Burned

by Dean Murray

  Adri was putting on a brave front, but I could see her legs starting to tremble ever so slightly. I forced an ornate black wrought-iron bench into existence behind her and then gestured for her to take advantage of it.

  "Yeah. Jaclyn's pack is one of the most heavily watched. My bet is that the Coun'hij knows where every penny of the pack's money is headed before it even leaves the bank. They'll have satellites watching the area, and assets close enough to head her off if she just grabs her people and jumps in vehicles to make a run for it.

  "The only way they have a chance of getting out is if someone sets up extraction routes for them and then comes in and wipes out the quick response force that's been assigned to make sure she doesn't try anything.

  "Once we know for sure how many people we're dealing with, Jack can probably set up extraction plans that will suffice to help everyone drop off of the radar, but that's all for naught if we can't deal with the enforcers down there."

  Adri shrugged. "So go down there and deal with them. Based on what you did in Minnesota, you can wipe out the entire group of enforcers all by yourself."

  I wasn't sure whether to be happy that she'd managed to reference the battle where her parents had died without crying or sad that she'd put on such a callous front.

  "That was my first thought as well, but what little information I'm getting out of that area indicates that there are more werewolves active down in that area than there should be."

  "Puppeteer."

  Taggart said the name like it was the worst kind of curse, but I couldn't blame him. Puppeteer was a big part of why nobody felt safe expressing their dissatisfaction with the current regime too loudly.

  "There is an uncomfortable amount of similarity between my power and what the werewolves do. It's not a hundred-percent match, obviously, but I've seen werewolves absorb an insane amount of power. Jaclyn Annikov's power doesn't even faze them…"

  "You're worried that your power won't work on them."

  "Correct. I'm eager to find out—preferably in a fairly controlled setting—but until I know that I can drop them as easily as vampires, it's a bad idea to depend on my ability to bail us out. We need a big enough force down there to handle whatever Puppeteer can throw at us."

  Taggart sighed, and I saw the same exhaustion in him that I'd been feeling before Adri arrived. "It's not going to be easy to keep that many people hidden for very long."

  "I know. I wouldn't ask this of you if the stakes were any lower, but if we can safely extract the Tucson pack—right out from under the Coun'hij's noses—it will change everything. Even if it doesn't result in a tidal wave of support from the smaller packs, it's still worth it if we can stop the Coun'hij from intimidating everyone into going the other direction."

  He still didn't look convinced, but I wasn't done playing my cards. He was still thinking of things the way they'd been before I'd manifested my ability, before we'd pulled together such a strong coalition.

  "I know what you're thinking, Taggart. If we're all in one spot for that long we'll be giving Kaleb and the rest the opportunity they've been hoping for since before I was born. The difference is that they no longer have the ability to wipe us out all at once—they just don't know it yet.

  "It doesn't matter who they bring, I can neutralize them. At this point I'm praying to run into Brandon because I'll finally be able to put him down once and for all. Nobody the Coun'hij has is a match for me, not when I can immobilize them for the few seconds it will take me to kill them. The only thing we have to be afraid of right now is Puppeteer's werewolves, and there has to be some kind of limit on the number of them he can control at one time."

  "You're saying that now we are more vulnerable apart—in hiding—than we are together."

  "That's exactly what I'm saying."

  I could see the gears turning inside of his mind. He wanted to believe I was right. What I was describing was the thing that he'd been fighting for since he'd first turned against the Coun'hij decades ago.

  "I'm sure you're right that Puppeteer has limits—all powers do—but he could do the same thing he did when he broke the vampire strongholds in St Louis. Stage shipments of werewolves a short distance away from wherever we are staying, and then run them into us a dozen at a time, wearing us down until we finally break."

  "It's a risk, but the potential benefits are huge. Puppeteer seems to have a fairly small range. If he's close enough to attack us with his minions it will mean that he's close enough for us to get our hands on him.

  "I've already talked to Jack. His contacts say that they can guarantee us a satellite over the area for at least five days. We'll put analysts on the video coming off of the bird and we'll look for any vehicles that are motionless during the time of the attacks. If we can identify him we can send Heath in with a hand-picked squad. Puppeteer will never see them coming."

  "It's risky."

  "Sure, but it's also the chance we've been waiting for. If Puppeteer was out of the picture, the whole dynamics of the situation would change completely. All of a sudden the packs would only have to worry about the enforcers. Don't get me wrong, the enforcers are bad news, but there are only so many of them. Kaleb and the rest have been relying on the threat of the werewolves to keep everyone in line—there are too many demands on their manpower to do otherwise.

  "We won't go looking for a fight. We'll keep a low profile and try to get Jaclyn's people out quietly, but if it comes to fighting we have a very good chance of coming out on top. I've asked Carson to reach out to Grayson again. Carson can't guarantee he'll be there, but I'm willing to promise just about anything to get Grayson down in Arizona with us. He has to have a price, and thanks to the money I stole from Kaleb, I'm in a position to meet it."

