Marked (38 page)

I
followed James between two dark houses and then watched as he
stripped down to his ha'bit and shifted into his hybrid form.

"Is
this a good idea, James?"

"No,
but it's the only way we're going to be able to travel fast enough.
Right now they are running two search patterns, one assuming that we
are still in our vehicle, and one assuming that we are on foot. Once
they find our vehicle they are going to collapse down to just one
search pattern and they know exactly how fast two people on foot are
capable of moving. We've got to move faster than we have been. Put my
clothes in your backpack and clip the radio to your belt. We need to
be moving."

James
slung Alec over his massive shoulder with one arm, and then used the
other to pick me up. James waited just long enough for me to wrap my
good arm around his neck and then we were off.

I
wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't experienced it for myself, but
James tore through the yard we were standing in and then cleared the
six-foot privacy fence in a powerful leap that shouldn't have been
possible while carrying one person, let alone two. The next yard had
a German Shepherd in it, but the poor dog only got one bark out
before James let out a deep, menacing growl that shut it up.

It
was hard sometimes to remember just how powerful and graceful a
hybrid really was. Lately everything had been about the hybrids with
abilities. People like Jaclyn and Lori, like Grayson and Puppeteer.
I'd had to mold all of my plans around the heavies who had no
counter, but in doing so I'd lost sight of just what a single,
'normal' hybrid was capable of.

James
was already breathing hard from the added strain of sprinting while
carrying several hundred extra pounds, but he didn't seem to be
slowing down at all yet. Motion-activated lights flashed on in some
of the yards that we passed, but we were moving so fast that I was
confident very few of the people living on the block had looked up in
time to see anything more than a dark shadow disappearing over their
fence.

We
jumped a low set of bushes and then James skidded to a stop behind a
storage shed.

"What's
going on?"

"I
can hear a car headed this way, sounds like what the local police
department drives."

"You
can actually tell different cars apart just by how they sound?"

"Yep.
You can too; you've just never stopped to think about it."

Before
I could respond to that, a police car drove by slowly with its lights
off. Score another point for James. Even if I'd had James' speed and
strength, I would have just kept running blindly and been captured
eventually.

James
stood up and darted across the road as if Alec and I combined still
weighed nothing. I'd been wrong, he had been slowing down, but our
pause—brief though it was—was sufficient to give him back
most of his speed, and this block was full of yards with fences that
were only five feet tall. We blurred forward so fast that my eyes
started tearing up, but I wasn't about to complain, not when our very
survival relied on James' speed.

We
worked our way across ten more blocks, sometimes pausing at the edge
of the street before running across, but with each block we covered
the police presence seemed to get further and further behind us.

After
ten blocks I started to lose count. I'd been trying to support as
much of my weight as possible so that James could use his arm to help
balance himself, but I was starting to get tired. It was harder than
I'd expected it to be with only one arm. I couldn't give myself any
kind of break so my weight just seemed to grow with each passing
second.

As
we crossed another street and reached what I thought was block
fourteen, the radio crackled back to life.

"We've
located the suspects' vehicle. They can't have covered more than a
mile and a quarter. I want a cordon from Saint Clair all the way down
to Hummingbird and from Vexor Avenue all the way over to Redwood
Street. We've got enough cars to put bodies on alternate
intersections and K9 units are on their way to the abandoned vehicle
as we speak. Hold the line for another half an hour, boys and girls,
and we'll have these pieces of scum in cuffs."

"Is
that good?"

James
nodded. He was back to breathing hard enough that I thought for a
moment that I wasn't going to get any more of a response than that,
but in between gasps he choked one out.

"I
think so. I don't know the local street names, but we're coming up on
two miles now. That should put us outside of their perimeter, which
means that we can go to ground pretty soon and start looking for a
car to steal."

"Do
you think they've pulled down the road blocks?"

"No,
not yet. They probably won't pull them down until they catch us, but
I'll try and steal something that can go cross-country."

I
started counting again, partly so I would feel like I had something
to do and partly in the hopes that it would distract me from the
burning sensation in my arm as my muscles started to shake. We made
it four more blocks before James slowed again. At that point a
terrible thought hit me.

"What
about the dogs, James? Are they going to be able to track us?"

"Yeah,
a dog will track a shape shifter. They may have a little trouble with
the spot where I shifted, but a good dog will figure it out and
follow the new scent trail because there isn't anything else leaving
the spot. That's part of why we need to steal a car."

"How
much further can you run?"

"Not
much further—at least not carrying both of you like this. If it
was just me, I could go for a few more miles at this pace, but we're
starting to get pretty close to that industrial section of town that
we saw on our way in. There aren't going to be many cars out there,
so if we don't find something soon we're going to be out of luck."

"You're
just full of good news."

"Given
what we're up against, I think I'm being positively optimistic."

There
was a hint of laughter to James' voice and I found myself revising my
opinion of him slightly. I'd always assumed that there was more to
him than met the eye—it was the only explanation given that Dom
liked him—but this was the first time I was getting a chance to
see this side of him. He was surprisingly likeable when he wasn't
glowering and angry.

"Are
you actually having fun, James?"

"You'd
be surprised just how liberating it is to go into a situation that
you don't expect to survive, Adri. Once you get over being sad about
all the things you aren't going to get to do, it becomes kind of fun
to see what you can get away with during the time you have left. Now
hush, I need to find a vehicle that is old enough I'll have a chance
of stealing it without any tools."

We
made it two more blocks with James frowning at every car that
presented itself, before the radio clicked back on.
"All
units, the FBI will be taking over the manhunt. You'll be taking your
orders from Special Agent in Charge Cruthers."

