Chapter 93 Ambush

Chapter 93 Ambush
 Jacob Pob

The eastern gate was open when we reached it.

Fen was standing beside it with his back turned, exactly as Cael had said he would be. He did not acknowledge us. He stood at the edge of the gate and looked at the fence post and let us walk through.

I touched his arm as I passed.

He did not respond. But he nodded once, very slightly.

We went through.

The estate grounds were dark. The torches ran along the outer perimeter but the interior was the same unlit stretch we had crossed two nights ago. We moved fast across the open ground and into the tree line.

"The house," Hal said.

The upper window was dark. No lamp.

"He turned it off," Darius said.

"Or she could not keep it on," I said.

"Both are possible," Darius said.

"We move to the house regardless," I said. "She is in that room whether the lamp is on or not."

We went through the tree line. At the edge, I stopped.

The garden wall was twenty yards ahead. The garden gate was on the eastern side.

"The gate will be checked," Hal said.

"Yes," I said. "We go over the wall. Northeast corner. Same as before."

We covered the twenty yards to the wall. I went over first. The lavender bed. Cold ground. Sharp smell.

The garden was not empty.

I stopped the moment my feet hit the ground.

Two fighters were standing near the garden door. Not moving. Positioned. They had been there for some time. Their posture was the posture of people who had been placed and told to wait.

They had not seen me yet. I was in the shadow of the northeast corner.

I stepped back against the wall and held up my fist.

Hal, coming over behind me, felt the signal and went still on top of the wall.

I looked at the two fighters. They were facing the garden door, not the wall. Their attention was on the house.

Wrong direction.

I gestured to Hal. Two. He relayed it to Darius behind him.

We had four. Caius was on the outside. The six wolves were at the eastern boundary.

Two fighters in the garden we could manage.

I pointed to Hal… the left one. I pointed to myself. The right one. Hal nodded.

We moved.

Twelve feet across the garden. Fast and low. The soft soil gave way to the gravel path and I altered my weight distribution to keep the sound off the stones. Three more steps. Two.

I took the right fighter from behind. One hand at the throat to prevent sound. Quick and complete. He went down without a shout.

Hal had the left one down at the same moment.

We held the position for five seconds. The garden was quiet.

"Good," Darius said, coming over the wall.

"Too easy," Hal said. "He has more inside."

"He knows we are coming," I said. "He turned the lamp off. He knew what it meant and he turned it off to tell us she cannot signal anymore."

"Then he is ready for us," Darius said.

"Yes," I said.

"And we are going in anyway," Hal said.

"Yes," I said.

We crossed to the house door. I tried it.

It opened.

I stopped.

"That is not right," Hal said at barely a sound.

"No," I said. "It is not."

An unlocked door at five in the morning after Eric had demonstrated he knew we were coming was not a door left unlocked by accident.

"It is an invitation," Darius said.

"Yes," I said.

"Then we do not go through that door," Hal said.

"We do not have another way in," I said. "The service corridor is locked. Mira confirmed it yesterday."

"Then we go through the invitation and we know what we are walking into," I said. "We know they are expecting us. We know there are more fighters inside. We go in with that knowledge and we do not act surprised."

"That is the whole plan," Hal said.

"Yes," I said.

We went through the door.

The kitchen was dark. No lamp on the table. Bette was not there. The kitchen felt abandoned in a specific way, like it had been deliberately cleared.

We went through to the corridor.

The corridor was lit. Not dimly the way it was in normal household hours. Fully lit. Every bracket lamp is on.

Four fighters at the end of it, positioned across, blocking the base of the stairs.

I had time to register all four and to register that there were two more coming from the side corridor to my right before everything became very fast and very close.

I took the first one with a shoulder strike that put him against the wall. He did not go down. He was good. He pushed back hard and we went sideways into the corridor wall together.

Hal had two of them. Darius had one. The two from the side corridor were on me now along with the first.

I was overpowered in forty seconds. Not because I fought badly. Because six fighters inside a narrow corridor with the advantage of position is a mathematical problem that does not resolve in the outnumbered party's favour regardless of individual quality.

They had my arms behind me. My back against the wall.

Hal had gone down. I could see him from where I was. He was conscious. Two fighters had him.

Darius was held against the opposite wall.

The corridor was breathing hard from everyone in it.

"Stop," said a voice from the stairs.

Eric came down.

He was in his full clothes. He had not been sleeping. He looked at me with complete control, his expression giving nothing away.

"Jacob," he said.

"Eric," I said.

"You came through the eastern gate," he said. "Fen's rotation."

"Yes," I said.

"Fen will be reassigned," he said.

"Fen made a choice based on his conscience," I said. "That is not something you reassign away."

"You would be surprised," he said.

He looked at Darius. He looked at Hal.

"Bring them upstairs," he said.

They took us up the main staircase. My arms were held firmly behind me. I did not fight it. Fighting now costs energy I needed to hold in reserve.

The residential corridor. Third door from the east staircase.

The door opened.

Violet was on the bed. She looked at the door when it opened, then she looked at me. Her face did something I did not have a word for.

"Jacob," she said.

"Violet," I said.

"Are you hurt," she said.

"No," I said. "Are you."

"No," she said. "The contractions are still coming."

Eric came into the room. He stood at the center of it. The fighters held me on one side and Violet was on the bed on the other, with Eric between us, his expression controlled and his everything calculated.

"Sit him down," Eric said.

They put me in the chair by the wall. Rope at my wrists. Functional restraints.

"This is not necessary," I said.

"You broke into my house twice," Eric said. "I disagree."

Violet was watching from the bed. Her hands were on her belly. Another contraction moved through her. I could see it in her face, in the way her hands pressed down. She breathed through it without making a sound.

When it passed she looked at Eric.

"Let him go," she said.

"No," Eric said.

"He is not a threat to you while I am in this room," she said. "You have what you want. I am here. Eli is here. Let Jacob go."

"Jacob coordinated with Fen," Eric said. "Jacob has been compromising my perimeter for three weeks. Jacob is in my house for the second time without permission. I am not releasing him."

"Eric," she said.

"Violet," he said. "Rest. Helen is coming at first light."

"I do not want Helen," she said. "I want you to let him go."

A sound from the doorway.

Everyone looked.

Stephanie stepped into the room.

She was exactly as I remembered her. Taller than Violet. Red hair. The calculating eyes that had always calculated everything in every room she was ever in.

She looked at me.

"Jacob," she said.

"Stephanie," I said. "You look well for someone who has been dead for seven months."

"I manage," she said.