by Lauren Dane
“Vampires are very good at knowing when the sun is coming. If they’re not near home, believe me when I tell you, they’ll find a place to take refuge until the sun sets.” It was one of the reasons Rowan worried less about having Clive along on hunts like this. He’d been alive a long time and had honed the kind of self protective instincts that had kept him that way.
But honestly she hoped it was still dark when they found this Fae because it felt very much like Clive was a necessary part of the solution to rid the earth of such a powerful enemy.
He came into the room looking dangerous and sexy with a whole lot of smug that said he knew how lucky he was that she’d opened her veins for him.
One of the many reasons she kept him around. It was...not terrible to share blood with Clive. Once she figured she’d never let another feed from her. But then Clive came along. And while he was Vampire to his core, he wasn’t any of those who’d stolen her blood. Stolen her free will. Arrogant. Condescending. Cocky. Clive was all those things. But he never messed with her free will. Never took what was not offered and that made all the difference.
Vanessa showed up, ready to help. She’d keep an eye on the computer stuff like the interactive spell the brilliant Genevieve had crafted between the map and the target, as well as for any chatter there might be that would clue the Faerie in to their impending arrival.
Vanessa was also decently trained though Rowan was hesitant to use her in battle unless they had no other choice. Decently trained was okay on most days. But facing an unknown enemy who had power and resources the type of which Rowan rarely saw wasn’t for decently trained.
Their crew, Clive, Rowan, Star, David, Vanessa, Genevieve and to Rowan’s surprise, Patience, assembled in the desert to get things started.
Rowan knew the Devils watched from the hills a few miles away, could feel their presence. She hoped that helped in some way. She knew they probably couldn’t intervene much if at all. Back to those stupid rules again. But with Genevieve being one of them by that point, Rowan figured they’d already been helping in ways her friend didn’t want to say just yet.
She watched as Genevieve stepped from her shoes and walked barefoot over the earth until she found the perfect place to cast her working.
* * *
Slowly, Genevieve began to move. First her hands as she made the signs and sigils she needed to open the way and spool up her magic. She knew this was a good spot because Darius had mentioned it was a place the wind brought the salt. It hung around her in a way she’d never noticed before.
Her spell differed from Patrizia’s in several important ways. The most important being it didn’t actually siphon until the target was drained.
It took the smallest amount of Vanessa’s life essence, one that Genevieve would replenish after the whole thing was over. That essence would be caught by the spell, pushing it to the Fae they were looking for but in very slow motion. It would reach him, but then only deliver the life essence one small bit at a time. Over a long period.
Long enough to find him, she hoped.
At the very least, they’d have a better idea of where he was.
Genevieve put aside all doubts. Doubts reduced the efficacy of a spell. Intent was key and her intent had to be rock solid. And certain of success.
This Faerie needed to be put down. Period. And so she and her friends would do just that.
She worked to pull all the magic in the air into her gut, to change it and use it in the spell. To direct it exactly where it was needed.
And when she did, she felt the Trick. Understood the well of chaos magic that lay at her feet, threaded through the land they controlled.
Salt and iron.
Indeed. That was the combo that would save them.
* * *
After several minutes, Genevieve stood tall once more, brushed off the bottoms of her feet, stepped back into her shoes and headed over to them.
“Are you all right?” she asked Vanessa, who nodded.
Rowan had given her some tomato juice and the food Elisabeth had prepared to get her energy back up.
They watched on the map as the spell began to work. Drifting away from them to the north. Near where Patrizia’s land was but not quite that far.
“Let’s head that way now. I’ll keep connected and let us know if we need course corrections,” Genevieve said as she got into the passenger side of the car Rowan was driving.
Star scrambled in behind her and settled between David and Vanessa.
Rowan tried not to be annoyed that Clive and Patience were alone in the other car. Patience wasn’t a threat to her or their relationship. But she had a deep-seated thing about Clive and similar deep-seated feelings about how not worthy for Clive Rowan was.
She had to satisfy herself with the knowledge that Patience knew how much Clive loved Rowan and that she could never get it from her boss.
Hmpf.
There was a lot of driving. At least ninety minutes north on 318 until Vanessa and Genevieve both shouted to stop.
Rowan pulled off at the next exit, which was little more than a hard packed dirt road and a million times better than the soft sand next to the roadway that frequently trapped cars.
Clive followed suit and he and Patience joined them as they looked at the map and Vanessa her screen.
“There it is.” Genevieve pointed to a town so small Rowan was surprised it was on the map.
“It’s not like we can roll into this town without being noticed,” Rowan said as she looked at satellite photos of what was a town big enough for two four-way stop signs and one traffic light. There was one school that served about a sixty mile area and held classes for all grades. A small grocery store with a feed store attached. A bar. Naturally.
Total population was three hundred and twelve. Plus a Faerie.
“If the Fae are as exacting as Vampires, I can’t see him being very satisfied with whatever housing this town has to offer,” David said.
