by Seere, Diana
If it was the Book, it was safe.
If.
Too many ifs.
The energy emanating from Morgan was seasoned, constrained, aged with a knowledge and wisdom that only time and experience could hone. Morgan had moved that book for a reason.
Today Asher faced that reason.
Looking about the room, he took inventory. It was a single-second’s worth of work.
“This is my army? This?” His eyes danced about, landing on each person in turn. “On second thought, Morgan, I do believe I will have that whisky after all.”
It appeared before him without question. He drank it. Everyone watched.
“Five,” he continued. “Me, Edward, Derry, Lars, and you, Eva. I have five shifters to fight against an unknown number on Tomas’ side. A side filled with believers he has contaminated and turned against me. How could people possibly believe that Gavin and I are behind this?”
“LupiNex. Jealousy. The salacious need to watch the powerful fall,” Eva said.
“I will not fall,” Asher declared.
“Of course not,” Lars agreed.
“Six,” said a voice from behind him. Asher’s twisted in his chair.
Morgan.
“Six, sir.” His slight nod of the head was a bow of respect. “You have six in this room. And more outside its doors, I assure you. The common shifters are divided, like the ruling families, but we are divided, not one monolithic whole. Some are smart. Simply at the Montana estate, for instance, Chef Salina, Ariana, their families, and every other shifter on staff are on the side of decency.” The look on old Morgan’s face made it clear that was Asher’s side.
“Thank you,” Asher said formally.
“It is my duty,” the old shifter said somberly, though Asher knew he was pleased. “Six,” he said again in an arch tone, as if reminding a forgetful schoolboy.
“Make it seven.”
Twisting back to face the table, Asher looked over Eva’s head to the doorway, where his brother-in-law, Zach, stood.
“What are you doing here?” Asher asked, knowing the answer, his surprise fading quickly to acceptance. If Zach was here, then so was Sam.
And Lord knew who else from Montana.
“I am here to join your army,” Zach said, taking a seat next to Derry, who offered him a pile of carbs.
Lars nudged Kara, who nodded. “You’re the human shifter? The one turned into a shifter by the serum? The one who—” She halted her questions.
“Lived?” Zach finished for her.
“I’m so sorry. That was rude of me. It’s just—”
Zach stood and offered his hand. “Zach Hayden. And you are?” Eyes drifting to her belly, Zach’s shoulders broadened, his longing for Sophia all over his expression.
“Kara Jensen.”
“Lars Jensen.”
“This is not a cocktail party,” Asher pointed out as handshakes were exchanged.
“If I’m going to fight next to someone to stop the end of the world as we know it, knowing their name helps,” Lars joked.
Kara turned white as a sheet.
“Manny!” Asher boomed. The security chief appeared in the doorway. “Call to arms for all.”
“All? Not just the four main families?” Manny clarified.
Looking around the room, Asher sighed.
“All.”
One nod from Manny and it was settled.
War would be declared.
But Asher had no idea how strong his army would be. In the court of public opinion, he was a stain. Tomas had used subtle skills against him. Rumor and innuendo were strong weapons when used with subterfuge and mixed into a potion of lies.
“What do we do now?” Kara asked, tucking her long brown hair behind one ear, speckled eyes gleaming. “We have a three-year-old at home. How do we fight and protect?”
“You have it backwards, my dear,” Asher said tenderly. “You protect first. Fight only when you cannot protect any longer.” He gave Lars a sad look. “Your first duty is to your children.”
“My children will have no world to live in if I do not fulfill my duty to my kind,” Lars argued.
“I’ll go home to Jamie. Nana and I will protect him,” his wife said softly, pensively.
“Kara,” Lars said in a low, deep sound of worry.
“This is not up for debate,” she said, looking at Asher. “Is it?”
“She is right. It is not. There are no good choices left. Tomas not only is creating mutant cat shifters in broad daylight, he’s dividing our kind with rumor and lies. We… we face an uphill battle,” Asher said.
“Then we climb harder,” Edward murmured, reaching for a cup of lukewarm tea with a sad finality that made Asher feel resolute.
“Always, brother.”
“Just tell me what to do,” Zach announced. “Because I’ve got a pregnant wife in Montana and there’s no way in hell I’m letting a guy like Tomas Nagy win. Not only is he an evil villain, he was a half-assed scientist who took credit for other people’s research. That’s the worst kind of slime.”
Derry chuckled politely at the joke.
Everyone else stayed silent.
Until Asher said, “You are all certain?”
Everyone nodded.
“Then let’s get to work.”
* * *
Surrounded by Gavin’s strong, well-armed security detail, Sam went directly from the plane to a Stanton limo to LupiNex. From his self-imposed exile in Montana, Gavin had called ahead to make sure every risk they took was minimized as much as possible. She did wonder if he’d told Asher about her flight to Boston, concluding he wouldn’t have. Asher had enough to worry about, and Gavin, although honoring Asher’s wishes about remaining in Montana, understood Sam and the others were necessary assets in the fight against Tomas.
With Gavin’s security detail, Sam was able to slip in through a private entrance to reach LupiNex’s executive suite unseen by the reception in the foyer or even her old friends at the LupiNex front desk. From there, she headed directly to the shifter research lab.
