Dying Bites: The Bloodhound Files-1 (28 page)

“That I am,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean they know that.”

We’ve all come out of the tent to greet—or maybe “confront” is a better word—our visitors. They pull up in a line and kill their engines. The leader is clearly the one in the center, pulled up just a little closer than the others. I study him carefully.

He’s the only one not in half-were form, presumably so we can talk to each other using words instead of signing; I note that this also leaves his hands free, and slip my own hand inside my jacket to make sure the Ruger’s safety is off. He’s a big man, broadshouldered and muscular; I’d estimate his weight at around 230, his height when standing close to seven feet tall. He’s got a rugged, craggy face, with a brow like a cliff and a jaw as square as a sledgehammer, bristling with stubble. His hair is a long, tangled brown mane, reaching past the shoulders of his armor.

The armor they’re wearing is straight out of Mad Max: shoulder pads made from old steel-belted radials, held on by thick-linked chains bolted to the rubber. Thick fur pelts with bits of gristle and meat still clinging to them, stitched together with wire. One guy’s outfit looks like he murdered a leather couch and a chain-link fence, then wrapped himself in the remains. The rider on the far left is wearing a steel helmet clearly designed for a thrope skull, with a dozen or so six-inch butcher knives welded into a crest across the top. He lifts his lips in a silent snarl when he notices me glance at him.

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I’m starting to regret the quick slug of Urthbone I took before leaving the tent. It isn’t so much the hostility coming off them that’s unsettling; it’s the hunger. And the total lack of anything that could be called fear.

The leader stares at us calmly. He gets off his bike and strides forward, stopping about a yard away from Duvalier and ignoring the rest of us completely.

“Hey,” the giant says. He sounds very, very at ease; a man in his own living room, talking on the phone.

“Hey,” Duvalier says. He sounds almost as calm, but there’s still no humor in his voice.

“I’m Sheriff Duvalier. First Hunter of the Longjaw Pack.”

“Bearbreaker. Independent—though I do have friends.” He grins, a huge, teeth-baring smile that reveals the longest canines I’ve ever seen in a nonfurred face.

“I see that. What do you and your friends want?”

“Nothing much. We were passing through on our way to the Lunatic Ride and thought we smelled fresh meat.”

Duvalier’s eyebrows go up. He’s surprised, though he tries not to show just how much.

“The Ride? I hadn’t heard anything about that.”

Bearbreaker chuckles, a low rumble that sounds more like a growl than laughter. “Sorry. Guess your invitation got lost in the mail.”

I have no idea what’s going on, except that Duvalier seems tense and Bearbreaker doesn’t. “What’s the Lunatic Ride?”

The biker seems to notice me for the first time. “Mmm. And who might you be?”

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“Special Agent Jace Valchek, NSA. This is a crime scene, Mr. Bearbreaker, not an open buffet. I’m in charge of the investigation.”

“For an investigator, you’re fairly ignorant.”

“For a barbarian, you’re fairly polite.”

He smiles. “True—so I’ll politely answer your question. The Lunatic Ride is a gathering, held on an irregular basis, of those who swear allegiance to nothing but freedom. It’s rarely in the same place twice, and only those invited know about it. We come together to celebrate our independence, to trade stories and gear and information, to settle grudges and get drunk and challenge each other, to do a little partying and a little business. This year we’re setting up camp just outside of a place called Bethel, where I’m sure the locals will welcome us with open arms. Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”

“Your money’s as good as anyone else’s.”

“Good attitude. Should be a few hundred of us, and we’re real generous to our friends. Hope the bars are well stocked—meat, we can take care of on our own.”

I can tell that doesn’t sit well with Duvalier—it’s probably his pack’s caribou that’ll wind up in the Ride’s hairy bellies—but it’s entirely possible they’ll pay for what they hunt and kill, too. I was at the aftermath of a biker rally in Sturgis, once, and while there was enough vomit, smashed glass, overflowing trash cans, and cigarette butts to swamp a landfill, the locals all came out of it with bulging wallets and a minimum of property damage.

