VERONICA SINGER
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Contents
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
32. Epilogue
About the Author
Tothosewhowalkontwofeet,buthuntonfour.
Chapter One
We were walking down Roppongi Dori Avenue, enjoying the press of the crowds, the psychic thrum that all large cities possess, as well as the scents of the humans mixed with the occasional supernatural.
Mason walked beside me, his strong hand holding mine, the tingle of magic in his touch.
I was wearing a red silk dress, matching high-heeled shoes and purse, and one of my favorite hats. The magical nail polish on my finger and toenails exactly matched my outfit—one of the advantages of having a magician boyfriend.
Maybe more than a boyfriend. I had a feeling that we were soon going to have "the talk."
Logan and Kuga-san walked about five feet behind us, enjoying the warm spring night. Both had dates set up for later, but for now, they had accepted our invitation to eat at the Barbacoa Brazilian restaurant. A very nice place, one of the few in Japan that offered a fixed price unlimited meat meal.
We had amazed the waiters with the amount of food we had consumed. Slice after slice of grilled steak, chicken, and cheeses, all topped off with excellent red wine. If the waiters had known they
were feeding a magician, two werewolves, and a wolf-pack ally, they might have been less surprised by our capacity.
Mason was on my left, walking facing traffic on the sidewalk. He turned to look at my eyes, and I knew he was going to ask me to come back to his apartment.
As we walked, I felt the gazes of men we passed as they admired my figure. A combination of my werewolf alertness and burgeoning magical abilities, I knew when people were staring at me. Mason teased me and called it my ‘Spidey-sense.’ He could neither explain or duplicate it.
It was so nice to relax. Our lives were finally getting back to normal. Mason had returned from his quest to the Fae realms, and I had liberated my dad from the insane asylum so he could help my mom regain her memories. Even Logan was preparing to visit his estranged daughters. Life was finally looking up.
Like an omen of good fortune, a Japanese couple came toward us pushing a baby carriage that held the cutest little boy. He had bright shining eyes and an infectious smile. I felt that twinge inside—the one that most women feel when looking at babies. Maybe I could delicately bring up the subject of babies with Mason? Sure, I'd told him I wasn't ready for children, but a girl can change her mind, right?
Then it happened. A car jumped the curb, speeding up at a phenomenal rate and hitting Mason. His hand was ripped from mine as he flew through the air. The flash of magic showed his personal shield had activated. I hoped it had been enough to save him from injury.
But the damn car continued and struck Kuga-san, who had been strolling right behind Mason. She had no magical protections. She was barely stronger and faster than a standard human. I felt the sickening crunch of bones through the psychic link we shared.
I took a quick scan of the crowd and noted several young men watching us. They were different in many ways, but all shared a muscular physique and similar stares.
Then I felt the burning spots on my body that told me someone— hell, several someones—were targeting me. I prepared to leap away and get out of the line of fire, but hesitated. I didn’t want innocent bystanders getting hit.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw that the parents were swiftly backing up to get away from the accident. Good; the baby would be safe.
Still, I knew I was fast enough to take down my attackers. My inner wolf rose, bringing my already enhanced strength and speed to superhuman levels. I would eliminate those assailants before they knew what hit them.
Then one of the men reached into the baby carriage and threw the baby at me. Reflexes took over, and I curled over the tiny infant, protecting it with my body. I had just enough time to scent the addictive smell of the baby: talcum powder, Johnson’s baby shampoo, and innocence. The poor kid's heartbeat was speeding up, and he opened his mouth to wail.
Then I heard the explosion to my right. A metal net had been embedded in the wall, set to spring out and wrap around whomever was in front of it. A clever trap. The bastards must have known that my wolf could sense intent, so they had set a mechanical trap.
The net wrapped around my body, then an electric charge zapped me. Usually, tasers and such can't hurt me, but this happened so fast I couldn't prepare. Instead of being shunted away, the electricity poured through my body. I used the last of my magic to protect the baby.
I could vaguely feel the impact of the tranquilizer darts as they hit my back.
My last thought was, Whatkindofmonsterwoulduseababytotrap awerewolf?
