A Shot in the Dark

by K. A. Stewart

  I crossed the threshold and almost tripped over my own two feet in surprise. Tiny prickles rose up on my skin as I passed through the doorway, the hairs on my arms standing at attention. I waved my hand back and forth through the open space once or twice, feeling a distinct barrier glide up and down my arm. I recognized that sensation; I felt it every day when I went in and out of my own house. It was the feeling of magical wards, a protective spell set up to keep the bad things out and the good things safe.

  Trying to be casual, I bent down to tie my boot and rubbed a finger across the floor. It felt faintly gritty. Salt, maybe? Mira used salt sometimes. Or it could have been just plain old street dirt. Only one way to be sure, and in this neighborhood, there was no way I was gonna taste it. It could just as easily be meth or rat poison, too.

  If Cameron noticed my sudden distraction, he didn’t say, only gathering up his stuff with quiet efficiency. “How long a drive is it going to be?”

  “Um . . . normally, about ten hours. But Marty had to bring his dog, so I imagine we’ll be stopping more often.”

  There was no way to tell who set those wards. They could have been left by the previous owner, for all I knew. Once you knew what to look for, it’s actually amazing how many people manifest some basic magical ability without truly realizing it. And Mira had said that thresholds were the easiest things in the world to ward. Granted, without someone to keep them up, they’d fade away eventually, but if the previous owner hadn’t been gone very long . . . maybe . . .

  Still, maybe I needed to pay more attention to my new “friend.” I stood up and turned a critical eye on the man, and his apartment.

  Cameron himself looked obsessively neat. His dark hair was gelled into very fashionable (I’m sure) spikes. He had on jeans that were obviously brand-new, and a pair of hiking boots that probably just came straight out of the box. That was going to cost him some blisters on this hike. His shirt was still a button-up, but in plaid this time. Next to my I LIKE YOU, I’LL KILL YOU LAST T-shirt, he looked positively refined.

  Aside from him, there wasn’t much to see. The apartment was largely empty, even for a bachelor’s pad. The carpet was typical renter brown, worn and matted from years of foot traffic. The linoleum at the front door was some generic shade of hide-the-dirt.

  There was a lawn chair in what passed for the living room, and one of those do-it-yourself coffee tables. That small piece of furniture was covered in neat piles of books, but the only one I could see well was the enormous Bible on the top of the stack.

  There was no TV, and I couldn’t see into the tiny kitchen to see if there were any dishes in the sink. Through what I assumed was the bedroom door, I could see an inflatable air mattress, bare of any sheets. No posters. No pictures. No half-broken beer light on the wall. No smell. Every lived-in place has its own smell, the scent of the person who lives there, of their food and their cologne and the mustiness of their books. This place was sterile, untouched except for the faint aroma of whatever cleaner they’d scrubbed the place down with between tenants.

  This wasn’t a bachelor’s apartment. This was the apartment of someone who expected to bail on short notice.

  “Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?” Cam shouldered his backpack, and apparently noticed my critique of his home. “Right before I moved, there was a fire. Lost everything.”

  “That sucks, man. A car wreck, then a fire? What universal power did you piss off?” It didn’t . . . feel right. I had no reason to think the man was lying to me, and yet . . .

  “I know, right? But hey, it saved me on moving costs.” He grinned and shrugged. It was charming, disarming . . . and something cold slithered across the back of my neck. Not quite my danger sense blaring, but it was at least perking up and taking notice. Hm.

  “Always look on the bright side, I guess.” I led the way back out the door, watching as Cam stopped to lock it behind us.

  There was no pause in his movement, no indication that he felt anything strange at all. Granted, most humans wouldn’t know the wards were there. They’d light up like neon for a magic user but most people would go about their merry way, none the wiser.

  For me, caught somewhere between magic and mule, it was like having my nose pressed against the glass of a five-star restaurant. I could see it, smell it, but actually having any? Not so much. The feast was there, tantalizingly just out of reach.

  Ivan and Mira both insisted that my magic ability was just buried, but I had my doubts. Just because the rest of the champions had mojo didn’t mean all of us had to. Right? So far, I’d done just fine without it.

