Blood Binds the Pack

by Alex Wells

  “Hob?”

  Hob scrambled down the slope she’d made. “Might just be…” Maybe just a rock. They still existed out here, far from the outcrops, moved by some unknown geological force. But by another unspoken agreement, they both dropped to their knees, digging with their hands like dogs. Hob didn’t know what could happen to the Bone Collector if he got damaged while he was made of stone, but she didn’t want to find out.

  Hob’s hand found solid stone first, and she knew instinctively the smooth lines of the Bone Collector’s low, flat cheekbones and the gentle slope of his nose. “Fuck. It’s him.”

  “Better than the alternative, ain’t it?” Mag asked, moving to help clear more sand away where Hob was.

  Hob held her tongue until they’d exposed half of him, a statue of pale limestone dusted with orange sand. In the moonlight, he almost looked like he could have been asleep, if she hadn’t felt how cold and unyielding he was. He’d always looked strangely washed out, a little like someone had sucked all the color out of a regular person so he had blue eyes instead of brown. Maybe that happened when you spent part of your life as a rock. They gripped his elbows, which stuck out a little as he’d crossed his arms over his chest, and pulled.

  He didn’t move an inch, but Hob felt like her arms were going to yank out of their sockets. “Stop.”

  Mag let go and dropped back on the sand. “You bring a chain on your motorcycle?”

  “Yeah.” Though she wasn’t sure how much dead weight the machine would really be able to haul on a sand slope. And what would be the point if he was just so much stone? Was she going to drag him all the way back to Ludlow? The mental image that conjured up made her hastily swallow a laugh just this side of hysterical.

  She squatted down next to the Bone Collector, looking at that still, pale face. She’d thought it was peaceful at first, but now she could make out the expression of fatigue, the little twist of pain on his narrow lips. He’d been badly hurt when she’d brought him out here.

  Summoning him with blood hadn’t worked before, but she hadn’t been right next to him before. She pushed her left coat sleeve up, then slipped a throwing knife out of her boot.

  “Hob?”

  “Hush,” Hob said. “Get a bandage out the kit on my motorcycle.” The knife point, razor sharp, slid so easily through the skin of her forearm that she didn’t feel it as more than a thin sting of sensation. Dark blood welled up around the silver blade. She let the blood run down to her slightly cupped palm and pool there. Then she tilted two fingers to lightly touch the Bone Collector’s stone lips, making a path for that blood.

  For a moment, nothing, other than a dark line of liquid running down from the Bone Collector’s lips to his cheek, obscenely like when he’d been wounded.

  Then she felt him shudder, a movement against her fingers that echoed in the ground. She felt him suck in a breath, and saw faint color flow across his face and even his clothing. His eyes – she’d forgotten how goddamn blue his eyes were – opened wide, then turned to find hers. And then his lips parted, tongue curling to lick the blood away.

  She should be happy she’d found him, happy he was alive, and now happy he was awake. And she was, so much it hurt, so much it made her angry. She’d learned long ago in the ugliest way possible that it wasn’t safe to care about anyone so much she couldn’t breathe. Drowning was a foreign concept to Hob. She could imagine drowning in sand, maybe, buried alive and sinking fast. But looking the Bone Collector in the eyes right now was the closest thing she could imagine to drowning in water. She froze.

  The Bone Collector laid one hand over the back of hers, his cool fingers sliding up to grip her wrist. He pulled her down so he could press his lips against the cut she’d made on her forearm. She felt the press of his tongue, a sharp throb of pain, and tried to jerk away. He kept hold of her, and in a panicked moment she thought about drawing one of her pistols. She’d threatened him before, when it felt like he was pushing across a line. But he smoothed his hand over hers again, and it felt damnably good, and her wrist didn’t hurt any more.

  “Won’t you lay down with me?” he whispered.

  And she almost said yes, fuck him anyway, unable to avoid wondering what it might feel like to have his arms around her, if that’s even what he meant. Might have, if Mag hadn’t cleared her throat. “You still need that bandage, Hob?”

