Blood Binds the Pack

by Alex Wells

  “I’m going mad, seeing nothing but these walls. We always have more work than we have people. I know that can’t have changed.”

  “You ain’t in any kind of shape yet. Davey says so.” A transparent attempt to get him to go bother Davey instead, but she wasn’t above trying it.

  “Davey worries too much. And so do you.”

  Hob snorted as she fished a cigarette out of her coat pocket. “Yeah, that’s me. A bundle of fuckin’ maternal instincts.” But maybe there was something she could have him do. TransRift was looking for the blue mineral, the source of witchiness. As someone passing witchy herself, she had a mighty interest in not wanting them to succeed.

  Coyote eyed her expression. “I recognize that look. You’re attempting to think again.”

  Hob rolled her eyes. “And it’s a right strain. But I’m thinkin’… this place you’n the Bone Collector talked about. This…”

  “Well,” Coyote said quietly. He didn’t look so cheerful any more.

  “He said it weren’t a real place. But you been there, so then it has to be. And we know TransRift is lookin’ for it. Best we find it first, don’t you think?” And selfishly, she thought maybe it would answer a question or two of hers, like what this power really was. She was damn tired of not having answers for something so fundamental.

  “You’re getting very good at this logic thing,” Coyote said dryly. “Have you been practicing?”

  She ignored the taunt, not wanting to let him divert her. “’Stead of sendin’ you out on a regular job, wouldn’t it be better to put you in charge of the search?”

  Coyote went very still. And then slowly, he hugged his arms around himself, like he was cold. Considering it was stuffy in the office, like in every damn room of the base, Hob found that hard to believe. “No,” he said quietly. Then, “No.” Emphatic enough that it felt like he was yelling, even though he hadn’t raised his voice. Hob simply waited. She needed more of a reason than that.

  He took a deep, slightly unsteady breath. “I don’t think I can go there again. Not without going mad. Even getting close… please don’t send me back there.” He swallowed hard, meeting her eyes. “Please, Hob. Please.”

  Please wasn’t something they used often on base. And coming from Coyote, when it wasn’t a bit of passive-aggressive mockery, was almost frightening. For all his stillness, she felt like he was about to shake to pieces in front of her eyes. She’d killed her fair share of men, but she’d never wanted to disassemble them into their component parts. She wasn’t about to start with Coyote. “All right,” she said. He sagged with relief, a tension she hadn’t even noticed leaving him. “Regular job it is.”

  Seeing him so shaken, Hob knew it needed to be something easy. A test like she’d give a pup, so he could prove to her – and maybe to himself – he had his shit together and wouldn’t get himself or others killed when the bullets started flying. Hob shuffled through a pile of flimsies until she found the one she wanted. It’d been sitting for a while because she was fresh out of pups and no one had pissed her off enough to get a joke job. Perfect. “This ought to fit you to rights.”

  Coyote read it over, with all its creative spelling. The movements of his eyebrows were a full three-act drama, surprise to disbelief to even more disbelief. “You must be joking.”

  “This is my serious face,” Hob said.

  “Did you actually read this?”

  “’Course I did. You wanted a job. There you go.” Hob crossed her arms and smiled. At least that haunted look was gone from his eyes. “Think you can handle it?”

  He looked down at the flimsy again and made an odd little choking sound that Hob recognized as a combination of disbelief and outrage. She hadn’t managed to get Coyote to do that often before, and now it felt like even more of a victory because it was normal for him. She still needed to convince herself that it was real.

  Voice a little strangled, Coyote asked, “And who’s going to be coming with me? Unless you’re planning to send me out solo?”

  She wasn’t sure what to make of his tone, but she didn’t like any of the possibilities. The reason he’d died – she couldn’t think of it any other way – was because she’d let him go out on his own, with no backup. She’d bought in to his line of bullshit about his own immortality, and she should have known better. “No more solo runs,” she said. “That’s a settled rule now.”

  His eyebrows arched up. “I suppose I’m honored to have brought about such change.” His normally clipped central-world’s accent seemed to have cranked up to a new level of snootiness.

