Shadow Effect - 22. Chapter 22

Elijah felt a modicum of normalcy for the first time since Kage died. Being back among people who understood the intricacies of living life as a supernatural gave him a sense of belonging. He would never begrudge the life he had with his parents before they were killed, but there were others out there who could do extraordinary things, and they made him feel not so alone.

Sebastian and Reilly dropped him and Tyler off to visit Silas and Rosalie. They would be back around lunchtime with some food from the diner after running a few errands Sebastian needed to take care of.

“It’s wonderful to have you back, young Elijah,” Silas said, his normally cloudy eyes clear as he gave him a once over from head to toe. Elijah felt as though the old man could see into his soul and knew the secret he was hiding within. It was disconcerting, yet at the same time, comforting.

“It’s good to be back, Silas. I’ve missed everyone,” he replied honestly.

Silas turned his attention to Tyler, giving him a briefer, but just as intense, once over.

“Welcome, Tyler. Elijah has spoken highly of you, and we hope you’ll feel at home here.”

“Yes, welcome! We look forward to getting to know you,” Rosalie added, her gaze also lingering on Tyler curiously.

Elijah saw Tyler blush. Inwardly, he rolled his eyes. Tyler always had the sort of charming charisma that won over nearly everyone he encountered. Hell, he even won Kage over. His mood dampened slightly with the memory. Grief still had a sharp bite.

“Thank you. I look forward to getting to know all of you as well,” Tyler replied politely. Mama had taught him well. Common courtesy and manners were instilled in all of her offspring.

Now that the pleasantries were out of the way, Silas and Rosalie turned their attention back to Elijah.

“So young man, what have you gotten yourself into?” Silas asked, getting straight to the point. No beating around the bush with him. Elijah guessed that when you lived as long as the old shifter, there was no point in dilly-dallying around.

Once again, Elijah launched into how his life unfolded over the past several months, although Silas and Rosalie got the abridged version. They were old enough to read between the lines and savvy enough to figure out the rest.

“Oh child, I’m so sorry,” Rosalie tsk-ed.

“I’m sorry too,” Silas said, then added, “I think your Fae friend is right, though. Your mate is out there somewhere. Your path has not been easy lately, and I’m afraid it’s going to get harder before long.”

“What do you mean?” Elijah asked, not really liking the sound of that. He didn’t know if he could take too much more.

“I think what this old coot is trying to say,” Rosalie chirped, “is that for some, the path to happiness isn’t always straight and narrow. Yes, you’ve had some pretty heavy challenges lately, but you’re the only one who can decide what path is right for you. Some will be easy, and others more difficult. So, with that in mind, you need to remember to think before you act and choose wisely.”

Silas nodded. “I didn’t mean to sound all gloomy and doomy. Sebastian told us Zev is working on deciphering what was on the laptop you found. I have a feeling whatever information that is on it will play a part in whatever your next decision is going to be, that’s all.”

“Are you some sort of seer? Or clairvoyant?” Tyler asked.

Silas smiled. “Not in the traditional sense. When you get to be as ancient as Rosalie and I are, there comes a time when you gain a unique outlook on life. You see, when a wolf shifter hits his or her mid six-hundreds, instead of our brains deteriorating like humans do, we gain a sense of sharpness. It’s an ability to look at a situation and see it from all angles, and from there draw certain conclusions that, more often than not, are right. So, not so much clairvoyance as it is life experience. That’s not to say we don’t have problems like all old people. Our bodies do start to deteriorate. Our ability to heal slows down and in turn, we sometimes forget things. We can’t see or smell as well, and shifting isn’t as smooth or quick as it once was.”

Elijah never thought about the wolf aging process and was glad Silas explained it. He, and many of the others, thought Silas and Rosalie were some sort of psychics. Silas’ explanation made much more sense. But then again, in this world, sometimes things weren’t what they seemed. A little psychic ability in an old wolf shifter wouldn’t surprise him.

Silas and Rosalie filled them in on some of the pack going-ons, as well as some gossip. For two old timers who didn’t get out and about all that much, they both had their fingers on the pulse of the pack.

