Blood Rules (6 page)

Then the film slowed severely down, as if Mags had taken the action frame by frame, and he thought he saw two blobs moving over open ground until they disappeared into the shadows.

In spite of Goodie Jern's warning to back off the hunt for preters, excitement rolled through Stamp.

“Is this what I think it is?” he asked.

“The Bloodlands, about a hundred and six klicks from the first scrub compound. That's footage from last night from one of just a few satellites the government had already started using for abandoned-area surveillance again, and it came to the attention of an analyst when her computer alerted her to the speed of movement in a place that's supposed to be filled with slower creatures.”

Goodie Jern had told him that the government was putting in a new watch program. Here was evidence of it. “How do you know it might be the scrubs?”

“I don't. But it looks mighty interesting to see something moving that fast in the open. That's why it came to my attention.”

“And how did you get this?”

Mags gave him an
oh please
look. She was a hell of a hacker as well as a gunslinger. In a business world, where they still relied on Old American, Chinese, and Hindi, she'd needed to learn fast-talking in all three languages, plus computer skills and the occasional weapon work as a white-collar criminal who'd diddled a few corporations without them even knowing it. She'd retired to the Bloodlands with Stamp's group before ever getting caught and put to execution on a carnerotica channel for screwing with the government and its corporate partners.

She said, “I have an old . . . friend . . . who thought I'd be interested in the footage after I told him about our adventure out there, and we're close enough to a hub for me to receive it. If an analyst thought it was worth his or her while, they could've sent someone out to the location by now.”

“Are you saying new Shredders are employed to do that kind of thing?”

After talking to Goodie Jern, he wondered if he sounded neurotic.

“I don't know,” Mags said. “Maybe the government would just send out a 'bot to inspect the area.” She was talking about Monitors, who used to venture into situations too insignificant for human labor before the government had cut back because of the financial trouble with India.

She kept the van idling, and he knew what she was asking without having to say it.

What now?

To the Bloodlands?

Or back to the hubs where he'd pretty much been told to stay by Goodie Jern?

As he kept seeing those shadowy hints of preters in his head, Stamp's adrenaline surged, icy and urgent. It made his leg keen, made the memories of Gabriel and his buddies dig into him like fresh wounds that rose up every day, never healing.

A frown lined Mags's face.

“You have something to say?” he asked.

She gave him a look he didn't comprehend, because there was something in her eyes . . . a flicker that seemed to run deep into her for some reason.

Just as he thought she might be looking at him a moment too long, Mags gunned the engine and turned the van west, toward the Bloodlands, and Stamp's pulse picked up vengeful speed, as well.

W
e'd left hours ago, shortly after dusk had fallen and Gabriel had awakened.

Right from the start, he'd walked far ahead of me in the gray night, never looking back to see if I was behind him. But that was okay. He'd come with me, and that was enough. Hell, it was more than I'd even dreamed of in the first place. When he'd blurted out that he'd be accompanying me, I'd feared shattering my jaw because of how it'd just about crashed to the floor in my shock. Well, maybe I hadn't had such a dramatic reaction, but in my brain, it'd sure felt like it.

Even as we trekked miles over the dirt, I still had no idea why he'd made this decision. I was almost afraid to ask, in case it'd make him come to his senses and turn right back round. Not that I'd shown it, but I'd been dreading taking this trip alone. Sure, I could've done it, but . . .

Alone was the worst punishment I could think of.

As the witching hour struck in my veins, we crested a hill, seeking the cover of a rock. From there, the moonlight slouched over the ruins of a diner near the old road we were following. The pavement was nothing more than cracks amidst dirt, but I remembered this path from when Dad and I had come to the New Badlands. Now, I was certain it'd lead me and Gabriel to a so-called civilized place where we could begin ferreting out clues for any kind of cure.

Chaplin had begged to escort us this far—about fourteen miles distant from our homestead—and out of respect for my dog, neither Gabriel nor I had called on our preter abilities in order to move faster. The mutt could run, all right, but not as fast as a vampire or a fully changed werewolf.

My pet growled low in his throat as he surveyed the diner from our spot atop the hill.

“What is it, boy?” I asked.

Something on the air,
he said.

I bent to him at the same exact time Gabriel did. But then, as if our dual actions extended some kind of simpatico with me that he didn't want to own, Gabriel stood right back up.

He blocked the moon, more a shadow than a man, and as with the first time I'd seen him, he reminded me of a mythical cowboy: long coat, boots, a carryall slung over his chest. He had a weary bravery about him, and it gave his shoulders a slight hunch, as if, at a moment's notice, he might draw the revolvers or knives I'd seen him load into his bag and coat.

My chest clenched, as if trying to shut him out, but I couldn't. Not with that buzzing imprint connection that kept us linked, whether he wanted it or not.

He began smelling the air, just as Chaplin was doing. I'd read once in my dad's monster book that the thousands of olfactory receptors in a vampire's nose had way more power than a human's, and they could detect scents without inhaling. Half of the information in that book probably wasn't true, but if he couldn't breathe, this explanation made sense.

Then my dog spoke.
Food. Your pick of it, if you want to rest here and stock up.

I relaxed. I'd been expecting Chaplin to pronounce something troublesome. “You gave me a scare.”

He wagged his tail.
There's a feracat, sleeping nearby. I'll bet it's in a burrow under the diner, and it has no idea we're here yet.

Feracats were bigger, meatier versions of feral cats that'd migrated to the nowheres from the hubs and mutated into something carnivorous, stiletto-toothed, and fast. Just one of them could supply Gabriel with more sustenance than he'd probably need for a few nights. And I could roast a fera with a campfire stoked with the flint I carried along with my heat suit, small weapons, and other survival items in my backpack. I also had revolvers and knives in my holsters, and that would make hunting all the easier.

