Forged From Ash (41 page)

“If you went so long without hearin’ any tunes, you’d remember those songs pretty well yourself. I think Clinton was President.”

“If that’s all you got to go on, then you’re saying you’ve been locked in that box since the nineties?”

“Yeah,” Asher replied. “That sounds about right. I should warn you about Esteban. He’s comin’ up in the world.”

“How do you know that?” Cole asked.

Using the bone finger to tap the side of his head, Asher winked and said, “Full Bloods have always chatted back and forth on the ol’ brainwaves. I heard ‘em before I was brought into the fold.”

“You mean before you were trained to be a Skinner,” Frank said.

“That’s right. I didn’t hear voices, but I kind of…remembered conversations that I never was any part of. Know what I mean?”

Seeing that Frank was quickly filling up with questions, Cole stepped in before he could get started. “Whatever you heard, it was enough for you to track a Full Blood?”

“Yeah. That and a few other tricks I perfected over the years.”

“And you can zero in on a
specific
Full Blood?”

Grinning sharply, Asher drummed fingers of bone against his cheek. “Oh, yeah. Just so long as I’ve picked up any of their transmissions.”

“And what have you heard from Esteban?” Cole asked.

“He’s been handing out orders to a bunch of other shifters at once.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Lots. Maybe all of ‘em. Half Breed, Full Blood and…something else.”

Cole lowered himself to sit on the ground in front of the other Skinner. Frank moved off to go somewhere behind him, but Cole wasn’t interested in what the Squam was doing. “Something else. Like a Mongrel?”

Asher shook his head. “Nah. This is something different. Somethin’ new.”

“Like what?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Asher barked in a voice that was like an explosion emanating from the back of his head. Climbing to his feet, he balled his fists as the bone hand overlaying the human one stretched and clawed at the air. “Just because you pulled me out of that goddamn box inside that goddamn hole, don’t think you own me! Those Vigilant thought they owned me and NOBODY owns me, motherfucker!”

Cole climbed to his feet as well, making sure to keep his movements slow enough to avoid giving Asher a reason to take a swing at him. “Take it easy,” he said. “I asked you before if you could track a Full Blood for me, and you didn’t seem to have any problem with it.”

“Right, so I’m supposed to do all this for you to pay off what I OWE?”

“Yes,” Frank said before he was silenced by the glint of firelight on charmed steel.

Even though the flat blade of his halberd was aimed at Frank, Cole held his weapon so it could be used against Asher just as easily. Frank kept his mouth shut and Asher didn’t lunge at either of them, so Cole figured his little show of force had worked. “No,” Cole said to Frank. “This isn’t about anyone owing anything to anyone else. This is about working against a common enemy.”

“Esteban isn’t just an enemy,” Asher said. “He’s the devil sitting on all our enemies’ shoulders. Getting to him is one thing. Once you find him, you’ve gotta be ready to sacrifice an arm, a leg, a gallon of blood and six pounds of flesh just to get close enough to fight him. After that, I’m not even sure how the fight will go.”

“Can you find him or not?”

Slowly, Asher nodded. “Oh, yeah, but I got some business of my own to handle that’ll be a lot easier with a partner or two.”

Turning to Frank while lowering his weapon, Cole asked, “What about you? Do you still want to be a part of this?”

The Squam’s reptilian head bobbed once up and down. His forked tongue also darted out from between thin lips in a way that only happened when he was worked up about something.

“Ok,” Cole said definitively while sliding the halberd back into its harness. “How long will it take to figure out what direction we need to go?”

Asher flexed his fingers so they all extended as straight as possible. The tendrils of his weapon eased back to form a solid bone that was the same shape as it had been when he’d attached it. Grabbing hold of the bone, he pulled it off of his arm amid a spray of blood and a trembling, vaguely satisfied exhale. “Keep heading south for now,” he said. “Once I get a better read on him, I’ll let you know.”

Cole nodded, unsure as to how he should feel about the deal he’d stricken.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Asher said. “I need some private time.”

“Will you be trying to listen for the Full Blood?” Frank asked.

