Driven (21 page)

"I've
left the lady's speaker on so far as a courtesy so that she knows
what is going on, but in a moment I'll be turning her sound feed off
and we'll be proceeding with the exchange of the passcode. Assuming
that the gentleman correctly provides the passcode he will be allowed
to proceed into a secure area to which his deposit box will be
conveyed. The lady will remain in her present location until the
gentleman returns."

The
thick glass in front of me didn't do anything to hide the
determination on Geoffrey's face. "No, you'll see on your screen
that there is provision for me to bring one other, previously
selected individual in with me. My companion's name is Lucy, and as
you've no doubt already determined, she matches the description I
left with you at the time the account was set up. Please leave the
audio feed on and allow her to accompany me back to the secure area."

The
banker nodded, and then Geoffrey read off the second code that Rachel
had sent us. A couple of minutes later we were being escorted down a
long, stainless steel corridor by a man in a suit whose shoulders
were much too broad for him to be anything other than another guard.

We
were shown into a six-by-six room that held a table and two chairs
and then told that the door would be locked until we were ready to
leave. Twenty seconds later the dumbwaiter-like device on the far end
of the room conveyed up a metal container roughly the size of a
briefcase.

Geoffrey
looked at the case for several seconds before walking over and
picking it up. Once it was on the table and he was back in his chair,
he started entering the final code into the tumblers.

"I
don't know what's in here. Maybe it's just money, but I could have
left money anywhere. Please remember that I'm not the same person as
whoever left this here."

It
took me a minute to realize what I was seeing on his face. "You're
scared. Is that why you wanted me here with you?"

"I
guess. As much as I hunger to know more about my life before the
amnesia, links like this terrify me. By all accounts I was everything
you hate about vampires."

"Go
ahead and open it up. No matter how bad it is you're better off
knowing rather than continuing to wonder."

"Yeah,
and time's running short. We still have to go buy some kind of
prepaid credit card and call back to the hotel for Ben."

Geoffrey
slid the release over and opened the case. There was cash,
hundred-dollar bills, but Geoffrey simply pulled that out and stacked
it on the table. Underneath the money was a series of US Treasury
bearer bonds with amounts in the millions, and a single picture of a
girl who was a few years younger than me.

"Who's
that?"

"I'm
not sure, but this face has haunted my dreams almost as long as I can
remember. This is what Melody looks like, but I'm pretty sure it's
not her. You heard Rachel tell me that the girl I remembered from
before, the one Melody reminded me of, was named Lucy, but the
clothes are all wrong. The girl I remember lived and died decades
before this picture could have possibly been taken. She met her fate
on the dusty American Frontier."

"So
there are three girls, all of whom look the same?"

"Yeah,
three, where up until a few minutes ago I thought there were only
two. It's a problem for another day. We need to get moving."

Geoffrey
walked over to the door and pushed the call button.

"Yes,
sir?"

"We're
ready to leave."

"Very
good, sir, we'll have someone down shortly to escort you back to your
car."

We
stuffed the money into our pockets and the bearer bonds disappeared
underneath the front of Geoffrey's shirt, but he left the picture of
the girl out, holding it in his left hand. I saw him stealing glances
at it when he thought I wasn't looking, but I didn't say anything. He
deserved at least a measure of privacy.

Our
escort arrived a few seconds later. He was another big guy, blond
this time, dressed in a suit and wearing a wire in his left ear.

"Right
this way if you please."

We
started down the hall, headed towards the opposite set of doors, with
our guide a few steps ahead of us.

There
was no way of knowing what caused our escort to stumble, but it was a
spectacular trip. I started towards him, thinking that I would be
able to catch him, but I'd spent years learning not to move with my
full speed when there were normal humans around.

That
hesitation was all that was required to make it so that even I
couldn't catch him, and the blond guy crashed into the wall on our
left. His arms had been flailing in an effort to catch himself, but
all he got from that was a long slash on his left arm where it ran
into the metal frame that held the 'occupied' sign next to the
closest door.

The
wound wasn't immediately life-threatening, he hadn't opened up any of
the major blood vessels, and for a second I thought the worst of the
damage had simply been done to his pride. That stopped as soon as I
looked over and saw Geoffrey's face.

Geoffrey
had gone completely rigid as though every muscle in his body was
fighting every other muscle. It took me only a heartbeat to realize
that it was the sight, possibly even just the smell of the blood that
had hit him so hard.

My
beast screamed nine kinds of rage at him as she tried to break free
and force a transformation. Both she and I knew just how messy things
were about to become if Geoffrey couldn't get himself back under
control.

Geoffrey
was unarmed, but he was still going to be faster and stronger than
any normal human. I could stop him, but not without changing and if
that happened every single person watching the cameras pointing at us
would get a show that would blow their minds.

I
watched as Geoffrey's nostrils flared and his jaw dropped slightly,
no doubt giving his teeth room to lengthen. He was in full-blown
predator mode, as dangerous as he could possibly be, but I couldn't
just sit there and do nothing.

I
grabbed Geoffrey's arm and stepped between him and the guard.

"Fight
it."

My
words came out as something less than a whisper. They were too faint
for a human to make out, but I was pretty sure that Geoffrey's
hearing would be keen enough to pick them out.

"It's
hard."

"I
know it is, but you have to fight it or we're both as good as dead.
If you lose control they'll seal this place up and we'll be stuck
rotting here until some government agency comes to collect us."

Geoffrey
brought himself back under control with a visible effort that left
him wrung out and shaking. I waited a heartbeat to make sure that he
really had himself pulled back together and then let go of his arm
and looked over at our escort.

The
poor guy had his right hand clasped tightly over the wound and had
gone bright red out of embarrassment.