Donovan showed up a half an hour before lunchtime. The doctor informed them he ran into Sebastian and Reilly at the lodge and said there was a change in plans. Several other people wanted to say hello to Elijah and meet Tyler, so Sebastian ordered lunch to be served at the lodge instead. The Alpha texted Elijah, but when he heard a beep coming from his floorboards, realized that he must have dropped his phone and instead of calling Silas, decided to send Donovan to fetch them. Elijah automatically felt his pockets and sure enough, no phone.

The good doctor engulfed Elijah with a warm hug, happy to see him looking so well, but at the same time, registering concern for the lingering sadness he saw, which was impossible to conceal. Elijah knew better than to fake a smile. Donovan would see right through him. The man had taken care of him in the immediate aftermath of his kidnapping and subsequent rescue. It was hard to hide anything from someone who’d already been inside your head.

“If you need to talk, son, my door is always open.”

Elijah nodded, not really trusting his voice at the moment. Donovan stepped back, giving him some space. Tyler, once again correctly reading the situation, took care of introducing himself.

“It’s wonderful to finally meet you,” Donovan said as he shook Tyler’s hand. “I’m glad Elijah has such a good friend.”

So far, Tyler seemed to be taking the introduction to so many shifters in stride. It looked like he was over his initial reticence and fear. Elijah inwardly gave a sigh of relief. He really didn’t know what he would have done if Tyler had been completely freaked out. He needed all of them in his life.

Without further ado, Donovan herded them toward one of the minivans the pack owned, carefully helping Rosalie into the front passenger seat, while keeping an eye on Silas as he settled onto the middle bench. Elijah and Tyler crawled into the far back seat for the fifteen-minute ride over to the lodge.

As he explained to Tyler earlier, the lodge was part of the pack holdings that had been turned over to Sebastian when Caleb, the previous Alpha, decided to leave for Texas. Elijah understood the man’s decision to leave, even though Sebastian assured him he could stay, just not as Alpha. The wounds which betrayal left behind often ran deep. Redemption wasn’t impossible, but rather often improbable. It all depended on how much the betrayer wanted to be redeemed. When Caleb left, he hadn’t been in a good place, mentally or emotionally. Elijah truly hoped he could find the help he needed in Texas.

When they reached the lodge, Wayne was quick to come out to help Rosalie and Silas get out of the minivan. He greeted Elijah with a hug, as he always did, ever since he and Sandi posed as his parents during their foray into enemy territory in Idaho. Now that he was back, he was sure Wayne and Sandi would be more than willing to step in as surrogate parents, which honestly, he didn’t mind. If his human side had Mama and Papi, why couldn’t his shifter side have Wayne and Sandi?

“Come on in everyone! Lunch is nearly ready and I’m sure Sandi and Connie wouldn’t mind another couple sets of hands to help out,” Wayne said as he took hold of Rosalie’s arm to escort her inside. Donovan hovered near Silas’ elbow, just in case.

Once inside, Elijah was surrounded by a lot of familiar faces. Kellan’s whole family was there. Logan and Cooper, the twins, had stopped by. Wayne’s little niece, Lila was hopping back and forth from foot to foot. Her face fell when Sebastian broke the news that Zev and Ben weren’t joining them. Everyone was well aware of her little-girl crush on the handsome shifter. Zev, and Ben too, for that matter, spoiled the child, which in turn, fueled the crush. It was cute, and hopefully she wouldn’t be too devastated when she got older and realized that Zev wasn’t meant for her.

“Elijah! Tyler!” Reilly called, getting their attention after they were bombarded by the group, all wanting to know how he’d been doing and what brought him back. Reilly’s interruption was perfectly timed, a good excuse to break away and head over to the Alpha’s mate.

“Thanks,” Elijah sighed, grateful for the save.

“Yeah, this bunch can be a little much sometimes. Just to let you know, Zev has some stuff figured out and we’ll head back to the house after we’re done here. Do you think you two can put up with the interrogation for another hour or so?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, they’re just curious about this idiot,” he joked, jerking his thumb in Tyler’s direction.

