Ambushed (9 page)

Acting
more on a hunch than anything else, I let the frustration stay and
added in half a dozen other emotions. Respect, dependence, a slight
dose of fear, all of the emotions that I'd come to associate with
Taggart went into the mix and then rather than just letting the
filaments spool out slowly on their own, I
pushed
in
the odd way that I'd learned made things happen for me inside the
dream.

They
shot away from me with exactly the speed and urgency that I'd been
looking for, the speed that, up until now, had been missing. My
strength poured out of me in step with the movement of the threads
and I felt a familiar sense of worry at how quickly it was fading.

Taggart
was convinced that a failed attempt to find a specific individual was
of no long-term consequence. He'd told me several times that the only
result of a failure would be that I would exhaust my strength and
then simply lapse back into a normal, dreamless sleep.

I
wanted to believe him. Certainly my limited experience so far had
seemed to support that idea, but the sheer pace at which I was
spending energy this time was alarming.

A
combination of worry and fear spiked inside of me. The rising tide of
emotion threatened to destabilize the mixture I'd whipped up
intentionally, the feelings that made me think of Taggart, but I
managed to hold on for just long enough for one of the threads to
connect with something that
felt
like what I was looking for.

Just
as I remembered happening before, the rest of the threads came
whipping back towards me, melting back into my body and providing me
with the strength I needed to thicken up the thread that had found
Taggart.

For
a single heartbeat everything balanced on the edge of a knife. I
didn't want to go forward, didn't want to take the risk that I hadn't
actually found Taggart, but I knew I had to act right then or I would
lose my chance.

The
thread reached some kind of critical mass and started to unravel, but
I pushed off against my surroundings at the same time that I pulled
on the line between the two of us. There was an odd catch, as if for
a moment the universe wasn't sure whether to pull him towards me or
send me hurtling towards him, but then I accelerated at an impossible
speed.

I
couldn't have said whether the trip took hours or was over in an
instant. My head felt full, like I'd had hours of thoughts impossibly
compressed into a fraction of a second, and then I was there.

I'd
been moving faster than I'd ever moved before, but I arrived without
stumbling, without even a whisper of sound to betray the fact that
Taggart and Eric weren't alone anymore. We were standing in the
middle of a featureless white plain. Eric was facing away from me,
looking at Taggart, and didn't give any indication that he'd noticed
any kind of change in his surroundings.

I
knew I was looking at Taggart because I could see a shimmer where
he'd altered his features, but if not for that I'd never have
recognized him. He looked like an eighth-century Irishman. He had red
hair, a full beard and looked like he could crack rocks with his bare
hands.

Taggart
hadn't given me any kind of instructions on what to do once I
arrived—probably because he hadn't actually expected me to be
successful—so I simply shifted my clothes and body, making them
clear and thereby rendering myself invisible.

It
wasn't perfect. Looking down at myself I could see the same
distortion in the air that had clued me in to the fact that Taggart
had changed his appearance. Eric probably wouldn't be able to see the
difference, but I knew that Taggart saw the same shimmer in the air
as I did when someone changed their appearance.

"What
do you know, Eric?"

"I
told you—nothing is happening right now. No news is good news,
right?"

Taggart
didn't look happy, in fact he looked like he was starting to lose the
tiniest bit of control over his beast. I circled around, moving
slowly so as not to make any sound. Even so, it only took me a couple
of seconds to get far enough to the side to see that Eric understood
just how thin the ice he was standing on was.

"Don't
play with me, Eric. You were the one who approached me. In the last
five years there hasn't been a single time when you didn't have
something to report, some new development or rumor."

"There's
nothing—I swear it!"

Taggart
grabbed him by the throat. "I can make your life misery
incarnate. Imagine going to sleep every night worried about what
would be waiting for you here. Do you know how often you have to
torture someone to drive them insane? It varies from person to
person, but I don't think it would take much to send you over the
edge. If you want out then just say so, but don't waste my time,
don't try to play me. I won't be mocked."

