Page 66 of Flesh and Fury
“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 ofsurprises 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, andEdward 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 mapsof 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 methat 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.”