by Dean Murray
"Duck, Adriana."
I let my knees buckle and gravity pulled me down, but it almost wasn't fast enough. Taggart's claws passed over my head, close enough that I felt the wind of their passage before they tore out Pete's throat.
It all happened so fast that it felt like the attack came out of nowhere, but Pete got one final round off, directly into the center of the dark form that had just saved my life yet again.
Chapter 9
Adriana Paige
Marauder's Gas Station
Central Wyoming
My ears were ringing so badly that for a couple of seconds I couldn't tell whether Taggart was still breathing. Some of the lights flickered back on; they weren't much, but it was just enough for me to make it over to Taggart. His chest was moving ever so slightly up and down.
I was dizzy and my entire body was shaking, but I forced myself back to my feet and found the red button that Pete had used to close the exterior door. I prayed that the power was still working enough to lift the heavy concrete slab and punched the button. The reassuring rumble that worked its way up through the soles of my feet a second later calmed some of my terror, but it was going to take more than just some dim sunlight to save Taggart.
A few seconds later I was back at Taggart's Honda and grabbing the battery-powered lantern and first-aid kit that he kept packed in the trunk of his car. When I made it back to Taggart I almost wished that I hadn't been able to find the lantern.
Taggart was bleeding from three different bullet holes. I couldn't remember for sure, but I'd only counted two impacts. Either my hearing had been too far gone by that point or one of the ricochets had hit him after skidding off of the wall.
There was another nick in his right ear that must have been the work of another bullet, and he had a variety of what looked like knife and stab wounds all over his arms and torso, but that wasn't the worst of it. Taggart was naked just like after every shift back to human form, but most of his skin had been burned away by Paulo's fire.
By every rule of human physiology I knew, Taggart should already be dead, but then again he wasn't really human. He just happened to look like one right now. I knelt motionless at his side, for several seconds as I tried to decide where even to start and then nearly jumped out of my own skin when Taggart's eyes snapped open and he grabbed my arm.
"Get the bleeding stopped. Don't worry about the bullets or any internal damage, you don't have the tools or the skills to do anything about them. Do that and then go back up to the store and get me food and water. It will have to be enough."
I shook my head, tears streaming down my dirty, soot-stained cheeks. "You're burned, you lost seventy or eighty percent of the skin on your entire body. You're going to have massive infections; I need to get you to a hospital. This isn't like last time—I'm scared."
Taggart coughed and my hearing was back enough that I could hear the air wheezing out of the bullet hole that had taken him in the lung.
"The skin will regrow and infections aren't as big of a problem for my kind. No hospital; it would be like sending Kaleb and the rest a postcard with my name and address on it. Have faith, Adri. I'll pull through."
I was shaking as I popped open the first-aid kit and started pulling out gauze, rubbing alcohol and butterfly bandages. Maybe he wasn't worried about infection, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try and disinfect as much as I could. I talked as I worked, not because I expected any kind of answer out of him, but because I needed a distraction from all of the blood and raw flesh.
"I think that's the first time that you've called me Adri. You always use my full name."
Taggart's smile was a pale shadow of his normal expression, but at least he was still with me enough to make an effort.
"I guess I figured that after saving your life for a second time I'd earned a bit more familiarity. I can go back to your full name if you'd like."
"No, it's fine. You're right, you've earned the privilege of calling me whatever you'd like."
Taggart's eyes started to flutter closed and I desperately searched for something else to say as I taped a square of gauze over the lung wound.
"How did you beat the pyromancer? Pete was convinced that nobody could beat Paulo. I thought for sure you were dead."
Taggart winced as my fingers pushed a little too hard. "I nearly didn't beat him. The first attack caught me by surprise and the corridors are so tight that I wasn't able to dodge very well. Once I knew what I was up against though it was mostly a matter of just staying out of his sight while I picked off the rest of his guys."
"I could tell that was what you were doing, but how did you beat him once all of his guys were gone?"
"I lured him back towards the two of you and then I threw a barrel of oil at him. I could smell it all the way back from the tunnel that led into the bunker from the store. Once he was coated in oil and it was on the walls and floor around him, then he didn't dare use his ability anymore. Once it was down to just him and me, steel against claws, the fight was over pretty quickly."
I shook my head in amazement. "I never would have thought of that."
"You might be surprised at what you can come up with when the alternative is being burned alive. Besides, you didn't do all that bad yourself. You managed to stab your captor with a screwdriver and you got an elbow in to his throat."
"It wasn't enough, without you I still would have been dead."
Taggart closed his eyes. "You're welcome, Adri."
I reached up and touched his ear, the one that had the bullet crease in it. "You almost died."
"I still might, but yes, that one was too close for comfort."
I wiped my cheeks against my right arm and then poured some rubbing alcohol into the biggest slash across his chest.
"You could have easily killed whoever they had in the shop and then made a run for it. Why did you come down here? For all you knew there were a dozen vampires as powerful as Paulo waiting to kill you as soon as you stuck your head into the bunker."
