Thoughts swirled around his head as they walked in silence. Whilst they were alone, them being together seemed right, normal. Now, faced with their return to the town, he could reflect on the strangeness of it all and on the strange puzzle she presented. Trouble was, even after the long walk that got him back in sight of the town walls, he was no closer to solving it than he had been when they started.
"Wait. There's something wrong."
Instantly Mason slowed his pace and slid her a sideways glance. Everything looked fine. The walls were quiet. Automatically he glanced at the town walls as he approached, looking for damage or smoke that would indicate the town had been over-run whilst he was gone. Nothing was out of place.
"You sure?" Everything looked fine but, after yesterday, he wasn't going to argue. She had a serious set of non-human skills on her, and he'd be nuts to ignore that.
She stood motionless, her eyes not on the walls ahead, but out of focus, as though she could see something he couldn't. "Something bad has happened. I'm going to scout around. Be careful."
Before he could say another word she stepped backwards, and pulled a Houdini on him. Mason looked at the space she'd been just a moment before for a long moment.
"Great. Chicks that disappear. What next?"
With nothing better to do and not wanting to stand around like a lemon with a thumb up his ass, Mason turned towards the town and resettled Andy's backpack over his shoulder. Disappearing act or not, he knew she was coming back. If only to collect her belongings.
"Morning, Joe," he nodded to the guard on the outer redoubt as he passed. A man of few words, Joe nodded back and let him pass. Mason didn't think anything of the long, sweeping glance as he walked by. All his people knew that anyone coming in was suspect. For all they knew he could have run into a Vampire or worse whilst out there and been changed into something else.
There wasn't a guard on the main gate. Damn it! How many times had he told them to get cover when they had to take a leak? Irritation flashed white hot in Mason's chest as he stormed down the main street. All he wanted was to make sure they were safe, and they disregarded the most basic safety principles. It was enough to make a guy lose it...
His footsteps slowed as he clocked the crowd outside Val's bar. His gaze moved from one grim face to the next, noting reddened eyes and tear tracks down dust-covered cheeks. Then he realized the children were gone.
"What happened?"
Stony silence met his question. Dread curled its icy fingers around Mason's gut as he looked from one stony face to the other. Instead of the warmth he was used to, their eyes were hard and unforgiving. He'd seen that look before. Right before they drew down on something non-human.
"Well come on. I'm no mindreader. Someone tell me what bloody well happened!"
Wariness thrilled through his veins like a fine concerto played by an orchestra. They were armed. Thanks to him they were always armed but this was different. The subtle change in their body language said he needed to be careful, very careful.
"Where've you been, Mason?"
He half turned at the voice behind him to find Joe, his rifle held loosely. Surprise joined the wariness and worry fighting for dominance in his veins. He needed Andy here, something was very wrong.
"What are you playing at? Please don't tell me the gate's unguarded..."
Joe shrugged. "Seems to me we got more worries in here than we have from out there. Where were you last night?"
"I went after Andy, the girl who saved our asses against the wolves yesterday, remember? She was wounded..." He trailed off as the silent tension in the group mounted.
"Andy...the paranormal chick we threw out a couple of days ago?"
Mason's brow furrowed at the hostility in Joe's voice. He turned a little more, trying to keep an eye on the weapons in the group. His instincts screamed at him to un-sling his rifle and take cover, but he stayed where he was. That the crowd had itchy trigger fingers was easy enough to see. Just one move would be enough to set them off.
"Well, it wasn't really a case of letting her anything. If she hadn't shown up then we'd all be dead, you know that Joe." He looked around, searching the group for another face. "So do you Julia."
Julia's expression wasn't as understanding as he'd expected. Instead fear and hatred filled her eyes. "Aye, but better us dead than those creatures take our kids."
"Aye, she's right."
"Should have let be, like Fred...God rest his soul...said."
"His fault... We should never have listened to him."
The chorus of agreement from the parents in the group staggered Mason. They saw him as the enemy? Nausea rolled in his gut and clawed its way up his throat. In his travels he'd seen what happened when a community turned on one of its own, for whatever reason. The result was never pretty.
"What...the wolves took the kids?" he demanded, desperate to get to the bottom of this. Instinctively he looked for Valerie. Please don't let them have taken Suzie. His heart dropped when he located her at the back. Her reddened eyes and tear-marked cheeks were answer enough.
"Aye. They took the kids. Stole in here in the middle of the night whilst we were sleeping and took them."
"What about the guards?"
"Took out Katie on the outer wall with a crossbow. We don't know what happened to Victor on the gate, no sign of him. It was only old Fred, God rest his soul, that tried to stop them."
Mason was stunned. They'd protected the town for years against creatures, how could their methods fail so dramatically in one night? He'd only left to go after Andy because he was sure that the town was adequately defended.
"This is your fault."
