Rack or Ruin (The Desecrated Pack Book 3)

by Jude Marquez

  “Almost done in here,” Savannah said, and it sounded like she was right in my ear.

  My senses were sharpening.

  “Here,” Nichols said and held out a hand. I handed him one wiper and when we got to the truck, we replaced the old ones. I hesitated and then switched the plates for a similar truck. Nichols frowned but said nothing.

  As I approached the truck, I got a whiff of something and stopped. Nichols looked back at me, but his expression was shrouded by all the rain.

  “What?” He shouted.

  I turned around and looked. There was no one else in the lot but I could have sworn I smelled something off.

  I shook my head. I replaced the plate, and we got in the truck.

  “Can I ask you something?” Nichols asked.

  I turned to him, incredulous.

  “This is a genuine curiosity.”

  “And what was the other stuff?”

  “Knowledge for survival.”

  I sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “Did your friend assault those guys?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew it.”

  WE WERE IN A NEIGHBORHOOD filled with cookie cutter homes. Each house looked so similar I wondered if anyone ever got mixed up and tried to walk into the wrong house. I laughed at the thought.

  Eli looked over at me. “You okay?”

  I nodded and straightened myself out. “Weird,” I muttered. I felt strange, like something was sliding against my magic to figure me out, but when I tried to reach out, it pulled sharply away.

  Eli gave me another look, but didn’t ask again. Instead, he strode down the block, his eyes scanning the cars and trucks parked in front of the houses.

  It was dangerous, but we didn’t have a choice.

  Finally he stopped by a beige van.

  “Really? Couldn’t we get something cooler?” I asked and looked longingly at a sports car next door.

  “These are less likely to rouse suspicion and are just as fast as those things. And we can have plenty of room to sleep in it, if we have to,” Eli said and used one claw to pop the lock. He unlocked the door for me and I slid in.

  I looked behind us and frowned at all the sports equipment.

  “Toss it into the yard,” Eli said and pulled some wires out from underneath the steering wheel.

  I did as he asked and when I closed the door, the van was already purring.

  We drove out of the neighborhood at such a calm, sedate pace, I had to stop myself from screaming at Eli to hurry. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

  “All right?” Eli asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. But can you hurry?”

  “They aren’t following us,” Eli said.

  “I know, I just feel antsy,” I said.

  “Try taking a nap. Maybe that will help.”

  I snorted at the thought of sleeping now but Eli said, “Come on. Just try.”

  I surprised myself by dropping off almost immediately.

  I’m not sure what woke me up. The sun was setting and Eli was driving. On either side of us was an endless stretch of desert.

  “Hey. You must have been exhausted,” Eli said when he looked over at me.

  I nodded and stretched. There didn’t appear to be anyone else on the road which felt off but I didn’t say anything.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Phoenix. If we make good time, I want to spend the night there before we head to White Sands-”

  Eli stopped talking and tipped his head to the side, like he was trying to listen for something.

  I was about to make fun of him, something about how he looked like a puppy when he cocked his head like that, but something hitting the van from behind interrupted me. Eli jerked the wheel, and we were both thrown against our seat belts.

  “What was that?” I asked and pushed myself upright and twisted around in my seat.

  “I don’t know. It sounds like an eagle, though. Like when they screech?” Eli said and winced. I could only guess that the thing was dive bombing and screeching at the same time.

  I tried to see what was behind us but it was too dark and there were no lights behind us to illuminate anything.

  “Do we have a flashlight?” I asked and began to dig through the bags. All I came up with was cash and guns. “What are you? A cartel?” I asked, frustrated.

  “Well, I didn’t think to bring any flashlights because the last time I suggested it, you got all huffy. You are the flashlight, remember?” Eli snapped.

  The thing hit the van again, and I heard it this time. It sounded like an eagle, but it sounded too eager, too hungry. And so much bigger.

  I called up a warm ball of light in my hand and unbuckled my seatbelt. I got into the back seat and leaned over the middle section of seats to peer closer at the thing and the wings I could hear beating against the van.

  “What in the hell-” I said and leaned even closer. I held up the light in my hand.

  There was a moment when it seemed like the entire world held still.

  Then the thing clinging to the van skittered around, its claws scratching against the body of the van and raising goosebumps on my arms, and pressed its face to the back window.

  I screamed, threw myself back, and hit Eli’s shoulder. It caused him to jerk and the thing clinging to the van fell off and I saw it hit the road, tumble, then shoot straight up into the air again.

  “What is it?” Eli demanded.

  “I don’t know!” I screamed. The light in my hand was pulsing brighter with each one of my heartbeats and I’m sure that the van looked like it was a moving disco ball from the outside.

  “What did it look like? Think, Lou! You’ve studied the books, you know the answer!” Eli said.

  I shook my head and closed my fingers around the light. I forced myself to turn it down and then put the light away altogether. Small dots danced in front of my eyes as I thought back to all the things I had studied.

  “It had fangs. Not like yours. All of its teeth were sharp, like a shark’s. It has wings, and it looked like a cockroach, the exoskeleton, but instead of the feet of that it had- like- it looked like hands with talons,” I said breathlessly.

