Bobcat: Tales of the Were (Redstone Clan) (7 page)

“So what haven’t we covered? We did the last of the formal reports this morning, but there’s this little matter of
the notes from your brother Magnus’s new vampire mate,” Rocky said, pulling a final file from the pile on his desk. “You already told me about Miranda and Magnus. I know she was held prisoner by a
Venifucus
mage for an unknown length of time…” Rocky trailed off as he shuffled through the pages.

“It was several months, at least. Possibly as long as a year, but we don’t know for certain. Her memories are foggy at best because of the way the mage treated her. He kept her starved and then bled her, using her magical blood to power some of his evil spells.” Bob knew his disgust was coming through in his tone, but he couldn’t help it.

He hated thinking of the way they’d found Miranda, half-crazed from starvation and blood loss. She had been very near death. She’d had enough energy left to launch one final attack, but that was about it. It had taken her months to recover fully from her captivity. During that time, she had been with Mag and they had renewed their relationship with the end result being that they were now mates.

It wasn’t
exactly normal for vampires and
weres
to intermarry. In fact, there was a pretty big taboo against it. But Mag and Miranda were true mates. She had tried to stay away from Mag, but when they were brought together again after her ordeal, there was no way to stop the mating from solidifying into something that would never come undone.

Bob had had his doubts, but he was glad now that
she and Mag had found each other. Mag had been a sullen bastard and Bob hadn’t known what had turned his formerly playful brother into a brooding mute. When everyone realized Mag had been searching for his lost mate for two whole years, Bob was impressed Mag had been able to hold it together and not rip someone’s head off long before. It wasn’t easy for a shifter to find his mate, then lose her all in the space of a single night. It had to have been hell for his brother.

Which was why Bob thought Mag and Miranda deserved a little happiness. Both of them. Miranda had been
held prisoner and was just as wounded after finding, and having to deny, her One. That couldn’t have been easy for her either. She was a hell of a woman. Even if she was a vampire.

Rocky finally found the right paper and began to skim. “These are things she remembered the mage saying while she was in captivity, right?”

“Yeah. She took some time after things had settled to write down everything she could remember her captor saying. As you know, he was proven to be affiliated with the
Venifucus
. Miranda collated her notes and then presented them to Grif. He shared them with the Master Vampire of our area and sent a copy to the Lords.” Bob nodded to the papers in Rocky’s hands.

“She’s a neat little thing, isn’t she?” Rocky mused as he went through the carefully organized notes. “I just s
aw this for the first time last night. Rafe and Tim read it when it came in and earmarked a few things they thought could wait until your arrival. This, for instance…” Rocky trailed off, lifting a sticky flag from one part of the document. A frown creased his forehead. “Miranda mentions a man called Devereaux. We have reason to believe she is referring to Jeremy Devereaux—also known as Jezza.”

Bob waited for Rocky to go on as the bear shifter clicked open a document on his laptop. Bob couldn’t see the screen, but from Rocky’s movements, Bob could tell the other man was scrolling through a file, looking for something in particular.

“The twins’ father, Tony, was a gifted shaman,” Rocky said, losing Bob for a moment with the quick change of subject, until he clarified. “Tony foresaw his own death and prepared an external drive full of documents and information on people he was working with and things he wanted us to know after he was gone. He wasn’t quite as organized as your little vampiress.” Rocky chuckled as he paused to scroll some more. “But I knew Tony as well as I know myself. I’ve been sorting through his files for a while now and I’ve been able to make some correlations. Turns out, Tony was in close communication with Jezza and was in fact, the one who helped him move to the Cascade Range. Jezza has shaman blood, but has spent a lot of time kicking around in military circles. Most recently, he was part of the Wyoming wolf Pack’s little conclave of elite soldiers.”

“Jesse Moore’s guys?” Bob asked, suspecting exactly who Rocky meant. The group of former Spec Ops soldiers who had gathered around the werewolf were legendary
in shifter circles.

