Elgin

  *It was a powerful thing, as powerful as the whole Den in its way. Its being portable is a great advantage,” Cutter-Iffrit sighed.

  “So what does it do?” Elgin asked frowning.

  Kitty, thinking he was speaking to her, replied, “It’s one of the focus objects, the magi told of them, that there are twenty one objects that enhance charm forming, stabilize spells. My Association has four of them, we know of twelve others, five are either being hidden or have never been found.”

  Cutter-Iffrit ‘spoke,’ *During the interregnum that was certainly true, even now a new user would have better success and a magi could create more complex constructs with it nearby. Essentially the object exists in all of the realms at the same time. If you are trapped in the deep shadow realms finding and touching one of these objects will return you to your anchor realm.*

  “So a useful thing to have around if you have a bunch of new magic users to train,” Elgin muttered.

  “It weighs tons, what could have carried it out of here and gotten away?” Kitty whispered, her eyes wide with fear.

  An image of a huge cross between a bear, wolf and man flickered in his minds eye.

  Elgin looked around, he could see claw marks on the floor, and on one of the knocked over displays he saw a tag of dark fur. He pulled it off the sharp edge that had caught it. His touch made it smoke oddly, and he hurriedly dropped it on a pad of paper on the counter where it lay looking innocuous. But the air reeked of burnt hair with a vinegary undertone.

  Kitty had pulled a crystal on a thin chain from around her neck and extended it to the fur. As the crystal touched it the fur began to smoke again and the reek grew stronger. But in the air above the hank an image of the werewolf formed, then vanished as the hair evaporated into smoke and stink that set them both coughing.

  “Oh spirits! What was that?”

  “A werewolf,” Elgin replied bluntly, deep in thought, had it been Hobson, or another werewolf the Djin had created?

  “Werewolf?” She whimpered.

  “A local shaman told me that an evil spirit had set up shop here in town recently. He was right, it was no spirit but it was evil, very ancient evil. It’s gone but it will have left behind some really nasty surprises, including at least one werewolf. Did you feel something off, wrong the last few days?”

  She swallowed, nodded, “We felt something cold, distorted, but when we did a dousing, the bone needle just spun in place. A sign of confusion.”

  “Or that you are too close to a source for the affect to be localized, and the greater the power the larger the zone of confusion.” Cutter-Iffrit said through Elgin.

  “Oh.” She looked frightened, “We meant to do another but then the sheriff called about Festus,” Kitty rubbed her forehead.

  “You said we, who is we, you and Festus?”

  She looked horrified, “Fess?! Spirits no! No, its me and Phoebe, my shop assistant and trainee in the arts who I did the dousing with.”

  Elgin looked around, “This happened after hours, right, she was home, safe?”

  Kitty nodded, “I spoke to her on the phone, she lives with her husband on a bit of land down valley.”

  He walked to the door, could see the reflection of fire in the building south and east a block or so. It must be stubborn to still be burning, but then the local fire fighting equipment was far from big city standards. “We need to go see what’s going on over there.”

  Kitty followed him, leaving the door, “Something bad, I felt two pulses, one sharp, I think the break in to the store and as I left the hospital a second, longer, but less pointed.”

  Elgin nodded, thinking, then glanced at her, “How’s Festus?”

  “Confused,” She hesitated, “what did you do to him? I can sense that something was done, something profound, but I don’t know what.”

  “He tried to kill me, several times and kept on trying after I had told him to cease and desist or die. But in the end he told me what I wanted to know. So I let him live, he just won’t remember ever being Festus, while he retains most of the academic and practical learning.”

  She swallowed, “That’s....very scary Elgin.”

  ”Sorry, but I guess I think it was fair.”

  She was silent for a few steps, “Fair enough...the sheriff tells me that the evidence points to Festus being a hit man of some kind.”

  “I think he was, but we didn’t get into that, he did admit killing me was a job, though I think he was happy enough to hurt you by killing me.”

  “Sounds like Fess,” Festus’ wife sounded resigned, not bitter.

  “Everyone assumes you’re a trophy wife to his sugar daddy Kitty, but that’s not it is it?”

  “You know that I’m a practitioner, a witch, we’re not exactly thick on the ground. My aunt had the cauldron in her keeping here, she’d moved here in the sixties, and made a life for herself. Her journals say Beauty did not live up to its name in those days. But she was an out doors type, she found a partner and they lived happily enough until her partner died of cancer in the nineties. Then my aunt died seven years ago. I was sent out to claim the cauldron and the store five years ago. I was lonely and bored, I got involved in some immigrant activities, the dog show the cat show, the rodeo. Festus had Miss Pretty Paws, and he swept me off my feet.” This was said with some amount of bitterness.

  “Ah, guess I never ran into you during the pre Festus days.”

  “I did not mingle much, except with the immigrants. I was doing my duty, but I hated it up here most of the time.”

  “Does Festus know you’re a practitioner?”

