I send one of the shadow-hunters around back of the bar. Another I station here, just outside the ring of sickly orange-yellow light coming from the bar windows, and the third I send back across the highway to keep an eye on whatever might roll down an empty desert road in the middle of the night during the end of the world.
The ugly mullet-headed biker’s almost finished his last cigarette.
Time to roll.
My paws are silent in the sand as I sprint at my prey. The wind rises, ruffling my fur. My fangs glint in the night as I leap and open my jaws, and before the motherfucker can even whimper I’ve ripped out his throat, and as soon as I sink my teeth into him I know he’s a Skin, his red blood watery and weak. I drag him kicking and twitching fifty yards into the desert. He’s not the prey I’d hoped for, but he’s food. I feed, tearing great chunks of flesh from him, stripping the meat from his bones while my animal rages and howls and yearns for more.
A lot more.
The shadow-hunter I sent to roam behind the bar hears something. I cock my head, listening through his ears. It’s a muffled sound.
Moaning. Crying.
Coming from beneath the shadow-hunter’s paws. Behind the bar there’s a broken-down quonset hut and a bunch of rusted-out cars and two warehouses sheathed in aluminum siding that flaps and screeches in the wind.
I dig my fangs into the dead biker, snapping his sternum, digging for his heart, while behind the bar the shadow-hunter approaches one of the warehouses and sniffs the air wafting from underneath the door.
It smells strange. Coppery. Like blood.
Then that low, pained moaning sound.
Then a burst of swearing and laughter as the bar’s front door slams open and three more douchebag Satan’s Spawn bikers pile out.
Fuck.
Even if they are shitfaced it won’t be long before they see their amigo’s blood staining the ground.
The shadow-hunter out back cautiously edges his nose into the warehouse and takes a careful sniff.
I crouch in the shadows, waiting for the three bikers to follow their buddies’ blood-trail right to me.
My shadow-hunter slips inside the warehouse. It’s pitch black inside, but he can see as if it were noon. A few cars up on lifts. A workbench spilling tools along the left wall. And in the far corner, a trapdoor—
“Holy fucking fuck!” one of the three bikers yells.
That’s it, gentleman.
Water’s fine. Come on in.
My shadow-hunter drifts, ghostlike, toward the trapdoor. The air wafting from the trapdoor reeks of fear and suffering and slow death.
The first biker’s got a handgun, some sort of shitty-looking revolver.
The two behind him have knives.
Which means they’re basically unarmed.
“We should go get the boys…” says a scrawny-looking rat-faced dude holding the gun. He’s staring at the bloodstained porch, and he might be a chickenshit, but apparently he’s the only one among the three with any brains, because one of the heavier ones tells him to shut the fuck up and begins walking into the dusty parking lot—
My shadow-hunter bites the heavy steel chain locked across the trapdoor. The chain snaps easily beneath his crushing jaws. The moans from beneath the trapdoor quiet.
The shadow-wolf claws at the edge of the door.
Slides it back.
A rumbling growl escapes my throat.
The rat-faced biker freezes. “You fucking hear that?” he says, his eyes wide in the moonlight. “You fucking hear that? Lets get the boys. Huh?” The ratty guy whirls a half-turn, gripping the handgun in both hands, then whirls again.
Spooked. Pissing his pants.
A grin splits my wolf jaws wide open.
“You’re a whiney little bitch,” the broad-shouldered guy in front says. “Now shut the fuck up or I’ll tear out your tongue.” The guy in front crouches down, dips his finger in his buddies’ blood, stares at it. Like he’s a fucking Indian tracker. Like he can read blood—
My shadow-hunter circles around the trapdoor, listening, waiting, then slides the door open and looks inside. A set of narrow steps lead down to a basement.
There’s blood down there. A lot of it—
I call the shadow-hunter stationed across the road. I don’t want to have to worry about the twitchy rat-faced chickenshit with the handgun getting lucky and actually shooting me. Fact I don’t want him to have time to shoot at all.