The shrill accusation came from behind him. Mason turned again, feeling like he was watching a tennis match.
"How?"
"If you hadn't told that wolf no then they wouldn't have taken our kids. God knows what they're doing to them. Jamie's only three - " Tears streamed down Julia's face as her voice cracked.
Guilt hit him like a truck at Mach-one. This was his fault. If he hadn't gone, then he'd have been here to stop them. He opened his mouth to argue. What would they have preferred? To lose five women, including some of the mothers of the children who'd been taken...
He shut his jaw with a click. He knew the answer. Of course they would have. Any parent would lay their life down if it meant his or her child lived. That was what being a parent was about.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know..." He trailed off into silence, not sure what else to say. What else could he say? Then something prickled at the back of his mind.
God rest his soul. That wasn't a phrase people used for someone who was alive. It was used for someone who was six foot under or shortly to head that way. Anguish clawed at his soul, both for the loss of a friend and the communities' loss.
"Where's Fred?"
"You'd better come through," Valerie said quietly from the back of the group. Her voice was hoarse from crying. "He doesn't have long left, so we've made him comfortable. It's all we can do..."
The crowd parted, the hostile stares and the fingers curled around triggers making Mason jumpy as he walked through them. They hadn't tried to relieve him of his weaponry yet, but he knew it was coming. Unless they planned on just turning him out of town, then someone was going to make a play for his weapons pretty soon. With the way things were going, that wasn't going to turn out pretty.
He didn't think they were going to let him walk. Tension was running too high, and mob mentality had already set in. With their children stolen right from under their noses, they needed someone to blame. Mason was no idiot. He was going to be the scapegoat. It was already cut and dried.
The trouble was, he couldn't blame them. He was in charge of making sure the town was safe. He'd told them they could trust him, rely on him. This was his fault. He shouldn't have left them alone last night.
"V," he started as he drew level, and tried to catch her eye. Of all the people in town, he was closest to Valerie. Something deep inside needed her to understand how sorry he was for letting them down. How bad he felt that their kids, that Suzie, had been taken.
"We'll get them back. I'll get them back... I'll get Suzie back. I promise."
"He's in there. You might want to hurry. State he's in, he won't last long."
She gave the door a sharp nod, and turned to walk away quickly. Mason watched her for a long moment. Pain lanced through him. Valerie didn't cry in front of people. Not ever. Blanking his expression, Mason took a deep breath, steeled himself, and walked into the bar.
Darkness enveloped him in its welcoming embrace. Mason paused to let his vision adjust, and regretted it. Out of the dark the smell of death hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. Bile rose and hammered on the back of his throat. He swallowed it down, and tried to breathe through his mouth, his ears...tried to breathe through anything if it meant he didn't have to suffer through the smell that was packed into the dark room like a crowd hundreds deep.
He'd smelt death before, so the coppery tang of blood mixed with a fouler stench was nothing new. The smell of a gut wound was unmistakable. He'd know it anywhere. The contents of his stomach rose sharply again, bile burning up his throat. He'd smelt it before, but it was a hundred times worse with the realization that the person whose guts were leaking out over the floor was a friend.
His footsteps rang out against the floorboards in measured treads as he walked towards the bar. His eyes adjusted, and the room was transformed from blackness to shades of gray. Within seconds, Mason wished it hadn't.
Fred sat slumped in front of the bar, head dropped forwards onto his chest, with his back to the wooden surface. Sat was a relative term. Most of Fred sat in front of the bar, in more or less a humanoid shape, but there were other bits Mason didn't need, or want, to identify scattered around the room.
His sight had adjusted completely to the dim light in the room as he rounded the last table - the one riveted to the floor - and looked down at the slumped figure. Blood decorated the bar, the floor, and other surfaces around him in thick, black arcs that spoke of violence and pain. Mason couldn't help the wince as he looked at what remained of his friend.
He was in a worse condition than Mason had thought. A red towel covered his midsection, from chest to mid-thigh, covering the worst of the damage. It was sticky with blood and other fluids, but that wasn't the worst of it. Fred had always been a well-built man, retaining an impressive beer gut despite the recent heavy rationing. However, now Fred's abdomen looked as lean as his own. Mason gritted his teeth. He would not be sick. He wouldn't dishonour the older man in that way. How Fred was still alive was beyond him, if he was still alive.
"Wondered how long it would take you."
The voice was little more than a wheeze, but Mason caught it. He dropped to his knees next to Fred, not caring that his jeans were instantly soaked, and grabbed for the hand the older man lifted.
"Sorry, mate, traffic's a bitch."
Fred's hand was cold, the skin icy to the touch. Mason didn't need to press on the nail beds to know Fred's circulation was severely compromised. The wounded man chuckled. The sound degenerated into a cough, which was more a death rattle. For long moments he struggled to breathe.
