Tainted Blood: A Generation V Novel

by M. L. Brennan

  He broke off when a young guy in his late teens, wearing an awkward expression and a suit that he’d either borrowed in haste or outgrown recently, hurried up the aisle, waving one arm. “Gil,” he called, “Dahlia sent me to get you. The funeral procession can’t leave until you get into the main car.”

  “Fine,” Gil snapped. Then he turned back to me, his face set with dislike. The young guy was hovering at his elbow, clearly wanting to tug, but just as clearly unsure that that would go over well. Mostly his hands just fluttered with indecision. But there was no such uncertainty from Gil, who poked one huge finger in my chest, hard. “You go to those goddamn woods. Whatever the Ad-hene and the Neighbors are doing that they had to kill my uncle, it’s in Lincoln. I know it is.” With that, they turned and left—Gil a barely contained block of rage, and the young guy practically falling over himself at his heels, a lanky muddle of adolescent physical misery.

  “Some interesting dynamics,” Suze said, watching them leave. “The more we’re hearing about Dahlia, the more I think she had a lot of motive to kill Matias.”

  I looked over at her, raising my eyebrows. While I’d been Gil’s focus, she’d been observing closely. “Gil didn’t even blink when we told him about the murder weapon. Think Dahlia confessed to him?”

  “I don’t know.” Suze shook her head, her mouth tight. “That felt knee-jerk to me. I don’t think he knew about the knife being in Dahlia’s house. He didn’t even consider for a second that what you said could be true. It was just one more strike against the Ad-hene for him.”

  “It’s all pointing at Dahlia,” I noted. “Her brother might believe in her, but her cousin was right in that Matias’s death works out pretty well for her—she gets the top job and revenge at the same time.”

  “I think we should check the woods,” Suzume said unexpectedly. I turned and stared at her, and she shrugged. “The whole family is going to be tied up in funeral shit for the rest of the day. If we hit the Lincoln Woods, I can sniff in the areas around Matias’s and Dahlia’s houses, see if I can get a whiff of any Ad-hene activity.”

  “Suze, do you really think it’s possible?”

  “I’m not as quick to take Lilah’s word as exoneration as you are,” she said. “A full Ad-hene might’ve been able to hide their scent at Matias’s house from my nose. And given the state of that laundry room, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to scent an Ad-hene if they were only there briefly and were careful about what they touched. We know that there are Ad-hene unaccounted for down in Underhill.” She shrugged. “Plus, if we do the sweep and come up with nothing, that’s one more nail in Dahlia’s coffin.”

  I considered it, and I had to admit that there were some valid points in her argument. “Are we completely eliminating Ilona from the suspect list?” I asked.

  Suze snorted. “Hell no. The woman could be the next Meryl Streep, for all I know. Dahlia has a good motive, but Ilona could’ve done it. Her brother trusted her? Well, then that would explain how he was cracked over the back of the head with that rock before the knifing started.”

  “Well, that visual is enough to make me hope that it ends up being the Ad-hene,” I noted. “Into the woods we go.”

  “We’re going to have to make a stopover for a wardrobe change,” Suze said. “These heels were not made for spelunking.”

  * * *

  After a quick lunch and a clothing swap, Suze and I were heading toward the Lincoln Woods State Park. Thanks to a map check, we’d figured out which parking area was the closest to where the bears lived, so the neatly graveled lot with a helpful wooden sign enumerating all of the important rules of park usage (mainly revolving around our trash, and how we needed to carry it out with us) was different from the one that we’d used during our last, very climactic trip to the Lincoln Woods.

  I looked up uneasily at the sky as I turned the Fiesta off. The day had begun overcast, and the weather had not improved over the last few hours. Heavy gray clouds loomed overheard, and I was very grimly aware that my parka was merely water resistant.

  Beside me, Suze was rustling around in the duffel bag at her feet. She emerged with a brown paper bag, which she passed to me. “Hey, got you a present.”

