Authors: Dean Murray
That meant that
it wasn't unusual for Taggart to ask me to come along as backup,
which meant that I needed to make sure that I always had enough
energy in reserve to help out for an hour or two if he thought he
might be heading into an especially dangerous situation. Strolling
down memory lane wasn't a good enough reason to drain myself like I
had. I was still behaving irresponsibly. For some reason I couldn't
seem to just buckle down and focus only on the war.
I grabbed
another handful of pink penny candies and shoved them in my mouth to
help tide me over while I jumped through the shower. That was the
real reason that I hadn't complained very much when Taggart had
assigned me the master suite. The number of private showers inside
the bunker could have been counted on one hand with fingers left
over, and the thought of showering in some kind of military-style
facility with the few other girls in Isaac's group was roughly as
exciting as a root canal.
Fifteen minutes
later I was dressed and headed to the large communal kitchen on the
far end of the bunker. Back in the day, I would have taken more time
getting ready, but lately I just couldn't bring myself to waste time
on anything that kept me from breakfast a moment longer than
necessary.
Breakfast was
sausage, eggs and pancakes. I did some quick mental math and decided
that the pancakes were the lowest caloric value per cubic inch of
volume and filled up on eggs and sausage.
After that I
went looking for Taggart, which proved to be more of a challenge than
normal. It only took a few minutes to confirm that he wasn't anywhere
inside the bunker, at which point I headed outside.
We'd hung an
impressive amount of camouflage netting over the amphitheater that
led to the garage, so it was relatively rare for the massive slab of
concrete that served as the garage door to be down.
Today was no
exception to that rule and I found a surprising amount of traffic
moving in and out of the garage. Heath was sitting just underneath
the edge of the netting with a large bottle of water.
"Hey,
Adri. Did you finish emptying out the kitchen already this morning?"
"Hey,
Heath. Hardly, there were still plenty of pancakes on the grill when
I left."
He wiped a line
of sweat off of his forehead and nodded. "That's good. Isaac
kept us all working later than normal last night. Now that the sun's
up, everyone is going to want to get some food down them before they
hit the showers and get some sleep. You ought to go back for another
round in an hour or so, you look like you've lost more weight again.
Taggart must be working you too hard."
I shrugged
uncomfortably. I'd pretty much made my peace with the idea of every
hybrid and wolf in the bunker using the fluctuations in my bodyweight
as a barometer of how the covert war between Taggart and the Coun'hij
was going. It was the kind of thing that would have given most
teenage girls nightmares, but it wasn't like I was chubby or anything
so there were a lot worse fates that I could have had inflicted on
me.
No, the biggest
problem was that I didn't like everyone thinking that I was doing
more than I actually was. Going to visit Cindi had actually turned
out to be a good thing, but I hadn't gone there intending to find out
whether or not the police were hot on our trail. I'd gone for purely
selfish reasons, but Heath thought that I'd been hard at work just
like him and everyone else.
"Trust me
when I say that if there's one thing that I'm good at these days it's
eating. I'll be just fine."
Heath nodded
and took another long drink from his water bottle. "Are you
looking for Taggart?"
"Yeah,
have you seen him lately?"
Heath nodded
and pointed off to the east. "I saw him head off that way about
an hour ago."
I looked out
over the semi-desolate landscape and grimaced. The last thing I
wanted to do right then was go trekking across acres of tick-infested
sagebrush, but I couldn't just wait for him to come back, not when
hours might end up counting. At least I had on comfortable shoes.
"Okay, can
you do me a favor and send out the cavalry if I don't come back
within the next three or four hours?"
Heath nodded
and winked. "I'll do one better than that. If you're not back by
the time I wake up I'll come get you myself."
It was a severe
case of overkill to use Heath on a mere search-and-rescue mission,
but knowing that he had my back was undeniably reassuring. Heath was
one of those rare hybrids with an ability and his put him all the way
to the top of the supernatural food chain.
Heath was able
to manipulate the senses of those around him—mainly sight and
smell—which meant that if he wanted to, he could literally make
sure that the bad guys never even saw him coming. Isaac was the
brains and heart behind their group, and in a pinch he could go
toe-to-toe with most run-of-the-mill hybrids, but Heath was the
enforcer who made sure that nobody stepped too far out of line.
"Thanks,
Heath. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it's nice to know that
you'll come get me if I do something even more stupid than normal."
"No
worries, I'll see you in a few hours."
I didn't know
the first thing about tracking someone, so I didn't even try. The
wind was blowing out of the west, which meant that Taggart would be
able to smell me coming long before I actually made it to him.
Taggart could
be a little crusty from time to time, and he had a definite temper,
but no matter how badly he wanted some time alone he wouldn't let me
go wandering off through the wilderness by myself.
I'd only been
walking through the sagebrush-littered landscape for a little more
than half an hour before I crested a small rise and saw him sitting
next to a small stream. He waved at me and then once I was closer he
stood and waited as I crossed over the last few dozen feet.
"Hello,
Adri. How did you sleep?"
"Not as
well as I would have liked. I went and visited Cindi's dreams. I'm
sorry, I know that I should be saving my strength to help you, but I
really wanted to talk to her about some stuff."
Taggart held
his hands up as though trying to stem the tide of words tumbling out
of my mouth. "Adri, I would never presume to forbid you from
communicating with your family. I hope that you enjoyed your time
with your sister."
"It was
nice to see her again, but she had some bad news. The detective who
drew my missing person case has managed to track down the hotel where
you brought Cindi, Tristan and me after you killed Jackson."
Taggart
grunted. "I wouldn't have expected that to happen once in ten
thousand times, not without more than one detective out canvasing for
us."
"Yeah, I
agree. Cindi thinks that the detective is some kind of latent psychic
who doesn't even realize that she's doing the impossible. I figured
that I'd better come find you right away so you could start making
contingency plans in case she somehow tracks us here."