  He was trying to piss her off, which was also hearteningly normal. “And I got everyone else runnin’ around already, so you’re stuck with me.” More bandit hunts, more message runs between the towns and now all these new survey sites. The miners seemed to be chattering a lot these days, but she figured if there was something Mag thought she should know, she’d say. It was also a good way to keep their own maps updated.

  Coyote must not have been expecting that. He looked surprised, then very wry. “You should save some honor for the rest of the company.”

  “They got plenty,” Hob said. She pointed at the flimsy still clutched in his hand. “You’re runnin’ the show. What’re we gonna do… boss?”

  It had never been easy to fluster Coyote. Hob was glad to know she hadn’t lost the knack entirely. He grimaced and said slowly, “Well, I suppose we start at the last known location and see where it takes us in pursuit of our… miscreant. Ah… get going?”

  “She’s still going!” Coyote shouted over the short-range radio. “How the hell is a tractor that fast?”

  “Guess she’s a good mechanic.” Hob choked back a laugh. “You got an intercept plan?”

  They’d gone to the last known location of the rogue farmhand they’d been paid to hunt down and found no tracks, which wasn’t unusual. Tracks didn’t last long in a place filled with sand and constant wind. But without prompting from Hob, Coyote had taken the lay of the land and headed off to the stubby shape of some rocks about twenty kilometers distant, just big enough to provide a single person some shelter.

  She shouldn’t have expected him to need prompting. This was still Coyote. He’d been doing this for more years than she’d even been on the damn planet. She hated the feeling that she was waiting for him to crack and show that he wasn’t really him any more.

  When they were a couple kilometers out from the rocks, Coyote caught sight of the glint of metal and glass that had to be the tractor. And it seemed like their target must have caught sight of them in return, because the tractor suddenly spun away from the rocks in a cloud of dust and started heading north, toward where the dunes rippled densely together.

  And that was how Hob and Coyote had come to a place where they were chasing down a goddamn tractor and in danger of actually losing her as the shadows got longer.

  “We’re more maneuverable than her,” Coyote said. “Bear east and keep along the top of the dunes as much as you can. So that she can see you. Try to get ahead of her. That will force her to turn, and I’ll be circling in for the pincer.”

  Not a bad plan; Hob had been thinking along similar lines herself. And this was Coyote’s job, so she was happy to play decoy for him. Let him show her what he could still do. “Gonna be some tricky riding in the shadows,” she commented, already turning her bike to bolt up the long back of the nearest dune. Hell, she hadn’t gotten to have fun on a ride in a while. It would do her some good to practice a jump here and there.

  “I’m not that out of practice,” Coyote said. He took a tight turn and vanished into the long, dark shadows that stretched below the slip faces.

  Hob twisted the throttle up to full, leaning down over the battery stack. The motorcycle leaped forward – damn, Hati must have been messing with her motor again and not bothered to tell her – and the back wheel swerved before she got it back under control. Air roared over her helmet and she felt rather than heard the rising hum of the machine beneat
h her. She shot up the long windward face of the massive dune, keeping an eye on the glint of the tractor in the distance to her left.

  Then there was just the edge of red-orange sand and the endless blue sky. She leaned back and hauled on the handlebars as the motorcycle shot over the slip face and into the air.

  This was the closest any of them ever got to flying. She whooped as gravity took hold, pulling the motorcycle back down toward the ground. The wheels hit the sand with a bone-jarring thump and she wrestled it back steady, aiming for the next long, windward ramp.

  “I think you’re having too much fun,” Coyote said dryly in her ear, his voice already a little fuzzed with static.

  “Ain’t my fault you gave me the best part of the job,” Hob said as she leaned back down over her handlebars.

  Three dunes later, the tractor had started to turn; she had to tilt her head to see it, so she drifted a little more that way to encourage him to keep going. “She’s bearing west.”

  A moment later Coyote answered, “I’ve got her. Keep going.”

  Hob grinned, pushing the throttle back up to full. “Hell yeah.”

