Taken With A Grain Of Salt (Salt Series Book 2) Read online

  “All right,” said Kellen, his fists ready to strike. “You’re not alone.”

  The man paused. “Who are you?”

  Screw that. “Tell me your name fir—”

  “I’m U.S. Marshal David Bryant,” said the man. “Your name. Now.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You sound scared, boy.”

  “I’m no boy,” said Kellen.

  “Well, you don’t sound like a man yet either. How old are you?”

  “Old enough.” Kellen’s cheeks flared. “And you say I’m not a man? This from the guy who I just heard crying about his wife?”

  Bryant humphed. “Least you got some fight in you. Stubborn too. You might be of use after all. Guess you’re not shackled, huh? Can’t be. You move too quiet. They don't find you dangerous enough? That why they didn’t put the shackles on you?”

  “Who’s they?”

  Kellen tensed when Bryant didn’t reply. His ears perked in wait for the sound of Bryant tearing across the floor to throttle him.

  “You a runner, kid?” Bryant asked, finally. “You been Salted?”

  “Huh?”

  “Tell me what you know about Selkies,” Bryant said.

  Kellen thought back on all he’d witnessed at the jail: the long silvery seal with fangs that tore the throat out of Officer Campbell, a former swim teammate of Kellen’s. How the same seal had transformed into a man after. Then another seal, one bigger than even a walrus, that slopped its way toward a desk and destroyed it like a child scattering a house of play logs.

  Were they Selkies?

  “Guess that’s a no,” Bryant remarked on Kellen’s silence. “So how’d they do it? They use some hot girl to drop a little something in your drink at a party, then boom. You wound up here?”

  Lie. Or else he’ll keep asking.

  “Yeah…” said Kellen.

  “Right,” Bryant sighed. “Don’t feel bad. You’re not the first one, kid. Got all these schools warning girls to keep watch over their drinks. Not a one of ‘em ever thinks to warn the guys.”

  “That what happened to you?”

  “No. They shot me with something. Tranq, I’d reckon. Knocked me out.” Bryant sighed. “I’m like you though. I never been Salted either, despite what some Selkies might tell you. You ever heard of a guy called the Silkstealer, kid?”

  “Nope,” said Kellen. “Sounds like a fag, whoever he is.”

  Bryant chuckled. “Hardly. But if you ain’t heard of the Silkstealer, then by God, you ain’t been Salted.”

  “You keep saying that word…Salted,” said Kellen. “What’s it mean?”

  “Depends on who you ask. Only know what I been told. None of it pretty. Guessing by where we’re at—” Bryant rapped his shackles against the floor. “I bet we’re both gonna find out firsthand soon enough. Well, now, pretty sure I’ve answered some of your questions. What’s say you answer mine. Ready to tell me your name yet?”

  Kellen settled in, his back against the wall again. “No.”

  “Right. Guess I’ll have to make up one for you then. Answer me this though. You ever hear of a couple good ol’ boys named Caspar?”

  Kellen’s heart caught in his chest. He still remembered the deputy’s accusing eyes as he fell. Marisa Bourgeois forewarned Richard Caspar would die that night because of Kellen. It didn’t matter that Kellen had not physically done the deed. He saw me turn to run…only a second, but long enough to wind up dead.

  “No,” said Kellen.

  “Pinocchio.”

  Kellen’s forehead wrinkled. “Huh?”

  “That’s what I’ll call you,” said Bryant. “The little boy who liked to tell lies.”

  “I didn’t—”

  Kellen felt hands latch onto his ankles, jerk him toward the center of the cell. His head slammed against the wall at the quick movement. He heard the fetters rattle as Bryant crawled up his body, the weight of the marshal bearing down to pin him.

  Kellen imagined his father, the stink of alcohol breathing down on him. Growling, he tried to wrap his arms around Bryant’s back to throw him.

  The marshal foiled the attempt by digging his elbow into Kellen’s bicep.

  “Ah!” Kellen cried out at the pinch.

  “Listen, boy,” Bryant’s voice came directly above him. “We’re in a bad spot, you and me. Need each other if we ‘spect to get outta this. I don’t wanna hurt you, but I need answers so you’re gonna tell me what I need to know. Where’s the Caspars? You know who I’m talking about. Took long enough to think about their name, so don’t you lie to me again.”

