Guard Wolf (Shifter Agents Book 2)

by Lauren Esker

  ***

  Fortunately, after eating, the puppies were in a suitably tired state to put up with being piled into a box Rivkah found down in File Storage, padded with the remains of the couch cushions and a tattered old afghan someone had left in the break room last winter that had never migrated out.

  Avery decided to take the puppies' resistance to the kennel as a sign that they really shouldn't be in it. Besides, thanks to Mayhew, the door was now too broken to stay shut. They would be just as easy to keep in the box.

  He was running late now for the hand-off to the foster family. Way to make a great impression. Still, he took the time to wedge the box as securely as possible in the floor behind the passengers' seat. It was no replacement for a seat belt, but he didn't think he could belt the box in without squashing it and waking the puppies up again.

  Three of them seemed content to nap through the drive. However, as Avery started the car, a familiar red-gold head and two pricked ears popped up in the rear-view mirror.

  "Fine," he grumbled, leaning back to lift Ginger and pull her forward into the front seat before she could get the others stirred up. "Sit still and be quiet and you can ride up front, okay?"

  Somewhat to his surprise, she was docile and obedient as he tried to buckle the seat belt over her. It didn't work; a human lap belt wasn't suited to a puppy body. And now he really was going to be late, so he gave up and reminded himself that the human race had somehow managed to avoid going extinct during the years before child safety seats became mandatory.

  "Now remember, stay there and be good, okay? Stay in the seat. Right here." He patted the seat beside Ginger's fluffy hindquarters. If she didn't understand, then at least she seemed content to stay where she was. He cautiously put the car in gear and backed out of his parking space.

  Ginger made a small, startled sound when the car began to move, and then she appeared to like it. She stretched to see more of the world rushing by outside the windows, finally standing up to put her front paws on the inside passenger door handle.

  Avery reached over to push her back down into the seat. "Sit down; you'll break your neck."

  She took this as an invitation to play, rolled over on her back and waved her paws in the air.

  "Not right now. Some of us have to drive."

  He had to pay attention to the traffic for a minute, and the next thing he was aware of from the passenger seat was a childish giggle.

  "Shi—crap!" Ginger had shifted again, and now a naked little girl in a red collar was lying on her back in the passenger seat, waving her arms at him.

  If anyone looked in and saw that, how many things could he be charged with? Avery's rebellious brain promptly gave him a number of options: child endangerment, kidnapping, various shades of misconduct involving a minor ... The fact that she was wearing nothing but a collar really didn't help his case.

  "Shift back!" he snapped at her.

  It was most likely the tone, not the words, that made her snap back to her wolf body. She flopped over on her side and stared at him accusingly.

  "Yeah, I know, I'm an enormous grouch and no fun at all. And you should be in a car seat."

  In all fairness, they should nail him for child endangerment, he thought gloomily. He was a terrible parent.

  He pulled up in front of Nicole's building and reached for his phone, but she was already there, darting across the sidewalk to the car with her briefcase clasped in one hand. "You're late!" she said, opening the passenger door.

  "Look out!"

  Nicole dropped the briefcase and caught Ginger as the child made a break for it. The briefcase sprang open when it hit the sidewalk, and papers cascaded everywhere. "Oh, fu—fudge," Nicole cried. "Avery—"

  He took Ginger, and held her while Nicole picked up her things. Ginger planted her paws on his chest and started licking his face.

  "They should be restrained," Nicole said accusingly, stuffing papers, pens, and other small items haphazardly back into her briefcase.

  "If you can figure out a way to restrain her, be my guest."

  "Where are the other ones?"

  "Backseat. Sleeping. If you wake them up, you get to hold them."

  "I'll sit back here with them," Nicole decided. She put in her briefcase and climbed in after it. "That way I can keep them from climbing all over you while you drive."

  "That'd be great, yeah." He handed Ginger into the backseat.

  "But they really should be restrained, Avery."

  "That'll be the Hodgkins' problem," he said, more snappishly than he intended.

  "Hodgson," Nicole corrected him.

