by Alan Marble
Jonah was not much better, himself. His own wounds on his neck had translated into a nasty bite mark in human form, obvious enough that the proprietor of the hotel had asked him if he’d had a run-in with an angry dog. Still, the wounds were superficial, requiring little more than a bandage and some washing up.
The wounds in his mind were deeper. Since before they had arrived on the hotel, for the entire ride in the back of the friendly rancher’s truck, he had replayed the sight of Rebekah being snatched away and pulled earthward by the attacking bull drake. Again and again he saw it happen in his mind, close enough to see the look of terror in her big green eyes, but too far to reach, too far to catch up, too far to help. He’d even begun imagining alternate scenarios, tried to think of what he might have done differently. How he could have helped.
Worse, still, was when his mind wandered a little and began to speculate on what became of her afterward. Perhaps she had plummeted to the ground with the drake so quickly that the both of them had been smashed to pieces on the valley floor, beyond all hope and all recognition. Morbidly he wondered if a slain dragon would stay that way or turn back into a human at the moment of death.
Still other scenarios ran through his head. Perhaps she had been snatched up and taken back to the compound, tossed in one of those rooms, beaten and helpless to await her fate. They might have already come for her and taken her to whatever secure location they had in mind. They might even already be experimenting on her. Jonah could almost hear her screams in his head, and shuddered.
All in all, only nine of them had escaped capture or death. He just wasn’t sure which was worse.
Some time had passed while the group gathered silently in that room, little more said than a few hushed conversations, whispers that Jonah could not really make out, before anyone had really paid him much attention. It was Abe, who had pulled himself up off the bed a little stiffly and made his way over, resting a meaty hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, kid.”
Glancing up at the bald man, Jonah tried to frown but it came across as more of a lame grimace. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t be silly,” he responded with a weak but sincere smile, nothing like the toothy grins that he was accustomed to flashing around. “I saw it all happen, actually. I saw that you tried to get her back. But take it from me, it wasn’t your fault. You tried your best but there was no way you were going to get to her. Hell, not a one of us in this room could have made it turn out any differently.”
“If that’s supposed to be comforting, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time,” he muttered a little darkly, folding his arms around his chest and looking down to his feet.
Abe shook his head, sitting on the edge of the bed next to him slowly, with a bit of a sigh. “It’s not meant to be comforting, kid. It’s just the truth. There isn’t a one of us in this room who isn’t hurting, who isn’t regretting what happened, who isn’t mourning the loss of a friend or a loved one, and that’s fine. It’s part of what makes us human; it’s part of what makes us dragons.
“But I don’t want you beating yourself up over it. What happened, happened. It’s not your fault, it’s not my fault, it’s just the way the chips fell. If you want to hurt over what happened then I encourage it. No one here should be bottling up that kind of pain. Just don’t add more pain to your misery by making yourself to blame.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jonah retorted, shaking his own head and tucking his arms more tightly against himself. “You didn’t see the whole thing happen, did you? She rescued me from that monster. If it hadn’t been for her he’d have gotten me instead. It should have been me … should have been me.”
There was a somewhat drawn out pause while Jonah was allowed to consider his own thoughts, once again reviewing the scene in his head, watching it unfold before Abe spoke up again with a little puff. “No, I didn’t see that happen, but it doesn’t change the truth of what I said. Maybe she pushed you out of harms way, but then you tried to do the same for her. Would that have made it her fault that you got caught, if you’d succeeded?”
“No, but …”
Abe did not give him a chance to finish with his objection, cutting him off smoothly. “No, of course not. You could go back and forth like that till you’re blue in the face but it doesn’t matter. One of you got caught. Call it fate, call it chance, call it bad luck, but whatever it is, it’s not your fault that she’s the one.”
Jonah just shrugged miserably. “Still. I wish she hadn’t done it. It should have been me to go down.”
“Nothing could have stopped her from doing it, just like nothing could have stopped you from trying to return the favor. Just comes natural; anyone would stick their own neck out for someone they cared enough about.”
Feeling his cheeks beginning to flush a little, Jonah kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. “That obvious how I feel about her, isn’t it.”
At last Abe managed a little chuckle. It was nowhere near as hearty as the ones he had been prone to dispensing since Jonah had gotten to know of him, and was lined with a sort of weary pain, but it was nevertheless a sincere sound and it was still good to hear. “It is, kid, it is. But that’s not what I meant.”
It took Jonah a moment to realize that he was talking about Rebekah and her feelings, and the thought made the flush in his cheeks run downward to his neck, making him feel uncomfortably hot there as he snorted. “What? You’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t suppose you’ve actually seen her around me?”
“I saw her around you earlier today,” he countered with a knowing look.
Jonah simply shook his head and forced a bit of a laugh. “Look, what she did for me today is something that anyone would have done, right? I mean, isn’t that how it works with you and your clan?”
Abe shrugged a little at that. “Well. I suppose you’ve got me there,” he said, briefly feeling around his pockets before shrugging again. “But I also saw her around you before that. Back at Tahoe. Back in Detroit.”
