by Bonnie Gill
River’s intestines knotted and squiggled around his empty stomach. His heart dive-bombed and slammed hard enough to break through his ribs.
Shit.
Abby’s the Jersey Devil.
As soon as the thought pinked in his brain, a hoof shot through the windshield, blasting shatterproof glass all over the woods. Its mate followed. Her large horned head poked through with wild determined red eyes, a beacon of terror, followed by two dark leathery wings. She broke free from the squad car and clawed her way onto the hood, then flew off into the shadowy forest.
The air became thinner and the shout of silence rung through his ears.
“Abby?” He tried for a yell, but it came out like a whisper. The gentle woman who captured his heart—was the same creature he was sent to destroy.
Chapter 28
Pepper finished up her last phone call and glanced at the clock. Holy flaming horse poopies! Where did the afternoon go? The sun would set at any moment. She glanced at the text message Abby sent fifteen minutes ago. Help. My car won’t start. I’m walking home.
Shoot.
She didn’t know if she should try to find her or stick with the original plan. She decided not to detour from what they discussed.
Pepper peeked out of the kitchen window to see Ottar poking at the flaring flames in the fire pit with a long stick. His bare bronzed back displayed a magnificent turquoise and scarlet dragon tattoo. The muscles of his powerful body waved gracefully when he moved, like the tide rolling across the sea. She nibbled on her bottom lip. If only he wasn’t such a savage.
She stepped outside. “Hey. When are you going to fix my dino—” She ground her body to a stop.
The air lingered with the smell of cooked meat. She looked more closely at the Aussie and what he was up too.
He didn’t.
“What the heck are you doing? Oh God, what is that?” She stampeded toward the campfire. A homemade rotisserie straddled the coals, with a skinless animal skewered through the middle of the steel rod. Ottar had tied its little bare legs with twine to the rotating spindle, its stomach revealed a thorough gutting.
He turned the handle nonchalantly, adjusted the meat to a sear above the glowing coals. “I’m cooking my dinner.”
“What are you? A caveman?” She pointed to his homemade meal. “What is that? And where did you kill it?”
Ottar smiled a full-blown good-day smile, and she might have melted at the sight of it, if he wasn’t being a complete douchebag.
“Oh, ey? I caught this poor sook raiding some of those greenies over there.” He gestured to Pepper’s veggie garden. The garden she had planted just for her fluffy bunnies and their furry friends. “Do you want some?”
“You ass. That’s the wildlife’s garden. Is that? Oh my gosh! You’re going to eat Floppy!”
Ottar looked completely surprised. “You named your vermin? Oi, that’s right. You’re a veggo.” He curled his lip up like a shoddy Elvis impersonator.
Pepper kicked the dirt onto the campfire, pelting the poor dead rabbit’s body with debris. “You need to leave right now. Get off my property, you barbarian.” She gave his shoulder a shove but he didn’t budge. “This isn’t the bush. Leave. Now.”
He shook his head and tsk’d. “I can’t do that. You know those beasties are out there. River said I needed to stay here to protect you.” He gave Pepper a look she couldn’t quite decipher.
A chill ran across her bare shoulders reminding her of Abby.
Poor Abby. She’d counted on me.
Pepper jogged to the barn and picked up her Arabian’s soft brown saddle. With gentle but quick hands, she placed it on the enormous gray stallion’s back and fastened it tight around his belly.
“Stupid, dumb Aussie thinks he’ll eat my bunnies,” she mumbled under her breath to the gray horse in the stall. When Abby asked her to distract the guys, she had absolutely no idea what to do. But when she’d found Ottar by the fire, it occurred to her. Abby was gonna owe her big time.
She pulled her tank top over her head and stripped down to her birthday suit. She would keep Ottar busy, all right. A wicked smirk graced her lips.
She pulled out a clean towel and placed it on the saddle—because riding with no panties was just . . . ew—and climbed up on the magnificent creature’s back and gave him a double nudge with her bare heels to his side. They shot out of the barn past Wilma, the other horse, and galloped past a big eyed, open-mouthed, dumbfounded Ottar.
River dug his phone from his pants pocket with fumbling fingers and dialed Ottar.
“Ey, Ottar here,” The Aussie’s voice burst out over the phone loud and hurried.
“We have a situation here,” River blurted out, edging forward, away from the destroyed patrol car and into the darkening woods. His temples pulsed with adrenalin, making the ground seem like it was tilting to-and-fro.
“So do we,” Ottar said.
“Abby just changed into the Jersey Devil right before my eyes. She’s out flying around in the damn forest. She’s one of them.”
“Wait. What?” Clip clopping rushed across the airwaves, and River raised his brows. He held the phone away from his head and stared at it, then pressed it back to his ear.
“She changed. Inside my car. Or what’s left of it. She smashed the whole damn squad into pieces from the inside out. How could she have kept such a thing from me?”
Several heavy breaths blasted the phone. “Didn’t she have control over her shift?”
River pulled the phone away from his ear again, then corrected, and said, “Apparently not.” Well, she did try to get out of the car but he had locked her inside. “I’m going to go into the woods to look for her. What’s going on over there, boss?”