  That probably should’ve set my heart pounding a bit after the events of last night, but I’d hung around with Suze for a while now, and I knew to regard her gifts with significant caution. I reached carefully into the bag and withdrew a long, white aerosol can. I read the label and turned to Suze with a distinctly unamused expression. “Bear spray?” I asked flatly. According to the label, it was Sabre Frontiersman Bear Attack Deterrent, and the container actually felt like a miniature fire extinguisher.

  She nodded, looking affronted at my lack of enthusiasm. “Fuck yeah, Fort. There are actual black bear sightings in Lincoln, and I don’t think all of them are the metsän kunigas. Besides, if we happen to bump into an Ad-hene, I bet that stuff would screw them over pretty well too. That shit is effective.”

  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Suze, when have you been spraying this stuff?”

  Her eyes widened innocently. “Me? I would never abuse a product as serious as this.” Then she leaned in, and she grinned. “But just between the two of us, I nailed a kobold with this stuff full-on once, and it actually passed out.”

  I shook my head, but attached the accompanying hip holster to my belt. My bag with the Ithaca and my Colt would be staying in the trunk today. I had zero desire to end up chatting with a member of the state forestry service about firearms that I technically did not have a license for, plus, as Suze had pointed out, the Ad-hene looked very thoroughly inhuman, and so spent their days safely tucked away in Underhill, where no one would catch a look or, worse yet, a picture.

  While I stood with my back to the car, Suze slipped out of her clothes and into something a bit fluffier. When I heard a high yap, I turned around to see a black fox eyeing me from the passenger seat of the Fiesta, her tail whipping excitedly from side to side. I opened the door to let her hop out, reflecting as I did just how much Suze’s full winter coat made her look like a walking plushie toy. It was one of those bone-cold days, and she actually looked a lot more comfortable than I did. I grabbed the park map, and we headed into the woods.

  What followed was a three-hour reminder of why I hated outdoor sports, particularly hiking. November wasn’t exactly the ideal time for a walk through the woods to begin with, but Suze’s need to hunt for Ad-hene activity took us well off the hiking trails. We went down inclines, back up inclines, picking our way over loose rocks and piles of dead leaves. There were little streams throughout the area, which meant that we also spent a lot of time balancing on moss-covered rocks, and my boots quickly became soaked. I stepped in three separate piles of rabbit poop, which Suze seemed completely incapable of avoiding, and the bare trees around us lent an extremely creepy air to the woods that was not helped by the incessant croaking of crows that found either my presence or Suze’s (or both) extremely upsetting.

  The whole time we were walking, Suze’s nose was stuck close to the ground as she zigged and zagged, hunting for a trail, but she never gave me that classic pointer dog’s pose that she usually struck when she found what she was looking for. We passed within sight of the back of Matias’s and Dahlia’s houses, but we found absolutely nothing except confirmation that the beauty of nature was all a crock of marketing shit.

  We’d just finished picking our way around a few fallen trees near the back of Dahlia’s house, making me fervently hope that we were truly past tick season, when Suze looked up at me and gave a small huff of disappointment.

  “Nothing?” I asked, knowing what the answer was. I rubbed the back of my sleeve over my forehead—it was cold, but we’d been walking enough that I’d managed to build up a sweat.

  Which was right when there was a crack of thunder, and the rain started falling.

  * * *

  The rain meant the end of any scent trails that Suze might’ve been able to pick up, ev
en if any trails had been there in the first place, which I was now very sincerely doubting. Both of us were quickly soaked, Suze looking particularly sad as all of her puffy fur became drenched and stuck to the sides of her little body. Even her whiskers looked wet. My parka did the best it could to resist the rain, but my saturated socks squished with every step I took, and I could feel a line of water leaking down the back of my collar.

  The map, now also wet, was stuffed into my pocket, and I was very grateful that Suze had a better sense of direction than I did, since I was sure that I would never have been able to find my way back to the car on my own. The rain eventually started lightening as we walked, settling down to a sullen and periodic drizzle, but the wind picked up, blowing straight into our faces and sending the temperature dropping. Adding to the fun, the sun was now getting lower in the sky, and in the extending twilight I would’ve been really screwed had my eyesight not been significantly sharper than a human’s.

