by R. J. Blain
“Not so great,” he said. “Nearly empty.”
The helo grew closer. Dropped low. Eli received another text and the helo moved away. Eli said. “They have our GPS and location and have picked out an LZ. ETA for backup is fifteen minutes, though I got no idea how they’ll get here so fast. Can you hang on?”
“I ‘on’ know,” she mumbled. “’f I die then… no.”
Chapter Eight
Liz
Liz could feel a shock roll through Eli like a wave against the shore. He pulled her closer and wrapped them tighter in the bedroll, his body heat against her spine like a furnace, his chin on her head, so that when he spoke it moved against her hair. Casually, he said, “Alex just texted me some info about the woman who claimed to be Golda. Her name is Connie Carroll and apparently you killed her daughter in high school.”
“Who? I ‘n’ kill an’body.”
“We know. The daughter was a cheerleader and she was out drinking with some friends. Drinking Connie Carroll’s liquor and driving Connie Carroll’s car. There was an accident.”
“I ‘member that.” Liz sat up straighter and managed to get her eyes open.
Eli fished around in a pocket and handed her a mint. “It’ll help to restore the moisture in your mouth.”
She looked up at the hedge and it was pale yellow all over, with a small brown spot where the demon pressed against it. That was bad. Really bad. She looked around and was surprised it was still dark outside. She was so drained, that it felt as if she had been working all night. “How long have we been at this?” she asked.
“Three hours.”
“Oh. Well. I’m not tired at all then.”
Eli laughed silently, his belly moving behind her.
“Okay. Where was I?” Liz asked. “Oh yeah. High school. I spotted a car off the road. It had hit a tree. I called the police. Went to the car. Pulled two passengers out. The driver was already dead.”
“She accused ‘the witch’ of killing her daughter.”
“Yeah. That sucked. Cia had I had to drop out of school for home schooling.”
“She apparently thinks you should have saved her daughter.”
“Her kid’s brains were smashed all over the steering wheel and her body was hanging out the shattered windshield. Witches don’t do miracles.”
“Huh. Connie Carroll fell apart. She’s now alcohol and drug dependent. She lost her job and is about to lose her house And to her, you’re to blame for all life’s misfortunes.”
“Some people are perpetual victims,” Liz said. “My Gramma says that. Nothing is ever their fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. They drink or hit their spouse or show lack of compassion for their fellow man and get called out for it, and it’s never their fault. So…” Liz stopped to breathe. “After all this time CC decided to act on wanting me dead. Boo fucking hoo.”
Eli barked a laugh at her language. “Alex says she’s been working with a male vampire name Mayhew and a witch named Mayhew, who seems to be a descendant of a vampire witch you killed?”
“Oh. That’s not good. Yeah. Cia and I trapped the Mayhew witch-vamp after she got free from a long-chained lair and killed some people.” She held up her arms and indicated the skin there. “That’s where we got tainted by the blood-curse magic.”
“So all the bad guys you left alive got together and ganged up on you.”
“I’m lucky?”
Eli barked a laugh.
“Last time I saw him,” Liz said, “Mayhew was in the custody of some of Lincoln Shaddock’s people.”
“Shaddock’s holding was taken over recently. Maybe he got away then. I don’t remember that from my reports, but that name wasn’t’ on my radar. Could have missed it.”
The demon snarled and pressed in with his splintered bone. The hedge began to fall. “You got any more hymns in you?” she asked, reaching for the silver box. It had energy. Werewolf energy, but… It was better than nothing. She hoped.
Eli stopped her and wrapped her hand in the bedroll. “Hot,” he said.
“Oh. Right.” Her brain wasn’t working well at all. Even through the sleeping bag, she could feel the heat. The silver box was so hot it was glowing a weird grayish orange, like a live coal in an old fire, covered with ash. Eli cleared his voice and crinkled paper as he opened another mint. He started singing Amazing Grace. And this time, now that she was listening, it was heartrending. And… he knew all four verses by heart. As he sang, she removed the wrapping on her fingers and opened the cuts there once more, the pain shivering through her.
Liz looked at the box again. The werewolves were nearly on top of them.
