Bruce nodded a few times. He took a long sip of his beer, draining most of the bottle in a few sips. Then, he spiked it against the floor, and the sound of shattering glass echoed off the walls as his expression shifted into open disdain.
“I knew there was something off about you,” said Bruce. “The stupid trench coat should have been a dead giveaway.”
His voice was laced with cold, barely bridled anger. It prickled Jack, and not just for the obvious reasons. His bloodthirst bubbled in the background, feeding into his irritability.
“I don’t like your tone,” said Jack. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not sure you do, either.”
“The sheriff wants to have a word with you, bud,” said Bruce. “We know what you’ve been up to. It’s better for your health if you come along quietly.”
The sheriff. Of course. Bruce had shown up in uniform. He was there on duty, though how seriously he took his role was an open question. He’d accepted the beer from Jack, after all, though perhaps he’d been hoping that it might get him talking.
Bruce smirked at him, and Jack had to work to keep from reacting in the worst possible way. How in the world had a man like him, of all people, won Katie’s affection? He tried to keep his annoyance out of his expression, shrugging and doing his best to play innocent.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Bruce,” said Jack. “I’m not even from around here. What could I possibly have-”
Bruce lashed out, grabbing him by the cuff of his shirt. Jack suppressed the instinct to retaliate immediately and violently. He was so tempted to throw a punch or an elbow into Bruce’s face, but it was during the daytime, and the lounge was bathed in sunlight. Still, even without his vampiric strength, he might be able to do some damage if he aimed his blow properly.
No. Resisting arrest was not a good look. Especially not when it would give Bruce that much more leverage over him. Jack took a slow breath and forced himself to smile instead of fighting back.
“You stupid fucker,” said Bruce. “You’ll admit it to me, and then I’ll let you talk to the sheriff.”
Jack shook his head. He was, at the very least, now relatively sure that Bruce didn’t know about the depths of his recent nighttime activities. If Bruce had actually scratched under the supernatural surface, the last thing he’d ever consider doing would be putting hands on him.
“Admit what?” asked Jack. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We found your fucking wallet in Bert’s tent,” said Bruce. “And he’s been missing for almost a week, now.”
His wallet. Jack was still wearing the same clothes he’d had on last night. His hands went to his pocket out of habit, where he always put his wallet. It wasn’t there.
It could have fallen out of his pocket easily enough, but Jack knew that it hadn’t. He thought back to the moment when Mira’s Spectral Hand tendrils had felt inside his duster while she’d been talking to him. One of them had probed inside his pocket, and apparently stolen his wallet in the process. She’d framed him, though Jack couldn’t begin to fathom what she had to gain out of it.
“Speechless?” asked Bruce. “Figures. I would kick the fucking shit out of you if I didn’t think it would piss Katherine off. I still don’t understand how she can claim that you were like her brother, once.”
Jack winced at the last revelation. Katie saw him like a brother? He shook the thought off, knowing that there were more important issues at hand.
“Fine,” said Jack. “I’ll talk to the sheriff.”
“I wasn’t giving you a fucking choice.” Bruce pulled out a pair of handcuffs that were, as far as Jack could tell, identical to the ones Katie had used on him. The metal felt cold and sharp against his wrists.
CHAPTER 20
The ride into Lesser Town was a silent affair, with Jack sitting handcuffed in the back of Bruce’s sheriff’s cruiser. He wondered what they would have talked about if they’d gotten off on a different foot. For all of Bruce’s faults, it did seem like he cared about Katie, in his own angry, possessive kind of way.
It was because of those faults that Jack found it hard to feel guilty about the secret he and Katie shared, and the lines they’d crossed because of it. He didn’t like the idea of sneaking around with an engaged woman behind her fiancé’s back, but he’d stay silent for the sake of Katie’s overall wellbeing, and for the fact that she was taking a risk of her own by helping him. Katie had a life that, for whatever reason, included Bruce, and Jack cared about her enough to not fuck it up. At least, if he could help it.
