::Idiot,:: Ruger snarled, a personal thought gone public—or at least gone to Mariska—as he yanked the man up and off his feet, gave him a good shake, and dropped him to slap the gun away. “Stay down.”
But by then Mariska was close enough and still running on strong, and she could see the man had no intention of doing any such thing. He fumbled in his jacket pocket even as he crabbed away—a classic amulet grab—and Ruger said, “Ah, hell,” and threw himself down on the minion.
“No, no, no!” Not when there was no way to tell what the amulet would do if it made contact, what it would do even if it didn’t.
The dull snap of bone stopped her short. Ruger rolled away from the man, ending up on his hands and knees and already poised to thrust up and away. A big man, nimble on his feet.
But then, she already knew that.
Amulet corruption shredded the air, far thicker than carrion; the man had time for only a faint gargle of horror, a quick and spastic thrash toward death before he subsided.
After a moment, Ruger climbed to his feet, nothing of haste about it.
::Ruger?:: Ian said, obscured by terrain and structure. ::What the hell?::
::We’re good,:: Ruger said, an absent sending that didn’t distract him from circling in as he brushed himself off. ::Back with you in a moment.::
“Good?” Mariska said, aghast at the shrill note in her voice. “We’re good?” By then she was close enough to reach him—she punched him solidly on the arm. “This is what you call good?” She looked down at the minion—the former minion—and discovered his elbow bent the wrong way, his hand stuck in his pocket as it clutched the amulet...and his body as mummified as any creature left dead and undisturbed in the desert sun. “What were you even thinking?” and she threw another punch into his arm, full of frustration and fury.
Ruger turned with a quickness belying his size, his hand closing around her wrist—closing hard. His eyes, so matter-of-factly amiable—so filled with heat—had gone hard, hard enough to make her gasp. And he said nothing, but she heard the growl rumbling deep in his chest.
She responded without thinking, offering the quiet sound in her throat that meant a bear’s acquiescence—but only for the instant before she managed to cut it short. Then she yanked her wrist free and glared at him. “You should have let him go. I would have had him—that’s why I’m here.” And when he said nothing, she found herself flinging out words, rushing to fill that void, wanting something—anything—from him in response. “Last night in that parking lot, you would have let him past. You would have worked as a team. You should have known—”
“Last night,” Ruger interrupted, “we were a team.”
She blinked back unexpected emotion, and made her voice hard. “We’re still a team. You have your job, and I have mine. Don’t get them mixed up again.”
::Guys?:: Ian said. ::Hate to break up your little whatever-it-is, but have I mentioned I want to know what the hell is going on?::
“We had company,” Ruger said, out loud as much as through his mind’s voice. “Our company accidentally fried himself with his own amulet.”
::Purely by coincidence, I’m sure. Keep sharp, then. We’re just about through here; come on over and we’ll get a look inside.::
::Coming,:: Mariska said—but when she lifted her head, she discovered that Ruger was already on his way.
* * *
The brief, acrid stench of stolen Core power burst through the underground workshop, making Ciobaka sneeze. “Wowoww.”
“What are you complaining about now?” Tarras slammed the door of the recently emptied cage nearest to Ciobaka’s.
“No,” Ehwoord said, the snap of annoyance in his voice. “He’s right. Yoske triggered one of his defense amulets.”
Ciobaka tilted his head, studying Tarras as his mouth clamped shut and his body stiffened in anticipation of repercussion. But Ehwoord continued quietly grooming amulets for the next round of impressions, no more prepossessing than he ever was with his slight stature, his belly going round, his hair gray and his skin lined with wrinkles of a strangely stiff nature—as if parts of him had forgotten they were old and the rest of him was ancient. Sometimes Ciobaka thought his mind worked in that same pattern, shifting from coldly efficient to something just a little less sane.
Tarras asked carefully, “You felt it?”
“It’s my amulet,” Ehwoord told him, as if that was explanation enough.
“Then they’ve found the overflow installation.”
