Hurricane #28: The Meeting (Patreon)

Sarah held up a hand as Serrano started to open her door. “Just the librarian and I.”

The coyote twisted around in her seat and eyed the fox squirrel. “Seriously?”

“They might recognize you.”

“They’re going to be looking for a coyote and a wolf. Or just a wolf. And I told you, they’re not going to recognize me with clothes and just two legs.”

Mrs. Webb lifted a brow. “You don’t look that different, Ms. Layotl. But with myself and Ms. Wylde in her current appearance, you might not be immediately obvious.”

Sarah groaned. “Fine.”

Mrs. Webb fiddled with her phone on the way in to the hotel, paying the parking meter with an app. They walked into the hotel together.

“All right. If they’re already here, they’ve left a message for us, or asked at the front desk. If they’re not—”

Serrano gestured, as subtly as she could manage. “That’s the tiger.”

Sarah looked. Sure enough, the tiger agent stood by the front desk, looking impatient. He wore an identical black suit as before. “Hardly trying to fit in, is he.”

“There’s a wolf dressed the same way in the coffee shop.”

Serrano looked off to the lobby’s left. Sure enough, a wolf sat there pretending to look at his phone. He wasn’t all that good at pretending. She turned away quickly before he glanced in her direction, and scanned the rest of the lobby. “You know who I don’t see? Agent Vixen.”

Mrs. Webb lifted her brows. “Agent Vixen?”

“The agent we specifically asked to meet us here this morning.” Sarah frowned. “I’m going to go to the front desk and see if anyone’s asked for me. Keep your eyes open for anything else suspicious.” She headed off.

“So I wonder if she’s actually done this before, or just watched too many spy movies.” Serrano rubbed the back of an ear.

“Even as a squirrel, I confess I find her rather intimidating. Although from everything I’m hearing, I should find you even more so now.”

“Maybe.” The coyote sighed, shrugging. “I’m not trying to be, but it’s coming disturbingly naturally.”

“Mmm. I’ve seen that in some students. Usually giant ones, around littles for the first time in their lives, overwhelmed with the relative power. I can’t pretend I didn’t feel some of that myself, my first few weeks. Where I grew up—where most giants grew up—we don’t feel ‘giant’ at all. There are no littles.”

“And then you’re around people you could accidentally kill with a misstep, and you’re kinda terrified and kinda excited all at once.” She cleared her throat. “Maybe that’s just me.”

“I assure you, it isn’t.”

“So how’d you deal with it?”

“As cliché as ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ may be, I learned to take it seriously. I’d go so far as to say it’s the college’s true mission.”

“Between that and what Irsaw was saying, it sounds like you’re less a college than a training program for superheroes.”

Webb laughed. “I wouldn’t go nearly that far.”

Sarah headed back toward them. “They said no, nobody’s asked for me, but the clerk raised his hand and caught the tiger’s eye as I turned away.”

“What? He’s in on it?” Serrano started to turn.

“Don’t look,” Sarah snapped. “I doubt the clerk is ‘in on it’ beyond taking a bribe.”

Serrano stopped turning, but she caught the tiger out of the corner of her eye, looking her way now and doing a double-take.

“I believe you’ve been recognized,” Webb murmured.

“The brilliant disguise of being shorter and having two fewer legs didn’t work? Who’d have guessed.” Sarah ignored Serrano’s sullen glare. “Since our cover’s blown, maybe we should just go confront them directly.”

“Great idea.” Serrano turned and started walking toward the tiger.

“That’s not…” Sarah trailed off, making a surprisingly lupine growl for a squirrel. She followed Serrano a few paces behind, Webb a step behind her.

The tiger saw her and straightened up warily, slipping one hand inside his jacket. She spoke before he did. “So where’s Agent Vixen?”

He looked momentarily confused, then grunted. “Agent Ward isn’t on this assignment. Wylde was the wolf with you, wasn’t she? Where is she?”

“Not on this assignment. So did you learn anything we can use?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, then nodded toward the coffee shop, slapping a hand on her shoulder to guide her that way. “Let’s go over there to Agent Banks.”

“Fine.” She tilted one ear toward Sarah and Webb; the squirrel was murmuring something softly to the mouse, but she couldn’t make it out.

The wolf at the coffee shop—Banks?—stood up as Serrano and the tiger approached. He was murmuring something, too, head tilted to the side as if speaking to someone invisible, although his eyes stayed on the coyote. What was that about? Was he talking on a hidden radio? Maybe she’d been watching too many spy movies, but they were—were kind of spies—

Serrano rubbed her forehead. “I’m feeling dizzy,” she muttered.

“Not much farther to the car.”

“Wait, what?” She stiffened, straightening, and her vision went blurry.

He put his arm around her waist. “We can’t talk here. Back to the office. Things to show you, storm girl.”

“No.” She couldn’t quite make her muscles work enough to stop him from walking her toward the coffee shop exit. Banks moved to block Webb and Sarah from following. “No!” Dammit, she couldn’t focus enough to call lightning or wind or something.

