Bloodlands Read Online Free Page B

night.
    Belowground, I readied my revolver, my blood racing.
    “Wh’r u?” the intruder asked. Then he stopped, spun round, as if he felt his spine tingling.
    When he found nothing—at least, that was what he probably thought—he walked toward the now-hidden trapdoor. “Whooz thr . . . ?”
    The stranger kept mirroring the guy like a true shadow, and I inched closer to the visz, my heartbeat hammering my lungs flat. But I didn’t let myself panic.
    When the intruder reached for some jagged scrub five feet from the trapdoor, the stranger spoke in Text, stopping the other man.
    “I wodn’t.”
    He sounded strong, but I sensed the effort beneath the words.
    A stretched hesitation marked the reaction of the man with the chopstick hair; I wasn’t even sure whether that pause lasted for a second or a full minute. At any rate, it was enough time for me to realize what was coming next.
    The man with the chopsticks moved his arm, clearly going for a weapon.
    I hitched in a sliver of oxygen, then sprangoward the ladder, not really knowing what I’d do once I got up it.
    The stranger’s voice filtered through the speakers. “I sed stop .”
    His tone halted me cold, turning my veins to lines of ice. The after-slice of his words cut and echoed through me, a shattered whisper.
    On the nearby visz, I saw the new intruder startle to a freeze, too. Nearby, Chaplin’s growls doubled in volume. Dog was pissed.
    As if hearing Chaplin, the stranger’s shadow tilted toward the camera. But he couldn’t have heard. The viszes were one-way hookups.
    In the next moment, he was back to facing the intruder, sauntering closer, leaning toward the man’s ear, whispering.
    I couldn’t hear what he said, but the new guy took off running, jangling madly as his form faded into the darkness.
    Chaplin and I didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, finally, my dog made a hmmm sound. We watched the stranger touch his head, probably to adjust the bandages there, then inspect his hand. Afterward, he stumbled forward, carefully making his way back to the trapdoor.
    Chaplin ran to it, releasing the button to let our guest back in.
    Without ceremony, the stranger made his stiff journey down the ladder, the door closing behind him. Then he fell the rest of the way to his blankets, offering no explanations. Nope, he merely removed his long, beaten coat, then his bag, while his bandages slumped over his forehead. He reached into the carryall.
    Again, I just stood there, brain-fried.
    But that didn’t seem to attract the notice of our guest. He casually went on to extract the flask from the bowels of his bag and gesture to us with the container.
    “Excuse my indulgence.”
    I had to absorb the Old American. Absorb the fact that he could be so nonchalant.
    “That’s it?” I asked. “No expounding on what just happened?”
    He paused, a melancholy look passing over him.
    As sure as the moon had started its waning phase tonight, I wasn’t about to let him off the hook. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he must’ve known I meant real business. I hadn’t saved his hide earlier for him to come in here and toy with me.
    The stranger sent me a lowered glance. “The way you talk . . . I haven’t heard Old American for a while. Haven’t ever seen a real live Intel Dog, either.”
    I was about to ask him why he seemed more comfortable speaking Old American when he continued, just not in the way I would’ve liked.
    “Seeing as our visitor won’t be back tonight,” he said, “I’d like to settle. Talking can follow, if you don’t mind.”
    Oh, so he thought it’d be that easy.
    “Exactly what did you say to make him run off?” I also wanted to ask about his wounds. How was the stranger all of a sudden functioning well enough to be scaring off others?
    He smiled, and it was a sad sort of gesture. But then he winced, holding a hand to a cut near his mouth. I noticed that gash wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d first made it out to be, either.
    Just