Mikko Lawrence

“What happened?”

Mikko started, looking up.  He hadn’t heard anybody walking up to him.

A fifteen-year-old boy with sun-browned skin and tense shoulders stood a few paces away.  He had his hands in the pockets of his jeans.  A blue bandana held back bronze curls, revealing a nice bruise and cut along his jaw.  They looked fresh.

“Shifters threw a brick through the window,” Mikko replied, going back to hammering a board into the wood between the panes.  He had found a nicely sized wooden board in the garage that would cover up the broken panes without covering the whole window.

“Fuckers.”  Frankie bent over to pick up the small box of nails that Mikko was using, holding out the next one Mikko would need.

Mikko took the nail muttering a thanks.  “What happened to your face?”

“Also shifters.  Got chased out of a convenience store when they saw me.  They didn’t get me, but I fell off a fire escape ladder trying to get away.  Hit my jaw on the ladder on the way down.”  He slowly lifted his T-shirt to show an awful purple and black bruise that spanned his ribs and lower back. 

“Jesus fuck,” Mikko said, pausing in hammering.  “Go inside and put some ice on it—what are you doing out here?”

“Heard you hammering,” he shrugged.  He immediately winced at the movement. 

“Ice.  Now.  Where’s Genie?”

“Went to pick up Lina,” he replied.  “Shifters didn’t see her, but she brained one with a rock pretty good before she bolted.  She hid until we could reunite and told me to go home.”

Besides having really good balance and body-awareness, Genie’s physiopathy also gave her really good aim.  She almost never missed a mark.

Mikko exhaled through his nose.  “Alright, we all need to talk when we get back inside.  Go put some ice on it.”

Frankie set the nails back down in the grass and headed around the side of the house.  Mikko heard faintly when the front door shut.

It was another few minutes before Mikko finished boarding up the damage.  He didn’t know when they would get the window fixed, but for now, it was still functional, and he didn’t have to board the whole thing.

He picked up the nails and hammer and went into the garage through the backdoor.  The air outside was in the mid-seventies, but as always, the garage was hotter than Satan’s asshole.  He quickly set the tools on the workbench and closed the door, locking it.

He turned sideways to get between the garage and the house, shimmying through, and went back into the house.  He glanced up as he did, checking for any loitering shifters.  An attack on the house and an attack on Frankie in the same day—this wasn’t good.

He entered the house to find Annie laid out on the floor, the knee of her messed up hip to her chest.  A PT exercise.  Frankie was on the couch, an ice pack wedged between him and the couch arm, against the bruise.  Lina sat next to him, putting a bandage with a shark pattern on his cut.  She had gotten back with Genie while Mikko boarded up the window.

Genie sat in the rocking chair in the corner, a cold compress on her knee where she had it bent to her chest, foot resting on the seat of the chair.  The pants and shirt she wore were stained with some dark liquid down her side and she smelled like Chinese food.

“What happened to you?” he signed to her.

She shook her head, replying with one hand.  “Shifters.”

“I thought you didn’t get caught by them?”

“No, but I still had to run like hell after I knocked one of them out with a rock.  I banged the shit out of my knee climbing into a dumpster outside of Lin’s Wok.”

A dumpster was one of the best ways to hide from a shifter.  They were everywhere in Phoenix, and they stank to hell.  They masked scents.

“Jesus Christ,” Mikko muttered under his breath.  To Genie he said, “This is a shit day.”

She nodded.  “Teachers gave me weird looks at the school but still let us go home.”

He turned from her and backed up so that everyone could see him.  He hit the heel of his palm to the wall to get Frankie and Annie’s attention.  Genie’s eyes were already on him.  Lina had finished her ministrations to Frankie and turned to look at Mikko.

“Alright,” he said.  “Mira’s out of town—I don’t know if the shifters know that somehow or if they’ve just picked this particular week to fuck with us.  They threw a brick through the window.  They attacked Frankie.  Obviously, they’re all pissed at us for being friends with Sloane.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“We have to set some rules.  First—no one goes out alone.  Every time one of us leaves the house, we have to go with a friend.”

There were no arguments.

“Second—if we can avoid it, don’t walk.  We’ll drive.”  He knew that now meant that Frankie and Genie couldn’t pick up Lina because they didn’t have driver’s licenses.  But neither of them objected.