"I came down here because you didn't stand a chance on your own. The vampires would have drained you and had your corpse buried before sunrise. You needed my help. I'm an old man and you're still young. I might have another thirty years left in me, but you've got your whole life waiting for you."
I shook my head, splashing tears everywhere. "But the resistance needs you. Agony needs you. I'm worse than useless. I don't even know enough about the Coun'hij to feel comfortable killing them let alone enough to actually fight them effectively."
Taggart gripped my arm with a strength that was surprising considering just how much blood he'd lost.
"Agony would understand. We've done what we could, but our generation has failed. The future lies in your generation's hands. You'll find your way, Adri. I trust your judgment; you'll make mistakes along the way just like I did, but you're too good to remain in error for very long."
I taped a square of gauze over the last bullet hole and then started on the smaller wounds, the stuff that normally wouldn't have been worth worrying about, but which were more of a concern given how low his blood pressure must be.
"Thank you, Taggart, and not just for saving my life. It means a lot that you trust me. I'm going to reach out to Alec Graves via my dreams. I know you think he's dirty, but he's the only other person I know who can confirm what you've told me about the Coun'hij. I have to know."
"I knew it was only a matter of time. You were as timid as a dormouse for the first three or four days we were together, but even back then you almost couldn't bring yourself to back down when it came to Kaleb's boy."
Taggart went silent for so long that I almost thought he'd passed out, but after nearly a minute he nodded. "Do what you think you need to do. Find me some blankets so the concrete isn't sucking all of the heat out of me and then go up to the convenience store and lock up. We can use this place later so it's important to keep the cover intact for as long as possible."
Chapter 10
Adriana Paige
Marauder's Gas Station
Central Wyoming
The next few days were a blur of activity and boredom intermixed with moments of extreme terror and a near-constant worry about Taggart. I did as he asked even though walking through the blackened, bloody concrete corridors was one of the most terrifying things I'd ever had to do.
Intellectually I knew that Taggart would have warned me if anyone else had survived the fighting, but that wasn't as reassuring in the near darkness as I stepped over corpses and pools of blood.
It took me twenty minutes to explore the bunker from one end to the other. I found a large bunk area with four or five beds in it after only a couple of minutes, but I forced myself to explore the entire complex before going back and grabbing the bedding off of two of the bunks. I was worried about leaving Taggart alone on the cold concrete for so long, but I needed to see for myself that the bunker was empty.
The underground fortress was an odd mixture of Spartan utilitarianism and ridiculous luxury. There was a big kitchen and dining hall that looked like it was designed to feed twenty or twenty-five people at a time, and then off in Paulo's section of the bunker there was a small kitchen obviously designed for a personal chef.
The main armory ran heavily towards swords, axes and knives, but it did also have half a dozen handguns and twice that many rifles and shotguns in assorted shapes and sizes. I grabbed a small pistol, loaded it up and then stuffed it down the waistband of my pants. Paulo's personal armory had only a few weapons, all of which were exquisite-looking swords that were as slender and light as they were beautiful, but it also had a huge store of gold. Either Paulo had brought a lot of wealth with him across from Italy or robbing travelers was a lot more lucrative than I would have expected.
That theme was repeated over and over again as I worked my way through the dimly lit corridors. Paulo's men lived with only the basics in an almost military setup while Paulo himself had most of the creature comforts one could desire.
The one exception to that rule was an enormous area full of weights, machines and a tumbling mat that was large enough to do Olympic floor routines on. Apparently Paulo didn't think it a good idea to skimp on the tools his men needed to stay in fighting trim. Not that it had done them much good. I'd known that Taggart was deadly, and he'd had the element of surprise on his side, but it still boggled the mind that he'd been able to kill so many people so quickly.
There wasn't any kind of swimming pool, but most everything else I could think of was present and accounted for. There was even a sizable firing range, which was a surprise after seeing how few projectile weapons were inside the armory.
By the time I'd looked into every room and opened all of the closets I was starting to feel safe enough that I felt a little silly carrying the gun, but I didn't return it to the armory.
I found the tunnel up to the store towards the end of my exploration, but I didn't waste time going up it at that moment. I simply barred the door with the massive metal rod obviously intended for that purpose and hurried back to the bunk room to get the blankets for Taggart.
A few minutes later I had Taggart wrapped up with three quilts underneath him to serve as a cushion and insulation from the floor. I would have carried him into the master bedroom, but even in human form he was simply too heavy. It was all I could manage to roll him to one side so that I could get the blankets underneath him.
I closed the giant garage door and then headed back towards the tunnel leading up to the store. The store was empty when I arrived, which was a good thing because it gave me time to figure out how the latch on the back wall opened the hidden passage back down to the bunker.
The sun was starting to set, but there was still enough light to see that I was bloody and dirty, so I spent a few minutes in the bathroom cleaning up. I spent another half an hour up in the store figuring out how the pumps worked and then I locked up, grabbed a selection of the healthiest food on the shelves, and carried it back down to Taggart.
Taggart wasn't awake enough to choke down any of the food, so I ate, made myself a bed with some clean bedding from the closet next to the bunk room, and went to sleep. I half expected to enter a nightmare immediately, but my control seemed to be getting better.
