Bite Back Box Set 1

by Mark Henwick

  “Or a house with a basement.” Jofranka was determined to keep contributing.

  “Interesting.” Melissa wrote down a summary of the location options.

  I nodded. Nothing as soundproofed as underground.

  We were making progress, but we were inching forward. There was nothing to stop him from killing again while we puzzled our way through the clues. The murder at Wash Park was fresh and had to be full of evidence, but Griffith had clamped down heavy security on all details.

  Melissa said the rogue’s actions were a gesture at the police and that meant he was leaving.

  My gut feeling said he might be, but he wanted something first. What was it? More deaths?

  If we were going to be able to prevent him, let alone catch him, we had to move faster and smarter. These clues were things that were evident. The FBI would have them too. What did we have that was different?

  I turned to Melissa’s list of missing women. She’d pinned up photos next to their names and home addresses.

  Tullah saw me staring.

  “What?” she said.

  “Something about them,” I said. “They’re some kind of group. They share something.”

  David came over and looked at them. “They’re at the other end,” he said.

  I frowned at him till he went on. “Look.” He started pointing. “Jewelry, hairdos, makeup, branded clothing. The opposite end of society from the victims.”

  He was right. It wasn’t what was niggling at me, but it did make a clear distinction between the known victims and the potential victims. But one of the things that could mean was just that the rogue realized there would be more investigation on the second group and had hidden their bodies better.

  “Imagine them together,” I said to everyone. “What are they doing? Where are they?”

  “On vacation somewhere. Sailing. Y’know, fancy yacht where someone else does the work.”

  “Expensive shopping.”

  “Golf club social event.”

  “Opera.”

  “Doing some hobby that costs a lot.”

  I rubbed my face. All good, but not what I was feeling about them. “What cars did they drive and where did they buy them from? What clubs did they go to? Do they have second homes? Where? What stores do they shop at? What are those expensive hobbies?”

  Tullah and Jofranka scribbled notes.

  “Why them?” I went on. “These are high-risk targets. What might he get? Where are the bodies?”

  “Risk might be its own reward,” Melissa said. “And disposal? If he’s in the pack, what are the chances he can dump the bodies into one of the fertilizer factories without anyone else even realizing?”

  “I don’t understand about the risk,” Jofranka said, blushing.

  “If he’s responsible for all of these,” Melissa said, “he needs to kill on a regular basis as a kind of sick fix. But the thrill of killing is different from the thrill of getting away with it. These ones,” she indicated the original list of victims, “they go back six years. These women, if they’re victims as well, started only a couple of years ago. Just killing is no longer enough. The risk profile is escalating. He needs both kinds of thrill now.”

  “Culminating in Wash Park?” I said.

  “No. That’s a clean break. I still say that’s his farewell.” Melissa made a few more notes on the boards. “Some of that information you were asking about is in the files I brought. I’ve copied them to the computers here.”

  I stood back and looked at the board. There was something we were all missing about this group that pulled them together, something I felt from looking at them, but it remained outside of my reach.

  “You said at the beginning that we needed to match any pattern against information about the pack,” Tullah said. “When will we get that information?”

  “As soon as I can get it.” I was going to have to persuade Felix.

  Tullah and Jofranka started running through Melissa’s computer files while I stared at the photos.

  “I have a contact we have to go see,” Melissa said. “A guy called Clayton. Used to be a detective. He worked on these cases.”

  The name rang a bell, and not in a good way.

  “Okay, we could—”

  Pia came in. “Urgent call for you,” she said, handing over a landline. “Bian.”

  “Round-eye? I’ve been speaking to Skylur and Naryn about the colonel. I gave them the proposal you made, about him running a covert Athanate army. Naryn’s totally bought in.”

  “Good.” I hoped it was good. I got the impression Naryn would want exactly the commitment that the colonel wasn’t ready to give.

  “Yeah.” Bian’s tone told me I was right to be worried. “You need to bring them in now.”

  “But Vera’s still recovering.”

