Kindling the Darkness

by Jane Kindred

  What the hell was that thing? How could it have kept moving with four Soul Reaper bullets in its chest? It was infernal. It had to be. But it moved faster—and it was larger—than any garden-variety werewolf she’d encountered. And it had seemed somehow less...furry.

  The tub had filled, and Lucy shut the water off and leaned back against the built-in headrest. It really was a hell of a tub. She hadn’t paid much attention to it when she rented the place, since she’d only intended to use the stand-alone shower. But it was deep enough and wide enough for her to stretch out both arms and legs and let them float in the silky water without touching anything.

  Eyes closed, she ran through the encounter in Jerome with the same critical review. The reptilian-demon waitress wasn’t in the Smok registry, so, killer or not, it was definitely a fugitive. But was it possible it wasn’t the killer she was tracking? What were the odds more than one hell fugitive would be hanging out in Jerome, Arizona? The artsy haven carved into the side of Cleopatra Hill in the Arizona Black Hills, a former copper mining boomtown that had turned its colorful history into a touristy cash maker as an active “ghost town,” had a grand total of less than five hundred permanent residents.

  The vigilante—which was what G.I. Joe likely was, given his skulking around in a dark hoodie in the middle of the night on his “neighborhood watch of a sort”—had been adamant that the waitress wasn’t Lucy’s killer. Not that Lucy was going to take his word for it, but he hadn’t struck her as a liar, whatever else he was. He genuinely seemed to believe the girl was harmless. And he claimed he’d been watching her for a month.

  Maybe he was just a perv who liked watching young women. But he hadn’t given off that vibe. And he hadn’t made any typical masculine overtures toward Lucy, who was just a few years younger than the waitress appeared to be. Honestly, it had kind of annoyed her. She was used to being noticed by guys his age—just hitting their midlife-crisis stride and hyperaware of any younger woman in their vicinity to project their insecurities onto and gauge their own desirability. Not that she wanted middle-aged dudes creeping on her, but it was almost suspect when they didn’t.

  So what was this guy’s deal? Middle-aged but in almost-military shape, living in tiny, artsy Jerome in the middle of nowhere keeping tabs on its “extra-human” population? Maybe he was a fugitive. Lucy opened her eyes. Maybe he was her fugitive.

  The phone rang from the living room. She’d left it in her pocket when she stripped out of her wet clothes. Lucy sighed and climbed out of the tub.

  She got to the phone after the call had rolled to voice mail, and she listened to the message on speaker while toweling off. An older woman spoke a bit hesitantly, as though her request was awkward. She spoke on behalf of “the council,” which wanted to contract Lucy’s services to investigate a werewolf sighting. In Jerome. So much for taking care of its own.

  Chapter 2

  Whoever this “council” was, they were clearly desperate. Lucy called the woman back to verify the job’s legitimacy before agreeing to take it. Despite the unorthodox call to her personal phone, they’d been referred to Smok Consulting through the proper channels. They were anxious to meet with her this morning, in an hour, wanting to take care of the problem before too many residents—or more likely, tourists—became aware of it. This “werewolf” was probably the fugitive she was tracking. She could kill two hell beasts with one stone.

  Lucy pushed down the exhaustion. She’d stayed up this long. Might as well go for two days. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten—she’d left a gorgeous plate of hash browns cooked into a giant pancake, plus a sweet side of bacon, at the coffeehouse—but there wasn’t time for a proper breakfast. Maybe she could grab coffee and a muffin somewhere in Jerome before meeting her contact. Lucy sighed. As much as she’d resented Lucien’s attitude about Smok Consulting’s work, it had sure seemed easier handling these kinds of jobs with two people. Maybe he hadn’t been entirely useless.

  * * *

  The road to Jerome, once she’d left Sedona and driven through the flat stretch of valley beyond Cottonwood and Clarkdale, was straight up the escarpment separating the Black Hills from the valley. One thing Lucy hated was driving slow, and driving up between the stacked limestone retaining walls that hugged the mountainside meant driving slow.

