Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson

by Patricia Briggs

  Ben bulled his way to Mel’s desk, forcing Duffy to step back or be body-checked. As Ben slammed the manual onto Mel’s desk with a crack that made her jump, Duffy flinched, and silence descended on their portion of cubicle hell.

  “What is this?” Ben snapped at Mel, knowing the flush of anger on his English-pale cheeks made him even more intimidating. Humans couldn’t tell he was a werewolf unless he wanted them to, but some part of their psyche could smell predator.

  Mel looked at the book and swallowed. She didn’t cringe, not quite, but when she answered, it was in a squeak. “The manual I got for you from the company library yesterday?”

  He stabbed the paper with his finger. “Do you see the title? What does it say?”

  “Is this really necessary?” said Duffy, and Ben looked at him briefly.

  He turned back to Mel without answering Duffy. “Well? Can’t you read?”

  “It says Advanced Concepts in JavaScript.” She didn’t sound terrified, though Ben knew she was scared of him. Everyone at his work was scared of him except his friend Rajeev because Rajeev was on the other side of the world. His wolf saw all humans as weak, and people could feel things like that.

  “I asked you for the advanced Java manual,” he said. “I realize that JavaScript starts with Java, but you’ve been working here long enough that you should know that one program is nothing like the other. Sounds alike is not good enough. I called the library, and they pulled the correct book. I made it simple for you because simple seems to be all you can do. Go upstairs, take this book back, and bring me the book they give you.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, standing up. Which meant she looked him right in the collarbone, and she raised her chin. “You’ll have to get out of my way first.”

  “You tell him, Mel,” said a faint voice a few rows over.

  “Keep your nose in your business, Lincoln,” snapped Ben, effectively removing the voice’s anonymity.

  He backed up and swept his arm out in a mockery of gentlemanliness and forced Duffy even farther back, clearing the way for Mel to head to the stairs, which were closer (and faster) than the elevator.

  “Don’t start sniveling.” Ben scowled at her back as she skittered by him with her head tucked so no one could see it. “If you’d gotten it right the first time, neither of us would have been inconvenienced.”

  “Don’t you think that was a little harsh?” asked Duffy, then, with unrecognized irony, “It is against company policy to harass other workers.”

  Ben met his eyes—a dangerous move with his wolf so close to the surface. But Duffy looked away before Ben was driven to enforce his status as the dominant predator.

  “If she doesn’t want to get yelled at, she can do her job,” Ben tried out his dominant position by sneering. “Just like everyone else does. What do you need?”

  Duffy opened his mouth, but no words came out. Hah. Humans were no match for a werewolf.

  Ben waved his hand back down the line. “Did you need something from the DBAs?”

  “Uh,” said Duffy. “No.”

  “Fine.” Ben turned on his heel and stalked down the row, which was unusually silent. DBAs didn’t spend a lot of time talking, but keyboards are not quiet—everyone had been listening to his interchange.

  Ben’s cubicle was the farthest one, and he liked it that way because people with random issues usually stopped elsewhere before they got to him. By the time he got there, the noise level had begun to resume its normal clatter.

  • • •

  “Here,” one of the other DBAs whispered from the hallway just outside Ben’s cubicle. “Just wait here. He’ll be with you as soon as he surfaces.”

  Ben had hung a whiteboard on the outside of the cubicle wall next to the entrance of his lair. On it he had written: I know you are here. Wait silently, and I’ll get to you as soon as I am able. If you speak before then, you will not find me helpful. On the floor just inside his cubicle was a mat with a pair of black footprints and “Wait here” painted on it.

  “I have work—”

  “Shhh,” hissed the second voice. “Heed the warning.”

  It took Ben a couple of minutes to tidy everything so nothing would blow up behind him. When he turned around, there was one of the programmers whose face he vaguely recognized waiting for him.

  Ben raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m told you’re the one who wiped out my data,” the programmer said belligerently.

