In the Midnight Hour

by Katrina VanBuskirk

  Sarae was panting and shuddering.

  “Now walk,” he said. “Walk away slowly. Your life depends on acting as if you are in no hurry.”

  His stern voice checked her. Sarae was afraid, about this close to bursting out in screams. But she mastered herself, took one step away, then another.

  “Don’t look,” Marcus said, his back to her.

  So of course she had to look.

  She still couldn’t see into the darkness behind her, but Marcus stood between Sarae and Remy and the sound of the oncoming attackers.

  “Keep walking,” Remy said at her side.

  And now weird, screaming howls came out of the dark – something not even human.

  The screams turned her guts to jelly.

  She could barely see Marcus in the dark, but his back was to her, and he reached over his back … and with a quiet shing he pulled a gigantic, shining sword from behind his back.

  How the hell is he carrying a sword! Sarae thought as she fell back. Where did that come from!

  The sword gleamed in the starlight … or it might have been casting its own light, to gleam like quicksilver in his hands.

  “Run!” Marcus told them, standing with the shining sword upraised. With a roar, he swung the sword, and it flashed like lightning. The sword cut and cut at their attackers in the dark –

  And the screams that rose from their attackers in the darkness were horrifying.

  Even though her legs were barely holding her up, Sarae stumbled forward, and Remy caught her in his strong arms and dragged her along. Zoe and Hinto were singing their magic, a rising note that suddenly broke.

  A blue brilliance from the owls flashed like lightning. A bolt flew over Sarae’s head like a storm wind, making a huge sound like tearing cloth.

  The bolt slammed into the creatures with an explosion that flung Sarae back off her feet onto the ground.

  “Oof!” said Remy underneath her. Her head and back were lying on him, and he coughed.

  But Marcus also lay some distance away, stunned by the explosion. He shook his head, tried to sit up.

  The creatures were struggling to their feet, their eyes on her. She could see their dark, indistinct forms through the trees … but their eyes glowed a faint green.

  And they said, “Remy … Remy Laveau,” in voices that gritted like ash.

  Under her, Remy gasped and choked. “Oh, God, no,” he whispered in a voice that was the end of despair.

  What the hell was going on! How the fuck did the monsters know his name!

  But Sarae met the monsters’ eyes as they crawled toward them.

  “You’re not going to get him,” she said though gritted teeth.

  Remy was gagging, trying to get up, and he grabbed her arm with an iron grip.

  “Run. Please. Run,” he said.

  “We found Remy,” they whispered. “We’ll chew through his neck … we’ll bite into his guts and pull out his intestines ….”

  “Oh, the hell you will,” Sarae snarled.

  She sat up at once, screaming like a banshee as she called power to herself, flooding her heart with fury, her body with power.

  She swept her open hand over them, drew in a breath that filled her, and with a shriek that Zoe instantly harmonized with, she flung knives of light from her hand.

  A sudden howl as the light cut the monsters, splintering off in all directions.

  A gigantic roar, a commotion as the monsters scrambled. Sarae couldn’t see them or what they were doing, and in sudden desperation she pulled every bit of energy to herself to fling at them.

  She didn’t realize she was capable of this kind of power until she cast it.

  But casting this spell took a supreme effort, like pulling a gigantic bolder from the ground into her arms, and hurling it through the air to strike the monsters square in the chest.

  Sarae flung that enormous power, and it cut through the air and slammed into them with an explosion of white light that flung her back, helpless.

  The monsters broke and ran, tearing away through the trees, running back in the direction they’d come from.

  Sarae’s chest heaved as she tried to push herself to her feet, sure that the monsters were circling around to attack them from a different direction, and she was damned if they were going to get Remy. But gradually the rush of their running faded and faded until it was gone.

  All the same, it took a long time. Even when they were gone, her heart could not stop pounding. But once she knew that they were gone, she lay down in the leafmould next to Remy, unable to do more than that.

