by Carly Hansen
“Look how far apart they were found. The wounds are fresh, so they were all killed tonight. There’s no way one person could get around so fast.”
“If he was a werewolf, he probably could,” Twain said.
Or a vampire, Fenix thought.
In the vision or whatever it was that she’d had, she’d seen more than one, maybe four attackers in all. But she kept this to herself.
The train swayed, then went slightly up and back down in a wave-like motion. The vial at Java’s side fell and rolled toward Fenix.
She reached over to pick it up. As soon as she touched the glass tube, her fingers froze. A feeling of heaviness overtook her. Although the train continued to rock lightly, her leaden body was completely immobile.
Images flashed before her eyes.
A rough-looking girl with a backpack on a dark, lonely road. She’s trying to hitchhike and having no luck.
A SUV with four occupants passes her, then pulls to the side and stops. The girl approaches the vehicle hesitantly. Then she flees as the occupants emerge, buttoning up suits.
A struggle. The girl is fighting for her life in a ditch. Claws slash at her.
Fangs sink into her neck. Vampire fangs.
“Fenix!”
“Fenix, are you okay?”
Fenix shook her head and blinked.
A hand tugged at her boot.
She stared ahead until her eyes rested on Java. His brow was knitted in worry.
“What the hell just happened there?” he said. “You zoned out on us.”
She couldn’t explain anything, so she set the vial down next to Twain’s bracelet. On a whim, she stretched out her hand to Twain. “Pass me your vial.”
“What for?”
“Just hand it over, okay?”
Twain bent forward and placed the small container in Fenix’s palm.
Her fingers closed around it, and she froze up again.
A girl unpins her brunette hair and lets it fall to her shoulders.
She undoes and tosses aside an apron. Picks up her purse and waves to a man wiping down a counter as she leaves.
A claw slaps across her mouth. Her hands are wrestled and pinned behind her.
She kicks. Other attackers grab her feet. They carry her off to an alley.
She tosses her head, fighting for breath.
Fangs draw blood!
A hand ripped Fenix’s fist open and snatched the vial away.
She slumped forward, suddenly unable to hold herself up.
“Fenix, what’s the matter?” Java shook her shoulder.
She stretched and sat up just as Twain pocketed the vial.
He frowned. “Didn’t you hear me say give it back? Or were you just being a pain in the butt?”
Fenix shook her head.
“That’s the second time you got this weird look,” Java said. “What’s come over you, Fenix?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but, just then, a door down the corridor that she hadn’t even realized was there burst open.
********
One after the other, four hulking men in black tactical uniform came storming in.
As soon as Fenix caught a glimpse of them, she rolled behind a stack of boxes. “We’ve got trouble,” she whispered to Twain and Java.
Heavy footsteps thundered toward the three of them.
“You, there! Come with us,” one of the men barked.
The three got to their feet as Fenix pulled out her big knife.
“Who are they?” Twain whispered.
“Don’t know,” Fenix said. “But they don’t look friendly.”
Boxes went flying in every direction. One of the men kicked his way through the wall of boxes that had hidden the gang. He grabbed Java and yanked him over the fallen pile.
Fenix envisioned a Viking sword and flicked her wrist. As she swung it toward the attacker, he let go of Java and reeled back.
Twain sprang up and fired a kick, landing the tip of the broomstick into the man’s chest.
Fenix spun around, bent low, and struck the man at the back of his knees. He buckled and fell back, taking two of his companions down with him.
The one remaining attacker pressed some sort of device on his chest, which sent out a piercing alarm. He pulled a gun from the holster at his waist.
Before he could aim at the gang, Fenix brought her sword down on the gun. Metal clanked upon metal, and the gun tumbled to the floor.
The man bent down and scrambled for the weapon. Fenix charged into him, sending her steel-toe boot into his rib cage, then whacking him on the back with the flat of her sword.
“Ugh!”
The man clutched his side and collapsed on the floor.
The door down the corridor banged against the wall as it was flung open. Seven men in the same dark uniform poured in. Two of them at the front had guns drawn.
There was no place to run. Fenix, Twain, and Java found themselves walled in by stacks of boxes and suitcases.
Fenix raised her sword at the ready.
“There’s no need to fight,” shouted a man in a black beret who had a gun pointed at them. “Just come with us.”
Chapter 10
The corners of Special Agent Vance Packard’s mouth twitched, betraying his anger as he stooped to examine the young female victim’s wounds. Packard loosened the tie around his neck and swung his flashlight to the rest of the crime scene. His eyes followed the circle of light as it fell on what was left of the small, canvas dome; on the pots and pans strewn about; and on the trees and bushes beyond the clearing.
“Miserable place for a final exit,” the silver-haired agent mumbled to himself.
“You can say that again.” The voice behind Packard made him jump.
His hand automatically reached for the gun in the holster under his jacket as he spun around. He narrowed his eyes, and his hand relaxed as he recognized the figure that now loomed over him.
“Don’t ever do that again, Runcey,” Packard growled as he stood up.
