Warmongers and Wands

by Dunbar, Debra

  Good, except I couldn’t help a twinge of jealousy when I saw how she looked at the demon, and how he looked at her. They’d do cute little things when they were helping each other with dishes or cooking. There was a back-and-forth banter between them, an intimacy that revealed itself with teasing words and flushed faces and the frequent touch. I so wanted that, but in all my thirty-one years, I’d never had a boyfriend. I’d never even had a guy try to kiss me or ask me on a date. It’s like I was invisible to them as anything except an occasional drinking buddy or someone to call when the swing-arm bent in their butchering room.

  I glanced over at Stanley and saw him leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, a bored expression on his face as he stared out the window. I’ll bet if I stripped off my tank top right now and started welding in my bra, he wouldn’t even glance my way. Not that I was interested in Stanley, but it would have been nice to have someone look twice at me for once in my damned life.

  But enough of the pity party. I had a job to do here. And after that, I was going to head home to warm up some pork barbeque, pull that bottle of Syrah out of the wine rack, and watch some old movies.

  Maybe I should get a cat. Or two. Or a dog. I could take the dog on calls with me to keep me company. Yeah. This weekend, I’d head over to Pitswitch and see what they had at the animal shelter.

  The swing-arm didn’t take me long to fix, but the hanging rack was a real bitch of a job. An hour in and the rumble of thunder in the distance was becoming more noticeable. Stanley seemed to be close to dozing off while standing, but showed no sign of leaving his post. As I was finishing up, the werewolf suddenly jerked to attention. A few seconds later, I discovered why.

  A man walked through the doors—a man with long silver hair and a reddish-blond beard. He was tanned, his face lined and creased, but still attractive in an uber masculine, older-guy kind of way. He was tall with broad shoulders and walked with the sort of attitude that instinctively made people get out of his way.

  Dallas Dickskin, the alpha of the werewolf clan.

  Yeah, Dickskin. I kid you not, that was really their last name. And no one teased them about it. Well, at least not to their faces.

  The senior werewolf ignored the younger one, made an elaborate show of checking my work, then made a more subtle show of checking me out. Dallas was an obsessive womanizer. Werewolves were sticklers when it came to the females having physical relations with anyone besides a male werewolf, but the males weren’t held to the same standards. Dallas was legendary for feeling up every woman he met and doing his damnedest to sleep with them. He even hit on Cassie, and my eldest sister was the most powerful witch Accident had seen since Temperance Perkins founded the town. In a fight between the two, Dallas would have ended up a pile of smoking ash, especially since my sister had taken up with her demon lover who acted as a sort of power amplifier for her. That still didn’t convince Dallas to keep his hands to himself. Like I said, he hit on every woman he met.

  Except me.

  “Almost done here?” he grumbled, the cursory once-over he’d given my physical form ending without the slightest spark of interest. The werewolf didn’t try to hug me, or touch my ass, or even shake my hand. Not that I was really lamenting not being sexually assaulted by this asshole. It just brought home to me how very undesirable I was.

  Which was twisted. I probably needed therapy. I’d get right on that after I adopted a dog and a cat.

  “Yep.” I checked the weld and started to pack up. “How’s the weather look out there? I heard thunder earlier.”

  “Storm coming. You better hurry if you want to make it off the mountain before it hits.”

  That got me moving. The roads on the mountain were dirt and rock, and the whole area was prone to flashfloods and washouts. I had absolutely no desire whatsoever to spend the night here in the werewolf compound waiting for the storm to pass and for them to repair the roads enough to get my truck through. Stanley and Dallas made no attempt to help me, watching as I put everything away and gathered my gear up. Their presence still gave me that weird feeling, as if they were making sure I didn’t steal anything. It made me wonder what the heck they were keeping in this butchering shed or what I might see that they didn’t want me to see.

  Stupid paranoid werewolves. As if I gave two shits about their feuds. As long as they steered clear of the rest of the town, and as long as I got paid for my work, they were free to kill each other off.

