by Dean Murray
Taggart nodded respectfully to Heath and I realized that for the first time I was seeing Taggart interact with an equal. He'd chosen to put himself in Isaac's power because it had been the only way to save his friend, but in his own way Taggart was just as deadly as Heath.
He couldn't blind someone, but he was capable of reaching people no matter how far or fast they ran. Heath could kill, but Taggart could make you wish you were dead.
They'd both chosen a path that put them at odds with the only people who could really threaten them. They were kindred spirits in a way that I could never be. I could kill in the dream, but I was never going to be Isaac's apex predator. I was just a girl, a human girl who wouldn't last one second by myself in the world that Isaac and the others dealt with on a daily basis.
Chapter 20
Alec Graves
Shelley High School
Shelley, Idaho
Seeing Alison and her mother reunite after so many months was worth all of the risks that we'd run getting the two of them out from under Kaleb's thumb. Their tears were understandable and nobody minded when the two of them disappeared into one of the white-walled classrooms to catch up.
My biggest concern on the drive up to Idaho had been that Kaleb would track us to the rendezvous point. My second biggest worry had been that something would happen to Rachel. I was incredibly relieved when she came running out of the theater where Jack and the others had set up and threw her arms around me.
"I was so worried about you, Alec!"
"I know, Rach. I'm sorry that you've had to spend so much time alone, there's just been a lot going on and none of it has been very safe."
Rachel wiped away a couple of small tears before they could make it all of the way down her face and then offered a shy smile to Brindi.
"I'm glad you made it back too."
"Thanks, Rachel. It will be nice to be out of the car long enough to stretch my legs for more than just a couple of minutes at a gas station."
It wasn't the first time that Rachel and Brindi had met, but I'd worried that things would still be strained between them. Brindi was fierce when it came to warding off anything that might take me away from her for even a few minutes, and Rachel had obviously not been sure what to make of the injured girl who'd attached herself to me out of the blue.
It was good that they were at least trying to get along.
Rachel took Brindi's hand and pulled her towards the theater. Given Brindi's viselike grip on my hand, that meant that Rachel pulled both of us into the theater after her. James, Jasmin and Jess followed the three of us in and a few seconds later we were all arrayed in a loose circle with Jack and the rest of his people.
I could tell that Jack was bursting to tell me whatever it was he'd learned while in Sanctuary, but I held a hand up, stopping him before he could get started. I looked around at everyone in the circle, both Jack's people and my friends, meeting each of their gazes for a second or two.
"I just wanted to say thank you to all of you. I know some of you are here more because of Jack than any other reason, but I still appreciate you going back to Sanctuary and risking what you risked to help reunite Alison and her mother. I pay my debts, and when you help me pay a debt like you just did then some of that debt transfers from the person you helped to you.
"If there comes a time when you need to cash in that debt all you have to do is tell me. Money is easy, but if it's something else you need I'll do my best to make it happen."
Jack let the silence hang in the air for a few moments before clearing his throat. "I have some news, Alec. While we were in Sanctuary I found out where they are holding Agony. Even better, I found out when they are going to move him and what route they are going to take. If Shawn or his contact comes through with a couple dozen hybrids then there is a good chance we can do this."
I didn't even realize I'd stood up until Brindi tugged on my arm. My shock was complete. I'd been trying to put together a jailbreak for Agony ever since we'd flown back to the mainland, but given the complete dearth of information, I'd stopped believing it was going to be possible to actually get him out.
"Show me."
With the biggest grin I'd ever seen on his face, Jack pulled out an old-fashioned, red three-ring binder and passed it over to me. He'd been busy, extremely busy.
There were topographic maps, weather data, satellite pictures of the enclosure where they were guarding him, and detailed information about each of the cities along the route from the Mexican border up into New Mexico. There were probably only a handful of people in the world who could have put together that much information by themselves along with three separate possible plans while on the run from Kaleb's people and all in the space of just two days.
I was extremely lucky to have recruited Jack to my side. We still lacked the numbers and the top-of-the-food-chain hybrid abilities that we would have needed to go head to head with a group of the Coun'hij's finest, but with Jack on our side we at least had a chance of structuring things so that we could achieve objectives without having to go head to head with someone like Brandon or Puppeteer.
Jack and the others waited while I looked through the binder. Once I was done and had handed it to James, Jack pulled out another map. This one was of a tiny stretch of road on the eastern edge of New Mexico.
"I've gone through the other two plans half a dozen times and if we had to we could give them a shot, but we'd need something like fifty people to have any chance of making them work."
I nodded. I couldn't have put options together like Jack had, at least not as quickly as he had, but I could understand what he was saying.
"How did Kaleb and the rest ever even find him down in Mexico?"
Jack shrugged. "Maybe the Brain Box found him. They've been working with Brandon for months now scouring every bit of intel they could get out of Mexico and parts south. Maybe Agony got sloppy, or maybe it was just sheer dumb luck. Honestly it wouldn't surprise me to find out that Agony has been spending a lot of time south of the border. It's the last place the Coun'hij would have been looking for him, so it makes a lot of sense that he would have gone down there whenever things started getting too hot here in the States."
