Wild Blood (22 page)

Jez pushed forward, her voice anxious. “What about the coyotero bitch? Is she traveling with him?”

“Yes,” Rend replied. “And he's never been happier.”

Jez's eyes narrowed into gun-slits. “Kill this fuck-up and get it over with. Then we'll do the same thing to the renegade and his coyote whore.”

They fell upon him as a group, burying fangs and claws deep into his struggling flesh as they tore him limb from limb. His death was quick, but far from painless.

Sunder squatted next to the empty kennel at the motel, his nostrils twitching. “I smell ulfr. Damn fresh, too.”

Jag frowned. “Rend didn't say anything about Skinner traveling with a half-wolf.”

“Maybe it slipped his mind,” Sunder grunted as he stood up. “Being killed tends to make folks forgetful.”

“Don't give me that shit, Sunder!” Jag barked.

“It wasn't fair!” Sunder snapped back. “So what if Skinner iced Hew and hightailed it with the Wolfcane? None of that was Rend's fault!”

“He's the one who brought the renegade into the Pack! Rend knew the rules—that's why he didn't fight back. He knew he failed the Pack and that he had to pay for his mistake. Now it's up to us to return the Wolfcane and avenge the Bitch-Queen's honor.”

Jag noticed that Sunder glowered at him for a long moment before finally turned away his gaze—something he would not have dared do a few days ago. Things were turning to shit, and fast. As much as Jag hated to admit it, Rend had helped balance out the personal chemistries of the band.

Although Ripper was eager to play the subservient toady, Jag knew the young drummer was extremely unbalanced, even by vargr standards. The only one who seemed to have any influence over his manic mood swings was Hew—and now he was dead. As for Sunder, he had always been something of a cipher. As far as Jag could tell, he preferred hanging out in the equipment van and smoking dope with Rend. And Jez—? Well, since the rut-melee, she refused to let him so much as touch her.

That would all change, once he killed the renegade. If he had refused to let Growler come between them, then he damn sure wasn't going to let a mongrel like Skinner get in the way.

The door to Room Eight burst inward with a single kick. Ripper bounded in, leaping onto the bed like an excited puppy.

“Where is it?” Jag barked. “Where is the Wolfcane?”

“Don't hurt me!” the traveling salesman pleaded, his voice still slurred by sleep. “My wallet is on the dresser—you can have it!”

“Where's Skinner?” Jag snarled.

“You mean the young guy next door?” the frightened man replied. “The one with the big dog?”

“Sunder—check Room Ten,” Jag snapped.

“Already did—it's empty.”

“What do we do now, Jag?” Ripper whined.

“They can't have that much of jump on us. They're headed into coyotero territory that much is certain.”

“Look, I don't know what your beef is with the kid and his girlfriend,” the salesman interjected, his voice quavering with fear. “Just please let me go, okay? I promise I won't call the cops.”

“Oh, I know you won't,” Jag said with a wide, sharp grin.

Three-hundred and fifty miles and five-and-a-half hours later, Skinner and Rosie made Butter Junction, Arizona. Root Woman was in her front yard, tending her spirit traps, when they arrived. The old midwife impassively watched the Caddy approach as she puffed on her briarwood pipe and tugged on the brim of her baseball cap like a third base coach signaling a run to steal home. Rosie jumped out of the car before it came to a full stop the moment she saw her grandmother. She swept Root Woman into her arms, lifting the old lady off the ground as if she were a doll.

“C'mon, Fella,” Skinner said to the half-wolf as he threw the Caddy into park. “Time to meet the in-laws.”

“Granny, this is the one who rescued me,” Rosie said as Skinner approached.

“Hello, again, Root Woman,” he said, touching the brim of his cowboy hat in greeting. “I don't know if you recall speaking to me.”

“Oh, I remember you, Mr. Cade,” the old woman replied. She raised an eyebrow as Fella trotted up and positioned himself at Skinner's right hand. “It would appear I misjudged you when you first came here. For that I'm truly sorry. You have brought my grandchild back to me after I thought her lost to me forever. How can I repay you?”

“You know who my birth mother is, don't you?”

“Yes, I do,” Root Woman replied as she nervously tugged on her baseball cap.

