Touch of Darkness (34 page)

“Don’t you?” I asked him. “It’s the perfect opportunity.”

Tom continued where I left off. He was leaning forward, his expression serious and intense. “They could wipe out the heads of virtually all the established packs, along with their top enforcers; because nobody comes to these things without a security force of their own. We’ve never had to worry about that before. Security was mostly to protect the various leaders from each other. Werewolves are stronger, better fighters than vampires. But with these new ”troops“

they can take out the leaders. Manage that and wolves everywhere will be disheartened and disorganized. It wouldn’t take much to hunt them down. Especially when you consider that, without the werewolves to interfere, the vampires won’t have much of anybody capable of blocking their mental control.”

I spoke softly. “If they do it right, they can make it look like it was an internal fight between werewolves. Make the werewolves look like animals with no self-control so that the humans hunt down the rest for them, either kill them or stick them in ‘containment camps.’ ”

Brooks gave me a long look. “So take out the werewolves, and they can do what you like with the humans?”

Brooks’s voice was cold. “Is that what you think?”

“I think that’s what Dylan thinks,” I answered.

“Dylan. As in Dylan Shea?” Brooks gave me a shocked look. “I thought he was dead.”

“We wish,” Tom said bitterly.

Didn’t we just.

24

« ^ »

I had always liked Mary Connolly’s mother. I’ve only met her a few times, but she is almost a match for Mary herself. She’s a little shorter, has a little more gray in her hair, but she’s feisty, opinionated, and takes absolutely no shit off anybody, ever. When we arrived at the convention center she strode up, gave her daughter and my brother each a perfunctory hug, and immediately set her hooks in Elaine Johnston and dragged her off for a private chat.

“I swear,” I said as I gratefully watched their backs retreating down the carpeted hallway and into one of the private meeting rooms, “If I wasn’t already engaged, I’d seriously think about marrying your mother for this.”

“Wrong gender,” Rob pointed out as he walked up. He was wearing jeans and a plain white tee-shirt that was stretched tighter across the chest than it would’ve been a few months ago. I’d realized dimly that he’d put on some weight. I hadn’t realized just how buff he’d become.

Ahem. Tom gave a none-too-discreet cough that let me know I’d stared a little too long. Oops. I turned to see if he was jealous. He wasn’t. He knows I don’t think of Rob that way—don’t think of anyone but him that way. But I couldn’t help but notice. Rob had always been scrawny and kind of starved looking. Now he just wasn’t. Lucky Dusty.

“Yeah, but she got rid of Elaine,” I joked. Well, half-joked. Getting rid of Elaine was a really big deal to me. Maybe it shouldn’t have been. But that “Little Red Riding Hood” crack had annoyed the hell out of me.

“She’s that bad?” Rob asked.

We were saved from answering by the ringing of Joe’s cell phone. Normally I get annoyed when people take calls in the middle of a conversation, but this time, not so much. Because any honest answer would not have been diplomatic and I was under the impression that everybody else pretty much felt the same way.

“Hi John. Long time no hear from,” he joked. It had been all of maybe a half hour since we’d left him at the hospital. As I watched, the humor in Joe’s expression was replaced with a kind of thoughtful determination. “I suppose. I had been going to help Mary with the setup—” Another pause as he listened. “You did? He had. Wow. Yeah, I can see where it would be.”

Okay, hearing half of the conversation was driving me crazy. But none of us wanted to leave him out of the important plans we needed to make. Joe can be aggravating, but he’s got a brilliant mind. His input in the planning stage could make the difference between success and failure. So we waited with varying degrees of impatience until he finished his phone call and stuffed his cell phone back into the pocket of his jacket.

“That was Brooks,” Joe explained. “He’s called in some personal favors and gotten some cops to pull security duty here tomorrow. Not in uniform.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Joe talked right over me. “He specifically chose people who scored as head-blind on the police tests, because they’re less likely to be affected by the vampire mind tricks.”

I started again, but he rolled relentlessly on. “And he contacted the widow of that old friend of mine. She still has the molds from when we were going to mass-produce the neck braces. He wanted to know if I thought I could make a dozen of them by tomorrow.”

“Can you?” Tom was the one who asked.

