Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4) (13 page)

Most porters kept the entrance to their portal quiet. Since portals were sited at cellar level, the buildings that hid them could be anything, and around the world, ranged from private homes to the Suzerain’s fort. Where the portal existed in an area likely to have many and curious mundanes, porters employed various magics to distract, obscure and flat out hide the comings and goings of magical people using their portal. No one wanted mundane authorities asking questions.

However, the London porter was a little different to most, and his quirkiness seemed linked to the traditions of his portal.

For a start, rather than hiding discreetly in a private building, the portal in Drury Lane occupied the cellar of an extraordinarily popular pub. Actors and minor celebrities, tourists and busy Londoners crowded in for traditional food served hot and fast in a genuine English pub. It had oak beams, stained by centuries of London smog, wooden settees and bentwood chairs, small tables, long counters and brass. Lots of brass and a few foggy mirrors.

As a were, the magics that obscured the operation of the portal and its many visitors didn’t affect Liz. Nonetheless, it was always eerie to walk along the wall of the main bar unnoticed by its many patrons. Not a head turned, not even now with two dozen people stalking grimly through to a door marked simply,
Cellar
. Magic hid them.

Down the stairs they went, and there was the porter, Trevor.

He looked like a stereotypical publican, so much so that it had to be a conscious decision. Camouflage.

But when he saw Liz, he stopped smiling.

The jolly, chubby-faced, gently balding persona fell away, and the power of the portal he owned surged around him. He pulled Liz in for a bear hug. “That Brandon. What a rotten bastard. I never would have guessed it. You okay, luv?”

“Yes, Trevor. If you’ll let me breathe.”

He laughed, gruff and a bit embarrassed. “I was there at your christening, love. I’m entitled to worry.” He looked at David, Liz’s dad. “I hadn’t heard any rumors about Brandon till you started asking. I’ve put the word out that I want answers, too. You’ve got the were community, but I have everyone who wants to travel to London via portal. I’ll pass on what I learn.”

“Thank you.”

“All right.” Trevor clapped his hands together. “You know the drill. Hold hands, ladies and gents, and I’ll pass you along.” He shouted into the portal. “You there, Faroud?”

The Alexandrian porter acknowledged that he was.

Holding tight to Carson’s hand, Liz accepted Trevor’s. The human chain of hand-clasped weres stepped into the in-between. Trevor released her hand and Faroud clasped it. She stepped out into the familiar, vast, vaulted chamber beneath the Suzerain’s fort.

Lilith, head of security at the fort, waited for them. She pulled Liz into yet another hug, before releasing her to hug Michelle. Liz’s mom and Lilith were old friends.

“We have Brandon Moffatt waiting in the court,” Lilith said. “Steve and Fay and the two marshals with them are just finishing a meal. They’ll meet us there.”

There was a tired but alert grimness to their group. Without talking, they walked up the wide stone staircase. Carson walked a step behind Liz. In other circumstances, she’d have asked him if it was his first visit to the ancient fort. But today, idle conversation died unuttered. As familiar as the fort was to her, she felt the weight of it. They were walking to judgement.

Steve and Fay waited for them in the corridor outside the court. Steve looked severe. Fay sipped coffee and had the unobtrusive yet unmistakable vibe of someone keeping watch. Standing guard.

Michelle took one look at them and started fussing. “Did you get any sleep?” She touched Fay’s shoulder, rubbed Steve’s back.

“We’ll catch some when this is done.” Steve’s gaze ran over the group. “We have a hundred or so watchers already in the court. We’re not bothering with chairs. This won’t take long.”

And that was ominous.

His focus shifted to Liz. He gave her a small smile, a brother’s reassurance, before his gaze moved to Carson.

A message seemed to run between the two men. Carson closed the small distance between her and him; his chest against her back in a promise of support and protection.

Steve nodded, and walked into the court.

Fay avoided everyone’s eyes, put her empty coffee mug down on a narrow hall-table, and followed him. As the Suzerain’s mate, she had no power to judge, not even if she’d been were rather than a mage. But she could be there for Steve, and evidently, she intended to be.

