Reckoning (7 page)

We would have been okay, except for the Charleston Chew.

I didn’t realize Ash had kiped it until we were outside the big
wide Sav ’n’ Shop grocery store that used to be a Winn-Dixie when I was young, and I heard the man shout “
Hey! Hey, you!
”

I turned incuriously, and he was bearing down on us—the manager, a big potbellied good ol’ boy with furious little piggy blue eyes behind thick horn-rim glasses, pasty cheek flab under a greased dark comb-over. His polyester tie flapped and the wide yellow sweat stains under his armpits married the fussy shine on his wing tips to make the picture of what Gran would call “a bitty-ass man too big for his britches already.”

It wasn’t her most damning epithet, but it was close.

I looked at Ash. Who tore the wrapper open and made a small
hmm
of contentment. That was when it occurred to me.
I didn’t pay for that. He must’ve just grabbed it
.

“Oh Lord.”
Give me strength. Jeez
. I yanked the balky cart to a stop. It had a screechy wheel and wobbled alarmingly, but it was the best on offer. The clouds were coming up fast and the smell of rain was an overpowering, sweet green haze. Stormlight gathered, yellow–bruised in all the corners, making every edge stand out sharp. The shadows had turned to deep fuzzy wells. “Ash. Where the hell did that—”

“
Stop right there!
” Piggy Eyes was really worked up. He almost plowed into us. “You gonna pay for that? Huh?”

“I paid for everything else, sir,” I drawled, and Ash took a huge bite. He chewed sloppily, observing the scene with bright-eyed interest. I cursed inwardly. “I didn’t see he had that, sorry. Here.” I was already digging in my pockets for the change.

An ugly flush spread up Piggy Eye’s cheeks. He was obviously unmollified. “That yourn? He retarded or somethin’?”

Gran would’ve fixed him with a glare, so I did. “That’s my kin, sir.” It was like channeling her, and I had to try hard not to smile as I offered him two crumpled dollar bills. “He’s
special
. Here.”

I should’ve been aiming for a submissive tone, I guess. Or at least something conciliatory. Instead, I sounded like I was brushing him off, and—here’s the bad part—there were a couple of wide women in print shorts, locals by the look of them, passing by to head into the store’s air conditioning.

One of them laughed, her flip-flops making regular little smacking sounds against cracked pavement. Her shoulders were permanently sunburned, and her blouse had a tropical print way too bright green to do any good for her complexion in this lighting. “Lyle’s about to do a citizen’s arrest right there again.” She spat tobacco juice, a pungent brown streak, and the other woman chimed in with a cackle that would have done Witch Hazel proud. They swept on into the store, the automatic door wheezing tiredly shut behind them.

Petty tyrants don’t like being laughed at. Piggy Eyes Lyle flushed an even darker brick red, and his meaty paw shot out. The
touch
snapped inside my head like a wet sheet shaken before you put it on the line, and I realized he’d been following us through the store, watching us.

Watching me, in particular. And the things he was thinking squirmed inside my head like maggots. I actually flinched as his fingers closed around my upper arm.

“You’re comin’ with me.” He squeezed, hard. He had only human strength, but the
aspect
woke with a jolt, smoothing over my skin with oil-soft heat. My fangs tingled, and I clapped my lips shut over them. The thirst tingled in the back of my throat, bloodhunger waking up. It was weird—it was taking over that other place on the back of my tongue, the one that warned me of danger. It didn’t feel right, but I didn’t have time to think about it.

The sun dimmed. The clouds had found us.

Ash growled. The sound rumbled free, a warning I was used to
from hanging out with wulfen. It deepened at the end, and anyone with any sense would’ve backed up in a hurry.

Lyle, however, had no common sense. He actually shook me, and tried to drag me off my feet. I planted myself, the grocery cart giving a screech, and was thinking furiously about how to defuse the situation when three things happened.

One, the sky darkening in the west rumbled. It was a long menacing roll of thunder, and it scraped along my nerve endings like a wire brush. Every hair on me tingled like the lightning was going to strike right at me. The second thing was pure bad luck—a county sheriff’s car bounced into the parking lot, its springs groaning. The man behind the wheel saw us just as Ash dropped his half-gone Charleston Chew and—this was the third thing—launched himself at Piggy Eyes Lyle so fast the pale streak in his hair seemed to stretch like taffy.