The hallway outside the shifter lab was deserted, but she saw lights through the opaque glass and a hint of movement within.
Who would be working in the shifter lab without her knowledge? She’d kept in close contact with her staff, using them to conduct the tests she’d sent from Montana, but nobody had mentioned using this particular room. Even with her own team, she’d kept a few secrets and restricted the access of technicians and other scientists to the most sensitive equipment.
After Tomas, she’d learned to be more careful. This room was restricted.
She paused at the security box, hearing several loud voices within. If they had ill intent, they would’ve been sneakier. She keyed in her code, passed the retina scan, and went inside.
The scene took her breath away. The large counter in the center of the room had been cleared of its equipment and now held the bloody, twisted remains of…
Of something horrible. Something that reminded her of Zach’s near death: a human who had been forced into a shape his DNA hadn’t been designed to form.
Around the bloody, twisted corpse were five men and women, only one of whom she recognized.
“Dr. Sam!” the woman shouted, rushing over to her. Penelope was a junior lab tech, only just out of community college. A human like Sam. Well, a human like Sam had once assumed she was. “I tried to stop them, but they assured me you would want the… the samples… in the most secure part of the facility.”
Sam studied the mass of flesh, bone, fur, and teeth and realized there was more than one being lying there. Two distinct jawbones, two separate spines. The presence of the shifters—the other four had to be shifters, and doctors at that, by the way they behaved—told her the corpses must be the murderous cats they’d seen in the videos.
The unwilling human sacrifices to Tomas’ sick dream.
“Were they in cat form when you brought them in?” Sam asked.
A haug
hty man in his forties—no, she corrected herself silently, he might be over a hundred—gave her a dismissive wave of his hand. “Don’t interrupt. We’re collecting samples for our own investigation.”
Sam strode over and placed herself between the man and the corpses. “This is my lab. You’ll explain what you’re doing to me.” Without moving her head, she glanced at Gavin’s men who had followed her into the room and were now surrounding the shifters with military gestures of dominance and authority. “Who do you work for?”
“Not for you,” a woman said. She was auburn-haired, beautiful, almost as tall as Sophia. Maybe a bear shifter like her as well, given her size.
“Tell me who you are within the next five seconds or Stanton security will remove you from this building,” Sam said.
The woman looked at the muscled, square-jawed guy closest to her. “You’re Stanton security?”
He nodded.
The woman looked at Sam. “We don’t know who to trust. Eva Nagy called us. She sent the cleanup crew out to catch these monsters before they caused any more damage. Brought them here. Called us, the closest shifter doctors. It was too late. They were already dead.”
“You mentioned an investigation,” Sam said, suspicious. They could be working for Tomas. Somebody had to be. “Whose?”
“Ours,” the woman said. “We’ve heard rumors about Gavin, about Asher, about Tomas. We don’t know what to believe.”
“Believe this,” Sam said. “Tomas created those monsters. We have to find him. You have to stop him.”
“Us?” the man asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Shifters. All of you who value life,” Sam said. “Humans can’t do it. They don’t know about your kind. You’ve got to help Asher find him and fight him.”
“This is a Stanton lab,” the man said. “Whatever made those… things… came from this lab.”
“No, Tomas stole our technology and twisted it,” Sam said. “He’s going to destroy your world and mine unless you help Asher.”
The doctors looked at each other. Her own employee stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the assembly, wisely keeping silent.
“We need to study our samples,” the woman said. The other woman, a silent blonde, and the two male doctors nodded in agreement. “Asher will have to fight his own battles. If the Stantons and the Nagys are having a turf war of some kind…”
“This isn’t a turf war!” Sam cried. “It’s… one madman seeking to destroy the sane, civilized world!”
Edging away from Gavin’s security team, who had surrounded them, the doctors headed for the door, plastic bags wrapped in other plastic bags in their hands. “Time will tell,” the haughty man said.
They left before Sam could stop them, persuade them, beg them to help Asher in the fight.
What was wrong with those idiots? Couldn’t they see the evidence—bloody, twisted, horrific—right here on the counter in front of them?
How could they ever think Gavin or Asher Stanton would have anything to do with such crimes?
She stared at the jawbone of the corpse closest to her. How could they blame anyone for such a horror? Believing Tomas Nagy had done this would seem just as fantastic. But it was Gavin’s lab. And Asher was his eldest brother, the most powerful shifter in North America, possibly the world.
Trust. Asher had lived too privately, kept too many secrets to himself. The other shifters simply didn’t know him well enough to know he would never harm another being in this way.
Sam knew. Sam knew him better than anyone.
After they won this war, she would make him open his heart not only to her but to the others in his world. For their sake and for his.
“Dr. Sam?” Penelope asked. The lab tech was still standing there, her arms crossed over her chest. Her voice trembled. “What’s happening?”
She tried to remember how much Penelope knew. Most of the entry-level lab technicians were kept in the dark about the existence of shifters. They monitored equipment, took notes, made reports. Nothing explicit was written down about the existence of human beings who could shapeshift into animals.
“How did you get into this room?” Sam asked her.
