Guard Wolf (Shifter Agents Book 2)

by Lauren Esker

  Avery's mind started to wander as the conversation degenerated into what was clearly a well-worn, though friendly, argument between the Leungs. He glanced over the family tree, intrigued to find that the little bat symbols on Nicole's mother's side were far outweighed by plain human Ungs—and Ngs, and a couple of Ongs; he guessed the name was hard to Anglicize. The "odd one out" koala shifter was Susan Ng, Nicole's second cousin.

  Nicole leaned in at his side. Her arm brushed his, and then rested against it. She smelled nice. She wasn't wearing perfume; it was just her warm familiar smell, already becoming a smell of home to him. He brushed his fingers lightly across the back of her hand, and she smiled at him.

  "Have you met your koala-shifter cousin?" he asked.

  "A couple of times. We aren't close. Her family's in a small town in Perth, which, if you don't know Australia geography, is way and gone across the country from Brisbane. I only ever saw her at family reunions."

  He tried to imagine it. All this family. So much family as to be an embarrassment of riches; so many family members there could be ones she'd never met, ones who could be casually dismissed because there were so many more to choose from. Oh, the Perth Ngs. We don't really know them.

  The family tree before him on the screen was a visual representation of the web of connections that surrounded and bound her, a tangled matrix in which she was embedded inextricably, no less so than a werewolf in its pack.

  ... Or most werewolves, at least. Avery wondered what it would be like to have those connections to call upon. To have family: people who would always have your back, people who would take you in when you needed it.

  And it was, he reminded himself, no buffer against the pain she'd experienced. Having a large, close, and loving family hadn't saved Nicole from falling into the depression she still suffered from. A family was no panacea for all hurts.

  Still, I wonder if she knows how lucky she is.

  "Oh, hey," Avery said softly, pitching his voice low enough that only Nicole could hear him. "Your sister and her husband are both in the sciences. If somewhere in town might want shifters for experimental purposes, do you think it's something they'd know about?"

  Nicole looked shocked. "Erin and Tim wouldn't be part of that!"

  "I'm not suggesting they would, but people in every industry talk to each other. Maybe they've heard something."

  "Hey, you two," Erin said behind him, and they both jumped. "Enough whispering over there in the corner. If you're going to make out, Nicole has a perfectly good bedroom you can use."

  "Erin!" Nicole protested. "You're a worse busybody than Mom, and that's saying something."

  "Actually, we wanted to ask you something," Avery said. "Talk about something, I should say." He glanced at Nicole for permission; she gave him a shrug, which he took for assent, and forged ahead. "We already told you earlier than these kids might be in danger—"

  Tim's eyebrows went up. "This is the first I'm hearing of this."

  "Someone tried to break into the foster family's house last night," Nicole said. "That's why we have them now."

  Avery raised his eyes to meet theirs. "I apologize for bringing them to your family's home. We still aren't entirely sure whether the children are actually in danger or not, but the timing seems very suspicious."

  "And I told you already, it doesn't matter." Erin's hand closed over Tim's firmly. "Family doesn't turn family out on the street when there's trouble."

  Her words were an eerie reflection of Avery's earlier thoughts, and his heart gave a sharp twinge, the old ache of a wound that never seemed to grow enough scar tissue to stop being reopened.

  Tim turned his hand palm-up to grip Erin's. "I don't disagree with my wife, but I would like to know what kind of danger we're talking about here. There's an important difference between 'disgruntled non-custodial parent' and 'mob hit', you know?"

  Between them, Avery and Nicole filled the Leungs in on last night's events, with a detour to explain about Chester's missing pack and the signs that the children might have had blood drawn and microchips implanted. "It's all still highly speculative. I don't want to put too much credence in rumors of secret labs and the like," Avery said. "But mainly what I wanted to ask is whether you've run across any odd gossip, professionally."

  "Like what?" Erin asked.

