“Hello, Frank,” he said.
The lizard man looked up at him with dark yellow, unblinking eyes. Smirking as much as a lizard man could, he said, “Good to see you, Cole. It’s been a while.”
“Been a while since I’ve seen you. Something tells me it hasn’t been so long since you last saw me.”
“I’m just glad we happened to cross paths again. I would have preferred something without so much…crashing,” Frank said as he glanced toward the pickup. “But I’ll take what I can get.”
When Frank tried getting to his feet, Cole used the halberd still wrapped around his neck to push back just hard enough to pin Frank in place. “Don’t give me the lucky meeting bullshit,” Cole said. “You’ve been lurking around for a while, probably hanging back so I wouldn’t know you were there.”
“You didn’t know I was there, Cole. Admit it.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed as he studied the Squam. Frank had always had a knack for spotting a lie the moment it was spoken. Since he hadn’t met many others like him, Cole wasn’t sure if that was a Squam thing or a Frank thing.
“You’re slipping,” Frank said. “Not long ago, I wouldn’t have been able to get within a hundred yards of you before you sniffed me out. You know how long I was watching you in that garage of yours? Three months. And even now, you had to flush me out in the crudest possible way before you finally put it all together.”
“Worked, didn’t it?”
“Barely. You going to let me up?”
Reluctantly, Cole willed the tines to retract and kept the weapon lowered so Frank could use it to help pull himself to his feet. As soon as he was standing, the Squam brushed his fingers along a shallow scrape the halberd had left behind on one side of his neck. His blood could only be seen as a faint trickle of red before it faded almost completely away. If a tracker had eyes good enough to see it when it fell, there was nothing to distinguish it from a random drop of dew or rain. Yet another reason the Squamatosapiens had lived for so long in the Florida everglades without being discovered.
“If you wanted to see me,” Cole said, “you could have just knocked on my door.”
“I did, as soon as I arrived in Cody. You were…indisposed.”
“How did you know I was there?”
“Daniels told me. He also told me you probably wouldn’t want any visitors.”
“So that’s why you came to visit,” Cole sneered. “Great.”
“No. That’s why I asked that he not tell you I was coming. You’re not an easy man to track down. Even Daniels said he’d lost track of you a few times over the last two years.”
“You’ve talked to Daniels. Don’t tell me you haven’t wanted to hide from him at least once or twice in that time.”
“He’s a good friend of yours from the days of peace,” Frank said. “Now, more than ever, you should be close.”
“Days of peace? You really were spending all your time in Florida before things went to hell. I think your brains got baked.”
“I didn’t stray far from home back then. Not until I was captured and dragged into a cell. Do you remember those bars? Do you remember that prison?”
“Of course I remember it! What kind of a dumb-ass question is that?”
“Then why would you want to deny me my chance for revenge as well?” Frank demanded in a hissing roar that came from the back of his throat.
“I’m not denying anyone anything.”
“You could have tried to reach me. It wouldn’t have been difficult, even with the troubles now. We fought together for a short time after we escaped from that prison. You, me and Paige. We fought well.”
Cole turned and walked back to the Ford.
Frank followed him to the truck, looked him in the eyes and said, “I’m sorry about what happened to Paige. She is missed.”
“Yeah. She sure is.” Shaking off the darkness that threatened to wrap around him and not let go, Cole shifted his weapon to its compact form and shoved it back into its harness.
“You must have known I would be eager to help you in this hunt,” Frank said. “I was locked up by those savages longer than almost anyone in that godsforsaken prison.”
“I didn’t think of it. I’ve been waiting so long for a lead on where to find this place that I started thinking I wasn’t going to get one. When I did, I just packed up and headed out.”
“No. I do not accept that.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Cole snapped as he started digging through the supplies piled on the Ford’s passenger seat. “You’re here now. You wanna come along with me or not?”
“I’d rather take my chances alone than trust my life to someone that doesn’t value his own.”
“Is this about the crash? I admit I’ve had better ideas, but—”
“This is about you being a lesser man than the one who fought his way through hell at my side.” Approaching the Skinner carefully, Frank asked, “How much serum have you been injecting into yourself when you don’t need it? I’ve seen the look on your face when you thought nobody was watching you outside your garage as you stick needles into your neck one after the other. That’s what you were doing when I first came to your garage in Cody. Your eyes were glazed over, and you’d fallen asleep under the stars where anything could come along to put an end to you. Without that serum continuing to cloud your head, you would have known I was watching you quite some time ago.”
“You think so, huh?” Cole scoffed. “And you think now is a good time for a therapy session?”
“If you intend on going against an organized group of well-armed terrorists on their home turf…then yes. Now is a good time to bring up the fact that your reasoning may be flawed.”
“My flawed reasoning managed to pin down the location of a base that no other Skinner or anyone in the government could find. I’m also this close to getting a way to track down the animals that tore the world apart.”
“You mean the Full Bloods?” Frank asked.
“Yeah. That reasoning good enough for you?”