The sheriff’s office was down the street from the mayor’s mansion. Bruce parked in a small, private lot around back and then opened the cruiser’s passenger door. Jack smiled and nodded to him, acting like he did whenever Ryoko was tending to her maid duties and enjoying the reaction he received in return.
“You better be on your best fucking behavior,” said Bruce. “Sheriff Carter is getting on in years and gets a little scattered sometimes. You just admit to what you did and don’t get in the way of us carrying out justice.”
Jack couldn’t resist grinning at him.
“Are you sure the sheriff is the one who gets a little scattered sometimes?” he asked.
Bruce yanked on his cuffs and let out a noise that was half frustration and half surprise when the movement barely did anything. They were in the shadow of the building, and that made a difference. But as much as Jack enjoyed the advantages of his vampiric physical enhancements, he wasn’t interested in earning himself a resisting arrest charge.
He eventually let Bruce lead him inside. The interior was small and open, with a chain link partition separating the waiting area from the back. A single dispatch officer, an older woman with curly grey hair, sat at the desk, looking half asleep.
“Is Kurt in his office, Melinda?” asked Bruce.
“Mhmm,” said the woman.
Bruce pulled Jack through a door in the side of the partition. There were a couple of empty jail cells further down the hall, but they walked past them and into a small, rectangular room in the corner.
Sheriff Carter was, as several people had mentioned to Jack, rather old. The youngest he could have guessed would have been seventy, and that was probably being generous by at least a decade. Sheriff Carter wore a pair of thick, dusty glasses and still had all of his hair, though it had passed beyond grey into snow white.
What caught Jack’s attention were his eyes, which still harbored an obvious intelligence. The sheriff scanned him over quickly, frowned a little, and then turned his attention to Bruce.
“Why is he in handcuffs?” asked Sheriff Carter.
“You told me to bring him in,” said Bruce.
“For questioning,” said Sheriff Carter. “Not for arrest. Take those blasted things off him.”
Bruce opened his mouth as though he intended to protest further. The sheriff’s expression took on an intense edge that reminded Jack a little of when Katie decided to get fierce.
“Deputy Booker,” said the sheriff. “Do I have to repeat myself?”
“No!” said Bruce. “Of course not.”
His hand shook slightly as he got the key into the handcuffs. Jack rubbed at his wrists as they came off, unsure what to make of the old sheriff.
“Sheriff Carter,” said the old man, extending his hand.
“Jack Masterson,” said Jack. Sheriff Carter flashed a familiar smile and nodded.
“Have a seat, young man,” he said. “I have some questions for you.”
“I’m all ears.” Jack sat down, feeling a little nervous.
“We’ve met before, you know,” said Sheriff Carter. “Back when you were just a boy. I was a good friend of your grandfather.”
He smiled, his expression briefly taking on a faraway, nostalgic quality.
“Anyway,” continued the sheriff. “You came into town to settle his estate?”
“That’s right,” said Jack. “I got in the d
ay before yesterday, in the afternoon.”
“You still have the stub from your plane ticket?” asked Sheriff Carter.
“Uh… yeah,” said Jack. “It should be in my wallet.”
Sheriff Carter folded his arms and looked at his deputy. Bruce coughed awkwardly and hurried out of the office. He returned a minute later, red faced and holding both Jack’s wallet and the ticket stub.
“Bert went missing over a week ago,” said Sheriff Carter. “You couldn’t have been involved. I’m assuming you were in his tent, but that’s not a crime. Especially when the mayor already mentioned that he’d asked you to look into the disappearance.”
Jack nodded, feeling a smile sneak onto his face at the wiliness of the old man.
“Bruce, give this young man a ride back to his house,” said Sheriff Carter. “And apologize for being an asshole.”
“I… what?” Bruce glared at Jack, his hands balling into fists. “…Sorry.”
