“Oh yeah?” Trish says. “For what?”
Nash sucks his breath in tight to hold the dope-smoke, then says, “You know. The usual. Not towing the line. Not buying their freedom-hating bullshit.”
“Yeah,” Tate says. “Fuck the Man.”
“Exactly,” I say, loosing a rolling pale-blue cloud toward Trish. “Fuck her long and hard.” Then I smack Nash on the shoulder. “You’re all better now, right bro? All sorted out? Ready to take your place as a productive upstanding citizen of this fine nation?”
Nash flashes me a wicked grin, lays a rail along someone’s Harley seat and sucks it up, then says, “Oh yeah. I’m all sorted out.”
“He’s sane,” Blue says in his booming baritone. “Or maybe…sane-ish.”
“Sane-ish!” Nash barks. Then he raises his hands at the brightening morning sky and screams, “Sane-ish, motherfuckers! So come and get me!”
“Sane-ish is more than enough for this crew,” I say, laughing while Nash passes me the joint.
Trish glares at me.
It’s my turn to flip her the bird.
Fucking Skin chick. Truth is I can’t believe she’s lasted this long.
I’m about to gather up the crew and announce we’re heading into the nuthouse when Tate’s face goes all weird and he points at the complex and stammers, “You guys? Hey! Guys? You see that? Something in there—”
***
I’m half expecting a Stricken army to tear out of the psych complex. At first I don’t see anything, and I’m about to tell Tate to lay off the dope. Then a flicker of motion in a window on the second story draws my attention.
It’s a child. A young boy.
Glaring down at us.
“Yup,” Nash says, rubbing his nose and stepping closer to Trish like he’s keen to play the hero. “Ghost. Bet lots of horrible shit went down behind those walls.”
Blue chuckles. “You still afraid of ghosts, Tate?”
“Don’t believe in ghosts,” Tate says. “But yeah. If I did believe—”
“Quiet,” I snap, still watching the boy.
I don’t think it’s a ghost.
“Could be a kid or a whole family hiding in there after shit went down,” I say, not really believing it.
The boy has black hair and skin so pale it nearly glows. He’s maybe…nine or ten? He’s standing in the window, but a little ways back, so he’s partially shrouded in darkness and I can’t really see his face. But he looks…familiar. Something about his chin. And the way he’s staring out the window at us…
It’s fucking strange. I sure as shit don’t spook easily. But something about how that kid’s staring…it makes the hair rise on my neck and my wolf snarl.
“You want me to shoot him, Prez?” Nash asks. “I can get a bead on him from here. How ‘bout you let me shoot him?”
“No. Let’s wait—”
We don’t have to wait long.
A few seconds later a screeching cawing sound descends from the sky. A massive black cloud of carrion birds is moving over the still-smoking hills and toward the complex.
Nash begins barking and spitting and pacing in a frenzied half circle while he screams obscenities at the carrion flock.
So maybe Trish is right.
Nashy does need to lay off the blow—
“C’mon, you chickenshit asshole,” Blue growls at the vultures. “C’mon and join the party.”
I keep my eyes on the horizon. The vultures just keep on coming, so many they blot out the light to the east. My wolf howls and scratches at his cage, and the boys in my MC turn their attention to me and wait for my command.
“We’re exposed out here,” Blue says, flashing me a look of concern.
“I hear you, brother,” I say, real quiet.
“I’m sorry,” Lily whispers.
She hasn’t taken her eyes off the boy in the window. She’s kneading her hands together and her face is blank and she keeps whispering something over and over.
She looks fucked up, in other words.
Like maybe she could use a pink padded cell for a year or ten.
“Lil?” I ask. “You all right?”
No answer.
I take another long swig of tequila and watch my bloodmate.
There’s something she’s not telling me—
“Give me that,” Trish says, eyeing my tequila.
Nash chuckles and I hand Trish the bottle and watch her drain it.
The cawing and screeching grows so loud it’s painful.
