“The trouble is, all these damned houses look alike,” Broderick said after they circled through a few streets. “How do humans ever find their way home?”
“We manage,” Joanne said. “But I know what you mean.” The developer had come up with two or three variations on the facades that mostly looked the same. There were slight differences between models, but not many. A home owners’ association would be in place to make sure that the sameness never changed.
“Down there, I think,” Broderick said after a time. “Yeah, that looks like it. It was the last house on a road, kind of isolated.”
Spike swung the truck down the street Broderick indicated. Joanne noticed they weren’t trying to sneak up on the place, but then, why should they? The Shifters would storm the house—out of sight of the neighbors, of course. Whoever was hiding inside wouldn’t have a chance of getting away. Even if the woman saw them coming and tried to flee, she’d never outrun a Shifter or be able to hide from them. Tiger, with his uncanny tracking ability, would find her in a heartbeat.
Or, the woman would already be gone, which was what Joanne suspected. Once a hacker was sussed out, she or he went to ground immediately to set up shop somewhere else.
Broderick pointed. “That’s it. Pretty sure.”
Spike swung the truck alongside a house at the end of the street. The road continued around in a slight curve for another twenty yards or so—the intent had obviously been to extend the road and development at some point.
The result was a street that ran behind the house, out of sight of the neighbors. Spike killed the engine. All was quiet.
The house in question was big. It rose from a slight hill—artificial, probably from fill. The land around the development was flat, flat, flat. The house was ultra modern, with straight side walls and a curved back wall that was filled with floor-to-ceiling windows. Through these, the residents could take in the great view of all the nothing behind the house. The roof of the curved wall formed a balcony for the second floor, more opportunity to gaze across to empty horizon.
Except for that feature, the house was as flat as the land, covered with false stucco and painted an earthy beige. Someone had tried to liven up the back with pots of flowers, most of which had dried up and died, no one having bothered to water them. They were forlorn, abandoned, unloved, and Joanne’s heart squeezed in pity.
The giant, undraped windows ensured that anyone inside the house would see a pickup park behind it, and four Shifters and a young woman pile out. There was no movement behind the glass, however, no figure furtively peeking through the balcony door.
A window on the basement level had been broken, the frame and glass shattered on the grass. Broderick’s gaze went right to it, and a shudder rippled through him, which vanished the moment after it began.
“Gone,” Tiger said, staring up at the house.
Broderick nodded. “Yep. Thought she would be. Let’s check it out. Not you.” He glared at Joanne as she fell into step with him. “That woman had a gun. I’m not risking that she still is in there, ready to take shots at you.”
“I’ll hide,” Joanne said stubbornly. “Forget it, Broderick. You need me to check out the computers. I doubt she had time to pack them all up. She’d have run as soon as you were out of there.”
Broderick growled under his breath, but Joanne stared him down. Shifters lower in hierarchy than the alpha were supposed to drop their gazes when he stared at them. They were to obey without question, to let the alpha be their guide in all things.
Well, screw that. The alpha wasn’t always right—being tougher than everyone in the room didn’t mean you made good decisions. Joanne had never been one to do what she was told without question. What if the person giving the order was an idiot?
“No one is here,” Tiger rumbled quietly. “It’s safe.”
Broderick’s growling increased. Seamus started growling now too, but not because he agreed with Broderick.
Seamus was a Shifter empath. Joanne wasn’t quite certain what that meant, but she knew from becoming friends with Bree, his girlfriend, that Seamus picked up on very strong emotions from other Shifters.
Seamus didn’t pick up on every emotion, only the ones that burst out in intense surges. Seamus reacting to Broderick meant that Broderick was seriously upset.
Joanne’s annoyance evaporated as understanding took its place. Last night, Broderick had been tranqued, dragged out of Shiftertown, drugged and bound, and had fought his way free only to be shot at.
Couldn’t be easy for him coming back here to the scene of where it happened. Every sight was a reminder of pain, fear, his helplessness and anger. He was Shifter, protective, and he didn’t want to watch Joanne and his friends go through what he had. All the reassurance in the world wouldn’t cut through that memory and his dread.
Joanne took Broderick’s hand in hers. His were large, skin tough from the work he did on his house and vehicles, keeping old things repaired so his family could use them.
She stroked his blunt fingers. “I’ll stay back until you give me the all-clear,” she said, softening her tone. “Promise.”
Broderick’s growls wound down, and at the same time, so did Seamus’s. Seamus turned aside, sweat on his face, his eyes tight.
Broderick squeezed Joanne’s hand, his full of strength. “All right, sweetheart. I got this.”
His words were merely something to say, Joanne knew that. Broderick’s eyes told her his relief that she understood his need to keep her safe.
Joanne released him. “Then what are you all waiting for? Get in there.”
Broderick gripped Joanne’s shoulder, the touch containing a caress. He turned from her, pushed past Tiger, who was running his hands down one side of the doorframe, and kicked in the door with his heavy boot.
Chapter Six
“Tiger was checking for alarms,” Spike’s dry voice came behind Broderick.
