WastelandRogue (13 page)

“I do,” they said in unison.

Wirdle swung at Milt and knocked him to the floor.

Opportunity presented itself and Rye rushed Wirdle. His arms
went around her, hugging her tight. She pushed her face into the damp staleness
of his neck and sunk her fangs into the whisker-prickled skin. The pop of his
vein was louder than the barely audible whine he made. She dug deep, lacerating
his jugular, sucking hard on the warm liquid to stop his struggle. His arms
went slack as his whole body quaked and jolted. She let go.

Big man—down.

She turned her sights on Milt, looking at him through the
red haze saturating her eyes.

“You’re a filthy vamp!” he shrieked, fear raising the pitch
of his voice.

He leapt up from the floor. Whether he meant to come at her
or aim for the exit didn’t matter, she couldn’t let him escape and warn the
others.

She launched toward him, snatching him by the arms and
whirling him around. When she let go, he flew into the wall. He drew a knife
from his pocket and turned. The small weapon or impending pain didn’t stop her
from lunging forward. She seized hold of his greasy dark hair and yanked his
head to the side. The excruciating pain from his blade plunging into her side
prompted her to bite with more force.

Unlike Wirdle, Milt cried out in another of his high-pitched
screeches. He thrashed and clawed, unexpectedly putting up more of a fight than
Wirdle had. To stop him, she ripped the flesh from his throat. He went limp.

With her keen sense of hearing, she noticed the creak of the
door behind her. She released the now-dead Milt and spun around. Her jaw
dropped at the surprising sight of Hamner. She hadn’t seen him in how long?

A long, partially healed cut on his face ran across his
cheek, over the bridge of his nose and up into his eyebrow. It made him appear
more menacing than she remembered.

He pulled a steel knife from his belt and the glint of steel
in the lamplight mesmerized her. Memories flooded her head, the searing pain of
torture, the depravities she suffered, the fear of dying alone in a ditch. All
of it had her at a standstill.

Then Hamner grinned. That evil, sadistic tilt of his mouth
brought back her anger and the lust for vengeance. He must have seen that in
her face, because he suddenly turned and ran.

Rye chased after him, following the movements of the form
she saw through her red haze. She didn’t care who saw her in the camp. Hamner
had the information she needed about Shay.

Hamner went only as far as the cabin next door. She assumed
because he thought he could hide.

He rushed inside.

Ignoring the discomfort of her skin tightening around the
knife wound, she let her momentum from the adrenaline rush send her straight
into his body. She rammed him so hard that the knife jarred from his hand.
Together, they fell onto the table. A scattering of bowls and utensils on the
surface crashed to the floor.

She tried holding him down, except he showed more strength
than she was able to handle. He flipped her off and she landed on the eating
utensils. She scrambled across the dirt to retrieve his knife. Frantically
stretching, she almost had her fingers folded over the handle when he grabbed
her by the leg. He dragged her back from the weapon. She rolled to her back and
kicked with her free leg.

“I thought you would have died in that ditch,” he said,
getting up and standing over her.

Her eyesight cleared slightly and so did her muddled
memories. She remembered why Hamner left her lying near death in the dirt. In a
fit of panic, she had fought him. She had snatched his odd knife out of his
hand. The one he had called a razor. That was how he had gotten that laceration
across his face. She had broken that strange weapon while slicing that cut into
his flesh.

Rye kicked to keep him back. “Where’s my sister?”

“Sister?” He circled her and bent to pick up his knife.

“Yes. You took her from the same shack you took me. What did
you do to Shay?”

He stared at her a moment, as if he thought about the
question. From inside his coat, he pulled out a rag and wiped the steel blade
he held.

“Where is she?” Rye kicked at him again.

He swung his arm and cut through her pants into her shin.
“Dead, of course.”

She clenched her jaw, fighting off the burning pain. It
stung worse than Milt’s stab into her side. She pushed herself forward, lunging
to grab Hamner. He swung a chair and hit her hard on the right side of the
head. Starry dots of light blurred her vision as she fell flat on the floor.

“You’ll be dead too when I get through with you.” He thrust
the knife into her back.

When he withdrew it to stab her again, she flipped over and
kicked him in the knee. He stumbled away, recovered his balance and came at her
again.

