by Murray, Dean
I tried to focus. It was Alec, he was important and I needed to be there for him, but the words were so far away and my mind was so lethargic.
"I'm grounded. Mom thinks you killed Brandon and that I'm involved."
There was a pause as Alec processed what I'd just said and how I was responding.
"How much trouble are you in?"
"Lots. We had a really big fight."
Thinking started getting easier again. Thinking about the yelling match hurt, but it was waking my faculties back up.
"I wish I didn't have to ask this of you. I wouldn't ask if there wasn't so much riding on it. Can you sneak out?"
"I think Mom's gone. Getting out won't be the problem, getting back in will be though. She's the maddest I've ever seen her."
"Okay, I need you to sneak out. A couple of Agony's men will meet you on the road, start into town and they'll pick you up on the way."
"What's going on?"
"I wish I could say for sure. All I know is we've got to be getting close to seeing the big finish."
"All right. I'll leave in the next couple of minutes."
"Before you go, there's a small package in the bottom of your dresser. I hope you won't need it, but you'd better bring it just in case."
My legs were weak and shaky from sitting in one position for so long. I stumbled over to my dresser and found Alec's mystery package. It turned out to be a long, knife. I gingerly pulled it out of the sheath. It looked wickedly sharp and gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. If things were bad enough that I'd need a knife to protect myself then I was already in over my head. I had no idea how to use a knife.
I slid the knife back into its sheath and noticed the clever clip that would attach it to a belt. I stood there for a minute or so debating before pulling on some jeans and hooking the knife onto them so it was hidden under my tank top.
I crept out of my room, verified the Jeep was really gone, and then started hiking down the lane. Agony's guys found me before I'd gone more than a hundred yards or so. They pulled up in a large, black SUV.
I didn't recognize the guy driving it, but Oblivion opened the door and motioned me in. The driver wasn't chatty and Oblivion was his normal terse self so we passed the ten-minute trip in silence.
When we arrived, Oblivion escorted me into the house while the other guy parked the vehicle. It felt wrong to be in Graves manor without having been greeted at the door by Donovan. I was about to ask Oblivion where we were headed when I heard Rachel's screams.
I reacted without thinking, running towards the sound. I kept expecting Oblivion to pull me up short. He was obviously faster than me, but somehow I made it to the door to Alec's mom's suite without him catching me.
The main room had been transformed from the airy, sunny haven to a place of nightmare. Rachel was the one screaming, but it was her mom who was being hurt. Only hurt wasn't quite the word.
Marco had tied both of them up and was slowly rubbing his hand along Mrs. Graves' face. The contact was drawing little tremors of pleasure from its target, but Rachel was screaming and straining at her bonds.
"Stop it. Don't do that to her, it's not right."
Rachel's mom opened her eyes long enough to look at her daughter. "Shut up. It's what I've wanted all these years."
"That's right, Samantha. All these years missing the touch of a real man."
Marco returned his hand to her cheek and smiled coldly as her eyes rolled back up inside her head.
"She's an addict. You're violating every law regarding the Ja'tell bond. She can't decide for herself."
"I won't violate any laws. I'll take her with me when I leave. She's still a handsome woman and I rather expect that Alec will loosen the famous Graves purse strings to make sure she's taken care of appropriately. She'll never even look back, never miss you guys."
Rachel had already been through so much. I'd been there when she'd cried herself to sleep because her mother was so far gone she didn't recognize her own daughter. I couldn't let her lose what little bit of her mom she had left.
I stepped forward, moving closer to Marco as my hand slipped underneath my shirt. I didn't know the first thing about fighting, but I wasn't thinking, I just unsheathed the knife and stabbed.
Marco was completely surprised. I managed to stab him a second time before he backhanded me into the wall. A collection of plants in wrought-iron stands more or less broke my fall. Somehow I'd managed to keep a hold of the knife. I rolled back to my feet just in time to see Marco explode into his hybrid shape.
