by L. A. Banks
The brass, feeling smug and self-congratulatory, had dubbed them the Wolf Pack because of their lethality. But Sasha had told him proudly that she and the guys had taken possession of the name because they’d truly become a pack. The memory made him nauseous.
The doctor simply stared at the general for a moment, needing a fraction of time for his thoughts to return to the war room.
“Xavier, for the amount we’ve invested in these wolves, getting only a few short years before they Turn is an unacceptable risk factor. The Sirius Project can’t lose another one. Fix this.” The general stared at the doctor over the tops of his glasses, stood slowly to thrust out his barrel chest, and then leaned on the polished wood to make a menacing point.
“We are working on it,” Dr. Holland said, his too calm tone belying his inner rage. “But do remember, I was opposed to this aspect of the project from the beginning. We didn’t know enough about the way the virus mutated, but we were instructed to push forward before another nation made a breakthrough. So, I’m well aware of the risks.”
“Oh,” the general scoffed, glossing over and ignoring the most critical part of the doctor’s statement. “You’re well aware of the risks? I don’t think so. This is beyond budgets—I’m talking intangible costs. If you can’t fix this, you know the protocol. Once they start showing signs of a Turn we burn ’em out on mission after mission so we can recoup as much of our investment as possible before we terminate. So either fix it or terminate each wolf, that’s the bottom line. The cold war days are over, and truthfully, so are worries about nuclear or pandemic biowarfare. This is the new warfare. This is our problem now.”
Xavier Holland couldn’t hear over the sound of his blood rushing in his veins. Fury made his tongue thick and he fought to keep a calm, professional demeanor when responding. Terminating Sasha and the others was out of the question. If he had only gotten to Rod first . . .
“I know that since the discovery of paranormal dimensions the nuclear capacity of any nation is no longer our major concern,” Holland coolly retorted, humoring the general. “In fact, that’s just a cover intended for the general public now. I’m also well aware that the supernatural represents humanity’s greatest threat. Therefore, those dimensional rips have to be monitored—”
“Correct! Dimensions we cannot control that have every damned thing that goes bump in the night potentially allying with nations outside the Alliance must have gatekeepers who follow orders without fail.”
Both men stared at each other for a moment.
“Which is why, I’m sure, Sasha instinctively sent North Korea’s preternatural convoy a strong message not to piss in our yard,” Dr. Holland said, his voice straining with the effort to remain calm. “That convoy had genetic cargo that, if safely couriered to the labs, might have been their first breakthrough in genetic fusion technology to develop—”
The general waved his hand to stop any further discussion. “How long do we have with her?”
A pair of cold gray eyes met a pair of intense dark brown ones without blinking.
“All the subjects have proven stable until at least twenty-five years of—”
“She’s twenty-four and already slipping,” the general said, cutting off the doctor’s explanation and pointing with a hard snap. His arm extended toward the three-dimensional map screen that was now blurred with orange and red hues over a remote section of North Korea. “Has she turned into one of those things yet, Xavier? Has she?”
“No,” the doctor said. A silent plea entered his soul: not Sasha. Losing Rod was bad enough.
“A whole team saw Rod Butler Turn. Don’t you think questions will be asked? You didn’t have a damage control strategy for that, did you?” When Dr. Holland didn’t say more, the general pressed on. “Did you see that heat signature she left from what was to be a quiet, unobtrusive message? Sending her there was a test to see if she could go in under tempting conditions against a known territorial enemy and follow orders under a goddamned full moon. She failed.”
The general smoothed a thick palm over his hair and released a weary sigh. “I know you’ve grown attached to her over the years, more than the others, especially since you raised her. We’re all aware of who her parents were to you, Xavier. It was a tragic loss. Shame the way Catherine and Bill died. Nevertheless, do not let your emotions cloud the issue or your loyalty.”
“Then let me fix it,” Xavier Holland said in a tight, angry tone.
“Fine,” the general said, lifting his chin in a way that shook his jowls. “But, ultimately, you’re going to have to face the fact that she might be a candidate for extermination before she hits twenty-five if we totally lose control of her. You owe that to Bill and Catherine, as much as anything else.”
The doctor’s expression didn’t change. “I’ll fix this. We’re working on new dosage levels now and timereleased distribution systems that can be embedded under the skin in the event the subject gets separated from his or her supply during battle conditions. We’ll rectify the problem immediately.”
“You’d better.”
“I said I would fix this,” the doctor repeated, coming dangerously close in tone to insubordination.
“Raise her on sat phone, Xavier. I wanna know what the hell happened out there—what damage control strategies we have to put in place.”
A stalemate almost made the air in the room crackle with tension.
“It could compromise her position. She knows to call in when she’s clear.”
The general’s gaze narrowed on Dr. Holland, his assessment raking every line in the doctor’s gaunt brown face. “Then I want to be here personally for the debriefing this time.”
Three days later: Cheyenne Mountain, Denver
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) . . .
