by Bec McMaster
Mia stared into the flickering flames. "Do you think we'll get them back?"
McClain knelt in front of her, capturing her hands. "Look at me, Mia." She obeyed, and then couldn't look away from those intense green eyes. "I promise you I'll do my best to get your sister and your townsfolk back, but you have to promise not to give up. I'm very, very good at what I do. I promise you I'll find her, eventually."
He didn't promise he'd find Sage alive, but Mia appreciated that. "Thank you," she whispered.
"For what?"
"For not lying to me." Lowering her gaze, she licked her lips, unable to take the scrutiny of his stare any longer. "It's the one thing I can't stand—being lied to." Letting go of her breath, she released his hands and stood, brushing them against her jeans. "We'll get them back." Determination washed through her. "And you're right... I need to take care of myself in the meantime. If I don't eat or get enough rest, then I won't be at my strongest when we catch those bastards. Good night, McClain."
He was watching her, still kneeling on one knee. "Good night, Mia."
The darkness swallowed him whole. Adam climbed up onto the bluff overlooking the camp and stared out into the night, feeling the pull of it through his veins.
It was harder to contain that inner edge at the moment. He was a mess of want, of need, of hunger; though he knew most people wouldn't think it from his appearance. Adam had had a hell of a lot of time to learn to hide what he was underneath. His men in Absolution once called him the epitome of control, but now he started to wonder if all those years had merely been a conceit of his own. Ever since they'd discovered what he was, the bars of this particular cage seemed a little ragged. He could remember the looks on their faces with blinding clarity. He'd spent six years ruling them with a fair but firm hand, he'd lost blood for them, given them food off his own table and risked his own life to fetch back their women and children from reiver raids, but none of that mattered in the end.
For a few years, he'd forgotten what he was. He'd lived as a man, begun to even think he was one.
Now the warg within was making it clear that it had never gone away. Just hidden within him, waiting for its chance to dig its claws deep and remind him of what he was.
It didn't take Sinclair long to find him. The other man tipped his head in greeting, staring out into the darkness. "Do you think we've gained any time? The reivers would have had to stop for the night too, no?"
There were tiny, twinkling lights out there on the horizon. Adam pointed them out. "They're there. I can see their campfires. They might have pushed on past evening, but it's too dangerous to drive around out here in the dark. Not as many wargs hunt the nights here as they do in the north, but there will be enough. And if they blow a tire out in the dark, then they're screwed and they know it. Best to set up camp and have a guard on the perimeter. I'd say we're only four hours behind at this stage, so we've gained a little during the day, but lost too much earlier, when we were setting out."
Sinclair grunted. "Can't see a bloody thing. Just stars."
Adam stilled, aware of how close he'd come to slipping up. Of everyone here, Sinclair was the most dangerous, for he alone knew what to look for in a warg. "I've been out here longer. Maybe your eyes are still adjusting from the firelight."
"Probably."
Adam stared at the twinkling lights in the distance, a faint frown wrinkling his brow. They were further to the south now, almost back on the original road.
"What's wrong?" Sinclair asked.
"Nothing." But that irritating itch tickled at the back of his senses. No point in keeping it to himself. "I feel like I'm missing something. The reivers swung south-east earlier in the day, and I couldn't work out why. There's nothing out here and the slave towns are directly south. They should have taken the Southern Road toward Eagle Canyon, but they cut out across the desert here, like they were going to go straight over the Serendipity Mountains, toward the Rim."
"And?" Sinclair watched him carefully, his eyes intent. "I've had hunches like this before, out on the trail. It's saved my life several times over. I'm not doubting you, McClain."
"Now they're almost back on the road." Adam couldn't explain it. He met the other man's eyes. "Why? Why did they swing out of their way? What brought them here? There's nothing here, and they obviously intended to go south all along. All it's done is cost them time."
"Maybe they wanted to throw us off the scent?" Sinclair rested his hands on his hips, staring out into the velvety night. "That was hard tracking today. Maybe they were hoping we'd miss their trail, and head...." He paused.
