This is NOT a new chapter actually. After a lot of wonderful feedback and a little more practice I rewrote the story. I didn't replace the old one because some of you were so kind as to favorite it. This is the very same story but tweaked here and there and hopefully improved. Thank you to all of you that helped and encouraged me!
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Monster
'Breathe in calm, control. Breathe out frustration, anger. Center, find your center.' Eliot slid from one position to the next smoothly. Usually he didn't need to remind himself to concentrate on control and finding his center, but something about this job was nagging at him. That was the frustrating part. 'Shift the weight to the left and breathe in calm and control.' He couldn't quite put his finger on what the problem was. Before he might have confided in Nate, but since Nate and Sophie had "retired" a year ago, well, now he was determined to work this out on his own. 'Turn to the right and block. Calm and centered, calm and centered.' He knew that Nate wouldn't mind the call. As a matter of fact they did talk pretty regularly, but he wouldn't take this problem to Nate if he could help it. He didn't want to undermine Parker. She had been doing really great leading their team as their new mastermind, better than he would have ever imagined truth be told. She had come a long way from that fractured and unstable personality that he remembered from their first job. 'Turn and step back into starting position. Bow in respect. Breathe.' They had all done a lot of changing.
Maybe Hardison could help him nail down the uneasy feeling he had about this job. Right now the three of them were working on a target from the black book. This job was starting out like most jobs. Parker was playing an heiress and Eliot was the body guard. So far everything was going according to plan. No one seemed to be on to them and while Eliot had noticed the abundance of ex-military guards that wasn't anything unusual either. But, the more he thought about it the more he was sure it had something to do with the guards. At last the anxious tingle at the back of his neck began to abate.
Now that there was a place to start he could get Alec looking into it. Eliot grabbed a towel from a rack near the door and headed out of the gym/medic room attached to the offices of Leverage Inc. above the Brew Pub in Portland.
"Hardison!" Eliot yelled from just in front of the jumbo screen, that Hardison had installed in their main meeting room. Usually you could find the hacker attached to some electronic device that was broadcasting to the giant screen. Right now he was nowhere to be found. When no one came at his call Eliot stopped to listen carefully. Faintly from above he could hear Hardison's low tones and Parker's higher pitched giggle, then the sound of wheels on hardwood. Eliot moved up one floor to the teams living area.
While he still maintained a small cabin outside of Portland and a small house boat in the harbor, he also had his own space here above the Brew Pub as well. They all had a space here. Even Nate and Sophie had a room here for when they were in town. Eliot was pretty sure that Parker had a warehouse and storage unit that were ready to be occupied at a moment's notice, even though she was living with Hardison above the Brew Pub. Some habits are life long and can't be shaken. Hardison was the only one that didn't have a second residence here in Portland as far as Eliot knew, and not much usually slipped by him.
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Coming around the corner at the top of the stairs Eliot saw Hardison and Parker racing each other backwards on a set of rolling office chairs. "What the hell?... No, never mind, I don't want to know. But if either of you break somethin', like your necks, I'm not gonna help you." Eliot loved these two like a brother and a little sister but by the same token sometimes he just wanted to ring their necks.
"Oh, come on E! We were just having a little fun. Which is something I recommend you try once in a while." Hardison takes all of Eliot's growling and threats in stride. "So if you're not here to participate…" He leers at Parker who sticks her tongue out at him. Eliot pinches the bridge of his nose in a bid for patience. "whatcha got going?"
"I need you to take a look at the security guys on that job we're workin'. Somethin' isn't right."
Hardison immediately switched gears and is all business. Giving Parker a quick kiss on the forehead he reached past her to grab a tablet off the counter. As he started pulling up back ground information and photos he followed Eliot downstairs and started sliding images up onto the big screen.
"Victor Paulo. Head of security. He's worked for our mark for the last five years. Joe Deangelis, working directly under Victor, been with the company 3 years. The rest are…"
"Grunts. What else do we have on these guys? Where did they work before?"
"Umm, let me see, yep okay. Victor here was advising a security company for four years in Albany. And before that there's not much. Graduated middle of his class at Western, hmm, lets see." Hardison begins typing furiously on his keyboard having abandoned his tablet.
"Hardison, that can't be right. That guy was British Special Forces you can tell by his stance."
"Let me guess." Hardison lowers his voice trying to imitate Eliot. "It's a very distinctive stance." That earned him a glare from the hitter.
Hardison continued his typing, accessing several databases. "Okay, here we go. Victor Paulo aka Paul Vargas was British Special Forces. Good call El. He did a couple tours in Afghanistan and was supposed to be couriering documents to a contact in France when he dropped off the grid."
"What do you mean dropped off the grid? Where at? Who lead the search? Come on Hardison!" Eliot growled in frustration at the hacker.
"Just hold your horses, my man. You'd think a cowboy would have some practice at that." He muttered the last part under his breath "Okay, here it is. James Angelini who just happens to be one Joe Deangelis was the guy sent to look for Victor when he didn't show up at the scheduled meet. Not surprisingly they both disappeared in the same place. Maybe they were in on, whatever it was, together. That seems to be what their higher ups think too."
