by Laura Taylor
“What exactly are you offering me? A job? Like, as a spy, or some shit?”
“That’s not too far from the truth. But it’s far more than a job. It’s a whole new way of life. Money, though probably not as much as you might imagine. Training in skills you wouldn’t find anywhere outside the highest ranks of the military. Membership into an organisation whose operatives are loyal beyond all reason. If you were to become one of us, there are nearly twenty men and women who would welcome you as a sister, and who would willingly put their lives on the line should yours ever be threatened. You would have the doors opened into a world of mystery and myth the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since the Ancient Greeks erected temples for gods who walked the earth. This, Caroline, is the way out that you’ve been searching for. All you have to do is embrace it.”
Fuck. It sounded far too good to be true, a wind up, a con-artist, a trap just waiting to snap shut with her in its jaws.
And yet…
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Caroline said, not quite able to believe her own words. “So what do you want from me in return?”
Half an hour later, Kendrick left the grimy town square, feeling cautiously optimistic about this first meeting. Caroline was a firecracker, that much was certain, her actions and attitude fuelled by anger, but not without good reason. Before coming here, Eric, the Den’s IT expert, had run police checks on her entire family, had checked her school records, and they’d spent a month tailing her, in a far more clandestine manner than he’d been using himself. But then again, this time around he’d been trying to get her attention. And it had worked rather nicely.
She was perfect as a new recruit for the Den. No close ties to her family, no significant responsibilities, a marked aversion to any kind of illegal drugs, though she had started drinking alcohol at quite a young age. And she was desperate enough to get out of here that she was willing to overlook his often vague responses to her questions. But not stupid enough to let things slide entirely.
The shape shifters were an almost neurotically secretive society, and as alpha of the British Den, Kendrick knew he had to walk a fine line between giving her enough information to keep her interested, but not enough to put their Den at risk.
All things considered, their investigations into this young woman were going remarkably well. And now that she’d taken the bait… all he had to do was reel her in.
CHAPTER SIX
Present Day
Jacob sat at his desk in the Noturatii’s main base in east London and scowled at the reply he’d received from Headquarters. As predicted, his superiors were deeply unhappy about the lab explosion, not so much in regards to the loss of resources, but due to the lost results from the experiments on shifter conversions. The letter read:
It seems that much of the loss of data was caused by your apparent strategy of withholding information from head office, presumably in order to delay progress made by other labs and thereby advance your own team’s interests and prestige. This sort of behaviour is juvenile and entirely unacceptable for a man of your position. As such, we are removing your team from the Conversion Project and transferring all further research on the subject to our laboratories in Germany.
Jacob bristled as he read the reply, resenting being told off like a small child. But fortunately for him, they weren’t coming down too hard on him. The letter went on:
While we do not approve of the way you have been running your lab, the fact remains that your team have made significant advances towards being able to create new shifters, and this gives us a solid foundation from which to continue our research.
So despite the reprimand, there were to be no further repercussions for his actions. He wasn’t being demoted, or worse, killed; other staff who had betrayed the Noturatii had had their ‘employment’ swiftly terminated. But despite HQ’s harsh stance on detractors, Jacob would have been surprised if they’d resorted to such drastic measures in his case. He had an outstanding track record, after all – in his ten years as Chief of Operations, he’d doubled the size of the Noturatii’s presence in England, secured new funding from two government departments and hired some of the best educated staff the country had to offer. The German head office knew he was worth his salt, and were prepared to give him another chance because of it. But that wasn’t an excuse to rest on his laurels, Jacob reminded himself sternly. If he wanted to maintain his current good standing with HQ, then he’d have to do some serious repair work to make up for the disaster in the lab.
But there was other news in the letter that was more positive. As promised, they were sending a new science team to replace those who had been killed. Doctor Gianna Evans, a prominent scientist from the office in the United States, was due to arrive in two days’ time, bringing with her a team of three, who would set up the new lab and continue experimenting on the shifters. They were, in fact, bringing a live shifter with them for that very purpose, one that the Noturatii had captured in Russia not two days ago. And Melissa Hunter, the only surviving member of his own science team, would be welcome to join them, as she’d proved her worth in the conversion experiments. He read on:
Dr Evans and her team will focus on attempting to decode the methods by which the shifters transform their bodies. We are confident that electricity is involved at each step of the way and an understanding of this process may lead to the development of advanced weaponry which would greatly assist our efforts in combat.
We expect you to make Dr Evans and her team welcome, and to provide whatever equipment or office space is necessary for her to perform her work. She will be sending regular reports to Headquarters for review, and I trust there will be no attempts to interfere with her work or to hide new advances made.
