Driven (32 page)

I
looked over to the side, half expecting to find the werewolf half a
second from pouncing on me, but it was looking at Geoffrey and slowly
backing away from the vampire. It was impossible, but as the werewolf
turned to disappear into the night a second werewolf crashed into the
first one.

I
was so shocked that I just stood there for a second. I'd never heard
of two werewolves fighting each other. As Geoffrey had indicated,
there were scattered records of them fleeing a fight that they
couldn't win, but other werewolves seemed to be the only living
things that they didn't view as their rightful prey.

Geoffrey
stepped forward as though meaning to help the first werewolf, but in
the dark they looked too similar to pick out one from the other, and
even if he was inclined to guess, they were moving around so quickly
that he'd probably have no better than an even chance of actually
landing a blow on his intended target.

"We
need to go, Geoffrey, now while they are distracted with each other."

"I
know, it was just that I could almost read the first one's thoughts.
There for a second when the fire started its absorptive ability was
overwhelmed and I managed to get a couple of probes inside of its
mind. It's alien in a way that I can't even begin to describe, but it
was different somehow than the others that I've scanned. It was
almost like there was a second presence there inside of its mind."

Geoffrey
had started walking as he talked, but I checked first to make sure
that my wolves were all okay before joining him. My people were all
picking themselves back up off of the ground as I checked them over.
The hybrid they'd been busy savaging had been what the pyromancer had
ignited.

Omar
had a pretty nasty-looking burn on his right side, and everyone else
was singed around the edges, but they were still capable of moving
under their own power. My warning must have come just in the nick of
time, that or they'd been able to feel the hybrid starting to heat
up.

"A
second presence inside of that werewolf's mind would tend to gel with
Puppeteer controlling it. That's no surprise."

I
caught up with Geoffrey in just a few strides as he angled away from
the snarling set of bodies that were busy tearing into each other
with an abandon that I wouldn't have thought could be sustained for
more than a few seconds.

Geoffrey
shrugged. "I know. It's hard to explain, when it comes to
werewolves their thought processes are so different that half the
time I don't even understand what it was I saw. It comes down more to
hunches based off of what I think it all means, but I just don't
understand why Puppeteer would have backed away from us like that."

"Maybe
he can't tell his own hybrids apart when he's controlling a
werewolf?"

"Doubtful.
You've indicated in the past that he's had werewolves and hybrids
working together in some kind of limited fashion. Besides, he has to
know that he doesn't have any vampires working for him, and from what
you've said the Coun'hij doesn't make use of ordinary wolves very
often."

Before
I could respond another hybrid came crashing through the trees and
threw itself into the fight. There wasn't any way to know for sure
which side the newest arrival was on, but we were already nearly out
of sight by the time the third softly-glowing figure started drawing
blood from one of the other two.

Geoffrey
found the entrance to Puppeteer's lair a couple of minutes later. It
was exactly like he'd described it as we'd been ghosting through the
darkness except for the fact that there were three dead werewolves
outside of the first door.

I
tried to pick out the separate scent trails, but it was just too
hard. The air was so still and there wasn't any natural mechanism to
wash away old scents so all I could really make out was the base
smell of stone with other, fainter scents layered on top. There were
dozens of 'people' who had crossed this way recently and dozens more
who'd been there before them. Even worse, Geoffrey's overpowering
vampire scent was washing out everything else even more than usual
since we were in such an enclosed space.

The
only real common denominator was that the corridor we were in was
lousy with the aged, earthy smell that I'd sometimes found associated
with some of the older werewolves. Geoffrey started to take the lead
spot, but I stopped him with a word.

"You'll
be second for this, Geoffrey. I'm more durable than you are. Just
walk behind me and tell me which way to go. Oh, and keep your probes
out looking for someone trying to ambush us."

We
worked our way deeper and deeper into the complex and every step was
a nerve-wracking ordeal. There was a very good chance that I'd be
able to hear the heartbeat of anyone trying to get me with some kind
of surprise attack, but nothing was guaranteed.