The forest begins on the other side of the parking lot. It’s dense enough to keep the fuckers from swooping on us. I scream a command at my MC and in a heartbeat everyone’s on the move, snatching artillery from their bikes and sprinting for the forest.
I’m running beside Lily, maybe ten yards away from the woods when the cawing sound becomes so loud it shakes the ground and a shadow darkens the land and I look up.
The black flock is directly overhead, maybe a couple hundred feet in the air. A million or more hideous hook-beaked carrion birds. Their wings flapping and whooshing a chill wind down on us.
The vultures spin and dive and swoop in their black cloud, and as I fling myself under the cover of the woods the bird flock begins descending, a giant blood hungry mass—
They’ve spotted us.
They’re huge birds, with mottled pinkish-red skin hanging loose on their bald heads and even from down here their hooked beaks gleam in the waning light.
The air cools as the carrion flock approaches and their shadow thickens.
“That has to be—” Blue says.
“Yeah. It’s the Fallen,” I say, scenting the air. “Or it’s of him.”
A thin layer of frost crusts the ground beneath my feet.
The vultures come in low over the forest, their wings whooshing, sending blasts of frigid air onto us. My M16 cools, begins to frost over, and soon its so cold it burns my hands.
“What in all fuck?” Nash says, his eyes glued on the black cloud, his breath visible in the freezing air.
“I’m sorry,” Lily says, leaning against a tree and closing her eyes.
“Lil?” Trish says. “What’s happening? What are these things? What are you sorry about?” Trish steps to her friend, grabs Lily by the shoulders and begins shaking her. “What the fuck’s happening, Lil? Tell me! What are you sorry about? Huh? Tell me!”
Damn. Shit’s even getting to Trish. I nod at Nash and he steps over and pulls Trish off Lily and tells her to back off, that it’s gunna be okay, and when Trish looks at him I know she knows he’s lying but it’s all right, everyone needs to be lied to now and then.
Life would be unlivable if there was only truth.
“Steady now,” I say as a few of my crew begin summoning their animals. “Wait for my word.”
The leading edge of the flock passes over us, then drops toward the mental hospital. The grass in the field between us and the parking lot freezes an icy blue-black as the birds pass. I’m looking into the flock, squinting against the cold.
It takes minutes for the flock to pass overhead, and during that time there’s only a cold that burns my skin and a chill, unnatural wind and the sound of a wings fluttering and that horrible high-pitched screeching that sends my wolf howling and thrashing.
“Wait for my word to fire,” I scream at my MC.
My boys are getting twitchy; their animals driven mad by the reek of Stricken blood—
A few vultures come in low, darting through the trees, their eyes bright in the shadows. I roar, leap up and snatch one by the neck.
Bad move. The thing’s fucking freezing. Bitter cold spreads from my claws to my fingers, through my hands and into my arms.
The cold’s aiming for my chest. My heart.
The vulture caws and tries to gut me with its razor-sharp talons, then we crash through the trees and my claws dig deep into the fucker’s flesh as I bite its throat, loosing a torrent of chill black blood while we plummet to the forest floor, and
when we land I wrench the bird’s neck to the side and snap its spine, then hurl the unmoving corpse on the ground for my MC to feed on.
My arms are burning with cold.
“Never took you for a birddog, Prez,” Blue laughs.
“Least they die,” Nash says, eyeing the black cloud.
I nod, but don’t bother stating the obvious: there’s a million or more of the ugly motherfuckers, and if they’re commanded to attack—
“He’s still there,” Tate whispers.
I don’t have to ask who.
The boy in the window.
He’s there all right.
Watching the carrion flock land. Waiting.
The vultures settle over the fields and parking lot. Over our gleaming Harleys. Still more land, then more, until the vultures are draped like a foul black blanket over the entire complex. Perched on fences and guard towers. Covering courtyards and roofs.
“Holy fucking hell,” Nash mutters.
