Rangers

by Chloe Garner

  Sam had the engine started as she threw herself into the passenger seat.

  “Where are we going?” Sam asked.

  “Drive. When you come to an intersection, pick a new direction. Go. Now.”

  “What’s going on?” Sam asked again, flooring the accelerator. She looked back at Jason, who was hugging himself.

  “He knows what you are and he thought he could get you, when I wasn’t paying enough attention. And he knows exactly where we are right now.”

  Jason’s teeth started chattering.

  “How do you feel, Jason?”

  “Cold,” he answered. She rolled her eyes.

  “Caught that. Where? How? I need details.”

  He rubbed the hollow of his shoulder absently.

  “Did the sun go down?” he asked. Sam looked over his shoulder and the car swerved slightly.

  “Drive. I’ve got him.”

  She felt the deepening worry coming from the driver’s seat and she looked at Sam and grinned.

  “Seriously. This isn’t my first case of dark rot. Just keep driving.”

  She dove over the seat and sat, straddling Jason, then reached back over the seat and dragged her backpack after her and started rifling through it.

  “He needs light energy right now,” she said to Sam as Jason twisted his head to the side. “Which means I need to ask you to ignore how strange this is going to be.”

  “Oh, more strange. Shocker,” Sam said, calming under her confidence. She grinned, finding most of the things that she needed and piling them behind her on Jason’s legs. She went fishing again, pulling out her makeup bag. Heavy black eyeliner, dark purple lipstick, rouge. She pulled the giant hoop earrings out of the bottom of the bag and put them in, then slid the stiletto out of her boot and leaned down, pulling Jason’s head over to look at her.

  “Hey,” she said. He focused and looked confused. She grinned and winked. “Stick with me.”

  She kissed him once, then sat back up and pulled his shirt clear of his pants. She pulled it up over his chest and reached the knife through to the collar and slit his shirt top to bottom, laying it aside.

  “Here okay?” she asked, poking a spot above the point of his hip with her finger. He curled slightly against her finger and she nodded. “Yup. Be still.”

  “What’s going on?” Sam asked.

  “Dark rot. Nothing too serious, but it’s working fast. Drive,” she said in her normal voice. She grinned at Jason again, the mischievous one, and bit her tongue between her canine teeth.

  “You ready?” she asked, voice husky again. He was completely bewildered, but he was with her. “I have you.”

  She leaned down and kissed his shoulder, where he had rubbed it, leaving a wide, open-mouthed mark in purple there, then kissed his chest, the bottom of his ribs, the center of his abs, then the spot above the point of his hip. The skin drew tauter and darker and he howled pain. She pushed her finger against the spot and he yelled louder, kicking to get away. She held her weight firm and reached behind her to find the knife, funnel, and glass jar she had left there.

  The knife was specially designed with a blade shaped like a smooth, curling leaf. She held it between thumb and index finger, the rest of her hand flat on his waist, and slid it smoothly between muscles, puncturing through to the abdominal cavity. He yelled, but kept his hands clear. He still trusted her. She put the flat section of the dark rot funnel into the wound, keeping tension on the slit to keep blood flowing cleanly out of it, then put the cupping end of the funnel into the bottle.

  “Overhead light?” she asked. Sam found it and turned it on.

  The blood flowed black for a while as the tension drew out of Jason’s body and he lay still.

  “You okay, man?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah,” Jason answered. “She stabbed me.”

  “Drive,” Samantha said as Sam turned to look again. Finally the black transitioned to red, and she pulled the funnel and capped the bottle with practiced motions, reaching for a bandage and taping the wound closed. The knife was specially designed and blessed to leave wounds that closed almost on their own. Without the funnel, he wouldn’t have bled long enough to vent the dark rot blood. She held the bottle up to the light, then set it on Jason’s chest.

  “Dark rot blood,” she said. “Very, very valuable. It’s yours if you want it, but if you want to make a gift of it to me, I promise I’ll put it to good use.”

