Bite Back Box Set 2

by Mark Henwick

There was a sick certainty in the pit of my stomach.

  We’d gotten nothing from this house about his other criminal activities, but I was sure now that Forsythe was not an opportunistic rapist. He was a sadistic, organized rapist.

  And he had been since he’d raped me. Maybe even before.

  Now he had a show which was going to feed him with young girls desperate to make it in LA.

  He’d had twelve years of this kind of behavior because I’d let him. Because I’d run away.

  “Not your fault,” whispered Yelena, sensing what was going on in my mind.

  I couldn’t agree.

  “We have to go,” I said. “Or I’m going to vomit.”

  Chapter 44

  Yelena flew us into Van Nuys in the early morning.

  I envied her having something to focus on. I dozed restlessly, unable to fully relax, coming back time and again to blaming myself for what Forsythe had been able to do over the years. For what he might still do, if I didn’t stop him.

  It was still dark and Elizabetta was waiting for us with one of the Altau patrol vans and a security team. A stark reminder to me that there was more going on in LA than my intention to do something about Forsythe. I had responsibilities to the Athanate and the Were, but I intended to spend every minute I could spare getting something on Forsythe that could nail him to the wall. Or, failing that, finding a way to make him disappear without it coming back on me and the Athanate. Now that Ingram was involved in Emergence, I was beginning to realize we needed to watch our step as far as working outside the law. The last thing we needed was him telling the government that we were a bunch of lawless renegades.

  It was Yelena who broke the silence as we settled into the back of the van. “What do we need to know this time?”

  Elizabetta combed fingers through her long, blonde hair and closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Easy things first. Ibarre’s strategy of trying to undermine Skylur by discrediting you has gone nowhere for him. But what he has managed to do is to focus the meeting’s attention on the detail of possible plans for Emergence.”

  “Cart before horse,” I said, and she nodded.

  “Specifically, the meeting’s been looking at legal systems, because of Ibarre,” she went on. “Correia has jumped on this, pointing out that Skylur is calling for backing on Emergence without any detailed plan on how Athanate legal systems might interface with human legal systems.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “It depends on the governments of countries at the time. What’s Skylur supposed to do? Plan every single detail and caveat and alternative plan before they’ll agree that he can actually start the project?”

  Of course, Emergence had started back in Denver with Agent Ingram, but it was up to Naryn to decide who else would be allowed to know.

  “And it’s not just the government, it’s also dependent on the creed of the Athanate in any one country,” Yelena said.

  Elizabetta held up her hands. “There you have the last day and a half of debate. But everything may change now.”

  “Why?”

  We eased out onto 405. Traffic was still light, but getting heavier every minute.

  “Panethus and the Hidden Path are neck and neck,” Elizabetta said. “They argue points, they lose some, they gain some. However, Diakon Huang has indicated that today he will grace us with his official presence and join the debate. However they calculate the weight of his vote, he represents a large block, so whichever side of the argument Huang backs, wins.”

  “I’m supposed to stay away from him,” I said. “Did Skylur specifically say that I should attend the meeting today?”

  “Huang requested your attendance as liaison for the Were.” She grimaced. “Just don’t let him catch you without Skylur or Tarez around.”

  Crap.

  “Has Huang given any indication of which way he’s likely to go?” I asked.

  Elizabetta shook her head.

  That made me uneasy.

  Huang and the Empire might have an interest in the Assembly, but Kaothos was still what Huang was really after.

  Enough to make Huang come down on the side of Panethus, if there was a chance we could find her and Kaothos for him?

  What had Skylur said? Nothing is as important as Emergence. What if Huang persuaded him that the only way that Kaothos could work for Emergence was if she was embedded in an Empire Adept community?

  We came off Ventura and turned south on Hollywood. The van slowed in traffic.

  “There’s nothing more I can add to that at the moment,” Elizabetta said. Her heart rate ramped up and an evasive look came into her eyes. “But I have news on Forsythe.”

