He didn't say anything; he was too busy thinking of his own wife and all she'd given him. And how much shit she'd put herself through to do it.
“HEADS UP!” Mihai shouted.
They both scrambled to their feet, looking for the threat. When he found it, his stomach dropped to his knees.
Gunnar, Shandor and Marko were running full speed towards them with a shit ton of Skin Eaters on their tail.
"Fuck!" Xan bellowed, pumping his shotgun. Kneeling, he aimed and fired. Bam – right through the head. One down, too many to go.
The four of them let loose a flurry of bullets, some hitting their mark, others catching the fuckers in the arms or stomach, barely slowing them down. Throwing down his shotgun, he grabbed both his guns from the back of his pants.
“We're not close enough!” Hockey roared. Before he could stop him, Hockey jumped off the truck and bolted down the street.
“Hockey!” Punka screamed, “NO!” Punka hopped in his truck and, tires squealing, he took off down the road.
He watched as Marko split from Shandor and Gunnar, running towards a nearby McDonalds. Frate leapt through the shattered front window and disappeared.
“XAN! You dumbass!” Gunnar yelled. “XAN, fucking shoot!”
He zeroed in on the two Skins closing in on Gunnar and took them both out with shots to their heads. Gunnar immediately veered right, jumped over a dumpster, and ran down an alleyway with three Skins hot on his heels.
He had lost sight of Hockey but could clearly see Punka driving straight for the bulk of Skins headed their way. He plowed right into them, sending half of them flying in all directions as the other half-swarmed the truck.
Shandor paused to look back, shouting Punka's name and losing the distance he'd gained from the threat. Cursing, Mihai stopped shooting and took off running for his son.
Oh, fuck, no. He was going to lose everyone.
With his .45 in one hand and his .9mm in the other, he let the bullets fly, trying to eliminate the Skins headed for Shandor and Mihai when, suddenly, there was a hissing snarl to his left and the bed of the truck dipped down as a Skin propelled himself up and over the side. He stumbled backwards and fell on his back, losing his grip on both guns. Just as the Skin pounced, he kicked the fucker in the stomach with every ounce of strength he had, sending him back up in the air. The Skins face exploded and his body fell limp beside him. Gunnar, his savior, hopped up into the truck and yanked him to his feet just as Marko wrenched open the driver's side door. The truck rumbled to life.
He immediately went for his weapons and looked back to where he had last seen Shandor. His blood went cold. Shandor was surrounded and they were out of bullets. A Skin was fang deep in his thigh and another had sunk into his shoulder. He watched his best friend hit the ground hard on his knees, his eyes wide. Mihai, screaming for his son, barreled into the Skin at Shandor's shoulder and they went rolling down the street in a tangle of fists and fangs. Another group of Skins descended on the wrestling pair and Mihai, within seconds, was torn to shreds.
Shandor blew the head off the Skin on his leg and then sunk to the pavement on his hands and knees, soaked in blood and breathing hard. They locked eyes and Shandor attempted to give him his signature cocky grin.
His breath caught. The fucker was saying good-bye.
Forcing a grin, he flipped off his dying friend.
This time, Shandor’s grin was genuine.
“WE HAVE TO GO!” Marko bellowed and the truck jerked forward. Clinging to the tailgate, he watched as Shandor tried to drag himself across the street using only one arm.
Scanning the area, he couldn’t find any trace of Hockey; Mihai was long dead and all that remained of Punka was the blood dripping off the faces of the Skins headed straight for them.
The last thing he saw was Shandor’s body giving out on the sidewalk and his gun falling from his hand.
Xan glanced over at Nico.
"I really miss that motherfucker," he said roughly, fighting back the emotion welling up inside of him.
Nico stopped shoveling and looked up, grinning.
“I know, frate. You and all the women.”
He burst out laughing.
CHAPTER FIVE
I craned my neck, trying to see around a flipped-over minivan blocking the directional road sign. “Hills Creek State Park…6 miles, that-a-way.”
