by Sara Kimball
The driver looked around, saw the hulking mass standing in front of the doors, and stepped on it. Alex sighed in relief.
They were down the block when the cab driver spoke, sniffing the air suspiciously. “You better not have gotten vomit all over my back seat.”
Alex’s gaze flashed to the driver guiltily. “How about a hundred dollars?”
From the Journal of Elizabeth Harcourt, 1917
There was news today about the explosion in Halifax Harbor. Apparently the French ship SS Mont Blanc collided with another ship and exploded. But it destroyed so much…so many people are dead. I worry for George, who is supposed to be there, overseeing business interests.
I hope to receive word from him shortly of his safety. But so many deaths…I am worried. Very worried.
Chapter 5
Elizabeth Harcourt opened her eyes and groaned, rolling over and grabbing the phone off its cradle on the nightstand if only to stop the incessant ringing. She heard music in the background and people talking, the clink of glasses and the trill of laughter. The bass was distracting, but she ignored it and sat up, focusing intently on the whispered words in her ear.
After hanging up, she called her assistant. The phone rang twice before Moira answered, sounding professional as always. Even in the middle of the night. “Ma’am.”
“I need you to find a bodyguard. She works for a competitor of Stadler Services. Her boss has a first name of Tyler. Unknown last name. She is currently staying at a hotel in downtown San Francisco with some new music star, a singer.
“She is blonde, a little on the tall side, thin. That’s all they know.”
“I’ll call you back as soon as I have something.” Moira never sounded frustrated, even when Elizabeth handed her impossible tasks at odd hours. It was why she was the best.
A little while later, Moira rang back. Elizabeth was now seated at her desk in the office adjoining her bedroom. “Please tell me you have some good news.”
“I don’t know her name yet. She most likely works for Tyler Rypien, owner of Rypien Protective Services, as a bodyguard. She’s good at eluding photos, though she has worked for some high profile clients of theirs. I have some partial photos, or photos of her from behind, but nothing with a clear shot of her face.
“What I do have is Tyler Rypien’s phone numbers—personal and professional. I could call him and ask for more information, or I can do more digging.”
“You dig. I’ll call. I don’t want to make her run, apparently she did that once tonight. First time Lincoln has ever had to chase a woman before.”
There was a thump and a distantly heard curse on Moira’s end and then her assistant’s voice was again speaking into the phone, sounding excited. “Sorry, dropped the phone. You mean he’s finally interested in—oh that’s good news.”
Elizabeth smiled. “It is indeed. After all this time. I was beginning to despair.” She tapped her fingers on her desk. “Know anyone who needs a bodyguard?”
There was the sound of clicking computer mouse in the background for a few moments, and then Moira spoke. “It does say on the Rypien Services website that they offer training in defense tactics. We could hire her under the pretense of teaching self-defense classes to the women Pack members. That would at least get her here…though we’d have to figure something else out to keep her here…”
“Moira, you are a genius.” Elizabeth could have kissed her assistant.
“I know.” Moira’s cheeky voice was cheerfully superior on the other side of the phone call.
“You do that digging. I’ve got a phone call to make.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
After disconnecting, Elizabeth dialed Tyler Rypien’s cell phone number. She hoped he didn’t mind getting woken up, but she was fairly sure she could get him into an agreeable mood. Money was usually able to do that. And she would spend it all to achieve her goal, although she rather doubted she would have to. Thanks to Lincoln she had rather a lot of money.
Forty minutes later, Elizabeth hung up the phone and walked to her balcony, looking up at the stars. She stayed there, plotting and dreaming, until the sun began to lighten the sky. Moving back inside, she headed towards her bathroom suite to get ready for the day.
Just yesterday, her age had started to get to her, and she had felt the weight of all of her years dragging her down. But now, now Elizabeth felt rejuvenated. She had something to look forward to and she felt a hundred years younger, enthusiasm lightening her steps.
