Chapter Twenty

ARI

The warehouse in Sun Valley wasn’t easy to find since it was in a large industrial park filled with multiple brick buildings and a few obscure addresses in peeling paint. The rough-hewn walls had stood for decades, decaying under hot L.A. summers and wet winters. Rusted metal flashing and the stained, cracked concrete and asphalt where rain had caused it to bleed into the ground, made Ari wish for a set of sturdy gloves. He watched the chief pull out what seemed to be an ancient set of keys, and unlock the metal door. The way it protested with a squeal against the cracked ground, set his teeth on edge. As it finally gave way on rusted hinges, Ari wondered just how long it had been since anyone had rented the large unit.

Eoghan inched a little closer to him as she shoved the door open, and Ari glanced over to find his boyfriend watching him with some trepidation and wariness in his own countenance. As they stepped inside, Ari turned and reached for a light switch, flicking it on. Twelve feet above, a bank of buzzing fluorescent lights flipped on, revealing a room measuring about forty by forty, around the same size as four two-car garages. A single steel table stood toward the back of the room with several files stuffed with paper and two FedEx tubes containing who knew what. Other than the table and three cork boards with push pins stuck into them, the room was empty except for the dust motes which floated in the air.

“Come on in and shut the door,” Priest said, and Ari was quick to obey, shutting the door behind Eoghan who stepped in behind him.

“We’re the first to arrive,” Eoghan said as if surprised by this.

“The others will be along in the next few minutes I expect. Let me show you what I have here,” she said. “You can help me tack what I’ve gathered on the boards while we wait for the others.” She walked over and opened one of the FedEx tubes, pulling out a tube of paper.

“Now, if you would just help me put this up, Sapphire, I think this will do nicely,” she said, handing him the rolled map. Between them, they stretched it out and hung it on the center board. It turned out to be a large map of the Southern U.S. Ari watched as she found Flagstaff and pushed a pin into it, then instructed Eoghan to do the same with the surrounding cities she’d marked in black Sharpie. “Please cut me some lengths of yarn, Brown, so that I can show our group how far Bradshaw’s reach extends. Visuals are always good.” She nodded to the ball and Ari picked it up, along with the scissors to begin cutting the yarn. It wasn’t long before there was a knock on the door. She, with Ari as back up, withdrew their weapons and they walked to the door.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Severin, Invictus, Alo, and Joe Two Trees,” a familiar, deep male voice replied.

She dragged the door open as Ari covered it. “Come in.”

Everyone glanced around and greeted Ari and the chief as they put their weapons away. They exchanged greetings all around before doing the same with Eoghan.

“Where are your tribes?”

“They’ll be here any minute,” Joe Two Trees replied. “We brought everyone down from Tahoe in the back of a semi. Our driver, Tom Fuller, is parking. We have twelve from our tribe and we saw other semis pulling in at the same time. One is being driven by a man I didn’t recognize, but Rana is sitting on the seat beside him,” he said.

“Okay, let me show you what we have so far,” Priest said. “This way.” As they all walked over to the board, Ari was surprised to see that the pins connected Flagstaff to Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, as well as Albuquerque, New Mexico. And Eoghan was in the process of connecting yarn to Santa Fe, New Mexico. All those cities had synthetic blood factories and were probably already under the control of Bradshaw’s vampires. The only other city marked was Las Vegas, Nevada in the opposite direction from New Mexico but Eoghan hadn’t yet connected the strings.

“This is where we know he’s operating?” Severin asked, frowning at the board.

“All but Nevada,” Priest said. “If they’re in Vegas, it’ll be really bad, but I won’t know about that until Andy Red Crow gets here. He’s close to the shifter tribe leader in Henderson, Nevada which borders Las Vegas. When he finishes parking, I’m sure we’ll find out what happened there.”

“You said it’d be bad if Las Vegas was already in Bradshaw’s hands. Why?” Eoghan asked.

