Second Skin Part 9

"We're here," said a third partic.i.p.ant and my rolling, creaking world gently rippled to a stop.

Smell is usually the first thing to come back after I've been drugged, and I got whiffs of gasoline, frying oil from fast food, old carpet. Iron and sweat.

The sun was still in my eyes when the door of the van rolled back and bathed my whole body in light. Sunrise. I'd been out for a few hours, but nothing too serious. Now it would be on with the mutilation and the sewing of skinsuits, I guessed. Testing how well my legs and feet reacted, I determined I couldn't run just yet.

"Get her out," said a fourth. Ponytail's harsh voice from before everything had gone totally FUBAR. I attempted to snarl, snapping my teeth in the direction of the sound.

"Watch it!" Ponytail snapped. "Get rid of her, man. You don't want to be around when she wakes all the way up . . . trust me."

Someone shoved what felt like a steel-toed boot into my side, which my brain noted dimly and then I hit ground, soft and foliage-covered, and rolled down an incline, the flashes of green and orange from the trees and the sky painting themselves into an ugly smear across my vision.

I came to a stop against what I a.s.sumed was one of the huge evergreens converging around me to give shade. Every part of me hurt, in that detached, feverish way that only happens when you are well and truly flying.

Also, I was naked.

"Hex this," I whispered, through my sandy lips. I was trying to yell, but all that came out was a wheeze.

Inch by inch, I pushed feeling and motion back into my joints. I'd gotten the c.r.a.p beat out of me by a were before-drugs had nothing on Joshua Mackelroy's fists and feet. I was better than this. Stronger. Even if my clothes had disappeared.

Get up, Wilder. Get your naked a.s.s moving.

I managed to lean up against the tree and curl into a ball. The sun would be all the way up soon and I just had to find some sort of temporary clothing and then get to a road. My abductors had driven in. There would be a way out.

This theory calmed me until I realized it was getting darker, not brighter. I squinted through the tops of the evergreens, then levered myself up and, sc.r.a.ping my hips and b.u.t.t on the bark, managed to look around. Shadows were long through the tree limbs and dozens of small skittering sounds started up as rabbits and squirrels and G.o.ds-knew-what-else came out to feed.

"c.r.a.p," I hissed. "c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p."

I was outside, with no clothes and no light, in the gathering darkness. In a few hours it would be dark, and I had no idea where I was.

And a few hours after that, the full moon would rise.

After I cried, and screamed, and yelled for help with no answers, I started to walk. Back up the hill I found tire tracks pressed into the soft needle covering of the forest floor. "Gotcha, you f.u.c.kers," I muttered. I followed the tracks, wincing at the stabs on the soles of my bare feet and the branches and needles las.h.i.+ng everything else, but otherwise feeling pretty good until I fetched up on the bank of a rocky, rus.h.i.+ng stream. The tire tracks disappeared on the other side.

"G.o.ds-d.a.m.n it!" I shouted to the forest at large. A flock of small birds took flight at my yelling. it!" I shouted to the forest at large. A flock of small birds took flight at my yelling.

I'm a suburban girl and a city woman. I never liked camping and all that back-to-nature s.h.i.+t. Weres feeling some connection connection to the natural world never held sway with me. I like pavement. I like the smell of mist from Siren Bay mingled with steam from the utility tunnels below Nocturne City's streets. I liked Laundromats, all-night diners, movie theaters, and indoor plumbing. to the natural world never held sway with me. I like pavement. I like the smell of mist from Siren Bay mingled with steam from the utility tunnels below Nocturne City's streets. I liked Laundromats, all-night diners, movie theaters, and indoor plumbing.

Clothes and shoes and hair care products, too.

"GI Jane, you are not," I muttered, trying to follow the stream, planting my sore feet in soft moss along the bank without falling into the shallow water. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who attacked me must have driven down the riverbed. Therefore, if I followed it I would find them and subsequently kick their a.s.ses hard enough to cause their ancestors discomfort.

Just as long as I did it before moonrise. If I found them afterward, there would be precious little left over for anyone to prosecute.

