by Chloe Garner
“You look okay,” he said.
“I got bit again,” Sam complained. “Why do they always bite me?”
“Anyone keep count?” Jason asked.
“Nope,” Sam answered, then waited again. “For both of us.”
“You two telepathic, now?” Jason asked. Sam shook his head, building up little ridges of ash as his head fell further into it. He grinned.
“She’s too proud to talk yet. Tired.”
Samantha slowly stood and shook her hair out, then put the hatchet and the machete in their respective sheaths.
“I need you to check,” she said to Sam.
“I know.”
“Are you up for it?”
“Get it over with.”
“Are you going to get up?”
“Nope.”
She walked over to Sam and looked at her hands, then reconsidered and looked at Jason.
“Where’s my bag?”
He pointed. She went and found anther bottle of water and rubbed her hands off with it, then went back over to where Sam lay in the ash and licked her thumbs, flicking them over his eyes. Sam sighed, and Samantha turned her head to look at the cave entrance.
“Left-hand rule,” she said. “I need you to check the whole thing.”
Sam groaned. Jason kicked his feet through the ash and waited. It took Sam fifteen minutes to search the entire cave system.
“It’s clear. I didn’t count the bodies. I don’t want to know.”
“It’s okay,” Samantha said. “It’s done. The scouts will have gotten away, but they won’t try this again during my lifetime. I’ll need to let Carter know, so we can keep watch.”
Sam sat up and put his hands through his hair.
“It’s late,” he said.
“We’ll need to find a place to stay before it gets dark,” Samantha said.
“I vote not here,” Jason said. She nodded.
“I’m going to find those bullets.”
Jason snorted.
“Good luck with that.”
“I have a magnet.”
“Oh.”
She went back to her bag and brought out a large bar magnet, borrowing Sam’s bat to attach it to one of the studs so that she could search through the ash without bending over. The circle around her yielded a chorus of plinks as she sifted the magnet through the ash, then she started doing quick passes. Jason tried to picture the field from above and walked over to where the first three had been.
“Here,” he said. She nodded and worked through that, finding all three, then followed him through the rest of them. A few of the bullets were visible in thin ash - it was thickly concentrated around where Sam and Samantha had stood, but the goblins’ attempted escape had distributed most of an inch of ash across an area Jason thought had to be larger than an acre.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Jason said as Samantha returned to the original area to continue searching. Samantha rubbed her face.
“If it had just been a nest, we’d have killed the pit lords and let it be, but… a factory,” she said. Jason looked back over at Sam. He had never seen his brother shaken up like that over a body before, at least not recently, though it was hard to tell what was about the body and what was the vision. He didn’t like not knowing how to gauge Sam’s reactions, worse than anything.
“How bad was it, honestly? What Sam saw?”
“Imagine you’ve got a million years to burn, and the only fun thing to do is invent new ways to cause people pain. And you happen to hate people. And you and a million of your peers are all competing to come up with the best way to do it.”
“I’m not arguing, but we’ve seen some pretty messed up stuff,” Jason said. Samantha nodded.
“If humans have ever come up with anything that demons had never seen before, they saw it and they use it now. Though I sincerely doubt it. They’ve been perfecting torture since before people were using metal tools.”
Jason considered.
“Really bad?”
“Really bad.”
“Is he, like, okay?”
“He’s fine. He didn’t actually see the torture happening, which is the worst. He might have nightmares, but I figure he’s pretty capable of dealing with it. Throwing up is the right reaction. Anything else wouldn’t have been human.”
“Would you have thrown up?” Jason asked. He hadn’t intended to be challenging, but it came out that way, anyway.
“No.” She looked at him for a moment. “I’ve seen it before.”
Sam got up.
“You’ll want to check over here,” he said. He looked at Jason. “I’m fine.”
“Just checking,” Jason said. “I wasn’t shooting at you, so you had a better chance than she did.”
“You hit every one of them center-of-mass,” Samantha said. “You’re an incredible shot.”
