Kindling the Darkness

by Jane Kindred

  Another detail she’d noticed about Oliver this morning took on greater significance. “He was wearing his ring on his left hand.”

  Phoebe’s expression was puzzled. “His ring?”

  “Vanessa’s ring. Your ring. His wedding ring. He wears it on his right hand. But he was here with some Darkrock operatives this morning, and the ring was on his left hand.” Lucy’s gaze fixed on Phoebe’s color-changed eyes. “I think Darkrock has convinced him that you’re still alive. And still married.”

  Phoebe’s expression shifted into a dark frown. “Then he thinks he’s the person he was then. They can make him do anything.” She rose and headed for the door. “I have to go. I have to keep an eye on him.”

  Lucy stood, ready to run after her, but Phoebe stopped at the door and hunched over, gripping the door handle, as if someone had punched her or she was going to be sick.

  “Balls. I hate it when they do that. They get all excited and drag my body along for the ride as they’re leaping out.” She turned to look at Lucy, her face a little green. “Sorry. She’s gone.” Phoebe glanced hopefully toward the back of the shop. “Did you say you had coffee?”

  “I did.” Lucy put the coffee on and sat back on one of the stools at the counter as Phoebe hopped onto the other. “Do you remember everything we talked about?”

  “Yep. Every word. When I let someone step in, I insist on having full conscious control, even if I let them take over my voluntary movements.”

  “That must be strange.”

  Phoebe shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it. They’ve been coming to see me since I was little, so it’s pretty much second nature. When they’re polite and cooperative, it’s mostly a breeze.”

  “Daisy sure wasn’t a breeze.” The shade that had possessed Lucy at Carter’s command had made her feel dizzy and sick, and her departure had given Lucy a migraine.

  “Yeah, it’s not pleasant being entered without your consent. Ever. So, how are the wards holding up? Any visits from that thing?”

  “No, no sign of it. But unfortunately, I had a visit from Oliver and his new Darkrock teammates. I’m not sure he even knew me. He called me by my name, but he was behaving as if I were someone he’d read about and never actually met.”

  “Maybe he did. Read about you, I mean. As part of his indoctrination with that mind control drug.”

  Lucy nodded. “Yeah. And the great thing about that? I think it’s my company’s drug. That dragon symbol Vanessa saw is Smok’s. It’s the wyvern.”

  “How would they have gotten it?”

  “It’s not on the market. It’s one of our private label experimental pharmaceuticals. So the only way they could have gotten any was if someone at Smok Biotech was working for them on the inside.” Lucy got up to pour the coffee. “So it looks like I’ve got a mole.”

  “That sucks.”

  Lucy set a cup in front of Phoebe and sipped her own. “Yeah, it does.”

  “So, where’s the kid? The...what is he?”

  “Colt is a hellhound.”

  “An actual, honest-to-God hellhound?”

  “Looks that way. And thanks to Oliver and Darkrock—Colt is gone.”

  “You mean they took him?”

  “No, but they intended to. He ran away.” Lucy sipped her coffee and shook her head. “So now I’ve got to somehow find the kid and try to keep him safe while simultaneously hunting the hell beast and figuring out how to get to the bottom of who’s working against me in my own company. Not to mention trying to figure out what to do about Oliver.”

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Phoebe offered her a gentle smile. “Maybe don’t try to do everything yourself.”

  “Sure. I’ll just fucking outsource some of that.” Lucy’s patience was starting to wear thin. She didn’t “people” well. She’d gotten into a bad habit of thinking out loud to try to problem solve, and she hadn’t been looking for advice from Phoebe.

  “Why not?” Phoebe was eternally upbeat. “You know, I have my P.I. license now. Maybe I could do some sleuthing at Smok Biotech for you.”

  Lucy laughed. “I think you underestimate your local infamy, Phoebe. Everyone there knows exactly who you are.”

  “Well, I wasn’t talking about going undercover, but now that you mention it, I do have one sister who’s very good at flying under the radar, and she’s right there in Flagstaff near the lab.”

