by P. N. Elrod
"Don't worry about it." We stepped down onto the concrete path, and I kept a watch out—her feet were bare.
She took another hit of julep. "I'll call in when we go back upstairs. With any luck someone should be able to come out from the closest real city."
"Sounds like a plan." I almost walked into a rosebush, trying to keep her away from the one on the opposite side. Her skirt caught on a thorny branch and she twitched it free by simply walking forward and ignoring it. "You hungry?"
She made another adorable little face and finished off her drink. "Not so much, lunch was pretty heavy. I wouldn't say no to another one of these, though."
"We can do that." I kept her going down the path. There was a little trellis covered in climbing jasmine, arching over a wide wooden bench. Sitting under the jasmine and maybe getting a little foolish sounded like a good idea.
"I know what you're thinking." Amusement colored her tone; she pulled me to a halt. "Here. You go get me another drink, I'll wait for you on that bench you're aiming for. And when you come back I'll give you a prize."
"What kind of prize?" I subtracted the glass from her unresisting fingers.
"You'll like it. Go get me another funny little mint drink, Mitch. Be nice."
"I like being nice to you." I gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and headed back for the house. The evening breeze had died down, full night gathering between the trees as the valley tipped under shade. Lover's Leap still glowed, streaks of naked rock throwing back a last gleam before the sun sank below the horizon.
I had just set my foot on the creaking porch step when I heard the snap of branches and Kat's short cry.
Instinct took over. I whirled, and the stink of suckers boiled across my sensitive nose. It's like being hit in the face with a bag of wet cement, that smell, and adrenaline bloomed along my arms and legs as I dropped the glass and launched myself.
One Sunrunner against three suckers is usually bad odds.
"HOLD IT HERE," MY HANDS SHOOK, BUT I kept the ice to her forehead. My ears had stopped tingling. Why didn't I smell them sooner? I don't like this.
Kat blinked, through a mask of blood. "What the hell?" Her voice had a dozy, sleepy tone I didn't like.
"It bit you. Don't worry," I added in an undertone, "I killed it." I shouldn't have told her. Her eyes got all wide and the remaining color drained out of her face, leaving her chalky except where drying blood painted her skin. A terrific bruise was plumping up on her right cheek, and she'd damn near gotten a dislocated shoulder. The sundress was ruined, covered in mud and guck, and I wasn't sure the trellis would ever be the same.
Miz Evans fluttered. "My oh my." Her steel-colored bun was slightly disarranged, and she smelled of nervous excitement and the high brittle edge of fear, as well as talcum powder and her overwhelming perfume—Tabu, the same stuff my granny used to douse her vacuum-cleaner bag in before her daily cleaning. "The sheriff should be here in a few minutes. Harv said he was right on his way." She waved her plump hands, the jet beads of the chain holding her bifocals to her impressive bosom clicking.
"Did you call Animal Control?" The story was that a stray dog had rampaged through the garden and attacked my lovely bride. It was lame, true, but the best I could do on such short notice.
"Well, Harv and his deputy mostly take care of that around here. Can I get her anything? Poor dear." She was shaking worse than I was.
I must have been wearing a mean face. "More water?" I didn't think Kat needed it, but I had to get the woman out of the room. Kat sucked in a harsh breath, her terrified gaze flying up to mine. She was far too pale, and gasping like she had asthma. The ice in the bag crackled, meeting her fever-heat.
"All right. You just rest, honey." She mimed patting Kat's naked shoulder, just touching the air over the skin. One of the sundress's straps had torn free. Kat crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself. Rolling around in the dirt had streaked all over the white cotton, and rose thorns had lacerated a fair bit of her back and shoulders. I couldn't wait to get her into a bathtub and wash the grime off.
First things first, though. I peeled up Kat's lip and checked her teeth. Poked at the gums over the canines with one nail. When she didn't cringe or cry out, I relaxed a little bit. Then I checked her pupils—no vacillation, and her heartbeat was normal, pounding with stress but not stuttering like it would be if the infection had taken hold in her bloodstream.
The first fifteen minutes after a bite are crucial. I picked up the half glass of water left over from Miz Evans's ministrations and whispered a bit of bastard Latin over it, breathed on the surface until it rippled, and held it to Kat's lips. She drank without demur, and there was no scorching where the water met her lips.
