by Dean Murray
"What do you tell the people who ask you that?"
"I lie to them. I tell them I've exhausted my store of creativity, that I'm not sure I have another novel in me. The truth though is that I've continued to write. I'm almost compelled to write, but I've never allowed anyone else to read my later work, and I have no plans of submitting it to a publisher."
Nothing I'd ever read about her, none of the interviews she'd given over the years, had even hinted at anything like this.
"But why?"
The question had popped out of me without conscious thought on my part, but it was the question I wanted answered more than anything else at that point.
"I don't write for other people. I write to help me remember the really special people I come across. Normally I wouldn't have even published those three books, but someone I respect very much, someone I trust almost implicitly, told me there was a very important reason to publish those particular books."
She'd moved up to my thighs now. Her efforts were so amazing that I was having a hard time staying awake. A part of me worried that this was all a trick, that it wasn't natural for me to be relaxing this quickly, especially not with someone I didn't know. Most of me just couldn't be bothered.
I managed to get another question past my lassitude though.
"Why?"
This time she laughed out loud. "Those three books were written for the purpose of bringing today about. I'm sure they had other benefits. He...well, he doesn't do anything for just one purpose. I like to think they have helped the world at large in some small way, but they were written with you in mind."
I felt like maybe I'd missed something there. She was working my neck over, but I couldn't remember how she'd gotten there. Everything from my shoulders down felt like a puddle though, so she hadn't skipped anything.
I managed one last 'why' and I heard her sigh in sadness this time.
"What would you do if you knew a future was coming in which the world would be torn asunder? You don't have to answer because I already know; I've seen it. You would fight with everything you had to try and save the innocents who would be endangered. I'm doing the same thing. I was faced with two paths, two ways of bringing about a future where humanity has a chance of surviving. All I can hope is that I chose correctly."
Vanessa turned me over and started on the front of my legs. Being flipped over should have pulled me out of my near coma, but I just couldn't manage anything more than passive assistance. I tried to get another question out but my whole body felt light and energized and my mind seemed to be shutting down.
I thought I remembered her touching my face, softly rubbing the scar that Raphael had given me, but it might have just been my imagination. When I finally opened my eyes it was nearly morning and the only evidence that it all hadn't just been a dream was staring back at me in the mirror.
My scar was gone, and the apartment was empty.
Chapter 12
Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah
Kristin found me in the middle of a picnic of all things. Tasha had barged into my studio an hour before lunch with a teasing look in her eye and cajoled me into agreeing to show her more of the estate.
I suspected she'd already ranged through the entire estate on her own, but she was right that it would do me good to get out of the house. I hadn't been painting, not really. I'd actually put my brush to the canvas, but it hadn't been like before, I hadn't had any vision of what I wanted to create. I was just playing with shapes and colors.
I agreed mostly because Tasha had been right. I needed to get away from the house and spend some time outside. We'd just laid the food out when Kristin showed up.
"Alec, we need to talk. Right now."
She obviously didn't want Tasha in on the discussion, but I'd already considered leaking knowledge of Kristin's dreams to the rest of the world. It shouldn't hurt as long as we kept her close by and it might even make one or two of the challengers reconsider.
"If it's about your dreams you can tell me now. Tasha may as well know about that, too."
Kristin didn't look happy at the order. I felt my beast test its bonds with a surge of power, but I kept control of it. My beast was harder to control lately, but that didn't matter. I was a dominant. I controlled my beast; it didn't control me. It had become my personal mantra lately, and sometimes it even worked.
This turned out to be one of those times. I managed to just wait expectantly until Kristin finally nodded.
"Okay, yeah. I had another of my precognitive dreams. It was another challenge match, but this time was different."
Tasha sat up and leaned forward. She was either doing a very good job of acting surprised, or we'd actually managed to keep Kristin's abilities a secret so far. I was betting on the latter. Even Addison seemed to have finally realized that leaking information to the world at large was asking for serious trouble.
"How was it different?"
She shot me another frustrated look, like she wasn't happy that I was rushing her, but she waved her hand and shrugged.
"It's hard to describe. It was like I was dreaming and then suddenly I was watching two time streams at once. We're going to have a challenger, a big guy with red fur. You send Ash in first and he gets off a couple of shots, but they bounce off of something. It was kind of like an air shield or something."
I looked over at Tasha, but she shook her head. "That doesn't ring any bells. When we get back to the house I can pull up a list of known dispossessed with red fur in their hybrid forms, but I've memorized every hybrid with known abilities and an 'air shield' doesn't ring any bells."
I frowned. I didn't like unknowns generally, but they were becoming more and more frequent lately.
"So someone who just manifested a new power?"
"Possibly, but my money would be on someone who's had a power for a while but has kept it quiet so far. It occasionally happens and isn't a bad idea. If your power isn't strong enough to serve as a deterrent then you're better off holding it in reserve as a surprise. If he were to challenge and win while displaying a new power, it would probably buy him some time before the stream of new challengers started back up. Nobody would be eager to go up against a complete unknown like that."
