Bound (Dark Reflections Volume 1) (21 page)

The other hybrid reeled back away, but in the same instant that the werewolf's claws had touched her, the lights had flickered again. I filed that curious bit of information away as I stepped in and slashed the werewolf's arm as it turned back to deal with Juan. The werewolf shrugged off my attack, but there were enough of us now that we'd forced the werewolf completely onto the defensive.

The hybrid who had caused the lights to flicker darted in and slashed the werewolf across the chest at the same time that the other hybrid from the same pack grabbed the werewolf's arm. I was pretty sure that the second hybrid had simply been trying to protect the first hybrid, but it created the perfect opening for me as well and I took it without thinking about what would happen if I was too slow.

I jumped over Juan, who'd just been knocked down by the werewolf, and although I didn't land as well as I had on the werewolf that we'd just finished killing, I still managed to get both hands and feet buried in the werewolf's back well enough to ride out the next couple of seconds as the werewolf tried to knock me free.

Juan grabbed hold of one arm at the same time that the two hybrids from the other pack grabbed the werewolf's other arm. The werewolf threw itself backwards into a light pole in an attempt to crush me, but the combined efforts of all three hybrids was just barely sufficient to slow it down so that the impact knocked the wind from me rather than shattering bones as it otherwise probably would have.

Gasping for breath as I was, it was nearly more than I could handle to maintain my hold on the werewolf's back. The werewolf staggered slightly and I looked down and saw that a pair of wolves had attached themselves to the creature's legs while a third wolf was dangling from the arm that Juan was fighting to keep immobilized.

"Hurry up and kill the damn thing already!"

The words came from the larger hybrid, the one who had made the light flicker, and the voice was unmistakably female despite the distortion introduced by the fact that she was in her hybrid form.

In one sense her frustration and urgency was completely understandable, but I was the one who had just nearly been crushed to death and my beast didn't take kindly to her tone. Another roar of power escaped me and this time it was very nearly as strong as I'd ever felt it before. There was still the tiniest feeling that something was siphoning away a portion of my vitality and energy, but as the power washed out of me and crashed into the female hybrid it seemed to take my exhaustion and weakness with it.

The werewolf flung Juan and the wolf away, which then caused the two hybrids from the other pack to release it so that they could avoid being stabbed, but I easily rode out the sudden shift in direction and then repositioned myself higher in two explosive movements.

A second later I was high enough up to reach the werewolf's throat and it dropped to the ground as its life leaked out of the arteries that I'd just severed. Everyone else who had been involved in the fight was as much as a dozen feet back by that point in an effort to avoid being caught up in the werewolf's death throes, so they made it over to the last werewolf well before I was able to untangle myself and go help.

This time there was nothing of strategy or finesse to the kill. The hybrids and wolves, Juan included, who had been fighting the werewolf I'd just killed threw themselves at the werewolf, joining the moonborn who had already been fighting it in a writhing ball of claws and fangs.

Two hybrids made it onto the last werewolf's back and started climbing it while everyone grabbed an appendage and pulled. The last werewolf was dead within moments of the second one dying and then we were left staring uneasily at each other.

The female hybrid was the one who broke the standoff. She looked around, seeming to verify that the lights were all back on, and then ordered her people to see to their injured. Only after everything seemed well in hand did she turn back to Juan and me.

"I'd ask you what you're doing here in my territory, but I already know. Brandon sent you after I refused to return his calls, didn't he?"

Juan nodded and then apparently decided that it was time to deescalate things and shifted back to his primary form.

The female hybrid looked at the ha'bit that all of our people wore and wrinkled her nose in disgust before looking pointedly at me. Shifting forms was more difficult than I expected it to be. This time my beast was working at cross purposes to me, trying to maintain our current form rather than shift down to something less durable and fast. If the Tucson pack decided that they wanted us dead then there wouldn't be much we could do to stop them other than running for the SUV and hoping that we were faster than them, but my beast didn't always think in those kinds of terms.

