Nightfall

by Elizabeth Hartwell

  Regardless of the good or the bad, Woodcrest isn’t a vacation spot by any means. But if there is a divine hand at work in all of this, perhaps that’s what Sulis intended. By hiding her offspring all the way out here, it keeps the child out of the way, where nobody would notice her.

  “Well, at least we might find some weapons,” Tym notes as we come to a stop in the center of the village. “They have a blacksmith.”

  “Where’s the Hunter station?” Lance asks, his eyes scanning around. “I figured this would be like Arroyo.”

  “The northeast is different,” I explain. “With the way things developed and the way the locals are so independent, only the larger towns have a Hunter station. They’re a bit denser as you approach the Bane border, but a village like this would be expected to handle its own business.”

  “Which means we’ll be expected to find this girl on our own as well,” Brandon points out. “What’s the plan, Cerena?”

  “Lance, you and Tym find the local gathering spot and get information,” I answer after a moment. Brandon’s right, but that works to our advantage too. With no Hunter presence, that hopefully means nobody is going to be interested in our arrival and call back to Solace wondering who we are. “Lance, try to restrain yourself.”

  “Or what, you will?” Lance asks with a grin.

  “No,” I reply, grinning back. “I won’t.”

  Lance’s grin spreads, and he leans through the back window, kissing me quickly before hopping over the edge of the truck. Tym watches him, then looks back at me with a forlorn look. “I need someone to be the adult.”

  “Understood,” Tym murmurs, but he kisses me back hard when I grab a handful of his hair and pull him in close. “Cerena—”

  “I want you to remember that I burn for you too,” I growl in his ear. “Now go make sure Lance doesn’t get himself in trouble.”

  “I’m a demigod, not a god,” Tym jokes lightly before climbing out of the passenger seat of the truck. I climb out of my side as Brandon hops down, his eyes shadowed.

  “What?”

  “No kiss for me?” he asks, and I laugh softly, pushing him against the truck before kissing his cheek. When I go to pull back, he doesn’t let me and instead pulls me closer, taking my mouth in a deep, aggressive kiss that quickly has me breathless. “That’s better.”

  “You should be glad I don’t have my swords,” I whisper. “Although I can feel your spear pressed against my belly. Have I been neglecting you?”

  “No . . . and yes,” Brandon growls. “I want you with a hunger that outstrips any physical need. I want to claim you as mine, to plunder your body and turn you into a desperate, wanton slut for me. But I know that the others need you too.”

  His words are quiet, intense. I feel rocked inside, and if we didn’t have a mission, I’d find a dark, quiet spot to show him how hot he’s making me. But Brandon understands and pulls back, smiling a little. “I found my key, by the way.”

  “Key? Oh, you mean what Lance was talking about,” I answer as we start walking toward the blacksmith’s shop. “What was it?”

  “Two . . . anger is one,” Brandon says, laughing a little as we walk, “which you’d expect. The other is you. Thinking of you helped me control what I did last night. So I didn’t blow up the whole rock but just popped it into the air before sending it flying with a small explosion. How about you?”

  “Still looking,” I admit as we enter the blacksmith’s shop. It’s not much, a shaded spot to conduct business paperwork more than anything else, and most of the space is taken up with a table. “Two whole hours staring at that pebble, and I didn’t even get a wiggle.”

  The shop itself is deserted, as I’d expect a blacksmith’s to be. Blacksmiths get work by working, not by sitting behind a counter. In the back, I can hear hammering, although it stops when I knock on the wooden table that I assume serves as his desk. “Hello?”

  “A minute!” a voice from the back of the shop calls, and true to promise, a short, heavyset man appears from the back. He’s wearing a leather apron over his clothes, and his forearms and hands are scarred, the product of a lifetime at the forge. He looks at us warily, his hand slipping under his apron, no doubt for a knife. Better safe than sorry. “Welcome, strangers. What be your needs?”