Eliot was scanning through the information that Hardison was putting up on the screen. "Wait! Go back. Yeah that one right there." Eliot paled when he saw the name of the location where the men had disappeared on the screen. Without another word he turned and strode for the door without answering Hardison on the way out.
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Eliot was driving up I-5 toward Woodland. Normally he wouldn't head for his cabin unless they had a few days off and really he wasn't intending to stay he just needed some time to clear his head. Not a day had passed in the last ten years that he hadn't thought about what had happened in Gévaudan, France.
'Surely this can't be connected to what happened to me? Should I tell the team? What would they do?' The hills were getting steeper and the tall pines blurred past the window. Normally he'd have a radio station on but the distraction of it would be grating rather than comforting right now. The silence helped him think. 'I can't lose them.'
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Ziiiiip. Parker dropped down one of her ropes to hover just over the desk, eye-to-eye, with Hardison. "Where did Eliot go?"
"I don't know mama. He was grillin' me on the security guys our clients got when all of a sudden he just booked it outa here." Hardison added the new information on the security guys to the file he had on their current mark.
"Was he upset about them? I don't think Eliot's every really worried about how many guards a mark's got unless he gets all growly and you know..." Parker scrunched up her face and did her best impression of a growly Eliot. "Dammit Hardison! How come you didn't tell me there were more guys comin' this way!?"
Hardison thought Parker was the most adorable thing he had ever seen and her impression of Eliot made him laugh out loud. But he couldn't quite dismiss the underlying concern for Eliot. And after all these years together and the situations they'd survived Eliot really was closer to him than any brother he could have otherwise had.
"Start tracking him and show me what he was looking at right before he stormed off." The look on Parker's face was a look that Hardison secretly classified as 'Mastermind Mode'.
As soon as they saw that Eliot's earbud, and therefore Eliot, was headed up I-5 they both breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn't off to confront the security team of their mark. Eliot had gotten better over the years about letting the team know where he was going or at least when he would be back and they tried not to pry. So when they knew that he was probably safe and probably headed to his cabin Hardison stopped tracking him.
"So did Eliot say he had any history with these guys? Did they cross paths at any point before?" Parker looked like she was turning the information over and over in her mind like if she fiddled with it long enough it all might fall into place like the tumblers in one of her favorite locks.
"You know how Eliot is always so open and ready to share every detail of his life before the team babe." Hardison raised an eyebrow to go with his sardonic tone. "Of course the man didn't tell me anything. And I could try to find if there is a common point where he would have met those guys before but I don't think E would appreciate me digging into his past like that."
"You're right. But I think we'll have to ask him when he gets back just in case it has to do with this job." With that Parkers face cleared and she immediately started to wheedle Hardison into taking her to her favorite ice cream stand.
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Eliot didn't make it to his cabin before he decided that he would have to head back to Portland so that he would be ready in time for the job in the morning.
The phone seemed to barely have time to ring when Hardison answered it. "Eliot! What's up man? You shot outa here like your hair caught fire or somethin'. Everything okay?"
"Yeah, just needed some time to think." Eliot paused a moment. "I'll see you both at the Pub in the morning."
"Okay. You staying at the cabin then?" Hardison hadn't pulled up the tracking on the earbud again and he hoped Eliot would be forthcoming enough that he wouldn't have to. 'Spying' on Eliot didn't used to bother him but now he felt a twinge of guilt whenever he was doing something that Eliot would consider prying.
"Nah, I went for a drive but I'm headed for my houseboat. I just need a little more time to sort through a few things."
"Alright. We can talk in the morning."
Both men pretended that they couldn't hear Parker shouting questions, suggestions, and guesses in the background.
Eliot decided that his secret wasn't something that he needed to share with the team just yet. So in the morning he would make his explanations, leaving out his secret, and then hopefully, mercifully, this job should be over with tomorrow.
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Eliot showed up early at the Brew Pub and, after dropping off Voodoo Donuts where Parker and Hardison would find them, he headed into the Pub's kitchen to get a jumpstart on the morning food prep. After julienning what felt like a mountain of potatoes Eliot washed up and headed for the meeting room of Leverage Inc.
"Ohhh you remembered the ones with pink frosting and sprinkles!" Parker bounced over to Eliot as he entered the room.
"Of course, darlin. I haven't forgotten your favorite yet have I?"
Parker looked like she was really trying to think of a time that Eliot might have forgotten. Hardison just rolled his eyes. Then bobbed his head while lifting his half eaten donut in thanks.
"So about yesterday El. You got somethin to tell us?" Hardison didn't see any need for tiptoeing around the subject. He had found over the years that tiptoeing tended to tick off their already irritable hitter and that Parker often wouldn't follow vague or cautious handling of a subject. Both of them tended to be very straight forward and it was just best to cut to the chase.
"Yeah, sorry about that. I just needed some time to think about some stuff. Hardison can you bring up the info on where the guards disappeared, back when they were still with Special Forces?" Eliot waited a moment for Hardison to find the relevant info and put it up on the screen. "It was the place. Gévaudan, France. It just brought up some stuff. It was one of the last places I went right before I left Moreau." Eliot had kept his eyes on the back of his hand while he picked at an imaginary spot on his shirt.