“A few hundred, huh?” I say. “Any of them pass this way recently?”

“Could be. Why, you got one inside that tent?” The idea doesn’t seem to bother him particularly.

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“We haven’t identified the victim yet.”

“Want some help? I could take a few bites and see if the taste’s familiar.” That brings a chorus of wolfy, barking laughter from the others.

“Thanks, but I don’t think you’d appreciate the flavor. He’s got enough silver in him to support the Lone Ranger.” That gets me a confused look, but I think he understands my overall point. He meets my eyes—

The jolt I feel is completely unexpected. Something passes between us, something tense and charged and somehow familiar. It takes me by surprise, but he almost seems to expect it. It lasts no more than a second before he looks away.

“Okay. Guess we’ll be on our way, then. Drop by the camp if you’re in the mood, Valchek—I can show you a better time than this, anyway.” More feral laughter.

“That’s not saying much,” I tell him, feeling a little stunned, and he grins and gets back on his bike. A few seconds later they’re all roaring off into the snow without a backward glance.

Eisfanger clears his throat. “That was a little . . . unsettling.”

“And it’s over,” I say. “Let’s get back to work.”

Which we do. Eisfanger prepares the body for transport; I snap some pictures of the tire track he uncovered while the moss is still see-through.

Somehow, I’m not surprised when it matches the tracks outside in the snow.
TEN

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Duvalier heads straight for the radio in the boat as soon as the bikers leave, which is how he finds out that his people have been trying to reach him for the last few hours. Seems there is a large group of zerkers setting up camp a mile or so out of town, and what exactly did the Sheriff plan to do about that?

What he does is make his apologies to us, morph into wolf form, and take off into the snowstorm. We stay put, processing the site and the body as thoroughly as we can with what we brought with us. We get both hair and fiber samples as well as the tire track, though we have no luck with foot-or fingerprints.

And we finally have a suspect.

“You think Bearbreaker will lead us to Stoker?” Eisfanger asks. It’s just after 2:00 A.M. and we’re finally done; all we have to do in the morning is break camp.

“I don’t know.” I hesitate, then ask the stupid question that’s been on my mind. “You said Selkie was a shape-shifter. Is it possible—”

“That Selkie’s posing as Bearbreaker?” Eisfanger shakes his head. “The same thought occurred to me after he left. I took Wittgenstein out and let him sniff around; he’s got a keen nose for changeling sorcery. He couldn’t find anything, and to add that much mass to Selkie’s frame would have required a lot of mojo—enough to leave plenty of traces behind. He’s not using that kind of magic.”

“So Stoker has a zerker ally. I wonder what he needs him for—can’t be transport; he’s got Selkie for that. Muscle?”

“Could be. Zerkers often work as mercenaries or bodyguards.”

“Only when the client can’t afford golems,” Charlie says, ducking under the tent flap. He’s covered in snow, which is apparently just wet enough to stick to his dapper olive-
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green suit, but not so wet it melts from body heat—which I’m pretty sure Charlie doesn’t have, anyway.

“Yeah?” I say. “What’s it cost to rent a golem mercenary?”

“Depends on the war. We’re willing to work cheaper in certain locales.”

“Like what, for instance?” Eisfanger asks.

“Desert campaigns.”

“Why?”

“Local cuisine.”

“But golems don’t—” He stops as he realizes Charlie’s referring to sand, and as filler instead of food.

I shake my head and say, “I’m going to bed. Wake me when it’s my turn to stand watch.”

I stumble outside and to my tent, where I remove my boots and some of my clothing before crawling into the sleeping bag. The wind has died down, and the soft patter of snow on the fabric of the tent lulls me to sleep within minutes.

My last thought before I drift off is of Bearbreaker. I’d felt something when he met my eyes, some sense of connection that I couldn’t define.

But I got the feeling he could. . . .

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I wake up in the morning, cold and headachy; a quick shot of Urthbone helps one, but I’ll have to wait for hot coffee for the other. I ask grumpily why no one woke me for my shift, and Charlie informs me he heard noises coming from my tent that seemed to indicate either demonic possession or my having sex with a chain saw and he didn’t feel it was safe to interrupt either one. I inform him that my snoring isn’t anywhere near that bad, and anyway, shut up.

