Ambushed Read online

  I'd made contact with Dominic the night that Taggart had told me about Alec. Talking to Dominic had been odd on several levels. I kept wanting to like her but I knew that was dangerous in the world I lived in now. If we'd met back in Minnesota as two normal girls then things would have been different, but as they were now I couldn't afford to trust anyone.

  If Alec had managed to pull the wool over my eyes this badly, then I wasn't a good enough judge of character to be selecting my own friends. Dominic seemed to be struggling with something as well, but I couldn't tell for sure what it was that was bothering her.

  She was very coy when it came to providing details about where she was and who she was living with, but after I explained that I was trying to find people to help Dream Stealer and I free Agony, she finally agreed to take my plea to 'the rest of the group.' It wasn't a lot to go on, but it was better than nothing.

  The next morning Taggart suggested that I spend some time inside the underground shooting range. I wouldn't have trusted me with a handgun if our positions had been reversed, but if he was worried he didn't show it.

  He took me by the armory to grab some more ammunition and a selection of guns, and then once we arrived at the range he showed me how to load the gun, chamber a round, and get the bullets to hit roughly where I was aiming. All of that took a bit less than fifteen minutes including the mandatory gun safety talk, and then I was on my own.

  I expected to hate it. The only exposure I'd ever had to firearms was when Benito and Pete had taken turns holding one up to my head. It was something designed for one purpose and one purpose only, and I still wasn't excited about killing someone in the dream world let alone in the real world.

  All of that changed as I sent my first hundred shots down the range. There was something addictive about seeing my skill improve in real time, about blowing the center out of a target, but it was more than that.

  I'd read somewhere in a history book that one of the early pistols had been called the great equalizer. That might have been true for fights between normal humans, but it wasn't true when the person with the gun was a human who was up against a hybrid. Even with a gun I'd still be out of my league when faced with a vampire or a shape shifter, but things would be a lot closer to even.

  For the first time since my ability to dream walk had completely screwed up my life, I felt a degree of safety that didn't depend on Taggart, a degree of control over where I went and what happened to me. That was the most addictive thing of all.

  I knew I wasn't going to turn myself into an expert over the course of one or two days, but I did the best I could. It took Dominic two more nights to get some of the others in her group to agree to a meeting. I spent a significant amount of time each day until then down in the range running exercises that I hoped would make me more competent and deadly with the pistol that I eventually settled on as my weapon of choice.

  It helped that the range was built with tactical exercises in mind. It took some doing to figure out which buttons back by the shooting station did what, but once I got the hang of that I started running through shooting at moving targets that popped up seemingly at random. Things were so easy that I was worried at first that I was doing something wrong.

  That only lasted until I remembered that I didn't function quite like a normal human anymore. Something about my fight with Pamela had souped up my time sense to the point where it was nearly the match of Taggart's. In an emergency I still couldn't move as fast as a shape shifter, but I thought as fast as one of them, which meant that I had all the time in the world to put rounds through each of the pop-up targets.

  I was pretty sure that Dominic was going to tell me that she'd worked out some kind of meeting on that second night, so I knew that afternoon that I was going through my last round of practice. Once my slide had locked back and the last heavy steel plate had been knocked free on the last moving target, I set my now-familiar pistol down and walked downrange to collect all of the steel discs and remount them into their bases.

  There wasn't any real need to clean up after myself, but I did anyway. Maybe someday this range would host another scared teenager who needed the empowerment provided by a gun, who needed a way to defend herself in a world that was infinitely more dangerous and deadly than she'd ever suspected. It wasn't likely, but if it did happen I didn't want to make her job any harder than it was already going to be.

  I turned off the lights and then headed towards the tunnel up to the store so that Taggart could teach me how to clean my new gun.

  That night I found out that Dominic had indeed come through for me. I had a location and a time, but just as I'd known she would, she told me that if I didn't come along with Taggart the meeting was off.

  We piled some boxes in front of the secret door down to the bunker to help keep it hidden, locked up the gas station, and then started towards Texas the next morning. I brought my new gun, a backup weapon of the same size and caliber, and two hundred rounds of ammunition.

  If Taggart thought that was overkill he didn't say anything and I didn't ask. I also didn't tell him that half of the ammunition was 'penetrator' rounds. I hadn't known what to expect when I'd tried out the first round of the color-coded ammunition back in the bunker, so it had taken me completely by surprise when I blew a hole through the metal plates that had so far laughed off everything else I'd shot at them.

  I figured if we ran into trouble that the penetrators would be useful. Even a hybrid wouldn't easily laugh off a round designed to go through a metal plate.

  I'd stocked up on guns and ammo because that was what I was most concerned about. Taggart had swiped all of the money from the cash register and three-quarters of the gold from Paulo's vault.

  We'd made a single extended stop on our way out to Houston so that Taggart could stash the gold in a safe deposit box under both of our names. He kept a single bar, which he sold at a pawn shop in the same town. That one bar sold for more money than my dad made in several years. It felt almost obscene that something so small could be worth so much money, but Taggart didn't share my feeling.

