Valknut: The Binding (36 page)

And, with uncanny accuracy, he found her.

He turned toward her slowly, deliberately.
One eye had swollen shut, but the other glowed pus yellow,
transfixing her through the shadow. Lennie’s tattooed hand flared
and stretched toward Monte under its own power.

“
Esè!
” Monte called to the pack. He
pointed at Junkyard. “Smoke that bastard. Leave the girl to
me.”

Lennie watched her hand with trance-like
focus. Her fingers splayed wide. The skin on her out-thrust palm
burned with an electric fire that demanded release. This time,
something would happen. Let them come a little closer, and the
power would discharge, and then—

Abruptly, before she could release even the
tiniest spark, someone grabbed her from behind and yanked her
through the gap in the fence. In a crazed fury, she turned on her
captor. Sparks crackled between her fingers. A prelude. Every
nerve, every instinct screamed 
now
.

But it was Junkyard’s face that loomed into
her dazed vision. Not Monte’s. Not Fenrir’s. She fought to hold
back the power, to pull it back into herself. The fire in her hand
guttered and died. She slumped and would have fallen if Junkyard
hadn’t caught her. He lifted her to her feet and half-dragged her
away from the fence. His jaw muscles bunched tightly with worry and
anger.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“I—I was—” I was about to try my new,
god-like powers...

“Never mind.” He shoved her toward the train.
“Run.”

She didn’t argue. The power in her hand had
fled and the gangbangers were nearly at the fence. She drew a
breath and forced her legs to move.

The train had reached walking speed. Soo got
to it first and galloped toward the back end, looking for a place
to catch on. Lennie and Junkyard tore after her, spurred by the
sounds of their pursuers crashing into chain link. Soo shouted over
the train noise. “Cain’t see no ride. Nothin’ but tankers.”

Monte’s pack found the loose section in the
fence and poured through the gap. Three figures peeled away from
the rest and ran toward the train’s head end. The others charged
after their prey, trying to catch them before they boarded. Lennie
saw a ladder on the outside of the next tank car and pointed. “Can
we get on top?”

“Rather not,” Junkyard gasped. “Too easy to
pick us off.”

The gangbangers’ shouts grew closer. Soo
swore and tried to pick up the pace, but could only manage an
exhausted lope. Lennie wasn’t doing much better; a stitch stabbed
her side with every breath and her calves ached from running on
cinders. She couldn’t feel her pinkie toe at all. She was tempted
to take her chances hanging off the side of a tanker, but the
profile of the oncoming cars changed. Boxcars surged past a moment
later.

“There!” Junkyard pointed at an open door in
the side of an approaching boxcar. He and Soo stopped abruptly and
began running the other way. Caught off guard, Lennie skidded in
the cinders. The gangbangers were less than 50 yards away.

Junkyard dropped back, grabbed the door
latch, and swung himself up and in. Looked easy
when 
he 
did it.

Soo went next. She pulled Woody’s strap over
her head and handed the guitar up to Junkyard. Visibly exhausted,
she stumbled as she clutched at the door latch. She held on, legs
churning, but couldn’t get her feet under her to push off. Junkyard
tossed Woody inside, caught hold of Soo’s wrist, and pulled.

“Dang it, Junkyard!” she yelled between
breaths. “Even one—oof—scratch—on that guitar—an’ yer dog
meat!”

He hooked Soo’s rope belt with his other hand
and tossed her in after Woody. Not waiting to see where she landed,
he turned and gestured at Lennie.

Her turn.

The boxcar had pulled ahead of her while she
waited for Soo to board. She fought to make her rubbery legs catch
up. Junkyard’s gestures grew frantic and he pointed, yelling. Two
gangbangers were almost on her. Their eyes glinted yellow.

New life pumped into Lennie’s muscles. She
sprinted, grasped the door latch, and tried to swing aboard like
Junkyard. In a nightmarish rerun of the night before, her legs
banged into the doorframe and flailed in open air. She screamed, as
much afraid of her pursuers as of the grinding wheels. Junkyard’s
wild-eyed face swung into her vision. He grabbed her arm, ripped
her fingers from the latch, and yanked her halfway into the boxcar.
The lip of the doorframe cut into her stomach and her legs dangled
outside.

