He drove another twenty minutes up the road as the houses became more sparse, to be replaced with numerous lodges and cabin rentals. Finally the GPS announced that they were arriving at their destination and he pulled off the road into the parking lot and parked in front of the main office.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to stay at the same place?” Aviira asked. “Would Dannels recognize you?”
Jirel shrugged. “To be honest I’m more concerned about the girlfriend than Dannels.”
“Well, yeah, me too,” Aviira said as she opened the car door. Even in the late afternoon it was considerably cooler than she had grown to expect in the city, and despite herself, there was a peaceful quiet about the air that put her at ease. The air felt cleaner, calmer. “But we have no idea what kind of situation we’re going to find when we do see him, so…”
“I’m sure we can handle it.”
She followed Jirel into the main office. It was made to look like the interior of a log cabin straight out of the homesteading days, complete with touches like chandeliers fashioned out of antlers and a bearskin rug in front of the massive fireplace on the other side of the room.
There was another couple making a reservation at the front desk, so Jirel and Aviira stood back a few feet in silence until they had finished their business. Jirel offered a warm smile to them as they passed back in the other direction; they had the exuberant yet exhausted look of newlyweds.
“Afternoon,” he said as he stepped up to the counter. Aviira was still lingering a few feet away, taking note of just about every detail about the room as she could, including paging through the guest book on the table in front of the fireplace. “Do you still have rentals available for the weekend?”
The woman at the counter smiled and turned to her computer. “I have a few left,” she said. “I have a one-bedroom available, the Lodge Pole Cabin…it’s usually a couple’s favorite, right by the river.”
“It’ll have to be a two-bedroom,” Aviira said absently. Jirel glanced back at her; he did not even realize she was paying attention. She wasn’t even looking in their direction.
He cleared his throat and glanced back at the receptionist with a hesitant smile. “More of a business trip,” he said. “Do you have any with two rooms?”
The woman clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth a few times. “I have one that has a pull-out couch in the living room,” she said in an apologetic tone.
Jirel glanced back at Aviira. She still didn’t look at him when she said, “That’s fine.”
“That’s fine,” he relayed back.
The woman smiled and started the reservation. Ten minutes later they were back in the car driving up the dirt path in the direction of the cabin they had rented. Daylight was beginning to filter in through the dense pine as it dipped lower and lower into the west, and it gave the impression of being later in the day than it actually was. The cabin itself was a charming little thing set back against a copse of pine and brush, relatively well isolated from any of the other cabins.
The place opened up into a large kitchen with an adjoining bathroom then led into a living room that faced the river, rushing by with a comforting, steady white noise. Past the living room was the only bedroom. On the table in the kitchen was a pile of pamphlets, mostly attractions and shops one could visit, several others for restaurants that delivered, and there was one that headlined the risks of leaving garbage outside for active, hungry bears.
“I don’t think we’re in Denver anymore,” Jirel murmured as he slid the notice about the bears toward Aviira. She glanced it over and made a face.
“Great.”
He smiled a little.
“Right,” Aviira said as she picked up her bag and carried it into the living room, where she dropped it on the couch. “Canvas the love nest in the morning?”
He checked his watch. It was a little late in the day to be making a house call. “Sure. And till then?”
Aviira was standing by the back screen door, staring out at the river. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know about you, but I could sure use a drink.”
July 19th – Sunday
***
Jirel woke from the thick webs of a nightmare smelling sulfur and hearing screams. He sat up, shaking the disturbing images from his head, blinked in the darkness and took a moment to remember where he was. And then realized that the screaming wasn’t coming from his nightmare.
He jumped up and ran to the other room, where Aviira was thrashing in her blanket, fighting her way out of the nightmare with little success. Jirel turned on a light and came around the couch, leaned over it and tried to shake her awake as gently as possible.
“Aviira.”
When she did not respond, he took her hand in his and called her name again. She came to with a shuddering breath, yanked her hand out of his and still half-asleep tried to take a wild swing at him. He leaned back, dropping her arm and putting his hands up. Even sluggish with sleep she’d nearly clocked him aside the head. Her motion carried so much momentum that she fell off the couch and landed on her hands and knees. The fall seemed to finally jar her awake.
Jirel stood back hesitantly, not sure it was a good idea to touch her again. “You okay?”
She looked up at him, took a second to bring in her surroundings. He recognized the mental check-in as the same he’d just done moments earlier. He could see her slowly trying to put two and two together.
“Did I hit you?”
“You tried.”
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. She sniffed and ran the back of her hand across her mouth. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. His accent was thick with sleep and the lingering remnants of his nightmare. He backed off to give her some space and wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water.
When he came back, carrying one for her, she had opened the screen door and was sitting on the edge of the couch. If he hadn’t known better he would have pegged her posture for the morning after a terrible hangover. She looked up when he set down the water on the coffee table, recognized the pale clamminess to his face.
