Rangers

by Chloe Garner

  He sat and held out an arm.

  “Come sit with me.”

  She sat with her back against his side and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “Men and women can’t just be friends. There’s always sex,” she said.

  “Who told you that?” he asked.

  “Carter.”

  “I think he’s probably more wrong than he’s right on everything,” Sam said. Samantha suddenly burst out laughing.

  “Oh, I certainly hope so.”

  <><><>

  It was past midnight when they finally walked back down to the hotel.

  “I’ll go check in with Simon. You go dance with Kara,” he said.

  “You haven’t said anything about me dancing,” she said.

  “What is there to say? You surprise me, but…”

  “Approve, disapprove?”

  “Are you happy?”

  “More than any other time in my life.”

  “Then go dance all night. I’ll bring the laptop downstairs and keep a cold beer waiting for you at a table.”

  She turned backwards to walk through the sliding doors.

  “You really don’t dance?”

  “Trip on my own feet,” Sam told her. She sucked on her cheek.

  “Shame,” she said, then grinned. “I’ll meet you in there.”

  Sam caught an elevator and retrieved the laptop, finding Jason at a table with a dozen empty shot glasses on it, when he got to the ballroom.

  “Kara’s hitting it hard tonight,” he observed. Jason grinned.

  “A few of these are mine, and more than you think are Sam’s,” he said. Sam swept them aside to make a footprint for the laptop, then peered over at them, taking a better count.

  “She holds her liquor better than I would have expected,” he said.

  “Drinks like a pro, actually,” Jason said. “So?”

  Sam sat down with his back to the dance floor and opened the laptop.

  “I could point at her without looking. She’s dancing with Kara and I don’t think I’ve actually ever been that happy,” Sam said.

  “You could try dancing with Kara. I bet you’d figure it out pretty quickly,” Jason said. Sam glanced up at him.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “What’s new. So what else?”

  Sam let his eyes slide to one side as he tried to shape a summary.

  “You know how people have never really gotten how we work?” he asked. Jason nodded, sipping his beer. “It’s like having a new, different kind of twin.”

  “Should I be jealous?” Jason asked, then grinned when Sam began to protest. “I’m just kidding. I’m happy for you. You and she go good together. Even if she is an outsider and I should be trying to drive away without her every opportunity I get.”

  “You really still think she’s an outsider?” Sam asked, glancing over his shoulder. The room was more crowded with men than the night before. The non-dancers and the guys without a girl were here in huge numbers to watch Kara with the new girl.

  “If Kara thinks she’s cool, she’s cool,” Jason said.

  “No, Doris and Heather don’t know anything. Kara is the barometer for acceptability.”

  “Hey, Elizabeth didn’t like her,” Jason said.

  “Elizabeth thinks you’re sleeping with her,” Sam countered. Jason grinned.

  “No, she thinks I’m going to sleep with her, just as soon as she gets over you.”

  Sam sat up a little straighter and looked at him.

  “You do, too, don’t you?”

  Jason frowned.

  “No. Not any more.”

  Sam grunted and looked down at his e-mail.

  “Simon’s got something. Abandoned factory in Raleigh. We should probably head out in the morning.”

  “Spirits?” Jason asked.

  “Couple of teenage boys broke in. They found their bodies in one of the offices, bled out.”

  “Could be anything,” Jason said. Sam nodded.

  “Kara has other plans tonight,” Jason told him. “We can hang out as long as you want, or we can head up and get some sleep, hit the road early.”

  “How do you do that?” Sam asked.

  “What?”

  Sam realized, again, that Jason sincerely had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Never mind.”

  “No, what?”

  “You came here to see your favorite woman in the whole world, spend one night with her, then have no problem with her sleeping with someone else the next night.”

  Jason shrugged.

  “If I had any prospects, you can be sure I wouldn’t be spending the night alone, either,” he said. “No, that isn’t true. If I wanted to have company tonight, I would. I’m fine.” Sam looked at him uncomprehendingly. Jason laughed. “I’m fine.”