I WOKE to the loud thrumming sounds of a multi-engine aircraft. My head was slumped down on my chest, and my long black hair covered my face. I made no motion to let my captors know I was awake. Through slitted eyes, I could only look down to examine my surroundings.
My purse, shoes, and clothes were gone, and I had been dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Manacles, one set on my wrists and another on my ankles, bound my arms and legs together. They were much larger than those used on humans. Each set of manacles had a steel cable, a quarter-inch thick, running down to the floor of the aircraft and affixed there by metal hooks. The floor clamps were built so that they could fold down out of the way when not needed.
The aircraft was cold and drafty. I missed my fur but held off on making any changes until I knew more. Looking down, all I could see was a steel plate patterned with rectangles of black non-skid sandpaper glued to the deck. The non-skid surface between my feet was scuffed away, leaving only shiny metal behind. The metal was cold, drawing heat from my body through my bare feet. I willed calluses to appear on the soles of my feet, as I would do for a barefoot mountain run.
My seat was a long bench along the aircraft's outer wall, made of aluminum tubes over which was stretched orange nylon canvas, sort of like lawn chairs. I shifted my eyes up, careful not to move my head, and saw large wooden crates that seemed to take most of the space in the large aircraft. Was this some kind of cargo plane?
My head was fuzzy and my vision dim, all colors muted. An aftereffect of the tranquilizer? I maintained my breathing pattern, resisting the overwhelming urge to leap up and start killing.
The noise from the engines was deafening, so I concentrated on that. Mason had mentioned a spell that duplicated the effect of those expensive sound-dampening headphones people wore during flights. Repeating noises, like the constant thrum of the engines, was muted by the spell, while non-repeating noises were allowed through. Something about sampling the vibrations and forcing the air around the ears to vibrate in counterpoint. He had explained it with equations; I thought of it as musical harmonies.
It shouldn't take much energy at all—only the tiniest trickle of magic to create the counter-vibrating sounds. I thought the spell through over and over, sub-vocalizing the words so no one could hear. Every time, I lost the thread of the spell, but I'm a stubborn wolf. I repeated the sequence a dozen times before getting it right.
It finally worked, and the throbbing of the engines dropped down to a low background hum. I could now hear almost as well as if the engines had been silent.
Closing my eyes completely, I concentrated on the sounds. I could hear distorted voices, a man and a woman.
"Did she move?" asked the man.
"No," replied the woman, "that's just the jostling from the movement of the aircraft. With her O2 saturation so low, she'll be out for hours."
There was also some chatter from the rest of the crew, but they were far off to my left, at the front of the aircraft. I couldn't concentrate hard enough to make out what they were saying.
O2 saturation? What was that? O2 was oxygen, right? And saturation was something to do with the level of…
I brought my brain back to heel. Low O2 saturation meant I wasn't breathing normally. A quick probe of my lungs and a deeper breath indicated no physical problem with me. Were these bastards keeping the oxygen level in the air low to keep me knocked out?
Mason had once told me about a spell that pulled all the oxygen out of a sphere around an opponent's head, forcing them into unconsciousness.
An air witch had later tried a similar spell on me, only she hadn't been as good as Mason. Her spell had pulled all the air out of the space around my head. The sudden vacuum hadn't hurt me but had alerted me to the effect in time to end her threat.
Could I reverse Mason's spell? Bring oxygen to me instead of pushing it away?
I tried and tried to get the oxygen in the cabin to flow to me, but was unable to direct what little oxygen there was. The gas I wanted was very slippery and kept getting away.
I didn’t have enough magical energy or skill to do this. Or at least, not enough to run the noise-canceling spell and the oxygen spell at the same time.