  “Weaponry,” I reply, reaching into my pocket and taking out what holochips we have. Thankfully, Lance and Tym preplanned before breaking me out of jail, and we still have some of what they were paid. We’re lucky, because other than the holocomputer Lily left me, and the truck, we’re broke. “I assume that you can provide the basics for folks around here?”

  “I make weapons, aye,” the blacksmith says, his eyes looking at my bag. His hand comes out again, but in his mind, I’m certain he’s trying to figure out just how many chips we’ve got in there and how many of them he can get his hands on. “What sort of weapons are you looking for?”

  “Short swords, if you have them,” I reply, holding my hands at the distance that I prefer. While I can use just about anything, I want to be as comfortable as possible for the upcoming fight. “Matched sets.”

  The blacksmith purses his thick lips, stroking his beard as his mind goes through his inventory. I take it as a good sign. I was half expecting to be handed two machetes and told to deal with it. “I don’t have a fully matched set, but I do have two that are very close in size and weight.”

  He goes into his forge area and returns a moment later with not two but four swords, setting them on the table for me. “The two on the right are a closer pair, but the others are, in my opinion, better swords.”

  “You call these good swords?” Brandon asks, picking up one of the ‘good’ swords and swinging it around a few times. It swishes in the air, and I can tell by the sound that it’s heavier than what I used to wield. “This blade looks like it’s barely been finished.”

  “By choice,” the blacksmith says defensively, obviously offended. “A shiny sword may look good, but when something night based is coming for your head, boy, you want a blade that won’t shine in the moonlight. Trust me, it’ll shave the hair off your neck with no problems.”

  “Brandon, it’s okay,” I quickly reassure him before an argument can start. I pluck the righthand pair up and measure them by eye, evaluating them carefully. They’re a bit long for me, only by an inch or so, but the difference in weight is what concerns me. My shoulders can deal with it, but I’ll need to practice to get used to them before using them in combat. Also, they’re blade heavy, more than I like with my acrobatic style, and while the thick steel will hold up to many blows, I’m worried about balance.

  Turning to the blacksmith, I flip both blades around, then back in a basic Hunter form that helps me evaluate what I’ve got. “What are they made of?”

  “If you’re askin’ for a chemical breakdown like you’d get from some stuck-up Solace merchant, I cannot help you,” the blacksmith says, again defensive. “But that’s good spring steel, the same kind I use for the wagons, folded ten times. Same as my father taught me, and he provided weapons for the Hunter station in the town about twenty miles down the road.”

  “No, I trust your word,” I reply, setting down the first pair and picking up the second. It’s immediately clear that the blacksmith is being honest. The second pair is much better. While the handles and styles aren’t an exact match, the quality and balance of the swords is much better, even if they are a tad blade heavy still. “I like these. Can you add fifty grams of counter weight to the pommel?”

  The blacksmith looks immediately placated, and we dicker over price before settling on a fair amount of chips. Even Brandon doesn’t look upset, and as we wait for the weights to be added via a quick handle extension, we step outside.

  “I was worried you’d take the matched set,” Brandon says as we look around the village. “This place makes Arroyo look like Solace.”

  “True, but it’s not as dreary,” I note, leaning on a hitching post. “I’m not saying it’s the locati
on for a wonderful vacation or building my castle, but we’ve both seen a lot worse. I wonder if Lance and Tym have found out anything.”

  “Probably,” Brandon replies. “Hey, why didn’t you identify yourself as a Hunter once you realized this place has no station? Even if the people around here don’t exactly like Solace, you’d have gotten a better price.”

  “Hardly,” I reply with a mirthless chuckle. “I’ve run into that issue before. He’d have gouged me, thinking that I had unlimited funds. And Hunters don’t come through here unless they’re on a mission. If I declared myself, the word would get back and we’d draw every Hunter within fifty miles. The truck alone is already causing attention.”

  Brandon nods, and when the blacksmith brings out my new swords, they look good. Rough, and in need of some time with my sharpening stone, but a good start. “Here you are. I drilled out the handle and added steel pins before putting a thicker pommel on. You could probably use that pommel as a hammer if you wanted.”

