The Fifth Clan (7 page)

“You can’t be serious,” she said. She crossed her arms
under her breasts and leaned against the edge of the door jam.

“I am entirely serious.” I put aside the toothbrush and turned to face her. “A friend of mine lives in a little out-of-the-way corner of Mexico. We’re going to drop in for a visit. I warn, you though, he’s a bit… eccentric.”

“Eccentric?” she echoed. “Why do I have a sudden sense of worry and foreboding when you, of all people, warn me that someone else is eccentric?”

“Probably because your survival instincts are kicking in?”

“That isn’t encouraging.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Very funny.”

I winked at her and smirked before I brushed past her on my way out of the bathroom. Outside the window I could see the sun was almost completely down and the street lamps were turning on. There was a large black Ford F-150 in the back with a tarp covering the equipment strapped into the bed. It seemed to be almost exactly what I’d requested when I’d called Beady from the road, but something felt off to me, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts over the centuries.

“Beady fucked up,” I muttered, frowning as a terrible mood began to grip me. I hate it when my orders are not followed explicitly. I think it’s that whole, bred to lead thing. I might have a mild god complex.

“How so?” Rachel asked from behind me.

“No idea. But I feel it in my gut. He screwed up something and I have the distinct impression that it’s going to annoy the fuck out of me.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I told you,” I said. “I feel it in my gut. I’ve learned to trust my gut. It’s kept me alive for a rather long time.”

She looked at me, lips pursed, eyes squinted; as if she were studying some kind of bug beneath a microscope.

“You may be right,” she admitted finally. “But why don’t we wait and see before we jump to any conclusions?”

“Yes Jiminy,” I said. She glared at me and I laughed. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

“Pinocchio was cuter than you,” she said.

“Snappy come back.”

“I thought so.”

“Are you two done? Or should ah come back later?” I turned and looked over at Beady standing in the open doorway. It looked like he might have been there for a while. I turned back to Rachel.

“Are we done?”

She thought for a moment, looking up at the ceiling. “Yes,
I believe we can put this on hold for right now. We can always pick it up later after all.”

I turned to Beady. “We’re done.”

“Come on, numb nuts,” he growled, scowling at me. Beady was always cranky after smoking weed. I smiled at Rachel and held my arm out to her. She laughed, hooked her arm through my elbow and we followed Beady through the shop and out to the back parking lot.

The truck was sitting right where I’d last seen it. Beady walked over and opened up the back of the cab showing me the Uzi and the rifle I’d requested as well as all the ammunition, silver plated and regular and the M1911’s complete with the lights and laser sights. Just as I’d ordered.

I started swearing as colorfully as I possibly could. Beady fucked up the transportation.

I went back to the bed and ripped the tarp off it. There sat two gleaming silver and black Hyabusa motorcycles. Complete with racing tires, helmets with cb-radio link and full riding gear for the both of us, in our sizes.

I grabbed Beady by the throat and slammed him up against the car with enough force to dent the rear door. “What has smoking all that pot done to your brain you half-baked leech?” I roared. I was starting to see red and only Rachels hand on my arm stopped me from tearing his face off and testing a vampires regenerative abilities.

“Calm down Gabriel,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“What tha hell is da matter wit you?” he choked out.

“’What’s the matter?’” I echoed. I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “What did I tell you to get Beady? I asked for an ATV didn’t I? Not two fucking street bikes with racing tires on them. We’re gonna go off road dip shit. There’s no way in hell we’ll be able to make any real time on those things without getting us killed and I have no idea if Rachel even knows how to ride. If we have to ride double I’m killing you.”

“I know how to ride.”

I turned to look at Rachel.

“Say what?” I asked.

“I know how to ride. My dad drove racing bikes and I did a little motocross when I was a kid. I know how to ride. It’s been a couple years, but you never really do forget.” She looked appraisingly at the, admittedly, very pretty motorcycles. “I’ve never been on anything quite that fast before,” she admitted. “Should be fun.”

Beady and I stared at Rachel for a moment as she studied the bikes, looked at each other, then back at Rachel.

“I’m really starting to like her,” I muttered to Beady.
He nodded silently and I dropped him, letting him fall to the ground in a heap. “You sure you’ll be able to handle that thing?” I asked her, ignoring Beady groaning at my feet.

