Terra's Victory (Destiny's Trinities Book 7) (9 page)

As they walked out of the arena into the weak late afternoon sunshine he could feel muscles relax that he hadn’t been aware were tight. He had taken Cora and Aithan to the game for their entertainment, although it seemed the few hours of normal, human distraction had worked for him, too.

“Rhys!” The call came from the little VIP parking lot right over by the end of the parking area, snugged up against the arena itself. There was nothing urgent in the call and Rhys glanced around, still immersed in the glow of good times.

Michael Dobson, the Erie chief of police, was standing by the side of his cruiser. His kids, Mikey and David, were on the far side with the door open, tugging at each other’s parkas, trying to make themselves slide on the ice that coated the parking lot. Dobson raised his hand and beckoned.

Rhys changed direction and Cora and Aithan followed him, easing their way out of the stream of people heading for their cars, most of them with their arms around themselves, blowing steamy breaths into the frigid air.

Dobson was not in uniform, which made sense if he’d brought his kids to the game. Using the cruiser to do it was probably not within the city’s police code of operations, but Rhys wasn’t going to bust Dobson’s chops about it. The man was not much older than Rhys although in the last six months, he had aged fifteen years. There was more gray in his hair now than black and deep creases marked the corners of his eyes. There were bags beneath them that hadn’t been there a while ago.

Rhys didn’t wonder at the change in Dobson. The man had been dealing with the same threats to Erie’s people as Rhys had been. It was worse for Dobson, because he still had no idea what was making people up and disappear, while Rhys
did
know exactly what was happening and could do something about it. Even if the little he, Cora and Aithan could do didn’t seem to make much difference, it helped to be able to take action.

Dobson was still looking for answers, which didn’t sit well with a man who preferred direct action and results.

Rhys recalled once more Seaveth’s restrictions against explaining anything, leavened by the admonition to use their best judgment. In the last few weeks, Rhys had entertained the notion of taking Dobson to the nearest bar, pouring a bottle of JD down his throat and when he was good and ready to listen, telling Dobson exactly what was stalking his town.

He considered it once more as he went over to Dobson, moving between the big concrete blocks that marked off the VIP parking lot. There were more of the triangular blocks on the other side of the parking lot, showing where the tarmac ended, under the snow layer. There was nothing but tracts of trees beyond that. This arena was right on the edge of town and catered to all the new homes in the area. Kids practiced here during the week.

Rhys glanced at the trees uneasily. Trees could hide a lot of things, he’d learned lately. However, it was a bright winter day and the good cheer of the game was still lingering. Rhys gave Dobson a friendly smile.

“Haven’t seen you at a game for a while,” Dobson observed.

Most games were at night, when he was busy hunting vampeen nests. “I’ve been busy lately,” Rhys said.
Don’t explain
, he reminded himself.

Dobson glanced at Cora and Aithan where they stood at the very edge of the VIP parking lot, waiting. “So I heard.” He said it evenly, his tone neutral. Rhys knew he was being judged, anyway. The small town attitude of minding everyone’s business lingered in Erie.

Rhys shrugged it off. Dobson had always considered Rhys to be “just a sheriff”, although he happily accepted Rhys’ help and the resources of his office when he wanted them.

He frowned, glancing at the trees again. The uneasiness was building, like a fever. “You know, I shouldn’t keep you, with the boys out in the cold here,” Rhys said, trying to hurry them along. He realized his heart was thudding and glanced at Cora. She was a hunter as much as he was.

She was staring at the trees, too, a frown marring the smooth perfection of her forehead.

Aithan was looking at Rhys. Then he glanced down at Cora. He turned to study the tree line, too.

Dobson opened his mouth to respond, a scowl on his face. He resented even the suggestion of orders from Rhys. He would forever be sensitive about the division of responsibilities for law enforcement between the Sheriff’s office and the city police department.

He didn’t get a chance to speak, though. The hounds, two of them, broke out of the trees with a yowl, their scruffs upright in hunting mode, their eyes more yellow than red, which meant they were extremely hungry. They shot across the open ground between the trees and the parking lot at a speed that made Rhys’ jaw drop in surprise.