  Hob tugged her hand back. She felt reluctance in the Bone Collector letting her go, but he didn’t fight her. She glanced down at her wrist, mindful of the question she’d been asked: there was blood on her skin, but the wound was gone like it had never been, not even a scar. “Seems it wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

  The Bone Collector slowly pushed himself up on one elbow, twisting to look at Mag. Blood still trailed down his cheek, too far for his tongue to reach. He idly wiped it away with his other hand and licked the red from his fingers. “You seem to have come a long way,” he remarked.

  Not so long as that, from Ludlow to this point. But Hob knew physical distance wasn’t what he meant, felt it in the tone he’d used, before she even saw the set expression on Mag’s face. She just wasn’t sure what he did mean. “Got a question to ask you,” Mag said tightly.

  The Bone Collector glanced back at Hob, his lips curved in amusement. “And here I thought you’d dug me up because I’d been missed.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Hob growled. She rose, brushing the sand from her leather trousers. “I got a question or two myself, but Mag should go first.”

  “So nice to feel wanted,” he said dryly, and sat fully up.

  Mag came down the slope to squat next to him. She showed him the survey line and the reports like she’d shown Hob, which he didn’t seem to comprehend any more than she did. Hob didn’t know why they’d expected him to have any better ideas. But when Mag laid out their thoughts about the blue mineral, the Bone Collector grimaced. He rubbed his left forearm, where Hob knew one of his veins was hard and blue with those crystals. “It’s something new. Of course they want it.” His lip curled in disgust. “And there’s more of it than you imagine, though not close to the surface as that. Not out here.”

  “Deeper,” Mag murmured. “That’s gonna be a lot more dangerous for all of us.”

  “More than you know,” the Bone Collector said coolly. “It will damage this place fundamentally. It might kill it.”

  The implication that the planet itself was somehow alive stuck in Hob’s craw, but Mag didn’t bat an eyelash. “Then I guess you might want to help us.”

  “You won’t be able to reach it.”

  “What the fuck is it?” Hob asked, hoping for a better answer this time.

  The Bone Collector glanced at Mag. “She knows.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  His lips curled in a smile. “Yes, you do. It’s what whispers in your blood.” His eyes found Hob’s, gaze sharp as a knife. “What makes your fire.”

  Well, that was a hell of a lot clearer, and Hob found herself wishing it hadn’t been. The fire was a thing in her blood, which meant this… crystal was somehow a thing in her blood too, somehow powering her witchiness. “I ain’t ever seen that stuff before…” she couldn’t help but glance at Mag, “before Phil got murdered.”

  “You saw it in the sky.”

  “Sure, I seen a damn rock in the sky.” But it was the phoenix again, Hob was sure that was what he meant, the vision she’d had on the verge of death. She wanted to assure herself that those things weren’t solidly real, but her missing eye said otherwise. Hob rubbed at her arm with one thumb, half expecting her veins to have gone hard and blue like his had. This seemed to amuse him, which just pissed her off all over again. “Had a good long time to think about it, huh,” she snapped.

  He laughed. “Is that what you wanted to ask about?”

  “No.” Without Mag’s eloquence, Hob laid out the discovery of Coyote.

  “I must see him,” the Bone Collector said.

  Hob glanced at Mag. “Gotta take Mag hom
e first. You wanna do that… tunneling through rock thing and meet me back at the base?”

  “I’d rather do that than ride on your blasted machine.”

  Hob snorted, thinking about what being yanked through the ground like it wasn’t solid had done to her brain and stomach. Mag looked green around the edges just considering it. “Feelin’s mutual, cupcake. I’ll be back at base tomorrow evening.”

  She turned and headed back to her motorcycle. The shuffle of Mag’s feet through the sand behind her didn’t quite cover the Bone Collector’s half-bewildered, half-exasperated, “…cupcake?”

  Hob grinned as she shoved her helmet on.

