Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 09

Jasmine had better not get back until daybreak at least.

Mid morning.

Mid afternoon.

Next week sometime.

Five days later, Gemma was weaving distractedly through the crowds of pedestrians lining the edges of the main street in the centre of the city of Medway, intent on the street map in her hand. The four-lane road was a bustling, noisy, smelly stream of constant stop-start traffic to her left, and the people jostling on the six-foot wide walkway were all busy on their own journeys; slow, fast, intent, meandering, the melee of humans as jumbled a river as the vehicles.

Jasmine had made Gemma swear to stay in the crowd of humans.

Stay with them, yes, but not suffocate under them.

Gemma began angling her way toward the doorway of the building to her right, trying to find some space in the thicket of elbows and chests around her. It was such a pain being short. The bank was closed now, this late on a Saturday, and she picked her way thankfully through a pack of giggling teenagers and up the three stone steps into the small free space. Jasmine was somewhere in the area, cautiously sight-tracking the last Grey wolf Gemma had identified by his scent. Gemma flattened their map against the wall, and marked a cross on the paper where the last one had disappeared into a building.

Four Greys had entered buildings in that block. She began to gently shade in the new area of the complex. The Grey lair was big, they had identified entrances in a series of several different types of building: residential, commercial, industrial, stretching along almost the entire west side of the large, central park.

Jasmine had been despondent upon her return that night, and quiet under the lash of Mac's lengthy rebuke. After he had eventually left, she had slumped down on the bed next to Gemma and resignedly reported failure. She had tailed the Grey wolf for two hours, cross-country, to the vast, industrial sprawl of the city of Medway. He had shifted human when he had reached the outskirts, and she had lost him shortly afterwards among the crowds of humans teeming around the streets in the warm summer evening.

But wolves did not lair in cities. It was too restrictive, too difficult to hide, impossible to be yourself. The Marsh sjeste gloomily believed that the Grey wolf must have spotted her sometime during the chase and taken her on a decoy trail. Jasmine had curled into a miserable huddle and tucked her face out of sight in her arms.

But Gemma wouldn't let her give up, and her hope had rekindled when all subsequent trails had also led to the city.

Over the next four days, Jasmine had continued to sight-tail the Grey wolves who her human friend identified during their noontime circuit, following one each day. The Fealden twins had made half-hearted noises about the Marsh's dereliction of duty, but they were bitterly worried about her, and largely left the very touchy sjeste alone, asking Gemma if she was alright, believing Jasmine disappeared into Gemma's room late every night for comfort.

True, in a way.

Jasmine hadn't recognised any of the wolves who she had followed, but then Grey wolves did not visit, didn't train at Marshmont or Boswell, and none had switched pack in her lifetime. But that also meant that, hopefully, they wouldn't know to identify the 'human' who loitered on street corners in the city, tailing them. They wouldn't be familiar with her by sight, and Jasmine had cautiously dropped the trail of the most cunning of the Greys, when there had been a risk of him catching and recognising her scent.

The three successful trackings had led to the wealthy suburb of Axefield, within Medway. But it was hard to pinpoint exactly where the wolves ended up, the Greys seemed to have an elaborate system of route muffling as they neared their destination. They disappeared into different streets. Jasmine had even seen two of them entering doorways, but each a different doorway in a different building, a different road.

And Jasmine had also reported each entrance to be a very well guarded, with at least two hulking warriors opening both doors from the inside for their arriving packmate. She had been growing more agitated, sure that she would be identified while trying to pinpoint all of the entrances by this very slow method, emphatic that they needed to be sure of all lair exits to prevent Nicolas Grey from eluding them, or more especially, taking captives out. Jasmine came back from the hunt seething with additional, frantic worry - the last three times she had come within range of her natál, but he had been hazy, unconscious, drugged with chemicals and pain, and the bond was not directional, she didn't know where to look more closely.

Bitterly worried.

So Gemma had overruled Jasmine's protests over her human friend's safety, and in front of the twins had increasingly volubly bullied the Marsh wolf into a repeat lingerie shopping trip to distract her from her worries. Jasmine had pretended to protest until finally giving in, but had ferociously rejected the twins as a further escort, declaring that she had enough to bear with whining humans, and wasn't having them as well.

