Bobcat: Tales of the Were (Redstone Clan) (18 page)

“I’m going to kill that fucking wolf,” Bob mumbled at her side, sending Serena into a fit of giggles. They were both wiped out by their amazing climax, but they also both knew it was time to get going.

Smells wafting from the kitchen drew Bob’s attention the moment he opened the bedroom door. Somebody was cooking and from the quiet clank of dishes and the water rushing through the pipes of the old house, it sounded like the platoon had turned the old folks’ kitchen into a makeshift mess hall.

“Smells yummy,” Serena said, popping up beside him.

He could hear her stomach grumbling, even as his did. Food had been both scarce and cold the past couple of days and he was more than ready for a hot dish of whatever they were cooking up.

When they entered the kitchen, they found half the platoon eating off of flowery china from the kitchen cupboard. One of the men was frying fish on the stove while another was gutting more of them near the sink. Where they’d gotten the fresh fish, Bob didn’t know, but it was likely there was a stream nearby. Apparently werewolves also made good fishermen.

“You guys certainly made yourselves at home,” Serena commented with a raised eyebrow and a smile.

“A soldier needs fuel in his body and ammo in his weapon,” Joe said unapologetically. “When this is all over, we’ll thank the owners of this house properly. If they’re still around.”

“Do you think they’re dead?” Serena looked worried.

“No sign of anything like that, ma’am,” Joe was quick to reassure her. “Could be they just packed up and left when the trouble started. Or maybe they’re on a conveniently timed vacation.”

“Where did the fish come from?” Serena asked, seeming to want to change the subject.

“There’s a pond out back full of ‘em. Looks like the fella who lives here set it up for just that
purpose.” Joe stood up. “I’m going to do a final check outside. Sit down and have something to eat. We’ll be moving out soon. The rest of my guys have already eaten. As soon as these guys are done, we’re out of here.”

“What’s
up?” Bob asked, not sure what had been discovered since he and Serena went to bed.

John walked into the crowded kitchen at that moment. “The Alpha will fill you in on what we found
,” Joe replied. I’ll be back in five and we can discuss the plan of attack.”

John sat down at the table opposite Bob. “There’s a
back tunnel into the mine.”

“Where?” Bob was surprised.

“In the basement of this very house. Joe’s guys explored it a bit. It leads to a disused side passage in the old mine.”

“You’re kidding.” Bob was astounded. Was this some kind of trick or was the Goddess smiling on them to put them in exactly the right place at the right time? “Is it safe?”

“We think so. I took a look at the setup. Old Jerimiah is a neat bugger. He had an old map of the mine next to a set of slightly rusty keys and a can of oil down by the locked iron door in the basement. There are a series of heavy doors in the tunnel, each locked. I examined the locks. Looks like nobody has used any of them in years. We oiled the hinges and opened a few to explore. Heavy dust coats everything and hadn’t been disturbed until we walked there. The tunnel structure seems sound enough. It’s shored up with old timbers, but the engineering is thorough and the beams aren’t in bad shape.”

“So we have a backdoor into the mine and the keys to the kingdom?” Serena asked, sounding as amazed as Bob was himself.

“Looks that way,” John answered.

“Do you think it’s a trap?” Bob asked, thinking hard about this startling change in their circumstances.

“It could be, but I don’t think so. Joe agrees, though he’s cautious too. It all looks legit and we think it would’ve been hard to set all this up on the off-chance that we would be here, doing what we’re doing.” John ran one hand through his long hair. “I don’t think the
Venifucus
expects resistance. They’re probably counting on the bobcat leadership to keep everybody in line and they’ve got my people on the run. They probably think we’re happy just to have escaped with our lives.”

Joe came back in and sat at the only open spot at the small table. John, Joe, Serena and Bob were at the little table. A few of Joe’s guys were perched on counters or leaning against appliances, eating. One was even sitting on the floor.

Plates were set down in front of Serena and Joe with sizzling fish and what had to have been canned green beans borrowed from the kitchen cabinets. The guy at the stove, shut off the burner and began to clean up, putting things away and passing the dirty pots to the guy at the sink. They worked like a well-oiled machine, as if they had done this before. Bob supposed they had. Soldiers lived and fought as a unit, and wolves were Pack animals by their very nature. They worked well in groups—better than cats in a lot of cases.

They ate as Joe sat and unfolded an old, dusty map, placing it in the center of the table.
“This was in the basement, near the hidden door.”

“Hidden?” Serena asked
, eating daintily.

“Yeah, the door to the mine wasn’t exactly easy to find. In fact, we didn’t see it on our first sweep through the house. It was cleverly concealed behind a false
panel. Waldo there knocked on the wall and heard it ring hollow,” he gestured toward the man just finishing cleaning up the stove. Waldo turned, saluting them with a dish towel and gave a lopsided grin before turning back to his work.

