I heard Ranger telepathing her. Tell him if you invite him, there’ll need to be an agreement of some kind.
Cora crossed her arms. “There’ll need to be an agreement for us to be cagey about. How about your blood for any of our humans who need it, and I’ll provide a wolf to you for three feedings every time you heal one of ours? Or, one feeding with sex, but that will only be if one of my wolves volunteers, and everything will be consensual.”
“It’s a starting point for a negotiation. I look forward to receiving an invitation.” He glanced at me and looked back to Cora. “Kirsten’s healings have already been negotiated.”
And I needed to find out what Mordecai had agreed to, but it was time to move to another subject. “What else can you tell us about Rinaldo?”
“He isn’t someone you want to have focused on you. I know the Pack wants to be seen as standing on your own, but you might consider bringing Ryan in.”
I looked at Cora. “It isn’t a bad idea. Doesn’t have to be the Pack. I can negotiate terms for Ryan and me to go after him together.”
“Or you and I can go after him,” said Ranger, “while Cora stays here to hold everything together.”
Cora took her ponytail holder off her hair and put it back up, clearly running through various scenarios. “This is where it would help if I had an agreement with the MC already. I know Nix doesn’t accept jobs, but if we had an agreement, we’d at least be able to put the request in. A long-range sniper would come in handy for this.”
“I’m good up to about a hundred and fifty yards, but Nix is good at well over a mile out.” Ranger shrugged. “Maybe we should invest in the new TrackingPoint device. Tippy’s got some experience.”
“She shows by appointment only. I’ll call her in the morning and set something up,” said Mac.
“You know her?” Tippy is a deer shifter and she’s painfully shy.
“I didn’t get to take all the government’s toys with me when I took my early retirement, so I needed to buy my own, and I prefer custom to mass produced for certain items. She knows her shit.”
“If she’s already comfortable with you, then please make the appointment, but I’d like to go with you to the meeting,” Cora told him.
I looked to Bran, considering. “Rinaldo intended to set things up so I killed or injured Katerina Bernasconi. What can you tell me about her?”
“She’s formidable, but is usually on the side of light. Not always — if those in power on the good side have recently pissed her off, she’ll turn sides without thinking twice. I’m not sure where she stands right now.”
“I don’t suppose you have a phone number for her?”
“Give me a day or two and I can probably track it down.”
I reached for my phone and called Ryan. “I don’t suppose you have a phone number for Katerina Bernasconi.”
“Hello to you, too.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hello, Ryan. How are you doing today?”
“I don’t believe contacting her is in your best interest.”
“I’m pretty sure Rinaldo wanted me to kill her. He’s clearly a bad guy, so is it possible she’s on our side?”
“It only means he wanted her off the playing field. Perhaps they’re on the same side and he didn’t like the way she was steering them. Or, perhaps he still secretly loves her and she’s a bitch to him and he wants revenge. Without knowing his motivation, it’s best we don’t try to guess it.”
“If you happen to come across information, will you please share it with me?”
He didn’t say anything, so I tried again. “Someone tried to use me as a weapon to kill her. I’d like to know why.”
“If I come across information, I’ll consider whether sharing it will be helpful or harmful.”
It was probably the best I’d get from him. “Thank you.”
“Ryan isn’t normally that talkative,” Bran noted.
“We’ve worked together, developed a rapport. He still creeps me out, but…” I shrugged. I couldn’t explain Ryan.
Thirty minutes later, a car arrived to pick Bran up, and ten minutes later, Abbott arrived with Spence, Kendra, and Josef.
We told them the story of what had happened, but left out the part where I’d been injured. They’d smell the damage and Bran’s blood, but there was no sense explaining it. I was managing fine, and the wound wasn’t too bad anymore. It’d probably be completely healed by noon the next day, at the current rate. I looked at the clock and saw it was nearly three in the morning. Okay then, by noon the same day.
“We’ll take him with us,” said Abbott.
“No.” Cora crossed her arms again. “You’ll get what you can out of his head here, and then we’ll kill him.”
Abbott took at least five seconds to answer, his eyes practically boring into her, but he didn’t try to mess with her mind — he knew better.
“Very well. Spence will take notes as I gather information.”
Nearly an hour later, the vampires returned from the basement, and Josef told us, “We have a local address, but I doubt Rinaldo is there. We also have three Atlanta addresses, as well as one in Ringgold. My guess is he’ll stay in places the eagles weren’t aware of.”
Spence tore off a page from a small notepad and handed it to us. I looked at Abbott. “Your word you aren’t holding anything back?”
“He wants you alive, and he intends to turn you.” He sighed. “Amongst other things you can probably imagine without me having to detail.”
My stomach fell to my feet, but I tried not to feel too much fear in a room full of supernaturals. “Thank you. Anything else?”
“He needs to die.”
No shit.
When they were gone, I looked to Cora. “I need high-powered binoculars. The mile-away kind. We need to know how far away we can blow a head up quickly.” There might not be a need for the special sniper software.
She looked to the men. “This is an exercise for all of us, I think. Perhaps not the distance, but if we can all blow heads up just being in proximity to her, that’ll be a good thing.”
