Feeding Frenzy (The Summoner Sisters Book 1)

by Allison Hurd

The warm fuzzy feelings I’m harboring disappear in a second when we get back to the motel parking lot.

  “What the fuck?” Lia swears.

  The door to our room is open, the manager of this fine establishment standing in the doorway with his arms crossed. He sees us pull up and points, turning to say something to the people inside.

  “Careful,” I warn, pointing to the three cop cars parked closer to the office.

  We race upstairs to see our room being torn apart. I mean, not that it was terribly well ordered beforehand, but now it is definitely in disarray.

  “What’s going on?” I ask the manager.

  “I don’t know what you two are up to, but your room is a sty. The cops had a warrant to search it. I go to open it for them, and it smells like a barn! Now everyone will think I run a barn!”

  “A barn would be an upgrade, pal,” Lia says furiously.

  “Excuse me, who’s in charge,” I call into the room.

  Detective Kline comes out of the bathroom. Crap. He comes toward me, stopping to receive a report from one of the men rifling through my personal effects.

  “Ms. Watson. Glad we caught you. My, whatever happened to your arm?”

  “Old tennis injury flare up. Mind telling me what’s going on?”

  “Being thorough,” Kline says with a slight sneer. “Finding this girl is important. We can’t leave any stone unturned.”

  “What, you think she’s hiding in my underwear?”

  “Well, not quite,” the detective replies. “But this is certainly interesting.” He brandishes a bag with one of Lia’s pistols in it.

  Lia mutters darkly.

  “I assume you have a permit for this?”

  She looks nervously at me. As if I can read her mind, I realize that this one is not registered to Ms. Ophelia Watson.

  “Permits aren’t necessary in Virginia,” I remind him quickly. “And how, exactly, is that relevant to this case? So, we have a gun for protection. We’re two girls who travel around a lot. We weren’t carrying it. We only transport it in an approved travel safe.”

  “It matches the wound on the other gentleman you ‘found’ at the house.” Double crap.

  “You…you think we shot him?”

  “Well, let’s say that we’re being extremely careful in this case.” He smiles evilly.

  “Are you charging us with anything?”

  “I could…but I won’t. We’ll just run this through the lab. If it was shot recently, well, then we’ll see. If not, no one will ever have to know that our new heroes are also staunch supporters of the Second Amendment.”

  There’s not much I can do but glare at him until they’re finished searching. Luckily, nothing else is found. After enduring a little more whining from the motel manager, and the sick feeling of having your personal things ransacked, we’re left alone.

  It’s heartbreaking and not just a little scary to see your life so casually upended. I imagine that most people staying in hotels have just the few things they wanted to take from their permanent residence. My whole life, such as it is, has been groped and judged by a bunch of uncaring strangers. Lia is slowly putting all of the clothes they touched or threw onto the floor into the dirty laundry pile, scrounging quarters that were unceremoniously dumped on the ground to pay for all the new cleaning we’ll have to do. I go around resetting our wards. Seeing as we’ve already been hit once today, we don’t really need a ghost or a leprechaun stopping by and kicking our stuff some more.

  “You can say it,” Lia says glumly as we work.

  “I could, but I don’t want to.”

  “No? No ‘I told you so’s?’”

  “Doesn’t feel worth it. It wouldn’t make sorting the various leaves in my ‘no kami allowed’ potpourri any less tedious. I mean really? Why knock over a candy dish? What did they expect was in it, other than what was obviously in it?” I go back to my chore. “But I am a little curious. Did we change the protocol for Operation: Normal?”

  “Nope. Just thought you were being overly paranoid.” She looks at me nervously. “Do you think they found the storage unit?”

  “Doubtful, but we should check.”

  You can do real time if you’re found with illegal things, like various prescription drugs and certain weapons. We got burned pretty hard a couple years back; spent two months on the bench in a county jail in Iowa. Ever since then, if we get nervous, we rent a storage unit under the table and store all of the questionable things there. It’s expensive to pay all of the bribes necessary to stay off the books, but less so than the cumulative cost of any more arrests on our record.

