by Rob Cornell
What had happened to them? He felt more distant to her now than he had the day she showed up at his door in Los Angeles with the news that she was his daughter.
“Jess, your mom and I are worried about you. You can’t keep this up.”
She looked at her bleeding palm.
Lockman chided himself for not taking care of that right away. “Christ. Let me get the gauze.”
“No.” So soft, Lockman almost didn’t hear her.
“You’re done with this…” He gestured to her setup. “This crap. You can’t do magic. Face it.”
She continued to stare at the blood on her palm. “You’re lying.”
He clenched his teeth and spoke through them. “Blow that candle out and come with me to the bathroom.”
“I can feel it.”
He stalked toward her. Scooped up the book and snapped it shut—The Beginner’s Guide to Witchcraft written in a Gaelic font across the cover. Utter tripe. He tossed the book aside and went to grab Jessie by the arm to take her with him.
“No.” She balled her cut hand into a fist. Blood oozed down along her wrist. A drop of it fell into the candle’s flame.
A blue spark flashed off the wick, so bright it turned Lockman’s vision white for a second. The light bulb in the ceiling light exploded. A crackling fizz rang throughout the whole cabin, accompanied by more popped lights. The numbers on the digital clock on Jessie’s nightstand flickered out. The hum of the window unit air conditioner in the living room fell silent.
Lockman heard Kate shriek.
A second later, the front door opened and shut and Teresa asked, “What happened? My cell just cut out.”
Lockman stared down at Jessie, a cold, thick feeling rising in his throat. The saliva in his mouth evaporated.
Jessie looked up at him, eyes wide, body trembling. She opened her hand. The blood had disappeared. The cut itself looked cauterized. “Oh, fuck.”
When Lockman tried to swallow, his throat closed. Daylight still came through the bedroom window, but it felt like the shadows were closing in on him. “You didn’t do that.”
His words blew away like flakes of ash, insubstantial.
Jessie smiled. “Yes I did.”
Chapter Eight
Hands trembling, Lockman took it all away. The candle, the book, her chalk. He smeared the pentagram Jessie had drawn on the floor with his foot. Then he started checking her dresser drawers.
“What are you doing?” She leapt to her feet and grabbed at his arm.
He wanted to shove her away with all his strength. Instead, he turned to her. “I’m searching your room. And anything I find like that,” he pointed at the pile of items he’d gathered up and set on the bed, “I’m taking out back and burning.”
“You can’t dig through my things.”
His jaw locked. “What’s it going to take to convince you? This is a dark road you’re headed down.”
“I can use this power for good. Like I did with Mom. Like I did with—”
“No.” He slashed a hand through the air as if that could cut off all argument on the subject. “This ends here.” He pulled her top drawer open and rifled through socks and t-shirts. Found nothing. He slammed that drawer shut and went for the next.
“Stop it.” Jessie tried to grab at his arm again, but she had nothing against his strength.
Her panties filled the second drawer. He hesitated then.
Jessie covered her face and cried.
“Craig?”
He spun toward the voice.
Kate stood in the bedroom doorway. Her lips parted. Her eyes danced behind a teary glaze.
“I have to do this,” he said, though Kate had never questioned him. Yet he felt he must explain himself. Why? He never would have thought twice about tossing this room a year ago. A year ago everything was clear. He saw a threat. He fought the threat. Thoughts, emotions, shame? If you wanted to stay safe, you couldn’t let those things rule you.
A year ago.
Not anymore.
He slammed the drawer shut. Stalked to the bed and scooped up the items he’d left there. He faced Jessie. “You’re to stay in your room while your mother and I discuss this.”
She sniffled, wiped at the corner of an eye with the heel of her palm. Then she jutted her chin, mouth a straight line.
“I’m trusting you not to mess with this stuff anymore,” he said.
She stared at him, her eyes wet and cheeks red.
Lockman took the deepest breath of his life and left her room, closing the door behind him.
Kate looked at the things in his arms. “What was that?”
He hung his head, eyes closed. “Fucking mojo.”
Chapter Nine
“She’s a sensitive?”
Lockman didn’t like the sound of Teresa’s voice. A whiff of greed under the awe.
He had managed to get the power back on through the circuit breaker. So after replacing some bulbs they had light now that evening had begun to darken the sky. The three of them, Lockman, Kate, and Teresa, sat around the kitchen table as if a meeting were called to order. The chalk, candle, and book on witchcraft sat in the middle of the table. State’s evidence.
Teresa drew the book to her, examined the cover, flipped it over and read the back. She laughed. “This is bogus.”
“She doesn’t know that,” Lockman said.
She tossed the book back to the table’s center. “You haven’t been very forthcoming with her, have you?”
Lockman sensed Kate bristle beside him.
“She’s our daughter,” Kate said.
Teresa gave her a serious look. “Yeah, well, she’s a magical sensitive and a damn powerful one from what I can tell. She totally fried my phone. It’s useless now.”
Kate pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry about your phone.”
