by Lori Drake
“You can’t stop me,” Roger said. His image flickered, then reasserted itself. “Their lives are forfeit. There’s still a chance for you, though. Go now. Run. I won’t follow.”
Joey snorted and gave the shovel another slow spin, doing her best to keep Roger’s attention on her and not what the boys were doing to his corpse. “You don’t know me very well, so I’ll give this one to you. Grants don’t run.”
Roger surged toward her; she swung the shovel, which, of course, passed right through him. But the disruption did its work. He flickered again, then disappeared and reappeared a few feet away.
“Foolish girl. You think that earthly weapon will stop me?”
“If you’ve got a better suggestion, I’m listening.”
The scent of accelerant tickled Joey’s nostrils. Hopefully spirits couldn’t smell. Chris hadn’t been able to, on the astral plane. He’d told her. But she didn’t know the rules for actual ghosts. There were a lot of things she wanted to ask Dean when all this was over.
“Enough talk,” Roger said. “Time to die.”
Another shovel swing distracted Roger, but this time it wasn’t Joey doing it. Jessica had crept up behind him with the other shovel and swung it at his insubstantial back. Again, he flickered and vanished, but this time he didn’t reappear.
“Hey! I’m not finished with you yet!” Joey called after him, looking around. “Come back here!”
Her eyes fell on Jessica a mere second before the woman charged her, features twisted in hate. Joey brought the shovel up just in time to block the swing. The shock of the wooden handles smacking together sent vibrations up her arms. She stumbled back a step, but found her footing quickly.
Jessica swung again. This time, Joey dodged. When the swing didn’t connect, it threw Jessica off balance and Joey smacked her own shovel against the other woman’s backside, further sending her staggering.
“You’re really bad at this,” Joey taunted her, surmising that Jessica had been possessed. “You really ought to try luring me into a false sense of security before you attack.”
Jessica spun to face her again, hefting the shovel. “Less talking, more dying.”
“Isn’t it her you want to kill?” Joey countered. Ben and Chris had climbed out of the grave, and smoke poured out of it now.
Jessica went still suddenly, sniffing the air. Then she spun. “No!”
Joey couldn’t help but smirk. She planted the tip of the shovel against the ground and leaned on the handle, watching as Jessica—or Roger—looked on in outrage.
Then something unexpected happened. A loud crack sounded from behind her and Joey felt a sting in the back of her thigh. Her leg crumpled, spilling her to the ground as the sting flared into a surge of pain.
“Joey!” someone shouted. She thought maybe it was Chris. She wasn’t sure, couldn’t think past the blistering pain.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Jessica turned toward her, but it wasn’t Joey she was looking at. It was someone behind Joey.
“Finally,” Jessica said. “What took you so long?”
Confused, Joey twisted to look behind her, gritting her teeth against a fresh wave of agony. A slip of a girl who couldn’t be more than seventeen stood at the edge of the clearing, fog swirling around her ankles. Smoke curled from the muzzle of the pistol in her shaking hand.
Joey let herself fall forward on the ground. Hit the deck. That was what you were supposed to do when there was a shooter, right? The gun barked again. Joey had no idea where the bullet went, but it wasn’t into her. She considered herself fortunate on that account. Was it another hallucination, or did Roger actually have an accomplice?
Joey lifted her head enough to peek over the fog. Footsteps pounded the earth as Chris and Ben rushed toward her. Ben broke off, tackling Jessica to the ground while Chris continued toward her. When he got there, he scooped her up and sprinted for the cover of the trees. She bit down hard to keep from crying out. The gun barked again and again, but Chris didn’t stop until he’d ducked behind a massive evergreen.
“Ben,” Joey said through clenched teeth. “He’s still out there.”
Chris lowered her to her feet. She balanced on her good leg and did her best to ignore the intense pain in her left thigh.
“I’ll go back for him,” he promised, but he held onto her a moment longer, clearly struggling for breath. Carrying her must have aggravated his ribs.
She frowned and slipped her arms around him. “You can’t.”
“Joey, I have to.”
