BirthStone

by Sydney Addae

  Jennings hid his surprise at the captain’s candor.

  “I read your report, you closed the case that I told you wouldn’t go anywhere in the beginning. But in the meantime you became Merriweather’s champion. He didn’t stress that you be the one to pick this information up, but it’s your case and I want you to handle it. Besides, he thinks you are the only honest cop on the force.”

  Jennings cheeks were on fire. “Sir, that was not my intent –”

  The captain waved down his explanation. “I am a black police captain in the mountains of West Virginia, with two more years to serve before my retirement.” He eyed Jennings as he tapped a folder on his desk. “How do you think that happened?”

  Jennings had wondered but never dared to ask. “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “I applied and interviewed for the position along with a lot of other highly qualified men and women. This…” he waved at his large office, “...is a dream job. This city has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. My salary is comparable to those of much larger cities and the perks are awesome. My home, car, and insurance…covered…for life.”

  Jennings stared at the older black man in shock. That was a really good deal. Maybe he should hang around and apply when the old man retired. “Wow.” That was all he could come up with and it was inadequate.

  “Yeah, but after I interviewed with everyone else, my final interview was with Silas Knight. He approves every government official who works in this state.”

  Jennings’ eyes widened. He didn’t know that.

  “When he sends a cop to me for a position, the man is hired, no questions asked. Or if he sends new equipment, like the security monitors his people are installing now, I say thank you and don’t ask questions. For all intents and purposes, Silas Knight runs the state of West Virginia, probably a few other states as well,” the captain murmured. He hit the desk, garnering Jennings attention.

  “That’s why I want this report closed. But you can’t close it without at least looking at whatever Merriweather has to show you. He might kick up some dust, have someone start looking into local affairs. I don’t want to chance that. Leave early, go to his estate, look at whatever he has so you can make an addendum to the report and then close this case. Do you understand, Detective Jennings?”

  “Yes, Sir.” A sense of pride rose within him over the accomplishments of his Alpha. “I will take care of it today.” He stood and remained standing next to his chair.

  “Make sure that you do. I want to add that the file is closed when I give Mr. Knight my weekly report.”

  Jennings fought to keep the surprise off his face.

  “Dismissed,” the captain said. Jennings left the office, his mind shuffling and filing away all the information he had received. One thing stood out above everything else, his Alpha, La Patron was one tough dude.

  Chapter 6

  Cameron strode down the corridor searching for Silas. The challenge was in a few weeks and his Alpha had not approved of him entering the competition. He wondered if Silas had doubts over his ability to rule the state or win the fight. If he fought one of the twins, chances were he’d lose. But he had fought Serrano during training and won all of their skirmishes. He believed he could take the man again.

  His mate had been urging him to speak with Silas so that he could train better to fight the right opponent in the competition. There were moments when he believed she wanted him to become Alpha more than he did. But at least she talked more freely with him now and allowed him into her bed. It seemed a decent trade-off to him.

  He stopped at the door of the lab and saw Dr. Passen speaking to a few men in lab coats. Cameron headed in his direction. The doctor eyed him for a second before finishing his conversation. By the time Cameron reached the man, the other two had walked off.

  “Hey Doc, I heard La Patron was down here.” He gazed around the large well-lit area seeking his godfather.

  Dr. Passen released a breath, his entire demeanor changed as his eyes slid to the floor. “Oh… okay, you’re not here for…yes, he was here earlier. But I’m not sure where he is now. I’ll be calling him soon to view the testing of some equipment.”

  “When? How soon?”

  “Within the next hour.”

  Cameron nodded and reached out for Silas along their private link, there was still no response. “I’ll come back,” he said, backing out of the lab. “Could you tell him I was here looking for him?”

  “Yes, sure. I’ll let him know.” Doctor Passen waved him off and returned to the reports he’d been reading. “Unbelievable,” he murmured, looking at the numbers again. Wanting another opinion, he placed a call. It was answered on the first ring.

  “Hello.”

  “Matt, I have some new testing results on Asia. I need another pair of eyes on this, it’s too… when can you get here?”

  “I’m in the car on my way now. I should be there in ten minutes.” He paused. “It’s that good?”

  “Mind blowing, high level security, so make sure you’re cleared. I want you to work with me on this. La Patron wants this done yesterday.”

  “He always does.”

  Passen snorted. It was true, but in this case he understood why. Asia was a walking blueprint for at least five key experiments. If they could unravel the codes and duplicate her mechanisms, they could find a way to defend against the technology their enemies threw at them. He still had nightmares over that week when bombs and viruses rendered them almost impotent. They’d had no way to detect the bombs or save the lives of those infected with the unknown virus. He’d left everything behind when La Patron called him for service and was glad he had. The things he had seen and learned in the past weeks were on the cutting edge. Being one of the leaders in this type of research would make his career.