I dropped the noise-canceling spell, hoping that the tiny extra bit of magical energy would be enough to cast the new spell. What should I call it? Luna's Life-Saving O2 Spell? I could just imagine how proud Mason would be that his werewolf had worked out a new spell on her own. Then we would go out to dinner, and then—
I stopped those thoughts abruptly. For all I knew, Mason was dead. My inner wolf growled at that thought, and I sent a mental hug to calm her. Dead or not, he wasn't here to help me. So, what did I need to do…
Thoughts scattered again, refusing to line up in logical order. I realized oxygen deprivation was like being drunk, making it very hard to string thoughts together. I deepened my breaths slightly, determined to get as much air as possible. I hoped the change wouldn't be noticeable to my captors.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I coaxed the molecules of oxygen to float toward me, building up around my head. The spell was as difficult as
pushing a truck up a hill. Then, as I got more oxygen, it became like pushing a truck on a level road, then like riding a bike, and then it was all downhill.
As soon as my head cleared, I re-started the noise-canceling spell. Now I could think and hear clearly. My vision cleared, colors were much brighter, and a headache I hadn't even realized I had disappeared. I started to feel giddy and realized I was getting too much oxygen. I lowered the strength of the spell slightly.
With the clarity brought on by getting enough oxygen, I could feel the psychic link I shared with Kuga and Logan. They were alive, but far away. I pushed them out of my mind to concentrate on the current situation.
Now that I could see and think clearly, the details of the aircraft came through. I was careful to keep my head down, using only peripheral vision and hearing to determine my surroundings.
We were in a long cargo area. There were large pallets with wooden crates on them, strapped down to keep them from shifting. On the deck were four rows of tracks that ran all the way from the front to the rear of the aircraft. Each track had metal wheels or rollers inset in them. I realized that they were so the pallets could be rolled out the back of the aircraft.
The woman said, "Watch it! Her O2 level is rising." A click, then she said, "Pilot, did you increase the oxygen in the cargo area?"
Faintly, I heard the reply, "Negative; our instruments show the cabin still pressurized to twenty thousand feet."
"She's waking up," said the man.
I felt the pinch of something clipped to my right earlobe. Was this what they were using to track my oxygen levels? I mentally clamped off the veins in my earlobe to stop the blood flow. I might lose part of my ear until it grew back, but it would be worth it. As a werewolf, I couldn’t wear jewelry anyway.
Except for the magical necklace and amulet that Mason had crafted for me last year. It had a moonstone that contained centuries of lunar energy, enough energy to make me the strongest werewolf in the world. And it was protected by an invisibility spell that prevented anyone from seeing it unless I willed it.
At my thought, the weight of the dense platinum and white gold links tugged at my neck, reassuring me that the moonstone was still there. So, the bastards hadn’t managed to take everything from me.
The woman was smacking a small handheld device in her palm. "Damn O2 sensor must be busted," she said. "It spiked up to normal, then dropped way down. If this were right, she'd be dead."
"Poke the bitch to see if she's dead," said the man.
"Screw you, Sergeant Dickerson," she replied. "You're the Special Forces hero."
Their bickering continued while I thought about the noise-canceling spell. With a few tweaks, it could be used to amplify sounds. Not that I needed to hear better, but the tweaked spell could be used to make my voice much louder. My inner wolf perked up. With that spell, our howl could be heard for twenty miles.
Three new spells in such a short time. Why did I do my best magical work when I was captured and imprisoned?
"Okay, TechSergeantCorbin," said the man, "I'll cover her, and you check her status. If she dies before we land, we're both in deep shit."
I felt the burning dot that indicated someone was aiming at me and looked up. There were two military types in front of me, and one of them—a short, broad-shouldered man in military camouflage, flak jacket, and a helmet—was aiming a rifle at me. His uniform nametag read “Dickerson.” I recognized him instantly as the bastard who had thrown the baby at me.
On his shoulder was a strange patch. It had a red cartoon devil— what was he called? Oh yes, Hot Stuff, the little devil. Above the patch were the letters WHM.
His companion was a taller woman in a matching uniform, but without the devil patch. Her nametag read “Corbin.” She was holding a pistol, also aimed at me.
They both wore black plastic oxygen masks, with tubes trailing out behind that attached to a bulkhead outlet.
I maintained my eyelids’ half-closed position and peered at them as if still affected by the low oxygen.
I was planning how to kill them when the woman said, "None of the other werewolves could stay awake at this altitude."
I bet none of the other werewolves could do magic, either. Let's keepthatasecret,I thought. I sniffed again to be sure, but my first survey had been correct: There were no other werewolves on this aircraft. Had this military organization been capturing werewolves?
