Halfway back to the field agent portion of SPEAR HQ, I slow my brisk pace. Eventually, I stop in a corner on a bend of the stairs and plant my hands on my hips.
My back is starting to ache again, but that’s not what’s bothering me. No, it’s Jack and his irritating request. Oh, and the near-confirmation of a new pack.
How did this happen? How could this happen? And when? And what kind of power would allow werewolves to cause wounds to other wolves that refuse to heal?
The unease bubbling through me since sitting at my desk rises and crests like a wave. It makes my stomach writhe and my shoulders tense.
Maybe…maybe if I can get back into Misona—without being chased off this time—I can check in with Wendy and the rest of the Dire Wolves. If anybody would know about what’s happening among Angbec’s packs it should be them and, as I’m a pack-friend, they’re more likely to confide in me. Perhaps if I could just—
A bellowing shout from above draws my attention upstairs. It’s followed by thudding, like overturned furniture and the pounding of heavy feet.
What now?
I take the rest of the stairs at a sprint, hugging the inside banister for extra speed.
One flight. Two.
The shouts are getting louder.
I burst onto the main floor expecting to see a riot, but the sounds are still above me.
The briefing room?
Another set of stairs, feeling the burn in my thighs now as I race toward the yelling.
The door to the briefing room is open. Several agents are visible through the gap, some standing on tables, others pointing, all of them shouting or calling over each other.
I peer through the door. Laugh.
Two agents turn to glare at me, but I can’t help it.
Four of my fellow agents, superbly trained and highly-skilled professionals, are standing on the tables, leaping about like clowns trying to catch a cackling, fluttering Norma.
She glides above them just out of reach, making as much noise as everybody else, perhaps more, all with that throaty clicking I know equates to amusement. In her claws, she holds a hand gun which is clearly too heavy for her to carry comfortably because she fumbles a little over the trigger loop and guard.
One of the agents on the table is Maury, the round bellied, wide-foreheaded leader of this supposed cluster of mighty individuals. His belt holster is empty.
Uh oh.
Maury gathers himself with a shake of his shoulders then leaps from one table to the other, making a snatching grab at Norma on the way. She ducks out of reach with another cackle and a hearty round of “dan dan dans” for good measure.
Okay. Amusing as this is, it has to end.
I place my thumb and forefinger in my mouth and whistle hard, a single shrill note that cuts through the bedlam.
Norma shrieks, drops the gun on the table, nosedives straight into my arms, and nuzzles against my chest with a crooning sigh. The other agents, caught mid-action, pull themselves back to more casual stances. All except Maury.
His leap, while unsuccessful in catching Norma, did manage to take him over the edge of the next table and into a crumpled heap on the floor. He stands, rubbing at a spot on his shoulder and limping to favour his right leg.
I organize my features into what I hope is a suitably contrite expression.
“Where the hell have you been?” he snarls.
Clearly not contrite enough. “Downstairs. Jack had a message he wanted to pass on.”
Maury narrows his eyes at me. “A message more important than your job? This meeting started twenty minutes ago. I told you on the way in.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I—”
“I’d heard you were a bit of a loose one, but this is going too far. And you have control of that thing?”
My contrite expression slips. I feel it happen when a muscle in my cheek starts to twitch. “This is Norma, if that’s who you mean.”
“Dan? Dan dan dan, kar-dan nika—”
I grab her beak to hold it shut. Now is probably not the time.
“Norma?” Maury spits the name as though it tastes bad. “Like a pet?”
“Um—”
“Will someone get that bloody thing out of my meeting so we can continue?”
No one moves.
I push Norma’s struggling form gently into my T-shirt. “I asked her to let you know I was on the way. Like I said, I got sidetracked by Jack when a runner came from downstairs and I—”
“Jack? Jack who? And what makes this ‘Jack’ more important than official SPEAR business?” Maury finally retrieves his gun and slams it back into the belt holster. He also takes great care to press the security pop stud into place over it.
A couple of uncomfortable coughs. Some shuffling.
Interesting. Seems my fellow agents have decided to watch the show rather than intervene. I spy Noel from the corner of my eye, leaning against the far wall, well removed from the scene. He hadn’t been leaping around trying to catch Norma and even now seems to be biding his time.
He does catch me looking though and offers me the smallest, near-invisible shake of the head.
I take a deep breath. He’s right of course. But I still want to punch Maury in the throat.
Instead I keep my voice soft, low, and hopefully non-aggressive. “Sorry, maybe you know him as Jackson Cobé. He had some intel to pass on.”
More coughing. A sneeze.
“The mayor?”
I nod.
“Mayor Cobé came to see you.”
It doesn’t sound like a question, but I nod anyway.
Norma wriggles and I tighten my grip on her beak.
“Does he do that often?”
I hesitate.
Noel leans off the wall, his headshaking more obvious now.
“Ye—I mean no. No, he doesn’t. So I didn’t think I should keep him waiting. He clearly thought it was important enough to come in himself.”
Less headshaking from the corner. Instead, a hand, held palm flat in a sort of “steady now” gesture.
Maury holds my gaze for long tense seconds.
I wait.
Norma grunts.