Merciful Sun, thank you. That was too goddamn close. "We're leaving. Tomorrow morning. Dawn, if not sooner." I didn't sound like myself. "Talk to me, sweetpea."
"My head hurts." She didn't sound like herself either. Kat blinked, and sense flooded her eyes. A little bit of color came back into her cheeks. "It bit me?"
"It did. I killed it, and you're not showing any signs of infection." She wasn't at a very high risk—the bite was just a glancing scrape of teeth, because I'd torn the fucking thing off her and killed it immediately; her immune system wasn't compromised and the Argentum probably had her on a course of garlic shots as well as the silver treatment to stave off infection. "You're clean, Kat. It's all right." The words cracked halfway.
"You don't sound convinced." Her eyes rolled up into her head and snapped back down. She reached up, pressed her fingers over mine, keeping the ice hard against the lump on her forehead. "Hurts. Need my mugwort."
"In a second." As soon as I'm sure you're all right.
"What's our story?" she whispered.
"Stray dog."
Amazingly, a pale grin lit her wan face. Her legs were covered in a mass of scratches and claw marks, blood and mud marked the chintz slipcover underneath her. "That's a good one, Fido."
"Ha ha." I tried to feel relieved and failed miserably. "Sit still."
"I want my mugwort."
"In a second." I heard car wheels crunching gravel, tensed, and made myself relax muscle by muscle. "We have to talk to John Q. Law."
"Crap." She blinked, a bit more sense coming back into her baby blues. "You look awful."
I felt halfway to awful, mostly because I'd torn something in my leg. One Sunrunner against three newborn suckheads. The only thing that had saved me was the fact that they hadn't had time to figure out how to really get troublesome. None of them could have turned more than forty-eight hours ago, still in the wet stage of transformation from human into sucking machine.
Which led me down some very interesting mental roads, in between checking Kat's breathing and looking at the blood drying on her face.
An engine cut off outside the bed and breakfast, and for a moment I was horribly aware of how alone we were. We were traveling off-season, and there was nobody in the whole bed-and-breakfast but us. The isolation had seemed charming when we'd arrived.
Now I just felt exposed and more than a little weak-kneed.
Footsteps on the porch. A knock, brief and courteous. Mrs. Evans came bustling out of the kitchen as the screen door opened and a wide, portly gentleman in a Sam Browne belt and dun uniform hove into view. He took off his hat, straggles of loose hair combed across the high dome of his skull, and I restrained the tingling in my arms and legs. I was already hairy enough; I didn't need to change right here to add to the fun. Small, close-set, deep-buried eyes met mine, and I took an immediate dislike to Harv the sheriff.
After all, he stank of bloodsucker. Half-moons of sweat spread under his arms, but the creases in his uniform were still starch-sharp. His skull glistened with sweat.
"Well, there, Miz Evans." A thin rolling voice, reedy enough to be a surprise from such a hefty man, whistled out. "What have we here?"
"Stray dog." Evans set the fresh glass of water down and flapped her doughy handsjet beads cli
cking. She edged away from the sheriff, probably noticing the smell on a subconscious level. "Attacked one of my guests out in the garden. Made a ruckus."
"I saw one of your trellises was down." His eyes swung over to me, damnyankee in my torn and muddy clothes. I suddenly wished I knew if or where I was bleeding. "Well hello, son. How's your lady friend? Needing a rabies shot?"
I was barely prepared for the surge of fury rising to my back teeth. Kat's fingers on mine were fever-hot, the ice was fiery-cold. Between those two scorches the fury hit a wall, was forced back down. "My wife seems to be fine, thank you. She wasn't bitten, just scratched."
"I'll get you some tea." Evans passed a little too close to me, and the smell of talcum powder, bourbon, perfume, and hairspray hit the back of my throat. I swallowed another growl, bent down, and took a deep whiff of Kat, broken stems, mud, cedar perfume, and the iron tang of blood. "You want some tea, honey?"
"Tea would be lovely." Kat's consonants blurred. A little more color came back into her face. The plastic bag crinkled, a streak of cleanness sliding down her cheek where condensation from the bag had started to drip.
