Burned

by Dean Murray

  The being never liked that, but it was even worse at times like this, times when the being was in public. Puppeteer was capable of exerting control over individuals like the being over distances of hundreds of miles, but he would never be capable of doing so while accessing the being's more unique abilities. Puppeteer had tried dozens of times, but it was like watching a blindfolded child try to replicate a Picasso using nothing more than their feet. The hybrid simply didn't have the control or finesse required.

  The being was grateful for that fact—it was the only thing that kept it from complete enslavement to Puppeteer. The hybrid knew that the being's abilities were too precious to be wasted on brute-force search-and-destroy missions, so the being was allowed a much greater degree of latitude than the rest of its captured fellows.

  Not all of them had been captured, but many of them had been, and none of them were happy about it. The only thing that made their servitude tolerable was that Puppeteer's existence was no more than a speck on the continuum of their long lives. Eventually Puppeteer would die—of old age if for no other reason—and they would be free to go back to doing what they did best.

  Puppeteer's presence inside the being's mind made it stumble, but even more concerning, it made the being's seeming—its illusion in the modern parlance—flicker. The being's lips drew back in a snarl. It didn't want to have its cover ruined. Puppeteer was very good at placing the being in situations where it could feed, but the meal it had been dining on these last several weeks had been a masterpiece of sorrow. It was a meal that wouldn't be easily replaced.

  The insignificant wolves around the being were unlikely to be able to kill the being—even if they realized what it was—but the being wasn't anywhere near ready to give up its current food source.

  What do you want?

  A report. You haven't checked in since before you left your last location. I wouldn't even know that you'd moved if not for the fact that I can feel your position.

  There is nothing to report. All is as you indicated it would be. I have continued to plant the seeds we discussed, and now just await your order to bring them to fruition. Besides, reporting has become more dangerous given my current surroundings.

  I thought you weren't scared of my kind.

  I'm not, but despite their inability to kill me, them finding my communications to you would be…inconvenient.

  Very well. You have permission to implement the next stage of my plan. Make them wish that they'd never been born.

  The being smiled as Puppeteer's influence receded back to the furthest reaches of its mind. This was going to be particularly enjoyable.

  Chapter 10

  Alec Graves

  The Socorro Motel

  Tucson, Arizona

  Grayson was just as good as his word. He arrived within hours of our phone call, and then after reporting in to me, he retreated to one of the spare rooms we'd rented in the motel and went to sleep.

  He was an odd individual, but it went beyond this taciturn manner. He seemed made up of intense flashes of emotions that disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Given just how useful his power made him, I was more than ready to overlook that particular oddity though—especially with how rare it was for him to let his flashes of emotion override his normal, steady manner.

  Grayson had been the easy part of the last twenty-four hours. I'd made no secret of our efforts to bring him on board, so there was no reason to conceal his arrival from any of our people. Vicki and the rest of Shawn's people were a whole different matter.

  Shawn hadn't explicitly told me that our alliance would be over if I allowed the rest of my people to know that Vicki and the rest of her fellows were in town, but the implication was clear. In one sense, the individuals who'd flown here from Chicago were completely expendable. If it became common knowledge that they'd taken part in my efforts against the Coun'hij, then Ulrich—and even Shawn—could disavow their actions, but I knew full well that neither of the top dogs in Chicago wanted to lose the services of so many hybrids all at once. They especially didn't want to lose Vicki—which was a big part of the reason that I'd asked for her.

  I didn't like leaving the rest of my people all by themselves, but once I received a text from Shawn indicating that his people had arrived, I slipped away from my RV and drove over to the motel where Vicki and the rest had set up shop. It was less than three miles from where my command RV was parked, but that didn't provide a terrible amount of reassurance—not given just how much could go wrong in the slightly less than ten minutes it would take me to cross the distance back to my people.

  Vicki met me at the door to my SUV, appearing out of the darkness like she'd teleported there.

  "That's quite the trick—are you going to tell me how you do it?"

  She shook her head at me, obviously biting her tongue, but that didn't do anything to hide her scent, which made sure that I knew just exactly how unhappy she was to be there.

  "My brief didn't include anything about revealing the secrets of my pack, Mr. Graves. I've been commanded to come down here and assist you, and that's exactly what I'll do, but I won't go one millimeter beyond what is specified in my brief."

  "Okay, maybe it would be helpful to understand what's included in your brief—you know, just so that we can avoid any misunderstandings."

  "I brought along a complete copy of our intelligence briefs and current force estimates for the area. I'm to provide you with that information and then serve as your bodyguard as much as is possible while remaining out of sight where your people are concerned. In extreme situations I'm allowed to reveal myself and the presence of my people if it is required in order to preserve your life, but other than that, I'm to maintain my pack's official position of neutrality."

  "Thank you, that's very helpful. I have to admit that is about what I expected. I'm not going to lie and say that it doesn't complicate things for me, but at this point I don't have any other choice but to accept Shawn's terms. Can I see those intelligence files?"

  Vicki nodded. "Right this way."

