nevermore

by Nell Stark

  Thin shafts of late-afternoon sunshine slanted in through the slitted windows, casting long, tapering fingers of light against the pine-planked flooring. A high oak table dominated the center of the room just barely out of reach of the late afternoon sunlight. Seven men stood at attention against one wall while Katya paced menacingly before them. Constantine sat in a corner, arms crossed and face impassive.

  “There were two patrols assigned to that building. How could Anders break into the office and have time to go through half of the files without anybody noticing?”

  The men shifted their feet and glanced at each other but remained quiet. I noted the uneven spacing of their formation and the nervous fidgeting and clenching of hands hanging loosely at their sides. These were not soldiers or even security guards. These were men pressed into service under urgent circumstances. With the dearth of military aptitude currently within the walls, it was a testament to the construction and fortitude of Telassar that the invaders hadn’t yet taken the whole city.

  “We’re going to double our shifts. If any more spies gain access to our sensitive materials, I’m throwing you all in the brig with Anders. Dismissed.”

  The men hurried out of the room without daring eye contact as they edged by me in the doorway. Katya waited an extra moment for additional instruction from Constantine and when none came, she followed her men out of the barracks. The door closed heavily behind her. I placed the two bags and the syringe on the table.

  “Glucose and wolfsbane from Delacourte. He says you’ll need to consult him if you want any more IV supplies. He’s rationing what we have left.”

  Constantine continued to stare impassively out the window. Perhaps he expected I too would take his silence for dismissal, but instead, I stood and waited. Eventually, I was rewarded with a glance, a token gesture of acknowledgment.

  “When I took Telassar eighty years ago, the barbarians who held it were halfway feral. It only took a dozen of us to storm the gates and put down the dogs that were turning this haven into Hell.” Constantine turned his gaze back to the window. “Telassar had always been a place for Weres to explore their animal natures away from the dangers of humanity. But those Weres took it too far. They indulged in violence and mindless bloodshed. When hunting prey lost its excitement, they turned on each other and slaughtered their own kin by the hundreds.”

  “My God.” An image of a large black wolf devouring the still-beating heart of his opponent flashed through my thoughts. Helen had called the Red Circuit a necessary evil, and at the time, I resented her dismissive attitude. But hundreds slaughtered for sport? My mind reeled at the idea that Helen might have been right.

  “Telassar has been attacked under my watch before. We have always prevailed.”

  “Do you know who is behind this? Do you know what they want?”

  Constantine rose from his seat in one fluid motion. He picked up both bags and weighed the syringe in his palm as if assessing the value of an apple at a street fair. “Perhaps it is time we found out.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Anders came to naked and choking against the iron collar padlocked around his neck. Once Constantine had administered the wolfsbane, Anders had returned to his human form within minutes. Now I saw that only one of the bags that Delacourte had given me was for feeding. The second hung from a hook on the wall and was now flooding his bloodstream with sedatives. I doubted the contents of one bag gave Anders enough energy to shift even without the drugs and the wolfsbane, but the precaution gave me a sickening insight into intended interrogation methods. Katya grabbed a handful of Anders’s shaggy brown hair and yanked him forward so that the collar pulled even more tightly against his windpipe. He flailed, his eyes bulging in panic. Constantine stepped forward, filling his line of sight.

  “Who are you taking orders from?”

  Anders clamped his jaw shut. I could still smell the fear rolling off him, but outwardly, his defiance was resolute. Katya released his hair, grabbed the arm without the IV port and twisted it roughly behind his back. He cried out but didn’t capitulate. Constantine backhanded him twice, snapping Anders’s head first to the left and then to the right. The momentum of the last blow jerked his body so hard, his shoulder dislocated with a pop in Katya’s grip. Anders screamed in pain. Despite being prepared for violence, the quickness with which Constantine devolved into brutality shocked me. I opened my mouth to protest but swallowed my words at the stern look Constantine shot in my direction. He was alpha, and the panther inside jerked me back in line.

