Indirect Lines: Halle Shifters, Book 5 (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Check your ammo,” Kincade shouted. He strode down the line of men, all of them suited in black and dark blue. On their arms was the symbol of the Leo, a stylized roaring lion’s head. This was the Leo’s personal guard, the men and women completely loyal to no one but the Leo himself. Some were armed with handguns similar to Kincade’s Glock, others with M4 carbines, and almost all of them had Remington 870 shotguns strapped somewhere on their person. All of them carried tactical batons. Those who didn’t have retractable claws wore gloves reinforced with steel. In their pockets were pepper spray grenades and flash bangs.

Wait. Was that an RPG strapped to the back of one of the SUVs? What the hell was Kincade expecting? World War III?

Each of the team did as told, hollering out when they reaffirmed they were locked and loaded. Two turned away for more ammo, earning the good-natured jeering of their fellows.

Kincade looked on with an expression close to boredom until all of his team was ready. “You know the drill. We’re apprehending Kris Jennings, Ocelot Senator and traitor to the Leo.” He glanced at one man in particular. “Any problem with this, you are free to stand down.”

The man, probably an Ocelot, shook his head. “No, sir! No problem here.”

“Good.” Kincade patted the man’s shoulder. “We go in, take her
alive
, and we bring her to the Leo in chains. Tape her mouth shut, people. Ocelots can manipulate your emotions, so don’t let her talk you into loosening her chains.” He strode up and down the line, personally checking each man as Barney looked on. “We run into more than we can handle, we call in the specialists.”

All of them winced at that.

“Specialists?” Barney muttered.

“And none of us want that, do we?” Kincade ignored Barney’s comment.

“No, sir!” The team shouted back.

Barney checked his own equipment. He’d kept his Sig Sauer rather than take the Glock Kincade had offered him, as well as the steel gloves. His own five-inch Grizzly claws were more than enough in hand-to-hand. He had, however, accepted the shotgun and the baton. He’d chosen to wear his Hunter garb rather than the elite uniform, making him stand out in the crowd. His cowboy hat was firmly on his head, his feet in his favorite pair of boots. His beat to hell duster was reinforced in the chest and abdomen with ballistic cloth. On his forearms were a pair of thick leather bracers, designed to deflect claws and knives.

He was ready for the Hunt to begin.

“Let’s get this party started, ladies and gentlemen.” Kincade hustled his crew into three SUVs, each capable of holding eight people. He took hold of Barney’s arm and led him to the first vehicle, putting him in the front passenger seat. Kincade took the wheel, leading the convoy out. “The specialists are snipers. If we have to call them in, Kris Jennings will die.”

“Ah.” Barney understood. “Sometimes the Hunt goes badly, and the mark dies.”

Kincade nodded. “We need her alive so she can answer to Sebastian. He’s the only one likely to get anything out of her. She’ll be able to manipulate anyone else.”

“He’s immune to her power?” That surprised Barney. Even the Leo had his limits, or so he’d thought.

Kincade smiled. “More like he doesn’t listen to anyone’s bullshit. Besides, he can order her not to use her powers on him, and she’ll be forced to comply.”

“Good point.” He watched the desert landscape roll by. “He’s right, you know.”

“About?”

“Going to Halle.”

Kincade scowled, his tone turning dark. “I don’t think so.”

Barney didn’t reply. He’d thought, once upon a time, that he’d never leave Montana. Now look at him. Mated, ready to move to a small college town and eager to get his life started for real. “I want to start a school for Hunters in Halle.”

Kincade grunted. “I figured you would. You’ve been training them for a while now. Why not centralize it?”

“And it can teach us to work together rather than as single Hunters. We’re dying out there, or worse, turning rogue. We need to be able to help one another.”

“I don’t think Sebastian will object.” Kincade turned down a long driveway not far from where they’d started. “It’s the Senate you’ll have to convince.”

“Carl is behind it, but Ian is too old-school to accept it.”

“I’ll put out some feelers and see where they lead. You may get your wish sooner than you think.”

“Thanks.” They pulled up to the Ocelot Senator’s house, surprised to find the area loaded with cars. “Fuck me stupid.”

Kincade picked up the radio mic. “We have company, people. Play it low until we get inside, then nab the Senator.”

“What if these aren’t party guests, but
party guests
?” Barney gestured toward the front door, where two men could be seen talking into their own mics.

“Then we end it.” Kincade pulled around the circular driveway, forming a half moon with the vehicles. He got out, gesturing to Barney go get out on the driver’s side rather than the passenger’s. “You do what we tell you. This is a raid, not a Hunt.”

“Aye, sir.” Barney knew full well he was there solely because Sebastian wanted him to be. “Where do you want me?”

