Blood Rules (31 page)

“Why didn't you take one?” Mariah asked the shadow man.

The man laughed. “How much more harm would a biological attack have done to me?”

He uttered it with the agony of a person who'd given up before this moment had come along.

After a pause, Mariah said, “So you're sure you saw Stamp?”

“A young white-skinned male and a female with dark skin who's a few years older than he is.”

“Those are the ones,” the oldster said. So much for ditching Kid Trouble.

The shadow man added, “The last we saw of them, they were tracking some beast dogs who were on a trail.”

“Our trail?” the oldster asked.

“It could've been yours or any one of the hundreds of monsters who escaped.”

“Hundreds, huh?” the oldster said.

“It's been a thing of beauty. The monsters have been hiding on the outer limits of the hub, then taking down anyone who's tried to make it out. They're doing it with stealth so they won't be seen by satellites. And, thanks to the cover of these buildings in the hub, it's a good bet we're not being watched from above here.”

“And no one has contacted the government,” Mariah said.

“No humans, to our knowledge. But some very old vampires made it quickly to the nearest emergency comm station. However, before they left, they ‘met' with some General Benefactor authorities to perfect their voices.”

“They imitated the authorities on the comm,” Mariah said.

Hellfire, that was some kind of ability that vampires had. Did Gabriel even know he possessed this talent, too? He'd mentioned some kind of pamphlet he'd gotten from his maker, and that was all the education he'd received.

It scared the oldster sometimes—what Gabriel might be able to do if he realized it.

“The vampires told anyone on the outside,” the shadow man said, “that a mosquito was spotted within GBVille and destroyed, and they needed to close off the hub as a precaution, in case there were more around.”

The oldster grinned. The vampires had played on fears of a resurgent mosquito epidemic. Pretty damned smart.

The shadow man went on. “They explained the power malfunction by saying that a panicked grid employee was so intent on getting to a safer place, far from that fictional mosquito, that he carelessly programmed the babysitter software they use when they'll be away from their stations for a while, and the hub has been trying to get the juice back up ever since. They even said that a few monsters almost escaped before the sentinels contained them again, and that would explain any activity a satellite might have caught up there. Human-looking monsters, like you, have been barricading GBVille, keeping transits from coming in by pretending to be epidemic authorities in disease suits. The government wanted to send some reinforcements and medicines, but the vampires told them we were already well prepared.”

Mariah laughed incredulously. “And they think this story's going to hold up?”

“No one wants to come round a hub that might house mosquitoes. In the meantime, other monsters are literally running the asylum. The more bloodthirsty of them killed any and all authorities in there, as well as employees, but more levelheaded breeds have calmed matters by now.”

The oldster had fantasized about the monsters turning the tables—he'd even speculated as much to Mariah. But this?

This was amazing.

“What about the cops?” he asked.

“There's a new chief in town.” The shadow man sounded amused. “That particular vampire's been swaying the force's high-ranking officers and using them to instruct the lower employees to go about regular business for now.”

So the monsters had emerged. This meant that even the worrywart Gabriel wouldn't have to worry about using his powers in front of humans anymore.

Our own Shangri-La,
thought the oldster.
At least temporarily.

“The monsters are in charge of more than the asylum, then?” Mariah asked.

“That's right,” the shadow man said.

The oldster could almost feel Mariah looking in his direction, even in the dark.

This was what Gabriel had been talking about when he'd told them to fight back in the Badlands, before everything had backfired. Monsters were standing up, and the Badlanders had been the ones to start the process.

But how long
could
it last?

If the oldster had anything to say about it, this would be only the start of something.

The shadow man said, “The cops will keep instructing the citizens to take their pills until they know better, so as matters stand right now, we have the run of the hub.”

The oldster laughed. “Monsterville.”

“It definitely appears that way,” Mariah said. She simultaneously sounded afraid, pleased, excited.

The oldster's thoughts were flying round. When the Badlanders had used that power blaster, they hadn't done it for a higher reason than finding a cure for themselves. But look what'd happened.

God-all, the time to organize was now, while confusion still dominated. Was it possible that other monsters hiding outside this hub would hear about what was transpiring? And would
they
do anything or would this just be a sad, short chapter in the history of their entire demise?

Nearby, outside in the dimness, the clatter of running ones shook the ground—people who'd been too distracted to take the pills, although they hardly needed them to be controlled by the higher-ups. Humans, doing the same as they'd been doing before, hardly changing course because of a little old power outage or a mosquito.

When the clamor had passed, the shadow man said, “I want you to believe that at least one of us will always be around if you should return to the hub.”

His meaning was clear. The shadows were on the monsters' side. They were like guardian angels, but . . . different.

“And who are you?” the oldster asked.

“Leon,” he said. “They used to call me Leon when it mattered.”

Mariah's voice came soft and low. “It does matter. Thank you.”

When Leon answered, his tone held all the respect that a soldier has for a leader. “We will do
anything
to help you.”

Then, with a sudden blankness of space, he was gone.

But the oldster felt fuller than ever. The shadows were looking after them. Ever since Stamp had come to the New Badlands, the oldster had been longing for allies, just like Gabriel. Just like he thought Mariah could be, too.

And he was finding them, slowly but surely.

Life wasn't the same as before, and it'd never be the same again, but it was the creatures that refused to fight and move on that died off. The oldster was damned if he'd be a casualty.