Special Agent Duane Runcey, two decades younger than Packard but at least half a foot taller and about a third wider at the waist, hunched his shoulders. “Do what?”
“Sneak up on me.”
“I didn’t do anything of the sort.”
Packard looked down at his shoes and shook his head. The big guy’s whinny voice and college-coed mannerisms were out of place on such a muscular body.
It was the old agent’s first day on the job since he’d been transferred from out West, and he wasn’t too happy about being saddled with this man-child rookie as his partner.
To Packard, the pairing seemed to reflect his new department’s contempt for his line of work. They’d teamed up what they obviously saw as a cranky, old reject from another region with a young meathead to examine the cases that suggested the work of magic or other unexplained, mysterious forces.
For twenty long years, Packard had battled his bosses over resources to properly investigate crimes with a suspected paranormal element. He seemed to have run up against too strong a resistance this last time and found himself transferred as far as humanly possible—the Eastern Region.
Now he looked at the oaf, who, together with himself, made up the entire Eastern Region’s paranormal investigative desk.
Packard sighed.
“Runcey,” he said. “Trust me on this. It’s not a good idea to sneak up on an armed, longtime law officer, even if you hold the mistaken belief that he’s over the hill.”
“I didn’t sneak up on you, Partner,” the younger agent said. “Even cleared my throat as I came down the trail. But seems you were too lost in your own little world to hear. Just like you were with those other two bodies.”
Packard turned and looked away.
One corner of his brain, though, nagged him that his new partner might just be right. Maybe the burly guy had made a noisy approach. Maybe he, Packard, was so numbed by the contents of the flask from which he’d sneaked a couple of swigs earlier
that his senses had been dulled.
The rest of his brain jumped to his defense. No, that was just an echo from his now-distant ex-wife and ex-boss. His senses were as sharp as ever. He had no reason to believe that his new partner was being straight with him. For all he knew, the guy creeped up on him with the attempt to screw with his mind to gain some sort of upper hand. Young guns could be like that, sometimes, the cocky ones who wanted to leapfrog over the older hands.
Still, this wasn’t worth the fight with his new partner. Squabbling over nothing on their first day together would only stir up bad blood with someone he might just have to trust with his life in the future.
He turned back to the victim and shone the light on the wounds. “So, what are the local cops thinking?”
The younger agent joined Packard at his side. “They’re kind of stumped. Nobody has seen wild animals in these parts for decades. They’re saying it could’ve been some yahoo with one nasty dog, maybe.”
Packard nodded slowly. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“You don’t buy that, huh?”
The old agent looked off in the darkness. “What did you do to get assigned to an old badger like me, Runcey?”
“What do you mean?”
“You just graduated, and this is your first job. You don’t have a track record of run-ins to merit being shunted onto the loony desk. Is that what they call it out here in the Eastern Region? That was the name they had for it on the force that I just came from.”
The younger agent laughed nervously. “I got an uncle who is one of the higher-ups.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Usually with strings to pull, you get the plum position.”
“Yeah, well, nepotism works in reverse in my family. My dad and his older brother hate each other, and I’m just a pawn in their sibling rivalry. I’m sure my uncle would like nothing better than for me to get frustrated and quit. I figure if I just keep my head down and do my job, someday, the hierarchy will see my talent and I’ll get my due.”
Packard snorted. “Nice dream, kid.”
The old agent knew only too well how office politics could keep a guy stuck on one level his entire career.
“But you understand,” Packard said, “this desk isn’t a holiday. It’s harder than probably any other assignment they could’ve handed you”
“How so?”
“You can’t just stop at the easy answers, like these local cops.”
“You really don’t buy the vicious dog story, huh?”
“At my old job, we had a lot of incidents of mauling over the years. Took plenty of flak, but we were that close to proving werewolves were responsible. But then office politics got in the way and we were taken off the case, which gave the perpetrators the opportunity to escape.”
“Werewolves, huh?”
“These three cases we came across tonight might be ones for us, son,” Packard said. “Can’t rule it out. Shifters exist.”
“So, werewolves change from human to wolf form, right?”
“Sure do.”
“And do werewolves just disappear in a burst of light? I mean, even if they’re in their human form?”
Packard shook his head. This was going to be the toughest assignment of his life, riding along with this meathead. “No, that’s not how things work with werewolves, Runcey.”
“So how do you explain what these cops saw here tonight?”
“What did they see?”
“Two of the cops said they saw some young boy around here. They were sure he’d been prowling around the body. They gave chase, and he went up into a tree. Then, all of a sudden, there was this bright flash of light and then, poof! The guy disappeared, just like that.”
Packard scrunched up his face. That didn’t sound like it had anything to do with werewolves, at least not with the kind he’d come across. But long years in the business had taught him not to dismiss anything. A whole host of mysterious creatures hid from human eyes, but they were known to each other. And where one was found one, it was not unusual to find another, either an ally or a foe, or sometimes even a scavenger.
“What was the boy doing here?” Packard said.
