That fit. I wasn’t about big satisfying endings. I couldn’t even die properly.
“I’m warning you,” Clint said, dropping the shirt and shutting the door behind him. “I’m not somebody you want to mess with, no matter what your reaper told you.”
“Gary didn’t tell me anything,” I said. “Gary didn’t send me. He’s dead.”
Clint started to say something else, but I took a leap and landed, my claws digging into the splintery pine floor. I pushed off my back legs, landing on him with my full weight, and sank my teeth into the meat of his shoulder as we crashed to the ground.
Screams echoed, splitting my skull, and my vision bleached to white. It lit a fire behind my eyes like looking directly up at the sun, and whispers from a hundred voices skittered around the inside of my brain, never condensing into words, always just on the edge of hearing.
The pain got worse by the second, and I felt my heart thudding against my ribs so hard I was sure I’d broken them all over again.
In all of the hundreds of collections I’d made, I’d felt a lot of tainted, battered souls slither into my mind to rest until I turned them over to Gary. But not this. There was nothing here but agony, and finally, I had to let go or die.
When I was the hound, letting go was the last thing I wanted. Fortunately, the hound also wanted to live a lot more than I did, and I flew back from the blinding white void where voices cried and screamed.
Then it was just me, panting and whimpering, crumpled in the far corner of the cabin by the stove. Clint Hicks stood over me, just a black outline in the light from the door. Shadows played around him, enveloping us both, swirling like a black blizzard, overtaking my vision until it was down to a pinpoint.
“You bitch,” Clint muttered, dabbing at the blood on his shoulder. He retreated, and the shadows with him, and after a moment the nausea subsided and I could draw a normal breath.
“What are you?” I croaked. Clint looked over his shoulder, wiping his wound clean at the basin. The bloody rags stood out like neon on a rainy night, the scent so rich and cloying my throat almost closed up.
“Somebody who doesn’t want to be bothered,” he said. That shut me up for a second. I hadn’t met many men who understood hellhound talk.
The operative word there being men, which Clint Hicks clearly wasn’t. At least not all the way. I’d turned over a lot of stones hiding nasty critters in my time, but never one who could repel a hellhound bite like an electric fence.
Clint examined the bite in a small hand mirror hung over the basin and winced. “Never do that again,” he growled. “It hurts like hell and I think we’ve established it’s useless.”
I let myself shift back, sitting up slowly. I was dizzy, shaking, like I’d just taken a line of the hillbilly crank back at the shifters’ clubhouse.
“You promise?” Clint Hicks demanded sternly, going to a squat chest of drawers and pulling out a clean shirt.
I pulled myself to my feet. “Yeah, it’s useless.” My throat was tight and hot, turning my voice to a whisper. “Because you don’t have a soul.”
Clint shook his head. “Nope. And now you’ve made things difficult for yourself. Now I’m going to have to set your reaper an example.” He opened the cabinet farthest from the cookstove and took down a box of rifle shells.
“I told you I don’t have a reaper,” I snapped. “And if you were so worried in the first place, why didn’t you let Billy kill me?”
He shrugged, taking his rifle down from the hook and starting to load the finger-length shells. “I needed to know who sent you. If I let the shifters rip you apart like they did that other hound, the reapers just send more.”
“You could have just asked me,” I muttered. Clint finished loading the shells and lowered the rifle so the barrel pointed at the floor. I felt sweat work its way down my back. The shot might not kill me, but at this range it would make life unpleasant for a good long while.
“No offense, but in my experience you all are a bite-first, ask-questions-never breed of thug,” he said.
“It was Lilith,” I said. I felt a flash of satisfaction when his face slackened, cut jaw and sharp cheekbones seeming to fall in on themselves.
“You’re lying.”
I folded my arms. “I’m not. I don’t have any reason to. I just have a job to do.”
Clint dropped the rifle and closed the space between us so fast I didn’t even have time to make a sound before he shoved me against the stone fireplace, his fingers curling around my windpipe. His hands were thin, graceful, all bony knuckles and soft golden skin. Far from the calloused, knobby hands I would have expected a mountain man like him to be sporting.
