The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set

by Michael Anderle

  Rallied by the man’s words, one brave Firestarter pulled a small cleaver from his side and sprinted at Caitlin. In one fluid motion, she swung her blade and slit the man’s chest. His eyes opened wide as he fell to the floor and lay there without moving.

  “Anyone else?” she asked. When no one responded, she lowered her blade and continued, growing ever aware of the smoke smell seeping in from outside. “Speaking of the governor, we’re in need of a little parley with the big man. What do you suppose are the odds of you taking us to him? We can promise to repay you kindly.”

  The pastor spat on the floor. “You’ve got nothing that we could want.”

  “Erm…how about your lives? Unless you fancy ending up like your friend down here on the floor?”

  Caitlin waited patiently for an answer. She could hear the fire outside growing louder now, and if she wasn’t much mistaken, could she see the flames in the other room. Smoke began to filter through, clothing the ceiling as she nudged a response from the man before her. “Well?”

  Another stepped forward with a thick, grizzly beard and a skinny waist compared to his broad shoulders.

  “Don’t you say a fucking word,” Andrews instructed.

  The man hesitated, apparently struggling with his thoughts for a moment before saying, “It’s impossible. No one but the pastor has seen the governor in days. Not even Pastor Andrews knows where he is.”

  “What did I just fucking say?”

  “Yet you blindly follow his rule?” Mary-Anne asked, looking more at Christy than the others. Christy looked at the floor.

  “It’s not our place to question the words of higher powers,” another Firestarter—a woman this time—answered. “Our place is to deliver and obey. Without the worker bees, the queen will die.”

  “Queen B’s,” Mary-Anne remarked, a joke only she seemed to understand.

  “But it is your place,” Caitlin said. “It totally is. You can’t spend your days taking commands without question, being told what is right and what is wrong, and trusting whichever crazed psychopath comes your way to tell you what to do.”

  “Watch how you speak about the gov—”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah. We get it. The governor is the prophet, come to deliver the town, blah, blah, blah. Why don’t you sip a bit of reality, fuck-face, and think about it? All of you. Think.” Caitlin began to count the points on her fingers as she spoke. “Who benefits the most from Trisk telling you all he’s some kind of supreme being? Who went from being a shit-scooper to leading congregations and acting like a goddamn monarch? Who has his every wish come true—”

  “Erm… Kitty Cat?” Mary-Anne interjected.

  “Hold on. Who has his every wish come true, brought to life by a group of obedient, black-clothing-wearers willing to burn towns and ink their skin because he says so?”

  The tattooist raised a hand weakly, “Actually, that was my idea.”

  Caitlin looked at her own tattoo, still sore and bleeding lightly. “Bitchin’.”

  “Moxie,” Mary-Anne urged.

  “What?”

  The vampire nodded behind her where the flames now crept in. “We should probably wrap this up and get moving.”

  “Fine,” Caitlin moaned. She turned to each Firestarter in turn, talking to them as though she was a mother telling her kids to come back to a safe place if they got lost. “Now, we’re going to take your pastor and use him as a divining rod to locate the governor. He’s got to be around here somewhere. If any of you care to join us, feel free. If you feel it’s too much to break the habit and come to the side of the good guys, then more fool you. Your HQ is burning, and you’re leaderless. Get some sense, people.”

  And with that, Caitlin left. Mary-Anne placed her hood back over her head, ripped a bit of cloth from another Firestarter to wrap around her arm, which had already healed, and dragged Andrews behind her.

  The only Firestarter to join them was Christy. Shortly after that, the house was swallowed in flame.

  “Holy shit. Are you kidding me?”

  Jamie’s jaw dropped when he opened his front door. Mary-Anne had raced ahead with the pastor, taking as many shortcuts as she could to avoid drawing too much attention to herself.

  Of course, she still left several confused residents in her wake.

  “Move,” Mary-Anne said simply, dropping Andrews on the sofa.

  “Are you kidding me?” Jamie repeated, looking around and clearly flummoxed. “You’ve captured Pastor Andrews?”

  “No, I’m here of my own free will,” the pastor said sarcastically.

