Burned (26 page)

The next attack
came barreling in with a pulse of darkness, but Vicki wasn't there
where it was supposed to land. She dodged to the side, moving even
before the tendril had started forward, and then our backup arrived.

Wolves darted
in at the same time that hybrids stepped forward to try to knock the
darkly glowing threads out of the way. They managed to chase the
creature off of Vicki and me, but nobody was getting in close enough
to land anything on that dark skin.

I tried to move
in and reengage, but Vicki shoved me back into the building. "I
can't keep you alive if you're in the middle of that—it's all I
can do to keep myself alive."

She was right,
we outnumbered the creature more than seven to one, but we were still
losing. The creature didn't seem to be able to move all of the energy
tendrils at the same time, but they still moved around enough on
their own to make it hard to get through them. I watched as the
creature fought and finally understood how it was able to generate so
much force with its blows. Every attack involved at least two
tendrils—one to do the striking and another to push off of
something to help stabilize the creature.

It felt like
we'd been fighting forever, but barely a dozen seconds had passed. I
was still looking for options that would let us take it down when
everyone around me flickered and went translucent.

Heath. I saw
the creature realize it at the same time I did. It might be able to
hold a dozen of us off as long as it could see the blows coming, but
the odds had just shifted entirely to our side—as long as Heath
was still alive to keep us masked in invisibility. Heath had made
himself invisible before extending his power out to shroud the rest
of us, and he'd started moving away from where he'd been when the
creature had revealed itself, but with all of the other shape
shifters still milling about he hadn't had a chance to move far.

The creature
spun around, looking for Heath, but I was already in motion, and
luckily Vicki's power had told her exactly what I was trying to do.
The black, pulsing wings swept past me and then shot downwards,
generating the thrust needed to launch the creature into the air. The
creature's plan to throw itself across the distance between it and
Heath would have worked perfectly, but at that instant I opened up
the black hole inside of me and fed one of the tendrils into it at
the same time that I slammed into another at full speed.

A few feet
away, Vicki collided with a third tendril, and the results were
everything I could have hoped. The tendril I attacked with my ability
flickered and then disappeared, while the other two deformed under
the force of several hundred pounds of desperate hybrids moving at
more than thirty miles per hour.

They didn't
collapse completely, and the claws on my good hand struggled to get
any kind of real purchase on the oddly smooth substance of the energy
tendrils, but without the support of three of the tendrils that the
creature had been relying on, its wing-assisted jump went off course.

One of the
other tendrils clipped me, but we'd succeeded in our objective, and
the creature landed more than a dozen yards away from the last place
where Heath had been. Black tendrils of energy lashed out in every
direction, a buzzsaw of destruction that killed another of Isaac's
wolves, but Heath was more than fifty yards away by that point, and a
second later Adri opened up with her handgun.

The first
bullet creased the creature's shoulder, but then it shielded itself
with its wings and a second later Adri's magazine was empty and the
creature was headed in her direction. It couldn't see her, but given
just how much reach its wings had, it didn't need to get very close
to be able to kill her.

Adri was
desperately backpedaling, but she was making too much noise—the
creature was using it to track her. I was running toward the two of
them, and I wasn't the only one, but we'd all started moving too late
and even if we managed to get to Adri, there wasn't any way we were
going to be able to get past the flailing mass of tendrils that had
turned the air around it into a kill zone.

My emotions
were a confusing mess where Adri was concerned right then, but I
didn't want her dead—not if this might have all been the result
of the Coun'hij's machinations. My heart jumped up to my throat as
the creature closed to within a few yards of Adri, and then Vicki was
there behind it, but she wasn't looking at the creature, she was
looking at me.

My mind spun.
She'd started racing toward Adri even before the creature had landed.
Her ability had told her that this moment was coming, but she seemed
just as stymied by the furiously slashing wings…only she
wouldn't have bothered running all that way if she couldn't see a
future that might allow her to save Adri.

