Shielded

I couldn’t get that mention of the Rabec Clan out of my head. I knew I had heard that name before. Some big news story when I was a kid. It was bothering me all night so this morning I used the Valkyrie records database to find the information that was sitting just outside of my memory. The second the news headlines popped up on my screen, it started coming back to me. The Rabec Clan was a group of top-notch hunters for the Americas Northeast Kingdom. Almost twenty years ago the entire clan just disappeared. The supernatural community and royal families had launched a huge coordinated investigation that lasted years, but no trace of them was ever found. Until now. Ray’s father, Samuel Olsen, was a member of the Rabec Clan and according to her, Samuel had been alive up until four years ago. So what the hell happened to the rest of his clan and how did he come out of the ordeal with a female Valkyrie child?

--Elijah

I was taking notes on a particularly tricky calculus problem when Chastity came barging into our classroom. Her eye makeup was smeared, several strands of her red hair had been pulled free from its hairband, and she was breathing heavily. Something was very wrong.

“Excuse me,” Chastity said to our math teacher. “Ray Olsen is needed in the office right away.” Then she turned and scanned the classroom until she met my eyes. I saw desperation within them and stood to follow her out of the classroom. The second the door closed behind us, Chastity grabbed my hand and started running down the hallway.

“What is going on?” I asked while we ran.

“Wolves from a neighboring pack showed up unannounced and confronted Lawrence while he was with some others from his pack. They are in an empty classroom right now, but if they wolf out in the middle of the school, we are all up shit creek,” She explained and turned down the next hall.

“Why did you get me?” I didn’t even know any of the shifters at this school, let alone some from a neighboring pack. What was I supposed to do?

“You were the closest Valkyrie that I could find. It is your job to stop this from happening,” she snapped at me and swung open a door. I still had a good amount of forward momentum from the whole running thing, so when Chastity pushed me through the door I stumbled inside. Once I regained my footing I scanned the room to gain as much information about the situation as I could before acting. Two heavily-muscled teenagers were trading blows in the middle of the classroom within a loosely formed circle of people. I recognized one of the men fighting as Lawrence, the son of the local pack alpha. About half of the faces within the room looked familiar too and I assumed they were the Skyline High students. Meaning that each side of this fight would have even numbers if it spread and the observers started fighting.

I took a closer look and saw that both Lawrence and the guy he was fighting were starting to shift. They had claws instead of hands, lots of extra hair, and no longer stood up straight. Chastity was right, if I didn’t stop this we would have wolves fighting in their animal forms in the middle of a public high school. I formed two Shields, one around each man fighting, and slid them apart until they were a good six feet away from each other. They were so far into their shift that they didn’t even seem to notice what I had done until they each hit the inside of my Shield a couple of times. It wouldn’t drain their power like if another Valkyrie touched the Shield, but there was no way out.

As the two dominant wolves calmed down, I dropped my Cloak entirely and allowed my strong allure to actually help me out of this situation. Within moments every eye in the classroom was focused on me and the fight was forgotten. Even Chastity was staring at me like I was the next coming of Christ. “Chastity go get one of the boys,” I ordered but she didn’t move a muscle.

Shit, my allure must be stronger than any of us had thought. I pushed myself slightly into the void and repeated myself. This time she nodded at me and then ran back out of the room. I walked over to the classroom door, closed it, and then locked it for good measure. When I walked back into the middle of the circle of strange people I saw that the men within my Shields had calmed down and were once again fully human.

“Who the fuck are you?” snared the guy I didn’t know. Okay so maybe my estimation of how calm they were was a little off.

“I am the Valkyrie that just stopped you from monumentally breaking The Law. Who the fuck are you?” I snapped back.

“My name is Kace,” he said with a little less attitude. “My dad is the alpha of the Fremont Pack.”

“And why are you here at Skyline starting a fight in broad daylight?” I asked in what I thought was a reasonable voice.

“The motherfucker is here accusing me and the Oakland Pack of kidnapping his brother,” Lawrence growled and threw a punch at my Shield. Obviously, it didn’t give and he swore in pain and started shaking out his hand.

“That true?” I asked Kace.

“Lawerance and his little high school pack has a beef with Logan and last night he just up and disappeared. Logan said that he was coming up here to make things right with the Oakland Shifters and he never came back. What did you do Lawerance? Stab him the back the moment he turned around? Or did you get your little pose to jump him when he came to talk to you alone?”

