Luke’s cell phone startled him from a dream of his youth. At this point in his life, those kinds of dreams were rare. He tried to hold on to them all the more fiercely, but it wasn’t to be on a rare night he’d taken the night off for an early bedtime. The ringing stopped when his voicemail engaged, but quickly started again. Sighing, he groggily answered.
“Heh…heh…” A yawn interrupted his greeting. “Hello?”
“Luke, it’s Pablo. We’ve got an emergency. Get down to the house, ASAP.”
“OK, OK. You’d better have—”
“Coffee? Yeah, we got plenty,” Pablo said, interrupting Luke’s sleepy and slurred request. “Get down here.”
“Your house?”
“No, the pack has a house not far from the brewery. I’ll text you the address.”
Usually Pablo wasn’t that terse. Something big must be going down. Luke swapped his pajama pants for jeans, slung his swords across his back, zipped up a baggy hoodie, and walked out the door, jumping into his Volvo in case it was needed. The pack house was only a few blocks away from his, just on the other side of Pablo’s brewery. One of the younger pack members, one Luke hadn’t met yet, was sitting inconspicuously on the deck, acting as a guard.
“Hey, Luke. The door’s open; head on down.”
Luke nodded at him and headed in. Pablo must have given a description of Luke to the guard. Pablo greeted him in the kitchen with a cup of fresh coffee, then headed toward the basement stairs. Luke followed him down the stairs into the pack’s secret labyrinth. The room was set up like an exam room at a doctor’s office, complete with the patient table. The room smelled like soldiers about to enter a battle—somber, angry, and frightened. The scent and the palpable tension immediately did the work of a whole pot of coffee and put him on immediate alert.
“You’ve got a hospital room in your basement?” Luke asked.
“Yeah. The doc runs clinic days here to save the pack members from using the human hospitals for basic needs.”
“Smart. What’s going on?” Luke asked.
“A young wolf in pretty rough shape showed up at our door tonight,” replied Pablo. “She claimed she was being held captive by vampires. That they’d been feeding from her. And here’s the big part, that she wasn’t the only one. There are lots of people locked up. That’s all we’ve gotten out of her so far. We didn’t want to press too hard until the doctor looked her over.”
Luke turned his attention toward the girl. She appeared to be very nervous, eyes darting between all the werewolves. Her clothes were filthy, soaking, and tattered. Someone had given her a brutal haircut, leaving a short, jagged mess.
Luke’s brows furrowed. “For a werewolf, she seems to be frightened of all the wolves around her. I take it she’s not from your pack?”
“No. And she doesn’t appear to be from any of the other local packs,” Pablo replied. Seeing Luke’s confusion, added, “Holly and the other local packleaders share a database of pack members. It’s one of the programs she’s set up to ensure the local packs get along well.”
As the caffeine flowed through his veins, he felt a pit settle in his stomach at the thought of the rough treatment the poor child had undergone at the hands of the vampires. The door cracked open, and Holly popped in with a curvy blonde woman of average height he’d never seen before.
“OK, everyone out! The doctor’s here, and she would like some privacy.” Holly turned her attention to the girl. “This is Dr. Rabinowitz, one of our pack physicians. She’s going to do an exam and make sure you’re alright. Would you like one of us to stay in the room with you?”
She squinted and looked around the room, settling on Luke. “The human. The human stays. No wolves. Just the doctor and the human.”
Holly turned to Luke with a quizzical look on her face. “Do you mind, Luke?”
Luke shrugged. “No, I don’t mind. She doesn’t seem to trust werewolves.”
The wolves filed out of room, Pablo nodding at Luke as he passed.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Rabinowitz, although you can call me Maggie if you’d like. Can you tell me your name?”
“Gwen, Gwendolyn.”
“I brought this for you.” Dr. Rabinowitz gave Gwen a reassuring smile and handed Gwen a hospital robe. She had a slight Polish accent to her English. “Would you please put this on? You can change behind the screen.”