Out back, the shadow-wolf descends the basement stairs in three leaps, and when his paws land on a cool, hard-packed dirt floor what he sees makes me leap from the desert, blind with murderous, blood-thirsty rage, like a vengeful god in the heavens come to earth to exact penance from the wicked and sinful, because I’ve done some shitty things in my life, a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I’ve always tried to kill my prey quick and clean.
I’ve always believed in the sanctity of my prey’s blood, the gift of life, how it means something, and in the natural world that’s how animal’s kill: not for sport or twisted fucking enjoyment and cruelty but because they need to kill to survive…but what my shadow-hunter sees…it’s the kind of ugly, sick shit only the Skins and Stricken could think of, and I summon the other two shadow-hunters to my side, knowing the rage fueling my wolf won’t release me from its violent hell-storm until every stinking sicko in the Rusted Spike is lying in a pool of his own blood—
The shadow-wolf in the basement under the warehouse glides to the wall, guarding his flank. The basement is huge; it extends beyond the warehouse, a bunker dug out from the dirt and walled with concrete.
What the bunker is, I realize as I slam into the beefy biker carrying the blade and leaning over the blood stain in the dusty parking lot, is a fucking living pantry.
Row after row of stainless steel industrial tables, the kind you see in kitchens at large restaurants. And chained on every table there’s a Skin, men and women and children, and they all have…pieces of flesh carved from them. IV bags hang beside each table, rubber hoses falling to needles inserted into forearms, dripping saline and painkillers and whatever chemical concoction the motherfuckers decided to inject into their buffet to keep the Skins alive while they carved them up a bit at a time, and about halfway back in the bunker two men and a skinny blonde woman stand over the prone, naked body of a young Latino-looking woman.
One of the men, dressed in pale-green doctor’s scrubs, leans his weight into a gleaming hacksaw, tugs the saw back and forth through the woman’s leg, just below the knee, and by the way his victim’s twitching I know she’s awake, listening to the saw grinding through her shin bones, feeling it vibrate slightly as its metal teeth grind through her marrow—
Me and the other two shadow-hunters leap into the parking lot, straight at the three bikers. A gunshot rings in the night, ricochet’s off one of the Harley’s and zings through the window into the bar. In a flash my shadow-wolf is on the ratty-looking biker holding the gun, ripping him limb from limb and you bet your ass the man screams, hoping he wakes up from the nightmare he’s living, and the first guy gets his arm up just in time to keep me from tearing his face off.
We roll into the dust and then I smell it, the sweet reek of Stricken blood, and then the second biker’s on me, too fast to be a Skin, kicking and punching as his skin stretches and the creature in him surfaces, some kind of reptile or snake judging from how he scales up, and then he’s screaming as well, clawing at the shadow-wolf latched onto his back, ghostly fangs crushing his spine and dropping him—
In the underground bunker the psycho doctor continues sawing at the Latino woman’s leg, her blood splattering across the sickos standing over her and licking their lips. My shadow-wolf prowls along the wall, unnoticed as one of them says, “A grand in gold for half a fucking leg. You guys must be making a killing.”
They all chuckle at the guy’s wit.
Then the doctor says: “Best money’s in trim. The gift that keeps on giving. You see any girls you like, you
let me know.”
The hacksaw slides through the Latino woman’s leg.
“Nah. Just a feed for now, doc,” the man answers, glancing at the blonde chick like he wishes she wasn’t there.
The blonde chick casts a nervous glance over her shoulder.
Maybe sensing something.
Maybe thinking this isn’t such a good idea.
My shadow-hunter launches at the three, a dream of death in snapping fangs and razor claws—
I spring to my feet while the shadow-wolves consume the two bikers out in the parking lot. Their life-force flows into me from the shadow-wolves. My entire body hums with raw power while the third biker, the weird one who looked like he was trying to read blood, goes full animal, a vicious-looking bull with razor-sharp horns and a tail of three twisting black snakes.
The shadows and me leap at him, howling and snarling.
