by Dean Murray
Without really knowing why I was doing so, I leaned forward and whispered to Juan. "I really think we should volunteer for this one."
Another team leader would have just told me to shut up. Juan did give me an odd look like he was trying to figure out what my angle was, but after a couple of seconds he cleared his throat.
"We'll go to Hereford."
Brandon shook his head. "You're down two people right now. In fact, your team is part of the reason that I haven't been pushing for the main op to be put together before now. You're not back up to full strength until just before the op goes live."
Juan shrugged. "We can leave James here so that he doesn't get set back at all. Alec seems to be raring to help out, so who am I to tell him he has to stay here?"
His bland tone seemed to indicate just how stupid he thought I was being. It drew a chuckle from a few of the shape shifters who'd been close enough to hear me ask him to volunteer, but apparently Brandon at least hadn't been able to hear my whisper to Juan. A flicker of something that almost looked like confusion crossed Brandon's face and then he nodded.
"That works for me. Thank you for being willing to help out. You guys should go ahead and get on the road now. We can bring you up to speed on the big op once you are back here tomorrow morning. I'll let my contact on the Coun'hij know that you're the ones he needs to get in touch with."
Chapter 12
Alec Graves
Highway 82
Southern Arizona
Juan managed to keep his questions to himself until after we got on the road. Once Brandon dismissed us, Juan waved at James to stay for the briefing and then led the other four of us out into the hall.
"Get an overnight bag and the standard first-aid supplies. I'll meet you all out in the parking lot in ten minutes."
Alison shot me a dirty look as we all scattered back to our rooms, but that wasn't entirely a surprise. By convincing Juan to volunteer us I'd just put us all in danger again more than twenty-four hours before we'd otherwise have been put into harm's way.
I made it out to the parking lot a full three minutes before the deadline that we'd been given and found Juan already there waiting for us.
"You'd probably like an explanation."
Juan grunted. "Not here."
Over the next few minutes the three girls trickled out of the hotel and we all climbed into the SUV that Juan had picked out. At a nod from Juan, Alison got behind the wheel and we were off.
I opened my mouth again to explain my reasoning, but Juan held up a hand as he pulled out a small electronic device and pushed some buttons. We waited for a couple of minutes while the device beeped and flashed and then Juan nodded to himself and put it away.
"Okay, the car's clean. A few of us independents have organized a watch schedule that allows us to keep two of the vehicles in the motor pool under surveillance. We can't guarantee that someone couldn't slip a transmitter onto them, so we have to still use a portable bug sniffer, but at least keeping an eye on them like we do means that nobody can wire them with something more complicated that doesn't require a transmitter."
I shook my head in astonishment. "I never would have guessed that you'd all be so paranoid down here."
"Don't let anybody fool you. Putting big wins up is nice from the standpoint of recruiting, but it doesn't matter for crap if there isn't some kind of support structure down here that lets people feel safe. Half of the independents down here wouldn't have ever agreed to come help if a couple of us hadn't come down here first and set up some basic precautions."
My mind was whirling. It seemed like every time I turned around something else caught me by surprise lately. I'd known that Juan and the others were worried about Brandon turning on them, but I hadn't realized that they were quite so organized.
"This isn't the only security measure you guys have in place, is it?"
"Of course not, but don't bother asking what else we've got in the works. You're a pretty straight shooter, but you're still from the Sanctuary pack. Instead, how about if you tell me what made you think it was a good idea to volunteer us for this particular assignment."
I nodded. "Okay, that's fair. The truth is that I'm not sure I can point to a single reason, it's more like a bunch of small things that made this feel like the right decision. Firstly, it extends an even bigger olive branch out to Brandon and Vincent by showing them that I'm willing to take orders and even volunteer when the need arises."
"You're assuming that Brandon will eventually hear that you were the one that pushed for us to volunteer."
"Yeah. As paranoid as you guys seem to be about the idea that he's spying on you, it seems like a safe bet."
"That could backfire on you if it makes the independents think that you are too firmly in Brandon's pockets. What else?"
"I figured that there is a chance that being out on this assignment will bring us into contact with some of the Tucson pack."
Juan's right eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch. "It's possible, but why is that desirable? Jaclyn is pretty well known for not liking the Sanctuary pack in general and your father in particular."
"You and a few others have recently given me a crash course in the fact that everyone I run into is going to have some kind of agenda. The only way for me to hope to get a complete picture of what's really going on is to get more points of view than I have right now. Jaclyn seems like a decent source to help counterbalance some of the propaganda I get fed when I'm back home."
"Assuming she doesn't just kill you out of hand."
"That would be pretty shortsighted of her."
"Jaclyn isn't considered to be the most well-grounded individual out there. She'd pretty much have to be a little crazy to put the Coun'hij on notice like she has."
My mouth went a little dry, but I managed a shrug. "I guess if she kills me then she kills me, but she's going to be a lot more likely to believe me now when I'm operating from a position of weakness than she would be later on if I approach her after I manifest an ability."