"Can you describe the dog, missus?" The sheriff didn't step in past the foyer, leaning in the door to the living room. Instead, his eyes roved the surface of the chairs and settees, the dark and dead iron stove, the fringed lamps and overstuffed furniture. The place had once been a nice antebellum mansion, but it looked like the Victorian era had thrown up in here.
"Brown fur and big teeth." Kat gave him a wide-eyed, tremulous smile full of dewy innocence. "I didn't see much else."
The man's face didn't so much as crack. "Big dog? Little dog?" His narrow gaze cut over to me, flashed back to Kat, and slid back to me, eyes almost lost in folds of flesh.
I've seen that look once or twice, and it always makes my hackles go up.
He knows something.
Well, no shit. Reeking of bloodsucker and sweating like a horse, of course he knew something.
"Fairly big. Mitch scared it off." Amazingly, Kat actually fluttered her eyelashes. She slumped back against the chintz, her fingers still clamped to mine. "Were you hurt, sweetheart?"
Anyone who knew her would have winced at the sarcasm in her tone. Sheriff Harv scratched at his forehead, dangling his hat in one beefy hand. "Guess you's both lucky. Dogs is nothing to fool round with." There it was again, the furtive little gleam in his eye when he said "dog."
I hate that.
"Well, guess I'll take a report." Harv palmed a cupful of sweat from his broad forehead and dug deep for what looked like a genuine smile, directed at Kat. "You and your fella there don't go nowhere."
"I don't think I'm in the mood for any rambles." Kat bristled, and I suddenly knew it was in my behalf. My heart got four sizes too big for its anchor inside my ribcage. "Not with so many dangerous things on the loose."
The smile dropped off Harv's face so fast I was surprised it didn't shatter on the hardwood—tastefully covered by a rug embroidered with cabbage roses, of all things. "Guess not. Ma'am." He mimed tipping his hat to Miz Evans, who made a small idiotic sound, and left, banging the screen door behind him.
"He'll be back with some paperwork." Evans held two tall sweating glasses of tea I could smell the sugar in. "Here, honey. You need some tea. It fixes all ills."
Kat gave a weak smile as I peeled the ice away from her forehead. "What a nice man." Flat and ironic, and completely for Evans's benefit. "Do I look ready to bolt, Mitch?"
"You look beautiful." I took one of the teas, so Kat didn't have to, and she grabbed for the glass of water, reading my mind.
"You're a good liar." But she smiled. We were bloody, battered, and aching. But we'd gotten off lightly, and I knew it.
"I'VE BEEN THINKING," KAT ROLLED OVER, WINCING, AND I suppressed a groan.
"Jesus. Do you have to?" I ached, and the bacon and eggs Evans had whipped up for me sat heavy in my stomach no matter how much of the pitcher of sweet tea I poured down. I was more nauseated than I should have been, my body craving protein to fuel muscle repair. Kat's desire for a salad was met with something made of cucumbers, tomatoes still warm from the sun, and fresh mozzarella in an olive-oily sauce. She liked it, but had eaten very little.
I'd started packing as soon as we hit our suite, stopping only to take bites off the piping-hot plate. Kat had picked at her food and gone to bed.
Packing didn't seem to be so much fun when I looked at the shape of her under the sheet. Still, I kept at it.
"I thought you loved me for my mind." She was smeared with thick green mugwort—and—holy water paste, drying and flaking off now, and the green smell mixed with the rest of her made my entire spine go cold.
Bitten. Second time in as many days she could have been seriously hurt. Goddamn. "Mind's no good without the body to put it in, sweetpea. Three suckheads—"
"—acting completely uncharacteristically. Seems like someone wants to stop my research."
The air conditioner droned under the silence that followed.
God damn the woman. "Kat." I struggled for control. "We're leaving at dawn. You can call the Argentum from the next town. We'll stop in a place that has a Starbucks and more than three stoplights, not to mention a decent Italian restaurant. I'll get you drunk on chianti and take advantage of you and we'll wend our way toward Disney World. Florida's nice this time of year."
"I don't want to go to Disney World. Do you want to hear what I was thinking about or not?"
