Dirty Deeds

by R. J. Blain

  It wasn’t a hard climb, but Liz was huffing by the time she got to the house. It was early fall and the humidity, even in the hills above Asheville, was in at eighty percent with temps near ninety. And while Liz’s lungs were better, thanks to witch healing, they were permanently damaged from the trauma that resulted when her now-deceased elder sister Evangelina dropped a boulder on her in a magical fight over a demon. She had nearly died. Her other sisters had saved her from instant death. Yellowrock had made sure she had vamp blood to sip to speed the healing. But even with continued healing blood and healing workings, along with her niece’s prayers, trauma was trauma.

  Then the virus struck. Pneumonia had sucked. There were days when Liz still fought her way through every exertion, breath by breath. Which is why she needed a partner to locate and retrieve the lost dog. Standing on the front porch, she pulled her red hair up in a tail and secured it off her neck with an elastic hair tie before going inside.

  When the door closed behind her, Liz stood and just breathed the cool AC air for a while, letting her sweat evaporate, listening to the placement of voices, the various positioning of people. No vamps, thanks to the daylight, but George Dumas was talking to Big Evan, Molly’s husband, in the kitchen ahead and to the right. Her niece and nephew, Angie and EJ, were playing a game somewhere, one that involved a lot of stomping, thumping, shouting, and screaming a single word over and over. A werewolf—one stuck in wolf form, which had always been unnerving—was panting from her left. Keys were clacking from the office area where Alex, Eli’s brother, was working. Music came from upstairs. Jane had been dancing a lot lately, working on moves and trying to get control of some facet of her magic.

  Two particularly loud screams pierced the air. She heard Eli’s soft voice say, “Good. Excellent foot placement, EJ. Great arm position, Angie. Again.”

  More dual screams pierced the air. The kids weren’t playing a game. They were taking a lesson in self-defense.

  Liz didn’t get teary often. But, knowing that Eli—big bad Army Ranger warrior injured in one of the Middle East wars, tough as nails, emotional as a stone—was teaching her niece and nephew some form of martial arts, did the trick. Both kids had been through a lot. And Eli. Damn. Eli was just about as perfect a human being as she knew. She wanted to be part of his life and he’d drawn away because she might be weak? That made sense. He probably didn’t want or need anyone else to care about, plan for, or to worry about right now. But his eyes, those dark eyes, they still followed her when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  Blinking away the stupid tears, Liz wandered closer to the workout room where the screams were ear piercing. Something like, “Hah! Hah!” For the one martial art she was familiar with, practitioners often shouted “Kia. Kia!” But she knew that Eli practiced a military form of MMA—mixed martial arts—a combo of forms, so maybe that was the difference.

  Besides being Jane Yellowrock’s adopted brother, Eli was her second in command in charge of mundane munitions and tactics, defensive measures, all that fighting stuff, because of the vamp war. The Everharts were part of that war, having been attacked and having homes burned.

  His back was turned when she leaned against the wide-cased opening to the workout area. He was demonstrating a move that might be useful if an attacker or kidnapper tried to come at them. They knew from personal experience that they could be picked up and tossed around like sacks of potatoes but combined with the magic they were technically too young to have—according to all the witch-lore Liz knew—knowing this stuff could make them safer. One more weapon in their arsenal. And they looked adorable in their little white workout suits.

  She crossed her arms to indicate she was no threat. When Eli turned around, he didn’t flinch or jerk, but his eyes landed on her instantly. A bare half-second of recognition and evaluation before moving on. He finished the form with the kids, walked them through a series of stretches and breathing techniques for a few minutes, and said, “Okay. Y’all go take off your doboks and put on your play clothes. Your Aunt Lizzie wants to talk.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. No one called her Lizzie.

  The kids bowed ceremoniously, said together, “Thank you, Captain America!” They whirled to see her in the doorway and rushed at her squealing. They threw their arms around her. Together they shouted, “Hey, Ant Lizzie!”