"Do we need to know what happened there?" At Parker's question Eliot looked up and locked gazes with her.
"No. As far as I know that has nothing to do with this." Both of them remembered Eliot's offer/promise/threat to tell her the whole truth and his plea for her to not ask him. Parker knew that if she insisted he would tell her, tell them, whatever it was that he was keeping from them. But somethings you just don't ask of family not when you really love them. For all that she enjoyed antagonizing Eliot and poking at his bruises, Parker knew how to handle wounds.
"Okay then. So our plan for today …
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Hardison was monitoring things from Lucille VII, who was parked a discreet distance down the street. So far everything looked good. Parker was about to close things with the mark. Once she had left the build with Eliot, Hardison would drain their mark's accounts and send evidence of the shifty and less than legal business dealings to the proper authorities. Getting to exact revenge on behalf of the client was always nice. But siccing the dogs of law on their mark was the cherry on top.
Hardison smiled to himself as he accessed the security cameras so that he could keep an eye on what was happening inside the building. "So far nothing unusual guys."
Meanwhile Parker was talking animatedly with the mark and Eliot was standing in the background playing the role of very-dumb-muscle to the best of his ability. From behind his blank stare Eliot was monitoring things in his own way. He was keeping an ear on the tone of Parker's conversation and listening for any unusual activity outside of the office.
Fortunately this mark favored an opulent office with glass walls. The artistic frosted pattern on the glass didn't prevent Eliot from maintaining several sightlines out into the rest of the floor and surrounding offices. Eliot could tell from the tone that Parker's conversation was wrapping up and in a few minutes he could put all of this behind them. Then he smelled it.
He realized that this was what had put him on edge before. He knew that smell; it was very distinctive. Between the smell, and the reminder of Gévaudan, all the pieces fell into place. Eliot felt inexplicably chilled and like he had caught fire all at once. Despite his best attempts he couldn't seem to get his breathing under control and it was coming in short stuttering gasps. They needed to get out of there right now!
"Eliot? Eliot! Come on man. Talk to me!" Hardison could hear Eliot's distress through the earbud, and from the discreet camera Parker had planted on their last visit, he could see that it looked like Eliot was about to pass out.
"I'm so sorry. I'm not sure what's wrong but I think we need to leave just now. So hard to find reliable help these days." Parker drawled in a syrupy voice. She took the opportunity to turn and glare at Eliot so that she could get a better look at him.
"I'm fine." Eliot growled almost silently. Parker rolled her eyes at him, and they headed for the door.
After a few more words were exchanged Parker got them out of the office. They made it to the elevators and all the way out the front door and for a moment Eliot hoped that they had made a clean break. Then Eliot smelled it again. Only this time it was stronger and in time with a set of swift but business like footsteps behind them. Eliot stopped and turned to look, and Parker turned with him. Fifteen feet away was Victor Paulo. Eliot glared at the man that had stopped to stare at them.
Eliot turned to Parker and took her gently by the shoulders. "Okay, sweetheart, I need you to do something for me." At the look on his face Parker's eyes started to well with tears.
"No!" she whispered.
"I'm afraid so. You take Hardison and go to the second safe house. I'll meet you there like we've always planned, if I can."
Hardison's voice came over their earbuds. "Not without you E! I'm on my way man. I'll be there in fifteen seconds. We'll leave together. That's the plan!" Hardison was sounding desperate.
"I can't. I…I'll meet you there if I can and I'll explain everything but if I don't you know what to do." Eliot's voice was a little choked with all the things that he couldn't say.
As Hardison pulled up Eliot leaned in and kissed Parker on the cheek while he pressed his earbud into her hand. Then he gave her a gentle shove toward Hardison and turned back to face Victor.
Parker knew about split second timing and desperate decisions. She also knew that she didn't have any choice until she could get more information. Clutching Eliot's earbud she stepped out of her high heels and sprinted for Lucille. Hardison didn't even get a chance to come to a complete stop before she was in the van and shouting for him to go. Eliot's job was to protect the team and if he thought this was necessary she would go along with it; for now.
"Head for the third safe house. It's closer. Then I need you to dig into Eliot's past and find some way to track him now!" Parker's voice was icy with an edge of anger that was rarely heard from her. Whoever this Victor was, he was threatening her family and that wouldn't go unanswered.
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"Victor Paulo, or should I call you Paul Vargas? But I suppose it doesn't matter." All real emotion had left Eliot. He locked up his emotions in a box where he kept things that weren't useful right now. His demeanor radiated a cool smugness.
"Mr. Spencer. I don't believe a got your name the first time we met but then you weren't supposed to be around long enough for it to matter." Paul Vargas smiled a toothy smile that made him look somewhat shark like.
Eliot was unsurprised when he felt the barrel of a gun pressed to the base of his skull. He had heard Vargas's men moving in even before Parker had made it out. But hadn't wanted to put up any resistance until he knew that Parker and Hardison were gone and by then he knew it would be too late.
