Burned (27 page)

The other two
agreed right away, but Carson studied me for several seconds before
nodding. "You're not going to give them any choice, are you?"

"I'll give
them as much of a choice as I can, but let's not be under any
illusions. I came down to Arizona because I have good reason to
believe that Kaleb and the others are planning on executing every
member of this pack. I'm not going to just walk away and let them all
die. In a very real sense, their choices disappeared when we showed
up at their gate—the line member over there just doesn't
realize it yet."

We split up,
and I arrived back at the gate just in time to see Jaclyn hurry up to
the gate.

"Are you
out of your mind, Graves? You just signed our death warrants! Once
word gets out that you showed up on my doorstep the Coun'hij is never
going to believe that I'm still a neutral party."

I laughed. "I
should have known that I could trust you to both see the reality of
the situation and still delude yourself into thinking that you could
play both sides, Jaclyn. The Coun'hij knows that you're not
independent, but you're right, I just took away the slender pretext
that you've been hiding behind. I have very strong intelligence
indicating that there's a group of Coun'hij enforcers on their way
here as we speak, or I wouldn't have come, but you're right. It's
time to make a choice."

"You're
putting me in a very difficult spot, Alec. I tried to warn you away,
but you're as stubborn as your father and nearly as certain of the
rectitude of your cause as he is. The only way for me to offer my
people a life other than constantly being on the run from your dad is
if we attack you now."

"You'll
regret that, Jaclyn. Your pack won't last five minutes against my
people. I'll try to save as many of them as I can, but you're too
dangerous for that. If you turn this into a fight, you'll be the
first to die."

She nodded.
"I'm under no illusions about my ability to get my claws in your
throat before you take me down, Alec, but you've forced me into a
situation where no matter which option I choose I'll be faced with
regrets. The only real question is whether I think my people have a
better chance going up against you or going up against your father."

The tension
ratcheted up to the point where all it would take was a blink for
both sides to explode into violence. Even as I reached for my
ability, I refused to look away from Jaclyn's gaze. If I ended up
having to kill her I was at least going to do her the honor of
looking her in the eye while I did it.

A split second
before the violence started, Vicki appeared at my elbow. "Don't
do this, Jaclyn. Your people can't beat us."

Jaclyn's eyes
narrowed. "You—I recognize you. Does this mean that Ulrich
has finally picked a side, or is this just another of Shawn's
youthful indiscretions?"

Vicki looked
off into the distance as though trying to read the future, and at
that moment I realized that she was wishing she could read more than
just the next few seconds of what was going to happen.

"I can't
talk about all of that out here in the open, Jaclyn, and you know it.
If you want to let us inside, then I'll tell you what's going on.
Otherwise we'll just have to let things play out as they would if my
boss wasn't in the picture at all."

Jaclyn had been
ready to die a few seconds before—now she was faced with a
possibility that offered survival for both her and her people. If
Vicki had just given her a yes or no response, Jaclyn probably could
have made her decision in a split second. She'd doubtlessly
fantasized about the idea of the Chicago pack finally coming out in
open rebellion. The question of whether or not to let us inside her
walls was a completely new problem though, one that had just been
drastically complicated by the promise of inside information.

The question of
what she was going to do next hung in the air between us for several
seconds, and then I felt Vicki relax. I thought that meant that we
were in—Jaclyn's sigh took me completely off guard.

"No, even
if you tell me that Ulrich is finally picking the side of the
rebellion it still wouldn't be enough for me to put my people at risk
like that. He's a long ways away, and Kaleb has people less than two
hundred miles from here. Ulrich is strong, but even he doesn't have
as long of a reach as the Coun'hij."

Jaclyn
turned—to give the order to prepare for our attack—and
then Tasha came running into view. "We've got reports of a
motorcade headed this direction, Mom. They're coming from the west.
Stack and Nick are putting it at ninety-five percent probability that
it's Worthingfield and his people."

I couldn't
blame Jaclyn for swearing. I'd been expecting something like
this—hoping for it really—for days now, and I still felt
like cursing. We could take the people that Brandon had stationed on
the border, but there was always a chance that he was just one prong
in a much bigger attack—an attack that could include everything
from other enforcers and members of bootlicker packs to werewolves
and another creature—a dark angel—like the one we'd just
finished fighting.

I looked back
at Isaac and the rest to make sure that they'd heard, and then turned
forward to face Jaclyn again. "You can't run—not now. I've
got arrangements made to help you disappear, but it will take time
for you to make it to the extraction points. If you leave now you'll
never manage to fall off of their radar."

She nodded.
"Get the gates open. Tasha, get the word out to the rest of our
people—we need them all here, and they need to come ready for a
fight. How long do we have before Brandon arrives?"

"Less than
ten minutes. The satellites are all down. Our information came in
from one of our human contacts on the other side of town—we're
lucky we have even this much warning."

The gates
opened and our vehicles started pouring into the estate. Vicki's
people weren't going to make it here in time—even some of
Jaclyn's people weren't going to be able to get here before the
fighting started.

I grabbed
Brindi as she came down the steps from my RV and sent her towards
Vicki. "Tell Rachel that I want her to coordinate with Vicki's
people, and then go find Tasha. Ask her for an alternate assembly
point outside of the estate for any of her people who are too far
away to make it here in time. If they can all meet up there with
Vicki's people there's a chance that they'll be able to fight their
way out even if things go badly here."

The next few
minutes flew by in a frenzied blur. We got everyone inside the walls
of the estate and then we closed the gates and backed both of my RV's
up against them from the inside and engaged the brakes.

