Forged From Ash (40 page)

Rico scowled and then dragged Cal into the little cement room. Stepping outside, he looked back at the wounded creature he’d left behind and then scowled at the other shower stalls. “You need help getting it locked up?” he asked.

“Nah. We can pile a bunch of stuff against the door. Should be able to hold up for a while. Had to do that once before a few months ago when one of our customers turned out to be a piece of shit looter. A couple of us will stand guard out here so if that thing does get out, we can blow it to hell.”

“I doubt that’ll happen, but if it does, try to put it down without killing him.”

“Will do.” Gary slammed the door shut and had a few quick words with some of the burly guys who’d accompanied them inside. As the helpers went off to find some things that were heavy enough to block the door, Gary looked to Rico and said, “I was watching from the roof. Couldn’t see a lot, but it looked kind of like you were…talking to that thing in there.”

Rico nodded.

“Mind letting me know what it had to say?”

“Doesn’t really matter,” Rico told him. “Just a bunch of threats. Typical bullshit you’d expect.”

“I wouldn’t expect a thing like that to talk at all.”

Rico’s grin was tired and heavy, showing only a few of his blocky teeth. “Yeah, I guess my expectations are a little weirder than most. Those things usually don’t talk, though. That’s why I’m keeping him alive and taking him with me. I need to see if he’s just a fluke or something else.”

Gary nodded and stepped back to clear a path for his two helpers who were dragging one of the arcade cabinets in from the other room to block the shower door. “I heard of Skinners pulling things apart to see what makes ‘em tick. If you’re curious about those flying things that turn people into rock, there’s a few swarms that come through twice a month. Hell of a sight as long as you’re not caught out there in it.”

“Gargoyles,” Rico said. “If you shoot some of them down and save the bodies, I can show you some pretty cool tricks when I come through here again.”

“You’re plannin’ on coming back? Great!”

Since the barricade that was being constructed seemed sturdy enough to keep Cal locked up while he was licking his wounds, Rico headed down the hall. “You mentioned something about someplace I could crash for a while?”

“Sure thing. Go out through the store and hang a right. There’s a smaller building that used to be a burger joint. We turned the manager’s offices and storerooms into some pretty cozy little guest suites.”

“Sounds good. Appreciate it.”

When Rico walked through the store, he was quickly joined by Haley who had her arms wrapped around a large collection of junk food snack packs. “I got food for the road,” she said. “Some candy, chips and a bunch of Corn Nuts. Every flavor and some I haven’t even heard of before! I can’t believe there’s so many of these left. I mean, who doesn’t like Corn Nuts?”

“What about water?”

“I’ll get that on my next trip. Any requests as far as soda? There’s a few bottles of beer I might be able to talk them out of.”

“Get some coffee. We’ll be needing that.”

She walked outside with Rico before darting ahead to get in front of him. “You all right?” Haley asked. “Seems like something’s wrong.”

“I’m just tired. Have you thought about staying here? These seem like good people.”

“It’s been nice to travel,” she said. “I’d like to stick with you for a while if that’s cool.”

“Think about staying,” he told her.

“Don’t you want me coming with you?”

“It’s safer here.”

“It’s not safe anywhere,” she whispered as if she was afraid of breaking the bad news to the others who went about the task of fixing a few holes in the fence and tending to the wounded. “Besides,” she added, “this is like a town that’s even smaller than St. Albans. I’ve had my fill of small towns for a while, you know?”

“Ok. We’re heading out tomorrow morning, bright and early. Well…not too early. There’s supposed to be some rooms for us to sleep in over there,” he said while nodding toward the shell of a nearby restaurant about thirty yards away from the main building. “Pick one and get some sleep. You need anything, come and find me. Just make sure it’s something important if you’re gonna wake me up.”

“Gotchya.”

As Rico headed toward the gutted burger joint, Haley carried her load of preservatives and artificial flavors to the car.

