Bite Back Box Set 2

by Mark Henwick

  Wow. But why?

  The commset bleeped, and Skylur raised it alongside his head.

  I could hear the voice on the other end.

  “Flight CP 800 has just passed two thousand miles en route to Beijing.”

  “Thank you.” Skylur ended the connection. Strangely, his voice had changed as he spoke on the comms. He sounded as tired and low as he should have been.

  He switched channels on the commset.

  “Tarez. I’m leaving in five minutes. It’s all yours,” he said without explanation. Then he turned to us.

  “Come with me. Hurry.”

  Face grim, he led us at a run towards the back of the building.

  Chapter 71

  Dawn was breaking and shafts of pale light from floor to ceiling windows broke the corridors up into segments. My steps felt lighter. A little lighter; I had reached resolution at a level in my personal life, but the situation in the paranormal world was worrying.

  It was silent and empty until we came out at the rear of the studios.

  Four Athanate in full battle gear stood outside. These guys had not been up all night. They were fresh and alert. They were guarding an unmarked van parked near the door, similar to the ones Altau had been using for security, but bigger.

  “Thank you,” Skylur said to the guards. “Please go to the front of the studios and await instructions from House Tarez on channel 8.”

  When they’d left, Skylur lifted a panel on the back. The van door was controlled by a palm reader and a retinal scan. And a six digit passcode.

  Ben-Haim would approve.

  Skylur opened the door and we climbed in after him.

  The door sealed behind us, and lights brightened.

  In front of us was a rippling sheet. It looked like a sheet of water, falling from the roof to be gathered and pumped back up. It even sounded like it. But water wouldn’t bend like that, and what little sense I had of the energy told me this was an Adept working. A powerful one.

  I was about to ask for an explanation, when the sheet bulged and parted eerily to let Alice Emerson, House Altau’s Adept, walk through.

  “House Altau, House Farrell.” Her lips stretched in what could be called a smile, but underneath she was as tense as a bowstring.

  “As you recommended, we’ve waited until Huang’s over two thousand miles away,” Skylur said, and gestured at the working. “Are you confident this is going to stop his Adepts from sensing what happens?”

  “The working is as close to your shielding of the Lyssae in Haven as I could make it. If they’re that far away, they should be out of range.”

  “Of what?” I asked.

  “Out of range to sense Kaothos,” Alice said.

  My world lurched.

  What?

  “She’s not dead?” I shouted. “Where is she? Where’s Tullah?”

  I even looked around, as if Kaothos had wrapped Tullah up in an invisibility cloak to play a prank on me.

  “The plane that is carrying Elizabetta down to Albuquerque will be returning with Tullah and her parents, but we can’t afford to wait,” Skylur said. “Besides, that’s not where Kaothos is.”

  This was getting crazier and crazier.

  “You see,” Skylur said, “Diakon Huang was telling the truth, as he knows it. A young dragon is almost helpless against the lure of a powerful host. Kaothos got too close, and she fell.”

  Too close? Who was powerful enough…

  Then I got it. My jaw gaped.

  Skylur took my arm and we walked through the working, followed by the others.

  Diana lay on her bier as she had in the main hall.

  The shield working curved like a bubble, completely containing the space. It itched. An itch I couldn’t place or scratch.

  I stared at Diana. “But…”

  “She appears to be dead, but she’s not. Kaothos and Diana have created a state so close to death that I can’t tell. More importantly, neither could Huang. But we can’t leave it any longer, or we risk her becoming Lyssae.”

  “How do we wake her?”

  “Not we. You. She was most specific,” Skylur said. “She insisted.”

  “Oh, come on! What am I supposed to do? Alice?”

  The pair of them, Skylur and Alice, just smiled.

  “I kiss her? Like she’s the goddamn Sleeping Beauty?”

  “Come now, Amber, that’s the human’s fable. What would the Athanate equivalent be?”

  I frowned.

  “Blood?”

