by Rhys Ford
“Good to see you, Gracen.” He frowned, peering over my shoulder. “And that looks like… you’ve got an elfin apprentice now? Wow. Thought you’d be the only one SoCalGov would be stupid enough to let wear a badge.”
“Long story, but first, I need to get someone to the medics.” I pulled the driver’s seat forward, folding it over to get at Malone. “I’ll pony up the costs to slap a couple of Band-Aids on him. Took a header over a guardrail going about thirty or so on a motorbike.”
“While being chased by an ainmhi dubh,” Ryder interjected, giving Isaac one of his winning smiles. “Hello. Since Kai seems to have left his manners back in San Diego, I am Ryder, Clan Sebac, Third in the House of Devon, High Lord of the Southern Rise Court. Our injured companion is Crickets Malone in the back seat.”
“He is not our companion. And his name isn’t Crickets. You don’t just get to make up your own nickname,” I muttered, crouching over to see if Malone was awake. He blinked at me furiously, rubbing at his eyes. “Can you make it out or do you need me to help you?”
“I’m fine,” he grumbled back, his frizz of hair sticking up in all directions around his gaunt, freckled face. “I just….”
He’d gotten one leg out when the rest of him slid onto the floor in a rattle of bones and cries.
I caught Malone before he tumbled down, his elbows and knees locking into knots while he tried to right himself. He smelled of fear-infused sweat and too many days away from a good bath. I’d smelled worse off of other things and people. Hell, I’d probably smelled worse myself, but on Malone, it seemed as wrong as the ainmhi dubh I’d killed back by the automat. Up close, he was even frailer and younger-looking, barely old enough to have earned the sparse hairs prickling his chin, and his freckles stood out against his pale cheeks, his skin drawn taut over his sharp features.
“I can walk just…,” he slurred, pupils blown out to dark round dots, eating away the color of his eyes. “Just give me a minute.”
“Yeah, I don’t have time for you to get your sea legs under you, Bugs.” Batting away his flailing hands, I scooped Malone up off the floor. He weighed nothing. I’d carried heavier bags of rice, but Malone insisted on helping, his legs scissoring about. “Stay still or I’m going to have Ryder knock you out. Can you get the door for me, Hernandez? He isn’t much, but it’s like holding a drunk wana.”
“What should I do about the car?” Ryder called out when I fell in step behind Hernandez. “Should I lock it up?”
“Just close the doors, Lord of… whatever it is you’re in charge of,” Hernandez drawled. “No one in their right mind would steal from Gracen here. Not unless they want to spend the rest of their days running for their lives.”
EVEN WITHOUT the storm, it was always hard to tell what time it was deep inside of the station. Where the perimeter rooms ran heavy with thick panes overlooking the slopes and road, the station’s inner hall walls were solid rock, duct work and pipes run through dugout trenches and fastened to the stone with metal anchors. The station’s many rooms and cubbies were finished off with drywall and frosted-glass doors, metal department signs fixed to the right of the entrances to help anyone lost in the rocky maze, but after we dumped Malone off with the medics in an already-busy infirmary, Hernandez edged Ryder and me toward the cafeteria instead of down to the sleeping docks.
“How about if we sit down and get some coffee while I get Bradley to shuffle some people around to give you a space to crash? We’re pretty full up, but there’s a couple of open rooms. Most of the sand rats we’ve got are in the common space.” Hernandez waved Ryder to the right, herding him along the way. “Flooding’s pretty bad in the lower valley, so we pulled up everyone who’d come, and most of them brought their dogs and some livestock with them. It’s like a damned ark down there. Woke up this morning to help break up a camel fight. This is a crazy job. No one at the Academy ever told me I’d be working in a damned looney bin.”
“Better in here than out there,” I said, falling into step next to him. “Coffee’s not a bad idea. Neither’s food if you can spare some.”
“Mostly beans, rice, and tortillas. Went for staples and canned goods once the radar went red with rain. Didn’t have a lot of time to stock up, but if you’re lucky, I can probably scrape up some cheese.” He gave Ryder a quick glance. “His kind eats that kind of stuff, right?”
“His kind is my kind, Hernandez. Have you known me to turn away food?” I reminded him, smirking when Ryder broke into a wide grin. “Don’t get any ideas there, lordling. Just pointing out the obvious.”
