by SM Reine
Watching the shifters prowling, waiting for Stark to return, she couldn’t help but fear that her death would be the next step for his platform.
Deirdre crouched in front of Mallory, haloed by January Lazar’s light. “Hey,” she said softly, voice quiet enough that the camera might not pick it up. “I know you’re scared, but I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Okay? I promise that you’re safe with me.”
Mallory wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. “You said you’d shoot me.”
“I know.” Deirdre glanced at January, then shifted her body so that the camera could only film her back. She dropped her voice. “I’m not like Stark. I don’t hurt people for fun. I’m going to get you out of here alive.”
She sounded earnest.
Slowly, Mallory’s heart decelerated.
“I just need your help,” Deirdre said, and that got Mallory’s heart going faster again.
“Help with what?” Mallory asked.
January Lazar moved the camera closer to get more of their conversation. Deirdre scowled at it. “Get that out of my face,” she said.
“You’re part of this, Ms. Tombs,” January said. “People will want to know you.”
Howls echoed from the depths of the safe house.
Stark had opened the doors.
Mallory whimpered as claws scrabbled against the stairs. The shifters emerged one at a time, emerging from underground single file because they were too large to navigate the stairwell alongside each other.
All those people she had checked in before moonrise—ordinary, compliant American citizens—were animals now, wild eyed and slavering.
A wolf the size of a car stalked toward Mallory.
“No!” she cried, clutching the useless charm.
Deirdre wrapped her arms around Mallory. The shifter woman’s skin was warm. Painfully warm, in fact. Like she was radiating pure sunlight.
The wolf stuck its nose between them. Deirdre shoved its muzzle away. “Back off.” It pushed more insistently, wet breath wheezing over them. Its tongue made a wet slurping noise as it licked its fangs. Deirdre shoved again. “Give me room!”
Stark’s hand closed on the ruff of fur at the wolf’s neck. “You heard her. Don’t touch Deirdre Tombs.”
“Or the witch,” Deirdre added.
Stark glowered.
She repeated herself. “Or the witch.”
“Or the witch,” he echoed from between his teeth, as though it hurt him to say it.
He dragged the wolf away.
Twenty-eight shifters, mostly wolves, stood in the parking lot, and all of them were giving their full attention to Everton Stark. It was impressive to see so many massive shifters showing submission to a single human man. He walked among them with no fear.
January Lazar filmed it all.
“Look at them,” Stark said. “See how they obey me?”
“Amazing,” the reporter sighed.
“I’m Everton Stark, and I am an Alpha,” he said directly to the camera. “You don’t need Rylie Gresham. None of us do.” He turned to the shifters. “If you choose, you can be on your own tonight. Run through the city. Be wild. Find others like you and know freedom. Or you can come with me. Join me. Join my movement, and help me fight.”
He flung his arms out.
With howls and yips, the shifters exploded into motion, racing across the parking lot.
A lot of them didn’t go anywhere. More than a dozen stuck around, hoping to ally with Stark.
The rest fled, unleashed on New York City.
There was no way Mallory would be keeping her job after that night.
“You didn’t mention the election,” Deirdre said. “You should have mentioned the election. ‘My name is Everton Stark, and I approve this message.’” She turned to January Lazar. “Can you edit that in at the end?”
“Shifters don’t elect Alphas,” Stark said with the tone of a man who had been through the same argument a million times and had no patience left for it.
“I wish I could get a video of you shifted, Mr. Stark,” January said. “Want to give me some footage?”
“No,” he said curtly.
“Why not? I bet you’re an impressive animal.” She pushed his arm playfully, as unafraid of the man as he was of the shifters surrounding them. She was probably right to think that she wasn’t in danger. He needed her to spread his message, after all.
“No,” Stark said again. The remaining shifters milled around him, sticking their noses under the hem of his shirt, inhaling his odor. “How was that, January? Do you have enough?”