The
voice on the radio didn't sound particularly happy to have someone
else muscling in on the party, but it also didn't sound like they had
much choice but to cooperate. A second later a new voice took over.

"Your
estimates regarding the suspect's speed are drastically low. In the
time involved, it is very likely that the perpetrators have gone
nearly three miles. The dogs are headed…"

There
was a pause as someone whispered something into the new arrival's
ear. I caught something about a radio and an injured police officer,
and then suddenly our radio started squealing. James stopped and set
me down so he could rip the radio off of my belt and tear it in half.
That didn't stop the terrible screech coming out of the radio, but
James then threw the radio against the ground with enough force to
leave a dent in the asphalt and that did the trick.

"What
just happened?"

"They
realized that the officer we disabled was missing his radio and cut
it out of the circuit."

"I
didn't even know that was possible."

James
picked me back up and started across the street at a sprint. "We
could still listen into their frequency if we had another radio, they
haven't done anything to encrypt their signal, they just sent a kill
signal to this particular radio. Honestly, I'm surprised that a town
this small has that kind of tech, but that's not our main problem."

"What
do you mean?"

"We've
only been on foot for about ten minutes. Expanding the perimeter out
to three miles from our car is crazy. That's barely over three minute
miles. That's my best speed over a medium distance on my good days
when I'm by myself, running unburdened."

"You
mean they know you're a hybrid?"

"Yeah,
if that's a real FBI agent then I'll eat my socket wrench. The
Coun'hij must have found a way to impersonate the bureau. We've got a
kill squad in the area and if they haven't already picked up our
scent trail they won't be more than a minute or two away from picking
it up. We've probably got no more than seven or eight minutes before
they catch us. We have to find a vehicle right now."

James
jumped us over another set of hedges and then suddenly we were face
to face with a large, eight-foot chain-link fence that was topped
with razor wire. For a second I almost thought that James was still
going to jump it, but at the last second he slashed out with his
right hand and sheared through a large section of links.

The
opening he'd created was more than big enough to let me through, but
it was still too small for a hybrid. I dropped down to the ground and
pushed through the fence as I felt a flare of energy behind me and
turned to find that James had shifted back to human form.

I
looked around as James followed me through the opening in the fence.
I must have lost count of a few blocks somewhere along the way
because we weren't just
near
the abandoned industrial section of the city, we were actually there.

I
was standing in the middle of a large open space that was full of
weeds and piles of metal, scrap or otherwise. More importantly
though, I could see a large flat-bed truck thirty yards away from us.

"What
about that truck, James? Is that something you can hotwire without
any tools?"

James
manhandled Alec through the hole in the fence before looking in the
direction I was pointing. "Yeah, assuming that it still runs and
that it's got enough gas to get us more than ten or fifteen miles, it
should work. Come on."

James
shifted forms again and threw Alec over his shoulder as his long,
hybrid legs ate up the distance between him and the truck.

I
followed along as best I could, carefully dividing my attention
between the ground in front of me and James' actions as he reached
the truck. James put his fist through the driver's-side window,
shattering it with a casual display of force as he lowered Alec to
the ground.

As
I picked my way around a piece of machinery that looked like it
belonged on a farm back in the early eighteenth century, James used
his claws to tear through the plastic sheath around the steering
column. A second later he'd also slashed through a bundle of wires
and then he shifted back to human form and pulled the door open.

The
sound of howling wolves told me that the Coun'hij was getting closer.
I hurried forward and stopped next to Alec as James started twisting
wires together.

"I
wish Dom was here, she's better at this kind of stuff; I'm much more
at home working on an engine."

A
second later James struck two of the wires together and the engine
roared to life as a long, blue spark shot from one wire to the other.
The engine turning over was one of the most welcome sounds I'd ever
heard, but it nearly cost James his life because it covered up the
sound of the approaching shape shifter.

James
had just bent down to pick up Alec when something—probably a
stray breeze—tipped him off to the fact that we had company.
James straight-armed me, shoving me to the ground at the same time
that he threw himself in the opposite direction.

The
thing that hit the side of the truck had started out as a slender,
gray form that sliced through the darkness with the speed and grace
you only saw from a wolf, but by the time it collided with the
driver's door it had shifted to a six-and-a-half-foot-tall tower of
muscle and claws.

The
force of the impact rocked the heavy truck on its suspension, but I
hardly noticed because of the sudden lance of pain that pierced my
leg. The hybrid had speared me with one of his toe talons, but it was
nothing more than an afterthought—he didn't have time for more
than that because James had already shifted forms and thrown himself
at the enforcer.

Watching
two hybrids fight had always been a surreal experience, but for the
first time I could remember I was actually able to follow what was
happening. James shoved the other hybrid back into the truck as his
claws tore into the enforcer's arms and chest. I somehow retained
enough presence of mind to roll to one side, putting more distance
between myself and the fighting. The ferocity of James' attack was
sufficient to keep the enforcer off balance for a fraction of a
second, but James was slightly shorter and less bulky than his
opponent.

The
enforcer blocked one of James' slashes and then ducked under the next
attack and suddenly they were circling each other nearly ten yards
away from the truck. They were both bleeding now, but James was
continually falling back before his enemy's onslaught.

James
was the one circling now, trying to work the perimeter, dashing
forward and back in an effort to create an opening in the enforcer's
defenses, but with every second that passed he was picking up new
wounds. The enforcer suddenly blurred into motion, slapping aside
James' claws and then sinking his fist into James' side.