  It sounded stupid and paranoid however he tried to break it down. Surely if shifters were going missing and being experimented on, it wouldn't be casually discussed over the scientific water cooler. "Any research you've heard about lately that seems like it might involve shifters, even if they tried to disguise it."

  Erin lifted her hands. "That could be anything. I know there's some promising work being done by shifter scientists on regrowing tissues, trying to isolate the factor that makes us heal so quickly, but it's being disseminated through official journals with every effort to hide its real origins. There are dozens of fields our unique biology could make contributions to—everything from theoretical physics to helping amputee war veterans to—to ESP—"

  "ESP?" Nicole laughed. "As in, extra-sensory perception? Are people actually researching that?"

  "Well, not legitimate researchers," Erin said tartly. "Still, fringe science is obviously a whole other thing, and I doubt anyone involved in the kind of research you're talking about would be upstanding members of the scientific community. And there are people who think that shifters in closely bonded social groups, such as werewolf packs, share a psychic bond. I'm sure you can probably tell me how ridiculous that is."

  "Completely," Avery said, a bit weakly. But he was thinking about the misshapen werewolf's uncanny ability to find his apartment, and then turning up at the Hodgsons' the very next night. And the premonition of danger he'd had last night ... surely it was nothing more than his sharp wolf senses alerting him to something slightly beyond the ken of his conscious mind, just like the way he could recognize the near presence of other werewolves by picking up on subtle clues of scent and sound before he was consciously aware of them. At least, that was the rational way he explained it to himself.

  Or the way shifters could recognize each other ...

  He couldn't believe he was seriously considering it. We're not psychic!

  "Scientists need to keep open minds, dear," Tim said mildly.

  "Open, yes, but not so open my brains fall out," Erin retorted.

  Nicole raised her hand to get their attention. "I think we're getting off topic here. Let's try to narrow it down. Maybe 'any shifter-related research ever' is too broad a topic, but at least you might know if there are any labs around town that have, uh, unethical research practices, or got written up for violations of something or other, or anything of that nature."

  Tim and Erin shared a pointed look. "EGL," they said together.

  Avery leaned forward. "What's that?"

  Tim was the one who answered. "It's a private genetics firm, Evans-Lopez Labs. One of those places that invites people to send in cheek swabs and then they'll tell you what your ancestry is."

  "Which is a racket, by the way," Erin put in.

  "You mean we aren't 2% Basque?" Nicole asked, winking at Avery. It was clear she'd heard her sister go off on this before.

  Erin spluttered. "That's not how ancestry works! That's not how genetics works! Besides, do you have any idea how hard it is to get reliable genetic samples even under controlled laboratory conditions? Having random members of the public take cheek swabs and send them through the mail—half the time those places can't even get a usable sample. They just make something up based on the subject's last name and throw in some tiny percentages of unusual ethnicities to make it sound legit."

  "So this EGL lab is running a scam?" Avery asked.

  "Not really," Tim said. "No more so than any other place that does genetics testing. It's a growing industry, you know—not just the ancestry stuff, but all kinds of private genetics screening for specific purposes. Some people want to get tested for hereditary diseases before having kids
, some want to minimize inbreeding in purebred livestock or pets ... oh, you name it."

  "But as soon as we asked about shady labs, you both thought of EGL," Avery said. "What about them isn't on the up and up?"

  Another look passed between the spouses. "It's just that they approached both me and Erin about working there in the last couple of years," Tim said. "And they were pushy about it, offering cushy salaries and benefits packages."

  "It struck us as unusual because biotech isn't really a business where you expect to be courted by employers," Erin explained. "At least not for ordinary lab monkeys like Tim and me. We're not superstars in our field."

  "Speak for yourself," Tim said, nudging his wife.

  She snorted and swatted him. "You know what I mean. I like to think we're both solid researchers with a few good papers out there under our names, but not the kind of thing that would have employers beating down our door. Every once in awhile, a new start-up will come calling, but usually they're just asking if we have any talented grad students to recommend."

  "I didn't know about this," Nicole said. "I guess you must have turned down their offer."

