Chapter 10

Scott - Chapter 10

Chloe was sure she could do this, but she just wasn't sure she wanted to. She was still trying to figure out how she'd gotten talked into this thing, but that was going to be a conversation she was going to have later. If Scott survived his first day too. Walking back into the station she'd called home so long ago, she was sure she'd get herself killed. Again.

There were seven people, all of them wearing their street clothing and badges. She knew their names now. Not the ones on the books, but the ones they were wanted by. Each of them had a warrant out for their arrest, and she was going to bring them in. She and Anastasia were, anyway. She cleared her throat when no one moved to see what she wanted.

"If you're here to file a complaint, then you'll have to come back some other time. We aren't taking requests today." She looked over at a man she only knew as Goumas. "You go on and get yourself home now, and be careful out there. You never know what trouble might befall you."

"You should know." With a short nod to Anastasia, Chloe addressed the entire group of men there. "Bob Miles has been arrested, as have three of the men that used to work here. He will be facing a grand jury in a week. As of eight this morning, I am your new boss."

They just stared at her before bursting out laughing. The older of the men—she wasn't sure of his stage name—made his way to the counter where she was standing and leaned against it. She noted two things right away. He smelled of liquor, and he wasn't taking her seriously.

"No, you ain't. I haven't picked a new boss yet, and you surely would not be my pick." Goumas stood up and puffed out his less than impressive chest as the man in front of her continued. "You do as I said, Mrs. Calhoun, and I'll take care of things here. Just like I have been."

"You don't seem to understand. I wasn't asking for your permission to be your boss. Nor did I need your permission. I am. And I have a lot of cleaning house to do. So for now, as my first act as the new sheriff in town, you're all fired." Goumas came at her, his hand on his gun. And when he was standing no more than a foot from her, she looked him in the eyes. "You touch me, Michael Forthright, and I will tear you apart."

She knew by the look on his face when he figured out that she knew him. As he took a step back, she took one forward. If he wanted to be her first takedown, she was going to make it good.

Putting out her hand, she pressed it into his forehead. Raping his mind wasn't hard, she thought; perhaps he was just too big a shit for anyone to care what he had there. She wasn't gentle with it either. As each of his deeds came forth, she said the name of his victim as well as where it occurred. When he dropped to the floor, she staggered back a little. Luckily there was a desk right behind her.

"Next?" Each man there stood up. "Oh come now, you can't expect me to take you all on at once, do you? I mean, I'm just a little girly here. Isn't that what you call women you think should bow down before you and do as they're told?"

"You fucking bitch."

The man who spoke pulled out his gun, but before he could lift it she was lifting him up off the floor with just her hand. As he struggled against her hold, she addressed the room again. She'd been practicing this for two hours, and was thrilled to death she was able to do it.

"Now, as I was saying. I'm the new boss here and you are all under arrest. The Feds, as you know, have been looking for each and every one of you for years now. And lucky me, I have you all right here in my little jail." Chloe tossed the man she held away from her and watched him hit the wall behind him and slide to the floor. "Anastasia, they're all yours."

It took them nearly three hours to get the men gathered. For the most part they went along easily. There were only a couple who tried to resist. But since the men that Anastasia had brought with her were just as she was, all fae, it didn't take much to convince them that they'd live long enough to go to trial if they cooperated. It was well past midnight when every computer and other electronic piece of equipment was removed from the premises. Scott and her new family were there to help her move in.

"I don't know why we couldn't just wait and do this tomorrow." Scott told her that it looked better if she moved in right away. A show of being in charge from the very start. "I'm sure you're right, but I've had a really stressful day."

"You had a blast and we both know it." He asked her to move so that he could put in her new desk. "By the way, this is from my mom and dad. Dad has a friend who makes furniture, and he had some special compartments put in it for you."

As he showed her the two drawers that had a false bottom, she tried to think what on earth she'd use them for. Yes, they were really cool, but her mind was too tired to think. Sitting in her new chair, she told him she was done.

"Noah wants to talk to us." She shook her head. "He said that it's important. I think I've put him off long enough. He swears that it will only take a moment of our time."

"I'm not sure what he could want me for. I think he knows that I'm afraid of him still." Scott nodded and sat on the edge of her desk. "He is going to want to take some of my blood, isn't he?"

"I would say that's part of it, but not all. It comes in handy having a vamp that can find you." She said that was the problem. "What happened? I mean, you don't seem to have a problem with any other paranormal. And I know for a fact that you know a lot of them. Why vampires?"