Eric
shifted forms, becoming a hybrid in an explosion of flesh and power
that knocked Taggart away. Taggart responded in kind, transforming
into a hybrid before he'd even finished rolling back to his feet. My
heart shot up to my throat as the two hybrids circled.

"I've
wanted out for years now, but you're never going to let me go. If I
stop helping you, then in your mind I'm no better than any other
Coun'hij enforcer. You'll still come here and spy on my dreams,
you'll report everything you learn to Agony, and one day I'll turn
around and find him waiting for me. I'm good, but I'm no match for
Agony."

Taggart's
voice came out low and savage. "We're at war, Eric. You have to
choose a side. I'll respect your choice, but that doesn't mean that
you get to sit out the fighting."

There
was an edge of hysteria to Eric's laugh. "I never had a choice.
Once you picked me, once you managed to make contact with me, it was
only a matter of time before I was going to end up dead. I've been
playing a losing hand ever since then. I tried to convince myself
that I was doing something good by helping you, that I was honoring
Audrey's memory, but the truth is that I've been scared every moment
of every day since you found me."

"You
always have a choice, Eric. It's not my fault that you're too craven
to make the choice that you wanted to, not now, not five years ago,
not twenty years ago. That's on you."

"Yeah,
well, the joke's on you. Dream Stealer, the master manipulator, the
man who is better than anyone else at turning people and corrupting
them. You pushed me too far, the fear got to be too much and I
couldn't manage to avoid suspicion anymore. They know."

The
fear that I was about to witness a massive fight was replaced by a
certainty that Taggart and I had just walked into a trap.

Taggart
apparently felt the same way. He dodged to the right a split second
before another hybrid appeared out of thin air and tried to rip his
heart out of his chest.

Everything
happened so quickly that my head spun. I shouldn't have been able to
follow it all. Shape shifters fought with such blinding speed that
humans had no hope of keeping up with the lightning-fast exchanges,
but somehow I was able to see what was going on.

The
new hybrid, a hulking, red-furred monstrosity, missed his initial
attack, but pivoted on one foot and caught Taggart in the shoulder,
scoring what looked like a shallow set of slices in the muscle there.
Eric took advantage of Taggart's apparent preoccupation with the
newcomer to try and charge him from behind, only to run into a
featureless black slab of rock that materialized out of thin air
between one heartbeat and the next.

As
Eric reeled drunkenly away from the rock wall, it disappeared and
Taggart attacked the red hybrid. I'd always thought that Taggart was
impossibly huge in his hybrid form, but he gave up an inch or two in
height and even more than that in reach to this newcomer.

I
was pretty sure that in a purely physical confrontation that Taggart
was going to come out second place, but the red hybrid wasn't just up
against Taggart, he was up against Dream Stealer, the man who'd spent
two centuries inside of people's dreams. The red hybrid dodged to one
side, but his attempted evasion was cut short as thick, cable-like
plants wrapped themselves around his legs.

That
would have sent me crashing to the ground, but the new hybrid not
only kept his feet, he managed to get his claws up and deflect most
of Taggart's attack away from him. He still ended up with some deep
gashes across the side of his chest, but based on his expression it
wasn't anything life threatening.

"You're
new. I didn't know that the Coun'hij had started another recruiting
drive."

Even
as Taggart spoke, another set of vines appeared, this time wrapping
themselves around Eric's neck, but the new hybrid made no effort to
go help his supposed ally.

"They
brought me in specially, just to deal with you."

The
two hybrids blurred towards each other again and when they staggered
back apart they were each bleeding from new wounds. I was pretty sure
that Taggart had hardened his skin at the last second to stop one of
the attacks from striking home. The plants were gone from around
Eric's neck, and the wound across his stomach didn't seem to be
bleeding as much as it should have been.