“Cops have no clue.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Maybe five-foot-two. Slim build. Wearing a leather jacket, jeans and T-shirt, and a flat cap.”
“Did they get a good look at his face?”
Runcey nodded. “Kind of dark out tonight, but they said when the light flashed from nowhere, it was so bright, it lit up the whole place. Damn near burned the image of the lad into their brains.”
“Here’s what. Get them to sit with the artist and let’s get a portrait of that fella. And do it like yesterday.”
The young agent smiled. “Onto it. You think this boy might be connected somehow to the werewolves, huh?”
“Can’t say yet.” Packard stared down at the victim. “All I know is that in our line of business, Runcey, we can’t afford to limit ourselves to the dead ends the guys on the regular beats accept. We have to chase down every damn lead we get, no matter how bizarre or irrelevant it seems, and hope it’ll help us explain the unexplainable.”
********
The girl with long, pink hair was still sleeping with her head against the window when the bus pulled in at the Tresmort transit hub.
She jumped when a hand came down on her shoulder and shook her roughly.
“This is Tresmort,” a deep voice boomed.
“Huh?” She rubbed her eyes and turned her head to look at the hairy hand that rested on her shoulder.
“This is your stop. You need to get off here.”
The fog of sleep lifted as she recognized the stiff green material and the large brass buttons of the driver’s uniform.
“Oh, right.” She grabbed her backpack and the paper bag with her half-eaten sandwich. Yawning and stretching, she stepped off the bus and onto the sidewalk of the dimly lit, underground arrival bay.
She blinked to chase away the last remnants of sleep and to get her bearings as she surveyed the signs above the numerous doors to the terminal building.
She had no clue that she was being watched.
Not far off, well hidden behind a concrete pillar, four pairs of eyes followed her every movement.
“That’s her?” one voice said.
“Uh-huh,” another said.
“So, it’s showtime, then.”
Behind the pillar, lips parted to reveal long, white fangs.
Chapter 11
With more guns than they cared to think about pointed at them, Fenix, Twain, and Java followed the orders of their captors in silence. They marched out of the storage car and through a long corridor. They didn’t stop until they came to a brightly lit carriage.
It was luxurious. Plush brown leather seats stood on an expanse of purple carpet. Oak panels lined the walls, matching the oak tables and armrests. Burnished brass lamps bathed the car in soft amber light.
Fenix had never been in this kind of setting before. It was something she’d only seen in the pages of Alda’s old magazines.
The man in the black beret finally lowered his gun and holstered it.
“You’ll have to wait here until Mr. Angelo arrives,” he said.
Did Mr. Congeniality just say “have to”?
“What?” Twain said, giving voice to Fenix’s thoughts.
The man squinted at Twain. “Just stay here. And don’t do anything stupid.” He motioned his companions to leave, then he exited, giving Fenix a final scowl before shutting the door.
Java walked around the room, inspecting it in detail. He folded his arms and whistled.
“You could say that again,” Twain said.
Java whistled louder.
So, this was what Micha meant when he said his company usually reserved a few seats on the bullet train, Fenix thought. No wonder he’d had that cheeky grin on his face.
Twain walked to one of the chairs. He kicked up one of his peg legs and let his bottom
drop into the leather. He beamed. “Nice. Soft, like butter.”
“Let me try it,” Java said. He jumped higher than Twain had and fell onto the seat with a soft thud. “Nice!”
Fenix walked the length of the carriage, trying hard to stop her eyes from roving. She couldn’t allow herself to be impressed with the accommodation Micha had made available for them. And she especially couldn’t allow that to stir up any warm feelings toward him.
She didn’t know what powers she had or what that made her. Whatever it was likely meant that she and Micha Angelo were natural enemies. By his own admission, the only thing preventing him from giving in to his predatory instincts was some experimental drug his company had developed that was still being tested.
Besides, the images that had flashed before her eyes when she’d touched the three vials left her feeling uneasy.
Micha had sent them out to collect proof to confirm what he’d said was his suspicion that werewolves had been responsible for the gruesome murders. And going by the nature of the wounds alone, it was easy to put the blame on lycanthropes.
But if the visions she’d got were right, then it was Micha’s own kind that were responsible.
Was he genuinely unaware of this?
Or did he know the truth and was trying to use Alda and her crew to frame the werewolves?
She didn’t even want to think about the further possibility that Micha might have somehow had a hand in it.
She knew she had to be on her guard with him, but, somehow, she couldn’t imagine him being capable of such a thing.
A recess stood beyond what she’d first thought was the end of the carriage. Upon inspecting it, Fenix realized there was a staircase leading upward.
“Hey, there’s another level,” she said.
Fenix waited for Twain and Java, and the three of them jogged up the winding stairs together. They emerged into a glass-domed compartment, which was about half the size of the one below.
The tall, upholstered chairs were narrower than the ones in the lower compartment. The tables were covered with brilliantly white linen. Through the glass ceiling, the moon shone brightly and the stars twinkled. Fenix couldn’t help but think about how enchanting it would be to dine up here.