  “He thinks I’m a new age hippie with a hot body and an upper crust upbringing. It took a while for me to realize that he cares about the body on a functional level, and the upbringing on a business level. He wanted an escort on call, in every sense of the word, not a wife, but he’s a Catholic of the most Roman type. Our pre nup says I will go to church and act as if I’m Catholic as well. Not hard since strangely enough that’s what I grew up as. Festus loves the store though he’s never been in it, it keeps me out of his hair, and it irritates Father Wiggins, who Festus hates. The Father is always counseling me, about dabbling in the arcane, but I’m a better bible scholar than he is.”

  “Father Wiggins!” Elgin had forgotten that the Wiggins brothers had an uncle who’d gone to seminary then come back to lead the local flock, a little island of Catholicism in a sea of protestant and evangelicals.

  By this time they were at the barrier of emergency vehicles. There was a ‘taste’ to the air, or was it to just the area, that stank of something unearthly. Without really thinking about it Elgin ducked under the tape and walked around the state police van, one of the troopers started to move their way, he sensed Kitty make a pass, felt a sense of rightness and familiarity in his mind, the trooper hesitated then jerked his head for them to go on and turned back to watching the rest of the strangely small crowd that had gathered.

  The Committee storefront had been the end shop of a row of three story brick shops originally with owner quarters, offices, or apartments above. This had been part of the original single street downtown of Beauty during one of its heydays in the early twentieth century. It was still in the process of rebuilding, or had been, now all five ‘bays’ of the structure showed damage, though the end one, the Committee’s storefront, was the most damaged, to the point of having collapsed. In front of the building the utterly fire consumed shell of a car steamed and smoked. The melted frame of the police light unit on the car’s roof was the only sign that it had been a sheriff’s cruiser.

  Elgin saw the Sheriff and Griffith TwoShoes talking to Chief BlackHawk and a tall gray haired man in state trooper uniform and a woman in a rather unusual, for Beauty, business pant suit. He glanced around and saw two unmarked cars nearby, white not black like in the movies.

  TwoShoes seemed to sense something, turned to look at Elgin and Kitty, his eyes widened “Elgin, thank the spirits, I was goin
g to call you.”

  BlackHawk glanced at Elgin, his brows lowering, “Why would you call the troublemaker Griff?”

  “It’s me whose the troublemaker, Walt, Elgin’s just my point man.” TwoShoes replied sharply.

  Caitlin glanced beyond Elgin, “Mrs. Pauls?” She shot a look at Elgin.

  “My store was trashed about the same time this happened Sheriff SweetBear.”

  “The Cauldron?” TwoShoes snapped.

  Kitty gaped at the shaman, then recovered, “Gone.”

  “What? What is this cauldron?” It was the woman, probably a fed Elgin decided, since her accent was distinctly eastern.

  “An ancient artifact that was found in the den when the white man first came. It’s been in Mrs. Pauls’ birth family’s care for more than a century. How did they steal it?” TwoShoes replied ending looking at Elgin.

  “Something very large and very strong went down the stairs and carried it out Griff. I’ve no idea, maybe someone drove a BobCat down there,” Elgin lifted his hands.

  The fed was shaking her head, TwoShoes was looking ill, BlackHawk and the sheriff went back to talking to the tall gray haired man.

  Kitty had one of her crystals in her hand, she was muttering something under her breath and Elgin could ‘see’ her focus changing reality in a small way in the crystal. Which she pointed at the burnt out car and Committee office.

  TwoShoes looked at her, “What do you sense Witch.” He spoke softly, and used the old word like one would say Doctor.

  “No humans died here recently, the fire was the result of a fight, the destruction was not intentional.” She replied a little breathlessly.

  The Sheriff suddenly barked, “Then find her damn it Dewey, what the hell are you playing at? I asked you an hour ago to get everyone located. You said everyone was accounted for!” in the firelight she was obviously enraged, speaking into her microphone, now listening to her ear bug, “What do you mean she didn’t answer her phone but it was still pinging, I said talk to everyone damn it? Where does the GPS show her phone?” Another silence as her face grew grimmer, “Get that phone back to the station and get Charley to give me a track back. I want it ten fucking minutes ago or you are going to be on snow plow inspection and mosquito eradication detail for the rest of your natural damned life!”

  “What?” the Chief asked gruffly.

  “Deputy Michaels didn’t answer her phone. My idiot assistant figured it was okay because it was showing her at her home, even though she’s supposed to be on duty.”

  Everyone looked at the burnt out cruiser. Elgin was glad that he knew that no one had died here. But the three officials were looking grim, even a little sick, could he, should he tell them?

  TwoShoes saved him the trouble, “The spirits tell me that no one died here tonight Sheriff, but that does not mean she isn’t in danger.”

  BlackHawk looked blankly at TwoShoes then at the female fed, “It’s unlikely that it was a coincidence that it was Michaels, Agent Smith. It’s got to have been them.”

  “Did she carry any of the paperwork on her?” The gray haired trooper asked quietly.

