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

by SM Reine

  “Room service,” I announced. “We thought you’d left for dinner, so we came to tidy your room.” Oh, yeah, they were totally going to believe that. If we weren’t standing next to the window on the far side of the bed, I’d try charging past them to see if we could escape before their reflexes caught up to us, but vaulting over the furniture to reach the door would give them time to react.

  “Pardon?” one asked. A little slighter and shorter than his comrade, he seemed the younger of the two, and didn’t look like he needed to shave often. He blinked a few times, as if he might believe me. His deep green-blue eyes reminded me of an alpine lake I’d hiked to in the Rockies once. A few tufts of blond hair had escaped his black cap and hinted of a boyish tousled style.

  The other fellow... There was nothing boyish about him, though he didn’t look like he needed to shave often either. Beneath his black leather jacket, he wore a dark gray T-shirt that fitted his torso and had a deep V-neck that promised defined pectoral muscles. He was lean rather than bulky, but his outfit along with his cold stare reminded me of Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies. He didn’t look like he believed us.

  “Tidy,” he said, taking in the room—and the fact that nothing in it was amiss, nor did the quilt have so much as a wrinkle to it. “There is nothing that requires tidying.” His gaze flicked from us to the bedside table and back again, eyes narrowing. His irises were as striking as the other man’s, a rich violet that wouldn’t be possible to achieve without contact lenses. I hoped that meant his vision was poor and that he’d have a hard time leaping over the bed to catch us.

  “That’s because we clean in the mornings,” I said. “We only have to tidy in the evening for our messy guests. Since that’s obviously not you two, we’ll just turn down the bed and place mints on your pillows.” Without taking my eyes from the pair—or dropping my best customer-service-with-a-smile smile—I pulled down the corner of the quilt and fluffed the pillow. “Simon, did you remember the mints?”

  “Uhm, no. They’re in the cart.”

  “Uh oh, we better go get them.” My heart was beating a couple thousand times a minute as I eased around the end of the bed and headed for the door. Maybe we should have tried throwing ourselves out the window instead. It was only the second story. We couldn’t break more than a few bones in such a fall, right?

  Too late now. I was only a couple of feet away from the riders, with Simon on my heels. I didn’t like the way they were looking at each other, like old friends who could exchange complicated messages with nothing but a glance.

  “I think the cart’s right out there,” I said and tried to dart between them.

  A hand clamped onto my biceps. I tried to jerk away, but I might as well have been attempting to escape from steel shackles. It was Violet Eyes, and he pulled me close, glaring down at me.

  “Why were you searching our room?”

  “Searching? Is that what you think we were doing?” I waved to Simon, hoping he could slip past and escape into the hallway where he could find help or cook up some scheme to free me, but the second man had blocked his approach to the doorway. “I told you,” I said with as much affronted indignation as I could manage, “we work here and were here to tidy your room if it needed it. If you don’t let go of me, I’ll tell the owner, and she’ll call the police.”

  Blue Eyes looked more uncertain than his buddy. “Jakatra, maybe we should let them go. Nothing’s missing. I could sense if it were.”

  “They are thieves,” Violet Eyes—Jakatra said. “Even in this benighted realm, that is a crime.”

  “Crime?” Simon blurted. “You’re the ones who stole my metal detector up on that mountain. What’d you do with it?”

  I winced. If they hadn’t known we were responsible for their mutilated tires, they did now.

  “Sah,” Blue Eyes whispered. I didn’t know what “sah” meant, but his expression grew slightly contrite.

  Jakatra’s glare didn’t soften. “We didn’t steal it; we required its use for a short time. We left it against a tree near where that large conveyance was parked.”

  “Fine,” Simon said, “then we can all forget we saw each other and I’ll go get it.” He met my eyes.

  I gave him a quick nod. These guys might not agree with his suggestion, but it was time to depart either way.

