by Mark Henwick
I called Bian and asked her to update Skylur, and I was on the point of calling Felix when I stopped myself.
We didn’t actually know Weaver was there. If he wasn’t, I was wasting time talking to Felix and Cameron. If he was, the cubs might be in danger and any delay in pulling them back was unjustified. We weren’t going there to engage with Weaver yet, just to scout.
“We’ll get up in the Arapaho and see if that solves our problems connecting to Annie. We might be able to contact Rita as well.”
“Noisy,” Yelena said.
“We’ll keep well away from the actual ranch. There are always mountain rescue helicopters flying around here. Vernal is the local emergency hospital.”
I was making some of that up, and Yelena knew it.
“One mile,” I said, to appease her. “No closer.”
“Nautical or statute?” Kane asked innocently as he trotted off to the helicopter.
Yelena’s eyes narrowed, but all she did was mutter in Ukrainian and pick up the Ops 4-10 light recon pack. So did I. Whether or not we were intending to fight, we weren’t going to be unprepared. This was all enemy territory, potentially.
“It’s the right move,” I said, as we took off ten minutes later. Kane was flying, with Flint navigating. Alice and Gabrielle should have remained at the house to coordinate, but I had the TacNet headset and I wasn’t leaving it behind, so they came with us.
“Hotel 6, Alpha 6.” I tried the headset as soon as we were clear of the house.
“This is Hotel 6. Situation query.” Annie came through.
“Alpha 6. New information. Site...” I had to glance back at the map for the designation. “Site Oscar now top priority. Attempting to recall Team Oscar. En route by helicopter. ETA 5.”
“Hotel 6. Roger that. In contact with Team Mike. Will redeploy to assist you.”
“Affirm. Vehicles remain one mile from site center.”
There was a wave of static so long I thought I’d lost her again, but she came back.
“Query redeploy all teams.”
I was working on a hunch, not solid data.
“Negative,” I said. “Not at this time. Continue assigned tasks and listen out.”
“Will do.”
Yelena was trying the same with Rita by cell phone. She shook her head when I looked up. Not getting through.
I leaned across and spoke over the noise of the rotors. “Maybe the sound of the helicopter will make her stop and investigate.”
Yelena pursed her lips. “Maybe.” She waved out the front where we were heading. “This is not good.”
It wasn’t. It really wasn’t.
In Ops 4-10, mines, tunnels or caves had been one of our nightmare scenarios. Inevitably, there were no maps of the underground passages and no way that normal GPS or surveillance would work. We’d needed to assault a couple in my time, and they’d been the most difficult targets. No idea how many enemies, no idea where they were underground. In this case today, no idea how they were armed, either.
Of course, if all we needed to do was destroy Weaver, the task would have been simpler. There are bombs that would do that quite effectively. But we needed to get Tullah out. Maybe Rita and the cubs, if they’d been caught.
It was nearly impossible to attack an enemy dug into a mine without harming hostages. Getting all of them out safely would be completely impossible.
Sneak attack?
Trick Weaver into abandoning the mine?
I was still spinning through a very poor set of options when Kane landed the Arapaho.
He’d found a frozen mud bank made by a bend in a stream, which offered a good flat surface. We were about a mile southeast of the ranch and hidden from it by ranks of lodgepole pine and mountain spruce, and a series of low, bare hills. The track up to the ranch was nearby, and there were places around here that Rita might have hidden their truck while Team Oscar checked out the ranch.
Yelena refused to consider me moving beyond the first of the bare hills we came to.
“You have headset to talk to others,” she said. “You are coordinating.”
I had binoculars, so I could see the ranch, and if I stayed lying flat, behind the summit of the small hill, I would not be seen.
Every time recently I’d ignored her warnings, it seemed I’d gotten into trouble.
And it was okay, really. We were here to get Rita and the cubs back first. It wasn’t as if this was going to be an all-out assault on the ranch or the mine. Yet.
Not that we even knew where the mine was. It’d stayed undiscovered for a hundred and fifty years. We weren’t going to stumble into it.
Get the cubs out. Check if this place had seen any visitors in the last couple of days. They could do that without me.
Under instruction from Yelena, Scott changed to wolf and tore off through the snowy pines to see if he could catch a scent or find tracks.
Under protest, Kane had remained with the Arapaho. Gabrielle stayed with him to work a couple of cell phones: one to keep trying to contact Rita, the other to talk to Team Mike, who were saying they’d join us in twenty minutes.
Alice was sent after Scott, to call on her cell if he found something.
Flint and Yelena took off at a trot through the trees toward the ranch.
I used the TacNet to update as many teams as I could get through to while I watched the ranch through the binoculars.
No trucks outside. No smoke from the chimney. No clearing of the snow away from the doors.
The track that went up to the ranch had seen some use, but at that distance, I couldn’t tell how long ago, and I had no information about when the last snowfall had been.
The Denver pack patrol would know that, so I was about to call Team Echo and ask when something stopped me.
Something was wrong.
Had I heard something out of place?
I looked back at the frozen stream where we’d landed. It was about half a mile away.
