Burned (13 page)

Taggart stepped
in front of me, placing his body between me and the threat that Kaleb
posed, and Alec cut loose with his ability. Neither effort would have
been enough to save me without the other. Taggart hardened his skin
to something that looked like obsidian, and that turned Kaleb's
initial attack, but I saw Kaleb's claws shimmer before my eyes and
somehow knew that he'd just done something to make them capable of
piercing Taggart's reinforced exterior.

He never got a
chance to use them though, because a second later both he and Taggart
went down in a boneless heap. I wasn't sure what to expect next, but
Alec simply waved me back as he strode forward and grabbed Kaleb's
massive hybrid arm with one of his human hands.

No shape
shifter could have casually moved so much weight inside of the real
world while in human form, but Alec apparently was capable of
simultaneously using his power and altering his strength inside of my
dream. He hauled Kaleb back several feet, far enough that Taggart was
no longer inside the sphere of Alec's power.

"I'll bet
you didn't expect that, did you, Dad?"

I could count
the number of times where I'd heard Alec refer to Kaleb as his father
on one hand with fingers left over. This wasn't like him, but even
more unusual was the sheer amount of venom in his tone.

I was still
trying to process the abrupt change in Alec's manner when he dropped
Kaleb to the ground, shifted forms, and hamstrung him. The brutal
savagery took me by surprise—especially since it wasn't going
to slow Kaleb down for long. He healed at incredible speeds even in
the normal world. Here in the dream he was nearly unkillable.

"Alec!
What are you doing?"

I didn't
realize it was me who had yelled the words until Alec looked up at
me. "I'm testing the limits of his ability here. Taggart
indicated that his power is magnified inside of the dream world, but
that's based on you guys being inside of his dream rather than him
being inside of yours."

As Alec spoke
he casually slammed his hand into the right side of his father's
chest, collapsing a lung.

"Taggart,
anything you can do to counteract his efforts to heal more quickly
would be appreciated—I'd do it myself, but I won't be able to
maintain my ability, concentrate on that, and torture him all at the
same time."

Kaleb laughed—a
mocking sound that told me that his lung had already reinflated
itself. "I didn't think you had it in you, son."

"You'd be
surprised what I have in me, Dad. I should probably be thanking you
for that. I spent my entire life scared of you, Brandon, Mallory and
a dozen other bullies. It wasn't until you pushed me over the edge
that I finally realized I was capable of doing what needed to be done
to protect Rachel and stop people like you."

Taggart stepped
forward, obviously wanting to edge Alec out of the way, but equally
aware that he didn't dare get close enough for Alec's ability to
start draining him too.

"Alec, let
me do this. You step back and focus just on keeping your ability up
and impeding your father's healing. I have more experience at this
than you do."

Alec didn't
look away from Kaleb, shaking his head as he slammed his claws back
into his father's chest again.

"I don't
think so—not this time, Dream Stealer. You may have more
experience, but I'm never going to have as good an opportunity to
learn as I will today. I can do just about anything to Daddy dearest
without killing him. Besides, certain things should be kept in the
family."

Taggart must
have started exerting his will to stop Kaleb's healing because when
the other man spoke again I could hear the terrible whistling of a
punctured lung.

"It's good
to see that you've found your natural home with the world's most
dedicated terrorist. I don't suppose that this is his real hybrid
form, but who knows—I'll be sure to enter it into our database
when I get back to the real world. Who's the lovely specimen over
there? She's new."

Alec grabbed
his father's arm and slammed his fist against the back of Kaleb's
elbow, shattering the joint.

"You don't
get to ask the questions here. I want names and descriptions of the
rest of the Coun'hij. Let's start with Puppeteer."

Undeterred by
the pain he had to have been in, Kaleb flipped himself onto his back
and shook his head at Alec.

"You can't
honestly imagine that this is going to work. You know that we don't
feel pain the same way in this form. I'm not going to tell you
anything."