“Because of the mere size of it,” Priest replied. “There are two blood plants in the city, so shutting them both down and hoping that they haven’t already begun spreading their product to the rest of the population there, seems unsurmountable. With a big city of consumers looking to party with the drugs Tillis Bradshaw deals, and the network he already has at his disposal, things could be grave in Vegas. We’ll have to wait and see, and pray that he hasn’t already moved into the city.”

There was another knock on the door and Ari went to answer it. This time, Severin was his cover. Rana, Andy, and another thirty odd people stood outside. “Welcome,” Ari said, hugging Rana and stepping aside as he ushered the rest of their people into the warehouse. It was becoming more crowded by the second. Right behind them, was a man he didn’t recognize. He was an older man with long, graying hair tied back in a long queue down his back, dressed in leathers and motorcycle boots. When he asked for Arizona Priest, Ari glanced back to find the chief jogging over with a ready smile on her face. As soon as the stranger saw her, he grinned widely and scooped her up in his arms, twirling her around, before setting her on the ground. It was only then that Ari noticed another fifteen people behind him, also dressed in biker clothes.

“Vance, I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” she said, laughing as he stepped back.

“It’s a long ride from Vegas but you couldn’t keep us away,” the man said in a gruff voice. “When Andy said you might need our help, I told him I was thrilled. You know me well enough to know you can’t keep me from a good fight. Bring on those nasty vamps. I can’t wait to try a few new tricks.” He dragged his happy gaze away from her and then looked at Ari before holding out a hand to him. “Vance Ross,” he said, “from the Vegas bear pack.”

“Whoo hoo! Vance, is that you?”

Ari turned to find Alo and Joe coming over to them, wearing wide grins. As the men began hugging, Ari stepped back to make room for the other bikers who were filing into the room, making it even more crowded than it had been. He looked over at Eoghan who was tacking photos of other bikers to the board. They resembled Vance’s guys, but these had glowing, red eyes, and a photo of Tillis Bradshaw was among them, looking just as ugly in the photo as he had that first day Ari had seen him. He was a big, cruel looking man and so were the multitude of other pictures being tacked up, nearly covering that whole board. It starkly illustrated the mountainous job with which they were tasked.

All of Bradshaw’s vampires looked vicious, too thin, and newly made simply from the desperate hunger evident in their red eyes. He knew that meant they’d be ravenous and wondered whether Bradshaw intentionally kept them that way to exercise maximum control over them. He had no doubt if he was keeping the remnants of John Townsend’s clan under his thumb by using their hunger and working in his favor, then he was probably keeping the closest vamps to him, starved for food, and therefore pliant as slaves.

“I guess you all know each other,” Ari said, smiling as Alo and Joe hugged Vance and a few of his men.

“Sorry, I should introduce you,” Joe Two Trees said. “Vance Ross, is the brown bear pack leader from Las Vegas. We know Vance through Andy.” He nodded to Andy who nodded back, looking just as unsmilingly cautious as the panther had when they’d first met him in Denver a few days ago.

“Nice to see you, Ross,” Andy said, shaking Vance’s hand.

“Back atcha, Red Crow.”

“Vance, this is I.S.R. Marshal Ari Brown and the handsome guy over there with all the pushpins is his partner, Eoghan Sapphire,” Joe said, continuing the introductions. “They work for Priest here.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ari said, shaking the bear’s hand. “I didn’t realize there were brown bears in Las Vegas. I guess you know my boss.”

“Vance and I have met several times,” the chief said, smiling. “I told you and Eoghan I was working on a couple of surprises myself. After the Wyoming pack leader decided not to help us, I contacted Vance. As it turns out, Andy had already contacted him.” She glanced at Andy and smiled at him, acknowledging his help with a small nod of her head before looking back. “His pack is one of the largest in the Southwest and in truth, it isn’t only bears.”

“Brown bears make up the majority of my pack, but I’ve brought all my predators here,” Vance said. He turned and pointed out several others. “David there is a lion.” He pointed to a short, squat biker with a wild mane of hair who looked surprisingly just like a lion. “Marty’s a bald eagle, Carla’s an alligator, Donald’s our timber rattler, and there are a lot of others.” As he introduced each biker, a man or woman raised their hands.

