“Wh-where am I?” Skinner rasped as he tried to sit up.
“It’s okay, cousin. You’re safe now,” the stranger said reassuringly. “The pigs won’t be looking for you here.”
Skinner tried to sit up again, but the buzzing in his head stopped him. He lay back, staring in confusion at his surroundings. As far as he could tell, he was in the cargo section of a minivan. “The—the last thing I remember, I was in an alley somewhere.…”
“I found you passed out naked behind the dumpster beside the stage door. You looked like you needed some help, so I brought you here.”
“Where’s Creighton?”
“Who?”
“My friend. He and I were … Oh.” The memory of Creighton’s body riddled with bullets suddenly surfaced. He covered his eyes with a trembling hand.
“Look, friend, you’re safe now, understand?”
“I appreciate your kindness. I really do. But you don’t understand. I’m dangerous. More than you could possibly imagine. If you could loan me some clothes, I’ll be on my way. I’m all right, honestly I am. You don’t need to worry about me …”
“You’re in no shape to travel right now, cousin.”
“I can’t stay here! You’re in serious danger! You don’t know what I’m capable of! And I’d rather you didn’t find out.”
“Oh, but I do know, cousin.” His benefactor smiled and leaned forward, his features rearranging themselves with a sickeningly familiar sound. His sunglasses slid down his snout, revealing eyes the color of fresh blood. He barked a laugh as Skinner involuntarily scrabbled backward on his elbows. “You’re new to all this, aren’t ya?” He asked as his face resumed its previous appearance. “My name’s Rend. What’s yours, cousin?”
“Skinner. Skinner Cade.”
Suddenly the side door to the minivan rolled open. “Who’s this jerk-off?” snarled a man with long, cream-colored hair. “And what the fuck is he doing in the van?”
“I found him in the alley, Jag,” Rend replied, dropping his head lower, in a show of ritual appeasement. “He was hurt pretty bad …”
Jag climbed into the van and closed the doors behind him, fixing Rend with a withering stare. Skinner noticed that Jag’s eyes were also red. “That’s just fuckin’ great!” he growled. “Did anyone see you?”
Rend shook his head. “I’m not Ripper or Hew, damn it!”
“I’m not saying you are,” Jag countered. “But I’m betting your new buddy here left a trail even a one-eyed human could follow it.” Jag leaned forward, sniffing Skinner like a wary dog. “What’s your story, Rover?”
“The name’s Skinner.”
“Whatever.”
“I—I was arrested and put in jail,” he explained. “While I was there I … Changed. I killed some men, and there was a riot. I escaped with a friend of mine … but we didn’t have any money. We held up a convenience store, and the cashier got shot and I … Changed again. The next thing I know, my friend’s dead and I’m being shot at by the cops. I managed to get away, but not before I caught a few slugs.…”
“You were damn lucky, too,” Rend explained. “We vargr are close to indestructible, but if you catch a bullet in the head or have your spinal column shattered, you’re as good as dead.”
“Vargr? What the hell does that mean?”
“Just what we need,” Jag grunted, rolling his crimson eyes in disdain. “A fuckin’ mutt!”
“Cut him some slack!” Rend retorted. “Not all of us were privileged enough to be raised within the pack, me included. It wasn’t all that long ago that I was as ignorant as he is.”
“Then you can fuckin’ school him! Because I’m not going to waste my time on some mongrel,” Jag snapped as he opened the doors of the van and hopped back outside. “He’s your responsibility, Rend! And he’s on probation until the Howl!” With that, he slammed the doors shut behind him.
Rend smiled apologetically at Skinner. “Don’t mind Jag. It’s his job to run roughshod over the rest of us. But he’s something of a snob. He likes rubbing it in everyone’s face that he’s purebred.”
“What do you mean?” Skinner frowned.
“Jag’s a full-blooded werewolf. So is his twin sister, Jez. Their parents are both vargr, and they were raised in the pack, not human society. It makes them special—but I sure get tired of listening to them brag about their pedigrees!” Rend laughed and Skinner was surprised to find himself weakly joining in.