This would be only the second time he delivered judgement as the Suzerain, and it was on a case emotionally close to him.

People were watching. They were curious.

What defense of his actions could Brandon offer?

Liz took a deep breath and followed her grandfather and parents into the court.

The court at the heart of the Suzerain’s fort was an ancient room. Liz had visited her granddad here hundreds of times before the heavy, inherited responsibility of the Suzerainty passed from him to Steve. Granddad and Grand-mère had retired to Brittany, to a chateau near the village where Grand-mère had been born. Now, it was Steve who strode to the center of the court.

People arranged themselves in a semi-circle in front of him, feet scuffing against the stone floors, coughs and rustles signaling their re-settling.

Liz waited to one side with Carson, their backs to the immense boardroom table that had been pushed against a wall to accommodate everyone.

Fay stood in the front corner near the table. She mightn’t be a were, but she had a predator’s wary instincts. From that position, she could watch the whole room.

Liz watched the doorway to the holding cell that was tucked behind the room’s front wall. It was at the far side from where they waited near Fay. Nonetheless, Liz had a clear view across the empty flagstones that separated Steve from the gathered crowd. She saw Brandon enter.

He walked into a silent room. He wore hiking gear, and, stripped of his customary business suits, he looked broader, stronger, and tougher. Nor did he appear ashamed. His head was up, his eyes fierce, and his mouth set in a thin, brutal line. He was angry.

Beside Liz, Carson shifted his weight forward onto the balls of his feet. It was a stance of attack.

A low growl came from the audience. Others resented Brandon’s attitude, too.

But others had their eyes on Steve, and they seemed wary. Remote. Reserving judgement.

Liz glanced at her family and saw their anger, controlled though it was. And their anger wasn’t all for Brandon.

Understanding rocked her.

Brandon wasn’t the only one on trial, here. Steve’s future Suzerainty was as well.

Unfair!
Rage blasted through her, washing away all her other confused, regretful and unhappy emotions regarding Brandon’s behavior in a torrent of cleansing fury.

Steve hadn’t asked for the Suzerainty. It had been forced on him; not simply an inheritance, but the gift and burden of a meddling djinn.

Liz cast a look up to the ceiling, but there was no sign of Uncle, as her family called the djinn who had taken the were community as his own millennia ago.

Uncle seldom appeared, and when he did, it was generally to the current Suzerain. Steve and Fay had been thrust into danger only weeks ago when the djinn had them…

Liz froze. Even her breathing stopped for an instant.

Steve and Fay had nearly died chasing, then fighting, a crazed jackal-were who’d partnered with an untrained, scarily unstable mage to enslave the dream essences of two dozen weres. Steve and Fay had saved those weres, but the horror of what they’d seen—the gut-wrenching, sick horror of slavery—had left indelible scars.

When Steve judged Brandon, any involvement of the accused wolf-were in human trafficking would damn him.

As it should.

How much did Uncle know of the treachery and abuse that ran as a dirty undercurrent through every society, even among the weres? Had her granddad been retired early from the Suzerainty because Uncle knew they needed Steve’s strength—and Fay’s—to clean house?

Liz inhaled sharply, her lungs starved for air.

The matter addressed in the court today went far beyond Brandon’s attack on her. It was about lines in the sand. The Suzerainty did not police the weres, not on every matter. Good and bad, weres went their way, taking their chances with human justice as everyone did. But some crimes were heinous.

Across the chamber, Brandon scowled at her. Anger held his broad, powerful body in tense lines. His glare said he blamed her for his predicament.

She glared back at him.

He’d wanted to marry her for the power of money and family connections she’d bring him. Then he’d tried to kill her and Daria.
Bastard
.

She had to grab Carson’s sleeve when he’d have moved protectively in front of her, putting himself between her and the threat—again.

But this time she knew the danger, and also knew that she was safe, physically.