  “You do good work,” I respond honestly, sliding the swords into the holders on my back. They fit well, and while it’ll take me a little bit of adjustment to get the balance perfect, I feel better knowing I’ve got good steel on my back. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Anytime,” the blacksmith says before his eyes cut behind me. I look over my shoulder to see Tym and Lance approach and turn away to meet up with them before any more questions can be asked.

  “Well?” I ask as they approach, “You’re not running, so I guess things went well?”

  “We got directions to a White farm,” Tym confirms, pointing. “It’s about a mile and a half in that direction.”

  “I see someone’s got new toys to play with,” Lance says appreciatively as he spies the pommels sticking up over my shoulders. “Find anything for us?”

  “Unfortunately, no, not with our current funds,” I admit. I regret it too. Lance needs ammunition for his Gauss pistol. It’s our only long-range weapon. “Okay, then. Ten minutes. We hit the general store for supplies, then we find this White farm.”

  It doesn’t take long for us to find the White farm. The whole thing is small, the house barely more than a fortified shack, the very definition of subsistence farmers, I’d bet. But as we approach, I sense two things. One, that this is a well-cared-for home. The wood is smooth, and the house looks solid against the weather. Mostly, though, it’s in the little touches like the flower garden by the front steps and the way that the chicken coop is beautifully maintained.

  But at the same time, I can almost sense an invisible wave of hostility as we approach. I noticed it when we were in the village, the way the few people who walked by seemed to always look at us out of the side of their eyes or the way the blacksmith slipped his hand under his apron until he was confident that we weren’t trying to rob him. Tym and Lance said the same gesture greeted them in the tavern, where everyone’s hand automatically slid toward their belt. I don’t know if the villagers were reaching for their weapons or to protect their money . . . maybe both.

  The White farm is even warier. In the small window, I see a curtain twitch, and before we’re within twenty yards, the front door opens and a man walks out with an old-fashioned pump-action shotgun. Depending on the load, it can either be a warning or a very deadly lesson.

  “Don’t need no visitors,” the man says, jacking a shell into the chamber. “Ain’t got anything to trade or sell. And the barn’s no place for overnight stays. So you might as well get back in your truck and head back to the village. There’s a perfectly fine tavern there for you folks.”

  “Mr. White?” I ask, holding up my hands. Ironically, while this looks like I’m being peaceful, it actually brings me closer to my swords. Not that I expect a farmer to understand that, but it is a maneuver that I keep in the back of my mind. At my side, I see Lance also tense, ready to stop time as soon as this guy’s finger twitches.

  “Who’s askin’?” the farmer asks, his eyes squinting as he takes the four of us in. “You four don’t look like government types.”

  “We’re not . . . really,” I reply quickly. Time to lie . . . sort of. If this works, we’ll massage the truth back into existence later. “We’re free agents from Solace, sent by the Elder Elizabeth. It’s about your daughter.”

  “Sienna?” Mr. White asks, his shotgun faltering slightly. “What’s a Solace Elder want with my little girl? We’re not Hunter lineage.”

  “Not now . . . but you were,” I comment, and Mr. White’s hands tremble hard enough to make his shotgun twitch in his hands. “I swear, sir, I mean you and your family no harm at all. I’m here to save her from harm. But it’ll take awhile to explain everything to you. Can you give me a chance?”

  Mr. White looks at the four of us, then nods. He clears his throat, but when he speaks, he sounds just as determined as before. “Fine. But just you, and you lose those swords on your back.”

  I say nothing, unstrapping my new weapons and handing them to Brandon. “Take care of these?”

  “Figure Lance and I will play with them for awhile,” Brandon says quietly, giving me a reassuring nod. “We can play Hunter while you talk. Tym can be the adult.”

  I snort, smiling as I realize just how much my three men are starting to rub off on each other. They aren’t blunting each other’s rough edges but rather helping each other grow. It’s taken awhile for Brandon to catch on . . . but it’s happening.

  I follow Mr. White into his house, which I find is actually much larger than it looks as he leads me downstairs to a security cellar that serves as the family’s living room. “Interesting design, sir. I haven’t seen it before.”

