Cool Hand (34 page)

“Did you charter the plane?” I asked, to cover it.

“Hell, no. It used to belong to Matlal.” Jen grinned and threaded an arm through mine before leading me on a circuit of the pretty aircraft. “Yelena flew it for House Matlal and knew it was kept at Centennial Airport. My lawyers have claimed it in recompense for breach of contract by Matlal on part of Jack Tucker’s business that we bought.”

Neat.

I let out a whoop of laughter and kissed her just below her ear.

She swung around to face me, putting her hands on my shoulders.

“How are you, really?” Jen said, frowning. “You still look tired. Is Kaothos helping you sleep?”

I huffed. “It’s not sleep so much as knocking me unconscious. So, you planned that as well?”

“As well as what, honey?” Her blue eyes looked so innocently up at me.

“Everything else. Getting me abducted. Packing suitcases with special underwear for me.”

She smiled and squeezed my arm, eyes still worried.

“We’re all doing what we can,” she said. “That’s what the House is for. And just look at you.” She ran her hands over my leather-clad hips. “Nice pants.
Very
nice.”

I faked a scowl. “A loan when my jeans got dirty. Don’t change the subject. Did your planning happen to include a mysterious phone call to Felix, which just happened to coincide with Tullah showing up? Don’t give me the innocent look. What on earth did you say to him that distracted him so easily?”

She cleared her throat.

“Alex and I decided that Bitter Hooks should be established as the heart of a new reserve for wildlife. We want Felix to set up a committee to oversee that and plan for expansion.”

Alex and Jen? Agreeing on something?

Jen waved a hand. “It’ll be something to get the green groups off my back. I’m sorry, I should have discussed it with you as well. Of course, the pack will be able to use it, and it might just make some of them pause and think more positively about a second pack sharing the area.”

“But the cost…” I said. And why should she need to discuss it with me? Had Felix been hinting about this during our last conversation? Why not come out and say something?

“I told you I didn’t want to build a resort out there anyway,” Jen went on. “I always wanted to keep it wild, and this just makes that official. We’ll still be able to visit whenever we want.”

“Mmm. Thank you, anyway. Did I mention you’re amazing? And beautiful?”

She shrugged, caught between dismissing it and being pleased.

She didn’t want to talk about it.

Intriguing.

There was no time to follow up.

Pia returned and herded everyone into the back of the plane.

“Sorry, Boss,” she said. “Direct orders from Skylur.”

Oh, shit. This isn’t good.

At the back of the passenger area was a space intended for storage of luggage. It had been converted into a state-of-the-art mobile communications center with three large screens.

Savannah and Claude got ushered into the pilot and navigator seats at the front of the plane. The rest of us sat with our chairs swiveled to face the comms.

Pia glanced at her watch.

“We have less than ten minutes before Skylur’s conference call,” she said without preamble as she switched on the screens. “It easiest if I just start by showing you this. It was broadcast to all Panethus Houses on the dark net early this morning. The man speaking is Jiaro Amaral, former Diakon of Albuquerque for House Romero.”

She pressed a couple of buttons and the left-hand screen showed a somber-faced man with a high, wide forehead and dark hair, partway through a speech.

“…and it is therefore my sad duty to inform you that, at some time in the early hours of this morning, Charles Romero, House Romero, and Oscar Jaworski, Diakon of Santa Fe, House Romero, along with a number of their House, including kin, were killed by assassins.”

My mouth dropped open. He was announcing what he’d done? Why?

I found out with the bastard’s next words.

“This attack was carried out, or led, by a person you will be familiar with from the last Athanate Assembly. Her name is Amber Farrell, House Farrell, and she is a fully associated sub-House of Altau, bound by oaths as witnessed at the Assembly.”

Tullah gasped.

Amaral was publicly accusing me of the slaughter at Sycamore Ranch. Of taking out most of House Romero. The enormity of the lie stunned me; blood pounded in my temples.

Amaral spoke his lies ponderously, as if they’d gain believability from being delivered slowly. “There can be no dispute that this is just one thread in the Altau plot that was initiated by their incredible attempt to subvert the whole Panethus creed and claim the entire continent of North America…”

Pia shut it off.

“He goes on at length,” she said. “He claims Diana’s support in declaring himself House Amaral, at the same time asserting his domain’s independence from any Altau claims. He’s called for Skylur to refute the charges against him by handing you over for trial.”

“It’s lies from beginning to end,” I said, shaking with anger. “What’s he trying to achieve?”

“Leadership,” Pia replied simply.

“But the leadership of Panethus was settled at the Assembly, wasn’t it?”

“No. The Assembly’s not concerned with internal politics of the two creeds. That’s why it was immaterial that Basilikos changed leadership in the middle of it, from Matlal to Correia.” She sighed and ran fingers through her hair. “The leadership of Panethus is formally decided by a meeting called a Convocation. Amaral isn’t in a position to call one yet, so he’s too smart to do that. What he’s trying to do instead is set up a power base, founded on two weaknesses.”

