Ambushed (30 page)

"No,
you don't need to be sorry at all. Things ended up working out okay
for the most part. I mean I nearly died and all of that, but all of
the good guys survived and if Jackson and Pamela hadn't found me I
might not have ever had the courage to pull Taggart into my dreams."

"Still,
I wish I could have done more. The little bit of help I offered
wasn't a very good repayment for your help."

I
shot her a look of disbelief. "You could have easily wrapped all
four of those girls into knots all by yourself. You didn't need my
help."

Dominic's
blond wig was positioned so that it obscured most of the right side
of her face. She looked up at me from behind a curtain of hair as we
stepped into an empty elevator and I pushed the button for our floor.

"You're
right, physically they weren't a match for me, but I was at a real
low point when you saw me. It wasn't that I
couldn't
defend myself, I didn't
want
to. I guess I'd lost hope. I came up here to your country thinking
that I'd be entering some kind of paradise where law and order
reigned supreme and the people were fundamentally different than
everyone I'd known back home.

"Instead,
I found out that people are the same everywhere you go. The ordinary
people here confine their actions to something mostly within your
laws, but most of them aren't any better or worse than anyone from my
country."

Her
smooth alto and beautiful accent didn't give any hint to what she'd
gone through, but I'd seen some of the depths that people could
descend to when they didn't think anyone was watching. My own sister
had even tried to make my life miserable enough to quit the
cheerleading team despite the fact that my joining had been her idea
from the start.

"I'm
so sorry. Things must have been really hard for you here. I can't
imagine what it would be like not to have any support system, no
family, no friends, nobody to make the bullies think that it might
not be a good idea to pick on you."

"
Sí
,
it was pretty bad. I was ready to give up, to crawl off somewhere and
die, but you reminded me that there were other kinds of people out
there, good, kind people. You gave me back my hope and convinced me
that I just need to go back out there and find more people like you."

"I'm
glad I was able to help, even if I didn't really do much of anything.
It seems like you've found a good home with Isaac and the others."

Dominic's
smile and nod were the most completely unreserved expressions I'd
seen out of her yet. "Yes, they are like the family I wish I
could have had growing up."

"I
was surprised to see that Isaac was so young. He seems like he can't
be much older than us. I thought pack alphas were usually older, more
experienced but still in the prime of their lives."

"They
usually are, but we aren't exactly a pack and Isaac isn't really our
alpha."

Our
elevator glided to a stop. I gave her a confused look as we stepped
out onto the white concrete.

"I
don't understand."

"It's
hard to explain. I don't know that there's ever been anything quite
like this before. Before Isaac was exiled there was no us. It was
just a bunch of dispossessed who had all lived in the same area for
long enough that they knew each other and had worked out a rough
dominance hierarchy."

"Isaac
changed all of that?"

"Yes.
Some of the most dominant hybrids were as bad as any of the alpha
jaguars back home. The only thing that kept them even slightly in
check was the fear that if they pushed too far or didn't keep our
existence a secret the Coun'hij would step in and kill them."

That
was exactly what I would have expected out of a group of shape
shifters without a central authority. It mirrored the things Taggart
had described from his time as one of the dispossessed.

"Isaac
wasn't like that. He doesn't have any kind of special ability like
some of the hybrids have, but he was young and strong. The wolves in
our territory expected him to come in and claim one of the better
areas for himself. That would have forced whoever he pushed out to
take another territory from one of the other wolves. Those kinds of
fights, when a shape shifter has been robbed of their territory and
have to fight for a new spot, are some of the most deadly. When we
are away from home and operating without any kind of safety net we
are the most vulnerable."

"So
I take it that Isaac didn't do that?"

"No,
he found one of the more submissive wolves and asked her if he could
share her territory. She thought he was just going to edge her out
over time rather than all at once, but he didn't and when one of the
lesser hybrids came through and tried to steal from her, Isaac ran
him off."

I
could see where the story was going. Isaac already sounded like a
standup guy. He was exactly the kind of guy I'd been thinking Alec
was until Taggart had burst my bubble.

"So,
I'm guessing that once Isaac beat that other hybrid everyone expected
him to go in and evict the guy he'd beaten?"

"Yeah,
pretty much, but instead Isaac paid him a visit and told him that he
had nothing to fear as long as he stopped shaking down Isaac's
friend."

"Only
hybrid number two was shaking down more than just the one wolf…"

"Right,
the other hybrid—Clarence is his name—kept robbing from
the other wolves and in fact took more from them to make up for the
fact that he couldn't steal from Isaac's friend, Zaire. Once word of
what had happened got around to the other wolves, they went to Isaac
and asked him to protect them from Clarence."

We
were only a little ways away from the others, but I didn't want to go
back just yet. I was pretty sure that once we were around everyone
else Dominic would clam up and I would miss out on the rest of the
story. I reached out and placed a hand on Dominic's arm. She stopped
and looked at me.

"What
happened next?"

"Isaac
visited Clarence with half a dozen wolves at his back and told
Clarence that his protection racket was done for."

"I'll
bet Clarence didn't like that."

Dominic
looked a little sad now. "He didn't, but not for the reason you
think. He was shaking down the wolves because one of the other more
dangerous hybrids kept coming around and shaking
him
down. He told Isaac what was going on and Isaac agreed to help him
stand up to the hybrid who had been giving Clarence problems."

My
mind was whirling in astonishment at what I'd just heard.

"Isaac
just reestablished civilization among the dispossessed in your area."

Dominic
nodded. "Exactly. It's nothing less than amazing. For so many
years, back in my country, I thought that barbarity and lawlessness
was unusual. I thought the natural order of the world was something
like you all have here in the United States. I got here and found out
I'd had it backwards the entire time."

