Midnight Wolf

by Jennifer Ashley

  The leader stopped about two yards from Angus and Tamsin. The men in fatigues circled around behind them.

  Angus fixed the leader with a hard stare. “Where’s my cub, Haider?”

  He didn’t mess around, Angus. Haider met his stare, then gave a brief nod to one of the guys in fatigues. The man turned away, his radio crackling to life. “Bring him,” he said.

  Behind them, down the row a little, a door in one of the larger tombs opened. A man in black fatigues emerged, another following. Between them, the second man’s hand on his shoulder, came a boy of about eleven years old, dark haired and gray eyed, with the squared features of his father. He’d be a heartbreaker when he got older, Tamsin thought. He even had a scowl that matched Angus’s in intensity.

  Angus’s scowl was vividly present as he glared at Haider. “You kept my son in a tomb? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Relax, it’s empty. We put a bed in there, and Ciaran got to play video games and watch movies.”

  “Lame ones,” Ciaran muttered. Tamsin wanted to burst into nervous laughter. He sounded just like his dad.

  “Let him go.” Angus’s eyes were turning lighter gray, his wolf wanting to come out and play. If he turned himself into his between-beast and struck out hard and fast, he could take out all six guys very fast.

  His Collar would go off and burn him with pain if he did. Then the guys with the tranqs would land him on the ground, and he’d be chained and hauled away. What they’d do with Ciaran, Tamsin didn’t like to speculate.

  She lifted her hand in a friendly wave at Ciaran. “Hi there. I’m Tamsin, the big scary Shifter all these guys are after.”

  Ciaran looked her up and down, his dark brows rising, then turned to his father. “You mean I was stuck all night in a crypt with Shifter Bureau, and you were with her? Not fair.”

  “I didn’t have a choice, son.” Angus’s voice held a gentleness Tamsin hadn’t heard in it before.

  Ciaran gave Tamsin a once-over again. “Good taste, Dad. She’s hot.”

  “Hey.” Tamsin gave him a mock frown. “I’m old enough to be your . . . aunt.”

  “Yeah. My hot aunt.”

  Tamsin winked at him. “I was right. You’ll be a heartbreaker. I bet you already are.”

  Ciaran looked puzzled by this, then turned back to Angus. “I’m all right, Dad. Just bored.”

  And scared. Tamsin scented that on him, but he wasn’t about to let on in front of the Shifter Bureau goons how afraid he was.

  “Let him walk over here,” Angus said. “Then we’re leaving. Right? I did what you wanted. Now my son and I are going home.”

  “You took your time.” Haider motioned for the men with Ciaran to walk him forward. “Where did you disappear to?”

  “Running after her.” Angus jerked his thumb at Tamsin. “Where do you think?”

  “Hm.” Haider looked skeptical but didn’t pursue it.

  Ciaran reached Angus. The goons stepped back, and Angus crouched down and pulled his son into a smothering hug. “You all right, little guy?”

  Tamsin’s throat went tight as she saw the relief and love on Angus’s face. Ciaran, who clung to Angus a long moment, clearly loved and trusted his father. She remembered her own cubhood with her mom and dad, the family hugs that could make every trouble melt away, and her heart ached.

  Angus unwound himself from Ciaran and straightened up, keeping hold of his cub’s hand. “I’m taking your car back to the club,” he told Haider. “My motorcycle is there, and I’m not walking with my cub across the city. Pick it up yourself.”

  Haider nodded, as though he didn’t care one way or the other what happened to the car. “Leave the keys on the front seat. I doubt anyone will steal it.” His lips twitched.

  Angus showed no amusement. He tightened his hold on Ciaran and walked him past Haider, past the men in fatigues, and down the walkway between the tombs.

  Ciaran glanced back at Tamsin, worry on his face, but Angus never turned around.

  Because he feared any look would give away what he’d told Tamsin to do? Or because he was absorbed in Ciaran and ready to put this situation well behind him?

  Either way, they turned a corner, father and son gripping hands tightly, and disappeared.

  Tamsin did not like how watching them go made her feel. Empty. Lonely. Mournful that she’d never see Angus again.