  It did occur to me on the way down the stairs, that regardless of who had set the protective spells, Cameron passed in and out of them unharmed. I guess that had to count in his favor.

  And he had no tattoos. I remembered that from the barbecue. Now, most of my buddies had ink. Mine, the first two lines of the Tao Te Ching tattooed down each biceps. Marty’s, full sleeves of stylized Celtic animals. Will’s, a hookah-smoking caterpillar not visible without him taking off more clothes than anybody was comfortable with. Those things I didn’t care about. Those were safe tattoos. Normal tattoos.

  But there were some I always, always, took a second look at. Tribal markings especially, the black vines and barbed wire that were so popular a few years ago. I look, because sometimes, just sometimes, those tattoos would wriggle under my vision, like heat waves off asphalt. They’d twist until my brain ached from trying to follow the impossible knots and whorls. Those were demon brands, marking someone who had sold their soul.

  Oh yes, I checked for tattoos now. People passing me on the sidewalk, customers that came into the store, random drivers next to me at stoplights. I looked for that telltale smudge of black on the inner left arm. Because you just never know.

  But Cameron had been wearing shorts and short sleeves at the house, and there had been no incriminating black scrawls on his skin. His arms were perfectly clean, like every other aspect of his life.

  You’re getting paranoid. Yeah, well, that didn’t mean they weren’t out to get me.

  5

  My breath fogged the air in front of me, misting my eyes until I blinked them clear. My hand was numb on the hilt of my sword. I had to assume it was still there, because I could no longer feel the wrapping cord against my palm. “Quit stalling. I know you’re there.”

  The red eyes gleamed in the darkness, always out of the corner of my eye, never where I could get a good bead on it. I knew what it was. I knew it would come from a direction I never expected. The dream never changed.

  Even knowing I was dreaming, I was trapped there for the duration. I knew that too. Trapped in the darkness, in the silence, senses straining for the slightest hint, for the tiniest warning that would never come. “Come on! Come get me!” My voice echoed against . . . something. Unseen walls, penning me in place. Confining me with . . . that.

  There was the faintest sound to my left, the sound of something soft, sliding across a smooth surface. Fur on stone. Knowing it was a mistake, I turned anyway, my dream self compelled to walk suicidally into the attack like every other night. My eyes straining against the blackness, I braced for a charge from the front.

  And it came from behind. It always came from behind. No matter where I looked, what I heard, it was always behind me. Silver claws, gleaming in a light that had no source, sank through the links of my mail armor. Fangs sank into my neck and shoulder, ravaging flesh for the sheer joy of causing pain. It lifted me above its massive head like so much luggage, and it bellowed its triumph. Ribs cracked and broke under its viselike grip. Things in my chest burst under the immense pressure. I choked on my own blood, drowning in it.

  The white-furred muzzle invaded my vision, the black nose quivering as it sniffed me all over. There was a guttural chuckle from deep within the barrel chest. With a negligent heave, it tossed me away, my body flailing helplessly through the air. I fell forever . . .

  Waking from that dream was always a jolt, but t
his time I managed to stop myself from screaming. Instead, my eyes snapped open, and I kept my ragged gasp to a nicely controlled inhale. No one around me would be the wiser. My hand found the rigid line of scars that went down my left side from armpit to hip, and I rubbed the thick tissue, easing away aches that weren’t really there.

  The black lanes of the highway rushed by the window, the glass just inches from the tip of my nose. The hum of the tires was a blessedly mundane background noise, normal and totally based in the real world. I clung to that for a few moments, forcing my mind to embrace reality and reject the craziness in my own head. Even knowing it was only a dream, I couldn’t suppress a shudder, and part of me still felt the warm, thick trickle of my own blood down my neck.

  No . . . wait . . . Something warm and thick was trickling down my neck. “Ew, augh! Get off, you nasty beast!” With a canine grumble, Duke turned his drooling self around and squeezed between the piles of luggage in the back to lay down.

  “Duke! Sit!” Marty snapped, a bit belatedly, from the driver’s seat. The dog just sighed as if to say, “I am sitting.”

