by SM Reine
Marion was jerked toward the bus.
“No!”
She stomped at the urisk wildly. It was more luck than planning that drove the toe of her lost-and-found sneakers into its noseless face. Sidhe blood cascaded down its lips in glimmering shades of copper.
Fingers curled around Marion’s sleeve and yanked her a safe distance from the bus. It was the mother. “Are you okay?” the woman asked, hair wild around her face.
Marion scooped the boy off the ground, shoved him into his mom’s arms, pushed both of them toward the shoulder of the road. “Run!”
A urisk plowed into Marion from behind. They tumbled to the pavement together, Marion on the bottom, assassin on top.
She twisted to look at it, and the fractional motion meant that the urisk’s knife slammed into the street instead of her skull. The blade embedded two inches into the ground.
Marion gripped the hilt of the knife atop the urisk’s hand and bit its wrist, getting a mouthful of wiry hair. Coppery blood gushed into her mouth. The urisk released the knife. Marion wrenched the blade from the ground and stood.
“Get away from me!” She swiped the knife at the urisk.
It leaped out of range. There was no fear in its beady eyes—only wariness. The creature didn’t seem convinced Marion presented much of a threat.
Unfortunately, her assassin was right. When Marion swung again, it slammed its elbow into the crook of her arm, bending the joint until it nearly broke.
Her fingers released the knife.
The other two urisk emerged from the wreckage. Both held similar knives. One of them was dripping in human blood from the unfortunate bus driver.
Marion turned to bolt, but a fourth urisk was behind her.
Individually, none of them would have looked too frightening, as their slender builds made them resemble human children.
Collectively, clad in leather armor with thirst for violence glittering in their eyes, they were the stuff of nightmares.
They closed in on her.
Marion threw herself to the ground and rolled between the feet of two of them. She crawled past them as quickly as she could.
One of them knocked her over. This time she landed on her back. Another of the assassins pinned her arms to either side of her head, ensuring that she wouldn’t be able to twitch away from the killing blow.
There was nothing she could do but watch a knife descend toward her face.
A gunshot whip-cracked through the drizzly evening.
The urisk’s hand sprayed blood. The knife fell from its grip.
Another gunshot, and another.
Skull fragmented. Wiry hair exploded. The assassin fell off of Marion.
The doctor, Luke Flynn, stood behind it. His gun was still leveled at the assassin he’d killed. He was distant enough that Marion’s nearsighted vision cast him in a slight blur. It looked, in a way, like he was glowing.
He shifted his aim a couple inches and fired again.
The urisk pinning Marion down let go.
Luke kicked its body off of her. Then he hauled her to her feet, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and swiveled to fire at the third and fourth urisk. The gunshots reverberated through her entire body. Her eardrums ached.
The surviving urisk scrambled toward them with shocking speed. Luke smashed his heel into its face. The urisk’s skull collapsed and it fell to the ground with a shiver of dying magic.
Rain immediately began washing all the sidhe blood away.
Only then did Luke release Marion in order to reload his gun, exchanging one magazine for another. He chambered a round, flicked on the safety, holstered it again. Smooth motions, practiced motions. Something he’d clearly done thousands of times.
Then he gripped her shoulders in both hands. “Are you okay, Marion?”
She searched for words and found none.
Was she okay? Was such a thing possible?
Dr. Lucas Flynn’s eyes were endless, such a dark shade of brown that they might have been black.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “I think I am.”
* * *
Marion and Luke didn’t wait on the road long enough for emergency personnel to arrive. At the first whine of sirens, the doctor pulled her toward the trees and leaped down the embankment.
He watched over the side of the road as police cars swarmed the crash scene.
Marion remained seated near his feet and started to tremble. She kept mentally reliving the events that had just happened: the windshield shattering, the bus driver’s slit throat, the collision.
And then Luke, calm among the violence.
He extracted gloves from the pocket of his jacket, wiggling his fingers into them one hand at a time. “Who were those urisk?” Luke asked, sitting beside her. “Why did they want you dead?”
She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “You know as much as I do. Why are we hiding from emergency responders?”
“I know all the local firefighters, cops, and EMTs,” Luke said. “I don’t want to tell them what happened. I don’t want them to know…” He trailed off.
“How good you are with a gun?”
He glanced over the embankment one more time. “The people who came to the hospital for you were sidhe, but not urisk. I think there are two separate factions among the faeries searching for you.”
From his tone, she assumed that was a bad thing. “Oh.”
“We need to figure out how they found you,” Luke said. “I need to know if my patients at the hospital are still vulnerable.”
“I told you, I don’t know anything.” A thought struck her as soon as she spoke. That wasn’t entirely true. “Except…when I was at the hospital, one of the nurses was acting strangely. He seemed to be trying to threaten me.”
“Oliver Machado?”
“How did you know?”
“Only two nurses were in my department last night, and only one a man. But…” He heaved a sigh, raking a hand over his hair. “Ollie was already acting strange.”
“How so?”
“He’s the one who found you in the forest,” Luke said shortly, as if that was all the explanation she needed.