The inside of the fast food place was slightly better than he was expecting. Beyond the boarded up windows and scorched drywall, there was a clean main room with a few tables and even some shelves of books against one wall. Since most of those books were paperback westerns and a few selections from a severely outdated bestseller list, Rico guessed they’d been taken from the racks of the truck stop’s store. Wherever they came from, he appreciated the effort and snagged one for himself.

The room he chose was the first he found. It had been an office for so long before being converted that scuff marks from rolling chairs were still plainly visible along with the pale outline of the spot where a desk had been. Now, there was a cot, a box that served as a night table and a trunk containing a few towels, a blanket and a pillow. Rico searched through all of those things before easing himself onto the cot and untying his boots. He was in the process of peeling the first one off his foot when he heard someone enter through the front door and take a few steps inside.

“Hello? You in here?”

Expecting Haley to be the one to track him down, Rico was surprised by the rougher voice. “In here,” he said.

Linda walked into his room and stood in his doorway. “Hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Nope. I could still fall asleep if you drove through the front door in a semi.”

“I bet you could. You doing ok?”

“More or less. I just need some rest. Thanks, though.”

“Can I get you anything?” she asked. “Somethin’ to eat?”

Rico grunted and let out a sigh as he pulled his other boot off and tossed it aside. “No. I’m good. Be better after some sleep.”

“Yeah,” she said while stepping into his room and closing the door behind her. “About that. How’d you like some company?”

Standing up, Rico walked toward her. “You…uh…don’t have to do that.”

“Believe me. Ain’t nobody makes me do anything I don’t want to do.” As soon as he was close enough, she started peeling the leather jacket off of his shoulders. “Thought there was a little somethin’ between us.”

Placing his hands on her hips, Rico felt some inviting curves beneath her baggy, utilitarian clothing. “Yeah. Me too.”

“You sound awfully tired.”

“I am, but—”

She tore the jacket the rest of the way off and shoved Rico back hard enough to send him stumbling onto the cot. “Then you just take a load off,” Linda said as she started unzipping and unsnapping the various layers of her clothing. “Let me do the work.”

Her body was solid but soft in all the right places. One of the softest places was put on proud display when she pulled her sports bra over her head to allow her large, pendulous breasts to sway freely in front of him. Reaching back to shove her fingers through her hair, she shook it out until the rumpled mass of dark brown waves partially covered her face as she showed Rico a playful impression of a runway model’s pout.

“Now I see why they call you Big Linn,” he said while sliding out of his pants.

She stripped all the way down and straddled him. “You ain’t so small yourself, sweet thang.”

Rico laughed wholeheartedly and wrapped his arms around her. Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter where they were or what state the outside world was in. The biggest concern he had was that the cot didn’t break into pieces beneath them.

Sometime during their second go-around, it did.

They barely even noticed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

5 miles south of Cheyenne, WY

T
he green pickup was parked in a field close enough to I-25 to see any vehicles driving by but far enough away to be overlooked by those same vehicles until daybreak. Cole sat with his back against the front driver’s side tire and his legs stretched out toward the sputtering remains of a campfire. He’d already kicked out the flames a few times when he’d spotted movement or lights on the nearby road and was fully prepared to do so again. When he wasn’t watching the road, he kept close watch on the man huddled over the remains of a deer that had been that night’s supper.

“Why couldn’t we stay in Cheyenne?” Frank asked. His reptilian body was able to remain so still that he was almost invisible in the darkness. “It is a large city, and nobody was following us from Tensleep.”

“No city will be safe for a while,” Cole said. “The Vigilant have people all over the place, and they’ll be looking for payback after we knocked out their prison. We have to assume they’re out hunting for us day and night. Until we get farther away and things cool off, we’ll have to be real careful. We can’t assume they’ll just give up. They’re too…”

“Vigilant?”

“Yeah,” Cole chuckled. “Guess that was the word I was looking for. Anyway, we should be able to get back to normal after traveling for another day or two.”

“We could have gotten a lot further in the time we’ve already had,” Frank pointed out. “Even considering our circumstances, we did a lot of backtracking and circling.”

“Had to make sure no one was on our tail,” Cole said.

“I was making sure of that. You no longer trust me?”

