"How do you like your steak? Bloody?" Ru guessed, probably because it was how Atticus liked his steak.
"Yes."
"Then this is done." Ru gave Ukiah a sincere smile, one of the ones that went soul deep, the kind he usually gave only to people he loved.
The feral look gave way before Ru's smile. "Thank you."
Still, he ate with wolflike ferocity.
It was good Ukiah would be sleeping soon, Atticus decided. He found that the boy absorbed all his attention. Surely some of it was that Ukiah was new and unknown—Atticus's own personal ocean to be lost in. He could ill afford the distraction.
Ukiah lifted his head and went still.
"What is it?" Ru asked.
"Harleys. Ten of them."
Atticus listened and heard them now, a rumble of multiple motorcycle engines growing closer. He couldn't tell the make or the exact number, although he could pick out six or seven distinct engines.
The Dog Warriors! Did he call them!
Ukiah glanced at him. "No, they're not Pack."
Atticus frowned. "How do you know?"
"Pack knows Pack."
"What does that mean?"
"Shut your eyes," Ukiah commanded.
Atticus hesitated. He knew how fast he could move—even wounded, Ukiah could probably strike as quickly. He checked to see if Ru was in position and ready before closing his eyes.
"Keep your eyes shut." Ukiah's voice came out of the darkness. "Focus on me."
He could feel Ukiah's presence beside him like an electric ghost. His brother moved, a rustle of blanket, and Atticus sensed that Ukiah had stretched out a hand to nearly touch him, fingers splayed close but not pressing against the fabric of his shirt. Atticus reached without opening his eyes and found Ukiah's hand with his own. Traces of steak. Road dirt. His own saliva. His own flesh. His own blood.
This is right. This is good.
"Looks like we have company," Ru remarked dryly, breaking the spell.
Atticus dropped his brother's hand and stood. The motorcycles had rounded the sharp bend in the road and come into view.
Ukiah grunted. "Iron Horses."
"You know them?" Atticus asked.
"I know of them," Ukiah said. "They're Pack wanna-bes; the biggest one is John Daggit. He's the New England chapter president. Rebar is his sergeant at arms." Which meant Rebar would be the club enforcer. "Smithy and Draconis are both local members, but Animal is a nomad. I don't know the rest. They could be prospects or maybe another club."
The motorcycles roared up to the driveway of the house, sat a moment, scanning the land, gunning their engines, and then silenced ominously.
Who were they? Friends of Lasker? The killers from Buffalo? Or, despite what Ukiah claimed, part of the Pack?
The house felt like a trap, but at least it offered some protection. The treeless sand dunes were entirely too exposed. Atticus went to the door, opened it, and stood waiting for the bikers to come to him.
Atticus had originally thought that "biggest one" meant "the most desirous wannabe" but apparently Ukiah had just meant "huge all over," and the monster of a man on the lead bike was John Daggit.
"You Steele?" Daggit dismounted to swagger toward the house. He topped Atticus by another head with huge, beefy hands. His stock of gray-salted brown hair was shaggy, framing a face that might have been handsome except for the dark inset of his eyes, which made him look not totally sane.
"What do you want?" Atticus kept the door blocked even though Daggit loomed over him. Obviously the big man was used to his size intimidating people.
"Look, asshole . . ." Daggit put out a hand to brush him aside. Atticus caught the hand and used it to bring the big man down to his knees, eliminating the leverage that Daggit's size might have given him.
"What do you want?" Atticus repeated calmly, pushing the hold almost to the point of breaking the arm.
"I'm a friend of Jay Lasker's." Daggit hissed in pain. "If you're Steele, then I've got business with you."
Perfect. The sellers—twelve hours early. Atticus released Daggit, stepping back to let him up.
"Yeah, I'm Atticus Steele."
Daggit got up, wincing at his arm. "I'm John Daggit."
Great. Well, things were so amazingly screwed, but they had no choice but to act as if it were business as usual. "Come in."
"I figured the deal would be off once Lasker died." Daggit ducked into the house, six of his men following. They stank of unwashed hair, old sweat, hot oil, engine exhaust, cigarette smoke, and spilled beer. Atticus scanned them discreetly for weapons. Something crystalline glittered on their hands, clothes, and faces. Pixie Dust? "All I got off him was a name and time."
Which was more than Atticus had gotten. By all signs, Sumpter had focused on the logistics of arranging the buy without getting the intel on the seller, trusting that Lasker would cover those details later. Why was it that the idiots were never the ones that dropped dead?
"Everything is still go." To force introductions and get names attached to the other men, Atticus waved toward Ru. "My partner, Hikaru Takahashi." Then, because he didn't want to get Ukiah more involved than he had to, Atticus made a dismissive noise and added, "And my little brother."
"This is Animal. He's a nomad for the Iron Horses." Daggit named the others—confirming Ukiah's guesses—apparently working from level of importance instead of by whom was standing closest to him. Animal was a wiry man with flamboyant red hair and beard and a slightly manic smile. "Rebar here is my right-hand man." The club enforcer was a bald man whose leather jacket and thick waist disguised a strongly built body. Daggit rattled off the names of the others as if they were of no consequence. "Draconis. Smithy. Quasimodo. Mutt and Jeff."
Draconis was a tall, lanky man with dark hair and beard. Smithy was short, pudgy, and sweating nervously. Quasimodo was as ugly as his namesake. Mutt and Jeff were brothers or cousins; both had the same broad face and sparse, sandy hair.
Atticus committed faces to memory as he kept between the bikers and Ru. He could hear a faint ongoing chiming sound but he couldn't tell the source. As he moved around the room, it stayed elusively faint and directionless. "You're here earlier than we expected. We said dusk, not first thing in the morning."
"Are we screwing up some kind of schedule?" Daggit sneered.
"We were thinking about heading out." Ru reached out and flicked the nearest light switch on and off. "The power is off here. The stove is gas, so we were able to make breakfast, but there's no coffee."
"Yeah, well, it's off for most of the Cape." Daggit meandered through the living room, pausing to open up a drawer and look into it. "A substation got taken out last night in the storm. You'll have to go pretty far out for that coffee."
"Ah." Ru drifted out of the tight corner of the kitchen. "Do you have what we're looking for?"
On the team, Ru was the voice, Atticus was the muscle, and Kyle was the backup—only Kyle was still off getting the generator, and Ukiah, a complete unknown, had been added into the equation. Who knew what direction the Dog Warrior would jump in a situation like this? His brother sat still, seemingly chewing his steak, but Atticus could feel his attention focused on the bikers as they moved around the room.
"Maybe." Daggit had to duck to walk into the kitchen. There was a slight coving to delineate it from the open living room that Atticus hadn't noticed before.
"Nah." Animal's red hair made a nimbus around his head as he shook it. "We just drove all the way out here for our health."
"Do you have it or not?" Atticus snapped, irritated over how fucked-up the situation was. They didn't even know what form the drug came in—pill, brick, dust? They'd have to dance around the word "drug" until they knew.