The Stricken’s snakes lash out at my shadow-wolves, whistle through the air, not connecting with anything solid and the bull snorts and stomps and charges, his razor-sharp horns leveled at my neck—
More blood flows in the bunker, and this time it’s not only from the helpless Skins strapped to their death tables. The shadow-wolf murders the blonde chick by crushing her Stricken skull between his jaws, her head popping like a fucking melon. The other guy dies with four claw-wounds slicing across his chest, through his ribs and into his beating black heart.
But the good doctor?
He’s got some fight in him, and as my shadow-wolf readies to pounce the doctor reaches a gloved hand inside his lab coat and throws a handful of bright orange powder at my snarling shadow.
The orange powder hangs in the air for moment, then showers onto the shadow-hunter, and suddenly out in the parking lot my skin explodes in searing, stinging pain and I howl and fall to the ground, scratching at the dirt in agony because the burning is unnatural and unlike any pain I’ve ever imagined.
Some things I feel through them. Good to know.
The powder eats into me like acid and the smell of my fur melting and my skin bubbling rises harsh in my nose and the bull-snake creature ploughs into me, his massive hooves thundering down, narrowly missing my skull—
The orange powder eats into the shadow-wolf as well, weakening him, but he manages to tear the doctor’s stomach open while he’s halfway to becoming an owl-looking creature. The Stricken doctor’s black blood spills into the shadow-wolf’s mouth and out in the parking lot I taste its richness.
A millennia of hunting these twisted monsters. A millennia at the top of the food chain and no fucking orange powder is going to change that…no matter how badly it burns.
Out in the parking lot I roll onto my paws, limping badly, and narrowly miss being gored by the bull’s second charge. Fucking thing’s fast for its size. I steady myself for the third charge as the bar doors swing open behind me and the gunfire begins for real, pop-pop-pop, followed by screaming and the harsh, guttural growls and roars of the Stricken calling their animals—
Down in the feed-room the Stricken doctor turns and flees, clutching his belly to hold his guts in, makes it a few paces before the shadow brings him down and snips the doctor’s Achilles tendon with a well-placed bite. The doctor, his skin covered in fine brown feathers and his face deformed into a bright yellow beak, tries to throw more burning orange powder at the killing shadow. This time the hunter’s ready; he leaps to the side, avoiding the powder, and in a blur of fang and fur he nips out and steals the satchel of powder from the doctor’s hand.
“No,” the doctor pleads, sliding backward along the ground and raising his hands. “Please no I can help you I know who you are I know who you seek I know where —”
The shadow wolf pauses, the satchel dangling between his teeth, awaiting my command.
Bullets fling dust into the air as the snake-bull charges a third time. There’s no way I can overpower him, and I’m too wounded to outmaneuver him, so I wait until he’s nearly on me and drop low. The bull, sensing something’s wrong, tries to slow and twist to the side to avoid me, but his bulk carries him forward.
When he’s right over me, his hooves hammering down, I roll on my back and lift all four paws up at him. My claws, inches long and razor sharp, slip through his thick hide and deep into his belly and now the bull’s weight works against him, my claws dragging deep, leaving a hideous gash and there’s a horrible stretching-tearing sound as the bull’s hide bursts and his guts loose. He bellows while the snakes on his tail hiss and wrap beneath, trying to sink their poisoned fangs into me, but the bull trips on his own insides and crashes hard into the dirt—
“I know…please…I know where he is…the First Fallen…please I’ll tell you…”
The doctor. His whiney voice entering my mind through the ears of my shadow-hunter. Moaning and begging for his life while the shadow-wolf stands over him.
I decide he’s worth listening to, so I command the shadow to stay put and guard the simpering sack of Stricken shit.
Outside the Rusted Spike the Satan’s Spawn bikers are moving in while the bull rolls and moans in a pool of black blood. Flashes of white from the guns and a bullet slams into my side, just behind my shoulder, narrowly missing my heart. The two shadow-hunters run through a hail of whistling bullets and leap on the shooters, giving me time to limp to my feet and sprint behind an old pick-up truck.
My breath is fast and shallow. The powder’s still eating into me, driving my wolf so mad with pain he twists back and begins gnawing at himself, desperate to rid his body of this burning poison.