"Right,
the natural order of things is for the strong to prey on the weak."

"Even
so. It takes a special set of circumstances and rare kind of person
to bring civilization to something like what Isaac found when he
first arrived in our territory. Most of it happened before I'd
arrived, but even hearing about it secondhand was amazing."

I
had so many questions that I almost didn't know where to start. "But
you're not a pack and Isaac isn't your leader?"

"No,
not in the traditional sense. Many of the dispossessed are
dispossessed for good reason. Some of them don't play very well with
others, so we haven't formed anything as rigid as a pack. Instead
it's more like an…understanding. Isaac has a set of rules,
simple things like no robbing from each other, no evicting someone
from their territory."

"A
basic legal code…"

"
Sí
,
that's it exactly. The dispossessed are divided into two groups,
those who have agreed to uphold Isaac's rules, and those who haven't.
Isaac is the final arbitrator of any disagreements between two of us
who have agreed to his law."

"What
about conflicts between you guys and the ones outside of his law?"

"Isaac
settles those according to the rules he's established. It almost
always comes down to bloodshed, but no one hybrid can hope to stand
against Isaac and the rest of us."

"And
the Coun'hij doesn't know about any of this?"

Dominic
shook her head. "We don't think so. They usually only monitor
the most powerful dispossessed and we've tried very hard to keep a
low profile. It helps that Isaac isn't the best fighter or most
powerful hybrid in the area. Anyone looking in from the outside is
unlikely to view him as being at the center of anything."

"Only
he is."

"Exactly."

We
started walking again. I still had questions, but we'd been away long
enough that Taggart was probably starting to get worried. Besides,
none of the rest of my questions really mattered, not compared to
what I'd already learned.

We
came around the corner just in time to hear Taggart finish responding
to another of Isaac's questions.

"…so
I've got the current location and the first leg of their route, but
no idea what they'll do after that."

Isaac
sighed. "Which means that you've got a very narrow window in
which to strike; if you miss it you might lose him forever."

"I'm
afraid so."

The
tension between Isaac's people and Taggart had continued to ratchet
down in my absence. Nobody was standing anymore; they'd all found
cars to sit on. Some of the guys with Isaac even seemed to have
relaxed enough that smiling at Dominic and me as we came back wasn't
a capital offense.

Isaac
stared off into space for several seconds before nodding. "All
right, I'm in. You're either both telling the truth or you're the
most accomplished liars I've ever encountered. Either way, you're
right. If Agony disappears permanently things will get noticeably
worse for all of the rest of us."

The
last of the tension melted out of Taggart and, for the first time
since he'd found out that Agony had been captured, he seemed to have
a measure of hope.

"Great,
how many people will you be bringing?"

"I'm
sorry, but our group doesn't work that way. I don't just give orders
and expect everyone to hop. Everyone with us here today now knows
enough to make their own decision, and it will be
their
decision. As for the rest of the people who've chosen to live by our
rules, it will take me a day or so to get the message out to them."

For
a second I thought Taggart was going to say something he'd regret.
What Isaac was describing went against everything Taggart had seen in
nearly three hundred years of life and I could tell he was having a
hard time believing it. I made a quick 'calm down' gesture and he
fortunately chose not to take umbrage at what could have been
considered an order.

"Another
day when we don't have something more pressing going on, I'd be
interested in learning more about your group."

Isaac's
nod of agreement was accompanied by a smile that seemed to say that
he knew just how much it had cost Taggart not to say something else,
but it wasn't a mean smile by any stretch of the imagination. If
anything I got the feeling that Isaac himself was surprised that he'd
managed to accomplish so much with such a dangerous, disparate group.

"Still,
I have two concerns that must be addressed if we're going to be able
to work together."

Isaac
waved for Taggart to go on.

"It
is vitally important that news of this operation not leak out to the
Coun'hij. If your group is as democratic as you say it is, then
you're not going to be withholding any information from any of your
people. Surely you can see my concerns from a security standpoint with
that arrangement…"

"Of
course, that is completely understandable. All I can say is that
while there isn't any guarantee when it comes to these kinds of
things, we've done everything we could to limit our exposure
generally. Before we leave, each of my people will confirm to at
least two other people that they won't share this information with
anyone outside of our group, and that they will only do so in person
after getting the same kind of promise from whomever they share the
information with."

"That's
not bad, but a ritual promise that bound their beast to enforcing the
oath would be even better."

Isaac
actually chuckled. "It would, but that isn't the kind of thing I
can get away with asking. Most of the wolves and hybrids in our group
have grown to love the freedom of not answering to a central
authority. I'm afraid this is the best I can hope to get out of them.
What was your second concern?"

Taggart
didn't exactly look happy about Isaac's response, but apparently he
decided it was satisfactory enough to move on to his second point.

"You
must have at least
some
estimate of how much help your people might offer. If we're going to
have any hope of pulling this off then I need—we need—to
start planning today."

"Possibly
as few as five or six, possibly as many as two or three dozen, but
plan as though there will be twelve or thirteen of us. It's going to
take much more than just a few years before most of the dispossessed
will trust each other enough to fight for a cause."

Some
of the air seemed to leak out of Taggart. "It's not enough. Even
with fourteen hybrids we'd still be unlikely to win, not against the
kinds of animals that the Coun'hij uses as enforcers. Even if they
don't have someone really scary along like Puppeteer or Oblivion we
still would be stupid to go in without more of a numerical advantage
than that."

Isaac
seemed to be debating his response, but before he could decide
between whatever options he was considering one of the guys to his
left stood and walked over to his side.