Burning Transgressions (Shifter City Book 1)

by Liam Kingsley

  “Smoke’s clear enough,” he said. “Everybody to the van.”

  “But they’ll recover,” Hail said quickly.

  “And you fuckers won’t. Van. Now.”

  “Logan,” Mariella said. “What’s up?”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said, her brow furrowing. “It’ll heal.”

  “Bullshit,” Logan said angrily. “They coated those knives in mistletoe.”

  “So?”

  “So get in the god damn van before I lose my shit.”

  His tone snapped everyone to attention, and they held their breath as they sprinted across the remains of the bomb. Once in the van, Logan told them to take off their clothes. Hail looked like he had a snappy retort, but the tiny run had winded him. Suddenly concerned, he did what Logan said without question. As the three shifters peeled off their blood-soaked clothes, they began to realize why Logan had panicked.

  “What the hell is this?” Mariella’s voice trembled as she looked at the ugly, puffy wound which split her leg from hip to heel. The edges were curled back as if repelled from each other, and hives spread out like angry plateaus across her skin. Blood ran, unable to clot. She looked at him wide-eyed. She was cut in three more places. Robert’s back had been sliced and stabbed multiple times. Hail lay staring at his gut wound in shock. One by one, they all turned their eyes to Logan. He was busy rifling through the fridge and cabinets, pulling out every box and drawer, cursing a blue streak.

  “What are you looking for?” Hail gasped.

  “Baking soda. Ibuprofen. Antihistamine. Stitches. Where’s the god damned first aid kit?”

  “Here,” Robert said, reaching up to grab it. “There….” Robert passed out, and Logan cursed again.

  He found the baking soda in the back of the fridge. He made it stretch as far as he could, but it just wasn’t enough. It sizzled like bacon in a pan when it touched their wounds. Hail groaned in pain, and Mariella bit back a scream. Robert, being unconscious, didn’t react at all. Next Logan snatched the thick, heavy, first-aid kit off the wall and opened it.

  “Yes!” he said. “Bart, you’re my hero.” He took one of the four epinephrine pens and slid over to Robert. He pried the man’s mouth open and jabbed the needle into his tongue. Since shifter skin was virtually unbreakable, his only chance was to inject it into a muscle. He did the same with Hail (who took it stoically) and Mariella (who would have protested more if she hadn’t been having trouble breathing), then returned to the kit for the ibuprofen and antihistamines. He split the entire contents of both bottles into three even piles. Mariella was rapidly losing consciousness, and Hail wasn’t far behind. He would have to move quickly. He shifted and crushed one pile of pills between his massive paws, poured the powder into a water bottle, and coaxed it down Robert’s throat first, then Mariella’s, then Hail’s.

  They were all unconscious now. Logan was panicking. The bomb would be wearing off soon, if it hadn’t already. But if he didn’t close those wounds, his friends could bleed to death before their bodies recovered from the toxic shock. Glancing out the windshield showed no activity, but that didn’t mean anything. They could wake up at literally any moment. Logan needed to buy time. Shouting in wordless frustration, he leapt out of the van and raced back to the building, bomb in hand, bandanna over his face. Just as he reached it, the sound of a small motor met his ears. George exploded into view from the ditch below, racing away from him. Three more bikes followed. Turning the corner, Logan found the eight other hunters just barely beginning to stir. He ran toward the ditch, armed the bomb, and lobbed it over his shoulder.

  Sliding farther into the ditch than he had the first time, Logan crashed into eight hidden bikes. He opened the gas caps and kicked the bikes over. He reached for his lighter, and it was gone. Squeezing his eyes shut, he caught an image of it falling into the gasoline back in Nebraska. Cursing, he pulled a gun out of its holster and started running.

  “More than one way to start a fire,” he muttered. As he ran, he fired behind him four times. The fourth shot exploded a tank and ignited the gasoline. The fire spread quickly through the sage brush, and Logan watched as the licking flames reached the lip of the ditch and licked the purple smoke. Fire raced through the air itself, fueled by the mad concoction contained in the cloud. Logan turned away. He didn’t want to know if the fire burned the hunters alive. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it either way. He checked his watch as he hopped back into the truck. The whole ordeal had taken less than two minutes. Checking pulses as he went, he grabbed the stitches out of the first aid kit. They were all still alive, for now.

