Wild Card (2 page)

What if my Athanate senses weren’t working yet? We both knew how to fake it in the short term with a human interrogator.

Whatever they say in books and movies, no one fakes it in the long term.

If Julie was faking it, did that mean she expected to be rescued? Victor’s team had professional scanners that said she was clean, and anyway, this truck was shielded. No one was following any electronic beeps from Julie. So had she miscalculated?

Or were we simply being visually tracked from a silent nightflier? The Ops group had them.

This was like playing chess in three dimensions. And I didn’t have time. Especially if Ops 4-16 were after me.

She’d called them 4-16, their official name. We almost never called them that. To us they were the Nagas, the headhunters. If you passed the physical training, but didn’t make it into Ops 4-10, you got looked over by the Nagas. As a sergeant responsible for washing out some of those recruits, I was dismayed to see the ones that the Nagas took on. They didn’t take anyone with any physical or skill problems, but they sure as hell had taken recruits I’d regarded as mentally or morally unfit. But as much as we were separate from the regular army, the Nagas were separate from us. I didn’t know what they did or how they did it. But would I want to be captured by them?

 Hell, no.

I had to know what I faced and be absolutely sure that the information I had was true. How to do it? Torture wouldn’t work in the time I had, and I wasn’t ready to become that person.

But there were other techniques both Julie and I knew.

I’m in restraints, electrodes taped all over me, fighting to keep calm. Ben-Haim’s face is inches from mine. His eyes are clear, rested. There’s beer on his breath. Utter silence in the darkened room. He is showing me deliberately that he is fed, relaxed and in control, and that I am alone.

“Everyone has a weak point. Everyone.”

He waits a whole minute. Behind me, a tap drips monotonously.

“We’re going to talk about the time before you joined the army. We will step back. Little steps. A day. A week...”

I shook the vision from my head and jerked Julie closer.

“Let’s talk about Keith’s decision process that ended with him leading a team to kidnap me, Julie. Does he feel responsible for me being out here? Because that’s one explanation for the cute little toy that my friends in the feds tell me was in his pocket. You know the one I mean. You are married to him, after all. What is it he calls it…oh, yeah, the Insurance Policy.” I shook her so her teeth rattled. “Ruger .22 snub, with soft nose bullets.”

I threw her back on the floor, so angry I felt sick to my stomach, just as I had felt when Ingram called me and laconically read through the list of equipment.

The Ruger wasn’t standard issue. It was a tiny polymer revolver that Keith carried for backup on certain types of operations. A girl’s gun, I’d teased him in different times, long ago. Back when we’d been an item.

He’d used it twice to my knowledge. Both times in crowds, both times without even drawing it, fired through his jacket. No one had noticed anything. Except the targets. Briefly.

I counted backwards, concentrated on my breathing. I was losing this, and I’d keep losing it until I controlled myself.

Julie could tell I was off balance. “Of course I knew he took it,” she came back scornfully. “And he would have used it, if you’d been stupid enough to fall into the trap. Or damaged enough.”

Damaged?
She was trying to divert me, to take control again.

“Great. We’ve covered Keith,” I snarled at her. “Now, explain why you’re here in Denver and asking to meet me. And Julie,” I yanked her head up again, “just in case you’ve forgotten, I’m not human any more. I can tell when you’re lying.”

That
got a reaction. I could smell the sweat, sense her heartbeat going up a notch. Good.

“No lies, Amber.”

I let her wriggle around to sit up against the bulkhead.

I didn’t help her and I left the light off.

She took a slow breath, and began. “Colonel Petersen used to run 4-16. Now he runs both units. He categorized you as a code red security breach and formed a team from the Nagas to snatch you. But he had to come to 4-10 to find a volunteer who knew you to run the team. Keith took it. He got everyone else to stand down, so Petersen had to go with him.”

This is supposed to make me feel better?

“There wasn’t any way to get a message to you in time. We both tried calling. You weren’t picking up,” she said.

“What the hell are you trying to say?”

“Amber, you’re good. You were one of the best. But do you honestly believe you’d stand a chance if a team of us really came for you?”

Point.

