Riven

by Dean Murray

  "As long as there is room for a choice it's never too late to make a change, Adri. In your case though, I suspect that making that kind of a change would run counter to your nature. I've seen people make those kinds of choices, but denying your fundamental character always leads to prolonged unhappiness. You may not realize it yet, but you've already started expanding your list of friends and family. Being queen is just that on a bigger scale. Don't worry though; you'll have time to grow into the role."

  I reached out and wrapped both of my arms around Carson's arm, hugging it for all I was worth. "Thanks, Carson. Sometimes I don't know what I'd do without you."

  "You'd be fine, Adri. It might take you a little bit longer to find your way, but you'd do it eventually. The good plants always do."

  Chapter 18

  Adriana Paige

  Graves Estate

  Sanctuary, Utah

  I was somewhere completely new, but it somehow felt familiar at the same time. To my left was an inconceivably big tangle of thread that stretched back further than I could see. As I studied it in the dim light I realized that it wasn't so much a tangle as it was an infinite number of hair-fine threads that each moved from left to right and that, while the total assembly hung unsupported in the air, each individual thread was supported by tens of thousands of connections with other threads.

  I tried to study the threads in front of me in more detail, but my mind shied away from looking too closely. I got vague impressions of individual threads, some magnificent with rich colors, others dull and frayed, but it seemed more than my consciousness could handle to actually take in the full measure of an individual thread.

  Part of me wanted to force the issue, to pick a single thread and focus all of my attention on it, but something below the level of sentience refused to let me proceed. Frustrated with my inability to make sense of what I was seeing, I instead looked to the right and felt my sanity start to unravel in the split second before primitive survival instincts forced my eyes closed.

  The threads that had been a weighty mass off to my left became something different when they passed me and went the other direction. They didn't have substance anymore, instead they were shadows cast by a million points of light. They expanded to take up more space than existed in the entire universe, or maybe they simply disappeared into dimensions that my mind wasn't ready to know existed.

  The only thing that had been solid, that had seemed real, in the vista that had expanded out before me had been the tired figure of a man who'd been struggling to cut a single thread free of its neighbors.

  He looked different here, but I somehow knew that this was the same man who had saved Isaac, Jasmin and me from the werewolf in New York.

  "Where am I, what am I looking at?"

  My eyes were still closed, but I could hear the laughter in his voice. "I was about to ask you the same thing. It's different, you know, for each person. None of us can see it in its entirety, so we all put up artificial constructs to protect ourselves. Even me, even after all of these years."

  The laughter that had been dancing behind his voice momentarily leaked over into the real thing, but this laughter that had an element of hysteria to it. He cut off the sound almost before I'd realized how disturbing it was, but it echoed through my mind even after he'd become silent again.

  "It would be interesting to know what you saw, but that will have to wait for another time. It's risky for you to be here. Go back to Alec and tell him not to bother with trying to track the cats down."

  "What do you mean?"

  "There's no time, Adri. Just remember to tell him. Tell him that and tell him that the three must go their separate ways."

  I was thrust back into the waking world with a suddenness that left my heart racing, but I pulled myself out of bed and stumbled over to the door out to the hall, still in my pajamas. Carson was still faithfully standing next to my door when I opened it.

  "Are you okay, Adri?"

  "I'm not sure. I need to find Alec though. Can you please see if anyone knows where he is?"

  "He's in Donovan's office. Things are pretty chaotic right now. The trailer with the cats just arrived but they escaped somehow."

  I took a deep breath and then nodded. "Even more reason to get me there sooner rather than later. Let me throw some clothes on so that people will take me seriously."

  Less than fifteen minutes later Carson and I were standing outside Donovan's office. I knocked on the door and felt a pulse of power as someone throttled back irritation at the interruption.

  Donovan answered the door and then stepped to the side to allow me to enter.

  "I just had a dream where someone told me that the cats were going to escape and that we shouldn't try to track them down."

  I managed to get it all out before anyone managed to interrupt and then I looked around to see who was present.

  Alec was sitting behind Donovan's desk with Ash in the seat closest. Jaclyn shook her head as Donovan pulled the door shut again. "The only way for someone to have sent you some kind of message already was if they engineered the escape."

  Ash shook his head. "Technically we don't know when they actually disappeared on us. It could have been mere minutes or it could have been hours ago."

  I held up a hand. "What happened?"

  Alec rubbed his temples as he answered. "Nobody knows, not really. Peter and Rex were the two who were driving the truck back. They both swear that they only ever stopped for food and gas, and that even then they worked in shifts to make sure that the cages were never left unguarded."

  "There's no evidence of any kind of tampering on the truck?"

  Ash looked over at Jaclyn for confirmation, but it was obvious that he already knew she was going to shake her head. "No, there's nothing physically wrong with the cages or the trailer. The locks are all still in place and I checked that they still work with the original keys that Peter had on him."

  A half-formed thought tickled the back of my mind. I couldn't pin it down to anything specific, but a question tumbled out of my mouth almost without conscious effort on my part.

  "What about Peter and Rex? Are there any kind of physical clues there?"