Alec smiled
again, and this time the expression made me want to cry. "That's
the thing about this place. Your reality here is whatever we want it
to be. Make him feel it—make him feel it all."

Without even
waiting for any kind of acknowledgment from Taggart, Alec slashed his
father across the stomach, and this time Kaleb screamed. Alec didn't
even flinch.

"I'll bet
that you thought you'd be able to combat that particular change to
your nervous system, but I've spent most of the last twenty-four
hours thinking about how this needs to go down. Those injuries you're
suffering from aren't just designed to hamper your ability to fight,
they are also designed to start bleeding away your strength.

"You might
be Taggart's equal inside of your own dream, but here I rather
suspect that you're not even in the same league. Between the damage
your dream body has already sustained and the constant, unrelenting
drain of my ability, you're even less of a match for him than you
would normally be."

Alec stabbed
his father again, and the rage that I'd been conjuring up in an
effort to keep Alec at arm's length flickered away—replaced by
a growing horror at what he was doing. I wanted to be sick. I'd only
thought
I was ready to watch someone be tortured. The actual
experience was so much worse than I'd expected it to be. Even Kaleb
didn't deserve this.

Between the
collapsed lung and the screams, Kaleb was gasping for air now, but
that didn't stop him from spitting at Alec.

"You're
still a child. You talk about me not being Dream Stealer's equal, but
it's you who's trying to play far outside of your league. With every
action and word you betray information that you should never have
betrayed. I don't need the girl's name—not when I can return
home and have her likeness sketched. I'll have her inside of our
facial recognition software before the sun rises.

"You've
signed her death warrant, and you've revealed the fact that you've
finally manifested your power. I have to say that you're a
disappointment in that just like you've been a disappointment in
every other way. You have no idea what you're up against—no
idea of the stakes we're playing for."

Alec leaned in
and raked his claws up his father's left side, razor-sharp edges
snicking across ribs. "That's where you're wrong. Maybe this
operation didn't have the days of planning behind it that you would
have gone in with, but we aren't fools. There is only one reason that
we would have allowed you to see any of our faces, only one reason
that I would allow you to know that I've manifested an ability.
You'll never be leaving here."

Alec must have
opened his ability up all of the way—it was the only
explanation for what happened next. Between one heartbeat and the
next, Kaleb's massive hybrid body expanded outward and then
contracted back into his human form.

For the first
time I saw fear in Kaleb's eyes. He'd thought Alec's ability was much
more limited than it was, but even more importantly, he'd just
realized why Alec and Taggart had included me in this operation. I
wasn't here just because I could pull him into my dream where he
would be fighting at a disadvantage, I was here because the three of
us thought that we could eliminate him permanently.

"You're
not giving me any incentive to cooperate with you, Alec. If you're
really capable of what you're implying, then you're going to kill me
no matter what I do or say."

"Of
course. The only question is just how much you're going to suffer
before I finally allow you to die."

Kaleb smiled
through all of the pain, and I instantly realized what he was about
to do. His heart stopped beating a split second later.

I considered
and discarded the idea of trying to amp up his healing ability—it
was too late for that, too late for trying to get information out of
him.

"Hold him,
Taggart!"

Even as the
words left my throat I reached out, pushing him against the ground
with an intangible wall of force that I hoped would be enough to keep
him from leaving the dream. Taggart joined in, creating a
metaphysical wind that quickly ratcheted up to gale force.

"What just
happened?"

Alec was the
only one of us who didn't understand. Kaleb had stopped fighting
Taggart, stopped trying to strengthen his natural regenerative
abilities. He'd thrown his efforts the other way, suppressing his
body's systems to the point where his organs had all shut down at
exactly the same time.

It was
inconceivable, the kind of thing that even the most disciplined of
minds couldn't have hoped to accomplish by themselves, but Kaleb
hadn't been working by himself. He'd had all of Taggart's
considerable strength pushing against his inherent desire to live,
and Alec's ability had been there to provide whatever other impetus
had been needed.