It took what seemed like a frozen eternity to force my beast back into its metaphysical cage, but it finally yielded to my will and I shrank back down to my human form. The female hybrid stared at the two of us for several moments before following suit and discarding her towering hybrid shape.

The Tucson pack didn't follow the Sanctuary convention of wearing ha'bits, so she was completely naked, but she seemed less bothered by that fact than I was.

"I'd just kick you out of our territory, but I'm afraid that I owe you one. We came expecting to fight two vacuums but prepared for three. That fourth werewolf would have torn through us like tissue paper if you hadn't taken care of it for us."

She sighed and then stepped forward and offered her hand to Juan. "My name is Jaclyn. I'm the alpha of this pack."

Juan looked more than a little uneasy at the prospect of touching her hand, but I couldn't blame him. Jaclyn's prowess in single combat would have been respectable even without the ability that she'd manifested decades ago, but with it she was unmatched by any other hybrid I could think of offhand.

Brandon was stronger and faster than she could possibly be, but Jaclyn was able to funnel a powerful electrical charge through her hands and feet, delivering the equivalent of a massive Taser blast into whomever she happened to be fighting.

Pieces started to click into place inside of my mind and I blurted out my observation without thinking.

"It isn't just your hands, you can charge your whole body. When the werewolf cut you across the shoulder the lights flickered, which had to be you delivering a jolt that partially overwhelmed its natural absorptive ability."

Juan's mouth clicked shut and then he shook his head at me in resignation before turning back to Jaclyn and taking her hand.

"I'm Juan out of the Colorado Springs pack and this is Alec."

Jaclyn was smiling as she shook Juan's hand, at least right up until he provided my name without also telling her which pack I was from.

"Graves?"

I nodded. "Yes, but Kaleb and I don't see eye to eye on most things."

Jaclyn rolled her eyes at me and didn't extend her hand. "That's pretty much the kind of transparent lie I'd expect out of Kaleb's spawn, but I expected better based on what I've heard about you, Juan. I'm not entirely surprised to hear that you've ended up down here on the border killing cats with that piece of trash Brandon, but I thought you'd at least have enough integrity not to let Kaleb turn you into some kind of demented babysitter."

Now that Jaclyn had shaken his hand without zapping him, Juan seemed much more relaxed. He smiled at Jaclyn as a pair of white SUVs pulled up and some of the people she'd sent away piled back out of the vehicles with first-aid kits and various other supplies in their arms.

"Kaleb didn't have anything to do with this. He apparently decided that Alec needed to be blooded and once Alec was sent down here Brandon stuck me with him. Alec's been a pleasant surprise though. He volunteered our team for this at least partly because he was hoping to get a chance to talk to you."

"Your life is so bad you were hoping for a quick end?"

I shook my head. "I was hoping to be able to get your take on everything that is going on. Since I arrived down here I've started finding out a lot of things have been kept secret from me. I figured that the best way to get a clear view of what's actually happening is to talk to people who are dramatically opposed to Kaleb and everything he stands for."

"That's it?"

"I had hoped to also be able to convince you that I'm not my father, that I'm someone who you could someday work with under the right set of circumstances, but I know that's a long shot."

One of Jaclyn's people handed her camouflage cargo pants and a black tank top; she slipped them on without looking away from me.

"Kid, you've spent so much time in the dark that you won't even be able to see the truth when it's shoved right in front of your face."

"Try me."

"Some things can't be conveyed through words, Alec. Some things you have to see with your own eyes to believe."

"Fine, so take me wherever it is and show me."

"I can't do that, not without putting my people in an unacceptable level of danger."

I threw my hands up and shook my head at her. "I'm really trying here, Jaclyn. I don't know how to convince you, not in the short amount of time we have before our contact on the Coun'hij arrives and we have to go babysit him."

Jaclyn went white. "You didn't tell me that someone from the Coun'hij was on their way."

Juan stepped up to answer that particular question. "We figured it was obvious. We didn't know what was going on here, we just knew that the humans had found bodies with wounds they couldn't explain. The Coun'hij is sending someone to make all of the evidence disappear. We're just along to protect whomever it is that they've sent."