“I missed one at the beginning,” Jason said. “Cheated left.”
“Oh? I didn’t notice.”
“You were kind of busy, but, yeah, I plugged a goblin with one of your fancy bullets by mistake.”
“No harm done, then,” Samantha said. “That should still be intact.”
She swept through the ash nearby, continuing to get plinks.
“How many shots left in the clip?” she asked. Jason went and checked.
“Twelve.”
She whistled.
“Glad I loaded the third clip with the blanks,” she said. “Thirty-eight… Wow.” She pulled the magnet out of the ash and counted.
“I’m a couple short, but that is going to have to do. We need to get moving and get a fire built. It’s going to be cold.”
Sam wandered over, looking at the ash.
“The pit lords ash darker than the goblins do,” he said. Samantha nodded.
“More carbon, less other stuff,” she said. Jason rolled his eyes.
“What is it with you and chemistry?” he asked.
“Why don’t Rangers already know this?” Samantha asked. “I don’t have a corner on the technology to do the tests.”
“Who cares how a demon ashes, as long as he’s dead?” Jason asked as they walked over to the rock where he had left Samantha’s backpack and his duffel bag.
“You have aspirin in there?” Sam asked him.
“I can give you better than that,” Samantha said, then looked at Jason again. “I care because it might give me clues on how to get them to ash. Seriously.”
Jason started to argue.
“No, she has a fair point,” Sam interrupted. “Rangers focus on killing stuff and Seekers focus on finding stuff. We really don’t have Shamen who focus on just knowing stuff.”
“What do you call all that studying you did with Mom?” Jason asked.
“We took notes, sure, and the Seekers were expected to know as much of it as they could, but no one was putting time into just amassing as much knowledge as possible, in case it ended up being useful.”
“You have a crush on her, don’t you?” Jason asked. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”
“On the other hand,” Samantha said. “I have had a lot more time on my hands than most people do. Not everyone has the opportunity to spend as much time doing undirected learning and testing as I have. I had no responsibilities and access to anything I wanted for three years, and since then… time really isn’t the limit it used to be.”
“Seriously, people. Can we keep the sides of the argument straight, please?”
“What argument?” Sam asked. Samantha grinned.
“What argument?”
<><><>
The next morning they hiked out. They got to the car around lunchtime, but all agreed that they wanted showers and fresh clothes and food, in that order. They headed back to the motel, and while Jason checked in with Simon, Samantha checked out Sam’s wounds.
“Low probability, but they could be carrying parasites,” she said. “Full cross is the other way they end up over here.”
Jason closed the lap
top and called dibs on the first shower as Sam headed for the bathroom, then paused when his cell rang.
“If it isn’t one thing,” he said, then frowned. He put the cell to his ear.
“Heather.”
His frown deepened and he looked at Sam.
“Wait a minute. Slow down. Wait a minute. Wait.” He pulled the cell away from his ear and pushed a button on the screen. “Say that again.”
“I can’t find her. I don’t know where she is. You have to come. Please.”
It was Elizabeth.
All three of them were in motion at once. There would be no showers and no breakfast. Sam pulled a clean shirt out of his bag, then went to the bathroom to get the stuff out of there. Samantha turned her back and peeled her layers of shirt, changing into new ones, then stuffed everything into her clothes duffel and picked up her backpack and duffel, headed for the door. Jason just put on his jacket and had the car running by the time the other two made it.
“We’re on our way.”
<><><>
Twelve hours and dark.
Samantha had replenished her stores of food under the back bench, so they ate snack food for breakfast on the road. Sam got jerky at the first gas station along with a liter of soda. Samantha got two pounds of candy. Jason looked at them as they came out of the convenience store.
“You know, it’s a miracle we’re alive,” he observed.
And then they were back on the road.