The girls had sneaked down to Medway together to narrow down the field, Gemma travelling on the train for half an hour, her wolf friend setting off earlier and running through the nearby countryside. Jasmine's route had swooped close to the railway track once, and Gemma had heard the young boy in the seat ahead excitedly pointing out the honey-and-grey wolf to his mother.

"Oh yeah, isn't he graceful? But that's not a wolf, honey, there aren't any around here. He must be a stray dog. I wonder what breed? Isn't he gorgeous?"

Gemma had smiled to herself.

Today's plan had worked. Among the crowds in the lively suburb of Axefield, Gemma had identified several dozen Grey wolves for Jasmine to follow, and she was now carefully marking in the outline of the stretch of buildings which the Greys had kept disappearing into this morning. Jasmine was almost ready to alert her father, and take the hit for the several, strict orders they were disregarding. But they needed to be sure to first identify all exits and entrances, because as soon as Fealden, Marsh or Mac knew that Gemma was here, she would be whisked to safety, and they'd lose their chance.

She was a wolf friend to Fealden Wolflord. And carried the Mackeld's naulu. Jasmine was going to be in for it. She didn't care. But she was very strict about Gemma staying in sight and contact with as many other humans as possible.

"Damn," Gemma heard her friend's voice, and the Marsh sjeste appeared at her side on the bank porch.

"Did you lose him?" Gemma murmured, not looking up from her careful sketching.

"I think one of them scented me," growled the wolf girl, and Gemma's head shot up, alarmed.

"I'm not sure, she didn't immediately call an alarm, but -," Jasmine halted mid sentence, spinning on her feet into an aggressive crouch, but Gemma grabbed her friend's arm as she recognised the orange sweater hovering among the crowd of humans, and tugged Jasmine back against the wall. The Marsh wolf centred herself, remembering anyway that they were in a crowd of humans.

When her natál wasn't being tortured, she could keep her cool.

The wolf waif was on the edge of the crowd, staring, mouth open, at the map hanging from Gemma's other hand. The outline of the building complex was etched in thick black pencil, with crosses marking the doorways where Grey wolves had been disappearing. The Grey sjeste stepped closer unconsciously, dumbfounded, her white face seething with emotion.

Jasmine growled in disgust, quivering lightly under Gemma's hand, and snarled quietly, "Well, go on cur, yowl the alarm. I'll take you out somehow."

The blue eyes fastened on Gemma's, pleadingly, and the waif answered to the human, flinching slightly away from the aggression shimmering off the Marsh sjeste.

"I scented you. I can't keep him out of my head, and he'll demand my report in a few hours, but - I'll keep quiet for as long as I can, if you can get the cubs out. Please? My cubs?"

Jasmine bolted upright, a shimmer of fury running through her, "Grey holds your cubs?"

The wolf waif was still pleading at Gemma, words tumbling in a torrent of whispered terror and hope from her mouth. "If I don't tell him you're here, with that map, he'll kill them - eventually." She gulped, shivered, a spasm passing through her scrawny frame when her eyes clenched closed, but they reopened on blue fire."

"He holds your cubs?" repeated Jasmine.

The Grey wolf girl ignored the caustic hiss from the Marsh, her plea growing strength.

"But they don't have much of a life right now anyway. Not for wolves. Not for my chouchou. If you can get them free, I'll -," she choked off on a rush of overpowering feeling, eyes spilling with tears.

"Grey holds your cubs?" Jasmine's incendiary tone insisted on an answer.

The Grey wolf nodded hesitantly at the Marsh, "They are kept apart from us. All cubs are moved to the cub ward at 6 months, but he took mine earlier, straight after my natalí circled, and now I only get to see them when on guard duty, in the wing. Until they are old enough to work," she added bitterly. "Cubs are kept as surety for good behaviour of the less amenable adults."

Jasmine was growling under her breath, the anger visibly growing in her trembling limbs, "We can't get in," She fumed bitterly. "All the doorways are too well guarded."

The Grey waif now answered the Indian wolf girl directly, pleading hope shining in her eyes, "There is one unguarded window in the cub ward, high up the wall - they are too small to reach it, and it's too far to boost, but I go on duty in half an hour - I could deal with the other guard, let you in, if you could get them out, somehow, between you. Please, please. But - you'd have to take all of them. Any you leave behind would be in danger - he is a vengeful, vicious creature."

