Fire Marked

by Val St. Crowe

  I looked over her shaking form at Lachlan, making a what-now face.

  Lachlan took a deep breath. He got up from where he sat and came over to kneel beside Selah. “Selah, calm down,” he murmured in a soft, lilting voice.

  “He’s dead, and it’s Ossian’s fault,” Selah gasped. “Ossian’s a fucking murderer. I should have known. He killed before. Why wouldn’t he kill again?”

  “Who did he kill?” said Lachlan soothingly.

  “Gemini,” she said. “The last leader of the gang. His brother.”

  “But of course he killed him,” said Lachlan. “That’s the way leaders become leaders of the clan.” He looked up at me. “It’s basically the same way a challenge works. If someone thinks there’s a good reason to take down the leader, he fights him to the death.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So he challenged his brother for the leadership?”

  “He cheated,” said Selah. “He poisoned the tip of his knife. First blood got Gemini disoriented and then he could barely hold his own. Made it easy for Ossian to kill him. All of this was in the blackmail note.”

  “So that’s why he’s being blackmailed,” said Lachlan, rocking back on his heels thoughtfully.

  “And now I’m going to tell everyone,” said Selah. “And someone will challenge Ossian, and he’ll be killed. Justice for Jackal.”

  Lachlan turned to her. “Wait. You can’t go off and tell everyone this.”

  “The hell I can’t,” she said.

  “No, you’ll destabilize the entire clan. Everything will be chaos. It will be even harder to find out who it was that sold out Jackal, harder to find out where he was,” said Lachlan.

  “You said that Ossian confessed to double-crossing Jackal,” said Selah.

  “Yeah, well, I lied about that,” said Lachlan, getting to his feet. “I thought if he was guilty, you might know, and you could give me some evidence.”

  “You lied to me?” said Selah. She stared at both of us, tears still streaming down her face.

  “Sorry,” said Lachlan.

  “Oh, fuck you,” said Selah, getting up. She pointed to the door. “Get the hell out of here, now, both of you.”

  Lachlan shrugged. “Come on, Presley. Let’s go.” He took me by the arm. Together, we started for the door. Lachlan looked over his shoulder. “Really, you should keep it to yourself about Ossian and Gemini. It’s not going to help anything.”

  “Get out of my RV,” said Selah.

  We left.

  * * *

  Lachlan and I walked back through the campground. “So,” he said. “Square one. Looks just the same as it did the last time we were here.”

  I sighed. “I can’t believe we still don’t know anything.”

  “I can’t believe Ossian got to be the leader by cheating his way into it,” said Lachlan. “I always thought he was kind of honorable in his own way.”

  “What way is that?” I said.

  He shrugged. “You know, I thought he had a code. Lines he wouldn’t cross. Guess I was wrong.” He was quiet. “You spend a lot of time around people, it’s easy to start thinking they’re just like you are. But… we’re different than them.”

  Wasn’t he worried about saying something like that in the open? No one was around, but he was usually so paranoid.

  “I know we’re different,” I said, reaching for his hand.

  He interlaced his fingers with mine. “We’re going to figure this out.”

  I looked up at the sky. It was cloudy, just like it had been that first night when we’d gone to that bonfire. I remembered looking up at the sky, a sky too dark for stars, each of them blotted out by the thick cover of clouds. And now, it was the same thing. The moon was only a hazy ball of barely-there brightness. The stars were completely obscured.

  I furrowed my brow. “Lachlan? Didn’t Dune say that he went for a walk to look at the stars the night of the bonfire?”

  “Yeah,” said Lachlan, and he looked up at the sky. “Except there weren’t any stars that night. It was like it is right now.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “He’s lying,” said Lachlan. “He didn’t go on a walk.”

  “It was him,” I said. After all of that, it had been him all along. Every time that we started a case at home—a real case, a murder case—I always hoped that it would be the first person we talked to, and it never was. Now, this time, it had actually turned out to be that guy, and it hadn’t even helped us along, because we’d still had to chase down several rabbit holes to nowhere before figuring out what should have been slapping us right in the face. I clenched my hands into fists. “Damn it.”