  Skylur nodded, his eyes fixed on Diana. He pointed to his wrist, and then handed me an ornate knife, very old, with a black, curved blade. Sharp.

  I nicked a vein in my wrist and held it against Diana’s lips.

  The Blood turned her pale lips rich and red.

  “It’ll take a while,” Alice murmured, fingers feeling for the neck pulse.

  “But how can Diana host a dragon spirit?” Alex asked. “Is she hybrid? An Athanate and Adept?”

  Skylur shook his head. “She’s Athanate. But what are Athanate? Former humans who use the energy, just as Adepts do, but in limited ways. Some of us are less limited than others.” He smiled again and brushed Diana’s cheek with his hand.

  “The full powers of the older Athanate come to them from exercising more control over the energy, making it less by rote or instinct, and more by deliberation.”

  “Older,” I said. “Kumemnon. That title for Diana that they keep using. It’s something to do with age. What does it mean exactly?”

  “Come, you’ve studied the language,” Skylur said. “Kumemnon is a compound word. Take it apart.”

  Was my basic grasp of Athanate enough? “Mem is age. The non at the end, that’s a comparative. It means most? Age-most…eldest? Diana’s one of the eldest? Yes? But what does ku at the front of a word mean?”

  “It creates emphasis,” Skylur replied quietly. “To show something is unique.”

  A little shock to my core.

  “So Kumemnon is the eldest? Diana is the oldest Athanate in the world?”

  “That’s what the elders say, even in Carpathia.” Yelena shivered. “Having met her, I believe it. They honor her, even the Elders who host the Library of Hutsul.”

  The oldest Athanate. I shivered too. How old? What must we seem like, to her?

  I turned to Yelena. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She shrugged. “I thought you knew.”

  So much more to learn.

  Diana hadn’t moved. There was no pulse, no sound I could detect.

  “How long does this take?”

  Alice sighed. “Not sure. This is not a science.”

  She held a mirror next to Diana’s nose. There was no fogging.

  “Try talking to her,” she said.

  “Diana.”

  Nothing. My small wound had healed. I re-opened it with the blade and pressed my wrist against her lips.

  I bent down and whispered in her ear. “Kumemnon.”

  Did her lips feel softer against my wrist?

  Still nothing.

  “Mentor, I need you.”

  A movement. A phantom breath on my wrist? Nothing on the mirror, but something stirred in the emptiness and brushed against my mind. I got goosebumps all down my body.

  It needs something more.

  Feeling awkward, I pushed Alice out of the way and leaned over Diana until my neck was brushing her mouth. A little shift and I could feel my pulse thudding against her lips. I concentrated every sense into that beat. Felt it pick up and start to race with anticipation.

  I closed my eyes.

  Like Victor had said. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

  “My Blood is yours,” I whispered.

  Fangs.

  I could feel them manifest in her mouth.

  But not enough. I still needed something more.

  What had she said to me when she’d visited me in the night? Something about deserts and rain.

  I couldn’t remember; the whole conversation see
med blurred. It must have been when she altered my memory of Kaothos for Huang to find. I could remember agreeing to something. But all the words escaped me.

  I could remember that Athanate love poem. That had deserts and rain. Jen always quoted it when I bit her. I tried that.

  In the desert, I am your rain,

  And in the darkness, I am your light.

  I make this gift with love that we both may live.

  A sigh from her, a definite sigh.

  “You said you’d wait for me,” I whispered. “I’m here.”

  Had her lips moved against my neck? Was it just my imagination?

  My pulse thundered in my ears.

  I swallowed. “Trust thyself—” I began.

  “…and another will not betray thee.”

  Her words were silk against my skin. And behind the softness came fangs.

  I gripped the edges of the bier so I wouldn’t move. Her fangs buried themselves in my neck, and she pulled.

  “Oh, God,” I muttered. Lights exploded in front of my eyes, and my knees began to buckle.

  Alex’s hands caught me. Steadied me.

  “What’s happening?” Jen.

