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  Shawn gave Josh a sudden glance. Buckner let out a low whistle of appreciation. “That’s not bad, kiddo. Try the single first, all right? No reason taking risks you don’t have to.”

  The coffee came, finally. Janice gave us her sweetest smile. “Sorry about that. Had an important call.”

  Buckner let us finish one cup of coffee each, to ward off the cold, and then we were gone.

  “Okay, go get the dog out of the truck.” Buckner’s gaze traveled toward the small blind in the trees, and I wondered how well-hidden it really was. We were off of a small, dirt road, which was good—but the blind was fairly square, and the colors didn’t blend with the foliage at all.

  Still, wasn’t my place to argue. I went back to the truck, where Diesel was pawing the window. Was it really a good idea, bringing him like this? What if he betrayed our position, or got injured? I’d never forgive myself for either one.

  I considered it for a moment, and then pulled out my “leash”—two long bootlaces I had tied together for the purposes of this mission. I wasn’t sure if it met ASPCA standards, but he only weighed seven pounds, and it was good enough for my needs, so that was how we were going to play it.

  But when I tried to put it on him, he whined. I eyeballed it. Yeah, I’m not sure if that’s going to work either. I gave him a look, as if to say, Stay with me, all right? And carried him over to Buckner.

  “All right. So lesson one. The Balek maneuver has at least two people, but you can do it with as many people as you want. The first one is the shooter. That’s going to be me. And the second?”

  Moving faster than I imagined the old man could, he whipped out a hand. Instantly, a fierce pain blazed through the side of my arm. I screamed and clapped my opposite hand over it. Diesel erupted into a flurry of angry barks.

  “And the second is the bait.” He grabbed Diesel, and I heard the dog scream as well. My heart broke when I saw what Buckner had done—there was a tiny nick in the dog’s leg, no longer than my pinky fingernail, but from the way my baby whined, I knew it hurt.

  “What in the hell is your problem?” It was a question I was getting used to asking.

  Buckner clambered up into the blind, like a monkey scaling a tree, and my stomach sank. First of all, I didn’t have the upper-body strength to follow him. Second of all, if he was up there—and I was down here . . .

  “Wait—are you just going to leave me here?”

  “You’re bait. Be bait.”

  I did not like the sound of that. “You can’t do that! These things are going to kill me!”

  “That’s what my gun is for.”

  I shivered. “And what if you don’t make the shot? Or you fall asleep?”

  “Oh, stop being a pussy. I qualified at level twenty, and I’m so old I don’t need sleep any more. Between you and me, it’s Josh and Shawn you should be worried about. Shawn may be an all-around weapons master and trainer, but he only qualifies on a rifle or shotgun at level ten.”

  “But. . ."

  I half-considered just making a run for the truck, until I remembered Buckner’s description of what should have happened to me last time. Apparently, whatever these things were, some metal or glass wasn’t really an effective barrier.

  And I didn’t have the key.

  And it was dark.

  And I was bleeding.

  And I had Diesel.

  And I didn’t have a gun.

  I gave it a last shot. “Buckner . . . please?”

  As if in answer, a shoebox-sized package fell and thunked into the shadows at my feet. I bent over, ignoring the nagging pain in my upper arm, and picked it up with my right hand.

  Taxonomy and Identification of Known Bubbler Varieties

  It was a book.

  “Buckner?”

  No answer.

  “Buckner?”

  I sat on the grass. Diesel nuzzled into my lap, and with an absent-minded series of pets, I sighed and settled in to wait. Hopefully, this book was interesting enough to keep me awake.

  Then again, I didn’t see any way I was going to be catching any shut-eye.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was the sudden heat of my birthmark that woke me. Almost absent-mindedly, I tried to clap my hand to my collarbone. A sudden wrenching in my shoulder had my eyes snapping open—the hand was pinned to the ground. Glancing down revealed the massive bubbler book. I had made it as far as page three before checking out.