She needed me
to make that happen. My gift had shut off again as soon as we'd
thrown off the creature's jump, but I opened the rift wide open again
and focused all of that absorptive power on one single tendril again.

Vicki was
moving forward again even before the strand of energy disappeared.
She leaped between two more tendrils that would have ripped her in
half if her course had been off by as much as a few inches, and
slammed her claws home in the creature's back.

The wings
rippled as the creature screamed out, throwing Vicki clear with such
force that I was worried that I would arrive to find her dead. Adri
was out of the danger zone and Heath continued to silently fall back,
carefully keeping the rest of us in sight so that he could maintain
our invisibility shrouds.

By the time I
made it over to Vicki she was struggling back to a sitting position.
She was rattled, and if she'd been anyone else she would have been
killed, but she must have thrown herself free of the creature a split
second before the wings would have torn her off of him. That had been
just enough to soften the blow.

I helped her to
her feet and turned to see Isaac and Taggart both silently
positioning themselves to attempt capturing some of the dark energy
tendrils in the hopes that they would be able to replicate Vicki's
feat. The creature was injured—bleeding profusely—but it
wasn't dead, and none of us wanted to let it get away. We'd already
paid too steep a price to let it come back and attack us another day.

It either
divined our intent or had access to some kind of shadow precognitive
ability of its own. It used its wings to throw itself more than fifty
yards away from us and then turned back around to mock our efforts.

"You'll
all be dead before the day is out. Even now a force closes in on
those you came here to defend. They will be wiped off of the map and
then the enforcers will come for you. A pity really—I could
have feasted on this group for months."

The creature
sprang away, using the strength of its wings to move faster than any
wolf or hybrid could have run. Some of my people—our
people—made as if to follow, but I called them back.

"Following
it will just give it a chance to pick us off one by one as we spread
out trying to chase it down. Come on—we need to get to the
Annikov estate."

Alec Graves
The Annikov Estate
Tucson, Arizona

The next few
minutes were a blur of activity as we tried to get the wounded
stabilized and load them and our dead into vehicles. Less than five
minutes after the fight ended, we were all back on the road and I was
praying that we would be able to make it to Jaclyn's in time.

My RV was more
than a little worse for the wear—Vicki hadn't slowed down to
open the door when she'd sensed my impending death—but it was
still one of the best places to treat the injured. Unfortunately that
included me.

Brindi was
awake again—a little disoriented—but other than that
okay. She wrapped my ribs while Vicki set my shoulder and taped it
into place. It would all have to be re-done once I shifted back to
human form, but I couldn't keep fighting with the breaks unstabilized
and I wasn't going to go into whatever awaited us in human form.

"I left my
guys behind to try to contain the situation, Alec. Everything
happened too quickly for them to get out and assist in the fight, but
hopefully they can tranq all of the humans who might have seen our
throwdown with the Coun'hij's own personal dark angel."

"That
wasn't an angel. It can die—we just couldn't figure out a way
to hit it hard enough."

"Fair
point. You do realize if we all show up at Jaclyn's estate and there
isn't actually an attack underway that you'll have painted a big
target on her back, right?"

"Yeah. In
for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. Besides, it was your boss who
told me that this was going down. What's the matter? Don't trust
him?"

"No, I
trust Shawn, but that doesn't mean that he can't be wrong. I guess
more than anything I'm worried about the fact that I had to reveal
myself to everyone back there."

"My people
are trustworthy, and now that we've exposed Nellie—or rather
the thing that was pretending to be Nellie—as the spy, Isaac's
people shouldn't leak either."

"Yeah. I
had that same thought, but once a secret like this is out there isn't
any putting it back in the box. Shawn's involvement will get out
eventually—it's just a matter of trying to figure out how long
we have so that he can stay ahead of the retaliation headed our
direction."