“Listen to yourself. You can barely breathe. If you go back out there… I can’t lose you again.” She blinked back tears, fear gripping her heart like an iron fist. “Not again. Not now, not ever.”
He tipped her chin up with gentle fingers and caught her eyes. “You’re not going to lose me, okay? We’re both getting out of this.”
The confidence in his voice nearly convinced her. “You can’t know that.”
“I know that if we make it and Ben doesn’t, because we hid out here instead of going back for him, we’ll regret it the rest of our lives.”
He had a point. Joey swallowed. His arms loosened around her, but she tightened her grip. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words rushing out like they might not have another opportunity. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I pushed you away. I was just so scared.”
“This really isn’t a good time for—“
“Shut up and listen.” She curled her fingers in his coat, gripping it tightly in her fist. “I love you, okay? And you’re not fucking bulletproof, so be careful. I don’t know if I can bring you back from the dead again.”
He smiled and dipped his head, touching his forehead to hers. “I’m going to need you to tell me that again when you’re not under duress.”
Joey growled softly and snaked her fingers behind his neck, then rose on the ball of her foot and mashed her lips against his. It was only a moment, but it was all they had to spare. The smell of smoke and burning, decaying flesh rose around them. Another gunshot sounded and she settled back down again.
“Go,” she said. “Before I change my mind.”
He went, and she leaned against the tree, trying to collect some measure of composure as she watched him go. He moved from tree to tree, skirting the edge of the clearing to make his way around to the other side where the gunman—or gunwoman, was that a thing?—lingered. Ben and Jessica rolled around on the ground, vying for dominance. Every now and then, the mist around them was pierced by a speeding bullet. The closer Chris got to the gun-toting teen, the more anxiety chewed at Joey’s stomach. How good were the odds that he’d actually be able to sneak up on her? Joey wondered if maybe, just maybe, she could help with a distraction without leaving the relative safety of the trees.
“Hey!” Joey called out. “You, with the gun!”
The girl stopped shooting and looked over at her.
“Yeah, you! You know he’s inside one of them, right? Aren’t you worried you might hit him?”
The assailant smirked and fired again. Splinters flew from the tree Joey was hiding behind as a bullet embedded itself in the trunk. Joey yanked her head back behind the tree and leaned against it.
Every time she shifted, the pain in her leg spiked. She couldn’t put weight on it at all. She ran her fingers down the front of her thigh, but didn’t find any tender spots or holes in her jeans. No exit wound. The bullet must’ve gotten lodged inside. That wasn’t good.
Joey risked another glance around the tree trunk, searching the darkness for any sign of Chris. It took her a moment, but she glimpsed him darting between trees again, almost directly across from her now. He was making good time and nearly in position to… do what, exactly? Joey bit her lip.
A distant grunt of pain drew her attention to Ben and Jessica. They weren’t rolling on the ground anymore. Ben had Jessica pinned to the ground and threw punch after punch at her face. Joey knew that in his mind he was hitting Roger, and Roger surely deserved it,
but Jessica… Well, okay, she deserved it a little too. Still.
“Ben, just restrain her, for fuck’s sake!”
Ben didn’t stop until Jessica stopped struggling and lay still. Joey hoped she was still breathing, but movement beyond them drew her attention, and she looked up in time to see Chris tackle the girl with the gun.
“Daddy!” she cried, on her way to the ground.
Ben’s head came up sharply, and he turned his head. “Allie!”
While Chris and the teen struggled over the gun, Joey struggled to wrap her brain around what’d just occurred. The girl was Roger’s daughter? That both explained a few things and opened up a whole new line of questions that began and ended with, “What the fuck is she doing here?”
Ben stood up and strode toward Chris and Allie with purpose. The gun went off, and Joey’s breath caught in her throat. Both figures on the ground went still. Fear propelled Joey out from behind the tree for an adrenaline-fueled, hobbling sprint across the clearing.
Ben got there first. He grabbed Chris by the back of his coat and hauled him bodily off Allie, then tossed him aside carelessly. Joey angled for Chris and sank to her good knee at his side. He was struggling to breathe, but a quick pat-down didn’t find any new holes.
