Burned (25 page)

Vicki was
worried about me disposing of evidence and witnesses. I knew I was
innocent, but that just meant that
I
needed to be worried
about someone else disposing of whatever hope I had of clearing my
name. Not only that, the satellite coming down like it had was
another straw in the wind, another indication that the Coun'hij was
gearing up for something. They wouldn't want their massacre of the
Tucson pack caught on tape—not unless it was footage that they
were a hundred percent sure they could control.

I could feel
the noose tightening around my neck—around all of our necks—and
the only chance we had of surviving against a massed force of
werewolves was if we were all in the same spot when the attack came.

I half expected
for my people to scatter once we were on the road—it wasn't
like I was going to be able to run them down in an RV—but they
all fell into formation behind me, and a few minutes later we were
all pulling into the motel parking lot.

I tucked a
blanket around Brindi, and then as I exited the RV, James stepped up
behind me.

"I can't
explain what's going on, Alec, but I believe you. Everyone else has
had a chance to go check out Adri's door, but most of them are still
pretty unsure what to believe."

"What's
tipped things for you, James?"

"You saved
my mom. I haven't forgotten that, even if she seems to have. I know
her well enough to know that she's back there masterminding a whisper
campaign to keep everyone convinced that you're the bad guy here, but
she's wrong. I've got your back—just try to remember that your
plan hinges on keeping all of Isaac's people alive."

"Yeah, I
haven't been able to think of anything else."

It wasn't a
surprise that Isaac's people had formed up in front of the motel by
the time that my people had finished gathering at my back. They'd had
scouts out, and based on how jumpy they all looked, they knew just
how sticky things were probably about to get.

"You're
not wanted here."

It was Taggart
who'd spoken. He was standing there front and center looking like he
wanted to tear me in half and watch me die.

"I know
I'm not wanted, but you all need to hear my version of events,
Taggart. After I talked to you, I fully intended on heading over to
Isaac's room and making the offer you and I discussed, but as I
passed Adri's room I heard her and Tristan in there making out."

"That's a
lie!"

Taggart was
shaking now—obviously having a hard time stopping himself from
transforming and coming after me.

"A lie.
Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking when I heard them, Taggart.
You had just finished telling me that Adri left to go pick up food,
and yet there they were. All I could assume at that point was that
you were covering for her, that you knew all along that she and
Tristan were an item."

Isaac grabbed
Taggart's arm, stopping him before he could take more than one step
toward me. "Hear him out, Taggart. Too much is riding on what
happens over the next few minutes."

"I'm not
going to sit here and listen to him call me a liar."

Isaac's
knuckles went white on Taggart's arm. "We have more people than
he does, but you and I both know that we can't take them—Heath
is not a match for both Alec and Grayson. Even if he was, us killing
each other just does the Coun'hij's work for them."

Taggart shook
off Isaac's grip, but he didn't move any closer to me. I looked out
over the rest of the people standing in front of me, and continued.

"I heard
Adri and Tristan making out, so I put my fist through her door and
stepped in to make sure I was really hearing what I thought I was
hearing, and then I left. I knew staying around was going to result
in me killing Tristan, so I put as much distance as I could between
the two of them and me. Imagine my surprise when I got back a short
time ago and was told that Adri was telling everyone that she caught
me making out with Brindi."

"I told
everyone that because it was the truth."

Adri had been
standing in the back of the crowd—I hadn't even been able to
smell her back there. Now she stepped forward.

"I caught
the two of you, Alec. I saw you both with my own eyes, and no amount
of lying on your part is going to change that. During the time that
you claim to have seen me with Tristan, I was getting food—just
like Taggart said. Isaac watched me get into the SUV with Heath,
Cindi and Dom—they can all vouch for me. Who can vouch for
you?"

Isaac, Heath,
Dom and Cindi were all nodding, obviously ready to swear that Adri
had been with them. I could feel things starting to spiral out of
control. I'd come into all of this ready to deal with the fact that
Adri and Heath would back each other up—I never imagined that
I'd be dealing with Dom, Cindi, and Isaac too.

"My people
went to your room, Adri. Everything was just like I told them it
would be. Your door was damaged, and my trail led off into the
desert. I wasn't lying, but it's interesting that you bring Heath up.
From the moment I got back and heard everyone talking about your
revelation, I realized that there was only one person I knew who
could make people believe that I'd actually been there with
Brindi—only one person who could make themselves both look
and
smell like me.

"I don't
know if you're the one behind all this, and you dragged Heath along
with you, or if he's the one putting you up to it, but one way or
another he's involved, and that means that nobody here can trust
anything they've seen."

Adri snorted.
"Okay, we've heard you out, now let me explain what really
happened. You're right, you were at my room before I found you and
Brindi together. You even broke my door just like you said, but you
didn't find Tristan and me together because that never happened. You
found Tristan and you nearly killed him for some reason known only to
you. Then you went back to Brindi. I don't know how you ever thought
your word would stack up against mine, Heath's, Cindi's, Dom's and
Tristan's but it's not going to happen. It's time for you to leave."

It was my turn
to start shaking now. I needed an opponent I could hit, something
that I could defeat through pure brute force, but instead I was being
verbally backed into a corner by the fact that she had all of the
witnesses. Or did she?

"Fine, get
Tristan out here so he can tell his side of things, and then I'll
leave."

"Absolutely
not! I'm not going to let you brutalize him again. If you're not
going to believe all of the rest of us then it isn't going to do any
good for us to add one more witness to our side."

"You're
not adding another witness to your defense, I'm adding another one to
mine. Tristan is the only other person who can confirm that I was
there at your room and saw the two of you ripping each other's
clothes off."