  "Where are we going?"

  She gave him an address in Beacon Hill. "When I talked to DiDi Hodgson, she said to look for pumpkins at the gate."

  "Pumpkins."

  "At the gate, yes. Well, it is Halloween."

  She seemed to have gotten herself and Ginger settled, so he merged into the heavy flow of rush-hour traffic. "I should warn you," he said over his shoulder, "she's shifting now. She actually did it while I was driving, but I think I scared her back to puppy-shape."

  "Yes, you're absolutely terrifying." Nicole rolled the puppy onto her back and scratched her stomach. Ginger squirmed in delight and flailed her paws. Avery watched them in the rear-view mirror while trying not to hit anything.

  The neighborhood Nicole directed him to was heavily, almost aggressively suburban. He drove between rows of smallish, nearly identical houses on narrow lots with trees in their yards and flowerbeds neatly mulched for winter. Most of the front lawns were recently mowed, and scattered signs of childhood occupation—a swing set here, a tipped-over pink bike there—hinted at the family-friendly nature of the neighborhood.

  Avery pulled up at the address Nicole had given him. For a moment both of them were quiet, looking at the house. Then Nicole said, "Well, this is either the right house or we've come to—what's that place in Nightmare Before Christmas? Halloweenland?"

  "Halloween Town?"

  "Yes. That."

  Halloween had made tentative forays into most of the yards along the block, in the form of pumpkins on porch steps and plastic tombstones jutting from front lawns, but it had run amok at the Hodgsons'. There were definitely pumpkins at the gate, two enormous plastic ones, at least four feet tall and designed like a set of comedy and tragedy masks, one on either side of the swinging wrought-iron gate leading into the Hodgsons' yard. What DiDi Hodgson had failed to mention was that there were pumpkins everywhere else too, along with platoons of witches, whole graveyards of skeletons, and apparently everything else in the Halloween section at Target.

  Nicole and Avery carried the puppies up the walk, ducking cobwebs and gazing around them. There was something different in every part of the yard: a fake haunted graveyard, with ghosts trailing from tombstones; a life-size diorama of witches around a cauldron, its green glow wan in the afternoon sunshine; a pumpkin patch and a zombie cavalcade and a whole swarm of bats dangling from the tree in the yard.

  "I bet they're the kind of people who have those Christmas light displays synced to music," Nicole murmured.

  A motion-activated skeleton came suddenly to life as they passed it. Hunter yelped and tried to climb Nicole's shirt.

  "He's scared," Avery said, cupping a hand protectively over Ginger and Gael's heads, although Ginger seemed absolutely fascinated. "We can't leave them somewhere they're scared."

  "The Hodgsons are lovely people, Avery. They'll be very happy here."

  As if to underscore her confidence, Ginger yapped and tried to snap at a bat dangling from the porch roof, wagging her tail.

  Nicole poked the doorbell with her elbow. At this point Avery almost expected it to play "Monster Mash", but instead there was the expected clangor from deep in the house, followed by kids' voices and approaching footsteps.

  DiDi Hodgson turned out to be refreshingly normal, a plump, pretty, dark-skinned woman in her late thirties. They met her two children and her husband, and she took charge of
the puppies, installing them temporarily in a playpen she'd outfitted with some rugged plastic toys. She had a room ready for the four newcomers, as well as a playroom for the older children, where the younger ones would also be welcome.

  Avery kept wanting to find something wrong, something to pick at, but DiDi and her husband seemed like nice people, and the two older children, aged ten and fifteen, were shyly friendly and interested in the puppies. There was a fenced backyard with playground equipment and a minimum of Halloween kitsch. The house seemed tidy and smelled like baking bread. The kids would be happy here, he told himself. They couldn't have landed somewhere better.

  "We should probably leave you to your dinner," Nicole said, glancing over and catching the look on Avery's face.

  Mrs. Hodgson walked them to the door. Nicole was still outlining the particulars of the puppies' situation. "Right now, we don't have the paperwork officially processed, since we aren't sure of the kids' identities and they're ... well ... not legally human. Once we get your status as their foster parents officially established, I'll back-date it so you'll get the daily stipend for their care."