  We go back to the car in a tense silence. Lia tours the parking lot, looking for anyone who might have stayed back to follow us, while I check for a tracker. They’re getting increasingly difficult to spot, but I find the offending device hidden inside the hitch.

  “Now I’ll say ‘I told you so’,” I joke, holding it out to Lia. Having determined that we have no humans on our tail, finding the tracker is a load off—I know the rules to this game. My sister sighs dispiritedly over her lack of a healthy sense of paranoia.

  “There’s a Walmart between here and there, we can drop it off for a minute,” she says apologetically.

  “Sounds good.”

  “Can this day get a little more exciting, please?” Lia’s maudlin humor seems to have kicked in.

  “Well, sure it can,” I say as we get back into our car. “It looks like it’s almost time to meet up with the good or evil doctor.”

  “I’d almost forgotten. Now I feel like I’ve jinxed us.”

  “Probably have. Instead, try to think of it as the universe bending itself to accommodate your wishes.” Her contrition for the gun incident has actually gone a far way to restoring our relationship. I guess that could be called the silver lining for this travesty of a week so far.

  She groans. “Does the universe do do-overs?”

  CHAPTER 11

  Before returning to the hospital, we go to the megastore between the motel and our storage unit and gently leave the tracker in a bush out front. We fuss with it until we’re sure it won’t be messed with while we’re away, then head over to the place we’ve stashed Clyde and the best things we own. We proceed carefully, taking roundabout routes to shake off any additional observers that might be following us. Finally, we feel safe enough to pull into the parking lot of the self-contained garages. We wait a few minutes in front to see if anyone else pulls in, and then let out a sigh—it seems we’re in the clear. There’s no evidence that our little space has been searched. Clyde is placidly chewing on a holster, and is very happy to go back out into the fresh air.

  We take care of the goat and lock everything back up. We swing back to Walmart and pick up our little GPS friend—it’s way easier to avoid the cops when they think they know where you are. If we had just ditched it, they’d be on us like Uggs on tweenies. It’s better to lead them a merry chase.

  “I don’t trust that detective as far as you can throw him,” Lia says when we’re properly re-bugged.

  “I know. I just don’t know what he knows, you know?”

  “I know that sentence was almost entirely not worth saying.”

  “Oh, shush. I mean that I wish that there was some sort of mark or something we could give bad guys who are working for the other team to differentiate them from just mean, garden variety, vanilla humans. Was that sentence better?”

  “Yes, but now I want ice cream,” Lia replies with a grin.

  There’s no sense in talking to her, sometimes.

  We get to the hospital a little before four o’clock to wait for Dr. Morris. We lurk in front of the main door. At the hour, on the hour, we see her exit the front entrance.

  “We taking bets which way this goes?” Lia asks.

  “You are just really pushing it, aren’t you?” I mutter as I get out of the car.

  “Call it an experiment on just how far we can rely on luck.”

  “That really doesn�
��t sound like a thing I want to do,” I tell her.

  “Well, too bad! Head in the game, now, Summer.”

  “Mine’s the one been shot at so far. It’s very much in the game.”

  “Ah, it’s you two,” Dr. Morris says with an easy smile as we walk up. “How’s the ‘accident’ holding up?”

  “It’s still attached to me,” I reply cautiously. She jerks her head to the side, beckoning us to follow. We turn the corner of the hospital, and see rows of ambulances waiting to be called into action.

  “Step into my office,” she jokes, indicating one of them with the hand that isn’t holding a briefcase. Lia and I exchange looks. This looks like a trap. Anything could be in there, and we’d just be skipping right into its arms.

  “Um, first, do you mind telling us why you’re so eager to volunteer yourself? Like I said, we can’t pay,” I remind her.

  “It’d be illegal if I asked you to pay,” she says gravely. “You’re my pro bono work.”

  “Well, you’re just a good Samaritan, aren’t you? No offense, but, what’s the catch? Something in there?” I ask, gesturing to the ambulance. The good doctor looks offended and a little confused.

