by Eileen Wilks
She snorted. As if that would work.
Mika’s tail shifted across the sand, coming to rest beside her. She shook her head, trying to dispel the anxiety that chilled her in spite of the overheated air of the creche.
The egg in front of her had developed a long crack. It rocked slightly as its occupant attacked it from within.
Lily’s hands were resting in her lap . . . in fists. Slowly she straightened her fingers and shook them out. Time to get back to her midwifery. She stretched out a hand and her mind and touched the dragon.
FORTY-SIX
AS they approached Mr. Smith’s house, Demi grew sick with nerves. It was just her, Ruben, and Mike—Ruben in the lead, her and Mike behind him. The door was recessed with a semicircular fanlight above it. The porch was tiny, too small for Demi and Mike to step up onto it with Ruben when he rang the doorbell. They waited, listening to the voices coming from the backyard.
Mr. Smith really was having a party.
They’d discussed how to do this—at least Ruben and Mike discussed it. Demi didn’t have an opinion. Mike had wanted to go straight to the backyard, where the brownies reported that seventeen people were gathered, including Mr. Smith. More room to maneuver, he said. There were people in the house, also—two in the kitchen who were probably a caterer and a waitress. Plus one man had come in to use the bathroom, and four more men wandered throughout the house. Those four were armed, the brownies said. So were at least two of the people in the backyard. Ruben and Mike both thought the armed men were mercenaries.
Almost all the guests were male. The brownies had seen only three women.
Ruben wanted to go up to the front door, and he was in charge, so that’s what they did. There were legal reasons for that, but mostly he wanted it because of the two people standing on the edge of Mr. Smith’s small front yard—a skinny man and a chubby woman. The woman held a camera with the WGVT logo on its side.
A desperate man might behave rashly, Ruben had said, but having a television camera aimed at him would strongly discourage a violent reaction.
Someone was sure taking his time answering the door. Ruben rang the bell again. Demi rubbed her stomach.
Mike leaned close and whispered, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, either.”
“It won’t. Nothing I can’t heal anyway.”
“Your bone isn’t finished healing. If you—”
The door opened.
It was not Mr. Smith. This man had a hard face, skin much darker than Demi’s, and he wore a black jacket over his black shirt, even though it was July and hot. He didn’t say anything.
“We need to speak with Edward Smith,” Ruben said.
“You aren’t on the guest list.”
“Tell your employer that Ruben Brooks and Demi McAllister are here to speak with him. I believe he’ll overlook our lack of an invitation.”
The hard-faced man did something with his chin and talked at the air. He had a radio, she realized, like the police sometimes used, with the mic on a thingee around his neck and an earbud in one ear. Then he stood there, staring at them, not saying anything.
“He gives me the creeps,” Demi whispered to Mike.
Mike didn’t whisper. “He’s trying for intimidating. He’s not there yet, but I’ll bet he takes comfort in knowing he can creep out a seventeen-year-old girl.”
The man did not like that. He scowled at Mike. That made Mike smile, but it didn’t seem to be a friendly smile somehow. Then his radio talked to him. She couldn’t hear it very well, but the lupi with her probably could. “You can come in,” he said, stepping back and opening the door wider.
“Thank you, but no,” Ruben said politely. “Mr. Smith needs to come to us.”
More talking to the radio. More waiting. Demi’s stomach didn’t like waiting. She started stimming, moving the fingers of one hand down at her side where it wouldn’t show too much. “Greensleeves” was such a soothing song.
Suddenly Ruben turned around and gestured at the two people waiting on the sidewalk. They jogged forward just as Mr. Smith came to the door.
He looked so much the same. That was the only thought in her mind as she stared at him. He was still a round little man with a shiny forehead. He didn’t look scary at all.
“Ruben Brooks?” Mr. Smith said. “I certainly hadn’t expected you to turn up on my doorstep. And Demi.” His voice got all sad. “I’m glad you’re all right, but—” He broke off, staring behind Demi. “Who are you?”