  “Of course not, but she knows where all of it is.”

  “So do several other people.” The fed said.

  Caitlin shook her head, “But the only one who they knew had to know was Zephy, if they found out what she was really doing here.”

  Zephyr Michaels nee Smith-Samson hadn’t given up her law career. She’d been here working on the ownership of the Great Bears Den. She had been the one who’d outmaneuvered the Claw, and that in itself would have put her on their enemies list, even if she hadn’t had information they wanted.

  “We have no record of traffic too or from the club compound in the window, as far as the spotters can tell none of them have left the peninsula since nightfall.” The gray haired trooper said in frustration.

  Elgin frowned, then interrupted, “Can you ask them if they saw a single motorcycle run up to the crater overlook then come back here less than an hour ago? I was up there taking a breath of fresh air before heading to bed.”

  The Trooper frowned, “Uh sir, please don’t interrupt, this is official bus....”

  The sheriff shot Elgin a look, then turned to the trooper, “Ralph please do what Mr. Chalmers asks, it’ll only take a moment.”

  The trooper looked irritated, pointed at the van Elgin had walked past, “Ask lieutenant Bridges to show you the feed.”

  Elgin trotted over to the truck, inside it was a lot more Spartan than one would have expected but two large monitors and two bolted down seats with one young woman in blue overalls drinking a coffee and watching the screens.

  “Lieutenant Bridges?”

  The woman, girl almost, turned and smilingly looked Elgin over, “Sure, that’s what dad calls me, you can call me Cheryl.”

  “You have a video of South Lake Road, past the Claws’ camp to the lookout”

  “You got a need to know handsome?” She said around her gum, the smile still there but the eyes assessing, he could see the gun in a shoulder holster.

  “I rode my bike up there and then back just over the period when all this went down. You should be able to see me coming and going.”

  She frowned at him, “What?”

  “I was out for a...”

  “I heard you the first time,” She almost snapped, turned to her keyboard and started typing, “give me times.”

  Thinking back and checking his watch he gave her the best window he could.

  The monitors flickered and he saw numbers rolling, three windows popped up, showing the Lake road from three observation points, one obviously some kind of aircraft, or more likely a video drone over the lake.

  One of the screens showed ghostly reverse images, an infrared image, the others were the grainy white of high power optics and light amplification.

  Elgin watched the screen, Kitty and TwoShoes at his shoulder, it was TwoShoes who spoke first, “There is too much traffic, not that much traffic on a Thursday night.”

  “No motorcycles.” The girl snapped apparently ignoring the old businessman-shaman.

  “Do you have something looking at the road into town, the gas station garage a few hundred yards past the last light pole.”

  Another clatter of keys, and suddenly he could see the garage, and the numbers flowed, traffic flickered past, and then there was a single streak, joining the flow and flashing away westward. A hiccup and then the single light flashed back. And now Lieutenant Cheryl Bridges was swearing. She looked around, her face drawn, “Tell Da....Colonel Bridges that someone’s compromised the observation feeds, I think we’re looped, I’ll get hold of the other techs, see if we can rescue anything. “Sorry, I guess you were right.” she shot at Elgin as she went back to the console.

  Elgin almost ran back to the group, Caitlin looked at him grimly, “Nothing good makes you run El.”

  He looked at the trooper and the fed, “Your video systems were compromised, showing loops of some kind. No way of knowing what was going on.”

  The fed ducked away, suddenly whispering to her minions someplace not too far away, the Trooper broke into a run for the van. The sheriff closed her eyes, “Damn it.”

  “You know that they did this, and took down your video, can’t you use that as probable cause?” TwoShoes asked urgently.

  “No, no the judge would never give us a warrant on those grounds. The Claws have made life hell for any judge who goes after them. Without ironclad proof that we’ll pull their teeth no one will give us a warrant.”

  She turned away, moving off to talk to a knot of her deputies.

  As Elgin turned to go TwoShoes touched his arm, “What do you intend to do?”

  “Go visit the Claw, see if I can talk to him nephew to uncle.”

  Kitty’s jaw dropped.

  TwoShoes grunted, “Always wondered if you knew that dirty little secret.”

  “Dad and Uncle Eugene always drank a beer to the memory of t
heir parents on the anniversary of the day they were killed in that auto accident. Uncle would turn up sometime in the evening with a beer and sit down at the table, dad would sit opposite, they’d open the beers and drink then, glaring at each other in silence. When Uncle was done he’d slam the empty down on the table, get up and walk out. I don’t ever remember him speaking, only reason I know his name is Eugene is because my mother would call him that and offer him a coffee or bit to eat. He’d always shake his head.”

  “Do you think the familial bond will get you anywhere with the Claw?’

  “He was willing enough to have his thugs beat me up, threaten me, even chance killing me. I don’t know about the hit; that may have been the Wiggins. All I expect is that it’ll get me an audience with him. I want to get inside and I’ve never been good at sneaking and their lodge is very hard to sneak up on anyway.”

  “Do you want help?”