"Do you
think that's likely, Adri?"
"I…ah…no,
I don't think it's likely, but I don't think it's impossible anymore.
Do you think that we should leave the bunker and try to go somewhere
more remote, somewhere that we don't mind as much if it gets blown?"
Taggart's smile
was a cold humorless thing. "Two weeks ago I would have said
that protecting the secrecy around this particular retreat was one of
the most important things we could do, but if this human detective is
going to find us, I'd just as soon have her find us here rather than
losing one of my other places of refuge."
"Wait,
what changed and where was I for all of this?"
"I'm
sorry, Adri, I've been such a fool."
"What do
you mean?"
"I mean my
instinctual hatred of the Graves boy. I'm not saying that he's
trustworthy, but I should have considered the possibility that the
leak to the Coun'hij about our plans could have come from one of
Isaac's people rather than just blindly assuming that Graves had
betrayed us to his father."
"You think
that we have a spy here at the bunker with us?"
"I don't
know. Isaac has quietly questioned all of his people here at the
bunker and none of them have owned up to having done anything that
could have accounted for the leak, but news of the effort to free
Agony circulated more widely than just those who came with us on the
actual operation."
"So what's
the next step, have Isaac call all of the rest of the people who knew
what was going on and try to pin them down regarding who they told?"
"No, I
considered that, but I don't think it will buy us anything. If the
leak really did happen on our side of the operation then whoever told
the Coun'hij is an uncommonly good liar. You don't catch someone like
that by way of a phone conversation. No, they are either with us
and a good enough liar that they can lie to Isaac's face with
impunity, or they are one of the individuals that didn't come with us
on the mission."
"Or they
were one of Alec's people."
"Yes, or
that. It puts us in a sticky situation. If the traitor is not here
with us, then this location remains the best possible sanctuary for a
group this large, but if we are harboring a pit viper inside there
with us, then the bunker is nothing more than a gigantic trap."
"So what
do you think we should do then? Split off from Isaac and the rest and
just keep moving so that this detective can't find us?"
"I'm not
sure. Part of me wonders if it might not be best to stay here. If the
Coun'hij was going to kill us all in some kind of lightning raid then
they probably would have acted before now."
"Okay,
what about the detective?"
"She's a
potential problem, but I don't think that she's an immediate concern.
We have time to decide what to do about her, but my first instinct
would be to see if we can't recruit her."
"That
sounds crazy dangerous…"
Taggart
shrugged. "There is an element of risk to the idea, but I
believe the risks could be largely controlled and the potential
benefits could be significant."
It was exactly
what I'd come to expect from Taggart. It was well-thought-out and it
would put us in a better position down the road, but I could tell
that something else was bothering him.
"I know
that we've only known each other for a few weeks, Taggart, but I hope
that you know that I want to be here for you. I owe you for saving my
life, but even if I didn't, I'd still want to help out. I believe in
the cause we're fighting for, but it's more than just that. It's like
we're…"
I couldn't
bring myself to come right out and say it, but Taggart was apparently
willing to complete my thought for me.
"You were
about to say that it's like we're family. I agree, it very much feels
as though I've known you for a very long time. I've long since
stopped keeping score of who has saved whom or who is owed what."
"Good,
that's how I feel too. Now that we are both agreed, why don't you
just tell me what is bothering you?"
"It's
precisely because of my concern for you that I feel that I can't tell
you of my worries, Adri. I just finished losing my oldest friend, the
last thing that I want now is to drag you even deeper into this war
and risk losing you too."
"It's what
Agony said, wasn't it? The bit about the Coun'hij not being the real
enemy has you worried too, doesn't it?"
"In a
word? Yes. I've spent more than two centuries trying to fight the
likes of Kaleb and the others, only now I've been told that I wasn't
even fighting in the right war. Even worse, it was Cyrus—Agony—who
told me that there was more going on than I'd ever realized. He's the
one person I have no choice but to believe, but he's also the last
person who should have been keeping a secret of this magnitude from
me."
"You feel
betrayed."
"Yes, but
it's only part of the problem. Agony would have had a good reason to
keep that a secret from me. He did it because he was worried what
would happen to me if I knew, he did it because he didn't think I
could handle knowing.
"How could
I have spent my entire adult life fighting the Coun'hij and not
realized that they weren't even the real threat? Now that I know
there is something worse out there, how am I even supposed to go
forward? The skills I've developed so far haven't been up to the task
of seeing through all of the misdirection, how can I expect to figure
it all out now?"
We sat there in
silence for several seconds as I tried to think of the right
response.
"I don't
think you're giving yourself enough credit, Taggart. You saw exactly
what you expected to see, exactly what you were meant to see. It's
not like you're the only one to be taken in by the world's biggest
con game. The real question is how Agony figured out that there was
more going on than anyone else realized."
The speed of
Taggart's response told me that he'd already had the same idea. "He
knew because the Coun'hij knows. Maybe not all of them, but enough of
them."
"Right,
it's the only logical answer. Agony knew because, at least for a
while, he was part of the front designed to keep everyone from
knowing what was really going on. So what kind of group do you think
is pulling the strings from the shadows?"
"Powerful,
more powerful than the Coun'hij, or the Coun'hij would have turned
the tables on them a long time ago. Evil and corrupt, or they never
would have allowed the Coun'hij to continue on as they have for the
last several hundred years."
"But not
powerful enough to stand off the combined might of your entire race
or they wouldn't be so concerned about remaining in the shadows."
Taggart nodded
slowly. "It's an interesting conundrum. The Coun'hij
is
nearly strong enough to stand off our entire race. How could this
other group be stronger than the Coun'hij and yet still so weak that
they fear my people?"