by Mark Henwick
When I moved to join him, he shook his head and pointed at a spot about fifteen yards from the door. He stood to one side, moving surprisingly lightly for a big man.
I understood. I was the distraction. Not the most comfortable thought. I had twelve rounds in my magazine, which was plenty in theory, but things can get difficult in a firefight with paranormals. Verano couldn’t be pushing to kill me though. Surely not? How would he explain that to Bian?
Easy enough to explain it to Naryn.
Gray slipped out of his clothes, stood against the wall and closed his eyes.
I wasn’t getting an eyeful, but he seemed unconcerned anyway. From the way his head bobbed slightly, he might have been listening to his favorite music.
My ears strained to catch the Veranos approaching. They’d calmed down from the over-excited idiocy outside, but I caught a sense of them, their Call, quiet as a breeze slipping through pine woods, a feeling of fierce focus, of being pared down.
I swallowed hard. Whatever Verano had intended when he started, he’d lost control now. What I could sense approaching was a four-man killing machine. Or four-wolf to be more accurate.
My skin tingled with currents. Gray was calling on the energy and some of it was being leeched through me, even though I was fifteen yards away.
Let him do his thing. Concentrate on yours.
I braced and raised the HK. Safety off.
Single shots to wound. Preserve ammunition. Remember there are more of them outside. Keep the shots away from Gray.
Crap, the rest of the Verano pack would go berserk when they knew what was happening in here. I had to warn Alex.
My hair began to float with the force of the energy that Gray was pulling, a witch-wind that stirred and flowed around me.
I caught the scent of Verano. They were here. There was no time to warn Alex.
They didn’t try anything subtle. They gathered behind the door and then they rushed me; four streaks of pale silver death hurtling through the doorway.
It all went slow. I started with the leftmost, furthest from Gray. Tap. Single shot. Difficult to aim for a non-vital spot on a charging wolf. That might be fatal.
One down, three left, eleven rounds.
No time. They’d reach me. I moved, getting ready to roll with the force of their impact. I’d go down but they wouldn’t be able to stop me firing again. I swung the HK to aim at number two.
I didn’t make it.
As the fastest wolf hit me, there was a scream from where Gray had been standing and a shadow streaked out and hammered into the two remaining. All of us tumbled onto the floor. I had no idea where Gray was in this free-for-all, so I didn’t want to shoot again, but I slammed the butt of the HK into my attacker’s skull until his jaws opened and I ripped my left arm out.
I jumped to my feet in time to see a huge cougar hurl one of the wolves into the partitioning, breaking it. The second wolf just backed down with its tail between its legs. A pack could overpower a cougar, but no wolf in its right mind would go one-on-one against the claws and jaws.
Gray screamed again, showcasing his impressive teeth. He was so cool.
I sensed that last wolf was Verano. With him cowed, the fight evaporated from his pack.
I stepped up, the HK pointed at Verano and my voice working on automatic.
“You change back, take your pals and get your pack the freaking hell out of this city, or so help me, we’re going to kill you,” I shouted. I hoped I was getting through to Gray as much as the Veranos. I wanted the Verano pack and their sick alpha out of Denver before they started something else, and I’d prefer to do it without having the deaths of the pack on my conscience. This was Verano’s fault, not his pack.
The two standing changed back, and kept their eyes down as they limped carefully toward their comrades. Only Verano was uninjured, but the other three could walk. The change made their wounds worse, but there didn’t seem to be anything life-threatening.
Gray’s cougar took a slow step back, giving them room.
I made my way around him to the double doors. Their clothes and guns were on the other side. I gathered the guns. They dressed and I watched them slink away, trembling, toward a second set of stairs.
When they’d gone, I went back in and confronted the monstrous cougar. His eyes stared smugly at me. He was over four foot at the shoulder. Must weigh in at over two hundred and fifty.
Damn. How the hell?
“Kitty,” I said, and he blinked at me. “Change back and get dressed now.” I was proud my voice remained level. Pretty much.
“Alex, we’re okay, we’re coming down,” I said into the TacNet and pulled my cell out.
I had to ignore Gray’s pulling energy again. It made me dizzy, but not as dizzy as what I’d just realized.
I shook my head. I needed to get a team together to answer a question that could nail the rogue, and the snow would make it impossible for them to move through the city.
But there was more than one way to skin the cat, with apologies to present company.
I dialed Matt’s cell, hoping for a miracle. He answered sleepily after a minute.
“Matt,” I said. “Sorry. Is there any way I can get in to Jen’s conference facility right now? I’d need you to talk me through setting up a conference call, too.”
“Yeah, no problem,” he said. “As long as you can get to one of the main doors. I’ll let you in.”
It was still the small hours of the morning. “You’re in early. How did you get in to work?” His Harley certainly wouldn’t be out today.
“Umm. I saw the weather forecast last night. I stayed here. It’s cool. There are emergency rooms for exactly that.”
At last, something was working out for me.
“Great. Lucky for me. We’ll be there in ten.”
Next was Bian. I got her on the TacNet.
“No time to get you up to date, Bian. You and Alice in the Haven conference room in fifteen. I’ll send you instructions.”
