by Dean Murray
"You too, Jorge, sit down."
Jorge obviously wasn't very happy about the order, but he took a seat next to the rest of his pack mates and didn't say anything else.
"Things are going to change around here for as long as I'm in charge. Firstly, we're switching to the other side of the war. You will all do everything in your power to support Alec Graves as the rightful king and ruler over all wolves everywhere."
For a second it looked like Jorge wasn't going to be able to hold his tongue. Even worse, Geoffrey could feel the hybrid's thoughts shifting. He'd been mostly happy with passively resisting before, but he'd just gone over to having decided to actively resist Jasmin as far as he was able without endangering his own skin.
Jasmin continued, unaware of the silent drama being played out inside of Jorge's mind. "Next, I don't know how the dominants have been treating the submissives, but as of right now I won't permit any of the abuse that is such a routine part of pack life in most places. If someone who is dominant to you asks you to fetch something then go do it. If we're in a combat situation then the dominants, me mostly, will be calling the shots, but beyond that I expect you to treat each other like actual people. No physical abuse, no stealing, basically no doing anything that would get you sent to jail if you did it to someone in the outside world."
There was obvious hope on many of the faces in the solarium, but it was equally obvious that they weren't sure whether they could trust Jasmin to live up to what she'd just said. Geoffrey knew little of pack life, but it was already plain that the alpha's word was law in a way that normal people couldn't ever hope to understand.
The alpha held the lives of every member of the pack in their hands and there wasn't any higher authority to appeal to if it turned out that they said one thing but behaved in a completely different manner.
"I'm not interested in any kind of witch hunt. By and large I'd like to just give everyone a clean slate and judge you on your behavior from here on out, but I may make an exception if somebody has done something truly heinous."
That last bit was said looking at Jorge, but Jasmin wasn't quite done making her point. "I will however take past action into account when doling out punishments for current actions. If someone has a history of poor behavior in some way or another, I'm not going to let you work up a list of infractions as long as my arm before I deal with you."
She looked around at the pack, at her pack, and then raised an eyebrow. "Any questions?"
When nobody responded Jasmin rubbed the side of her head with one hand and then pointed at a slim fifteen-year-old red-headed girl.
"You, what's your name? Out of the remaining members of this pack who has the closest ties with the Coun'hij?"
The girl cleared her throat nervously and looked around at her friends and family, but there was obviously no help going to come from any of them.
"I'm Sally, ma'am. In answer to your other question, it's Jorge you want. He's got a couple of the enforcers he talks to on a regular basis. The rest of us have been involved in the occasional operation with them to kill a vampire or hunt down one of the dispossessed who had crossed some line or another, but it was just the hybrids the Coun'hij were interested in talking to when they were here."
Geoffrey had wormed a couple of hair-thin tendrils of thought into Sally's mind when it became obvious that Jasmin was going to pump her for information. It was a risk, but he figured it was offset by the need to know whether or not she was telling the truth. He expected Jasmin to look back at him for confirmation, but Jasmin just nodded.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Jorge?"
Jorge pushed dark black hair out of his eyes and then shrugged. "You just got finished telling us that you weren't going to hold the past against us. It doesn't seem like I really have to say anything."
Geoffrey didn't even see Jasmin move. One second she was sitting in a chair like everyone else, and in the next she was standing over Jorge and her hand had been replaced with hybrid claws which now rested along the side of Jorge's neck.
"Don't push me, Jorge. I did say that, but I also said that this pack was now going to be resisting the Coun'hij and helping Alec. Your history seems to indicate that might be a problem for you. Will it?"
"I'm not going to help you, if that's what you mean. You can torture me if you'd like, but you're not going to kill me. I can already see that you don't have the stomach for it. You'll threaten, but threats won't stop the Coun'hij when they come to put you down for killing Branson. You can't stop them from coming, and when they arrive you're going to die."
Jasmin's face had gone cold and remote again. "Geoffrey, there is something I need. Go ahead and pick that particular thought out of my mind and then take one of the submissives with you so they can find it for you. The wolf can tell you where it is when you're safely out of hearing range."
As Geoffrey cautiously reached a thought out towards Jasmin she turned back towards Jorge. "You've got things all wrong. I'm actually hoping that the Coun'hij will be along soon. My associate and I have some unfinished business with them."
Geoffrey's probe skimmed off the thought Jasmin was sending in his direction with so much force that he almost wouldn't have had to be a mentalist in order to know what she wanted. She wanted wire, thin wire, or baring that a heavy-gauge fishing line. Geoffrey was so curious that he couldn't help but probe just the tiniest bit deeper to find out what she wanted it for.
What he saw made Geoffrey's stomach heave unexpectedly. He wasn't sure whether his respect for Jasmin had just grown or decreased, but he no longer had any qualms about working with her. He couldn't have asked for a more ruthless partner when it came to his quest to save Melody.
Chapter 14
Jasmin Bianchi
Stekensbridge House
Duluth, Minnesota
Geoffrey had done his job with the signature competence that I'd come to expect from him. He took Sally with him and when they came back fifteen minutes later they didn't just have the wire, he had a multi-tool and he'd fashioned one end of the wire into a noose.