“We didn’t do shit to Logan,” Lawerance said as he paced the small space within my Shield. He was telling the truth. Thank God. “I haven’t even seen your brother since last week when he sold us those busted motorcycle parts. The entire lot was useless and it will put us back with clients plus cost us to replace, but I would never cap him for something like that.”

“He said he was driving up here to fix that. I have the fucking text message,” Kace yelled and beat his hands on the wall of the Shield. This was starting to degrade and I was good with Shields, but I didn’t know if I could also hold back the other eight people in the room if they decided to restart this fight.

“Enough!,” I yelled and shrank each of their Shields so they couldn’t do more than stand upright. Both men struggled for a few moments until they came to the conclusion that their struggles were useless. “I know for a fact that there has been a string of missing shifters in the area. Did you or the Fremont Pack consider the possibility that Logan’s disappearance has nothing to do with the Oakland Pack?”

“The Blade Clan said that those disappearances weren’t connected and the packs needed to keep a better eye on their members,” Lawerance said in a low voice that sent a shiver down my spine. Well shit. Now I was putting my foot in my mouth and opening up an even bigger can of worms. Peterson had told Elijah that while the moondust investigation had priority, they were still looking into the missing wolves.

“What are you talking about? What missing wolves?” Kace demanded at the same time Connor shouldered through the door. So much for locking the damn thing. He could have just knocked. The unrestrained shifters in the room all took a defensive stance against Connor’s abrupt entrance but Connor didn’t even seem to notice. He walked directly towards me, closely followed by Blake. Neither of them stopped until Connor was standing directly in front of me and Blake was hovering about two inches behind me. Holy shit. It was like I was the meat in a Berg Twin sandwich.

“Kace, you didn’t seriously bring five members of your pack to pick a fight in my territory,” Connor asked in an ice-cold voice. “Because that would be a serious violation of not only The Law but also our trust.”

“I have a text message that Logan sent -” Kace started to explain but Connor cut him off before he could finish.

“I don’t give a fuck what you’ve got. We have official channels to deal with this kind of thing and instead of using them, you walked into this school and came a hair’s breadth away from fully shifting with thousands of humans present. It is unacceptable and we will be taking formal action with your pack master.”

“Thanks for having my back,” Lawerance said with his chin lifted high.

“I don’t have your back, wolf,” Connor said in the same cold detached voice. “Instead of deescalating the situation or getting one of us, you choose to engage Kace. I expected more out of you and we will be talking to your father too.”

I was starting to get uncomfortable between the large Berg twins and I couldn’t see anyone’s faces. I stepped to the side, but Connor mirrored my step and Blake pivoted so that I stayed in the same position. They were actually trying to physically shield me with their bodies, which was bullshit. Out of everyone in this room, I had the best tools to be able to protect myself.

“You’re not mad that we almost shifted. You’re mad that your new female was the one to walk in on our fight,” Lawerance accused and I was inclined to agree with him. “Hate to break this to you Berg, but your female is completely capable of handling herself.” He then knocked on the Shield tightly encasing him to prove his point. Well, all of sudden I was feeling a little more kindly towards Lawerance.

I pushed back into the void, walked three feet to the left, and then reentered the physical plane. The twins needed to learn that I wasn’t going to just let them push me around. Several of the watching shifters gasped and Kace muttered some curse words under his breath. “What happens next?” I asked, relieved to see that most of the tempers within the room had cooled.

“Derik is on his way with the Oakland pack master,” Max said from the doorway. With Connor blocking me earlier I hadn’t even noticed he was here. “I am sure that the Fremont Pack Master will be called as well. We need to keep everything under wraps until they get here. Ray, can you Cloak this room?”

I nodded my head and pushed everyone in the room back into the void. I didn’t push us all the way back and I didn’t seal us in. Just enough that anyone walking by wouldn’t take notice of us. No need to show the shifters the full extent of my Gift.

“What just happened?” Lawrence demanded. “What does Nilsen mean by Cloak the room? And how come I have never heard of Valkyries being able to hold people in Shields like this?” Hmm, looks like shifters aren’t all the brute strength. This Lawrence guy was starting to see the differences in my Gifts.