I ignored her questions, ended the call and tried Tullah’s number.
Olivia had just reached there in Alex’s SUV and they were all still awake.
“You’ve got your laptop and internet connection?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said.
“I want you to set up ready for a conference call in about fifteen minutes. With Mary, please. I’ll call again with instructions.”
I hung up.
I’d get them in the same virtual room and I’d get answers one way or another. I was sick of being short of information that I needed to know, and if we didn’t work fast the rogue would slip away.
Gray was in human form and dressed again. He looked quizzically at me.
“And you,” I stabbed my finger at him hard enough to make him flinch. “You’re coming with me.”
Chapter 66
In contrast to the bright marble lobby of the Kingslund Group headquarters building, where Matt had met us, the conference room was warm and dimly lit.
Matt had gotten used to me. He asked no questions as he explained the operation of the conferencing system. Then, in language that was almost English, he confirmed the electronic security of the conversation and the completeness of the soundproofing of the room itself.
I called Bian and Tullah and let him talk them through making the connections.
Alex, Gray and I sat at one end of a mahogany table the size of a small aircraft carrier and waited as first Bian and then Tullah appeared on the conference screens that took up one whole wall.
Matt smiled to himself as he was leaving. I didn’t doubt his overactive mind was constructing theories as to why I was here at this time of the morning talking to these people, and why it was so urgent, but he seemed to prefer guessing to knowing the facts. Thankfully. At some stage, maybe, he might need to know more of what was going on, but I was already far out on a limb with Altau. I didn’t want to pull any other unaffiliated humans into this mess.
And it was about to get wo
rse; with Bian were both Alice and Naryn. I’d known Naryn would have to be involved at some point, but I’d hoped to filter this to him through Bian.
Tullah had both Mary and Liu with her.
“Thank you, and my apologies for the hour,” I said, getting my tactful bit in early. I was starting to sound like Diana. I took a deep breath. “The reason for the urgency is that I believe we have no more than the rest of this day to catch or kill the rogue.”
“Why do you think that?” Naryn asked.
“What can we do to help?” Tullah said at the same time.
“The FBI are right behind him. They have an evidence trail at the house he was using in Glenmore Hills. They’ll be on to the Aurora Center and the paramedic team that kidnapped me.”
“What?” Bian sat bolt upright. “You were kidnapped?”
I waved it away. “They’ll have the name of Dr. Noble this morning.” I paused. “The problem is, I don’t know that he’s the rogue. And if we get it wrong, he’ll be gone.”
“Where to? And how?” Naryn said.
“Anywhere outside the reach of the FBI. This is a guess, but I think he’s come to some deal with Petersen. They’ve been working together. With the FBI on to him, he’s going to need their kind of capability to get out of the country.”
“Why would Petersen do that? What’s he got that Petersen wants?” Tullah asked.
“It’s what he thinks he can get,” Mary said. “He’s after you Amber. You’re the price for Petersen getting him out.”
“But why would Petersen want me? Petersen had some kind of link to Matlal, but Basilikos don’t want me, after Skylur’s meeting.” I didn’t want to come out and say we’d been meeting with Correia. I was sure that qualified as an Athanate secret, but Naryn just nodded. He’d got the reference.
“Maybe Basilikos weren’t entirely truthful about Matlal,” he said. “Maybe Matlal, or remnants of Matlal’s House are still active, and they still want you.”
“That badly?”
He shrugged.
“So what can we do?” Mary echoed Tullah’s question.
“Help me decide who to go after,” I said. “I can’t chase both of the suspects.”
“Who are they?”
“Ursula Tennyson or Dr. Noble.”
“Hold on,” Bian said. “You said Noble’s too small.”
“That’s where you come in, Mary, Alice.” I turned from the screen and pinned Gray where he sat. It wasn’t really his fault, but still. “And you.”
Gray fidgeted nervously, but waited.
“How much do you weigh?” I asked.
“Two hundred,” he said.
“And that cougar you just turned into?”
Naryn and Bian looked startled. Alice and Mary frowned.
Gray fidgeted some more. “Never had a set of scales around at the right time,” he hedged.
“Let me guess. About three hundred pounds?”
He shook his head. “Two-seventy-five.”
My line of questioning started to make sense to them now.
“Better than a third heavier,” I said. “I don’t know what the difference is between you and an ordinary Were, but you change using the energy, and end up bigger. My question to the group is this, why can’t a Were, who already has some skills with energy, learn that particular skill? Noble is about one-sixty pounds. To produce a wolf as big as Alex’s, he only needs another sixty pounds or so.”
“No reason he couldn’t do it at all, I guess,” Gray said. He leaned on his elbows and addressed himself to the others. “You’d call me skinwalker. It’s a name that is burdened with bad images, so I prefer to keep that secret and call myself a Were. I am a Were, just not fixed to one form.”
Naryn and Bian kept their faces carefully blank. I could see them thinking through the possible benefits. I was sorry to have dumped Gray in this situation, but everybody holding secrets had just jammed the whole process.
