Chapter Thirty-Seven – Kris

 

They’d flayed him alive and strung up his raw and bloody body as an example to everyone else. They hadn’t even bothered to keep his eyelids, so it was impossible to tell if he’d somehow finally passed out from the agony. If the two guards we’d overheard before were to be believed, they’d used a silver knife to do the skinning, since that would have been the only way to keep his body from repairing itself.

But, as Hunter and I watched from behind the corner of the alley across the road, a gentle wind blew through town. Straining my ears, the distant sound of Marquez’s soft, plaintive cries came across the road as he swung back and forth from the handcuffs they’d strung him up by.

Right here. Right here in the middle of town.

The German had been right. No one deserved this, no matter who they were or what they’d done.

At the very least, show the man the decency of killing him. Of putting him out of his misery.

Disgust mixed with loathing and rage welled up inside me. I’d seen war; I’d seen atrocities. But rarely had I ever seen anything like this. What they’d done to the man hanging in front of me, his blood still dripping on the porch of the shitty little cantina across the road, was beyond the pale.

This was worse than a war crime. This was one against nature itself.

I raised my carbine to my shoulder, putting my cheek down next to the stock as I settled my sights on Marquez’s head. My finger came to rest on the trigger.

“What the hell are you doing?” Hunter whispered from beside me, his lips close enough that his breath tickled the hairs inside my ear.

I didn’t look up, just watched as the shifter swung bloodily back and forth in front of my gun, the wind driving bottles and cans rattling down the street. I swallowed hard, flicked off the safety. “Doing what needs to be done, Hunter. That’s all.”

“Right now? Right here? We came all this way just to screw the pooch, now?”

Lowering the rifle from my cheek, I turned to the dragonkin thief. “What? Think we should go across and try to get him down, instead? See if he has any useful information?”

He bit his tongue, sighing. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Good.” I raised the rifle back up.

“But it’s still a better plan than the one you have in mind.”

My lip curling in anger, I shot him a look. “Fuck you, Hunter.”

“Dammit, Kris,” he breathed. “Look, I agree, this is fucking monstrous. Absolutely despicable. But, if you do this, the whole mission is gone. You know I want to help the poor sod, but what can we do that won’t put us in harm’s way? One fucking shot, and this whole town comes down on us. We’ve seen how many guards tonight?”

“Burn it all down, then,” I whispered, my eyes crackling with a green glow in the shadows of the alley. “We’re dragons. We could do it. Burn it down here first, then we move out to the ruins and do the same damn thing there.”

“And the innocent civilians who had nothing to do with this travesty? What about them, Kris? Haven’t they already lived through enough shit, even without the White Feather or you coming down on their heads? Besides, they’ve got St. George bullets, Kris. One decent sniper’s all they’d need.”

Nostrils flaring, I breathed as I took my finger off the trigger. “What, then?”

“I don’t know,” Hunter said, “but I know it’s got to be more productive than doing this. Please, Kris, just think. We can come up with something better than just shooting our way out of this.”

“Well,” I said, frowning. I had to avert my eyes, or I knew I’d just say fuck it and put the rifle back to my shoulder and do what needed to be done. Instead, I put my hand down on the grip of my silver knife, swallowing again as the revulsion welled up into my throat and nearly choked off my voice. “What if we did it quietly?”

Hunter glanced down, saw my hand on the handle of my knife. He nodded. “That would be better than shooting him.”

“Then we wait,” I whispered. “We make sure no one is around, then we make our move. Deal?”

“We’re still not going to get any information out of him this way.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care, Hunter. We’ll figure it out. I’m not forcing him to live through this agony any longer than he has to.”

He didn’t reply at first, just nodded as he seemed to measure up the determination in my eyes. “Okay, then. We’ll wait. And we’ll watch.”

And so we waited, my hand flexing and relaxing on the grip of the silvered knife on my hip, and my mind reminding itself the whole time that this is what I’d want done for me. I’d want the suffering over and done with.