As for the emotional threat?
I am stronger than you
, she thought ragefully at Brandon. People like him who destroyed lives were always weaker than those who healed them. The world mightn’t always see it that way, but it was the truth. Good was stronger than evil.

“Brandon Moffatt.” Steve’s voice sounded deeper in the court. It rolled effortlessly through the chamber, silencing the restless movements of the crowd. “Who will accuse him?”

John, their grandfather, stepped forward to speak. It had to be a pre-determined strategy between him and Steve, probably with her parents and Uncle Phil’s involvement. They would have plotted and planned, while she’d been distancing herself from the emotional pain of Brandon’s betrayal of the pack and her.

No more.

“I do.” Liz spoke up strongly. “I accuse Brandon Moffatt of betrayal against a pack member. He ordered the invasion of my home by a rogue mage.” She started with that accusation since, despite Fay’s presence in the court, weres’ remained traditionally averse to involving magic in their dealings. “He sent mundane mercenaries into my home to do violence, while the mage kidnapped with the intent to torture and kill, a woman under my protection. More than that, Brandon did so as a favor to a human trafficker.”

In her peripheral vision, Liz saw Fay take a single step forward, a small reminder to all present that she’d fought an enslaver for them, for all weres. It was also a reminder that Steve had fought the enslaver, too, and that he would not judge a slave trader lightly.

Nor should anyone among the weres want him to.

Liz’s grandfather stepped back, silently conceding her right and her ability to stand accuser in the court.

She felt Carson’s strength beside her.

Her voice didn’t waver. “I don’t know what evidence there is of Brandon’s personal involvement in human trafficking. I would like to believe he wasn’t involved. I hate to believe that any were could deal in slavery.”

A visceral sound of disgust rolled through the crowd. Those weres who had come here to judge Steve as their new Suzerain were reminded of the real man—and issue—on trial.

“We are stronger than mundanes,” Liz said. “Not smarter or braver or more deserving of anything. But our strength should not be used to abuse, certainly not to enslave.” She linked her fingers with Carson’s. “Yesterday, Brandon drove a car at Carson and me with the clear intent to murder, and thus, silence me. He knew I was the only one who could reveal his sole presence as the one person, the one were, who could have detected Daria—the victim and survivor of human trafficking—and ordered her abduction from my home. And Brandon nearly succeeded. If I had been alone, I’d have died. When I saw Brandon driving at me, I froze. A split second of disbelief that a pack member—” her voice shook “—could do this to me. Fortunately, Carson didn’t freeze. He acted, and his quick reflexes, his willingness to save me first, at the price of his own pain and possible death, saved us both.”

Steve waited a beat, letting the silence fill with people thinking through the charges against Brandon. The attack on a pack member was outrageous, but would normally have been dealt with within the pack. Liz’s accusation was broader: that Brandon trafficked in human misery; that he profited from a modern slave trade.

“You all know that Liz is my sister, my younger sister,” Steve addressed the crowd. “You wonder if my natural anger at her attacker will skew my judgement. We took longer to track him down to his hiding place, a houseboat on the Thames, because we—the marshals—were running simultaneous investigations. What we found is proof, indisputable and disgusting, that Brandon Moffatt is not only involved in human trafficking, but assumed the role of chief slaver when the man who previously filled that vile role in Britain, Andrew Thirkell, was jailed.”

Liz stared at Brandon in horror. Andrew Thirkell had used Daria as a sex slave, abused, degraded and finally ordered her death. And Brandon had stepped willingly into that monster’s shoes. “No. Dear God, no. Brandon, you have daughters.”

Brandon ignored her.

Steve stayed with procedure. “The rogue mage who broke into Liz’s home is angry with Brandon for bringing him to the Collegium and weres’ attention, and has provided a lot of information on Brandon’s role in the criminal gang stretching across Europe and into the Middle East. The information has been double-checked and survives scrutiny. Other informants have supplied limited but crucial evidence. By operating with mundanes and occasionally employing magical assistance, Brandon Moffatt kept his activities outside were circles. He made a point of doing so. He knew what he was doing was beyond contempt.”

