Driven (33 page)

Tyler
didn't look very sure of himself, but Sally gave me an unmistakable
nod, so I turned back to Geoffrey and waved him out the door. "Sally
has it. I think I can smell it, but it's pretty faint, so we'll
follow Sally."

"Fine,
she can go first then. Once we're back out in the corridor, we turn
left to find the door he was talking about."

I
nodded in agreement, but once we were back in the hall Sally turned a
couple of circles and then whined softly as she looked back the way
we came.

"Sally
says that Melody went the other way."

Geoffrey
shrugged as he pushed past us and started down the unexplored section
of the corridor. "This door is important somehow. I can't
explain it, not completely, but we need to get there and soon."

Geoffrey
led us at something very close to a run, which meant that it took us
less than five minutes to make it to the large circular door.

"It's
just like that other vault we found."

Geoffrey
nodded. "I know, which means that it's designed to hold
werewolves. The metal straps are designed to hold them when they are
in werewolf form, while the rubber compression ring holds them in
place when they are in human shape."

I
was astonished that I hadn't seen it myself. "The table in the
room where they were keeping Melody had the same kind of mechanism.
It used nylon straps instead of those heavy rubber bladders, but the
principle is the same. Why would they…"

Geoffrey
cut me off. "They probably have that kind of setup in every spot
where they might need to restrain someone. It's not like cost is a
consideration for Puppeteer, so it only makes sense to make sure all
of his facilities could restrain humans or werewolves."

Before
I could respond, Geoffrey reached up and unlocked the heavy door. It
was the last thing I expected him to do, but in hindsight I could see
why he might have thought that the werewolves would still be
restrained inside of the manacles fasted to the walls. He was wrong
though. No sooner did the bars inside the door slide back than the
massive plate of metal was hit by the combined mass of three or four
werewolves.

The
door flew open with a speed that I wouldn't have believed possible,
hitting Geoffrey on the side of the head with enough force that he
collapsed like a rag doll. The werewolves that had thrown the door
open were all on the ground, stunned from the force of their impact
with the door, but others were lined up behind them and the first row
jumped over the top of them in order to get at Geoffrey and me.

I
yelled for Sally and the others to run, but instead of joining them,
I stepped forward and grabbed Geoffrey's ankle. Without Geoffrey
there wasn't any point in going back to Ben.

I
meant to throw Geoffrey over my shoulder, but the first werewolf was
too close for that. It was all I could do to tug Geoffrey out of the
way of the massive foot that otherwise would have crushed his chest.
Then the fight was on.

I
knew I couldn't win, but neither my beast nor I was ready to just
give up and let them kill us. I managed to knock the first slash wide
and then ducked another one from the werewolf that was next to my
main attacker, but the first werewolf was already bringing his hand
back around in a backfist and I had almost zero chance of ducking
under this blow.

I
dropped down anyway, hoping that I'd be able to get my right hand far
enough up to divert the claws headed straight for my head, but then,
moving with a speed that left my head spinning, the front three
werewolves turned around and started pushing against the flow of
werewolves still trying to get out of the vault. It was impossible,
but I didn't stay around to wait and see how long it would all last.

I
slung Geoffrey over my shoulder and then started back down the hall
at a full sprint.

Jasmin Bianchi
Sixty miles outside of Fort Loudon State Park
Tennessee

I
was dreaming. I knew that much, but I couldn't seem to recall
anything else. There was something about a big fight on the very edge
of my consciousness, and I had vague memories of running back to a
Jeep, but no matter how hard I tried the details just floated away
into deep space.

I'd
been worried about someone, someone important, someone who had
something to do with Ben, but those details were likewise
inaccessible, so instead I took stock of my surroundings. I was
underground, in some kind of cave apparently, which felt right on
some levels, but wrong on others. The sheer amount of ice was
astonishing. I'd heard of ice caves before, but I hadn't ever
realized that there could be so much ice associated with them. The
cavern I was in was almost as big as a football stadium, and when I
looked down at the floor the ice was clear enough for me to see that
it was at least three or four feet thick, except that I shouldn't be
able to see anything because it should be dark.

My
breath fogged the air in front of me as I bent down and tried to chip
away at the ice with my claws. That gave me pause for a second, I
couldn't remember shifting forms, and I'd been a human just a second
or two before.

The
ice proved impossibly hard, my claws skittered off of it without even
leaving a mark, but before I could examine it further I felt the air
move behind me and I spun around just in time to avoid losing my
head.

The
thing I was fighting was like a werewolf, but bigger, faster and
stronger. I ducked away from another slash and suddenly realized that
my opponent seemed to be eating the light around us like he was some
kind of living shadow.

I
tried to dance away to one side, tried to work my way around so that
I could use his own bulk against him, but it was like I was moving
through molasses. I was smaller than him, I should be more nimble,
but instead I screamed as he sank the claws on his right hand into my
chest.

"I've
got an appointment with one of your friends, little wolf, but maybe
if you prove to be enough of an entertainment I'll give your friend
the night off and just stay here with you instead."

I
got my right leg up between us and jammed it against his chest,
blooding him for the first time, but more importantly throwing myself
backwards and ripping his claws back out of my chest. Even that
seemed to happen in slow motion, and as I hit the ground I looked up
to find that my enemy was already waiting for me. He'd crossed the
distance between us so quickly that I hadn't even seen him move.

He
slashed down across my leg and I screamed in pain as hot blood
splashed out of that wound to join the growing pool beneath me from
my chest wound. I rolled back to my feet, ignoring the muted pain
signals from my leg, but it was obvious that he was toying with me. I
couldn't do anything without him allowing it to happen.