I think about the hundreds of Skins strapped to the tables beneath the warehouse. Their flesh cut from their bodies and sold, piece by piece, to whoever has the cash.
Armageddon is an opportunity to these sick fucks.
The Skins shouldn’t mean a thing to me. They’re a lower form of life. But still, they’re life, and no life deserves to suffer like that. My wolf stops gnawing at himself, looks out into the wind-swept desert, howls quietly.
I could run. Abandon the Skins.
They’re all gunna die anyway.
There’s no way the Stricken could track me out there, no matter how strong they’ve become. But leaving those Skins to die like that…no.
I’d never forgive myself.
The bitch about life is sometimes you learn the important things too late, then wonder how it might have been if you’d had a fucking clue and done it different the first time around.
Like me sticking around to save a few Skins I really shouldn’t give two shits about.
That sense of duty. Of right and wrong.
Maybe that’s what I was missing as alpha of my pack.
Maybe it wasn’t lack of strength that made me weak.
It was lack of integrity.
And besides, my stomach’s still aching for a feed, and this shithole’s full of beating black hearts.
The pick-up truck’s windows explode in a spray of bullets. Glass showers onto me.
Bullets ping into metal and skip through the dirt.
I peak around the side to see what’s coming.
My two shadow-hunters are doing a fine job of killing a few of the less powerful Stricken. But more sprint out of the bar. At least ten by my count, and I have the feeling I haven’t even seen the worst of them yet. Some are already full-animal. Some are carrying serious-looking artillery. There are more than even the so-called One We Answer To can hope to handle.
I smile into the darkness.
Fuck it.
I’m ready to die.
My brother’s betrayal and death. Losing my pack…and worse, losing my friends. Nash and Mia and Lonny and even the stoner rasta Tate.
And then there’s Lily. My bloodmate.
It’s the stupid things I remember most. The way her lips curled into a sarcastic smile when she was being a smart-ass, which was often. How she held my hand. The hollow of her lower back. The smooth skin behind her knee and high on her thigh, and the way she looked at me whe
n we fucked, her eyes wide and misted and glowing with desire—
Yeah. Fuck it.
I’ve lived a life.
Seen some shit. Been some places.
I’ve eaten fucking sushi.
I’ve even been in love.
I’m ready to die.
Live long enough and you begin to wonder what else the world has to offer. Think you’ve seen it all, experienced it all, felt it all. Then along comes the person you were meant to be with, and the world feels new. You’re like a kid, cruising around all wide-eyed. The world feels big again, full of potential and promise.
That’s what love does.
Recreates the world. Softens it.
Makes it fucking bearable.
Gives you hope.
Then you fuck it up.
Guess I should’ve stayed alone in the desert. It’s easy to be brave when you’ve turned your back on life. Easy to be righteous when the world isn’t fucking with you.
Every. Single. Day.
That’s why all the seers and messiahs and monks hole themselves up in caves and castles and go all hermit: it’s tough to live clean out here, in the muck and shit and mess, just trying to keep your head afloat and not betray the scrap of goodness each and every one of us has.
Yeah.
The monks and messiah’s can keep their self-righteous, holier-than-thou bullshit. Toss ‘em out here with the rest of us just trying to live our lives as best we can and see how long their fucking wisdom and purity lasts.
There’s no easy answers out here, and that’s the cold truth.
“What a fucking hero,” I say, sending my wolf away. My skin stretches as my bones morph into human form. I reach down, my blood-stained hands almost fully human, grip the turquoise amulet the Skinwalker gave me and think of Lily. She was right to try and murder me, and the thought makes the anger I’ve cradled in my heart since that night she tried to murder me falter and fade.
Even if she wasn’t right…I forgive her.
I crawl to the side of the truck, pop open the driver’s door. No keys, but it takes me two seconds to hotwire the thing.
The engine grumbles to life.
I secure the steering wheel with the seatbelt as bullets zip and ping around the cab, then bend the four-wheel drive gear shifter down so it’s depressing the gas pedal to the floor. The engine screams and whines, shaking the whole truck. Then I press the clutch down with one hand, reach over, and slam the truck into gear.
The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) Page 9