The cawing and screeching quiets.
The birds are so thick I can barely see the ground.
Then, as if they’re obeying a secret command, every single vulture turns toward the forest and peers at us. They don’t make a sound…and that’s the creepiest thing of all. A vast flock of carrion birds staring us down, their beady eyes absolutely empty.
And the silence? It’s of the grave.
A long growl bursts from my throat and meets the growls and snarls of my MC. Every single one of us feels it.
An unnatural power.
Sickness and perversion.
I’ve never believed much in what the Skins call evil. Skins like to label anything they don’t understand as evil. It seemed like a lot of cowardice and dull-witted superstition, all wrapped up in the Skin’s unnatural fear of death.
But now, looking out from the forest at that silent carrion flock?
And the black-haired boy watching us from the window?
That’s the only word for the feeling I’m getting.
Evil.
Death never frightened me. It’s not good or bad.
Death just is. It’s natural law.
But these birds? They aren’t natural.
They’re something much worse.
“I have to go inside,” Lily says, taking a few steps toward the complex. The frosted ground crunches under her feet. “I have to see him.”
Nash and Blue share a look like, uh-oh, bitch gone crazy.
Maybe they’re right.
I’m about to protest when I see the look in Lily’s eyes, her stubborn will, the determined set of her jaw, and I know it’s useless.
There’s no changing my bloodmate’s mind.
I lower the M16 and walk to Lil.
We stand in silence for a few moments, then she says, “I have to speak to him.”
“Who?”
“The boy.”
I’m about to ask why when she says, “I want you to stay here with Trish and the MC.”
I can’t help it. I fucking laugh.
“Not gunna happen, girlie.”
Lily tosses me a scowl. “I could command you to stay.”
I grip Lily’s elbow and turn her to face me. “We don’t work like that. I’m not your dog.”
“Is that right?”
“Not anymore.”
“You were never my dog. Just a dog.”
I crack a smile.
Lily gives me a lost look, then brushes her fingers over the smooth burn scar on my chest and says, “I’m sorry, Aaron. For what she…for what I did to you.”
“I would’ve done the same.”
“Really? I wonder. I think you’re more loyal than me. More devoted to those you let in your circle.”
Lily tugs free of my grasp, stares at the silent flock and wraps her arms around her stomach. When she speaks her voice sounds very far away. “He needs three at his side.”
“The Fallen?”
“Yes. Don’t you feel his presence here? He needs Shiori. Rodas. And a third.”
“Who? There’s only you or Anik.”
“Maybe. But don’t you feel those birds?”
I do. I feel their power.
But instead I say, “What if you’re right? What if the Fallen’s in there? Your Risen pack…don’t you need them to defeat him?”
“I think so. But my pack’s gone…” Lily trails off into a bitter laugh. “Truth is I’m shit at being alpha.”
“Me too.”
“No you’re not. You were born for it. The One We Answer To. I believe that.”
“You’re not going in there alone. You’re not going anywhere without me.”
Lily flashes me a broad smile, and for the first time in a long while the worry and fear and hopelessness in her face lightens, and for a moment she looks like the same girl who walked into my bar and joked about hating douchebags bikers while hitting on me.
I’m about to say as much when a hollow-sounding moan escapes Lily’s lips.
“Lil? What is it? Lil? Lil!”
My bloodmate doesn’t answer.
Instead she takes a slow, determined step toward the open field and the carrion flock. She’s mumbling something, so quiet I can’t tell what she’s saying.
“Lil!” I yell, trying to get her attention.
She either ignores me or can’t hear me.
My bloodmate’s a few steps into the field, heading for the parking lot.
The entire empty-eyed flock watches as she approaches.
My crew hustles in behind us while Lily takes another step, then another, and suddenly she’s free of the woods, standing at the edge of the frozen field, unprotected and vulnerable.
“Lil get back here!” Trish screams.