  Sarae couldn’t believe all of that power had come out of her.

  She hurt all over, and stars flashed in her vision when she tried to move.

  “What … the hell … was that?” she asked as Marcus caught up to them.

  “I couldn’t make them out in the dark. I just started slashing,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you had a sword,” Sarae said.

  “It’s not something I advertise,” Marcus said mildly.

  “And what the hell were they saying to you!” Sarae asked, trying to sit up to look at Remy. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Remy was breathing, thank goodness, but still choking. He held up a hand, coughing.

  “Let him be,” said Marcus, laying a gentle hand on Sarae’s shoulder. “Let him recover first.” He held out a hand to Remy, who gripped it, and Marcus pulled him to his feet.

  The owls had flown off in pursuit of the creatures.

  The three humans toiled up the hill, back to where the RV was.

  Sarae was a jumble of emotion as she walked, dusting old leaves from her legs and butt. Who were those creatures? Why were they after Remy? He leaned on Marcus, looking wilted, occasionally wracked with coughs. He looked so wrecked that Sarae’s heart went out to him.

  After a few minutes, Zoe came back and landed on Sarae’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have let those things get so close,” she said, and Sarae could feel the owl shaking through her shoulder. “They came out of nowhere. I didn’t even see them coming. I’m so sorry.”

  “You couldn’t help it,” Sarae said, trying to soothe Zoe, though she felt anything but soothed. “Did you see where they went?”

  “No … no. That’s the strange thing.” The screech owl fluttered her wings as if beside herself. “Those creatures didn’t have much of a start on us, but when we went after them, we couldn’t find them at all. They’d vanished. No sound, no change in the landscape, no structure for them to hide in.”

  “There has got to be some kind of underground place where they are hiding,” Hinto said. “But I flew back and forth over the last place where we heard them howling, and there is nothing.”

  “How’s that possible?” Sarae asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hinto said, sounding just as confused as she was. “I’m an owl. I see fucking mice in the dark. And I couldn’t see any sign of where those creatures went. Just fallen leaves, gooseberry bushes with nothing but soil underneath them.”

  “No kidding?”

  “I tell you, there was nowhere to hide,” said the owl. “And those were big creatures, too.”

  “What the hell were they?” Sarae demanded.

  Zoe drew close, her warm feathers pressing against the side of Sarae’s cold face, to speak into her ear.

  “They’re werewolves,” the small owl said.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Sarae asked, her mind boggling.

  “Shhh. We’ll talk more about it later. I need to talk to Hinto first. But I’m damn sure those were werewolves.”

  “But ….” Sarae looked at the sky. “But there’s no moon,” she whispered. “Aren’t they supposed to have a full moon to turn into werewolves?”

  “Yeah,” said Zoe, also looking up. “That’s why I need to talk to Hinto about this.”

  “We’re almost back to the RV,” said Marcus, squinting up through the trees ahead. “I think.”

  “Yeah, we are,” Sarae sa
id, recognizing a particularly large oak at the top of the hill that they’d passed earlier.

  She gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “Remy, what …?”

  “Goddammit, I’m not talking about them,” he snapped.

  “I wasn’t asking about the monsters! I was going to ask you what we need to do tomorrow,” she snapped back.

  Remy was choked with coughing for a half-minute. Finally he said, “We’ll go and catch Chloe’s parents before they leave for their work at the Retirement Home. Talk to them a little bit. Try and find some artifacts from the girls that we can use in a finding spell. Meet me here tomorrow morning.”

  “Meet you? Where? Here in the woods?” Sarae asked.

  “No. At the RV,” Remy snapped. “I never want to walk in an area surrounded by trees ever again. This place is insane.” Remy stomped toward the RV.

  There is probably something to that, Sarae thought as she followed him back.

  Marcus came over to her. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said. “Sorry about the abrupt goodbye from Remy.”

  “What the hell is going on with those monsters?” Sarae pleaded.