“Pretty positive,” she muttered, still staring at the bikes with narrowed eyes. “Like I said it’s been a few years since I was last on the back of one of these things but I should pick it up pretty fast. And I’ve ridden in dirt so off-road won’t be too difficult, just have to take it easy on the throttle right?”

“Sounds like a plan to me then,” I said. I turned back to Beady. “Beady-” I stopped when I didn’t see him then looked down. “Why are you still on the ground?”

“Wadn’t sure it was safe ta let ya know I was still down here man,” he said but he got to his feet anyway. “Wha ‘tis it now?”

“Nothing, thanks for the help dude, we’ll be on our way. Pleasure doing business with you, the money should be in your account before sun up.”

“Dat’s da kinda ‘ting ah like ta hear.” He grinned at me and shook my hand. “Pleasure doin’ bidness wit choo.”

“Alright Rachel. Pile in, let’s get going, I have an old buddy to meet, and I don’t want to keep him waiting. Claus, said he’d be expecting us and Ghost is not known for his patience. Nor his tolerance.”

“Sounds like you’re afraid of him,” she commented as she climbed into the cab.

I snorted. “Hardly. I just know better than to piss him off. Last time I got on his bad side he cut off one of my arms. Do you have any idea how long it takes to regenerate a new limb? Or how weird it looks while you do?” I turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life.

“Nope, can’t say that I do,” she said.

“Trust me, it made life very difficult for a month and a half. Couldn’t go to any parties or spend too much time out in public because people would notice that my arm was changing. It was irritating.”

She nodded silently and started fiddling with the radio controls. She looked a little green around the gills though. I smiled, rolled a cigarette, lowered the window, and hit the freeway, wind in my hair and not a care in the world.

Except for the mad she-bitch behind us, Threntü, four clans of vampires, almost all the worlds werewolves after me, an old psychotic friend in front of me and a young woman next to me that I had to protect against all odds, I didn’t have a care in the world.

I was pretty sure we were totally fucked.

10

????, Mexico: February 6, 2005

We drove until daylight. Don’t ask me where, I honestly can’t remember. It’s a weird sort of conditioning. If I need to find the place I can but I won’t know where I’m going or how. As soon as the sun was out I pulled over to the side of the road, unloaded the bikes and started climbing into my gear.

I woke Rachel and we continued to drive, leaving the truck behind us. I liked the truck, but it wouldn’t do where we were going, we needed to be fast and light and the bikes were easier to hide than a big ass truck would have been.

We pulled up to a wooden gate, somewhere in the butt-crack of nowhere, Mexico, several hours of hard riding later. I heeled the kickstand and sat up, lifting the visor on my helmet as, beside me, Rachel pulled her helmet off and shook out her hair.

“So where are we now?” she asked. She jumped off the bike, leather creaking, and stretched out a kink in her back.

“Bum-fuck-Egypt,” I snorted. I pulled off my helmet and lit up a cigarette. “About three miles down that track,” I said, pointing to the dirt track behind the gate, “is an old buddy of mine. Haven’t seen him in about 80 years, give or take a decade.”

“How can you be sure he’s still alive then?” she asked.

I choked back a laugh. Then I choked on the lungful of smoke I’d just started inhaling when she’d asked that. Five minutes of coughing later I leaned back on the seat of the Hyabusa and looked over at her. “Trust me, if you knew this guy you’d know that there’s no way he would go down without the ripples being felt everywhere. I’d have heard of it if he was dead.”

“How can you be so completely sure of that?”

“Do you ever stop asking questions?” I snapped, glaring at her.

“Not really, no.” She grinned impishly at me and shook her head.

I sighed. “Just trust me. He’s still alive.” I looked down the road and took another drag off my cigarette.

I loved that part of the country. I didn’t know where in the hell I was, but I loved it. The countryside always reminded me of Neil Armstrongs description of the surface of the moon. Magnificent desolation. Or something like that. Quotations have never been my strong suit, sue me.

“Can you use one of these?” I asked, holding out one of the M1911A customs to her.

She checked the sight, checked the safety, checked the mag and locked it back into place with sure hands. “That’ll do,” I snorted when she shot me another smug grin. “No need to show off.” I held out the Uzi. “This sucker has some kick, it’s been suppressed, and it’s got an extended mag. Don’t use it unless you have to. All your ammunition is silver coated and should drop any werewolf we run across. If there are any vampires, pray. Silver won’t stop them, and might just annoy them.”

“Then why bother having it?” she asked as she finished getting into her gear and stowed the guns.