Gwen nodded and went behind the screen to change.
“That’s better. This is probably warmer than those wet rags, anyway. When we’re done, you can take a shower, and we’ll find you some clean clothes to change into.”
“Hey, Doc, let me know when, and I’ll turn around to give you two a bit of extra privacy,” Luke said.
Maggie nodded in response, then began the examination. Luke zoned out for the initial portion of the exam, retreating into his caffeine-deprived brain until a new line of questioning pulled him back into the room.
“When did you first start identifying as a girl?”
“I don’t know. I remember my dad getting really mad at me for wanting to wear a dress. I think I was five or six at the time. The second time I mentioned it, I got a spanking…” Her voice had a slightly dead and clinical tone to it, as if she were recounting something she’d seen through a window.
“Did you come out to your mom?”
“Yeah. She tried to talk to my dad, but he hit her and said no son of his was going to be a queer. She told me to never talk about it again, for both our sakes.”
“When did you run away?”
“A couple years ago.”
“And you’ve not been home since?”
Gwen shook her head no.
“Has anyone from your pack tried looking for you?”
“I don’t know, I don’t care, I’m not going back. If you make me, I’ll run away before they can find me again.” Her voice was becoming more agitated.
Luke, his curiosity drawing him into the conversation, turned slightly so he could see.
“Don’t worry. I’ll speak with Holly. She’s a good packleader. She’ll come up with something.” Maggie’s face was lined with sadness, care, and a few well-hidden hints of anger. “I think we’re done here. We can talk more later. I’ll show you up to the bathroom so you can get cleaned up. Luke, would you mind grabbing Holly? I’ll meet you both back here in a moment.”
Maggie directed the robed kid out of the room. As they passed, Luke gave Gwen a small, friendly smile. Gwen returned a pleading look.
Holly was outside the door when Maggie opened it and stepped in. They stood in silence until Maggie returned a minute or two later, shutting the door behind her. She let out a big sigh. “That’s one traumatized kid.”
“I don’t know what happened to her, but she’s terrified of werewolves,” Luke commented. “How did she end up here? At a werewolf property?”
“I’m guessing when she had her first transformation, her wolf instinct kicked in and she went looking for the closest pack and found us,” Maggie replied. “I’m glad she did find us, though.”
“I don’t know how many packs you’ve interacted with over the years, but a lot are not friendly to ‘the other.’ That’s in large part why this pack exists; to give a home to those who would be ostracized, or worse, from their own packs. Some of the better packleaders keep a more open culture. Some of the more mediocre will reassign people to our pack where they’ll be welcome and not ‘disrupt’ their own packs. The other kind, well, they’ll snuff out those they view as aberrations; ‘cull the pack of weakness’ some of them call it. She wouldn’t give us any details about where she’s from,” Holly said, anger evident on her face.
“She wouldn’t tell us anything either, so I don’t know if it was a bad pack situation or a bad family situation. Even if it was only the latter, the pack didn’t do a good job ensuring the safety of all its members. It sounds like her father physically abused her and her mother, specifically about her gender identity,” Maggie replied.
Holly’s brows furrowed. “What should we do, Maggie?”
“Right now? Make sure she gets healthy. Get her some regular food. We should also look into getting her some puberty blockers if she wants them. I think living rough has staved off puberty thus far. She’d normally be in the middle of it by now. If we feed her and provide a safe place for her, her body will make up for lost time. Blockers will buy us, and more importantly, her, some time. I am concerned about how we’re going to take care of her, though. I’m not sure we’ll be able to place her with a wolf family, not with her apparent fear of her own kind.”
Holly nodded in response. “OK. That gives me some things to think about. She’s probably about done showering by now. I’m having food prepped for her. We’ll have her brought to the conference room. She can eat while we ask her some questions about the location she described. Hopefully, she’ll have calmed down a bit and can give us some clearer answers.” Holly grabbed the doorknob but gave Luke an appraising look as she opened the door and headed to the house’s meeting room.
