Ambushed (23 page)

"That's
what makes my job hard, Alec. Kaleb or Puppeteer would have turned on
me the instant that they thought it might help them get ahead, but
you're willing to stand by people even when it's likely to cost you."

Shawn
tapped on the table for a second before looking up at me. "How's
your sister? Did she make it out of Sanctuary with you okay?"

"Yeah.
I'm surprised that you know about that."

"There
isn't a lot that we don't find out about. Like I said earlier, we're
the biggest unclaimed prize out there so I tend to hear from all
kinds of people who are trying to convince me to stage a takeover of
the pack. Somebody back in Sanctuary has been talking. Maybe it's
your mom, but I can't be sure."

My
throat tried to close up from emotion, but I forced myself to speak.

"I'm
glad that everyone knows what Kaleb and Brandon tried to do; maybe it
will help the cause if people know that Kaleb was willing to trade
away his own daughter."

We
sat there in silence until I realized that I hadn't answered Shawn's
question. "Yeah, Rachel is okay. I'll tell her that Mom might be
the source of the rumors; that will make her feel a little better."

"But
not you?"

"I
just don't know. I'm not sure you can come back from what my mother
has done."

I
could practically see the wheels turning inside of Shawn's head. He
debated for nearly a minute before pulling out a business card that
was blank other than a single phone number on it.

"This
is my number, or it will be again in a day or two once I get a new
phone."

Shawn
pulled out a pen and scribbled another number on the other side of
the card.

"This
number is one that I think you should call. I can't guarantee
anything for myself, let alone for this guy, but call him and tell
him that I said the two of you should talk."

I
accepted the card. It was more than I'd been afraid I might get, but
it still wasn't what I was after.

"What
is it going to take for you to roll the dice, Shawn? I know there's a
risk, but you have to see that Kaleb and the rest are bad news. If
nothing else, then what happened with Rachel should be plenty of
proof."

Shawn
clapped me on the shoulder as he stood to leave the booth. "Have
you manifested a power yet, Alec? People have been talking about your
potential ever since you were born, but the rumors have shifted into
high gear since you cut ties with dear old Dad."

"If
I told you it had, would that be enough to convince you to join me?"

"That
would all depend on what form your ability takes, Alec. It's going to
have to be something really game-changing if you want to have some
kind of bloodless revolution."

Shawn
walked away without looking back at me. I stuffed the card he'd given
me into my pocket and tried to keep my beast from acting up. It
always came down to the same question. Everybody out there was
sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what kind of power I was
going to manifest.

The
Chicago pack was the big unclaimed marker, but in some ways they
didn't matter as much as I did. I'd already picked a side. Now I just
needed to manifest an ability the likes of which had never been seen
before. Mallory had been convinced for years that it would eventually
happen, but I wasn't so sure. If I was going to manifest something it
should have happened by now.

James,
Jess and Jasmin were all looking pretty beat up, but they were all
mobile. They followed me over to Brindi, who looked like she was
losing her fight with death.

The
medic looked up as I approached and grunted at me. "She touched
you before she was injured?"

"Yeah,
a couple of times. She caught me by surprise and then there wasn't
anything I could do to stop her during the middle of the fight."

The
medic reached up and pulled me down to my knees so that he could move
my hand over to Brindi's shoulder. The transformation was almost
magical. Her color improved immediately and her breathing
strengthened as soon as our skin touched.

Jess
gasped, but I was too busy trying to wrap my mind around the
ramifications to look back and reassure her. The medic packed up his
gear with a couple of sure, quick motions and then stood to leave.

"You're
going to need to keep in contact with her for a few days if you want
her to survive. She's addicted."

The
Ja'tell bond. After everything I'd seen Kaleb put my mother through,
I'd sworn I would never addict anyone. In the end, it happened
without me even realizing it.

Adriana Paige
Marauder's Gas Station
Central Wyoming

Taggart's
color had finally improved and one of his lucid moments had finally
coincided with my break from the store.

"What's
our situation, Adri?"

"Not
really that different than when you lapsed into your healing coma.
I've kept the store open during the daylight hours for the most part.
I scouted the bunker from one end to the other and cleaned up some of
the worst of the destruction and dead bodies. We're currently in the
penthouse suite which has the benefit of working lights, running
water and no corpses."

"Were
you able to make contact with Alec Graves?"

"No,
I tried a couple of times. You've been out for the better part of
four days, but I didn't have any luck so I decided to try something
else. When I was back in Minnesota I ran into a girl who tried to
warn me away from Jackson. Looking back in hindsight, I was pretty
sure she was a shape shifter so I decided to reach out to her and see
if she could corroborate your stories about the Coun'hij."

"Did
she?"

"Yeah,
for the most part she did. She made it pretty clear that there were
more shades of gray than I was going to like, but I guess I should
have expected that."

"Does
that mean you're fully onboard in the fight against Kaleb and the
rest?"

I
shrugged, but I knew I was going to have to give him a better answer
than that.

"I
guess I'm mostly onboard. I'm not willing to start assassinating
random Coun'hij flunkies, but I'll do whatever I have to do in order
to help you save Agony."

Taggart
was obviously still in pain, but he managed a nod. "I'll do my
best not to betray the trust that you're placing in me."

"So
what do we do next? Are you even going to be able to move in time to
help Agony?"

"I
think so, but I won't know for sure until I've had a chance to check
in with some of my contacts. It all depends on what the Coun'hij has
planned for him, but I should only need another day or two of rest
before we can at least resume travelling."

"Are
you sure? No offense, but you're still looking pretty bad."