“The only thing you need to worry about is what is going to happen when your father walks through that door,” Blake told him and angled his body so that he was standing between me and Lawerance.

“I want to know more about the missing shifters and the investigation the Blade Clan is running,” Kace stated forcefully.

“You don’t get to demand anything after the stunt you pulled,” Connor replied.

“Bullshit,” another shifter that I didn’t recognize called out. “One of our pack is missing and you have information. You need to talk to us.”

“Yeah, if there is a string of missing shifters, we have the right to know!” another wolf from Kace’s group yelled and took a step into the center of the circle. So far the other shifters had been content to watch, but now they were all shifting on their feet and tensions began to rise again.

“Clara went missing from our pack three months ago and the Valkyries didn’t do shit,” one of Lawerance’s wolves growled adding fuel to the fire. “They aren’t going to do anything about it now!” I was pretty sure the entire thing would have spiraled into a yelling match from there if the bell hadn’t rung. Shifters, just like the rest of the supernaturals, had been trained since childhood to keep our secret. They knew they couldn’t keep shouting about this stuff while the halls filled with students. What they didn’t know was that no one would remember hearing anything they said, because of the Cloak I had on the room.

A tense five minutes passed where no one uttered a single word and Max held the now broken door closed. One person tried to enter the classroom, but when the door wouldn’t open they gave up and moved on. When the next bell rang signaling the start of the next class, all of the shifters in the room gave a collective sigh of relief.

“Do you understand the gravity of this situation now?” Connor asked into the remaining quiet. “What do you think would have happened if Ray hadn’t stopped you and people saw wolves three times the normal size fighting in the hallways of a high school? Do you know how many people have smartphones? Every single person out there could have recorded your shift and we would have been outed to the world. What the fuck were you thinking?”

Connor’s words rang in the air unanswered until Derik and a huge man in leathers walked through the door that Max was now holding open. The man was at least six-seven and built like a freaking tank. He had a handlebar mustache and a tattoo running up his neck that looked like some sort of gear. This must be Lawerance’s father, the leader of the Oakland Pack. “Where the fuck are they?” the massive man growled and Derik rolled his eyes.

“Ray, can you please make things a little more visible?” Derik said while scanning the apparently empty room. I figured he was in charge so I lifted the Cloak. The pack master full-on yelped and jumped at least two feet in the air. I couldn’t help but chuckle and I wasn’t the only one.

“What the fuck!” the pack master cursed.

“Pack Master Lopez, meet Ray Olsen. The Valkyrie that acted quickly enough to cover your son’s massive fuck up. We need to move this party to a more discreet location,” Derik said and then just walked back out of the classroom. For a second, no one followed him but then Max clapped his hands causing a couple of people to jump. When Max also walked out into the hall the shifters started to follow. Pack Master Lopez walked against the flow of traffic until he was standing directly in front of his son. He reached and ran his hand along the curve of my Shield.

“Since when could Valkyrie hold Shields around people they were touching?” Pack Master Lopez asked and my stomach dropped.

“That’s what I said,” Lawerance replied and both men turned to look at me. I just let out a breath before following the rest of the shifters into the hallway. Blake shadowed me, protecting my back and I waited a little longer before dropping the Shields holding Kace and Lawrence. Blake eventually stepped beside me and laid a hand at the small of my back and the show of support felt good. We walked out of the front doors and to the student parking lot. Derik was standing by a police cruiser watching as all of the shifters got into various different cars but when he saw us he used his hand to wave us over.

“You okay?” Derik asked in a voice that didn’t carry. He never took his eyes off of the Shifters in the parking lot, but I knew that he was genuinely concerned about me.

“I’m fine. I might have messed up and mentioned other missing shifters to Kace. He didn’t seem to know about it. One of the Oakland Shiters mentioned a Clara that went missing three months ago and the Valkyries weren’t doing anything to find her,” I replied in an equally quiet voice.

Lopez came out with the two highschool leaders, followed by Connor. “You ride with Kace, Ray can come with me,” Derik told Blake and I saw that Connor was going to get in the same car as Lopez and Lawerance. I scanned the parking lot and found Max standing outside of a truck and most of the Oakland pack members were in the bed.