  She frowned at him and tousled their red hair. They released her and sped away, bare feet pounding. “Lizzie?” She hated that name.

  A minuscule smile touched his mouth as he started across the floor space toward her. “Lizzie. It fits you.”

  “Uh huh. Like Captain America, Marvel superhero fits you. Wanna go camping?”

  Eli stopped.

  Oh. There it was. That spark of interest in his eyes.

  “I could do some camping,” he said cautiously.

  “Not just to relax,” Liz said. “Maybe a hard hike too. I have a job. Tracking down a missing dog.”

  “You’re asking me to work with you.” And there it was, gone again. Shoot. She should have asked just for camping.

  “I’m asking you to accompany me on a hike into the gorgeous mountains between Morton Overlook and Morton Tunnel, and down toward the gorge if necessary, to the Appalachian trail.” I had just described some of the most rugged, unmarked hiking areas off US Route 441. Eli did not look impressed. That expression probably scared off most women. Liz wasn’t most women. Liz was a stone witch, of the Everhart witch family. She stared at him. Waiting.

  “Just the two of us,” he said

  “Yes. To find the missing dog of a friend of a friend. It ran off after a car accident, but it has a magical tracking working on its collar. I’m expected to pick up the tracking fob at the hospital before we leave. The dog may still be near the accident site. Or it may have run off and be farther down the gorge. And it may be injured, in which case we’d have to carry it out.”

  “Overnight.”

  Something warm and heated flushed through her. “Like I said, we might get lucky,” she paused deliberately, “and find Rover on the side of the road, waiting for us. Or we might have to walk down and get a ride at the bottom. I’ll split my fee with you.”

  That faint almost-but-not-quite smile reappeared. “Rover?”

  She smiled back. “I didn’t name him. I’m far more clever and imaginative than that.” Yeah. Mull that one over, Captain America.

  “When do we leave?”

  “I don’t have my sleeping bag here. It’s back at my house.”

  “I have enough gear for both of us.”

  Liz didn’t know if that was a double entendre or not, but she could hope. “Food?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said. “I can be ready in twenty. You got hiking shoes?”

  “In the car,” she said.

  “Meet you out front.”

  Eli moved away. She’d never been able to describe his walk. It wasn’t a saunter. It wasn’t pretty like a glide. It was economical and efficient with a sense of purpose. She shook herself awake from the image of his butt walking away from her naked and left the house to check in with Molly, who was finished with the land-working gig. Her sis was breathing hard and a little milk had leaked around the nursing cups and through her nursing bra.

  “Thanks for the gig,” Liz called, waiting beside her Subaru.

  “God, I hate this heat. It’s September, not the middle of freaking summer,” Molly griped. “You got a job? What job?”

  “I just got a job from a member of the Ainsworth witch clan. Woman named Golda Ainsworth Holcomb. She used your name.”

  Molly shrugged and trudged on to the porch where she dropped to the steps in the shade and fanned herself. Her red curls waved in the hand-breeze. She leaned against a massive stone column and said, “Everyone wants an Everhart these days. But son of a witch on a switch,” she swore, witch-style, “I’m getting too old for this.”

  “Dumas is paying you a fortune. You’d have taken this gig if you had to push yours
elf around with a walker.”

  “True. And with the house nearly finished, I need extra money to complete the furnishings. Top of the line all the way.” In a part of the ongoing para war, Molly’s house had been the target of arson, a magical firebombing, and had burned to the ground, even with the hedge of thorns ward protecting it. Since Yellowrock’s enemies had done the firebombing, Molly and her family were rebuilding and staying at the inn free of charge until they could go to their new home. “What kind of gig?” Moll asked, closing her eyes and fanning herself.

  Liz said, “Looking for a lost dog.” Casually, she added, “Eli and I are going together. It…” she paused deliberately, “may take until tomorrow so if I’m not back tonight don’t get worried.”

  Molly smiled. “Finally got him to agree to another date, did you?”

  “A job. We’ll see if it turns into a date.”

