Taken - Skinwalker Book 3

Chapter 34

Kalko hung up the phone and let out a sigh of satisfaction at having finally having rounded up the day's proceedings. Most of the creature's families had been contacted and arrangements had been made to fly them home from the nearest airport. Now all he had to do was get them there. Senka assured him that there were some old transport vehicles at the village that they could pile everyone into. She'd told him that Countess Elvira would prefer to have her own people transport them out, so that the route would not be easily marked and found. It made sense. He'd arranged a meeting with the village leader for the morning. Now all that remained was to find out if any of the injured would be unfit for travel.

He shoved his phone into his rucksack, stuffed it against the wall behind his back, and reclined on it comfortably as he took in his surroundings. With the stress of the rescue finally at his back, he suddenly found himself seeing the situation through new eyes. There were so many of them - so many that had been stuck and in need of rescue! If Lena hadn't been captured, what would have happened to them?

"I know what you're thinking," Sierra commented as she crouched down next to him and warmed her hands by the fire near his feet.

"Oh?" Kal replied dubiously.

Sierra chuckled.

"Well maybe I don't," Sierra conceded, "but if you're not thinking that this is the most important thing our team has ever done, then there's something seriously wrong with you."

Kalko nodded his agreement. "They're all important, but this - this felt right. Actually, this was huge! We weren't well equipped to deal with it, but we pulled through. What scares me is that we know of other situations out there that need more clean-up operations like this. There are black-market brothels, pit fights, and creature traders that need to be stopped. Up till now, we weren't sure they were even real. We figured that if they were, there were only a handful of operators that'd self-destruct sooner or later. We honestly never realised just how large these operations could be and how extensive the network is. The things Perez has told me are... terrifying."

Sierra nodded her head in understanding. "It needs to be stopped."

"Yes it does. Tracking down and destroying operations like this should be the primary focus of the Agency, not monitoring already well-organised groups of creatures. Unfortunately both functions are important, and we don't have the resources to go at this alone. This is big. This is really, really big - bigger than what just one member of the Ennead can handle. This needs to be taken to The Order. The Enneads need to unite against this."

"I thought the Enneads were united?" Sierra mused thoughtfully.

"In theory, maybe, but in truth? I don't know if that can actually be done," Kal confessed.

Lena giggled as she flirted casually with Levi further back in the cave and Kalko shot a look of annoyance in their direction. Sierra had to repress her smirk for his sake, but it was pretty comical to see Kal enduring the ordeals of a regular dad. She gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and rose to her feet.

"There's got to be a way, Kal, and you can be sure that we'll find it. After what we uncovered here, there's just no way that the issue can remain buried," she suggested.

Kalko just grunted and stared into the fire. It looked like he was trying hard to resist the urge to beat Levi into a pulp. Sierra grinned at the sight and made off to join Jason, who had finally decided to appease his hunger. She was just tucking into a steak herself when a familiar figure shadowed over the cave entrance.

Zhanna folded her arms in front of her chest self-consciously as everyone looked up to see who she was. Sierra smiled at her reassuringly and gestured for her to enter, but she stayed reservedly near the entrance.