  Simon grabbed the smaller fellow, trying to stomp on his foot and push him out of the way. Jakatra’s steel grip hadn’t let up, but my first escape attempt hadn’t been more than a reflex—not a particularly honed one at that. This time, I put some thought into getting away. I grabbed the wrist that held me, intending to twist it against the joint so the pain would force him to let me go. To further distract him, I drove my knee toward his groin at the same time.

  But my knee hit nothing except the doorjamb he’d been standing in front of. Faster than I could register, he had twisted away, evading both of my attacks. Before I could attempt a counter, I found my face mashed against that doorjamb. I tried to wriggle free, but a heavy weight against my back had me pinned. My arms were yanked behind me, and I couldn’t find any leverage to stomp on his foot. I couldn’t even see his foot.

  “What should we do with them?” Blue Eyes asked, telling me he’d conquered Simon as easily as I’d been trapped.

  Damn. I’d never been in a real fight in my life, but I’d thought those hours in the dojo would translate to a modicum of competence.

  A clink sounded against the window on the door at the end of the hallway. The weight on my back shifted—the man turning part way to look toward the noise. The attack came from the opposite direction though. Temi raced into view, a fire extinguisher in her hands, its muzzle aimed at us.

  I squinted my eyes shut and buried my chin in my chest. A white spray of chemicals assaulted us. My attacker drew back, lifting an arm to shield his face. This time when I threw a kick, it connected with his shin. Not much of an assault, but I was more interested in lunging into the hallway. Whether because of surprise or because the extinguisher’s propellant made everything slippery I didn’t know, but his grip on me fell away.

  I almost stumbled and fell on my face, but Temi flung the extinguisher at someone and caught me.

  “Simon,” I started, but a familiar form smothered in white spurted out of the room beside me.

  “Go,” he ordered.

  We went. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t graceful, but we sprinted down the stairs and out the front door. We almost knocked over an elderly couple climbing the steps to the porch with their arms laden with shopping bags. I veered to one side of them as Simon went to the other, and we vaulted the railing, landing on the sidewalk.

  A startled, “Watch out!” came from behind us.

  I sprinted for the Jaguar without waiting to see if anyone was giving chase. I jumped into the back a second before Simon landed in the passenger seat, smearing white goo all over the expensive leather. Temi lagged behind, a grimace of pain on her face as she limped down the sidewalk. I’d forgotten about her injury. I lunged over the seat back to open her door for her. She flung herself inside, hardly the graceful form she’d once been, but she got her legs into place and shoved the key into the ignition.

  At the Vendome, several people had come out onto the porch, some with drinks in hand. Great, we were the evening entertainment. I didn’t see our strange leather-clad men though.

  Temi tore out of the parking space and roared off down the street at twice the speed limit. I checked that corner window on the way by, and caught Blue Eyes staring down at me. It was probably only in my imagination that a strange glow brightened the room behind him.

  CHAPTER 6

  By the time the Jaguar pulled into the campground, my skin felt like it’d been burned by acid where the fire extinguisher propellant had struck it. I was glad none of it had landed in my eyes—and that we had a first aid kit in the van.

  Temi parked behind Zelda. Darkness gathered in the trees, and the traffic had dwindled on the highway. Crickets chirped
and some small animal scuffed about in the brown leaves carpeting the ground. I eyed the deepening gloom without favor and wished there were more miles between us and the Vendome.

  Temi turned off the car and faced us, her elbow on the backrest. “So, am I hired yet?”

  “Yes,” Simon said.

  His hair and shirt were crusted with fire extinguisher propellant, and he already had visible burns on one cheek where the goo had spattered him. If the riders had taken the brunt of the attack, they’d be even more irked at us than they had been before. Clearing out of Prescott might be a smart move, though I had a hard time entertaining it, not with the memory of that golden disk at the forefront of my mind. I wished there’d been time to examine it. If Simon and I were the ones to break the story of some one-of-a-kind relic on our website, this time someone else couldn’t get credit for bringing awareness of it to the community, not like with the Anasazi find. I don’t know why it mattered so much to me, but I wanted my old professors and classmates to see that I hadn’t become some sleazy grave robber just because we were selling some of what we found, items that most people would consider junk anyway.

