Blood Rules (16 page)

I churned against him even as I slid to the ground, but he grabbed me, whisking me back up to him, his fangs dripping with my blood.

Then he smiled, as if taken over by his vampire and—

We both heard a sound at the same time.

The creaking door.

When we looked, there was a black veiled shape standing against the night, and just by the water flasks it was holding, I could tell that it was Taraline.

T
racking the monsters to this point had been simple.

Stamp crouched amid a batch of tumble trees, whose slender network of branches offered prickly spaces of sight much like the tumbleweed of old, except that these things had mutated and expanded in size. While avoiding the brambles, he watched the scrubs through his field glasses as they trudged over the nightscape, toward what looked to be a human-occupied way station, with its sun-shield tents.

The monsters were a motley group who'd probably blend in well: There was the elk man, a big guy who'd put on some khakis and a nondescript white shirt culled from one of those bags the group had apparently grabbed before evacuating. There was a robed woman whom Stamp knew to be a were–mule deer. Then the old man, who'd have stung Stamp like a scorpion if he'd gotten close, as he'd clearly intended to back at their settlement.

And, of course, the dog who could bite quicker than any of them.

In spite of their pedigrees, the scrubs were definitely the worse for wear. But what if they found shelter in this place?

Stamp put away the field glasses as well as the scent-catcher unit he'd used to follow the group when they'd started covering up their progress a little more carefully. It'd be extremely risky to terminate the monsters in the midst of humans, and Stamp had to admit that he still wasn't in top form, just as he'd been back in the days when he'd taken out nests of vampires.

But he would be as efficient and deadly as he used to be soon enough.

Taking out a penlight, he flashed the beam through the darkness at Mags, who'd been trailing him at a distance. His best bet would be to wait until the scrubs emerged from the other side of the camp; there, they'd be far enough away from the humans not to raise an alarm. He didn't want anyone to report the presence of a Shredder to the government, if that Monitor 'bot hadn't already done so. The last thing Stamp needed was the degradation of getting caught.

And Shredders didn't get caught.

He waited, watching the scrubs get even closer to the camp, and with each of their steps, he began wondering if they'd choose to stay in that outpost, hiding in plain sight among people.

Damn. That wouldn't do at all. He'd have to think of a way to get them out in the open again, where the hunting would be freer.

Just as his mind settled into the groove of problem solving, he heard a pained croaking sound behind him, by a clump of rocks, and he used the penlight to see what was going on.

The pinpoint beam filtered over a strange frog-bird creature with bulging eyes and scaly skin. Something was coming out of its mouth, as if it were vomiting a miniature version of itself or . . .

Giving birth?

Stamp laughed a little. He'd never seen the likes of this, so he sat there for a bit longer. The Bloodlands, and obviously the fringes of the area, certainly contained a few creatures that defied description—mutants that had adjusted in order to survive, and species that hadn't even emerged until the world altered—but this one took the cake. Maybe this little critter kept its eggs in its belly, and this was how it produced its babies.

As the frog-bird bent over to ease the newborn from its mouth and to the ground, Stamp couldn't help comparing this creature to the monsters. There were some people who said that preters were just mutations of humans—ultimate survivors who'd end up outliving them all. But if that was what Stamp needed to become in order to carry on through life, he didn't want any part of it.

Monsters.

Mutants.

A split of anger made him claw his hand as the newborn stretched and opened its mouth. Stamp wanted to squish both abominations, showing just who was the survivor.

The mom or whatever it was must've sensed his ill will, because it opened its beak and stuck its tongue out at him, hissing.

Ooo. Scary.

It was only when Stamp saw how the tiny, spittle-covered baby blinked at him in helpless, wide-eyed fear that he relaxed his hand. Then the parent made a whining sound, as if trying to play on Stamp's better instincts. And, indeed, he felt like shit.

Did they know that Shredders didn't kill the innocent? Mutants weren't technically like any monsters he'd ever been assigned to hunt. They didn't suck blood and rob the water from humans and animals.

The two mutants didn't move, clearly knowing that if they did, Stamp might change his mind. Perversely, he wallowed in that fear, wishing the old scrub scorpion-man had given him some of the same when the guy had been flat on the ground in the cavern, after Stamp had been concentrating too much on that damned Intel Dog and shot the ancient man in the shoulder area instead of the heart.

Stamp had wanted to see terror in the old guy's eyes, but his foe hadn't given it over. The old one had even been contrary, as if
daring
Stamp to just kill him.

Fear. Stamp had felt robbed of the rush. What would it be like to catch up to the old guy, aim a revolver at him again, and watch while that fear of reckoning settled into his gaze?

The more Stamp stared at the frog-bird mutants, the more he thought about the power of a good scare. Of having all the control and how that might translate into corralling the scrubs back out into the open.

When he didn't threaten the mutants further, the parent shielded its baby. That conjured anger in Stamp all over again, only because it made him think about how his parents would've thrown their bodies over him, too, if they'd seen the bomb from the monster sympathizers in the marketplace coming....

He shut off the biting emotion that memory brought with it. The adult frog-bird kept covering its child, and Stamp fed off its remaining fear.

One moment.

And another.

Feeling stronger now, he stood, the gears whizzing in his leg as he rose above the height of the tumble tree with the aid of his FlyShoes. When he'd picked up the scrubs' trail, he'd changed from his heat suit and into his Shredder gear. All the same, it protected him from the air, which had grown a little cooler here on the desert's outskirts, but was still warm enough to bring out the sweat on a man's skin unless the suit prevented the scent from leaking.

Fear. It was his best weapon right now.

As Stamp watched the silhouettes of the scrubs moving toward the camp in the distance, he shadowed them, a bringer of terror in the pall of night.