I spent the entire fifteen minutes they were gone convinced that Jorge was going to find his courage and transform, but I'd angled my claws so that if he did the natural movement of his head and neck as he shifted would rake my claws through his throat. I didn't actually want to kill Jorge, but I hadn't been lying when I said that I was pretty sure he was going to cause me more problems than he was worth.
Geoffrey prepared our little surprise while he was still well out of sight of Jorge and the rest, so Jorge had no heads-up as to what I was planning before Geoffrey stepped around behind him and slipped the wire over his head.
It was a nasty trick, the kind of thing more suited to one of the Coun'hij than it was to someone from Sanctuary, but I didn't have a choice. I couldn't babysit Jorge twenty-four hours a day and I didn't want to kill him, until I was sure that he couldn't be saved. It was the lesser of the evils facing me, so I let Geoffrey slip the wire noose around Jorge's neck and then held the now-terrified hybrid there with my claws while Geoffrey tied the ends off so that the loose wire loop wouldn't have any give in it.
We put more loops around his upper arms and then we wired his hands together behind him and put another loop around his waist. Once that was done Jorge was as close to being harmless as I could make him without putting him inside of a cage.
Putting him inside of a cage would have actually been my first preference, but I knew there wasn't any way I was going to make that happen. No healthy, conscious hybrid would ever let themselves be locked up, but by putting the wires around him I put him enough in my power that he wouldn't have any choice but to do whatever I wanted, up to and including voluntarily locking himself up.
I actually felt sorry for him. If he transformed to a hybrid with those wires on him he'd bleed to death in a matter of seconds as the wires cut into his expanding flesh. If he transformed into a wolf he might not die, it all depended on the relative size of his wolf neck as c
ompared to his human neck, but the wires around his wrists would dislocate both of his front legs and leave him crippled even if the wires around his neck didn't get him.
It was nothing less than cruel. Jorge had been around long enough that he should have a pretty good mastery of his beast, but even so all it would take would be a momentary loss of control on his part, the briefest instant where his beast took over and forced a transformation, and he'd be dead.
Once Jorge was neutralized we pulled his phone out of his front pocket and rehearsed the call that I wanted him to make. He blustered and tried to avoid agreeing to my demands, but he never really had a chance. Between my ability to smell his lies and Geoffrey's ability telling us exactly what Jorge was planning, it was easy to cut off all of his avenues of escape, one by one.
It took nearly an hour, but by the end of that time Jorge was a hollow shell of a man. By the time we finished he'd lost the last of the hope he'd held onto as he'd watched me kill his alpha and his best friend. I felt dirtier for having done it, but I just kept telling myself that this was the only way to rescue Melody and therefore the only way to save Ben.
Even before we'd started breaking Jorge I sent two of the other wolves off with instructions to go pick up Ben. Before they left I promised them that they'd suffer if anything happened to him, and extracted a promise from them that they would do exactly as I'd asked them to in this particular instance.
Under normal circumstances that would have been plenty of reassurance, but when it came to Ben I seemed to need more reassuring than normal. Geoffrey's barely-perceptible nod indicating that they weren't planning on making a run for it was heaven-sent. I'd hated vampires for as long as I'd known of their existence, but it was incredibly empowering to be working with one, especially such a powerful mentalist.
I called to check in with Sally and Jeff, a skinny twenty-year-old who looked like he should be wearing glasses and a pocket protector, and then Geoffrey, Jorge and I made the call to his contact on the Coun'hij.
Jorge spent the whole conversation sweating like a pig, but he didn't try to pull anything on us. By the end of the five-minute call the Coun'hij enforcer was convinced that the Duluth pack had captured me. The guy wanted to talk to Branson to confirm the story, but Jorge was very convincing when he said that Branson had been gravely injured in the process of capturing me. Apparently I was a hybrid now and positively huge, nearly as big as a werewolf.
I could practically hear the eagerness dripping from the enforcer's voice as he hung up. There was no doubt in my mind but that he thought he'd just scored big by being the one who was going to turn me over to Puppeteer and the rest. It even sounded like he was only planning on bringing a couple of guys with him due to the fact that the Coun'hij's people were spread out all over the country trying to deal with the cats coming up from Mexico while at the same time trying to hunt us rebels down.
Geoffrey and I had everything we needed and all it had cost was one little piece of my humanity.
Chapter 15
Geoffrey
Stekensbridge House
Duluth, Minnesota
It was obvious to Geoffrey that Jasmin was having second thoughts about Ben being in Duluth now that the Coun'hij's men were on a plane headed their direction. She'd put Ben up in a tiny hotel six miles from the pack's headquarters, but that wasn't going to ensure Ben's safety if the Coun'hij sent more men than expected.
Geoffrey had taken Ben to the hotel himself, but if the Coun'hij wanted to find Ben they could always just torture the information out of him. Geoffrey had been tortured before, the only difference this time would be that he wouldn't be up against anyone who could read his mind. It should mean that he would take longer than normal to start bleeding information, but it was still only a matter of time before he broke.
