Flames of Hope

by Cassandra L Shaw

  “Got anything else?” he growled, while his hand returned to flexing on the man’s throat.

  How long could he live before that pressure became too long, too hard, too deadly? Jasmine’s heart pistoned her blood until she felt the pulse in her neck, heard the throbbing of it in her ears. What in all Hades was Xylvar up to?

  Weedy man made an eeing, gurgling sound, and thrashed his head side to side. Xylvar removed his hand, and the man fell to his back, gasping and choking and thrashing on the ground.

  “Enough with the drama. Who, where, and why are all I’m asking.”

  The man thrashed some more. Xylvar rolled his chair forward, so the man’s legs were under him. He leaned forward, laying a knife’s blade across the man’s throat. “Sit up, slow.” The man obeyed carefully, getting back up on his knees.

  “Remember you’re meant to be a man, and fucking grow a set. Now, you have two subs. Where are they, who has them, or is about to have them, and where will they be taken?”

  “I don’t know nothing.”

  Xylvar barely twitched, but blood started to seep and trickle out from under the blade. “This blade is old-school steel. Over a century old. Honed to cut a hair in two. If you piss me off, it’ll only take a twitch of my hand to slash you so deep you’ll bleed out in minutes.”

  The man flexed back, gave Xylvar the hunted look of an animal facing a far more dangerous one.

  “Two Crea. Just came to town, were headed for some clan.”

  “So you tranqed them. With who?” The man shook his head, but Xylvar pressed the blade a little deeper. “Don’t be a hero bleeding to death into the dirt. You’re too puny to take down a Crea, even tranqed ones.”

  “Me an’ Thommo. We uh, wanted the money. We were told it was good money.”

  “Noble. Where are they now?”

  “A house an hour out of town.”

  “The men in the bar, they’re doing collection?”

  “No. Um.” Weedy man scowled. “They know someone who knows someone. Thommo and I are to keep the Crea chained up till we hear from them.”

  “How long?”

  “Few hours, few days, whatever it takes.”

  Xylvar pulled out his Link. “Where?” The man gave an address, and Jasmine walked out from behind the car.

  “What the fuck?”

  As careful as she’d been, it still surprised her Xylvar didn’t see her. “Working alone isn’t safe.”

  He didn’t look at her. “How I work best.”

  Jasmine bared her teeth in a half feral snarl. “Fool. There will be more than a little weedy man behind these crimes. You think you could take on a whole gang of them?”

  Weedy man started to slide back. Jasmine pulled out the stun gun. “Don’t move, jerk.”

  “Once I knew something definite, I would have called backup. My ego isn’t as big as you assume. So, who’s coming?”

  “A Crea female, Cherise, and her two male housemates.” She’d met Cherise before so knew she could be trusted.

  Ten minutes later a vehicle pulled up and three Crea strode over. “Nice catch.” Cherise said, nodding hello to Jasmine. She assessed Xylvar, her tawny, gold-rimmed eyes taking him in. “Cherise. I’m with Katoom’s Crea clan.” Xylvar barely nodded, and Cherise gave him a go fuck yourself grin. She looked at Jasmine. “Tough assignment. What you getting paid?”

  “Holiday in Barbados.”

  “Holy tropical beaches. Kaid paying that?” Jasmine nodded. “Damn, I’m in the wrong clan.” She gave Xylvar another assessment. “Still not sure it’s worth it.”

  “Yeah, Kaid might be picking up my bar tab, too. Probably need some massages tossed in to get over the stress.” They shared a smirk before Cherise looked the weedy man over.

  “That captured two Crea? They older than the sun, or babies?”

  “Tranqed them by the sound of it. And there were more than him.”

  She stared at the guy, then lifted his shirt, revealing a large, taped area now oozing blood. “Oh, what a shame, someone half gutted him. Guess they got him.”

  “I thought the blood I could smell was from his neck.”

  Cherise flexed her nostrils at Jasmine. “Crea sense, better than Eli.”

  “Doubtful.”

  The two Crea males handcuffed weedy guy, and bundled him into the car, driving off.

  “Where they going to take him?”

