Breeds 2 (14 page)

“I got you,” Kirk muttered, hoping to calm him. “I got you. Bailey got away. He’s gone. Into the forest.”

Morris released a childlike note of despair.

“Gonna get you out of here,” Kirk whispered, hauling the warden up and hoisting him over a shoulder. Morris grunted and went limp. Kirk thought that was for the best.

“Okay then.” He got moving.

In a little under ten minutes, Kirk had deposited the three wardens into the truck bed, their fluids trickling over the tailgate and onto the pavement. He stopped when he loaded Baxter into the truck, taking great gulps of air. Kirk wasn’t tired, wasn’t gassed in the least, but the sight and smell of all the blood…

God help him, he wanted…he wanted to…

Kirk rubbed his face as if that might alleviate the aching in his jaws, the rumbling of his stomach. One of Ezekiel’s boots was uncovered, so the Halifax warden quickly covered it up to remove the growing temptation. He needed to get out of there, away from all that blood. He staggered to the driver’s side and stopped, bent over at the waist.

Well,
shit
.

He almost forgot.

Kirk returned to the corridor and retrieved all three knives where they’d fallen. On impulse, he grabbed another fistful of sheets. The sheets he used to soak up the excess blood in his truck.

Knowing he should’ve been gone from the place twenty minutes ago, Kirk slammed the tailgate shut and tried not to look upon Morris, lying on his back with his eyes staring at the heavens. Of the three, Morris appeared the only one semiconscious. Kirk wasn’t certain if that was a good thing or not. Ezekiel was missing a huge chunk of meat from his throat, and Baxter––Baxter was the worst.

The New Brunswick man had had his face pulverized, squished to an unrecognizable strawberry pulp, while the back of his head remained intact. Kirk quickly covered that ruined face, covered the others with equal urgency.

He climbed aboard the truck, started the engine, and stared at the city beyond, shocked at how the episode at the medical examiner’s building had gone down, but also struggling to keep a more sinister urge under control.

Regaining his senses, Kirk put the truck into gear and drove away.

Pre-dawn traffic was nonexistent, so Kirk drove quickly, speeding along empty streets and navigating his way back to his apartment building complex. He glimpsed a police cruiser speed through a nearby intersection, but they continued on without pause. Kirk started breathing again. The last thing he needed was the local authorities stopping him. Not with the bleeding mess he’d collected in the back of his pickup.

City lights flashed by and finally, after what seemed like an hour, Kirk pulled into his building’s parking lot and regarded the dark heights. He circled once, scanning the lower levels as well as the high ones, ensuring there were no early smokers standing on their decks for a puff. Deciding the coast was clear, he pulled into his parking space, jumped out and went straight to the truck bed.

Covered in sheets, the three unmoving shapes resembled bloody cabbage rolls. Kirk really didn’t want to bring them up to the apartment, but he was at a loss, so he pulled the tailgate down. One positive development was that the drive had quelled his earlier cravings, and for that, Kirk was grateful. He grabbed the nearest pair of ankles and hauled out Baxter’s limp form. Of the three, Kirk feared for him the most.

He swung Baxter’s considerable weight onto a shoulder, knowing he’d probably have to trash his coat, and turned around.

“Jesus,” Kirk blurted, coming face-to-face with not one, not two, but five individuals. And one of them…

Kirk’s guts froze again and he doubted they would ever unfreeze.

One of them was
her
, dressed in a blue mid-length winter coat.

“You stupid fuck,” Carma Jones said to his face, her pallid features a snarl of disbelief and anger. “You stupid, stupid…”

“You live here?” asked a hard-looking guy on her right flank who looked like he’d fought in every war in the last century.

The question unlocked Kirk’s tongue. “Yeah.”

“Nowhere else to take them?” he asked as Carma pushed by Kirk and studied the other wardens in the back of the truck.

“No,” Kirk said, stepping out of her way.

Carma motioned at the two men behind her. “Get these two inside.” A second woman stood back, scanning the surrounding area for witnesses.

“You left your door locked,” Carma directed at Kirk, who again lost all ability of speech.

The guy resembling a war veteran studied the Halifax warden’s face. “You in shock?”

Kirk nodded.

“Come on, then,” the war veteran said. “Hope you got a key on you.”