  “It’s yours,” wrapping his arms across his eyes.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, scooting back to sit on his knees. He sat up and leaned against the car door and she scooted back further to lean against the other door.

  “Tired,” he said.

  “Pain? Darkness? Foreboding? Sunburn? Insect bites? Stings? Teeth itch? Eyes hurt?”

  He looked at her then closed his eyes, his brow creasing as he tried to focus.

  “I just want to sleep,” he said. She nodded.

  “That covers most of the worst of it. I’ll let anything else lay. Probably too late to prevent them from latching, anyway.”

  He looked at her tiredly, then slid back down in the seat, rolling onto his side and bending his knees to not crush her. She rolled back over the front seat to sit next to Sam again, holding up the bottle again.

  “That’s a good take,” she said happily. Sam looked at her sarcastically.

  “Just a good day all around,” he said.

  “Some people cross over and over again, just trying to pick up dark rot. They let it stew until they’re just barely capable of drawing it, to get as much as they can. First-crossing dark rot is always a gold mine, though.”

  “You having fun?” he asked. She laughed and slid the bottle over the seat into her backpack.

  “Jason saw him. Carter saw him. I’ll figure out who it is, and then we’ll put together a plan. He came back. I’m not going to ask for more than that. Besides, it does kind of feel good to be back in the game.”

  “You just stabbed him and bled him. This is fun?”

  “Dark rot is uncomplicated. He’ll sleep, then we should feed him, and then he’ll sleep some more. That will be the end of it. If I didn’t get it all, it will go after him again, and I’d have to bleed him again, but I’m an expert at this. I bled him clean. The real test will be when we look for any other parasites he managed to stumble into.”

  “He went to hell, yes?” Sam asked. She nodded. “He saw hell. He… somehow went back in time, only the demon… saw him, now… and then he brought back parasites?”

  “Hell is complicated. It’s all very, very complicated.” She laughed. “We ignore ghosts because they’re below us, sure, but there’s plenty of stuff higher up on the food chain that you’ve never even thought about, believe me. Hellside politics are a mess.”

  “Politics.”

  She looked at him, feeling the smile fade off her face. She was buzzing, remembering the frenzy that came with the work Carter had begrudgingly taught her to do, but she had put him in danger.

  “I may have to leave,” she said. “A sentient demon has taken interest in you. That’s a really bad sign.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re special. Psychics are special.”

  “How?”

  She chewed on her cheek and rested her forehead against the window, watching the light fade out of the sky.

  “Demons cross to this side two ways: possession and full manifestation. You know that?”

  “Never had anyone explain it, but I guess so,” he said.

  “Crossing by possession is cheap. They don’t have to push anything but their idea of themselves across the barrier. Their physical manifestation stays in the hell plane. The problem is, we really don’t approve of it, so when demons turn up by possession, we send them back. The other problem is, they don’t cross with anything like their full powers. They are restricted by the fact that they exist in a human body. They’re still demonic, and they can do some wickedly powerful stuff, but it’s only a t
iny fragment of what they can do in hell. Crossing by full manifestation, they keep all of their powers, but since they’re in the earth plane rather than the hell plane, they’re diminished. Like an echo.

  “Psychics have a natively thin boundary between themselves and the other planes. It’s why you can see things. You’re pulling information from the hell plane. So, when a demon possesses a psychic, he can port a lot more of his powers across. The more powerful the psychic, the thinner the boundary, the more powerful the demon is when he shows up. And he’s sourcing his power directly from hell. A decent psychic means that he crosses cheap and is more powerful than he would have been, crossing by full manifestation.”

  She chewed on the corner of her lip, considering.

  “That a demon was trying to get around me while I was still alive means that you may be a lot more powerful than I had guessed.”

  She sighed and put her arm up in the window, leaning her head against her palm.

