by Dean Murray
My physical muscles clenched tight as my body responded to the enormous mental effort I was exerting, but I wasn't making any headway. I needed to shift the battle to something that favored me rather than something that favored my enemy.
I could feel the vampire, could almost see the black ribbon of light that connected us as it bored through the wall to my right. It was a small thing, but everything I'd ever heard about vampires indicated that they had a harder time working as the distance between them and their target increased. The room was too small to allow me to put much distance between us, but I let myself slide out of the chair and started crawling towards the door.
The effort of moving even just a few feet left me shaking and weak, but it was enough to allow my beast to get the upper hand in its battle and come help me in mine. We pushed the dagger up out of my mind, our mind, and I forced the outer layer of my psyche to harden, transforming it into an opaque bubble that was less susceptible to invasion.
I knew the vampire didn't have long to finish ransacking my mind. Even a very powerful, very old mentalist would have to be motionless, probably with their eyes closed, in order to sustain such an effort across any kind of distance. I just needed to hold out for another minute or two.
"Mr. Peterson, are you okay?"
Mr. Ford must have heard the briefcase hit the floor from outside the door. I didn't want him in here, didn't want him to see me when I was vulnerable like this, but I didn't know if I had enough energy left over to respond to him.
The vampire launched another attack, and this one wasn't like the others. The distance was probably still working in my favor, but even so the attack had so much strength behind it that it shattered my outer defenses. I tried to heal the fracture he'd made in my mind, but before I could even begin another rod of fire stabbed into my mind.
This one was different—it didn't move, didn't try to read my thoughts, it just turned my own mind against me. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of tiny creatures skittered away from the point of impact, semi-intelligent constructs that had been created out of the very stuff that made me who I was.
My beast responded with the kind of blinding speed that we usually only had after shifting into something without all of the weaknesses inherent in normal human bodies. The constructs died singly and in pairs, ripped apart by metaphysical claws, crushed by insubstantial fangs, but it wasn't enough. None of the vampire's creations were even remotely a match for my beast, but there were just too many of them.
Those my beast destroyed melted away to be reabsorbed back into my being, strengthening me, but it wasn't enough, not when faced with the dozens that were being birthed each second. My strength was leaking away, turned against me, and suddenly I was the one time was working against.
I rolled myself over, blocking the door with my body, and joined my beast shattering the many-legged forms moving through my mind. Together we seemed to be stemming the tide of new creatures, but we weren't making any headway with regards to stopping the ones that had already been created.
I saw two returning from the furthest reaches of my mind, mandibles clasped around a glowing packet of memory, and jumped towards them. I landed on the first one, crushing it under my weight, and then tore the second one in half, but I could see others returning. There wasn't any way that I was going to be able to stop all of them; at least some of them were going to make it back to the vampire with the information they'd gleaned.
Instead of trying to fight them one at a time, I left my beast to continue that battle and moved to the outermost edge of my mind. The molten spike that had breached the shell around my mind was thickest at the point of impact, but that was where I needed to attack.
It took the barest fraction of a second to gather my strength and then I reached out towards the vampire's presence in my mind. It burned in ways I didn't know I could be hurt. Just getting a single mental finger on the spike caused enough pain to nearly make me back down, but I refused to be stopped.
I was still fighting the battle on the vampire's terms. It was the same thing I always did; it was the reason that Kaleb and Brandon had dominated my life for seventeen years. There was too much at stake this time though—a vampire who was this powerful would have contacts with other vampires, vampires who couldn't be allowed to know that my species existed.
I stopped resisting the pain and instead drank it down. My enemy was trying to use heat and fire against me, but there was one thing that fire couldn't harm. I became fire—not all of me, I couldn't do that even inside the refuge of my own mind without losing my identity—but everything from the shoulders down of my psychic body transformed into a living blaze.
I reached out mental hands that burned with the intense white of a blast furnace, and grabbed hold of the glowing metal nail before me. The vampire tried to change the terms of the fight once again, tried to cool the spike and turn it into something that would quench my blaze, but he wasn't just working against me now, he was working against the energy and effort he'd already expended.
In the split second between when I grabbed the spike and when the vampire reacted, I sent the temperature of the spike up thousands of degrees. A wave of chill, the icy cold of a perfect void, traveled down the vampire's probe towards me, but it was too late.
We were too closely matched for him to stop me and I'd already destroyed the structural integrity of the spike. The spot I was holding onto stretched and pulled like taffy, and my beast began to win his fight with the army of invaders.
The probe went both ways. It allowed the vampire to access my mind, but it also allowed me glimpses into his. The vampire panicked. He was old, centuries at least, maybe even more. It had doubtlessly been hundreds of years since he'd been up against someone strong enough to stand him off, even at a distance like this, but that was nothing compared to the sheer terror of knowing that someone was touching his mind.