///
Alex hit the stop button on the treadmill and slowed her pace to a walk until the belt eventually stopped. Hitting the ignore key on her phone, she made her way up to her hotel room, stepping into the shower and washing before getting dressed for the day. She hit ignore eight more times when Tyler tried to call, and didn’t bother looking at his text messages.
Finally dressed for the day, she made some coffee and then sipped it, looking out her window at the foggy city. Sighing, she rolled her eyes as her phone rang again and finally hit the answer button.
“Yes. How can I help you today? Or do you want to interrupt my coffee like you interrupted my run?”
Tyler groaned. “Jesus Alex. You’re going to make me have a stroke over here.”
“Well considering that I didn’t see a plane ticket in my email, I figured you had a job to spring on me. No harm making you wait a little bit. I’m still annoyed with you for last night. You see, I had to throw my favorite shoes away.” She glances to the corner where her shoes were tied up in two plastic garbage sacks. Even then she could still smell them slightly.
“I will buy you ten pairs of them in any color you want, if you take this job.”
She sighed. She was annoyed and irritated with him still for the babysitting trick he pulled on her, and having to throw her shoes out had not improved her mood at all. She had gone for a run to burn off her anger and extra energy, but had then been interrupted by him calling her repeatedly. It had just made her more moody and on edge.
I could really use a run on four paws right about now. It’s been so long. It had been hard for Alex, the more years that went by and she was away from a Pack. She dreamed of being with other wolves sometimes, being able to be herself. Her goal, for the past few years, had been to save up enough to buy a piece of land with a cabin on it. Something small, relaxed. Somewhere far away where she didn’t have to worry and hide all the time. But for right now, she had Tyler to deal with. She sighed.
“Remind me why I work for you again? I could probably buy a quiet little place in some anonymous city and live happily for the rest of my life without you to bother me.”
“You work for me because you’d be bored to death without me.” He chuckled. “Remember Bolivia?”
Alex rolled her eyes. “How could I fucking forget that cock up.” She sniffed. “That was your fault too.”
Tyler laughed. “Hell no. That was all you and your big mouth.”
They both chuckled softly together, and then Alex finally relented. “Okay. What’s the job this time?”
“Simple and easy. But a lot of money. This client is loaded. Some old broad, runs some kind of organization. Wants to hire someone to teach self-defense tactics.”
“You said a lot of money…why so much for a simple training class?”
“She doesn’t just want one class. She wants them proficient. Like setting up a whole program and everything, men and women, kids, the whole shebang. Work through the next month with a plan for more. Eventually she’ll hire someone permanent and have them take over, leaving you to move on like you do.”
“Why me? Isn’t Able the one to usually handle this?”
“That’s the best part. I think something must have happened, because she is insisting I send someone out to her today if I can to get it sorted. She’s out of the city a ways, said she’d send a car to the airport and pick the person up. Anyway, it would help a lot if I can get someone there today for her. It would be great for business, and
you would get a rather heavy cut. And Able isn’t available, he is on a job that won’t end for at least another month or two.”
Alex thought about it. Teaching self-defense over the next month or two didn’t sound too horrible. In fact, that part of the job was always rather enjoyable. “Where would I stay? In a hotel?”
“No. She said she’s got a room for you in the estate she lives on. That’s where the classes would be taking place. Get this—they have a ballroom they aren’t using right now. I told her about the materials you would need, she sent me her assistant’s email address and told me to send a list. They’ll have the items as soon as they can.”
“You did the checks right? You’re not sending me off to be with some crazy old lady, who lives in a shack and is going to try and eat my liver raw?”
“She’s a well-respected businesswoman. Lots of charity work, etcetera. She’s not well known, but her companies are for their generous donations. They give to cancer—all kinds—AIDs, Parkinson’s, relief for disaster victims and more. They’ve sunk a lot of money into a lot of good causes. Not that I think she would notice. She has enough she could light it on fire to keep warm if she felt a chill.” His voice changed, becoming a little bit more yearning in tone.
