Once Broken (Dove Creek Chronicles) (2 page)

chapter one

Present Day

“Remi-Jean, you look like death warmed over.”

Leave it to my mother to be honest in the most brutal sense of the word.

I started to argue, but thought better of it. There was no hiding how pale and tired I looked, especially compared to my normal appearance. I’m a fit woman, still a couple years this side of thirty. Most would say that I’m slender, though I like to think that I have curves where they’re supposed to be. I’m tall enough to look most men in the eye, about five-nine or so. And I’m no supermodel, but I can hold my own. My hair is long and very dark brown, and it stands out against my pale complexion. I’ve always wished that I had my mother’s
baby blues like my brothers did, but my eyes are gray like my father’s. A few freckles dust the bridge of my unremarkable nose, and my lips are full and soft. I’m not flashy, but it’s not like I walk around really looking like
death
.

I followed Mom out the back door to the flagstone patio, leaving Hadden inside to finish up dinner. How I envied him that task. My mom’s boyfriend is one hell of a cook, but I had put up a fight at letting him do all the work. I knew what she was up to.

The dinner invitation was a ruse. My mother had invited me over just to give me the third degree.

“Are you sure you’re gettin’ enough sleep?” She probed further, relentless as always.

I sat down in a garden chair and frowned behind my dark sunglasses in response. Elizabeth Patrick McCoy isn’t a woman who will suffer being sidestepped, especially by her own flesh and blood.

She handed me a glass of iced tea. And by glass, I mean a jelly jar. There was an entire collection of them in the kitchen cabinet next to the refrigerator, all in different shapes and sizes. Most of them had survived the move from my childhood home in Dove Creek to this newer house in Westview.

I took a sip and considered my words carefully. “There’s a lot going on right now is all.”

It was a typical, sweltering North Texas summer day and even under the shade of a pair of decades-old pecan trees, I was starting to sweat. At least, I blamed the heat for the perspiration rather than the threat of my mother seeing right through my attempt at evasion.

“Don’t worry, Mom. It’s not like before.” I tacked on some more to my explanation, trying to reassure my mother before her apparent concern turned into all-out worry. The last conclusion I wanted her to jump to was that I was back to struggling like I had after Dominic was killed.

It wasn’t bereavement that had me up all night these days. But even though she was privy to the side of Dove Creek that not everyone sees – the side
full of legends come to life – I didn’t want to tell her that we had been busier than usual. I didn’t have any answers yet.

Of course, right then I wasn’t thinking about creatures that go bump in the night.  My mom put the fear of God in me far more than any of those things could, and it was her motherly concern that I was facing at that particular moment.

“See to it that you’re takin’ care of yourself, then. I don’t want you endin’ up like your father.”

It
wasn’t a fresh source of contention between us, that I was following in my father’s footsteps. I’d heard these arguments from her before. Killing vampires and protecting the average citizenry through a sort of secret police force for the supernatural world was never supposed to be a family business.

My father had wanted to tell my two brothers
and me what he did under the guise of working the night shift, but our mother would have none of it. The downfall of their marriage began with her fear that one of us would walk down that path right behind him. She had dealt with the risks he took and the danger they posed to her, but all bets were off once we kids started getting bigger. He promised to retire but when the time had come, he just couldn’t let go.

My younger brother, Dylan, was barely out of diapers when our mother decided that she’d had enough. Dad came home late, as usual in those days. He ha
d been bloodied and bruised – also no surprise. But he was reeking of booze and that proved to be the final straw. He would later come to regret turning to a bottle in order to assuage the heaviness in his heart after so many nights seeing the things he saw, but he had and it was too late. Our family had been broken by it.

It was the possibility of me making the same mistake that had my mom concerned, especially with the anniversary of my husband’s death fast approaching.

I huffed, impatient as my mother remained reserved and quietly drank from her glass. “I won’t,” I answered, my words as stiff as my posture. “You know that I won’t because I didn’t
choose
this life. It chose me.”

“All the same, don’t get so fixed in it that you lose yourself. Revenge isn’t an excuse to put yourself in harm’s way.”

“Mother!” I pulled the sunglasses off my face so that I could look her straight in the eye. “I thought that you understood by now that this isn’t about revenge. It might’ve been at first, but now . . . Well, it’s about more than that. It’s about protecting people. You and Dylan most of all. You know there’s always the chance that they’ll come after you, too.”

The sentiment was sincere despite the fact that my mom was one of the last people who needed my protection. She might look like a sweet, middle-aged Southern lady with her perfect make-up and prim clothes, but don’t let her looks fool you. She sleeps with a loaded twelve-gauge, rarely curbs her tongue, and
even a vampire would be unwise to cross her.

She pinned me with a look that served to remind me of just that. “You’re not tellin’ me anything new, baby girl. I’ve passed a lot of years with that very possibility in the back of my mind. And aren’t you forgettin’ someone?”

It was a loaded question. She knew exactly who I’d left out and why.

Yeah, well Jimmy doesn’t count, now does he?” I asked with all the sound reasoning of a pouting child. It wasn’t my most brilliant argument
and I knew it, but I continued to plow into it anyway. “It’s not like he’s even around here to have anything to worry about.”

My older brother James had fled our tiny hometown more than fifteen years ago. Ambition lit a fire under his seat and he had taken off for Dallas as soon as he graduated high school. I couldn’t say that I blamed him. With a mind like his, he was meant for bigger and better things than Dove Creek could offer him. He’s an Assistant District Attorney in Dallas County now. But the distance between us isn’t all about the geography; we’ve never seen eye to eye.