  “I thought I could train you and get you self-sufficient, and that would be good enough, but if you’re natively that powerful… I may have to leave, just to stunt your growth as much as I can. I’ll go put a bell on the demon Jason saw, so if he ever tries to pull anything, he’ll have me to contend with, and that should protect you from him, but I’ve got to cut this off before it gets any more out of control.”

  They were quiet for a while.

  “You’d go back to Carter?” he asked. She shrugged.

  “Probably. I’ve been running away for too long.”

  Sam looked over his shoulder, then at her.

  “Don’t make a decision tonight,” he said. “Maybe it isn’t as bad as you think.”

  “Maybe,” she said glumly, then roused herself.

  “We should get some food into him. Pick a place that doesn’t look like it’s crawling with salmonella and let’s get some dinner.”

  He nodded, pulling in to a bar a little way further. He parked and Samantha took a steadying breath.

  “So… don’t freak out,” she said.

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “When you find out that Jason isn’t breathing.”

  “What?” Sam asked, spinning in his seat and reaching out to touch Jason. His hand snapped back and she felt the panic spike. Jason would be cold by now.

  She climbed over the seat to straddle him again and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and drawing on her warm energy, then leaning down and forcing the breath into his lungs. She took another breath and pushed another breath of air into his lungs. The third breath came on its own, and she put both hands over his heart, helping the heat to travel. She glanced at Sam.

  “In case it ever comes to it, most of us just beat their chests until their hearts start working again. I think this way is more humane.”

  Jason’s eyes fluttered open and he thrashed away. She let him go, dropping her knee onto the floor and scooting back to the other door to let herself out. Waking up out of a dark rot coma was always a shock. She stretched as Jason regained his senses.

  “Food,” she muttered, wandering into the bar. She waited for Sam and Jason to catch up to her and sat down next to Jason in the booth, shouldering his arm out of the way and leaning the length of her body against him. He put his arm around her and let her cuddle harder against him.

  “I’m so cold,” he said softly. She nodded. “Do I remember you stabbing me?”

  “You can claim your dark rot blood any time in the next three days. After that it’s mine,” she said. He shook his head.

  “Beer,” he said to Sam. “Keep them coming.”

  “You need food,” Samantha said.

  “No arguments here,” he said. Sam looked like he expected Jason to fall over dead at any moment. Samantha tipped her head back and smiled at the ceiling.

  “This part is normal, Sam,” she said. “I’ve got it under control.”

  She turned her head to look at the side of Jason’s face.

  “Did you dream?”

  “Did he dream? He was legally dead,” Sam said.

  “I did,” Jason said. “Spiders. Tree roots. Black water.”

  She nodded.

  “Anything colorful?” she asked. He shook his head. “Any voices that were clearly expressed through a larynx?” He looked at her.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Animal noises, human voices? Anything other than insects?”

  He thought.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Funny smells?”

  “Are you making this up?” Jason asked.

  “When you come back from the bathroom, I’m going to ask what color your pee was,” she said. “Funny smells?”

  “Chalk.”

  She nodded.

  “We’ll deal with it later. It’s settled in by now. What do you want to eat?”

  He held the menu out in front of her, shifting his shoulders so that she settled across his chest, and they looked through it.

  “Should I wait in the car?” Sam asked.

  “Beer,” Jason demanded.

  “Actually not a great idea,” Samantha said. “Considering I bled you.”

  “Beer,” Jason said again. Sam sighed and went to go to the bar. A waitress made it to the table and took their orders and Sam chased her down to add his before he returned with three beers.

  “So I tapped out at some big demon being after Sam,” Jason said. “I assume we’ve made it past there, since then. What’s up next?”

  “Sam’s talking about leaving,” Sam said. Jason nudged her with his shoulder.

  “Why?”

  “Because Sam is turning into a big fish, and the longer I say, the more demons are going to be after him.”

  “So we track down this one demon and kill it. What’s the problem?” Jason asked.

