Heart of Venom

by Belle Aurora

Page 12

  As I drove, I told Owen everything that I knew and suspected about Grimes. While I talked, he leaned over into the backseat, unzipped my backpack, fished out

  Fletcher's file on Grimes, and started reading through it.

  Owen frowned. "The name sounds familiar. Why do you think Grimes came after Sophia again after all these years?"

  That newspaper clipping of Jo-Jo flashed through my mind. Guilt twisted my stomach, but I made myself shrug. "Probably for pure meanness. Fletcher took her away from him, and Grimes didn't like that. So he finally decided to do something about it. The coward just waited until after Fletcher was dead to make his move. "

  "Do you think that he knows about you?" Owen asked. "That Fletcher trained you?"

  I thought of the way Grimes had so casually thrown his Fire magic at me, then walked away, so sure in the knowledge that the flames would roast me where I stood.

  "I don't think so. Otherwise, he would have brought more men, at the very least, and he wouldn't have left me alone with the ones he did bring. "

  Owen nodded his agreement, then hesitated. "I haven't said this yet, but I should have. I'm glad that you're all right, Gin. "

  I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road and my face blank, not letting him see how much his words meant to me, how much they would always mean to me.

  I left the suburbs behind and wound my way up through Northtown, the rich, fancy, highfalutin part of Ashland, where the wealthy, social, and magical elite lived. We passed mansion after mansion, all with tasteful yards that were as lush and green as they could be, despite the scorching summer sun beating down on them. I drove fast, and we soon left the immaculate estates behind and started winding our way up through the mountains above Ashland.

  Our route took us by country Daze, an old-timey store owned by a friend of Fletcher's. Several cars were parked in the gravel lot that fronted the store. But that wasn't what caught my attention - the man standing by the stop sign did.

  He was an older man, with a bit of wispy white hair that stood straight up as if in defiance of the wilting humidity of the day. Despite the heat, he wore brown boots, along with blue pants and a long-sleeved blue cotton work shirt, and his dark, burnished skin hinted at his cherokee heritage. An old, weathered brown satchel sat at his feet.

  But the most interesting thing about Warren T. Fox was the rifle that he had casually propped up on his shoulder, as though it was perfectly normal for him to be standing by the side of the road holding a gun. Well, this was Ashland. I would have been more surprised if he didn't have a weapon.

  Warren peered at our car as it approached him. He must have spotted Owen and me, because he grabbed his bag, straightened up, and started walking in our direction, rifle and all.

  "What is he doing?" I asked. "Has Finn made some pass at Violet that I don't know about, and Warren is finally going to shoot him for it?"

  Violet was Warren's college-age granddaughter and Eva Grayson's best friend. Finn liked to flirt with Violet as much as he did with every other woman who crossed his path, despite his involvement with Bria.

  Owen shifted in his seat. "After Finn called me, I made a few calls myself. "

  "To Warren? Why?"

  "Because nobody knows these mountains better than he does," Owen said. "Warren's told me more than one story about his hiking and hunting adventures, and I thought that we could use his help finding Grimes's camp. "

  It was a smart idea, something that I should have thought of myself. Sure, I had Fletcher's maps of Grimes's camp, but there was nothing like firsthand knowledge. As much as I would have liked to tell Owen that we didn't need Warren, I couldn't. I didn't like putting Warren in danger, but Owen was right. If Warren knew the area around Grimes's mountain hideout, then that gave us an even better chance of finding and rescuing Sophia as quickly as possible. Besides, even I had no desire to tangle with an irate old coot like Warren T. Fox.

  So I rolled down my window, slowed, and stopped in the middle of the road. Warren ambled over to my side of the car and leaned down so he could peer inside at us.

  "I'm looking for a guide," I drawled. "Or maybe a hunting buddy, depending on your point of view. know where I might find somebody like that?"

  A grin creased his face, adding more layers of wrinkles to his features. "I think that I know just the fella for you, Gin. " His smile vanished. "I only wish the circumstances were different. "

  "Me too, Warren. Me too. "

  I unlocked the car, and Warren opened the back door.

