Alterant (39 page)

“I would never . . .”

“Kill me?” Storm finished. “You will if you have to.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

He would do whatever he could to prevent putting her
in that position, but she
would
do the right thing no matter what. He knew that. “Time to go hunt.”

She chewed on her lip, indecision weighing her down until she finally gave up. “I know it’s raining, but we should take my bike instead of your truck. Glad you brought this.” She zipped up the gray rain jacket he’d had in his vehicle.

A frisson of worry fingered up his spine at the idea of her exposed on the Gixxer, and he wasn’t thinking about rain. Some threat hovered around her that he couldn’t pin down. “Don’t you need a vehicle for transporting the Alterants if you get them?”

“The Tribunal gave me no instructions on how to bring in the Alterants.”

“They expect you to just wait somewhere once you have them in hand?”

“Actually, I don’t think the Tribunal expected me to deliver the missing Alterants, but I have a plan. Once I have the Alterants ready to go in with me, I’ll have you contact Tzader and he’ll send Brina. She’ll work out the details with the Tribunal.”

He kept his attention divided between watching Evalle and any threat. “
If
VIPER doesn’t spot us first. We need to get out of here before someone does recognize either one of us.”

“That’s why I said to take my bike. I bet they already have your sport ute under surveillance. I painted my bike black and altered the tag. With us riding two up, I won’t be as obvious.”

“Okay.”

“But I don’t have a helmet for you, and you have to ride behind me.”

He wouldn’t let her ride on the back without full-body armor to protect her anyhow. “I don’t mind hugging up close to you.”

She pushed her soft eyebrow up in a smartass way that relieved some of his guilt from earlier. He didn’t worry about her anytime she dropped into cocky mode. “How does you hugging close to me negate the lack of a helmet?”

Storm gave her a half smile. “You really think a cop wants to stop a bike in this downpour? And we still have a couple hours until daylight. We’re both in dark colors. If I pull up my hood, they may not even notice.”

Her eyes took note of his head and shoulders. “If we wreck you won’t live through it without a helmet.”

He leaned down and kissed her quickly on the forehead. “Then don’t wreck. Let’s get moving.”

THIRTY-THREE

E
valle cruised her motorcycle into Decatur and located the city parking deck close to the MARTA station Tristan would have exited from if he had come this way. She was betting heavily on guessing right. Evalle found a corner spot and climbed off. Removing her helmet, she swiped wet hair off her face.

Storm couldn’t have been any more soaked if she’d dumped him in a lake. When he pushed the hood off his head, wet black hair clung to his neck. He stuck his cell phone in her tank bag, then peeled off his soaked hoodie, wrung out the water and started using the jacket as a towel.

Using both hands, he wiped water and damp hair off his face. “Let’s go.”

“Storm, if I ask you to back off and stay out of sight, will you?”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I don’t want you caught or shot.” She’d seen what Isak’s demon blaster could do to an enormous demon. Storm wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Let me worry about that.”

“No, I need this promise from you or you can’t help me.”

“We can talk or we can track.”

She crossed her arms and said nothing.

He scowled and uttered something in a strange language. She didn’t need a translator to interpret pissed off, but she wasn’t budging without his agreement.

Storm said, “Okay, okay. I promise. Now let’s go.”

No one loitered on the sidewalks running along the front of eclectic retail shops and restaurants between the parking deck and the MARTA station. That still didn’t lower her anxiety when they reached the subway station and Storm stepped behind bushes to strip down and shift.

The black jaguar emerged, blending into the obsidian night except when he turned bright yellow eyes on her. He stalked around the station for a minute, sniffed one spot twice, then turned to Evalle.

She asked, “Got it?”

He gave a nod and took off along McDonough Street with her right behind.

Storm hung close to the walls. When he reached an older neighborhood surrounded by woods, he padded up to a two-level brick apartment building. Judging by the simple window and door trims thick with paint, the structure had probably been new in the ’80s.

Evalle waited at a spot where she could see both entrances to the apartments while Storm searched around the building. When he headed back to her, he nodded.

The Alterants were here.

But the real confirmation had just stepped out from the far entrance behind Storm.

Tristan held an umbrella for a young woman he had his arm around. She had brown hair—nothing like his blond locks—and wore hers in crazy curls piled on her
head. When she lifted her head, Evalle saw a blink of bright green eyes. Neither Tristan nor his sister had Evalle’s night-vision eyesight, or they’d have been wearing sunglasses to hide their eyes in the dark.

Evalle waved Storm off to the left before he reached her. He could meld into the dark pocket of thick bushes surrounding the corner of the building.

When he hesitated, she mouthed the words,
You promised.

Storm conceded and backed into the dark, watching.

She called out to Tristan when he got within twenty feet of her. “Don’t be a fool thinking VIPER will not get you.”

His head jerked up, green eyes shining in the night. He shoved his sister behind him. “Get out of my way, Evalle.”

“I can’t go back empty-handed, and you have nowhere to run. Stand and fight with me, just like I did with you today.”

He handed the umbrella around to his sister. “You’re wrong. I can take us far away from here to live safe.”

“The only way you could do that is by flying, and I heard people in the subway station talking about Harts-field being covered with the fog.” Big lie, but he wouldn’t know that.

Tristan’s sister stepped up beside him with a hand on her hip. “That’s just bullshit.”

He scowled at her.

Evalle looked his sister over. An attractive young woman, if someone liked petite and mouthy. “I guess you’re Petrina.”

The young woman gave her a duh look. “I guess you’re the ass-wipe that wants to use us to buy your freedom.”