<><><>
The sun was down for an hour before they got to Heather’s house, but the front porch light was on. No one greeted them. Jason tried the door, glancing back at Sam. It was open. The odds on trap had just gone up to ten to one, and it looked like Jason was going to be the loser. Samantha shifted her backpack higher on her shoulder, just to know it was there. They went in.
“Elizabeth?” Jason called.
All of the lights in the house were off. They made it to the living room and Jason flicked on the light. As if a bomb had just gone off, all three of them flew backward into separate walls. There was clapping from the kitchen, and Brandt appeared in the dining room, mouth tilted sideways in a cocky smile.
“I have to tell you,” he said, “I honestly thought you weren’t this dumb. To just walk in here. Humans and their emotional bonds. Carly told me you were soft, but…”
“Where are they?” Jason yelled, struggling against invisible forces that held him up against the wall. Sam was doing the same. Samantha waited.
“Oh, I let them go. They’ll come home to a pair of bodies, very sad that, but then Sam, here, will walk in, and they’ll be so relieved.” Brandt walked over to Sam, standing too close, looking up at his face. “We’re going to be friends, boy. I’m going to be your best friend.” He spun and walked back across the room to Jason. “As I was saying. They’ll be so relieved. And they’ll grieve, the three of them. They’ll bury the two of you. It will be very sad. Maybe Sam will sleep with that tiny little cuppa, because they’re so sad.” He sucked air through his teeth. “Then I’ll kill them. Slowly. They’ll beg Sam to stop. Please Sam. Don’t do this. Let her go. They’re very noble, those two. The little one’s weak, though.” He grinned over his shoulder at Sam. “Soft. You’re going to enjoy her. I promise.”
Samantha laughed. It started as a single sound tossed up at the ceiling, then opened into a rolling, uncontrolled laugh. She gasped and laughed some more, stepping down off the wall.
“I’m sorry. This is terribly unkind, but that was worth it. You preen like a rooster, you know that? And seriously, the slow clap? That was the best you could come up with for your big entrance?”
Brandt turned to face her.
“So I am going to get to fight the legendary Samantha,” he said.
“Oh, you’re going to pay for that,” Jason muttered. Brandt grabbed his neck and twisted his head to the side. Jason grinned as Brandt ground his teeth to one side. Samantha put her hands on her hips.
“You mind if I change out of… this backwoods get-up… back into something more appropriate?” she asked. Brandt snapped back around to look at her, eyes wild and hostile, then abruptly smiled.
“Whatever makes you happy,” he said. “I can kill you with or without a costume change.”
“Mmm,” Samantha said, waving a hand down at Sam, “he’s not for you to play with until you and I are settled.”
Sam slid down the wall and stood unsteadily on his feet.
“Sit,” she said, pushing him to the floor, willing him to be understanding. She turned to Brandt with a smile.
“So I’ve got a proper demon hunter on my hands,” he said. She winked.
“Why did you think I was sticking around? Hooked myself a good one, this time.”
She picked up her backpack and strode lightly into the kitchen, quickly changing out of her jeans into black pants, the wrinkled leather pulling smooth over her skin, then put on the huge rubber-soled combat boots that put her easily at Jason’s eye level, perhaps taller, and slid out of her shirt. She was still confused how she had ended up owning so much leather-and-metal lingerie. She put on the short leather jacket she had been carrying for weeks now, in anticipation of this fight, and pulled the rest of the stuff she wanted out of her backpack, slipping things into sheaths and pockets.
“Please don’t squeeze the Charmin,” she called as Sam’s sense of proximity became uncomfortable. She pulled a mirror out and put on eyeliner and lipstick, then earrings and rings. She took the engagement ring off of her necklace and paired it with a knot-patterned ring on her right ring finger, then filled her other fingers. Twelve rings, nine fingers. She stood and took a deep breath, flexing power she hadn’t felt in a very long time. She left her backpack, walking back into the living room. Brandt’s eyes lit up.
“A proper demon hunter,” he said. “I wish you weren’t going to be so easy to kill.”
