Kindling the Darkness

by Jane Kindred

  He was secretly still working for Darkrock. And they had created him.

  Goose bumps rippled across Lucy’s skin. Darkrock had long been interested in a partnership with Smok Consulting despite being frustrated by Edgar’s refusals. Their public relations rep had reached out to Lucy shortly after she assumed control of the company, wanting to discuss how they could work together in the future, but Lucy had instructed her assistant to let them know in no uncertain terms that nothing had changed at Smok with Edgar’s death. His policies would survive him.

  What if they’d decided to get at Lucy another way? What if it hadn’t been mere happenstance that Lucy had hunted the hell beast here, of all places, and had run up against Oliver Connery that first night? She’d thought the beast was targeting her. She had a sinking feeling she’d been more right than she knew.

  She started the car and pulled back onto Main. If she was right, Oliver wouldn’t be home anyway. He would be waiting for her in one of the lesser-known mine shafts. The incident with the Hendersons had obviously been for Lucy’s benefit, designed to lure her to it. The mine shaft near the park where they’d spotted it was too obvious a place for the hell beast to be lurking.

  Lucy parked at the base of the dirt road that led into the mountains, the spot where she’d fought it before, and hiked uphill, using a special GPS app Smok International had developed to find access points to some of the abandoned mine shafts in the hills. After surveying the area pinpointed on the app, she found the telltale footprints she was looking for leading to an opening hidden among the rocks. Lucy loaded up the crossbow, viewing the tunnel through the night vision scope, and headed in.

  The wolf prints were only in sets of two, as if the beast was walking upright. Lucy followed them along the mine cart rails perhaps half a mile into the shaft before they stopped abruptly and became human footprints. Was Oliver himself waiting for her? A deep twinge of wistful body memory recalled the intimacy she’d shared with him not twenty-four hours ago. What kind of sick bastard would play a game like this? It was the ultimate bait-and-switch of seduction.

  Lucy stopped and laughed at herself. She was talking about a hell beast. Of course he was a sick bastard.

  A noise in the dirt to her right stopped her laughter instantly. She crouched and turned the scope toward the sound. A brief glimpse of the swiftly moving form of a man was all she caught before he rushed her, faster than any human she’d ever encountered, and knocked the crossbow from her grasp. Without the scope, she was blind. She should have opted for night goggles. The beast paced and circled her, now closer to the ground and growling low in its throat. It had shifted once more.

  With her Nighthawk Browning in her hand, she tried to track it. If she missed, who knew what the bullet might glance off? She needed to aim into the depths of the mine, catching the creature when it was framed by the passage walls instead of in front of them. A brush of fur made her jump, and Lucy shot in the thing’s direction, but it was already gone. She was sure the little growl that followed was laughter.

  It was toying with her. And it was obviously every bit as sentient as she was.

  “What do you want?” Her words seemed to thud into the dirt around her, as if no air flowed through the tunnels.

  The laugh-growl came again from behind, and the creature leaped on top of her before she could spin and get off a shot, knocking her facedown and grinding her into the dirt and rusted tracks. Its weight was considerable, and it had her pinned. The gun was just beyond her grasp. She could feel the creature’s hot breath on her neck. And she could also feel it transform, effortlessly, from wolf to man.

  “What do I want?” The whispered words sent a chill down her spine. “I am Death. I am the Pit. I want to take you into my mouth.”

  Lucy shuddered as a hot tongue slicked across the back of her neck.

  “But I am having fun here. Such a charming playground this world is. So I’m in no hurry.” He made a breathing sound behind her that was more like a dog’s panting than human breath. “And you have something of mine that I want first.”

  Lucy tried to keep her voice casual. “What could I possibly have of yours?”

  “Don’t play coy. The thing you’ve hidden from me. The thing that escaped.”

  “What thing? What escaped?” She struggled to breathe under his weight. “From where?”

