by WL Flinn
“As you can see, Cal and I are together. That is because we are taking one of the harder targets. It is a home on the island. It has a lot of security. We also expect it to have a lot of guards. The other locations appear to be a little more relaxed. But make no mistake about it. Nothing about any of these locations is going to be easy.
“Form up into your groups,” he said as he started handing out packages. “These contain everything we know on the location and the girl they are holding.” He had made the determination to not give any information about the victim to the teams. He didn’t want them internalizing or personalizing this fight so much they would take unnecessary risks.
We broke into our group and Jim put a picture of typical, Florida mansion on Palm Beach Island. It was a Spanish-style with the red barrel tile roof and the white adobe-style wall with the matching barrel tile cap across the top. There was a wrought iron gate in the front.
“This is the home of an A-Number-One Scumbag. They have two dogs that have the run of the property and cameras are on the wall. There is a guard at the gate,” Jim said.
We spent the night working out a plan to get in and out as quickly as possible. When everyone was satisfied and all the questions were answered Cal stood up.
“I want to thank you now for saving these girls. I know it isn’t going to be easy, but these girls didn’t deserve to be captured. We will meet here tomorrow at 6 to gear up. Try to get some rest tonight.”
Ashe and I jumped into my car. “You want to go for a run?” I asked. “SallyAnn hasn’t been out yet. I thought it would be fun.”
“Hell yeah.” Ashe smiled. “Gotta blow off some steam. Let’s see what the little filly has.”
SallyAnn looked around the park. It was about one a.m. “Are you sure there isn’t anyone around?”
I stripped off my clothes and shifted into my alicorn. It really was becoming a snap anymore. I looked at Penny. Coast is clear, she said.
Ashe’s skin turned shiny and her fangs dropped and her eyes got black. “Penny says we are good,” she told SallyAnn. Now you know why in all the shifter books they say they don’t care about nudity. She laughed to show skin wasn’t anything to worry about.
“That’s easy for you to say,” SallyAnn grumbled. “You don’t even have to change your shoes. I have to get completely naked.”
Hey at least she doesn’t have stretch marks and saggy boobs from nursing two kids, I said. Ashe looked back at me, I am not telling her what you said.
SallyAnn slowly got undressed and closed her eyes. “That’s it girl,” Ashe said. In a flash there was a smaller, palomino alicorn standing in front of her. “Dios mio, your mom was right girl, you are beautiful. Just like My Little Pony.”
SallyAnn tossed her head and snorted something that sounded like laughter. We all started off at an easy trot out towards the lake in the center of the park. SallyAnn took a few minutes to get the feel of having four hooves instead of two feet. Then she took off at a gallop her tail flying.
Not to be outdone, Ashe charged ahead. Soon we had a four-way race to the pond. I loved the way the wind blew my forelock out of my eyes. I knew my mane and tail were whipping in the wind. Galloping was so easy for me now. Still, I started to fall behind. I was never a fast runner in human form and I guess I would be a slow alicorn. So I snapped out my wings and flew over the three of them. I stuck my tongue out and whinnied a “nyah, nyah” and raced in front of them. I stopped at the beach and the three of them came running up at me. “Not fair,” Ashe laughed. Penny went running on by and immediately launched herself into the pond.
SallyAnn came up her flanks heaving. I nudged her lightly. This is cool, Mom. Maybe getting the Sickness is the best thing that has happened to me! Her blue eyes glittered in the darkness. She launched herself into the pond to play with Penny.
Ashe looked at her watch. “I hate to break up the lovefest, but we need to get back. We have a long day tomorrow.”
SallyAnn picked her head up from blowing bubbles in the water. Race you back, she squealed and she was off. Penny’s ears perked up and she dashed out of the water, soaking me. I shook my coat off and whinnied a challenge. Ashe and I took off after my little alicorn. We got to the car about the same time and SallyAnn and I shifted and changed quickly.