Something roared in the night, directly ahead. Something else answered. A reddish werewolf leaped from the darkness, landing near the firepit. Another werewolf, white with a strange flash of neon green on its back, flew—flew—from their left, through the dark and landed on top of the reddish wolf.
Brute. The wolves and the neon green grindylow rolled across clearing. Fangs and claws, some of them grindylow steel, flashed in the moonlight. Liz glanced up. The waxing gibbous moon was overhead, shining through the trees. Too bad she wasn’t a moon witch.
The demon made a snorting sucking sound, as if someone wearing boots was squelching through mud. It was laughter. Liz raised her eyes to the point of contact between hedge and bone. The demon’s bone-claw had pierced the hedge. In her seeing working, the energies protecting Eli and her separated at the point of penetration. Little frayed threads of her power waved in an unfelt breeze and softly… snapped. They began to fall away.
“Hey demon,” a voice roared. “Suck on this!” A bottle blasted through the trees up the hill and smashed into the mud demon so hard part of the bottle stuck in the mud.
The demon roared in pain and pulled its bone-claw away from the broken hedge.
“Jane,” Eli said in an understated warning.
It didn’t sound like Jane, so that meant she was in an altered form. A frisson of shock shivered through Liz.
“There’s more holy water where that came from!” the voice shouted again, closer now.
A rock rolled down the hill into the small clearing. It was lit with brightness, like a single candle in the dark, lighting the campsite. Liz recognized it but her exhausted brain didn’t process what it meant.
A half-woman, half-mountain lion shape raced into the small clearing, a massive pack on her back. Jane was six feet tall with human-shaped arms and legs, but all knobby bone and taut muscle. The light of the stone revealed her to be covered by a golden pelt. She was cat-faced, with the muzzle and nose and ears of a mountain lion. Fangs of a lion. A horrible visage. She screamed and even the demon jerked and turned to her.
Jane was a shapeshifter. She carried silvered bladed weapons in each hand. Vials of Holy Water and crosses were hanging on her belt and around her neck. And…
Jane wasn’t carrying a backpack. She had hauled Cia on her back, at speed, through the woods and into the clearing.
Fury erupted through Liz. Her sister was in the presence of werewolves, wild, dangerous werewolves. One scratch or bite, and Cia, a moon witch with a blood-curse taint, would surely go furry at the next full moon. Female werewolves were always insane. And Yellowrock had brought her here.
The demon turned to the other blood-cursed Everhart.
The fighting werewolves bowled into the demon. It didn’t even quiver. Five hundred pounds of were-creature and it was as if they had hit a brick wall.
Cia said something into Jane’s ear. Jane leaped high and behind and landed on the other side of the firepit. She set Cia on the earth, and leaped again, grabbing a branch overhead. Swinging high, into a tree, Jane shouted, “Demon. Fight this!” She threw something down from the limb.
The demon howled again. Jane had just dumped a second vial of Holy Water over the demon. Now was their chance.
“Drop the hedge!” Cia shouted.
Liz dropped her broken hedge. Eli leaped out, toward his backpack and
pile of weapons. “Stupid man,” Liz shouted. “It was safe in here.”
Cia leaped into the circle of stone. Her fresh strong moon-magic hedge spread out and enclosed the firepit. Her magic was the color of moonlight, crystal clear and an amazing red, the color of a blood ring around the moon in certain weather conditions. There were tints of moonbows in it too, flashing here and there.
She was breathing hard, her eyes wide. There were leaves and twigs in her pixie cut red hair. And she looked fabulous.
Eli trained his shotgun on the wolf fight. “Not stupid. You two and Jane take care of the demon. I’ll help with the werewolves. You know, since we now have three attacking.” He rushed into the dark.
“Three?” Cia asked, horrified.
The shapeshifter dropped from the limb overhead and danced closer to the demon. Jane was holding two silver-plated vamp-killer blades. There were silver crosses around her neck, hanging from her belt, all glowing bright. Her half-form body was wearing a set of black armor that glowed in a seeing working, proving it had been spelled against magical attacks. She dashed across to the demon. With one vamp-killer, she cut ten inches off one of its limbs.
