A few soldiers chuckle. They didn’t notice how fast Anik moved.
“Don’t kill yourself quite yet, professor,” Mia shouts. “I need you to see this.”
A soldier wearing a black ski mask leads Anik and the old guy over to Mia.
Mia hands the old guy a pair of eyeglasses.
He puts them on, sighing with relief.
“You are too kind, Admah,” the old guy says.
“I think so too,” Mia answers. “Your gut still bugging you, professor?”
“Better since the Gravol. Thank you.”
Mia shrugs, points to the teepee constructions and corpses, and says, “What do you make of that?”
The professor squints. “Quite impressive.” Then he turns to study me and the rest of my pack. “Quite impressive indeed.”
“You think so?” Earl says. “You like the freaks so much maybe we should string you up—”
“Enough!” Mia snaps at Earl, then turns her attention to the professor and says, “I need you to tell me what you think it is. What are they saying?”
“This is bull…shit,” Earl mutters under his breath.
“I need to get closer,” the professor says.
He doesn’t seem afraid.
He should be.
Mia nods, then commands Earl to bring the hostages, meaning us. Earl stabs the end of his rifle into the small of Anik’s back and tells him to walk. A half dozen of the Order follow close behind as we make our way toward the makeshift pyramids.
“Fascinating,” the professor says as we approach.
Anik catches my eye, and for an instant the muscles around his jaw distend and his brow grows heavy and thick.
Behind us, insane, pain-filled laughter rings out from the flatbed truck and the chained Stricken screams, “Friend or enemy? Friend or enemy? I know. I know a bad secret! I know!”
“I’m going to kill that fucking freak,” Mia scowls.
“Better late than never,” Earl says, squeezing the M4 like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.
We reach the wooden pyramids. They’re even more hideous up close. The bodies terribly mutilated. Flayed, from the look of it. Patches of fur and feathers are sewn onto the dead corpses. Their heads rest directly under their bodies, antlers strapped to them, their eyes missing.
“Well?” Mia says, studying the professor. “What is it?”
“Fucker’s just gunna make up some egghead-sounding shit,” Earl says. “Useless ivory tower nerd old man.”
The professor glares at him. “I have far more professional integrity than that, my good sir.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well,” Mia repeats, tapping her boot and scanning the sky impatiently. “Prove your worth, professor.”
“The powder isn’t enough?” he answers.
Mia smacks the professor across the cheek so fast even my eyes can’t follow.
The old man staggers backward, clutching his face.
“Here’s a news flash, Professor Melchuk,” Mia shouts. “We’re slightly exposed out here. Get it? And the longer you dither—”
“Yes, certainly Admah. Yes. Of course.”
Melchuk walks into the middle of the construction, his brow furrowed in concentration. “The interesting thing about the…freaks,” he begins, “is that they appear to have the same, if not higher, level of intelligence as we humans, and yet they seem drawn to…somewhat primitive forms of communication.”
“So?” Earl says.
The professor looks him in the eye. “Are you familiar with Stonehenge, my good sir?”
“Yeah. Rocks and shit. So?”
“For a long time our best minds believed they were astral markers. Sundials and star charts and so on. To aid in pagan religious rituals. Something that elaborate and costly in terms of labor had to be of profound religious significance, didn’t it?”
“Fuck if I know,” Earl says.
“It’s a rhetorical question.”
Earl lifts the M4 at the professor and says, “Get on with it, old man.”
“Recent anthropological thinking is somewhat less enamored with the spiritual. Stonehenge may have, in fact, served a very mundane…ordinary…purpose.”
The professor pauses for effect.
Mia sighs, paces in a half circle, glances at the sky.
“Stonehenge wasn’t ritualistic. It was pragmatic.” The professor leans down, studying an eyeless human head. “It was simply the foundation…the support columns for a larger building’s roof. Comparable to the columns of the Parthenon. Perhaps a temple of some kind was built on top of the foundation we now call Stonehenge. Perhaps not. Maybe it held a raucous brothel. Who knows? But the point still stands, if you pardon the pun.”
“Which is?” Mia says.
“When confronted with the mysterious and unknown we have a tendency to reach for the complex and grandiose before the simple and elegant,” the professor says. “The same is true for more modern mysteries. Like this one.”
“So what is the hideous fucking thing?” Mia shouts.
“Well, I can’t say with any certainty, but my best guess would be: we’re looking at a provisionally constructed directional marker. A road sign. The decapitated human heads all face the same direction. They’re pointing somewhere. Or toward something or someone. Like a signpost or a mile marker.”
The professor’s eyes gleam with triumph.
Mia’s silent a moment, then says, “Where’s it pointing?”
The professor shakes his head. “I have no idea. But there’s one way to find out.”
***
“Blood Market’s south,” Earl says to Mia. “This…thing…if it is a road sign, which I seriously doubt…it points due north.”
“So we go north,” Mia says.
North toward the Monroe Correctional Complex, I think. Toward my father.
Mia’s not only rescuing us.
She’s decided to help us get to my father.