  “Have a nice nap, did we?” Beside me, Cole smirked in my direction.

  I rubbed my face, trying to get the grit out of my eyes. “How long was I out?”

  “Half an hour, maybe? Not long.”

  Damn. This was going to be a long friggin’ trip.

  A samurai, a blacksmith, a cop, a paramedic, and a priest all cram into a beat-up old Suburban and head for the Colorado Rockies. It sounded like a bad joke, but it was my life. And I was stuck in it for a twelve-hour road trip.

  Other than my brief exchange with Cole, silence reigned in the cramped vehicle, not our usual modus operandi at all. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time Will went this long without babbling about anything and everything that popped into his head. I blamed Cameron, sitting on the end of the seat farthest from me. He kept his nose buried in a book—a book for Pete’s sake! Who takes a book on a paintball/camping trip??—oblivious to the guilt I’d assigned him.

  Cole caught the look and elbowed me in the side with a scowl. I shrugged. This was not my fault, dammit. It was Mira’s, or Dr. Bridget’s or . . . not my idea.

  It didn’t help that the crisp morning had given way to a hot and muggy day—not unusual for the first week of September on the great wide Kansas plains, but still unpleasant. Once we got to the mountains, I knew it would cool down, but being wedged into the Suburban with no air conditioning was miserable at the moment. We all smelled like sweaty dog. I tilted my head to glance at Cole’s watch. Only eight hours left to go. Great. I got up before the butt crack of dawn for this?

  My head ached already, and my stomach did a slow roll, expressing its displeasure. Long car trips had never agreed with me, at least when I wasn’t driving. The heat, the constant motion, terrifying nightmares . . . Yeah, it was no wonder I wasn’t feeling top-notch. And of course, my general discomfort with Cameron’s presence didn’t help either.

  Y’know, I could have just asked the guy. “Hey, you happen to cast any magic spells lately?” Definitely would have been an icebreaker. But you don’t just go saying that kind of stuff to people. And while trying to figure out a way to tactfully drop that question into conversation, I’d fallen asleep.

  Cole elbowed me again. “They’ll be fine. Would you relax? This is supposed to be a fun trip.”

  I was puzzled for a moment, before realizing that he assumed my antisocial demeanor was from worrying about Mira and Annabelle. True, it had been my chief argument for skipping this trip altogether. And I was worried about them a little.

  Estéban was there, to be sure, but despite what training he’d had with me over the summer, he was just a kid. Sometime in the last few months, he’d remembered he was only seventeen. He’d discovered girls, and music, and cars (after I taught him to drive). He was athletic enough, and devoted to our lessons, but he really lacked discipline. Despite my promise to teach him as best I could, any lack of focus on his part was actually fine with me. If I could keep him away from the demon-slaying profession, so much the better.

  Even though I’d given him the responsibility of watching over my family, it made me nervous that he was their only means of physical protection. What could he really do, hormone something to death?

  I grunted in response to Cole and stared out the window, watching the lines of I-70 go whipping past. My brother was most likely right. The summer had been quiet. No one tried to run me off the road; no one tried to hack my computer. No body-hopping demons had showed up in my backyard to taunt and heckle me (well, until a couple of days ago). I hadn’t had any phone calls from potential clients since the disaster back in March. No one had. To anyone on the outside, these were all good things!

  Part of me felt like an idiot for being such an old worrywart. It wasn’t like I was the only guy who left family at home. Cole’s ailing son was valiantly starting kindergarten, like Anna, and Marty’s wife Melanie was six months along with their first. Neither of them were obsessing about it. Just me and the knot in my stomach. Of course, no one had tried to kill either of them in the last year or so. I’d had more close calls than I liked to think about.

  You know how that one guy in the Western who always says the place is too quiet? Yeah, that’s how I felt. Something was brewing, it just hadn’t come to the surface yet. And the farther we got away from home, the more it tickled at the back of my mind, an insidious little whisper that said, “We always come back, Jesse.”

  “Rest stop!” Will announced from the front, and even I could feel a twinge of relief. I just needed to get out of the truck and away from my thoughts.

