Driven (2 page)

My
claws wrapped around his throat, severing arteries and veins in the
split second before the momentum of my charge slammed my left arm
into the unyielding metal of the car and spun me around so that my
right hand shattered the last window on my side of the car. I missed
the guy in the back seat by less than an inch.

He
was still moving with human slowness, but killing the driver had
taken me just long enough that he'd managed to throw himself to the
other side of the vehicle. Now that the windows were shattered I
could smell the occupants of the car. There had been three of them,
but I'd accounted for the driver already, which meant that I still
had a chance of surviving the fight as long as neither of the other
two were hybrids.

The
two surviving attackers bailed out of the other side of the SUV in a
graceless approximation of what they should have done a few dozen
feet further back. The vehicle was between us, but it only took me an
instant to release the driver, who was now hanging partway out of the
car despite his seatbelt, and lunge around the back of the SUV.

I'd
had my hybrid form for mere hours rather than months or years, but
the massive muscles and long arms already felt
right
in a way that I couldn't explain. I was fast, faster in some ways
even than when I'd been a wolf, but the two guys I was chasing had
both shifted to wolf form and they'd split up so that I couldn't go
after one of them without giving the other one an uncontested shot at
my back.

I
feinted at one of them, more to keep them off balance than for any
other reason, while I tried to decide what to do. I'd gotten a sense
of their power when they'd both shifted. They'd felt weaker than I'd
expected them to be, but that wasn't a guarantee that they were just
wolves.

A
whisper of sound was the only warning I got. One of the wolves had
seen through my abbreviated lunge and had decided he had an opening.
He threw himself at me with the kind of speed that had to be seen to
be believed, but what I lacked in experience fighting as a hybrid I
made up for by the fact that I'd spent thousands of hours trying to
figure out different ways for wolves to take a hybrid down. It hadn't
been an abstract exercise for me either, it had been a matter of life
and death, and I'd put everything I'd had into becoming the best
killer I could given the constraints of my frailer wolf body.

Coming
at me from the side like that meant that the first wolf, the one
lunging at me, only had a couple of decent targets, and I could
feel
that he was coming too high to be aiming at my legs or arms. I ducked
forward, something most hybrids wouldn't have done because it meant
that there was a chance that the wolf would be able to still latch on
my back where I wouldn't be able to reach him. I knew it was a risk,
but I stepped forward anyway because it was the only option that let
me also spin to the left so that I could deal with the second wolf.

The
second wolf had assumed that I'd be in a slightly different spot than
where I actually ended up and it was easy to sink my claws into his
side as I ripped him out of the air. I'd overbalanced slightly to get
him though and had to put both hands on the ground to keep from
falling over.

The
action of catching myself drove my claws further into the second wolf
who yelped weakly before going limp. I tried to spin back around to
intercept the first wolf, talons digging deeply into the red soil
beneath me, but he was just too fast. I managed to throw his aim
off slightly, but he still got his teeth into my shoulder.

He
couldn't reposition for a better hold and I couldn't reach him, but I
could feel his teeth grinding together, searching desperately for a
vein that would allow him to bleed me out. We weren't quite at a
standoff, but neither of us had particularly good options open to us.

I
threw myself back into his SUV, trying unsuccessfully to crush him,
but he managed to reposition his body enough that most of the force
of my blow missed him. I staggered away from the vehicle, my motion
accompanied by a squeal of protest from the metal that was partly a
result of the impact and partly from the way my claws had ripped and
bent the metal.

In
my normal shape I never could have hoped to bend a piece of steel
like that, but my hybrid body was strong enough to do it without
evidencing any overt signs of effort. It was a small advantage, but
it was enough to allow me to bend a section of metal up and out so
that it formed a ragged spear pointing away from the SUV.

It
was another risky move, but I knew exactly how hard it was to see
anything once you had the kind of death grip on someone that my
opponent was currently maintaining. I threw myself into the side of
the barn, snapping thick boards like they were toothpicks, but that
wasn't any more successful at scraping the wolf off of me and a wave
of weakness washed through me as blood loss started to make itself
known.

I
almost lost my balance as I came back out of the barn, which wasn't a
good sign considering the lethal mess I'd just made of the SUV.
Hybrids are tough, but I still wasn't sure how far I could push this
body before I'd become too weak to continue fighting.

I
stumbled back toward the SUV, but at the last second I realized that
I didn't need to blindly throw myself backwards on the spear. Instead
I simply got close to the side of the vehicle and then spun around so
that the spear passed only inches from my back.

The
wolf never even saw the attack coming, but even if he had there
wouldn't have been much he could have done to avoid the shard of
metal that impaled him through his ribs. He let go of my shoulder
with a yelp of pain, but I couldn't think poorly of him for that. I'd
already started pulling away from the SUV—if he hadn't let go
he would have been torn in half.

Trapped
as he was dangling from my improvised weapon, it was only the work of
another second or two and then he was dead as well.

I
shifted back down to my primary form and made my halting way back to
my car. I was sorry to give up the unassailable constitution of the
hybrid, but the act of shifting helped staunch most of the blood
pouring out of my shoulder. Besides, I knew I was going to need hands
if I was going to get myself bandaged up.

There
was a first-aid kit in the trunk along with more clothes and a
replacement ha'bit, the stretchy undergarment that all of the
Sanctuary pack wore under their clothes. I had vague plans to steal
the plates off of the SUV before lighting it on fire and heading to
the gas station that was a few miles down the road, but all of that
could wait for a few minutes.

The
first thing I needed to do was check on Ben. He was the only reason I
was out here instead of safely with the rest of the pack. If Ben
wasn't okay then all of this was pointless.