  Though Hail had held onto consciousness the longest, his wound worried Logan most. The knife had sliced through his skin and muscles, clear down to the thick tissue layer specific to shifters. That layer had become swollen and purple, peeking out of the wound like a bloated tongue. Wishing for more baking soda, Logan began stitching his lover back together. They weren’t even or pretty, but they did the job. Robert was next, then Mariella. Logan clumsily dressed and bandaged the wounds, then hauled them one after another into the bunks and anchored them.

  The clock was against him. George couldn’t have come far on that little bike. There was a damn good chance that he was returning to a base, and there was an even better chance that any base would be populated by more hunters. Logan peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the truck behind. He paused at the exit, debating.

  “Highway in the middle of nowhere,” he muttered. “Two choices. Keep going or retreat. Fifty percent chance of survival.” Sweat trickled down his spine, and he wished that Mariella was awake. If she were in charge, Logan would know what the right choice was. On his own, he didn’t have a clue.

  “Screw it,” he muttered, and turned the wheel.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Another hot day here in the land of enchantment! Humidity is low, and the fire danger is high. Melissa McConnely has the news.

  Thank you, Dan. Emergency personel responded to an out of control brush fire late yesterday evening near a rest stop just south of Los Lunas, but what they found has left them scratching their heads. The epicenter of the blaze was coated with a thick, sticky red substance. This substance was also discovered at a wildfire in Nebraska, where four men lost their lives the day before yesterday. Police refused to comment when asked if they suspected a connection between the two fires, and are not, at the moment, calling this a terrorist attack. There is no evidence yet that anyone died in this most recent blaze, though crime scene investigators are still sweeping the area.

  Thank you Melissa, and now for the traffic report.

  The radio cut off, and was replaced by a string of muffled swears. Hail carefully opened his eyes. The early morning sunlight flickered on the roof of the van in a brilliant orange. Shadows danced across the orange patch in unrecognizable shapes as the van moved through…where the hell was he? He squeezed his eyes shut to recall the words which had stirred him from his dreamless sleep. Land of Enchantment. They were still in New Mexico. He ran his hands over his nearly-naked body, stopping with a shock when he felt stitches. The memory of the day before came rushing back, and he lunged forward, trying to sit up. He couldn’t.

  I’m paralyzed! He thought frantically. He tried to sit up again, and realized that he was strapped into the bunk harness. Feeling foolish, he released the clasp and sat up at an angle so he could see the wound across his belly. Overnight it had become an ugly, raised scar punctuated by irregular stitches like some kind of giant, mutant caterpillar. Faded purple bruises across his torso hinted at a rash of hives, now flattened. He stood and nearly fell. He was dizzy and thirsty, and didn’t know how much one was affecting the other. He grabbed a bottle of water and leaned into the front seat.

  “Where are we?” He asked.

  Logan nearly jumped out of his skin. “Careening into a ditch, apparently,” he said, straightening the van at the last second. “You’re alive.”

&n
bsp; “Seems that way,” Hail grinned. “Kind of feel like I went mano a mano with a rabid chimp, though.”

  “That would be mano a mono.”

  “Ha. So where are we?”

  “Getting close. Almost to Rock Canyon.”

  Hail frowned at him, puzzled. “Rock Canyon’s a straight shot from where we were. How long have you been driving?”

  “Uh…eighteen? Nineteen? Lots of hours. Went all the places. Carlsbad. Spring Horse. Old Horse? Horse Old Springs. Whatever. Silver…something. Don’t know. Stopped reading. Just driving. No freeways. Too many highways in this godforsaken state. No escape. Straight shots, all straight shots.”

  “So…you drove all over New Mexico just to come back to where we were?” Hail asked.

  Logan nodded. He hadn’t blinked the entire time Hail had been talking to him, and Hail was beginning to worry.

