by Annie Bellet
“What did they want?” Alek said. The power she described was Justice power, only more than he had ever had. There had been no fear component to his ability to force another shifter to change shape.
“They said things are changing. That the time for shifters to live in the shadows is coming to an end.” She shivered and Alek felt Rachel stiffen beside him. He imagined it was difficult to look at someone as strong as Freyda, the Alpha of Alphas, and see such fear. Not reassuring for his wolf friend.
“The humans will slaughter us again,” Rachel said. “Have they all gone mad?”
“They have,” Alek said. His heart felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. The old ways were lost, the Council truly broken. Even now, huddled in secret over a dusty table illuminated only by a small electric lamp, Alek did not want to accept that truth. His gods had become monsters.
“They said I must accept the will of the First, or we will be eliminated. I drove them off, but this morning they were there, lurking on the edge of our property. They did not try the howling again, though I had all of us put in ear plugs before confronting them. We drove them off with guns this time, but I fear it will not last. I fear they are still there, watching,” Freyda said. “That’s why I came on my own, that’s why I ran here. I worry they will come for those unprotected in town.”
“No one is unprotected,” Alek said and Rachel echoed him.
“They came to you because you are the Alpha of Alphas and they likely want to turn you to make getting the other packs in line more simple. Plus we have a great many shifters here,” Rachel said.
“They have Justice powers,” Freyda said. She ran a dusty hand through her short, wheat-colored hair. “If they bring more people next time or start picking us off…”
“This will not happen,” Alek said. He folded his arms, knowing he would do whatever it took to wipe the fear from the Alpha’s pale face. “You resisted them, broke their power. Drove them off, yes?”
Freyda’s gaze returned to him and she nodded, sitting up straighter. “I did. Then I ran here in the shadows like a coward,” she said, frowning.
“No, that was good,” Rachel said. “If they are watching you, it’s best to keep your movements and your exact allies secret until we can find these four and get rid of them.”
“More will come,” Freyda said. “That’s what they made it sound like. Join us or be destroyed in the coming war, that’s what they said. I don’t want war. Not with shifters, not with humans. My father created the Peace to prevent it. Justices were supposed to prevent it.”
“War will not come,” Alek said, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded. His whole life had been dedicated to keeping shifters secret, to preserving the peace with humans and keeping his people safe. He had sacrificed almost everything for that end. He had killed so many. He shook his head to clear his dark thoughts.
“If it does,” Rachel said, “we’ll be ready. But first we’ll warn everyone. Get every shifter in this town looking out for them.”
“I sent a wolf into the Frank to find Softpaw,” Freyda said. “His pack is strong and he’s never been one to shy away from a fight if needed.”
“Good,” Alek said. “I will talk to Jade. Perhaps we can find these wolves and I can have my own talk with them.” From the look on Freyda’s face, his smile was not pleasant.
They rose by unspoken agreement and made their way out of the diner, all three pausing to listen for a moment at the door before moving through. No sounds beyond a car speeding through on the highway and the shifting branches of the pines dropping the occasional needle onto the metal roof.
“I left my pack with instructions to shoot anyone they didn’t recognize, so I had better get back,” Freyda said, sniffing the air as they moved into the sunlight, blinking.
“We’ll drop you off up the highway so you don’t have to run as far,” Rachel said. “Then we can swing back and do a report on this break-in.” She grinned up at Alek as she motioned to where he had smashed the lock. “Too bad we’ll never catch the miscreants who did this.”
“And this used to be such a nice town,” Freyda said with a wry smile as Alek shrugged.
He took a moment as the women moved to the SUV to breathe deep and collect his thoughts. He had been waiting for fallout from the Council breaking. The Nazi wolf brothers who had come after him the year before were just the beginning of the trouble he was expecting. Now it seemed the rest of the wave would break soon.
“Alek?” Rachel called out. She and Freyda had paused at the bumper, both looking back at him.
Their appearances were very different, Freyda tall and lanky with pale freckled skin and light hair, Rachel short and stocky with light brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair, but they mirrored each other’s stance as perfectly as professional dancers might mirror a partner. Alek shook his head.
“Wolves,” he said. “I am sick of wolves, present company excepted.”
After he climbed into the front seat, Alek found his coffee had gone cold. With a sigh he accepted that this was likely only the beginning of a very bad day.
“Want lunch?” Lara offered as I finished unboxing this week’s comic book order.
“You going for sandwiches?” I asked. I straightened up, rubbing my lower back. Now to sort the comics into the reserve cubbies for my regulars and then figure out what to put where on the new-release shelf. A fresh week was always work, but also fun. I got the read all the new stuff first.
“Yeah, got a paper to finish tonight so I could use a meatball hoagie.”
“Sounds good to me.” I dug cash out of my wallet and held out a ten-dollar bill to my assistant.
“Nah, I got this.” Lara waved off my money.
“Angling for employee of the month?” I asked, grinning. Lara was my only employee.
“I expect a trophy any day now. No speeches though,” she said, returning my grin. “Want the usual?”
