Aspen

by Skye Knizley

  “Don’t run, it will notice us,” Jynx said. “Just keep going.”

  The woman started making a sound between crying and screaming in terror.

  “Stay calm!” Aspen said.

  “Shut up! You’re going to draw his attention!” Jynx said.

  The woman started a low whimper that Aspen knew was going to become a scream. She clamped her hand over the woman’s mouth and held on. They were almost to the hotel when the lycan let out a howl that chilled Aspen to the bone. It was echoed by three more, then again by more, somewhere ahead inside the city.

  Jynx let go of the woman and drew both her pistols. “Keep going!”

  Aspen pulled the woman onto the sidewalk and through the doors of the hotel. Jynx fired a series of shots at something Aspen couldn’t see and then crashed through the doors just a head of a burly lycan that snapped at her from mere inches away.

  Jynx shot it in the head and kicked it away. “Fuck off!”

  Aspen pulled the woman to her feet and shoved her to the side just as another lycan crashed through the side door and ran through the lobby, claws extended. It narrowly missed the woman, who screamed and crawled behind the registration counter.

  “Hey, you ugly fuck! Pick on someone who fights back!” Jynx snarled.

  More bullets echoed in the darkness and punched holes in the lycan’s toughened hide. It howled in pain and fell back under the onslaught. Jynx walked forward with every shot, emptying two magazines into its heart. She ejected the empty mags and looked at Aspen.

  “I really hate lycans.”

  “So I gathered. Reload those things, I can hear more of them out there.”

  Jynx rammed two magazines home. “I’ve only got four mags left, Asp. What can you do with the magik mojo?”

  “Not make more bullets, but maybe I can do something else,” Aspen said.

  She turned and walked back to the doors, which now hung uselessly from their broken frames. She could see more of the lycans approaching, with the alpha prowling along behind. She raised her hands and called upon her magik. Her connection with Raven was there, a thin thread that vanished into the darkness of her mind. She touched it, caressed it with her soul and let the magik flow. It rolled down her arms and coalesced in the palms of her hands, where it glowed. Words she’d never heard before spilled from her lips.

  “Ohdiche ban-dia na teine!”

  Flame erupted from her fingers and roared into the blackness to encircle the nearest lycans. They howled and screamed inside the flames, but they could not escape. They dropped to the ground, nothing but piles of matted hair and roasted meat. Aspen lowered her hands and folded her arms with as much bravado as she could muster. The smoking lycans and smell of burning hair was making her feel sick.

  “Do I have your attention, now? I’m the blood-familiar of Furstin Tempeste. Go home, you aren’t getting a free meal today.”

  There was a strange, gristly noise and the alpha lycan shifted to his human form. He stood naked in the street, covered in blood. He had long black hair that was more a matted mane than anything, and his eyes were clear blue, like arctic ice.

  “Impressive, little mage. But you are not as brave as you sound. I can smell your fear!” he said.

  Jynx appeared at Aspen’s elbow. “I know that voice.”

  “Give me the Kane woman and I will let you live!” the lycan continued.

  Aspen looked at Jynx, who was visibly shaking. “You look like you saw a ghost, who is he?”

  “Ike Clanton. The son of a bitch that killed my family and turned my brother into a lap-dog,” Jynx replied.

  She looked out at the street. “You want me, Clanton? Call off your puppies and lets do this, just me and you!”

  There was another sound, the pregnant, wet noise of a lycan shifting. When it was over, a young man walked out of the shadows. He was tall, for a fifteen-year-old, with shaggy brown hair and green eyes that glowed in the night.

  “We don’t want to fight, sis, we want you to join the pack!”

  “Mal…” Jynx breathed.

  “Your brother?”

  Jynx nodded, her eyes wide.

  “Don’t freak out!” Aspen said.

  Jynx looked at her. “I’m freaking out, Asp. I didn’t, I don’t…”

  Aspen grabbed her shoulders. “What did I just say? Calm down and tell me what to do!”

  “Come out, sis,” Mal called. “Join the pack and your friend can go free, I’m feeling generous today.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Jynx said.

