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

by SM Reine

  “Temi, you’re not a failure. It’s not a crime to go down a different path than the one your parents have in mind for you. It’s normal.” I probably should have patted her on the back and offered a sympathetic shoulder instead of a lecture, but I wasn’t good at comfort and commiseration. Besides, I didn’t know what she thought about our last meeting as teenagers, but I didn’t want her to think I was trying to hit on her.

  “I’d believe that if they hadn’t been right in the end. The life I chose... I didn’t think it’d be so fleeting. I thought I’d have plenty of time to go back to school once I finished my pro career, and that I’d have enough money at that point and wouldn’t have to worry about finding a place to stay while I studied.”

  I decided not to point out that she would have money now if she hadn’t been buying Jaguars and who knew what else. I probably would have made similar frivolous purchases if someone had handed me a few piles of cash.

  “You could sell the car,” I said.

  “I know. That’s on the table, but I wouldn’t get nearly what I paid for it two years ago.”

  “Better sooner than later... like after it gets mauled by a rock-throwing monster. You keep hanging around with us and that’s liable to happen.”

  Temi managed a smile. “Why do you think I opted for separate lodgings?”

  “I assumed Zelda wasn’t up to your usual sleeping standards.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The van doesn’t seem much worse than the Motel 6, but you and your... friend are proving to be magnets for trouble.”

  Before I could decide if I wanted to refute the comment, or explain that, yes, Simon and I were indeed just friends, my phone beeped. I pulled it out, expecting another “They haven’t moved yet” text message. Instead it read, Got something. Come get me?

  Even though I was sure he had an ulterior motive in this tracking scheme, my heart rate still took a jump when I read the note. I grabbed the books and knickknacks I’d found. “Time to check out.”

  “What does that entail in this industry?” Temi waved toward the items and their lack of price tags.

  “Haggling with the owner until neither of us gets a price we’re happy with.”

  “Ah.”

  “Then we rush over to pick up Simon before he gets himself into trouble. More trouble.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Business had picked up at the Raven Cafe by the time we returned, finding Simon at the same table, hunkered over my laptop. There weren’t yet enough people that the servers felt compelled to glare at him for hogging seats when he’d finished his meal hours earlier.

  “What’ve you got?” I asked, pulling up a chair.

  Temi sat across from him. He gave her a shy wave, but focused on me. “You know those pictures I took?”

  “The ones of the mauled bodies that are too garish for T-shirts? Yes.”

  “I didn’t upload those, but I did share some of thrashed vegetation and footprints, except I missed something when I was posting them.” Simon pointed at the screen where the blog from our website was displayed. Even though I had a half-written review on Arrowheads & Stone Artifacts: A Practical Guide for the Amateur Archaeologist I’d been meaning to finish, I’d been avoiding the site since he started posting evidence of our adventures in the wilds of Prescott. Somehow I thought that book review might disappoint the crowd flocking to our blog in search of monsters. “I was reading through the comments people have left—two hundred and twelve of them, by the way.” He gave me an arch look.

  “Any of them buy anything yet?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I returned his look with my own get-to-the-point-then expression.

  “But this guy said he enlarged one of the pictures I took of the forest right after the police arrived.” Simon was pointing at the comment, so I read it for myself, sharing the last half aloud.

  “‘Nice choice to use a phone to take such important pictures. At least get an app that lets you up your ISO, lower your aperture, and lengthen your shutter speed. My five year old could have done better with her Fisher-Price camera.’”

  “I have an app,” Simon said. “The problem was that my hands were quivering with adrenaline. Anyway, here’s the picture in question.”

  He tabbed over to photo-viewing software, and I found myself admiring a slightly blurry image of the forest at night. He outlined a corner and zoomed in. I gripped the edge of the table. There was a dark bump sticking out of the side of one of those trees, one that had...

  “That’s the creepiest eye I’ve ever seen,” I said.

  Temi came around to the back of my chair to look. “Are you sure it’s an eye?”

  “It looks like an eye to me.” Simon pointed. “There’s the outline of the head.”

  “Its eye is... iridescent.” It reminded me of spilled engine oil.

  “The head is weird too,” Simon said. “It’s too dark to see, but it doesn’t look furry to me. Or maybe the fur is extra short. And look, no ear, at least not one that protrudes.”

  “Definitely not a bear,” I said, though I’d never truly believed it was. “Unless some mad scientist has been tinkering with bear DNA and making some creative alterations.”

  “I suppose that’s possible.”

  “Of course it’s possible. Haven’t you seen how crazy large tomatoes are these days? Genetically modifying things is all the rage.”

  “I know that,” Simon said, “but I thought that since we have some Vulcans down here, we might have a real life Predator too.”

  “Oh, please, they’re not Vulcans. Real aliens wouldn’t look like aliens on Star Trek. Or Predator.”

  “What is Predator?” Temi asked. “Aside from a noun.”

  Simon didn’t say anything to her, but his stunned expression spoke loudly.

