by M. D. Massey
Either way, I was out of time. But I wasn’t leaving without Raleigh.
I ran back into the room and hammered at the lock, but nerves and the awkward angle made it difficult to get a good whack at it. Before I’d made much progress, I heard footsteps on the stairs and paused mid-swing.
“Don Paco, is that you?”
A raspy voice replied to me in Spanish with a strong Latin American accent. “No, my dear child, it is only Tío Saín, come to see who is here to visit me.”
On hearing the voice, the kids all scooted to the backs of their cages, except for Raleigh. Instead, he shook the thick welded mesh of the cage door to get my attention. “You have to run, Gabby—don’t let him catch you or you’re through. Run!”
I looked around for another exit, but there was only the way I’d come in. If I was going to escape and get help I’d have to fight my way out. But if I did escape, would I be leaving these kids to die? If I left now, there was a chance that The Sack Man might butcher them all before I could come back with Don Paco or the men from the farm.
I decided to fight.
I grabbed my crossbow and drew my .22 pistol in my other hand, aiming both at the doorway. A shadow soon appeared that blocked the light from upstairs.
As my parahuman vision adjusted to the change in light, I finally laid eyes on the monster who called himself Tío Saín. He looked just like any old Latino man, about five-foot six-inch or so and stooped at the shoulders, with cinnamon skin wrinkled with age, a bushy gray and white mustache, and a matching head of hair that poked out from under a felt gentleman’s hat. Despite the heat, he wore a black wool coat and wool slacks with a white shirt, and a pair of suspenders to hold his pants up. A pair of worn but polished leather shoes finished the whole harmless grandpa look he was rocking.
As his eyes met mine, he smiled in a way that made me want to trust him. I mean, he looked as harmless as any old man could look. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said he was just another old man out for a stroll. Except no one dressed that way anymore—not commonly, anyway. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen someone wear dress slacks, or a hat like that, or suspenders. And nobody wore dress shoes in a world where the main means of getting from one place to another was walking.
Then I noticed his hands. One was tucked into the pocket of his coat, but the other was holding a large, empty burlap sack. His nails were long and dirty, fingertips greasy and blackened. The sack was stained with dried blood.
He took in a long deep breath through his nostrils, sniffing around him as his nose did a slow circle in the air. He looked like he might have been smelling flowers or fresh-baked bread. His eyes narrowed as he sniffed my scent like a predator—even though his movements were very, very human.
“Mmmm—you smell lovely, my dear. Like venison and berries, with just a hint of coffee, I think.” He sniffed again. “Yes, instant coffee, if I’m not mistaken.” His eyes opened and looked me up and down. “A bit on the skinny side, but the flesh of your hips will make a lovely roast—I’m certain of it.”
“You’ll eat nothing but shit and dirt tonight, pendejo, if I have any say in the matter.”
He laughed, so I shot him in the heart with the crossbow and between the eyes twice with the .22 pistol. I dropped the crossbow so I could draw my knife, then I charged him while firing at his face and head as I closed the gap between us.
He didn’t even flinch as I shot him, nor when I buried my knife in his gut. Instead he looked at me curiously, and then in a blur he grabbed me by the throat and held me on my tiptoes. As I struggled and kicked, he turned me this way and that as if he was a butcher inspecting a side of beef. I emptied the rest of the magazine in his face, and the bullets punched neat holes that left black dots of nothingness where they pierced his skin. Not a drop of blood came from his wounds; instead, thick black grease dripped from the wounds I’d caused, like roofing tar on a hot day.
I fought and kicked and stabbed his arm repeatedly, and he shook me like a dog shaking a toy. The knife and gun flew from my hands, and I lost consciousness as his hand squeezed tighter around my neck. When I came to I was locked in a cage just like the rest of the kids, and the door to the cellar room was shut up tight.
TWENTY-FIVE
TOMB
I took a minute to get my bearings and sat up. I heard a sigh of relief from Raleigh, along with some mumbling from the other cages. There were four kids in the room besides me, including Raleigh. I spoke aloud to no one in particular.
“How often does he bring in new kids?”
For several seconds no one responded, then a fat girl with dirty blonde hair and a runny nose spoke up from a cage across from me. “Once a week, sometimes twice a week. At least, since I’ve been here. The skinny ones like you, he eats right away.” Her eyes twitched to her left, toward the tree stump. “The ones like us who can be fattened up more, he keeps until they’re ready.”
Raleigh laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “He feeds us pretty good, really. I guess I can’t complain about the food.”
I looked around the cage as I spoke. “What happens if you refuse to eat?”
A stout boy of about ten in the cage next to me replied. “This.” He pulled his index finger across his neck, and made a sucking noise out of the side of his mouth.
“Okay, so you’re telling me that I’m going to be eaten next, and one of you is going to be on the menu shortly after. Great.” A small girl in a cage in the corner started crying. I ignored her and kept my mind on figuring out how to escape. “How often does he come down here?”
Raleigh answered. “From what everyone says, once a day, at dinnertime. He comes down and feeds us, and then he tells us to go to sleep. Last night he sang us a lullaby. It gave me nightmares—I kept hearing it over and over again in my dreams.”
