Over the next few weeks she was called on to dance and to sing for the same gentleman at roughly the same time. Not every day, but he was never absent for more than three days at a time. She was slowly becoming more aware of what the gentleman liked in her dancing and soon she was unconsciously changing her dancing style to meet his likes and desires. She had no idea what was going on, she assumed that this was just another step in her studies.
The door was opening to the basement. Ansuya slowly turned her head so that, through her wild strands of hair, she could see who it was that would bring her daily dosage.
His name was Joshua. He wasn’t too bright. The syringe he held loosely in his right hand and the needle shown a little as it reflected the small overhead light as he turned it on.
It was too soon, or she was losing more of her grip on time. If that was the case, she would have to be more disciplined. She sat there calmly. Joshua could not see her eyes through her thick hair that hung in front of her face. She made no indication to move. Joshua opened the cage and snorted loudly, probably at the ripe smell of her body and the excrement that surrounded her. He leaned down and swiped her hair away from her shoulder.
Ansuya forced herself to stay calm as she had done many, many times. The needle punctured her skin and the tight pressure of liquid from the needle flooded her system.
Joshua slammed the cage shut and walked away. Ansuya had built up a meager resistance to the drug but even with that, her eyes involuntarily closed a short time after the basement door swung shut and she had once again been enveloped in almost total darkness.
* * * * *
The five pack mates made their way to the edge of the city. After all this time they had learned how each other moved and how each of them smelled and what they would do in most circumstances. They were a veteran fighting force and didn’t need to speak to know where to go or who should take the lead.
Aceso had shifted back into wolf form and led them through the outskirts of the city. The area of construction, if there was one, would be fairly easy to spot. The moon overhead was a bloated gibbous moon that gave off more than enough light for them to see.
They wrapped their way quickly around a large apartment complex and then ran through a vast meadow. They were following an over ground route to get where the Huan Li had told them the supposed construction site would be.
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Suddenly Aceso stopped and the rest of the pack could see girders and scaffolds perfectly outlined in the distance against the pale pure white light of the moon. Aceso looked up at Nicolas and before her eyes met with his he was already closing his and sitting down.
Charles and Katherine turned their back on him and moved outward from the rest of the pack. Charles was scanning and inhaling the wind as he went, testing it for any hint of something that shouldn’t be there. Katherine also was moving outwards, but she would stop every couple of steps and place her open palm upon the ground. William knew that she was using her abilities to test vibrations in the earth around them. If anything was underground or something that Charles somehow missed, it wouldn’t escape Katherine’s notice.
William stood at the ready scanning the world directly behind Nicolas. Aceso was at his back sitting, in her wolf form, arrow straight and her ears moving and twitching in all directions listening to the faintest traces of sounds.
Nicolas sat cross legged and his breathing deepened noticeably. His eyes were loosely closed and his shoulders slumped. William knew that this was his Scout technique that he had uncovered with months of training and god knows what the Elders did to him for those long days in the Black Tower. He never spoke of it and William had seen enough of their world to know that there were dark things and dark purposes for everything the Shape shifters did, sometimes he just didn’t want to know about them. This was one case that he was content to let Nicolas keep his secret and what it had cost him to earn his awareness.
William and the rest of them stood, watched and waited. After a time, Nicolas opened his eyes and stretched his back. It always took him a few minutes to fully come out of whatever it was that he had sunk into. Nicolas blinked fiercely and yawned. Then he stood up and cracked his back. Charles and Katherine rejoined the group and waited for Nicolas to speak. Aceso shifted to her werewolf form and crouched low amidst the tall grass.
“There are three caged wolves in there. I can’t be sure if they are to be reborn or not. I’m too far away or they are too young.”
“Anything else?” William asked.
“Yeah, I was getting there Setford, jeez man.” Nicolas let an annoyed smirk cross his face. “If you’d let me fucking finish every once in a while.” He shook his head. “There’s some equipment in there and some tools, heavy tools, vehicles, forklift, a cement mixer…let me see…a couple hammers a few dozen 2X4X16’s, three poured concrete slabs…”
“What else, Nicolas?” Aceso demanded.
He stood for a second and looked at all of them as a smile slid across his features, “What are you going to give me?”
“Tell us about the vampires!” Katherine hissed. The look on her face dripped with a silent warning that now was not the time for games.
Nicolas managed to look hurt, and after a moment’s hesitation he said very petulantly “They’re five of them, two on a scaffold, and two in some kind of dug out, and the other one is near the caged wolves.”
“Why do we have to go through this every time?” William asked.
“Because I like to put you in a bad mood,” Nicolas shot back.
Aceso had long since learned to ignore this pointless bickering between the two. William had tried to not get himself drawn in to these little spats but sometimes he just couldn’t help it.