“Hey! They’re all wondering how the hell someone like you could score all this for his best friend.” Tyler drew his hands down his torso as if highlighting the fact he really was all that.

“If you two are done, lunch is ready,” Sandi said from behind them, mock-scolding in her best ‘mom’ tone of voice.

It worked, and they took their seats next to Reilly who was seated to the right of Sebastian at the head of the table. Other than Hunter and Kellan, who were seated to the left of their Alpha, everyone else filled in the spaces in no particular pecking order.

The scent of pasta with tangy tomato sauce and fragrant, hot garlic bread filled the air and soon conversations lagged while everyone enjoyed the feast. Elijah once again gave a very abridged, and edited version of what had gone on in his life during his absence from the pack. For the most part, everybody was well-aware they were only getting part of the story. Privacy was respected and he appreciated it. Not everyone needed to know his business.

Lila was seated directly across from Tyler, and the little girl kept staring at him. Finally, Tyler called her out on it.

“Okay Lilabit, ask away. I can see you’re dying to know something about me,” he said with a barely-concealed smile. Dealing with little kids was second nature for him.

“Lila, it’s not polite to stare,” Sebastian reprimanded lightly, but firmly, reminding the little girl of proper behavior.

“Sorry Alpha ‘Bastian. I do have a question. Ben says you’re human, just like he was.”

“Yes, I am,” Tyler answered.

Elijah had no clue where this was going. If Lila was anything like Tyler’s youngest sister Kaya, there was no telling what would come out of the girl’s mouth next.

“Can you see my wolf?”

Tyler shook his head. “No sweetie, although I’m sure she’s a very pretty wolf.”

Damn, he knew exactly what to say.

Lila sat up straighter at the compliment, a proud smile gracing her cute face, and then very succinctly burst Tyler’s bubble. “Then what good are you?”

“Lila!” Sandi exclaimed, mortified at what she said, but trying to hide her laughter.

Tyler didn’t bother trying to hide the hearty guffaw that had burst out of him.

Elijah chuckled as well, then answered her question. “I ask myself the same thing all the time, Lila.”

He got a swift kick under the table from Tyler and his own exclamation of “Elijah!” from Sandi. The rest of the group didn’t hold back any longer and laughed along with Tyler.

The rest of lunch was uneventful and eventually Sebastian brought an end to the gathering by informing everyone that they needed to get going back to the house. No one questioned their Alpha, knowing that if information was forthcoming, Sebastian would tell them if he believed they needed to know. Elijah was anxious to get back to the house and find out what Zev had discovered.

He and Tyler said goodbye to everyone, assuring Silas and Rosalie they’d stop by again soon. Donovan got them situated in the van for the ride home. Elijah and Tyler rode with Sebastian and Reilly.

“Thank you for being so patient with Lila. She is one precocious little girl. Her dad and Wayne and Sandi will have their hands full when she gets older,” Sebastian stated.

“What happened to her mom?” Tyler asked.

“She died in a car accident when Lila was three. She and her brother Brad belong to Wayne’s brother. He’s had a hard time adjusting since he lost his wife. He’s an electrical engineer and his job requires him to travel a lot, so Wayne and Sandi take the kids whenever he’s gone.”

“It’s too bad about their mom, but it’s good that they have Wayne and Sandi. There’s no better couple to be surrogate parents,” Elijah remarked.

Sebastian agreed as he turned down the long lane that led to the big McDen.

“How did this get the name McDen?” Tyler asked. “

“That’s my fault,” Reilly answered. “Sebastian’s home in Maryland is pretty big. It was the biggest house I’d ever been in until we came here. I started calling it the McDen and well, when we moved here, the name seemed to fit this place too. I guess it really should be McDen the Second, or McDenTwo, maybe Ditto McDen?”

“Stop,” Sebastian chuckled as he parked near the front door and they all piled out.

Ben greeted them first when they came in through the front door. Elijah’s eyes widened at the total chaos in front of them. The living room looked like a paper tornado had come through.

“Don’t touch anything,” Zev warned. “I think I finally have everything in order.”

None of them moved from the landing just inside the door.

“Tell us what you’ve got so far,” Sebastian instructed.

