by Dean Murray
Chapter 14
Alec Graves
Sierra Vista Municipal Airport
Sierra Vista, Arizona
By the time that Oblivion and I had scrubbed the memories of the inhabitants of Hereford to his satisfaction it was nearly sunrise. Jaclyn and her people had helped Juan and the others relocate up to Sierra Vista, so Oblivion rerouted his helicopter pilot up there while I drove us to the Sierra Vista Airport.
Juan and the others had destroyed all of the evidence of the fight in the industrial park, and Oblivion's last stop before we left had been to break into the morgue and torch the bodies that had originally caused people to start asking questions.
I was worn out and hoping that Jess or Jasmin had managed to grab an hour or two of sleep so that I'd be able to sleep on the way back, but the sight of the group waiting for us at the airport washed away my exhaustion with a shot of adrenaline.
It wasn't just Juan, Jess and Jasmin waiting for us like I'd expected. Jaclyn was there too and she'd brought along four of the biggest, meanest-looking guys I'd seen in a long time. Oblivion was menacing, but it was an understated menace. These guys on the other hand looked like they ate small children for breakfast.
Juan didn't look particularly happy, but he and the girls were a couple dozen feet away from Jaclyn and her people, so I assumed that we weren't in immediate danger. Still, I parked the SUV a ways away from everyone.
Oblivion gave me an approving nod and then checked his phone and left the SUV. I half expected some kind of heated confrontation between Jaclyn and Oblivion, but he simply ignored everyone and headed towards a helicopter that was sitting on the tarmac fifty yards away.
I waited to see whether Oblivion would look back, but he disappeared into the helicopter without ever acknowledging my presence, or anyone else's for that matter. A couple of minutes later the helicopter was airborne and rapidly heading north.
Juan waved me over as soon as the helicopter had disappeared in the distance. I put the SUV back in motion and followed him over to a pair of white SUVs. As soon as I put my vehicle into park one of Jaclyn's guys opened the back of one of their SUVs and a big sigh of relief made its way through my tired body.
Alison was looking like she'd been beaten to within an inch of her life, but she was sitting up unassisted and looked like she was going to be okay once she got some rest and time to heal.
I bailed out of my car and gently picked her up.
"I can walk, you big oaf."
I shook my head. "You can't even stand right now."
"How would you know?"
"Because you never in a million years would have agreed to sit there while Juan and the others were standing all of the way over there if you had any other choice."
She harrumphed like an old woman, but she stopped complaining as I carried her over to our SUV. In human form I'd always expected her to be light, but now that I actually had her in my arms I was surprised at just how little there seemed to be to her.
She was still the fiery, deadly young woman that she'd been yesterday, but she was also woefully frail and I was more conscious than ever of just how little it took for one of us to be killed even with all of the benefits inherent in being a shape shifter.
I set Alison inside of our vehicle and went to help buckle her up, but she swatted my hands away and told me to stop being such an old woman. I smiled as I backed away from the car with my hands up in mock surrender, and then felt all levity drain from my face as I turned and found myself face to face with Jaclyn.
"You're an interesting problem, Alec Graves."
"I'd like to be something other than a problem to you."
"I know. That's actually what makes you such a problem. If I really believed that you didn't mean a word of what you said to me last night then you wouldn't be a problem, you'd just be another name waiting to be crossed off of my list when the Coun'hij finally loses control of everything."
"So you do believe me!"
"Calm down, Graves. Yes, I believe you, at least that you've got good intentions, but that doesn't change an awful lot. The situation is too complex and you're just not ready."
I felt like I was banging my head against a wall.
"So help me get ready."
"Even assuming I was willing to help you out, it's not that easy. There would be significant risks to you."
"I'm prepared to run risks."
Jaclyn shook her head. "I'm not. Thanks again though for helping bail us out last night. I lost a couple of good people in that fight, but I probably would have lost everyone if not for your help. You've got a respectable amount of power at your beck and call by the way. Did you notice the way your beast ponied up extra energy when the fight was against a werewolf?"
I had to consciously force myself to close my mouth. "You mean that's normal?"
"Not for everyone, no, but for some of us it is. There's something about going up against werewolves that makes the truly dominant among us fight harder. It's like even our beasts know that the werewolves are wrong on every level, that they need to be wiped off of the face of the earth."
"That's why you fight them even though it's been prohibited."
Jaclyn nodded. "That's part of the reason. Nobody in their right mind would hold a rattlesnake to their chest, but that's exactly what the Coun'hij is trying to do. They want us to protect the werewolves when the more sensible course would be to make sure that we don't let them grow in numbers to the point where they can turn on us."
I nodded. There were definitely some valid points behind her argument. The piece about our beasts providing more power for fights against werewolves was interesting too. It meant that the full degree of my power was still a secret. She thought that when she'd yelled at me during the fight the night before that she'd seen my full power plus an increase due to the fact that we were fighting a werewolf.
Instead what she'd seen was slightly less even than what I'd displayed to Jack, because some of my power had been somewhere else.
"Okay, well, if you change your mind please let me know. I need to get my footing, I need to know the things you're worried about telling me. It doesn't matter how dangerous the process of learning them is."
Jaclyn shook her head, but she held out her hand to offer the handshake she'd refused to give me the night before.
"I don't change my views on those kinds of things, Graves, but just in case, I'll keep you in mind."
The words were exactly what you'd expect out of someone who was worried that she was being spied on, but hidden in her palm was a scrap of paper. I did my absolute best to keep my surprise off of my face, and based on the fact that her face didn't even flicker as I took the paper and casually stuffed it into my pocket, I was pretty sure that I'd succeeded.
Jaclyn had something to tell me after all.
