Sorcerer: Trouble with Werewolves: Power of Air Book 2 (4 page)

Thursday, May 19
^th
, 2016, 05:30 AM

I woke up to the sound of my front door at an ungodly
hour.  I pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and opened the
door. 

Sierra wearing a white sundress with flowers and her usual
pair of sandals walked inside without a word, a concerned look on her face.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” she said in a growly voice.

I took a minute to fire up my two brain cells, the rest were
still asleep.

“I went to sleep when you didn’t call me back, I was going
to call you this morning.”

She shook her head, “Yes, but I called you back after our
pack run, and you didn’t answer the phone.  I thought you were in
trouble,” she finished with a frown, her voice still dangerous.

“Sorry if I worried you?  I must’ve slept through it,
or left it on vibrate or something.  Umm, let me check.  Do you want
some coffee?”

I walked into the kitchen and flipped on the coffee, I’d set
it to brew for seven, which was over an hour away from now.

Her voice had lost some of its edge, and regained some of
its musical quality when she replied, “I’m glad to see you unharmed. 
Sure, I’ll take a cup when it’s ready.  Why did you call?”

“Umm, let me take a shower, and I’ll explain it all to
you.  It’s for a case I need help with.”

I took a five-minute shower and got dressed, when I got back
out I poured us both a cup and started cooking a quick breakfast.  She’d
seemed genuinely worried about me, so much so she’d come all the way out to the
city and her more savage instincts had come into play.  Was it because she
cared for me, or because I was a pack ally, or both?  I wasn’t sure.

While finishing up breakfast I explained Cindy’s case, and
that my power was limited underground.

Sierra nodded, “I can track her by scent, although that will
be complicated if she got onto one of the trains, and I’ll need something with
her scent first.”

I was actually a little surprised at that, even if it was my
idea to begin with, “You can pick out a scent thirty-six hours old where
thousands of people have moved through?”

She waved that away, “Yes, scents linger for a long
time.  Think of it like picking up the single voice of a friend in a
packed stadium of screaming and talking people.  That’s how scents work
for us, we don’t smell the combination of scents like humans do, we smell them
all separately,” she added, “This is really good, thanks for breakfast.”

“Your welcome, we’re going to have to run back out to the
suburbs to pick up something with her scent.  She lives by where I grew
up.  You look really nice by the way,” I tried to slip in a compliment.

She did, it was hard to keep my eyes off of her now that I
was awake.  The sundress made her look beautiful and sweet, yet I knew the
deadly predator lurked beneath that, and that just made it more of a
draw.  That probably wasn’t typical, but I was attracted to strong
dangerous women apparently.

She winked at me with merry eyes and she had the ghost of a
smile on her face, “Thanks.  I wear these because they’re easy to get off
quickly when I need to shift, but I also like the way they look.”

I called Amy on the way to the Metra station, she promised
she’d be waiting for us with a shirt Cindy had left at the house one
time.  If it didn’t work, we could always go to Cindy’s house for
something, but I was trying to avoid that.  When we got on the train,
Sierra sat right next to me, instead of across from me, and sat very close and
took my hand.  I didn’t mind at all.

We had a lot of time to talk, an hour’s ride out of the city
and then right back in.  She had a lot of questions for me about what I
did, and how I got away with being so open to the human world as a
psychic.  Kind of hiding in plain sight.

I learned quite a bit about her as well.  She’d been in
the Chicago pack for ten years, she’d caught Derik’s attention living on her
own at twelve years old and going for solo runs in the different parks around
Chicago.  She wasn’t quite sure what happened to her parents, or where she
came from, but she was in the foster system which caused issues because humans
didn’t understand her.  She’d never shifted in front of them, hiding it by
instinct, but there were still obvious differences, so she’d run away at twelve
at the urging of her inner wolf.

Her wolf wasn’t a separate entity exactly as far as I could
tell, the way she explained it was her wolf guided her, but never spoke to her
in words.  In a way, it sounded kind of the way the power of air guided me
to do things without me knowing exactly why.  I never questioned that,
because when it happened I usually managed to do something good, like save a
child, but I was still curious about it.