“Pepper took off on her horse. I’m chasing her now. The crazy chick is riding with her white pointers guiding the way.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“She’s naked, bloke. Stark raving let-them-bubblies-bounce-about naked.” He let loose the laugh of a man enjoying the hell out of his mission.
“You’re chasing her on horseback?”
“That’s what I said, mate. Did you hit your head?”
“Are you going to chase her or help me capture Abby?”
“Crikey. That’s a tough one. Track a flying devil beast or pursue a hot blonde nudie that may be in danger? Let me see . . . I’ll take the hot blonde for now. Go catch your sweetheart, River.” His obnoxious taunting laughter brought River’s blood five degrees short of a boil. The Aussie was out there goofing around chasing Pepper while he needed his help capturing Abby—or rather the Cryptid she’d morphed into.
I bet those two orchestrated this whole hootenanny. Pepper probably counted on Ottar running after her to distract him from the Jersey Devil.
Were they involved with the Gnome, too?
He jammed his phone into his pocket and leaned his stomach across the mangled hood of his car. He reached through the broken windshield, careful not to cut his hand on the shattered glass, and grabbed his beat up, smashed backpack from the front seat.
Tossing the pack from the hood, he jumped to the street and pulled out his equipment to check for damage. Going into the woods without gear when Cryptids were about meant suicide. He inspected the heat sensitive camera and his night vision goggles. Both seemed to function properly, except for the jagged crack across one of the lenses of the goggles.
At least he could scan the woods with the heat sensor. The camera picked up all heat signatures and displayed them with red and orange visuals. If Abby’s blood was reptilian, he was screwed. She would blend in with the rest of the background. He headed into the forest.
Darkness flooded down from the sky, saturating the thick stale air. Twisted pines entangled their branches performing a got
hic melodramatic rave. Sticks crackled in the distance mocking scornfully at River’s hastened steps.
He couldn’t believe Abby would keep a secret this important from him. Okay, yes he could. She seemed very interested in what occurred after they captured the Cryptids and asked a lot of questions. He’d probably scared her to death. Was this his fault?
After traipsing through the thick shadowy forest for over an hour, his phone vibrated. He snatched it out of his pocket.
“I’ve got Pepper with me.” Ottar’s cold dry tone revealed she’d given him a nice run around. River would have laughed if he wasn’t so pissed off at the two women right now.
“What’s your location?”
“Hang on she’s . . . Wait.” River heard ruckus and arguing in the background.
“Don’t hurt Abby.” Pepper’s voice faded away with the word Abby.
“Oi. Sorry. She grabbed the phone from me.” Ottar’s voice came back on.
“Let me talk to Pepper. Now.” He wanted to know more about Abby’s situation and his instincts told him Pepper knew everything.
“Yes. River, please don’t kill her.” Pepper’s tone had hysterics shouting out with each word.
“I’m not planning on it. How come you didn’t tell me?” He lowered his brows and scanned the woods with his heat detector.
Pepper exhaled and hesitated as if she wasn’t sure if she could trust him. “It wasn’t my secret to blab.”
“Do you think she’ll head home?” He hoped she would.
“I have no idea. This is only the second time she’s changed since she was cursed by that damn genie, and she didn’t remember what she did the last time. Please don’t torture her. She’s terrified!”
He cleared his throat. What would he do once he caught her? “Tell Ottar I’m going to track her down. You two stay at the house just in case she returns. And watch out for that Gnome.”
He pointed the camera in the trees ahead of him and checked in back. Every once in a while a small animal or squirrel would skitter off.
River shook his head over and over like the whole scene of Abby morphing into the devil would shake loose. It didn’t. Instead, his mind played it over several times etching the memory deep into his lobes.
Minds are tricksters. Not only did he see the horrific sight of the shift, the image would change over to her laughing on their cozy blanket during the picnic.
Leaning in to kiss him.
Over two hours passed, and still no sign of her. He refused to think about leaving. What if she came across the Gnome and tried to fight it as the Jersey Devil? Would she win? She seemed to do okay the last time in front of Mr. Livingston, but who knew what happened? Maybe she caught it off-guard?
A twig snapped behind him and he whipped around with the heat camera. An outline of a human appeared approximately a hundred yards back. With his other hand, he lifted the night goggles up to his eyes. Ottar waved to him and approached.
“I thought you were going to stay with Pepper?”
“She thought I would do more good here.” Hercules trotted up beside him.
River’s blood pumped overtime to his head and he thought it might explode with anger. “You brought my dog? I can’t believe it.”
Ottar looked down at the dog and shrugged like it was no big deal. “I thought he could help. Any sign of them?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t seen anything. She could be in the next state by now.”
“I doubt it. Pepper said last time she stayed in the woods by the house.”
River nodded, indicating he’d heard him. Conversation was the last thing on his mind. He pointed for Ottar to spread out to the right. The more land explored the better. They had shared enough hunts to know the drill. His hand caught Ottar’s shirt collar. “Don’t kill her unless it’s completely necessary,” he whispered.