“We’re going in. Alone,” I yell at Nash. “Nobody comes inside. You got me? Nobody. No matter what happens—”
“No way Prez we ain’t—”
“That’s a fucking command, VP,” I shout. “No one comes inside the complex. You hear gunshots you stay put. You hear screaming you stay put. You fucking stay put, is that clear, VP?”
Nash looks pissed, but I get a solid nod from him.
I glance at Trish.
Fuck sakes.
She shakes her head. She’s having none of it.
Blue sweeps Trish up in a massive bear-hug. She screams at him to get off her, smashes her boot onto his foot and thrashes, trying to free herself.
But I’ve been trapped in that bear hug.
No way the Skin bitch is getting free.
Then I’m out of the forest, running after Lily. Her arms hang limp at her sides. Her lips are thin and bloodless, her face drained of color. She’s still mumbling, the same words over and over, like some kind of ritual chant or prayer, and when I look up at the window I see the boy.
Only it’s not him.
I blink, trying to clear my vision.
The child’s still standing away from the window. Still cloaked in shadow. Only…something’s different. His face is the same. Pale. Almost glowing. But his body? His shoulders are hunched up high—
But they’re not shoulders.
They’re wings.
Black-feathered wings folded up behind him.
Lily moans again, and now I understand it isn’t terror in her voice.
It’s grief.
The boy peers out the window. Slowly, so slow I’m not even sure it’s happening, the boy’s eyes grow wide and jet black, and the blackness…leaks from his eyes, traces through the veins in his face, and as I watch a pair of curling ram’s horns grow from the boy’s head—
A growl rumbles in the back of my throat.
The boy is a Stricken. Or worse.
Lily takes an unsteady step.
The vultures study us.
Silent. Unmoving.
One command. That’s all it would take. One command sent through the boy’s animal mind and the carrion flock would leap into the sky and descend on us, a thrashing, sharp-beaked cloud of death.
One word.
But the vultures only stare.
Silent. Accusing.
Lily falls to her knees, cradling her arms around her belly, and when I bend down to lift her I hear what she’s muttering, and for the first time since seeing the child in the window my heart starts hammering in my chest, because my bloodmate’s prayer isn’t a prayer at all.
It’s an apology.
Lily’s whispering, over and over, “My beautiful boy I’m sorry I’m so sorry my boy my beautiful baby boy…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
LILY
“HOLD MY HAND, Aaron,” I ask as I stumble across the frosted field toward the waiting vultures.
Aaron says nothing, just grips me in his heavily calloused hand, and I do love him, I do, even though it will take a long time to truly forgive him, and the thought crosses my mind that I should tell him, just fucking blurt my worst fear out, even if the timing sucks, because I’m fairly certain we won’t have another chance—
The boy in the window stares down at me. His eyes pierce my heart. The window frosts over. A hairline crack splits the frozen glass from right to left. Then another. Suddenly the entire widow is webbed with fractures, and then there’s a cracking sound as the window shatters and falls to the ground.
The boy is gone.
Lachlan?
I can’t be sure. He was hidden in shadow. But for a moment I had that same overwhelming feeling of loss and grief I have when I emerge from the nightmare, trapped between waking and dreaming.
For a moment I knew.
We reach the parking lot and the first of the black vultures. They stand taller than my waist. Their eyes are small and black and perfectly empty. My stomach rolls at their smell. They stink like meat sealed in a mason jar and left in the sun. They reek of rotting flesh and death.
The vultures bob their heads and peck at the ground and shuffle around so they’re always facing us directly. Their eyes never leave us, but they don’t approach, and I wonder…if I reached out to touch one would it snap out and bite me, or cower away?
The birds are so thick we have to weave left and right to get through. My hand slips from Aaron’s and an unaccountable terror rises in my throat because suddenly I’m convinced that the only thing keeping the vultures from eating me alive is my bloodmate’s touch. I snatch his hand back into mine, barely stifling a scream.
The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) Page 34