Jacob sighed. In addition to Headquarters’ dissatisfaction with his recent strategies, he’d received more bad news just yesterday. It had been discovered that one of the subjects they had attempted to convert in the lab, a woman by the name of Gabrielle, had returned to her home. It was a startling development, but after a moment’s consideration, Jacob had realised that, contrary to previous beliefs, the experiment to convert her into a shifter must have failed – yet another disappointment in an ever growing list. The shifters had taken the woman with them when they’d fled the lab, and if they’d allowed her to go home, it was a sure sign that she wasn’t one of them. There was no way they would have allowed a wolf to wander about alone, or for the woman to leave their pack if she had posed any kind of security risk.
And now that Jacob’s team had been removed from the Conversion Project, there wasn’t even any point in recapturing her to reattempt the conversion. This one, he was reluctant to admit, was going to have to slip through the net.
But that was a secondary concern, he told himself firmly, closing the email and dismissing the issue for the moment. Of far greater importance than these experiments was discovering the whereabouts of this second shifter pack. Miller and his team were already putting a strategy together, dividing up the Lakes District to search for the bastards. And as far as Jacob was concerned, that couldn’t happen soon enough. They had caused him no shortage of difficulties and had proved themselves to be capable of massive destruction and slaughter without mercy. He had to find them, the discovery certain to regain him a large measure of the favour he had lost due to the lab explosion.
And when he did find them, he promised himself grimly… they would be made to pay.
Caroline walked down the stairs into the foyer, a list of notes in her hand as she headed for a meeting with Baron. Il Trosa’s annual summer gatherings, the Densmeets, were coming up and this year, as they did once every three years, the British Den was playing host to one of them. A contingent of shifters were due to arrive in a few weeks from all corners of Europe. Misty Hills wasn’t large enough to host them all, their numbers more than doubling for the festivities, but there was an estate in Scotland that they had rented out for the summer on these occasions for the past fifty years or so, owned by an amiable f
amily who were happy to guarantee them absolute privacy for the duration of their stay.
In the other two years out of the three, the Lakes District Den was split up, the shifters being sent in groups of four or five to other Densmeets across Europe. It was both a political and a social occasion, a member of the Council attending each meeting to discuss important matters of policy and the future direction of Il Trosa, and also a chance for everyone to meet shifters from other Dens, to make friends, strengthen alliances, and, for those that way inclined, the chance to meet potential romantic partners. It wasn’t uncommon for the summer to end with new couples forming and various shifters requesting transfers to different Dens, to be closer to their newfound love interests.
It was also an opportunity to exchange useful skills, and this year, Skip had been asked to run a hacking workshop, with several other hackers among those hoping to learn some of her more refined techniques.
As the host Den this year, there was a mass of planning to be done, seminars prepared, food supplies brought in, security measures put in place, and, of course, the Games – athletic and strategic challenges that were partly a chance for the shifters to hone their skills in a friendly competition, and partly an excuse to blow off steam.
As she reached the ground floor, Caroline turned left, heading for the sitting room where she had last seen Andre. Though he wasn’t an official member of the Den, his input into the planning process would be helpful. Tank was also joining them, and Caroline was hoping it would be a pleasant distraction for him, to get his mind off his recent battle with the Noturatii, and hopefully drag him out of this moody phase.
But just as she was crossing the foyer, the front door opened and John came in. He ignored her, as he often did, slouching across the room and up the stairs, but the sight of him made Caroline pause as she assessed the fresh bruises across his face, and she closed her eyes and fought back a sigh.
Fuck. She’d told herself time and time again that she wasn’t going to interfere with his unconventional relationship with Baron, had had assurances from Baron himself that there was nothing for her to be overly concerned about, but every time she saw the bruises, her instinctive concern for the boy leapt to the fore.
Not your business, she told herself firmly, resuming her walk to the sitting room. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do about it, anyway…
The door to the sitting room was ajar, so she didn’t bother knocking, just pushed it open, glancing around for Andre.
But what she found inside made her pull up in surprise. Andre was there, sitting with one ankle crossed over his knee on the sofa. And sitting opposite him, sipping tea from a delicate china cup, was Heron. Laughing. Chatting. No doubt sharing stories about Andre’s travels over the years. Caroline was aware that he’d grown up in this Den, and that Heron was much like an aunt to him, but upon seeing them so cheerful and friendly with each other, Caroline was shocked at the powerful wave of jealousy that hit her.
But no, it wasn’t seeing them chatting together that was playing havoc with her emotions, she realised a moment later. It was that the instant she’d stepped into the room, the conversation had stopped. The laughter died out. The smile on Heron’s face went from happy to polite. And Andre looked up at her with an unreadable expression, his eyes suddenly guarded, his smile vanishing into a carefully neutral look so that Caroline suddenly felt like an intruder, firmly shut out of the friendly moment.
She and Andre had their own shared past, she thought with no small amount of resentment for Heron, an intense eight week stint in Italy that had changed her life forever. But Andre had made no effort to rebuild their past relationship, no sitting around sipping tea and laughing about old stories with her.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Caroline said, feeling awkward, “but Baron wants to talk about the Densmeet, and we were hoping you could join us.”
“Duty calls,” Andre said congenially, standing up and giving Heron a slight bow. “We must do this again, though. You’ve heard all my stories, but I haven’t heard nearly enough of yours.”