“I’m afraid there’s still so much I don’t understand. It’s so much to take in. First I thought I was crazy … then I thought I might be the only one like—like I am.”
Rend nodded his understanding. “I know where you’re coming from, cousin. We all do—except for Jag and Jez.”
“How many of you are there?”
“There’s six of us, now. We’re a death-metal band, actually. We call ourselves Vargr. It was Jag’s idea of an inside joke. I wanted to call us The Thrill-Killers, but someone’s already using the name. Uh, look. I’m going to have to leave you alone for a while, okay? I’ve got to help tear down the equipment.”
Fifteen minutes later, the side door on the van rolled back, waking Skinner from a light doze.
“Rend? Is that you?”
“Do I look like him?” The woman standing before him had boasted a shock of platinum blonde, short-cropped hair and had red lacquered fingernails that matched her lipstick. “Jag told me Rend had picked up a stray, so I came out to take a look. My brother didn’t tell me you were handsome, though.”
Skinner, acutely aware he was nude, turned the color of a freshly boiled lobster.
“You’re blushing! How quaint!” she chuckled. “My name is Jez. Looks like you’ve had some trouble tonight.” She pointed to the bruises and scars that were all that remained of the bullets that had punctured his body only hours ago.
“I guess you could call it that.”
Jez smiled, exposing strong white teeth. “Were you a brave dog? I like brave dogs.”
“Uh …”
“What do you think you’re doing out here?”
Jez gave a small yelp of surprise as Jag grabbed her by the arm and pulled her aside.
“I’m just checking on our new pack member, brother dear,” she replied.
“He’s not one of us!” Jag snapped. “Not until the Howl; is that clear?”
“Stop squeezing my arm!” Jez yelped.
“I don’t want you near that mutt, understand?” Jag growled.
“You can’t tell me what to do!” Jez retorted, only to change her mind as her brother increased the pressure on her arm. “Ow! I understand!”
“You better, sis!” Jag said, glowering at his twin as she petulantly massaged her upper arm. “Now get back in there and help Rend with the equipment.” Jag then turned to glower at Skinner, his eyes glowing like stoplights. Although he still retained his human features, the image of the beast he truly was lurked just below his skin. “Stay away from my sister, mutt!” he snarled. “She belongs to me, is that clear?” The werewolf leader slammed the van door shut and stormed off without waiting for a reply.
Skinner lay there in the dark, wondering what the hell he’d got himself into this time.
Chapter Fourteen
A few minutes later there came a knock on the door of the minivan. Skinner slid it open to find Rend standing with a bundle of mismatched clothes and a pair of Chucks. “I dug up something for you to wear. Hope they fit.”
“Thanks,” Skinner said gratefully as he dressed himself in the badly wrinkled ironic t-shirt and skinny jeans, but decided to ditch the scarf. There weren’t an exact fit, but at least he wouldn’t be bare-ass naked. Just as he finished tying his Chucks, the rest of the group showed up, lugging instruments and sound equipment. Skinner got out and stood beside Rend, watching cautiously as they loaded the microbus parked next to the minivan.
“Who’s the meat?” asked the teenager with a shaved head as he muscled a set of drums into the rear of the microbus.
“He’s not meat, Ripper,” Rend announced. “He’s one of us.”
“Not yet he ain’t,” grunted the giant with the bicycle-spoke Mohawk who was carrying an amplifier under one arm like it was a loaf of bread. “Ain’t that so, Sunder?”
The other roadie flipped his bone-white forelock out of his face with a bob of his head. “Think fast, low-dog!” he laughed as he tossed the fifty-pound bass amp he was carrying like it was a beach ball. Skinner instinctively stepped forward and caught the heavy piece of sound equipment before it could hit the ground. To his surprise it seemed impossibly light, as if made of papier-mâché. “Good doggy!” Sunder said with a grin, clapping Skinner on the shoulder. “You passed the test!”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, assing around like that?” Jag snapped as he stormed out of the stage door, his guitar case slung over one shoulder. “What if somebody saw you pull that little stunt, numb nuts? We can’t eat every fucking witness!”
