The bowls were filled with a lumpy, grayish substance, swimming with chunks of possible meat and a bunch of squiggly white strings. And it still smelled like gym socks and spoiled guts. “Er,” I said. “Hope you don’t mind me asking, but…what is that?”
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s safe,” Chester said. “I never use anything with preservatives. That’s where they slip the drugs in, dull your mind and fatten you up like cattle. The ramen noodles are okay for filler, but I don’t use the seasoning. It’s loaded with MSG. And the squirrel meat’s pretty fresh.”
“Squirrel meat,” I echoed weakly, grabbing a package of crackers. “Think I’ll stick with these.”
Taeral reached out and picked up a bowl. “Don’t be rude, Gideon,” he said. “Our host has prepared us a meal. It is surely safe to eat, as he’s mentioned.”
I glared at him. Couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, but I suspected. Strongly.
“Go on, dig in,” Chester said, helping himself to a bowl. “You’ll need your strength, if we’re going up against the werewolves.”
I frowned. “We?”
“I’m going with you.” Chester slurped down a spoonful of squirrel stew and failed to gag or drop dead. “You need a guide. I know the King, and I’ve got plenty of anti-werewolf weapons. Without me, you’re as good as dead up there.”
“I hardly think we need help from a—”
“Hold on,” I said before Taeral could say something brilliant like human. “He does know the area. And we’re definitely short on firepower.”
“I’ll not be responsible for him,” Taeral said. “I’ve enough trouble keeping you alive.”
Chester leaned forward, balancing his bowl in one hand, and stared at him. “Listen, son. Do you have any idea what these aliens are doing?” he said. “They’re making super soldiers out of everything they can get their hands on, and it’s not just werewolves. I’ve seen more shit than you’ll ever be able to understand. I can handle a bunch of overgrown dogs, you got that?”
I couldn’t help laughing at Taeral’s stunned expression. “Okay. You’re coming with us.”
“Damn straight I am,” Chester said. “We’ll head up at dawn.”
“No.” Taeral’s features sobered quickly. “We leave at moonrise,” he said. “If Milus Dei is this close, and in such numbers…we may already be too late. We must find her.”
Chester’s eyes widened. “I thought I was the crazy one. You know they’re stronger in the moonlight, right?”
“Aye, they are.” Taeral flashed a grim smile. “But so are we.”
CHAPTER 23
I’d forgotten what it felt like to be outside under the moon, miles from civilization.
This was what I’d grown up with—untamed environments and open space. Lands rarely disturbed by people, where the most violent acts were those of natural survival. At least until the Valentines arrived on the scene.
I’d never minded the surroundings. It was the company that bothered me.
It was a warm night for November. The winding, partially wooded trail Chester led us up was obviously not used regularly. Exposed roots and overgrowth choked long sections of it, and in some places erosion had formed jagged pits that were almost big enough to park cars in.
We were armed with high-powered flashlights and Chester’s idea of an anti-werewolf arsenal. He and Taeral both carried shotguns, and I had a compact .45, all of them loaded with homemade wolfsbane-laced bullets. We also had pocket knives with silver coated blades, dart guns with darts tipped in belladonna, and pouches of powdered stuff that was supposed to blind them. If you could manage to open a pouch and throw a handful of dust into the eyes of an attacking werewolf.
Chester wore a bandolier stocked with glass tubes—scent bombs, he called them, to cover our tracks. Every once in a while he’d smash one against a tree or a rock.
The stench was so strong, it seemed like it would attract every werewolf within a hundred miles. But apparently they’d worked for him so far.
At least the moonlight was working its magic. Taeral already looked better, and I felt almost normal again. The clawed gashes across my stomach were down to scratches. I’d left the pendant outside my shirt to recharge, but I still hoped I wouldn’t need it. Maybe Sadie had talked her pack out of using us as chew toys by now.
Unfortunately, with the way that werewolf I’d stabbed had acted, I doubted it.
Ahead of us, a huge, moss-covered fallen tree lay partially across the path. Chester had almost reached it when the beam of his flashlight swept past a hollow beneath the log—and I happened to glimpse something I hadn’t seen in years.
Something Chester was about to step on.
“Chester, freeze!” I half-shouted, moving in front of Taeral.
Thankfully, he did. When he looked back with a questioning expression, I pointed my light at the hollow and the thick, white-banded, brown and black coils of snake stuffed inside. “Timber rattler,” I said. The snakes weren’t usually lethal, but they were highly venomous. And they had a very long strike range.
Chester took the right steps—slowly backwards, away from the snake. “Damned good eye you’ve got,” he said, looking at me with surprise. “Don’t see many of those, this late in the year.”
“Well, it’s warm tonight. Could be a den under there, too,” I said. “We’d better go over and around this thing.”
“I’m impressed.” Chester raised an eyebrow. “You don’t strike me as the wilderness type. Boy Scouts?”
I smirked. “Not exactly. Let’s keep moving,” I said, glancing back at Taeral.
He wasn’t moving.
“Taeral?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“That. Is a snake.” His frozen gaze didn’t leave the dark coils.
“Yeah. So?”
“I despise snakes.”