“Vance, I’ve been waiting for you to get here with Andy to ask if you think Vegas is free of Tillis’ influence so far,” the chief asked. The worry in her voice was evident.

Vance patted her shoulder. “I think so, Arizona. We haven’t seen any evidence of rogue vamps. You know we have a rez in Henderson, but we haven’t seen an uptick in the numbers of the missing or animal attacks, what the media terms vampire attacks.” He made air quotes. “And trust me, since we heard from Andy, we’ve been monitoring every police frequency out there. We have people working in the Vegas coroner’s office and several morgues in the city hospitals and haven’t turned up anything that appears suspicious. I don’t think Tillis Bradshaw’s vamps have reached that far, maybe because my own pack is so huge there. We have almost eighty shifters on our rez which borders theirs.”

“That’s really good to know, Vance. Thank God for that small miracle,” she replied.

Another knock on the door brought the werewolf packs from up north. As Juan Garcia from Hawthorne, Nevada, and Edward Walters from Bishop, California, came in with their packs, the room was near to bursting with bodies, and it was becoming hot. By the time they were all assembled, Ari had counted almost eighty shifters. Most were muscular guys like the bikers from Vance’s tribe but there were a handful of women among them. They looked lean muscled as well, in great shape. Apparently, being fit was a benefit of having shifter genes.

Arizona worked her way through the press of bodies in the warehouse to the front of the room and at her request, Ari joined Eoghan at the boards. Someone had pushed the metal table to the wall and he watched as Priest lifted her arms and made hand gestures asking for the gathered group to lower the volume.

“Please! Listen!” she tried shouting them down until Ari put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Everyone has to quiet down now so that I can tell you exactly what’s going on and what I have planned for this operation,” she continued. “My voice won’t carry over all this noise.”

As everyone finally stopped talking, she smiled. “Thank you. That’s better. I know some of you in the back of the room won’t be able to see what I’ve asked Marshal Eoghan Sapphire to pin to the boards here, but it’s basically mugshots or driver’s license photos of all the vampires we suspect to be affiliated with Tillis Bradshaw, the illegitimate king of the Flagstaff vampire clan which tried to take over John Townsend’s tribe.”

She pointed to the board. “You all know the background of this man and thank you for making the decision to come here. I know a lot of you do it with great reservations about working with vampires toward the goal of wiping Bradshaw and his thugs out. So I thank you again for being brave and recognizing the importance of what we’re meant to do here together.” She pointed to the center board. “I also have maps of his quickly spreading influence as well as where we know he’s operating. In only six months, he’s taken over much of the Southwest, but we intend on stopping that right now and cutting him and his organization off at the knees.”

“I don’t see any vampires here but then again, it is midday,” Rana said.

“The clan from Henderson, Nevada bordering Vance’s lands will be here after dark along with John Townsend, the legitimate king of the Flagstaff, Arizona clan,” she said. “Thank you in advance for making them welcome. You don’t have to like them, but you do have to tolerate them while we all work toward the same goal.”

Ari exchanged a glance with Eoghan who was watching their boss speak and his heart swelled with pride to be associated with not only the people they’d come to meet over the past months, but with his brave Eoghan who was fearlessly in a room with two werewolf packs. Even though they said he wouldn’t be harmed because of the fragment in him, he couldn’t imagine the courage it took to face his worst fears and trust that was true.

“I know I’ve talked to most of you with the exception of those of you traveling on planes just recently. But just so you’re all up to date with what we know, I can now tell you that I’ve identified the mole within our Los Angeles office as well as the Agency,” she said.

“Who is it?” Rana asked. “Andy and I have been on planes along with our clans, only meeting up at the airport to get into that big semi out there.”

“The mole who’s been working with Tillis Bradshaw inside the Agency in D.C. is a half-breed snow leopard shifter by the name of Katerina Rojas,” Priest said.