  Sam turned to see if he could watch Samantha dancing, but the crowd was too thick tonight. He motioned to the waitress for a beer and he and Jason sat in comfortable drinking silence for about forty-five minutes before Samantha and Kara took a break.

  “It is wild out there, tonight,” Kara said. “Usually, it’s just the ones making a prelude for upstairs, but tonight…”

  “You certainly encourage them enough,” Samantha said. Kara grinned at her crookedly.

  “You’re fun.”

  “You’re fun, too,” Samantha said.

  “Listen, babe,” Jason said. “We’ve got to head out in the morning. Got something out east. Kick ass in Seattle.”

  She kissed him on the mouth, at first just a quick goodbye then, laughing, she slid over from her chair into his lap. Sam and Samantha turned to face each other.

  “Simon found something?”

  “North Carolina,” Sam said. “Should try to get there before they close everything back up.”

  “Any ideas what it is?”

  “Nasty. Likes killing things and bleeding them out.”

  She nodded. It didn’t faze her at all.

  “You can stay down here with Kara, if you want. Just sleep in the car tomorrow.”

  “No, I’ll come work upstairs. She isn’t going to stay much longer, anyway.”

  They looked over at Jason and Kara, but the pair hadn’t let up yet.

  “Wanna go… now?” Sam asked. She grinned and reached for his beer.

  “May I?”

  He handed it to her and she tossed it back and drained it, then set it on the table.

  “Let’s go.”

  <><><>

  Arthur and Doris were back from visiting, and Doris hugged Samantha with real affection.

  “So far, so good, then?” the woman asked. Samantha smiled.

  “Nothing with them is ever that simple, is it?” she asked. Doris squeezed an arm around her waist and tipped her head back and forth.

  “Probably not for a while,” she said. She looked over her shoulder at Arthur, who was helping the twins bring the bags in from the Cruiser. “We’ve hit a point where it’s very simple, now.”

  Samantha looked into the woman’s eyes.

  “You’re really, truly happy, aren’t you?” she asked. Doris nodded.

  “We are.”

  Samantha closed her eyes, feeling Sam’s happiness at being in this house. Coming home. Tears sprung unexpected behind her eyelids, and she blinked a couple of times to get them back under control.

  “What would you like for dinner, dear?” Doris asked. “You’re here early enough to get a vote.”

  Samantha started to speak, then stopped.

  “What is it?” Doris asked.

  “My mom used to make lamb. But most people don’t…”

  “I’ll call the butcher and see what he has,” Doris said. “Tanner’s here. Have you met Tanner?”

  “No.”

  Doris turned.

  “Arthur. Call Tanner down here while you’re up there,” she said. He grunted as he went upstairs. Jason grinned over the railing.

  “Too much for you, old man?” Jason asked.<
br />
  “Thought I taught you boys to only pack what you need.”

  “You taught us to be prepared,” Sam said. Arthur paused and tipped his head over the railing at Samantha.

  “You remember the rule about bags of weapons. You leave them at the door,” he said. Samantha grabbed the strap of her backpack protectively.

  “Oh, come on Arthur,” Jason said. “You let us carry our guns.”

  “I let you carry a handgun. Having a houseful of Rangers who are completely unarmed would be idiotic.”

  “She thinks of that backpack the same way we do handguns,” Sam said. He glanced at her once as they went out of sight. “Unarmed without it.”

  “Stays at the door,” Arthur called back down the stairs. Doris rubbed her back.

  “Stuck in his ways, I’m afraid,” she said. “Would it help if I showed you where the guns are hidden in the kitchen?”

  Samantha looked at her, bemused.

  “Actually, it would.”

  Doris nodded.

  “You’ll make a good Ranger.”

  Samantha grudgingly put her backpack behind a wall in the front room and followed Doris into the kitchen.