Broderick didn’t acknowledge him. His heart was pounding, his head hurting until he was dizzy. Joanne understood. She’d looked at him, and she got him. That fact, that knowledge, was far more important to him than the Guardian Network, hackers, and even figuring out who had done this to him. Although he was still going to find them and pound them until they begged for mercy.
Broderick didn’t remember the ground floor of the house—he’d been dragged through, unconscious, with a bag on his head, and he’d escaped straight through the basement window. No need to linger and admire the decor.
The echoing room inside the front door was obviously meant to be a living room. The closely spaced, tall windows rendered the curved alcove they’d seen from outside essentially a wall of glass. A lone sofa and a chair reposed in the middle of the vast tile floor, but there was no other furniture, no pictures on the walls.
An open staircase ran to the second floor, the stairs nothing but treads fixed to thin wooden strips. To Broderick, having lived in a solidly built bungalow for so long, the stairs looked flimsy and unstable.
Two-foot squares of tile in a light beige color covered the floor, adding to the beige-ness of the rest of the house. Dull. Even Broderick’s house full of smelly Lupine males was much more colorful and vibrant. More so when Joanne was there.
Next to the kitchen they found the entrance to the basement. The door was highly polished wood, pretty to look at, its hinges and handle shiny brass.
It was also unlocked. Broderick yanked it open, standing aside in case an enemy lingered here, but no one appeared.
Broderick’s breathing came fast as he charged down the steps. He didn’t know why he was going all PTSD—he’d only been a prisoner a short time, and he’d broken his way out just fine.
Maybe it had to do with the days when humans were rounding up Shifters. Broderick and his family hadn’t gone willingly. He’d lived in Wyoming, up in the mountains, where winters were harsh and neighbors were few and far between. That suited the McNaughtons, who’d existed there without being bothered for a hundred or so years
. Broderick’s father had moved to the American West from the north of Scotland in the middle of the nineteenth century, and Broderick and his brothers had been born in this country.
They’d all fought being rounded up. Broderick remembered the shock sticks that had kept him down while he’d been trying to get Mason, nine years old, to safety. The humans from the new Shifter Bureau were capturing cubs, taking them away for experiments.
Broderick had been kicked, chained, shocked, and still he’d been fighting when the shotgun had gone off in his dad’s chest, killing the man outright.
The echo of the shot rose in Broderick’s head as he entered the basement. Last night, when he’d fought to get away, his whole being, his wolf instinct, had focused on breaking free and finding his way home. Now that he had time to register the details with his human side, bile filled his stomach.
The basement was empty—free of people, anyway. It smelled empty, the only scent that of damp lint and warm computers, which had clogged the room last night.
Morning sunlight came through the basement windows, and wind did too, courtesy of the one Broderick had smashed. The sun through the dusty panes wasn’t enough to illuminate the basement entirely, so Broderick flipped on a light.
Whoever the squatters had been, they’d cleared out in a hurry, though Joanne had been right that they’d leave most of the computer equipment behind. The laptops were gone, but monitors and a rack of CPUs had been left, along with boxes and cables. Plaster hung from the wall where the plate covering the telephone line had been. Looked like the woman had ripped it out of the wall when she’d scrambled to unplug everything.
The jumble looked like a pile of junk to him, but Broderick knew computer people saw things differently. They might look at his workshop, full of hand tools, wood shavings, and boxes of metal bits, and think it a mess too. To Broderick, his workshop, with its scents of wood and shellac, was a place of beauty, even tranquility—well, when Mason wasn’t grumbling when he couldn’t get something to go right.
Near the washing machine, Broderick found the remnants of his clothes, and also his wallet—without the cash but with the ID Shifters were required to carry. No phone, though.
“Hey, Spike!” Broderick called up the stairs behind him. “Tell Joanne she can come down.”
Spike didn’t answer, but soon Broderick heard Joanne’s quick tread on the stairs, the now-familiar slap of her sneakers.
The sound instantly made Broderick feel better. Strange that an innocuous noise like Joanne’s footsteps could have an effect on his entire body. His breathing slowed, his muscles loosened, and the pain in his chest eased.
“What a mess,” Joanne said, the sound of her voice completing the warmth inside him.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Broderick answered, not looking at her. He studied the tangle of wires, unable to make out what went where. Black plugs filled a power strip, with an orange light indicating the strip was still on. “Probably we can’t do anything with it.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Joanne’s tone was light, but Broderick heard the interest, the curiosity, the eagerness. She moved past Broderick, bathing him in a scent of roses, and started flipping switches. The computers began to hum.
“How does this place even have electricity?” Broderick’s mouth asked while the rest of his senses enjoyed her scent, her nearness. “Empty houses don’t get hooked up to power.”
“I’m sure they diverted some.” Joanne wasn’t bothered by such trivial matters. Her brown eyes sparkled as she dragged a plastic chair in front of the table holding the monitors and keyboards, and she flexed her hands. “Let’s see how good I really am.”
The monitors flickered to life at her touch but instead of the pretty photos or icons that littered computer screens these days, there was only a black background and a few pulsing letters.
“So,” Joanne said softly to the screen. “Did you encrypt everything? Or were you not worried about anyone figuring out what you were doing?”