  Paid. Which reminded me…

  “Cash, check, or trade?” I asked, knowing that the werewolves wouldn’t be paying like Declan had. First, they weren’t the most technologically savvy beings in Accident. Secondly, the cell service on this mountain was total crap. You were lucky to get a faint one bar if you stood on a cliff and held your phone up above your head while on your tip-toes.

  “Quarter of beef and a case of apples?” Stanley offered.

  I quickly calculated the value in my head. “Throw in some of that salsa you guys traded to Pete and it’s a deal.”

  The younger wolf cast a quick glance toward his alpha. Something beyond my ability to detect passed between them and Stanley nodded. “I’ll have someone bring it down the mountain by the end of the month, soon as we get butchering well underway.”

  “No hurry.” They’d need all hands, or paws, for harvest and processing their beef and pork, and I’d need to figure out where the hell I was going to put a quarter of meat. Might be time to buy a second freezer.

  A quarter of beef for a single woman. Well, a single woman and possibly a dog or a cat. I’d never be able to eat it all. Good thing I had six sisters to share the bounty with.

  The two werewolves followed me out to my truck, watching impassively as I loaded my equipment and closed up the back. The sky was black and eerily still. A fat drop of icy rain hit my arm.

  “Well, been nice doing business with you fellas,” I lied. It wasn’t that I hated werewolves. They were just weird and getting up and down this mountain of theirs was a pain. “Stanley. Dallas. Later, gators.”

  They nodded and grunted in reply and I climbed in the cab of my truck, pulling out of the compound just as the skies opened up.

  I hesitated for the briefest of seconds, considering whether I should turn around and ride the storm out in the compound. I really didn’t want to stay there. The truck was in good shape and fully capable of navigating muddy roads. If I took it slow and easy, I’d make it down to the main roads just fine. And if things got too hairy, I’d pull over and just sit it out.

  So, I continued, inching my way along the narrow switchbacks, barely able to see the road ahead from the torrential rain. The lightning and thunder had started up again, merged together into a continuous light show and constant crack and rumble of sound. Worried about the sharp curves ahead and my ability to see in this crazy storm, I eased my foot onto the brake pedal.

  It went to the floor. The truck kept going. I yanked on the emergency brake, but nothing happened. The truck began to pick up speed, and I frantically ground it into a lower gear, looking for a place to run my vehicle into a bank or even a tree. Crashing my truck was a better option than heading into the steep part of the mountain with no brakes and limited ability to see.

  The rumbling grew louder, and I suddenly realized the noise wasn’t from the thunder. My breath caught in my throat as rocks began to hit the truck. I felt the vehicle slide to the left, pushed by the rockslide I couldn’t even see through the pouring rain. In vain, I pumped the brakes and jerked the wheel. The truck tipped and for a fraction of a second, time seemed to be suspended. I thought of my childhood, of reading books under the covers with flashlights in the bedroom I shared with my eldest sister. Getting up early and making pancakes for everyone before we all left for school. Helping Cassie with the wards. Crying out by the boathouse when Mom left, hoping no one would find me and see.

  Shit.

  I was going to die.

  And my greatest concern was that my sisters wou
ld be devastated. Especially Cassie. We’d always been so close. I’d never get to hold my nieces and nephews, never get to give the toast at Cassie’s wedding.

  I was going to die.

  The truck rolled and smashed downward. Glass shattered. I felt as if I were in a rock tumbler, or a rollercoaster gone crazy, flailing about, the seatbelt cutting into my chest. Metal screamed and groaned, and the blackness overtook me while the truck continued to fall.

  Chapter 3

  Hadur

  The raccoon came through the dog door, dragging a plastic shopping bag behind him.

  “What do you have for me today, Diebin?” I stooped down to pick up the bag. This was my routine. Diebin would go into what I assumed was a nearby town once or twice a day and bring back items for me. Food. Tools. Clothing. Useless brightly colored plastic things.