I was tempted to go find Cindi, or maybe Tristan. After everything I'd been through in the last forty-eight hours I really wanted a hug and a chance to talk to someone who was a step removed from all of this violence and death, but I knew doing that would tire me out too much to find Alec, so I forced myself not to reach for either of them.
Besides, I wasn't sure how well Cindi would handle knowing just how close I'd come to dying, and seeing Tristan was a bad idea. I'd told Cindi that she had a green light to pursue him and I'd be sabotaging her efforts if I kept popping into his dreams.
Instead, I shifted my surroundings, which had been the bunker I'd gone to sleep in, to my room back in Minnesota and then I climbed up onto the top bunk and closed my eyes. Thinking of Alec was easier than almost anyone else. Even after all of these weeks, I still remembered exactly how he'd made me feel.
The thrill as he'd kissed me had been like nothing else I'd ever experienced, and it was the only time I'd really felt safe since I'd started dream walking. I took a couple of deep breaths and then entered the Zen-like state that allowed me to start spinning out filaments of myself, self-aware threads that knew enough to look for him.
I hadn't been able to stomach as many calories from the convenience store. There'd been too much sugar and not enough fat for my tastes, but I still figured I had enough energy stored up to make contact even if Alec was all the way across the country from me.
The filaments continued to spin away from me, draining strength and energy away from me at an alarming rate, but I just kept telling myself that there wasn't any reason to panic. I'd done this before and I'd never had any problems. There wasn't any reason to believe that it was going to be any different this time around.
Except it was. The threads seemed to search forever without finding anything. I'd never used this much strength up without finding the person I was looking for. Some of the filaments even stopped moving out and away from me. They were moving to the side now, almost as if they had searched as far as they could and now were hoping to find Alec inside of the sphere of their reach.
I was shaking now, but I couldn't tell whether it was just in the dream or if it was happening in the real world and was just bad enough that it was echoing here too. Just as it seemed that I didn't have anything left to give, I felt an odd kind of click. It was odd not because I'd never felt it before, but because I'd never realized that was what I was feeling when the threads connected. Always before there had been other sensations that drowned out the click, but this time those other feelings were absent, or maybe just muted.
My subconscious took over, reeling in all of the other strands of consciousness that had been searching, reabsorbing the strength that they'd drawn out of me. My heartbeat steadied as my reserves started to fill back up, and then it was time to push enough energy down the remaining thread to firm it up so it could be used to pull him to me.
Part of me just wanted to go to him. It would be easier—it seemed to require a lot less out of me to go to someone else rather than pulling them into my dream—but at least some of Taggart's paranoia had rubbed off on me. Inside of Alec's dream I would be almost completely at his mercy, but inside of my dream things would be different. I got the feeling that Alec was strong-willed enough that he'd still be able to effect some changes on my dream, which wasn't a small thing when you combined it with the fact that he had all of a shape shifter's inherent strength and speed, but at least I'd have a chance.
I'd let my mind wander as I'd been feeding my filament power. It was a dangerous thing, but I'd only let my thoughts drift for a second which wasn't much longer than it would have taken even if I'd been paying attention. I reached for the cable that I'd been expecting the filament to have become, but it wasn't there.
I hadn
't lost the connection, but the thread hadn't grown any thicker despite all of the energy it had pulled out of me. My reserves were already dangerously depleted, I might have enough inside of me to strengthen a normal connection to the point of usability, but there wasn't enough left to pull myself to Alec let alone enough to pull him to me.
I reached towards the glowing white filament with a heavy heart. The night was a waste, but there wasn't anything to do but try again tomorrow. It should have been the easiest thing in the world to snap the connection between Alec and me, but when I tried nothing happened.
The thread wasn't any thicker than it had been a second before, but was stretchy and refused to snap like it should have. The panic that had been present in the back of my mind ever since I'd gone to sleep burst out in full force.
I was going to die here in the dream, sucked dry by something I didn't understand, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I was as good as dead, which meant that Taggart wouldn't make it either.
Chapter 11
Alec Graves
Club Pure Vertigo
Chicago, Illinois
Jack's news was worse than anything I'd expected. Agony had outsmarted Kaleb and the rest for decades. Agony had been running from the Coun'hij since before I'd been born. He'd been running from the Coun'hij since before Kaleb had even been on it. Agony was a living legend and his capture couldn't have come at a worse time.
I didn't have any illusions about the amount of power and influence my friends and I actually had. Two hybrids and a couple of wolves weren't a lot to throw against the awesome might of the Coun'hij. Luring Jack out into semi-active rebellion against Kaleb and the rest was a good start, but even so we were so outclassed it wasn't even funny.
Kaleb could send Brandon and a dozen hybrids to wipe all of us out and not even have to ask the rest of the Coun'hij for help. The Sanctuary pack all by itself outnumbered us by so much that we couldn't hope to win any kind of standup fight. Our only hope was to remain mobile, stay hidden and choose our battles carefully.