Snotty little twit. Evalle ignored her. Tristan drove the decisions for his group. “The Tribunal will give Sen freedom to hunt you himself. His philosophy is the only good Alterant is one that is never seen again. And that doesn’t even take into account the Nyght Raiders.”

“Who?” Tristan asked.

“A black-ops group run by a man who lost his best friend to an Alterant. They’ve had a kill-on-sight policy for much longer than VIPER. You’re putting your sister and the other two at more risk than you realize.” She looked around. “Where are those two?”

Petrina started to mouth off again, but Tristan squeezed her. He said, “They’re busy.”

Evalle changed her tactic. “You can risk your life and your sister’s, but it’s unfair to jeopardize Webster’s and Aaron’s without giving them a chance to have their say.”

Tristan snapped at Evalle, “You’re holding me up. Move aside. We’re leaving.”

“When we were in the maze, you said you’d share information and help me once your sister was safe.”

“She’s not safe yet.”

“Neither of you will ever be if you don’t work with me.”

Indecision finally entered Tristan’s face.

Evalle jumped on her opening. “Let me at least take Webster and Aaron with me if they agree. Give me enough information to plead for the three of us. I won’t go anywhere without them, and they’ll be safe from the fog if they’re at VIPER headquarters.”

Maybe Brina could argue that Evalle had brought in two of the three escaped Alterants that were still alive. How could the Tribunal expect Evalle to deliver a dead Alterant?

Petrina said, “She’s lying.”

Evalle shook her head. “You know I’m not, Tristan. I won’t accept freedom unless the Tribunal gives it to all three of us.”

Rain streamed down his face while he debated. He wiped water from his eyes and finally said, “If Webster and Aaron agree to go—”

Petrina grabbed his arm. “No!”

He gave her a hard look that silenced her, then finished saying, “You’re right. I can’t make that choice for them. If they agree to go with you, then I’ll tell you enough to support your case, but if I find out you’ve lied to me at any time, I’ll make you regret using them for as long as you live.”

The weight she’d been toting on her back for days lost a few pounds.

Petrina’s gaze shifted to her right, where Webster and Aaron came walking up from across the street.

“Hi, Evalle,” Webster called, grinning.

“Hi, Webster.” She started to speak to Aaron, but she smelled sulfur. Then saw the leading edge of the fog creeping up behind Tristan and his sister. Webster and Aaron would be in the line of fog in another few steps when they joined Tristan.

Webster called over to Tristan, “Thought we were meeting at the subway station.”

Before Tristan could answer, Evalle said, “The fog is coming. We have to get out of here.”

Tristan spun to look behind him, and just that quickly the fog began to circle them.

A growl rattled from the bushes.

Storm. Evalle looked at him and shook her head, pleading with him not to attack.

Tristan said to Webster and Aaron, “Stay close to me and hold your breath if the fog catches us.” When the other two Alterants joined Tristan, he turned to Evalle. “The only way out is behind you. You can talk to Webster and Aaron on the way if—”

A man’s voice boomed through a loudspeaker from behind her,
“Evalle, back away from the Alterants! We’ve got them in our sights.”

She turned and saw nothing, which meant Isak’s black-ops team was invisible in the night. When she looked back at Tristan, his face had twisted with rage.

He shouted at her, “It’s a trap. You lied to me!”

“No, I didn’t. I tried to tell you about the Nyght Raiders.”

“Bullshit. You were just buying time until you had us all in one spot. You knew I wouldn’t agree to go with you and leave my sister. I can’t believe I listened to you.”

“That’s not true!” She caught Storm moving from cover, where fog smoked around him. She shook her head again.

He growled viciously, padding back and forth, ready to leap.

The sulfur stench burned her throat on her next breath, and yellow haze fingered closer to Tristan’s group.

The voice behind the loudspeaker said,
“Evalle. Back. Away. Now.”

When she looked over her shoulder this time, seven men had emerged from cover in full battle gear, holding Isak Nyght’s mega blasters. In fact, Isak led the group.

She called out, “Isak, stop. Don’t shoot.”

Webster and Aaron roared, and she knew without looking that they were starting to change into beasts.

But the damage had been done the minute Isak saw Tristan’s and Petrina’s green eyes.

In that moment of thunder rolling, Storm snarling and Isak shouting, everything felt as if it happened in slow motion as she realized she had a way to save others even if it meant the end of her last hope.

She had one Tribunal gift left.

Speaking the words that would seal her fate, she called out, “By the Tribunal power gifted me, I command Kizira’s fog to disappear—” She thought fast, adding, “—and never return.”

The fog vanished.

Aaron and Webster hadn’t shifted much. They looked at her as they returned to human.

“Move now, Evalle!”
Isak called through the bullhorn again.

She stared at Tristan. “I did not set you up.”

He gave a look past her shoulder, then back at her. “Going to be hard to prove that once we’re all dead.”

“I know. Get out of here.”

His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Putting more power into her voice, she ordered him,
“Go, because the only reason he’s not shooting yet is to keep from killing me. The minute he decides I’m a threat to humans, too, that will change. I could call Tzader, but he won’t get here fast enough to stop Isak.”

Tristan told Webster, Aaron and Petrina to walk away single file behind him. He backed up as they did, keeping his eyes on Evalle.

She could see his confusion and inner debate over what he should do, but they both knew he was out of options.

And so was Evalle as she watched her only chance at freedom disappear into the woods across the street. She turned to find Isak’s team moving forward, but they had thirty yards yet to cover.

Isak called to her without the bullhorn.
“That was a mistake, Evalle.”

She nodded her understanding.

Storm snarled and she jerked around to him. “Don’t come out here. You promised. If you break that promise, I bet it will hurt you as much as lying, but it will hurt me more.”

Energy flushed the rain away from her in a short blast.