  “Is Theia still topside? I don’t see how she’d get anything out of anyone, even with her access. They know her, too.”

  “Not Theia. Laurel.”

  “Laurel...”

  “She’s one of our half sisters.”

  “No, I know. I’d just forgotten about her.” Lucy considered it. “You know, that’s not actually the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

  Phoebe laughed. “Thanks.”

  “She has past ties to Carter, and if anyone at the lab is sympathetic to him—which I have a strong suspicion is how someone from Darkrock managed to get embedded there—that might be her in.”

  “Do you want me to have her call you?”

  Lucy shook her head, the wheels already turning as she plotted the best course of action. “No. Have her call HR at Smok Biotech. I’ll set up an interview with someone I trust and have them hire her as part-time holiday clerical help somewhere in the company where she could do some unobtrusive snooping. Do you think she’d be willing to do it?”

  “I have a feeling she’ll be eager to do anything that vitiates Carter’s influence. She still feels terrible about her part in everything he did to us. And rightly so.” If Lucy recalled correctly, Laurel had even once tried to kill Phoebe. Lucy wouldn’t have been so forgiving. “But she’s a good kid. And I know she can probably use the extra holiday cash, too. I think it’ll be perfect. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can get Vanessa to talk to me again. She might be able to tell us more about what’s going on with Oliver.”

  “Thanks, that would be... I’d appreciate that.” Lucy smiled awkwardly. She wasn’t used to having people offer their help without wanting something in return, and she wasn’t really sure how normal people responded to such a thing. “You don’t really have to do any of this.”

  “Nonsense.” Phoebe reached across the counter and squeezed her arm, making Lucy twitch in her effort not to physically recoil. She was so not a touchy-feely person. “That’s what sisters are for.” Phoebe grinned. “Or sisters-in-law-once-removed, anyway.”

  With the mole situation being handled, Lucy could focus on what she did best: hunting things. She needed every bit of information she could get on the hell beast’s habits, so she spent the day methodically conducting the eyewitness interviews she hadn’t gotten to yet, including a drive around the little community—or a walk, which was easier for much of it—to visit each of the locations of the sightings. Like the previous eyewitnesses, these either backtracked, claiming they must have seen a coyote or a mountain lion, or were unwilling to speak to her at all. She’d written off the significance of the Hogback Cemetery, but it was time to leave no stone unturned. And the cemetery happened to be full of stones.

  The cemetery trail, with its rusted wrought iron enclosures around the crumbling headstones among the brush, provided little opportunity for anything to hide in, but Lucy thought she caught a glimpse of a kid who looked a great deal like Colt panhandling in the parking lot. When she tried to get close to him, he bolted, and there was no recognition in his eyes. Lucy had the feeling she’d just seen another of the missing hellhounds. And maybe Colt had found his friends, but there was no way to know for sure. The only way to guarantee his safety was to get rid of the hell beast once and for all.

  The sun was low in the sky as she drove back up Cleopatra Hill, and as dusk fell, a sort of prickling sensation at the back of her neck made her look in the rearview mirror repeatedly. There was no one behind her, but she couldn’t shake the fe
eling that the hell beast was near. She was beginning to suspect the hell beast was always near, as if it used Lucy herself as a focal point. Which meant Lucy could end up leading the thing straight to the hellhound if she found it.

  Even so, she drove to the storage unit just to check to see if Colt had returned to someplace familiar, but there was no sign of him. Darkness was falling by the time she got back to the top of the hill. If the hell beast was focused on her, then she needed to draw it out on her terms. No more ambling about in caves letting it box her in where it limited her ability to use her own assets. She needed to be out in the open to take advantage of her strengths.

  Lucy drove to the first site Oliver had shown her and walked down to the tailings pond. A half-moon lent a cool glow to the night, and the field of stars overhead was phenomenal.

  She drew her gun and turned slowly to take in a panorama of the hillside. She’d left the crossbow in the car. If neither the arrowheads nor the bullets were going to kill it, she might as well stick with what she was best at to slow it down.

