by Dean Murray
When you distilled my reason for fighting down to its simplest form, I was fighting for Adri, and Rachel. I was doing this for Dom and Jasmin. I was doing it for the people I loved and who loved me in return.
Agony feinted to the left, but it was the second time he'd used that move, so I took his blow on the outside of my arm where he couldn't get to anything too important and stepped in as I drove a set of talons into his right leg.
If I'd committed to the move it might have taken him to the ground, but it might have just left me open to a brutal riposte. I wasn't particularly interested in either option, so I jumped backwards and barely avoided his retaliatory slash.
We'd been going at it long enough that blood painted an irregular circle around us, but neither of us was in danger of bleeding out yet. Agony came in and then abruptly changed directions.
It earned him a long gash along the outside of my left arm just below the shoulder. On a normal hybrid it would have had a good chance of disabling the arm, but I had an extra ridge of bone that helped protect the muscle. Royal hybrids still had vulnerabilities, but unlike Brandon, Agony had only been in one other fight with a full up heir of Thanatas. He probably hadn't had a chance in the fight against my dad to realize just how different our anatomy was to what he was used to.
I let my left arm drop and hang limply at my side. The deception wasn't perfect, but Agony fell for it regardless. He came in with another slash, this one aimed at my chest, but I surprised him by slashing his arm with my left hand and then moved in and scored another deep wound with my talons, this time on the leg I hadn't managed to mark up yet.
Despite everything I'd decided before the fight started, I found myself pushing the tempo of the fight. A chink was starting to develop in his armor. A lot of hybrids didn't appreciate just how important their mobility was, but footwork was the core fundamental of a successful defense. If you let your opponent flank you and latch on from behind, you were finished.
If Agony's legs started giving him problems, then I had a chance of winning. It went against everything Kristin had predicted, but I couldn't just leave the chance of victory on the table without going for it. I'd already lasted longer than I'd expected to. Maybe my decision not to capitalize on one of the earlier openings had made the difference. Maybe my willingness to die for my beliefs had somehow changed the future away from what Kristin had seen.
I started working the perimeter, trying to force even more movement into the fight. It would tire us both out faster than the pace we'd settled into, me more so than him, but I pushed on regardless.
It took only another thirty seconds or so for me to decide that my new tactic was working. Agony was still fast, but occasionally I seemed faster, almost like I had an extra half step that he couldn't quite match. Blood was showing in greater and greater quantities as I managed to land blows to his arms and shoulders with increasing frequency, as he couldn't quite get around fast enough to stop all of my attacks.
With someone else I might have been tempted to step back and try to give the blood loss a chance to work on him. A few minutes might be enough to slow him down even more, but I already knew my wounds wouldn't be clotting like normal. His power would have seen to that. If I wanted to win this fight then I was going to need to finish him in the next couple of minutes before my wounds robbed me of enough strength to continue to match him.
I abruptly changed directions on him and created another opening that I used to land another slash to the side of his right leg. It felt like it was a deep one. It might be the break that I'd been looking for, but it was too soon to be sure.
I could feel myself heating up despite the cool temperature of the basement. I was pushing harder than I'd ever pushed in a fight, and the raw aggression combined with all of the blood I'd lost so far was starting to play games with my mind. I knew the fluttery feeling in my gut had to be psychosomatic, but it just served as another spur to finish Agony before it was too late.
I charged him, knocking both of his hands away as I stuck my left foot into flesh yet again and drove him to the floor. Rather than try to capitalize and go for a frontal clinch that would almost guarantee he'd have a chance to take me with him, I sprang away.
Agony used the momentum I'd just imparted to him to roll back to his feet, and there was a noticeable limp to his right leg now. A calculating, calm corner of my brain told me that the smartest thing to do would be to continue to wear him down. If he was faking then the safe thing would be to capitalize on his ruse and land some more blows. That would leave him with the choice of abandoning the ploy or risking even more damage which would eventually prove fatal.
I wanted to pursue that course, but my limbs were already starting to feel weak, and the rest of my body felt even odder than it had a second ago. I planted my left leg and changed directions yet again, but this time I was fully committed to the attack. I arrowed toward his left side and I knew the attack was good. I was going to pass by his left arm a fraction of an inch before he could get it into position to intercept me, and then I'd be behind him and the fight would be as good as over.
As it sometimes did in a critical moment of a fight, I felt time slow down. It was as though I had all the time in the world to see Agony suddenly push off with his right leg, moving with a speed that had been absent from our last several exchanges. I watched as his left arm came around much faster than I'd been expecting. He'd been faking and I'd fallen for it.
I crashed into him, but not before he sank his left hand into my chest, all four claws finding gaps between the ribs that allowed them to sink home into my lung. We hit the ground with enough force to send us both rolling, and the impact ripped Agony's hand free of my flesh.
I tried to get up. I'd suffered wounds nearly as severe in the past, but my body refused to obey my mind. Nothing would respond to my desperate commands; even my beast had gone strangely silent.
Agony pulled himself back to his feet and cautiously walked over to me. He sank the talons of one foot into my right hand and the other set into my left shoulder. As he bent down to kill me, Adri yelled and in the next instant the entire world seemed to crack.