“I don’t know,” Joe admitted. “But, if it’s all right with you,” he looked at Mary, “I want to try. It could make all the difference to those cops if things go wrong.”

“I think you should do it,” Mary smiled. “We can get by here without you. Rob and the others have gotten a lot more done than I’d expected. I still need to go over the schedule with the caterers about the banquet, but that’s nothing you need to be here for.”

“You’re sure?” I could see he was both relieved and worried. His body wasn’t up to a lot of physical labor yet, so he wouldn’t be as useful here as he’d like to be. But building the shields, that was something only he knew how to do, something he was good at.

“Go. We’ll get someone else to drive Kate and Elaine around.”

“Oh!” His face lit up, and the first glint of mischief sparkled in his eyes. “About that.” He looked at me, and I could tell he was holding back laughter. “I know you’re going to be heartbroken not to have your buddy by your side, but Brooks told me that Janine got picked up by DPD last night when they were patrolling your neighborhood. She’s got outstanding warrants for failure to appear. Sooooo—” he let the word drag out, but he didn’t need to finish the thought. No Janine. No need for Elaine as a bodyguard. WHOO FRIGGING HOOO!

I didn’t recite “Free at Last” or do the happy dance. It wouldn’t have been politic. Appropriate, perhaps, but not politic.

Mary fought to suppress a grin at the expression on my face. “Would you like me to go break the bad news to Elaine for you? Maybe while you ride with my husband back to the house so you can borrow the car?”

“What about making plans?”

“Reilly, I know this will be hard for you to believe, but I actually do understand the basics of what’s going on. I’ve got a good grasp of tactics too. Think about why I might have allowed Janine to take the pack on the drive. I can handle this without you. Go. We can talk later.”

She stood on tiptoe to give Joe a quick kiss, then turned and headed in the direction of the room her mother had gone into. Tom did her one better. No quick good-bye kiss for me. He pulled me into his arms, giving me a long, slow kiss that weakened my knees and left me breathless and aching with hunger. I hadn’t expected it, but I managed to give as good as I got. So good, in fact, that there were more than a few catcalls, wolf whistles, and “get a room” comments thrown at us from the various folks helping with the setup. It made me blush to the roots of my hair, but I wasn’t sorry. Not one little bit.

We left as fast as Joe could walk. He was babbling excitedly, the words tumbling over themselves in a torrent. If the police had the shields they could help guard the entrances. Not only would it help with whatever Dylan was trying to pull, it would be another level of protection. Uniformed officers could keep the humans who’d be attending the selfimprovement seminar and trade show upstairs tomorrow afternoon completely separate from the wolves. I shuddered at the thought. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that the convention center management would have scheduled another event to run simultaneously with the Conclave. Yeah, technically there was plenty of space. And yeah, the werewolves aren’t monsters. But geez. I wouldn’t have done it. Then again, it’s a business. They’re in it to make money. Letting the entire exhibition floor and the Wells Fargo Theatre go empty when they could be rented out would waste a ton of money. And while the Conclave could probably afford to rent the whole place, it would be awfully pricey when all they needed was the meeting floor.

I didn’t like it. It made logical sense, but the thought of all those unprotected humans so close to what I was afraid would be a war zone made my blood run cold.

Plans within plans, within werewolf plans, within Thrall plans. My, what sharp teeth you have. All the better to eat you with, my dear. Why would Mary have let Janine take the pack? What could she do now that she couldn’t as the leader?

Why would Carlton risk death just so he could drop by to wish me well after the building collapsed? Why steal the paperwork only to have Dylan take them back? What could Carlton do dead—had that part of the plan occurred—that he couldn’t as leader?

It was no use. I’m only an adequate chess player, and this would take Deep Blue to solve. But Bryan called while we were on our way to Joe’s. He was on his break and wanted to know why I’d called. Telling him what was going on took most of the drive time. Listening to him swear got me into the driveway and as far as Joe’s garage door.

“What do you want me to do?”

I thought about it for a minute. I wanted him to stay home, hide under the bed, and be safe. Of course he wouldn’t, and I couldn’t very well ask it of him. He was a man, and was as vested in this fight as I was. They’d tried to kill him. He had a right to be involved. I hated it. But it was his right.

“Joe,” I looked at my older brother. One look told me he felt exactly the same way. More, that he felt the same way about not just Bryan, but me. Wow. “Do you think you’ll need any help with the neck braces?”