It was starting to get really dark now, blue-velvet light my only guide between the trees and rocks that hugged close to the bank. This forest was primeval, away from any sort of influence, and it was closer and darker and bigger bigger than I had any conception of. than I had any conception of.

I decided that, should I come through this with my life and dignity intact, I was never leaving the Nocturne City limits again.

The stream wound and dipped through the low places, and I started to hear rus.h.i.+ng ahead, the low roar of constant motion after I'd been walking long enough to cause my thighs and calves to glow with pain. "Oh, thank the bright lady," I muttered. I'd lost track of time, but it was full dark, and a silver paleness was starting to creep across the sky.

A highway wasn't ideal, but I'd trade some trucker seeing me naked for a lift back to the city before I phased here, in the open. I had to be close to the mountains, at least two hours from Nocturne. It would be a close call.

The sound grew louder, and then abruptly the land dropped away, and I groaned. A waterfall tipped off the rocky cliff and down to the pool below, creating the bubbling hush that I'd mistaken for traffic.

Sometimes, having were senses really sucks.

I went to my knees on the edge of the cliff and felt the first p.r.i.c.kle of honest-to-G.o.ds panic crawl its insidious little path up my spine. I let out a snarl, more to rea.s.sure myself than anything. Panic kills, in the line of duty or anywhere else. I wasn't going to be one of those doc.u.mentaries about girls who went into the woods, Little Red Riding Hoods who only turned up when hikers unearthed their skeletons years down the line.

The clouds peeled back to send a shaft of moonlight down on the little creva.s.se where the waterfall ended and I hissed, scuttling under an evergreen's outstretched branches. If it touched me, I was Hexed to the seven h.e.l.ls.

And then, soundlessly, the moonlight showed me something else. It appeared in the tree line at the edge of the pool, a flicker in the corner of the eye. No more substantial than smoke, it whisked from trunk to trunk and hesitated, all the trailing parts of it flowing back into a cohesive whole at the edge of the water.

Great. I was lost in the woods and it had only taken a few hours for the hallucinations to set in.

I s.h.i.+vered as the temperature dropped. Fog licked around my ankles and spilled out from the stream, thickening fast enough that it couldn't be anything natural.

My heart started to thump faster against my ribs, the thudding of blood all that came to my ears. The night noises had stopped.

I pressed myself against the tree trunk, knowing that I stood a better chance of hiding than making a break for it without being able to see anything in the thick, moisture-laden mist that had grown up through the trees. I could be cool and calm. I could be sensible.

Behind me and far off, a branch cracked, then, after a long pause, another. Closer. The mist swirled, leaving streamers of moisture along my cheeks and shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and my own breath puffed out against the cold.

Then my ears p.r.i.c.ked to a body breathing in concert with my own. Every hair on my body stood on end, and it had nothing to do with the temperature.

"Hex you," I whispered. I would never, ever show whoever was out there how helpless and bare I felt at that moment.

Closer still now, a low meaty chuckle, born from a throat that wasn't human, responded. The laughter deepened and ran together and ended as a low, spine-twisting snarl.

f.u.c.k sensible. I gathered my legs under me, sprang to my feet, and ran like beasts from all seven h.e.l.ls were chasing me.

Trees loomed and sped past through the fog and the weak moonlight, and more than once I felt a rock or a broken branch slice at my feet and legs, but I kept running.

Whatever was behind me made barely more than a whisper of air and fog against my back, but I could feel it, hear it panting as I ran flat-out.

Hours pa.s.sed, or seemed to, and my side began to cramp as my breaths got shorter and shorter. Even with my extra lung capacity and my dense muscles I was fading fast, and the thing behind me didn't seem to be tiring at all.

I chanced a look over my shoulder and saw nothing but shadow play on light. The branches of the fir trees began to ripple as something pa.s.sed between them, faster than the eye could see. I saw eyes, silver and pupil-less, and a maw open wide with teeth that gleamed like they were made of mercury. The body was nothing but smoke.

