by Rhys Ford
“We’re going to have to see how well you can shoot, lordship,” I said, reaching behind Ryder’s seat to pull out a shotgun. I bumped into Shannon’s belly with my elbow. “You might want to sit back a bit. Maybe even get down.”
“What’s going on?” Shannon pushed forward, and her jutting belly button brushed my arm.
“Iesu! Put that thing away,” I muttered, handing Ryder the shotgun. “Right now, I don’t know, but sit back, okay?”
“What’s the matter?” Ryder took the gun. His fingers traced the pits on the battered metal barrel, touching the wood where my blood stained the stock. He handled it gingerly, as if the shotgun were an intimate part of me. “You sure you want to give this to me?”
“Look, I can’t drive and shoot at the same time. Well, I can, but not as good as I’d like, and I don’t have time to stop and switch places. All you have to do is aim for a head and hope for the best. Maybe I can lose them.” Shannon’s head popped up in the rearview mirror, her hair a dark, fuzzy shadow where the hills should be. “Girl, I’m going to tell you once. Stay down. I need to see out the back window.”
She disappeared from my mirror with a yelp, curling down out of view. “Sorry.”
Ryder frowned at me. “Do not speak to her like that.”
“And I’m going to tell you to shut up. This is what I’m being paid for. I don’t need any distractions.” I curled around a curve, dropping over a hill and gunning the engine. The red lights twinkled and blinked out, reappearing to the right of us. “Shit. That’s a whole pack.”
“Shit what?” His frown grew. “Pack of what?”
“Don’t really have time for this.” I snapped the car to the left of the divide, hoping to break free of the crimson-eyed shadows. “Your grandmother got contacts in the Dusk Court? We’ve got a pack of black dogs on our trail. Big ones.”
“Really? You think my grandmother would do this?” He craned his neck around and reached out to pat Shannon’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. Kai’s just trying to be careful.”
“No, Kai’s trying to make sure we don’t get eaten alive,” I corrected.
“You can’t outrun them?” Ryder asked, gripping the shotgun tighter. “This thing outran a dragon! It can’t lose some ainmhí dubh?”
“Funny.” I ground my teeth. Shifting in my seat, I glanced at the side mirror, keeping one eye on the road. The pack was moving closer, easily eating up the distance between them and the Mustang. Unhindered by the jagged lava hillocks, they cut over the curves in the winding road with an alarming speed. “Damned sons of bitches are fast.”
One of the lead hounds leaped over a bend, landing on a section of road below us. It was waiting for us when we made the turn, body bunched in and head down. Oketsu rocked and bucked when the bumper hit the black dog rushing the Mustang’s front end.
Blood sprayed over the windshield, blinding me, and I stupidly ducked, dropping my head below the dashboard before I realized the dog’s body had gone up and over the roof. It bounced, hitting the asphalt, and began a long roll. I didn’t stop to check on its well-being. Gunning the engine, I threw Oketsu into passing and drove the speed up. The suspension’s dampeners kicked in, dropping the car lower to cut down on drag, and we ate away the road.
But not before the rearview mirror showed me the black dog wobbling to its feet and shaking itself off.
“It’s only a couple of miles out of the lava from here. We’ll hit the old freeway and lose them there. Shit.” I glanced over to Ryder. A click of the wipers and a jet spray and the windshield was clean enough to see out of again. “Didn’t even slow that thing down.”
“Tell me the shotgun will help with that.” He didn’t sound convinced. With the Mustang hitting more than a hundred on the long stretches, I didn’t have time to argue the finer points of weapon use.
“Can I ask something?” Shannon raised her hand, blocking my view again.
“No! Put your hand down!” I snapped. “I can’t see a damned thing behind me.”
“Sure,” Ryder said, nudging my side. “Kai….”
“We’re going to be chewed….” I took a breath, putting a wide smile on my face. “Sure, honey. What’s up?”
“Stop that,” he said crossly. “You look insane smiling like that.”
“What’s insane is that I’m having this conversation at—” I checked the speedometer. “—a hundred miles an hour with a pregnant woman while some stupid sidhe lord is aiming my shotgun at me. Point it down, you idiot!”
