Andrei

 

Inside the silent halls of the Headquarters of the Shifters of Anubis, I felt like a ghost.

Located under the San Gabriel Mountains, barely an hour from Los Angeles, this Order stronghold was one of the largest and busiest in all the world. Not to mention the most important.

Lit by strings of lanterns, twisting and turning in all manner of directions, it was a testament to the strength and endurance of the Shifters of Anubis. On any given day, these cavernous tunnels would be filled with the hustle and chatter of shifters. Rookies running by, teams reporting for assignment or serious knots of shifters discussing potential threats.

Tonight, however, hardly anyone was here. Those that were had closed off, tight-lipped faces. Subsequently, the whole place had a terrible expectancy about it – an unfamiliar tension.

I’d never felt stifled under these mountains, but now I longed for fresh air.

Nor had I expected to be back at HQ so soon.

Earlier today, I’d been at HQ and breathing out a secret sigh of relief. My friend Desmond Devoy, who’d been arrested in Boston, was now cleared of all erroneous charges by the Order. Finally, I could leave without fearing his girlfriend Soraya Lafi and her family would come after me. And I’d thought, foolishly, I could maybe get a few days of well-earned rest.

(With everything going on, even I was tired.)

In that spirit, I’d gone out for a late lunch with Dez, Soraya and the rest of their crew. We’d celebrated Dez’s freedom and me being off the hook with Soraya. I'd even enjoyed myself, although, besides Enele Lafi, I was the only single guy. Nothing quite like fifth-wheeling it.

Regardless, it had been nice to kick back for a change. Listen to the banter of Kai Weslark and Enele. Laugh with Isla DeLuca and Kesari Iyer. Find out what my cousin Roy Zima-Weslark had been up to and tease him about his girlfriend Kesari. (It fired her up more than it did him.) Ask Piper Weslark about her new twins and watch as her fiancée and baby daddy, Baltsaros Kazan, beamed proudly. Tell them all about my new niece Tulila and show them pictures, watching the girls melt. Plan some more outings, including a meetup at the gym.

Just be a normal guy, out with friends for drinks and good food.

Then my phone rang.

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Three bear shifters ran by me on heavy paws, barely acknowledging me and my sense of being trapped increased. In this secret world of shifters, our strength lay in unity.

Ironic, yes, coming from me, the quintessential lone white tiger.

There had to be trust between the Shifters of Anubis. Without it, the walls erected over thousands of years would crumble. Plus, our work was dangerous enough.

Swinging around a corner, knowing where I was going without having to think about it – part of the unspoken initiation into the Order was learning our way around this maze, though I couldn’t claim to have it completely memorized – I came to a long hallway.

Here were the nine offices of the Heads of the Shifters of Anubis. Three from big cats, three from bears and three from wolves. The predator shifters.

Bright lamps with multicolored glass threw a dazzling array of color across the floor. Banners adorned the walls and there were elegant benches outside the doors. Stopping in front of one, where the elaborate crest of Anubis hung, along with a puma insignia, I knocked and stepped back.

The half-man, half-dog Egyptian God and mascot of the Order pierced me with his red gaze as I stood there. Dropping my eyes, I put my hands behind my back and straightened my spine.

The door opened and a low chuckle met my ears. “If it isn’t my eldest cousin, Andrei.”

Jerking my head upright, my lips twisted and I asked, “Ivan? What are you doing here?”

“You remember me, I’m touched,” he said, leering a little as he waved me in.

Baffled by his presence, I slowly entered and raised an eyebrow at Mirois. She was the Head I reported to most of the time, one of the sharpest, wisest, and oldest in the Order. Silver-haired and on the smaller side, the giant desk dwarfed her as she sat behind it, considering us.

“Nice to see you again, Mirois. Been a while,” I joked and she gave me a flat look.

“Ivan, that will be all for now, thank you,” Mirois stated and I glanced back to see him nod, then swiftly leave and close the door behind him.

For a moment, I stared after him. There had been an odd look in his eyes. Almost calculating and completely unlike him. But Mirois began to speak and I turned back around.

“Good timing. Herrod sent your cousin here with an update and Ivan wasn’t happy about delivering it. But our usual Runner is ill,” she said, naming the position of an agent who “ran” from shifter to shifter in the order, gathering and carrying important information. “Collapsed on the job. It’s been a hell of a week, hasn’t it?”

Try a hell of a year.

She wasn’t wrong though. In the last week, I’d barely gotten any sleep as I tried to help the Heads keep the Boston situation from imploding on the Order.

People wanted answers – how did the Valspar siblings escape? Why did Lilian Frost, the mad genius leader of the TLO send us the ashes of one her own? How did she get a hold of Crane’s body? How had the Order allowed that to happen? What were the Heads doing? What was Lilian Frost going to do next? What were we going to do next?

And more insidious ones, such as, could we trust the Order to come out victorious?

In spite of that hell, it had also been a week of victories. The TLO, the Tapetum Lucidium Organization, one of the gravest threats to shifters at the moment – had been cut off at its knees. Inanis authorities had seized the assets of their sham pharmaceutical company, stopping the cash flow and movement of dangerous drugs.

I’d helped achieve that, along with Soraya and a handful of others. But the real credit went to Dez, another reason I was relieved he’d been released. He’d worked on taking down the TLO’s cash flow sources in Boston for months and almost lost his life in the process.

Further, we’d returned the murderous Valspar siblings back to where they belonged, prison. And we currently had the right-hand man of the TLO in a holding cell below our feet.

Speaking of Parasite. “We have clean guards down there, right?” I asked, even though I knew I was pushing my luck a little bit. I may have been a top-ranking Shifter of Anubis agent, but even I didn’t get to question the Heads. Especially Mirois.

