by Mark Henwick
Chapter 54
They tried to talk me out of it, but I wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. And since neither Felix nor Naryn was here, there was no one who could make me.
More armed Were gathered around: about twenty Denver pack to balance the Cimarron. Mary was there as well, pushing through the barrier of bodies, the tail end of a working drifting around her like a veil. Probably she’d helped conceal the marques of the ambush party.
Yelena moved behind me, massaging my shoulders, while I made my speech to the gathered Were.
“Diana Ionache is one of the most powerful, most influential Athanate in the entire world,” I said. “She’s being held captive by Amaral and his pet Adepts—under a kind of compulsion.” No time now to explain the intricacies of Diana’s position and the Adept working. I took a deep breath. “While we’re standing here, Amaral is putting together a broadcast in which Diana will be forced to come out in support of him—and it will look like she’s doing that voluntarily. We have to get her out before that happens.” Or before she refused, and was killed. But they didn’t need to know that part. If they thought she would refuse, they wouldn’t see any reason to go in after her.
The Cimarron alpha, who Silas had introduced as Don Stillman, narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Begging your pardon, but this sounds like Athanate business. Not Were.”
I closed my eyes. Time was ticking away.
“It’s everybody’s business,” I said, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice—and my eukori. “Amaral’s going to use that endorsement to sway Panethus houses that are on the fence over to his side. They don’t know he’s allied with Basilikos. If enough of them support him—and they will, if Diana comes out in his favor—he’s going to cross the river into Colorado and issue a challenge to Skylur. That was the whole purpose of claiming both sides of the river for Gold Hill. Panethus will split, Altau will fall—and Basilikos and the Confederation will start a war throughout North America. None of us want that.”
I looked directly at Stillman. “I appreciate you coming here more than I can say,” I told him. “Now I need to ask you to back me on this. If I get Evans to take me in there, I can disrupt the broadcast and free Diana. All I need is a team to get me out once that’s done. Will you do it?”
I held his gaze, and for a minute I thought I had him. Then he shook his head, a tinge of regret in his eyes.
“I brought my wolves here ’cos we owed you,” he said. “You put yourself in harm’s way to help Ben, down in Albuquerque, and I reckon it might be my great-nephew’s alive ’cos of it. I also got a bone to pick with Gold Hill.” He grunted and shifted his shoulders. “But attacking the Confederation is crazy talk, almost as bad as taking on Gold Hill while they got the Confederation right here at their backs. I’m sorry about this Diana lady, but I ain’t convinced that a few words from her is gonna bring Panethus down, and start World War III.”
“You let the Confederation get a foothold in New Mexico,” Silas said, “and they’re going be your neighbors.”
“So Felix told me. But see, we’re plains Were and their name, well, it’s the Central Mountain Confederation. I don’t rightly see that their ambitions would extend to the Cimarron territories at all.”
From where I was standing, he sounded more hopeful than convinced on that point. But he was adamant in his decision. “I’m not saying I like it, but I reckon we’re even. You go back in, Amber, and I say that’s your choice. I won’t put my pack at risk to get you out again.” He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “Now, I shook hands with Felix, and he treated Ben well. He’s a good neighbor, too, so I have to stand by him on the Colorado border.” He squinted. “Ain’t so good a neighbor as I’d cross it for him to fight some Athanate battle.”
Having him preventing Amaral from crossing that border would be a big advantage. Silas and I knew it. We didn’t want to risk that by arguing, until we had something more to persuade him.
“Been a pleasure,” Don said. “Thank you again, Amber, and I wish you luck.”
He assembled his Were and they trotted off into the gathering darkness.
Damn.
We couldn’t just stall Amaral; he would only move and try again. We needed to stop him here and now.
When Plan A fails, you move to Plan B. And C, and D—all the way down to Z if you have to. I’d learned that in Ops 4-10. Time was slipping away—and my shoulders were killing me.
“Gather ’round, people,” I said. “We have about ten more minutes before O’Neill is going to start wondering what happened to his convoy and come looking. I need to get into Amaral’s camp and take him out if I can. Then I need to break the lock on Diana. Finally, I have to get her out of the middle of House Amaral, the Confederation and assorted Adepts. How much backup do I have?”
“Not much,” Silas admitted. “Our pack is squatted across the river from Amaral’s camp, but there aren’t nearly enough of us to take on everything he’s got. Not if Cimarron and Cheyenne won’t play ball—and they’re not.”
“Cheyenne?” I asked.
“Naryn took your advice on helping Cheyenne,” Tullah said, walking up with Julie. Julie had a rifle slung over her shoulder, the long sinister barrel sticking up. I guessed it’d been her precision shooting that took out the drivers.
And was that you, lizard? The exploding barrels? I asked.
Yes. Tullah made your fertilizer bombs and I lit them. Such pretty little explosions. We could have made them even prettier with your help.
I smothered a chuckle.
“The problem is,” Silas was saying, “Cheyenne won’t move beyond Altau’s domain without Naryn. And Naryn’s still on the way.”
“Look, we should call Felix,” Julie said. “We need to report in and, who knows, Naryn might have caught up with us.”