  “All right, you goddamn piece of shit,” she yelled at the sky. “Show yourself. Or are you afraid to fight me?”

  “You’re the one who’s afraid.”

  Lucy whirled at the sound of Oliver’s voice behind her. He was wearing his Darkrock commando gear, armed as he’d been earlier when they stormed the place. Was it Oliver, or was it the beast?

  “What am I afraid of?”

  “Of power.” He moved toward her, slowly, steadily closer. “Of what we could do together.” He was standing in front of her.

  “And what would that be?”

  Oliver reached out and touched her cheek. “Devouring the world.” The last word was delivered on a sexy little growl, and he lowered his mouth to hers. Lucy, her gun still ready at her side, let their lips touch, let his tongue slide between her teeth. And fired a round directly into his gut.

  The Oliver-beast roared and reared back, blood swiftly soaking the dark shirt. She’d hurt him this time. Lucy aimed again, and the beast transformed with the swiftness of thought and charged her, knocking her to the ground. She managed to hang on to the gun, but her arm was pinned, and there was no way to hit him with another round even if she fired.

  His wolfish eyes glared down into hers, inches from her face, foul breath nearly choking her. “The only thing stopping me from devouring you myself is the tasty treat you keep from me. But I’m growing tired of this game. I can find it on my own.”

  “Why do you want it so bad?”

  This seemed to give it pause. “Because the things of earth are protected here. But they are not of earth. They are of hell, and I long to taste its sweet infernal essence.”

  The things of earth—inhuman creatures that weren’t hell fugitives—were protected here because of Oliver. But the claw marks from the swipe Colt had taken from the beast hadn’t shown up on Oliver. Was it because Colt wasn’t of this earth? But the “hell beast,” as she’d grown so used to calling it, was. And Oliver, inadvertently, was protecting it from every bullet Lucy fired into it, every arrow she struck it with.

  “If the things of earth are protected... I’m protected. Isn’t that how it should work?”

  The creature’s laugh sent chills up her spine, like the screeching cackle of a reanimated corpse, and it morphed back into Oliver’s form. “You, Mommy? You’re not of this earth. You’re a demon whore.”

  His transformation back into human form had given her just the moment’s advantage she needed. Lucy fired several times in succession into his side and scrambled out from under him when he recoiled from the impact. As he returned to wolf form and leaped at her once more, she released her wings and grabbed it by the throat, digging her talons into the thick, furred flesh as she launched herself into the air, hanging on with all her might.

  She spun with it, jamming the talons on her thumbs into the fleshy underside of the creature’s chin, preventing it from using its powerful jaws on her, but it had recovered its brute strength, and it sank its claws into her shoulders and scored her arms, digging furrows into them.

  Lucy screamed, her own voice unnaturally enhanced into a bloodcurdling wyvern shriek, but there was no way she was letting this fucker go. Not now. Let it shred her arms to the bone if it wanted to. It wasn’t getting away.

  And then something slammed into the back of her leg, like a bolt of fire. A second later, something struck the hell beast. The red fletching of a tranquilizer dart was sticking out of the beast’s thigh. Which meant Lucy was sporting one, too. And it meant Oliver and his commandos were below them, waiting for the drug to take effect so she and the beast would fall to the ground and they could take them both in.

  Things were already getting a little fuzzy. Lucy hissed in anger and let go of the hell beast, flapping her wings to knock it away from her, and took off toward the wooded hills.

  Chapter 24

  Finch scanned the horizon with his binoculars. “Damn, I think we lost it.” He headed back down from the top of the ridge to where Oliver and Artie stood over the body.

  “We’ll get it later.” Artie kicked at the massive werewolf lying unconscious at their feet. “We got this thing. Whatever the hell it is.”

  Oliver took another look through the binoculars while Finch and Artie loaded the dead weight of the beast into the cage in the back of the van. There was something oddly familiar about that bat-winged thing the beast had been fighting with. He’d thought...but it couldn’t be. The thing had definitely been female, though.

