The Beast Within (10 page)

“Because we were afraid there might be an information leak,” Tony replied.

Aaron whiplashed his head to stare at his partner, mouth agape.

“And by we, I mean
I
, ma’am,” Tony continued. “Providing that information to this office could have contributed to the finalization of certain plans I believe are in the works.”

“Are you saying that you think we have a double agent in this office?”

“In one of our offices, yes. But I have nothing more than a hunch to go on. I’m sure you agree you wouldn’t want me to start crying, uh, wolf, without solid evidence.”

“And you are aware of your partner’s hunch, Agent Marvell?”

Aaron glanced from one to the other. “I…”

“Of course not. He just got here yesterday.” Tony drummed the desk’s edge with his fingertips. “He’s still figuring out which side of his computer monitor he wants his pen holder to sit on.”

“Well, you are quite the secretive man as of late, Agent Harper. Perhaps you will find the consideration to enlighten me of your agency-impacting notions now and again. Now, in fact, would be nice.” Braven leaned back in her chair, her stern rigidity eased.

Aaron nearly slumped with relief. The dark thing found it amusing that he was so unnerved by a diminutive older woman in high heels, but Aaron found nothing funny about her at all. Everyone credited Red Riding Hood as the victor, but it was the granny who had survived the interior of the Big Bad for an entire day and emerged unscathed. Aaron was fairly certain if his wolf was ever forced into a showdown with Braven, she wouldn’t stay down very easily, either.

“From reviewing the files on the California incident prior to being partnered with Agent Marvell, and from information I acquired during our investigation of the inter-dimensional doorway we were assigned yesterday, I am nearly certain there has been a breach somewhere within Kapre, and one of our agents is working against us.”

“Why were you reading files on California?” Braven asked.

Aaron tensed.

“Morbid curiosity, ma’am, as always,” Tony replied.

“Indeed.” Braven nodded. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. Apparently, there was a running joke—or at least anecdote—in regard to Tony’s interest in the particularly grim.

Aaron let out the breath he had been holding. His partner knew Braven. It was a slow, cautious twist, but Tony was wrapping her around his finger just the same as he did everyone else.

“And you feel this leak is related to the doorway?” Braven continued.

“It takes a good deal of magical skill and energy to open a door like that,” Tony replied.

“Magic some demons possess.”

“It was cleaned up after,” Aaron interjected. Both the director and his partner looked at him. “Yesterday in the warehouse I noted brush marks in the brimstone. We followed the lead to a disgruntled mystical broom manufacturer. The crafter didn’t give us specifics, but whoever hired him wanted a fast, clean job. The client got only one of his wishes. There might as well been a sign hanging that said, ‘Otherworldly entry, here’.”

“So we have a portal opened and a shoddy attempt to conceal the fact?” Braven asked.

“Most demons don’t bother with hiding their doors,” Tony said.

“There are still a hundred reasons that something would want evidence of their entry into our world expunged.”

“Which is why I said I had a hunch, and nothing else.”

For whatever reason, Tony was not bringing up the fact that Qi had all but confirmed a human had opened the portal. It didn’t make sense to admit all of these other theories and leave out the one bit of evidence they had actually gleaned, but Aaron was not about to argue when Tony had steered the conversation from disastrous to nearly congenial in less than five minutes.

“What does this portal have to do with the weres coming into our territory? What do you know about their activity?”

Aaron caught Tony’s furtive glance. He couldn’t shake his head, or give any sign without tipping off Braven, so he simply sat still and hoped Tony knew that to give up information on the invading weres would risk giving him up, as well.

“Nothing substantial.” Tony answered. “But after a quiet few months to have this happen in such close order it seems likely to be related.”