  Arriving in Jerome with fifteen minutes to spare, Lucy parked in front of an artsy-looking shop in the bottom of a restored Victorian on lower Main Street near the Ghost City Inn, an old miners’ boardinghouse turned B and B. A wrought-iron sign hanging over the door declared the shop was Delectably Bookish. She wasn’t sure if it was a café or a bookstore, but she thought she smelled coffee brewing inside. She opened the door, pursuing the scent. It looked like a reading room, with comfy mismatched chairs and couches strewn among tables beside stacks of hardback books—and, hallelujah, a shellacked wooden counter at the back bearing an espresso machine and a case of pastries and treats.

  Lucy made a beeline for it. Coffee was definitely brewing. But there was no one in sight.

  “Hello?” She leaned over the counter, peering into the back through a beaded-glass curtain. “Anyone back there?”

  Nothing.

  She was running out of time, and she really needed that coffee. She’d been awake for almost thirty hours at this point. “Hey, hello? You’ve got a customer out here.”

  In frustration, she tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter and grabbed a lemon poppy seed muffin, stuffing a bite into her mouth while she went around the counter and helped herself to a cup of coffee. There were no paper cups. She’d have to bring back the cappuccino cup after her meeting.

  Lucy sipped her coffee as she headed back around the counter and nearly dumped it on herself as she looked up. At the bottom of the staircase that led from the book stacks to the second floor of what she assumed were more book stacks, a ruggedly handsome middle-aged man stood watching her, arms folded—and they were seriously impressive arms packed tight into a white T-shirt—a scowl on his tanned face. It was her G.I. Joe vigilante.

  “Find the cash register all right? I hope that pesky drawer didn’t give you any trouble. It sticks sometimes.”

  “Cash register? No, I—just needed a coffee. There was nobody here. I left money on the counter.”

  “Jerome isn’t your personal hunting ground. You might want to learn some manners before someone mistakes you for a thief and treats you accordingly.”

  Heat rushed to Lucy’s face. “Yeah? Well, you might want to be a little more responsive when a customer is waiting. In the real world, baristas don’t get tips when they ignore people. Maybe you shouldn’t be taking bathroom breaks when you’re supposed to be working.”

  “Maybe you should learn to read.” His head tilted toward the words printed in large gold lettering on the outside of the glass panel on the door. “We open at noon.”

  Lucy tried to maintain some dignity, the stupid muffin crumbling in her hand as she set down the coffee cup. “Why the hell is the door unlocked if you’re not open?”

  Barista G.I. Joe studied her for a moment, his expression giving away nothing. “We generally trust our neighbors around here. This is the first time I’ve ever been robbed.”

  “Robbed?” Lucy picked up the five-dollar bill and waved it at him. “I paid you. But you know what? Forget it. Keep the coffee and the muffin. And the damn change. Maybe you can buy yourself a functioning lock.”

  She tossed the muffin and the money on the counter and stalked to the door, willing down the prickly heat in her skin threatening to top off her humiliation with a furious blush. She made it all the way to the door—and then pushed instead of pulled.

  His soft laughter as she adjusted her grip on the handle followed her out.

  Lucy wasn’t easily flustered. Years of practice being the “good” daughter under Edgar’s strict rules and dealing with supernatural rogues, paranormal ent
ities and therianthropes—or shape-shifters, in layman’s terms—of every description had made her preternaturally calm under pressure. Everything was to be kept inside. A Smok wasn’t supposed to react with emotion but with a cool head to defuse the most unpredictable situations. And she certainly didn’t get embarrassed. What was it to her if some petty wannabe-vigilante barista chose to call her a thief just because he couldn’t be bothered to man the counter at his day job?

  Normally, she’d have already forgotten the encounter. Maybe it was the lack of sleep—and caffeine—affecting her, but her blood was boiling, and she couldn’t shake it off. She wanted to go back and punch the guy in the mouth.

  Lucy gritted her teeth and entered the landscape-dominating Civic Center building on Clark Street that housed the town hall, an odd mix of classical architecture and Mission Revival that defied the small-town-Victorian aesthetic.