  Well, I never claimed to be a good student. After all, that wasn’t how most people wound up as truckers, although I had met some notable exceptions.

  Diesel, his nose tucked under his tail, stirred in my lap, and I ruffled my hands through his fur. I heard a short burst of static.

  CB?

  But . . . I’m not on the truck—

  “Target in choir.” Buckner’s voice, coming from somewhere above me, followed by a chirp. Another burst of static and then silence. I looked up, in his direction—

  My stomach sank, and ice filled my veins. Less than ten feet away stood a massive, hulking beast. At first glance, it resembled a bear—and then I saw the way its black fur pulsed, the oily highlights seeming to ripple across its surface like moonlight across water. It lowered its head and lifted a lip, exposing a mouthful of fangs.

  It couldn’t be—it’s not—

  Bubbler.

  I blinked as an insane thought swirled around in my head. Not “in choir.” Target “acquired.”

  I opened my mouth to scream, but my chest and lungs were in a vise, and the only sound that came out was a wispy “Ha.”

  Diesel’s ears flicked up, and his eyes popped open. His black nose wriggled once, quickly, and he leaped out of my lap, in the direction of the creature. Instantly, he was a barking, snarling puffball, his back bristling with the spines of his gold fur.

  “Diesel, no!” My inability to speak left me. I reached out for him while stumbling to my knees. He didn’t look at me though—instead, his whole body quivered with attention and energy, and all of it was fixed onto the shadow in front of me.

  And then, in the corner of my vision, I saw another shadow, a moving mass just as large. My collarbone seared with heat, enough that tears sprang to my eyes.

  Please let it be anything but—

  The second bubbler was slimmer, its legs so long and thin it looked like it was perched on stilts. It raised one of the legs, and a sick ripple ran across its black surface. It bared its fangs, its gaze fixated on me—

  And then both of them started to growl, an aggressive, buzz-saw cacophony that made me want to pee myself.

  Instinctively, I knew that if I ran, the two of them would be on me. That didn’t give me any hints as to what I should be doing, though.

  A hiss of static. “Take the—” More static.

  The thin one’s ears radar-dished around for a moment, tracking the noise.

  “Come again?” Buckner. “I said I’ll . . . and you can . . . unless. . ."

  I almost laughed. Of course the communications equipment would fail now. Wasn’t that how these things always went?

  “Shawn, I can’t hear—”

  It was at that moment that the bear bubbler leaped toward me. Before I had finished my turn, I felt a thick, heavy weight knock me flat. I could smell it, a pungent stench like hot garbage. Trails of fire seared up my back, and I knew it was tearing at my skin.

  “No!” Was that Buckner? Shawn? Josh?

  Was it me?

  Some instinct kicked in, and I tried to roll. I heard a flurry of snarls, and the weight on my back suddenly relented—enough that I was able to flip myself all of the way over and find my feet.

  I started to run, and then I heard the bark. It was Diesel.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and shame filled me like lead. It didn’t matter that I was human, and he was a dog. There he was, dancing around the bubbler’s legs, his teeth nipping as he darted back and forth. He was artful—but more important than that, he was brave.

  “Char
lie, run!” It was Buckner.

  My legs started to obey as if autopilot, but some part of me, unwilling to just abandon Diesel, fought back, and I stumbled like a drunk.

  “Run, goddamnit!”

  Finally, I managed to coordinate my steps. Seconds later, I heard long, grating scream. For a second, I thought it was the sound of a trailer flipping, the metal twisting and groaning—but it had come from the thin-legged bubbler.

  I sped up, even though my back was a blinding mass of pain, and my heart was breaking. I couldn’t stop, though—my fear was like a whip that threw me forward.

  I heard a crack and another, and the scream died. Instantly, the only sound was a light breeze circling around in the trees.

  I ground to a halt and looked back. My heart leaped to see the tiny form that was straggling toward me. He had a few cuts and was covered in black sludge, but Diesel looked surprisingly good—alive, at least—and behind him, both bubblers were on the ground. The thin legged one had a messy hole in its throat the size of a half dollar, and the bear? Half of its face—including one eye and part of his forehead—was completely missing.

