by Martha Carr
“Ya don’t say.” Ronnie nodded toward Lisa, his blue eyes glinting. “Looks like ya got yerself a pardner too.”
She grinned. “Yes, he does. Lisa Breyer.”
“Good ta see you, sweetheart.” He drew in a long breath, leaned back despite his hunched shoulders, then whistled. “Feels damn good, Johnny. Damn good. Hey, ye’re stoppin’ back on by to help me set those new traps ʼgain, ain'tcha?”
“I need a few more days, then I’m all yours.”
“Good. I’ll spread the word ʼbout them good-for-nothin’s, mind. Grapevine’ll pick up on someone tailin’ Johnny Walker in yer own neck ‘o the woods. They ain’t gon’ find ya.”
“’Preciate it.”
“Yar. We take care of our own.” Ronnie winked at Lisa again.
The dwarf nodded, then pointed at Sheila. “We better get on.”
“Sure. Get on and do whatcha do.” Ronnie turned to return to his shack, chuckling. “Turn that shit you call music down where I can’t hear it ʼgain, huh? I about broke my back jumpin’ up when I heard ya.”
“Uh-huh.” Johnny shook his head and climbed into Sheila’s driver seat. The screen door creaked and slapped shut and the elf disappeared.
Lisa looked at the buckshot in the dirt and the obliterated pink shreds of the single flamingo casualty. “I certainly didn’t expect that.”
“What can I say, darlin’?” The bounty hunter smirked at her as she took her place in the passenger seat and closed the door. “We’re full of surprises down here.”
“Including the grapevine, I’m guessing.” She strapped herself in quickly as he started the engine, made a slow turn around Ronnie’s front yard, and barely avoided the other flamingos. “Is that some kind of Everglades network?”
He snorted and straightened the vehicle to proceed down the dirt road. “You bet. It might surprise you what pops up when folks put their heads together. ʼSpecially down here.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m already surprised.” A huge heron took flight from the swamp on their right, flapped a few times, and glided slowly over the road as the Jeep raced toward the freeway. “Any idea what those idiots with semi-automatics were talking about?”
Johnny shrugged. “Again, It could be anyone.”
“Not if you’ve been retired for the last fifteen years.”
“Yeah. It’s a little strange to have folks target me like that right after I get back into the game.”
“They said they know what you’re up to and want you to stop. Present tense.” Lisa brushed her hair out of her eyes and let the rest of it whip around her head in the wind. “Like they’re talking about this Logree case. Unless there’s something else you’re doing that someone wants you to stop.”
“There might be. It don’t make sense that city thugs like that would try to keep us from stoppin’ an Oriceran creature terrorizin’ storefronts and resorts.” He cleared his throat. “Reckon whoever they’re workin’ for will send someone else after this little bruhaha.”
“You don’t look too concerned about it.”
“That’s ʼcause I ain’t. Whoever they are, let ʼem come after me again if they’re dumb enough to try it. There are a lotta locals down here keepin’ an eye out now. Many eyes.”
Lisa laughed and shook her head. “A Wood Elf with a sawn-off.”
“Yeah, that’s somethin’, ain’t it?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
As Sheila pulled into the front drive of Johnny’s cabin, Rex and Luther raced around from the back, barking wildly and sliding in the dirt. “Johnny! Johnny, you’re back!”
“Good thing, Johnny. You gotta come see this.”
He turned the engine off and slid out of the Jeep. “All right now, boys. Settle down.”
“Johnny, we tried to stop her.”
“Yeah, we tried hard. Told her to back off and get lost.” Rex pranced around his master’s feet and barked again. “But she made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.”
“Steak, Johnny.” Luther yipped and sniffed the ground as the dwarf headed for the front door. “Couple of real juicy ones. Dropped ʼem right in the dirt and called us good hounds.”
“We couldn’t say no, Johnny. It wasn’t our fault.”
“Yeah, and the pup said it was cool, so—”
The dwarf stopped and stared at his hounds. There’s someone in my damn house.
