Wild Blood (12 page)

For the first time since he'd discovered the truth about himself, Skinner wondered if his journey might end in something besides the death house.

“Are you sure about this, Creighton?”

“Sure as shit! Believe me, Skin, nothing is gonna go wrong. All we gotta do is walk into the store, I point the gun at the clerk, you clean out the till, and then we hightail it outta there before the cops show up. It's foolproof!”

“Have you ever held up a store before?”

“Sure, plenty of times! There was that package store in Arkansas—did three years for that. Then there was that gas station in Oklahoma—did five for that 'un …”

“Forget I asked,” Skinner sighed.

“You worry too much, kid. That's the problem with straights and suits. They spend so much of their time worryin' they don't do shit cause it might not work. Me, I never let that bother me. If I need something, I take it. Or try to, anyways. It's instinct, man. You gotta learn to go with it.”

Skinner shuddered. “That's what I'm afraid of.”

They waited until after midnight to pull the job.

Creighton picked the convenience store earlier that day by loitering around its magazine rack, thumbing through magazines with pictures of tattooed women while he kept one eye on the register.

“We should be able to get a couple hundred bucks, easy,” he explained. “They're one of them small independent stores, not like Circle K or 7-11. They don't have one of them damn time-lock safes where you can only get thirty, forty bucks out every ten minutes. I hate those fuckers.”

The cashier was a slightly overweight young woman with hair that was blonde at the ends and dark at the roots and a fondness for eye makeup, and was dressed in a synthetic blouse emblazoned with the store's logo on the breast pocket. She barely glanced up from her Smartphone when Skinner entered the store and pretended to browse.

A couple of minutes later Creighton walked in, hands in his pockets, and headed for the beer case. He selected the most expensive brand and strode purposefully to the checkout counter. Skinner snatched up a bag of chips and moved to join him, doing his best to look casual even though his heart was beating so hard it felt like it was trying to jam itself between his ribs.

“Anything else, sir?” the cashier asked as she rang up the purchase, her breath made sickly sweet by the cud of gum parked in her cheek.

“Yeah, I'll take everything you have in the drawer,” Creighton replied as he pulled the .38 from his pocket.

The cashier stopped chewing her gum and stared at them as if she'd been turned to stone. Creighton swore and motioned for Skinner to empty the register. Skinner tried to keep his hands from trembling as he reached for the money, but all that was in the register were a fistful of singles and a couple of five dollar bills.

“Is that all?” Creighton asked, his eyes suddenly darker than Skinner had ever seen them.

The cashier's fear came off her in waves, the scent hot and rank. There was something erotic in its smell and Skinner felt himself become aroused. The trembling grew worse, only now it wasn't just nerves that made his hands shake.

“I said is that all, bitch?” Creighton repeated, prodding the terrified cashier's shoulder with the barrel of the gun.

She nodded dumbly, her eyes never leaving the gun.

“You're lying! I know you got more'n this!”

“C'mon, man! We got to get out of here before the cops show up!” Skinner said urgently.

“No way!” Creighton said with a shake of his head. “This bitch is holdin' out on us!”

The cashier frantically shook her head. “That's all there is, mister, I swear! I just came on-shift an hour ago!” she said tearfully. “The boss takes all the money out of the store just before midnight and makes a deposit. That's all the cash there is, I swear!”

Creighton's anger was replaced by a stoic calm almost as unnerving as his rage. He nodded a couple of times and stepped back, letting the barrel of the gun drop.

“Figures,” he muttered. “Fuckin' figures.”

Creighton then raised the .38 and fired two rounds into the cashier's forehead, knocking free the wad of bubblegum in her mouth. She went down in a spray of brains, toppling the cigarette display rack behind her so that she lay sprawled amid scattered packets of Winstons, Camels and Pall Malls, a halo of blood radiating from her ruined skull as gray matter dripped from the Slush Puppy machine.

Skinner blinked rapidly and stared at the dead girl as if he were seeing her for the first time. Blood. There was so much blood. The smell of it was sharp and bright and coppery, making his mouth water. And then the Change was on him, turning him inside out, pushing his muscles and bones into a new geometry. He gave a brief howl of ecstatic pain as he vaulted the counter that separated him from the fresh kill.

