by Mark Henwick
Then the trap was set up next to the Convention Center, with a hundred ways for me to approach unseen and become suspicious.
He’d been wired for sound, so he couldn’t have warned me by speaking.
And what about the look on his face? Had it been relief when the FBI sprang my trap?
Maybe, maybe, maybe. How much did I want it to be true? Backtrack, trip her up.
“That doesn’t explain the gun,” I said.
“No.” Her heart rate soared. “That was for real. If you walked into the trap. He thought it was what you’d want, given the alternative. If you understood what the alternative was.”
The ‘alternative’. A cell beneath the Obs laboratory. But surely Keith and Julie didn’t know about that. Why would they think I’d rather be shot than taken back? And what had she meant, before, by ‘damaged’?
Was she just distracting me again?
I had skills I had to use. Even if my Athanate senses weren’t functioning properly, I could hear her pulse, and no one can control all their automatic responses. I could smell lies. I just had to put the right stress on her. I moved silently across the van.
“Tell me,” I hissed close to her ear, making her jump. “Tell me what you think the alternative was. What you think would happen if I was taken.”
“They’d take you back into Obs.” She stopped. Was that the limit of her knowledge, or was she reluctant to go on?
“That’s my personal nightmare, all right,” I said. “But it’s worse than that. Kidnap me or shoot me—either way, you’d have practically declared war on the Athanate.”
She didn’t know the word. Colonel Laine must have kept my briefings secret. I liked that. I felt it gave me an edge, and everything about her was clearer now I was up close. I could taste her puzzlement. I crouched over her, inhaling every stray molecule that escaped from her. I could smell her shampoo, the soap she’d used in her last shower, the detergent she’d used for her clothes. I could read the smallest changes in her. I had complete control.
“Athanate, Julie. Not vampires, Athanate. Living people. People who feel emotions just like humans.” I let my breath touch her neck and felt her shy away. “People who drink blood. People who can tell if you’re lying. People like me.”
What the hell was I doing?
I could feel my jaw loosening and my fangs getting ready to appear. I’d pushed the wolf down only for the Athanate to take over.
Threatening Julie was teasing my own Athanate thirst. Diana and Skylur had warned me against biting. My unstable hybrid mix of paranormal was dangerous enough for me—they thought I still might go rogue. But I’d had time to adjust; I stood a chance of being able to pull through. It would be far worse for someone I infused—and I didn’t yet know how to bite someone without the risk of infusing them. I had to restrain myself until Diana could mentor me to control my instinct to infuse, and test the outcome. I had to.
That was the future. But right now, I had to know if Julie was on the level.
“Are you lying to me, Julie?” I murmured.
“No.” With me so close—biting distance—she was walking the ragged edge of fear. I reached out and snapped the light on. A fluorescent tube fixed to the ceiling flooded the van with harsh light and deep shadows.
The sight of me looming over her didn’t make her any less afraid, but she managed to keep still. Her breath came quickly, but her eyes were steady. One tough woman.
Why was I doing this? Truthfully, I was afraid it was because I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t want to make her separate from all the shit that had been thrown at me. I wanted someone to hurt the way I hurt. And I wanted to feel that pain coursing through her, to breathe it in. To taste it.
I gripped her hair and stared into her eyes. She was still trying to force her heart rate down. Failing. I pulled her head back, exposing her throat. A shiver slid through her, quickly suppressed. A growing awareness. She’d made a judgment call on a person called Amber Farrell, a person she’d known in Ops 4-10. A judgment call that she’d be safe with that person.
She was now grasping at an instinctive level what she’d known only as words before. I wasn’t fully human any more. I wasn’t the Amber she’d known.
Her hindbrain was kicking and twisting to escape, but she fought to keep control. Impressive.
I could hear her Blood coursing through her neck, just inches away. I could smell it, I could feel it, I could almost taste it. My teeth pulsed with eagerness.
I reached with my other hand, sliding it down her left arm to where her wrists were bound behind her.