"I'd been on the force here for about three months. I was a rookie, so I knew that whatever I ran into, I was going to get the shit end of the day's calls. This was before the entire department was taken over by thugs. Anyway, I was out on a domestic and I entered the home after two failed attempts to get someone to let me in. And there he was." Chloe shivered when she thought of that image. "The man was dead. I have no idea how I knew that, but he was. And his wife was being held by this big monstrous being. He was drinking from her. Draining her really. So I ordered him to drop the woman, and he just looked at me while he continued to kill the woman."

"He must have been invited in." She nodded. "What did you do? I'm assuming that he attacked you."

"No. He didn't attack. The woman was still alive and he was going to take every last drop of her." She looked up at Anastasia when she entered the room with her. "Her mate had invited the vamp in; he wanted his wife dead, you see. Because she had money and he didn't."

Anastasia sat down, and Scott knew in that moment that the woman had been her. This had been the first time, he'd bet, that the two of them hooked up. She picked up the story when Chloe told her to go ahead.

"I was lonely. I took him as my husband because I was just lonely. From time to time my kind does that, takes a human to be with them until they die. It's most sad, I think, but it does take some of the loneliness away for a time." Scott asked Anastasia how long she'd been around. "Longer than generations of your family. I was around well before your sister, Joe, and her vampire, Noah. I am ancient."

He tried to wrap his mind around that. Being around for generations of families coming and going. Scott knew that Noah was very old—how old exactly he had no idea—but to think that this woman had been around longer made his head spin a little.

"And the vampire? What happened to him?" Chloe looked at her friend and waited. The story from here was for Anastasia to tell, he figured, and he looked at her while holding onto Chloe's hand. "You killed him, I'm assuming."

"I didn't." Anastasia laughed a little and nodded toward his mate. "Chloe came into the room with her gun still in her holster and ordered him to free me. He only laughed, his mouth still at my throat. But when he let me go suddenly, just dropped me to my knees, I looked at her as she stood there. She was covered from head to toe in blood. The blood that the vampire had just taken into his body from mine. My hero saved my life by killing a very old and very mean vampire. She's stabbed him through the chest, you see."

"I don't understand." Anastasia asked him what he didn't understand. "She stabbed him through the chest with what? You said the gun never left her holster."

"I killed him with my baton; I think it's also referred to as a billy club. A baton that my father had had made for me when I graduated from the academy. He told me when he gave it to me that there were all sorts of people out there, and even more creatures that would be willing to kill me in a not so conventional way. He gave it to me to protect myself. It's made of the purest silver, and the tip of it is polished olive branch." She knew that if Scott had a vampire friend, he would understand the significance of the olive tree. "I slammed it into his chest, and as he was full of blood, it splattered over me."

"You saved Anastasia." She nodded and told him they'd been friends since. "And this vampire, you killed him and that's the reason that you're afraid of them?"

"No. I was hunted by them. For a time. I don't know why they stopped, but for a while I had to be extremely careful of everywhere I went. And they were not nice about how they treated me when they did find me." Scott stood up and started to pace her large office. "I realize that all vampires aren't alike. Hell, I've known a few that were as afraid of me as I was them. But your vampire is old and very powerful. That scares me."

"He'd never harm you." She didn't say anything and Scott turned to look at her. "He wouldn't. Not only is he my friend and respects my family, he's just not like that."

"I'm sorry." He nodded and she knew that he was talking to Noah. While she was glad that he had such a good friend, she still was afraid. So when he showed up, standing in her doorway, she wasn't surprised by that either. She simply pulled out her gun and baton and laid them on the desk. Noah just looked at the items before picking up the baton and running his fingers over not just the silver tip, but the branch that held it as well.

"His name was Patrick O'Reilly. A vampire of some age…not much, but enough that he had a few powers. He could make a weaker human do as he wanted. In the case of your friend, he was able to get into her home because the man was weak." Noah looked over at Anastasia as he continued. "You knew this as well, I think."

"Yes. We had fun. It was a nice, calm marriage. He didn't know what I was, which was why I was surprised to find out that he wished me dead. My husband had all that he wanted, and I would have given him more should he have asked." Noah nodded and looked at her as Anastasia explained. "I only heard that Patrick wanted the money that I had from one of his friends when he came for Chloe."