  "It sounds like you've got everything planned out. You, Heath, Grayson, Taggart and me. You've basically put together the dream team of hybrid superheroes."

  Adri's voice turned something that otherwise should have been a compliment into a bitter recrimination, but I told myself that she was still hurting, that I couldn't take it personally. It helped a little. What she said next just about sent me over the edge.

  "Instead of messing around down in Arizona, why don't you just take a quick trip up to Sanctuary and wipe out Kaleb, Brandon and the rest of your old pack? If you really want to change the power dynamic you should start taking out the Coun'hij's most loyal supporters. You probably wouldn't have to take out more than three or four packs before the Coun'hij would start suffering from a massive round of defections."

  I realized I was gritting my teeth, and forced my jaw to unclench. "I lived in Sanctuary for seventeen years, but contrary to what you may believe, that isn't the reason that I'm not heading up there and laying waste to every living thing within twenty miles of the estate.

  "I lived there—here, actually—for long enough to know that not every member of this pack deserves to die. That's going to be true of any of the packs in the Coun'hij's court. Every pack is full of both good and bad people, but more than that, every pack has people in it who are part of the problem just because they are too scared to stand up for what they know is right.

  "I'll come back here at some point—when the time is right—and I'll kill Kaleb and Brandon. Honestly, I'd be happy to kill them sooner, but I'm not going to do anything that will result in a bunch of non-combatants being caught in the crossfire. When I start taking out the key figures who are supporting the status quo, I'll do it in a way that doesn't get a bunch of children killed."

  Adri looked for a second like she was going to respond hotly, but Taggart put a hand on her shoulder, and that seemed to bring her back to herself.

  "Fine, we'll do it your way. Unless you need something else I should probably get back to my body—if we're about to embark on some kind of extended campaign I suspect I'll need all of the energy I can suck down each day. There's no need to waste it with small talk here."

  "You guys came to me—I'm glad you did, but it's not like I'm begging yo
u to stay."

  "Right, you're probably just anxious to get back to whoever is keeping your bed warm right now."

  Now it was my turn to nearly say something that I would have later regretted, but Taggart stepped between the two of us.

  "That was beneath you, Adri. I'm sure that the two of you have already talked about the situation with Brindi. If you had an understanding about her back before the…accident…then now isn't the time to be attacking Alec over something he didn't ask to have happen."

  I half expected her to attack him with her bare hands, but she just stood there shaking for a couple of seconds, and then whirled and ran away. She disappeared as she took her second step, and then it was just Taggart and I.

  My anger evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. My beast had never really calmed back down after my visit with Shawn. I wanted to blame my fury on the metaphysical hitchhiker that rode around inside my head, but I knew that wasn't the complete truth.

  If my beast had been the cause for my feelings then I wouldn't have been able to master my anger instantly like that. My anger had evaporated because I'd seen her face as she'd turned to go. For a split second there her mask had dropped. She was angry, but mostly she was just hurting and using rage to cover up the hole inside of her—the one that she was afraid would never go away, the one that she felt guilty about resenting because wanting to get better felt like a betrayal of her parents.

  "I'm sorry about that, Alec. I'd hoped that seeing you would help remind her of the connection the two of you share. I fear that I've made a mistake and pushed her too far, too fast."

  "No, that was my fault. I should have reacted better. I know what she's going through right now, it was my job tonight to make sure that I didn't let her bait me—a job at which I failed miserably."

  Taggart patted me on the shoulder, and I was surprised to find that I was comfortable enough around him to not have my beast freaking out at having him so close.

  "You were working at a disadvantage, Alec. Adri has mastered the art of keeping her feelings secret while she's inside of the dream. Here she doesn't have a scent unless she wants to, and it isn't strictly necessary for her to breathe or for her heart to beat. Most people do all of those things out of sheer habit, but she's come a long ways despite having not practiced for quite some time."

  I was astonished that I hadn't noticed her lack of involuntary responses, but Taggart didn't give me any time to really consider that bit of information.

  "You're in a tough spot, Alec. You feel guilt over what happened even though you acted in the only way you could at the time. That is compounded by the fact that part of you knows Adri should be treating you like a hero. Without you, Cindi would have died, and everyone else we took into that building would have joined her. It's natural to resent Adri for treating you so poorly despite everything you've done for her. Just try to remember that she's not herself right now—not really. In time she'll go back to being the girl we both care so much about. Try to be patient."

  "I think that you're giving me too much credit."

  "Be that as it may, the credit is mine to give out as I see fit."

  He drew a smile out of me despite myself. "Was there anything else you wanted to discuss? I don't want to keep you—I know how valuable your dream time is."

  "Two things. The first is easier than the second." Taggart passed me a card with a phone number on it. I memorized it in less than a second and passed it back to him. "That is my current phone number. We'll need to talk if we're to coordinate the operation you've got planned."

  "Okay, I'll send you a text tomorrow so you've got my number. What was the second thing?"

  Taggart was silent for several seconds, as though he was having second thoughts about what he'd been planning on saying.

