Driven (29 page)

It
was the kind of unreserved honesty that I wasn't sure even best
friends could share. It was exactly what I wanted with Ben, and it
was something that I knew would destroy Geoffrey and me if it
continued for long enough.

I
came back to myself enough to realize that I needed to get Geoffrey
off of me or I was going to bleed to death, but while I was still
trying to come up with a way to do that without hurting him, I
realized that there wasn't any need. Sometime in the last few seconds
Geoffrey had stopped thrashing about and trying to fight me. He was
completely relaxed and when I pulled my arm away from him he didn't
try to stop me.

"That
was a very dangerous thing you just did, Jasmin."

I
snorted as I shifted back to human form and applied direct pressure
to my arm. "You didn't leave me with any other choices, at least
not choices that I could live with. You needed blood and it had to be
from a willing donor. I was the only donor around that you couldn't
say that I forced to volunteer. Did you find where Puppeteer and the
others are?"

Geoffrey
nodded. "I think so, but there are complications."

Jasmin Bianchi
Just outside of Fort Loudon State Park
Tennessee

I'd
already been on the phone with Alec for five minutes and the
conversation was getting progressively worse the longer it went on.

"We
aren't going to get another chance like this, Alec. We know where
something like a fifth of the Coun'hij are and we can kill them all
in one fell swoop. Mobilize your people and get out here before it's
too late."

"Jasmin,
you don't
know
where they are, you
think
you know where they are. You said it yourself that this vampire…"

"Geoffrey."

Alec
obviously didn't like the fact that I'd interrupted him. Our beasts
hadn't had it out with each other since I'd manifested my third form.
Intellectually I knew that he could just use his power to drop me to
the ground at any point if I was to fight him, but my beast wasn't
convinced. Despite the fact that his beast had to be giving him hell
because I wasn't acting submissive enough, Alec managed to keep his
wits about him.

"Right,
you said it yourself that Geoffrey only got bits and pieces of
information out of your captive. You think you've found one of the
Coun'hij bases, but for all you know he's misreading the
information."

"What
if he isn't? We aren't going to get another chance like this, Alec.
We need to just accept the risk and go for it."

"I'm
sorry, Jasmin, but it's just not safe. I'm still not sure how the
Coun'hij is managing it, but they know way too much about everyone's
movements. You seem to have fallen off of their radar, but most of my
other people are under constant attacks. If I pull everyone together
to come support you in some kind of massive attack on the Coun'hij
then Puppeteer and the rest will know that you're coming."

"That's
fine, let them come. Grab Grayson and you and bring half a dozen
other hybrids and we'll clean them all out. It's not like we need an
army, not when you and Grayson are practically armies all by
yourself."

Alec
sounded tired. "I know you've got a lot riding on this, Jasmin.
I don't know how all of the pieces fit together, but in hindsight
it's obvious that the best way to heal whatever those vampires did to
Ben is with another vampire."

"Yeah,
he's my ticket to healing Ben, but in order for that to happen we
need to flush out Puppeteer."

"Right,
but if you flush out Puppeteer we could find ourselves going up
against dozens of werewolves and you know as well as I do that the
only reason we won our last confrontation against that many
werewolves was because we had the Coun'hij enforcers in the mix too.
I can short-circuit Puppeteer's control over the hybrids, but all
that does is make them attack whoever happens to be closest to them.
If it's just our people around then we're still pretty much screwed.
They'd bury us."

I
was tired of talking and I could tell that Alec wasn't going to give
me a straight answer, not without me forcing the issue. "What
are you saying, Alec? Are you going to help me or not?"

"I
want to, but I can't justify running that kind of risk with the rest
of my people. We haven't even addressed the fact that this might be a
trap."

"How
could this possibly be a trap, Alec? Geoffrey ripped the information
out of Jeete's mind. There isn't any way they could have anticipated
that."

"No,
I agree, they didn't set out to make this a trap when they sent
Jeete, but the Coun'hij has access to way better information than
they should be able to pull together. They may already know that you
have him and that Geoffrey has gotten ahold of their location. This
could definitely be a trap."