Surprised at their appearance and grateful for the help, Kirk led the group into the building. The elevator wasn’t a large one, so four of them packed themselves inside, carrying the wounded. Kirk found himself unintentionally standing close to Carma. He sighed at his awkward luck, crammed into an elevator with her, two strangers, and three dying
weres
, though he believed the bodies were no longer bleeding. The elevator doors closed and as they rose, he stared straight ahead, very much aware of Carma’s presence, very much smelling her hair, and trying very hard to think clearly.

The two wardens behind him were relatively tall and pensive-looking. One wore a lumberjack beard that might have been frayed by a killing jolt of electricity, while the other was an Asian who kept his eyes on the escalating numbers over the door.

“You brought friends,” Kirk muttered.

“I brought reinforcements,” Carma said flatly, also watching the numbers as they lit up. “Last I heard, you guys were supposed to sit on your asses and wait until everyone gathered.”

Kirk exhaled mightily and shook his head. “It was Baxter’s idea.”

“Baxter?” Carma turned and studied Kirk’s profile. “Baxter Ryan? That’s him?”

She indicated the bundle slung over his shoulder.

“Yeah. What’s left of him.”

“He ordered you all to go?”

“Sort of. Peer pressure.”

“Peer pressure. Jesus Christ, Kirk.”

The elevator screeched to a stop. Kirk exited first and led the three along a quiet hallway to his door. He struggled with the lock and, once opened, bade them all enter.

“Dump them in here,” he said and went into his spare bedroom. He gently placed Baxter on the thick quilts of his bed while the tall lumberjack dropped Ezekiel next to the unconscious warden. Carma’s men plopped Morris onto the extra white mattress at the foot of the bed.

“Get out here,” Carma said, standing before the living room couch. When Kirk appeared, she locked onto his eyes with a level of disapproval that made him squirm with guilt.

“You got a story to tell,” she said to him as the Asian stepped to his right. The lumberjack leaned against a wall.

“You look tired,” Kirk said.

“I jumped into my car as soon as I got the call. Drove until my eyes crossed and then got a bus. And I’m not the only one, so, yeah. I’m tired. Everyone’s tired.”

“Got your badge?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Carma warned. “And wait a second. For the others to get here.”

So Kirk shut up and fidgeted in place, until he rested his hands on his hips. As annoying as she was, Kirk thought she looked good. Carma wasn’t one for sappy reunions––not that they’d parted on the best of terms. She spurned his advances, left him dejected and thinking about her every day since. For twelve years. Even as he thought it, he realized the absurdity of being so hooked on a single person. Embarrassment fired inside of him like a rusty furnace kicking into action. Kirk struggled to keep his face neutral, knowing if he displayed anything else other than stoic professionalism, Carma would probably, literally, rip him a new asshole.

In short time, the others arrived and filed into the apartment’s living room. The lumberjack closed and locked the main door. The war veteran and the other female eyed Kirk with a dark curiosity. They all looked tired, as if they’d dropped everything and raced to Halifax.

“All right,” Carma began, and Kirk wasn’t sure if she’d blinked once since entering his home. “You can start with the story. Leave nothing out.”

Taking a breath, Kirk told them everything. To his surprise, no one interrupted him. No one pressed for details. He kept the report short, and when he’d finished he badly wanted a beer.

“You idiot,” Carma said in a low voice. “What part of ‘wait for reinforcements’ did you not understand?”

“It wasn’t my call,” Kirk stated, watching her from underneath his lowered brow. “It was Baxter’s. He convinced the others to go. Like I said, we figured Bailey would be in one of the morgue’s steel freezers.”

“You didn’t have to take them,” Carma said.

“They would’ve taken Baxter’s car. Or gotten a cab. They were determined to kill it before it… awakened.”

Carma shook her head, short blonde locks bouncing. “And now Baxter’s dead.”

“He’s not dead.”

“You take a look at his face? The guy’s nose is stuck in his sinus cavity, along with his forehead. A lot of bone has been pushed through that brain of his.”

Kirk’s shoulders slumped. Yeah, he’d thought the same thing.

“Who’s the other one?” the war veteran asked.

“Ezekiel something,” Kirk answered.

“Ezekiel Allen,” the other female said in a scratchy singer’s voice. “They’re both from New Brunswick.”

“He might pull through,” Kirk said. “Only had his throat ripped out.”

“He should,” the second female said, standing with her hands loose by her sides, ready for a confrontation. “Don’t think he’ll be talking, though. I’d say the thing got more than just a fistful of meat when it ripped out his throat. Ezekiel’s lucky it didn’t use its teeth, else we’d have two dead wardens on our hands.”