I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. I’d seen Taeral face down voodoo clans, scores of armed men, Fae a hundred times stronger than him, and packs of werewolves without hesitation—but a single snake apparently scared him shitless. “He won’t hurt you,” I said. “Come on. All we have to do is steer clear.”
“Of the snake.”
“Yes. We won’t go near the snake,” I said, hoping I sounded calm and soothing.
“What if there are more?”
I fought a smirk. “We won’t go near them, either.”
He shuddered, breaking free of his paralysis. “I despise snakes.”
“Yeah, you said that.” I nodded at the fallen tree. “We’ll just climb over this end. Away from the snake,” I said. “Okay?”
“If we must.”
“Yes, we must. Sorry.”
He frowned. “Fine. But for the record, I’ll not enjoy it.”
“Duly noted.”
Chester was already on the other side of the massive log. I let Taeral go ahead of me. When I climbed over, he was already ten feet back from the path, standing in knee-deep underbrush and glaring with dark mistrust at the tree.
“What’s his problem?” Chester said as I hit the ground.
I shrugged. “Guess he doesn’t like snakes.”
“Oh. Think we should tell him there’s probably a lot more out where he’s standing?”
“Nah,” I said with a grin. “If there are, they’re grass snakes. I’d love to see him react to one of those.”
Chester laughed. “No Boy Scout in that boy, huh?”
“Not a drop.”
We kept going. Eventually Taeral made his way back to the path to join us, with no further snake sightings. The temptation to make fun of him remained, but I resisted. For now. I was definitely going to bring it up later, though.
After a while, the vegetation thinned and we came to a gently sloping field of rock. “That’s the back way into the canyon,” Chester said, pointing to a wide crevice about halfway up. “Once we get to the den, we can draw ’em outside and mount a frontal assault. Smoke canisters, scent bombs, cover fire. Then you go in and get your frien
d.”
Belatedly, I realized that an all-out attack would hurt Sadie too, if she was actually with her family instead of being held by them. “Er, maybe we should try to be subtle,” I said.
Chester shook his head. “What, you want to try sneaking up on a bunch of werewolves? Not going to work. You get too close, and they’re all over you.”
“We will attempt to use the entrance, and speak to them,” Taeral said. “Perhaps they’ll listen now.”
At least Taeral was thinking along the same lines as me.
But Chester didn’t know that the friend we wanted to rescue was one of them. “You’re going to reason with werewolves,” he said. “And they call me crazy.”
“It might work,” I said.
“No, it won’t.” Chester sighed. “Look, I’ll hang back and try to cover you. But I can’t promise anything, if you’re really going to go through with this.”
“We are,” Taeral said.
“Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The crevice led to a short tunnel that emptied into the canyon—or at least, a canyon. For a minute I thought we were in the wrong place, until I saw the bend ahead and to the right. I figured the bunker was around the curve, out of sight. So far, so quiet. There’d been no sign of the pack.
Until we rounded the corner and were met by four angry-looking people with guns.
CHAPTER 24
“It’s them,” Chester hissed, grabbing for the shotgun strapped to his back. “Open fire!”
The one at the front of the group, a male in his early twenties with bright red hair and a matching goatee, aimed a handgun the size of a small cannon at Chester’s head. “Try it, and I’ll vaporize your brain,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at a figure half-hidden behind him. “You recognize any of these guys?”
“No. I don’t think they’re from that place,” a female voice said uncertainly. The figure shifted into the light, and my breath caught.
She was much younger…but she bore a striking resemblance to Sadie.
“Elara?” I said.
Her eyes widened, and she took a startled step back. “He knows my name,” she whispered. “He must be one of them.”
The redhead glared. “Take them down,” he growled.
“Whoa! We’re not Milus Dei.” I elbowed Chester as he went for the shotgun again. I could tell this group was different from the ones who’d attacked us at the path. They were all younger, and they almost seemed scared. Probably because it sounded like Elara had managed to escape—she must’ve had more in common with her big sister than just looks. “We’re Sadie’s friends,” I said. “We were just looking for her.”
“And she had better not be harmed,” Taeral added in threatening tones.
The redhead’s expression went from angry to stunned. But Elara pushed past him and stalked toward me with fire in her eyes. “You don’t know my sister,” she spat. “If you did, you wouldn’t be looking for her here. She’s been gone a long time.”
“Um, Elara,” the redhead stammered. “About Sadie…”
She whirled on him. “What about her?”
“Sister?” Chester blurted. “Your friend’s a werewolf?”
One of the others, a brown-haired male, swung a rifle at Chester. “They know what we are,” he said almost frantically. “We have to kill them! Uncle Silas said any human—”
“Everybody, shut the hell up!”
Suddenly all eyes were on me. I held up the hand that wasn’t holding a flashlight, aware the calm wouldn’t last long. “First of all, we’re not humans,” I said. “We’re Fae. So you can shoot us all you want, but it won’t do any good.”
“Hey,” Chester whispered loudly. “I’m not—”
“You are, or you’re dead,” I told him under my breath.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, right,” he said. “I am also a fairy. Just like my friends, who are definitely fairies and not humans. Or werewolves.”