  He laughed with the growling, unnatural cadence of the wolf. “From hell, of course. Your obligation to your foolish rules is to send such things back, but instead you’ve put this one somewhere I can’t find it. And I want it. It’s my right.” He breathed damply against her ear. “I want to feel its tender neck bones beneath my teeth as the hot blood of its carotid artery spills into my mouth.” He licked her once more, and Lucy used the uncontrollable shudder to move her hand closer to the gun.

  She almost had it, fingers curling to close around the metal, but his hand came down on hers, and he shoved the weapon away. But to do it, he’d moved his body just enough to free her arm, and Lucy punched swiftly back and up with her elbow, hitting him right in the throat. It bought her just enough time and space to scramble for the gun as he reacted with a surprised, furious guttural outburst. Lucy grabbed the weapon and fired into his shoulder, and he jolted backward with the impact, his head striking the shaft wall. She fired again as she rolled onto her back. No longer close enough for her to see his outline in the dark, her shot went wide.

  “I will have what’s mine!” The words came out in an inhuman bark. He’d shifted again.

  Lucy fired blind toward the sound. It was a waste of bullets. He was already gone. By the time she’d found the crossbow and quiver after fumbling around in the dirt, any chance she had of pursuing it was gone, too.

  She swore as she got to her feet, the sound this time echoing through the tunnels where they split off in different directions. She’d managed to have as close an encounter with its human form as she was going to get without becoming its next victim, and she hadn’t been able to tell if it was Oliver. She was also furious that it had once again eluded her. She’d never fought and failed to kill the same creature three times in a row.

  The walk back to the opening of the shaft was warm and dusty despite the temperature outside and the cool air underground. It was the anger and the energy she’d exerted along with the lingering adrenaline. Plus a bit of anxiety threading through her pulse from being in an enclosed space below the earth. It was the stuff of nightmares, and if she hadn’t been following the only exit back over her own tracks, the anxiety might have overwhelmed her.

  Outside under the open sky, she was able to breathe again. There was no sign of the beast, not even footprints leading away this time. Lucy sat on a boulder and stared up at the stars. There had to be a way to kill this thing. But right now she was just lucky to have gotten away without being killed by it. Orion had just cleared the horizon, its easily identifiable pattern in the sky somehow always comforting and grounding. The hunter with his bow. She clutched the crossbow and shook it in the air in solidarity. And made a silent vow to Lucien in the underworld to finish this.

  As she walked back to her car, she wondered what the hell beast thought she’d hidden from it. It had obviously meant something living, another creature that had escaped from hell during Lucien’s descent. But why would one hell beast want to kill—or more to the point, feed on—another?

  Lucy stopped dead on the trailhead as she reached the spot where she’d parked her car. With his back against the driver’s-side door, Oliver stood with folded arms.

  She decided not to tip her hand if he was really the hell beast. “What are you doing here?”

  “I figured this was where you would go after what the Hendersons told us last night. I wasn’t sure how else I could find you, since you haven’t answered any of my texts.”

  “My phone is always off when I’m hunting. It’s distracting.”

  “And di
d you catch anything tonight?”

  Lucy lowered her head as she approached the car, not wanting to meet his eyes and give herself away. “No. It was a bust.”

  “Funny, you look like you’ve been rolling around fighting something—” Oliver paused, and Lucy looked up as she reached him to find him staring at her with a furrowed brow. “What happened to your hair?”

  Her hand went to the back of her scalp reflexively. “I cut it.”

  “Why?”

  Lucy glared. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s my hair.”

  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I just wondered.” He studied her face as if he was trying to get used to it. “It’s very different.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t do it for you.” She reached around him to the handle of the door he was blocking. “Can you please get off my car?”

  Oliver pushed himself away from the door but stood where he was. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Why would I be mad at you? I hardly know you.”

  He flinched, as if she’d thrown water in his face, and his expression hardened. “I thought we kind of got to know each other a little bit last night.”

