Except for the ones Gausto had bought.
I cannot repay him by doing the wrong thing.
Not when doing the wrong thing had gotten him into this position in the first place.
But she couldn’t chance that he might grow weaker. Or that Gausto might come here after all.
Indecision tore at her. The house closed in around her. It stifled her, sturdy walls and muffled sounds and strange scents all enfolding her and separating her from what was real.
Jet left her clothes behind. She headed down the hall, not as cautious as she should have been. She hesitated long enough to snatch up his useless phone from the kitchen table, thumbing through the contacts there, soaking them in. Memorizing them so quickly, in the way that had so annoyed Gausto.
She didn’t know who at brevis was safe, and who was Gausto’s.
So she’d just have to call them all.
Then she left the phone and she left the house, striding right through the sleepy dogs; they lifted their heads and thumped their tails. Baroo poked his head out of the dog igloo and went wa-woo at her in soft inquiry. She merely looked at him, quiet and steady, her body full of alpha and clear enough even for a dog-child to read; he sighed and lay down with only his nose visible in the doorway.
Through the gate, a few steps into the driveway, gravel biting at her bare feet and the cool desert night biting at her skin…she reached for the wolf, stretching out into a run on the way. Energy coalesced around her, scattered her…brought her back as black-furred and swift and loping into the darkened desert range.
The miles to the gas station fell away beneath her feet. She ignored the scent of prey around her—the startled mice darting off to the side, the owl swooping low overhead. Miles gone…soothing, steady rhythm. Wolf. She eased down to a trot at the sight of the station lights, and came around the back corner into the parking lot.
In the darkness and at the edge of the lot, the man carrying his giant drink and his strange fake-meat burger didn’t pay any attention to her until she was on him—blocking his way back to the station and convenience store, close enough so he’d never reach his car before she brought him down. She lifted her lip in a snarl, the one that had such an effect on Gausto’s men. The one with plenty of lip-curling, all her teeth showing. The one that a wolf would know to read as pure warning, but which these humans seemed to see as the fiercest of threats.
The man froze. Past his prime, out of shape…he instantly smelled of fear-sweat. It made the top of his bald heady shiny. Jet took another step. She eyed the heavy sag of his front pocket and took another yet, panting through the snarl—plenty hot, plenty thirsty.
“Be a good dog,” the man said. “Maybe you need water?” Without looking away from her, he pried the soda lid off with his thumb, and carefully—so very carefully—set the soda on the ground. “Maybe you need a burger? It’s just a cheap road burger. I left it in the microwave too long.” Nervousness infused his voice; he fumbled the wrapper and put the burger on the asphalt, too.
Jet stepped forward, owning the asphalt. She lapped at the soda—yellow and strong, it made her nose wrinkle of its own accord. She sniffed around the burger, trying to decide if it was truly food and truly worth eating. By then the man thought himself safe, and started to back away.
She lifted her head, transfixing him with her stare…snarling. And as his eyes widened, she leaped for his pants.
Jet gulped the burger down in a few measured bites; she took a few more laps of the soda. Coins from a torn pocket rolled and danced down old asphalt.
No one had paid any attention to the man’s cries. Nor to his dash to the car, not taking any notice that she hadn’t followed—she had what she wanted—or to his wheel-screeching departure from the rough edge of the parking lot.
Not a lot of people here at this time of night.
Jet detoured around the backside of a battered delivery truck perma-parked nearby, taking back her human form. The human form had a speaking voice; the human form had fingers. She commenced to gather the scattered coins, and then—walking around broken glass and bottle caps—she went to the phone booth at the side of the building.
Marlee didn’t dare close her eyes. Not again—not on the nightmares that had strained through her sleep this night. And she hardly dared to keep them open, with her imagination turning darkness into shapes and monsters. Her blood was too weak to confer upon her the easy night vision the Sentinels took for granted. She didn’t have their ability to heal from wounds that could easily have been fatal; she didn’t have their extra strength, resources they could draw on even in human form.
She had only her determination, her quick wit, and her unrelenting sense of fairness.
And for now, her determination wavered. Her wit might well have failed her. And her fairness seemed to have left her open to the worst kind of influence.
The worst of it all was, she just wasn’t sure.
So, finally, she got out of bed. If nothing else, to turn on the aquarium light and watch the stop-and-start swimming of her Rasboras, listening to the soothing sound of the filter gurgling away in the background.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d fallen asleep on the couch, wrapped in a shawl and wearing a risqué nightie that ought to be shared, but which she refused to deny herself simply because she had no one with which to share it.
Of course, reaching the fish in the small living room meant going past the even smaller office, a little utility room of space shared with her pantry shelves. She told herself she wouldn’t check the computer…even as her feet took her there and her ass seated itself in the chair. The monitor flickered out of power-save mode; a few keystrokes logged her into the system—and then, into the Sentinel system.
Not that she was supposed to do any such thing.
She hunted around for activity. There weren’t any big operations in play; no teams called up—nothing but background activity. That meant Sentinels on patrol, but mostly on their own terms, and the reports would trickle in according to the Sentinel and the situation.