  Chapter Seven

  70 Days

  Mag chewed over her brief conversation with the Bone Collector as she rode behind Hob, back to Ludlow. The only really new piece of information he’d told her was that mining the unknown mineral wouldn’t just get a bunch of miners killed as TransRift drove them hard, it would somehow harm the planet itself. The more she thought about it, the more important she realized that was. Not out of concern for the planet – she mentally set that aside as a separate issue she’d really need to think about – but because of what it meant to hear that from the Bone Collector. He might not like the miners much at times, but he hated TransRift and their Weathermen a hell of a lot more, and TransRift would be the one pushing the miners. That meant she might have him as an ally against TransRift again.

  She was so caught up in these thoughts that she barely noticed when Hob coasted to a stop. She looked up and saw the town walls – they were still outside. Hob hadn’t been shy about coming in before, price on her head or no. “Hob, what’s–”

  “Take your helmet off and listen,” Hob said.

  Mag did so, frowning. “The mine works.” The cold, silent night air bit at her unprotected ears and cheeks: the mine works had gone still. Normally the endless metallic scrapings and clangings of the drive chain filled the air, driven by electric motor and the muscle power of engineered oxen, until they were background noise that you learned to ignore in order to sleep. Their absence made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. The drive chain only ever stopped for blasting and accidents.

  “Something scheduled?” Hob asked.

  “No. The gates closed?”

  “Looks like.”

  Had an organized group of bandits attacked? But there was no sign of anything like that. Mag’s frown deepened. “Fine. We’ll go in a different way. Head to the north side.”

  “There a gate I don’t know about?”

  Despite her worry, Mag smiled. “Remember telling me about those escape tunnels Uncle Nick had all around the base? Thought it sounded like a fine idea.”

  As soon as they were in the walls, Mag heard a far-off murmur of voices that was more damning than the silence of the drive chain could ever be. It wasn’t often that many people in the town got all in a group. It made the greenbellies nervous, wasn’t worth the risk unless someone was getting married or buried – or they were looking to make a statement. Even at this distance she could tell that the people were angry.

  Mag dropped her helmet near the trapdoor they’d come through, with Hob still climbing out behind her. This particular tunnel led into the warehouse furthest from the mine works, which only got used when there’d been unusual train delays for several days running. It had never happened in the entire time Mag had lived in Ludlow.

  “Mag?”

  She made a vague gesture at Hob – stay here – and kept going at not quite a run. The streets were deserted, strange in a town that ran all hours of the day.

  Ludlow had been spared the witch hunt of the previous year thanks to the Wolves killing the Weatherman before he got there. And Mag had thought she’d done enough cajoling and reasoning and shouting to get it through all the thick skulls in the town that the witchy ones weren’t the problem, that the company was just trying to keep them all divided.

  But as she made her way toward the sound – by the mine, it had to be by the mine, but that didn’t make her feel that much better since the train depot was over there too – her mind produced image after horrified image of witchy people hanged, witchy people about to be burned, and Anabi–

  Anabi’s beautiful, dark face gone black with strangled death. Anabi struggling to free herself as she was doused with cooking oil. Aside from Mag, Anabi was the witchiest one in town, and she’d only just started to relax and unfold in perceived safety.

  A hand clamped on her arm and Mag bit back a yelp. She turned to see Anabi, reaching out from the doorway of the company store. Anabi shook her head when Mag tried to speak. Her face was pinched with worry and fear. She held out a bit of flimsy, an old report, that she’d written over in grease pencil: Accident at the mine earlier. Walkout. Clarence said stay back.

  Mag read the words again, just to make sure she had them. The third sentence, she had a problem with. When she’d first come to Ludlow, hanging back had been important, because she was a wanted woman. But she’d established her new identity over these last months. Now it was just Clarence being a soft, overprotective fool like he really was her uncle, and it served only to tell her that he thought things were going to get ugly.

  She gave the flimsy back to Anabi. “Stay here. I ain’t gonna let this alone.” When Anabi opened her mouth in mute protest, Mag found one of her hands and squeezed it. “These are my people too. Clarence should’ve damn well figured that out by now.”