The entrance to Hill’s Creek State Park was a wide gravel road surrounded by thick forestry. I followed the wooden signs pointing me in the direction of the visitor’s office and a small log cabin came into view. The front door was wide open, yet I saw no sign of life. Human or otherwise.
The office held the same remnants of violence as everything else did these days. There was blood splatter but thankfully no human remains to contend with. A few cupboards were open and a map display had been knocked over. Someone had definitely gotten out of here in a hurry, but hadn’t died. At least not here.
I grabbed what I could from the empty office: a map of the park, a map of Pennsylvania, some canned soup and granola bars from underneath the desk, and a six-pack of bottled water I’d found inside a small refrigerator. Then I headed straight for the lake the park boasted. I had not had a chance to bathe in over a week. Yep, a bath definitely trumped sleep.
I stripped off my filthy jeans and even dirtier thermal shirt and slipped into the freezing water, staying near the shore. Teeth chattering, I soaped up quickly and rinsed. As I was tugging on clean clothing, I stared down at my five tattoos that had not been on my body before Gerik had given me his power.
Circling my bellybutton, there were four symbols: a circle with a crescent moon on either side of it, a plain triangle, an upside-down triangle, and three wavy lines.
The fifth lay between my breasts, bigger than the rest. A primitive-looking eye. Just an oval outline and in the center was a circle. It did not take a genius to figure out it was the symbol for spirit.
They were the same black tattoos that covered Gerik's chest and abdomen, only smaller. I'm not sure calling them tattoos is appropriate. Brands, maybe? Markings? Hey, look at me! I’m a prophesized magical soul mate to a dragon!
Either way it was creepy.
Since the sun was setting, making camp was now a necessity. Leaving my Jeep near the lake, I walked into the forest. The park was heavily wooded, the trees were thick and tall, their canopies an autumn rainbow of leaves, leaves that had already begun to fall. Winter was just around the corner. I cursed, thinking of all the time I had wasted searching for the clan, time that I could have spent traveling towards warmer climates.
After I built a small fire of branches and brush, I laid out my sleeping bag and placed five medium-sized rocks in a circle around my camp. I laid my palms on them and called to my power, infusing each one with an individual element, using myself as a conduit. Then I buried them. The result was an invisible net of magic that nothing could pass through. They were not fail-safe; that I had learned at camp in the Catskills. Twice Skin Eaters had breached our wards, and I was still trying to figure out how.
I had once thought the Skin Eaters were mindless beasts focused solely on their prey. At first, they had been, but now they were using patience and strategy, making them even more formidable opponents than any beast in the wild. They were becoming masters of disguise, cleaning themselves, wearing clothing and shoes. I had even seen a few whose eyes were not red until they had readied for an attack. For all intents and purposes, without looking too closely, you would think they were human. They were adapting, evolving, and becoming civilized monsters that were now more lethal than ever.
Thankfully, they would never be able to fool me. With my power came the ability to see aura’s of all things living. It wasn't something I could control no matter how hard I tried. The ability flickered on and off when it felt like it, but had not yet failed me when I needed it. Then, annoyingly, it could take days to go away.
During my travels I'd come across other people who, like me, were pill
aging for supplies, trying to survive. I had never made myself known. Most of the groups I had happened upon had been groups of men, or mostly men, and being a female, all alone, I did not want to put anything to chance.
So I had watched them from afar, fascinated by their different colored auras and before long, I had developed my own conclusion to what each color symbolized.
Most of the animals I would come across – dogs, cats, a few cows and horses – had auras that ranged from dark blue to orange. I quickly discovered the blue auras always surrounded the skittish animals, the ones who were aware of the dangers around them. The animals surrounded in orange were approachable, friendly and outgoing. I figured they were either too dumb to realize what had happened to the world or were happily and stupidly accepting their fates.
The people were a little harder.
I’d come across of group of men in upstate New York, searching through a small town for supplies, same as me. They were mean, angry-looking men, who radiated violence. Every single one of their auras was a deep, muddy looking red.