“Yeah, but we could try,” Ripper grinned, only to have Jag smack the side of his shaved head.
“I’m not joking! Can you get that through your thick skull?”
Ripper rubbed his skull, regarding Jag with the eyes of a chronically abused child. “I got it, Jag. You didn’t have t’cuff me.”
Jag ignored the drummer’s compliant and instead thrust an angry finger at Rend. “It’s your job to ride herd on these idiots while I collect from the promoter! You know better than to let them pull stunts like that!”
“You’re right, Jag,” Rend replied, lowering his head in deference.
“You better fuckin’ believe I’m right! Now let’s blow this stinking town before your new pet brings the heat down on us.”
As Skinner turned to re-enter the minivan, Jag blocked his way with his guitar case. “Where do you think you’re goin’, lowdog?”
Skinner looked inside the minivan and saw Jez lounging in the front passenger seat, filing her nails. She looked up and flashed him a smile that made him break out in a cold sweat.
“I was, uh, just going to ride with … uh …”
Rend quickly grabbed Skinner’s upper arm, steering him toward the microbus. “The minivan’s for the members of Vargr,” he explained. “You ride in the equipment van, with the other roadies. Normally I ride with the band, but since Jag put me in charge of your tutoring, I’ll be keeping you company.”
Skinner didn’t look back, but he could feel both Jag and Jez’s eyes boring into his back. He wasn’t sure which one meant more trouble.
“Munchies!” Sunder crowed as Rend climbed into the van with a sack of junk food and a six-pack of beer.
“Care for some jerky?” Rend asked.
Skinner shook his head. He couldn’t bring himself to look out the window of the van at the convenience store they had stopped at, for fear of being overwhelmed by the memories of what he had seen and done in Albuquerque. Sunder was behind the wheel while Hew rode shotgun. Skinner and Rend were relegated to the passenger bench, which was the only remaining seat, as the rest had been removed to make more room for the band’s equipment.
“Next stop—the Howl!” Sunder announced over Motorhead’s Eat the Rich as he threw the vehicle back into gear.
“Is that a bar?” Skinner asked.
Sunder laughed and shot Hew a ‘get the new guy’ look.
“It’s not a bar, it’s an event,” Rend explained, handing Skinner a beer. “It’s a gathering of sorts.”
“For werewolves?”
“‘Werewolf’ is their name for us,” Rend replied with a grimace of distaste. “We call ourselves vargr.”
Skinner nodded his head and tried to look like he understood as he sipped his beer. There was so much he needed to know to about himself, and those like him, only now he was fearful of asking questions and looking like a rube. To his relief, Rend was the one asked the next question.
“So—how long have you known you were different?”
“All my life, I guess,” he replied. “I never really seemed to fit in where I was from.”
“I bet you always got the snot kicked out of you by the jocks, am I right?”
“How did you know?” Skinner asked in surprise.
“Because it was the same with all of us,” Rend replied. “At least, those of us who were raised in human society.”
“Humans can tell we’re not like them,” Sunder chimed in. “That’s why they hate us.”
Hew grunted and nodded his head in agreement as his mouth was full of beef jerky.
“Not all of them are like that,” Skinner protested. “I’ve known humans who were nice to me.”
Rend shrugged and produced a joint from the breast pocket of his leather jacket. His eyes were unreadable as he lit up. “They’re in the minority, believe me. Most humans either hate us or fear us the moment they meet us. I think they can kind of sense what we’re after, the same way cattle get antsy when they catch a predator’s scent. Occasionally you get the self-destructive groupies who want to fuck you. They can tell you’re dangerous, but don’t know how much—until it’s too late. So—when was the first time you Changed?”
“When I was twelve. But then I didn’t do it again until a week ago.”
“Kill anyone your first time?”
Skinner shifted around uncomfortably. “My father.”
Rend lifted an eyebrow. “You too, huh? Don’t look so surprised, cousin! Patricide isn’t rare in vargr society. But he wasn’t your real father, was he?”
“I don’t know who my real dad is.”