“Morrie Peterson, WGVT News,” said the skinny man. “Are you Edward Smith of the NSA?”
“I don’t give interviews. If you—”
“Edward Smith,” Ruben said firmly, “you are under arrest on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit arson, and multiple counts of the unlawful use of magic. There will be further charges,” he added, “once we’ve recovered the children you’ve abused, but those will do for now.”
Mr. Smith looked at Demi with eyes meaner than Mrs. MacGruder’s had ever been. The hate was so clear that Demi took a step back—then it vanished beneath his usual expression. “You’ve been listening to this poor girl. She’s not stable, you know.”
“She’s been very helpful, but we’re hardly going to rely solely on the testimony of a minor.” Ruben cocked his head. “It wasn’t really a very good conspiracy, you know. As long as no one suspected, as long as we weren’t looking, you went undetected. Once we knew where to look, however—”
“Get off my porch. Off my property.”
“No, sir. You are under arrest. Please step out onto the porch.”
“This is absurd! You can’t arrest me. You’ve been removed from your position.”
“I am still a legally empowered agent of Unit Twelve, however.”
“I don’t believe you.” Mr. Smith’s pink tongue darted out and licked his upper lip. He half turned and said something Demi couldn’t hear to the hard-faced man, then he demanded, “Where’s your warrant? I insist on seeing a warrant.”
“Did you think Jim Mathison was wholly your creature? Or that ambition would prevent him from listening to me?” Ruben shook his head. He sounded as if he felt sorry for Mr. Smith, which made no sense to Demi. He also made it sound like he’d spoken with the current head of Unit 12, and he hadn’t. It must be some kind of trick. “Your Gift allows you to manipulate others when you’re with them, but the effect isn’t permanent, and you don’t really understand the people you use. Take Eric Ellison, for example. When he—”
Mr. Smith moved to one side. “Nick. Get them out of here.”
And Nicky stepped forward—only he didn’t look like Nicky anymore. He looked like a drug addict or an AIDS patient or a Holocaust victim—haggard and rail-thin, with long, dirty hair. His arms hung down by his sides as if they were too heavy to lift. And his eyes weren’t right. They weren’t right at all.
Ruben and Mike flew backward.
Mike collided with the camera-carrying woman. And someone seized Demi’s wrist and yanked her. She tried to resist, but it was the hard-faced man who’d grabbed her, and she couldn’t even slow him down. He dragged her into the house as easily as if she were three years old. Someone slammed the door shut.
“Nicky!” she cried. Mr. Smith was talking—yelling—but she didn’t listen. “Nicky, you have to stop doing what he says!” Nicky was looking at her with those terrible eyes. She wasn’t sure he knew who she was. She wasn’t sure he knew who he was anymore. “He’s a bad person, Nicky, a really bad—”
Mr. Smith slapped her. Hard. “Shut up. Just shut your stupid mouth, you stupid little slut. You won’t be testifying for—”
“Don’t,” Nicky said. His voice sounded flat. Like a synthesized voice. Like no one was really speaking at all.
Mr. Smith seemed to try to gather himself together. He was breathing hard. “Nick, she’s hysterical. I had to slap her to—”
“That’s Demi,” Nicky
said in that no-one’s-home voice.
Someone screamed out back.
The front door boomed. Wood cracked and splintered and the front door fell all cattywampus, two of the hinges having pulled loose along with the lock, but not the third, so that it dangled from that one anchoring point. Mike came barreling in and a gun went off once, twice—and just as Demi realized no one was holding her anymore, Mr. Smith grabbed her.
He was almost her height and nowhere near as strong as the other man. She fought him. She might have gotten loose, but something hit her hard on the side of her head.
The bright, ringing pain stunned her. Not for long, but long enough. By the time she could pay attention again, Mr. Smith had one arm around her waist, holding her tightly against him. His other hand held a gun to her head. The muzzle pressed right where he’d hit her. It hurt. “Stay back!” he screamed.