“Are you telling me he deliberately messed it up?”

“Of course he did.” Her voice was steady. Only her heartbeat betrayed her. She didn’t realize it, but I could almost hear the blood pounding in her veins; I could see the way her eyes strained to try and see me in the dark.

The van’s tires rumbled noisily over some broken pavement before settling down to a steady hum again.

Keith
had
sounded odd when he’d called me. He’d mentioned Colonel Laine, and maybe he’d guessed that Laine had already been in contact with me. Was that a warning?

Then the trap was set up next to the Convention Center, with a hundred ways for me to approach unseen and become suspicious.

He’d been wired for sound, so he couldn’t have warned me by speaking.

And what about the look on his face? Had it been relief when the FBI sprang my trap?

Maybe, maybe, maybe. How much did I want it to be true? Backtrack, trip her up.

“That doesn’t explain the gun,” I said.

“No.” Her heart rate soared. “That was for real. If you walked into the trap. He thought it was what you’d want, given the alternative. If you understood what the alternative was.”

The ‘alternative’. A cell beneath the Obs laboratory. But surely Keith and Julie didn’t know about that. Why would they think I’d rather be shot than taken back? And what had she meant, before, by ‘damaged’?

Was she just distracting me again?

I had skills I had to use. Even if my Athanate senses weren’t functioning properly, I could hear her pulse, and no one can control all their automatic responses. I could smell lies. I just had to put the right stress on her. I moved silently across the van.

“Tell me,” I hissed close to her ear, making her jump. “Tell me what you think the alternative was. What you think would happen if I was taken.”

“They’d take you back into Obs.” She stopped. Was that the limit of her knowledge, or was she reluctant to go on?

“That’s my personal nightmare, all right,” I said. “But it’s worse than that. Kidnap me or shoot me—either way, you’d have practically declared war on the Athanate.”

She didn’t know the word. Colonel Laine must have kept my briefings secret. I liked that. I felt it gave me an edge, and everything about her was clearer now I was up close. I could taste her puzzlement. I crouched over her, inhaling every stray molecule that escaped from her. I could smell her shampoo, the soap she’d used in her last shower, the detergent she’d used for her clothes. I could read the smallest changes in her. I had complete control.

“Athanate, Julie. Not vampires, Athanate. Living people. People who feel emotions just like humans.” I let my breath touch her neck and felt her shy away. “People who drink blood. People who can tell if you’re lying. People like me.”

What the hell was I doing?

I could feel my jaw loosening and my fangs getting ready to appear. I’d pushed the wolf down only for the Athanate to take over.

Threatening Julie was teasing my own Athanate thirst. Diana and Skylur had warned me against biting. My unstable hybrid mix of paranormal was dangerous enough for me—they thought I still might go rogue. But I’d had time to adjust; I stood a chance of being able to pull through. It would be far worse for someone I infused—and I didn’t yet know how to bite someone without the risk of infusing them. I
had
to restrain myself until Diana could mentor me to control my instinct to infuse, and test the outcome. I had to.

That was the future. But right now, I had to know if Julie was on the level.

“Are you lying to me, Julie?” I murmured.

“No.” With me so close—biting distance—she was walking the ragged edge of fear. I reached out and snapped the light on. A fluorescent tube fixed to the ceiling flooded the van with harsh light and deep shadows.

The sight of me looming over her didn’t make her any less afraid, but she managed to keep still. Her breath came quickly, but her eyes were steady. One tough woman.

Why was I doing this? Truthfully, I was afraid it was because I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t want to make her separate from all the shit that had been thrown at me. I wanted someone to hurt the way I hurt. And I wanted to feel that pain coursing through her, to breathe it in. To taste it.

I gripped her hair and stared into her eyes. She was still trying to force her heart rate down. Failing. I pulled her head back, exposing her throat. A shiver slid through her, quickly suppressed. A growing awareness. She’d made a judgment call on a person called Amber Farrell, a person she’d known in Ops 4-10. A judgment call that she’d be safe with that person.

She was now grasping at an instinctive level what she’d known only as words before. I
wasn’t
fully human any more. I wasn’t the Amber she’d known.