The girl hadn’t made an appearance yet, so everyone fixed snack plates for themselves and grabbed more coffee. The executive group of the pack was assembled, or at least that’s what Luke assumed they were. The kid was too skittish to be in front of the entire pack, plus they didn’t need to be here to hear her tale or make a decision. Dr. Maggie Rabinowitz, Sam, Pablo, Holly, and one other individual, a tall, skinny Black man Luke didn’t know, were chatting in one corner as Luke took a seat and grazed through his snack plate.
Holly nodded to Luke. “Luke, you know everyone here, except Jamaal. They help me run the pack and were the first responders to my call to meeting. We’ll keep the gathering small for now.”
Luke nodded at Holly.
The door cracked open, and the girl peeked her head in.
“It’s OK. Come on in and close the door behind you, please,” Maggie said to her with a warm and comforting smile.
Gwen walked in and closed the door but not enough for it to latch. She’d only entered the room far enough to close the door.
Maggie stood up and gestured toward Holly and Sam. “Gwen, this is Holly. She’s the packleader. Samantha is her wife.”
Sam gave her a friendly wave and smile.
“That’s Pablo, the pack second. This is Jamaal. They’re all members of the pack council. The human sitting at the table is Luke, a friend of Pablo’s.”
Luke nodded at Gwen.
Maggie pointed Gwen toward the food spread out on the counter. “Please, fix yourself some food. But as a medical professional, I’d advise starting light. You’ve got to be starving after your first transformation, but try not to overdo it. You’ve been living rough for a while and your stomach might rebel on you.”
Gwen walked to the line of food and picked out some rolls and slices of deli meat, as well as a banana, before sitting down in a chair next to Luke.
After Gwen finished eating, Holly directed everyone to silence and said, “Please, Gwen, tell us about the vampires and the jail.”
Gwen nodded. “Um, where do you want me to start?”
“Wherever you think you need to start,” Holly replied.
Gwen sat for a bit, appearing to think about it. “I’ve been staying at the camp down on Interstate and Greeley for a while. A few months ago, people started disappearing. I mean, people come and go, but they always take their stuff. At first, it was a few of the rougher people who liked to avoid most of the camp but still stayed nearby. Nobody thought anything of it. Some of the other campers were happy to see them go. Even if they didn’t cause too many problems, they scared some people. Others just thought they’d been picked up by the cops.”
“Did you see any police?” Holly asked.
“Sometimes, I guess. I always hid when they showed up. I didn’t want them taking me in.”
Holly nodded. “How many people disappeared?”
“I don’t know. It was hard to tell who just left or was picked up by the cops or had…been taken. Max tried to keep an eye on everyone. But it’s a big camp and a lot of people just want to be left alone.”
“Who’s Max?” Holly asked.
Luke chimed in, “I know Max. He kind of runs the camp along with a couple other people. He keeps an eye on everyone. Tries to get people services when he can—”
“I know you!” Gwen interrupted. “You bring stuff to Max sometimes, for the camp.”
Luke nodded at her. “I don’t remember seeing you.”
“I kept out of sight. I thought you were a cop or a social worker.”
“Nope.”
“Gwen, when were you taken?” Holly asked.
Gwen pulled in on herself. “A couple weeks ago. It was late. I’d heard something near my tent. I snuck out to get Max. That’s when I saw some creepers sneak up to his place. He’s got one of those mini-houses. The creepers knocked on his door, and when Max opened it, he started talking, then stopped and got all weird. He kind of looked like he’d been hypnotized. Then, two of the creepers carried him away. I was about to yell for help when someone covered my mouth. I woke up in a room with bars everywhere. That’s all I remember.”
“What happened after you woke up?” asked Holly.
“I… I don’t want to talk about it,” Gwen replied, further withdrawing into herself.
Maggie settled a hand on Holly to prevent her from delving further in this direction.