“Our Pack will be able to do something other Packs can’t,” said Ranger. “Do we want to stand out like that?”
“We want to project power,” said Cora. “We won’t advertise what we can do. It’ll be a word of mouth thing, once we begin using it in battle.”
Ranger nodded. “Works for me.”
30
We started out by testing to see how far away we could each sense supernatural activity. We put two people on a four-wheeler with headsets on different channels, and basically repeated the test we’d done so long ago at Abbott’s.
When we’d tested this before, I’d been able to sense it at four-tenths of a mile. I could now sense it at nearly a mile and a half away, and Cora sensed it at exactly the same time. However, was this because Ranger was Pack, or would I be able to sense it from anyone at that distance? I needed to find out, but I didn’t want to broadcast my abilities.
Because the property is so heavily forested, the longest line-of-sight spot we could find on the property was eight-tenths of a mile. We put a gallon jug of water on one end, and me on the other with good binoculars. Not super-good, because we didn’t want to have to fill out the paperwork to borrow them from Drake. No one needed to know what we were doing.
Since Cora and I combined can blow heads up faster than me alone, we did it together, and discovered our time at this distance was exactly the same as it was for close-up.
Next, we drove to Prentiss Cooper, to an area without a lot of people, and found a spot with a mile and a half line of sight. Cora and I couldn’t manage it, so we moved in a tenth of a mile, and then another. We could do it at one-point-three miles. No need for a sniper unless we didn’t want them to immediately know we’d done it.
“Abbott owes me Kendra’s services for two occasions. What if we take her out after dark and let her see from a distance if Rinaldo’s at any of the known addresses?”
&n
bsp; Mordecai popped into the room, and all of the wolves went into fight mode a few seconds before relaxing.
“You should probably pop into an adjoining room and immediately announce yourself,” I told him. “They probably can’t kill you, but they can hurt you.”
He ignored my statement and merely said, “Rinaldo’s at the Ringgold address you have. I can’t help you kill him, but I can see to your safety.”
He’d just helped by giving me the address, but I figured I shouldn’t point that out. “Thanks. You and I need to talk about what you’re giving Bran in exchange for him giving me blood when I need it.”
He nodded, and I took that to mean he would, but not here.
“We need a geek in the Pack,” said Cora. “The Drake people can use the Google street view images to put together a rough 3D model we can virtually walk around in, so we could find the perfect spot to set up.”
“I can do it,” said Ranger. “Not as fast as them. Give me two hours.”
Cora nodded, and Ranger moved to the desk on the other side of the kitchen to use the computer.
“Once the Pack has proven it can stand on its own, will we be able to lean on Drake for this kind of thing again?” I asked.
Cora shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, our relationship with Drake is one of the things in our favor, but we need to show that we can fight our own battles. I don’t know what that will mean a year from now, but right now it means I’d like to keep everything in-house.”
I sat in a tree, with fancy high-powered binoculars hanging around my neck, exactly one point two miles away from the house Rinaldo was supposed to be in. It’d rained earlier, and it was chilly out, but not bitterly cold. We were approaching spring, but weren’t quite there yet.
Rinaldo was in one of the more prosperous neighborhoods, with decent sized lawns, and I could see both the front and back of the house from my vantage point. Cora and I were connected, now we waited for him to leave the house.
We’d settled into the tree shortly before sunset, just in case he had to be somewhere as quickly as possible once the sun went down, but no one came outside.
We waited forty minutes before the garage door went up and a car exited. Cora and I had our inside legs looped around each other, so we could hold the binoculars and keep our physical connection. I saw two figures in the back seat, and I projected heat into both at the same time — another trick Mordecai had worked on with both Cora and me. Cora did the same, and both heads exploded at the same time.
I wasn’t certain either of the heads belonged to Rinaldo. It was possible we’d just killed two of his people. The car went back into the garage, and my heart sank. There was no way to know if we’d taken him out.
And even if one of them had been him, he might be able to regenerate if the brainstem was still attached — as Griffin had done.
However, Mac and Kenny were closer, with equipment designed to let you hear inside of a residence. This was a rental, so the windows and walls weren’t made to thwart electronic devices. They patched the broadcast through to us, so we heard it in our earpieces.
And Rinaldo’s people were in a panic because his head had exploded, along with the head of his fourth.
It still didn’t tell us for sure, because it was possible he was in the basement, telepathing them what to say, but I was hoping that wasn’t the case. Mac and Kenny were in Cora’s SUV, and I flashed us back home — not to the farmhouse, but the storage area, which was what we’d started calling the tunnels and safe room area, for lack of a better term, but it might work. It sounded like a room off the garage, or something similar.
Mordecai had been nearby, and he flashed back with us.
“You got him.”
Well, that answered that.
“Do we need Kenny and Mac to keep listening?” I asked Cora.
“Yeah. We need to know if they’re going to try to revive him.”
“They will,” said Mordecai. “Only time will tell if they’ll be able to.”
She touched her ear. “Guys, return to base, please.”
31
Two weeks later, I sat in our living room with Cora and waited for Abbott. We’d formally invited him to come negotiate a pact, and he’d responded with the people he intended to bring: Kendra, Gavin, and Josef.