No, his surprise came from them being here at all, daring to attack in front of so many people. He froze at the unexpectedness of it.

As the front hound’s paws hit the top of the concrete divider and it launched itself over the top, using the divider for leverage, Rhys finally moved, triggered into action by pure habit.

He pulled out his knife and sprinted toward the thing.

Cora was faster than he. He left the hound in the rear for her. Aithan, the strategist, would step in where he thought he would help most. Rhys trusted his judgment completely. He’d never failed to be there when Rhys needed him.

Time slowed down as Rhys considered how to take the thing out. There were a few tricks he’d developed to deal with them. They were harder to take down than vampeen, because of their weight and strength. Yet they were stupid, driven by instinct. That made them predictable.

Judging from the way the lead hound was angling himself, he was going for the boys. Of course. The tender, young shoots. The easy pickings.

“Get in the car!” Rhys yelled over his shoulder and hoped that Dobson would for once listen to him and obey. Then he moved sideways quickly, getting himself into position.

His movement drew the hound’s attention. The eyes, sickly yellow with hunger and desperation, focused on him. Good. He didn’t mind being a target if it meant the boys would be safe.

He gripped his knife firmly and waited for the hound to commit itself. There was always a moment when they threw their weight forward, to either leap, or ram their way through something with their powerful shoulders. That was the moment when it was possible to divert them.

A knife in the back of the shoulders would bring them down. It had to be nicely timed, though. Better still was ramming the blade into the back of the head and straight into the brain, what brain there was, only that required room and time to turn as the hound hurtled past, in order to be at the right angle to plunge the knife in. It was also highly risky, because it meant exposing his belly to the thing’s teeth as it went past, because he had to have his knife arm up, ready to bring it down as soon as he could reach the back of the head.

The safest move, the most reliable one, was the least pleasant version. Rhys settled for that. He flipped the knife in his hand, so the blade was edge up. Like a matador, he waited for the hound to commit itself, so that he could step aside and feel the wind of its passage pluck at his jacket as it passed by.

He saw the haunches bunch and the thing leapt, a long, low arc. He stepped aside, as he had done at least a hundred times in the last month, got his knife arm out and under the throat as the thing’s chest pushed forward. The hound almost ran onto the knife and Rhys kept turning on his feet, bringing the knife with him, feeling it bite into flesh and drag.

The hound fell onto the snow and began to kick and scream. The thrashing pushed the fresh snow into little piles around it, while the black blood soaked into the snow, tainting it.

Rhys heard the other hound yelp, the sound cutting off abruptly, which told him Cora and Aithan had dealt with it successfully. Rhys kept his gaze on the hound, waiting to see the glow in its eyes fade and die. He’d learned to wait and make certain the thing was properly dead. He held the knife out from his side, letting the black blood drip onto the ground away from his clothes.

In the bright daylight, Rhys could see its hide was scabrous, scarred and bald in places. The fur was thin.

The sound of a gasping sob drew his attention away from the hound.

Dobson was standing beside the cruiser with little Mickey in his arms, the boy’s face buried in his father’s belly. Mikey was shaking and Dobson looked pissed.

Time shifted back to normal and Rhys frowned. What was Dobson pissed about? He’d just saved his boys, for crissake.

“What sort of monster are you?” Dobson said, his voice low and shaking with his fury. “You couldn’t have used your gun and dealt with the thing neatly? You had to do
that
in front of my kids?”

Behind Dobson a crowd was gathering, trying to peer over the cruiser and around Dobson himself, to see the hound and the gruesome mess around it.

Rhys pushed his spare hand through his hair. The other held the bloody knife.
Don’t explain
. The caution whispered through his mind. Except that he was suddenly tired of all of it. The constant constraint, the prejudice. Fuck it.

He bent and picked up a handful of snow and cleaned the knife with it. “I had to make sure,” he told Dobson, not bothering to modulate his voice. “Bullets aren’t sure enough.”

In fact, he hadn’t even thought to draw his gun. The gun was a human thing. Blades worked better on everything else—vampeen, Grimoré, hounds and all their allies. If the blade was iron, it even worked on the asshole demons who had gone over.