“With Eva’s help,” Penelope said. “She actually invited me up from downstairs. I was glad to get away from my desk until I saw them…” Her eyes darted over to the mess on the counter.
“You know Eva?” Sam asked.
Penelope turned pink. “She’s my cousin. That’s how I got the job.”
Sam’s jaw dropped. “You mean… You’re…”
“We’re not all rich like the Stantons,” Penelope said. “Some of us need to have real jobs. I didn’t feel like serving drinks, you know? This was cool.”
“Are you… a cat?”
Penelope nodded. “Most Nagys are. My great-grandfather was a Nagy. Eva and I are only vaguely related, but she’s been really nice.”
Sam studied Penelope, wondering for the first time if it was at all possible she could be dangerous. What if Tomas had gotten to her somehow? Was Sam foolish to let her stay in the room?
“Did you know Tomas?” Sam asked quietly.
Penelope shuddered. “I’d rather not talk about him if you don’t mind.”
“I’m afraid we have to. Do you know him?”
Penelope began to tremble harder. Her eyes glistened, and she began to pick at the skin on her fingers. “He wanted to know me,” she said, looking at the floor. “Almost didn’t take no for an answer.”
The woman’s distress convinced Sam completely. Sam went over and put her arms around her. “I am terribly sorry for whatever he did. We’re trying to stop him. We will stop him.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help. You’ve always been really nice to me. I trust you.”
Sam was grateful for her faith but worried it might not be enough.
Chapter 19
The strange fog came on suddenly, as if pumped into his brain through his ear by a large bellows.
Eva described the details of her team being deployed to find the mutant cat shifters, the words “lab” and “twisted” and “macabre” filling the loose mist inside his skull. He itched horribly, all his skin suddenly irritating him, making him fidget.
Asher Stanton did not fidget.
The itching concentrated, receding from his body as swiftly as it had appeared until only his hip screamed out to be scratched.
Scratched with claws.
Sharp claws.
Red hair down a long, straight back, against a white lab coat, filled his mind. He watched Sam in a sterile lab, a stainless steel slab covered with what looked like road kill.
Large road kill.
Rubbing his eyes, he reached for his fresh cup of Earl Grey while feigning attention with Eva, who stopped speaking, eyes going narrow.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Samantha, speaking with a young woman in the lab, one who took notes and nodded. Samantha’s speech was punctuated by firm, clear instructions issued with the assumption she would be obeyed.
But her eyes betrayed her strength, flitting to the steel slab.
“Asher?” Eva asked, leaning toward him. “What is wrong?”
He wanted to answer. He did. A strange, creeping sensation started in his calves, migrating up toward the raging scar on his hip. Touching it would burn him, he knew.
How could he be on fire and yet still calm?
Not calm.
Paralyzed.
It all unfolded before him in real time, the view of Samantha as she used a pen to point and issue orders, what appeared to be two outsiders watching it all, the way her team acted on her words, the furrow of her brow as she looked at what Asher now realized were the two bodies of the mutant cat shifters.
He was watching her in the LupiNex shifter lab.
Right now. His point of view altered second by second, as if filmed through a camera, moving, panning.
Moving closer.
That could mean only one thing.
Tomas was there. To
mas was watching her.
“NO!” he shouted, startling Eva, who pulled away and instantly stood.
The paralysis broke like a large tree crashing down a hillside, the roots ripped from Mother Earth by a force of nature stronger than time. Asher Stanton jumped to his feet, reeling.
“It’s Tomas, isn’t it?” Edward asked, instantly at his side, arms akimbo, face elongated in early shift. “He is here. You feel him.”
“I see her,” Asher said, moving out of the room and down the hall, Derry, Lars, and Zach following him and Edward, Eva’s voice in the background issuing orders to Morgan and into a small earpiece.
Asher knew she was readying their side.
Whatever their side meant.
“How do you see her?” Derry asked, his enormous body surprisingly fast.
Asher glanced at him, then touched his temple, his mind like a paper shredder.
“I see her,” he said, ripping open the door to the stairs and taking them two by two, up and around, everyone in formation behind him like a centipede made of shifters, “because of Tomas. The scar. This strange brew of magic he’s put in me. Whatever this is, I see through his eyes when he is close. And I see her right now.”
Silence greeted him as everyone raced up, up, up, Asher’s view of Samantha turning his mind’s eye into a vortex, curved at the edges of vision, a fish-bowl lens distorting his view. He saw a manicured hand, hair on the back, the wrist covered by a fine Patek Philippe watch, the cuff of the suit jacket rising up as the fingertips reached for Samantha’s hair.
Quickening his step, he felt the shift, his human mind fighting for a split second.
What if humans saw him?
“Dr. Baird,” he heard inside his own head, the voice that of Tomas, of treachery, of doom.
Samantha turned toward the voice, the vibration of it on his tongue, in his molars, buried in the tightness of his jaw.
And then suddenly, he stopped caring about being seen.
And cared only about rescuing her.
Crashing through the floor’s metal door, he raced into the special lab, his eyeball sufficing for the retinal scan. Thank God Gavin had given into Asher’s demands for that the last time he’d been in Boston.