Her Warriors (10 page)

“And yet, they’ve been here a few days at
least. How old would you say these tracks are?” Geir pointed to the
tracks that led right up to the tree.

“A week, maybe?” Tad opined after a careful
examination of the tracks and the surrounding area.

“I agree,” Geir commented with a nod. “But
someone with the same boot size and tread was here today, a few
yards from these camera placements. What do you think he was
doing?” Geir’s tone was contemplative. Not a teaching tone,
exactly, but pretty close to it. Beau got a hint at what Geir was
probably like when he was training new Guard candidates and was
impressed.

“Might’ve been downloading any data on these
units to a wireless device. They have short-range transmitters,”
Beau observed, having examined the unit from afar. “He’d have to
get pretty close to download, then wipe the memory cards for a
fresh set of images. He might have to come by once a week to get
the images, then at some point, he’d probably have to replace the
batteries in the camera units depending on how he has them set.
They might be taking intermittent images, full-time video, or even
motion-activated recording.”

Chapter
Six

“We need to find out exactly what they’re
recording and how often,” Tad said, his expression grim. “This is
too close to my home and my cub.”

“Agreed,” Geir said.

He retrieved a set of gloves from his belt
and quickly scaled the closer of the two trees that had cameras in
them. He handled the device gently, switching it off first before
doing anything else. Tad did the same for the other camera while
Beau did a thorough search of the area.

Tad walked with them to where they’d left
the four-wheelers. “I’ll meet you down at the dojo,” he said as
they walked. “There are some things in that building I didn’t have
time to show you in detail. We have equipment to dust for
fingerprints in the classroom and some other stuff that could be
helpful.”

“Good,” Geir said, placing the camera gently
on the seat of the vehicle while he rummaged around in the small
compartment that held odds and ends. In particular, it had a wadded
up plastic shopping bag that would help protect the cameras from
smudging any potential evidence for the ride back up to the dojo.
He and Tad placed the cameras into the bag and then Geir took off
his shirt to use as a cushion inside the small compartment, laying
the bag with the cameras on top and wrapping the fabric around
it.

The ride back was slower because of the need
to protect the cameras, but they still managed to get there before
Tad had arrived. They had just put the four wheelers away and were
walking toward the dojo when Tad pulled up on a dirt bike.

Over the next hour they discovered some of
the hidden secrets of the dojo. There was the makings of a small
crime lab in the room Tad had called a classroom, just off the main
practice area, next to the locker rooms. No fingerprints had been
found on the cameras, but they’d been able to determine that they
were motion activated. It was easy enough to deduce that they had
been reset after a recent download, and had been set to record
fresh images.

That meant the driver of the vehicle had
about one week’s worth of surveillance of that part of the
perimeter. The cameras would only have recorded when motion
indicated something was in the field of view, so in all likelihood
there would be a lot of images of birds and squirrels. But the
really big potential problem was that there might also have been
some snapshots of tigers caught on those downloaded images.

“We need to discover exactly who is watching
the perimeter, why, and what they might have seen on the footage
they’ve already managed to capture and download,” Beau summed up as
the three men sat back around the big lab table, grim expressions
on their faces.

“The only good part of this is, with all the
activity up on the mountain, we haven’t had a lot of time to prowl
in our fur this past week,” Tad said. “The chances that he caught
me or any of my family in tiger form on those cameras is lower than
normal, but we’ll have to check with everyone else who might’ve
been patrolling the perimeter, to see if they remember going down
that way over the past week or so.”

“And there might be more cameras, on other
parts of the perimeter,” Geir added.

“Shit,” Beau cursed, getting to his feet and
pacing up and down the room. “Why the fuck can’t they leave us
alone?”

The anger that usually rode him hard had
dissipated since being in Jacki’s presence these past few days, but
it was never far from the surface. Beau was getting good and mad at
the idea that someone was even now, stalking them. They had just
fought a huge battle in North Carolina. Shouldn’t they have at
least a few days of peace before all this bullshit started up
again?