“Perhaps. Or Yoske became careless between here and there.” Ehwoord’s mouth tightened. “I needed that network up and running. I need those cameras. After a time, if Yoske doesn’t return, you’ll see to it.”
Tarras cleared his throat. “Of course. I’ll take a team and—”
“No,” Ehwoord snapped, and Ciobaka blinked at his emphatic tone. Interesting, to see Ehwoord ruffled. Interesting, to see that Tarras feared. “We hardly need half a posse tramping around in the woods if the Sentinels have found the installation. You may, however, take Ciobaka. He can warn you of Sentinel presence long before you detect them. They are, at all times, far too cocky about their presence in woods such as these.”
“Wahnnah!” Ciobaka said, and barked an exclamation as his tail quivered in anticipation. “Ouwwtah!”
“Out,” Ehwoord said, flaunting his human tongue and lips. “And yes. Of course, you will wear the collar—and you still bear the obedience amulet within you. If your behavior is less than exemplary, there will be punishment upon return.”
Ciobaka flattened his dingoesque ears, crouching slightly in the submission that Ehwoord wanted to see. But he flexed his newly mobile dewclaw thumb, pondering the buckle to his electric collar—and made sure Ehwoord saw that not at all.
Chapter 5
In truth, Ruger had only meant to stop the Core minion from pulling the amulet from his pocket. If the man hadn’t triggered the thing in hand, he’d still be alive.
He’d been a handsome man—as were many of the Core, in a snake-oil kind of way. Not because of their strikingly swarthy skin—more olive than Mariska’s stunning complexion, not as dark—but from the affectation of their hair, slicked back into a short queue and always black, whether natural or dyed. And the silver jewelry, heavy at wrist and neck and ear.
And their ubiquitous suits. Especially in the high-level posses—those serving the regional drozhar or even the Septs Prince, leader of them all. High sheen, beautifully cut...always just a little bit I think much of myself.
Not that this man was any of those things any longer. His black hair had gone dry and brittle; his skin taut, dry walnut stretching over bone. His clothes had been woodsy enough, the camo jacket over fatigue pants and a black T. But whatever else he might have had to tell them, they’d lost it when his tongue dried up. All they’d ever know was that this place wasn’t quite as abandoned as they’d thought it to be.
“He’s safe,” Ian said, coming to inspect the man now that he’d cleared the installation’s entrance of security workings. “I’ll leave the rest of it to you.”
Ruger hadn’t expected Mariska to display any squeamishness over the chore, and she didn’t. She leaned over to search the man, displaying her truly fine ass in the process. Ruger watched until he realized the riveted nature of his gaze, and scowled as he moved off across the swale. “I’m going to take a look inside with the AmSpecs. Let us know what you find.”
“Nothing so far,” she said, all business, her voice muffled as she bent to her task—and as he put distance between them. “Whatever he was up to, I don’t think he’s going to give us any clues.”
One of Ian’s poorly introduced AmSpecs waited by the entrance. It turned out to be a substantial door set within the rocks at the base of the opposite slope, obscured by light and shadow and a truly clever camouflage of combined paint and netting. Of course, Forakkes wouldn’t expect anyone to get this close, given the deterrent workings he’d had set in the area—and likely no
one had, until now.
“Jack Ivers,” the man said, as Ruger approached. “AmSpec grunt. Glad to meet you.” He grasped the inset latch and twisted, and then put enough effort into shoving the heavy metal door that Ruger propped a hand over his shoulder and pushed, speeding the process considerably.
Of course, then he had to duck. Not even the Core, with its typically lavish appointments and luxuries, would dig an underground hallway any larger than it absolutely had to be.
This one sloped sharply downward, with fourteen-inch circles of solar tube lighting overhead—eventually they’d find the discreet plastic domes that served to collect and amplify the light. Darkened LED lights also lined the sides of the hall and the center of the ceiling. Wire mesh served to reinforce the packed dirt walls, anchored and slightly concave. The good, clean scent of dirt went a long way toward cleansing Ruger’s head of the inevitable stink of Core workings.
