Wrath and Bones (38 page)

“Garlic?” It wouldn’t repel a feral revenant, but rubbed on our throats, it would sting their tongue if they got a mouthful of neck meat. It
might
give us an extra second to writhe away.

Declan shook his head. “None for me, thanks.”

Batten pulled a flask from his bag: his holy water/Brut. “How’d you get that past everyone?”

“It’s just cologne,” Batten lied, uncapping it and slapping more on. I offered him the nape of my neck, moving my hair aside and pulling down the scarf and the collar of Harry’s wool coat. His rough hands coated me liberally with holy water from chin to shoulder.

“Again, not for me,” Declan said, eyeing it uncertainly.

I asked, “Would it hurt you?”

“Crosses never bothered me,” he reminded me. “I’ve never tried holy water, but this doesn't feel like the best time to experiment, Dr. B.”

I felt the ridiculous urge to whisper, though if they were feral revenants, they’d have heard us coming, and picked up every word we'd already said. I glanced back the way we’d come; going back meant facing the hate-filled snarl of Elana Vulvolak’s more-than-capable-of-murdering-me Second, whose name I did not recall. Seemed like a little detail I should remember if the dude was going to bash my head in with a shovel.

“I guess we know why that Vulvolak broad and her Second didn’t follow us out the back door,” I said. “Risk encountering ferals? Guess they’re smarter than us.”

Declan nodded. “Master Malas warned me not to take the back door. He didn’t elaborate.”

The containers wouldn’t hold much longer. Not with Batten and I smelling so strongly of fresh, hot blood, and our human hearts beating a lively rhythm. Declan’s
dhampir
heart beat, too, endlessly on, but whether or not the ferals were drawn to him was a question mark.

“Can we sneak past them?” Batten hadn’t bothered dropping his voice.

Declan stared off in the distance, deep in thought.

I couldn’t imagine a way, scanning through all my knowledge, jumping among scientific, unnatural, and magical. Hide from the preternaturally enhanced senses of the undead? Not fucking likely. The things in those shipping containers could smell minor differences in our blood, our hormone levels, our sweat, our pheromones, the shampoo I used yesterday, and the holy water Batten wore that was stored in green glass Brut cologne bottles. Whether they were capable of clear thought or had been driven mad with bloodlust, the feral revenants could hear our pulses as they raced; they could have diagnosed a heart murmur. Sneak by them? No.
Get
by them? Maybe. I watched ideas flood Declan’s face and felt him vibrate on the edge of hope. 

“They already know we’re here,” I said. “Possibly the chains will hold. To be safe, can they be made less interested in us?”

Declan nodded, following my train of thought. “I’m the only one of us that can outrun them if they escape.”

“I don’t like the idea of using you as bait,” I told him.

Batten reasoned, “Only way to get past this area, unless you want to go back.”

“You clobbered a servant of House Vulvolak in the face,” Declan reminded me, “with a shovel.”

“He shoveled me first!”

“You knocked out his front teeth, Dr. B.”

I tried to snort-laugh that away. “He doesn’t need teeth.”

“Vulvolak will be waiting for you,” Declan said. “We can’t go back. I’ll go hang on the south side of the shipping containers and distract them with a sea shanty while you hurry to the coastline.”

Something caught my eye, flicking behind the stark, black iron fence to duck behind the shipping containers: a white-haired blur. I heard the rattle of buckles again and a far more disturbing clank of chains.
Folkenflik.
How had that bastard loped around us from north to south so quickly? What the hell was he doing by the containers? A horrible possibility occurred to me. I shouted a wordless, garbled warning but Declan was already launching toward the fence. He’d never make it in time. Batten was at his heels, his gun cupped in both hands.

“This way, dummy,” I yelled at Batten, but Kill-Notch was rushing
toward
the danger of the shipping containers and probably to his death. I’d sign him up for a Darwin Award if I made it out of the Olmdalur alive.

The Blue Sense flared to report behind me:
hate, revenge, hurt her, hurt her!
I whirled to face whatever was barreling toward me.

Very human teeth snarled at me as their owner bolted across the ice. Pouty lips. Freckles. Red hair. I took off directly towards her, and in three quick steps, aimed a flying knee at her diaphragm. Georgina Harris of House Buryshkin grunted on impact and went down, but she recovered quickly, rolling to her feet in time to catch my fist in her mouth. I felt teeth graze my knuckles and split the skin.  She stumbled back, wiped the back of one sleeve across her mouth as she regained her breath, and kicked at me without warning, leg flying to meet my chest. My training kicked in and I grabbed her foot, using her own momentum to pull her leg into my right armpit. Grabbing her knee, I twisted until she lost her balance, and then threw her back down to the bare ice.