“Sorry,” Ryder apologized, making a small attempt to look sheepish. “I forgot.”
“Just remember, shoot me and you….” I didn’t have time to finish my thought.
A mound of fur appeared on the Mustang’s passenger side. Ryder yelped in surprise, and the shotgun went off, kicking the muzzle up into the roof seal. I swerved, trying to keep some distance between the car and the black dog pacing us. Gunpowder speckled my face, burning me in a dusty spray. The smell of cooked iron lingered, seeping into my hair and skin. Too close to the shot, the ringing in my ears pitched high, replacing the rumble of Oketsu’s engine. It faded, leaving me with an ache in my teeth and the taste of shot in my mouth.
Another joined the first, and Shannon yelled over the roar of the engine, “I was going to say there’s another one next to us.”
“Gee, thanks.” I gave Ryder a dirty look, working a finger into my left ear to pop it. “Maybe I’ve got the wrong person up here in front.”
“How about if you keep the car steady so I get a good shot?” He rested the muzzle against the quarter window frame, beading in on the dog trailing the Mustang’s back tire. “Steady.”
I could imagine what he saw, staring down the barrel of a worn shotgun at the monsters drawn up from the shadows. With the windows wide open, the black dogs’ odor made my nose itch, and I blinked, clearing the first dewdrops of water moistening my eyes. These dogs were huge, dwarfing the Mustang’s rear. Their shoulders rose and fell out of view as they ran along beside the car. Every so often, a thread of acidic spit flung up, laying into the car to leave a smoking trail on the red paint.
“Oh, God,” Shannon exclaimed loudly. Her hand pressed against the small side window, nearly popping the pane out of its channel.
“What? You see another one?” I craned my head around, narrowly avoiding a boulder in the road. The Mustang complained as I jerked the wheel, skidding on its wide tires and slamming into one of the dogs. It growled, gnashing its teeth. Rearing up, it lunged as I fought to straighten the car before we slid off the road. The ropy flow looked serene, but it would chew up the Mustang’s tires before we went six inches across the black rock.
The car shimmied, shuddering as I fought to keep it on the road. When the black dog bit into its fender, the metal screamed as it ripped, shreds of red-glossed steel flying into the back window. I cringed at the sound of shrapnel hitting glass. Praying the Kevlar film would keep the back shield intact, I gasped when a slush of warm fluid hit me from behind.
“What the hell is that? Was Shannon hit?” I couldn’t risk turning around to look. “Ryder, what’s going on?”
The road went feral, fissures and creases folding the asphalt winding through the lava field. A few hundred yards away, the rock fell off and was replaced by grasslands and a road unbuckled by shifting ground. If anything, the prairie land would be easier for the dogs to run on.
Dropping the shotgun to the floor, Ryder reached behind the seat, doing something with Shannon. Liquid sloshed over the seat, and my stomach sank, waiting for the sidhe to tell me the bad news. I barely felt the black dog hit Oketsu’s side with its shoulder, numbly swerving to avoid a second hit as the sound of Shannon’s tortured breathing drifted to the front seat.
“I’m okay,” I heard her say, shooing Ryder away with a slap of her hands. “We just have a small problem.”
“What kind of problem?” I practically shouted into Ryder’s ear, catching his hair on my lips. He smelled and tasted of gunpowder,
an earthy taint to the sidhe tea scent of his body. I pulled away, removing him from my mouth so I could think. His body blocked my view, his once-crisp button-down shirt damp and sticking to his arm. “Ryder, what kind of problem?”
“We need to find someplace safe,” he said with a worried look on his face. “We need to stop the car.”
“Stop?” I veered, hitting the smoothness of untouched freeway. A few yards off the car’s front end, the lead black dog faltered, his claws scrambling to find purchase on the smoother road. I pushed the Mustang as hard as I could, burying the gas pedal in the floorboard. The dogs faded into the distance, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you insane? I just lost them. If we stop, they’re going to find us.”
“We don’t have any choice,” Ryder replied grimly as he sat down. “We’re going to need to stop.”
“For what?” I looked behind me, fixating on Shannon’s flushed face and her half-open mouth. “Are you okay? Are you hit?”
