The Shifter's Kiss, Book 1 (3 page)

And then she noticed the two silver ports at the corners of his eyes. What had he done?

They drove for two days across the desert, heading east. Maren tried to deduce their destination… Houston area? Or maybe somewhere completely remote? Would have Tran picked something accessible or something safe?

She tried to sleep in the passenger seat of the truck, but it bumped and jostled her painfully. She hadn’t dressed for the trip, but she didn’t dare demonstrate the weakness to Dowd.

For his part, Dowd kept his eyes on the road. He squinted into the horizon and drove a straight course. He said nothing.

Out the windows, Maren saw only desert. Beige and sage hills, one after another. No sign of reavers, but she was certain they were there, hiding in gullies and just over ridges. She wasn’t going to look for them.

The sky stretched out blue and perfect, as always. Like nothing had ever happened. Like the world was just fine.

They continued over the sagebrush and dry riverbeds at breakneck speed. Maren gripped the truck armrest until her hands ached from exertion but would not dare complain. Dowd was silent, concentrating. He had changed so much in the last few years. She tried to recall their old life - working, parties, friends. It seemed like a fantasy she had made up. How had they ended up so far apart? How had he gotten involved with Tran, of all creatures?

There was little to go on. He didn’t wear a rebreather. That was strange. Most humans found the smell of shifters unbearable, and even if you weren’t exposed to them, the Fox River Virus could still be anywhere. She assumed he’d been enhanced with nasal filters, just as she had done for her outpost.

He had the jacks in his eyes, and so he was enhanced in some other ways, certainly. After so many years swearing he would never, this caught her completely by surprise.

On the second day, Maren tried to start a conversation. The desert stretched endlessly in front of them, and she thought maybe,
maybe
they could be friendly. How had he been? Had he heard from any of his family?

Dowd looked over at her and cocked an eyebrow.

“Have I heard from my family? Are you kidding?”

“What,” she shrugged. “I don’t know what your life is like. Have you?”

“Well have
you
?” he sneered.

“No,” she said, frowning. “Just Kasey. And then… nobody.”

“Oh,” he said, softening slightly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Maren looked out the windshield determinedly.

“Where are we going?”

Dowd took seconds to answer. “We are going to Tran’s.”

“Yeah, I know that. Where is Tran’s?”

“East,” Dowd replied. “Then northeast.”

“So, like… Nashville?”

He seemed puzzled. “Nashville?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Nashville area? Mountains?”

He scowled. “Maren, we are going to Tran’s.”

“Yes, but where is that?”

He scowled some more and pressed his lips together.

Maren stared out the windshield. Far ahead, she could see a black line across the horizon.

“What did you have done?” she asked.

He sighed. She waited.

The hills rolled past them as they sped across the bumpy riverbeds. The trucks were so huge, they didn’t have to slow down for small boulders and such. It still made for a bumpy ride.

The black line thickened.

“What enhancements did you get, Dowd?” she persisted.

He said nothing. The horizon line thickened still, and she could make out an arc to it. Then, what looked like cars.

“Dowd,” she said, “is that a… train? Are we going on a train?”

He said nothing, just jammed hit boot into the gas pedal and leaned forward. The truck barrelled across the desert, slamming into embankments, skidding across gullies. Maren bounced in her seat and held tightly onto the dash and window frame.

Finally the line grew - it was a train indeed, and it was moving. The caravan pulled alongside it, sending a mountain of dust behind them.

The cars seemed to stretch for a mile in any direction. Black, rusted red - they were almost all container cars, with a few passenger/commuter cars inserted in between. Maren held her breath. This was more civilization than she dared hoped still existed. This was hope, real hope.

The train slowed to a stop, and the caravan did too. They got out of the trucks and stood alongside the cars. Massive steel doors slid open on creaky casters.

Dowd pushed Maren toward the dark opening. In the late afternoon light, she couldn’t make out any shapes inside the car, but the smell was unmistakable. Shifters.

“Where are we going?” she demanded for the twentieth time.

Dowd grabbed her roughly by the upper arm with his hand and dragged her to the open car door. She tried to pry his fingers - they were like carbon steel cables, and she sucked her breath in surprise.

With one efficient motion, Dowd threw her body into the car. Maren rolled away from the door and crouched. What was he now?

He leapt up smoothly and stood in the door. She could see his eyes glowing softly amber in the darkness. Her heart pounded in her ears and she willed herself desperately to calm down. Assess the situation.

Calm. Placid. Calm.

Please.

Dowd took two steps toward her, leaning over and resting his hands on his knees to half-crouch. “Listen,” he hissed at her. “I don’t know what you think you are doing here, but we are not friends. We are not together. We are not even on the same side.”

Maren pressed her back against the iron wall. Could this be the same man she knew?

His eyes glowed. She could see his expression. Hate. Disgust.

“Tran wanted you, and I got you. He is getting what he wants. Your people live a little while longer. You are getting what you want.”

Figures darkened the door, silhouetted against the purpling desert sky. They pulled their bandannas from their heads and pushed the rebreathers aside. Shuffling forward in the darkness, they eyed her curiously but said nothing. Their stench wafted over Maren in a thick wave.

Dowd crouched closer. His upper lip curled over his teeth. More figures appeared in the door. This was a cattle car.

“Now,” he growled, “get in the cage.”

“What?” she whispered hoarsely.

He reached out and grabbed her arm again, wrenching it sharply. She stifled a scream as he dragged her to her feet and into the murky darkness of the car. Her eyes adjusted slightly and she saw it: a kennel.