  A few more minutes, and she saw Coyote’s motorcycle flashing through patches of sunlight, though he was hidden from the tractor since it had to lumber around the dunes or stick to the gentle slopes of the windward sides. Then Coyote cut out into full light, heading right for the tractor.

  The farmhand tried to turn, heading up the windward face. Hob saw Coyote close in, get his feet under him on the seat of the motorcycle, and then jump onto the tractor. His bike kept going steady for a few seconds, then leaned and fell as soon as it was no longer straight on the slope.

  And Coyote clung to the cab of the tractor. In the distance, she saw him rip the door open and swing inside–

  –then the tractor went over the lip of the slip face. The edge of the dune poured down in its wake, collapsing. All she heard over the radio was Coyote’s harsh breathing, which faded to static. Hob gunned it and headed for that dune. “What’s your status, Coyote?”

  A long pause, too long, and she bit back the feeling of concern. This was a bullshit job, and they’d both known it. She couldn’t have gotten him hurt or worse again on something this stupid.

  Then Coyote said, the transmission strangely dimmed, “Bloody annoyed.”

  Hob didn’t quite sag with relief – she couldn’t and keep control of the motorcycle at this speed, but she felt a little lightheaded with it anyway. “Be there in a flash,” she said.

  “Take your time,” Coyote answered. “We’re certainly not going anywhere.”

  The tractor was on its side, half-buried in an avalanche of orange-red sand. Part of the slip face of the dune had given way under its weight. Hob parked her motorcycle a safe distance to the side, just in case more of the slip face collapsed. “You need me to dig you out?” she asked.

  “That would be lovely,” Coyote said.

  Hob took off her helmet and grabbed a folding shovel from her motorcycle. As soon as she’d cleared the door off, Coyote flung it open and popped out.

  “Lookin’ peppy,” Hob commented. She’d had to jerk back to keep from getting hit with the door.

  “It’s a bit close in there,” Coyote said.

  “Our target alive?”

  Coyote glanced down, then pulled his own helmet off. “Oh yes. She’s just playing dead in the hopes we’ll think a little fall like that killed her.”

  “No, I’m not,” a sullen voice came from inside the tractor. “You almost took off my fuckin’ head.”

  “Yes, well, you deserved it,” Coyote said equably. “And the contract doesn’t specify how many parts you’re to be returned in.”

  “Returned to who?” the farmhand shouted.

  “Whom,” Coyote corrected.

  “Fuck you! You gettin’ paid by them fuckin’ greenbellies?”

  Hob raised her eyebrows and leaned down over the door. “You havin’ problems with them?”

  The farmhand, who Hob now saw was sporting a bloody nose and a split lip, glared at her. “They been crawlin’ all over us. Askin’ about the fuckin’ miners. Tellin’ us we better not help ’em, and we’ll get more pay if we don’t.”

  Well, that was interesting. Hob filed that one away to tell Mag at her next opportunity. “They scare you off, chickenshit?”

  “Fuck you. This is my tractor, and I ain’t letting that fucker Handley sell it.”

  “Guess you get to sort that out with Handley when we hand your ass over,” Hob said. The farmhand gave a shriek of outrage and Hob slammed the door shut in her face. Then jammed it with her shovel for good measure. A fist pounded angrily on the inside of the door.

  “I hope she doesn’t kiss her mother with that mouth,” Coyote observed. He stretched his arms and winced. “Little asshole got me right in the stomach. Or maybe that was the gear shift.”

  “Sure gave me a bit of a turn, watchin’ you go over,” Hob admitted.

  Coyote looked at her for a long moment. “You’re just going to have to get over it,” he said, and hopped off the tractor. “I’ll get some rope.”

  Hob tugged on the shovel to make sure it was secure, then followed Coyote. “Get over what?”

  “I volunteered to go to Harmony by myself. Even though I knew it was a rather stupid idea at the time,” Coyote shrugged. “Did you see where my motorcycle dropped?”

  “I’ll get it. Grab the rope off mine.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “It isn’t going to work, Hob, if you treat me differently.”

  She grimaced, stung, and started fishing for a cigarette. “I ain’t.”

