Wolf's Choice

by Laura Taylor

  He closed his eyes, sighed, and shook his head. “Sorry. After Nadia gets to Russia, we’re sending the plane to Berlin to pick up a couple of assassins, then sending them over to help out with the Russians. It was a full scale attack on their home estate. We’re going to have to relocate the survivors, and we need backup so that the Noturatii doesn’t come back and finish them off before we can move them. At this stage, it’s just a numbers game,” he said, cringing at how heartless that had to sound. “We can save more lives by focusing on Russia than by diverting the plane for one wolf.”

  More swearing from Baron, and Feng apologised profusely, though he wasn’t sure Baron was listening.

  “So what the fuck are we supposed to do?” Baron demanded. Given the extreme need for secrecy and the Noturatii’s way of picking up on anything unusual going on, making use of local hospitals or veterinary services was out of the question. It was one of the bleaker parts of their existence, unable to access the normal, everyday services that humans took for granted.

  But then Feng remembered something the Council had discussed a week or so ago. After her trip to England to visit the Den there, Eleanor had returned with some profound news. Andre, one of their former assassins, had devised a strategy to end the war with the Noturatii through a detailed and extravagant plan to expose the shifter species to the public.

  Even if the Council accepted it, the plan would take years to accomplish, and it came with significant risks. There was a myriad of details still to be discussed, and there was currently no firm commitment to proceeding. But even so, several of the ideas had been surprisingly promising, one of which was to test out public sentiment about the shifters by revealing their secrets to a few select people, doctors, police or the like, who could offer the shifters valuable services. The response from the Council to the idea had been cautiously optimistic. And that was possibly something Baron could make use of now.

  “Do you know of any decent vet clinics near you?” Feng asked, a cautious undertone in his voice.

  “There are a few,” Baron said impatiently. “But we can hardly just show up on their doorstep with a wolf with a bullet wound. People are going to ask questions about that sort of thing. And Skip’s only going to have minutes to spare before she bleeds out once she shifts.”

  “I understand the problem,” Feng said slowly. “But there’s another angle we can approach this from…”

  Dr Jamal Nagi bolted awake as his emergency phone rang shrilly. He grabbed it off the bedside table and answered it quickly. As a vet with his own successful practice, he was often on call for late night emergencies, and while getting dragged out of bed was never fun, he accepted it as a necessary part of his job. “Doctor Nagi,” he said into the phone. “How can I help you?”

  “My dog’s been hit by a car,” the urgent voice on the other end of the line said, a man with a deep voice. “I think she’s going to need surgery. Can I bring her into the clinic?”

  The news brought Jamal fully awake, and he sat up, flicking on the lamp and fumbling for a notepad and pen. “Of course,” he replied quickly. “What’s your name?”

  “Henry Simms,” the man said. “We haven’t been to your clinic before, but we’ve just moved into the area. Our last vet was in London.”

  “No problem. You understand there are fees for an after hours call out?” He quickly outlined the likely costs, the call out fee, the hourly surgical rate – he was hoping that the dog could be stabilised and surgery performed the following day, as he didn’t like performing difficult operations in the middle of the night without his nurses there to assist – and an additional fee for any medication the dog might require. Henry agreed to all the charges easily, stating that he would bring cash with him.

  “What sort of dog is it?” Jamal asked next.

  “Husky crossed with border collie.”

  “And where is she injured?”

  “Her back leg,” the man said. “And she’s got a tear in her abdomen. It looks like it’s gone right through.”

  Jamal held the phone away from his ear, swearing softly to himself. Abdominal wounds were nasty, the risk of infection high, and bore the possibility of further complications down the track. “Okay, I can be there in ten minutes,” he said, already searching for his trousers.

  “Okay. Thank you. See you soon.” The man hung up, and Jamal finished dressing quickly, grabbed his keys and headed for the door.

  But he paused a moment in the dim light of the lamp, glancing at the empty side of his double bed. It was both a blessing, and a curse that there was no one else in his flat who could be disturbed by his irregular late night calls. He’d divorced his wife five years ago in a messy break-up, and they’d never had any children. He’d poured all his energy into his business after the divorce, finding a certain satisfaction in the work, the joy of healing people’s four-legged companions, the fascination of treating a range of wildlife from time to time… but there were still nights when waking up alone seemed to startle him, as if he had never quite adjusted to the lack of another human presence sleeping beside him.

  Perhaps it was time he got another cat, he thought as he hurried out the front door and into his car. It was so much nicer to come home from these late night adventures to find someone waiting for him. As it was, he rather thought that if he didn’t come home at all, no one would actually notice…

  Baron pulled the van up outside the vet clinic. Silas had been watching the building since before they had called the vet, and had phoned Baron just moments ago with the report that the man had arrived at the clinic, that he was alone, and that there were no other people in the vicinity. They were good to go.