“True enough.” Braven pushed away from her desk and stood. She came around the desk and loomed over Tony and him. “I am going to make myself very clear. Your first priority is finding out why these weres are here and what they are doing. A pack of wild dogs have been slaughtered in the conservation forest. The weres are staking out territory. I need not remind you there are park rangers in there, as well. It is only a matter of time before one of them is attacked.” Braven waited for his reaction. Her point hit home, and he made sure it reflected on his face. Satisfied, she continued, “Once your bums are out of my seats they will be in a car headed for the conservation forest. The Thurisaz has been removed by our technicians so as not to attract any more attention to you than necessary. You will enter quietly and scour the area for any and all intelligence you can obtain regarding our new alien residents. You will remain unobtrusive. Do not engage, but rather bring your findings back to me alone. Everyone else will believe you are still following up on the warehouse summoning. Once you have done that, then, and only if you tread very, very carefully, will you pursue your little ‘hunch’. Do I make myself clear, gentlemen?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they answered in unison as they stood.

“Oh, and Agent Marvell?”

“Ma’am?” Aaron turned back from the door as Tony passed through ahead of him.

“Since you are right-handed, logic and convenience mandate you store your pen holder on the right side of your screen. Now that that’s settled, you can get to work with an eased mind.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aaron said. Despite his attempts at control, his mouth twitched upwards. Maybe he would yet breach that private buddy club Tony and she shared. “I will move it immediately.”

Chapter Thirteen

Six Rivers

Dappled with light and riddled with potholes, the road snaked beneath the trees into the heart of the conservation area. Tony watched the mystically enhanced GPS while Aaron drove, head tilted toward the open window, ready to catch a scent of the interlopers.

“Turn here,” Tony pointed. “The Thurisaz went up just beyond this access road’s end. Kapre’s taken it down, like Braven said, but the GPS has its residual signature pinpointed. We can walk into the woods from there, see if we can track the wolves back to their den.”

Aaron steered the car onto the dirt lane. Clouds of dust plumed around the tires, funneling into the windows. With nostrils full of chalky dirt, he abandoned the sensory search and rolled up the windows.

“The tranqs are loaded,” Tony said.

Aaron turned the car around at the end of the lane. Ease of escape was always crucial in case advantage was lost. He put the car in park and shut off the engine. He checked his sidearm and accepted the tranquilizer gun Tony passed him from the back seat.

“Remember, the tranqs will work if they’re in human form, but as wolves only a permanent disruption of their nervous system will kill them definitely. Heart and other organ wounds might heal. Depending on the age of the wolf, they might heal fast enough to remain a threat.” Aaron felt a pang of guilt in discussing the slaughter of his own kind, but it wasn’t like he was sharing anything new. The methodology of werewolf slaying was well established. Not even rookies fell for the silver bullet routine anymore. “Since it’s the week of the full moon, the strongest one or two might be able to shift already, so be careful.”

“Do you think they’re just hiding out in the woods, plotting evil deeds?” Tony asked as he climbed from the car. “Living under the trees like Robin Hood’s band of merry puppies?”

“The Six Rivers clan has historically been different than most modern werewolves. They’re clan purists. They put their faith only in their own pack. They may interact with the rest of the world to make money and buy items they can’t make for themselves, but for the most part they feel they are wolves first, humans second,” Aaron answered. He shouldered the tranq gun and checked his sidearm. “From what Carlos has told me, though, they—especially the younger ones—aren’t against having big houses, nice cars and good clothes. They’re a wealthy clan, one that could have bought half a dozen vacant buildings in town to hide out in. But, they’re here instead, which means they either they have a very specific need to be in this forest, or they are hoping if their plan falls apart, the woods will provide them a quicker, quieter getaway in wolf form.”

“Well, let’s find out which.”

“I’ll take point,” Aaron said, tapping his nose.

“What other heightened senses does being a were give you?” Tony asked. He fell in beside Aaron.

“Vision and hearing. Taste is slightly more intense, though not as much as I’d thought. But I once drank poisoned beer, so…”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“When I was fresh out of boot camp and before all of this happened to me, I held the same opinion of myself that all recent grads have of themselves— I thought I was hot shit. And thinking this, I made a bet against a demon in a bar. If I win, he comes quietly with me. I lose, he can try to beat the holy crap out of me before I acquisition him.”

“And you lost?”

“He stuck his poison tongue in my drink when I wasn’t looking.”

Tony let out a full-throated laugh. Unlike that of his glib, chipper persona, this expression of mirth was joyful, honest. It was the first true glimpse of Tony Aaron felt he had witnessed. He liked it.

