Lost (41 page)

"Isaac, is
that you?"

"Adri?
Where is Alec? I'm sorry, but I don't have much time and I really
need to talk to him."

"I'm
sorry, Isaac. Alec isn't available, but he made me promise that I'd
pick up no matter what the next time you called."

She sounded
worn out in a way that I'd never heard out of her. Adri tended more
towards the serious side of things than Jessica, but this was
something else entirely. She sounded like she had the weight of the
world on her shoulders.

"How long
will it be before Alec can call me himself and talk to me?"

"I don't
have an answer for you on that one, Isaac. Why don't you just tell me
what you need and we'll see what we can pull together for you?"

"What's
going on, Adri?"

"The
Chicago pack is in ruins. Nobody has heard from Shawn or Ulrich in
days. The Coun'hij has kill teams scouring the country for our people
and they are scary good at finding people they shouldn't be able to
find. My two best weapons are Jaclyn who refuses to pick up her
phone, and Grayson who told me directly the last time I called him
that he can't help me with any of my problems."

"That's
not what I was talking about and you know it."

"Sorry,
Isaac, that's all you're going to get unless you're ready to come
meet up with us so that I can tell you in person. I'm not saying any
more over a phone line regardless of how secure you or anyone else
tell me it is."

What she was
implying was enough to make my stomach drop away. I could feel a
black hole trying to swallow my determination and leave me nothing
but a hollow shell, but I refused to give in before I had
confirmation for what she was implying.

"Where is
Alec?"

"Not
another word, Isaac, or I'll hang up on you right now and Alec can
just deal with the fact that I broke my promise to him."

"He's not
dead."

"No, he's
not dead. What do you need? I've got problems here that need to be
dealt with."

She wasn't
lying, at least I didn't think she was. I would have said that Adri
was incapable of keeping a secret from anyone longer than five
minutes, but this new Adri was as cold as they came. Still, if Alec
wasn't dead then that meant we all still had a chance.

"I'm in
Louisiana. Those kill teams chased us here and then Onyx backed us
into a corner. I'm about to go fight Onyx, but I know that I can't
win. I was hoping that Alec could come put him down for me."

"That's
not going to happen, not with everything else that's going on right
now, but I might be able to get some hybrids down there to help you
out. I think that there are two from the Tucson pack I could shake
loose along with four or five wolves."

"No, that
isn't going to do the trick. You can't just throw bodies at this guy.
He's got an ability that drops people from a dozen yards away.
Sending a dozen hybrids wouldn't be enough, you'd just end up with
more corpses on our side when all was said and done. I need Alec,
he's the only one who can positively neutralize Onyx."

She was silent
for a couple of seconds before sighing. "I'm sorry, Isaac, I
really wish there was more that we could do, but there isn't. Are you
sure that there isn't some way to get the three of you out of there?"

"Not one
that would let me live with myself afterwards. What about if I stall
for a day or two?"

I wasn't sure
that I could live with that; I knew that Celeste wouldn't be able to,
but I needed to know what I was up against.

"It
wouldn't make any difference. I wish it would, but there's just no
way. Can you think of anything else that we could do from here that
would give you a chance of getting out of there?"

I closed my
eyes and rested my head in my hand. "Crap. No, there isn't any
other way."

"Are you
sure, Isaac? I…we could really use your help back here. There
aren't very many people I can trust right now."

There it was,
the perfect reason to abandon my plan and retreat back to wherever
Adri, Alec and the others happened to be. You could even argue that
retreating would be doing the most good for the greatest number.

The only
problem was that I knew exactly what that would cost me. Celeste
wasn't going to walk away from her people, not for a second time, not
after knowing just how terrible she'd felt when she'd stayed in the
enclave to keep me alive and thought that her people were all dead.

She would stay,
and if she stayed, she was going to end up dead. That wasn't a price
that I was willing to pay.