"Phone, watch, and wallet." Huffed the goon with the gun to the back of Eliot's head.
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They had put a hood over Eliot's head and zip tied his hands as they put him in an unmarked van. Eliot had gone along with it because he was so out-numbered and in order to get away from his captors on the busy street any number of bystanders could be hurt. And with Parker and Hardison already out of the area the odds of Eliot making good his escape was pretty slim.
Eliot listened, and counted, making a map in his head of where he was headed. When the van turned off Eliot figured they were within five miles of his house boat. As he was led out of the van Eliot figured that now was the best time to try and escape.
He jerked the hood off, elbowing the thug on his left, in the nose, and snapping the zip ties. He swung the same elbow around into the goon on his right. Eliot had made it through four of the seven goons present when one of them managed a gun shot through his right shoulder. The force of the bullet stagger him forward and two of the goons moved forward, at faster than human speed and 'helped' him to fall face down on the grimy, fishy smelling pavement. These two were stronger than the others and this close Eliot couldn't miss the sharp musky scent of werewolf.
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Hardison and parker pulled into the big bay door of a warehouse halfway between Portland and Clackamas. The outside of the building looked shabby but not quite rundown enough to attract vagrants. The paint was looking faded with rusty stains blossoming here and there. The asphalt and cement around the lot outside was cracked and the weeds were forcing their way up into the sunlight. None of the windows were broken and the locks on outside still looked shiny. The security camera looked like it had taken a few hits in the past but the blinking light said that it was still in use.
The inside was a different story. The inside was as high tech and modern as was possible. On the main level were a number of different vehicles that could be used for whatever kind of situation they might need. The floors practically gleamed under the flood lights, making it look more like a show room than a garage.
On the second level was the living areas, including medical station and kitchen. There were backups of most of the equipment that they might need. While it theoretically had all the comforts of home Hardison had always found this safe house to feel a little sterile. But having seen Parker's warehouse back in Boston maybe this was the more posh and comfortable version.
Parker got out of Lucille and wiped at her face before she ran into Hardison's arms. They took the lift to the second level. Parker changed into her all black clothing that she preferred for heists and joined Hardison in the living room/command center. Hardison had wasted no time bringing everything online while Parker sped through a change of clothes.
Hardison started bringing up everything he could find about Gévaudan, France. Despite Eliot's previous assurance that it had nothing to do with the current job, it obviously did. Hardison was trying to find everything he could on Victor's connection to the place and then on what could have interested Moreau there. While that search was running he started hacking security cameras, and traffic cameras, in an attempt to find where Eliot was now.
"Maybe we should start putting trackers in his shoes too." Hardison grumped mostly to himself as he started filtering the data coming in.
"Until you find a way to waterproof them I don't think it will matter." Parker answered, but it was obvious that her attention was elsewhere as she scanned through data over Hardison's shoulder.
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Gévaudan, France. Ten years ago.
Eliot finished retching, what had started out as lunch, behind a dumpster in the little town of Gévaudan. Last night they had been in Saint-Entienne and his nerves were shot. Moreau had sent him and three others to prove a point to his business associate who was trying to skim some of the revenue. Eliot could still hear the children screaming and knew it would be a while before he would be able to keep any food down. It had been a long time ago and a world away when he had been taught that a man never hurt women or children. Now it was just part of the job, although Eliot had always tried to find a reason to exclude the children when he could. That hadn't been an option with this job. Since the children hadn't been in his wheelhouse of responsibility it shouldn't have bothered him, but it did. The other men that Moreau had put on this job seemed to have enjoyed their part of the job a lot more than Eliot was comfortable with. Torturing a man for information or to make a point didn't even faze him anymore but torturing a man's children was something else entirely.
Moreau's leash had started to chafe and what some of his men did in his name was something that Eliot wasn't sure he could live with anymore. Darin had a taste for things that made Eliot's skin crawl and Ben wasn't too far behind. Adrian was a little more like Eliot in that he didn't exceed the orders Moreau had given, but it didn't seem to bother him when the others did, so long as it didn't put them on the wrong side of Moreau. At least Chapman hadn't been sent with him. The kid was new, full of himself, and trying to impress Moreau. He seriously got on Eliot's nerves.
Now they were in Gévaudan waiting on a contact. Eliot hoped that whoever this Jean Chastel was would hurry things along. Eliot wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and ran a hand through his short hair. The air here was warm and muggy and made him wish he had shaved his head before heading out on this job, but a shaved head was too memorable. Just as he was about to get back in the Range Rover he notice a man standing near the mouth of the alley on the other side of the street. His boots and coat screamed French military trying to look like a farmer. Eliot rolled his eyes.
"D go over there and see what that fool wants before he starts attracting attention." Eliot dropped into the front passenger seat next to Ben. "Chastel could have at least sent someone competent." Eliot mutter mostly to himself.
A couple of hours later they were standing in front of a manor house deep in the woods outside the village. Eliot noticed the odd orange quality of the sunset for a moment before Chastel appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Gentlemen, please, this way." Chastel lead them around to a large barn just down the hill from the house. Eliot was immediately on edge. They were supposed to pick up three large cases and head on to Toulouse where they would exchange them for several files that they would take back to Moreau. There was no need for this drive into the country and now they were being taken to some barn. This made Eliot more than a little suspicious but there was nothing worth protesting yet.
