Bound (Dark Reflections Volume 1) (33 page)

Vincent started back towards his SUV with a smile on his face. "Tonight is actually turning out much better even than I expected it to. James is as good as dead, and Brandon will run Alec down and kill him too. By sundown my two biggest rivals will be dead and Alec will get the satisfaction of knowing that he didn't manage to save his sister from me. It's only a matter of time now."

Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

I messed up catching Rachel and she hit harder than I meant for her to. She managed to avoid yelling and potentially alerting Scott to the fact that we hadn't stayed in the car with everyone else, but she let out a hiss of pain when she tried to put weight on her ankle.

"I think it's just sprained, Alec."

"I'm sorry, Rach. I'll carry you back to the garage. Once we get there you won't have to do much of any walking."

As I handed her the backpack that I'd stolen from Kaleb's office, I had a brief moment to hope that I hadn't broken the tablet when I'd exited the car, and then I lifted her up onto my back with one hand and picked the sword back up with the other.

We had to go the long way around in order to make sure that Scott couldn't see us, and I was in my primary form, but we still managed to cover the distance to the garage in a little less than three minutes. I set Rachel carefully down and then went and backed up the 450cc dirt bike that had taken up one corner of the smaller garage where Kaleb stored his toys.

I was pretty sure that Kaleb had forgotten about the bike years ago. There wasn't much reason to keep a motorcycle around when you could just shift to four legs and cover most uneven ground even more quickly than most dirt bikes, but the bike was one half of a matching pair that Kaleb had purchased back before things had gotten so bad between him and Mother.

They'd only ridden the bikes together a few times and Mother's had been scrapped a long time ago, but I happened to know that Donovan had seen to the care of this particular machine and that it was in perfect working order.

I checked to make sure it still had a full tank of gas and then wheeled it out through the side door before going back for Rachel. A few seconds later the bike roared to life and we set off towards a shallow wash that I figured would let us cover the first five or six miles while remaining safely out of sight of the house.

The noise was a concern, but we occasionally had people from Sanctuary come joyriding along the outer edges of the estate on similar bikes. I was hoping that, along with the fact that the bike had been stored in the smaller garage on the far side of the house from the main motor pool, would let us get away cleanly, but I knew it wasn't much more than a hope and a prayer. The fact of the matter was that I hadn't been able to come up with a better plan, at least not one that dealt with all of the other problems that became more important once we were a little ways away from the house.

I'd never spent any time on a motorcycle before now, but I'd spent a few minutes reading up on the relevant concepts before I went to Kaleb's office. I'd come away feeling fairly comfortable with the mechanics involved, but I still tried to start out cautiously. It was a good thing I did because I leaned too far to one side as I brought it around a corner and the back tire spun out.

I managed to get my foot down and stop from laying the bike down, but with Rachel's added weight on the back it was a close thing and I suspected that if I'd had merely human reflexes that I wouldn't have been able to save us.

We dropped down into the wash and I opened the throttle up a little more. I could feel the minutes ticking away and I knew that Kaleb and Brandon wouldn't be fooled by my sleight of hand with James and the others for very long.

As the bike hit forty-five miles per hour the wind started to become an issue. I squinted my eyes and cursed myself for not thinking to bring some sunglasses at least. A helmet would have been better, but I'd had no idea whether or not Kaleb had even purchased any safety gear with the bike let alone where he might have it stored away.

I tried to speed up a little more, but between the wind and my lack of skill I was already at the ragged edge of what could be considered safe when driving over terrain that I'd only ever crossed on four legs. I could probably survive any conceivable crash I might get into as long as I transformed into a hybrid quickly enough, but Rachel didn't have my inborn advantages and she probably wouldn't escape serious hurt if I were to lose control of the bike.

Kaleb's sword slapped against the tank as I came up out of the wash and we started across country. For a second I worried that the sword was going to drop away from the bike, but the bungees that I'd used to strap it down held, which meant that I could return my attention to driving.

It was slower going now that we were out of the wash and dealing with more broken ground than we'd been driving on. My shoulders tensed up as I realized that we'd slowed to the point where we were only a couple of miles an hour faster than a wolf could run. We'd gained a little ground on any potential pursuit up until now, but I somehow knew that it wasn't enough.

I pushed a little harder and squeezed a couple of miles per hour more out of the bike despite the risk that we'd crash, but it was unlikely to make much difference. The bike was inferior in almost every way to my normal mode of travel. The exhaust whipped away behind us, but not before filling the air with a burning, artificial scent that ruined my sense of smell. As bad as that was, even worse was the way that the drone of the engine drowned out my ability to hear anything else.

Despite all of the things that were working against me, something prompted me to look back just in time to see Brandon jump. I goosed the bike and it leaped forward just before Brandon would have hit us.

I had a split second of satisfaction as Brandon's lean, wolf body hit our back tire and then flew away in a yelp of pain. The impact nearly threw the bike over. The back tire broke loose from the ground and spun out in a spray of dirt and rock, but I threw my weight to the side which kept us from crashing and then I leaned forward and pushed the bike even harder.

We only had a few hundred more yards until we'd reach the road and I'd be able to safely speed back up, but Brandon was apparently faster in wolf form than I'd given him credit for. It was starting to look very doubtful that we'd make it.

We were riding on the very edge of ruin. I was driving too fast for the terrain and my skill level, and I was having to constantly look from side to side in an effort to keep tabs on where Brandon was. It took him only a couple of seconds to regain his feet and give chase and he was quickly gaining on us.

The road was less than fifty yards away, but we weren't going to make it. Brandon could have made another try for us at any time during the last ten seconds, but he hadn't which meant that he'd spotted a better opportunity and was just waiting for us to reach the right spot.