A tiny muscle in the corner of Mason's jaw jumped. His throat was thick with emotion as he fought back the hot prickles at the backs of his eyes. In all his time on the road, all the times he'd nearly died, and all the times he'd watched others die, he'd never felt as helpless as he did now.
"What happened, Fred?"
Fred rolled his head back to lean it against the bar. Mason winced. The skin was shredded to the bone. A gaping hole in one cheek revealed the whiteness of teeth, and the eye socket furthest from Mason was empty.
"Jesus..."
"Yeah. I'm not gonna win any beauty contests, am I?"
The self-deprecating comment startled a laugh out of Mason. "No, now that you mention it, I doubt it's on the cards. What happened, man?"
Fred started to speak but another coughing fit hit him. Mason looked away as blood and spittle flew. Good thing he seemed to be immune to the Lycan infection, or Fred's tainted blood would have done him for sure.
"Sorry 'bout that. Anyways...Jed happened. Or them bastard wolves of his did. They come out of nowhere, Mason. Not like they normally do...this was sneaky. They were in human form, got the kids real quiet like. One of them had on Victor's coat...you know, that long jacket he always wore."
Mason bowed his head, shaking with anger.
"Go on."
His voice was tight and controlled. The sheer force of feeling surging through him was like a tidal wave. One tiny slip, one little crack in the iron wall of his control, and it would spill over. Then whoever was in the way would be in for a world of hurt.
"I was in here, heard something out the back." Fred shrugged. "Went to investigate, didn't see the one sneaking up on me and, well, the rest you can see... Bastards thought they'd done me for, and didn't bother to finish me off. I need to warn you - "
Mason shook his head. That didn't make sense, he already knew about the attack. "Warn me about what? We already know the kids are gone."
"No, not that." Fred flicked a glance to the door at the front of the bar. "You gotta get out of here, Mason. The wolves left a message. Jed'll give the kids back - "
"Good. He'd better if he knows what's good for him. I'm gonna take great pleasure in ripping his guts out," Mason growled, his anger almost overwhelming him. That alpha was a dead wolf. Even if they did give the kids back, which he highly doubted, there was no way he was leaving Jed alive. Not after this.
"No, you don't get it. Jed'll give the kids back...if your head is on a stake by sunrise."
Mason didn't get time to flee. He didn't even get time to process Fred's words before the door to the bar burst open, and the townsfolk spilled in. Hard faces, and harder eyes watched him down the barrels of several rifles, and he knew. They were here for him. They weren't waiting for sundown, never mind sunrise.
Instead of going for his own rifle he remained where he was, looking down at the friend who'd tried to warn him. The look in Fred's remaining blue eye was compassionate. "Don't blame them. They're only protecting their kids."
He nodded and shook Fred's hand. "Thank you, my friend. Go easy."
Fred smiled and clasped his other hand over Mason's in a final farewell. "Was just waiting for you. Sorry it was too late."
"No worries. Catch you on the flipside."
He watched Fred's hand slide from his. After a second he reached out and closed the single, sightless eye with gentle fingers then he stood to face his execution party.
"This is it then?"
Mason couldn't believe his voice was so level, or calm. These people were going to kill him, and with so many rifles trained on him, there was nothing he could do about it.
"So you're just going to kill me in cold blood?"
"Here, this way. Let's get him to the walls."
Mason groaned. His right side was on fire, blood soaking through what remained of his T-shirt, the rags of the fabric a match for the torn skin underneath. They'd shot him, several times. So much for not shooting an unarmed man.
None of his arguments had saved him. As soon as the first trigger had been pulled, more had followed. He had no idea how much lead he'd taken but it had to be enough to drop a damn rhino. It fucking hurt.
Clamping his eyes shut, he tried to breathe through the pain as they dragged him through the streets. He knew what fate awaited him on the walls of the town. Locking his legs and planting his feet, he pit his weight against his captors. His heavy boots dug into the dirt as he put up a fight. He was bigger built than either of the men trying to drag him, something they seemed to have overlooked. There was no way he was going anywhere near that wall. Not if he could help it. They'd have to drag him kicking and screaming, and he'd make them pay for every step.
"Christ, he's like a bull...some help here."
He slammed a hard elbow into the side of the guy on his right, freeing that hand. Fist clenched, he twisted and drove it upwards into the jaw of the guy on his left. The vicious uppercut dropped the smaller man without a word.
Mason moved back, his guard snapping up. It should have been a light dance on his feet, as he'd been trained in the ring, except that his side felt as if it had been caved in by a sledgehammer. He started to turn to face his next opponent when there was the distinctive click of a hammer being drawn back, and something hard was pressed against the back of his head. He froze.