  I followed her into her motel room and started thumbing through the thick stack of paper that she handed me. It took me less than five minutes to find what I was looking for. The file on the estimated positions and numbers of werewolves in the area was just as detailed as the information I was used to receiving from Jack. I read through the file twice, matched it up with the map of the area that I was carrying around inside of my head, and then dropped the file on Vicki's bed.

  "Okay, we'd best be going if we want to finish up and get me back to my people before sunrise."

  "What are you talking about? I need to get you back to your people now and then take up a position close enough nearby that I will be able to intervene if something happens."

  I cocked my head to one side. "Is this the first time that you've been loaned out as executive protection?"

  "No. It doesn't happen often—Ulrich doesn't like to leave Shawn uncovered—but it has happened a couple of times before."

  "Great—that means that you've got a clear playbook that you're operating from. I'd ask you if you're prohibited from assaulting your principal, but it actually doesn't matter because I could drop you where you stand without even working up a sweat."

  "You could try, but not even you are unbeatable, Mr. Graves. I'm unlike anyone you've ever faced off against before now."

  Nearly any other shape shifter—hybrid or wolf—would have taken my words as a sign that I was getting ready to fight them, but Vicki seemed completely relaxed. I smiled at her, and then stepped backwards as I cracked open the cover over the miniature black hole that I carried around inside of me.

  It wasn't enough to force her to the ground—it probably wasn't even enough for her to feel—but it had exactly the effect I'd been hoping for.

  "What did you just do?"

  Vicki's yell was that of someone who was ready to rip out my throat, but she looked like she wanted to turn and run away. She looked like someone who'd jus
t been deprived of one of their senses.

  "I'm making a point. I have no doubt that you're one of the single most deadly hybrids within a thousand miles, but you're not ready to force me into doing anything I don't want to do—not unless you're ready to kill me, and even then your odds aren't great. I can take your gift away at any moment, and there isn't anything you can do to stop me."

  "Okay, you've made your point. Give it back to me. Now! Anything could happen at any moment, and I'm defenseless to stop it."

  I closed my power up tightly again, and then gave her a sad smile. "Welcome to the world the rest of us deal with, Vicki. Now please go get your people. I'm going werewolf hunting, and I suspect that you're going to want them along if you're really serious about keeping me alive."

  It took us just over half an hour to make it to the location that was most likely the current home base of the werewolves. It was a town so small that it didn't even show up on the map on my phone until I'd zoomed it in to nearly its highest resolution setting.

  Vicki didn't speak to me even once on the drive there. One of her people drove the SUV we were in, while the rest of her people had crowded into the other two vehicles she'd rented at the airport.

  Once we arrived at our destination, Vicki dispatched her people with an expertise that told me she wasn't any stranger to hunting werewolves—that or she'd had some very good teachers over the years. Either way, I was glad to have her along. It was like being accompanied by a younger, more attractive version of Jack, a version that I suspected was much more deadly than any three Jacks could have been.

  Vicki's people disappeared into the darkness and then it was just the two of us. She threw me a challenging look, and then started stripping out of her clothes. I shot her a wry smile and then turned around and started pulling my clothes off. Unlike us, the Chicago pack still didn't use ha'bits, and regardless of what the custom was in her pack, I wasn't going to stand there and ogle her.

  A few seconds later we were both in hybrid form and moving through the darkness. I'd felt a multi-pointed rush of power while we were shedding our clothes, so I knew that her people were already ready to go. I hadn't, however, anticipated what came next.

  Vicki's people didn't have radios or phones—not that they could have used them while on four legs—but instead they reported in with pulses of energy at regular intervals. It was genius.

  We weren't getting all that far away from each other, but wolves probably couldn't have managed pulses strong enough to be felt this far out. Luckily our team was comprised solely of hybrids, which meant that we could communicate—at least in a rudimentary manner—by pulses of energy, pulses that served as a kind of sonar to keep Vicki and me apprised of exactly where the others were.

  "This is incredible."

  Vicki shrugged massive hybrid shoulders. She was darkly furred and only slightly smaller than I was. She blended in almost perfectly with the night.

  "Hunting werewolves is prohibited, but we have the single largest pack in the world, and Ulrich doesn't recruit just based on raw physical power. We have some of the best tactical minds in the world, and we've had decades to game out simulations. This wouldn't work against other shape shifters, but we've had people pretend to be dispossessed for long periods of time. They used this tactic to great effect against werewolves."

  I nodded. "Of course. It probably doesn't even matter whether the werewolves can feel the pulses. If it attracts their attention it's all the better since we have to lure them out of hiding."

  "Yes. My people are all well-trained enough to maintain adequate separation between us—if there are any werewolves out here they should engage with our scouting elements well before they sense the rest of us."

  Vicki cut loose with a surge of power to provide a reference point for our people, and my beast tried to respond with a burst of his own, but I stopped him. She looked over at me in surprise.

  "You're not what I expected, Mr. Graves. Most dominants struggle to avoid responding in kind—it's part of why all our signals don't attribute any meaning to a second pulse from the same location."