  “Not with me, TwoShoes. If you could go to the garage till I return, I may have a tail and it would be good for someone to call in the cavalry.” He looked at Kitty, “My inner mage, has an idea but it’s kind of creepy, he wants to use you as a beacon, to distract them while I approach, the thing is we want to make it ‘feel’ like its both you and I doing a powerful douse to find Zeph”

  “And there’s some blood involved to imprint your pattern.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Done something like it before, lets get it over with, I’ll call Phoebe, she’ll kill me if I don’t let her watch.”

  -o-

  The moon glowed over the lake as the Norton slowed at the turn in to the Claws access lane. It was almost two a.m. the only change to his plan had been the presence of Humph on the Norton’s seat when he came out to start. The cat had simply given him a disgusted look when ordered to stay behind. But now as he made the turn, he felt a lurch and saw a tawny streak vanish into the forest. Humph, unlike his human friend, was very good at sneaking.

  The lane was wide and paved, the club was not poor and didn’t try to hide it. He burbled down the road until he saw a wall and gate, and in front of the gate a big man with his arms crossed. Around the man loomed a shadow, this was another werewolf, which seemed a bit clichéd.

  Elgin flipped the headlight off and let the bike glide to a stop, “Hello again Chunkers.”

  The man looked confused, let his folded arms drop, “Eh...who, who are you?”

  “Elgin Chalmers, we met in town a while back, my cat scratched you.”

  “Uh? Oh the big bastard, yeah.” A frown, “Chalmers, that’s not a good name to have round here these days. You best go back the way you came.”

  “Chunkers, I need to speak with the Claw and I am sure he and Movie Star are still up.”

  Big fists flexed and the confusion faded, “I said you best go back the way you came.”

  “I think that the Claw will want to see me, tell him it’s his nephew Elgin.”

  “Uh, what?” Back to confusion.

  Elgin started patiently, “Call the Claw....”

  There was a crackle and a voice spoke out of the air, “Let my nephew in Chunkers. It’ll be good to talk over old times with little El.” There was a snap pop as the speaker was disconnected.

  Chunkers was poker faced as he moved to the side and turned a switch. Rattling and squeaking the gates slid out of the way and Elgin rode on.

  The club lodge was a quadrangle of two story log buildings, with broad verandas. There were at least fifty bikes parked on the scuffed oily concrete that made up the plaza in the center. The designs of the structures varied from plain to almost opulent but it all had a rundown feel even in the artificial light.

  The newest, biggest and fanciest of the buildings was lit up on the inside, the sound of music and loud voices escaped to fill the quadrangle. Elgin swung his leg off his bike and walked towards the front door.

  He almost didn’t see his attacker, who uncoiled out of the dark like a billow of smoke. The man was taller than Elgin but probably weighed less, the brass knuckles on his fist gleamed as he aimed for the side of Elgin’s head.

  Elgin wasn’t where he’d been when the attack started. Then he was next to his over extended attacker, sticking a foot out to trip the other man, who went down but recovered and was on his feet like in a flash, teeth and brass knuckles gleaming gold.

  His focus on the first attacker the second attacker assumed Elgin wouldn’t sense the attack, the heavy leather cosh swung at Elgin’s head, but once more Elgin was gone and then back, he grabbed the woman’s arm, accelerating the move, kicking her feet out from underneath her, rolling her off his hip to roll spin at her companion who had to leap or get knocked over.

  There was a slow clap from not far away, “Very good, I think adequate proof that you’re a lot more dangerous than you look.”

  Elgin turned to face Movie Star, “Mr. Greer, good to see you again.”

  He could sense the man and woman team behind him gathering themselves for another try, Greer made a dismissing motion, “Valery, Malc, enough for now. Go have a beer.”

  “I should have realized there was more to you than what can be seen on the surface the first time we met Mr. Chalmers. And it was inexcusable to miss it until our nose was rubbed in it. All I can say is that I thought it was the old Shaman.”

  Bulking around Movie Star was the shadow of another werewolf, its hot yellow eyes seeming like two stars in the firmament above the handsome thugs head.

  “You may not realize it but the Djin never gives without reason and never without certainty that he will get more than he gives Mr. Greer.”

  “Oh, so you’re not just some stray piece who wandered into the game, Mr. Chalmers.” The other man squinted, Elgin felt the coarse probe, the other man was trying to see if he was dual natured, in the sense of a werewolf, “You did well against the assassins but you have no second nature, you are nothing more than a mage, thief or assassin, and given the situation we find ourselves in, you are at the most basic level.”

  “You’ve been reading up on your Dungeons and Dragons Mr. Greer but you really need to go back to the much older sources, in the Greek, Roman or better yet Assyrian or Egyptian, the older texts are the most accurate but they are hard to interpret without the more literate vernacular of the Greeks and Romans.”

  “You’re just a cowboy who copped lucky cards, boy. Don’t make yourself out to be more than you are.” Greer growled fiercely, his wolf struggling to break free to rend and tear.

