Entangled With the Thief

Entangled with the Thief

Stealing the Alpha, No. 2

By Kate Rudolph

Copyright 2015

Crystal Lake Savings and Loan sat a little off the main road in a nice office park in Crystal Lake, Wisconsin. At noon on a Wednesday, traffic into and out of the bank was fairly constant. Workers on lunch came to cash and deposit checks, and the part-time employees switched out shifts. Mel watched it all through the rear view mirror in a car parked half a block away.

Mel straightened the collar of her shirt and checked the clock. Kathy Pierson was her target and she needed to be inside before 12:30 or everything was fucked. On the bright side, this job didn’t exactly stretch her skills. This was a small town bank protecting small town goods. But it meant that no one would look for Tina’s safe deposit box here. Especially since Mel suspected that it was a temporary arrangement. The scry crystal was the only item of Tina’s that would be found in this bank, probably in this state. But Mel didn’t need anything else from that witch, not anymore. Once she had the crystal she would be well on her way to taking on the one person who had no place living anymore.

Mel was playing the role of Helen Undine, a mediocre lawyer from Milwaukee looking for a taste of the simple life. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, no flyaways allowed. Her suit was two shades darker than beige and particularly unflattering, though expensive. She wore a small strand of pearls and a gaudy engagement ring. Helen was a… complicated woman. And exactly what Mel needed at the moment.

She wore flats, even though Helen would normally wear heels. But some things needed to be sacrificed for convenience, and running in a skirt suit would be difficult enough, she had no desire to trip over unnecessary inches.

The inside of the bank did not give her the best impression of its security. A salesman’s desk sat unoccupied in the lobby, and whoever sat there had left the computer logged in to the bank’s network. The security guard greeted her with a smile and only carried a Taser, not a gun. Three women sat at teller’s stations, though only one dealt with a customer. The other two were chatting and paying no attention to the entrance.

She smiled when she saw Kathy Pierson walk across the room.

The woman did a final check on the teller’s twenty minutes before the end of her shift, and had been doing so each day that Mel cased the bank. Mel stepped forward quickly, clutching the briefcase and bumped into the bank manager.

“Oh! Excuse me, I’m so sorry,” said Kathy. She gave Mel a quick once over, noting the jewelry and the fine leather of her case. “I didn’t see you there. Is there anything I can help you with today?”

Perfect. Mel put just enough frustration into her stance and tilted up her nose before speaking. “Yes,” she pursed her lips and kept her words clipped. “I need to access my safe deposit box. Are you someone who can handle that?” Condescension dripped from the tone.

Kathy’s neck tightened in frustration. Mel knew that, at this time of day, she was the only person authorized to take customers to the vault, and she was minutes away from going home. But she smiled and didn’t even sound put out. “Of course. Do you have your key with you? And I’ll need to log your admission.”

She grabbed a clipboard from one of the tellers and handed it to Mel. Helen Undine had a beautiful, precise signature that matched her identification.

Kathy led her to the back of the building and through a barred gate. The security guard entered the vault with them. Mel had opened the account three days before and through some quick talking had been able to get the box adjacent to the one that she needed. The guard and Mel each put their keys in the lock and turned simultaneously. The guard pulled out the box and handed it to her. Mel gave a tight smile in thanks.

She was led to a small chamber inside the vault where she would be given privacy to review the contents of the box and make any necessary deposits. Both Kathy and the guard waited behind a red curtain while she got down to business. Mel checked her watch. She’d been in the bank less than ten minutes, and it was almost time to get to work.

A scream rent the air. Right on time.

Mel jerked from her chair and looked at Kathy and the guard. “Is everything alright?” she asked.

Kathy straightened, assessing the situation. She was the only manager on duty at the moment. “I should go check. Will the two of you be alright while I’m gone?”

“By all means,” said Mel. “Obviously there are more important issues.”

Kathy didn’t know how to take that, but she hurried off, leaving Mel and the guard alone. Mel started counting down from 120, which was when the next distraction would go off. She idly sorted through the contents of the box. There were papers and some cheap jewelry, nothing of any real value. But it looked like there was enough that it would take time to find what she needed. That was the important thing.

Right on time, a blast rocked the air, followed by the hollow pop of fire crackers. Mel jerked, knocking over a few of her papers and gasping for effect. She stormed out from behind the curtain, bumping into the guard before she could stop herself. “What was that?” She demanded, a hint of panic creeping into her voice.