“What do you know about her?” Severin asked, frowning deeply.

Ari turned and looked at the big dragon who stood silently beside his friend, Invictus. Both had been quiet while everyone else talked a mile a minute.

“She’s Russian born, but her mother mated with a Colombian snow leopard some years ago,” the chief said. “She looks twenty but is closer to sixty, so don’t be fooled. She’s been around the block.”

“Sounds like you know her well,” Invictus said, still frowning but then turning and exchanging a serious glance with Severin. Like they’d done before, Ari realized the two were communicating telepathically and it was just as fascinating to see now as it had been before.

“I know her well enough. Before I became chief, I was a marshal working out of Vegas.” She smiled at Vance Ross. “That’s how Ross and I know each other so well. I spent a lot of time in Henderson over the years. Katerina Rojas had been assigned to the Vegas I.S.R. before she moved into the Agency in a position that placed her on a path where she could quickly climb the D.C. influence ladder. I think she honestly hopes to shatter the glass ceiling and become the first female director someday. Maybe she’s working with Bradshaw because she saw what he was doing in Flagstaff. Or she placed him there to make tons of money and create more vamps as the means to some big end plan. I don’t know.

“I just know that rumors of her being dirty have followed her for many years. My friend, Deputy Chief Washington told me a similar story and in Vegas, when I knew her, no one liked or trusted her, even her partner who was later killed in a freak accident when his weapon blew back in his face at the gun range.”

“An accident?” Vance said, rolling his eyes. “I doubted it then and I doubt it now. I liked Freeley and it still kills me that the I.S.R. dismissed it that way. Personally, I think she arranged for this accident.”

“Well, Vance, you know it was labeled an accident but everyone who knew Freeley knew he was meticulous about keeping his weapon clean and serviced,” she replied, nodding. “No solid evidence of tampering could be found, and the inquiry was closed. Everyone suspected her of doing something to him. Maybe he knew something or found something out. No one liked her, like I said. She eventually transferred out and I forgot all about her until this case came up.”

“She sounds like a nasty piece of work…and in L.A.?” Alo asked. “Who do you suspect from your own office?”

“A member of one of our sanitizing teams,” Eoghan said. “He’s a scumbag by the name of Kellen McGillis.”

“And these two are working together with Bradshaw at the I.S.R. to provide information to advance the vampires cause?” the lion shifter pack leader David asked. “Why?”

“I presume money,” Priest said. “I’ve had an IT specialist looking into their finances ever since pinpointing the two of them as culprits using the computer program another shifter developed for us. They’ve both got deposits which can’t be accounted for in addition to their normal wages. Also, Night, our IT specialist, has also found a private server where they’ve all been communicating and coordinating their moves.”

“You said…all? You’re not sure the conspiracy is limited to those two?” Rana asked.

Priest nodded. “As far as the I.S.R. goes, yes, it’s those two. However, we think Bradshaw has tasked some of his vampire leaders in the cities up on this board with the same knowledge. There are other people talking to each other on that server using only initials. We’ve counted one in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Phoenix, and Tucson as Eoghan has marked on the board here.”

“You’ve also marked Vegas,” Vance said, “but I can verify there’s no one operating there. That’s certain.”

“I wasn’t sure,” she said, turning to look at them. “Until you confirmed that a few minutes ago, I wasn’t able to independently verify that it hadn’t reached there yet.”

“Good, well there is that,” Juan Garcia said. “Now, it’s getting hot in here for the werewolves so we should move this along. Is there a plan that you’d like to explain other than what we’ve just gone over?”

“Yes, thank you for asking, Alpha Garcia,” Priest said. “I’ve already been over this with you and Edward from the Hawthorne pack. But I’d like to say that with the agreement of all the other packs and clan elders, I’ve come up with a battle plan as we move into containing Bradshaw’s vampires.”

“Sorry to interrupt but aren’t we going to wait until the undead are here to go over all this, so that we don’t have to be redundant?” Andy Red Crow asked.

“Andy—” Rana chided. “Stop it. That’s not helpful.”

