Hunter of Vengeance

I went down the elevator to the garage they kept beneath the hotel for VIP's. I kept my car there while I was out of town. It was a white Shelby Tuatara concept car. Most of the technology under the hood wouldn't even be released for another few years and some of it would never see the light of day. A somewhat major extermination in their headquarters in Washington had me walking away with the vehicle as an extra thank you. As I hit the gas and pulled out of the garage I couldn't help but think to myself there are days I love my job.

A block from the hotel my phone rang with the information Holly promised, considering it had been a new phone fresh from the package my estimation of her abilities went up a tic. The wolf leader lived just across the Jersey border in Mendham. It was about an hour’s drive, significantly less if I was in a rush, which I wasn't. The address and directions came with some extra information about just who it was that I was meeting. Stanton Thorne, age unknown, first showed up on paper about eighty years earlier. He fought alongside the British commando units in World War 2. Details of his involvement were sketchy at best since he never signed up officially with any army.

He resurfaced in America in the early fifties supporting early television technology from behind the scenes. After making what was considered a small fortune in the industry he became very vocal about full disclosure involving the Vietnam Conflict. Once he had been shut down on numerous occasions he seemingly abandoned media as a viable source of disseminating information. He lay low for several years until the late seventies when he latched on to some early concepts of using computers to communicate between people. He was unofficially linked with several leaked stories as the web emerged slowly as a powerful news source.

Unsurprisingly he was one of the people at the head of the coming-out announcement in 2000. Just after the ball dropped signaling midnight he stepped up to the microphone and announced what he was to all of New York live on the Jumbotron. It was dismissed as a joke and a prank but soon enough the world began getting more and more evidence to the contrary. Soon after Thorne became the most publicly known alternatural to those refusing to associate them with anything 'super'. After a few years of lobbying for werewolf rights, he was allowed to step into the vacancy as alpha of the entire northwest territory.

I followed the directions Holly had sent me and found myself in front of a 12-foot-tall wrought iron gate. There were at least two security cameras easily visible but my guess is they had plenty more just out of sight. I pulled my car up next to the security talk box and reached for the intercom button.

"Good evening, sir. How may we help you?" The voice came out before I had even touched anything. I supposed calling me sir was their way of implying they were at least a polite group of monsters.

"Yes, my name is Derek Hunter and I have an appointment to see the big bad wolf."

"We were told to expect you. Proceed to the main building."

As the gate in front of me opened I reflected, polite they may be but they certainly could work a little on their sense of humor. I dove up the long winding driveway through what had to be at least an eight-acre estate to the main building. Though building was not the correct word, the sheer size of it would make Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos hope one day they could afford a place like this. I parked my car out front and stared up at the immense building. The front door opened and a smallish man in his mid to late forties gestured me inside.

"Mr. Thorne will see you in his office." The man, I assumed the butler by his appearance, gestured to a door down the hallway. "Just through there."

As I began to walk towards the hallway indicated I got the uneasy sensation of being watched. I looked up and found that the entryway had a second-floor balcony around the outer edge of the room. A dozen or more children of varying ages stood ringed around me, staring at me with haunted... hungry eyes. I was quickly beginning to miss the weapons I had left in the car. Holly had insisted I wouldn't need them in this 'peaceful' meeting but my hand kept twitching to reach for weapons that weren’t there. Not looking away from my newly acquired audience I slowly made my way into the hall. Just down the way from the main entrance, there were a pair of intricately carved double doors. Just beyond them was an office with bookshelves lining the walls. A fancy-looking crystal lamp hung from the ceiling but the focus of attention was the desk. An immense piece of wood dominated the room, the intricacies of the carving impressed even me as they depicted a large wolf devouring the remains of a dog beneath the full moon. It was clearly put there to draw your eye as soon as you entered the room.

