I swept the hand from my forehead to my chin, indicating my face. “Do I look like I need to prove I’m from the Pack?”
The guard pondered me. “Okay, fine. Come with me.”
We followed him to the tent. It looked bigger close up, almost forty feet tall. Inside, a middle-aged man pored over some charts next to a taller, thinner man with acne scars on his narrow face. Both wore hardhats.
The middle-aged man looked up. Stocky, well muscled, he might have been quick at some point in his youth, but probably not. He looked like one of those linemen that plant themselves in front of the quarterback, except in his case he’d let himself go a bit and most of his muscle now hid behind a layer of fat. His hair was gray and cropped short, but his dark eyes were sharp. He didn’t look friendly. He looked like the kind of guy who could order a shapeshifter murder.
Kyle gave me a once-over and focused on the guard. “What the hell is this?”
“Some people from the Pack want to talk to you,” the guard said. “About some murder.”
Kyle leaned back, his face sour. “Tony, do you remember that time I told you to just let any asshole in here?”
The guard winced. “No.”
“Yeah, I don’t remember that either. Felipe, you remember that?”
“No,” the taller man said.
“That’s what I thought.”
Tony paused, obviously confused. “So what do I do?”
“Throw them the fuck out. If I want to talk to any ugly bitches or punk kids, I’ll tell you.” Kyle looked back to his papers.
Tony put his hand on my forearm. “Come on.”
“Take your hand off of me, sir.”
The guard pulled me. “Don’t make this hard.”
“Last chance. Take your hand off of me.”
Kyle looked up.
Tony tried to yank me back. I raised my arm up sharply and elbowed him in the face. The blow knocked him back. Tony dropped his machete. It bit into the dirt, handle sticking upright. Blood gushed from his nose, its scent piercing me like a shot of adrenaline.
“Sit on him,” I said.
Ascanio tripped Tony, pulled him to the ground, facedown, and leaned one knee on his back. “Don’t move, sir.”
He remembered. I felt so proud.
Tony tried to push up. “Get off of me!”
“Do not struggle, or I’ll be forced to break your arm.”
Tony shut up.
Kyle looked at me. Behind him, Felipe carefully took a couple of steps back.
“We can talk about the murders now.” I smiled.
“And if I don’t feel like talking?”
“I’ll make you,” I said. “I’ve had an unpleasant day and four of our people are dead. I feel like having some fun.”
“You shapeshifters are getting ballsy,” Kyle said. “You think you can just come in anywhere and screw with regular decent people.”
“As a matter of fact, I can.” I looked at him.
“The boys down at PAD will just love that,” Felipe, the taller man behind Kyle, said.
Ha! He was threatening me with cops. “The boys down at PAD won’t give a shit. This area is designated as IM-1. You are here in violation of two city ordinances, one state and two federal statutes. Anything you reclaim is contaminated with magic of unknown origin. Taking it out of here is punishable by a fine of not more than two hundred thousand dollars or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both. Selling it will get you another dime in a state penitentiary.”
Kyle crossed his arms. “Is that so?”
“Greed is a terrible thing,” I said. “When you extract your metal and sell it to a builder, and then the new school or hospital in the city starts sprouting glass, they will come looking for you. At the moment, it’s not my problem. I’m here to ask questions. Answer them and I’ll thank you and go away. Do keep in mind that if you piss me off, I can slaughter the lot of you and nobody will give a crap.”
And I could. I could just twist his head off and nobody would be the wiser. This was the Glass Menagerie and if he died, the cops would just think he got what was coming to him. Now there was an interesting thought.
A creature walked into the tent, moving on all fours. It used to be human, but all fat had been leeched off it, replaced by hard, knotted muscle and skin stretched so tight, it looked painted on. Its head was bald, like the rest of its repulsive frame and the two eyes, red and feverish with thirst, bore into me like two burning coals. Its oversized jaws protruded, and as it opened its mouth, I glimpsed two curved fangs.
A vampire. The revolting stink of undeath swirled around me, raising my hackles in instinctive disgust. Ew. Well, that explained the light security. They had an undead guarding them. And where there was a vampire, there was a navigator.
Infection by the Immortuus pathogen destroyed a human’s mind. No cognizance remained. Vampires were ruled only by instinct and that instinct screamed, “Feed!” They did not reproduce. They did not think. They hunted flesh. Anything with a pulse was fair game. Their blank minds made perfect vehicles for necromancers. Called navigators, or Masters of the Dead, if they had talent and education, necromancers piloted vampires, driving them around telepathically like remote-controlled cars. They saw through the vampire’s eyes, they heard through its ears, and when an undead opened its mouth, it was the navigator’s words that came out.
Most of the navigators worked for the People. The People and the Pack existed in a state of uneasy truce, hovering on the verge of full-out war. If the People were running security for this site, my life would get a lot more complicated.