Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Chris led Jane out of the house and along to where Jeremy's Suzuki waited,
with a spare helmet.  She donned it blankly, mechanically, before sitting
astride the beast behind Chris.  She could see the outline of the flare
pistol pressed against the waistband of his biker's leathers, but thought
nothing of it.  She thought nothing. "Next stop, London," Chris muttered as
the engine burst into life. "Yes, Chris," Jane replied, though he couldn't
hear her over the roar of the engine, breaking the speed limit before the
first bend. Speed regulations didn't matter to the breed, and they didn't
matter to Chris when he was using a breed member's wheels; the officer
dealing with the parking tickets generally paid them himself, and the breed
- and Chris - were supremely confident of their driving abilities. ***
Peter and Alex, father and son, hooked into biomonitoring equipment side by
side, a high-voltage current run through them, amperage levels kept
non-fatal.  They made a strange tableau, but the latest theory was that an
electric field such as the one set up by this current would depress the
subject's own bioelectric signature.  Kirk didn't consider magical wards
enough for these two, and since Erin hadn't mentioned anything
technological that left some manipulation of biological fields, most
prominent of which - and most likely, given current neurological theory -
was the bioelectric field. "How many of you are there?" Ethel asked,
reading the question from her clipboard. Peter and Alex simultaneously
looked down at themselves and then across at each other, before turning
back to Ethel and chorusing "Two, looks like." Ethel's expression pointedly
informed them that such comments weren't appreciated, and father and son
shared a grin. To give him credit, Alex was trying to approach this duty
emotionlessly, but the temptation to laugh in the face of this stuff was
probably going to prove to be too great. "Look, I'm not scared of you,"
Ethel said.  "I'm not impressed, either.  Erin's backing me up; you try
anything and she'll put a bullet between your knees." Alex glanced over at
Erin, sitting on a chair behind Ethel.  She was currently reading the paper
and, despite the illegal automatic pistol sitting on the desk next to her,
couldn't be said to represent a threat.  Peter broke the silence. "You, ah,
remember what happened when you tried to get a skin sample from us for
analysis?" The tone was, as always, pitched perfectly between all-out
sarcasm and a faux desire to help. Ethel glowered at him.  "We couldn't
even scratch your skin.  I know.  But these are silver bullets." The news
didn't unnerve her captives as much as she'd hoped it would. "So?" Ethel
shifted uneasily.  If this was an act, it was indistinguishable from life.
"So...  you're werewolves.  I haven't figured out the mind control, but
you're werewolves." Alex and Peter exchanged a look of utter contempt. 
Then they transferred it to her.  Erin, as she had been instructed, just
kept reading.  Alex was a lot more important to her than Kirk ever had
been, and she didn't even know Ethel.  Letting events proceed was...  it
would have been palatable even before she was impressed with the servant
mentality. Well, perhaps not quite palatable. "Werewolves, dear, are the
sort of thing they have on the Continent.  But this is Britain.  There's a
difference; it largely stems from style." "Snobby, are we?" Ethel took a
couple of steps forward and frowned at Alex. "Oh, indubitably," Alex said,
and smiled. *** "Right, this is the address," Chris said, parking the
Suzuki in the nearest space.  "Fifth floor only, I'm told.  So the security
will be run by people who don't know about us.  So we're going to have to
use your warrant card; get it ready." "Yes, Chris." "Here's what you've got
to say to the security guy..." *** Jane stalked up to the security guard's
desk and dropped her warrant card onto the table.  He looked at it, then
back up at her. "Detective Sergeant Jane Herbert.  Is Amos Kirk in the
office on the fifth floor?" Chris watched the conversation, hanging back
and trying to appear as if he was paying it no attention whatsoever.
"Uh..." the security guard appeared to be of that subspecies for which
thought means an extra charge for the novelty value...  "sure." "Good. 
Don't announce us, we don't want him to destroy the evidence before we get
up there." "Uh...  right.  Right!  Sure." Jane smiled at him and walked
past him into the lift.  Chris followed her, finally bestowing an obvious
if unflattering look in the direction of the guard. As the lift doors
closed behind them Chris said "Go back into trance as soon as we step out
of here." "Yes, Chris." He pressed the button for the fifth floor.  They
rode the lift in silence.  It was sensible, Chris thought, for the Bureau
not to house itself with the rest of the machinery of government; but they
should pick a place with better security. *** "Why isn't Amos here?" Alex
asked, innocently.  Ethel froze, and glanced across at Erin as if to check
she'd heard correctly.  Erin went right on reading. "Uh, who?" "Oh, that's
not much of a giveaway," Peter joined in, adding his sarcastic tones to his
father's. "Let me do the talking, son," Alex said.  "Father's privilege."
