Aztec Treasure

Maria Gonzales (Meztli’s) POV

Cabin west of Empire, Colorado

I couldn’t take my eyes off the coverage as the day went on.

Mom and Dad had warned me repeatedly that under NO circumstances could humans find out about our existence. “They fear what they do not understand, Maria. They will hunt us down and destroy our kind if they discover we exist. If we survive, it will be in their labs and zoos, subjects of medical experiments until they learn our secrets.”

I looked over at Dad as we sat on this very couch in the cabin. “What about the werewolves?”

“They feel the same. No one is willing to risk exposure; that is why we cannot let our hatred of each other spill into open warfare. We stay away from Pack lands, and they avoid our Chapters. If we sense one around, go the other way. If humans find out about were-beasts, we all die.” The only other werecats in North America were mountain lion shifters, and they were loners in the California mountains. There were other cat shifters in Africa and Asia, but I’d never met them.

I grew up with feet in both worlds; my werejaguar family and the human bikers of the Club. The Sons, Dad explained, were useful as muscle and labor in our drug empire but could never know our secret.

It was why we only shifted at the cabin. We used darkness and our senses to make sure hunters and hikers weren’t around before we went out and stayed together. If we hunted, we devoured the deer and hid the remains.

And now, I was watching Colletta Nygaard standing in the Rose Garden with the President of the United States. The caption at the bottom of the screen read, “WEREWOLF LEADERS MEET US PRESIDENT.”

President Kettering spoke first, talking about the standoff at Arrowhead. She confirmed the residents under Alpha Rori King were werewolves as if a live transition between forms wasn’t enough proof. I was surprised to learn that Colletta Nygaard had been in Washington negotiating how to make their kind public without causing widespread panic. Coffey’s actions must have driven them to get ahead of the story.

My jaw dropped when the President verified that Alpha Rori’s people had been heavily involved in the takedown of the Sons of Tezcatlipoca. My anger burned as I listened; what they did was a betrayal of our kind in the worst way. We all understood you couldn’t involve humans, yet the Arrowhead Pack hid behind the FBI to take out Werejaguars. After hunting my kind to near extinction, the werewolves were celebrating with their new friends in the US Government.

I felt sick. I paused the television, running to the bathroom to throw up.

It was so unfair. The werewolves couldn't beat us on their own, so they brought in the humans to do their work for them.

I came back out a few minutes later, picking up Maritza and setting her in my lap as I took the broadcast off pause. Colletta was doing her best to calm a nation’s fears, although revealing there were ten thousand werewolves around wouldn’t help. She stressed that werewolves had always been part of America and were indistinguishable from others. She talked about how they switched forms and how they reproduced. People seemed more interested in Colletta’s age than her ability to shift into an animal. Colletta also warned that no werewolf would be in that form during this time, so any wolves that got hunted were protected native wolves.

The President reinforced that the Pack members were American citizens, subject to and protected by American laws. She ended with an appeal for calm. “Now, we all take a deep breath and relax. There is no danger, no crisis, only an opportunity to work together and build a brighter future together.”

“I look forward to a new era of cooperation between our peoples,” Colletta added.

“That is all. Thank you for coming,” President Kettering said. She put her arm around the new Werewolf Council Chairman before they raised their hands and waved to the crowd.

My head was spinning; everything that was up was now down.

I couldn’t turn off the coverage, even sleeping in the living room on the couch, so I didn’t miss any of the changes. The first day the country was in shock, but the second day brought the inevitable blowback. Hunting parties went into the woods, and many a family pet was gunned down because it “might be a werewolf.” Protests for and against werewolves sprung up in major cities, especially ones near known Packs. The remote Arrowhead Pack was the focus of many of these protests, and it had turned into an armed camp. Members of the Steel Brotherhood motorcycle club had poured in, patrolling the property with guns as the police divided them from the protestors.

There was one thing I was certain of. I wouldn’t be shifting again unless my life was in danger.

I worked on my escape plans while Maritza was sleeping. I put additional bags into my SUV, making sure I had enough clothes, food, and water to last a week without going into town. I also packed and hid a bag about a mile back in the woods, along a trail I could take to get to Empire without going near the road. I searched escape routes and looked for hiding places. I also used empty cans, string, and bottles to ‘booby-trap’ entrances into the house. I needed every second of time I could get to escape if I didn’t hear them coming.

The werewolf stories dominated the news cycle all week. Protests, violence against suspected werewolves, and even armed attacks on Werewolf packs were daily occurrences. The Werewolf leadership reduced public fears by giving multiple interviews and letting reporters have access inside the Packs. Calmer voices eventually won out, and the violence faded away.

The biggest story of the week for me was the disappearance of Julio Salazar. My only living relative, Julio, was missing without a trace. The story was something out of a spy novel; he’d been taken from a Federal Prison in Oklahoma by three US Marshals. He just never showed up at the next prison. After two days, it was clear he wasn’t showing up in their system again.

The Bureau of Prisons treated it as a prison break; the transfer papers were skilled forgeries, as were the US Marshal identifications. The FBI and Federal Marshal Service were investigating, as was the Sons of Tezcatlipoca Task Force. Julio’s defense lawyer railed about what he called his extra-judicial detention, filing suit in court and demanding that the US Government allow him to exercise his Constitutional rights. Meanwhile, the lawyers for other Sons members suspected Julio flipped on the Club and was now in the witness protection program.

I knew Julio would die before he cooperated with the Feds, so there were only two options that made sense. Either a government agency figured out he was a werecat and took him to a facility for testing, or the Cartels wanted him for themselves. Either way, I knew I’d never see him again.

I was slowly going crazy in the cabin. Afraid to go out, afraid to use the computer, afraid to make a phone call, afraid to shift into my jaguar, afraid to look out the window, afraid to sleep without Maritza in the room. I kept guns in each room, out of reach of the inquisitive Maritza, but never more than fifteen feet away.

I was napping that afternoon in the living room when I woke to the sound of cans rolling along the pavement. I’d set some simple traps with cans and fishing line to warm me that someone was coming up the sidewalk to the door. Up in an instant, I picked up Maritza with one hand and the shotgun with the other.

I heard the person curse as she untangled the fishing line from her shoes, the cans making more noise as she freed herself. I took a quick glance out the living room window; she was young, in her early twenties, wearing a pencil skirt, white blouse, and a jacket. I checked the driveway and the road; no one else was in her car in the driveway or anywhere else I could see.

She made it to the door and knocked three times, bringing my next decision point. The cabin was supposed to be empty, so I stayed quiet and watched through a crack in the curtain to see what she did. When no one answered, she pulled a paper out of her purse. “Maria? Christian said to give you this message.”

She tucked it into the door, then turned around and left. I waited a few minutes after she pulled out of the driveway to ensure she was gone and no one else was around. When I was satisfied, I opened the door, grabbed the note, and closed and locked it again.

I smelled the paper, scenting Christian’s smell among the other scents. The note was folded in half and stapled closed, so I opened it and read the single word he’d written to me.

“RUN.”

And we did.