Ambushed (11 page)

My
suspicions were confirmed when the other vehicle coasted to a stop
and all of the doors opened up simultaneously. The five guys who got
out weren't anyone I recognized, but they were the kind of big
bruisers who seemed a fixture of Coun'hij operations.

"They
aren't from our pack, I mean the Sanctuary pack. I'm kind of
surprised, I thought Kaleb would try and keep our disappearance a
secret for longer than this. It must have really hurt his position
inside of the Coun'hij to admit that he'd lost control of his own son
and needed help hunting us down."

My
voice came out calm, disinterested even, but inside I still felt like
I was going to go to pieces at any minute. I knew I wasn't fooling
anyone. Alec and the rest could hear my heart racing, could probably
smell the perspiration trickling down the back of my neck.

Alec
looked back at me and I expected him to tell me to stop freaking out,
but he just grunted. "Yeah, I expect he's lost some pull as a
result. I'm not entirely sure that's something to be celebrating. As
bad as Kaleb is, there are others on the Coun'hij who are worse.
Okay, everyone out."

It
was pretty much the same as ordering us all to jump out of an
airplane without a parachute, but we all piled out of the SUV and
lined up opposite the Coun'hij enforcers.

"We're
here to take you in, Graves. Your daddy still has enough influence to
make sure you aren't executed out of hand, but we've got more
flexibility when it comes to your friends. Resist and we'll kill all
of them, really piss us off and we'll kill you too and just tell
Kaleb to go screw himself."

I
looked over at Alec. Taking your eyes off of a group of thugs who'd
just threatened to kill you wasn't exactly the smartest thing to be
doing, but he was my alpha, he was the one who got to decide whether
or not I was about to die. Alec examined the five guys facing us and
then smiled.

"I'll
make you a counter-offer. Surrender now and I'll let the five of you
live long enough to have a fair hearing. If you're not guilty of the
disgusting excesses most of your fellows are so fond of, I'll even give
you a chance to swear allegiance to me."

I
looked at Jess out of the corner of my eye and she looked terrified.
Her breathing was coming nearly as fast as mine, and James was
shifting back and forth from foot to foot, but apparently none of us
were stupid enough to think that turning ourselves in would guarantee
us any kind of safety.

We'd
made our bed when we'd helped Rachel escape and there wasn't anything
we could do about it now. I wasn't exactly sorry I'd helped save
Rachel. I would have done it again if faced with the choice, even
knowing how things were going to end up, but I'd hoped that we'd have
a longer run than this.

One
of the Coun'hij enforcers, a massive guy with a neck like an ox and
at least a dozen different facial piercings, started laughing. The
rest of them joined in over the next couple of seconds, but Alec's
voice cut through all of that like it didn't matter.

"Very
well, don't say I didn't give you a chance."

A
maroon van thirty yards behind the Coun'hij guys opened up and seven
people exited it in short order and shook out into a loose line. Even
if I hadn't recognized them I still would have known that they were
shape shifters. They were all wearing ha'bits and they all moved with
the easy grace of someone whose balance and reflexes were literally
superhuman.

It
was Jack, the squad leader we'd worked with in St. Louis, and his
entire group. He was the only hybrid, but that meant we had three
hybrids and eight wolves against their five hybrids. They didn't
stand a chance.

I
looked over at Alec and saw that he'd kicked off his shoes. "I'd
offer to make introductions, but there really isn't any point."

The
enforcers all shifted at the same time, flaring power like a single
metaphysical supernova, but Alec and the rest of us shifted a split
second later and Jack's people were only a heartbeat behind us. The
next three or four seconds would determine the course of the fight
and we all knew it.

The
five hybrids had three choices. If they stayed where they were and
waited for all of us to come to them then they'd lose. They might
hurt a few of us, maybe even kill a couple of us, but they would
lose, the odds were just too far against them. If they'd had someone
with some kind of useful ability like Brandon or Kaleb with them,
then it would have been a whole different matchup, but they didn't,
not based on the way Alec had been looking them over.