"Should
I be flattered? I thought the Coun'hij had finally realized that
every time they bring someone new in there is a chance that they are
bringing one of my agents into their inner circle. If I've got them
nervous enough to start recruiting again, it's only a matter of time
before they make an even bigger mistake."

The
bigger hybrid bared his fangs in something that couldn't really be
called a smile. "Let's just say that other developments
necessitated a more proactive stance where you're concerned. Alec
Graves' recent rebellion against his father means that the Coun'hij
ran out of room on their dance card, so they've decided to eliminate
some of their old partners. Your name was towards the top of the
list."

More
blood spattered the ground as both hybrids tried once again to get
past each other's guards. Eric was slowly pulling himself back to his
feet, but I was having a hard time concentrating on the fight.

Alec
Graves was the biggest remaining point of contention between Taggart
and me. The single dream that I'd shared with Alec remained etched in
my memory as the one and only time I'd felt truly safe during the
weeks leading up to my rescue by Taggart.

There
hadn't been much to the dream—a few minutes' worth of talking
followed up by an epic kiss. Alec hadn't even been able to offer me
any protection, but his advice had been what had ultimately caused me
to trust Taggart enough to call on him for help.

Even
so, interacting with Alec had changed me in ways that I couldn't
really explain. It was like I'd spent my entire life in darkness. I
hadn't known what I'd been missing, but I'd still been unable to
escape the nagging suspicion that there was something more to the
world.

Meeting
Alec had flipped on a light. I couldn't go back to a life of
blindness after that. Taggart didn't trust Alec because he thought
anyone related to Kaleb Graves had to be a worthless snake, but I
knew that Alec and I were meant to be together. It didn't make any
sense, especially for someone who didn't believe in soul mates, but
that didn't change the fact that I knew it was true. If Alec had
really run away from home and was working against his father then
Taggart would eventually relax his prohibition against me trying to
make contact with Alec again.

In
the grand scheme of things maybe it wasn't that important, especially
not with the fight that was currently raging just a few yards away
from me, but it was incredibly important to me.

As
much as I wanted to dwell on the possibilities that being able to
talk to Alec again raised, I forced my attention back to what was
going on around me as Taggart slapped the other hybrid's hand out
wide to one side and raked his own claws down the inside of the other
man's arm.

The
red hybrid seemed to be bleeding from more places than Taggart now,
but Eric was creeping stealthily forward in an effort to surprise
Taggart and end the fight in one fell swoop. I couldn't afford to
continue to just sit the fight out, not if I wanted Taggart to have a
chance of surviving.

Shape
shifter hearing was acute, but I changed my features, invisible
though they were, and visualized myself as being nearly weightless. I
pushed that change into effect as I started running towards Eric. He
was moving slowly enough that it took only a couple of seconds to
make it over to him and then I was left with the question of how to
go about disabling the tower of muscle and bone that was a hybrid.

I
didn't realize that I'd made a conscious decision until a shiny
aluminum bat materialized in my right hand. It was exactly the same
as the bat that Tristan had used to try and stop Jackson. There were
probably better choices as far as possible weapons went, but it had
materialized without the invisibility that had been protecting me, so
my cover had just been blown. I didn't have time to mess around.
Besides, the bat felt good in my hand.

The
red hybrid yelled out a warning as I wound up for a swing at Eric's
leg. Whatever change I'd gone through that allowed me to follow the
blindingly fast motions of a hybrid fight hadn't done anything to
actually speed up my muscles and bones.

I
could tell that I wasn't going to be fast enough. Eric was already
spinning around, and my arms were taking too long to accelerate the
heavy aluminum bat. Only it didn't
have
to be heavy. I'd never had much luck changing my own strength inside
of the dream, but the weight of the bat was another matter entirely.

A
concentrated burst of thought was all that was needed to make the bat
nearly feather-light. I nearly overbalanced as muscles that had been
straining against the momentum of a nearly motionless bat suddenly
whipped the length of aluminum through an arc faster than any major
league player had ever managed.