  “We had sex, Oliver. We fucked. I’d hardly call it a bonding experience.”

  Wordlessly, Oliver stepped aside to let Lucy get in and drive away.

  * * *

  It was up to Oliver to keep the Jerome undergrounders safe while Lucy was on the prowl. She’d been frustrated in her attempts to stop the creature, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she went looking for other “fugitives” to make up for it. His instincts were usually correct. At least as far as her bloodlust was concerned. His instincts about her primal, sexual lust were obviously way off. His attraction to her was as strong as ever. Stronger. Which was all the more reason for him to hit the streets tonight—if you could call Jerome’s two main connecting drives and their handful of tributaries “streets”—and occupy his mind with something else.

  He’d also promised Colt that he’d talk to his underground contacts about a safe place for him, even if the boy wasn’t quite ready to go to one. None of his daytime contacts through the council had been able to offer him anything useful, and he didn’t dare reveal enough to let them know he was trying to help a young runaway of dubious origin. That left the shadow people, undergrounders who kept to themselves and only ventured out at night. For most of them, it was because they were nocturnal beings; for others, it was the safest time in a sleepy little artists’ town.

  He made the usual rounds, walking up to Clark Street from the back of his property to Haunted Hamburger and Wicked City Brew and across the little park steps to Main Street past the Spirit Room under the old Connor Hotel and Paul & Jerry’s Saloon—the sum total of Jerome “nightlife.” Paul & Jerry’s and the Spirit Room were the only establishments open past 11:00 p.m.

  Oliver nodded to the regulars inside Paul & Jerry’s and stopped in front of the fenced-off ruin of the old Bartlett Hotel on the other side of the gallery beside the saloon. The empty brick skeletons of its remaining rooms beyond the easily scalable ironwork bars made it an attractive place to squat for people who weren’t quite human. Oliver blended into the shadows and stood watch until he saw signs of activity within the hotel’s remains.

  A young half vamp he knew—sired by a vampire who’d abandoned her before sharing his blood to give her invulnerability and the community’s protection—materialized inside the iron bars.

  She leaned against them, crossing her tattooed arms as she stared straight into him. “If it ain’t the old man.”

  He nodded to her. “Hey, Eva. Though I’m not sure I care for that characterization. You’re older than I am, as I understand it.”

  “And you look about as old as I ought to.”

  “That’s...charming to know.” He hoped she wasn’t chronologically over forty. She looked eternally seventeen. He wondered if they liked the same music. Might be something to ask her some other time. “Listen, I was hoping I could get some information from you.”

  Eva bristled. “What kind of information?”

  “About a safe house for a—someone who may be in a bit of trouble.”

  “Well, the latter’s a given. Why else would they want a safe house? But I don’t think I can help you.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’ve got enough trouble right now. There’s a feral shifter started hunting around here, and some kickboxing bitch tried to take out Crystal the other night.”

  “Yeah, I know. But if somebody really needed help...”

  Eva sighed. “You talking about a kid?”

  “Might be.”

  “I’ve seen that kid. He’s not our kind. He doesn’t belong here.”

  “That’s what the normals say about all of you.”

  “Spoken like a ‘normal.’”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “I’m not sure where he came from, but he can’t survive out here on his own for much longer.”

  “Why don’t you take him in?”

  “I run a business out of my home. He’d be hard to explain.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Yeah, I gotcha.” Oliver shrugged. “I figured it was worth a try.”

  Eva had lit up a cigarette while they spoke, and she took a drag on it and breathed in the smoke through her nose. “I’ve heard about some chick in the valley who’ll hide folks for a price. Some kind of nymph or dryad or something. She also has the dirt on anyone in the community. Name’s Polly.”

  Oliver nodded thoughtfully. He’d heard of Polly’s Grotto in West Sedona. “Thanks. Maybe I’ll try her.”