  I immediately felt a stab of guilt. I wasn’t responsible for making Elizabetta spy in the way she was—that was Skylur. But by using her to find out things about Forsythe, I had to share that responsibility.

  “I haven’t said how much I appreciate what you’re doing,” I said to Elizabetta. “Not just for me, for all of us.”

  Her smile was pale.

  “I’ve had a lot of support from you and your House.” She sighed and looked up at the roof of the van. “It’s…difficult. But you know, the worst is not what people think it is. For me, the worst thing is that Jefferson Reed’s actually a good man. A good man. He doesn’t deserve what’s happening. What I’m doing to him.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do, but I felt awkward not doing anything, so I took her hand and held it. This talk about Reed was a diversion; she was reluctant to say something. I’d wait; we had time.

  “I’m not sure how much longer it can go on with Jefferson,” she said. “Not because of any problem of mine. No, it was stupid of me to allow him to meet you two at the restaurant.”

  “I understand,” I said. “No one can blame you.”

  She smiled again, a fleeting movement of her lips. She clearly thought someone would blame her.

  “Jefferson went from being a bit puzzled about what had happened to me since I left LA, to being downright suspicious after he met you. I found new data searches on his laptop for both of you, and of course that opens a whole new can of worms. Once he finds out how little he can find out about either of you, he’s going to start wondering what we’re all really up to. My position will be compromised, and you all will be on the LAPD’s radar.” She bowed her head. “Well, what happens, happens. I’ll need to tell Skylur today.”

  “We’ll tell him together.”

  “There’s another thing,” she said.

  “Hmm?” I could feel that this was another diversion. I was itching for her to get back to Forsythe.

  “Dante.”

  I felt a spurt of irritation at Dante. Was she going to get me into trouble with Skylur?

  “What?” I said. “She went AWOL. She’s back?”

  “No, but she did call Dominé.” Elizabetta ran a hand through her hair again. “She’s probably safe.”

  A chill in my belly: payback for my self-centered irritation at Dante.

  My House. Mine. ‘Probably’ wasn’t good enough. “Where?”

  “She’s got an unpaid job as a gofer on Forsythe’s new show. People do it all the time in the industry. You know, meet the stars, gain ‘experience’, catch a break.”

  Now it felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. “What the hell does she think she’s doing?”

  Elizabetta managed a genuine smile at me.

  “She’s trying to impress you, Amber,” Elizabetta said. “Trying to prove she’s worthy. Worthy of your House. Not a liability, but your own intrepid spy. She’ll be safe enough if she keeps her head down. Anyway, even if he knew who she was, there’s nothing Forsythe could do on those sets. They’re full of witnesses.”

  “I…” I shut up. How could I say to her that my House shouldn’t risk themselves in any way to gain information on Forsythe, when I compared that to what Elizabetta herself was doing?

  Elizabetta didn’t seem to notice how much it’d affected me, her attention firmly f
ixed on what she’d been avoiding talking about.

  She started speaking, the words coming abruptly. “The data I’ve been pulling off Jefferson’s computer? I’ve had time to work through the subdirectories. It’s information from everywhere, federal databases right down to reports from his CIs, his confidential informants. It looked like background stuff Jefferson was collecting in case they ever got to arrest him. I read it and thought it was exaggerated until I read the federal report. I’m not sure even Jefferson believed what’s in those files until he got hold of that FBI report.”

  “You’re going to tell us he’s a serial rapist, using his TV show to find girls,” I said. “We know.”

  She shook her head, refusing to look at me.

  “That’s…” she swallowed. “That’s his sideline.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not diminishing what he does with those girls…what he did to you and Tove. But the FBI report says there’s someone in SoCal who’s a big wheel in an international trafficking network.”

  “Trafficking,” Yelena said. “Women and children for the sex industry?”

  Elizabetta nodded.

