by Rhys Ford
Camouflaged in the blooms, a herd of striped wild horses popped their heads up as we passed, their ears erect with interest. Interbred from the ruined wild animal park’s zebras and Mongolian wild horses, the flower-field herds were brown tabby-cat striped, their short black legs perfectly suited for negotiating steppes and sharp valleys.
Even an idiot would have sensed danger when they scattered down the hill and out of sight. The ainmhí dubh were behind us, and the wild horses caught the scent of a predator in the air.
“Just the two?” Ryder asked. Forced to steer carefully, he kept the car down to a manageable speed. The powerful engine balked and kicked as the car tucked down tight to take a curve.
“Yeah, just two.” Sarcasm filled my voice. “No problem. Why don’t you park? I’ll get out and take care of this shit.”
Shannon screamed when the larger dog landed on the trunk, its claws tearing up what little paint remained on the back panel. It screamed back, spitting at the shrapnel-pocked glass. A bend in the road provided enough momentum to spin the Mustang’s back end, and the black dog went flying. In a second, the smaller dog homed in, snapping and snarling at Oketsu’s tires.
“Hold him straight,” I ordered Ryder.
I slid out of the window opening, hooking my leg around the seat. Praying my perch would hold, I stretched out, unbending my back as far as I could without losing my hold on the leather seat. The air stung through my baby-juiced shirt, the cold biting the tears on my scars.
The second dog was close, near enough to catch its rank smell even with the wind whipping about me. I pulled the trigger, and my aching shoulder twisted from the recoil. The iron-riddled shots hit it square in the forehead, blowing its hard skull into meat mixed with the white powder of shattered bone. Under me, the car bucked, fitting into a bank in the road, and I peeled myself off the roof, nearly losing one of my shotguns when we took the opposite bend.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I shouted into the car, reaching for more shells. The box skittered away, spilling the ammo into the seat’s crease. Cursing, I angled in to grab a few when the other dog hit.
Its long teeth burned as they sank into the meat of my thigh. A twist of its head flung me from my seat on the window channel, tumbling me out of the Mustang and onto the broken asphalt. I hit the rough road, the blacktop chewing up my clothes and laying my skin open to the grit. Rolling, I bounced on the road, scraping over the tarmac before momentum carried me over the edge of the hill.
Explosions of flowers followed my roll. Sticks and burrs dug in as I tucked, barely able to wrap my arms around my chest. Thin branches snapped under my windmilling body, and then I slammed to a stop, firework blooms of deep purple rose petals puffing around me.
I tried breathing. My lungs ached, blooming with pain. I sucked in air, unable to get my chest working to pull in enough to keep me conscious. A swirling blackness threatened the edges of my vision. Before I could see how badly I was hurt, the dog was on me, its weight slamming into my torso and pushing me into the line of rose bushes I’d landed in.
I’d lost the shotgun somewhere in the bushes when I didn’t clear the rose bramble. No use worrying about it. It was empty, and I had no ammo on me. Dizzy, I ducked under the branches, hoping the thorny mass would give me some kind of cover while I looked for something to hit the dog with.
Above me, the black dog snapped and flailed, turning its head to grab at any part of my body it could reach. Its teeth found my jeans, its sloped body and broad shoulders twisting to yank me out. Taking small snapping bites, its neck heaved back and forth as it dragged me out a few inches at a time. Dried prickly twigs scored tracks on my back and ribs, rose thorns hooking into me like a thousand bee stings.
Then something hard and unyielding jabbed me in the side.
Acid from its spit burned, blistering my exposed leg. I fumbled at the hard length lodged in my side, wrapping my fingers around the shaft of the Ka-Bar Ryder used to open his palm. It was torture to move my arm. Nearly frozen with pain, I kicked at the black dog’s chest, pushing it back a step or two with a solid thump.
I heard something carry on the wind, a shout or perhaps another black dog howling to find the Hunt leader, but I wasn’t in a position to care. My muscles strained with the effort of unsnapping the sheath, a stinging sweat dripping into my eyes, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as the teasing bites the creature left on me.
