Cool Hand (41 page)

Senses returned as I was lifted out, thrown on the ground and kicked. I barely felt the blows. As soon as the crushing grip on my neck had eased, my whole world had been concentrated on coughing and gasping for air.

A bag went over my head. Hands grabbed my legs and I felt rope fastened around my ankles.

“You fucking idiot! You could have killed her.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t. She’s alive and we’ll have no trouble from her now.” That was Evans.

“She could barely walk anyway.”

“You listen to me,” Evans yelled. “This bitch needs to be shown how it’s going to be. You two dumb-fucks lift her out without precautions and she’d have gone for you.”

“I’m so scared. She’s tied up and all I’ve got is a fucking shotgun.”

There were slaps and punches to my head and kidneys; hard, soft, hard. Not disabling, but enough to hurt. It’s difficult not to cringe when you can’t see where the hits are coming from and can’t predict how hard they’re going to be. That was the entire point of the bag over my head.

“Yeah, you blow her away, you asshole,” Evans said between punches. “Smart. What you gonna tell Amaral?”

He stopped hitting me and grabbed under my arm to haul me to my feet. Blades of hot pain stabbed my shoulders again.

I managed to bite down. I wouldn’t give them the pleasure of hearing me cry out. They’d have enough confirmation from my panting and heart rate, which were more difficult to control.

“Well, if you got her, I’ll go. Still some Ute bitches need—”

“Shut the fuck up, and concentrate on this.”

Evans was dominant, but it felt edgy, out of control. He didn’t know how to handle it, and his dominance was feeding on the ugly emissions from the nearby Were. The second speaker, the one who’d started to say something about
Ute bitches
, he was one of the rapists—there was a sickness coming off him like the smell of gangrene.

Their argument stopped and a second hand went under my other arm. I was dragged between them. The rope around my ankles had been left with enough slack to allow me to take small steps, but I wasn’t going to cooperate.

Even through the pain, my wolf was taking note of the marques around me. Guy on my left: House Romero, now Amaral. Behind me: Gold Hill pack—the rapist with the shotgun. Denver pack on my right—that was Evans, and he was the one who’d kicked and punched me. The one who’d lifted me slowly to ensure I choked.

He was a dead man walking.

The building was quieter now than it had been earlier, when I’d been scouting. No screams, I thought for a moment, and then there was one. The Gold Hill Were heard it too. I could feel his reaction.

There was a change to the sound. It’d been screams of pain earlier. Now it was lower, the voices ragged, exhausted. More a cries of despair.

I opened myself to the Call and tasted the foulness that was Gold Hill, the fading desolation that was Ute Mountain.

Gold Hill were
all
dead men walking.

I slammed my senses closed again. I couldn’t do anything yet.

I was pushed and pulled down a corridor, into an echoing room.

They let go of me and, as I was falling, a powerful blast of water hit me on my chest, pushing me backward. The bag was snatched away and the water aimed at my face.

It was freezing cold, but by the time they lifted me off the slick tiled floor, I was clean.

I was gagged and the bag was put back on again. Then I was dragged outside and dropped on the ground.

Keep focusing. If you lose track and just wait for the next thing to happen to you, you’re half-way to broken.

I thought I was in one of the courtyards—there was a sense of space around me, but enclosed.

I could hear a fountain, so not the front courtyard, which was a bare flagstone quadrangle.

And a man having a conversation on a phone. Amaral. I recognized the voice. He was keeping it smooth and confident, but he was pacing back and forth.

Overshadowing all of that, a working, so bright in my mind that I could barely hear what Amaral was saying. A hugely powerful working. It buzzed. Colors I couldn’t see pulsed and writhed like electric snakes just out of sight.

I wasn’t sure whether it was the head trauma, the constant pain of my arms or the unsettling working that I was sensing, but I had to struggle to keep from vomiting.

I couldn’t allow that.

This was all part of the deliberate process of breaking me down. The nakedness, the beatings, the cold, the disorientation from not being able to see. My defense was to keep as much dignity as I could and stay focused and aware of my surroundings. Any knowledge about what was going on was useful.

Think of it as one of Ben-Haim’s training games.

I could almost hear him.
You’ve made mistakes, yes. You’re where you’re at. Put it behind you. What are you going to do next?

“I understand your concerns perfectly, House Ibarre, because they’re mine as well,” Amaral said.

Ibarre. Athanate House in Portland, Maine. One of the dozen long-established Houses in the USA that weren’t directly associated with Altau. Affiliated through Panethus, but not associated by oath to Skylur. One of the proud Houses whose independence had been under threat from Skylur since the Assembly.

In the relative quiet, I strained to hear Ibarre’s words.

“Proof?” Amaral said. “Yes, I have proof. Earlier tonight we captured the Altau assassin sent to complete the destruction of House Romero. She was attempting to kill me and Diana Ionache.”

“Captured?” Ibarre’s question was clear.

“Yes, captured. I will present her, or her body, at the meeting,” Amaral said. “It’s not known if she’ll survive her injuries at the moment.”

That wasn’t reassuring—to hear I had life-threatening injuries.

Ibarre spoke again.

“No. Not Diakon Trang. As I said in my earlier broadcast, it’s the hybrid abomination, Farrell. You asked for proof and I have her. It was a suicide mission, apparently. Altau must have been hoping to clear up two problems at once.”

A longer response from Ibarre.

“Yes, Ionache will be there too. She’s…” Amaral’s voice hesitated dramatically. “I can’t explain how badly Altau’s betrayal at the Assembly has hurt her, devastated her. I’m also not sure what part she will be able to take in the meeting, but I assure you we have her full backing, and I must stress again, it’s vital that you put all communications with Altau on hold until we speak with one voice.”

