All Hell Breaks Loose (12 page)

“It’s going to be your ghost wandering around if you don’t have a very good reason for disturbing us,” Julius growled, though Gabi could hear there was no real anger in the retort.

Alexander’s smirk grew wider even as his voice turned serious.  “I had a call from Patrick,” he stated, referring to the
Werewolf
in charge of daytime security for Julius’s rather extensive business empire. Gabi had met him once; he was an ex-military man with a cool, calm, capable demeanour.  “He had an interesting visit this afternoon from a group of men claiming to be from Civil Defence.”

Gabi stiffened in shock.

Chapter 6

Derek looked as bushed as she felt when they finally pulled up outside her house.  The thought of a hot shower and a warm bed was the only thing keeping her upright at that point.  Dawn was only an hour or so away.
After Gabi had filled Julius and Alexander in on her recent exploits with
Werewolves
and the fake government agents, she’d taken them to meet Derek.  He’d managed to keep it together admirably well, though his stress levels had been so high that they’d kept the meeting short and to the point.  They’d left him with Trish and Jonathon while she’d gone with the Vampires to get the story from Patrick.  Kyle had joined them at Julius’s downtown head office.  What they’d learned from the security man made the whole situation seem even more sinister than before.  Kyle was going to speak to the SMV Council in the morning.  Gabi was sure they’d all be summoned to a meeting very shortly.

“You can grab the first shower if you like,” she told Derek as she dragged herself out of the car.  “I’ll go and check on Roman.”  She was so tired she didn’t at first register that Razor hadn’t arrived at the door to give her his traditional welcome home greeting.  It was only when she was halfway to the run around the back of the house when it occurred to her.  She sighed.  Apparently she still hadn’t been forgiven for bringing Roman home.  She’d have to do some grovelling before she went to bed tonight, or she might wake up to a ruined house. 
Unless it was already too late.
  “Damn,” she cursed into the darkness.  The last time Razor had been pissed at her he’d destroyed most of the furniture in her lounge, the time before that had been her bed.  What
was he
going to prove his point on tonight, she wondered.

“Hello, gorgeous boy,” she greeted the big dog as he came out of the huge kennel, yawning and stretching, to greet her.  She meant only to check that he was fine and content, but she couldn’t resist slipping into the cage to give him some love and attention.  She promised him a run in the morning and encouraged him to get back to his comfy bed in the lion-sized kennel.  Then she retraced her steps to the house.

“Gabi?”
  Derek’s voice
came from inside as she neared the front door. “Um, are you nearby?”  He sounded anxious.

Gabi felt the drench of adrenalin hit her veins as she forced herself to freeze, sending out her senses,
alert
for anything.  Nothing unusual registered; her senses only picked up Derek.

“Gabi.”
Derek’s voice had a note of pleading in it, but not terror or desperation.  “A little
help
, please?”

She relaxed suddenly and jogged the last few steps to the house, trying to keep the grin off her face.

Razor had him cornered in the kitchen.

“Sorry,” she apologised, already sending out light tendrils of power to envelop the annoyed cat and calm him.  “I didn’t think.  Kyle and Razor have a reluctant truce, but Razor intimidates anyone with an ounce of self-preservation.”

Derek gave a nervous chuckle.  “Yeah, I can see that.  Um, Razor is a male, right?”

“Yes, I know, it makes him more dominant and aggressive. I’m sorry.” She gave up trying to get Razor to back away from the kitchen using her power and resorted to physically picking him up.  It took more energy than she thought she had.

“No, that’s not what I was getting at,” Derek said, letting out a relieved breath.  “I know you said you also have a ferret, but the little critter I just noticed in the sitting room didn’t look like a ferret to me.  For a moment I thought maybe Razor had a kitten, but I must be wrong.”

“What?” Gabi asked around a
faceful
of cat fur.