The cold doubled and then doubled again. Frost started to form on my legs and torso as the heat was sucked out of the spike. I'd only thought we were well-matched. He had reserves of power and energy that I could only dream of, but something inside me still stubbornly refused to quit. I wrapped my arms even tighter around the spike, and as the fire they were made of started to flicker, I wrenched against the spike with every ounce of strength I had left.
Hot metal was flexible. I'd heated it up to the point where it had stretched, becoming narrow. Cold metal was brittle and I hit with enough force that the thin, attenuated section couldn't hold. The vampire's probe shattered and, aided by my beast, I began to absorb the creatures and the probe both.
I gasped, and realized that somewhere along the line I'd stopped breathing. I half expected another attack, but the sound of Mr. Ford trying the doorknob reminded me that I had other, equally pressing concerns.
"I'm fine, Mr. Ford, I just need a minute. I'm still a little jet-lagged and tripped as I was trying to pack everything back up."
"Very well, Mr. Peterson. I'm just outside of the door if you need anything."
I pulled myself back to my feet, zipped the backpack up, and turned back to the door.
Chapter 2
Jasmin Bianchi
Deutsche Bank, Cayman Office
George Town, The Cayman Islands
Alec looked like he'd been through hell as he came back out into the main part of the bank and walked towards us across the polished granite floor. The humans around us probably couldn't see the difference, but for someone who could put the visual clues together with the changes in his scent, it was obvious that he'd run into complications.
"Are you okay, Alec?"
He nodded as he handed Jessica the black backpack he'd been carrying.
"I got what I needed. I want a diamond formation, Jessica takes point."
My beast was thankfully silent. The question of who was dominant to whom had been settled between us years ago, but that didn't mean that my beast was always thrilled at the fact that we were submissive to him. Lately things had been even wo
rse than normal in that area.
It wasn't that Alec was a bad alpha; he was actually one of the fairest hybrids I knew. It was more that my beast still seemed to think that we should be competing in a higher weight class than we were actually equipped for.
James didn't seem upset about being ordered around, but then again he had a lot of other stuff to worry about these days. Chief among his concerns was what would happen to his mother if we weren't around, but more than that, he'd lost some of his swagger after Vincent had nearly beaten him to death during our escape from Sanctuary.
The old James hadn't been very prone to challenging Alec, but the new one was even less so. James' beast seemed to understand that we were in the middle of a war now. You could posture and fight for your place inside of the pack all you wanted during peacetime, but once everyone's lives were on the line even our beasts mostly understood that we had to work together if we were going to have even a tiny chance of surviving.
I hadn't even bothered to see if Jess resented being ordered to carry Alec's backpack. Jess was submissive; she always had been and likely always would be. She wasn't worth much in a fight, but even a pack as small as ours needed someone to serve as a pressure relief valve. Jess being around meant that she got bossed around instead of Alec ordering James or me around on a constant basis. That made life a lot easier for everyone, except maybe for Jess.
We fell into the loose diamond formation that Alec had asked for as we exited the bank. Jess being in the front meant that she was the one most likely to trip any ambushes, which was good since she was the one that we could most afford to have injured in the opening seconds of any fight, but she didn't know where we were headed any more than I did.
"Turn left and keep the speed casual."
Alec's order was so quiet that only our unnaturally keen hearing allowed us to catch it. It was yet another benefit of being a shape shifter, a valuable one considering how much effort we had to go to in order to keep our existence secret from the humans. It was nice to be able to talk to each other and have people standing next to us not know what was going on.
Jess set out at a slow walk down the sun-drenched sidewalk. It was all I could do to stop myself from staring at the metal briefcase handcuffed to Alec's wrist. He hadn't actually ever come clean with regards to just how much money he'd stolen from his dad, but I knew it was several billion at least. I wasn't sure I could have calmly walked down a busy street with that much money dangling out as a lure to anyone who felt like trying to improve their position in life by way of a good old fashioned mugging.
"Cross the street at the next corner. Go into that parking garage up ahead."
James cleared his throat. "Alec, I think we've got someone following us."
"Yeah, I saw them two blocks ago. The black van, right?"
"If you saw them, then why are you leading us into a mostly abandoned parking structure? That's practically asking to be attacked."
My response had slipped out with more of an edge than I'd meant for it to have. Despite what my beast sometimes liked to think, I knew I wasn't any kind of match for Alec, but apparently I was feeling some pre-game jitters. I'd been up against vampires, jaguars, and even a werewolf, but I'd never faced off with a van full of humans.
Normal humans weren't usually much of a threat, but if they were as heavily armed as I was suspecting, then they'd still be dangerous. A semiautomatic shotgun didn't need a direct hit to knock a wolf out of the fight. Alec and James could generally shake off a single bullet or a load of buckshot, but we wolves were less sturdy. Besides, being able to withstand one shot wasn't worth a whole lot if someone shot you repeatedly before you could close with them.
"Someone tried to read my mind back in the bank. I'm betting it was one of the bank employees."
"I thought that only two people in the entire bank had access to your account information."