The girl with the dirty blonde hair spoke up again. “He’ll be back down in a few hours. And then he’s going to eat your skinny ass. So you just wasted all that effort for nothing. Congrats.”
“Well, tubby, from the looks of it you’ll be next after me. So, I guess I’d better get out of here before then and go get help.”
She laughed and snorted as she did so. “Good luck with that. We’ve been trying to break out of here since we got snatched. Some of us have been here for weeks.”
I nodded. “I believe it. But none of you were raised by my crazy ex-CIA uncle.” I kicked and kicked at the door, bending it just enough so I had space to get one of my skinny little hands through. For once, I was thankful for the curse of my slowed growth. I pulled off one of the paracord bracelets I wore and began unraveling it to reveal what I had stored inside.
The blonde sneered at me from her cage. “A bunch of string isn’t going to help you much. Face it, you’re stuck here, just like us.”
I ignored her and peeled open the duct tape package inside the bracelet. Once open, it revealed some fishing hooks, a small razor blade, and two paperclips, which I planned to use to pick the lock on my cage. I bent the paper clips into a makeshift C rake and tension wrench, and started working at the lock on the cage.
It took me well over an hour to get the lock open. The lock itself wasn’t difficult to pick, but with the odd angle and limited visibility, it took much longer than it should have. Plus, I dropped the paperclips a few times and had to fish them back using threads from the paracord.
Finally, I got smart and tied them to my wrist with the thread. After a lot of cussing and sweating, I opened my cage and crawled out, stretching my cramped muscles as I walked over to the door.
I stopped in front of Raleigh’s cage. “Raleigh, I don’t have time to get you all out. But I’m going to find a way to kill this thing and then I’ll be back for you. I promise.”
His eyes were wet, but he tried to act brave. “I believe you, Gabby. Thanks for looking for me. If something happens tell Violet that I’m the one who ate the chocolate bar she was saving for her birthday, and that
I’m sorry.”
The blonde girl snorted again. “You’re probably going to die, and you’re worried about stealing a chocolate bar? What a dork.”
Raleigh stuck out his tongue at her, then he looked at me with fear in his eyes. “Don’t be too long, okay?” His voice trembled as he spoke.
“I won’t, Raleigh. I promise.”
I ran out the door and up the stairs, thanking whoever was watching over me that Tío Saín hadn’t locked that door again. I stopped just long enough to find my crossbow and pistol, then ran out into the fading light.
When I returned to the spot where Don Paco and I had been staking the place out, I found tracks and a huge brass shell casing that said “.460 Weatherby Magnum” on the bottom. I grabbed the shell casing and followed the trail to a steep slope that dropped into a ravine. Near the edge of the slope where the trail ended, I found signs of a scuffle. A glance down the slope revealed that something or someone had fallen down that slope recently, but there was no sign of a body at the bottom. I silently hoped that Don Paco had gotten away, and worried with indecision about what I should do next.
I could go back to the farm and get the men there, then bring them back here. But something told me that Tío Saín would go through them like a hot knife through butter. That would only get more people killed.
My second choice was to look for Don Paco. But if he’d hit Tío Saín with that shoulder cannon of his, it must not have had much effect. Maybe the monster wasn’t affected by silver, or maybe he was just a lot stronger than Don Paco had thought. Either way, I didn’t think Don Paco was up to tangling with this thing, and especially not if he was injured. So I scratched that idea, too.
Then it occurred to me, something Tony had said on a training mission long ago. We had been talking about the serum, and why it was so important.
“We’re going to fight fire with fire, mija. Sometimes the only way to beat a stronger enemy is to use their own weapons against them. That’s what the serum is going to do, once it’s been perfected.”
Well, I’d had the treatments but still wasn’t strong enough to fight Tío Saín. But I knew something that could probably kill him; a full grown werewolf that was pissed off and ready to do some serious harm. If I could lure one of the werewolves from the Corridor Pack here and trick it into attacking The Sack Man, it just might give me time to sneak the kids out while they fought.
A crazy plan? Sure, but at the moment it was the only thing I could think of that might allow me to save the kids. Knowing that it was now a race against time, I pocketed the shell casing and took off at a run for the punter camp in San Marcos.
TWENTY-SIX
QUIVER
I ran due east for three hours straight until I came across a fresh ‘thrope trail. After that, it was a matter of setting myself up to be “found” without letting it look like I wanted to be captured. It was a desperate gamble, as I had no idea what the wolves would do with me once they had me. But I saw no other option that provided me with even a remote chance of rescuing the children.
I followed the trail until I was certain that I was close to the ‘thropes. Then, I cut off the trail and looped around in front of them, crossing their trail so they’d smell me, and set up a makeshift camp about a half-mile beyond. I even lit a small fire, and had something to eat while I waited. My stomach was full of butterflies, but I knew I’d need to eat to conserve my strength for whatever might lie ahead. I nibbled on jerky, sipped water, and tried to remain calm until the ‘thropes showed up.
