Embers

by Karen Ann Hopkins

  EMBERS

  Karen Ann Hopkins

  Jay…this one is for you.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks go out to G. K. Bradford for putting her heart and soul into the edits, and Jenny Zemanek of Seedlings Design, for creating such an amazing cover!

  As always, much appreciation and love to my five children, Luke, Cole, Lily, Owen and Cora. Thank you for putting up with me when I’m in a frenzy of writing and I forget to make dinner. You all are the best.

  Special thanks to my mom, Marilyn Lanzalaco, and my friends Carey Hardin Gleckler, Opal Dickerson and Marian Little. Your support means so much to me. I love you all.

  It’s the little things that make it possible for me to create stories. Hugs and gratitude go out to my dad, Anthony Lanzalaco, my brother, Tony Lanzalaco, and my best friend, Jay Detzel.

  Finally, I’m so grateful to Kelsey Haynes for reading Embers long before anyone else and offering some fantastic suggestions, including the title character’s name. You never cease to amaze me.

  Genesis 6:1-4

  Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

  Prologue

  “What do you reckon them people do in there?” Ronnie asked no one in particular. He continued to twirl a piece of his reddish-brown beard between his fingers as he stared at the twelve foot high wooden wall before him. The warm breeze did nothing to stop the chill from absorbing into his skin, sending goose bumps along his arms.

  “No telling. I heard they were crazy city folk and foreigners who came up here to grow a new kind of weed,” Bobby Dean said, tentatively poking at a weathered board with his finger.

  Ronnie was about as experienced a mountain man as there was, knowing the backwoods as well as the roads that crisscrossed the small town of Oldport, but the strange feeling he had standing beside the tall barrier rattled his nerves something fierce. The total lack of sound didn’t help his apprehension either. He glanced around wondering where all the birds were hiding.

  Oscar wasn’t feeling the same uncertainty that his companions were. He was busy catching his breath, leaning his hefty body against the trunk of a large Poplar tree. Propping his elbow on the butt of his twelve gauge shotgun, he waited a minute more before putting his two cents in.

  “Sheriff Riggs will have our hides if he gets wind that we’re up here nosing around the compound. If I was a betting man, I’d say he’s been paid off by the people that live in there to discourage visitors.” Oscar said the words with a strong confidence that he knew what he was talking about.

  “Maybe the Sheriff does have something going with them, an arrangement like. Wouldn’t that just beat all?” Bobby Dean reached into his backpack and pulled out a rope with a metal claw on the end. He never went into the deep woods without it, figuring that a day would come when he’d need to climb a tree right quick if he failed to make a death shot on a large bear.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ronnie hissed, grabbing hold of his cousin’s arm.

  “I aim to find out what’s behind this wall. It’ll satisfy my curiosity and it might even benefit my wallet. You all can stay behind if you want. No skin off my nose.”

  Ronnie wiped the sweaty bangs off his forehead in frustration. “Oh, man, Bobby, we came out here to nab us a bear, not go mingling with the weirdos.”

  “I reckon we can have us a look around without anyone being the wiser,” Bobby’s voice went to a low whisper without him even thinking about it. He stared at Ronnie with his one blue eye as steady as a boat on a calm river, and the hazel one twitching. It was unnerving to look at a man’s face when his eyes should have belonged to two different people. As usual, Ronnie glanced away quickly, not able to hold his older cousin’s gaze for long.

  Oscar came away from the tree, slinging the long gun around his shoulder. Even with his hulking size, he managed to move fluidly.

  “I’m game, Bobby—if you think that rope will hold me.” Oscar grinned, flashing his tobacco yellow teeth.

  “No worries about that,” Bobby Dean chuckled, backing up a few steps.

  After whirling the claw around several times, he let it fly, the whoosh of air from the rope making the only sound in that part of the woods. The claw met its mark, catching the top of the wall securely. Bobby Dean tugged it into place, testing its strength before he began pulling his lanky body up.