They were plenty strong, though, and I choked as I struggled. My ribs starting throbbing again where he’d bashed me against the fireplace.
“Does she know where I am?” Clint snarled. “Right now. Does she know about this place?”
I clawed at his hands, but he hit me hard, knocking me to the ground. Blood erupted where my teeth cut into my cheek.
“No,” I rasped, spitting it onto the floor. “She just told me to come find you when Gary bit it.”
Clint turned on me again, pointing his finger inches from my nose. “Stop lying!” he bellowed. “Hounds don’t exist without a reaper!”
“I do.” I pulled myself to my feet, swiping at the blood on my chin. “I killed him, Lilith cornered me, and she told me to find you. So far I’m not having trouble understanding why she’s got it in for you.” I gingerly prodded my jaw, but my teeth seemed to have survived intact.
“You better not be messing with me . . .” Clint started. I pulled the twisted iron poker out of a dented metal trash can by the fireplace and pointed it at him.
“I swear if you come near me again, I will beat the shit out of you, soul or no soul,” I said. A tic appeared in Clint’s jaw, but he backed off, taking a deep breath.
“Lilith told you who I am?”
“She showed me Gary’s ledger, told me to go collect, and she’d overlook the fact that I murdered my reaper. I didn’t ask for your origin story.”
Clint paced back and forth, stopping to peer out the front window, as if Lilith might materialize next to the woodshed. “So you’re just following orders.”
“I’m doing what I have to do to stay alive.” I tossed the poker aside. “And now I’m going to go, and hope she’s got bigger things happening than punishing one defective hellhound.”
“How did you kill your reaper?” Clint’s words stopped me at the edge of the porch.
“I saw my chance and I took it,” I said. Clint grabbed up his rifle again and followed me, shutting the door.
“I can’t say here,” he said. “If Lilith found out what name I’m using there’s a force-ten shit storm headed this way and I’d prefer not to be here when it hits.” He headed for the truck. “Come on,” he said.
I shook my head. “No. I have to go back to the shifter clubhouse.”
Clint blinked at me. “Why the hell would you go back there? Billy almost ripped your throat out.”
“My friend is there,” I said. Clint heaved a sigh.
“I can’t have you running around on your own. Lilith could find you and pull this memory out of your head like you yank a weed out of your yard.”
“Then I guess you’re giving me a ride, because I’m not leaving him there,” I said. Clint curled his lip.
“Oh, I get it. Your little boyfriend couldn’t protect you, and Billy grabbed him.”
“It’s not like that,” I snapped, getting in the passenger side of the truck. “Your choice. Drive me back or leave me for Lilith, who I will be happy to cooperate with when she lands her broomstick here.”
Clint got into the truck, slamming the door and glaring at me as he started the engine. “What’s your name anyway?”
I folded my arms. “Ava.”
“Ava, anyone ever tell you you’re a real pain in the ass?” Clint said.
I looked at the trees blurring around us as he accelerated down the pitted dirt track leading away from the cabin.
“Once or twice,” I said. The clearing faded into the background until there was nothing around us but dark woods and undergrowth, growing thick and wild and impenetrable. Usually, being away from humanity would have calmed me down, but today all I could think about was Leo. I slid down in the seat, trying to keep my ribs from hurting as the truck bounced and hoping I wasn’t too late.
CHAPTER
14
We were only about ten miles from the clubhouse once we hit the gravel logging road below Clint’s cabin, and I watched for dark shapes in the forest, still wary of the shifter pack.
Finally, Clint spoke up. “We can talk, you know. Neither of us has taken a vow of silence.”
I shifted my body away from him. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
He grimaced. “Is this about that love tap I gave you?”
“It couldn’t be less about that,” I said. “I’m not chatty. Deal with it.”
