Cool Hand Read online

  It’d only been a few minutes since we’d cleared the building, and everyone had followed us inside. I would have had trouble organizing my thoughts enough to give instructions over the comms set, but Elizabetta and the other kin just swept in and took over. Frightened, panicking children were being given sedatives, wrapped up in emergency blankets and carried back to the house. Minor injuries were being dealt with. Elizabetta stopped in front of me long enough to check me for wounds, and then passed on to help Bian in her grim struggle on the altar.

  The child had been sliced on her chest, but the priest—or whatever he called himself—hadn’t had time for the next cut.

  I left Bian and Elizabetta to it. There was nothing I could contribute and I was scared the blood was going to set off my wolf.

  David stood below, next to a huge drum made from an eighty-gallon rainwater butt. He looked as baffled as I was by the sight of the pyramid, but he gave me a nod. Everything had gone well outside.

  Tom and Paul came back in.

  “Ranch house is empty,” Tom said. “They were packed and ready to leave.”

  The way he said it gave it away. “Not the children, though,” I said.

  “No.” He wiped his hand against his shirt as if touching anything the Matlal had touched soiled him. “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded, my mind skittering around again, trying to grasp it all.

  Killing the children before escaping made a sick kind of sense for the Matlal. They’d have planned to split up into smaller groups, each making its way south and trickling across the border back to the safety of Matlal’s domain in Mexico. Children might draw attention to them. And if they went across the desert, the children might not be able to keep up.

  But why this elaborate setup? What on earth was the purpose of this?

  I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that this was somehow an imperfect copy, maybe of another temple.

  What had Luc Matlal been doing on his hidden estates down in Mexico? What had he found? When I first read the briefing notes on him, and had seen the Nahuatl political party affiliations, I’d dismissed that as opportunistic political maneuvering on his part. What if it was more?

  Whatever it was, I’d felt it first; from outside the barn I’d sensed the shape of evil in my mind. And even though that feeling was less now the Matlal were dead, it persisted, like the after-image of a bright light when you shut your eyes. That image wasn’t just a still shape; the surface swam with pale electric movement as if fluorescent snakes were climbing the tiers.

  I’d seen none of that when we’d come in, but reaching out a tentative hand to touch the steps, I somehow expected a shock.

  Nothing.

  My brain seemed slow from the smoke. I wondered if they’d put something mind-altering in those braziers.

  I used a discarded gold helmet to scoop up some moat water, and doused the flames. The smell of paraffin began to cover the odor of whatever had been in the braziers. I left the floating lamps; there didn’t seem to be anything in them.

  With the reduction in light, menacing shadows seemed to ooze out of the wooden walls and steal down them to pool at the bottom.

  I shuddered. Too many lungsful of crazy smoke.

  Tom ended a call on his cell, and with Bian busy, he reported directly to me.

  “Nick Gray’s a couple of minutes away. We’ve got a few more kin coming,” he said. “I also put in a request to the Pack. Hope you don’t mind. A dozen of them will come out and help clean up.” He kicked the side of the pyramid. “Need to clear the whole site.”

  Felix had been adamant about the pack not getting involved in fights between Athanate, but all the paranormals understood the need to destroy evidence of us.

  I nodded. “There’ll be other bodies somewhere close. Find them. I guess they would have used the backhoe to dig a pit, so it shouldn’t be hard.” Saying it like that made it just business. Nothing to do with what those small bodies would look like, in the cold, dark embrace of the earth.

  I took a breath, pushed all the visions away. “Once you’ve done that, clear out any evidence in the house as well, and finish up by burning the buildings down.”

  Tom grunted, turning around to take in the pyramid and calculate the effort required to destroy it.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I guess that’s all of the Matlal remnants accounted for now.”

  I shook my head. I’d checked the bodies here, and there was still one missing. The silver-haired woman who’d been kicking my ass at Cheesman Park until the FBI showed up and saved me. I guess that confirmed she was the one who’d given Nick the information on how to find this place. He’d told me earlier in the week she was willing to provide insider intel—in return for joining House Farrell. Had that been part of the ‘anything’ I’d promised him? My head was still fuzzy, but no, I remembered Nick had asked for me to talk to her. I’d agreed that. Then he’d said she was looking to join House Farrell. I was sure I hadn’t agreed to that. How had we left it?

  Crap. I was getting into enough trouble as it was. If I couldn’t remember important stuff like this, things were only going to get worse.

  Tom and Paul moved down a tier to talk with David.

  “This is bad. It’s not just that they weren’t running—” Tom started.

  “Hold it.” I stopped him.

  As the smoke cleared from the barn through the gaping ruin of the door, my brain was clearing too. My wolfy nose was still in shock from the smells and the smoke, but my wolfy ears had recovered.

  Over in the back corner of the barn were some tool cabinets, looking so ordinary they were out of place. Something had rattled over there.

  As soon as I took one step toward the cabinets, a girl—maybe a year or so older than the other children—slithered out from the narrow gap between them and sprinted for the door, clearly terrified.

  Tom held his hands up and moved to block her. Julie was at the door. They’d catch her as gently as they could.