“Got you again too?”
He nodded and walked to the screen door for some air. The river was loud and calming at once.
“I’m really sorry,” Aviira said again.
“I said don’t worry about it,” Jirel said softly, hugging his arms while he stared out the back door. “I should have known better than to get into the personal bubble of someone with reflexes like yours. I probably would have done the same thing.”
Aviira wasn’t so sure. She stared at the floor, trying to will away the memory of when she’d been thrown to the floor violently at sixteen years old, broken her hand in three places and dislocated her shoulder, the scenario that had jumped to the forefront of her mind when Jirel had innocently taken her hand. The hand that had been broken was throbbing with phantom pain. She knew it was the nightmare, the sleeplessness, but she could have sworn she was back in that garage again.
It had been a long time since her mind had taken her there. She preferred the walking corpses of her other dream.
She sighed and flexed the fingers of her hand for a moment. The air was shaky coming out of her lungs.
“What did we get ourselves into here?”
Jirel shook his head. “Not sure, but I hope we find some answers tomorrow. Not sure I can take much more of this.”
***
Morning light crested the side of the cabin and beamed in the window directly into Jirel’s face. He squinted and turned his head away from the light, and gravity nearly pulled him off the armchair from his haphazard position. He jumped into alertness.
The room was empty and still, but the sound of the river and morning birds were so loud he was almost surprised that it hadn’t woken him already. He’d fallen asleep sitting up, tucked into the corner of the armchair.
He got up and stepped onto the patio where the morning air was cool and soft, refreshing. It
was chill enough in the shade that he almost wished he’d brought a jacket. Aviira was seated at a metal patio table and she was aiming her impressive camera at something in a tree across the river, a cup of coffee next to her. Her hair was loose and tumbling down her back, so long she was nearly sitting on it. It was the first time he’d seen it not tucked up in a bun or twisted into a braid. For some reason, it surprised him. He had a quick vision of tucking his face into it, pressing his lips to her ear, and frantically threw that thought away, a little alarmed that it had come to mind at all. He approached quietly and waited for her to make her shot before interrupting.
“Morning.”
She turned her head. She looked tired. “Hey. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No.” He nodded at her camera. “Get anything good?”
She pointed across the water. “Take a look at that.”
He followed her finger and realized she was looking at a massive bull elk that was grazing in the long grass by the water. The impressive animal had a seven-point rack and seemed completely oblivious to their presence. One couldn’t help but stare.
“Thing was just lying here in the grass when I came out,” Aviira said, raising her camera again. “It was still a little dark and I nearly walked into the fucking thing. They must be used to people.”
“Guess so. You ever get back to sleep?”
She gave an indecisive shrug. “Not really. Too quiet out here. I’m a city girl.”
Jirel crossed his arms and watched the elk move through the brush quietly for a few seconds before letting his gaze drift to Aviira. He couldn’t help but stare at her for a few moments. While she took pictures of the animal across the river, he took a good long look at her tattoos, which fascinated him for some reason. The longer he looked, the more he found himself wondering where else they went on the skin that was hidden by her shirt. Again startled by the thought, he blinked heavily and shook his head.
“So I was thinking,” Aviira said, breaking Jirel’s concentration.
“That explains the smoke.”
She shot him a borderline-dangerous look that for some reason made his stomach tighten. He lifted his chin, hoped his face didn’t give him up. “You were saying.”
“What exactly do we do here?”
He stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean do we just walk up to Aiden Dannels’ cabin and ask him if his girlfriend is a witch? This could be pretty dangerous if she’s as powerful as Moira seemed to think she might be.”
Jirel smiled after a second.
“What?”
“Not every situation has to be a full charge,” he said, still smiling. “I’m sure we can get him away from her, assuming she’s even there at all, and coax some information out of him.”
“You think you can do that?”
“I do know him a little, that’ll probably help.” After a brief pause, he smiled again and said, “I can see why you were so close to being fired.”
She gave a pseudo-offended expression. “Why’s that?”
“Because you make things more difficult than they need to be.”
She scoffed, but he sensed some amusement behind the façade. “I just dislike wasting time is all.” She took a drink of her coffee and held up a finger. “Plus, not sure if you’ve noticed yet, but nobody seems to really take a redhead seriously unless she’s pissed off.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Jirel said quietly.
“I nearly took you out while I was half-asleep,” she reminded him. “You probably don’t want to find out how hard I can hit you while I’m awake.”
He laughed. For some reason he could picture exactly that, and it hurt just thinking about it.
***
As they walked up the dirt road that led from their cabin to the one supposedly occupied by Dannels and his mistress, Jirel watched Aviira as she adjusted the roll of her sleeves and tucked them in at the elbow. The morning had warmed into the mid-seventies and with the breeze felt far more pleasant than the weather had been in Denver lately.