  With a few minutes to spare, she stepped into the bathroom to make sure she was presentable. Charcoal-gray pin-striped suit immaculate, white shirt crisp, nothing out of place. After tucking a few stray hairs into the loose braid that hung down her back, she touched up her Blood Moon lip stain—the dark, dramatic hue was the one concession she made to traditional femininity; the over-the-top color went beyond sexual appeal, making an aggressive statement that made her feel in control—and headed upstairs to her meeting.

  The door to the meeting room opened outward—like a respectable door. Lucy pulled it open and stopped on the threshold in disbelief. Among the three council members sitting at the table was Barista G.I. Joe.

  His dark brows drew together into a disbelieving scowl that matched the one she was no doubt displaying as he met her eyes. “You have got to be kidding.”

  The elderly woman who’d risen from the seat next to him at Lucy’s entrance glanced from him to Lucy and back. “Do you two know each other?”

  “No, we don’t,” said Lucy before he could answer. “We just had a misunderstanding about coffee.”

  “I see.” The woman reached a hand across the table. “I’m Nora Peterson.”

  Lucy stepped forward with a nod and shook Nora’s hand, trying to ignore the unfriendly glare emanating from beside her. “Lucy Smok.”

  Nora indicated the chair opposite her. “Please have a seat.”

  As Lucy sat, she reevaluated her initial assessment of G.I Joe’s age. Prematurely graying hair had made him seem older at first glance. He was definitely on the nearer side of forty.

  She smiled politely at Nora and the other council member, avoiding the glowering eyes. Even though they were compelling. And an intense deep cinnamon, just a shade darker than amber. Not that she noticed.

  “I didn’t realize the town council would be here. Generally, people like to keep these matters hushed up.”

  Nora tilted her head. “The choice of meeting place may have been unintentionally misleading. We’re not exactly the town council. We’re more like...the paracouncil.” She gave Lucy a slight smile. “We’re a volunteer group. But we’ve taken it upon ourselves to manage incidents that fall outside the normal operations of the town. With the council’s blessing. Unofficially.”

  Lucy took out her phone to take notes. “So they do know about these paranormal occurrences.”

  “Everyone knows.” The man on Nora’s other side shrugged. “Jerome is a small town. It’s hard not to know things. We just don’t talk about them. Except for the ghosts, of course.” He smiled. “They’re sort of our livelihood.”

  Lucy nodded, uncertain whether he was being facetious. “I see. Thank you, Mr...”

  Nora clucked her tongue. “So sorry, Ms. Smok. This is Wes Mason.”

  Wes reached over the table to shake Lucy’s hand, his dark skin weathered and rough. “How do you do?”

  “And Oliver Connery.” Nora indicated Barista G.I. Joe.

  Lucy turned to him with a bland, polite expression. “Mr. Connery.”

  He rose to shake her hand, maintaining a similar expression in return. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Smok.” The handshake was firm but not too firm.

  Lucy sat back in her chair. “So you said there’s been werewolf activity?”

  “We assume it’s a werewolf,” said Nora. “We haven’t personally gotten a good look at it.”

  “You’re sure it’s not coyotes or stray dogs? And you’re certain it’s only one?”

  “I think we all know the difference between a dog and a werewolf.” Oliver Connery wasn’t quite as unflappable as he’d pretended. The other two members of the council glanced at him, as if the defensive tone was out of character. He seemed to realize it and dialed it back. “We’ve spotted tracks matching the profile of wolves that disappear into human footprints. Normally, this wouldn’t be cause for alarm. Most shape-shifters just want to be left alone, and we believe in a live-and-let-live philosophy.”

  “That’s not consistent with my experience, Mr. Connery.” Lucy calmly met his eyes. Now she was in her element. “Rogue shape-shifters are never benign. Every one I’ve dealt with has caused chaos and destruction.”

  “Your experience? Forgive me, but you can’t really have much experience. I’m a little surprised, honestly, to find that someone so young is the CFO of Smok International. Or that the CFO herself would take this job.”