I'd also come across an elderly woman in a house I had broken into. She was all alone, smack dab in the middle of a forgettable suburban neighborhood.
She had paid me no attention when I had kicked in her door. Surrounded in a thick purple haze, she sat motionless in a recliner chair that reeked of urine and fecal matter, staring blindly at a blank television screen. If it had not been for her infrequent blinks, I would have thought she was dead.
I had decided right then and there that purple was the color of crazy…and then left.
Then there were the teenagers. The boy had been the same color of red as the group of men I had seen. However, the girl had been a dark gray. Red and gray are at opposite sides of the color spectrum so, if the boy was angry and hateful, then was the girl…complacent? I didn’t think so. She had had dark circles under her pale eyes, clearly had not been sleeping or eating enough, and she had been noticeably afraid.
Maybe gray was the color of fear. Or stress. Or sickness.
I sighed. It didn't matter what her aura symbolized. She didn’t matter. None of us did. All I needed to know, all I cared about aside from survival, was that Skin Eaters always have a black aura.
Yawning, I stretched out inside of my sleeping bag. Sleep claimed me the moment my head touched the ground.
******
I awoke in the middle of the night to a Skin Eater creeping, a little too loudly, toward my protective circle. His wild eyes were red and glowing as saliva dripped from his mouth full of sharp, jagged teeth.
“I can smell you, bitch,” he sneered.
How did he know I was female? I know they have a heightened sense of smell, but distinguishing genders? That was actually pretty cool.
“I’ll be right with you,” I shouted, untangling myself from my sleeping bag.
He crouched, ready to lunge himself at a person he couldn't even see.
“Not a good idea,” I warned. “That’s really going to hurt.”
Ignoring me, he sprung forward and with a thwack, bounced backwards off my warded camp. The movement caused the elements I'd invoked inside the rocks to ripple through air, creating a transparent wave of molecules.
The Skin Eater landed hard on his back. If he’d been human and ran into a protection circle, the magical equivalent of a brick wall, his bones would have been instantly broken. But he was not human and, in minutes, he was able to stand again looking no worse than before. Well...he looked a tad bit angrier and he was hissing a lot louder.
“I told you not to do it.”
“Go ahead and stay in there,” he growled. “You’ll have to leave eventually and I’ll be waiting for you.”
I stood there, studying him. “Can I ask you a question?”
He snarled at me and I decided to take that as a yes.
“Do you care…about others like you? Or about anything at all?” Gods, I felt silly talking to this…thing, when all he wanted to do was eat me.
“I care that I’m starving, bitch! I haven't eaten in days and it fucking hurts!”
Oh. I could commiserate. Being hungry certainly did suck. But that didn't mean I was going to hand myself over as a midnight snack.
Realizing I wasn't budging, he sighed noisily. “Most of us live in packs,” he growled. “And yes, I gave a shit about my pack.”
“Gave? Did something happen to them?”
“Killed.”
“And this made you sad?”
He cocked his head to the side and bared his teeth. “Fuck. You.”
I guess our pleasant chat had come to an end. “Fuck you, too,” I muttered, and struck.
Willing the power inside of me to surge forward, I called to Air. I felt a slight breeze as I scooped the element from its stasis, willing it to merge with my power and coalesce in my palms. Then I threw it at my intruder. As he blew backwards, I ran through the wards, already summoning Fire. My body heated as the element surged, causing orange, red and black flames to rise from my palms. I tossed the element forward, watching, fascinated, as it wrapped around the Skin Eater, making quick work of him until nothing remained but a pile of steaming bones. I suspected that decades could pass and I would still be in awe of what I was now capable of doing.
“It was nice meeting you,” I told his remains. “Very educational.”
Sliding back into my sleeping bag, I stared up at the sky and wondered if Xan, wherever he was, was looking up at the very same stars.
CHAPTER SIX
Xan kicked open his trailer door and took a seat on the entrance steps. He couldn't sleep. Not lately. Not unless he was good and drunk and, even then, he would not call it sleeping, more of an alcohol-induced coma from which he always woke from feeling less than refreshed.