That is until you saw who was in it with you. I stood taller than the man standing behind the desk but one glance at him and I could feel an overpowering... presence emanating from him. He had brown hair, cut much shorter now than it was in his appearance at New Year's, and green eyes that stared at me with an intensity that at first took me aback. I quickly figured out what this was, he was trying to assert his superiority over me right away. It seemed no matter what the package looked like they were still animals but I would be damned if I was going to be cowed. I resisted the urge to lower my gaze to the ground and stared right back at him, trying to match the intensity of his glare.

We stood like this for only a few seconds but it seemed to stretch on for much longer. Finally, the other man let himself break into a toothy grin, flashing a set of overly large canines as he gestured to a seat opposite the desk from him. Released from the impromptu staring contest I finally was able to take the rest of this Stanton Thorne in. He was dressed sharply in a gray three-piece suit that was exquisitely tailored in a distinctly older cut. The fabric did little to disguise the muscles that shifted with every motion. I slowly took a seat, wary that if things got ugly I would have enough trouble taking him out even if he never got the chance to shift. Not to mention the horde of wolves likely hiding all over the mansion.

"Welcome, Mr. Hunter. I must say you are not quite what I expected when told of your imminent arrival." He took his seat across from me and I could tell from the tension in his body he was defiantly ready for more than just a simple talk. Maybe he was expecting me to leap across the desk and rip his throat out… maybe if I weren’t here on other business

I might have considered it. "Can I offer you something to drink?"

"Sure, how about a Coors Light?"

Thorne let out a barking laugh.

"Yes, yes... very clever, Hunter, asking for a silver bullet in a den of wolves." He hit a button atop his desk. "I suppose if I offer you a choice in music you would request Bob Seger?"

"Always preferable to Warren Zevon, I suppose."

“Of course, but enough will these pleasantries, assassin, what causes you to darken my doorstep?" The humor left his face as suddenly as it had appeared.

"Cards on the table, huh?" The shift in his demeanor was disconcerting. "You're right. I've killed more than a few of your kind over the years. Quite a bit more, actually. But that isn't the reason why I'm here… yet. I'm looking into the recent frenzied were attacks in Manhattan not too long ago."

"Yes, we have people looking into it. As you know we are legally allowed to pursue this matter with in-house representatives. I do, however, thank you for expressing your concern but the matter is well in hand." A woman poked her head into the room. "Send in Detective Soto please, Margaret. We're done here." By the tone of his voice, I could tell he believed it. I stood up and walked to the desk, glaring at him.

"Look fur-ball, I didn't drive all this way to trade a few barbs and get sent home. You and your fellow pups can sit here in your prettier-than-average kennel but no one dismisses me." Stanton stared back at my tirade. I swear he had a look of amusement on his face. "I'm here to notify you I'm looking into the matter, not to ask permission. This is only a formality my bosses insisted on so as not to step on any toes."

"Pups?" He smiled a little distantly, I couldn't tell if that was good or bad. "You know that we alternaturals outnumber you ords, right? Not just weres or fae or anything but as a whole. We are no less legitimate than any other minority and deserve the same respect."

"Then open a damned casino, it’s not my concern."

The door behind me opened again and a woman walked in. She was about five-two and pretty enough though her face held a kind of hardness you don't see outside of a job walking a beat. She looked to be some exotic mix of Latino and Asian but only taking the most attractive qualities of both. She wore a jacket that proudly showed the crest of the NYPD and had enough wear to show me she was far from inexperienced.

"Mr. Hunter, this is Detective Mara Soto. She will be going with you on your investigation. Anything you find out she'll relay back to me so that we may make an informed decision on this matter." He stood up and reached out a hand to me. "Unless there is anything else you need, simply prove you can shake as well as this pup and I will be on my way to my next appointment."

I took his hand and felt his almost vise-like grip as we shook. Call me crazy but I had the strangest feeling I had just been played.

~ * ~

I left the office with my newfound shadow. As soon as we exited to the hall my ear erupted with a screeching voice that seemed to want to drill through my head. I clapped my hand over my ear reflexively.