  “Probably,” agreed Ben. “Who are you?”

  “Stan Brown.”

  He knew that name.

  Ben had been trying to figure out what had been filling the hard drive of a priority backup server he’d been fine-tuning when he’d discovered a huge block of data, property of one Stan Brown, that turned out to be a collection of every blue film made in the last century as well as carefully organized files of photographs from bestiality to kink and beyond.

  Private files on the critical backup servers, which were very expensive real estate in electron land, were prohibited. Pornography at work was a firing offence. There had been a massive firing of people caught just surfing for porn on company computers. The scandal predated Ben, but he’d heard about it from people still traumatized by the winnowing.

  So Ben had talked about Stan’s files to the head of security, who wasn’t a total . . . jerk, and they decided, between the two of them that they should just erase it and pretend it had never been there. Save the guy’s job instead of letting some boss look good to his overlords.

  “Yes,” said Ben slowly. “I had a good look at those files. I wondered what kind of critical data you could possibly have that was that big. When I saw what it was, I got rid of it.”

  “So it was you,” Stan said hotly. “I had to lean on the security guys to give me your name.”

  The security guys were probably huddled on the other side of the cubicle wall just to hear the set down Ben gave him. They were in for a disappointment because he couldn’t swear—or he’d lose that scotch—so scaring off stupid people just wasn’t as much fun as usual.

  Stan was still twittering on. “Do you know how long it took me to put that collection together? Some of those aren’t available anywhere anymore. You can’t just go around erasing people’s files.”

  Ben tapped a little framed certificate on the wall.

  “DBA,” he said in case the guy couldn’t read. “I maintain the data systems. I take out things that don’t belong as part of my job description. Porn doesn’t belong. Especially illegal porn—and in Washington State, bestiality is illegal ever since that guy died at the sheep farm.”

  “Horse farm,” said Lee, the DBA in the next cubicle. “And I think it might just be the act of bestiality that’s good for jail time, not films or photos.”

  “You would know,” muttered someone behind his other wall. It sounded like one of the security people. If Ben hadn’t had werewolf ears, he wouldn’t have heard her—or the very quiet snickers that accompanied the remark.

  “You had no right,” whined Stan, who wasn’t cursed with Ben’s hearing. “No right to steal my stuff, man. I’m going to go to the police and report it.”

  Ben was too bemused to be angry. Was this guy really that dumb? Hadn’t he gotten the same on-hire speech about what was and was not allowed on-site that Ben had?

  “I tell you what, Stan,” he said slowly because that was how he talked to people too stupid to live. “Those were on the critical backup server, I still have backups of your files—and will for the next decade, because, hey, critical backup server. You get your supervisor to sign a letter asking me to restore those files—detailing exactly what kind of data we are talking about—and I’ll restore them for you.”

  Stan threw out his chest as if he’d won the battle. “I’ll do that.”

  When he had left, Fitz, in the cubicle with all the security p
eople, stuck his head over the partition, and said, in awe, “There goes the stupidest man I’ve ever heard. Do you suppose he’ll really try to get a letter?”

  “Hey, Ben,” said someone farther down. “Can I get a copy of the backup files?”

  “Would you all shut up so I can get some work done?” said Lori, the makeup lady.

  • • •

  Several hours later, it was the smell of coffee that pulled Ben out of electronland. He would have dismissed it—no one brought him coffee—except that Mel was standing, very quietly, on his mat. He made a few changes and buttoned up the database he was working on.

  When he turned around, Mel held out a cup of gourmet coffee that hadn’t come out of the company kitchen. Her hand barely shook. He frowned at her and made no move to take it.

  “What?” he said.

  She set it down on the desk beside him and cleared her throat. “You know I’m married.”

  He raised his eyebrow. “I would have propositioned you, but I have a harem at home, and you just wouldn’t fit in.”

  Her face flushed. “That’s not what I meant. My husband is overseas for another six months.”