Peter tried to shrug through his restraints.  The metal holds creaked. 
Ethel gasped, and looked back at Erin again for reassurance.  Erin still
just flicked through the paper.  This was starting to get worrying. *** The
lift stopped. Chris and Jane walked out.  Jane immediately froze into
place, eyes fixed vacantly on the last thing they had rested on before her
foot cleared the lift floor. Chris simply carried on walking purposefully,
looking for his friend. He blinked, and his eyes changed.  Unlike those of
the breed, however, they became not black but fiery, burning with an inner
flame. One man alone...  ah.  Four in the same room.  Two of those had
something weird happening to them.  That looked like a good bet. He pointed
his watch in their direction and checked the face.  Definite influence
showing on one of those who weren't experiencing the weird effect.  Safe
bet that the trapped ones were Alex and Peter. He pulled the flare gun out
and checked it over.  Simple enough; just hit the remaining uninfluenced
adversary.  With an incandescent flare.  Why couldn't grandad have been in
the army, not the air force? Ah well... He headed off to the room with the
big group. *** The door flew open.  Peter and Alex saw Chris' figure
preceded by the blunt, snub flare gun, and immediately squeezed their eyes
shut. *CRACK* The noise was deafening.  Ethel, still in the process of
turning to face the door, screamed in response and clapped her hands to her
ears as the flare whistled past her.  In the final analysis, Chris hadn't
decided to kill her.  Erin didn't even look up. "Chris, grab the gun!"
Peter yelled. Chris snatched the pistol from the table beside Erin and put
it to her head.  "Over there," he said, jerking the thumb on his other hand
as a direction indicator. Erin, snapping out of her trance according to a
pre-programmed 'don't blow your cover' instruction, did as he said.  When
her eyesight returned, Ethel did likewise. Chris stepped away from the door
and further into the room, coming to a halt next to the restrained breed,
with a viewpoint that covered the door as well as the two agents of the
bureau currently in the room. Amos didn't take long in arriving. "Got here
as soon as I could, guv," Chris said.  "These people reek of fear.  Makes
them easy to track.  But I had to collect the policewoman first so I could
get in here." "ID," Alex said, making the leap easily.  "That's OK." Kirk
continued to stare at the group.  Eventually, he shook his head
disbelievingly, looked up at the two captives, smiled, said "Sorry," and
ran. Chris looked at Alex, received a nod, and gestured to them.  They
followed him out at a run. Shoving the pistol back into the back of his
trousers and retrieving the flare gun, Chris proceeded to release the two
Whytes. "Everything OK, is it?" Alex asked. "Yes, it's fine.  Except that
you decided your son would run things from outside, and your sun decided
he'd run things from inside.  So the rest of you are doing nothing because
it's the only honourable solution.  Morons." Alex looked across at his son.
"And you like this guy?" Peter shrugged.  "We don't kill each other." Chris
said something in Welsh that Peter didn't understand.  He and Alex locked
gazes for a couple of minutes. "What are you?" Alex asked, finally. "Deryn
Corph." "You were wiped out." "Obviously.  That's why I don't exist. 
The... charm, whatever it was, I'm not up on our history...  it didn't give
us mind-warping powers like you lot.  Or an armour-plated hide.  So we lay
low." "Dad, what is he on about?" "Long story." "I think we have time."
"And we both think we don't," Chris said.  "Look, I've only got a bike here
and I've got a rider, so can I leave you two to arrange something?" "A
rider?" Peter raised his eyebrows.  "Have fun." "Now we both know I don't
take advantage of mentally-influenced women." "Except at weekends." "Well,
obviously.  But only because chatting them up is boring." "I thought you
said you didn't have any...  influence?" Alex asked, puzzled. "He buys me a
drink Friday nights," Peter explained. Chris grinned, and walked out of the
room. Father and son looked at each other. "Werewolves," they said, in
unison, their voices loaded with condescension. *** Though she was as right
as she could have guessed. TO BE CONTINUED...