Marked (25 page)

Alec
took the accessories with a smile as he put his phone in his pocket,
but he didn't put them on. "I know it's a risk, Donovan, but
they need to see me. I'll put them on before we go into the city to
make the rest of the phone calls."

"Very
good, Master Alec."

Mallory
was waiting just outside of our vehicle as if worried that going
inside would break some kind of spell and return Alec to his injured
and helpless state. Alec carefully hugged her as soon as his feet hit
the blacktop.

"Thank
you for supporting Adri. I knew I could count on you."

"Apparently
she hasn't told you the full story."

He
looked back at me with a raised eyebrow, but I wasn't about to go
into that particular tale with so many other ears around.

"Things
got a little tense at one point, but I was able to bring Mallory
around to my point of view. The negotiations were
understandably…energetic."

Mallory
snorted. "I underestimated this one, Alec. I was feeling my oats
and started thinking that maybe I should be calling the shots like I
used to do when I was your dad's enforcer. I'm glad she was here to
remind me that I'm nothing more than a tired old lady these days."

"Well,
however it happened I'm glad that the two of you were able to work
together with Donovan. How much longer before all of our people will
have arrived?"

Mallory
shrugged. "It's hard to say for sure. The last car is supposed
to be a good five or ten minutes behind you, but given the reason
we're stopping it wouldn't surprise me to find out that they've been
crowding up closer than that. I can read them the riot act if you
want, but honestly I can't blame them too much for wanting to see you
with their own eyes."

"No,
you're right. We'll have to hope they don't draw any extra attention
our way, but I can't really blame them. Besides, given how short we
are on time it's probably for the best anyway."

"Is
something going on that I should know about?"

"Nothing
so urgent that we need to get into it out here. Don't worry, I'll
make sure you're fully briefed on everything before too much longer."

Mallory
looked like she wanted to press Alec, but she knew as well as I did
that anything we said right now would end up making the rounds among
our people. After everything that had happened so far today, the
gossipers among our people were going to be putting in overtime.

"Did
you serve as the heavy for my dad a lot back in the day?"

"Yeah.
That's something you should keep in mind, actually. It's something
that you see a lot on navy ships. The first mate is the one who deals
with most of the punishments and the like, which means that the
captain can remain above that and retain the crew's loyalty even
through very trying circumstances. I'm not saying that I'm the ideal
person to take that role any more, but you ought to have someone who
can throw their weight around from time to time when the
circumstances call for it."

I
gave Mallory a surprised look. "Isn't it a bad idea to talk
about something like that out here where everyone can hear you?"

"Maybe,
but the best strategies often work on people at a subconscious level.
You can know that I'm playing a role to a certain extent, but that's
probably not going to change the fact that you won't like me if I
come down on you. By the same extent, you'll always be inclined to
think that some of my enthusiasm is beyond what Alec would strictly
want to take place, which means that you'll be predisposed to like
him even though you know he's the one who put me in charge of
disciplining you."

Alec
stifled a yawn. "Sorry, it's not the subject matter. Resting
while injured this time around was surprisingly unrestful. The
old-time captains learned a lot of lessons over the years and their
situation wasn't all that different than what we're up against.

"Out
on your own, cut off from any kind of communication, and in charge of
a bunch of trained killers, some of whom were there only because
they didn't have any better options open to them, some of whom you
could count on to stand with you no matter what. I'm open to any
suggestions you might have where that kind of thing is concerned,
Mallory, but it looks like most of our people are here now."

Mallory
surveyed the group of people standing a respectful distance away from
us and then looked over at a silver SUV that had just parked forty
feet away from us. "Yeah, that Escalade is the last of them. You
can start with whatever you want to say as soon as they get here."

Shape
shifters were normally capable of carrying on a conversation in what
was the sub-audible range for humans, but maybe the background noise
from the nearby performance made that impossible—that or maybe
Alec just wanted me to be able to hear what was said. Either way, he
spoke loud enough for his voice to easily carry to the farthest
member of our group.

"I'm
sure some of you probably doubted Adri when she took over command and
told all of you that I was going to recover. I'm here to tell you
that while I understand your doubts, they were misplaced."

Alec
hadn't ever buttoned up his shirt and now he slipped out of it,
making it so that everyone could see his unblemished shoulder and the
mass of white scar tissue next to his heart.

"I
appear to have made a full recovery, and I vindicate Adri's decision
to take over while I was unable to perform my usual duties, but
that's not the most important thing I called you all here to hear. I
made a full-scale rebellion possible because I'm more powerful than
any of you."

Alec
lifted his hands to shoulder level and then closed his fists. This
was a demonstration of power like I'd never seen from Alec before. I
was standing less than a foot from him, safely out of the zone he was
impacting with his ability, and this time I was able to feel
something
happening as the people in front of us all dropped down to their
knees. It felt more than a little like the metaphysical wind I often
felt from Alec and the others during dominance displays, but rather
than flowing out away from Alec it was flowing to him.

I
didn't even begin to have an idea how much power Alec was pulling
away from the thirty-plus shape shifters in front of us, but I once
again got the impression that Alec's power had increased. Unlike in
Chicago when dropping Agony's enforcers had strained Alec's ability
nearly to its limit, this time he didn't evidence any kind of strain
from the amount of energy that was passing through him.

Alec
dropped his arms and the gale I'd been on the fringes of disappeared
between one second and the next.

"I
was the reason that the rebellion was able to make it this far, and
in some ways I'm more powerful than all of you together, but in other
ways you're more powerful than me. I can only be in one place at a
time, you can be in many. It only took one man with a single rifle to
nearly kill me, but Donovan easily dispatched the sniper. The way
ahead of us will be difficult, you must not forget your power, you
must not forget that it is only when we are together that the
Coun'hij fear us, but they fear you as much or more than they fear
me."