“All right, let’s make a plan,” Geir said,
getting them back to the point. He was good like that. He was
methodical. A thinker. Beau found it helped him focus when Geir did
his thing. “Tad, you know what to look for. Can you handle your
part of the perimeter for now? Ideally, I’d like every section gone
over by at least two different sets of eyes, but I have to brief
the others first and I don’t think we should wait that long.”

Tad rose from his seat. “I’ll do a sweep
starting on the east side of my place and going west all the way
around the mountain. I know these woods better than your people and
I can move faster. I’ll radio in when and if I find anything.
Otherwise, I’ll report as I clear each quadrant.”

“I’ll tell Ria and Jake what’s going on and
get some of the Royal Guard to do a second sweep. Nobody takes
animal form until we’re sure we don’t have any more of those
cameras,” Geir stated as Tad agreed, then headed for the door.

Several hours later, it was determined they
had already found the only two cameras on the property. Patrols had
been stepped up on the perimeter and Ria was in the process of
hiring some extra help from among those who had participated in the
recent battle in North Carolina. She had made strong ties with the
fox Clan of Mount Sterling Ridge and a team from Jesse Moore’s
mercenaries—known colloquially as the Ghost Squad. A few others had
become trusted allies and when Ria called and offered some of them
jobs, many responded that they would arrive ASAP.

Until then, Geir had worked out a stepped up
rotation among the Guards and others who could help. A technical
expert had been found among the group who was able to recover some
of the downloaded data from the memory chips of the cameras. It
seemed that once the information was downloaded and set to record
over the old data, the old images were still available—if you knew
how to get them—as long as they hadn’t been recorded over yet.

They were able to recover over ninety
percent of what had been downloaded and Jake was in the process of
reviewing it up at the main house. So far, there were a lot of
stray squirrels and birds, as Beau had expected, but Jake was
watching a couple of hours of images for the possibility that a
shifter might have gotten caught on those cameras unaware.

As the sun started to sink low on the
horizon, Beau realized he hadn’t seen Jacki or Bettina all day. He
supposed they were together, starting Jacki’s training or
something, but he found he missed her presence. He had been doing
important work to help protect her, but he always felt better when
he could see her and knew she was safe. Too much time had passed
since he’d seen her. His tiger was getting anxious. He felt it itch
just below his skin.

“I think that’s all we can do for now,” Geir
said, sitting back. They had been in the classroom and lab most of
the day, using it as a sort of command center to centralize the
effort.

“I want to find Jacki,” Beau admitted,
surprising himself with his candor.

“She’s with Bettina,” Geir confirmed Beau’s
guess, then stood up and stretched. “But I agree. Let’s go find
her.”

It didn’t take long. Beau was a little
surprised to find Mandy Miller and her cub sitting watch over Tom’s
inert body, her fingers flying over her laptop computer as she sat
at his bedside. Her little girl was playing with a few toys near
her feet. Mandy looked up from her work when Beau looked into the
room and smiled.

“Bettina asked if I would look after him
while she and Jacki went for a walk,” she explained.

“That’s kind of you,” Beau said, not really
knowing how to respond. He didn’t know much about the woman. She
seemed to guess the line of his thoughts because she explained.

“Tad and I both went to medical school with
Gina, the tiger princess, and our folks were Royal Guard. Heck, we
were Royal Guard from the time we were both teenagers. We guarded
Gina all through school and even after. Plus, Tad wanted me and our
little kitten—” she reached down and stroked the toddler’s hair
with affection, “—farther inside the property line after
discovering those cameras on our land. I agreed.”

“You’re welcome to stay here for as long as
you need,” Geir offered, poking his head into the room.

“Thank you, Master Geir,” Mandy smiled
brightly at him. “We may take you up on that, depending on what
you’ve discovered about the cameras. Tad and I can watch Tom for
you tonight, if you want a break. As I said, we’re both trained
medical professionals. When Gina decided to go to medical school, a
bunch of us did the same so we could keep an eye on her.”