I felt my mouth go dry but I dropped down into a crouch, trying to drop my center of gravity so I could move in whatever direction I needed to. Rachel screamed, and then suddenly Oblivion was between Marco and me, shaking his head at the hulking enforcer.
It wasn't possible that Oblivion was actively going to defend me. He had to have known what was going on here. If he wasn't going to defend me though maybe he was willing to buy me some time. Somehow I kept the fear at bay enough to think.
"Rachel. Rachel!"
I'd never yelled at Rachel, she'd always seemed too delicate to survive anything more than a stern look. I knew that wasn't true though and I needed her knowledge of shape shifter rules and tradition. Somehow the scream managed to miraculously get through to her. I saw her eyes track over to me and her breathing steady.
"I need you to think about this situation. Is there any reason why Marco wouldn't want to kill me for what I've just done?"
"He…he's just lost a lot of status. You hurt him, forced him to shift shapes, so his body is back to a blank canvas. One of the traditional ways to mitigate the damage would be to kill you."
Marco was scared of Oblivion, scared of the possibility of losing everything he was when the memories were sucked out of him. Even so, I could see him working up to an attack.
"You can do this, Rach. There's got to be something."
"Alec. It's Alec. We're all under his protection. If Marco kills you, then Alec would be within his rights to challenge Marco. Alec would kill him and then Agony would be down a fighter. It's the kind of provocation that the Coun'hij usually uses as an excuse themselves."
Marco growled. His voice was deeper now than when he was in his human form. "I can always say your attack on me was unprovoked. I kill all three of you and there's nobody left to dispute my version of the truth."
I felt a calm certainty flow through me at Rachel's words. "No. Or rather you could do that, but it won't stop Alec from killing you and you know it. If you kill all three of us, the three most important people in his life, then nothing will stop him from killing you in turn."
Marco shifted back and forth, as if trying to decide how to get around Oblivion. "No guarantee that he can take me. Besides it would then provide Agony with exactly the excuse he needs. We'll rip your pack apart and salt the ground. Agony will finally get to finish the job he started with Graves' old man."
I wiped the dagger, dripping with Marco's blood, on my leg. "Trust me. Alec would destroy you. Are you really ready to die for Agony? Agony's not even willing to face Alec himself. This whole visit is nothing more than an attempt to maintain appearances. You all know what Alec is capable of. If Agony backs him into a corner your entire group will die."
Marco's head tilted to the side, considering my words as his nostrils flared in an attempt to smell whether or not I was telling the truth. I was betting all our lives on me being too far gone in shock for the normal signals to work.
The stalemate held for several seconds before Marco turned away. He threw a nearby chair through the lovely full-length windows as he left, but he left. Oblivion backed several steps away and then watched me as I cut both Rachel and her mom free.
Rachel's mom weakly pushed us away, a faint mewing sound coming from the back of her throat, but she was too frail to stop us. I sheathed my knife and then we half carried her out of the room.
As we turned onto the main hall I realized I was shaking, and a second late
r the tremble got too bad for me to keep moving. I set Mrs. Graves' feet down and wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold things together long enough for the adrenaline to finish flushing out of my system.
Rachel's mom curled up against the wall as soon as Rachel put her down, and suddenly Rachel's arms were around me.
"Rach, why am I even here?"
"It's standard procedure. The Coun'hij always wants as many non-combatants around as possible. It's leverage against the rest of the pack actually standing up to them. Alec knew this might happen, it's why he's been so careful to try and keep you ignorant of everything. As long as you didn't know too many of our secrets, there was a possibility that whoever the Coun'hij sent would decide not to suck you further into our world. It's not like there's not already plenty of us who can't defend ourselves here. One more human shield more or less shouldn't have made a difference."
The last sentence had more defiance to it than I'd ever heard from Rachel. I looked up, half afraid that Oblivion would be angry, but he seemed unaffected by the heat in her voice.