“Sure.”
I was nothing if not predictable about my food orders and Lara had been working for me long enough that she could probably recite by heart everything I ordered from any of the places around. I didn’t order out every day, of course, since I could just walk upstairs and eat a sandwich or leftovers out of my own fridge. Still, I never turned down food someone else cooked. There had been so many times in my life where affording a meal out was a foreign concept that I still got a small thrill out of knowing I could.
The early afternoon was quiet and no one came into the store as I sorted comics. A delivery truck pulled up before Lara was back, which confused me since the shipment I’d been expecting had already arrived for the day. I watched curiously out the front windows as two men wrestled a large rectangular package down from the truck.
The package looked more like something Ciaran, my leprechaun antique-dealing neighbor, would order, but the men hauled it up to my door and pushed inside.
“Jade Crow?” One of them asked. Sweat beaded his pale forehead.
“That’s me,” I said. “Not sure what that is, though.” I motioned to the large package they had hauled into the open space in front of the dice display counter.
“Got your name on it,” the man said with a shrug.
My wards hadn’t pinged me so I returned his shrug. “Sometimes these game companies like to send promo stuff,” I guessed.
“Whatever, sign here,” the guy said. Customer service was clearly not his strong suit. His companion grinned apologetically at me as I scribbled my name on the tablet he held out.
I waited until the men had left and then pulled a knife out of a drawer under the cash register. There was no return address on the package or listed sender, which I thought was weird. My name and the store address were printed on a sheet of paper and taped down. The package had been shipped from New York, judging by the postage markers.
After a momentary debate for if I should wait for Lara to return, I cut the box open. It was probably some kind of promo thing which would get recycled or buried in the b
ack storage area or given away to one of my friends or customers. The box was full of packing peanuts. I made a face, wishing anyone who used this much of the static-clinging, mess-making Styrofoam an express trip to a special hell.
Shoving aside some of the peanuts, which of course started flowing out of the box and onto my clean floor, I spied ornately carved dark wood and a large metal handle with a keyhole above it. The handle had been cast to look like a tree branch. Someone had mailed me a door.
I thought of the key upstairs and a chill crawled up my spine. As though it had been blocked by the packing materials, the cold, sweet scent of magic floated up to me as I bent over the box.
Samir’s magic.
I was halfway out the shop door before I controlled myself. My heart punched my rib cage as I grabbed my D20 talisman and checked for the millionth time that Samir’s heart was still there, embedded in its divot on the one spot on the die. I summoned magic, then realized that trying to destroy the package might have dire consequences for my shop, I turned the spell from fire to warding. My eyes caught the salt and pepper shakers I had behind the counter for those days when we took lunch out on the back lot in the little picnic area I’d set up there.
Grabbing in the salt, I tore it open and used it in combination with my power to build a circle around the entire package. The thin white line glowed faintly purple with my power and the scent of Samir’s magic cut off as I closed the spell. Sweat trickled down my spine as I forced myself to breathe again.
The door chimed as Lara returned. She stopped a few steps inside the store, the bag of sandwiches hanging from one hand as she took in the scene. Her brown eyes flicked from me, who was leaning against the dice counter looking like I’d just tried to run a marathon, all sweating and out of breath, to the faintly glowing salt circle around a large, half-opened box.
“I knew it,” she said. “I knew packing peanuts were evil!”
“Not that,” I managed to gasp as my mind raced to figure out how to explain. Lara knew some of my past and she knew there had been a big showdown with another sorcerer, though she hadn’t been in Wylde then.
“The package is also evil?” she guessed.
“It’s a door,” I said. “I think. A magic door. Made by my evil ex.”
“So the door is evil? Is it going to blow up before I get to eat my sandwich?”
I shook my head. “Most employees would be handing in notice at this point,” I said.
“Nah, they’d have exited after your mate got shot in the neck outside, so it’s lucky you have me instead,” Lara said. “But seriously, should we do something about that thing before we eat? I don’t recall ordering a side of ‘uncertain fate’ with my lunch.”
Alek had been shot the summer before and Lara had taken it all in stride in much the same way. I really wondered if there was more to her life before coming to Juniper College than she talked about. She had family members who were in emergency health care, so maybe it was just that. I’d never met someone so even-keeled and in that moment never had I been so grateful for it. Her being so calm helped me calm down.
“I have a ward around it,” I said. “I don’t even know if it is truly dangerous, it’s just an instinctive reaction, I guess.” I decided not to mention the key delivered via lawyer express the night before. I had no answers for anyone, so what was the point?
“This is going to be fun to explain to our patrons,” Lara said as she made her way around the package, careful not to disturb the glowing salt circle.
“Um, yeah,” I said. She had a point. I needed to find another solution. “Let’s eat, and then I’ll think of somewhere more permanent to stash this.”
Lara pointed out that the delivery people had been fine and so probably just reboxing the door and putting it somewhere would be fairly safe. In the end we got it moved to the back storage area, partially due to Lara’s awesome shifter strength. I fixed another ward around it just in case. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but until I knew what the door was and what it did, it was the best I could do short of taking it out back and burning it. Which had appeal, but part of me couldn’t resist the mystery.