  Her sister’s smiled widened. “Hmmm. Have fun.” There was a lot of emphasis on the word fun. “I’m going to shower and feed Cassy. Later, sis.” Molly grunted to her feet and went inside, closing the enormous carved door.

  Liz walked down the steps to her vehicle and put on her hiking shoes. When Eli appeared, he tossed a lightweight titanium framed backpack into the open Subaru hatch. There were two sleeping bags in vacuum-sealed plastic strapped to the top, and when she looked inside, she counted twelve dehydrated meals, three packets of salmon, several bags of nuts, a tiny French press, a bag of coffee, and a lightweight, deep-sided fry pan. She transferred her essentials from her overnight bag to a zippered travel bag and tucked the bag into a roomy pocket of the backpack. She added a pair of birdwatching binoculars, a lighter and a bag of corn chips for starting a fire, and her battery stone, which held a magical charge to fill her other amulets if necessary. She slung it on and adjusted the straps. She could manage this, even wearing and carrying all the amulets and the battery, which added eight pounds to her overall load.

  She looked Eli over. He was carrying a much larger backpack by the straps, and his appeared full. And strapped with tools. And heavy. “You’re carrying the water,” she guessed. And then she saw the weapons. He had a shotgun in some kind of sling, a semiautomatic handgun in a thigh rig on his right, a silver-plated vamp-killer sheathed on his left, and a machete attached to the backpack. And there was a hunting knife peeking out of a sheath on his belt.

  “Going bear hunting, Captain America?”

  “Protection from possible werewolves.”

  “There haven’t been any seen around here in months.”

  His expression didn’t change. His body position didn’t change.

  Liz tilted her head and raised her brows in an expression that said, whatever, and shrugged out of the backpack, now carrying it with both straps slung over one shoulder. “My car or yours?”

  “Mine.”

  She grabbed her walking stick, a fifty-five-inch-tall, hand-carved stick she’d used for years.

  “No weapons?” he asked.

  Liz touched her necklace. It was forty-two inches of large polished nuggets, several carved rock beads, three silver amulets, and her grandmother’s wedding ring. The metals had been charged by a metal witch. Each stone and amulet contained a different working. The necklace was heavy, but it was her best defense, especially when used in conjunction with the big-mama power sink, fist-sized hunk of granite she’d added to her travel bag essentials. She could use it to draw raw power straight from any partially buried boulder she could find. She slid the nuggets between her fingers and made sure the clasp was tightly closed. When she released that catch, it allowed all the stones to slide free, to be put together in a different configuration, or for independent magical purposes.

  Eli snorted delicately. It wasn’t quite derision, but he clearly wasn’t impressed.

  “Uh huh,” Liz said, amused at the goading. “We’ll see.”

  Eli

  Lizzie was cute, touching her necklace, challenging him. He had never cared a thing for red-heads, until Sylvia, and he’d thought Syl was a one-off. He didn’t really want another one in his life. And if she hadn’t nearly died in the hospital recently, he’d still be interested. Still was interested. But he knew his lifestyle. He couldn’t put anyone else in jeopardy again. It was bad enough that Alex was always in danger, but he was teaching his younger brother how to shoot, how to take a fall and come back fighting. The kid was putting on muscle and he had the hand-eye coordination of a natural shooter. Jane was fighting all comers, dancing, and in the best shape in ages. The kids were coming along.

  Liz was … Liz had nearly died. She might never be able to take care of herself, certainly not in a fight. He’d seen too many abused women in the war. He couldn’t stand to see such a thing again, especially not to Lizzie. Never to Lizzie.

  Yet, here she was, planning to go off into the mountains alone. He couldn’t let her do something stupid like that. Maybe she could handle a hike and a lost dog fine. And maybe she she’d fall off a cliff or get bitten by a rogue werewolf—not that there had been reports, but still, it could happen—or turned by a rogue vamp, and he’d hate himself for not going along to keep her safe. Images of her in danger flitted through his mind. Son of a bitch.