"-please find out what the hell is going on?" Holly's voice was screaming as though she were inside my skull. "Dammit, he's back. Dial the power back down. That doesn't let any of you off the hook, I want to know why we lost contact there and solutions so it never happens again within the hour. Hunter, are you all right? What happened in there? You didn't start any sort of interspecies incident did you?"

I looked over at Mara with a slightly pained look on my face. I needed to be able to talk to Holly in private but that wasn’t likely with the detective staring down my neck.

"Is there somewhere I can have a moment to put together what just happened?" She gestured with her chin down a nearby hallway. I nodded my thanks and headed into the first doorway I found. It was an executive-style bathroom done in all-white marble with gold finishes and crystal handles on all the fixtures. I guess no one here even wanted anything that looked like silver around them. I couldn’t believe I would have to settle for the relative privacy of a restroom but beggars couldn’t be choosers I supposed.

"Holly I need you to do a check on a Detective Mara Soto. I'm guessing NYPD unless she took someone else's jacket." I looked under the stall doors to make sure that I was alone, quickly scanning everywhere I could for hidden cameras. Conceivably they allowed at least some privacy in here. "And hurry it up, looks like she's going to be with me awhile and I don't want any were super-hearing to pick up on things you're saying."

"Got it... but don't worry too much about anyone overhearing me. The implant isn't an audio receptor in any way, it stimulates your eardrum directly so there is no sound to overhear." I could hear her keyboard clapping away. "Told you this thing would come in handy. All right, I pulled up her file. Age... well, none of your business... weight either... okay, she joined the NYPD at a surprisingly young age, transferred over to narcotics in the 81st precinct. Bedford-Styne... not the friendliest neighborhood at the best of times. Multiple commendations though budgeting kept them stalling her detective’s badge.

"When it came out she was a were they gave her Detective-Specialist rank as a liaison between law enforcement and pack-law." She was quiet for a long moment. "Oh that is just wrong, they are trying to revoke several of her commendations due to her healing ability making the situations not endangering to her own life. Her record makes her seem like an honest enough person, though I wouldn't recommend putting her in a position to choose loyalty to you or the pack, you'll likely lose."

"Thanks, Holly," I said, heading for the door.

"Oh, and Mr. Hunter... it goes without saying that the wolves outside the door may not be able to listen in on my side of the conversation, but they most definitely will hear anything you say near them." She laughed, a happy, almost musical laugh with signs of actual mirth. "Unless, of course, you don't mind them thinking you are in the habit of talking to yourself."

I grunted slightly at her joke as I pushed through the door and back out into the hallway. The cop wasn't where I had left her so I decided it might be best to just leave the babysitter behind. No such luck, though, she was standing in the entryway addressing the audience of kids that had gathered around the upstairs balcony.

"You know better than to stare at new people. Now head back to your rooms." She waved them back into the doors I assume they had exited from.

"And here I was starting to wonder if you even could talk." I put on the best friendly smile I could manage. "You did a pretty competent impersonation of a mime back with Stanton."

"Well, I learned a long time ago that talking back to him wasn't worth the effort. You still end up doing just exactly what he wants and often looking like a fool for costing him the extra effort." She smiled, flashing her teeth at me. There was just a bit of madness behind her eyes. Not much, but enough that I wondered what she had seen out on the streets. She was showing a more jaded outlook than most people her age.

"What's with the kids anyway?"

"Strays mostly." She let out a sigh. "Sometimes people get changed without their consent and it’s an especially tough adjustment for younger people. We take them in here, give them a safe place to live, and cope till they are ready to go back to the outside world. Some, though, are too damaged to ever leave here."

"Heh, there are things out there that would do that to a kid?" I opened the front door and went down the steps to where I had left my car. "And some people wonder why I kill as many of you monsters as I can."

Mara got into the car with me in silence. If she had a response to what I had said she kept it to herself.