Authors: Dean Murray
I was beaten
and I knew it. Carson couldn't have beaten all four of us, at least
not without a fight, but he could kill me whenever he wanted to. If
he decided to shift forms and rip my throat out, I wouldn't even be
able to muster up the concern to get up off the ground.
Actually, I
couldn't even remember sitting down. That should have brought me to
my feet angry with having been controlled, but I couldn't seem to
muster the strength to do
anything
.
"Do you
have yourself under control, Alec?"
"Yeah, you
can release him."
"Are you
sure? His anger will probably resurface. All I do is temporarily
divert the emotions. They are still there and he's going to naturally
revert to whatever his underlying state is, plus a bit of
overcorrection."
"So if he
normally likes me then he'll calm down, but if he's secretly been
harboring a lot of dissatisfaction with me being top dog then he'll
try to rip my head off?"
"Yes,
that's generally how it seems to work."
Alec sighed and
put the bag containing his swords down. "Okay, thank you for the
warning. Jasmin, Jess, I'm going to need your help to take him down
quickly if he attacks me. He can have a shot at me in a few days
after his mom is safe if that's what he really wants, but right now
we need to make sure that he doesn't get so hurt that he can't go
riding off to her rescue. I can't do that by myself."
Jasmin nodded
and looked behind me. I'd heard Jess come running up a few seconds
before, but it hadn't mattered because I'd assumed that she would
stay out of any kind of confrontation between Alec and me. It was
just the way things worked. In fact, I should have been seething in
rage that the girls would interfere like that, but I still couldn't
manage any kind of strong emotion.
"Okay,
Carson. Please make sure that Brindi doesn't get pulled into this.
You can release him whenever you're ready."
It was like
standing under Niagara Falls. One second I was calmly sitting on the
ground and then in the next all of my emotions crashed back through
me. The strength of the rage was so profound that I shifted forms
without even meaning to, but then once I'd transformed, there wasn't
anything left inside of me that could compel me to continue forward
and attack Alec.
I heard Jess
and Jasmin drop to the ground and felt twin waves of power as they
shifted onto four legs, but they both stopped after one or two steps
once they realized that I wasn't moving towards Alec. I let my hybrid
shape shrink back to the form I spent the most time in, and then
turned toward Carson and gave him a dirty look.
"You're a
profoundly disturbing individual to have around."
He gave me a
slightly sardonic nod and then pointed at his cabin. "That
probably explains why I've never found it necessary to add on a guest
room."
I turned back
to Alec and shrugged. "I'm sorry for overreacting, but I guess
you know how I really feel now."
"It's
okay. I know you're worried about your mom and I should have done a
better job of controlling the situation as it unfolded. You said that
she's been abducted by vampires. What makes you think that?"
"I just
got a call from her burner phone with a ransom demand. They want five
million dollars brought to a drop sometime tomorrow in LA. I told
them I wouldn't move until I knew she was okay. When they put her on
she called them parasites."
Alec didn't
answer for a minute and my stomach knotted up as I realized for the
first time that he might not be willing to give me the money I
needed.
"If it's
about the money, I'll do whatever I have to in order to pay you back,
Alec…"
"It's not
the money, James. I'd drop ten times that much for any of you in a
heartbeat. No, it's a question of what we're getting into and the
best way forward. If this was just a matter of dealing with normal
humans, then I'd say our best option would be just to hire someone to
take the money to the meet. I don't have the right contacts for that,
but I'm sure Jack does."
"Right,
but we're not up against humans. I need to get to LA before tomorrow
morning to make sure that I'm in position to make the drop."
Alec had
crossed the distance between us while I'd been talking and now he
clasped me on the shoulder.
"I need
you to hear me out, James. This is about more than just your mom.
This is the first time that we've had one of our kind captured by a
group of vampires. If it was just one vampire then we'd have a chance
that whoever captured her wasn't a mentalist, but if she's right and
there is more than one of them, then it's almost guaranteed that
there's a mentalist there with her."
The realization
of what he was talking about rocked me back onto my heels. I'd been
too blinded by my concern about my mom to see the larger picture, but
what he was describing was every shape shifter's biggest fear.
Vampires were individually weaker than a hybrid and they had to get
pretty old before their special abilities grew to the point that they
were a threat to one of us, but they were capable of reproducing
extremely quickly.
As things stood
right now, they were focused on each other. They spent all of their
time trying to kill other vampires and make sure that nobody was
edging in on their territory. Not only that, they currently kept
their population down to the point where they could safely blend in
with the humans and feed without being noticed, but if they decided
that there was some kind of external threat out there, then all bets
were off.
We could stand
against a few older vampires or hordes of younger, inexperienced
vampires, but hordes of younger vampires who were being guided by
mentalists that could pick us out of crowds would promptly overrun
us. Keeping the vampires in the dark where the shape shifters were
concerned was the one thing that both we and the Coun'hij agreed on.
"What are
you saying, Alec?"
"I'm
saying that even if the vampires haven't realized that your mom is
more than just a normal human already, there's a good chance that
they are going to figure that out between now and when you make the
drop. You're probably going to be walking into an ambush."
"That's a
chance that I'm willing to take."
"I know
that, but I'm not so keen to see it happen. We need to find a way to
get enough of us there to have a chance at clearing out the entire
group of vampires. Ideally we need to make it there early enough to
be on the ground and do some recon before the meet goes down. I want
to get your mom back for you, but if we get her back without being
able to follow the vampires back to their home base then we've
failed."
"That's
going to be a problem, Alec. LA is full of cars. You're not going to
get the kind of scent trails that you'd get from a city on the East
Coast."
"I know. I
might have an idea or two, but if you'll give me ten minutes to talk
things over with Jack before you go running off, then there's a
chance that he'll have a better option than anything I can come up
with."