Caroline led Andre silently to the library, not wanting to appear surly or petulant, but unable to find a single thing to say that wouldn’t sound horribly inane. Conversation had never been her strong point, after all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
18 Years Ago
Caroline stepped back from the punching bag and pulled her gloves off. Sweat was dripping down her face and neck, the workout long and hard, but she’d never enjoyed herself so much.
She wiped sticky strands of hair out of her face and turned to face Kendrick, a shadow of a grin on her face. It was as close to really looking happy as she got these days, but he seemed to read her mood well enough, and grinned back.
“Very well done,” he told her, and she was secretly thrilled at the praise. Since that first, awkward meeting in the town square, she’d been putting Kendrick through his paces, not willing to accept his claims of a secret spy organisation without the hard evidence to back it up. Did he even know martial arts, she’d demanded of him on their second meeting, before delivering the ultimatum that unless she could see this ‘special training’ for herself, she wasn’t going to touch them with a forty foot pole.
She’d half expected the man to walk away, his bluff called. But instead, for the past six weeks, he’d taken her on a whirlwind tour of her potential new career, training in karate, taekwondo and boxing, attending a shooting range to have her first lesson in using a pistol, and then he’d slyly asked her if she liked dogs. She’d shrugged, not at all sure why it was a relevant question… until she’d been taken to an out-of-the-way park and a few of Kendrick’s colleagues had demonstrated the most amazing display of dog obedience she’d ever seen. The dog, named Anna, had been hard to identify, a brown and grey medium sized creature that didn’t seem to quite fit any of the breeds Caroline knew, but she’d demonstrated the ability to sniff out drugs from the most unlikely places, to obey her trainer with startling precision and to take down a ‘criminal’, in this case, a volunteer in a padded body suit, with ease. Should she sign up, Kendrick had explained, then Caroline would be working with a large number of canines, and it was important that she was comfortable with the idea.
Caroline had never given much thought to dogs before, but after seeing the skills this one had displayed, she found herself rather liking the idea of a team of guard dogs roaming the spy compound, attacking the bad guys, and she’d said as much, which had made Kendrick laugh for reasons that Caroline didn’t entirely understand.
But the thing that had really drawn her to this secret group was the way they treated her. Each of her instructors had been patient, disciplined, polite, explaining each step of her training clearly and encouraging her when she failed, praising her when she succeeded. Most of her teachers at school had been harsh and belittling, scolding her for the slightest failure, so it was hardly surprising that she was finding the idea of spending more time with these people appealing.
Now, in the boxing gym, Kendrick handed her a towel and sent her off to the showers, waiting until she emerged fifteen minutes later, clean and dry in a fresh set of clothes. He’d bought them for her a few weeks ago, another gesture to demonstrate the organisation’s ready access to funding, as well as a purely pragmatic necessity – Caroline neither owned, nor could afford specific clothes just for working out.
They headed out of the gym and back to Kendrick’s motorbike. The first few times they’d gone anywhere together, Caroline had insisted on finding her own way there, not willing to trust a random stranger by getting onto his bike with him. Now, though, she’d started to trust the man, as each and every time he’d stated an intention to do something he’d followed through, on time, and accurate down to the last detail. And to be honest, there was something exhilarating about flying down the road on a bike, a borrowed helmet on her head and the wind cold against her skin. She’d enjoyed riding with him, and was looking forward to doing it again.
But inste
ad of putting on his helmet and getting onto the bike, Kendrick instead turned to lean against the wall. He folded his arms and gave Caroline a steely look, and she braced herself for whatever was coming next.
Right up front, Kendrick had been clear about his expectations of her. She was to follow his instructions, show up on time, and never, ever tell anyone else what she was doing, or mention the slightest detail about her new acquaintances. To do so would not only disqualify her from ever joining their organisation, but would also place her in grave danger, he had emphasised more than once, as his team understandably had enemies who would happily use a stray civilian as bait or leverage to strike a blow at them.
And as far as she was aware, Caroline had lived up to her end of the bargain, lying to her family, her friends, her boyfriend, keeping her head down and managing to invent a dozen excuses as to where she was going at random times of the day and reasons why she couldn’t hang out or make it to a party.
But the look on Kendrick’s face now gave her a cool sense of foreboding, as if something had gone wrong, or was about to, and she tried to control her growing unease. This had all been going so well. A new start. An opportunity to have a real purpose.
“So,” Kendrick said, looking her up and down, a wariness in his eyes that was at odds with his usually open and genial nature. “You’ve seen what we can do. You’ve seen some of the resources at our command. And you’ve met some of our operatives.”
He fell silent for a moment, and Caroline realised that this was it. He’d delivered everything she’d asked, explained himself as well as possible, given the secrecy of his organisation, jumped through every hoop she could think of. And now she was going to be asked to choose. She looked away, let her gaze wander up and down the street, trying to imagine what it would be like to never come here again.