“Tribal Police Chief Rana Fields is right,” Priest said. “That kind of language isn’t helpful, Mr. Red Crow. Listen, I know it took a lot for some of you shifter packs to agree to work with the vampires to stamp out Tillis Bradshaw and his bloodthirsty vampires. But calling them undead or anything else deliberately derogatory doesn’t move us in the right direction. It certainly doesn’t help. When you agreed to join us in this quest and brought your tribe into it as well, you agreed to work with vampires. Once this existential threat is vanquished, you can all retire to your own lands and if you want to never see another vampire as long as you live, that’ll be your choice. But now, we need to work with vampires and I personally think you should look to this as a growth experience.” She held up both hands. “Look. I’m not your nanny, so take away from the experience what you will. That’s totally up to you.”

“Why don’t you explain the plan you came up with to those who don’t know the details, Deputy Chief Priest?” Joe Two Trees asked.

“Okay.” She smiled, looking relieved before turning back to the board. “If you’ll notice, all these strings are strung between Flagstaff and these cities spread out on the map. These are existing synthetic blood routes and based on the computer program we’ve been using at the I.S.R. we’ve learned that our presumption has been correct. Bradshaw started in Flagstaff and has since been using these established routes for his drug distribution. He packages the drugs and the blood from their manufacturing plants together in trucks and ships them out across the nation, doing drop offs everywhere that carry synthetic blood.”

“That means he’s distributing drugs in every mom-and-pop liquor store and convenience store in the Southwest?” Rana asked. “That’s really smart.”

“Yes. He’s piggybacking his drug distribution on those established blood routes. Now that you have a visual, I’ll take the pins out and show you the plan I’ve devised.”

She nodded to Ari and Eoghan who began pulling out the pins and removing the strings while she walked over to pick up the second rolled tube. She pulled a colored, plastic overlay out and with Eoghan’s help, tacked it to the map so the various cities she’d highlighted before were divided into colored sections. On the right-hand board, she tacked a color-coded list of all the tribes and packs represented in the room. Thanking them, she swiveled to face the room.

“I’ve divided the cities and assigned each of your packs and tribes to a city.” She pointed to the board. “The Colorado packs are assigned to Phoenix.” She looked at Andy Red Crow and Rana Fields. “The Phoenix biker pack is massive since Tillis Bradshaw used to be part of that chapter of the Phoenix Pagans. It was the first city he went to after Flagstaff, so you’re going to meet a lot of resistance there. If you two would take both of your clans to Phoenix and work together, I think that’d be good.”

“Sure, Chief, we’re happy to do Phoenix,” Rana said. She looked at Andy. “Wanna kill a bunch of vamps?”

“Hell yeah,” Andy said as several people in the room nodded their heads and let out whoops and cheers.

The chief raised both hands to quiet them again. “Listen…listen…” When they’d settled down, she continued. “Please remember that the I.S.R. may be heading this operation, but we won’t tolerate any unnecessary killing. You’re responsible for documenting each death as unavoidable. Murder for murder’s sake will be treated as murder and your tribe may lose our protections and be disbanded if we determine that you’ve gone on an excessive killing spree simply because you hate vampires. That won’t be tolerated, understand?”

“Yes, Deputy Chief Priest. We’ve got it, don’t we, Andy?” Rana asked, looking pointedly at her younger counterpart from Colorado.

“Got it,” Andy said, exchanging a glance with Rana.

Ari breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was clear that they were all on the same page. He liked the way Arizona Priest worked. The chief had an authoritative and yet not overbearing or micromanaging style which worked for all involved.

“Okay, next,” she said, turning back to the board, “I’d like to have the Bishop werewolves in Santa Fe. How do you feel about that task, Alpha Walters?”

Edward looked first at his lover, Juan Garcia before turning back to her. “Yes, that seems like it would work. Do you know how many vampires the Santa Fe clan consists of?”

“We believe there are about twelve, two more than you’ve brought with you,” she replied.