  My eyes welled with tears, and I clutched my hands into fists. What had happened here?

  Guilt and shame immediately washed over me in a huge wave. Dog or not, how could I abandon him to these creatures, when he so bravely leaped into battle for me?

  And after watching Chris sacrifice his life for the common good?

  I should have fought back. Instead, I’d just bolted like a selfish coward.

  Diesel limped toward me. I wanted to swoop down and hold him, but I didn’t move. He deserved something better than me.

  And then he reached my feet and whined, and my heart broke all over. I kneeled and picked him up in my arms, ignoring the blaze of agony in my back.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. He licked my hand and whined again, and I ruffled the fur on his head and scratched his ears.

  “Why didn’t you run? It was almost impossible to get a clear shot!” Shawn’s reprimand was like a slap in the face. “I’m supposed to shoot you if you don’t get clear, did you know that? I almost had to—”

  I turned away, and his rant died off—probably at the sight of my back, I realized.

  I ran my hands over Diesel’s body. Except for a bad gash on his leg, most of his wounds were fairly superficial. Somehow, he had managed to avoid most of the teeth and claws. In the back of my head, I could hear a buzzing, and my limbs started to go numb.

  Did bubblers have poison?

  I tried to ask the question, but my lips weren’t answering to my orders anymore.

  A ruffle of movement to my left. I blinked and glanced up. Buckner’s face had half-dissolved into fuzz. “I’ve already sent for emergency medical—they should be here in less than fifteen minutes.” He laid a hand over mine. “Sorry, kiddo, but we can’t just take you a normal hospital.” He ruffled Diesel’s ears with a smile. “Wow, Charlie. That is some familiar.”

  I grunted. The vortex of urgency I was in was already starting to fade—something about . . . about poison, wasn’t it? Like when Joseph had hypnotized me, I was losing track of my thoughts.

  “I mean, that was really brave—and skilled, too, baiting the one like that. I didn’t know if Shawn and Josh were going to make it in time.”

  I grunted again.

  “Some familiar?” The exasperated sigh took me a moment to place—I could see his face, the dark, handsome lines. I giggled. What was his name again? “She was almost killed.”

  “Kiddo, I know what I’m doing! You really think I’d let my apprentice die?”

  “After what happened to the last one—”

  “Especially after what happened to the last one. I know what I’m doing—hell, you know what you’re doing. The fat one was obviously the leader—the other would have never actually touched Charlie, not until it had verified its mate’s death or had been given permission.”

  “There’s no way you could have known that from up in the blind—”

  The edges of my vision got darker, fuzzier. Hadn’t I been here before?

  “There is, and it’s called I’ve been doing this since before you were born!”

  “You could have made a mistake—it’s not like you’ve never done it before.”

  “Guys—”

  The third voice dissolved into a fit of frantic barking. I tried to look up, but my body was already falling toward the ground. My gaze missed its mark, and everything went black.

  “Wake up, would you? I can’t stay long.”

  I remembered the male voice.

  Um . . . Shawn . . . he was handsome . . . but mean, though, wasn’t he? The thought unsettled me, and I tried to pull away, but my limbs wouldn’t move. I could feel something soft under me—a bed—and there was an engine roaring . . . I like engines. I like tractors. I like . . . trucks? “What . . . dark. . ."

  “Shut up, and listen to me. It’s dark because we’re in the back of a van. They’re going to take you to a medical unit, and I don’t know what comes next. Things are happening that shouldn’t be happening, and you’re at the center of it, you understand me?”

  I groaned. “I don’t—”

  “You have to trust me. The Cronus—he wants something from you. I think . . . I think he might be trying to kill you. He can’t directly—but if he can make it look like an accident? I don’t know. And I don’t know if you can trust Jeff, either—he should have never let the bubbler get so close before taking it out.”