Broderick leaned over the back of her chair as she typed. “You know, you talking to invisible people on the other end of the computer is kind of creepy.”
Joanne ignored him. “You want to play, eh?” she asked, her fingers moving. A row of letters went across the monitor, then more rows, and then Joanne chuckled. “Gotcha.”
“You know what the hell she’s doing?” Spike asked behind him. He’d come down the stairs, and now stared, as mystified as Broderick, at the computers.
Broderick had to shake his head. Joanne glanced up at them as she rolled her shoulders, stretching them. “You know, this would be easier if you guys weren’t breathing down my neck.”
Broderick caressed the neck in question, but he understood.
He turned and followed Spike to do what they were good at—checking out the room, searching it for clues as to where the hacker and her goons had gone. Tiger was still upstairs with Seamus, both of them looking around. Tiger would no doubt get a bead on the bad guys and have the coordinates or whatever of where they’d gone to ground without too much trouble.
Regardless, Broderick made himself feel better turning over boxes and ripping apart the drywall to see if the villains had hidden any secrets behind it. Spike helped, the man liking destruction as much as Broderick did.
Behind him, Joanne made a noise of disappointment. “They wiped everything,” she said mournfully. “That’s why they left all this stuff behind. But …” She trailed off as the keys started clicking again.
Just as she said, Eureka! Broderick caught a glint of something behind the loose wallboard he’d just pulled from between two studs.
He bent down to examine whatever it was, sniffing carefully, in case he was about to set off a booby trap. Any stupid wolf could jam his paw into a crevice and trip a wire that blew up the building he was in.
Broderick didn’t scent anything untoward—no det cord or blasting caps, no scent of explosives or anything that would make a spark. Not even something simple like the steel of a mousetrap.
He made double sure all was clear, then he stretched his first two fingers into the crack and pulled out a round, silver disc.
“What’s that?” Spike asked. Like all cats, he was instantly curious about a shiny object.
Broderick rested it on his palm. What he held was a medallion in the form of a Celtic knot. It was true silver, polished to a dull sheen, and looked very old. The symbol resembled the one on their Collars, but it was larger, thinner, and had a second circle around it, which had been carved in a delicate, scalloped pattern. The disc looked familiar—other than resembling the Collar pendant—but this wasn’t from a Collar.
“No idea,” Broderick said. “What did you find, Joanne?” He asked over his shoulder. “You said Eureka. Did you hack in, or whatever you call it?”
“No.” Joanne stood up, her movements animated. “They wiped all the data from these computers, but I found evidence of where they went, or tried to go. They left a trail, a pretty cryptic one, but I found it.” She sounded pleased, proud of herself. “They were trying to hack the Guardian Network. I knew it! Oh…” Joanne’s breath touched Broderick’s arm. “What did you find there?”
Broderick felt a jolt go through him as soon as Joanne said Guardian. The word made him realize where he’d seen this medallion before, quite often—or one just like it. His blood went cold.
“Holy fuck,” he said, his voice filling with both amazement and foreboding. “I know what this is. It’s a piece from the Sword of the Guardian.”
***
Joanne stared at the innocuous silver disc on Broderick’s palm. She’d seen the sword Sean, the Austin Shiftertown’s Guardian, carried around, but she’d never had a chance to look at it closely.
Both Spike and Broderick were gazing at the medallion as though it would bite them any second. The two big, bad, fearsome fighters had wide eyes and rigid stances of terror.
“What are you saying?” Joanne asked them. “They had a Sword of
the Guardian here? Sean’s sword?”
“I didn’t see a sword,” Broderick said, not taking his eyes off the disc. “Not last night, and I didn’t find one today. You, Spike?”
“Nope,” Spike said, the curt word filled with worry.
Broderick and Spike had torn up the whole basement, Joanne saw. Pipes were exposed behind shredded drywall, and wires hung like black and red spaghetti. The floor was solid cement, though she saw where they’d gouged it. They’d have found anything hidden.
“It must have been stashed there,” Broderick said. “The boards were already loose when I took them off—they made a crevice they could reach in a hurry. They grabbed the sword out of there and didn’t notice the end piece had come off.”
“But how did it come off?” Spike asked. “I thought the swords were solid pieces. They didn’t have superglue in the thirteen hundreds.”
“No, but they had welding,” Joanne pointed out. “Or soldering. I’m not a silversmith, but I bet they knew how to stick things onto other things.”
Broderick did plenty of soldering in his metalworking crafts, but he shook his head, his hand unwavering. “The swords were made by a Shifter sword smith and a Fae woman. The blade was shaped by folding and beating the silver, over and over again, but the hilt was cast as one piece.” As though feeling Joanne and Spike staring at him, Broderick shrugged. “My dad used to tell me that story. He knew about forging and casting.”
Joanne noted the catch in his words as he mentioned his father. Broderick rarely talked about his family—at least not his dad or even his mom. Too much pain, she’d realized.
“So, how did it come loose?” Spike repeated the question.
Broderick closed his hand over the medallion. “We’re going to have to ask an expert about that. You know, a Guardian.”
“Fine,” Spike said, still gray about the mouth. “Let’s go. Sean always has beer.”