  It took Oscar a minute longer to make the climb. He grunted and groaned the entire way, but true to Bobby Dean’s word, the rope held the big man. Oscar’s round face was bright red from the exertion. He smiled down at Ronnie for a second before he climbed over the wall and disappeared.

  Ronnie stood cemented to the ground, his hand shielding his eyes from the glaring sunshine. He frowned up at the place where Oscar had just been. Now that he could no longer hear Oscar’s heavy breathing, the forest was dead quiet again. As quiet as the Oldport library, which he hadn’t been to since he was a kid, but it was the only other place that he could remember that was so forcibly absent of sound. Even the critters seemed afraid to make any scurrying noises in the dried leaves beneath the trees.

  The longer Ronnie stood there, the harder his heart thumped against his rib cage.

  “Shoot, I don’t know what’s worse, going in there with my fool cousins or staying out here alone,” Ronnie muttered to himself.

  Bobby’s bird call whistled through the air, getting his attention. Even if the birds

  had been chirping in that part of the woods, he still would have recognized the distinct sound that only his cousin was known to make.

  That’s what decided it for him.

  Ronnie grasped the rough cord between his hands and started up the boards. His body was lean and muscled from working nearly twenty years at the lumber mill. The climb was easy for him.

  When he reached the top, he took a moment to scan the area. After seeing that the dense stand of trees continued on the inside of the enclosure, giving him some natural camouflage to blend with his clothing, he sighed in relief. He’d been worried about dropping into a clear cut area and sticking out as if he was a beaver in a parking lot.

  Straddling the top, Ronnie pulled the rope over until it dangled down the inside of the wall. He slid his legs over to stretch to his full height, hanging there for a couple of seconds before letting go.

  With a hard jolt, he landed between Bobby Dean and Oscar, and then jumped to a standing position quickly. He wasted no time searching the trees from the ground. Ronnie usually didn’t think much about trespassing, but then again, he’d never had to scale something as tall as the fence behind him to do so. He couldn’t shake the ill feeling that whoever built such a thing was serious about keeping intruders out. He knew first-hand how some folks dealt with unwanted people on their land. All his kin had shotguns propped up behind their front doors for just such occasions.

  Bobby Dean flashed a smile before taking the lead with Oscar close on his heels. Ronnie followed for a few strides and then stopped. He dropped six rounds of ammo into the barrel and then pumped, pushing one into the chamber of the gun. He usually loved the sound, but not this time. It cut through the air like a shout announcing they had arrived.

  Bobby Dean stopped and looked back over his shoulder, mouthing the words, “What the—?”

  “I ain’t
taking any chances,” was all Ronnie had to say to get Oscar to follow suit with his own modified shotgun. Bobby Dean nodded solemnly and primed his rifle for a shot.

  Ronnie felt a little better knowing that the three of them were armed and ready to shoot if need be. Hell, he rationalized, with their weaponry and experience, an army of bears wouldn’t be able to get to them.

  Why then was an uncomfortable tightness still pressing his chest up into his throat?

  Stepping as softly as he could over the dry, fallen leaves and branches, Ronnie was all too aware of the heavy silence in the air. He sniffed in the scents of the warm clay earth and tangy pine needles, finding no comfort in the familiarity. And with no breeze, the sticky wetness beading in every crevice of his body made the ordeal even more unpleasant.

  All of Ronnie’s senses were on overdrive as he fell into his usual hunter posture, bending at the hips slightly and darting his gaze around. He could bring the gun to his cheek and get a shot off in a heartbeat if necessary. His muscles were tight and ready to spring.

  It was Ronnie’s keen eyes that first spotted the wood sided building in the distance. He whistled to get the others’ attention. Jutting his chin in the direction of the well hidden building, he made sure they’d seen it before he stepped behind the wide trunk of an aged Oak tree.