The tiny singularity that had so steadfastly refused to heed my call for the last several months opened up wider than it ever had before. When I'd killed Brandon, my strength had been consumed to stop from being burned up by all of the energy I was drawing into myself. This time was different. This time the power that I was pulling in was going somewhere different, I couldn't have explained where it was going, but it wasn't draining me. Instead, it was energizing me.
Agony collapsed beside me. I rolled up to my feet and looked out at the gathered shape shifters. Nearly everyone in the room was on the floor. Ulrich was on the far end of the room, and he'd managed to remain upright in his chair, but I saw fear looking back at me from behind his eyes.
The only exception was Oblivion. He stood tall and proud, untouched by the pull of my ability. I reached out toward him, trying to bring him to his knees as well, but there was something inside him that was a distant cousin to the gaping hole inside me. He was like me, but different.
The singularity started to...wobble, so I tried to narrow the area of effect back down. It was like making a fist with a hand that I'd never known I had. I shrank the cyclone of power down until I was only pulling from Agony. The change seemed to have stabilized my ability, to have bought me time.
I looked out at the rest of the shape shifters in the room as they slowly pulled themselves back to their feet.
"I take no joy in what I'm about to do, but it is past time for us to stop allowing the Coun'hij to direct our aggression inward. Our natural enemies sit out there growing in strength. I will see them trimmed back, but before that can happen the Coun'hij must be brought down."
I turned back to Agony, but before I could strike he managed a scream.
"Kill him!"
Half of the Coun'hij bruisers started toward me instantly. I relaxed my grip on my power slightly and broug
ht Agony's enforcers to the floor in two distinct groups. Those who had remained still, ignoring Agony's command, and those who'd tried to attack me. None of them had made it more than a few steps.
"We don't have a legitimate government anymore so might is the only thing that rules us now. By the might our Maker has granted me, I pronounce a sentence of death on Agony and those who were about to attack me en masse, in opposition to every tradition of challenge we've ever had as a people."
**
It had been me who screamed when Agony had been about to kill Alec. I'd sworn to myself that I would be strong, but when Alec had collapsed and been unable to get up, I hadn't been able to help myself. I'd cried out and squeezed both Dom and Rachel's hands.
When Alec's ability had re-manifested I'd fallen in such a way that I'd been able to see him still from my little spot on the ground. I'd watched as he'd realized that he finally had the power to protect all of us that depended on him.
The lure of that kind of power was undeniable, but when Alec looked at me I didn't see avarice in his eyes, I saw relief. More importantly, I saw hope there again.
I pulled myself to my feet along with everyone else when Alec allowed us to stand and I stopped breathing when Abaddon and the others rushed him. As Alec pronounced a death sentence on Agony and over half of his men, I saw him shrink back down to the human shape that in many ways represented what he was trying to accomplish with his speech.
I watched Alec shift his hand back to something with the claws he needed to carry out his pronouncement, and I watched as Alec ended Agony's life. It was terrible. I didn't want to be the kind of person who could watch someone die without feeling anything, but it was also justice. Agony had killed hundreds of people, and for their sakes, I refused to look away.
Alec moved from one fallen hybrid to another, killing each of them until he'd finished with the group that had tried to attack him, and then he looked over at Oblivion.
"I have no wish to fight you, Oblivion. If I let the rest of your men up will you guarantee their good conduct?"
Oblivion's nod was unmistakable, and an instant later, Alec shut off the greedy little black hole that I'd been able to feel trying to slip the bounds of his will. Oblivion waited impassively as the rest of Agony's men slowly got back to their feet. They moved like old men, like Alec had captured more than just the strength of their muscles, but maybe that shouldn't have been such a surprise. These were brutal men who'd hitched their wagons to the Coun'hij's star. It had to be a shock to see Agony fall and know they were walking out of here solely on Alec's sufferance.
Once all of the enforcers were on their feet, Oblivion led them out of the room without looking back. Alec stood in silence for several seconds while every eye in the room remained unwaveringly fixed on him.
"Ulrich, I'd like to talk to you."
"Is that a demand or a request?"
Alec sighed and pointed at the corpses he'd left scattered about the room.
"It's a request. I have no desire to kill anyone else. If you refuse me then I will take my people and leave, but I think a better course would be for you and I to talk."
Ulrich looked at Alec for several long heartbeats before he finally nodded and stood. As Alec followed Ulrich towards the stairs Vicky, Shawn and another man detached themselves from the rest of the Chicago pack to follow. James and Ash headed that direction too. I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be in the meeting, but I couldn't bear to let Alec out of my sight right now, so I followed along after all of the bodyguards.
Everyone moved quickly but I managed to stay only a few steps behind them. Five minutes later, Alec, Shawn and Ulrich stepped into a huge study. I tried to follow them inside but Vicki put a hand out and stopped me.
"You have no standing in either pack."
James growled and took a step forward, but Ash put a hand on his arm and shook his head. It wasn't an order, more like a bit of unsolicited advice, but James stepped back to his original position. The door wasn't shut yet so I could hear Alec's question to Ulrich.