“Strong silent type,” said Clint, showing those matinee idol teeth again. “Prickly. I like it.” The teeth were ridiculous, like somebody had come and adjusted each part of his face until all the dials were set to Maximum Handsomeness. Or until he had a perfect mask for a predator.
“Prickly would be me saying that’s pretty big talk for a guy who pissed off a demon,” I said. “What I am is unfriendly. There’s a difference.”
“Lilith and I are complicated,” said Clint. “But trust me, what she and I have going is a lot more than some pissant reaper deal gone bad. I never met your reaper, and if I had, I would have saved you the trouble of offing him.”
“I could care less,” I said. “I just want to get Leo and be on my way.”
“And you plan to run in there, boots stomping and guns blazing?” Clint asked.
“I plan to sneak up on them while they’re passed out from last night and get as far away as I can before the moon comes up,” I said. Clint snorted.
“Billy may be a hayseed, but he’s not a dumb one,” he said. “And you iced his best enforcer, so he’s gonna have a good old hillbilly rage on if he sees you again.”
“You talk like you know the guy,” I grumbled.
“I dealt with the shifters when Billy’s old man was in charge,” Clint said. “This whole park is their territory, and even a demon would be insane to invade its borders. Billy’s brain is rotted on meth, and the speed doesn’t help any of his many and varied psychoses, so now I stay on the mountain and we keep out of each other’s way.”
“And this feud started when you were what, twelve?” I asked. Clint grinned.
“No fair me doing all the talking. Tell me something about you and I’ll be happy to fill in my life story.”
I glared at him. I was starting to hate his smile, so brilliant and smarmy. He was on the wrong side of a demon—what the fuck did he have to smile about? “I don’t care about your life, Clint. I care if you’re an asset or a liability when we get to the shifter clubhouse.”
“You think diplomacy will solve this?” Clint snorted. “These are brutal creatures, sweetheart. They’re not going to talk.”
I folded my arms as we turned onto the highway. “Did I say anything about talking to them?” I’d come the same way only a day ago, but it felt like a century. As old as I was, weeks and months tended to blend into each other, and five years could pass before I knew it. I wasn’t used to feeling every hour. It was almost like I was human again.
Clint pulled to the shoulder in view of the clubhouse. The Volvo was still there, poking out from behind the building. I could see they’d stripped it of the kid’s luggage and probably the catalytic converters and anything else worth a few bucks.
“Dead calm,” he said. “If your friend is still on the property, he’s probably stuffed inside an oil drum by now.”
“Leo’s tougher than that,” I grumbled, getting out of the trunk.
“You sure?” Clint called as I crossed the lot, staying in the shadow of the trees. Not that I needed to worry—the place was so still it might as well have been a boneyard. The bikes looked dusty and rattle-bang in the harsh sunlight, surrounded by a drift of beer bottles and Styrofoam containers that a rancid whiff told me had recently held barbecue.
“Yeah,” I said quietly, skirting the porch and slipping along the side of the clubhouse. “I’m sure.”
I didn’t know why I was defending Leo. I didn’t know him. He wasn’t a good guy, or even a reasonably decent one. If our situation was reversed, he’d take off without a second thought and leave me at the mercy of the shifters.
Still, it wasn’t like I was a virginal prom queen myself, and Leo had backed me up when we’d run into Gary. He could have bolted in Elko too, and he hadn’t. I didn’t know what he thought he’d get out of this—power, a pet hellhound, a night of getting sweaty—but if he hadn’t hung me out when he could have, I didn’t feel right about screwing him now.
Besides, he was a lot better company than Clint. If I had to spend any more time alone with him, one of us was going through the windshield of his shitty truck.
The windows at the back of the clubhouse were blacked out, or outright covered in sheet metal. A fat cluster of vents poked out of the roof, over what I guessed was the meth lab. Clint, who had followed me, frowned.
“I do not advise this plan.”
“Good thing I’m not looking for your approval, then,” I said, grabbing the windowsill and hoisting myself up. From there it was easy to grab the low lip of the roof. My stitches complained loudly as I pulled myself up, hooking a leg over the gutter and clambering to the vent, trying not to rattle the rusted tin under my feet.
