Shifter's Claim (The Shadow Shifters) (8 page)

*   *   *

Bas stopped where he stood. He waited a beat, his hand paused over the knob of the door leading to the conference room. He was late by about fifteen minutes and it couldn’t have been helped. Maybe it could have had he not given into a basic need, a need that continued to claw at him. But he was here now and they were waiting for him. They had to pull out soon if they were going to make it in time for the drop-off.

Still, Bas didn’t move.

He inhaled deeply, released it slowly, and felt a now-familiar tug inside. It was as if the beast had begun stalking the human, taunting him with what it thought was an inevitability. This time Bas would not give in, not even an inch. He pushed back, sending the beast an undeniable message.

Not here. Not now.

Bas had changed into dark khakis and a polo shirt, the closest he could get to dressing casually. On his feet were his black steel-toed Timberland boots, probably the most urban item he owned. In his front right pants pocket was his cell phone, in the left his keys. He focused on the here and now, the important things versus the unthinkable.

Then there was a sound. He looked down the hall to his left. Nothing.

Conference rooms were located on the second floor. They didn’t book many conferences here as he preferred the place to be used as a serene getaway and not another place to work. There were no guest rooms or other amenities, just the conference rooms. And only one conference room was in use at the moment. So why did he believe someone else was there?

As quickly as the sense of … who, he wasn’t quite sure, had appeared, it disappeared and Bas cursed softly under his breath. For the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, Bas felt off, unbalanced, and uncertain of something as normal as walking down a hallway. He didn’t like this feeling, not one bit.

“What if this is a setup?” Paolo, a guard with the deceptive looks of a teenager, spoke as Bas finally entered the room.

Paolo had been one of Bas’s blue team members for the last two years and in that time the shifter had more than proven his worth. For that reason, and because he was active in the community as the head of a nonprofit that helped to keep wayward teens off the streets, Bas had a tremendous amount of respect for him.

“We’re planning for that contingency,” Bas chimed in, determined to keep his head in the game.

Jacques, who sat to Bas’s left, ran his fingers slowly over the screen of his iPad. “I’m sending pictures to everyone’s phone,” he announced.

“These are the faces of the rogues who were reportedly at that warehouse in D.C. before it exploded,” Bas told them. “But not after.”

“So these are the ones we’re looking for tonight?” Syfon, the blue team leader, asked from the far end of the room.

“We’re looking for anyone who has something to do with that shipment. Whether it’s a driver or a runner or the goddamned ringleader, I want him,” Bas told them emphatically. “Preferably alive.”

“Rogues don’t come willingly,” Syfon announced, as if it needed to be confirmed.

Paolo gave him a smirk. “And we don’t ask politely.”

“I want everyone to stay sharp out there. We have no idea who may have been given the grand task this time. And if these are the same synthetic drugs that have been killing off humans in D.C., I don’t want them arriving on American soil on my watch. Am I understood?”

Jacques looked around the room to the legion of twenty guards he’d trained personally. When his gaze returned to Bas they both looked to Paolo whose stare was aimed directly at them. The three of them nodded and Syfon stood first.

“Understood, FL,” he said, giving Bas another nod. Then he gave a motion with his right hand, two fingers up, turning in a small circle. The others around the table stood, giving the same signal—the blue team solidarity motion—and they headed out of the room.

“Paolo’s a good soldier, albeit sometimes he can be a loose cannon,” Jacques said when only he and Bas were left in the room.

Bas nodded. “He is. That’s why I want you to keep him close.” No other words were needed. Bas and Jacques had been together for a long time, Jacques being elevated to Lead Enforcer about ten seconds after Bas had been named FL. They were partners in this mission and damn good friends. So Jacques knew exactly why Bas wanted Paolo kept close and agreed with him wholeheartedly. It’s also why Bas felt safe in what he was about to ask.

“Do you smell it?” he asked, his voice’s timbre lower than it had been seconds ago.

Jacques nodded. “The adrenaline is high. They’re ready to hunt in whatever form you command.”

Bas shook his head. “I don’t want any shifting,” he told Jacques adamantly.