  "I guess I'll take that as a compliment since this isn't the first time that we've met. I do try to keep people guessing. We're on the same side for now though, so if there's something on your mind go ahead and ask."

  She waited until we'd received the next round of pulses from the perimeter before speaking again. "Why are we out here? You're leaving your people exposed—every minute you're gone is a minute that they have no real defense against the Coun'hij enforcers if they arrive in overwhelming numbers."

  That made me chuckle. "It's like you're reading my mind. I was worrying about the same thing on my way over to your motel, but the truth is that my people are much better equipped for this battle than Shawn realizes. As of right now, you and I are the fourth and fifth hybrids with effective combat abilities down here on our side. Things might get a little sticky without the two of us, but my people are far from defenseless."

  She nodded, seemingly unsurprised. Maybe Shawn's intelligence was even more comprehensive than I'd assumed it was.

  "I ask again—why? Just because your people might survive an attack while you're away from them isn't a good reason to leave them to face it without you."

  "We're out here for two reasons. Partly we're here because I want to see just how good all of you are, but mostly we're here because I need to see if my ability works on werewolves. I've tested it on vampires and other shape shifters, but I've never taken it into battle against any of the earthborn."

  It went without saying that testing her people was shorthand for testing her, but she didn't seem angry about that—not even after having refused to explain her power to me earlier.

  "You'll be able to make sure that your power doesn't interfere with mine if we do get into a fight?"

  I shrugged. "I think so, but we won't know for sure until we try. My power will be focused on an area of ground around the werewolf, but I've never done any testing to determine how much bleed-through there is out into the surrounding areas. Your power seems somewhat…fragile. It didn't take much for me to short it out earlier. Based on that, you're going to want to avoid committing too deeply until after you've confirmed that I'm not going to cause you problems."

  I'd seen Vicki face down several times her number in hybrids from within her pack and she'd never even blinked, but she was scared now. Even if she hadn't showed fear earlier, I could smell it coming off of her now. She was scared—terribly so—but she wasn't letting it cripple her. I found myself suppressing flashes of envy. Shawn had an incredible find in this one. Even without her ability she would have made a fine bodyguard. With it, she was in a league all her own.

  "Try to give me a few seconds to try out my ability on any werewolves before you kill them."

  "That would have been useful for my people to know before we sent them out where we can't talk to them."

  "I know. I considered saying something, but I didn't want to make them hesitate. I'd rather lose the opportunity to test out my new toy than have one of them killed because they retreated when they should have attacked."

  I could smell the approval coming off of her. It made me wonder if her other assignments had been cavalier when it came to her life or the lives of her people, but that was a question for another time. I felt three pulses of power come from up ahead of us.

  "You're about to get your chance."

  Even as the words left her mouth, Vicki threw herself into motion, but I was only half a step behind. She cut loose with three bursts of power before we'd even managed to cover the first dozen feet, and I felt single pulses of acknowledgments come from the other teams.

  Vicki was fast—startlingly so—but it wasn't the product of her ability, it was nothing more than the preternaturally strong muscles of a hybrid combined with someone who obviously trained on a regular basis to make sure that she had every edge possible.

  Before I'd spent weeks moving between St Louis and the Mexican b
order I wouldn't have had a chance of keeping up with her, but I'd toughened up since I'd left home, and Carson's unrelenting weapons training had taught me a bit about commitment. I threw myself forward, right to the point of falling forward, and then dug in with everything I had to keep my center of gravity from tipping to the point where I would fall.

  It took us less than ten seconds to get close enough to our team to see the fighting. Two on one was the bare minimum for engaging a werewolf. Vicki's people were obviously good, but they were struggling against a tower of bone and muscle that outweighed the two of them combined.

  I itched to unleash my power, but we were still too far away. Aiming in three dimensions was a lot harder than aiming a gun, and if I misjudged the distance between us I might clip one of our operatives and knock their legs out from under them at precisely the wrong time.

  Vicki and I were both starting to breathe heavily as our secondary circulatory organs kicked in to try to take some of the load off of our hearts. One of our people darted forward in an effort to score a long slash on the werewolf's arm, but they weren't quite fast enough, and the werewolf caught them with a backhand that threw them into the side of a building with enough force to go through the bricks.

  I winced—hitting anything that hard wasn't pleasant, but the real danger was the back edge of the werewolf's claws. Unlike our claws, they were sharp on both edges. There was a decent chance that Vicki's person was already dead.

  The other hybrid from the team backpedaled in an effort to stay out of the werewolf's reach, but the legs on werewolves were jointed exactly the same way as ours. We were designed to go forward, not backwards and the monster ahead of us had several inches of height on our comrade.

  Vicki bent down and picked up a length of steel pipe without missing a step. Our guy was losing ground. He reversed direction and then threw himself to the right in the hopes that the werewolf was moving too fast to match their lateral velocity.

  It wasn't going to work—he was fast, but nobody was fast enough to beat a werewolf in a one-on-one fight, not once the werewolf was that close. I reached down for more speed—even though I knew it wouldn't be enough to save our guy—and then Vicki planted and hurled her length of pipe through the air like a javelin.