  “Give it a rest, fuck-nugget,” Mary-Anne snapped, ripping a length of cloth from the man’s garbs and gagging him. “We may need you to talk, but until Kitty-Cat gets here, I want you to stay schtum, okay?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, that’s right. Moxie ain’t her real name. It’s Kitty-Cat, or Caitlin for short. Seems the world is full of liars, right?”

  Caitlin knocked shortly after. Jamie ran a hand through his hair, mumbling under his breath. He opened the door, his eyes widening when he saw Christy standing behind Caitlin.

  “Wha—” His voice broke. He coughed. “What are you doing here?”

  Caitlin looked between them both, understanding finally dawning in her head. “Oh, of course. This is a romance scene, right?” She patted Jamie on the back. “I’ll leave you guys to it.”

  Jamie blushed and stepped aside to allow her entry. Christy followed, a coy grin on her face. Jaxon sprinted up to Caitlin and jumped into her arms.

  “Ah, I missed you, too, boy!” she said, scratching behind his ears. She looked around the room. “Where’s Mabel?” she asked, half-expecting the old woman to hobble in at any second.

  “Out the back, watering the plants,” Jamie answered.

  “I didn’t see any plants out there.”

  “Nope,” Jamie said simply, taking a seat. “So, are you going to explain what exactly is going on?”

  “Want the short or the long answer?” Caitlin said, searching her mind for an easy explanation.

  “Long,” Jamie replied.

  “Well,” Caitlin drew a deep breath. “We traveled through a forest, found a crazy guy in the woods who lived in a house of compacted metal and that his wife had turned Mad, though he still kept her around. We continued to Ashdale in the hopes of finding the governor—y’know, on account of him being a shitbag who used and manipulated my brother and me threatening to kill us both. It turned out he had given directions to a sociopath to breed hope and delusion into the townspeople who lived like a herd of sheep.

  “Found a way to join his cult, set Christy’s parents’ house on fire—with them still inside. Saved her parents but killed two of his best men so had to send Kain with Patricia and Felix back into the woods to stay with trashcan man until the dust all blew over.”

  She took another breath. “Got inches away from joining the cult and finding a way to the governor without any need to create any mess until old sweet-fang—that’s what Kain likes to call her—suddenly remembers she can’t sit out in the sun and get tattooed because she’s a friggin’ vampire, so she goes on a rampage. Next, she flees, eats part of a person, we manage to trap the pastor and all his cronies, and now, we’re using him as a signpost to get us closer to Trisk so we can finally clear his evil from the land forevermore. Amen.”

  They all sat in stunned silence.

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Mary-Anne slow-clapped, breaking the spell.

  “Any questions?” Caitlin asked.

  Mabel wandered in then, her hands covered in dirt. She wiped them down her dress, sat down in her favorite chair, then looked at everyone in her living room in surprise. “The turnips needed turning,” she explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Which brings us to…” Caitlin dragged a chair over to where the pastor sat and pulled the gag down from his mouth. “We don’t have time, and my patience is running thin, so tell us everyth
ing you know.”

  Andrews looked the most terrified Caitlin had ever seen him. His gaze kept flicking to Mary-Anne and the blood crusted and painted on her face. “I don’t know where the governor is.”

  “Bullshit,” the vampire responded sharply.

  “Not at all.” Andrews suddenly looked ashamed. “He’s in hiding. Even I don’t know where he is right now.”

  “You must have a way of communicating with him. I find it hard to believe that you’re out here running rogue off one conversation with Trisk while he sits back in his hole and watches.” Caitlin grabbed his hair and pulled to tilt his head back, her other hand hovering in open threat on the handle of her blade.

  The man stared unblinkingly at Caitlin. He looked to be about to say something when, instead, he hocked a loogie straight into her face.

  Everyone in the room tensed. Caitlin heard Jamie gasp.

  Caitlin let out a hollow laugh and wiped the loogie with the back of her sleeve. “Men… They never learn.” She moved backward and motioned for Mary-Anne to take her place. “If you won’t listen to a woman, I’ll have you listen to a vampire.”

