Lost (6 page)

"I
can make that happen. I know people who specialize in that kind of
thing, we could pose as IT auditors from their accounting firm. All
of those types of companies are publically held and their external
auditors are the one group of people that pretty much have to see
every security measure they have in place."

I
found myself nodding. "That's not a bad idea, actually, but to
answer your question, I don't think that this would have been
possible even just a few years ago. Most of the current pack leaders
are at least eighty or ninety years old. There are always exceptions,
but it's pretty unusual to have someone as young as Alec running a
pack. That means that they don't tend to think in terms of
cyber-threats. Sure, they hire people to keep them in the loop about
the threats that they are most likely to face, but that isn't the
same as really understanding the threat yourself.

"Even
more than that though, up until recently our national economy was a
lot more cash-based than it's become over the last few years. We had
a lot of small, independent gas stations who used actual cash
registers rather than big national and regional chains that have
fancy digital point-of-sale devices that instantly send every
transaction off to a central database for long-term storage."

"I
see. It wouldn't have been feasible before now because to get the
data we need we would have had to find and steal paper documents."

"Right,
and even if we managed to get all of the data that we needed we'd
still be faced with the impossible task of manually analyzing them,
which would have taken decades."

"I'm
impressed, Isaac. Alec really was right about you."

"What,
that I spend too much time behind my computer?"

"No,
that you're the kind of guy who always comes through in a pinch, the
kind of guy who can be depended on, which is a lot less common than
most people realize."

It
was suddenly hard to talk, but I forced my question out. "When
did he say that?"

"Right
before we all split up in Nevada. I managed to get him off by himself
and told him that things were getting a lot worse with Kristin. He
told me to bring you along, but I wasn't thrilled by the idea, not
after how tense things got between you and me the night of the
attack."

"Yeah,
you pissed off a lot of people that night. I wouldn't turn your back
on Grayson anytime soon."

"I
wasn't planning on it, but it's nice to have some independent
confirmation of the fact that he's carrying a grudge. It's hard for
me to get a good read on that guy most of the time."

That
wasn't a line of conversation that I wanted to pursue. It was a short
trip from Grayson to Wyatt and Jess.

"So
Alec told you to take me and you said no, but he overruled you and
here we are."

"No,
Alec suggested I take you, I said no, and then he told me that there
was a storm coming, the kind of storm where I'd need someone I could
trust at my back, someone like you."

"I…thanks.
I appreciate the vote of confidence, from both of you I guess, but I
especially appreciate you letting me know he said that. It means more
than I expected it to after some of the things that have happened
lately."

We
lapsed back into a silence that was mostly comfortable until Kristin
started screaming in the back seat. I bailed out of the passenger
seat and back to the rear seat before Ash could even open his mouth
to ask me to check on her. Ash flipped on the interior dome light as
I reached her.

She
was still asleep, but every single muscle in her body was tensed up
like they were trying to rip themselves free of her bones. She was
screaming nonstop—I wasn't sure how she was keeping it up
without stopping to breathe, but she was doing it.

She
started thrashing and I pressed down on her shoulder to hold her in
place, but it was like pushing an oak tree.

"Get
her awake!"

Ash
and I had both been screaming her name since the attack started, so I
did the only other thing I could think of. I slapped her. Not as hard
as I could have, but hard enough that I was riding a fine line
between shocking her awake and simply giving her a concussion.

Kristin's
head rocked back and to the side and then her eyes snapped open. "Get
off of the main road, Ash."

"What?"

"I
just had another precognitive dream. Dream Stealer was trying to keep
me there so that I couldn't warn you. Get off of the main highway,
they know we're driving down this road and they've got a description
of our vehicle."

I
looked forward at Ash as he looked up at me in the rearview mirror. I
could see the same doubt in his eyes that I was thinking of.

"Guys,
we really need to get off of the road. I'm telling you, this dream
was the real deal, the details were too crisp to be anything other
than another prophetic dream."