Sound tactical sense, but I itched at the delay.
Silas had a military radio and within a few seconds, he had Felix on an encrypted channel.
Besides the Were, Felix had representatives of the Denver Adept community with him, led by Weaver. My House was there, too, apart from Alex, who’d gone with Bian to look for me in Taos, and would need to be recalled. Weaver had been invited because Amaral had Adepts as allies. But Weaver wanted to parley, not fight. His people had agreed to mask the packs’ presence the same way that Mary had done for Silas’s team, but that was the extent of their contribution so far.
It seemed like Naryn was my only hope.
“He’s still a couple of hours away,” Felix said, his voice crackling over the radio. “Is there some way we can delay this broadcast?”
“Parley?” Mary suggested.
Silas grunted. “About what?”
My mind started clicking. “Border access,” I said. “Look, Amaral can’t call a Convocation without physically being in Colorado. That’s why he had Gold Hill announce that their territory overlapped the border—so he could call in the Confederation to protect him in his ally’s claimed area in Colorado while he issues the challenge to Skylur.”
“And Gold Hill’s claim infringes our territory,” Felix said. “If we dispute it—tell Amaral that we’re not letting the Confederation or their allies over the border—then he’ll have to talk to us.”
“What if he just decides to do his broadcast and then fight his way in?” Silas asked.
“He can’t issue the Convocation challenge in the middle of a battle,” I pointed out. “What about offering him temporary access if Gold Hill’s claim is retracted? Once you’ve told him that, say the parley will resume in an hour, to give him time to discuss it. Then we come up with another problem. Anything to hold him up until Naryn arrives.”
“I don’t like one-plan strategies,” Julie said. “What about a diversion as well? Or something to get more people into Amaral’s camp?”
There was a moment’s silence. I was shivering in the cold and time was ticking on. Julie’s question was good, but we didn’t have time to gold-plate.
I op
ened my mouth to suggest we move when Tullah spoke, fingering the necklace.
“What if we offered to do the Were-changing ritual?”
Everyone turned and stared at her.
“Why would Amaral be interested in that?” Felix asked.
“He wouldn’t,” Tullah said. “I was thinking about the Confederation. What if you told the Confederation alpha that we know how to do the ritual, and if he withdraws his support from Gold Hill and leaves Colorado alone, we’ll share it with him?”
“Do you think he’d believe us?” Mary asked dubiously.
“Say you’ll show it to him,” Tullah said. “A full-blown ritual should take up plenty of time.”
“But we don’t know the ritual,” I said.
“And I can’t put Olivia through that,” Felix added. “I have her here, where I can keep an eye on her, but making her vulnerable in that way is too much to ask.”
“Then do it on somebody else,” Tullah said impatiently. “Someone who can already change. How’s the Confederation going to know? It’s just to buy us time, and to get Amaral’s allies arguing with each other.”
“She has a point,” Felix said. “It just might work.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “We have Plan A and B. We’ve got to get this moving.”
They couldn’t disagree. Night had fallen. The convoy would be overdue.
Mary and Tullah came and hugged me, carefully avoiding my shoulders.
Kaothos. We have a deal.
We have, Amber Farrell.
The lizard sounded somber.
After Tullah was Julie.
“I’m staying on this side of the border,” she said, and patted the rifle. “Plan C.”
“The place will be crawling with—”
“Crawling with amateurs. I’ll be fine. You’re the one in the fire.” Julie didn’t do kisses, but she tried a hug and then left at a run.
The part of the story that still needed completing was Evans; he needed his memory scrambled to the point where he thought he’d managed to escape.
I took a step toward him.
He was awake and aware of what we’d been talking about. He cringed back against the side of the SUV.
I had no idea what I needed to do, but I’d almost compelled my sister once. Maybe it was an instinctive thing. Before I could try anything, Yelena pulled me back.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
I could hear an eagerness in her voice.
“Just what’s necessary,” I said. “Don’t screw him up any more.”
“Yes, Boss, of course.”
“And…” I frowned. Was I getting too complicated here? “Convince him it was the Santa Fe pack.”
She grinned, hauled Evans to his feet and shoved him into the driver’s seat of our SUV, forcing him to push the dead man away from him. In seconds there was blood all over him.
He struggled until she bit into his arm, her fangs piercing his coat and shirt.
His eyes grew dazed and his limbs flopped.
She stopped biting and arranged him, kicking and shoving his unresponsive body until he was sitting with his hands on the wheel and his feet on the pedals.
I climbed into the back and crouched in the footwell again.
Yelena reached in and started the engine.
I could feel her eukori reaching. It had felt so pleasant when I’d sensed it at the airfield, but now it had a harsher edge.
“Had to get away,” she whispered. “Getting dark. Attack on the convoy. Driver was shot. Guard got out and he was shot too. Got in the driver’s seat. They were coming in from all sides. Santa Fe Were. So many. So confusing. Had to get away. The bitch was in the back. That’s what was important. Had to get her to Amaral. Had to go, fast as I could. They were shooting at me. I kept my head down. Foot full on the gas. I drove around the other trucks.”
Evans was staring out the front windshield without really seeing anything. His mouth was moving.