  He stowed their gear in the back hatch of the SUV, locking the weapons in the gun safe that was bolted into the floor and stowing their equipment in the new, mesh partitions. He opened his door, got in, strapped in, and saw from the corner of his eye that Liz did the same.

  The vehicle had been in the sun all day and it was stuffy hot. He pressed the start button, adjusted the necessary temps and mirrors, and lowered the windows so the AC could blow the hot air out. He liked the way Lizzie smelled. Like vanilla and stone.

  He backed out, reminding himself that the next step in security measures involved building a garage for the armored vehicles Jane traveled in. His POV—personally owned vehicle—didn’t fall into that category. He wanted it out where it was ready to go at any moment.

  Vanilla and stone.

  He raised the windows and shut that thought off.

  “We need to stop at Mission Hospital on Biltmore Avenue to pick up the locator fob,” she said. “Golda is meeting me in the lobby.”

  “Roger that.” He tapped a button the steering wheel and gave a voice command. “Call Chewy’s cell.”

  “S’up, Hoss?” Chewy answered.

  “One passenger and I need a ride from the Mingo Falls campground to a vehicle accident site between Morton Overlook and the tunnel. Then provide vehicle cover while we hunt for a lost dog. If dog isn’t found onsite, we’ll need pickup at a GPS to be determined later.”

  “ETA to Mingo?”

  “Sixty mikes.”

  “Roger, out.” The call ended.

  Liz asked, “Just like that?”

  He raised his brows and looked the question at her.

  “You called a guy and he shows up? No questions? No story? No convincing? And why the campground at Mingo? And what’s a mike?”

  “Yes to the first question. No to the next three, and a mike is minute.” He glanced at her. “Military jargon. If Chewy hadn’t been available, I had a Plan B.” Plans B through G, not that he needed to say that. Always having a plan had kept him alive too many times to ditch that way of life now. “If we leave a car on the side of the road overnight, it’ll be stripped or impounded by morning. So we have a ride from Mingo to the accident site and a pickup near any GPS I name. Chewy knows the trails like the back of his hand and has any wheeled equipment we need for an exfil.” He’d also arranged to have the helo on standby if they needed emergency evac and had left orders with Alex on which wildlife and game and rescue groups to notify should there be complications. Plans A through G with options and alternatives.

  “Oh. Right.” She tugged on her ponytail, scowling.

  He could tell she hadn’t thought that part through. He resisted a smile. Cute.

  Vanilla and stone.

  He was well and truly screwed.

  Ch
apter Two

  Liz

  They stopped at Mission Hospital on Biltmore Avenue and Eli let her out to circle the block while she talked to the client. Liz texted Golda that she was out front and a woman sitting in a wheelchair inside waved her in. Liz went through the standard protocol for entering a hospital, put on her mask, and walked toward Golda, who was sitting in a wheelchair in the waiting room. She passed two other patients, both wearing white hospital bands, and both being wheeled outside to waiting cars. Golda must be waiting on her ride.

  The witch was wearing a mask and had a leg up, the lower leg wrapped thickly in wide Ace bandages and purple sticky wrap. Her arm was in a sling and there was dried blood matted in her hair. It was an odd color for dried blood, but the yellow-brown stains around it said a wound had been cleaned with that nasty Betadine stuff. It had clearly colored her hair and the blood. Oddly, she smelled sweet, not the sickly scent of bruised and damaged flesh.

  “I’m Liz Everhart.”

  “I know.” Golda handed her a little silver box. Golda wasn’t much for chit-chat. She launched into instructions. “Inside there’s a quartz crystal about three inches long on a spilt-ring. It has a limited range of within three miles and only has enough power to last twenty-four hours once you open the box. Don’t open the box until you get to the accident site. He’s a seventy-pound rescue and looks like a German Shepard-chocolate lab mix. He’ll come to anyone who calls him. Please find Rover.” She put her head down and sniffled. “I miss him. And I’m so worried he’s hurt.”

  Liz shoved the rectangular box into her front pocket. “And when I find him? If he’s hurt, what vet do I take him to? And do you want him boarded?”