Splinter (Whisper Walker Series) (20 page)

The area was clear. I grabbed Kelsie’s hand and dragged her down the slight embankment around the wall. I got to the body and pulled the athame out, wiping it clean on the guard’s clothes. Next, I grabbed his pistol – a late model Glock – and his extra ammo.

“Aren’t you afraid it will draw attention when they find his body and there’s no gun or ammunition?” Kelsie asked.

“Yeah, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. It’s in great condition, and there’s three extra clips here. It will be worth a fortune.”

I grabbed his feet and pulled him off into the woods a few hundred meters. Far enough that his body would be picked clean by the time he was found. Kelsie had kept up with me and not said a word other than about the gun. Her face was a blank slate. I had only one thing in mind, getting back inside our walls.

We picked our way through the woods, getting slower as the adrenaline wore off and was replaced with exhaustion and pain. I was getting light-headed from blood loss.

Shortly after that, we got within sight of our Gate. The night watch hit us with lights and hollered for us to halt. We did, obligingly. Then I promptly collapsed to the ground and passed out. I last remembered seeing boots stomping all around me and feeling someone flipping me over.

“Holy hell,” a familiar voice said.

THE GIRL GUARD WE had seen earlier was still on sentry duty when Drake and I stumbled up to the Gate. My shoulder was feeling better after I had set it. As we approached the Gate and I was calling out who we were, Drake collapsed next to me.

“Hey! Hold on!” the girl yelled from the tower. She disappeared, and seconds later she threw open the Gate and sprinted out. She ran up to me; I was about to collapse myself.

“What happened to you two?” she asked. “Never mind. Here, help me carry him inside.”

I nodded, glad to avoid her question, at least for now. I clenched my teeth against the throbbing ache in my side and broken nose, and helped her pick Drake up. We each got under a shoulder of his limp frame. His feet dragged matching grooves in the dirt as we hauled him, since he was taller than either of us.

The girl, Mica, led us through the Gate into the guard building. We laid Drake on a cot along the back wall.

“Now, get your shirt off. I can see you favoring your side,” Mica said, turning to me.

I pointed at Drake. “He’s worse. Let’s help him first.”

Mica waved it off. “Naw. He’s Drake. He can handle it.”

I felt a little hurt by the remark, like she was saying he was a lot tougher than me. She must’ve seen the look on my face.

“I mean, I hear you’re tough yourself. I’m just saying, he’s unconscious. He can’t feel it. Let’s get you fixed up. Then we can get to him.”

Seeing her logic, I consented. I peeled off my shirt, fighting the urge to cry out when it caught on my broken nose.

Mica whistled. “Damn, girl. Took a boot to the ribs, huh?”

I wondered how she could tell that just from looking at the bruises.

She started poking along the purple marks, checking the damage. “Okay, nothing broken. You’re going to be sore for a while. Let’s clean it up and wrap it. Then we can set your nose.”

As she retrieved some heavy bandages from a large case on the wall, I stared at Drake lying on the cot. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve said he was dead. He was perfectly still, even his chest barely moved with the act of breathing. His shirt was soaked in blood – so much that with the shirt on, it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.

“Unh!” I whimpered as Mica started wrapping me in cloth bandages.

“Sorry. It’s gonna hurt for a while, you know.”

“I know. I’ll be better after I get some sleep.”

As she continued wrapping with the skill of someone who did this often, I couldn’t help but wonder. “You and Drake hang out much?”

She looked up, an interested look on her face. “Meh, a little. Why?”

“Just curious. He’s never mentioned you. So, I didn’t know.”

Her face fell, to hide it she continued wrapping. Her movements seemed rougher now. “Oh. Well, he’s through here a lot. All right. Done. Now, let’s get your nose.”

She reached up before I could say anything and gave it a twist and pull. Bright pops and flashes briefly erupted in front of my eyes, then the pain eased a little. By the time I was done gingerly feeling my nose for damage, Mica was already slicing Drake’s shirt up the side.

“Whoa,” we said in unison, looking at the angry red slice under his arm. It was deep, through a lot of muscle. I wondered how he’d managed to carry me earlier. I wondered how he had even managed to lift his arm, much less throw a knife and kill the guard.