Now that he was close enough to Frank to see the scales on his face, the cold tension in Cole’s stomach was stronger than ever. He hadn’t had much of a chance to test the reaction after implanting the Squam sample into his weapon, but that didn’t fully explain how long it had taken him to put the pieces together once the reaction had kicked in. Rather than entertain the thought that his head may truly be a little clouded, he asked, “So, why did you hang back for so long? After you watched me putz around my garage for a while, you could have come along to say some of this a lot sooner than now.”
“I have been busy as well,” Frank replied. “Watching you was just something of a hobby. The rest of my time was spent hunting for Vigilant.”
“Find any?”
Because of the reptile man’s facial structure, it was difficult to read his emotions. Cole had spent enough time fighting at Frank’s side, however, to recognize one or two as they drifted across the Squam’s scaly face.
“You know why I’m out here, don’t you?” Cole guessed.
“I…may have seen a few things when watching you question that prisoner.”
“How close did you get to my garage?”
When they’d been fighting before things went from bad to worse, Frank had had a healthy competition going with the Skinners. They would pit their skills against each other at any opportunity with ultimate bragging rights as the reward. Sneaking up on any of them was a feat in itself, and Frank had the look of victory in his eyes when he said, “Close enough to read your computer screen. Close enough to see how you influenced that Vigilant’s mind. Close enough…to watch as you injected that serum even after the fight was long over.”
“Jesus,” Cole sighed as he thought about how long he’d had someone watching him. Squams were known for being tough to spot, but there was no reason why Frank should have had free access to his life for so long. “I really have been out of it lately.”
Frank’s clawed hand came to
a rest upon Cole’s shoulder. “To be fully honest, it wasn’t just your lapse that gave me this information. I was tracking that Vigilant piece of trash across the state. He spoke to others of his kind regarding another prison somewhere fairly close.”
“Who was he speaking to?”
“It was over an internet connection in South Dakota. Sounded like a woman, though.”
“They had a good enough connection to do a voice chat?”
Frank nodded.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Cole said. “Why does it seem that nobody is as freaked out by the internet and power grids still being up as I am?”
“Because, in days like these, people are thankful for whatever they can get. Questioning where it comes from is spitting a fresh possum back into the water just because it has a broken leg.”
Cole shook his head rapidly. “It’s like what because of what??”
“It’s a saying among my people,” Frank replied. “Mostly along the lines of looking into a gift horse’s mouth.”
After thinking it over for a second, Cole shrugged. “I guess I see your point. Still, I’ve got some theories about what’s going on as far as the internet goes. Could be related to the power grid, but maybe not. None of it is very good news, though.”
“Skinners rarely bring good news.” Frank’s other hand came to rest upon Cole’s other shoulder. This time, instead of a friendly pat, he held the Skinner in a secure grip at arm’s length while studying him with sharp, lidless eyes. “My people have another saying. It is good when your enemies do not see you. Bad when you cannot see you.”
“For a bunch of gator dudes, you’re pretty deep,” Cole said.
Frank’s eyes narrowed. “This is important, Cole. I know Paige was close to you. She was a great person.”
Cole tried to pull away, but was held in place. He then tried to turn slightly and was quickly forced to face Frank dead-on.
“I won’t tell you about how we have all experienced loss, and I won’t list other losses that may be comparable or worse than yours,” the Squam said. “That does no good. I do need to tell you that grieving and grief are two separate things. One is a process that takes time to complete. The other is something you might have to carry with you for the rest of your life.”
“Might?” Cole snapped.
Frank nodded again. It was a clean, sharp movement that left no room for doubt. “Some losses will always bring pain, but it doesn’t have to be a crippling injury. No matter how much it hurts, this is not an injury that should keep you from moving. And it is NOT an injury that needs to be treated by your syringes or whatever else you have been drinking.”
“Are you done?”
“No. I am talking about this now because if you are still allowing yourself to be crippled by your loss, you are no good to me.”
“Wow. What a fucking selfish thing to say.”
“You know better than that,” Frank said without reacting to the anger in Cole’s tone. “If you were about to follow me into a fight against an enemy that outnumbers and outguns us, you would be saying the same thing as I.”
Reluctantly, Cole shrugged. “I guess so. Although, I probably would have said it a little nicer than that.”
“Fair enough,” Frank said as he released his hold on Cole. “What are your theories about who is keeping the lights on and computers running?”
“How about we discuss that if we live long enough to walk away from this prison?”
“So you are allowing me to come with you?” Frank asked.
“Actually,” Cole said, “I was going to beg you to come along, but your way makes me look better, so I’ll go with that.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Thanks to a reliable engine and some supernaturally powerful shoving abilities from Frank, Cole was able to peel the front of his pickup away from the tree where it had been wedged. There wasn’t much damage done to the Ford that couldn’t be patched up with some spare parts salvaged from any number of abandoned vehicles found on any major road. Cole heard a disturbing rattle underneath the Ford’s familiar roar but didn’t have enough time to get overly concerned about it. As the rattle continued, he decided that his particular strategy of surprising the creature he’d sensed among the trees might not have been the way to go.