The
heartbeats of my people stuttered along behind me at double-time and
on top of that, sound seemed to be playing weird tricks as it bounced
off of the stone walls. We walked down what felt like miles of
gray-stone tunnels and found an unbelievable variety of different
kinds of rooms at the end of them.

One
room was as big as the entire west wing of Graves Manor and was
filled almost to the brim with more art than I'd ever seen in one
place at the same time. Greek sculptures, Renaissance paintings,
blocks of stone that looked like they'd been lifted straight out of
the crypt of one of the pharaohs, it was a display of plundered
wealth that was somehow obscene in ways that I couldn't even begin to
describe.

Alec
and Rachel are rich in the way that some small countries are rich,
and Graves Manor had been a very large and extremely luxurious home,
but most of their wealth had been put to work making more money. This
art collection could have purchased a hundred houses the size of
Graves Manor and still had money left over.

It
was somehow wrong for so many gorgeous things to be locked away where
only one person would ever appreciate them, but it was more than
that. Alec's money had largely been the result of creating value, but
the Coun'hij hadn't ever done anything good. They had robbed and
pillaged, scammed and extorted to get their initial chunk of working
capital and I had very little doubt but that their business practices
had remained essentially the same ever since they'd overthrown the
monarchy.

Other
rooms came and went without much in the way of rhyme or reason. A
massive dormitory, a laboratory that looked like it was secure enough
to work with pandemic-level infectious diseases, and a large kitchen
capable of feeding a small army. It took twenty minutes for us to
find the elegant study that Geoffrey had seen earlier when he'd
manipulated the dream of one of Puppeteer's lieutenants.

It
was empty, but a quick search revealed a wall safe that I was able to
get open, which was odd in and of itself. Puppeteer had obviously
known that this type of safe wasn't durable enough to stop a hybrid
from getting in, so he hadn't meant for it to protect the contents
from his people, but kitchens and dormitories notwithstanding we
hadn't seen any signs of humans or others who would have been stopped
by the safe.

The
contents of the safe were practically a clone of what Geoffrey had
left in his safety deposit box. Cash and bearer bonds, which I'd more
or less expected, but it also had a small leather-bound book that
seemed to be written in some kind of cypher.

Geoffrey
emptied the safe, stuffing the contents into a small backpack that
was also in the safe, and then we turned to the computers. There were
two of them, a laptop that wasn't connected to anything other than
the power cord, and a desktop that had an Ethernet cable coming out
the back.

"I
can't carry them both, not and still be able to fight."

I
nodded at Geoffrey. "Grab the laptop. The only reason for him to
have it here like that is that he's got something on it that he
doesn't trust having hooked up to the internet because if it's
connected to a network it's always possible for it to get hacked."

"You're
right."

The
laptop disappeared into the backpack too, and then we left the
office, still hoping against hope that we'd either find Puppeteer or
stumble onto Melody's location.

The
next room we found was like something out of The X-Files. It had a
door that would have put a bank vault to shame, which was plenty odd,
but the inside was even odder. There were a series of metal loops set
into the wall like the room had been intended for use as some kind of
stainless steel dungeon. I checked the inside of the restraints and
found them lined with thick rubber bladders that looked like once
they were inflated would take the area inside of the restraints down
to something roughly the circumference of a human wrist.

"Come
on, Jasmin. We don't have time to waste, Puppeteer could be getting
further away with each second that passes."

"All
right, I'm just curious what Puppeteer might have been using these
for."

Over
the next ten minutes we passed a variety of laboratories, a massive
library and a room full of weights and cardio machines, and then we
found it. It was all clean stainless steel, but there wasn't any
mistaking a torture room. It still had the feel of a room that had
seen terrible things.

A
huge, sturdy cage took up a third of the room and the rest of the
space was dominated by a table and a variety of metal instruments.