  Lucy fixed her gaze on him. “I’ve been deeply involved with the company operations—both the biotech side and the paranormal-consulting side—since I was fifteen, and I started working as a consulting agent when I turned eighteen. I spent the last five years traveling Europe and the eastern states as Smok Consulting’s premier field agent before my father turned the business over to me prior to his death. And I am telling you—from experience—that shifters who aren’t actively managing their conditions and integrating with normal society are dangerous.”

  Oliver opened his mouth, but Wes spoke first. “Ordinarily, I’d agree with Oliver, but this is a different breed. We’ve never encountered any so malevolent. It’s been responsible for at least three vicious attacks in the area—official reports are attributing the deaths to a rabid mountain lion, but we have eyewitnesses who claim to have seen a large, misshapen wolf. That’s why we’ve called you in. This is bigger than we can handle. We took a vote.” He glanced at Oliver a bit apologetically. “It was two to one in favor of bringing in professional help.”

  “Well, you’ve made the right decision.” Lucy spared a cool glance at Oliver. “This is my area of expertise.”

  Oliver’s strong jaw was tight. “I’m not sure I care for your use of the word normal, but despite my reluctance to bring in an outsider—whose motives are purely mercenary—I concurred with Nora and Wes’s assessment that this isn’t ordinary. If it’s a wolf, it’s like no wolf I’ve ever encountered.”

  “You can’t have encountered many, Mr. Connery. Smok Consulting tracks this kind of activity closely, and we have no previous evidence of any werewolves in Jerome, Arizona.”

  “You assume every werewolf in existence announces itself to you.”

  Now, that was an odd thing to say. Perhaps Oliver Connery had experience after all. Personal experience.

  “You assume all the unnatural creatures in our database are aware that they’re in it.”

  One dark brow, in stark contrast to the silver in his hair, twitched.

  Nora made an effort to regain control of the meeting. “So how do you usually approach these matters? Despite the fact that people are aware of certain odd goings-on in Jerome, we do want to maintain some discretion.”

  Lucy nodded. “Absolutely. I’d like to start with a list of all reported sightings, including times and dates and any physical contact. And then I’ll survey each of the sites, interview any eyewitnesses who are willing to come forward and get to work tracking the creature or creatures down.”

  “I’m not sure how many eyewitnesses will be willing to talk to you.” Nora and
Wes shared a look. “But I’ll give you what I can.” She rose and shook Lucy’s hand again. “We’re very grateful for your help. In the meantime, Oliver will take you to the location of the most recent sighting so you can examine the physical evidence.”

  Lucy paused as she rose with the others. “Oh... I wouldn’t want to put you out, Mr. Connery. I’m sure I can find it on my own.”

  “Please, call me Oliver. And I’m sure you can’t.”

  “You doubt my abilities?”

  “I don’t have any idea what your abilities are. It’s not about your abilities. It’s just that it’s not something we can simply write down and give you directions to.”

  One of her abilities was being able to kick the asses of men twice her size. She supposed she could put that ability to use if she had to. Again.

  Lucy shrugged. “Well, if it won’t inconvenience you.” She nodded to Nora and Wes as they headed out into the hallway before she turned to give Oliver a pointed look as he came around the table. “I suppose you have someone to cover your shift?”

  “My shift?” He stopped in front of her, forcing her to look up.

  “Aren’t you working at the coffee shop?” She smiled darkly. “You did say it opened at noon.”

  Oliver chuckled, hooking his thumbs into the back pockets of his jeans. “I don’t work there.”

  Lucy frowned, the usual potency of her practiced icy stare diluted by having to look up. “Then what were you doing there?”

  “I live upstairs.” He smiled back at her as if they were having a perfectly friendly conversation. “I own the place.”

  “Oh.”

  “So that coffee and muffin you stole come directly out of my profits.”

  She didn’t normally lose her temper, but there was something about this guy that totally pushed her buttons. “I paid for the food!” Her fists were clenched at her sides as she resisted the urge to punch him in the face. The urge was strong.