“I want you to take me to her.”

“Are you sure that is what you want?” the midwife asked pointedly.

“What I want is immaterial, now,” he replied. “I have to know who and what I am. I no longer have a choice.”

“Very well,” Root Woman sighed. “It's several hours journey from here. When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as possible—but first, I have to keep a promise I made someone.”

Skinner drove the Caddy down into a gully a couple miles beyond Root Woman's shack. He threw the vehicle in park and got out from behind the wheel, Fella tagging along at his heels. He reached into the backseat and pulled out a three gallon canister of gasoline. He then walked around to trunk and unlocked it. He grimaced as he opened the lid, breathing through his mouth. Fella balanced himself on his hind legs as he sniffed at the Hound's canvas-wrapped corpse.

“Get back,” Skinner warned. “You don't want any of this stuff to get on your fur.”

Fella whined and dropped back onto all fours, his head cocked to one side, as Skinner up-ended the canister, dousing the dead Celt with gas. Once the can was empty, he hurled it aside and fished a book of matches from the pocket of his shirt.

“I don't know if you're in any position to appreciate it, Shaggybreeks,” Skinner said, addressing the covering sky. “But I'm keeping my end of the bargain.”

With that he lit the matchbook and tossed it into the open trunk before running like hell, Fella at his side.

They left Root Woman's shack in a dilapidated pickup truck. Rosie was behind the wheel, steering the rusty old jalopy through dry washes that would have broken the axle of an all-terrain vehicles. After a half-hour Skinner's tailbone throbbed and his kidneys ached, while Rosie and Root Woman had made the trip so many times they no longer registered discomfort. Fella seemed to be enjoying himself as well, spending most of the ride rushing from one side of the pick-up bed to the other to bark at jack rabbits startled from cover by their passage.

As far as he could tell, they were headed south, in the direction of the Coyote Mountains. After they reached the foothills they could go no further in the truck. They would have to hike in the rest of the way.

“Are you sure you can make it?” Skinner asked solicitously as he watched Root Woman squat in the dirt to check her backpack.

In response, the midwife gave him a look so sharp it could cut glass. “I've been making my way through these mountains and back every month since I was old enough to take two steps. I've walked along trails no wider than my foot in pitch dark, carrying babies in both arms and eight months gone with a child of my own. I figger I can make it just fine; how about you, tenderfoot?”

“Granny!” Rosie chided. “Skinner was just trying to be nice!”

“Suggesting I'm feeble ain't my idea of being nice,” Root Woman sniffed. “All I can say is now's a good time for you to put that fancy conjuring staff you stole to good use. You're going to need a walking stick from here on in.”

“How does she do it?” Skinner gasped, two hours later. He wiped at his brow with a bandanna and took another swig from his canteen. The water was warm, bordering on hot, and tasted of metal. He grimaced and screwed the cap back on.

“Do what?” Rosie asked.

Skinner nodded in the direction of Root Woman, who was a good hundred feet ahead of them. The old woman was making steady progress up a steep hill that would make even a mountain goat balk, aided by nothing but a pruned-down branch from an aspen tree that almost as tall as she was.

“Hurry up, you two!” she called out over her shoulder. “If you don't dawdle, we can make the encampment by dusk!”

Skinner groaned and levered himself back on his feet, using the Wolfcane for support. Every step he took was a reminder that he had elected to undergo his quest in brand-new cowboy boots.

“Where's Fella?” Rosie asked.

“Last I saw, he was chasing a lizard.”

“Lucky him,” she grunted. “I could go for one of that right about now.”

“Come on, slow pokes! Time's a'wastin'!” Root Woman shouted.

“God, I hate colorful old geezers,” Skinner sighed.

They reached the coyotero settlement by sunset. Root Woman led them through a crevice so narrow they had to turn sideways to pass, which eventually widened into a small canyon. Tiny fires flickered above their heads from inside the caves that lined the walls of the surrounding cliffs.

A shadowy figure emerged from behind an outcropping of rock. The guard spoke in a tongue Skinner had never heard before, but it was clear from his terse tone of voice that they were being challenged. The sentinel, naked save for a pair of fringed buckskin pants, gave Skinner a suspicious glare.