  He paused a moment, staring at all the blood staining the backseat, just like Owen had. Warren harrumphed, as if the sight offended him, or maybe it was because he knew that it was Jo-Jo's blood. But he got in anyway and shut the door behind him.

  "How is Jo-Jo?" he asked in his high, thin, reedy voice.

  "Hanging on - for now. I figure that having Sophia there when she wakes up will make all the difference. "

  He nodded. "That it will. So why don't you stop lolly -  gagging in the middle of the road, and let's get on with it. "

  "Why, Warren," I drawled again. "I thought you'd never ask. "

  I put the car back into gear, eased forward, and made a turn at the stop sign, going even deeper into the mountains and drawing that much closer to Grimes's camp -  and Sophia.

  Chapter Twelve

  Once again, I recapped the morning's events at the salon.

  Warren listened to my story, nodding his head here and there.

  When I'd finished, I added, "Owen says that you like to go hiking and hunting up in the mountains and that you might know the area around Grimes's camp. "

  Warren's lips puckered, as though he'd bitten into a lemon. "It's more than just a might know . I've been there before. "

  My eyes shot up to the rearview mirror. Warren stared back at me, his mouth still twisted into that sour expression.

  "When?" I asked.

  "The last time Grimes took Sophia. "

  Suddenly, I realized what had been missing from Fletcher's writings on his battle with Grimes: that mysterious third person he'd tried so hard not to mention.

  "You . . . you helped Fletcher rescue Sophia all those years ago? I thought that you and Fletcher had a falling out over a woman when you were young and that the two of you didn't speak after that. "

  Warren looked at me in the mirror another moment before he turned his head and stared out the window.

  "Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. Fletcher and I used to go hunting in the mountains together all the time when we were young. After he left and moved down into the city, I kept on going without him. "

  "So when Jo-Jo approached him about getting Sophia back, Fletcher needed you to guide him. "

  "Actually, Jo-Jo came into my store one day, covered in mud and crying up a storm. I'd never seen her before, so I asked her what was wrong, and we got to talking.

  She told me how Grimes had kidnapped Sophia and how she'd been out in the woods trying to find her sister with no luck. " Warren cleared his throat. "So I told her about Fletcher being the Tin Man. "

  I could picture it all in my mind. Jo-Jo stumbling into country Daze, Warren sitting down with her, Jo-Jo sobbing out her story, Warren realizing that she had a problem that only his former friend could solve -  The right tires hit a rumble strip on the side of the road, jolting me out of my musings. I turned the wheel, edging the car away from the dangerous curve. The road straightened out for several hundred feet, so I looked at Warren in the rearview mirror again.

  "That was how the two of them met? Because of you?"

  Warren nodded. His dark eyes met mine in the mirror again. "I knew that he could help her, that he was probably the only one who could help her. Even back then, Harley Grimes had a reputation for being an evil, vicious, crazy son of a bitch. "

  "Half g
iant, half dwarf, and all mean," I murmured, echoing what Jo-Jo had once told me about Grimes.

  Warren nodded his agreement. "But I didn't think that Fletcher would ask for my help too. At first, I refused, but then Jo-Jo came back to the store and begged me to guide him up there. I couldn't turn her down then - or now. "

  "Thank you, Warren," I said in a soft voice. "For everything. "

  "Bah," he said, waving his hand. "Don't thank me until it's over, Sophia is back where she belongs, and that bastard Grimes is finally dead. "

  He stared out the window again, his eyes distant, his lips pinched together, the lines on his face grooved even deeper with old memories, old hurts, old heartaches. I wondered what Warren was seeing, what he was remembering, what he was feeling. If he was reliving the trip he'd taken with Fletcher so very long ago or if he was thinking ahead to the danger he was going to face for a second time.

  Either way, there was nothing for me to do but keep on driving and hope that I could get us all back down the mountain again in one piece after we rescued Sophia.

