Daniel looked up from his drumming when he felt her enter the room.

There stood Anita, he Bolverk, the Nimir Ra of the local pard. The Executioner.

The young wolf ceased his drumming, taking in the woman in front of him. She was so unimposing. Tiny even. If you didn’t know who she was, you wouldn’t believe the power that she held.

Even knowing everything that he knew, feeling the power that poured off of her in waves, Daniel still found it hard to believe that this woman in front of him held all of that power in her small frame. But he knew better. He’d seen it before. He’d felt it before. Sometimes amazing power was contained in a very unimposing female. Anita wasn’t the first such woman that he had encountered.

She still just stood there. And, although Daniel wasn’t usually the person to initiate a conversation, the truth of the matter was, he was nervous. And nervous wasn’t something that he felt a lot. It certainly hadn’t been something he had felt before in St. Louis.

Until last night. At the lupanar.

And he didn’t feel comfortable being nervous now. She had power, sure. But nothing that he hadn’t felt before. After all, she wasn’t looking to end the world. Or even looking to kill him, he thought. Just to reprimand.

But he was tired of feeling on edge about it, so he spoke first, something unusual for him.

“Well, Ms. Blake, what’s my punishment?”

His words managed to snap her out of her thoughts. But she was still mildly confused. Punishment? She’d wanted to talk about what happened at the lupanar. Hadn’t Richard told him that?

But she was his Bolverk. If Richard hadn’t told Daniel what it was that she wanted, then he would, of course, be expecting to be punished.

After all, Jason was known to be close to Anita, and she had assigned Daniel the responsibility of being his driver, convinced that, if left to his own devices, Jason would blow off school to propagate the image he portrayed. Jason couldn’t let it be known that he actually wanted to go to school. So Anita had given him an out, someone to blame. Daniel as a driver and babysitter. And Daniel had messed up, on the first day. What else could she want?

“Actually, Daniel, if you can answer my questions, I think that I can overlook it.” She saw him relax, just slightly. The action was almost imperceptible. If she hadn’t learnt some very scary things, things she had acquired working with people like Edward, she never would have seen it. But she had. So she added, “This time.” She had to make sure that he didn’t get too complacent. After all, she had a reputation to maintain herself.

“Jason told me how you were at the lupanar, and he figured that that was responsible for, well, that that was the reason for your sleeping in. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“The lupanar?” Daniel quirked his eyebrow, happy to return to his normal laconic, guarded self.

“Well, Jason had said that you seemed agitated.” At that, she expected some kind of response from the young wolf. But he simply sat there, as if he was waiting for her to make some sort of point.

“Do you know what it was that caused your reaction?”

Daniel knew exactly what had raised his hackles. But he knew, from experience, that he couldn’t just blurt out the answer. How did you phrase that to someone? Someone that hadn’t felt it before, that hadn’t lived it before? How did you tell a person that you had tasted the coming of the end of the world on your tongue? Would she even believe it if he told her what it was that he had felt? If you hadn’t looked the end of the world in the face, would you, could you, believe that it was truly coming?

No, Daniel didn’t think Anita was ready to hear that. He wanted to know why she was so interested in his actions at the lupanar. So interested, in fact, that she was willing to overlook his transgression. He wanted her to lay her cards out on the table before he opened himself up.

“Why do you ask?”

Anita narrowed her eyes, wondering why the lycanthrope was being evasive. He should have been anxious to please Anita. He should have been trying to avoid punishment, and happy to do anything in order to do it. But now he was being guarded about it. Why? If she told him what she knew, would he open up and tell her what he knew?

Could she trust him enough to tell him what she had felt? Would he tell her what he knew if she didn’t? Would she have to threaten him to get the answers? Did she want to?

She thought better of it. There was a quietness about him, something that told her that he would open up better if she gave him trust instead of violence. Something in his eyes made her think that he was very good at standing up to violence.

Anita took a breath, preparing to say something that he might not understand. That he might not believe. “Whatever happened to you last night, I think I felt it.”

Jason checked his watch again, for the twelfth time in a five minute span.

On the way out of his anthropology class, the professor had pulled him aside and asked him if he would have a few minutes to meet with him in the professor’s office before he left for the day. So that’s where Jason was, waiting for his instructor to show up.

Jason probably would have blown it off, but he felt he should give it the good old ‘college try’, since it seemed so important to Anita. Had nothing to do with his own desires to succeed.

“Okay, Schulyer,” he whispered softly to himself. “You’re even thinking in bad puns. Maybe it’s time to cut out of here.”

The blonde wolf pushed himself away from the wall with one last glance at his watch. Knowing Anita, his ride would be waiting for him in the same spot that she had dropped him that morning.

He hoped it would be Dan, but he wasn’t going to bet on it.

Somehow, somewhere, Jason figured that the executioner would be giving his new roommate and earful.

He was just about to leave, intent on making it to the Circus before Jean-Claude awoke, when he heard a soft, sweet sounding voice, and caught a whiff of strawberries in the air.

“Thank you, Professor Enns, for giving me the opportunity to catch up. I know it’s pretty unconventional to start weeks into the term, but my grades have always been pretty good, and I’m a quick study, not afraid of hard work . . .”