Geoffrey
South Side
Chicago, Illinois

Geoffrey
had been wandering more or less aimlessly for days now, but there
weren't very many chances to see the kind of gorgeous architecture
present at the Holy Name Cathedral. Since he'd left New York he
hadn't stopped in any one place for more than twenty-four hours.
Sometimes he'd stretched his stay out in a particular city to a few
days by moving around and spending each night in a different hotel or
hostel, but even that left him feeling vaguely uneasy.

The
trip he'd taken earlier that morning to see the cathedral had been a
worrisome departure from the low profile he'd been maintaining, but
he hadn't been able to resist. He'd gone heavily disguised and he'd
stayed for less than an hour, but it had still been a foolish thing
to do. It was one more sign that on some level he was losing hope of
being able to maintain his freedom.

It
had only been a few days ago that he'd finally realized what had been
worrying at his mind. He'd left New York, fled from Imastious, the
vampire elder who'd been his master, but he'd never actually expected
to make it very far.

That
kind of thing could very easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Conviction that he would shortly be recaptured could lead to making
the kinds of mistakes that led to being located. Geoffrey knew that,
but he still hadn't been able to stop himself from making the
unnecessary trip to the church.

He
needed a new anchor, something to keep him from slowly giving into
the despair waiting in the wings, the despair that needed only a
couple of heartbeats to rise up and strike him without any warning.

Geoffrey's
memory only extended back over a period of time measured in weeks
rather than months. He knew a lot of facts, he knew how to do things,
but there wasn't any context for much of what he knew. The popular
culture references that the kids in the hostels threw back and forth
at each other might as well have been code for all the meaning
Geoffrey got from eavesdropping.

The
only non-mundane conversations that had made any sense to Geoffrey
had been the discussions on morality. It had been astonishing to him
how many of them said that they were 'spiritual' while at the same
time decrying concepts like good and evil.

Geoffrey
spent the odd minute or two wondering how kids like that were going
to survive in a world where evil was so prevalent and concentrated
that it had created people like Imastious. Geoffrey still woke up
sometimes in the middle of the night from nightmares where Imastious
was torturing him, nightmares where Geoffrey was being pushed to do
terrible things.

It
was the kind of thing that should have made him bitter. He was pretty
sure that it would only be a matter of days, or perhaps a couple of
weeks, before Imastious caught up with him, but he found that he
wasn't as jealous of the kids around him as he'd expected to be.

In
many ways Geoffrey had earned his place in hell. All that was left
was to hope that the teenagers who'd surrounded him like an
ever-changing sea of faces ever since he'd left New York would be
able to find their moral absolutes in time to save them from a fate
like his.

The
despair wasn't his only concern though. The hunger had been steadily
growing for the last few days. It was dangerous for a vampire to go
too long without feeding, dangerous both for the vampire and for any
humans in the vampire's vicinity.

Geoffrey
hadn't wanted to believe Venice, the gorgeous blonde vampire who'd
taught him nearly everything he knew about living in the shadows,
when she'd told him that blood starvation could cause him to lose
control and kill people indiscriminately, but he hadn't been able to
deny the truth of her words after his one and only experience with
the hallucinations that had led to the death of an anonymous mugger
weeks ago.

Geoffrey
hadn't pushed the limits of his endurance very often like this since
then, so he didn't know exactly how much longer he had before he'd
lose control, but he suspected that his time was almost done.
Fortunately he had a…target…in mind.

He'd
noticed the couple when he'd first arrived at the hostel earlier that
evening. The young man was obviously deep in the throes of an
oxycontin addiction, but not so far gone as to make his girlfriend
abandon him.

A
few minutes earlier Geoffrey had watched the drama play out in one of
the public areas of the hostel as the boy had promised he didn't have
any drugs and then had snuck off to get high as soon as the girl had
left to use the bathroom.

Geoffrey
intercepted the girl before she made it far enough down the hall to
be able to see her boyfriend who'd just stumbled back in from the
kitchen area.

"Do
you really care about that guy you are with?"

A
barrage of emotions flashed across the girl's face so quickly that
anyone else wouldn't have been able to categorize them all, but
Geoffrey had an advantage that others lacked. Tendrils of thought had
started reaching out to the girl as soon as she'd left the bathroom.

She
reached up to slide a lock of black hair back behind her right ear
and then her face settled into an impassive mask. The expression was
the hard-won trophy of the kind of life no parent would want for
their child, but her emotions all but leaped out of her mind and
threw themselves at Geoffrey. She didn't just love the guy she was
with in the casual, here-today-and-gone-tomorrow manner of most of
those he'd run into lately, she loved him with a fierceness that
caused Geoffrey's breath to catch.

By
almost any rational measure it wasn't healthy to be that attached to
another person, but there was a purity and strength to the emotion
that had a beauty all of its own. The emotion was at the forefront
for only a split second before other feelings took center-stage.

"Yeah,
I guess I do. I must to put up with everything he puts me through."

The
words were a brave front, but Geoffrey could feel the longing she
wouldn't vocalize. She saw goodness in her boyfriend that she'd never
found in anyone else, not in so much abundance, and she'd made it her
personal mission to try to drag him back from the edge of ruin, even
if he came kicking and screaming.

"What
would you say if I told you I could help?"

"I'd
ask you what your angle was. Nobody does something without having
something in it for them."

"That's
a pretty jaded worldview…"

She
didn't want to tell Geoffrey her name, but he sent a tiny pulse of
power through one of the tendrils he'd inserted into her mind. It
wasn't enough to compel her to do anything, but it did soften the
hard core of resistance that he sensed inside of her.

"Aly.
My name is Aly."

"Okay,
Aly, that's a pretty jaded world view, but I'm not going to try and
dispute the fact that I'm hoping for a trade of sorts. Is your
boyfriend really worth saving?"