by Mark Henwick
“Yeah, you blow her away, you asshole,” Evans said between punches. “Smart. What you gonna tell Amaral?”
He stopped hitting me and grabbed under my arm to haul me to my feet. Blades of hot pain stabbed my shoulders again.
I managed to bite down. I wouldn’t give them the pleasure of hearing me cry out. They’d have enough confirmation from my panting and heart rate, which were more difficult to control.
“Well, if you got her, I’ll go. Still some Ute bitches need—”
“Shut the fuck up, and concentrate on this.”
Evans was dominant, but it felt edgy, out of control. He didn’t know how to handle it, and his dominance was feeding on the ugly emissions from the nearby Were. The second speaker, the one who’d started to say something about Ute bitches, he was one of the rapists—there was a sickness coming off him like the smell of gangrene.
Their argument stopped and a second hand went under my other arm. I was dragged between them. The rope around my ankles had been left with enough slack to allow me to take small steps, but I wasn’t going to cooperate.
Even through the pain, my wolf was taking note of the marques around me. Guy on my left: House Romero, now Amaral. Behind me: Gold Hill pack—the rapist with the shotgun. Denver pack on my right—that was Evans, and he was the one who’d kicked and punched me. The one who’d lifted me slowly to ensure I choked.
He was a dead man walking.
The building was quieter now than it had been earlier, when I’d been scouting. No screams, I thought for a moment, and then there was one. The Gold Hill Were heard it too. I could feel his reaction.
There was a change to the sound. It’d been screams of pain earlier. Now it was lower, the voices ragged, exhausted. More a cries of despair.
I opened myself to the Call and tasted the foulness that was Gold Hill, the fading desolation that was Ute Mountain.
Gold Hill were all dead men walking.
I slammed my senses closed again. I couldn’t do anything yet.
I was pushed and pulled down a corridor, into an echoing room.
They let go of me and, as I was falling, a powerful blast of water hit me on my chest, pushing me backward. The bag was snatched away and the water aimed at my face.
It was freezing cold, but by the time they lifted me off the slick tiled floor, I was clean.
I was gagged and the bag was put back on again. Then I was dragged outside and dropped on the ground.
Keep focusing. If you lose track and just wait for the next thing to happen to you, you’re half-way to broken.
I thought I was in one of the courtyards—there was a sense of space around me, but enclosed.
I could hear a fountain, so not the front courtyard, which was a bare flagstone quadrangle.
And a man having a conversation on a phone. Amaral. I recognized the voice. He was keeping it smooth and confident, but he was pacing back and forth.
Overshadowing all of that, a working, so bright in my mind that I could barely hear what Amaral was saying. A hugely powerful working. It buzzed. Colors I couldn’t see pulsed and writhed like electric snakes just out of sight.
I wasn’t sure whether it was the head trauma, the constant pain of my arms or the unsettling working that I was sensing, but I had to struggle to keep from vomiting.
I couldn’t allow that.
This was all part of the deliberate process of breaking me down. The nakedness, the beatings, the cold, the disorientation from not being able to see. My defense was to keep as much dignity as I could and stay focused and aware of my surroundings. Any knowledge about what was going on was useful.
Think of it as one of Ben-Haim’s training games.
I could almost hear him. You’ve made mistakes, yes. You’re where you’re at. Put it behind you. What are you going to do next?
“I understand your concerns perfectly, House Ibarre, because they’re mine as well,” Amaral said.
Ibarre. Athanate House in Portland, Maine. One of the dozen long-established Houses in the USA that weren’t directly associated with Altau. Affiliated through Panethus, but not associated by oath to Skylur. One of the proud Houses whose independence had been under threat from Skylur since the Assembly.
In the relative quiet, I strained to hear Ibarre’s words.
“Proof?” Amaral said. “Yes, I have proof. Earlier tonight we captured the Altau assassin sent to complete the destruction of House Romero. She was attempting to kill me and Diana Ionache.”
“Captured?” Ibarre’s question was clear.
“Yes, captured. I will present her, or her body, at the meeting,” Amaral said. “It’s not known if she’ll survive her injuries at the moment.”
That wasn’t reassuring—to hear I had life-threatening injuries.
Ibarre spoke again.
“No. Not Diakon Trang. As I said in my earlier broadcast, it’s the hybrid abomination, Farrell. You asked for proof and I have her. It was a suicide mission, apparently. Altau must have been hoping to clear up two problems at once.”
A longer response from Ibarre.
“Yes, Ionache will be there too. She’s…” Amaral’s voice hesitated dramatically. “I can’t explain how badly Altau’s betrayal at the Assembly has hurt her, devastated her. I’m also not sure what part she will be able to take in the meeting, but I assure you we have her full backing, and I must stress again, it’s vital that you put all communications with Altau on hold until we speak with one voice.”
Ibarre, as far as I could tell, was taking it as gospel.
“So I can count on you. Excellent. The necessary information is being sent to you.”
The conversation ended.
“Call the Diakon at House Prowser next,” Amaral said to someone. “Schedule a conversation with Amelie Prowser in fifteen minutes.”