“Fine… I’m… fine…” Chris gasped out.
Joey helped him sit up, first tugging on his arm and then slipping an arm under his. Only then did her eyes shift to her brother and Allie. Ben knelt beside the fallen teen, whose chest rose and fell in shuddering breaths.
“Daddy,” Allie whimpered.
Roger-Ben reached out and put a hand on Allie’s stomach, holding it there even as he turned to glare at Joey and Chris. “You. You did this.”
“No, actually,” Joey said. “You did this, with your reckless pursuit of revenge.”
Roger’s glare lingered, but his features softened as he looked down at Allie again. Keeping one hand pressed against the wound on her torso, he stroked her hair with the other hand.
“Shit, I didn’t mean to shoot her,” Chris said, voice pitched low. “What do we do? She needs medical attention.” His breathing sounded a little less labored now that he was upright.
“She’s not the only one,” Joey muttered. It was hard to think around the bullet lodged in her thigh, but she did her best. “I have an idea. Try to keep up.” Ignoring his confused look, she looked over at Ben and Allie again. “How about a truce?”
Roger frowned at her. “Nice try, wolf. I’ll skin you for this. All of you!”
Allie punctuated his words with a pained cry, sobbing softly as she lay there.
“Listen to that,” Joey said. “Your child is suffering. She needs a doctor, if she’s going to have any chance at all.”
Roger only frowned more deeply, concern etched in Ben’s features as he gazed down at the afflicted teen. “A truce… while she is being tended to?”
“No,” Joey said. “A truce, forever. You back off, and your kid gets the best care money can buy. I’ll see to that. But you have to give up this mad quest for revenge.”
“Joey, we can’t…” Chris said.
“Trust me,” Joey whispered, keeping her eyes on Roger.
“You’d bargain with my child’s life? You really are monsters,” Roger said.
“Desperate times, desperate measures. What’s it gonna be?” Joey asked, trying to keep him on track. “Tick tock.”
Roger looked down at his daughter, conflict plain on his borrowed face. “Fine. Her life, in exchange for yours.”
Joey’s eyes narrowed. “Not just mine. Ours. My pack, Eric’s pack. No more spooky revenge killings from beyond the grave.”
A growl rumbled from Roger’s borrowed chest. “You. Your pack. Eric’s pack. But not Eric. He’s still mine.”
Joey hesitated, glancing at Chris. His discomfort with this whole affair was plain to see. What would her mother do, faced with this choice? She knew the answer. Pack before all.
“I don’t give a shit what you do to Eric. He’s earned it.” It felt just, somehow. She wasn’t willing to end Eric herself.
“Done,” Roger said, not taking his eyes off Allie. “Now help her.”
“That’s on you, buddy. You’re possessing our medic.”
“Oh. Right.” Still, he didn’t leave right away. He bent down and kissed his daughter’s forehead. “I love you, little girl. Be strong, okay?”
Joey looked away, giving them a moment to say goodbye in private. When she met Chris’s eyes, he still had a troubled look about him. “Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, her patience thin on account of the burning agony that was her right leg.
Ben must have been very confused, coming back to himself with his hand pressed to a stranger’s stomach wound. But Roger kept up his end of the bargain. No more attacks came. Even the ghostly fog began to withdraw back into the trees. Smoke still poured from the grave as his salted body burned merrily. It smelled awful, but Joey wasn’t about to go try and put it out. For one, she couldn’t exactly walk once the surge of adrenaline subsided. Besides that, she needed Roger’s ashes as a backup in case he didn’t follow through once his daughter was tended to.
Or if, god forbid, she didn’t make it.
Joey hoped she did, for Chris’s sake if nothing else. He’d never forgive himself.
21
They gathered behind the house, when all was said and done. Jessica and Adam had taken Roger’s daughter to the emergency room for treatment. Dumping her there was bound to be tricky, since it required avoiding security cameras the cops would scour later to try and figure out who’d brought her in. They’d seemed confident enough that they could manage it. Chris hoped they were right.