“Actually, I have to take a dump, but you never can tell when inspiration will strike.”

Asher disappeared into the shadows. Waiting until the sound of the other Skinner’s footsteps could no longer be heard, Frank approached Cole and whispered, “We should not travel with him.”

“He’s my best bet for finding Esteban. There isn’t a better way to track down a Full Blood without making it come to us. I did the research.”

“Then we can bide our time and fight Esteban when the opportunity presents itself. Once we get back into the war, we will see Esteban soon enough.”

“This IS my war,” Cole said through clenched teeth. “That thing killed Paige, and he’s still out there. Personal issues or not, killing Esteban needs to be done. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“You can come with me or go wherever you like, but there’s no way I’m going to be talked out of this. That guy may be a little unhinged,” Cole said while nodding in the direction Asher had gone, “but everything I’ve dug up says he can do what he claims.”

“A
little
unhinged?” Frank scoffed. “If that were the case, I wouldn’t be so concerned. Despite those concerns, I will still come with you.”

“You don’t have to. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Paige was my friend too,” Frank hissed. “Your heart is not the only one that is hollowed by her loss.”

Cole sighed. “All right. Let’s get some rest. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

“Several of them, I would say.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Missouri

T
he next day, Rico woke up on the splintered remains of his cot. Several blankets and some towels had been piled on top of the broken piece of camping equipment to form a not-so-shabby bed. He tried to roll over, but Linda was asleep and pinning his arm to the pillows they’d collected. He shook her awake so she would sit up enough for him to reclaim his arm.

“Hey there,” she said drearily. “Want some breakfast?”

“Hell yes, I do.”

“Good. There should be some in the store. Bring me back some toast and peanut butter.”

Rico pulled on his clothes, went to the store and found there wasn’t much else apart from toast to be had. After some scrounging in some of the other aisles, he found a box of Fruit Loops that was only a year and a half past its shelf life. He opened it, sniffed the contents of the plastic bag within the box and shrugged. With enough sugar and milk, he could get a bowl of gravel down long enough to take the edge off. Since there wasn’t any milk at the truck stop, Rico took the cereal and a handful of little plastic thimbles of nondairy creamer. Those, along with Linda’s peanut butter and toast, accompanied him back to his room.

They had a good breakfast and a few more laughs before it was time to get back to the real world. Linda gathered up the blankets and then said her goodbye with a peck on the cheek. He said his with a smack on the ass, which she greatly appreciated, and they parted ways before getting wrapped up in the same kinds of activities that had broken the cot the night before.

When he was done loading the car, Rico still hadn’t seen Haley. After checking his room one last time to make sure he’d gotten everything, he found her sitting at what used to be a waitress station in the little restaurant’s main room.

“There you are,” he said. “I was just about to leave.”

“You were just going to leave me behind? That’s real nice of you.”

“I thought maybe you wanted to stay behind and didn’t want to make a scene about it. Makes more sense than you sticking with me.”

“We already went through this,” she said as she picked up her backpack and slung it over a shoulder. “I’m going with you.”

“Yeah, well you made it this far as a guest,” Rico told her. “You go any farther and you’ll have to start pulling your weight.”

“Sure. Whatever. Can we just go?”

“What’s your problem? And where were you last night, anyway? Did you shack up with one of the truckers? I saw some of them looking you over pretty good since we got here.”

“No,” she said dryly. “I slept in one of the guest rooms. Two doors down from yours.”

“Oh…uh…I didn’t know you were there.”

“I’m surprised you know your own name after Big Linn screwed your brains out all night long.”

“Look, you can’t be jealous about something like that.”

“Not jealous,” Haley quickly said. “Tired. I’m tired because I couldn’t get any peace and quiet.”

“There had to be other rooms somewhere around here.”

“Right. Like the rooms a few feet away from those truckers that were looking me up and down pretty good?”

Rico ran his hand over the top of his head. “I see what you mean. Sorry about that.”

Tossing her backpack to him, she said, “You can make it up to me by carrying this to the car.”

“Fair enough.”

“AND I get to drive.”

“I’m the one that knows where we’re goin’,” Rico said with as much severity as he could put into his voice.