  "Money isn't obscene, Adri, it's just a tool. It's only obscene to those who give into their basest qualities once they have it."

  It sounded eerily like something my dad might have said and I spent the next couple of hours pondering what I would do with millions of dollars. I finally fell asleep without having come to any kind of firm conclusion other than that I'd get some to my dad so that he could retire when the time came for him to stop working.

  We arrived at the parking garage a little before noon, which meant that we had a little bit of time to kill. I'd adjusted one of the shoulder rigs in the armory down to the point where it mostly fit me, but I still had to fight the urge to fidget with it underneath my jacket. The last thing I needed was for a cop to realize I was illegally carrying a concealed weapon.

  Taggart finally broke the silence five minutes before we were supposed to get out of the car and start walking.

  "I'm sorry, Adri. I wish that things could have been different, I didn't want to have to tell you about Alec."

  "I'm sorry too, but it's better to know than to go on blindly thinking he's interested in me."

  I reached for the door, but Taggart stopped me with a gentle hand on my shoulder. "One of my contacts came through with a location and a route. We know enough to save Agony, assuming that Dominic and her friends are willing to help us."

  "That's good news."

  "I know, but it doesn't feel like it, does it?"

  That stopped me more surely than if he'd chained me to my chair. "I guess you're right, it doesn't. Why is that?"

  "Because it means we have a choice to make. We either rescue him or we leave him to his fate."

  "Except we aren't going to choose to abandon him."

  Taggart nodded solemnly. "Exactly. Having this information means that our options, the options we can live with, have narrowed down. Either Dominic and her friends will help us, or we'll go to Alec and tak
e our risks with him."

  "And either way everything is about to change. We'll either rescue your friend or die trying, but either way things will never be the same."

  "Yes, exactly. The Coun'hij has looked for me for years, but it's always been a secondary concern. A jailbreak of this magnitude will cause them to shuffle around their priorities. Our lives will get very difficult even if we succeed."

  "I guess I can understand why some people become paralyzed when faced with the tough decisions. If you don't make a decision then you can't be blamed when things go wrong. Only that's a lie too. Failing to make a decision is still making a decision; it's accepting whatever the universe throws at you because you failed to act."

  Taggart opened his mouth to respond, but I tapped the clock in the dash. "We're going to be late. Come on, we don't want to make Dominic's friends any more jittery than they already are."

  The parking garage they'd selected for the meet was absolutely huge. It was the kind of place that had seven or eight elevators, took up an entire city block and served four or five different stores. In short, if you were willing to black out a few security cameras, it was the perfect place for a clandestine meeting.

  We'd both been wearing big glasses to disguise our faces from any security cameras that the Coun'hij might have access to. It was probably an unnecessary precaution while we were in the car and safely shielded by tinted windows, but it wasn't going to be enough outside of the car.

  I flipped up the hood on my jacket, pulling it far enough forward that shadows would obscure most of my face, and then opened my door and slipped out of the car. Taggart had a neck warmer pulled up over the lower half of his face, which was ludicrous given how warm it was still in Texas, but it served to make him unrecognizable for any kind of facial recognition software.

  It took us only a couple of minutes to find the appropriate section of the parking garage. It was a dead end that had been blocked off with cones and I was able to pick out several cameras on the way there that had been covered up, painted, or otherwise put out of commission. It was comforting to know that we weren't being tracked to the meeting place, at least not by any kind of automated surveillance system.

  Someone did see us approach though because less than ten seconds after we arrived Dominic and the rest showed up behind us. They'd all taken similar precautions to make sure they weren't recognizable, but as they arrived they pulled off their glasses and discarded their wigs.

  I pulled my hood back away from my face and moved my sunglasses up onto my hair as I looked for Dom. It shouldn't have taken me as long as it did to recognize her, but she seemed so different that I had a hard time believing she was the same person I'd saved from a beating back in Minnesota.

  Her face was the same with lovely, dark skin and exotic brown eyes, but her bearing was night and day different. She no longer looked like she was expecting to be attacked at the drop of a hat, and she wasn't quite so gaunt. There'd been some hints as to the changes she'd undergone from our meetings in the dream world, but nothing like this. Apparently her subconscious image of herself was lagging behind the actual changes.

  "Thank you, Dominic. I appreciate you arranging for this meeting."

  A big guy to her left spoke up before she could respond. "It might be best to save the thanks until we all know whether or not you can be allowed to leave."

  His tone wasn't overtly menacing, in fact the words were delivered with a calm certainty that almost hid the fact that he'd just told us that they'd kill us if they didn't like what they heard. I turned so I could get a better look at him.

  He didn't look old enough to be the leader of such a large group. With him and Dominic included, there was a total of eight people standing in a half circle between us and the rest of the garage. Some of his people looked like they'd been through hell and back. I would have expected the leader of that kind of group to be some kind of heavily-tattooed biker complete with chains, piercings and a bewildering array of scars. Instead I was looking at someone who looked like they could have belonged to the ruling family of Saudi Arabia.