He grinned widely and nodded. “Easy peasy then.”

She smiled back, nodding as she seemed to check off a mental list. “Good. Next, you, Alpha Garcia from Hawthorne.” She pointed at him before referring back to the board. “I’d also like you in New Mexico. Tillis Bradshaw’s Albuquerque clan is about twenty strong which is larger than the contingent of werewolves you’ve brought with you. We think they’re also the youngest pack with makes them the most blood crazed, though. It might be more than you can handle on your own which is the only thing that concerns me.”

“Why don’t you let me send some of my wolves with them, Chief?” Vance Ross asked. “I’ve brought three gray wolves with me. They’re not werewolves but they’re great fighters and it might be fun to see Vegas represented in a werewolf pack.”

“Hell yeah!” A biker at the back of the room said, raising a fist. “I can fight just as good as any werewolf.” Ari was taken aback when his eyes flashed neon purple, then yellow for just a second…before returning to normal.

“Same with us!” a woman shouted. “We’re wolves from Vegas but we’d love to join a bunch of werewolves to show them how it’s done!”

There was an enormous cheer which suddenly turned into howls that sent fear coursing through Ari so fast, he didn’t know where he was for a second. When he looked over at Eoghan, he noticed his lover had gone pale. He walked over to him and took his hand, squeezing it hard and making him look at him. As their eyes met, he willed courage and calm into him and eventually, amid the howls, his eyes lost their terror and his breathing slowed to normal.

“Enough!” Priest called out. “Enough! We have to get through this. You can howl all you want afterward.”

Everyone finally stopped making noise and she resumed what she’d been saying. “Fine. If you think you can take on Albuquerque with some of Vance’s wolves, I trust you know your own strengths.” She looked at Ross. “Thanks, Vance. Now, I want you to take the rest of your tribe to Tucson. They’re also large but equally matched with you in numbers.”

Vance saluted. “You got it, boss.”

Ari smiled. He liked him.

“Finally, Flagstaff,” she said. “Since this is his headquarters, I want the Tahoe grizzly pack there with me, Marshals Sapphire, Brown, and the dragons to take Flagstaff. I’m also assigning the Henderson vampire pack to Flagstaff to fight right alongside of us. With those combined forces, we should have about sixty fighters and should be able to take out Bradshaw with King John Townsend’s help. After all, I think he’ll want to rally whatever troops he still has living and get back on his throne as soon as he can.”

“Or Severin and I could just set fucking Flagstaff on fire and have done with it all,” Invictus said. “It’d save countless deaths.”

Ari laughed as did Eoghan beside him.

“No, I don’t think setting everyone in Flagstaff on fire would be a good idea, but I’ll keep your suggestion on file when I come across an unruly nest of politicians the next time I’m in D.C.,” she said, chuckling.

“There’s plenty of politicians all over the country that I’d love to see fried to a crisp,” someone in the back shouted.

After the laughter died down, Ari looked out at the crowd of shifters and werewolves. Even though he’d only known that creatures like these existed for a few months, he felt attuned to them, as if they were joined with invisible bonds, human and nonhuman. In a way, he felt safer among this crowd of creatures who could kill him by the tooth or nail, than he had on his job in the human U.S. Marshals service or even his Army Ranger unit on the front lines.

“When do we go, boss?” Eoghan asked.

She nodded to him and turned to the room, raising her arms. “I’d like to see the leaders of all clans for final preparations. The rest of you can stand easy.” She glanced at Eoghan and Ari. “I have to wait for Townsend to come but I want you to go to the office so that you can monitor what’s going on there with the search for my kidnapper.”

“You got it boss,” Ari said, meeting Eoghan’s gaze. He nodded before Ari turned back. Smiling at Priest, he said, “You did a wonderful job here, boss. We’re going to win this and it’s all because of you. I hope you know that.”

Priest smiled broadly at him as a blush stained her cheeks. “Thanks, Brown, but if it weren’t for you and Eoghan, none of this could have happened.”

Ari wasn’t so sure about that, not at all.