  "We thought about it, but then we got a look at the NDAs they wanted us to sign," Erin said. "That's non-disclosure agreements, and they were so ironclad you'd think we were working for the NSA."

  "Maybe they are the NSA," Tim put in. "How would you know? We found out later, as it happens, that they'd approached a few of our friends as well."

  "Were all of them shifters?" Avery asked.

  This got a startled look from both the Leungs. "Yes," Erin said, just as Tim said, "No."

  "No, you're right," Erin agreed. "Not all of them. But I can think of at least two people off the top of my head who got job offers that I know are shifters, and there aren't a lot of us in our field. I hadn't thought about it."

  "If they're experimenting on shifters, surely they wouldn't be recruiting shifter scientists," Nicole said.

  "Or maybe that's exactly who they'd want." Avery tapped his fingers against the desktop. "We've been assuming they kidnapped the kids. It might not be anything of the sort, though. Maybe it's an all-shifter research team, working on something similar to the kind of thing you two are."

  "Still pretty damn unethical to use your kids in your experiments without oversight, even if you're not doing any more than drawing some blood," Erin said tightly. "I'd never dream of using Hannah and Forrest as ... as lab animals."

  "Also, didn't you say the people who tried to break into the Hodgsons' were human?" Nicole asked Avery.

  She had him there. "I don't know. It's a working theory. One theory. The only thing I know right now is, we don't have any other leads. I don't suppose either of you can tell me where EGL Labs is located?"

  Chapter Fifteen

  EGL was housed in a newish industrial park, a rambling complex of low white buildings set back from the road among neatly landscaped grounds. It was not the only business in the park; the pylon sign by the road also advertised a medical supply company and a manufacturer of custom industrial glassware. The neighborhood, in West Seattle, was all light industry and offices, mostly deserted on a Saturday afternoon.

  The main entrance to the parking lot had a gate across it, but the complex of buildings was neither fenced nor, from the look of it, particularly high-security. From the road Avery glimpsed a back parking lot that must have had a weekend delivery entrance, since there were a couple of vehicles in it, a janitor's van and a large panel truck. He drove past the park and immediately spotted Agent Cho's Mini Cooper on a side road, parked in the lot of a closed office building adjacent to the plaza that housed EGL.

  He'd called Cho on the principle that he needed someone who was good at getting in and out of places, and Cho was the best he knew. When he parked beside her car, she waved at him. "I hope you appreciate that I'm giving up my Saturday for this," she remarked as he and Nicole got out.

  "What can I say? You're the best there is."

  Cho preened. "If there is snooping to be done," she explained to Nicole, "you need an infiltration specialist."

  "She turns into a gecko," Avery translated.

  "Excuse you, I am also highly trained in the arts of reconnaissance, covert entry, and other stealthy spy-type skills."

  "I don't mean to downplay your highly advanced skills, but what I need today is mostly the gecko."

  At that point he realized Cho wasn't alone. Intern Mayhew was getting out of the passenger side of her car. Avery managed not to say anything, but Cho saw the look on his face, and scowled at him.

  "I see that expression. Kid's never going to get better if he doesn't get field experience, right? And he's also a very small shifter, so I figured I was the right person to take him under my wing and teach him the fine art of sneakery. Or under my sticky gecko footpads, as the case may be."

  "Yes," Avery said, his visions of a stealthy warrantless intrusion flying out the window, "but you've seen him around the office, haven't you? What makes you think he belongs in the field?"

  Mayhew cleared his throat. "You guys realize I'm standing right here and can hear you, right?"

  "Lots of people don't know what they're capable of until they get a chance to try." Cho slapped him on the arm. "Right, kid?"

  "Uh ... right." Mayhew rubbed his arm and smiled tentatively at Avery. "I won't let you down, Agent."

  Past experience seems to indicate that you will, Avery thought, but he smiled back. Whether or not the kid washed out of the SCB in the long run, Avery didn't want to be the person who crushed his soul in the meantime. And Nicole's curious look made him realize he hadn't performed introductions. "Mayhew, this is Nicole, from CPS. Nicole, Pete Mayhew, one of our interns."