  He waited in obvious irritation. Her fluttering and flinching made him want to bite her. His wolf said she was easy prey.

  “The coffee is from my husband,” she said, quietly, so no one else would hear her. “I finally figured you out—my husband did, actually—so your snarling isn’t going to make me flinch anymore.”

  He tried a subvocal growl, and, by Saint Andrew’s great hairy b . . . balloons, she didn’t back off.

  “Duffy got a secretary fired when she turned him down,” Mel told him. “Another girl, who couldn’t afford to lose her job, let him . . . you know.”

  Ben tried a raised eyebrow again, but it had noticeably less effect than it had the last time he’d done it to her. No tears. Not even any flinching or cringing.

  “I’m married, and he still . . .” She shuddered. “Between him and you, I was pretty upset this weekend when my husband called. I told him about everything that had been happening here, and he said”—her voice dropped into what was evidently her attempt to sound like her husband—“‘It sounds like every time Duffy comes out to bother you, Shaw emerges to yell at you and make you run stupid errands.’ I agreed, and he told me to think about that, then get you a cup of good coffee from him.” She smiled, revealing a charming dimple. Ben reminded himself he hated dimples almost as much as gratitude. “So here’s a cup of—”

  “Ben,” trilled Lorna Winkler, head of IT.

  Ben felt a headache coming on. For such a promising day, it was going to end badly. If Mel triggered his dislike of women, Lorna clubbed him over the head with it. He wasn’t fond of the company’s policy of women bosses—but he might have dealt if they had mitigated the damage by hiring the smart ones.

  Lorna was beautiful, power mad, and needed help to send e-mail—just exactly the person to put in charge of a bunch of computer nerds. Whenever she came down from on high to invade his cubicle—which she did to everyone because it was “friendlier than summoning you up to my office”—he figured there was a fifty-fifty chance he was going to quit in the next ten minutes. In the time he’d worked there, she’d visited him, personally, twice.

  He’d overheard enough of her “friendly pep talks” to know that she liked to begin speaking well before she made it down to the cubicle of whoever she was aimed at. Her first calling out of his name had started near Mel’s desk.

  “I’ve had a report from one of my people,” she warbled at him from halfway down the hall, “that you are harassing our secretary.”

  Mel raised her eyebrows at him, and Ben curled his lip, and whispered, “Duffy’s been whining to Mummy, again.”

  Mel grinned, then covered her mouth as Winkler, all six feet of the immaculately groomed gorgeousness that had allowed her to be Miss California a decade earlier, entered his sanctuary.

  She clearly hadn’t been expecting Mel. She stopped, regrouped, and began again. “I’m so glad you’re here, Mel, so that Ben can apologize to you. Our company has a firm policy against harassment.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Ben, with patent insincerity.

  “He’s not harassing me,” Mel said at exactly the same moment. She continued with a confident smile. “He can get a little grouchy, but everyone knows that. And we all make allowances for genius, right?”

  Winkler wasn’t pleased with having the rug pulled out from under her. “Don’t you consider having books slammed in front of you harassing? It was hostile and aggressive. I won’t have any woman in my department made uncomfortable.”

  “I wasn’t uncomfortable,” Mel said agreeably. “I’m sorry if Mr. Duffy had that impression.”

  Ben wasn’t used to having a woman defend him. It made him feel odd. Odder than it should. Wrong. Especially given that it was Mel defending him. It felt even odder than the impulse that had begun his game of keep the secretary safe from Duffy. It was so disconcerting that he didn’t say anything.

  Winkler wasn’t ready to give up. Maybe she’d promised Duffy that she was going to fire him. “I’ve also had reports that Ben’s language is objectionable.”

  Mel looked proud, and said, “He quit swearing two days ago. The whole DBA group has money on when he’ll break, but so far he’s doing really well, and we appreciate his effort to change his behavior. Ken Lincoln even promised that if Ben can quit swearing, he’ll agree to quit smoking.”

