oMaS, Chapter 2
Chapter Two: In which the Unexpected occurs
A man stood quietly. His tall, powerful, brooding silhouette was barely visible in a shadowy alcove that overlooked the proceedings below. Stony and immobile as a statue, he leaned against one of the marble columns, watching with a disinterested gaze as members from the ten local packs filed into the dome-like structure that served as their monthly meeting place.
None of the twenty loups-garous who made up the Council took their seats around the large oblong table and they were all quite ignorant of the distantly calculating gaze fixed upon them.
In all his two hundred years on Earth, Endymion was sure he'd never seen anything so nonsensical. For a precarious moment, his midnight blue eyes flashed with a bright golden hue then narrowed.
There was no love lost between Endymion and the members of the loup-garou Council, and he made no attempt to hide his intense dislike of them. After all, they were the same people who had ordered him to butcher a countless number of families, unsuspecting casualties in an interspecies war that had been going on for centuries. The Council believed in eradicating all potential dangers before they became a problem, even if it meant wiping out an entire pack.
He had no illusions about what he was. He knew what he was capable of doing if he ever gave in to his inner wolf. He'd disposed of more than a few Council members over his years as a Hunter. They kept forgetting that he was the most dangerous creature among them. Even as the Council's reluctant watchdog, he was more than willing to remind them of that fact. Understanding his place and duty would have nothing to do with the pleasure he'd experience in annihilating the Council.
Life, Endymion realized, would be so much simpler if he didn't have a pack he was responsible for. He could clearly picture the chaos that would be the end result of his loss of control. Getting rid of the Council all together would seriously set the packs back decades of progress and destroy the peace that had taken centuries to achieve. Endymion didn't want to be responsible for that.
Endymion was cursed with being the only pure blooded lupi within a thousand mile radius, which was why he'd been forced to take the position of the Council's bodyguard when he'd refused the position of Council member. Pack politics had never interested him, so he'd passed the position on to one of his pack's strongest betas, Sapphire, who seemed to be a natural.[1]
The fact that he was his pack's resident alpha hadn't helped matters either. While fellow pack members shunned and feared him, they were also in awe of him. He'd never understood their contradictory feelings toward him and had learned to ignore them from an early age. They were his family and the beast within protected what was his.
The only emotion involved was loyalty, and no matter how irrational his bond to them seemed at times, he always remembered that they were his responsibility. His duty was to keep them alive and safe. If it weren't for the fact that he'd sworn to protect his pack, he would have left a long time ago to join one of the lesser known packs of those who were permanently in wolf form.
Endymion could not imagine suffering through another Council meeting, but he knew without a doubt that if he didn't stay to oppose most of the Council's crazier ideas, more packs than just his own would suffer for his selfishness. God only knew what harebrained notions the Council might get into their heads if he wasn't there to stop most of them.
He couldn't resist the low growl that rumbled through his throat. Endymion gave the Council members one last burning glare before heading for the stairs. He contemplated going for a run as he made his way down the winding staircase that led to the chamber the Council used as their meeting place. Going for a short run would burn off the intensity of his emotions, and he'd be able to deal with being stuck in the same room with them for more than three hours.
He realized, running down the last set of stairs, that with the full moon still hanging in the sky, the incredible need to Change was eating away at his usual detachment. He was feeling uncomfortably claustrophobic and itched to be outdoors with the rest of his pack. Above all else, that was making him more irritable than normal. And when dealing with Council, he couldn't afford to be irritated. That way of thinking led to massacres. And he wouldn't hesitate to kill them all. Why did he put up with this torture? Why wasn't he out there, guiding and protecting his new pups? The answer came in the form of a blond haired youth: Helios.
His job as his pack's reigning alpha involved the task of not only presiding over the initiation of new pups but also in their training. For the past five days, he'd been organizing and supervising plans for the upcoming full moon. As his pack's alpha, it was his duty to supervise every pup's first Change. Spending the last few days making sure that every pup knew the rites of the Hunt and getting them relaxed about their first Change had drained him. Aside from hunting however, initiating new loups-garous into the pack was Endymion's favorite duty as pack leader. This time, he'd only been able to spend four out of the six days he usually spent with the new initiates waiting for the next moon phase.
