Authors: Tammy Blackwell
“
He’s sleeping,” a female
voice said from my left. I swung around, already crouched down to
pounce.
“
Whoa. Sorry.” Michelle
stood with her hands raised in the air in the classic surrender
pose. “I thought you knew I was here.”
I ran a hand through my very wet, very ugly
hair. “I should have.” Crap. I was so focused on Liam and all the
stuff happening inside my head I didn’t take the time to adequately
survey my surroundings. Stupid mistake. Sure, this place was
supposed to be a Shifter Sanctuary or whatever, but if there was
one thing I learned over the past year and a half is that I should
take nothing for granted. There were always surprises. Things
always went wrong.
People I trusted always locked me out.
I glared at the door, weighing the
advantages of ripping the damn thing off its hinges.
“
I thought you were going
back to the library.” Better to the leave the door in one piece for
now. There was no doubt Michelle would report the incident to
Rachel. It wasn’t like I was
scared
of a little old lady or anything…
Okay. Fine. I’m a little bit afraid of one
particular old lady.
“
Went and came back
already.” She grabbed the messenger bag she had strapped over her
shoulder. “I have something for you.”
I accepted the bag, which was weighed down
with books and papers. “What’s this?”
“
Research.” Michelle nodded
towards a window seat at the end of the hall. I thought it might be
a ploy to get away from Liam, but there was no way a few feet were
going to make a difference. He wouldn’t even have to try to
overhear our conversation from that distance, but I didn’t bother
telling Michelle. I did accept the invitation to sit down, though.
Actually, I wasn’t opposed to having the conversation with me
curled up on the gigantic cushion, even though it would mean that I
would fall asleep after the first two sentences were
uttered.
Liam was probably just as exhausted as I
was. And he probably knew there was a chance one of them would come
back. That’s why he locked the door. It wasn’t like he was trying
to avoid me or anything.
And I was going to keep telling myself that
until I believed it.
“
I’m guessing this isn’t
the new JR Ward novel,” I said, taking out a large book with an old
fabric covering. “
Armstrong Line
doesn’t really sound like one of her titles.
Maybe
Strong Armed
Lover
, but that’s not quite the
same.”
Michelle’s eyes narrowed from where she
stood above me. “Aren’t you a little young to be reading JR
Ward?”
“
Aren’t I a little young to
be attempting to overthrow a centuries old government?”
“
Touché.” Michelle didn’t
melt down into the cushions like I did. No, she perched rather
smartly on the edge, her back straight and shoulders back. I took a
moment to wonder if she had attended Catholic school. I always
imagined the nuns made their students sit like that. “That’s why
I’m here, actually. Do you know who Reginald Armstrong
was?”
“
Should I?”
Michelle took the book from my hands and
flipped through until she was just a few pages from the end.
“Here,” she said, handing the book back. The pages were set up
ledger style, all the writing done by hand. She pointed to the top
of a page where the name “Reginald Armstrong” was written in red
ink.
“
Ooookay…”
“
The names written below
are those of his children.”
I scanned the list. Lois. Evelyn.
Gladys.
Wait.
“
Gladys Armstrong. I know
that name.” How did I know that name?
“
Her family’s information
is on…” she checked a notation beside the name, “page
173.”
I flipped over, and immediately knew where I
heard that name before. “Gladys Armstrong became Gladys Minter. She
was my great-grandmother.” I remembered seeing the name on the
family tree Gramma Hagan gave me as a birthday present last year. I
didn’t really make it far past the great-grandparent line, but that
name stuck out because I sent up a secret prayer of thanks that my
mom hadn’t followed Lake County tradition and named me after her
grandmother. Gladys Donovan. Ick. “Why do you have a book with my
great-grandmother’s name in it?”
“
We have a book for each of
the Shifter family lines. This one just happens to be
yours.”
All the Shifter family lines…
I flipped through the pages, noting how
several of the names were written in red ink, many with a “PL”
beside them. All those names were male.
“
My great-great-grandfather
was a Shifter?”
Michelle nodded.
Holy crap. This was big. Huge. And something
I really wish I had known a year ago.
“
This is why I’m a Shifter
then, right? I’m a real one, not some crazy reincarnated moon
posing as a Shifter.”
Michelle’s eyes darted down the hall to
Liam’s room. When she spoke, her voice was lowered. “I knew you
weren’t buying the whole magical voodoo stuff either, so when I
went back to pick up the other information I did a quick search of
our databases. I was lucky, really. Someone just sent in an update
of the Armstrong line last summer.”
Last summer was the same time I got my very
own copy of the family tree. Coincidence? Doubtful. Gramma Hagan
has always been a smart lady.
“
My best theory,” Michelle
continued, “is that something prodded you to Change last spring.
Maybe the trauma of your accident, or your closeness to other
Shifters, or--”
“
Or getting a blood
transfusion from a Shifter?”
Finally something broke through her
perfectly-manicured appearance. “You got a blood transfusion from a
Shifter?”
“
You know about the
accident?”
“
The one where you were
attacked by a ‘wild coyote’ and almost died?” She added air quotes
around “wild coyote”.
“
Yeah, after that I needed
a lot of blood. Our local hospital is small and was running low, so
my step-brother Jase gave me some.”
“
Jase Donovan of the Hagan
Pack? A coyote Shifter?”
Yeah, I totally saw the same flaw in my
logic, and God knows Jase would have been all over it if he was
there. “But a Shifter is a Shifter, right?” I thought out loud.
“Like, whatever it is that makes a person Change is the same, the
only difference is the animal they Change into.”
“
And whatever activates the
Change might be the same in both wolfs and coyotes.”