Alec
looked around the gathered shape shifters, all of whom had pulled
themselves back up onto their feet. "We have a lot of work that
needs to be done in the next hour or two. Donovan is working on
obtaining the communications equipment we need, but it will do us no
good until the three antennae have been installed.

"Mallory
will be organizing a team to handle the installation of that
hardware, other teams will be in charge of purchasing supplies, and
I'll need a group to come with me into the city so I can make calls
to Natasha and the rest of our people currently carrying out other
necessary tasks. Remember, if an order comes from Adri, Donovan, or
Mallory then it comes from me."

Alec
shrugged his shirt back on and then motioned for Mallory to take
center stage. The next hour was incredibly hectic. Just organizing
everyone took a full half hour and even then it wouldn't have been
possible without Mallory and Donovan's help. Once those plans were
laid I found myself in one of the SUV's with James, Dominic and Alec.

By
any logical measure neither James nor Dom should have been on
bodyguard duty. James was walking with a slight limp and while Dom no
longer looked prematurely old, she was still obviously exhausted and
functioning on little more than sheer willpower. Alec would have
probably left them back with the RV to watch over everything there,
but they'd both insisted and there was no denying the fact that we
needed people we could trust with us.

The
thought of James or Dominic taking a bullet for Alec was enough to
make me feel sick to my stomach. Alec apparently believed every word
he'd just told our people about them being as important as he was.
Maybe he was even right, but for now—at least until everyone
else believed it—James, Dom and I all knew he was more
important than any of the rest of us.

I
didn't want to see James or Dom die, but I couldn't deny them the
privilege of possibly dying, not when I was also perfectly willing to
take a bullet for Alec.

We
spent the drive into downtown St Louis with me trying to get Alec up
to speed on everything else that had happened while he'd been
unconscious. I wracked my brain trying to make sure that I got it all
out there for Alec to judge and either approve or disapprove.

My
consolidation of power into Tasha's hand was met with a nod, as was
my decision to use Lori as backup security along with Grayson. Really
Alec seemed happy with nearly all of the measures that Donovan,
Mallory and I had come up with. The sole exception to that was our
not having been able to get the communications equipment back up and
running.

I
finished up with my summary just before we pulled into the parking
garage underneath the mall, and the first thing that Alec did once he
got out of the car was call Donovan.

"You've
got to get some kind of solution up as far as communications go,
Donovan. We simply can't fight a war like this. I know you've got
limits, but call back our hackers and push them on this.
Something
is better than nothing. We need to understand exactly what the issue
is."

A
few seconds later we met up with the two hybrids Mallory had detached
to back up James and Dom as bodyguards. I hadn't caught either of
their names before we left and was too embarrassed to ask once they
were within earshot. I kept thinking that James, Dom or Alec would
let their names drop at some point during the outing, but the new
bodyguards were so competent that nobody ever had to address them
directly.

We
made a slow, meandering trip through the airy, sunlit mall, Alec and
I holding hands as though we were just like any other couple, Dom and
James a few feet to either side of us, and the two new guys following
a dozen feet behind.

Alec
spent the whole time on the phone. I lost count of the number of
calls he made. Most of them were short, designed primarily to make
sure whoever he was talking to knew that he was still alive, that he
had a plan, and that he might be using me to interface with them from
time to time.

I
heard calls to Rebekka, Louis and Tasha, but I didn't actually pick
up on most of what was said because I was so worried about how tired
Alec looked. He'd been so vibrant and alive when he'd been talking to
our people before we'd left the music festival that it was hard to
believe this was the same person.

I
counted six yawns in his two-minute conversation with Tasha and his
steps were slowing at a noticeable rate. I looked up and caught
Dominic looking at Alec with concern, which only made me more worried
because that meant we had one less set of eyes focused outward
looking for trouble.

I
couldn't blame Dom for being concerned, but after that I spent as
much time watching our surroundings as I did Alec. I wasn't going to
lose him to another surprise attack that we could have stopped if
we'd been paying a little more attention.

"That's
the last of the calls that I know I need to make."

Alec's
announcement caught me by surprise. I turned back to him and saw big,
dark circles under his eyes.

"Does
that mean we can go back and let you get some sleep?"

"Not
quite yet—I need to turn on my phone and check my voicemails."

"So
things are about to get dangerous."

"I'm
afraid so. We should be fine unless the Coun'hij has a team already
inside of the city, but things are going to get very hot in St Louis
sometime in the next hour or two—we're going to want to be gone
by then."

"I
guess this is as good of a place to do it as any. From here we could
be down to the car in less than thirty seconds if we ran."

"Let's
hope it doesn't come to that—I'm not sure I've got a
thirty-second sprint left inside of me."

"Are
you okay, Alec? I know that Dr…I know that you haven't been
getting the kind of sleep that you should have been getting, but I've
never seen you this exhausted before."

"Don't
worry, Adri, it's nothing that a little quality rest wouldn't fix."

Alec
checked the time on the burner phone and then sighed. "I didn't
think it would catch up to me this fast. I thought I would have
another hour or two, but by now Mallory and Donovan should have our
people resupplied and the antennae mounted to the top of the RV."

We'd
stopped moving, but it still seemed like it was all Alec could do to
keep from tipping over. I looked around the department store we were
in, but it wasn't like most stores wasted valuable floor space with
chairs anywhere but in the shoe section. After a second I took his
arm and led him over to a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out
over the city.