Aspen (13 page)

Jynx was sorting through the fabric. “They might have been here longer than you think, Asp. Check this out.”

Aspen took the offered piece of fabric and held it up. Unlike the more recent pieces, this one was dated. The date at the top was today’s.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I would guess the ink on this is more like five years old. Maybe older. You can tell by the way it is shading to red on the edges.”

Jynx held up more sections. “This one is dated next year, but looks just as old. And this one is next October.”

She dropped them and cocked her head at Aspen. “You know, they might have been stuck here just like we are.”

Aspen nodded. The thought had occurred to her. This wasn’t just a run of the mill preternatural or a haunting. Something weird was going on, something that killed Martel even after he’d escaped.

“Martel got out, so will we,” she said.

“Martel dropped dead in one of Creek’s rooms. I wouldn’t say he escaped so much as he was late boarding the train,” Jynx said.

She turned to look out the window. “Not that I’m complaining, this is still much more fun than staring at my sister, waiting for her to do something.”

Aspen continued going through the desk. “When we get home, you and I have to talk about your weird idea of what fun is.”

Jynx looked at her. “Why? Are you saying you would rather be flipping burgers and scraping egg off Creek’s counters instead of rummaging through a decades old desk trying to solve a mystery?”

Aspen smiled. “Not on your life.”

Jynx looked back out the window. “I rest my case. There’s a light out there, it looks like a lantern or flashlight or something. Maybe the missing chick is out looking for her friend.”

Aspen kicked the bottom desk drawer closed, it had contained nothing but an assortment of 1960s magazines. “Let’s go check it out, we can come back for this stuff later.”

Outside, the night had grown as black as pitch. The sky was still obscured by the swirling mass of clouds that hung over the village like impending doom. Aspen followed Jynx down the sidewalk in the direction of the old gas station and their camp. The streets were deserted without even a hint of the strange ash and debris that had fallen just a few hours before.

Jynx slowed and drew her pistols as they neared the edge of town. The light was just ahead, somewhere close to the general store, now. Aspen could see it panning over the building, a narrow beam of yellow light moving slowly. Jynx made to step out with her weapons. Aspen stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. When Jynx looked at her, she shook her head.

“Let me go. You cover me, I left my gun somewhere back at the church,” she whispered.

Jynx screwed her face up in annoyance. “Like you need a gun! If she gets out of hand, nuke the bitch!”

“I can’t just roast everyone! Cover me, okay?”

Jynx shrugged. “Fine, just be careful, I’ve seen enough dead people for one day.”

Aspen stepped out with her hands over her head, showing she was unarmed. A figure dressed in a tee-shirt and jeans, with hair held in a long ponytail and what looked like a shower curtain over its shoulders, stood near the store looking at the burning wreckage.

“Hello?” Aspen called.

The figure spun and aimed the light at her. It was a woman, one of the members of Martel’s team. She looked tired and drawn, with threads of blue tracing beneath her skin.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the woman asked.

Aspen showed her hands. “My name is Aspen, Aspen Kincaid. I’m not here to hurt you, I’m trying to help.”

“How did you get here? Are you…are you from outside?” the woman asked.

Aspen smiled in what she hoped was her friendliest manner. “I am, I came to investigate what is happening here.”

The woman sagged, her face an odd mixture of sadness and hope. “Then Kris made it, he found a way out. Is he with you?”

Aspen shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. He died in his sleep a few nights ago. He went quietly, if that’s any consolation.”

The woman sagged even more, her hands going to her face. “No. That’s how they all go, with a whimper.”

Aspen lowered her hands and steppes closer. “I’m sorry, ma’am. My friend and I did everything we could for him, we couldn’t stop the disease.”

The woman raised her head. “Friend? There is more than one of you?”

Aspen waved to Jynx, who stepped out of the darkness, one pistol held loosely in her right hand.

“Yes. This is my friend, Jynx. Can you tell us what happened to you and your team?” Aspen asked.

The woman shook her head. “It all happened so long ago…we were here to debunk the haunting. Kris thought it had something to do with the fumes from the fire. That the townspeople and ghost hunters succumbed to a mass hallucination. We brought devices to gather samples and wore masks to protect us. But it wasn’t the gas at all. We’d barely set up camp when the strange sounds started. Then the creatures came and we ran deeper into the village.”

