Chapter 20
Pedro called before dawn two days later, which was a shock because it was widely known that Pedro didn’t like technology and refused to use the phone he kept in a drawer for emergency use only. The fact that he was using it to call Pax at such an early hour meant something had gone awry.
Thankfully, Pax was already awake. He’d been awake for an hour, lying in the dark at his parents’ house, running the plan they’d devised yesterday through his mind, looking for the places it could fail. He answered his phone on the first ring.
“The mage pushed,” Pedro said. No greeting, no preamble.
Pax sat up. “How hard?”
“A directed probe.” Pedro’s voice was steady, but something ran underneath it that Pax had never heard from the ancient shaman before. “He used blood working, anchored to something personal. A piece of you, I think. Something he collected in Salt Lake City.”
Pax’s jaw tightened. Blood working took skill, and it took a sample, and it meant Hernandez had been holding that piece of leverage since the ambush, waiting for the right moment to use it.
“Did it get through?”
“No. But it told me things.”
“What things?”
“That he’s done watching.” Pedro paused. “And that he’s considerably more skilled than I gave him credit for. The probe was well built. If my wards were newer, or less deeply rooted, it would have found a seam.”
Pax got up and moved to the window. The desert outside was the flat gray-black of deep pre-dawn. “Does he know you felt it?”
“He knows the probe didn’t bring back what he sent it for. He’ll read that one of two ways. Either the wards are stronger than he thought, or someone on our side is actively watching him. Either way, he moves faster now, not slower.”
“How fast?”
“Days. Not weeks.”
Pax looked out at the dark and recalculated everything. The careful timeline they’d been building was suddenly too slow.
“I need to talk to Ari,” he said.
“Yes,” Pedro said. “And Rodrigo. And your mate.”
Pax didn’t bother asking how the old shaman knew. Pedro always knew everything before everyone else.
“I’ll call them now.”
“Come to me first. Both of you, before the others.” A pause. “There is something I need to show you that I haven’t shown anyone yet.”
Pedro’s house at five in the morning looked exactly as it did at any other hour. The lamp in the window had probably been burning since before midnight and would probably burn until noon.
Pax and Ari took the two chairs by the window. Pedro stood at the center of the room and held out his hand, palm up.
What he showed them wasn’t physical. It was the ward itself, or a representation of it, a shape hanging in the air above his palm. Pax couldn’t see it directly, but he could feel the edges of it, old and deep. And in one section, near the edge closest to town, there was a mark.
Like a fingerprint pressed into wax.
“He left this when the probe touched the ward,” Pedro said. “He didn’t mean to. When a working recoils, the mage’s signature stays behind sometimes.” He studied the mark. “This is Alexander Hernandez.”
Pax couldn’t read it, not the way Pedro could, but he could see it. Distinct. Individual, like handwriting.
“Can you use that against him?” Ari asked.
Pedro lowered his hand and the image faded. “To find him, yes. To trace him. And to build a working made just for him, if we need one.”
“What kind of working?” Pax asked.
“The kind that removes advantages. His sensing ability. His ability to project his spells at long range.” Pedro spread his hands.
“I can’t strip his power. That can’t be done cleanly, and the consequences of doing it uncleanly are ones I won’t accept.
But I can blind certain capabilities. Temporarily. At close range, for long enough.”
Pax and Ari shared a look.
“That changes the plan,” Ari said.
“That improves the plan,” Pax said.
“Tell Rodrigo I’ll need to be present when you move on the mage,” Pedro said.
“Not at a distance. Present.” It clearly cost him to say it.
Pedro always worked from cover, from the periphery, from the invisible position that had kept him and the Clan safe for generations.
Standing out in the open went against everything he was.
“Pedro,” Pax said.
The old man regarded him.
“Thank you.”
Pedro nodded once. “Go. Call your people.”
Rodrigo took the new information without visible reaction, folded it into the existing structure, and adjusted.
He asked a few pointed questions, then he moved the timing of the operation up.
They would go the day after tomorrow, with the full deployment of Clan assets instead of the limited positioning they’d originally planned.
He called Elena, and Elena called four others, and by eight in the morning the Clan council had reconvened at the reservation Clan hall. The room was fuller than Pax had ever seen it.
Since Pedro had skipped this gathering, Pax laid out what he knew, starting with Hernandez’s probe and Pedro’s discovery of his magical signature. He described what he could of the magical working Pedro was offering and his need to be on-site when they confronted the mage.
Heads shook all around the circle when they heard that, with a few objections to putting Pedro on the front lines, so to speak. They also discussed the shortened timeline and the details of the plan Pax and Ari had devised.
Bree’s contributions went into the presentation without comment about their source, and partway through, he noticed Elena watching him. He’d bet she’d already figured out where the detailed knowledge of the town’s civilian geography had come from. Her mouth was curving, just slightly.
Pax stopped pretending. There was something he needed to do, and this was the room to do it in.
“Before we go further,” he said, “the council should know. Briana Leeland is my mate. I’ve talked to her about what that means and she’s accepted me.
” He looked around the room, meeting the gazes that turned toward him.
“She knows this town better than anyone in this room. She knows which business owners will cooperate with being closed for a morning without needing explanations we can’t give, and she knows the layout of the stores and the allies behind them better than any map can show.
She’s been an asset all the way through this crisis and for many years before that.
I want the Clan to formally acknowledge her. ”
The room stilled. Then Elena said, to nobody in particular, “Finally,” and there was a low ripple of amusement that eased the tension in his shoulders.
Rodrigo looked at Pax for a long moment. Then he turned to take in the room. “Any objections to Bree Leeland being recognized as a new member of this Clan?”
