Roy

 

We were racing up a mountain, Obi, Dara, Jive, Hopper and a few others. We’d been at this for thirty minutes and I was already done. Furious with Herrod and myself.

It was a wild goose chase and yet here I was. Pointless, waste of time, it’s…

It’s exactly that. A feint. A red herring.

I stopped dead and shifted back. “Dear God,” I said and the others around me shifted. “That’s it. That’s the only explanation.”

“What are you talking about?” Dara asked, shifting, standing up and yawning.

“The TLO showed their hand when they took back that body. There was something about it they didn’t want us to see – something important. And the only way they could have gotten past Shifters of Anubis is if they didn’t have to go past us.”

“What?” Jive asked.

“Oh, God,” Obi breathed.

“The TLO has been here the whole time!” I said, pointing down. “We found that secret prison – there’s probably far more than that. Think about it – they sent the hybrids on the very night that happened – to distract us. It worked, too – I’ve barely thought about those prisons.

“And now they’re leading us further and further away, on an impossible chase while they’re down there, doing God knows what. All with easy access to the Cantina!”

Muscles knotting up, I tried to stay calm, even as I thought of Kesari. I hadn’t trusted my instincts, I’d bowed to bullshit protocol. Never again, starting now.

“What do you want us to do, boss?” Hopper asked, folding his arms.

“What the hell is going on here?” Ivan’s voice crackled across the snow and I turned to see my cousin stalk out of the trees with his men. “Get moving. We have prey to hunt.”

“No,” I said. “We need to get back to the Cantina.”

“The what?” he asked.

“The TLO base. There is a network of tunnels below – that’s how they got the body, Ivan. We need to get back there. If I had to bet any amount of money, Frost is here, with all the rest of the major players. But they’re leading us away so they can escape.”

Ivan began to laugh and I glared at him. “Oh, cousin, you read too much. You’re dreaming.”

“Go to hell, you idiot,” I said with contempt. “I know I’m right and I’m in charge here, no matter how much Herrod wants to bluster. We are going back.”

“I’m-I’m not – you’re not,” Ivan blustered.

“We are. And when it turns out I’m right and you and Herrod have your asses on the line for not listening to me, you better beg me to spin it in your favor.” I gave him a long and measured look. “Wouldn’t be the first time, cousin.”

With that, I turned and my team followed.

“You can’t just leave!” Ivan shouted.

“Watch me,” I said, shifting back and running hard into the forest.

But as I went to move back to the Cantina, something occurred to me and I took a hard left, heading to the spot where Dara and I had lost our prey before.

Stopping in the clearing, I turned in a circle, studying the ground and trees.

“What are you doing, Roy? We need to get back!” Dara shouted at me.

“Sh!” I said. “Remember how we lost the Blood Bird here? At the time, I thought it was fast and smart enough to get away. These mountains are easy to get lost in, but now I think it merely went underground.”

“Here,” Obi said and I was fervently grateful at how fast he always caught on. He was crouching behind a rock and looking grim. “You were right, boss. As usual.”

There, in the snow, was a faint, square outline and I watched as he brushed it aside. An iron door met us and as he pulled on it, it opened soundlessly.

“We’re taking a shortcut back to the Cantina,” I said and was met with several satisfied grins.

 

Inside, I studied the network of tunnels and shook my head. It went on for miles and must have taken years to build. My guess was that it had been built a while ago, perhaps in the skeleton of an old mine or a network of caverns. A perfect hiding place.

This is the foundry, I thought.

I’d expected there to be signs of life, but the place was eerily quiet. Almost tomb-like.

Splitting up, Obi, Dara and I raced along the halls, seeking and searching. Abruptly we stopped when we came across a pile of gleaming metal and crackling wires. Shifting back, I stared down at it and a crinkle went up my spine. A bomb.

“Smell that?” Obi whispered, shifting back.

“What?” I asked. His nose was better than mine.

“There’s kerosene on the walls. This whole place is kindling.”

I stared upward and my mouth went dry. “We’re under the Cantina. We have to get out of here – we have to warn–”

“Roy!” Dara said sharply and she shoved something into my hands.