  “See you when you get here.” He clicked off and stared at the paper. A few moments later he opened the door to Asia’s room. She lay on the twin bed, her head bandaged and her eyes covered with the locked blindfold. She had been through so much and yet she fought to survive when many would have given up.

  “Are you going to remain by the door, Doctor, or do you plan to tell me what’s on your mind?” The normalcy of her tone gave no hint of the extreme pain she suffered, which he knew the severity of, given the barrage of testing he’d recently put her through.

  He snorted and moved away from the door, pulled the chair from beneath the small desk, and sat. Once he heard the door lock into position, he spoke, “You are an amazing woman.”

  In the dimness of the room, he noticed she went still. “I am? What have you discovered to make you say that?”

  “You know more than you admit, I believe you are prevented from telling us everything by the small lock La Patron discovered earlier. From the x-rays we took this morning, I noticed several small metal teeth digging into your brain to hold it in place. There is a fake vein that travels from a small transmitter behind your eyes to this lock. I would like to remove it to see what’s inside.”

  “And the problem is?”

  “We won’t remove it if it endangers your life. You are too valuable. I will find another way to access the data if it comes down to that.”

  “Do I have any say?”

  Not really. “Of course, but you realize the final say comes from La Patron, and his mate is against you being permanently harmed in any way. Just so you know, you have a champion in her.”

  “A champion?” She paused. “I…I’m surprised.”

  “Me too. But I’m a scientist and a doctor first. You have opened up a whole new world in bio-mechanical research.” Pausing, he shook his head, knowing how easily he went off on tangents regarding his work. “So what do you have to say about all of this?”

  “I need to help defeat the people who are trying to destroy my Alpha and his den.” Slowly, she sat up, and pursed her lips. “It’s more than honoring La Patron, although I do honor him and his mate. But as a full-blooded wolf, I’ve been robbed and violated. My beas
t demands I never give up or those bastards win, we would prefer death before that.” Her head tipped in his direction when she spoke. “If there is anything within me that will help the pack, take it. I am just one wolf. This war will destroy millions if we do not step up to the plate and neutralize their weapons. What they did a few weeks ago, ramming so much down La Patron’s throat to see his response, was just the tip of the iceberg. Multiply that week by hundreds of occurrences all over the U.S.”

  His throat tightened. “Hundreds of undetected bombs? That would be…catastrophic. We are testing the detectors now, we had to work fast, there are still a few bugs to smooth out before we can meet the demand.” He wiped his brow. “The virus…will they amp up more breeds?”

  “They already have. Unfortunately, they didn’t have Dr. Chism on their team, who would’ve told them straight up the serum only increases performance of what’s already in place. Right now, they have a lot of problems with over-aggressive wolves, at least they did the last time I was— ow…” Her hand flew to her head.

  He moved so quickly, his chair overturned. “What happened?” He knelt in front of her, holding her other hand.

  “When I talk about certain things, my head hurts.” She rubbed her forehead.

  He rubbed the back of her hand. “Okay, you were saying what you saw the last time you were a certain place.” He squeezed her hand in warning. “Don’t say anything, just listen until the pain subsides.

  She nodded.

  Releasing her hand, he stood and backed up to his chair. He sat and pondered what happened. “Amazing,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  “The device latched into your brain keys into not only your vision but also your speech. The pain comes when you say certain words, which causes you to back off or… modify your words. Have you done that? Instead of saying the lab or whatever the building is where you were located, what if we called it red site? Can you say that without pain? Red site.”

  “Red site.” She straightened. “The red site was surrounded by a lot of trees with…” she paused. “Give me another word for below…” She pointed downward.

  He grabbed his pad from his inner pocket and a pen. “Below ground, like a bunker?” She shook her head.

  “Not a basement, an underground facility like this one?”

  “Yes.”

  He wrote red site in his pad, along with the words, underground labs. With his other hand he pulled out his cell and turned on the mini-recorder. “So the underground lab, red site, is surrounded by a lot of trees. Was it near a main highway?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, to access it, you had to drive down a long dirt road.”

  “Yes.”

  He wrote that information down. “The next questions I want you to answer with numbers, hopefully none of those will be a trigger.”

  “I’d rather know now and avoid saying it later. Let’s get on with it.”

  He marveled at her eagerness to assist them in this process. “There are three suns in the sky.”

  “One.”

  “A hybrid is made up of four beings.”

  “Two.”

  “You’ve had twenty surgeries.”

  “Forty-seven.” Her mouth opened and then snapped close. “That was good. Keep going.” She scooted closer to the edge of the bed.

  “How many fingers on your right hand?”

  “Five.”

  “How many pups does La Patron have?”

  “Three.”

  His brow rose at that, but he continued. “What state does La Patron reside?”

  “West Virginia.”

  “And you were born in?”

  “Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.” She gasped, and swallowed hard. “Keep going.”

  “Your favorite color?”

  “Blue.”

  “The color of your eyes?”

  “Dark brown, now reddish brown.”