  “When we accuse Dahlia of murdering her uncle,” I muttered to Suze as the parking area finally came into sight, “she is also going to have to pay for this miserable afternoon.” Suze gave a grumbling yip of full agreement, and paused to shake her coat, spraying my pants with water. Had I not already been soaked, I might’ve been pissed, but it seemed a bit unreasonable to fuss.

  We were halfway to the car, the gravel of the lot crunching under my boots, when Suze suddenly froze, her ears pricking fully up and her tail lashing. I was spinning around before my brain even fully registered what was going on, and then it was a good thing that my instincts were running my body, since my brain nearly shut down in shock at the sight of the full-size black bear just stepping out of the woods and onto the gravel. The moment my eyes locked onto it, and it knew that I’d seen it, it gave up all attempts at sneaking and broke into a full run toward me, its mouth open to reveal an extremely terrifying set of teeth.

  Bears were typically presented as slow and meandering, but now I suddenly discovered that bears could move really fast when they wanted to, and this one was barreling down on us with clear intent. Adrenaline pounded through me, and I ripped the bear spray off my belt. One hand snapped off the safety cord, one tiny sliver of my brain registered that the wind was at my back, and then I pointed it and hit the button as hard as I could. The bear was only five feet away from me, and the blast took it right in the face—now the bear made a sound, a full-throated roar of rage as it stopped in its tracks and started rubbing its face with those dangerously clawed paws.

  I didn’t wait around to observe further, instead spinning around, yelling, “Car, car, car!” and sprinting to the Fiesta with Suze right at my heels. I was shoving my hand into my wet pants pocket as we went, scrabbling desperately for my keys, and I yanked them out with so much force that I could hear my jeans pocket rip. I most certainly did not give a shit, since behind me I could still hear the bear bellowing, and I shoved the key into the Fiesta, the terror of breaking the key off in the lock the only thing that slowed me down long enough to turn it carefully. The moment it released, I yanked the door fully open, and Suze bounced straight in on four feet, landing in the driver seat and then immediately hopping into the backseat, her shape changing into a human even as she went. The moment she was off the driver seat, I was slamming into it, yanking the door closed as fast as I could.

  “Shotgun?” Suze yelled from the back. “Tell me you packed the fucking shotgun.”

  “It’s in the goddamn trunk!” I yelled, never regretting basic gun safety so much as I did at that moment, my hand shaking so hard that it took me three tries to get the key into the ignition. In front of me, the bear was still rubbing at its face with its paws, but I was horribly aware that its movements didn’t seem quite as frantic as they had a moment ago. In the back, Suze had hit the release button that allowed her to fold one of the seats down flat, and also opened access to the trunk. She was reaching her arm into it and yanking, clearly trying to catch my gun duffel and get it into the main car.

  I turned the ignition, and the Fiesta stalled out. I screamed an obscenity that I normally pretended that I didn’t know. In front of me, the bear had apparently shaken off the effects of the spray, and was now breathing heavily and staring straight at me with pain-squinted eyes. Behind me, Suze was still rifling through the trunk. I turned the key again, and this time the ignition caught. As the engine slowly rumbled to life, the bear growled and started coming toward the car, moving fast.

  “Oh fuck, oh fuck,” I muttered as I automatically threw the car into reverse and started backing up quickly. The bear was between us and the tiny gap in the trees that was the entrance and exit to the lot from the main road, and I was deeply and horribly aware that the fine craftsmen at the Ford company had built the Fiesta for fuel economy and not with the intention of withstanding a concentrated bear attack. Behind me, Suze was cursing loudly and inventively, and in front of me, the bear had just broken into a run, heading straight toward us. I could see the gleam of its teeth and the heavy muscle under its black fur.