Inside the barn it was dimly lit and smelled of sheep. "Just one moment gentlemen." Chastel snapped his fingers and the two men escorting them stepped around with their rifles held in a low guard. Eliot wanted to reach for his H&K at the small of his back but didn't want to kick of whatever the French version of the O.K. Corral might be.
"Easy. We're just here to pick up the merchandise." Eliot tried for a placating tone and heard Ben behind him pop the snap on his shoulder holster using Eliot to hide the motion. The sound of shifting fabric told him that Darian had a hold of his gun under his vest.
"I heard what you did to Bouvier's family last night. I'd tell you to pass this message along to Moreau but you boys are the message." Chastel's voice rang from the back of the barn and then two unbelievably huge wolves stepped out of stock boxes on either side of the barns main walk way.
"Oh, shit!" Adrian shouted as he scrambled back while reaching for his Sig Sauer. Ben and Darian opened fire on the wolf nearest them, but seemed to have forgotten about the armed guards. One guard shot Darian in the leg and when Ben and Darian trained their fire on the guard Ben was shot through the head. His fall threw off Darian's tenuous balance. Eliot noticed the Wolf lunge for him and grabbed Darian as he fell using him as a human shield. "Oh, Fu…" Darian wasn't able to finish the thought before the wolf tore his throat out. Eliot shot the wolf twice point blank as it was taking down Darian. The wolf yelped on the second shot but didn't truly seem fazed by either shot; just pissed off. It let out a roar that Eliot didn't think a wolf should be able to make before it leaped. Eliot felt a pain in his left arm that he was pretty sure was a bullet from one of his own guys and the wolf took him down.
After that everything was hazy. Eliot would never be able to clearly recall what happened after the wolf drove him into the dirt. There was pain, teeth, screaming, and blood, just way too much blood. The next thing Eliot would remember, a sight that still came back in his nightmares, was waking up in the manure pile behind the barn. His face pressed to Darian's. Darian's face had clearly been chewed on and the remains of one of his eyes had oozed down Eliot's cheek. Eliot barely checked the urge to scream, but remembered that someone might be listening.
Carefully picking his way out of the manure pile and slipping into the woods, Eliot made it a quarter of a mile before he realized that he didn't hurt. He stopped on the edge of a small clearing to assess his injuries. Wiping at the gore and filth that covered him he looked closely at his left arm. The moon would be full tomorrow night so it was big and bright and gave enough light for Eliot to clearly see the undamaged flesh of his bicep. He was sure he had been shot in that arm and he remembered that damn wolf tearing a chunk from that arm as well. But now there was nothing. No wound. Not even a scar there. And there were no other wounds on him anywhere.
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In the present.
As they hauled Eliot up off the pavement, old fashioned looking manacles were locked onto his wrists. As soon as the metal touched him Eliot knew that they had been prepared for a situation like this. The silver lining the manacles burned like fire and there was no way to keep it from touching his skin.
The two wolves in human shape forced him into the nearby warehouse. Bringing him into the center of the space they hooked his manacles to a chain and hoisted him up until his toes barely touched the ground. He was forced to strain upwards from his toes in order to not rest his weight on the silver lined manacles. Victor Paulo and Jean Chastel stepped from the shadows and approached Eliot.
"It's been too long Spencer." Chastel said with a sneer.
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Hardison was able to find a van leaving the office complex at roughly the right time but with no side windows in the van the traffic camera couldn't pick up more than the two men up front.
"Are you sure that's it?" Parker asked leaning far over Hardison's shoulder.
"No, mama, I'm not. But nothing else makes sense." Hardison frowned at his computer like that might make it reveal more than it already had. "There's no sign of him on any of the cameras in the building. Not even sudden outages that would imply someone didn't want him being seen on camera. All the other vehicles are too easy to see through the windows."
"They could have put him in a trunk." Parker mused also frowning at Hardison's computer.
"Yeah but then we're screwed. That's just too many cars to track." Hardison looked over at his second tablet that had just sent out a "ping" to let him know that something new required his attention. Picking it up and reviewing the information Hardison shot to his feet with a shout of triumph! "I think we've got 'im. Victor's cell was still in the office complex for another ten minutes after the van left and I saw him head back into his office."
"But…?" Parker sounding for all the world like Nate when he was trying to get the Hacker to get to the point.
"So I was trying to follow the van on traffic cams and I lost it a couple of times, but if this is still the right van it turned off into some industrial property near the river. And now Victor's cell is in the same place!"
"Let's go get Sparky!"
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"What do you want Jean?" Eliot's tone of voice sounded for all the world like he was late for a meeting elsewhere and not like he was shot and hanging from his wrists.
"Well, Mr. Spencer, I would like to know just what you thought you were doing with my business associate earlier and then I might consider making you a little offer of my own."
"I was just hired as security for Waverly Fairchild. Her business dealings are nothing to me." Eliot knew that the background Hardison had created for Parker was airtight and maybe if it looked like a straight up job they wouldn't look into it further.
