In Blood We Trust (30 page)

She stomped up the slope, sand whisking around her boots. In her gray pantsuit, she made for quite a silhouette against the bulging moon—a first-night full orb that would be bringing out the worst in the were-creatures back in GBVille by now. Like last time, they'd be restrained; unlike last time, there'd be no damned 562 creature to take off Stamp's other leg or eat the Civils.

Stamp worked that crutch, climbing up the hill. He avoided looking at Mags, mostly because he was appreciating her way too much, his pulse quickening, his breath coming a bit short.

She reached the crest, waiting for him to catch up, and, when he got to the top, she spared a soft look at him—one of those that made him go weak.

With a big fuck-off to that, he made his way down the hill, keeping his gaze on the tiny shack just beyond. Four zoom bikes were parked outside.

“Hell yeah,” he said.

He thought he heard Mags lose a step behind him.

“You coming or what?” he asked.

“Just leaving some space between me and your barbed tongue,” she said.

He didn't engage her, instead making a hobbling beeline for the rotting porch where the door stood open, a flicker of candlelight welcoming and warm.

The moment he stepped into the doorway, all attention was on him. Behind the slab of a bar, a teen with her hair in prairie braids widened her eyes at Stamp, and he got the feeling that it wasn't just because he'd come in here with one less leg than he'd had when he'd seen her last time, when he'd tried to recruit her lover, Goodie Jern, to go monster hunting. The girl didn't even have her ever-present knife on the bar.

Struck by that irregularity, he looked to a corner, where a random passed-out drunk slept it off among broken chairs, his hat over his nethers. Then Stamp glanced at the two ex-Shredders sitting under a gutted chandelier at a rickety table with a lone, burning candle in the center.

He recognized Goodie Jern first off. She was a worn-down ex-Shredder who looked like an oldster with her stubbled head and used-up skin, albeit she wasn't too much older than Stamp himself. It was turtlegrape drink that had sucked her dry, probably just as much as the raw toughness that'd made her a good slayer in the first place.

Stamp expected her to say something cutting, like “The boy who cried wolf returns.”

But all she did was nod her head at him, her eyes fixed to his as if there were more to it than a greeting.

The same could be said for the man sitting across from her—a thirty-something guy with a wild look, probably because one of his eyes was buggy while the other was sewn shut. The rest of him seemed to be all wiry black hair and dirty hemp clothing. On the back of his denim vest jacket, Stamp knew he'd find the patched image of a skull and crossbones, then his name. Dicing.

Stamp's instincts flared—everything was just too off-kilter for normal—and he went for his shivs.

A nudge from his side stopped him.

He held up one hand, grabbing his crutch with the other, putting his balance on one foot and bringing up the device to swing it.

But the thing that had poked him caught the crutch just before it made contact with its head.

Time seemed to suspend as Stamp took in the sight: a petite preteen girl with long pale curls dressed all in blinding white. She had big clear eyes, a peace symbol burned into her forehead, and a chest puncher strapped to her back.

He waited for Mags to deliver some kind of follow-up from behind him at the door, but it never came.

With a quick look over his shoulder, he saw that she wasn't even there.

Goodie Jern spoke from the table. “The Witches got here just before you.”

If blood could simmer in a human, it'd be doing just that in him. Witches had taken over his career. His life.

Dicing said, “They aim to question us, Stamp, so you might as well take a sit.”

“They're obviously on some mission,” Goodie Jern added, and Stamp recognized her diplomatic voice, or the closest thing she had to one.

From the right corner of the room, where Stamp hadn't even had the chance to look yet, a young male spoke out, and his voice seemed gravelly from ill-use.

“Johnson Stamp, twenty-one, last seen near GBVille.”

Next to him, the Witch girl grabbed Stamp's arm, disturbing his equilibrium and then quickly righting it. She pushed up the sleeve of his asylum suit, touching the power-blasted, blank screen of the personal computer buried on the inside of his forearm.

When it didn't boot up, she let his arm flop down.

“Dead,” she said.

In the corner of the room, the male, who was just as blond, young, pale, and angel-white as his cohort, added, “Fried circuits.”

Then the girl spun Stamp toward the table. He hopped to a chair before he fell, then sat in it, his hands up as he targeted an ireful look to the intruders. Somewhere along the way, she'd relieved him of his shivs.

He saw his weapons in her hands as both Witches went to a corner of the room and looked at each other, communicating psychically. Stamp had heard that the upgraded Shredders would be able to do that.

His thoughts went into gear. Maybe this Witch visit had something to do with the Monitor 'bot out at the Bloodlanders' second homestead—the 'bot that the very dead Sammy Ramos had destroyed before Stamp had looked into its dying camera lens.

Had the Witches been waiting for Stamp so they could question him about the murder of government property?

No, that was too convenient a theory. They couldn't have known that this was where Stamp was headed . . . unless they'd been following him from GBVille and anticipated where he was going.

No way.

“What kind of mission are they on?” he asked the other ex-Shredders in a whisper while the Witches still communicated with each other.

“Who knows?” Dicing said. “They keep saying ‘Subject 562' over and over again. I think they're after it, whatever it is.”

Stamp didn't see the need to tell them about the uber-Red creature yet. It was gone, anyway. Disappeared.

So why were the Witches way out here searching for it when the last place the monstrosity had been seen was GBVille?

Goodie Jern seemed to have forgotten that she'd just about kicked Stamp's ass out of this shack the last time they'd met, when she'd told him that she was enjoying her retirement and he'd actually better do the same before the government took umbrage at his initiative in hunting monsters.

“What the hell's happening out there, Stamp?”

“You been having too much turtlegrape to stick your head out of the door and notice?” he asked. But the monsters had been good about stealth, taking everything over slowly, quietly. Nobody out here probably knew about the fall of GBVille.