Derik and I didn’t get into the police cruiser until all of the shifters were inside of a vehicle. Then we led the line of cars away from the school parking lot and out in a direction I had never been before. “Good work with the Shields, Wonder Girl,” Derik said and I let out a sigh at his stupid nickname for me.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“Now we have to step up and uphold The Law. It isn’t pretty, but I think it is something you need to see.”

I had dozens of questions burning at the back of my mind that I wanted to ask him, but the first one to come out was, “what will the Valkyries do to find the missing shifter?”

“That isn’t our investigation. Logan is from another territory with another clan that Kace and his father should have gone to instead of taking things into their own hands,” Derik replied and tightened his grip on the wheel.

“But Clara was a wolf from the Oakland Pack. That would be your investigation,” I pressed.

“We did our due diligence on the Clara Long case, but the Blade Clan decided it would be better if they continued on with that case without us.”

“What is the deal with this Blade Clan? How big of a deal are they?” I questioned because I didn’t like how often I was hearing about them lately.

“They are thirty strong and the queen uses them as her go-to clan for most things in this area. They are powerful, politically motivated, and have the numbers to bowl over any of the smaller clans. Yesterday, when you stood up to them, was probably the first time that has happened to them in a long time. We need to be careful where they are concerned,” Derik said directly and I knew he was warning me to play nice. He may have knocked Peterson out cold yesterday, but today if any of the Hunters ordered him to do something, Derik would have to comply.

We pulled up to a well-maintained warehouse but there wasn’t a single vehicle or person in sight. “What is this place?” I asked looking around for some clues as to why we were here.

“This is a supernatural safe zone. It has been warded by the witches so nothing that happens inside can be heard or seen by the humans. Sometimes it’s used as a meeting place, today we are here for something else,” Derik said and a shiver ran down my spine. Now I know why this place bothered me so much. It reminded me of the places that my father would bring me and force me to fight other supernatural children in an underground ring.

The rest of the cars from the school pulled up and as a group, we walked into the warehouse. The Oakland and Fremont packs stayed separate from each other but no longer seemed to be acting hostile towards each other. Instead, the atmosphere was filled with a grim feeling that was tinged with fear. Pack Master Lopez stood several feet away from his son with his arms crossed and his head bowed. I could practically feel the energy and shifter power radiating out from him. He was intensely angry but trying to control his reaction.

We all stood there in the growing tension without saying a word and I figured that we were waiting for something or someone. Being as I had zero idea about what was going on, I kept my mouth shut and stayed close to Derik. Hopefully, he would keep me from doing anything to compromise what was going on here.

Twenty minutes later, I was starting to fidget when I heard multiple cars pull into the lot. Everyone else heard it too, but no one moved from their standing vigils. When the warehouse door opened the first person I saw was a man that I didn’t know, but the resemblance to Kace was strong. He must be the Fremont Pack Master. He was closely followed by Elijah and an older man in khaki pants and a Hawaiian t-shirt who looked tired. Three other men who walked through the door were all dressed in suits and reminded me of the FBI agents I had seen on TV shows. The only one I recognized was Connor and Blake’s father, Hunter Ransom Berg.

The two men that seemed to be with Ransom scanned the room with shrewd eyes and both of them paused when they came across me. If I had to guess I would say that they were Valkyries and a part of the Blade Clan. Well, at least they hadn’t brought Peterson with them. The old man in the Hawaiian shirt walked over to the grouping of Fremont wolves with the Fremont Pack Master so I assumed that he was in some way affiliated with them, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t a shifter.

After allowing the Fremont group to talk quietly amongst themselves for a moment the three Valkyries in suits moved so that they were positioned in between and in front of the two groups, in a clear power move. The Three Musketeers walked away from their guard positions within the different groups and joined Derik and me. Elijah stood about two feet in front of us, clearly identifying him as our leader. In fact, both pack masters were also standing before their small groups too. The man in the Hawaiian shirt stood next to the Fremont group but he had definitely put effort into making himself distinct from them by leaving a five-foot gap between him and the closest shifter.

One of the Valkyries in a suit started talking and pretty soon it became evident that this was going to be a trial of sorts. He recited a section from The Law stating that all supernaturals were strictly prohibited to involve themselves in any actions that may reveal any part of the supernatural community to the humans. Then he asked for each party to step forward and give testimony to what had happened. Lawerance went first, followed by Kace.