"I know it's against protocol, but I'd like to have her in here with us if you don't mind."
It was Shawn who responded. "I'm here in an advisory capacity. It's not unreasonable for Alec to have an advisor in here with us."
Ulrich's deep rumble didn't sound happy. "Are you keeping counsel with humans now, Alec? How can you guarantee that she can protect our secrets?"
"I can't guarantee anything of the kind, Ulrich. I have no good reason to request her presence other than the fact that I would like her here. I've...missed her."
Shawn returned to the door a second later and waved me forward. The inside of the study was only a hair short of opulent. Leather-bound books filled bookcases that reached all of the way to the twenty-foot ceilings. A massive desk dominated one side of the room, with stained- glass windows taking up that entire side of the room. I had a brief second to take in that the window seemed to be a scene with a king and four figures arranged before him, and then my attention was pulled to a group of chairs that was arranged off to one side of the room.
Alec and Ulrich were both already sitting down and Shawn was headed back towards the chair next to his father. I took the chair next to Alec and then watched while Ulrich picked up a remote that presumably turned on a privacy box.
"What do you want, Alec? I need to start damage control for the mess you just handed me."
"I want you to know that I was serious about what I said out there. Every word of it."
Ulrich snorted. "I could tell you were serious about it downstairs. You didn't need to drag me up here to tell me so in private."
"No, I didn't. I wanted to see where you stood, though, without putting you on the spot in front of your people. I won't start this out by destabilizing healthy packs. We're going to need every wolf and hybrid we can get if this is going to work."
Even I could tell that Ulrich wasn't impressed. He leaned forward and speared Alec with his gaze. "This can't work, Alec. You're one man, you can't be everywhere at once. Whoever throws in with you is going to be in constant danger of attack from the rest of the Coun'hij. You've struck a blow today but you haven't crippled them. Even if you managed to find their headquarters and wipe out every one of their enforcers, you still couldn't stand against Puppeteer. He'll bring an army of mind-controlled werewolves down upon you, and when they leave you'll all be dead."
"We're going to have to face the werewolves eventually. It's only a matter of time before they rampage through the world and destroy everything."
"I can't argue with that, but the way to kill the werewolves is a few at a time. Surround two or three of them with a couple dozen wolves and minimize our losses. That's not the way Puppeteer works. Is anybody really sure how many he can control at once? Fifty? Sixty? A hundred? Even if he has a limit to how many he can actively control, what's to stop him from staging them and bringing them in wave, after wave, after wave? Two packs can't stand against that. Hell, six packs couldn't stand against that."
Ulrich sat back in his chair, and for the first time since I'd arrived, he looked tired. Not tired like he'd just got done having Alec drain him of energy, exhausted like he was fed up with having his back to a wall, like he wished for once that he could trust someone beyond his family and his immediate lieutenants.
"Alec, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to believe in you, but your dad and I talked all of this through more than two decades ago. Back when his pack was nearly as big as my pack, and he thought he was just months away from an alliance with Jaclyn. Even back then with more bodies than we could possibly muster right now, I still didn't believe it was possible. The other side just has too many cards in their favor. The best we can hope for is to wait Puppeteer out. Once he dies of old age, you and Shawn might have a chance."
I watched as Alec considered Ulrich's words and then shook his head. "No, there will always be a reason not to act. Between now and when Puppeteer dies, there will be more hybrids who manifest po
wers and join the Coun'hij. For all we know, one of the idiots that walked out the door with Oblivion is only days away from manifesting something that makes Puppeteer look positively benign. We need to act now and rely on providence to provide options for us. I will overthrow the Coun'hij no matter the cost to me personally."
Ulrich looked over at Shawn and waited for several seconds until Shawn reluctantly shook his head. I suddenly realized why Shawn was present. He was here to tell his father whether or not Alec could accomplish what he'd just promised to do. Alec needed Ulrich's support, and he wasn't going to get it.
I wasn't strong or dangerous, but Shawn's comment from back at the airport was running through my head. He seemed to think I had some kind of potential to make a difference. I didn't know if he was right or not, but I couldn't let Alec do this alone.
I reached out, took Alec's hand, and then cleared my throat. "I will do everything in my power to help Alec bring down the Coun'hij."
Shawn's head snapped towards me. It was a small movement, but it was abrupt. In someone else it would have been the equivalent of falling out of their chair.
I squeezed Alec's hand. "Promise to bring down the Coun'hij now, Alec. But remember, this isn't just about you."
Alec looked at me oddly. I knew he didn't understand what I was doing, but he nodded in trust and then turned back to Ulrich.
"I will use all of the resources at my disposal, my power and the powers and abilities of those sworn to me, those who support me in any way, to bring down the Coun'hij and usher in a new era for our people."
Shawn had gone completely still. Ulrich seemed content to wait him out, but I wasn't.
"Tell them, Shawn. Tell them exactly what you know."
Neither of the Bishop men were happy about the order, but it was Ulrich who stood up like he was going to do something about it. Alec rose to his feet a fraction of a second later and put himself between Ulrich and me, but it was Shawn who waved his father back into his seat.