Blood Creek Beast

by Jay Barnson

  Jessabelle changed into Jessabelle-the-girl, took off her jacket, and fastened her seatbelt. “Thank you,” she said, staring at the floor.

  “Thank Josie. She really went out on a limb for us. I was about ten seconds away from walking right into them, myself, when I recognized Barry Jones.”

  “So the trap was for you.”

  Leon sighed and checked the rear view mirror for the twentieth time in the last two minutes. His face was haggard and pale, far more exhausted than he should have been after this morning. “The trap was for us both. Lucky for us, they have their forces stretched thin right now, between searching for us and whatever’s happening at Maple Bend.”

  Sobs escaped Jessabelle’s throat by surprise. “I’m sorry,” she said as she tried to force back the tears. “It’s all my fault.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “I borrowed a phone and called Hattie. I told her I was at a hospital. Somehow they figured out which one.” The admission helped her control the mixed tears of relief and anguish.

  Leon nodded. “Okay. Yeah, that was probably stupid. I imagine they have her phone bugged. That’s what I would do.” He glanced at the rearview mirror again and winced. “But that doesn’t mean it’s your fault. That isn’t the half of it. They were ready for me at the office. I got the recordings, but they knew I was there and came for me. I got lucky.”

  “They had nothing to do with Burke disappearing.”

  “I know that, now. I’ve been listening to the recordings I was able to get while I was waiting for you in the parking lot. There was a lot of talk about ‘Plan B.’ I don’t know what it is about, but they want us for it, and it’s happening soon. Maybe they just need to brew combat potions with our blood, because they know they can’t get us to willingly participate.”

  “But they can, though.” Jessabelle said.

  “What?”

  “Evelyn got control over me once, and I didn’t believe my own eyes. I even turned against my friends.”

  He nodded. “Point taken. However, that doesn’t last long, and few witches are anywhere near Evelyn’s ability, even among the alphas. Most of them can’t do much more than tell a convincing lie.”

  “Some can.”

  “Yeah,” he said, staring out at the road and forgetting to look in the rearview mirror for a whole ten seconds. “Yeah, some of them sure can, at least for a little while. Especially if they have time to prepare.” He sighed, and then laughed.

  Jessabelle tilted her head back. “What’s so funny?”

  He shook his head, still grinning. “I just realized that time is on our side. If they are on a tight schedule, all we need to do is lay low and hold out for a few weeks. Then they’ll be forced to go on without us. We drop off their priority list.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to listen to the recordings. From what I heard, it sounded like days or weeks, not months. We just have to be careful. No more stupid mistakes, okay?”

  Jessabelle nodded in agreement, but she knew better. There was a strangeness to his voice, maybe a sound or a whiff of odor that the cats in her could detect even if the human could not. She didn’t know if he was lying or just knew that his reassurances were empty. She would push later. Right now, she didn’t want to force the issue, since it was her fault that the Coven found her.

  When they got back to the trailer, Leon went straight to the shower. Jessabelle began making dinner. It was just spaghetti, since they had plenty of pasta and sauce, but she wanted to be useful. For a few minutes, they ate in silence. At last, Leon said, “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me how you all ended up at the hospital.”

  Jessabelle wanted to tell him about the crossroad, but hesitated. If he was captured by witches, could they make him tell them the secret? “Burke was wandering around and fell, and hurt himself pretty bad. He couldn’t crawl back home.”

  “He didn’t call for help?”

  “Nobody could hear him.”

  She wondered if Leon could sense her holding back information, like she could sense other people’s emotions. Maybe. Maybe he had as many problems interpreting them as she did. “Josie and I had to half-carry him all the way to the truck.”

  “But he’s okay now?”

  Jessabelle nodded. “Josie said he’s doin’ lots better.”

  Leon half-smiled. “I’m glad.”

  After they cleaned up, Leon got ready for bed. There was only one bedroom, and Leon had insisted that Jessabelle use it for privacy’s sake. She tossed and turned most of the night, between heat, guilt, and fear of what had almost happened. Around three in the morning she finally drifted off, troubled by bad dreams.