  “Shotgun above the microwave,” Doris said, pointing. “Handgun under the silverware, here.”

  “Doris, when is someone considered a Ranger?”

  “Rifle here inside the pantry,” she said, sliding her arm inside the door and pulling the barrel into sight then putting it back. She brushed her hands off. “We aren’t really picky about it. You’re a Ranger if you say you’re a Ranger and you stay alive.”

  She opened another drawer.

  “You weren’t carrying a gun, last time, were you?”

  Samantha lifted her shirt, revealing a knife grip, but no gun. Doris nodded.

  “Blade woman. I thought I remembered that. My good knives are in here.”

  She brushed aside a couple of the more domestic ones to reveal a selection of simple but well-crafted throwing knives and half a dozen hunting knives.

  “I use a machete,” Samantha said. Doris smiled.

  “That I can accommodate.”

  She disappeared into the next room for a moment, then came back with a machete in a leather sheath. She slid it along the side of the refrigerator and leaned it against the wall.

  “Three steps,” she said. Samantha nodded. It wasn’t everything, but it was a lot closer.

  “Thank you,” she said. Doris grinned and squeezed her hand.

  “You’re beginning to generate rumors,” a man’s voice said. Samantha turned to find a tall, skinny man with unkempt black hair leaning against the kitchen doorway.

  “Is that good or bad?” Samantha asked. His mouth raised on one side and he rubbed an elbow with the other hand.

  “Depends on whether or not you like people talking about you.”

  “Generally, the rumors mean you’ve been doing things that are worth talking about,” Doris said. Samantha laughed.

  “Isn’t that always true?”

  Doris pulled a phone book out of a drawer and started paging through it.

  “I find the things that are always true are also the most true,” she said. Samantha frowned, trying to figure out if that was a statement of the obvious or simply nonsense. Or genius. She couldn’t pick. The man stood and held out his hand to her.

  “I’m Tanner,” he said. She grasped his hand in a firm handshake.

  “Sam,” she said.

  “You’re diving me into town,” Doris said.

  “Okay, Mom.” His eyes didn’t leave Samantha. He smiled. It was honest, but withdrawn, a man who was used to being by himself. “I hope someday you’ll tell me which rumors are true and which ones aren’t.”

  “If it’s Jason telling it to you, it’s made up,” she said. He laughed.

  “Oh, yeah. I already know that.”

  There was a rolling thunder of footsteps down the stairs and Jason, Arthur, and Sam appeared in the kitchen.

  “We’ve got you and Sam in the room with the two queens,” Arthur said, glancing at Jason warningly. “They both swore that’s what you’d want.”

  “Thank you,” Samantha said. Doris hung up the phone.

  “Tanner’s taking me into town to get the stuff for dinner. You guys have got a couple of hours,” Doris said. “Don’t get into too much trouble.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Samantha said. “I didn’t mean…”

  Doris swung her purse up onto her shoulder and clucked at Samantha.

  “You’re here with my boys. If I can do something that makes it more like home for you, it isn’t a chore to me. You just have a good evening.”

  She waved and Tanner followed her through the other door out of the kitchen. A garage door opened. Samantha looked at Sam.

  “I didn’t mean to make her go to all that effort,” she said.

  “If you want to thank her, help her cook,” Arthur said. Sam nodded.

  “It’s what she and Krista do, when Krista’s home.”

  “Hasn’t been through in six months,” Arthur said.

  “Why does she keep so busy?” Jason asked.

  “Takes too much territory,” Arthur said.

  “I didn’t know you had territory,” Samantha said.

  “I let stuff pass when it’s halfway across the country and there’s someone closer,” Sam said. “Krista jumps at everything.”

  “Trying to show up her big brothers,” Jason said. “You’d like her.”

  “I’m going to get four beers and a deck of cards,” Arthur said. “Y’all go find chairs.”

  Samantha followed Sam into the living room and he pulled a recliner across the room for her to sit at the table.