Ohshi
—I dropped down, knees loosening and my free hand flashing out. I hit harder than I intended to, a flat-palm strike with almost every ounce of the
aspect
behind it. It sank into Lyle’s middle with a meaty crunch lost under the roll of thunder, and the fat man flew back. His fingers ripped my T-shirt as they tore free. Then I was airborne, springing like a jack-in-the-box and colliding with Ash just at the top of his leap. We hit the ground hard, pavement cracking as quarter-sized spatters of rain hit the dusty earth.

I found out I had my right hand clamped at Ash’s nape. He was growling and struggling, but I had a good grip, just like with a disobedient puppy.

“
No
,” I said sharply. “No.
NO!
” I braced my foot, my other knee grinding into a hollow in the pavement. No—not a hollow. It was the dent I’d made while landing. The
aspect
flooded me, smoothing down my skin in a wave of sweet heat. My fangs tingled, and the bloodhunger woke in a sheet of red. It pulled against every vein
in my body, turned the entire back of my throat to a desert, and the anger woke up.

I didn’t need rage to trigger the
aspect
now. But it was kind of a habit, and besides, it felt so
good
. Like I was in control of the whole stupid, tangled situation.

Like I finally had a clear-cut problem with an easy solution in front of me.

Ash struggled. I was grinding him into the concrete, and I didn’t much care at the moment so long as he stayed still. I glanced up. The county sheriff’s car had jounced to a stop, and the man inside was staring so hard his eyes bugged out, visible even through the windshield and the gloom under his ten-gallon hat.

Uh-oh. Think fast, Dru
.

Luckily, the Sav ’n’ Shop was our first stop. We could easily leave the two bags of groceries if we had to. I’d paid with cash; there was no trouble there. How to get out of here without John Law following in his car or calling in a plate number that wouldn’t match the Subaru because I’d switched them out . . . Christ.

The biggest problem, and the one I had to solve right now, was the werwulf growling and scrabbling, his bones crackling as the change tore through him.

If he goes into changeform, will he be able to come back?
I didn’t know. Clear plastic goop started hardening over the world, which meant I was using superspeed even while standing still. Raindrops flashed, caught in stasis, and the sheriff’s car door made a groaning sound as it was slowly, slowly levered open. He’d grabbed a frigging shotgun, I could see the shape through the windshield, and things were about to go critical.

Think, Dru. What would Dad do?

Every muscle tensed. I dug into the pavement and pushed myself
aside, whipping my right arm back. The
aspect
flared, my mother’s locket a spot of molten heat. Ash went flying, fur running up over his flesh in liquid black streams. The silvery stripe on his head flashed once before the darker clouds swallowed the sun completely. Thunder boomed again, distorted because I was already moving, flashing through space to slam into the cop car’s door. Pulled the force back at the last second, but I still heard snapping bone.

Gonna hurt someone if you’re not careful, Dru-girl
. Dad’s voice, calm and clinical.
Get that gun away from him. Make sure he’s down. Then get the hell out of here, and take your damn groceries with you
.

The car door came off like peeling a strip of birch bark, hinges squealing, a fountain of sparks as the wiring for the windows and locks tore. I brought it up and spun, drove it through the windshield. Safety glass imploded. The cop was down—an older man with a high hard gut, his hat blown free and skipping across the parking lot in slow graceful arcs, his eyes bugging and his mouth wetly open. His left leg bent at a funny angle inside his regulation-issue pants. He was older than Dad, and the look on his face was pure terror.

He was afraid. Of
me
.

I bent and grabbed the shotgun, a flicker of my hand. It was so easy to bring it to my shoulder, brace it, and—

What am I
DOING
?

He was scrabbling away, too weak and slow to be a real threat. My head snapped up, scanning the parking lot. Not a soul to be seen. Ash lay on top of an old Buick, the hood dented and windshield cracked. I’d flung him pretty hard. He shook his head, melting back into boyform, and I pursed my lips, let out a high piercing whistle.