  “Why would something be in there? You saved those kids, right?”

  We both nod slowly, not wanting to give anything away.

  “I can’t want to help a hero?” We shift uncomfortably.

  “I’m not an idiot,” the doctor says impatiently. “Five kids show up, and you come checking on them looking like you just got kicked down a mountain. There’s enough gauze on your shoulder to recreate a mummy, and you reek of trauma care gels. This leads me to suspect that your ‘accident’ therefore involved another person and his or her nine millimeter from less than seven meters out. How close am I?”

  “Too close,” I reluctantly admit. She smiles again.

  “So, let me see what I can do.” We warily follow. As soon as the door opens, we both jump back a step, waiting for something to attack us. When nothing does, we examine the ambulance carefully. We poke into compartments, touching things with our ring-studded hands. My earring is skin temperature though, and so I nod at Lia, cutting our investigation short.

  “My, you’re not very trusting, are you?” Dr. Morris observes. “Should I be concerned, being in a confined space with you?”

  “No, sorry doc,” Lia answers. “Just, ‘fool us once’, you know? We’re not partial to getting sh—having accidents.”

  “Hmm…” Dr. Morris says, obviously not missing a beat. “Wanna tell me why we’re not reporting this ‘accident’?”

  “Not really,” I say simply. “We’re having a hell of a day, and I’d rather not extend it any longer than is absolutely critical. That’s all.”

  “Okay, then. I won’t ask. Let’s see what we have here,” she says as she unwraps my wound with gentle, gloved hands. I appreciate that she doesn’t pry any more into what “a hell of a day” might entail for someone already nursing a bullet hole.

  “Not bad work,” she compliments us. “Your doctor knows their stuff.”

  “I’m sure my doctor will be glad to hear that,” I reply, winking at Lia.

  “What are you taking for it?”

  “Just an NSAID usually. Maybe some Tylenol 3 when it really aches.”

  “An NSAID, huh?” she asks, a little amused. “Tylenol 3? Are you a med student?”

  “I’m very much not a med student. Does it matter what I call it?”

  “Just don’t hear too many laymen talking about painkillers like that.”

  “I’m pretty experienced with the entire painkilling genre.”

  “Fair enough. Must hurt like a mother,” she adds as conversation wanes. I don’t answer. There’s really not much else to say about it—it does hurt like a mother. She swabs it out, checks the stitches, and gives me a brief exam. I can see her concern as she observes the rainbow of bruises on my ribs, and the scars I’ve had for years, which indicate that this is not my first time getting patched back together.

  “When was your last round of boosters? Tetanus, meningitis, all that?”

  “Maybe…six years ago?” I tell her.

  “I’m just gonna give you another one then, to be safe.” I nod for her to proceed. She pulls an immunization pack from her briefcase.

  “Can I ask you a few questions about how you found everyone?”

  I look at Lia who says, “You can ask. Not sure how helpful we’ll be, though.”

  “Understood. The bloodwork I got back showed almost toxic levels of oxytocin,” she says casually. “The so-called ‘love chemical.’ I’ve never seen anything like it. No puncture wounds, no oddities found in the waste…I have no idea what could have caused it. Any thoughts?”

  “Must be a new kind of drug, or something,” I respond cagily.

  “Must be,” Dr. Morris agrees. “They also had a compound on them that seemed to consist of goat blood, ash, sage, burdock root and what I think might be asphodel?”

  “That’s very specific,” Lia responds levelly.

  “I thought so, too,” she agrees. “It’s like someone thought something mystical was going on, and needed a pretty powerful cleanser.”

  That takes me by surprise. “You into mystical things?”

  “I’m into science and reason. I’ve got a bunch of inexplicable things going on, and I can’t help but think that maybe they’re related. And if it’s something that might help other people, as a doctor, I’d really like to know more about possible treatments.” She looks at us meaningfully.

  I clear my throat to give myself time to think. We don’t often discuss this stuff with lay people, but then, they don’t often ask, either. “It sounds like maybe whoever made that concoction knew Greek mythology, and were trying to cure something or protect against something,” I say carefully.