They hired themselves out for protection
, and certain special operations that had little to do with the government. All those highly-trained, retired soldiers had formed their own mixed-species Pack of shifter soldiers with Jesse Moore as their Alpha. They were free to choose who they worked for now, and what missions they wanted to take.

They had, in fact, been of
great help when the Redstones had needed backup after their mother was murdered. Grif and Steve, Bob’s two eldest brothers, had both been Army Green Berets and knew a lot of the guys who now owed their allegiance to Jesse Moore. When the Redstone Clan had needed them, Moore’s guys had come running and done their best—which was pretty damned impressive—to help keep everyone safe.

Rocky nodded in answer to Bob’s question. “Jezza, from all accounts
, has always been a bit on the mystical side, though he’s a vicious fighter when needs be. He was working with Tony to figure out his path in life after retiring from the military. He didn’t want to be a spook, though the Agency tried to recruit him. He ran a few missions for them, but decided against it when he began to feel he was needed elsewhere. Tony and he did a vision quest and the results were mixed, according to Tony’s journal. All they knew was that Jezza needed to be in the Cascade Range for the next part of his journey to unfold. Where he went after that was uncertain.”

“D
o you think this Jezza Devereaux is being targeted by the
Venifucus
?” Bob remembered what he’d read in Miranda’s notes about the way the mage had screamed curses down on Devereaux’s head. The evil mage who’d held Miranda prisoner had definitely not been a fan.

“It’s a pretty sure bet that if the mage in Las Vegas knew about Jezza, then so did his superiors in the
Venifucus
. Which brings us to the next part of our story.” Rocky sat back in his desk chair and steepled his fingers, taking a thoughtful pose. “We know for a fact that Jezza has friends within the
Altor Custodis
.”

“
Altor Custodis
?” Bob repeated, surprised. “We haven’t had much to do with them in Las Vegas, though I’ve heard they’ve been active in California recently—at least among my little brother’s vampire friends. To be honest, aside from what he’s told us, I don’t know much about them.”

“
Lucky for you, I’ve been brushing up on my history. Near as I can tell, the
Altor Custodis
—I call them the AC for short—was formed even before the
Venifucus
organized around Elspeth, the Destroyer of Worlds. While the
Venifucus
was always a group dedicated to helping in Elspeth’s quest for world domination, the AC’s motives were originally to simply observe and record the doings of the supernatural races. For eons, they allowed only non-magical humans into their ranks. Mages need not apply. Likewise, anyone with even a hint of shifter blood was barred from membership. They worked in the shadows and their records go back more than a thousand years. We believe they have dossiers on just about all of the really ancient bloodletters, as well as detailed histories of most of the larger Packs, Clans and Tribes of
were
. Which makes them a big problem now that we’ve verified their ranks have been infiltrated by
Venifucus
agents.”

Bob frowned. “That’s really bad news. Our enemies could use that information against us. Are you absolutely certain?”

“Unfortunately, yes. There’s no doubt at all. Our information comes straight from Duncan le Fey.”

Bo
b remembered the fey warrior who had come to their aid when he and his brothers had been fighting a group of evil vampires a few weeks back. Duncan was an honest-to-goodness Knight of the Light. An ancient
Chevalier de la Lumiere
. It was a position earned by service to the Lady Goddess, and such beings were beyond question, in Her grace. Anything Duncan reported about their enemies could not be questioned.

“So if the AC’s information is being used
by spies within their organization, we’re all at risk,” Bob thought out loud.

“Some more than others,” Rocky agreed
. “A while back, Jezza sent out a call for help to an old military friend. The guy was human, but had become acquainted with the supernatural world during his time in the service. Jezza trusted him to extract someone from a bad situation and bring them here. Only problem is, the man Jezza called was a former Navy SEAL named Ben Steel. I think your brother Matt might’ve told you about him. Steel is also a former
Altor Custodis
agent.”

