In Blood We Trust (24 page)

“Did you hear me?” he asked the woman.

As the dog whined, Hana just stared at the oldster, and he leaned closer to her, making his point further.

“
That's
why it's not safe for you to go chasing after Gabriel. You might endanger your child—Pucci's son or daughter.”

In spite of the other words, all Stamp heard was one.

Stamp glanced at Mags again. Her brows were knitted. He didn't know why she seemed so conflicted—she'd been there when Gabriel and his pals had dealt their blows to them, when Gabriel had survived as Stamp had barely hung on to life. She should know what effect his name had on Stamp.

Or was she just reacting to the news of the murder, trying to figure out all the angles?

Hana hadn't gotten up from her spot on the ground yet. A slant of rogue moonlight shone over her dark skin, her short-cropped, curl-packed hair. Her eyes seemed to glow even brighter as she continued to process the news.

“A baby?” she finally asked.

“Yeah, that's what she told me. And tik-tiks know these things. That's one reason Falisha wanted us to scram out of GBVille. And that's why you're not going on any mission to get Gabriel back for what he did.”

Chaplin the dog nosed her, snuggling up to her as if in a mixture of congratulations and condolence.

Hana slowly rose to her feet, stiff. She folded her arms over her bare, slightly curved belly, as if cradling it. She was round all over, so Stamp wouldn't have been able to determine any kind of pregnancy just by looking at her. She must've been in the very early stages.

“Would
you
go after him then?” she asked the oldster. “For me?”

The old guy paused, then said, “That's a complicated question, Hana.”

“No, it is not.”

“What would I even do with Gabriel if I caught up with him? He's a vampire, and even during my best nights in were-form he would—”

“Are you telling me that he has leave to kill anyone he feels like killing then? You and I both know that this is not to be countenanced. This is not how we have always lived, and it cannot be so in the future. We live by rules . . . order.”

The oldster got quiet again, his tone a whisper. “Whose rules?”

Even though Hana didn't have a ready answer, Stamp did. The law of man had worked for a long time in this country—until the monsters had risen up. Now the world was shit. It was, as Hana had said, not to be countenanced.

It was all too much for Stamp, who was mired in the memory of the night Gabriel had bested him.

A vampire. A malicious force that couldn't be tolerated on this earth if the rest of them were to survive. It was just that these were-creatures were only now discovering what Stamp had known all along, now that they had to live with other monsters.

All
of them were beasts, and they would end up destroying each other well before they could do it to the humans.

As usual, Mags gauged Stamp well, because she pressed a hand on his shoulder, keeping him in hiding behind the boulder. When he tried to resist, he found that her hold was stronger than he'd remembered it ever being.

“No,” she whispered.

“This is too good an opportunity to pass up.”

“You're going to take up with them, just to find Gabriel?”

“I was thinking of it.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know how your mind works—how it always works, especially when it comes to that vampire. He was the only one who's ever beaten you, and if it takes you until the day you die, you're going to remedy that.”

She pushed him back against the boulder, leaning so close to his face that he didn't know how to react. Even so, his body was doing enough responding for him: pulse firing off rounds of ricocheting bangs through him.

“I can even tell you every step of this plan you're formulating,” she said in his ear, tickling it. “You don't have operational Shredder tracking devices on you, and you don't have any weapons besides these pieces of crap.” She pushed aside one of his hands, which still held a shiv. “You're going to use a pissed-off preter to act as your tracking device, as well as a weapon against Gabriel. And don't tell me I'm wrong.”

Yup, once again she had his number.

She took him aback when she let him loose, her dark gaze going liquid.

“Can't we just stay
here
, John?”

A fleck of emotion tinged her voice. He'd heard it before, but after all they'd been through—seeing her almost killed by Mariah, seeing her locked up in the asylum and becoming more hopeless by the night—it mattered more now.

She apparently knew that she was getting to him. “Please, just give this up while you can.”

But the shivs were heavy in his hands. He'd decided the day he'd been put in the orphan camp that he would never, ever give up and, when he nudged her away from him, she opened her mouth, as if to protest.

He talked first. “I never thought there'd be a day when you gave up, Mags.”

Her expression changed, as if she were about to tell him something he didn't want to hear. He got the feeling it might even be about how they were such great partners, and she didn't ever want to lose him.

But he couldn't hear it, because it'd bring on choices he didn't want to make. Shouldn't have to make, as a Shredder.

As he looked into her eyes, he thought he saw something else, too, until the sight disappeared just as quickly.

In his state of mind, he thought he'd seen a reflection of blood. Red, just like a memory that he was projecting onto her.

But that was impossible.

Gripping his shivs, he dodged Mags entirely, then used the boulder to come to a wobbly, one-legged stand, keeping the rock between him and the preters as cover. It seemed, though, that Hana, who was still in half-were form, had finally overcome her distracting emotions and gotten a whiff of him, and she was on all fours again.

She fixed her glowing gaze on him, screeching, revealing those pointed teeth.

Stamp almost laughed. Were-deer. Oooo—scary. Even the Intel Dog, with his bared teeth, didn't put the fright in Stamp, although he'd seen firsthand how peppy the canine could be when it came to defending his folk.

Before the oldster could initiate a were-change, Stamp spoke up.

“We're not here to fight.”

The oldster's back was hunched, but he was still in humanlike form. “Then what're them blades you've got in your hands?”

Stamp didn't drop the shivs. “They're my security, and I'd like a little of that while I parley with you.”

The oldster had a set of holstered revolvers, and his hands stayed near them. Behind Stamp, Mags took up his back. She was so contained, though, that he couldn't even hear her breathing.