Ibarre, as far as I could tell, was taking it as gospel.

“So I can count on you. Excellent. The necessary information is being sent to you.”

The conversation ended.

“Call the Diakon at House Prowser next,” Amaral said to someone. “Schedule a conversation with Amelie Prowser in fifteen minutes.”

Prowser. Old House, even older than Ibarre, even earlier in the US. Big city mantle. Chicago? Or was it Detroit? Prowser was another of the unhappy independents.

How many had he spoken to? How many had he convinced?

I heard Amaral’s footsteps approach and the bag was jerked off my head.

His face was dominated by bushy eyebrows, which gave his eyes an appearance of staring. His neck was thick, his lower lip fleshy. He hid his evil nature under a pensive expression.

“Your lies are going to run out soon,” I said. Talking hurt; my lips were bruised and swollen.

“Too late for you,” he replied. He turned to Evans. “You. Evans? What reason do you think I might have for keeping this woman alive?”

Evans hadn’t been expecting to be noticed. He had his own plans that involved keeping me alive for a while, but he was just about smart enough to know that wasn’t what Amaral was asking.

“Ah. You could build up the rumor that she can help halfies change.” He shrugged. “Might get you some Were allies when you need it.”

“Not a bad thought.” Amaral laughed. “My Adept allies tell me it’s complete shit, of course. No, no, she’s part of something much better. Much bigger.”

He looked at me.

“You’re the key I needed,” he said. “You probably can’t even understand why it needs to be done, but, in your own way, you’re going to be the one responsible for bringing down Altau. All I need is the backing of four other Panethus Houses and I can call a Convocation. That’s just four out of the dozen Houses that are unhappy with Altau, in this country alone. He’ll never survive a vote.”

He was probably right.

“They may be unhappy, but you’ll never convince them,” I said, my voice was hoarse and my throat painful. “You won’t even be able to get them together to call the Convocation.”

Amaral laughed. “I don’t need to get them together. Such is the wonder of old laws written in Athanate, before the concept of video-conferencing. There is nothing to stop us from meeting virtually, and then issuing the call from just inside Altau’s primary domain, which he has conveniently made the whole state of Colorado. As to persuading them…you’re right. I couldn’t do it alone.”

He turned and gestured. “Bring her.”

The convent’s church was the building between the two courtyards. The main entrance was on this side, where smooth circular steps rippled down from wide double doors.

At a sign from Amaral, his guards opened the doors fully. Evans and the Athanate dragged me over and deposited me on my feet in front of the steps.

This was the source of the working.

Just inside the church, the pews had been cleared and there were about twenty children sitting in two tidy rings around an old woman sleeping in a chair.

Two men and two women, Adepts, stood at the compass points, outside the rings of children, facing inwards toward the old woman.

The old woman raised her head—slowly, painfully—and opened her eyes.

It was Diana. The shock of recognition burned through me. I could barely recognize her. Her hair had gone gray and her face was lined.

Every child mimicked her actions in unison, their faces vacant of any emotion. The four Adepts stood as if statues, locked into their working, only their eyes moving.

Diana saw me and her head dropped again, as if the effort had exhausted her.

I twisted to escape, but Evans’ grip on my arm was too strong, and moving sent jolts of agony through my shoulders.

Amaral was laughing again.

“Give me the right lever and I can move the world,” he said. “Ionache, you said I wouldn’t be able to bring the right lever to bear on you.”

He walked across to me, gripped my bound wrists and yanked them upward behind me.

This time I couldn’t help but scream at the pain.

“I’ve hardly started,” he said. “You understand that it will be far, far worse than this.”

Diana lifted one unsteady hand. The movement rippled through the children.

“You want me to stop? You agree to broadcast a message of support for me?”

Diana’s head nodded slightly.

“Good,” he said smoothly. “Much better. And you.” He let go of my arms and took a handful of hair instead, shook me like a dog. “You need to see the consequences of any attempt to escape.”

He made another of his gestures at the Adepts, hand raised and held up.

Diana’s back arched and she screamed. She screamed and screamed as if there was never going to be an ending to it. The children screamed with her.

“Please,” I shouted. “Stop.”

Amaral’s hand dropped slowly, and the screams died. Diana slumped back into her chair, looking even older than she had just minutes before.

“Just so we are quite clear.” Amaral shook me again. “Those children serve two purposes. They’re sustaining your Mentor, and providing the energy of the working that holds her. They’re not just imitating her—they feel what she feels. She dies, they die. Understand?”

I felt sick. I didn’t dare open my mouth—the things I wanted to say to him would come out whether I wanted them to or not.

I just nodded.

“And rescue? Kill one of those Adepts and the working will kill Ionache and the children.”

Amaral threw me down on the ground.

As he turned away, Diana raised her head once more to look at me.

Some Athanate were rumored to have the ability to communicate telepathically. It wasn’t a conversation with words—everything was done by shared meanings. It was called alectic dialogue.

I certainly didn’t have the ability to do anything like that without Kaothos nearby to relay messages. I suspected Diana and Skylur might have. Sometimes they just looked at each other for a few seconds and then announced the decision that they’d agreed on.

Alectic dialogue or not, when she looked at me, we both knew completely and utterly what the other was thinking.

She’d had to refuse until Amaral presented a threat that had some hold over her which he thought was credible. That had been me. If she’d said she would cooperate earlier, he would have been suspicious.