Pain streaked across my cheek and my left arm followed by blood and I fell through a tangle of blackberry brambles and rolled to a stop in a clearing full of some kind of tiny, fragrant white flowers.

From behind me, the thing let out a howl. It wasn't a wolf's howl, or a sound of pain. It sounded like a human scream wrapped up in something ancient, the kind of sound you'd hear in nightmares that you mercifully didn't remember upon waking.

I wiped the blood off my face and out of my eyes from the dozens of tiny sc.r.a.pes. They would heal, but I had put my blood into the wind and by the cras.h.i.+ng of undergrowth the thing had abandoned stealth. It knew it had me.

"s.h.i.+t," I muttered. "s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t." What erudite last words I was turning out to have.

The mist swirled and parted and a dark shape, at least as high as a horse, began to fade in. All my attempts to breathe and stay calm evaporated. It wasn't a were or a witch, or any daemon I had ever seen.

"Leave me alone!" I screamed, picking up a rock and hurling it at the shape from my p.r.o.ne position. It pa.s.sed harmlessly through the great outline and thudded away into the darkness.

The fog rolled away as the thing came closer and I caught a flash of a face, of milky silver eyes in the indistinct shadow.

Eyes, and teeth. Too many teeth for one mouth. Too many teeth to be anything but a nightmare-thing . . .

Feeling my body throb and my lungs saw with pain after my sprint, I knew that there was no way I was going anywhere but to my death under the toothy shadow's fangs. It was a monster and I was one were. What could I do?

The clear sky sent a spasm through my lower back, and without even consciously making the decision I rolled to my left, landing on my back, exposed, directly in the shaft of moonlight.

The phase gripped me, sending clear bell tones of pain and pleasure through my skin and nerves and bone. I smiled up at the thing, my teeth already fangs and my eyes turning molten. "Hex you," I snarled.

And then I changed.

I've only given myself over willingly to the phase once before, and that ended with me ripping out a man's throat. This time I felt my limbs give a violent twitch, then another. My back arched as if the most powerful o.r.g.a.s.m of my life hand gripped me, and I flipped over onto all fours.

When I didn't try to hold the phase back, it came fast, and hard, like an express train coming around a curve when your car stalls on the tracks.

My fingers and toes curled, sprouted claws, and I felt my jaw dislocate and my spine lengthen and ripple as my body settled into its form of a black wolf.

The pain pa.s.sed and I had the momentary sensory overload that always comes with a phase, the smells and sounds magnified to levels excruciating for the small sc.r.a.p of human consciousness that rode on the back of the were.

I could smell the earth, the dampness of the fog, the evergreens winding through everything, and underneath all that something cold and wet like rusted iron, something that didn't belong in the cacophony of the forest.

Whatever time I'd bought myself phasing had run out, and I took off again, now fully able to navigate with the eyes of a wolf. I didn't look back again, just ran and ran. My body still hurt, but my feet were tougher now and I slowly began not to care as the were came to the forefront and my human side subsumed. I would run, escape, hunt, feed . . .

The Thing gave chase and I snarled at it but did not slow my pace. It wanted to take my territory, to hunt me like I was something less than dominant, and while I could not let myself be caught, I couldn't show I was afraid.

Thinking of what it would do to me, how I would deal with prey were our situations reversed, made me taste metal on my tongue from fear and a desire to hunt my own kill. It would rake at my flanks, tear my neck, feast on the meat of my ribs, and break my bones between teeth the size of my snout.

I ran faster, still scenting the metal smell of the Thing, its complete Other-ness to my were senses.

The animal terror of the pursuit dogged me until I burst from the forest onto a plain of scrub brush and high desert rock, my tongue lolling as I sc.r.a.ped up the last reserves of energy, most of it gone to my weak human form before I had become my strong self, my real self that could run and run for hours. The timer had run down.

I crawled under a scrub sagebrush bush to hide, knowing that in the shadows I could watch, be the hunter and not hunted, conceal myself from the Thing and the Terror that wanted to challenge my dominance.