  “I know. Naryn said she’ll be in better hands here at Haven than there. I’m sorry. They’ve made some time in their schedule and we’re all just going to have to fit in.”

  Chapter 38

  The colonel and his wife had already been warned by Pia, and it wasn’t as if they had much to pack. We were on the road in five minutes, most of that taken with Vera thanking me again and apologizing for all the fuss she’d caused, as if it had been her fault.

  “Will I meet Ms. Trang today?” she asked as we drove out.

  “Probably.”

  I could tell she was worried about that—the effect that Bian might have on her. Bian’s scent still clung to her.

  I pulled over short of the highway, and took out the two blindfolds Pia had given me.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  The colonel laughed and put Vera’s on.

  “It won’t make a blind bit of difference,” she said with a smile. “I’m going to sleep anyway.”

  I tied his and we set off again. In fact, both of them slept until we turned into the gates at Haven. I wished I felt as relaxed as they did.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Bian met us at the main door.

  “House Farrell.” She nodded to me. “Colonel and Mrs. Laine, welcome to Haven.”

  We were being formal, so she kissed necks with me. She shook hands with them.

  Vera kept hold of her hand. “We both wanted to take this opportunity to thank you.” She looked at me as well. “Whatever happens now. To thank both of you and your colleagues as well. And my personal thanks to you, Ms. Trang, for saving my life.” She stopped. “That sounds so awful.”

  “It’s Bian, and I’m glad I was able to.” Bian shed her formality and hugged Vera. “Your recovery is thanks enough,” she whispered and then she broke away, and was all formality again. She touched her tiny Haven earpiece.

  “I apologize. We’re a bit rushed today. Please, follow me.”

  She took us along to the small library where I’d met Diana the previous week. I was relieved Skylur wasn’t insisting on the spooky dungeon treatment.

  He was waiting there with Naryn.

  “Colonel Laine, Mrs. Laine. Welcome.” He shook their hands and waved us to seats.

  Bian served us coffee from the sideboard, then went and leaned against a bookshelf.

  Naryn was sitting to one side and watching silently, as if he were weighing us all.

  I tried to ignore Naryn and to see Skylur with fresh eyes, like the colonel and Vera would.

  He wasn’t imposing, at a glance, the leader of the Panethus Athanate. You’d hardly notice him in a crowd. His hair was dark, cut short and neat over regular features. His skin was lightly tanned. His clothes were casual but too well fitted for store-bought.

  It wasn’t till he turned his eyes on you that you started to re-evaluate. They were a cold, hard blue. Once they caught you, it was as if a cold corridor opened between minds. Maybe when I’d first met him in the dungeon, he’d chosen that location so I couldn’t actually see his eyes?

  My elethesine spiked and my senses sharpened. Everyone in the room was suddenly much more in focus. The image that came to mind wa
s a spider web, and through that web I knew that the colonel’s heart rate had risen, and so had Vera’s.

  No prizes for guessing which of us were the spiders and which the flies.

  “House Farrell has put a proposal to us,” Skylur said. In one sentence he’d somehow managed to convey the relationship between me and Altau, and the gravity of the situation.

  Skylur made a steeple of his fingers. The colonel sat back and crossed his legs. He wasn’t fooling any of the Athanate in the room, and he knew it, but I was still impressed he managed to look relaxed.

  “You’re familiar with the situation between the two main factions, Panethus and Basilikos?”

  The colonel nodded.

  “The last hundred years of political fighting has resulted in a win for Panethus. We believe that may cause Basilikos to escalate their armed aggression from minor attacks in disputed areas to major attacks anywhere in the world they feel they can. It’s House Farrell’s opinion that Basilikos have an advantage in military capability. The potential inclusion of Ops 4-16 in Basilikos ranks can only make any disparity worse.”

  Skylur paused to take a sip of coffee.

  “By worse, I don’t mean just for Panethus, I mean for humankind as well.”