But from what she said, I believed that guidance for her was
more than just a simple feeling, and approached an urging she almost couldn’t
resist.  I chose not to ignore my feelings for obvious reasons, but she
would have a harder time fighting than I would.  She also explained that’s
why she was so immediately accepting of me, her wolf liked me apparently, which
was a good sign as far as I was concerned.

It was hard to believe the beautiful self-possessed woman in
front of me had ever been in that situation when she was younger, but
apparently the pack had taken her in and it was now her family.  The one
thing I didn’t ask her about was the thing I wanted to know most, was her
flirting just the physical affection a wolf showed their pack, or was she
attracted to me?  I’d need to ask her soon, awkward or not, or at least,
ask her on a date.  Definitely that second one, it would be much less
awkward that way.

We got off the train and spotted my cousin right away, she
was startled when she spotted me, since I was still holding Sierra’s
hand.  She put a smile on her face that indicated she might have a
question or two for me later and handed me the shirt.

Amy cleared her throat and looked meaningfully at Sierra.

“Amy, this is Sierra, Sierra, this is my cousin Amy,
although she’s more like my sister since we grew up together.”

Sierra squeezed my hand twice to tell me she had the scent
and we wouldn’t need to go to Cindy’s house, which was a good thing.  Then
she smiled at Amy.

“I’m helping him out with this one.”

Amy looked like she didn’t quite buy that, especially since
Sierra and I were holding hands, but she didn’t say anything about it
apparently too worried about her friend to tease me as I would have expected
her to do.

Amy asked, “So you’ll be able to what, kick start your inner
psychic with the shirt?”

Sierra answered, “Something like that, we need to catch the
train going back, but I’ll make sure he calls you as soon as we know
something.”

Amy got tears in her eyes, “Thank you,” and turned away and
moved off quickly trying to hide her tears.

We got off the platform and walked up the other side. 
It was a lot more crowded for the trip back into the city, so we couldn’t talk
about anything supernatural related.  I learned the pack made their money
with a few businesses.  Construction, new housing developments mostly, and
a landscaping business.  I wasn’t surprised they’d do work that kept them
outside.

We were just pulling into the station when my phone went
off, it was my aunt. 
Who is this Sierra person, why didn’t you tell me
you were dating, and when will you be bringing her by?

Awesome, just what I needed… thanks Amy.

It was just after nine when we made it over to Clark and
Lake.  I’d been dreading this moment, and thinking about it for a
while.  Aitheria wasn’t happy at all when I started down the steps next to
Sierra.  I connected to fire, and created a shield of sorts, or at least
that was my intent, to hide the elemental air inside of me from the earth
itself.  I wasn’t sure if it would work, and there was only one way to
find out.

“What’s wrong, you’re horribly tense.”

I smiled weakly, “I’ll be alright, I just feel cut off a bit
when below ground.”

When we made it down the seemingly endless escalator, I
learned it was partially successful.  The air inside me tightened up, and
I still felt an unreasonable fear, as if I didn’t belong here, I was breaking
some law by being here.  It was maddeningly absurd, but it was how I
felt.  What I didn’t feel was any menace from the outside, as if my shield
of fire was hiding my nature from the earth elementals.

It was still uncomfortable, but I could handle it.  It
didn’t hurt that Sierra was with me, I couldn’t let myself run away crying like
a little girl in front of her after all.  Sometimes there were good uses
for stubborn male pride.  Still, I had to concentrate to make sure I kept
up with things, like breathing.

It didn’t take long for Sierra to find the trail.

“This way, whatever happened, she didn’t get on a train.”

She led me over to an employee only door that led who knows
where.  A little known fact of Chicago is that it has six different tunnel
systems under the loop, CTA being only one of them.  Sierra forced the
door and we entered some kind of maintenance tunnel.  I felt like I was
being dragged to my doom…

I let Sierra guide us, she followed the scent through a
series of tunnels, often dodging into a side tunnel or room when she heard
someone coming.  I wasn’t exactly helpless down here, but my range with
fire wasn’t as large as air, maybe twenty-five feet instead of a hundred. 
By the time I felt the body heat of someone approaching it would’ve been too
late.