“
T
hank-all,” Pucci said as the group approached the outpost. “I never thought I'd be so glad to see humanity.”

The oldster silently agreed with Pucci, knowing it was becoming a disturbing habit.

Still, he marched onward with the rest of the group. He was doing his best to keep up with them, but he was dragging, even though Hana had worked some of her nursing skills on him by sucking out the silver remnants from Stamp's bullet when they'd rested in an abandoned old shack. There, they'd debated about what to do now. Where to go.

Should they find somewhere else in the Badlands, where they'd be discovered all over again? Or should they do what Stamp might least expect—hide amongst the humans in society, just as they had years ago before fleeing to the nowheres?

They'd decided on the latter, even going so far as to use Chaplin's superior scenting skills to track Mariah. They'd decided to regroup with Mariah and Gabriel, hoping to God-all that the two were on the path to a cure. As far as the oldster was concerned, finding a remedy might be their only shot at stopping this mad game of cat-and-mouse, because, if they were human, what kind of Shredder or government would want to chase them anymore? Sure, the oldster was a goner, anyway, just by virtue of being ancient and supposedly useless, but his friends still had a chance.

That was what logic dictated, anyway, yet something about finding a cure bothered the oldster.

He liked being a were.

But he wasn't about to get fussy about what seemed to be their best option when there was so much else to consider first, such as night-to-night survival details. Hana and Pucci hadn't been able to grab everything they'd packed before they'd come to the oldster's and Chaplin's rescue at the homestead, but they had brought a couple bundles of human clothing and some canteens of water. Unfortunately, they hadn't secured heat suits during the escape, which meant the group needed to stay out of the sun. However, in were-form, they could hunt at night for sustenance and water gained through their prey's blood. The trick was keeping the
human
parts of themselves satisfied.

That included a proper place to rest for a while, and maybe this outpost would be able to provide one. After some rest, it wouldn't be such a strain for the recently wounded oldster to turn into his were-form again. This camp also seemed to be a blessing in that, if the group could blend in, they might even be that much safer from the scent-tracker Stamp was sure to be using on them. The oldster only wished the Shredder hadn't nullified his own smells, because the were-creatures, plus Chaplin, would've been able to catch Stamp's scent nearby.

But that was probably why Shredders had caused as much destruction as they had in the past—because they knew what they were doing.

Chaplin was sniffing the ground, the air—everywhere, it seemed. His super-duper Intel Dog abilities lent him a better sense of smell than even the weres had in animal form, and he'd been hunting down Mariah's trail when the group wasn't were-speeding over the landscape, carrying the dog with them.

The canine wagged his tail and glanced up at the oldster as they neared the outpost.

“Mariah was here recently?” he asked, guessing as to what the dog's good humor might mean.

Chaplin nodded, obviously happy that his mistress hadn't been overtaken by one of those government robots to this point.

Hana waved a hand in front of her face. “It is a wonder he can still smell her with all this smoke.”

The dog muttered, and the oldster thought that he might be agreeing with the woman.

They were about twenty yards from what looked to be a main street, with a lone wooden building across from the tents. Cheers and screeches provided a nerve-scratching balance to the otherwise quiet night.

Hana reached into one of her two travel bags—the second was Sammy's, which she'd put together before knowing he was dead. Then she extracted the one thing that had survived their friend—a little comm device that he was supposed to have tuned to the unit he'd given to Mariah.

Hana accessed it, but the reception didn't cooperate. As she put it away, depression hung over the group.

Sammy.

Then, as if grieving didn't sit well with him, Pucci opened his mouth. “What I'd give to just be back home.”

The oldster had been trying not to think about how things used to be. Only a short time ago, his Gila-man neighbor had been alive. Sammy hadn't needed to eat as frequently as the others, so they hadn't hunted a lot together, or even liked to be round each other much while in were-form. But as humans, they'd gotten on like brothers.

Never in the oldster's life had he ever thought he'd outlive the younger ones like Sammy. Or like Zel.

“Don't talk about it, Pucci,” the oldster said.

But it was too late, because Sammy's murder was getting under the oldster's skin again: the naked shock on the younger man's face as the silver bullet had flown through his heart. His blood pooling over the ground . . .

Pucci actually sounded reasonable as he said, “I'm sure Sammy wouldn't have wanted us to mope, oldster. He—”

With no warning, Chaplin reared back and nipped at Pucci's leg, taking a bite of material from his khakis. The big man stumbled back, his hands raised as the dog readied himself to pounce again if Pucci didn't shut up.

“Call him off!” he said.

But Hana had already looped her arm round the dog's neck, hauling him back.

“No, boy.” It almost seemed as if she didn't blame Chaplin for losing his patience. “You cannot give any indication of aggression here. It will be odd enough for us to have a dog, but if they find out what you really are . . .”

Chaplin had already heeled. That didn't mean he'd stopped glaring at Pucci, though.

All of them were glaring, and the oldster hated to think that Pucci was right—that Sammy wouldn't have wanted them to act like this.

So far, there wasn't anyone from the outpost to greet them, so the oldster took advantage of their privacy while it lasted.

“You know Chaplin could've done much more than nip,” he said to Pucci.

“Damned dog.”

And here the oldster had just about been ready to cut the whiner some slack. “He's just as sick of your mouth as the rest of us are.”

“I can say what I want to say, and no dog's gonna stop me. Right, Hana?”

His partner kept holding on to Chaplin, not saying a word. The oldster wanted to shake her, ask her why she tolerated such behavior. When the oldster had first invited them into the community, Pucci had been decent. Strong. Glad to hunt away from the oldster and then Sammy during their were-trips outside. But then just as surely as Pucci had adapted to the Badlands, he'd flown his true colors, and everyone had wondered just how the hell a good woman like Hana had ended up with him.