  He let that sink in before continuing. I’d briefed the colonel about the differences between the two Athanate types. He’d be in no doubt of the effect of having Basilikos run unchecked.

  “To win against Basilikos, we can’t just beat them. It would be a disaster for us to win the armed struggle and yet reveal ourselves to the human world prematurely. So we must beat them covertly, with an army of experienced soldiers and leaders who are experts in this covert way of fighting. Now fate has handed me exactly such a leader,” Skylur said. “You appreciate I can hardly just let you go?”

  I wanted to say something, but the colonel beat me to it. “You must be careful, Mr. Altau,” he said. “It’s all too easy to become what you fight.”

  Skylur smiled thinly. “Call me Skylur,” he said.

  “Jari,” replied the colonel.

  “Sun Tzu thought it was necessary to become the enemy,” Naryn said quietly. I shivered and wondered if he’d intended it to sound as if he’d spoken with Chinese generals in 500 BC.

  The colonel had shown he wouldn’t be pushed around. In an ordinary interview, that would have been good. I was worried how serious Skylur was when he said he couldn’t let the colonel go. He had the power to compel people, but surely it wouldn’t work for something as complex as running their army.

  “If I’m being offered a job, what are the terms?” the colonel said.

  Skylur let the silence build. I knew that there would have to be conditions attached. The colonel knew it too. I could smell his worry.

  It was Naryn who answered, and he focused on that worry. “This work would be for an indefinite period.” He got up and strolled to a side cabinet, where he picked up a small statue of an eagle. “Which leads us to questions of your status within this House. The Athanate have survived among humanity by following a set of rules called the Hidden Path, symbolized by this.” He held up the statue. “The eagle blindfold, unable to see the path we follow. It has kept us safe for thousands of years. One principle of the Hidden Path is that there are three types of people within the Athanate domain, and only three—the Athanate themselves, Aspirants to become Athanate, and those humans bound to the Athanate as kin.”

  I cleared my throat and they all swiveled to look at me. “Things change. Emergence challenges the Hidden Path. Definitions have to become looser. They already have for me. I’m Athanate, and yet I’m Were as well.”

  That got the frostiest of smiles from Skylur.

  And Adept. When are you going to get around to telling them that?

  Quiet, Tara.

  Their own political structures had the concept of looser and tighter bonds between Houses; they should be able to transfer that to the bonds within a House. I wanted them to concentrate on what they couldn’t avoid—humans finding out about them, and how they dealt with that in the future.

  “If you proceed down the path of Emergence,” I continued, “you will have to learn how to cooperate with humans who are not bound as kin. What better place to start?”

  “Looser definitions,” Skylur said, “do not mean looser consequences. Jari, I sense your fear of the Athanate, our culture and structures. In this, you are so like your former sergeant when she first came to Haven.” He smiled at me. “Amber, describe your position now.”

  The bastard. I knew exactly what he wanted.

  “I am Athanate.” A simple statement that was the start of the oath of allegiance I’d given at the Assembly. Words have a power all of their own. These rang deep in me. “I am House Farrell, and responsible for my House to the Athanate. That responsibility is channeled through House Altau, whose mantle this is. I have made an oath to him, on my Blood. I am completely aware that, as I am responsible to him, he is responsible to the Athanate as a whole. Because of that, everything, my life and my House, are at his disposal.”

  I swallowed. It was one thing to say that in the Assembly in front of Athanate witnesses, and something completely different to say it in front of the colonel and his wife. He looked pale. Vera sent me a look of sympathy.

  “For Athanate purposes, you are Athanate,” Naryn said. “As for looser definitions, I consider you an experiment in process, and I advise against starting any more experiments while the first goes on.”

  I bit my tongue to stop my demon from making things worse. Altau needed the colonel. Compelling him or making him kin against his wishes were hardly the right way to proceed. I was sure if Diana were here, the argument would be over already, but she wasn’t. And if Naryn had been with Skylur so long, his opinion would carry more weight than mine. I needed an argument, not an opinion. The point about my being an exception was a good one, but between Skylur and Naryn, they’d shot it down.