It was the
equivalent to burning the boats we'd arrived in, but I wasn't going
to take any chances that the gates weren't as strong as they
looked—having Brandon's people run us down in
three-thousand-pound SUVs was one of the worst things we could have
happen. This way they would all have to come over the walls, which
would mean that we would have a chance to pick them off as they tried
to reform before engaging us.

I tried to
coordinate with Jaclyn, but she simply told me to hold the north and
west sides of the estate and her people would hold the other two
sides. Before I could break through her stubbornness, Brandon's
people started arriving. It quickly became apparent that Tasha's
network of observers had missed at least one group of incoming
enforcers. The motorcade that arrived outside the wall was much
bigger than I'd been expecting. I counted more than two dozen cars
before the field of vehicles had filled up the drive and started
parking out of sight.

Jaclyn's estate
was on the very outskirts of the city, surrounded by more than three
hundred acres of private, unoccupied land, but I was still surprised
that the local police hadn't showed up. All I could figure was that
the enforcers must have come in mostly as smaller groups and only
reformed into a single cavalcade once they were within a short
distance of the estate.

I asked Heath
and Grayson each to anchor one side of our defenses, and then left
Isaac and Carson to finish splitting up the rest of our people.
Jaclyn and Tasha were both standing a few feet back from the gate,
waiting for whoever was in charge to step forward.

I should have
known that it would be Brandon. He approached to within a dozen yards
of the gate, followed by Vincent and a few other bruisers.

"I'm here
in the name of the Coun'hij to deliver judgment for the treasonous
act of providing shelter to Alec's band of misfits."

Jaclyn's
expression was grim, but apparently she'd decided to play the hand
she'd been dealt to the best of her ability.

"That's
interesting timing considering that Alec just showed up at my gates a
few minutes ago, but you would have had to have started driving hours
ago."

Brandon
shrugged. "They may have only arrived at your gate a short time
ago, but they've been inside of your territory for days. If you're
not able to police the ground your pack has claimed, then you should
have petitioned the Coun'hij to allow you to move or at the very
least you should have reduced the area you claimed."

Jaclyn laughed.
"I don't even know why I'm bothering to have this conversation
with you. If Alec hadn't come down here you would have come up with
another pretext for being down here. As much as I hate to admit it,
Graves was right all along. Your masters have decided that they need
to make an example out of someone, and they're too stupid to realize
killing us will only force them to patrol this section of the border
themselves in addition to all the other demands on their time."

Brandon showed
his teeth at the reminder that he was there as little more than a
hired gun, but other than that he maintained his composure much
better than I would have expected.

"You're
wrong, but I've been down here long enough to know that's par for the
course. It's true that your pack is guilty by association, but the
Coun'hij is willing to be merciful. I'm not here to kill all of your
people, just you and your second in command. I will then take over
the pack to make sure that there aren't any dissident elements left."

It wasn't a
half-bad plan. With a bigger pack, one that was less united, it might
have even worked, but looking around at those of Jaclyn's people
within visual range, it was obvious to me that they saw it for what
it really was. They would be buying themselves a few more months of
life, but once Brandon was their alpha it would just be a matter of
time before their lives would be spent against some enemy of the
Coun'hij.

I stepped
forward and clapped. "Brilliant. Kaleb kills two birds with one
stone. He pays you off for murdering a few hundred innocents by
giving you your own little fiefdom down here, he purges the most
dissident elements of the Tucson pack, and he secures a new batch of
cannon fodder. Too bad it's not going to work."

Brandon resumed
talking as though he hadn't heard me. "Of course
your…guests…will be killed. Alec and everyone with him
have proven themselves beyond redemption. It is with great regret
that Kaleb signed the order for them to be destroyed, but sometimes
terrible sacrifices must be made to protect our race."

I turned to
Jaclyn. "I know this is your home, so if you want to be the one
to kill him I'll let you, but I was really hoping to be the one to
finally put him down."

Jaclyn's grin
showed too much teeth to be mistaken as a human expression. "Let's
make a contest of it. Whoever kills him gets to call the shots from
here on out?"

I shook my
head. "He's a threat, but he's still not much more than an
errand boy. In order to justify those kinds of stakes you'd have to
bring down the entire Coun'hij."

She shrugged.
"You can't blame me for trying." Jaclyn turned her back on
the gate. "I think we're done here."

I started to
respond and then all hell broke loose. Something hit on the other
side of the house hard enough that the ground shook, and then hybrids
started coming over the wall. I froze for a second, looking back and
forth between my people and Jaclyn's, but she waved me off.

"Go take
care of your half of the battle."

I shifted forms
and for the first time since we'd arrived, felt a measure of relief
from the pain of all my broken bones. I tore across the grounds and
rounded a corner of the house to see exactly what I'd been afraid I
would find.

The
creature—the dark angel—was back. My people were being
forced back away from the wall by the maelstrom of glowing black
energy tendrils, tendrils that were shredding everything within a
dozen feet of the creature.

The sound of
running off to my right brought me around just in time to see the
third prong of the assault come sailing over the wall. I opened my
mouth to give orders, but Carson was already ahead of me. He
dispatched a team of six hybrids—along with Heath—to keep
the dark angel busy, and brought the rest of our people running in my
direction.

With most of
our hybrids detached to fight the creature we were drastically
outnumbered, and most of our remaining people were wolves, but we
still had a couple of cards to play. I was ready to hit the first
group of hybrids with my power, but Grayson was a half-step ahead of
me. Most of them were still in midair when their bodies started
convulsing.

It was the
perfect response. My ability would have kept them down, but I would
have been forced to then kill them one at a time—all by myself.
Grayson being in play meant that all of our people—every wolf
and hybrid—swarmed over the first wave of opponents. They were
all dead within seconds.