“Sends a thrill of delight through my heart to hear it,” Ryder commented behind me. “And yes, Chief Hernandez, all of that sounds lovely. Traveling with Kai usually means lots of noodles floating in hot water flavored with salt packets. Or dried meats of dubious origin.”
“He’s still traumatized by the cuttlefish,” I muttered at Hernandez. “I mean shit, feed the guy a handful of suckers on a stick once and he complains about it for the rest of his life.”
“Well, good to know there’s something we’ve got in common with the elfin,” Hernandez spat back. “Feed me anything with suckers and I’d hold it against you too. Here we go. And don’t pay any mind to the staring. Most of these people haven’t seen any Sidhe up close before, so chances are, you’re going to catch everyone’s attention.”
“Even Kai?” Ryder picked up his pace, leaving off his study of the station’s architecture.
“Hell, especially Gracen. Far as most of them are concerned, he’s like Dracula and the boogey monster rolled up into one. They know he’s on their side, but now that Dempsey’s gone, he’s off his leash and they don’t know what he’s going to do.” Hernandez stopped in front of a pair of double doors much like the ones in the staff parking area. My hackles were ruffled from his words, but I knew the truth when it was shoved up against my teeth. “You know how some people are, Gracen. No matter how often you pull them out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves, they’re still going to fear your shadow falling across theirs.”
He wasn’t wrong. Or at least not about all eyes being on us when the doors slid open to let us into the cafeteria. The room was larger than the parking level, set up with round tables and folding chairs to absorb the station’s increased population, and while not packed, it was still busier than I’d ever seen it, filled with everything from sunbaked families to grimy old loner sand rats huddled over metal plates of food. A long counter on the long side of the room was lined with chafing dishes heaped with beans, seasoned rice, and warmed-up canned mixed vegetables. Clusters of hot sauce, shoyu, and chili-pepper water sat on each table, their squat bottles surrounding tall plastic tumblers stuffed with utensils and folded napkins.
The cafeteria smelled of cheap, stomach-filling food and human sweat, and once the doors were fully open, any chatter and clanking metal stopped, leaving behind a stillness so weighted I could hear the old woman sitting nearest the entrance breathing through her flared nostrils.
“Coffee’s not much, but it’s hot and strong.” Hernandez’s rolling, deep voice boomed through the quiet, startling a few people enough they jerked in their seats. “Let’s grab one of the staff tables and I’ll get someone in the kitchen to bring us some plates.”
I was used to being stared at. Every time I rolled into a station, there were always one or two people who found themselves either on the wrong side of the law or in desperate need of help, so I ignored the whispering that kicked up in our wake. Ryder, however, stiffened up and stood there, not hearing me when I muttered his name under my breath.
“Don’t stare back. You’ll make them uncomfortable.” Tugging on his shirt, I got his attention with a sharp jerk. “Told you this would happen. Just let them get used to you being here. Get some food in you and we’ll crash here for the night. No sense going back out into the storm. If the road’s flooding out, we’ll be found in a ditch somewhere under a pile of rocks. If we’re lucky.”
“They’re… scared
of us,” he whispered back. “Or at least the adults are.”
“Yeah, well, wars and shit kind of make that happen. Give the kids a few minutes. They’ll come wandering by.” I jerked my chin toward an empty table in a blue-walled niche. “Just sit on the outside. You’re pretty. They’ll come. Probably want to stroke your hair. It’s all gold and sparkly. Kids like sparkly.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” Ryder walked toward the table. His jeans were too new, too perfect-looking despite the muddy ground we’d rolled around in during the black dog’s attack, but I watched him stride off and caught a woman eyeing his ass as he went by. Sniffing, he said, “I have candy in my pockets. If any come near me, I’ll bribe them.”
“Yeah, that’s going to go over well,” I snorted. “Big pointy-eared cat bastard luring kiddies in with candy. Their parents are going to love you.”
“Works with you,” he shot back, settling down on the chair closest to the cafeteria buffet.
I eased around him, taking the seat facing the door. The nook in the wall brought us out of eyeshot of most of the people in the area, but enough could see us to make my skin itch. The glances were quick, flashing over me and lingering on Ryder. I recognized a few, mostly the older ones with folds of dry skin crisscrossed with deep wrinkles hanging off their skinny faces. Beards were longer and grayer than I remembered, but the suspicious glares were the same.