  Temi was looking at me, waiting for a response.

  I nodded. “If you want it, you’ve certainly earned it at this point.”

  She inclined her head once. “I apologize for not getting a warning to you earlier, but you didn’t give me your phone number.”

  “I know. I was thinking about that up in the room.”

  “I had to call your mother. Your parents’ number has been the same for decades.”

  “Erg, what’d you tell her? Not the part about us being caught in some strange guys’ room, I hope.”

  “No, but I did need to relay a sense of urgency, so she’d know I couldn’t chat. In the twenty seconds we were on the phone, she managed to ask if you’re eating regularly, staying away from the booze, and how your rash is doing.” Temi smiled faintly, one of her eyebrows twitching.

  “Rash?” Simon grinned. “What rash?”

  “None of your business.” I glowered at him, then gave Temi a plaintive look. “What did you tell her?”

  “That you’d gone for take-out and had forgotten your wallet at the hotel. I needed to call you before you tried to pay and found out you were missing your money.”

  I sank into the backrest. “Oh, good. That shouldn’t alarm her.”

  “No, it’ll make her happy,” Simon said. “She’ll think we’re doing well enough to afford hotels and take-out. Your grandma seemed really concerned when she saw all the ramen bags in Zelda’s cupboards when we visited this summer.”

  “She was more concerned that I showed up with some scrawny Indian boy.” I said the last in my best impersonation of her accent, though Yaiyai’s words had been even more derogatory than mine. “She keeps hoping I’ll take a trip to Greece to find an appropriate Prince Charming.”

  “I’m not scrawny,” Simon said, throwing a glance at Temi, who was smiling and nodding in recognition at my Yaiyai tone. Adopted or not, she had a similar mother and grandmother and knew exactly where I was coming from. “There’s a lean mean beast hiding under this innocuous packaging,” Simon added, gesturing at his clothing.

  “Is it hard to be lean and mean when you’re smothered in white goo?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Uh huh.” I climbed out of the car. “Temi, do you want to stay for dinner? We have peanut butter and jelly, and some carrots and apples. We can tell you all about what we do, so you can decide if you truly want to join us before committing yourself.”

  “We should probably tell her about the body too.” Simon climbed out of the car as well, eschewing the door. He seemed to dig the convertible concept.

  “Body?” Temi blinked.

  “Yeah, we stumbled across a recently deceased fellow in the mountains.” I kept the explanation simple, not wanting to sound like a crazy person for implying unnatural predators were stalking the hills. “The sheriffs may be by eventually. If not to question us about that, then to inquire about our new habit of sneaking into people’s hotel rooms to snoop around...”

  Simon clasped his hands behind his back and studied the trees, as if he were the epitome of innocence. I didn’t know who he thought he was fooling.

  “I have some food back at the Motel 6, so I’ll pass on dinner.” Temi’s nose had crinkled at the mention of PB and J. She was probably used to organic this-and-that and grass-fed such-and-such. “But thank you for offering. Can I meet you here tomorrow? You mentioned something about estate sales? I’m not that knowledgeable about antiquing, but anything would be better than standing all day at some fast food place. I’ll work hard. I’ve traveled quite a bit, so maybe that can be useful.”

  “Sure.” I waved my phone. “I’ve got your number now, so I’ll text you when we get rolling.”

  As Simon and I washed up, I kept an eye toward the woods and an ear toward the highway, listening for the roar of motorcycles. After all that had happened that afternoon, I was flinching at shadows. What had seemed a friendly campground the day before had taken on an eerie feel, and I wished it were fuller, with families chattering in the cool evening air. It was October, though, and the beginning of the workweek, so there were only a handful of campers spread out over the site. Once again, I wondered if we were making a mistake in staying.

  Nothing jumped out of the shadows, and Simon and I made it through dinner without incident. We ate inside instead of at the picnic table. Neither of us seemed to be in the mood for the great outdoors that evening, a thought that Simon confirmed when he asked, “You mind if I sleep in here tonight?”

