Once Broken (Dove Creek Chronicles) (6 page)

“Don’t. Move.”

I shivered as the familiar voice whispered across the shell of my ear. Apart from that involuntary movement, I froze.

“I was hoping to see you tonight,” he purred, pausing to sniff at my neck.

“That’s funny. I hope to see you every night.” I spoke with as much nerve as I could muster. Sliding my left hand across my body, I began to reach for a silver dagger.

“Uh uh uh.” Valan admonished as he tightened his grip
to a more dangerous degree. “I’ll have to ask you to refrain from your feeble attempt to end me.”

“Fine,” I conceded through clenched teeth. “But my partner is on his way and he’s anything but feeble.” My pulse was pounding in tandem with the thunder. I prayed that my threat wasn’t empty.

“Ah yes. Gabriel.” The vampire spat the name with distaste. “I think he’ll find himself preoccupied with a few of my brethren.”

Valan let forth a self-satisfied peal of laughter and as though on cue, a half dozen other vampires materialized from the darkness. It was then that I wondered what Valan had planned for me.

Horrified, I watched as the sports bar manager reemerged from the side entrance. Two of the vampires converged on him. I watched his expression change from one of alarm to the terror of understanding what was about to happen. I had no trouble hearing his screams. I tried to turn my head away, but Valan held me steady.

The rain came even faster, driven sideways by the wind. Drops clung to my eyelashes and soaked my hair. I squinted against the onslaught of water, wishing it could wash away the bloody scene I beheld.

Helplessness was not a feeling I welcomed, and I squirmed in the vampire’s relentless grip. I felt his face move closer to mine.

“This is a mere drop in the bucket of what I have in store for you, Remington. Next, we’ll savor your partner . . . While you watch, of course. But if you move again.”
He paused long enough for a slow, sinister leer. “I promise that his agony will be prolonged.” Valan issued his threat before flicking out his tongue to lap a raindrop from my earlobe.

I sucked in a sharp breath and hissed. “Do you ever get sick of the sound of your own voice?”

Before he could answer – though my question didn’t beg one – the growl of an engine sounded behind us. I didn’t have to look to know that Gabe had spotted where my jeep was parked. I wanted desperately to scream at him to stay away, but Valan’s long fingers around my neck reminded me that a scream would be the last sound I made.

Gabriel stepped out of his
Chevelle and into the rain. He made it only three steps toward me before he was circled by Valan’s fanged flunkies.

“Remi?”

“Gabe,” I said hoarsely. Emotion choked my words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Enough,” Valan cut me off. “Pathetic. You traipse around getting men killed for you and
sorry
is all you can say?”

His words caused something inside me to snap. The dam of caution broke, allowing my pent-up desire for vengeance to run free.
We couldn’t wait in the hopes that the werewolves would find us in time. If Gabe and I were going to die in that parking lot, then by God I wasn’t going down without a fight.

My hand went back inside my coat and retrieved a silver dagger. The vampire was as quick as the lightning
flashing around us. His fangs sank into the tender flesh between my neck and shoulder.

I screamed.

The knife in my hand glimmered with reflected light as I lifted it to strike. Valan caught my wrist and spun me around. With my free hand, I grasped the crucifix that hung on its chain and I held it out to ward him off. He let go of me and backed away a few paces. It bought me precious seconds to take aim with my knife and throw it. The blade buried itself in the vampire’s gut. Holy water would only be diluted by the rain, so I skipped it and went for more silver. A second dagger hilt protruded from Valan’s shoulder after I aimed and threw again.

I took a chance and glanced toward Gabe. There was a flurry of movement all around him, but he was still in it. The bodies of two corpses were returning to ash and dust where he had felled them.

Over the tumult, I heard a howl in the distance. Alex.

Valan righted himself and stalked toward me, yanking out the daggers as he came. The silver had weakened him, I was relieved to see. The wounds couldn’t heal themselves and he was losing precious blood quickly.