The knife came loose and slipped from my fingers. Grabbing at it, it slid around my palm as my hand spasmed. With a lunge, the black dog came back and clamped down on my shoulder, singing a growling hum in its throat as it sank its long fangs into my bones. I felt my collarbone give under its bite, snapping and gouging to break through bruised skin.
Choking on the thin trickle of vomit pushing up from my stomach, I pushed my clenched fist into the dog’s head, the knife tilting awkwardly when I brought my arm up. There was no grace in the hit. The stab was desperate, a whining, plunging thrust with little hope of doing anything more than pissing off the black dog determined to eat me whole.
Someone’s god apparently had other plans for me.
My knife met a butter-soft resistance, sliding hot into the creature’s boiling red eye. It splattered, popping and gushing gore over my hand. The searing liquid cooked my fingers, but I rolled, coming up on one knee to push my weight down on the knife’s hilt, hoping I could puncture through the thin bone behind the dog’s eye.
The socket broke, and the knife slid down, buried deep into the ruined cavern of the dog’s eye. Unable to hold my weight up any longer, my legs buckled, and I slid down the black dog’s haunch. It tumbled, convulsing, and its jaws chewed up my upper arm as it died. It gave a final crunch through the remains of my shoulder and toppled, its mouth gaping open.
The sky spun above me, stars turning on a pinwheel course to leave streaks of white light against the pitch black. Metallic silver clouds drifted overhead, lit up bright by the moon. I blinked once; then my eyelids decided it was too much effort to stay open. Agreeing, I let them fall, concentrating more on breathing, with the hitch in my lungs and the radiating pain of my collarbone pricking at my nerves.
The ground quaked, falling away from my split-open back, and the branches hooked into my shirt released me. Warm skin touched my face, and then a voice, soft husky golden in the silvery night, whispered my name and told me to sleep.
“Can’t. On a run,” I argued. Even to my ringing ears, it sounded like a weak argument. I knew who held me, his vanilla-spiced green tea scent soothing some of the burns in my mind, stroking over the fear and panic of the black dog consuming me bite by bite.
“Please, Kai, let me help you,” Ryder begged me in the unseen bobbing world. Taking a final shuddering breath, I rested my head against him and let go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TIME PASSES slower in the darkness.
Threads of memories stitch together patchwork monsters that feed on dreams, sometimes even sucking at my marrow when my bones are split apart by careless hands. Parts of me burned, itching fire spreading under and over my skin until I cried, weeping with the need to sleep deeper to escape the anguish. Every part of me hurt. Even the brush of hair at the base of my neck was tender, torn from my scalp by the black dog’s shearing teeth.
An engine rumbled somewhere in the distance, a soft roaring noise muffled by the fuzz in my head. Opening my eyes poured hot liquid fire into my brain. I forced my lids apart, and a bright sunlight covered me, cut into squares by the high windows along the west wall. The motor increased its speed, and I felt tiny hooks pierce my shoulder, working in and out of my bare skin.
Groaning, I tried turning my head. My neck ticked off each degree with a crackling sound, and Newt blinked slowly when I made eye contact, his pupils thread-thin in the sunlight. His purring increased, as did the latch hooking, but moving him seemed like too much work. Blinking seemed like too much work, I decided, closing my eyes again.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Dalia said
softly. Her voice was enough to make me risk the light again, so I peeked. Her smile was tight and didn’t hide the worry on her face. It also did nothing to mask the dark circles under her eyes. Leaning over me, her pale face was surrounded by a purple halo, and darker violet strands tickled my nose.
“Hair,” I said. Or tried to say. My thick tongue barely moved in my mouth, and it came out a series of clicking hisses. “Shitty color.”
“I’m going to put a straw in your mouth.” She stroked at my forehead. “See if you can get some water into you. Sip it. Don’t gulp.”
Sucking in a trickle of water, my throat closed over each drop as if they were precious. Moistened, I tried talking again. “Changed your hair.”