  Worried. But there was nothing to worry about now.

  Skylur. “It’s all right.”

  The world went pale. Pleasure flowed up out of Diana and soaked into me, poured out of me like I was a leaky pot, and washed over everyone in the van. Gasps and staggering.

  And following that burst of pleasure, streaming up from Diana: another presence.

  The van filled with mist that rolled and spun. It made a sound, like the sizzle of water on hot coals.

  I knew who it was, but I didn’t dare move with fangs in my throat.

  “Kaothos!” I hissed.

  She played her half-manifesting trick, filling the van with shimmering, sliding scales and rubbing against everyone.

  “Amber Farrell,” she hissed back with her laughter. But she stopped teasing.

  From their reactions, I could tell everyone in the van could hear Kaothos.

  “Mmm.” Diana’s arms reached around me. Her fangs withdrew and she ran her tongue over my neck. Aniatropics stung for a second before some analgesics kicked in. The area went sort of numb, leaving just an afterglow of pleasure.

  “Damn you,” I murmured, blinking. “Damn both of you for doing that to me. I thought…”

  “Sorry, Amber. Both of us are sorry.”

  She gave me one last squeeze and then pushed me away gently before stretching out an arm.

  Kaothos twisted and manifested as an iridescent blue lizard a foot long. She perched on Diana’s arm. “Yes, Amber Farrell,” she said. “We are sorry for tricking you.”

  “I don’t believe you, lizard.”

  Kaothos opened her mouth and hissed in mock disbelief and outrage.

  “That’s a clever trick, manifesting as a lizard,” I said. “Somehow appropriate.”

  “We have learned many new tricks,” Kaothos said, waving one leg.

  “Really? So, how powerful are you now, lizard?” I said. “Can you predict the future, for instance?”

  “I knew you were going to ask me that,” Kaothos replied, and we all laughed.

  “Kaothos has been hiding with Diana since Carson Park?” Alex asked.

  “She has,” Skylur said. “It was difficult, for both of them.”

  I had a flashback to strange visions of running through rooms, knowing someone was hiding from me. And that night when Diana had visited me: I’d woken up to a fleeting impression of dragon wings.

  “Kaothos wasn’t strong enough to defend herself against all the Empire’s Adepts,” Diana said. “I knew that right away. She didn’t agree at first, but she realizes now that hiding was the best option. She’s eager to return to your friend Tullah.”

  “Huang’s Adept saw Kaothos die in Amber’s memories,” Alex said. “That was…”

  “A false memory,” Skylur said. “Amber agreed to let Diana make that change to protect Tullah and Kaothos. Breaking the lock on Diana was very nearly the death of Kaothos anyway. A tiny twist at the last moment was all that was required. But of course, once it was done, the memory that it had been done had to be erased as well.”

  I stared at him. “You intended all along to allow him to probe my mind?”

  Skylur inclined his head. “There was a limit to hiding Diana from him. It seemed the best way. I’m sorry that, once again, you’ve been our unwitting stalking horse.”

  “Well, this time I agreed to it, apparently.”

  The thought of my memories being altered, even with my permission, gave me cold sweats.

  Diana remained lying down, looking weak. That didn’t stop her and Skylur from exchanging a rapid update in Athanate of what had happened while she was ‘dead’.

  “Very well,” Skylur said to me. “There is no other way I can see to do this. Huang must not hear, so we will need to keep the knowledge of Diana and Kaothos to the fewest people possible.”

  “Until Kaothos is strong enough to stand against the Empire,” Diana said with clear confidence that it would happen.

  “While we wait for that, you cannot come to New York with me, Diana. You and Alice will need to stay in Denver.”

  “Good. Exactly where a Mentor should be,” she murmured.

  “Tullah and her parents as well. Even after we get Kaothos back to Tullah, we must keep this secret.”

  Kaothos crawled in beside Diana’s neck.

  “We must lie to friends,” she said. “Amber Farrell told me that I should not lie and I have come to believe she is right. I do not like lying.”

