Keo didn’t have to ask Martin if he was talking from personal experience, because it was obvious that he was. There was a reason slayers still roamed the countryside beyond Paxton. There was plenty of need for their services, if even people like Sharon’s group—which from everything Keo had seen, were more capable than most—could fall prey to a ghoul attack.
Martin had left with the others after the conversation, taking his brother Jack with him. The younger slayer stuck to Martin’s side like a lost puppy. Terminal, with bandages over his broken nose, had also exited, but not before staring daggers at Keo.
Rondo would probably be doing the same if he wasn’t too busy snoring on the floor in a makeshift bed in the bar while the combination of morphine and sedatives Huston had given him kept him out of the fight. Rondo’s sledgehammer, leaning on the wall next to the sleeping behemoth, was covered in silver-coated studs just as Keo had guessed. The only reason a man like Rondo would carry such a clumsy tool around was because he really liked bashing ghouls’ heads in.
There were other slayers that Keo hadn’t met yet, that occasionally walked across the broken windows and open door of the Deuces. That was the name of the establishment. There was a sign outside featuring two pitchers of drinking glasses “clinking,” while two deuce playing cards floated inside them. Keo had missed the big sign the first time because he’d been too busy running for his life.
“So what’s in the bag?” Huston asked when she was done wiping the blood off him.
Keo picked up a jacket draped over a stool and put it on. It wasn’t his; his own jacket was still in the basement covering up Carter’s body. The fit was a little snug, but he figured it was better than nothing. Besides, his old jacket was starting to stink from all the ghoul blood anyway.
“The way you were asking about it, I got the sense it was important,” Huston said.
“It’s important to me, but probably no one else,” Keo said.
“So what’s in it?”
Keo considered telling Huston. She was a medic (Well, sort of.), and she would appreciate the pack’s contents. But she also might decide it would be beneficial to her group to keep the bag for themselves, and Keo couldn’t risk that. Sure, it was a small chance, given how well Martin and his people had treated him despite Keo stabbing one of them, broken the nose of another, and nearly cut Jack’s throat open with his own machete.
But still…
“You’re not going to tell me,” Huston said when Keo didn’t answer. She began putting her tools away. “Fine. Be that way.”
“It’s personal,” Keo said. “Guy stuff.”
Huston glanced over her shoulder and flashed him a dubious smirk. “Yeah, right. Guy stuff.”
“Really.”
“Uh huh.”
One of the slayers rode up the street on his horse, passing by the window, followed by the open door. It was a nice brown animal, maybe even a thoroughbred.
I could use one of those.
“I think we ran into them,” Huston was saying as she cleaned her bloody hands with a bottle of water. Bloodstains poured down to the floor.
“Who?” Keo asked.
“The group of women you mentioned earlier. There were fresh tracks into the city. What were they doing in here?”
“I don’t know. Probably just looking for a place to bed down for the night.”
“Martin said they weren’t using silver bullets.”
“They had a limited supply, but not on them when they were attacked.”
“That was stupid.”
Keo nodded. It was stupid and he felt bad for the women, but… Yeah, it was stupid, especially these days. And it had cost them dearly.
“Poor kid,” Huston said, looking toward the back hallway. She was talking about Carter. “What was her name?”
“Carter.”
“You said her group was all girls?”
“The ones I saw. I didn’t ask for details.”
“Makes sense.”
“Does it?”
“Guys can be real fuckers.” She smirked. “No offense.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“It’s too bad about what happened. But it wasn’t your fault.”
“I know.”
“I’m just saying.”
“I know,” Keo said, and didn’t say anything else about it.
Huston got the hint and didn’t, either.
She said instead, “You’re leaving?”
Keo nodded. “I have to go find my pack.”
“Stay here and rest for a while. If the others find it, they’ll bring it to you. Martin gave his word.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“Martin always keeps his word.”
“I see.”
“Always,” Huston said, looking slightly offended that he might think otherwise.
“What’s the deal with him and this blue-eyed ghoul he’s been hunting for over a month and across two states?”
“What do you mean?”
“The way he was talking about it, it sounded personal.”
“It’s not.”
“No?”
“I mean, not any more personal than all the other ghouls we’ve hunted.”
Keo didn’t completely believe her. Maybe Huston thought that, but the way Martin had talked about the creature…
No, there’s something there. Maybe he didn’t tell Huston or the others, but there’s definitely something there.
Huston walked over to a pool table, where the group had laid out all of their supplies. There were enough guns and gear and food to equip a small army. Which, Keo guessed, was what the slayers were.
The medic opened one of their packs and walked back to him. “Here. Maybe you can get some use out of this.”
She was holding out a gun belt toward him. It looked like something out of a Western, complete with a six-shot revolver in the holster and loops for bullets. Only half were full, but they all had gleaming silver tips.
Keo took it. “Thanks.”
“It belonged to one of us.”
“He doesn’t need it anymore?”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh.”