“Alex, this woman—this job—could be the ticket to a whole new batch of clientele. Her family is historically wealthy. I’m talking diamond tiaras and ballrooms kind of classy. So you’d have to keep your mouth shut and mind your manners. Which I know you can do if you want, Bolivia aside. But the company needs this. It will be good for me, for all of us.”
Tyler waited a minute, letting Alex think. He knew better than to push her just because he wanted the money. “Okay fine. Let them know to pick me up from the hotel, just text me when and I’ll be ready.”
“Thank you Alex.”
“Yeah, yeah. Is Cullivan on the way yet?”
“Yeah, he should be getting on a plane in the next couple hours.”
Alex changed topics then, “Hope your date wasn’t too miffed that you didn’t get to wake up next to her.”
Tyler took a large breath in. “Fuck me. I forgot.”
Alex knew the tone in his voice and shook her head in amazement. “You forgot a woman in your bed?”
Tyler groaned and Alex started laughing, so he hung up without saying goodbye.
///
Alex allowed the driver to put her luggage in the trunk of the BMW 7 series and then sat in the back seat. The driver was rigidly professional and polite, and soon Alex was staring out the window while he drove out of the city. They made their way across the infamous Golden Gate Bridge northward, and continued on Highway 101. Alex wished Tyler knew exactly where her new employment was going to be located so she could’ve done some snooping online. They were heading towards the Napa area, which was where the Gold Pack seat was, and Alex was slightly nervous about it.
There were many Packs across the world. In the US there was the Alaskan Pack, and the rest of the continental United States was broken up into six Packs. The northwest included all of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana and was controlled by the Pacific Pack.
The southwest included all of California, Nevada, western Utah, and most of Arizona, and was all the Gold Pack’s territory—so named for the gold rush days. The central area, belonging to the Great Plains Pack, stretched from Montana south to Texas, and the western border the Rocky Mountains through Utah. The eastern border lay on the state line of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and south through Kentucky. It was Alex’s old Pack, and she remembered the pride in her father’s voice when he spoke of it.
The Texas Pack was as its name suggested—all of Texas. The northeast region was called the Colonial Pack, as it was founded when the colonies were new. Louisiana eastwards to Florida was the Everglade Pack, belonging to Johnny Dupree.
Mexico had its own Pack, and Canada had three Packs: west, central and eastern regions. There were even several smaller Packs in South America, but they were not as well established as the North American Packs. Alex knew very little about the European Packs, or those in Russia.
Originally, Daniel Williams, from all accounts a rather charismatic werewolf, had come to the colonies with his wife Mary and those wolves that would follow him. They fled Europe for the wide open spaces of the new world, seeking freedom to run in wolf form. Travelling over the Atlantic in the early to mid 1600’s, they finally settled on the eastern seaboard. Alex knew there were mutterings that Daniel and Mary Williams were actually fake names, in order to change their identities. People speculated that Daniel was a Prince of some eastern European country, but no one knew enough to determine if the rumors had any truth in them.
Daniel’s daughter, Elizabeth—his only surviving child—mated with Brendan Harcourt after he came to the colonies to oversee business interests. Harcourt was from a well-established English family that was, though not titled, rather wealthy. It was said that Harcourt was a man of great ambition, and it led him to taking over the Packs from Daniel, and he saw to the expansion of the Packs westward across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, north into Canada and Alaska, and even south. He controlled all of the North American Packs during the height of his reign. Harcourt established himself as Alpha of other Alphas, uniting all the Packs under his name.
There was a long period of prosperity unknown to werewolves before. The growth of the Packs was rapid, as being free of territory disputes allowed them to mate and reproduce at higher than ever known before numbers. It was especially higher than those Packs still in Europe.
Once Brendan Harcourt died in 1829, his kingdom fractured badly, and the Alphas that had acknowledged his rule rebelled from his successor, taking charge of their own Packs and fighting for dominance. It was a bloody time for werewolves and wolves alike.