“It’s not about the phone. You’re lucky you’re out here in the boonies. If that had happened in a city? Shit, I don’t know what your neighbors would do. The ones that didn’t get electrocuted or burnt anyway.”
“You think this is funny?”
“I think you’re aren’t taking this seriously enough.” Teresa looked at Lockman. “And you should fucking know better.”
He scraped a nail across a chip in the table. “We’re trying to protect her.”
“From herself? Or from you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you have any idea what your daughter might accomplish if you harnessed that power? You can’t tell me you aren’t tempted.”
Kate said, “She isn’t some tool to be used.”
“It’s mojo,” Lockman added. “Now you should know better.”
Teresa sucked a deep breath through her nose as if savoring a smell. “Man, Craig. You’re still a hard-liner.”
“When have you ever seen mojo do something positive?” He held up a hand before she could answer. “Without horrible consequence.”
Teresa pointed in the direction of Jessie’s bedroom. “If she can blow circuits and fry electronics, she could easily help us find Mandy.”
Lockman felt like he’d swallowed a tornado. He shot to his feet. “Never. You get that idea out of your head right now.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Well, don’t.”
“Fine. You’ve made it painfully clear you don’t want to help me.”
Kate stood and took Lockman by the arm. “I think it’s time for you to go, Ms. Stevenson.”
Shaking her head, Teresa smiled. “You two think you can hide out here forever?”
“We’ll do what we have to,” Lockman said.
“Think about it, Craig. If I could find you…” She let him fill in the blank.
As if the mere mention of the idea made it so, the sound of an engine and the skid of tires on gravel came from out front.
Icy heat poured over Lockman’s skin. “You brought someone with you?”
Teresa’s fa
ce paled. “They’re not mine.”
Lockman turned to Kate. “Get Jessie. Go. Now.”
Chapter Ten
While Kate ran to get Jessie, Lockman cut the lights. “You armed?” he asked Teresa.
“Just my blade. Rest of my gear is with my car, parked about a mile down the road.”
Lockman nodded and got to work. From the cupboard under the kitchen sink he retrieved a Sig Sauer fully loaded with silver rounds. He handed the weapon to Teresa. From a cookie jar he withdrew a flash bang grenade. He tucked this in his shirt pocket.
“To the living room.”
Teresa followed him.
He peered out the window, Teresa close enough that he could smell the woods on her from when she was sneaking around in the trees. An earthy but clean scent, and the faint hint of the shampoo from her hair.
Outside, a black cargo van sat parked at an angle. The back doors hung wide open. No sign of a driver up front. No movement in the dusk’s shadows.
“I told you, you should have gotten that tracking device removed.”
“There’s no way—”
“There’s always a way.”
Kate came out with Jessie, both of them walking close, plain fear in their eyes.
Lockman nodded at them. “Just like we’ve practiced.”
Kate put an arm around Jessie and guided her silently into the kitchen.
Teresa raised an eyebrow.
“Cabin came with a cellar,” Lockman explained. “I built a tunnel that opens about forty yards back into the woods.”
“Nice.”
“Fool me once…” He knelt down and pried open a loose floorboard. From the hole he pulled out first one Glock, then another, and finally a pair of spare magazines.
“What else you got stashed in this place?”
“Couple rifles in the cellar. The girls will take those with them. And if we get really desperate, I have a grenade launcher under the couch.”
“Who hooked you up?”
“Who do you think?”
She grinned. “Marty.”
“The one and only.”
They both returned to watching out the window.
“We could save ammo and use the tunnel,” Teresa said.
“And let them find it and follow us out?” He racked a round into one Glock’s chamber. Repeated with the second. “I want to buy Kate and Jessie as much time as possible. But if you want to go…”
“Don’t be an asshole. I help my friends when they need it.”
He felt the dig, but ignored it. No time for that conversation now.
“Where are they?”
Lockman glanced toward the kitchen. Jessie and Kate were out of sight, probably in the tunnel by now. “Sweating us out.”
“It’s working.”
“Why don’t you cover the back. They could come at us from any direction. Be best if we could see them before they hit the cabin.”
“On it.” She duck walked around the couch and into the kitchen.
Lockman stayed low and watched out the front.
Condensation filmed the van’s windshield.
That didn’t make any sense. Not unless someone was in the van, their breath fogging the window.
He no sooner had the thought when the engine roared to life and the van drove straight at the front of the cabin.
Chapter Eleven
“Oh, shit.”
Lockman twisted around and dove away from the window.
A deafening symphony of destruction exploded behind him as he sailed over the couch. Shattering glass. Snapping wood. Cracking drywall. And the growl of the van’s engine as it pushed its way in through the front of the cabin.
Lockman hit the floor, rolling over his shoulder, using the momentum to carry him to his feet. Once up, he spun around and fired both of his guns into the van’s windshield.
The glass spider webbed. The van jerked to a halt and the engine died.
Teresa barreled into the living room, her weapon raised. “What the fuck?”
Lockman kept the Glocks trained on the windshield. The damaged glass made it hard to see inside. Something shifted behind the wheel. Lockman didn’t hesitate putting three more rounds clustered above the steering wheel.