  I stayed focused on the cabinets, my nose twitching. Something drew me there.

  There was no one hiding between them, or on top, or under them.

  Still.

  Away from the smell of the braziers, my wolfy nose told me they weren’t empty.

  I put the HK down and knelt beside the right-hand cabinet. It was an old wooden cupboard that had been pressed into service to store tools. The right door hung a little ajar, and I slowly pulled it open.

  He was jammed in what had been the bottom drawer space. It didn’t look possible, but he’d managed to squeeze himself in there and half turn so he was stuck. It looked like we’d have trouble getting him out.

  His face was only a few inches from mine, partly obscured by an old wooden-handled screwdriver he was clutching like a knife. He was shaking with fear, his eyes staring, round as an owl’s.

  The last thing I wanted to do was reach in and drag him out, or traumatize him any more.

  I eased back a couple of paces, bending low so I was level with him and he couldn’t see the gun lying on the ground behind me. I watched him, ignoring all the stuff going on in the rest of the barn. This one little guy was my save.

  “You’re safe now,” I said, talking slowly. “I’m here to help you, and we can walk out of here together just as soon as you’re ready. Everything will be fine.”

  Had his terrified stare relaxed just a bit?

  Did he understand what I was saying, or was it just the tone?

  I said it again, in Spanish. Nothing.

  “Hablo español como una gringa,” I said with a smile.

  The tiniest nod.

  Progress.

  There was more noise, and his eyes looked fearfully over my shoulder.

  “De nada,” I said. “Estás a salvo.” It’s nothing. You’re safe.

  He was trying to see what was happening on the altar. I could hear Elizabetta and Bian. Was there some triumph in their voices? Could they stitch the girl up and save her? How much blood had she lost?
r />   When he stretched his neck, I could see the scars. Some old, some partly healed, looking red and sore. Some fresh.

  My jaw clenched.

  He whimpered and I realized my face had gone bleak as a rock. I screwed it up and tried blowing out a breath to relax my expression.

  “Not you. The people who did that to you.” I pointed at him and then touched my neck. “Matlal. They’re dead. Todos muertos. They can’t hurt you now.”

  He shook his head—a short, violent motion. He understood some of that.

  So what did he mean, shaking his head? What would he be thinking?

  I was going to get him out, but I wanted to do it without touching him. He’d been touched enough by the Matlal.

  How to manage it?

  His mouth worked, but the sound was too distorted.

  “Say again?” I said, leaning closer.

  “K…kill me,” he stuttered, his accent thick.

  He was still frightened. I bit my lip. Maybe he thought we hadn’t gotten all the Matlal.

  “They can’t kill you. They’re gone. You can come with us and we’ll protect you.” I looked at his thin body. “We’ll take you to get some food. You like burgers?” His eyes went round again. “Tacos? Milkshake?”

  That seemed to have registered. Maybe I was getting through to him. I had a moment of wondering whether he had ever tasted a milkshake or a burger. What had they fed him on? Did he remember anything from before Matlal? Where had he come from? Had he been stolen from his parents?

  Too many questions, and none I could ask him yet.

  At least I was getting some kind of response.

  What else did eight-year-old kids like?

  “We’ll take you to a place where they have toys and games. You know, like video games? You can play. Would you like to play video games?”

  There was definitely a reaction to that. He knew what a video game was. Maybe House Matlal had let them play games in between feeding sessions.

  There was shouting behind me and he flinched. If anything, he seemed to trying to squeeze himself deeper into the cramped space.

  More shouting, louder now.

  What the hell is going on?

  I stood up and turned around.

  “Hey guys,” I said. “Keep it down—I’ve got a scared kid here.”

  “Amber!” David shouted as he rounded the base of the pyramid and ran towards me, one hand stretched out as if he were trying to warn me or stop me from doing something.

  And that was the moment when the kid came out from the cabinet and stabbed me with his damn screwdriver.

  Chapter 3

  THURSDAY

  “It’s not funny.”

  The more I insisted, the funnier everyone thought it was, until I had to start laughing as well.

  There was more than a little hysteria in some of the laughter.

  We’d killed the Matlal. Regardless of the fact that they deserved it for what they’d been doing, it wasn’t something to be dismissed and shrugged off.

  We’d saved the children, every one of them that’d been alive when we hit the ranch, even the poor kid on the altar.

  And we’d taken no casualties, except for one stupid bitch who’d managed to get herself stabbed in the butt with a screwdriver.

  Yes, all in all, a success. But all of us would remember the streaks on the altar at the top of the pyramid.

  If laughing at me stopped everyone from thinking about that, I’d take the hit.

  It was coming up on dawn. We were back at Jen’s house, Manassah. Bian was there. Nick had arrived at the site after I’d been stabbed and then disappeared again without explanation. Tom had stayed at the ranch to supervise the destruction of the site. Elizabetta and the rest of the Altau had taken the children and gone on to Haven.

  Their charges included Gerardo, the little rat who’d stabbed me, now doped into submission with strong sedatives.