He had to scream because of all the noise out back—people screaming and guns firing. The hard-faced man lay on the floor. He wasn’t moving. Mike and Ruben were both inside now. Mike was sort of crouched, as if he was about to spring. Ruben was on the other side of the door, and he looked ready to attack someone, too. But neither he nor Mike moved.
Demi bit her lip. The noise out back told her that Ruben had signaled for the other part of his plan to begin—the part they’d hoped not to use. Two of the Wythe clansmen were now wolves, racing around stirring everyone up. That was to create a distraction. The other two would have stayed men and they’d come help as soon as they could.
But the other mercenaries inside the house got there first—two men who came racing down the stairs and a third man—Demi didn’t see where he came from—who stopped beside Mr. Smith. They all had their guns out and looked angry and ready to shoot.
“I need to be extracted,” Mr. Smith told them. “You two—Brooks and whoever you are. Get on the floor. Flat on the floor. Now,” he cried when they didn’t move. “Do as I say, dammit, or I’ll shoot her. I swear I—”
Nicky interrupted. “But that’s Demi.” A thread of emotion had crept into his dead voice. He sounded . . . puzzled.
“Nick.” Mr. Smith still sounded angry. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was persuasive, almost caressing. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“I trust you.” The words were rote, mechanical.
“You need to go with one of these men. Our nation’s enemies have caught up with us, and we have to retreat. But he’ll take care of you, and I’ll join you shortly.”
“Nicky,” Demi pleaded. “He’s lying to you. He’s a liar.”
Nicky’s face didn’t change. His arms still hung limp at his sides. But he turned to face Mr. Smith. “You hit Demi. You hurt her. You promised you wouldn’t hurt her.”
“I didn’t have a choice, Nick. You can see that.”
“You lied to me.”
“No, of course not. She’s misguided, Nick, confused. You can’t—”
He stopped talking and screamed. Something warm and wet splashed on her shoulder and her head. The arm around her waist went loose and the gun barrel was suddenly gone and she dropped to the floor and rolled, getting away. Shots rang out and they were loud, so loud she couldn’t stand it, and she huddled in on herself, her head down, her hands over her ears, and she was screaming, too, like the people out back, but she couldn’t get away from the deafening sound.
All of a sudden it stopped. All of it. The shots and the screams—even hers, because her voice shut itself off as if surprised by the silence.
Someone came up to her. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her head buried in her arms, so she didn’t see him. But she knew who it was.
He rested a hand on her back. “You’re okay,” he informed her.
“Mike.” That’s all she could say. “Mike.”
“I’m going to do your thinking for you now. You said I could. Keep your eyes shut.” He didn’t wait for an answer, lifting her easily to her feet and holding her the way Rule had done a couple times. He pressed her head to his chest with one big hand. “You don’t want to look yet.”
“He’s still alive,” Ruben said.
“Mr. Smith?” she asked in a wavery voice.
“No,” Mike said. “Your friend. Your friend killed Smith and Smith’s men shot him. They’re dead now. Ruben and I didn’t have time to stop them without killing them.”
“I need to see him. Mike, I need to see Nicky.”
After a moment he nodded and took her to see her friend. She tried not to look at anything—anyone—else, but couldn’t quite manage it. There were a lot of bodies.
Ruben knelt beside Nicky. He stood when Mike and Demi got there and gave a nod of his head, then started telling people what to do. His men were there, she realized. The ones who hadn’t turned into wolves.
She paid no attention. Her legs kind of gave out and she sat suddenly. “Nicky.”
So much blood. His whole front was bloody. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth when he looked up at her. He was very badly injured. Maybe he was dying. But his eyes . . . they were blurry, unfocused, yet his eyes looked like him again. “Nicky,” she said again. “It’s Demi. I tried to rescue you. I tried really hard. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it.”
Slowly his eyes came into focus. “You’re okay?”
She nodded, then realized he might not be seeing very well. “Yes. You’re not.”
His mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile. “Are you crying?”
“Of course I am.”
His eyes closed. “I tried not to believe him. At first I didn’t, but after a while . . .”