“
Do you have suspicions about Steel? Do you think he’s still working for the AC—or worse—the
Venifucus
?”

“
I don’t think so. Judging by recent events, he seems to be on the up-and-up. He’s helped in a few cases since the one in Napa involving your brother.” Rocky didn’t pause to allow for Bob’s surprise, but went right on. “I’d like to videoconference with your brother later, if we can, but for right now…” he looked out the window, watching something outside as he stood from behind his desk. “I’ve asked our local expert to come give us their impression of Mr. Steel.”

Rocky went to the door and opened it. Of all the people who could have been on the other side, Bob hadn’t expected t
o see the woman that seemed to have taken over a little corner of his mind and heart…Serena. She looked uncomfortable as she noticed him, walking into the office on hesitant feet.

“Thanks for coming, Serena. We’ll try not to keep you too long,” Rocky said with an affable smile, then turned to Bob. “Serena Wicklow, this is Bob Redstone,” he introduced them.
“Though I hear you two have already met.” Rocky raised one eyebrow at them before moving away.

Bob took her hand and held it for
a bit longer than was strictly necessary. His gaze locked with hers as Rocky settled back behind his desk. There were two chairs in front of the big wooden desk and Bob waited for Serena to be seated before retaking his own seat.

“Now,” Rocky began. “I’m sorry to have to bring this up, but we’re trying to connect some dots and your knowledge may help. This concerns Ben Steel. Can you tell us what you know about him and yo
ur first-hand impressions of his character?”

Serena gulped. Bob saw it and realized she was both nervous and scared. His heart went out to her but there was little he could do to alleviate her tension. It drove his cougar nuts that he couldn’t protect her.

“It’s okay,” Rocky crooned to her, apparently seeing the same thing Bob saw. “Take your time. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important.”

She nodded. “Yes,” she agreed somewhat stiffly. “I’m okay.” She paused a moment before finally answering the question. “Ben Steel
was the one who brought me here. He said he had some familiarity with the region because he’d been sent to the Cascades a few years ago by the
Altor Custodis
, to watch the Cascade Clan that I was on the periphery of for years. He said he’d filed a report with the
Altor Custodis
about the Clan years ago, then moved on to his next assignment. As near as I can figure, right after that was when things turned bad for the Clan. Some key members of the most influential families got involved in bad things. One or two were approached directly and some were manipulated into positions where they had no other choice but to do things for these people. Not Steel, but agents within his organization that had gone bad.”

She paused, swallowing
reflexively, as if talking about the past was hard for her. “My adoptive father was one of them. Steel helped me get away from him and dropped me off here. Well…he dropped me at the base of the mountain. He never came into the Lord’s actual territory. It was sort of a scoop and drop.”

“Am I right in thinking that Steel found you through Jezza?” Rocky asked.

“The jaguar?” Serena nodded. “Yes, he mentioned Jezza, but I wasn’t sure what their connection was. Jezza is kind of a ghost to my people, though he was nice to me the few times we crossed paths. He never came around when my adoptive parents were at the homestead. I got the feeling that was on purpose.”

“Serena honey, I wouldn’t betray your confidences for the world, but there are some things Bob here needs to know about the
Cascade Clan—particularly the group up near Mount Baker.”

“The drugs, you mean?” Serena went from timid to
disgusted in the blink of an eye. “The Cascade Mountains run from Canada down to California and include several active volcanoes and other geological features,” she told Bob. “Lots of rugged country with different groups of shifters that run certain territories. My adoptive parents—Lizzy and Jack—moved into the region near Mount Baker a year or two after adopting me. For all his faults, Jack is a strong son of a bitch. After a pretty spectacular dominance fight with one of the locals, the Alpha made him a lieutenant. That’s about the same time they started running drugs across the border for a big cartel. The Clan makes money doing it, but the real profit goes to the humans who forced them into it. Though I don’t know how hard they really had to be forced. Some of those bastards are the type to do anything for a quick buck.”