He clawed at her legs to get a grip. “She fought back too
and it was swee—eet!” He whistled with a pleased grin. “I gave her a right nice
burial. Left her tied up and lying in a thick green patch of allium. She looked
so lovely surrounded by those plump balls of purple flowers. Almost made me
think she was human… Until she opened her mouth to hiss curses at me and showed
those fangs.”

The horror of his words gave Rye more determination than
ever to kill him. He’d left Shay to fall into a coma and die a slow death.

Rye took a deep breath and kicked her leg high, catching
Hamner in the face. He wailed in pain as her boot heel raked the cut open on
his face. He came at her again. Scooting back on her elbows and bottom, she
ended up against the wall with him on her. She struggled to get him off. Blood
from his cut dripped to her face and ran in her mouth. The almost-faded haze in
her eyes darkened. The allium in her system prevented the burst of strength she
needed to escape his clutches.

Rye remained stuck with a diluted picture of everything in
the red-flushed hue, so she didn’t see Hamner’s strike coming.

Sevrin skirted the camp, staying clear of the stationed
marauders. However, from what he’d seen, most of those men hadn’t any wits
about them in their intoxicated state. What he had learned was they killed any
lamian
who hadn’t run off as well as killed whoever opposed them. Since arriving at
the camp a cycle of the moon earlier, the marauder men would undoubtedly feel
relaxed. It explained why no one questioned his presence.

As he neared the end shack, the one with the little girl, he
heard a scream.

Rye’s in trouble.

He rushed to the front of the shack and burst through the
doorway, ready for a fight to protect her. She lay on the floor with a hulking
figure over her. Blood dripped from her lips and her eyes glowed red with rage.
The man standing over her turned toward him with a large cut on his face.

“Who are you?” The man’s gaze swung from Sevrin back to Rye.

“Sevrin.” Rye stopped him from answering, giving him her
attacker’s name instead. “His name is Hamner. He’s the one who left me in that
ditch to die.”

Sevrin glanced at Rye spitting blood onto the dirty wood
floor. Her open shirt suggested all sorts of wrongdoings. Blood trickling from
a closing wound on her side compounded his fury toward the man who tortured
her.

Sevrin charged forward.

“No!” Rye screamed as he plunged his knife went into the
man’s gut.

“What have you done?” Rye crawled forward. “He can’t die.
Not until he tells me where to find Shay.”

Sevrin jerked the knife out of the man and watched him fall.
“What does your sister have to do with him?”

“He took her. Six months before me, he kidnapped Shay. I let
him take me so I could find her. When Levor mentioned the Wickstrom Group, I
thought maybe Old Louis Ruins was where Hamner took her.” Rye tore the man’s
shirt open and bent over him. “I have to heal him.”

Save the man who had abused her?
Sevrin wanted to
drag Rye away but he understood what she said and he had to let her try.

“Get off me, vamp,” the man growled, grabbing a fistful of
Rye’s hair and pulling her back from licking his wound.

“Tell me where to find my sister.” Rye shook to free
herself. “I can heal you, Hamner.”

Sevrin pried the man’s grip from Rye’s blonde locks.

“You ain’t using any of that magic on me, vamp bitch.”
Hamner coughed and blood spewed from his mouth. “I’d rather die than let you
feed on me.”

Sevrin forced the man’s arms up and held them pinned to the
floor. He watched Rye bend over and licked at Hamner’s wound. The skin shrank
around the laceration and sealed shut.

Rye sat back on her heels. “Now tell me where to find her.”
She hit Hamner in the chest. “Tell me, dammit.”

Sevrin let go of Hamner’s arms. “He’s dead, Rye.”

“No.” She shot to her feet, anger burning hot in her red
eyes. “No-no-no, he can’t be.”

Sevrin walked around Hamner to Rye. “I’m sorry. If I’d known…”
He reached out to hold her and she swatted his hands away.

She stalked across the room to a barrel and dipped a rag
into the water. Several times while washing her face, she cupped water in her
hand, rinsed out her mouth and spit it on the floor.

“I’m sorry I killed him,” Sevrin said again when she turned
around, her face cleaner. “If I’d known—”

“He deserved it.” She threw the wet rag to the floor. “They
all deserved it, but he deserved it the most. He said he left my sister to die
in a patch of allium.” Pain etched lines in her face.

“And he didn’t say where that was?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She took a shaky step forward.

“Rye, we’ll figure it out the location.”

“It’s been six months. If she was anywhere in the type of
condition I was when you found me, she couldn’t last more than a few days, a
quarter cycle of the moon at the longest.”