  “Clan holding cell.” Cherise gave both Jasmine and Xylvar a wink. “The one we don’t have. I’ll follow in a minute.”

  Hands on her hips, Jasmine glared at Xylvar. “I get you’re used to working alone. I get you might need a bit of time away from our fake relationship. What I don’t get is why you choose to be suicidal. Someone should have had your back.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter. I work best alone.”

  “You wouldn’t know. You’ve never tried being part of a team. Now, do we go to this house and find the kidnapped Crea, or is clan heading there?”

  “Clan were organizing two vans when I left home.”

  “Fuck, they could be an hour away. We better head there first.” Xylvar turned to Jasmine. “You have the clan vehicle?”

  “Sure as shit didn’t walk here.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “I guessed.” The lie rolled smooth and soft as cream off her tongue. She shrugged off Xylvar’s dark glower and started for the vehicle. Hopefully she wasn’t demonstrating some of Xylvar’s overconfidence by heading to the house. It could be a trap, and she was the only one who could run.

  #

  Headlights off, Xylvar drove the vehicle slowly over the pot hole riddled gravel drive. A near-full moon cast enough light over the landscape. With the Eli in his blood, his sight was sharper than an average human’s, though no match for a full blood, or even a part-Eli who could shift. He’d never shifted, even in his darkest times, which meant his beast could not rise.

  The map showed the drive was two miles long, and veered sharply to the left just before it came to the house in the clearing.

  Having Jaz along was both boon and bust. A boon, since she could more easily access windows and doors, a bust because he didn’t like her to be at risk and who knew what or who awaited at the cabin. She might be trained, have sass and attitude enough for a legion of soldiers, but she was still Jaz. Still slight of frame and female. Huh, if she knew what he was thinking right now, she’d try and gut him.

  At the sharp bend, he eased to a stop and cut the engine, then dropped the starting disc into the cup holder between the seats. “For ease of escape.”

  Jaz gave him a look that reminded him of predator and slipped out of the car.

  She left her door open, and Xylvar let the hoist extract him. If he was whole, he could keep her safer, or, even better, do the job entirely alone. He took the blaster Jaz held out, checked it was fully charged, and clicked off the safety.

  “I’ll stay on the track, on the far left, to try and use the bushes and rocks for cover. You go through the trees, try and get around the back of the house. Don’t leave cover until I buzz your link.”

  She waved and jogged off into the thick of the tree line, and he switched his chair to auto and eased it forward, the chair hugging the scrub on his left, so his right arm was free to blast or fight.

  The cabin stood in quiet darkness in a sea of foot-high meadow grasses and flowers. A good spot for solitude…or to hold captives and plot monstrous, inhumane acts.

  Hugging the tree line, he headed for the one beaten-up vehicle sitting outside the house. With their car blocking the road, this one wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so he used the side of the car as a shield, flinching when he hit a stick and it cracked. Fuck, he hadn’t seen it under the long grass.

  Loud, excited barking erupted inside the cabin. Xylvar, high speed on, shot forward, blaster aimed at the front door. Off to the top right of the cabin, almost out of his view, Jasmine, bent low, ran for the back of the cabin. A light turned on, then another flooded t
he porch and yard.

  The door flew open. A man in his twenties came out scratching his balls and his bare chest. A dog, then another, shot out onto the patio. Two miniature dachshunds, their lips peeled off their tiny teeth. The man saw Xylvar just as the dogs rushed down the step.

  Xylvar lifted his blaster at the man. The two dogs flew into Xylvar’s feet, savaging the boots and workman’s jeans he’d worn to The Blue Bar.

  “Call off your dogs.” They weren’t hurting him, but he didn’t want to hurt them. Jasmine sprang from the side of the house, her blaster steady in one hand, her stunner in the other.

  “Cute dogs. Call them off.” The guy, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head, looked at his car and then dived backwards and slammed the door shut. His dogs continued savaging on Xylvar’s jeans with noisy growls.

  “Back door,” Xylvar yelled, but Jasmine, her feet pounding over the wood of the patio, was long gone. Xylvar wheeled back, the dogs hanging off his jeans. He spun. The dogs still chewed and viciously shook his pant legs. He moved forward, and, thick hemp denim in their mouths, the dogs looked at each other. He slipped forward a foot more, and they broke away, then followed, barking, while he sped around the back of the house.