A grin spread across his face and all thoughts of a run left him. Some of the initiates had been excited, buzzing with anticipation, but most had been frightened to death. A lot could go wrong for new pups when they first Changed. The madness of being overtaken by their inner wolf was something that they all feared. Having led them to the densely wooded area that bordered his pack's land, he'd been the first to Change. The others had soon followed, and Helios had been beautiful in wolf form, his true form. In a sea of black fur, his snow white coat had glittered like stardust in the moonlight. Watching his charge transform had been a magical event.
Most importantly, nothing had gone wrong. That was his main reason for not abandoning the Council's idle chitchat hour for a run. He had to inform them that Helios had shown no signs of going into Berserker mode and that none of the three bitten werewolves had shown signs of losing their minds to moon induced mania. He'd done his duty; he'd watched over the new members of his pack. Everything had gone according to plan.
The sooner he got this out of the way, the faster he'd be able to return to his other, more pressing duties. Without preamble, he opened the brass doors and prepared to face the loup-garou Council. His dominating presence signaled that the monthly meeting was about to commence.
-----
After two days of required medical leave and a great deal of arguing with her boss, Serena Fairchild - alias Agent Moon- was allowed to return to work at MID.
It had taken exactly thirteen hours and thirty five minutes for every fractured and broken bone, every torn and bleeding piece of tissue, to repair itself and still she'd been ordered to take medical leave as if she were some invalid. Her boss, when she set her mind to it, was as vengeful and forbidding as any God. Serena knew this had served as her punishment for being unintentionally careless. If she made any more errors, she wouldn't be given any missions for the next few months and would be stuck at a desk doing paperwork. Setsuna Matthews-who, at one point in her career at MID had gone by the still much feared alias, Agent Hades-was spiteful that way.
From the outside, the building which housed one of DMCR's many field offices looked like every other nondescript government building on the block: bland. Concrete, steel and glass came together to create the building's dull outer exterior. Serena had never been sure if the other governmental buildings on the block were as heavily warded as theirs. She doubted it; MID was special.
Serena, for all her loitering outside the building, was already late for a meeting with her boss. She wasn't sure how the older woman would react. In the deep recesses of her mind, she knew it wouldn't go well. She probably would end up with desk duty. If she claimed her injuries as the reason for her tardiness, she'd still end up with desk duty. The situation was quickly becoming a catch-22 and Serena had never liked those. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed through the revolving doors and stepped into the building's lobby.
She flashed a brilliant smile at the security guard as he meticulously checked her ID and electronically took her thumb print. She was then ordered to remove and deposit her five weapons and all metal objects on her person into a small cardboard box and walk through a metal detector.
The line behind her, which was surprisingly long for mid-afternoon, now sounded with groaning agents as she was ordered by the security guard, who just happened to be a gnome, to remove any and all materials with metal-like properties from her person.
Gnomes were just evil like that.[2]
"You've got to be kidding me," Serena muttered as she began the trying task of searching herself.
"No ma'am," the guard replied, without even a twitch of his lips, his face blank, and his beady, black eyes dead.
"Well," she exclaimed in frustration, "this is stupid ‘cause I can't find it."
The gnome continued to stare at her impassively. His beady eyes stared out at her from a leathery-wrinkled face. If Serena hadn't seen this face almost daily for the last six years of her life, she would have been discomfited. "You should have thought about that this morning while getting dressed."
Serena glared. He stared her down until she went back to searching herself.
She heard the impatient shuffling of feet and the agitated movements of the uniformly dressed agents behind her. They were getting restless, and she knew from experience that she had better find the offending piece of metal before they became impatient enough to want to draw blood, her blood to be exact.
The guard rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "Take off your earrings," he all but sneered, looking down at her from his four-foot tall chair.
Bringing a hand to her left ear, Serena found the offending piece of metal. "Oh," she breathed, feeling her cheeks flush a bright pink in embarrassment.
He impatiently waved her through the metal detector again, muttering under his breath about crazy humans when the alarm didn't go off.
Serena sighed with relief, gladly taking back the box that contained her personal belongings. She quickly restored them to their rightful places and returned the box to the waiting security guard.