  Warren directed me to one of the many scenic overlooks on the narrow, curvy, switchback roads of this section of the Appalachian Mountains. Unlike the others that we'd passed, which were little more than gravel pits squeezed in between the road and the sheer edge of the mountain, this overlook was actually a park with a paved lot. I stopped Roslyn's car in front of a sign planted in the grass that read Bone Mountain Nature Preserve .

  I stared through the windshield at the wooden sign and realized that maybe I wasn't as unfamiliar with the area as I'd thought.

  "Is something wrong?" Owen asked, noticing me eyeing the sign.

  I shook my head. "No, not wrong. But I've been here before. I should have remembered when I first heard the name. Fletcher brought me here years ago. Not to the park but to this mountain. "

  I didn't add that the old man had taken me out only to desert me on our hike, just to see if I had the strength and smarts to get back down the mountain on my own. One of the many tests he'd given me over the years. I wondered how much I'd be tested today. Didn't much matter. Like I'd told Finn and everyone else: Harley Grimes was a dead man. He just didn't know it yet.

  "Gin?" Owen asked. "Are you okay?"

  I shook my head to clear away the memories. "Yeah.

  Let's move. I want to get eyes on Sophia and Grimes's camp as soon as possible. "

  Owen, Warren, and I grabbed our gear, locked the car, and walked up a series of steep, narrow stone steps that led from the parking lot to the top of a ridge that curved and bulged out like a half-moon. A few blue and green fiberglass picnic tables perched in the grass, along with a couple of dented metal trash cans. A three-foot-high stone wall marked the edge of the grass and separated the tables from the steep drop below. The ridge offered a sweeping view of the cluster of mountains that surrounded us.

  Trees and rocks stretched out as far as the eye could see, like green and gray ribbons unspooling in every direction, crowned by the deep, vivid blue of the sky and the burning orange citrine jewel of the sun so very high above.

  Roslyn's had been the only vehicle in the parking lot, and no one was eating lunch at the picnic tables, stretching their legs after being cooped up in the car, or walking their dog through the grass for a quick potty break.

  Good. I didn't want anyone to see us, especially with Owen and me looking like commandos out of some action movie, Warren our grizzled, rifle-toting sidekick. Besides, if someone saw us, there was always the chance that word would reach Grimes that we were coming.

  Warren pointed to the right, and I realized that the park featured more than picnic tables and a pretty overlook. Several wooden signs shaped like arrows were stacked on top of one another where the grass gave way to the trees. Three faint paths started at the signs, then curved off in three different directions into the green and brown canopy of the forest beyond.

  "The eastern trail leads to the next ridge over," Warren said. "That's where Grimes's camp is. From what I remember, Grimes and his men often use this little park as a meeting spot. Most folks in these parts know better than to stop here, day or night. "

  "Let me guess," I said. "Grimes and his men bring the guns, and other folks show up with suitcases full of cash. "

  Warren nodded. "cash, gold, even diamonds on occasion. Fletcher told me that he found an old-fashioned safe and a stash of valuables in one of the outbuildings at Grimes's camp. He said that he also saw some of Grimes's men burying metal boxes full of cash and guns in the woods all around the camp. "

  That didn't surprise me. A lot of folks in Ashland didn't trust banks - with good reason. Sometimes the people working for the financial institutions were even more crooked than the criminals who called the city home.

  Finn was a prime example of that, given his day job as an investment banker. He didn't swindle his clients, but he thoroughly enjoyed playing shell games and hoodwinking

  the government out of all of the tax money that his clients owed. And he was amazingly good at it; Finn could hide money better than a squirrel storing nuts for the winter.

  And Grimes wasn't the only one with caches of money and weapons hidden here and there. I had stashes of cash, knives, clothes, and other supplies all over Ashland.

  Fletcher's house. Bria's house. Finn's apartment. Behind a freezer in the back of the Pork Pit. In Roslyn's office at her nightclub, Northern Aggression. In a bathroom vent

  in the English building at Ashland community college,

  where I took so many classes. Even in a fireplace at Owen's mansion.

  I glanced at Owen, who'd been quiet while Warren and

  I were talking. I hadn't thought much about the duffel