  Marcus cast a look over his shoulder into the woods. “It’s kind of a long story, and this is probably not the best time. Let me tell you when there’s daylight out. Okay?”

  Sarae smiled. She knew she could count on him.

  Then Marcus leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Probably a California thing. But it still felt delicious.

  Sarae caught his face as he moved back. “Thank you,” she said.

  “My pleasure.” Marcus placed a hand over her hand. “Now get home and warm up. Your hands are freezing. I’ll tell you the story tomorrow.” He squeezed her hand, then let her go as he headed back to the RV.

  Remy had kind of collapsed on the top step of the RV. Marcus helped him to his feet, and Sarae watched, hungry and longing, as the two men entered the RV and shut the door.

  “I’ll be here bright and early tomorrow,” she said, and followed Zoe to her truck.

  “Yes, Please”

  Bright and early the next morning, Sarae drove her truck up to the small campground where he and Marcus had parked the RV. All they had was water hookup, but there was nobody else there.

  It was dead quiet here, the kind of quiet that she enjoyed. She pulled up and thought about honking, but she saw a curtain move, and so she waited, turning down the radio a little bit.

  Remy climbed down the steps to the ground to meet her, shutting the RV door after him. Sarae, who was still half asleep, goggled. He was wearing a black suit, very sharp, with a white shirt and black necktie. His FBI credentials were clipped to his suit pocket.

  Sarae looked down at her grey dress suit, which was from the thrift store and seemed to be of an earlier style – she had no idea about fashion – and she felt very retro and out of date.

  “Sorry about my clothes,” Sarae said as Remy opened the car door and sat down in her passenger seat. “And sorry about the truck.”

  “Naw, you’re good,” Remy said, looking around the old truck. ”How fast does this baby go?”

  “I’d really not have to worry about spending a billion dollars on gas,” she said. “Why, is there a high speed chase in my near future?”

  Remy shrugged. “You just gotta be prepared for all contingencies.”

  “What??” Sarae asked.

  Then Remy grinned, and she realized he was just messing with her.

  “Jesus. Scare me like that again and I’ll throw you out the door while doing eighty,” Sarae grumbled, pulling into the road. “Where’s Marcus?”

  “Er … he’s sleeping in,” Remy said. “Long night for him. He’s usually awake on the day side for me, while I sleep during the day.”

  Sarae couldn’t help but feel bitter disappointment.

  But you can talk to him later, after he wakes up, she reminded herself. Marcus definitely wasn’t the type to sleep all day. And he struck her as the kind of man who would keep a promise.

  Sarae glanced over at Remy as he leaned his seat back, and she could glimpse enough of his eye behind his mirrored sunglasses to see that it was closed. Vulnerable. She looked back to the road.

  Sarae was fairly certain that Remy and Marcus were friends and not a couple. It wasn’t not like she’d ever seen them kiss, but at the same time, they were in Missouri, so a gay PDA probably would not go over so well here.

  Also, she was starting to feel interested in Remy. Heh, she thought. That’s an understatement. But she didn’t want to pounce on him if he preferred men over women.

  “So how did you two start working together?” she asked him.

  Remy kind of went quiet and stared out the front window. “Marcus and I are no longer working together at this point.”

  Sarae shook her head. “Wait, what?”

  “Because Marcus is leaving,” Remy said, staring straight ahead.

  “He’s doing what?” Sarae said. “No! What happened? Did you two have a fight?” She was almost prepared to spin the truck around and head back to the RV and talk Marcus down. She liked that guy! He couldn’t just leave now!

  “Marcus says he misses his girlfriend at home and wants to go back,” Remy said, hangdog. Sarae thought that she might have been wrong, but she felt as though there were an edge of betrayal in his words.

  “He misses his girlfriend?” Sarae asked. “How long have you guys been gone from California?”

  “A little over a week,” Remy said miserably.

  “That’s not very long,” Sarae said. There had to have been more to the story – but Sarae saw Remy’s downturned face from the corner of her eye and decided not to push the issue. He looked downright brokenhearted.

