It could be time to adjust the self-maintenance workings. He’d found it so, over the years—as he’d gotten more efficient, more effective, his personal amulets had become ever more subtle. And now that he’d developed the silent blanks, he doubted anyone could even detect the workings any longer; only those who knew his age and his medical records had any idea.
It pleased him that so few had any notion. And being pleased calmed him, so it was easier when he said, “The beast is not for you. Let Altán take it on alone—though you may feel free to cheer his death when he does.”
Not that Eduard would leave anything to chance; he’d help the beast as necessary. He was on his way to Katie Maddox’s home even now—heading overland through the forest with his escort. They rode electric trail bikes—silent machines, clandestine on the trails where no such vehicles were allowed.
He had no doubt that Altán would show. Even as a youngster, he’d had an uncanny awareness of any trespass in his woods. Now that he was protecting Katie Maddox, Altán would never tolerate the presence of the beast on his turf.
“Well, hell,” Akins said reproachfully; he, too, navigated the woods—on foot, circling in on Katie Maddox’s property from the back, where he’d meet Afonasii and the creature. Jacques. “After it takes out Altán, then? It’d be a hell of a way to start rebuilding my place in this town. And you gotta let a guy have a little fun, Ed.”
“Perhaps then,” Eduard said, satisfied that Akins would die easily enough when that time came. “But if Katie Maddox is there, you’ll no doubt need to restrain her.”
“Ree-strain.” Akins’s breath gusted into the phone as he navigated what must have been a rugged feature of the trail he strode. “I like the sound of that. You’re sure you don’t want her broken in for you?”
“That,” Eduard said sharply, “I will do myself.”
“Hey, okay, okay, whatever. Just offering. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of experience. I do train dogs, you know.”
Fools and idiots. Katie Maddox was a resource—not to be squandered or shattered, but to be broken in subtle ways that left her useful.
Fools and idiots. But he would only have to tolerate this one for a short while longer. Once Katie was his, Akins would die—with all the evidence in Katie’s disappearance pointing his way.
“Well,” Akins said, raising his voice above the crack of a dead branch, “if those hunters reach this creature before us, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Don’t worry about them,” Eduard said. He certainly wasn’t. If a few of them were found dead with Altán, then so much the better.
“So listen,” Akins said, far too casually. “If Katie Maddox isn’t there, how about if then I take care of—damn!” That last came through a sudden rustle, followed by a most unpleasant clatter. Eduard held the phone away from his ear and could still hear Akins’s raised voice. “Hey, you still there? Dropped the damn phone. Ed—?”
Eduard flipped his phone closed. One quick stop at the nearby secondary workshop to ensure that the isolated amulet blanks for his ambitious new project were maturing nicely, and he’d be on the dirt bike, headed out to finally take care of the Sentinel who had defied them so young—and for so long.
It was time to watch Maks Altán die.
* * *
::Maks!:: Annorah’s voice blasted into Maks’s mind, startling and a little strident. Maks stumbled on the porch, catching himself even as he heard Katie’s displeased sound of surprise from within the house. If she’d been caught in the broadcast of Annorah’s call, it could only be deliberate—Annorah didn’t make such mistakes.
::There you are,:: Annorah said, her mind-voice all kinds of irritable.
::Have been here,:: Maks told her, making the significant effort of words simply because the other felt too intimate just now.
Annorah’s defensive disgruntlement came through before her voice did. ::Yeah, well, I’ve had some personal stuff to deal with.::
Maks said nothing, not even a wordless shrug. The only safe answer. And the only one he was willing to give, even to this friend of his.
Annorah had no such conversational reticence.
::Do you have any idea how widely we felt that? Do you have any idea how many babies were conceived this afternoon? There’s a reason we schedule these things, never mind one of that...that...volcanic nature! God, Maks, the Core could have done an amulet air-drop and we wouldn’t have seen it coming.::
Maks said nothing—a little more loudly this time. From the kitchen, Katie cursed softly, out loud, though no sign of it came through the conversation.
