Cool Hand (35 page)

I hoped.

Still no one complaining. It seemed I was on a roll, so I turned to the question of the Colonel and the new Ops 4-10 recruits.

“And Naryn, the Colonel isn’t recruiting raw troops. He’s recruiting wholesale from an elite unit that was active just weeks ago. An operation like this wouldn’t need many of 4-10 to make an impact, and the Colonel would probably even use it as a recruiting aid, to show them the kind of work they’d be involved in.”

I paused, and Skylur raised an
are-you-quite-finished
eyebrow. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my heart. This was the tricky part.

“Lastly, again my apologies that my
unauthorized
and
independent
actions in New Mexico have caused trouble for Altau. But given where we are, I have a solution that works with that.”

I could feel Jen and Pia on either side of me, picking up on my fear.

“You publicly disown my actions, regardless of whether they’re truthfully reported or not.”

Pia immediately understood the implications. “Amber, no!” she said.

I placed my hand on her knee, silencing her.

“I will operate down here entirely for my own benefit, which might or might not be to Altau’s benefit as well. Any risks I take are my own.”

If I didn’t tell them explicitly what I intended, they could deny knowledge in front of a Truth Sensor.

What happened down here in New Mexico was key.

It definitely was for me personally. My paranormally-fueled emotional swings were getting out of control. I didn’t think I was going to make it without Diana to help me.

I also didn’t think Emergence would survive if Amaral split the Panethus party. And if Emergence went down, so would Altau. The whole Athanate structure of the USA and Canada would implode. It said something about the level of the danger that, in my opinion, the least damaging outcome would be that Basilikos would win, because worse than that would the conflict revealing the paranormal world at the worst possible time—not just disunited, but weakened by fighting. The allied governments of the world could take us out, if they chose to. And they probably would.

And for me, going on alone made a crazy kind of sense.

Amaral would be expecting a reaction from Altau—diplomatic or in force. What he might not be expecting was exactly what he claimed I was. A lone assassin.

Acting without instructions from Skylur, I’d do my best to kill Amaral and rescue Diana.

If everything went well, I’d have Diana as proof of Amaral’s lies.

If not, Altau could claim I’d gone rogue. Then, whatever else happened, at least I wouldn’t have taken the whole structure down with me.

There was a long silence.

Naryn had become thoughtful. He looked as if he had plenty he wanted to say, but he was waiting for Skylur.

Naryn might be able to read him, but I couldn’t. It’s difficult to tell in a conference call, but I felt Skylur was staring directly at my image on his screen. His face was often unreadable, but now it had gone completely blank, almost cold. For a moment, I wondered if I’d insulted him.

His eyes moved.

Was he looking at Naryn, now?

There was a nod, almost imperceptible.

Then his screen flicked off.

“Clear the plane,” Naryn said at once. “Except for you, Amber.”

Without Skylur there, he was the one in authority. We had to do what he ordered.

I nodded to my House. Yelena looked angry, Nick and Jen confused. Pia scooped up my hand in hers and raised it to her lips. Her eyes shone with unshed tears as she turned to go.

That
was unnerving.

What had I done?

The door closed behind them, leaving me and Naryn staring at each other’s images.

He looked even more tired.

“I am taking full control of Altau operations outside of Los Angeles,” he said. “Our secure communications with Skylur have just gone down, almost certainly as a result of Basilikos actions in the area. We are working to repair the connections, but until such time, I will act with the entire authority of House Altau in all matters. Do you understand?”

Pure bullshit. But why?

To do the same as me. To match my bid.

My mouth worked, but I couldn’t form the words as the realization bit deep into me.

If this went wrong, Skylur would find himself in front of the Assembly or a Convocation of Panethus Houses. In the same way he needed to be able to disown me, he might need to disown the actions of his House while he was ‘out of communication’.

Naryn was about to put his head on the block right next to mine. Probably the last thing he had ever imagined himself doing. I had to feel a grudging respect for the man.

But Skylur and Naryn hadn’t had time to discuss what to do. There’d been no more than a glance between them. Could I simply trust that Naryn was going to do what Skylur would want? Or would he take his chance to sacrifice me?

“I can’t hear you, Amber,” he said.

“Yes,” I managed to say. “I understand.”