  We all piled out, everyone stretching and groaning including the dog. The five of us made an interesting troupe. You had me in all my wiry-scrawny glory with my shoulder-length blond ponytail and the beginnings of scruffy red beard stubble.

  Shorter than me by a good foot, Marty’s head was shaved totally bald, and he’d cut the sleeves off his T-shirt to show off his ink. At least he wore cargo pants today instead of his usual kilt.

  Will’s curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he took a moment to wipe the smudges off his thick glasses. My height, probably, though a good seventy-five pounds heavier if not more. Wicked smart, though he did a bumbling idiot impression really well.

  Cole . . . well, Cole looked like a cop, and there was no way out of it. Clean cut, clean shaven, perfect posture, good boy. That’s my little brother.

  And of course, Cam-short-for-Cameron, who was trying to make lumberjack into the new fall chic.

  Marty tossed me the end of Duke’s leash and vanished in the direction of the restrooms. How exactly did I get elected official dog walker? By the time I pondered that for a moment, the guys had vanished, leaving me and Duke alone.

  The big goofball gave me his best pleading look and leaned against the leash just enough to get his message across. I gotta go, boss!

  That was all well and good, but I suddenly realized this was a chance to do a little snooping. Cam’s backpack was on top of the pile. Maybe I could just peek inside, real quick like. “Hang on, boy, Uncle Jesse’s being a bad person.”

  The backpack itself was brand-new, still stiff with creases in it from where it had been boxed at the store. Glancing around once, on the lookout for the guys coming back, I unzipped it and went poking.

  Jeans, jeans, socks, more socks, two shirts, boxers—ew! I grimaced and kept pawing my way past someone else’s underwear down into the depths of the bag. And I came up with nothing. No esoteric trinkets, no mystery bottles or vials. Nothing sent any tingles along my skin, evidence of magic derring-do.

  Duke, not nearly as fascinated with my detective work as I was, tugged harder on the leash, whining softly.

  “Hang on, almost done.” Each garment was tidily folded; it was easy enough to get everything back in the pack like I’d never touched it. Easier that than explaining to Cam why I was rummaging around in his drawers.

 
The spell hadn’t been his. Couldn’t have been. I’d never seen a magic user yet, my wife included, who didn’t carry something on their person, some shard of their own power. Sometimes it was a talisman, sometimes it was just tools of the trade. Hell, even with no magic to call my own, I carried charms and spells with me almost all the time, courtesy of Mira.

  Mira’s was her pentacle necklace. Miguel’s had been a gold hoop earring in his left ear. Estéban’s was a silver ring on his pinkie finger. Ivan’s was the gold cross he wore religiously, pardon the pun.

  A cross . . . Did Mr. Not-a-Priest wear a cross? I tried to picture Cam in my head, but couldn’t pull up that particular detail. It would be fitting, and magic passed for faith often enough . . . Okay, so it was looking like he wasn’t responsible, but I couldn’t rule him out completely. I’d have to get a better look.

  Duke butted his head against my hip, rocking me. “All right, all right. Let’s do this.” I tucked Cam’s pack back in with the rest—mine had a suspicious damp spot, and I gave the dog the evil eye—and we went in search of facilities.

  I found a nice big patch of grass, suitable for the occasion, and a very relieved Duke did his business quickly. I cleaned it up like a good citizen, but there was nothing in the world that would compel me to get back into that truck before I absolutely had to. Every part of me was stiff.

  Glancing around, I realized I had a fairly decent open area and I decided to stretch out. Sword katas were all well and good—those I do for love. But to get myself limbered up, there were a few others I could run through real quick, work the kinks out of my muscles and joints.

  Duke cocked his head in puzzlement as I looped his lead around my wrist, and set about going through a few slow stretches. I could feel my muscles loosening immediately, and for a few moments, I closed my eyes and just flowed through the motions. It was so easy to lose myself in the movements.

  “Am I interrupting?” Cam-short-for-Cameron’s voice made me open my eyes, and I very nearly came around swinging. Thankfully, the ex-priest didn’t notice, more intent on feeding half his ham sandwich to the dog. “I thought he might be hungry.”