Riven (17 page)

"I'm sorry if
I'm prying. I guess I just don't understand why anyone would
voluntarily give up their freedom like that."

Jess suddenly
looked very much like she had just after Oblivion had stolen her
memories. She was like a lost child who wasn't quite sure where the
world she knew had gone. Maybe her usual flightiness was just an
attempt to cover up the fact that she still didn't feel like she had
a place with us. I needed to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"Alec saved
my life. You all did, but him most of all. None of the rest of you
would have stood up to my father like that if Alec hadn't ordered you
to help me. It's more than that though. I spent most of my life in a
place where might was the only law. It's not the kind of place anyone
should ever have to live in."

Jess looked over
at me with confusion on her face but she waited for me to find the
words I needed to go on.

"People
sometimes think that what you all live in here is the normal state of
things, but it isn't. Civilization is an aberration. It's the best
arrangement, but it only takes place when the strongest, the most
dangerous among us choose to put aside their self-interest and create
a new order, one where the weak are protected. That is what Alec
represents. The Coun'hij is nothing more than a bunch of thugs who
meddle less than they could, but who ultimately are just in it for
themselves."

"You think
that Alec will create a new era for our people."

"I don't
know. Nearly everything imaginable is arrayed against him, but I hope
so. I hope that he'll create a new era for your people and then that
he'll turn his eyes south and save my people too."

"Is that even
possible?"

"I don't
know. You remember how deadly Anton was? There will be dozens, maybe
hundreds more like him in South America, each of them living like a
tiny despot and completely unwilling to see a new order put into
place."

I seemed to have
finally gotten through to Jess and she sat in silence for several
seconds as she considered what I'd told her. "Do you think that
we'd be able to recruit some of your people to our side?"

"I don't
know. I never met anyone down there that I really trusted, at least
not anyone who is still alive, but Alec is considering the
possibility already. He asked me the other day if I knew anyone from
back home who might be sympathetic to our cause. I think he would
really like to recruit someone who can track like Anton could, but
Alec didn't get into any specifics beyond that."

Whatever Jess
would have said was cut off by James' voice coming through the radio.
"Girls, I need you both out here right now. The nose thinks he's
found all five of the missing people but we're not going in there by
ourselves."

Five minutes later
Jess and I were standing outside the door to a massive old building
as James and Peter finished circling the building to make sure that
the missing people hadn't left out another door.

James took a deep
breath and then pointed at the door. "Okay, it's not vampires
and it doesn't feel like werewolves but that doesn't mean that
whoever kidnapped these people isn't dangerous so we go in together,
Peter in the front, then me, with Dom bringing up the rear. Keep your
eyes open and don't forget the rest of your senses."

Jess and I both
nodded and then stripped down to our ha'bits and changed into four
legs with a ripple of power. James tested the door and found it
locked but his claws punched right through the sheet metal and once
he had a decent-sized hole it was a simple matter to reach through
and unbar the door.

Peter ghosted into
the darkness without any hesitation, which spoke volumes to the
amount of trust he had in James specifically and the rest of us
generally. Nobody liked being point in a dangerous situation, but he
was the best choice given just how sensitive his nose was.

A low whine made
its way back to us as Jess entered the building, but I didn't
understand what was bothering Peter until I was several feet in
myself. The entire building had been sprayed with a combination of
vinegar and something else that burned my nose with surprising
intensity.

It was a bad sign,
but James seemed determined to investigate and I didn't have a good
way of speaking out in this form, even assuming that I wanted to get
into an argument with him in the middle of an operation.

It almost seemed
like we were in an old slaughterhouse. There was a maze of steel
panels crisscrossing the open space that looked like they would be
overkill for containing cows. I couldn't smell anything over the
vinegar but Peter seemed to be getting a whiff of something that was
leading him deeper and deeper into the building.

It smelled like a
trap and I didn't like all of the dead metal, but other than the four
of us there wasn't anything else showing the glow of a living
organism. I could tell that James was getting jittery too, but Peter
was single-mindedly moving deeper into the darkness.

James took a step
forward to call Peter back to us, Jess tight against his flank, when it
happened. Massive sheets of steel dropped down from above locking the
three of them inside the maze of stock panels. James might have made
it out but Jess was too close and she didn't react quickly enough.

James hit the
barrier with his shoulder, but although he managed to shake the
massive improvised cage nothing gave way. I heard Peter moving
forward, cautiously looking for a way out, but I had other worries.

A dimly glowing
figure had just stepped out from behind a screen of some kind and he
was approaching me slowly with a sword gripped loosely in one hand.
He stopped well outside of striking range, fiddled momentarily with
something in his hand and then the lights inside the building came
on.

I blinked away
spots as I backed up to put more space between us, but he didn't move
forward to capitalize on his advantage and as my vision started to
clear I noticed just how familiar my opponent looked.

He was a
middle-aged Asian man with a nondescript build, but it was the eyes
that finally made things click into place for me. I'd seen those cold
eyes once before when I was little more than a child after days of
being stalked by a myth that I'd been so sure didn't really exist.

The Hunter had
found me a second time.

I heard James
yelling for me to get them out, but the opponent between them and me
was one I knew I couldn't beat. The Hunter took a few steps forward,
his sword gleaming darkly in his hand, and then threw a packet of
papers at my feet.

"Vanessa
sends her regards. You're going to want to give everything else in
there to your alpha. He's going to need to take care of a couple of
problems or they'll come back to bite him in unexpected ways."

