by Tess Adair
“Remember—don’t let yourself feel defeated before you begin,” said Logan. They were making good time through the woods, getting closer to the edge of the estate. “For the next few days, you’re going to be training without casting. Knatt’s put a call in to a regular self-defense instructor he knows; she’ll be here tomorrow.”
“No more casting?”
“Just for a little while.”
Jude tried to silence her sigh, but some of it leaked out anyway. In truth, she felt equal parts disappointed and…relieved. She wanted so badly to get better at casting—but it took so much out of her to try that the idea of a break didn’t sound too bad. And she felt like a failure for thinking it.
“It’s not a punishment,” Logan assured her. “When you go out on a job, there are a number of different skills you need to be able to access. Casting is just one part of the whole.”
They reached a large fallen log that Jude couldn’t remember encountering on her run, but she was aware that the path Logan was setting for them may have already veered off from her own. As she watched in the speckled moonlight shining down through the trees, Logan leapt over the log in a fluid, graceful motion. Jude herself stumbled awkwardly over it, though her height should have given her an advantage over Logan.
Add that to the never-ending list of things she’s mysteriously perfect at.
“Yeah,” she muttered, brushing herself off as she righted again. “I just wish I was better at that part. Well, and all of it, I guess.”
“The physical training should actually help you with casting,” said Logan. “The more physically fit you are, the more energy you have, and the longer you’ll be able to hold a cast. Have you been in Knatt’s training room, up at the house?”
“Uh, no,” said Jude. “Didn’t realize he had one.”
“Well, I’m not sure he’s ever officially claimed it,” answered Logan with a shrug. “But he’s the main person who uses it. It’s got a punching bag and some other boxing stuff, and it’s got weights. I’ve used it a few times, but you might have noticed…I prefer to train outside.”
Jude paused. Along with Logan, Hugh Knatt was helping train Jude in letha casting and combat. He’d taught her all about how magic worked, a little bit of the history, and a little bit about demons. Despite the fact that he’d been helping teach her how to cast, and the fact that she’d seen him hold a cast for far longer than she could hope to, she hadn’t thought of him as a particularly active person. He seemed more…bookish than brawny. He had some bulk to him, but she had assumed that bulk to be the remainder of a more youthful athleticism, long since fallen into disuse.
“Huh. So, Mr. Knatt…boxes?” she asked.
“Daily,” said Logan.
“But I thought…” Jude hesitated, unsure if she was about to overstep her bounds.
“You thought what?”
“I thought he didn’t really…uh, go out into the field anymore.”
Logan took a beat to answer, and in her momentary silence, Jude feared the worst.
Oh no. I said something offensive. God, how could I be so stupid to mention that Knatt—
“He doesn’t go as often as he used to, that’s true.” Logan nodded thoughtfully. “But he does go sometimes. Sometimes I need backup. And sometimes he takes cases on his own, if I’m busy or he’s got a relationship with the client. And, of course, he’s got to stay ready, in case the zombies come.”
Jude nearly tripped on a low branch. “Zombies? For real?”
“No. That was my joke voice.”
“Oh, sarcasm. I, uh…I got excited.”
“Sorry.”
“No worries.”
For a few moments, they walked on in silence. Finally, they burst out of the tree line and onto the edge of the Logan property. Just ahead of them lay the complicated obstacle course that Logan liked to train on nearly every single day—except when she was out on a job, of course.
Jude tilted her gaze upward to where the rolling lawn slanted into a slight hill, before evening out again and giving way to a large patio. Beyond that, she could see the sprawling mansion-house she had called her home for a little over a month now. It also happened to be the house Logan had grown up in.
“Hey, Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you train outside all year long? Like, when it’s raining—or snowing?”
A beat.
“I do, yes.”
“Is that necessary? I mean—does it help? Training in the snow?”