  “And the CIs say it’s Forsythe?” I said.

  “No one credibly names him, but the description is a fit: someone based in LA, big in the industry, and who has contacts in the DA’s office and the police. And there are details on murders that all point to Forsythe. Jefferson and his boss are certain it’s him and that he’s a kind of regional boss for the southwest. This network, they traffic people into the States from all over the third world and a lot of them come in through Forsythe’s organization.”

  Like a business. Trucks come in, trucks go out. Warehouses. Inventories. Accounts. Wastage.

  The horror of it leached into my head.

  “Jefferson doesn’t think the shows are a completely separate thing,” Elizabetta said. “Young women apply from all over the country. The production teams hold ‘cattle calls’ in every major city, and the lines to get in stretch for blocks. You’re talking thousands.”

  “It wouldn’t be difficult,” I said. “They separate out a few.”

  Gullible girls. Girls desperate for fame and fortune, or just desperate. Girls who’d leap at a chance for a ‘special callback’. Girls with no one looking out for them.

  “That’s his specialty, that’s what bought him his position in the network. He supplies girls kidnapped here to be sold as sex slaves elsewhere. There’s a premium…a premium in some places for young American or Canadian girls with spirit. Especially strong or privileged girls. The buyers value that. They value it because they enjoy destroying it.”

  Yelena muttered something in Athanate, then followed it with: “He is sick. They are all sick.”

  The van stopped.

  We’d arrived at the conference center.

  I stumbled out of the van in silence, feeling dazed.

  The early sounds of the city filtered in: cars, sirens, voices, all floated on the cool morning breeze. And against the lightening eastern sky, a helicopter was silhouetted, thudding away somewhere on its business. Traffic? News? Hospital?

  None of them aware.

  The three of us hugged each other, seeking some thin thread of comfort to shield us from the horrors of Elizabetta’s words.

  It all felt unreal, remote.

  We’d driven here down broad highways that swept through the Los Angeles basin. We’d passed down bright streets decorated for Christmas shoppers, their neon happiness broadcast to the watching night.

  And we’d slipped by all of it, cocooned from this waking world, its colors sliding across the inside of the van like a message we couldn’t read.

  A million people stirred around us, readying themselves to join the day’s pulse of life, to pour through the LA streets, obedient to the call, following the rules.

  And through that throng passed others, unseen or just glimpsed. True monsters, that took the shape of men and remained invisible. Creatures that did not heed the call or follow the rules. Formed as if from the shadow cast by the world. People could pass their lives without seeing the monsters, but the monsters created an undertow, a riptide, pulling the brightness of life down into the darkness, where it became invisible with them.

  Chapter 45

  “You guys go ahead,” I said as we walked past Altau security and into the conference center.

  Small groups of representatives swirled in the entrance hall. The sound of subdued discussions was like bees in a hive.

  I gave Yelena a shove toward the main auditorium.

  I just needed a minute to find my balance again. Forsythe was my fault. I’d gotten beyond thinking of resolution, and the ‘if only I had done something’ phase. I was into trying to work out the best, quickest way to stop him and his criminal network. But it was all complicated by the tasks I had for Skylur and the new Assembly.

  If I got the Were to help, would that be acting as syndesmon?

  I walked a circuit around the hall, trying to put aside what I’d learned about Forsythe so I could think more clearly.

  I was lost in thought, safe inside a conference center that was protected by Altau security. But not all enemies were outside; I remembered that too late when I found my way blocked.

  “Diakon Huang,” I managed to say. He’d approached soundlessly, soft footed. He was flanked by his sharp-eyed Adepts.

  “House Farrell. Forgive me, but you appear disturbed.”

  “I am. It’s private.” Damned if I’d talk to him about it.

  He was plainly dressed: lace-up brown leather shoes, dark pants and a freshly-pressed white shirt, open at the collar. Clean shaven. Thick black hair combed. Face solemn, serious and concerned.