“Actually,” he gave me a look that told me he knew exactly what I was doing. “I might.” He lifted the garage door handle, and it slid smoothly open. Now that my stuff had been moved out I could see that he had set up a workbench to tinker with his inventions. A long, wide table, it had a rule built into the top to measure with, and there were shelves and hooks in the wall above it for the various tools he might need. An overhead fluorescent fixture gave him plenty of light to see by. It was a neatly organized, well-planned work space that suited him to a T. He walked over to a cabinet in the wall and pulled it open. He obviously didn’t like what he saw because he reached for the phone.

“Bryan, it’s Joe. I’ll need your help with some stuff here. Get here as fast as you can, but on the way I want you to stop by an art supply shop and the hardware store. Have you got a pen and paper? It’s going to be a long list.”

I raised my hand, asking to interrupt. Joe told Bryan to hold on, covered the speaker with his hand, and gave me a quizzical look.

“Make sure you keep him here overnight, Joe. Dylan’s set a trap for him, using a friend of his from high school. If he’s here they can’t get to him.”

Joe’s expression hardened to granite. “Got it.”

He uncovered the speaker and I heard him say, “Bryan, I need you here as quick as you can manage. Oh, and this is going to take all night. You’ll need to cancel any plans you had made.”

I gave Joe a nod of thanks, then took his keys and left. I wasn’t too worried about leaving my phone. I could always pick it up later. For the moment at least, my brothers were safe—as safe as I could make them. Tom was with the wolves. He’d be fine. Knowing that, I could move on to taking care of my own mundane business with a clear conscience.

The first thing I wanted to do was stop by the church. I wanted to set up a mass for Miles. More than that, I needed someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t involved in the thick of things. So I drove out to the suburbs to visit Father Atkins at St. Patrick’s.

St. Pat’s is a beautiful church. An octagonal building of gleaming white stone, it sits on the crest of a hill so that you can see it for quite a distance in any direction. The day was sunny enough that the stone edifice seemed almost blinding in stark contrast to the jewel tones of the stained glass windows. I parked at the base of the hill and walked up the long set of steps that led, not to the church itself, but to the rectory and parish offices. The door was locked, but when I rang the bell I heard movement. In a matter of minutes Father Atkins came to the door.

“Katie. It’s been a few weeks. Are you here about changes to the wedding plans?”

“No. We’re still on as scheduled for next week.”

Tom and I had been going to have two weddings. The first one, in Vegas, to get the legalities out of the way the minute we could. The idea had been, once we were legally married, the pack would back off. Unfortunately, we still hadn’t managed to pull that off. But without threat of the destruction of the church itself, I refused to reschedule the big church wedding I’d waited for my whole life. I didn’t know how we’d work everything out by next week, but by God we would. I was not postponing this again.

I smiled and stepped through the door the priest held open for me. Father Atkins is short for a man, probably about five foot five, and nearly as round as he is tall. He’s got a mop of dark curls liberally laced with gray, a beak of a nose, and eyebrows that look like caterpillars ready to crawl off his face. We’d had a rocky start to our relationship. He disapproves of violence in general and in the specific. I understand that. But my life is violent. I don’t want it that way, don’t go looking for trouble. But I’m also not willing to martyr myself for no good purpose. He’d unbent a little when he’d seen some of the violence firsthand—a shooter had tried to gun me down in front of this very church. I’d been saved by pure luck, and the fact that he’d dragged me back under cover by my ankles.

“You’re in trouble again.” His expression was grim, his voice disapproving.

There was no point in denying it. “Can we count this as a confession visit? I need the confidentiality.”

He nodded and then let out a sigh that would have had me cringing in my youth. “Go into my office and sit down.” I heard him lock the dead bolt as I walked past the secretary’s desk and through the doorway that led to the book-lined study where he usually worked. A modern computer workstation took up most of the space, but there were a couple of well-worn wingbacked chairs for visitors, and a row of four-drawer file cabinets of different colors and vintages lining the far wall. Hanging above them was a crucifix. It was a modern, abstract sculpture primarily of black iron, the body a stick figure. The thorn crown, however, was polished silver, with razor sharp prongs that would draw real blood if you handled it carelessly.