There had been quite a lot of debate about the best way to deal with the Coun'hij's people once they arrived, but in the end there hadn't been much in the way of viable options. If there'd been a way to get the enforcers to Stekensbridge House then there would have been a few different ways to ambush them, but Sally and the others had indicated that the Duluth pack traditionally provided transport to and from the city's small airport.
Geoffrey hadn't been entirely surprised when Jasmin told him that there was no way to get the pickup squad from the airport to Stekensbridge House. Apparently shape shifters could smell nervousness as well as they could smell lies.
Jasmin seemed to think there was a chance she or Geoffrey either one would have been able to avoid making the enforcers suspicious, but for the fact that they would smell that Geoffrey was a vampire and Jasmin was the one that they were there to carry away.
No, they were all in agreement that the attack would have to take place at the airport. Every member of the pack knew the code required to enter into the section of the airport where the pack's private plane was parked, so getting past the tall fence was no problem.
Once inside Geoffrey walked casually towards the small control tower. Before he'd even crossed half of the distance Jorge's phone vibrated with an incoming text.
It does look like Hangar Thirteen is the best bet, direct the plane there.
Geoffrey nodded to himself. Jasmin's text had hardly been a surprise, but it was nice to know that the Duluth wolves had been right in their assessment of the best place for the attack to take place.
The rest of the trip to the control tower passed without problem and then Geoffrey was standing in front of a heavy steel door. He briefly considered checking to see if it was locked, but he walked over to an especially deep shadow and sat down instead.
He was better off doing his work from outside of the building. The distance would make things difficult, but it would also eliminate the very real risk otherwise that he'd run into one of the air traffic controllers. If that happened he'd almost certainly be forced to kill someone. Even at his best he wasn't capable of destroying someone's memories and it would be far better for all concerned if he were able to avoid leaving any evidence that anything unusual was happening.
Geoffrey reached out with feather-light strands of thought, insinuating himself into the two minds currently situated only a couple dozen yards away from him. It was only a moment's work to determine which of the two was currently in charge of the arrivals, and then Geoffrey began to work himself deeper and deeper into the man's psyche.
Ten minutes before the arrival time that Jorge's contact had given them, the phone in Geoffrey's pocket lit back up. This time the text was from that same contact.
Still on schedule, make sure that you have your people there waiting for us.
A cold smile worked its way onto Geoffrey's face as his traffic controller, the one that he'd burrowed so deeply into, began working through the final approach exchange with the pilot of the Coun'hij's plane.
Hangar Thirteen. That's right, you want to direct them to Hangar Thirteen once they've landed.
It was a simple mantra, but Geoffrey repeated it over and over with the conviction of a recent convert praying. It took only a minute or so before the suggestion started to take root, but Geoffrey continued to keep the pressure up on his controller.
Geoffrey waited until the plane had touched down and he 'heard' the arrival controller direct the pilot to Hangar Thirteen and then the vampire stood and started back towards the spot where Jasmin and the others were waiting for him.
The plane had to taxi across half the distance of the airport to make it to Hangar Thirteen, so Geoffrey was able to make it there a minute or so before the large doors started sliding back out of the way of the incoming plane.
Jasmin met him at the small door he used to enter.
"Everything is a go. The wolves are all here and positioned out of sight. We'll wait for the plane to power down and the doors to close and then Sally will cut the power and the entire structure will be plunged into darkness."
Geoffrey nodded. "Thereby making sure that we don't have to worry about the pilot seeing something he's
not supposed to. That works."
"Will you be able to see well enough to fight?"
"Probably, but even if I can't, it won't be the end of the world. I'll still be able to sense them."
Jasmin looked surprised. "I never realized that was even possible for you."
Geoffrey hoped that his shrug was sufficiently noncommittal that she wouldn't be able to smell the lie on him. In theory it should be possible, but he'd never tried it before and wasn't actually sure if he would be able to fully compensate for the disorientation that was an inherent part of trying to see out of someone else's eyes at the same time that he saw out of his own.
A second or two passed in which Jasmin seemed to be waiting for him to expound, but then she just shrugged. "Just be careful. This all is pretty much pointless if you're not around to heal Ben afterwards. We need to take at least one of these guys alive, so our best bet is to kill one quickly and then we can overwhelm whoever is left with enough numbers to make capture possible."
Geoffrey took up station behind a pile of tires. Jasmin disappeared behind a large tool chest, and then there was nothing left but the wait. A few minutes later the plane, a shiny Gulfstream, taxied into the hangar and the large doors behind it began closing.
It looked for a second as though the plan might come apart completely. Geoffrey could hear the enforcers exiting the plane and not only were the lights still on, the doors hadn't finished closing.
"Do you hear that?"
"Yeah, heartbeats."
Geoffrey knew that the wolves would be able to hear the enforcers even better than he could, so he wasn't surprised when the lights died immediately after that. The hangar was dark, but not completely dark. Between the running lights from the plane and the five-foot gap in the main doors there was sufficient light for Geoffrey and he started off towards the open door at a full sprint.
Now that the main breaker had been thrown the doors had stopped moving and Geoffrey knew that everyone else had doors they were covering. It would be up to him to make sure that the enforcers didn't get out that way.
