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  "I think you saw the future you were headed towards at the point in time that you had the dream. Everything that happened differently than what you saw in your dream was directly because of the dream. The future isn't a fixed thing and your ability gives you a chance to sidestep some of the things you see happening."

  I nodded, it was starting to make sense. "So can we use this to our advantage? Maybe it can help us take down Anton somehow."

  Ash shook his head.

  "It's always a very bad idea to rely on those kinds of things, especially at first. As time goes on you may be able to call it to heel, but sometimes gifts never actually behave as you want them to. You might go a decade without ever having another dream like that, or you may dream about mundane things every week for the next year and then get run over by a train and never have any kind of dream warning you things were about to go bad."

  It wasn't what I wanted to hear. There wasn't much that I really brought to this partnership. The ability to keep us alive now and again would have been nice. Without being able to dream of the future, I was just a liability once again.

  "So what do we do?"

  "I've got someone putting out some feelers. Occasionally a human gets caught up in our world and manages to survive. They're usually ex-military or spies. Once that happens they tend to cluster together with others who've had similar experiences. Most of the very best mercenaries actually do hits on vampires and the like. If I can find the right group and offer them enough money, we'll have a chance at taking Anton down the next time he arrives."

  "A good chance?"

  "No, not a good chance. These types of people are very good, but Anton is in a league all of his own. Unless he runs up against another, older, more powerful cat, a couple of vampire elders, or a fairly sizable pack, he's unlikely to be taken down."

  "I suppose vampires and other southerners are out of the question. What about rounding up a pack of wolves?"

  It actually felt like the temperature in the Hummer dropped ten degrees. Ash's knuckles went white on the steering wheel and he took several breaths before he was able to respond.

  "Going to any of my kind is out of the question. I've been very careful to stay under the radar where other wolves are concerned."

  Ash's expression was so intense it was all I could do to avoid backing away from him.

  "I'm sorry, Ash. I didn't mean to say the wrong thing. I just didn't know it was such a big deal. Please…"

  He shook his head. "No, I'm the one who should be sorry. It's just that going back to my kind represents everything I spent years scheming to get away from. I didn't just stroll away from my pack when I left. The remnants of my family, the ones who weren't killed by the vampire attack centuries ago, have spent an incredible amount of time and energy convincing our new masters that they'd stripped us of our fortunes. They did manage to extort an obscene amount of money out of us, but there were hundreds of millions that we managed to keep safe, hidden through various mechanisms."

  Some of the pieces were starting to drop into place for me.

  "But they never really believed you."

  "Nope. They are continually looking for a weakness, a new member of the family they might finally manage to break. When I left, I did so in such a way that everyone was convinced that I was dead. I fled my family, abandoned the few people who cared about me, who depended on me, took a healthy chunk of our operating capital and never looked back."

  I could tell that last part wasn't true. Ash had looked back, probably more even than he wanted to admit to himself, but now wasn't the time to bring that up.

  "So your old pack is out. Isn't there another pack though that you can trust not to say anything? Better yet, one we could just go to with aliases. Nobody needs to know who we are or just how much money you've got."

  Ash shook his head.

  "Sorry, Kristin. There's just so much you don't know. A weak shape shifter is valuable enough all by themselves without throwing anything else into the mix. Any pack I give even half a chance will suck me in just to have one more submissive to knock around. I can't think of anything that would make me willing to go back to that kind of hell."

  Chapter 12

  I couldn't get Ash's words out of my head. He hadn't even flinched when Anton had opened him up with a knife. The one thing that had hit me from almost the first second I'd known Ash was the way that he'd single-mindedly gone after his goals. I couldn't imagine the level of torture required to make him unwilling to even entertain the possibility of being pulled back into a pack.

  It was another thing that needed filed away. With Ash there were so many levels to him that I always felt like my subconscious needed time to process and fit the pieces together every time I learned something else about him.

  Ash told me we'd be using pseudonyms and actually made me practice for a day and a half as we drove to the meet with the mercenaries, but once I saw just how hard it was not to slip, I realized how smart he was to force the issue despite my initial efforts to convince him otherwise. I became Jane and he became Jones.

  The mercenaries were both exactly like I'd pictured them and nothing at all like I'd expected. We weren't the only ones using aliases. Some of the handles were obviously not the names the men had been born with, but I was pretty sure that even the relatively normal-sounding names were fake.

  Hammer, Shiver, Shadow, Smith, Dieter. They were all waiting for us in a particularly desolate part of Arizona, and I was sure we were going to have problems as soon as I stepped out of the Hummer.

  "Nobody said anything about a chick."

  Ash shook his head. "Nobody said anything about a chick because there was no reason to mention it. Jane's fine. She's a bit wet behind the ears, but she's smart enough to keep her head down and take orders."

  Hammer, a gigantic Native American, smiled, but it didn't make it to his eyes. "I've got some orders I'd really like to give her."

  Something about the way he said it left no doubt but that he'd been trying to be obscene. It was completely out of character for me, but I found my hand going towards my pistol. Ash was there already, moving so fast I almost couldn't follow the motion.