  Bobby Dean and Oscar did the same, finding their own trees. The three men were spaced out enough to provide cover for each other, yet still close enough to communicate. Ronnie took a measured sigh. He was grateful that they were in good positions.

  The calming breath that filled Ronnie lasted only a split second before all hell broke loose. The musky smell that reached his nostrils was the first sign of immediate doom. He turned to his cousins in confusion, catching the look of shock on Oscar’s face just before Ronnie twisted to see the giant tawny colored cat leap at him.

  Ronnie’s mind screamed lion as he raised his gun. His and Oscar’s blasts hit the air at the same moment. The bullets hit their mark, but instead of bringing the beast down, they only served to alter his course a little. It was the lion’s shoulder that slammed into Ronnie, knocking him into the tree.

  The impact hurt like hell, but Ronnie had no time to think about the pain. He bolted up and limped toward Bobby Dean, who met him in the open space between the trees. Bobby Dean slung his arm around Ronnie and pulled him to the nearest tree for cover. Oscar reloaded and stood ready. The barrel of his gun was aimed at a beast that hadn’t been reliably spotted in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee for decades.

  The mountain lion was unnaturally large and Ronnie’s mouth gaped open as he scanned the beast from head to tail. In a swirl of dust and leaves, the lion rolled, and was up. Its rumbling growl filled the air with a heavy push that was so unknown to Ronnie’s ears that his stomach clenched at the sound.

  “Dammit, Oscar, shoot it again!” Ronnie shouted, gripping Bobby Dean’s side.

  Ronnie knew that Oscar was ready to let another round fly, but he never got the chance. The blur that swept out of the trees brought with it a pocket of cool air. As Ronnie and Bobby Dean looked on in horror, their burly cousin’s head went flying. It disappeared into a cluster of bushes.

  There was a spurt of blood from the gaping hole in Oscar’s neck as his knees buckled to the ground. He stayed in that position for a few seconds before finally tipping over. A gush of darkness seeped into the ground where a head should have been.

  The sight of Oscar, decapitated, froze the remaining two cousins for only a blink before each had their guns up and firing at the thing that had attacked their kin. The blur had been unrecognizable, but Ronnie could have sworn he saw a flash of royal blue and long golden hair. The explosions stopped briefly and the smell of gun powder was thick in the air as Ronnie and Bobby Dean stood back to back, reloading.

  It was happening so fast that the men had no time to think about what they’d seen or to mourn for their childhood buddy who was dead in the rotting leaves. A violent life of hunting, combined with their rebellious spirits and generations of mountain breeding, had given them the tools to live a few minutes longer than most humans would have.

  The blur passed before them again and was joined by another from the opposite direction. The bullets missed their marks until all the ammo was spent.

  Ronnie saw something then that he couldn’t have imagined, when out from behind the tree stepped the most beautiful creature that he’d ever seen. Only the fact that she’d ripped Oscar’s head from his body kept Ronnie’s jaw from dropping. He instantly knew that she was the devil in disguise. He believed in heaven and hell, and his mind readily accepted that that the blonde woman before him was some kind of demon.

  Bobby Dean saw past the pretty face too and said, “I don’t know how you did it or who you are, but you’re going to pay.”

  Musical laughter sprang from the woman’s mouth as her chin dipped and her eyes widened. Those eyes weren’t laughing though—they were shining with hatred. Even though the breath caught in Ronnie’s throat, and his legs wobbled beneath him, he couldn’t help but stare at the woman. Her skin was milky white as if she had avoided the daylight her entire life. The blue dress she wore was short and clean, and completely out of place in the woods on the mountain. Ronnie had only a second to ponder at her slender, bare feet when the other blur materialized.

  Ronnie first thought, man, but then changed his mind and decided that the newcomer was a teenager—a teenager who was as beautiful to look upon as the woman in the blue dress.

  Ronnie stopped breathing when the young man came striding straight towards him, but he quickly relaxed. He somehow sensed that the teenager didn’t have the same evil intention that the woman had. Seeing that his skin was brown from the sunshine gave Ronnie a little more hope.