“Stay by my side unless your instincts go off.”

Staring at the mansion, Barney couldn’t sense anything. “This is politics, not Hunter business. She’s not rogue, not that I can sense.”

“Hmm. I think your definition of rogue shifter and mine are different.” Kincade moved to the back of his vehicle and cupped his hands. “Stand down. We’re here for Senator Kris Jennings. She’s under arrest for—”

He was forced to duck back behind the SUV as gunfire erupted from the mansion windows. The two men who’d been guarding the front door immediately ducked inside, closing it behind them.

“Shit. Welcome to World War III.” Barney pulled out his Sig Sauer. “We’re pinned.”

“I noticed,” Kincade responded sourly. He had his M4 out and pointed at the house. “I need you to sneak around the back, see if there’s a way in.”

Barney nodded. He’d never been in quite this position before, but he could handle what was being asked of him. He glanced around, wondering what he could use as cover.

He stuck his head out from behind the SUV, shooting his Sig Sauer toward the windows. The answering hail of gunfire forced him back behind cover. “Yeah. Not gonna happen. We need to take a few of these guys out before I can do that.”

Kincade yelled, “Watch your sixes and sevens!”

Two of the enforcers turned, their backs to the SUVs. Both of them had their M4s pointed at the driveway.

“We can’t stay here. We need to figure out how to advance.” Barney fired over the hood of the SUV. A faint cry of pain was his reward. “We could get in the SUV and drive into the door.”

“You watch too many movies,” Kincade replied as he too fired over the hood. The gunfire was damn near deafening at such close range. “We hit the steps, not drive up them.”

“You need a stuntman on your team.” Barney got on his stomach and looked at the mansion from under the SUV. “Looks like they’ve got the main floor windows all knocked out. Not seeing any of the upper windows broken.”

“Good. Hopefully they’re all on the main floor.”

“Jennings is probably somewhere else, guarded in case we breach the house.” Barney had faced that sort of situation with one rogue who’d made enough money to hire bodyguards. “That I can handle.”

“See any way in?” Kincade fired again, keeping up the barrage until Barney’s ears rang.

“Not yet. We need to thin their ranks some more.”

One of the men with Kincade whispered in his ear. Kincade nodded, pointing twice at the third vehicle. The man nodded and raced off between the SUVs.

“RPG?” Barney asked, his eyes still trained on the house.

“RPG.” Kincade stuck his head under the SUV. “We’re aiming for the first window on the left.”

A rocket propelled grenade, possibly filled with tear gas, would take down a number of them. Especially shifters with sensitive noses or eyes. That would get them the time they needed to get into the house and find Kris Jennings. “I’ll go in that way, then. One man might slip by from the back.”

“While we storm the front.” Kincade glanced to the right, where the RPG was located. “We’ll fire on the left once you’ve moved.”

“Give me a three count once the first grenade’s gone off.” Barney readied himself to move. His adrenaline was pumping, his Grizzly ready to head out of this no-win situation and nab their target. This, grabbing the bad guy and bringing him or her to justice, was what he was born to do.

He heard the telltale
pop
-
fwoosh
of the grenade being launched, then Kincade’s soft three count. He rolled out from under the SUV and crawled along the driveway, keeping as low as he could. He could hear the coughing and screaming as the pepper spray took effect.

He’d just made it around the corner of the mansion when the second
pop
/
fwoosh
went off, undoubtedly making the gunmen’s lives miserable. Barney had been on the receiving end of pepper spray before.

Personally, he wasn’t a fan, but in this case? He loved it so much he wanted make babies with it.

He made it to the back of the house without incident, surprising the hell out of himself. Were all the guards at the front? Surely there had to be—

Damn it. He rolled under a bush as a bullet impacted the dirt right next to where his head had been. He got to his hands and knees, his gun still in his hand, and searched for the man who’d tried to blow his brains out.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and lashed out, his claws digging into someone’s ankle. The scream that followed was barely heard over the charge of Kincade and his men bringing down the front door of the mansion.

Barney pulled, practically severing the foot of his attacker. The man fell with a grunt, and Barney finished him off, shoving his claws into the man’s throat. The man gurgled for a moment before he died, his eyes wide and horrified before their life drained out.

Barney pushed away from the body and pressed his back to the stucco and stone of the house wall. He glanced up, seeing a window above him. Going in that way might work, but if someone on the other side heard the window opening, Barney would be screwed.

No. He’d stick to the original plan and head around to the back. If there were more guards he’d deal with them.

He slid along the wall, keeping his coat from getting too scratched up by the stucco. God, he hated that shit. It looked pretty, but it could grow mold, crack, and worse, scratch the crap out of you.