Junkyard shouted incoherently and pulled at
her arm. Too late. A gangbanger clamped down on one ankle and tore
Lennie from Junkyard’s grip. She kicked hard, freeing herself, and
then she was sliding backward, clawing rust and dirt and metal. The
doorframe carved into her underarms and she was flying backward,
staring facedown at the rushing ground, her palms skidding across
the metal floor.

Junkyard threw himself down and caught her
wrists. Her muscles screamed at the jolt of her weight and their
eyes met through outstretched arms. Then he heaved, falling on his
back. She shot inside and landed hard on top of him.

Soo stuck her head out the door. “That did
it. Ah don’t see how they’re gonna catch us now.” She pulled back
inside and wrinkled her nose. “Hooo-eee. What kind o’ cargo are
they shippin’? Smells like somethin’ crawled in here to die.”

Lennie hadn’t noticed the odor. She lay
gasping across Junkyard’s legs, with his knee in her chest, one
wrist still locked in his grip, and her face pressed against the
gritty, vibrating floor. Nothing had ever felt so comfortable—or so
safe. She closed her eyes and gave in to the tremors running
through her body.

“Woody!” Cursing fluently, Soo scrambled over
to her discarded guitar. She shot Junkyard a dirty look. “Even one
scratch, boy, and yer—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Dog meat.” He shifted
his legs under Lennie. “Uh, could you— move—just a bit.”

Lennie moaned. With a weak, “sorry,” she
rolled off him. The effort sent small, sharp pains through her
strained shoulders, but she didn’t think she was seriously
hurt.

Junkyard rubbed his thigh where her elbow had
been. The inconstant light cast his face in sharp angles and
flickering shadows. He looked away when she tried to meet his
eyes.

Soo sat cross-legged beside them with the
guitar on her lap, examining the battered wood in the moonlight.
Lennie couldn’t see how she could tell the new scratches from the
old. Finally satisfied, Soo began fiddling with the tuning
pegs.

No one spoke. Lennie was grateful for that.
Her mind was blank, and she liked it that way. No thoughts of loss
or pain, fear or death. Just let the rocking boxcar lull her like a
cradle and take her somewhere safe.

Junkyard wasn’t so content. He fidgeted
restlessly and his gaze darted between the dark corners of the
boxcar. “It really does stink in here,” he said. “That smell’s got
to be coming from somewhere.”

His voice was tense and he rose to his knees.
Lennie moaned softly. What now? Couldn’t she have just five minutes
of peace? Though there definitely was a stench hanging in the air—a
mixture of wet dog and rotting meat. Whatever made that smell had
to be long dead. Right?

She sighed and sat up. The way her day had
gone, the dead just might rise up and come after her. Reluctantly,
she peered into the shadows. The boxcar appeared empty except for
small, irregularly shaped mounds of debris along the walls.

“Hey y’all, lookee here.” Soo set the guitar
down, leaned into the shadow to one side of the door, and dragged a
battered army-issue pack into the patch of moonlight.

“Maybe some yard worker left it behind,”
Lennie said.

Soo zipped the pack open and rummaged. “Hmmm,
skivvies, socks, some matches, a church key. Oh, here.” She pulled
out a flashlight. “Ah hope the owner don’t mind if we borrow
this.”

She handed it to Junkyard and went back to
sifting through the bag. Junkyard swept the light slowly around the
boxcar, highlighting piles of debris, some rumpled packing paper,
and a push broom. A television with an old-fashioned, numbered dial
listed against one wall, near a corner. No boxes or crates.

“We seem to be the only cargo,” Lennie said,
relieved.

Junkyard grunted and began a more methodical
search of the boxcar’s interior. The light trailed slowly around
the outline of the other side-door. It appeared to be securely
closed.

“Oh, crap,” Soo said. Her whole arm was
inside the pack. “Ah don’t believe it.”

From the disgust in her voice, Lennie thought
she must have found the source of the odor. But when Soo pulled her
arm out of the pack, she was holding something small and
silver.

“This has gotta be Hotshot’s flask.” She
shook it. “It’s bone dry, too. Dadblasted idiot was skippin’ out on
us. He prob’ly stashed his pack here and passed out droolin’ under
some bush.” She let loose a few curses and threw the flask angrily
into the pack.

“No,” Junkyard said slowly. “I think he
caught the train.”

He knelt, unmoving, with the flashlight
directed at something stiff and lumpy at the base of the door
panel. A red blanket had been thrown over it. Lennie remembered
Hotshot huddled under that same blanket that morning, his eyes
shining with fear when she showed him her father’s picture.