"So
we're just supposed to sit here and do nothing with the single best
piece of intelligence we've ever had?"

"No,
you're not going to just sit there, you and the others need to leave
Duluth and come meet up with me. The Chicago pack has been through a
meat grinder over the last little while, but I think I can convince
Ulrich to shake loose four or five hybrids to escort you back here.
Once you get back here, we'll put Geoffrey to work interrogating
everyone we can get our hands on who has any kind of link to the
Coun'hij. In a couple of months we'll know so much about their
operations that we'll be able to launch a decisive blow, one that
will end this fight overnight."

"Ben
doesn't have a few months, Alec. He's got a few days, a week maybe at
the outside."

"Geoffrey
can fix Ben, that's why you freed him."

"Yeah,
but Geoffrey and I have a deal. He isn't going to help Ben until I've
helped him find Puppeteer."

The
silence was more eloquent than anything Alec had said so far. I could
tell that he wanted to tell me to
force
Geoffrey to help, but Alec wasn't stupid. There wasn't any way to
guarantee that Geoffrey would do what we wanted, not when working
under compulsion. Not only that, once we started trying to use force
on Geoffrey he wouldn't be any use to us when it came to
interrogating the people Alec was hoping to capture. Besides, it was
wrong.

"Look,
Alec, if you're not going to help me then I need to go. I've got a
lot of arrangements to make and this isn't putting me any closer to
saving Ben."

I
hung up on him before he could respond and then looked over at
Geoffrey and the others, all of who had been able to hear both sides
of the conversation.

"It
looks like we're on our own. I'm open to ideas on how we proceed."

Geoffrey
gave me a long, serious look. "We've been inside of each other's
minds, Jasmin. You know as well as I do that I'm not going to let Ben
die. All you had to do was stall another couple of days and I
wouldn't have had any choice but to see what I could do to reverse
the damage to his mind."

"Yeah,
I know, but a deal is a deal. Besides, I can't imagine that the
Coun'hij's prisoners have a very long life expectancy after they are
captured. Melody may not have a few more days. This is our chance to
save her; we may not get another one."

None
of the Duluth wolves, my wolves, seemed to have anything to
volunteer, so I pointed to the map of the park that we'd purchased
earlier in the day.

"I
still think that our best bet is to take this trail in. We can buy or
rent a couple of Jeeps and it should get us around behind the section
of the park where the Coun'hij have set up. The prevailing wind here
is from west to east, so once we're on the east side we should be
relatively safe from detection."

Geoffrey
nodded. "What do we do though once we are there?"

"We'll
work our way in close enough for you to start reading some thoughts
and see what we come up with. I know, it's a terrible plan, but it's
all I've got right now. Once we're there we should be able to find
some weakness that we can take advantage of. If needs be, we'll kill
them one at a time whenever they step out into the forest."

"I
don't have a better plan. You know that I'm onboard. It doesn't
matter how long the odds are, I'm still committed to trying to free
Melody."

I
smiled my thanks at Geoffrey and then turned to the rest of my
people. "I could order you all to come help us, but I won't.
This isn't your war, and I treated you poorly yesterday, for which
I'm sorry. I would welcome your help, but I release you all to do as
you please. Stay here or go to some other pack, it makes no
difference to me, but before I leave I'll have a ritual promise, a
beast-bound oath, that you won't go to our enemies for at least the
next three weeks. I mean to have your silence for at least that long
or our mission won't have any chance of success."

Silence
reigned supreme for several seconds as the uninjured wolves looked
around as though trying to read each other's thoughts. It was Sally
that finally stepped forward and spoke for the group.

"You're
not safe to be around right now, Jasmin. As long as Ben is at risk
it's obvious that there isn't anything that you won't do. Torture,
murder, anything."