  “I don’t—”

  Bryant needled his elbow deeper.

  “I-I only met one…” Kellen winced. “Rich…Richard…that’s what the girl called him.”

  “Girl?” Bryant’s voice turned angrier still. “What’d she look like?”

  “She was b-black. Crazy. T-told Caspar to kill me before…h-he died.”

  “Richie…” Bryant released his hold on Kellen. “Dead?”

  His heart racing, Kellen shoved Bryant off. He scrambled away until he reached a back corner. Flipped round to his stomach, put a knee to the floor, and his back foot against the wall like a sprinter prepped to lunge off a starting block. His bicep throbbed in rhythm with the pulsing walls. Kellen waited for even the slightest sound of rattling cuffs near him, his legs tingling with anticipation.

  “How did it all go so wrong,” said Bryant.

  Kellen guessed the marshal had not moved from his former position, judging by the echo.

  “Richie was my partner. Him and his daddy, Edmund.” Bryant cleared his throat. “Tell me, did you see it happen? Who killed him?”

  Don’t tell him Richie died because of me. Don’t tell him what the girl said. Kellen’s conscience warned. “This other guy, Oscar…shot him. Said he and his group were like police chasing after the girl. That the Caspars tried to stop them.”

  “Oscar Collins,” Bryant spat. “The Crayfish’s son.”

  “The what?” Kellen asked.

  “Was there a dwarf with this Oscar? One that talked with a Boston accent?”

  How does he know? Kellen relaxed his position. “Yeah…he told me to run away.”

  “Come again?”

  “After they killed your friend, they took this old marshal—”

  “Edmund,” said Bryant. “That’s Richie’s daddy. Did they kill him too?”

  “No. Not that I saw anyway. Just your partner, Richie, and Sheriff Hullinger, and the other cops, Murphy and Cam-” The name of his former swim teammate caught in Kellen’s throat. “Campbell. They’re all dead.”

  “And the girl,” said Bryant. “Tell me about Marisa Bourgeois.”

  “Still alive, last I knew. Oscar, the dwarf, and a couple others led them outside.”

  “Them…but not you? Why didn’t they take you with them?”

  Oscar wanted me to choose. Kellen felt his anger return. Stay behind and go to prison, or come with him and become a seal like I saw his people do.

  “You were a con, I take it.” Bryant remarked on Kellen’s silence.

  “I—”

  “Don’t bother lyin’. You didn’t come with my group, and you’re not a Selkie. If you met Richie and Marisa that means you was in the cellblock. I remember sending the pair of them back before Dolan and his crew knocked me out.”

  Kellen wouldn’t deny it.

  “Listen,” said Bryant. “I don’t know what you were in for and, for now, I don’t care. You and me have found ourselves in some pickle, Pinocchio.”

  “Stop calling me that. It’s not my name.”

  “Wanna tell me your real one?”

  Kellen didn’t.

  “Fine,” said Bryant. “Then Pinocchio it stays until you do. You ever read that story?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t figure. You don’t strike me for the reading type.” Bryant said. “Well, let me tell you about this little boy who told lies. One day he s
tumbles across these couple guys who tell him all about this great spot they know. They call it Pleasure Island, the place all little punks can go to get away from their parents. Do whatever they like. Gamble, smoke, get drunk, you name it. Sounds like quite the trip, don’t it?”

  “Whatever. Sure,” said Kellen.

  “Right,” Bryant continued. “So Pinocchio and his friend go to this island willingly enough. Have their fun awhile. Then, Pinocchio’s buddy, he sprouts himself some ears and a tail.”

  “Huh?”

  “Yep. See this island…it turns them boys into the jackasses they let themselves become.”

  “It turns them?” Kellen scoffed.

  “Into jackasses.” Bryant affirmed. “Makes slaves out of ‘em. Irony is they chose to go.”

  “I didn’t choose this.”

  “Sure you did. Me? I’m the one who didn’t.” Bryant rattled his shackles. “Why else would they lock me up and not you?”

  “I didn’t choose this,” said Kellen, insistent.

  “They drag you in here kicking and screaming? Toss you in ‘cause it was easier than shackling you?”