"My
apologies, I'm not usually so clumsy."

I
managed what I hoped was a winning smile. "Not at all. We're
just fortunate that the damage was limited to your suit jacket.
Hopefully the rest of your day is less fraught with peril."

My
words brought a relieved smile to the face of the guard. He had no
idea how close he'd come to death.

Jasmin Bianchi
I-35
Duluth, Minnesota

"So
what else should I expect from this challenge match?"

Geoffrey's
tone was casual, but I knew he was worried. If I failed to win there
was a very good chance that he wouldn't make it out either. Shape
shifters hated vampires, and him having arrived with me wouldn't make
them like him any better.

"They'll
either honor my challenge or they won't. If they do then you'll have
to just stand there and watch while I work my way through the pack,
fighting anyone the alpha has been able to intimidate into standing
between him and me. If they don't then all bets are off. Bring your
sword and be ready to try and cut your way free if that's the case."

"How
will I know they aren't honoring the challenge match?"

"They'll
probably say something to that effect, but if all else fails more
than one person attacking me is a pretty good sign that they aren't
holding to the challenge rules."

"What
about if someone attacks you from behind?"

"That
too, probably. Unless my opponent is dead and I'm in the middle of
whatever they are using for a circle, then it's still part of the
challenge."

Geoffrey
nodded and leaned further back in his seat. I waited for a few more
minutes, but he didn't seem ready to volunteer anything else. We'd
made it safely back to the car, purchased the prepaid credit card
we'd needed, and called the hotel to pay for a few more nights.

We'd
done everything we needed to do, including stowing away all but one
of the bearer bonds inside a safety deposit box at a much less
prestigious bank than the one where they'd been secreted before, and
then we'd climbed back in the car and started for Duluth. Things
hadn't necessarily been strained between us, but the events inside of
Credit Suisse hung between us.

I'd
been hoping that Geoffrey would broach the subject on his own, but
apparently that wasn't to be. I took a deep breath and then asked the
question that had needed asking for the last hour.

"So
what happened back there at the bank? It looked for a second like you
were going to rip that guard's throat out."

"It
looked that way because I very nearly did lose control."

"It
couldn't have just been the blood. You bandaged me up without losing
control of yourself, and I saw you run a new IV for Ben."

"That's
different."

"Different
how?"

Geoffrey
waited for so long to respond that I almost repeated the question by
the time he opened his mouth again.

"When
you were hurt it hadn't been quite such a long time since my last
feeding. Not only that, you had just finished rescuing me from
Imastious. It's easier to control myself around someone I care about
or someone I owe a debt to."

"Easier,
but not easy?"

"No,
not easy, at least not when it's been so long between feedings. It
gets progressively harder as each day goes by."

"So
what do we do about that?"

"
We
do nothing. Have no fear; I'm still able to control myself. I'd just
been too long with nobody but you and Ben around. All of that blood
caught me by surprise. I'll be fine for another day or two and then
I'll make some kind of arrangement to deal with the hunger. Possibly
there is a blood bank nearby that I can raid."

"Possibly?"

Geoffrey
turned on me with the kind of suddenness that usually presaged an
attack, but he didn't escalate further than that.

"Yes,
possibly. I'm sorry, but I don't have any better answer than that. I
understand your fears, but I will take whatever steps are necessary
to ensure that I'm capable of continuing our quest. One way or
another I'll feed enough to make sure that the hunger doesn't cause
me to turn on you at an inopportune moment."

I'd
had an abstract, distant understanding of what Geoffrey's existence
must be like, but in that instant I got a true taste of what he went
through.

"You
do this every time, don't you? Wonder whether you'll be able to feed
without killing?"

Geoffrey's
nod was curt. "Yes, but it's not just about killing anymore. My
control has grown, but I still worry about what I'm taking from them.
I don't like being a parasite, don't like taking without providing
some kind of value in return."

I
considered that for several long minutes before responding. "You
know, a few days ago I would have said that it wasn't possible for a
vampire to be anything other than a parasite. You're starting to
convince me."

"Don't
get too caught up in the possibilities. I'm not even sure myself
whether it will be possible for me to provide enough value on a
long-term basis to convince people to voluntarily open up their veins
for me."

We
passed the rest of the drive in silence, and all too soon were
pulling up to the large stone house that was the headquarters for the
Duluth pack. I'd made three separate calls and six texts to drag that
particular address out of Alec.

As
nearly as I could tell it wasn't that Alec didn't want to help, but
it was looking very much like he was having problems of his own, big
problems. That wasn't something designed to make me feel very good
about the medium-term future. If Alec fell then the rest of us were
all as good as dead.

That
probably wouldn't make any difference to me, I was likely going to
die before the afternoon was out, but there were a lot of other
people I really cared about who were depending on Alec for survival.
I pushed all of those worries aside and rang the doorbell to the
manor house. What I really wanted was another slice of the serenity
I'd achieved earlier in the day, but that continued to be soundly out
of my reach.

The
man who answered the door looked like a younger, unscarred version of
Donovan. "Hello, my name is Cruthers, how may I be of service?"

Geoffrey
looked over at me and I forced out the words that I'd been dreading
since before I'd talked to Isaac.

"Please
tell your master that I'm here to challenge for leadership of this
pack."

The
butler's expression didn't change in the slightest, but I could feel
the disapproval radiating off of him. Things only got worse when the
wind shifted and he was able to smell Geoffrey.

"You
may enter, but that thing may not."

I
grabbed him by the throat, moving too fast for him to react, and
slammed him into the door. "He'll enter into your damn house and
you'll like it. He's my witness, so unless you want the dispossessed
to find out that you're not living up to challenge law, you'll back
off and let him in."