by Jamie Davis
“Where did it go?” Dean asked. Jaz was just standing there, her sword held out to her side, one-handed. Her heavy breathing was the only sign that she had exerted herself at all. She was still as a statue otherwise.
“Where did it go?” Dean asked again.
“Shhh. I’m trying to listen to see if there are any others around.”
Dean looked around, startled at the thought. Could there be more of them?
He watched in silence as she scanned the parking lot, looking and listening. Then she turned and shoved him over to the passenger side of the SUV.
“Get in,” she said. “We’ve got to get you out of here until we figure out why they are targeting you.”
Dean started to say something but thought better of it when another snarling roar sounded in the distance. He went around to the passenger side while she climbed into the driver’s side. He couldn’t get in because of the weapons caddy attached to the seat. Jaz reached over and detached the strap holding it in place to the headrest.
“Just throw that in the back. Get in.”
Dean got in and was still buckling his seatbelt as the hunter gunned the engine to life and, with a squeal of tires, drove off into the night, leaving the carnage of the attack behind them at the diner.
11
Dean’s heart was pounding in his chest as he thought about what just happened at Hank’s Place. The diner had always been a safe haven and in the past had served as a neutral meeting ground with his enemies, real or imagined. He had met with Mike Farver there several times. His former mentor had turned out to be one of the lead terrorists in the attacks on the Unusual community a few months before. Dean had first learned of his betrayal at the very diner booth where he and Jaz sat this evening. Now there were possibly injured people back there who needed his help and he was speeding away, running from demons who seemed to be seeking his blood.
Another thought occurred to him about the carnage at the restaurant. He turned in his seat and looked at Jaz. She had been part of that carnage, firing her pistol blindly into the darkness during the blackout.
She noticed his attention and shot a glance his way while she was driving. “What?” she asked.
“I’m just wondering how many of your bullets missed the Oni and maybe hit other patrons or staff. Was it a good idea to fire off your weapon blind like that?”
“I was not firing blind, and I don’t miss what I aim at,” she hissed in reply. She kept the SUV’s speed up even as she took a sharp left turn at the next intersection.
“Oh sorry,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t know you could see in the dark. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I can see in the dark,” she replied. “I’m a hunter. It would not do much good if I wasn’t on some sort of even footing with my adversaries.” Jaz shot Dean another glance as she sped down the road away from the attacker.
“Wait, you’re not kidding,” Dean said, a bit amazed. “But how? I know you are human like me, and it couldn’t be magic. You all hate magic.”
“We don’t hate magic,” she clarified. “We hate when it is used against humans for gain by our adversaries. My hunter amulet gives me the ability to see in the dark, as well as in the UV and infrared spectrums, among other things.” She touched the ornate three-sided pendant on a chain at her neckline.
Dean was chastened but not any less curious. He always wanted to know more about the hidden world he had known nothing about only a year before. He was hungry for knowledge about his patients and their lives. That included the hunters, he supposed.
“Can you sense the demons? How did you know there would be more coming?” Dean asked.
Jaz glanced his way again as she continued driving. She looked up into the rearview mirror and then pulled the SUV over to the curb, stopping there.
“I can’t sense them any better than you, other than the seeing in the dark thing,” she said after they stopped. Dean noticed that she kept looking around as she talked. He guessed it was the bodyguard training she must have had; that or paranoia. “Like I said, I can see in the UV and IF spectrums, too, so I can sense when someone is possessed. In those situations the demon sort of leaks out around the edges and shows up in the person’s aura. Other than that, I have to use my normal human senses and sensibilities.”
“So possession is real?” Dean asked. “Like as real as in movies like Exorcist?”
“I’m surprised you’re so naive, Dean,” Jaz replied. “You’ve seen so much and you are smart and well-read. Why wouldn’t all of it be real?”
“I don’t know,” Dean replied. “I guess I’m just still surprised that so many of the legends and myths are actually true. I didn’t grow up in this world the way you did.”
“All of the legends and myths are true, at least in part,” Jaz responded. “And you grew up with the same stories I did, you just never had anyone tell you they were true.”
Dean watched as she checked her mirrors and then scanned the area around them. He got a sense that very little missed her attention.
“Someone is sending the Oni demons after you,” Jaz said. “Someone or something. We need to get you somewhere safe, but I’m not sure we can trust any of the normal places. Is there somewhere you can think of that no one would think you would go? Somewhere isolated, where we can think and plan?”
Dean pondered the question. He, like most people, was a creature of habit. He had his apartment, his work, and his favorite places to hang out, like Hank’s Place. He liked to go places where people knew him and he could feel at home and relax. There was nowhere he could think of that would give him a place to hole up like Jaz described. There was James Lee’s Nightwing building downtown. There was plenty of security there, but that wasn’t hiding and it would put more of his friends in danger. Dean looked at the huntress and shook his head.
Jaz took out her smartphone and tapped it a few times. He figured she was sending a text message when she started tapping away with her thumbs in rapid succession. Dean waited while she sent her message. He started looking around. It made him itch to think that there was at least one more of those Oni demons around out there, hunting for him. She finished whatever she was doing and slid her phone back into the pocket of her leather jacket.
