The Takeover

by Teyla Branton

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Keene exploded a sprinkler with enough water that it knocked him over. We’re fine and the family is safe. Even the gardener will live to follow the Emporium blindly another day.”

  “You didn’t take the guards?”

  “Uh, no, we barely got out of the house. Reinforcements arrived before we finished. We had to abandon our vehicle. Do you want me to come get you now? You guys are still far enough away that I can’t locate any of you, but I might be able to with Keene’s help. I haven’t had a lot of luck shifting to GPS coordinates. Yet. You might have to drive to someplace I’ve been before.”

  I motioned Noah to pull the van to the side of the road. “You and Keene give it a try. We need to remove the trackers of the guards we captured. We’re too exposed on this road; they have helicopters at their disposal.”

  Ritter grabbed a detector from his bag and pulled open the sliding door, shutting it behind him. Noah and I joined him on the moonlit road, but he was already jumping onto the roof of the van to find the tracking devices and dig them out with his knife. It was the best we could do on the go.

  I could feel the mother’s worry, so I said to Mari, “Better make it quick. They’re scared.”

  “Searching for you now. Keene’s trying to give me enough power to find you. Apparently, he was shot, so he’s a little out of it.” The way she spoke told me she had just learned of his wound.

  “What?”

  “I’m fine,” Keene’s voice said through the connection instead of Mari’s.

  A heartbeat later, Mari appeared next to me.

  “I’ll get our guests,” Noah said.

  “I’ll wait here,” Ritter said to me and Mari from his position on top of the van. He motioned to the Emporium agents and held up a bloody transmitter. “By the time you get the Georges settled, I’ll have these guys ready to take to another safe house.

  The teenage boy balked at leaving the van, so Ritter put away the knife and jumped to the ground to talk with him. This was the other side of the man I loved. The one who sang in the shower, liked dogs, and always had a houseplant. The one who gave me the necklace with the rings. He wasn’t just a killer, he was a protector too.

  Once out of the van, the Georges were more curious than terrified as Mari explained what was going to happen. “I just need to run this device over you to make sure they didn’t put any trackers on you.” Mari passed a detector wand over each of them. “Looks like you’re clean.”

  You know I’m going to have to take this memory from them, I told Ritter.

  Now still wasn’t the time for the world to learn about our abilities. They were barely dealing with the idea of our extended lives. Abilities like mine and Mari’s were bad enough, but if mortals suspected that Ritter and those like him were born to fight and kill, that he could determine his opponent’s strength with a glance and could even predict his next movement, he’d be examined, exploited, or cut into three. We all would.

  He nodded, melancholy showing in his dark eyes. Even knowing what they might to do to us, it bothered him that we had to mess with the Georges’ memories.

  Mari had us all link arms, and the next moment we arrived at the large, tastefully decorated apartment that I’d seen earlier, before Ropte’s luncheon. But not everything was perfect. Patrick lay on a tan leather couch, and Cort was stitching up a nasty cut in his gut. Keene observed from a nearby easy chair, looking pale. He held a hand over his upper arm.

  “I thought he was wet from the water, but it was blood,” Mari said in exasperation. “Gotta love black. Can you sew him up while I go back to help Ritter? You’re better at taking out bullets than I am.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.” With a brief suction of air, Mari disappeared.

  “We’ll save the introductions for later,” Noah said to Mrs. George. “Come on, let’s find you some beds.” The little boy was awake now, but leaned heavily against his mother.

  Cort looked up from his repair work. “We’ll have someone look at your arm soon, but until then I have an awesome painkiller.” He tossed Noah a packet of pills for Mrs. George, and she and the family started down the hall.

  “So,” I said to Keene, picking through the first aid bag near Cort’s feet. “Looks like I finally get to take a bullet from you instead of the other way around.”

  “What’s wrong with your hand?” he countered.

  “It got in the way of something. Stop changing the subject.” My hand already felt a lot better. I was sure I’d broken one of the bones, but the throbbing had almost stopped, and it would be better in an hour or two.

  I had him lie down on the kitchen table so I had better access to his wound. “I’ve been thinking about Jeane,” I said.

  He winced as I spread antiseptic over the wound. “What about her?”

  “I was never able to channel her ability. I did finally manage to block her from nulling me and those around me, but that’s as far as it went.”

  “Because she escaped.”

  “Maybe.” I focused for a minute on the anesthesia I was giving him, glad that I didn’t have to worry about him bleeding to death or about infection. Even the bullet would be expelled eventually if left on its own, but it would take days. “She’s stronger now, I believe. She’s continuously nulling in the immediate vicinity of her body, and I haven’t been able to penetrate that. I didn’t even realize that darkness I saw at Ropte’s was there until you helped me look.”

  “You think she could null you now?”

  “Not exactly. I think extending her power to others would dilute it too much. It hasn’t been that long since we went head to head. But I still would like to see if I could channel her—with you enhancing my ability.”

  Keene sucked in a breath, and this time it wasn’t because I’d hurt him. “Oh, Erin. I don’t even have to tell you how great that’d be. I had a sudden vision of you walking right into Emporium headquarters and taking them all into custody.”