  One second Ash was next to me, the next he was towering over Hammer who'd somehow ended up on his knees with Ash's pistol pressed up against his temple.

  "Just be glad I got here first. I said she was wet behind the ears, I didn't say she was harmless. You can refund my money and walk away right now, or you can shut up and do your job. Which is it going to be?"

  I'd meant to stop drawing my gun when Ash moved, but somehow it had still ended up in my hands and pointed vaguely in the direction of the other four mercenaries. Things had gone from calm and collected to imminent, deadly violence in a couple of heartbeats.

  Everyone was suddenly being very careful not to move too quickly. Dieter stepped forward, hands in the air.

  "Hammer will do his job. Your initial payment came through without any problems. You hold up your end and we'll hold up ours. If you don't come through on the completion payment we'll have problems again, but until then we're all good."

  Ash released Hammer and stepped back. Once he got back to my side he put his gun away and nodded for me to do the same.

  "Any questions?"

  Smith nodded. "So what are we up against exactly? Vampire?"

  "Shape shifter. He's uncommonly fast and strong."

  "I don't particularly like going after the wolves. It's always like sticking your hand into a buzz saw. You think you know what you're up against and then the rest of the pack comes out of the woodwork and you're suddenly in over your head."

  "He's a cat, and he's always worked alone so far."

  "You sure he can track you here? What if we get a rainstorm sweep through the area?"

  "We lost him once already and he found us again. All indications are that he's got the ability to track down his prey through other, non-physical methods."

  "Fine. The deal was for up to five days. We get to
day four and nothing's happened and we'll need to have a discussion about what happens on day six."

  Ash nodded, and then the tension floated away almost as if it had never even existed.

  Our little bit of desert seemed to consist of nothing but featureless sand as far as the eye could see to the west, but the east had a little more variety to it. There was a small cabin, little more than a hut, but the real change was a sheer drop-off that would presumably protect us from attack in that direction.

  I followed Ash over to the precipice, suppressing a shiver at the thought of falling all of that distance.

  "It should do. It looks like a pretty difficult climb, even for someone like Anton."

  "As…Jones, what just happened back there?"

  "You got your first taste of what pack life would be like. Everyone always jockeying for position, the weakest members having to be constantly on their guard. Hammer challenged you, tried to prove his dominance to you, and I intervened."

  "So he'll leave me alone now?"

  "Probably. I just put him on notice that if he screws with you he screws with me, and that I'm not afraid to kill him. Good job, by the way. You keeping your calm and getting your weapon out so quickly helped. It introduced the slightest bit of doubt as far as what you really are, and how dangerous you'd be even without my protection."

  "That seems like a hard way to live."

  "It is. Luckily we should only have to deal with it for a few days. I can't imagine that Anton will be slow about tracking us down. You've now evaded him three times, which will drive him crazy. With any luck we'll be able to kill him here and then you'd be free to do whatever you like. You could even return to your family if you wanted."

  I'd been antsy to move out just a few weeks before, but now the thought of being with my family again was incredibly alluring. The desire didn't stand a chance though when stacked against my wish to stay with Ash. I knew I was a burden, but it still hurt that he was able to casually mention us splitting up and going our separate ways like that.

  I did the only thing I could think of and nodded.

  "It would be nice not to be hunted, to have a shot at a normal life once again if I wanted it."

  **

  The next couple of days went by incredibly slowly. The mercenaries all dug in around the cabin, and Shiver even went so far as to set up a variety of antipersonnel mines around the perimeter that he and the others had established.

  Ash and I didn't talk much, not because I didn't want to, but because living in such close proximity to the mercenaries didn't leave us much chance to do more than nod at each other in the morning and once before we headed to our separate sleeping bags.

  I had no desire to get to know Hammer, and had been warned against getting too close to the others, so I dealt with a kind of forced solitude which I distracted myself from by watching my companions and trying to learn as much as possible.

  None of them were particularly communicative, but Shadow seemed the most willing to let me watch as he went about his routine. We settled into a slow routine of three watches. Shadow, Ash and I took the midnight until eight a.m. shift. Ash because he had the best night vision out of all of us, Shadow because we expected Anton would probably attack at night and it only made sense to take advantage of Shadow's night vision goggles and rifle optics to give ourselves as early of a warning as possible.

  The first false alarm nearly gave me a heart attack. I went from sound asleep to out in the 'trenches' in about thirty seconds. It turned out to be nothing more than a coyote which Shadow put down with a single round from his rifle.

  "Couldn't risk it setting off one of the landmines."

  I nodded at Ash's explanation and then went back to my sleeping bag. The second false alarm came late the afternoon of the third day. I was up on the top of the cabin roof with Shadow when he dropped his spotting scope and scooted over to his rifle.

  "You'd recognize the target?"

  "Yes, I've seen him a couple of times."

  "Use the spotting scope. Start from that bluff that forms the left side of the 'W'. Come down back this way about a third of the way. There's a wash that runs north and south. Follow it left and when you see it jig up you're there. He's wearing a brown jacket and a ball cap."