Pain. Sharp and momentarily debilitating, radiated from just below his right kidney throughout the rest of his body. Electric cattle prod. Eliot was familiar with the sensation having encountered it before. "Actually Mr. Spencer, I don't believe you." Jean Chastel's voice chimed in the silence.
Deangelis stepped around from behind Eliot with a smug grin and the cattle prod dangling casually from his hand.
"Believe me or don't. I don't care either way and it's not gonna change my answer." Eliot fought to get his breathing and heart rate back under control. Deangelis zapped him again with the cattle prod.
"Fine then. Just for the fun of it let's pretend I do believe you. I would say that your contract with the charming Ms. Fairchild is finished. And that would leave you open to come work for me." Chastel said with a falsely cheery tone.
Eliot looked up at the manacles and loudly rattled the chain before looking back to Chastel. "I think I could do better. So far your incentives package leaves something to be desired."
"You seem to be under the impression that you have a choice." Victor chuckled.
"You may have slipped the leash but, believe me, once you were turned, you belong to me." Chastel accentuated his point with a slap to Eliot's face.
"We settled this years ago and you know it." Eliot bit out.
Chastel slapped Eliot again, hard enough to blur his vision for a moment. Eliot spit and while he missed Chastel's face he did manage to get it across the front of Chastel's shirt. Chastel snapped his fingers and Victor and Deangelis started beating on Eliot. Chastel dabbed at his shirt with a handkerchief. "Enough." And the beating stopped.
"Bring him down. If he won't comply dispose of him. Then hunt down the bitch he was with earlier and whoever was driving that van. I want them dead by this time tomorrow." Chastel had started to turn toward the exit as they unlocked the manacles.
Eliot dropped all the way to his knees before he got control of himself. Deangelis had grabbed him by the hair yanking his head back to cut his throat when Eliot twisted in his grasp and bit the man's wrist. Having greater than human strength meant that Eliot got to enjoy the sound of the wrist snapping. When Deangelis jerked free taking a step back Eliot shot to his feet and head butted Victor. If Victor hadn't been turned toward Chastel, Eliot didn't think it would have worked. Eliot prayed that the door he saw at the other end of the warehouse was unlocked, but was already planning for what to do if it wasn't, and he sprinted in that direction.
Of course the door wasn't unlocked. Eliot immediately turned to his left and was able to get into the small office. He jammed a chair under the doorknob and took quick stock of the room. The phone was obviously disconnected and there was a keyboard with no computer, a stapler and other miscellany, but nothing really useful. Suddenly he heard a howl that he knew was a werewolf on the hunt. With as keyed up as he already was, and his body needing to heal, he knew he wouldn't be able to fight off the change. Eliot glanced around the room one more time and decided that fangs and claws would be his best defense. He knew it would only be a minute or two before the change was complete, even if it felt like an eternity every time the change took him from one shape to the other. Unfortunately Chastel's men would be breaking down the door to this office too soon.
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As much as Hardison wanted to speed into the yard in front of the warehouse where he was pretty positive that Eliot was being held he knew that caution would be required for now. Parking Lucille VII across the road from the warehouse and behind a small shed, he let Parker out to do some recon.
As soon as Parker ghosted her way across to the warehouse and up onto its roof she started speaking quietly to Hardison. "I'll be near the skylight windows in just a second. Does that Victor guy have anything to do with dog fights?"
"Why mama? Are you seeing somethin?" Hardison was already scanning for phones, security cameras, and anything else he could think of that would be helpful on the fly.
"Well it sounds like a dog fight down there. Just a second and I'll be able to see something." Parker inched her way closer not wanting to slip or cause any kind of racket that might draw attention. "Uhmm. Hardison its wolves. Really, really big, wolves."
"Parker did you just say wolves? Like little red riding hood and the big bad wolf? That kinda wolves?"
"I guess but they're huge! Way bigger than the ones we saw when you took me to the zoo last month."
"Okay. Well as interesting as that is, maybe you better get back to finding El before they feed him to the wolves." There was pause as that bit of flippancy gave them both a cold chill.
"Right I'm on it." Parker attached her rigging and shimmied her way through a small vented window. After dropping silently onto a large duct near the ceiling Parker began to make her way across the warehouse. Inside the sound of the fighting wolves seemed much louder.
"Parker? What is that sound? Sounds kinda like old radio static or something. Let me make sure I'm not picking up someone else's frequency." Hardison started checking his monitors.
"Nope. Not static. Pretty sure that's the sound of the wolf fight right below me." There wasn't much to this warehouse and practically nowhere to hide. She was about to tell Hardison to call in animal control or something and then start their search again when she spotted something near a small office on the ground floor. There was a large black wolf lying in a pool of blood. Just as Parker noticed it she saw it start to change. In just a moment it was a naked man with his throat torn out. Parker recognized him.