  Elgin held up his hands, “As you say Movie Star; can I see my uncle now?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to make sure that things don’t spin out of control. Your raid on the town has stirred things up, and your using magic to carry it out will have put some strange ideas in people’s heads.”

  Greer sneered, “Who cares, they have no probable cause. Even if they come they will find nothing, and we’ll make their lives not worth living. And they don’t believe in, don’t know magic.”

  “For now.”

  “Now’s all that matters boy.”

  “Can I see my uncle Mr. Greer?”

  Without another word Movie Star spun and marched towards the end of the main building.

  The room they entered was more like a throne room than anything that Elgin had expected, he immediately recognized his uncle, startled to realize how much the older man’s face resembled the one he saw in the mirror most mornings. Eugene Walker, AKA Claw of the Evil Eagle Claw Motorcycle Club wasn’t huge by the standards of his minions but he was big, taller and much more heavily built than Elgin, also overweight. He sat in a big wingback chair on a raised area that had probably been intended as a dining niche with a fabulous view over the lake. He was wearing dark red brown leathers, with Indian beadwork and some feather amulets here and there.

  Leaning against the big leather chair were two striking women, one dark haired and dark skinned wearing buckskin leathers with lots of cutouts to show smooth tanned
flesh, the other a platinum blonde in black leather with similar cutouts showing pale skin. Beside the two women and Claw and Movie Star there were six others, four huge men who looked like their arms were as thick as Elgin’s thighs and the two, tiny in this company, assassins who’d taken a crack at him in the courtyard.

  “So Vincent’s boy finally decides to pay his respects, at a very strange hour, on a very strange day,” Eugene Walker’s voice was well modulated, still bearing the stamp of the Ivy League education he’d received.

  “Sorry for the delay Uncle Eugene, time just got away from me I guess.”

  There was a ripple around Claw that denoted that he somehow held in himself a great knot of shadow realm, the sign of a mage master of the most destructive type. Raw power of that sort was necessary only for great works, and for construction the power could be layered in a little at a time over a long period, in fact the results were far better that way. A mage knot like Claws was only good for destruction; the Djin had given Claw the one tool that would enable him to rule a clan of werewolves. For everyone else in the room beside the two assassins, Eugene and Elgin were werewolves.

  “What do the sheep want boy?” Eugene said flatly, a little unsettled by the calm gaze of his nephew.

  “What your wolves stole uncle, the papers and the woman.”

  There was a rustle and the wolves all smiled, the Indian princess licked her lips. “What if we told you we already ate her?” Her voice was a nasty hiss, almost Basik like.

  Elgin looked at her coldly, she was more important than her position bespoke and she was even more of a destroyer than Greer, she was probably clinically insane, “I’d call you a liar, you’ve not had time to figure out what to do with her yet, you need the knowledge she has, but you know that if you try and torture it out of her your beast will unfold and kill and eat her, which would rather defeat the purpose of capturing her.” He pointed at the Assassins, “They could do the job but you could never trust them with the information and if you were in the room with them the result would be the same.”

  “You have a solution for us, little boy,” the white blond asked huskily.

  Elgin lifted his hands, shrugged, “Sorry, ain’t that smart ma’am. I’m just here giving you the opportunity to get out from under. The feds and the state cops have this place under twenty four hour observation, it’s useless to you as a base. Give it up; let me take the papers and the girl back, offer to sell the land to the tribe for the cost of litigation. It’ll give you the money and freedom to find another base of operations and pull the rug out from under the police investigation.”

  “You’re magic boy, but the rest of the sheep are still blind to it. They have no probable cause to invade my domain, and if they do I will be very nice to them and let them look where they please for what they please till my lawyers have enough to sue Beauty, maybe the whole fucking state of Wyoming, into bankruptcy.” Eugene replied flatly.

  Elgin felt sweat trickling down his neck, he was almost out of time, and though he wasn’t personally afraid of what might happen he was desperately afraid of what might happen to others he cared for.

  -o-

  Zephyr SueAnna Michaels nee Smith-Samson, woke in darkness with a serious case of dragon mouth and a worse headache. “Oh crap I have got to knock it off with the Margaritas.” She almost whimpered, trying to lift a hand to her hot forehead. It was then that she found that she was bound to the frame of whatever it was she was lying on. Bound hand and foot, her boots were gone, the ropes were digging into the flesh of her ankles. Her jacket, belt and other gear were gone as well, but she was still in shirt and pants, not down to her panty and bra. Or less.

  She was lying on a bed of some kind, thin mattress over old metal sprung frame like in a dorm room. An all pervading oil and gasoline stink with an undertone of human sweat, pee, excrement and sickness, she was glad of the machine stink, it was probably helping make the other odors less noticeable.

  From some distance away she could hear the almost sea shore mutter of many loud human voices and the high points, sonically, of a heavy metal band. Her lethargic mind tried to piece together the shattered pieces of her memory. She had been on patrol, which had meant one domestic argument, broken up by the appearance of a green patrol car. A junior shoplifter to scare into tears then release with the nodded agreement of the store owner. Two speeders to ticket, one of them got a little something extra to pay for making a graphic but apparently serious pass at her. Then what?