I looked ahead of us and saw a couple of likely spots. The sandy ground had robbed him of the extra edge of speed that he would have needed to bring us down last time despite my best efforts. There was a rock on the left that looked like it was big enough to solve that problem, but it still didn't seem quite right.

Desperation started to take me over and then I realized that I'd been thinking in terms of what would help Brandon rather than what would hinder us. We weren't going to just be able to drive up onto the road, we were going to have to turn left and then go up a slight slope first. There was no way to be positive that was when Brandon was planning on striking, but it felt like the right answer and I didn't have time to second-guess myself.

I floored the bike again as we came up to the rock I'd identified. It was a pitiful attempt, but all that I could manage in the way of evasion that wouldn't leave us sitting ducks if indeed Brandon was biding his time until just before the road like I thought he was.

We flew past the rock and then there was only a couple of seconds before we'd be to the road. Knowing that Brandon would probably go with hundreds of thousands of years of instincts and aim for my neck, I leaned further forward on the bike and then we were to the turning point.

I grabbed the front brake with my right hand and mashed down on it hard enough that the back tire came up off of the ground and only then did I look over to see if my timing had been right.

Brandon was hurtling towards us, but he'd been aiming for where we were supposed to be which meant his aim was off by nearly half a foot. My right hand was still clamped on the brake in an effort to slow us enough to gain a few more inches of clearance, but it wasn't going to be enough. I leaned back, sandwiching Rachel between the back of the bike and me.

Rachel screamed in fear, but I didn't have time to reassure her, not when I was still trying to figure out whether I was a dead man.

It still wasn't enough. I could see the trajectories and although Brandon would miss us with the bulk of his body his jaws were still going to fasten around my neck. My analysis took only the tiniest fraction of a second, and then I threw my left arm forward. It was crazy. Given the relative velocities and the sheer inertia of something Brandon's size it couldn't possibly work, but I was out of other options. I shot my left arm towards thin air and by the time it had moved just a couple of inches the space I hit wasn't empty. I managed to time things just right and I made contact with Brandon's shoulder and shifted him just far enough that his teeth snapped shut two inches from my throat instead of ripping it out.

Shoving Brandon had imparted a sideways motion to us that I hadn't been prepared for and the back wheel of the bike crashed into the rock that we'd been turning to avoid. Brandon hit that same rock several feet ahead of us, but I was too busy trying not to lose complete control of the motorcycle to enjoy my victory.

I got the rear tire back on the ground and twisted my wrist to send us jetting away from Brandon, but although the bike did shoot forward I could tell that something was wrong. The back wheel had picked up a worrisome vibration and it got worse the faster we went.

We made it up onto the road and I took us up to sixty miles per hour, but between the vibration and the fact that we didn't have road tires, that was as fast as I could go without risking that something would go wrong and we'd end up miles still from our destination with Brandon stalking us.

I checked back to confirm that Brandon wasn't able to keep up, and then just focused on keeping the bike from snaking off of the road.

Five minutes later we were within sight of our destination. Getting the schedule for the high-speed passenger train that crossed through the extreme edge of the pack's territory hadn't been difficult, but finding a spot where the train slowed down enough that it was possible for even someone as fast as me to get on was a whole different proposition.

I'd superimposed the train's route over a topological map and finally found a two-hundred-yard stretch where the elevation change was steep enough that I figured I at least had a chance of getting on the train. Either way, as long as the bike held up for another couple of minutes then Rachel would be getting on the train.

As hard as it was to believe after the craziness and terror of the last few minutes, we were actually ahead of schedule slightly—that or the train was running late. As we finally pulled even with the tracks, I looked down the rails and was able to see the train racing towards us. I crossed over to the other side of the tracks and then started the bike slowly towards the train.

Once we were even with the train, I spun us around and started back the other direction. The ground wasn't particularly even, and the vibrations from the back wheel made it even harder to keep the bike steady, but I managed to match speeds well enough for Rachel to let go of me with one hand and reach for the ladder on the back of one of the cars.

"I'm scared, Alec!"

"I know, Rach, but if you don't grab the ladder with both hands then all of this was just a huge waste. Brandon is getting closer all of the time. We may only have a minute or two before he arrives!"

She was shaking so violently that I could feel it even over the road vibrations, but she let go of me with her right hand and started pulling herself up.

"I can't do it!"

I turned my head just enough to see that her fingers were starting to slip, but it was too late to try and get her back on the bike. I'd never convince her to try a second time. I rotated my torso and grabbed ahold of her leg so that I could push her up and off of the bike.

She screamed as she came free of the bike and for a heartbeat was supported by nothing but her hands and my grip on her leg, and then I pushed as hard as I could and her left foot made it onto the very bottom rung.

The motorcycle started to go down even as I saw that Rachel had made it to safety, but everything happened too quickly. I didn't have a chance to change forms, even if I'd been willing to do so where there were so many potential witnesses.

I hit the ground harder even than I expected to. I bit my tongue hard enough that I tasted blood and my elbow was driven into my side hard enough to produce the sharp pain of cracked ribs. For an instant I was tempted to just stay there. Rachel was safe. I'd achieved more than I'd expected to, but I knew that safety in the world that I lived in was a transitory thing. Rachel might be safe for the moment, but sooner or later she'd make a mistake and then Kaleb or Brandon would find her.

I levered myself up off of the ground and checked to make sure that nothing other than my ribs were broken. I was even more bruised and bloody than I'd been a few minutes before, but it looked like I could still run, which was good since the bike looked like it was totaled.

I jogged over to double-check and confirmed that the right handlebar had been snapped entirely off. Luckily Kaleb's sword had been strapped to the left side of the motorcycle and was undamaged. I pulled the weapon free of the wreckage and started running towards the train. I'd lost a lot of ground in the crash, but we were only halfway through the slow stretch.