The boundaries of the Pack lines changed with politics—both human and wolf in origin—as well as challenges for dominance, morphing slowly into the Packs as they were today. Alex remembered learning the complicated history from her father and smiled at the memory, feeling a mix of happy and sad emotions. Turning away from her inner musings, she looked up to see them passing a sign for Highway 37 towards Napa and Vallejo.
Fear that she was walking right into the lion’s den—or rather the wolf’s den—tightened her stomach, but a trickle of internal laughter and the words pansy ass floated through her head. Alex remembered her wolf’s encouragement when she had first walked into Lorenzo’s restaurant to get a job. This time the words weren’t goading her into action, but rather a reminder of everything they had been through, and that Alex was strong. She certainly wasn’t a seventeen year old girl anymore, scared and alone. She was smart, resilient and trained to defend herself and others. The reminder stiffened her spine and gave her the resolve to deal with matters as they arose. Running into other wolves was bound to happen sooner or later.
Mitch would have to find out about her sometime. And she knew that she could defend herself against Mitch in a challenge, she didn’t need to hide from him anymore. If her brother came for her, trying to take her back, she’d tell him where to stick it and prove she had the right to choose her own life—with her fists if necessary.
Unless he was dishonorable again and ambushed me with several wolves, he might be able to take me by force then. But I’d cause a hell of a ruckus to keep them away from me. Although, I could always run like I did last night… Alex shook her head and rejected that idea. She regretted running scared like a chicken from the alleyway when she could have stayed and brazened it out. That would have been less suspicious.
Sighing, she put the concern about running into more wolves aside and turned her head out the window, studying the passing scenery. No point borrowing trouble. Sleepiness plagued her; between the floozy and the werewolves it seemed as if she hadn’t slept more than ten minutes. Settling into the comfortable seat, she leaned her head back and allowed her eyelids to slip down. Her wolf cocked her ear, keeping a sound out for trouble, and Alex slid int
o a light doze.
A little over an hour later the car slowed down. Alex blinked and took in the sight looming in front of her. A large stucco wall stood on either side of a cobblestone driveway. It stretched left and right, and after about twenty feet in either direction transitioned to a sturdy looking metal fence. An impressive wrought iron gate was stretched across the roadway, and a shiny metal security box was poking out of the ground on the driver’s side of the car. There were several cameras discreetly placed around the entryway, and Alex guessed their every move was being observed.
The driver rolled down his window to push a button on the device when the gates slid open silently. Looks like someone knows we are coming. They have better security systems than some government buildings. Alex looked ahead for a house, but didn’t see anything. Rolling hills of artfully placed vineyards, along with wooded copses of trees and brush filled out the terrain. The cobblestone driveway meandered through it all. Alex wished she could run as a wolf here. It looked like heaven, lots of cover between rows of grapes, along with sections of wooded areas to tramp through. She saw her eyes start to glow yellow in the window and shook her head, getting herself under control.
The longing, the desire to be in her wolf form was starting to get out of control, and Alex debated if she should take a vacation—something she had never done before—and take some time to run around after this job was over. She didn’t want to risk others finding out about her, or about wolves, and making sure that she didn’t slip up around humans needed to be a priority.
The road arced smoothly between some hills and in the distance a large house could be seen—well, Alex realized house was an incorrect term, probably manor or estate would be more accurate. Its stucco walls were a warm honey brown, with white trim. It had a Spanish style wraparound porches on each of the four stories, with white arches enclosing it and spanned by wrought iron railings. Stone slab steps matching the stucco color led up to the doors, flanked by colorful clumps of lavender waving gently in the breeze. The house was surrounded by landscaped grounds about a hundred yards in all directions. Tall swaying palm trees sat above mini Sago palms and orange poppies. Pines towered over rocks and bushes, colorful flowers circling their bases. Deciduous trees, with their vibrant green leaves, cast shade onto sections of lush lawn. Flowers and bushes added texture and dimension, filling out the natural looking planter beds and allowing for intimate areas, where benches were conveniently placed. Alex’s wolf longed to laze about in the shade under a tree, rolling in the grass to scratch at the itchy places in her fur.