We waited for nearly an hour. Waited as my legs cramped, as they practically screamed in pent-up agony. The squat walk and the bent-over crouching run had been bad, but they were nothing compared to the torment of being propped up against that wall, my ears straining to hear any kind of sound.

None came, though.

No crunching of boots.

No whistles.

No whispers.

Only the sound of a distant truck in bad need of an oil change, its engine sounding like an old gas-powered lawnmower as it drove up the nearest highway into the mountains.

A minute later, farther out in the distance, a coyote yipped and barked. Not quite a howl, but enough to be a call to its family. Maybe they’d found prey, something small enough they could get on their own.

Watching Marquez ahead of us, I could have sworn I saw a tear roll down his cheek as he heard the sound, could see a sob wrack his body.

“I can’t take this anymore,” I whispered to Hunter.

“I know,” he said. “I can’t, either. But give it just another minute. What do we have to lose?”

“We might get spotted.”

“True.” Lips pinched tightly together, he sighed as we looked out across the little square at Marquez’s body hanging like a piece of meat in a freezer. Hunter glanced over at me. “It’s your call. Do you think enough time’s passed?”

I pushed off from the alley wall, fixing him with a glowing green gaze. “I think it’s been about fifty-nine minutes too long.”

He shook his head. “You know we needed to see if there was anyone coming.”

Jaw clenched, I shook my head even though I knew he was right. “Yeah. I know. But, shit, is this still fucking bullshit.”

“Come on,” he said, edging closer to the mouth. “I’ll even do the killing stroke, if I need to. He’s as much my contact as yours.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve got seniority. It falls on me.”

Hunter didn’t reply at first, but eventually he nodded. “Okay. Okay, let’s go, then.”

We sliced the pie on opposite corners, each of us edging out a little more each time to see as much of the street as possible, while still staying as within cover as we could. “Clear,” we both whispered in tandem.

“Cover me,” I said, my legs nearly screaming in protest as I finally put them to work and went out into the street, now with my lower back finally joining in on the chorus of agony. Not that it was anything compared to Marquez, I reminded myself. Nothing could hold a candle to that.

Across the street, I took cover between two of the cars. I peered ahead into Omar’s, straining to see if there was any movement. Nothing. Lights off. All quiet on the alcoholic front.

I glanced back to Hunter, and he gave me the thumbs up. I got up from my crouch, moving forward with my body in the shadow of one of the cars I’d just been hidden behind. Now, as I looked around, I realized what a killing field this place could be. Sure, we had the alley, but there were at least four other covered spots up high where you could post a sniper or watch. Any combatants down on the street wouldn’t see them coming. But, as I now looked them over, nothing seemed out of place.

Mildly, I wished for a second that I had one of the shifters from FMS with me. Luke or Carter could always spot an ambush from a mile away with those noses of theirs, and it’d be one hell of a safety net to have. No clue how I would’ve gotten them this far, though.

Rifle pressed to my shoulder, I stalked down the line of cars, always careful to be within their shadow. I moved up three lengths till I was nearly in line with Marquez and the porch. That’s when his smell hit me, and I had to bite back a gag. I didn’t know how long he’d been left out here, at least a couple days, probably, but he’d been left to…

“Jesus,” I whispered, my eyes desperate to well up, but dry. Maybe it was just some kind of stopgap my mind had put in as a barrier. Maybe it was just my becoming numb to all of this, but the tears just wouldn’t come. “Jesus Christ.”

I glanced up at Marquez, then, and realized he was staring right back at me, his bloodshot eyes uncannily white in the crimson of his face.

“Jesus,” I whispered.

Marquez didn’t make a sound. If he had even tried to meaningfully blink, I would have had no way of knowing. He just…hung.

I pushed off from the car, rifle slung down at my side, and moved forward in as much of a ball as I could be as I traversed the stretch of blasted white space. My boots were like rolls of Great Plains thunder in my ears, or blasts from Howitzer artillery cannons, as I set foot on the wooden porch step.