Annorah’s voice softened. ::But you’re okay?::
Ah. He understood now; he let her have that much, wordless though it was, and then added, ::Better.::
::I see that,:: she said, after a pause in which she must have been sorting her impressions of him. Then she gathered herself back up. ::You’ve still got plenty of questions to answer, mister.::
::Nick?:: he requested, ignoring that. Because he thought that Nick was the one with questions to answer. Why hadn’t brevis realized that Maks’s extensive early time as the tiger would affect his growth? Why hadn’t brevis looked harder for Maks’s mother? And now that they knew the right timeframe...
He wanted her found. He wanted her honored, and her family to know.
But Annorah cleared her mental throat. ::Nick,:: she said delicately, ::is still otherwise occupied.::
Katie broke into the conversation. ::Well, when Nick comes out of whatever closet he’s chosen, you tell him that brevis put Maks in the field with an incomplete foundation—and because of it, exposure to the Flagstaff variations left him vulnerable to that ambush. We fixed that—so Nick can just back off.::
Annorah seemed to think about it. ::I’ll let him know,:: she said finally. ::Meanwhile, the team will be there tomorrow. Keep your head down until then, Maks.::
But Maks ended the conversation with some finality, finding the words more readily than most.
::Not,:: he said, ::if the Core needs hunting.::
* * *
“The Core,” Katie said, with little hope of being heard—truly heard—“does not need hunting.” She stood on the cool, hard stone tile of her kitchen—bare feet, bare backside, tea bag in hand just as it had been when Annorah’s call had so abruptly intruded.
Annorah was gone now, leaving only Maks in this conversation—bare chested and just as barefoot as she—as he stood in the vague boundary between kitchen and living room and looked at her. She had the palpable sense that he was gathering words—that he needed just the right ones, and that they came hard to him.
“The Core,” he said finally, “is this man. This man has killed your neighbor, conspired with your enemy...seeded your yard with poison. This man has created a monstrous creature. This man,” he said, taking a step forward—and the look on his face was all fury and intent, “has come back to the place he once hunted me like a beast. Where he helped imprison my mother like a beast.”
He came up softly before her, tiger in certainty, and his words resounded inside her mind as well as in her ears. “This man,” he said softly, “now hunts you. And so I will hunt him in return.”
She wanted to protest—to pull her selfish needs tightly around herself. She wanted to say, but I’ve only just found you and but you’ve just been through so much and but you’re only one man and even but if you just wait until tomorrow...
But she knew what Maks knew—that whatever his end game, the Core rogue, now exposed by their near-encounter at the coffee shop, had little choice but to act as quickly as possible. The rogue would know what they knew—that if the Sentinels weren’t coming after him, his own people, embarrassed beyond endurance, would.
And she knew as well as Maks that he was strong and well and capable, his long-delayed initiation completed, his energy flows balanced and free and his true talents released.
She clenched a fist around the hapless tea bag and took that final step betwe
en them—but rather than put her arms around him, she simply came close enough to rest her head against his shoulder, her body against his.
After a moment, he sighed, and smoothed his hand down over her hair. Another moment and he stepped back, used that hand to angle her head and bent down to kiss her—a long, thorough and possessive kiss.
A kiss that said enough without any words at all.
She didn’t lower her face when he moved back, leaving only a whisper of space between them. “Then I’m coming with you.”
He took a sharp breath, and she didn’t give him a chance to come back at her with words. “There’s only one place I’m safe,” she said. “And it isn’t here, alone, without the tiger and his impossibly amazing shields.”
The truth of that hit him hard and honestly; his jaw worked as he absorbed it. Another man might have looked away. Maks caught her gaze and kept it, and his long, slow exhalation came with the slightest of nods. This time, she didn’t need to hear the audible words to hear his understanding. More than that, acquiescence. Then I’ll wait.