  “About six years ago, had a pack of vampires come through the area,” Mr. White says. “They wrecked my old house, and when I rebuilt, we had to live and work out of this shelter for a whole season. Figured it was just easier and safer to put the entrance in the house. The floor of the house is wood, and the trap door looks just like the rest of the flooring if I need to close it. The air holes are well hidden that way, too.”

  I doubt that, but I’m not going to offend the man. Especially as, when I get downstairs, I see his wife and a young girl looking fearfully at me. She’s not the spitting image of me at her age. Her hair’s a lighter shade of brown and she’s rounder in the face, but it’s still startling.

  If you put a holo of her next to one of mine, the similarities are clear enough to make a lot of people do a double-take. Our genetic lines are separated on a scale that I can’t even begin to calculate in my head, but we look like sisters, or maybe cousins.

  “Have a seat,” Mr. White says, sitting down at the other end of a small table, the shotgun still on me. “And you can start with how you look like my daughter so much.”

  I take a deep breath and launch into my story. I try to keep it concise, leaving out some of the details of my trip to Bane, the fights, and getting arrested. But I stress my personal story as a way to show the corruption by Bane and how now, not only werewolves, but Hunters as well are under his influence.

  “So they’re after you, but why—” Mrs. White says before she looks at her daughter, then at me. “No . . . oh, no.”

  “The line was originally passed father to son, reinforced by the goddess herself,” I reply quietly, looking at Sienna. “After our ancestors left the shelter and Solace was founded, it became a single child, half daughters, half sons. Each generation pared down, staying within the genetic bloodlines that Sulis established until only two were left. I was one of those. Sienna is the other. Which is why we need to protect her, get her away from here. The corrupt Hunters, and probably the werewolves too, know where she is. She’s in danger.”

  “You’ve been out in the sun too long,” Mr. White says, standing up and leveling his shotgun at me again. “Now, I let you into my home to have your say, and say it you have. You’ve come in and wasted an hour of my time, my wife’s time, and scared the hell out of my little girl. What would this Bane do?”

  “I honestly
don’t know,” I reply. “They want her . . . essence. It’s for some sort of ceremony, I think. They intend to bring him back to Earth in an immortal earthly form. I don’t know what they would specifically do.”

  “Well, I tell you what you can do,” Mr. White says. “You and your friends can just leave. Maybe you’re right about your genetic bloodline. I’ve dealt with enough winter stalkers to know a lot of folks around here believe in these gods of yours. The names don’t quite line up, but that could be due to a lot of things. But I’ll be damned if anyone is going to take my daughter from me, Hunter or werewolf or Great Spirit of the North. This is our home.”

  I stand up, but I can see that Mr. White isn’t joking in the least. “Mr. White, I beg you. I . . . I can protect your daughter. This is the fate of the entire world, and you’re right. If you cannot protect your daughter, you will be damned. All of us will be damned because Bane will come back. And when he does, hell follows with him.”

  Mr. White lifts his shotgun, his eyes steely. “I’ve heard enough. You’ve got ten seconds to be out of my house, or else. One.”

  “Mrs. White, please,” I plead to the scared, pretty woman sitting on the bed. She does look a little like my mother. I wish I’d maybe delved more into my painful family history and not so much on the isolation I felt and how Edward manipulated me. “Please, it’s for Sienna’s sake.”

  “Two,” Mr. White says as his wife shakes her head, hugging the girl tightly. Sienna looks terrified, but at the same time, I can see the spark of something in her eyes that says she understands and she believes me. “Three.”

  I back up, keeping my eyes on Mr. White as I head up the stairs and out of his shelter. Outside, Tym, Lance, and Brandon are waiting for me, their faces tense as they watch me emerge.

  “No dice?” Lance asks, all joking set aside.

  “No. We’ve been asked to leave his property,” I reply carefully. Behind me, the door to the house opens and Mr. White comes out, his shotgun still leveled on me. Lance tenses, and I put a hand on his arm, restraining him lightly. “No, Lance. We’ll go.”