I sighed and turned back to Kristin. "Okay, there's nothing else we can do about that right now. What happened next?"
"I think Jasmin and Isaac were still hurt. I think I saw them there with us, but they weren't moving like normal and you didn't send them into the fight."
"Okay, so the challenger is going to arrive sometime in the next day or two. It makes sense; your visions haven't ever predicted more than a day or so in advance."
"Right, that's what I figured, too. Anyways, Ash took a couple of shots at this guy and then when the bullets ricocheted off, James jumped in. James got his butt kicked. It was almost like having to fight a guy with three arms. James would find an opening and go for it but the air shield would pop back up right where he was going to attack and deflect the blow."
I wasn't liking the sound of anything she was telling me, but I started making a list of questions to ask once she was done. I needed to know whether or not the 'air shield' could be used offensively, too.
"So James was trying really, really hard, but he kept getting blocked and then the other guy tore into him. That's when the future kind of diverged. In one future, you jumped in and attacked the challenger right after he sank his claws into the left side of James' chest. In the other timeline, you just sat there and let James keep fighting."
I nodded, trying very hard to keep my frustration in check. It was obvious Kristin was having a hard time processing everything she'd seen in her dream. It was understandable; I doubted that the human mind was meant to be able to see two things at once like that.
"What happened after that, Kristin?"
"In the first one, the one where you jumped into the fight, you...you died. It happened too fast for me to see all of it, but it
seemed like he blocked you so hard that you missed a step. He...he got around behind you a split second later and killed you within a couple of minutes."
A chill washed through me. It wasn't every day you had someone predict your death in quite such specific detail.
"What...what happened in the other timeline?"
Kristin stared at me blankly for a couple of seconds and then shook herself slightly. "The blow to James' chest missed his heart, assuming you guys actually have a heart. He fell backwards, but the other hybrid didn't follow up, almost like he was expecting you to attack. James pulled himself up to his feet and kind of looked at you for a second like he was expecting you to jump in, too. You told him to get back in there or Dom would suffer."
My beast tried to break free again. It wasn't the kind of thing we would have done, and my other half wanted to challenge Kristin's version of the future. Again, I managed to keep it in check despite the torrents of power running off of me. Tasha unobtrusively slid back slightly, putting a little distance between us, but Kristin was too deep into her memories to notice my internal battle.
"James got angry then and attacked again. He clinched with the challenger, and they tore at each other for a couple of seconds and then I saw James lose control of the challenger's left hand. He took another pretty bad wound to his chest, but then you joined the fight. You did something with your foot, it was like you trapped his foot and then flipped him around. You killed him a few minutes later."
I took a couple of deep, calming breaths as my beast finally backed down fully and then nodded to Kristin.
"Okay, thanks, Kristin. You can go now. I appreciate your warning."
Tasha held up a hand and shook her head. "You should keep her around, Alec. We still need to plan how you're going to handle the challenge when it shows up."
"No, there isn't anything else she can tell us. I know about both of those time streams, which means I should be able to avoid them when the actual fight happens. Her dreams interfere with the future she sees just by their very nature. I'll tell James what to expect from this guy, and he'll do a better job in the fight than he otherwise would have."
I got the feeling Tasha was just giving me enough rope to hang myself with, but she gestured for me to go on.
"Once James has worked this other hybrid over a bit then I'll jump in and use the technique Kristin just described to end the fight."
Tasha gave me a look like I'd just failed some kind of verbal exam and then she turned to Kristin and started asking questions.
"In the first vision Alec died, but James was okay because the blow didn't get his heart. Did James die in the second vision?"
Kristin shook her head, but the motion didn't communicate very much certainty to go along with her answer.
"I don't think so. At least, he wasn't dead when the dream ended. There was a lot of blood, but the last injury was to his right side."
Tasha nodded. "And the challenger, in the second version was his leg injured? The one that Alec used to knock him down?"
Kristin shrugged. "I don't remember. There was a lot of blood, some of it his, some of it James'. James might have injured his leg, I just can't be sure."
"Okay, last question for now. In the second version, the one where Alec survived, how injured was he?"
Kristin started to answer and then stopped and looked at me. I nodded for her to proceed, which earned me a frown.
"He was pretty hurt. Again, it was hard to tell how much of the blood was his and how much was the challenger's, but he was hurt pretty bad."
"Thank you, Kristin. You can go now."
She shot me another unhappy look as she left, but she left. Tasha waited until she was out of hearing range and then turned back to me.
"Don't tell James anything. Right now you need to try and avoid changing the future any more than you already have. The best scenario is for you to do exactly as Kristin described in the second timeline. Send Ash in, then send James in, and keep him in there until he takes the second serious injury to his chest."
My beast was back, and he wasn't happy with what she was proposing. "You're asking me to send James in blind, and then to leave him in the fight longer than I should and risk him dying."