“Ewww, do I have to sit in the back with the wet dog?” she complained. Penny gave her a big kiss and laid across her lap. “Gross.” She laughed and petted her and rubbed Penny all over. “You’re the best,” I heard her whisper.
I dropped Ashe off and then headed home. SallyAnn seemed almost happy.
“Good night, kiddo.”
“Night, Mom,” she said heading into her room. “Can we do that tomorrow?”
“We have to work tomorrow, but we definitely have to do it again.”
When Ashe and I got to the office we picked up one pistol with extra magazines for me and a lots of guns and knives for her. We basically figured if I had to shift, it wouldn’t make sense to have a lot on me. We were still working on what survived a shift and what didn’t. I seriously needed to talk to some of Cal’s shifters and see if they had good answers.
Cal, Jim, Ashe, Penny, and I piled into a black SUV. "Well, we look like the FBI in this thing. I guess we are official.” We stopped about a block from the house and put in our earwigs. We weren’t 100 percent sure how it would work if I shifted, but we had to start somewhere with communication.
As expected, there was a guard at the gate. Ashe walked up in a short, denim miniskirt and cutoff shirt with a pushup bra. She really wanted to wear heels but figured she wouldn’t be able to fight in them. So, we went with cute sparkly Keds. The guard’s head snapped up when he saw her and Penny walking down the street. “Hey, do you know where Clematis Street is?” she slurred her words a little. She tripped a bit and he took a step out of the guard gate to help her.
“Ma’am you are really lost,” the kindly guy said. He grabbed her arm when she bobbled again. Quick, as well a vampire, Ashe bit him on the neck. He passed out and she dragged him back to the guard shack. She ran an EMP gadget over the board which shorted out all the electronic equipment with the magnetic pulse and gave us the thumbs up out the shack. She finished tying him up and let us in the unlocked door.
“The cameras are down on this end,” she said wiping the blood from her lips. The two guys just kind of stared at her. We had told them how it worked, but I guess seeing was believing. Jim stared at her lips, his eyes dilating. Maybe he liked this kind of thing?
I clapped my hands quietly to get them back on task. “Okay boys, time to get moving.”
They snapped out of their reverie and Ashe grabbed Jim to head to the east side of the house. Cal and I were heading left. Here was the tricky part. We didn’t know exactly where the girl was being kept. That was why we needed Penny. We didn’t have an item for her to focus her scenting on, but we knew we needed help.
Penny went with me and nudged my arm. That was my cue to try my partial shift. I concentrated on just having a fine layer of hair pop out on my arm. Suddenly I could hear Penny in my thoughts.
There are lots of smells here, she said. Her nose was lowered to the ground. Most are older and regular. You can tell they are here often. Some are magical. She led Cal and I around toward a four-car garage and sat down at the down to alert us just like a trained police K-9.
“This is where they took her,” I whispered to Cal.
Cal looked in the door. It was dark inside. He tried the door, but it was locked. His hand glowed and the lock melted. “Wow, now that is handy,” I whispered. He smiled at me and pulled the door open quietly, and the three of us slipped inside. He hit his comm badge. “Jim, in the garage.”
Jim grunted quietly and I assumed he was headed towards us. I shined my penlight around the garage. There were two nice Mercedes, but no girl. “Where is she, Penny?”
Penny walked up to a cabinet that should have held car cleaning items. She scratched the door. Cal walked up to it and gin
gerly felt all around the frame. At about belt height there was a soft click and the whole cabinet opened towards him. I was focused on getting the cabinet moved when a hand on my shoulder made me jump and I almost screamed bloody murder. Ashe shushed me. “We’re here.”
“You almost gave me a heart attack! Give a girl a little warning next time.”
“Jim, watch the door. You two come with me.” Cal whispered. We climbed up a narrow flight of stairs to an attic. It was silent except for the soft sounds of crying. There was a door at the top of the stairwell. Ashe pushed forward.
“If she sees a woman it might be helpful,” Cal said.