Steve paused. “The clerk of the court has compiled the evidence and presented it to Brandon Moffat. Brandon Moffatt has signed in blood a confession of his guilt.”

Dear heaven.
Given Brandon’s anger, the evidence had to have been conclusive or he’d have fought it. It had to be damning if he didn’t want it read aloud in court. Was his silence, in some small way, to protect his daughters?

“The enslavement of anyone—were, mundane or magical—has never, and will never, be tolerated by the were community,” Steve said. “Brandon Moffatt is excommunicated from the Beo Pack and from all packs. He will be delivered to the mundane authorities in London, along with the evidence the marshals have collated on his activities, associates and financial holdings. Blood money.” Steve’s voice harshened with revulsion.

“Brandon Moffatt.” Steve turned to the man scowling at them all and flexing the muscles of his bull-like shoulders. “You may speak.”

Liz hadn’t been aware of any magic, but then, as a were, she wouldn’t be. However, the djinn’s power could bind even weres. Apparently, the court could gag a defendant.

Brandon burst into speech. “I regret nothing. Only the short-sighted stupidity of your complacency. Weres could rule the world. We have the power—”

From empty air, ropes appeared and bound Brandon’s arms. Tape plastered across his mouth and sealed in his rantings.

Fay walked to Steve. You could have heard a pin drop in the silent court. “We exist in balance. Magic can’t affect weres directly, but nor does it have to in order to act against you. Rules—limits—exist to keep us all safe.” She looked at Brandon. “For what you did to Liz, and to all your victims, you should rot in hell.”

Agreement swelled from the crowd, along with a touch of awe and respect as the magic-disdaining weres accepted Fay as one of theirs.

Fay and Steve didn’t touch, but their mate-bond was almost visible. Steve would deliver judgment, but Fay stood with him.

“Brandon Moffatt, you are found unfit to be were,” Steve said.

A boom shook the court; hard enough that three among the watching weres lost their balance and fell.

The ropes dropped from Brandon’s arms. He tore the tape off his mouth. “You can’t take who I am from me.”

“I have,” Steve said heavily. There was no satisfaction in his voice. No triumph of vengeance achieved. “Try to shift.”

After puberty, shifting forms was a natural, easy process.

Brandon stayed human. His face contorted. He snarled and lunged at Steve.

Steve hit him. One powerful, carefully calculated blow to the jaw.

Brandon went down.

“No longer were,” Steve said into the shocked silence. “Slower, weaker, mundane.” He looked at the two marshals who hadn’t attempted to restrain Brandon. Had they guessed how he’d react and received Steve’s order not to intervene if the no-longer-were attempted to attack him? “Take him to the London police. Their legal system can handle him, now.”

Brandon’s unconscious body was scooped up unceremoniously and dragged from the room.

“Judgement delivered,” Steve said. “Court closed.”

But all that closed was formal proceedings. People mobbed him and Fay to comment, question, and exclaim over happenings. One or two approached the clerk of the court, and copies of the evidence against Brandon were quietly shared.

Liz decided she didn’t want to read it. At least, not today.

Across the chamber, Lilith, as head of fort security, was maintaining order. A word here, a gesture there, and marshals split off, busy about the maintenance of Steve’s security and the emotional temperature of the room.

Right now, the weres had accepted Steve’s judgement.

Liz took a moment to consider her own relative peace. No one had approached her with questions or concern. Had Steve issued instructions or Lilith taken it upon herself to spare Liz curiosity and well-meant fussing?

Then Liz saw one of the marshals, an American wolf-were she knew from previous visits to the fort. The man approached, eyes on her, evidently about to say something. Liz braced for a bruising hug. The wolf-were, Sykes, didn’t know his own strength.

Sykes veered off, contenting himself with a nod and a tight smile at her before his gaze slid onwards.

Liz turned her head.

Carson stood, crowding her personal space—something she hadn’t noticed, just relied on—and non-verbally warning off everyone.