“Better than not having it. Personally I’ll stick with a good sword over a firearm.”

“Do you know how to use these guns? And what’s in the big case?” she asked, indicating the large black case I’d been carting around.

“Yes I do, and it’s a peace offering, of a sort.”

“Peace offering?”

“Yep.”

“What kind of peace offering.”

“One meant to indicate an attempt at peace.”

She glared at me.

“You did ask.”

After several minutes, I could feel Rachel starting to get restless. By the third minute she’d begun to fidget. By the time I finished my cigarette she was like a small child being forced to sit quietly in their Sunday best when all she wants to do is run outside in the mud puddles.

“Something bothering you?” I asked finally as smug and full of myself as I could possibly manage while I lit another cigarette.

“If we’re in such a hurry why are we sitting here instead of driving?”

“How much do you know about three hundred year old werewolves?” I asked.

“Not much.”

“Trust me,” I said, laughing. “We don’t want to barge in on him. He knows we’re here and he’ll get to us eventually.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve known this guy for a really long time, Rache,” I said. “Just be quiet, and trust me. I know how to deal with these people, and not doing it my way could get you killed, or worse.”

She opened her mouth and I held up one hand, stopping any further questions before she could start. “You don’t want to know what worse would be. Believe me.”

Her mouth clapped shut with an audible snap and I looked away down the road, letting a smug grin spread across my face.

Fifteen minutes of silence, and several cigarettes, later, the gate finally swung open of its own accord. I could just barely hear the tiny internal gears working to operate the fence but I knew that to Rachel it would appear to have opened silently and with no visible means of operation.

“That’s the go-ahead from Ghost,” I said, pulling my helmet back on. I pulled on my gloves and started up the engine as Rachel scrambled to pull her own helmet on. I waited though, could have taken off without her and saved myself a lot of trouble, but I waited. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know.

It was difficult and slow going. The dirt was soft and the bikes were heavy, meaning we sank in half way up the tires and it was a definite bitch and a half to keep from dropping the machine. I kept a wary eye on Rachel but she seemed to be doing just as good, if not better, than I was.

“Looks like she really does know what she’s doing,” I muttered to myself.

“… um Gabe?” I heard Rachel say inside my helmet. “You do realize the radio is on, right?”

“Um… oops?”

“That’s one thing to say,” she laughed.

“Oops.”

She laughed again. I had to admit, I liked her laugh. Sounded nice. Comforting.

That’s about when the front tire of my bike disappeared and I was sent flying nearly 25 feet through the air.

I heard Rachel scream and then I heard the distinct tone of a ringing bell. Of course that might have been my ears ringing when I hit the ground but that’s just me.

“That was completely uncalled for Ghost!” I bellowed after I took my helmet off.

“True,” he called back. “But it was fun. What the hell’ve you been doing you didn’t see that coming?”

“Relaxing?”

“Sounds like you,” he laughed. Rachel scrambled over to me tears in her eyes and began patting my body.

“Gabriel are you ok? What the hell happened?”

“I’m fine,” I said, gently brushing her hands aside. “Ghost happened. He shot out my front tire.”

She blinked and gaped at me in disbelief for a moment before she turned to look at the twisted remains of the front end of my bike.

“What’d he use,” she asked. “A howitzer?”

I laughed. “Knowing Ghost as I do, you’re probably not far off on that one sweetheart.” I climbed to my feet and looked around. Nothing but low shrubs, scrub grass, dirt and sand, with a few large chunks of rocking sticking up out of the earth at random intervals in every direction practically. I’d been so distracted with watching Rachel that I’d completely missed the fact that we’d gotten within a couple hundred yards of the house already. Hence why Ghost shot up my bike. I didn’t stop to identify myself like I normally would have.

To be perfectly honest, I was lucky he didn’t decide to put the bullet through my head. I wisely kept that little piece of information to myself deciding that it would only needlessly worry Rachel and I could hear Ghost footsteps approaching and knew that I didn’t have time to explain things before he arrived.

“Step back and don’t say anything, whatever happens,” I said as I climbed to my feet. I took the case off of my back and set it aside. Then I picked up the remains of my bike and stood, holding it low at my side with both hands. I could see
Rachel out of the corner of my eye, staring wide eyed at this first real demonstration of my strength and I couldn’t help but let a smirk tug at my lips.