“Got ya.” Ottar took off noiseless into the obscure shadows of the pine trees.
Hercules padded next to him in silent mode.
Another hour passed and River found a small footprint pressed in the soft mud. He bent down and touched the damp doll-like print. The Gnome.
The print was dark, and deep. Its sharp edges looked recent.
He carried on his search and found another. Good, he was heading the right way. Ottar was about fifty yards to his left when River made a soft hoot noise.
Ottar swung up his night goggles and River held up two fingers and pointed ahead of him. His comrade would know what he found from the signal. Ottar moved in closer, but still stayed parallel to him about twenty-five yards out.
An eardrum-puncturing squeal sounded ahead of them, blowing apart the silence of the forest. Hercules pivoted; his ears perked, and looked to River for instruction. Like an arrow from a crossbow, both men and dog bolted to the noise.
The Jersey Devil swooped down with her massive wings kicking up dust and leaves, and then she flew back up to the treetops. She cocked her head as if to lock on a target and dove down again. A curdled scream blasted through the woods. A rotten ten-day-old-deathlike stench hit River like a blow to the nuts.
Abby had found the Gnome. The bastard clung to her leathery wings by his hooked claw. She made a high-pitched caw. He dangled wildly while she flew him upward to a branch.
River snatched his net from his pack, and flung it toward both Cryptids, catching the Gnome’s foot. But the Gnome jiggled free from his imprisonment, his grip still locked in tight to Abby’s wing.
She batted her immense wingspan, swinging the Gnome back, smacking his treacherous body against a nearby Pine. He adjusted his grip. He raised his claw on the other hand and punctured another hole in her wing, shredding the soft membrane. His long slime covered tongue slithered out of his mouth, and he slurped up blood dripping from her wound.
Hercules barked.
Abby bellowed.
River wiped wet palms on his pants.
The Gnome dropped off and hit the ground with a bounce.
Abby lunged from the branch in a dive-bomb. The nasty creature rolled out of her way and popped up to his feet, spring-boarding onto her back. He stabbed her with one sharp hooked nail. She shrieked.
“Abby!” he called out to the beast.
Abby didn’t acknowledge him. She barrel-rolled in the sky as if she were putting on an air show, still trying to dislodge the Gnome with no avail.
The Gnome swung his hand above him and jabbed his talon down into Abby’s head. She landed in a dense tree. River and Ottar surveyed the fight scene, and adjusted their position. Hercules ran to the bottom of the tree. Screeching and squawking drowned out the normal crickets and forests sounds.
He cursed under his breath.
The great Jersey Devil plunged from the tree with the Gnome flailing about her head, and cannonballed into the stream below. Hoofed feet stuck straight up in the water. River and Ottar dashed to the creek.
River circled around and cast out his net. This time the webbing surrounded the Gnome. “I got him. A little help here?”
Ottar jumped to his side, grabbed hold of the net, and helped him haul in their catch. Deep lines in Ottar’s face tensed, and his cheeks pulsed when he pulled the rope tight to help River snare the creature.
Abby flapped furious wings in the water, her balance off-kilter, like a wounded albatross on its back. Her snout thrashed about in the cascading current. Her furry legs splattered water in all directions until she sat upright. Blood dripped from the top of her head.
Hercules barked, but stayed by his side.
Her gaze locked on River.
He pulled out his gun, aimed at her chest, and pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
Chapter 29
The side of Abby’s face stuck to a cold concrete floor, in a puddle of drying crusty sli
me. Startled, she sat up to take in dingy concrete walls, a small cot, and a steel toilet around her. She turned her head to gaze upon iron bars. Beyond the Haber Cove Jail bars, River sat in a chair with his elbows resting on his knees, hands folded in front of him, his frozen stare latched onto her.
The previous evening flashed back to her like a drunk remembering a horrible binge. Oh dear God.
“What happened?” Her voice was barely audible and scratchy. She wasn’t sure River heard her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” There was no pity in his voice, only accusation. His blue eyes narrowed in contempt.
She tried to move her hands apart and realized she had been hog tied with a rope. Looking up at River she asked, “Is all this necessary?”
“That depends.” He didn’t get up.
“I couldn’t . . .” She jerked her hands up and her legs followed with the motion. The heavy nylon ropes held tight.
A squabble noise and a bang came from behind her. She pivoted her head to see through the bars in the next cell. The Gnome grunted and bucked, trying to get out of his own ropes.
“You caught him.” A smile spread across her face.
“Yes.” Monotone. No emotion. No heart.
She flinched at his scowl. River would never forgive her. She imagined what came next—he’d ship her off to their secret laboratory, and she’d become the next slab of monster for his superiors to dissect.
Abby’s throat tightened to the point she almost couldn’t draw a breath. She would rather die than be tortured because some sick scientist wanted to know more about her insides.
She laid her head back down, feeling like she owned the worst hangover of her life, and didn’t say anything for a while. The image of River, his face engulfed with worry, beating on the squad car window, shouting for her to unlock the door, flashed in her mind. How did she get out of the car and into the jail? River must have drugged her, or captured her with one of his mysterious metal nets.