“Amber. Please don’t,” she said. Not so controlled now.
My fingers rippled over the bindings, brushed the back of her hand.
“Are you here for Petersen? Is this some kind of a trap?” I whispered.
“No,” her head shook once, abruptly.
My fangs manifested, grazing her skin sensuously, and I felt my jaws go loose and heavy with anticipation. The lightest pressure and her skin would part.
A wordless cry built up inside me, leaked through my control. The pulse in her neck thudded against my fangs.
She lost it, over the edge into the abyss. Panicked, she twisted beneath me, arching away. Terror billowed out of her and caressed me like silk. It was sweet as warm syrup on my dry lips, perfume to my nose. There was fear, sweat, soap, even the aroma of fajitas she’d eaten for dinner six hours ago. But no hint of lies. I swallowed painfully, tried to close my mouth.
I threw my weight on her, my hands moving snakelike to her bound hands. My fingers found hers. Third finger. Ring. Rings, two of them. She wasn’t on a 4-10 mission. Standard Ops 4-10 operating procedure: no identifying marks, no jewelry, no ID. Or they’d gotten a whole lot smarter about it all.
No. No. She wasn’t lying. She hadn’t lied about anything.
Enough, for God’s sake, Amber! Stop it!
I wrenched myself away, twisting around and curling up on the floor with my face hidden in my hands. What the hell had I been thinking? The taste of sweetness changed to cloying, tongue-curling foul and I fought to stop myself from throwing up.
Victor turned the van around and began to drive back the way we’d come.
It was very quiet in the back. Eventually my gut stopped heaving, and I was left feeling drained and shaky.
I pulled myself upright, leaned back. Sweat cooled my skin.
Julie, too, was gathering herself. “Are you all right?” she asked finally.
I laughed bitterly. “I should be asking you. I’m sorry. Kinda ran away with me there.”
There was a pause. “Is it that hard, to not…”
“Is it that hard to not bite? Sometimes.” But that wasn’t the problem. I shut up. I couldn’t explain to her without going into a whole load of things that weren’t relevant and which she would have trouble understanding. And which I didn’t want to admit to, because they scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t explain that my wolf and my Athanate seemed to be spurring each other on, and that I’d just started to feed on her fear.
Like a Basilikos Athanate.
I’d sworn I wouldn’t go that route. I was becoming Athanate and the road split right before me, right now. Go down the Basilikos path and I might convince myself it was all right to prey on humans and feed on fear. Which was why I’d made Diana swear to kill me if I did.
Just how close would she allow me to get?
I grabbed the cutters from the tool compartment, fumbling them, my hands shaking with reaction. “Turn around,” I said.
She studied me for a moment, eyes narrowed, before turning her back to me. Brave woman. I clumsily cut the cable ties binding her hands and feet.
Then I retreated and sat against the side of the van, deliberately not looking at her.
I didn’t need this, whatever it was that Julie wanted to dump on me.
More problems just sprang up every which way I turned. No one, me included, could work out what the hell I was. Athanate, We
re and Adept all mixed together. Each type had its dangers, and everyone warned me the influence of the others would make the dangers worse. I was scared to let any paranormal persona take over and even more scared I wouldn’t be able to prevent it.
I had just seen an example of the threat—Were struggling with Athanate—and the worst possible result. What if next time, it wasn’t Julie, but Alex or Jen I wanted to bite? Could I hold off?
My gut wrenched at the thought of Alex and Jen, afraid of what I might do to them. And wrenched again at the thought of losing them because of that.
I really couldn’t afford to get messed up with whatever problems Julie had thought she’d bring to me, not even something as ‘simple’ as springing Keith. But I’d said I’d listen.
I concentrated on slow breathing, hunting for at least a bit of calm, if serenity was completely out of the question.
“You didn’t finish on Obs,” I said finally. “And you didn’t finish explaining the reason for that Ruger either.”
Julie cleared her throat. Her heart rate spiked back up.
“I don’t suppose you’d let me tie you up first?” she said.