  The colonel and Vera knew it.

  “If you weren’t here, colonel, what would you be thinking of doing?” Bian asked.

  She’d cleverly defused some of the tension.

  “I think it’s safe to assume that the government won’t allow groups like Ops 4 to exist in the future,” he replied, bitterness in his tone. “Re-deployment of command staff would be highly contentious.”

  He shrugged, hiding the pain. “When that sort of political wind is blowing, even the big trees bend. Years of service and successes won’t count.”

  “You’re saying you’re out of a job,” Naryn cut in.

  “Or possibly I’d be offered a job running weekend training camps for reserve assistant cooks. My commitment isn’t to one military group or another, it’s to doing something that I’m skilled at which makes a difference.”

  “Basilikos certainly would make a difference, and they’d love to have you,” Bian said casually. “They’re probably better set up as well.”

  The flare of the colonel’s anger didn’t get past the eyes, but every Athanate in the room felt it. Just as Bian intended.

  Thank you, Bian.

  She put up her hand. “Not intended seriously, Colonel. I didn’t mean to be insulting.”

  I ignored the byplay and focused on Skylur. I saw the subtle change in his eyes, I felt the even subtler changes in his marque.

  Naryn and Bian shifted positions noiselessly. They’d felt it too.

  The colonel’s instinctive, bone-deep hatred for Basilikos and all it stood for was like a binding. Not to Altau, but to their cause. Was it enough?

  But Naryn wasn’t finished. “The general without the troops isn’t much use. Where would we find the troops? We don’t have the time to recruit and train them.”

  “Don’t need to train them,” I said, “if you recruit our old unit, Ops 4-10.”

  That interested them. Skylur tilted his head. Naryn’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

  “I haven’t spoken to them, and I’m not the person to do it,” I said.


  Recruiting would be the colonel’s job, maybe helped by Julie, and Keith when he got out. If the administration decided the Ops 4 were a liability they wanted to disown, I had the feeling that would include discharging everyone. If Altau were up for it, I’d bet the majority of Ops 4-10 would come and work for them, once they learned the real situation with Basilikos.

  They all already knew about Athanate, and a talk from the colonel would lay out the scenario. They wouldn’t be based at Haven. They wouldn’t even need to be kin, though Naryn might disagree again.

  Skylur broke the silence. “House Farrell is obligated to me. This is an Athanate obligation, and that means her entire House is required to behave exactly as if they were any other, standard Athanate House, comprised of Athanate, Aspirant and kin. In return, I behave the same way to them.” He tapped his steepled fingers against the end of his nose. “You can arrive at a status within House Farrell that you are both comfortable with.”

  Naryn looked to interrupt, but Skylur held his hand up and continued, speaking slowly.

  “But…you must be aware of the liabilities and responsibilities this carries with it under Athanate law. If, for example, the colonel were to breach security, or act against Altau, or Panethus, or not act against Basilikos, then it is the responsibility of House Farrell to remedy that. Failing that, or in the case that remedy is impossible, the entire House is liable to me and the lives of all would be forfeit.”

  He sat forward, his eyes locking on me and then the colonel.

  “Amber, Jari, are you both completely clear on this?”

  My life, and the life of everyone I declared to be in my House, would depend on the colonel’s loyalty. If he were kin, the binding would ensure this. If we agreed he wasn’t going to be kin, I was dependent on his word. I might have to kill him. Skylur might have the whole House killed.

  We needed the colonel. Not just me and Altau—all of Panethus needed the colonel. Which meant I needed to take this risk.

  “I understand,” I said, sounding half strangled. The colonel just nodded. He’d gone as pale as I felt.

  “Take it as read that the ordinary package will exceed what could be expected in an equivalent role for the army. You would be seconded from House Farrell to live and work here. Your ability to come and go would be the responsibility of your House under the obligations I’ve explained. At your choice, you could enjoy kin benefits from Altau without further commitment.”