Melissa Barker-Simpson

EPISODE 5 

HIDDEN SECRETS 

Previously on Labno & Carter: Dan and Kate learn their victims were used in a much bigger conspiracy, involving a group of rogue shapeshifters. Then Kate receives the call she has been dreading – her witness has been found. The episode is told from Kate’s point of view. 

When I got to the scene, it was Rahim who was waiting for me. He held out a cup, which I snatched gratefully, needing the fortification. 

Taking a long sip, and ignoring the burn, I spit the contents onto the floor when I registered the taste, barely missing the angel. 

“What the hell is that?” 

“It’s tea. I’m told it has a calming effect.” 

He said it with such a straight face, I almost felt sorry for him. 

“Here,” I said, handing it back. “Knock yourself out. Let me know if it works for you.” 

As I tried to move past him, he put a hand on my arm. “Prepare yourself. It isn’t pretty.” 

I looked up and then away when all I saw was my reflection in his wraparounds. “Death is never pretty.” 

Moving past him I saw a group gathered around a small roundabout. It wasn’t until they parted that I spotted Sahara, or the parts I could see. As I got closer, I realised she had died mid transformation; her legs and lower torso blending into the material of the children’s ride. 

Gargoyles have the ability to merge with whatever material they come into contact with. I’ve never actually seen the skill in action and looking down at Sahara, I wasn’t sure I wanted to because I would forever see her; face crumpled in pain and body morphed with the metal. 

“Why hasn’t she fully transformed?” I asked, knowing that on death a body reverted to its dominant state. That I had seen. 

The silence around me grated along my nerves. I was about to knock some heads together to get answers when Rahim spoke behind me. 

“If a death is traumatic, it can take time because of the negative energy stored in the cells,” he said, and I appreciated the fact he didn’t sugarcoat it. 

“This shouldn’t have happened to her,” I said, looking at her face and wishing I’d done more, seen the signs that had sent her over the edge and put her in danger. “It’s on me.” 

“It’s on whoever did this to her and we will find them.” 

I wasn’t convinced of that, so to give myself a moment I turned and walked to the single remaining swing on the park. It hadn’t been used in a while, so it was foolish to test out its ability to take my weight, but I did so anyway. 

I’m not sure how long I sat, thinking about the case, about the fact we had failed Sahara and all the victims she had unearthed, when Dan appeared at my side. 

He leant his big body against the frame of the swing and settled in as though he had all the time in the world. 

“I waited longer than two for you to call back.” 

Letting out a sigh, I looked at him. “Yeah, sorry, Danny-boy. Something kind of came up.” 

Silence stretched between us like the coming dawn and with it a reminder I was running out of time. “Who’s Tobias Locke?” I asked, thinking of my conversation with Carlisle. 

“He’s the King of Aronmyre a region in the Enchanted Realm. He’s also the leader of the Enchanted League.” 

Which meant he was responsible for what happened to hympes in and outside his territory. Good to know. 

“And a Clanderian?” 

This time Dan chuckled. “I take it Carlisle wasn’t forthcoming. I bet it irritated the hell out of you to come away with more questions than answers.” 

I shrugged. “It happens more often than I’d like.” 

“The irritation?” 

He held up his hands when I scowled at him. “Okay. Fine. Clanderians are descendants of the Enraptured along with sirens and vampires. They have two animal halves, lion and bird.” 

“Kate, Dan, you need to see this.” 

We moved as one, a seamless transition to being fully alert. 

Rejoining Rahim and his crew I noticed immediately that the transformation was complete. 

Since Sahara was always so immaculately dressed, I noticed her torn trousers right away, my gaze homing in on the wound on her leg. It was self-inflicted and made my heart race. She had gouged marks into her skin, but they weren’t a distraction technique or a way for her to balance the pain. She had scratched a message, a fuck-you to her abductor, so the transformation had been her way of hiding the evidence from view. 

“Raul,” Dan practically growled it. “That name familiar?” 

“No,” Rahim answered. “But I’ll find out.”  

I felt air buffer against me, almost toppling me over as Rahim took off. He was clearly done with waiting, and he wasn’t the only one. Dan and I had built up a few contacts of our own, though it paid to be friends with a warrior angel and member of the RDU. 

After the war, most of the Battalion had returned to Empyrean, but a few had stayed behind, which was all kinds of good for us. 

Turning to the team that had been stationed to watch over Sahara’s body, I fought off a wave of irritation that her safe transport wasn’t my responsibility. She belonged to the RDU now and joint team or not, I didn’t get much say. She was one of mine, dammit, and I wanted to see it through. 

“How long before transport arrives?” I asked, not willing to leave her in the cold alone. 

A loud, sharp whistle had me whipping my head around as I rubbed at my abused ear. Dan grinned motioning over his shoulder. 

“I brought reinforcements when I got the call from Matt. He knew we’d want to take care of one of ours. 

That was considerate and I didn’t want to think of the goblin that way when he was usually a pain in my ass. 

Nevertheless, when two medics appeared and carefully transported Sahara into an evac pod, I was feeling all soft and warm inside. It was a good thing Matthew wasn’t right there because, coupled with the fatigue, I might have done something stupid like hugged him. Okay, that was stretching it a little, but I’d have held back the insults. 

The evac pods are another gift from the RDU and look like a cross between a coffin and a small bullet train. At least to me. They are sleek and cylindrical and have hover capabilities or whatever nifty magic they utilise to manipulate the environment. It beats a stretcher, and the things are a little piece of luxury inside. A fitting transport for a gargoyle who had only ever wanted to live in peace. 

Following the medics to the vehicle, I breathed easier when she was safely inside and away from the scene.   

“Let’s get back to the station,” I said to Dan, pulling out my keys. “You can drive.” 