  "I respect your desire not to pull innocents into this war, Alec. What if there was another way to wage it?"

  "I don't know. It would depend on what you had in mind. I want the Coun'hij gone as much as anyone."

  "It would mean working together with Adri again, which I know isn't ideal for either of you right now, but it's possible that we could bring the Coun'hij down without ever having to face any of them in the real world."

  I felt as though I'd just been struck. If he was suggesting what I thought he was suggesting, then I felt like a fool for not thinking of it myself. The possibilities were endless.

  "I thought you weren't able to kill someone inside of their own dreams."

  Taggart nodded. "That's right, I can't. It's been pretty conclusively proved though that Adri's gift works in a different way than mine does. She's killed inside of her own dreams once before. The jury's still out on whether she can do it inside of someone else's dreams, which is one of many reasons that I've kept that aspect of her power quiet up until now, but there is a possibility that between the three of us we could take down each member of the Coun'hij one at a time while they are sleeping."

  "How would it go down?"

  "Adri's getting better and better inside of the dream with every passing month, but she's still no match for someone like Kaleb on her own. When you get right down to it, I'm not even always a match for your father. What I would propose is that Adri and I come here to your dream again like we did tonight. Then she will pull our first target in—that's another trick she has that I can't do.

  "Once we have them here inside of your dream, you can use your ability on them while Adri pins them here so they can't avoid death by escaping back to their own dreams."

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to admit to myself where this was headed, but I nodded despite my unexpected reluctance.

  "That makes sense. We'll have to test my ability and make sure that it still works inside of my dreams—it's good that you'll be here to serve as backup to the two of us—but if it does work, then we can finish off this war without ever having to lose another of our people."

  Taggart nodded. "The only price for that miracle will be turning Adri into an assassin—not just once, but dozens, possibly hundreds of times as we work our way through the Coun'hij and then move on to eliminating the known enforcers. It's funny, there was a time when I was desperate to get her to do exactly this, but now the time has arrived and I'm strangely reluctant to take this step."

  "I think I understand at least part of what you're feeling, Taggart. Even after having her basically rip my head off tonight, I still don't want to see her turned into the kind of cold, inhuman tool that the Coun'hij uses to do its dirty work, but you're right to have brought it up. If we have a chance to end this without enduring a long, bloody civil war, then we need to take it."

  I looked him in the eyes and said what needed to be said—whether he knew it or not. "We need to start with Kaleb."

  "No, Alec, I wouldn't ask that of you. We'll start with someone else. Puppeteer or Oblivion would both be better test cases. Puppeteer will be all but defenseless inside of a dream. Once he's been separated from his werewolves, he's no more dangerous than any other hybrid and less probably than most. Killing him will do much more for the war effort than killing your father—you said so yourself just minutes ago."

  I shook my head. "You've never seen Puppeteer, and neither has Adri, but she told me the first time we met that she'd watched Kaleb inside of one of her first dream walks. That makes it easier, right? We need to start with someone we know we can pull into my dreams, and there is every reason to go after the single most important person we can manage.

  "You can't guarantee that Adri will be able to connect with Puppeteer, and Oblivion is much more dangerous than Kaleb will ever be in a one-on-one situation. If my powers work inside of a dream, then there's a chance that Oblivion's will too.

  "Besides, I've met Oblivion before and I'm not sure that he has to be our enemy. It's too soon to tell, but if there's a way to salvage him we should. Regardless of who wins this rebellion we've committed ourselves to, we're still going to have to do damage control where it comes to keeping the humans in the dark about our
existence. Nobody is better at that than Oblivion.

  "It has to be Kaleb, he has to be first or he'll see it coming and start changing up his sleep schedule in order to make it harder for us to trap him here."

  I could see that Taggart agreed with the logic behind my words, but he either wanted to spare me from having to kill my father, or he didn't trust that I would actually go through with it. I hoped it was the former.

  "It doesn't have to be like that, Alec. I've already considered the fact that our enemies will eventually start changing up their sleeping schedules. Once we've confirmed that your power works inside of dreams, you and Adri won't need me there as backup. I'll be able to instead spend my sleeping time tracking down and identifying targets for the two of you."

  "No, Taggart, it does have to be like that. We can't risk Kaleb being alerted to what's coming or everything will get much tougher. What is it they say? The best way to kill a snake is by cutting off the head. The Coun'hij is more like a hydra than a snake, but the principle is the same. If you want my help then you're going to have to help me kill Kaleb first of all."

  We stood there in silence, neither willing to back down for several seconds before Taggart shrugged. "This is a pointless discussion until we know if your ability will be effective under these circumstances. Let's test it out."

  I opened up the black hole that I now carried around inside of me at all times. I focused it on Taggart, and opened my imaginary fist up wider and wider. It took longer than it should have—either Taggart was even more powerful than I'd expected, or my ability wasn't as effective here as it was in the real world—but as I hit my maximum rate of absorption he dropped to his knees and I knew the matter was settled.

  My gift worked here and we were going to kill Kaleb before we went after anyone else.

  Chapter 4