I almost smiled. “Don’t get smart.” For a moment, the last couple of years fell away, and we were just two soldiers doing a difficult job and sharing a bit of dark humor. I’d missed the easy camaraderie. But then again, I’d also missed some bad times for 4-10 as well, from the sound of it.
“Not much of a joke, really.” She stirred, unconsciously easing herself away from me. “I don’t know what effect this is going to have on you.”
I frowned at her.
“You’ve got to understand first what’s gone wrong with 4-10,” she said. “Not with the people on the ground, with the command structure. People like Petersen.” She paused. “When this operation came up, it was the last straw. We were afraid the whole command had gone over to the dark side. So Keith and I went looking for information.”
“You think I’m going to be upset because you’ve been bucking the chain of command? What did you do? Break into his office?”
“It wasn’t that,” she snapped. So they had broken into his office. Must have been ultra-careful.
“It was what we found,” she went on, more quietly. “You don’t remember much for a while after they got you back from South America, do you?”
“Some.” I was about to go on and say that it was only to be expected, an aftereffect of being bitten. But then I realized that no one from Altau had ever said anything to me about memory lapses after being infused. The Altau might purposely screw with your memory, but that was something else entirely.
How much had I forgotten?
Julie watched me as my mouth opened and closed a couple of times.
It was like trying to see something in your blind spot. You know it’s there. You can’t quite catch it.
I could remember Petersen making me sign an agreement, and Colonel Laine coming in later, telling me he’d taken over Obs. I could remember after that point. Before that? Flickers. Jumbled sounds and smells and tastes and images, without a thread to connect them. And my mind sliding away as I tried.
Who had been running Obs before Colonel Laine arrived? Petersen? My skin crawled.
Why hadn’t I thought about it? Why was it so difficult to think about it?
What had Judicator Remy said at the Assembly? He’d said he detected evidence of mental blocks in my head. Remy’s conclusions about me were false, forced on him by Basilikos, but that didn’t mean he’d made up his evidence. I hadn’t dismissed his talk of blocks, but I’d thought maybe there were things I had done to myself. Strong places in my head for memories I wanted locked away. A stomach-sickening lurch accompanied that thought and I stamped down on it.
“They screwed with your head, Amber,” Julie whispered carefully. “When Colonel Laine was about to take over Obs, they closed it all up, sure they’d get their hands on you again soon.”
Now my heart was racing. When Keith had yelled out something like that to me as he was arrested, I’d gone and gotten drunk. Why? What was there? What made me not want to confront it?
“But Laine put a new team into Obs and sent you out here to Denver,” Julie went on remorselessly. “He became suspicious of what they’d done. They knew he was on to them, but they have support he doesn’t. That’s why he’s running now.”
Things clicked into place. The feeling that the colonel was always giving me extra leeway. In truth, he was doing whatever he could to keep me away from the base and Petersen while he figured out what had been done to me.
“But it’s been too long. Whatever they did to hide what was done to you was supposed to be a temporary fix. They think it might be about to fail. They don’t know what’ll happen.” She paused. “And the catch is, my telling you about it might speed that up.”
“And what were they trying to do?” I asked. I felt cold and remote. My wrist itched where my bracelet sat. The bracelet was a gift from the Adepts. It was intended to warn me of danger, but it’d gotten a little freaky over the last couple of days.
The van stopped and I tensed up. Victor knocked on the door panel.
I moved across and knelt by the door. “Yeah?”
“Things movin’,” he said. “Gotta make time to talk.”
Julie put out a hand to take my arm, then stopped without touching me.
“One minute,” I said to Victor, and turned to listen to her.
“Amber, I don’t like doing this, but I’m desperate. Keith and I can’t go back. That’s fine, we can handle that. But Keith’s where he is now because of what he tried to do for you. You get him out, and we’ll tell you everything we know.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected that, but I could understand her position. I just nodded and opened the sliding door.
Victor was standing outside, with his cell dwarfed in his hand. He glanced behind me, into the back of the van, and hid his sigh of relief.