I'd
never been so outmatched before in my life. Even when fighting Alec
or Isaac, even when fighting the enforcers that Agony had brought to
Sanctuary months ago. I'd never been at such a disadvantage because
he was violating the laws of physics, laws that I'd spent my life
learning to exploit right up to the ragged edge of what was possible.

It
was a dream, I told myself that again, and again, but it was hard to
believe. My injuries hurt, and I couldn't ever remember a dream like
this, a dream where I'd experienced pain that hurt even more than it
did when I was awake.

It
took everything I had to strengthen that belief as I slowly backed
away from the monster in front of me, but I forced my belief into
something almost tangible, and as it grew into a certain knowledge I
could feel the threads of liquid shadow that were restraining me.

I
reached out and sheared through the dark cocoon surrounding me. It
wasn't easy, but my beast woke at the last second and threw her
efforts behind mine. I tore my way out and stepped forward into the
attack that the monster had just started launching at me.

He
was still fast, but no faster than a normal hybrid and he hadn't been
expecting me to move at anything even approaching a normal speed. A
thought strengthened my claws, making them even sharper than they
were normally, and I tore through ribs and muscle like they weren't
even there.

As
the monster went to his knees I took his throat in my claws and shook
him. "Who are you?"

"Don't
you know?" The words came out choked and scratchy, but before I
could respond he vanished and reappeared behind me. The pain as he
cut through my spine exceeded anything I'd ever felt as a human,
exceeded anything I'd ever thought was possible to withstand, but
somehow I was still conscious as I dropped to the ground.

The
monster kicked me, rolling me over, and then cocked his head at me.
"I'm the Dream Stealer, but then you already knew that.
Congratulations, your recent exploit was finally sufficient to make
me exert the effort required to find your dreams. You're lucky that I
have bigger fish to fry, but I can promise that I'll be back later.
You're obviously going to be a lot of fun. Don't worry, it only gets
worse from here."

Geoffrey
Stekensbridge House
Duluth, Minnesota

When
Geoffrey finally opened his eyes he wished he hadn't. The light hurt,
not the kind of excruciating pain that was a symptom of a concussion,
but it still hurt. It was almost like his eyes had gotten even worse
at adjusting to daylight than they'd been before.

Geoffrey
managed a croak which alerted someone to the fact that he was awake,
and they correctly interpreted the way that he was squinting to mean
that the room was too bright. A second later the blinds had been
drawn and the room was dark enough that he could open up his eyes
without them tearing up.

"Where
am I, and how long have I been out?"

"You're
back in Duluth. You've been out for nearly two days and I had just
about lost hope that you were going to wake up on your own. I even
drew some more of my blood and fed it to you via a tube, but that
didn't seem to make any difference in your condition. We're leaving
again in an hour or two, we had to come back for Ben and Jeff, but
it's not safe for us here any longer."

Geoffrey's
eyes had finally adjusted enough for him to make out Jasmin standing
on the right side of his bed.

"You
shouldn't have done that. I appreciate it, but you look terrible,
like you gave too much blood and nearly killed yourself."

"No,
that wasn't it. Would you believe I had a bad dream?"

Geoffrey
started to shake his head and then winced in anticipated pain, but
moving his head didn't actually hurt.

"That
must have been some bad dream."

"Yeah,
you could say that. What do you remember from our trip to Tennessee?"

The
question brought everything roaring back, and Geoffrey started to sit
up in the bed. Jasmin made as if to stop him and then reconsidered
and helped him by putting a pillow behind him.

"What
happened? Did you guys find Melody?"

"No.
I'm sorry. For a few minutes there I didn't think that we were going
to ever have this conversation. There was something like two dozen
werewolves inside of that vault. They should have torn through me
like tissue paper, but at the last second they stopped and the ones
in the front started trying to force the rest of them back into the
vault."

"Why
would Puppeteer want to save you?"

"I
don't know, but it makes about as much sense as everything else that
happened that night. I grabbed you and hightailed it out of there,
but I could hear them behind us nearly until we made it back out of
Puppeteer's complex."

"You
never found him then?"

"No,
but we didn't finish exploring everything so it's possible that he
was still in there somewhere just hiding away until we left. I
figured that following Melody's trail was more important than trying
to assassinate Puppeteer."

Geoffrey
nodded. "Agreed, especially since even if you had found him you
probably would have been facing three or four werewolves. You
couldn't have won that fight."

"Right.
So anyway, Sally followed Melody's scent trail and that led us
through an entirely new section of tunnels and rooms. It…well,
there were humans down there, but they'd all been butchered by
werewolves. They must have come in behind Melody and killed everyone.
Sally said that Melody's scent trail wasn't noticeably older than the
one the werewolves left, so she must have only been a minute or two
ahead of them."

"It
sounds like she was lucky that there were all of those people there
to distract and slow down the werewolves."

Jasmin
shrugged. "I guess. Do you think that she knew they were there?
Do you think she's coldblooded enough to lead a pack of werewolves
down there knowing that she was buying her own freedom at the cost of
all of those deaths?"

Geoffrey
wanted to bristle at the question, but it was obvious that Jasmin
wasn't trying to provoke him.

"I
don't know. A few months ago I would have said no, but being held
captive changes a person, and if they really tortured her then that
would have just compounded the pressure on her."

"Yeah,
I expect that you're right. If that's the case is she still someone
that you want to find?"

Geoffrey
didn't even have to think about that one. "Of course she is. The
only reason that she ended up inside of that complex was because of
me. I was the one who led Puppeteer to her and I owe it to her to do
whatever I can for her."

"We
lost her trail a hundred yards into the forest. I'm sorry, Geoffrey.
We spent a couple of minutes fanning out in an attempt to reacquire
it, but it wasn't any use. We would have stayed longer, but the
fighting hadn't stopped outside and I kept expecting for a dozen
werewolves to come boiling out of the caves at any time."