Bob looked at the map as
he ate, noting the markings for doors, passageways and one particularly ominous marking at the back of one of the larger branches off the main tunnel. That one might come in handy. He was familiar with old mine maps, having been involved with more than a few building projects in California where old gold rush mines were either on or near the existing property.

In such cases, the old maps were carefully studied to see if the old tunnels could be used in the new designs—some shifters liked to have underground dens or escape tunnels. If the building site was meant for humans, the danger posed by the old mine site was also weighed carefully. Redstone Construction wasn’t in the business of building
anywhere children of any species might get into trouble.

“Behind the false panel was a little vestibule of sorts,” Joe went on with his informal briefing. “Old Jeremiah had built a
small shelf where we found the map and that oil for the hinges. Looks like he had it all set up to use as an escape tunnel but didn’t get the chance when the
Venifucus
moved into the mine.”

“Suits our purposes to a T, though,” John put in. “If this is viable, we can sneak up on them. They probably won’t be expecting someone approaching from within the mine.”

Bob was looking at the map, turning it toward himself to see if he could read some of the markings a little better. He tried to put his brothers’ lessons to good use, thinking of the setup from the enemy’s point of view.

“If they have any forces in reserve, they’ll
probably be either here or here.” Bob pointed to a specific notation on the map. “This sign indicates larger caverns with airshafts.”

Joe cocked his head and narrowed his gaze on the map. “What’s this one mean?”

Bob smiled and he knew it was a little bit of an evil grin. “On the old gold rush maps I’ve seen in California, that’s the symbol for a bottomless pit. There’s probably a barricade of some sort in front of it. If we’re lucky, it’ll be one of those doors we have the key to. Open that and herd any enemies toward it…” He didn’t have to finish the thought as Joe’s mouth turned up in a grim smile. John looked a little more cautious about the idea of herding the enemy to their deaths, but he was still a predator and an Alpha protecting his Pack.

“I sent two men out to do recon,” Joe said after a moment. “They should be back shortly. If things are still as they were when I went up there yesterday, I think the tunnel through the mine is our best way in. They’ve got the front entrance too well fortified.”

Bob finished his meal and handed the empty plate off to the guy still manning the sink. The back door opened and the men who had finished eating went out while two more men came in. The recon team was back and reported what they’d seen. Sure enough, the front entrance to the mine was as heavily guarded as Joe had seen the day before.

Jezza was still in the front chamber, tied to a chair, set up like bait.
There was even a spotlight set up to shine in his face—probably both to help interrogation and showcase their prisoner to anyone who might be watching.

One of the men had taken photos with his phone and Serena was able to identify two of the bobcat
captors as guys who were definitely couriers for the drug trade. They spent about fifteen minutes revising their plan to utilize the sneak attack from within the mine and then it was time to move.

Serena went with the men because really, it was the safest place to be. H
iding on her own in the house or elsewhere wasn’t safe if the bad guys spooked and ran. If she had to be here, she would rather take her chances with the soldiers than being on her own. Plus, if she got the chance, there were a couple of bobcats in particular she would love to claw…or shoot.

They’d given her a gun. Not a big one, but something she could definitely handle. Rocky had been teaching her how to shoot so she was familiar with the concept and Bob gave her a quick pr
imer on the specific handgun he had given her. She felt better with the heavy weight of it in her hand and the spare clips in her pockets.

Bob hadn’t
liked having her along, but he had seen the sense in what she had to say. He was good like that. Willing to listen to her and give a little when what she said made sense. She valued that. None of the bobcat men she’d known had been even remotely willing to listen to a female.

The Cascade Clan of bobcats was made up of chauvinist pigs from what she’d seen. She
had almost begun to think all shifters were that way, except she remembered her parents. They had been partners. Two halves of a whole. Her father certainly hadn’t ordered her mother around like a slave, and he had valued his female cub. He hadn’t treated Serena as a disappointment because she wasn’t born male. He’d loved her.

She remembered the love especially.

But it took seeing the way the shifters on the Lords’ mountain lived to remember it all and realize that there was something seriously wrong in the Cascade Clan. Seriously. Wrong.

“Are you okay, kitten?” Bob asked her in a quiet voice as the team of men prepared, checking gear and making last minute preparations in the basement.

They had cleaned the kitchen and the rest of the house to leave it in the condition in which it had been found. Nobody—except maybe the homeowners—would realize they had been there.