"You probably have a decent point there. Any other reasons?"
"Yeah, I guess one last big one. Somebody—or something—killed four people who shouldn't be dead right now. I don't know if it was cats or not, but I want to help put whomever was responsible for those murders down. I know that you're big on stopping the cats, but it feels to me like lately we've been spending way too much time bickering over who's the biggest, toughest predator on the block and not enough time protecting people who can't protect themselves."
Juan shook his head. "We're not as different as you think, Alec. I want the cats gone for the same reason that you want to end whatever killed those people. I want those who are still alive to have a better life, just like you."
"So you're not going to hold this all against me?"
Juan looked over at Alison and then shrugged. "I'm not going to, but I'm probably not the one you need to worry about."
Alison muttered something that sounded like 'highhanded jerk' and then turned onto the main highway.
**
We'd been driving for twenty minutes before Juan got a text from an unlisted number that contained nothing more than an address and a time. A quick text to Brandon confirmed that the text had come from whomever the Coun'hij was sending to contain the incident, but we still didn't have any idea who we'd actually be working with.
It quickly became obvious that we were going to struggle to hit the deadline that we'd just had imposed on us, so Alison swore under her breath and sped up a little more. The radar detector inside the SUV didn't chirp even once and I thought we were making pretty good time right up until Juan's phone buzzed again three minutes before we were supposed to be at the meeting spot.
Based on the expression on Juan's face he expected the text to be a reprimand for not having been there early, but after reading the actual text he shook his head in astonishment.
"It looks like we've got an odd one."
Juan passed his phone around and my insid
es jumped in nervousness.
I've been delayed, but I'm getting reports of some kind of fighting happening on the west end of town. I'll meet you next to the water tower as soon as you can arrive.
I handed the phone to Jasmin so that she could read the text and started looking for the water tower. A second later Juan found it on his side of the car.
"Change of plans, Alison. We're headed towards that water tower. Turn right here and I'll see if I can find a route there on the GPS."
My first thought as we arrived and Alison brought the SUV to a screaming stop was that it was odd for the water tower to have been put off to the side of the town away from where everyone lived. It made even less sense for the town this small to have such a large abandoned industrial park, only at second glance the area didn't look abandoned. There wasn't any graffiti or broken windows. In fact, everything about the area looked like an active, operational industrial zone except for the fact that the night was unbroken by a single working light for at least three or four blocks in any direction.
Juan offered up the explanation at the same time that I realized what was going on.
"Werewolves, and more than one or two if they've taken down so much of the electrical grid."
My blood ran cold as I realized just how much danger we were in. Given that werewolves were bigger than any hybrid and able to neutralize most abilities, it was rare for a pack of wolves or even a group of hybrids to come out on top in a fight against werewolves unless they outnumbered the werewolves by a considerable margin. Like say maybe three to one. There was a chance that we could deal with two werewolves if we had a little bit of luck on our side, but there was no way that we could defeat three or four of them and Juan was probably right that it would take more than two werewolves to black out so much of the city.
Jasmin looked as worried as I felt, and Jess was positively jumping back and forth from one foot to the other, but it was Alison who asked the question.
"So what do we do? Jump back in the SUV and get out of here?"
Juan shook his head. "The guy from the Coun'hij said that there was fighting. As wolves we'll probably be faster than the werewolves, so we can always run away if push comes to shove, but we should at least get some intel."
I opened my mouth to point out that the Coun'hij had forbidden picking fights with werewolves, but shut my mouth without saying anything. Juan was right. At the very least we were going to have to clean up after these werewolves, but it was more than that.
We were probably outnumbered and in a position where all we could do was run away, but if that didn't turn out to be the case, then a part of me wouldn't shed any tears if we were forced to engage and kill a werewolf or two.
Werewolves were nothing more than mindless killing machines and while Puppeteer had been able to use them to good effect in places like St. Louis, that didn't justify the order that had come down from on high forbidding the moonborn from killing werewolves in anything other than self-defense.
"Leave the keys in the car and leave the doors unlocked. If we get chased back this direction we're going to need to be able to leave in a hurry."
Juan shifted onto four legs in a crackling rush of power and one by one the rest of us followed. My beast seemed extra eager today and I cut loose with a stronger flare of power than I meant to release. Nobody else seemed to notice though and a second later we were all following Juan off into the unnatural darkness that you could only find where man had killed all of the vegetation and replaced it with artificial constructs of metal, glass and concrete.
As we got closer the lights started flickering at irregular intervals. I would have said that it had to be yet another werewolf getting closer to the scene of the fight, but rather than the flickering being the result of more lights dying, it was caused by blocks of lights out on the edge of the blackout turning back on for a second or two before once again browning out.
We rounded a corner and I saw my first real, live werewolf. It was huge, which went without saying, but the thing that struck me the most was the way that the light it emitted, the light that was part and parcel of being a living organism, looked subtly wrong.
The wind shifted directions slightly and the werewolf spun around as it scented us. I expected Juan to turn and lead us back towards the SUV at a dead run, but he charged forward, transforming into a hybrid as he crossed the distance between us and the werewolf.