  It was the books, magazines, and newspapers I appreciated the most. They kept me occupied. They let me know what was happening in the world outside my summoning circle. They kept me from going crazy.

  Well, except for those Tiger Beat magazines. They actually made me crazy.

  “What is Shawn Mendes up to now?” I asked the raccoon as I pulled one of the magazines from the bag. I’d hoped for a GQ, or a Men’s Health. This month was supposed to have a list of top abs and arms exercises and I didn’t want to miss it.

  But Tiger Beat it was. Along with the magazine was a can of something called Chicken a la King, a game controller for an Xbox, a pump for inflating basketballs, a set of pillow cases, goldfish food, and a giant-sized Snickers bar.

  “Nice haul,” I told him.

  The raccoon stood on his hind legs and waved a paw at me.

  “Okay, okay. Keep your fur on.” I opened the Snickers bar, breaking it in half and giving one portion to my furry friend. Then I sat down at the table with my half of the candy and the magazine. Diebin had brought back three pounds of stew meat and an assortment of vegetables on his run last night, and those were now cooking in a pot over the fire. Between the two of us, we’d managed pretty well over the last two centuries. I’d built this cabin and the tables and chairs; he'd furnished it with stolen stuff from the locals and lately from some place called Walmart which seemed to carry everything a demon could want and a whole lot of stuff I didn’t want. Like this game controller. I didn’t have an Xbox, and even if I did, I didn’t have any electricity to run it. Which was a shame because those electronic games looked like they’d be fun—more fun than this last issue of Tiger Beat, anyway.

  The magazine and the candy bar didn’t last long. I neatened up the cabin a bit, then headed outside for a loop around the narrow confines of what had become my cage. There was some thunder off in the distance, the sky taking on a faint yellowish tinge that heralded a coming storm. I roamed the very familiar woods around my cabin, looking up the cliff face toward the mountaintop, then wandering to the other side and a partial view of the valley below. The summoning area was in a plateau on a heavily wooded mountain. At first, my days here had been deathly quiet aside from the animals, but in the last century I’d been able to hear the sounds of mechanized equipment both up on the mountain and down in the valley. At night, I could see the faint lights of a town far below me and off into the distance. They’d always been there—a few golden pinpoints in the beginning that had become a splash of light in the last century. I’d watched the town broaden, populate, grow—its story only told to me by faint noise carried on the breeze and the increasing nighttime lights.

  When would that witch return? When would anyone come? Each year it became more and more difficult to keep myself from sinking into despair, from destroying everything in my summoning circle in a fit of rage. Was I to remain here forever? Alone, trapped, with nothing to entertain me besides a raccoon and an occasional magazine?

  I sat and watched the storm roll in from the distance, trying to keep my hopes up that eventually someone would return to free me. As the first fat drops began to fall, I headed back to my cabin to give the stew a stir and find something to occupy myself. Diebin had brought some batteries last week that fit the cassette player, so I put those in and looked through my collection of tapes. They were all old and starting to fray. It seemed they were out of production as Diebin had not brought me any replacements in the last few decades.

  But for now, I had Doobie Brothers, a candle that smelled like sugar cookies, and a dinner I was looking forward to. I headed over to my cache of books, trying to decide what to read as the storm hit and shook the cabin.

  Thunder crashed, one after another, then I heard a noise that sounded similar to the thunder.

  “Rock slide,” I told Diebin, pulling a book from the shelf. They happened on occasion, sometimes large enough to launch boulders through the boundary of my summoning circle. Unfortunately, the rocks and mud and fallen trees did nothing to break the magical borders. Nothing did, although in the past few years I’d sensed a weakening of the perimeter. If no witch came to free me, perhaps in three or four hundred years, the barrier would be weak enough for me to escape.

  It was things like that which gave me hope, which helped me hold on.

  I felt the crash of rocks through the magical barrier and grimaced, realizing that this was a huge rockslide. The noise sounded oddly metallic, echoing across the plateau and followed by the thump of trees cracking and smashing into each other from the impact.