  "I appreciate that. The important thing is these poor babies having somewhere to go."

  "My office will still need to interview them about their experiences," Avery said. "They're starting to shift, and may be old enough to talk. I don't know if they're actually capable of helping us, but someone from the SCB will be by in the next day or two, to give it a try."

  "And someone from my office will need to be present, if that's the case," Nicole said.

  Avery raised a hand. "Fair enough." He had to get out; the absence of the puppies—the knowledge that they never would be there again—was straining something in him to the snapping point. "Thank you for taking them, Mrs. Hodgson. Good night."

  Nicole caught up to him halfway back to the car. "You okay?" she asked, taking his hand.

  "I'm okay." He turned and looked at the house. With the Halloween decor subtracted, it was exactly the perfect picture of suburbia that should be the setting for a stereotypically idyllic childhood, the sort he'd never had. The children should be happy here. And safe ...

  If only the place didn't look so damned indefensible.

  "I think the SCB should post a guard tonight," he found himself saying. "Just to be on the safe side."

  "Avery ..." Nicole said gently.

  "No, listen. Someone broke into your office, and an unknown shifter was sniffing around my place last night. All of that could be unrelated. But what if it's not? Up to this point, the kids have been in the care of SCB agents 24/7. It wasn't meant to be protective custody, but that's an accidental side effect. This is the first night they've been undefended."

  "Most people are undefended most of the time, Avery," Nicole argued. "That's why we have police, and laws."

  "Which don't protect those kids in the slightest right now. Someone could break a window, climb in, and walk out with the kids in twenty seconds flat. What's Mrs. Hodgson going to do, report four stolen puppies? How seriously do you think the police would take that?"

  "And I can guess who you think should take first shift on the stakeout."

  Avery looked away; she wasn't supposed to see through him that easily. "We're short-handed right now. It's not like I can ask someone else to do it. Nicole, I swear this isn't paranoia, or obsession, or ... whatever you're thinking. I just want them to be safe."

  Nicole touched his cheek lightly with the back of her hand. "I know. I admit I was hoping we might be able to snatch a little time for us tonight."

  He raised a hand to cover hers. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be. I want the kids safe as much as you do." She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, mindful they were in the middle of suburbia. "Don't suppose you'd mind if someone dropped by your stakeout to bring dinner, would you? Hypothetically speaking."

  He grinned, and kissed her fingertips. "Hypothetically, I don't think I'd mind at all."

  Chapter Twelve

  The Hodgsons' street was just as quiet and suburban-feeling after dark, if not more so. A couple of people were walking dogs, and warm lamplight glowed through curtains all the way up and down the street. The Halloween displays, like Christmas lights, were a lot more impressive at night. Nicole located the Hodgsons' yard easily; it was not exactly subtle.

  Earlier in the evening Avery had dropped her off at her car, with a firm warning, half teasing and half deadly serious, to stay out of her office until morning. She would have argued, but after the break-in, she didn't have any particular desire to be there at night, either. Instead she went back to Erin's, worked for a couple of hours, and then set out on her mission of mercy.

  She spotted Avery's Prius on a slow drive-by. He was parked at the curb across the street and one house down from the Hodgsons'. She parked a few cars behind him, locked her doors, and walked up the street to his car.

  He was already looking her way when she knocked on the Prius window. Avery grinned and popped the locks. Nicole ducked inside furtively.

  "I hope you didn't already eat," she said, holding up the bag in her hand. "This makes two nights in a row. Next time, it's your turn."

  "Hey, I got breakfast and lunch," he protested. "What did you bring?"

  "Leftovers from dinner at my sister's. Which is better than it sounds. Erin's a great cook."

  "Not to sound ungrateful, but are beets involved?"

  Nicole snorted. "While I still intend to feed you a proper hamburger one of these days ... no. This is pottage with homemade bread. Which is to say, a thick beef stew. Good filling autumn food, for those of you who have your autumn at the wrong end of the year."

