Wilder's Mate

Chapter Nine

Clear Springs was the most uncomfortable town Satira had ever seen.

They rode in just before dawn, when the rising sun would stir lethargy in vampires. The town, on the other hand, should have been bustling with early-morning activity. Instead the streets lay quiet and empty, without even a twitch from a curtained window to prove life stirred.

It felt dead, and Satira shivered. “There’s no one left alive?” Wilder reined in his horse and drew up short behind some brush. “Likely not, unless more ghouls are about.”

“A whole town…” The Guild was supposed to prevent atrocities like this—but they could only do so much, she supposed, and Clear Springs would have been considered lost to the Deadlands. The border seemed to creep east a little more every year. If she returned to Iron Creek, there was no guarantee that a new bloodhound would be assigned to Levi’s old position. How long before the vampires edged close enough for the important men in Washington to decide Iron Creek wasn’t worth the cost to protect?

“Satira.” Wilder’s voice was steely. Hard.

She swallowed hard. “You can sense the dead, can’t you? Are the houses empty?”

“I sense the dead,” he confirmed, “and they’re here. Plenty of them. But don’t forget they can sense your fear. It’ll call to them, honey.”

So hiding her worry from Wilder wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to wall it off from her own heart.

Concentrating on Nathaniel helped. Her mentor would need her courage now. “They won’t be able to enter the sunlight, though. So the ones in these houses can’t join the fight, unless they’ve created tunnels.”

“Ghouls,” he reminded her, though his expression remained mild. “Don’t know if we can fight all of them. Might have to, but avoidance would be better.”

There was no telling how many there would be. The vampire could have turned the residents of Clear Springs, or enslaved them, or simply killed them. “A hotel should have plenty of ways in and out. The ghoul said there was a lab underneath now. That’s where Nathaniel will be.”

“Since we know roughly where we’re headed, sneaking’s our best bet.”

“When? Will they be weaker when the sun’s higher?”

“Maybe a little. Not enough to make waiting worth it, though.” His horse danced beneath him. “The longer we sit around, the better the chance someone’ll spot us.”

Satira smoothed a hand down her mount’s neck as the mare shifted uneasily. “I suppose I need to arm myself, in that case.”

His grin was feral, edged with a little violence. “Time to bust open that handy pack of yours, sweetheart.”

Time for the weapons they’d dragged with them across the plains, all in anticipation of this. Emotions tangled inside her—fear, anticipation, perhaps even excitement.

She met Wilder’s eyes and wondered if her smile had that same madness. “If it goes badly, I can always cause an explosion or two.”

“We’ll keep that in reserve. Sort of a plan of last resort, yeah?”

“I’ll struggle to restrain myself.” She nodded ahead. “On foot, then?” He inclined his head. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to hang back while I do a quick scout around the hotel?”

“Of course.” It would give her time to check the weapons and be sure they hadn’t suffered for their callous handling.

He dismounted and slipped away silently. She barely caught a glimpse of him as he darted across the clear spaces between buildings on his way to the hotel.

Long minutes ticked by as Satira slid from her own horse. Most of the weapons were in her packs—in deference to Wilder’s mount, she imagined, which had to haul the impressive bulk of his muscles around.

The guns she checked briefly and put aside. She’d only been able to fit three of the modified grenades into her pack, and none of them had been armed yet. They were Nathaniel’s invention, ingenious explosives that could be customized in the field with the addition of certain chemicals.

A dusty patch of road behind a bush was hardly an ideal workstation, but Satira felt plenty motivated.

By the time Wilder returned she’d loaded the gunpowder and laced all three explosives with silver shavings that would shred through vampire flesh like acid.

“Got good news and bad news,” he murmured as he knelt beside her.

Satira concentrated on the grenade’s pin. “What’s the bad news?”

“Archer is down there. He must have waited out the new moon here instead of going back to one of the brothels in town.”

“If no one’s alive, how did he…?” At Wilder’s look, she swallowed hard and decided not to pursue the matter. Whether Archer had passed the new moon with vampires or ghouls, it didn’t change the truth—

he would be every bit as dangerous as Wilder, and would have the advantage of knowing the battleground.

“And the good news?”

“I’m pretty damn sure I figured out where they’re holding Nate.” He touched one of the grenades.

“What’re these?”

“Explosives. Laced with silver. Expensive, but the damage is impressive.”

“That would come in handy for clearing out a room.” Wilder surveyed the rest of the array she’d laid out. “If it comes down to it, we can fight.”

Confident, she reminded herself. She needed to be confident. “If I know Nathaniel, he’ll have been planning for rescue.”

“Is it possible to plan for a rescue like this?”

Perhaps not, but he’d be ready, and that was all that mattered.

Almost. After setting the grenade carefully on the ground, she rocked to her knees and framed Wilder’s face with her hands. “No one could plan for us, Wilder. Not even Archer.”

