Authors: Dean Murray
Alec looked
like he'd been through hell as he came back out into the main part of
the bank and walked towards us across the polished granite floor. The
humans around us probably couldn't see the difference, but for
someone who could put the visual clues together with the changes in
his scent, it was obvious that he'd run into complications.
"Are you
okay, Alec?"
He nodded as he
handed Jessica the black backpack he'd been carrying.
"I got
what I needed. I want a diamond formation, Jessica takes point."
My beast was
thankfully silent. The question of who was dominant to whom had been
settled between us years ago, but that didn't mean that my beast was
always thrilled at the fact that we were submissive to him. Lately
things had been even worse than normal in that area.
It wasn't that
Alec was a bad alpha; he was actually one of the fairest hybrids I
knew. It was more that my beast still seemed to think that we should
be competing in a higher weight class than we were actually equipped
for.
James didn't
seem upset about being ordered around, but then again he had a lot of
other stuff to worry about these days. Chief among his concerns was
what would happen to his mother if we weren't around, but more than
that, he'd lost some of his swagger after Vincent had nearly beaten
him to death during our escape from Sanctuary.
The old James
hadn't been very prone to challenging Alec, but the new one was even
less so. James' beast seemed to understand that we were in the middle
of a war now. You could posture and fight for your place inside of
the pack all you wanted during peacetime, but once everyone's lives
were on the line even our beasts mostly understood that we had to
work together if we were going to have even a tiny chance of
surviving.
I hadn't even
bothered to see if Jess resented being ordered to carry Alec's
backpack. Jess was submissive; she always had been and likely always
would be. She wasn't worth much in a fight, but even a pack as small
as ours needed someone to serve as a pressure relief valve. Jess
being around meant that she got bossed around instead of Alec
ordering James or me around on a constant basis. That made life a lot
easier for everyone, except maybe for Jess.
We fell into
the loose diamond formation that Alec had asked for as we exited the
bank. Jess being in the front meant that she was the one most likely
to trip any ambushes, which was good since she was the one that we
could most afford to have injured in the opening seconds of any
fight, but she didn't know where we were headed any more than I did.
"Turn left
and keep the speed casual."
Alec's order
was so quiet that only our unnaturally keen hearing allowed us to
catch it. It was yet another benefit of being a shape shifter, a
valuable one considering how much effort we had to go to in order to
keep our existence secret from the humans. It was nice to be able to
talk to each other and have people standing next to us not know what
was going on.
Jess set out at
a slow walk down the sun-drenched sidewalk. It was all I could do to
stop myself from staring at the metal briefcase handcuffed to Alec's
wrist. He hadn't actually ever come clean with regards to just how
much money he'd stolen from his dad, but I knew it was several
billion at least. I wasn't sure I could have calmly walked down a
busy street with that much money dangling out as a lure to anyone who
felt like trying to improve their position in life by way of a good
old fashioned mugging.
"Cross the
street at the next corner. Go into that parking garage up ahead."
James cleared
his throat. "Alec, I think we've got someone following us."
"Yeah, I
saw them two blocks ago. The black van, right?"
"If you
saw them, then why are you leading us into a mostly abandoned parking
structure? That's practically asking to be attacked."
My response had
slipped out with more of an edge than I'd meant for it to have.
Despite what my beast sometimes liked to think, I knew I wasn't any
kind of match for Alec, but apparently I was feeling some pre-game
jitters. I'd been up against vampires, jaguars, and even a werewolf,
but I'd never faced off with a van full of humans.
Normal humans
weren't usually much of a threat, but if they were as heavily armed
as I was suspecting, then they'd still be dangerous. A semiautomatic
shotgun didn't need a direct hit to knock a wolf out of the fight.
Alec and James could generally shake off a single bullet or a load of
buckshot, but we wolves were less sturdy. Besides, being able to
withstand one shot wasn't worth a whole lot if someone shot you
repeatedly before you could close with them.
"Someone
tried to read my mind back in the bank. I'm betting it was one of the
bank employees."
"I thought
that only two people in the entire bank had access to your account
information."
Luckily Alec
seemed more amused by my nerves than anything else. It was nice when
my big mouth didn't land me in more hot water for a change.
"That's
right, there are only two people with that kind of access, but I'm
sure every bank employee knows that something big is going on when
the three most senior people in the office all take a client down to
the vault."
Jess looked
even more scared than I was as she led us across the road, but James
just nodded in understanding. "So once they know that they've
got a potential target, they just pull the information they need out
of the client's mind."
"Yeah, or
failing that they could probably get what they need out of Mr. Ford
or one of the other two."
I wanted to
lick my lips, but that was a nervous tic that I'd worked hard to
conquer. I wasn't about to give into that particular idiosyncrasy
now. I looked over at the black van as I followed Alec across the
road, but I kept the gesture relaxed.
"So we're
probably dealing with more vampires. The worst case would be what,
eight or nine of them?"
Alec reached
forward and steered Jessica slightly off to one side as we all made
it up onto the sidewalk.
"Yeah, but
I don't expect them to be quite that paranoid. Unless the ringleader
got more out of my mind than I think he did, they won't know that
we're anything other than normal kids. Hopefully there won't be more
than four or five of them."
James actually
perked up a little at the prospect of a fight. "What about the
mentalist, do you think we're going to be up against him too? What if
he's not even the one in charge of this little field trip?"
"I suspect
that the mentalist will have a hard time getting away from his desk
at the bank. Not only will he have all of the normal workload that
you'd expect from a bank employee, he'll want to avoid doing anything
that might link him to robberies of the bank's customers."
