Intrusion (3 page)

I shrugged, uncomfortable with Isaac's
bitterness. It was simultaneously a pointed example of why Rachel
was right to worry, and a reminder that I wasn't the only one who'd
lost something when Oblivion had stolen my memories.

My very identity had vanished, but Isaac had
lost his best friend and paramour. My loss was by far the larger,
and Isaac never tried to imply otherwise, but it wasn't like this
was easy on him either.

We crossed over a stream and I felt the
faintest trace of the rancid stink again. I turned to say something
to Isaac, but he'd caught it too.

"Tell Rachel we've got something. The others
should start angling this direction."

I started relaying instructions as Isaac jumped
down to the stream bank and then waded out into the middle of the
water. He grabbed a stick that was floating by and held it up to
his nose.

"Tell her they're upstream somewhere. The scent
we're picking up is from stuff they are throwing into the
water."

Rachel paused for a second after relaying my
news. "Alec says that since we smelled it from the park they must
be further upstream than that. He and Jas are dropping back for the
cars; one of them will pick you up in five minutes, and we'll start
over from the park."

Once we arrived at the park, Alec
and Jas started walking upstream. The rest of us ranged out to
either side while Rachel paralleled us as best as she was able from
the road. The scent got more frequent and stronger the longer we
were walking. When we finally rounded a corner and saw a large
industrial complex Isaac shook his head and then pulled me back
behind the hill.

"Should have known the bloodsuckers would
choose this place."

"Is this place special somehow?"

"No, just an eyesore Alec would have had taken
care of years ago if Brandon hadn't been so determined to maintain
it as you see it now. Alec probably has plans to clear it out
still; the Coun'hij just threw a wrench into all of his
plans."

We'd been walking long enough for
the sun to start to set behind us. I didn't necessarily fancy
hunting vampires down in the dark, but in theory they were more
sight-based than we were, so it should all even out.

Rachel pulled up slowly beside us,
lights off, engine barely idling, as the rest of the pack jogged
over. Alec started pulling off his clothes to reveal the stretchy
ha'bit we all wore underneath our clothes. The rest of the pack
followed suit as he started explaining the plan of attack. I slowly
did the same. The ha'bit was better than being naked, but I still
felt uncomfortable stripping down to so little around people I'd
known for such a short time. Worse was the fact that I didn't feel
comfortable slipping into my four-footed shape, especially not if
we were about to get into a real fight.

"Jas, Isaac, James and I will go in through the
front gate. Four legs and stay low and under cover as much as
possible, we won't be moving super-fast. Jess, Dom, I want the two
of you to circle around the right side and work your way to the
back exit. It's a bit overgrown, but I don't fancy trying to run
them down if they've got a vehicle and they try to break that
direction. Pull the gate shut behind you, wedge it closed the best
you can, and then stay there and stop them from opening it back
up."

My heartbeat shot through the roof.
It was bad enough when I did that with Rachel, it was worse when it
happened with the rest of the pack. Unlike her, they could all hear
my pulse and it was a blaring announcement of just how scared I
was.

Isaac shifted slightly closer to me, the
instinct to reassure me apparently at odds with his sure knowledge
that I wasn't comfortable with him so close when I was the next
best thing to nude. Alec pretended not to notice and continued,
turning to Rachel.

"Rach, turn the Escalade around and then lock
the doors and keep the engine running. If you see them break this
direction either on foot or in a vehicle honk the horn. Twice for
on foot, three times for a vehicle."

I was shaking now. Not even Rachel could fail
to see my terror.

"Alec, don't make Jess go, she's not
ready for this."

Alec shook his head. "They shouldn't
have any problems, but if they do run into a vampire, things will
go much better if there are two of them. They don't have to bring
it down, they just need to hold it up until the other four of us
can get there."

Isaac opened his mouth, probably to protest as
well, and Alec turned on him with a flare of power that set my
teeth on edge.

"Don't, Isaac. I know what you're
going to say, but you're reaping the fruits of your decision
earlier. If you'd backed down then, we'd have worked with her
before now. At worst she'd be comfortable on four legs. At best
she'd be some real use in a fight."

The answering rush of power from Isaac was
impressive, but still not in the same league as Alec. For the
briefest of moments the decision hung in the air and then Isaac
bowed his head and took a step back.

The energy bubbling off of Alec was still
nearly enough to bring me to my knees. Alec opened his mouth as if
to say something, but instead just pointed at Dom and me and then
whipped his arm around towards the back of the complex.

I looked over at Dom, but she'd already dropped
down to hands and knees, and in between one breath and the next her
form rippled into that of the big cat that was her alternate form.
I sucked in as much air as my lungs would hold, and then let my
beast rush up from the corner of my being where I usually kept her
chained.

It hurt, but in an odd kind of way that was
over so quickly that I almost didn't remember the pain of the
transition once it was done. For a second I just basked in the
glory of being a wolf again. Every single sense was enhanced, but
my top two favorites were just how incredibly sensitive my nose had
become, and the way that everything had a thin film of light over
top of it.

Isaac had tried to explain the
theory behind why we could see a soft glow around anything living,
but frankly I didn't care why, I only cared that it turned the
otherwise-dull landscape into a glistening paradise. I swung my
head back and forth, drinking in the beauty, and then a low growl
from Alec reminded me that I was supposed to be following
Dom.

I slipped off into the relative darkness.
Tracking her was easy, she'd made no attempt to try and hide her
scent trail, and she wasn't moving overly fast, so I caught up
quickly. I'd spent as little time as possible on four feet, but now
that I was gliding through the night with such ease it was hard to
remember why.