"This
isn't the first time that Dream Stealer has done this to you,
Kristin. He knows how your power works now. He knows the mistakes he
made back in Sanctuary when he tried to counterfeit one of your
dreams."

"I can't
believe we're having this discussion. I have no idea where we are or
even where we're headed. Ash had to have changed directions when I
fell asleep. How could Dream Stealer possibly lure us into some kind
of ambush?"

"If he's
got satellites under his control and he knows roughly where we were
when you fell asleep, then he just looks for a vehicle that exits the
interstate shortly after you wake up and tell us about the ambush.
One time probably wouldn't be enough, but if he can cross-reference
that data with a knowledge of where we are when you go to sleep next
it might be enough to narrow his list of suspects down to something
he can have his people in the area manually run down."

"That's
crazy. Dream Stealer wants me at large for as long as possible in the
hopes that you guys will slip up and tell me something he can use.
That satellite thing doesn't even sound possible, there's too much
area to cover for it to work."

I bit my lip. I
didn't actually know whether or not it was possible. Alec had other
guys he turned to when it came to the satellite stuff. I needed time
to think, but Ash only gave me a couple of seconds.

"Call it,
Isaac. You're the expert and you're the one who's back there with
her. If she's right then we need to move sooner rather than later if
we're going to have any chance of avoiding the net they are setting
up for us."

Kristin shot
Ash a dirty look, but she didn't say anything before she turned back
to me and met my gaze. Her scent wasn't off, at least no more than
you'd expect from someone who was convinced that we were just seconds
away from being jumped by a superior force. That was the problem, all
of the signs that might have told me that she was lying would have
been masked by the fact that she was worried about us.

I had no way of
being sure. Even if she was telling the truth, Dream Stealer might
have figured out how to counterfeit her precognitive dreams.

"Go ahead
and get off at the next exit, Ash. We'll have to ditch the car
somewhere in New Orleans first thing once the sun rises. If we can do
it under an overpass or inside of a parking garage again that should
make sure that Dream Stealer loses our trail if this is some kind of
trick. Given that we'll be right smack dab in the middle of your old
pack's territory, it's a big risk though."

Ash nodded as
he pulled onto the off ramp. "Yeah, all it would take is one
phone call for him to have Onyx turn out the entire pack to look for
us. If they know what we're driving we won't have any chance of
getting away."

Kristin
motioned me out of the way so that she could go sit next to Ash.
"We'll just have to be careful and move quickly. As long as we
ditch this car before they realize they lost us, we have a decent
chance of making a clean getaway. What were you guys thinking coming
down here, by the way?"

I felt like
banging my head against the window. All the work trying to keep our
location a secret from Kristin and we'd just told her exactly where
we were. Even worse, if she realized that we had a compelling reason
to be down here then we were completely screwed. Dream Stealer would
have an ambush waiting for us the next time we came down to talk to
the lamias.

"We just
thought it was the last place that anyone would look for us."

Ash said it
without any change to his expression. There was a tiny blip in his
heart rate, but I might have missed it if I hadn't been paying
attention. I mentally added another entry to the list of things that
I knew Ash could do. I hadn't realized that he was that good of a
liar.

Kristin leaned
back in the passenger's seat, rolling her eyes at the way the leather
squeaked. "Well, it was a stupid idea. You should have headed to
whatever safe house you've got in mind for us. The sooner we can
climb into a hole and pull it closed behind us the happier I'll be."

Ash started to
respond and then frowned as he looked at the rearview mirror for the
third time in as many seconds. Kristin noticed too.

"What's
going on, Ash?"

"There's a
vehicle back there that got close to us like they were planning on
passing, but they just backed way off. It was hard to tell, but it
looked like something big, maybe a van or another SUV."

"Crap,
they found us; can you lose them?"