  After a struggle it came back to her, she had done the outer loop, stopped for her break at the little deli on Lakeside drive. Then gone up to the gap and around to Northton and the loop through the immigrant mansions out that way, a ticket for an idiot running a red light and almost plowing into her. Then it had been ten, pretty much everything closed on a weekday in Beauty, Wyoming and her shift ended at ten thirty. She’d done what her trainer had usually done, slid the cruiser into one of the unlit parking spots on Fifth Street with a view of the lake and downtown and worked on her log before taking the cruiser back to the garage.

  She had looked up to see a gray panel truck, one she was pretty sure she recognized pull up beside the offices of the Bear’s Den Committee. Two figures had leapt down from the truck which had driven away leaving the scene apparently unchanged. Nominally she was off the clock, having filed her log for the day, but she wasn’t a clock watcher. She called Dewey that she was investigating a possible break in and put the cruiser in gear.

  There had been no sign of anyone about when she came up alongside the building or when she turned the cruiser and parked it in front of the Committee office. Maybe she had just seen a couple of locals being let off by a buddy after a few too many at Matilda’s. But she didn’t like the fact that the panel van had been just like the one the Claws ran. Sliding out of the cruiser she had for the first time in her short career with the Sheriffs department unlocked the riot gun from its clips.

  The twelve gauge with its load of buckshot was a comfort in her hands as she walked forward up to the door and looked inside. There were no obvious signs of forced entry and the door was solidly locked, there were no lights on in the front section, which was mostly a conference and meeting area, the offices were in the back.

  Moving calmly but quickly she had made her way along the blank brick side around to the back. There were three doors in back, one into the basement, one into the main level and a fire escape that went to the third floor with a platform and door on the second. The first floor door was still locked and firm but a cursory look told her that the basement door had been forced and pushed closed, it was ajar and there was a faint sliver of light visible, a light that was moving back and forth, the owner was still looking for something.

  Reporting her status to Dewey and asking for backup she carefully went down the stairs. The door swung open at the touch of her toe. Showing the basement storage room the committee had been using for their historical research and the three large fire proof storage lockers that held the majority of the important documents. A skinny man in an old Army green coat was kneeling in front working on the lock, a massive man in leathers, with a greasy ponytail and no other hair was pawing through the contents of one of the sheet metal lockers used for normal correspondence.

  Two shadows, two miscreants. Score.

  She coughed, “Gentlemen, would you be so good as to put your hands up where I can see them?”

  Neither of them froze or did what she had asked, instead both turned to glare at her. She stood her ground the round hole in the end of the leveled shotgun telling them that they had few options.

  “Little girl, you oughta just turn around and get your cute little ass outa here before someone takes your toy away and spanks you.” The big man had a lot of gold in his mouth and the rest of his teeth looked like they’d be going the same way soon.

  Hobo Hobson looked at her his eyes big and sad.

  “Put your hands up Mr. Big Greasy Ugly, and you
too Hobo.” She’d seen Hobo around enough to know him, he was a local character, and maybe that made sense for an agent of the Claw.

  Gold teeth was grinning, “Oh you are a fun one!” He giggled, and suddenly he was smoke she could see through for an instant, and she got a sense of unfolding and solidifiying, and instead of a man she was facing something like a bear sized bipedal wolf with bright yellow eyes with horizontally slit pupils and a mouth full of teeth. Massive clawed hands rose and it screamed as it made ready to leap.

  The safety snapped under her thumb and then the gun lit the dimness with a tongue of yellow white fire, slamming the butt painfully against her hip. The creature took the full load in the chest and crashed back into the flimsy tin cabinet in a tangle of arms and legs, red fountaining out of the ruined ribcage.

  Mind wanting to scream, run and hide, but her body operating per training Zeph jacked a new round into the breach and rounded on Hobo, who was still crouched with his long fingers locked onto the old fashioned dual combination look. He swallowed, “Now honey, don’t do nothing hasty, its just me, old Hobo Hobson, you’ve known me on an off a lot of years now.”

  “Get up, hands where I can see them,” he complied, “Turn your back to me and interlace your fingers behind your head.”

  There was a scrabbling sound from the cabinet, one of the creatures hands was clawing at the floor. Blood had stooped gushing, she had assumed it was dead, but now she realized that the wound in the furry chest was mostly healed, and visibly sealing over. The thing was an honest to god werewolf!

  Without thinking she turned bringing the shotgun up to point between the things eyes, which opened to glare at her just as she pulled the trigger. But as she pulled the trigger, a huge hairy, clawed hand yanked the gun out off her hands as the other slapped her, sending her crashing into the cheap folding tables and chairs the researchers used. The gun crashed and there was a scream of pain and fury. The wounded were thrashed, a hand held over one side of its face, but it was up somehow and flailing with its other clawed appendage at the slighter, paler werewolf that had been Hobo Hobson.

