"I didn't see her," Kristen said.
Baines' brow furrowed. He turned away. "I don't like this. It's not like her to not pick up. She was always the best about answering her phone."
"Can I ask a question?" Kristen started. Not waiting for Baines' response, "Why is Alex so important to you, anyway?"
Baines turned back to her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean the way you talk about her. They way you just let her stay at the church. Even the way you look at her. You treat her like she's the daughter you always wanted, but never had."
"Wait, what?" Baines asked, totally blind-sided by the comment and overrun with confusion. "Kristen, where did this come from?"
"I'm just saying you seem to be really worried about her. You two are obviously close. Guess I'm just wondering how close."
"Kristen," Baines said, his voice taking on the tone he used when admonishing her about something she'd done wrong, "I don't know what you're insinuating, but it needs to stop. Alex and I were co-workers. That's it. I care about her the way you do about a good friend. The way you cared about Jenny."
"Don't bring her into this."
"Why not? It's the same thing."
"No it's not!" Kristen screamed, bolting to her feet. She and Baines stared at each other.
"I don't know what your problem is," Baines said, "but now is not the time for you to start walking around here, acting like a jealous, petulant child because you're not getting enough attention! I shouldn't need to remind you at this point, but we're at war. And in this fight, young lady, if you don't get your head in the game, you're going to lose it. Literally."
He started for the back.
"Even if I knew where Alex was, why would I tell you? You'd probably choose her over me, anyway." Baines, in the entrance to the hall, froze in his tracks. "You had a whole life with her that you didn't bother to tell me about. I want to know why."
Baines hesistaed. Slowly turned. He could see the rage in her eyes--but also the hurt. She felt betrayed, lied to. Baines reasoned that she probably felt there was more he wasn't telling her. She was right, of course, but since she'd already been made painfully aware of the biggest secret he'd kept from her--the existence of lycas--he thought that he might as well cue her in on everything. This would be a good start.
"I never told you because I never wanted you to know the horror," he said. "You were three years old when I saw my first Lyca. Three. You had barely begun your life." He stepped back into the living room. Kristen held her ground. She was hungry for information. Baines continued to feed her. "I didn't know who I could talk to, or even if anyone would believe me. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin the life your mother and I were building together--and for you." He moved to the other side of the couch opposite Kristen. "I was online one night, in a chat room about the supernatural and the occult, when I came across a guy named Jeb who claimed that lycas not only existed, but he and his family hunted them along with some friends. He was in-state, so I reached out to him, asked him some questions, and told him what I'd seen. Shortly after, we met in person, and not long after that, I was recruited to join his team."
"And Alex?"
Baines nodded. "We didn't meet her for another five years. She was...special. Had certain gifts that made her indispensable. Took a lot of training and patience, but you could say she was a natural. But, after your mother passed..." Baines paused. Reflecting. He took a deep breath, looked his daughter in the eyes. "We needed a fresh start. And I left that part of my life behind, hoping I'd never have to deal with it again."
"Did mom know? About any of it?" Kristen asked. Baines shook his head.
"I never told her," he answered. "She had enough to deal with, and I didn't want to worry her. Sometimes I wonder if that was the right thing to do."
Kristen looked at him strangely. Baines noticed her stare. He averted her eyes and walked to a window on the other side of the living room. He pried back the curtains, took stock of the waning sun.
"If it was one, I could handle it. Two, maybe, with a well-planned attack. But three? That's more than I've ever faced by myself."
"There's seven of them." Baines whipped his gaze to Kristen. She held her head low. "I saw them in the park. With Alex."
"Seven?! With Alex?" Baines asked. His face washed over in horror as he connected dots in his mind. "Wait, are you saying--"
"Alex is fine," Kristen jumped in, watching her father exhale a huge sigh of relief. "There was a gunfight. Alex told me to run in case something happened to her. She got away, too, but--"
"But?"
"The police got her," Kristen said. "They took her to the station." Baines glared at Kriten, took in a long, deep breath, then slowly let it out. Kristen dropped her eyes to the floor. "I'm sorry. I just..." She searched for the words, but just couldn't find them. She abandoned the train of thought altogether. "So, I guess you're going down to the station to get her out."
"No. I'm not." Kristen raised her head, genuinely surprised. "If Alex is in jail, she's safe. As long as we stay in for the night, we'll be, too. We'll just wait it out and regroup tomorrow. Figure out how to get Alex out. But right now, you and I need to sweep the neighborhood and tell everyone we can to get inside. Even bring them to the church of necessary. The moon will be up soon, and if any of those lycas are too weak to control themselves, or if there's any new ones out there, they will change tonight."
