Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, & Magic

by SM Reine

  “Maybe we should do something to delay them,” Simon said. “Keep them from following us, you know? We could siphon the gas out of their tanks or do another... thing that would require them to make repairs.” His scrunched brow suggested he didn’t know what that thing might be.

  “I’ll let you figure out how to do that if you don’t mind hiking back to town.” I wouldn’t leave him, and he knew I wouldn’t leave him, but I said, “I’m getting out of here.” Anything to hurry him along. I wanted to get off this mountain before... I shook my head and rubbed at the gooseflesh that had arisen—or perhaps never completely left—on my arms. It was a warm autumn day, but I wasn’t feeling it.

  I jogged back to the van, threw the sliding door shut, and jammed the key into the ignition. Fortunately, Zelda was in a good mood and started on the first try. I performed something that should have been a three-point turn in about ten points, thanks to the copious boulders, logs, and stumps surrounding our parking spot, then leaned over and pushed the passenger door open for Simon.

  He trotted out of the trees and hopped in. “How’d you know I’d be right down?”

  As soon as he shut the door, I started down the hill. “Because when we got stranded in Allie’s new car before graduation, you asked if putting up the hood would void the warranty. I imagine we’d have to be in some crazy alternate reality for you to know how to effectively sabotage a motorcycle, car, truck, or skateboard.”

  “Shows what you know.” Simon pulled out a Swiss Army Knife. “I jabbed a hole in the tires.”

  I gaped at him. “Did you really?”

  “I’m hoping they’ll still be stuck up here when the sheriffs and rangers arrive.”

  “Then I’m hoping they weren’t bright enough to get our license plate number. Or our business name that’s printed on the side of the van. Or my cell number. Damn it, Simon, if any creepy mouth breathers call me, I’m making you talk to them.”

  He had the grace to look sheepish at the possible ramifications to his impetuousness, but only said, “Fine. I’m going to see if anything’s missing.”

  As he poked around in the back of the van, I began plotting escape routes out of Prescott. For a touristy mountain town, it was a decent size, but not so big that I thought we’d be safe from anyone cruising along the roads, looking for a blue Vanagon.

  “Bastards,” Simon grumbled, his voice muffled. He had his head stuck into the storage area under the long seat that pulled out into a bed.

  “What’d they take?”

  “The Dirt Viper.”

  I groaned. “The we-have-to-spend-thousands-of-dollars-that-we-can’t-really-spare-to-get-a-quality-metal-detector Dirt Viper?”

  “Yeah.”

  I almost complained that we were having the worst luck ever, but the memory of the dead man flashed into my mind, the image more sobering than a gunshot wound. Someone had experienced much, much worse luck that day.

  CHAPTER 3

  We drove toward our parking slot at the White Spar, an inexpensive campground outside of town that lacked electricity, water hookups, and anything one might classify as a scenic view. Behind a stand of trees, less than twenty meters from our spot, the highway traffic buzzed past. Not exactly posh, but the accommodations were perfect for penny-pinching entrepreneurs saving up for high-priced luxury items, such as gas and groceries. Simon’s tent was still set up next to the picnic table along with two lime-green folding lawn chairs a college friend had donated to our enterprise. They’d once been called easy chairs and had held prime real estate in front of the television in his dorm room.

  Only one thing had changed since we left the campground that morning: a sleek silver Jaguar convertible with the top down sat in our spot. There was room for me to park in front of it, but I came to a stop without turning in. If not for our stuff set up to the side, I would have assumed I’d forgotten our lot number, but there was no way someone else in the campground had those chairs. Nor was there any way someone with a Jaguar would be caught dead with chairs like that.

  “Simon?” I asked over my shoulder. “What do you think about this?”

  After we’d spent two hours at the sheriff’s station—and given our phone numbers, lodging details, and sworn on our childhood pets’ graves that we wouldn’t leave town before they’d given us the okay—he’d set up at the table with his MacBook so he could “run calculations and see how much of our inventory we’ll have to sell to afford a new Dirt Viper.” As far as I could tell, this involved little more than sitting and sulking, but I wasn’t in a much better mood, so I didn’t argue. I had been vaguely amused that during our interrogation session—the deputies had called it “asking a few questions”—he’d spent more time pleading with them to hunt for his lost tool than relaying information about the dead man in the hills.