  Feeling broken Zephyr knew she had no chance with these two monsters up. Her pistol was a poor second compared to the riot gun but it had lots of shots and she wasn’t going to miss at this range. The Glock’s sights centered on the bigger monster’s head and she pumped three rounds into the awkwardly shaped but disturbingly large skull.

  The Hobson were didn’t even hesitate as its attacker went down. It turned to leap at Zeph, who put a quartet of rounds right through its heart, and another through an eye before it had finished crashing into the tangle of distorted folding chairs.

  She was up and over staggering around the wreckage, the riot gun lay against the big document locker, its receiver smashed beyond redemption by the Hobson were’s inhuman strength. With a sob she ejected and pocketed the partial magazine and reloaded with a fresh one, she only had two more.

  Tapping the radio control and mike at her shoulder, “Control this is Micheals. ETA on backup, and tell them to come in heavy, we’ve got terrorists or something.” Her radio bleeped cheerfully at her, then tinged and a telltale went red, she’d been locked out of the net.

  She stared at the red dot, “Dewey, you traitorous, murderous bastard, I will shoot you myself.” She finished with a whispered, “if I survive this,” which wasn’t looking too hopeful, the bigger were was moving again. She got close and put three more rounds into its skull at close range. Whatever it used for bone was tough and thick, the bullets punched in and gore spattered but the skull remained intact and the holes began to fill in almost immediately.

  The Hobson Were snarled, “Naughrrty gurrl, Naughrrty, Naughrr...” She silenced it with three shots to the head, it fell back, long tongue lolling out the side of its mouth, single remaining yellow eye staring at the ceiling.

  Another voice growling growing louder as its owner came down the stairs, “What the fuck is going on Gung, I told you to fucking leave this place a....uh?” A shadow in the doorway, a massive figure, a face she didn’t know. She was far past rules of engagement now, she aimed for the center of mass and pulled the trigger. There was a flash that made her leap aside as the cabinet behind her exploded in fire.

  Zeph ran for it, trying to cover her retreat with an unaimed flurry of shots. She made it to the first floor and slammed the door, which blew apart in flaming flinders an instant later. She dropped the empty magazine, slammed another one home as she dodged behind the brick center wall. The doorframe exploded in fire and splinters as she spun out of the way, then the brick wall at her back suddenly got warm.

  Instead of running across the open area that had once been the sales floor she sprinted to the door that was marked ‘Restro....’ Slamming around the corner she was looking down a hallway open to the center corridor. As she took a shooting stance a figure appeared in her sights. She fired, once, twice, three times and threw herself sideways, fire belching through the doorway she had abandoned an instant before.

  Now she ran for the front shooting out the big plate glass window and jumping through, knowing that she was riding the edge of death. She landed on the sidewalk in a roll that would have made her parachuting instructor in the Army proud and she ran for the cruiser, keying the trunk open where there was a rifle and more ammo. Then the car blew up, throwing her back in a blast of heat and light.

  The next thing she remembered was a furious face, blue, blue eyes, a face scarred by too many hard years and more hard fists, and stinking breath, “Bitch., you awake bitch?” His face, his voice, there was something about them.

  A voice, gravelly, old, “Don’t mess her up yet Claw, it’s the Smith-Samson girl, the one I and Mitch told you about, the lawyer spy.”

  She was looking up into killers eyes and he smiled, “Oh, is that who this is? How convenient,” he let go of her shirt front, her head hit the pavement and the lights went out.

  -o-

  Zephyr felt sick, had she been hallucinating? Had she swallowed some kind of drug, had she gone nuts shooting, killing people, was that why she was bound up like a rabid animal? Her fathers dry sanity came to her rescue, “You’d either be in jail or hospital, not tied up in someone’s garage.”

  A new noise interrupted her painful analysis of her situation. An engine approaching, a motorcycle she was pretty sure, not one of the Claws’ choppers though. The engine stopped and nothing for a few moments, then a voice calling out, harsh and trying to be amused, another voice replied, the second one softer and relaxed. She couldn’t make out what was being said, it wasn’t a long conversation. Then the voices faded and were adsorbed by the party noises.

  A few moments later she heard a scratching and bumping nearby. Then a skitter of little clawed feet. Mice, or more likely rats or the like, she felt even worse, began to shake. She hated bugs, especially in the dark and she was blind, or as good as. Her subconscious knew that she was surrounded by cobwebs and big spiders, and cockroaches were probably crawling around, along with flees and bedbugs. But then again, those things were understood fears, almost homey besides the otherworldly monsters she had shot again and again but that had still kept on getting up, and the man who had thrown bolts of flaming explosive like he was some kind of human raygun.

  There was a batting sound, a scrape and thud, then silence, though she had the sense of something big outside, trying to get in. She had to start working on a plan to escape before they got back around to her or something wild came in to snack on her.