It
wasn't something I could argue with. "You're right. We both know
it would be futile for me to lie to you and try to pretend otherwise,
but even if that were possible I still wouldn't try to deceive you
there. Ben has to live or everything I've done so far is for naught."

"I
don't appreciate being manhandled, choked and thrown into a wall, but
the truth is that it's no worse than Branson or Jorge used to do to
me. I'm not eager to trade one worthless alpha for another, but
you're the first to have apologized afterward for mistreating me.
Right now you're not better than Stekensbridge or the Coun'hij, but
you have the potential to be better if we can save Ben for you. I'll
come with you. It's a small chance, but it's one I'm willing to risk
my life on in the hope of a better life down the road for me and any
children I might have."

One
by one the other wolves nodded their agreement, and it was all I
could do to keep from tearing up. It took me a couple of seconds to
get myself back under control, but then I cleared my throat and
pointed at Geoffrey.

"You're
the money man, so if you could please see to getting us a transport
it would be much appreciated. I'd like to start off first thing
tomorrow morning, so we'll have to move pretty quickly to make all of
the arrangements that need squared away before we can leave."

My
phone cut me off. I half expected it to be Alec with one more
argument why I shouldn't be doing this, but it wasn't his number, in
fact it wasn't any number that I recognized.

"Yeah?"

"Jasmin,
it's me, Rachel."

"Calling
to tell me that we've got the wrong spot?"

"No,
at least I don't think that you do. I know that you aren't planning
on leaving until tomorrow morning, but it's important for you to go
now, as soon as you can tonight."

"Why,
what do you see?"

"That's
the problem. I can see you guys going out into the mountains, but
once you get there you disappear. Something is interfering with my
ability to see you past a certain point tomorrow morning. If you
leave now I can see what happens for at least part of the time you're
there hunting for Puppeteer."

"So
you don't have any idea whether or not we're going to win?"

"None
at all. If you leave within the next couple of hours then things go
pretty well up until you're shrouded from me, but no matter what
happens I can't see you come out of the other side. It's like you and
all of the Coun'hij just cease to exist and the world goes on without
you."

"So
we're going to die then."

"No,
I saw this happen once before. There's someone out there who can
defeat my ability, he's going to be there with the Coun'hij tomorrow.
Once he's gone then the future will snap back into place and you'll
all reappear, but until then I'm as blind as you are."

Geoffrey
Fort Loudon State Park
Tennessee

Jasmin
was driving the lead jeep with Geoffrey in the passenger side next to
her. He'd tried to convince her to ride in the back and get some
rest. She'd lost a lot of blood and he'd figured that it wouldn't
hurt and might very well help for her to take it easy for at least
the duration of the drive, but she'd refused to let anyone else
drive.

Instead,
the little caravan was slowly making its way down the bones of a
trail that even back when it had been well-used hadn't been meant to
be driven by jeeps in the dark. For all that the vehicles were only
moving at something barely faster than Geoffrey could have run, it
was faster than most people would have believed possible given that
they were driving at night with no lights on.

Vampires
had incredible night vision, which combined with the shape shifter's
ability to see living things outlined in light meant that Jasmin was
able to see trees and fallen logs from quite a ways off and Geoffrey
was able to pick out rocks and other inanimate objects and warn her
away from them.

The
group had been driving for more than two hours and had settled into a
well-oiled routine which required only minimal amounts of talking and
which left Geoffrey plenty of time for thought. Since her people had
all agreed to come along on the attack against the Coun'hij, Jasmin
hadn't ended up needing to swear any of her people to silence, but
Geoffrey had asked her about the ritual promise anyway and been
astonished to learn that it was possible for shape shifters to bind
their beasts to honor a given promise.

It
was a useful thing, but it was obvious to Geoffrey at least that
they'd never understood quite how useful it actually was. The binding
didn't just force them to comply with their promise, he was sure it
also was what had caused Jeete's memories of the base to be moved
into the memory space claimed by his beast. Jeete could still access
those memories without problems, but anyone else who tried to get at
them would have to fight off his beast to get what they were looking
for.