  “Arthur and my dad used to play cards all night when he and Jason stayed here. Jason wasn’t allowed to play. It’s kind of like a rite of passage,” Sam said softly as he sat down on a couch next to Jason.

  “The grown up table,” Samantha said. Sam nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  <><><>

  They arrived in Raleigh before dusk after a long drive the next day. The factory was marked as a crime scene and the door was padlocked shut. Jason found a side door and was getting set to pick the lock when Sam observed that the wood doorframe was rotted so thoroughly that they probably didn’t even have to turn the handle to open the door. Samantha added her concern that a good, solid pull might destroy the door, as well.

  “Why haven’t they condemned this place?” Jason asked, jerking the door open in a rain of sawdust and startled termites. “Locked up like a vault, isn’t it?”

  “Simon says they’ve tried, but it was a major part of the city’s history, and there’s a lot of sentiment about it.”

  “And now there are a couple of dead kids.”

  “Yup.”

  “Would knocking down a building that was haunted destroy the ghost inside or set it free?” Samantha asked.

  “Depends on the ghost. Most of them would go down with the building,” Jason told her. They were betting on a ghost. A few people had died in the building over the last twenty-five years or so, all of them violently, all of them bled out. A ghost that was stuck in the building fit the profile, so they had waited until dark to head in. Sam and Jason had out flashlights. Samantha simply carried an iron rod and a huge hunting knife.

  “That won’t work on a ghost,” Jason had told her.

  “But it works great on flesh,” she had answered. He still wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.

  They found themselves in an industrial-sized kitchen that had been stripped of almost anything of use or value. A few tables were left against one wall, and lighting fixtures hung from the ceiling, collecting dust and cobwebs. The factory itself was a sprawling big building four stories tall with a large storage basement.

  “Where do you want to start?” Sam asked.

  “How about where the kids bit it,” Jason said. Sam nodded.

  They went out of the kitchen and through a large cafe
teria area into a hallway.

  “This looks promising,” Jason said, indicating the volume of footprints in the dust. They followed the traffic down the hallway, up a set of stairs, and through another maze of hallways and offices to a room that was again taped off as a crime scene. Jason ripped the taping down and opened the door.

  Even after cleanup, the room was a nightmare. Two wide, black stains of blood merged into each other in the center of the white-tile floor, but the walls were covered with smears of blood where the two boys had tried to get away. The doorknob on the other side of the door was layered in blood and fingerprints, and it had bits of flesh sticking to it. Samantha looked up, and Sam pointed his flashlight at the ceiling for her. There were fine droplets of blood slashed across it.

  “This isn’t a spirit,” Jason said.

  “No,” Sam answered. Somewhere behind them, something howled.

  <><><>

  “Reevaluate, or forward?” Jason asked.

  “Forward,” Sam said. Samantha walked out of the room and dropped her backpack, trading the iron rod for the hatchet.

  “Iron shot or steel blade for a demon,” she said. “Shooting them with lead is like shooting each other with water pistols.”

  “You said the goblins were demons,” Jason said as Sam switched out the handgun on his waist for a shotgun out of his bag.

  “Yeah, and lead shot works on them, but they’re so flimsy you can just about kill them with your bare hands.”

  It howled again, closer.

  “Does that sound flimsy to you?”

  Jason pointed his flashlight at her face.

  “Careful, Miss Thing. I may decide that Sammy suits you better, after all.”

  “I’ll make an appropriate threat later. Are we ready?”

  Sam glanced around the room once more before looking at Jason and nodding. Jason waited to be the last out of the room and pulled the door closed.

  “So how would you recommend finding this beast?” Jason asked.

  “Tonight, we’re not the ones doing the hunting. He’s hunting us. Either hole up someplace easy to defend or keep moving to make targets of ourselves. He’s got all the time in the world. I’d recommend moving, but that’s because I hate waiting.”