  Then I felt something that nearly brought me to my knees—magic. Not just any magic, but witch magic. She was here. In the middle of a storm, with the rockslide, she’d arrived. My witch was here to save me.

  I threw the book aside and ran from the cabin. The cold rain pelted me, wind knocking me back a step. I doubled over and pushed on, determined to face my witch at the edge of my circle, to plead for release. I’d do anything for her—be anything. I’d partner with her, I’d bond with her, I’d grant her immortality, grant her every wish. I’d do anything if only she set me free.

  I’d expected to reach the edge of my boundary and see a witch standing there in a glow of light, wind and rain blowing her hair and clothing as she channeled it all in a stream of power. Instead I found rocks and broken trees and a metal box similar to what I’d seen in the magazines.

  Correction—two metal boxes. The first one was a twisted broken heap that I believe would have been called a truck. The other was attached behind it, a square metal container that looked to be some sort of trailer. The trailer had broken open and there were metal objects strewn about—a good many of them outside the limits of my circle. I squinted at the truck and trailer, waiting for the witch to appear. I could feel her presence, sense the intoxicating power of her energy. She was here, inside the truck, no doubt waiting to make an entrance.

  When the witch didn’t appear, I cautiously approached. It would be disastrous to anger her, but she was inside my circle and after waiting over two hundred years, I was impatient.

  “I am here, my witch,” I called out over the storm. She didn’t answer, so I grabbed hold of the door and pulled. It didn’t budge.

  What was her truck doing down here, smashed and covered in rocks and trees? She was a witch. Surely, she wouldn’t have been caught in the rockslide? Unless the rockslide had been caused by a rival witch. Suddenly the storm took on whole new meaning. I put my demon strength to use and yanked on the door. The handle broke off, so I gripped the sides and pulled it off its hinges.

  The woman inside groaned, turning her head to look at me. It was then I realized that she was hurt, in pain, wedged in this broken truck and held as tightly as if it had been a prison.

  Her eyes met mine, and I felt a jolt that shook me to my core. A witch. My witch. She was older than when she’d been here before. Her reddish-brown hair fell just past her chin, her skin a golden tan. She was beautiful. So very beautiful. Even injured, she took my breath away.

  I knelt beside her. “You came back. You came back for me.”

  A tiny frown creased her forehead. “I need…I need help. I’m
hurt. My legs are stuck. Can you call someone?”

  Call someone? I could shout with all my might, and no one would hear me, especially over this storm. Did she mean those communication devices I’d seen advertised in the magazines? Diebin had brought a few of them to the cabin and I’d never managed to get them to work.

  There was no need to call anyone. She had me, and I do would everything for her. I would free her, take care of her, give her everything in my power to give. I would serve her, be her devoted partner and bond-mate. I’d be hers for all eternity in the hope that she’d find me worthy, that she would free me.

  My witch was here. My witch had finally returned. I nearly wept at the thought.

  Chapter 4

  Bronwyn

  I opened my eyes, feeling the wind and rain lashing at my face. Blinking a few times, my eyes adjusted and I realized even through the storm, I could see my shattered windshield, the tree branches and leaves protruding through into the cab of my truck. The airbag sat like a deflated balloon against my bent steering wheel, splotched with something that I was pretty sure was blood. My seatbelt was on, and when I tentatively went to unhook it, I found the buckle was stuck.

  Everything hurt—hurt so much that trying to unhook my seatbelt had sent a stab of pain through my chest so sharp that I’d nearly passed out.

  I was wet, and I wasn’t sure how much of that was rain and how much was blood. Each breath was agony. The front of the truck had smashed in, the dash pressing against my lower half. I was afraid to move my legs—afraid that the sharp ache in my calf would escalate into something worse. Were there splintered bones poking through flesh? Limbs in the back seat? Guts spilled out through a hole in my abdomen? Every horror movie I’d ever seen was playing through my mind right now and all I could do was take slow careful breaths and try not to panic.