They both stared at me, suspicion flaring. I slurred out, "Bitch, I run marathons in Denver. This is nothing." Then I allowed my head to roll forward as if I had collapsed again.
Speaking loudly to be heard over the roaring engines, the man said, "Prisoner, you will obey all orders. Any attempt to escape or cause trouble will result in your execution. You will keep your mouth shut and obey all orders. Am I clear?" The last was delivered as a shout. Clearly he wasn't going to let me play dead anymore.
I took a deep whiff, and my wolf sized him up. A mixture of sweat, synthetic testosterone, and tobacco. His eyes had the glazed look of a fanatic as he stared into mine, expecting me to avert my gaze. No problem for us. I held his gaze long enough for him to feel uncomfortable, then I snorted and turned my attention to Corbin.
She was a standard human female, in good shape but with no chemical enhancements. Still, the hand that held the pistol, a .45 automatic, had no trace of tremor. She was prepared to shoot.
"I'mtalkingtoyou,prisoner," shouted GI Joe. I raised my hands, still bound together by the manacles, and held one finger up to my lips in a shushing motion. His eyes bulged, and his face got red.
As the idiot took a deep breath to shout again, I decided to ask the woman the most important question. Using my amplify spell to overcome the engine's roar without shouting, I asked, "Is the baby okay?"
Chapter Two
"What baby?" she asked, brows crinkling in puzzlement. They were ignoring my amplified voice, a typical reaction to magic.
"The baby GI Joe used to trap me," I responded, pointing a thumb at him.
I felt the rush of air at the side of my head that presaged a slap. I tilted my head slightly and his open palm missed by a fraction of an inch. He stumbled as he windmilled around, almost losing his balance.
"Please don't do that," I said. "I don't want to hurt you—yet." The emphasis on the last word gave him pause.
I turned my attention back to the female. "Is the baby okay?" I repeated.
"What baby?" she repeated.
"The baby your buddy threw at me to trap me," I said, nodding at the idiot.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "I wasn't part of the ground team. Nobody said anything about using a baby…"
The look she gave her partner was all the evidence I needed. She knew he was crazy enough to use a baby as bait.
She looked at GI Joe, who shook his head. With gritted teeth, he said, "I don't give a fuck about a Jap bastard. I hope he got zapped when we took you down."
The memory of the fresh baby scent, how his little heart had hammered, and how this bastard had endangered him made my wolf come to the fore. I just barely avoided shifting, but we were determined to end this man.
I pulled my arms up, and the steel cable grew taut. I felt the cheap aluminum tubing of my seat start to buckle, so I scooted forward to get my feet under me.
I stood, straining every sinew, but keeping my face calm.
Joe stepped back and smiled, secure that no one could break that cable. Then it stretched and became thinner, and the first strand of the cable parted with a snap that could be heard over the roaring engines.
Then one after another, the other strands snapped, and the cable parted like tissue paper. I funneled energy to my arms to heal more quickly. That stunt had done a lot of damage. Luckily, it was all internal, so the idiot didn't know how close I had been to failing.
He was backing up, trying to reach a safe distance, not realizing that there was no safe distance in the world for him now.
He reached the end of his air hose and stopped. He brandished his weapon, and I saw his finger tighten on the trigger. From the scent, I knew that these were not silver bullets. It would be painful, but I could survive a few shots.
I twisted sideways, much quicker than any human, and his aim was suddenly off to the side. He adjusted his aim, and I spun to the other side as far as my tether would reach. Even with my feet still
chained, it was clear I could dodge any shots he could make. Kugasan, who had seen me train, said I looked like that actor in the Matrixmovie when I moved.
The female held her hands up in horror. I suddenly realized that this idiot shooting in the aircraft could hit the pilot or damage equipment and cause us to crash.
"Stop, Sergeant!" she shouted. "You'll get us all killed."
GI Joe froze up like a robot with a glitch. He wanted to shoot me but realized he could die too. He pointed his gun's muzzle down, but his body was trembling with anger.