  Kellen said nothing.

  “No,” said Bryant. “There’s always a choice, Pinnochio. I reckon you made yours when you saw ‘em change. Thought it might be neat to have the same power for yourself, huh? Not that I’m faulting you for that, understand. First time I seen someone transform into a seal, I’s ready to jump at the chance to do the same.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Kellen asked.

  “’Cause a them ones I found later that told me their stories. Where they’d come from and what they’d seen. Things they been through just to make it back to land. I saw the worry in ‘em. Heard the fear in their voices when they told of those who’d come ashore to drag ‘em back to that realm beneath the waves.”

  The dark felt closer to Kellen now. Suffocating. He couldn’t tell if Bryant made up such stories to scare him, but the fervor with which he spoke made Kellen doubt it. This life isn’t what ya think it is. Kellen recalled Lenny Dolan’s words. Things can always be worse.

  “What do we do?” Kellen asked, surprised at the fear he heard in his own voice. “How do we get out of this?”

  “Now you’re thinking right, Pinocchio,” said Bryant. “They screwed up putting the two of us in here together. I know the stories, and you ain’t chained up. With any luck, Edmund is in another of these cells. Any idea how long I was knocked out?”

  “I-I dunno. It’s hard to tell anything in all this dark.”

  “Right. Well, they took us in Indiana. Might be we have enough time on our hands to plan before they reach the Salt.”

  “The Salt?” Kellen asked.

  “Yep. And from what I hear, it ain’t no Pleasure Island, Pinocchio,” said Bryant. “It’s a watery hell.”

  CHIDI

  No!

  Chidi tried pushing her head through the jamb. She felt her seal face scratched and torn at her inability to go further. She relented. Pounded her skull against the door. No! No! No!

  The door went no further.

  Trapped.

  She heard tapping behind her.

  Henry stood on the opposite side of the freezer, grinning. The sound came from his dagger, freshly blooded, rapping against the glass. “Zere you are, mon amour. Will you come out like a good leetle girl—” He pressed the blade against the glass. “Or shall we dance?”

  Chidi growled back.

  Henry’s grin broadened. “Always ze fire in you, my Chidi. Zat eez why I can never let you go.” He opened the cooler door. Knelt to crawl through.

  Don’t let him in! Chidi waddled to the opposite side, the one entry for Henry. She bared her teeth, barked.

  “Ah, ah, ah!” Henry said from inside the cooler. He swiped his blade at her.

  Chidi ducked away. She feinted toward him.

  Henry’s blade whistled where her face would have been. He cursed at another miss.

  A standoff. Chidi realized. He can’t come in any further without being vulnerable, and I can’t revert to human without help.

  “Chidi…” he said quietly, “sooner or later—”

  “Chidi!”

  She glanced to the exit door. Racer?

  Blood matted his hair and forehead. Remnants of glass embedded in his scalp caught the glint of the security light outside. Racer waved her over. “Chidi, come on. Hurry!”

  She spun to waddle back.

  “No!” Henry snarled behind her.

  Chidi slid toward the door, careful not to strike it. Free me!

  Her seal voice only barked.

  Racer took hold of her upper lip, peeled it up then back.

  Chidi felt the changes sweep over her, her sealskin falling away like a discarded robe. It suctioned back, morphing into a hooded onesie, and her human form returned.

  Racer released his hold on her hood.

  Chidi pushed him outside the moment she had hands. “Run!”

  She swung her leg over the chains barring the door and stood on her tiptoes, teetering to clear it. She heard a blade scratch concrete behind her. Chidi glanced back.

  Henry had cleared the coolers. Now, he climbed to his feet. “No!” he shouted. “Stay!”

  Never. Chidi felt her foot touch pavement on the opposite side. She fell for the ground, whipped her leg up to clear out of the mart. She used her momentum to roll heels over head and then to her feet.

  The door shot out three inches, but still the chains held. Henry’s blade sliced through the air, searching for purchase. It found none. He squeezed his head out to look.

  Chidi threw herself against the door, smashing Henry’s face in the jamb. “Die!” she screamed. “Why won’t you die?”

  Chidi felt choked back by her hood.