There were none.
“Then she’s recognized,” Rodrigo said. “She has long been an ally of this Clan, and I now recognize her as the mate of one of my Betas.” He inclined his head to Pax. “Tell her the Clan looks forward to welcoming her properly, when there’s time to do it right.”
Pax sat down, yielding the floor to others while breathing a sigh of relief. Joy bubbled up in his heart. He was mated to Bree in the eyes of his Clan. That was huge!
He couldn’t resist texting her under the table.
“I just told the council you’re my mate. Rodrigo recognized you formally. As far as the Clan is concerned, you’re one of us now. We move the day after tomorrow.”
She replied in under a minute.
“One of us, huh? I like the sound of that. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
He smiled at his phone, put it away, and went back to the meeting.
At the Wraiths’ compound in Wyoming, Cole received the briefing by phone that afternoon. He seemed to pause for just a minute to absorb Pax’s report before replying.
“You’re moving on a Venifucus mage with a relatively small part of your jaguar Clan and an ancient human shaman,” Cole said, as if he was just making sure he’d heard Pax correctly.
“And a hardware store owner,” Pax added, feeling the need to point out the absurdity of their plan. Pax and Ari were used to going into battle with a well-trained team of commandos who could call in battle mage help, when necessary. This proposed operation was far from what they were used to.
Another pause. “Jesse authorized me to offer backup. We don’t have a lot of assets available, but I can scramble what we do have to your location. Just say the word.”
“We appreciate it, but we don’t need it.
What we do need is for you to be ready to receive a full intelligence package.
Hernandez’s Venifucus contacts, the cartel infrastructure he built here, the names, and the network map.
Ari is collating what we have now and I’m sure we’re going to add to it once we conquer the mage.
Your people can use that intel better than us.
You also have more contacts to disseminate it where it will be best used.
We’ll do a formal report to the Lords, of course, but for the operational side, we figured you would need the full brief too. ”
“We can do that and would be much obliged for whatever intel you can pass along. As you know, we have gaps in our knowledge that almost cost you your life. We’re actively trying to rectify that problem and any intel you have will be most welcome.
” Cole hesitated before going on. “And about that incomplete brief on Salt Lake City. Jesse wants you to know he’s taken responsibility for that personally.
It was our failure, and it put you and your brother in an impossible position.
We didn’t intend that at all. It wasn’t some sort of loyalty test or gotcha operation.
We didn’t do it on purpose and we need you to know that. ”
Pax took that in. Honest accountability didn’t heal anything, but it was good that Jesse had made the effort.
“Noted,” he said. “And accepted.” Pax paused for just a moment before going on.
“In fact, Ari and I have tossed around the idea that sending us through Salt Lake might’ve been a deliberate attempt to harm the potential alliances we’ve been working on with your outfit, the bears in Grizzly Cove, and others. ”
“You might have something there,” Cole replied slowly. “I’ll keep that in mind as I build the picture of exactly where we failed. That’s something we’re not going to drop. We need to know where in the chain our intel got screwed up so it doesn’t happen again.”
“I hope you’ll keep us posted on what you find out,” Pax said, being polite but there was steel behind his words. The Wraiths owed him that much. If they found out how they’d been betrayed or misled, Pax wanted to know about it too.
“Will do. And Pax, the offer stands for both of you. Jesse said to tell you the door is always open to you and your twin. One or both, you’re always welcome among the Wraiths.”
“Thanks, Cole. I’ll pass that along to Ari.
” Pax didn’t say he wouldn’t be taking the Wraiths up on their offer.
He still didn’t know them well enough to talk about the seriousness of his relationship with Bree.
It was too early in the relationship for his jaguar to be so cavalier with the precious knowledge that she existed and had agreed to be his mate.
Pax ended the call and looked out the window at the desert. The operation was set for the day after tomorrow. After that, they’d all be free to make plans for the future, including, or maybe especially, Ari.
Pax drove to the store and went in through the back. Bree was at the counter with the town map spread in front of her, a pencil in her hand, and several positions already marked in her clean, precise notation. She looked up and smiled when she saw him.
“I’ve been thinking about the alley,” she said in lieu of greeting him.
He went around the counter, and she turned the map toward him.
“There’s a loading bay two doors down that’s been sitting empty for the better part of a year.
The lease fell through and nobody ever took the space.
” She tapped it with the pencil. “Nobody uses it. There’s no reason for anyone to be back there.
If Hernandez sends men around back—and why wouldn’t he, because the alley is the only approach you don’t control—they could stage themselves there before they move on the store. ”
He studied the map. She was right. He hadn’t known the property had been vacant so long. Knowing that, it made a perfect approach point.
“We should have two people in there before dawn to prevent their using it,” she said.
“Agreed.” He pulled up the chair from beside the desk. “Show me everything else you’ve been thinking about.”
She showed him. It took an hour, and three of her observations went straight into the plan. By the time they finished, the map had a dozen new marks on it and the plan was better than the one he’d walked in with. He looked at the map, then at her.
“You know what you’d be doing in another life?” he asked.
“What?” She gave him a bemused expression.
“This.” He gestured at the map. “Planning. Intelligence work. You think in systems, you know your terrain, and you don’t get attached to a plan when a better one shows up.”
She considered that, then shrugged. “I like the hardware store,” she said finally.
“I know.” He folded the map. “I’m just acknowledging the talent, babe.”
She hid her smile, but he knew his words pleased her. “Day after tomorrow,” she murmured like a talisman.
“Day after tomorrow,” he agreed, making it sound like a vow.