The Arapaho sat on the bank. The engine was off, the doors were closed and I couldn’t possibly hear Gabrielle talking on the cell, not even with my hybrid hearing.
The stream was frozen over. No possibility that was making any noise that I’d hear at this distance either.
A flock of doves burst out of a stand of pine about a hundred yards away to my left, startling me. They arced away in a frantic flurry of wings.
What had spooked them?
That was the opposite direction from the one Scott had taken and a long way from where Yelena had gone.
A fox broke cover and ran away, leaping clear of the snow to go faster.
And down there, next to the ranch, deer I hadn’t even seen suddenly bolted across a snow-covered field.
I took the safety off my MP5 and turned in a slow circle.
Nothing.
My imagination?
I could hear something.
A distant hum, like electricity pylons. Then a grinding sound.
And then, I felt it, through the ground.
Earthquake?
No. A hundred yards away, the trees weren’t stirring. There was snow on the boughs that wasn’t falling.
I staggered up like I was drunk, unable to keep my balance.
A substantiation?
I looked upward.
Blue sky. Morning sunshine. No weird clouds. No clouds at all.
It was at that point the earth opened up beneath me. I fell, and the last thing I saw, high above, was the bright sunlight and the blue of the sky being eaten by the Fenris wolf, with jaws of dark earth and teeth of rock.
Chapter 69
“The bitch is coming around.”
If I could hear that, I guessed I had to be alive, whatever it felt like. The words were oddly muffled.
Dirt in my mouth. I tried to spit to clear it, had to roll over and vomit abruptly. I was covered in cold, wet earth. Mouth, nose, hair, eyes, ears—everything invaded with mud. It’d torn away the MP5, the TacNet and the rest of my equipment, ripped my j
acket and T shirt off.
I was soaking, freezing. I’d been handcuffed, with my hands in front of me. There was some kind of collar around my neck. It was heavy and ominous.
Someone threw water into my face and another voice spoke. A reprimand.
I could hear a bucket being put down in front of me.
There was water inside; enough to clean my eyes and ears, wipe the mud and vomit from my mouth.
“Everyone looks upward for substantiations,” Weaver said. “Up in the sky. Never down in the earth. Foolish.”
“There are people who are looking for you, and they aren’t fools,” I replied and coughed up more dirt. “Now they’ll know where you are.”
We were in a small room, no more than five by five. The walls were rough-cut from rock. A camp bed was pushed against one wall. Electric cable came in by the door for a single light tube on a stand. Pipes also came in, next to the door, ending in a faucet, a sink and a toilet. All the comforts of home.
Weaver and another man were standing watching me. They were between me and the door.
“Oh, they’ll figure it out and your little troop will gather and finally decide to make some attempt to get into a mine where they can’t even find the entrance,” Weaver said. “It’ll be far too late by then.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but I kept my mouth shut.
“Get up,” he said.
I took my time, checking for any damage.
There seemed to be none, and I still had my boots, and my pants. Small mercies. I clenched my calf muscles on the right. Ahh. And one thing these assholes had overlooked. My hidden knife. Amateurs. Good.
The other man spoke: “That collar you’re wearing will deliver enough electricity to fry your neck.” He held up a small controller. “It also contracts.”
He demonstrated the contraction, and I choked before he wound it back enough for me to breathe.
Bastard.
“Feel free to give me problems,” he said. “I’m looking forward to your death being slow and painful. Or terrifying. Both work for me.”
“I hope there’ll be no need for that, Celum,” Weaver said. He took his jacket off and draped it across my shoulders, buttoned the front. Patted my shoulder. “No need to make this any more uncomfortable than it is. In the final analysis, we’re all going to be on the same side.”
Celum and I would not be on the same side. Ever. Even with my nose still blocked with mud, I was getting a scent off him. El Paso.
You can take over a pack, but sometimes you can’t take everyone in the pack with it. I guessed he’d be one of Caleb and Victoria’s former lieutenants, maybe one of the oldest ones. Whatever anyone else did, he wasn’t willing to accept the change of leadership.
Either Celum was going to die today, or I was.
“You’ll want to see Tullah,” Weaver interrupted my thoughts. “Follow me.”
At the level we were at, the mine was a collection of caverns connected by tunnels. Somewhere they had a generator, because they had electric light down here.
Which meant a vent to the outside.
If there was a way out, there was a way in. Ops 4-10 infrared scopes would see the heat from the vents. So could wolf eyes.
I just had to stay alive and prevent whatever it was that Weaver was planning.
We dropped a level down a steel staircase.
Weaver had put a lot of resources into this.
“Find any gold?” I asked.
Weaver laughed. “I guess my hobby is obvious. Yes. These tunnels go for miles. No huge motherlodes yet, but even the old tailings are worth processing.”
We walked down another staircase.
“That was how you found me, eh?” Weaver said. “Quicker than I planned, so it’s lucky you led us to Tullah first. Without that, things would have been difficult.”
“Without the Hecate, it would have been more than difficult,” I said.
He laughed it off. “Your Adepts did manage to surprise me, but we were never in danger. We got rid of you and both the other substantiations quite easily. The Hecate was handy, but not essential.”