  The doctor picks up another booster. “That’s not something you hear often,” she replies.

  “Yeah, well, people are into strange things,” Lia comments with a vague shrug. The doctor nods thoughtfully.

  “About a year ago, I had a patient with symptoms we couldn’t explain. He presented with no fever, but he was wasting away almost before my eyes, vomiting blood. No sign of any known chemicals or intoxicants in the system, but obviously hallucinating—talking about places that don’t exist, screaming that ‘she’ had come for him, and that he would never be free. We thought we’d lost him. I was preparing to go ask him if he was a donor. But then he had a visitor. When they left, we found sage, a doll’s hair covered in human blood, and holly in an engraved leather bag around the patient’s neck. All of his symptoms stopped. The patient wouldn’t let us take the bag. I had to analyze it while he was sleeping. He tossed and turned while I took things out—only calmed down again once I put them back.” She watches us as she tells the story, waiting for us to show signs of recognition. “That sound like any other mythology you might have heard of?”

  “Old Celtic lore had stuff about holly. It’s the basis of evergreen being used at Christmas time,” Lia provides, interested in spite of herself.

  “I thought that, too. But…they’re stories. Superstition,” Dr. Morris says.

  “Of course,” I say hastily. “But stories sometimes mean something to certain people. Maybe his derangement was because of his strong belief in druids and faeries.” I try to say it like a joke, but the doctor isn’t laughing.

  “I wish there was something that I could have done for him. I wish I could have given him relief,” she murmurs. “Maybe someone out there knows a few things about human maladies that weren’t in my textbooks. Maybe they could help me take care of the incurable ailments.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. She sounds so sincere, but deception is common in our line of work. We’ve run into people like the shaman that Clem and Gregor booted to the afterlife who think they can harness power from the divine. Some people think they can get rich channeling spirits for the desperate. Some of them are the desperate ones, willing to ma
ke deals to save the life of a loved one without knowing the true price they’re paying. It’s dangerous for humans to catch wind of the pantheons. You can’t really do it by halves. Either you believe, and work to protect against intrusion from the other realms, or you stay out of it.

  “Well, thanks for helping me out, doc,” I say to her, not taking the bait. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Of course,” she replies, disappointment evident on her face.

  “I hope you don’t see too much else on this level of weird, but you know…Earth is a strange place and people are strange animals. Seems in your line of work, you’re bound to run into some weirdness some time or other,” Lia covers while I finish fixing my shirt.

  “That’s the most likely take-away,” Dr. Morris concurs with a sad smile. “Sorry to bore you. Here, take these antibiotics as instructed on the bottle, and keep that wound clean. Be safe out there.” She hands me a paper bag crammed with bottles of antibiotics, common prescriptions, and trial size packs of pain relievers.

  Lia jumps out of the ambulance. As I go to follow her, I meet the doctor’s eye. “Thanks for doing this. Sorry we couldn’t be more help.” I drop a scrap of paper with my work email address on it, and jump down.

  I hope I won’t hear from her, but if she’s going to push onward with trying to make sense of the mystical, I’d rather it be us who help her out than most of the other jerks in the biz.

  As we leave, I absentmindedly survey the parking lot. There’s one car that looks like it has a lot of custom work on it—I wish either of us was any good with cars. Despite all of the driving we do, we turn into veritable damsels in distress anytime any of the lights aside from the overhead turn on in the car.

  As we pull out of the lot, I think about our own indoctrination into this world. Every now and then the short list of people who know what we do and don’t think we belong in a mental institution ask us why we don’t go public, and make the world see? The answer is pretty simple. Most people just don’t want to know. Belief is so personal that attacking it is only useful if you need everyone around you to be angry. And since my audience is going to believe whatever it wants to when it hears what I have to say, I’d lay pretty good money on odds that about a third of them would tune me out, a third would call for my head and a third would become menaces that banishers like Lia and me would have to contend with later. Frankly, I’d rather not deal with all of that.