  Simon plopped into the passenger seat beside me. “I think someone’s lost.”

  “There’s a camp host.” I waved toward the big trailer and truck set up at the park entrance. “That’d be the place to go for directions.”

  “Maybe they saw our chairs, were impressed with our taste, and figured we’d naturally be the ones to ask for advice.”

  “Right.”

  “New Mexico plates,” Simon observed. “Someone you know?”

  “The people I know drive clunker trucks capable of hauling dozens of tires at a time.”

  Simon snorted. He’d been to the off-grid community where my family lived, acres of scrubby high desert sporting a complex of quasi-subterranean homes based on Michael Reynolds’s Earthships. From a distance, one might think the walls were made from stucco or cob, but the homeowner-builders would happily inform a visitor that the insides were made from recycled tires, bottles, and cans. As far as I knew, I’d been born into the only community of Greek eco-hippies in the world, though I wasn’t sure if I, born and raised in America, truly counted as all that Greek. Thanks to Yaiyai and my college studies, I could read and speak the language, and I knew how to make some wicked good Loukoumades, but that was about it.

  I climbed out so I could check the license plate for myself. With a car like that, I’d expect a vanity message, but it was simply the usual string of numbers and letters. I was on my way to inspect the interior when a door clanked. Someone had walked out of the little restroom building. I stared. It was someone I did know.

  The tall black woman heading toward our campsite wore loose flowing golds and blacks in a vaguely African style, though she’d grown up in the mountains of New Mexico, three houses up from mine. Her tight black curls were cropped close to her head, but there was nothing boyish about her; she had attractive features with high cheekbones and a perfectly symmetrical face. Though I knew she was my age, her exotic clothing, or maybe the tilt of her chin, made her seem like someone who had traveled the world. She walked with a limp that favored her right leg.

  “Who is that?” Simon whispered. He straightened his shirt, scraped his fingers through his hair, and stood as tall as he could—which still left him four or five inches shorter than our visitor.

  I almost snorted and told him he didn’t have a chance, but I hadn’t seen the girl—woman, now—in nearly ten years, not in person anyway, and I had no idea what kinds of guys she dated. Maybe she liked geeks.

  “Hey, Artemis,” I said when she drew even with the picnic table. “You’re about the last person I expected to see today.” She’d been “Temi” when we were kids, but, again, I had no idea what her preferences were now.

  She smiled, though it seemed to hold more sadness than joy. “I imagine that’s true.”

  “Your car?” I pointed to the Jag.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a bit conspicuous here. I’m not sure Prescott has a five-star anything, but you could try the Hassayampa Inn. It’s historically significant, if nothing else. Oh, and they have a ghost, too, I hear. Though really the Vendome is more the place for that, I understand. You can ask for Abby’s room.”

  Simon elbowed me, either becaus
e I wasn’t introducing him or because I was trying to send Artemis away. Or both.

  “Ah,” she said. “I’m actually looking to stretch my finances until... I find suitable employment.”

  “You can’t, uhm...” I glanced at her right leg—her clothing hid it, but from her gait and what I’d heard on the news, I thought she might wear a brace now. “Teach tennis?”

  She grimaced. “That’s not really my world now.”

  “Oh.”

  This earned me another elbowing. A more confident fellow would have stepped forward and introduced himself, but that adjective didn’t describe Simon, at least not around pretty women. I tried not to read too much into the fact that he’d never stuttered or been at a loss for words in my presence.

  Artemis looked at Simon, eyebrows arching in polite inquiry.

  “This is my friend Simon Jimmicum,” I said. “He’s from Washington but came down here for school and stuck around. Simon, this is Artemis Sideris.” I glanced at him to see if he’d recognize the name. He hadn’t shown any interest in sports in the years I’d known him, but she’d been a big deal for a while. His eyes didn’t widen in recognition though. “We were neighbors when we were kids.”