“Uh, yeah, there’s a critter of some kind running around the sitting room.  My sense of smell is really good now, and I can smell it, but I can’t identify it.  Razor was in the room with it when I came through.  Maybe he’s caught a rat or something.”  He looked and sounded a lot less anxious now that Gabi had Razor under control.

“Oh, Lord and Lady.
  Will this day never end?”  She closed her eyes and prayed for strength.  “Stay in the kitchen while I check it out.  In fact, you might as well put on the coffee maker before I fall asleep walking,” she told Derek and, still lugging Razor in her arms, went to find her new house guest.

The critter was under the dining table, a little unsure of itself, until Razor began to purr.  His purr rivalled a twelve-cylinder engine and vibrated through most of the house.  The little animal instantly came out of hiding and tentatively made its way over to them.  Gabi set the purring cat on the floor with a small thud, and the tiny animal ran directly up to him and buried itself in his long fur.  Razor looked at her archly, as though daring her to object, and set to washing the little tyke with his long pink tongue.

“
Raz
,” she groused, shaking her head, “what are you doing with a baby squirrel?”

His thoughts came through unusually clearly as he stared at her unblinkingly.

“It’s a squirrel?” Derek asked from a safe distance.

“Yep,” Gabi confirmed, “
Raz
apparently thinks that if I can get a new pet, so can he.”  She left the two of them snuggling in the sitting room and returned to the kitchen to pour two cups of coffee.  Derek accepted his with a tired nod and collapsed onto a barstool at the counter.

“Does he do this kind of thing regularly?” he asked.

“He was wonderful with Slinky, though I brought Slinks in,” she mused. 
“He’s never gone out and brought something home himself.
  If my identification is right, that’s a red squirrel, no more than three or four weeks old.  He showed me a visual of a hawk hovering and the squirrel on the ground by itself, so I’m assuming it’s an orphan.”  As though the mention of his name had magical properties, Slinky suddenly poked his pointed little snout around the corner of the kitchen entrance.

“Ah,” Gabi said with a tired smile.  “Hello,
Slinks,
come here and prove that not all my pets are raging monsters.”  She gathered the squirming ferret up and set him on the counter.

Derek held quite still as the inquisitive animal shuffled across the counter and gave him a quick once-over before galloping back to Gabi.  She picked him up again, and he promptly climbed onto her shoulder, wound his way around her neck, and closed his eyes.

“So it’s not just at work, then,” Derek said.  “Animals everywhere worship you like a goddess.”

Gabi’s lips twisted wryly.  “Some days I could do without the added responsibility,” she said with a huge yawn.  “Go grab your shower.  I need to check if the kit needs some fluids.  It’ll have to wait a few hours for a feed. Russell is a regular wildlife rehabber,” Derek knew Russell as Gabi’s regular on-set
assistant,
“hopefully he’ll know what to feed it.”

The third time the annoying scrabbling at her ear roused her, Gabi gave up the fight to get back to sleep and peeled her eyelids open.  For a confused minute she tried to work out why Slinky would be trying to wake her up.  And then a small, russet tail, somewhat resembling an overused bottlebrush, swooped across her nose, and she felt the tiniest of paws press against her cheek.  She sighed.  Apparently it was ‘feed the baby squirrel’ time.  Razor heard the sigh and padded up from the bottom of the bed to check if she was awake.  His vibrato purr started up as soon as he saw her eyes open, and he gently gripped the scruff of the tiny squirrel’s neck and pulled it away from her.

She sat up, rubbing grit from her eyes and wishing, as she so often did, that she was one of those people who only needed a few hours of sleep a night.  Dawn had coloured the horizon just as she’d finally tumbled into bed, so a nine a.m. wake-up call was not exactly what she needed.  She stretched and grimaced as the stitches in her arm pulled slightly and her shoulder muscles protested.  An inspection of her elbow showed that the swelling was almost gone and the bruising had turned a delightful shade of bile green and mustard yellow.  At least the bruising was
fading,
she’d be able to pull the stitches out tonight.  A little chittering noise reminded her that she had been woken up for a reason.