It was Gran’s “call the hounds” sound; it was instinct, and it worked. Ash’s chin came up, and he looked at me. His eyes glowed orange.

We need to get the hell out of here. Now
. I jerked my head, the
touch
an invisible rope pulling at the meat inside my skull. He clambered down off the car in weird, stuttering fast-forward and bounded across the parking lot on all fours even though he was boy-shaped again. Toward the Subaru, thank God.

I hope they don’t have security cameras here
. I glanced at the cop. The shotgun whirled in my grasp; he was raising his hands like he was going to plead with me not to hurt him. I socked him, once, with the shotgun’s butt, a nice clean hit gauged on the soft side. His head snapped back and he slumped, eyes fluttering closed. For a moment, standing outside myself, I was horrified.

The world jolted back up to normal speed, achingly slow. Ash skidded to a stop in front of the Subaru, looking at me. His irises were still orange, still glowing, and his gaze was utterly blank.

Waiting for the next command.
My
next command. Nausea rose deep and hot inside me. Had he looked at Sergej that way?

I am so not ready for this
.

I snapped a glance at Piggy Eyes Lyle. He lay, head cocked at a weird angle, up against two dented, broken newspaper boxes. Bile rose in my throat. I’d hit him too hard.

Was he still alive?

Yes. I heard his pulse, faint and weak. A thin thread of blood slid down his chin, and as the wind veered, I could
smell
it.

It smelled good. The bloodhunger woke up, the dry spot at the back of my throat opening like a flower.

Walk across the pavement, step by step, bend down. Grab him, push his arm up to lock the joint so he can’t struggle, and tilt the head back. There will be a nice big throat, with a nice big jugular. Bury your fangs. And the moment his heart stops, you know he’ll never watch a teenage girl walk through the supermarket again. It’s yours
.
Your
power. The blood will slide down your throat, it will be sweet and smoky, and
—

I knew that tinkling, sweet, girlish voice. It was Anna. A warm place dilated behind my breastbone, and I heard her laugh. Whispering, taunting, cajoling.

I thought I’d gotten her out of my head, that I’d burned through the blood I’d taken from her.

I was wrong. And what would Graves think of this, if he could see it?

What would Dad think, if he was still alive and not just zombie dust? Or Gran?

Time snapped, stinging, like a hard elastic band against flinching skin. I had the two plastic-and-paper grocery bags in my free hand. Threw them in the backseat as Ash cowered.

Like he was afraid of me. Hunched down, his entire body the picture of submission.

“Get in!” I yelled, the shotgun held loosely. Nobody in the parking lot. The rain began to slant down in earnest, dark drops on the dusty ground merging. It didn’t cut the smell of blood. My entire body shook, jitters racing through me.

Ash scrambled into the car. I swept the parking lot again, shotgun held ready. Lightning sizzled overhead, photoflash-searing the entire scene into my head. I dropped into the driver’s seat, braced the shotgun. Sparked the car and laid rubber out of the parking lot.

Some shopping trip.

The windows were
all down, rain lashing through and thunder booming. Water smacked the side of my face, a welcome coolness. I kept us on the road, trying not to bend the steering wheel. Ash had slithered over into the front passenger seat and whimpered, crouching in the bucket seat and staring at me.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him to sit down and shut up. He shook and shivered every time thunder boomed. Spring storms are like that—they sneak up on a body. Gran said they hid on the ridges, and the only way to tell one was coming was to have a war wound or an old broken bone.

Gran would have been horrified at what I’d just done. Not so much the busting up a couple of grown men, though that was plenty bad.

No, it was the bloodhunger. If she was still alive to see me sucking blood, or even just
wanting
to suck blood, what would she think? She’d be disgusted, just like Graves. And angry.

I didn’t do it, though. I didn’t!

My conscience wasn’t having any of it.
You wanted to. You know you did
. I blinked furiously, the water in my eyes was making everything blur.

Ash let out a yelp. I jerked the wheel, and we drifted out of the oncoming lane. There wasn’t another car on the road for miles, and my entire body was shaking with the hunger’s aftermath. Like little armored rabbits were running around under my skin. My veins throbbed dryly, and my eyes were smarting. A hot trickle slid down my left cheek.