“I’m fine.” Her grunts concerned me, but nothing like what she said next. “It’s just….” Another round of pants broke up her words, and she let go of a small, low keen that hurt my ears. “My water broke. The baby’s coming. Right. Now.”
“What?” I choked. “No, do something. Hold your legs together. We’ve… there’s duct tape in the damned glove compartment. Shit, I told you something like this was going to happen. That baby cannot come right now.”
“Just find us someplace. We can play I told you so later,” Ryder said. “Because ainmhí dubh or no, the baby’s coming.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
RYDER SLID into the backseat to sit with Shannon, keeping an eye out for the dogs we’d lost when the road turned smooth, and I was able keep the Mustang at an open throttle. When a concrete centerline bisected the road, I steered to the right of the divide, praying for an off-ramp that was too stubborn to fall during the Merge. The Mustang ate away the miles, distancing us from the pack, but I wasn’t reassured they couldn’t find us again if we stopped.
I was concentrating on my driving when Ryder gave me a jolt, leaning over the front seat and nearly touching his lips to my ear. “She’s got to let it go, Kai. She can’t stop pushing.”
“Sure, go ahead, push,” I muttered. “There’s already gunk all over my carpet and backseat. The side of my car is chewed up, and my back window is barely holding on. Why not push?”
“I’ll pay you for that,” he said. “The damage. Not the whining. Are Stalkers supposed to whine?”
“I’m one of the newer types. In touch with my inner child. We’ll be slowing down a bit. Stuff up here changes a lot, and I’ve got to watch out.” Spotting a swirl of cement pinned in place off the freeway, I moved the Mustang over, slowing it down in case there was a gap in the framework that I didn’t spot. “Sit back. I’ll need the mirror clear if I have to back up. The dogs can’t cut across the fields like they can the lava. We’ve got some time on them.”
Pendle stretched out for miles in all directions, covering the distance between the mountain range down to the ocean bluffs. At one point, a military base had squatted in the center of the region, with a sprawl of suburbs surrounding it. Although crushed under tons of liquid rock and shifting hills, the bones of the base lingered. Once in a while, an empty shell of a building rose as a ghost along the bones of a road, but nothing that would provide any kind of shelter. Hardly anything of the nearby houses and businesses remained, but toward the south end were structures defensible enough to squat in.
It was hard going. Between avoiding fallen chunks of stone and ground slides, my nerves tightened each time I heard Shannon ramp up. She’d fallen into a panting crescendo, ending each rise with a long hissing breath. We’d gone only two miles inland before a scream made me slam on the brakes and skid the Mustang to a stop.
“No, it’s okay.” Ryder put his hand up when I reached for the shotgun, jacked it open, and slid in two new shells before she finished her wail.
“I’m fine,” she panted, hissing and grunting. “Screaming helps.”
“Iesu, you’re scaring the shit out of me.” I righted the car, smelling the burn of brakes and rubber as I pulled away. “No problem. Ignore the screaming woman, Kai. Totally normal.”
The inland freeway dead-ended, but other routes cut out from it, and the area held the promise of some shelter as we passed a smattering of oddly shaped buildings. A miniature windmill’s broken sails turned slowly in the wind, and a sign promised the world’s best pea soup in simple script, a remnant of a pre-Merge diner. Farther down, a fallen billboard announced the presence of a military surplus a few miles away.
“There we go,” I said to myself, drowned out by another tight squeal from the backseat. “Let’s see if there’s any place left to hide in there.”
The surplus store was a bust. Nothing but a cinder block wall standing amid brush and debris, tall grasses poked up from gutter openings and cracked sidewalks, some clumps almost as high as the Mustang’s roof. A swath near a burned-out car shell lay flat in a nearly perfect circle, a telltale sign that something slept there, a wild and big enough something that it didn’t care about predators.
A few side streets looked somewhat intact after the Merge’s seismic activity, although there were more signs of cattle or antelopes about. A swift, dirty stream ran behind a row of shattered storage units, and the culvert was thick with leaves and branches, the damp ground on its banks riddled with hoofprints.
“What are you looking for?” Ryder asked in between Shannon’s panting.