He reached the back of the house without another encounter. He checked the yard, finding no one there. All of them must have been in the house, dealing with Kincade. Or so he hoped. There could be a sniper in the trees, guarding the back of the house. If there was, he was fucked. He’d just have to risk it. So he ran for the back door and rammed it open, hoping the sounds of Kincade and his men would keep him from being found out.

Turned out he was right about that sniper. The bullet barely missed his head, singeing the top of his ear and some of the hair away. He dove once more to the floor and used his foot to slam the door shut.

He was inside. Now all he had to do was find the Ocelot Senator.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Now it was Sebastian’s turn to pace. He was holding the yellowed book in his hands, reading random passages out loud while Heather compiled a list of deceased shifters versus those who had lived and become white shifters. “I can’t fucking believe it. Listen to this: ‘And the white shifters will stand at the side of the Leo and be his advisors in all things.’ What the hell? That’s the fucking Senate!” He turned another page. “Ah. Here we go. ‘But should no white shifter be born of a line, then the line shall elect an advisor to be approved by the Leo.’”

“Wait. So the Senate was made up of white shifters once upon a time?” Heather looked up from her notes, astonished at what the Leo was revealing. “So that means that the white shifters
were
killed over power?”

“And then all mention of them was suppressed so that no Leo would ever know that he was missing his link to the spirit world. We had our own fucking bible here all along, and we ignored it because it wasn’t ‘relevant’.” He carefully turned another page, grimacing as he read. “It seems like there was this whole other universe I knew nothing about. And my father hid it from me.” He looked like he wanted to throw the book across the room, but luckily he refrained.

“Why hasn’t the Leo ever looked into this before?” Heather glanced at the book, but the list she was writing wouldn’t handle itself. She went back to it, keeping one ear on the Leo’s reply.

“I think you were right. It was hidden from us. The Kermode became something of a legend, the Arctic Fox became extinct because of predators, and the Polars’ demise was blamed on global warming.”

“Seriously?” Heather scowled. “Polars lived anywhere they wanted to.” After all, who would stop them?

“I know,” he grunted in response. “It’s just so damn stupid.”

“Did your uncle know about this?” Heather added another name to the deceased list.

“I don’t think so. He agreed way too easily with my father.” He sat down heavily on the sofa, jarring Artemis, who’d nodded back off once Barney and Kincade left. “My father was the Lion Senator.”

“Fuck,” Heather breathed.

“He was voted out after I became the Leo. The Lions believed he would be prejudiced toward my ideas, and they wanted someone more neutral. Even now, he tries to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.” Sebastian closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead wearily. “I may have to bring him in for questioning.” Sadness infused his tone, his expression falling as he opened his eyes. “This sucks.”

“Yeah.” She couldn’t imagine her father turning out to be a traitor, not only to the family but to all Foxes. Before she could say anything about it, something caught her eye. “My brother and sister both have the mark, but it’s been crossed out instead of erased.”

“Meaning they never did whatever it was to become a white shifter.” The Leo scratched his head. “Or maybe they thought that once they hit adulthood they were no longer eligible?”

“But Jamie Howard became a white Puma at the age of—” she double-checked the paperwork, “—twenty-seven.”

“Which just means they were wrong.”

“True.” She added three more names to the deceased list. The list she was compiling was only during the current Leo’s reign. So far, twenty possible white shifters had been killed before puberty struck, while ten had died while in their teens or late twenties. And she was only on page one. Everything in the book was confirming what they’d theorized, that only one white shifter existed for a species except under special circumstances.

“Artemis?” The Leo poked him with his toe. Artemis was sprawled out on the carpet, his arms and legs askew, his eyes closed. A single silver strand marred the darkness of his hair.

“I think he’s communing with the spirits.” Heather had seen Julian do something similar, except he hadn’t been all sprawled out like that. He’d been cross-legged, his back straight, his shoulders relaxed. “See the white stripe? He’s using his powers, but he’s not in his man-Tiger form.”

“Really?” The Leo leaned down and breathed in Artemis’s ear. “Hello, Artemis.”

Nothing, not even a twitch of Artemis’s lips. He didn’t even pretend to snore.

“He’ll come out of it when Tiger releases him.” The spirits could be demanding of the ones they chose.

“I wonder what it’s like to talk to your spirit animal.” He stared at Artemis for a moment before shaking his head. “Ah. Never mind. I need to read more of this book, figure out what else my dear old daddy was hiding from me.”

“Why didn’t you read it?” She glanced up, asking the question that had been bothering her since the moment he told her of the book. “The Leo wanted you to.”

“My father is a very strict man.” Sebastian shivered. “I didn’t say no to him, not until I became the Leo. Then I kicked his ass out of my house when he tried to get Kincade replaced with a Beta of
his
choosing.”