  “It’s face.”

  “Hairless, flat nose, very Voldemort. Its eyes were milky blue. I don’t think it can use them very well.”

  “Explains the nighttime attack. Anything else?”

  “It had antennas.”

  Eli frowned and shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve even heard of.”

  “Well, you weren’t real until a couple months ago so let’s work on the premise we don’t know anything,” I said.

  “Good idea,” Eli agreed. “It sounds like an overgrown cockroach from somebody’s nightmare.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Cockroaches we can kill,” he said.

  “We can’t fly,” I said.

  “We have weapons.”

  “Can you shoot?” I asked, eyeing him warily. I didn’t think we would ever have to use a gun, but I knew that once Eli saw that thing, he wouldn’t want to get any closer to it than I would.

  “No,” he muttered and winced. “It’s coming back.”

  I put a shield up around the van, hoped that it would fend it off, but the thing shattered it with those talons and tore a hole through the van.

  I screamed again.

  I don’t know exactly how I did what I did next, but the relief in the van was palpable.

  I pulled at the closest natural formation I could find. At home, it was the forest, it would feed my magic. Here it was rocks. Though not dead, it would take time for my magic to learn the desert magic we were surrounded by. It was entirely different, lovely and fierce and breathtaking in its own way, but unfamiliar to me all the same.

  It still lent me a little of what it had, though.

  A large boulder rose from the ground off the side of the road and as the thing tore the top of the van open like it was a sardine can and
we were just the tasty treats waiting to be devoured, I screamed and the boulder swiped the thing out of existence.

  I screamed for another few seconds until it hit me it was gone.

  “Did I kill it?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

  “Pretty sure you did, yeah,” Eli said, his voice shaky. “There is a long streak of goo behind us on the road.”

  I had fallen on my back between the front seats and the middle row and I worked myself up into a sitting position.

  “Why?” I asked petulantly.

  “I don’t know. But I think we might need to make a pit stop-” Eli was cut off once again.

  This time I heard the screech like it was centered inside my head. The same thing landed on top of the van once more, but this time, it appeared to have brought friends.

  “How far is the pit stop?” I asked Eli as I slid into the front seat, trying to stay as far away from the cockroaches that were now swarming the van.

  “Not long. Twenty minutes, maybe?” Eli guessed and ducked when a talon ripped through the top of the van just above his head. I scrambled for the bag filled with guns, found a semi-automatic pistol. I had to dig for the magazine. I loaded it, aimed above Eli’s head and pulled the trigger in a short, even bursts. The thing screeched, pumpkin orange guts leaked from its center and I saw it tumble off the side of the road.

  Eli looked at me, his eyes wide.

  “Move your ass, babe. We won’t make it twenty minutes,” I said.

  He pressed on the gas and I took aim again.

  Ten minutes later, we passed a set of wards. I was on my back again, aiming for what they left of the top of the van, but the roaches were few and far between now.

  And once I felt that pulse of magic in my veins marking us for our pit stop, I knew that we wouldn’t be seeing them again.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  I was covered in those same disgustingly orange guts, as was Eli.

  “Nothing,” Eli said, and he sounded relieved.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” Eli repeated. “We are in Nothing.”

  I looked at him and he pulled to a stop by a welcome sign. Other than the sign and a yellow building that looked like it was one sneeze from falling down completely, the place was only sand and a few rocks. Who would put up such powerful wards around a place like this?

  I leaned out the door to inspect the welcome sign.

  “Town of Nothing Arizona. Founded 1977,” I read out loud. I looked at Eli over my shoulder. “The town is named Nothing?”

  “I didn’t name it,” Eli muttered. He was rubbing his ear. I knew that the gun blasts in such close quarters couldn’t have felt good especially with his sensitive hearing.

  “The staunch citizens of Nothing are full of Hope, Faith, and Believe in the work ethic. Thru-the-years-these dedicated people had faith in Nothing, hoped for Nothing, worked at Nothing, for Nothing,” I read on.

  I studied the words for a long moment before I turned back to Eli. “What kind of bullshit cult ghost town did you bring us to?” I demanded.

  “That’s our home, Sparky, and please watch your language around the little ones,” a voice said from the darkness.

  “You will have to do better than a disembodied voice to scare us! A bunch of cockroaches just tried to eat our faces!” I called out.

  “I’m not trying to scare you, Sparky. Just letting you know,” the voice came again. Distinctly female, with rounded words that soothed like chamomile tea on a cold day.

  Eli sighed and leaned into the steering wheel.

  “Eli Ortega, is that you?” The voice called.

  “Yeah. It’s me,” he groaned.

  “You have marked this little Sparky up from here to kingdom come. Disgusting, affection is,” she declared.

  She stepped into the headlights and I got my first glimpse of her. Skin the color of rich, golden sepia and black hair that fell in curls past her shoulders, she was a vision. She wore a long skirt that looked like it was unbleached muslin and a tight tank top that was beaded through with turquoise.

  “Lou, this is Deidre. She owns and runs this place. Deidre, this is Lou. He’s my boyfriend,” Eli said. He still hadn’t straightened up.