  She stopped herself from analyzing these feelings and concentrated on the fact that she was alone with six guys from Shifter Bureau.

  Her chest tightened, and her fight-or-flight instincts rose. She’d be fighting or fleeing very soon. Probably both.

  “Ms. Calloway,” Haider said. “Shall we go inside?” He motioned to the tomb in which they’d kept Ciaran.

  “Nah, I like the weather.” Tamsin stuck her hands into her jacket pockets. No way was she entering a confined space with Haider. She’d be able to get away much more easily if they remained in the open air.

  When Haider didn’t move, she continued, “So why did you send a master tracker like Angus after little ole me? What have I done? This time, I mean.”

  The quirk of Haider’s lips hadn’t left him. Tamsin hated people with the I-know-something-you-don’t look.

  “You interest me,” Haider said. “I could reel off the list of your crimes and your associations with known agitators, but I’ll do that later. You’ll tell me where they all are in time. You also know a few things about Gavan Murray I will make you tell me. But I’m also very curious about this.”

  He dipped his hand into his pocket, and Tamsin tensed, but what he pulled out was an ordinary smartphone. He tapped an icon, gave it a few swipes, tapped again, and held it up facing her.

  The screen of the phone was dark for a moment, then a greenish light spread over it, giving the trees and plants it showed a strange fuzzy outline. In the middle of these trees was Tamsin, her skin glowing in the green light. She was naked.

  Before she could voice her disgust that someone had spied on her with a nightscope and filmed it, the Tamsin on the screen morphed rapidly and smoothly into her fox.

  Shit.

  Haider smiled as he turned the phone around and tapped it to make it dark again.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Tamsin asked, pretending nonchalance. “Post it on a Canine porn network?”

  “I’m going to find out what makes you tick,” Haider said. “I want to know why there are fox Shifters when no one knew it, and how there are fox Shifters. I’m going to find out everything about you.”

  “How, by dissecting me?” Tamsin’s voice went shriller than she meant it to.

  “Not right away,” Haider said smoothly. “I’ll want to talk to you first. About Gavan and his little group. About everything. We will do quite a lot of talking.”

  Interrogation, he meant. With torture, drugs, whatever he could think of to make her spill all she knew.

  Then he’d cut her apart to find the secret of what made Tamsin herself.

  He was crazy enough to do it—Tamsin saw that in his eyes. She noticed that a couple of his goons weren’t thrilled by what he was saying, but she figured they’d obey orders no matter what. If they had true scruples, they wouldn’t be here at all.

  Only one thing to do. She wasn’t sure Angus and Ciaran had made it to safety yet, but she couldn’t wait.

  Tamsin launched herself at Haider.

  She knew he’d be expecting something like that, so she turned in midair to hit the guy five feet away from him instead. She rammed into the startled man in fatigues, then jumped away from him, his tranq pistol in her hands.

  The problem with tranq guns was that they only had one shot. Tamsin picked her target, and fired the tranq dart into Haider’s neck.

  He swore at her the second before he crumpled into an unconscious pile, and in that second, she was go
ne.

  Tamsin dodged the goons before they could coordinate to grab her. She heard their tranq guns go off, but none hit her, and then came the pop of pistol bullets.

  Tamsin thrust the tranq pistol into her jacket and nimbly leapt from the ground to an ornamented frieze to the top of a tomb, then ran, jumping from one tomb to the next, dropping down at the end of the row to another walkway. The large human men in combat boots would have to run around, but they were trained, and they were fast.

  Tamsin bolted down the main walkway toward the open gate, running with all she had in her. She emerged onto the street where Angus had parked. The station wagon was still there, Angus and Ciaran about ten feet from reaching it.

  The Shifter agents were right behind her. No time to search for whomever Angus had arranged to pick her up.

  “Change of plans!” Tamsin shouted as she barreled toward them and the car.

  Angus and Ciaran exchanged a startled look, and then they were running.

  All three reached the car at the same time. Tamsin yanked open the back door of the station wagon and dove inside. She hunkered down on the seat as Angus and Ciaran slammed themselves into the front, and Tamsin sent up a fervent prayer to the Goddess.