"No, Adri,
I just can't do that. I'm sorry, but you'll be okay. You seem like
you're keeping the wheels on, just don't let on to anyone else the
true extent of our problems. I'm not going to tell anyone, but if
word gets out we're all going to find ourselves pretty much screwed."

"Go teach
your grandma to suck eggs, Isaac. You caught me in a weak moment or I
wouldn't have even told you as much as I did."

This time the
silence stretched out, but in the end I was the one who broke it.

"Just make
sure that you tell Alec that I'm sorry. Oh, and if Ash doesn't manage
to bring Onyx down, promise me that you guys will find a way to take
him down soon. He needs to be stopped before he can do more damage
down here."

"Alec
already knows. He wanted to tell you that he's already forgiven
anything that needed forgiving. He hopes that you know how sorry he
was that he couldn't have done more to save Jess. He still considers
you one of his closest friends."

My voice came
out rough despite my best efforts.

"I feel
the same way. Do I have your promise that you'll see to Onyx?"

"Yeah,
even if I have to pull the trigger myself. We're going to bring the
Coun'hij and everyone who's been supporting them down or we'll die
trying."

"The old
Adri wouldn't have approved of assassination."

"Yeah,
well, I swore a promise back in Chicago. Besides, it's been a rough
couple of weeks. There are worse things than putting a bullet in the
head of the kind of people we are fighting. Take care of yourself,
Isaac. I'll pass on your message."

"You too, Adri."

Isaac Nazir
The Lamia Enclave

Everyone was
waiting for me at the entrance to the tunnel that led back to our
world. Kristin wasn't in any shape to ask me any questions, and Jax
was too submissive to pry, but I could see that Ash and Celeste both
wanted to know who I'd been talking to.

I motioned
everyone into the tunnel without volunteering any information.
Apparently I was currently dominant enough to get away with that.
Nobody argued, and a few minutes later we exited the tunnel and
started our way out onto a series of progressively smaller islands.

They were all
close enough together that we were able to step from one to another
without getting our feet wet, and then a few minutes after that Set
led us around to the other side of a familiar-looking tree that it
turned out had been hiding our boat.

Our bags all
went into the bottom of the vessel, followed by Kristin with an
appropriate amount of fussing on Ash's part as Set gently lowered her
onto one of the chairs. The lamias then reached down and picked the
boat up so that they could walk it down into the water.

Ash, Jax and
Celeste all piled into the boat as soon as it was in the water, but I
stopped and turned back to Set before getting in.

"Take
care, my friend. I'm sorry for the damage I did to your enclave while
I was there. I hope you're able to quickly rebuild and come out
stronger in the near future."

"You took
the path that honor demanded, Isaac Nazir. I'm glad to have known
you. I wish you honor and faith sufficient to accomplish your task."

A minute later
we were all on the boat and skimming across the water. I looked back
just before we started around a big island that would have cut Set
and the others off from view, but they were already gone.

We were moving
much faster than we had on the way in, and the drone of the engine
and propeller precluded casual conversation, but I managed to
communicate well enough with Celeste to convince her to stop when we
were still five minutes from our destination.

Satisfied that
I would have time to explain my plan before we arrived back in
civilization, I leaned back in my chair and enjoyed zipping across
the murky green water. It was over all too soon.

Celeste cut the
engine and then turned to me. "Okay, what did you want to tell
everyone?"

"I'm going
in to New Orleans with you and Jax. We'll drop Ash and Kristin off
far enough outside of town that they won't get picked up by Onyx's
guys, but close enough that they can buy a car and get to a hospital
somewhere out of state."

Ash shook his
head. "What are you talking about? Why would we need to go to a
hospital?"

"I guess
that wasn't one of the things that you and Celeste talked about while
I was unconscious. When you got hurt I sewed you up, but one of your
stitches popped open after I closed you up. Set slowed the bleeding
down, but there is a hole in your right renal artery. You need to get
to a doctor and have them open you back up or there is a chance that
you'll bleed to death."