Frankly, he could have refused to tell her anything at all, and Marion wouldn’t have attempted to do anything but thank him. There was nothing Luke could do to offend her at that moment. She’d been inches from having a knife embedded in her brain until he’d descended.
Luke gripped Marion’s hand and pulled her further from the road. The leather of his glove was as warm as his skin might have been.
“Where are we going, Doctor?” she asked.
“Oliver’s house. We need answers, and I’ve got a strong suspicion that he has them.”
5
Oliver Machado lived on a lonely road in the shadow of the mountains. His home wasn’t quite dilapidated, but it was far from loved; his flowerbeds grew only weeds and his fence hadn’t been stained in years.
His car wasn’t in the driveway.
“He must still be at work,” Marion said.
“He’s not supposed to be on shift.” Luke pounded his fist against the front door.
Marion hung back on the front path, which was as crumbling and weedy as the flowerbeds. It was quiet so far from town, not that Ransom Falls was much of a town to be “out of” in the first place. All she heard was water trickling through tangled branches, the sighing of leaves, and the occasional snap of a twig. Nature sounds.
Would she be able to hear more urisk coming, or would they sound like the rest of nature?
Luke beat the door again. “Come on,” he muttered, trying the doorknob. “I know you’re home.”
“I don’t think he is. There aren’t any lights.”
The doctor slipped off of the steps, cupped his hands around his eyes, and peered through the crack in the curtains. His jacket gapped under the arms. Marion glimpsed the straps of his holster.
She remembered how secure she had felt when he’d pulled her away from the urisk. He
’d shot so quickly, so calmly. Hanging back on the path kept her a safe distance from Oliver Machado’s front door, but she didn’t feel safe at that distance from Luke.
Marion picked her way toward him through the grass. “I really don’t think he’s home.”
He ignored her and stepped around the side of the house. She stuck close, eyes on the empty road behind them. Luke found another window behind an unkempt cluster of ivy. He wiggled his fingers into the bottom and opened it. Marion stayed on the ground, watching his kicking feet vanish into the shadowy room.
“Wait here,” he whispered over his shoulder.
Marion clutched the windowsill, which was high enough that she could barely peer over it. “You want me to wait alone?” The dark forest was the natural home of some sidhe. She would know if a car was coming, but another urisk could attack without warning.
Luke wasn’t immune to the urgency in her tone. He thrust a gloved hand through the window, offering to help her climb up.
She grabbed him.
Oliver Machado smoked so much weed that tar layered the carpet and stained the walls. Otherwise, his home’s interior was as unremarkable as its exterior. He had a lot of cheap furniture and as much clutter as one would expect in the home of a bachelor who worked shifts.
Luke headed past the kitchen, past the bathroom.
“Where are we going?” Marion asked.
He put a finger to his lips, indicating that she should be silent.
Then he opened the bedroom door.
At first, Marion only saw a bed that seemed to double as a laundry pile, along with many curling movie posters serving as cheap wallpaper.
Then she saw some of that laundry shift.
“Don’t run, Ollie,” Luke said. “I don’t want to chase you.”
The nurse emerged from the closet by the bed. “I won’t run. Not from you, Doctor.” Oliver glared at Marion over Luke’s shoulder.
Her crown itched, as though an electrical current were running over her scalp. Something wasn’t right. “Luke…”
“Step out where I can see you,” Luke said.
Oliver moved forward inch by inch. “Careful, Luke. You don’t want her at your back. Keep both eyes on that thing at all times.”
“I’m not a thing,” Marion said indignantly.
“If you don’t trust her, why’d you bring her to the hospital?” Luke asked.
“Because I wanted you to reveal yourself. We all do. And we’re tired of waiting for you.” The nurse’s eyes were filled with a ghastly light. “If anything’s going to bring you out, it would be that thing.” He emphasized the offensive word, and Marion’s skin prickled.
It wasn’t just insult that made her feel that way. That strange sensation she had felt since entering Oliver’s house continued to grow until it gripped the back of Marion’s neck. She rubbed her fingers over her skin, but the sensation didn’t subside.
That feeling was coming from Oliver.
“Magic,” she said suddenly. “That’s magic.”
The nurse lifted a hand. He was clutching a fistful of paper.
Luke shoved Marion aside with a shout.
Oliver’s pages erupted and a column of fire punched through the air. She hit the ground. The flames splashed onto the wall over her head, instantly fizzling out.
All that magic nearly cracked Marion’s skull. She clutched her temples and cried out—at least, she thought she cried, but she couldn’t hear herself anymore.
But she did hear the gunshot.
The roar of more magic.
And then Luke swearing profusely.
She looked up through his legs at the place that Oliver Machado had been standing. All that remained was a smoldering circle on the carpet and an entire book’s worth of half-burned pages.
* * *
“Teleportation,” Luke muttered, running his fingers along the circle Ollie had scorched into his carpet.
“What did you say?” Marion was sitting in the corner of the bedroom, knees hugged to her chest. She looked so pale that Luke thought she might pass out.