"No. I'm
not saying it again, Alec."

I smiled as the
balance started shifting in my favor. "It almost sounds like
you're hiding something when you say it like that, Adri." I
turned to James. "Go get him. Don't worry, I won't let any of
them interfere."

Things started
happening almost too fast for even a shape shifter to follow. Taggart
and Isaac both stepped in front of Adri as though trying to shield
her from me, at the same time that their people started to spread out
so that they could stop James.

That would have
been bad enough all on its own, but at that precise instant I saw
Heath and half a dozen other people flicker out of sight. My hand had
just been forced.

I opened up the
rift inside of me, dropping a circular absorption field around
Isaac's people. I'd mostly been concerned about stopping Heath, but I
couldn't afford to leave the rest of them unrestrained. I didn't just
get Heath, I got a lot more than I bargained for.

Heath popped
back into view as my ability shuddered from the effort to draw in
more power than I'd ever tapped into at any one point. I thought it
was just the sheer number of shape shifters I was trying to
immobilize that was causing me problems—right up until the
illusion around Nellie dropped.

One second she
looked like a normal human girl, and then in the next she was
replaced by a black-skinned man who was at least two inches taller
than me. He was shirtless, revealing massive muscles, but that wasn't
the most astonishing thing about him. As we all watched, tendrils of
glowing black energy unfurled from behind his back.

There were
dozens of them, all moving independent of each other, but all fanning
out into a pair of wing-like masses to either side of him.

"I have to
hand it to you—I didn't think that you would find me out. I've
been doing this for thousands of years, and you're the first to
manage it. It's a shame really—the feast the two of you were on
track to provide me was going to be the best meal I'd ever tasted."

There was an
undertone to the creature's voice that made me think of tearing
fabric, fabric that was rotted and failing. He was corruption
incarnate.

I'd never seen
anything like him—not even in my darkest nightmares. Part of my
mind was comparing him to fragments of legends that had been handed
down by both the humans and my people, trying to find a match, but
the rest of me had already started responding to the presence of a
new threat.

I shrank my
absorption field down, shifting its focus to the creature at the same
time that I ramped up the strength of the draining effect it created.
I hit whatever it was with everything I had, and the entire time I
was worried that I'd already used up the bulk of my ability holding
Jasmin and the others in place until James could get back.

The energy
tendrils—the wings—on its back flickered ever so
slightly, but it didn't drop to its knees, didn't evidence any other
sign that my ability was even working. Instead, it casually whipped
one of the tendrils around and slammed it into one of Isaac's wolves.

She never even
had a chance. It was a toss-up whether it was the blunt-force trauma
or the discharge of electrical energy that did her in, but there was
no question in my mind but that she was dead based on the way her
chest had been crushed and the scorch marks visible in her clothes
and skin.

I threw myself
forward even though I knew I wasn't any kind of match for whatever we
were up against, and to my relief I heard my people spring forward to
follow me. I shifted forms and took my second step as a hybrid, fully
aware that I wasn't going to make it there in time to save either of
the next two victims—I was just too far away.

I checked my
ability, expecting to find that the rift—the conduit—was
fine and that I was failing to stop the creature because the
reservoir on the other end of the conduit was full. As I took my next
step I realized that wasn't the case at all. The reservoir had been
full earlier, and I could still feel the energy I'd drained off of
Carson and the rest raging on the far end of the conduit, but somehow
the reservoir had expanded exponentially—was still expanding. I
was failing because no conduit in the world was big enough to drain
the energy coming off of those wings. I could feel them whipping
through the air, strands of power that seemed like they originated
from the creature's back, but which actually came from somewhere
else, a place of limitless, titanic forces.

I shut off my
ability as I heard a crash from behind me, and then I was close
enough to engage and it was too late to worry about anything other
than just staying alive. Isaac's people had cleared the area enough
to deny the creature more easy targets, and the bravest were already
shifting and coming back to help me, but I knew I was going to have
to deal with the first couple of attacks by myself.

I feinted
forward, trying to force the creature off balance, and then had to
throw myself to the side to dodge one of the tendrils. I'd learned a
lot about committing to attacks and evasions from my time with
Carson, and I didn't hold anything back, but I still almost wasn't
fast enough.

Despite my best
efforts, the tendril hit my shoulder with enough force to throw me
into the side of the closest building more than thirty feet away. It
was like being hit by a wrecking ball. I'd fought dozens of hybrids,
telekinetic vampires and more than my fair share of werewolves, but
I'd never been hit by anything so hard.

The closest
match was being backhanded by a werewolf, but even that didn't hurt
as bad. Werewolves were strong—maybe even stronger than
whatever this was—but they were still all organic. When they
hit you there was still some give to whatever they used to deliver
the blow. The tendril of energy had no give to it, and I winced as I
felt my shoulder dislocate on one side and ribs crack on the other
side from hitting the brick wall I'd just demolished.

I expected to
look down and find my chest blackened and my heart destroyed, but
somehow my beast had absorbed the jolt of electricity and funneled it
off somewhere else. I still should have died right then and there
though, because the creature had followed me, intent on finishing the
job it had started.

I hit the
ground in a three-point stance, favoring my injured shoulder, and
then surged back up to block the first attack, but I was operating at
an even bigger disadvantage than I'd been under before. I deflected
an energy tendril over my head, but the force of the blow staggered
me and there were two more already headed my way.

I dug my talons
into the asphalt underneath me and slammed my claws home against one
of the tendrils, fully expecting the other one to snap my neck, but
it never landed. Vicki arrived at my side in the nick of time and
deflected the other tendril into the ground with enough force to
pulverize the asphalt where it struck.