Forged From Ash (37 page)

“It was either that or lock her up.”

“Locking her up sounds fine, just so long as she’s out of the line of fire.”

“You really think it’ll get that bad?” Linda asked.

Rico turned toward the fence and looked beyond the perimeter. The trees stopped rustling and the dust had settled, but the burn in his palms was still there. “Probably not. It’s tough to say how these things go sometimes.”

“They should be coming ‘round any time now,” she said. “Usually not long after the sun goes down.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figure.”

“What’s the plan?”

“You and me get on the other side of this fence,” Rico told her. “I get up close and do the superhero thing while you play sidekick.”

“I was just joking about the superhero crack,” she said.

“Damn. I was digging through some old comics not too long ago and kind of liked the comparison.”

Although he’d meant to put another smile on her face, it was getting too close to dark for the attempt to work. Linda looked up at the sky and shifted as if she was also feeling a physical reaction to being so close to the pack of Half Breeds. Her battered AK-47 was strapped over one shoulder, and a shotgun was in her left hand. It was a sawed-off double-barreled model that would serve her well if any of those creatures got up close. Judging by the scrapes and bite marks in the shotgun’s wooden stock, it had already seen plenty of action.

“Is there another spot for us to get outside the fence, or do we have to use the main gate and walk all the way around?” he asked.

“There’s a platform right there,” she said while pointing to one of the taller posts several yards in the opposite direction. “We can climb over.”

“Screw that. I’d rather walk.”

“Me too.”

They moved straight through the truck stop, crossing the lot with the gas pumps and passing in front of the main building. Rico glanced over to Haley’s window and gave her a nod. She tried to look angry at him, but threw him a wave instead.

“Once we’re out there, you just keep your back to the fence or something solid,” Rico said. “Shoot any of those things that get close to you, and let me know if anything gets too close to taking a bite outta me.”

“That’s it?”

“You want there to be more?” he chuckled.

“We tried standing against them outside the fence before, and they pushed us back,” Linda said. “Lost some people, too. We got close to turning the tide a few times, but that one…their leader…he saw to it that we didn’t finish the job.”

“How many of your people were killed?”

So far, no real casualty numbers had been mentioned by anyone at the truck stop. Rico found that sort of thing in lots of the civilian groups he spoke to. It was a foregone conclusion that friends and family had been lost. Speaking about it just fed the sorrow. The only reason Rico asked about it now was to get a handle on how big of a problem this pack truly was.

“A couple dozen of us settled here when this place was first set up,” Linda said. “Some were killed when the first bunch of those dog things came through. We lost more when one or two packs staked their claim on this area. We killed a bunch of them with some fire bombs and thought we had a good handle on things, so we settled in and opened for business. Then, people started disappearing.”

“Disappearing?” Rico asked. “Nobody mentioned that.”

“That’s been happening for a while,” Linda said as she nodded up to the man in charge of opening the front gate. “Didn’t think it had to do with the packs.”

“Did you find any bodies?”

“One poor lady from Sioux Falls stayed here for a few days. She went missing and we eventually found her body, but it was pretty far gone. Looked like a dried up piece of rotten fruit.”

Rico tightened his fist around his wooden weapon until the thorns dug into his flesh.

“Does that mean anything to you?” Linda asked.

It did, but he shook his head and continued walking. Big Linn and the rest of them already had enough on their plates without having to deal with more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I
t was a long walk around the outside of that fence. Rico could feel the pack slowly encroaching on human territory. He’d stood against them for years before the world knew about werewolves, and he’d waded through the thick of it now that war had been declared. Still, it was tough to leave the protection offered by familiar structures and solid walls. For Linda, he knew the walk must have seemed even longer.

They talked about strategy on their way to the spot Rico chose, but most of that was unnecessary. Both of them knew what had to be done. In the short amount of time before the hammer dropped, they took comfort from hearing each other’s voice by telling a few stories about past fights and even swapping a few jokes. Fortunately, those couple of minutes as they waited for a pack of inhuman killers to arrive dragged on as well.