“And why would the mayor come to you, a troublesome and undisciplined agent, when there are long-standing and experienced team leaders available to speak to?”
Oh, now I really want to punch him. Maybe a kick too, for good measure.
“Maybe because he knows I’m damn good at my job. Perhaps better than most.”
Noel groans and lowers his face to his hands.
The uncomfortable shuffles and throat clearings drop away to leave a flat, dead silence.
I don’t care. This has gone on long enough.
Maury’s dark eyes narrow even further. He walks—no limps—around the tables to reach me and stops within six inches of mowing me down.
“You. Are. Late. No excuses. See me later when we’re done.”
“Sure. Glad to.” I smile, but I know the gesture is more a savage bearing of teeth than anything as friendly as a true smile.
“And get rid of that thing so we can get on with this.”
“No need for that.” I open up the T-shirt. Norma crawls out of the neckline, across my shoulder, and up my neck to take her usual roost on top of my head. I pat her once, choose a chair at the edge of the table, and sit with my hands clasped in my lap. “She’ll behave now.”
Silence. It’s thick enough to taste, heavy enough to cut.
Between the pair of us, Maury and I have the attention of every other agent gathered in that room.
Noel watches us both through a gap in his fingers.
“Shall we continue?”
Maury’s lips open and close a few times. I can see the war in his face, the struggle in his eyes. Eventually he grunts and limps back toward the front of the room. “Everybody sit. We’re running behind.”
I let go of the breath I’d been holding and scoot my chair left to make space.
Everyone sits, and after much scraping and dragging of chairs, Maury begins to speak.
Yeah…this seems to be going as well as expected.
* * *
“So with everybody now up to date we’ll assign the tasks. Myself and the other G7s have decided that the best way to do so is through a unit by unit breakdown. That way deputies can then form their units based on the manpower required. Any questions?”
I sit straight.
This is the part I’ve been waiting for, though at this point, having sat through thirty minutes of Maury’s circular and ego-stroking “brief,” I’ve come to think of it as reward for getting through this meeting in one piece. And without punching someone in the nose.
“Actually, I have a point to raise.”
Maury glares at me. “What?”
Pause. Deep breath. “Given the nature of the werewolf issue and that we’re as yet unsure about the full implications of the changes, I move that you assign them and all associated tasks to Kappa.”
“Really. Posh words, Karson, did you plan that on your way up?”
“Actually, yes. I figured I’d better have myself ready because you’d no doubt forget about a core portion of the teams available for dispatch. And sure enough, not you, nor any other of the G7s have once mentioned Kappa.”
He leans over the table. “Unless called upon, Kappa members revert back to their original units. At present there is no Kappa.”
My fingers curl into tight little fists.
I force myself to count to ten before speaking.
“Kappa is Special Ops and—”
“I know what Kappa is,” he snaps. “I also know that werewolves are well within the capabilities of any Alpha-level agent. Besides, it isn’t your job to decide or assign roles. This is outside your remit.”
He’s right. I know he’s right, but I can’t get Jack’s desperate expression out of my mind. If I don’t do this now, if I don’t get a handle on the assignment of these cases, I’ll never be able to help him.
I glance about the room.
A sea of indifferent faces stares back at me, all but one. Noel again, right across the table from me, but angled to fall outside Maury’s direct eyeline.
He’s staring at me, gesturing something with his hands, a loop with a stick on the end, over and over.
Lollipop? Traffic sign? Tennis racket?
I widen my eyes at him and he begins afresh, this time with new gestures. A line. A curved line with a straight bottom. A double curve, one on top of the other. An L-shape with a strike down the centre—
“Numbers?” I mouth at him.
He nods frantically, signing again, the line, which I now recognize as a one, then two, three, four, five, six…
I understand.
“Karson.” Maury is staring as though I’ve lost my mind, but this time when I face him, I’m able to do so with a smile. “Did you hear me?”
“I did. And in ordinary circumstances you’d be right. But Kappa is a new team and—”
“You said it. The general is still working out how you fit, and to be honest if you’re even required at all. If it were up to me, you’d be back with us and the rest of your Alpha teammates and there’d be no more trouble, but unfortunately I don’t have the final say.”
“No. The Kappa team leader does. The highest ranking member of the Kappa team is the agent authorized to mobilize the team and take control over any task they decide requires special treatment.”
His grin in reply is almost feral. “There is no Kappa team leader.”
“No, there isn’t. But there is a deputy.”
A soft hush ripples through the room.
Noel grins broadly at me, then hides his face behind his hand again.
I wait.
“What?” Maury looks lost.
I lean forward over the table. “Kappa has a G6 agent and, like with any team, in the absence of a G7, that deputy steps in to fill the role. So…” I stand and move around the long conference table to join Maury and the other G7s at the front of the room. “Maybe we need to reopen the discussion about how our current tasks are assigned. Y’know, since previous decisions took place without the valuable input of one of your team leaders.”
“You can’t.”
“No?” I scoop up the lanyard hanging from my hip and turn the ID to show off my agent number. “Are you sure?”
This time, when I glance across the tables, I can see Noel’s shoulders bucking with poorly controlled, silent laughter.
Well. At least someone is having fun today.