  “You bloody well are. When you aren’t waiting for me to break, you’re pulling your punches because… well, I can almost hear you thinking, but I killed him. You didn’t. And I need you to believe that I’m still me so that I can believe I’m still me.”

  Hob tucked a cigarette between her lips and lit it with a snap of her fingers. It bought her time as she tried to sort those words out. Had she been doing that? She’d sure been painfully aware at every step that Coyote was a dead man. “You sure talk enough to be yourself.”

  He huffed something too angry to be a laugh. “Well, thank you for that.”

  Of course he was. And he was also one of the people she’d trusted to always be there. He’d outlived Old Nick, who she’d always thought was too damn mean to die. And then he hadn’t outlived him any more, and it had been her fault. But, Hob reminded herself, Coyote wasn’t the only one whose life was in her hands. All of her people were in that same spot. He’d just been lucky enough to come back, somehow. And she’d been looking at it as a chance to make good on some kind of cosmic fuckup – but it was also Coyote’s goddamn life. That was more important than her guilt, by a long shot.

  Like he was reading her thoughts, Coyote said, “Am I a Wolf or not?”

  She reached out to clap him on the shoulder. He still felt too slight under her hand, but she assured herself that was another thing time and trust would cure. “’Course not. You’re a fuckin’ Coyote.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  48 Days

  The air on the landing field tasted like lightning and felt heavy against Shige’s skin in a way that had nothing to do with humidity. He was almost certain that it hadn’t been like this before, not even when he’d first arrived on Tanegawa’s World with Ms Meetchim to find Mr Green in an induced coma.

  Mr Yellow swayed lightly from side to side next to him, face tilted up, eyes closed. The Weatherman raised his hands, thin fingers spread like he’d grasp the air. It was behavior Shige had never seen in Mr Green, and he found it a relief to see the familiar saloon car moving silently across the landing field to pick them up.

  “Come along, Mr Yellow,” Shige said, when the car stopped in front of them. He opened the door to the rear compartment.

  “We are ready,” Mr Yellow said.

  Ready for what, Shige couldn’t begin to guess. “Of course. But you’re not quite hom
e yet. Come along.”

  Mr Yellow tilted his face down to look at Shige, and he had a strange urge to meet the Weatherman’s eyes. Because then, it would make sense. He didn’t need to understand the words, really, just see through to the intentions. At the last moment, he forced himself to look at the Weatherman’s shoulder. He had more self-control than this – and it disturbed him immensely that he needed to exercise that self-control. “Into the car, please. It’s far too hot to walk.”

  Shige saw him secured with a seatbelt before taking the other side. He set the thick stack of flimsies on the seat between them, like a pathetic wall. It would be a profound relief to transfer Mr Yellow and the instructions for his care to the team at headquarters.

  But first, he had to introduce the new Weatherman to Ms Meetchim.

  She was waiting in her office, which necessitated a long elevator ride with Mr Yellow – the high-speed cars seemed to have been slowed considerably. Mr Yellow insisted on standing at the exact center of the elevator, face toward the ceiling. The lights were dim, shadowing the Weatherman’s face and softening the dark pits of his eyes – until he turned abruptly to look at Shige, who had chosen to lean against the wall.

  He felt himself slipping, on the brink of an icy precipice, pulled by a gravity well that wasn’t physical. Perhaps if he looked again, he would understand some universal truth that had escaped him before. Shige dug one fingernail deeply into the palm of his hand and focused on Mr Yellow’s shoulder. “Nearly there now,” he said, and tried not to notice the strain in his voice.

  “We are already here,” Mr Yellow said. Mercifully, the elevator doors opened.

  In Ms Meetchim’s office, which took up the entire top floor of the building, there were no lights at all. She had the privacy curtains open to allow in the harsh daylight. Jennifer Meetchim was a woman of medium height, her blond hair cut short and neat, her blue executive suit impeccable. She rose from behind her desk as Shige stepped from the elevator, Mr Yellow at his shoulder. “Ah, Mr Rolland. I’m afraid you caught us a bit off guard.”