“I’m impressed you’ve stayed alive so long. How did you survive the nosferatu?” Jynx asked.

The woman raised her eyes and Aspen could see the confusion in them. “Nosferatu? You mean vampires? We didn’t see anything like that, it was the werewolves. We ran and hid within the old hotel. They caught poor Harper and tore him to pieces right outside the doors.”

The woman began sobbing. “I watched them, watched them fight over the scraps.”

Aspen hugged her. “It’s okay. Shh. Come on, let’s get you somewhere safe.”

She held the woman and started guiding her back toward the hotel. Jynx walked on the other side, weapon ready.

“These lycans—”

“What?” the woman asked.

“The werewolves,” Jynx said. “Was one of them big and black? Like, all black? No stripes or other coloration?”

“Yes…yes, I think it was the leader. Why?”

Jynx thumbed back the hammer on her Colt. “Because it is about fifty yards behind us.”

Aspen turned her head enough to see it behind them. One of the biggest lycans she’d ever seen was standing just beyond the gas station at the end of the main street. It hadn’t yet caught their scent, but she imagined she could see its nose twitching in the wind.

“Don’t run, it will notice us,” Jynx said. “Just keep going.”

The woman started making a sound between crying and screaming in terror.

“Stay calm!” Aspen said.

“Shut up! You’re going to draw his attention!” Jynx said.

The woman started a low whimper that Aspen knew was going to become a scream. She clamped her hand over the woman’s mouth and held on. They were almost to the hotel when the lycan let out a howl that chilled Aspen to the bone. It was echoed by three more, then again by more, somewhere ahead inside the city.

Jynx let go of the woman and drew both her pistols. “Keep going!”

Aspen pulled the woman onto the sidewalk and through the doors of the hotel. Jynx fired a series of shots at something Aspen couldn’t see and then crashed through the doors just a head of a burly lycan that snapped at her from mere inches away.

Jynx shot it in the head and kicked it away. “Fuck off!”

Aspen pulled the woman to her feet and shoved her to the side just as another lycan crashed through the side door and ran through the lobby, claws extended. It narrowly missed the woman, who screamed and crawled behind the registration counter.

“Hey, you ugly fuck! Pick on someone who fights back!” Jynx snarled.

More bullets echoed in the darkness and punched holes in the lycan’s toughened hide. It howled in pain and fell back under the onslaught. Jynx walked forward with every shot, emptying two magazines into its heart. She ejected the empty mags and looked at Aspen.

“I really hate lycans.”

“So I gathered. Reload those things, I can hear more of them out there.”

Jynx rammed two magazines home. “I’ve only got four mags left, Asp. What can you do with the magik mojo?”

“Not make more bullets, but maybe I can do something else,” Aspen said.

She turned and walked back to the doors, which now hung uselessly from their broken frames. She could see more of the lycans approaching, with the alpha prowling along behind. She raised her hands and called upon her magik. Her connection with Raven was there, a thin thread that vanished into the darkness of her mind. She touched it, caressed it with her soul and let the magik flow. It rolled down her arms and coalesced in the palms of her hands, where it glowed. Words she’d never heard before spilled from her lips.

“Ohdiche ban-dia na teine!”

Flame erupted from her fingers and roared into the blackness to encircle the nearest lycans. They howled and screamed inside the flames, but they could not escape. They dropped to the ground, nothing but piles of matted hair and roasted meat. Aspen lowered her hands and folded her arms with as much bravado as she could muster. The smoking lycans and smell of burning hair was making her feel sick.

“Do I have your attention, now? I’m the blood-familiar of Furstin Tempeste. Go home, you aren’t getting a free meal today.”

There was a strange, gristly noise and the alpha lycan shifted to his human form. He stood naked in the street, covered in blood. He had long black hair that was more a matted mane than anything, and his eyes were clear blue, like arctic ice.

“Impressive, little mage. But you are not as brave as you sound. I can smell your fear!” he said.

Jynx appeared at Aspen’s elbow. “I know that voice.”

“Give me the Kane woman and I will let you live!” the lycan continued.