  He returned his attention to the inquisition. “Whoever it is will make himself known eventually. Why suffer any more?”

  Katya shook Anders by the arm and he whimpered in pain. Anders was a small man, his body pale and soft, at least for a Were. He was the type of man who hid among the humans by working all day in front of a computer or on a telephone fielding customer service calls. I had never really noticed him during my time here. That was probably how he had escaped scrutiny for so long.

  Constantine flexed his fingers, cracking his knuckles loudly, each pop like a gunshot that ratcheted up Anders’s pulse. When Constantine raised his hand, Anders finally broke.

  “Stop, please stop!” He was sobbing now, snot dribbling out of his nose and mixing with the blood-tinged spittle that leaked from the corner of his mouth.

  “Who is it?” Constantine demanded.

  Anders closed his eyes and swallowed, his large Adam’s apple bobbing dramatically. He was quiet for so long, I thought he might have changed his mind. Then he opened his eyes and spoke. His voice was low and deferential. “Brenner. Balthasar Brenner.”

  With a snarl, Constantine backhanded Anders again, this time knocking him out cold. He nodded curtly to Katya, who unlocked his collar and grabbed his injured arm with one hand and braced herself against his shoulder with the other. Satisfied that the prisoner would be taken care of, Constantine exited the interrogation room as Katya jerked Anders’s shoulder back into place with a sickening pop. Constantine crossed the threshold just as Anders came to in a horrific wail of pain that echoed lingeringly in the empty stillness of the brig.

  I hurried after Constantine. “Delacourte was just telling me about Balthasar Brenner last night. He’s trying to regain control of the city again, isn’t he?”

  “Most likely.” Constantine’s voice was calm, his gait fluid and steady. Considering the circumstances, he seemed remarkably unperturbed about Anders’s revelation.

  “You seem relieved to hear it’s Brenner.”

  He shrugged. “The Consortium tracks his whereabouts. It won’t be long before reinforcements arrive. They won’t let him have Telassar.”

  Just then, a commotion from down the hall stopped us. A split second later, one of Katya’s guards careened around the corner, almost running into us. He pulled up just in time and sketched a quick salute at Constantine. “Sir. It’s Brenner.” He was out of breath, and rivulets of perspiration cascaded from his hairline down his face.

  “I know. Anders told me.” Constantine answered curtly, his surprise giving way to annoyance.

  “No, sir. I mean, Brenner is at the gates. He wants to talk to you.”

  *

  Balthasar Brenner was enormous. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall with broad shoulders framing a thick, muscular body. His coarse black hair, which ran down to his waist, was streaked with white and partially braided to keep it from whipping into his face in the wind. Aside from the striking angular features of his face and the flat steel gray of his eyes, I had to strain to find any resemblance to Sebastian’s refined gentility in Balthasar’s rough, barbarian appearance. I was irrationally grateful for the twenty-foot-wide moat that separated me from the massive scimitar that hung from his belt. That and the fact that Constantine, Katya, and I were able to look down upon Brenner and his coterie of guards from the relative safety of a high, crenellated parapet. We were flanked by security with machine guns at the ready. Brenner’s guards, in turn, had their se
mi-automatic weapons trained on us. Instinctively, I edged sideways out of line of sight of the guns. His sword should have seemed anachronistic and pathetic in light of all the modern firepower. Instead, it highlighted the fact that if Balthasar Brenner chose to take your life, he would do so up close and with the strength of his own hands.

  One bullet could end this now, I thought and quickly dismissed the monstrous impulse. Vampires lose their souls, not Weres, I chided myself.

  “Constantine Bellande, surrender yourself and that vampire whore and I might show mercy on your pathetic brood.”

  I frowned. Was he talking about me? Anger at his words warred with surprise that he would even know of Valentine’s and my relationship at all. I moved even closer to the edge so I could watch his movements, curiosity winning out over caution.