  “Sorry, Temi,” I said, “I forgot to tell you that if you’re going to work on this team, you’re going to have to cultivate a basic background in science fiction books, films, and television shows.”

  “That’s... helpful for archaeological digs?”

  “No, for understanding Simon.”

  Simon nodded solemnly. Judging by Temi’s dubious expression, she wasn’t sure how important communicating with him would be.

  A phone bleeped.

  “Oh!” Simon’s hand lunged down to yank it out of his pocket so fast that he almost fell off the chair. “They’re moving.”

  He slammed the laptop lid shut, and I gritted my teeth. I would have reminded him that he was manhandling my computer, but he was too busy stuffing things into his pack and knocking over his chair in his haste to stand up.

  “We have to hurry,” he said. “The tracker only has a mile range.”

  “Are we sure we should be bothering them again?” Temi asked.

  “No, but I’m hoping they won’t notice us bothering them. We can slip in, see what they’re digging up, get a sample of the language, and slip out.”

  “Is that all he wants?” Temi pointed to the door. Simon had already jogged out of the cafe.

  “I’m not sure, but he’s not getting anything else.” I patted my pocket, thinking I still had the van keys, but they were missing. “Kid’s a klepto,” I muttered and ran after him.

  Though Temi clearly had reservations, she followed me. Zelda was parked right outside, a testament to the lightness of the traffic today, so we caught Simon before he zoomed off, though he did already have the engine running. Temi climbed in, and I slid the side door shut a second before the van backed out of its parking space. Simon threw it into drive fast enough that I tumbled across the carpet and bonked my head on the refrigerator.

  “No, no,” I said, “don’t wait for us to get our seat belts on. We’re fine.”

  Both of Simon’s hands gripped the steering wheel, and his phone rested on his thigh. If he heard me, he didn’t give any indication of it. I was fairly certain he ran through the light on Gurley Street, too, though with my butt planted on the floor, it was hard to be positive. I’d laugh
if all this effort turned out to be for tailing our prey to the Prescott Denny’s.

  Temi sat on the floor, too, her right leg thrust out before her, a grimace on her face. She wiped it away when she noticed me watching.

  “I’m not sure a background in science fiction would be enough to understand him,” she said.

  I smiled. “It’d only be a start, that’s for sure.”

  CHAPTER 13

  I squinted at the topography map spread in my lap while the van bumped and groaned up a dusty road. “We might be going to Lower Wolf Campground.”

  Another campground. Great.

  Simon cursed under his breath and threw on the brakes. Dust hazed the road ahead. We’d gone off the gravel a while back to follow the deep ruts and potholes of a forest service road that hadn’t been serviced in some time.

  “Almost caught a glimpse of them there,” he said. “I thought they’d be able to navigate these holes on their bikes a lot faster than us, so I was going as quickly as I could.”

  “We noticed.” Temi, sitting at the table behind us, rubbed her head.

  “They’ve slowed down though. They must be looking for something.”

  “Maybe they know we’re following them,” I said.

  “They shouldn’t be able to hear us over their motorcycle engines unless they turn them off.”

  “Something they’ll do when they reach their destination,” I pointed out.

  “I’ll try to guess when they’re getting close, and I’ll stop our engine before they do. Hopefully.”

  “We’re novices at tailing people,” I told Temi.

  “Yes, as far as I can tell, your business is expanding into new territories by the day.”

  By the hour, I thought.

  The road forked and we turned into a dry valley clogged with scrubby brush. Pine trees rose to either side. The ride grew even bumpier, and I squinted suspiciously at the leaves beating against Zelda’s fender. “We’re not on a road anymore, are we?”

  Simon grinned, though he didn’t take his eyes from the route ahead. “Nope.”

  “It looks like a dried river bed,” Temi observed.

  We splashed through a trough filled with mud and water.

  “Mostly dry,” Temi amended.

  I compared the topo map with what the GPS map on my smartphone offered. The cell had a couple of bars of reception, but the maps were slow to load. Not surprising. We weren’t on—or close to—any official roads. “We’re not far from Mount Union and Hassayampa Lake.” The trees blocked the view, but I waved in the general direction.

  “What’s down here?” Temi asked.

  “Uh, nothing.”

  “There must be something.”

  “Maybe those two were just looking for a private place to—oomph.” The ceiling was higher in the van than in a car, but my head almost cracked it anyway. If not for the seat belt I’d wisely put on earlier, it would have. “Get busy,” I finished weakly.

  “They did seem to be sharing the one bed,” Simon said.

  “Their faces were similar,” Temi said. “I took them for siblings.”

  “Which makes it all the more likely that they’d look for a private place if they wanted to get busy,” I said.

  My joke met with pitying stares, and I went back to studying the map. We rolled out of the riverbed and onto a road with brown grass and weeds sprouting from the center between the ruts. They were tall enough to slap at the base of the windshield. They also—as we discovered when my head nearly hit the ceiling again—disguised big rocks.

  “If we get stranded out here, I’m going to pummel you,” I told Simon.