  As Finch came around to the front of the van, he glanced at Oliver. “You sure you’re okay?”

  Oliver had felt like he was being strangled, something stabbing into the underside of his jaw as the creatures had struggled in the air, and his gut and side were still aching. Must be the transference magic they’d warned him about. The creature could project its injuries outside itself to make someone else take the brunt of them. Though why it only affected him, he wasn’t sure. At least the tranquilizer hadn’t had much effect on him.

  Oliver untucked his shirt and lifted it up to examine the mottled bruises and rapidly scarring flesh. Darkrock had given them all inoculations to prevent any such magic from doing them permanent harm, and it encouraged rapid healing. Thank God. Otherwise, he’d be a shredded mess. He’d taken four “transference” bullets, evidently, in addition to the injuries to his throat.

  “Yeah.” He tucked his shirt back in. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  * * *

  Something wet was touching the side of her face. Lucy jolted awake, going for her gun, only to find a white wolf curled by her side.

  “Colt?” She sat up, her head thick and groggy, and glanced around in the early morning light. How the hell had she ended up asleep outside in the snow? She raised her palm into the air. The snow was still falling. The hellhound whimpered softly beside her, its tail wagging and thumping the ground. She remembered now—flying off as the tranquilizer kicked in, going as far as she could until unconsciousness took her and she plummeted to the ground among the firs and brush of Mingus Mountain north of Jerome.

  Lucy scratched the wolf’s ears, and it panted happily. “Thanks, kid. I think you may have kept me from freezing to death.” Her wyvern blood made her core temperature higher than normal, but it wouldn’t have prevented hypothermia. Colt had saved her life.

  The snow was coming down harder now. The white patches around them would soon be a respectable winter covering.

  “We’d better get somewhere warmer than this, though, huh?” Lucy got to her feet, ignoring her throbbing head, and headed for the nearby forest road. Colt jumped up and trotted along beside her as if he’d always been at her side. She supposed it wasn’t that odd, really, now that she thought about it. Why shouldn’t the sister of the Prince of Hell have a hellhound?

  They were both solidly wet by the time they hiked the three miles
down the mountainside to where her car was parked. She’d never appreciated the heated seats more. Colt seemed content to stay in wolf form, curling up on the seat beside her as she drove back to Delectably Bookish. She’d noticed a fireplace upstairs in Oliver’s sitting room. It seemed like a good day for a fire. Colt lay on the rug while she piled up the logs from the firewood holder by the hearth and threw on some kindling. Before she could light it, however, the distant tinkle of the bell on the door downstairs alerted both her and Colt to the entrance of an intruder.

  Colt bolted upright, growling, as she straightened, his hackles raised. Had she remembered to lock the door? Maybe it was a customer. She really ought to put up a sign saying the place was closed for the holidays until she figured out what to do about Oliver.

  Lucy unsnapped her holster and moved to the doorway in front of Colt. Whoever it was had started up the stairs. Before she could stop him, Colt had darted past her to the landing, but instead of attacking, she found him greeting Oliver on the top step.

  Oliver patted the wolf, looking friendly, but there was no reason to believe he’d suddenly remembered himself.

  With her gun drawn, she waited for Oliver to acknowledge her.

  “I thought you might come back here.” There was no smile in his eyes. “Though I didn’t expect to find you both. Makes things easier.” He slipped a collar around Colt’s neck and held on to it with his left hand, keeping the wolf at his side.

  “You’re not taking him anywhere.”

  “I have my orders.”

  As Lucy opened her mouth to tell him where to stick his orders, her phone rang. She took it out of her pocket, intending to silence it, but the caller ID displayed Phoebe’s number. With her gun still pointed at Oliver, she answered the phone. “Find out anything?”

  “I did, but there’s something more pressing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Vanessa wants to talk to Oliver.”

  “Okay.” Not even questioning how Vanessa could know Oliver was here, Lucy started to hold the phone out to him, but an odd sensation rushed through her as if a little static jolt had zapped her from the phone.