It’s stopped snowing, and the wind has died completely. The snow makes the landscape look pristine instead of barren, and the early-morning sun breaking through the clouds turns the whiteness up even higher. Eisfanger hands me a pair of sunglasses and I put them on gratefully.

A quick breakfast—peanut butter and bread for me, ham sandwich for Eisfanger—and we’re ready to pack up and leave. The one thing we haven’t examined thoroughly is the satellite broadcaster; we’ll ship that to Seattle and let the techs there take it apart.

The trip back is uneventful, though the landscape now looks completely different due to the endless white blankness of the snow on either side of us; it feels not so much like something was added as erased.

Duvalier is there to greet us at the dock in Bethel along with a few other locals, who are marginally less hairy and better dressed than the zerkers we met last night. He tells us the Lunatic Ride is camped to the east of the town and so far they haven’t made any trouble.

“That’ll change, though,” he tells me. “Moondays start tonight.”

Moondays. Right. Now I remember what Dr. Pete told me about Anchorage, how it was one of the places that could get out of control during the monthly festival. And if that was how urban thropes behaved in Alaska, what would a bunch of feral Hell’s Angels do out in the middle of the tundra?

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“Your plane is all fueled up and ready to go. I’m getting Willy here to fly you instead; you understand I’m a little busy at the moment.”

A pire bundled in bulky, grease-stained rain gear—big black gum boots, yellow rubber slicker, ridiculous wide-brimmed hat, and a face mask that seems to be made out of duct tape and welding goggles—shuffles forward and nods hello; he reminds me of Paddington Bear after a horrible car accident.

“Much appreciated,” I say, “but only Eisfanger’s leaving. Charlie and I are going to hang around, do a little sightseeing.”

The look on Duvalier’s face makes it plain he thinks this is a very, very bad idea, but he doesn’t protest. He’s going to need all the help he can get over the next three days, and he knows it. He nods and says, “I’ll see you have a place to stay.”

“Thanks. Can you get me a vehicle to use, too? I’d like to go out and take a look at that camp.”

He hesitates; the look on his face now says this is a much worse idea than the previous one, and maybe he should also supply me with the number of the local undertaker to save time.

“Okay,” he finally says. “You want a snowmobile, or something on four wheels?”

“The second one.” I turn to Eisfanger. “Tell Cassius I’m playing a hunch, and I’ll keep him apprised of the situation.”

Eisfanger looks apprehensive, but he just shrugs and says, “Will do.” He and Count Paddington board the plane, it roars to life, and a minute later I’m watching them get farther and farther away in the sky.

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“Let’s go,” I tell Duvalier, and he leads us off the dock and into town.

Bethel is mainly an Inuit village, people who make their living from hunting and fishing. Hunting is largely a thrope endeavor, while fishing is the mainstay of the local pires, who trade their catch for caribou blood. I wouldn’t have thought of vampires as being especially able fishermen, but apparently it’s just as feasible to catch fish after the sun’s gone down. The long winter nights coincide with the fishing off-season, which gives the local pires lots of free time to spend in the great outdoors, under a sky lit only by the stars and the aurora borealis.

And the moon.

The village has lots of children, which shouldn’t surprise me; in small communities like this the concentration is usually on family. Sure, it has the untamed, dangerous feel of the frontier, but the frontier has always been defined by its colonists, and colonists mean children. So there are children—all thropes, at the moment—running around the streets, making snowmen, and having snowball fights. What’s disturbing is that almost all of them are barefoot, half of them are wearing shorts, and quite a few are riding bicycles with smaller versions of the wide, spiked tires on the zerkers’ bikes. Some of the kids are in were form, of course, running and rolling in the snow and snapping at each other playfully. Not as many of them are in half-were form as I would expect—I guess they don’t actually need fur to be immune to the cold, which would explain why Bearbreaker seemed perfectly at ease conversing in a blizzard while dressed for Arizona.