  “You’re Greek?” Simon gawked.

  Not his smoothest opening line, but at least he hadn’t stuttered.

  “I was adopted,” Artemis explained. “And you can call me Temi.”

  She gave me a curious look as if to ask why I hadn’t used the nickname. I didn’t give her anything back. I’d gotten over the abrupt end of our friendship a long time ago, but seeing her here made me feel like an awkward kid all over again.

  “I went home for a while,” Temi said. “After... things. It was uncomfortable. Did you go home? After you finished school?”

  “Not for long.” I couldn’t believe she’d come all the way out here to chat about our childhood homes. What could she possibly want? “Mom and Yaiyai started inviting appropriate bachelors over to dinner and making pointed comments about how adorable my sister’s new baby is.”

  “I experienced... something of the sort,” she said. “I couldn’t stay there. But I’m not sure what else I can do. I never got my diploma, or even a G.E.D. I’m looking for a job though. Somewhere far from home. I thought perhaps...” She cleared her throat and gazed toward a squirrel cavorting through the branches of a tree a few campsites away. “Your mother mentioned your business. I thought you might hire me.”

  “What?” I blurted at the same time as Simon said, “Yes.”

  I glared at him, then told Temi, “I don’t know what my father said, but we’re not that profitable yet. We aren’t able to pay ourselves salaries and we’re just getting by.”

  “But you have freedom.” Temi sounded wistful. “You go wherever you want, when you want, and it sounds... romantic.”

  “Geez, Temi, you’ve been all over the world for tennis, haven’t you? I can’t imagine what seems appealing about driving around the Southwest in a clunky thirty-year-old van with AC that only works intermittently and when it does, you wish it didn’t, because there’s a burned meat smell that comes out of the vents.”

  “Hey,” Simon said, “don’t talk about Zelda like that.”

  I shushed him. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a glare that would have been a lot noisier if he weren’t inhibited by Temi’s presence.

  “I’ve seen much of the world, yes,” Temi said, “but I was always so busy training that I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I always thought there’d be time later, but...” She finished with a shrug.

  “Well, uhm, I’m sorry you came all the way out here,” I said, “but we can’t afford to hire anyone. This isn’t the best time either. We’ve run into some...” Trouble? I wasn’t sure if we were in trouble exactly, but the punctured motorcycle tires and the fact that the deputies had promised to “be in touch soon” left me wondering if we should abandon Prescott before—

  A hand clasped onto my arm. Simon lifted a give-us-a-moment-please finger toward Temi, then hauled me to the far side of the picnic table. The brush didn’t quite hide the view of cars cruising down the road toward town, their noise insuring our conversation would be private.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered.

  “We’re not hiring her, Simon. We barely covered the fee for the campground. Full-time employees are slightly more expensive.”

  “We can find a way.”

  “Says the man who stole the pepper shaker from Denny’s last night.”

  Simon pointed at my nose. “That was a revenge theft, and you know it. They charged me for the onion ring upgrade, but I didn’t get onion rings.”

  “A normal person would have simply pointed this out to the server.”

  “If you don’t know I’m not normal by now, you haven’t been paying much attention over the last four years.”

  I conceded this with a wriggle of my fingers, but said, “We can’t hire her, and this wouldn’t be a good time to expand the business anyway, what with the possibility of vengeful motorcycle riders coming after us.”

  “What if we didn’t hire her? What if we made her a business partner? She could share profits.”

  “You barely know her, and you want to share our meager profits? I know she’s pretty—”

  “She’s gorgeous.” Simon sighed and gazed over my shoulder. Temi had opened her car door and sat with her legs crossed as she poked around on her phone.

  “Yes, but that shouldn’t influence our business decisions.” I prodded him in the chest to reclaim his attention. “What if she were four feet tall, hunchbacked, and had breath like moose droppings?”

  “If she drove a Jag, I’d still want to take her on. She obviously has some resources at her disposal. Maybe she’d finance the purchase of a new Dirt Viper.”