The vent stack was quiet, no smoke wafting, so I ignored the overpowering smell of cat piss and pulled the cap off, lowering myself down. I dropped, hitting the frame of an extractor fan, trying to pull in on myself as much as possible. The vent was just large enough for me to wriggle out of. I kicked the fan blades until they clattered to the stained floor below and dropped, covering my face as fumes bit at my eyes and the back of my throat.
The lab had clearly been a walk-in cooler in one of the clubhouse’s previous lives, and the big door creaked open like a spooky horror-movie tomb when I shoved it.
Nobody was in the warren of halls behind the clubhouse, and I could hear snoring and moaning from behind the wall separating us. Nothing like a little morning sex to cure your hangover. I wrinkled my nose and turned toward Billy’s office.
The door was hanging open, and three half-naked women were curled up on the gaudy daybed. I was about to leave when I heard somebody sniffling in the corner and pulled aside a velvet curtain to see Lolly hunched on the floor.
“This is your fault,” she hissed when she saw who it was. Her eye was black and her lip was split down the center, making her look like one of those pouty pinup girls you usually found sitting on the hoods of cars or posing with giant cardboard cutouts of fruit.
“Sorry,” I said.
“All I have to do is scream,” she muttered. “And Billy will come in here and rip you a new ass.”
“You could do that,” I agreed. None of the other shifters so much as stirred. Lolly looked like she’d never passed out in the first place. Her eyes were dark, and the cuts on her face couldn’t disguise it was paler than a corpse. I crouched down and leaned in. “Or you could tell me where Billy’s got the guy he dragged in here last night. Tall, dark hair, Russian?”
Lolly sneered, then winced in pain as her lip started bleeding anew. “Go fuck yourself. Billy beat me all to hell for bringing you in here, then he threw me to Mike and Esteban when they got back from chasin’ you. I have a bruise for a face,
I feel like I rode a mechanical bull backward, and I just wanna forget I ever saw you.”
I leaned closer, so close I could see older bruises blooming on her shoulders and arms under her shirt, a black eye she’d tried to cover with faded, runny concealer and cakey eyeliner. “Tell me where they are, Lolly. Then take it from me—walk out the front door, do what you have to do to get a ride out of here, and don’t come back.”
She snorted, fishing in her pockets for a small bag of powder, and tried to tap it out with a shaking hand. “You really are a dumb bitch, you know? No wonder you’re alone with nobody to look after you.”
“It’s hard at first, and no matter how bad things are, how hard they beat you or what they forced you to do, you think it can’t be as bad as this. But then you learn to take care of yourself. And you might even realize life isn’t a never-ending river of shit.”
Okay, that last part was a lie, but I needed Lolly to stop crying and tell me where Leo was, already. She tapped out a bump and snorted it, quivering for a moment before she opened her eyes.
“That’s exactly the kinda stupid crap I’d expect some ugly single bitch to be spouting.”
“Yeah, because you, Mike, and Esteban have such a beautiful love,” I said, snatching the crank from her and shoving the bag into my jeans pocket. She snarled. I snarled. We glared at each other.
“If you don’t help me I’ll still tell Billy that you did,” I said. “And then every time he loses his temper he’ll take it out on you. You’ll spend the rest of your life wondering if this is the time where he beats you so badly he kills you.”
She hesitated, sucking on her cut lip. “Lolly,” I said. “I’m not talking in hypotheticals here. I’ve been exactly where you are.” Sure, it was long before the advent of club drugs, fishnet stockings, and pushup bras, but I’d sat with my arms around my knees all the same, trying to cry silently and convince myself it didn’t hurt all that bad.
“Billy uses the barn out back when he does business.” She sighed. “He takes girls out there too—you know, human girls he meets on the road. It’s private.” She put her forehead on her knees. “I think he took the guy out there.”
Black Dog Page 10