"Kristin just told you he'd be fine. What I'm asking you to do is to follow the timeline you know will let you survive this fight. You recognize that Isaac and Jasmin still aren't at one hundred percent yet, but you seem to have forgotten that you're still not quite back to normal either."
"I haven't forgotten, but I'm not willing to just let Kristin's dream play itself out and take that kind of pyrrhic victory, not when we can chart a third course, one that is better than either of the two she saw."
Tasha didn't get mad very often, but I could see she was headed that way right now.
"You might achieve that third option, but you also might come up with a fourth option where you still die and James dies, too. James' place is securing your victory. You can tell Donovan to have an extra batch of medical supplies nearby. If James' heart isn't pierced then all you have to worry about is blood loss and possibly re-inflating a lung. Donovan is more than capable of dealing with both of those, especially with some advance warning."
"And what do I do after the victory? James will be down for at least a week, Isaac and Jasmin will still be a day or two away from being back to full strength, and I'll be in bad enough shape that a strong wind would blow me over."
"I'll call my mother and she'll come up and stand off any challengers for a week or so until you're back on your feet."
I shook my head. "If I do that I may as well tell the whole world that she's dominant to me."
"But she is, Alec. Even hurt like she is right now she could wipe the floor with you on your best day. You're good, but without your power you're simply not in her league."
My beast surged up with enough force that I lost control of my hands and they both shifted into hairless replicas of my hybrid form.
"You don't understand, Tasha. You've always been submissive to her. I can admit that she's a better fighter than me, but that doesn't mean I want her to come in and protect me like I'm some kind of child who got in over my head."
"That's the point though. You are in over your head. Your whole pack is. You can see that as well as I can."
"I will not roll over. If I decide to marry you and join the packs, that will be one thing. Then it will be my decision. What you're proposing would be nothing more than me giving up. I will not give up."
"What if I stood in for the next challenge? What would you think of that? Guest right would permit that, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, you could stand in, but that's different. I'm dominant to you and we both know it."
"Fine. I'll call Mom on the way back to the house and she can send Alexei and one of the others out here with orders to do whatever I tell them. They'll stand between you and whoever shows up for however long it takes for you to either get back in fighting trim or to agree to the alliance. I'm dominant to them and you're dominant to me. That would mean you'd be dominant to them as well."
"That's a hell of a risk to run for you and your mom."
"You're not leaving me any other choice. I need you to survive and marry me or I'll end up somebody's whipping girl. It will be even worse for me than it is right now for Jess. Whoever takes over my pack will always be after my family's money. That would be bad enough, but even worse will be the fact that I know what it's like to rule. If you won't just bend your stiff neck and let my mom come make all of this go away then this is the only option that guarantees that you'll make it through this fight and still gives us all a chance to survive the next one too."
"What do I do about James? If I make that kind of threat against Dom, he'll never forgive me."
"After the fight is over I'll tell him the truth, that it was all my idea. We'll tell him Kristin had a dream and that this was the only way to make sure the pack survived the fight. Kristin will back us up and confirm that you never act
ually planned on delivering on your threat, that it was just a mechanism to make sure the fight went down like her dream told us it needed to."
I didn't particularly like it, but I found myself nodding. We cut the picnic short and headed back to the house so she could call her mom and I could talk to Donovan.
The challenger arrived only half an hour after we got back to the house and all too soon I found myself standing on the edge of the sand again. The challenger had said his name was Richard, which didn't ring any bells for Tasha or me, but when he shifted he had red fur and Kristin nodded at me, confirming that it was the hybrid from her dream.
I looked around as the pack huddled up and saw exactly what I'd expected to. Isaac and Jasmin were up and walking around, but they were both still moving gingerly from our recent run-in with the werewolves. Jess was a little better off, but she was still the next best thing to worthless in a fight.
That just left James and Ash, both of whom looked willing, but James had no idea what he was up against and Ash probably already knew he was going to come out of this fight okay. I sighed, flipped open my app, and moved Ash's name at the top of the list, then James, then me.
The fight opened exactly like Kristin had foretold. Ash opened up with three or four shots, all of which were deflected by some kind of plane of force that materialized just in front of Richard.
A ripple of stillness swept through the pack at the unexpected development and then James charged into the ring. The fight moved at incredible speeds, even for an engagement between two hybrids. James was in rare form. He almost seemed to be in more than one place at a time, but it was obvious he was getting frustrated. Time and time again, his attacks were blocked by the momentary appearance of Richard's invisible shield.
James wasn't a very patient fighter at the best of times. I saw the mistake coming several seconds before he actually made it. Richard left a bigger than usual hole in his defenses and James stepped in with both hands, presumably in an effort to make sure that one of them made it through.
The shield flashed into existence again, but this time it was at an odd angle that knocked James' right hand into his left hand. Neither blow connected solidly, and Richard calmly sank his right hand into James' chest.