I stuffed some T-shirts into my suitcase, higgledy-piggledy. "All right. Fine. But we're leaving tomorrow morning. You'd better get some sleep."
"I didn't sit down on the bench because I had a thought. It struck me there was a pattern to most of the disappearances. In most of the newspaper reports Lover's Leap is mentioned." She moved gingerly, settling herself again with a sigh. "Come over here, Mitch. I'm lonely."
Normally I would have burned up the carpet getting my shaggy ass into bed. Right now I jammed a pair of jeans into the suitcase and remembered the clothes we had soaking in the washer. "Be right there."
"You're being ridiculous. I say we go take a closer look at Lover's Leap tomorrow morning."
You're calling me ridiculous? "No way, Kat. Absolutely no way, nohow. No."
"You can stay here if you're scared, Fido. But I want to do some scouting. I'll call in before we go, it shouldn't take someone too long to get here."
"This," I announced into the suitcase, "is not my idea of a good time." My fists ached, wanting to clench. The room was stuffy, even with air-conditioning.
"It'll be daytime. Any sanguine is going to be torpid and easy to kill. Anything else is likely to be torpid as well." She yawned.
My shoulders were tight as bridge cables. "No, Kat. That's final."
A charged silence settled into the room, made itself comfortable, and cringed away from Kat's soft, inflexible tone.
"If I hear the words 'that's final' out of your mouth again, Mitchell Black, they will be." The sheets rasped as she shifted, irritably. "I didn't marry you so you could tell me what to do. I'm an adult, and I'm a Knight of the Argentum Astrum. You can either help me or you can drive that Jeep of yours back to Las Vegas and find yourself both a divorce and a nice little husky to have puppies with."
I don't think she meant to say that. The nausea under my sternum crested, I swallowed sourness. Christ, don't fight with her. It's still your goddamn honeymoon. "I don't want you getting hurt, Kat."
She sighed. "We've done all right so far. And I'll call the Argentum tomorrow morning, as soon as I get up."
I didn't have breath to agree or disagree, my stomach rolling like a ship during a hurricane. I'd've suspected some bad bacon, but any Sunrunner worth his nose doesn't eat spoiled meat. Still, I abandoned my packing and made it to the bed. Laid down next to Kat, who probably considered the matter finished, because she didn't speak, just clicked off the lamp on her side. I lay in the dark, my stomach griping, until I passed out.
SO
METHING WAS WRONG, I SMELLED DIRT AND FOULNESS, and there was something in my eyes. It reeked of death. A scattering of something heavy dripped across my face, wet and silken and laden with decay. Everything was black.
Where's Kat?
Smells. Wet dirt, decaying vegetables, a heavy cologne touching off a chain of association. All my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all. Something heavy across my legs, my fingers tensed, dirt crumbling wet against my nails.
Kat? I didn't smell her.
The men burying me couldn't have been prepared for the dead body to crackle with shifting bones, sprouting fur and moving in ways their entire experience of reality tells them can't be so. They screamed, one teenage voice breaking with fear and another deeper male tone adding a jangling harmony, as I woke in the flush of the metabolic burn fueling the change. Halfway there I realized what was happening, but it was too late. I'd already killed the boy and was on top of the older man, snarling meat-laden breath into his face, my muzzle spattered with hot blood.
Blood's dangerous when you're in between man and wolf. It can drive you right over the edge into crazy. The wolf knows blood but it takes second place to survival, and a real man won't let his blood-lust carry him too far. But halfway? Well, that's the danger zone.
The night breathed, a complex tapestry of scent. Not cold pavement and garbage like a city, but fragrant rotting woodland full of swamp heat and decaying vegetable matter. We were out in the woods, and they had been burying me in a shallow grave. I could still feel tree roots digging into my flesh.
What the hell? I tried to talk, forgetting about my mouthful of wrongly-shaped teeth and tongue. The noises I made weren't human.
Neither were the noises my captive made. His baseball cap had been knocked off, and he was partly bald, smelling of beer and Lucky Strikes. I'd torn his overalls, slashing with long amber claws.
I finally got my wits about me and slowly shifted back, fur melting away. It was damn hot, and I was in a pair of jeans and nothing else. My knees dug into wet earth. The most pertinent question came tumbling out. "Where is my wife?"