  “Don’t forget about the price, though. From what I hear, she ain’t cheap—and she has zero use for human currency.”

  On second thought, maybe Polly would be better left as a last resort. Not that he had a lot of options. Oliver opened his mouth to thank Eva, but she was gone, leaving her cigarette smoldering in the dirt.

  A quick scan of the otherwise deserted street gave him the reason. An unmarked black van with tinted windows had parked on the opposite corner. He felt his blood freeze. It couldn’t be. It was Darkrock’s signature “inconspicuous” mode of transport.

  Chapter 10

  Maybe they were just here looking for people like Eva. He’d hoped to keep the underground community off their radar, but with the public sightings of the wolf, he supposed it had only been a matter of time.

  Oliver picked up the cigarette to avoid calling attention to the disappearance of the person who’d been smoking it and took a drag, trying not to cough with distaste. It had been years since he’d smoked—to impress friends when he’d been young and stupid—and he’d never really been a fan. He started walking away from the Bartlett, keeping tabs on the van out of the corner of his eye. It followed. Slowly. And obviously. They were here for him. How the hell had Darkrock tracked him after all this time?

  Oliver tossed down the cigarette, feeling sick, and ground it out with his heel, pulling his hood close and shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt as he picked up his pace.

  It was pointless. They knew who he was. The window slid down as the van pulled up alongside him.

  The driver leaned his arm on the window frame. “Well, well. Chief Benally, in the flesh.”

  Oliver paused and stared ahead down the sidewalk. He shouldn’t take the bait, but it wasn’t like he was fooling anyone at this point. He could run for it, but he’d be on the run forever, and everything he’d built in Jerome would have been for nothing.

  He turned slowly on his heel and faced the window. “Don’t fucking call me Chief.”

  Artie Cooper, his flat-top crew cut the same as he’d had for a dozen years, grinned and turned to his passenger. “Ya see, Finch? I told you it was ol’ Chief.” He stuck his hand out the window, expecting Oliver to shake it. “Great to see ya, man.” Cooper and
Finch had both been in his unit.

  Oliver kept his hands in his pockets. “What do you want, Artie?”

  “What kind of greeting is that?” Artie withdrew his thick arm with a put-on frown. “Is that any way to talk to an old friend?”

  Finch leaned across the seat to peer out, the light from the streetlamp falling on his dark skin. “It really is you.” He seemed genuinely surprised, and actually looked pleased to see Oliver. “Well, goddamn. I thought you were dead.”

  He was beginning to think he might be. “Nah, you know me. I’m not that easy to kill.”

  Finch laughed. “What are you doin’ here, man? I thought Artie was pulling my leg.”

  “Cap says he’s running a damn artsy-fartsy inn or some shit.”

  “It’s a book-café and B and B. Or it will be.”

  “Aw, shit!” Finch broke out into incredulous laughter. “Shut the fuck up.”

  Oliver shrugged. “So what do you want, Artie? I take it Captain Blake sent you to spy on me for a reason.”

  “Who’s spying? We’re just looking for a cup of coffee. It’s supposed to get below freezing tonight. Why don’t you lead the way to your place and we’ll get caught up?”

  Reluctantly, Oliver directed them to Delectably Bookish, though he knew they were aware of where he lived. As they made themselves at home, Finch investigating the book stacks with frequent exclamations of amusement, Oliver opened up the counter in back, making coffee for the three of them.

  “I can’t get over this.” Finch accepted the coffee Oliver brought him and took a seat in the armchair that Oliver and Lucy had occupied just yesterday. Oliver made a concerted effort to put that out of his head. “Ollie Benally, puttering around with books and bedsheets in a little tourist trap in Arizona like an old man.”

  “I needed a change.”

  Artie stood drinking his coffee, significantly less amused. “You know you’re still under contract.”

  “You can tell Blake that I’ll be happy to buy out the rest of my term at whatever fair price Darkrock determines.”