  When they’d broken the news about Russia and the Council’s surgeon to Skip, she’d turned pale. But then, when Baron had outlined the rest of Feng’s plan, she’d taken on a determined look, and immediately scurried off to the IT office. “I have a database of humans who might be persuaded to help us,” she’d said, rapidly typing on her treasured laptop. “Contingency plans, in case of emergency and all that,” she’d added, no doubt aware that, in the normal scheme of things, exposing the general public to their secrets was absolutely forbidden. “There’s a vet clinic in Carlisle. An unusual sort of vet. He does a lot of work for wildlife – birds, moles, hedgehogs. And he’s a member of a medieval re-enactment society. It doesn’t make him a sure thing, but it at least ticks one of the boxes, if he’s into mythological sorts of things.”

  Skip had done her homework, Baron was relieved to see, a full background check on the man, with nothing showing up that would immediately discount him from being enlisted to help them – no immediate family, no criminal convictions, no signs of any link to the Noturatii.

  And so they’d put their plan together. Taking a wolf to the clinic in broad daylight was definitely out, but if a midnight meeting could be arranged, by way of an ‘emergency’, then it would minimise any potential bystanders. They had decided not to tell the vet too much over the phone, Alistair helping them come up with the story that their ‘dog’ had been hit by a car in order to lure him to the clinic, and now it was Baron’s job to meet the man in person and explain the rest of the situation – or a version of it, at least, one that would sound plausible to a man who was doubtlessly intelligent and discerning, but which also kept as much of their world a secret as possible. He would no doubt have questions, and despite their carefully constructed lies, there was a very real risk that something could go wrong – Skip shifting while waking up from the anaesthetic, for example – which would mean their cover was blown and their secrets exposed. While the good Doctor Nagi seemed like a decent enough fellow, they hadn’t had time to do anything like their usual level of investigations to ensure that he was both willing and able to keep the kind of secrets he could become privy to.

  Skip was still in human form, waiting in the back of the van with Heron, nervous and pale as she was entirely aware of everything that could go wrong with this plan. Baron would go inside, explai
n their requirements and make sure everything was set up for urgent surgery, and then at the last possible moment, she would shift, they would carry her inside and, if Sirius was smiling on them today, the vet would remove the bullet and save her life.

  Baron was feeling almost as nervous as Skip. Due to their time limitations, this exercise had been planned in a rush and he knew there were almost certainly details that they had overlooked. But, as he’d acknowledged in his earlier conversation with Feng, they were out of options. Risking a human finding out about them was dangerous, but not entirely out of the question, given the Council’s recent discussions on the possibility of going public – an announcement that Baron had found rather startling, if he was honest about it – and simply allowing Skip to die was not an option. With one final, grim nod to Skip and Heron, he climbed out of the van.

  Caroline and Andre were right behind him, and he was relieved to see Silas appear from out of the darkness, heading straight for the van. As the most experienced of them all in terms of surgery and the treating of wounds, it would be his job to control the bleeding until Skip was on the table and the vet had taken over. Caroline immediately headed off into the shadows, charged with keeping an eye on security while the rest of them were inside, and Andre had been brought along because of his unusual abilities in hypnosis. If the vet decided to panic or get too curious about any of the details, it was Andre’s job to calm him down and make sure he was in a suitable frame of mind to perform the surgery.

  “Ready everyone?” Baron asked, glancing at the team around him. They were some of the finest wolves he had ever met, and he couldn’t have asked for more in an undertaking as stressful and risky as this one.

  A chorus of agreement came back at him, so he marched quickly towards the building, bracing himself for a very odd conversation to come.

  Jamal had just finished checking there was enough liquid in the anaesthetic machine when he heard a knock at the door. He hurried out into the waiting room and saw the two men standing there. His first impression was of a couple of thugs, both of them large men, wearing dark coats and darker scowls, but when he appeared, the taller of the two looked relieved and waved at him through the glass. He unlocked the door and let them in.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” the man said without even introducing himself. “The dog’s in the van. She’s been bleeding pretty badly, and we’ve got her more or less stable, but the moment we move her, I think the bleeding’s going to start up again.”

  “Perhaps I should take a look at her in the van first of all then,” Jamal volunteered immediately, reaching for the stethoscope on the reception desk, but the man shook his head.

  “Before we do any of that, there are a few things I need to explain. She’s not a normal dog, and… I’m afraid we haven’t been entirely honest about her injuries.”

  That got Jamal’s attention. He wasn’t a small man, and had seen enough of life in his fifty or so years that he didn’t scare easily, but the look of grim determination on this man’s face was enough to give him pause.

  “If you’ve come here to rob me, you’ve come to the wrong place.” It wouldn’t be the first time weirdos had shown up at the clinic, hoping to score some morphine or wanting a supply of syringes for various nefarious purposes, and Jamal had learned to be firm and direct in his refusals, not hesitating to call the police should anyone get out of hand.

  “No, no, nothing like that. We have no intention of threatening you. We need your help,” the man said sincerely. “I’m sorry, I should at least introduce myself. My name’s Henry. I spoke to you on the phone. And this is Andrew,” he added, pointing to the man beside him. “We have a badly injured dog, and she’s going to need urgent surgery to save her life. The problem is more in the details.”

  “Go on,” Jamal said, curious, though also cautious about these imposing men.