Then the hope in the blue eyes faded and she whispered bitterly, "But many of them are too small to run far. We'd never get them away, to safety in time."

Tortured eyes winced at Gemma. "And if I don't tell him that I scented you, he'll - I've seen him coat the silver slime on cubs, when a parent is simply disobedient. And I can't keep him out of my head. What he'll do to my pair in revenge for my even thinking this, before he finally lets them die -."

She broke off to shudder on an anguished sob, eyes panicking, but Jasmine had already grabbed her arm and was growling assurance, "Cubs threatened? Asage held by their cubs? We'll get a rope. And call for help, protection from my pack, they will come. You just convey to me what we're facing, what this window is like, then get in there and let us in."

The waif's face twisted in indecision, tears rolling down her tormented face as she looked away, and the three of them stood in silent tension beside the wall while the passers-by teemed past in the glowing sunset.

Then slowly the waif's eyes returned to Jasmine's, a determined light burning, overlaying the worry in the blue depths. "They deserve a chance," she said gruffly, her words clipped with too much feeling. Jasmine gripped the hand of the tall slender waif, promising, "We'll get them out." The Marsh sjeste's gleaming black eyes seemed to brighten, power rising as she stared for a long minute into the blue eyes of the Grey, and then suddenly the waif shuddered, and seemed to relax, eyes tearing over.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"We'll get them out," repeated Jasmine, softly, "Go."

As soon as the Grey wolf had disappeared into the crowd, Jasmine glanced around frantically for some privacy, backing toward the deep porch.

"Need to call Dad," she said succinctly, biting her lip, her cheeks slightly pale. Gemma grabbed her hand and towed her shivering friend up the worn steps. They sank down together on the stone flags, sitting wedged in a corner against the studded wooden door, and Gemma pulled open the sleek boutique bag holding their purchase – a now irrelevant decoy for the twins - so that they could pretend to admire the bits of skimpy lace inside it, Jasmine hiding her face while she conveyed to her father and Alpha.

The Marsh sjeste winced and cowered to the ground shortly after making contact, but seconds later she uncoiled back upright, insisting quietly, aloud, "Well it has happened, Dad. And this is their only chance. Despite my help, that sjeste Ada cannot hold Grey out of her head when he demands her report, and once he knows we've found this place, he'll kill her cubs, and move the pack."

She listened for a still moment then answered, slightly tetchily, "But I am an Alfamme. Like you said, I just had to find a reason to put my mind to it. This is it. I have. So you can't stop me. We can't wait for you, leaving all those cubs there, at his mercy." Her eyes widened, then narrowed, then widened again as she shuddered, something seething through her with her Alpha's reply. She straightened her back slowly, the light in her eyes burning deeper, stronger. There was a long, stretched moment of silence, the air in the quiet corner all seeming to gather, to coalesce in her glowing eyes.

Then Jasmine's shoulders relaxed, her eyes flickered and she glanced across at Gemma, nodding at something in her head. She flinched again, lightly, but a wry smile twisted her lips immediately afterward and she said with finality, "I know. But Alpha protect the pack, Alfamme protect the people. Just -run fast, Dad."

Jasmine's face creased with emotion, a melting look of love, and she unfolded to her full height, ready, face twisting into a smile and eyes shining as she returned the farewell in her head.

I wish I could convey to Mac, the wistful thought wisped in Gemma's mind.

The cub ward was utilitarian, a barracks, the corridors and Spartan rooms all concrete, faded off-yellow walls and cold grey floors. Jasmine had led Gemma circuitously to a flat garage roof overlooking a small, grimy window at street level, and then had proceeded to survey the street intently for the remaining wait.

Later, Gemma had winced at the faint, grating noise of wolf claw cutting out a circle in the one-and-a-half by two foot pane of glass, then had held the pane carefully so it wouldn't fall and smash while Jasmine cut out the whole sheet. Gemma had hidden it in a wheelybin across the street while Jasmine scraped the windowframe smooth.

A ten foot drop, down into the narrow corridor that led between two cold dormitories to the main room, where the cubs were assembled. Jasmine dropped down easily, while Gemma stayed on watch in the road.