I lifted my head and whistled as if I were calling a dog, “Here boy, come here puppy,” I called out. I grinned again when I heard Ghosts irritated growl and his footsteps picked up. I spun in place, letting the bike spin around me like a discus and at the last second I let it go, sending it flying towards a rock outcropping just as the six foot tall werewolf came barreling around the corner.

The shattered front end of the bike slammed into his chest and he fell back, tumbling ass over teakettle amidst a cloud of dust and arterial spray. “You’re getting slow puppy,” I yelled. I jumped into the air, easily clearing the thirty feet to the rocks and then jumped over them, coming down on top of the bike and grinding the jagged metal ends deeper into Ghosts chest.

“Would you stop calling me that?” he growled, his voice deepening and eyes glowing amber as he began to change. He grabbed the bike with hands now bigger than my head, fingers tipped with razor sharp black claws. The muscles of his arms bulged obscenely as he pulled in opposite directions and the bike was torn into two pieces.

I jumped clear as the gas tank ruptured. Ghost howled as the gasoline sank into the open wounds on his chest.

“Ouch, that has got to hurt little puppy,” I taunted him as I danced away. Only way I was going to win this fight was by keeping him off balance. I leaped up onto the rocks and nonchalantly rolled myself a cigarette, keeping a wary eye on the enraged werewolf with my peripheral vision.

He leaped at me, I ducked and held my lit Zippo over my head. Perfect. The gasoline caught and Ghost lit up like a roman candle. He howled again and Rachel screamed as the eight and a half foot tall monstrosity slammed into the soft dirt a few feet away from where she stood.

Game over.

“I win Ghost,” I called down to him from my comfortable seat on the rocks. “Again.”

“You cheating bloodsucker.”

“Cheating? How did I cheat?”

“You threw a motorcycle at me!”

“And you shot it out from under me, that made it fair game in the war,” I shot back.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that it is very disconcerting to listen to a person, sort of, talking calmly with another person while the first is completely
engulfed in flames and is starting to smell just the slightest bit like a Fourth of July barbecue.

Therefore there is nothing wrong with what Rachel did next.

She screamed.

I expected it really. So did Ghost. What we did not expect was when she started throwing things at him. Rocks and sticks flew through the air to smack him in the face and chest. I was laughing my ass off pretty much up until she reached for the Pistol.

“Woah,” I yelled out, jumping down from my perch. “Cool it Rachel.” I reached out mentally and yanked the gun out of her hand before she could lodge a silver bullet between Ghosts eyes. Little chance of her actually hitting him really. But I figured why give her the opportunity to get in a lucky shot?

“It’s alright Rache,” I said.

“Alright?” she shrieked. “What part of this is alright to you? What the hell is wrong with you people? This is not supposed to be possible. People don’t just change into monsters and you can’t throw a fucking motorcycle at someone.”

“Yes he can and yes I can. You knew this, I explained it to you.”

“That doesn’t matter! It’s not fucking possible.”

Then began the meltdown that I’d been expecting two nights
before in Claus’s hotel room when I first told her. I guess today’s young are a little slower to freak out than they were forty years ago.

“Yes, I know everything is weird. I know you didn’t want to be a part of any of this and I’m sorry you got dragged into it but you have to trust me. I’m trying to keep you alive through all of this so you can go back to your regular life.”

She looked wildly back and forth between me and the still smoldering werewolf.

I sighed. “Shakespeare had it right when he wrote ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.’ The real world isn’t as simple as most people would like to think unfortunately. Werewolves and vampires exist. And we are here to stay. We have existed almost as long as humans have existed. Maybe we’ll be able to exist openly one day. But right now, and for the foreseeable future, it’s better that the world of shadows remain in the shadows. Humans aren’t ready to know or accept that there are creatures far more powerful than they are in the world.”

“What is this, a fucking comic book?”

“Close enough for government work.”

She stared at me and I grinned. I couldn’t help it, I love being smug.

“I don’t mean to interrupt this touching moment. But did you two come here for a reason?” Ghost butted in. “And Gabe, you’d better have a damned good reason for bringing an uninitiated here.”

"Claus didn't tell you?"

"Nope."

“Vera.”

He blinked owlishly at me for a moment then grunted. “Good reason. Let’s go.” He spun about on one heel and began walking back the way he’d come. As he did he slowly shrank to a more human form and I could see through the tattered remains of his coat the vicious burns on his back and shoulders rapidly healing. By the time he turned the corner his wounds had almost fully regenerated themselves and Rachel was once again staring open mouthed.