I shouted a wordless cry at her, dropping my knee on her ribs and grinding my weight into them. I pulled her knee up and hooked it with my elbow, locking her in a ground hold. She squeaked and thrashed, slapping at me ineffectually with one flailing hand. Bucking, she rolled me off. I came back at her, cracked her one in the jaw with my elbow. She threw a right hook, but I ducked inside her swing to dodge it; I slipped on the ice and went down hard on one knee, and Georgina ended up swatting me upside the head with her coat sleeve.

I heard boots thumping hard snow behind us and over the sudden belting of Declan hollering the lyrics to Drunken Sailor, the jingle of crap in Batten’s pockets.

“Marnie!” he shouted. “Get up, get up, they were released!” His voice came in panting barks. “Ferals are loose!”

My brain went from throbbing with fresh pain to black with mad panic. My body wasn’t moving, while my alarm bells screamed,
You’ll never outrun ferals. We’re dead. We’re all dead.

Declan was a bouncing distraction, waving his arms and yelling, “Weigh-hey an’ up she rises! Weigh-hey an’ up she rises, ear-lye in th’mornin’!” It might have been comical if I wasn’t seeing stars.

“Marnie,” Batten bellowed. “
Go, go go
!”

I snapped out of my frozen panic. Quickly abandoning the DaySitter, I sprang up and bolted after Batten like a gazelle, lunging over knee-high clods of snow instead of plowing through. I could hear a high, keening yowl of hungry revenant behind us and the hollow banging of corrugated metal.
Another? How many?
My heart hit high throttle as I urgently picked up speed. I saw Declan at our side for only a flash before he peeled away to the north. I was aware of the throbbing scrape across my knuckles and the hot beads of blood there. The scent of fresh blood on the air would draw the ferals. I tried not to flash back on the time Harry was driven feral by Ruby Valli’s black magic, the way his eyes had spiraled past chrome to pure white, all recognition fleeing as his ravenous, primal instinct to hunt took control.  I hoped that Georgina's mouth was bleeding more freely than my fist was, and tried to stanch the flow with the cuff of my sleeve.

“Heads up!” Kill-Notch barked.

Batten broke away from my side and I saw why: he bodily intercepted the eye-blurring streak that flew in my direction. I gasped and skidded to a halt, turning to assist, raising one un-bloodied fist, as if it would help. Anyone else meeting Batten’s solid impact would have been knocked back, but this was an immortal, and a feral one at that. Short black hair sticking straight up like an electrified mad scientist, the feral plowed through Batten’s lunging tackle with barely a pause in his step, as if he was a butterfly trying to chop block a linebacker. Batten went flying in a mass of arms and legs, though he quickly got himself under control.

The feral stopped to train his hungry eyes on mine. I dropped my gaze to his chin and readied myself to take flight to one side or the other. Batten rolled to his feet behind the revenant as its fangs came out, glistening with saliva. It bayed, a long sound full of anticipation and delight. I’d never felt more like a fast food dinner in my life.
Marnie McNuggets, hot and ready. Want fries with that?

The Blue Sense told me the feral didn’t like that I’d stopped running. It –
He? Was there enough mind there to elevate it beyond the bestial? Maybe there was –
vibrated on the edge of pouncing at me, and though he was wound up, he wasn’t panting like Batten. Holding preternaturally still but still radiating anticipation, shoulders hunched, head cocked, studying my throat with intense interest. He wanted to chase his dinner, play with his food. This one didn’t like a submissive throat, and even in his madness, his preference broadcast itself; he wanted fight or flight. I wondered if adrenaline made our blood taste different. As long as I was standing still, he was going to wait. Unfortunately, he could effortlessly maintain this standoff for days until I collapsed from exhaustion, exposure, or hunger. Judging by the length of his fangs, he was older than Harry, and had probably grown very good at waiting for mortals to move the way he wanted them to. A single thread of saliva hung from his chin and swung in the fitful breeze, which was creepy as fuck against the absolute lack of movement on his part. Intensely watchful statue impersonators shouldn't drool, ooze, or want to tear my face off.