“Do you really want to leave it at that, never knowing if
there was a chance to save her?” He watched her lean wearily on the table.

“No.”

“Then we’ll go looking and we’ll find her no matter what.
Someone in the marauders pack has to know about the allium field besides
Hamner.”

“And you’re going to go out there and ask them?” Her short
laugh turned into a cough.

“I’ve mingled with the strays walking around this camp and
figured out the leader is a fellow named—”

“Orland.” She completed his sentence.

“Yes.” He caught Rye as she stumbled away from the table.
“What’s wrong?”

He moved his hand off her back and looked at his palm
covered in blood.

“I’ll be all right. Before Hamner cut my leg, he stabbed me
in the back. He had wiped his blade on a rag in his pocket. I think it was
soaked in allium. My wounds aren’t healing like normal.”

“Here, sit down.” He guided her onto a chair. “What about
the blood on your mouth?” He rubbed a spot off her chin.

“In the shack to the right, two men had plans to rape a
woman. I had to kill them.”

“I’m sure it’s no great loss.”

“What did you find out?” she asked.

He stepped back. “I heard Orland is in the shack at the far
end of this run. Seems he has taken up with laying about here for the last six
months, sending others out to do his bidding.”

“Like looting other camps and terrorizing families—Oh,
Tari.” Rye leaped out of the chair and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Sevrin caught her by the arm.

“Tari’s still hiding in that floor.”

He pulled her aside and looked outside first. “All right,
let’s go.” He surveyed the area as they crept along the building. They stayed
in the shadows where possible. The clouds had gone and the bright moon lit
everything it touched.

“I think most of them are asleep by now,” he told Rye.

He wanted to go in the shack unannounced.

Rye knocked lightly. “It’s me, the
lamian
that sent
you here.” She opened the door.

Sevrin slipped in behind her and shut the door so no one saw
them.

In the corner sat a woman holding a little girl. The woman’s
bedraggled appearance—torn clothing and tangled rust-colored hair, along with
some bruises, made her look old. Yet the closer he studied her, the more he
noticed she wasn’t old at all.

“I knew her hiding place,” the woman informed them.

“Good,” Rye said, turning her back to the woman. “Just make
sure she gets back in that hiding place if anyone comes. We have to leave and I
don’t know that we’ll be back.”

“Did you find my daddy?” Tari piped up.

“No,” Rye answered, not looking at her. She lifted her head,
staring at Sevrin.

He then realized she didn’t want the woman or the girl to
see her blood-filled eyes. In the steam-trekker, when Rye’s eyes had turned
red, it was briefly. Why had they not cleared yet?

“What’s your father’s name?” Sevrin asked over Rye’s
shoulder. He had interacted with some of the people that lived there.

“Toddas Gray,” the woman answered for the girl. “I’m Ev, his
sister.”

“Sevrin Renault and this is Rye Sanborn.” He moved around
Rye and looked down at the girl clinging to Ev. “If I can, I’m going to send
your father back to you.”

Rye reached back and squeezed his arm. “Don’t promise her
anything you can’t deliver.”

He walked back around in front of Rye. “I’m not promising,”
he whispered. “I saw her father. He’s apparently camp leader, so he’s being
kept close to Orland and Orland is relying on him to keep everyone in the camp
in line.”

“What can you do?” Ev asked, showing she heard everything he
said to Rye. “Orland has at least two dozen men in camp.”

Sevrin cupped Rye’s cheek and studied the color of her eyes.
The red had receded to leave her once-blue irises a striking violet. He led Rye
to a chair to sit. “It’s almost gone,” he told her.

“How many of you are there?” Rye asked, still avoiding
looking at anyone directly.

“About thirty, I think,” Ev answered. “They don’t let more
than two or three of us get together at once. We had almost sixty. They killed
all the
lamians
who didn’t escape. Then they killed others, like my mate
Jont and Tari’s mother, Biddy, and three or four more that refused to cater to
those cretins.”

“
Lamians
lived here, with humans?” Rye asked,
surprise in her tone.

It proved to Sevrin that she had lived a somewhat sheltered
life. It was sad that most experiences she had with humans wasn’t good.

“Yes, is there something wrong with that?” Ev asked in a
defensive tone.

“It’s unusual, that’s all. Most humans I’ve encountered
don’t have a favorable attitude toward
lamians
.” Rye explained her
limited perspective.