“What are they?”

“A lot of Panethus are conservative by nature. They’re very wary about Emergence, and it wouldn’t take much to get them to vote against it. His first step, though, is the dozen Houses in the USA which are not directly associated with Altau.”

At the Assembly, Skylur had sprung a few surprises. Diana had negotiated with the entire group of Canadian Houses, previously part of the Midnight Empire, to join Panethus as sub-Houses of Altau. Then Skylur had revealed that Altau had been setting up secret sub-Houses throughout the US. The endpoint of that was Skylur declaring all of North America as his domain. Any House which didn’t want to swear an oath to him and become a sub-House of Altau had to leave.

At the time, I hadn’t really thought about it. I had no real knowledge of these other Houses, and if I had, I’d have probably thought it was no big deal. They were already sworn to Altau as leader of Panethus. Was it such a big thing to become a sub-House of Altau?

Apparently, it was.

“The negotiation process to get those Houses to accept Altau is ongoing,” Pia said. “It’s reached a highly sensitive stage. Romero was always seen as an unofficial leader of the unincorporated Houses. That’s why Diana went to Romero directly, despite the danger. Now that Romero’s dead, Amaral is portraying this as the threat from Altau—bow down or get killed.”

Naryn’s voice joined in. “And if he succeeds in gathering some of those dozen behind him, then he is well placed to lead a vote against Skylur at a Convocation.” His face had come up on the right-hand screen, with Bian sitting next to him. “Emergence is a divisive issue, all through the Panethus ranks. We can’t afford this.”

He frowned at the screen. “I can see you’re in an aircraft. I suppose it’s too much to hope for, that you can easily prove you weren’t in New Mexico?”

Skylur had appeared on the middle screen as Naryn spoke.

I took a deep breath.

“No. I’ve disobeyed you, and I’m down near Santa Fe. Worse, I was at Jaworski’s ranch, but I was only there after Romero and Jaworski had been killed.”

“Diana?” Skylur’s face was devoid of emotion, but that one word carried a weight of dread.

“It appears she was there at the time of the attack, but I saw no evidence she was hurt,” I said. “I’ve received further intel that indicates she’s with Amaral, and that they’re heading north to an as-yet unknown location.”

“She’s part of this?” Pia looked shocked.

I shook my head. “Tullah and I believe Amaral is holding her by force.”

Skylur stopped me. “From the beginning,” he said.

I took it from the point where I’d left Haven. Just talking it through helped me calm down a little. While I talked, I watched their faces. Naryn would take a long time to forgive me. Skylur was unreadable.

When I finished, there was a long silence.

Finally Skylur spoke. He sounded cool and contained, but I wondered what he was really feeling. From what I’d seen, he and Diana were extremely close. “This crisis doesn’t exist in isolation. We have four major points of opportunity and vulnerability.” He counted them off on his fingers. “One: Los Angeles. Correia has claimed this city for Basilikos. If she wins it, she will strengthen her grip on Basilikos and destroy Altau’s credibility in Panethus. If she loses, she’s vulnerable to Basilikos infighting.”

I’d known whatever Skylur was doing in LA was important, but I hadn’t realized how big it really was.

“Two: Amaral splits Panethus into pro- and anti-Emergence groups. Neither would be strong enough to resist Basilikos alone, and worse, with Basilikos rebranding themselves as the party of the Hidden Path, we would almost certainly lose the anti-Emergence group to them.”

Did Amaral see that?

Was he genuinely just trying to take over Panethus, or was he another strand of Basilikos strategy?

Had he handed Larry over to Matlal directly, in which case the bastard was pure Basilikos already, or had he been duped, maybe in the same way Bian’s second-in-command had?

Did he really think the Warders were still neutral?

“Three: Haven itself,” Skylur said. “In the same way losing Los Angeles would destroy Altau credibility, so might losing our home.”

“Four: Diana.” He paused and gathered his thoughts. “I accept your analysis that Diana could have been captured and constrained by Adepts working for Amaral. In fact, it’s the only possibility that make sense; I can think of no way that she would credibly support him, by force or otherwise. However, that leaves us with a dilemma. In order to refute Amaral’s claim to Diana’s support, we would have to publicize our belief that he has been successfully holding her captive. The problem is that his mere ability to hold and manipulate an Athanate of Diana’s power and abilities increases his credibility and damages ours. That alone could swing a vote against us at a Convocation at the moment, with Emergence issues splitting Panethus.”

“Also,” Bian said. “If we reach a stalemate on the other points, or even resolve them, and leave Amaral in New Mexico, that will also destroy Altau credibility. Like losing LA. You claimed the whole country. You can’t let him walk away with a state.”