  “Awesome!” Ciaran shouted. “Go, Dad! Go!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Angus swung into traffic, diving in front of a speeding SUV that had to slam on its brakes. The driver leaned on his horn and gave Angus the finger. Angus didn’t slow, leaving the narrow street behind as fast as he could.

  “What the fuck was that?” he demanded of the lump in the back seat.

  “Me blowing your mission.” Tamsin’s voice was muffled. “I don’t care where you throw me out, but don’t take me back to Haider.”

  “You want to tell me where you think I can take you? In this shitbag of a car? With all of Shifter Bureau on our asses?”

  “You don’t know it’s all of Shifter Bureau, Dad.” Ciaran’s tone was reasonable but his eyes were lit with excitement. His face and arms were dirty. If any of those goons had hit him . . .

  “It will be once Haider reports in,” Angus growled.

  “We’ll have to ditch the car.” There was a rustle as Tamsin righted herself but she remained hunched down in the seat. “It stands out a mile, and I bet he put a tracker on it.”

  “Why would he have to?” Angus’s barked question was cut over by Ciaran.

  “You mean you didn’t look for a tracking device? Seriously, Dad.”

  Tamsin nodded. “Remember, he asked where you’d disappeared to? Probably meant he lost your signal at some point. I bet it was when we were at the house. Ley line, sentient house. Makes sense.”

  Ciaran’s eyes widened as he turned around and studied Tamsin. “You took her to the haunted house? Nice one, Dad.”

  Angus gripped the steering wheel, irritated at himself. His son and Tamsin were no doubt right. He hadn’t bothered looking for a tracking device because it hadn’t mattered. He’d planned to do what Haider wanted anyway—why try to do it stealthily?

  But now they needed to be invisible—hard to do in a wood-paneled station wagon from the 1970s.

  Angus drove as fast as he dared through the narrow streets, which were heavy with traffic, heading for the broad expanse of St. Charles Avenue.

  Ciaran peered interestedly over the dashboard. “What are you going to do? Carjack someone?”

  “No.” Angus bent a hard look on his son. “We’re not criminals. I had Ben arrange backup for Tamsin if she needed it.”

  “Isn’t he sweet?” Tamsin said from the depths of the back seat. “Is Zander hiding out waiting to carry me off? He’s not exactly inconspicuous.”

  “You met Zander?” Ciaran’s eyes widened with admiration. “And Ben? Man, I always miss all the fun.”

  Angus glanced at him, noting that, despite his wide-eyed interest, Ciaran was trembling. Angus put an arm around him and drew him close.

  “If they hurt you, Ciaran, tell me, all right? Don’t hold back. If they did, I’ll kill them.” He rested his hand on his son’s back, all of him rejoicing that his cub was safe. “I’ll probably kill them anyway—I’ll just do it a bit harder.”

  He noted Tamsin watching him in the rearview mirror, surprise in her eyes. What had she thought, that Angus would lie down and roll over for Shifter Bureau? He’d have Haider’s balls on a platter for abducting his son.

  “They didn’t,” Ciaran answered, subdued. “Just scared me. Or tried to. But I wasn’t scared, Dad. I knew you’d come find me.”

  Ciaran’s shivering told Angus he had been scared, terrified. Haider would pay for that.

  “You were brave, son. Never let on to those Bureau shits that you’re worried.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Good lad.”

  Angus pulled around the corner to St. Charles Avenue, a broad boulevard divided by an island along which streetcars clacked. It was lined with houses large and small, all old and stately.

  A beige SUV, unassuming and so like every other SUV on the road as to be almost camouflaged, waited in a side lane that led back toward the cemetery.

  Angus pulled the station wagon in behind it and stopped. He quickly got out of the car, scanning the roads in case Haider and company were charging down them. Angus calculated they’d have a minute or so, maybe, to get out of here.

  A tall black man with a runner’s body climbed of the SUV, tossing Angus a set of keys.

  “Thanks, Reg,” Angus said. “You haven’t seen us, right?”

  Reg folded his arms as first Ciaran and then Tamsin darted out of the wagon and hurried to the SUV.

  Ciaran threw open one of the rear doors. “I’m in back. You get shotgun,” he said to Tamsin.