Feeling woozy from my own blood loss, I struggled against the lethargy and kept going. My life and Gabe’s depended on it. I drew another stake from my boot and prepared to use it.

“How
persistent you are,” Valan commented with a smug smirk. “I like it.”

I didn’t bother to bandy words with the vampire,
instead opting to answer him with an attack. Lunging forward, I aimed my weapon at his heart. Valan batted my hand away with one of his own before decking me solidly with the other. Red bloomed bright behind my eyes as pain lanced through my cheekbone.

As I gathered my wits, I realized that my attack had been too direct. This was no newly spawned walking corpse – this demon had been wearing skin for centuries.

I darted away. The vampire was still moving slowly – for a vampire. Though I was suffering from my own wounds, adrenaline overrode the pain. The opportunity I had been waiting on for three years had finally come, and I couldn’t waste it.

Feigning to the right, I took advantage of Valan’s lessened speed. I gripped the stake and spun to my left, preparing to bury it in his chest. I didn’t see that he had read my misdirection all too easily and was ready to deal me another blow. Before he could hit me, though, a flurry of bristling fur and snapping jaws interrupted our tit for tat.

I looked to the side and saw the other two werewolves helping Gabriel dispatch the remaining four vampires. Alex, in all his lupine glory, was circling Valan with a dangerous glint in his tawny eyes. For once, I wasn’t happy to see him.

With Valan cornered, I went back for more. Just as I began another attack, Alex put himself between me and the vampire. I came up just short of running into the wolf, and Valan took
the opportunity to slip away. The stormy night swallowed him up as quickly as he had appeared.

“No!” I shouted. My fist clenched around the now useless stake in my hand. Soaked to the bone and shivering with anger, I glared at Alex. “Whose side are you on?”

In a split second, the werewolf changed from sitting on his haunches to standing in front of me as a man. He said nothing, but gave me a long look.

Gabriel came to stand next to me. “Thanks, Alex,” he said with honest gratitude. “Meg, Gio.”

Alex nodded with great dignity before he gave me one last look. Words weren’t needed for me to understand that my barbed question had wounded him, but I wouldn’t take it back. He returned to his lupine shape and ran back into the darkness flanked by Meg and Gio.

I looked over at Gabriel and opened my mouth to speak, but realized that I didn’t know what to say. He looked back at me, blood streaking down his face in the rain. I found a place to start. “Are you alright?”

“I think so. You?”

“Yeah, I will be. He bit me.”

“He . . .
What
? Where? Jesus, Remi, are you okay?”

I tilted my head toward my left side, a movement that hurt more than it should have. Gripping the collar of my raincoat, Gabriel pulled it away to look at the bite wound.

“Vampire bites don’t leave many survivors. This doesn’t look too bad, all things considered.”

“I lost some blood, but that’s the worst of it. He did it to
hurt me, not to drain me dry.”

“Why not kill you when he had the chance?”

“To toy with me. Because I’m my father’s daughter, and . . . He wanted me to watch you die.”

Gabe let go of my collar and his eyes met mine.

“Why would he want that?”

“Think about it, Gabe. Did you see the way he ordered the other vampires? They see us together every time we fight them. They watch us help each other and
they must have reported back to Valan . . . He has some sort of power over them, or command of them. He still wants to hurt me, so what better way than to make me watch another man that I care about be killed. Valan thinks he’ll break me.”

There was something unreadable Gabriel’s eyes; it was a look I had never seen before. He looked like he was trying to figure out what to say, much like I had been lost for words moments before.

“He won’t,” he finally said. “He already broke you once and you came back stronger. He won’t  be able to again.” His expression changed back to all business. “Can you drive?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve had enough action for one night. Let’s get back to headquarters . . . Meredith can have a look at that bite.”

I didn’t argue. Things had gone from adrenaline-pounding to awkward, so I
was plenty ready to get the hell out of there. “Yeah, sure. See you there.”