The stink when they entered the installation was another thing altogether. Harrison, the other AmSpec grunt, stood off to the side, his complexion gone a little gray. “All clear so far,” he told Ruger. “We’ve checked the amulet station and the animals.” He nodded at the place, a cavernous Quonset structure also lit by solar tubes, subdivided into distinct areas, and full of such dim corners and visual clutter that Ruger couldn’t immediately make sense of it all. “This is where they work; they don’t need to trip over their own amulets every time they turn around.”
Ruger merely made a noise deep in his throat, an absent acknowledgment. He understood, for the first time, what they faced in this newly emerged rogue—Forakkes, a man who currently defied his own Core as much as he defied the Sentinels. And he understood, for the first time, the truly terrifying nature of Katie’s vision. The pain of this place hit him in a miasma of feeling—all the wrongness, all the misery, all the reeling desperation, striking hard against his healer’s perceptions.
And I can’t do a damned thing about it.
He stood rooted, all his energy focused on just one thing—filtering out the need of this place so he could think.
“I left our friend outside the door,” Mariska said, speaking from behind him before she reached his end of the tunnel. “I didn’t find anything, but maybe a closer look— Oh, hell.” She came up beside Ruger and stared, openly stunned, at the structure spread out before them.
Crates lined the wall on the far end; in the corner stood shelving stacked with aquariums and terrariums. Additional shelves bore bags of esoteric kibble, and one organizational niche held a sophisticated and complex computer station while another held autopsy tables and a third held a wooden worktable and a series of wood cabinets. Closer to the entrance, several completely enclosed spaces looked as if they’d once been private quarters, and a large cage of stout bars still held not only straw and troughs, but the notable stench of javelina.
“What is that smell?” Mariska asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Collared peccary times ten or so,” Ruger told her, absurdly pleased to find he had complete control of his voice. “The creature Maks fought must have lived here. But there’s a lot more here than that.”
She nodded. “Death, for one.”
“Death, for one,” Ian echoed. “No kidding.” Then he pointed out the wooden worktable to his assistants. “That’s where we’ll want to start. I don’t want to touch anything today—it’s enough to see what we have to work with. We’ll make a plan and come at it tomorrow.” He headed that way, glancing over his shoulder at Ruger. “I suggest you do the same. Go slow.”
Mariska watched him—hesitating, for once, before she charged forward.
Then again, so was he.
“Look,” Mariska said, as they closed in on the rack of stacked crates; she nodded to the shelving that held the small animal cages. “Fresh bedding. They all have water. Maybe our guy was here to take care of them.”
“Doesn’t make sense.” Ruger pulled his thoughts together, pushing away the assault of misery. No wonder it had grabbed him so hard from the outside looking in—demanding help, demanding mercy—drawing him past the perception of the woes and into a subconscious attempt to fix them. “If this is an active installation, where is everyone? Anyone?” He looked back to the largest cage where the mutated javelina had stayed. “It’s been weeks since Maks killed that thing, but someone’s been tending these animals.” He paced the length of the stacked crates, finding them empty—albeit with obvious signs of past occupancy.
“It’s as though they’re abandoned and yet still part of some experiment,” Mariska said, and frowned as they approached the aquariums, slowly coming to a stop, her entire body a signpost of reluctance. “Ruger—”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff—agreeing with her, seeing what she saw. This, then, was part of the reason for the odor that permeated this place, interlaced with the misery he’d felt until he could barely tell them apart. It wasn’t an odor of death so much as it was an odor of dying.
The first aquarium held a flat rock that barely rose above several inches of water. A limp form sprawled on the rock, its fur mattered and coming away in patches; sections of rotting skin peeled away from beneath. The animal’s head was under water, its eyes huge and dull, its gills expanding and contracting as if it gulped for air, never quite getting enough.
“Is that...” Mariska’s voice grew tentative; she blew out a breath with an uncanny resemblance of sound to the frightened black bear in Katie’s vision. “Is that a squirrel?”