  I laughed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “Right.” He gave a sigh. “I barely have a concept of how my ability works. I can see how to give you more strength, but it’s mostly guessing. I can’t see how everything works together like Cort. And if you channel him, directing me how to use my power like you did in Morocco, you couldn’t channel Jeane at the same time.”

  “Maybe we could work something out. A lot hinges on if channeling her is even possible.”

  “Even if you could just force her to null them for us, it would help. But the window of opportunity isn’t going to be long. They’ll soon realize we have their people from that facility in Texas, if they haven’t already.” His eyes clouded and a frown cut through his face. “Actually, now that I think about it, even if you walked into one of their headquarters and nulled all of their abilities, it would still be an almost impossible battle. I mean, it would help a lot, but we simply don’t have the numbers to make it work.”

  I jabbed my needle into the flesh at the side of his wound, though I probably should have waited another minute or two. This time he didn’t wince.

  “You know it’s the truth,” he continued. “Our European allies have their own issues, but even if we called all of them to help, and they could come, we’d be outnumbered four to one. And that’s not including the Emporium’s mortal agents.”

  I worked on the bullet for a moment. “How many are there, do you think? Mortal agents.”

  He sighed. “I was with the Emporium all my life, and I wasn’t even sure how many Unbounded they had. I was mortal after all, not really one of them.”

  The bitterness and longing that was normally in his voice when he talked about the Emporium was absent. Somehow he’d come to terms with his past—or at least the part that didn’t involve his father. Maybe Mari had something to do with that.

  “If I had to guess,” he added, “the way they’ve been procreating and experimenting with genetics these past years, there are probably over a thou
sand mortal agents at the New York headquarters alone.”

  So even if we somehow nulled all of the Unbounded, there would be too many mortals to control. Ritter might be able to beat twenty trained agents on his own, but few others of us could.

  I was finally able to snag the bullet with some tweezers. I dropped it onto the table. “There’s a lot more blood than I hoped for. I’d better stitch you up.”

  “Have fun with it,” Keene said with a grimace. “I know you’re enjoying yourself.”

  I grinned. “Gotta take my fun where I can.”

  A short time later, I crept inside the two rooms where we had placed the families and removed their memories about Mari’s shifting. For the Georges, I left memories of the van, hoping they would assume they’d slept and had been carried inside upon arriving in DC. For the other family, leaving anything would be more difficult. They’d remember Mari in the room with them and then suddenly being here, but there was nothing I could do about that. I didn’t dare experiment with their memories; I was already violating them enough by stealing what I did.

  Ritter and Mari joined us just after I finished. Apparently, Mari had connected with Tenika, the leader of the New York Renegade cell, and they’d shifted the captive Unbounded agents to New York for safekeeping.

  “Did Ava and Dimitri encounter any problems?” Cort asked, looking up as he finished wrapping Patrick’s wound. Layers of blood-drenched cloths littered the couch and floor, but Patrick was still conscious, if a little high on curequick.

  Ritter frowned. “The owners of the house who were hiding Ava’s family were killed.”

  “Jace?” I asked. If my brother had killed them, he’d need someone to talk it out with.

  “No. One of the Emporium agents shot the couple after Jace managed to take the family from them. Ava was linked to the couple and saw the murders. On the bright side, there was a cook who helped Dimitri and Oliver. She shot her own Unbounded niece when she could have shot Oliver or one of his illusions instead.”

  “Well, at least some mortals haven’t gone completely crazy,” I muttered.

  Ritter came over to me. I could feel the heat from his body and the response to that heat in mine. I wanted nothing more than to wipe out the day’s events in his arms. “Has someone let the senators know their families are okay?” he asked.

  Patrick nodded. “My dad’s talking to them now.”

  “Any attempts on other families?”

  “No.” Patrick smiled. “Looks like we got them.”

  His words settled over me with unease. We’d bested the Emporium before, but this time it seemed almost too easy. Ritter’s gaze snapped back to me, and the mirroring worry there confirmed my fear. Now we waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “Let’s get back to Noah’s,” I said. “Keene and I want to talk to Jeane.”

  Noah gave an encouraging motion with her hands. “Go on ahead. I’ll stay here until our backup from my cell arrives to watch over the families. Two of our guys are still thirty minutes out, but one’s a healer who can look at Mrs. George’s arm.”

  “Good,” Ritter said. “Let us know if you need help.”

  “Patrick will stay with you,” Cort added. “He could use an Unbounded doctor to help heal him faster.”

  Mari extended her hands to Cort and Keene, and Ritter and I joined them. “I’ll come right back,” Mari told Noah. “Patrick should be well enough to shift to your place after he sees the healer.”

  Noah smiled. “Thanks.”

  It was time for some answers. We stepped into the gray.

  BACK AT NOAH’S HOUSE, Ritter wanted to come with me to see Jeane, but although he and Keene had made up their previous differences, it wouldn’t be easy for him to watch us experiment with our minds so intimately linked.

  “Let me try with her first,” I told him. “You’ll be my backup threat.”