  “You don’t want it to be Dune?” asked Lachlan.

  “No, it’s not that,” I said. “It’s just that we wasted so much time on stupid stuff, and we should have realized that he was lying about the stars.”

  “Well, it’s not as if we haven’t had other things on our minds,” said Lachlan.

  “True,” I sighed.

  We were quiet for a minute.

  “So,” I said. “What now?”

  “I think we need to talk to him again,” said Lachlan.

  * * *

  Lachlan pounded on the door to Iona’s camper. “Dune? You in there?”

  A few moments passed, and then Dune opened the door, “What are you two doing here? It’s late.”

  “It’s not that late,” said Lachlan, pushing past him into the camper. “Where’s Iona? She’s not going to be pleased when she hears what a piece of trash you are.”

  “Hey, did I say you could come in?” said Dune. He stepped up against Lachlan, gazing into the other man’s eyes. “Why don’t you back the fuck off, huh?”

  I gestured with one hand, and my magic made Dune step backwards a few steps. “Don’t talk to my boyfriend that way,” I said.

  Dune lifted both his palms and thrust them through the air at me.

  Magic hit me right in my solar plexus. I lost my balance, tumbling backwards, teetering over the steps that led back out of the camper.

  Lachlan caught me with his magic, yanking me back inside. He waved his hand and the door slammed behind us. He turned back to Dune, his eyes flashing. “Don’t you ever attempt to hurt her again, you understand?”

  “What’s going on?” came a female voice. Iona was climbing down out of the upper loft in her camper. She planted herself on the ground right behind Dune. “I told you to leave him alone.”

  “Dune, what was it that you were doing the night of the bonfire again?” Lachlan asked.

  “I told you guys, I went for a walk to look at the stars,” said Dune.

  “You see a lot of stars that night?” I said.

  “Tons,” said Dune. “We were out in the middle of nowhere at that campground. No big city lights to drown out the starlight. It was beautiful.”

  “Funny thing,” Lachlan said. “I remember the sky that night.”

  “Me too,” said Iona in a tiny voice. “It was cloudy that night. You couldn’t see any stars at all.”

  “So,” said Lachlan, “the truth is that you weren’t really taking a walk, you were with the drakes, telling them everything you knew about the raid that Jackal planned to carry out.”

  “Is that true, Dune?” said Iona, her voice cracking. “Did you really do that?”

  “Baby,” said Dune, reaching for her. “You can’t believe these assholes. They—”

  Lachlan slammed Dune into the wall of the camper. “Don’t lie to her. She’s been lied to enough.”

  “You should talk,” said Iona.

  Lachlan shook his head at her. “I’m sorry, Iona. I really am. Would you believe I’m a different person now than I was then?”

  She just laughed bitterly. “Well, I sure know how to pick them, don’t I?”

  “Look,” said Dune, “it’s nothing personal, Iona. I needed a way into the gang, and the drakes said you were probably the weakest link. They’re the ones who orchestrated this whole thing. They wanted to ca
pture one of yours so that they could negotiate. But you dicks are refusing to talk to them. So, they’re pissed. They’re not going to keep Jackal alive for much longer.”

  “You did do it,” said Iona. “You… you…” She burst into tears.

  “Where’s Jackal now?” said Lachlan.

  “I don’t know that,” said Dune.

  Lachlan twisted his hand.

  Dune’s neck twisted accordingly. Not all the way, not like Phelan’s, but enough that Dune’s skin was straining, turning red and stretching. His eyes widened. His face contorted. He made strange little noises in the back of his throat. He struggled, but he was stuck, and there was nothing he could do.

  I watched Dune, who was obviously in pain, and I didn’t feel sorry for him. Mostly, I felt annoyed that he was making us work so hard to give us the information. I turned that over in my head for a bit, wondering if I should be worried about myself. Was hanging out with criminals making me hard? Taking away my humanity?