Skylur nodded.

“But if Amaral were to capture Amber as well,” Naryn said, “he might exploit the continuing uncertainty and interest in the effects of her Blood to influence key votes.”

By that, he meant that although Skylur had cleverly dampened the main interest in my Blood by demonstrating I was a hybrid, there might still be some who would want to ‘experiment’.

I shuddered.

“Regardless of that,” Naryn went on, now speaking directly to me, “Amaral’s principal use for you—or your dead body—would be proof that you were in New Mexico, lending credence to the claim you killed Romero.”

For once, Naryn was on the side of keeping me alive and unharmed. I guessed that was a plus.

There were a lot of possibilities on Skylur’s list, and he hadn’t even included minor ones.

We couldn’t cover everything, and Skylur had to make the decision about what to do. He was the one with the broadest view of the situation. And I knew I had to do what he said, whether or not I agreed. I’d handed over that level of control with my acceptance of becoming Athanate and my oath in the Assembly.

I felt it in my Blood, as strongly as I felt submitting to Felix.

What if they demanded different things from me?

“I have to stay here,” Skylur said eventually. “If we lose Haven, we lose Haven. Naryn, you’re responsible for getting Diana back. You’re going to have to choose sub-Houses to abandon. Every single House in America is a target, but Basilikos can’t go after all of them, and minor ones we can win back if we have to. Form a group large enough to attack Amaral, given he has Warders and Adepts assisting him. Amber, you assist Naryn by remaining alone in New Mexico and finding out where Diana is being held.”

“We don’t need to abandon Haven,” I said. “We could get an ally to help.”

They all knew what I was suggesting. Allies from other countries wouldn’t have the time to get here, but the Denver pack…

“The Denver pack needs
our
help because they’re trying to hold all of Colorado against the Confederation,” Skylur said. “
And
Larimer hasn’t convinced the pack he’s doing the right thing in having a sub-pack. He can’t loan us any significant number of people, unless you think you’ve got something to offer him.”

“Nothing new, but exactly what I implied might happen when I threatened the Confederation.”

There was a slight pause. “Explain,” Skylur said.

“The closest, least well-held Confederation territory is Wyoming,” I said. “Rather than abandoning our House in Cheyenne, for example, to prop up Denver, why not attack the Confederation in Wyoming in exchange for Larimer’s help at Haven?”

“House Thompson would be happier staying in Cheyenne,” Bian supported me. “They may even have informal links with the Cheyenne pack; the old members before the Confederation took over. And there are also the Colonel’s recruits on hand in Wyoming.”

Alex’s files had told me that the Confederation had taken over the Wyoming packs one by one, by supplanting alphas through carefully selected challenges: first Rock Springs, then Medicine Bow, then Cheyenne. I took a moment to brief the others on that.

“They’ve managed to keep a lid on it so far, but I’m sure the Wyoming packs aren’t happy they were used in that way,” I said. “So, apart from killing the Confederation alphas that were planted in those packs, this operation might even be bloodless, and it could set off a ripple through the Confederation that goes all the way back to their center.”

“Hold on. That may be fine for the Were, but the Colonel is still in the recruitment phase,” Naryn said. “He doesn’t have an operational force yet. This action, whoever does it in our name, brings us into direct conflict with the Confederation. We also have to consider the ramifications of how this would look to Panethus.”

Skylur held up a hand, as all of us wanted to get back in with points. I remembered Bian’s comment that Naryn and Skylur went back a long way together. However good the arguments Bian and I were making, Skylur was much more likely to side with the man he’d built up so much trust with.

“Amber?” Skylur said.

Being first up wasn’t necessarily the best in a time-sensitive argument. I had to make it good.

“Naryn and Bian are much better placed than me to say how the association with Were will play out across Panethus as a whole. My only personal experience is that I heard House Passau from Germany express a great deal of interest in how to structure alliances with the Were. But more important than that, isn’t it something that’s completely necessary for Emergence? Are we really going to come out into the daylight and leave the Were and Adepts to find their own way? Would that even be possible?”

No one interrupted me, so I kept going.

“One way or another, we’re already in conflict with the Confederation. My apologies, I caused that at a bad time, but no one has told me what I could have done instead that wouldn’t have been worse.” Still quiet, so I continued. “Regardless of that, from the position we’re in now, my strategy would be for every House in the US and Canada to immediately make contact with the local pack with a view to an alliance, at whatever level that House is comfortable with. Apart from some local problems, that doesn’t increase our commitment by much and yet, from the Confederation side, it’s freaking huge. Suddenly, they’re getting reports that Altau is linking up with every other major pack in North America. Without warning, they’re surrounded. If nothing else, it will stop them in their tracks while they figure out what it means for them. Felix would understand. He’d work with us in exchange for that.”