“Most of us don’t have a clue who sired us, except for the pedigreed, like Jag and Jez. Vargr males outnumber bitches ten to one. That means they end up mating with whatever they can hunt down, human or wolf, and they usually don’t hang around after the deed. Hell, I’ve never had consensual sex with a human woman in my life.”
“So—you snuffed your old man,” Sunder said with a yawn. “Was he beating you? Trying to ram it up the old poop chute?”
“No!” Skinner exclaimed, grimacing in disgust.
The vehemence of his response caused Sunder, Hew and Rend to exchange glances. Sunder looked into the rearview mirror, meeting and holding Skinner’s gaze. “Hey, you know what they say about d’Nile not just being a river …”
“You don’t understand … It wasn’t like that! My father loved me, and I loved him!” Skinner explained. “He never did anything to hurt me! It was all a horrible accident. We were out hunting and I killed a deer and … and when I smelled its blood, I Changed. It was so sudden, I didn’t know what was happening to me and I—I killed him.”
“Wow. You actually sound sorry!” Sunder said, shaking his head in amazement.
“That’s because I am! I would give anything to be able to take what I did back. My parents loved me. Both of them. I didn’t even know I was adopted until my mother died last month.”
“What was it like?” Rend asked in amazement.
“What was what like?”
“Having parents that loved you.”
“You mean you don’t know?” Skinner frowned.
“I didn’t get lucky, like you did,” Rend replied. “You ended up with people who actually wanted you. Far back as I can remember, my parents hated me. I don’t mean they gave me a hard time about my hair or my attitude. I mean, what kind of attitude can a baby have, right?
“My first memory—I don’t know how old I was, but I was still wearing a diaper. I don’t even know what it was I did to piss off my dad. Maybe I dropped my cup or spilled my cereal. Something like that. Next thing I know, my old man bellows at me like a fucking bull and throws me up against the wall. I cry and run to my mom—thinking she’ll kiss it and make it better, right? But all she does is give me the back of her hand. That’s my first real memory. It was just a taste of what was to come.
“Every now and then, I would catch my mom and dad lookin’ at me like I was some kind of disease and that being around me made them sick. They never loved
me, and they didn’t care what happened to me. My big brother used to climb on top of me in bed and choke me until I couldn’t breathe and then stick his dick in my mouth when I gasped. I was seven and he was twelve when he started that shit. Everyone knew he was doin’ it to me, but no one cared enough to make him stop. But when my dad found out he was doing the same to my little brother, he went nuts!
“I watched him beat my big brother with a belt until blood ran down his back—and I knew I ought to be happy that he was finally getting punished, but all I felt was jealousy, because Dad cared enough about my baby brother that he beat my older brother Mark for doing to him once what everyone knew he’d been doing to me for months!
“When I was ten, my mom ran away to go live with a woman. That’s when everything really went to hell and didn’t come back. Dad was a boozer before I was born—but after Mom left, he hit rock bottom and stayed there. My big brother moved out of the house and became a street hustler, which at least kept him away from me. That just left my older sister, who was fifteen, my baby brother, who was eight, and my baby sister, who was six.
“Dad encouraged the others to beat on me. I got slapped, punched, pinched, pushed down stairs, burned with cigarettes, hit with baseball bats—you name it, they did it to me. It was like I was a pillow they could throw around and do things to without anyone telling them to stop. My big sister used to practice her judo flips on me. Sometimes they’d lock me up in the basement for days on end, without water, force me to drink my own piss, and then beat me for it. I’d be tied up for days and get beat for soiling my self.”
“My God, Rend,” Skinner gasped. “What about the neighbors? Didn’t they notice what was going on?”
“If they did, they didn’t let my screamin’ bloody murder worry ’em,” Rend said with a bitter laugh. “Sure, some kid was gettin’ whipped pretty good next door. But, hell, it’s the parent’s right to beat their kids. Besides, I probably deserved it, right?
“I was thirteen when Dad came home one night drunker than usual—which was saying something. He stumbled into my bedroom with a knife, slurring something about making sure I never do anything like the bastard who did it to my mother. Then he starts trying to pull off my underpants. And that’s when I Changed.
Wild Blood Page 10