“No way that’s gunna happen, Admah,” Earl says, motioning at me and my pack. “The plan is we take these valuable trim trophies to the Blood Market. Cash the fuck in. Fill the gas truck. Keep rollin’. Keep killin’ freaks. Picking them off one by one. Remember that plan? It’s a good one. Worked for us so far. The Order won’t be interested in changing direction now.”
Mia crosses her arms and rolls her head slowly from side to side, cracking her neck. “You mean you aren’t interested?”
“That’s right,” Earl says. “Whatever this thing is…I sure as shit ain’t going to follow where it leads—if it leads anywhere—and I sure as shit ain’t gunna stay out here in the open for another second debating about it.”
“I’m going to give my men an order, Earl,” Mia says, her voice cool as steel. “And they’re going to do what loyal soldiers do. They’re going to follow my order. Understand?”
Earl hovers his finger over the M4 trigger and says nothing, but his jaw muscles twitch. The air is so heavy with tension and the threat of violence I can hardly breathe.
After a long moment Earl says, “It’s suicide, Admah. Look at the terrain!” He points in the direction the Stricken’s sigh seems to lead. “We won’t get the convoy through that forest. We’ll be on foot. Without our anti-aircraft guns. And what happens to the convoy when we leave it behind?”
Mia ignores him and turns to the professor, who’s muttering and poking around the grisly structure, his eyes burning with intense curiosity.
“Professor Melchuk!” Mia shouts.
The professor lifts his head so quickly he smashes it into a wooden pole. Wincing and rubbing his head, he says, “Yes, Admah?”
“This…road sign. It must lead somewhere important, correct?”
“Well, not must—”
Mia rolls her eyes, “But it’s likely it leads somewhere important to the fucking freaks, correct? Otherwise why build a sign at all?”
“That would make rational sense, but—”
“Good,” Mia interrupts. “S
o we have a sign leading us to some place important to the freaks. A base. A lair. Maybe some kind of camp. Are these likely possibilities, professor?”
“Well…I…”
“Professor Melchuk!” Mia shrieks. “Answer the goddamned question!”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the professor stammers.
“Good,” Mia says, pacing in a tight circle, her brow furrowed under her mirrored sunglasses. There’s a pent-up energy building in her that makes me think of a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. But I’m beginning to see how she managed to become leader of this vicious mob.
Mia squares off with Earl again and says, “You’re right, Earl. Picking off the freaks one by one has done the New World Order good. We’re alive when many of humans aren’t. But it’s only been…what? A week? Ten days?”
Earl eyes the decapitated heads.
“We need to establish a territory for the Order. We need to claim land. Build defenses and stockpiles. Without land the New World Order is nothing. We’ll roam around for a few weeks, killing freaks and thinking we’re hot shit while somewhere out there the freaks are waiting, biding their time, building strength. They’ll come after us. Track us down. And when they hit us…they’ll hit hard. In numbers.”
Earl stares at Mia for a long while, then says, “I’m listening.”
Mia flashes him a ruthless smile. “Good. This road sign…if it is a sign…is an opportunity for us to strike the freaks first. Hit them hard right at their lair. Get on the offensive. Bring the battle right the fuck to them. They’ll never expect it. And from there, after we annihilate them in their own lair, we begin building and defending our new territory.”
“That’s a different game than most of these guys signed up for,” Earl says, looking back at the convoy. “Most of these guys…they want the road.”
“Then they can fuck off,” Mia snaps. “Because here’s what’s going to happen: the New World Order is going to strike out in the direction of this sign. We’re going to put one or two prisoners out front to draw out any freaks we might find. And we’re going to see where this leads. Understand?”
Earl glances at the two guys he brought with him. Their faces are impassive.
“Or what?” he says.
“Or you and your son are free to head off on your own. You’re a seasoned soldier. You’ll do all right. For a day or two.”
Earl glares at the professor, then at me. His eyes narrow. He’s thinking there’s something he’s not quite seeing. A connection that makes Mia’s sudden shift in priority make sense. He might be a dickhead, but he’s no fool. Then Earl stares back at the pickup truck and his son Steven slumped behind the wheel. Finally he sighs and says, “Yes, Admah. For the New World Order. For our survival. For our triumph.”
Mia smiles. “For our triumph.”
Professor Melchuk wipes the sweat from his brow.
Anik shoots me a worried glance.
The setting sun shines behind the pyramid structures, backlighting them, making them appear to glow. Corpses swing in a halo of yellow light.
Mia looks at us and says, “Back in the truck, ladies,” then she points at Shiori. “Except you. You I want walking up in front with Mr. Cute-But-Dumb.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SHIORI
DEATH SPEAKS THE sound of silence.
In this night forest I listen to the death silence.
It’s speaking in a way beyond words. Taunting. Calling my name.
Shiori, death says. Hold my hand. Let me lead you.
Anik and I walk side by side through scratching tree branches. We stumble over rotting logs and through thick bush. Anik is not death. I’m not sure what he is to me now, but I know he’s not that. I hope, if he wasn’t bound tight at the wrists, that he would reach out and hold my hand as we walk. I want to feel Anik’s broad hand cover mine again.
Most of all I hope when the time comes he chooses me.