  • • •

  Adam laughed at his consternation as Ben told him the whole story later. “I’m so sorry,” his Alpha told him carefully, “that you’ve been used as a motivational force for good in your workplace.”

  “It’s your fault,” Ben groused, sinking lower in Adam’s couch. “If I hadn’t been trying for that scotch, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  He’d come to Adam because . . . He didn’t think of Adam as his father. He’d had one father, and that was enough for him. But Adam was good at sorting out people. This past month, Ben was starting not to recognize himself. He needed to know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “Do you know why I did it?” he asked, because he was bewildered by the need that had driven him to protect Mel—whom he didn’t even like.

  “Because she’s your secretary,” Adam said, then grinned at Ben’s expression. “How long have you been working in the DBA group?”

  “Something over two years.” If Adam was going somewhere with this, Ben didn’t know where it was.

  “Ben,” Adam said, “are you a dominant wolf or a submissive wolf?”

  “Dominant.” Not very. Bottom of the pack now that Peter was gone.

  “What makes up a dominant personality?”

  All of his life, Ben had always been considered brilliant—troubled, obnoxious, criminal, occasionally violent, but always brilliant. He didn’t like the feeling that he was missing something, and he liked the hint of patience in Adam’s voice that told him that Adam expected him to miss something even less. Ben’s first Alpha had been more beast than man, and he’d never explained anything about dominance other than the absolute rule that Ben had to obey everyone he couldn’t take down.

  “Willingness to fight,” Ben said, trying not to sound belligerent as he tried to work out what Adam wanted from him. “Difficulty with authority.” He jerked his gaze up to his Alpha, who looked a little amused at Ben’s realization about how that last one sounded. “Most authority.”

  “Anyone who hasn’t proved that he deserves respect,” Adam said tactfully.

  “If they can’t thrash me, they are prey,” Ben said, trying to stretch the rule that had been forcibly explained to him when he’d become a werewolf into a shape that Adam would find acceptable.

  Adam looked at him. “Okay. Are you my prey?”

  Ben stood up abruptly and stalked to the
window, his back to his Alpha because he didn’t have an expression he wanted to show him. “I’ve been a werewolf for long enough that I shouldn’t always feel like a bloody beginner.” Adam didn’t say anything, so Ben finally muttered, “I hope I am not prey to you.” Silence continued, somehow disapproving.

  “Do you feel like my prey?” Adam asked, his voice quiet and a little hurt.

  Ben threw away what he knew and tried to go with what he felt—which was difficult for him because facts had never failed him the way emotions had. “No.” That was right. “No.” Adam put all of his abilities, physical and mental, to protecting the pack from anything that would hurt them.

  “Someone should write a book about how to be a werewolf,” Mercy, Adam’s mate, said, sailing in with a plate of brownies, which she set down on the table with a thunk and the burnt motor-oil smell that was a part of her. It used to irritate him—and now it irritated him that he associated the smell with pack and safety. “I sometimes feel like I know more about being a werewolf than all of you combined.” She sat next to Adam and looked up at Ben.

  He’d asked for a minute alone with Adam, which she apparently thought she’d given them. He opened his mouth to ask her to leave, but when he spoke, it was to Adam. “So you think I’m looking at Mel as if she were part of my pack? That I’m feeling protective of that sniveling little—” He swallowed the descriptor that came to mind. “Annoying wimpy chit.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” agreed Adam. “The reason you are not more dominant has more to do with the other wolves than with you. Part of submitting to a more dominant wolf is the belief that they will protect you better than you can protect yourself. They don’t believe you’ll protect them, so they won’t yield to you.”

  Ben turned back to the window and absorbed the information like a blow. He didn’t care how dominant he was, he didn’t, though he disliked obeying other wolves intensely.

  Adam’s orders were the single exception because Adam would never hurt him or allow him to be hurt outside of the discipline needed to keep peace within the pack. Which sort of drove Adam’s previous point about what really made a dominant wolf right home, didn’t it?