“Someplace with a roof. Doors would be good too. No one lives here—it’s too far out, and the land’s unstable—but scavengers have ripped up the area.” A faded yellow plastic arrow, dislodged from a fast food chain sign, lay against the curb of the weed-infested street, its point aimed up at the gathering clouds. A dot of rain hit the windshield, rolling down the glass and sticking to a wiper. I peeked up and groaned. There were significantly fewer stars than when I’d first headed inland. “Great, now we’ve got rain.”
“Maybe it’ll pass,” Ryder grunted over his shoulder. “If it rains, maybe the dogs will have a harder time finding us.”
“That’s a myth,” I told him. Descended from Wild Hunts, black dogs fixed on a person’s essence, making it nearly impossible to shake them off. Crossing running water was supposed to break their tracking, but it was a lie. If anything, traipsing through a stream merely slowed the hunted down so the dogs could catch up to their next meal. “It only works if the packs tracking you are actually dogs and not nightmares. If we stop for too long, they’ll find us.”
“Oh Gaaaaaawd,” Shannon squealed, raking her fingers across the headliner, leaving deep grooves in the leather and ripping a section off at the seams.
Ryder visibly winced, mouthing an apology at me before he turned to help her.
“This one’s not waiting.”
“She knows a lot about having kids,” I said to Ryder under my breath. He avoided my gaze, turning his head and scanning the side streets to look for anything promising. “Especially for someone being scared about what her parents would think.”
“Not the time for that, Kai. Hold on. Back up,” he ordered, angling between the seats to get a better look. “Go down that alley. Over there!”
Salvation came in the form of a decrepit Quonset, its battered round sides run orange with dried rust. Its galvanized iron walls would keep the black dogs out, and a thick coating of silicon paint covered most of the half-pipe hut, a half-made promise to keep the rain out if it poured, but it was something and a damned sight better than anything else we’d seen.
Oketsu’s headlights grabbed at the lines of a rolling gate on the north side of the cylindrical structure. Leaving the engine idling, I got out and grabbed at the handle, praying the tracks weren’t rusted closed. They gave slightly, then stopped. Ryder approached, holding the other of my shotguns, thankfully pointed down.
“Chained shut,” he said, pointing to a loop of chain
locking the door down. “I thought perhaps you would want to shoot it off.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I was careful in aiming. The rusted chain shattered under a single hit, and a piece flew, stinging my cheek.
“Here. Stop moving,” Ryder said, holding my face to inspect the wound. “You’re bleeding.”
“You kiss it to make it better and I’ll pop you one in the nose,” I warned. “Just saying.”
Cupping my chin, he stared at me. I’d known him for only a few days, and I could already see his mind working at the risks and advantages. Baring my teeth, I showed my canines, white, sharp, and ready to bite in case he decided my word wasn’t good enough. Chuckling, Ryder wiped the spot, smearing my blood on his thumb, then sucked it clean, whistling as he headed back to the car.
“Asshole.” The door rattled as I pulled it up, kinking on slightly warped tracks, but it held, rising high enough to drive the Mustang in.
“Want me to pull the car through?”
“Hold up. Let me check inside first.” I waved him off, reloading the shotgun before I stepped in. “Toss me a torch from the middle console. I’ll need some more light.”
The place had been used for gardening storage or maintenance of some kind. Shipping pallets were stacked with large dust-covered bags near the other end, but the rest of the half-pipe hut was empty except for scraps of age-worn plastic sheeting. Windowless, the only other opening appeared to be a metal door on the far wall, but I spotted a cutout hatch in the ceiling and a steel-rung ladder anchored to the floor and wall beneath it. In the dry, high desert air, the Quonset’s insides were free of rust, with only a few coppery spots at the upper tracks of the rolling door. A squeak echoed near the stacked bags, and then a kangaroo rat shot out, scrambling to get out of the car’s headlight beams.
It was dank and musty, with a fragrance hinting of mold and rodent dung, but it was clear of anything ferocious. My light beam hit a stack of yellow paper bags, and I grinned. Someone had left stacks of deicing rock salt behind, and it seemed like there was more than enough of it to go around Oketsu.