Trying to sit up was unsuccessful, and Newt complained at being dislodged when my shoulder was no longer flat enough to lie on. Dalia faded from my side, and a pain stabbed through my lungs.
“Lay back, Kai.” Ryder appeared in my field of view, pressing his hand on my chest. “You need to rest.”
“Hurts,” I protested as he slid the straw back into my mouth. Sucking too hard, I got a mouthful of water I couldn’t swallow easily and choked, sending waves of agony through my chest. The coughing subsided eventually, leaving me breathless and without any strength. “Go away.”
“Still pigheaded, I see.” The straw retracted, and I felt what I was lying on give as Ryder sat down next to me. “You’ve been out for about a week now.”
“Get paid?”
“Did you get paid?” He laughed, nodding. “Yes, for the run. I’ll need you to work up a bill for damage to your car.”
“Good. Get out,” I said, struggling against Ryder’s hand to sit up. Either he was a lot stronger than I was or my body was refusing to listen to me. “Let go.”
“Kai, stop,” Ryder whispered into my ear. “You’re hurt. Badly. And while you’re healing quickly enough, you need to rest.”
“Dempsey?” I croaked. The water was a memory in my mouth, and my throat hurt.
“Dalia called him. He said to let him know if you died.” Ryder dribbled some water into my parched mouth, using his finger as a stopper as he guided the straw.
“Not getting Oketsu.” Newt was back, curled up on the ruin of my collarbone. A thick white bandage speckled with dried blood protected my skin from his claws, but his weight was welcome, as was the heat of his tiny body.
“He didn’t want the Mustang.” Ryder sounded bitter. “He said he wants your truck.”
“Oh,” I replied, slipping back into the cradle of darkness. “Okay. That’s different, then.”
WHEN I resurfaced, I could move, although my muscles felt tender and spongy. All I could do was sit up, and even that left me in a sea of sweat. It was night, from what I could make out from the banks of windows set high in the warehouse walls. To the west, the sky ran blue and orange, reflecting the city’s glow. On the east, San Diego dominated the long glass wall, its tall buildings and frantically lit-up billboards selling everything from ramen noodles to used cars.
The swirls of color were the only light downstairs, and I shifted, looking around to make sure I wasn’t crowding Newt. The cat was gone, and a futon bed I’d gotten at the swap meet was set up next to the kitchen wall, a makeshift medical bay tucked in around me. As I watched, the glass panes darkened, and the lights I’d set up along the steel support beams flared on.
“Ryder wondered how the hell you slept with all that sparkling into your place. I had to show him how the glass-switch worked.” Dalia carried a bowl of something toward me. It smelled delicious, waking my stomach with a fierce growl. “Get some water in you before you eat. I only took the IV out this morning.”
I glanced at the inside of my elbow, frowning at a bit of gauze held down by cloth tape. It itched, as did my shoulder blades, but my body only ached instead of screaming in agony when I moved. Taking the water bottle from Dalia, I sipped carefully from the straw, swallowing small drips.
“So I didn’t dream about the hair. Purple?” I scratched my face, finding a road rash scab on my cheek. “Where’s Shannon? She okay?”
“She’s at the Court with the babies. Apparently my looking them over wasn’t good enough. Some snot-nosed healer came by to check them out, and they all left together. That bitch wasn’t any help. She sniffed at you and said she had other things to do. I wanted to pull her fricking hair out,” she said, sitting on a wooden chair I didn’t know I owned. “Ryder’s sister called. She’s coming down to San Diego, but he started speaking sidhe, so I couldn’t eavesdrop anymore. I hate when people do that.”
“Huh.” I left it at that. Maybe things worked differently for the sidhe, but it seemed like the sister should have been here already.
“Here.” Dalia drew some soup into a large-bowled spoon, holding it out to me after blowing it cool. “Eat.”
The miso was warm, hondashi-sweet and shoyu-rich, just the right thing for my tight stomach. I ate half of the bowl, then leaned into the pillows, unable to hold myself up anymore. I peeled back the bandage on my shoulder to inspect the break site and was amused to find the wound stitched together with bright rainbow thread.