  He wondered if the camera lenses in her eyes were the reason they had changed colors. “Your hair color?”

  “Dark brown.”

  “You are fifty years old?”

  “One hundred and forty-four.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Holy shit,” she whispered. “Keep going.”

  “Two brothers, two sisters?”

  “Zero.”

  “Father?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Car color?”

  “Silver.”

  “Mother?”

  “Roda-Mae.” Her breath hitched and she hung her head.

  Dr. Passen wiped his face as he processed the information. After a few generic questions, he asked. “How many doctors worked on you? Five? Ten? Fifteen?” There were only so many men qualified to do the type of research and work that had been done to her over the years. He’d run a check going back a hundred years and ran the names by her.

  “Over fifty. They never used names, only codes. The codes were alphabet and numerical combinations. Like ADJK0039.” She paused and then relaxed. “He worked the metal in my leg. He’s foreign with a German accent. I remember he had thick fingers and smelled like tobacco.”

  “Okay.” He typed that information into his phone and sent the email to his team so they could do a search. “The metal was placed in your leg ten years ago.”

  “Twelve. Twelve years.”

  “You received a metal leg after falling from a moving truck.”

  “Airplane.” She winced.

  His eyes widened, she had fallen from the sky? No wonder she had a new leg and arm, her body should’ve shattered. He glanced at her. She had placed her hands in her lap as she sat perfectly still. Frowning he asked her, “Are you in pain? Does your head hurt?”

  “No. It works to empty myself and focus on the questions so I can answer them succinctly.”

  He nodded with approval. “Ten years ago the first flesh-covered bomb was created.”

  “Three. It came from another group.”

  Good, they weren’t that far behind. “Five years ago the serum to change wolves was created.”

  “Eight. First shot.”

  He glanced at his notes. “A lot of the chemicals in the compound weren’t discovered eight years ago. That means this formula has transitioned from the first batch.”

  “Yes.”

  He jotted down the information just as his cell beeped. “Excuse me, I have to take this call.” He walked out into the hall. “Sir?”

  “I am on my way to the labs, I got a message that it was time to approve the bomb detectors. Since the message didn’t come from you, I'm calling to make sure you were ready.”

  “Yes, Sir. I was interviewing Asia. We came up with a way for her to answer questions without causing her pain.”

  “I want to hear all about it. I’ll meet you in the demo area.” They clicked off.

  Dr. Passen had just typed in the code to open Asia’s door when Dr. Matt Chism rounded the corner. He had been so engrossed with Asia, he had forgotten the doctor was on his way. He waved Matt over. “Give me a minute to say good-bye and I’ll bring you up to speed.”

  Matt nodded and stayed next to the door as Dr. Passen walked inside. “I have to meet La Patron, but I’d like to finish this later.” He waited for her response, which was slow in coming.

  “Yes, but you should know I wasn’t in any pain because I didn’t think. I just answered. That must mean the lock is somehow connected to the cognitive processes in my brain. Unfortunately, I don’t know if the answers are real or planted memories.”

  He nodded, remembered she couldn’t see him. “You’re right, but there are ways to verify some things, and that’s where we’ll begin. I really don’t want to do your forty-eighth surgery unless it will give you peace without leaving you a vegetable.”

  She smiled. “I learned some things about myself today. First off, if this thing in my brain could kill me, I’d be dead already.”

  Silently, he agreed with her.

  “Second… dang, I’m old.”

  He grinned and clo
sed the door.

  Chapter 7

  Lt. Jennings checked the address in the folder again, and then gazed at his GPS. According to his device, the large colonial style home in front of him belonged to the Merriweather’s. He pulled out his file. Supposedly this family was one of the richest in the state, but judging by the unkempt appearance of the estate, he wondered if that report was true. His car idled at the turn off into the driveway while he worked out the contradiction in his mind. The building looked abandoned, although he saw lights.

  Inhaling, he pulled onto the cracked concrete masquerading as a driveway and inched slowly toward the house. Overgrown grass and debris covered the front yard. He saw loose boards on the wooden porch and wondered if it was safe. He turned off his car, closed his eyes and inhaled, allowing his wolf to check for danger. There was no response, which concerned him.

  He inhaled again, but there was no tingling of danger, no whimpering or barking. No tenseness in his gut like it had been earlier when he talked to Merriweather on the phone. Concerned at the lack of response, he started a mental checklist to determine the status of his beast just as Merriweather stepped out onto the porch with a large smile of welcome.

  Trapped, Jennings stepped out of the car and put on his game face. “Mr. Merriweather, how’s it going?” He moved closer but remained at the bottom of the steps, not trusting the wood. His host was slightly under six feet, with a head full of silver hair. The older man stared down at him with dark brown eyes that in the waning sunlight appeared to have some sort of glow. Up close, Jennings noted a thin metallic choker around the other man’s neck, and the lower half of his face were filled with various sizes of dark brown moles.