Well, I wasn’t going to argue with him. Let him delude himself and underestimate others.
I hadn’t seen anyone else in the mine yet, but I could feel them down below, and the further we went, the more my skin began to crawl. There were some serious magical workings down here.
The rough-cut tunnels disappeared behind plain plastic boarding.
It was warmer, and hidden behind the boarding there were pumps working. Water flowed through pipes.
I remembered it as a hazard of mining in the Uinta Mountains. There was water everywhere. And of course, I’d bet he was using it to bind a working, hiding what he had down here the same way that was used in Skylur’s dungeon.
In confirmation, we came to an open archway that was closed off with a sheet of water dropping from the top and collected in a trough at the bottom.
“Through quickly, please,” Weaver said. He flicked a switch and the water stopped long enough for Celum to push me through.
No electricity on this side. A couple of old miner’s lamps sat on the floor inside. Weaver picked them up, gave one to me.
I could feel the water all around this area, like a cocoon. I could feel the working in it, blocking us away from the outside world.
I could feel the growing power and I stumbled down more steps into the gloom.
A wide circular pit, making me think of a huge crucible.
Seating still being built around the ring.
Bare concrete floor.
Tullah lay in the middle. She was naked except for a collar like mine around her neck. Hers was fastened by a chain to a hoop set in the floor.
I fell to my knees. Her skin was cold.
“Tullah?”
She didn’t stir. The light of my lamp gleamed on the sweat coating her. I found a weak pulse in her throat.
“She hears you,” Weaver said. “She’s recovering at the moment. Not really been subjected to anything too painful. Not yet. Whether that continues is up to you.”
Chapter 70
“So here’s what we’ll do,” Weaver said while I sat on the floor cradling Tullah’s unresponsive body.
“You call your mentor in Denver and persuade her to come here. It’s as easy as that. No one gets any more hurt than necessary. You and Tullah can go back and get on with your lives. I know you Athanate and Were are becoming frantic over humanity discovering the paranormal, but you can all stop worrying. I will handle it, with the dragon.”
Above the pit Tullah and I were in, there were broad steps completely encircling it, like an amphitheater. They’d started to install seats, but it wasn’t complete. Tools and iron support bars lay stacked on one side.
Weaver walked around the first step until he was opposite the door we’d used to enter, then sat down, his lamp at his feet.
The uplighting wasn’t flattering. It made him look demonic, but he was probably way beyond that type of petty consideration.
“I have no biases against humanity or paranormal races,” he said. “We can all live together. Life will be immeasurably improved for everyone. Well, almost everyone. It’ll need firm direction, of course, that’s a given. Nevertheless, within my guidelines, countries would continue to rule themselves, without wars, without abuses of their populations, paranormal or otherwise.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I may become the only universally loved ruler ever. Not at first of course, but when the benefits become apparent to the billions of marginals, the disenfranchised, the poor and subjugated people all over the world. The sort of people whose lives mean nothing to monsters like Matlal, and little more to the Emperor of Heaven.”
I was barely listening. He had me at ‘firm direction’. In the negative sense.
I was trying to gently ease into Tullah’s mind with my eukori, but there were barriers I’d never sensed before.
Whatever Weaver had tried, it seemed
she’d put up a barrier that had defeated him.
And there was no way, even if I called Diana, she was going to agree to hand Kaothos over to him. Not that it seemed Weaver had any way to achieve that without getting himself squashed like a bug by Kaothos. Yes, he’d grown in power, but stronger than Diana? Strong enough to bind Kaothos?
No.
Others were coming in through the water-door behind me. They were walking around the circle and taking their seats in silence, making us the ominous center of attention. Each one added a weight to the feeling in the pit. My skin crawled.
“Now Altau, he has the right idea, but he lacks something.” Weaver pursed his lips in thought. “The drive, the single-mindedness to see it through.”
The irony of that statement completely escaped Weaver. He was what—fifty years old? Skylur had watched over the Athanate for thousands of years without rest, making untold sacrifices in a single-minded mission to ensure their survival.
In service of that mission, he could be one of the most cold-bloodedly ruthless people I’d ever known.
And yet… he still lacked the callousness, the ability to murder millions, which would be the first outcome of Weaver’s reign.
“But even worse, Altau does not have the competence in his organization. Look at you two! A half-witted, disloyal Adept who refused to admit she was hosting the dragon, and then proceeded to lose it. Not to a stronger Adept, though that would have happened in time, but to an Athanate.”
“And as her friend, did you offer counsel? Take her to Skylur? Suggest any sensible options? No. You blundered around in the dark, driven mad by your hybrid nature, until you precipitated the confrontation where the dragon moved unpredictably.”
I was getting tired of this, but he loved the sound of his own voice. I guessed I was condemned to listen until the rest of the coven had come in.
They weren’t the Denver coven. They were the same bodies, but I knew some of these people, back when Tullah’s mother had been leader of the coven. Tullah had told me tales of looking after their children on camping trips in the Rockies, of parties and barbeques. She’d complained about all their fussy rules about not using magic.