“I’m here to help, Marquez,” I whispered. “I’m here from the PDB.”

Nothing. Just the creaking of the beams overhead, of the chain linking his metal cuffs cutting into the grain.

I skinned my knife from its sheath on my hip. Blackened, it barely shone in the night as I stalked forward, my M4 still at my side.

Another gust of wind, and the body of the shifter hanging from the porch rafters swayed forward. A rasping sound approaching speech came from his chest. A sickening, dying sound like a wounded animal makes in its final minutes.

Pushing that thought from my mind, I reminded myself this was a man. That he deserved dignity. Dignity that I couldn’t provide in life, but which I could provide in death.

I stalked closer, my hand trembling. I’d never done a mercy kill like this, and suddenly the thought filled me with loathing even though I knew that it was, on some instinctual level, the right move.

Creeping forward, the toe of my boot dragged on the porch. In my ears, the sound was worse than my earlier footsteps. Worse, even, than a shot from my M4 would have been.

I came to a complete halt, dropped to one knee as I peered around, and tried to seek out anyone who might have heard and might come running.

Nothing. I turned right, tried to see if Hunter had moved or reacted to the sound, but I couldn’t see him from where I was standing.

I released a breath I hadn’t known I was holding, and slowly went to rise with the knife still in hand.

“Hold it right there, pumpkin,” said a distinctly American voice from within the cantina. “Now just what d’you think you’re gonna do with that pigsticker there?”

I stopped.

“Now, don’t even think of signaling that hombre off in the alley. You do, this is gonna get real ugly real fast. I got guys covering that spot, and you do anything I don’t even fucking like, they’re gonna light that sumbitch up like the Fourth. Hear me?” He paused, and I could practically hear him wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Turn this way, hand up off your gun so I can see it. Real. Fucking. Slow. Hear me?”

I didn’t reply.

“Nod if you fucking hear me, pumpkin.”

I nodded.

“Good. Now turn. Real. Fucking. Slow. All right?”

My heart racing, my whole body trembling, it took everything I had to just nod again.

“Good.”

I turned to my left, and there he was.

The window was cracked slightly, and he was hidden in the shadows. A bullpup burst-fire shotgun was right there in his hands, tucked against his shoulder, its ammo drum giant underneath the barrel in front. With one pull of that trigger, he could unload half a dozen shotgun shells into the space where I was standing. Even if they weren’t silver, and, no doubt about it, they likely were, I’d still be down for at least a month with that much lead in my body. Maybe longer.

He had me dead to rights, and there was nothing I could do about it. No fancy maneuvers, no fancy disarming.

I was screwed.

“Get back down low so your buddy can’t see you,” he said. “On your knees, nice and easy.”

I dropped down like he instructed, not wanting to do any more than he asked.

“Now, come over here to the door. Stay on your knees.”

Now, that was too much.

“Do it,” he said matter-of-factly. “Ain’t gonna tell you twice.”

“Oh come on,” I whispered, but did it anyway. Malicious compliance was one of the best ways to get through this kind of thing, especially when you might be able to escape afterwards. This was more prisoner of war scenario, where they might need intel I possessed, and not some crazed hostage situation. The easier and faster I could get through this, the more likely I might come out in one piece on the other side.

I knee-walked over to the door.

As quick as lightning, he was around the corner, barrel of his shotgun resting against his shoulder. “You’re Kris Cole, ain’t you?”

I went to coil my body, and he brought the gun back down. “Sorry, not tonight. Down, dragon lady.”

I bared my teeth at him. “Who’s asking?”

“I’m the one who put the hit on you up in St. Louis,” he said, lowering himself a little to my level. Even at that distance, I could smell the tequila on his breath.

Which somehow made it even worse he’d gotten the drop on me.

A grin formed on his lips. “Also, I been the one sending info to your boss, Col. Harrington.” His grin grew wider. “Name’s Simmons. But you can call me Coyote.”