Dan nodded, his lips twitching. “Still need to do your report for Hunsley?” 

“Yes, but that can wait. I’m going to catch some shut eye so drive slowly. I have twelve hours, give or take, before I’m called up to bat.” Glancing down at the tattoo, I saw the changes, a dark stain creeping across the feather to indicate my time was running out. 

Dan didn’t drive slowly, but I still shut my eyes and, like a stone in a pond, I dropped deep. 

I awoke almost an hour later to realise we were back at the station. Dan had pulled into a discreet parking space at the back of the building and got busy while I was blissfully unaware and enjoying my slumber. 

Since I’d had little shut eye I considered the nap to be my due. I wasn’t even a little bit annoyed that Dan had hit the ground running without me by contacting every location the shapeshifters had infiltrated. He learned each victim’s role within their community but got little else because all had vanished around the time Sahara took a hammer to her wall. 

“We need to visit each site and arrange for a forensics team to comb through spaces the shapeshifters utilised,” I said, stretching out the kinks from my nap. 

“Way ahead of you. I coordinated with the RDU, so we’re just waiting for confirmation the teams are on location.” 

“Points to you, Danny-boy,” I said climbing out of the car. 

“You’re welcome.” 

Ignoring the jibe, I headed inside to check-in. 

As soon as I hit the office, I finally got around to finishing my report. It didn’t hurt that there was a box of pastries and a cafetiere of coffee wating at my desk; the commander had definitely sweetened the deal. 

“What do you have against reports, anyway?” Dan grumbled, though he did this with a mouthful of Danish. 

“Absolutely nothing. I put on a show so Hunsley can bribe me with goods and coat his concern in an order. Just go with it.” 

Saying nothing, he rolled his chair around to my side of the desk. “We’ve had a request to contact Grangefield.” 

Glancing at the clock, I let him set up the call, as I contemplated all I needed to achieve in eight hours. The Miller case was a priority, but we still had cases that needed our attention. 

“Thanks for taking the call.” 

I turned at the sound of Carlisle’s deep, almost purring voice and wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before. Not that he’d needed any charm to have me spilling everything we had so far. 

“I just had a visit from Rahim, so first off, I’m sorry you lost your witness.” 

She was so much more than a witness, but then making things personal was a bad habit so I held my tongue. For a few seconds at least. 

“And second?” 

That got a grin. “Did I tell you what a pleasure it was to meet you earlier?” he asked, making my partner chuckle. 

“I’m kind of on a clock right now, so if you can cut to the chase, I’d appreciate it.” 

“In that case, we believe we’ve figured out what the end goal is for the infiltrations into Cooperative sites. They are hunting for members of the Collective.” 

“Jesus, are they crazy as well as stupid!” Dan said, blowing out a long puff of air. “Who’s going to take on that group?” 

That group as he described them, were instrumental in ending the war. Individually the members were hard hitters but together they were phenomenal, so although they didn’t work together regularly anymore, they were still working in small teams and had the combined power at their disposal. 

“Raul, obviously. We’ve had a series of attacks on various members of the Collective and he has a real hard on for Tamaya White so that shit is personal.” 

   “I take it he doesn’t want to take her to dinner and a movie?” I asked. 

“Not unless the dinner is her intestines and the movie a slideshow of exactly what he has in store.” 

I laughed, my opinion of Carlisle going up a notch. “I deserved that. So, you’re familiar with Raul.” 

“Yes, that and the stench he’s associated with!” He grinned. “He’s a sneaky bastard. There’s not a great deal we can do without the evidence of wrongdoing because we can hardly say he smells right for the crime, but we have somewhere to focus our attention on.” Now his face turned sober. “It’s been raised with our contact within the Race Alliance so he’s on their radar, but I wanted to warn you. Raul has eyes and ears everywhere so you should watch your backs.” 

“So noted.” Dan said. “Did you get any luck with the forensics team?” He turned to me with a look in his eye that say, ‘You shouldn’t sleep on the job.’ 

“They’re sweeping as we speak. I’ll update you if we find something.” 

“Appreciate it, Car.” 

He disconnected before I could add my pleasantries. Not that I had any. I turned to glare at him. 

“Grangefield was first on my list, and as they have their own team, I thought we’d let them handle it,” Dan said, unphased. 

“Well, aren’t you just wracking up the points.” I stood, trying to find my groove as I paced the floor. 

“What crawled up your ass?” he asked, amused. 

“This case for one. I mean, I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that they took Sahara in all probability because they wanted to keep her quiet, and yet they left all the evidence behind.” 

“Raul probably decided it was too late to do anything about the physical evidence and bought himself some time by silencing the one witness to the crime. He had to figure she hadn’t told us anything at that point.” 

“Maybe.” 

Dan glanced at his watch. “Regardless, you can focus your energy on something other than wearing out the carpet because I just got word a forensic team are headed to Quarry Hill. Let’s roll out.” 

Walking back to the desk to snatch up the last pastry, I followed him to the door. “What really pisses me off is that I’d like to go one on one with this Raul character and yet I have to settle for handing him over to some unknown agency because he’d wipe the floor with me.” 

“The Race Alliance are the authority, Kit-Kat and believe me their judgement will be greater than any of your mortal justice systems.” 

I snorted at that. “You signed on for this gig, my friend, and specialist unit or not, you’re subject to the same rules as the rest of us mere mortals.” 

He decided to court danger by slinging an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t feel so bad, you’ve got your sharp tongue and an armoury full of weapons at your disposal.” 

“One of which I’ll use on you if you don’t get your paws off me.” 

His arm fell away on a laugh because the truth was, I did have a few tricks up my sleeve and wasn’t afraid to use them. I couldn’t take him on in bear form, but that didn’t mean I was a pushover.