Bruised and rain-soaked, I climbed back into my jeep and headed out of the city limits. The worst of the storm had passed. Forks of lightning came at slower intervals to the east and the wind had subsided to a chilly breeze. I turned on the windshield wipers, but the rain was falling steadily rather than pelting with a vengeance. The sparkle of the drops in the headlight beams and the rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers soothed my raw nerves.

To have come so close to finally taking Valan out and failing was a crushing disappointment. I promised myself that I would use it as motivation rather than let it dishearten me.

chapter four

It was a slow day at the shop. The August afternoon was laying it on thick, heat rising off the blacktop parking lot in waves. Nobody was out and about, and I couldn’t blame them.

I had nothing better to do than answer the odd phone call and ruminate about the night before, so I went to work cleaning the display cases. Thinking came easier to me with a dust rag in my hand, so I took my time. I concentrated on each crystal knickknack, gold watch, and diamond ring as I took them from their shelves and rearranged as I cleaned. I kept one eye on the door since I was dealing with the most expensive part of our inventory, but that proved to be unnecessary as more than an hour passed without anyone coming in.

By the time the glass was shining so that I could see my reflection in it, I was feeling quite pleased with myself and my thoughts weren’t as burdensome. I wasn’t so distracted by my virtuosity, though, that I didn’t hear the door finally swing open, and I looked up from my work as my younger brother announced his arrival.

“Heya Remi.”

Dylan came in with his guitar strapped to his back and an uncertain, almost hesitant look on his face. It
wasn’t an expression I was used to seeing him wear, so I wondered what was on his mind.

By and large, my brother is a carefree guy. He lives to make music and doesn’t get upset about much; we balance each other well. We look a lot alike, though our coloring is as different as night and day. Dylan is a few inches taller than me, lean and long-limbed. Where my hair is dark, his is dirty blonde. He lets it grow a little long and shaggy, and often sports a worn baseball cap over it. His eyes are the same
light blue as our mother’s, the color I envy so much. His skin tone is also several shades darker than mine, the kind of tan that barely fades during Texas’ short winters.

I wasn’t surprised to see Dylan in the shop; in the month since he had moved back to Dove Creek, he came by at least once or twice a week to browse the new guitars and other instruments we acquired
–
supposedly
. I was still convinced that our mother was putting him up to checking in on me.

Whatever the reason – or reasons –
for his routine visits, I suspected from his demeanor that this wasn’t the usual.

“Everything okay, Dyl?” I asked.

His look of uncertainty rearranged itself into a look of determination, as though he were readying himself for an unpleasant task. Dylan looked like a man who was about to sit in the dentist’s chair for a root canal.

He pulled the guitar strap over his head and laid the instrument on the counter between us.

“I wanna sell it.” He told me in a rush, as though getting it over with was the least painful thing to do.

“Seriously? Why?” I asked, realizing too late that my tone held more disbelief than sensitivity.

I walked around the counter and joined my brother on the other side. Resting my hip against the glass, I settled in to show that I was ready to listen.

“You know how it is now. People don’t have a lot of money to spend, so they’re not putting it in my tip jar.” He shrugged as if to show that he understood their predicament. “I can’t make my rent and it’s just gonna get worse. I know you can sell this for a good price.” He tapped the glossy Gibson, and I guessed that he was right. But for all his sensibility, I didn’t care that it was profitable. I wasn’t about to let my little brother sell the very thing he needed to make money.

I knew what it had cost Dylan to return to Dove Creek after not making it big in Austin, so I never busted his chops about it. Heck, a selfish little part of me was glad to have him back home. If he needed help, I was prepared to offer it.

My decisio
n was instant but definitive. I knew I was doing the right thing.

“Tell you what, Dyl . . . You keep that,” I said, nodding toward the guitar. “And don’t worry about your rent. You can move into my house.”