Even gone, Samir still had his hooks in me, and was still playing his stupid games.
Which reminded me again of the damn key. The mystery key. And now a mystery door.
“Fuck you,” I muttered as we closed up the storage room. I found myself rubbing the hard gem of Samir’s heart with my thumb. “I’m not playing your games today.”
“You okay?” Lara asked, turning back.
“I’m okay,” I said, hoping it was true. “I just hate how sometimes the past feels like quicksand.”
Samir was gone, but still he pulled me down. I smiled at Lara and went to clean up the stray packing peanuts. Life went on, no matter how treacherous my footing.
The problem with being a sheriff in a small town like Wylde was that it could be hard to go anywhere without someone waving Rachel down and needing to complain or ask about something. Alek sat quietly through those situations and by now most denizens of the town did not seem to wonder too much about the big, silent blond who rode around with Sheriff Lee some of the time.
When a middle-aged human male in a camo jacket with the sleeves cut off and riding an ATV down the back road near the Hilltop diner flagged the sheriff down, Alek sighed with a mix of impatience and amusement.
“That’s the oldest of Bertha Dogget’s boys, I forget his damn name though,” Rachel said. “Give me a minute.”
Alek shrugged. Rachel stopped her vehicle and rolled down the window. Road grit and human sweat mingled with diesel assaulted Alek’s nose.
“Hey there,” the man said, squinting in the sunlight. “What brings you out our way, Sheriff?”
“Broken chain on the old diner,” Rachel said. “Nothing looks messed with. Probably just some jokers drinking too much last weekend. Can I help you, Mr. Dogget?”
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, running a hand through thinning brown hair. “Just that Hank’s been trimming the trees between our property with his shotgun again and it bothers the dogs. Rains some buckshot onto the kennels and that gets mom all riled, ya’know? I would’ve tried talking to him myself but you know ol’ Hank.”
Rachel chuckled. Alek suppressed his own amusement. Even he knew of the old man who lived alone out this way. There was probably a call a week about him shooting at cars or ranting in the middle of the night about spirits taking over his barn or someone threatening his roosters. Half the calls came from Hank himself. He tended to shoot at people approaching his property, even his neighbors, but had a strange respect for law enforcement, so Rachel or her deputies were always flipping coins to see who had to deal with him that week.
“I’ll talk to him,” Rachel said. “And thanks for letting us know about the Hilltop diner.”
The man nodded then looked confused. “The diner?”
“The chain being broken?” Rachel said gently. “We checked it out and we’ll send someone to relock it up, no worries at all.”
“Oh yeah, of course, always happy to help. Thanks, Sheriff. Have a good day.” The man smiled bemusedly as Rachel rolled up her window.
Alek looked at Rachel with a small shake of his head. She’d been sheriff for a while now and he was constantly amazed at the juggling act she performed to keep Wylde’s supernatural community hidden and its human community safe and more or less content. She had just smoothly talked a man into believing he had made a report, which could conveniently cover their own presence and fill out the missing details in the paperwork.
“I’m going to send a deputy to drive past the Den,” Rachel said, her face sliding from smile to serious as they headed back to town. “See if he notices anything odd. I’ll just tell him we’ve had reports of someone illegally burning trash out that way.”
“Make sure he does not engage,” Alek said. If the Council, or what remained of it, was threatening the Alpha of Alphas, there was no longer a guarantee they would kee
p violence against humans at a minimum. The rules that had guided his whole life as a Justice were gone and until he could determine what game the broken council was playing, no one knew what the new rules were.
“I’ll tell him to just drive by and report any vehicles or people. No engagement,” Rachel said. She gave Alek an annoyed glance.
“Apologies,” he said with a slight dip of his head. “I know you know your job. That was smoothly done back there.”
Rachel harrumphed but her lips curved into a smile as she put her attention back on the road.
“You want to loop Jade in? We could swing by the store.”
Alek stared at the passing trees for a moment. “Not yet,” he said. “Let us see what your deputy sees or does not see first.”
Jade would start worrying as soon as she was told and likely want to go solve the problem herself in grand magical fashion. Alek grinned as he thought of his mate. Whatever the problem with the Council, he had a feeling they would not be prepared for Jade.
But though things had been quiet, Jade had been on edge ever since he had been shot the previous summer. Samir sending her a strange key had done nothing for her mood. While Alek wanted her happy, he did not want her in danger for no reason, especially when he could not be sure what the danger was. Just because she itched for something she could fight did not mean he could let her go into trouble without all the information yet.
And there was still a small part of him that felt the Council was his problem, his mess to clean up or help resolve, somehow. A shifter problem. He would utilize all his allies if he had to, his mate included, but not until he knew something solid about the situation. He had walked blind into one trap already with the Council and nearly lost both his mentor and his own life.
This time he would employ more caution. This time he would be ready.