The security guard’s hand flew to his Taser, and he looked toward the front of the bank. “It’s alright, ma’am. You’ll be safe here.” He took off towards the commotion without further prompting.

Great.

Mel gave it a few seconds before opening her briefcase and pulling out the lock picks. The guard had closed the inner door behind him, which gave her privacy and the freedom to work without looking over her shoulder.

She went to box 109 and placed the guard’s key in one of the key slots. She’d lifted it from him when they bumped into each other after the blast. Picking the other lock was easier than it should have been, and Mel had the safe deposit box containing her payment for the Scarlet Emerald job in her hands in under a minute.

She opened the box and froze, not quite understanding what she saw. She closed the box and opened it once more, hoping that her eyes were deceiving her.

There was no payment in the box.

There was only a business card.

In crisp letters the business card said “LUCIO TORRES” and listed a phone number and an email address. No business name, no physical address. But Mel knew exactly where he lived. After all, he was the one she stole the Scarlet Emerald from.

A month earlier, a witch named Tina Anders approached Mel about boosting the gem. It was a difficult job, one that only three people, including Mel, were capable of pulling off. But Tina and Mel had a long history, and Tina offered Mel a payment she couldn’t refuse to pull off the job in a nearly-impossible time frame.

And she’d done it, too, except for a small mishap that made her the uninvited guest of the werelion alpha for a few days. And that should have been it. She gave Tina her stone, Tina gave her the key to this safe deposit box, and business was concluded.

Except for the vampires.

When she explained the job, Tina said nothing about vampires. And, if she had, Mel liked to think she would have refused the work outright, no matter the payment. But the vampires showed up, shit went to hell, Luke Torres accused her of kidnapping his sister, and Mel teleported away before he could tear her throat out.

Which was good, except for the part where she ended up naked 1,000 miles away, sans safe deposit box key or address. That all ended up with Luke, in a pile of her clothes in the forest back in Colorado. Only after she met back up with Krista was she reminded that a person using a teleportation charm needed to own the things they wished to teleport. Mel’s clothes had been procured through other means.

So while she did own the key and the card with the address fair and square, she didn’t own the clothes that had held them. Krista and Bob had both taken off after taking their payments for their parts of the job, and she was left with nothing.

And Luke had everything. Most importantly he had her scry stone.

Mel slammed the box shut and jammed it back into the correct slot. She bit her lip to keep for cursing. A scry stone would allow her to locate the stone’s focus with the help of a witch. She’d have a magical GPS to find her target at any time. And this scry stone was more valuable than anything she owned.

This scry stone was linked to a witch named Ava. It would let her track down the woman who had killed her parents.

Mel straightened and sat back at the table, waiting for Kathy or the guard to return. Already a plan was forming in her mind. It was simple enough. She was just going to have to steal from the alpha one more time.

The lion roared. The sound shuddered through the forest outside of Eagle Creek, Colorado where the lions of his pack prowled in search of his missing sister. Mel’s timing could have been better, but she hadn’t known that the night she arrived back in town would be the same night he sent out his troops to find the lost lion cub.

Her heart pounded and exhilaration flowed through her with every snap of a twig. She was just one wrong move away from being imprisoned by the alpha once more. And this time she didn’t have a witch to get her out of danger.

She didn’t know if they were all out to find Cassie, but she couldn’t imagine any other reason for them to be out there. The lions weren’t a hunting party out for blood; she could hear the murmur of their words, the surety of their steps. They were tearing the forest apart methodically, covering ever inch in search of the kidnapped teenage girl. But other than the wind and the intermittent sounds of wereanimals on the prowl, Mel heard nothing else.

The nocturnal animals that usually owned these woods had gone into hiding. Even the insects were silent.

She blew away a stray strand of hair and then tucked it behind her ear when it landed in front of her eye once more. The first time she’d come to Eagle Creek, she’d been a red head, or at least she had looked that way. The wig was part of one of her identities and offered a distraction to anyone who tried to remember what she looked like. Tonight there were no distractions. She wore tight, dark clothing that moved with her like a second skin, and she had her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. On other jobs like this one, she might have worn a mask, but she didn’t need to hide her identity from the alpha. He knew she was coming. Hell, he had invited her.

She’d headed straight for Colorado after she'd finished in Wisconsin. The only pit stop involved an overnight’s stay in St. Louis to pick up some supplies from a witch that she’d worked with before. For a second she’d considered calling Krista, but she threw the thought away almost as quickly as it came. Her old partners had made it abundantly clear that they were done with her.