Cole stayed quiet. His gaze had fallen on Asher who’d sat up straight to bring something close to his face. In one hand, he carried a knife that Cole had given to him. In the other, was something else.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Frank whispered. “You wanted to see what he would do?”

“Something like that.”

“What is he working on?”

“Look, Frank. I’d understand if you didn’t want to tag along with me any more.”

“Tag along?” the Squam hissed. “I have been doing more than tagging.”

“I know that. What I’m saying is that I appreciate your help, but I don’t want to put you in any more danger.”

“The Vigilant still live,” Frank said. “I would rather hunt them with a friend than on my own.”

“That’s just the thing. I won’t just be hunting Vigilant. There’s more important things to do.”

“But just because you won’t be after them doesn’t mean they won’t be after you.”

Cole sighed. “You’re going to come up with an answer to whatever I say, right?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, then. But before you sign on for the whole ride, let’s make sure we’ll be able to get there.” Cole stood up and walked over to where Asher was hunched over the deer carcass. Although he’d seen more than his share of disassembled bodies, Cole was surprised by just how far along Asher had gotten in such a short amount of time. “You’ve been busy,” he said. “Did you find a stick for your weapon?”

“Nuh-uh,” Asher replied.

Instead of a piece of wood, Asher held a thick, curved bone in one fist and a greasy rag in the other. He’d borrowed some of the varnish Cole used for his weapon but by the smell of it, he’d added a few things to the already pungent mixture. He set aside the rag and picked up Cole’s knife so he could carve off a small chip of bone and bend it outward into a barb.

“I never heard of that stuff working on bone,” Cole said.

“It’s my own thing,” Asher said. Looking up, he added, “Patent pending.”

“Have you ever shown that to anyone else?”

“Sure I have.” As he said that, Asher lined up the three barbs he’d just created along the length of the bone with some of the many scars scattered along his forearm. Placing the bone on the outer edge of his arm, Asher made a fist and snapped that arm to the side while pressing the weapon he’d been carving straight in. He gritted his teeth and ground the weapon back and forth until the muffled sound of bone scraping against bone could be heard. After a wet crunch, Asher removed his hand to show the weapon had been stuck in place on his forearm. “For some reason, though,” he said through heavy breaths, “nobody else wanted to give it a try.”

“Why not just do it the old way?” Cole asked.

“This way has some perks,” Asher replied while flexing his fingers of that hand. The deer bone attached to him started to flex as well. In a matter of seconds, the grimy surface stained by the varnish appeared to be pliable and almost fluid as it expanded to cover his arm and then flowed out to form a thin blade running from his elbow all the way to his knuckles. “The wooden weapons need to be taught their tricks. Mine just do what they’re told the first time and can go anywhere I like. When they break, it’s never hard to get a new one. Only takes a few days for them to get strong enough to cut through cement.”

“I’ve got something to ask.”

“You wanna learn how to make better weaponry?” Asher asked as he held up his arm to show tendrils of bone extending to lie on top of his hand like a projection of his own skeleton.

“That’s pretty cool, but I wanted to ask about you tracking a Full Blood.”

“Oh yeah. The Full Blood. You after any one in particular or just the first one you can get your hands on?”

“The one I want calls himself Esteban. He was—”

“I know who Esteban is,” Asher said.

Frank stepped forward to ask, “You’ve hunted him before?”

“No. I hunted the bitch that used to run with him. That was a while back. Right around the time when I got captured.”

“How long ago was that?” Cole asked.

Asher twisted his face into a puzzled expression before bringing his fist up so he could scratch his chin contemplatively with one of the bony imitation fingers his weapon had created. Although Cole could get something close to that sort of movement with the forked end of his spear, it was nowhere near as smooth. It had also taken him months of practice to get the wood flexible enough to pull it off.

Finally, Asher said, “Not sure. I’ve been locked away for a while. I do know I couldn’t get nothin’ but Grunge on my radio when I was on that hunt.”

“You don’t remember the day you were captured, but you remember what songs were on the radio?”