He'd
been checking them against the files he carried around in his head,
the files that listed every really dangerous hybrid in North America
along with their picture and a description of their power. Alec could
bluff, but I knew that smile. He'd smiled because he knew we were up
against five normal hybrids.

Since
the first option was out that meant that the hybrids all either
needed to charge the four of us or they needed to charge Jack's
people. If they charged us then there was a chance they could kill us
before Jack's people arrived and then they'd be able to turn on Jack
and the others and probably beat them too.

It
was a workable option, but my money had been on them going the other
direction. By charging Jack they would be up against only one hybrid,
but the other four hybrids would be up against six wolves. The odds
were still in their favor with that kind of matchup, but it wasn't as
good as three hybrids against two wolves.

No,
the real reason to go after Jack's people rather than us was that it
gave them a chance to break free of the ambush. It gave them room to
move and the psychological reassurance of not being trapped anymore.

I
ended up being right. All five of the enforcers shifted to wolf form
and bolted towards Jack and the others. Wolves were faster than
hybrids in a long race, which was why Alec and James had likewise
shifted to wolf form. It was a race and the stakes were life and
death for all sixteen of us.

My
earlier jitters had disappeared as soon as Jack and the others showed
up. I tore across the concrete with reckless abandon, Alec hot on my
heels, James and Jess a couple of yards back. Alec was strong and he
was fast, faster than most wolves, but this was the kind of fight I'd
been born for. Nobody else in the Sanctuary pack was as fast on four
legs as I was.

I
was gaining on the five Coun'hij wolves, but even I couldn't make it
to them before they reached Jack and the others. To an uninformed
eye, the five lithe shapes running towards Jack's massive hybrid form
didn't seem like a threat, but this was actually the trickiest part
of the whole ambush.

If
Jack and the others just scattered then the enforcers would get away.
Not all of them certainly, I'd be able to run one of them down and
Alec might be able to catch another of them, but at least some of
them would get away.

If
we'd been out in the wilderness that wouldn't have been the case, but
we didn't have forever to run them down, eventually we'd be out in
full view of the public, at which point things would get a lot more
dicey. Jack might have one or two people who were fast enough to
catch an enforcer, those of us who only fought on four legs tended to
be faster than the hybrids even when they were in wolf form, but if
even one enforcer got away, then Jack's role in rescuing us would
make it back to Kaleb and the rest of the Coun'hij.

I
was pretty sure that Jack didn't want that to happen, but if he and
the others stood their ground then they risked having the hybrids
shift forms at the last instant and crash into their line as hybrids
instead of as wolves. There was no way that six wolves and a hybrid
could possibly stop more than a ton of determined hybrids who were
already moving at full speed, it was suicide to even try.

All
of which explained my shock when Jack refused to back down in the
face of the oncoming enforcers. His wolves melted away, getting out
of the way, but Jack simply set himself as if to stop the charge
singlehandedly.

Jack
had treated us well when we'd been in St. Louis and he'd risked a
hell of a lot in coming here to bail us out. I liked Jack, at least
as much as any wolf could like a hybrid. I reached inside and came up
with a little more speed, but it wasn't going to be enough, nobody
could possibly get there in time.

It
was a sacrificial play, but it was one that the enforcers had to
honor. If they just charged past as wolves then they were going to
get hurt. Wolves are fast, but hybrids are practically purpose-built
for killing fast things. Jack couldn't chase them down, but he'd get
claws into two of them, he'd probably kill them before they even hit
the ground, and then the other three would be faced with even worse
odds when it came to trying to escape.

They
might be able to outrun one or two wolves apiece, but there wasn't
much chance they'd be able to get away from three of us. That meant
that at least two or three of the hybrids were going to have to shift
form and hit Jack as hybrids rather than as wolves. They'd mow him
over like he wasn't even there, but that would slow them down, which
meant that the four of us would be that much closer to them when they
tried to make a break for it.