  “Wake Mariella. Almost there. Need the password.”

  Hail sincerely doubted that Logan knew what he was talking about in that moment, but he did what he asked. He knelt down beside Mariella’s cot, and was struck by the long, ugly scar which ran the length of her leg. Logan must have stitched them all, he realized. Suddenly the uneven stitches and bad scarring didn’t seem so ugly. Logan had done everything he could to save them, given them a cocktail of god knows what, and put them back together as best he could. Hail wouldn’t have expected him to go to those lengths.

  “Mariella,” he said gently, shaking her shoulder. “Mariella, we need the password.”

  She gasped and opened her eyes. He unhooked her harness and helped her sit up. She was groggy and obviously still hurting; the stab wound on her shoulder was still seeping fresh blood into a gauze pad and she winced as she stretched.

  “Did you say password?” she mumbled.

  “Yeah, Logan says you have it. I don’t know where we’re going that needs a password. I don’t know if he knows. He’s been driving all over New Mexico since yesterday for some reason, and he’s finally circled back around to Rock Canyon.”

  “Rock Canyon,” she yawned. Her eyes snapped open and she was suddenly very alert. “Rock Canyon?!”

  Mariella pushed past Hail, dressed in nothing but her underpants and a cropped tank top. She vaulted over the center console and landed flawlessly in the seat.

  “How far?” she asked breathlessly.

  “We’re here,” Logan said as he pulled into a parking lot. “Is there a road down?”

  “For cars? No. We have to leave the van.”

  “Then we can’t park here,” Logan said, shaking his head. “Nope nope nope.”

  “No wait, where are you going?” She asked frantically.

  “Driving into a ditch,” Logan said tiredly. “Hiding.”

  He drove, seemingly aimlessly, into the empty desert. Mariella covered her eyes and put her seat belt on, and Hail braced himself on the seats.

  “Logan,” he said calmly. “What are you doing?”

  “Driving,” Logan said. “Just keep driving, just keep driving….”

  “Logan, there’s a di…Logan there’s a gorge! Stop the….” Whatever Hail was going to say disappeared as his head bounced off the roof of the van. Logan was rolling into a deep, steep ditch, and didn’t even seem to realize it. They made it to the bottom, somehow unscathed, and Logan turned off the engine.

  “There,” he said tiredly. “Made it to Rock Canyon.”

  “Great. Wonderful. Great.” Mariella was pale and shaking. “Now get in the back and take a nap before you kill everybody.”

  Logan’s only response was a snore. Mariella snorted and rolled her eyes, then crawled over the seats again.

  “What’s the plan, boss?” Hail asked her. “What’s at Rock Canyon?”

  “My family,” she said. “I hope.”

  Hail nodded, then moved to check on Robert. He had to unhook the harness and roll him over to see the wounds on his back, and he wasn’t happy with what he saw. Robert’s skin was still violently red and dotted with screaming white hives. The white scar tissue had a greenish tint to it. He felt cold and clammy to the touch, and didn’t respond when Hail tried to wake him. Mariella stopped what she was doing and came to kneel beside him.

  “Is he dying?” She asked bluntly.

  “I don’t know,” Hail said, shaking his head. “I never heard of mistletoe oil before yesterday. I have no idea what it does or how to treat it.”

  “Logan did,” Mariella said, sounding as surprised as Hail felt. “Why do you think that is?”

  Hail winced at the only answer available to him, but just shook his head. “Don’t know. More to him than meets the eye, I guess.”

  “That’s the problem,” Mariella said darkly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Mariella shot him a glance. “Tell me how George knew where to ambush me?”

  “I don’t know,” Hail frowned. “I guess I assumed he knew your family lived over here.”

  “He knows,” Mariella confirmed. “But here’s the thing. How did he know I would stop at that rest stop on that day at that time, huh? Nuh-uh. He knew I was coming, and he knew where I was stopping, and he knew it quick enough to get there. There’s only one way I see that happening.”