“I just sent my father a message that we were tracked to the diner. He’ll send a team there to make sure any Oni hanging about will be dealt with,” Jaz said. “I also told him that we were going operationally dark. That means no messages, in or out, from now on. Turn off your phone so no one can track you. My phone is scrambled so we’ll have to rely on that for now.”
“I can’t just disappear,” Dean said. “I’ve got work in the morning. I’ll lose my job.”
“Daddy is smart,” Jaz said. “He knows you’re with me and he will let your Chief know that you are on an assignment with us as a tactical medic or something. That should cover you. He and your fire chief go way back. Now we need to keep moving until we can figure out where we can safely hide.”
She continued to look at him as she slid the gear lever out of park and into drive. She gripped the wheel and started to move. Dean looked forward and saw a girl, palms of both hands outstretched, her eyes squeezed shut. She was standing directly in front of the vehicle.
“Look out,” Dean shouted.
Jaz looked forward, jamming on the brakes. They had nearly run the girl over. Her outstretched hands were now resting on the hood of the SUV. Jaz drew her pistol. “Dean, get down. If she can’t see you, she might not be able to connect the spell she’s casting. She’s a hexen; a witch. I can see her drawing in magic.”
Dean didn’t duck. He was looking in the girl’s face. She was only about fifteen or sixteen he would guess, dressed in a flowing long print skirt, with a white peasant-style blouse and a brown vest. She looked like someone from a renaissance faire or something. She also looked sort of familiar, like he had seen her somewhere before, like he should know her.
“Don’t shoot her,” Dean said on imp
ulse. “I think she’s with us.”
“What do you mean, ‘she’s with us?’”
“Look,” Dean said. “I know you’re a shoot first and ask questions later type of person, but we have to work together here. You said that, not me. I’m telling you that for some reason I know her, even though I’ve never seen her before. Just look at her, she’s not threatening us. She is just standing there.”
The girl in front of them had opened her eyes and was staring forward at them through the tinted windshield as if she could see into the darkened interior. She had a wild sort of grin on her face, standing there under the streetlights in front of them.
“I am looking at her,” Jaz said. “I can see the UV waves of her spell. She’s casting something right now. How do you know she isn’t calling the Oni on us?”
“How do you know she is?” Dean countered. He watched as the girl lowered her hands and walked around to the driver’s side of the Expedition.
Jaz put the window down but kept the gun in her left hand, just below the edge of the window, ready to use. Dean spoke up before the huntress had a chance to speak.
“Hey, good thing I saw you before my companion here ran you over,” Dean said with a smile. “What were you doing standing in front of us like that, if you don’t mind my asking? It’s kind of nuts, you know.”
“I was masking your vehicle from scrying spells,” the girl said. “The revenants are already trying to track you both after the attack at the diner.” She looked at Jaz, a broad smile on her young face. “You can put the gun away, Jaswinder. I mean you no harm. You both were just about to go looking for me anyway, so I decided to come to you.”
“Jaz,” Dean said looking at the driver. Jaz turned to meet his gaze and nodded. “I think we found our hexen.”
“Yeah, I think so, too,” the hunter replied. She leaned forward and reached back, sliding the semi-automatic pistol into its holster. Then she reached up and pressed the button to unlock the doors. “Climb in back,” Jaz said to the young Wiccan girl. “We need to keep moving. Even if your masking spell worked, there are still mundane ways to track us.”
The girl kind of bounced at the invitation to get in the vehicle with them. She jumped into the back seat and slid to the middle, looking around at the gray and black interior. She extended her hand to Dean when he twisted back to look at her as she got situated. Jaz pulled away from the curb and started driving again.
“I’m Jo. That’s short for Joanna,” the girl said, shaking his hand. “But I prefer just Jo.”
“Nice to meet you, Jo,” Dean said. “I’m Dean and this is Jaz. But I guess you must know that already.” He noticed she was still bouncing slightly as she sat forward on the edge of the bench seat behind them. “Hey, Jo, sit back and buckle up. We can still talk but you need to be belted in. Okay?”
“Okay, Dad,” she said rolling her eyes. Then she giggled and sat back to buckle in.
Typical teenager, Dean thought, viewing any adult telling her what to do as a parental figure.
“What were you doing out here in the first place, and how did you find us?” Jaz asked.
“My coven knew that I needed to come here and help you so they sent me directly to this place and time to make sure I was here when you arrived,” Jo said. “They spent a great deal of energy to make sure I was here to help you find the missing Eldara.”
“So you know about our mission?” Dean asked.
“You are seeking to free Ashley Moore, an Eldara Sister abducted by revenants who seek to use her divine energy to create a large breach in the warding that separates the netherworld from ours.” Jo stopped her recitation and looked from Dean to Jaz and back again. “How’d I do?”
“Pretty well,” Dean said. She seemed to know more about this than either of them. There was so much he wanted to know more about. Who were these revenants? Where were they holding Ashley and how could they free her?