Parker had been called crazy pretty much all her life and she had played up that reputation for her own reasons after she had left Archie. She knew that she would never be what other people considered completely normal but she also knew that she had never actually been crazy either. Still though, seeing a giant black wolf suddenly morph into the shape of a scumbag she recognized was a real shock. After a moments pause to assimilate what she had just witnessed she looked back over her shoulder at the wolves still fighting at the other end of the warehouse. Two grayish wolves had pretty nearly cornered a large tan wolf. It looked like the fight wouldn't last much longer. Just as she thought that one of the gray wolves lunged at the back leg of the tan wolf. Parker's intuition and logic made one of those leaps with a twist in the middle that Eliot compared to parachuting off a rollercoaster mid loop-de-loop. "Hardison. I need a loud distraction right now!"
Without question Hardison set off every car alarm that he could remotely access. As the claxon blared outside Parker moved as quickly as possible toward the wolves. She saw the tan wolf take advantage of the sudden noise and clamp its jaws on the neck of one of the gray wolves and start to shake it. Parker didn't hesitate either and drew one of the few throwing knives she carried and sent it deep between the shoulders of the other gray wolf.
Parker made it back to her rope and dropped the rest of the way down to the ground level. She paused on the ground but didn't hear or see anyone else beside the tan wolf. "Hardison. Enough with the noise please."
"Okay but you need to tell me what's going on before I lose my damn mind!" With a few keystrokes he stopped the car alarms. It was times like this that Hardison hated that he team mates were people of few words. She knew he had no cameras in the building and she'd just asked him to create enough noise to notify every authority in the county, with no explanation as to why that was necessary. Only to be followed by a polite request to stop it and no reason for that either.
Carefully approaching the tan wolf, parker tried to put a soothing tone into her voice just the way that Sophie had taught her. "Okay. I know this is gonna sound crazy."
"Oh, hell." Hardison tossed his tablet onto the work bench, put a hand over his face and rocked back in his chair.
Parker could practically hear Hardison roll his eyes. "Shush. I'm pretty sure that this wolf I'm looking at is Eliot."
"Come again mama." Hardison rocked forward in his chair with a thud. "Cuz you couldn't have said what I think you just said."
Parker walked slowly toward the wolf. He growled low and pinned his ears back. "Don't you take that tone with me Eliot Spencer!" The growl cut off. "Can you change back too or are you stuck that way?"
"WHAT is goin on in there!?" Hardison grabbed his tablet and started running for the warehouse. He hadn't seen any guards since they had arrived and no one had appeared when he turned on the car alarms, so he decided to join Parker in the warehouse.
Just as Hardison came up behind Parker he saw the gray wolves shift back into Chastel and Deangelis. Deangelis's head was turned at an impossible angle from his body and, with Chastel lying face down, the knife protruding from his back was very obvious. "Oh holy hell! No they just didn't! Uh-uh, no way." The tan wolf growled at him at the same time that Parker called his name. "Alec!"
Turning her attention back to the wolf, Parker asked him. "So can you?"
With something between a whimper and a sigh the tan wolf started to change. Hardison couldn't believe what he was seeing. It had to be some kind of a trick, or a hoax, or stress induced hysteria, anything but actual reality. Hardison kept glancing away like someone might come strolling up and announce that he was on Candid Camera. Parker watched with fascination but she too wondered if what she was seeing was really real or if maybe the moment had finally come and she really was crazy. After all wouldn't Eliot or someone have told her that something like this was possible? She knew Hardison played games with his orc friends where this kind of stuff happened but he seemed to be taking this even worse than she was.
Finally after of couple of minutes Eliot stood before them naked and grimy and injured. After looking back and forth between them he glared at Hardison. "Dammit Hardison! What are you two doin' here?"
"You had to know that we would come for you." Parker glared right back at him.
A 'ping' from Hardison's tablet broke up the tense silence. "Uhm guys we gotta go. Police oughta be here in ten minutes." Hardison was monitoring something on his tablet.
"Fine." Eliot stalked towards the door Hardison had come in through. With a look at each other and a shrug Parker and Hardison followed him out.
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The team made it back to the second safe house. At Eliot's insistence they didn't go back to the Brew Pub. Eliot had hardly spoken on the fifteen minute drive and the pattern didn't change when he hopped out of the van in his spare sweat pants at the safe house. The ride had been tense and silent but no one seemed willing to break the silence and see where the pieces would fall.
Parker and Hardison followed Eliot into the small house that looked like every other house in suburban America. Eliot grabbed up some spare clothes and headed straight for the shower while Parker and Hardison settled on the couch.
Eliot emerged and hour later freshly showered, bandaged, and in clean clothes. He didn't usually spend that kind of time in the shower, at least not on his own, and he had finally had to admit to himself that he was hiding from his team's response. From the hallway he could see Parker and Hardison cuddled up on the couch. He made a quick trip into the kitchen and grabbed three beers out of the fridge. Hardison had this place pretty well stocked for a place they practically never used. Taking the beer into the living room and handing them out, he dropped down onto the chair facing the couch. "Ask."
"Wolves man? Seriously, and you never told us?" Hardison still looked pretty stunned.
"Why haven't you ever told us?" Parker was curled up leaning into Hardison and staring fixedly at the unopened beer in her hand.
"Would you have believed me? And say if you had believed me. What then?" Eliot leaned forward elbows on knees.
