Hidden Trump (Bite Back 2) (3 page)

I debated telling Bian about Larry, but decided to keep our meeting to myself for the moment. The Altau cared about Matlal, and possibly about me, though I wouldn’t bet the farm on that. They weren’t interested in Hoben—or, more important, in Jen’s safety. That was my responsibility. Once I’d extracted the information I needed from Larry, I could turn him over to Bian if necessary. If he even showed up.

 “All right, sorry,” I said to Bian. “Also, it wasn’t just a couple, I think. There were some others. They were trying to spring a trap, catch me between two groups.”

“Two plus
some
others? Five? Ten? Fifty?” She muttered something in Athanate. From the tone, I probably didn’t want to know what it was. “I know how well you take advice, Round-eye, but tackling unknown odds on your own is frigging dumb. You may be doing well so far, but you could come up against an older Athanate, and you wouldn’t know it until it was too late.” She made a frustrated sound, almost a growl. “Most times I’d say call a response team, but we haven’t any to spare right now. I think you’d better come in to Haven.”

Haven was the Altau’s secret headquarters. It was a luxurious mansion on extensive grounds, with discreet guardhouses and surprises for any enemies who did manage to find it. Safe, but restrictive. Hiding out there wouldn’t solve my Hoben problem, or protect Jen. I hoped this was a suggestion, and not an order.

“I can’t go into hiding, Bian,” I said. “I can’t leave Hoben free while I’m mixed up in the Assembly. And it’s not as if Matlal’s going to give Hoben people just to chase me. Today’s attack was the tail end of the Nexus thing—they were already in position, so Hoben just redeployed them.”

“Have you got any leads on Hoben?”

“Hmm.” We were back to Larry again. Holding out didn’t feel right—I was supposed to be  strengthening my alliance with Altau, not giving them reasons to distrust me. But until I was sure my interests wouldn’t be subordinated to theirs, I needed to look out for myself. Altau would want to pump Larry for information about Matlal, and going by Bian’s comments about being in their mantle without permission, it wouldn’t end well for Larry. I don’t work like that.

Luckily, Bian didn’t sense that I was holding out. “Well,” she said, “the next time you get a chance at Matlal’s guys, take them out.” She was quiet for a minute. “You know, you’re not very bloodthirsty for a former special ops girl. It sounds like you were running risks today to keep the body count down.”

I made a face, though of course she couldn’t see that. “I’m a novice in the Athanate world. Not sure what’s justified. And if I start, where do I stop?”

“It wasn’t a criticism, Round-eye.” She sighed.

Now I felt like a complete shit for holding out.

I gave her the Caddy’s license plate and promised to get her any useful information from their cell phones before I signed off.

Bian was absolutely right about fighting Athanate. Those I had come across that day were young, which I thought meant less than twenty years as Athanate. I knew Diana and Skylur were much older, and probably Bian was too, and the thought of trying to fight any of them was frightening. They were too quick, too strong. I didn’t know how many of the Athanate were older, or how many of those might be loaned to Hoben. But Matlal wouldn’t leave many of them here at Hoben’s command. All I’d have to do was get past one or two younger ones and I’d get my shot at Hoben.

I’d have to be careful, of course. And I had to do it before I got caught up in the Assembly. That made it a little harder, but I could handle that. Had to. Now, how?

While I kicked ideas around, I got back on the I-25 and headed for Washington Park. 

Chapter 3

I walked the circuit while waiting for Tullah.

I was worried that Hoben might already be watching Tullah. And seeing how I was going to have to take the same precautions for Cheesman Park tomorrow, I got myself back into the habits I’d been taught in Ops 4-10. Start by
not
looking at individuals. Look at groups, shapes of groups, movements and immobility. Get a sense of anyone acting outside of the pattern. Then fix on them, rate them 1 to 10 on threat level. Were they alone, in a group, of a type? What were they dressed for? Then take action or move on.

Despite doing all that, I spotted her easily, striding towards me with the sun gleaming on her straight, dark hair. I mix Arapaho and Irish, which can’t be that common. Tullah Autplumes-Leung mixed Arapaho and Chinese, and I’d lay good odds that was vanishingly rare. It just worked, apart from the surname. It gave her a fresh-faced, exotic look to match her cheerful optimism. I’d met her at martial arts training, at the Liu Leung Wu Shu Kwan, which her father ran. I’d hired her as a part-time secretary while she finished her degree in criminal law at the university.