“They could plan for me easily enough.” He kissed her and rested his forehead against hers. “You’re the wild card, sweetheart. The ace in the hole, and you’re going to win it for all of us.”

“Just get me to Nathaniel,” she whispered. “There’s nothing the two of us can’t think our way out of.

Especially if we have a bloodhound around to help with the heavy lifting.” Wilder kissed her again, this time parting her lips with his tongue. So easy to melt at the taste of him, especially with the recent memory of pleasure fresh in her mind. He’d done things with and to her that still made her blush to think of, but none she had enjoyed as much as the simple heat of his kiss.

When he pulled away, his voice had gone low, hoarse. “Once this is over—” Satira pressed her fingertips to his lips. “Levi would have told you not to waste time making plans before over gets here.”

“Yeah, I guess he would have.” He slipped the bag over her head and helped her secure it against her hip. Then he took her hand and hefted his gun. “This way.”

For a large man, Wilder moved quietly. Satira watched his boots and tried to step where he did as he led her behind several roughly constructed buildings that looked to be in poor repair. More than one showed the evidence of violence—bullets lodged in wood and snapped timber. Black scorch marks climbed the back of one wall, as if a fire had been narrowly averted. The vampire who’d taken over the town clearly cared little for any home but his own.

And the hotel was immaculate. Fresh paint all but shined in the early-morning light. Tools lay in a neat row on the north side, where a new addition to the building was underway.

It was there that Satira saw the first stirrings of life. A ghoul, from the vacant expression, one who wandered in a jerky, uneven arc back and forth in front of the main roadway, his hands hanging limply at his sides. Avoiding him was laughably easy. Wilder hustled them both around the south side of the building, past a stable where horses whinnied restlessly.

Satira made note of the location of the stable door. Nathaniel would need a mount, if he was well enough to ride on his own. Please let him be well enough to ride on his own.

Wilder stopped near the edge of the building, next to a door that blended in so well with the wall that Satira might not have noticed it. Pulling it open revealed steep stairs carved into stone that twisted down into darkness.

“Stick close,” Wilder whispered as he began to descend the stairs. His boots fell on the stone with soft thuds, and he winced and stepped more lightly. “Echoes down here. Be careful.” The stairs went down and down, until the darkness was all but absolute. Wilder had no trouble seeing—or perhaps whatever heightened senses bloodhounds enjoyed helped him pick out a path. Satira put one hand against the wall and braced the other on his shoulder, feeling her way slowly behind him as her heart hammered in her ears.

It seemed like forever before she saw a flicker of light ahead of them. Wilder stepped away instead of down, and her foot hit solid dirt. She stumbled a little, then caught her balance with a curse she only gave voice in her head. “We must be a hundred feet underground.” The tunnel was still dark, and another, brighter flare of light followed the scrape of a match. Wilder looked around and shook his head. “It’s an honest-to-God dungeon.” Satira reached into the bag at her hip and fumbled until she came up with a slender tube made from a clear resin. One of the first projects she’d worked on with Nathaniel, inspired by their modified rounds.

Twisting a knob on the side combined the chemicals within, and she gave it a good shake to mix them together before clipping it to the strap of her bag.

The glow grew in intensity with each passing second, until Satira could clearly make out the long row of metal bars. Cages, carved into stone, large enough to accommodate one prisoner with no more room than they might need to stretch out.

Wilder stepped closer to the nearest one, and the flame of his match illuminated a desiccated corpse within. “Jesus.” He snuffed the match and cursed again.

Her handlight wasn’t bright enough to pierce the darkness at the backs of the cells. “That wasn’t—” She couldn’t force herself to form his name.

“No, not Nate.” Wilder reached for her hand again and continued around the curving tunnel, toward a heavy door at the end.

Movement in the last cell on the right stopped her. “Wilder, I think—” A body shot toward the cage bars so hard they rattled, and Satira stumbled back out of instinct.

Wilder stepped in front of her, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t fucking believe it.”

“What don’t you—”

The low growl that rumbled through the hallway sent fear skittering up her spine. Satira unhooked the handlight and lifted it high enough to illuminate the figure gripping the cage bars.

A man—mostly. Dark hair hung in shaggy locks over blue eyes that held not a glint of humanity. His chest was bare, revealing scratches and scars and a spattering of ugly yellow bruises. He sucked in a breath and fixed his gaze on Satira, and she recognized something in the feral madness staring out at her.

Bloodhound.

“Go away,” the man rasped. “Go.”

“He’s not part of the Guild.” Wilder clenched his jaw, his hands tightening into fists. “Did they turn you here?”

The man—the hound—didn’t answer, but he hardly needed to. The process by which the Guild made their warriors was a well-protected secret. Surely that couldn’t have been Nathaniel’s secret project…

Experimentation had been outlawed for decades, ever since the Guild’s inception.