  The teen flung his shoulder length black hair away from his face with a flip of his head when he reached Bobby Dean, whose fighting spirit wasn’t ready to give up yet. Bobby Dean’s rifle struck out suddenly and the dark haired youth batted the gun away with his hand as if it was a fly. The weapon sailed through the air and into the side of a tree. Bobby Dean’s face was between the youth’s fingers in a breath and Ronnie cringed, preparing himself to see another cousin’s head flying.

  But that didn’t happen. Instead, the young man stared into Bobby Dean’s eyes and mumbled some words before he released him and stepped up to Ronnie.

  Ronnie met the dark gaze of the stranger bravely, absorbing the hawkish features on a face that hinted of some Native American ancestor. The mountain man reckoned the kid was about twenty years younger than himself, although it was difficult to tell for sure.

  As the teen moved in closer, a jolt of agitation rolled off of him, touching Ronnie and immediately causing his heart to race uncontrollably.

  The whisper of words flowed into Ronnie as the blackness of the young man’s eyes swirled before him. Ronnie’s limbs went rigid and the beating of his heart slowed, right along with the breaths passing between his cracked lips.

  “You are not afraid. You are calm. You will not move. You will not speak. You do not fear.” The words were repeated a few times until Ronnie believed them with his whole mind, heart and body.

  Ronnie watched the young man leave him to join the woman who was tapping her fingers against her thigh. He wondered briefly if Bobby Dean was feeling the same peacefulness that he was experiencing, but he couldn’t have turned his head to see even if he’d wanted to. His only desire was to stand there and passively watch what happened next.

  “What are you doing, Kimberly?”

  Kimberly smiled up at the young man coyly, sending an invisible shiver through Ronnie’s mind. Innocently, she purred, “You know, Sawyer, it’s our nature to hunt.” She shrugged and as an afterthought, added, “Besides, these men are trespassers onto our land. Who knows what they heard—or saw already? They can’t leave.”

  Sweat dripped down Ronnie’s forehead, stinging his eyes. Kimberly’s words registered in his mind, but the strange calmness
still had a hold of him. Sawyer took a step closer to the woman, his face suddenly looking much older.

  Sawyer growled, “You must not do this. I forbid it.”

  Kimberly smiled sickly, her head tilting to the side as if she were listening for something that Ronnie couldn’t hear.

  After several long seconds, Kimberly said softly, “I do believe that you’re out numbered.”

  Two more blurs streaked into the clearing, materializing with a gust of wind that caught up the loose leaves on the ground and scattered them up into the air in a vibrant swirl of red, gold and brown.

  The man was huge and bald-headed. He had a tattoo of a hand reaching up his naked torso and coiling around his neck. He took up a position beside Kimberly and grinned like a mad dog at the scene before him. A long, pink scar on his cheek trembled with unrestrained excitement.

  The other was a tall woman, wearing military type tan cargo pants and a black tank. Her skin was as dark as the shirt she wore and the muscles of her lithe arms were well defined. Ronnie knew he was no match for either of the new arrivals, even if he wasn’t in some kind of trance. As if reading his thoughts, the warrior woman suddenly snarled, flashing a perfect row of snow white teeth in his direction.

  Ronnie shifted his gaze away quickly, just as Sawyer stepped in front of the others, temporarily blocking them from Ronnie’s view.

  “Stop this now. Garrett will not be pleased if you feed upon the local people.”

  Ronnie heard the pleading sound in Sawyer’s voice, but knew it wasn’t enough when the giant cat padded in closer, pausing directly in front of him. The cat’s tail flicked back and forth, and its golden eyes were hungry pools of amber. Those eyes were also nearly level with his own, shocking him once again at the enormous size of the creature.

  When Ronnie glanced back up, Sawyer was looking over his shoulder at him. That second of connection was enough for Sawyer to reach his mind once again.