“Get. In. The. Cage.”

She heard chuckles all around her, some human, some not.

“Better get in the cage, bitch,” came a low voice, a hot growl with rancid breath. Maren could barely breathe. She crawled on her hands and knees to the kennel and slid inside, flinching when Dowd - or something else - slammed the door shut. Biting her lower lip to keep from screaming, she tried again - calm, placid, calm - no! Her heartbeat pounded in her ears and her vision began to go red at the corners.

She saw Dowd, silhouetted against the purple sky at the doorway. He saluted in her direction, then jumped out of the car.

The door slid closed with a bang.

Maren couldn’t see them, but she knew they could probably see her. From what she’d seen before the car door slid closed, there were at least seven other - beings - in the car with her.

She heard them moving. Heard them growling as they went past her kennel. Some of the noises sounded like snarls or grumbles. They passed close, then went silent for a time. Then she heard them against the far wall.

It seemed as though every body in the car was constantly moving, except hers.

The kennel was a few feet from any wall, so she huddled in its exact middle with her arms around her knees, trying to be as small as possible. Some time shortly after the door closed, the train had started moving. The rocking pushed her to the sides sometimes, and she fought back to her position.

Think,
she commanded herself.
What are they doing?

They’re intelligent. They know they can’t get to you.

They have a sense of self-preservation. They won’t cross Tran and Tran wants you.

They’re not going to hurt you.

They’re just trying to scare you.

She tried to breathe.

Bang! A body landed in top of her kennel. She squealed and pressed herself to the floor, peering up into the darkness. Something moved there. It pushed long fingers through the spaces of the bars and wiggled them at her.

“Hey, woman!” came a voice from her left. Maren jumped to the other side of the cage. She felt a moan coming up in her chest, her breath so fast it hurt to breathe.

“Please,” she whispered, “Just leave me alone.”

“Leave you alone? No,” came the voice. It sounded low and thick, like it was coming through an obstacle in the throat. “We know who you are, woman.”

“I’m nobody, I’m nobody!” she started to sob, biting the heel of her hand. “Please.”

The body on top of the cage turned around, three times like a dog or a cat. Maren tried to ascertain where its head was. It was fast. She couldn’t tell. The fingers came through again. Wiggling, wiggling.

“You can’t see, can you,” came the voice again. She shook her head.

“That’s too bad,” he growled. “We can see you perfectly, woman. Every inch. Smell you too.”

She tried in vain to calm herself. Just breathe. Just breathe.

“You see: to us, this is just delicious. You, in the cage? That is perfect.”

Maren shook her head. If she could find a light in the car, maybe her eyes could adjust?

“Tran is going to have so much fun with you, woman. Big fun.
The worst.
”

Maren tried not to listen. The car swayed back and forth on the train tracks. She tried to focus on that sound.

“You know what big fun is, little sister?” the voice got farther away, then closer. Maren felt his presence right up against the bars. Was that fur?

“Big fun is all we have left. Everything else is gone now. What are we gonna do?”

She shook her head. She did not want to hear.

“Big fun is when we take your delicate little bodies for a ride, little sister.”

She hugged her knees.

“Big fun is all your juices, all your splits in twos.”

She started to rock back and forth.

“Yessss,” came a whisper from the top of the cage. “That
is
fun. More, yes!”

Maren pressed her head to her knees and closed her eyes.
They are just trying to scare you. It’s nothing.

But she’d seen things like this, and seen worse. In the desert, she had seen the husks of the reavers, moving so swiftly it was almost like they were floating. They would rush on a living thing and cover it. A swarm of them would appear almost out of nowhere. A mule deer, a rabbit, a horse - the reavers could reduce a living thing to a dessicated shell in a few minutes, howling. They sounded enraged. They sounded horrified. But as far as Maren could tell, they had no human feelings left.

She was assuming they were once human. But maybe, she had to admit to herself, they never were. Maybe the shifters never were either.

“Big fun is lick, lick, lick all your sweet holes until they break!”

“Yesssss! Fun!” She heard the hissing voice start to pant.

“Big fun is crush you under me! It’s pull on your ankles! It’s fill you up and split you open!”

“YEESSSS!” The voice from the top of the cage hissed until it howled, then Maren heard it leap over the side and hit the other body with a thud. There was a scrabbling noise, with hisses and growls. Bang! A creature’s face was slammed right up against the bars. She squealed and pressed herself to the other side.

A low hum came from a few feet away. A voice, several voices. The sound of it grew and grew. Maren peered into the gloom. Were those bodies? They were, she was sure of it. They swayed with the rocking of the train. They were facing her, standing in a half-circle.

No, they were facing the two voices to her left, the hissing voice and the growl.

Maren tried to concentrate, to focus. She damned herself for the millionth time for not giving herself better vision, better smell, greater strength. It had all been right there, at her fingertips. Easier than programming a pleasure girl from scratch, certainly.

The humming increased, competing with the sounds of the struggle. Maren sought out the group - how could she see it? Then she noticed, there, one of the figures was aglow. As they hummed, the glow increased. It was something like Sunshi’s glow, she assumed.

Just the strength of moonlight, the glow increased as the hum swelled. The figures did not step forward. They stood shoulder to shoulder and let their voices rise in unison.

Despite her fear, Maren found herself crawling to the front of the kennel. She wrapped her fingers in the bars and peered desperately into dim.