It looked like some small ranch style single story houses on big plots of dirt, a lot of mobile homes and one or two larger multistory houses on some land that held animals.
“On the plus side, if we can’t find him with the spell once we get into town, I bet we can find someone in that bar who’ll be willing to tell us all kinds of things about the weird rich guy in town.” Rowan knew humans would see this Fae and think he was weird. He was most likely so very not human that people, even those who chose to live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere Nevada to be left the fuck alone, would notice that difference and ascribe it to his being weird or rich or both.
“We’ll find him. Now that we’re close, I can use my othersight. A power like his would light up the sky,” Genevieve said.
So they got back on the road, taking the exit they needed and heading toward town. There were houses dotting the landscape set back from the street. The moon was full and cast a silvery light over the hills beyond.
No streetlights except those lining the few short blocks of what she supposed was downtown. She took it slow and, as she drove, also realized she wasn’t seeing a whole lot of movement. Or lights on in the houses. It was ten at night, not so late that everyone should be in bed. Certainly not so late that there were no porch lights on.
“Something is wrong here,” Rowan murmured.
Genevieve was deep in her othersight, telling Rowan which way to drive, but she surfaced. “Something is definitely wrong here. I see no signs of human life. There are animals wandering around here and there, but no one is out and about and I can’t see anything from the homes we’ve passed.”
“David, I want you to run a search on this town. See if anything unusual has been reported to law enforcement. Disappearances. Illness. That sort of thing.”
David began to tap on his keyboard as he moved to obey.
“Over there.” Genevieve pointed to a no
tch against the mountains.
“Should we just drive up or?” Rowan asked.
“There’s nothing in the news, but I just peeked at one of the chatrooms for paranormals in the state and there’s one note about someone’s human cousin who lives in this town. The paranormal, a Vampire apparently, says they came here to check in after hearing nothing for several days but the place was empty. No one at home. No one in town. They said it had a bad feel and haven’t been back. They did drop the dime with the state police but it doesn’t look like anything has happened here so I don’t know.”
“Get with Patience. See if we can’t figure out who this Vampire is.”
“Rowan, this is some sketchy chatroom. Everyone has names like fangbuster400 and Iloveblood. Unless we can get in and find an IP and trace it that way, we can’t make any connection. The whole point is that no one is identified,” Vanessa said.
“Fuck. Okay. What do you want to do, Genevieve?”
“Drive up on him. I’ll keep us obscured as long as we can be. But there’ll be a point when he’s going to sense us, no matter what.”
They’d pulled up to one of the four-way stops and Clive got out, coming to the window.
“There’s no one in this godforsaken place,” he said.
Rowan filled him in quickly on what they’d found out.
She asked Genevieve, “Do you think this is the work of the Fae? Like he drained everyone here?” Humans had some basic magic in their life force. It wasn’t a whole lot, but enough. A Vampire could easily extract what they needed, but who the fuck knew how a Faerie did it.
“I’m thinking that once we killed Lyr he lost his main source of power and perhaps he got a little overzealous here in town,” Genevieve said.
“I really can’t wait to kill this asshole,” Rowan muttered as they all got back into their correct cars and headed away from the town and toward the mountains where their enemy lay.
Chapter Twenty-Four
In twenty minutes on a bumpy dirty road, they approached a house that had been built at the center of a large plot of land. A dry riverbed ran through it and there was a small bridge that looked sturdy enough to drive over.
David said, “This property is owned by a family. Thoroughly human from what I can tell. He went to school here, graduated high school in 1991 and met her on a work trip to Los Angeles fifteen years ago. They have two kids, both of whom go to the school in town.”
Chances were, that nice family was dead now. All Rowan could do was hope it was quick and painless and that the kids didn’t have to see their parents die.
Her gut screamed at her not to drive over that bridge, so Rowan stopped and pulled the car over, trying to keep it out of the line of sight of the house.
“That’s not a safe bridge. I don’t know why. I just know it.”
“Then it’s not a safe bridge. We can walk the rest of the way. He’s in there.” Genevieve tipped her chin toward the house.
“Do we have a clear approach or is it booby-trapped?” Clive asked.
Genevieve spoke under her breath, chanting it sounded like. Some minutes later she turned back to them. “There are some trip wire spells, but it looks as if it’s just a way to set off an alarm that humanoids are there. A rabbit wouldn’t set it off. Just a witch, some Hunters and a few Vampires. I can’t undo them from here, but I should be able to as we get a little closer. We’re not taking the bridge across. It’s not safe.”
The riverbed was deep in spots, but once they managed to get down into it, they didn’t have to go far until they found a place to climb back up to the other side safely.
Once they did, Rowan fitted her thigh holster, making sure it was snug but not so tight it impeded movement, the extra magazines were already tucked into her pockets. Her blade was still at her back, but in addition, she’d added several iron blades, tucked in around her waist and at her wrists.
Her hair was already pulled back into a tight braid she’d tucked into the back of her shirt.
A breeze hit and the scent of death wrapped around her senses and squeezed so hard she nearly gagged.