"Fine,
give him a call, but do it while we're walking back towards the
vehicles. I've already wasted too much time as it is."
"It's a
deal, just let me grab my bugout bag from the cabin. Brindi, you can
stay here with Carson or come with us, but we'll be moving fast so if
you're coming you'll need to stay out of the way."
Brindi nodded
and ran towards the cabin to get her things. Jess and Jasmin were
already back in human shape and pulling new sets of clothes on over
their ha'bits. I wanted to just start off down the trail that led
down to the parking lot, but I'd agreed to wait for Alec. Besides, I
needed another set of clothes and I'd eventually miss the things I'd
packed into my own bugout bag.
I ran to my
tent and grabbed a set of clothes. I slipped into them about the same
time that Alec reappeared from inside the cabin. He tossed me my bag
and then slung Jasmin and Jess' bags to them before shrugging his
onto his shoulders.
My bag was
sixty pounds of gear, clothes, water and food, all wrapped inside of
a utilitarian black backpack with straps that were capable of
expanding out to fit my hybrid body if that became a necessity.
Alec's bag was
roughly the same plus a few pounds that he carried so that Brindi
wouldn't have to. I was less than excited that she was coming along.
If push came to shove then Alec and I could shift to hybrid form and
run almost the entire way back to the car. If Jess tied her pack onto
mine and Jasmin did the same for Alec, then the two of them could
shift forms and the four of us could cover incredible distances in an
unbelievable amount of time.
Brindi messed
with the math. Alec and I could take turns carrying her and her pack,
but it would still slow us down, still cost us minutes or even hours.
If nothing else I'd leave everyone else behind and go on ahead by
myself, but Jasmin was right, I needed to see what kind of rabbit
Alec had tucked away inside of his magic hat. Driving wasn't going to
cut it.
Carson came out
of the cabin a second later and handed Alec another pack. "I'll
move your stuff into my cabin and then lock up. I'll be faster as a
wolf than you guys will be even as hybrids. You shouldn't have to
wait more than a minute or two for me at the cars, but if I haven't
caught up by then go ahead and leave without me, I've still got my
car there on the north end of the lot."
I took a
calming breath as I wasted yet more time, this time stripping my
clothes back off so I could shift forms again. Alec had to stay in
human form if he was going to use his phone to call Jack, and while
he could probably carry both packs and talk on the phone at the same
time, it would slow him down.
Jess stepped up
and used the carabineers on her pack to fasten it to mine. Less than
sixty seconds later I was in hybrid form, with both packs on my back,
and we were all moving.
Alec dialed
Jack and then put him on speaker.
"You guys
have a problem? You aren't scheduled to check in for another two
days."
"Hey,
Jack. Yeah, we've got problems. You're on speaker, by the way. James'
mom has been captured by some
parasites
. There's been a ransom
demand which I'll gladly cover, but that opens up the door to other
problems potentially coming back to bite us later on."
"I assume
that James is there, so I shouldn't say anything about how idiotic it
was for his mom to get captured by something that she should have
been able to smell coming from five miles away?"
"Yeah, now
isn't the best time to be yanking his chain."
"Fine,
we'll just pretend that I didn't say anything."
My beast lashed
out with a wave of power that made even Brindi flinch. If I hadn't
already been in hybrid form I probably would have shifted forms
again. Instead I was forced to just bite my tongue and tell myself
that I'd take my unhappiness up with Jack later on in person. I
needed him right now, so getting into some kind of pissing match over
the phone wasn't smart.
It was a good
story, but the truth was that I wasn't going to do anything about it,
not even when I had him standing across from me in person. I couldn't
beat Jack, not even on my best day.
Besides, he
hadn't quite gone so far yet as to order me around, which would have
been a clear play to establish himself as being dominant to me, but
he'd recently had a whole string of bad days. They'd started up at
the same time that he'd thrown in his lot with Alec. That would have
been enough to make him prickly all by itself, but he was also
putting me on notice not to expect to step into Alec's shoes if
something happened to our mutual leader.
Jasmin and Jess
probably would have followed my orders without any complaints if the
Coun'hij ever caught up with Alec, but Jack would most definitely go
his own way if that happened.
"Do you
have any ideas, Jack? I've been focused on other things since we
arrived and we've been in a pretty remote spot out here. I haven't
put in the ground work to know for sure that we can get away with
hopping on a plane at the nearest municipal airport."
"That was
sloppy, Alec."
"I know,
you can chew me out all that you want later, but right now I need
your help figuring out a way to get someone there to LA by midday
tomorrow so that we can make the drop. Multiple someones would be
even better. Either way this goes down we're going to need to clear
out this group of…parasites."
I started to
protest his assertion that we just needed to get
someone
to
LA. I wanted it to be me. Before I could get anything out though I
heard the second half of his statement.
Either way this went down
.
Alec would do his best to get my mom out of there alive, but that
wouldn't stop him from planning around the worst-case scenario. The
kicker was that he was right. There were too many variables in play
that we didn't have any control over.
"My people
can probably be there sometime tomorrow late afternoon."
"You can't
make it happen any earlier than that?"
"I can't
even guarantee that I can make it there then. I have exactly one
airport within an hour's drive that I
know
I can use in an
emergency, and it's a one-shot kind of thing. I'm not blowing that,
not when I could end up with an even worse emergency at any time.
I've got some other airports that my intelligence is a little
outdated on. We'll start driving within the hour and working our way
through that list. With any luck we can be in the air by noon or so
tomorrow unless the first three airports are all a bust."
"You slimy
piece of garbage! I can't believe that you're going to sacrifice my
mother because you're too lazy to set up another bolt-hole."