The Chase 05: The Capture

The Capture

"It would be best to put silver on the bars to keep him in. Silver burns a great number of paranormal beasties. Except for the fey - silver actually makes them heal," said Dean.

"Well how do we know if the myths are the same as the real thing? What if the silver has no effect?" asked Tyler.

"Tranquilizers, and then we'll most likely have to put him down, but we'll still have the video evidence. It's hard to say if what's actually said in the lore books and told in stories actually apply to them," said Dean.

"Ok then, we'll set up the cell. We need another place to store the goods. Can you find someplace where we can store what is displaced by this?" asked Tyler.

"Of course sir. There may even be room in another area of our storage facility where we can fit them," said Dean.

"Good, get to it," said Tyler.

---

Mike sat in a bar holding a bottle of vodka taking long sips. 'How could have I have been so stupid to have miscounted the days until the full moon,' thought Mike, angry with himself. To make matters worse, the moon fever had persisted even after the moon had begun melting away. He felt as though he was going to go climbing up the walls with all the anxiety bubbling furiously away inside of him.

'What is so special about that woman that's gotten me so hot?' wondered Mike as he was still continually plagued by visions of Julia's naked form. Mike's phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket and opened it. "Hello?"

"Mike, it's Marsha here. We need to talk about your assignment."

"Sorry Marsha, the target is proving to be difficult to mark. When I was just about to make him, somebody made off with one of his artifacts and all the alarms went off," said Mike. "He's changed all his security arrangements, so it's going to take longer then expected."

"Ok, how much longer do you think you'll need on this because we need it done soon," said Marsha.

"I should need another week at least to be able to detail a proper plan," said Mike.

"He's intensified his security that much?" asked Marsha.

"Yes. He has guards posted everywhere now. When I was casing his new security arrangements he had sensors and cameras in all sorts of places , it's going to take me some time to uncover them and figure out how to get them disabled," said Mike.

"We'll offer you double your fee if you can get this done by the end of the week," said Marsha.

"Will do."

"Good, hope to see you next week then," said Marsha and the line disconnected.

---

Julia sighed and pressed the bottle of water to her forehead. "Damn him, even now that the moon is fading away he's still teasing me. Why is he so damned special?" muttered Julia as she was still unable to stop seeing the muscular ridges of Mike's chest and stomach.

"You still not feeling well, Julia?" asked Sheryl.

"Nope, I'm getting better though. It's just really irritating. I hardly ever get sick!" groaned Julia.

"Why did you come in today then?" asked Sheryl.

"Because I had to. How did your date with Mitchell go last night?" asked Julia

Sheryl blushed and said, "It was great."

"I think it was more than just great," grinned Julia.

Sheryl just blushed deeper. "Hey, did you catch Julia's fever?" asked Mitchell as he came up to them.

"No, she's just blushing," said Julia grinning.

Mitchell grinned. "Ready to start work, Sheryl?"

"Yeah, let's go," said Sheryl.

"What are you guys doing today?" asked Julia.

"We're cataloguing the artifacts discovered in that Mayan temple in Guatemala last month," said Sheryl.

"Sounds interesting. I'm going to be researching more on the items our target Mr. Johnson has been acquiring. There's a rumor that he has some jewelry that Pharaoh Ramses II's wife wore," said Julia.

---

"The silver bars are in place, so do we have an address?" asked Tyler.

"No sir, but we did find out that he works as a freelance assassin and he was at the mansion because his target was our target. He's made plans to go back and finish the job we disrupted," said Ryan.

"Good, I want you to post people to watch that mansion. When he shows up, we can grab him," said Tyler.

"Dean said that we will need a rhino tranquilizer to get him," said Tina.

"That will kill him if he really doesn't have what werewolves supposedly have," said Tyler.

"I know, but we can't take our chances, because if regular tranquilizers don't work, we'll have a werewolf with assassin training after us," said Tina.

"Ok, that place needs to be watched. Find him and catch him," said Tyler.

"Yes sir," said Tina and Ryan.

---

Standing outside the entrance to the building that faced the mansion, Mike pointed a gun at the wall of the entrance and fired what looked like an electric bolt. The wall sizzled and a few chips of blackened wiring fell away.

Using his superior sense of smell and hearing, he easily tracked down the guards who were watching the upper levels of the building, and quietly dealt with them. He then came to the top of the building wearing one of the guard's uniforms. He took out the rifle segments from his duffel and assembled them.

"Tina, it's a go. The scout on the eastern side spotted a few gun flares. He's here," said Ryan as he approached her.

"Good, let's get ourselves a wolf," said Tina, entering the building.

---

Mike adjusted his rifle scope as he scanned the rooms. He found his target sitting in his study, and aimed his cross-hairs at him as Tina came out onto the roof. She aimed the dart gun at Mike as he fired two shots. The target slumped over dead on his table as Tina let the dart fly.

Mike grunted as he felt the dart dig into his neck. He turned and saw Tina standing there holding the gun, but his vision started blurring as the tranquilizer ran through his body.

"It worked. Come on up. I'll need some help carrying him," said Tina as Mike collapsed into a heap on the ground.

---

Mike awoke with a burn on his skin. He opened his eyes, but quickly shut them again when he was almost blinded from the intensity of light coming from the bars. Mike cursed and muttered, "Silver. How the hell am I going to get out of this?" He dragged himself to the corner of the cell, trying to get away from the glaring heat of the bars.

---

"You wanted to see me, sir?" asked Julia.

"Julia, come, I have something I want to show you," said Tyler. "This is our most recent acquisition. We got him last night."

Tyler turned on a monitor and the picture of Mike huddled into the corner of the cell appeared. Julia's eyes widened in surprise. 'Mike?' she thought, almost saying it aloud.