I don't need to mention that there was another way to hunt, and it would allow me to eat the animal's meat raw, which would satisfy my werewolf side if I changed into that form. Truth was, I'd
have
to call upon a change soon, just to make speedy time during our trek. Walking at a human pace wasted precious hours because we had only twenty-three nights until the next full moon, and, naïve or not, I was hoping I'd come upon a cure before that. Plus, lollygagging in the desert would leave me and Gabriel more vulnerable to discovery if the government was watching. Of course, an analyst might take us for migrating humans, but why take the risk?

We all just stood there on that hill, because we knew what had to occur next. We'd been building up to it, putting it off for miles now.

“You gotta get home, Chaplin,” I finally said. “Dawn's just a short time away, and no one in their right mind would be out here during full-day heat.”

My dog shuffled as Gabriel waited, almost as if he didn't know whether to walk ahead or linger.

Then he put his hands on his hips, peering down into the valley. “I suppose I'll go on and check out that diner. . . .”

No,
Chaplin said.
Please don't leave her behind, Gabriel.

Both me and Gabriel froze, because we knew that my dog was making a request for the entire journey, not just now.

Don't ever leave me behind.

Awkward.

There were no words that could cover what I was feeling, so I just threw my arms round Chaplin's neck, hugging him for dear life, thanking him for asking this of Gabriel, even if it humiliated me. But, more to the point, I couldn't believe my dog wasn't coming.

He buried his muzzle under my ear, and we stayed like that for as long as we could, the night barely moving round us. My very best friend. The only one who truly believed that I could be more than the killer I'd become.

My dog was the first to back away from the embrace, and he nudged me away from him, as if thinking that a little cruelty would make this easier. Then, with a final glance at Gabriel—one in which I knew Chaplin was silently communicating with his vampire—he turned round and ran full speed down the other side of the hill. He'd probably maintain that pace until he reached home, too, keeping to the shadows, never stopping until he fell to rest in the cavern.

There was nothing I could do but watch him disappear, maybe forever. God-all, if I moved, I'd cry. It might even happen if I breathed. So I merely stared at the dirt, as if the grains could piece themselves together, as I sorely needed to do myself.

Then Gabriel said, “Before Chaplin left just now, he made me vow that I'd stick with you.”

When I glanced up, I saw that he hadn't moved from his spot. He hadn't left me behind yet, just as he'd told Chaplin he wouldn't. But I wondered how long his promise would last.

He started down the hill, making his way toward that diner. I followed him, keeping my voice low so as not to disturb the wild things round us that were no doubt hiding in the brush and in holes under the ground.

“I'd let you out of a vow, if you just asked,” I said. Gabriel was a vampire of honor. He'd proven it enough times, and I didn't want to hold him to anything he didn't want to do.

He didn't answer.

Sand slushed round my boots, and I slowed at the bottom of the hill near a boulder, where the dirt was firmer. “Why
did
you say you'd come in the first place?”

He kept right on walking. “Because I wasn't about to see you forge into the great beyond by yourself. Unlike humans or even weres like you, I'm meant to live a long time. Having your destruction on my conscience when I could've prevented it wouldn't sit well for a decade, much less hundreds of years.”

“I don't doubt your gentlemanly concern,” I said, although I knew I didn't deserve it.

He slowed down, his tone more casual, as if he'd admitted far too much and wanted to correct any assumptions I'd made. “Also, I'm just as curious about a cure as you.”

Was he talking about how a cure for me might affect him, too, through our link?

All right then. He was here for himself, and I was incidental. It didn't taint this trip, though. I would've welcomed him along even if he'd confessed to bringing me out here at the request of the community to kill me and bury me where I'd be out of sight and mind.

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “The reason for your being here doesn't matter so much. Having you along is the main thing.”

A grunt was my answer, but that was fine in my book.

Truth to tell, now that we were doing something about my malady,
everything
seemed finer. I guess hope has a way of pumping up a person, and with every step I took, the better I felt. I even started having a fanciful notion or two: When I came back to the Badlands, I was going to help them all, if they wanted it. I was going to be like Gabriel, when he had come to us and volunteered to protect us from Stamp. My neighbors would look at me differently, not with trepidation, but with relief, and maybe even gratefulness.

I'd be their hero....

Dare to dream, right?

It seemed that this trek could stand a little small talk, so I said, “I wonder what life would be like after a cure. There's a chance I'd be able to look in a mirror again without wanting to look away.”

“Not to burst your bubble, but a cure's not a guaranteed outcome of this trip. You still might be . . . who you are . . . afterward.”

Why couldn't he just say it? Was he still so intent on keeping Abby alive in his heart—or whatever he had—by refusing to talk about what'd happened between me and her? Could he avoid confronting what
she'd
been if he didn't label me, either?

“And what am I exactly?” I asked.

“Forget it.”

“If we're going to be traveling together, we need to get this out. Just lay your cards down and tell me what I am.”

He shook his head, as if I were a supreme moron for bringing all this up. Just over his shoulder, the diner loomed with its falling burger joint sign and faded, slouched aqua-and-pink siding.

“If you won't supply a word for me,” I said, “then I'll do it for you. I'm a killer.”

“Mariah—”

“Just like Abby was, because the both of us had to be to survive. And you, Gabriel? You're one of our own, too, whether or not you like to see yourself that way.”

That brought him to a complete halt.

“We're monsters,” I said, as if I needed to clarify. “Maybe you don't know it yet because you spend so much time thinking you can still be human. You're only about a couple years old—”

“Different folks have different definitions of what a monster is.” Now his tone was icy.