  From inside the house came the soft hum of a machine, then the back door flew open and the man, dressed in a thick jacket and a pair of boots to go with his boxers, shot out of the door on a two-wheeler bike. Jasmine fired off the stunner, the laser beam hit the man’s jacket, and he shuddered, but the bike’s propulsion shot him out of reach in a tenth of a second.

  The dogs behind Xylvar barked and growled like Dobermans.

  “Move!” Xylvar yelled at Jasmine, she spun, and he fired his blaster, shooting a smooth, smoking hole into the post holding up the patio roof. The bike hummed as it flew over the long grass. Xylvar aimed for the back tire, but the guy zig-zagged, and the beam hit a rock, exploding it.

  “Shit.” With a ferocious snarl of energy, the bike hit a narrow path in the forest and disappeared. “Fuck me.” Xylar dropped his hand, clicking off the blaster. He looked at the two dogs snarling at him. “Shut-the-fuck-up.” The dogs’ eyes rolled and they went silent.

  “Make a racket for such little guys.”

  “Yeah.” He reached out and gave one a good scratch behind the ears. “Good watchdogs, just can’t do much about what they find.”

  “Let’s find the Crea.”

  Jasmine hurried into the open back door, and Xylvar followed. The two dachshunds, nails clicking on the floorboards, followed them inside, then hurried to a large basket and hopped in. Jasmine came out of one of the end rooms, threw open the door to the other.

  “Unless the Crea are in the bathroom, they’re not here.”

  Xylvar headed for the only other door he could see, and blaster on, and aimed, threw open the door. Inside a tabby cat calmly surveyed him.

  “Hey puss. Clear. Just a cat.” The cat jumped down, walked over and smoothed himself against his boots, them ambled over, arching into Xylvar’s hand. “Savage one, too.”

  Jasmine disappeared into a room. “I think they were here.” Xylvar wheeled his chair down the narrow hall and into the room. Twelve thick metal rings were bolted into the floor, more on the walls and ceiling. Jasmine kicked a blue and black plaid blanket off a large lump on the floor, exposing thick, heavy chain.

  “I think we missed them.” Jasmine bent, grabbed the chain and quickly dropped it again. “That’s heavy stuff. Semi-trucks could tow each other with that lot.”

  “Or hold down two Crea.”

  “I’ll check the cupboard and drawers.” She passed Xylvar a cyberlink, the outer edges worn through the black cold-enamel to the silver metal beneath.

  They searched the whole cabin. The only thing of interest on the cyberlink was a message the man on the bike received about ten minutes before Jasmine and Xylvar arrived. Package received. Payment sent. “I think the Crea were moved earlier this evening. Put into a holding area closer to their contact.”

  Jasmine leaned on a wall. “I need sleep. What do we do now?”

  “Call Katoom clan and Kaid, get someone up here on surveillance. Someone has to show up for the dogs, cat, and car. Weasel guy in the holding cell that doesn’t exist is about to have a very bad night. Let’s go home.”

  Jasmine nodded, then made sure the animals had food and water for a couple of days. She shut the front door after Xylvar rolled out. “What will happen to the pets if the guy doesn’t come back?”

  Xylvar shrugged. “Katoom clan will need to find them homes. I’ll make sure they do.”

  17

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next morning, an overcast, drizzly day, Xylvar followed Jaz as she entered the church. If he wasn’t convinced something funky was going on within the congregation, he wouldn’t be wasting his time. But so far, they had not found one captured Eli or Crea, or found anyone other than a stooge chasing a quick buck. Rate they were going, the entire Crea and Eli population would end up dead or in cells being farmed for their metal-rich blood.

  He tugged at his shirt’s loathsome high Chinese collar, uncomfortable even with two buttons undone. The jacket of the suit didn’t fit him, either, though he knew it cost clan a sizeable pile of red credits. Hard to fit into off the rack anything when you were out of proportion because of muscle use. If he ever got the use of his legs again, it would take a long time to build them up to match, though some of the arm and shoulder muscle would naturally reduce when he wasn’t rolling his weight and the chair’s around.