“What’s wrong?” Lisa asked as she came up behind him.
“No one fucking feeds my hounds.”
“What?”
“I should’ve added emergency phone calls to the damn collars.” He stormed up the porch steps and threw the screen door open.
“We did our best, Johnny.” The dogs raced up after him.
“Yeah, but she’s real smart. Knew exactly how to get to us.”
He reached under the tin mailbox mounted on the siding at the front door and jerked the pistol he’d taped there free. “I’ll handle it.”
“Johnny, what’s going on?” Lisa shoved the screen door open again before it could smack closed in her face and Johnny stormed into his house, leaving the front door wide open.
Turning the pistol’s safety off, he checked the magazine, shoved it in again, and marched down the hall. “Amanda!”
When he reached the living room, he leveled the pistol at the woman seated on his couch beside the young shifter. “Get the fuck outta my house.”
“Hey!” Amanda leapt to her feet and the woman in a maroon t-shirt tucked into tight jeans and a glitzy belt stood slowly beside her. “What are you doing?”
“I never gave you an invitation,” he all but snarled at the stranger. “You’d best be on your way.”
“Johnny, I told her to come inside.” The girl glanced at her visitor, who simply stared at him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. “Put your gun down, okay? She’s only here to talk.”
“Oh, yeah, Johnny.” Luther sat at his master’s side. “Lady’s from that shifter pack.”
Rex whined and sat on the dwarf’s other side. “Probably should have mentioned that part.”
Goddamn shifters.
Lisa stopped six feet behind him and watched the stranger in his living room warily.
“There’s nothin’ to talk about.” The dwarf glanced at Amanda. “Except for how you’re doin’ exactly the opposite of everythin’ I say.”
“You’re gettin’ your panties all in a bunch over nothin’,” the woman drawled. “It was only a little chat.”
“Don’t matter if it was a fuckin’ wave, lady. You’re trespassin’.”
“I stopped here to talk to Amanda.” She folded her arms. “In person. See if she’d fit in with our pack seein’ as now she lives in the Everglades and all. Lone wolves don’t last that long, do they?”
“Longer’n you’re fixin’ to last if you don’t get on back to whatever hole you crawled out of.” He thumbed the hammer of his pistol back.
Amanda stepped toward him. “Johnny, don’t.”
“I ain’t talkin’ to you.” He stepped into the living room, his weapon still leveled at the pack ambassador’s chest, and nodded down the hall toward the front. “Out. My hounds have your scent now. They don’t forget. If I have to, I’ll track you and your whole pack of backwoods dogs to every one of your meetups and send a different kinda message.”
“You’re not makin’ a very good case for yourself,” the shifter woman said, although she stepped around the coffee table and headed toward the hallway. “Keepin’ a girl locked up like this. You know how kids are. Squeeze ʼem too tightly, and they’ll turn against you simply for a breath of fresh air.”
The dwarf turned and trailed the woman with his weapon as she walked casually down the hall. “I see you here again, you ain’t walkin’ out.”
“See you around, Amanda.”
Rex and Luther growled after the visitor, their ears pressed flat against their heads. “Won’t fool us twice, lady.”
“Yeah, no matter how many steaks you drop.”
“
Hey, where was she keeping them?”
The woman studied Lisa with a smirk as she passed. “You got a little somethin’ there on your cheek, sweetie.”
“Get out before he shoots you.”
Chuckling, the shifter took her sweet time to stroll down the hallway.
Johnny didn’t lower his pistol until the screen door slammed shut behind her and she disappeared through the high row of reeds growing along the road.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Amanda muttered.
He lowered the pistol’s hammer, then turned slowly to face her with a scowl. “I’m doin’ what has to be done, kid. Can’t exactly say the same for you right now, can I?”
“Johnny, it was only a talk—”
“In my house.”