  Despite his indelicate words, the lilting cadence of his speech and the measured delivery of each syllable belied his sophistication. Balthasar Brenner appeared to be a highly educated man and more like his son than the obvious crudeness of his façade would suggest. I was intrigued, but the panther stirred inside me, agitated by the threat in his demand.

  “Balthasar.” Constantine remained fully visible between a low gap in the wall, as if daring Brenner’s men to shoot. “Leave this valley now and the Consortium may not catch you.”

  Brenner grinned, a cruel mirror of Sebastian’s charismatic smirk. “The Consortium is busy dealing with some vampire casualties. You know their priorities as well as I, Bellande. I could exterminate an entire continent of Weres while they wring their hands over a bloodsucker with a migraine.”

  Vampire casualties? My thoughts flew to Valentine. I hadn’t talked to her in ten days, since before the siege began. Before this summer, Val and I had never spent any significant length of time apart from each other in the year and a half since we’d started dating. We had spent time together almost every day, even when we had each been holed up in the Consortium medical facilities dealing with our transitions. The longest we’d been apart before this summer had been those three terrifying days after the Missionary’s attack on Val, when her mother had prevented me from visiting her in the hospital. Even then, I had camped out in the lobby the entire time, wanting to be as close as possible. During my stay here in Telassar, Val and I had made the best of our time apart, arranging to talk by phone at least twice a week from the small village of Tinmel, over two hours’ run to the east in panther form. This protracted separation was highly unnatural for me, and even the panther was uneasy whenever thoughts of Valentine made my heart seize with longing.

  Constantine remained standing in plain sight of the guns. If Brenner’s words affected him, he was doing a damn fine job of covering it up. “You overreach yet again. You will not take Telassar, Brenner. Not under my watch.”

  Brenner turned away, a nonchalant gesture. “You have until noon tomorrow to surrender,” he called back over his shoulder. “Otherwise, I will burn you all alive in that city.”

  *

  I found Constantine and Katya huddled over a large terrain map of the area surrounding Telassar. She was pointing to a mountain range due north of the city and he was shaking his head violently.

  “This pass is the most direct route to the closest Berber settlement. We can call for reinforcements when we get there.” Her voice was calm and level, but her tension was betrayed by the clipped, guttural intonations of her Slavic accent.

  “It’s too narrow and there are no escape options if they intercept us.” He pointed to the woods. “They can’t cover the entire forest. We’ll stay off the main paths and head for Asni or Igoudar. We’ll have more cities to choose from so they won’t know where to station their guards.”

  I cleared my throat to get their attention. “I thought we were staying put until the Consortium came to rescue us.”

  Constantine looked up from the map just long enough to scowl. “Plans have changed.”

  “But you told Brenner—”

  “I told Balthasar what was necessary in order to buy us the time and space to plan our escape.” He shook his head again when Katya pointed to another spot on the map. “He is bold and arrogant. Threats are not his usual style. When he wants something, he takes it, whether by force or by guile.”

  Katya nodded in agreement. “He miscalculated by threatening to burn the city. The fact that he hasn’t yet either means that he can’t or he doesn’t want to. Something is going to happen by tomorrow noon. We’re guessing that his reinforcements arrive. If that’s the case, our best chance for escape is tonight.”

  Something didn’t add up. “We have been under siege for ten days. Why is he just making himself known right now?”

  “Because he just got here.” I frowned at the surety in Constantine’s response. He replied before I could ask for clarification. “The tower scouts have reported new patrol patterns among the invader ranks. They’ve sharpened their performance now that the boss is here. Besides, the news about the vampire casualties was delivered with conviction. He had a part in that, I’m sure, and I’d wager he’s just getting here from wherever that occurred.”

  “Why does he want us in particular?” I didn’t know Balthasar Brenner well enough to psychoanalyze his behavior but I certainly hadn’t expected him to single me out.