“Oliver Machado just teleported himself out of here. I can’t tell where. I’m one of those people who can't do anything with magic.” If Marion had been her usual self, she would have been able to track the nurse’s magic easily—but then again, she wouldn’t have needed to. A half-angel mage would have out-witched him any day. Oliver would never have disappeared.
“Most people can do magic?” Marion asked.
“Yeah, but even so, few witches could do this kind of magic. It’s really powerful stuff, way more powerful than Oliver should have been able to cast.” Luke wondered if Ollie had designed the spell himself or if he had powerful friends.
He kicked the ash around, scuffing the lines so that another witch wouldn’t be able to reuse Ollie’s spell.
“He said that he wanted you to reveal yourself,” Marion said. “What did he mean by that?”
“No idea.” Luke helped her off of the ground, careful not to make skin contact.
Oliver had left his laptop on his desk. Luke opened the lid to find that he was still logged in to the darknet. He had a specific forum post open: a post with Marion’s name at the top, followed by a low-resolution photo that looked like it must have been taken via telephoto lens.
Marion gaped at the page with such confusion that Luke couldn’t help but feel bad for her.
“Is that some kind of…advertisement?” She reached for the keyboard.
He pulled the laptop out of her reach. “A bounty. Yeah.”
“On me?”
“Seems to be the case,” he said, swiveling the computer so that she wouldn’t be able to see it. He scrolled down. There wasn’t a lot of information on that page—not enough that anyone should have been able to locate her in Ransom Falls. Marion must have been tracked in some other fashion.
Until Luke could determine how she was being tracked, he couldn’t be certain that more assassins wouldn’t show up at any moment.
He pushed a button to send the bounty to Oliver’s printer, then shut the lid.
“Can I see?” Marion asked.
The bounty had been followed by comments discussing how easy it would be to kill a teenage girl. The forum participants had also said what they’d like to do before and after her death. “I’ve printed the bounty off in case we need it later.” The bounty, and only one comment with information more useful than horrible.
She reached the printer before he did. The damp ink was still glistening when she lifted it from the tray to stare at the words.
“What day is it?” she asked faintly.
“October,” Luke said. “The twenty-eighth.”
“They want me dead before November. There are…what, thirty days in October?”
“Thirty-one.”
“Oh,” she said. “A whole extra day. Then that isn’t so bad.”
He took the paper out of her hands. “Someone commented with your home address. We know where you live, and that means we know where your family should be. Vancouver Island isn’t a long drive. Less than a day.”
“The killers will be looking for me there,” Marion said.
“And you’ll have family to protect you,” Luke said with conviction—more conviction than he felt.
“I’ll go home,” Marion said. “Yes. That’s a good idea.”
“Sure,” he said.
Marion would return to a powerful family, who were surely accustomed to people attempting to assassinate a girl like Marion.
Then she would be out of Luke’s life as quickly as Oliver Machado teleporting from his bedroom.
* * *
Luke lived in the only apartment complex in Ransom Falls. It had twelve units: six on the bottom floor and six on top. Half of them were usually empty. He had the corner unit upstairs.
That was where he took Marion.
“What are we doing here?” she asked, hanging in the doorway when he opened the apartment. “Is this something to do with
the nurse?”
“This is where I live,” Luke said.
“Ooh. It’s your home.” Marion looked around with renewed interest, as though seeing everything for the first time.
Luke could imagine what she was seeing. The living room was sparse, though not so sparse as to attract attention by random people who might see inside, like Tony the pizza delivery guy. Luke had decorated by going to a Home Outlet two towns over and buying a matching set of decor. None of it was to his taste, but he didn’t hate it, either. Wicker this, linen that, an abstract painting with an inspirational quote.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “I can cook something if you’re hungry and your standards are low.”
“I’m not hungry yet. I seem to have lost my appetite.” Marion peered into his bathroom. He leaned around her to pull the shower curtain closed, but not before she saw the camping stove that he’d set up inside the safety of non-flammable porcelain. “Are you brewing potions in there?” she asked, wiggling her fingers as though she itched to check. “Or making methamphetamine, perhaps?”
There was no point in lying. She wouldn’t understand the implications of the truth without her memories. “I was casting bullets.”
“Your own bullets? Why?”
“Ammunition purchases are monitored.” And nobody sold silver bullets anymore. Not legally.
“A doctor with a secret gun hobby,” she said.
“It’s only for self-defense,” Luke said. “I’m a libertarian. I don’t think the government needs to know what kind of guns I have and how much ammunition I keep.”
He went into his bedroom and left the door open so that he could keep an eye on Marion. There were a few personal effects in his bedroom. Nothing sentimental, but important items, like his diplomas, certifications, letters of reference.
She tugged on the fringed end of a blanket he’d folded on the arm of the couch. “Do you have a laptop I could use?”
“Sure. Behind the TV.”
Marion fished it out and spread her hands over the keyboard, as though unsure what to type.
“There’s no password,” Luke said, reentering the living room with his bag slung over his shoulder.