So in the middle of the night, even with all these night-loving predators around her, she didn’t expect to find much going on.
Whoa. Way to be wrong.
The phone action was off the scale. Messages, so far. She began to check them, frowning at the most recent listings, one call after another—to offices that varied from the most basic of building support services to the line that led directly to Dane Berger’s office.
They all came from the same number.
Marlee didn’t think twice. She accessed the last message, turning up her computer speakers as the file downloaded. She copied the number and started an identity and location trace on it.
“You don’t know me,” a woman’s voice said, startling Marlee. She quickly adjusted the speaker volume. “My name is Jet.” Jet? Either she was a musician wannabe or her parents had been leftover hippies. Musician, Marlee decided from the voice. Low and liquid, curling around the words in some odd way—even the very faintest hint of a lisp. But not a baby-girl lisp, not even close. Just a soft shirring of her consonants. “I am calling for Nick Carter.”
Marlee baffled over that for a moment, since the woman hadn’t called Carter’s number. Then she realized…on behalf of. She was calling on behalf of Carter. And given that Carter had been missing for a day…Marlee came to complete attention, holding her breath—not wanting to miss a single nuance.
“You should know he needs help. He needs healing. He is in his home. And you should know—”
A background interruption, a man’s voice growing closer and more incredulous with each word. “Hey! Oh my God! You’re naked!”
“This is no surprise to me,” the woman said to him, and her voice held a new quality, one which made Marlee wince on behalf of the intruder—even before she processed what the man had said. Naked.
The woman could simply be a nudist. But in Marlee’s world, shapechangers were commonplace—and unless they wore clothing of n
atural materials, they left it behind when they shifted. Sentinels might wear a piece or two of optional clothing, but they always wore enough shiftable stuff to get by. So. Shapeshifter. But not a Sentinel.
“Ker-rist! Will you look at you? You don’t even care, do you? Are you looking for some, is that it?” The voice sounded closer yet. The ogling behind it came through loud and clear.
“I have no need of you,” the woman told him.
Marlee leaned closer to the computer speakers, hoping the voice mail wouldn’t cut out. It had no time limit, but any period of silence would disconnect the system.
“You sure as hell need something, baby. It might as well be—shee-it, just look at you—”
Marlee gathered, with a wry little smile, that the woman was pleasant to look upon.
The woman spoke into the phone, evidently ignoring her suitor. “You should know that I don’t trust you. Any of you. So I have the brevis numbers from Nick Carter’s phone, and I—” A sudden surprised sound, snarl-like. “You may not!”
“You gonna hang them out there in the open like that, you’re gonna get touched.” A smirk in that voice. “Now c’mon, baby—I can take care of you.”
“No. You cannot. If you touch me again, I will hurt you.”
Listen to her, Marlee thought at him, even though these events were an hour old. Can’t you hear it in her voice? The wild? The untamed?
Marlee could.
To the phone, the woman said, “I am calling as many of you as he has in the phone.”
But the man was slow. The man was stupid. “No, hey, c’mon—you see that trucker over there? If he drags you into that sleeper cab of his, you aren’t ever gonna see daylight again. I’ll take care of you—”
A loud clunk—the phone falling, banging into the side of the phone booth. The woman’s feral snarl. A man’s cry of sudden pain.
And then, of course, the voice mail cut off.
“No!” Marlee stared at the computer in outrage. After an instant of disbelief, she grabbed the mouse, quickly navigated back to the voice-mail list…found the call she’d just listened to, and then the one that had been placed before it. She clicked on the file link, jiggled her foot impatiently, and again stopped breathing as the message began to play—this one made to a care coordinator in the clinic who wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do with it.
“You don’t know me,” the woman said, that exotic way of speaking still in her voice, little concern or upset present. “My name is Jet.”
Marlee stopped the playback. She pondered the message. I don’t trust you.
Whoever this woman was, she knew. Brevis was compromised.
If these messages got through, then brevis would know, too. They would start looking. And if they were looking, they would find Marlee. If Gausto hadn’t overstepped his intentions, if he hadn’t gone too far…
But no, he’d done what she always feared. He’d broken their thin trust—enemies working toward the same goal—and he’d grabbed a moment to do exactly as he wanted. Using her, willing to expose her—willing to sacrifice her for this scheme of his.
So she couldn’t have him looking.
On the other hand, if no one got these messages, then no one would know to go to Carter’s…
He needs healing.
Gausto. What the hell had he done?
But Marlee wasn’t ready for this. Not yet.
She copied the phone number down on the scrawlfilled scratch pad beside the computer, and she saved the sound file to her hard drive. Then, one by one, she deleted the voice messages from the Sentinel servers.
Jet stepped over the man down on the crumbling asphalt beside the worn gas station; he curled around his broken arm, moaning gently. The convenience store lights flickered low; no one inside had so much as glanced in her direction.
She opened her hand, letting the remainder of her gathered change trickle out on him. “Call for help,” she suggested—and in those bare shadows, took back to the wolf, dimly aware of his fearful cry. She gave him the most disdainful of glances and loped away, back into the desert.
She’d done what she could. She’d left many messages. Surely one of those people would be the right person, even if one of them—or more—was the wrong person.