And Mel deserved it, she just wished that she didn’t. But screwing over partners had consequences that she couldn’t avoid; she just had to live through them, and hope that one day Krista would forgive her. The witch was the closest thing to family that Mel had left.

But she couldn’t get caught up in that. One wrong move and it was back to the alpha’s compound. And that wasn’t a game she wanted to play.

The sound of a broken twig was her only warning, Mel reacted, ducking behind a huge tree and keeping absolutely still when two lions walked into the tiny clearing that she’d been moving through. She heard two people enter the clearing and they couldn’t be anything other than shifters. Mel took one deep breath and let it out as slowly as possible, resorting to shallow, near silent gulps of air as they moved closer.

She heard a man say “Hold up, there’s something different here,” and she felt sweat bead on the back of her neck. Mel wasn’t breathing deep enough to draw in their scents, and they hadn’t been in the area long enough for them to permeate every breath. But she’d been there for several minutes and they weren’t hampered by shallow breathing.

“What is it?” asked a woman.

“I think I caught Cassie’s scent.” The man had a hint of New England in his voice and Mel could almost imagine what he looked like. He’d be tall, short hair that might have been blond, and a jaw strong enough to lift concrete slabs. Or not, she couldn’t risk ducking around the tree to be sure.

The woman was pure Georgia south, her words a mix of peaches and honey. “Are you sure? There is something here, but I can’t tell.”

“It’s not one of us,” the man’s words were certain. She heard him stepping closer. Mel only had seconds before he stepped around and discovered her. She concentrated, feeling her hands turn into leopard’s paws, her claws extending. Her only advantage would be surprise, and she would try only to incapacitate, not kill. She had no reason to make the alpha any angrier than he already was.

“Wait,” said the woman. “I think I’ve got a trail over here.” The man’s footsteps paused and then headed in the opposite direction. Both lions walked away, following the trail she’d left coming into these woods. She was damn lucky, and she wasn’t going to risk being caught like that again. She had to get out of these woods and back to her hotel. She could reconfigure her plans then.

Mel took to the trees to get out of the woods. Her claws helped her, allowing her to dig into the bark and hoist herself onto sturdy branches. She jumped from tree to tree, travelling slowly but leaving a much more discrete scent trail. She froze when she heard another roar, this one unlike the first. The first lion’s roar had been full of rage and regret, the call of an animal determined to have his revenge. This one was joyous.

Cassie had been found.

Alive.

Mel didn’t let that stop her. She made it miles and miles away to the small parking lot in the national park close to the edge of Luke’s territory. She sat on a large branch and waited for a few moments to turn her paws back into human hands. It wasn’t a difficult task, but it took time. And as she shifted slowly, every joint in her fingers ached in protest at the task she’d put them through, climbing through dozens of trees in a form unsuited to the task.

She was ready to jump from her tree when a young woman walked out of the woods on the scenic path of the national park. She looked younger than Mel, maybe in her early twenties, with long black hair and pale skin. She wore jeans, a silky blouse, and hiking boots. On her wrist Mel could see the glint of silver, perhaps from a watch or bracelet.

It was strange for a woman to be alone in the woods at night. Even Mel was only there for her own nefarious purpose. She was instantly suspicious of the woman. Even more so when she pulled out a cell phone and held it to her ear. Mel had to focus to hear, but she could make out the words clearly.

“Let her know it was a success. The girl has been reunited.” Mel would have frozen in place if she hadn’t already been still. The woman spoke again. “I’ll need to reorder supplies from a local coven. Vladimir underestimated my needs… I understand. I’ll be on the lookout.” She hung up without a farewell.

Mel stayed in her tree until the woman drove away in a silver sedan. From the plates, she could tell it was a rental.

It appeared that Cassie hadn’t been found, she had been given back. But what use did witches have for a werelion that couldn’t even shift? And why would one need additional supplies?

Mel tried not to let it bother her. She climbed down from her tree and got in the rusty old pickup truck that she’d stolen halfway between Colorado and Wisconsin. She crossed off this parking lot as a point of entry for her next heist, and planned to get a new car out in Denver where she was staying.

It was a two hour drive back to that city. Mel let the miles pass, alone on the road with her thoughts. After half an hour of struggling, she turned up the radio and sang along with a popular country song she’d heard nearly every hour as she tried to find clear stations.

The distraction didn’t work. But she made it all the way to Denver without deciding to go find out what the witches wanted.