I grabbed Rachel's arm, willing her not to say something that would make our situation worse, and took a deep breath.
"We'd better get moving again, Rach. I don't want to make things worse for Alec and the others."
All too soon we found ourselves back in the underground cavern where Alec had fought Vincent. The torches were back, barely managing to illuminate the gathered groups of shape shifters. With our arrival the entire pack was here. Alec sported a number of ugly-looking gashes on his arms, but he looked to be in the best shape of any of our shape shifters. I'd already had a chance to catalog most of Jasmin and Donovan's wounds. James and Dominic stood close together, him favoring his right leg, her with nasty bruises ruining the perfection of her otherwise flawless dark skin.
Isaac's ha'bit had been ripped away from his chest to show a peculiar pattern of wounds that made it look as though someone had tried to tear out his heart. James had looked angry, but I'd gotten so used to that expression on his face that it hadn't made me think twice. The same expression now graced Isaac's face and the loss of his trademark calm was one more clue as to just how bad things had been.
Jess looked like she wanted to fold in on herself. Her right arm was a mess of bandages, most of which were stained crimson from their futile attempt to stop the bleeding. She'd taken far more than her share of mental and emotional scars in the fight with Brandon. We'd never particularly been close, but I hurt for her at the thought of what this week must have done to her.
As we crossed the last little distance to our pack, I looked the rest of them over one by one. It was more and more of the same. Even those who'd already been maimed by Agony on his last visit bore fresh signs of abuse. Donovan, Andrew, Addison, everyone.
Donovan took Rachel's mom from us, careful to keep from touching her bare skin. As he laid her down in the back of our group I took in the other side of the cavern. I'd somehow expected to find Agony's men more or less unmarred. I hadn't expected to find them sporting at least one respectable wound each, nor had I expected to find them missing their piercings and tattoos.
Some of them had replicated a smattering of their earlier piercings, but of the whole group, only Oblivion still had his tattoos. I didn't know if Agony had a dedicated group of enforcers who accompanied him on every visit, or if he drew from a larger pool used by the Coun'hij as a whole, but either way these men had lost their cool. Our people had proved that the Coun'hij's men weren't untouchable and managed to do it without crossing that treacherous line that would have let Agony wipe us all out.
It couldn't help but make it that much harder the next time Agony needed bully boys to go terrorize somebody. Alec had somehow guided our people in a kind of guerrilla warfare that had chipped at the enforcers' composure and cohesion. He'd eaten away at them from the inside out. The only question remained what the ultimate price would be. Our people had been too abused to easily forget what they'd been through, and I found myself wondering just how much of his precious store of goodwill Alec had used up.
Agony looked up from his conversation with Marco and shook his head. "Young Graves, your pet human has been free with her promises of your vengeance. I'm quite curious, would you really have killed Marco if she'd been killed for interfering where she had no business?"
Alec's answer came without hesitation. "If Adri felt she needed to interfere with whatever Marco was doing then I have every faith that she was in fact doing exactly what needed doing. In those circumstances I would have indeed killed Marco for harming her. I will always extract vengeance for harm against those of my pack who are loyal to me."
"You are wise to make such a promise only regarding the loyal members of your pack. It has come to my attention that not all members of your pack are as loyal as you might wish."
This was the big surprise. I could feel it and apparently everyone else could feel it too. Agony's people moved a step or two forward, crowding us. That didn't surprise me as much as our response. I got a quick response to my earlier question regarding how much damage Agony had done to our unity. Rather than the entire pack clustering more tightly together, the hybrids on the front and to the outside, we shifted slightly further apart. Instead of a circular group we were a long, irregular line.
Isaac moved closer to Jess and James moved closer to Dominic. Jasmin settled back to where she was nearly touching Rachel and the three newest members all huddled together. Of the entire pack, only Alec and Donovan didn't move from their places. They remained motionless and the pack moved away.
"I assure you that any possible disloyalty will be dealt with appropriately as a purely internal matter."