  “I’ll try to keep this short and simple,” Henry said. “We are a covert operations unit within the military. Our usual vet is away overseas, and we had a run in with a terrorist group who decided to shoot first and ask questions later. The dog hasn’t been hit by a car; she’s been shot in the back leg, and the bullet has ruptured an artery and passed through into her abdomen. I need you to control the bleeding, remove the bullet, and see to any internal injuries. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you this on the phone, but given the nature of our operations, all information about ourselves and our animals is on a strict need-to-know basis.”

  Jamal was listening carefully, perplexed by the secrecy and subterfuge, but with an injured animal needing medical attention, he wasn’t inclined to play twenty questions about the exact circumstances of her being injured. “I can do my best,” he said in reply, “but bullet wounds aren’t the usual fare of a vet clinic. I don’t have anything like the kind of medical facilities that would be available in a human hospital.”

  “Okay, then let me put this in context for you,” Henry said, calm but firm, his eyes never leaving Jamal’s. “This dog is the product of generations of careful breeding. She has undergone years of specialist training, she has saved the lives of several members of our team, and all up, she’s probably worth close to a hundred thousand pounds. Money is no object. Whatever treatment you think she needs, you give it to her. Here’s five hundred pounds for starters, and I’ll pay you the rest once you know what the exact costs are.” He retrieved a wad of cash from his pocket and handed it to Jamal. “We’ve brought one of our medical support staff with us, who can act as surgery nurse, and the rest of us are willing to lend a hand in whatever way is necessary.” Jamal saw a tremor cross the man’s face, and had the odd impression that he was fighting back tears. “I need you to save her life,” he said simply, by way of conclusion, and Jamal took a deep breath, and then nodded his agreement. If he was reading the guy correctly, then it wasn’t just a question of the dog’s monetary value. He’d treated working dogs before – police dogs, military dogs, guide dogs – and had seen the extreme emotional bonds that soldiers and officers often formed with their animals.

  “I’ll do everything I can,” he promised them.

  “It’s a foregone conclusion that she’s going to need surgery,” the second man said, the first time he’d spoken since he’d entered the room. “So how about we help you get everything set up and ready to go, because like Henry said, the moment we move her, she’s probably going to start bleeding again. We’re not going to have much time to mess about.”

  Jamal led them through into the surgery room and picked up his preparations where he’d left off. Surgical kit, sterilised and ready to go. Gloves for himself and an assistant, an IV line set up for fluids, a syringe full of intravenous anaesthetic to put the dog under, suture material, antibiotics; he prepared everything he could think of that he might need. And when the preparations were complete, he turned back to the waiting men. “Okay, all set. Bring her in.”

  “It might take a few minutes,” Henry said, heading for the door. “We want to make sure we don’t do her any further damage by moving her.”

  Jamal nodded, and watched the two men leave. It was going to be difficult surgery, but he was surprised to find he was feeling rather calm about the whole thing. For all his military air, that second man, Andrew, seemed to have a rather soothing air about him. It was going to be fine, Jamal recited to himself, mentally preparing himself for the long operation to come. It was all going to be fine…

  Back at the van, Baron opened the side door, seeing Skip sitting on the floor. Heron was beside her, holding her hand, while Silas had set out a range of medical supplies to take care of the wound.

  “All set,” Baron reported. “Ready whenever you are.”

  Silas turned to Skip and gently took her hand. “Don’t fret, little sprite,” he whispered to her, and then recited a portion of the Chant of Forests, the shifters’ solemn vow to defend each other to the death. “I will not sleep until you rest safely. If you call me, I will come. If you fall I will carry you. I will measure your steps
this day that you run.” And then he added a final line, not part of the chant, that elicited a wobbly smile from his young patient. “The sun will not set upon you this evening.”

  “Let’s do this,” Skip said, trying to sound brave, and then she lay down on the pad of towels that had been laid out for her. The shift was smooth and fast, and the instant she was in wolf form, Silas leapt into motion. A quick check of the wound to assess the damage, then a thick dressing, pressed down firmly to slow the bleeding. A rapid assessment of her vitals. “Pulse is strong. Breathing’s steady. Colour’s good. It’s as good a starting point as we could ask for.”

  “You ready to move her?” Baron asked, and Silas glanced at Skip, who nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  She was clearly in pain, Baron could see, as he carefully slid his arms beneath her body and lifted her as gently as he could. Silas was keeping pressure on the wound, trotting along beside him as he made his way back to the clinic, then there was an awkward sideways shuffle as they made their way into the surgery room.

  “Let me see the wound,” the vet instructed, once she was settled on the table, and a quick peek under the dressing had him swearing softly under his breath. He quickly took her vitals, and then said, “All right, let’s put her under.” He reached for a set of clippers to prepare an IV site on Skip’s foreleg, and Baron hoped he wasn’t going to say anything that would unduly worry Skip before she was under. He would have liked to warn the doctor to watch what he said, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of a sensible way to explain the fact that their dog could understand English.

  “I’m going to need someone to hold her head while I intubate her,” the vet said, once the IV line was in place, and Baron stepped forward.

  “I’m on it.”

  “Usually I don’t do this unless the animal has had a sedative first, so the induction might be a little rough. If she struggles, I’ll need you to hold her down.”