“So,” Rico said. “How big is this pack? Six? Seven plus the leader?”

“Right around there,” Linda replied shakily.

The color of the sky shifted to shades of deep blue and streaks of black. Where time had seemed to drag before, it sped now. Rico heard a steady scraping, creaking sound coming from nearby. He traced it back to Linda’s hand as she tightened her grip around the AK-47, eased up and tightened again.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You’ve done this before, right?”

“Yeah, but mostly with a bit more cover around me.”

“Ah. I see. Guess I’m used to being on the shitty side of the fence.”

She smiled uneasily at him. “That’s why it’s good to have Skinners around.”

If those same words had come from Lieutenant Sayers back at Unit 7 of the Northeast Region, Rico would have wanted to punch him in the mouth. Coming from Big Linn, however, made him laugh. She was just starting to join in the good times when he said, “Look sharp. They’re coming.”

Her trickle of laughter was immediately pinched off, and she brought the assault rifle to her shoulder. “They are? Where?”

Rico caught his breath before saying, “Those trees right over there. See the shadows?”

The shadows he referred to rolled in like inky fog, starting as a mass emerging from the foliage before quickly separating into several lean, powerful bodies.

“I see them,” Linda said. “What should I do?”

“Stick to the plan. You’ll be fine.”

She backed up until her shoulders bumped against the fence. The rattle of chain link against two nearby posts could still be heard when Gary shouted from above and behind them.

“We got a pack comin’! Same spot as before!”

Rico moved his wooden knuckles to his right hand, drove the thorns into his palm and willed the weapon to shift into a gauntlet that would stretch down past his wrist. “Keep lookouts spread apart!” he shouted toward the truck stop. “Make sure none of those things try to get around to another spot!”

“You heard him!” Gary hollered. “I want…”

Although Gary continued to issue orders to the people still within the perimeter, Rico couldn’t hear the rest of what was said. The pack of Half Breeds was already closing in, and their churning, ragged breaths filled his ears.

Rico had tucked the Sig Sauer beneath his belt after his last reload and drew it with his left hand less than two seconds before the first Half Breed got close enough to leap at him. It howled in a mixture of pain and fury as it left the ground, clawing at the air and spraying saliva from the corners of its mouth in anticipation of the blood it was about to draw. Rico dropped to one knee, swinging his right hand in a sharp uppercut that drove the spikes on his gauntlet’s knuckles into the werewolf’s neck just below its chin. He turned a hundred and eighty degrees which not only got him facing the opposite direction, but also twisted the spikes within the Half Breed’s throat. From there, Rico added some of his muscle to the creature’s momentum to toss it toward the fence. The werewolf landed in a flailing heap, clawing at the ground and wheezing through the gaping hole in its neck.

“Look out!” Linda shouted as the AK-47 erupted in her hands. She sprayed a stream of bullets into the pack, hitting a few of the werewolves in their sides and legs before one of the creatures ran directly at her. Keeping her finger clamped down on the trigger, she chopped that Half Breed’s face and chest into mulch with the assault rifle’s barrage.

Gunfire cracked from behind the fence as well. A few rifles fired from up high, sending bullets whipping down into the pack. Some of them hit but didn’t do much to slow the creatures. Having already lost two of its members, the pack scattered in multiple directions before turning back around to take another run at the fence. Rico stood his ground and was about to fire at one of the werewolves when a rifle shot beat him to the punch. He threw a grateful wave over his shoulder without turning around and picked his next target.

The Half Breed that came at him this time had a long body and kept close to the ground as it rushed toward the Skinner with its tongue lolling out one side of its mouth. Rico swung at it with the gauntlet, connecting with a blow that sent its head snapping to one side. Because every bone in a Half Breed’s body was held together at multiple spots by knots of muscle, its head was able to bend all the way back until its snout slapped against its shoulder before springing back again. Another Half Breed leapt over the first and bit down onto the upper portion of Rico’s left arm. His jacket was stitched together from shapeshifter hide which was tough enough to absorb most of the bite. Like any hungry wolf, the Half Breed sank its teeth in as far as they would go while whipping its head back and forth to subdue its prey.