  The pastor’s eyes widened as Mary-Anne walked over slowly and straddled his lap. She grinned, taking his head in both hands. She felt him stiffen beneath her, leaned in close to his ear, and spoke quietly. “Talk. Before I take this head, rip it off, and use it as a fucking bowling ball.”

  “What’s a bowling ball?” Pastor Andrews asked.

  Mary-Anne grinned and began pulling.

  His face settled into a strange mix of pleasure, confusion, and pain. The tendons in his neck grew taut as Mary-Anne pulled. His face grew red. Only at the moment when Caitlin thought the skin would begin to fray and break did he suddenly exclaim, “Fine. Fine, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Mary-Anne stepped back triumphantly, leaving the pastor to sit awkwardly with a small bulge in his crotch.

  “Still got it,” the vamp remarked, brushing her shoulder.

  “So, the governor?” Caitlin probed, impatient now to end it.

  “I really don’t know where he is.”

  Caitlin half-drew her sword.

  “But I know how you can reach him,” Andrews added quickly. “Stump is your key. I send my messages through him.”

  “The tiny guy at the Cloak & Dagger?” Jamie asked, instantly falling silent again as all eyes turned to him. “He gives me the creeps.”

  Christy giggled and placed a hand on his knee, turning his face an even brighter shade of crimson.

  “That’s the one.” The pastor nodded vigorously. “Send a message through him, and you should be able to reach Governor Trisk.”

  “Or we could tie him up and threaten to pop his head off, too?” Mary-Anne suggested.

  Strangely, he laughed at that. “Good luck. If there’s one man you’ll never break, it’s Stump. There’s something…not quite right about him. He’d rather eat the big one than break his own moral code.”

  “Sounds like a challenge.” Mary-Anne looked intrigued.

  “No,” Caitlin said, putting an abrupt end to whatever flight of fancy her friend might entertain. “When was the last time you sent a message to him?”

  Andrews seemed to wrestle his own thoughts before surrendering. “Early this morning.”

  “And what did it say?”

  He would say no more other than that he had requested a meeting with the governor at the Cloak & Dagger, room fifteen, later that day and before congregation.

  “That’s why the room smelt so familiar,” Caitlin said. “What was I thinking? I should recognize the governor’s stench anywhere.” She closed her eyes, drew back memories of the smell, and saw herself in Trisk’s chambers back in Silver Creek all those weeks before. She could still feel the burning rage as she had hit him and he had shoved her. Hard. The humiliation as he commanded Caitlin and Dylan to bring Mary-Anne back to join the ranks of his guards at Silver Creek under pain of death.

  “Looks like we know where to go, Kitty-Cat,” Mary-Anne said. “Lover girl, you in?”

  Christy blushed, removing her hand from Jamie’s knee. “Sure.”

  “Don’t worry, she’s saving that whip for you.” Mary-Anne winked at Jamie who colored yet again.

  “What time did you give the governor?” Caitlin asked, looking out the window. The sun was beginning to set, the sky turning a mottled mix of reds and oranges. It was beautiful, a striking contrast to the ugliness of the world.

  “A little after sunset.”

  “Let’s get moving, then,” Caitlin said to Christy and Mary-Anne. Jaxon barked, then licked her face excitedly. “Yes, you can come, too.”

  “Why room fifteen?” the vampire asked suddenly.

  Andrews shrugged. “It’s a nice number.”

  “Well, that clears that up.” Caitlin wrapped her cloak about her, watched as Mary-Anne put her hood back up, twisting at the tears in her fabric to close the holes that might expose her skin to further sunlight, then pointed at Jamie and Mabel. “You keep an eye on him, okay?”

  Jamie’s face dropped. “You’re leaving him, with us?”

  “That’s right, fuck face.” Pastor Andrews grinned. “Don’t worry, though. It’s not like my Firestarters will be looking for me. Let’s see how long you can keep me quiet when these guys are all gone—”

  His taunts were cut short by a deep metallic clang as Mabel smacked him over the head with a pan. “Go on, dears. We’ll keep old soppy-dick safe and quiet.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario

  The forest was thick and unfamiliar, trees boughs blocking nearly every inch of sunlight. A strong smell of damp and moss permeated the air as the group stood at the base of the ancient pine and waited.