Alternating an easy lope and trot, she cut a trail more efficient than the road, feeling the pleasure of muscles loosening into movement and time. The night around her bloomed in sharp black and white, the light of a partial moon casting it into easy detail. She let her mind go, thinking of nothing…turning purely to the wolf, to the here and now. Every step, experiencing the full, heady sensations of the wolf.
Or trying to. But it wasn’t the same. Not as long as her pack stayed prisoner. Not as long as they could scent the human of her. She was aware, ever aware, of how her thoughts had changed since that first change. Her very being had changed. The human clung to her through the wolf, complicating her thoughts, interfering with her existence.
Gausto had promised her an end to those things. A true return to what she’d been. And her people, free. This afternoon, she had forfeited that salvation—but not yet that of her pack. As the human-wolf, she could free them. She could escort them home, navigating dangers and following maps.
And then…she did not know.
She could not do that if she stayed with Nick Carter—if she allowed him to give her over to Brevis Southwest. If she traded Gausto for the Sentinels.
The sharp pain in her flank took her by surprise—renewed with vigor, cramping up her haunch and stifle and up through her ribs. She stumbled, plowing nosefirst into the hard ground. Dignity offended, she rose for an quick hard shake, pawing her muzzle with her foot, and sneezed mightily. Then she trotted on.
Half a mile later, she went down again. This time she got up more cautiously, orienting herself…spotting Nick’s house in the distance. Almost home.
Home? What was she thinking? Not if she wanted to help her pack. Not if she wanted what freedom was left to her.
And yet…
Home.
Nick blinked into the darkness. Better. He felt damp…sweating it out the amulet’s poison, in spite of the air conditioning. And the strangely bitter scent on the air—that was him, too. Sweating it out. But he could do something about that.
He rolled out of bed on legs that felt rubbery, not bothering with lights, and headed for the master bath. The shower spray hit him hard, not quite warmed up yet—shocked him awake. He turned his face to the water flow, letting it pour over him—rinsing away the stench of the Core. Letting it pound him while he tested himself…found his limits.
Hard limits. He still couldn’t so much as reach out for Annorah, never mind detect power or personal trace. He couldn’t feel the wards set around this house; he had to trust in them.
He couldn’t rely on his uncanny ability to crumble amulets, filling them with small but precise reverberations of energy that tore them down from the inside out, leaving only so much dust in his hand.
Deaf and dumb. He was lucky he could still see through the night.
The water warmed; his muscles relaxed. He lathered up, hair and all, handmade wintergreen soap that cleared his head and went straight to his nose.
Jet.
What was he doing? What had he done? It had been indulgence to respond to her at the fairgrounds…to leap into her game of wolves-in-the-desert, giving in to that which she brought out in him. Falling so hard into what sprang up between them, profound and primal.
Walking right into Gausto’s trap.
That he was here, in his home, spoke of Jet’s nature and not Nick’s good judgment. Pure damned luck, that had been.
Unless you saw through to the truth of her right from the start.
Nick shut his eyes against soap and roughly scrubbed the lather away. No point in softening it. He’d seen Jet; he’d justified his decision to follow her. And maybe he’d been right, to a point. Until he’d let his response to her get in the way of his responsibilities.
That response to her remained alive and well, and very much evident here in the shower…very much wistful. “Get over it,” he muttered to himself, and immediately made that impossible by thinking of Jet curled into him on the patio lounger, half-dressed and not the least bit concerned about it. Golden eyes beneath a tilted sweep of lash, body full of sleek and power and wild, an enigma of open heart and hidden places.
With this woman—this one woman—there was no need to hide the power and wild that rumbled constantly around inside him, hardly disguised by the veneer of civilization he so assiduously applied. Linen Prada suits, crisp haircut, sleek accoutrements.
As if he was really fooling anyone.
With Jet, he could drop all that. Whether wolf or human, he could be exactly what he was—and she matched it. Sensation enfolded him—memory grown large, her skin beneath his hands, her lips and teeth at his neck…
Nick opened his eyes, surprised to find they had been closed. Surprised to find himself leaning against the shower stall, water streaming down his face. He straightened, shook his head sharply—scattered droplets everywhere. Every part of him ached for release—for Jet’s touch; Jet’s body.
He turned the water off and reached for a towel.
Jet was the one thing he couldn’t have.
The Sentinels came first. His responsibilities came first, here in a region ripe for problems after years of benign neglect—a region already quietly compromised from within, its missions failing on a regular basis, its field agents risking everything and more and more often coming in wounded, baffled…not understanding what had gone wrong.
This morning, Nick had given in to indulgence. One wolf to another, purely personal.
He’d nearly paid for it with his life.
No, face it straight. Brevis had nearly paid for it with many lives. Because it wouldn’t have been a quick death for him. It would have been Fabron Gausto, playing with him and torturing him and taking him to the edge of death as many times as he could—all while sucking out as much information as he could. And Nick was realistic. A man could do his best, but under Core magics and Gausto’s sadistic hand, he’d break—and break hard.
Sentinels: Wolf Hunt Page 9