"Now I've seen just about everything out there on the road." Valerie's voice was cool and calm, with an edge of suppressed hysteria no man in his right mind would mess with. "I've seen men get up after being filled with lead like you. But I ain't ever seen any of them get up after a couple of rounds to the brain. What's the betting you don't either?"
Crap. Mason held his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender.
"Only one problem with that darlin'. Jed wants my head on a stake. You put a bullet through my brain with that, and there ain't gonna be much of my head left. What do you think your chances of getting the kids back are then?"
Mason counted silently as he waited for Valerie to make a decision. Finally the pressure let up, and he heard the hammer click back into place. Relief and cold sweat slithered down his spine as he released a breath he didn't realize he was holding.
"He has a point. Get him up on that wall. And make sure you have a good hold on him this time, for pity's sake."
He held in his curses as he was grabbed again, and Donny, the victim of the uppercut, took the opportunity to dig an elbow into the wounds that peppered his side.
Bastard, you'll pay for that. Mason glared at his tormentor as they shoved him roughly forwards.
"I suggest you let him go. Now."
Mason's head snapped up as the townsfolk went for their guns. There was Andy, as large as life, standing in the middle of the town gates. In their hurry to lure him in like a lamb to the slaughter the residents of Sanctuary had forgotten Town Defense 101. Shut the fucking gate.
If he weren't so messed up, he'd kiss each and every one of them.
"I suggest you take your paranormal ass, and hightail it out of here, missy. Unless you want your head to join his on a stake," Donny snapped, high on a cocktail of anger, pain, and adrenalin.
"Is that so?"
A chill wind blew through the town, whipping the dust of the road and her long, black coat up into a frenzy around her. Andy slid the dark glasses down her nose to look at Donny, and then at the rest of the townsfolk, her gaze as hard and unblinking as a rattlesnake. That was when Mason realized what was different about her.
When she'd arrived in Sanctuary she'd walked and talked human. Even with his talents he'd had to see some serious evidence she wasn't human before he believed her claim to be something paranormal. The speed and sheer lethality she'd displayed with her blades during the rescue yesterday had nearly done it, but Mason himself was proof that a human could outwit and outfight the majority of paranormals.
It wasn't until he'd dug a bullet out of her arm, and seen for himself how quickly she healed that he'd truly believed her claims. And even now he wasn't sure what she was, just that there was no way she could be plain old homo sapiens.
Now though, with the sky churning and angry behind her where it had been calm a moment ago, and the wind driving up a storm, there was no mistaking the fact she was something on the darker side of paranormal. Lightening cracked, and thunder rolled, leaving her highlighted in silhouette. The crowd around him drew a collective breath as just for a second she was cast into shadow, her silhouette stretching into a familiar cloaked and hooded figure carrying a scythe.
"The Lady of Death."
The whisper ran through the crowd, from one pair of lips to another. She couldn't be...could she? The Lady wasn't a paranormal. They said she was Death itself made flesh and set upon the Earth to hunt down the unworthy. Which, when you thought about it, amounted to ninety percent of the current population.
"Don't be ridiculous. That's just a story, made up to scare the kids." Donny had his rifle in his shoulder, but if he could aim and fire accurately Mason was a monkey's uncle.
"You sure about that, Donald? Just because you don't believe in the bogeyman, doesn't mean the bogeyman doesn't believe in you." Andy took her sunglasses off and slid them into her inside pocket.
"H-how did you know my name?"
She shrugged, her voice calm and pleasant when she spoke. "Same way I know Valerie's, and John's, and Eric's. Believe me, I'm not like anything you've ever met before. And you might as well put that away..." She motioned to Donny's rifle. "Shooting me'll only piss me off."
"Para's have threatened to kill us before. It's all been hot air and illusion. None have managed it," Valerie broke in, clapping Donny on the shoulder as she walked forwards to face Andy. Mason had to admit, she had guts.
Andy smiled. It wasn't a nice expression. The wind rose again, more ferocious this time, moaning as it whirled through the gate and around them. A chill wind, which whispered bad things directly into the souls of all who heard it.
"You know what other names I know? How about Katie, Victor and Frederick?"
Lightening spilt the sky behind her. Mason shook his head and blinked as three figures materialized around her. Something was wrong with his eyes. He could swear the three dead townspeople stood there, as pale and opaque as ghosts. Hell...they were dead. If this wasn't a trick, some illusion, and Andy really was who they said she was, then they could be ghosts.
As his brain tried to find some logical and scientific rationale for the appearance of the three figures, he knew. He'd felt the tug inside as she'd raised her hands and knew that she'd called the souls of the dead to her.
Jaws dropped, and rifles clattered to the dirt. Her voice, cold and terrible, cut through the mournful moan of the wind.
"You called me, and you named me. I am Death, and that man - " she lifted her hand to point at him, " - is the only thing standing between you and me. Kill him and you won't have to worry about the Werewolves. I'll drag you to hell myself."