“Nice try,” she scolded. “Tell me where to turn, and I’ll turn. Other than that, it’s just keeping to the road and swerving to avoid the werewolf crossings.”

“Drivin’ with you is gonna be a real good time.”

“Hey, if you want a good time around here, I heard all you gotta do is call Big—”

“Don’t you say it!”

Haley grinned and walked past him to push through the front door.

After loading the rest of their things into the car, Rico went to the main building and pulled aside the makeshift barricade blocking the door to the pay shower. Cal sat inside, glaring at the Skinner hungrily. Rico reached under his jacket for a syringe and asked, “Ready for a ride?”

Several minutes later, Haley drove Rico to the front gate and waited for it to be opened. Gary approached her window and leaned down so he was eye level with the young driver.

“You sure you wanna take that with you?” Gary asked while glancing into the back seat.

Cal lay on his side, wrapped in old towels and several yards of chain padlocked good and tight to keep him from moving anything other than his head. The gnarled new breed of shapeshifter was out cold, panting through his nose since his mouth was stuffed full of rags.

“What?” Rico said. “You wanna keep him as a mascot for this place?”

“No, just making sure you can handle him. We could always strap him to the roof for ya.”

“Appreciate the thought, but no. I jacked him full of tranquilizers, and I’ve got enough left over to last all the way across a few more states.”

Gary reached in across Haley to offer his hand to Rico. “Take care,” he said. After Rico shook his hand, he pulled his arm out just enough to offer the same gesture to Haley. “Both of you.”

“Thanks for the gas and snacks,” she said.

Gary stepped back so the car could get moving.

When he saw Big Linn standing at the gate, Rico waved to her. She smiled back at him before turning to walk toward the gas pumps. “That was a lot better than I was expectin’ for a pit stop,” he said.

“Don’t remind me. I had to listen to you two flopping around like animals all night long.”

“Yeah,” Rico said through a toothy grin. “We’re definitely comin’ back.”

They hadn’t been driving for long before she found the ramp for I-255. That led them to I-270 which would take them around St. Louis. Rico watched the road intently, alert for any sign of movement from either side of the road. His hand tightened into a fist, and the relaxed grin that had been on his face since leaving the truck stop was now replaced by a pale scowl.

The Skinner’s intensity was an airborne toxin that seeped into Haley’s body to wind her nerves up like spaghetti around a twirling fork. “So,” she said, “Saint Louis is pretty bad, huh?”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Worse than anywhere else?”

Rico shrugged slightly. “There are some worse places, but this one was hit pretty hard. Probably because there was a lot of bad shit going on around here before the packs started running all over the place.”

“Like what?”

The turn onto I-270 was directly ahead, and Rico said, “Slow down. Now that you’re out of that little West Virginia town of yours, you should know some things about how things are. Like when you’re driving, you shouldn’t take any sharp turns too quickly. Werewolves ain’t the only things that like to ambush cars when they’re most likely to skid or roll. Could be stuff in the road. If not a trap, just wreckage from the last dumb bastard who was flipped over and dragged away somewhere.”

“Ok. Important safety tip. Now are you going to tell me about Saint Louis or not?”
“You remember the Mud Flu, don’t ya?”

“Oh yeah! That started here in some strip clubs or something, right? It was all over the news. Seems like forever ago.”

“There are Mongrel packs, Half Breed dens and more Nymar than you could shake a stick at around here.”

Haley giggled.

“Somethin’ funny?” he asked.
“More than you can shake a stick at?”

“Yeah. So? Doesn’t everyone say that?”

“Only if they’re from olden times,” she scoffed.

“You wanna be a smart ass? I’ll let you take a swing at the next bunch of Half Breeds that come along.”

“All right, all right. Don’t get cranky. So what are Mongrels?”

“Most of the packs are werewolves. That’s because they look kinda like wolves. Mongrels are were-everything else. Werecats, wereleopards, and some things that don’t look like anything at all.”

“Sound like freaks,” she said.

“Some of ‘em aren’t bad. They don’t usually like werewolves too much, but I can get into that later.”