  Aspen held onto her arm. “You can’t kill them all. Besides, doesn’t this seem a little weird?”

  Jynx’s face turned from one of fear and confusion to wild-eyed anger.

  “A little weird? Yeah, you trying to keep me from freeing my brother is a little weird. Let go of me!” Jynx yelled.

  She shook Aspen free and started out the doors, guns blazing. Aspen saw her first shots turn the lycan near Mal into so much Swiss cheese, then the next dropped in a hail of silver before she reloaded and dodged out of the way of others with agility that belied her humanity. Mal shifted back to lycan and charged. Jynx was just rising from her roll when Mal barreled into her with his claws extended. She dropped one of her pistols and slid across the pavement, leaving a smear of blood on the asphalt. She came to rest against the gutter and lay still. Mal howled his triumph and licked her blood from his claws.

  “Jynx!” Aspen shouted.

  She ran forward without thinking. Two of the lycans loped toward her, claws ready to spill her intestines in the street. She raised her hand and sent a ball of fire at the first one, then dropped to the ground and slid beneath the second one’s legs. She scooped up Jynx’s discarded pistol as she moved the same way she’d seen Raven do it.

  Behind her, the lycan made a sort of “aroo?” noise and turned. Aspen rolled onto her back and started firing, not even sure if she was pointed in the right direction. The powerful weapon bucked in her hand and punched holes in the lycan’s chest and head in a spray of blood and gore. It gagged on the silver-coated rounds and collapsed to the pavement, where it slowly shifted back to human.

  Aspen leapt to her feet and ran to Jynx, who lay on the street, fighting for consciousness.

  “Fine time for you to take a nap,” Aspen said. “Any ideas what I do with the big freaking lycan you pissed off? He’s coming to have a chat with us.”

  “Kill it!” Jynx whispered.

  “Easy for you to say, you’re taking a vacation!”

  Aspen got one of Jynx’s arms over her shoulder and tried to stand, but Jynx was heavier than she looked and the lycans were getting too close. She dropped to her knees and raised a shield just in time to deflect the rampaging alpha that appeared out of the darkness. It raked its claws across the shield, sending up sparks of silver magik that crackled with power. When it failed to punch through, it opened its maw and howled in frustration.

  Aspen marveled at the creature. She’d never seen one this up close, especially an alpha. No one had and lived to tell the tale.

  “Look at this, Jynx! You can see the double jaw and extended canines! This is amazing, I bet it can bite through a steel pipe, do you think I could get it to?”

  Jynx tried to sit up. “I said kill it, not study it! Roast that thing!”

  Aspen concentrated on the shield and moved closer, studying the lycan like it was a specimen in a jar. “Jynx, this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity! Think what we could learn about shifter anatomy. How they shift, where the extra bones come from—”

  The lycan smashed a fist into the shield and Aspen felt the impact in her soul. The pain made her groan and she sagged to the pavement next to Jynx with blood dribbling from her nose. She wiped it away with the palm of her hand and moaned, “You win, we can study it later.”

  The lycan smashed i
nto the shield again. Aspen lost concentration and the shield collapsed, leaving them exposed. The lycan’s teeth cracked together inches from her face and she squeaked in surprise.

  “What big teeth you have! I’m sorry about the steel pipe thing. I’m even more sorry about this!”

  She raised her hands and repeated her fire spell. The lycan’s howl of triumph became a scream of pain and terror. It reared back and flailed at the flames spreading down its chest.

  Aspen helped Jynx to her feet and together they started running toward the safety of the hotel. She could almost taste the stale air of the lobby when the lycan she identified as Mal stepped in front of them. Jynx raised her pistol and aimed.

  “Don’t make me, Mal. Please don’t. Come with us, we can try to cure you,” Jynx pleaded.

  The lycan raked its claws along the bricks and smiled, its tongue hanging to one side.

  “I think that’s a no,” Aspen said.