  Anabi gripped her hand tightly for a moment, but stayed in the doorway when Mag turned and walked toward the train depot, her shoulders set.

  There was blood on the smooth, light gray surface of the plascrete pad they’d built in front of the train station in anticipation of the Weatherman’s arrival months ago. Smears and clouds of it, a crumpled form in mining coveralls that Mag hoped wasn’t dead. The miners, all of the night shift and a large part of the day shift that Clarence must have roused out of their beds, flooded the square and the streets around. They shoved and shouted, surging against a line of men in dark green and blue suits. The company men, Mag realized dizzily, were badly outnumbered. But they also had guns, and she needed to not forget that. The roar of shouting, men and women from both sides, was deafening.

  One of the Mariposa men raised his rifle. The miners surged unevenly, some trying to struggle forward, some trying to flee. Mag stumbled, shoved in first one direction, then the other. She couldn’t make out what the guard shouted as he pointed his rifle at the crowd, and it didn’t matter.

  A shoulder slammed against hers and she ignored it. She focused on the guard, staring until he was the only thing in the world. Somehow through the surge and press of so many people, so many minds, she found him all hot with anger and fear and hate for the damned lazy rats, looking for an excuse to riot – she grasped him hard with her mind and whispered: “No.”

  He froze, then lowered his rifle. A miner broke through the line and lunged at him, but got snatched up before they could make contact by another greenbelly. Then she saw Clarence, coming in that break, trying to separate them, his mouth open to roar.

  Mag focused on the miner and security guard. She found them too, pressed against them, and said: “Stop.”

  It made sense, that a single, focused, simple command was easier to grind into someone than a complex creation, like telling them to forget some things and remember others. Her head throbbed sharply and she ignored it. Clarence had the small fight under control and was shouting again. Another guard raised his rifle, and she quelled him. Blood tickled in her nose and on her chin and tasted thickly metallic on her tongue. Someone shoved her from behind, and another person caught her.

  Another miner to quell. Another security man. A hand gripped her arm, supporting her. She didn’t bother to look and see who, because it felt familiar, not hostile. The crack of fist against flesh as she was jostled again, but it wasn’t her fist or her flesh, so she ignored it.

  And then somehow, by some grace she didn’t believe in, she he
ard Clarence’s shout over the crowd. “Stop! Stop!”

  The miners quieted to a dull roar, glaring at the security men, who glared right back at them. Mag sagged a little bit against the person next to her. She had a dim perception of tall and lanky, brown hair in plaits – of course it was Hob.

  She watched the pit boss, Bill Weld, finally let himself out of the train depot. He was a big man with a pronounced bald spot. At the sight of him, the assembled miners howled out a chorus of boos and jeers. Clarence waved them to something close to silence again.

  “Well, Bill?” Clarence asked, loud enough for everyone to hear. “We’re waitin’ for your answer.”

  Bill looked nervously around the crowd as there was another roar of sound, more ferocious than jeering. “After reviewing the incident report and Corporate guidelines…” he paused for more shouting “…I have concluded that your request to have the mine down for a complete safety inspection is not…” a swelling roar of triumph that he gave up trying to shout over, “…is not out of line. Work resumes tomorrow at 18:30 hours. We will take volunteers–” the crowd erupted into loud booing “–for the inspection.”

  Clarence waited patiently for the miners to quiet down. “We thank you kindly for reconsidering your first decision,” he said, ignoring the few jeers that erupted from the crowd at that. “I look forward to meetin’ with you tomorrow to take a look at the inspection results.” He turned back toward the crowd. “Everyone not on a safety crew, go ahead and get home.”

  The miners roared at the line of Mariposa men still standing at Bill Weld’s back. One of the greenbellies – Captain Longbridge with his square shoulders and shaved-off hair, the security chief – started raising a hand, a rifle toward Clarence. Mag had only to feel that intent. She smashed Longbridge flat with the weight of her will, ruthless. He staggered and strained, fighting her, but she held him long enough for Clarence to move out of his line of sight.