  This made him give her an odd look, until the penny dropped. "That's right, your seasons are reversed in Australia. I forgot."

  "And it's still strange to have Christmas in the winter." She passed him a Tupperware container, with a thick, crusty hunk of bread on top. "Now eat up, so I can tell Erin her food didn't go to waste. She wants to meet you, by the way."

  "What did you tell her about me?" he asked warily.

  "Avery, I live in my sister's house, plus I borrowed her skirt to go on a date. The fact that I didn't come home last night could hardly have escaped her notice. Of course she knows I'm seeing someone." Her cheeks heated. "Er ... is that accurate? Are we officially dating?"

  It was too dark to see if he was blushing too, but he smiled. "If you want us to be."

  "I think I do," she said.

  He tapped his fingers on the top of the container. "This is our second date, isn't it? Or does lunch count as a date? We're really confusing the issue, mixing it up with work like this."

  "Let's call it a not-date, if you prefer. Friends hanging out, with food."

  "Hanging out on a stakeout."

  "You take me to the nicest places, Avery Hollen."

  She leaned over and met his lips with hers. One thing about the front seat of a Prius: there wasn't a lot of space between the two seats. Easy access for necking. He was wearing a shoulder holster, she discovered as her hands explored his well-defined pectoral area. It hugged his pecs nicely.

  Then his stomach growled, and they broke apart, laughing. "So I guess you didn't already eat," Nicole said.

  "I was willing to be patient."

  "Yes, well, eat your pottage. I'll keep watch for you."

  The savory smell of Erin's cooking filled the car. Nicole munched on a piece of bread dabbed with butter, and watched the Hodgsons' house through the windshield. Shadows moved occasionally behind the curtains, faintly visible through the haze of different-colored lights in the yard.

  "Any action yet?"

  "Not unless you count an old lady asking me if I was having car trouble and would care to use her phone," Avery said through a mouthful of bread and stew. "This isn't really a high-crime neighborhood. Honestly, I'm hoping nothing will happen."

  "But if it does?"

  "If it does, I'm on the job."

  As he leaned to peer out th
e window, Nicole caught a flash of the blue collar at his throat. He'd come prepared for action.

  He hadn't had the collar when he'd gone to interview the other werewolves. Nicole could guess why; she could only imagine Chester's reaction to a collared werewolf, even if the wolf in question had voluntarily collared himself. It still made her feel a bit weird herself, though she understood the necessity of it.

  "Are you planning on staying out here all night?" she asked.

  "Most of it, anyway." Avery stretched. There was something intriguingly canine in the movement. "If there's no sign of anything by early morning, I'll probably knock off and try to catch a couple hours' sleep before work."

  The lights in the houses were beginning to go dark as the neighborhood went to bed. This was a place of working parents and schoolchildren, people who went to bed early. The dog-walkers had all gone in. A car pulled out of a driveway down the block—a visitor going home, or someone heading out to a night shift. In a few windows, Nicole saw the blue flicker of a big-screen TV.

  Someone came out on the Hodgsons' porch and flipped some switches, turning off the brighter, flashier lights in their Halloween display. Much of the yard remained softly illuminated. The pumpkin patch glowed; the front pathway was lit up with a chain of muted, skull-shaped lights, gleaming close to the ground. The overall effect was serene.

  "Does your sister's family decorate for Halloween?" Avery asked.

  "Well, certainly not like that. The kids enjoy putting up a few decorations now that they're old enough to pick out their own."

  "How old are they?"

  "Hannah's nine and Forrest is twelve." Nicole smiled faintly. "Hannah was born right after I moved in with Erin and Tim. Strange to think I've been living there for her whole life. It was meant to be temporary. The idea, in the beginning, was that I'd help them out for a little while and finish my degree in social work at U-Dub. Since Erin and Tim both have careers, dealing with a three-year-old and a new baby was a heavy load. So I moved in as live-in child care, and I'm not entirely sure what happened. Things easily become permanent, even when we don't mean them to."