Free Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1 by Mark E. Cooper Page A

parallels with ours. Any similarities between them are coincidence. Believe me, I know.”
    “You have my word.”
    Alex nodded. “Let’s get you that cab.”
    David nodded and followed Alex out into the corridor.
    * * *

5 ~ Anti Monster League
    David twitched the curtain aside enough to see the street outside. The two shadowy figures sitting in the car watching his house were still there, and he wondered whether it might be better to slip out the back. They were AML, but they hadn’t approached him. The first time he noticed them he’d gone out to talk, but when they saw him approaching, they drove off. Obviously, they were only here to watch him—a relief when he considered what AML was most known for.
    He let the curtain fall and tried to get back into the book Alex had lent to him. He had a number of them that his friend said might help, but this one seemed more fiction than fact. He had to wonder if there were any books actually written by shifters—surely the only real authority on them. He would try to find out, but being a shifter wasn’t exactly the kind of thing anyone advertised.
    He took a sip of his coffee and turned back a page trying to order his thoughts and be objective. He had just picked up the thread of what he’d been reading, when he heard another car pull up. He dropped the book on the couch beside him and rose to check the street again. He twitched the curtain aside and found Hoberman approaching his door.
    “Finally,” he said and went to his desk.
    He found his gun in the drawer where he always kept it, loaded it quickly, and dropped it into his jacket pocket. It was an old Model 83 revolver with two-inch barrel. No one but collectors owned such weapons anymore. He would have preferred something else, something more modern such as a police issue stunner, but such things were very hard to get without answering many questions. Gun registration was something he had always been very much in favour of, but it was working against him now. A stunner could be used on non-lethal settings, his gun could not. He was as likely to kill someone with it as wound them.
    The bell rang and he went to answer it. Hoberman was waiting with two friends flanking his shoulders. “I’ve been expecting you, George.” Hoberman didn’t like anyone using his first name, that’s why he’d used it.
    “May I come in?”
    David shrugged and stepped back. “Why not?”
    He led them into the sitting room. Hoberman’s eyes swept the space, maybe looking for witnesses, before settling back to David. His AML friends took position at his back their eyes never leaving David. Their dark jackets were unbuttoned and the telltale lumps under their arms told of concealed weapons. They had dead eyes, and David shivered. He might have made a mistake by allowing them in.
    “This is Benjamin, and this Thomas. They are my—”
    “Keepers?” David broke in.
    “Bodyguards,” Hoberman said quickly. “May I sit?”
    David indicated the couch and sat opposite. Hoberman’s goons did not sit. One moved to stand by the window, the other remained by the door. “You want something from me?”
    “Straight to the point, we can do that. I can help you, David.”
    “Help me? Help me how?”
    “Don’t be naïve; you know what I’m talking about. We both know you’re looking for the animal that attacked you, and who could blame you? Really, who would blame anyone for wanting revenge?”
    “I don’t want revenge, I want justice. The police—”
    “The police won’t help you; you’re one of the shifters now, but you needn’t let your sacrifice be in vain. Work with me, work with us , and I promise we’ll find the one that did this to you.”
    “And kill her?”
    Hoberman nodded. “Or if you prefer, deliver her to you so you can do it. We can work out the details later.”
    David stared, trying to see the man he had once respected. When he first joined the staff at Saint Bartholomew, he had looked upon George Hoberman as