  He didn’t call her by name. He was already learning.

  “I haven’t seen anything,” Reg said. “In fact, I’m not even here. I’m jogging by the lake.”

  He started for the station wagon, but Angus shook his head. “It’s probably being tracked. Leave it. Can we drop you somewhere?”

  “Sure. The lake.”

  Without another word, Reg climbed into the back with Ciaran and shut the door. Tamsin was already in the front seat as Angus slid behind the wheel. She rummaged in the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of sunglasses.

  “Cool shades,” she said to Reg. “Mind?”

  Reg shrugged. Angus could tell he was dying to know who she was and what the hell was going on, but like a good tracker, he knew when to keep quiet.

  Tamsin pulled on the square sunglasses, checked her reflection, smiled at it, and hunkered down into the seat.

  Angus started the SUV and made a quiet but swift U-turn. He drove sedately to the end of the block, though his heart was thumping with the need to hurry, and turned back onto St. Charles Avenue. This time, he blended in with the traffic, slowing when it slowed, stopping when it stopped.

  Every instinct told him to floor it, screech away, and drive like hell, but Angus fought the compulsion. The best way to evade pursuit was to not call attention to himself. This SUV looked like every other one on the road, its windows tinted enough to keep people from seeing clearly who was inside. Reg had chosen well.

  “Where did you get this?” Angus asked Reg as he drove carefully along the street. “It’s perfect.”

  “What do you mean, where did I get it? It’s mine.”

  Angus stepped hard on the brake and glared back at Reg. “Registered with Shifter Bureau?” They’d have a record of the license plate and could easily track them.

  Reg frowned at him. “No, no. I’m not an idiot. Bought it under the radar and have been modifying it. You said you needed something inconspicuous.”

  “That’s us,” Tamsin said, grinning at him. “Inconspicuous. I’m Tamsin, by the way.” She stuck out her hand to him. “Fugitive from Shifter Bureau. I
t was nice of you to help out.”

  Reg shook the offered hand, mystified. “I’m Reg McKee,” he said as Angus drove on. “Hey, Angus is a friend and fellow tracker. He says come to Lafayette Cemetery and give a ride to a red-haired Shifter woman on the run, I do it. He said I couldn’t miss you. I see why.” He shot Tamsin a smile that had Angus bristling.

  Tamsin returned the smile as she withdrew her hand. “I like him,” she said to Angus.

  Angus let out a snarl, and then wondered why he was becoming so defensive.

  “Is that them?” Ciaran pointed over the back seat out the dark rear window.

  A sleek black SUV had pulled from St. Charles Avenue into the lane where they’d left the station wagon.

  “Looks like it,” Angus said. Only Shifter Bureau would drive something that flashy while trying to be covert. “Are they coming?”

  Ciaran watched for a time as Angus drove slowly onward. “No,” he said, righting himself in the seat. “I bet Haider’s yelling at them all. One of the guys was nice—he let me keep playing games when the others wanted me to sit there and be quiet—but the rest of them . . .” He made the small growling sound of an angry wolf cub. “Shitheads.”

  Angus relaxed a bit. They hadn’t broken him. They might have threatened him, but Ciaran hadn’t let himself be bullied.

  Angus continued along the street, behaving like any other motorist trying to get somewhere. Not attracting attention.

  The question was where to go next. Even if they’d ditched Haider, Angus couldn’t go home or back to the club. Haider would have men waiting at the gates of Shiftertown and at the door to the club. Angus had to take them away somewhere—forever, or at least until Haider died of old age.

  This was his own fault. When Tamsin had bolted down the street behind them and leapt into the station wagon, Angus could have kept walking. The keys had been in the car’s ignition, and he’d retrieved Ciaran. Angus could have walked away with Ciaran, found Reg, and had him drive them back to Shiftertown, leaving Tamsin to get away from them best she could.

  But no, Angus had turned aside, gotten himself and Ciaran into the car, and sealed his fate. He’d made the choice to give up his sedate life to help an un-Collared fox Shifter on the run, one who’d been a follower of his crazy brother, and he didn’t know why he’d made that choice.