  Turned out I should have listened to Bian. The children had been brainwashed into believing a twisted travesty of the world around them, where only House Matlal were their friends, and suffering was their holy path to redemption. Everywhere else, they were told, other children were being lured into a path of eternal damnation by the temptations of the world. Burgers and video games were the worst things I could have offered Gerardo. Those hoarse words he’d whispered to me—he’d been asking me to kill him to spare him from damnation. And I’d gone and hit every one of his preprogrammed buttons until he’d thought I was the Devil herself.

  Those deaths: sacrifice on the altar made them messengers to the gods, guaranteed rebirth as the blessed Matlal Athanate if they went bravely.

  Which explained what the children thought was going on. What the hell had the Matlal troops thought they were achieving?

  Unfortunately, they were beyond answering now.

  Jen was trying to get me to drop my jeans so she could put some antiseptic on the wound.

  “Of course it hurts,” I argued. “But I’ll heal. That’s what Athanate do.”

  Bian, of course, was also trying to get me to drop my jeans.

  “I did say I could kiss it and make it better,” she said, draping herself over a long-suffering David and looking at me with smoky eyes.

  “It’ll get better on its own,” I insisted.

  “Butt,” she drawled, stretching the word out till everyone was laughing again, “it could get better quicker.”

  “At least let’s have a look at it,” Jen said.

  “Hell, yeah,” Bian said, earning herself a glare from Jen.

  Pia was being no help at all; she was falling around giggling.

  “For goodness sake.” Jen grabbed me around the waist from behind. “Alex, give me a hand here.”

  Oh! Now that was different. My kin were cooperating.

  It surprised me enough that they managed to capture me between them. Alex held my wrists, and I didn’t want to struggle too hard. His own wounds weren’t healed. He’d taken a lot of damage from fighting Noble’s magically-enhanced wolf a couple of days ago. All of which he’d made worse by dragging the corpse the whole way down the mountain.

  Kin cooperating instead of arguing…I’d go along with that. It was a start.

  While he held me from the front, Jen reached around and opened my jeans, to catcalls and hoots of laughter from everybody else.

  “Stop it!” I yelled. No effect.

  She pulled the side down, just enough for everyone to see the wound in the middle of my right cheek. Blood had caked in my jeans and panties. It stung as Jen pulled the fabric clear. Of course, now it started bleeding again.

  Thanks to my Athanate immune system, infection wasn’t going to get a hold. The tear to skin and muscle would knit together in a couple of days. In a week or so, my body would have completed the repair so you’d never have known I’d been stabbed.

  Tonight, however, it hurt.

  I didn’t care. Everyone was winding down. That felt great. I decided to surrender to whatever indignities they wanted to heap on me and relaxed against Alex.

  Deep breaths. He smelled so good. Wolf and man.

  Kin. Purr.

  I gently pulled free of his grip and snaked my arms around him, burying my face in the crook of his neck. His arms went around me in return and held me.

  I closed my eyes. It felt so damned good. Even if my head was too screwed up to take any more advantage of him, I could just drown in this feeling.

  I stopped caring what they did to me. My eukori reached out and tangled with his. His dark aura seemed to shiver, then lost its shape and flowed over mine.

  Together we reached out a little further.

  Jen’s eukori was clamped down; she’d had a heated argument with Bian before conceding that Athanate healing would be better than standard medical antiseptics and analgesics.

  Bian’s eukori was tight and secret as usual.

  The others were open. Not all the House was here, and among the missing was the aching void where Melissa should
have been, with her quick, sharp observation—forever silent now. Pia and Alex sensed my sorrow and filled it with their peace and love.

  While I nuzzled Alex’s neck, Jen wiped the wound down with a wet cloth and reluctantly let Bian have her way with me.

  “The things I do for you, Round-eye.” Bian laughed.

  I could smell the bitter-fruit scent of aniatropics, the bio-agents she was producing in her saliva which would help heal me quicker.

  Her tongue touched me and I flinched.

  “If anyone dares take a photo of this, I’ll have their hide.” My words were muffled against Alex’s neck.

  The pain in my buttock eased away. I could sense the aniatropics seeping into the damaged muscle, speeding the process of knitting it back together.

  Then the door burst open and Julie stood there.

  “Ahhh! Nooo,” she yelled, covering her face. “I can’t ever un-see that.” She was blocking the doorway and turned to speak to someone in the hallway outside. “No! You can’t come in yet,” she said to whoever it was.

  Yet another person lining up to witness my humiliation. I tried to care, but I was too comfortable. It felt like I had no bones at all. If Alex hadn’t been holding me up I’d have ended up as a puddle at his feet. I hadn’t felt this relaxed in ages.

  “If this is some kind of initiation ritual for House Farrell,” Julie turned back to watch, “I think I just lost my application form.”

  I chuckled and reached a little more with my eukori. The combination of relaxing and mingling eukori with Alex’s seemed to boost the range a little. I could feel Jen and Bian. David and Pia. Gary and Leon, Pia’s red-haired kin twins. Julie, happy colors drifting through her. And…

  I jerked my jeans back up. My heart went into overdrive.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Bian said.

  “I don’t even want to know about that,” Julie said. “But guys, guess who Agent Ingram just dropped off.”