I took a deep, calming breath, not daring to take my eyes off this one even to check if anything else was coming up on me. I could hear the sounds of bodies in motion and ice crackling, but I didn’t have the guts to glance to either side. There was at least one DaySitter and a werefox in the area, and more ferals.

“Okay,” I whispered at the feral, whose bottom lip trembled. The Blue Sense flared to offer his excitement, but I’d have to be pretty dense to have missed that already. His primal need spilled into my veins, and I felt a moment of sympathy; I knew what it was like to ache that badly.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do, you and I.”

Moving nice and slow, I showed him my bare, empty hands. He seemed to taste the cold air in front of him, cocking his head to one side. I sensed Batten moving to my left but I didn’t want him involved. I heard that horrible yipping again behind me, and knew Folkenflik was nearby.

The feral’s attention was not entirely fixed on me; his preternatural senses swept his surroundings with ease. Batten couldn’t sneak up on him, but the hunter knew that. Furthermore, Batten had no weapon besides a gun; bullets would just piss this thing off. My legs trembled with tension, waiting for the feral to dart forward, or to decide Batten was a better meal. I pursed my lips and let out a long stream of hot, moist breath in his direction, moving one careful step closer. A hungry shudder rocked his lower half. I didn’t dare meet his pure white eyes, but staring at his slavering fangs wasn’t much better for my confidence.

My throat tightened, but I kept inching forward toward him. “What’s your name, sir? Do you know it? Do you remember?” I made sure my Keds were gripping the ground well in this area in case I had to move quickly; I had no delusions about outrunning him, but I could dive and dodge in a last ditch attempt. “What’s your house? You’re out here because you’re out of control but they can’t afford to kill you. What house, sir?”

His clothing showed me no clues: plain grey that might have once been beige or white. Much of it was frayed and gaping. Frostbitten flesh showed through, spots that were slowly healing with sluggish, underfed revenant magic, and spots that were freshly injured. I knew how badly Harry felt the cold, how it ached in his bones. I had a sudden protective urge toward this feral, even as his flashing eyes trained in on my throbbing jugular.  I wondered if Batten’s holy water cologne on my throat would give him any pause; his animal appetite might just ignore the burning of his lips.

“We’re gonna put you back in your place now, sir.” I bit down hard enough on my bottom lip and was cold enough not to feel too much pain. The hot tang of blood filled my mouth and I used my tongue to lace my lips with it.

Now I had his undivided attention. I tensed to run, taking one last second for a mental pep talk.
Don’t look back. Don’t stop. Keep your eyes averted
. Another feral wailed in the distance, a high, keening alert. The one in front of me answered on the wind then growled at me from deep in his throat. He felt my preparations, eager for me to run.

I pitched into motion, but my damn Keds slid and I went down hard on the ice. I flipped over to my back with a desperate squeak, arms up to defend myself, but he hadn’t given chase.

Instead, I saw Declan squaring his shoulders at the feral revenant beside Batten. The feral had pressed in upon an invisible wall so hard that his nose had flattened, his short black hair was mashed to one side at the hairline, and his drool was dripping straight down instead of spraying in frustration at the
dhampir
.

Declan’s arms shook with effort, and he ground out, “Go, both of you.”

We didn’t wait to hear more. Batten watched to make sure I was on my feet again then bolted for the coastline, pelting over the uneven ground. We leaped over several long, snaking mounds in the crusty ice, one after another, making like we were doing Olympic hurdles over octopus-like snow dunes.

A high shriek cut my running short and I skidded to a halt.

DESPITE THE FACT THAT SHE’D
just tried to punt me across a snow field, I quickly retraced my steps to double-check that Georgina Harris wasn’t lying in a broken heap in the ice. Or maybe all I’d find left was a crimson stain and a shoe. I heard Batten bark a censure at me for not following orders, but I couldn’t just leave a fellow DaySitter to die. She may have been a homicidal buttroach, but I hold myself to higher standards.

Georgina was on her back, spread-eagled, her red hair spread around her like a halo of spattered blood, knotted with snow. She writhed beneath a voraciously-feeding feral whose excitement had him trembling and pumping his hips. I admit, part of me thought
, that’s what you get for turning them loose, dumbass.
There was a split second that I considered leaving her there, but that wouldn’t be the capital-R Right thing to do. I bolted behind the shipping container and nearly collided with Declan, who was propping the door closed with one shoulder and breathing heavily.