  “We need to,” Diana said softly.

  “Not forever, but we will need to mislead the rest of the world while we guide it to safer waters,” Skylur said.

  “It will not happen in a rush,” Diana said. “We are not at the end for Emergence.”

  Skylur laughed. “At best, we’ve reached the end of the beginning.”

  He clapped his hands. “We will all need time to recover before the next step. You as well, Amber. The ‘trick’ to getting Kaothos back to Tullah may be difficult, and we can’t start until Diana’s recovered. Once we start work again, we have a lot to do. Discover exactly how useful your Carpathian connection will be. Find out if your Blood will reduce crusis and infuse hybrids. Explore exactly what Adept powers you have. So until then, you and your House rest. My orders. Christmas with your family. Food and wine and television. Cards and presents. Go. Now.”

  “Go,” Diana echoed. “I will come to you with Tullah, and this creature.” She flicked at Kaothos, who sizzled quietly and rubbed herself against Diana’s shoulder.

  Chapter 72

  We didn’t all go straight back to Denver. Six of us helicoptered in to Jen’s ranch in the Rockies. The place she never took other people back to.

  I was expecting a mansion, but it was a ranch, a working ranch, and Jen left us for an hour to talk with the ranch hands and fuss over her horses.

  Yelena, Julie and Keith had gone crazy. Luxury accommodation, and they were making preparations to spend the time outside. Snow camo, backpacks, dried food—the works. They’d even changed the lube on their guns.

  “You sure?” I said to Julie. “Gonna be cold out there.”

  A snowstorm had followed us in and chased the helicopter back down to town.

  On a clear day, the ranch overlooked a steep valley. It was already blanketed in snow, and the wind was blowing ten-foot drifts up against the steep sides of the house. With the wind chill, it had to be around 15 degrees below freezing.

  Julie was acting twitchy—checking and double-checking her equipment.

  “That’s the whole point,” she said. “Yelena wanted us to show her the basic Ops 4-10 training for extreme conditions.”

  I bit my lip. I had an opinion about the whole point of this little expedition.

  “Well, remember all that stuff about the importance of shared bodily heat and so on,” I said.


  “If I recall correctly, I was the one who trained you, back in the day.”

  And she was absolutely right. She’d shown me how to dig holes under the snow, packing the sides so they wouldn’t collapse, closing the snow over us to retain heat and then occasionally breaking through to breathe. We’d done that in Alaska, and just thinking of it made me shiver.

  “Well, then, Yelena will be in very good hands,” I murmured.

  Julie glared at me.

  “Not getting any warmer,” Keith said, as he limped toward the patio doors. “Let’s go.”

  Yelena was holding something up and taunting me. A cellphone.

  I reached for my pocket.

  Yeah. My cellphone.

  She laughed and was outside before I could reach her.

  A flurry of snow swirled around them, and then they were just shadows fading into the white.

  I got cold just watching, until Alex’s arms wrapped around me from behind and I was warm again.

  “Are they really going to be guarding us while they’re burying themselves in the snow?” he said.

  I snorted. “No real need for guards. No one’s getting in or out at the moment.”

  I twisted around and nuzzled his neck.

  Mmmm.

  “What if Basilikos had left a team up here on the off chance that we—”

  I kissed him to shut him up. There was plenty of time to get back to being paranoid when we were in Denver.

  We heard the front door open again. Another blast of cold air and snow eddies came in with Jen.

  Alex and I met her in the hall, kicking her boots off after stomping them free of snow.

  “How are all the little horses?” Alex said. I elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Safely tucked in and happy for the moment.” She didn’t rise to his teasing.

  We met in the middle of the floor and did one of our three-way hugs.

  Strange that it could feel so good and so unsettling at the same time.

  Jen had something in her pocket and I shifted to stop it from pressing into my side.

  She saw.

  “I guess this is as good a time as any.” Her voice wobbled.

  Jen? Nervous?