A warbling howl filled the air, causing the Half Breeds to pant in a hacking rhythm as they pressed forward even harder. Rico turned his head to one side so the collar of his jacket would offer some protection from the flailing claws of the creature locked onto his arm. He slammed his boot down on one that had remained low to the ground, pinning it there before it could tear his legs from his body. A third Half Breed’s paws thumped against the dirt as it charged at him. It planted its back legs and rose up to snap at him, so Rico pivoted his upper body while bringing his right arm around as much as he could. His muscles strained, but he was able to twist enough so that the incoming werewolf bit into the back of the creature still gnawing on Rico’s left arm.

The Skinner swore loudly as teeth drove further through his jacket. The leather held up, however, and kept the bite from going deep enough to do any permanent damage. Rico willed the spikes on his gauntlet to merge into a thicker blade which he drove straight into the belly of the Half Breed attached to his arm. When it was impaled, every one of the werewolf’s muscles tensed, including the ones in its jaw. That sank its teeth in deeper, shredding Rico’s flesh and sending a surge of blood flowing down his sleeve. Straining with the effort it took to focus through all that pain, Rico let out a howl of his own until the impaled Half Breed fell away from him. When it hit the ground, it spilled its innards onto the creature beneath Rico’s boot.

Linda still had her back to the fence. After reloading her AK-47, she sprayed a barrage of rounds at the Half Breeds running toward her. She emptied her magazine, hitting the creatures enough times to divert them momentarily. Ejecting the empty magazine with a trembling hand, she did her best to replace it with another from her pocket.

One Half Breed was attempting to climb the fence. Despite the raw power it possessed, its limbs simply weren’t made for the task, and it wound up snagged in the chain link long enough for a few of the rifles from the truck stop to get clear shots. Bullets thumped against its chest and neck, sending the creature to the ground for about a second before it threw itself at the perimeter again and started its next awkward climb.

There were more creatures snarling and scraping at other points along the fence, but those didn’t concern Rico as much as the one Half Breed standing several yards away watching the battle from a distance. It looked very similar to the others at first. Now that he had a moment to study it, Rico could pick out a shorter snout and leaner physique partially covered by a sparse amount of wiry fur. It looked at him intently, prompting Rico to raise his gauntlet high and drive it straight down into the face of the creature beneath his foot. At least one of the spikes punched through the werewolf’s eye and bored straight through into what passed for its brain. Rico kept watching the solitary Half Breed in the distance as he willed the spikes to sprout smaller spikes of their own that extended in different directions to scramble the inside of the wounded creature’s head. The animal beneath Rico’s foot thrashed wildly for a few seconds before going completely limp.

Rico had been hoping to get a reaction from the distant Half Breed, and he wasn’t disappointed. The creature arched its back, rose up to its hind legs and started to convulse while crying out. Its voice began as a howl, shifted into a wail and soon developed into a partially human scream.

“That’s the one!” Linda shouted before squeezing off a few panicked rounds at a Half Breed running by to circle around the fence. “That’s the leader!”

Having figured as much on his own, Rico nodded and squinted into the darkness to try and see as much as he possibly could. The thing had started out resembling most of the other Half Breeds. It acted like them, sounded like them, even burned through his scars like them. It was too close to a wolf to resemble any of the Mongrels he’d ever seen, and if it was any kind of Full Blood, the burning in his scars would be close to unbearable. Eventually it stood up as Linda had described, presenting a silhouette that was more human than beast…just barely.

Stepping forward while pulling the gauntlet free from the skull of the creature beneath him, Rico approached the strange Half Breed. He held his weapon in front of him, making sure the pack leader could see every drop of blood and every chunk of brain matter dripping from the gauntlet’s spikes. “You know what I am?” he asked.

The thing stooped his back and let his arms hang down as if to cover his nakedness. Modesty, however, was the furthest thing from the expression on his face. “Sssskinnner,” it said.