"Go find out if the baby's okay," I said to the female, adding the emphasis of an alpha to my request. She was turning away toward the cockpit before she realized that her prisoner was giving her orders. I could see the momentary hesitation as her step faltered, then the decision to follow through. She reached down to her belt, where a small green oxygen tank was mounted, and twisted a control. She popped her air hose from the bulkhead outlet and headed forward
The sergeant's eyes had glazed over as his mind refused to believe what he had seen. He was muttering to himself, "The cable was rusted, and had a kink in it. That's why it broke. I didn't notice because the oxygen dropped out." He twisted the control on his oxygen bottle and pulled his hose free from bulkhead connector.
That was how most humans avoided confronting the supernatural. But the woman had said "werewolves." Did these people believe in the supernatural or not?
Maybe not. My manacles were steel, not silver; I could get out of them easily.
I took a look around with clear eyes, searching for the tell-tale glow of infrared lights and electronic cameras. Nothing. Probably to
prevent some military guy with a conscience from posting videos of secret prisoner transfers on YouTube. I could act freely.
While GI Joe was muttering and shaking his head, I shifted my forearms and hands to wolf paws. Still pretty large—I'm a big girl in both my forms—but my paws are much smaller than my hands.
I caught the manacles before they could hit the deck, then I tossed them behind the sergeant. They hit the steel deck with a clang, and he twisted around to look.
While his attention was diverted, I shifted my feet into paws and stepped out of the leg manacles. I was back to human form before he could turn back around.
I slid up behind him as quietly as a ghost. Stalking wasn't necessary with all this noise, but a girl has to keep in practice.
From behind him, I clamped his elbows with each of my hands in a grip that no human could best. He twisted and tried to turn, but I kept him rooted in place. I leaned down near his ear and growled, a sound that would remain in his memory for the rest of his short life. He was wearing those little pink earplugs, which just meant I had to growl louder.
"Joe," I said, in a whisper loud enough to be heard, "you know what I did to the last person who aimed a rifle at me?"
I accepted his tremors as a shrug and answered, "I shoved the rifle up her ass and pulled the trigger. You should have seen how her body jerked."
He could rationalize the cable breaking, rationalize that he had freed me from the manacles, but he would always have this memory in his subconscious.
I popped a claw and cut the strap that held his rifle in place. I grabbed it from his grasp and turned away.
"Let's keep this someplace safe," I said. "I'm going to go and talk to the pilots."
As soon as my back was turned, he attacked. Ofcoursehe attacked. I sidestepped his rush and slashed out with a claw, and he fell to the deck face-down. He curled up in a ball, both hands attempting to stanch the flow of blood from where his genitals used to be. A pool of blood started forming below him, a few grisly bits floating in it. A throat slash would have been cleaner, quicker, more merciful. But the bastard hadn't shown that baby any mercy.
I stepped away quickly enough to avoid the blood and walked up to the forward cabin. I pulled the oxygen sensor off of my ear and enjoyed the tingle as blood flow returned. I tossed the sensor up on the top of one of the crates.
As I walked, I did a position check. Werewolves always know where the moon is, and we usually have a very good sense of what time it is. Put these together with some training, and we usually know exactly where in the world we are.
The only problem here is that my navigation skills had been honed on the Earth's surface, moving at normal speeds. On the ground, I could tell where I was down to a few yards, but in this aircraft traveling over three hundred fifty miles per hour, I could only tell that we were far from Japan and headed north.
The cockpit was in a closed-off section of the aircraft at the very front. It was higher than the cargo area, and a metal ladder led up to the compartment.
I sniffed at the door and determined that there were four men and Corbin inside. If the air weren't so thin, I could have told more. Scents don't carry well in low-pressure areas.
I took a moment to decide how to approach this, and decided on ditzy. I dropped the rifle and grabbed it by the barrel with two fingers, the way a housewife would carry a dead rat.
I popped the door open, breaking a cheap lock, and said, "Hey, GI Joe fell and hurt himself. He might need a doctor."
They all turned to stare at me. Everyone wore one of those black oxygen masks, and the four male crew members were in green jumpsuits. No helmets, weapons, or flak jackets for them. All were wearing big headphones, the kind with an attached microphone on a little arm that could be swung out of the way. I guessed that when they were wearing the masks, the microphone for the radio was built into the mask.