Old terror tried
to overwhelm me, but my beast provided me with surprising strength
and instead of retreating further I found myself slowly advancing.
The Hunter smiled slightly like an adult who was amused at the antics
of a child and then brought his weapon up into a guard position.

"You've done
well for yourself since I last saw you. You've vindicated my decision
to allow
his
grand experiment to proceed, but never forget
that I'm watching from the shadows.
He's
been wrong before."

A slight movement
of his fingers was the only warning I got. One second the entire
building was bathed in light, the next harsh strobes flashed with
blinding intensity.

I heard the Hunter
turn and walk away but was in too much pain to try and follow him,
especially considering that I'd be stumbling around blind. Fifteen
minutes later, after the spots had cleared from my vision, I changed
back to my two-legged form and picked up the packet of papers from
the ground where The Hunter had thrown them.

The envelope on
the top was addressed to me in a flowing script that matched the
autograph on the books back in my room at the manor. Unsure why I was
doing so, I slipped the envelope inside of my ha'bit before walking
over to the steel panels and finding a way to release James and the
others.

James didn't calm
down until they were released. He'd been throwing himself at the
panels the entire time I'd been disabled, and I knew without looking
that he was going to have bruises all over his upper body.

"Who was
that, Dom?"

I almost laughed
at James' question, but I managed to keep my composure. It wasn't
just that James would have felt insulted if I'd laughed. I was pretty
sure that the laughter would come out with all of the hysteria that I
was feeling inside and I couldn't risk that. Alec was going to need
to believe me when I told my story to him. I didn't know very much
about Vanessa still, but any warning that she'd sent me would be
important. We couldn't afford to have Alec dismiss it.

"He's a
ghost, James. When I was growing up there were legends of a hunter
who tracked down my kind and killed them. The only thing that the
legends agreed on was that nobody had ever survived for long once he
found them."

"So he's
found you now?"

"No, he found
me years ago, before I ever left home. I don't know why he spared me
then any more than I know why he spared me now."

The answer didn't
fully satisfy James but he knew me well enough to know that I'd tell
him whatever I could once we were alone together. The trip back was
pure torture. I didn't get a chance to read my letter until we'd made
it back to the manor and I snuck off to the bathroom.

I'm sorry I
can't tell you more, Dominic. You really are a healer and more than
you know is going to depend on you being able to use your ability.
You're on the right track, but don't waste your time on Rachel, she
can't be helped at this point.

Do whatever it
takes to convince Alec to investigate the two locations in the
packet. One of those cats is a tracker. If Alec can't defeat these
adversaries then all is lost.

I won't be able
to help much more after this. The future is becoming too clouded for
me to commit some of the atrocities I'm being told need to take
place.

Isaac Nazir
City Limits
Las Vegas, Nevada

Jess had been
avoiding me ever since my fight with Wyatt, but I still could have
managed to spend some time with her if Alec hadn't been running me so
hard. We had more muscle around the house these days than we'd had
even a couple of weeks before, but there was still more to do than we
had time for.

The wedding was
just around the corner too, which would make things even worse. I'd
spent most of the last week ferrying VIPs back and forth to the
airport. Once the wedding guests started arriving things would just
get even more hectic.

Alec was typically
elusive. Those who had sworn an oath of fealty to him seemed to get a
few minutes here and there, but the rest of us might as well not have
existed. I got my orders every day from Ash of all people, but the
one and only time I'd tried to push back and assert my dominance,
Grayson had intervened and told me to go do my job before he was
forced to drop me.

I knew why Alec
was doing what he was doing, but it didn't make it any easier to deal
with. We'd been through years of hell together already. I shouldn't
have to swear an oath to him to still be in his inner circle, not
even after some of our recent difficulties.

This particular
mission was just more salt in the wound. Dominic had come back from
her last outing with a map and a cryptic warning from some guy with a
sword. I would have sent two or three guys to case out the area, but
Alec had chosen to mount the equivalent of a full-scale invasion.

Alec had stayed
behind with James and Jess, but he'd sent most of Jaclyn's pack
because he figured that they had the most experience hunting both the
cats and the werewolves. Jasmin, Dom and I were along for the ride as
well as a big bruiser from Tonopah named Rex. I would have figured
that for plenty of firepower for anything we were likely to run into,
but Alec had included the terrible trio of Grayson, Wyatt and Carson
too.

I figured that
meant that most of us would just sit around. If Jaclyn and Grayson
couldn't deal with whatever we were running into then we were
probably screwed regardless.

The only other
thing that had taken me by surprise was the fact that Alec had sent
along a dozen cages in a tractor-pulled trailer that we'd had to wait
an extra hour for. Hopefully he wasn't too serious about us trying to
capture whatever was out here.

Jaclyn looked
around the hotel conference room that we were using as a base of
operations and then waved everyone in so that they could see the map
she'd laid out.

"Okay, Peter
and Arnold just finished running a quick circuit around our target
area. No sign of vampires which tends to bear out Dominic's intel. We
think that we're up against a bunch of cats but I don't want anyone
to be too surprised if it turns out that we've got a different threat
on our hands."

There was a low
rumble as people digested the news, but it was obvious that a few key
people had already known. Predictably, it was the 'oathers' as I was
starting to think of them, who had received an advance briefing of
what we were likely to be up against.

Jaclyn continued
before the speculation could get out of hand. "Based on the
density and locations of the scent trails going into the complex,
Peter is pretty sure that our guys and gals are in the northeast
building. The best-case scenario is that we keep them bottled up
inside the building. If they get out in the open we're going to have
a tough time catching them, so I'm opting for a layered deployment."