“You want to know where the wolf is?” Sarah shimmered, shifting back to her red wolf form, growing a foot in the process. “Now let her go.”

Banks stared at her, then lunged forward—not at the faerie, but at Webb. He got an arm around her neck, his gun in his other hand. The mouse squeaked in alarm. “Back off!”

Sarah stopped, ears lowering. Commotion broke out in the hotel coffee shop, patrons running away, pulling out their phones.

Serrano tried to focus, but Agent Tiger (she still didn’t have his name, did she?) got her through the door and outside. Two more agents—neither one Agent Vixen—stood waiting at a black SUV with its engine running, doors open.

The earth shook.

It wasn’t an earthquake, it was more like a train rumbling by. No, more like—more like a safe had been dropped from a few stories up or something. Screams came from inside the coffee shop. All the agents stared as Webb and Sarah ran out. Sarah must have done something? But the wolf was staring at Webb incredulously.

The tiger shoved Serrano in the back, scrambling after her. “Move move move!” he barked. Groaning, Serrano clung to the far door. Dammit, Ulohne, if you have…magic anti-wooziness powers…

The other two agents climbed into the front seats. “Banks isn’t—”

“We have maybe a half-hour before that wears off, and I’ve seen what she’ll do to us then, man. Go!”

The rabbit driver swallowed nervously, starting to pull out. Webb ran in front of the car. He reflexively slammed on the brakes. Serrano grabbed the door handle for support, feeling like she was about to barf.

“She’ll get out of the way or won’t,” the tiger snarled. “I said go!”

Door. Handle? Lock? Serrano squeezed whatever she was holding. Something clicked, and the door cracked open. As the driver started to accelerate toward Webb again, the coyote started to tumble out of the car.

“Shit!” The tiger dived for her, grabbing one of her legs. The rabbit slammed on the brakes again, and the door swung open wide.

Serrano blinked groggily, seeing the world upside down, her head barely two inches from cracking against the pavement. This seemed bad. She kicked weakly.

Then someone grabbed her arms. An agent? No. Sarah. She could see the agent in the passenger seat going for his gun and tried to point, but none of her muscles felt like cooperating. Sarah pulled. The tiger pulled.

Then abruptly, her legs rose up. What? No. No, it was the car rising into the air. And tilting. What? She and the tiger slid out, right onto Sarah.

What the hell was going on? Serrano blinked, trying to focus. Yep, that SUV was definitely in the air, all right, like it was held by a giantess. It was held by a giantess, but one who was only about five and a half feet tall right now. Mrs. Webb still stood at its front, lifting it up effortlessly. Right up. Over her head. Turning it.

And dropping it back to the ground, upside-down.

The tiger screamed as if the car had fallen right on him, although it had missed by…well, a foot, maybe. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted down the street.

Mrs. Webb turned to give chase, but he didn’t make it a half a block before falling, a brittle crack echoing over the traffic. Sarah whipped her head around, staring at the opposite sidewalk.

Webb stared, too, then hurried to Sarah’s side. “Is she all right?”

“You…you really are a superhero,” Serrano mumbled.

“She’s drugged, I think. That was a gunshot.”

“From where?” She looked at the two agents inside the car. The rabbit driver wasn’t moving, although he was breathing. The passenger, another wolf, was just watching fearfully, blood running down his face from a wound.

“I don’t—”

“Away from the car now. And away from the coyote.”

Sarah and Webb both turned to face Banks. He had his gun drawn, held in both hands, pointed at them as he looked from side to side wildly. “Who’s working—”

He didn’t get the sentence out before he fell over, the shot ringing out more loudly this time.

Someone ran toward them. A vixen. The vixen, Agent Ward, in jeans and T-shirt rather than a black suit this time. “Come with me.”

Sarah rose to her paws. “Why the hell would we—”

“Because the police are on their way, and you don’t want this to get even messier than it already is.”

Abruptly another shot rang out. Ward sucked in her breath, staggering and clutching her leg.

Sarah and Webb whirled around; Webb was the first to spot the shooter—the passenger, holding his gun shakily. The mouse grabbed the car, lifting it over her head again, and hurled it down the street. It skidded along on its roof, sparks flying, pedestrians shrieking and scattering, until the vehicle smacked into a streetlight at the corner.

“You know,” Sarah said, hands on her hips as she stared after the car, “I wasn’t using magic because you made it clear I shouldn’t attract any attention to myself.”

“Yes. Well.” Webb cleared her throat, then grabbed Ward’s hand. “You come with us.”

“I’m not—”

“You’re hurt, Agent Ward,” the mouse snapped, using her best librarian voice. “Be quiet.” The vixen blinked, falling silent.

“Now let’s go.” She lifted the vixen into her arms effortlessly.

Sarah lifted her brows again, then got her arms around Serrano, all but dragging the coyote back toward Mrs. Webb’s car.