"And he dropped this," I said, holding the rifle up.
They all froze at the sight of the weapon and their fear scent spiked. Then they relaxed as they saw that I obviously didn't know how to handle the rifle.
"So, like I was saying," I said, "Joe let me loose so I could go pee, y’know? Then he slipped or something, and he musta hit a sharp piece of metal, cause he's bleeding pretty bad."
"The sergeant's injured?" asked the female.
"Yeah," I said, "it looks pretty bad. I think we should turn around and fly him back to the nearest hospital."
Corbin ran down the stairs to see to the sergeant.
The guy in the left seat shook his head and said, "We can't change course, and we can't land anywhere else besides our designated landing strip."
"Sure you can," I chided, "you have an emergency. Airplanes do it all the time. I seen it on TV." I pouted a bit. "Don't you want to help GI Joe?"
He shook his head again. "If he lives, he lives; if he dies, he dies. We’re going to land in about three hours at our designated landing strip. And you'll be back in manacles when we do."
So much for the easy way. I let the wolf come up and felt my eyes change, the pupils expanding so that my entire eye was bright blue. Faster than they could react, the rifle was in my hands, and the barrel was pointed between his eyes.
"What do you mean, we can't turn around?" I said in my most dangerous voice.
"Lady," said the guy in the pilot's seat, "you can shoot me if you want. But we have two fighters escorting us. Any deviation from the flight plan and they’ll shoot us down."
Bastards. Could I survive a rocket up my ass? Hell, no. This wasn't rifle fire; a rocket wouldn't leave anything behind to heal.
Mason could probably handle two fighters, or at least make the missiles miss. But he wasn't here, and I had to work with what I had.
Where wasMason? I could still feel Logan and Kuga-san through the psychic link we shared. Kuga-san was alive, but the amount of pain she was feeling was disorienting. I increased the amount of pack energy she was receiving through our link to the maximum the link would allow. At this point, the risk of burning out her body with too much energy was less than the risk from her injuries.
I desperately wanted to know how Mason was. Was he still alive? Dead? We were lovers, but didn't have the same psychic connection that I shared with my pack. I tried to think of a way out of this, a way to get back to Mason.
I blinked and realized I had been frozen in place holding a rifle to the pilot's head. All the crew members had drops of sweat on their faces. I was getting into that weird habit magicians had, spending more time in the supernatural world than in the natural one.
"So," I said as if there had been no delay, "you guys have any parachutes on board?"
All shook their heads. Damn, they were telling the truth. I was stuck. I would have to wait until we landed and then escape.
Forcing the wolf down, I ejected the magazine, cycled the action, and extracted the round in the chamber, then handed the rifle to the co-pilot. "Hey, could you put this thing away? If it goes off, someone might get hurt."
Now that I had disarmed myself, he found the courage to smirk. "Yeah, you're stuck with us," he said. "Now go back to your seat and get cuffed up like a good girl."
I gave him a steady stare and replied, "We're stuck with each other. All except for GI Joe. I won't be putting those cuffs back on."
Chapter Three
Back in the cargo area, the female was pressing a large bandage to GI Joe's crotch. A first aid kit was open on the deck beside them. I could tell from his slowing heartbeat and labored breathing that he had little time left.
"You're wasting your time," I said. "Did you get an update on the baby?"
The look in her eyes was enough; her voice trembled as she said, "The news reported that a terrorist group’s attack resulted in the death of a child and multiple injuries in Tokyo." Tears streamed down her masked face.
Red flashed before my eyes. I took a deep breath before asking, "Which terrorist group?"
"Yours," she said. "The Werewolves of Luna."
Were they trying to blame this on me? I realized my claws were out for slashing, but I stopped myself just in time. The only way to get the truth out was if someone from this team told the truth. Clever idea, though. Name a pack the "Werewolf Terrorists" and werewolves could be hunted with all the resources of the US government.
"Terrorist? Me? You know I'm an English teacher in Tokyo, right?" I said.