“Shee-it,” Soo said hoarsely. “That’s the
blanket he got down in Santa Fe, last year. D’ya think
he’s...?”

“Yeah.” Junkyard’s lips hardly moved. “Yeah,
I do.”

He got up and moved closer, steadying himself
against the wall when the train hit a bump. For a moment, he just
stood over the blanket, studying it, as if reluctant to do anything
more. Lennie understood how he felt. Something about the shape, the
way the blanket draped over it, made her stomach ache with
foreboding. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she crawled closer.
Mesmerized, she watched Junkyard’s hand reach out, already certain
what would happen next. With a rough flick of his wrist, he jerked
the blanket aside.

The smell hit her first. She pulled away, her
lips curling back from her teeth. Road kill, sewer sludge, freshly
turned compost—she couldn’t quite name it, but it was worse than
any smell she had ever encountered.

Soo had come up behind Lennie. She swore
colorfully and turned her head. “Hoooo-eeee. Smells like...“

She fell silent. Lennie covered her mouth and
nose with her hand. Ignoring the hysterical warning that babbled
deep in her mind, she let her eyes focus on the thing that lay at
Junkyard’s feet.

At first she thought she was looking at a
second blanket, so white that it shimmered in the meager light.
Only it wasn’t cloth at all. It was thick, white string wound close
enough to obscure what lay beneath.

But the shape was undeniable. Feet, knees,
torso, shoulders. A body. The white string ended just below a bald
head.

Petey was all tied up
, Jungle Jim had
said, 
like a bug wrapped up by a spider.

Junkyard stirred beside her. His voice
cracked dryly. “That’s Hotshot, all right.”

“Shee-it.” Soo’s voice sounded strangled,
like she was fighting tears. “Dadblasted fool—why’d he light out
like that, by hisself?”

No one answered her.

Lennie couldn’t stop staring at the back of
Hotshot Bob’s pale head. Veins of red branched across his scalp, so
it looked like a great bloodshot eye. His face was turned away, but
Lennie could see the protruding handle of a knife. Blood coated his
neck and pooled on the floor. Not a drop of red marred the pristine
white of his cocoon.

Junkyard gently drew the blanket back over
the body and stood over it, head down, his expression grim. “Just
what the hell was your father involved in?”

That harsh, ugly voice didn’t sound like
Junkyard’s. Lennie looked up dazedly, an image of blood and death
still hovering in her vision. He turned toward her, one hand braced
against the wall, the other clenched in a fist. His face had turned
hard, eyes distrustful. It was the face of a stranger. And that’s
all he really was, she realized, feeling suddenly trapped and very
alone.

“M-my father had nothing to do with this!”
she said desperately, though she knew how it looked. “He was just a
simple school teacher. I never wanted any of this to happen. I just
want to find him and go home.”

“So you say. All I know is that you showed
Hotshot that picture and he bolted. And now...” He gestured roughly
at the body. Lennie dropped her gaze. She couldn’t bear to look at
either one of them.

The boxcar rattled abruptly and rocked as
though running over uneven track. Lennie swayed with the motion,
cast adrift in a dark and violent sea. She had no words to rescue
herself. At least, none that he would believe.

“Now, don’t be gettin’ yer undies all in a
bunch, Junkyard.” Soo’s voice sounded nasally, like she’d been
crying. “That killer’s been around fer months, an’ dead people been
showin’ up as reg’lar as the moon. Hotshot was just in the wrong
place at the wrong time, is all.”

“Think so? Let’s do a head count of all the
friends Lennie has made since last night. Jim is dead. Bones is
badly injured, maybe dead. Bill is preoccupied with the police, and
now Hotshot is dead. Either someone is working hard to keep Lennie
from finding her father...or they’re protecting him. Now, tell me,
Soo—how did the killer know who to kill?”

“What?” Lennie felt as though Junkyard had
plucked the knife from Hotshot and plunged it into her chest. “No!
That’s not—I didn’t—”

She had to tell him the truth. Ramblin’ Red,
the tattoo, the thing in the shadow, those weird women, Fenrir.
Everything. It probably wouldn’t help, but she had nothing else to
offer.

“I can tell you how the killer knew,” she
began. His frown deepened. She sensed the violence building in him
and added hastily, “It’s not what you think. Everything has been so
strange. Things keep happening that you don’t know about—”