“Yes, it was great,” January said. “Perfect. You look like a modern Che Guevara. Or Moses!” She added the second name thoughtfully, as though trying to decide which metaphor she wanted to push to the masses. She tapped her forefinger against her chin.
“Do you need anything else?”
“Election,” Deirdre muttered under her breath.
“Nope, I think we’re good! This is going to be beautiful for sweeps week.” January kissed the side of her camera, leaving the imprint of her shiny gloss on the plastic casing. One of the werewolves stuck his nose up the reporter’s skirt. She pushed the hem down. “Bad dog. No.”
“They aren’t dogs,” Deirdre said.
January gave her an exaggerated wink. “All men are dogs, even when they walk around on two legs.” She waved a goodbye. “I need to edit this package if I want to get it on the news today. Ta ta, furry woodland friends!”
Mallory didn’t dare move as January Lazar carried her camera out of the parking lot, leaving her alone at the scene.
Well, as alone as she could be with twenty shapeshifters.
She was hoping that Stark and Deirdre would follow January and take the freed shifters with them. She hoped that they’d forget she even existed.
Stark glanced up at the moon. “We’re out of time. Get downstairs, Tombs.”
Deirdre turned to Mallory. “Can you prepare to lock one of the safe rooms for us? Just one to keep me inside all night?”
“What? Why?”
“Because—” Deirdre began.
A floodlight blazed down onto the parking lot.
Mallory shielded her eyes, squinting up at the source. She could barely make out the shape of a helicopter overhead.
A voice piped over a loudspeaker.
“Everton Stark, you are under arrest. Drop your weapons, get down on the ground, and do not shapeshift.”
In an instant, Mallory was off the pavement, Everton Stark’s arm hooked around her throat. A gun pressed against her temple.
We’ll need a hostage to get out of here.
Mallory was a hostage.
She cried and beat at his arm, but Stark was pure, primal strength. He didn’t budge. Even if she’d been able to get away, she wouldn’t have gotten far. She was surrounded by warm, furry bodies, waiting for an excuse to bite her.
“We’re leaving,” Stark shouted at the helicopter. “If you follow us, I will kill this woman.”
“No you won’t,” Deirdre said under her breath.
“I will,” Stark said, quieter than before, speaking directly to Deirdre.
“I’m drawing a line here. The witch lives. Her life isn’t currency.”
“We aren’t having this debate, Tombs!”
The helicopter dropped a few inches. Black ropes spiraled down from its belly, and agents slid down on harnesses, preparing to encircle them.
Stark popped a few shots off at the descending agents. Cries erupted overhead. The smell of gunpowder clung to Mallory’s sinuses, ears aching with the volume of the gunshots. Her ears were ringing. Everything was muffled.
The OPA had sent agents down despite his threat. The meaning was clear: they didn’t care if Mallory survived the confrontation.
Agents dropped. A few landed on their feet among the shapeshifters, lifting silver-plated riot shields to defend themselves. A few collapsed in piles of body armor, gushing blood from bullet wounds th
at Stark had delivered.
The shifters closed in around the agents. Yips and snarls and gunshots exploded through the night.
Stark’s gun shoved harder against Mallory’s temple.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
But then his gun moved away again.
“Tombs!” Stark shouted. Deirdre had grabbed his hand, preventing him from shooting their hostage.
Mallory ripped away from Stark. She fell into Deirdre’s arms, tears streaming down her cheeks, lungs hitching as she cried. “Run!” Deirdre said.
And then she followed her own advice, pulling Mallory along with her, forging a path through the crowd of shifters.
Shifters were supernaturally fast. As a witch, Mallory was not. She couldn’t keep her feet underneath her as she stumbled after Deirdre, dragged by the shifter’s grip.
After a few clumsy feet, Deirdre hauled Mallory off the ground, slinging her over her shoulder.
Upside down, Mallory watched as Stark fired at the OPA agents. He moved so quickly, jerking left to right as he ran, zigzagging across the parking lot.