  Jaclyn looked at me oddly for several seconds before nodding. "Maybe. Peter has a gash on his arm that he doesn't remember getting. It's not a major wound, but it struck me as odd that he didn't remember a two-inch-long cut."

  "Are there any hybrids who are known to have the ability to walk through walls?"

  Jaclyn shook her head. "No, I'm not even sure something like that is possible, no matter how powerful someone is."

  Alec waved us all quiet. "This isn't getting us anywhere. Absent a known suspect who can somehow manipulate space and time, we aren't going to be able to track the missing cats down. For now, I think that Adri's mystery messenger was right. There isn't any point wasting time and effort pursuing them, not with everything else we have going on. We just need to remember that whoever was in your dream is probably working with whoever took our missing cats, and both of them are probably going to continue to work against us."

  I opened my mouth to tell Alec that it had been the old man, the priest, who'd saved Jasmin, Isaac and me from the werewolf, and then shut it without saying anything. I didn't have any reason to distrust anyone present, but something wouldn't let me say it. Until I knew more about this mysterious priest I wasn't going to draw any more attention to him than I had to.

  Chapter 19

  Alec Graves

  Graves Estate

  Sanctuary, Utah

  Tasha didn't look happy to see me, but she'd shown up to the briefing, so I didn't complain. Jaclyn arrived a few seconds later and shut the door to my new office. Donovan had paid some pretty hefty fees to get my dad's old office refurbished in just two weeks, but getting access to some more secure, usable space would have been worth at least four or five times as much as what he'd actually ended up having to pay.

  Jaclyn sank down into one of the plush leather chai
rs and then we both turned to Tasha. She didn't seem keen to volunteer anything so I cleared my throat.

  "Have you been getting the cooperation you need out of the other packs?"

  "Yes. I got a little bit of static from the Flagstaff pack right after they joined up, but Mom helped get them to toe the line for me."

  I nodded and leaned back in my chair. "Good, I'm glad to hear it. You indicated that you thought you had enough information to make this meeting worthwhile, so go ahead and tell the two of us what you've found."

  Tasha took a deep breath and then started. "Nobody has anything solid on the ghost pack, but I'm starting to see a pattern. Every time I get close to someone who is supposed to have actually talked to one of these guys they get really quiet about where they were when it all happened."

  Jaclyn tapped her finger against her chair. "So they were probably east of the Mississippi. That's not surprising. If you were going to try and hide a pack you'd almost have to put them in the prohibited area."

  Tasha pulled out two file folders and tossed one to each of us. "I've got a map in there with all of the reported encounters on it, but the really interesting bit is the list of supposed powers that I've been able to start pulling together. The first page is everything I've heard even once. The second page cross-references the powers with any description I was able to connect to the individuals with the powers. I've started to create a list of pack members and their likely powers."

  I flipped to the second page and a low whistle escaped me. "Group paralysis. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

  Jaclyn found the entry I was looking at and frowned. "So you're saying that Grayson is part of the ghost pack?"

  "No, that's what I thought at first too, but when you look at the heat map of the sightings you see that there are two epicenters. Grayson might be part of the ghost pack, but it's more likely that he's part of this second group which I think is based somewhere in Florida."

  My beast chose that moment to act up, but I got ahead of it and stopped it from completing the transformation. I wouldn't have expected a casual observer to have understood the sudden flash of anger, but Tasha surprised me with her bitter smile.

  "Exactly, we've been doing this to ourselves. There is a goldmine of information out there but the various packs have never trusted each other enough to pull it together into anything useful. The Coun'hij has kept control over our entire race simply by keeping us at each other's throats."

  I made a throwing-away gesture. "We're doing what we can to change that but it's going to take some time. I'll talk to Grayson and see if I can get some kind of confirmation out of him as to which group he's in, but for now let's assume that Grayson isn't part of the ghost pack, and that his group is the one in Florida. Where does that leave us?"

  "Flying mostly in the dark, if I'm totally honest with you. Grayson's group is the one that is the most active, so I have more data on them, but even that isn't saying much."

  It had taken me longer than it should have, but I was getting the hang of how she'd organized the data. I flipped back to the list of powers and found the section that dealt with the ghost pack.

  "These two are the important ones. Tracking and speed. The speed guy is the pack's alpha."

  Jaclyn looked at me consideringly. "What makes you think so?"

  "Every rumor I've heard has been in agreement that the alpha of the ghost pack is unbeatable. Some of these powers are impressive, but none of them are as dangerous as pure unadulterated speed."

  Tasha didn't look convinced. "Some of these are pretty intense, Alec. I've got everything from invisibility to some kind of Jedi mind control. Do you really think speed trumps all of that?"

  "You're right, some of this stuff is more powerful, but your average shape shifter doesn't think that way. I'm not talking two-minute-mile fast, I'm talking you-never-even-see-the-blow-coming fast. If someone was really that fast they could kill me or Grayson, or even your mom, before we could even react."

  Jaclyn frowned, not at my explanation, but at the implications. She'd been the king of the hill for decades, but new threats were practically falling out of the sky these days.

  "You wanted me here because you're sending me in against that?"