"See you later Charlie," Serena chirped before making a beeline for the bank of elevators, not waiting for a response. Her heels clicked a hurried tempo on the slate floor with every step.
The elevator bank was surprisingly empty. Usually, it was filled with agents dressed in black suits of both genders, multiple races and species. She reckoned that was what she liked most about being an agent at MID and largely a part of DMCR as well.
Serena was one of the few individuals lucky enough to enjoy her job. She relished coming to work everyday. Working at MID was like working at a magical menagerie; there was always something - or someone - new around every corner. She had learned things and met people - some of an entirely different species - that she otherwise would never have encountered as a civilian. Yet, what she liked most about MID was that it consisted of both humans with "special talents" and magical beings. As much as every agent claimed they had come to MID to protect humankind from their supernatural brothers and sisters, they all knew it was a decision made out of pure selfishness, a desperate need to be amongst others like themselves.
Once identified by the retinal scan, Serena allowed herself to be fingerprinted again, placing her left hand in the fingerprint recognition mold on the wall. She felt a tingle of electricity shoot through her fingertips. Just as the elevator doors were about to close, Serena heard a voice screaming, "Hold the elevator!" Even before she saw the person who that voice belonged to, Serena was cursing the elevator doors for not closing fast enough.
‘Shit,’ she thought, as a slender nymph joined her in the elevator ride to her unit's floor. ‘Just what I needed to complete a week of hell- Anne.’ Said nymph was Serena's coworker, someone Serena had the adverse pleasure of calling rival. Like all rivalries between the female sex, theirs involved a boy: Anne's current lover and Serena's former stalker. And like all rivalries, theirs had escalated to another level. She and Anne were tied for the position of being their unit's top sniper, followed closely by Amy.
She pressed the button for their floor and the elevator took off.
"Fairchild," the nymph addressed her coldly.
"Arbre," she replied just as smoothly. Be civil, she told herself, and maybe if you ignore her, she'll blend in with the wall and disappear.
They spent a moment in silence, but as they passed the fifth floor, Anne glanced over at Serena, eyes glinting with spite. "Heard about your last mission," Anne stated in her sugary sweet voice. "It's too bad Burton wasn't there to help you out."
Serena's jaw clenched as she repressed a snide comment. This was the first time since she'd entered MID that she felt like a total failure. Just once she wished that her precognition- an ability that she now saw as completely useless, despite it being the only thing that kept her from losing her job- would be more precise. What was the use in seeing the future if it was only a momentary possibility?[3] She had felt that foreboding twitch of electricity that foretold bad things were about to happen; she just hadn't known what those bad things would be or how to prevent them from happening.
‘It's just Anne,’ she thought, trying not to let the other's words affect her. ‘And if she knows my buttons, then I know hers.’ Still, the nymph had no right to bring Mina up. She was asking for it. Serena turned and graced her with an unaffected smile, "You know what they say about former assassins. They can't ever bring anything back alive." She feigned curiosity, "How's the DeMedici case going for ya?"
When she got only silence as a response, Serena continued as if she were having a pleasant conversation about the weather. "Last I heard he's still roaming the streets, hunting wood nymphs. They mustn't be that important if I can't remember their species name."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Anne clench a fist. Serena leaned into the steel wall behind her. She snapped her fingers as if she'd stumbled onto some long forgotten piece of information. "Oh, that's right! They're Hamadryads[4], aren't they?" Serena frowned in feigned sympathy, "It must hurt, knowing you can't catch the man murdering your own kind for sport."
"At least my Talent still works." Anne sneered, "You're getting too old for this job Fairchild."
"Hm, that's an interesting thing to say," Serena's voice was as pleasant as ever, "especially coming from you. If I remember correctly, we graduated at the same time from the Academy, didn't we?" She tapped her right temple as if befuddled, "Or maybe I'm just confusing the dates? You know me, getting so forgetful for my old age."
When the elevator door opened to the twenty-fifth floor, she got out, followed closely by Anne. "Do tell Alan I said hello,” Serena purred, “I'm sure he'll be glad to hear from me."
The nymph's eyes narrowed to slits as Serena waved her a blithe goodbye. If only looks could kill.