  “Noted.”

  The road dipped back into the riverbed, then out the other side. It never detoured far from the dusty banks, and we occasionally splashed through water, a rare find in the desert mountains this late in the year.

  “Oh,” I said, “this must be the Hassayampa River.”

  “Anything significant about it?” Temi asked.

  “Well, it’s kind of an interesting river. The name is Native American and means the river that flows upside down or the upside down river. We’re not far from the headwaters, and some of it is obviously above ground, but it flows beneath ground for a lot of its route, a good hundred miles if I remember correctly.” As I’d spoken, I’d plugged the name into Google, but the reception had grown too pitiful for the search.

  At that moment, we splashed through a clear pool framed by granite boulders. Water sprayed the windshield.

  “Oops,” Simon said and veered to the left. It took a few tries before he managed to coerce the van up the bank and into the dryer shrubs on the side.

  “If Zelda were a really cool van,” I said, “she’d be equipped for aquatic operations.”

  “Oh, like one of the Ducks from World War Two?” Temi asked.

  “I hardly think that’s necessary in Arizona.” Simon shot me a dirty look. “And Zelda is really cool. You can start sleeping outside if you don’t think so.”

  “My apologies. I was obviously mistaken.” I nodded toward the windshield. “Are we stuck? I don’t wish to offend Zelda, but I notice we’re not moving.”

  “We stopped because they stopped.” Simon turned off the engine.

  The soft calls of birds and the rustling of grasses stirred by the wind replaced the noise.

  “Anything else interesting about this river?” Simon asked. “Old mine shafts or caves full of rusty treasures?”

  I poked at my phone, but that didn’t make the reception any better. “I wish I’d known we were coming here; I could have looked it up before. From memory... there is some folklore about it. An old saying about how if you drink the water, you won’t be able to tell the truth again.”

  “Good thing the fridge is full of Mountain Dew,” Simon said.

  “I think I’d rather take my chances with the river,” I said, drawing another dirty look from Simon, though Temi was nodding behind me. I hadn’t seen her drink anything more deleterious than a tea latte. She’d probably gotten used to a strict diet as an athlete.

  “They’re definitely not moving.” Simon rolled down his window and stuck his head out. “I don’t hear the engines either.”

  “It must be hiking time,” I said.

  We did that on occasion, so we had packs in the back with first-aid kits, flashlights, munchies, and the usual supplies. I threw a couple of bottles of water into my sedate tan pack, an old REI model I’d found at Goodwill. Simon tossed cans of Mountain Dew into his denim sack, an item he’d also found at Goodwill, though he’d taken it upon himself to decorate it. Now it was adorned with patches that endorsed everything from Metallica and Savatage to the Serenity and Stargate Command.

  After packing his bag, he took his MacBook to the front of the van, set it up on the dashboard, and started fiddling. I fastened my whip onto my belt and, after a moment of consideration, grabbed the bow and arrows too.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t come prepared for a hike,” Temi said. “Or a hunt.”

  I dug a canteen out of a cupboard and filled it from a five-gallon jug. “That’s all you need. We’re not going to be out here long.”

  “How do you know?” Simon asked. “They might be heading off on a sixty-mile pack trip.”

  “Good for them. We’re not going that far.” I pointed skyward. “We’ll follow for a while, but we’re getting out of this forest before it gets anywhere near dark. I don’t want to see our genetically engineered whatchamacallit again.”

  “I concur,” Temi said before Simon could sputter out a protest.

  I eyed her with new speculation. “Oh, I like this. With an odd number of people, we suddenly have the ability to settle disputes with a vote, a vote that can’t end up in a stalemate.”

  “Wait a minute,” Simon said. “We need to discuss this. As a new member, her vote shouldn’t count for as much as mine.”

  “It only needs to count for a hundredth of yours, so long as it can be added to my full vote.” I
smiled and opened the van door.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all...”

  Still smiling, I shoved him out the door. “You should have thought of that before arguing to have her join the team.”

  I stepped outside after Simon. The quiet of the forest reminded me that we weren’t alone out here, and it wouldn’t do to be overheard. We didn’t have a fire extinguisher this time, and I wasn’t about to start shooting at people with my bow. I didn’t like the idea of facing the two riders in another brawl anyway. Eleriss had been pleasant enough, if odd, when I’d talked to him the night before, but I didn’t think that politeness would last if he found us stalking him.

  We dropped our chitchat for the hike to the motorcycles, each of us scanning the path ahead and the surrounding trees, watching for movement. Fresh tire prints dented the earth between the rounded rocks that dotted the riverbed. Tracking them was easy; following the men after they dismounted would be more challenging, especially since we wouldn’t want to get close enough to be seen.

  After ten minutes of walking, a glint in the brush caught my eye. I pointed, and we found the black bikes hidden there. I wondered if the riders had known someone was following them, or if they’d simply taken a precaution.

  “This is as far as I can track them.” Simon waved his phone—we’d caught up with the little dot that represented the device he’d glued in one of the tailpipes.