Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

What? Something cold settled in his chest. The ax, the blood on the freezer . . . Oh God, the kid . . . “You’re feeding him.”

“Sure. Get more if you can deliver a Chucky alive.” Then Wade saw his face and hawked out a laugh so hard his belly jiggled. “No, we’re not going to chop you up into burgers, if that’s what you’re worried about. Although we kinda run out a day ago, and I know that little bastard’s hungry. Thing is, you’re worth a lot more alive than in some Chucky’s gullet. He starves to death, I don’t know I care very much. They’ll take him no matter what, and he’ll keep just fine in the cold. Hunters are due real soon anyway.”

“How do they know when to come?” Tom asked. He didn’t really want the answer, but every second he stayed out of that chair was one more when he still had a chance.

“Run up the old flag when we got something. I guess they got spotters.”

The flag. Tom clamped back on a moan. My God, it was so obvious, right there in plain sight. He’d wanted to believe he was safe—and now he was dead.

“I don’t ask a lot of questions. They go about their business, I mind mine.” Wade pulled open the stove’s firebox. “All I care about is getting what’s owed me.”

“That’s where the feed’s coming from, isn’t it?” Tom asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Wade reached into the firebox with a hand sheathed in a thick red leather glove. “I turn you in, I bet I’ll get a nice new wagon and maybe a good dray.”

A barter system, that had to be it. Capture a Chucky or young people who hadn’t turned, and you’d be rewarded. With mounting horror, Tom watched as Wade inspected the brand. The black iron—an open V that Wade said represented a broken bone, which Tom thought very apt—was turning a soft gray. The choke of scorched iron lodged in his throat . . .

It’s the smell of SAWs going cyclic; of spent brass cascading over rock; of a gun barrel so hot it jams and he has to spit into the breech as he works, desperately, to clear his weapon; and there are voices, always the voices, streaming out of the merciless sun and through the speaker in his helmet: “Jesus Christ, cut the wire, cut the f**king wire and grab the kid or you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re—”

“Tom.” At the sound of his name, Tom blinked away from the horror-show of memory to find Wade there in this nightmare of the present. The broken-bone brand was not red-hot the way it was in movies but ashen. Tom felt the heat-shimmers from five feet away. “Time to sit down now,” Wade said.

“You don’t need to do this,” he said, already knowing it was a waste of breath.

“Well, I don’t brand you, I can’t prove I turned you in. Don’t want to get cheated.”

They had the gun, and there was nowhere to run. The one thing survival school had drummed in over and over again was that unless the mission was in jeopardy, choose life.

Another thing he’d learned: eyes always gave you away. Control your eyes, and unless your opponent was a mind reader . . .

Wade was closer. Nikki had the gun.

He looked at Nikki.

He went for Wade.

57

He moved fast, aimed low, his right arm flashing out and sweeping up. He screamed as the metal brand sizzled into skin, a quick lick of fire that seared his flesh and burned hair. But Wade lost his grip. The iron clattered to the floor as Tom drove forward, twisting at the waist, pushing off from his back foot, left elbow cocked. He rammed the bony point into Wade’s gut so hard he felt the impact all the way to his shoulder. Wade let out a breathy, low grunt, and then the old man was staggering, his weight pulling him off-balance. Tom stayed with him, bare feet slapping wood, his hands knotted in Wade’s shirt, driving, driving . . . Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Nikki pivot, the shotgun coming up, and then he vaulted around the old man.

The roar was enormous. The room jumped in a brilliant burst of light. At close range, the shot from a twelve-gauge ought to penetrate straight through and tag him, too. But Wade was huge: a three-hundred-pound human shield.

The big man jerked; there was a sound like the burst of a water balloon on cement as Wade’s blood splattered against wood. He felt Wade beginning to crumple, heard Nikki shrieking over the ringing in his ears. He was already moving again, pushing off with his stronger left leg, rounding the body, staying as low as he could. He saw Nikki just ahead, less than ten feet away—eyes wide, mouth open. In her shock, her arms had loosened, and the shotgun was pointing down and away.

Go, go, go, go! He sprang, left hand clawed for a grab, right elbow cocked. One good punch—

His right foot came down on the thick slick of Wade’s blood.

It was like slipping on a patch of glare ice. He felt his balance going, his right foot shooting out. He let out a startled grunt, twisted, tried to break his fall but failed. He crashed down hard, his left hip jamming against the solid wood floor. A rocket of pain exploded into his pelvis, and then he was gasping, rolling, trying to find his footing. On all fours now. Then his eyes jerked to the right, and there, on the floor, six inches away . . .

Above, over his shoulder, he risked a single glance. Nikki’s face twisted in a mask of rage, and then she was dragging the shotgun up, pulling the trigger—

Nothing.

No shot.

Tom saw from her face that she realized her mistake at the same moment he did. In her rush, she’d forgotten to rack the shotgun. Her forearms corded as she fumbled. Her hands were wires. She worked the pump as he darted for the brand . . .

Ka-CHUNK—

. . . already thinking: too slow, too slow, too slow!

CRU—

His right hand snatched at the brand, still incredibly hot, and then he was sweeping around, scything the air in a vicious backhand. He felt the instant the brand connected, cutting her legs out from under. The shotgun boomed again, but the blast was wild, a spurt of fire licking at the ceiling. Nikki tumbled to the floor, and the shotgun clattered away, and she was shrieking: “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, you little f**k—”

Hand singing with fresh pain, Tom lunged for the shotgun, grabbed it up, and then he was spinning around, racking the pump: ka-CHUNK-crunch—

And stopped dead.

There were two of them: a square woman in winter-weight camo and an even older man with dark eyes and wisps of steam curling from a black watch cap glued down to his skull. Both had rifles.

On the floor, Nikki crabbed back. “No, no, we—”