Heading for Setsuna's office, Serena was momentarily floored by the vast expanse that was her work place. Big windows covered the surface of the wall just opposite the elevators. They flooded the office with sunlight. The floor of Serena's unit was mostly made up of about fifty symmetrical clusters of desks and cubicles occupied by people dressed in identical black suits working with computers, phones and papers. Scattered from the rest of the work area were smaller offices separated by glass partitions. Those not occupied by paperwork scurried urgently between desks, carrying stacks of folders and what Serena could only assume was more paperwork. Serena was glad she didn't work the open floor anymore.
After she and Mina had been promoted only three years before, they'd gotten their own office. Granted, it was in one of the more remote corners of the office and a little cramped for two unorganized people. It was worth it though for the big window that overlooked the teeming streets below, the more comfortable chairs, the filing cabinets, and the bookshelves. Serena had been proud then, proud of Mina and especially of herself. She hadn't dreamed she'd ever get this far.
Serena quickly walked past cubicles and desks on her way to Setsuna's office. Keeping her boss waiting when she was supposed to have been sitting in front of her twenty minutes ago was a very bad idea. Setsuna was known for her cruel and unusual punishments.
Knocking lightly before entering, she stepped into Setsuna's office.
-----
It was another perfect spring day in the city of Seattle. The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, the sky was a clear blue, and a soft breeze sung of the coming summer, which seemed to put everyone in a good mood. That is, except for Rei Hino, who was at the moment, rather nettled. Serena was late again, and considering what they'd be doing in fifteen minutes, Rei felt considerably agitated. She was going to kill Serena after the blond grizzly was finally arraigned. The DA's shapeshifting prosecutor had notified their office of the arraignment, and Rei had told her temporary partner, yet the blonde was a no show.
Standing outside of Seattle's municipal courthouse, Rei was a sight to behold in all her fiery glory. She paced restlessly in front of the courthouse steps, her amethyst eyes narrowing into slits as thoughts of suitable punishments darted through her mind. She hated to be kept waiting.
Rei knew that ever since Serena's partner's disappearing act a few months prior, Serena had been barely functioning. She and Mina had been partners since their training days. And had even known each other before MID. The psychic and the Ghostwalker had been a formidable team, but now Mina was gone. Rei sighed in annoyance. She had a feeling that their boss knew exactly where and why Mina was hiding out. The woman just hadn't felt the need to share it with the rest of their unit.
Pivoting once again to pace in the opposite direction, Rei collided with a body. A sensation like that of the wind being knocked from her lungs rushed over her and she knew that a vision was inevitable. The last thing she saw before she lost sight of reality was the man's back and a flash of wheat blond hair. Her eyes unseeing, Rei's hands clamped down on the first thing she came in contact with, the courthouse handrail. Her fingers curled around the metal bar as her pupils narrowed and expanded, and the vision took her.
She assessed the room she was standing in. It was an eerily quiet kitchen. Through a set of bay windows, a full moon hung in the night sky. The room was illuminated by the moonlight, casting everything it touched in a silver glow. She walked past a kitchen table, which had a dinner laid out for two. Two candlesticks burned brightly, wax forming at their bases. Reaching a window over the kitchen sink, she pulled its curtains aside and peered outside. The view looked out over a suburban street; she noted that the house was on the corner of Brattle and Bedford.
The stillness of the kitchen was shattered when a muffled noise sounded further back into the house. She left the kitchen, went through the living room, and found herself staring at a broad back. There were legs and a limp arm hanging off the silhouetted form. She instinctively reached for her gun, her mind screaming that this man was a killer. Her bullets fired harmlessly through the apparition into the wall.
He moved further into the shadows and she followed, not wanting to lose sight of him. It was important that she follow his movement. He stepped into a darkened bedroom, still carrying his burden. The room was moderately sized and was illuminated, like the kitchen, by moonlight. She still couldn't get a good look at him, no matter how hard she tried. Every step closer she took, the shadows of the bedroom seemed to twine tighter around him, sheltering him from her Sight.
He seemed to debate with himself before moving further into the bedroom. The moment he did, she took note of his appearance. His form was silhouetted by moonlight and shadows, and his gleaming hair was the first thing she noticed: from where she was standing it could be of any color. He was above average height and his muscled body well-sculpted. But aside from that, she could glean nothing else. His burden turned out to be the body of a woman.