"Head straight south along the road? If we had, then they'd be sitting right on top of us right now, which is not where they want to be. They wanted us to follow them. There were just enough traces left to track, even through that rocky gulch that threw us off a few times."
"Threw me off," Sinclair admitted dryly. "I couldn't see shit. You were the one tracking wind over rocks."
"Yeah, well—" He caught the scent of something faint on the breeze, but it was enough to turn his stomach.
Sinclair noticed his distraction, his body tensing and his hand falling to the gun at his belt. "What is it?"
Adam pushed past Sinclair, his hand held in the air to shut him up, as he tried to get a better fix on what exactly he was smelling. It was sickly sweet, just a gust of it on the air.
Rot. His mind finally put a name to the scent. He could smell rot.
Adam's blood froze. Everything coagulated in his mind. This. This was why the reivers brought them here.
"We've got incoming," he yelled, grabbing Sinclair by the arm as he wrenched them back toward camp. "Deadheads! Wake up! We've got deadheads incoming!"
"Fuck," Sinclair cursed, scrambling along at his heels. "Revenants? Out here? There's nothing out here."
The plains surrounding them were as barren as some parts of the wastelands up north. The only sign of life in the area was this tor, jutting out of the plains like some fucking mecca.
"It was a trap," Adam shouted over his shoulder, leaping over boulders, and slipping and sliding down the shale. It rained beneath his boots, like a miniature stone avalanche that he surfed. "I bet the whole tor's riddled with caves for them to hide out in during the day." That's why the reivers swung this way. It might be an hour or two out of their way, but if they'd timed it well—and they had—their pursuers would see the tor as the perfect place to make camp. "The reivers wanted us to stop here."
Adrenaline pumped hot blood through his veins, the darker side of him surging forth in glee. It could scent death on the wind, and knew it would be called to deal it in return. The sudden fierce urge to kill almost overrode him.
Not now. Sweat gleamed at his temples as he held himself tightly reined. The medallion burned cold against his chest. Its magic held the warg within him and helped keep it chained up tight, but even the medallion fought to contain the fierce hunger that roared through him. If the warg broke free, tearing its way out of his skin until he was nothing but rage, need and desire, then he wouldn't differentiate between friend and foe.
"Wake up!" Sinclair bellowed. "Wake up, and hands to rifles!"
"Incoming! Revenants!" Adam screamed. Christ, would they be in time? All those people rolled up in blankets, with only two guards posted... they'd be like fucking human tacos.
The camp came alive, fire flickering to life. People called out, shadows shifting in the night as Adam thundered toward camp. He saw the odd shambling gait of a revenant appear out of nowhere behind Jenny, and didn't think, simply threw himself toward her. Jenny screamed, then they were rolling straight over the fire. Sparks flew up around him, and he felt his shirt catch alight. It died a short death in the dirt, but there was no time to worry about being burnt.
"Fire," he yelled, snatching at one of the burning brands he'd just rolled over. "Use fire!"
The revenant lumbered toward them, its hair hanging in matted hanks that had slowly bleached of color until it was a sandy,
dirty nothing. Its white eyes were filmed over with death, but its nose was twitching, trying to track him by scent. Adam hurled the branch at it, and the faded rags it wore went up like dry tinder. The flames spread, engulfing its hair, and burning a sickly green. The whole fucking thing stunk like an open grave.
Not long dead then, perhaps only a matter of months.
"Thanks," Jenny gasped, rolling to her feet. People were screaming around them and fleeing out into the night, which was the worst mistake they could make. God only knew how many revenants were out there, waiting in the dark for easy prey.
He had to do something.
"To me!" Adam bellowed. "Grab a branch of fire, and form a ring around me!"
"Over here!" Sinclair yelled, lifting the shotgun he'd appropriated and spraying buckshot into the nearest revenant's knees. Someone who knew what he was doing then. Sinclair stepped forward, blowing off the revenant's head as an afterthought. They'd keep crawling after you, if you let them.
"To us!" Jenny screamed.