“And?” Jonah waited expectantly, with a bit of a sneer on his face. “If you were paying any attention you’d have noticed that she isn’t exactly fond of me. Not that I really blame her, I guess, not after what happened … but … hell, she could hardly stand to be around me. If it weren’t for Carolus making her work with me, I’m sure she wouldn’t have gone near me for the whole time. He probably did it to punish her, for some reason.”
The bald man simply nodded at that, not answering immediately as if he were digesting the information he were being given. “I see,” he said finally, slowly, pushing himself back up to his feet with a light sigh. “Ah, what I wouldn’t give for a cigar right about now. But, let me ask you a question, kid. So she was a bit harsh around you. Probably called you a few names, right? Made you feel like an idiot? Made it pretty clear she was disgusted by you, yes?”
“Yeah. Thanks for reminding me of it, too …”
Abe cut him off with a little wave of the hand. “And that means that she couldn’t stand you, right?”
It seemed like an obvious enough conclusion that to hear it repeated came across as mildly insulting. “Of course,” he responded a little crossly, growing tired of the line of questioning and the line of reasoning.
“Of course,” came the rather unconcerned sounding reply. “Let me tell you one thing about women then, kid.”
“What’s that?”
The bald man leaned in and clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “You’ve got a lot to learn about them.”
Jonah glanced up sharply at that, furrowing his eyebrows and scowling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Abe responded, once again wearing one of his signature grins. Before Jonah had any chance to respond to that, though, the big guy continued speaking. “But, here, something a little more important than that. Something a little more immediate to the moment. Regardless of what she thinks of you - of what you think she thinks of yo
u - she’s worth fighting for, isn’t she?”
He was still a little put off by the whole thing, still feeling sore at having been made to think back on what had happened between them, as if losing her only hours ago were not bad enough. But he was right about that, at least. It was the sort of thing that Jonah would not have understood, himself, only a few weeks earlier, the concept of caring about someone enough to fight for, to put his life on the line for, in spite of whatever feelings might have been returned.
Even that, though, was hopeless. “Yeah,” he said, looking back down to his feet with a soft sigh. “At least, she was worth fighting for.” Though the thought crossed his mind, he did not care to add that he no longer felt like much of anything else was worth the effort, anymore.
“Tell me something, kid.”
“What?” He didn’t look up as he croaked a somewhat pitiful reply. “Something else to remind me how much shit sucks right now?”
Abe laughed in spite of the pained tone in his voice. “You still got that hundred bucks I gave you back in Detroit?”
The question seemed a little out of place and caught Jonah off guard a little, enough to make him look up with a confused frown. “The … what?” He found himself fishing around in his pockets, pulling his wallet out and opening it almost by reflex before he realized what he was doing. “Well … as a matter of fact, yes I do. What’s it got to do with anything? Don’t tell me you want it back.”
“Of course I do,” he answered with another chuckle. “But I’m not just going to ask for it back. I’ll actually give you a chance to double it. I’ll be willing to bet you a hundred dollars that Rebekah is still very much alive and well, and still very much worth fighting for.”
It was not what he expected to hear, and it was enough to catch him off guard and leave him dumbfounded for a moment. “What?”
Abe mocked a little frown. “Not good enough for you? Five hundred more your style?”
Jonah shook his head a little bit and sputtered. “Wait. You’re trying to tell me that she’s still alive? How could you possibly know that?”
“I don’t know that, kid. That’s why it’s a wager and not a sure thing. But I’ll tell you what I do know. The elder is still alive; each and every one of us knows that. We can feel him. I also know that the Syndicate prefers us alive to dead. We’re more useful to them that way, in the end. They aren’t shy about eliminating us when we get in the way but if things go the way they want, they capture us, not kill us. I also happen to know that Rebekah is one tough cookie. Take a little more than a wrestle with a bull to finish her off.”
“You really think she’s alive, then?” He realized that he was coming across as far too credulous and eager than he ought to, somewhat like a young child who was being told that Santa Clause might actually exist, but the possibility was the only good news he had heard all day. Some part of his soul had caught on to that little glimmer of a hope and held on to it tight.
“No guarantees,” Abe said with a friendly, almost fatherly sort of smile this time. “But I’d put a hundred bucks on it. I’d put a thousand on it. What do you say, you a betting man?”
Jonah coughed a little where he sat. “I don’t think I can take that bet. You don’t really expect me to bet on her being … gone … do you?”
The bald man smiled with a wink. “Good man,” he muttered, clapping him lightly on the shoulder before glancing at his watch and nodding. “Like I said, still worth fighting for and I sure as hell hope you’ve still got some fight in you, kid. But that reminds me. Something that we’ve all got to discuss,” he said, raising his voice at the end to catch the attention of the others who had been gathered around.
All of them save Jason turned their heads in his direction and looked to him with tired, worn expressions; he alone remained despondent, unresponsive, gazing blankly down toward his feet. Satisfied he had the attention of the majority, Abe nodded again. “We’ve all had a very long day already, and we’re all worn out. I realize we have a lot on our minds, and while I’m not going to ask anyone to try and just forget about it, I am going to ask that we all try to gather our wits about us enough to get some rest.”