“Because they’ll suck our blood and kill us?” Ev questioned
harshly.

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m a lot farther from home than
usual. I guess on this side of the wastelands, there’s more tolerance between
the species.”

“More than tolerance,” Ev said. “My mate Jont was a
lamian
.”

Sevrin paced the room, thinking about what they could do to
help. When he noticed Tari looking at him, he smiled. She didn’t react. Her
expression remained blank. She seemed resigned to staying emotionless. The
marauders were sucking the life from this child and the others in their camp.
He had to do something.

“You said all the
lamians
are gone?” He turned to Ev.

“Yes,” Ev answered.

“It would have made it simpler if there were some here but I
think I’ve got an idea how we can get the marauders to leave. It’ll take
everyone in camp to help.”

“I told you, we can’t get together in a group,” Ev said.

“But you can move from person to person and tell them what
we need them to do?”

“Yes, except they’re too frightened to fight.”

“That’s what we’re going to use against the marauders—fear.”
He turned to Rye. “You killed two of them before I killed Hamner. How did you
do it?”

“I tore their throats out,” Rye said. “And as much as I’d
like to, I can’t rip out the throats of all the marauders, especially in my
present condition.”

“No, but what if the marauders find those men one at a time
in different areas of the camp? They’ll think
lamians
are out to get
them. And if we wait until the marauders are good and drunk on fermented
dandelion, it might rattle them enough to take off.”

“What do you want me to do?” Ev asked.

“I want more than whisperings about
lamians
coming
back to kill the marauders. I want everyone to act as if they’re terrified of
lamians
.
I need your people to encourage the marauders to drink by replenishing their
cups often.”

“Sevrin,
lamians
lived here in peace. Why would the
marauders think these people fear them?” Rye asked.

“Because Ev and the others are going to let it slip that the
lamians
used them as a food source,” Sevrin explained. “Marauders have a
strong hatred against
lamians
and they’d be happy to believe the worst.”

“So if the humans here were slaves to the marauders, it
would be a lesser evil than being drained of blood by
lamians
.” Rye gave
him a doubtful look but agreed. “It might work.”

“It has to work. Ev will go pass the word and in a short
while we’ll do our part.”

“I suggest you wait until closer to morning,” Ev said. “The
marauders have nocturnal habits.”

“Like
lamians
?” Rye questioned the oddity.

“Probably because they hunt them,” Sevrin offered, and Ev
nodded in agreement.

“I guess that makes sense,” Rye conceded.

“Rye and I’ll stay in here most the night, Ev,” Sevrin told
the human woman. “That should give you plenty of time to tell the others. No
one is to start talking about being afraid until the first body is discovered.”

Ev nodded her understanding. She took Tari’s hand and headed
for the door.

“Tari can’t go.” Rye pushed herself up from the chair. “As
simple as this plan is, it’s still dangerous.”

“It will look less suspicious if she’s with me,” Ev said. “I
can pretend we’re looking for her father.”

“She’s right, Rye.” Sevrin opened the door and glanced out.
“They might notice her going around to every shack, so she needs a reason.”

Rye gave a reluctant nod.

“Ev, after you’ve told everyone, take Tari to your place and
stay there for the rest of the night.” He opened the door wider and let her and
the girl out. After they’d left, he shut the door and leaned his back against
it.

“I don’t like putting that child in harm’s way.” Rye sat
back down.

“The marauders have been here for over three cycles of the
moon. They’ve not done anything to her up until this point. She’ll be all
right.”

The bed in the corner caught his eye. Rye needed to recover,
maybe not her strength as much as her awareness. She had suffered an emotional
blow when Hamner died without giving her the information she wanted. The plan
to oust the marauders from the camp could only work with her focused attention.

“What now?” she asked.

“
We
get some rest.” He included himself as
encouragement to Rye even though he didn’t need any.

She had a mind of her own, an independence that set her off
from the ordinary. He only knew females like Ev, docile and domestic, the kind
who waited for a man to give them direction. His mother had a gift for getting
him and his brother to do things by making them think it was their idea.

“Yes, rest does sound inviting,” she agreed too readily.

She rose from the chair and walked toward him. The twinkle in
her eyes bespoke seductiveness and danger. He’d seen that glimmer of hunger
before—when she drank his blood and when they’d had sex. Which was it she
desired now?