“No wonder he passed out. This is bad enough, I can’t even give him crap for passing out. He’s lost a lot of blood. Grab me a saline drip and needle out of the case, would you?” She gestured over her shoulder at the case. “I’ll get the blood.”

I looked over at her from the case. “You just happen to know his blood type and keep it on hand?”

“Yeah, he’s been here a lot, like I said.”

She reappeared a moment later carrying a bag of blood and a stand. She put the saline and blood on the hooks and stuck the needles into Drake. Then we both started cleaning him up, wiping blood, sanitizing, looking for other damage. He had two broken ribs from hitting the chair earlier, so we wrapped them up tightly. No easy feat when the subject was unconscious and laying on his back.

Mica sewed up the cut under his arm, and I bandaged it while she started putting stuff away. I brewed up some tea on the stove in the corner. It was an herb blend that acted like a painkiller.

“All we can do now is wait for him to wake, and seriously hope he doesn’t have an allergic reaction to the transfusion,” Mica said.

“Reaction? Does that happen often? Is it bad?”

She looked down at Drake for a moment. “It can be fatal. You never know it’s going to happen until it does. The first day is the most dangerous. You’ll have to keep an eye on him. It could be as simple as a rash, or as bad as anything, really. Everyone’s different.”

Mica kept looking at him after she finished, like she was afraid he’d vanish if she wasn’t holding him there with her look.

“Okay. What’s up?” I asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“I see the way you’re looking at him. It’s not normal.”

“Oh,” she said, looking a little uncomfortable. “You saw that, huh.”

“Kinda hard to miss.”

“Well, you’re young, so you may not get it yet. But, you know the ‘List’?”

I’d heard of the “List” but didn’t really know anything about it. I half nodded.

“Well, the ‘List’ is something you get on, as a woman, to get in line to have the option to have a baby.”

Well, that cleared it up. “Oohh,” I said.

“Yeah, well, you only get on it once. I got on it early, thinking it would be a long time before I got a shot. But with all of the Ackspecs dying nowadays, I’m up really soon. Like it could be within months that I get my chance. Which means I have to have a guy ready to go.”

“I see.” I was starting to get where this was going and didn’t like it – at all.

“I was really hoping Drake would be it – the father of my child.”

You could have hit me in the face with a thorny branch and I wouldn’t have noticed.

“Well…um…” I started. What should I say? “That’s nice.”

Mica looked relieved to have it off her chest. “He’s the perfect candidate. Good genes, high-ranking, cute, and a great body. Mmm, that rock-hard body.”

I felt a pang of irritation at her mentioning his body like that. Just earlier, in the shower, I’d been noticing the exact same thing.

Hoping to avoid more of the conversation, I excused myself. I said I wanted to go grab some clothes, but really I wanted to check on the Magistrate. Mica loaned me a spare shirt of hers. I left the small building and headed home, like I had said. I changed shirts and threw hers into a pile to wash.

Then I headed for the Magistrate’s house. I found the windows all lit up. But all the windows were covered except for one. I positioned myself in front of it and peered in the corner of the glass.

“…oh, Duncan. I’m so glad you’re all right. I’ve been so worried,” I heard the Magistrate’s wife saying. I saw them wrapped around each other in an awkward hug, awkward because of his size.

I guess that answered my question. Looked like he was back to normal. Though I was only guessing, since the lights were turned off now and all I could hear were noises.

I turned to start wandering back to the guard building. I wasn’t in a hurry. I knew that Drake probably wouldn’t wake for a while. If I got there too early, I would have to continue the awkward conversation with Mica.

She was nice enough and very good at patching up injuries, but I didn’t want to hear any more of her plans for baby-making with Drake. In fact, I was pretty sure I was going to mess up her plans for Drake as much as I could. She could get a different guy – not my Drake.

“Have a nice talk with the Dybbuk?” Samantha asked, causing me to jump.

She had appeared next to me, out of the blue, walking alongside me like it was normal.

“Um…not really. He was pretty creepy. Then Drake had to kill him and my father.”

“Ah, yes. That had to be done. Your father has been dead for a long, long time.”

“I haven’t had feelings for my father in years. Didn’t care if he was alive, or dead, or anything. Then I saw him, and it all changed. I know he had to, but I still can’t believe Drake killed him – like it was nothing.”