  She awoke to someone pounding on her door. She sat up and called “What is it?”

  “Get dressed. Hurry,” Leon answered.

  Overcast clouds diffused the early-morning sunlight coming through slats of the window. It was enough light to change into clothes. Jessabelle was sure her hair was a mess, but Leon’s tone didn’t suggest time to do much with it. She pulled her hair back and through a hair tie and called it good. When she exited the bedroom, Leon stood in the darkened living area, staring out the window. Several wrapped granola bars sat waiting for her on the counter. Next to the food sat the .38 revolver in its pocket holster, and a small box of ammunition.

  Jessabelle looked at the gun and back to Leon. “Are we going shooting again?”

  Leon turned off his phone and shook his head. “No. We need to leave. Grab your jacket and anything you can’t live without.”

  “It’s too warm for the jacket.”

  “We aren’t coming back.”

  “Oh.”

  She brought out the jacket, and Leon slipped the gun into the jacket’s pocket. The holster prevented the heavy trigger from getting snagged by accident and smoothed out the weapon so the bulge in her clothes wasn’t obviously a handgun. “This is only for a last resort,” he said. “If shit goes south, you should run. Don’t worry about me, just run. Change if you can. Hide if you need to.” He stared at her until her eyes met his. “Don’t even pull the gun unless you absolutely have to and only when it’s down to them or you. Understand?”

  She didn’t want to imagine killing anyone, but not too long ago, she would have shot Evelyn if she’d had the chance. She’d have killed the witch with her claws and fangs if she’d been able. Jessabelle nodded, feeling her mouth go dry. “What’s going on? What happened?”

  “Josie just called.” He pointed to the ammo and granola bars. “Stuff what you can in your other pockets, and let’s go. The Coven knows where we are.”

  Bachan escorted Jack down a stone hall in the opposite direction from his cell. As big as the castle looked from the outside, the inside of the building wasn’t exactly roomy. Once again, Hollywood had lied.

  Jack glanced over his shoulder and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Guest quarters. You’ll be guarded, but it will be more comfortable than the cell.”

  “What about Rumela?”

  Bachan shook his head. “I’m sorry. You heard the king. She is to remain a prisoner until your completion of this mission.”

  “Until my suicide by giant, I think you mean,” Jack mumbled.

  Bachan stopped and looked around the hallway. Nobody else was near. Bachan drew close and whispered, “You seem an honorable man, Jack. I promise you, regardless of the outcome, your friend will go free. The king is a just man, but besides his kingdom, he has no greater love than that for his daughter.”

  “That don’t make me feel much better, sir.”

  Bachan sighed. “I understand. If it is within my power to arrange, I will give you every advantage I can. I’m certain the king would rather have you return successful than never return at all.”

  Jack leveled his gaze at the man and said, “I want to visit Rumela.”

  “That would be better to do tomorrow,” Bachan said.

  “Then I’ll see her tomorrow, too, if there’s
time. She trusts me. Ain’t a whole lot of folk ever done that, and I need to let her know what’s happening.”

  Bachan shrugged. “Okay. I’ll tell Posk to bring you back to the guest wing when you are done.”

  A guard took Jack down into the cells. He set a lit torch into a sconce on the wall so Jack and Rumela could see each other through the bars. Otherwise, the only light coming into her cell was from the starlight shining through the small window.

  Rumela grinned, showing all of her jagged, predatory teeth. The guard, Posk, took an involuntary step backward, but Rumela ignored him. She said, “Jack! You meet the king? You see that princess again?”

  “I saw her, just briefly. I had to talk to the king. We’re in trouble, Rumela.”

  “How? Why? What we done?”

  “It ain’t what we did, necessarily, just what they need me to do.”

  “What?”

  Jack looked at his feet. “I need to kill a giant.”

  “Oh.” After a moment, she asked, “How you gonna do that?”

  It wasn’t the question he had anticipated. Jack shook his head. “I ain’t worked that out yet. Look, I’m real sorry. They won’t let me take you with me. They won’t let you free until I do this.”