  It took me a couple of tries to follow Shadow's directions, but then I finally found the 'jig' he was talking about. I couldn't see the guy very well, his back was to us, but he was obviously too small to be Anton.

  "No, that's not the guy. Too skinny, and Anton isn't the kind to just lollygag around like that. He's just rushed in every time we've dealt with him."

  "OK, keep an eye on him for the next little while. Could be that this guy's working for the target. If he gets too much closer we may need to take him out regardless."

  I watched for a couple of hours until the prospector finally disappeared. It was one of the longest blocks of time that I could remember, and I breathed a small, inaudible, sigh of relief when Shadow finally set his rifle back down and held a hand out for his spotting scope.

  The afternoon of the fourth day went by without anything noteworthy happening. Halfway through the second shift Ash and Shadow both assumed their normal stations, one on the roof, the other pacing the inside of the perimeter.

  The idea of being next to Shadow while he calmly gunned down some innocent bystander who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time had bothered me more than I'd let on, so I chose to follow Ash around instead of going up onto the roof.

  The next few hours dragged by with incredible slowness, but then all of a sudden Shadow bit out an oath, too quiet to carry far into the darkness, but loud enough to alert the rest of us to the fact that things weren't all OK. Ash almost seemed to materialize out of the darkness.

  "What is it?"

  "I'm not sure. I've been watching a shadow for most of the last hour. I thought maybe the moon was moving enough to account for the way it was shifting over the landscape, but it's got to be artificial."

  "I'll get the others up."

  While Ash was rousing the rest of the team, Shadow kept up a steady stream of curses.

  "You didn't tell me he was three-quarters the size of a full grown horse."

  Ash was back, his rifle resting against his cheek as he tried to use the night scope to find Anton.

  "You're exaggerating."

  "Yeah, but not by much, this guy's got to be pushing two hundred and fifty."

  "Obviously there was a reason that I engaged all five of you. I'd hardly put together such a large team for a minor threat."

  "Sure, but I was hoping that you were just jumping at shadows. I mean who would have guessed that a scrawny guy like you could walk away from three separate engagements with a monster like that?"

  The rest of the mercenaries were in their normal places now, each sporting an impressive array of weapons. I heard the same kind of muttered expletives up and down the line as each of them finally found Anton and realized what kind of fight they were in for.

  Ash grabbed my arm and pulled me back behind the cabin.

  "I want you to stay back here. There's only so much you can do to help and I'd rather know that you're back here, relatively safe, when the landmines start going off."

  I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off.

  "After everything we've been through, I'm not going to lose you to a piece of shrapnel. You'll stay here and you'll stay behind the cabin."

  I nodded once, abruptly, but it was enough for Ash. I watched him disappear around the corner, counted to fifteen, and then walked to the edge of the house where I'd at least be able to see and hear what was going on.

  Dieter was talking now.

  "Everyone is ready, go ahead and engage at will, Shadow."

  Even with my better vantage point, I couldn't see Anton, but I was able to mostly tell what was going on based on the running complaints from Hammer and the others.

  Shadow cut loose with his first shot and I nearly jumped out of my sho
es. It was a hit, but nobody was as excited as they should have been. Anton kept coming, wounded, but not incapacitated, and now he was even sneakier.

  He seemed to be running from one bit of cover to another, too fast most times for anyone to get a shot off. I'd looked out at the desert when we'd arrived and seen nothing but a featureless plain. Apparently that wasn't the case though, because Anton seemed to be finding all kinds of little gullies, rocks, and depressions and rises to serve as either cover or concealment.

  As the distance steadily closed, the rest of the team started opening up as well, taking hurried shots as Anton's sleek, four-legged form flashed between obstacles.

  It sounded like they made at least two more hits, but the swearing kept getting more and more frequent, especially from Shadow, who hadn't managed a second hit yet.

  Every other time that we'd had a run in with Anton I'd been so scared for my life that I hadn't had any chance to do anything other than just react. This time was different. Time seemed to move forward in stops and starts, stuttering its way along as it counted down to Anton's arrival.

  There was a particularly furious barrage and then I looked up and saw Shadow pick up his MP5, abandoning his sniper rifle in favor of something with a higher rate of fire and lower range. Less than a second later the world exploded as Anton tripped one of the mines.

  I later found out that Shiver had purposefully placed them so that one going off would set all the rest of them off as well. All I knew at the time was that a hammer stroke of pressure threw me to the ground as a number of hissing shards of metal flew by.

  My ears were ringing, giving the scene a kind of surreal nature. I started to pull myself back to my feet, sure that Anton was dead, but Ash was already on his feet, rifle at the ready and the rest of the team didn't look relieved.

  The gunfire started again, surreal in that I couldn't hear it, but everywhere I looked the team was desperately trying to bring Anton down, pouring full auto fire into a point I still couldn't see.

  Between one heartbeat and the next Anton appeared. He killed Hammer before I realized anything had happened, and moved onto Smith, launching himself from Hammer's bleeding corpse while I was still trying to adjust to the proof that the mines hadn't killed him.