Prowser. Old House, even older than Ibarre, even earlier in the US. Big city mantle. Chicago? Or was it Detroit? Prowser was another of the unhappy independents.
How many had he spoken to? How many had he convinced?
I heard Amaral’s footsteps approach and the bag was jerked off my head.
His face was dominated by bushy eyebrows, which gave his eyes an appearance of staring. His neck was thick, his lower lip fleshy. He hid his evil nature under a pensive expression.
“Your lies are going to run out soon,” I said. Talking hurt; my lips were bruised and swollen.
“Too late for you,” he replied. He turned to Evans. “You. Evans? What reason do you think I might have for keeping this woman alive?”
Evans hadn’t been expecting to be noticed. He had his own plans that involved keeping me alive for a while, but he was just about smart enough to know that wasn’t what Amaral was asking.
“Ah. You could build up the rumor that she can help halfies change.” He shrugged. “Might get you some Were allies when you need it.”
“Not a bad thought.” Amaral laughed. “My Adept allies tell me it’s complete shit, of course. No, no, she’s part of something much better. Much bigger.”
He looked at me.
“You’re the key I needed,” he said. “You probably can’t even understand why it needs to be done, but, in your own way, you’re going to be the one responsible for bringing down Altau. All I need is the backing of four other Panethus Houses and I can call a Convocation. That’s just four out of the dozen Houses that are unhappy with Altau, in this country alone. He’ll never survive a vote.”
He was probably right.
“They may be unhappy, but you’ll never convince them,” I said, my voice was hoarse and my throat painful. “You won’t even be able to get them together to call the Convocation.”
Amaral laughed. “I don’t need to get them together. Such is the wonder of old laws written in Athanate, before the concept of video-conferencing. There is nothing to stop us from meeting virtually, and then issuing the call from just inside Altau’s primary domain, which he has conveniently made the whole state of Colorado. As to per
suading them…you’re right. I couldn’t do it alone.”
He turned and gestured. “Bring her.”
The convent’s church was the building between the two courtyards. The main entrance was on this side, where smooth circular steps rippled down from wide double doors.
At a sign from Amaral, his guards opened the doors fully. Evans and the Athanate dragged me over and deposited me on my feet in front of the steps.
This was the source of the working.
Just inside the church, the pews had been cleared and there were about twenty children sitting in two tidy rings around an old woman sleeping in a chair.
Two men and two women, Adepts, stood at the compass points, outside the rings of children, facing inwards toward the old woman.
The old woman raised her head—slowly, painfully—and opened her eyes.
It was Diana. The shock of recognition burned through me. I could barely recognize her. Her hair had gone gray and her face was lined.
Every child mimicked her actions in unison, their faces vacant of any emotion. The four Adepts stood as if statues, locked into their working, only their eyes moving.
Diana saw me and her head dropped again, as if the effort had exhausted her.
I twisted to escape, but Evans’ grip on my arm was too strong, and moving sent jolts of agony through my shoulders.
Amaral was laughing again.
“Give me the right lever and I can move the world,” he said. “Ionache, you said I wouldn’t be able to bring the right lever to bear on you.”
He walked across to me, gripped my bound wrists and yanked them upward behind me.
This time I couldn’t help but scream at the pain.
“I’ve hardly started,” he said. “You understand that it will be far, far worse than this.”
Diana lifted one unsteady hand. The movement rippled through the children.
“You want me to stop? You agree to broadcast a message of support for me?”
Diana’s head nodded slightly.
“Good,” he said smoothly. “Much better. And you.” He let go of my arms and took a handful of hair instead, shook me like a dog. “You need to see the consequences of any attempt to escape.”
He made another of his gestures at the Adepts, hand raised and held up.
Diana’s back arched and she screamed. She screamed and screamed as if there was never going to be an ending to it. The children screamed with her.
“Please,” I shouted. “Stop.”
Amaral’s hand dropped slowly, and the screams died. Diana slumped back into her chair, looking even older than she had just minutes before.
“Just so we are quite clear.” Amaral shook me again. “Those children serve two purposes. They’re sustaining your Mentor, and providing the energy of the working that holds her. They’re not just imitating her—they feel what she feels. She dies, they die. Understand?”
I felt sick. I didn’t dare open my mouth—the things I wanted to say to him would come out whether I wanted them to or not.
I just nodded.
“And rescue? Kill one of those Adepts and the working will kill Ionache and the children.”
Amaral threw me down on the ground.
As he turned away, Diana raised her head once more to look at me.
Some Athanate were rumored to have the ability to communicate telepathically. It wasn’t a conversation with words—everything was done by shared meanings. It was called alectic dialogue.
I certainly didn’t have the ability to do anything like that without Kaothos nearby to relay messages. I suspected Diana and Skylur might have. Sometimes they just looked at each other for a few seconds and then announced the decision that they’d agreed on.
Alectic dialogue or not, when she looked at me, we both knew completely and utterly what the other was thinking.
She’d had to refuse until Amaral presented a threat that had some hold over her which he thought was credible. That had been me. If she’d said she would cooperate earlier, he would have been suspicious.