“Okay. They get it,” I said dryly.
“You’re not really…”
“Don’t worry about that now.” I faced Elara. “You got away from them, didn’t you?”
She gave a tentative nod. “What’s going on?” she said. “How do you know Sadie…where is she?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” the redhead said. “She was at the bunker, when they captured the elders. They got her, too.”
Taeral and I exchanged alarmed glances. We were too late—but they didn’t kill their captives. There was still a chance.
And maybe, we’d just found some help.
“All right,” I said. “I think you’d better tell us what happened. Is there someplace we can talk?”
The redhead looked around uneasily, and finally lowered his weapon. “This way.”
We followed them further into the canyon, under the silent gaze of the moon.
The bunker showed what might be considered signs of a struggle. And by struggle, I meant flat-out war.
Black scorches marked the metal door, which had been blasted off its hinges. There were bullet holes in the walls, and blood splashed on the stone floor of the canyon. Part of the flat roof had been caved in.
The inside was worse. The entrance led to a large main area full of jumbled, splintered furniture that used to be some kind of living room, complete with two large, flat-panel TVs. One bore a smashed screen painted with blood, and the other was a bent heap of shattered plastic and twisted metal, and more blood. Like they’d been used as weapons. The whole room reeked of spent fire with an ominous metallic undercurrent.
My brain decided to focus on being surprised that werewolves sat around watching television.
We were led to a side room that seemed relatively untouched, except for a few overturned chairs around the conference-style table that dominated the room. Most of us sat down, and quick introductions were made. The redhead was Tate, his brother Luther was the instinctive anti-human, and a girl with long braids and a high-powered crossbow was Mars.
“They took most of the elders. Silas, Oscar, Dionne. Marlon and Willow. A few more.” Tate, who seemed to be the unspoken leader of the group, paced slowly at the head of the table, running a hand through his red hair. “We were out hunting with Dad, and we heard gunfire. Explosions. When we got back…”
“You already told me this stuff,” Elara said.
“Yeah, but they don’t know.”
“What about Sadie?”
He sighed and refused to look at her. “I don’t know why she was here,” he murmured. “Marlon brought her in last night. She was in bad shape…he wouldn’t say what happened. And he wouldn’t let anyone talk to her, either. He locked her in the sanctuary. But the door’s busted open and she’s gone.”
“I know why she came.”
All the werewolves looked at me. “Marlon is your brother, right?” I said to Elara.
“Unfortunately,” she spat.
Okay, so no brotherly love there. And he’d apparently led the attack on us, so I kind of shared the sentiment. “He contacted Sadie when you went missing,” I said. “She’s gone up against these guys before—we all have. So we came to help get you back.”
“Marlon called Sadie?” Elara’s anger drained, and she crossed her arms with a shudder. “She came for me. And they took her,” she whispered. “Oh, Sadie…”
Something clicked in my mind as she spoke, and I put it together with Reese at the station. Saying they’d been expecting the werewolf. “Jesus Christ,” I said roughly. “They never wanted you. They wanted her.”
Taeral straightened in the seat beside me. “What?”
“They wanted Sadie. They took Elara to lure her out here.” My blood ran cold at the thought, but I knew it was right. Even Leo, the dead kid, had confirmed it—I just didn’t understand at the time. He’d said they want to get the girl. The werewolf. Sadie assumed he meant Elara, but the kid didn’t know any names.
I met Elara’s stricken gaze. “You’re the only one she cares ab
out,” I said. “She wouldn’t have come back for anyone else. This was a trap for Sadie.”
“Bastards,” Taeral growled. “Why her?”
“I don’t know, but we need to find out.” I looked around at the rest of them. “When Milus Dei attacked this place, did you kill any of them?” I said. “Are there any bodies still here?”
Tate frowned. “Why do you want a dead body?”
“Good question,” Chester said. “What the hell’s going on here?”
“I killed one.”
Mars, the girl with the crossbow, spoke for the first time, straightening from the wall she’d been leaning against. “Found him in the cellar, trying to break into the archives,” she said. “He’s still down there.”
“Good. Do you think you can bring him up?”
The girl nodded. “Come on, Luther. You can help me,” she said as she headed out of the room.
Luther shot me a suspicious look, but he followed her out.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time,” Tate said. “Why do you want a dead body?”
I gave a grim smile. “So I can ask him what they’re doing with Sadie.”
CHAPTER 25
“Oh my God,” Elara said. “You’re the DeathSpeaker.”
Before I could respond to that, Chester pushed back from the table and stood. “Excuse us for a minute,” he said too loudly. “I have to talk to my…fairy friends in private. Right now.” He glared at me and jerked his head toward the door.
Damn. I probably should’ve tried to explain a little more of this to him before we came up here. I guessed he had a right to be pissed off, and I owed him at least some of the truth. “Er, okay,” I said. “We’ll be right back. Come on, Taeral.”
The three of us left the room, and Chester closed the door when we were in the hallway outside it. “All right. I don’t know how, but your little ruse worked,” he said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before they decide it’s dinner time. I remember the way back to the door.”
I frowned. “We can’t leave.”
Fields of Blood (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 2) Page 11