  I gave her a tired smile. "I'm not asking you to go in and kill the entire pack singlehandedly, but yes, you're my best bet for finding them."

  "What if they decide that they don't want to just talk? If this guy is as fast as you think he is then I won't even stand a chance."

  I'd known that Jaclyn was probably going to bring that point up, and I'd been debating the best response for a couple of days now.

  "I have it on good authority that you haven't reached the extent of what your power could actually be. I think that you should spend some time trying to expand what you're capable of. If you generate a standing field and make it strong enough, then anyone physically attacking you would be knocked down. It wouldn't matter how fast he was."

  I could see the wheels turning in her head. My statement wasn't proof that Mallory was still alive. It was always possible that she'd told Donovan before she'd been killed and that he'd then passed the information on to me. It was possible, but it was incredibly unlikely and Donovan said that there had been rumors for years that Mallory hadn't actually been killed when Agony had come to town.

  "How good is your authority?"

  "It's extremely good authority, Jaclyn, and that's all that I can tell you for now."

  She considered my response for several seconds before nodding. "Okay. I'll go. How much help are you going to send along with me?"

  "I'm open to requests."

  "Okay, let me spend the afternoon thinking about it. I'll get back to you tonight with a proposal and we can get started first thing tomorrow."

  I stood and shook her hand before she left. "Thank you for doing this, Jaclyn. This is incredibly important. We need to find the Coun'hij and we need to find them soon. Best case you find this tracker guy and he tells us exactly where to find Puppeteer and the rest. If you can't find him and recruit him to our cause then I've either got to get my hands on a southerner who can track and then lure one of the Coun'hij into place so that he can track them, or I've got to hope that the Coun'hij makes a mistake that will let us track them back using more conventional means."

  "I understand. I'll do my very best."

  It wasn't until after Jaclyn had been gone for nearly a minute that Tasha stood up and walked over to my desk.

  "So what do I do now?"

  "Keep doing what you've been doing. With any luck we should have more packs joining us in the next few days. I want you to continue to correlate as much information as you can and stay in touch with your mom so that she's as well armed as possible."

  "What about after that?"

  I sighed and put down her report. "I meant what I said, Tasha. I'll keep you in an advisory position and make sure that you're not sucked into all of the petty dominance crap."

  "And if I want more than that?"

  "You're not my slave, Tasha. If you want something else then go for it. I'm not going to stop you."

  "What if what I want is you?"

  "That's just as much off the table now as it was the last time we talked. I love Adri and that isn't going to change. Find someone who can love you like you deserve."

  She shook her head at me. "I'm not stupid. Any idea that love might enter into things went by the wayside a little while ago. When I marry it will be because I've finally found someone who can protect me from all of the threats out there."

  "There's more than just physical security to a relationship, Tasha."

  "Not for me there isn't."

  Chapter 20

  Jasmin Bianchi

  Sanctuary Airport

  Sanctuary, Utah

  The estate was a complete zoo, but that was all magnified a hundred fold here in the hangars where both of Alec's planes were housed when they weren't in the air. Donovan, and Ash were doing the best they could to make
sure that all of the logistics were running smoothly, but there was no way to organize an operation of this size without a few hiccups along the way.

  There'd been plenty of debate about whether or not to believe Dominic's contact, but in the end Alec had decided that it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up, so we were headed to the other circle on Dom's map and we were going loaded for bear.

  Alec was staying to protect the non-combatants, who included more than just Addison, Andrew, Rachel, Adri and his mom these days. He'd flown all of the non-fighters in to Sanctuary and he was keeping a handful of wolves and hybrids back to help him hold down the fort, but everyone else was gearing up for the largest excursion since shortly after the border wars when we'd kicked the cats back down into South America.

  Jaclyn had disappeared a couple of days ago, but I was pretty sure that she'd been sent off on some kind of mission by Alec. She wouldn't have been much if any extra use if we were really going up against werewolves like we were expecting to, but it still would have been nice to have her along. She'd seen more combat than just about any of the other alphas. A couple of the other border packs had mixed things up just as much against the cats, but Jaclyn's pack was the only one that had been so active when it came to hunting down werewolves.

  Even without the ability to drop them with a million volts of electricity, she still would have been a definite asset to have around. Instead we were going in with old-fashioned muscle power to deal with any werewolves and Grayson to back us up if this turned out to be some kind of trap.

  I knew Alec wanted to be in on the fight, but I couldn't argue with the logic that kept him here in Sanctuary and sent Grayson out in his place. Alec was good, but once he dropped a group of shifters then he was the only one who could go in and put them down without being caught up in the draining effect of his ability.

  Grayson on the other hand was selective enough that he could drop a dozen or so of the bad guys and keep them down while the rest of us delivered the coup de grâce. Even so, I would have felt a lot better if it had been Alec with us rather than Grayson. The terrible trio had always seemed a little bit off to me, but Grayson was far and away the most creepy of the three. There had been something about the way he'd acted after the fights with the cats that had rubbed me the wrong way. I'd never seen anyone so emotionless, especially not after telling someone else that they'd been ready to sacrifice them.