If I’d said I would cooperate without the threat to Diana, he would have been suspicious.
He thought he had us completely in his control.
He was wrong. Wrong about both of us.
Whatever either of us said or did, whatever hold we pretended that Amaral had over us, it would be his last mistake to make a live broadcast to the Athanate of Diana’s support. Diana would never betray the vision of Emergence and Panethus that she’d built with Skylur.
Instead of supporting Amaral, with her last breath, she’d invoke all her support within the entire Athanate world to kill Amaral and put their weight behind Skylur and his plans.
I’d die. She’d die. The children would die.
I had till the broadcast to find a way out of it.
Chapter 52
I heard them first, of course. A helicopter thudded overhead and landed on the tennis courts. An alpha. Before he even entered the convent buildings, I could feel him like a winter storm front.
This wasn’t Gold Hill. He had to be one of the Confederation alphas.
Amaral was on the phone to Prowser as the alpha led his wolves into the courtyard.
O’Neill. Wind River pack. I recognized his face from the information packet Alex had given me. Iversen’s alpha.
This isn’t good.
O’Neill was wearing bulky work clothes, heavy tan jacket, jeans and shit-kicking boots that would have looked more at home on a construction site.
Behind him were five more Were; all big, rough guys.
All looking like trouble.
The alpha scanned the space, passing his gaze over Amaral with a snarl, and coming to rest on me.
Oh, shit.
Evans half-turned to face him as the Wind River Were marched over to us. O’Neill just looked at him and Evans scurried back out of his way.
O’Neill stood right in front of me, hands on his hips.
“This one? She’s the one that killed my wolves?”
“Yes, sir,” Evans replied, his shoulders hunched.
I felt the alpha’s dominance press on me as if he were trying to push my head down. Nothing personal; it didn’t feel as if he was testing me like Zane and Cameron, but he sure as hell expected me to buckle anyway.
I got my feet underneath me. I was shaky, but none of that was because of O’Neill.
I’d had enough of alphas trying to show me how powerful they were. Playing dominance games. Expecting me to shrivel up before their magnificence. But I was an alpha, too.
It seemed a long way up, but I stood.
He was taller than me, of course. Six-four. Maybe two-eighty. Neck and shoulders like a buffalo. Eyes like a winter lake.
Pissed. Pissed that I’d killed his wolves and pissed that he couldn’t dominate me into cringing at his feet, but angrier than that. Far angrier. Angry in a sort of churning whirlpool that I could sense was being whipped to a frenzy by the foulness of the Gold Hill Call. An anger that needed desperately to find a way out.
So he lashed out at me, a backhand to the jaw.
I saw it coming. There wasn’t a lot I could do to block it with my hands tied, but I was moving as he hit, rolling with the blow. I let it spin me around, and ended up staring right back into his surprised and furious face.
“That make you feel better, asshole?” I said. The side of my face had gone numb and the words slurred.
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Yeah. Just shut up and take it. Like the Ute Mountain women that your men are raping.”
“We’re not!” he shouted at me.
It wasn’t a complete shot in the dark, and it wasn’t everything he was furious about, but it was good enough to work with.
“Just standing by, then,” I said. “Minding your own business.”
That got through to him. Old-style werewolves are paternalistic assholes, and they didn’t come any more so than the Confederation founders, including Wind River. Female werewolves were rare
r than males and the crusty old alphas would be hugely overprotective of their females.
From the evidence here, outcasts like Gold Hill went a different way.
The behavior of Gold Hill to the Ute Mountain women was unthinkable to the Wind River alpha, and yet, here on territory he’d agreed belonged to Gold Hill, he clearly felt powerless to stop it. That Gold Hill Call felt sickening for me. For him, it had to feel like someone sandpapering an open wound.
I didn’t know the Ute Mountain women. If they were outcast, it was entirely possible they were as bad as the men. But I’d had some experience of the results of this kind of behavior from my missions with Ops 4-10. In one instance, we’d saved a group of women who’d been rounded up for ‘medical inspection and re-education’.
Mass rape wasn’t something that only out-of-control werewolves could do.
And the length of time it had gone on here, some of the Ute Mountain women would be dead or dying.
If I took a couple of backhands for them and managed to stop it, I was fine with that.
Another helicopter came in low overhead.
“Just standing by,” I said again, yelling over the noise and downdraft. “How’s that gonna play in the rest of the Confederation when it gets out? What’re the neighboring packs going to think about it? About you?”
He might have hit me again, but Amaral hastily concluded his call and intervened.
“You,” Amaral said to Evans. “Go stop that business right now.” He made an impatient gesture to send two of his Athanate guards along for muscle.
Better late than never, but his intervention didn’t go the way as he expected. O’Neill turned on him, with all that anger still seeking an outlet.
“You said you had control here,” he yelled at Amaral. “It’s a fucking disaster. I screwed with Iversen to get you the timing and you’ve completely fucking blown it.”
“It’s not happening exactly as planned, but things are well within param—”
“Can that shit!” O’Neill said. “The Albuquerque Weres ran you out of town and killed most of your Warders. You can’t even show your face in Santa Fe. Just how is that within parameters?”