“Can I ask about the sleeves?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“The sleeves. You always wear sleeves when you’re working. Even when it’s hot. Put your hair up.” He smiled a little. “Clean up, basically.”
Aviira shrugged. “Maybe I prefer to look like a professional.”
He put his hands in his pockets. “Just curious. Most people who spend as much time getting tattoos as nice as yours want to show them off.”
She couldn’t tell if he was trying to give her an underhanded compliment or passively hit on her. For some reason it didn’t bother her as much as she expected it to.
“Remember what I said about people not taking me seriously?”
“Ah.”
“So where’d you meet this Dannels guy again?”
Jirel glanced sidelong at her. “Ah, some Alliance…function, I guess. I was a pretty novice agent and Ullemaster wanted me to make some connections.” He shook his head. “Aiden was giving some sort of talk, I can’t even remember what it was now. We met afterward and have managed to bump into each other a handful of times since then. But it’s not as if we’re friends or anything.”
“Nice of Ullemaster to want you to get some connections,” she said.
Jirel cleared his throat. “He’s always looked out for me, I guess.”
“How’d you go about meeting him? I’ve always been curious.”
“He and my father were close,” he said. “I’ve known him almost my entire life. After my parents died he kind of, ah…yeah. Helped me figure some things out, sent me in the direction of the Society. That sort of thing. That’s why people assume that I can get away with murder.”
Aviira felt a little remorseful at having once assumed that Jirel was Ullemaster’s golden boy.
“What was the name of the cabin?” Jirel asked.
“Spruce, wasn’t it? Some kind of tree.”
Jirel pointed. “Should be that one, I think.”
Aviira glanced around the property as they walked closer. There were no cars in the little drive on the backside of the cabin, but there were tire tracks that backed out of the drive and onto the dirt road. They approached and Jirel knocked on the door behind the screen.
Aviira looked around while they waited for someone to come to the door. There was an eerie feeling that had crept into the morning air.
“Quiet,” she said.
“You’re just used to the city.”
“No, I mean…really quiet. I don’t hear anything, do you?”
He furrowed his brow for a moment and then looked around. There was no birdsong, no sound of the river they had just walked past. It was too quiet even for a quiet place.
Aviira put a hand on her pistol. “I’m doing a walk-around.”
Jirel rapped on the door again, a little harder. “Aiden, it’s the Society,” he said loudly. “Open up.” When there was no response, he hurried off the porch to follow Aviira around the cabin.
She was peering into the window that looked in on the main room. “Someone’s definitely here,” she said. The room was looking well-lived in; it seemed like someone had rearranged some of the furniture to make a temporary office inside.
“Maybe they went out for breakfast or something,” Jirel said.
Aviira wasn’t feeling it. Something was a little too off, that intuitive sensor at the back of her brain was pointing in a different direction “Maybe.”
“Why do we seem to be making a habit of breaking into people’s houses?”
“I didn’t break into that cop’s house, to be fair,” she said. She walked around the other side of the cabin and stepped up onto a well-placed boulder to get a better peek into the high window that looked into the bedroom.
Jirel saw her whole body go stiff as she looked in.
“Body,” she said suddenly, her voice a strange, hollow tone. “Body, there’s a body in there.”
“What?”
She jumpe
d from the rock and grabbed his arm, pushed him back to the front, muttering a harried “gogogo” as she did.
Without waiting for another response, Jirel put his shoulder into the front door and it burst open. Aviira ran inside without waiting for him, which made him cringe as he thought of someone waiting on the other side of the door with a gun. He covered her with his gun as he ran in behind her. It was a pointless endeavor anyway; the rooms were all empty.
When Aviira burst into the back bedroom, all she saw was blood. Under that blood, sprawled on the bed, was a woman.
“Jesus.”
She slid her gun into its holster and crossed the room quickly. Jirel appeared in the doorway behind her and could suddenly go no further. Aviira leaned over the bed and touched the woman’s face. She was still alive, but only just. Her deep brown eyes flickered upward and her chest caved in a weak cough. She had been slashed at multiple times on her chest and neck.
“It’s okay,” Aviira said, taking the woman’s chin gently to help her look up at her. The woman stared up at her, terror laced through her face. Under all the blood she could tell that she was a pretty woman, young too—probably younger than she was. She had long, thick blonde hair that was caked in blood. Aviira never broke eye contact with her and, despite the fact that she knew there was no way this woman could be saved, she said, “You’re going to be okay.”
The woman coughed again and Aviira heard a thin rattle of air slide into punctured lungs. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
The woman’s head moved a little and a clicking sound came out of her mouth, but no sound moved past the gashes in her throat. Her eyes flicked forcefully to Aviira’s right. Aviira looked, but there was nothing but the woman’s outstretched hand. Helpless, she reached for it and squeezed it. The woman’s eyes traveled back up to Aviira’s face.
Aviira wanted to tell her she was sorry there was nothing she could do, but instead she held her hand and kept her gaze while she died.
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