"It's not really the man we are interested in, but what he can do," said Tyler showing Julia the video camera.

Julia gasped as she watched Mike struggle out of his pants and boots before dropping to the ground, his fur exploding out of his skin.

"Dean suggested we call him homo lupus," said Tyler. "We plan on reproducing the full moon effect in order to force his change. We have a sample of his blood and we are trying to determine what enables this rather surprising shape shift."

Julia thought to herself, 'How did Mike let this happen?' "Wow, that's really impressive," said Julia.

"It is. We need to see how strong this man is in his wolf form. If we can figure out how this shape change occurs, it could have possible military applications," said Tyler.

'Oh, dear. Can't let that happen. I'll figure out a way to get you out Mike.' "Sounds rather promising," said Julia.

"It does. So, what do you have to report on Mr. Johnson's collection?" asked Tyler.

"A German collector is interested in buying many of his pieces. They will be going up for auction at Sutton's Auctioneers. He didn't have any heirs to his collection, and the necklace that Pharaoh Ramses II's wife wore could be in that collection," said Julia.

"Ok, I want you to go check them out and see what we can get. If it's not possible to acquire the pieces now, make a note of who purchases them and we can collect them at a later date," said Tyler.

"Will do, sir. Will that be all?" asked Julia.

"Yes that will be it," said Tyler.

---

'I have to find out where they have the back-up copies of that video and where they are storing Mike's blood sample, there's bound to be something in here,' thought Julia as she accessed the server mainframe. She entered her security code and found the relevant information.

'Excellent. When I bust Mike out tonight, I'll get him to help with the clean up,' thought Julia.

---

Mike winced when he shifted against the wall. All

of his exposed skin was on fire from the prolonged exposure to so much pure silver. 'How am I going to get out of this? They are going to treat me like some freaking lab animal,' thought Mike as he groaned in discomfort.

---

Julia entered the darkened office building and found a workstation. She pulled on a pair of clear plastic gloves that seemed invisible against her skin, and used her secure access password to log onto the computer system and accessed the security camera feeds. She uploaded a program that froze all the transmission images into place and looped the camera footage from the basement cell camera.

She then hacked into the videos archive and uploaded a worm which immediately began burrowing through the files, searching for the ones that Julia had programmed it to destroy. Getting up from the computer, she shut it down and walked down the corridor.

"Good evening Julia. What are you doing here so late?" asked the guard standing in front of the basement door.

"I just got curious about our captive," said Julia.

"I'm sorry Julia. It's Tyler's orders that nobody goes down there unless they have a written order to retrieve something from storage," said the guard.

"Oh, that's ok," said Julia, and then quickly disabled the guard by cracking his head against the wall. She swiped the keys from his belt, opened the door, and staggered as an immense wave of heat assaulted her.

The heat grew as she walked down the stairway, and a light began glowing as she rounded the corner. When she came into full view of the cell she was almost blinded from the intensity of the glow from the cell bars. She pulled a pair of dark sunglasses from her jacket and put them on. It only slightly reduced the glare of the bars, but at least allowed her to keep her eyes open.

Julia began sweating profusely as it felt like she was standing under the hot midday desert sun. She pulled off her jacket and covered her hands as she neared the cell. Julia was able to just barely see the keyhole set into the intensely glowing bars.

Julia winced as the heat of the bars burned at her, but managed to push the key into the lock and twist it. Luck was with her as the lock unlatched and she drew a deep breath and braced herself. She grasped hold of the burning bars and wrenched the door open.

"Mike, it's Julia," she called as she stepped into the cell. Now surrounded by silver, she felt it burning at her body. She walked over to Mike's huddled form and grasped his arm.

"It's Julia. I've come to get you out of here."

Mike nodded weakly as he stood and let her guide him out of the cell, wincing painfully as they neared the bars.

Once they got out of the cell, Mike breathed a sigh of relief to be finally away from the intense heat.

"Come on Mike. We still need to destroy the blood sample and records," said Julia.

"Ok," croaked Mike as his eyes still couldn't make out anything other than blurred shapes.

"I don't know how you could have survived down there for so long. It's like a furnace in there. I look like a tomato and I was only down there for a few minutes," said Julia.

"I really need water. I'm so thirsty I could drink a whole swimming pool," croaked Mike.

"I'll get you some soon Mike. We've got to get those blood samples destroyed, and then we have to get out of here. They should have figured out by now that something is going on," said Julia.

"Ok, I'll be right behind you," croaked Mike.

"You can see ok now?" asked Julia.

"No, but I can see you well enough to follow."

"Ok, keep close," said Julia.

They found the lab with little difficulty, and Julia found Mike's blood sample and put in her pocket, then accessed the lab computer. She found the records and destroyed them.

"Let's go Mike," said Julia.

When they were exiting the building, alarms went off and a reinforced steel blast door started sliding across the exit.

"Come on Mike!" shouted Julia as she launched her foot through the glass door, shattering it as she charged through the rapidly-sealing opening.

Mike charged the door and got out just as the door clanged shut, sealing all the exit and entrance points to the building.

"Well, that's certainly some heavy-duty security," croaked Mike as he got up from the ground. "Now I want to know what the hell is going on Julia."

"I work for them. We collect rare treasures from across the world."

"I'm an assassin," said Mike.

"How long have you been a wolf Mike? To have made such a critical rookie mistake, you mustn't be very old," scoffed Julia.

"I was attacked two years ago. I know how to keep control of this beast. I was just very distracted, and I miscounted the days because I just couldn't stop thinking about you," growled Mike.

"Ok, let's get away from here before the security shows up," said Julia and raced down the street to her car.