"Yes, I would imagine that Patrick wouldn't have let things go. Not that he would have warned his cohorts, but he would have bragged about his idea that he was going to be rich, and others would have known how he was killed. A most nasty man, that Patrick." Noah smiled then, not even bothering to hide his fangs. "The others stopped because of me. Not that I knew who you were or would become, but as soon as I took over the council, a job that I take very seriously, I ended them."

"Ended them." He only nodded. "Thank you. This doesn't mean that I'm going to be all warm and fuzzy with you, but I do appreciate you helping out a poor human."

"Human?" He looked over at Anastasia. "You have not told her what you've done for her? What both of you have done for her?"

"In the event that you didn't know this about her, she's not very receptive of people helping her. She'll be all kind and shit when you do it, but she'll berate herself over owing someone for years afterwards. I just thought I'd let her figure it out on her own."

Chloe looked at the two of them as they bantered back and forth. "Hello? Sitting right here. What did you do?" When she didn't answer her, Chloe looked at Noah. "What did she do to me?"

"You have shared it, by the way. With not just your mate, but with Trent and Joe. Joe had a great deal of magic before you came—" Chloe stood up and grabbed her baton. "While the silver will slow me, it won't kill me. And I have been around long enough to figure out precaution to that particular wood. But in answer to your question, she has given you a part of herself."

~*~

Scott realized that he wasn't alone in his new office. Hadn't been probably for a while by the looks of what the person across from him was doing. His dad was about halfway through one of the many books Scott had been given.

He'd been set up in this building yesterday, and had been told he could make it like he wanted. Today he'd come by to see what he could do to make it look less like a box than it did. Being the enforcer to a wolf as strong as Trent had perks, but being his brother too held a special kind of fun to it all. Dad laughed when he closed the book of rules he'd been reading over. Scott told him what he'd found in his book that bothered him.

"Did you know that in order for me to be his enforcer, I have to kill someone? I don't think that's going to be a negotiable thing, either." His dad said he'd done that already. "No, I've been holed up in this office for the past two days just reading this. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered killing someone. Besides, I signed the paperwork and was handed this book of rules, so there wouldn't have been time for me to have committed mayhem and murder."

"Sure you did. And you should know that it's one of those retro laws. Anyway, you already killed for your brother…well, his mate too. To save Joe. In the bank." Scott said that he'd only been trying to save the people there. Joe was Trent's mate. "Yes, she is. But you saved them by watching his back, killing whatever came at him, and that is how you've come to have that taken care of. Ask the men in charge, they'll tell you the same thing."

Scott said nothing as he thought of Trent killing the previous alpha and how he'd been the one that kept the others, his pack really, away while he'd done it. Scott was thrilled to death to have one less thing to worry about.

"Okay. That makes sense, sort of. Thanks, Dad. You took a lot off my mind." He looked around the room that was as stark as his garage was at the moment. And realized that while his dad had been here for a while, he had no idea why. "Why are you here? I'm assuming that either you were sent, which I doubt because you never do what someone wants you to do if you can get out of it, or you have something on your mind. Which is it, old man?"

"You have no respect for me, do you, you little shit?" Scott laughed when he did. "As a matter of fact, I was sent here. By your pretty little mate. She is having some issues that.... Well, I helped her as best I could, but I don't think I did it to her satisfaction. She's a mite intense, ain't she?"

"She is. What is it you tried to help her with?" His dad moved around the room then, going to the window that looked out over the streets and right into the police station. "Dad?"

"Did you know that at one time I thought myself a failure? Not with my job—no, not that—but with being a father." Scott told him he was a great father. "Because of your mom. I was never any good at being the heavy. Worse at trying to corral you boys into being good men."

"We're what we are because of the two of you. If you weren't the heavy, which I remember a few times you were, then Mom stepped in. The two of you made us just what we are today. Good men who love and respect their parents. But you didn't answer me. What did you do with my mate?"

His dad just stood there, staring out the window as if it was going to give him the answers he was searching for. And Scott knew that's what he was doing, trying to soften whatever blow he had to give him.

"Anastasia is going to be staying here." Scott told him he was trying to help her find a house to live in. "I've never known a fae, have you?"

"No. I don't think so. But according to Anastasia, there are more of them out and about than we can imagine." Scott stood up and moved to the window as well. "What's going on, Dad?"

"I don't want to live forever." Scott wasn't shocked by the statement. Scott knew that he'd been a little upset about it when he'd been told. "That mate of yours, she's been helping me adjust to this living forever. I don't know that someone would call her kind of getting me to understand helpful, but that's what she calls it. And in return, I've been helping her with becoming a better wolf. She wants to surprise you with her ability."