I pushed
against Kaleb with my mind, anchoring him to the ground in a
desperate effort to keep my identity a secret, but I could feel my
strength burning away at a rate that was more than just scary. I'd
been so foolish.

I'd allowed my
anger to goad me into pulling Alec to me rather than sticking to the
plan. That had burned up precious reserves, but then I'd compounded
my mistake by not thinking to change my appearance before pulling
Kaleb to me. I'd put all of us in danger and now I was too short of
strength to rectify my mistake.

I watched the
light start to go out of Kaleb's eyes, but it was dying at a slower
rate than my energy was being expended. I clawed desperately for the
will to remain there in the dream and see to Kaleb's execution.

I'd never
wanted anything so bad. Before this there had always been a tiny part
of me that had been convinced that if I wanted something badly enough
that I could obtain it. This time it didn't matter how much I wanted
it. I'd expended too much of my strength—there wasn't anything
left with which to fight.

Exhaustion
ripped me away from my dream and blackness claimed me.

Alec Graves
The Caravan RV Park
Tucson, Arizona

Losing our grip
on Kaleb had thrown me for more of a loop than I'd expected it to.
Even now, two days later, I was having a hard time keeping focused on
the task before me.

Really the
entire night had been a bust. I'd wanted to reconcile with Adri. I'd
actually felt a burst of excitement when she'd first pulled me into
her dream and I'd realized that it was just the two of us. I'd
thought it was going to be an opportunity to start to work things
out. I couldn't have been more wrong.

My anger with
her had goaded me into one impulsive action after another. Taggart
had been right; I should have allowed him to work Kaleb over for
information. I had no experience with that kind of thing, and I'd
gone too far. In the real world it wouldn't have been an issue—not
up against someone like Kaleb—but we hadn't been operating in
the real world.

I'd let too
much of our plan drop in an effort to rattle Kaleb, and it had
produced exactly the opposite reaction. Despite being in tremendous
pain, he'd outthought all three of us and successfully latched onto
the one option that gave him a chance of escaping.

If it had been
up to me I would have gone after him again the very next day, but
Taggart had overruled me. We both understood the danger of letting
Kaleb communicate his findings to the rest of the Coun'hij, but in
all likelihood he'd done that as soon as he'd awoken the next
morning.

Killing Kaleb
now wouldn't put that cat back in the bag, and apparently Adri had
pushed way too hard in her effort to keep him inside of her dream for
long enough to actually kill him. To hear Taggart tell it, Adri would
have gladly gone back after Kaleb, but her physical reserves were
simply too low.

Denied any form
of meaningful action, I'd been left with two recurring thoughts that
only grew more disturbing with each passing hour. Kaleb had been
right. I'd been in over my head when it had come to our plan to kill
him. It hadn't just been the fact that he'd outthought me, either.
I'd known that Adri pulling me into her dream was a less optimal
course of action and I'd let the mission proceed anyway.

That mistake
had cost us our best chance at taking him unawares and getting the
information we needed out of him, and it might very well cost dozens
or even hundreds of lives before all was said and done. It wasn't the
kind of thing any leader could get away with doing on a regular
basis. I'd been in over my head inside the dream where we'd had all
of the cards. Was I just as outclassed here in the real world?

That thought
all by itself would have been enough to keep me up at night, but I
was also having a hard time coming to grips with my actions during
the dream. We'd needed to get the identities of the rest of the
Coun'hij out of Kaleb, and torture had been the only way to
accomplish that, but I'd gone to a much darker place than I'd
intended on going.

I wanted to
build a better world, but if I replaced Kaleb and turned out to be
just as bad then I wouldn't be doing my people any service.

Carson, James
and the girls had all arrived with me in Arizona more than
twenty-four hours earlier, but there wasn't much we could do all by
ourselves. I'd detached Jack so that he could begin setting up
extraction routes for everyone. He'd taken more than a million
dollars in unmarked bills, and his last surviving people with him.