  “Lou Correa?” She asked, her eyes lighting up.

  “That’s me.”

  “I talked to your mom not a few days ago. Lovely woman, incredible power, even better cooking skills,” she said.

  I gave her a tight smile. “I don’t want to sound rude, but what are you guys talking about? You own and run what place?”

  “Oh,” Deidre said and turned. “I forgot to take it down.”

  She waved her hand and the surrounding air shimmered. The yellow building straightened and pulled itself together. In its place was what it probably was back in its glory days; bright yellow, with a cement sidewalk winding around it, windows that were filled with warm light and the sound of children.

  As the air continued to shimmer, I tracked it.

  The dust was paved over and the shadows I took to be large boulders were actually small houses. There were bikes and toys and roller skates and toys of all kind littering the area.

  Behind Deidre stood a small army of children, staring at Eli and I like we were the cockroaches invading this time. They were all ages and towards the back I saw a few teenagers holding babies.

  “Welcome to Nothing, gentlemen,” Deidre said.

  MARCUS SLUMPED DOWN on a log. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  I shrugged. It wasn’t his fault that our entire mission was a bust.

  Azolata was not at the church or the town hall but it seemed like the town hall was the headquarters for this whole mess.

  I stared down at the town, watched the soldiers coming and going like they owned the place. I didn’t even live here, and it disgusted me they felt entitled to it all.

  “We should try to get some real food before we head back. We can’t survive on soda and vending machine food for long,” I said.

  I don’t know why I had my hopes so high. The chance of finding him so easily was laughable.

  “The grocery store is a bad idea but there is a gas station on the other side of town that should have some other stuff,” Marcus said.

  I nodded. Marcus stood, and we set off at an easy pace. We weren’t so full of hope and ready to take on the world now.

  We kept to the trees and the shadows, and I finally saw what Lou was talking about when he said that the woods were dangerous. Other than the duende, it hadn’t seemed that impactful. But now, as night approached, I could hear whispers in the branches and eyes watching us. I didn’t feel a threat, but there was definitely something there.

  The gas station seemed to be empty, but we both stopped and watched for a few minutes.

  “Now would be a great time to have someone here who has supernatural hearing or something,” Marcus whispered.

  “If you two can get your shit together and stop arguing for five damn minutes, then maybe we can have a real plan,” I whispered back.

  “That’s fair. Can’t guarantee anything, but that is fair to say,” Marcus whispered.

  “Why do you guys hate each other so much?” I asked.

  “Not everyone grows up with a sister as angelic and sweet and kind as yours. Must have been like the Brady Bunch with you guys,” Marcus said. He kept his eyes forward on the gas station.

  “Billie is great but she can also be a giant pain in the ass. Don’t try to wake her up or she will take your head off. Have you ever had to raise a teenager when you barely out of your teens yourself? Did you know I had to explain what was going on when she got her first period? That I took her into the store to buy pads? It wasn’t always sunshine and daisies,” I said.

  “It’s complicated,” Marcus hedged.

  “Ain’t it always.”

  We turned back to the store and when our watches marked ten minutes, we decided that it was clear.

  “You want to go in or you want to watch?” Marcus aske
d.

  “I’ll go in. I’ve already got the bag,” I said.

  Marcus nodded. “I’ll whistle if anything comes up.”

  I nodded and hurried across the small clearing. The side door was open, and I stepped inside.

  The floor was strewn with trash and discarded products. I frowned. This wasn’t how every place else was. If anything else, the Ascendancy was incredibly neat and tidy. This looked like someone had waged a small war in here.

  Shelves were tossed against walls and leaning against each other. It made for a difficult maze for me to traverse and I kept my rifle up but I still had to watch where I was going. I didn’t think we would find anything of use here, but I was curious about the mess.

  I was about to look through some packages under foot when I heard something near the back of the store; a kind of shuffle followed by a long sigh.

  The lights above me were flickering, and I was having a hard time figuring out what could be back there. I wasn’t exactly being quiet; not for a trained soldier and certainly not for something with supernatural hearing.

  I could feel the sweat trickling down my back and I had to resist the urge to reach back and wipe at it. I didn’t like how it felt in here. It was basically the set of a horror movie and I was the dumb ass that kept going in deeper while the audience shouted at me to leave.

  I went around another shelf and kept low, swinging wide with my rifle.

  I almost dropped it.

  Azolata was sitting there, his back to the refrigerated cases of alcohol, head tipped back. When I stepped around the corner of the shelves, he turned to me. He blinked those impossibly dark eyes and the relief I felt coursing through me made me halt abruptly.

  “What are you doing here?” Azolata asked, courtesy and curiosity at war in his voice.

  “I swung by for a beer but if you need a ride out of here, I could help you,” I offered, my voice strangled.

  “I would think otherwise, with the overly large gun pointed at my direction,” Azolata said pointedly.

  I looked down at it and flicked the safety on before I let it drop. The strap secured to my body held it close.

  “Come on, let’s go. Marcus is waiting for us out back,” I said.

  Azolata didn’t move, only searched my face like I had some kind of answer he didn’t. “You should go,” he said gently.