"You mean what now?" Hardison countered.
With a deep sigh Eliot leaned back. "Yeah. That."
"So how did this happen man? You always been like that or…what?" Hardison looked genuinely curious.
"Okay. This might take a bit." Eliot shifted and started his story.
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The woods just outside Gévaudan, France. Ten years ago.
After looking himself over near the clearing Eliot ran farther into the woods trying to put as much distance between him and the barn as possible before someone noticed that he wasn't lying dead with the rest of Moreau's men. As morning started to break over the low hills Eliot found a small stream and tried to wash off as much of the gore and filth as he could. He discarded his shirt since it was no more than rags anyway. His right pant leg was torn but still serviceable and he still had his boots. Eliot still couldn't figure out what had happened, how he wasn't injured, but he would take this unexpected blessing and get as far from here as he could.
After circling back a little bit and heading a lot farther south he found himself on the edge of Gévaudan. On his way into town he found and liberated a shirt from an unwatched clothesline. On the west edge of town he found a generic looking sedan that was easily hotwired and started down the road for Toulouse keeping a scrupulous two kilometers an hour under the posted limit.
Moreau needed to know what had happened but how was Eliot going to explain. 'You see there were these huge wolves and everybody is dead but me because there was this miracle...' Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose as thought. 'So all of your guys died maybe even me but somehow I completely healed and they're still dead.' There just wasn't going to be a good way to explain things but at least there was a little time before the explanations would be necessary.
It had been a little more than a three hour drive from Gévaudan to Toulouse and Eliot was happy to dump the stolen car in the parking lot of a bar. On the other side of Toulouse, Moreau kept a warehouse stocked with weapons and other supplies, Eliot started making his way to said warehouse. When he got close to the warehouse he stopped to surveil it before heading in. After things had gone so badly in Gévaudan Eliot wasn't going to take any chances. After an hour no one had come or gone and that was exactly as it should be. Night was approaching, maybe only an hour or so off, Eliot decided he would wait until then to enter the building.
The skin at the back of his neck started to itch and his muscles, and joints started to ache. Then the moon crested the horizon and the change came over Eliot. He wasn't prepared. He had no idea what was happening and he instinctively fought it. But to no avail. The ache increased and became a burning sensation that moved through his skin. He knew something bad was happening and he fought for control. The harder he fought the worse the pain seemed to get. On top of the pain, in joints and skin, he was hit with a sudden queasy feeling that doubled him over. Pain seemed to be his whole existence and that seemed to stretch on forever. The miraculous healing back at the barn hadn't been a blessing it had been a curse.
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"The next morning I called Moreau and told him I was done. We had an, understanding, and he mostly left me alone. I started looking for answers about what I had become and hoping for a cure or something, but there isn't one." Eliot stared off to the side never having looked at them since he started his story. "So there it is. I'm a monster and always will be." He was going to offer to call in another hitter to take his place or at least get ready to say his good-byes, but he couldn't stand to look at them yet and see the fear and mistrust in their eyes. Then Parker jumped in.
"You're still the same Eliot you were yesterday right? You're still our protector. You're still our chef. You're still our friend right?" Parker's voice started to take on more of the uncertainty that made her sound more like a frightened little girl instead of their calculating mastermind.
"You're still my brother." The fierce glint in Hardison's eyes relaxed the knot of anxiety that had been building in Eliot's chest ever since the warehouse.
"You won't leave will you?" The tears in Parker's eyes at the thought of losing part of her family drove Eliot from his chair and to his knees in front of the couch.
"Never, baby girl. Not till my dying day. Not unless you want me to." At that Eliot found himself being swept up in a group hug. Parker and Hardison both intoned "Never." at the exact same time, breaking the tension and allowing for a small laugh between them. Eliot got back into his chair and looked between them. "So now what?"
Parker grinned a thousand watt smile and wiped her eyes. "Now we make sure this job is done and then we go home!"
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The job had wrapped up neater than Eliot had expected. Taking care of the illegal shipping operation that Chastel had been running was child's play for Hardison and the original job had left no loose ends to worry about. Eliot had "disappeared" the bodies from the warehouse and had taken professional pride in knowing that no one would find the bodies or anything to tie his team to that warehouse.
Eliot was still waiting for some other kind of fallout from the team after this latest revelation. But things had gone almost completely back to normal…Until the following Friday.
Eliot stopped by their post office box on his way back from his morning run. There was a small box and a few pieces of junk mail. Eliot didn't review any of it before he stowed it all in a lightweight bag to take back to the Brew Pub. Once there he dumped the mail on the center island of the upstairs kitchen and got himself a glass of water. Going back to the mail he picked up the small box and saw that it was addressed to him. He recognized the handwriting as Nate's untidy scrawl. Opening it up there was a small note that read No wonder you are such a great retriever. Crumpling the note in his hand Eliot looked at the pile of milk-bones filling the rest of the box. "Parker! How the hell does Nate know?" He could hear the giggling down the hall as a fluffy, bone shaped, dog toy with the name Sparky embroidered across it came sliding down the hall. "Dammit Hardison!"
The End