275 Orange Street

Centralia, Washington

United States of America

9 August, 1986

0055 Hours

        I yanked open the door to the truck and Briana jumped. I threw myself behind the steering wheel, slamming the door, and hit the ignition.

        "My God, Annie, is that blood?" Briana asked, reaching out toward my arm.

        "It's nothing." I told her, pullng my arm away and trying the ignition again. The truck's starter ground for a moment then fired up, the engine loud through the glasspak mufflers.

        "Yeah, call him Annie, because the little boy you knew is who's sitting beside you." Westlin sneered as I pulled out the alley, hung a left, and headed down the street.

        "Quiet, vile spirit." Briana said, waving her hand. "Begone, and bother Annie no more."

        I slammed on the brakes. "Don't talk to her like that, Briana." I told her, turning to face her. "Westlin has more right to me than you'd think." I sighed and eased off the clutch again, feathering the accellerator so the engine didn't stall. "It's my fault she's dead anyway."

        "Annie." Briana said softly, reaching for me. I brushed aside her arm, digging in my pocket for my smokes. The pack was crushed, but I managed to fish out one that was only bent, steering with my knees. I lit it with my ChemCorps Zippo, the streetlight catching the inscription "Special Weapons Class of 84" under the ChemCorps seal. I tucked the lighter again and pushed in the clutch so I could stop at the stop light.

        Rage filled me and I slammed my fist against the metal dashboard, cursing myself. I'd let myself get sloppy and now, if they were smart, the Doutree boys would go to ground. As soon as Lonnie and Tadgh had been worthless I should have cut their throats and left them on Niamh's kitchen floor for the dogs to eat. Now they were both alive, I got almost no information out of them, and they'd be warning their allies as soon as they could.

        "You know, Dobbs would kick your ass if she heard you talking like you did to your cousin."  Westlin told me, flashing me a smile. That broke my rage, leaving it to crumble and leave the taste of ashes in my mouth.

        "You know me." I told her. "It was just a way to get under his skin, make him sloppy."

        She nodded slowly. "All right, true. It's just startling to hear you say that kind of stuff."

        Briana looked at Westlin and then at me, her face suddenly nervous.

        "He's always been ashamed of it, took it out on us younger kids all the time. He tried really hard to 'prove' he was straight, and that just made stuff worse." I told her. "Then he tangled with Aine, she outed him about the whole thing, liking men, not being able to get it up for women, having a bad case of baby-dick, and if anything, he got meaner."

        Westlin raised her eyebrow. "I'm surprised you've got the attitude toward gay people that you have, in that case."

        "Tiernan's influence." Briana said. "He's always accepted the gays, says they fight, bleed, and die like any other man on the battlefield."

        "I wasn't talking to you, witch." Westlin snapped, sticking her tongue out at Briana. "The only reason you're here is because of your tits and any holes you might have that might be useful."

        "Enough, Westlin. Briana's a good girl." I cut through the arguement. Westlin blushed, looking down, her BDU's and battle rattle suddenly replaced by her white dress with the red flowers. When Briana opened her mouth I raised my hand, slowing the truck down for the next light. "Stop, Briana, Westlin's Atlas Crew,"

        "Three one seven for life." Westlin grinned, and blood ran out of her mouth and down her chin. "And death." She burbled past the blood that had filled her lung and drowned her in the Blackhawk helicopter.

        Briana shuddered, turning away from Westlin and me to look out the window. "Where are we going?" She asked, her voice small and frightened.

        "The hospital." I told her, taking a quick left and heading along the side of the freeway on the side road. Behind us several cop cars raced by, and I knew that they were heading to scrape up what was left Lonnie and try to get answers out of Tadgh. I knew Tadgh wouldn't say a word, the Matrons would want me dragged in front of them, not sitting comfortable in a cell and out of their reach. Lonnie might, nobody had ever beaten him in a fight, much less destroyed him.

        I'd been in a hurry, and I'd gotten sloppy, and now I had nothing to show for it. I hadn't lied when I said I didn't know how to fight. What I'd done in the kitchen, everything I'd done since I got home, hadn't been fighting. It had been pure hand to hand combat, something the Army had pounded into me, something my friends and I practiced against one another and trained hard. Last winter had taught us hard lessons, and we'd thrown ourselves into training in hand to hand combat even harder.

        "Annie, what are you planning on doing?" Briana asked me softly, still facing away. "I can feel the blood and darkness around you."

        "I'm going to find out who beat my sister half to death, find out why the Matrons didn't protect her, and why..." I suddenly stopped speaking, something finally clicking.

        The whole truck shuddered as I hit the brakes and pulled the truck into the empty parkinglot of a closed down gas station. Briana looked at me, her face suddenly frightened, and lunged for the door handle, crying out in fear or shock.

        Her blonde hair made a good grabbing point, and I pulled her backwards, staring down at her as her body slid under the steering wheel. She grabbed my wrist to ease the pressure, and I stared down at her.