Creighton's previous cool completely evaporated. His face was pale and he was shaking and sweating like as if gripped by a fever. “Shit, man! We got no time for that!” he admonished. “The cops are gonna be here any second!”

Skinner was too busy savoring the taste of warm flesh and lapping up freshly spilt blood to pay any attention. He snarled in delight as he ripped the cashier's liver free of her body. He was so incredibly hungry it felt like he hadn't eaten for days.

“Leave it!” Creighton leaned across the counter and grabbed Skinner's shaggy shoulder. “We gotta get outta here!” He recoiled as Skinner growled and snapped his fangs in warning.

Creighton swore at the sound of approaching sirens. “Motherfucker! The bitch triggered the silent alarm before I capped her ass!” He glanced at Skinner, who was still feasting like a starved pit bull.

He was fucked, big time. He was sure to get the needle, or whatever they used to put born losers like him out of society's misery in this godforsaken state. Lord only knew what they'd do with Skinner. Probably stick wires in his head and run tests on him before they snuffed him and hid the truth of what he really was. The thought of Skinner in captivity made Creighton sick. He knew what it was like to be imprisoned, but for a creature like Skinner it would be a hundred times worse than his hardest stretch had ever been. Hell, everyone knows it's cruel to keep a wild thing locked up.

The moment the patrol cars fishtailed to a stop in front of the convenience store Creighton stepped outside to greet them, gun in hand. The headlights from the patrol cars turned the front of the store into a hideously over lit stage, with him as the star.

“Throw down your gun and keep your hands where we can see them!” said e a voice from behind the glare.

Creighton replied to the cop's command by shooting out the lights of the patrol car closest to him. The four police officers instantly returned his fire. As the bullets entered his body he felt his organs rearrange themselves from the inside out, and he wondered if this was how Skinner felt when he went from man to wolf.

Skinner raised his head upon hearing tires screech to a halt outside the store, a length of entrails still dangling from his jaws. He abandoned the kill and leaped over the counter. He growled at the harsh glare filling the store and lifted a claw to shade his eyes. A second later he heard shots fired, and the bright light was abruptly reduced by half, only to be answered by a thunderously loud volley of returned fire. Through the storefront window he could see Creighton jerking and spinning about like an awkward marionette before falling to the ground.

The police cautiously moved forward, guns held at the ready in case he tried to take one of them with him before he died.

One of the officers knelt to retrieve Creighton's dropped weapon, just as Skinner launched himself through the plate glass window. He landed on all fours beside what was left of his friend, slivers of glass shining in his bristling pelt and snarled at the cop, displaying a muzzle full of razor-sharp teeth.

“It's a fuckin' dog!” the police man exclaimed. “Some kind of wolfhound or something!”

Skinner growled and stood up on his crooked hind legs. The cop swore and opened fire, hitting him in the chest. The gunshot felt like he'd been punched by a boxer and stung like someone had put out a cigar on his ribcage. He lunged at the police man who shot him, ripping him open with a single swipe of his claws, so that the cop's guts spilled out onto his own shoes.

Skinner dropped back down onto all four and raced off into the night as the other officers ran to the aid of the disemboweled patrolman. Creighton was dead. There was nothing he could do to help his friend. He'd spilled blood for blood, which was as much as he could do. There was no time for mourning—he had to get away before more humans arrived.

He could hear the angry, frightened shouts of the police as he loped into the darkness, followed by gun are. Vicious, burning stings stitched their way across his back. The pain was intense, but he kept running. If he stopped for even a moment he was doomed—he knew that if the humans caught him they would put him back in the cage.

He ran through the darkened streets, keeping to the deepest shadows, cut- ting through alleys, crawling through drainage pipes and scaling fences until the pursuing sirens began to fade. Satisfied he had succeeded in eluding his enemies; he slumped against an alley doorway and began to lick his wounds.

Though his silvery pelt was stiff with blood, he could tell he was no longer bleeding. His chest felt like someone had used a sledgehammer to crack his ribcage open, and his back and shoulders throbbed as if he'd run naked through a swarm of killer bees.

