The Witch and the Huntsman

by Rod Kierkegaard Jr J. R. Rain

  That explained the van that had almost hit me coming in. “Who are the Jaegers?”

  Kev lowered his voice almost fearfully. “Our employers. You know, the big boss, Regina Jaeger—Mrs. Jaeger—that’s her over by the door.”

  I glanced quickly in that direction—and my gaze froze.

  When you were a kid, did you ever meet an adult who made you feel like you were the lowliest scum on earth? Who made your blood turn cold whenever they walked into the room? Mrs. Roosevelt, my elementary school principal, was like that; she looked like she ate children for breakfast.

  So did Regina Jaeger. The sight of her gave me a real jolt. I guess she was pretty, maybe even beautiful. Most guys would probably think so; she was tall and blonde, and looked like an ex-fashion model or movie starlet. It was pretty obvious that the Slavic bimbo she had on the reception desk had been hired to be her mini-me. But I didn’t like the look of her—and I could tell just in that split-second our eyes met, that she wasn’t crazy about me, either.

  And it wasn’t just physical, either. Or the food stains I’d managed to spill on my shirt. Something passed between us on a psychic level. Something spooky. Because that’s the other thing; as Sam Moon had continued to feed on my blood and my psychic powers grew, I’d become able to see people’s auras. Brittany’s, for example, was clear and bluish, just what you’d expect from an open, honest kind of person. Kev’s was more complicated; there was courage there, but some treacherous yellow strands, too.

  I’d expected something dark and twisted and evil from Regina Jaeger’s aura—maybe even something like the swirling faded crimsons and rotting egg-yolk grays of Mr. Schreich’s—but no. Nothing.

  The woman had no aura at all. How was that possible? Even corpses keep giving them off for a while after death, I’d discovered. Was she one of the undead? Sam didn’t give off an aura. And neither did her werewolf boyfriend. Both immortal. Jesus, did I just say all that? Anyway, I shivered, and when I looked up again, she was gone.

  “That’s Eric, her stepson,” said Kev’s voice in my ear. It was like being woken from a trance—I’d forgotten his existence completely.

  And what I saw next blotted it out completely. A rugged-looking blonde guy probably just on the south side of thirty had come into the ballroom and was standing in the doorway Mrs. Jaeger had just vacated. He was wearing a classic-notch, black, Western-style tux and a formal Stetson, and was very probably the hottest-looking guy I’d ever seen before in my life.

  Honestly, he was even handsomer than Brad Pitt.

  Instantly, I more or less forgot about all the unpleasant things I’d just been feeling a few seconds before. Okay, I wasn’t exactly mentally naming our firstborn yet, but it did seem like maybe it hadn’t been such a terrible idea to come here, after all, in spite of all my bad feelings and Millicent’s warnings.

  Maybe meeting Eric Jaeger was meant to be...right? Every great love story has to start someplace.

  Chapter Six

  After most of the diners had left (most seemed headed for the lounge or the bar or a movie in the little theater), Kev and I found Brittany helping the kitchen staff load dishes into the industrial-sized stainless steel Mieles. Blowing her nose, she still looked weepy.

  “The shrike yelled at me,” she said miserably, then shot Kev a little look from under her long lashes that told me she had a major crush. “I’m sorry you had to see me like this.”

  He cleared his throat. “No biggie. We need to finish up busing the big room, then you need to show Allison where we keep the vacuums. I’ll get you an apron, Allison.”

  “I know I shouldn’t let it get to me,” said Brittany to me. “Crap like this happens every night, sometimes worse. It’s just that we’re so stretched without Marisa right now that we all have to run around all night at double-speed. Kev keeps telling me I need to ‘grow a pair.’”

  “They wouldn’t look good on you.” I followed her back out into the ballroom, tying my apron on and feeling like Wilma Flintstone.

  “What wouldn’t?”

  “A pair,” I said.

  “Oh, ha ha. Thanks. I wish Kev would notice that.” Who the heck cared about Kev? I was still tingling all over from my first glimpse of Eric Jaeger. And I was pretty sure he’d noticed me back...