“Are you going to call Mira?” Genie asked.

He nodded, running his hand over his hair.  “I don’t understand how a brick crashed into the house if the house is warded.  And maybe she can do something.  Or the vampires can.”

“I don’t think having more vampires around us is a good plan,” Annie said.  “Even if they’re here to protect us or something.”  She was still on the floor, head towards Mikko, so she was essentially signing upside down. 

He nodded in agreement.  “Yeah, but at least maybe we can get the house fixed up.  No vampire protection detail.  Especially not for something this fucking petty.”

She agreed.

“School is finished this week,” Lina said.  “Don’t need to go back until middle of January.”

That would be one less trip outside they had to make.  Mikko felt like he should have known school was over this week.  He had been so distracted.

“How long are we going to do this for?” Frankie asked.  “If Annie can’t fight, we still—”

Annie cut him off, annoyance clear in the clipped way she signed.  “One thing at a time.  We’re okay for now.”

“But, if you went to the doctor today, that had to have been expensive as shit.  How much was it?”

“Don’t know; Carlos paid for it.”  The look on her face dared him to ask her more about it.

For once, Frankie kept his mouth shut and didn’t push it.

Mikko moved on.  “For now, we are okay.  We’re gonna use the buddy system.  And Frankie, to answer your question, we’re going to do this at least until Mira’s back.  We figure out what else to do from there, okay?”

He nodded, but the tension in his jaw told Mikko how much he liked it.

Mikko turned toward the kitchen, telling them he was going to call Mira.  The cordless home phone sat next to the fridge.

She answered the phone on the second ring.  “Hello?” she croaked.  She sounded groggy and tired.

“Hey Mira.”  He checked the clock above the stove.  It was a bit past four in the afternoon.  “Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah,” she replied, voice soft with sleep.  “Sloane kept me up all night with her nightmares.”

Mikko frowned.  “Sloane?”  If he remembered right, Mira was in Montana with the vampires doing something.  She hadn’t said anything about Sloane being there, too.

“Oh, yeah.”  Her voice cleared.  “Man, it’s been a wild couple days.  I got here and the next day I found out Sloane had been captured in the woods outside of the castle.”  She gave Mikko the rundown of the rest of what had happened—Sloane killing two vampires and why; Karhi coming to meet them; Sloane’s nightmares getting triggered by her imprisonment; and finally, Sloane being asked to stay with the vampires to do something for them.  Mira didn’t go into detail about what she was asked, and Mikko didn’t ask.

He ran his fingers over the stubble on his chin. He needed to shave.  “Why was Sloane even there?”

“I guess she went to Port Orchard to confront Mickey and Bell’s mothers.  I haven’t been able to get much, but it didn’t go well.  She ran away from there.  She coincidentally wound up in the mountains by the castle.”

“Hell of a coincidence.”

“Yeah.”  She paused for a moment.  “Why did you call?”

Right.  Why he called.

Mikko told her about what had been happening and their agreement to stick together.

“The protection didn’t extend to the windows?”  Mikko could hear the tightness of annoyance in her voice.

“Apparently not.”

“Fucking hell.  Alright.  I have a meeting in . . .” She paused, probably checking a clock. “Fuck, ten minutes.  I’ll bring it up with Hazel when I see her.  I’ll let you know as soon as I know what’s going on.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.  Thanks for keeping it together while I’m gone, Mikko.  I really appreciate it.”

“Of course, Mira.  This is my family.  We have to take care of each other.”

“I know.”  She sounded uncertain.  “I just . . . the timing is bad.”

“It’s terrible.  But we’ll hold down the fort until you’re done.”

He heard the slight smile in her voice.  “Alright.  Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Mikko and Annie dropped Lina off together the next morning, taking Mira’s Tahoe to the school drop off.  It was a short walk, just under a mile.  Mikko hated that they had to waste gas on this, but it was better than getting jumped.  He doubted anyone would try anything while they walked with Lina—shifters were protective of children—but he couldn’t say the same of them walking back home without her.

Mikko parked in their driveway and as he got out of the car, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.  He looked up, searching for the source of the unease that settled over shoulders.  It was like someone was looking at him.

The street was quiet.  A car passed the house.  It didn’t slow as it went by, just continued on.  He heard a car alarm going off a few streets away.  A dog barked.  He couldn’t see past the row of trees blocking Mira’s yard from the next, but he didn’t hear anyone talking past it.

