Stolen

by Kelley Armstrong

  "Sometimes I almost can't resist," Cassandra said after he'd gone. "Even when I'm not hungry. The intoxication of power. A nasty but unbreakable addiction, don't you think?"

  "It's ... tempting."

  Cassandra laughed. "You don't have to pretend with me, Elena. Power is a glorious thing, especially for women. I spent forty-six years as a human woman in seventeenth-century Europe. I'd have killed for a chance at power." Her lips curved in a wicked grin. "But I guess I did, didn't I? The choices one makes." She leaned back and studied me, then smiled again. "I think you and I will get along quite well. A rare treat for me, meeting a huntress who isn't another self-absorbed vampire."

  Our coffees and my dessert arrived then. I asked Cassandra what it was like to live as long as she had, and she regaled me with stories for the rest of the meal.

  After dinner, Adam repeated Paige's offer to join them on the way back to the Legion Hall. Again, I was about to decline, but this time Jeremy overheard and insisted I go along, probably hoping the two youngest delegates would talk more freely without their elders around. In an aside, he promised to follow us in the Explorer.

  Unlike Jeremy, Adam hadn't found parking in the small lot behind the restaurant, so the three of us left the others and headed up a side street. Ahead, on the other side of the road, I saw the old Jeep from the Legion Hall parking lot, the one with the California plates.

  "Yours?" I asked Adam.

  "Unfortunately."

  "That's some drive."

  "A long drive. In a Jeep, a very, very long drive. I think I shook loose two fillings this time. Getting above the speed limit is nearly impossible. And passing? Forget it. It'd be easier driving over slow traffic. Next time, I'm saving my pennies so I can fly out."

  "You say that every time," Paige said. "Robert would buy you a plane ticket any day, but you always refuse. You love driving that piece of crap."

  "The blush is wearing off the romance. One more--Shit!"

  I looked up to see a massive Yukon backing into the spot in front of Adam's Jeep. The gap was barely big enough to fit a compact. The behemoth SUV kept reversing until it was mere inches from the Jeep's front bumper. Another car was parked less than a foot from the Jeep's rear end.

  "Hey!" Adam called as he jogged toward the Yukon. "Hold on!"

  A forty-something woman in the passenger seat turned and fixed Adam with an expressionless stare.

  "I'm stuck in behind you," he said, flashing a wide grin. "Could you just pull forward a second? I'll get her out of there and you'll have lots of room."

  The passenger window was down, but the woman didn't answer. She looked over at the driver's seat. No words were exchanged. The driver's door opened and a man in a golf shirt got out. His wife did the same.

  "Hey!" Adam called. "Did you hear me? You boxed me in. If you can pull forward, I'll be out of there in a flash."

  The man clicked his remote. The alarm chirped. His wife fell in step beside him and they headed for the restaurant.

  "Assholes," Paige muttered. "Own a fifty-thousand-dollar gas-guzzler and you own the whole damned road."

  "I'll talk to them," I said. "Maybe he'll listen to a woman."

  "Don't." She grabbed my arm. "We'll catch up with the others and come back for the Jeep later."

  "I'm only going to talk to them."

  She glanced at Adam, who was starting after the couple. "It's not you I'm worried about."

  The man turned now, lip curling as he threw some insult at Adam.

  "What did you say?" Adam yelled back.

  "Oh, shit," Paige murmured.

  The man turned his back on Adam.

  "What did you say?" Adam shouted.

  As Adam advanced on the man, I made a split-second decision to interfere. We were trying to lie low and couldn't afford to call attention to ourselves with a brawl that might involve the police. Adam should have known this, but I guess even the most easygoing young men can be subject to surges of testosterone.

  As I turned to go after Adam, Paige grabbed my arm.

  "Hold on," she said. "You don't--"

  I shook her off and started running, ignoring her trailing footsteps and warning shouts. As I drew closer to Adam, I smelled fire. Not smoke or burning wood or sulfur, but the subtler odor of fire itself. Ignoring it, I grabbed Adam's wrist and whirled him around.

  "Forget it," I said as he turned. "Jeremy can drive us--"

  Adam faced me now, and I knew where the smell of fire came from. His eyes glowed crimson. The whites were luminescent red, sparking absolute, bottomless rage.