Panic began to slow down. Out in the bushes people screamed. One particular cry hit notes he'd associated with dying animals before, and Adam knew what had happened. Revenants didn't wait until you were dead to begin eating.
Thwaites hobbled closer, using a shotgun for balance. He looked like he'd twisted his ankle in the rush out of his blankets. "Over here," he bellowed. "To McClain!"
Someone tossed Adam a spare shotgun. More people found their way into the circle.
But he couldn't see Mia.
"Wait here," he told Jenny. "Burn anything that comes at you."
"Where are you going?" she demanded, grabbing his arm.
"To find your niece."
Five
THE FIRST SHOUT barely woke Mia. She drifted in the realms of exhaustion, trying to run after her sister, but never quite catching her. A boot in the side did the trick, however, as someone tripped over her.
The next thing she knew, she was surrounded by chaos. It took far longer than it should have for her to snap out of it. Screams filled the air, and people tackled each other to the ground, and then a lurching shadow straight out of her nightmares staggered toward her, and Mia finally realized what was happening.
"Sweet Jesus," she cursed, scrambling out of her blankets. It had been cold, and she was knotted up good and tight.
Her gun... where was her gun? She found it, kicked out of the way by someone—perhaps even her—and scrambled toward it. A revenant staggered over it, blocking her path, and Mia found she was all alone with not a single weapon to her name, and only her blanket still snagged on the toe of her boot.
Blood pumped through her veins, bringing with it a surge of adrenaline. Mia grabbed her blanket and didn't think, just attacked. She threw it over the revenant's head, snagging its ragged hands in tight, and then tackling it. Teeth gnashed beneath the blanket, far too close to her cheek as they rolled. There was a strength in its wiry body that she hadn't expected, and she found herself beneath it, trying to fight it off.
"Help!" she screamed, but there was no one to help her. Everyone else was either fleeing or under similar assault.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another filthy shape lurch toward her. Desperation forced her legs up between her and the figure pinning her down, and then she kicked it back, toward the fire.
Its arms flung free of the blanket as it fell, its face with its drawn-back lips and stained teeth turning toward her. Then the smoldering blanket finally caught fire. The creature jerked, throwing its head back in a silent scream as green flames engulfed its entire body.
Mia dove and snatched at her shotgun. She rolled onto her back, staring up at her new assailant, and pumped two rounds straight through its chest. Jesus. Nothing happened. The revenant lurched and black ichor splashed from the holes there, but it kept coming at her.
How...? No time, no time....
Swinging the shotgun's barrel into her hands, she flinched at the heat of it, then swung the butt round and took the revenant's legs out from beneath it. Ground... on the ground was dangerous. Had to get up.
Shadows darkened her vision. They were everywhere. Circling her, their eerie sightless eyes seeming to track her. Mia had a moment where she simply froze, her blood seemingly sluggish in her veins. Time slowed down. There was no way out. No. There had to be a way—
"Head or legs," someone bellowed.
And then he was there, leaping over the burning revenant behind her and sailing through the night. McClain landed in front of her, spinning with a sharp axe in his hands and decapitating one of the revenants. He stepped back, crouching low long enough to haul her to her feet. "You're not bitten?" His eyes were a little wild, sweat tracking runnels down his dirty face.
"N-no," Mia managed to croak. Was she? She knew what happened if someone was bitten, but patting herself down showed she was whole. She felt so disembodied that she wasn't certain she'd have felt it.
"Good." McClain stepped forward, swinging the axe again and burying it with a meaty thunk in the back of the nearest revenant's knee. It went down, but he spun, and then another head was soaring through the darkness. "Head or legs, Mia! Take them down, and then finish the job." Lifting his head, he caught sight of someone beyond the revenant. "Here! To me!"
It was a nightmare. Mia found her feet, smashing the butt of her shotgun into a lifeless face, then whirling and sending another sprawling. McClain barely paused to decapitate them both, before grabbing her arm and hauling her through the sudden gap in front of them.
"To me!" he yelled.