  He had one of those thin beards that was little more than a series of lines that followed the bold planes of his face and the precise diction you only found in someone who had a passion for languages. I opened my mouth to introduce myself, but he didn't give me a chance.

  "My name is Isaac. Dominic tells me that the two of you met in South Dakota and that you were wearing a band uniform."

  I shook my head. "It was Minnesota and I was wearing my cheerleading uniform."

  Everyone seemed to be waiting expectantly. It was Taggart who explained. "Ask Dominic something that only she should know."

  "What did you tell me when I said I was in the middle of the field?"

  "We were on the phone. I'd asked you how far away the nearest person was and you said nobody was closer than the bleachers to which I responded that would have to be far enough away."

  I nodded to Taggart. "It's her."

  Some of the tension seemed to leach out of everyone around me. "We're satisfied that you are who you say you are, but what about him?"

  Taggart stepped forward half a step. "I'm the Dream Stealer. We've come to ask for your help."

  Isaac shook his head. "If you want our help then you'll tell us your real name."

  "The name I was born with is Taggart."

  I could tell that Isaac was filing that piece of information away. It was one more sign of how desperate we were. Taggart had kept his real name a secret for decades. Giving it up now meant that he wanted their help badly enough to risk being found by the Coun'hij if Isaac or any of the others betrayed us.

  "Very well, Adri, Taggart, Dominic says that you've come here to ask for our help in freeing Agony. Is that true?"

  "Yes."

  Taggart had answered, seemingly ready to take the lead in the negotiation, but Isaac held up a hand. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to request that Adri be the one to respond to my questions."

  "Why?"

  "Because as little as I trust her, I trust you even less. Adri is here because Dominic spoke eloquently on her behalf. You are here simply because Adri trusts you. If I'd had my way we would just be talking to Adri and you would have been left out of the conversation altogether."

  "That's ridiculous. Adri knows next to nothing about what's at stake. She couldn't even begin to hope to coordinate an offensive of the size we'll need."

  Isaac shook his head. "The first thing you need to understand is that you're not negotiating from a position of strength, Taggart. For us, character always trumps ability. Adri tried to save a stranger despite the fact that her actions put her in harm's way as well. Your history on the other hand, is filled with nothing but one bad decision after another. You're little more than a vicious bully who's used your gift to play politics without having to pay the kind of price anyone else would have had to pay."

  I could see Taggart struggling to control his beast, struggling to contain the rage that I knew he would be feeling as the result of such a casual dismissal combined with a scathing judgment of his character. I jumped back into the conversation hoping that I could help distract him.

  "I only know a little bit of Taggart's history myself, but you should know that it was he who saved me from the vampire Dominic tried to warn me about. He risked death to defeat not just one, but two vampires and in so doing saved me, my sister, and another friend of ours."

  "Doubtlessly so that he could enlist your aid in his private war against the Coun'hij."

  "No, he's let me pick my own way. He's asked for help, but he's respected my right to choose at every step along the way. That's why I sought out Dominic after so long. I wanted to know if the Coun'hij was really as bad as he had told me they were."

  Dominic stepped up to Isaac's side. "She's telling the truth."

  "I know, I can smell it on her as well as everyone else can, but just because she believes he's honorable doesn't mean that he's actually honorable."

&n
bsp; For the briefest of moments Dominic seemed to be searching for the right words. "I can't dispute that, but given how well he's treated Adriana don't you think he deserves some respect in return?"

  I wasn't an expert in shape shifter pack dynamics, but I knew enough about social dynamics between humans that I would have bet a sizable amount of money that Dominic wasn't dominant to Isaac. She treated him with a respect that bordered on reverence, and she was very careful around him as though worried about her actions being taken the wrong way.

  Based on everything Taggart had told me about pack life, the normal response for a dominant being corrected by a submissive would have been anger and possibly even violence, but Isaac simply bowed his head.

  "Dominic is right. You have my apology. Still, I would have Adri do the talking, at least for now. She's undoubtedly a less-practiced liar than someone your age. Once she's told us her view of things then you'll be given a chance to respond as well."

  Taggart seemed to gather himself in with a titanic force of will, but when he nodded there were no longer any visible signs that he was struggling to control himself.

  "Very well."

  Isaac turned back to me. "Tell me why you're here, Adriana. Tell me why you think we should help you at great risk to ourselves, and tell me why exactly it is that you trust Taggart, the Dream Stealer."

  I opened my mouth, unsure of what exactly I was going to say, and the words just poured out almost of their own accord.

  **

  I talked for nearly an hour. I kept expecting someone to show up to find out why the cameras weren't working, but nobody did. Maybe Isaac had bribed one of the guards to ignore the blank monitors for a few hours, or maybe he had someone acting as a lookout. It didn't really matter other than the fact that Isaac seemed to feel like we had all of the time in the world for him to get each of his questions answered.