  "Get your hands off me," he rumbled.

  There was no trace of Adam's voice in the words, no sign of him in his face. Heat emanated from his body in waves. It was like standing too close to a bonfire. Sweat sprang from my pores. I turned my face from the heat, still holding his wrist. He grabbed me, each hand gripping a forearm. Something sizzled. I heard that first, had a second to wonder what it was, then blinding pain seared through my arms. He let go and I stumbled backward. Red welts leaped up on either forearm.

  Paige grabbed me from behind, steadying me. I shoved her away and turned back to Adam. He was striding toward a vacant alley.

  "He's okay," Paige said. "He'll get it under control now."

  The Explorer rounded the corner. I waved my arms for Jeremy to stop and yanked open the passenger door before the SUV hit a full stop. As I jumped in, Jeremy's gaze went to my burned arms and his mouth tightened, but he said nothing. He waited until I was inside, then hit the accelerator.

  CHAPTER 9

  DISSECTION

  As Jeremy drove, I explained what happened. Once outside town, Jeremy pulled into a gas station, parked in front of the phone booth, and got out. A few minutes later he returned and took us back onto the highway.

  "Ruth?" I asked.

  "I told her we're not returning to the meeting tonight. She heard what happened. Very apologetic. She asked if we'd come if they meet again tomorrow. I said I didn't know, so she wants me to call back tonight and see what they decided."

  "Will you?"

  "Probably. My first priority is protecting the Pack. To do that, we may need to join these people temporarily, while they investigate this threat. They have resources we can't match. At dinner we discussed this astral projection the shamans do, and it sounds like an invaluable tool for learning more about these men you encountered in Pittsburgh. Beyond that, though, I have no intention of sticking around to help them. We fight our own battles."

  In the silence that followed, I reflected on our day, on the overwhelming things we'd discovered. Overwhelming for me, at least. Jeremy seemed not only unfazed but unsurprised by it all. I could chalk this up to his usual equanimity, but his response to every thing seemed too calm, even for him.

  "You knew," I said. "You knew there were other ... things out there. Besides us."

  "I'd heard rumors. When I was a child. Long nights, after a Meet, occasionally talk would turn to the possibility of other creatures, vampires, spell-casters, and the like. Someone remembered an uncle who once encountered a being with strange powers, that sort of thing. Much the way humans might discuss aliens or ghosts. Some believed. Most didn't."

  "You did?"

  "It seems improbable that we'd be the only legendary creature with its basis in reality." He drove in silence a moment, then continued. "Once, not long before his death, my grandfather told me that his grandfather claimed to have sat on a council of what Ruth would call 'supernatural beings.' My grandfather suspected the story may have simply been the confused imaginings of an old man, but he thought he should pass it on to me. If it was true, if other creatures existed, then someone in the Pack should be aware of the possibility."

  "Shouldn't everyone in the Pack have been aware of the possibility?" I said. "No offense, Jer, but I really would have appreciated a warning."

  "To be honest, the thought never crossed my mind. I never tried to discover whether my grandfather's story was true or not. The poin
t seemed moot. I have no interest in other beings, and we're safer if they have no interest in us. Yes, I suppose one of you could accidentally come across one, but considering how few of us exist, and how few of them exist, the chances of not only meeting but recognizing each other seemed infinitesimal. Certainly it's never happened before, not in my lifetime or my grandfather's. Now it appears these witches have been aware of us for a very long time. I never considered that possibility."

  "Are you admitting you made a mistake?"

  His lips twitched in the barest smile. "I'm admitting to an oversight. It would only be a mistake if I considered the possibility and chose to ignore it."

  "But if werewolves did sit on this council at one time, why isn't it in the Legacy?" I said, referring to the Pack's history book.

  "I don't know. If as Ruth says, werewolves broke from the council, they may have chosen to remove that portion of their history from the Legacy."

  "Maybe for good reason," I said, brushing my fingertips over my burned arms.

  Jeremy glanced at me and nodded. "Maybe so."

  At the cabin, Jeremy washed and dressed my burns, then asked if I was ready for bed or wanted to stay up longer.

  "Were you staying up?" I asked.

  "If you were."

  "If you were, I will, but if you're tired ...?"