“Fine, I’m getting up,” she grumbled, throwing off the duvet.  “You’re rather demanding for a tiny snip of a thing,” she groused at it as she made for the bathroom.

She had a cup of coffee in one hand, a telephone in the other, a ferret wrapped around her neck and the baby squirrel perched on her head when Derek shuffled into the kitchen dressed only in a pair of jeans.  Apparently he didn’t do well on three hours sleep either, but that didn’t
detract from the sight of his sun-bronzed chest, muscled shoulders and oh-so-perfectly defined six-pack.  Or was that an eight-pack?  Gabi found she’d lost her train of thought as the voice on the other side of the phone rattled off a list of ingredients and quantities.

“Ah, whoa, hang on a sec, Russell,” she stopped him mid flow.  “Let me grab something to write this down on.” She dragged her gaze from Derek to search for the notepad and pen that was always in the kitchen somewhere.  Derek got to them first and, seeing her hands full, sat at the counter and indicated that he would write for her.

“You sound distracted,” Russell said from the other side of the phone.

Gabi grimaced.  With Derek’s new
Werewolf
senses, he’d be able to hear every word Russell spoke on the phone.

“Uh, Derek just walked in,” she told him, hoping he’d take the hint without her having to spell it out to him.

“
Ohhh
,” Russell said knowingly, “on two legs or four?”

“Shirtless,” Gabi replied.

Derek looked down at himself and then grinned, quintessential male pride showing through the exhaustion.  Gabi rolled her eyes, hoping he hadn’t noticed her wandering gaze.

Russell chuckled.  “Well, that would explain the distraction,” he mused.

“The squirrel milk recipe, Russell,” she reminded him.  She’d only just made some progress on her relationship with Julius; she really didn’t need to be reminded of how strong her physical attraction to the stuntman had been in the past.  She held the phone away from her ear so that Derek could hear the list clearly.  Once Derek had written it all down, Gabi quickly thanked Russell and cut the call before he could say anything that might give Derek the wrong idea.

“You’ll have to fend for yourself this morning.  I have a baby to feed, and Rose only comes in at lunchtime on a Wednesday,” she informed the shirtless male.

“Russell knows about us?” Derek asked, keeping one eye on Razor, who was glaring balefully at him from the counter.  He poured coffee and set some bread in the toaster as Gabi bent to scratch through a cupboard for her kitten feeding kit and the rest of what she needed to make up some formula.

“Russell is part of the Community.  He’s a Shape-shifter,” she explained with her head mostly inside the cupboard.

“Oh,” Derek said, obviously surprised again.  “So that’s different from a
Werewolf
?”

Gabi smiled to herself, it was easy to forget how much full humans didn’t know about the world they lived in.  She began mixing up a small quantity of formula for the squirrel, as Derek buttered his toast.

“Yes.  A person becomes a
Werewolf
as a result of being exposed to the lycanthropy virus.  Though there is some speculation that it’s more of a prion than a virus, due to its ability to actually alter DNA, but we’ll call it a virus for simplicity’s sake.  That
’
s why silver is toxic to
Weres
, it kills the virus, but the virus is so much a part of the body that by killing the virus, you also kill the host.”  Gabi could see Derek’s attention pique, but cut him off before he could ask questions.  “I’m a little ignorant on the biochemistry side, so I won’t try to make sense of it for you.  Jonathon would be able to answer most of your questions in that regard.”

She gently grabbed the little furball off the top of her head, cupped it in one hand, and set a tiny teat to its mouth, allowing it to begin suckling.  Derek brought his cup and plate over to join her at the counter as she continued.  “Shape-shifters are more like the Magi.  They have a form of genetic mutation.  It’s a congenital trait passed on from parent to child.  Though the Shifter traits are genetically a bit hit and miss.  Lord, I need a straw for my coffee,” she said, looking longingly at her coffee mug, but both her hands were occupied with feeding a content baby squirrel.