His vision began to fade in and out, like the reception on an old television set, going from black and white to full color to black and white again. Just before he passed out, he noticed a pair of vans parked at the far end of the alley.

Chapter Thirteen

Skinner awoke with a buzzing in his head and what felt like ground glass in his bladder. When he coughed, he brought up clotted blood.

“Creighton?”

He struggled to open his eyes and bring his blurred vision into focus, only to find himself face-to-face with a young man wearing sunglasses. The stranger had reddish hair that grew from the middle of his head like the mane of a horse and hung down over his shoulders like a lion's mane.

“Wh-where am I?” Skinner rasped as he tried to sit up.

“It's okay, cousin. You're safe now,” the stranger said reassuringly. “The pigs won't be looking for you here.”

Skinner tried to sit up again, but the buzzing in his head stopped him. He lay back, staring in confusion at his surroundings. As far as he could tell, he was in the cargo section of a minivan. “The—the last thing I remember, I was in an alley somewhere.…”

“I found you passed out naked behind the dumpster beside the stage door. You looked like you needed some help, so I brought you here.”

“Where's Creighton?”

“Who?”

“My friend. He and I were … Oh.” The memory of Creighton's body riddled with bullets suddenly surfaced. He covered his eyes with a trembling hand.

“Look, friend, you're safe now, understand?”

“I appreciate your kindness. I really do. But you don't understand. I'm dangerous. More than you could possibly imagine. If you could loan me some clothes, I'll be on my way. I'm all right, honestly I am. You don't need to worry about me …”

“You're in no shape to travel right now, cousin.”

“I can't stay here! You're in serious danger! You don't know what I'm capable of! And I'd rather you didn't find out.”

“Oh, but I do know, cousin.” His benefactor smiled and leaned forward, his features rearranging themselves with a sickeningly familiar sound. His sunglasses slid down his snout, revealing eyes the color of fresh blood. He barked a laugh as Skinner involuntarily scrabbled backward on his elbows. “You're new to all this, aren't ya?” He asked as his face resumed its previous appearance. “My name's Rend. What's yours, cousin?”

“Skinner. Skinner Cade.”

Suddenly the side door to the minivan rolled open. “Who's this jerk-off?” snarled a man with long, cream-colored hair. “And what the fuck is he doing in the van?”

“I found him in the alley, Jag,” Rend replied, dropping his head lower, in a show of ritual appeasement. “He was hurt pretty bad …”

Jag climbed into the van and closed the doors behind him, fixing Rend with a withering stare. Skinner noticed that Jag's eyes were also red. “That's just fuckin' great!” he growled. “Did anyone see you?”

Rend shook his head. “I'm not Ripper or Hew, damn it!”

“I'm not saying you are,” Jag countered. “But I'm betting your new buddy here left a trail even a one-eyed human could follow it.” Jag leaned forward, sniffing Skinner like a wary dog. “What's your story, Rover?”

“The name's Skinner.”

“Whatever.”

“I—I was arrested and put in jail,” he explained. “While I was there I … Changed. I killed some men, and there was a riot. I escaped with a friend of mine … but we didn't have any money. We held up a convenience store, and the cashier got shot and I … Changed again. The next thing I know, my friend's dead and I'm being shot at by the cops. I managed to get away, but not before I caught a few slugs.…”

“You were damn lucky, too,” Rend explained. “We vargr are close to indestructible, but if you catch a bullet in the head or have your spinal column shattered, you're as good as dead.”

“Vargr? What the hell does that mean?”

“Just what we need,” Jag grunted, rolling his crimson eyes in disdain. “A fuckin' mutt!”

“Cut him some slack!” Rend retorted. “Not all of us were privileged enough to be raised within the pack, me included. It wasn't all that long ago that I was as ignorant as he is.”

“Then you can fuckin' school him! Because I'm not going to waste my time on some mongrel,” Jag snapped as he opened the doors of the van and hopped back outside. “He's your responsibility, Rend! And he's on probation until the Howl!” With that, he slammed the doors shut behind him.