  “Anything?” Dylan called up.

  They paused, waiting. He rummaged around, reaching and clawing for the top. If he went too far up the tree, he risked his weight snapping the branches as the strength of the pine tapered to its point in the sky. If he didn’t go far enough, then there wasn’t a great deal of sense in him climbing up at all. All he’d see would be green, green, and more green.

  “Tom?” Dylan asked again.

  No answer.

  “Tom?”

  Silence.

  Dylan rolled his eyes and looked at Laurie. “Sergeant?”

  A gruff voice called down to the Revolutionaries. “We’re on track.”

  Laurie giggled. Ash joined her, catching Laurie’s eye. He stopped immediately when Alice glared at him.

  A wave of relief fell over the group—or, at least, those who had begun to wonder if they were even going in the right direction. The forest seemed to take on a freakish sameness with every step.

  “Great. Come on down.”

  Sergeant Tom Hitchcock shimmied his way down expertly, landing with a soft thud on the forest floor. Leaves and twigs crunched underfoot, dried and dead from lack of sun or water.

  “The smoke is getting thicker,” he said, adjusting his eyepatch and straightening his back. “There must have been a big ass fire somewhere. That smoke was thicker and blacker than any I’ve seen yet.”

  Dylan’s thoughts turned to Caitlin. His group had made great speed thus far, only having to stop occasionally to rest or take down a cluster of Mad-infected fuckers. They had lost one of their crew along the way, but that only made them all the more determined. But Dylan wished they could be there already. He was growing uneasy, wondering with every step if Caitlin was even alive anymore.

  What would he do if he made it to Ashdale and discovered she had been killed there?

  Or what if she had never made it at all?

  “Rest time is over. Let’s keep moving,” he instructed. A few of the Revolutionaries sighed, but most obeyed without hesitation.

  Laurie walked off ahead, side by side with Tom. Alice and Ash walked behind, he trying to look everywhere but at Laurie’s ass. If Dylan wasn’t mistaken, her gait was exaggerated, and he wondered if it was
for Ash’s eyes only.

  Suddenly, Alice pulled her man to the side. She shoved him against the back of a tree and placed her lips on his. He tensed at the unexpected action but soon softened into the kiss. Dylan grinned and kept moving.

  “What was that for?” Ash asked when she finally removed her mouth.

  Alice considered her words. “I know I’ve been acting coy and like this doesn’t mean anything to me. But it does. I…like you. I need you to know that.”

  He smiled and tucked a lock of hair behind Alice’s ear. “I do.”

  Alice blushed and lowered her head. “I’m not as pretty as her.”

  Ash’s touch was gentle as he tilted her chin up and stared deeply into her eyes. They shimmered like clear pools. “You’re everything and more.”

  “Then why do you keep staring at her? Why can’t you peel your eyes away?”

  It was a fair question. Ash took a moment to think.

  “You know how, if somebody tells you not to look at something, you immediately want to look?”

  “What a shit excuse,” Alice retorted, her expression hardening.

  “Okay, look behind you,” Ash said.

  “Fuck off.”

  “Fine. Don’t look behind you.”

  Alice turned to see two red eyes a short way behind her, moving toward them both. She pulled out her twin blades and cut the Mad down before he had a chance to cause any damage. He fell impotently to the floor at their feet.

  Ash’s smile returned. Smug. “Told you.”

  Alice couldn’t help but return her own grin. “I fucking hate you.”

  “Save some of that passion. It’ll come in handy.” He winked and kissed her deeply.

  They stopped when they heard someone up ahead call them both. With a final kiss, they ran back to the others.

  The Revolutionaries continued through the forest, their steps light and measured. As they moved through the brush, they barely noticed the steadily increasing presence of tin cans and scraps of metal caught in the foliage.

  No one noticed the small man with the ten-gallon hat as he aimed his shotgun through the shadows.