At first, I stared at it uncomprehendingly, then my fingers dug into it and a numb feeling of horror crept through me. Glasses. Pink glasses. How many times had I seen them before?

“These are Kesari’s,” I breathed, my chest in pain. “How did they get down here?”

“No signs of struggle, nothing like that,” Dara said. “They were lying in the hallway, almost like they’d been dropped.”

Again, my hands clenched them, but now out of anger. Had Kesari figured out the foundry was here, too? Probably. And then she’d found a way down here. Is she trying to kill me?

It was rich – she’d asked me to be careful and once again she was the one taking risks.

Taking a deep breath, I stashed them in my jacket and turned to my team. But then something moved and we all three shifted, facing off against a leopard and two wolves.

“Roy?” The leopard shifted and Faye was staring at me. “What are you doing down here? How did you–?”

I shifted back as well. I meant to answer or ask her, but instead, I heard myself say, "Why the hell is Kesari down here, Faye?"

“She wanted answers,” Faye replied, her eyes solemn. “I’m sorry, Roy. I tried to stop her and was overruled. There was no stopping her. I’m sure you know better than anyone.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“We’re trying to find everyone,” said her teammate, shifting back from her wolf form. “The TLO is here, but they’re preparing to leave and eradicate this place.”

“Obi, Dara – you take the rest of our guys, get to the Cantina and evacuate it,” I said. I’ll go find Kesari and whoever else is down here – who is down here, by the way?”

“Kai, Isla, Dez, Enele and some of my team,” Faye replied, wincing.

“No time to lose,” I snapped, taking off.

Faye was at my side as her two wolves streaked off, while Obi and Dara made for a stairwell. I wanted to tell the blonde to bugger off as she’d liked to do when I was a rookie, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. She’d always been a bit of a big sister to me.

Suddenly I stopped, shifting back and entering a dark room. Faye did too, hissing at me, “Why are we…? Oh, oh my God.”

The corpse of the hybrid was lying on the table and my stomach clenched as I averted my eyes. It looked like a pile of chopped up meat more than a body.

Looking around, I studied the boards along the walls and started. Calculations and cross-outs.

It was like a strange, mirror-world version of Kesari’s work.

Eyeing them, I saw the Captis Leonis formula, the Kazan cure, the antidote Kesari had created and several others. Below was a printed list of names and I started as I saw Kai Weslark.

On another, I saw Isla Deluca. What the hell?

Stepping forward, I took them off the wall and glanced around again. There were names upon names listed here, front and back, from almost every Shifters of Anubis family.

“These are the High Families, but I don’t recognize some of these names,” I said, having dealt with almost all of them. Then I looked up and saw one that made my stomach drop. “Holy shit.”

Ripping it down off the wall, I read it, again and again, to make sure.

“What is it? Who is it?”

“Tulilia Zima,” I said. “You know Svetlana, don’t you?” Faye nodded. The sweetest and nicest out of all the Zimas. She’d retired last year. I swallowed. “My mom – she told me in passing how Svetty just had a baby since she left SOA and got married. Tulila. Born an inanis. And my grandfather is okay with it – he’s happy. Babies have a way of softening him. His first great-grandchild. Doesn’t even care she’s not a shifter. After she was born, he started to make amends…”

“Oh my God,” Faye whispered. “Where did they get this information?”

“I have no idea,” I said, my throat growing thick and my panic increasing.

“So, these are lists of inanis in shifter families,” Faye said. “But why?”

I stared again at the formulas and they seemed to stitch themselves together in my mind.

Electi. I saw written in a corner, the lines harsh and triumphant.

We’d thought Frost was trying to perfect the hybrids, but she wasn’t.

She was trying to accelerate the process and using the Kazan cure to stem the damage. She was intentionally trying to create shifters, yes, but monsters, too. A very specific breed of monsters.

Electi. Elite.

Predators.

In trying to convert the inanis into shifters, Lilith Frost had found a way to create a predator. And her daughter had seen fit to utilize it. She’d created the perfect enemy of SOA. And she’d use the inanis in their own families. Cold swept over my skin. 

That’s why they’d gone after Kai, after Isla.

But to do that, Frost had also needed a control – a way back – an antidote to keep them in line and stabilized. And so, she’d gone to the Kazans for blood and revenge, but also a cure.