“Now that’s dedication,” Beau quipped,
smiling.

“It wasn’t that bad. If you ever met Gina,
you’d understand why it was so easy to follow where she led—even to
impossibly hard schoolwork and exams. She’s very special.”

“I’ve never met the tiger princess,” Beau
replied, somewhat wistfully. He hadn’t really associated with other
tigers since his parents’ deaths.

“Well, stick around with this crowd long
enough, and I’m sure you will.” Mandy gave him a smile. “If I had
to guess which direction the priestesses went, I’d suggest you try
northeast. There’s a stone circle up the mountain a ways.”

“Thank you, Mandy,” Geir said formally. “And
thank you for watching Tom.”

She waved away his thanks with a smile and
went back to her laptop while Beau followed Geir out of the
room.

Once they determined the women weren’t in
the main house, the men set off through the woods, following their
trail. Since the ladies hadn’t been hiding their tracks, it was
easy enough to find they had indeed spent some time in the stone
circle Mandy had mentioned. From there, the paths diverged. Bettina
had gone toward the Nyx’s house, even higher up on the mountain,
while Jacki’s scent had veered off in another direction.

Jacki was glad to find the small mountain
lake about a quarter mile from the stone circle. It was smaller
than the one in North Carolina, and so far, the taint of evil
wasn’t very strong in its waters, but that could change rapidly now
that the evil
Venifucus
had called a leviathan out of the
deep. With it had come a host of other evil creatures that made
their homes in the oceans, rivers and lakes. It was so bad now that
Sam Kinkaid, leader of the Clan that bore his name, had sent out
advisories to all the selkie members of his Clan and to his
contacts around the world, advising a total boycott of the oceans
and larger bodies of water for the time being.

Seers—including those in the powerful
Kinkaid Clan, and the Nyx’s new mate, Jake—had promised that the
threat would be dealt with, but the time had not yet come. In the
meantime, the safest place was out of the water. That was really
hard for a selkie. Half of Jacki’s being craved the water and its
freedoms.

Even a small mountain lake could be a form
of respite for her wild side, but until it was clear of the threat
of evil, she couldn’t chance it. Bettina had sent her here
though—on a mission. Bettina had asked her to purify the water here
using the same skills she had used in battle in North Carolina.
Only this time, it wouldn’t be under stressful conditions. This
time, Bettina wanted her to pay very close attention to the power
she called on and how it worked through her.

Jacki had spent long moments thinking and
then praying, calling on the Mother of All to help her clear the
taint of evil that had only just started to take root in this
idyllic place. Jacki looked at every detail as the power came to
her and worked through her, purifying the small lake and blessing
each and every one of the small creatures that lived within. The
Mother of All was Mother Earth in that moment, blessing Her
creatures and shining Her Light into the depths, cleansing them,
using Jacki to direct the power.

Jacki realized she was the conduit for the
Goddess’s energy. Jacki was the servant through which the Goddess
worked on this plane of existence. Jacki smiled with joy as she
felt the approval of the Mother Goddess, and Jacki learned the
lesson Bettina had set for her.

When it was over, Jacki fell to her knees,
tears of joy sliding unheeded down her face, her hands still
outstretched as they had been when the Lady’s power ran through her
being. She was a bit drained, but nothing like the exhaustion she
had felt after the battle in North Carolina. She had learned a
great deal today.

“Are you okay?” Beau’s voice came to her
just before she felt his arms settle under hers, lifting her to her
feet. He leaned her back against his chest, taking her weight as if
she was going to fall over without his support.

She laughed at his caution. “I’m fine. Just
a little overwhelmed at the moment.”

Geir stepped in front of her, a frown
marring his handsome face. “Should you be this close to the
water?”

They had all seen the evil that had been
conjured in another lake, down in North Carolina. These men knew
first-hand what danger might lay in the water nowadays.