“It’s my house too right now, isn’t it?” The girl glanced at Lisa in disbelief. “You’re making way too big a deal out of this. I wasn’t part of any pack in New York. I couldn’t even shift if we weren’t out on a camping trip in the middle of nowhere. And this is the middle of nowhere.”
“Don’t mean it’s safe.”
“But it might be! This could be a real chance for me, Johnny—to run with a pack and learn more about what I can do. Controlling my instincts like you said.”
“Save it, kid.” He thumped the pistol onto the side table next to the couch and shook his head. “You broke the rules—”
“I’m trying to learn who I am! Abby said they could help me do that.”
“Oh, you know her name now, do ya? Don’t say it again.”
“Johnny—”
“I brought you here with me to keep you safe.” He pointed roughly at her. “Not so you can sign up with the first redneck troop of slobbering inbred shifters that gives you the time of day. That’s the end of it.”
Amanda scowled at him and folded her arms. “You’re the last person I expected to stereotype someone.”
“Ain’t a stereotype with those, kid.”
“I’m not your kid.” She stormed past him and bumped her shoulder against his before she rushed down the hall.
Rex and Luther leapt to their feet and raced after her. “Come on, pup. It’s not so bad.”
“Yeah, you’ll find a pack someday. A good one.”
“Hey, where are you goin’?”
She said nothing to the hounds as she burst through the screened-in porch. Luther followed her, and Rex doubled halfway back toward Johnny. “We’ll talk some sense into her, Johnny. No problem.”
“Stay with her.” The bounty hunter nodded toward the door, and Rex scrabbled down the hall before he nudged the screen door open again with his snout. Then, he trudged into his workshop and pulled one metal box after another off the shelves and thunked them onto the worktable.
Lisa leaned against the doorway into the workshop, her hands clasped behind her back. “You should go after her, Johnny.”
“Nope.”
“She might be angry but she still needs you.”
“Naw, what she needs is some time and space to cool off. We both do.”
“And you don’t think she’s gonna cool off looking for that shifter pack that gave her an open invitation?”
“The hounds will keep an eye on her.”
“They’re dogs, Johnny—”
“Watch it.” He clanged another box on the table, then heaved a sigh and scratched under his nose. “Sorry.”
“I’m not the one who needs to hear it.”
He looked slowly at her. “You think I’m wrong?”
“Not on principle.” Lisa shrugged. “But I wouldn’t say holding a gun to her guest and harping at the kid about what she’s doing wrong is the best way to handle something like this.”
“Huh.” Johnny grunted. “She’ll work it out. And when she gets back from wherever she went off to— Shit. I’m tryin’ to stay on this goddamn case and that kid’s too smart and stubborn for her own good. Mine too.”
“So what are you gonna do about it?”
“The kid’s my responsibility. I chose to take her in and I aim to keep that promise to her. I can’t keep shuckin’ her off onto someone else to keep an eye on her while I’m workin’ and I can’t keep her with me every step of the way, either. She ain’t a bounty hunter.”
“Very true.” The agent stepped into the workshop and tilted her head to regard him with a firm expression. “You’ll have to talk to her about all this eventually. Preferably without firearms and yelling. It might help to come up with a plan for when she does come back.”
“A plan.” Johnny sniffed and shoved one of the metal boxes away from him across the worktable. “I need a drink.”
He stormed into the kitchen and she remained where she was, listening to the bang of cabinets opening and shutting and the splash of whiskey into a glass. A moment later, he returned with a rocks glass with double his usual four fingers, took a long swig, then stopped and stared at her. “Shit. You want somethin’?”
“Nope.”
“All right. Let’s get to work.”
Once he’d retrieved Wallace’s metal case from the back of the Jeep, Johnny showed Lisa his process for filling his hollow ammo rounds—in this case, the crossbow bolt tips—with whatever magical concoction fit the purpose.
“Think you got it?”
“Sure.”
“Here.” He tossed a pair of thick work gloves across the table, then handed her one of the small vials of blue-white Crystal magic. “Grab some tips. I got another funnel here somewhere.”