Maya had gotten the tip about Cassie an hour ago. It took Luke twenty minutes to mobilize the search party and another dozen minutes for his people to pour through the woods. He let out an enraged roar, desperate to find his sister and bring her back home. She’d already been gone for too long, but he would not lose her.

The sound ripped out of his human mouth, battering against his vocal chords and leaving pain in its wake. He didn’t care. There was no pain too great, no task too big that would prevent him from finding Cassie.

He found her scent and latched on, following it through trails that didn’t exist, vaulting over downed branches and crashing through the brush. His search wasn’t silent –  he’d scared away the normal inhabitants of this forest by bringing all of his own predators along for the ride. They’d all split up, searching the woods in groups of twos and threes. He alone traveled with four other lions. They would not leave their leader vulnerable in what could very well be a trap.

But Maya trusted her source, and Luke trusted Maya. They were going to find Cassie. Safe and sound.

The forest terminated abruptly, opening into a wide clearing. Luke spotted Cassie, moving in the middle of a ring of mushrooms only fifty feet away. He let out another roar, this one ragged and joyful and ran across the clearing, tromping on the mushrooms and gathering his sister into his arms.

Cassie would have hugged him back, but her hands were held together with silver handcuffs and her feet were bound with rope. She dug her face into the crook of his neck and he could feel her tears against his skin. “I was so scared,” she said, “Thank you.” She sobbed out the words, almost out of breath from the strength of his hug.

Luke patted down her hair. It was a mass of blonde knots with a few leaves stuck in for good measure, almost like she’d been in the forest for longer than the few hours that Maya’s informant had said she had been. “We’ve got you.” He kissed her forehead and pulled back to try and remove her restraints.

He heard two more of his lions enter the clearing while he worked. He had to pull back swiftly after one touch of the cuffs. The silver content was so high that he could already feel his fingers itch in reaction. He’s always had a low silver tolerance, but it usually took at least a few moments for an allergic reaction to kick in. “I need a key to these cuffs!” He demanded and moved to untie Cassie’s legs. She held still, and since it was normal, if thick, rope he was able to free her in no time.

“This isn’t the same, I told you,” said Javier, one of the lions who’d volunteered to search on short notice. He wasn’t a tracker and had never hunted down a person before. But Luke needed all hands on deck.

His partner for the night, Alisha, replied. “We probably covered someone else’s ground.” She left Javier and approached Luke. Alisha had only moved into his territory three months before, formerly working at the CDC in Atlanta until she received a job offer too good to pass up in Denver. She didn’t live within pack territory, but that hadn’t stopped her from quickly becoming an important member of the pack.

Javier, on the other hand, had been born and raised in Eagle Creek and owned a small accounting firm that handled the money of several local businesses. They were the first two to join Luke and his entourage in this clearing. The rest of the pack slowly trickled in.

Mick, a boy recently in trouble for general rowdiness and for failure in his guard duty, quickly picked the locks of Cassie’s restraints. For the moment Luke was happy the boy had the skill, but he made a mental note to figure out why kids in his pack were learning how to break into things.

There had been enough thievery for one lifetime.

After ensuring that Cassie wasn’t booby-trapped and that there were no other nasty surprises in the clearing, Luke helped Cassie up and they made it out to where he’d parked his car to take her back home.

He expected Cassie to sleep after taking a shower, but his younger sister called him into her room to talk while she was busy drying off her hair. Now that she was no longer covered in smudges of dirt and grass, he could see black and brown bruises covering her pale skin. Violence roared within him and he wanted to run, to hunt down whoever had done that to her. But he was thankful that her only injuries seemed to be superficial. No broken bones, nothing worse.

At least, she hadn’t said anything.

“How are you doing?” he asked. He sat down in the reading chair and propped his feet on the foot of her bed. The room was large, with two chairs, a writing desk, and a reading nook built in by the window. It was the guest room Luke used for his family and it was only two doors down from his own.

Cassie sat on the bed, her back resting on the headboard. “Bumped and bruised, but I’m okay.” She combed her fingers through her hair gently while she talked. “I’m so sorry, I screwed up. I shouldn’t have done it, please,” tears pricked her eyes. “I know I was wrong—”

Luke held up a hand. “We’ll talk about all that later.” And he fully intended to, he knew that anger would lick at his heels once he was certain that his sister was safe. Even now, with her back in her room, he couldn’t quite believe it. But come morning he expected to be in full form. She didn’t need that tonight.