Change of Heart 05 - Forging the Future Read Online Free PDF Page A

easy to place. “You’re English?” I asked.
    “What was your first clue, mate?” he teased.
    I closed the door, unhooked the chain, and then opened it wide. “Good morning, gentlemen, what can I do for you?”
    “As I said,” Mr. Yadin began, “we work for the akhen-aten, are now members of the tribe of Rahotep, and are former officers of the I-oo-set.”
    “The what?”
    He said it again.
    “Could you spell it?” After he did, I could see the word just as I had reah: Iusaaset.
    They were both waiting.
    “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “Nothing that you said made any sense to me.”
    His brows furrowed, and Mr. Morris came forward.
    “Don’t you know who you are, then?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Wick,” he corrected.
    “Wick,” I repeated.
    “And Dov,” Mr. Yadin insisted. “Please.”
    Wick offered his hand. “Would you mind us coming in to have a word?”
    “No, please do,” I said, inviting him in as we shook.
    I repeated the action with Dov, and when they were both inside, I closed the door behind them, painfully aware of how shiny they both were in my dingy little apartment.
    “I have coffee or tea,” I offered. “And water, of course.”
    “Nothing for us,” Dov replied kindly. “We would just like to speak to you.”
    I had a card table and one chair and a window seat in the living room that was built into the wall. “Please sit, I’d rather pace, if that’s okay.”
    “That’s fine,” Wick said agreeably.
    “Would you explain what the Iusaaset is?”
    “Certainly,” Dov replied. “Where shall I begin?”
    It sounded like he was ready to launch into the history of the world. I lifted my hands to stop him. “Sorry, I just want a quick little summary of what you do.”
    Wick chuckled. “He already knows you’re long-winded, mate.”
    Dov glared at him. “I’m sorry?”
    Wick’s smile split his face as he bumped his colleague with his shoulder and then turned to me. “In a nutshell, the Iusaaset is the organization that polices werepanthers all over the world to make certain that no one does anything dodgy.”
    “Dodgy?”
    “Anything that would get us, as a species, noticed.”
    “Oh.” I understood then. “So like no werepanthers on the six o’clock news kind of thing.”
    “Yes,” Wick agreed.
    “And the Iusaaset, they’re the ones that make sure that doesn’t happen.”
    “That’s right.”
    “What does this have to do with me, sir?”
    “Please, just Wick and Dov,” Wick requested for the second time.
    I forced a smile. “Okay.”
    Dov exhaled sharply. “So could you tell me what your earliest memory is?”
    I glanced back and forth between them.
    “Please,” he prodded.
    Taking a breath, I explained. “A little over three months ago, I woke up on this ranch outside Lubbock when I heard crying.”
    “What happened?” Wick wanted to know.
    “I don’t know, but one moment I was asleep and the next I had my eyes open, and there was a little girl sobbing right next to me.”
    “Where were you?”
    “I was in a cage, and she was outside of it, screaming and bawling because there was a man there holding her hair and pulling down her pants.” Obviously she’d been terrified, from the shrieks and crying, as well as the fact that she peed down her leg and tears and mucus trailed down her cheeks.
    “Go on,” Wick pressed, interrupting my memories for a moment. I hadn’t even realized that I’d stopped speaking aloud.
    “The man must not have seen me, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because of where I was in the cage. I mean, it was really dark,” I said thoughtfully. “But I got to my feet as fast as I could, and I shoved my paw through the bars and scratched him up enough that he let her go and ran away. He was screaming that he was going to come back with a gun, and the girl must have thought he was going to shoot both of us—she was really young, maybe five, six—and I think because she was so scared and she just wasn’t thinking, she opened