It turned out that was a setup. Tullah’s mother, Mary Autplumes, was an Adept, a magic user, and she’d wanted Tullah to keep an eye on me. Adepts and Athanate had an edgy relationship at the best of times. Mary had seen I was becoming Athanate and yet, she’d also seen I had a spirit guide, like an Adept. She wanted to know how and why.

Hell, I wanted to know too.

In any event, Tullah hadn’t been happy with Mary’s deception. When I’d started to get suspicious about a bracelet gift from Mary that turned out to be magical, Tullah and I persuaded Mary that we needed to be open with each other. Frustratingly, it raised more questions than answers. Like what problems a spirit guide might cause with the Athanate.

And that was before we got onto the ‘workings’ that Mary said she could see in me—long-term magic that was so rare, she didn’t even know if it was a blessing or a curse.

This was all yet another thing I hadn’t discussed with Altau.

We’d left it that Tullah was going to continue working for me after she finished college. I was happy with that; she handled the bureaucracy far better than I did and her enthusiasm raised my spirits.

But that was a couple of weeks ago, when we thought that somehow I wouldn’t end up as Athanate, or at least it was a long ways away. I couldn’t predict what Mary would do, and I couldn’t rely on it being to my benefit. Her agenda seemed very different from Altau’s. Or even mine, maybe.

And what would Tullah do now? She was an Adept as well, and her mother had made it plain she should leave if I changed. And I felt I’d changed.

I wanted Tullah to stay. We were friends as well as colleagues. I would miss her badly, and I doubted I could keep my PI firm going without her, given everything else that I was having to deal with.

There was no sign of doubts about me in her easygoing smile as we met. She was obviously relieved that I wasn’t more beat-up than I was. And she’d brought me coffee. She knew me too well.

I gave her a hug and relieved her of the coffee. “Walk a while,” I said quietly.

She caught on, and we walked and watched as we spoke. I told her what I was doing and she said the man in the gabardine coat was a spy, of course. I grinned at that, but didn’t let it distract me.

I also gave her a summary of what had happened earlier. When I got to the point of Tucker’s death I wondered how that was going to go down with her. The circumstances could hardly have put Athanate in a worse light, but I wasn’t going to hide the issue.

“He was bitten by an Athanate, his fiancée, Inez Vega Martine,” I told her. “She told him he needed to die before he could become an Athanate. Complete bullshit, but he believed it. Vega Martine is House Matlal, and he just decided Tucker had become a liability.”

“So he shot himself thinking he’d, like, resurrect as an Athanate,” said Tullah.

“Yeah. Even if he hadn’t, that bite started the crusis, the critical phase as the body changes. Altau spend months getting Aspirants physically ready to survive the crusis. Tucker wasn’t ready and so he would have died anyway. He was already going insane from the effects. That’s probably what destroyed his judgment.”

Tullah grimaced and shuddered. But she didn’t seem to take it as a mark against all Athanate, at least. “So that wraps up Jen’s case?”

“No. Hoben’s still out there, and he’s worse than his father.”

Tullah had been part of rescuing a girl from ZK last week, at risk to herself. The girl had been tortured and was about to be gang raped when we’d gotten her out. Tullah didn’t need me to press the point.

I turned off the circuit to toss the coffee cup in the trash and took the opportunity to take a long look back the way we’d come. Schools were out and the park had gotten busier. It was harder to make out individuals in the crowd. No one suddenly changed their pattern of movement, or turned around as I watched. That didn’t prove anything though, other than there were no amateurs trailing us.

“Tullah, have you ever trained with a gun?”

“What? No.”

“Right, starting this week, you put in at least two sessions a week at a range. You can use my Walther, but we’ll go find a suitable gun for you. And you’ll need to register. And get a concealed weapon permit.”

“Whoa, Amber. I—”

“This isn’t negotiable, Tullah. You want to be a PI and work with me?”

“Uh, yeah. But this is something else that’s not going to go down well with Ma. Adepts aren’t supposed to have firearms.”

“Well, she should have thought of that before she sent you to spy on me, shouldn’t she?”

Tullah gave half a smile. “Will you tell her?”