The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the sky was starting to lighten as the first fingers of morning sunlight crested the horizon. Everyone was there, even Joey and Jenny—both of whom had to be carried outside. It’d taken some doing, but Ben had managed to pump both of them full of enough painkillers that they could be moved. They were settled in chairs and wrapped in blankets for extra warmth. Everyone else stood. Together, they ringed the chair where Eric sat, bound and gagged, in the crisp morning air.
When Chris gave the nod, Itsuo came forward and cut the ropes binding Eric to the chair. He exploded from it and ripped off his gag, throwing it on the ground.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded, looking from face to face. No one—not even Jenny—lowered their eyes.
Chris stepped forward, doing his best to shrug off bone-deep weariness and a persistent ache in his ribcage. He’d had a little over an hour to rest while waiting for Jessica and Adam to return. It hadn’t been enough. He would’ve liked a full day to recover before dealing with this, but time was a luxury they couldn’t afford. Thanks to the bargain Joey had made with Roger, Eric’s life was forfeit. Chris wasn’t sure why Roger hadn’t come for Eric already. Maybe he was preoccupied with his daughter’s condition. Whatever the case, Chris couldn’t risk any collateral damage, and no one wanted Eric around anyway.
Eric’s eyes locked with Chris’s as they stood face to face in the center of the circle. “Somehow I knew it’d come down to you and me, Martin.”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. We’ve all had a long night.”
“Say it. Say the words.”
Chris sighed, looking past Eric to where Joey sat. Forgive me.
“I challenge you.”
There were a few gasps from around the circle. Not everyone had realized quite where this was going. Chris wasn’t sure how he felt about it himself, but he was out of options. Neither Itsuo nor Jessica would do it, even now.
Eric just smirked and pulled off his shirt. “Bring it.”
Chris shrugged off his coat and removed his shirt as well, doing his best to hide how much it hurt to lift his arms over his head. The bandage around his chest mostly unwound itself once the clips were removed. As his bruised ribs were revealed, a quiet murmur rippled around the circle. Chris ignored it,
but couldn’t ignore the cold air on his skin. He shed the rest of his clothes quickly and knelt to shift forms, wanting nothing quite so much as a fur coat against the icy breeze that rolled off the lake toward them.
He’d only shifted when injured a handful of times in his life. Each time, he’d braced himself for pain, only to find it not as bad as he expected. This time, it was just as bad as he expected. It took a few agonizing seconds for the magic in his blood to transform him from human to wolf, but once he stood on four paws, he found the pain much diminished. He shook his coat out and blinked, reveling in the sharpness of his night vision and the newfound simplicity of emotion. Gone was the anxiety, the worry and doubt. All that remained was determination as he faced his foe.
Eric stood before him, a hulking black wolf with yellow eyes. He bared his teeth and growled. Chris growled back, and they circled each other. Eric attacked first, charging with a vicious snarl. Chris evaded his snapping jaws and twisted, managing to score a bite along Eric’s shoulder. It wasn’t deep, but first blood was his.
He didn’t have any time to savor that victory, because Eric was on him again and now Eric was angry. Okay. Now Eric was angrier. He charged, knocking Chris off his feet. Pain flared as he landed on his side. Chris scrambled, kicking to try and push Eric away, and squirming to keep his enemy’s snapping jaws from closing on his throat.
Their dangerous dance continued under the lightening sky, teeth flashing and claws raking. They rolled around on the ground, each trying to gain a dominant position but neither able to manage it. They broke apart again and sprang to their feet, facing each other once more with ferocious growls and aggressive snaps of their jaws.
Again and again they clashed, until blood flowed from countless bites and scratches, darkening their fur and staining the ground beneath their paws. Once, Eric managed to kick Chris hard enough in the ribs that he yelped in pain. Eric’s jaws snapped at his throat, but Chris managed to roll away and get to his feet again. As they circled each other, Eric limped slightly, favoring one leg. Chris waited for Eric to charge him again, and when he did, Chris went low and latched on to that leg. Blood welled across his tongue and his sharp teeth scraped bone. He clamped down and shook his head, tearing vicious furrows in that leg while Eric howled in agony, kicking and biting in an effort to escape.