He was dodging bullets, she realized with a shock.
The man can dodge bullets.
Deirdre skidded to a stop. “Dammit!”
Under her arm, Mallory saw several more OPA agents blocking the gate of the parking lot with their bodies, lifting fully automatic weapons.
They were going to shoot at Deirdre and Stark.
And Mallory would be caught in the crossfire.
“No!” Mallory shrieked.
A dark shape hurtled out of the sky and slammed into the ground so hard that it cratered.
Blades and guns flashed.
The OPA agents fell in rapid succession, collapsing like bowling pins.
Once they’d all hit the ground, the new arrival stood tall and tossed her hair back from her face.
It was a woman with dark olive skin and wings. Not wings like the angels that Mallory had seen on the news, but metal wings, jagged and cruel. There was blood and ragged flesh on the tips of her shimmering feathers.
She wasn’t holding a weapon. She’d killed the agents with her wings, clearing a path to escape the safe house.
Mallory burst into tears again.
The winged woman didn’t attack them when Deirdre raced past. She had already moved on to the other agents that had jumped out of the helicopter, bladed wings flashing in the streetlights as blood sprayed.
The helicopter was following Deirdre and Stark, though. It was keeping its light focused on them.
Stark tried to shoot out the light, but his gun clicked empty.
“Here!” Deirdre shouted.
She shifted her weight, tossed him another gun. She never even broke her stride.
Stark aimed at the light. It blazed down on him, haloing his rugged, square face in unflatteringly harsh light, illuminating his brown hair so that it almost looked red.
One more gunshot. Just one.
The light went out.
“Move,” he barked, shoving Deirdre.
The safe house receded behind them, shrinking into the distance as they pounded down the sidewalk. There weren’t a lot of cars or pedestrians on their street. Not at night, and not in that neighborhood. Not so close to vampire territory.
Vampire territory. Jesus. A pair of murdering terrorists were dragging Mallory toward the vampires, chased by a whole army of shapeshifters who had been changed by the light of the moon.
All she’d wanted to do was read a book and get through the night shift without falling asleep on her desk.
Now it seemed like she wasn’t going to survive until morning.
“Please let me go,” Mallory begged. The blood was collecting in her head, blurring her vision and making her dizzy.
“She’s slowing you down,” Stark said. “Get rid of her. I don’t care how you do it, but do it.”
Deirdre jogged into a side alley, spilling Mallory unceremoniously on the wet pavement.
The witch tried to scramble away on hands and knees, but fear made her clumsy; she fell over a bag of rotten trash, collapsing onto her side with a wail.
“Whoa, hey, relax,” Deirdre said. “You’re okay.”
“Don’t kill me.” Mallory could barely speak through the tears. “Please.” She could still hear the helicopter, knew it had to be close, knew it wouldn’t be long until the OPA caught up with them and turned her into collateral damage.
“I promised you weren’t going to die tonight.” Deirdre squeezed Mallory’s hand. The shifter’s fingers were hot and dry. Almost painfully hot. “Take care of yourself.”
Stark looked furious at the act of kindness, but he only turned and stalked away without speaking.
Mallory might have been imagining it, but she thought that Deirdre looked like she glowed as she followed him.
II
The horses started neighing, the dogs bayed, and the parrot screeched within her cage all at the same time. Chadwick Hawfinch removed the needle from his vein and set it on the coffee table before standing.
“Trilby! We have a visitor!” Chadwick Hawfinch called to his partner, rolling out his aching arm. The veins on that side were glowing an electric blue.
Trilby didn’t respond. She was puttering around in the storeroom, rearranging their stock, taking inventory, making notes on what they needed to order and from which vendors. But she would already know that they had visitors, even if she hadn’t heard Chadwick. It was impossible to miss the parrot’s screeching.
Crackers never screamed when her cage was covered. Not unless she sensed a particularly dangerous predator nearby.