It was nothing new that Bas preferred his soldiers to fight as humans. Outside the canyon and the resort there was a small town of about two thousand residents. The last thing they needed was to believe that among all the other legends and folklore that went with the canyon’s history, that there were also cat people living in the mountains.

But that had not been the scent Bas was referring to. And since it had been Jacques’s first response that meant he likely had not picked up the scent Bas had. In all actuality Bas wasn’t sure he’d actually picked up a scent. It was more like a feeling, a presence that brought with it the taste of a yearning he’d always dreaded.

Chapter 8

Nogales, Arizona

They were late, Palermo Greer swore as he waited at the base of the tunnel. It was almost ten forty-five and they were supposed to do the pickup at ten a.m. sharp. He didn’t pace, like Black, the six-foot-five-inch-tall shifter who was built like a running back and had the personality of the feral cat that he was.

“We wait ten more minutes,” Palermo said solemnly. The hair along the base of his neck stood straight up, his cat pressing like a giant boulder against his spine, ready to break free for any reason. They were alone out here, standing in a building looking down a hole that went more than fifty feet down. The tunnels had taken two years to build and were perfected with a state-of-the-art ventilation system, beamed walls, and six-foot-high ceilings. It began at the back of a building at the border checkpoint in Mexico and ran the length of two football fields to this abandoned strip mall in Nogales. This was Palermo’s first time being near one, but he’d seen the blueprints and knew exactly where the rogues bringing the shipment in would meet him and how they would use the rope and pulley to lift the drugs up into the building.

That’s where they stood right now, at the top, waiting for the signal that the shipment was ready for transport.

“If they don’t show we’re fucking screwed,” Black mumbled on another pass by the spot where Palermo was leaning against a wall.

“They’ll show,” Palermo stated, his eyes glued to the opening in the floor. Watching. Waiting.

“What if they don’t?”

“They will,” he grumbled.

Black slapped a beefy fist into the palm of his other hand. “They’re late.”

“I know,” Palermo said with a nod.

“And you’re not fucking pissed off? I am! They’re wasting our time. We should be back in D.C. working with Darel to build our base.”

The shifter was talking about Darel Charles, the rogue shifter who now thought he was running things after the cold-blooded way in which he’d cut Sabar out of the picture. Black was afraid of Darel. Palermo wasn’t, because he knew that despite Darel’s posturing and grandstanding he couldn’t run this operation by himself. That had never been the plan. Unfortunately, Darel had no clue what was actually going on around him, and Palermo planned to keep it that way.

“They’re here,” he said finally, pushing from the wall he’d been leaning against and going to stand right over the hole in the floor.

Black joined him, breathing harder than was necessary but Palermo knew that wasn’t from any type of exertion. Instead it was the rogue’s adrenaline pumping. He was ready for anything and so was Palermo. Reaching behind his back he slipped out the UK semiautomatic rifle. The rifles were designed by Robert Slakeman at Slakeman Enterprises and were intended for use by the US military, or the military of some other country. Instead, for whatever reason, Slakeman had sold them to the highest bidder. And now they were in the hands of the rogues, an army of such warriors the humans could never have fathomed.

A golden light appeared at the bottom of the hole, it flashed four times, then went completely dark. Palermo looked up to Black then nodded. Black grabbed hold of the rope that had been tied and wrapped around a nail just beneath the entrance of the hole. The rogue then reached up with his thick arms, punching in one of the rectangular ceiling panels from its base. Overhead there was a metal drum that Black laced the rope over and around. He let the length of the rope fall down to the base of the hole. Minutes ticked by and Black looked from the hole up to the drum then back down to the hole again.

Palermo, however, looked in another direction. He looked at the door that they’d come through. They were in the center building of the strip mall, the place that used to be an old hardware store. The windows were intact, but they’d been spray-painted on just like the walls. The door was relatively new as they’d installed a keypad lock system to keep out unwanted guests. But that wasn’t what Palermo was concerned with. What bothered him was the scent he’d just picked up, the musky rainforest fragrance that could only belong to one other species. With his finger on the trigger he stepped away from the hole.