“Ah, just like coming home.” Sighing contentedly, I leaned back in the hard metal chair. “Give it five minutes and someone will come by to spit on us. Bonus points if it’s one of the kids.”
“They’re not that bad,” Hernandez chided, coming around the corner. Setting down the steaming coffee mugs he’d carried over, he grimaced. “Crap, there’s something I forgot to tell you.”
“Let me guess,” I drawled, hooking my arm over the back of my chair, slouching toward Ryder. “Jerem Samms is here.”
“Shit.” His grimace deepened, etching long brackets on either side of his thin mouth. “How’d you know? Grapevine whisper into your ear?”
“Nope,” I replied, nodding toward the cafeteria door filled with a broad-shouldered man with his long brown hair pulled back from his craggy face. “The son of a bitch just walked in.”
Nine
IT’D BEEN a hell of a long time since I’d last seen Jerem Samms. He recognized me, dusky sloe eyes widening when he spotted me sitting next to Hernandez, and a quirk of a cocky smile dug into his left cheek, pulling up a familiar dimple. The swagger was still there too, his shoulders rolling slightly in time with the long strides he took. Armed with a sawed-off shotgun tucked into a back holster, he was given a bit of room by an old man scuttling out of the door, the wild-haired hermit shuffling quickly out of Samms’s reach.
Dressed in pretty much standard Stalker gear—jeans, boots, and a heavy leather jacket—Samms wore his passing years well. There was more silver than brown in his hair now. I could see it more clearly as he got closer, and a few flecks glistened in the several-days-old beard on his more weathered face. He’d lost the cowboy hat at some point, or maybe he’d left it in his ride, its dragon-scale-studded band something he’d been very proud of, having come away from a sand lizard fight with a handful of silver dots and a thin scar running down to the right of his eye and over his cheek, a souvenir from one of the dragon’s dew claws.
Samms was definitely more seasoned, experience adding to his confidence, and the slight imperfections of his face, like the white scar line on his cheek and his twice-or-more-struck Roman nose, only added to the man’s allure. He drew the eye in a different way than Ryder, but unlike the lordling sitting next to me, Samms liked the attention he drew, even tinted with caution and nervousness. The man I’d known enjoyed living on the edge, and he carried that razor sharpness with him, promising trouble even before he opened his mouth to speak.
“Damn, you have not aged one bit, have you, Gracen.” Samms smelled of the desert, leather, and gun oil, as familiar to me as the bite of electricity in the air from a coming storm. There were crow’s-feet at the edges of his dark eyes, but his gaze was still sharp, slicing over to rest on Ryder for a brief moment, then over to Hernandez when Samms gave the man a quick nod. “Didn’t get the ping on my link that another Stalker was in, Chief.”
“Must have forgotten to send it, considering they were hauling in someone from a black dog attack.” Hernandez slowly stood up, snagging his coffee from the table. “Didn’t seem as important as getting the kid to the medics, but I’ll make sure that’s taken care of right now. Gracen, stop by the duty desk to get the key to your bunk. And good to meet you, sir. The food here is probably more plain than you’re used to, but it will stick to your ribs. Just avoid the lettuce. Not too sure where they get it from, but it always gives me a stomachache.”
Samms didn’t step aside for Hernandez, forcing the border officer to brush past him to get out. It was the kind of dick thing he’d do to people in a pub and something I’d have thought he’d outgrow at some point, but I guess I was wrong. He waited until Hernandez walked out of the cafeteria before sliding into his abandoned chair, giving me another slow smile and leaning on the table with his elbows.
“Taking on apprentices now, Gracen? Decided you got sick of humans and got one of your own?” The edge on his voice felt easy, as if I’d been the one who’d put distance between us. Or maybe I had, but I had quite a few damned good reasons for it. Samms held out his hand to Ryder, his arm stretched in front of me. “Stalker Jerem Samms. Who are you?”
“Ryder.” The lordling took Samms’s hand firmly. I waited for the litany of titles and bloodlines the Sidhe habitually used to introduce themselves, but it didn’t come. Instead, Ryder said, “And I’m not Kai’s apprentice. I’m….” He flicked a glance toward me, measuring his words. “His friend.”