“I spent a week in the infirmary, drinking counter-cures that stripped the taste buds right off of my tongue. So now, despite my newly acquired senses, my taste is a little questionable sometimes.”

“Not your taste in clothes,” Tony said. “I noticed that outfit you had on yesterday morning. Sharp.”

“I guess the werewolf heightened my sense of style, too,” Aaron deflected the compliment.

“Really? I thought all weres dressed like lumberjacks.”

Aaron grinned. “Hardly. Although, there are a good number of…outdoorsy types. Goes with the territory, I guess.”

“Speaking of territory, does killing wild dogs fall in line with how weres usually act?”

“Not especially.” Aaron pointed to a slightly beaten patch of brush. They paused. He took a few deep inhales. The musk of wolf hung faintly in the air in that direction. “This way.”

They ducked the overgrowth and emerged onto a freshly made path of trampled vegetation. “Like I said, Six Rivers is more of a back-to-basics group. And they’re more than a little crazy I’m beginning to think. Rousting the local competition for game doesn’t really fall into most weres’ interests. We’re more of a sharing-the-resources type.”

“Rousting?” Tony grinned. “There’s that old Englishman in you again.”

“I’ve had one of those,” Aaron quipped. “Well, not so much old, as older.” He tried to explain away the joke when Tony looked at him askance.

“Relax. You can joke around me. I’m on your side, promise. I screwed up before, but I want to be your friend.” The look on Tony’s face, a mixture of desperation and desire, said he wanted even more than he was admitting.

“All we’ve done is piss each other off since I got here.” Aaron turned to face him, his frustration mounting. “And I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to be friends. Maybe we can try sometime, start again, but not now. I just can’t…”

Tony cut him off by shoving him against a tree. He started to protest the untimely advance, but Tony clamped a hand over his mouth. Tony pressed his face closer. He used the forefinger laying across Aaron’s mouth to press his own lips in a silencing gesture. Tony unsnapped Aaron’s holster with his free hand then reached for his own weapon. His eyes slid to the right, indicating Aaron should do the same. Aaron obeyed. A trio of figures walked through the woods, headed away from them. Two appeared male, one female.

Dammit
. He should have heard them coming. Too busy playing round three of High School Angst with his partner of two whole days.

Aaron nodded his understanding of their situation and peeled Tony’s hand away. The wind was blowing in their direction. Aaron lifted his face into it. Sure enough, the scent of the trio drifted into his nostrils. Weres, all of them. The Six Rivers camp had to be close.

“Quietly, slowly.” His hushed voice at Tony’s ear was the lightest tickle of wind. “We’re going to back out of their sight and scent lines.”

Aaron guided Tony backwards, stepping over twigs, carefully placing his feet in soft mounds of pine needles. He pulled Tony into the spots his feet had occupied. He tried not to think of the prominent hipbones beneath his palms, the firm oblique muscles that refused to yield to his fingers’ pressure. Even as he kept wary note of the weres disappearing into the trees, his mind threw out wild images of him toppling back, pulling Tony on top of him, landing in a pile of leaves, suddenly, gloriously naked, their bodies pressed together, rigid dicks hot against their bellies…

A twig snapped under his foot. He pulled Tony down, twisting his body to control their descent. Instead of his mind’s dreamy, slow motion fall, it was a sudden collapse of intertwined limbs as he twisted them around into an advantageous position. He punched Tony’s shoulder as he reached out to halt their fall, while Tony’s head whiplashed up to hit his upper lip. He pressed over Tony to view the slight ridge they had fortunately landed behind, his belt buckle surely digging into one of his partner’s ribs. He moved carefully. If his excellent vision could pick out the weres, they certainly could see him in return. They had paused, possibly at the sound of their descent, but were now moving on. He turned his head, listening. Their muted voices carried through the quiet.

“…more rabbits…” One of the males gestured to where he and Tony hid.

“…others will be back…dinner…” the female said.

“…will be a good hunt…” the third agreed.

Their conversation lulled. The weres disappeared from view. It was odd for them to hunt when not shifted. Six Rivers, with their purist ideals, most assuredly wouldn’t be hunting with bows, guns or snares. So, what, then, did they use? A muffled groan reminded him he was still sprawled across his partner’s body.