And there were few predators deadlier than Everton Stark.
They were out there, sure. Just not a lot of them.
He checked the security cameras and found Everton Stark rendered in grayscale on his monitor. The Alpha was still on the outskirts of the neighborhood. The animals had sensed his approach from blocks away.
It was part of the reason that Chadwick kept a veritable zoo in his building, right in the middle of New York City. His animals were more sensitive to security threats than any spell he could buy.
Sure, the horses didn’t like being kept in stalls in the basement of his high-rise. Sure, they died all the time. But that was what they were for. The horses didn’t need to survive long for him to extract their blood.
Chadwick opened the lobby doors and disengaged some of the wards protecting his building. Stark wouldn’t have been able to get through all those spells without help. They should have kept anything short of a second Genesis from crashing down on his high-rise.
By the time he’d dismantled the wards, Stark was sauntering up the sidewalk outside the high-rise, swathed in a jacket with a hood that covered his eyes and revealed his ruddy red-brown beard. The man was as big around the chest as any of Chadwick’s draft horses, and equally graceful.
Crackers shrieked within her cage again. She was the most sensitive of all his animals, and the most obnoxious.
“Shut up, you ugly parrot!” he snapped.
She stopped screaming. Silence radiated from underneath the blanket on her cage.
He hadn’t actually expected her to do what he ordered. Maybe the dumb bird was finally learning.
Chadwick met Stark outside the door. It was the polite thing to do. He was a country boy at heart, and nobody had better manners than country folks. “Everton!” he greeted with as warm a tone as he could manage.
Stark glowered. He always glowered. He was a miserable, grumpy shifter with a raisin where most people kept a heart. “I need your basement.”
Chadwick played stupid. “My basement?”
“You know what I mean. I need what’s under it.”
There was a bomb shelter underneath Chadwick’s basement. It had been installed by the high-rise’s previous owners—paranoid werewolves who had been convinced that the Office of Preternatural Affairs planned to wipe them out from a distance using radiation.
Stark h
ad contracted with Chadwick to use the bomb shelter as a hideout months earlier, and he wasn’t the only one. Several people had contracts with Chadwick for the use of his high-rise. It was protected by some of the most advanced spell work on the East Coast; he’d even gotten a mage to put in a layer of wards. Consequently, some of the greatest villains of the post-Genesis world paid great sums of money for the right to hide on Chadwick’s property.
His reputation easily generated ninety percent of his lucrative business. Chadwick didn’t want to damage that reputation.
If Stark stuck around, it was going to be more than damaged.
Once rumor got around that Chadwick had sold one of his clients out, he’d lose a lot of street cred, which was worth millions.
Even so, there were things more valuable than money—things like Chadwick’s life—and the ones who’d bought Stark’s death had made the stakes clear.
“Let me in,” Stark said, stopping in front of the lobby doors.
“You’ll upset the horses,” Chadwick said. That was true, at least. They always lost their marbles when Stark came around.
“I don’t give a damn about your horses. I’ve got the OPA on my tail and a full moon rising.”
Stark couldn’t take a hint. The man was a bully, and he was going to die for it that night.
Chadwick stepped aside to let him enter. “Tell you what. Let me have Trilby sedate the animals real quick. It’ll be time for a bloodletting in about a half an hour anyway.” He gestured to the desk across his lobby, where he kept drinks for everyone who came to do business with him. “Want to have coffee while we wait?”
“No,” Stark said. “I need your shelter.”
Stubborn, awful man. “Won’t be long at all,” Chadwick said with forced cheer.
Trilby was currently bustling around the plants under the windows, humming to herself as she watered them. Chadwick caught her attention by waving at her. “Sedate the horses! Give ‘em a little juice!”
“A little juice” was their code, a way for Chadwick to tell her that things were about to get deadly.
The old woman headed toward the basement elevators without looking back. Amazing how fast she could move in her slippers and muumuu.