  “Okay, Jack. You ain’t gotta do this. I’s fine here. Quiet. And they feed me. Yum, yeah?”

  Jack clenched his fists at his sides. “But you’re a prisoner.”

  “Better me prisoner than you dead. What giant?”

  Jack shrugged. “Something Lash. Kork or something like that.”

  “Korak Lash?”

  Jack nodded. “I reckon that was it.”

  Rumela lowered her head so that her forehead rested against the bars. “No! That ain’t good. Listen, Jack. You is a great hero. But Korak stomp you into ground. Hard. I be sad when you gone.”

  “I’ll try to avoid that. Seriously.”

  “Korak is more’n two-hunnert years old. He was one of biggest, toughest giants. Maybe he still is. He even et other giants. All giants I know were a-scared of Korak. Jack, you don’t gotta fight him. You is strong, but you ain’t that strong.”

  “I ain’t got a choice. The king demanded it.”

  She stabbed her finger at him through the bars. “That mean ol’ king demand you fight or you kill?”

  Jack hesitated. This was really good insight from a giant, Jack thought. She was picking out potential loopholes in the contract. “Okay, Rumela. You win. I’ll check. I think I only need to kill him. Or stop him.”

  “Then you sneak up on him and kill him. Or shoot him from far off. You cheat. Korak is half-blind and pretty stupid even for a giant, last I hear. So you kill him from hiding place.”

  “That feels wrong.”

  “And killing someone is right?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Wrong!” Rumela reached through the bars and squeezed his hand. It hurt a little, but Jack kept a stoic face. Rumela said, “Killing ain’t wrong if it be to protect. I kill to protect me or to protect Jack.”

  “In my world, it’s only when we’re in immediate danger.”

  “With giant, you’s always in immed... you’s always in danger all the time. Unless that giant is Rumela.” She grinned. “You do what you gotta, Jack. I be fine. Just ‘member. You ain’t strong like giant. You never strong like giant. But you be clever!”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Always try. Win. When I was little, like you, my pa told me that if Korak ever caught me, I should try’n flatter him. He likes showing off and hearing folks say how tough he is. Sneak away while he’s bragging.”

  “So I can get him to start bragging about himself?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. If he’s going to crush you like a bug, you might as well try. I know you are clever enough, Jack. I wait for you to come back. You be smart and stay alive, right?”

  “Right.”

  Posk escorted Jack to his new quarters. His room was small, but not much smaller than his bedroom at home, and much more ornately furnished. The shelf on one side of the room had hand-carved illustrations along the edges. Everything seemed well-decorated for an important visiting VIP or something. Not some nobody from Maple Bend.

  He slept fitfully at best and not only because of the heat. He couldn’t help but think he would have slept better in his dismal cell next to Rumela. Knowing she was there, alone, made him feel like he’d betrayed her.

  Shortly after midnight, Jack had to relieve himself. The guest room had no adjoining bathroom. He opened the door and saw Posk the guard standing outside. Jack stared at the guard, who stared back with a bored expression. Jack smiled weakly and asked, “Hey, can you tell me where the bathroom is?”

  Posk stared at him. “The what? You need a bath?”

  “No, the bathroom. Restroom?”

  “You can rest in your own quarters.”

  Jack sighed. “I gotta pee. You guys have an outhouse or something?”

  Posk snorted. “You never used a pot before?”

  “A pot? No. We use a commode.”

  Posk leaned toward the door and pointed to the covered pot under the bed. “That’s the pot. You relieve yourself into that. The servants will replace it in the morning, so you don’t have to worry about it. That is the convenience of a room in the palace.”

  Jack looked over his shoulder at the pot. He’d have to have pretty good aim. The logistics seemed challenging. “Yeah, convenient. Y’all don’t have any indoor plumbing, I reckon.”

  Posk shook his head. “I’m not sure what you mean by that, sir.”

  “You’re being honest with me, right? I ain’t going to get some maid screaming at me in the morning because I did my business into some stewpot, am I?”