I heard them drive up. Kenny walked them to the door, and Ranger escorted them through the foyer and into the living room. Cora and I stood and walked to them, and Cora offered her hand to Abbott. First test, and he shook it. A good sign.
“Welcome to our home,” she said. “Please everyone, have a seat.”
Josef and Ranger stood just inside the door. Cora and Abbott sat first, and then the rest of us took our seats.
“At one time, you had a mutual aid pact with Randall,” Cora began.
Abbott leaned forward. “Which has been dissolved. The most I’m willing to sign with you at the present time is a treaty saying we won’t bring harm to the other’s people without speaking about any problems first.”
I’d been trying to sneak glances at Gavin. He wasn’t right, but that had always been the case with him. I didn’t want to be obvious, so I focused back on Abbott.
“This is acceptable,” said Cora. “I hope we can form a tighter arrangement in the near future.”
It turned out, the boilerplate document worked fine, no extra negotiations needed. The four left without Gavin or Kendra saying a word, but that was to be expected. I hoped.
Next to arrive were Duke, Brain, Horse, and Gabby. These proceedings were a lot less formal, and Cora and Duke signed a mutual aid pact as well as a haven pact, so members could go to the closest location for safe haven in an emergency.
Horse and Gabby also signed a mutual aid pact, which might seem lopsided with the two of them versus forty-plus members of the Pack, but they were a formidable couple.
When the papers were signed, Gabby told me, “I got to talk to my dad because you insisted Nathan tell me. I didn’t think I wanted to, but once I had the opportunity…” She leaned into Horse, and he snugged her in closer to him. “Thank you. I know he went back on the auction block and someone else has him now. It’s good he can’t hurt women anymore.”
“The last I heard, Caligula and Griffin are still on the run.” I told her. They’d been found guilty of the murders. Since the highest levels of human law enforcement around the world had been involved, the Concilio wasn’t pleased.
Two hours later, Nathan sat in our living room. He insisted on a mutual aid pact, and I kept my mouth shut. When everything had been signed, he met my gaze and said, “You’re stronger. You’re holding it in, but…” He closed his eyes a few seconds. “It’s the energy from your old house?”
I smiled. “Mordecai moved my favorite cedar tree to the backyard here. It’s like having a friend back that I thought I’d lost.”
“Earthmoving equipment is back. What’s up with that?”
“Swimming pool and waterfall feature. How is RaeLynn?”
“She’s good. I’ll tell her you asked about her.” He closed his eyes again, and I saw a touch of the lion when he opened them a few seconds later. “I need to see you. I miss you.”
“Randall’s putting a shooting range in while he has people up here doing the pool. Until it’s ready, I’m still using the one at Drake. I’ll be there at three tomorrow, working with the fifty-cal. I could use some pointers.”
He nodded and stood, his focus back on Cora. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
It took us three days to negotiate with everyone of power in town, but it was a huge load off Cora’s shoulders when it was finally finished.
However, we didn’t expect Apollonius to ring our doorbell after the last person — Martin — had driven away.
Cora invited him in, and I went to the kitchen for drinks. He’d been around enough, I knew he liked hot tea.
I wasn’t expecting him to follow me into the kitchen, but it was okay. He might one day capture me if he thought I wasn’t using my abi
lities for good, but as long as I was, I shouldn’t have anything to fear from him.
“It’s taken a while to find out who Katerina Bernasconi is keeping prisoner on Milos.”
I turned and stared at him. I hadn’t realized he was trying to find out.
“Nero,” he said. “Who is known as—”
“Lucius Domitius. Evil incarnate.” I’d researched him after Ryan had told me about him. “Does that mean she’s on our side?”
“Possibly. It could also be a personal thing between them. We don’t know.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I believe Europe has just seen the opening skirmishes in the battle we’ve seen coming. So far, every fight has happened where this realm lines up with Faerie.”
“And Chattanooga lines up.”
“As does your property.”
“What in Faerie is… here?”
“The Erlking, the Harlequin, and the Goblin King of lore are all the same person. His castle was on a mountain. The mountain was lost, and yours, here, is an exact reflection. Or, perhaps it was moved here. I honestly don’t know.”
His eyes took on a faraway look, and the names rolled off his tongue as if he were speaking of old friends.
“Nyx had a threesome with twin brothers Aurelius and Phosphorius.” He stopped a second and must have realized I’d need some explanation. “Nyx was considered darkness, and she had sex with the twins of light. It wasn’t a one-time thing. Over time, she gave birth to the race of succubi and incubi. However, her first-born was Ellekonge, or Erlking. The movie wasn’t far off, with the Goblin King’s long blond hair and floating crystal ball. His son lives in the Hell Realm.” He sighed. “You’ve met him. His son is the Prince of Hell.”
“I’m living on the Prince of Hell’s father’s mountain?”
“I’ve spent some time here, and yes, I believe it to be the case.”
“But you told me I chose well!”
“You did. It’s an enchanted mountain. Far from cursed. It’s anchored in both Faerie and Olympia, and I believe it’s why the land here called to you.”
Infinitely Human Page 23