He shook his
head and then looked back at me. "Please pass my bug-out bag up
to Kristin. We need to put silencers on our guns. Trying to run is
almost guaranteed to fail. The car behind us will stay just far
enough back to radio our position to the rest of the hunters and
they'll just slowly tighten the noose around us. If we were in the
city maybe we could lose them, but it's too open here, too few places
to disappear."

Kristin screwed
a silencer onto her gun and then handed it back to me to hold while
she reached around Ash so that she could unholster his weapon.

"How are
we going to do this?"

Ash looked back
at me as if to see whether I wanted to weigh in, but I just waved for
him to proceed. This kind of spy stuff was more his bag of tea than
mine. If I thought his plan wouldn't work then I could always make my
case once he was done explaining his idea.

"If there
was any way to be sure those are bad guys back there I'd just drive
up next to them and start shooting while they're still in the car and
unable to shift. Instead Kristin and I are going to swap seats and
then Isaac and I will pile out of the SUV while it's still moving.
With any luck we can do it without them seeing. Kristin pulls to a
stop fifty yards later and then Isaac and I wait for these guys to
stop and get out of their vehicle.

"If they
drive on by then we jump back in the car and drive back the way we
came. If not, that's a bad sign. If they give off any kind of shape
shifter vibe, or anyone recognizes one of them as being a known agent
for the Coun'hij, we open fire on them and Isaac intercepts whoever
tries to rush either of the shooters."

It wasn't a
great plan, but it gave us a chance of taking them by surprise and I
didn't have anything better to offer. I gave Ash a nod of agreement
as I started stripping out of my clothes, and then he and Kristin
swapped places with a smoothness that would have been impossible
without cruise control.

"There,
the road bends and those cypress trees will partially hide us from
view."

Ash and I threw
ourselves out of the SUV and hit the ground rolling. I was tempted to
shift then and there, but there was too much chance that someone
would feel me changing, even through the metal and glass of the other
vehicle, and then we'd lose the element of surprise.

Instead I took
deep breaths as I crouched behind the tree that Ash had pointed out.
The air was full of smells that I'd never encountered before, mostly
plant life, but I could smell some animals on the wind too.

"Anything
out here I should be worried about?"

"Nothing
from downwind of us, but that's not the most reassuring fact since we
won't be able to smell if anything comes out of the vegetation behind
us."

A smile tugged
at my lips despite my best efforts. "You're just a rousing ball
of non-stop fun. Remind me again what it is that Kristin sees in
you."

"I'm great
fun at a party."

"I'd like
to see that."

"Isn't
that what we're about to do?"

The following
car, another black SUV, came even with us and we both hunkered down
and shut up in case they had a window down. Kristin had already
started slowing down, which caused the other guys to follow suit.

Her timing
wasn't perfect, but she managed to bring them to a stop less than
twenty yards from us. Ash and I both stood and crept forward, only to
freeze as soon as the first door swung open.

"Remember,
there's only three of them. Kill Nazir and the girl, but take Hunt
alive if at all possible. Onyx wants him to use as leverage against
his sister and the boss owes Onyx a favor."

Kristin was
already out of our car. She'd angled it slightly so that it would
provide her with a little cover, but even from here I could tell that
she was nervous.

"Hey, wait
a second! She's by herself."

We were out of
time. Even if they hadn't been able to see that our vehicle was empty
they would have still known something was up when they stopped to
count heartbeats.

Ash opened fire
and he was every bit as deadly as I'd hoped he would be. There were
four of them. Ash put two rounds in the first guy, dropping him
before he could change forms.

Kristin got her
gun in play before Ash could get his third shot off. There was too
much going on for me to be sure who hit the next enforcer, but he was
mid-change when the bullets started slamming into him. A fraction of
a second sooner and they probably would have put him down as easily
as the first guy, but his hybrid body was just too big and
damage-resistant to be taken out of action that quickly. He staggered
back behind the side of the car, which sheltered him from Ash's
shots, and then broke into a fast run towards Kristin.