  “Not at all.”

  “In case you’re wondering, I’m not worried about crazies wandering around out there ripping people’s heads off—I just think it might be chilly tonight.”

  “I wasn’t going to say a thing.”

  You wouldn’t have caught me sleeping out there in a tent after the day we’d had either. Tents didn’t have locks, whereas the van did. Most of them worked too. Zelda also housed weapons of a sort. In addition to my bullwhip, a wooden Navajo bow hung over one of the side windows. Incongruously, a set of fiberglass arrows in a vinyl quiver hung below it. The bow had been one of my more educational finds—educational because I fell for the story from the old man who sold it to me. He’d claimed it was a hundred years old. An expert had later told me it’d been made in the 70s and that I was lucky it wasn’t plastic. Since it was worth less than I’d paid for it, I’d kept it and took it out and shot it every now and then.

  “Good,” Simon said. “Thanks.”

  I shrugged the words away. Zelda was his baby, bought and paid for back when we were still in school, and he could crash in it whenever he wanted. I often volunteered to take the tent, but he had a thing about snoozing in a bed while a girl slept on the dirt outside. Two could easily bunk in the van, but after working together all day, we seemed to get along better when we had our own space at night. Besides, we always joked that one of us might bring a girl or guy home and need some privacy. The idea of Simon successfully asking a girl out was almost as funny as the idea of him showing her to his tent for a good time. He’d sworn on any number of graves that he wasn’t a virgin, but I wasn’t sure I believed him. Of course, I hadn’t dated anyone since Christmas the year before, so I guess I couldn’t judge. Making the business work had been the focus for months, and with all the traveling we did, it was hard to take the time to meet people and get to know them. Tempe was supposedly our home base, but we didn’t have an office or store yet—our storage locker with the roll-up garage door wasn’t the sort of home base that drew one to visit often.

  Simon had his laptop out, so I shook away the thoughts and dug mine out too. The campground lacked electrical hookups, but we had solar panels that we set up when we were staying for a couple of days, and in Arizona they were enough to run the DC fridge, a couple of LED lights, and—most importantly—our laptops. Someday we planned to get a dish for Intern
et, but for now, we used our cell phone’s wireless hot spots. We had to watch our bandwidth, especially when it came to gaming, but we could dink around for a little while in the evenings.

  I flipped open my laptop and fired up RealmSaga. I selected my character, and the opening words of “This way lies adventure...” scrolled across the screen. I’d never played computer games in college—my grades thanked me—but Simon had gotten me hooked after we started traveling together. I now had a level-43 gnome engineer with a knack for blowing things up, and I spent too much time running around the virtual countryside practicing that skill. Simon had wanted me to play a healer, so I could toddle after his warrior, putting Band-Aids on his injured butt, but I’d known this would be more fun.

  “I’m thinking about signing up for martial arts again once we get a store opened in Phoenix and are able to spend more time there,” I said randomly. Or at least I thought it was random.

  Simon was sitting at the opposite side of the table, his face highlighted by the glow of the screen. He smirked knowingly. “Upset that you got your ass kicked by those pretty boys?”

  “Hey, you got your ass kicked too.”

  “Yeah, but that’s par for the course for me.”

  “Did you just use a sports metaphor?”

  “Completely accidental, I assure you.” Simon squinted at something on his screen. “I don’t even know what it means. It’s a golf thing, right?”

  “Bowling,” I said, because it was fun to mess with him.

  “Oh, right.” He leaned closer, his eyes intent. Alas, it wasn’t fun to mess with him when he wasn’t paying attention. He must have logged out in a monster-infested field or somewhere that required concentration.

  We tapped at our respective keyboards in silence for a few moments. I’d logged out in town, so nothing dastardly was waiting to waylay my avatar. I trotted to the auction house to see if any of my goodies had sold. If only making money were so easy in real life. Kill a monster, remove its pelt in 0.5 seconds, repeat twenty times, then sell the pelts to a tailor who would turn them into a Monster Cloak of Hiding that he could auction for a small fortune.