“You ran, the last time we were in the same room,” Samantha said, grinning, her tongue playing along her teeth.
“First cross in a long time,” Brandt said. “You understand. Unfortunately for you, I’ve powered up considerably since then, and you only just beat Carly.”
He turned to Jason, and Jason yelled pain.
“Odd company you keep,” Brandt said.
“Is that really what you came here for? To play with the bait?” Samantha asked.
“Oh, you don’t care,” Brandt said. “Sure.”
Samantha grinned, letting it fade, but leaving her mouth open playfully as she looked at Sam.
“I’ve claimed what I care about,” she said, tipping her head forward toward Brandt and pushing her lower eyelids up, taunting, feline. “One more scalp, and a prize to drag behind me back to New York.”
Brandt pulled himself upright, his mouth falling open happily.
“New York, is it?”
She bit the tip of her tongue and nodded, then opened her mouth wide and scratched her cheek.
“Unfortunately for you, I’ve powered up considerably since Carly, too.” She let a smile play at one corner of her open mouth, and blinked. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
She stretched, eliciting a series of pops through her back. Brandt laughed with an open mouth, entranced. She didn’t let his enthusiasm fool her.
“And to whom in New York should I send my condolences?” he asked.
“Nuri.”
His eyes snapped open and he grinned wider.
“Nuri knows you?”
“Oh, Lover, it’s worse than that. You know me.” She drew Lahn from the sheath on her back and blew across her. “Sorry, still have your girlfriend’s brains on her.” The superficial amusement dropped away as he looked at Lahn.
“I wondered how you did it. Where did you get that? Do you know Garrett?”
“I knew Garrett. Prick like the rest of them, it turns out.”
The grin reappeared.
“You know them?”
“I’m one of them,” she said. His lips formed a spout.
&n
bsp; “Ooh. Better and better. Who are you? I must know.”
The grin grew less playful as he re-evaluated her as a competitor. He was fearless, but not mocking. A generic demon hunter would have been little more than an amusement-park level of pleasure for him. Killing one of Samantha’s people, though, was notable. He would pick up standing in certain circles for that. Samantha returned the level of seriousness, smiling and closing her eyes to take a deep breath that rolled her head back. She breathed out and dropped her head to find him circling her.
“I have many names,” she said. She pressed her lips and rolled her head to the side as he finished his circle, following him with her eyes as he came to stand square with her. “The angels call me Anadidd’na Anu’dd. You call me renouch.” The sound was two grating noises on either side of an ‘n’. His eyes widened.
“Well, well,” he said. “You are slumming.”
She shrugged.
“Carter disapproved.”
“You know it doesn’t change anything,” he said. “You don’t know what you’ve got. I’m not going to give up, and as much fun as this side is, he’s a lot easier to possess from there.”
Samantha licked her thumb and ran it along the front, curved edge of Lahn, lifting her eyes to look at him.
“This is the warning. Sam is mine. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not going to turn him over to you or anyone else.”
“Just Sam, eh?” Brandt said, raising his hand toward Jason. Jason cried out again as he slid higher on the wall. Sam yelled something, but Samantha was focused.
“Enough,” she yelled in hellspeak. The obscenity. “You play games, when the match is before you. Cry to the mother you never had as I show you your own entrails.” If anyone in the room had been paying attention, she broke the three-quarters mark for profanity. It wasn’t on purpose, any more, but it had amused her, in the beginning, and the habit had stuck. Brant spun to her, pulling a lamp off of the far wall and trying to smash it into her. “The God of the universe, of morning and night, will see your death and say ‘it is good’,” she said in angeltongue. He howled. The lamp shattered, shards flying around her on both sides and the resulting gust of air kicking her hair up and over her head, but she felt nothing.
He swung at her with a closed fist, and she bent time, raising Lahn to block. He impaled his arm at the elbow onto the blade before he could stop, then he glitched. She spun, but too slow. His fist found her ribs, and she fell into a discoordinated pile on the floor.