"I don't understand." His dad nodded but didn't clarify for him. "How is she helping you adjust, and how are you teaching her to be a better wolf?"

"I'm going to be a grandda. I know that, but I sort of forgot about some of the things that might be a benefit to living a long time. She pointed out to me, none too gently either, that I get to see my family grow and grow from now until eternity. She also…well, I gotta tell you son, she sure can make her point in the most unhospitable way, that girl of yours." His dad rubbed his cheek while grinning. "She told me that I should be thrilled to death that I was going to be around teaching my grandkids the meaning of life. Chloe said that I could get into trouble with them; not that she thought I wouldn't, but she was pointing things out to me."

"She hit you?" His dad grinned broader and laughed a little as he nodded. "I see. She's not going to let you sit around in your own self-pity either; you know that, right?"

"Yeah, she pretty much told me to get out of the house and get busy living." He asked his dad why he thought himself a failure. "About that. I don't want to mess up my grandkids. I want them to look up to me and say, ‘There goes the best grandda in the world.' I'm a feared that they're going to say, ‘There goes my grandda, he sure is a weird guy.'"

"First of all, I don't think it's possible at all for you to be messing up anyone's life. I love the fact that you have a sense of humor about the oddest things. You are the only man I know that can light up a room with just a little gig. You say the oddest things at times, yes, but you make me laugh." His dad pointed out how he'd messed up recently. "Everyone does. And I don't think Mom cared as much as you did that you ran over her roses when you lost control of the mower. And I'm pretty sure, if I know you as well as I think I do, that you've made up for it."

"I bought her a garden of them." His dad nodded again. "Your mom is the best thing that ever happened to me. You know that now that you have your own mate, what it feels like to have someone to love you." Scott reached out and pulled his dad to him for a much needed hug. "I tell you, son, there ain't no better thing in the world than having kids that ain't afraid to hug you on occasion."

"Dad, I love you with all my heart." They held each other for several more minutes, neither of them saying anything. And when his dad pulled back first, Scott let him. "Now, why are you here?"

"I need me something to do. I ain't allowed to mow anymore. I should have known better than to get on that contraption in the first place. So I need me a job." Scott asked him what he wanted to do. "Well, I've been thinking on that. You know how your brother and Noelle have been hitting the antique market? Well, I was thinking of becoming an auctioneer. You know I can talk a lot more than most. Why not make some money at it?"

"An auctioneer. Okay, you're right about talking someone to death." His dad pointed out he'd only said he could talk a lot. "Yeah, Dad, you talk a man to death. It's always interesting, and you know more facts about nothing than anyone I've ever known. But what do you know about becoming an auctioneer?"

"Not a darn thing." They both laughed. "I've had my Joe looking into things for me. I don't think it will be a hardship on me. You know, the gift of gab and all. And I think your mom might be happier with me out from under her feet all the time. And my dad, he said he'd get into it with me. We might be the best of the best once we get it going."

Scott tried to imagine his dad and grandda in an auction setting. There would be nothing sold; they'd be so happy to have a captive crowd that they'd be mingling more than they'd be selling. He thought about suggesting that they take in another partner, one that would actually be an auctioneer, and thought that would take the fun out of it for them. His grandda could out talk and out fact as well as his dad.

"I think it would be perfect for you." His dad smiled, the first real smile he'd given him since he'd gotten there. "Not only that, but I'm pretty sure that once you get it established, Noelle and Sterl can keep you supplied with business too. They run across a lot of people just wanting to get rid of lots of things."

"That's what I was thinking. You know that there are barns of crap just waiting for someone to root through. Even Joe, she told me that Noah has a warehouse full of things from so long ago that they don't even remember it." He was glad to see his dad excited. Then he frowned. "Chloe. I forgot to tell you. Darn it all to Hades and back. She said for you to bring home some steaks, and she was gonna have to tell you something. It's about my lessons, I'm sure. So don't you be raining on her garden just because I slipped up and told you about her."

Looking at the time on his phone, he realized it was getting late. Giving his dad another hug, he made his way to the store as he thought about his dad being an auctioneer. The man was a wonder, he'd give him that. But he just didn't see this thing working out the way he thought. It would be more of a social event than his mom's tea parties in the spring. Scott was still laughing as he picked up a bouquet of flowers for his pretty little mate.