“Even if it means you lose him?”
No words at all this time, just that steady gaze, green and full of wild—silent affirmation.
Katie, in wonder, absorbed the truth of it. The meaning of it. She let it spread through her body, let it spread to her smile—
He stiffened, gone as still as any big cat on the hunt, his attention instantly elsewhere, and her relief slipped away. He closed his eyes and turned his face from hers as though he listened to something distant, completely captivated. Katie hesitated, awkward in her own kitchen with the tea bag crumpled in her hand and the stone cool against her feet, and she shifted uneasily. When he turned back to her, she was ready for anything.
Or so she thought.
“The boundary,” he told her. “They come. The creature. Those who hunt it. Those who handle it.” His eyes gleamed, a brief flash of the predator. “The one who made it.”
“All of those—you can...?” She couldn’t quite finish it—couldn’t quite believe it. “You can tell who?”
“I can read their imprint within my boundaries.” His grim voice left no doubt. Where moments ago he would have waited, would have foregone the hunt...now he would not tolerate invasion, would not tolerate a threat to this area. “Clothes, Katie. If you are to come.”
She hesitated—not second-guessing herself, but needing to know that he didn’t, either. “I could be in your way.”
“The deer knows better.”
And the deer did. The deer knew how to hide, above all else.
What else had she been doing here in this little town, so far from brevis and anything it might ask of her?
Katie tossed the tea bag into the sink and dashed up the stairs, pawing through the big drawer that held the clothes that would remain stable through the change and pulling on underwear and a pair of worn woodland-pattern BDUs, slipping out of her worse-for-wear shirt to tug on a jersey T. She wasn’t quite as comfortable as Maks without shoes; she slipped on a pair of brevis-commissioned sandals that would change with her.
She found him waiting, just as he’d been—the open flannel shirt with sleeves rolled up, sturdy jeans riding his hips, bare feet comfortable on her carpet...eyes closed and head slightly lifted. “Here,” he said, without looking at her. “The creature comes here.”
“And the hunters just follow along, no doubt.” Blithely pursuing prey they weren’t truly equipped to manage.
Maks shook his head. “Fools.” He opened his eyes, looking off at that distance with a narrowed gaze. “Fools and enemies.” He jerked his chin at the door, a subtle gesture, and sudden panic clutched at her throat—not at the thought of what waited for her, but at the certain knowledge it would try to come through Maks to get her.
“Wait!” She went to him, hands flat against his chest—looking inward. She followed the new flow of his personal energies—not quite surprised to find a taste of herself there, but touched by it all the same. She briefly rode the essence of him, finding only a steady strength. The things she feared—knots of weakness, thready spots of energy-driven pain—were nowhere to be seen. There was only his arm, healing at a normal rate now that it was of no great threat to him.
“Good?” he asked—both of himself, and of her.
“It’s all good,” she said, but wild green eyes, the snarl of a tiger enraged, the flash of golden orange and white and brown, claws scraping her vision—strong hands, holding her up, tugging her close.
“Tell me,” he said.
As if it mattered. As if he not only truly believed, but depended. It warmed some small part of her, making her smile—here, now, when there was little to smile about. “Nothing new,” she said. “Just a reminder. It’s dangerous, this thing.”
“So,” said Maks, “am I.”
* * *
They ran the woods together...tiger and deer. The tiger, loping along faster than suited his nature, drawing on reserves of power only recently available. The deer, her spurts of speed more extended than suited her nature, her petite jaw dropping to offer a delicate pant...her modestly elongated tusks peeking out.
In his glimpses of her, Maks saw not prey, not deer.
He saw only Katie.
And in his mind, in his body—in the new combinations of awareness that combined scent and touch and inner vision—he saw anew those who had intruded upon his boundaries. Hapless Dogo Argentino dogs, used to hunting wild boar but not this monstrous abomination so many times larger. Overconfident hunters, eager for both the action and the accolades. Distant but closing in, two figures moving in tandem, and too fast to be on foot. They tasted of dark, bitter corruption.