He glanced through the window of the truck to see that Annie was also standing at attention, scanning the street.

“Let’s go in,” he said.

“Yeah.”

He went around the back of the truck, making a beeline for the front door.

Something whizzed past him and hit the house just below one of the front windows.  It sounded like a brick hitting concrete.

Mikko turned just in time to dodge the end of a bat.  Crunching metal and splintering wood took the place of his ribs breaking.

Four shifters stood at the end of the driveway, a fifth pulling back from slamming a bat into the wheel well of the truck.  It had dented inward. 

Mikko recognized them all; people who had been Annie’s friends.  He hadn’t spent much time with them, but he had been on good terms with them.

One woman stood taller than the others.  Aisha.  She turned into one of the biggest animals that Mikko had ever seen—a five-hundred-pound lion.  In her human form, she was heavily muscled, her shoulders so much broader than Mikko’s, her legs thick like tree trunks.  Her skin was a dark brown, but her hair was golden ochre shorn close to her head, matching the color her fur would be when she shifted.

He found himself desperately wishing Sloane was here.  She had shattered Aisha’s pelvis when they fought.

Mikko moved to stand next to Annie, who was flexing her fingers, ready to shift.  She was a half pureshifter, meaning she could theoretically transform into anything.  As it was, she could only consistently transform into a hawk.  Only being half made it harder for pureshifters.

The other four with Aisha were halfshifters.  One of them, the one that had the bat, was human half, meaning he couldn’t transform into any animals, but he had some of the benefits of strength and healing.

He rejoined Aisha and her group, leaving the broken bat on the ground.

“What is you doing?” Annie demanded.  “Y’all went after fucking teenagers yesterday?”

Aisha shrugged.  “I don’t know what they up to at Circle K.  I’m here because you a traitorous fucking bitch.  Fucking with vampires?”

“You finna come here and tell me my fucking business?  Sloane was my friend before you, Aisha.  Ain’t finna stop talking to her because she a vampire.”

“You out here trying to defend some white vampire?” Aisha snarled.  “You talked about her before, but I ain’t never realized she was no white girl.  You talked about her like she was this amazing bitch—”

“Why do you care?” Annie demanded.  “She always had my back—not like any of you fucking fullborns.”  She glanced at the shifters surrounding Aisha.  “You finna back this bitch when she decide she can’t deal with halfborns no more?”

Aisha snarled, launching herself at Annie.

Annie and Mikko dodged the attack.  Mikko rolled but before he could get up, something crashed into his ribs, and he shouted in pain.  It knocked him down, asphalt biting into his shoulder where he landed next to the truck.  An elbow, hard and sharp, slammed into his shoulder just as he tried to get up.

He finally saw the shifter that had had the bat was his attacker.  His mouth was turned up in an awful grin.  Mikko recognized the look on his face, the glint in his eyes.  He was enjoying this.

Mikko’s chest hitched and fear raced down his spine.  For a moment, the face of his father took over this man’s face.  Black eyes replaced light brown, heavy wrinkles growing around the mouth.

No no no no no.

Sharp blows rained on him, but he couldn’t get a hold of the way his heart sped up.  Nausea welled in his stomach, and he tasted bile.  He felt the prickle of hysteria in the back of his throat, threatening to overwhelm him.  His arms and legs were already moving without his telling them, to protect him, curling in a ball to minimize damage to the important parts.  He covered his ears with his hands.  He didn’t want to lose his other ear.

And then the pain was gone.  He heard a scream, but it wasn’t from Annie.  It was a scream like limbs rent from bodies. 

He chanced a look and the nausea in his stomach settled.

An enormous wolf, a third the size of Mira’s Tahoe, stood next to Mikko.  Its eyes were on where Annie faced off with Aisha in her lion form, the other three shifters in partial states of shifting.  Annie had talons tipping the ends of her fingers.  The wolf snarled, dark blood dripping from its mouth.

The man that had attacked Mikko lay on the ground, one arm completely mangled from crushing jaws.

The wolf snarled and launched itself at Aisha, snapping at her.

Aisha tried to dodge the attack, but the wolf landed in a tangle of paws and claws with her.  She screamed in warning, swatting at the wolf’s face.  The wolf took it without even flinching, sinking its fangs into her neck.