  Then I shrugged. If it was, big deal. We needed to find Jackal.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Iona. “You’re killing him.”

  Lachlan opened his palm, releasing his magic.

  Dune gasped. He was sweating. “Holy shit. Don’t do that, man.”

  “Tell us where Jackal is,” I said.

  “I really don’t know,” said Dune.

  Lachlan pointed at Dune’s wrist.

  It twisted into an unnatural position. There was a snapping sound.

  Dune shrieked and let out a long string of swear words.

  “Where’s Jackal?” said Lachlan.

  Dune panted, half sobbing. “I’m not lying to you. They didn’t tell me everything. They said that if anyone found out I was playing both sides, it was better if I didn’t know too much.”

  “Nice try,” said Lachlan. “You get one more chance to tell me the truth, or I break your other wrist.”

  “Stop,” said Iona, grabbing onto Lachlan. “Stop it!”

  I gestured with one hand, and my magic pried her away from Lachlan and set her skittering backwards until she hit the other wall. Not that hard or anything, even though you wouldn’t know it judging from the way she screamed.

  I stifled a laugh. I had to admit that kind of felt good. I didn’t really like Iona.

  Lachlan faced down Dune. “Well? What’ll it be?”

  “Look, if I knew where he was—”

  Lachlan pointed at Dune’s other wrist.

  Another sound of bones cracking. Another ear-piercing scream from Dune.

  “Fuck,” said Dune in a low, wavery voice. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Next, we’ll do your ankles,” said Lachlan, glaring at Dune.

  I stepped up next to him. “I can help, you know.”

  Lachlan nodded at me. “Next, Presley will break your left ankle.”

  “No,” gasped Dune. He was having a hard time breathing. Tears were leaking out of his eyes. “No, please. Listen… I only know one place, and it’s where I met with them. It’s a place on the south side. I can tell you how to get there. I knew they cut up drugs there, so it’s one of their places. But I don’t know if Jackal is there. I don’t know where Jackal is. I swear to God, I don’t know.”

  Lachlan rubbed his chin. He turned to me. “You think he’s lying?”

  I didn’t. I was fairly sure he was telling the truth, but I couldn’t be sure. “I don’t know. You’re better at reading people than me. What do you think?”

  “I think maybe you should break his ankle just to be sure,” said Lachlan.

  I pointed at his foot.

  It twisted back, several nasty popping and cracking sounds filling our ears. Dune screamed again. Screamed and sobbed. He was crying like a baby.

  “Don’t,” he moaned. “Please, please, I can’t fucking take it anymore. I don’t know anything else.”

  Lachlan shrugged. “I believe him.” He released his magic.

  Dune slid down the wall and landed on the floor in a heap. He was still crying.

  “Oh, get over it,” said Lachlan to Dune. “A couple pints of blood and you’ll be fine. We’re vampires, man. We heal.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Lachlan’s lips against mine in the darkness. We had just walked into our camper, and now he was kissing me.

  I sighed against his mouth, threading my fingers into his hair, pulling him close to me.

  He thrust his hands inside my shirt, up my back, fingers trailing up my spine to the clasp of my bra.

  I moaned. I pulled away. “What are we going to do now? We going to that place Dune told us about?”

  “We can’t go alone,” said Lachlan, unsnapping my bra. “We need help.” His fingers moved to the walls of my breasts.

  I gasped. “How are we going to get help?”

  “I don’t know.” He gathered my breasts into his hands, gently kneading them, his thumbs on my nipples, teasing them taut. “Maybe we ask Salix, see if some of the guys would be willing.”

  “You think they will?” I said.

  “I don’t know. I hope so,” he said.

  “Maybe we have to convince them,” I said, kissing his chin. “We were pretty convincing with Dune tonight.” I kissed his jaw. “Maybe we need throw to our weight around a little.” I kissed his cheekbone.

  He squeezed my breasts. “Maybe so.”

  I groaned. “That feels nice.”