Root Woman held up her hand and answered in the same language. The guard grunted and stepped aside, but still kept a mistrustful eye on Skinner. Root Woman mounted a handmade ladder and began climbing toward the upper levels of the cliff dwelling. Rosie and Skinner followed behind her, but Fella could not manage more than a few rungs before losing his balance. He whined and barked in agitation from his place at the foot of the ladder.

“It's okay, Fella,” Skinner called down to the half-wolf. “Nobody here is going to hurt us. He will be all right down here, won't he?” he asked Rosie.

“Don't worry,” she reassured him. “My people have no quarrel with those who live in harmony with nature.”

They got off the ladder at the third level, facing a huge natural cave. An adobe brick wall had been built along its front, turning it into a domicile. A young male coyotero dressed in denim jeans and wearing a beaded pectoral sat cross-legged before the doorway, carving a kachina doll.

“She's expecting him,” the craftsman said.

Root Woman nodded. “For how long?”

“She had a vision of the vargr renegade this afternoon,” he replied, his eyes flickering toward Skinner.

Root Woman pushed aside the antelope hide that served as the front door and motioned for Skinner to enter. When Rosie moved to follow, the old woman stopped her. “Wait here, child. I'll let you know when it's time to come in.” Rosie began to protest but the look Root Woman gave her kept her silent.

The interior of the pueblo was dark and smelled of wood smoke and dried herbs. A woman dressed in the pelt of a coyote, its empty head resting atop her own, sat in front of a crude hearth, prodding the fire with a long stick. The woman did not stop what she was doing, nor did she look in their direction as they approached her.

“Welcome, Skinwalker. I am Changing Woman, medicine woman of the coyotero. All who have questions they wish answered ask them of me.”

“I want to know the name of my mother.”

“That is not a question,” she said drily.

Skinner took a deep breath, trying to control his impatience. “I didn't realize this was Jeopardy. Very well: what is the name of my birth mother?”

The shamaness stopped what she was doing, but did not take her eyes off the fire before her.

“Well, do you know her name or not?” Skinner snapped.

The medicine woman turned to look at him, pushing back the coyote headdress, to reveal hair that gleamed like silver and golden eyes that glowed like freshly minted coins.

“Her name is Changing Woman.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Skinner stared at the woman who claimed to be his biological mother. Although he has long hoped for this moment, he had never dreamed it would arrive under sure circumstances. Despite all he had learned about himself since leaving Seven Devils, there was still one question left for him to ask.

“Why did you give me away?”

Changing Woman motioned for him to join her by the hearth. “What I am about to tell you is not the truth. But neither is it a lie,” she said. “There are many types of non-human who possess Wild Blood—some of whom are more dangerous, than others. They may take different forms, and live by different rules, but they all have their place in the world. In India there are the naga; the berskirs dwell in the Arctic climes; the kitsune lay claim to Asia; the bast prowl Egypt and Africa, along with the bouda. We, the coyotero, belong to this land, what the humans called the United States of America, just as the vargr belonged to Europe.”

“Where did all these creatures come from?” Skinner asked.

“Where did Mankind come from?” the shamans replied with a shrug. “Some say that we predated humanity, others say that we arose from Creation alongside the humans, yet separate from them. And others still believe we are the result of early humans offering up their children to the totem-spirits. Which origin is true? Or are they all false? Does it make a difference how we were created? All that matters is that we exist.

“All of those who possess Wild Blood also carry some degree of magic. But the vargr, in their bid to blend in with and compete against human society, turned their backs on the Wild and, in doing so, lost their magic. They have become corrupt, and now represent the worst in both Man and Beast. They have become thoughtless, cruel and rapacious; ruled by an appetite that can not be sated. The vargr are all belly and eyes. They desire all that they see. And that which they can not have—they destroy, completely and utterly.

“The first time coyotero and vargr met in the New World was over four hundred years ago. A vargr attached himself to a contingent of conquistadors in search of El Dorado. They attacked a peaceful village under the protection of the coyotero, raping the women and torturing the men in hopes of learning the whereabouts of this nonexistent ‘city of gold'.