“I appreciate your honesty, Jack,” said Sheriff Carter. “And I’ll give you my own in return. I hope you stick around. Peter was a good man, and this island needs more of those. If you’re even half the man that he was, you’ll have my respect.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Jack. “Thanks.”
Bruce was fuming as they headed back out into his cruiser. Jack grinned at him as he climbed into the front passenger seat, doing his best not to say anything he might regret later.
“He’s senile,” said Bruce, out of nowhere. “Doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s barely lucid, most of the time.”
“He seemed pretty lucid to me,” said Jack.
“He’ll be retired by the end of the year,” said Bruce. “I wouldn’t read too deeply into all the bullshit and smoke he tried to blow up your ass.”
“One of you certainly is blowing smoke,” said Jack. “That’s for sure.”
Bruce scowled and sped the car up as he pulled onto the road up the slope, clearly intent on having him out of the car as soon as possible.
The two-way radio in the cruiser’s console crackled to life as they approached the last intersection before the mansion’s driveway. Bruce pulled off to the side of the road and grabbed the mic.
“Yeah?” he snapped.
“A kid reported strange noises up at the old quarry,” said the feminine voice on the other side. “Also said he thinks he saw Bert.”
“Got it,” said Bruce. “I’ll go check it out.”
Jack felt his heart start to beat a little faster. He and Katie had thought it weird that Bert’s body wasn’t where they’d left it in the warehouse. Had they actually defeated the ghoul, after all? Or did Mira have a blood magic spell that let her revive a dead body a second time?
“Mind if I tag along for this?” asked Jack.
“What?” asked Bruce. “Fuck off. This doesn’t involve you.”
“It does, seeing as how you accused me of being involved in his disappearance.” Jack leaned forward and lowered his voice. “And just between you and me, I have a bad feeling about this.”
Bruce glared at him, but he didn’t object any further, gunning his cruiser forward up the slope, past the road that led to the mansion.
The eastern half of Lestaron Island was mostly rocky, impassable terrain, but there was at least one road leading up along the jutting cliffs. Jack watched Bruce slowing the pace of the car as the road narrowed, in some places thinning out to barely a single car width.
The road meandered back and forth along the cliffs, forcing them to spend fifteen minutes covering a relative distance of only a mile or two. The old quarry was at the road’s end, set atop a particularly expansive cliff ledge that a deep mining pit had been bored into.
Bruce parked the car and glanced at Jack. He scowled and rolled his eyes, and then climbed out of the car.
“If you do anything suspicious, I’m pulling my gun,” said Bruce.
“Paranoid much?” asked Jack. He got out of the car and started looking around.
An abandoned storage building with a chained door and a heavily rusted metal loading dock stood off to one side. The quarry pit itself had a chain fence surrounding it, but it was collapsed in places where the edge of the rocks had crumbled free. A wider circle of orange caution tape surrounded the fence, and Jack ducked under it as he slowly began exploring the area.
A noise came from behind the storage building. Jack felt a pervasive sense of déjà vu as he slowly rounded the corner next to Bruce. He spotted Bert immediately, recognizing the denim jacket and dirty jeans. Bert was standing upright, but facing away from them, slouched forward slightly and staring off at nothing in particular.
“Bert?” shouted Bruce. “What are you doing up here, bud?”
“Careful!” said Jack. “There’s something off about him. He might be dangerous.”
He wasn’t sure how much he could say about what he knew, or rather, how much Bruce would believe.
“He’s not a bad guy, just a little down on his luck,” said Bruce. “Come on Bert. Let’s get you back to town and see if the sheriff can find you somewhere to stay for…”
He trailed off as Bert turned around to face them. His face was a complete mess. One of his eyes was missing from the socket where Jack had stabbed Katie’s silver crossbow bolt into. His cheeks and mouth were stained with blood, and his jaw still hung open at a dislocated angle.
Beyond just that, Bert looked visibly different than he had the other night. His body was swollen, and his arms and legs stretched his clothing like overstuffed sausages. He took a step toward them, moving with an unwieldy, stumbling gait.