At the edge of the forest I saw the shape, just a blotty outline even to my eyes. It flowed along the tree line, snarling and prowling as it searched for me.

A howl of rage and frustration floated toward me and then with a flash of silver from its eyes and its open, hungry mouth the Thing turned and disappeared back into the forest.

I panted, head on my front paws, listening and alert as I could be after the chase, until the moon had gone down and dawn began to burn away the smoky blue-gray darkness of the night sky along the horizon. Exhausted, I curled into a ball and fell asleep.

I woke up at dawn, when the sun crested the skyline and I was human again, rocks and twigs poking me in the back and . . . sort of everywhere.

Covered in healing scratches and sc.r.a.pes, I found deeper cuts on my arms and a painful gash on the sole of my right foot that was still bleeding. I felt as if I'd been dragged behind a stagecoach for maybe four or five days and then gotten really drunk and hit my head repeatedly against a rock.

"Bright lady," I muttered when I tried to sit up and was treated to a display of vertigo and lights spinning in front of my eyes. I made it to my feet and took stock of my sad situation. I was still sans clothes, utterly and completely lost-who knew how far I'd run phased?

On the bright side, I was conscious, most of my minor injuries had healed when I was a were, and Hex it, I was alive.

I started to walk across the open plain, away from the sun. Nocturne City was west-eventually I'd hit ocean, or civilization. Preferably a civilization with some clothes.

As things got hotter and I started to realize just how banged up I was, and how thirsty and hungry and exhausted, I wondered if I'd even seen the thing that had chased me. I was drugged-I remembered that, if nothing else. Had I hallucinated, running blindly through some wild place, and ended up here?

"Does it matter?" I demanded. The sun was almost overhead now, and I could feel a burn starting on my shoulders and back. I crested a hill and almost cried when I saw a small silver Airstream trailer below me, nestled into the desert ravine. A road led away across the rocks, and far away, just visible to my eyes I could see the ink ribbon of a freeway.

I half slid down the hill to the trailer, and crept up on the side with no windows. There was no vehicle outside and no sounds or smells from within, but some laundry hung limply on the line, a man's black work s.h.i.+rt and dungarees.

They were far too big for me, and still damp, and smelled like cheap detergent, but I put them on like they were fine vintage Valentino and began the painful, barefoot walk to the road.

CHAPTER 8.

The third truck I tried to flag down pulled over for me. The driver looked me over and shook his head, chewing reflectively on the end of a jerky stick. "Hex me, lady. You sure got put through a wringer."

"That's the nicest possible way of saying it," I muttered. "You going to Nocturne City?"

"Close to it," he said. "Doing a long haul from the other side of the mountains. DVD players. Thought you might be lookin' to hijack me at first."

"If I was planning to jack you I would have put on shoes." I sighed. Once I'd collapsed back into the sweaty, weed-scented seat it was hard to keep my eyes open. The sun heated up the cab and made me sweat a little, and I felt all the cuts and sc.r.a.pes of the night before sting.

"Guess you would have at that," said the truck driver. "Where you from?"

"The city."

He paused to mumble something into his CB radio. "Got any family?"

"Look, sir, much as I appreciate the lift I'm not in much of a talking mood."

"Hey, now," he said. "I'm just tryin' to make sure that whoever worked you over ain't gonna find you again."

"If they do," I said, "they'll also find the business end of my service weapon." Right now, tired and sore and still shaky from being abducted and drugged, I knew for a certain fact that if I ever saw any of the men who kidnapped me again, I'd kill them. There wouldn't be any discussion or internal debate. One shot, right between the eyes, like the person who killed Bertrand and the other weres.

Justice.

"You in the army or something?" said the truck driver. "Doesn't look like you've got a gun under there."

"I used to have one," I said. "Before I was kidnapped from my parking lot, drugged, stripped naked, and thrown into the nature preserve to die. Is that enough information for us to ride the rest of the way in silence?"

The trucker blinked once, long and slow. "Yeah. Sure. So you're not some kind of a.s.sa.s.sin?"

"I'm a SWAT officer," I said. "And I'm very tired."