  The Diakon of the Emperor of Heaven looked completely ordinary, and yet his power seemed to radiate from him like a lamp.

  And he shared a quality with Skylur: in a group photo, you’d miss him completely.

  Look him in the eyes? Entirely different.

  A dangerous man, as I’d been warned, and one who was staring at me the way a snake looked at a rabbit.

  But I could stare down a brick wall; he wasn’t going to make me blink.

  I got a sensation of his eukori. Like a flag waving in the wind, in slow motion. A silent pendulum on a grandfather clock.

  I mentally recoiled. I did not want him in my head.

  How easily had he snuck up? More importantly, how did I stop him?

  “I apologize,” he said. “It is not my nature to intrude, but there are times when events conspire to eclipse the comfort of good manners and the benefit of harmony, and this is such a time.”

  He’s right about that.

  “My task here is of the highest importance,” he said. “Not for me. Not even for the Emperor. For everyone, the entire world, but most especially for your friend and her dragon.”

  I believe that.

  “It is vital that my community of Adepts are able to offer their assistance at the earliest possible time. To delay is to encourage a danger with unimaginable consequences.”

  Yes. Yes. I can completely see his point.

  “The knowledge and appreciation of dragons is at the heart of the Empire. A tragedy for a dragon would be a tragedy for the Empire, and for the world. We know an immature dragon cannot channel the amount of power we sensed without injury.”

  I’d channeled that power, a fraction of it, before Kaothos took over. It’d pushed me over the edge into rogue. Fragments of the night’s memories floated before my eyes. Her wings blotting out the stars. Fire in my veins. The hideous pain.

  “Yes. The dragon is injured.” His voice glided quietly over me. “In danger. It needs our help.”

  The ‘it’ was jarring. Kaothos wasn’t ‘it’. Kaothos was ‘she’. His words suddenly were making me angry.

  Your anger is the great strength that carries you.

  Speaks-to-Wolves had said that.

  Yeah. Anger was an old friend I could use. A friend I was used to. I
t cleared my head, which felt unfocused and somehow soft.

  I blinked. Wake up. Wake up!

  How long have I been standing here?

  “I request your assistance in finding Tullah and her dragon, House Farrell,” Huang said smoothly. “For her sake, as well as everyone else’s.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” I said. The words leaked from me. My voice felt rusty.

  I wanted to help him.

  No! I wanted to help Kaothos.

  That’s the same thing, isn’t it?

  “And yet…” his eyes lost their intensity, as one of his Adepts whispered in his ear.

  My knees felt wobbly.

  What had he done? What had he seen?

  “We have no time,” Huang said. “Our conversations have always been most interesting, House Farrell. I sense you could help us. As we could, no doubt, help you. Perhaps with support for Altau. Or even an invitation to accompany Tullah and her dragon to the Empire. There, we would honor you for what makes you different and unique, unlike so many of the Athanate here, even Panethus, who are not your friends.”

  Skylur and Tarez appeared, smiles fixed on faces.

  Huang took a step back.

  “Or perhaps,” he said, “the help you need would be something so simple for us. Something on the issue which had you so disturbed as you arrived at this meeting.” He turned to Skylur. “For which we are now called to the conference room, I believe. House Altau, House Tarez.”

  Skylur dipped his head formally and Huang walked off, surrounded by his Adepts.

  “Did he just hack into my head?” I asked, my heart racing.

  Skylur snorted. “Not with completely success. We need to keep better watch, Tarez.”

  He also left for the conference room as Yelena came trotting back, looking concerned.

  Tarez, normally so cheerful, was looking angry.

  “Be careful, Amber,” he whispered as we moved toward the entrance. “You mustn’t get cornered by him. You can’t defend yourself against his telergic abilities.”

  I shivered. In the middle of the conference center, Huang had managed to slip out from under Altau’s watch and find me. Sooner or later, he would again. All he would need would be a few minutes.