“Wait.” Mary shifted uncomfortably. “The energy could be used for this. But a working to increase size is a massive use of the energy. That’s not the pattern of workings I told you that I sensed.” She looked at Gray. “You changed shape twice about half an hour ago?”
He nodded.
“Those I sensed. They’re distinctive. The workings I spoke to you about, Amber, those were different. I called them evil, and I meant it.”
“I know,” I said. I felt nauseous by what I was thinking, but I went on. “What if he were taking that extra bulk from a victim?” I said.
I could hear Noble’s voice at our last meeting—what I’d taken as a joke—‘size isn’t everything,’ he’d said.
He’d been laughing at me the whole time.
“God.” Tullah looked sick. “The victim’s bodies all had part of them taken. That’s what he does. He’s found a way to steal not only whatever abilities they have, but their physical bodies as well, using them to increase his size during the change. Then he must shed that when he changes back.”
“Yes.” Mary put her head in her hand. “That would give off that sort of signature. Spirit hold me, those poor people.” She wiped at her cheeks, her voice raw. “They would have had to be alive when it happened.”
The missing piece of the puzzle. There was no need to create complicated theories about who else it could be. It was Noble.
The teleconference team had done their job. Now I had to go out and nail Noble.
It was deathly still in the room. The wind wailed mournfully outside.
Chapter 67
Denver was a phantom town, with gaunt, monochrome buildings emerging through the snow and then fading away behind another thick flurry. Street were buried in wind-whipped dunes as we drove down to Noble’s office. The eastern sky was paler gray than overhead, but it looked closer to midnight than 9 a.m..
“Schools and businesses closed, National Guard called out,” muttered Gray, staring at his cell.
They were keeping the major roads open, and a few SUVs had ventured out on them. The swirling wind filled the smaller roads with snow, but the Hill Bitch just shrugged it all off. I was more worried that we’d run over someone’s submerged car than be unable to keep moving.
We were heading to the offices because Alex had just received a message on his cell, from Ursula—Noble’s office. Now.
Despite everything that pointed to Noble, I was still uneasy.
Just like Noble, Ursula wasn’t a typical werewolf. Then she’d gone missing when the rest of the pack—Felix’s pack I amended—were at Bitter Hooks. And like Gray, her eukori was tightly controlled. I’d found out what Gray was hiding. What was Ursula hiding? Why was she calling us to Noble’s offices? And why wouldn’t she answer her cell?
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Alex parked right outside Noble’s office, next to a heavy duty snowmobile. I had wondered how Ursula would be getting around in Denver.
I could see the space around the door had been cleared, and as we got closer, that the door had been forced. The building’s power was out. I pulled the HK out and led the way in, Alex right behind me and Gray bringing up the rear.
The lobby was empty, snow sprayed out over the floor like a huge white fan, melting into the carpet. The alarm system was disabled. The door to Noble’s suite off the main lobby had been broken as well.
With the power out, Ursula had dragged Noble’s desk over to the window, where she was sitting, flicking through paper files. A filing cabinet stood to one side with the lock torn off and a drawer hanging open.
Her black hair was pulled back with a leather tie. She was wearing rough work denim, a big padded jacket and heavy work boots. A pair of filthy gloves lay beside her. In the beam of Alex’s flashlight, her face was still red from a night spent in the cold outside. It was also smeared with dirt and creased with her usual unhappy frown.
It occurred to me as we walked in that this was my first meeting with someone from Felix’s pack since Alex and I had crossed the boundary and formed our own pack.
And not just anyone—one of his senior lieutenants.
Joy.
She looked up as we entered.
“Morning,” I said.
Her eyes widened, flicking from me to Alex, and her nose flared.
Oh, crap.
She jumped off the desk, making my heart kick, but there was no aggression in her movement.
After a long drawn-out couple of seconds, I blew out a breath and slid the HK back into the holster. It was the wrong solution to the problem here.
“Challenge?” Ursula’s voice was husky.
“No,” Alex said immediately. “We don’t want to take over from Felix. We want to be our own separate pack.”
“In Denver?” The skepticism made Ursula’s voice sound even hoarser.
“We know it’s going to be difficult,” I said.
Her eyes came back to me, widened again, and I felt the shakeouts of pack dynamics twisting my gut. She was sensing I was the alpha.
Her eyes dropped, went back to Alex. “That must hurt,” she whispered, a trace of a smile in her voice.
Alex snorted.
She came back to me. She’d always made me nervous and it wasn’t going to get better soon. Being alpha didn’t mean being the biggest or the best fighter. Ursula was a lot bigger than me and I instinctively knew I wouldn’t get her to underestimate me like some big guys would.
But it was Alex and I. We were an alpha pair. Surely she wouldn’t attack both of us.
Except we were an alpha pair intruding on her pack’s territory.
“Do we have a problem?” I asked, easing my weight forward and tensing.
“No.”
There was more behind that monosyllabic reply than that, but if she wanted to concentrate on the important things today, I’d go with that.
“Good. You called us here. Why?”
“You got me thinking about those women,” Ursula said to me, working to get things back on safer ground. “The horse owning community’s pretty close in Denver, and they talk to me. So I started asking questions.” She grunted. “That’s where I was last night when the storm hit. When…”