        "What's going on?" I asked her, my voice hoarse. "Why didn't your family try to protect my sister?"

        "I don't know." Briana said, her voice shaking. "She's a McDaurn, we're McCullens."

        "That's bullshit." I snarled, looking down at her. "For over a hundred years anyone who dared touch a girl from my family or yours found themselves on the wrong side of an ass kicking. Why not Niamh? Why wasn't she protected?"

        "I swear, I don't know." Briana cried out. "My mother didn't know either, that's why she agreed to help your Matrons capture you."

        "Why?" I asked. "What makes me so important?" I pulled her hair again. "Don't you fucking lie to me, witch."

        She gasped, her eyes closing and tears leaking from them. "I don't know. My mother didn't tell me, she just told me that if you escaped to stay close to you."

        "Then why were you at the Red Barn tonight?" I glanced in the rearview mirror in time to see an ambulance go by on the main road, heading for the hospital. Good, that would be Lonnie and Tadgh, who might prove of some use after all.

        "Because I knew the Doutree boys would be there." She said softly. "My mother dreamed it, so I went there because she knew you'd go there looking for the Doutree boys. She told me to stay next to you at all costs, try to keep you from visiting revenge on everyone you could reach."

        "Why stay close to me? What's the end game, Briana?" It hurt, knowing for sure that she wasn't really attracted to me. I'd known it, sub-consciously, but it still hurt to hear. I knew that Matron Aine wasn't attracted to me, she was an Aine, and it was her nature to take sex where she could. Briana, on the other hand, part of me had hoped that she found me attractive, but now I understood she was just following her mother's orders.

        I should have known that civilian women, women who weren't kellys, wouldn't be attracted to someone as ugly as me. I'd been a damn fool.

        "I don't know. I swear, Anthony, my mother didn't tell me." Briana said softly. "I'm sorry." More tears. "Please, don't kill me." Her fear was real, and cut deeply.

        "I'm not going to." I told her. "Aine blood runs thick in your veins, you were just following your nature and your mother's commands." I said softly. "You're not at fault here."

        Her eyes opened and she looked at me, the fear in her eyes real, not a trick. I'd learned to recognize when an Aine was feigning fear, and seen real terror in one's eyes before. "My mother doesn't trust my family's Matrons either." She said quietly, tensing slightly. When I just nodded, she relaxed, reaching up to touch my face. "She told me to tell no-one what I found out, not my sisters, not my aunts, just her, and only her." Tears rolled down her temple. "What happened to you, Annie? Where's the boy who wrote poetry?"

        "You can't trust any of the Matrons, not any more." I said, ignoring the last part of her question. Special Weapons training, Alfenwehr, and Atlas had ground him away to nothing and left me behind. "I'm sorry, Briana." I looked down in time to see a drop of blood land on her cheek.

        "Your nose is bleeding again." She told me. Her touch felt like warm oil under my skin, my headache suddenly easing. She touched under my nose and brought her crimson tipped finger to her mouth, sucking the blood off of it. She made a face and rolled slightly, spitting the blood onto the floor and retching.

        "Yeah. Atlas all the way, witch." Westlin said, her voice tight with something I didn't recognize. I looked at her and her eyes were a hard green, different from her normal soft blue yes. She looked at me and her face was suddenly clean, with delicate makeup on it that highlighted her eyes. "She's not Atlas, Ant, she's not Special Weapons or two-nineteenth, she doesn't get to..." The dead woman visibly struggled to regain her composure. "She's not one of us."

        "It's OK, Westlin." I told her softly. "I know she doesn't love me, doesn't find me sexy or good looking. She's an Aine, it's her mother's orders and her nature."

        Briana slid out from under the steering wheel and sat up, staring at me in horror. "Your blood." She whispered.

        "Yeah. My levels were bad before I left, borderline kidney shutdown." I shrugged, throwing the truck in gear.

        "It's poison." Her face paled. "My sister..."

        "Yeah, her venom's probably deadly to anyone who isn't one of us." I shrugged again, steering the truck out on the road. "Atlas and 2/19th are hard on us."

        She spit on the floorboards again, still trying to clean the taste of my blood out of her mouth. I remembered Matron Aine, biting my chest hard enough to break the skin, licking the oozing blood with her too long feline tongue and making a pleased sound at the taste. It reminded me that Briana wasn't a full Aine. Close, but close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, nuclear weapons, and cumshots.

         Westlin laughed when the last part went through my mind, then her face got serious. "If affects more than the blood, Ant." She blushed. "Certain, ah, fluids get contaminated by the stuff we work with."

        "Our toxin levels are too high." I said.

        "Take your Sticky Bromide." She told me.

        The truck was at a stoplight, and I could see flashing lights heading toward me on my right, heading past me to hit the hospital. I had a few seconds. I reached into my pocket, getting out the Sticky Bromide, and popped one of the white pills out of the blister pack and into my hand. I dry swallowed it and put the blister pack away. I noticed my sleeve was starting to show the blood from the gash on my forearm. I couldn't feel it, just a slight burning sensation. I'd give my cousin one thing, he had kept that K-Bar sharp.