Jason had turned to watch the professor approach, to see the owner of the voice, the person who carried the sweet scent, and was now watching his professor walk towards him with the attractive redhead that Jason had contemplated sitting next to earlier. He was starting to wonder if the girl ever had to breathe when their professor interrupted the flow of her words.

“Your grades are exceptional, Ms. Rosenberg. And, although unconventional, you aren’t the only student that started classes with me today.”

Professor Enns caught sight of Jason then, and gave him a nod, turning to unlock his office door as he spoke. “Mr. Schulyer here had his first class with me today, as well.” He stood back, motioning for his students to enter his office. “In fact, I think the two of you might enable each other to catch up.”

Jason sat in the chair offered to him, his professor’s words sinking in.

If the girl, Rosenberg, was that good of a student, there really only was one thing that could help her catch up that Jason had to offer. First had experience with preternatural anthropology.

And if Professor Enns knew that Jason had that, then he knew where Jason had gotten it.

That had to mean that he knew what Jason was. A werewolf. Not that the Professor was one, himself, but Anita seemed to have all sorts of people keeping an eye on him. It shouldn’t have surprised Jason that his prof knew his secret. It meant something else, as well. Professor Enns was sure, knowing Jason’s background, to expect more of him than of the other students.

So much for his easy A, Jason thought, as he heard the office door shut.

He cast a glance sideways, to look at the girl that sat there. He guessed that he could sit beside her in class now, after all. She was stunning, with that flame red hair. And there was something cutesy and innocent about her, with the babbling that she had done in the hall, and the fidgeting that she was doing now. Usually, Jason didn’t go for cute, but there was just something about the girl that appealed to him. Jason breathed in deeply, and smelled it again, the strawberries. Sweet fruit. And behind that, something else. Something dark.

The feeling came over him then, a little wave of power that rolled over him and made his hair stand on end. And his brain connected to the smell. Something about the smell of her made him think of Anita.

The girl had a bit of power. She wasn’t a shifter, or, obviously, a vampire. But there was power.

Witch, maybe? Something magical, he thought, given the pixie-like look of the girl.

Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as he had thought.

“I’m sorry?” Daniel tried to absorb the information he had just acquired, and found it almost impossible.

He thought that he had had an animalistic reaction to whatever it had been that he had felt last night. Something akin to horses that could sense approaching earthquakes.

But it wasn’t that. It couldn’t have been. Anita wasn’t pard, not in actuality. She didn’t get furry once a month, like a true shifter.

But still, she had felt it.

When he thought about it, he had known all along it hadn’t been about him being a werewolf. It had been about where he had come from.

It had been about his ability to help stop apocalypses.

“You say you felt whatever that power was?” At her nod, he continued his questioning. “Was it just you, or did anyone else feel it?”

“Well, Micah did. And Richard . . .”

“What about Jean-Claude?”

“He might have. I don’t know, I haven’t been able to talk to him about it yet.”

“But even if he did, then it might have been coming from you. Same as with Micah, and Richard too, no?”

She was surprised by the change in him. He had changed from a young man who seemed to be hiding something to one that had a puzzle that he needed to solve.

He noticed that he had gotten all of her attention and focus with that question.

“Well, that is how your, what’s the word, triumvirate, works, right?”

”Yes, it is. Question is how you know that.”

“I may be relatively new around here, but I live with Jason, remember?” He raised an eyebrow at her, as if to tell her that that bit of information explained everything. And it really did, of course. Jason would have, of course, filled him in on all of the politics of St. Louis, she was sure.

“Yes, if he felt it, it might just have been coming from me. What does it matter? The point is that we felt it.”

“It might matter a whole lot. I think the key is why the people that felt it felt it.”

“I don’t think it does. Just tell me what, and where it is, so that I can kill it.”

‘Sounds familiar’, Daniel thought to himself.

“You sound a little like this girl I once knew. Point is, Anita, is that, at this point, it’s just a feeling. Nothing to kill. What we have to figure out is, given the people that felt it, was it a warning?”

Daniel sat back, a thoughtful look on his face. Could he do it? Did he want to? Make that call? The one that he had never wanted to make.

He had succeeded, gotten away from them, away from his past. Away from her. Could he really plunge himself back into it?

What would happen if he didn’t? What if they had felt what they felt as a premonition, other than just a random wiggins? Could he live with it if he didn’t ask for their help?

He reached for his wallet, for the card within that he had been given before leaving his hometown forever.

He had told Daniel to call the number if he had ever needed help. They would get him a message. Daniel would never have to call home directly.

He wouldn’t have to risk that she would be the one to pick up the phone.

“Can I make a call?” he asked his Bolverk, his tone gone very serious. “It’s long distance.”

“How long distance?” Anita asked, more curious about where he was calling than concerned for the bill.

“London” He saw the look of surprise that quickly passed over her face. She nodded, motioning for him to go ahead and use the phone. “Believe me, I wouldn’t make the call unless I thought it was serious.” He paused in his dialing to say the next words, so that he could see the expression on her face. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

She gave him a half grin, and he finished dialing, thinking about how it was nice to be around someone who could joke in a crisis. It was comfortingly familiar.

His reminiscing was cut off abruptly when a voice spoke in his ear.

“Quentin Travers’ office.”

“I need you to get a message to Rupert Giles.”