  “Who’s Marisa?” I asked Brittany casually. We started loading crockery onto the trays of a tall, multi-level square cart after scraping out the leftovers into various bins and containers. It was surprising how little the guests actually ate compared to how much they ordered.

  “She’s another waitress… server, I mean. She totally flaked on us! That’s why we’re so short-staffed tonight. She went out to cater a hunting party yesterday—and never came back. All her stuff was still in her room in this morning, then before I came on shift, I saw Conrad packing it all up, and he said the Schreich told him she’d quit and wanted it FedEx’d to her. I’m really worried about her—she was my best friend here.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Quiet but intense, you know? You’d never guess she was from LA. Except for one weird thing about her; she never did anything without calling her psychic.”

  Ah, I guessed that was me. But why didn’t I have any memory of her except for that last call? Could she have been a regular client of Bernice’s or one of the other operators? But she’d asked for me by name. It made no sense!

  “You said ‘her room.’ Does that mean I get one, too?”

  “Oh sure! I think. Don’t worry if Schreich hasn’t arranged anything for you yet; you can use hers. Or crash in mine if her door’s locked. Oh, look—this arugula salad’s almost totally untouched. Want some?”

  I didn’t, but I was so hungry by now that my tummy was rumbling almost as noisily as the dishwasher. Hey, nothing like being a vampire’s personal blood bank to help you work up an appetite. Well, one-time blood bank. These days, Sam was determined to fight the entity within her—by starving it of human blood.

  My human blood. Sigh. I get it, but...sigh.

  I said, “You eat the leftovers?”

  She laughed. “No, silly. We eat the same meals the chefs prepare for themselves in the kitchen. Go ahead and just take whatever you want. She doesn’t know about it...”

  By ‘she,’ Brittany obviously meant Regina Jaeger. However, I definitely had the feeling that the woman I’d seen earlier knew pretty much everything that went on here.

  The three of us knocked off about one a.m. after cleaning up and vacuuming the floors. The regular cleaning crew would come in to mop and wax them overnight, I was told, before the ballroom opened again at six for breakfast. Our living quarters were in the Annex Chalet which was across the ‘Annex Getback’ and the ‘Gucci Run Liftline,’ whatever they were, so I collected my bags and followed Kev and Brittany down a long hallway whose lights flickered on and off just like in The Shining, and out the side doors of the west wing. My uniform had no pockets, so I’d had to leave my cell phone behind with my purse in Schreich’s office—we weren’t allowed to carry anything personal around with us while on duty, including ID.

  And especially iPhones. And I really, really wanted to check mine because I was hoping Ivy had gotten back to me. But we were back out in the snow where I was afraid my rapidly-numbing fingers would drop it, so that would have to wait.

  Speaking of which, the shock of the cold air almost took my breath away; a sharp, clear Arctic blast that made you totally not believe it was July.

  “Damn—is it always this cold here?” I asked them, shivering. My breath hung in the air. “I mean, is there always snow on the ground year-round? It’s like being in Antarctica.”

  Kev laughed. Off duty, he seemed to relax and become more likable—I could sort of see what Brittany saw in him. She shook her head.

  “No way. I used to come here sometimes when I was a kid and help out in the ski shop,” she said. “In the summers, the snowline retreated almost all the way up the mountain, and we had to use the snow machines. That’
s why there’s an outdoor pool. Everything’s changed since Mr. Jaeger died a few years ago and Mrs. Jaeger took over. Now, it stays snowy all the time—I think we’re supposed to get another big storm in a couple days, right, Kev?”

  And she glanced shyly at him.

  “Brittany’s going to take this place over someday,” he said, still grinning. “She knows everything about it.” Uh oh, I thought. I mean his tone’s affectionate, but he sounds like her brother. Poor Brittany.

  We walked silently beneath the motionless ski-lift line. Then the snow-covered Douglas firs parted, and the Annex Chalet came into view under the starlit sky. It was a smaller, much humbler version of the main lodge, and only had a few lights on.

  “It looks almost deserted.”