  "Are you tir--" Jeremy stopped. A small half-smile flitted across his lips and I knew what he was thinking. We could go on like this all night, neither of us willing to voice an opinion that might inconvenience the other. With Clay or Nick or Antonio, I made my wants and opinions known with out hesitation. Survival of the loudest. With Jeremy, his unerring civility resurrected my upbringing, and a simple choice could evolve into an endless "After you," "No, I insist, after you" farce. If Clay were here, he'd make up our minds for us before the second round of the dance. Without him, we were on our own.

  "I'm going to stay up awhile," I said.

  "I'll keep you company."

  "You don't have to."

  "I know. We'll sit on the deck. Go out, and I'll fix us a snack."

  I went outside. Minutes later, Jeremy followed with two glasses of milk and a bag of cookies.

  "Nothing stronger around to dull the pain," he said, handing me the milk. "You'll have to settle for simple comfort."

  Jeremy sat beside me. We gazed out over the water for a few minutes, the crunch of cookies echoing in the silence. Smoke from a campfire floated across the lake.

  "We should build a fire," I said.

  "No matches."

  "Damn. Where's Adam when you need him?"

  Jeremy gave a half-smile. "We'll have a bonfire for you back at Stonehaven. Plenty of matches there. Marshmallows too. If only I can remember how to carve a roasting stick."

  "You know how?"

  He chuckled. "Hard to believe, isn't it? Yes, I did some camping as a child. Dominic used to rent a cottage every summer, get Tonio and his brothers out of the city, back to nature. They'd take me along."

  As Jeremy lapsed into silence, I struggled to think of a way to keep him talking. Jeremy didn't discuss his childhood. Not ever. I'd had hints from others that it wasn't the most idyllic youth, but Jeremy kept mum on the subject. Now that he'd cracked opened that window, I wasn't about to let it close again so easily.

  "Where did you go?" I asked.

  "Not far. Vermont, New Hampshire."

  "Was it fun?"

  Another half-smile. "Very. I didn't care about the back to nature part. Stonehaven has all that. But it let Tonio and me play at being real kids, to play with other kids. Of course, we met other children at school. But we always went to private school. As Alpha, Dominic enforced that for Pack sons. If their fathers couldn't afford to send them, he paid for it. Strict environmental control. Home for weekends and holidays, minimal interaction with humans. On vacation, though, we could cut loose, so long as we used false names and all that."

  "You had to use fake names? How old were you?"

  "Young. Tonio was older, of course. But I was the one who made up our stories. It was fun, actually, inventing a new identity every summer. One year we were minor nobility visiting from En gland. Our accents were atrocious. Another year we were Mafia brats. Tonio loved that one. Gave him a chance to practice his Italian and make the local bullies quake."

  "I can imagine."

  "Great fun, until the kids started offering us their ice cream money. Tonio drew the line there. Integrity above all, even if it meant turning down extra food. We were debating whether to admit the whole mob thing was a hoax when Malcolm showed up to take me back to Stonehaven. Early as always."

  Malcolm had been Jeremy's father, though I never heard Jeremy call him by anything but his first name.

  "He missed you?" I asked.

  Jeremy laughed. Not his usual chuckle or half-smile, but a whoop of laughter that startled me so much I nearly dropped my cookie.

  "No," he said, composing himself. "Malcolm most assuredly did not miss me. He did that every summer, stop by to see how I was doing. If I was having fun, which I always was, he decided it was time for me to come home."

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing.

  Jeremy continued, "After a few years, I started outmaneuvering him. As soon as Malcolm arrived, I'd have a massive attack of homesickness. Desperately miserable. Dying to leave. Then, of course, he'd make me stay the rest of the summer. The Sorrentinos played along. They knew what it was like for me at home." He gave a wry half-smile. "You, Clayton, and me. Three housemates, all with rotten childhoods. What are the chances?"

  "Clay had a good childhood."

  "Barring the small matter of being turned into a werewolf at the age of five and spending the next few years hiding in the bayou, eating rats and drunks."

  "I meant after that. After you rescued him. He's always said he had a good childhood at Stonehaven."

  "When he wasn't being expelled from school for dissecting the class guinea pig?"

  "It was already dead."