Agony shook his head slowly back and forth. "I wish it were as simple as that. Members of your pack have been passing privileged information to an outsider for quite some time."
The words made me think back to Mallory's statement that but for the fact Vincent was with Agony, she would have bet on there being a spy in our midst.
"While I would in any circumstance mourn for the resources this individual has no doubt drained from the pack, this betrayal is made worse by the identity of the individual to whom the betrayal was made. I've only just learned today that these individuals collectively planned on breaking off to form their own pack and then launching a complicated plot to topple the Coun'hij from our rightful place of authority."
I knew Agony was lying. I figured it must be even more infuriating for the shape shifters in our pack who could tell for sure that nothing being said was true. I spared a glance at Alec to see how he was responding, but he hadn't moved a muscle since Agony had started his speech.
"If this had happened, untold turmoil would have gripped the world. There would have been no group prepared and able to deal with the myriad threats lurking on the periphery of human society. The weres would have run wild, their population exploding in a way it hasn't for centuries. Worse, the blood drinkers would have likely become aware of our existence and we would in turn have been hunted down by yet another foe whose numbers aren't constrained by paltry things like birthrates."
I started to turn towards Jasmin, hoping for a clue regarding what Agony was referring to. I nearly missed the attack. Agony's men had continued to slowly drift forward as he'd talked. Our backs had been against the wall already. There wasn't anywhere for us to go but closer together, the hybrids crowding around Alec now that the threat was upon them.
Vincent had positioned himself directly before Alec, slightly in front of Agony. It was an optimal position for guaranteeing Vincent a rematch with Alec.
Agony finished speaking, stepped forward as he morphed shapes, and then fastened his claws on Vincent's unprotected human neck. At the same time Abaddon sprang forward and ripped Alison away from Jack and Sam.
I stumbled back into Donovan, my mind reeling, and saw Isaac on the ground, knocked down by Oblivion who had Jess's still form in his arms, hands pressed against her head as if preparing to crush it.
Alec moved in a blur, not towards Agony as I'd expected, but towards Isaac, knocking Isaac to the ground again as he tried to roll back to his feet. "Hold!"
A yelp of pain and a sickening crunch hauled me around to see Jack and Sam ignore Alec's command. The two transformed into wolves and launched themselves at Abaddon in a blur but Marco and another hybrid were ready.
The fight was longer than I'd expected, but still brief and bloody. Abaddon and the others left Alison, Sam and Jack on the ground, bloody heaps that would never breathe again. Alec spent the entire fight with his foot on Isaac's throat while the rest of the pack sat in stunned silence.
Agony stood motionless for several seconds, possibly waiting to see if anyone else would throw themselves at his men.
"I apologize for the manner in which the announcement had to be made, but you've been cleansed of the traitor."
Alec was shaking now, but his foot was still on Isaac's throat, his hand still motioned the rest of us back. "I ask that your man unhand Jessica and return her to us. He's no doubt drained her mind. As such, she's no longer a traitor."
Agony didn't like that. Even I could tell that he'd expected Oblivion to kill her, but apparently he wasn't able to dispute Jess's newfound innocence.
"We'll take our leave of you now."
At a gesture from Agony, Oblivion released Jess and then the other group backed away from us and out of the cavern. Dom, Jasmin and Rachel all rushed over to Jess' nearly still form while Donovan set Alec's mother down and hurried over to check Alison's body.
I meant to help, either with Jess or with the others, but my body refused to function. Instead I numbly watched as Donovan gently closed Alison's eyes and moved on to the other two.
There was a ripping sound and then suddenly a heavily scarred wolf crouched among the remnants of Andrew's wheelchair. The old shape shifter launched himself at Alec with a growl of hatred but his injuries robbed him of the speed and power he'd have needed to have any chance. The attack was so slow that even I saw it coming. Alec reached out and caught Andrew by the throat, never even shifting forms as he slammed the old wolf into the ground.