  “I—”

  “I thought there’d be more time. Why couldn’t you have just left when I told you to? Why did you have to be so stubborn? I was trying to save you from this—give you a chance at having a life, but instead you have to get caught up in this and now? I don’t know if I can save—”

  “I don’t—”

  A flash of light broke across the inside of the van, and Shawn suddenly appeared in clear focus.

  “What are you doing in here? You can’t be in here!” The voice was authoritative, angry, tinged with the nasal tones of bureaucracy and self-assigned importance. I could see the little, almost square man standing by the door. He was so outraged, he was quivering.

  He looked so . . . silly. I giggled.

  And my vision suddenly shrank down to a point as Shawn leaned in. His scent wafted to me, rich and fresh, exotic, sensual. I felt pressure on my lips—his lips on my mouth. I tried to protest, and then a heat overtook me, fierce and angry. My chest swelled, and my stomach dropped.

  It’s this. The realization was like a firecracker, exploding across the dark numbness of my brain. This was what I had wanted—this was what I had always wanted. Why had he stood in our way? Why couldn’t he have been kinder to me, more open?

  And then those thoughts, too, faded away, as the entire world around us shuddered to a screeching halt. We were melding together, our kiss mingling our essences.

  His lips pulled away, and my world swam back into focus. I could still feel the afterglow of it, warm colors that danced like fireflies at night. Underneath was a blankness, a cleanness, like we had peeled away the bull-shit and childishness of the last few days, and our true feelings had finally been allowed to show themselves.

  Shawn laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Ha, sorry about that. She’s almost out, and I thought it would be my only chance. You know that when she comes around, she’s not going to be in the mood for anything more.”

  He wasn’t talking to me.

  My disappointment stabbed in, swift and fierce. That was just . . . a ruse? I tried to find his eyes, but he wasn’t facing me anymore.

  This couldn’t be real.

  “I don’t know, I think I have to report this still.”

  “Ah, come on, do a guy a favor. I mean—you’d have wanted to know, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m married.”

  “Well, I’m not. And I’ll probably never get the chance to be. Can’t you understand—I mean, that was my first
kiss!”

  Was it? I doubted it.

  The medic snickered. His gaze flitted from Shawn to me, and then to Shawn again. “All right, but just this time, and only because the Cronus is in a shitty mood, and I don’t want my ass handed to me. You ever pull anything like this again, and you’re answering to him, not me.”

  “Deal.”

  They both got out, and the doors closed, plunging me back into darkness. It was too late—he couldn’t hear me, I knew that—but still, I called his name, just in case.

  “Shawn?”

  Of course, he didn’t answer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Where’s my dog?” I flung the tray back at the orderly.

  “Calm yourself, woman!” The scrawny man ducked, but too late, and I scored a direct hit. Great beige gobs of oatmeal spattered against his black hair. His face beet red, he reached up and pulled out a glop.

  “Your food’s crap anyways! And I want my dog!”

  “He will be delivered to you shortly.”

  The new voice came from behind me. I had just enough time to watch the orderly turn white, and his mouth fall open before he stiffened into a quick salute. “S-s-sir!”

  Unable to stand, I still spun as well as I could to see who had spoken. My back lanced fire, but I grit my teeth. “Who are you?”

  The old man had salt-and-pepper hair and a well-groomed beard that gave off a distinguished aura. He stood, relaxed, calm, seemingly unnerved by the sight of the breakfast-plastered room. As if sensing my difficulty, he walked around to the front of my bed, and I straightened myself back into a more comfortable position.

  “Child, I am the Cronus.”

  A series of prickles ran across my skin. The Cronus? I had heard of this man numerous times—the most recent being in the back of the van, when Shawn had warned me that he wanted me dead. Before he kissed me—my mind blazed with a mixture of lust and disappointment.

  Could I trust Shawn, really?

  “What do you want?” I tried not to sound petulant, but it was hard, seeing as how I had just thrown a tray across a room.

  “I merely wanted to come here and observe you. We have a unique prophecy—”