Mirois’s eyes narrowed. “Of course,” she said crisply. “That will never happen again.”

She said the word that with a terrible kind of fury, referring to the fact that several of our most dangerous prisoners had apparently strolled free, the Order none the wiser.

“Well,” I said. “Except for Crane’s body.” I blinked as Mirois looked at me with incredulous anger. Outspoken Soraya must have been rubbing off on me. “I apologize – it has been a long week.”

“Hmph, or you’ve been spending too much time with the Lafis and Weslarks.” Mirois’s anger evaporated into tired amusement. “Andrei, I know you are exhausted and we have asked too much of even you in these last months, but I can only entrust you with this…”

My shoulders drew back, my chest thrust out and my tiredness vanished. Of course, she had to ask me. No one could touch me for the things I did to keep our hidden world of shifters safe.

Or the secrets I kept.

“I serve at the Order’s pleasure,” I replied.

“Always do the right thing, don’t you, Andrei,” Mirois stated in a fierce, pleased voice.

“I do,” I said, with a small grin.

“And you’ll do this for me without question – without telling anyone…” Her eyes focused on some middle distance and I nodded.

“That is what I do,” I said coolly.

Mirois gave me a small smile. “I wasn't questioning your abilities, Andrei. Nor have I forgotten what you’ve done for the Order over the years. I would take care of this myself if I could… It is more I am loathe to ask this of you...”

A strange sensation went up my spine. Since when did Mirois ever feel the need to explain herself? She asked and I obeyed. She was a Head. A mouthpiece of the Order.

My eyes swept the desk as I realized there was no dossier. The strangeness filtered into the air as I waited, each second dragging into the next as Mirois bowed her head.

“There is a mark,” she said in a low voice. “For assassination.”

Swallowing, I said nothing, only nodded.

Who?

It hit me as the Head remained silent. Mirois was going to ask me to kill Lilian Frost, the leader of the TLO. She'd been wreaking havoc for too long. My stomach roiled. That’s why there was no dossier. It couldn't be Order-sanctioned. We weren't murderers.

We were protectors.

But desperate times had changed everything.

Hadn’t Drax, one of the other Heads, said as much this morning?

Nothing is ordinary about our world anymore thanks to the TLO.

Moreover, Mirois knew going after Lilian Frost was suicide. There was a good chance I wouldn’t make it back alive. A cold sensation rippled across my skin.

So be it. I’ll take Frost down no matter the cost.

If I had to sacrifice myself to protect others, that is what I would do. I’d taken the Oaths of the Order to heart. And I never broke a promise.

“Of course,” I said, sounding gentle and Mirois raised an eyebrow. “I…”

I was about to ask for time to say goodbye, but I realized that was impossible. I couldn't be granted leave to talk to my family. A long breath exuded out of me. At least I'd seen my cousin Roy today and my sister last month, along with Tulila. That would have to suffice.

“I’m not sending you to your death, Andrei,” Mirois said, sounding amused and I looked up at her. There was an odd expression in her gaze. “That would be far easier.”

Now there was a lurch of foreboding in my stomach. If not Frost…

“I am sending you to kill one of our own – the traitor who faked death to escape justice, who even now plots against us and ensures our halls aren’t safe. Fills us with distrust. Brings down our carefully built walls, the work of thousands of years!” Mirois stood up and slammed her palms down. “It is a terrible betrayal and that’s why I want this done quietly.”

I shook my head slowly. “Who is it?”

“Faye Knight,” she breathed and I started.

Faye is alive, I thought, heart pounding as I studied her. Has Mirois lost her mind?

“You don’t believe me,” Mirois said, her lips twisting. “Neither did I, at first. Faye, the orphan, so sweet and hardworking, best of friends, best of mentors, and best of the Black Ops. A true shifter of Anubis, rising above tragedy and working selflessly to protect our world.” She flicked her hand. “None of that is true. After her parents were murdered by the TLO, she would come to blame us, the Order. Grief does strange things sometimes, warps our perspective.”

“Are we absolutely positive?” I asked flatly, utterly thrown. “Faye Knight? A traitor?”

It was ludicrous. I almost wondered if I was dreaming. How could I murder my cousin Roy’s mentor, never mind Piper Weslark’s and Soraya Lafi’s best friend?

Though I’d never met Faye, I’d always known of her from Roy and others. She enjoyed a quiet popularity, admired, well-liked and respected by all. In fact, I’d never heard anyone say one bad thing about her. And now the Order wants one of their favorite daughters dead?

“Yes,” Mirois said heavily. “As you know, she was a Black Op on Herrod’s team for a few years. This gave her the perfect cover for carrying out TLO plots all over the world. We knew it had to be someone in that position to carry out these tasks. Plus, she was a mentor – perfectly placed to influence others. And then she started working for Piper, right around when Bear Valley and the TLO lab was raided. When she ‘died,’ no body was found and we started looking into it. Faye’s movements show a specific pattern.” She paused. “She is a traitor, Andrei.”

“But assassination?” I asked slowly. “Surely, she should be brought in for questioning, for a trial and prison…” I shook my head and questioned Mirois for the second time. “Why kill her?”

“It was not an easy decision,” Mirois whispered. “Drax and the other Heads – not Lhambo, of course… We believe Faye’s betrayal would deal the Order a serious blow. Morale is already low. We want to take care of this quietly.” Her eyes met mine. “That’s why you’re here.”

Because I keep the dark secrets of the Shifters of Anubis.

“And I always do the right thing,” I said, echoing her words from earlier.