“That’s his Gift. His charisma Gift. You couldn’t help it.”
She wasn’t sure he heard her. “Amanda. Don’t let her near you.”
“She’s scary.”
“Evil. She’s evil. Cerberus . . . takes over. And the drug. The drug made me bad. I did terrible things. I thought . . . he said they were enemies . . .”
“The drug is really a potion. It’s magic, too. It wasn’t your fault, Nicky. None of it was your fault.”
His eyes opened again. This time he did smile. His lips moved just a little as if he was trying to say something, but no words came out. He lay there smiling up at her until his body jerked and his breathing stopped. A little more blood came out of his mouth. And his eyes died.
FORTY-SEVEN
RULE ran. Every footfall sent a bolt of pain through his head. He ignored that. The small body in his arms was so limp. Limp and bloody.
He’d been running from one squad when he ran into another one. They’d been doing that awhile, he and the others with weapons—spraying a few bullets to get the soldiers’ attention, then running away. Luring them away from the lair. It wouldn’t have worked if the brownies hadn’t stolen a lot of their personal radios—and twice disabled the CO’s comm unit.
They hadn’t yet resorted to shooting at the soldiers, but it was only a matter of time. They’d failed entirely to find Nicky.
At last he reached the village green. There—there she was, the little brownie healer. Shisti. She was bent over another patient.
“It was shrapnel, I think,” he gasped as he reached her and dropped to his knees, laying his small burden in front of her. “Not a bullet. It hit him in the back.” And Rule hadn’t realized it. He’d been creased by a bullet himself. He’d gotten away, dizzy but knowing he’d been lucky. He’d run, unaware of the small life bleeding on his back until he stopped.
“Ah,” she said sadly, and stroked Dilly’s ashy cheek. “Bend down more. I have to touch your head to help it.”
“I’m fine. Help Dilly.”
Big green eyes blinked once. “Rule, I can’t. He’s dead.”
Dead? No. He couldn’t be dead. Rule had run so fast, tried so hard—and Dilly had died in his arms, his passing unnoticed. Dimly he was aware of having closed his eyes. Some stupid, instinctive effort to hide the way they’d filled with tears.
“Rule!” someone called.
Jason. That was Jason. He forced the tears back, swallowed the grief, and became Rho once more. “Here.” He stood.
Jason was hurrying to him, talking on a phone. He sounded excited. “No, I found him. Here. You tell him.” He held the phone out to Rule. “It’s Ruben Brooks. He called on the only number he could find for the brownies—the reservation hotline.”
“Ruben? This is Rule.”
“Good. I request strongly that you cease all attacks and harassment immediately. The Army should begin retreating at any moment.”
Rule almost dropped the phone. “What? How did you—”
“Smith is dead, killed when I went to arrest him. Several of his people were at his house at the time. One of them fell apart quite nicely and confessed. With that on record, I was able to get through to the president. She’s still angry with me for having become lupus without her permission,” he said dryly, “but at least she was willing to listen. She’s ordered the troops withdrawn.”
“It’s over.” He spoke with more disbelief than relief.
“Your end is. Things will be messy at this end for some time yet.”
“And Danny—Demi—is she okay? Mike?”
“Mike’s fine. Demi got knocked around a bit, but nothing serious. She’s grieving, though. Her friend was killed.”
“Nicky?” Rule’s voice was sharp. “Why would he be there instead of here?”
“Apparently he was supposed to provide emergency security. That didn’t work out the way Smith intended. When Smith threatened Demi, it shattered the man’s hold on Nicky. He killed Smith, but Smith’s men shot him.” Ruben sighed. “He was in rough shape. Very rough. Whatever they’d been doing to him . . . and we still don’t know where the other children are. The man who confessed—Charles Bradley, goes by Chuck—didn’t know much about that end of things, and the others have lawyered up. Oh, you should know that two of the conspirators are unaccounted for—a woman named Sharon Plummer, who acted as houseparent and headed up the research staff. Also a man named Tom Weng whom Chuck says supplied the potion.”