"This
is where she was."

I
looked over at Geoffrey with a questioning expression. "How do
you know? Can you smell her?"

"No,
I can just feel it, but I know who can confirm my hunch."

Before
I could ask him what he meant, Geoffrey walked over to a large
floor-to-ceiling cabinet and unlatched it. The man inside of the
cabinet was only about five-six and he couldn't have weighed much
more than a hundred and ten pounds. If I'd seen him on the street,
dressed differently, I probably wouldn't have given him a second
look, but here, in a room that was so obviously constructed with the
goal of breaking people, his white clothing proclaimed that he was
the torturer.

I
didn't have the telepathic advantages that made Geoffrey so
dangerous, but even without them I could still practically feel the
rage radiating off of him. Geoffrey pulled the little man out of his
hiding place and slammed him against the wall.

"Was
she here?"

"Who,
who do you want to know about?"

The
man's voice was a thin, weak thing that cracked at the end of his
question. He screamed when Geoffrey spun and threw him down against
the table. Moving faster than I'd ever seen him move before, Geoffrey
snapped close the oversized metal restraints and then tightened the
nylon loops that actually served to hold the tiny man to the table.

"I'm
not going to ask you again. Where is she?"

"Which
she? Which she does the man want to know about?"

I
stepped forward, intending on clarifying Geoffrey's question, but
Geoffrey's eyes were already closed and the torturer had started
shaking. I'd seen Geoffrey rummage through Jeete's memories, but that
had been nothing like this. Jeete had hardly seemed aware of the fact
that Geoffrey had been inside of his mind, but the little man's eyes
had rolled back into his head and based on the blood leaking out of
the side of his mouth, he'd bitten his tongue.

"Geoffrey,
you're pushing too hard!"

My
yell got through, at least enough for him to open his eyes, but it
was like looking at a different person. Geoffrey's nose had started
to bleed and his eyes had skipped right past bloodshot and gone
straight to dark red.

"Don't
interfere or I'll let Ben die and I'll dance on his grave. This worm
hurt her, she was here."

My
beast wanted to rip Geoffrey's head off of his shoulders, but I
forced her back into her corner. I couldn't afford to cross Geoffrey,
not when he was the only one who could save Ben. My claws slid out to
full extension and I tore furrows into the steel tabletop, but I
forced myself not to take that final step that would have put me
within striking range of Geoffrey.

Two
more minutes passed before Geoffrey opened his eyes again and stepped
away from the table. "He tortured her. His mind was too brittle,
it shattered under the force of my attempts to access his memories,
so I didn't get everything, but I know exactly what Puppeteer looks
like and I know that Melody was here."

"Where
is she now?"

Geoffrey
wiped away the trickle of blood that was still leaking from his nose.
"I don't know. That's one of the pieces that dissolved before I
could access it, but he remembers seeing her walk away from him. She
escaped somehow."

"The
door."

His
words were so faint that a normal person wouldn't have been able to
make them out, but I leaned in closer to the little torturer to be
certain that I'd be able to make out what he was saying around the
coughs and gasps for air.

"The
door…the key. All shiny and thick like a bank."

I
reached for the closest ankle restraint and flipped the metal cuff
open so that I could get at the nylon strap, but Geoffrey stopped me
with a glare. I'd never seen him quite this furious before. I held up
a calming hand, but I didn't step any closer.

"We
need to let him go or he's going to choke on his own blood."

"Let
him choke. You didn't see what he's guilty of. Death is too kind for
someone like him. He's told us everything he's capable of telling us.
Let's go find that door, it's close to here, I saw the way there in
his memories. Did you get Melody's scent?"

I
wasn't the one who needed to fill my nose with her scent, but now
wasn't the time to be telling Geoffrey that. I sucked in a lungful of
air and nodded to Sally and Tyler. The scent of iodine was so strong
that it even washed out Geoffrey's old-blood smell, but I thought I
could make out someone else beneath all of that.