Apparently Juan's actions took everyone else by surprise too because there was nearly a second pause before we all charged after him. I opened the mental cage where I housed my beast, asking for just enough power to shift forms again so that I could meet the werewolf as a hybrid, and my beast responded with another tsunami of power that ripped me from one form to another in a fraction of an instant.
My beast was ready, eager even, to exchange blows with the werewolf, but despite my words earlier, part of me was busy thinking about the repercussions of what we were about to do. Puppeteer was brutal when it came to enforcing the prohibition against killing the earthborn. He didn't manage to punish every single offense, and I was pretty sure that most of the people who ended up punished were already on the chopping block for other reasons, but even so killing a werewolf risked having half a dozen werewolves under Puppeteer's control showing up one night to execute you.
Juan eased any concerns with a single sentence a split second before he closed with the werewolf. "We have no way of knowing whether or not our contact from the Coun'hij has been dragged into this fight already."
It was a slightly threadbare excuse, but it was the kind of thing that kept people alive when the Coun'hij got around to reviewing the results of some fight. The fact that we could say we'd been sent to neutralize any threats to our contact from the Coun'hij should be enough to shield us from the Coun'hij.
That all flitted across my mind as I crossed the three remaining steps to the werewolf and then there wasn't time for any thoughts that didn't relate directly to my immediate survival.
The werewolf slashed at Juan as the lights flickered again, but Juan lunged to the right in a blindingly explosive move that kept him just out of reach of the werewolf's deadly claws. It was an impressive display of speed that I'd never seen bettered by anyone else before.
I was only half a step behind Juan so I hit the werewolf on its right side, digging my claws into its arms in an effort to slow its turn as it tried to follow Juan around as he flanked it on the other side. I felt strong, stronger than ever before, but I still wasn't a match for the sheer brute strength that the werewolf commanded so casually.
Despite my best efforts the werewolf pulled its right arm free of my claws. The action left bloody ribbons where my claws had ripped through the werewolf's flesh, but there was no sign that the pain slowed my opponent in the slightest as it reversed directions connecting with an elbow to my face that threw me back into the side of the building behind me.
I had a brief instant to be grateful that I'd been struck with the werewolf's elbow rather than the razor-sharp back edge of its claws, and then I hit with enough force that I saw stars as my head connected with one of the metal structural members hidden in the wall.
If the werewolf had just been facing Juan and me, we would have lost the fight right then and there, but a chorus of yips and growls told me that the girls were in the fight now too. My vision cleared just in time to see Juan take four long slashes to the chest as he tried to dance back out of range after an aborted attack that had probably been intended to distract the beast so that the girls could spring.
Juan's attack served its original purpose, if not quite in the way he'd intended for it to. Jasmin used the fact that the werewolf was momentarily focused on Juan to jump and clamp her jaws down on the back of its right arm roughly where the triceps muscle would have been on a human.
Jess and Alison latched onto the back of the creature's legs, ripping with their jaws for nearly a second before they and Jasmin all three had to drop away and try to dart back out of range of
its counterattack.
Jasmin and Jessica were just fast enough to dodge out of the way of the werewolf's claws, but Alison was a few inches too close and got slashed all the way from her shoulder down to her back leg. She was bleeding profusely and I could see bones showing through in a couple of spots, but Alison gamely spun around and prepared to spring at the werewolf again.
I'd managed to pull myself back to my feet while the werewolf had been busy savaging Alison, and I hit it from the side. I couldn't generate enough force to knock it over, but I did jostle its arm enough that its next attack missed Alison by several inches.
More importantly, the werewolf's momentum from that last swipe at Alison meant that it couldn't spin back around fast enough to stop me from sinking both claws into its back and getting my right foot set into the meaty part of its leg.
The werewolf spun around as I jammed the talons on my right foot into its other leg, but it was a heartbeat too slow. It had allowed me to get set and I was holding on for everything I was worth. Juan came in from the left side, grabbing the werewolf's left arm with both of his claws at the same time that Jasmin sank her teeth once again into its right arm.
Between the two of them and me the werewolf was carrying an extra eight or nine hundred pounds and even its unnatural strength wasn't up to doing that without slowing down noticeably. I felt the werewolf change directions again, spinning to the left in an attempt to bring Juan into reach of its right hand and its fangs, but this time I used the brief instant when it had no momentum to lever my right foot up higher on its body.
I felt Jess hit the beast a second later, tearing into its leg in an effort to hamstring it. Juan dropped away only inches ahead of the claws that would have opened him up from stomach to chin if he'd tried to continue to control the werewolf's left arm.
With the werewolf's left hand free Jasmin was in increased danger, but she let go and danced back just before the werewolf could savage her. Alison joined Jess in an effort to damage the creature's legs enough to bring it to its knees, but it swiped at the two of them and the only thing that saved them from serious injury was that they were partially shielded from the attack by the werewolf's own bulk.