“Where you going?” Black asked him. “We’re about to get to work here.”

Palermo ignored him initially until he was standing right in front of the windows looking out into the night. He saw nothing and yet he knew it was there, he knew
they
were there. Raising his arm, ready to fire at will, he whispered, “We’ve got company.”

*   *   *

“Are you sure this is where we’re supposed to be?” Paolo asked Jacques as they stood in the parking lot of what looked like a totally abandoned strip mall.

Around them was nothing but deserted land, dirt, and dirt, and even more dirt. There was no humidity, just what felt like a fleece blanket draped over them so that each time they breathed it was stale air that clogged their lungs instead of helping to reinflate them. It was dark, no street, so no streetlights. Luckily for them shifters possessed night vision all the time. Still, as Bas looked around he frowned, because there was absolutely nothing to see.

What probably used to be a thriving mall was about eighty thousand square feet, half of that consisting of parking lot while the rest was dilapidated buildings. About ten miles down the road, back in the direction they’d just come from, was an abandoned trailer park, units still sitting on cinder blocks. Now there was no one, not in the trailer park and not at the mall. The idea of a mass evacuation sat like a rock in his chest and his fists clenched at his sides.

“This is where the e-mail said to come. The drop-off is being done here, tonight,” Bas said solemnly.

“Well, there ain’t nothing here for us to intercept now, is there?” A shifter by the name of Kaz, who acted like Paolo’s personal shadow, asked with a chuckle, only to receive a scathing glare from both Bas and Jacques.

Paolo wasn’t as subtle with his reprimand, punching Kaz squarely in the chest. “If the FL says this is the spot, this is the spot!”

Kaz nodded tightly.

“Take those five with you and go around that side, check every building, and yell if you see something,” Bas instructed Syfon. “You,” he said, pointing to Paolo, “start down that end and work your way into the center.”

As the shifters dispersed Bas looked to Jacques, and continued. “You and I will take the back.”

“Kaz, you come with us.” Jacques snapped his fingers at the tall, muscled shifter and picked up his pace behind Bas who had already begun walking around to the back of the building.

Bas’s plan tonight had been to come here and intercept the drug shipment, to hopefully grab the ones doing the drop and take them back to the bunker for questioning. By morning he would have a complete written report to send to Rome. Something, a tiny slither at the base of his spine, told Bas things weren’t going to go according to his plan.

They walked slowly, each of them looking around. Bas could sense the other cats around him, all ready to break free and hunt by way of their true nature. But they knew it wasn’t allowed. Bas preferred to fight in human form whenever possible. And after his latest stay in D.C. he was more than adamant about the nonshifting rule he’d implemented the moment he’d taken charge of his own zone. Jacques understood that rule just as well as Bas did and made sure to enforce it throughout the training of all new guards on their team.

“They’re here,” Jacques announced, interrupting Bas’s thoughts.

“Where?” Bas asked, shaking off the memory of D.C. as best he could and looking in the direction of his Lead Guard.

Jacques inhaled deeply. “The rogue stench is strong and coming from that middle unit there.”

Jacques nodded and Bas pulled out his M9, holding it by his side as he moved. Jacques carried a similar sidearm as they’d both at one point been Marines. Bas was more comfortable with the M110 semiautomatic sniper rifle and carried one in the back of his truck at all times. But tonight called for something a little less formal, or at least that’s what he thought as he approached the building.

They were about ten feet away from the gleaming gray steel door that was totally out of place in the otherwise condemned building.

“Pretty state-of-the-art for one building among so many others that don’t even have doors, don’t you think?” Jacques asked.

“Complete with a control pad and if I’m guessing correctly, by looking at the cord running around the door and the windows, a security system as well,” Bas observed.

From his side Jacques coughed and frowned. “And the stench grows worse. I’m calling for the others,” he said, turning his face a little more to the right so he could speak directly into the com link in the collar of his shirt. “Back lot, center building. Now!”

“Too late!” Bas yelled, raising his arm to take aim about two seconds before a hail of bullets blasted through the front window of the building they’d been approaching.