Her family’s own cure hadn’t been enough. But she also probably wanted to see it deconstructed and reversed. Wanted Shifters of Anubis to figure it out or at least pay for it.

It was like thinking of a game of chess in reverse. I could see the moves. See how Piper’s hand had been forced. Then Kesari’s. Who was next?

She’s playing us all. What else does she have on us? What else is she going to do?

“Roy, you’re scaring me,” Faye whispered. “The look on your face…”

“TLO is going after shifter families, now. Or maybe they always have been. She’ll whisper in their ears about how Kai was a success, maybe Isla, too. And others,” I said, my lips numb and thoughts out of order. “But in order to do that, she had to be meticulous and enact the proper rituals. There had to be a unique and rare combination of dormant genes waiting to be activated.” I waved a hand around the room. “This is bypassing all of that. Trying to turn on whatever dormant shifter abilities lay within an inanis, no matter the cost. And it’s working. They’re powerful.

“She’s still creating shifters, too," I said, thinking rapidly. "She'll need them, to keep order over her hybrids and protect her. But this – this is a war against Shifters of Anubis. TLO is going for the jugular. See that? Electi. Latin for Elite.

“She’s created predators, ones that will hunt SOA,” I finished on a shaky breath.

“I thought this all took time,” Faye said, sounding a little panicked.

“So did I,” I responded. “I think that’s what she wanted us to think. I mean, look at who she went after first. The Weslarks. Then the Kazans. It was personal and yet perfect.”

“Could we even contain something like this?” Faye asked. “It’s like a disease outbreak.”

“Kesari could,” I said, my heart hammering in my chest. “Kesari could find antidotes – figure out a way to thwart this. She can deconstruct and reverse engineer…”

“And Kesari is down here,” Faye breathed.

“How convenient,” said a satisfied voice from behind us. It was edged with French and cruel amusement. “We won’t have far to look, then, will we Altair?”

Turning, Faye and I backed up as a grinning man flipping blades and a lion entered the room. Clenching my jaw, I had to hold myself back from leaping at him. You’ll pay for that.

“Now, who gets to slit the doctor’s throat? You, Altair or me?” Rasoir grinned even wider at me. “Oh, there is no use looking at me like that, Weslark. You're in our funhouse now."

Grabbing Faye, I yanked her down as blades whizzed over our head and the lion pounced. Shifting, I tackled him, taking care to keep Rasoir in my sight. He was the razor-wielding henchman of Frost’s, with a penchant for murder. And I prayed Faye knew his rap sheet, too.

Meanwhile, Altair Kazan, the traitor of Balt’s family, was doing his best to take my head off. He was also sloppy and careless, filled with rage and puffy muscles. Steroids, perhaps. Ducking, I drove into his chest and he flew back, hitting the wall. Like supplements would tip the scales against an SOA agent.

Faye was darting from place to place, narrowly avoiding Rasoir and ducking every time he so much as blinked at her. With Ras, it would take a hell of a lot more than a brute charge to win. Smart, patient and always on the defensive, with precise and deadly aim.

Altair had shaken himself awake and was prowling towards me. Jumping back, I crouched behind a desk and gathered myself. As I heard the lion’s rumble of breath, an idea occurred to me and I leaped up, appearing to be an easy target.

At the same moment, so did Altair. Twisting, I then rolled over his back while a razor sliced him and he let out a roar of fury. Laughing to myself, I darted away.

“Oh, mon ami, I am sorry,” Rasoir said, sounding not the least sorry.

“You bastard,” Altair said, shifting back and holding his side. “Get me a bandage – a healer! I’m bleeding out here.” He was losing blood fast, I noted as I poked my head out.

“Don’t get in my way, then,” Rasoir snapped and I saw an opalescent gleam come into his eyes. “You’re such a pain in the ass, you spoiled–”

The rest of the words were cut off as Faye appeared behind him and hit his neck with a quick chop. The man slumped to the ground, unconscious and I let out a breath of relief. Of course, Faye knew exactly what to do to take him out. Altair stepped forward, but I shifted back and kicked his injured leg. He went down and I glared at him.

“Where is your boss, Altair?” I asked. “Tell me and I might let you live.”