“How many of these are you trying to fill?” She pulled the gloves on, lifted a hollow bolt tip from the open box, and held it to the light.
“A couple of dozen. Maybe more. We’ll empty half these vials and save the rest for a rainy day.”
“Right. It always helps to have a half-Crystal’s magic lying around for who knows what.”
Johnny snorted and pried the small hatch in another bolt tip open.
They worked together to fill as many shootable Crystal tips as they could using half the vials from Wallace. As he snapped the hatch shut on another full, glowing projectile, a small alarm beeped from the vicinity of the police scanner.
“What’s that?” Lisa asked as she poured liquified magic carefully into the funnel.
He set the bolt tip down, ripped his gloves off, and grinned. “’Bout damn time.”
She closed the bolt tip and turned to watch him stride across the workshop.
The dwarf opened a small black box beside the police scanner, took out a thick black device the size of a cell phone, and chuckled. “There you are, you gooey bastard.”
“What?”
Johnny wiggled the device at her, still grinning.
Lisa leaned away from him with a frown. “You look like a mad scientist right now.”
“Not a scientist, darlin’. A bounty hunter about to close in on a target. Which, by the way, is now moving.” He flashed the device at her and she caught a brief glimpse of a radar tracking screen and a small red dot that moved slowly up the side.
“You’ve been tracking it.”
“Naw, that just started.” He set the device down and stared at it as he picked up his half-empty double whiskey and took a large sip. “It was one of the first bolts I used on that tentacled beast. Wasn’t on purpose, and I assumed it hadn’t hit home when no signal came through.” He snorted. “I ain’t often wrong, darlin’, but it’s a damn good thing I was in this case.”
“So the Logree’s on the move and headed…”
“It looks like up the coast toward Naples.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “As soon as we fit these tips, we’ll roll out and have us a little showdown. With ice this time.”
Lisa pulled her phone out to check the time. “It’s seven-thirty, Johnny. The sun sets in…what? An hour?”
“I have no problem seein’ in the dark.”
“I’m talking about Amanda. What if she comes home while we’re gone?”
Johnny grunted and downed the last of his whiskey. �
��The hounds are with her. She’s safe.”
“But she won’t know where we are.”
“All right, fine. Christ.” He stormed into the kitchen, rummaged in a drawer, and returned with a pen and a crumpled sheet of paper. “I’ll write her a damn note.”
The agent chuckled and drew a handful of untipped bolts from the long box to work on fitting them with the new Crystal-magic-infused tips. “All this gear and tech, and you’re going old school with a handwritten note.”
“What, you have a better idea?”
“No. I like it.”
He scribbled his note for Amanda, swallowed when he finished, and read through it.
Went off to bag the big purple game. Don’t forget to feed the boys. And yourself. We’ll talk later. —J
With a sigh, he tossed the pen onto the table and left to tape the note onto the wall just inside the front door.
Five minutes later, he and Lisa zipped the two cases filled with bolts they’d fitted and he took his crossbow from the shelf. “Time to go huntin’.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
With one hand on the throttle of the airboat as they skimmed the water along Florida’s western coast, Johnny glanced at the tracking device in his other hand and nodded. “Kill the lights, will ya?”
“The lights?” Lisa stepped hesitantly across the deck.
“Right there on the mounts. Big black button.”
Despite the sunset still reflecting off the water and filling the western sky, the work light on Johnny’s airboat had given them a clear view of the coast as the daylight faded. That vanished when she found the power button and the bright lights shut off with a heavy thunk.
“We should be comin’ up on it in another…two, three minutes.”
“Or less.” She pointed directly ahead.
About a mile away, an unnatural swirl rippled sideways up the coast and intersected the waves breaking along the shore. A thin, dark-purple tentacle rose from the water and dropped into the surf again with a barely visible splash.
“Well, look at that.” Johnny twisted the throttle and increased their speed. Good thing it’s a calm night. The airboat wouldn’t work so well on choppy water.