He glanced around the hall and nodded to Ashe to try the door. It wasn’t locked. The minute our shadows hit the floor, the girl inside filled her lungs to scream. With her vampire speed, Ashe flew to her side and covered her mouth. “We are here to help you,” she whispered.
The girl’s wide eyes turned to her. “Don’t say a word. We need to get in and out without anyone seeing us, okay?”
She slowly nodded her head. Ashe removed her hand, finger by finger just to make sure the girl wasn’t going to scream. Penny pushed through and immediately began to lick the her face. The girl wrapped one arm around her and began crying into her fur. That was when we saw the other arm was chained to the wall.
“What is it with these guys and chains?” I asked. Cal lit up his fingers and I could see the blood on the girl’s wrist where she had tried to pull free.
Jim’s voice filled our comms. “I see headlights coming up the road.”
Cal’s hands lit up and he melted the chain at the wall. “We will get the rest of this off later, but we gotta get you out of here now.”
She whimpered as the heat traveled up to her end and I wrapped a blanket under the metal cuff. With a dull clank the metal fell to the floor. “Can you walk?” I asked her. She nodded and I grabbed the tail end of her chain. I helped her stand up and she wobbled and grabbed my shoulder. “You just got to get down the stairs. Then we are good.”
“Jim, do we have time to get the car and bring it here?” Cal asked.
“Negative. They are pulling up. They are going to notice the guard isn’t there any second.”
“Crap,” Ashe said. She looked the girl over. There was no way she could make a run for it.
“Hey, have you ever ridden a horse?”
The girl looked at me. Her eyes round as saucers, but she shook her head no. Trust a city girl not to know anything about a horse. “It’s okay, we can make this work.” I turned to look at Cal. “You and Jim buy us a minute. We are going out the other door. Just one minute is all we need. Then Ashe can join you.”
I could see Ashe wasn’t thrilled with this plan, but she didn’t have anything better in mind either. We slipped out the other door of the garage into the darkness. Penny met us. “There are four people coming.”
I shifted knowing I was never getting these clothes back and the girl stared at me. Ashe helped her onto my back and she put her legs behind my wings. I locked them down on her legs holding her as tightly as I could. Ashe grabbed a handful of my mane and put the girl’s hand on it. “Hold on tight. You’re going home.”
Ashe slapped my ass and I took off. I couldn’t help the clatter of my hooves on the driveway and every single person looked at me, even my team. “Well that isn’t what I planned.” I winked at Cal as even he gawked at my alicorn and galloped towards one of the guards on the driveway. The poor man must have been in shock he was being attacked by an alicorn because he just stood there as I plowed into him and knocked him over.
That seemed to bring everyone to their senses. Cal started shooting fireballs and Jim shot streams of water from his hands. A man started creeping around to the side of them to flank them and Ashe ran out and bit him then snapped his neck. There would be no coming back from that.
The girl was bouncing like crazy on back so I couldn’t just take off or even try to fly. I was scared to death she would fall off. I galloped down the driveway as smoothly as I could. The guard Ashe originally bit was standing by the entrance. He dropped to the standard shooting squat and aimed his pistol right at us. “Stop!” he yelled.
The girl tensed her body and squeezed her legs. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “I don’t want to die.”
I couldn’t tell her that wasn’t in my plans either. So, I lowered my head and picked up speed. My horn went right through him and I lifted my head and tossed him as fast as I could. His body sailed right over us. “Yes!”
The girl leaned down on my neck and held on for dear life. We got to the car, but I couldn’t tell her to get off. The girl laid on my neck and cried into main. I tried to glance around as I waited nervously for the team to get back. We really needed to keep a set of keys on the car for those of us who don’t have pockets.
I turned when I saw the three of them and Penny come tearing down the street. Cal reached the fob out and the lights blinked. The girl must have gotten the hint because she slid off of me and jumped in the car. I jumped in naked and the others piled in. “Go, go, go!” Ashe cried.
Cal didn’t need any urging. He slammed the pedal down and the tires screeched. “We can’t go to the office yet,” he said. “We need to lose them.” He flew over the bridge and off the Island into Palm Beach. The roads were dark.