The demon roared, a sound like a mudslide, rock grinding and groaning. It bent over and picked up its severed part. The muddy dollop was instantly reabsorbed. Jane’s crosses all glowed brighter. Her yellow eyes were glowing. At the sight of Jane fighting a demon, one freed by her family, again, a hazy memory came crystal clear. She had touched the copper ax. She had freed this demon. Fear and shame slithered through Liz, freezing solid between her ribs. This was her fault. Just like her sister, she had freed a demon into the world.
Then she processed what Eli and Cia had said. “Three werewolves are attacking?”
“That’s what our werewolf said.”
Liz tilted her head to her sister. She tried for a snarl and didn’t manage it. What came out was more desultory than angry. “Why did you come here? What are you doing here with a demon and werewolves? Cia…”
Cia activated a third amulet and the noise in the clearing decreased. “You didn’t think I’d notice when a demon touched your blood-curse taint? Ray and I were in the middle of a lovely dinner at Shadows and Lace when my skin flashed sooty. Even Ray could see it.”
She repositioned the dirty and burned bedroll to the side and placed a clean blanket on the ground to keep from damaging her designer jeans and her fancy boots. Liz caught a glimpse of her own sooty clothes and figured that the blanket was a good idea. As the oft-photographed main-squeeze of Ray Conyers, a famous country singer, Cia dressed the part. “No way was I leaving my twin in danger. I tried your cell and it went to voice mail.” While she talked, Cia was laying out her amulets from her hot-pink backpack. “So I called the inn and when they had a useful GPS, we drove up and joined the rescue party.”
In the midst of the calm commentary, the werewolves were howling. The demon, burned with Holy Water, was howling too. It flung seven arms around and stomped its three legs. It was changing shape to adapt to its current needs.
Eli was holding his shotgun, aimed at the wolf fight. Silver shot. The moment he had a clear line of fire, he fired at a gray werewolf, a boom that took all the sound in the clearing away, even with the sound-deadening working going. The werewolf howled. The reddish wolf whirled from Brute and leaped at Eli. Liz closed her eyes. The shotgun boomed. Boomed. Boomed.
Eli
Finally. The Glock and bladed weapons in one hand, he sprang from the firepit. Grabbed his shotgun and the day pack of ammo. Rolled away, into the dark. Shoulder and back absorbing the brunt of the roll, shoving up to his knees. In a single instant, he was on his feet. Checking his weapons and ammo. Trading out the shotgun’s extended mag for one with silver shot fléchette rounds. Taking in the battle. Hands moving on muscle memory in the dark.
Jane had the demon busy. Dancing like a dervish. Cutting off bits and pieces. She yanked a cross off her waist, cut off a demon part, and tossed the cross on the mud pie. The demon howled again. Jane stopped to catch her breath and watched to see if that had worked. The demon bent over the muddy bit.
Brute and the grindylow were in trouble. Three wolves in wolf form were slavering and darting at them. The grindy was a juvenile. One on one, the adorable kitten-sized killer could take on a were. Three on one… Eli wasn’t sure about that. And Brute’s white coat showed dark at his haunches. Blood. He’d been injured.
Eli downed a bottle of water. Moved slowly through the darkness, shadow to shadow. Shotgun at ready. Waiting for a clear line of fire. A silver gray wolf leaped. Fangs exposed, growling. Eli fired. Solid hit, mid chest. Silver shot. The gray wolf stumbled and met Eli’s eyes in the night, the blue like a summer sky. It mewled like a kitten.
The red-coated wolf whirled from Brute at the sound. His reddish eyes locked on Eli. Everything slowed down. The wolf leaped directly at him. Eli adjusted for aim. Calm. Calm. Eyes on the exact spot between the wolf’s front legs, mid-center chest, three inches below the neck. Fired. Fired. Stepped to the side. Adjusted aim again. The gray wolf was no longer on the ground. Spotted it in the dark. Fired once more. The gray wolf dodged. Werewolf fast. Missed.
Eli sidestepped left. The red wolf landed where he’d been standing with a vibration he felt through his boots but couldn’t hear—deaf from the shots fired.
Four rounds. Six left in the extended mag. Wished he had brought more silver fléchette rounds. Decided he needed to save the last ones. Slung the rig over his shoulder out of the way.
Pulled his Glock. Checked on Jane. Still playing with the demon. Crazy woman.