"Yeah—hopefully
we can send a message of our own here in the next few minutes. If we
can wipe out a significant chunk of the Coun'hij's enforcers it will
go a long way towards making sure that Kaleb and the rest won't be
able to come after anyone. Make sure that your people don't waste any
time. I want them on the road as soon as possible—the sooner
they join up with the rest of us, the safer they'll be.

"Put up
signs saying that the motel is closed, drug all of the humans up, and
then lock them in a room somewhere. If we survive the next couple of
hours then we'll go back and deal with figuring out who saw what."

"And if we
don't?"

"If we
don't then it's the Coun'hij's problem."

My RV, James at
the wheel, was in the lead so I got a firsthand view of the flurry of
activity from the estate as we drove up to the gates around Jaclyn's
house.

I was tempted
to leave myself in my hybrid form. It would make dealing with the
pain so much easier, but it would also escalate the situation out
there in ways that didn't need escalating. There was no sign that the
estate was actually under attack yet, so I shoved my beast further
back into the corner of my mind where I normally kept him. A second
later I'd shifted back to human form and was getting scowls from both
Brindi and Vicki.

"You
realize that you just ruined all of our work, don't you?'

"Yeah,
sorry. Couldn't be helped."

I pulled myself
to my feet with a groan, and then peeled off the tape as I exited the
RV. "You need to open the gates and let us in—I have
reason to believe that you're about to be attacked by an overwhelming
force."

The guy behind
the gate, a short, musclebound guy who looked like he was in his
fifties, shook his head. "The only invading force I need to
worry about right now is the one trailing along behind you. I'm not
letting you inside."

"Get
Jaclyn down here."

"Ms.
Annikov doesn't come running for the likes of you. You can turn
around and leave, or I'll have your entire group arrested."

It boggled the
mind to think that this guy didn't know who he was dealing with. Even
if he didn't recognize my face, the simple fact that I was shirtless
and wearing a ha'bit should have told him that I wasn't just another
random human.

I lashed out
with a surge of power that forced him back a step. "If you call
the police you're going to have an even bigger mess on your hands
than if you make me come in there after you. I'm going to say this
once more. Get Jaclyn down here in the next five minutes or we'll rip
your precious gate down and beat you with it."

I turned around
and walked away without looking back to see how he would respond. I
headed down the column of vehicles until I found Carson, Taggart,
Isaac, Heath and Grayson. Adri joined us as I started talking, but I
didn't acknowledge her presence. We weren't fighting inside of a
dream, so this wasn't her area of expertise, and things were still
too raw between the two of us to risk starting a conversation with
her—there was no telling where it would go and I couldn't deal
with another distraction right now.

"I just
gave them a time limit. They've got about four and a half minutes to
get Jaclyn down here. After that, I want those gates open. I'll
neutralize anyone in the guard post. Heath, can you take a group and
go over the wall? I don't think that Jaclyn has any snipers working
the top of the house, but there's no way to know for sure and I'd
feel a lot better knowing that our people aren't sitting ducks up
there."

I couldn't tell
if Heath was carrying a grudge about my having accused him of being a
Coun'hij agent—he was too reserved for that—but he nodded
in all of the right places, and Isaac seemed to trust that he was
professional enough to do his job regardless of his personal feelings
toward me.

"Grayson,
I know that your power is somewhat hit-and-miss, but can you be ready
to deal with anyone further out?"

For the first
time I could remember, Grayson looked agitated. "Yes. After what
we just saw back at the motel, I think I'll be able to muster up the
mojo to do what needs to be done."

I turned to
Carson, Isaac, and Taggart. "I need the three of you to
coordinate the rest of our forces. I'll be too busy using my ability
to give orders once the fur starts flying, but I want this to be as
bloodless as possible. We go in and neutralize people rather than
killing them. I've got a stash of high-strength tranqs in the storage
compartment in the second RV. Tranq anyone that gives us any
problems, but use small enough doses that we have a chance of getting
them back on their feet if the Coun'hij shows up."