It
wasn't much to trade your life for, but it was the best option that
Jack had available to him. The mechanics of the situation were stark
and merciless. We all knew them and we were all ready to play our
part. I jumped lengthwise over a Ford sedan and slid past a concrete
column so close that I felt my fur brush it.

My
feet just about came out from underneath me as my pads landed on a
strip of dry paint that was slightly slicker than the unpainted
concrete, and I had to look down to make sure that my next step
wouldn't put me on more paint. I looked back up just in time to see
three of the enforcers shift forms a split second before they
collided with Jack.

Only
there wasn't any collision. Instead of just throwing himself forward
to try and offset their momentum, Jack leaped straight up, just
managing to clear the center hybrid as the three of them flashed past
him.

It
was a masterful display of strength and timing. Hybrids are strong,
but they are also massively heavy. The three Coun'hij hybrids who had
been charging him had been running full speed, so they'd been leaning
forward, but in order to get high enough up to clear the reach of
their claws he'd still had to jump nearly seven feet straight up.
Some parking garages didn't even have tall enough ceilings for him to
do what he'd just done, but this one did and as he came back down he
managed to turn slightly in the air and get a single toe talon into
the back of the center hybrid.

Jack's
people sprang into action even before the center hybrid crashed into
the ground. Two wolves, presumably his fastest, streaked after the
two enforcers who had stayed in wolf form, while the other four
attacked the two hybrids who were still on their feet.

The
melee was a blurring mess of blood, claws and fur that couldn't last
for very long. Hybrid-on-hybrid combat is plenty brutal;
hybrid-versus-wolf combat tends to end even more abruptly. Either the
wolves manage to slip past the hybrid's defenses and get a killing
hold on their neck or we die. We aren't sturdy enough to trade blows
with them like another hybrid.

A
two-to-one matchup was a fight in which the wolves
could
come out on top, but it was by no means guaranteed. Luckily Jack's
wolves didn't need to last for very long because I was almost there.

The
hybrid on the far left of the fight stumbled, but it was a feint to
try and lure one of his opponents into a bad attack. It worked and I
saw a gray form plant and throw itself at the hybrid from the side.
The hybrid recovered with preternatural quickness and spun around,
claws flashing to rip the wolf out of the air.

It
was the perfect play on the hybrid's part and it was a major screwup
for the wolf. The hybrid had chosen an instant in which the second
wolf was off balance and unable to attack, but that shouldn't have
been an issue because the gray wolf should have known that time was
on his side for once. All he'd needed to do was distract the hybrid
long enough for Alec and James to arrive, but he'd tried to push the
issue and it was probably going to cost him his life.

The
one mistake that the
hybrid
made was not realizing just how close I was or just how much faster I
was than any normal wolf. I didn't plant, the concrete was too slick
for that, but I put a little extra force into my next bound.

The
hybrid's attack had turned him so that his right flank was towards
me. It wasn't a perfect setup like an attack from directly behind
would have been, but it was close enough. The air clawed at me,
trying to slow me down, but I still hit the hybrid at more than
thirty miles per hour.

I'm
only something like a hundred and twenty pounds in human form, but I
push almost two hundred when I'm a wolf. My jaws clamped onto his
neck and then I felt the familiar wrench of deceleration as all of my
kinetic energy was shifted to him over the course of a few fractions
of a second.

We
wolves look a lot like real wolves, albeit much bigger than a normal
wolf, but there are differences if you know what you're looking for.
The biggest is just how much more muscle we have around our neck and
shoulders relative to the rest of our body.

Real
wolves are strong—they have to be to bring down elk that are
several times their weight—but they are dealing with prey
animals. Granted, they are relatively dangerous prey animals, but
that's not quite the same thing as trying to snap the neck of
something like a hybrid. There's no such thing as an apex predator in
the supernatural world, but hybrids came close.