He grabbed the edge of the table and leaned in, telling them about current events.

Afterward, he realized the Witches had been listening, gathering data from their discussion.

Then they must've heard something outside, because they stepped out the door to take a look-see.

Mags?

Goodie Jern said, “I've never seen a Witch before.”

“That's because they guarded monsters behind the walls of asylums,” Stamp said.

Dicing's one eye was wider than ever. “They say that their brains get downloaded with data. These new slayers are way more advanced than we Shredders ever were.”

“I guess,” Stamp said, “that their brains are even still filled with data after the power blast at GBVille because they aren't wired up like a regular computer.”

“They're stronger than we were, too,” Goodie Jern said.

“Can't you think about why that is?” Stamp asked. “I wouldn't be surprised if they were ‘downloaded' with vampire blood in those asylums.”

Every Shredder had learned that vampire blood infusions would invest humans with strength, a little bit of speed, and healing. And maybe any already-present psychic powers they had might be bolstered. Stamp was glad the government hadn't gone that far with
them
, the first models. Back then, there'd been some dignity in Shredding.

Goodie Jern cast a glance over to her braided companion behind the bar, then returned her attention back to the men. “This is a bad spot to be in, boys.”

Dicing kept his eye on the door. “All we have to do is see exactly what they want, and then they'll be out of our hair.”

“Don't be a turd,” she said. “Do I have to remind you that Witches are government employees? And that the government gave such a shit about us retirees that, after they cut us loose, they warned us to stay out of the monster business for good at the risk of censure? They didn't kill us off at that time, but who knows what they have in mind now? These Witches might've been sent to tie up loose ends with us after they finish questioning us about this Subject 562.”

Stamp kept his gaze on that door. What would those Witches do to an ex-Shredder who might've been caught in the sights of a dying Monitor 'bot? Had the government interpreted Stamp to be some kind of rebel who went around harming their equipment, some kind of retired malcontent getting his revenge on them?

This situation was adding up to an uncomfortable sum.

Dicing said, “Then we've got to try to get away from them.”

“No,” Stamp said. “We've got to get
rid
of them, but not by assassination. They're too fast and strong for us to ever pull that off.”

Taking the chance on assassinating them—and failing—would mean hell to pay if the government was still operational, and Stamp knew what kind of punishing tricks the government had up its sleeve. They hadn't made examples of terrorists in a while, mostly because nobody had done much public terrorizing lately, save for the secretive activities of the monsters. But killing a Witch would be considered an act of sedition. The Witches were obviously counting on that, too, or else they wouldn't be asking for info from ex-Shredders who might not be of a mind to cooperate.

“You heard me warn you about what's happening with the government and the monsters,” Stamp added. “But if the monsters take over all the hubs, the Witches won't have any bosses.” He emphasized this next part. “If these things ever go rogue, it's certain trouble. They're part monster with that vamp blood in them. How would it be with
them
in charge?”

“You're exaggerating,” Dicing said.

“Am I?”

The man got real quiet.

“Stamp,” Goodie Jern said, “if I find out that these Witches were tipped off to us because you tried to go monster hunting after you were told not to, I'm going to lynch you.”

Stamp's patience was fraying. “I think you're both not thinking straight. We've got a solution to our problem right in front of us.”

Now they were listening.

“These Witches are after Subject 562, right?” Stamp said. “So if we had something in our possession that would help with the Witches' hunt for this monster, they'd no doubt keep us alive, in spite of any fears we have to the contrary.”

“You mean, if we had something like information about this Subject 562 and its location?” Goodie Jern asked.

“Yeah. And I think I can eventually supply that.”

She leaned in closer. “Do you know where Subject 562 is, then?”

“No.”

Just as the two other Shredders looked ready to give up on him, Stamp said, “But that doesn't mean I lack the means to find out.”

He explained about the vengeful monsters he was tracking, told them how they were connected to Mariah and the beast she'd become, and how she might be on the run with Gabriel.

“Maybe those monsters I'm chasing,” he said, “would know Subject 562's location . . .”

“And,” Goodie Jern continued, getting his drift, “your quarry would make for some fine leads in locating the Witches' target.”

Exactly. “So the Witches would find it handy to have at least me—the one who's familiar with these monsters—around for the time being. And if I told them they should deputize
all
of us for that task, they'd weapon us up before taking us with them.”

Dicing looked astounded. “You're suggesting that we turn on them at some point?”

Yup. Stamp had no problem in getting the Witches to give him a weapon or two and then using them to get to Gabriel as rapidly as possible on those zoom bikes that they were about to claim. That way, he'd also have Witches to back him up—an option that was realistic and necessary to a one-legged Shredder who had the guts to take on a vampire and his friends, especially Mariah. But as long as Stamp got Gabriel in the end, he'd be content.

“If you have a better idea,” Stamp said to Dicing, “then have at it.”

Goodie Jern was already on his side, though. “If they were to deputize us, we'd be beholden to our vows to support the government. The Witches wouldn't expect us to turn on them. Hell, that's why they're not all over us right now—because they think that we, as veterans, still have an affinity for them.”

“Technically, we
wouldn't
turn on them,” Stamp said. “Besides, we never took vows to uphold the government, per se. We promised to defend this country and its humanity.”

And there was a difference, Stamp thought. Goodie Jern and Dicing seemed to realize it, too.

She was nodding. “Then what you're saying is that the monsters would take out the Witches for us.”

“But,” Dicing said, “we'd be honor-bound to fight our best alongside the Witches.”

“Well, who knows how we useless retired old Shredder models would do against full-moon-turned monsters?” Stamp said facetiously. “We might be so out of shape and practice that we'd have to retreat and leave the Witches to do the heavy lifting. Know what I mean?”