Samantha gave me a look. “Like you said, you knew he had to do it. I’m sure it wasn’t ‘nothing’ to him. But like you, he’s good at keeping secrets. Just don’t hold it against him.”

I didn’t say anything for a few steps. “Yeah, well, easier said than done. When I replay it in my mind, Drake cutting his throat, it just feels wrong.”

Now it was Samantha’s turn to stay silent for a moment.

“So, anything unusual happen with the Dybbuk? Anything you might want to mention?” she asked.

I looked off to the side at nothing in particular. “Nope. Nothing. I mean, he dislocated my shoulder and was about to kill me, but other than that, nothing.”

I could feel Samantha’s eyes on the back of my head.

“All right. If that’s what you want to say. You might want to mention it to Drake, wouldn’t want anything to come between you later.”

I gritted my teeth together but still didn’t look at her. As soon as Drake had killed the Dybbuk, I had felt a release. It had been only partial. I still felt like there was an icy sliver inside of me. Faint, but pulsing. I didn’t know if I was going to tell Drake that I had been possessed, even for only a few minutes. I heard her sigh after a few more steps.

“Happy birthday. You’re the full Whisper Walker now. Be careful, I’ll be watching.”

Before I could thank her for the birthday wish or ask what she meant, she was gone, just as suddenly as she came. I saw the guard building ahead.

I walked in to find Mica sitting on the cot next to Drake. He was still unconscious. She had a perplexed look on her face and was staring at something in her hands.

I looked at the object. It was the silver athame, still covered in blood.

Mica looked up when she heard me. “Oh. Hey. Interesting knife,” she said.

“Yup. I guess it was his dad’s or something.”

She handed it to me. I took it, planning on cleaning it up in a few.

The perplexed look didn’t leave Mica’s face.

“Something up?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I mean, he’s always healed quickly. But this…this is something else entirely,” she said.

She motioned at me to come closer. I walked over and she pointed to the wound she’d stitched up. The edges were already losing their red hue, and the bleeding was completely stopped. The skin seemed to actually have scabbed up and even started scarring in a few spots.

Mica grabbed my hand and placed it over the wound. I jerked my hand back as I felt a searing heat emitting from the wound.

I looked at her, startled. “Whoa. That’s crazy.”

She didn’t say anything, but nodded agreement. We just stared at it for a while longer. It seemed like we could actually see the skin cells repairing themselves.

After a couple of minutes, I left to go clean the knife up. Didn’t want it to corrode

I WOKE TO BLINDING yellow light, lying on a cot. Blinking, I finally realized the light wasn’t very bright at all. It was just a shock. I turned my head and saw that I was in the guard shack. I was shirtless and had a thick bandage wound around me. I slowly sat up, feeling dizzy. Once I was up, despite the complaints of my stomach muscles, I pushed myself backward along the cot to lean against the wall, or whatever was behind me. I didn’t really care. I looked around the small room again, noticing that I was the only one in here. No sooner did I have that thought than I heard the door open and in walked Mica, followed by Kelsie. Kelsie had bruises on her face, and her nose was bandaged.

The girls smiled when they saw me awake.

“Look at you,” Mica said. “I guess getting your ass kicked a lot is helping you recover quicker. Seems like each time you’re in here it’s for something worse, but you’re up and running quicker.” She smirked at me and sat on the cot by my feet.

Kelsie took a seat, too, though right up by me on the edge. She looked at Mica in alarm. “Each time? How often is he in here?” she demanded.

Mica seemed oblivious to my impending doom-by-Kelsie. She was all chipper and bubbly. “He’s in here quite often when he gets banged up in the field. We’ve taken to doubling the medical supplies we keep on hand because of him.” She gestured at a cabinet in the corner. “We call that the Drake Case. Filled with all the stuff we need to patch him up.”

Kelsie turned and glared at me. If looks could cause pain, I think hers might have crippled me.

“How long does he stay here?” she demanded, seemingly asking anyone that would answer.

Still oblivious to me getting my ass fried by Kelsie’s eyes, Mica was more than happy to answer and ramble. “Well, there’s a few times he’s been here for a couple of days. Overnight is pretty common, too.”