“It’s not necessary. But I like to do it. Keeps me sharp, keeps me on my toes.” She stretched her arms above her head, pulled her right arm down, and pressed on her elbow with her left hand. “I like to see the world as clearly as I can.”
Jude could feel something behind those words, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Resolution, maybe?
“Okay,” Jude nodded. “If you train outside in the snow, then so will I.”
Logan gave a low chuckle. “I appreciate the commitment, kid,” she said, “but let’s take it one day at a time, shall we?”
Jude nodded again, her sincerity doubling down on itself. “Starting with the self-defense trainer. Yes, sir.”
Logan didn’t laugh this time. Instead she gave an approving nod.
“That’s the spirit. Oh-eight-hundred, kid.”
Jude’s heart, for the briefest moment, soared.
When they reached the house and slipped in through the small side door, they parted ways. Jude moved toward the west wing, where her room waited for her on the second floor, while Logan drifted off into whatever shadowy corner she normally disappeared to.
Jude turned her own corner and slipped into the hidden recess behind it, climbing the spiral stairs inside with ease. Over the course of her time here, she’d concluded that these must have been servants’ stairs once upon a time, though she had no idea how recently. At the moment, the Logan estate’s only residents were herself, Hugh Knatt, and her brand new mentor, H.C. Logan. Of course, Logan was so rarely present that Jude couldn’t say with any certainty that she did, indeed, live there.
At the top of the stairs, she turned right and opened the first door to her left, then shut it firmly behind her. The light switch by the door turned on the antique lamp resting on her bedside table, and that soon illuminated the room. When Logan had first shown her this room, as one of many possible options, everything had been black: the duvet, the curtains, the rug on the hardwood floor. She’d been shocked to discover that the room boasted its own bathroom, though less shocked to discover that the toilet had a furry black cover on the lid. Both bedroom and attached bathroom were massive, far outstripping any bedroom she’d had before. The closet was a walk-in, which at first had seemed to underline Jude’s pitifully small wardrobe hanging within it.
Then, about a week prior, she’d woken up to find the closet full of clothes she’d never bought—all similar in style to her normal tastes, which largely consisted of oversized T-shirts and cargo pants, but with a twist. Each piece of clothing came with a double—one in the size she normally wore, which was about two sizes too big for her body, and one in a size that would fit her loosely, but closely.
At first, Jude had been mystified when she’d discovered them all. But after she thought about it, the message seemed clear: the choice is yours.
She stood now before her bed, which currently boasted a new navy-and-white striped comforter, and unhooked the button clasp on her shorts, which had stayed up all through the night of training, entirely of their own accord, without the aid of a belt. She had to concede that wearing fitted clothes came with a few advantages.
At long last, she collapsed down on top of the covers, grabbed the stuffed moose sitting up near the pillows, and gazed up at the lone poster adorning the wall above her bed. Apart from clothes and necessities, these were the two personal belongings she’d brought with her from her parents’ house. The moose, whose name was Mortimer, had been her favorite childhood toy. Though it was likely somewhere near to its f
ifteenth birthday, she’d found herself incapable of leaving it behind.
The poster, on the other hand, was a little more recent. It was a poster of her favorite musician, Layla Stone. The picture was a simple profile image of Stone wearing her signature white dress and blue suede jacket, sitting on a stool as she strummed her guitar and crooned into the mic. Jude had never actually been to see Layla Stone in concert, of course—her parents would never have allowed it. But she’d spent enough time listening to her music and staring up at the poster that she could almost convince herself she had.
Her parents. Her home. Wolf Creek. It all seemed far away, somehow. It had only been a few weeks, but already her old life almost felt like a dream—or, at least, most of it did. Still, she could remember the night she’d left with perfect clarity.
She had never ridden on a motorcycle before. Even as she rode that night, she couldn’t quite believe it. Yet she could hear the roar of the engine below her, she could see the lone headlight shining into the dark before them, and she could feel the wind as it whipped through her hair—or, at least, the ends of her hair. Logan, the motorcycle’s owner, had insisted she wear the only helmet they had, which, if it did nothing else, certainly kept the wind off her face.