“Revenants,” Jaz said. “That’s not good.” Dean saw her make eye contact with their back seat passenger in the rearview mirror. “Are you sure they’re revenants?”
“Yep,” the teen replied. “They are determined to kill one of us. If they do, it will stop us from rescuing the Eldara. They have their own seers and they know of our quest, too. They know it has to be the three of us.”
“Well revenants are high order netherworld demons of a sort,” Jaz told Dean. “They are the damned souls of the most evil of men, reformed into magical creatures of the netherworld. They can be very powerful.”
“How do we beat them?” Dean asked. In the stories the bad guys always have some sort of weakness.
“I don’t know,” Jaz said. “I’ve never faced one of them before.”
“You can kill them, or at least banish them with a holy blade, like the one you have Jaz,” Jo said. “Beheading will do the trick if you catch them unawares. It just destroys their corporeal form and sends them back to the netherworld but it would be enough for our purposes.”
“How do you know all of this?” Dean asked.
“Oh, I feel like I’ve been preparing for this all my life,” Jo said.
“How old are you?” Jaz asked.
“I’m fifteen,” she responded. She sounded defensive all of a sudden. “I just passed my acceptance ritual into the coven. I’m an adult now, so don’t tell me I’m not old enough to be here doing this.”
There’s that teenager thing again, Dean thought. Naturally pushing back against authority figures.
Jaz laughed. “You’re not going to get an argument from me, girly-girl. I killed my first demon on a hunt at fourteen. It wasn’t my first hunt, just my first kill.”
“Cool,” Jo said. “You’ll have to tell me about it. I haven’t heard that story about you before.”
“Time enough for stories later,” Jaz said. “Right now we need to get out of here to someplace safe.”
“So, where are we headed?” Jo asked.
“We need a place where no one will expect to find us,” Jaz said. “Someplace we can regroup and reorganize while we figure out our next steps.”
“How about the mountain cabin?” Jo asked.
“What mountain cabin?” Jaz said.
Dean looked back over his shoulder at the Wiccan teen and saw her looking back and forth between the two of them. She seemed puzzled that they didn’t understand.
“There’s a cabin in the woods on a lake to the west of here near the mountains,” Jo explained. “It belongs to the Eldara.”
“That might work, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jaz said.
“No, no I guess you wouldn’t. Okay, Ashley Moore owns a mountain cabin she bought from a nurse friend of hers,” Jo said. “It’s remote and it should be safe enough for now, especially with my spell in place over us.”
“Wait, I think I know that cabin,” Dean said. “I didn’t know that Ashley had bought it, but I know the one you’re thinking of.” It was weird how Joanna knew so much about them, and Ashley, for that matter. She must be from the local coven and had been briefed on them by Asha and the other women there.
Dean turned to Ashley. “Head south to I-95, then we’ll swing over and get on I-70 westbound. The cabin is in the mountains of Western Maryland about two hours from here. I think Jo is right. It will be a perfect place to hole up until we get our bearings again.”
Jaz nodded and turned the car onto a nearby on-ramp to get up on the interstate. Dean sat back in silence. He had started that day without a clue about how to get started finding Ashley. Now he had his trio to get to work finding her. Despite the recent events with the demon attack, he felt pleased for the first time in a long time. He finally had the jumpstart he needed to find her and get her back.
12
The trip to the cabin was several hours long and after some time trying to plan out what they were going to do, everyone was quiet for a while. Dean looked back at Jo in the back seat. She was settled back, with her earbuds in, watching something on her phone. Jaz
had cautioned her about connecting her phone to anything online and the girl had told her that she would access only stored media on the device. Dean thought about who she might be. He was uncomfortable with running around on this mission with a fifteen year-old child. She had said the coven saw her as an adult, but he noticed that she never said anything about what her parents thought. The more he thought about it, the more he started to think she was some sort of runaway. If that was the case, it could make things worse for them. He would have to talk to Jaz about it the first chance they were alone. There had to be a way to verify her story.
He knew that he needed to have three people in their team in order to find Ashley. He was willing to risk just about anything to get her back. It seemed like Jaz was the right person for one of those slots. She had her own prophecy of some sort that matched up with what Ingrid had told him he must do. The wild card was Joanna. She fit the slot in their team they had open, and there was also the fact that she had found them and identified herself as the one they were looking for. Still, with his concerns about her legal status and age, was he willing to endanger her life to get Ashley back?
He knew what Ashley would say. She would never condone putting anyone in danger just to rescue her. She would say she was the one who did the rescuing. He didn’t feel the same way about Jaz. She had demonstrated that she could take care of herself. Heck, she could take care of him, too. With demons chasing after him now, he felt safer with the blonde huntress around. He looked over at her as she drove. He wanted to know more about her and her training. It was a new side of the mythical world in which he found himself at Station U. Dean was always curious to learn new things. Maybe he could learn more about caring for his patients by learning more about the hunters and their backgrounds.
When they stopped for gas about an hour outside of Elk City, Dean learned just how paranoid Jaz was about keeping them off the grid. Dean was going to head in and get a soda to help him stay awake and offered to buy something for the others.