  Dammit! she thought. I want that story! and I don’t want Marcus to go. She already felt bereft, even though she knew that Marcus was still in that RV, sleeping. Maybe she could somehow talk him into staying. She’d only known him for a short time, but he was so kind ….

  The little truck reached the county blacktop road as they reached Smith’s Creek, and they sped up the highway, leaving that town behind in an eyeblink and heading toward Swissville, toward where the Miller’s lived.

  “What are we going to do there, at the Miller house?” she asked Remy.

  “We need to find some piece of Chloe. Hair is always good. Also fingernail cuttings or teeth.”

  “Teeth? Maybe we should contact the tooth fairy and see if she has samples?”

  Remy chuckled, low. “Good luck.”

  “Hair would be easiest,” Sarae said. “For obvious reasons. But what do you need the hair for?”

  “A finding spell. If the parents are telling the truth and the girls are okay, then we don’t have anything to worry about, and we can consider the case closed. But if not ….” Remy trailed off. “The only problem is, I can’t do the finding spell until after the sun goes down.”

  Sarae looked at him, confused. “Why can’t you do a finding spell during the day?”

  “It’s the influence of the sun. Throws everything off in the spell. The spell works best when under the influence of the stars.” Remy shrugged. “At any rate, we’re going to need to sleep during the day. As soon as the sun goes down, we set up the finding spell with the girls’ hair. Then we sing the spell. Boom, it gives us their location, and then go after the girls to find them. But,” he added, looking at Sarae, “be prepared to fight when we do.”

  She drove along for a while. But with him sitting so close, she couldn’t help but feel something stir. Sarae could hardly sleep once she’d gotten home. She wanted nothing more than to comfort him after his pain yesterday.

  The radio was playing a love song, which really didn’t help. And now she was starting to think how good his body would feel, imagining how deep his kisses would be, his hands roving on her back, his body tense against hers, their mouths hungry, opening to each other…

  “You okay?” asked Remy. “You seem tense.”

  She took one hand off the wh
eel and surprised herself by wrapping her hand around his.

  “Mm.” Remy’s hand curled around hers.

  Then he swiftly brought it to his lips and kissed it.

  Heat seared her body at the pressure of his lips.

  “Yes, please,” she said quietly.

  He kissed it again.

  “When we get done with these interviews, do you ….” She swallowed. “Do you want to sleep at my house this afternoon?”

  “Sleep? On a real mattress?” Remy exclaimed, his eyes lighting up.

  “Well, yes,” she stammered.

  “Do you know how long it’s been since I slept on a real mattress?” he asked dreamily. “Instead of a tiny mattress in an RV?”

  I hope he doesn’t just think he’s sleeping, she thought, and went red all over from embarrassment.

  “Yes. A real mattress,” she said, a little glumly.

  “Would I be sleeping … with you?” Remy asked.

  That sass was gone. He was almost shy. Which was sweet.

  Sarae smiled. “Yes,” she said softly. “With me.”

  He met her eyes, though she had to look back to the road. She felt the heat coming out of her face.

  “I’d love to,” he said.

  Remy fervently kissed her hand again.

  Sarae trembled, her heart hammering, wishing she could swoon into his arms. But she had to drive, dammit.

  “It’s been a while,” he confessed. “I may be out of practice.”

  She swallowed. “I’ve never been. So I’m not worried about practice.”

  He took a breath. Jesus.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked gently. “I want to, just so you know. I want you very much. But I don’t want you to jump into this if you have any doubts. It’s up to you.”

  Sarae did have doubts, really. It was a little frightening. She’d made out with her boyfriends, and had done some heavy petting with them, but had been too reserved to go all the way.

  But all those months she’d spent alone, after the deaths of everybody she’d ever loved, had changed her without her realizing it. She never wanted to get close to anybody – because to lose somebody was a pain she never wanted to endure again.