"Here!" Mia screamed. "To us!"
She grabbed a flaming branch out of a nearby fire, and set a revenant aflame. It lit up like a Christmas bonfire and kept shambling forward, staggering into a pile of dry sagebrush. The flames surged, lighting up the night.
"That's the way," McClain said. "Over here!"
A younger boy suddenly found them, shaking with fear. There was blood splashed up his arms, and his eyes showed so much white that she thought it was a miracle he'd made it to them.
Mia let go of McClain and grabbed his wrist. "I've got you, Joe. Keep an eye out, and let's keep moving."
"Where did they come from?" the boy bleated. "They've got my dad."
She caught a glimpse of Wayne Erris on his back, his body twitching, and his abdomen spilling viscera across his jeans. Too late. "This way," she said, turning Joe away from the sight and hauling him after McClain.
McClain made it feel all right. He cut through revenants as if they were cows to be slaughtered, drawing survivors toward them and leaving her to sort them out. There was no fear in him, nothing but brutal focus, and everyone felt it. Suddenly the nightmare was less compelling, less real, against the sheer magnetism of the man leading them. If McClain didn't fear them, then why should they?
And then it was over.
Mia started trembling as their small group was absorbed by the larger one surrounding her Aunt Jenny and Thwaites. Jenny hauled her in for a hug, her chest shaking against Mia's.
"My God," her aunt whispered. "I didn't think I'd see you again, my girl."
"You almost didn't." They shared a bleak smile, and then Mia looked around for McClain.
"He saved you," Jenny said, her hand sliding into Mia's. "Told me he'd go bring you back and he did."
They watched as he barked out orders, snapping the small band into a well-organized unit. Mia and Jenny set up a makeshift infirmary, checking everyone over from top to bottom for any signs of bite marks. They were almost home free when Mia dragged up Joe's left sleeve and saw the bloodied gash there, the teeth marks painted clearly in the boy's flesh and the mottled blackness beneath the skin as the pathogen took hold.
Her gut dropped. Joe was still out of it, his face pale and his eyes wide as he looked around. "W-where's my d-dad?" he kept asking. "Mia, did you see him? We have to get him. W-we have to—"
Her ears were ringing. She couldn't hear him anymore. All she could see were the teeth marks in
his skin.
Joe Erris. Her Joe, the boy who made her deliveries every Wednesday when she'd finished with her latest batch at the still. Joe, with his stutter that he'd worked so hard on diminishing, and the secret crush he'd had on Sally Evans at the store.
Boots stepped into her vision and someone grabbed her arm. She had the feeling the newcomer asked her something too. Mia looked up and sound suddenly broke back into her world.
"Mia," McClain repeated. "What's wrong?"
"It's Joe," she said, suddenly feeling like she could move again. Life surged back into focus, and with it came determination. "Jenny!" she yelled. "Get me the tourniquet out of the kit, and the cauterization knife!"
"Shit." McClain saw what she'd seen, and wrenched the kid's arm out.
Joe looked down. "No," he whispered. "N-no!" He started screaming, tearing at his arm.
McClain grabbed him and held him down. "Stop moving. The more you move, the faster the pathogen travels through your bloodstream."
"Jenny, the kit!" Mia bellowed.
McClain's hard eyes met hers, and he gave a little shake of his head. "Mia—"
"Shut up," she said fiercely, undoing her belt and ripping it free from her belt loops with a meaty slap. She knew what his eyes were telling her, and she didn't want to hear the truth of it in his words. Joe wasn't dead, not yet. Mia wound the belt around Joe's arm, up under his shoulder, and wrenched it so tight that his circulation stopped.
"You don't have time for the kit," McClain said.
She just stared at Joe's arm. "I don't have—"
"Here. Swap places with me." McClain dragged a clean machete from his belt. It was a simple tool a lot of Badlanders carried.
Joe saw the machete and lost it. Grabbing the end of her belt, Mia shoved the hard leather between his teeth, forcing him to clench them around the leather. "That's it," she murmured. "Bite down hard."