“Rest?” One of the gathered men who Jonah did not recognize spoke up, his voice ragged and thin. “How can we be expected to rest when our clan is in shambles? We abandoned them, for God’s sake.”
For the first time Abe’s expression darkened to one edging up against raw anger, his jaw clenching a bit. “No one abandoned anyone, Samuel. That idea I want you to get out of your head, right now. Forget about it. Any of us who had dared stay there would be captured now with no hope of making any further rescue attempts. We did not abandon anyone today, we retreated to regroup and regather.”
“Regroup? You said it yourself, Abraham. They’re already on their way to a secure facility. There’s only six of us, and we’re in no condition to fight.” Samuel, as he had been called, just shook his head sadly. “What hope do we have?”
“Plenty. You’re right about one thing, we’re all beat up and worn down. That’s why we’ve got to get some rest. None of us are going to be of much help until we do that,” he said, balling up his hand into a fist. “I happen to know that the clan are all being shipped away to Washington State. Nothing is going to happen to them until then, and that’s not going to be until later tonight. We’ll take that time to rest up and recover.”
Ryan, who had been sitting near Jason the whole time, spoke up. “Washington? And how the hell are we supposed to get up there? The Syndicate has got to be watching our every move.”
Abe finally seemed to relax a little, the fire in his eyes cooling slightly. “I’ve already got that taken care of, and it’s going to rely on a little misdirection on my part. Working for the Syndicate means I know of some of their methods, some of their bases, but it also means they are keeping strict tabs on my business and my funds. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have a few friends who managed to keep under their radar, however.
“I’ve already gotten in touch with a friend of mine who is arranging for us to fly to Reno on a local charter flight; there’s a little airstrip just outside of town here, if you hadn’t noticed. He’ll pick us up there and fly us to Seattle on his executive jet. At the same time I have another contact in Los Angeles who has access to one of my personal accounts. I’m going to have them withdraw some funds later this afternoon from an ATM in the area. Give them the impression that we’re headed south, the wrong direction.”
To Jonah it sounded reasonable, if a little light on details. The others did not seem entirely convinced, skepticism still lining Ryan’s voice. “So you can get us to Seattle. What then? The Syndicate isn’t going to just sit back and follow through with their same plans as before. They have to know that you are still alive and going to be running the show here. Surely they are going to change their plans.”
Abe nodded to that. “I don’t doubt it in the least, and in fact I am counting on it. The Syndicate won’t abandon their plans to take the clan to the area; it’s where they have their base of operations in this half of the country. To try and transport them back East would be a logistical nightmare and a risk that they won’t take, but they will have to pick another facility in the area. That change of plan will cost them time, time to give us a chance to make our move.”
“But what good is time if we don’t know where they are going?”
“We don’t have to,” he responded with a grin. “Not at first, anyway. It’s a simple matter of infiltrating their regional headquarters in Seattle and extracting that information. The Syndicate is nothing if not organized and bureaucratic. They’ll have the information readily available there.”
Ryan scoffed and shook his head. “A simple matter of infiltrating their headquarters?”
“You don’t think I spent my entire time inside the Syndicate spying on ol’ Carl, do you? I’ve made a few valuable contacts inside the organization, know my way around the system. I’m not saying that it will be
a walk in the park but I know what I am doing and I know how to get at what we need. Just leave that part to me.”
The others still did not seem convinced, although for a moment they were unable to voice any specific concerns. “Look, we’d all love for nothing more than to rescue the others. And I’m sure you’ve given this a lot of thought and you’re sure that you’ve worked out all the details but … I don’t know. It’s a lot for us all to just take at face value.”
Jonah expected Abe to react with some indignation at the doubt, but the bald man simply shrugged with a genial smile. “Well, Ryan, if anyone else has a better plan or a better idea, then please. Let them speak it. This may not be the full council and we may not have the luxury of our usual order of doing things, but let’s be open to suggestion. We are still all brothers and sisters and still all have a voice. Speak.”
An uncomfortable sort of silence settled over the room, and for a long moment nothing other than the slow hum of the ceiling fan churning overhead could be heard. Jonah could see the conflicted emotions running through the heads of some of those gathered, and he too could feel the same conflict inside of himself. On one hand, the possibility that there was something he could do to fight back, some glimmer of hope that Rebekah might be rescued after all, burned bright in his chest and urged him to follow along, to do whatever it took to accomplish.
Yet at the same time, he realized how hopeless the situation seemed. He was sore and hurting, and he knew that he would be in bad shape for any kind of fight that they might encounter. More than that, he knew that in spite of all of Abe’s planning it was still a wild plan cobbled together at the last moment, that any one variable would throw it all off. If he were wrong, and the Syndicate took them in a different direction … if they anticipated his actions, if they already knew where they were hidden … any one misstep would unravel the entire thing.