Her hindbrain was kicking and twisting to escape, but she fought to keep control. Impressive.

I could hear her Blood coursing through her neck, just inches away. I could smell it, I could feel it, I could almost taste it. My teeth pulsed with eagerness.

I reached with my other hand, sliding it down her left arm to where her wrists were bound behind her.

“Amber. Please don’t,” she said. Not so controlled now.

My fingers rippled over the bindings, brushed the back of her hand.

“Are you here for Petersen? Is this some kind of a trap?” I whispered.

“No,” her head shook once, abruptly.

My fangs manifested, grazing her skin sensuously, and I felt my jaws go loose and heavy with anticipation. The lightest pressure and her skin would part.

A wordless cry built up inside me, leaked through my control. The pulse in her neck thudded against my fangs.

She lost it, over the edge into the abyss. Panicked, she twisted beneath me, arching away. Terror billowed out of her and caressed me like silk. It was sweet as warm syrup on my dry lips, perfume to my nose. There was fear, sweat, soap, even the aroma of fajitas she’d eaten for dinner six hours ago. But no hint of lies. I swallowed painfully, tried to close my mouth.

I threw my weight on her, my hands moving snakelike to her bound hands. My fingers found hers. Third finger. Ring. Rings, two of them. She wasn’t on a 4-10 mission. Standard Ops 4-10 operating procedure: no identifying marks, no jewelry, no ID. Or they’d gotten a whole lot smarter about it all.

No. No. She wasn’t lying. She hadn’t lied about anything.

Enough, for God’s sake, Amber! Stop it!

I wrenched myself away, twisting around and curling up on the floor with my face hidden in my hands. What the hell had I been thinking? The taste of sweetness changed to cloying, tongue-curling foul and I fought to stop myself from throwing up.

Victor turned the van around and began to drive back the way we’d come.

It was very quiet in the back. Eventually my gut stopped heaving, and I was left feeling drained and shaky.

I pulled myself upright, leaned back. Sweat cooled my skin.

Julie, too, was gathering herself. “Are you all right?” she asked finally.

I laughed bitterly. “I should be asking you. I’m sorry. Kinda ran away with me there.”

There was a pause. “Is it that hard, to not…”

“Is it that hard to not bite? Sometimes.” But that wasn’t the problem. I shut up. I couldn’t explain to her without going into a whole load of things that weren’t relevant and which she would have trouble understanding. And which I didn’t want to admit to, because they scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t explain that my wolf and my Athanate seemed to be spurring each other on, and that I’d just started to feed on her fear.

Like a Basilikos Athanate.

I’d sworn I wouldn’t go that route. I was becoming Athanate and the road split right before me, right now. Go down the Basilikos path and I might convince myself it was all right to prey on humans and feed on fear. Which was why I’d made Diana swear to kill me if I did.

Just how close would she allow me to get?

I grabbed the cutters from the tool compartment, fumbling them, my hands shaking with reaction. “Turn around,” I said.

She studied me for a moment, eyes narrowed, before turning her back to me. Brave woman. I clumsily cut the cable ties binding her hands and feet.

Then I retreated and sat against the side of the van, deliberately not looking at her.

I didn’t need this, whatever it was that Julie wanted to dump on me.

More problems just sprang up every which way I turned. No one, me included, could work out what the hell I was. Athanate, Were and Adept all mixed together. Each type had its dangers, and everyone warned me the influence of the others would make the dangers worse. I was scared to let any paranormal persona take over and even more scared I wouldn’t be able to prevent it.

I had just seen an example of the threat—Were struggling with Athanate—and the worst possible result. What if next time, it wasn’t Julie, but Alex or Jen I wanted to bite? Could I hold off?

My gut wrenched at the thought of Alex and Jen, afraid of what I might do to them. And wrenched again at the thought of losing them because of that.

I really couldn’t afford to get messed up with whatever problems Julie had thought she’d bring to me, not even something as ‘simple’ as springing Keith. But I’d said I’d listen.

I concentrated on slow breathing, hunting for at least a bit of calm, if serenity was completely out of the question.