  The irritating prattle and buzz of the service only added to Xylvar’s sleep-deprived, black mood. His legs started their phantom aching, triggering the sort of sharp pain in the side of his head he always had when his brain said his legs felt anything. Ghost pain. He rubbed at his head and took the hymn book Jasmine handed him. He needed to focus more. Fictitious Todd and Storm were, after all, believers.

  Jaz’s husky voice sang the words he mumbled through. His head was killing him. At the end of the brain-splitting singing, he put the book down and rearranged his legs, using his arms to lift his body to adjust how his lower body sat in the chair.

  Eyebrows pinched together, Jaz looked over at him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You look pale.”

  “I’m fine.” His voice came out a prideful growl. The couple in the pew in front of them turned and gave him a slightly nervous frown. The pain in his head clicked off just as his legs stopped aching. He took a breath, cracked his neck, ignored Jasmine, and sang another droning song.

  This was the second service he’d attended where he noted a group of people forming a loose knot in the main aisle while everyone else either filed out of the church to hurry through the drizzle to their vehicles, or retreated to the alcove at the side of the church.

  Jaz rested her hand on his left shoulder as they headed for coffee, tea and cookies so as to appear friendly.. Xylvar nodded as sweetly as he could as some old broad in an eyesore of floral dress and a brighter smile asked him if he’d like a coffee.

  “Why thank you, that would be great.” As the woman bustled off to get his coffee, Jaz leaned in.

  “Your color is better now, but are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Fine. Was nothing wrong.” He kept his fake Todd smile on high beam while he watched a couple from the group he’d been eyeballing drift slowly toward the pulpit. About eight feet wide and made of laminated wood, it seemed far larger than necessary. But, for all he knew, it could be the normal size. His little dysfunctional family hadn’t been churchgoing types. In all his years until now, he’d only been in a church three times, every time for funerals. The last one, his mother’s.

  To him churches were for sadness, bitterness, and to witness the end of a person’s dreams.

  Like a very large portion of the population, Xylvar had predominantly been raised with no belief system. His paternal father and grandmother, however, maintained their faith in the Eli an
d Crea way of acknowledging the universe and the gifts of the planet they currently called home.

  Xylvar had never found solace in the Eli way or found the God Father Morgan spoke of to be in any way kind, just, or, in Xylvar’s case, merciful.

  As if they knew assessing eyes watched them, the couple near the pulpit shifted, moved toward another couple, and started to talk. The lady with the floral dress came back with a small tray, handed Jaz her tea, then put the ceramic mug into the cup holder slot of Xylvar’s chair. She followed that with a large slice of pie.

  “Huckleberry. I made it myself.” She hurried off to help someone else.

  Jasmine dug into her pie. “Oh, wow. This is good.”

  Xylvar, partial to huckleberry pie, dug in himself, watching another couple of the group he noticed last Sunday join the rest gathered near the pulpit. They pulled up chairs and sat as if waiting for the long haul. And forty minutes later, the last of the cups had been put into the eco-washer, and most people had left to brave the now-pouring rain.

  “Ready?” Jaz asked glancing at the group, now eight in all, who seemed to be waiting for the last soul, including Jaz and Xylvar, to leave.

  “Of course, kitten.” He patted her hand, nodded to the lady in the bright dress and headed for the door. “Pie was amazing. Thank you. We’re going to get drenched.”

  #

  Xylvar finger-combed his wet hair, shrugged off his wet suit jacket, and undid a further three buttons at his throat. “And I thought uniforms were uncomfortable.”

  Jaz laughed, her wet ringlets bouncing, dripping moisture. “No corporate work for you in the future.”

  They gave it a few minutes, the van’s air dryer blasting them with hot air to dry them off. Xylvar engaged the engine, hit auto drive, and pulled out his link.

  Eight remaining inside. Reverend looked ready to leave. Observe leaving time and, if possible, destinations. He turned the screen so Jaz could see the message he’d sent to whoever from clan waited up the road on watch for their messages.