“Oh no! Your mother, your job.”

“Thanks a bunch.” She put her hands to her head and squeezed her eyes tight shut in mock dismay.

“How is Mary feeling about everything now?”

Tullah looked away, grimacing. “I don’t know, exactly. Not really happy about anything.” She shrugged. “She did ask one thing. How did werewolves get involved in all this? If the Denver pack is allied with Matlal and his kind of Athanate, she's going to be really unhappy.”

Part of Jen’s case had been the disruption of construction at her new resort in the Rockies. I’d proved it was werewolves and gotten them to stand down.

“They’re not allied with Matlal.” I said. “They just got suckered in to do some work. Matlal knew Tucker needed some sabotage, so he drops into a conversation with Tucker that a longtime contractor of his company, Tucker Beacon, is a Were,” I said. “Tucker persuades the guy to take the pack and party over at Jen’s resort. Construction work stops and some of the pressure on Tucker’s resort comes off, and his business benefits. But strictly a one-time thing. The pack’s not going to get caught like that again.”

I hope.

“Who’s this contractor guy? Was he your contact in the werewolves? How did you get him to lay off disrupting Jen’s resort?”

I tried to make my smile secret and knowing, but failed and ended up grinning crookedly. “Alex Deauville’s his name. I met him at the charity ball.”

Tullah’s antennae twitched at the tone in my voice, and she peered at me. “How did you get him to lay off?” she repeated, suspiciously.

“Honey,” I drawled, in my best Jen imitation, “I was trying my hardest to get him to lay on, first thing this morning.”

Tullah’s eyes went buggy. “As in…” She made some discreet little pumping gestures with her fists over her hips and I blushed. Doesn’t matter that I have a natural bronze skin color, I still blush.

“Wow, I let you take a weekend off and you’re humping werewolves,” she said. “I’m going to need all week to catch up.”

I laughed, but quickly sobered up. Imitating Jen and talking about Alex. Sigh. The Athanate changes were affecting my body and my mind. They were telling me that all that stuff about being straight didn’t necessarily apply to Jen, irrespective of what was happening with Alex. And when and how was I going to discuss this with either of them?

“It’s not just last weekend. I’m not going to be able to do much this week. I’ve got to nail Hoben.”

And not get nailed first. There were too many people in the park now. I steered Tullah back towards the way she’d come in, scanning back over the milling crowds.

“Anyway, I can see you’re aching to talk to me about our PI business,” I said, nodding at the file she’d brought.

Tullah flicked it open.

“We’ve had a dozen inquiries from people at the charity ball.” She looked up and grinned. “Some of them were for honest work.”

I’d made a bit of a spectacle of myself at the ball and Tullah had designed some racy new business cards for me which I’d left on my table. Yeah, I could imagine some of the inquiries. She handed over a list of the real cases with scribbles next to the entries.

“I’ve picked out a couple of simple ones I can do. There’s one which is more in the bodyguard line, and I’ve subcontracted Victor Gayle for that. There’s a guy in place already.”

Victor ran the largest of the small PI firms in Denver, specializing in security. He was a good friend and it was thanks to his skills flying a chopper that I’d gotten the hostages and myself out of the Nexus. He also provided security for Jen.

Tullah was looking nervously at me. Last week she’d been a part-time secretary. She’d assumed more responsibility here than we’d discussed. I read through the list and nodded at her.

“Okay, I’m happy with those,” I said slowly. “Normally, I’ll make these decisions. If I’m not around, and you aren’t completely sure you can handle it, yeah, subcontract to Victor.”

“Understood.” She nodded and pulled out an envelope. “This is a special delivery from the cops. Came in this morning.”

I opened it and caught a small USB drive that fell out. A short note said it was a compilation of reports of attacks that mentioned dogs or wild animals. I’d made the case to Morales that werewolves and Athanate should be considered good citizens until proven otherwise. This report might show me how far I’d stuck my neck out on behalf of the Weres.

“Good.” I pocketed the drive. “Any other cases?”

“Only one. The guy came through asking for you specifically. Quinn. Said he knows you.”

I lifted an eyebrow and Tullah showed me the note she’d taken. The Quinns, Niall and Ruth, were old family friends. Tullah had taken down the address and written ‘theft/insurance’ next to the name.