“Gwen, do you mind if I ask you a few questions about things like the number of vampires you saw, patrols, security features, things you observed about your surroundings?” Luke gently asked.
She nodded.
“OK, thank you.”
Gwen lined out as much information as she could, trying to remember the details Luke was coaxing out of her.
“How did you escape?” Holly asked.
“They came to take me to…they came to get me. I started to panic and then… I changed, shifted…” There was a long pause. “The next thing I remember is running in the dark. I was soaked. I’d picked up the scent of werewolves and came here. I don’t know how.” Everything was delivered in a detached monotone. “When I got done with the shower, I found these keys in my pocket.” She tossed a set of specialty keys on the table.
Everyone’s eyes fell on the keys with a mix of responses from disbelief, good fortune, and avarice like someone had just opened the buried treasure a bunch of pirates had dug up.
“Can you tell us where the jail is?” Holly asked, still staring at the keys.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember how long I ran.”
“I might have an idea,” Luke commented to Holly. “Gwen, did everything look new and unused, or was it an old jail?”
“Um, new, I guess. I don’t remember the outside, but everything seemed new. It was dusty…”
“Wapato,” Luke and Pablo said at the same time.
Holly nodded, but Maggie, Sam, and Jamaal looked confused.
Luke deferred to Pablo. “It’s in St. Johns, by Bybee Lake. It was this massive jail they passed a bond to build a few years ago, except it never went into use. Wasted millions of dollars. The city tried to rent it out to the Feds or the State, but they didn’t bite either. It’s been sitting there empty, wasting more money since. Sounds like they found someone to lease it to.”
“I’m not sure I’m happy about the new neighbors. The pack has always kept this part of town safe. I’d like to know who knows what and how much down at city hall…” Holly mused.
“That’s something we can investigate later,” Pablo interjected. “We need to figure out what to do now. This is the first serious break we’ve had on the bloodsuckers’ operation. We can get in there and bust it up and possibly cripple their numbers.”
“Yeah, but we have no idea how many vampires are inside. Or what else is waiting inside,” Luke countered. “Gwen, how many vampires do you remember seeing?”
“I don’t know…maybe fifteen or twenty. My cell didn’t have a very clear view.”
“Were there other people?” Luke asked.
Gwen nodded.
Holly looked troubled. “How many?”
“Um, lots. I could see about thirty in the cells near me. I heard more though.”
Luke’s eyebrows shot up. “That changes things. We need to get in and free whoever the vamps are holding before they move them off site or just kill them out of convenience.”
“Won’t that many bodies point back to the names on the lease?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, but it won’t be anyone real or traceable. They’ll close shop, suck as many dry as they can, kill the rest, and leave. By the time the city wonders why the rent checks stopped landing in the mailbox, there’ll be nothing but a gruesome and smelly mess and leads that go nowhere. Vampires have been operating in the dark for too long to get caught making these kinds of mistakes. They’ve got their game down. Holly, I’m going to need some information about the pack. I know you protect that closely, but I need to know what kind of resources we have to work with.”
Holly didn’t respond for a while. “I’ll have to discuss this with the council. I’m not sure involving us any further in your war with the vampires is the best idea. Pablo going along with you on hunts is one thing. This opens us to a new level of peril.” She sighed, looked down, then back up at Luke. “Do me a favor, please. Take Gwen upstairs and show her one of the guest rooms. The stairs are just outside the door there, and the guest rooms are on the left. Any of them are fine. She looks exhausted and should get some sleep. There are enough council members here to put the motion forward.”
Luke nodded and refilled his coffee mug before gesturing for Gwen to follow. “Let’s give them some privacy. Grab any snacks you might want and a bottle of water or two.”
She did as suggested, then headed out of the room. Luke pulled the door shut behind him and headed to the stairs.
Luke gestured toward the stairs. “This way, little one.”
They headed upstairs and down the hall until Luke stopped in front of one of the doors and peeked in.