Staring up at the night sky, he tried to remember one of the many stupid stories her had told him.
“Never thought I’d say this, fată,” he muttered, “But I’m actually missing those ridiculous Greek stories of yours. What was that one you told me the morning after our wedding? The one about Zeus and…what was her name? Hera?”
Flicking open his Zippo he lit up a cigarette, sucked in a heavy drag of smoke, and blew it towards the heavens.
“So this Zeus frate spots this hot chick and it was love at first sight. He fucked her, kidnapped her and made her his wife. Wham. Bam. Happily ever after.”
Smiling, he shook his head. The story summed up their entire relationship. He had taken one look at her and all rational thought had fled to his groin.
“Heads up, frate. Here comes Gerik's obsession,” Shandor whispered.
He looked up from his soup, just as curious as everyone else was about the fată who, in the past month, had barely left her trailer. She was turned toward Lyuba, who was dishing her up a giant bowl of soup, so all he saw was a whole lot of straight, black hair, hanging three quarters of the way down her back.
When she turned, his eyebrows popped. She was the last thing he had expected Gerik to be fawning over. Frate had a thing for tall, skinny, breast-less women that had the whole supermodel bitch thing going for them. His long-standing affair with Onyx Vãduva was proof to that and so was almost every other fată Gerik had hooked up with.
Not that this fată wasn't beautiful, because she damn sure was. But, she was on the short side, and seeing as how she had hips and tits, was also a whole lot curvier than Gerik liked his women.
She was, in fact, the type of woman he liked underneath him, above him, bent over in front of him, up against a wall, hell, whatever way he could get it. She was in shape but nicely curved, with handfuls of breasts to squeeze and an actual ass he could grab hold of while he pounded into her.
She was undeniably nervous. Her eyes were darting back and forth, scanning over the food tent for a place to sit. Just as it looked like she was about to make a run for it, Becki looped arms with her and, as luck would have it, brought her right to his picnic table.
She took the seat across from him, r
efusing to meet his eyes. She wasn't at all like the women he was used to. This girl was shy. Reserved. Innocent.
“Trinity, this is Shandor,” Becki said, gesturing. “Our resident idiot.”
Trinity didn't even look up.
When it did not appear as if Becki was going to introduce him, he kicked her under the table and gave her a pointed look. She rolled her eyes.
“And this is Xan.” She had said his name dismissively, as if he were the most insignificant creature on the planet. He managed to give her the stink eye before Trinity turned her gaze towards him.
“Hey,” she said, meekly.
“If I'm an idiot, fată,” Shandor yelled. “What the hell are you? The resident bitch?”
Becki shoved him. “Being a bitch is better than being a moron!”
Trinity was ignoring their bickering in favor of staring forlornly into her soup.
“The soup is definitely depressing today,” he piped up, trying to get her attention. “Sometimes Lyuba puts a little too much ‘It sucks to be me’ in it.”
Her perfect pink lips melted into a stunning smile. And those eyes of hers, the greenest eyes he had ever seen, sparkled like goddamn gems.
Fuuuuuck… He was instantly hard. He had never seen eyes like hers. He would have remembered eyes like that. He would have dreamt about eyes like that. Dreamt that they were looking up at him while she sucked his—
Shit. Not wanting to attack her during her first excursion out of her trailer, he excused himself. Near the exit, he turned, giving her one last look and their eyes met. She had been watching him walk away and the blush spreading across her delicate features was a telltale sign fata had liked what she had seen.
He tossed her a lazy grin, deepening her blush. Oh yeah. This one was a babe in the fucking woods. Probably a virgin, to boot. Nice. He hadn't fucked a virgin in a long ass time.
Gerik appeared beside her, frowning at him. He winked and Gerik's eyes went white. Laughing, he turned around and left. Poor Gerik. He would have his little fată on her back, thighs spread, and hymen broken, before the end of the week, he was sure of it.