She wasn’t the only one. David hid his face behind his arm, Genevieve looked nauseated and Vanessa breathed shallow through her mouth. The Vampires didn’t appear overly bothered. But they were around dead things often enough that she supposed they were used to it.
Later, once they’d survived this, she’d tease Clive that he could get snippy about a person wearing perfume but apparently dead bodies were okay.
“There’s something up there to the north of the house,” Genevieve pointed. Rowan couldn’t see what she meant, but that didn’t make her any less certain that her friend knew what she was talking about.
“Is that where he is?” she asked.
“No. Not right now. He’s in the house and he knows we’re here.”
That had changed from just moments before but Rowan had known they’d get discovered at some point.
The front door slammed open so hard it knocked the shutters off one of the windows. The light from inside backlit him, lending an even more sinister air.
“Who dares come onto my land?” he yelled out.
“Your land? Give me a break. This isn’t your land. You stole it from the humans who are the true owners,” Rowan replied without moving from her place in the shadows.
Not that it mattered because she found herself picked up by an invisible hand and thrown back onto the dirt and scrub bushes.
The air rushed from her chest as pain woke up her system.
That really fucking hurt.
She picked herself up, dusting off the sand and plant matter.
“Guess I hit a nerve,” she said. “What’s the matter, is your credit really bad so you can’t get a loan to buy your own house?”
Somewhere nearby Clive cursed and it cheered Rowan immensely.
He came down off the porch and Rowan got a far better look at him because Genevieve had done some sort of spell to light the area up. He was, to be blunt, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her entire life. Tall, at least six six, maybe even closer to seven feet. She’d been expecting long, flowing hair, but his was short but held a little bit of a curl in the blondish red tone.
Brigid roared to the surface and Rowan let her, trusting that it was for the best.
To her left Clive moved up with Patience on his other side. On her right, Genevieve stood and at her feet, Rowan sensed the power rushing to Genevieve’s call.
“What do you call yourself, Faerie?” Brigid’s voice came through Rowan’s mouth. There was a slight edge of compulsion in it that Rowan hadn’t felt before.
“I do not owe you my name. Especially when I’ll be dining on your bones for dinner.”
Rowan drew one of the iron blades and threw it as hard as she could at the Fae. He shifted to the side but it still grazed his biceps. He hissed and turned his attention back to Rowan, stalking across the empty space between them toward her.
She pulled her gun and managed to fire off three shots before he caught up to her. She ducked the giant fist that came her way and ended up nearly tripping, barely managing to keep her feet at the last minute before he was on her again.
This time he was knocked back when Patience and Clive hit him at the same time, taking him to the dirt. All Rowan could see were teeth and nails as they shredded the Fae.
Within a few breaths though, their enemy had tossed both Vampires away and regained his feet.
She knew at least two of the three shots had hit him so why wasn’t he dying or hurt or whatever Faeries did when they were shot with iron bullets?
“Why won’t he fucking die?” she asked Genevieve.
“Oh, he will. But it’s going to take more than a few iron bullets because our friend here is full of stolen magic and it’s keeping him strong enough to fight it off.”
&nb
sp; Genevieve sent three successive bolts of power at him. He moved so fast that only one managed to graze him.
Down inside, Rowan knew she needed to get him talking so they could keep him distracted and continue to chip away at his health until they could land a death blow. Like a video game.
“If you don’t tell me your name, I’m just going to give you one. That never works out well for people.”
He came at her again, this time with magic that lifted her off her feet and when she hit this time, her leg nearly snapped.
His expression said he wasn’t sure why she’d been able to stand up and dust herself off. He clearly had no idea who and what he was dealing with. Which could serve her if she did it right.
“Bob?” She shot at him and he evaded. So she shot again, re-aiming, shooting over and over at different spots hoping he’d move into one of them. “Bill? Gary? I know a lot of assholes named Gary but most of them aren’t magic. Chad? Are you a misogynist as well as a murderer, Faerie guy?”
The air was clean suddenly. The scent of dead bodies was gone, replaced with salt air, clean and pure like the ocean was.
Genevieve had whipped her power out and managed to knock Chad off his feet.
He roared as he scrambled to stand again, sending a hand out and shooting Clive and Patience through the air until Rowan heard the twin thuds moments later.
Her bond with Clive told her he was still alive and all right, but had the wind knocked out of him.
“Clem? Chuck? Phil?” She tossed a knife that grazed his left cheek. The scent of burning flesh stamped out the clean air. “Well, would you look at that. You smell disgusting, but at least I know that hurt.”
Genevieve had squared off with him and the two traded blows of magic back and forth.
“Rushmore? As in you’re the size of Mount Rushmore? What did you do to end up here, Rushmore? Huh? Did you get in trouble and mommy put you on a time-out here? So you thought hey I’ll just drain a bunch of humans, Vampires and witches and it’ll be totes no big until you can go back home? Did you sleep with the boss’s wife or husband? Poop in someone’s pool?”