“
And maybe wake up dormant
Shifter tendencies in the great-great-granddaughter of a
Shifter.”
Michelle’s smile was wide and sported those
ubiquitous dimples. “I knew it! I knew there had to be a scientific
explanation!”
I was really starting to like this girl.
“
So, you’re not into the
whole magical voodoo either?”
I had pegged Michelle as one of those
always-serious, super-together chicks who walked such a narrow line
of “rightness” that black and white offered too many color options.
So when she snorted and prefaced her “no” with the most forbidden
of all four-letter words I almost fell off the window seat.
“
In case you haven’t heard,
I’m latent.”
As if someone would have missed her
grandmother’s somewhat rude announcement. “What does that have to
do with anything?”
Michelle sighed and leaned back against the
wall. I wondered if this was the real Michelle, the one few people
got to see. Had we bonded? Were we friends now? I’ve never had many
of those and most of the ones I have are either by default or
accident. I wasn’t sure how this worked, but I thought maybe this
was it.
“
Imagine spending your
whole life surrounded by unexplained things and hearing that it’s
magic, but never getting to experience that magic for
yourself.”
“
I guess you would get a
little bitter…”
“
No, not bitter,” she spat
out. I raised my eyebrows in the beat that followed. “Okay, maybe a
little bitter, but more than that, you start to think of reasons,
real reasons, it works for some people, but not you.”
“
You look for science and
logic.” I could certainly understand the appeal. “Is that what
these papers are? Is this the science behind who we
are?”
“
I wish. Unfortunately,
everyone besides you and me are satisfied with the magic
explanation. I try to learn as much as I can about genetics and
stuff like that, but I’m usually so busy helping Grandmother with
the library--” She shrugged as if her inability to follow through
was nothing, but I could see the frustration written all over her
face. “Last week Marie told me we needed to start researching
history of the Alpha Female. Since she can See what’s needed but
doesn’t have the research skills it took some time for me to find
what she was being pulled towards, but eventually we came up with
all this. I thought it might help.”
“
Thanks.” I flipped through
the first few pages and already things were catching my eye.
“Seriously, I’m really grateful.”
“
Pay special attention to
the stuff in the manila envelope. It was really hard to get my
hands on, which probably means no one is actually supposed to ever
see it.”
When I was finally able to pry my eyes away
from my new treasures, Michelle was at the top of the stairs.
“
I don’t know anything
about magic or fates, but I know people,” she said. “And I know
that you’re the good kind. I may not be able to See or Change, but
my daddy made sure I know how to fire a rifle. If you need me, just
say the word.”
***
I doubted I would ever call on Michelle to
fight, but I moved her to the top of my “people to call when I need
information” list. The stuff she gathered on the Alpha Females was
amazing. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, but I sat
in the bed I claimed as my own and read for a long time. I started
with the stuff in the manilla envelope. At first glance, I couldn’t
figure out what was significant about it other than it was a
translation of some records from nearly two thousand years ago.
Then, finally, I saw it. Alpha Female after Alpha Female was
listed, and each was a Shifter. Their daughters were Shifters. Two
thousand years ago female Shifters lived and flourished. Of course
the current regime wouldn’t want this information easily
accessible. Who would believe that whole “girls are too weak to
Change” propaganda then?
The translation wasn’t complete, which I
suppose is bound to happen when the original manuscript was written
on parchment scrolls or whatever, but something happened right
around the time they were nailing God’s son (or Sun, depending on
your beliefs) to the cross. The files were annoyingly short on
details, but the Alphas both died suddenly at a young age with no
children. In fact, from what I could understand, a large portion of
Shifters died around that time, leaving only a few male Shifters
and a Seer in the Alpha Pack. After that change of leadership there
was a period of about five years that a very young Female Shifter
took the Alpha position, but then the daughter of the Seer who
originally filled the role was listed as Alpha. From then on, it
was all Seers all the time, and the number of female Shifters
listed in the records dropped dramatically.
Two thousand years. It was a span of time I
couldn’t really wrap my head around. How many had to know what was
going on? How many turned a blind eye? How many willingly
participated?
I wanted to think the number was small. I
needed to. I may not be the fountain of happy thoughts and kumbaya
Talley is, but I had to believe in humanity at least enough to
think most people wouldn’t allow this sort of thing to happen over
and over again for so long.
I grabbed the phone Michelle left tucked
into the bag and scrolled through the pre-programmed numbers.
“
Hello?”
“
Mrs. Rachel, it’s
Scout.”
I heard the sound of footsteps, and then a
door closing. “What is it? Has something happened?”
“
No, nothing has happened.
I’m fine. I just…” How to ask? “I was wondering how you found out
about what was happening with the female Shifters.”
“
I see.” There was scraping
noise, probably a chair being pulled out. “You’re wondering how
they pulled it off for so long. How deep the corruption
runs.”
“
Yes.”
“
It is not as bad nor as
good as you think.” I didn’t bother telling her she had no idea
what I was thinking. “It is not as if everyone in the Den knows
what is going on, and I believe most of the Alpha Males, if not
all, have been kept in the dark.”
“
So, Stefan could actually
be innocent in all this?”
“
Stefan killed my niece and
her husband, and then spent a considerable amount of effort
tracking down my nephews so he could do the same to them. And, if
I’m not mistaken, he tried to cut your head off.”
“
Okay, maybe ‘innocent’ was
a bit generous.”
“
You meant to say that he
is not involved with the genocide of female Shifters, which I
believe may or may not be the case. I simply know that he was not
among those aware when I left the Den.”
“
Who was aware?”
“
The Alpha Female and the
girl she was grooming to be her replacement,
Alexandria.”