“I do not accept your attempt to disassociate yourself from House Altau. Your orders are to remain in New Mexico and you will make all attempts to connect with the Altau operation to rescue Diana. We will be there in forty-eight hours. You will not communicate with your House during this operation, other than through me. In fact, you will pass control of your House to me until this is concluded. Do you understand?”

No! Mine!

My vision went gray. I could feel claws begin to break through my fingers and dig into the armrest of the seat.

Shit.

He was talking double-speak. Triple-speak. I had to understand what he was saying, what he wasn’t saying, but wanted me to understand, and what he didn’t want me to do. I needed to be in control of myself. And parse that through my paranoia that he wasn’t doing what Skylur wanted him to do.

I needed to think clearly.

Calm.

Tara in my ear:
How can we trust him?

He’d matched me. He’d put his neck on the block. That much I could believe.

What was important? Getting Diana back. Keeping Altau safe. Emergence. He’d said he was taking Diana’s situation seriously. He’d bring Altau down here for a rescue in two days.

My House and my Pack had to step back for the moment.

No!

Yes!

I had to do this. I had to.

Think, and stop reacting.

Tears beaded in my eyes, and anger swept through me. I would
not
cry in front of Naryn.

“Yes,” I said through my teeth.

“Good.” The word was soft, as if he was afraid a louder sound would tip me over the edge.

I’d stay down here. That part he’d ordered me to do. I’d do my best to kill Amaral and rescue Diana. That was what I thought he wanted me to try, but which he could deny he’d ordered.

Failing that, I’d find out exactly where she was being held—Naryn would need that if I didn’t succeed.

And if I failed and Naryn succeeded, I’d be dead, but my House would be safe, isolated from me by Naryn. That’s why he’d ordered me to hand over control.

If we both failed, maybe Skylur would be able to retrieve the situation by denying us.

Then, my House
might
be safe from retribution, from what I understood of Athanate law.

If all three of us failed, none of it would matter anyway.

“You will ensure that you retain permission from the Weres for your presence, so that there is no way they can claim Altau caused their rights to be infringed.”

I nodded.

“You could request their assistance. Nothing you might agree to with them can be in conflict with House Altau’s association with Larimer. Nothing you discuss is binding on either side, until ratified.”

Is he saying what I think he is?

An alliance or association? With the New Mexico Were? Anything as long as it doesn’t step on Felix’s toes?

We couldn’t discuss it in plain language. He couldn’t be seen to pass me an authority that linked directly back to Skylur.             

On the other hand, I couldn’t deliver a done deal.

I could dangle a promise in front of Cameron that Naryn might renege on, and damage Athanate-Were relations for years to come.

How much did I trust him?

“Yes,” was all I could say.

“If Panethus consider Amaral’s establishment of himself as a House legitimate, he will still need four other Houses to join him in a demand for a Convocation, and that demand has to be made from Altau’s domain. That’s going to be a logistical problem for him to do safely.”

He paused before he spoke again, turning his face and speaking even more quietly, as if he were talking to someone else—an aside that I wasn’t supposed to hear.

“Diana would prefer to die than be responsible for the failure of Emergence and the victory of Basilikos.”

My gut twisted.

What the hell was I supposed to make of that? If Amaral managed to maneuver into a position where he could use Diana that way, I was supposed to kill her if the opportunity presented itself?

Of course, killing her would be signing my own death certificate as well.

“I’ll talk to Larimer, the Colonel, and House Thompson in Cheyenne,” he was saying. “And others.”

My plan and Skylur’s plan. With his twist on it, maybe.

“Inform Pia of the transfer of authority and tell her to call me as soon as she gets back. Good luck,” he said. The screen cleared abruptly.

I sat looking numbly at it for a full minute before I could get my brain working again.

I had to tell my House that I was passing control to Naryn for the moment. I couldn’t tell them the real reason behind it, in case they found themselves in front of Truth Sensors.

That didn’t go over well.

Tullah wouldn’t talk about leaving me, and just tapped her watch to tell me we were running out of time if we were going to do something about the Hill Bitch and still get to the meeting in Santa Fe.

“Naryn doesn’t think I’m part of your House anyway,” she said. “He didn’t mean me.”

She was right about the Athanate viewpoint. And Kaothos…maybe there was a wild card there I could use.

Everyone else had to go.

It wasn’t fair, but the world didn’t owe us fair.

I hugged Jen to me, trying not to think that this might be the last time. How much would be left unsaid, undone, if it was.