We were less
than fifty yards away from the above-ground parking garage, which
meant that we were almost to the end of the row of banks, but the
fact that Alec had crossed over to the other side of the street told
me that he wasn't planning on slipping inside a bank and losing our
pursuers that way.
"Are you
sure you want to do this, Alec? Even without the mentalist, we could
be up against some really, really old vampires."
He looked at me
for a couple of seconds before nodding. It wasn't a good look, it was
a look that said he was starting to wonder if I'd lost my nerve.
"We don't
have any good options at this point, but I don't want these guys
giving us problems tomorrow. This is only part of the shipment, the
one tomorrow is even more important. Besides, I can't afford to leave
witnesses that Kaleb could use to track the money to the new bank."
I nodded, but
it wasn't just any nod. I put everything I had into making it as
unconcerned and reassuring as I could. We all knew that our odds of
surviving the next year were practically zero, but even so I was
still safer with our little pack than I would be hiding somewhere by
myself. There was more than just Kaleb and the Coun'hij to worry
about.
"We're
almost there. As soon as we turn into the parking garage I want
everyone to sprint to the nearest set of stairs. We need to lure them
out of the van, but we also need to spread them out enough that we
can pick them off a few at a time."
Everyone
acknowledged the order with sub vocalizations of their own, and then
it was time to run. There was no sign of any humans on the first
floor of the structure, so we sprinted, covering the fifty yards to
the enclosed stairwell in just under five seconds. It was fast enough
to set a new world record, but more importantly it got us to the
stairwell before the van that was following us pulled into the
garage.
"James,
you're bait, make sure they see you. Everyone else up to the second
floor pronto."
I took the
stairs three at a time and still lagged behind Alec. I was faster and
stronger than any normal human, but Alec's legs were longer.
"Jess, you
stay back as much as possible and try to stay in human form. Whatever
you do, don't lose that backpack."
I opened my
mouth to ask Alec what he meant, but he'd already pulled a key out of
his pocket and undone the handcuffs that had secured his briefcase to
his wrist.
"It was a
ruse the entire time?"
I said it in a
low hiss, something less even than a whisper, but it still earned me
a dirty look from Alec as he walked over to a nearby Toyota sedan and
set the briefcase on the hood. He was right. Vampires didn't seem to
hear as well as us wolves, but still it was foolish to risk someone
overhearing.
Jess looked
back and forth between us with a nervous energy that told me she was
profoundly uncomfortable now that she knew she was the one carrying
the money. I didn't blame her. The only thing worse than going into a
fight against a superior number of vampires was going into that same
fight in human form.
The heavy metal
door down on the first story clanged shut at the same time that
James' footsteps started up the stairwell. I did a quick visual
circuit of our level to confirm that there wasn't anyone around. The
buildings that butted up against the back and sides of the garage
were windowless monstrosities, so we'd be able to shift forms without
worrying about who would see, but that didn't completely offset the
rising tension tying me up in knots.
A second later I heard a squeal of overworked rubber as the
van arrived at the door that James had just vacated. Alec moved
closer to the concrete half-wall that formed the outside edge of
the building, but I could hear the vampires just fine from
where I was standing.
One of the van
doors opened with a click and two sets of footsteps hurried across
the concrete. "You two secure the two stairwells here on the
ground floor, we can't afford to let these kids get away, not with a
billion euros at stake."
As the van
started back into motion, Alec completed his survey of our little
section of the parking garage and decided on a plan.
"Jess,
stand over there next to the Hummer so that they don't see you until
they've driven past us. James, take the outside wall. Shift into
hybrid form and then just sink your claws in deep enough to hang on
the outside of the building. I'll hide behind a car up by where I
left the briefcase. With any luck they'll see the briefcase at the
same time that they see Jess."
It was a plan,
I wasn't sure it was a good plan, but it did provide us with the
element of surprise.
"What
about me, Alec? What do you want me to do?"
"I need
you to make sure none of the vampires get away. Hide next to the edge
of the building, and then as soon as we know that we're not too badly
outnumbered, jump down to the first floor and take out the two
vampires they left behind to bottle us up. They'll probably be spread
out between the two doors."
"Okay, I
can do that."
I could hear
the van's engine, laboring to pull its weight up the incline leading
to the second level, but that didn't matter. It took only a couple of
seconds for us all to take our positions. James had already stripped
off his clothes while Alec had been explaining the plan. He shifted
forms in a rush of power that was remarkably similar to what happened
on the physical plane. The transformation always took place too
quickly to see exactly what happened, but just like always, I got the
impression that James' body exploded outward and then instantly
contracted back down to his hybrid form.
James covered
the distance to the outside wall in two long steps and then reached
up and pulled himself out of sight, hanging from the outside of the
building by nothing more than his claws and talons.
Alec likewise
shed his clothes as he moved to his position, and as he ducked down
between two cars another burst of power signaled that he'd shifted
forms. The van was closer now and I stepped behind one of the huge
cement pillars by the stairwell a split second before it rounded the
last corner that had been stopping the vampires from being able to
see us.
Time stretched
and pulled, behaving oddly. I'd risked my life dozens, maybe hundreds
of times before, but this time felt different. My pulse stuttered,
speeding up and slowing down, but I couldn't tell whether that was
what it was actually doing or if my time sense was just off.
Each heartbeat
slammed against my chest, echoing in my ears as the van got closer. I
prepared to slide around to the other side of the pillar I was hiding
behind. Timing was everything, if I moved too soon or too late then
they'd see me and I would ruin the ambush.
I made my move
as the van passed my position, settling back against the other side
of the pillar, and then suddenly the van slid to a stop.