Mariah's voice floated out of the darkness, but it was more fully formed than anything he'd ever heard from her, except for the night she'd been bound and determined to save Gabriel from Stamp during their Badlands showdown.

“So do we have what we came for?”

And there was so much more meaning to it than that. He hoped that he was hearing the first words from a new woman, someone who'd finally decided that an opportunity was here, and it was time to grab it.

“Yeah,” the oldster said, almost overcome by the magnitude of what lay before him. He'd lived a long time, and he'd been starting to think it'd been for near nothing. “I got what I came for.”

He reached out for Mariah, grabbing onto her shirtsleeve. “But there's just one more thing.”

She didn't protest as they moved into the dome area, circumventing the bodies until they came to the woman with the water necklace and indentured servants. This time the monsters didn't creep round, as if they'd be caught.

With a nod to the oldster, Mariah took out a machete from her backpack, then lifted one of the servants' leashes and sawed right through it. Her skin had a glow about it that the oldster had never seen before, and he couldn't help staring.

Where had she gotten that glow? Was it because of tonight?

The leash hadn't been designed to hold—it was meant to be a symbol of wealth and domination—and as Mariah cut into the second one, the oldster stripped off his clothing, packed it into Mariah's bag, then prepared to pick up the first freed young man so he could speed him to an improved place.

“Done,” Mariah said after making quick work of the third leash. “You ready, oldster?”

He thought of what Leon the shadow man had said about his name—how it'd been what everyone had called him when it mattered.

It mattered now.

“Just so you know,” he said, “my name's Michael.” Because that had been his name before he'd turned old and so-called useless.

Her eyes shone as she nodded, then discarded her own clothing before she underwent her change into a full werewolf, her body shooting tall, the hair sprouting, her mouth gaping with the fluid pain running through her. Then, opening her glowing eyes, the hulking she-wolf scooped up the two remaining indentured kids and flashed her elongated teeth, as if daring a cop or a waking hubite to recognize what she was.

Before the oldster changed into his scorpion form, he yanked the water necklace from the former master's neck. On the other side of the hub when he and Mariah set these freed people down, he'd leave the water jewels with them.

As the were-scorpion anguish took over his body with the change and the last of humanity left his consciousness, Michael knew that they
would
be returning to the hub.

And it would be in a blaze of righteous glory.

G
abriel found the note long before the oldster and Mariah came back.

He'd thought that the two had been gone a pretty long time on this hunting trip, so before looking for them outside, he'd decided to check the mine shaft, just in case they'd returned without his knowing it. Mariah hadn't been in her nook, and the only thing Gabriel had found in the oldster's place was a barebones message scratched out on a dark, flat rock near his belongings.

So Gabriel had waited, seething a little more with every passing minute.

When the duo finally sped into the oldster's nook, they immediately changed back into their human forms, fell to the ground because of their overextended muscles, then started laughing as if they'd performed some cleansing, wonderful joke on the world outside.

From Gabriel's spot by the entrance, he cleared his throat.

Laughs cut short, the naked humanlike duo trained their gazes on him.

Ignoring their state of undress the best he could, Gabriel gestured toward the rock.

“ ‘GBVille,' ” he said, having memorized the contents because he'd read the note so many times. “ ‘Getting info. Back by dawn. If not, you must leave
quick
.' ”

Mariah slid the oldster a glance that indicated the note could've been a whole lot more instructive, but there was something about her that snagged the greater part of Gabriel's attention.

A flush. Even a sort of glow. And it was over every inch of her skin.

She and the oldster pulled clothing out of her backpack, then dressed. With a brief glance at the older man, Gabriel noticed that his skin wasn't like Mariah's. She clearly hadn't gotten that glow from running free or anything they'd eaten.

“We can explain everything, Gabriel,” the old guy finally said, not sounding worried about the possible danger he and Mariah could've introduced to the group by going up to the hub.

Concern for the Badlanders' safety made Gabriel feel like its puppet, and he almost attributed that anger to his link with Mariah. It wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility for her to be upset with Gabriel for confronting her and the oldster.

But he didn't detect any hint of pique about her.

Instead, her glow kept his focus, her normally pale skin almost seeming to pulsate with a rosy flush. Her green eyes were alive with something he'd never seen before, too.

Confidence?

Gabriel definitely felt
that
in her now, and it was inching into him, too, via their link. But there was more to it than even that. She generally seemed more comfortable in her skin than ever. Or it could've even been something besides that—a change he just couldn't describe.

Whatever it was, Gabriel wanted it, too. And it was only now, after sitting here wondering if she would make it back alive from the hub, that he realized how impossible it might be to live without her influence on him, which was funny, since it'd been the other way around not too long ago. He'd offered her the peace to calm her down. Now,
she
offered
him
a connection that pounded with more than the hunger he normally felt for other prey. This thumping was more like a genuine heart inside him—the only one he thought he might ever have again.

Unable to resist, he allowed himself to meld with her, and it was the most profound moment he'd recalled in years—her beat, beat, beat of life within him. He could even say he was inches away from a certain truth in the black area that had once held his soul.

How was it that she goaded him to such bloodlust and, at other times, she allowed
this
to happen? How was she the bad and good in him at the same time?

Then Mariah said, “We went to the hub to see if anyone knew we attacked the asylum. We thought it'd be smart to find out if we needed to be worried about anyone besides Stamp. But our trip turned out so much better than expected.”

She looked into Gabriel's own gaze, sending him thoughts and images, faster than she'd ever done before during one of their mind connections.