The gist of the story was this, Kace was extremely worried about his brother, Logan when he didn’t come to the pack lands for a run last night. When Logan still hadn’t shown up in the morning, Kace became convinced that Logan had run into trouble when he came to Oakland to square things with Lawerance. Kace had gathered some of his pack members and together they drove to Skyline High and confronted Lawerance in the hallway. Lawrence had insisted they move the conversation to the empty classroom and members of his pack followed him. The two packs started arguing and eventually, it had degraded to the point where Lawerance and Kace started physically fighting. Both Kace and Lawerance admitted to losing control and starting to shift before I intervened to stop them. Both boys told nothing but the truth, surprising me. I would have thought they would have tried to lie to cover their asses.

The Valkyrie who was taking charge of this trial asked questions throughout each of their stories, but he seemed extra interested in how I used different Shields to restrain the half-changed wolves and the mention of cloaking the classroom. However, neither shifter could explain the comment they heard Max make. I schooled my face to remain blank and hoped that they would drop the subject. That turned out to be a wasted effort, as the oldest of the three Valkyries in the suits spoke for the first time asking Max to clarify what he meant when he asked me to Cloak the room.

Max shifted uncomfortably on his feet but didn’t hesitate to answer. “Valkyrie Olsen has the ability to render people and objects invisible and refers to this Gift as Cloaking. I asked her to make the people within the classroom invisible while we waited for Valkyrie Risberg to arrive. I believed that was the best way to ensure no questions about this situation were raised by the humans, sir.”

“That is quite an impressive claim, Valkyrie Olsen,” the same older Valkyrie said, and I got the distinct impression that he was in charge, even though the other man had been running the proceedings. “Would you please demonstrate this Gift for us now?”

Bannans. I wasn’t expecting to get called out like this. I quickly uncloaked my mind and asked Elijah if this is something I should do. The Valkyrie that had been running the trial eyes widened in surprise and he took a small step in my direction at the same time that Elijah gave me a small nod of his head. Just great, he must also be a telepath. That would explain why everyone wasn’t hesitating to tell the truth. I thought that telepathy was supposed to be a rare gift. I recloaked my mind and glared at the three men in suits. Here I was trying to fly under the radar and they were demanding I give a demonstration in a warehouse filled with supernaturals.

I focused my steely gaze at the man in charge and then cloaked everyone in the large room except the three of them and myself. Ransom and the other Valkyrie looked around the room with noticeable awe, but the man in charge didn’t take his eyes off of mine. Within them, I saw greed and excitement. This Valkyrie was powerful and exactly like my father. I would have to keep my guard up around him because if I wasn’t careful I would end up in the exact kind of life I was working so hard to avoid.

After another moment of intensely staring into the leader’s eyes, I uncloaked the rest of the room. The leader gave me a smug side smile that made the hair at the nape of my neck rise. Then the other Valkyrie asked Lawerance a question about why he didn’t insist on meeting Kace in a more secluded place and the spell was broken. The questioning continued for another five minutes and then a break was called while the three suit Valkyries deliberated. However, no one else in the room moved from their positions, so I kept my questions about who these Valkyries were and what was going to happen next to myself.

What happened next was pretty awful. The leading Valkyries decided that for his violations to The Law that Kace deserved to have his hand broken while Lawrence was less at fault and would only have a single finger broken. The pack masters were also admonished for not teaching their pack members the importance of following The Law and each was fined ten thousand dollars. Additionally, each of the high school shifters that had taken part in the conflict was ordered to complete one hundred hours of community service within the supernatural community.

Then Ransom produced a large metal mallet from his inner coat pocket and handed the blunt weapon to the Fremont Pack Master. I thought it was interesting that he hadn’t just materialized the weapon, but maybe he didn’t have a blunt weapon available to him. Other than my staff, I knew I didn’t. Then the Pack Master proceeded to smash his own son’s right hand with the mallet and I had to grit my teeth so that I didn’t throw up a Shield to protect the adolescent wolf. The Fremont Pack Master passed the weapon to Pack Master Lopez and the scene repeated itself with Lawrence instead of Kace. The whole thing was barbaric and I hated how the shifters just played along with it without a single word of protest. It would seem that Valkyries were more like my father than the Oakland Clan had allowed me to believe. Brutal and power-hungry.