The other shifters froze, halfway between helping Aisha, but also trying to keep an eye on Annie.

That was enough for Annie.  She surged forward to the one closest to her, slashing across her face.  The attack tore away her cheek, revealing tongue and teeth below it.  Nausea threatened to overwhelm Mikko again, but he bit it back.  He needed to help.

The bat was only an arm length away.  He took it, getting to his feet.  It had a huge crack down the wood in the center, but it wasn’t in bad shape. 

Annie had knocked the woman down and was advancing on the remaining two.  One was backing in towards the street, but the other hadn’t been able to go that way.  He backed away towards the house, trying to keep a distance from where the wolf and Aisha were snarling.

Mikko bolted for the shifter closest to him.  He was looking between Annie and the wolf, weighing his chances of escape.

He didn’t see Mikko until it was too late and Mikko slammed the bat into his knees with a sickening crunch.  His stomach turned at the sound.

The shifter screamed, folding to the ground like a lawn chair.  His knee was bent back, more than just a locked knee.

Adrenaline sang in Mikko’s veins, overwhelming the nausea.  He rushed forward and slammed the bat into the shifter’s head before he could do anything.  The blow vibrated up Mikko’s arms, the sound of bat-on-skull a sickening combination of crunching and cracking.  The shifter stopped moving.

Aisha finally tore herself from the wolf’s clutches.  She turned tail and bolted, disappearing behind the hedges in a blur of blood and torn flesh.

It was over.  The wolf was drenched in blood.  Annie stood in front of the one remaining shifter, having backed her up against the row of hedges.  She was shaking with fear.  The other one, the one that Annie had almost torn the face off, was trying to get the shifter that had been on Mikko.  His arm was mangled, and he struggled to get up.

The shifter he’d knocked senseless was still breathing.  He was alive.  “Annie,” Mikko said, stepping away from him. 

She didn’t have to look at him to see why he called her name.  She knew. 

“Get the fuck out my yard,” she snarled at the woman she had cornered against the trees.  “Take your fucken trash with you.”

Annie stepped aside and the woman ran for the prone shifter.  She hauled him over her shoulder without any issues and bolted.  The others followed her.

When they were gone, Annie looked at the wolf.  Her brow furrowed.  “The fuck you doing here, Bell?”

Mikko’s brow furrowed, looking from Annie to the wolf.  To Bell.  What was Bell doing here?

The wolf whined at her.

“You ain’t got no clothes,” she said.

He nodded.

She rolled her eyes.  “Fine.  Come in.  We still have clothes from when you were here before.”

Mikko’s knees gave out.  He landed on the grass with a surprised noise of distress. 

His arms shook as the adrenaline disappeared.  The resolve he had felt bashing that guy’s head in had disappeared.  Fear and revulsion overtook his confidence, drenching him like a cold bucket had been dumped over his head.  He had destroyed that man’s knee.  And then he had hit him so hard he passed out.  Maybe even given him brain damage.

Annie was kneeling in front of him before he could process.  “Babe,” she murmured.  “You okay?”

“I . . . I could have killed him.”  His voice came out in a squeak of horror.

“If a bat could take out a shifter, I’d’ve been dead years ago,” she said.  “Come on, babe.  Up.”  She put his arm around her shoulder and helped him get up.  He heard her grunt in pain and shame mixed with the fear and revulsion.  His knees were shaky, but he could walk.  He let go of her and straightened up on his own. 

“Are you okay?” he asked her.  The shame was like a pool of oil in his chest.  Here he was, acting like this, when she’d had to try to fight while injured.

She raised an eyebrow at him.  “What?  I didn’t do anything.  I couldn’t help you because I couldn’t turn my back to her.  But it didn’t matter because of this thing over here.”  She motioned to Bell.  “So, I’m fine.  Hip is fine.  How are you?”

He shrugged, wincing.  His ribs ached and he could feel a knot forming on his shoulder from where the shifter had elbowed him.  But it only hurt a little to breath.  No broken bones, then.  Probably.  There would be some nasty bruises, though.

“Come on,” she said.  “Inside.”

He felt a prickle along the back of his neck again.  He tensed, ready to find another shifter going after them.  But when he looked up, the street was empty.

He hurried inside.