Taggart
snorted. "At least you didn't tell me that I always look pretty
bad. No, I'll be okay. I'm past the worst part of it. Once I doused
Paulo in oil he didn't dare use an open flame against me, but he
still cooked my insides a little bit. That all seems to be healed
now, so I should bounce back from the rest of this pretty quickly."

I
did a double-take. "How are you even alive? I never would have
expected that a vampire could cook your insides without using fire on
your outsides."

"Yeah,
they are pretty nasty customers. There's a reason that we don't go
after the really old ones unless we've got them outnumbered by a
healthy margin, and even then we try to take them by surprise. As for
how I'm alive, us shape shifters are a lot tougher than we look."

I
shook my head in astonishment. "All right, so you'll be up and
moving around in a day or two; what do we do then?"

"You're
not going to like it, but I'm not sure that there is much else you
can do right now. I'm going to be pretty busy trying to pull together
the strike force we'll need to rescue Agony. Until that is all
squared away, there isn't much I'm going to be able to do as far as
training you. I need to pay a visit to Agony too and see what he can
tell me about where he was captured and how he thinks they might be
planning on transporting him."

"You're
hurt. What if you run into that red hybrid again?"

"I'll
be careful. I've got some contacts I trust a lot more than I trusted
Eric."

"Even
so, I'd like to come with you. I can stay invisible and then if
things get bad I can surprise them just like I did with Eric."

Taggart
gave me a long look, but I already knew what he was thinking. Taggart
could afford to be nice to the girl he'd saved in Minnesota, but the
Dream Stealer was another deal altogether. Part of Taggart's
effectiveness came from the fact that he was feared. It was possible
I was going to see him do something terrible to someone over the next
few days as he tried to get the information he needed.

"Are you sure you're ready for that?"

I nodded. "We don't have much else in the way of choices right
now, not if we're going to save your friend."

Alec Graves
Roan Mountain State Park
Tennessee

The
last few days had been difficult and terrifying on several levels.
Brindi was still alive, which was a good thing, but that also brought
with it a whole different bag of problems that I'd never expected to
deal with.

Kaleb
or Brandon would have let her die rather than be virtually chained to
her for two days while she recovered enough to be able to sit up in
bed and even walk around a little on her own, but that wasn't me.
Especially not after she'd saved my life.

We
picked Rachel up from the hotel where we'd left her in Montana, which
took basically a full day of driving, and then I called the number
that Shawn had left me and told the voice on the other end that I
wanted to meet.

The
person on the other end of the line gave me an address and a time two
days later that I figured I could just make if we didn't waste any
time on our drive. I almost made Rachel stay in Montana, but she
begged me to let her come along and, in the end, I agreed to let her
come as far as Nebraska.

We
shape shifters don't do well in close quarters for an extended period
of time, so I ended up renting another SUV so that we could split up.
I spent the entire drive in the very back seat of one of the SUV's
with one hand on Brindi at all times. Rachel spent most of the time
when she wasn't driving looking back and forth between Brindi and me.

By
the time we hit Nebraska, Brindi was doing well enough that she was
awake for as much as a couple of hours at a time, which was
astonishing all by itself. Addicting humans wasn't something that
good little shape shifters were supposed to do. It happened, but it
wasn't usually talked about in polite company, which meant that I
didn't know whether Brindi's rapid recovery was normal for a human
kept in constant contact with the source of her addiction.

We
dropped Rachel off outside of Omaha and I left her enough cash to
make sure that she would be fine even if something happened to the
rest of us. At that point, all that was left to do was walk unarmed
into a meeting with someone I didn't know who might be planning on
trapping me until the Coun'hij could come get me.

It
wasn't the kind of thing designed to make me feel very safe, but I
didn't have a lot of options. I needed help. Shawn might still come
through for me and show up with a bunch of hybrids and wolves from
the Chicago pack, but that was starting to look like a long shot.

The
instructions for the meet had included orders not to bring anyone
else, so I left James, Jasmin and Jess in a small town half an hour
away from the meeting spot and drove the rest of the way there with
just Brindi to keep me company. I would have left her behind as well,
for her own safety if for no other reason, but she wasn't up to any
kind of prolonged separation from me.

Even
when I left for half an hour to shower she always got listless and
her skin took on the pale white of someone who wasn't getting enough
oxygen. Given that, there wasn't any option but to bring her along.

Our
path took us up into the Appalachian Mountains and by the time we
turned off into the overlook that was our final destination I was
glad that I'd rented something with a decent amount of horsepower. I
looked around the parking lot, taking in the other three cars
present, and then got out of the SUV so that I could walk around and
get Brindi's door.

I
got a call a few seconds later.

"You
were supposed to come alone."

"I
did the best I could. She's injured and suffering from a skin
addiction. I can't leave her for more than a few minutes without her
vitals starting to drop off."

There
was silence for a couple of seconds.

"You
should have told me that when we first talked."

"I
would have if you'd given me half a second to get a word in and if
I'd had a chance to think through the fact that I wasn't going to be
able to leave her alone. This is a rather recent development. You can
call Shawn if you don't believe me, he saw it all happen."

"Fine,
stay where you are."

The
phone went silent before I could ask him how long he was going to be,
but that wasn't exactly a surprise, not after the way he'd acted so
far. I looked around and then pointed out a bench on the other side
of the parking lot.

"Can
you make it that far by yourself or do you need me to carry you?"

Brindi
studied the bench for a second before nodding. "I think I can
make it, it will probably do me some good to get a little bit of
exercise in."

Now
that she'd shed the club wear and heavy makeup, she looked a lot
younger. I was betting that she was closer to my age than I'd
originally thought. I should have asked already, but I'd been so busy
trying to get the flow of money started out of the Caymans and into
the U.S. that we hadn't actually talked much.