Dobson’s eyes widened. His mouth worked. There wasn’t a lot of color left in his face, either. “Who
are
you people?” he demanded, his hold on Mikey tightening.

Aithan gripped Rhys’ arm. “Shut up. Right now,” he said, his voice low.

Rhys stared at Dobson, a fury of his own building. To be judged so wrongly irked him. He’d only ever tried to do the right thing, to protect the people he served. The injustice rankled.

Cora gripped his wrist and pulled. She was stronger than Aithan and nearly yanked him off his feet. Her grip was tight, to the point where it hurt and that broke his focus. He looked at her.

“Come on. Time to go,” she said.

Reluctance made him dig in his heels. He’d known Dobson for nearly fifteen years. They’d got drunk together more than once. Didn’t that count for anything?

Aithan was still gripping his arm. “He’s the sort who won’t hear, no matter how much you explain. He’s never going to understand.”

Dobson heard him. His mouth opened, surprise and indignation crawling over his face.

Rhys looked at Aithan, calm returning. Aithan had understood. He’d gone right to the core and diffused it. Even though Rhys longed to explain, to be heard, Dobson was the wrong person. If he had been thinking rationally, Rhys would have recognized that about Dobson, too.

Rhys nodded. “Yeah, let’s get out of here,” he said heavily. “I need a drink.”

“The bodies?” Cora asked in an undertone.

“Leave them,” Rhys decided. “Too many witnesses, anyway. Let’s get out of here, as Seaveth wants us to.” He could almost taste the first shot of Daniels already.

Aithan guided him back to the car and while Rhys didn’t need the help or the guidance, he
did
want the comfort of his touch. Perhaps Aithan had figured that out, too.

Zack put fresh coffee in front of Beth, kissed her temple and threw himself into the armchair, which had mysteriously migrated from the front of the living room over next to the dining table, where Beth and Lindal had their laptops set up. The dining table was the new command central.

Zack spent more time on the phone, hustling deals and arrangements for a new headquarters that Beth had asked be secured at the soonest possible moment.

“Sooner, if I can manage it,” Zack promised her. “Just don’t expect running water and cushions.”

“I don’t care,” Beth said. “As long as it’s big enough to hold everyone and the wiring can handle Lindal’s algorithms, or whatever it was he told you about.”

“Network cabling,” Zack said, snuffling back laughter.

“That,” Beth said impatiently. “Thank you.”

While Lindal finalized his programming and helped Beth with coordination and communications, Zack had gone off to take care of things.

Now he was asking for an update on their end of things. “Summarize for me,” he said.

“It’s about as bad as it could be,” Beth said. “Two hounds, an arena full of witnesses, including the chief of police and his two sons, who were the intended targets until Rhys got in the way, so that’s got the police chief wound up like nitroglycerin. There’s a local TV station in Erie and national affiliates and they’re all hammering on Rhys’ door. I told Cora to take them into Canada, to the clan headquarters in Toronto, until the fuss dies down.” She shrugged.

“You should be vibrating into a stroke about that. Why do you sound so calm?” Lindal asked, his eyes on his screen.

“Because there’s nothing we can do about it,” Beth said. “Rhys and Cora and Aithan did exactly what I told them to do. They protected the humans, no matter how much it exposed them. Then they got the hell out of there. I get the impression from the careful way Aithan was talking that Rhys resented it but they did it, anyway. So now the press have a million questions and no one to give them answers. It actually worked.”

“What’s got you so absorbed, elf-boy?” Zack asked, from the depths of his armchair.

Beth sipped the coffee. It was hot and good.

“I’m reading a transcript of the debriefing Beth walked the three of them through,” Lindal said.

“That’s your version of light Sunday morning reading?” Zack asked.

Lindal sat back, rocking the chair back on its rear legs. Even with it tilted, his long legs still reached the floor. “Rhys said the thing was hungry.”

“The yellow eyes. Yes, he mentioned that a couple of times,” Beth said.

“Think about it,” Lindal said. “It attacked because it was hungry. It was going for the weakest, most readily available food. You really think the vampeen or the Grimoré would approve of hounds spontaneously taking down humans whenever they want a bite to eat?”