  “If she’s desperate enough to want to work for us, I doubt she has funds left to finance anything, but I’m glad you don’t want to simply sleep with her—you’re planning ways to exploit her financially too.”

  Simon’s shoulders drooped. “I... it’s not like that. I thought that practicality would appeal to you.”

  “Uh huh. Listen, I have personal reasons for not taking her on.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like nothing I’m going into here.”

  Skid Row’s Youth Gone Wild blasted from my pocket. It startled me, both because Simon had changed my ringtone without telling me—again—and because I’d been dreading a call. If those motorcycle riders on the hillside had written down my number and were using it...

  “Are you going to answer it?” Simon asked.

  “You think I should?”

  “It could be a client.”

  “It could be a psycho with a tool that can rip people’s heads off.” I glanced toward Temi, hoping she hadn’t heard that. She was politely ignoring our conversation, ostensibly at least.

  “Here.” Simon held out his palm.

  I dropped the phone into it without hesitation. My brave moments didn’t extend to talking to creeps on the phone.

  “Rust and Relics, this is Simon,” he answered. “Yes. Yes. That’s right.”

  “Who is it?” I mouthed.

  “Let me give you to my assistant.” Simon gave me an arch look. “She’ll get your address and payment information.”

  In other circumstances, I would have smacked him for calling me an assistant, but this time the tension flowed out of my body in a wave of release. A client. Clients were good.

  Unless... What if it was the motorcycle people pretending to be a client?

  Simon handed me the phone. I would rather have picked up a snake, but I lifted it gingerly to my ear.

  “Hello?” I listened to the request and said, “Yes, we still have the antique coffee grinder. It’s in our warehouse in Phoenix.”

  Simon rolled his eyes at the mention of a “warehouse.” What we had was a small, non-climate-controlled storage unit in South Tempe. We paid my old roommate Sarah to pack and ship
items when we weren’t near town.

  I entered the man’s credit card information into my payment-processing app. He lived in Maine and wanted the big hand-crank grinder to display in his family’s coffee shop. More importantly, he didn’t sound like someone harboring a barely-contained resentment for slashed tires.

  As I ended the call and stuffed my phone back into my pocket, a roar from the highway drew my attention. Two black motorcycles came down the road. The riders wore black leather and black helmets, and one head turned in my direction as they passed. I couldn’t do anything more cogent than stare back. When they’d disappeared from sight, I glanced at Zelda, making sure the van wasn’t visible from the highway. Trees and leaves stood between it and the pavement, so I didn’t think the riders would have been able to see it, and they shouldn’t have been able to recognize me... I didn’t think. Unless more than coincidence had brought them to the same old mine shaft as us. What if they’d been following us since we arrived in town? What if—

  A hand clamped onto my arm again. “That was them, wasn’t it?”

  Before I could answer, Simon sprinted to the Jag. “You want to work with us?” he asked Temi. “We need a ride in something fast, right now.”

  Temi shrugged and took out her keys.

  “What?” I blurted. “We’re not going after them. What are you thinking?”

  Simon had already hopped into the passenger seat. “They have my Dirt Viper!”

  “Simon,” I called, running toward them, “it’s not worth getting hurt for.” Or killed. “We can write it off on our taxes and—”

  “Go, go,” Simon barked to Temi. His urgency to get his metal detector back had made him forget his shyness.

  Temi had started the car, though she looked back at me before putting it into gear. “Are you coming?”

  I should have said no, but if the tech half of the business got himself killed, who would update the website? I climbed into the back seat, though not without a few choice insults for Simon’s stupid metal detector.

  Like a prize thoroughbred, the car roared into motion. It startled a dog three campsites down, which roused every other dog in White Spar. A serenade of barks accompanied us to the exit. Temi didn’t pause at the stop sign; she merely tore out onto the highway, eliciting an irritated honk from a truck. It wouldn’t have hit us anyway, not at the speed Temi was going. From the back seat, I couldn’t tell if she was grinning, but I had a feeling she’d sped in this car before.