He’d picked up on methods used to track creatures of the night. He could even fix mac and cheese in five exotic ways. Lying to Paige, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly a skill. It was a risk to life and limb.
“I buried it,” he said.
“You what?”
“Buried it.”
As one question piled on top of another, Paige’s face went through a series of contortions. The expression he’d least expected for her to settle on was calmness. As a surprise bonus, she actually smirked. “How the hell did you manage to get that thing out of here when everyone else was rummaging around?”
“I asked Prophet to help me wrap it up and carry it out after the last batch of looters were teleported out of here,” he admitted. “The nymphs only zap us around twice a day, so I waited for one of those times when most of the house was cleared out. Even the Philly crew drove away to get something to eat. When all the planets aligned, Prophet and I carried Henry out of here and drove him somewhere to be buried.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you’ve had enough on your mind.” When he said that, Cole glanced down at her right arm. After a particularly unsuccessful field test of the tattoo ink that still itched under his skin, Paige’s arm had been rendered close to useless. Her skin was still soft, but several discolorations that might have been internalized scars had begun appearing on the surface. Through a lot of hard work and base-level stubbornness, she’d moved beyond the need for a sling. Her arm was still stiff and gave her the occasional twitch of pain, which meant a lot if someone as hard-headed as Paige was doing the twitching.
Balling her right hand into a fist, she said, “Don’t give me that bullshit. You knew I’d tell you what a stupid fucking idea that was.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“So where did you take him?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I took him?”
“No,” she snapped. “First tell me where.”
After a few seconds of deliberation Cole replied, “Nah. Everyone else seems to be able to do whatever they feel like no matter what, so now’s my turn. Some get to come in here and demand or just steal anything we fought and bled for. Fine. Others spend their time looking through every last bit of work that Lancroft did without so much as a thank-you to the ones who kept the old man from killing more people to spread his plague. I guess that’s supposed to be fine too. Those assholes across the street decide to come over and start their shit? Whatever. They might as well, right?”
“Cole, things are just crazy right now.”
“They haven’t been any other way since I can remember!” Lowering his voice and stepping closer to her, he placed a hand on Paige’s arm and rubbed the smooth lines of muscle beneath her skin. “When can we get some time for just … you and me?”
“Seriously?” she asked. “With everything happening, all these people driving in, some of them
“Is that so bad? Seems like we could both use something to loosen the tension.”
Once again Paige’s expression took a turn that Cole hadn’t been expecting. “You’re right. We could use a stress reliever.”
“Really?” Cole gasped. “I bet nobody would even miss us if we—”
“No, not that,” she said, casually dashing his highest hope.
“What, then?”
Instead of answering his question, she walked out the front door and toward the street. Cole stayed close to her, noticing how the group of local Skinners halted their conversation and glared defiantly at them.
“What are you doing, Paige?”
“Tell me what we’ve been doing since the whole Lancroft thing,” she replied.
“It hasn’t been that long, but seems like a bunch of cataloguing and—”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “Just going through a dead man’s house and squabbling over his leftovers. Meanwhile, Jory and those other two waltz back in from wherever the hell they’ve been and all these other jackoffs come here after finding out from Lord knows who that there’s a shitload of buried treasure here. And how do they get here?”
“Through a magical teleportation system that we opened up,” Cole said.
Stopping at the curb on the opposite side of the street, Paige spun around fast enough for the bobbed ends of her hair to whip against her cheek. “It’s not magic. There is no magic. You know I hate it when you write something off like that.”
Cole grinned and showed her a quick upward nod. “Yeah, I know. Isn’t it nice just being away from everyone?”
Although reluctant to cave in all the way, she did give him a few quick pats on the face that verged on slaps. “And here I thought you were getting sick of me.”
“Not when you play rough.”
“Very nice. Can you hand me that empty bottle?”
Looking down at the plethora of dead soldiers scattered on the strip of grass between the curb and sidewalk, he asked, “Which one?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Opting for one of the bottles that contained a minimum of backwash, he grabbed it by the neck and handed it up to her. “Cleaning up the neighborhood?”
“Something like that.” Wearing one of the widest grins she’d had in a while, Paige wrapped her hand over the bottle’s soggy label and whipped it at the front porch that was currently infested with goateed guys who took their fashion advice from Super Bowl commercials. It sailed past their heads and straight into the window behind them. “Since you don’t seem to have a job,” she screamed at them, “spend a few minutes picking up your goddamn trash!”
The porch dudes were too stunned to respond.
“Better?” Cole asked.
“Getting there.”
Chapter Three
The pickup was covered in a yellow paint that had been faded by decades of punishment from a relentless sun. Even after the sky’s glare faded to a soft, burnt orange, the truck still looked like something that had been flipped out of the proverbial frying pan. Its frame rattled around a powerful engine humming with a dull roar as it slowed to a stop on the shoulder of County Road 407. The passenger side window came down, allowing the driver’s voice to be heard as he leaned over and asked, “You need a ride, buddy?”
The man who’d been walking along the shoulder of the road kept his hands in the pockets of a Salvation Army overcoat. A mane of tangled dark brown hair flapped against his face when he turned to fix blue-gray eyes upon the driver. “No, thanks,” he said.
“You sure? It’s a few miles until the next gas station.”
“I’m sure. Thanks, anyway.”
The driver grumbled under his breath and raised the window.
Having heard the man’s snippy comment just fine, Mr. Burkis turned away from the truck and let it move along.
“Funny,” said a voice from the hills amid a rush of bounding footsteps and the skid of heels in rocky sand. “After all the death that has been brought to them from strangers, they can still justify stopping to ask for more from a monster walking along the side of the highway.”