Luckily Alec seemed more amused by my nerves than anything else. It was nice when my big mouth didn't land me in more hot water for a change.
"That's right, there are only two people with that kind of access, but I'm sure every bank employee knows that something big is going on when the three most senior people in the office all take a client down to the vault."
Jess looked even more scared than I was as she led us across the road, but James just nodded in understanding. "So once they know that they've got a potential target, they just pull the information they need out of the client's mind."
"Yeah, or failing that they could probably get what they need out of Mr. Ford or one of the other two."
I wanted to lick my lips, but that was a nervous tic that I'd worked hard to conquer. I wasn't about to give into that particular idiosyncrasy now. I looked over at the black van as I followed Alec across the road, but I kept the gesture relaxed.
"So we're probably dealing with more vampires. The worst case would be what, eight or nine of them?"
Alec reached forward and steered Jessica slightly off to one side as we all made it up onto the sidewalk.
"Yeah, but I don't expect them to be quite that paranoid. Unless the ringleader got more out of my mind than I think he did, they won't know that we're anything other than normal kids. Hopefully there won't be more than four or five of them."
James actually perked up a little at the prospect of a fight. "What about the mentalist, do you think we're going to be up against him too? What if he's not even the one in charge of this little field trip?"
"I suspect that the mentalist will have a hard time getting away from his desk at the bank. Not only will he have all of the normal workload that you'd expect from a bank employee, he'll want to avoid doing anything that might link him to robberies of the bank's customers."
We were less than fifty yards away from the above-ground parking garage, which meant that we were almost to the end of the row of banks, but the fact that Alec had crossed over to the other side of the street told me that he wasn't planning on slipping inside a bank and losing our pursuers that way.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Alec? Even without the mentalist, we could be up against some really, really old vampires."
He looked at me for a couple of seconds before nodding. It wasn't a good look, it was a look that said he was starting to wonder if I'd lost my nerve.
"We don't have any good options at this point, but I don't want these guys giving us problems tomorrow. This is only part of the shipment, the one tomorrow is even more important. Besides, I can't afford to leave witnesses that Kaleb could use to track the money to the new bank."
I nodded, but it wasn't just any nod. I put everything I had into making it as unconcerned and reassuring as I could. We all knew that our odds of surviving the next year were practically zero, but even so I was still safer with our little pack than I would be hiding somewhere by myself. There was more than just Kaleb and the Coun'hij to worry about.
"We're almost there. As soon as we turn into the parking garage I want everyone to sprint to the nearest set of stairs. We need to lure them out of the van, but we also need to spread them out enough that we can pick them off a few at a time."
Everyone acknowledged the order with sub vocalizations of their own, and then it was time to run. There was no sign of any humans on the first floor of the structure, so we sprinted, covering the fifty yards to the enclosed stairwell in just under five seconds. It was fast enough to set a new world record, but more importantly it got us to the stairwell before the van that was following us pulled into the garage.
"James, you're bait, make sure they see you. Everyone else up to the second floor pronto."
I took the stairs three at a time and still lagged behind Alec. I was faster and stronger than any normal human, but Alec's legs were longer.
"Jess, you stay back as much as possible and try to stay in human form. Whatever you do, don't lose that backpack."
I opened my mouth to ask Alec what he meant, but he'd already pulled a key out of his pocket and undone the handcuffs that had s
ecured his briefcase to his wrist.
"It was a ruse the entire time?"
I said it in a low hiss, something less even than a whisper, but it still earned me a dirty look from Alec as he walked over to a nearby Toyota sedan and set the briefcase on the hood. He was right. Vampires didn't seem to hear as well as us wolves, but still it was foolish to risk someone overhearing.
Jess looked back and forth between us with a nervous energy that told me she was profoundly uncomfortable now that she knew she was the one carrying the money. I didn't blame her. The only thing worse than going into a fight against a superior number of vampires was going into that same fight in human form.
The heavy metal door down on the first story clanged shut at the same time that James' footsteps started up the stairwell. I did a quick visual circuit of our level to confirm that there wasn't anyone around. The buildings that butted up against the back and sides of the garage were windowless monstrosities, so we'd be able to shift forms without worrying about who would see, but that didn't completely offset the rising tension tying me up in knots.
A second later I heard a squeal of overworked rubber as the van arrived at the door that James had just vacated. Alec moved closer to the concrete half-wall that formed the outside edge of the building, but I could hear the vampires just fine from where I was standing.
One of the van doors opened with a click and two sets of footsteps hurried across the concrete. "You two secure the two stairwells here on the ground floor, we can't afford to let these kids get away, not with a billion euros at stake."
As the van started back into motion, Alec completed his survey of our little section of the parking garage and decided on a plan.
"Jess, stand over there next to the Hummer so that they don't see you until they've driven past us. James, take the outside wall. Shift into hybrid form and then just sink your claws in deep enough to hang on the outside of the building. I'll hide behind a car up by where I left the briefcase. With any luck they'll see the briefcase at the same time that they see Jess."