The movement stopped.
“There’s either more in back,” Lockman said, “or they’re about to hit us from outside.”
Teresa turned, pressed her back to Lockman’s. “You want to grab that grenade launcher?”
Lockman eyed the couch. The van had come through far enough that it pushed the couch back a good four feet. “Think that’s under the van now.”
“Couch wasn’t such a good hiding place after all, huh?”
“Sorry. Wasn’t expecting a van driving into the cabin.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
“Any movement toward the back?”
“I’m practically blind here. I can see your cheap kitchen set. Nothing on the porch near as I can tell.” Her gun’s hammer clicked as she drew it back. “What the hell are they waiting for?”
Lockman tried to peer through the mess of cracked safety glass and into the van. He thought he saw a form in the driver’s seat. No sign of movement though. “Have to approach the van.”
“You kidding? That’s what they want.”
“Then I’d hate to keep them waiting.” He rolled his shoulders, cocked his neck from side to side. “Cover me.”
She pivoted, swinging her weapon around in a clean arc. She aimed into the windshield. “Got your six.”
He moved around the van to his right, skirting the couch, stealing glances at the floor for any sign that the grenade launcher had been kicked out from its hiding place. Chunks of drywall and bits of glass littered the hardwood. Some of the old floor planks had collapsed under the van’s weight.
“Anything?” Teresa asked, voice holding only a hint of a tremble.
He now had a view of the driver’s side window which hadn’t been damaged in the crash. What looked like a figure slumped in the shadowed interior. Something not right about it, though.
Guns up, he crept closer. Three steps and he could see clearly enough. “Damn.”
“What?”
The “driver” was nothing more than a stuffed shirt and a sack for a head. “Decoy.”
Automatic gunfire chattered from the back of the house. The glass in the back door and the windows on either side overlooking the porch exploded inward.
Lockman backpedaled and threw himself up against the wall to one side of the kitchen entrance.
Teresa stood frozen in the open.
He reached out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her behind the wall. Their bodies came together with enough force to knock the wind out of Lockman. Her face came only an inch from his.
She must have saw the hunger in his eyes. She smirked. “Combat always did get us hot.”
The gunfire stopped abruptly.
Lockman’s ears rang. Sweat rolled down his sides. His heartbeat hammered a fast and steady beat. His own breathing rushed in his ears. A shard of glass clinked to the floor. The smell of dust and cordite roiled through the cabin.
“Jesus Christ,” Teresa said. “Can’t they just charge in and fight like normal people?”
What remained of the cabin’s front door snapped off its hinges, sailed into the living room, and bounced off the wall mere feet from Lockman’s shoulder. A massive form rushed in after the door, dressed from head-to-toe in black, including wrap-around sunglasses covering the eyeholes of the ski mask.
Lockman had faced a tac-ops team dressed like this before—the preferred uniform of vampires operating during daylight hours.
But this particular figure stood taller and wider than any vamp Lockman had seen before. He made the doorway look like a porthole. His shoulders crunched through either side of the doorway as he entered.
Lockman aimed both Glocks at the charging mass and opened fire.
The bullets burned holes in the attackers shirt, but the silver ro
unds neither drew blood or stopped his charge. Before Lockman had time to react, the massive figure slammed into him like a line backer, shoulder into Lockman’s gut, pinching him against the wall.
A spray of bile shot out from Lockman’s mouth, the taste bitter and hot. All air burst out of his lungs. He felt both his guns slip from his hands.
The attacker lifted Lockman over his head with the ease of a professional wrestler on the choicest brand of steroids. A second later, Lockman found himself floating through the air, an instant of weightlessness rudely cut short by the impact against the opposite wall. He dropped onto a short bookcase that toppled to the floor with him. All sorts of agony flared in his body, the worst of it the band of pain across his ribcage where the oversized-vamp had first barreled into him.
Teresa shouted and her gun thundered twice before going silent.
Lockman tried to get to his feet, but barely made it up to his hands and knees. He looked up, saw a second black-clad vamp even bigger than the first rush into the cabin. The first one had Teresa around the waist.
She donkey kicked him in the crotch and he dropped her. But when she tried to make a break for it, the second one grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder as if she were nothing more substantial than a stuffed teddy bear.
“Craig!”
He ground his teeth together and willed himself to his feet. Every joint felt like an ember. Each breath sent a spark of pain through his chest.
With Teresa over his shoulder, the giant vamp turned and regarded Craig through its dark lenses. Teresa kicked and struggled, but the vamp held tight. Then he turned and walked out the front door.
Lockman started after him. A hand the size of a baseball mitt landed on his shoulder and spun him around.
The first vamp had recovered from Teresa’s kick. He drew back a fist and swung at Lockman’s head.
The beast’s size made him slow. Especially for a vampire. Lockman easily ducked the punch and followed up with three quick jabs to the vamp’s ribcage.
The jabs had no effect. The vamp simply took another slow swing.