"Everybody get the wounded into the SUVs and then I want the entire area doused with vinegar! We don't have much time, people."

I opened my mouth, but two sets of footsteps interrupted whatever it was I'd been about to say. An unfamiliar man stepped out from between two buildings. Jasmin was following him and she looked so uncomfortable that I started towards her only to have Juan pull me up short.

"Is everything okay, Jas?"

"I think so. Jess and I got Alison stabilized and we were in the middle of loading her into the car when this guy showed up. I think he's from the Coun'hij, but he hasn't said a word yet. So far all he's done is gesture for Jess to stay with Alison and for me to follow him."

The Tucson pack had gone almost completely still. There was still a little movement out on the edge of things, mostly people who hadn't seen the Coun'hij's operative yet. Jaclyn looked like she wanted to spit.

"Just for the record, none of you are welcome in our territory ever again. Anyone who arrives in the company of that thing permanently puts themselves in my bad graces."

Juan didn't look particularly happy about Jaclyn's pronouncement, but he didn't seem prepared to argue with her.

"I don't understand. It's not like we had a choice, we were just given a time and a place and told to meet him here."

"Saying you don't have a choice is just a coward's way of rationalizing their cowardice, kid. You guys have until tomorrow morning to finish up whatever work he has to do to wipe all of this under the rug and then you'd better be gone. I can't kill Oblivion without bringing the entire Coun'hij down on me, but I'm willing to see how far your daddy is prepared to go to avenge
you
if you're not gone by sunrise."

Things were moving too fast and I didn't have any of the background information that I'd need to make sense of them. I wanted to ask what was so bad about this particular operative, but before I could say anything a four-legged shadow detached itself from a wall and threw itself at the operative.

I didn't realize that it was one of the Tucson wolves until after she was airborne. She'd taken me completely by surprise, but the guy from the Coun'hij didn't even blink. He dropped down to one knee so that the wolf sailed over his head and then the operative casually reached up and let his fingers run along her side as she flew past him.

I expected the operative to shift to hybrid form so that he was prepared for the wolf's follow-up lunge, but the operative simply stood back up and watched as she hit the ground and rolled bonelessly for several complete revolutions before coming to a stop.

Every other wolf from the Tucson pack took a step forward as though planning on attacking, but Jaclyn yelled for them to stop. Her control of her pack was absolute and everyone skidded to a stop leaving a strange kind of scene with the operative on one end, Jasmin at his back looking like she wasn't sure she was on the right side of the fight, and more than a dozen moonborn on the other side looking like they wished they could tear the operative to bits.

I'd never seen anything to match what the operative had just done. The ability to kill with a touch when not even shifted to a combat form surely made this shape shifter even more deadly than Brandon or Jaclyn either one.

"What just happened?"

The words slipped out of me of their own accord, but when Jaclyn turned her glare on me I refused to back down. After a couple of heartbeats Jaclyn looked at the operative once more, but he simply smiled and made a gesture that seemed to say that he was waiting for her to explain everything to me.

"That's Oblivion. He's the Coun'hij's top troubleshooter because he doesn't just sweep evidence under the rug and leave people as laughingstocks when they can't back up their fantastical stories, he destroys the memories of anyone who's seen anything the Coun'hij doesn't want to go public. Jane isn't dead, but she might as well be. Everything that made her an individual is gone. She's been wiped clean and the child he's left in her place won't even remember her own name."

"He's been here before."

It was more a statement than a question but Jaclyn nodded in agreement. "Yes, he's been here before. That's why Jane attacked him. Oblivion did the same thing to her sister last year. Most packs don't even suspect that the Coun'hij has someone so insidious at their beck and call, but our pack got called into help after an op down here went sideways and Oblivion lost most of his protection detail. Jane's sister did or said something to piss Oblivion off and he wiped her clean. It was one of the things that pushed me over the edge where the Coun'hij is concerned."