CLOSED AWAY BEHIND twenty-five-ton steel doors in a windowless world beneath two thousand feet of granite, Sasha instinctively knew she had to pay the band now that the dance was over—but it had been one helluva party. Doc X’s body language said as much, too, no matter how calm he tried to keep his voice. His eyes begged her to be on her best behavior. And she had so much to tell him. That little-girl part of her wanted to slip her hand within his big, comforting one. But the independent female within her squared her shoulders and straightened her spine as she tipped her chin up in unspoken defiance. The general could kiss her ass.
As the general dressed her down Sasha held herself back from snarling, but was unable to keep the look of disdain out of her expression. What were they gonna do, court-martial her for blowing up a potential fusion operation in a hostile country that went against every international treaty? My bad. The flippant response was on the tip of her tongue, but she held it back.
The part that was frightening was that she almost didn’t care. The more she noticed the armed MPs standing at attention near the exits, the more defiance bubbled within her. As she watched the general and saw him warily regard her, the scent of his fear spiked something animalistic inside of her. More animalistic than usual. Sasha gave herself a little mental shake, like a dog shedding water, and wondered where Rod was. And the rest of the pack? She needed to escape these underground steel walls, surface, and breathe fresh mountain air.
“Are we clear, Trudeau?” the general bellowed.
Startled back into the conversation, she met his eyes quickly. “It won’t happen again, sir.” From the corner of her eye she saw Doc Holland nearly sigh with relief that she’d given the correct response.
“Good. Make sure it doesn’t.”
She watched the general spin on his heel and stride out the war room doors. She kept her salute rigid until the doors closed behind him and his escort. For a moment neither she nor Doc spoke.
“This time was serious, Sasha,” he said in a quiet tone.
Although she felt bad about putting her adopted father in such a tough position, she tried to dismiss the unsettled feeling she had with a wisecrack. “He’ll get over it, once he sees that
nothing with four legs is going to come out of their labs for a long time.”
“That’s not the point,” Doc snapped. “They were testing you to see if you could follow a direct command under a full moon, and you went extreme—just like they’d predicted.”
“Okay, okay,” she argued, growing agitated and walking away as she spoke. “Maybe I went a little over the top. I got separated from my kit, was off meds for twelve hours. So, yeah, I was a little antsy. But I saw an opportunity and took it.”
Sasha lifted her chin and hoped Holland wouldn’t start asking about her sources. He’d wig right now if he found out that a double-dealing vampire had swiped her personal effects for fun. The intel she’d gotten from Shogun would definitely cause apoplexy. And God help them all if the general got wind of it before the facts had been double-checked and sanitized; the man would have a heart attack right after he birthed a cow. Timing was everything, and now obviously wasn’t the time. She’d let Doc calm down and would tell him all she’d learned later, in a place where the walls didn’t have ears. Waiting was tough, though. Now she knew how he must have felt all those years ago—waiting to tell a fourteen-year-old that she was infected.
Sasha jettisoned the painful memory. She had to stay focused.
What the guys in the war room could never understand was, what happened on the ground was waaay different than all the crap they simulated on cool 3-D monitors and in the sim rooms. And while they trained her in diplomacy, they still distrusted the information coming out of the paranormal communities. However, if you wanted to find a supernatural, you had to go to one. Despite the general’s fears and prejudices, the supernatural species was here to stay—wasn’t that why they had shamans and psychics on the intel squad monitoring breaches?
Doc Holland began pacing while eyeing her. He didn’t need to worry. Vampires didn’t seem inclined to attack her, simply because they were revolted by the werewolf virus tainting her blood. Killing her served no purpose. They were in no hurry to see werewolves proliferate on the planet, so it was in their best interest to help . . . as long as it wasn’t too inconvenient, aristocrats that they were.
They loved a good sparring match and they played every side against the middle anyway, without allegiance to anything but themselves. It meant they were always good for info, if you could make it worth their while. The ultimate freelancers.
What had happened in North Korea stayed in North Korea. What had happened in the strip bar definitely stayed there in South Korea . . . Yeah, later, once in a less hostile environment, she’d debrief Doc on what she’d learned about werewolves. What she needed to tell him would go down better with a beer.
But right now, Holland was slowly pacing, something he did only when very upset. Whatever ration of shit the general had given him, it was clear Holland didn’t appreciate it. The muscle in his jaw pulsed and the poor man seemed like he might spontaneously combust where he stood. His usually easygoing manner had been replaced by tight, choppy motions that strangely resembled those of a tin soldier. He seemed to be drowning in thoughts, searching for words as though his mind had stripped a gear. Needing to get out of the steel underground, Sasha tried to mollify the man. Anything to get out.
“Okay. I said I may have gone over the top. You can stop the silent treatment. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Over the top . . . you blew up a bridge, half a mountainside, and an entire convoy. Hitting those targets were not your orders,” Holland finally shouted as he reached the far side of the room and whirled on her.
The strain in his voice made her bristle. There was something almost desperate in the quality of his tone. Fear wafted off him so strongly that it put tears in her eyes and she turned away. Of all the people in the world, he’d never feared her. Screw the argument about the mission, it hurt like hell to sense such fear coming from her surrogate father. She blinked back the moisture in her eyes and swallowed hard, unable to speak for a moment.
“Sasha,” he said more calmly, going to her. “You have to do what these people tell you.”