Aspen looked at Jynx, who was visibly shaking. “You look like you saw a ghost, who is he?”

“Ike Clanton. The son of a bitch that killed my family and turned my brother into a lap-dog,” Jynx replied.

She looked out at the street. “You want me, Clanton? Call off your puppies and lets do this, just me and you!”

There was another sound, the pregnant, wet noise of a lycan shifting. When it was over, a young man walked out of the shadows. He was tall, for a fifteen-year-old, with shaggy brown hair and green eyes that glowed in the night.

“We don’t want to fight, sis, we want you to join the pack!”

“Mal…” Jynx breathed.

“Your brother?”

Jynx nodded, her eyes wide.

“Don’t freak out!” Aspen said.

Jynx looked at her. “I’m freaking out, Asp. I didn’t, I don’t…”

Aspen grabbed her shoulders. “What did I just say? Calm down and tell me what to do!”

“Come out, sis,” Mal called. “Join the pack and your friend can go free, I’m feeling generous today.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Jynx said.

Aspen held onto her arm. “You can’t kill them all. Besides, doesn’t this seem a little weird?”

Jynx’s face turned from one of fear and confusion to wild-eyed anger.

“A little weird? Yeah, you trying to keep me from freeing my brother is a little weird. Let go of me!” Jynx yelled.

She shook Aspen free and started out the doors, guns blazing. Aspen saw her first shots turn the lycan near Mal into so much Swiss cheese, then the next dropped in a hail of silver before she reloaded and dodged out of the way of others with agility that belied her humanity. Mal shifted back to lycan and charged. Jynx was just rising from her roll when Mal barreled into her with his claws extended. She dropped one of her pistols and slid across the pavement, leaving a smear of blood on the asphalt. She came to rest against the gutter and lay still. Mal howled his triumph and licked her blood from his claws.

“Jynx!” Aspen shouted.

She ran forward without thinking. Two of the lycans loped toward her, claws ready to spill her intestines in the street. She raised her hand and sent a ball of fire at the first one, then dropped to the ground and slid beneath the second one’s legs. She scooped up Jynx’s discarded pistol as she moved the same way she’d seen Raven do it.

Behind her, the lycan made a sort of “aroo?” noise and turned. Aspen rolled onto her back and started firing, not even sure if she was pointed in the right direction. The powerful weapon bucked in her hand and punched holes in the lycan’s chest and head in a spray of blood and gore. It gagged on the silver-coated rounds and collapsed to the pavement, where it slowly shifted back to human.

Aspen leapt to her feet and ran to Jynx, who lay on the street, fighting for consciousness.

“Fine time for you to take a nap,” Aspen said. “Any ideas what I do with the big freaking lycan you pissed off? He’s coming to have a chat with us.”

“Kill it!” Jynx whispered.

“Easy for you to say, you’re taking a vacation!”

Aspen got one of Jynx’s arms over her shoulder and tried to stand, but Jynx was heavier than she looked and the lycans were getting too close. She dropped to her knees and raised a shield just in time to deflect the rampaging alpha that appeared out of the darkness. It raked its claws across the shield, sending up sparks of silver magik that crackled with power. When it failed to punch through, it opened its maw and howled in frustration.

Aspen marveled at the creature. She’d never seen one this up close, especially an alpha. No one had and lived to tell the tale.

“Look at this, Jynx! You can see the double jaw and extended canines! This is amazing, I bet it can bite through a steel pipe, do you think I could get it to?”

Jynx tried to sit up. “I said kill it, not study it! Roast that thing!”

Aspen concentrated on the shield and moved closer, studying the lycan like it was a specimen in a jar. “Jynx, this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity! Think what we could learn about shifter anatomy. How they shift, where the extra bones come from—”

The lycan smashed a fist into the shield and Aspen felt the impact in her soul. The pain made her groan and she sagged to the pavement next to Jynx with blood dribbling from her nose. She wiped it away with the palm of her hand and moaned, “You win, we can study it later.”

The lycan smashed into the shield again. Aspen lost concentration and the shield collapsed, leaving them exposed. The lycan’s teeth cracked together inches from her face and she squeaked in surprise.

“What big teeth you have! I’m sorry about the steel pipe thing. I’m even more sorry about this!”