Keo drew the pistol. It was a Ruger with a silver body and hard walnut grip. A double-action, and there were four rounds instead of six in the chamber. Keo wondered if that was because the gun’s previous owner had only gotten off two shots before he died.
“Did he have a name?” Keo asked.
“Billy,” Huston said. “We called him Billy the Kid.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why Billy the Kid? Was he a kid?”
“No. Because he carried that. You know, like the notorious Western outlaw?”
Keo shook his head. “I don’t know much American history.”
“What are you, Chinese or something?”
“Or something.”
“You met Felix yet?”
“No. Why?”
“He’s Chinese, too.”
“Ah.”
Keo didn’t waste time correcting her. He tried the belt on instead but had to take off his original one to do it. He also transferred the KA-BAR sheath over to the new belt before tightening it, then took a couple of practice draws with the revolver.
“Not bad,” Keo said.
“Beats running around with just a knife,” Huston said.
“Can’t argue with that.” Then, “How many blue eyes have you guys seen out there?”
“Just one other, outside of Memphis. You know where that is?”
“Tennessee.”
Huston grinned. “Just wanted to see if you knew your American geography, too.”
“I’ve been around.”
“I’m sure you have. Anyway, this other one didn’t go down without a fight, either. We lost two guys taking it.”
Just two? Keo thought. He knew what the blue eyes were capable of, and losing just two was a hell of a bargain.
�
�How many have you lost to this one?” Keo asked. “Other than this gun’s previous owner?”
“Just Billy,” Huston said. “It could have been a lot worse. It set a trap for us in Lake Dulcet, then again outside of Houston. It’s a clever fucker. Thank God Martin knows what he’s doing.”
“He still lost one man.”
“Like I said, it could have been a lot worse.”
Keo nodded. It wasn’t like he could contradict her; and he didn’t want to, anyway. From what he had seen, Martin knew his way around ghouls. The rest of his men did, too. Even Huston carried a machete (with a silver edge, no doubt) in a sheath with her at all times. She had a pistol on the other hip, but unlike the others didn’t carry a rifle or shotgun. He didn’t insult her by asking if she knew how to use her gun. Huston was a slayer, even if she wasn’t out there running around with the others looking for ghouls to kill.
He walked over to the window and looked out. There was black blood along the jagged glass that still clung to the frames. For now. In the morning, sunlight would evaporate everything, leaving behind just the lingering acidic taste in the air. In a few days or weeks, even those would disappear, and Paxton wouldn’t remember that it used to be teeming with ghouls.
…teeming with ghouls…
He was disturbed by just how many ghouls there were, so close to the ranch. It made sense that Bunker didn’t know about the creatures’ presence considering Martin’s story about hunting the blue-eyed ghoul and its army down here from Louisiana. They hadn’t been here nine days ago when Keo first went through the city. But they were here, now, and Paxton was too close to the ranch. The thought of Lara having to deal with this, in her current condition, left him cold.
Huston’s horse and Rondo’s was tied up on a street sign outside. The animals loitered about, oblivious to the bodies in the streets and on the sidewalks. In broad daylight, the sight of so many bodies would have been chilling, but darkness had a way of blunting the effects. Keo guessed the animals were probably used to the dead. Horses, unlike people, adapted quickly to their surroundings. And these weren’t just any horses, they were slayer horses.
Keo couldn’t hear shooting or voices in the streets, so the fight was probably on its last legs. He glimpsed a horse moving farther down the street, but—
“Keo.” Huston’s voice, from behind him.
“What?” Keo said even as he felt a slight change in the air. It was cold inside the bar, but the temperature seemed to have dipped suddenly inside, and by more than just a few degrees within seconds.
“Keo,” Huston said again.
Keo glanced over his shoulder. “What?”
Huston was standing in the middle of the room, except she wasn’t alone. There was a dark silhouetted figure behind her, one side of its head poking out from the right side of Huston’s face like a tumorous growth. Long fingers—thin and crooked—were wrapped around the medic’s chin and forehead.
Oh, fuck me.
Huston was frozen in place, but that didn’t stop her body from trembling anyway. The thing behind her was wearing some kind of brown leather fabric that covered most of its face, leaving only an almost rectangular slit for the one eye that was visible to Keo.
The eye that Keo could see was blue, it was glowing, and the shadows around it were moving as if trying to escape its presence.
It was a ghoul.
It was a fucking blue-eyed ghoul.
“Huston, everything will be okay,” Keo said, even as he thought, Bullshit. Nothing’s going to be okay. Not a goddamn thing.
Huston’s arms hung at her sides, and there was clear and obvious absolute terror in her eyes that he could see even from across the room. He didn’t blame her one bit. It didn’t matter how many times Keo came face to face with these things, they always brought out the scared little boy in him. They were death incarnate, and Keo had to exert every ounce of willpower not to tremble in its presence.
The monster stared at him, its single, visible blue eye seeming to pulse. Brighter then softer, then brighter again, then soft. Keo couldn’t make out the rest of its form because it was so much thinner than even Huston’s small frame. But Huston wasn’t very tall, which meant the creature couldn’t have been, either. That was a new one. The blue eyes were usually almost caricatures in their stretchy, elongated forms.