  “Please, Mal. You’re my brother—”

  The lycan pounced. Jynx’s pistol boomed and he fell backward. Aspen tried to drag Jynx forward, but she stopped to kneel beside her brother. Tears were streaming through the blood on her face and falling on his. He blinked at her and Jynx took his hand.

  “I’m so sorry, Mal. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

  Mal shook his head. “Not your fault, Jynx. You can’t be everywhere. Dad should have seen them, should have known they were coming.”

  Aspen saw the alpha and remaining pack coming. She raised a shield and knelt beside Jynx. “We have to go, J, I can’t hold them for long.”

  Jynx shook her head. “I can’t leave him, Asp, he’s my baby brother.”

  Aspen pulled on her arm. “He’s dying, there is nothing we can do for him! We have to get out of here!”

  Jynx turned and grabbed Aspen by the shoulders. “You can! You can help him, heal him like you did Vincent!”

  “Jynx, this is totally different. You shot him in the neck and chest, I have to get the bullets out and heal the wounds. I can’t.”

  Jynx turned on one knee and raised her pistol so it was pointed at Aspen’s head. “You can, you just don’t want to! Save him!”

  Aspen kept the shield up and stared down the black and silver barrel of Jynx’s pistol. She could smell the gunpowder and the metallic scent of the silver cartridges.

  “You’re going to shoot me now, Jynxie?”

  “Save him, Aspen, please!”

  Aspen looked at Jynx. She could see the love and fear in Jynx’s eyes, and she wanted to make it go away. But there wasn’t time.

  “I can’t, Jynx! Even if I can heal the wound, he’s still a lycan! He still answers to the alpha that’s trying to pull my head off and use it as a bowling ball. I can’t fix that!” she said.

  Outside, the alpha had reached the shield. He was sniffing along the outside as if hunting for a way through. He turned his head and Aspen could see his red eyes glaring at her. He raised a finger and scraped it along the shield, making her shiver.

  Tears were rolling down Jynx’s face. “You don’t know if you can, you haven’t tried!”

  “I know that healing Vincent knocked me out for hours. If that shield drops, we’re both dead and Mal is back where he started. I know that saving two lives is better than throwing away three!”

  Aspen shook Jynx off and stood. “I’m getting me and that woman out of here. If you’re coming, then come.”

  “I will shoot you, Aspen!”

  Aspen turned away. “Then shoot me, Jynx. I’m sorry, really I am. But trying to save Mal with that lycan out there, it isn’t brave, its suicide.”

  Part of her expected to hear the boom of the big Colt. After all, she’d known Jynx a little more than a day. On the other hand they’d already saved each other’s lives, more than once. That sort of thing tended to grow relationships. When she didn’t hear a click, she kept walking, hoping to the Goddess that the shield held.

  She reached the closet where the woman had been holed up and opened the door. The woman looked up, clearly expecting to see one of the lycans. Relief flooded through her face when she saw Aspen.

  Aspen extended a hand. “Time to go.”

  She helped the woman to her feet and turned to find Jynx standing nearby, weapon in hand. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and looked at Aspen. “I said my goodbyes, let’s boogie.”

  “Take her and start up the stairs,” Aspen said. “Once you’re past the door I’ll lower the shield. That thing is going to be right behind us.”

  Jynx pushed the woman toward the fire door. “Where are we going?”

  “Up is the best I got. We can grab the research and head out the back, there’s got to be a way to lose the lycans,” Aspen replied.

  “See you up there. Don’t get dead,” Jynx said.

  Aspen waited until she could hear them running up the stairs, then turned back to the lycan. The alpha tapped on the shield like it was glass and leered. He knew she couldn’t keep it up much longer.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just you and me, big guy, they’re gone.”

  She took a photograph of him with her phone, then backed away as far as she could and still keep the shield in place. She then smiled sweetly at the lycan.

  “My girl would say something pithy like ‘come get some’ and then shoot you in the face. But I don’t have a gun and you know as well as I do, my magik is getting tired. So how ‘bout ‘catch me if you can?’”

  She lowered the shield and ran the other way as fast as her legs would carry her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jewelry Designs, The Loop, Chicago, IL 10:00 p.m.

