Dez

 

Sneaking through the bowels of the warehouse, I held up my head and carefully listened. I’d thought I’d heard something in the distance, but now everything was still again.

It was in the process of being cleaned out and my stomach clenched. I hoped they weren't moving the operation out of Boston because I'd have no choice but to follow them. Disappear entirely. And I was afraid it would backfire due to well-meaning friends.

Damn Shadow making everything harder, I grumbled to myself.

I’d been glad that she’d been absent the last two weeks and somewhat perplexed. If I had convinced her of the truth, why hadn’t she come to find me? And if I hadn’t, why wasn’t I in jail?

Had she simply given up and someone else was coming to take her place?

Shaking my head, I examined another empty room and stepped back out. Something moved in my peripheral vision and I reacted without a thought. My forearm was across the person’s throat to keep them quiet as they struggled.

“King, you idiot, let me go!” I heard a familiar voice hiss and I stepped back in surprise. Shadow was standing there, rubbing her throat and glaring at me. “Bastard.”

“You should know better than to sneak up on someone sneaking around,” I said, my voice betraying none of the excitement that pulsed through me at seeing her. She believed me.

“Oh please, you did that on purpose,” she muttered.

“I did not,” I said with a grin to myself. “But come along if you’re here to help.”

She followed behind me warily as I checked other rooms, shaking my head and muttering to myself. They’d moved a lot of product in the last week or so since I’d been here.

“There’s nothing here,” she said as we peered into another room.

“Hence the problem,” I responded. “A week ago, this place was packed. Now it’s been cleaned out. Want to guess why that might be, Shadow?”

“You’re not blaming me, are you? It could have been a scheduled move to keep the inanis cops clueless. They tend to do that a lot,” she said.

“Oh, you’ve been reading up on their Boston operation,” I said. “Good, that will be–”

We both fell quiet as footsteps came from upstairs. Heavy, non-shifter footsteps.

“Speaking of the cops,” she muttered as I glanced around. There was no way out of here save one exit that led upstairs. And as fast as we were, there were about twenty cops up there.

Better to wait them out.

“Here,” I hissed, swinging myself up into a high, deep alcove in the wall about ten feet up and offering her a hand. No inanis could ever get up there, so it was the safest place I could think of.

She scrambled up after me without taking it, barely even giving me a glance as we pulled ourselves in deeper. Her side was pressing into my thigh and I tried not to notice how that felt.

Our breath seemed noisy in that small space and I closed my eyes, settling in for at least an hour of sitting in here. I tried to tell myself I was bored, that this was grueling, but it wasn’t.

It was strangely exciting. Something I’d never experienced before and I was getting a rush.

Shadow’s warm and curvy silhouette was only adding to that.

“Glad you’re here, kid,” I whispered, inhaling the air.

I was trying to catch her scent, but the special Anubis gear we were both wearing masked the scent. Only the barest, faintest whiff of Shadow’s perfume was on the air, impossible to place.

"Nothing better I'd be doing on a Friday night anyway," she muttered.

“Why’s that?” I asked, moving my hand and accidentally brushing it against hers.

“None of your damn business,” she replied in a whisper.

We fell into a somewhat companionable silence. Glancing over at her, I wondered again what she looked like. Something about her voice told me she had to be striking.

She moved a little, her elbow resting on my knee and asked, “You think they’re done?” A sound of boots overhead answered her question and she sighed. “What brought you here?”

“Same thing that brought you, I’d guess,” I said.

“Looking for you?” Shadow asked with some hilarity.

“Looking for myself, sure,” I chuckled. “No, trying to make sure TLO’s not leaving Boston. It would certainly cause a lot of problems.”

We fell silent again and I found myself a little sick at heart at thinking about what would happen next if they did.

“I don’t think they will,” Shadow suddenly spoke up slowly. “At least, not until spring. There’s too much going on here to easily transition elsewhere. I think they’ll risk it.”

“They have a tendency to cut and run,” I whispered back.

“When the cards are in their favor,” she said. “Trust me, I think we have time.”

“We?” I teased.

She turned to me and I saw a flash of silver in her eyes; that light indicating the otherworldly connection, the spark of a shifter’s powers and so much more.

“Don’t sound too excited, King,” she retorted. “I still haven’t made up my mind whether to arrest you or not when this is all over.”

“You won’t,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

“Don’t hold your breath,” she muttered.

“You won’t,” I said. “You’re starting to like me, Shadow. You can ad–”

I saw her eyes flash with outrage over at me and the lower half of her mask moved, but then there was a commotion at the end of the hall. Men were walking down the steps and flashlights cut down the hall. I could hear someone grumbling as they hit the broken light-switch a few times.

Lights were cutting across the ceiling, closer and closer. I tensed without meaning to, poising myself for a fight.

To my surprise, Shadow gave the bottom of my knee a reassuring squeeze.

But then the lights were trained on the alcove and I heard one of the guys wondering out loud if they should check out.

“Sure, Charlie, why don’t you haul ass up there like Spiderman and let us know?”

“Yeah, tell us how many spiders you find. Ah man, this kid,” chuckled another.

“What?” Charlie spluttered. “I was just sayin’, somebody mighta climbed up there with a ladder.”

“Oh yeah, wise guy? Where’s the ladder now? How would they have gotten back down?”

Charlie subsided at that and I let out a sigh of relief as the men moved away. A few minutes later, we could hear them climbing the stairs and someone hollering to move out.

“They called the cops on us?” I finally asked when all was silent again.

Shadow didn’t answer, merely shimmied her way out and dropped to the floor soundlessly. I followed and glanced over at her, brushing the dust from her gear.

“Same time tomorrow night?” I inquired dryly.

She turned to me and folded her arms. “You said you have plans?” I nodded. “Regale me.”

“This is a marathon, not a race, kid,” I said, imitating the cops and she let out a laugh.

“So, that’s it for tonight?”

“That’s it,” I said. “Unless you want to help me poke around the city and see if we can find the TLO’s newest warehouse for their goods.”

She hesitated for the briefest second and her arms dropped to her sides. “Let’s go.”

“Really?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe you, dummy,” Shadow snorted.

“King dummy to you,” I retorted, leading the way down the hall. Beni would have killed me, but there was no way I could overlook as invaluable a partner as a member of Anubis was. Might even help keep me out of jail for all her threats of tossing me in.

“I’d appreciate the company, but it will be a long night,” I said as we went outside.

“King, keep it in your pants, I’m here to take out the TLO. Don’t make me take you out.”

Letting out a loud laugh, I teased, “Promises, promises.”

Then I shifted and Shadow took me in, her lips parting somewhat.

“If I didn’t see it with my own eyes,” she murmured before she shifted too.

And we took off, two blurs across the snow.