  “That’s because most of the day employees are asleep,” said Kev. “Wait staff, shop staff, maids, cleaners, maintenance workers, security...there must be thirty or forty of us peons on the two-day shifts, maybe another dozen or so working the graveyard—and hey, speak of the devil! What’s up, Conrad?”

  A tall, ghostly figure that looked like Mr. Schreich’s Ichabod Crane-like son materialized out of the gloom ahead of us, wearing a uniform just like ours, his eyes as reflective as mirrors. He nodded a few times like a night-bird and scuttled off.

  “Conrad does room service all night—that’s where all the big tips are.”

  “You mean we get tips, too?” I said.

  “Sure,” said Brittany. “That’s a third of our salary.”

  No one had tipped me even a dime.

  Like the lodge, the annex had two wings; in this case, divided into men’s and women’s dorms, and once we were inside, I said goodnight to Kev and followed Brittany upstairs. Luckily, I didn’t have to share her room; Marisa’s was unlocked, so I gave the place the once-over before I unpacked. It was really Spartan. Tiny, with just a bare-bones single bed in it, along with a small chest of drawers and a cheap bedside lamp—it looked more like what you’d find in a youth hostel than at a luxury resort. I put my bags down and checked my phone. Three text messages from Ivy, one from Bernice, and one from Smithy.

  Ivy’s were all just “???”.

  Bernice’s said, “Heard about what happened with Donna. OMG. I’m so sorry! Call me.”

  Smithy’s was just his cell phone number. It was too late to call Bernice or the detective back, but I tried sending Ivy a text.

  “U there?”

  The reply came back after a minute: “U ok?? U in that loj place???” She meant ‘lodge’; typing long words wasn’t exactly Ivy’s thing.

  “Sure. I’m fine, have a job here now, LOL. But Marisa the grl who called me is gone & Mil can’t find her soul anywhere. so maybe she’s still alive. In her room now.”

  “Wish cd b there w/ u now. Wll send all my warding powrs ur way.”

  “That would be gr8, babe.”

  I sighed. Right now it would be even better to have her here in the flesh to give me some backup. Ivy could be a pain in the butt sometimes, but I could have really used her powers added to mine. Without Millicent at full strength, I was feeling very weak when it came to tackling whatever evil had taken over this place.

  That it was a very powerful evil, I no longer had any doubt. Though it was cloaked from my second sight, I could feel its hypnotic influence everywhere. Even Britt and Kev, about as normal a pair as you could ever hope to meet, gave off mad vibes like abused Stepford stepkids. And why wasn’t I getting any visions about Marisa now that I was surrounded by the few pitiful personal possessions of hers that Conrad, the Bird of Carrion had left behind? It was like I was deep underwater, and only muffled sounds and fragments of light were coming from the surface.

  “Ok, wll do. Take gd care and wtch urself. Luv u!”

  Film people. Gotta love ‘em.

  I took a shower and had my first piece of luck—some of Marisa’s stuff had been left behind there. A loofah, some shampoo, a big comb with a few long strands of reddish hair in its teeth. A skilled witch like Ivy—a ‘kitchen witch’ they’re called because they know herbs and potions—could have summoned Marisa or at least visions of her from her hair alone, but I’d never been any good in the kitchen.

  Literally.

  Still, finding this evidence of her existence was kind of a shock. And not a good one—it meant that she almost definitely had never come back to her room after whatever had happened to her up on the mountain. Even worse, I found her black North Face jacket in the closet. I realized that when she was out there being chased and hunted, she must have been without it; the poor thing could have frozen to death in these temperatures, even if nobody had been after her.

  But in one way, finding her coat was almost like a sign. I felt like I had to do something to find her. Anything! I got dressed again and slipped the coat on over my street clothes. I had maybe four hours until first light to find the place I’d seen when Marisa had called me.

  The last place where she’d definitely been alive.

  Sleep? I would do that later...

  Chapter Seven

  One of the cool things about being a witch is that you can screw with electronic gadgets. Let’s say you’re stuck in an airport lounge or doctor’s waiting room, and you get really sick of CNN blasting away at you—you can focus your energies enough to change the channel. Or even fry the damn thing, which happened one time when I got seriously annoyed during a long flight delay.

