by Carly Hansen
She wondered if Alda would protect her if she confessed to the witch. Or would Alda throw her out so that she, Alda, could stay out of trouble with the police and the vigilantes who tortured errant casters?
Fenix took a deep breath and tried to push those questions out of her mind.
Swallowing hard, she fought to forget the lingering pain in her body. She was in Birstall to do a job. And time was running out.
If she did her job right, she could get back to the warehouse, give Micha Angelo the evidence he wanted, and then her life would be back to normal. She wouldn’t have to think about Birstall or worry about these questions again.
Down the hill, the cop shifted his weight from foot to foot and softly whistled a tune.
How was she to get beyond him to get Micha’s evidence?
She pulled out the knife from the sheath at her side. She visualized a boomerang, flicked her wrist, and held on tight. Luckily, the glow that came before the boomerang appeared in her hands was not so bright as to attract the officer’s attention.
Fenix aimed for a tree far away from the body. The magic boomerang whizzed through the air, sliced off a branch, and came twirling back to her. She caught it and crouched behind the shrubs.
“Who’s there?” The cop reached for his gun.
He turned to the direction where the branch had fallen, his entire body tense. After a while, he relaxed and just stared at the area from where the noise had come.
It seemed like it would take more to clear him out of her path.
Fenix slipped off the band Micha had given her. On it was a flash for taking photos which could be set with a timer. She programmed it before slipping it onto the boomerang.
She aimed for the tree again. The boomerang went sailing away. It sliced through some leaves, and the flash went off.
“Who’s there? Answer me!” The cop pulled out his gun. Cautiously, he parted the bushes and headed toward the tree where the light had flashed.
The boomerang came back to Fenix, and she removed the band. With a quick flick of her wrist, she transformed it back to a knife, sheathed it, and crept hurriedly down toward the body.
********
The tent curved awkwardly, as if some of its poles had snapped. Clothes, shoes, and books lay strewn around the roots of the tree. Capsized pots and pans stood near a burnt-out fire pit, and forks, knives, and spoons were scattered about on the ground.
There had obviously been a struggle.
Fenix bent over the body and immediately realized the victim was female. The light of the moon showed a young face, mottled with pimples.
Fenix felt faint and wanted to throw up.
But she had a job to do.
Micha had said this was probably the work of a werewolf in what was supposed to have been neutral territory. This killing should have never happened. Micha had suggested that the evidence could possibly help preserve peace among supernaturals.
That was not such a great concern for Fenix. Her only concern was the victim.
As Fenix looked at the motionless girl, every molecule in her own body stirred with the desire to help bring justice for this victim. She took in a deep breath, set the bracelet to record as Micha had instructed her, and passed it over the body.
The young woman was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Parts of her arms and leg were shredded, as if long teeth had sunk in deep and ripped away fabric and flesh. The worst wound was on her neck, below her left ear. It was as if half of her throat had been eaten away.
But Micha had it wrong. The girl hadn’t been scalped.
Her head was shaved, though.
She had been hurriedly and roughly shaved. Parts of her head were completely bald and bore large gashes. Long, dark hair lay in clumps all around.
The girl had been so young, just about Fenix’s age. And her life had been brutally taken from her.
Whoever she was, she didn’t deserve such an end, Fenix thought as she ground her teeth to contain her anger.
She knelt at the girl’s side and opened the vial. Carefully, she collected the blood sample from the wound in the girl’s neck.
As soon as she snapped the cap in place, her fingers froze around the tiny container.
Her hand felt like lead. The sensation of heaviness traveled up her entire arm. It flooded her head, then coursed through her entire body.
She was weighted down, anchored to the ground, and all she could do was stare ahead as images flashed before her eyes.
Arms and legs flailing. It was her—the girl on the ground, when she still had her hair.
She fought them bravely. Four of them. Their claws dug into her. She was no match for them.
Claws! Five-fingered claws! She fought them. Ripped off one of the claws!
No, not claws. A glove. A tight glove with short, sharp nails at the end. A glove designed to act like claws.
The glove was hastily pulled back onto a hand, a normal-looking human hand, though quite pale.
The girl fought and fought with everything she had in her. They held her down. Fangs sank into her neck. Not werewolf fangs.
Vampire fangs!
One of the four fed on her. Then savaged where he fed with his claws. Ripped through her flesh. Other claws piled on, even as a hand put a buzzing shaver to the girl’s head.
“Hey you!”
The voice snapped Fenix back to the present.
“Put your hands up!”
Bushes rustled.
Heavy footsteps came hustling toward her.
Fenix unfroze. She dropped to the ground and rolled behind some bushes.
“Police!” the voice shouted. “Put your hands up and show yourself. Now!”
Fenix crouched and scuttled through the brush, up the hill.
Bang! Bang!
Bullets whizzed above her head. The cop was shooting at her.
She ducked lower, then dropped flat on her stomach.
“Stop,” the officer called out.
She clawed her way upward, furiously digging the tips of her boots into the dusty earth as she clutched at twigs and blades of grass.