His right foot was on the gas so the engine was racing.
“Put it into first gear,” Yelena said.
Evans frowned. He pressed the clutch and shoved the gearstick forward.
Yelena closed the driver’s door quietly.
“Ready,” she said. “Now, go!”
His left foot lifted and he jerked as if he’d just come around after being stunned.
Yelena leaped away.
The SUV lurched forward and suddenly he was swearing and spinning the wheel, weaving between the remaining trucks too fast.
It’d be a hell of a way to screw it up if he crashed.
But luck was with us. We slithered up the hill, past the burned-out first truck of the convoy, and then back down to the track. They shot at us and I heard rounds striking the SUV and piercing the light bodywork.
Easy, guys. I’m in here, remember.
And then we were around the next bend; Evans was punching the shattered windshield out and thinking he was some helluva hero.
Chapter 55
The plan held up well through the guards around Amaral’s camp.
They let us through without delay, and redeployed to face an attack from the Santa Fe pack coming in from the south.
Evans played his part, blood-spattered and wild-eyed. Almost too well—Yelena’s work in his head seemed to have pushed him further over the edge.
“You fucking bitch,” he shouted at me, laughing. “They tried to get you back and they failed.”
The Confederation had parked their convoys off the track about half-way up a hill. We stopped there.
Evans dragged me up the rest of the way, taking every opportunity to jerk my arms until I almost passed out from the pain. He was enjoying it.
“I get to keep you after Amaral’s finished with you tonight,” he hissed in my ear. “I’m looking forward to all the fun I’m going to have.”
“I knew you were a sick shit, Evans, but you’re stupid as well. You think Amaral can afford to leave me alive?”
I might as well have been talking Vietnamese for all the effect it had. When we came to it, I tuned him out to concentrate on what was happening in the middle of Amaral’s camp.
Stars blazed above us. It was full night now; the air was clear and the temperature was in free-fall.
The hill flattened out into a meadow and then became broken ground before falling into a gorge. There were braziers in the meadow, not burning brightly, just glowing with embers that provided sufficient light for paranormal eyes. The Confederation reserve was camped there, waiting while they were deployed or sent out on patrol.
The hillside was rocky; the biggest stones looked like old, weathered faces sunk into the earth. The ground was streaked with pale fingers of a light snowfall. The wind wove its way through tall ponderosa pine and stirred the snow like ghost hair.
It was flat at the top of the hill as well, where I was.
Here, Amaral had set up a windbreak in the shape of a U, using the sheets of black fabric I’d seen at the convent. The fabric billowed and waved in the wind.
Inside the break, he had a freaking conference table set up, with chairs. And behind that, I could see Diana surrounded by the children and Adepts, exactly as she had been in the convent. Her head was down and her eyes closed. I could feel the working hissing balefully at the edge of my consciousness.
Amaral himself was sitting at the table talking with an Adept. He was dressed in a business suit, ready for his appearance. Guards stood in loose groups inside the shelter of the windbreak. Too many for me to get anywhere near Diana.
They had diesel generators behind the break, thumping quietly in the night and powering a full mobile recording studio—cameras, lighting, the whole works—with operators and assistants rushing around. From the look of it, they were getting ready to go live any time now.
Come on, Felix, time to start the distractions.
Screens came up. I recognized a couple of the faces from meeting them at Haven.
One of the screens was focused on Dia
na, zoomed in close and cropped tight so that nothing of her surroundings showed.
If she wakes up and thinks the conference has started…
Not quite yet. Amaral realized we were there, and he and the Adept walked over.
One of the cameras followed Amaral.
If that went live…
My wolf growled.
Kill. Kill.
I wouldn’t need my arms, just my jaws. That’d look good on Athanate prime time—me getting shot by Amaral’s guards while I tore his throat out.
Felix, where the hell are you?
Amaral was focused on the upcoming conference. He barely listened to Evans’ story, continually glancing over his shoulder.
Another screen came up as another House came online. That made eight. There were probably four in there that would support a Convocation.
But there was a more immediate threat. The man with Amaral was Taggart, the leader of the Taos community of Adepts. A man who thought he might be as good as a Truth Sensor. He was suspicious, asking questions that Evans couldn’t answer.
Felix? Come on.
But plans have a way of not surviving contact with the enemy.
Evans was focused on Taggart. Amaral’s guards were behind him. I had a clear path.
I tensed myself, felt my wolf salivating.
Kill Amaral. Hardly a perfect solution, but maybe the best we could do.
Then O’Neill was running up the hill, shouting. And Liu removed the shielding he’d been holding over the Were on the Colorado side of the gorge. Their Calls were sharp and hard as ice knives in my chilled mind.
Suddenly every Confederation Were on the hill knew there were three large packs facing them across the state boundary, and a little night maneuver had changed into a possible pitched battle.
Chapter 56
Amaral felt the shift, even if he couldn’t feel the Calls. “What’s going on?” he asked sharply.
Evans was forgotten.
“Denver,” O’Neill said, glaring at me as if it were my fault. “Cimarron and Cheyenne.”
“Cheyenne? They’re part of the Confederation. Is this some kind of trick, O’Neill?”