Driven (17 page)

That
shut me up faster than I would have believed possible. When Adri had
joined the pack she'd commented more than once that pack life was
incredibly intrusive. I'd been a part of that life for as long as I
could remember; I'd long since become used to just how much everyone
was up in everyone else's business, but that didn't mean she was
wrong. Pack life was bad enough. Never being able to lie to a direct
question sucked in ways that most people couldn't even begin to
understand, but that was nothing compared to what Geoffrey was
describing.

"Okay,
thank you for promising. We shape shifters, the wolves at least, are
spread out through all of the continental United States and Canada.
Mostly we are just a loose assortment of independent packs that range
in size from nine or ten wolves all the way up to eighty or ninety
wolves."

"You
have a third shape then as well?"

That
threw me for a loop for a moment. "Yes. We actually think of our
wolf bodies as our second shape and the hybrid form as the third
shape, but you're not wrong. I've got a total of three forms."

I
waited for a second to see if he had any other questions and then
continued. "A long time ago the packs were united by a powerful
king. Some people thought a new golden age had begun, but his son was
deposed by a group of the most fearsome hybrids then living. Ever
since then we've been ruled by an unjust group that calls itself the
Coun'hij. Puppeteer is one of the members of the Coun'hij."

"So
by stealing Melody away from him we'll be making enemies of your
entire people?"

I
shook my head. "There is little love lost between many of the
packs and the Coun'hij. Even some of the members of the Coun'hij are
said not to care much for each other. Currently large portions of my
people are in active rebellion against the Coun'hij."

"And
yet you're still incredibly scared of the Coun'hij."

I
wanted to bristle at the accusation, but the truth was that he was
right. I was scared of the Coun'hij and of Puppeteer especially. I
was a hybrid, a big, fast, strong hybrid, but I wasn't Alec or
Grayson. I hadn't ever manifested one of the unique abilities that
would have allowed me to immobilize or kill dozens of people
instantly.

"Yes,
I'm scared of them, Puppeteer most of all. Some hybrids manifest
special abilities, things that can't be explained by modern physics
any more than your mentalist abilities can be. Puppeteer is one of
the most powerful of these kinds of hybrids."

When
I closed my eyes at night I could still sometimes see the mass of
werewolves coming for us, tearing through the manor house, bigger and
faster than any hybrid, lethal in ways that most of us could never
even hope to match.

"You're
aware of the existence of creatures that look like my hybrid form
only larger and stronger?"

Geoffrey
nodded and for the first time he seemed to share some of my fear.
"Yes, there were rumors even before they arrived. Legends among
the vampires of things that hunted us, that preyed on us like most of
my kind preys on the humans. I suppose, looking back now, that some
of those myths might have been due to your kind rather than the
werewolves, but even so, some of the other vampires in the city
didn't want to believe any of it was really happening when the
werewolves started picking us off. There were dozens of them, maybe
even hundreds."

This
was something new. Werewolves had always preferred killing vampires
and shape shifters over humans, but it didn't seem possible for
fighting on that scale to take place without the humans finding out
about it.

"When
did that happen and how did you beat them? Your powers don't work on
them so you would have had to kill them with steel."

"You're
right to a point. They absorb our powers, but they can only absorb so
much. If enough vampires, especially vampire Elders, focus their
gifts on a single werewolf they can overcome its absorption abilities
and kill it, usually by setting it on fire."

Geoffrey
was silent for nearly a minute, but I didn't disturb him. Someone who
hadn't been through the hell of battle might have pushed for answers
right then, but I didn't. I'd survived the same kind of flickering
nightmare and I was more than willing to let him relive those moments
if that was what he needed right then.

"As
to when it happened, it was just a few weeks ago here in New York.
You remember the riots that happened towards the end of the year?"

"Yes.
Now that you mention it, I remember that there were reports of
widespread blackouts in large sections of the city, but everyone said
that some of the city's power distribution infrastructure had been
destroyed during the riots."

"No,
that was the werewolves. They were hunting us. It seemed like they
outmatched us at every turn. They could sense us and they only
attacked when they had us outnumbered. We lucked out and killed a
few, but it all culminated in a huge fight involving nearly every
vampire in the city."

"You
guys won?"

"Yes.
The individual werewolves were nothing more than cunning beasts, but
sometimes it seemed like there was a larger intelligence at work. I
outsmarted it by virtue of using humans to help us win. We equipped
them with crossbows and they killed enough werewolves for the
vampires not to be swept away in the initial rush."

The
answer had been there all along, he just hadn't known about the
Coun'hij, hadn't known enough to put the pieces together and neither
had I.

"The
larger intelligence you just spoke of was almost certainly Puppeteer.
His power is the ability to control werewolves, vast numbers of
werewolves."

The
silence between us stretched out again. Geoffrey finally sighed and
rubbed his temples. "It all makes more sense now. I wouldn't
have thought something like that to be possible, but it explains a
lot. He's the one who brought the werewolves out of hiding in such
large numbers after so long.

"It
doesn't explain
why
he came after us like that, or why he wanted Melody, but it makes
sense that Melody would still be with him. The werewolf that took…I
couldn't ever explain it before now, but it all fits together too
perfectly to be anything but the truth."

My
beast still didn't trust him. She would have happily ripped his
throat out, and I couldn't blame her. He was a vampire. Regardless of
what he'd been before the transformation, regardless of the code he
might be trying to cling to now, he was a parasite. It was a
biological imperative and nothing he did could change that. He killed
people in order to survive.

Still,
I felt the slightest bit of kinship with him. "I'm sorry,
Geoffrey. I know what it's like to lose someone you care about. My
friends and family have suffered at the hands of Puppeteer and the
rest of the Coun'hij for centuries. He's a monster and I wish someone
had been able to put him down ages ago."