Elijah thought Zev looked a little like the Nutty Professor. His hair was mussed up, obviously been raked through repeatedly. His eyes had a slightly crazed look, somewhat bloodshot, most likely a result of scrutinizing so much information in a few short hours.

“Okay, without going all geeky on you, I’ve got everything sorted into categories. As far as I can tell, there are spreadsheets which detail every pup who was successfully hybridized and either auctioned off, or sold directly to a buyer. The direct sales seem to be all with humans, and the auctions were solely with shifters or other supernaturals. The auctions outnumber the direct sales by about three to one.”

“How many all together?” Sebastian asked tersely.

“Seventy-six.”

The room was completely silent. Seventy-six pups were out there somewhere, stuck in a half-human, half-wolf state, far away from their families. Elijah didn’t know much about wolf pack dynamics, but he knew enough to realize being separated for long periods of time was detrimental to their well-being. It was a sickening realization.

“Goddammit!” Sebastian cursed.

“So what do we do next?” Reilly asked.

“Well, I need to finish translating the encryption into everyday language. See, here’s one I did from start to finish. This pup was taken three years ago, held in the Idaho facility for two months, then successfully turned into a hybrid and placed for auction within a few days,” he said, handing Sebastian a page with more information on it. “The information of the auction winner is there, name, location and the date the pup was delivered. What I don’t know is if any of these people still have the pups, or if they’ve been handed off again.”

“What a clusterfuck,” Hunter sighed, leaning into Kellan for support.

“How long will it take you to decipher all of the locations and the relevant information?” Sebastian asked. Elijah could almost see the wheels starting to turn in his head.

“Now that everything is sorted, one or two days?” Zev replied with a shrug.

“Get on it. If there’s anything any of us can do to help speed up the process, don’t hesitate to ask for help. This has become our number one priority.”

“Great. It’ll be faster for me if I can just hand-write the information, then if someone can input it into a new spreadsheet, that’ll cut my time down to a day, maybe less if we don’t sleep much.”

“Do it,” Sebastian ordered.

Ben, Hunter and Kellan offered to help with data entry, but Sebastian had another plan. “Tyler, if you don’t mind helping Zev, I think I’d like the rest of you to help strategize and come up with a plan of action to rescue these pups.”

“Me too?” Elijah asked, somewhat incredulous that Sebastian would include him.

“Yes, you too. Your shapeshifting abilities give you a unique advantage. We need to figure out how to best use it, if you’re agreeable.”

“Of course.”

Leaving Zev and Tyler to work on the spreadsheets, Sebastian led everyone else to his spacious office, and had them spread out among the two couches and comfy chairs.

“I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I want to move on this as soon as we can. Looking at this information,” Sebastian held up the sheet of paper Zev had given him, “It looks like we have everything we need to formulate a plan to find out if these shifters and humans still have any of these pups. Now, I can probably access a lot of the information behind the scenes on most of these people. Public records are easy enough to pull. I can hack into the rest. Once we have as much information as we can get, then we’ll need feet on the ground.”

“What exactly are you thinking?” Hunter asked.

“Teams,” Elijah interjected, the idea hitting him clearly.

“Exactly where I was going,” Sebastian said. “Give me your thoughts, Elijah.”

The plan seemed to materialize out of nowhere in his head. “Teams of two. Once we know the identities of the pups that were taken, we need to contact their families. Find out things that only their mom or dad, or siblings might know. Physical traits like birthmarks, unusual hair or eye color, anything that might help identify them. We don’t want to give the families false hope, but credible hope might help if we do actually rescue them. As we’ve already seen, a lot of the hybrid pups can’t communicate vocally. They’ll need a strong support system.”

“We also need to have a protocol in place for what happens after we rescue them,” Reilly added. “Obviously, we can’t expect their families to deal with the physical and mental health of these pups on their own.”

The group was silent for several minutes while some serious thinking was going on.

“What about the lodge? Hunter suggested. “There’s a whole section that’s not being used right now. We can get it ready and when we rescue a pup, they can be brought back here, and their family can join them.”

