The Arrivals

But Ajani wasn’t likely to be leaving trails in the desert. Hell, he wasn’t likely to dirty his custom-made shoes by walking in the desert, and following the trail before him was what Jack needed to deal with tonight. When he had returned to camp with Katherine earlier, he’d found more of the tracks he’d sighted yesterday when they found Chloe. These were even closer to camp. If they’d been genuine tracks, the wind would’ve swept them away. The drifting sand wasn’t like mud; it didn’t hold prints. The fact that these were repeatedly near camp and anchored in the sand meant that someone was inviting his attention.

Jack squatted down to look at the prints. They’d been made by boots with a sturdy heel and deep tread. If not for the slightly deeper indentation on the inward curve and the smaller size, he could think they were his own prints. Aside from troublesome humans, the only desert-dwelling monsters likely to wear shoes were bloedzuigers. Any two-natured thing would be traveling on paws in this landscape, and neither demons nor spirits left prints.

Warily, Jack followed the trail until he found the creature who’d laid out the invitation in the sand. Gaunt, sallow-skinned, with lips too red and eyes too pronounced, Garuda was the first bloedzuiger who had sought Jack without malice years ago when he was new to the Wasteland.

Garuda looked him over the way discerning diners examined their meals. “I see that you are staying healthy.”

Jack made a noncommittal noise and studied the area around them. The bloedzuigers had to observe traditions, Wasteland etiquette, as it were, and until those traditions were respected, he and Garuda couldn’t get to whatever business prompted the invitation. Jack didn’t see anything, but he watched the darkness and waited.

Garuda folded himself into an improbable position on a rock, legs and arms bent at inhuman angles, looking rather like a praying mantis. He tilted his head and stared into the shadows at Jack’s left. Jack followed his gaze as a second bloedzuiger launched itself at him. Reflexively, Jack drew and fired on the slavering creature before it reached him.

Jack turned to Garuda. “Really? A newborn?”

Garuda shrugged.

A third bloedzuiger came at Jack from behind him, moving quickly enough that he didn’t notice until its teeth had already closed on the heavy leather of his jacket. Venom slid over the material.

Jack stabbed his knife into the soft flesh under the creature’s chin.

It let out a shriek and clawed at the hilt of the knife with one hand while swinging at Jack with the other. In time, it would become a proper predator—if it survived that long. For now, though, it was nothing more than a mass of spindly limbs and dripping fangs bound to obey its master.

It looked at Garuda for instructions.

Garuda motioned it forward with a careless wave of stick-thin fingers. The gesture was elegant for their sort, but it still resembled the waving of insect legs.

The bloedzuiger went to its master and stood motionless as Garuda withdrew the knife and tossed it toward Jack.

He moved so it fell to the ground at his feet. “Thank you.”

The bloedzuiger grinned and pointed out, “You missed.”