“It’s Trey,” he said, handing the cell over.
Trey was the one I’d assigned to watch Julie’s motel.
“Talk to me,” I said.
“Good thing Ms. Alverson is clear of here.” He was talking low, as if he wanted to whisper. “Team of three freaking ninjas just went in her room. Slick as anything. Four came out, so I figure someone else went in through the back too. Black clothing, ski masks, MP5s with silencers. Got in a truck, but not moving yet. Took some stuff from the room.”
“Shit. Trey, get away. Now.”
“They haven’t made me.”
“Don’t risk it. Move. Keep the cell on, keep talking.”
Julie’s motel was on East Colfax as it headed out from Aurora. I’d told Trey to watch from across the road, in the RV park. Four lanes and a median strip on top of the forty yards to Julie’s room. He should be safe, but if I was running the op, I’d have had a couple of people on roofs scanning the area with nightscopes.
“Your motel just had a visit from the Nagas,” I said to Julie as she came out of the van to join us.
“Sweet Jesus, that was quick.” She looked uncomfortable. “I thought I’d have a day clear.”
“Keith arrested, you AWOL. Petersen knew you’d be here. What cover are you using?”
“My private backup.”
“We have to assume he’s cracked that. You need to disappear. You have anything valuable in the room? Security problem?”
“No.” Her eyes flicked to Victor and back. “Some proof of the things I was telling you about. You, the command structure, the whole mess.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t interested in the proof about me. Julie had convinced me. As for the rest of it, I’d trust the FBI to crack open every file, and then some, if Agent Ingram was running the show.
“I’m clear,” Trey said. “They’re still parked. No, wait, I can see their truck. They’ve pulled out behind me.”
Trey sounded a lot less confident suddenly.
“Vic, we may need backup in a hurry,” I said, and Victor
started dialing on his cell.
But I had Trey turn onto the interstate and they didn’t follow him there. After a couple of minutes without pursuit, I told him to get off the interstate, swap the plates on his car and then go home.
Another cell chirped. It was my cell’s ringtone, so I reached for my pocket, but I’d given it to Victor to hold.
He fumbled it out, muttering about charging for being a telephone exchange.
I chuckled, but that stopped as soon as I heard the voice on the cell.
“Amber, it’s Pia. We need you here, now. Jen’s coming around.”
Chapter 3
“You’re with me,” I said to Julie as Victor drove us to where my car was parked.
“I can take care of myself,” she said.
“What did you say to me not fifteen minutes ago? You think you can handle it if a team comes looking for you?”
She didn’t have an answer to that.
I wasn’t going to let her go. She didn’t know Denver, didn’t have any contacts except me and there were a hundred ways the Nagas would be able to find her. And I needed to hear the rest of what she had to say.
“You’re with me,” I repeated. “In fact…” I hesitated. This was really flying by the seat of my pants. “In fact, I have a job for you while we wait to spring Keith.”
“I’m not a…” she said, her face closed. I was pretty sure she’d been going to say ‘blood donor,’ but we were in the cab with Victor and she knew I was keeping the paranormal side away from him.
I snorted. “Not that sort of job. You were on that oil company gig in Nigeria , back in ’07, weren’t you? Close protection is your specialty.”
“I have all my little Ops 4-10 badges,” she snapped back. “And I wasn’t on that gig, I led it.”
Victor wiped a hand over his chin, hiding a smile.
I needed to protect Jen and I needed to do a hundred other things. Unfortunately, none of my warring paranormal abilities seemed to include cloning myself. Having Julie available was incredible luck. Victor’s people were good, but I wouldn’t put them up against the Nagas. And Julie already knew that there were paranormal threats. I couldn’t start briefing Victor’s people for a possible attack by Basilikos. At least Julie was only a single breach in the confidentiality rules. I’d have to figure out how I squared that with House Altau when the time came. And I’d need to argue for Altau to give me David and Pia back, to work with Julie on the protection detail.