The bitch woman named Mia. How she looks at Anik makes me want to consume her alive. Sink my poison stinger into her flesh. Immobilize her. Then eat her alive, slowly, one bite at a time while she watches. My poison prevents motion, but my prey can still feel pain.
I want to lay a million eggs in Mia’s chest. Wait beside her while my brood hatches and devours the fuck from the inside. I want to see her belly split open from within.
Somewhere in the night forest an animal screeches. The breeze has died down. The night’s perfectly still. The red moon is hidden behind low cloud. Fog and mist and moss muffle our footsteps. We could be buried alive for how black and silent the night is. Buried in a tomb or catacomb.
But I hear death whispering.
Hold my hand.
The Skin man named Earl is clothed in all in black, wearing a thick vest that I know is meant to stop bullets. His young son Steven, the little fool who begged to join his father on this death mission, is wearing his too-large army fatigues and holding an AK-47 in his pale, shaking hands. There are two more Skins behind them, ugly filth I didn’t even bother looking at when they volunteered to march with Anik and I ahead of the convoy.
Bait, the bitch Mia said.
Fine. It suits me better here. In the night forest.
Far away from the stinking Skins Mia chose to surround herself with.
I have never wanted to kill more than I do in this moment.
Even when I was a prisoner on the boat the Guardian with the priests and their lies and torments I didn’t want to kill as badly as I do now. It’s no longer simple hunger driving me. This need. It’s become…I do not know the word. Like an appetite from deep within. Like when I was drowning in the ocean, holding my breath, until I couldn’t hold it any longer and I was forced to breathe even though I knew it would kill me.
That is what my need to kill is like.
It’s like having to breathe. Something I must do to survive.
Anik holds a branch over my head.
I slip underneath, dew drops showering onto me.
“Stay fucking close,” the soldier named Earl growls. He’s wearing a helmet with a set of electronic eyes that he looks through. This, I understand, is to help the sack of blood and meat see in the dark.
I laugh once, a quick, sharp burst.
They are so weak.
Anik looks at me with alarm.
“Quiet!” Earl whispers.
“Why quiet?” I say, not understanding why they would remove the gags if they wanted us to be quiet. “We’re bait. The reason of bait is to attract—”
The boy Steven slams the butt of his rifle into my belly. I double over, retching, and when I rise the boy is looking at his father in the way the Vessels used to look at Priest Gabriel and the rest of the Guardians of the Gate. Like he wants nothing more than to make his father happy.
I can’t decide who to kill first: father or son. Who will suffer more by seeing the other die? The son, I think. He hates his father, but believes him invincible.
It will crush him to see his father is meat like all the rest.
I open my mouth.
Loose several of my swarm.
I glance at Anik. Always Anik. There may have been a time, in the boreal forest perhaps, when we were right for each other. There was a time when we could have been in love. But I sense that time has passed. Pimniq arriving had something to do with it, as did Lily, and now the bitch Mia.
Because I see Anik looking at the bitch Mia the same way she looks at him. With attraction.
Like there could one day be love between them.
Oh, they’re doing their best to hide it.
They have roles to play.
But I see it.
“Stop!” Erik says. Then to the men behind him: “You hear something?”
“I heard a buzzing sound, Earl,” the boy Steven says. That he uses his father’s name makes me smile. It’s sad, some people would say. But it makes me smile. These Skins…they’re so frail. So easily broken.
“I heard it too,” Earl says, turning quick
ly from side to side, scanning the forest.
“You should’ve seen the wasp that bit me today—”
“Shut up, Flea,” the father Earl scowls.
And the boy does.
There’s a smacking sound from behind us.
“What the fuck?” one of the masked men says. “Fucking thing bit me!”
“A wasp?”
“Yeah,” the man says. “Huge one. Stings like a motherfucker.”
“Weather’s changing,” the fourth man says, spinning in a half circle and looking into the night. “Never used to be wasps this early in spring.”
I laugh again, just a little.
“What’s so funny, slant?” Steven says.
What’s so funny is that they’re trying so hard to spot the killer in the woods they miss the killer standing right beside them.
Anik growls a little. Very quiet.
It’s a warning.
Intended for me.
Poor Anik. We could have had love together.
If only he chose me instead of fretting and bowing and scraping for the failed alpha Lily.
If only he chose strength.
I will hunt the Guardians of the Gate. This path has been decided. The only reason I’m holding back is for sweet Anik. I guess…I care for him more than I’d like to admit. I guess this is also a deadly weakness in me.
Another of my wasps lands on the soldier’s neck. Sinks her stinger into his jugular. Flows her poison into him. This power. This is new to me. To murder with a single bite. The man has time to swat at the wasp before his blood turns toxic in his veins and he falls choking to the forest floor.
Welcome, death, I think, smiling into the darkness.
“What the fuck?” the fourth man says as his companion collapses.
Earl ignores his fallen comrade, crouches down, raises his machine gun, scans the woods and instructs his son to do the same.
Then Anik has me by the wrist. His back is to me, but he’s squeezing me.
Hard enough to hurt.
“Enough, Shiori,” he whispers.
His eyes are wide. But not frightened. More like…sad.
The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) Page 18