****
Raul stood outside of Betsy Powers’ boutique on Main Street, a few buildings away, watching the back entrance of the shop intently. The air was clammy with the damp, slightly cool feeling that came before a bad day of storms; Raul could smell the ozone in the air.
It had been three days since the last raid by the panthers, and the pressure was on. Raul had met with Reginald after finally managing to get Tanya and Jeremy on the investigation. The two shifters were going to do their best to get the police to forget about the arson and break-in; but there was an official record of the event. There was no way to avoid it at this point.
Reginald, the Alpha, was incensed at the possibility that the event might cast a light on the shifter community in general—and the wolves in particular. “This is what those asshole panthers want,” Reginald had told Raul. “They want to expose us to the one-natured, let the humans hunt us down and drive us out so that they can take over.” Having seen the scene of the crime, Raul wasn’t quite so sure; it looked as though the fire that had started at the bakery was possibly an accident.
Just as before, it was impossible to track the panthers involved in the most recent raid for more than a few blocks away from the scene of the crime. Reginald, the pack’s Alpha, was fed up. As a result, Raul found himself participating in the stakeout himself. “If you don’t catch these assholes the next time they hit one of our own, then you can pick a direction and start walking,” Reginald had told him, the last time Raul had met with the man.
Technically, Reginald had that power. As the pack’s Alpha, he could throw anyone out that he wanted—but he would have to face Raul in a challenge if he did. Don’t think that way, Raul reminded himself, even as his hackles rose at the thought of challenging Reginald. You’re not ready to challenge anyone—you’re definitely not ready to be Alpha of the pack. Better by far to hunt down the panthers, take them in, and let the Pack deal with them. Reginald had made it clear that the elementals wouldn’t be brought in—it would be a tribunal, the pack taking care of its own business, deterring the panthers from any further predation on Pack-owned businesses.
It troubled Raul that he didn’t know why the panthers were doing it. We outnumber them two to one, he thought as he looked around the alley behind the boutique. Why would they pick a fight with us now? What’s changed? Raul knew that thinking like that was possibly dangerous; it was the kind of thinking that led a man to forget the chain of command in the pack, the way things were. But he couldn’t help wondering what it was about the situation in Spring Lake, between the supernatural members of the community, that had led to the raids that had been going on for weeks. Whatever it is, we’ll get to the bottom of it, Raul thought firmly.
He scented the air, reading the smells painted through it; at least fifty people had moved through the alley in the last two days, most of them normal humans. As Raul breathed in more deeply, he caught the faintest traces of shifters: a couple of foxes—not Jeremy and Tanya—a few members of the Pack, and one owl. No scent of panther, which told Raul at least that the reprobates either cased their targets well in advance of their raids, or were going off of information they’d gotten otherwise. They had targeted too many werewolf-owned businesses for it to be simply random—and of course one or two of the attacks had included insulting, inflammatory graffiti: cartoon wolves being eaten by spray-painted panthers, slurs. One or two of the raided businesses had been decked out with wolf’s bane.
Raul shifted in his spot, looking around the alley impatiently. Assuming that the panthers were going on some kind of schedule, they would strike—somewhere—that night. Raul had taken up a position to watch one of the only pack-owned businesses that hadn’t already been raided; Cam was at another location, and other trusted lieutenants had taken up other positions. Raul didn’t trust any of the lower ranks for anything more than backup anymore. After Reginald’s ultimatum, Raul couldn’t see any other course of action but to stand vigil at the remaining businesses and hope to catch the panthers in the act.
Raul’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he started, reaching down compulsively and taking the device out. Cam’s phone number flashed on the screen and Raul’s heart began beating faster in his chest, adrenaline flowing freely in his veins. “What have you got?”
“Three of them,” Cam said, excitement rippling in his voice. “Two guys and the woman. She’s injured.”
“The other two?” Raul began to smile to himself; even if they hadn’t caught all five of the members of the panther raiding party, three of five was definitely a vast improvement. We can put them before the tribunal. We can ransom them back to their clan and force talks.
“Got away,” Cam said, briefly sounding disappointed. “We’re taking them to the den.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Raul said, smiling more broadly to himself. “Good job, Cam. Good job.”