  Posk tilted his head. “You wouldn’t ever stew in a pot shaped like that, sir.”

  Jack shrugged and exhaled. “I guess I wanted adventure. This will be different.”

  “If you say so,” Posk said. “Goodnight, sir.”

  Jack closed the door. Suddenly his tiny little house with his mother felt more like a palace than the palace did.

  Shortly before dawn, Jack awoke to a soft knock at the door. He threw on his newly cleaned, slightly damp clothing, noting how worn it had become in a week of travel. Not that it would matter in a couple of days anyway.

  He opened the door, expecting Posk or another guard. Instead, Delcina stood outside, with no one else in the halls. Her dress was a somber auburn with slightly poofed-out shoulders and slender lower sleeves of black silk. While far simpler than the one she’d worn the night before, it accentuated her already perfect figure. The only things marring her beauty were the red rings around her pale, otherworldly eyes.

  Jack blinked, wondering for a moment if he was still asleep and dreaming. It didn’t feel like a dream. And with Rumela in the dungeon and himself about to ride off to meet his doom, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant one, either, Delcina’s appearance notwithstanding. In spite of her beauty, Jack regarded her as he would a snake of indeterminate species. She might sprout venomous fangs at any moment.

  She stepped in and closed the door behind her. “We don’t have long.”

  “What would your daddy do if he knew you were here?” Jack mused out loud with a bit more venom of his own than he’d intended. “Or is that the plan? Get me in trouble for trying to kidnap you again?”

  Her eyes blazed. “I came to help you, because I felt sorry for you. Perhaps I was mistaken.”

  “You and me both. I thought we worked out all that ‘I ain’t kidnapping you’ stuff back in the woods. But then out we come, and you have Bachan arrest me with that little asshole, Zainus, looking on. And then you let me trip myself up in front of your daddy, so he gave me a delayed death sentence. I hope you pardon me if I have my doubts.”

  She scowled, then her features softened. “I am not used to being spoken to in such a manner, sir.”

  “I’m likely to be dead and gone soon, so you don’t have to get used to it.”
r />   “You really are from a long way away, aren’t you?”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “You finally believe that part?”

  “Look, I don’t know how it works where you come from, but whether I believe you or not is irrelevant. My father is the king. He doesn’t take my council on many things. I told him I thought you were telling the truth. He grew anxious when I told him that you told me you were from another world, but he seemed to believe it far more readily than I did. However, I overheard Zainus tell him you were a bandit who had been attacking villages.”

  “That little sumbitch!” Jack balled his hand into a fist. “If by any miracle I manage to survive this, I am going to kick his tail so hard he is going to taste my shoe!”

  Delcina raised her hand. “We do not have much time, remember! Survive the giant, and then maybe you can plot your revenge. I brought you this.” She produced a sheathed weapon, an ornate dagger complete with what seemed to be precious stones set into the hilt. Jack didn’t know much about knife-making, but this one was obviously of fine craftsmanship. While it hadn’t seen polish in quite a while, it looked like a fine weapon.

  Jack took the weapon and pulled the blade halfway out of the sheath. The metal glowed a milky color in the pale pre-dawn light.

  “Don’t touch the edge,” she said. “It is enchanted to remain razor-sharp. It will slice though almost anything, easily. That is why my grandmother gave it to me. Even in the hands of a young girl, it was a threat to all but the most heavily armored knight. I imagine if you struck even a giant in the right place with it, you could inflict a deadly wound.”

  Jack returned the blade to the sheath. “Is this the knife you nearly took my fingers off with back in the woods yesterday?”

  She nodded.

  He held the weapon out toward her. “I can’t accept this, Delcina. This was a gift from your grandmother.”

  “And now it’s my gift to you. Consider it an apology.” She pushed the offer back. She cleared her throat and said, “I understand in the old days, a woman of royal or noble blood might give a knight a token. Consider this my token. However, I hope you find a more practical use for it. Even if it is only to sell it. You could get a good deal of money for it, enough to go far away.”