Dylan began to argue, but I wasn’t having it. “Listen, I’m never there anymore, and I need someone to keep it up for me.” I figured I didn’t have to tell him that I just couldn’t bring myself to sell the place. “Keep up with the yard work and some maintenance, and you can stay there as long as you like.”

“Rem, that’s too much. I’ll pay you some rent when I can.”

“No way. You’ll be earning your keep, trust me.” I grinned. “And it’ll give me peace of mind knowing you’re there.”

I had moved out of the house I owned with Dominic more than two years before. I couldn’t live in it, but neither could I have strangers living in it. My husband had been a careful planner; he left me enough in life insurance money to pay it off and then some. It had been his intention that I would have a roof over my head without ever having to worry. But
that
roof left me feeling stifled rather than protected.

Having someone living there again would discourage anyone who had a mind to take advantage of an unoccupied house. Dylan would be doing me as big of a favor as I was doing him, so it was a win-win in my book.

“Okay, okay. I know better than to argue with you.” He smiled back. “Thanks, Remi. Really.”

Dylan offered a hug, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. My boring afternoon at the shop had brightened significantly.

My brother straightened up, but left his hands on my shoulders as he backed off to look at me more closely.

The jig was up.

“Geez, Rem. Did you get hit with the business end of a two-by-four, or what?” He was trying to make light of it, but his concern was apparent.

I turned to my standby excuse: “You know those classes I’m taking? We started Judo yesterday.” Employing a self-deprecating smirk, I tried to look as though the fictitious training had simply gotten the better of me.

“You sure you’re not doing something crazy like Fight Club or anything?”

My laugh was probably a little too quick and forced, but I echoed the film reference without skipping a beat. “If I
were, you know the first rule: Don’t talk about Fight Club.”

We joked for a few more minutes and I managed to dispel my brother’s suspicions, at least as far as I could gather. I hated having to dodge him and tell him half-truths
, and I doubted he was any safer not knowing the things I truly dealt with on an almost nightly basis. What our dad had dealt with. But our mom wanted to protect her sons from it even now, and I wasn’t about to go against her wishes for the sake of my own peace of mind.

Dad had left us well equipped to defend ourselves, even if he wasn’t able to teach us how to slay monsters. All three of us had grown up going with him to fish, hunt, and camp. We’d had targets in the backyard for archery. Lots of families around here take part in those outdoor sports, so with a gunsmith for a father it only seemed natural.

I hoped Dylan hadn’t forgotten everything we learned.

“Listen, Rem, you’re already doing a lot for me, but maybe I could get this night position y’all are looking to fill? Could you put in a good word for me with the owner, what with you being friendly with him and all?”

I hesitated before answering. The night shift would be perfect for Dylan, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted him to be that entrenched in the Amasai’s cover. I decided to give him an application and leave the final say in Hugo’s hands. 

“Sure could,” I nodded. “If you’ll fill out an application, I’ll give it to him personally.”

I went around into the office and retrieved one of the forms from a drawer in the filing cabinet. Returning to the main part of the shop, I handed it to Dylan.

As he was filling in the information, he looked up from his work. “Oh yeah, I meant to tell you earlier . . . I have a gig at the Dirty Dozen this Saturday night. You should come, bring some friends.”

Just as I was about to answer, the door swung open and admitted a red-faced customer and a fresh burst of 100-degree heat.

I glanced up and greeted the man before answering Dylan without committing. “Sure. I’ll think about it.”

Forcing my best customer service smile onto my face, I walked over to where the squat, thickly mustached man stood browsing our firearms section.

“Can I help you, sir?”

He looked up from his inspection of the rifles that stood on a shelf behind the counter and grunted. “I’m lookin’ for a good huntin’ scope, but I don’t expect a lil lady like yerself to know much on that.” He chuckled as though he’d just told an especially clever joke.

Stifling a snicker, I looked over my shoulder and shot a wink at Dylan. He grinned at our private joke before waving goodbye, and I waved in return. As he strolled back out into the scorching sun, I turned back to the customer with a little smile.