  Jeremy chuckled. "I can still hear him saying that. Over thirty years later and I can hear it perfectly. Clay's first Pack meeting. I'm trying to pretend every thing's fine, not let anyone know about the expulsion. Then Daniel roars in and announces it to the whole Pack. 'Clayton got kicked out of school for cutting up a guinea pig.' Clay tears into the room, marches over to Daniel, glares up at him--they were the same age, but Clay was at least a head shorter--and shouts, 'It was already dead!'"

  "Which explained every thing."

  "Absolutely." Jeremy smiled and shook his head. "Between the dissected class pet and the toy animal fiasco, I had to question whether I was cut out for surrogate parenthood."

  "Toy animals?"

  "Clay hasn't told you that one?" Jeremy drained his glass, picked up mine, and stood.

  I grabbed his pant leg. "Tell me."

  "When I come back."

  I groaned and waited. And waited. Took him much too long to pour that milk. Playing the whole thing for full effect.

  "Toy animals," I said when he finally returned.

  "Right. Clay had problems with the other children at school. I assume you know that."

  I nodded. "He didn't fit in and didn't try. Small for his age. Antisocial. The accent only made it worse. I wondered about that when I met him. He said he'd lived in New York State for twenty years, but he sounded like he'd just stepped off the train from Louisiana. He said when he was a kid, other children mocked his accent. So he kept it. Clay's perverse logic."

  "Anything to set him apart. So, after the guinea pig disaster, I home-schooled him until the following September, then sent him to a different school and asked the principal to notify me of any behavioral problems. I swear I spent three afternoons a week in parent-teacher conferences. Mostly it was little things, but one day the teacher said Clay was having trouble at recess. The other kids were complaining that he was following them around, watching them, that sort of thing."

  "Stalking them," I said. "S
couting for weaknesses."

  "Exactly. Now, I wasn't worried he'd do anything. I was very strict on that point. No devouring classmates." Jeremy rolled his eyes. "Other parents warn their kids not to talk to strangers. I had to warn mine not to eat them. Anyway, this teacher says Clay isn't showing an interest in normal recess pursuits, like playing with toys. Toys. I knew I was missing something. Clay was the most un-childlike child I'd ever met, so I tended to forget he should be doing childish things. After the conference, I drove straight to the toy store and bought bags of toys. He ignored them all ... all except this set of plastic animals--cows, horses, sheep, deer, camels, and so on. He'd take them into his room and stay there for hours. I congratulated myself on my great insight, assuming he liked the animals because he felt some kinship to them. Then I found the book."

  Jeremy paused.

  "What book?" I asked, because I knew I was supposed to.

  "Gibson's Guide to Animal Anatomy. He'd stolen it from the school library and dog-eared a bunch of pages. So I took a closer look at the plastic toys. They were all marked with strategically placed red Xs."

  "Identifying the vital organs," I said. "For hunting."

  "Exactly."

  "So what'd you do?"

  "Gave him a long lecture about stealing and made him return the book immediately."

  I threw my head back and laughed. Jeremy rested his hand around my waist, a rare gesture of closeness that I enjoyed for as long as possible.

  "How about a run?" he asked after a few minutes. "We could both use one to work off some stress after today."

  I was getting tired, but I never would have said so. Werewolves preferred to run with others--the Pack instinct. As with so many other things, Jeremy was different. He preferred solitude when he Changed. He'd sometimes join us in a Pack hunt but rarely went for a regular run with a partner. So, when he offered, I could have been ready to drop from exhaustion and I wouldn't have refused.

  We walked into the woods, taking the path until we were deep enough to find places for our Change. We'd gone about twenty feet when Jeremy turned to stare over my shoulder.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Headlights slowing at the top of the drive," he murmured.

  The driveway sloped steeply from the road to the cottage, putting the car on a hilltop, so all we could see was the glow of twin lights. As we waited, the lights vanished and the rumble of the engine died. A car door opened and shut. Footsteps walked to the edge of the hill. A stone pinged from beneath a shoe, clattering down the incline. A pause. Someone listening for a response to the noise. Then the whisper of long grass against pant legs. A glimmer of darkness above us, movement without form. Then moving south, downwind. Intentionally downwind. A tree creaked to our right. I jumped. Only the wind.