"I agree with you, an open assault on the compound where they have him right now is too dangerous. Not only do we have to worry about any jaguars who might be in the area, I think the intelligence you've got is probably right that Puppeteer is down there."
"Yeah, it fits too well with everything else I've been hearing. Mexico's power grid isn't as redundant and robust as ours is, but there has been a definite uptick in blackouts down in that area and Puppeteer has been remarkably quiet for the last couple of weeks."
I shook my head in astonishment that anyone had managed to get Puppeteer to remain in one spot for that long. Kaleb relied on Brandon and the largest pack in North America to keep him secure. Puppeteer on the other hand relied on anonymity. He'd killed too many people over the years and his ability was too powerful. People from both sides were gunning for him. If his actual identity ever became common knowledge his life expectancy would drop precipitously.
"I should have seen it. Kaleb has managed to keep Puppeteer leashed pretty well for the last few years, but even for him it would have been an epic accomplishment to keep Puppeteer down there that long just to do a little jaguar hunting."
"Don't beat yourself up about it. Nobody else saw it either. In fairness, Kaleb was probably killing two birds with one stone. The pressure on Brandon and his people seems to be reaching critical levels. For every official op that they run there seems to be another one going on that nobody is talking about. All I can figure is that Kaleb is more concerned about looking like he has the situation there under control than he is about trumpeting his latest body count figure from the rooftops."
I'd known that Jack didn't like Kaleb, but there was something else there besides just the death of Jack's son. Now wasn't the time, but I needed to get him to open up. Jack has as much control as any
one else I'd ever met, but some pressures are too great to be contained indefinitely.
Jack moved his finger over to a small town on the map that was the most likely place for the convoy of vehicles to refuel.
"We could hit them here once they aren't moving, but then we'd have to worry about all of the humans around. I'm not just talking about the fact that we'd be on the six o'clock news either. Kaleb and the rest are going to know that this is their most vulnerable spot. If I was him I'd have at least another six or seven hybrids there at the gas station waiting for the convoy to roll in. If we get into some kind of knock-down drag-out fight with all of those humans around we're going to have some innocent people caught in the crossfire."
I wanted to argue with him. Fights involving wolves and hybrids didn't usually cause the kind of ancillary damage that you saw when you added modern weapons and explosives into the mix, but ultimately it didn't matter. He was right that the Coun'hij would have extra security waiting at the gas station.
All of which brought us to the final option. Jack flipped the map over and revealed another map and some satellite photos taped to the back of it.
"This section of the road climbs a six-and-a-half percent grade for a mile and a half, which means that the truck will be basically crawling by the time it hits the top of the hill. There's a stream that runs along from here to here which is important because it has fed some of the biggest trees I've ever seen all along this section of the road at the top of the hill.
"They don't provide any direct overhead concealment if you're standing on the road, but they will do a great job of giving us cover until the last possible second when we put tire shredders on the road."
"What if they've got run-flat tires on the truck? Brandon used a similar tactic against a convoy of jaguars while we were all down there. I'd be surprised if Kaleb hadn't learned from that little trick."
Jack smiled. "I almost hope they have, but it won't make any difference. By the time that truck hits the top of the hill it's going to be going slow enough that you, James or I could easily run it down in hybrid form and rip the door away from the cab. One way or another that truck will be stopping, and if it stops then the escort vehicles will have to stop too."
I nodded my agreement, and Jack continued. He had everything worked out, including an escape route, but there was one thing he hadn't dealt with. I debated raising the point with him, but ultimately decided against it.
Jack hadn't come up with a contingency for the one thing I was the most worried about because there wasn't a good way to deal with it. Besides, I already had a plan for that particular issue if it arose. It wasn't Jack's problem to deal with, it was mine.
Everyone talked through the plan, asking questions and offering suggestions, and then just as things were winding down Alison and her mother entered the theater. They'd obviously been crying and Alison's mother had ahold of her arm as though trying to stop her from entering the room, but I'd known Alison for long enough to know that it would take more than tears to stop her.
Alison's eyes were red from all of the crying, but she looked better than she had in a long time. She was still too skinny and too tightly-wound, but there was an air of acceptance to her that hadn't been there before. I turned around in my seat so I could meet her eyes as she walked up to me.
"Whatever you've got planned, I want in."
"You don't have to do this, Alison. I meant what I said. If you want to go to ground with your mom you're welcome to do so. One person isn't going to make the difference in what we've got coming up. If I can't turn up another twelve or thirteen people all of this planning won't count for anything anyway."
"I know I don't have to help you out, but the fact that you're giving me the choice means that I don't really have any other option but to help. Guys like Kaleb and Brandon need to be stopped, but I'll settle for being there when Sam gets put in the ground. If a few of the pack back in Sanctuary had stood up to Kaleb then maybe Chloe would still be alive."