  Nicole smiled at Mayhew and politely shook hands. Cho turned to Avery and nudged him in the arm. "Oh hey, wolfboy, Jack said you were interested in the Underground, and the Seattle homeless population. I might have something for you there. First of all, I caught my pickpocket last night." She took a quick bow. "You can save the applause; I'll be here all week."

  Cho had thought her pickpocket was some sort of canine; the Market vendors had mistaken it for a dog ... "Werewolf?" Avery asked, thinking about urban wolf packs.

  "No, jackal. Teenage shifter kid living on the street. Sad but common story. Anyway, while in the process of booking Jackal Boy and getting him a decent meal, I asked him if there were any weird goings-ons he'd heard about. He said something's definitely put the fear into the homeless folks that hang out around downtown. People are staying out of the Underground even with the weather getting colder."

  "Did he know what they were afraid of?"

  "Didn't seem to. Didn't seem that interested, honestly. He had no desire at all to go down there, and didn't see why anyone else would."

  "Is he a minor?" Nicole asked. "Because my office should be handling his case."

  There was a note of guilt in her voice, and Avery felt guilty in turn; he'd pulled her away from her everyday life, dragged her into his problems.

  "Your caseworker is," Cho said. "Kathryn, I think her name is? I talked to her this morning, and I think she's meeting with the kid and his attorney this afternoon. Not really my area at this point. This kind of thing, on the other hand ..."

  She turned to regard the white complex of buildings, visible through a screen of spindly, widely placed landscape-planting trees that had not yet had time to grow.

  "What's weekend security like on a place like this?" Avery asked.

  "Not usually a lot. At most, there might be a really bored security guard, but they probably don't bother having after-hours security on the premises unless they're protecting something important. Maybe some cameras around the doors. And even on a weekend, there will be people coming in and out, I expect. Janitors, over-achievers getting caught up on their work, that kind of thing. There always are. See?" She pointed to a small commuter vehicle turning into the back lot, and passed Avery a pair of miniature binoculars. He watched a woman in
a long coat leave the car and walk briskly up to the doors of the medical-supply company office, swiping a badge to get in.

  "Of course," Avery said, handing the binoculars back to her, "all that changes if they're running some kind of top-secret, illegal experiments in there."

  "Well, of course." She opened the door of her car and slipped behind the wheel. "Which is why we go in all sneaky-like. Mayhew! It's spider time. Avery, you can be my steed."

  Avery leaned in the open door, blocking her from view of anyone who might pass on the nearly deserted street. "Where do you want me to take you?"

  "See if you can find me a place to get inside the building. And try to avoid any obvious cameras."

  "I have done this before, you know."

  Mayhew cautiously got into the passenger's seat. "What are we doing?"

  "We are shifting, my eight-legged partner. Do you know Morse code?"

  "Why would I?" Mayhew said blankly.

  "Because neither geckos nor spiders are widely known for their reputation as a chatterbox? Oh, nevermind. Just follow my lead." She winked at Avery and Nicole. "Cover me!"

  With that, her clothes collapsed inward, as if the woman occupying them had vanished—which, in fact, most of her mass had actually done. Unlike a larger shifter, Cho didn't have to undress to shift. The clothing she had been wearing fell into a heap on the seat, and a gecko scuttled out of it.

  "You know it looks creepy when you do that, right?" Avery said. "Like something out of a horror movie."

  He held down a hand for her to run onto. Her little gecko feet were raspy on his skin. She stuck out her tongue at him.

  "May I hold her?" Nicole asked, captivated. "I mean, can I hold you for a minute, Agent Cho?"

  Cho rolled her eyes—gecko eyes were well suited to this—but when Avery turned and held out his hand to Nicole, she scuttled into the other woman's open palm.

  "Your turn, kid," Avery told Mayhew.

  Mayhew swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I'm ... not so sure about this."