The Alpha wolf had sent a small team of his men around to the front of the mine to catch any bobcats that might try to escape that way. The front door team, as he called them, was also tasked with reporting movements to the tunnel team. They had tiny little radios that fit in their ear canals over which they communicated in some kind of code she couldn’t quite decipher. It must be some kind of military lingo, she supposed.

“I’m good,” she replied. The seriousness of their situation wasn’t lost on her. They were walking into danger and everything could change in the time it took a bullet to hit its mark. She moved closer, stepping close to Bob and wrapping her arms around his waist. “I love you,” she whispered, resting her head in the space where his shoulder met his neck. She breathed deeply of his reassuring scent and tried to hold the goodness of him inside her—just for a few moments.

He soothed her, stroking his ha
nds over her back. She knew she had surprised him with her moment of sentimentality, but he was coping. He pulled her closer and his arms went around her back, enveloping her in his warmth.

“I love you too, my sweet mate. I’m so glad I found you,” he whispered low enough that only she could hear him. She took his words into her heart and held them close.

A throat cleared behind her and she pulled away from Bob slightly, looking up. Turning her head, she met the sympathetic gaze of the werewolf Alpha. He seemed to understand her fear and his words were softly spoken when he told them it was time to go.

Bob gave her a final squeeze and then let her go. She stood there, watching while he checked his gear for a final time. He was armed, but he
had left his outer shirt in the SUV. If he had to shift, he was ready. The rest of the men were similarly attired. She guessed this was the way shifter soldiers went into battle—ready in human form with human weapons and tools, but able to ditch them quickly and shift if the occasion called for it. That made a lot of sense.

“It’ll be okay,” the werewolf Alpha spoke quietly at her side while they both watched the soldiers. “We have the Great Spirit on our side.”

She looked up at the wolf who was so clearly of Native American descent. A lot of shifters had some Native blood in them, but this guy was much closer to the source than most. His face could have been chiseled in granite and there was a nobility about him that spoke to her soul. She knew without a doubt that he was a good man. A good Alpha to his people.

“I’m glad our paths crossed, Alpha. I haven’t known many wolves besides the Lords, but I’m sorry for the damage done to your Pack and I’ll try to help in any way I can.”

John favored her with a somewhat amused expression. “You and your mate have already been more friend to us than any of your Clan.”

“They’re not my Clan,” she was quick to answer. “Not anymore
, and never by choice. I suppose I’ll be part of the Redstone Clan after this is all over—if they’ll take a bobcat.”

Bob paused and turned back to her, having heard the entire conversation. He bent down and kissed her on the crown of her head.

“What kind of talk is that? Of course they’ll have you. You’re my mate, Serena. They’re going to love you,” he scoffed quietly as the first soldiers began moving silently down the tunnel.

“As it should be.” The Alpha nodded once and moved into position. He was going to be part of the rear guard, with Bob and Serena.

And then there wasn’t any more time for talking as they made their way into the tunnel. It was show time.

Serena thought the tunnel would be ickier than it was. Sure, there were a few cobwebs here and there that the soldiers hadn’t disturbed, but her cat felt an inner sense of adventure she had seldom experienced. The bobcat that shared her soul was actually enjoying this. Serena’s human half had to shake her head in bafflement. The cat was the daredevil side of her personality that loved a good hunt. The human had learned to be a lot more cautious.

Bob too, seemed to be enjoying this, as did the wolves. Give a predator a chance to stalk prey and they were right at home. If the soldiers had been in wolf form, she
would bet all their tails would be wagging with excitement. The thought amused her and made her grin a bit as they passed through the second door, about fifty yards down the tunnel from where they had started in the basement.

They ha
d locked and booby trapped the basement door after they were all through it to prevent any bad guys from getting in behind them without their knowledge. They would do the same for the rest of the doors as they went. The only way open to them now was forward.

Bob had tucked Father Vincenzo’s cross under his shirt, against his skin. As long as it was in contact with his skin, he figured it would allow him to see any bad stuff that might be in the mine. Like the eerie red glow in the passageway ahead.

Shit.

He tapped out the pre-arranged signal that would only be audible within a few yards. Instantly, the wolves froze. Bob moved forward, to take point, using the hand signals his brothers had taught him to communicate to the wolves what he had in mind.

There was something weird about the corridor ahead. Something was glowing red and only he could see it. When he got to the front of the short line of men, he lifted the cross out away from his skin, muffling
its effects in the fabric of his T-shirt. Sure enough, the red glow faded away. When he released the cross to once again lay against his skin, the glow returned.

Bob inched closer, trying to get a good look at what might be causing the phenomenon. When he rounded the slight bend in the narrow passageway, he cursed under his breath. Magical glyphs glowed on the walls of the tunnel, and angry red scar on the surface, forming a circle around the passageway. The walls, floor and ceiling held the evil symbols and Bob didn’t know enough about magic to see a way around it.