  He hesitated an instant before agreeing. “I have to talk with Ava anyway. We know the Emporium isn’t going to take this lying down. But take Cort with you. He’s not threatening, and if you and Keene are busy doing your thing, you’ll need someone to watch your backs.”

  Cort harrumphed. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or a dig at my manhood.”

  “When you decide, let me know.” Ritter picked up the remote from Noah’s couch and turned on the big screen, selecting the icon that displayed Ava’s picture.

  I smiled at the comradery, knowing that Ritter trusted Cort more than anyone. Maybe even more than me. They’d watched each other’s backs for centuries.

  Jeane was still out cold in the room, and I sat next to her on the bed. Despite her apparent nonchalance when we’d drugged her earlier, she would be angry when she awoke at how long she’d been unconscious. Far too recently, Delia Vesey had kept her in an Emporium cell for decades, headless and half rotting, only allowing enough absorption to keep two of her focus points together—her heart and reproductive system. She had lost so many years already.

  Her mental block was no longer in place, as if she’d relaxed here as she’d never dared to at Ropte’s. Or maybe it was the different drugs we gave her. I placed one hand on her head and my other in Keene’s warm one. He was still paler than normal, but his lean face was determined. Pushing out my awareness, I found the frozen lake that represented her unconscious mind. Everything was crystal clear, bright, and more real with Keene’s help. But though I could sense even the thoughts of the family in the nearest house over a mile away, no amount of experimentation would allow me to cross the ice to access her memories.

  Cort watched us with interest. “It may be different when she’s awake.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  After more than an hour, I gave up. “Okay, do the honors. Wake her up.” My energy was flagging, and all the absorption in the world wouldn’t replace it fast enough. “We’re not getting anywhere here.”

  Cort brought her around, and the first thing she did was lunge at him. “I’ll kill you!” she shrieked. We grabbed for her arms, holding her tight. She cursed Cort, his mother, and all his ancestors and descendants. Then she started in on Keene.

  “That’s enough!” I said.

  “It’s not enough! You put me out. Never again! Just kill me! If you do it again, I swear I’ll seduce every man you ever loved, including your mortal brother, and then I’ll skin them alive and eat their flesh.” She bucked against us.

  She’d raised her barrier, but I was still inside her head, with Keene’s power at my disposal. Her sand stream was readily available, the flowing thoughts presented in a language I didn’t comprehend. That didn’t make sense because thoughts didn’t need a language. I’d been able to “listen” in on those who spoke other languages before without any trouble understanding. Drawing on Keene’s energy, I sent a tiny burst of light into her mind.

  She didn’t grasp her head and scream in pain or faint as others did, but she stopped talking and the convulsing of her body eased. “What did you do? I felt . . . something.” Her breath, once shallow and quick, was evening out.

  Well, that was something at least. Maybe this experiment wouldn’t be an entire waste after all. I wished I knew what she’d felt because it certainly hadn’t caused her pain.

  “Okay,” I said softly, releasing her hands and rising from the bed, “let’s try this again. If you don’t want to be drugged in the future, I’m sure we can work something else out.”

  That promise, I think, calmed her more than anything. But the fact that my flash did affect her was no small thing.

  Jeane nodded and came to a seated position on the bed, her legs drawn up Indian style under her.

  Time to get down to business.

  But no matter how much energy I used—and I took as much from Keene as I dared, until my body thrummed with it—I couldn’t understand Jeane’s thoughts. When I attempted to release one of my own thoughts into the sand stream, it crumbled and vanished before being swallowed by the flow. Jeane showed no reaction.

  There wa
s only one thing left to try. Normally, to channel someone, I simply reached for the glow of his or her ability, the certain something I sensed inside each mind. So far, it had been easy to find, saturating the entire area, part of the person’s essence. Jeane’s simply wasn’t there, or if it was, I didn’t recognize it or know how to reach it. With Keene’s help, the language of her sand stream had become slightly clearer, and maybe in time I could learn it, but for now it felt like wearing a blindfold and dunking my head into water while trying to understand someone speaking a long-forgotten African dialect.

  I linked with Cort and let him observe the patterns in her mind. He shook his head and thought, If you’re considering uncoding the jumble, it might be better to record it using Patrick’s ability. From what I can see, she’s just not compatible with us. Maybe that’s why she’s also barren. I think she’s a screwup, an Emporium experiment gone wrong.

  I wondered what Jeane would say about his theory of her being an Emporium mistake. Thanks, I said, releasing him and the others. So much for my vision of confronting Stefan and nulling his ability.

  Jeane smirked at my frustration. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but Delia Vesey already tried everything with me, and she didn’t succeed. She couldn’t control or read me. She couldn’t act through me. And she couldn’t stop me from plotting against her. That’s why she locked me away for decades—to protect herself.”

  “We let you out,” I reminded her.

  To show her gratitude, she hit me with it then, her nulling ability, but I was ready and pushed back, extending my shield to protect Cort and Keene. “Sorry, Jeane, remember that doesn’t work on me anymore.” I was relieved to know that was still true.

  The pressure eased as she sat back and folded her arms. “What do you want from me? Are you going to kill me? Nah, because that’s not who you Renegades are. You’re weak, and that’s why the Emporium will win this war.”