“I love you,” I said to her. “Both you and Alex. Tell him for me.”

“I promise,” she said.

She glanced to see how far away Pia was.

“Next time,” she whispered into my ear, “you have to bite me.”

“Jen—”

“I’m not afraid. The Athanate don’t know what’s going on inside you. I can feel it. I know how much it’s hurting you. Your need is greater than the danger.”

Pia was coming closer.

Jen kissed me. Too quickly: a brush of lips and she was gone. And I was aching with the emptiness she’d left behind.

Pia didn’t speak as we kissed necks.

She was near tears. I didn’t think my careful evasions in describing my conversation with Naryn had fooled her.

And she’d spoken quietly and urgently to Tullah while I was with Jen.

She ushered Savannah and Claude into the plane and followed them.

Which left me with Yelena and Nick.

“They’re leaving you without backup,” Nick complained. Whether he still had doubts or not about being House Farrell, he was too closely linked through Yelena. I couldn’t let him stay.

“Yeah. But they’re giving me enough rope,” I said with a smile and a clap on his shoulder to offset the words.

“We have a saying,” Yelena said. “Give two women enough rope. One will hang herself, but the other will climb the mountain.”

I laughed. She’d totally made that up, but I appreciated it.

“So tell me, Dancing Girl, is there anything in my Carpathian Blood that’s going to help me with my mission down here? Invisibility? The ability to turn into a bat and fly away?”

I hadn’t said what that mission was. The Assembly might or might not still be operating, but there was nothing to say that Panethus wouldn’t use Truth Sensors to figure out what had happened when I ‘went rogue’.

“Sorry, no invisibility spell.” Yelena ignored my Dracula references. She was getting used to me already. “Your reach with eukori will be far greater than other Athanate of your age, and touching the eukori of one paranormal will boost your range even further. Carpathians use eukori much more. It is part of our rites. Lesser Communion we call it when we touch another’s eukori.” She looked thoughtful. “That might give you a way to attack that they will not suspect. Amaral himself will be strong, though.”

“Amber beat Matlal,” Nick said.

Yelena shrugged again. “Matlal without his Diakon, Vega Martine, was not strong.”

There was something about the way she said that. Something about the
feel
of Vega Martine’s eukori that last time I’d seen her, at the Assembly. And all the talk afterwards that she had to have been able to change her marque and disguise herself as Altau to get out past the Lyssae. Suddenly, my mind was racing.

“Is Vega Martine another Carpathian spy?” I said.

Yelena jerked in surprise. “Yes. A different Carpathian House, Lazar. One of the old ones.”

“How did you—” Both Yelena and Nick started to ask.

“No time,” I stopped them. “Yelena, you have to tell Naryn about this. Is there anything else you know about her?”

“She’s
old
,” Yelena said, in that Athanate way that means many hundreds of years. “Powerful. But her mission? No. I don’t know.”

We had a lot to talk about, but I was short of time.

“Nick, give me a minute with Yelena, please.”

“Okay, but one last thing.” Nick frowned and looked away to where Tullah was climbing into the Hill Bitch. “You remember, we spoke about the two wolves inside.” He tapped his chest over his heart.

It seemed like another lifetime. Nick had told me a Chippewa story, how each of us has two wolves inside, one good and one bad. The practical Chippewa advice in response to the what-do-I-do question was: feed the one you want to grow.

“This is not feeding the right one,” Nick said, glancing toward Tullah again.

“What do you mean?”

“Most folktales about the Thunderbird say how wise and kind it is. My people, the Chippewa, are different. We tell of the forming of the clans from the totem spirits that came to teach the first people their skills. There were seven totem spirits, and six made clans—the catfish, the crane, the duck, the bear, the marten and the moose. The seventh was the Thunderbird.” He paused. “But it was too powerful. The people who tried to form a Thunderbird clan died out, until eventually the Thunderbird had to return to the great ocean.”

That was like a cold hand running down my spine. “A dragon is a Thunderbird?”

He was still watching Tullah, still frowning. “Maybe,” he said. Then he turned and climbed onboard the plane.

Alone with her, I crowded Yelena. Not my sergeant’s in-your-face crowding, but enough to make most people uncomfortable. Time was running out, and there was more I needed to hear from her.

Her long, silver hair lay across her shoulder. I ran my fingers through it, enjoying the sensation.

“You like House Farrell? Being part of my House?” I said.