to their faces. No one—yet—was screaming about a very large wolf terrorizing the campus. Oh, please, don’t let this be a Special News Bulletin moment about a college campus tragedy, I thought. Our sweep of the engineering and science buildings turned up nothing. All dorms had to be unlocked with a college ID, so we skipped those, doubtful that a raging werewolf would have the presence of mind to swipe a card to gain entry. Soon, we found ourselves on the dirt road leading to the agricultural side of Cal Poly. The road followed a creek bed that cut into the hillside, surrounded by old sycamores and eucalyptus trees. A sign on the side of the road warned that mountain lions were seen in the area, reminding me of the screams back at the vineyard. Wryly, I guessed I would probably prefer a mountain lion to a werewolf on a bender.

  Two minutes down the road, one of the werewolves (Tyler, I pulled from the back recesses of my memory) suggested he turn into a werewolf in order to track scents better. He made the point that it was remote enough that no one would see him change and that, as werewolves go, he was on the smaller side and could, perhaps, be mistaken for a large dog. I looked to Henry for an answer, as he was the senior Alpha and more familiar with werewolf protocol. He nodded a brief affirmative.

  The night air was silent as Tyler changed to his lupine form. No animal of any ilk made a sound, not even a cricket. It was way too quiet. Were there no animals this close to campus, or were they hiding in fear? My imagination supplied images of glowing eyes and fangs dripping with blood in the darker shadows of the woods. My heart and stomach both flip-flopped at the distinctive sound of air snuffing through canine nostrils. I jumped toward Henry and the rest of the group before I realized my mistake: Tyler had completed the transformation to wolf and was standing behind me. Henry shot me a disgusted look at the cowardly cringe, but that didn’t bother me. It was creepy out here, and I didn’t feel the need to pretend to be stupidly fearless.