Rei watched as he neatly arranged said body on the clean, white bed sheets. He covered the corpse with another set of clean, white linen. The shadowed man stared at the body that he had arranged on the bed and then whispered something into the woman's ear. He then left the room without a backward glance, closing the door with a gloved hand. Rei tried to follow, only to find she was being pulled back into reality.
Coming out of the vision, Rei felt weightless at first, then her knees shook and reality returned, grounding her. She took stock of the damage. She was still gripping the railing; her knuckles had turned white from the force of her grip. She couldn't let go, not now as the dizziness overtook her and her knees turned to jelly. Taking a deep, steadying breath, Rei unclenched a hand and rummaged through her bag with trembling hands, trying to find an energy bar. She found a granola bar, tore open the wrapper with shaky fingers, and took a huge bite.
Rei was the type of psychic who traveled with a portable evidence kit, a bottle of sugared water, and a dozen energy bars on her person at all times. In her line of work, she never knew when she'd be hit by a vision and stumble onto a case. Most of the time, she had to sift through all the mundane visions that hit her: be it through dreams or just a brush of a hand.
Unlike most psychics, trained or untrained, she could control the frequency of her predictions, and she could even force a vision if need be. The content, however, she had no control over. Unexpected visions were the worst. Not only was she unable to control the content, but she never knew when they would hit. At least, she told herself, she couldn't see ghosts. From the way Mina had constantly complained about them stalking her, she was just glad that wasn't her gift.
Finishing the granola bar, she drank a gulp of sugar water, feeling greatly restored. Now it was time for her to analyze the premonition. She was sure she was being given directions to find a body.
"Great," she scrubbed both hands over her face, "Just fan-fucking-tastic." Of course she'd find a body. She cursed fluently. The man-Rei was positive it had been a man, a tall blond man-hadn't even apologized for bumping into her, and now she had a body to find and a suspect to identify.
First, she'd have to deal with this were-bear business and then call Setsuna to tell her of this new development. The last thing MID needed was the obviously homicidal grizzly running loose in the city.
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AN: yay! The second chapter! So how do you guys like Endy? I tried, but male POV isn’t my thing. It always feels awkward to me. The MID office is loosely based on the Without a Trace office (or what I think it looks like). I was watching the show and all that sunlight and glass windows made me think of Serena even though I put her office in some dark corner. I’m weird, so sue me.
All right, so here’s a quick French lesson. Loup-garou is the French word for werewolf. The plural is loup-garous or loups-garous. The fake plural spelling you might have seen is loups-garoux (from Blood and Chocolate). I won’t be using it.
[1] For those of you who don’t know, wolf packs run in hierarchy. Alpha males are usually the strongest in the pack. If the alpha isn’t very well respected by the pack (physical strength doesn’t always equal respect), they’ll constantly be challenged by other males. Alphas are usually followed by betas and lastly there are the omegas.
[2]the thing about gnomes, I read somewhere that gnomes have elemental properties (earth) and live underground and since a lot of metals are in the ground…ta da! Gnomes can tell when there’s metal nearby or on someone. I may be totally wrong about this, but arg!
[3]Prescience is a subset of precognition. While most psychics can see into the past and future, with prescience it’s like you glimpse the future in different scenarios and if the person changes their mind, the future can change. So there’s never really a set in stone future. It’s kinda like what Alice in Twilight does. And wiki (en. wikipedia. org /wiki/Precognition) told me enough to have me come up with this.
[4] okay so if you aren’t familiar with wood nymphs and their names: all wood nymphs are called dryads (trees). So the type of dryad that Anne is hamadryad (oak trees and other types). So they’re pretty common. Amy is half Naiad (a fresh water nymph), so she isn’t as slutty as other naiads. And let’s face it, nymphs are very promiscuous creatures. Plus I didn’t want to call her a vila/veela because it’s too Harry Potter-ish for me and I’m not such a big fan of Slavic myths so I’m keeping it between the Greeks, Norse and the Romans when it comes to mythology.
If you spot any errors, please tell me. I tend to miss the most glaring of errors.
Last Edited Nov.20, 2009
[mood|
cheerful]
[music| Belinda-- Bella Traicion]