Jim looked around, “I think we are good.” Cal changed the comm to the general frequency. “Team One, returning to Base Two.”
“Team One, welcome home. Teams Five and Three will meet you there.”
“Where are Teams Two and Four?” he asked.
“We haven’t had updates on them yet.”
Cal and Jim looked at each other. Nothing good could come of radio silence. I know he wanted desperately to go check on the other teams, but he couldn’t with the girl on board. We just rescued her. We couldn’t put her in harm’s way again.
“Pull up a map of where Two and Four were supposed to be.” Cal opened his phone. Two was closest to the Black Hats office.
“Home base, we need a pick up,” he said. He turned to us. I had thrown a blanket over me in the back seat. “There is a change of plans. We are going to meet a car at Walmart and then Jim and I are going back out to help Two.”
The girl sat there shaking between us. I had been holding her hand. “Honey, some nice people are going to meet us. They are going to take you to a safe place, okay? We need to go get the other girls. Can you go with these people?”
She looked at me like I had two heads, “You aren’t coming?”
“I will be there soon, honey. But I got to help them rescue another girl. We can’t let them keep any girls. Okay?”
Ashe gave her other hand a big squeeze. “We will be right back, mami. You need to be brave just a little longer.”
The other car pulled up beside us. When the headlights hit our girl, I realized she had bruises all over her throat. Her left eye was yellow where she was healing from a black eye. She looked down at her lap and nodded. “Get that girl. Kill them all.”
Ashe opened the door to the car next to us. “She’s been through a lot. Be careful with her.” The woman nodded and helped the girl into the car. Then she tossed Ashe a sweatshirt and shorts. “Thought you might need these.”
God bless people who think ahead! I quickly threw on the clothes. “Do we have a plan?”
“We are right around the corner from them. I think we just have to see what kind of shit storm it really is and wing it,” Jim said.
We went a couple of blocks and Penny started sneezing like crazy. “There is magic everywhere,” she said.
In front of us there was a dome of purple light. There was no sound coming from it and a couple walking their dog in front of it. So, I guess it wasn’t visible to non-magical people.
Ashe asked, “Can anyone else see that?”
“What the heck is it?” Jim said. Cal pulled the car up as close as possible. We got out and he touched his comm badge. “Team Two, Team One, come in.” Ther
e was no response.
“I don’t know if the signal is getting through that,” I said.
Cal tentatively put his fingers up to the dome. Sparks flew where he touched it. He jumped back. “I think we can get through this. It is going to hurt, but it isn’t solid.”
We nodded back. I gritted my teeth and stepped forward. Pins and needles bit my entire body. A little bit of pain my butt!
On the other side I shook my head and my arms out. Cal whispered into his comms badge again, “Team Two.” There was the sound of gunfire and of small explosions coming from the house.
“Boss, is that you?”
“Where are you, Two?”
“Boss, we are upstairs in the house. They have us blockaded in. They are firing some kind of magical shit at us. We are pinned down.”
“Do you have the girl?”
“Affirmative. We are all up here.”
We ran to the house and slipped inside. I could hear the odd crashing of small explosions on the walls. There were also gunshots from our side. Purple and yellow flashes lit up the hallway followed by small explosions. Cal and Ashe quietly snuck up the stairs. He shot two fireballs out of his hands. The guy on the left went down. As the other guy turned to Cal, Ashe ran in and went to bite. He reacted and gave her an uppercut that connected with her jaw. I heard the click of her teeth from the stairs as she went down landing limply on the floor.
Cal ran towards her shooting water streams at the guy that knocked him down. Ashe got up and shook her head in a daze. She saw the guy on the floor and wobbled over to him. She kicked him in the ribs and then kicked him in the nuts for good measure. One of Team Two ran down the stairs in wolf form and went to the first guard and snapped his neck before he could get up. He then finished the other man off. He looked up at Cal then trotted down the stairs to the landing.