After driving a few miles down Highway 16, he spotted a turnoff marked by the single green post described in the directions he’d intercepted. Frank hopped out as soon as the truck slowed and ran over to examine the slender piece of iron protruding from the ground. After a few seconds, he nodded and returned to the truck. “That’s it,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“It is marked.”
“Marked how?” Cole asked.
Frank climbed down from the truck once more, and Cole parked so he could join him. Once Cole was close enough, Frank pointed to a spot toward the base of the post where three lines had been scratched into the paint: one long line cut by two shorter diagonals. “This is the mark of The Vigilant,” Frank told him.
“When did that start?”
“Since The Vigilant have taken a harder line where recruiting is concerned.”
“The Vigilant weren’t exactly softies before.”
“Now,” Frank said, “they have started branding their members. One of many practices that remind me of some of the less reputable tribes among my kind.”
“Good to know.”
Both of them climbed back into the truck, and Cole headed off-road. The path leading away from Highway 16 was mostly overgrown and so rough that he had to slow to a crawl to keep the top of his head from bouncing off the roof. Bracing one hand against the rusty metal above him and the other against the dash, Frank asked, “How much do you know about this prison?”
“Just that it exists somewhere near here. Finding that much was a damn nightmare, so don’t judge.”
“You know more than I do on this place in particular.”
“And probably more than most Vigilant,” Cole added. “They’re pretty hardcore about secrecy when it comes to their prisons. The guy I questioned wasn’t told anything until he got to my place. Even then, it was just a location and a password that was set to expire in two days.”
“How much farther do we go down this road?”
Cole tapped the brakes. “Actually, I should probably find a good place to park so we can take a look. Wouldn’t want to roll up on these guys before we’re ready.”
“They may already be on the alert.”
“That’s not as big of a problem as you might think. From what I got out of the Vigilant I captured, nobody at this prison knows him. They shouldn’t be too surprised if the new guy accidentally trips an alarm.”
“You haven’t thought this through very well, have you?”
“Of course I have,” Cole lied. “But there’s only so much planning you can do when you’re going in blind. Even if I knew more about how these prisons were set up before, I’m sure things have changed since the packs took over.”
Frank grumbled something close to agreement.
Even though the Ford was moving slower than a crawl, the bumps and dips in the road continued to assault them like a series of blows to their backs, tailbones, heads and legs. By the time Cole finally found a spot large enough to park the truck, he felt as if he’d been through five rounds of a prizefight. His ears were still ringing as he kicked open the door to climb out.
“This is why I prefer to run wherever I go,” Frank grunted.
“You’re just pissed there aren’t any of those crappy country music stations blaring through the radio anymore. After a few road trips with you back in the day, I wanted you to get out and run too.”
“That’s because you have no taste,” Frank said as he lowered himself to all fours so he could sink all of his fingers and toes into the dirt. “Country songs have real stories in them, not like the wailing you enjoy so much.”
“AC/DC isn’t wailing.” Cole paused while removing another pack of supplie
s from behind the bench seat. “Ok,” he admitted. “Maybe that’s a bad example.”
Frank’s eyes were fixed on a point directly beneath him, and when he craned his neck upward, it was as though he wasn’t paying attention to where he was looking. His motions had a calm sway to them which almost made it seem as if he’d lost his sight altogether. “I don’t mind AC/DC,” he said. “Very primal.”
The largest case Cole removed from the back of the truck was almost as long as the entire bench seat. It was flat and made of plastic with a handle built midway along the upper edge. He flipped the latches along its side and opened it to reveal a rifle laying on a bed of foam. The weapon was a simple design that looked as if it could have been made anytime in the last sixty years or so. Smaller compartments were cut from the case’s lining in various spots to make room for a few other accessories that looked much more modern than the rifle itself.
“Is that the same rifle you used back when we were clearing Half Breeds out of Saint Louis?”
“She’s grown up since then,” Cole said proudly as he removed the rifle from the case to prop it against his hip. “Same Brown Precision Tactical I got from Walter way back when, but I’ve been fiddling with it whenever I get the chance. Had one of the gun nuts from Arkansas modify it to accept the entire range of modified .50 caliber rounds I’ve been cranking out. I tweaked the grip to improve the balance. But this here,” he said while removing the scope from its foam resting place, “is my real pride and joy.”
“Can it make you move faster or quieter?”
“No, but it can—”
“Save it for another time. I’ll scout ahead this way and let you know if I need help. Do you remember the signals we used to use?”
“Yes, I remember,” Cole said as he attached the scope to the top of the rifle.
“Good. Try not to trip any alarms.”
When Cole looked up again, Frank was gone. The only indications that the Squam had been there at all were a few branches swaying in his wake. Cole dug around in the truck for a box of ammunition and stuffed some rounds into his jacket pocket. A few supplies were taken from his other bags and collected into a satchel which he strapped across his body like a bandolier. Resting the rifle on one shoulder, he tromped away from the Ford.
Forged From Ash - Book #7 of the Skinners Series Page 19