"You've been connected to an attack at several clubs in Tokyo, a bombing in a hospital in Caspar, and other incidents," she said.
Just to check, I said, "You also know werewolves aren't real, right?" I pulled my claws back, which she ignored.
She nodded, then continued, "I didn't pick the name, you did. In your manifesto."
Manifesto?I needed to spend more time online, maybe set up some Google alerts.
"But you know it's not true," I said. "I could tell you knew the truth when GI Joe bragged about throwing that baby."
"Maybe that was his fault," she said. "But there are a lot of other incidents."
"Other incidents?" I asked. Then I held up a hand to stop her; more lies wouldn't help.
She looked down at GI Joe. "He can't breathe," she said.
Sure enough, he was gasping, not getting enough oxygen from his mask. Maybe his little bottle was empty.
"You should tell the pilot to pressurize the compartment so you can take his mask off," I said.
"We can't do that," she said. "The protocol is to keep the cabin pressurized to twenty thousand feet to keep the terrorists…"
I pointed to my unmasked, alert face and raised an eyebrow.
"But no human can stay awake at twenty thousand feet," she protested.
"Denver. Marathons," I said. Sometimes, you have to give humans an acceptable excuse, even if it was bullshit. "I don't need the extra oxygen, but your boyfriend does. If he dies, it'll be your fault." The flash of guilt in her eyes was satisfying.
Did I feel bad about manipulating her feelings? When she had helped prepare this trap, held me at gunpoint, and was escorting me to prison? Not really.
Keeping the pressure on GI Joe's wound, she clicked her microphone on with the other hand, and called up to the pilot, "We have a medical emergency. Sergeant Dickerson can't breathe. Please bring cabin pressure up to seven thousand feet."
"Negative," responded the pilot. "Our protocol is to maintain cabin pressure at twenty thousand feet until we start our descent."
"I wrote the fucking protocol, you idiot," she shouted desperately. "There's something wrong with the compressors or the instruments." Then she repeated the threat I had used on her. "If the sergeant dies, it'll be your fault."
There was about thirty seconds of silence, then another man's voice came back. "This is the co-pilot," he said. "We're going to run a test on the compressors that might bring cabin pressure up."
I felt the air pressure and temperature rise as warm air started flowing into the cargo hold. The energy required to pull oxygen toward my head lessened and my ears popped. I kept the spell active, but turned down to a low level, in case these idiots tried to choke me off again.
The female reached up and pulled off her mask, leaving streaks of GI Joe's blood on her face, then pulled off his mask. He seemed to breathe a bit easier. But the jostling made his bleeding worse. Fresh rivulets of blood dripped down to the puddle on the deck.
"Hold this bandage in place," she ordered.
"Help save the life of the asshole who kidnapped me, killed a baby, then framed me for the murder?" I shouted. I realized I had used the sound-amplifying spell when her hair blew back.
Quieter, but not by much, I continued, "No. Fucking. Way."
At the look on my face, she shuddered and clicked on her microphone. "I need a crew member down here to help with the sergeant."
Good luck with that. He had already lost a lot of blood and was hanging on by a thread.
I mused for a moment. Could I save his life? Pressure there to stop the blood loss; a duplicate of my oxygen spell to get his O2 saturation up; a touch of heat there to cause a blood clot. I realized I was thinking like a healer, like my dad.
I felt the phantom nip of my inner wolf on my ass. She sent me images of a thrown baby and Kuga-san flying through the air. I hardened my resolve. Werewolves aren't big on forgiveness.
I returned to my seat and sat calmly. I centered myself and gathered my energies. Even if no one on this aircraft could hurt me now, I was still flying into an unknown trap.
I set a circle, a mental shield that would alert me to anyone approaching. Not as good as one of Mason's wards—those could stop a charging rhino—but with a werewolf's reflexes this ward was good enough.
Protected, oxygenated, and warmed, I worked on sensing my location. If she recovered well enough, Kuga could find me through our psychic link; so could Logan. As long as I knew where I was. The pack link wasn't like a cell phone—we couldn't talk over it; it was more like the psychic link human identical twins are supposed to have.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no
prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