Bang!
A bullet ripped through a branch just inches from her nose. Splinters sprayed her face.
That explosion had been close. Too close. Pain stabbed her eardrum.
The tree where she’d landed after Alda had sent her hurtling from the warehouse was just up ahead. A faint green glow hovered above the branch where she’d landed.
Alda had warned her that she had to get back to the place she had been set down so that the magic of the space-bending wand could whisk her away to the bullet train.
From the hill above, a rod of yellow light from a flashlight danced wildly in the bushes.
“What’s going on down there?” a voice cried out.
“I’m coming, John!” a third voice said. It came from further down the hill.
Fenix realized she was surrounded. Her hands began to itch. The progression from needles pricking her palms to heat blazing in them came swiftly.
No, no! She didn’t want this, especially not here, not in Birstall.
She clutched desperately at the ground, hoping the dirt would snuff out any flames that might flare up in her hands. Her fingers touched something hard. It was rough and had several jagged edges. Fenix grabbed for it and realized her fingers curled around three large pebbles.
An idea struck her.
Keeping her hand buried under her leather jacket, she transformed the knife into a slingshot. She whisked up one pebble and sent it whizzing through the bushes below.
One of the cops spun around and peered down the slope, to the left.
“Who’s there?” he shouted.
Fenix loaded up the slingshot again and sent the second pebble flying to the right. It zipped through the bushes, rustling leaves close to the other officer.
Bang!
“Watch out. There’s one over here, too,” the second cop said as he charged off to where the stone had traveled.
“What the devil’s going on?” a voice shouted from the road above.
The flashlight pointed over to where Fenix had thrown the second stone. But the cop was swinging the light dangerously close to her.
Fenix reached for the third pebble to distract the cop with the flashlight, but the stone slipped beyond her trembling fingers. She tapped the ground frantically to recover the stone, but saw the green light fading above the branch when she’d landed.
Time was running out.
She ditched the idea of trying to distract that last cop. This was her last chance to get away from this place through Alda’s space-bending magic, and she wasn’t going to lose it.
After getting on her hands and knees, she pushed herself up. She dashed through the bushes, paying no attention to the grass that sliced her hands and the bramble that scraped her face.
“Over there,” a cop yelled.
Fenix reached the tree just as a bullet split off a piece of bark.
There was not a second to spare. She scrambled up the tree as bullets came fast and furious in her direction.
The glow above the branch where she’d landed was now a brilliant orange. Using her last ounce of energy, Fenix grabbed hold of the branch and pulled herself up.
Suddenly, the orange glow flared up to form a giant, pulsating ball of light.
Taking a deep breath, Fenix flung herself at it.
Chapter 9
Heat engulfed Fenix as her body careened through darkness. An ear-splitting blast of hot air picked her up and spun her around.
Her stomach churned, and she felt faint. But the rushing wind had no mercy. It flung her left and right and up and down. Sometimes, she felt as if she were being punched backward.
This seemed hardly better than being shot at.
Suddenly, the searing heat turned to teeth-shattering cold.
“Crap,” Fenix said.
The change in temperature signaled the end to the rough ride courtesy Alda’s space-bending wand. It came so abruptly that Fenix had no time to prepare for it. She fell through the air and landed atop a stack of boxes.
In the dim light, she had just enough time to look around and realize that she was in some sort of storage area. The next thing she knew, the cardboard boxes under her began to sway. Actually, it seemed the entire place was rocking.
She turned around, scrambling on her hands and knees to stay on top of the pile. But the more she moved, the more the column under her tottered. As if in slow motion, the box she was on slid off and carried her with it.
Fenix held on to her flat cap as she went tumbling to the floor.
She landed on her back. About a dozen other boxes, and even a suitcase or two, came raining down on her. When she thought it was all over, a final package slid down and smacked her across the nose. “Way to go, Alda,” Fenix mumbled.
She made a mental note to pass up any future offers to journey through bended space.
She kicked away boxes and shoved a suitcase aside. Panting hard, she wobbled to her feet. The floor under her refused to cooperate, though. It rocked slightly from side to side and moved up and down as if skimming waves.
Fenix stretched out her arms to grab hold of anything she could find to steady herself.
Her right hand touched something warm and soft. It felt like flesh. Whomever it belonged to was as startled as she was because it moved away instantly, amidst the sound of cascading boxes.
Fenix jumped back and pulled out the knife from the sheath at her side. “Who’s there?” she said in a sharp whisper. A high-pitched squawk came from behind the stack. Fenix breathed a sigh of relief and put away her knife.
About a minute later, Java emerged from a dark recess, buttoning his shirt.
“You startled the heck out of me,” Fenix said.
“And you scared me out of my skin—literally.”
The two threw their heads back and laughed.
“That probably takes the record for my shortest shift,” Java said.
“Sorry I pulled my knife on you. I’m a little jumpy. Micha was right. It wasn’t a pretty sight out there. And the cops were shooting at me.”