Our parents had Jimmy when they were seventeen. They got married and bucked the odds, staying together despite the many hardships they were saddled with. I didn’t come along until almost seven years later, when things were more stable and there was more money to be had. The age difference between James and me got us off to a bad start and we never recovered.

Dominic had driven the biggest wedge of all into the ever growing chasm between us, though he hadn’t meant to. The heart wants what the heart wants, and
mine was set on my brother’s best friend. It just so happened that we both wanted each other more than we cared about Jimmy’s wants.

I haven’t seen my older brother since Dom’s funeral.

“Listen, baby girl. The reason I asked you out here wasn’t to argue about your brother or your father.”

My mother began to say something else, but was interrupted. Hadden poked his head out of the back door and told us that dinner was ready.

Saved by the fried chicken.

THE SUMMER NIGHT WAS TOLERABLE
after the sun set, so I took the long way home from my mom’s house in Westview. At that hour, the county roads between there and Dove Creek were all but deserted. The gravel and asphalt were all mine as classic rock blared through the speakers and I sang along when I knew the words.

The barely paved back roads provided a bumpy ride, but I didn’t care. With the jeep’s top off, I had an unobstructed view of the night sky. Outside the reach of the city lights, it was brilliant with innumerable stars and the tiny sliver of a sickle moon. The air was still hot and dry, but more pleasant as it whistled around me and whipped through my hair.

A shadowy figure crossed the two-lane highway in front of me, and I had to look back again since I didn’t believe my eyes the first time. My first thought was that I was just seeing things, that the headlights were casting eerie shadows on the empty road. All the same, I hit the brakes as I passed the spot and looked up to peer in my rearview mirror.

A hint of movement caught my gaze; otherwise, I would have missed him as he slipped back into the darkness.

Pursuing a vampire alone isn’t a smart thing to do so I was prepared to go on my way and call for some backup, but then I saw it: The lone house that stood in the vampire’s path. It was the only house for acres and acres, and miles from town. The people inside didn’t stand a chance.

T
hey were the bait.

And if they were the bait, then that meant I was the target.

I didn’t stop to think twice. If there were people in that house, they were as good as dead if I didn’t do something. Target or not.

I shifted into reverse and backed to the place where the bloodsucker had disappeared. Pulling onto the side of the road, I put my jeep in park and switched off the headlights.

Shootouts would draw a crowd and in a place like this, everybody wants to be the first one in the know. If gunfire ever rings out when it‘s not hunting season, it attracts all kinds of attention – ladies in fuzzy bathrobes with curlers in their hair, children who sneak past their parents with wide eyed curiosity, or at the very least, a curious game warden.

Simply put, we can’t just go around blasting away with s
hotguns every time we see fit. I carry a compound bow for its silent killing power. It was in the back end, so I snagged it as I ran around the vehicle and into the ditch.

Staying low and moving as soundlessly as I could, I ran until I reached the point where the vampire had crossed the fence. It wasn’t for his benefit that I stayed quiet. I knew he could hear everything right down to my heartbeat, but the family inside that house would remain oblivious to what was happening as long as they didn’t hear me come tearing across their property.

With a running start, I vaulted the barbed wire fence into a grazing pasture that bordered the house’s neat little yard. I could smell the distinctive scent of a chicken coop upwind as my quick steps crunched in the dry bluestem grass. Cattle lowed in the field around me and mesquite shoots scratched at my tall boots and denim clad legs, but none of this slowed me down as I sprinted through the field.

It would’ve been impossible for me to catch a vampire on foot. Impossible. Unless he
let
me catch him.

His skin was pale in the faint moonlight and stood out against the deep dark of our surroundings. Nocking an arrow as I skidded to a halt, I aimed the silver broadhead at his heart.

The vampire paused, and I saw that he wasn’t one that I recognized. I wasn’t too surprised by that. It seemed that for every one we killed, two more showed up.

In that passing moment, I discerned that he wasn’t one of the attractive ones. His features were markedly reptilian. He had a sharp, narrow jaw and thin lips that curled slightly upward. His nose was wide and somewhat flat, with a hump at the top that suggested it had been broken a time or two when he had been a living person. All of this was topped by a pair of beady, wide set eyes that, instead of moving normally, darted
to and fro.

Those eyes darted over me before he let out a barbaric
scream. I didn’t know why – clearly, the creature didn’t fear me. It didn’t matter. I reacted, triggering the bow‘s release. The arrow shot with a whistle and hit . . . Thin air.

The vampire had melted into the darkness, and left me standing rooted to where I was. Wary of a surprise attack, I fitted another arrow nock onto the string.

But the attack never came.

Busy contemplating what had just happened and why, I didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late. The distinctive click of a shotgun shell sliding into firing position announced the arrival of the very person I had been trying to steer clear of.

“Don’tchya dare move, girly.” The gruff voice of the farmer came from behind me. “I done called the sheriff. Saw ye parkin’ in m’ bar ditch . . . Sick ‘n’ damn tired of you kids makin’ mischief ‘round here.”

“Sir, I—
” I began to explain that I was no kid and attempt an explanation, but I was interrupted before I could get more than those two words out.

“Don’t ‘sir’ me. Save it for the deputy. Now get t’ movin’.”

Obediently, I dropped my bow to my side and walked toward the house like the man indicated with the double barrel of the shotgun. While I couldn’t blame him for getting up in arms over finding a woman in his pasture with a hunting bow, I sure hated having a gun pointed at my back.

By the time we stepped into the radius of fluorescent light given off by the utility fixture near the house, the deputy’s patrol car was parked directly behind my jeep. He looked less than pleased as he approached us with his hand on his sidearm.