A hand touched his elbow and he turned to see Joe at his side. Bob went back around the slight curve in the tunnel. The bend would muffle the sound of what he needed to say.

But before he could open his mouth, the ground trembled. A massive earthquake made the entire mountain sway. Bob looked for Serena before ducking for cover himself. He was relieved to see the werewolf Alpha had sheltered her under his own body. John was a good man and Bob would owe him one for looking after her—if they made it out of this alive.

When the shaking finally stopped, a fine layer of dirt and some rocks that had been in the ceiling and walls were now on the ground. A couple of rocks had hit the guys, but all were smart enough to cover their heads. The scent of blood was sharp in Bob’s nose, but the wounds were minor. A few cuts and scrapes. Everybody was okay. For now.

Serena didn’t let anyone
hold her back once the ground stopped shaking. She moved right up next to Bob and put her hand in his. He could feel her trembling, but she didn’t make a sound. His girl was a trooper.

Bob peeked around the bend and much to his surprise, the red glow was gone. He tried removing and replacing the cross against his skin and the results were the same both ways. No more glow.

“I was going to report a magical blockage ahead,” he said in the lowest possible tones so that only Joe and Serena could hear him. “But I think the earthquake nullified the spell. There were glowing glyphs, but I can’t see them anymore. I’m going to take a closer look. Keep everybody else back until I give the signal.”

He squeezed Serena’s hand once before letting go and moving around the bend
again. Sure enough, the symbols were fading even as he watched. A part of the ceiling, right where the glyphs had been, had collapsed and the dirt and rocks scattered, taking the spell with them. The rest of the circle faded to nothing and then were no more. It was like their energy had been absorbed into the earth, the spell unsustainable without that big chunk of the ceiling.

The rest of the passageway looked sturdy enough. Just that area where the spell had been was gone, which led Bob to believe that perhaps the Goddess was giving them a helping hand. He knew damn well that nobody in their group had the skills necessary to negate that magical ring. Without the timely intervention of the earthquake, they’d have been truly stuck
, and probably would have had to turn back.

He gave the hand signal and the rest of the group joined him on silent feet. They began moving steadily forward once more.

This side tunnel met up with a much wider, main passageway around the next bend. There were no more doors. No more keys. Just open tunnel from here on out. Bob figured it was a sure bet the
Venifucus
had scouted the part of the mine they were about to enter. He would have to be on the lookout for any more signs of spells. The mage had probably set up things that would warn him if anything moved in the tunnel system that wasn’t supposed to be there. It made sense that the barrier that had come down in the quake had been something like that, though Bob was certainly no expert.

They joined the larger passageway and everyone went on even higher alert. They could run into enemy forces at any time now. Bob recalled the map they had studied. Between them and their goal—the main entrance that had been hollowed out to form a staging area for the rest of the mine—were two natural caverns
. Somewhere between those two caverns was the passage that had been marked with the sign for a bottomless pit.

The line of men behind him reshuffled as Joe gave orders through hand signals. Bob stayed up front as the magic-detector. He didn’t like being separated from Serena, even by a few yards, but he knew he had to be on the lookout for magical traps. Joe was at Bob’s side, also on point now that the passageway was wide enough.

Bob glanced over the group and realized Joe had partnered Serena with John. The Alpha would take good care of her, Bob knew, if for no other reason than he loved his sister and his sister liked Serena. Of all the wolves, John perhaps, understood Serena the best. He knew what she had suffered in the past at the hands of her former Clan. Plus, Bob had sensed something from the other Alpha. There was a sense of kinship—a bond that was hard to put into words.

They approached the first cavern cautiously. If there were going to be larger groups of enemy troops, they would likely be in one or both of the caverns. Bob gave the signal to halt when a flash of glowing red met his gaze. More glyphs.
He moved slowly, craning his head to get a better look. As before, the magical symbols ringed the cavern entrance with their evil light.

“What?” Joe asked quietly, coming up beside Bob.

In answer, Bob took the silver cross out of his shirt and gestured for Joe to touch it. He looked skeptical, but reached out carefully to put one finger on the small silver cross.

“Look,” Bob advised, his gaze moving toward the glowing red glyphs surrounding the cavern entrance.

“Sweet Mother of All,” Joe breathed as he saw the evil magic for the first time. That experiment confirmed to Bob that the cross could be used by others, not just him. It truly did allow the blind to see—those who were blind to magic could see its presence when touching the ancient silver talisman.

Joe let go after a moment and nodded to Bob. “What now?”

“It’s probably empty,” Bob answered, risking the brief conversation but keeping his voice as quiet as possible.