Geoffrey
shrugged. "It sounds to me like that would have been impossible.
Surely he's the most dangerous individual in the entire world. He
must have a constant guard of werewolves, big, strong and impervious
to any supernatural ability regardless of whether it is wielded by
your people or mine. Where is he?"

"Nobody
is sure. The Coun'hij is powerful, but they could never stand up to
the full might of the rest of the shape shifters in North America.
Their greatest shield is the fact that they have kept their location
a secret ever since they came to power. I'm sure that they've been
tracked back to their base at some point or another, but they've
always been able to seal the leak, kill whomever they needed to kill,
and then move to a new location."

"So
we're faced with an impossible task then. First we have to find
Puppeteer and the rest, and then once we manage that we'll be up
against what I can only assume are dozens of your kind and dozens or
possibly hundreds of werewolves as well."

My
breathing had slowed down the way it sometimes did when I was faced
with an especially difficult decision. Apparently all of those years
of yoga and breath control meditation had left more of an impact on
me than I'd thought when I stopped practicing them.

"I
can help with the second problem. I mean I can't make hundreds of
werewolves magically go away, but I have…contacts inside of
the rebels who are currently trying to overthrow the Coun'hij. If we
can find a way to ferret out the location of the Coun'hij's base then
my friends will come in force and some of them are pretty big
equalizers. We'd at least have a chance of winning, maybe even more
than a chance if enough of the independent packs have decided to join
the rebellion by then."

I
knew I shouldn't feel bad about being so vague where Alec and the
others were concerned. Knowing names and numbers wouldn't actually
make any difference to Geoffrey, not in any way that mattered, but I
still felt bad for some reason.

I
couldn't let that sway me though. Alec and the others were already
facing off against the combined might of the Coun'hij. If Geoffrey
ended up under the thumb of some older mentalist then everything he
knew was going to become common knowledge among the vampire
community. The last thing I wanted was to put Alec and the rest of my
friends in the crosshairs of a bunch of vampires too.

Geoffrey
looked at me for a long while, almost as though trying to figure out
how far he could trust my promise of reinforcements, and then he
nodded. "That's good, that's actually the piece I was more
worried about."

"You
mean that you've got a way to find the Coun'hij?"

"Yes,
I think I do. It's going to require some groundwork before we can
even hope for my plan to work, but it's a possibility. The Coun'hij
must show their faces from time to time at least. It's impossible to
rule otherwise."

"Yes,
although as often as not it's merely their enforcers who come through
to knock heads together."

Whatever
response Geoffrey had planned on making was interrupted by the quiet
chirp of the timer on the microwave.

"What's
that for?"

Geoffrey
was already on his feet and headed towards the bedroom. "It's
time to hang a new bag for Ben."

The
surge of emotion that shot through me was too complex to identify,
and my beast was behind much of it, pushing with all of her might and
lending the feelings more power than they otherwise would have had.
Ben was
ours
and she didn't like Geoffrey sticking his nose in our business.

I
was sure Geoffrey didn't think of his actions in that light, but what
he was doing was a kind of challenge to our ownership. It was another
reason for my beast to hate him, but I didn't share quite the same
view of things. I didn't like what he was doing, but for me it was
more about the fact that
I'd
come up short, not that Geoffrey had done anything wrong.

I
was ready to kill innocents if needed, had potentially already done
so, but I hadn't even thought to check on Ben when I woke up a few
minutes ago. I was grateful that Geoffrey had taken such good care of
Ben, but I was likewise embarrassed and disappointed in myself that
he'd been forced to make up for my lack.

While
I was still struggling through my feelings Geoffrey had stepped
inside the bedroom and by the time I made it in he already had a new
IV bag hanging from the light fixture mounted to the wall just above
the bed.

Geoffrey
was double-checking the line down to Ben's arm with the deft
movements of a professional, but that wasn't what caught my eye. Ben
looked content in a way that I'd only rarely seen before. Maybe
looked wasn't the right word, maybe it was more about the way that he
felt than anything else, but I was suddenly sure that Ben was more at
ease with Geoffrey than he'd ever been with anyone else.

I
waited to speak until we were back out in the main room and had the
door closed so as not to bother Ben. "Thank you. For taking care
of him and for taking care of me."

Geoffrey
shrugged. "It wasn't like I could just let the two of you die,
not if it might have meant that Rachel would refuse to tell me where
Melody was. Besides, it's obvious that he means a lot to you. I guess
you could say that Melody is my Ben. I understand at least some of
what you're going through right now."

"But
you're still going to let him sit there and suffer instead of fixing
him now?"

"I'm
afraid so. I don't take any joy in his suffering, but Ben is the only
leverage that I have against you and Rachel. I'm not going to give
that up, not if there is any way to avoid doing so."

"You
make it really hard not to keep hating you."

Geoffrey
acted like he hadn't heard me. "If you can find a way for us to
capture one of the Coun'hij, preferably one of the less dangerous
ones, then I can rip the location of Puppeteer and the rest of them
out of his mind."

I
blinked in surprise. Even with him sitting before me as a constant
reminder of what vampires were capable of, it was still hard to think
in terms of reading someone's mind. "You're strong enough to do
that?"

Geoffrey's
nod was a short, choppy motion. "I'm strong enough. The real
question is what we'll have to do to them to weaken them sufficiently
that they can't resist me."

"You
don't like the idea of having to torture them, do you?"

"Not
particularly, but I'll do it, and you'll help me if it comes to
that."

It
wasn't a question, and it wasn't a particularly challenging
statement. He wasn't trying to draw any kind of rise out of me, he
was just stating a fact that we both knew.

"I
guess you're right at that. If it comes to it, I'll do even worse
than torturing one of the Coun'hij's trained killers in order to save
Ben."