Dom brushed up against me,
shouldering me to one side, and I had to fight back the growl that
tried to bubble up past my teeth. She was vastly more experienced
at all of this than I was, but in this shape it was harder to
remember those kinds of things. My beast didn't care who was most
experienced, it cared who was the strongest, and we'd never had it
out to see who was dominant; at least not that
 
I
 
could
remember.

I stepped on the urge to launch into
a full-blown dominance challenge right then and there, instead
choosing to fall back enough that I could just follow her. Not
being able to talk was less than convenient. It was one of the many
advantages that hybrids like Alec, James and Isaac had over the
rest of us. Those on four legs had to rely on body language to try
and communicate. Dom had mentioned in passing her belief that lack
of speech had been the primary reason that cats like her hadn't
ever come out on top in the wars they'd had with the
wolves.

Unlike wolves, cats seemed to get stronger and
stronger as they aged. It meant that a really powerful southern
shape shifter was a match singly for some of the smaller packs, but
their solitary nature had so far kept them bottled up down in South
America.

Dom pulled up short and I realized I
hadn't been paying enough attention. We'd arrived while I'd been
thinking about things that had less than zero importance to me
right now. A chill worked its way up between my shoulder blades and
down my muzzle.

The gate was open, and given the way
the vegetation had been hacked up, it was a recent change. Dom
padded up to the gate, softly batted at it and then looked
pointedly at me. I bristled a little at the implication, but she
was right. If one of us had to reassume our normal shape, and be
less useful in a fight, it was better for me to do it.

I mentally reached out to my beast and pulled
her back, cramming her back down into the corner of my being where
she usually dwelt. It was a fight, but it was always a fight.
Eventually I pushed her back enough that the transformation swept
back through me, leaving me panting on my hands and
knees.

I'd forgotten just how inconvenient
it was to go back to two legs when you didn't have a pair of shoes
handy. The decaying asphalt wasn't so bad at least. I pulled the
gate shut without too much of a problem, but I had to walk up the
fence for quite a ways before I finally found a twisted bit of
metal that looked like it would serve to immobilize the
gate.

Dom paced me the whole way there and back, tail
slowly twitching back and forth as she watched for trouble. I bit
back a curse as I stepped on a jagged branch, and then I was back
on the road and wedging the gate closed.

Dom was pacing back and forth
expectantly so I sank back down to my hands and knees. I had a
split second to realize why I was so uncomfortable being a wolf,
and then the change was upon me and I was padding along on four
legs again.

It was the fear that this time I wouldn't be
able to push my beast back down, that I'd be trapped as a wolf
forever.

We didn't range very far away from the gate,
just far enough for the smell of vampire to get stronger. This
close I was able to start picking out some subtleties to the
stench. Cigarettes, alcohol, cucumber melon lotion. There were
other scents, but they were more subtle, less easily
distinguished.

I felt my guts tighten up as I
realized that there was more than just the one vampire we'd been
hoping we were facing. Still, three vampires shouldn't be too bad.
Alec and the others would outnumber their opponents. As long as
none of the vampires were too old, too powerful, we'd be
okay.

The barest hint of Isaac's scent cut through
the vampire smell, and then there was yelling from an area halfway
between us and the front gate. Dom and I both tensed up as strains
of violence drifted back to us.

There was a meaty thud as someone was thrown
into what sounded like the side of a dumpster, and then three sets
of footsteps, moving our direction, very quickly. If I'd been by
myself I probably would have crouched down and tried to go
unnoticed, but Dom was already moving forward, sliding behind a
stack of abandoned barrels that would serve as a decent ambush
point.

My hesitation cost me. There wasn't
time now to find concealment of my own, but in moving to follow Dom
I'd abandoned the patch of shadow that might have otherwise
sheltered me. I was stuck between two options, neither one quite
close enough when the first vampire came around the corner of the
rusted crane just ahead of me.

The other two were only half a stride behind
him, and the trio slowed just long enough to confirm that I was by
myself.

The one in the lead was a tall, dark-haired
male with some kind of straight sword held loosely in his left
hand. At his right was a shorter, ultra-slender, man with a pair of
small axes. A redheaded woman with some kind of curved cutlass
rounded out the trio.

"Liz, get the vehicle, we'll take care of this
one."

Liz opened her mouth to argue, but
the taller man cut her off with a hiss.

"The master can't hold the others off for
forever."

I crouched and moved slightly,
retaining just enough presence of mind to try and lure them more
optimally past Dom's hiding spot. The woman took off again at a
run, heading parallel to the fence in the opposite direction from
where I'd found the rod we'd used to bar the gate.

I noticed her only peripherally, instead
focusing on the two men who'd spread out slightly as they advanced
on me. The fear hadn't left, not really, but it'd managed to loosen
some of the control I normally kept on my beast, and she knew
exactly what she wanted to do to these two.

We moved up slightly, judging the distance
between us and the vampires as the first one walked past Dom. It
was going to be tricky. Too close and I risked having to fight the
leader before Dom had a chance to take down the short guy. Too far
away and the leader would be able to turn and attack Dom before I
could get there and distract him.

Time seemed to slow down slightly
with multiple heartbeats between each step, and then the second man
was even with Dom and she was sailing through the air. Something
about the change took Dom's normally tiny frame of a hundred and
fifteen pounds and turned it into a monstrous two hundred and
thirty pounds. She hit the vampire with the impact of a
professional linebacker and drove him to the ground as her jaws
closed around his neck.