        The light changed a few seconds after the ambulance went by and I followed it, cruising past the hospital before taking the far entrance to the parking lot. I killed the lights and dropped her in granny low so I could creep across the parking lot. I parked in a section where the lights were off, shutting off the engine and closing my eyes and counting to three. When I opened them my eyes were rapidly adapting to the dimness.

        "What are we doing, Annie?" Briana asked me.

        "Waiting." I told her. I pulled up my sleeve and looked at the gash in my arm. It wasn't deep, no fat or muscle was bulging through, and just below the gauze wrapping that hid Matron Aine's bite. Just a thin line that had missed the major veins and arteries but still had left blood running down my arm. "Open the glove box."

        Briana popped it open, passing me what I asked for. I wiped the wound off, then used the butterfly bandages. Two of them closed it up. I then put neosporin on the bite Briana had left on the inside of my other wrist and wrapped gauze around it too.

        "You look like you've done this plenty of times." Briana said, half accusingly.

        "That's what happens when your medic takes one through the stomach because you had no business being in charge." I told her, the bitterness at losing Westlin filling my voice.

        "Still not your fault, no matter how many times you say it is." Westlin burbled. She was in her BDU's again, her vest  and LBE open to reveal the brown T-shirt and the hole in it. "You did for that sniper though, cut his throat and stood on his hands to keep him from even grabbing the wound,."

        Briana looked at me with horror as I nodded. "Ivan's fucking lucky I didn't roll over his shitty little outpost and hang all of them."

        That suddenly gave me an idea.

        I grabbed the K-Bar and looked at Briana. "This is going to get ugly, McCullen." I told her. She jerked and I smiled. "Yeah, it hasn't been ugly yet." I raised up the knife. "Now we're going to stop fucking around and get some answers." I held her eyes with mine, looking over the top of my glasses at her. Her face was blurry, but like all Aine's I'd looked at like this, her eyes were in perfect focus. "It's time for Ms. Pointy Thing to join the conversation."

        "Annie..." She tried.

        "Don't you want to know, Briana?" I asked. "For some reason the Matrons of both our families allowed my sister to be brutalized. Nobody has struck back, and I found my cousin having beers with the number one suspect like they were old buddies. Are girls no longer safe?" I shook my head. "Something isn't adding up, and I want to know why." I kept staring at her. "What if the Matrons decide you're next. It isn't like you're a full Aine."

        "I'll stay here." Briana said quietly, obviously disturbed by the idea that she would no longer have the protection of being a girl or of the family.

        The door creaked, the hinges old and probably rusted, as I got out and moved to the front of the truck, leaning against the brush guard that protected the grill. I could wait all night if I had to, but I knew, sure as I knew that eventually the sun would come up, that I'd have another chance at answers.

        Time went by slowly, and I thought over everything I knew. The lizard was busy throwing up evidence, snapshots of memories, fragments of conversations, trying to put everything together into a coherent picture. Crickets chirped, an owl cried out, and a bat whirled around the light a few dozen meters away while it gobbled up the bugs attracted by the lamp.

        It was less than a half hour before I saw the car coming. Speeding, moving fast, screeching its brakes as it almost missed the ER turn-in. I started walking toward the car as it slid to a stop in one of the parking spaces.

        A brand new 1986 Ford Mustang hard top, black as night. I hated the new design, it looked more like some crappy Japanese car than the muscle car it was supposed to be. I reached the back when the door opened and I saw Reggie get out from behind the wheel. He slammed the door and started to take a step forward into the puddle of light from the parking lot halogen light he'd parked a few yards from.

        That's when I grabbed him by the collar, yanking him back and taking him down to the ground with one swift motion that left me on top of him with my knee in his gut, the K-Bar held in his face, and one hand over his mouth. He'd lost his wind when he'd hit the ground and I could tell that the impact against the concrete had rattled his brain. His hands had raised up, his wrists limp, as his body tried to unconsciously protect itself. When I leaned into his gut his hands dropped and his face turned purple.

        "Miss me, pumpkin?" I smiled, feeling my cheek jerk upwards as the damaged nerve malfunctioned again.

        Reggie's eyes grew wide and he glanced desperately at the ER entrance only about a hundred feet away. The lights were bright, the doors open, and I could see two cops standing at the desk talking to the receptionist.

        "I'd say you have a problem, Reggie." I told him, letting the point of the fighting knife drop so I could trace down his cheek with the point. He glanced at the ER again and I made a show of looking along with him, then looking back at him when he looked up. He was limp, unresisting, even though I could tell he was getting his wind back.

        "Don't worry." I told him softly, lovingly. I traced the knife along his cheek again. "You'll see the inside of the ER soon if you're an honest man."

        In the back of my head the lizard chittered with amusement.