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EPILOGUE
The shunning of the traitors was anticlimactic compared to everything else that had happened. The vote among the Pack was unanimous. The findings were reported to the Council and approved without contest. The Tinas were gone and would not be missed. No Pack anywhere in the world would accept them. I tried to find it within myself to feel pity, but I couldn’t. Perhaps with time I might, but it was still too raw.
The families of the missing girls were ecstatic to have them home. Hank, Junior and I were the local heroes, but Dwayne…Dwayne was the Second Coming.
All the Weres in our community bowed their heads in reverence when he passed. Even the more conservative Weres caught all of his shows at the drag club. The owner had to make a special dispensation for children because the Weres had insisted the young ones witness the talent of their savior.
Dwayne was in absolute heaven.
The Council had quietly sent down a crew to clean up Hung and the deserted resort on the outskirts of town. No one even knew they were here. Apparently they had come in the middle of the night and were gone by morning. My guess was they had sent Hyenas. Those shifters would eat anything—including Dragon guts. I tried not to dwell on it because thinking about it made me a little nauseous.
To make reparations for their misguided judgment—their words, definitely not mine—the Council purchased the old resort from the city and planned to restore it to a haven which would make people forget about its tragic history. All the proceeds would go to the Pack. It was yet again the Council putting a tiny Band-Aid on a gaping wound, but my fight with the Council would come in good time.
My boss, Angela was a different story. Her visit to Hung Island, Georgia was quick and to the point.
"Those bastard Dragons are being investigated much to their displeasure," Angela grunted as she sat on the plastic slip-covered couch in my granny's house. My boss had brought her own bottle of whiskey and was indulging liberally. She was sporting a new and rather large bald spot over her left ear. She really needed to consider a new vocation.
"Yeah, well they should be," I said as I dug into a Juju's Meat-Lovers Pizza. "What they did was horrific and I'd bet Dwayne's Laboutin pumps that more were involved."
"My thoughts exactly," she agreed. "Those fire blowers need to be doused."
Hank, Granny and Dwayne had joined the impromptu pizza party. Hank was quiet, Granny was downright mute, but Dwayne was as animated as ever. My boss was formally polite. However, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop...it always did.
"She banged him," Dwayne happily informed Angela. "You owe me money."
"Actually you owe me money," she shot back.
"How do you figure that?" Dwayne asked, confused.
"You bet five hundred she would bang him and I bet a thousand you were right. You owe me five hundred."
"Damn it to hell," Dwayne muttered as he pulled out his wallet and removed five crisp one hundred dollar bills. "I need to listen a little better when I gamble."
"So, little missy, what are your plans?" Angela's eyes narrowed at me, but her voice wavered slightly.
I was different now. I knew it and she knew it. No longer was I the scattered dingbat I had been only weeks ago. Well that might be pushing it, but Ihadripped the head off a Dragon. If that didn't change a gal, I didn't know what would.
I grinned and gave her a non-committal shrug that made her reach into her hair and pull hard.
"And you—Mr. Special-Forces-I-Exist-in-No-Data-Base—what are your plans?" she asked Hank getting more nervous with each non answer. "Are you coming back to Chicago?"
"That depends on a few things," Hank said as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs casually. Nothing Hank did was casual. Nothing.
"What things?" Angela asked. I felt kind of sorry for her. I liked her, but she no longer had my trust. I wondered how deeply she was involved with the Council and how much she really knew about my past and my parents.
"Essie goes off the radar too," he said calmly as if he was discussing the weather, but his deadly magic drenched the room. Angela shifted uncomfortably and Dwayne clapped his hands with glee. "We'll take missions, but we will answer to no one. We will report to you and you can keep the Council aware of our movements."
Angela's silence and terse nod shocked me, but Hank’s demands shocked me even more. He was way more than an agent like me. He had some major explaining to do, but now was not the time.
"After Essie completes the next mission, she has a free pass to get out," Granny hissed from the corner of the room where she sat with her hands fisted in her lap.
"I wondered when you'd talk, Bobbie Sue," Angela said quietly making it very clear to me that the women knew each other. "That's not my call, but I will see what I can do. Are you in?"
Granny stared Angela down until she squirmed and tugged on her quickly disappearing hair. Then my granny shrugged. "I've been out for forty years, but as much as I don't like you, I like the Dragons even less. I'm in."
"Color me confused and clueless, but what in the hell is going on here?" I demanded.
Granny ignored me and continued to pin Angela with a stare that made me want to pee in my pants. "Dwayne is my second. We also go off the radar and Essie is out when we're done. No negotiations."