  “I thought you were goddamned sexy back there,” he muttered in a thick voice. “You were so sure of yourself. Makes me crazy.”

  “Really?” I arched an eyebrow.

  “Tell me what you want, Penny,” he whispered. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Anything?” I whispered back in a wicked voice.

  We didn’t go to sleep for quite some time.

  * * *

  We woke up to the sound of someone banging on our camper door.

  Lachlan sat up in bed. “Why do people feel as if they’re entitled to knock on our door at the ass crack of dawn?”

  I squinted at the clock across the room. “It’s nearly ten.” I hadn’t slept in this late in a while. I guess I’d needed the rest after last night’s activities. “Hardly the crack of dawn.”

  “Whatever.” He got out of bed and tugged on his jeans.

  “Still,” I said, “you should tell whoever it is to go screw themselves.”

  He chuckled and headed out of the room.

  Well. Now, I had to pee. My bladder needed emptying every two seconds these days. I waddled into the bathroom, wondering if it was really possible that no one knew I was pregnant. I guessed it must be, because otherwise, our cover would be blown.

  Argh. What if that was why someone was banging on the door?

  I got dressed as quickly as I could and headed out to find Salix pacing the short length of our living room. “You knew? How long have you known?”

  “Not long,” said Lachlan. “Just since last night. But I told Selah not to tell anyone. I told her it was a bad idea to get everyone bent out of shape about this. I mean, how long ago did this thing with Gemini even happen?”

  So, it wasn’t about me, thank goodness. But it didn’t sound good. If the group was all up-in-arms about Ossian’s bad behavior, how were we going to get them to focus on getting Jackal out of that place where he was being held captive?

  “That’s not the point,” said Salix.

  “It’s been over eighty years, am I right?” said Lachlan.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Salix.

  “Well, he’s been a good leader during that time, hasn’t he?”

  “That doesn’t matter either,” said Salix. “We can’t allow him to continue to lead this clan. We need him to step down.”

  “He’s not going to do that,” said Lachlan. “You and I both know that.”

  “Well, then someone better make him,” said Salix.

  “Wait, what are you going to do?” said Lachlan.

  “You can’t stop me, Hawk,” said S
alix. “You’re a good man, but you don’t really understand what it is to be part of this clan. You’ve only been one of us a short time, and even now, I don’t think you really are one of us. You’re here because it serves your purpose, and I’m not calling you out on it, but I am saying that you can’t possibly understand.” He started for the door.

  “Wait,” said Lachlan.

  But Salix was already pushing the door wide.

  Lachlan ran after him.

  I did too.

  Salix was outside, striding down the road between the parked campers and RVs.

  Lachlan caught up to him. “Come on, man. Let it go. It was a long time ago. Besides, we need your help with Jackal. Who knows when they’re going to kill Jackal? We need to fix that problem first. Then if you need to come back here and have this out with Ossian—”

  “You’re not talking me down,” said Salix, pushing Lachlan out of his way.

  Lachlan kicked the road, scuffing up rocks. “Damn it,” he said.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find another way. Maybe if we use the whiteflame.”

  He shook his head. “There’s too many of the drakes.”

  Salix had reached Ossian’s trailer. He went up the steps and banged on the door.

  Ossian appeared a moment later. He stepped outside, coming down the steps, looking confused. “Salix? What’s going on?”

  Salix let him walk down the steps. But the minute the other man had two feet on the ground, he was in his face, not allowing him to move forward. “Ossian Bryant, you have failed this clan.”

  “Wait a second,” said Ossian. “You’re challenging me for leadership? Let’s talk about this first. Maybe we can work it—”

  “You have led us under a false pretense for over eighty years,” said Salix. “You did not win fairly against the last leader, Gemini Bryant. You poisoned him instead of meeting him man to man in a fair fight. And so, I challenge you.”

  Ossian hung his head. “God damn it, Salix, why are you saying this shit?”

  Other people had heard. They were poking their heads out of their trailers, watching what was going on.

  “It’s not true,” said Ossian.