“You and Kincade are close, huh?” No more deceased on the first page. She started the next list, of those who’d actually become white shifters. That would be the shortest.

“He saved my life once,” Sebastian said softly. His voice was full of affection for his Beta. “He’s also my best friend.”

“You had to use your Leo voice, didn’t you? To get your dad to leave, I mean.” She added Jamie Howard, Chloe Williams, Artemis Smith and someone named Bianca Flores, a Jackal, to the white shifter list.

Four. Only four had survived. Shit.

Time to start the list of those who’d lived and hadn’t become white. That, also, would be a short list.

“Fuck.” There was horror in the Leo’s voice, catching her attention once more.

“What?”

His expression was equally horrified. “Listen to this: ‘Should all white shifters cease to exist, so too shall the Leo, for his life is tied to theirs.’”

Her jaw dropped. “Fuck,” she breathed. “No wonder they’ve been hunting them down.”

“Power.” He carefully put the book back down on the table, but she could see the way his hands shook. “It all comes down to power.”

“And who has it.” She tapped her finger on the table. “They’d not only gain control of their own species, with no oversight, but they’d be able to rule the entire shifter world without having to worry about someone stepping in and stopping them from whatever abuses they wished to heap on us.”

“They could rule as they wished.” He picked up his coffee mug and studied it for a moment before throwing it at a wall, shattering it. “Fuckers think that they can kill me? We’ll see about that.” He turned on her, his eyes the gold of his cat. “New priority,” he said, his Leo voice in full force. “Get me a list of every living white shifter. Name, address, number of people they’ve fucked, I don’t care. I want them.”

She bowed her head. “Yes, sire.” She immediately began going through the other pages, barely listening in when he got a phone call. Tiger, check. Jackal, check. Puma, check. Fox, check. Bear…well. She supposed Julian would do, so she wrote his name down. Jaguar…nope. Not yet, anyway. There was no Hyena either, but down near the bottom of the second page she found a white Lynx named Darren Perkins. No Cheetahs, Wolves, Coyotes or Ocelots had survived to become white, but the Cheetah and Wolf at least had some with marks next to their names. She jotted them down with question marks.

“Heather!”

“What?” Why was the Leo shouting at her? She was doing as asked, wasn’t she?

“Sorry. I called your name three times and…” He sighed. “We have an update from Kincade.”

“Did they get her?” She
really
wanted to know what Kris Jennings had to say.

“They’re under heavy fire, but they’ve managed to breach the mansion.”

“Heavy fire?” Her heart sank. “Barney?”

Sebastian smiled. “He’s fine. Kincade says he went through the back door, so he wasn’t in the line of fire.”

“Good.” Her heart could start beating again. She put her hand to her chest to make sure it was. “Good.”

“You have the list?” He held out his hand and it was no longer shaking. His eyes were still mottled with gold, his Lion very evident in the way his claws kept extending and retracting.

“Yes, sire.” She held up the list. “It’s as complete as I can make it. Any white shifters past page two are already dead.”

“Shit.” He glanced at the list and grimaced. “Possibilities?”

“Huh?”

“Like yourself, or your cousin Wren. Since Chloe’s the white Fox, that means that there are others in your family who could have been rather than her. Possible white shifters, if you will.” The Leo handed the list back to her. “Give me them as well.”

“That will take longer.” She bit her lip. “Wren is a baby.”

“And these assholes will target her, just as they did you. Just as they did Chloe.” He snapped his fingers. “Names, Heather.”

“Yes, sire.”

She jotted down what she could find, including ages of the children who were listed as potentials. “Here.”

Sebastian grunted as he read it. “All the ones who are missing. Wolf, Ocelot, all of them. And multiples of each.” He sighed wearily. “I can’t keep all of them safe.”

“There might be a way.” She stood, tapping the computer monitor. “We could spread the word of what we’ve learned. Secrecy is what has been killing them. If we get the word out about white shifters and where they come from, you declaw the Senators attempting to kill them.”

He stared at her for a moment before smiling. “I’ll leave you in charge of the newsletter.”

“Hell no.” She waved her hands. “I’ve got a job I love, and a mate I’m returning to. Get someone else.” She frowned at the computer. “Someone who knows codes and how to break them.”

“Huh?”

“Think about it. They have to communicate with each other somehow. Get someone tracking Kris Jennings’s emails and you’ll find a trail to other Senators.”

“I think I love you.” The Leo kissed her on the cheek. “You’re officially my favorite Fox of all time.” He rubbed his hands together. “And I know just the person for the job, too.”

“Who?”

He laughed. “My guardian Angel.”