The Keepers Story 01 - The Gatekeeper

a way to hunt you down and kill you. All of you. Even the mortals—frail as they may seem—will show you abilities you never dreamed they possessed. What they lack in strength they make up for in cunning. They, too, are capable of cruelty—but they’re also capable of laws and compromise and governance to protect the weak among them.”
    He heard growling.... But he also heard whimpering, a sound that could mean pain—or a fierce desire to heed his words held in check only by fear.
    “Stop the death—including your own,” he commanded them.
    “Saxon!”
    He heard Calleigh cry his name in warning and whirled to see one of Carl Bailey’s die-hard lieutenants leaping at him.
    He fired at point-blank range, and the wolf went down like a rock.
    “Fools! He can’t shoot all of you at once!” Carl shouted.
    Saxon was grateful for his acute Elven hearing. Grateful that he knew one of the wolves was nearly on his back. He spun, thrusting an elbow into the creature’s side with a force that sent his attacker flying back against the wall.
    “The women! He can’t shoot the women!” someone—apparently brighter than Carl—called out.
    Damn! The creature was right. He had to reach them before the werewolves did.
    He swung around, shooting the two creatures separating him from Calleigh and Angela. Then he leaped to join the women, who immediately flanked him. He quickly handed Angela his knife so that she could cut herself free.
    “We’re getting out,” he told them quietly. “We need to back up along the hall and around the corner. Block the way, so they can’t surround us. It’ll force them to come at us a few at a time.”
    Their barely perceptible nods assured him that they’d heard him, and as a group they moved backward along the passageway.
    He kept his gun on the crowd, and they moved as quickly as they dared.
    “You’ll never get out—this place is a labyrinth!” Carl warned. He was making his way through what remained of the hesitant crowd, but he kept two of his followers in the lead as lupine shields.
    “You’re killing your own people, Bailey,” Saxon persisted. “Doesn’t that matter to you?” Carl responded in growls, so Saxon addressed the throng. “Don’t you see? You’re expendable to him. He calls you magnificent creatures, tells you you’re poised for greatness, but he treats you as puppets, as tools in his rise to power!”
    “Stairs. Stairs behind us,” Calleigh whispered to him.
    His feet touched something.
    He looked down, and his stomach rebelled.
    He was very much afraid that he’d found the craps dealer.
    He was a pile of bone and ripped clothing, broken and gnawed limbs, blood and death.
    He heard Angela moan softly.
    “Hold yourself together. You can do this,” he told her. “You are Elven.”
    He sensed rather than saw her nod. She swallowed and kept moving with him. One by one, with Saxon going last, they backed their way up the narrow stairway.
    “The door,” he whispered to Angela, who was first to reach the top. “Just push it up.”
    He caught Calleigh’s eyes. Beautiful eyes. They were wolf eyes, that extraordinary glittering gold shot through with green.
    He’d known that werewolves could be remarkable, just as he’d known that all sentient beings came with a capacity for evil. But overall they were good, driven by the desire to live and let live. The fight for survival had made monsters of many in the past, humans included. But laws and rules created a world where everyone could live and prosper.
    Until you threw a Carl Bailey into the mix.
    Saxon kept his eyes trained on the wolves that were still stalking them, step by step.
    He heard Angela open the hatch at the top of the stairs and climb through.
    “Go!” he shouted to her. “Run!”
    He felt Calleigh behind him.
    “Go,” he ordered her. “Take your sister and get out of here.”
    The minute she was through, he followed, slamming the hatch down and jamming the latch with a nearby rock. He felt Calleigh next to him and knew from the tension in her body that something was wrong.
    He spun quickly...
    ...and found himself facing the captain.
    Captain Clark Bower. The man who was so near to retirement—the man who had ordered Saxon to put an end to the chaos.
    And he had a semiautomatic trained on the three of them.
    Saxon stepped onto the wooden hatch to further delay the werewolves and weighed his odds.
    Elven could heal almost magically, but they weren’t immune to bullets, silver