“Don’t pick at it. All I had was the colored thread I use for kids.” She turned her head, but not before I saw the shine in her eyes. “So you’re going to be wearing rainbows until you heal up.”
“Newt around?” Craning my neck, I tried to do the impossible, see up the wall to the loft where my bed was.
“He’s been fed and is probably up on the roof chasing fireflies,” Dalia said. “Or crapping. That cat leaves some foul things in the litter box.”
“Be glad he decided to start using the litter box,” I murmured, debating another mouthful of soup, but fatigue kept me on my back. “You doing okay?”
“You drive me insane, Kai Gracen.” Dalia rested her forehead against mine, and I breathed in the sweetness of her breath. “I dyed my hair the same color as your eyes because I wanted something of you with me besides your damned disgusting cat.”
“He’s pretty disgusting,” I agreed. “Probably less than me, though.”
“You’re an ass sometimes. Did you know that?” Dalia pressed her hands down on my shoulders, and I tried not to wince, failing miserably. “And you’re welcome, by the way. I took time off from work to patch you up. I should have left your ass at Medical.”
“You know they wouldn’t have taken me,” I said in a soft voice. “If you’d had your way, I’d be in Medical instead of here in my living room with a half-assed triage set up around me.”
She couldn’t meet my eyes. There was shame in her face, shame for something she had no control over.
“You’re a doctor there. In the ER.” I wasn’t telling her something she didn’t already know. Just something she didn’t want to hear. “I’m not at Medical because they wouldn’t take me. They won’t take in a sidhe. Not even when one of their own doctors begs them to.”
“Screw you.” She blew a raspberry at me, ever the lady.
“I know you, Mick,” I said. “You begged for half a minute and then walked out, yelling that you’d treat me at home if those assholes wouldn’t help me. Did they suspend you for it?”
“No,” she admitted, as subdued as a child caught stealing a cookie. “I have a lot of vacation time built up. Some asshole won’t take me to the Bluffs to dragon watch, so I thought I’d take it now.”
“Dragons are highly overrated.” I laughed, despite the twisting in my heart and guts. “If you really want to go, I’ll take you someplace in Pendle. Once Oketsu gets fixed, anyway.”
“I don’t need to smell them,” she sighed. “Just see them. That’s the biggest difference between you and me. It’s like you have to risk everything just to cross the street. Why can’t you for once do things simply?”
“Because that’s not me, Dalia,” I said, gently pulling her down to sit next to me. “That’s something I can’t change.”
“It’s something you won’t change, Kai,” Dalia in
sisted. “You don’t have to be a Stalker. You’re smart, sharper than I am. You could go to school and be something other than….”
“It’s all I know, Mick.” I broke it to her gently but firmly. “I’m a Stalker. I like it. Even now when I’m wondering whether Ryder picked up all my pieces off the road to put me back together, I like it. You started off as a kid in a family that loves and adores you. That’s what you built on. I don’t have that. Stalkers raised me. As a Stalker. It’s what I am. It’s what I’m built on.”
“You’re more than that,” she said. “I’m not taking this chikusho you’re spooning me and swallowing it.”
“Baby, if people find out you’re hooked up with me for anything more than borrowing a cup of sugar, your life would be shit. Hell, Dempsey’s old lady can’t even stand to have me in the house, and I’m sure she makes him bathe right after he touches me. How are you going to be a doctor around that?”
“How I feel about you isn’t going to go away, Kai. I died a little when they brought you in.”
“I’m not worth dying for, Dalia,” I said, shrugging.
“Don’t say that, you bastard.” She hit me again, closer to my collarbone, then looked apologetic before patting the bandage. “I almost got kicked out of Medical because of you.”
“I’m definitely not worth that.” I teased a smile out of her. Shaking my head sent a wave of hammer falls in my skull, and I waited for the headache to subside. “I wish things were different, Dalia. I do.”
“What about Ryder?”
“What about him?”
“Are you going to let him love you? Or do you have a different excuse for him?”