  The dead silence that greeted my question confirmed my suspicion that Constantine and Katya were as in the dark as I was on Balthasar’s agenda. While they seemed to have a solid understanding of his motivations and his history, this particular demand baffled even them. Constantine, at least, was Master of Telassar, a position of some import. If Brenner’s goal was to take Telassar and send some kind of dominance message to the shifter community, holding Constantine prisoner made sense. I, on the other hand, was nobody in the Were pecking order—a fact that Helen slapped across my face at every opportunity. But the fact that Constantine’s and Katya’s current plans were a complete about face from their stance that morning signaled a clear respect for Brenner’s ability to carry through on his plan, whatever it might be. The memory of his scimitar glinting cruelly in the late-morning sun flashed through my mind, and I shuddered.

  I stepped closer to the table so I could see the map they were working from. We had almost two hundred shifters to evacuate, and Telassar’s remote location surrounded by mountains and forests provided limited options. We had to get to a human settlement with cable or satellite service to send a message to the Consortium. Based on all of the crossed-out portions of the map, it looked as if our sparse options were even further diminished strategically. The benefits of Telassar as a Were haven—remoteness, isolation—were working against us in this situation. Not for the first time, I wished I had listened to Val when she suggested I sneak a satellite phone into the walled city. At the time, I had been trying to be respectful of the policies and traditions of Telassar. Now I realized just how dangerous the technological quarantine could be.

  “We have to assume Brenner has taken control of the safehouses and waypoints in Tinmel, Tazalt, and Areg.” Katya circled each city in red. “Perhaps the villages to the north?” She gestured at a smattering of dots too small to even be labeled on the map.

  Constantine considered the suggestion for a moment, then grunted his assent. “We’ll split up into small groups. No more than six in each. Send some north and some to the west.” He pointed to some additional unnamed dots a distance away from Telassar. “These villages are too small. If we all show up at once, Balthasar will catch wind of it. Better to split up and stagger our escape.”

  “We’ll put you and Alexa in different groups—”

  “No. Alexa stays with me.”

  Katya’s head jerked up in surprise. “Brenner specifically asked for you two by name. I think it’s better if we separate you. That way he’ll have to split his forces if he wants to go after you both.”

  Constantine shook his head emphatically. “He wants us alive. I gave his men every opportunity to gun me down today and they didn’t. I’m not so sure
he cares about the other Weres in this city. He may let them go without a care; he may find them a liability. We endanger fewer people if we go together. Alexa is my responsibility. I owe it to Helen to make sure she gets back to New York safely.”

  It was interesting to hear Constantine talk about Helen; he spoke her name with both familiarity and deference. He seemed to know her on a personal level, not only as the Master vampire of New York City. The few in-depth conversations I’d had with Constantine had never broached Consortium politics—when he could give me the time, we always discussed methods of cultivating a stronger integrated relationship with our feline halves. Now I wished I had pressed him on his own story, and his reasons for inviting me to Telassar through Helen.

  He turned to Katya with an air of confidence that made me feel reassured despite the fraught situation. “Draw up the groups as you see fit, but Alexa stays with me. Report back to me in half an hour. We deploy at nightfall.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Night unfurled before me like a riddle, revealing itself gradually with each beat of my paws. Ahead of me and to my right, Constantine set the pace, a flowing stride that favored stealth over speed. Seeking to divide Brenner’s forces as much as possible, we had parted ways with Katya and Delacourte as soon as we were clear of the perimeter of Telassar. The plan was to meet up, in human form, just outside of Aguerda, a small town on the southwestern edge of the Toubkal National Park. From there we hoped to reach the Consortium to arrange our evacuation.

  The hardest part had been picking the Weres to join us in the escape. Neither Constantine nor Katya trusted anyone implicitly, especially the wolves. In the end, fewer than twenty of the more than two hundred Weres in Telassar were included in our escape plans. Constantine and Katya had assembled the select group in the map room above the brig. Besides Delacourte, I recognized a few of Katya’s armed guards, but the other escapees were strangers to me. There were neither questions nor debate when the plan was unveiled and I wondered if they had been chosen as much for obedience as trustworthiness. The exclusivity bothered me. I couldn’t help but think that my freedom would be bought at the expense of the lives we left behind.