While I waited, I thought about Raleigh and those other kids, locked up in cages like animals, being fattened up and waiting for slaughter. I thought about waking up in that cage, and the helplessness I’d felt at first. Then I considered how today was probably the first day any of them had felt even a shred of hope. Even that bitchy girl didn’t deserve to die, not like that—not before her time. Although I was really scared about what I was doing, I knew that those kids back in that cellar were just as scared. They didn’t have a choice in the matter.
No way I was giving up on saving them. No freaking way.
I settled in and waited for the ‘thropes to catch up to me. It wasn’t long before they found me, and I smelled them coming before I heard them or saw them. I’d purposely cut their trail in the direction of the wind so I could be downwind of them when they arrived. I knew they’d still pick up my scent from the trail, but I wanted to make sure I got some advanced warning when they showed up. I quickly threw some dirt over my fire and pretended to hide under a fallen tree trunk.
The wolf who “captured” me was quiet, but I still heard him padding up behind me. My heart was beating out of my chest, but I kept my breathing nice and slow, hoping he wouldn’t get wise to the fact that I was aware of him and scared to death. I wanted to bolt so badly, but I knew that wouldn’t end well. Running would trigger the ‘thrope’s prey drive, and he’d likely take me down hard and maybe even kill me in the process.
He stopped a few feet from my hiding place and spoke to me in a conversational tone, if that was possible for a werewolf. The ‘thrope’s voice had a strange accent. I thought it was maybe British or Australian, but I didn’t have enough experience with those accents to know which one.
“You can come out from hiding, because I know you’re there. I could hear your heartbeat from twenty feet away. Come on, no sense playing coy now. Let’s make this easy on us both, and save one of us from getting a thrashing.”
I rolled out from under the log with a frightened expression on my face that wasn’t exactly an act. As I stood up, I got a good look at what I was facing. Before me stood a six-foot three-inch, three hundred and fifty-pound killing machine. He was furred from the tips of his toes to the top of his head in a light patchwork of blended gray and tan that reminded me more of a coyote than a wolf. He was heavily muscled, and his fingertips ended in a set of very serious-looking claws. I knew I’d be no match for him if he wanted to kill me, and decided it would be best if I just started being submissive from the start.
“You don’t have to threaten me—I’m tired of running. Besides, I can take you to the person you’re really looking for, if you agree to let me go once I lead you to him.”
The corners of his mouth turned up slightly in a truly wolfish grin. “You don’t say? And who might I really be looking for?”
I didn’t hesitate, because I needed him to take the bait. “The man who killed your pack mates, that’s who. I know where he’s hiding, and I can take you to him.”
“And how do you know we haven’t captured him already?” the wolf asked, with anger in his voice. “How do you know he’s not dead?”
Now, this was the real gamble, and I hoped I wasn’t wrong. “Because if he was dead or if you’d already caught him, you wouldn’t be out looking for me.”
The ‘thrope chuckled. “You’re a smart one, you are—crafty. I’ll need to keep an eye on you.” He scratched his chin with one long claw. “But, you’re right. We are looking for the man you were traveling with, and Skull wants him taken alive.”
He walked up to me and disarmed me, placing the pistol in his belt and putting the crossbow in his pack. Both were valuable enough to keep, either to trade for supplies or exchange for sex or ammo. I hoped I could get them back later. He never bothered to take my knife, looking at it with disdain and calling it a toothpick. It made me want to shove it up his ass.
After he’d taken my weapons, he knelt down in front of me and placed a claw under my chin, making me look him in the eye.
“Cross me, child, and I will make you regret it. Now, where are we headed?”
“East,” I replied, pointing in the direction of Tío Saín’s cabin. “That way.”
“Then lead on, and don’t be shy about moving fast. I assure you, there’s no way you’ll lose me, no matter how fast you run.”
The look in his yellow, bloodshot eyes told me he was daring me to try to shake him, and I realized he’d enjoy running m
e down. This ‘thrope came across like he was both mannered and educated, but he was likely meaner than a rattlesnake who’d lost its rattle, and just as unpredictable. I made a mental note to stay on his good side until I put him in Tío Saín’s crosshairs.
Then I’d do all I could to make sure they took each other out, once and for all. I was looking forward to seeing them kill each other, or at least seeing one of them kill the other. Not that I had anything against this particular ‘thrope; he was just a tool, an asset I’d use to help me reach my objective.
I was playing a dangerous game, and for the highest of stakes. I’d see if what Uncle Tony had taught me would be enough to save both me and the kids that Tío Saín had taken. I might resent Tony for the way he’d raised me, but right now I was thankful he’d been such an asshole all those years.
Without bothering to reply to the threats, I took off in a quick jog toward Tío Saín’s cabin with the wolf right on my heels.
TWENTY-SEVEN
LANCE
“So what’s your name, child?”
The ‘thrope spoke to me as he loped along to my left and slightly behind. He wasn’t even breathing hard, and I was running as fast as I could to get back to Tío Saín’s cabin in time. I hoped I wouldn’t be too late.
“Gabby,” I replied.
He sniffed and turned up his nose. “Bah. Christians are always naming their children after fairy tales and dead people. You’re silly and superstitious, the entire lot of you.”
I cocked an eyebrow and replied. “What makes you think I’m a Christian?”