Satira reached for Wilder’s shoulder. “Should we free him?”

“No.” A hand swiped between the bars, a menacing gesture undercut by the wild fear in the man’s eyes. “Leave. Go. Not safe here.”

His terror made Satira’s chest ache. Made her wonder what horrors Nathaniel might have suffered. “I could undo the lock if he let me.”

Wilder faced the other bloodhound, and they stared at each other for long minutes. “We’ll come back once we find Nathaniel. It’ll be safer then.”

“Nate.”

A scratchy sound, seemingly torn from the man’s throat. Satira ducked under Wilder’s arm before he could stop her. “Do you know him?”

“They put him in his lab. Always do, at dawn, now.”

Wilder breathed a sigh. “Do you know where it is?”

She barely heard the instructions— in his lab. In his lab.

Nathaniel was alive.

“We’ll be back,” Wilder promised the man—the hound—inside the cell.

Another person to rescue, but they could do it. Together, she and Wilder could do anything.

Ten feet from the door, Wilder knew something was off.

The scent of death hung heavy in the dank air, heavier than he would have expected if Nate was alive, like the feral hound had said. But who knew what lay behind the solid pine door? Nate could be alive but surrounded by corpses, stark reminders of what could happen to him—or those he loved—if he refused to work.

Wilder rattled the sturdy padlock and turned to Satira. “Don’t think Nate would object, do you?” She studied the padlock for a moment, then ran her fingers up to the heavy loop and along the metal plate bolted to the wall. Her hand dipped into her bag again and came out holding a flat sheet of paper.

Unfolded, it revealed several long strips of a pale, tacky looking substance. She peeled one from the paper and smoothed it over the metal plate. Then she dipped into her bag again and retrieved what looked like a perfume vial.

“You might wish to cover your nose,” she murmured as she replaced the folded paper. “This will smell unpleasant enough for me.”

Wilder pressed a gloved hand under his nose as Satira misted the liquid onto the substance she’d spread over the plate. It began to bubble, and then to eat through the metal plate that secured the lock to the door.

She stepped back and tucked the bottle back into her bag. “There. A firm tug should break the metal.” He tried it, and the door snapped open with a cracking noise. “Nate?” The room beyond was all but dark, even with the light cast by Satira’s lightstick. The scent of death was worse now, but mixed with an oddly familiar note—something that could have been another bloodhound if it hadn’t been just a little off.

Next to him, Satira shivered. “Nathaniel?”

Something stirred in the room. A boot against the floor, a quiet clink. Then— “Satira?” Satira made a choked noise and launched herself forward, but Wilder drew her up short with a steely grip around her arm. “Not yet. Not—something’s not right.”

She all but shook with nervous energy, but she didn’t try to pull away from him. “Nathaniel, we’re here to take you home.”

A click. Light flared so fast Satira reeled back, lifting an arm to cover her eyes. The illumination came from dozens of intricate glass bulbs lining the walls of a vast room, all hung above long shelves overflowing with tools and equipment.

Several worktables were arranged in a neat row across the center of the room, on which projects of various complexity rested. Nathaniel stood next to the closest bench, sallow and wild-looking, his usual neat vest askew and his spectacles gone completely. He squinted at them, gaze flickering over Wilder before fixing on Satira.

Regret filled his eyes before he closed them. “Take her away. Keep her safe.” He smelled like death, and even with his sickly pale expression, his face looked…different. Younger.

“What the hell did they do to you?”

“Nathaniel?” Satira sounded uncertain. “Is that you?”

“Perhaps not anymore.” He took a step forward, moving as if he barely had the energy to get his boots off the ground. “Satira, wait in the hallway.”

“But—”

“Now.”

The man might not look so much like Nate anymore, but he had Nate’s voice, and Satira seemed to obey it out of instinct. She tried to tug her arm free of his grip, and Wilder let her go.

The man looked like death, but he smelled like a bloodhound. “Nate, what happened?” Nate lowered his voice until the whisper was too low for Satira to hear in the hallway. “The vampire.

Lowe. He’s building his own army. Needed a weapon, and I wouldn’t build it. So he found a way to make me.”

He found a way to make me.

Wilder shivered, torn between fascination and revulsion. Lowe had abducted Nathaniel from his home, brought him here and turned him into a vampire—except that wasn’t all. It couldn’t be. “You smell like a hound.”

“I wasn’t strong enough to survive the change.” The words were blank. Numb. “So instead of giving me human blood, they gave me Hunter’s.”

Wilder’s skin prickled, and a cold knot formed in the pit of his stomach. “You can’t do that. It doesn’t—it doesn’t work.”