Logan. That night, as they sped away from Wolf Creek, Jude hadn’t quite known what to make of her, and perhaps she still didn’t. Of course, by all accounts, she had become the most important person in Jude’s life. A little more than six weeks ago, she had shown up at Jude’s high school posing as a grief counselor. As it turned out, the real reason Logan had come to Wolf Creek was to investigate the sudden violent death of one of Jude’s classmates, a girl named Violet Buchanan. Jude herself had long hated Violet, which, unbeknownst to her, had made her Logan’s number one suspect.
While Logan had been eyeing Jude with suspicion, Jude, in turn, had eyed Logan with pure disbelief: how in the world had someone so forbidding and mysterious turned up, out of all places, in Nowheresville, Montana? Her teachers said she was a grief counselor who would only be around for a limited time, but even before she knew the truth, Jude hadn’t quite bought it.
Logan looked like she had walked out of a comic book: she wore all black and a leather jacket in the early summer heat, bore an impressive musculature, obvious even beneath long-sleeved blouses, and she rode off every evening on a neon green motorcycle. It didn’t help that her dark, angled hair made her look like a cartoon depiction of a spy.
She carried knives, too, but Jude didn’t find that out until later. In fact, if she thought about it, she would probably say that the moment she saw her supposed grief counselor wielding a giant battle knife in the woods was the moment her life changed completely. At the very least, that was one of the moments.
Before Logan showed up, Jude had always secretly believed magic was real—ever since she’d set a girl on fire in kindergarten, as a matter of fact. But she’d had no tangible proof: the incident in that classroom had been, by and large, chalked up to a “freak accident,” and the girl’s parents had been encouraged to buy her flame-retardant clothes to avoid another one. Jude vaguely remembered that they had threatened to sue the school, but as far as she knew, it never went anywhere.
The day that Logan had first shown up at her school, Jude had been standing at her locker after class when she felt someone watching her. She’d turned around and locked eyes with the mysterious woman in the leather jacket, and she’d heard what the woman had thought as though she’d spoken it out loud: You wish you could vanish like they want you to.
At the time, she’d already been furious, wrapped up in the rage and pain of her own life, like a straightjacket for her mind. When Logan’s thought pressed into her brain, she felt her rage swell and break into a sea of desolation—was she really so pitiful and useless and unwanted that even strangers could see it? She’d stormed out of the hallway and into the outside world—only to stop short as she remembered that she had nowhere to go.
Of course, she hadn’t known that barely a week later, she’d climb onto the back of Logan’s motorcycle and ride with her right out of town. Even as she’d made the decision, she hadn’t really been sure of what she was doing, where she was going, or what she would find when she got there. She knew there was nothing left for her in Wolf Creek, and she knew that Logan had made her an offer. She’d decided to take it.
The night they left, she questioned the decision more than once. The first moment came when Logan pulled off at an exit a few hours out of town. They turned left at the light, heading toward a small cluster of commercial buildings—blazing like a sun in the pitch-black night—that included three gas stations, a grocery store, and six different fast-food options.
Logan pulled into the parking lot of the fast-food place with a vaguely Americanized Mexican theme, boasting fried fish tacos and layered burritos.
When they came to a stop in a parking space near the door, Logan held the bike steady while Jude tumbled off it and righted herself, her backpack swinging wildly. She pushed the visor up, taking in the spill of florescent light onto the gray pavement beneath them. As she watched in dismay, Logan dismounted effortlessly before motioning toward the helmet still strapped to Jude’s head.
“I can take that, if you want,” she said, holding out her hand.
Jude scrambled to remove it. As she handed it over, she could feel her own awkwardness with painful clarity.
“Uh,” she said, glancing uncertainly up at the sun-bright sign above them, “I’m not crazy hungry yet. And, uh…I don’t have any money.”