  Hail tried to find alternatives, but it was unavoidable. Somebody had to have told George. “I was with Logan all day,” Hail said. “Only person he talked to besides you was me.”

  “I was with Robert all day,” she pointed out. “But I mean. Bathroom? Text message? I can think of four different ways right now to talk to somebody I ain’t supposed to be talking to while riding shotgun with somebody who I don’t want finding out. It’s not hard.”

  “I was driving,” Hail realized, closing his eyes.

  “So was I. Only reason I’m not lookin’ at you is because you don’t know anybody but us. Definitely wouldn’t know George. And I’m thinking it can’t be Robert, because why would they try to kill their own snitch? Look at him, poor guy. He got the worst of it.”

  “He did,” Hail said ruefully. “That just leaves Logan.”

  “Just leaves Logan,” she agreed. “Who, may I remind you, wasn’t even touched.”

  “But why would he run all over New Mexico to hide us if he was working with them?”

  “Wrong question,” Mariella said, shaking her head. “Better one is, why did Logan leave hunters alive?”

  Hail’s heart sank. She was right. They found no bodies at the scene, which meant that Logan hadn’t left any bodies behind. Hail knew it had to have taken longer than the bomb would have lasted to take care of them all, to get them stitched up. Why had they left him alone to do it? The only sensible explanation was that Logan was working with them, but Hail couldn’t accept that. They had to be missing something, he just knew it.

  “Did George ever use the truck? The one we apparently abandoned?”

  “Yeah,” Mariella said. “Logan traded him the truck for a place in the pack. He used it for eight months before I took it.”

  “Maybe he put a tracker in it,” Hail said hopefully.

  Mariella shook her head. “Doesn’t explain the ambush,” she said. “If we’d been there longer, sure, but they were right there the second we sat down. I didn’t even get to drink my water.”

  Hail sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “So what do we do?”

  “We go have a smoke,” she said decisively.

  “Oh, I don’t…okay,” he finished when she gave him a warning look. They stepped outside and Mariella took off her pendant. She gestured for him to do the same. Puzzled, he followed her instructions. They left the pendants on the bumper. Hail stretched after putting his down, then realized that Mariella had already started walking away. He jogged to catch up with her, and the scar on his belly stung fiercely. Wincing and out of breath, he slowed to a walk when he came alongside her.

  “Little further,” she told him. They walked for ten minutes, until the van was just a golden gleam in the distance. Finally she stopped, pulled out a
cigarette, and lit it.

  “Trying to be respectful of their air, or…?”

  “Trying not to be overheard, you idiot. Here’s the thing. If Logan’s the snitch, I can’t let him live. He is the only person I ever took to my mom’s. He is the only one who knows how to find her. If George was telling the truth and he did something to my mama, Logan is the only person alive who could have told him how to do it.”

  “So he is the leak, then,” Hail sighed, slumping his shoulders.

  “Hold on, though. George is full of shit, can’t believe half of what he says. That thing he said about how I’ll never know what he did to her, blah blah, whatever, that’s the sort of overdramatic bullshit he comes up with when he lies.”

  “So you think he’s lying?”

  “I don’t know who’s lying,” she said darkly. “But I know for damn sure that somebody is. I won’t take one more step to my mom’s till I know for sure, and that means that I’m gonna need you to be good at something.”

  “I’m good at a lot of things!”

  “Acting?”

  “Oh. I wouldn’t win any Oscars or anything, but I can lie sometimes if it’s important. What do you need me to do?”

  She told him, and he grinned. It took them a few hours to set up, and by the time they were done the morning sun had already baked the earth to a crisp.

  Chapter Twenty

  A gentle shaking woke Logan from his slumber. His body was stiff and sore from sleeping upright, and the shaking did not help. He batted the hand away and pried his sandy eyes open.

  “Time to go,” Hail said.

  Logan stretched and turned his body to glance into the back of the van. It was empty. “Where is everybody?”

  “Mariella went on ahead with Robert. I guess since they’re together or whatever she wants to introduce him personally. She drew you a map to get there, with the password on it. Says her mom moved since the last time you were here.”