It was about a half an hour of walking and sneaking when we
reached a door to a storage area.  The door itself was metal that looked
rusted and old, the padlock however looked relatively new.  I was about to
burn it when Sierra grabbed the bottom and twisted it.  The sound of metal
protesting filled the hall for a moment, before the plink as it broke.

Is it wrong that I was a little turned on by that?

She winked at me, and pulled the broken metal off and opened
the door.  It was dark as we went inside, Sierra turned on a hanging light
that had a string on the chain, and then went deeper into what turned out to be
a really large storage area, almost warehouse sized excepting the much lower
twelve-foot ceiling.

  When we got to the back I heard Sierra growl
dangerously at what we found.  There were four large cages, about the size
for a large canine, two of them had young woman inside, Cindy, and a girl even
younger, maybe fifteen or sixteen.  There was no one else here however.

“Can you let them out, I’ll call the cops and look for
something that might be connected to this asshole, maybe once I’m back up top
I’ll be able to see who did this.”

Sierra nodded fiercely but softened her stance when she
approached the cages.

“We’re here to get you out, you’re safe now,” she said in a
soft melodic voice.

I called Mike, let him know where I was, and the room number
of the storage area, I figured he’d find it just fine with the help of a city
worker.  There was a bed next to the cages, with handcuffs, as well as
several sex toys.  I had to take a deep breath to calm down, before I
accidentally set the bed on fire.  All kidnappers were bad, but this guy
was the worst kind.

I didn’t really want to touch any of it, and was relieved
when I saw the key to the cages hanging on a nail by the bed.  I grabbed
that and slipped it into my pocket, it should work well enough to identify the
guy later.  Sierra didn’t need it; she’d already ripped the doors
off.  I felt a rage growing in me again as I heard Cindy’s and the other
girl’s sobs.

I said softly, “I’m going to wait by the door okay?”

Sierra just nodded as she tried to handle the two young
woman, at least they were fully dressed.  It was more than me just not
wanting to see the aftermath of the evil man that took them, I knew the last
thing the girls needed was to be around a guy right now.  So I waited at
the door for Mike to show up.

It was almost an hour later when Mike and Aiya showed up
with two female paramedics, and a number of other officers including a crime
scene analyst.  Explaining Sierra’s presence was a juggling act, I just
told Mike I had a feeling a woman was needed, and she was a friend.  It
was kind of weak, and Mike knew I was hiding something, but he trusted me
enough to shrug it off.  Aiya on the other hand was looking at Sierra
speculatively, she must have known Sierra was another supernatural, but of
course all she could do was speculate, I couldn’t tell her either.

By the time Sierra and I were released from the crime scene
and made it back upstairs, it was almost noon, three hours after we’d gone down
there.  The feeling of being back up in open air was amazing as I felt the
power rush back into me, connected once again to the air all around me, feeling
everything within a hundred feet, something I was starting to take for granted.

Aitheria sent as she hugged my neck tightly, “
It’s about
damn time, I was going crazy up here waiting for you damn it.”

I quirked a smile, “
Sorry Ria, had to be done.  We
rescued two young women if that makes a difference to you.
”

Aitheria sent, “
You’re my only concern, but yes, I
understand why you did it.
”

I took out my phone and sent a text message to both Mike and
Aiya.  The key worked and I sent the address and the job the abductor did
for the city along with his name, Daniel Burns.  Luckily the key had just
given me the man’s information, and memories of opening and closing the
cage.  Perhaps it was more than that, maybe my power itself knew I didn’t
want to see it, so I didn’t have to suffer through knowing and seeing what had
happened on that mattress.  I’d make sure the bastard didn’t get away one
way or the other, but I’d let Mike and Aiya have the first crack at the man.