But she was soon called inside.

Gemma had fashioned a sling for the wolf cubs out of rope and cloth from a nearby hardware store, but it was too slow, there were too many, they would never get them all out before the next watch change. Jasmine had decided that the girls would have to stand on each others' shoulders to create a living bridge which the cubs could scramble up, a climbing frame.

Before they even began to hint at the move, the Marsh sjeste was very careful to convey to each and every one of the young yips, playing a short, swift rough-and-tumble in their midst before staring intently into each set of eyes. The link would not hold, she had warned Gemma, not for more than an hour or so, but she would keep them from innocently sharing with their parents the details of this exciting outing. And it would mean that she could guide them once they were out.

Then they lined the excited cubs up for their trip to see trees, and began their exodus. The oldest, the eight year olds at the front, were quivering with tension as they scrambled up over Ada in lycan form, claws used to keep purchase in her clothing, then over Gemma standing on the wolf-waif's shoulders, then lastly over Jasmine standing on Gemma, her forearms and elbows wedged on the sill of the small, square window at street level. As they exited the window, the cubs shifted to human, their loose, baggy clothing hanging off them, and glanced warily around. These older ones had more idea what was going on, the importance and danger of this excursion.

Under mind instruction, the eight-year-olds first took up positions at the corners of the roads, and marshalled the younger cubs, two-by-two, older paired with younger, on the short journey to the park where the group slowly congregated under the concealing shelter of some low bushes. The tiniest made the whole journey four-legged, unable yet to walk in human form, and Ada sobbed in an unsteady breath as her own pair excitedly scrambled out into the fading daylight, one after the other, and left, each tripping along beside a keyed up six-year-old.

It was lucky the cubs were all well trained in unquestioning, instant obedience.

It was also a little sad.

Jasmine was scowling, face twisted in intense concentration and worry as she guided the pack of yips with conveyed thoughts while they crawled over her and so out into the human streets for the first time in their overexcited lives.

Gemma kept hearing urgent whispers of guidance that the Marsh sjeste couldn't hold back when conveying, "Stop that, no tussling." "Stealth silent." "No, don't stop to scent that." "Believe me, it tastes disgusting." "Keep moving." "Stop." "That, cub, is what a cat smells like." "Quiet." "STOP, wait for that big metal smelly thing to move past first." "No tussling." "I know, hold your breath." "No tussling!" "Don't eat that." "Hush!"

It went on for over half an hour, the tension within the adults increasing as they guided the wobbly pups clawing their way to freedom, but after long, crawling minutes the larger four and five year olds were all that were left.

Two were scrambling up over Gemma, one on her back, the other just clawing its painful way up her raw-scratched, jean-clad legs, when she heard the hoarse, heavy breathing of a large beast and looked up to see glowing dark eyes glaring down through the window, reflected in the dying daylight of the street. She almost screamed, but the sound was caught in her throat instead by the ferocious snarl which resounded below her, inside the room, and she tilted her head down in time to see a huge, furious human slamming a large, clenched fist into Ada's temple below her.

She'd seen him before. Long, long ago, back at the flat, and from the look of it his right leg had not healed completely straight, after Mac had broken it.

Quickly, as her support crumpled, Gemma jumped and jammed her legs straight against the walls of the narrow corridor to either side of her, forcing them to hold steady under the load of herself, Jasmine, and the four cubs still climbing. Urgently, legs trembling, she reached behind her back to steady the two cubs. In panic, they scrambled over her as fast as they could, but their clumsy little legs were wobbling. Gemma felt long claws rake deeply down her buttocks as the Grey wolf guard used them for purchase while he leapt high up the window embrasure to grab the lower of the escaping cubs by one hind leg. The small wolf yipped in panic when he was pulled from his escape.

Gemma sternly forced her unsteady legs to hold firm under the jerking feel of Jasmine twisting on her shoulders. The topmost of the two cubs climbing Jasmine had scrambled out, and the second had been scooped to relative safety by the male standing above the window. The Marsh sjeste stooped to lift the remaining cub clinging her legs up to the adult wolf, then almost simultaneously the Alfamme turned, raging, and dove back down onto the huge male challengingly shaking the little cub dangling in a terrified ball from one of his oversized hands.