  Sometimes it’s unintentional, like when I’m walking down a sidewalk late at night, and the streetlights dim or go out as I pass by. This happens to me all the time, and it’s totally not the same as going over to the dark side, no matter what Millicent says. Sometimes it can even be embarrassing; when I’m seeing a new guy, for example, and the lights or the music go out before we’ve even opened the wine.

  But tonight, when I slipped back out of the Annex, it came in pretty handy. Because there were security cameras everywhere at La Chasse, glittering from the ceiling like tiny spying eyes, and because I didn’t want to be seen, each of them would blink out as I approached, then back on again after I was gone. If all else fails in my life, I guess I could always start robbing ATM machines...

  “Good thinking,” said the voice in my head the moment that thought popped into it. Millicent’s voice.

  Somewhere in the firs ahead of me on the hill, I saw a glowing form almost dancing in the eerie stillness of the night.

  “Is that you, Millicent?”

  “Hurry! There isn’t much time!”

  I followed her into the timberline, and we crossed the Bottega run. We were climbing slowly up the mountain; I was out of breath and I had a stitch in my side. I like to think I stay in pretty good shape—hell, I am a personal trainer, after all—but obviously my body wasn’t ready for the cold. Or the altitude.

  “Where are we going?”

  “After the one you seek. Now hurry!”

  “Slow down!” I said aloud. “I can’t keep up.” From off in the distance, I heard a plaintive howl echoing between the snow-covered rocks. “Seriously—wolves? In Oregon?”

  “They have returned...”

  I stopped and looked around in every direction. Aside from the ghostly flickering ahead of me, I couldn’t see a single light, except for the stars overhead. I realized I was now seriously lost. Great.

  The sky was also clouding up and getting even darker. The silhouettes of the trees were the deepest, darkest shade of sable imaginable, and I could no longer even make out my footprints in the snow. Incidentally, I’d also decided this was totally the last time I was ever going to wear New Balance to a ski resort; my feet were like blocks of sodden ice.

  “Quickly, child...follow me...”

  I took a few dozen more steps into the darkness—and then my sixth sense screamed a warning. I stopped in my tracks.

  “Hurry...” Her voice was the faintest whisper, and the glow had disappeared.

  But I didn’t hurry. Instead, I pulled out my iPhone and used it as a flashlight. There
was a sheer drop ahead of me—two or three more steps, and I would have pitched over the edge of a crevasse and down to my death below. Witch or no witch, no way in hell I was surviving that drop.

  I think it was right about then that I realized it wasn’t Millicent’s voice I was hearing in my head. It was someone else’s. Someone—or something—with the power to impersonate a ghost! But how was that even possible? Then I remembered that the spirit of Millicent’s dead son had managed to fool me into thinking he was alive, even in broad daylight.

  Which was when I panicked. Suddenly, I felt like I was in way over my head. I turned around and stumbled back through the snow, following my own tracks as best I could in the darkness, swiping my cell phone screen whenever it went dark. I hoped the battery wouldn’t die on me.

  I hoped I wouldn’t die on me.

  Because I was pretty sure I was being followed. From time to time, I sensed a dark shape flitting through the trees, and once I clearly saw the shape of a man against the sky—a man with some kind of hat and a crossbow. A hunter. Was he out here in the middle of the night hunting me?

  I broke into a run. Okay, it was more like a fast slipping, sliding series of lurches, I guess, and I fell down in the snow a couple times, but hey, at least I kept moving. And it was a lot faster going downhill than up. Plus there was that little thing about maybe being shot by an arrow if I slowed down. Was that what had happened to Marisa? I started running even faster—it’s amazing how fast you can forget a stitch in your side with the right incentive!

  But now my breath was coming in ragged gasps. I knew I couldn’t run much longer—especially because I had no idea where I was going. I’d long since lost sight of my own footprints in my panic.

  “This way, Allison!”

  “Millicent?”

  “Yes, it’s me—make for the black lines over the trees. That’s the liftline. The way you came.”