“I didn’t meet any police, but what I saw was grim, too.”
The two fell silent.
Fenix looked about the compartment. “Any sign of Twain?”
A muffled cry came from further down the corridor. Fenix and Java exchanged glances.
She motioned him to follow her. Drawing her knife, she crept toward the sound, prepared for anything—except for what she saw.
“What the hell?” Java said.
Two wooden legs stuck up in the air. The rest of Twain’s body was concealed in a cardboard barrel.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who got in a pickle because of Alda’s space-bending wand,” Fenix said.
The muffled cry came again.
Fenix and Java rushed to the barrel.
“Twain, are you all right?” Fenix’s hands hovered over the visible part of Twain’s body. She was not sure whether to touch him or not.
He flapped his broomsticks.
“What does that mean?” Java asked.
“I’m guessing he wants us to get him out of there.”
“You think we should?” Java smiled. “He’s been a pain in the neck lately.”
The broomsticks flapped furiously.
Fenix shrugged. “Might as well. Alda’s unlikely to consider it a barrel of laughs if we took him back to the warehouse like this.”
They upturned the container and tried to shake Twain loose. That didn’t work. Trying to pull him out only resulted in frantic, muffled screams.
Fenix converted her knives to hacksaws, and she and Java went at the cardboard barrel.
“Try not to take off any body parts,” she said.
When they freed Twain, all in one piece, he stood indignantly on his peg legs and dusted himself off.
“I think I need to have a talk with Alda about this space-bending thing,” he said.
“Get in line,” Fenix said.
“Man, it was dark and smelly in there.” Twain shook out his hair and kicked away a pile of rags that had been in the barrel.
“But at least she got us in the right place,” Fenix said. “I’m sure this is the bullet train. I can feel it moving.”
Twain wobbled on his peg legs, his eyes glassing over. “I don’t feel too good.”
“It’ll be better if we sit,” Fenix said.
The three settled down in a corner. Java and Twain sat with their backs to one wall, while Fenix had hers against the other.
She was happy to be with her gang again. But she felt the absence of Ivan. This was the first time they’d gone anywhere without him. Usually, he drove the gang to and from assignments in Alda’s beaten-up Beetle, prodding them with a dare or pumping them up with boasts about his previous exploits. Fenix wished that when Ivan healed, all would be back to normal.
“Got everything Micha wanted?” she said.
Twain slipped off the bracelet and held it up. “Got the recording.” He set it down at his side. Then he reached in his pocket and took out the vial. “Got the blood sample.” He set that down at his side, too.
He eyed his haul. “Wasn’t happy about getting either.”
Java did the same with his lot. “I prefer just delivering or picking up packages for Alda. I’ll take fighting off demons any day over this.”
Twain looked down and shook his head. “It was a girl that I found. Just a little older than me, I think.”
Java stared at him. “Strange. I also had a girl. About the same age as well.”
“Me too,” Fenix said.
It freaked her out that the killers seemed to have a fetish for vulnerable young girls—girls who’d been just about her age, really. Fenix felt rage well up inside her. The perpetrators must have been bullies. From what she knew, bullies were just cowards who couldn’t face up to anyone their own size. Instead, they picked on easy prey.
“At lea
st the girl I saw wasn’t scalped as Micha had thought,” Fenix said.
“Mine wasn’t scalped either, but she was shaved,” Java said. “Whoever it was that killed her took off all her hair. It was scattered all over the place.”
Twain looked up. “Same thing here. She was a brunette. With shoulder-length hair.”
“Injuries?” Fenix said.
Twain and Java described horrific wounds to the necks of both other victims, along with gashes and torn flesh on other parts of their bodies.
“Looked like she was attacked by dogs,” Java said.
“I’d say more like werewolves.” Twain snorted in disgust.
Fenix nodded. That was certainly what it must have looked like. She couldn’t bring up the subject of the images of vampire teeth that’d flashed before her eyes. After all, even she had no clue what that was all about.
“Seemed like the girl I found was camping on her own,” Fenix said.
Camping was probably not the right word, she thought. It had a fun, recreational ring to it. In that part of Birstall, it wasn’t uncommon for the homeless to pitch a tent in the woods during the warm months.
And criminals, Fenix remembered. The area had always been notorious as a hideout for those fleeing the law. Did the girl have criminal connections? Even if she had, she still didn’t deserve such a brutal exit from the world.
“Mine was in a ditch at the side of the road, out in the middle of nowhere,” Java said.
“The girl I found might have been a waitress or something.” Twain stared at the evidence at his side. “She had on a T-shirt that had the name of a bar, and she was all made up and everything. I found her in a dumpster in a seedy part of the city.”
“What I can’t understand,” Fenix said, “is this business about the hair.”
“Me neither.” Java shook his head. “Why would someone violate them like that?”
Twain shrugged. “Pure evil. Whoever did this wasn’t just satisfied to claim these girls’ lives. He had to mutilate them too. Strip them of their pride and beauty.”
“Couldn’t have been one person,” Java said.
“Why not?”