“Oh, you might be surprised. Let me show you this Leupold we just got in . . .”

IT WASN’T MY NIGHT ON
watch, but after work I went home only long enough to change clothes. There had been far too much activity in the last week or so for me to stay away from headquarters.

I arrived to find that Hugo was home that night with Meredith and their children. With Aric’s training complete, it was time that they both had a night off together. In my eyes, it was commendable that they managed to keep their priorities straight. Sofia
and Daniel
were very much at the center of their lives, despite Hugo’s duties to the Amasai and Meredith being at his side every step of the way. It was the very thing my own father had failed to do.

Jocelyn was lounging on a sofa in the great room, her attention on a slick fashion magazine. Her blonde curls were pulled back from her face in a headband, and she was made up as though she were going out for a night on the town rather than sitting around on the ready in case things went badly for Casey and Aric. She wore black leggings, a sleeveless purple top, and low profile
black sneakers; the sort of attire in which she could move easily. Her pink fingernails flashed as she drummed a little rhythm against the magazine cover. 

“Hi, Joss,” I said as I passed to go into the kitchen.

Without looking up from whichever riveting article on hair dye or runway fashion she was engrossed in, Jocelyn answered, “Remi.”

Garrett was across the floor at the computer array, with his feet kicked up onto the worktable and ear buds in his ears. He saw me walk in and ticked a two-fingered salute in my direction. I gave a little wave in return.

I made my way to the refrigerator and reached in to get a soda. There didn’t appear to be anyone else around, so I went back to the sitting area as I cracked the top on the can. I took the comfy armchair next to where Jocelyn was draped across the couch and reached for the television remote control.

“You just missed the boys,” Joss answered the question I hadn’t yet asked. I assumed by ‘the boys,’ she meant Casey and Aric. “And Gabriel is in the armory, playing with the guns.”

I was a little surprised to know that Gabe was there, but didn’t say so. “Anything else going on?”

“Not so far.” She shrugged behind the magazine and finally looked at me over the top of it. “I can show you how to cover that up, you know.” She moved a fingertip around in a circle, indicating my black eye.

I had done the best I could with what little makeup I ever wore, but the bruising still showed up under my eye and next to my nose. Since the damage wasn‘t permanent, I hadn’t thought about making any more of an effort to camouflage it.

“Nah, thanks though.”

“Suit yourself.”

Pointing the remote at the satellite receiver, I flipped to a 24-hour news channel. There were two buttoned up political types on a split screen, talking at each other. I promptly looked for something else, and settled on
Return of the Jedi.

I heard Jocelyn’s magazine flutter as she shut it. She looked first at the screen, then at me. “You can’t be serious, Remi.
Star Wars
?” She said it as though it was the very worst that late night cable programming had to offer.

“What’s wrong with it?” I questioned.

This, of course, erupted into a spirited debate over the merits of science fiction versus romantic comedies. We were engrossed in our mostly pointless discourse when we were interrupted by Garret from across the room.

“Joss, you’re up. Casey needs to get back here; they got separated and he’s hurt,” he said, pausing only to look back at the main screen to double check his information. “The last GPS coordinates put Aric near where the old railroad tracks cross County Road Eleven Seventy-Two, but I’ve lost his signal and he’s not answering me.” If he was worried for his brother, he masked it with his brisk efficiency.

Jocelyn and I both kicked it into gear. She left her seat before Garrett had finished speaking, and I got up to help her collect her things.

As a competitive gymnast in high school, Joss had trained her body to be flexible and agile. It’s a set of skills she puts to good use now, and there are places she can get to that the rest of us couldn’t even think about. She’s also an ace with a whip. The one she fastened into the holster at her hip was woven with silver so that she could use it to take down a vamp. Girly though she was, there was no mistaking that Joss was a
little can of whoop-ass.