Blood Binds the Pack by Alex Wells

Author:Alex Wells [Wells, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, Space Opera, Action and adventure
ISBN: 9780857666482
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2018-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

22 Days

No one had to tell Hob when the Bone Collector and Coyote arrived, just as the sky was starting to go light for dawn. She hadn’t moved away from the window of her office since she’d gotten home and left her motorcycle, rescued from the dunes by the mining camp, to be dealt with by Hati. Her ashtray, a twisted piece of metal that had once served the same function for Old Nick, had come with her and was half-full of white-gray ash and the bent butts of black cigarettes. No matter how much she smoked, her goddamn headache still wouldn’t go away.

The first thing she felt, seeing the pale, ghostly shape that was the Bone Collector and the shorter shadow that was Coyote, was relief. Then she reminded herself that she was pissed as all hell at the Bone Collector. He’d made the entire op into a giant fuckup, and maybe it was technically her fault for calling him in the first place, but it wasn’t like she’d known he’d do something that ass-and-tits-up stupid.

She clamped her lips around her half-finished cigarette and headed down into the yard to meet them. She was surprised when the Bone Collector still stood there, a hand against one wall. If he’d had any goddamn sense, he should have run for it. She stopped in front of the two men, hands braced on her hips.

“You don’t have to wait up when we’re out late, you know,” Coyote said.

She glared at him. “You all right?”

“Of course.”

That was an argument to have at a later time. “Then get. Bala’s probably worried sick about you.”

Coyote looked at the Bone Collector, and shrugged. “It was nice knowing you.”

A bare bit of red-orange sunrise light caught the wall in front of her, just at the top. That marked a whole night without sleep, which just pissed her off more. She was through worrying that much about anyone who didn’t collect their paycheck from her. Hob turned her attention back to the Bone Collector.

The man looked… worn out. No. She wasn’t going to think anything even that nice about him. If he hadn’t wanted to get worn out, maybe he should have thought for three fucking seconds before waltzing into a goddamn mining camp like it was a dance hall. She crossed her arms. “And what the fuck was that?”

His eyebrows went up, graceful curves that she found herself itching to punch. “I fetched Coyote for you.”

Was it possible for a human being to be this dense, even one that spent most of his time being a rock? She snarled, “Before that.”

He opened his mouth, and so help him, it better have been to say something not stupid. But then Hob felt the world shift, impossibly, because they weren’t anywhere near one of the damn camps. There shouldn’t have been anything to make the air around them vibrate, prickling at her skin like a thousand needles. It was like what had happened before, but only a little. Like this hum ended not in some bone-deep harmony, but in an agonized scream.

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