“You want to parley, do you?” the oldster said as the Intel Dog bristled near him. “To my recollection, that activity doesn't suit you all that well, Stamp. You're more an action type of fellow. And I don't know what the spit you're doing out of your cell, but I suspect it bodes no good for the terms you'd like to discuss with us.”

“Hana might understand my terms more than any of you,” Stamp said, deliberately looking at her.

He meant her to know that he'd overheard everything about the baby, Pucci, and Gabriel. That he was an ally now.

Just until he found Gabriel.

She sat on her knees, her features melting back into humanlike form so quickly that she hugged herself, no doubt from the pain of going back and forth so often in such a short time.

Yet she'd heard him, all right, loud and clear, and from the look on her face, she was listening for more.

Stamp provided it. “If you're going after Gabriel, I'd like to offer my company.”

Chaplin barked loudly, hopping to the front of Hana while the oldster raised a firm hand to Stamp.

“Stop right there,” he said. “We have no need to listen to any more of your bullshit.”

Stamp just kept appealing to Hana. “I'm not much to look at right now, but I've taken out a lot of vampires. And I have enough experience with Gabriel to know how he fights.”

“You don't think I can destroy him myself?” the woman asked.

“I think that the child you're carrying might make you consider twice when it comes right down to it. In the thick of a fight, you might pull your punches in the fear of endangering him or her.” He wouldn't mull over that abomination she was carrying. Finding Gabriel was bigger than any were-baby she was about to add to the world. “I, however, would have no such qualms about meting punishment out to Gabriel after you help me track him and corner him.”

He felt Mags behind him, hovering. In spite of everything, she was still here.

The dog obviously didn't like that Stamp had enough gumption to be making this kind of offer, and the canine was going apeshit, barking at Hana. But Stamp could tell she didn't understand Canine.

The oldster's upper lip curled. “I oughta just put a bullet in you, Stamp.”

“So why aren't you already doing it?” he asked, feeling his oats. Hana was his—he could tell because she was still looking at him, as if she'd already decided but just wasn't up to making the commitment yet.

Did she have it in her to join up with a guy who used to be the big enemy, just to get back at Gabriel?

The oldster spread his fingers, as if flexing them in readiness to grab a revolver from its holster.

But then he stopped. So did the dog's barking.

Stamp had the feeling that something else was going on, and it was probably even right behind him.

He peered back at Mags, finding that she was training a revolver on the group . . . and the weapon no doubt had silver bullets in it.

Sneaky lady. She'd grabbed a firearm somewhere in the asylum before she'd come back to him in the cell block.

Full of surprises, that Mags.

Now that there was a bit of order, Stamp made one last appeal to Hana. If she said no, he'd move on. After killing this bunch, of course.

“I'm with you, Hana. How about it?”

She never got the opportunity to answer, because the oldster called on his were-form. His skin bulged with the shift of bones and muscle just before an exoskeleton took over his flesh, a tail and pincers springing out of his body while his face went hard, his glowing eyes still looking so very human in spite of their preter shine. His clothes and boots ripped, his gun belt dropping to the ground.

The dog yowled as the were-scorpion man pulled Hana to him in one of his long, curved arms, snagged his gun belt, then scooped up the dog in the other arm. Then he put on a burst of preter speed, disappearing down a hill, leaving just a trail of dust.

“Fuck!” Stamp yelled.

But Mags was already putting away her revolver, hiding it under the folds of her gray suit where he hadn't noticed it lurking before.

She sounded nonchalant. “I suppose that leaves us here, then.”

“Not by a long shot.”

He got out from behind the boulder, holding on to the side of it for balance.

Normally, Mags would've sighed in exasperation, but he didn't hear any such thing. He took that as a good thing as he got to a crouch and scuttled to where the were-creatures had been standing. There, he used the moonlight to inspect the shape of their steps, to smell any traces of distinctive odor that he might use if they ever slowed in their progress. Until then, he would use the disturbances they left in the dirt, wispy trails marking their haste.

Would they end up going after Gabriel? Hell, would Hana even break off from the others and go on her own?

He thought well and hard as he took up a fistful of dirt and allowed it to sift through his fingers. He'd need to move after them, and move quick.

Where could he get a vehicle that was in working order, far enough out of the range of GBVille so that it'd still have power, and near enough so that he didn't lose too much time?

He remembered the shack on the edges of the nowheres, where some ex-Shredders tended to gather. They would have zoom bikes. And, after hearing about the monster takeover of GBVille, they might just join him in his hunt for the bad guys, too.

He followed the progress of the monsters, using the oldster's were-scorpion trail as a guide.

“Let's go, Mags,” he said.

And she followed, although it was more distantly than usual.

N
obody had seen them this entire time, but that was usually the case when it came to Witches.

Two of them were using the white stone tree forest to camouflage themselves while, not a hundred yards away, the were-deer, were-scorpion, and dog faced off with the other pair: a dark-skinned woman with long black hair who backed up a male whom the Witches focused on the most.

Johnson Stamp.

The Witches were too far away from them to see the clear identities of the were-creatures or to hear what was being said, but they were doing their best to use their trained and enhanced hearing nonetheless. And they watched Johnson Stamp carefully as the retired Shredder had an unexpectedly civil conversation with the monsters.

What business did he even have with them?

Traitor, him?
a female Witch mind-asked her male counterpart as they peeked out from behind the stone trees.

Perhaps yes,
the male thought.
Perhaps no.

What they knew for certain was that their data files—which still hadn't been updated since GBVille had lost power—had shown images of Johnson Stamp with that dying Monitor 'bot out in the New Badlands. Had he destroyed government property back then—a surveillance device that had only recently been put to use since the sanctions had worn off?