  Jewelry Designs occupied the first two floors of a corner building in the heart of Chicago. The building was made of white stones and a storefront formed of wide, arched windows. The stories above were more common and nondescript, apartments for the upper middle and lower-upper classes.

  Raven parked the Bass on the street and got out. The evening had grown colder and a light mist was falling, making everything shiny and damp. The storefront was dark, but Levac seemed to know where he was going when he turned down the side street. Raven followed with her hands in her pockets. The feeling something was wrong with Aspen, that she was in trouble, kept nagging at her. She’d tried Aspen’s cell, but there was no answer.

  Levac reached a door beneath a single bare bulb and knocked twice. Raven watched as a hatch in the door slid aside and eyes appeared in the gap. “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to speak with Becker, please,” Levac said.

  “Never heard of him,” the man replied.

  The hatch slammed shut on Levac’s answer. He glanced at Raven and shrugged. “He’s the shy sort.”

  He knocked again. When the hatch opened, he wedged two fingers in the gap. “Detective Levac here to see—”

  The hatch slammed shut on his fingers. He howled in pain and blew on them as if they’d been burned.

  “Can I try, now?” Raven asked.

  Levac made an ‘after you’ gesture and stepped aside. Raven knocked politely and smiled as sweetly as a cherub. The eyes appeared once again and began with, “Ain’t no… oh. Hello, ma’am, what can I do for you?”

  “Detectives Storm and Levac here to see Mr. Becker, please,” Raven said.

  “Sorry, miss. Don’t no one get in to see Mr. Becker on poker night.”

  The hatch slammed shut. Raven arched an eyebrow and looked at the door. It was steel, with reinforced hinges. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her monster, which was there, waiting to be let out. When she opened them again, the world had gone blue. She braced herself, wrapped one hand around the handle and pulled. With a sound like angels screaming in pain, the door tore open. She pushed it aside and stepped through into a small foyer. The owner of the eyes, a portly man with three days’ worth of beard on his chubby jowls, was
sitting at a card table with a portable television and enough fast-food to kill an elephant.

  He stared at them in surprise. “How did you do that?”

  Raven dropped the door’s twisted handle. “I had my Wheaties today. Where is Becker?”

  The guard pointed down the hallway. “Up the stairs, second door on the right. He’s playing poker, he don’t like to be disturbed when he’s playing poker.”

  Raven started down the hall. “Yeah, we heard you the first time.”

  Levac clapped the man on the back. “Don’t worry. She’s stronger than me, too.”

  Raven looked back. “Are you coming, Rupe?”

  He picked up one of the uneaten cheeseburgers. “Yep, I was consoling the poor man, he just lost his manhood.”

  “You’re stealing his food, I saw you stuff that in your pocket,” Raven said.

  Levac shrugged. “You never know, if this lead pans out it might be awhile before I get my next snack.”

  Raven opened the stairwell door and started through. The stairs were cleaner and nicer than the foyer had been, with wide white steps, walls tiled in white porcelain and painted black trim. It reminded Raven of the better class of public restrooms. Unfortunately, it smelled a bit like one too.

  “Is it just me, or have you been eating a lot more, recently?” she asked.

  Levac shrugged. “Yeah, a little. Ever since the sword through my gut thing, I eat less, but more often. I’m losing a ton of weight, so it can’t be a bad thing, right?”

  “Except one day your arteries are going to jam up more than the 41 at rush hour. Maybe add a few vegetables or fruit or something.”

  Levac made a face. “I’ve heard of these vegetable things and I tell you, I want no part of them unless they are flattened, fried, and smothered in cheese.”

  “Fine, try a veggie burger.”

  The second floor rear of the building was decorated with a retro-20s feel in mind. Framed mirrors and paintings were spaced along the inside corridor while the outside consisted of windows that overlooked the street. Tasteful chandeliers were spaced along the walk and the doorways were set in stylized frames painted gold and white. A large man in a suit stood in front of the third door. He turned when Raven entered the hallway and held up a hand.