“It never has before,” Nate agreed. “But Hunter wasn’t created by the Guild.” The knot grew until Wilder thought he might vomit. “Archer did it.” Nathaniel didn’t answer. Instead he reached out a shaking hand. “You can’t let me finish this weapon, and you can’t bring me with you. I’ve been starving myself. Getting as weak as I can, but Lowe will work it out soon enough and order me to eat. He’s already ordered me not to kill myself. You need to do it for me.”

Fuck that. “Back up and tell me why we can’t take you with us.”

“Lowe’s powerful, Wilder. The border isn’t far enough. He made me. I’ll do whatever he commands, no matter how much I don’t want to.” Nate’s gaze slid past him, toward the hallway where Satira waited.

Rage roared up. “Not if I send him to hell where he belongs.” Satira’s voice came from the hallway, steady but more than a little tense. “Wilder? I think you should come out here.”

He kept his gaze riveted to Nathaniel’s face as he backed toward the door. When he turned to face the tunnel, he stopped short, a growl rising before he could stop it. “Archer.” His former colleague stood just beyond Satira, both hands upraised. She had one of her pistols pointed at his chest. A tiny frown tugged at her lips, and she looked more perplexed than afraid. “Ashamed as I am to admit it, he could have grabbed me. He didn’t.”

“Because I didn’t join up for this,” Archer muttered. “Untrained hounds and half-vampires?” Wilder pulled one of his own revolvers. “You joined up for kidnapping Nate.”

“No, I didn’t.” He held his hands a little higher. “I had nothing to do with that. The deal I struck with Lowe was only for Clear Springs. He’d already run everyone out, and he told me he wouldn’t kill anyone else if I let him have it.”

Satira’s hand dipped toward the floor, then snapped back up, this time a little lower. “If you hurt Nathaniel, I’ll blow your balls off. I might do it anyway for sending Wilder into a trap.” Even at gunpoint, he was contrary enough to argue. “I tried to warn you two away from it.”

“Enough.” Wilder was in no mood to discuss it. “You really want to help? Start now, here. Help me take down Lowe.”

Nathaniel’s voice came from behind him. “The weapon he’s had me working on—it kills vampires. I can’t turn it against him…but Satira could.”

Wilder’s first—and second and third—instinct was to get Satira as far away from the fight as possible.

“And you could show me how, right?”

“If he could, he would be doing it already.” Satira holstered her gun and turned to Wilder. “Nathaniel wouldn’t put me in harm’s way if he had any other choice.”

He made a concerted effort to relax his clenched fists. “Maybe. How long will it take?”

“Nathaniel?”

“Twenty minutes, with both of us working together.”

Wilder stalked up to Archer, not bothering to hide the challenge in his glare. “Want to go see if this new hound you turned is ready to kill some fucking vampires?” Archer’s jaw tightened. “Ready.”

“Just so you know, if he wants to take a few shots at you, I’m not stopping him.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to.”

Satira brushed her fingers over Wilder’s shoulder. “Don’t let anyone bite you. I’m possessive.”

“That goes double for you, sweetheart.”

Wilder and Archer navigated the darkened tunnel without any extra light, and it didn’t take them long to reach the young bloodhound’s cell. “You ready to get out of there yet?” The man stared at Archer, teeth bared, eyes wild. “Are you here to kill me?”

“No.” The other hound returned the stare without flinching. “We’re here to free you.”

“Can’t trust myself, being free. Can’t control it. Can’t control me.” Wilder closed one gloved hand around the padlock, testing it with a hard tug. “What’s your name?” he asked, though he already knew.

“Nate said I needed a new one. That all bloodhounds get new names.” He stepped away from the bars.

“He named me Hunter.”

“Hello, Hunter.” With Archer’s help, Wilder twisted the lock until the metal gave way with a snap.

“I’m Wilder, and I came here to kill Lowe. Want to help?”

Hunter’s gaze fixed on the broken padlock. He sucked in a heaving breath, then nodded once, jerkily.

“I can kill vampires. I think I’m good at it.”

“We all are, even him.” Wilder jerked a thumb at Archer. “Think you can wait ’til this is all over before you kill him?”

Archer watched Hunter. Hunter watched Archer. A quiet understanding seemed to pass between them before Hunter nodded. “He made me. But they made him do it.” A surprising concession that belied his feral appearance. “Then we’ll fight together, and the two of you can settle your scores later.”

“Later,” Hunter agreed. When Wilder pulled the cage door open, the younger man stepped into the hallway and flexed his fingers. “The ballroom.”

“That’s where Lowe’ll be,” Archer elaborated. “Used to be the common room. He sealed off the windows and tore down the floor above, damn near turned it into a crypt. They spend the days there, with ghouls guarding the doors.”

Thaddeus Lowe would have enough ghouls to guard against one bloodhound, perhaps even two, but he wouldn’t be prepared for three. “Let’s go.”