As the last five words tumbled from her mouth, she realized how much of a problem that might be over the next few days—or for the rest of her life, really. When Logan had offered to bring her along, she hadn’t been completely explicit about all the financial details.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Logan easily. She shifted the helmet under her arm as she gave a shrug. “I’m taking you under my wing. Meals are included. Anyway, I know we just ate before we left, but honestly, I’m already starving. Sometimes demon hunting will do that to you, you know? So, hey, definitely feel free to order anything you want; it’s on me.”
Jude paused at that. It all seemed to flow off Logan so easily, but it wasn’t the same for her. Was she really ready to let this near stranger pay for her meals, keep her in house and home, without any idea how she would ever pay her back?
As Jude glanced back at her now-full closet and felt the brand new comforter beneath her skin, she wondered if she’d yet answered that question for herself.
Where would she be now, if she’d said no?
Her second moment of pause came only a little later, while Logan cleared her plate and headed for the restroom so they could take off again. As Jude stood to follow her, she felt something in her pants pocket begin to vibrate—her phone. She pulled it out and stared at the name on the brightly lit screen: Amy Williams.
When the monster had crashed through the woods and attacked her girlfriend—that had been a life-changing moment. Still, even in that moment, she hadn’t quite felt the tectonic shift of her life breaking into pieces and rearranging itself. All she’d felt was fear, and at the back of her mind, a voice had told her that this, too, was just another thing that everyone else would dismiss. They would call her crazy, or they would blame her somehow. They wouldn’t think it was real.
But then Logan had shown up. She’d chased the monster away, and when she’d come back, she was holding a knife so large it was practically a sword. If a grown-up saw it, then I’m not alone. I’m not crazy. Magic is real.
And just like that, her life turned into something new.
As the phone vibrated in her hand, Jude’s thumb had hovered over the screen, her guts twisting with uncertainty. She stared so long, failing to make a decision one way or another, that eventually the decision made itself. Her screen went dark as Amy was sent to voicemail.
I guess that’s my answer for now.
She wondered, then, what she was
doing. Maybe she was walking away from something important after all—Amy. And yet…she hadn’t found it in herself to answer the phone.
Perhaps that’s just as well. She didn’t want to talk to Amy; she didn’t want to know what Amy had to say to her. Misgivings and all, she believed her future lay with the ever-mysterious woman who had just disappeared behind the bathroom door.
Or maybe I just hope it does.
When Jude entered the bathroom, she could hear Logan already finishing up in her stall. She popped into the other one, hanging her backpack on the hook inside. She paused to wonder what Logan’s take on bathroom discussion etiquette might be, but then she decided she might as well risk it and apologize later.
“So, uh, how often do you fight demons, anyway? I mean, like, is that the main thing you do?”
For a moment, Logan was quiet, and Jude considered that she may have gotten her answer about etiquette through the omission of a response. Then she heard a flush and the sound of Logan clearing her throat.
“I go where the work takes me. There are demons, yeah. I guess that’s the majority of it. Some monsters are native to different areas, so on occasion I’ll get called somewhere because a demon has started to encroach on human-inhabited territory, and they need help dealing with it. But, uh, most of the time, if it’s a paid job, I get the call because some bored, rich asshole summoned something he shouldn’t have, and then he found himself out of his depth.”
“If it’s a paid job? Do you take unpaid jobs? Wait, did you get paid to come to Wolf Creek?”
“Uh, no, that was pro bono. I guess you could call it my version of charity, if you want. I mean, it’s not like anyone else was gonna do it, you know? Well, I guess eventually the Order might have taken care of it, but I wouldn’t say they’re exactly efficient with their resources.”
Jude’s curiosity was piqued yet again. “The Order? What’s the Order?”
Logan didn’t immediately respond. Jude could hear water running, and then a funny, muffled thump sound.
“Logan? Are you okay?”