  My hands gripped the steering wheel convulsively as I ran out of room to back up. Then it occurred to me—the Fiesta might not have been designed to keep bears out, but it was a one-and-a-half-ton potential weapon. Not allowing myself to think this through any further, I yelled at Suze to brace herself. The bear was charging when I slammed the accelerator straight to the floor, shifting through the gears desperately to keep the Fiesta from stalling out. Gravel flew everywhere as the wheels spun, and the Fiesta kicked forward with everything it had. The bear saw what I was doing, and I could see it try to stop itself, but the gravel slid under its paws as its momentum continued pulling it forward, and I plowed the front of the Fiesta straight into the bear at twenty-five miles per hour.

  The impact was incredible, rattling through the car and sending my head smacking into my deployed air bag, which puffed out with enough speed to prevent me from dashing my face against the windshield, since I had not been wearing my seat belt. The bear was completely draped over the crumpled remnants of the Fiesta’s front end, which bowed around its body as the bear blinked up at me, stunned. There was a long minute of complete silence as we stared at each other, and it crossed my mind that the bear looked rather freaked-out all of a sudden.

  Then the bear started moving, extricating itself slowly and with clear pain from the crumpled metal surrounding it, and I realized that this wasn’t over yet. Then there was sudden movement behind me, and Suze shoved my gun duffel into the front seat. My hands started flying, and I pulled the zipper open so fast that it tore, but I kept ripping it, and then I yanked the Ithaca .37 sawed-off shotgun out and broke it across my lap while my other hand snatched out the box of shells. I was moving as fast as I’d ever moved before, popping the box open and spilling the shells out into my hand, but Suze had already stuck her own hand into the bag and hauled out my Colt .45, which I kept loaded in the bag. She’d always professed herself more of a knife fan than a gun person, but today she was clearly willing to make an exception, and she thumbed off the safety, popped open her door, and started firing.

  The first shot went wild—she was doing too much, and she was still clearly physically shaken up from being tossed around in the crash. But that was more than enough for the bear, and it turned and started running for the woods. It was limping badly, its chest and face covered in blood, and Suze managed to land a few shots in its furry butt as it went. It flinched upon each impact, but kept going—bears had a thick layer of fat that made it difficult for most bullets to penetrate deeply. I had the Ithaca fully loaded, but when the bear hit the tree line and kept going, I just let the shotgun drop down onto my lap while the events of the last minutes caught up to me and I started hyperventilating. Suze collapsed into the backseat, panting hard as well, and I noticed, in a horribly, horribly inappropriate moment, that she was still completely naked. I pulled my eyes forward with an effort.

  “Holy fucking shit, Suze,” I gasped out. “What the fuck just happened?”
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  “That was an ambush,” she said, reaching over and dropping the empty Colt onto the bag. “The wind was in our faces when we came into the parking lot, so I couldn’t smell it. It waited until we were halfway to the car before it started coming toward us—that’s when I heard movement.”

  “That was a metsän kunigas, right?” I asked.

  “No doubt about it—a normal bear would’ve run after you sprayed it. Plus, all those normal bears should be hibernating right now!”

  “Why did it wait for us to get close to the car? It let us get by it before it attacked us!” I glanced back at Suze, meeting her eyes, and felt my stomach sink. “It had a plan.”

  “One that we disrupted by not getting eaten,” she said grimly.

  “I am stating for the record that I don’t like this,” I gritted as I reached over, stuffed another clip into the Colt, and tucked it into my pants. Suze slid back into her fox form, and we cautiously got out of the car. I held the Ithaca carefully with both sweaty hands—even for a bear, this wasn’t a gun to mess around with. Next to me, Suze had her nose pressed to the gravel and was snuffling loudly. The damp fur along her back was standing completely on end, showing that at least she was as terrified right now as I was. I wanted nothing more than to get back in the Fiesta and find out if it could still drive. The ignition was somehow still running, albeit with several extremely concerning rattles, so the impact hadn’t completely demolished the engine.

  Suze led us back to the spot where we’d exited the woods, and when her ears pricked up, I knew that she’d caught the scent that she wanted. Then her ears swiveled around like alert little radar dishes, listening for any hint that the bear wasn’t completely gone, and she moved very slowly and cautiously, with me right behind, keeping my Ithaca raised and ready the whole time.