All of this information swept through Keo’s mind, but it was something else that stuck with him: It’s using Huston as a shield. Why is it using Huston as a shield?
The blue eyes were impossibly fast and strong and so, so hard to kill. Keo had seen them dodge bullets. There was no reason for the monster to be using Huston right now. It could have easily snapped her neck and then come for Keo before he could even draw his newly-acquired revolver.
But instead, it had forced her to call his name rather than attacking.
Why?
“Tell him he shouldn’t have followed me,” the monster hissed.
Ice slipped down Keo’s spine, then somehow reversed course and retreated until it reached the nape of his neck.
Fuck me.
The sound that had slipped out between the creature’s razor-thin lips was something out of a nightmare. If Keo had any doubts it was a blue-eyed ghoul (Why is it wearing clothes? Why is it wearing a mask? Why is it using Huston as a shield?) he didn’t anymore. Nothing else in this universe could make those sounds. Nothing came even close.
“Tell him I’ll see him soon,” it hissed, even as it began to slink into the shadows at the back of the bar, taking Huston with it.
Keo drew his pistol but didn’t pull the trigger. He couldn’t, with Huston in the way. He was a good shot up close, but he wasn’t that good.
Bloody lines that the ghoul was passing for lips grinned mischievously from behind Huston’s trembling head. It maintained that pose even as it slipped farther into the much-too-dark section of the bar. It didn’t so much as walk as it evaporated into the darkness…
…and just like that, it was gone.
Thirteen
What are you doing?
He chased it. He didn’t know why, but he ran after the creature.
Are you crazy?
No, not the ghoul. Huston. He was pursuing Huston.
What are you doing?
Keo raced across the bar, the Ruger revolver in both hands because he didn’t trust himself to keep it steady with just one even though doing so meant having to use his hurt left shoulder. The bullet might not have hit bone and was just a flesh wound, but it still stung.
Stop, a voice said inside his head. What are you doing?
It’s got Huston, he answered.
So?
It’s got Huston!
So??? the voice shouted.
Keo ignored the voice and continued running toward the back of the bar and into the corridor. The same one that led toward the basement.
The basement.
The same place where they’d been keeping Carter.
The creature was retreating into it.
And it was going to be so dark in there…
Keo stopped outside the door, still hanging off just one hinge post-Rondo attack. There was nothing on the other side but an intense darkness that seemed to almost ebb and flow like a beating heartbeat, daring him to enter.
Don’t go in there, the voice said, calmer now. Maybe because it was trying to reason with him? Don’t you dare go in there.
As if it could hear his inner voice, the creature—hidden among the shadows inside the basement—hissed, “Well? Are you coming or not?”
The hiss. God, he hated that sound.
Keo didn’t move, even when he heard a low, droning cackling sound coming from the shadows. There was nothing in there but darkness.
Empty, black darkness.
He wouldn’t be able to see a goddamn thing. Not a goddamn thing.
Keo took a step back.
I’m sorry, Huston. I’m so—
“Where’s Huston?” a voice asked, this one from behind
him.
Keo whirled around, the gun in his hand. He was a breath away from pulling the trigger but managed to hold off just in time.
Jack stood in the bar’s front entrance across the room, looking back at him.
The slayer, surprised by Keo’s turn—or maybe the pistol in his hand; probably both—quickly raised his arms into the air. “Don’t shoot!”
“Jesus, Jack,” Keo said.
“Don’t shoot, man. Don’t shoot me!”
Keo lowered the gun and hurried out of the back hallway. He glanced over his shoulder at the basement, but there was just the same mocking wall of black nothing staring back at him.
“Where’s Huston?” Jack asked. “Did something happen?”
Keo holstered the Ruger and hurried to the counter and behind it. He hadn’t seen it before when he initially ran through the place, but there was a large framed black-and-white portrait of two men, arms over each other’s shoulders, smiling for the camera as they stood outside a nascent version of the bar’s exterior. A plaque underneath it read: DEUCES. Then under that: EST. 1930.
“Yeah,” Keo said. “Something happened.”
He rifled among the bottles and shot glasses and mugs behind the bar, looking for something to drink. He was about to give up when he located a half-full and dust-covered bottle of Maker’s Mark. Keo took it out, unscrewed it, and poured himself a drink with a dirty shot glass.
Jack walked over to him. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
Keo took a sip, decided it was good enough, and drained the whole glass. He cringed as hot bourbon whiskey flushed down his throat before winding its way through his intestines.
“What the fuck happened?” Jack asked. “Where’s Huston?”
“It took her,” Keo said.
“Who took her?”
“It.”
“‘It?’”
“It.”
“It who?”
Keo stared across the counter at the younger man. “It.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, man? What is ‘it?’”
“It,” Keo said. “It. Fucking it.”
Road to Babylon (Book 8): Daybreak Page 12