  “Come on, Chidi!” Racer urged.

  She shoved against the door a final time and wheeled to run alongside Racer. Both made for a cornfield not twenty yards away.

  The wall of stalks loomed large as she leapt over the small ditch separating the plots of land. She landed on the other side and plunged into the corn. Chidi heard Racer grunt behind her as the leaves tore at their faces and hands like sandpaper. She scarcely felt them, her fear of Henry driving her onward.

  “Chidi.” Racer called.

  Don’t stop. Deeper and deeper Chidi ran. Don’t ever stop.

  “Chidi!”

  Remember what he did to Sasha. Chidi sped up.

  “Chidi!”

  Chidi spun. “Racer, what—”

  She saw him sucking air and stumbling, twenty yards behind her. Coughing from his asthma, or woozy from his head wound, she didn’t know. Chidi turned away, looked up the row where the dark promised to conceal her if only she continued on.

  Leave him. Her conscience urged.

  “Chi—” He coughed.

  She swung back.

  Racer reached a trembling hand in her direction. “Chidi…please. Hel-help.”

  “Chidi!” Henry’s voice echoed over the field. “I weel find you, Chidi.”

  She ran back, yanked Racer to his feet. Threw his arm around her neck and helped him limp deeper into the field.

  The stalks a few rows over rustled.

  Chidi tensed at the sight of a shadow moving through the corn. She unslung Racer. Clenched her fists as the corn tassels jostled side-to-side.

  “Chidi!” Allambee lurched across the cornrow to hug her.

  She wrapped her arms about him. “Wh-what happened? Where did you—”

  “I made him leave.” Zymon stepped into the row.

  Chidi bristled at the mere sound of his voice. She pushed Allambee behind her. “You left me.”

  Zymon nodded. “And mean to again. But first, I would have you listen, girl.”

  “Chidi!” Henry’s voice howled across the night sky.

  “Listen that the boy might live,” Zymon continued. “Do you hear what I do?”

  Chidi did—the sounds of Henry battering the door open. The rusted chain
s clammering to their breaking point. Soon he would be free.

  “Do you believe we can defeat him if we stand together?” Zymon asked.

  “We ca—” Racer coughed. “We can. If we stood—”

  “No,” Chidi to Zymon. “We can’t.”

  Zymon sighed. “I thought not.”

  “Please,” said Allambee. “Let us go from this place. Let us hurry!”

  Zymon ignored the request. “Look at them,” he said to Chidi. “These pups behind you. Your master comes for you alone. Did he not say so earlier?”

  Chidi felt her eyes welling. No…don’t…

  “And he will kill us to obtain you, as he did my Wotjek, yes?”

  Chidi chewed her lip. Nodded.

  “You know fear already.” Zymon purred. “Have lived with it in that other world and survived this long.”

  She shifted her gaze to Allambee, heard him wince at the sounds of Henry thrashing their direction. I won’t leave him.

  “Will you keep these pups from such a fate…” said Zymon, “or add our souls to your conscience?”

  Chidi glared at him. “You don’t speak for them. You’re afraid—”

  “I am.” Zymon admitted. “As are we all. Yet you are the only one who can save us now. Will you do that, Chidi? Will you save our lives?”

  Chidi heard Henry’s victory cry and the door bang against the gas mart, loosed of its chains.

  “Chidi, no,” said Racer. “We—” He coughed. “We can fight him.”

  And die. Chidi knew. Just like Wotjek…and Sasha…and—

  She pushed down the teeming faces in her mind. Locked them away in that dark place she never meant to revisit. She turned from Allambee, not wishing to remember his innocent face if she acted too late.

  “You will protect them?” she asked Zymon. “You swear it?”

  Zymon nodded. “On my daughter’s life.”

  “Chidi!” Henry roared. His voice sounded closer now. Entering the cornfield.

  Chidi bolted in the opposite direction. “Henry, this way!”

  “Chidi, no!” Racer shouted.

  Run. Don’t look back. She angled up a different row, sprinted alongside it.

  “Where are you, Chidi?” Henry called.

  Lead him away. Chidi’s heart pulsed faster. “This way. This way!”

  She heard her footfalls joined by others closing fast, heavier than her own and taking longer strides.