Ruger made a noise deep in his chest. ::Yes,:: he said between them, not quite trusting his physical voice. An Abert’s squirrel with gills, trying not to drown and trying not to rot in the unrelentingly watery environment it hadn’t been born to manage.
“But,” she stammered, “but...why?”
He almost reached for her hand, wanting to wrap it up in his and offer the best comfort he could. And then he remembered that she was here because she’d thought herself ready for it—so ready for it that she’d used his situation as an excuse to be here, never mind that her maneuvering had torn away the one unique thing he’d had left to offer brevis.
So he kept his hand to himself. “Because it’s who they are,” he said shortly. “It’s what they do. It’s what you got yourself into when you talked yourself onto this team.”
“I—” The word came hot out of her mouth, her temper rising to the moment—and then, with visible effort, moderating into restraint. “That still doesn’t answer the question. No matter how wretched the mind behind this, there was also reason behind it. The Core bends people—and animals—to its purpose without consideration, but it does have purpose.”
Zing. She had him there. He scrubbed a hand over his face, still somewhat surprised to find smooth skin where the beard had always been. “In Tucson,” he said, “Gausto’s purpose was to create a working that allowed those in the Core to change shape—to put them on even ground with the Sentinel field agents.”
Mariska snorted. “Even if they could change to a bear, they wouldn’t be the bear. Not like us.”
“No, not like us.” Ruger stepped on to the next aquarium, found a snake with stumpy legs and tentacle toes twisting itself into a knot of confusion, and found himself looking at Mariska instead. “But as close as they could come.”
“I read the details on that,” she said, her expression troubled. “The instability of the working...that’s how Fabron Gausto died. They still haven’t replaced him with a new drozhar, either.”
“Still looking for someone with a balance of ambition and common sense. Gausto was all ambition, and look where that got them.” One failed scheme after another, each one tipping the delicate detente between factions further out of balance. He left the aquariums to check the larger crates, and should have known better. Mammals with feathers, birds with fur and creatures so mixed up he couldn’t be certain how they’d started. All of them sick and miserable. Their need hammered against him, an unending and plaintive demand for mercy. And the healer in him fou
ght to respond, leaving Ruger with an aching head. He dabbed at the dampness on his upper lip, half expecting to find blood and relieved when it was still merely a cold sweat.
“Eduard Forakkes was behind that working,” Mariska said. “He escaped, came up here...and what? Kept developing it?” She nodded at the animals. “It doesn’t make any sense. Not with that Frankenstein javelina, and not with the animals here.”
“We thought that was his purpose, when Maks found the javelina,” Ruger said. “The question is, are these animals somehow a by-product of that same purpose? Or did he change what he was doing? Or...did we have it wrong all along?”
Mariska’s worry came through loud and clear. “What I want to know is how it ties into Katie’s vision.”
Ian’s voice filtered out from the amulet work section. “Get over yourselves,” he said. “We’re here to gather information. Leave the brevis analysts something to do, huh?”
Ruger growled out loud, an ominous sound in the cave-like interior, and Ian laughed. “Back atcha, fella,” he said without rancor.
“He’s right, I suppose,” Mariska said under her breath.
“He’s right,” Ruger said. “And he’s not.” He touched the crate where a bird with no beak flicked its tongue out at a cup of mashed seeds, its freakish little nostrils flat to the remaining face and twitching with distress. “I’m a healer. Gathering information...that’s not the half of it.”
“No one expects you to heal these animals,” Mariska said, her tone surprised and sharp.
“I expect me to heal them.” He thought he’d been ready for this—to be out in the field applying what medicines he knew, acting the part of emergency medic without relying on that lifelong innate ability to channel healing energies.
But he hadn’t realized how much he’d feel their pain. And he’d underestimated the ongoing impulse to do something about it.
“You must be kidding.” Mariska’s blunt voice held nothing but honesty—every bit the same lady bear he’d met the evening before.
Kodiak Chained Page 6