Checked on Lizzie. Her eyes were on him. He grinned at her. Saw her eyes open wide in surprise and something else. Not sure what. That was for later. He circled away from the firepit.
Liz
Her eyes flashed open to see Eli dodging the flying carcass of a very dead wolf. It landed on the ground with a whoomph Liz felt through her butt. Eli aimed at the gray wolf again. Fired. It dodged behind Brute and attacked the big white wolf’s flank. Eli slung the shotgun aside and pulled his handgun. His eyes landed on hers. He grinned. Like a maniac. As if he was… having fun. Idiot man circled away from the firepit. Liz blinked. Stared. Tried to figure out what had just happened. Her gaze moved from Eli to the fighting werewolves and the killer grindy, to Jane and the demon. Exhaustion weighed her down. She tried to get a deep enough breath. Tried to think what to do next.
“Liz?”
Liz looked away from the warrior to see her sister, concern in her eyes. “Cia? When did we get two more attacking weres?” Liz asked.
Cia thumbed on a glow stone. Reached over and lifted Liz’s arms, exposing that they were bandaged and bloody, with crusty red and fresh wet scarlet. Cia shifted her gaze around the rock circle. The stones were bloody too. Liz hadn’t realized how much blood she had given. It looked like a battleground. Which it was.
“Well that’s one way to keep a circle going,” Cia said. “You want to explain?”
Outside the circle, Yellowrock cut off another demon limb and tossed a cross on it. The demon sucked up the mud, leaving the cross. It took longer than the un-crossed reabsorption. It was like watching animated Play-Doh. In a mad dash, Jane swept up the silver cross on the ground, cut off another demon limb, and tossed the cross on top. Like a game of tag the demon. Yellowrock made a sound like a cat: coughing/hissing/growling. It might have been laughter. She and Eli were having fun.
“Liz?”
“There’s a leyline beneath a pool up that way.” She lifted a single finger to point in the general direction of the pool and the cave. “The demon was contained in a cave behind a small waterfall. I accidently set it free.” The memory came back to her again, the memory of touching the ax head. Or her foot touching the mud puddle. Maybe both. She had been so stupid. And now she was so tired. “I got back here and opened a hedge to protect us, but I didn’t have enough power in the battery stone.” She stared around the campground, confusion pulling at her.
“To power it, I tried to reach through the rocks to the leyline but…”
“But you ran out of blood?” Cia sounded mad. She passed Liz a bottle of water. “Drink, you brave, idiot woman.”
The demon crashed into the hedge of thorns. But with the moon overhead, even with singed tree cover, Cia was mega powerful.
Liz drank half the water. It was wonderful. “I couldn’t get through to the line. There was a thick layer of clay and… I couldn’t get through it. I could only go six inches between rocks.”
“Why only six inches? That doesn’t make sense. You’ve gone further through dirt before. Oh. Wait. Whoever bound the demon tied the bindings into the line. Maybe a form of a hedge in the ground and it bound with the clay. Got it. Except—” Cia stopped, her expression thoughtful and faintly puzzled. “How did the demon get free? And in that form?”
Outside the hedge of thorns, Jane whirled away, backhanding a cut. It swiped through the demon’s mud body, slowing as the blade met bones and whatever else the demon had incorporated to create its shape. The vamp-killer hung there. Jane had put her entire body weight into the strike. The blade was wrenched out of her hand. She was in midair, spinning.
The mud demon reared and struck her in the head. Jane went down. Mud crawled all over her face and covered her nose and mouth. Jane squeaked. Began fighting at the mud, tearing at it with her knobby fingers. Unable to breathe. Fighting to get her airways clear. Watching Jane fight, her mind began to clear.
The demon turned away from Jane, to the hedge again.
Jane’s hands stopped peeling away the mud, searching on her belt.
Liz’s memories were fuzzy, like an out of focus camera vision, part memory, part sensation. Mud. Unable to breathe. “Drink,” Cia demanded.
Liz finished the bottle and wished for more. Her sister slapped a full bottle into her hand. Twin-bond. Mind-reader. “There was a mud puddle and a skeleton in the cave,” Liz said as she twisted open the bottle. “It used that. And it wants to possess a witch body. I don’t know how to send back a demon who already has a makeshift body.”