“That’s a great solution.” Sebastian said. “We can move the pups that are in Idaho here as well. I’m not a fan of having them confined out there. I understand the need to have them available for research, but I’m leaning toward shutting down the facility and moving everyone here. There’s plenty of room and if I need to renovate or expand part of the lodge I will,” Sebastian stated, obviously still thinking of possibilities.

“Sebastian, how are things progressing with the research on reversing the hybridization?” Elijah asked.

“Unfortunately, not very well. The team that’s working on it made a little headway in the first couple of weeks. They managed to lessen, but not fully reverse, a few of the traits in a few of the pups, mostly related to their physical appearance. I get daily updates, and other than four pups being less furry and their muzzles shortening, there’s been no headway since then.”

“Have any of them gotten worse?” Elijah asked.

Sebastian shook his head. “No, there hasn’t been any further deterioration in any of the pups, so we’re hopeful that’s going to hold true for the ones who are still out there. The number of variables is staggering. Playing with these kinds of genetic changes is banned for a reason. Honestly, the lead scientist working on this isn’t very optimistic that his team can come up with a cure. He says the best they’re hoping for is improving the pups quality of life. Communication is hard for a lot of them, their vocal cords are wolf and they have paws, not hands, so sign language is difficult and writing is virtually impossible. Even using a keyboard is out of the question for most of them. As much as I want an all out cure, something that will revert every one of them back to how nature intended, I’m not going to hold my breath. I think the best we can hope for at this point is an advance in technology during their lifetime that will allow a cure to be found.”

“Even more reason to send out teams to find all the missing pups. They may have undergone changes naturally that might be helpful in the research,” Elijah commented.

“Who should the teams be? Hunter and I will gladly track these bastards down and get the pups back,” Kellan volunteered.

Elijah had one of those gut feelings again, and heeding Cassiel’s advice, he listened to the voice in his head and blurted out, “No, you two need to be here with Sebastian and Reilly. There’s going to be a lot to handle here, and they’ll need your help. It should be me and Tyler, Ben and Zev, and maybe the twins Logan and Cooper to start. Don’t forget Huntington and his shit-for-brains sidekick are still out there. If we put too many teams in the field, it may tip them off. I’m sure Huntington still has his own records, and we want to stay ahead of him.”

“You’re right,” Sebastian agreed. “Until he’s out of the picture, we need to move cautiously. I think three teams to start out with is good. We can add teams as necessary. Granted, it will slow down the process of recovery, but I think it’ll be safer this way. I’m not sure about you and Tyler being a team, though. He’s human, and it’ll be hard to protect him.” Sebastian pointed out the obvious.

“I realize that,” Elijah said. “But Tyler is smart, and besides, we know each other as well as we know ourselves. He knows his limitations and he’s proven that he will listen to me. I won’t let him do anything that’s too risky, but I’ll need help if any of these pups are physically incapable of aiding in their own escapes. I think he and I should only go after the pups that were taken by humans. Neither of us have any experience taking on wolves, or other animal shifters. It would be out of my comfort zone, not to mention too dangerous. We’ll leave the pups that were auctioned off to the supernaturals to the other teams.”

“Still sounds dangerous,” Reilly fretted.

“This whole operation is dangerous.” Sebastian cut in. “We’ll need to come up with a step-by-step protocol, detailing situations where it’s a green light for extraction, as well as what will indicate pulling back or aborting the plan completely. There are a lot of little details we need to figure out, so I suggest we start brainstorming,” he said, opening the top drawer of his desk, and pulling out three notebooks and some pens. “We’ll work in groups of two. Elijah, you pair up with Ben for now. I want your best ideas written down. In an hour, we’ll go over what we come up with, sort the ideas into yes, no and maybe. Let’s hope by the time Zev and Tyler finish up with the information spreadsheets, we’ll have a good idea of how the hell we’re going to go about this.”

Ben took the notebook Sebastian held out and stood up, tilted his head toward the door, indicating that Elijah should follow. No need for them to be on top of each other in Sebastian’s office. Elijah would be able to think better without the others distracting him. As they passed the common area, he nodded at Tyler, who looked up briefly from the laptop he was typing away on.

It was going to be a long evening for all of them.