  “First, you can’t remove the immortality from a demon. Second, hell is full of them. It’s just a matter of time before more of them take notice.”

  Jason shrugged.

  “So?”

  “They’ll come after him,” Samantha said, trying to figure out what part of that wasn’t obvious.

  “So?”

  “There will be demons. Trying to possess him.” She spoke more slowly.

  “So you shake them loose,” Jason said.

  “What?”

  “You’re looking at this like your only option is to keep us out of your world. What if it isn’t?”

  “I’m not in the market for an apprentice, thank you,” Samantha said. “My world sucks. You guys are happy.”

  “I don’t think I’d be any less happy cruising with a badass demon slayer and a super psychic,” Jason said. “Do you, Sam?”

  “She kind of makes us superfluous,” Sam said. Samantha rolled her eyes and sighed. It wasn’t far from true.

  “I would spend all my time trying to keep you two alive,” she said.

  “Bang up job you’re doing so far,” Jason said. “Look, we tried to take you back to New York. We had the busiest two months we’ve ever had, chasing spirits and demons and creatures across the country. Maybe you two need to consider that Sam isn’t with us by accident.”

  Samantha was stunned, and Sam was struck speechless.

  “You don’t believe that kind of thing,” Sam said. Jason drank his beer and put it down on the table.

  “No, but you two do. Either believe it or don’t. I’m tired of all this angsting from the two of you.”

  “You said you’d have left her in Macon,” Sam said. Samantha felt Jason nod.

  “Yup, but here she sits, and I find I’m perfectly happy with the arrangement,” he said. “I’m not even tempted to hit on the waitress or anything.”

  “Look at you. You’re maturing,” Samantha said despite herself. He laughed, then banged his bottle on the table.

  “More beer.”

  In a trance, Sam stood to go back to the bar. Jason put his head back against the wall.

  “I swear, I could fall asleep right here, righ
t now.”

  “You need to eat first. Besides, we’d have a hard time getting you back to the car if you went back into a dark rot coma in here.”

  “Would I get all stiff?” he asked.

  “I hope not,” Samantha said. “That would just be uncomfortable for both of us.”

  He turned his head down, his jaw pressing against the top of her head.

  “Did you just tell a dirty joke?” he asked.

  “I hope so. Otherwise, that didn’t make any sense at all.”

  He dropped his head back and laughed and Samantha closed her eyes, letting herself believe for just a moment that there was some way she could stay.

  <><><>

  They found a hotel and checked in and Samantha climbed into the back seat again to jump-start Jason’s system. Sam watched from the front seat, unsure whether he was uncomfortable watching her mouth on Jason’s or happy that it might be working. They had been happy and cozy at dinner, and it had almost felt like something normal. Jason started breathing on his own, then reached down and squeezed Samantha’s thighs. She sprung away, smacking his hands away. The panic that she felt confused Sam, but he was grateful that she was mostly unwilling to be demonstrative or suggestive, in front of him or otherwise. He hadn’t had innocence in his life like that in most of a decade.

  “You do that again, I will not be so generous, waking you up next time,” she said angrily, kicking Jason’s shin. Jason laughed.

  “And you think that’s a threat that is going to change anything,” he said, sitting up and looking out the window. “Are we here?”

  Sam got out of the car without answering and went to go get his bag. Samantha dragged her backpack out of the back seat and stood, waiting for him to let her in. He came and unlocked the door and she turned on all of the lights, then waited for Jason. Jason dragged himself in like he was still half-asleep and threw himself on the bed.

  “We aren’t done yet,” she said sternly, dropping her backpack on the floor. “Shirt.”

  Jason unzipped his jacket and pulled it off with the bisected shirt, sitting and looking at her playfully. She glared, feeling insecure, but also in no small part angry. Sam wondered for a moment if that was at all representative of all women, or if it was just her. She took a permanent marker out of her backpack and sat down behind Jason on the bed.