“Fuck!” Bruce drew his pistol and took a step back. “Bert! What the fuck happened to you?”
Bert let out a hideous, gurgling growl in response. He took a stumbling step back, and then surged forward with a sudden rush of movement.
Bruce opened fire, and Jack didn’t blame him for it. The gunshots were deafeningly loud and didn’t slow Bert down any more than a strong breeze would have. Jack was a pace ahead of Bruce, and he brought his arms up to defend himself when he realized Bert was heading for him.
He tried focusing his blood magic and only received a pulsing headache in return. Scowling, Jack remembered what Katie had said about him using his powers during the day. The sun was out, which meant that he was basically on the level of a normal human in a physical fight.
Bert slammed into him before he could get out of the way, knocking him through the air. Jack hit the fence surrounding the quarry pit at high speed. The chain links groaned against his weight, and for a terrifying second, he thought they would give out under the pressure.
Bruce fired another round of shots at Bert, but the ghoul didn’t seem to be paying him much attention. Jack rolled as he slid off the fence, hitting the dusty ground and stumbling back to his feet. Bert was still moving toward him. If he charged again, Jack would have the pit at his back. It was both a danger and an opportunity.
“Fuck this!” Bruce shook his head and made a hurried retreat toward his cruiser.
Jack had all of his attention on Bert, but the sound of the car starting and hurriedly turning around wasn’t something he could ignore. He glanced over in time to see Bruce fleeing in his cruiser, not even attempting to swing the car by Jack to offer him a chance of joining the escape.
He would have felt offended if not for the life-threatening danger Bert currently presented to him. Jack tried to circle around to the side, but the ghoul was quicker than he looked. He moved with stumbling steps, sometimes dropping onto all fours, but always managing to cut Jack off before he got a chance to reposition himself away from the fence and the quarry pit behind him.
Bert pressed forward, entering attack range. He made a wet, coughing noise and suddenly lurched the upper half of his body forward. A glob of green phlegm the size of Jack’s fist sprayed out of the ghoul’s throat. Jack dodged to the side, watching as the disgusting ooze hit the fence where he’d been standing and instantly disintegr
ated the metal links.
“You really are a foul creature,” he muttered. “And here I was, hoping we could be friends.”
Bert let out a roar and leapt at him, swinging his arms with wild, flailing strikes. His elbows seemed like they were dislocated at the joint, which caught Jack off guard and let the ghoul get a strike onto his shoulder. It felt like being hit by a metal nunchaku and made most of his arm go numb.
Jack was wary of putting his hands in direct contact with the monster, so instead, he attempted to launch a front kick at Bert’s chest to push him back. He realized his tactical error he’d made as soon as his foot was off the ground. Bert didn’t try to dodge, instead throwing all of his weight forward into Jack and knocking him off balance.
They both slammed into the fence. The chain link metal groaned, and then gave way. Jack grunted as he fell backward. Luckily, the fence bent, but it didn’t break, instead tipping inward to hang down the inside lip of the quarry pit.
Jack managed to get his fingers through a few of the links to hold on, but Bert had his ankle in a tight grip. He swore out loud, wishing that it was dark enough for him to use Spectral Hand to get an additional grip on something.
Bert thrashed, and the movement caused one of the posts securing the bent fence to come loose. Time seemed to slow as the other posts followed suit, dropping Jack and the ghoul backward into a pitch-black pit of indeterminable depth.
CHAPTER 21
The fall seemed like something outside of time, a suspended moment of terror and impending doom. Jack was out of breath when he hit the bottom, though the sensation of landing flat on his back against the rock would have been enough to force any remaining air out of his lungs.
It took a few senses to come back to reality on the cold stone, and he felt bewildered at the fact that he was still alive and able to feel his body. He hurt all over and could feel blood dripping from a cut on the side of his forehead. His ribs, hip bones, and shoulders were screaming in pain, but nothing felt like it was broken.
Blood Mage (Dark Impulse Book 1) Page 11