For a moment she just looked at him as he hugged her, now better understanding. He was afraid for her, not of her.
“They’re not the boss of me,” she said quietly, trying to make a joke and lessen his worry.
“Yes, Sasha, they are,” he said firmly, hugging her tighter.
“You really think they’ll actually court-martial me next time, don’t you?”
The tall, lean man who held her kissed the top of her head and nodded sadly. “Just do what they say, keep your nose out of trouble . . . and take your meds. All right?”
A CORONA AND some male companionship were calling her name. Stress had kicked her butt all the way down the icy mountainside for eighty miles past Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, until she could finally pull her red Dodge Nitro up to her apartment.
Being home had never felt so good. Sasha cut the ignition and stared at the door of her walk-up duplex for a moment, getting her bearings. She just hoped Mrs. Baker hadn’t overfed Fred. The woman thought all creatures needed far more food than was necessary. It would be just her luck that she’d find him floating belly-up when she opened the door.
On cue, Mrs. Baker appeared at the door of her apartment in neon rollers that were partially hidden beneath a sheer white scarf and clutching her pink and gray plaid flannel robe over her ample breasts. The elderly matron waved and smiled widely. Sasha got out of the car and waved back.
“Good to have you home again, sweetie,” Mrs. Baker said. “I took good care of Fred and all your mail.”
“Thanks so much. It’s so good to be home. Now you let me know if you need anything from the store. Roads are bad,” Sasha said with a warm smile. A sense of belonging wafted through her as the older woman’s breath caught on the night air in frosty puffs. After what Shogun had told her, she was starting to believe in fairy godmothers.
“I will, I will. It’s just nice to have young folk around . . . makes it not so lonely in the building.”
Sasha nodded as Mrs. Baker waved good night. She knew exactly what her neighbor meant. There was comfort in numbers, a feeling of security in a pack.
With a sigh Sasha depressed the lock button and alarm on her key ring, causing a little beep-beep to sound, and then mounted the stairs taking two at a time. It wasn’t fair; they were supposed to give her two weeks off after a mission like the one she’d just been on, but instead she only got forty-eight hours after today. Saturday and Sunday. Monday she had to report in. She understood it as the punishment Doc explained it to be, but resentment still made her want to growl. However, resentment was a waste; the general could probably give a rat’s raw behind about what she thought or how she felt. Asshole.
Shake it off, she told herself, and simply kept moving.
Once she opened the door to her place she could see that Mrs. Baker had dutifully taken in her mail and neatly stacked it on the coffee table. The woman had also tidied up, leaving every surface of her Ikea-created home glistening with lemon-scented furniture polish. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that Mrs. Baker was ex-military, based on the way the woman had cleaned.
“Aw . . . Mom Baker . . .”
Sasha’s eyes scanned the meticulous living room and dining area. She’d throw in a pie, too, when she went to the market for her elderly neighbor. Growing up in foster care early on, until Doc had claimed her, had made Sasha appreciate even the smallest maternal gesture. A good old-fashioned hug was in order, too. Next time she saw Mrs. Baker, she’d claim one of her meaty-armed bear hugs.
Oblivious to her arrival, Fred was making endless circles in his bowl while she took a moment to sense her environment before entering it. Out of habit, Sasha scanned the apartment for signs of anything being out of the norm, and finding nothing, she relaxed and shut the door behind her.
“Did you miss me?” she called out to Fred while shedding her chocolate-brown leather bomber jacket and tossing it on the sofa. “You eat
today?” Sasha smiled and tapped her finger against the glass bowl, watching a pair of bulbous eyes and a gaping mouth try to peck at what probably seemed to be a huge worm. Leaving a tiny pinch of food for Fred to chase on the water’s surface, she went to the telephone to check her voice-mail messages. There were none, so the guys weren’t back from their mission.
Crossing the room with purpose, she opened the fridge and stood before it with her arms folded. “Everything smells like a science project,” she muttered. Sasha glanced over at the fish. “So, Fred, wanna order Chinese?”
Disgusted, she whipped out a kitchen trash bag from under the sink and began to dump. The routine was always the same, but it still annoyed her. Order takeout because you never know when you might have to stop, drop, and roll.
But she really couldn’t complain. Her dishes were all done, neatly washed and dried and left stacked on the side counter. Mrs. Baker clearly respected her unspoken boundaries by not going inside any cabinets, drawers, or even the fridge while she was gone. Theirs was an implicit truce where an invisible line of demarcation existed.
“C’mon, guys . . . get your assignment done and get home . . .” Sasha muttered to herself, becoming forlorn as she walked through the apartment with an overstuffed bag of garbage. She willed herself not to start doing some crazy thing like calling around to the rest of the pack. They’d be in touch as soon as they were Stateside. She flushed thinking about the signals Rod had been sending the last time they had all been together.
She stepped outside with her trash and chilly November wind slapped at her face and cut at any exposed skin not covered by her gray cable-knit sweater, hurrying her steps. A stray cat arched and hissed and then bolted away from the cans in the driveway. Cats did not like her, but God bless Mrs. Baker, who took in every stray that would lap milk at her front door.