  Then she felt a breeze heard the faintest whisper of sound, something nearby. She whimpered as something a little damp and a little furry pressed against her leg bindings. An instant later the same sensation against her wrist. She felt the tickle of whiskers, some kind of dog had gotten in, dog or wolf. Then she felt-heard it shift and an instant later she ‘oohffed’ as a considerable weight settled on her belly and chest, something big, soft, almost boneless and very warm. The sensation at her other wri
st, the beasts nose.

  She realized that she was making whimpering noises now.

  And then something firm, warm and furry pressed against her cheek and her whole body vibrated with an almost subsonic purr. Now she whimpered in relief, a cat, a big fricking cat!

  But this cat was huge, was it a mountain lion, a lynx or something, and she’d heard that hungry housecats sometimes ate their dead owners if not fed. “Uh, nice kitty?”

  The rumbling purr felt like it was going to rupture her spleen or something. The cat caressed her cheek again, then pressed against her chin, as if to say, ‘shut up,’ before shifting, leaning down. She felt the hard dampness of teeth against her wrist and had to struggle mightily to keep from screaming. There was a tensing of powerful jaw muscles, and the binding on her wrist let go. An instant later the cat was on the floor and she felt its teeth closing on the other binding, and again the powerful surge and the teeth sheered through the second binding.

  “Oh my god ,” Zephyr whispered as she jackknifed up, then lay back as her world spun, and her hands began to throb with renewed circulation. A few moments later, as she lay there almost helpless her feet were freed. Then the cats fore paws were on the frame and its sandpaper tongue scratched her cheek, the soft “Yorrowp,” was the first vocalization it had made.

  “Okay, okay, I know I need to get up. Is there something in here I can use to bash in the head of the first werewolf who comes in?” She slowly rolled to a sitting position, then the cat grabbed her hand gently, in its teeth and pulled. She moaned, “Okay, okay I’m coming.”

  It turned, and suddenly an incredibly silky soft tail wrapped around her hand and pulled. This time she came to her feet. There was a sliver of a different darkness ahead, and the faintest breath of fresh air. The cat nosed the darkness and it spread, showing itself to be a door to the outside.

  Stunned beyond words, hand in tail she was lead away from the sound and light.

  -o-

  Elgin knew it was time to leave, his uncle had offered him a beer, and Elgin had accepted, the huge man had shambled down off his throne surrogate and opened a fridge to pull out two Dos Equis which they had drunk in silence, watching each other across the table. Now his bottle was empty. He put it down near the center of the table.

  “Can I assume your answer is no uncle?”

  The other man sneered, “Why did you come punk?”

  “Because I had to try.”

  Eugene slammed his bottle down, “What you try is my patience.” He stood.

  Movie star clapped his hands, “Valery, Malc, you can teach a the whelp a lesson, then trash his candy ass ‘cycle and haul both pieces of trash to the town line.”

  They all turned to sneer at Elgin. But he was gone. Everyone scanned around, convinced he had to be in the room. Then the Norton crackled to life and snarled away. Only the two assassins made it around the corner quickly enough to see the taillights vanish around the first turn. Then they were brushed aside by six huge loping werewolves, the Claw was last to the corner, “Don’t kill him, just hurt him real bad,” he screamed after his furry minions.

  Elgin wasn’t sure why he wasn’t surprised to see his cat sitting calmly by the side of the track with a very mussed but apparently whole Zephyr Michaels. He brought the bike to a skidding stop. “Get on, the wolves are on my ass.” Looking back his enhanced sight could make them out coming around the corner on all fours, running like cheetahs. Humph was on the tank in front of him and Zephyr was hugged tight against his back, the bike’s rear tire bit the tarmac and hurled them forward with a rising scream. Cycling through the gears he was at an insane speed when he saw the closed gate, and the slavering monster that was Chunkers.

  He braked hard and was moving at little more than a running pace when the world flickered from darkness to a dim orange twilight. The road was a potholed track, the trees were almost abstracts, with an impression of leaves and needles, the wall was a tumbledown wooden split rail fence and the gate a rotting line of mulch on the ground. They crossed with a thump and he accelerated to a near crazy twenty miles an hour.

  He didn’t return to the Anchor realm till he was ready to turn onto the main road.

  With a pulse of brilliant light and thump of air a semi rushed past almost as soon as the world dimmed from faint orange to black.

  “He’s doing at least thirty over the speed limit, where’s my ticket pad when I need it?” Zeph almost giggled into his shoulder.

  “Hold on he’s not the only one who’s going to be speeding, I think I hear chopper town starting up.” Elgin let the clutch in and fed in the gas, the big Norton roared up onto the road and accelerated. He was extremely aware of her warmth pressed against his back, her cheek on his shoulder, her breasts warm patches he had a hard time not thinking about.

  He was doing a hundred at the Beauty city line, but was down to a sedate thirty five as they whirled through the center of town. Then they were on the incline down to the sheriff’s department, an island of light and bustling activity at four thirty in the morning.