Closest of all, the initial intruders—the creature and one human companion, tasting of less potent Core.
Close enough so Maks slowed to a trot amongst the pines, and then close enough so he stopped altogether, panting in the high afternoon heat of the southwestern altitude, the tiger in him wishing for a deep river and a cool swim.
The deer rustled not far away, a deliberate sound. Too deep in the tiger for words, Maks sent her concepts instead. The imminence of the creature, the perfection of their position there along a minor outcrop, thanks to a smattering of young trees and bushy undergrowth, high ground and good cover.
Good cover, especially, for one who was never meant to join such a fight.
I’ll wait, he had told her. He’d meant it, and he’d hated it, and he’d fully intended to do it—but not if it meant letting the Core rogue and his creature stage the battleground.
Now, she would have to wait. And keep herself safe.
The coruscating light flickering through leaf and needle told Maks that she’d understood—that she had chosen to be human in this place of impending conflict.
Not Maks. He crouched silently at the edge of their outcrop, picking up the creature’s approach with his ears as well as his inner senses. Its path had been as direct as possible across this rugged terrain, its goal clear. He sent one more thought Katie’s way—warning, and a reminder that they’d moved so quickly, so intently, that no one at brevis knew they’d moved at all.
She sent him affirmation, moving back slightly so he could see her, even while remaining hidden from below, and tempered her thought with fierce command. ::I can take care of myself. You watch your own back.::
That, he didn’t answer. He’d already reached down deep, hunting for that same, earth-centered feeling he’d discovered in the aftermath of initiation—drawing on it to shape the same profound shielding effect. A shield for each of them, impervious to any workings the Core rogue might launch, to any amulets the creature’s handler might invoke. His claws extruded into the ground, rooting him there...rooting the shields.
::Maks,:: she said, as the shields took on strength and substance, ::do you hea—::
And she was gone—her thoughts, so clear to him, vanished behind the strength of what he had wrought.
His tail lashed with the surprise of
it—and then he had no time to think about it at all as the huge javelina trotted out into the sparsely wooded space below, its flat human eyes taking in the scene with eerie alacrity, its fleshy snout twitching. It came to a halt, huge and grizzled, the pungent stench of it filling the air. When it lifted its head, it was to look straight up at Maks.
Maks growled with low feeling, a rumbling warning. By the time the creature’s handler made his noisier way toward the little bowl of pines, the mutant javelina had aligned itself to face the outcrop—and in those eerie eyes, in that twitch of a nose, Maks thought he saw unwelcome awareness—and a realignment of position toward Katie’s position.
The javelina’s acute sense of smell...
No doubt this monster had it in spades.
Maks didn’t think; he acted. While the tiger crouched, quivering with the need to attack, Maks dug in and held back, drawing on the roots he’d established—yanking hard against resistance, knowing only that he needed more, that Katie needed to be completely invisible to this thing.
Something gave way—within him, beneath him, staggering him with the suddenness of it. In body, he crouched even lower, legs spread to steady; in mind and energy, he tumbled into a geyser of hot power; it gushed free to splash and form where he’d aimed it—Katie—and just as abruptly faded away.
Before he even shook his thoughts clear, the javelina barked a challenge—a gleeful sound, its front feet stamping hard against the needle-padded ground, its demeanor eager.
And then he saw Katie, bathed in a watercolor effect that he didn’t at first understand—not until he realized he had wrought for her shields so strong that they obscured the detail of her. Shields so strong, they cut off not only access to her mind-voice, but to her physical presence.
She looked at him through the intervening leaves, her face pale, her expression wary—the deer, startled into fright, and quite nearly into flight. Unable to bespeak him, unwilling to reveal herself to the creature, she instead showed him exactly what he’d done—reaching to push against the trunk of the closest substantial tree.
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