“This one will work. Bed’s all made up. It locks from the inside as well, if that works for you. If it helps, I think the pack here is pretty nice. Although I haven’t met most of them, Pablo is my friend and Holly and Sam are very thoughtful and kind.”
Gwen nodded before walking into the room and shutting the door. As Luke walked away, he heard the lock click. Taking a seat at the bottom of the stairs, Luke waited for the pack’s verdict.
Finally, Pablo popped out, “We’re ready for you.”
Luke sat at the table on the opposite end from everyone else.
Holly sat up straight and fixed her gaze on Luke. “Luke, we’re not sure if we should involve the pack in this business. As it stands, we’re split. What you’re asking is big. Throughout our history, werewolves have sought to remain hidden, blend in. We hide in plain sight, join the human populace. We avoid getting involved with vampires. We protect our pack and maintain our community. You’re asking us to put all of that at risk.”
“Whether you join or not, it’s risked already. You think I’m about to drop you in boiling water, like the proverbial frog. But the vampires have been slowly turning up the temperature of the pot you’re in without you noticing, and now it’s about to boil over. I’ve seen this a lot over the centuries. Witnessed it many times before. There’s a rhythm to it.” Luke leaned forward, narrowing his eyes as his gaze intensified.
“First, it’s one or two vampires. They feed a little here, a little there. They stay unnoticed. Then, if they decide the environment is ripe, they breed. Instead of a meal, they look for a steadier and more willing source. Violent crime goes up. Strange deaths. Missing people. Darkness.” He paused, sighed, and let go of the filter blocking the urgency of his plea.
As he looked around the table, the sure looks had become uncertain and worried. Holly almost looked scared.
“This is your home. Your city. Someone is preying on it. Taking its most vulnerable and using them to further imperil the place you call home. They’ve taken at least one werewolf that we know of. And yes, she’s not from your pack, but she needs someone to advocate for her. Someone to step in for her. I will. I can give you no more reason to do it other than it’s the right thing to do, and you have the power to do it if you choose to take up that mantle.” He exhaled sharply.
“I know fighting vampires is my lot in life; I’ll go in alone if need be. But I’d much rather have strong allies at my side.”
Holly took a deep breath and let it out in a long, controlled sigh. She looked at her pack mates, who each nodded slightly, then turned to Luke.
“You’re right. We can’t shirk our duty to our community any longer. What can we do to help?”
“We need your fighters, and anyone else who is willing to help. We’ll also need transportation. There could be a lot of people in that jail, and we won’t be able to fit them all in cars. Doc, we’ll need medical supplies and probably food. Barring food, we should get liquids. Sports drinks, Pedialyte, or even coconut water will work. If they’re being used as juice boxes by vampires, they’ll be short on blood and dehydrated.”
“Those are all doable. I’ll call in the pack. You’ll have your fighters, but we’ll need more than just muscle. We have a couple buses we use for pack trips. Maggie, I’ll leave you in charge of prepping medical and food supplies. Check the pack database for anyone with past medical training. Jamaal, see if you can find any blueprints or detailed information on Wapato.”
Luke nodded at Holly. “Thank you. I want to head up that way before dawn to see what the security situation is on the outside, patrols, guards, and the like. I’d like to take Pablo. He’s familiar with the scent of vampires at this point; his nose will be useful. Also, if you can spare someone, I’d like to have a driver to keep the car running if we need to get out in a hurry.”
“I’ll take care of that, Holly,” Sam piped up. “Maybe I can keep you two out of trouble.” She winked at Luke.
“Yes, but who’ll keep you out of trouble?” Holly asked.
“Sam, Pablo, you’re with me. We need to stop by my house on the way.”
They followed him out of the pack’s Kenton house and climbed into the Volvo wagon with Luke.
“Pablo, could you please text Delilah and let her know to check in as soon as she’s up?”
Pablo nodded. “No problem. She’d thump you something good if you left her out of this.”