“Friend?” Samms snorted, releasing Ryder’s hand. “Gracen doesn’t have friends. He has ex-lovers, soon-to-be ex-lovers, and the four or five people he trusts to have a gun behind him. But none of them are friends.”
“Then I am sorry you do not truly know Kai, because he has many friends,” Ryder replied smoothly, the expression on his face as diplomatically placid as I’d ever seen it, but his smile was carved straight out of his grandmother’s haughty arsenal. “And I am glad to be counted among them.”
I was caught between them, both smooth liars when they wanted to be, and I never thought I’d be in a position where an elfin sitting at the table was the more trustworthy, but the man to the right of me was definitely the one I’d prefer to have behind me holding a gun. I might question his aim but never his intent. I couldn’t say the same for Samms. Sure as hell not after what he tried to do to me.
“How long has it been since we sat down together, Gracen?” Samms smiled at the harried young server who came by to refill our coffees, asking her to bring him a cup when she had time. He was charming, giving her his best charismatic façade, and she blushed and hurried away with a promise to come back. Waiting until she was out of earshot, he turned back to me. “Twenty years? Twenty-five?”
“About that.” I did a quick mental accounting. “Seen you afterwards, of course, but didn’t give enough of a shit to stop and talk.”
“You always did hold a grudge.” Chuckling, he took the coffee cup from the server as she passed by, thanking her with a flash of white teeth. “Gracen tell you about me, Ryder?”
“He’s never even mentioned you,” Ryder remarked softly, adding sugar to his refilled cup. “And we’ve had plenty of time to talk.”
“We should check on Malone.” I drained my coffee cup, swallowing the hot brew quickly. “Then get the room before they give it away to someone else. A Stalker’s badge means shit if there’s a cute, wide-eyed kid with a sob story for the guys sitting at the desk. Grab what food we can carry with us and leave the rest.”
“You never said what you’re doing up here,” Samms said, reaching forward to touch my arm. His hand hovered, nearly brushing the b
ack of mine before I pulled away. “Things so calm down in SoCal you’ve come into Nevada to do some hunting?”
It wouldn’t do any harm to tell him, and considering I was in his backyard, Samms would be a good source for info. He liked to share, sometimes too much, and even though I couldn’t trust him to have my back, he was always honest about being in it for himself. In a lot of ways, he was a hell of a lot more trustworthy than the Sebac.
“Not on a run. Dempsey died last week.” I stopped, trying to count the days when the lump in my throat lodged itself in so tight I couldn’t swallow without choking on my own spit. Samms looked like he was going to say something, but I stopped him with a shake of my head. “Old man’s gone. Nothing more to talk about except heading up to New Vegas to give some of his ashes to his brother, Kenny. We were on our way when we stopped for some automat food and Sarah’s nephew, Robbie, came up over the ridge with a black dog hot on his ass. He took some hits, so we pulled in here to get out of the storm and to dump him on the medics. Once it’s clear, we’ll be heading up, then back down.”
“Ken Dempsey?” Samms frowned mockingly, pursing his lips. “Short dude. Potbelly. Looks like someone built your fake dad using the really shitty, saggy bits? That one?”
“Yeah, unless he’s changed much.” I stood up, hoping Ryder would catch the hint that we were leaving. The lordling was busy stacking paper dishes together, holding them tight enough to bend their lips, making sure there definitely wasn’t any room for anything to leak out. “Haven’t seen him in a while, but Dempsey kept up with him. Told me where to find him.”
“Here’s the thing, Gracen. Kenny Boy’s on the run. There’s a wet contract out on him by some of the fine people up in New Vegas with a couple of casinos and a bad temper.” Samms leaned back in his chair, then ran his fingertips over his scruff, lifting his chin up to get a spot above his Adam’s apple. “Picked up the specs a couple of days ago. Seems like your boy’s making a run for it down to San Diego, so either he hasn’t heard his big brother’s checked out or he’s coming to you to look for some saving. So if you know where he is or where he’s headed, you’d best get there before I do, because the price on him is pretty damned high and they don’t care if he’s brought in with all of his pieces still attached.”