That frank assessment quieted the room.

Carma regarded the assembly and motioned them to follow her into the bedroom. She stopped beside the wreckage of Baxter Ryan. The big man lay on his back, his feet dangling over the bed’s edge. Carma unwrapped the blood-soaked sheets and dropped them on Baxter’s knees. The warden’s chest didn’t appear to be moving and his face was a devastated implosion of white shards and swollen flesh. Just gazing upon the warden’s unrecognizable features was difficult for Kirk. The others looked down on the figure and didn’t say a word, but their thoughts were all the same: When Baxter came to, would he be Baxter, or would he be another Bailey?

“You see him?” Carma asked the assembled wardens. “I’ve been given authority by the elders to pass judgement on cases such as Baxter. His head is caved in. Do you agree?”

Nods and grunts. Kirk’s own feelings tightened into a barbed knot of unease.

“Do you agree?” Carma asked him directly.

“He’s in hard shape.”

“Hard shape? If he were a human, he’d be dead. But he’s not dead, because he’s a
were
. That’s the only thing keeping him in this world. Look at him. He’s been flattened. I’d say his frontal lobe resembles a crushed loaf of bread. When he comes back, there’s no chance in hell he’ll be the same Baxter. He’ll be something else. He’ll be another Bailey.”

“You don’t know that,” Kirk said softly.

“I know it,” Carma said and extracted a huge knife from behind her back. The weapon’s appearance robbed Kirk of any further argument. The sparse light made the silver appear all the more dangerous. “Anyone disagree with this act of mercy?”

No one answered or moved.

Kirk regarded Baxter on the bed and his voice caught in his throat. “I think we should wait. Just to be sure.”

“Anyone else think the same way?”

They didn’t.

Carma’s stern expression didn’t change as she stabbed Baxter through the throat. She sawed, releasing a weak red stream that quickly seeped into the quilt.

Kirk winced.

Carma stopped halfway. “Baxter’s case isn’t the first time a
were’s
been hurt to a point where a mercy killing’s been called for. It’s just the most recent, and knowing Baxter, I know he’d
want
to be put down, considering the alternative. Are you in agreement, Kirk?”

Kirk wasn’t. “Yeah.”

Carma wasn’t buying his lie, but she didn’t pursue it. She addressed the others. “Remember Baxter Ryan. I’ve known the man for over forty years, and I know what he would have done if our roles were reversed.”

Hearing that, a twang of hurt resounded through Kirk.

“Baxter wouldn’t hesitate to do the same,” Carma continued, meeting each of their faces, “and I promise you, if you’re reduced to that, I’ll do the same to you––as I expect you to do the same for me. Or anyone. Understood?”

A solemn round of nods. Kirk was the last to answer, and he barely dipped his chin.

Without a trace of emotion, Carma regarded Baxter’s dead form. She pulled her knife out, wiped it on the stained sheets, and returned it to her hidden sheath.

“All right then,” she said to Kirk. “What do you have to eat in this place?”

Jesus Christ,
the Halifax warden thought.
The woman was cold
.

“Not much,” he muttered.

“Well, what?”

“Mostly canned stuff. Bread. Might be a roast in the freezer.”

“Let’s see.”

“Ah,” Kirk stopped her as she rounded the bed’s corner. “What about Baxter’s body?”

“He’s fine where he is.”

“He can’t stay here.”

Carma frowned. “I’ve got orders. From the elders. I’ll make a call and get someone here to pick him up. They’ll take care of it.”

Kirk held out a hand. “At least move Ezekiel into the other room.”

“Do it, Sam,” she said as she walked to the kitchen. The others followed her out, except for Sam—the war veteran.

Kirk left the room and stopped in the hall. Carma was already inspecting the contents of his fridge, unimpressed with the collection of processed sausages, cheeses, bread and milk. Not to mention a few cold bottles of beer.

“You eat like a mutt,” she muttered.

“Thanks,” Kirk replied, not appreciating the jab.

“This everything?”

“No, there’s a freezer in the laundry room.” Kirk pointed. Carma went into the room, switched on the light and threw open the freezer’s lid. It was a small affair, no more than fourteen cubic feet, and a lonely lump of what looked like a frozen meteor rested on the bottom, keeping a couple of boxes of small pizzas stacked upright.