He looked over
at Celeste for confirmation and received a nod. "Okay, I need to
get to a hospital, but that isn't any kind of reason for the three of
you to go back to the house in New Orleans."

Celeste cleared
her throat. "I'm going back. Jax and Isaac should go with you
two, but I have to go back or Onyx will start killing the pack's
submissives. I'm not going to let that happen."

Jax jumped into
the conversation with an uncharacteristic burst of assertiveness.
"I'm going back too. Those are my friends back there. I'm not
going to abandon them."

I gave Ash a
tired smile. "If Celeste is going back, then I'm going with
her."

"That's
crazy, Isaac. Just because you have the hots for my sister isn't any
reason to throw your life away. You're good, maybe even better than
good, but Onyx eats guys like you for breakfast. You can't win."

"I know.
My chances aren't spectacular, but by going in there I can put him on
notice. I'll tell him that if he hurts Celeste or the others then
he'll get a visit from Alec, and once that happens, New Orleans will
be under new management."

Celeste shook
her head and grabbed my arm. "Isaac, you don't have to do this.
It's an incredible gesture, but it won't make any difference. Onyx
isn't going to kill me, not as long as he still thinks he can get his
hands on my family's money."

She hadn't
quite come out and said that there wasn't any money left, but she'd
come too close just now. It was one more bit of proof that she wasn't
ready to go back to New Orleans on her own.

The old
Celeste, the one that had been hardened by decades of high-stakes
intrigue against Onyx, might have been able to withstand what she was
headed into, but even then I wasn't sure. This new, softer Celeste
I'd helped to create wasn't ready to go back into that kind of hell.
Onyx would chew her up in a matter of days.

If she did
survive, she'd be so scarred that there wouldn't be any coming back
this time around. I couldn't let that happen, but I also couldn't
tell her that. She was already going to blame herself for my death.
If I made her think I'd died because she'd been too weak, that would
change her for the worse forever.

"You're
still thinking of things like they used to be, Celeste. Onyx knows
that Ash is alive now. Not only that, he's going to be smarting from
having just lost half of his hybrids to the ambush Set and I put
together. If you don't give him exactly what he wants he'll just kill
you and go back to looking for Ash."

I had her
there, but Ash jumped back in the conversation. "Let's not be
stupid about this. I'm not as good from extreme long distances, but
it's the obvious solution. Let me get hold of some guys I know. It
will take me a couple of days to set it up, but Onyx will go down to
a fifty-caliber round just like anyone else."

Celeste looked
truly torn now. Ash had just turned this into a choice between
some
of her people and me. I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life
with her wondering if she'd made the right choice each time she
looked at me.

"You can't
guarantee a timeframe on something like that, Ash. Your contacts may
not even be in this country. They may have commitments on another
job, or Onyx may be so busy killing the submissives that he doesn't
stick his head outside of the house until they are all dead. You
might be able to put him down within the next twenty-four hours, or
it might take a week and a half for all of the pieces to fall into
place."

"Fine, but
we should at least explore the possibility. I've got a lot of
contacts, maybe one of them is already in this state. We don't lose
anything by at least checking."

"Yes, we
do. The longer Celeste is gone, the more furious Onyx is going to be
when she gets back. His reputation is on the line. She needs to be
back at the house as soon as possible to defuse the situation."

"Fine,
I'll take the shot myself then. I'm not the best out there, but I
should be able to hit him from far enough away to make sure that he
doesn't see the shot coming."

I shook my
head. "This is too important to blow, Ash. You're only going to
get one chance to bring him down with snipers. Once that genie is out
of the bottle then Onyx and every other piece of garbage that's been
sheltering behind the Coun'hij is going to start taking precautions."

"It's
worth it to give you a shot at making it out of there alive."

"What
about the rest of the hybrids in the pack? If you kill Onyx with a
slug from five hundred yards away then the rest of his guys will tear
through half of the submissives and then use the rest as hostages."