She took a deep breath and held it for a second. When she released it she seemed at peace for the first time I could remember.
"I'm not going to sit around and just let Kaleb continue to screw people over."
"Okay, welcome to the team."
I turned to the rest of the crew and gave them another nod of thanks.
"You should all take a long break and get some sleep once we get back to the hotel. I'll go see what I can do about rounding up some more help."
I tossed James and Jack each a stack of bills that I figured would be more than enough to get everyone settled for the night and then exited the auditorium as I pulled my phone out of my front pocket. It was pretty much a given that Brindi would follow me out of the theater, but I hadn't expected the stream of other people that were only a step behind her.
"We want to help too."
Chloe's dad had the look of someone who knew he was going to be refused, but who couldn't bear not to ask. The problem was I knew that I should turn him down. I needed all the help I could get, but I needed fighters and neither of Chloe's parents remotely fit that description.
They were both submissives who'd spent most of their adult lives avoiding confrontation by just giving into the demands of whichever dominants crossed their path.
Kaleb was a power-hungry monster whom you would have expected to turn everyone around him into living weapons, but no pack could function for long filled with nothing but battle-hardened dominants.
You needed submissives to serve as a pressure release valve, and the bigger the pack the more submissives you needed to offset the dominants. A pack the size of the Sanctuary pack, especially one that was as militant as Kaleb had made it, needed a huge supply of submissive wolves and they needed to be extra weak-willed to offset people like Brandon and Vincent.
In their own way, Chloe's parents were as much a product of their environment as Vincent was. In another pack Vincent would have still been bad, but faced with fewer hybrids gunning for the top spot he probably wouldn't have become the kind of heartless monster he currently was.
By the same measure, in a smaller pack Chloe's family would have still been submissive, but they would have been forced to become better fighters. A smaller pack couldn't afford to have as many non-combatants, not if it expected to survive in a world filled with vampires, werewolves and rival packs.
Chloe's parents were stronger and faster than any human could hope to be, but they would be barely more than cannon fodder in a fight against a group of vampires. Putting them up against other wolves, or even worse hybrids, would have been like signing their death warrants.
"Mr. Peterson, I appreciate the offer, but going up against a bunch of Coun'hij enforcers isn't going to bring Chloe back."
"Please, call me Dylan. You're the boss around here. Everyone is working together fairly well, but eventually you and James or you and Jack are going to have some kind of difference of opinion and you don't want to muddy the waters by showing a couple of submissives more respect than they deserve."
"It doesn't have to be like that…Dylan."
He looked at my hand, currently holding Brindi's hand, and shook his head. "I'm sorry to disagree with you, but it does. I've been alive for nearly two hundred years. I'm a submissive, but in some ways that just means that I understand dominance posturing better than most dominants.
"Eventually you're going to have to force obedience out of someone. You probably won't want to, it may even be for their own good, but it will eventually happen. You're not enough stronger than the other hybrids here to force the issue without a fight, not if you haven't played your cards just right."
His wife stepped forward and put her hand on her husband's arm. "Please. We know that we're no good in a fight, but we're willing to learn. Back in Sanctuary we would have been beaten down for trying. Even the other wolves would have resented us for trying to better our standing in the hierarchy, but that's not the case here. You need fighters. Let us help in whatever way we can while
you turn us into fighters."
My beast had a very decided opinion as to what course of action I should take. She was right, I needed fighters, but if I said yes then their lives would never be the same. Even if they didn't die the first time I was forced to throw them into a fight, they would still be different people by the time I was done with them.
In a world where it was kill or be killed a pair of non-combatants were worse than useless, but I didn't want to drag them into my world. They'd had a taste already. Nobody could spend time around murderers like Brandon and Vincent without getting glimpses of the world that civilization was designed to protect us from. Not only that, they'd already lost their only daughter to Kaleb's pointless war with the jaguars.
They knew what they were getting into, but I still almost refused them. Chloe's mom loved her husband despite the fact that he wasn't the ultimate killing machine, despite the fact that he couldn't protect her from someone like Vincent. There was a chance when I was done with them that they wouldn't like each other, that they wouldn't even like themselves.
"Very well. Jack's plan was to pay humans to leave our vehicles at the bottom of the cliff, but it would be even better if some of our own people were to drive them there a few minutes behind the Coun'hij motorcade."
"Thank you very much!"
Dylan shook my free hand with such enthusiasm that it was almost painful to watch. Someone old enough to be my grandfather shouldn't be so overcome with excitement when I allowed him to do something he'd been wanting to do for years. It wasn't right for me to have this kind of power over other people and yet there wasn't any other way to keep my friends safe. Other than maybe Jack, I was the best killer we had.
I was the only one who could hope to keep a dozen strong-willed predators all moving the same direction, all working towards a common goal, but even that wasn't the scariest part. The scariest part was the question of what I'd become if or when my ability finally manifested.