He marched to the back, motioning for Kristen to follow him. In his bedroom, Baines pulled back a rug lying in the center of the hardwood floor. There was a small door built into the planks. He slipped his fingers into a thin slit cut into one of the boards and opened it outward to reveal a shallow chamber containing a pair of hunting rifles, complete with scopes. Alongside them were three boxes of ammunition. "As you've seen, Lycas don't need a full moon to trigger the transformation. Any powerful enough emotion or urge will do. Anger. Fear. Extreme hunger. Even lust." He handed Kristen one of the rifles. She accepted it nervously. "The pull to change gets stronger the closer the full moon gets. On that night, it's non-negotiable. Every lyca turns. They can delay it by staying out of direct moonlight, but eventually, even that's not enough."
"The full moon," Kristen said. When is that--"
"Tomorrow night," Baines replied, removing the other rifle and boxes of ammo. "That's why we have to make sure to have Alex out by then." He headed out of the room.
Kristen glanced at the open panel in the floor. It was something else she didn't know about. She wondered how many more things she wasn't privy to, but that would have to wait for another time. She clutched the rifle with both hands and hurried out to join her father.
NINETEEN
Tree branches racing by in silhouette. A lovely black woman in her forties turning to look into the back seat of a luxury SUV, a huge smile on her face. The same woman, now joined by a white man the same age as her, setting up a tent at a campsite. The man, in a warm voice, "I love you, pumpkin." The man walking into the forest with an ax. A werewolf bursting from the trees. The woman's slain, torn body, slumped against a tree. The beast, crouching, jumps right at--
Alex's eyes snapped open. A short, sharp yelp burst from her throat. She was on her side, her face covered in a flop sweat. Her hazel eyes shot to and fro. She was on a cold hard, floor, yet an intense heat roiled and raged within her. It was a feeling she knew all to well. One she hated more than anything. One that terrified her.
Pushing up to a sitting position, Alex found herself on the floor of a jail cell, awash in a pool of moonlight from the lone window in the wall. Her memory knifed in and she shot to her feet, stumbling to the window and grasping the iron bars as she peered out at the nearly-full moon, crouching just above the horizon amid the midnight blue sky. She stared at the Earth's closest celestial neighbor, seemingly mesmerized in its waxing beauty as sweat continued to ooze from her pores. A slight tremble worked it's way through her system.
"You look like shit." Alex tore herself from the window and
turned to see Neiland, leaning against the cell opposite her.
"I want to make my phone call," she said, her voice dry, raspy.
"I'll be glad to help you with that, just as soon as you tell me everything I want to know."Alex groaned her frustration, moved to an area of the cell out of the moonlight's icy touch. "Reverend Baines speaks highly of you. I assume you are the one I saw peeling off from the church. He thinks you're some kind of angel," he said, watching Alex prop herself in a corner, wrapping her arms around herself. "I don't see it."
"Then we have something in common. Look, I really need to get out of here."
"Not gonna happen," Neiland said shaking his head. He and Alex locked stares. Neiland shifted his weight to his other hip. "Those people in the square were innocent."
"I'm sure they were."
"So why did you do it? Why did you kill three of my people?"
"I didn't!" Alex yelled, slamming a gloved fist in the concrete wall of the cell. The eruption startled Neiland; he abandoned his lean and stood straight, reaching for his gun. He paused, his hand hovering over the handle. Alex drew a deep breath. Calmed herself. "It wasn't me."
"Really," said Neiland, folding his arms and assuming an authoritative stance. "Then who did?"
"Let me guess. You didn't see the six biker types with guns chasing me."
"Nope. Just you," Neiland replied, "running from my co-workers. You put quite a dent in my fender, by the way."
"Look, Craig--"
"Detective."
"Whatever," Alex blurted. "The ones who were chasing me, the ones who shot those poor people, they're the ones you want. They're the ones who killed Jenny, and they're the sames ones who killed those kids in the woods three weeks ago."
"Oh, right, because they're monsters."
"Exactly." Neiland shook his head in disgust. He moved for the door. "Stop me if you've heard this one." Neiland stopped. Alex pulled herself out of the corner and stepped toward him through the bars, making sure to stick to the shadows. "Small town, typically all-American--perfect place to settle down, have some kids, feed your dog. The people are great, your job's working out. You're living in your own little paradise. But then the killing starts. You write it off as a wild animal at first..."
Neiland, intrigued, turned. "Makes sense. But then you look at the body, and the evidence just doesn't match. And the attacks only multiply. Next thing you know, it's a trucker here, and random hunter there...a group of teenagers partying in the woods..."
Neiland's brain started to interject, but a competing thought smashed that idea and drove it off the tracks. He expanded his memory and thought back, further than the previous few weeks. He remembered one resident who had complained of something coming onto his land and killing his faithful bloodhound a couple months back. And one day, at Hagley's a week or so before that, he'd overheard two men from the next town over talking about a dead animal carcass that was found somewhere it wasn't supposed to be. Then, much more recently, there was the issue with Wilford Mason's chicken cages...
"You know what's going on, detective," Alex said. "You've seen those bodies. If I don't get out of here, a lot more people could die. Do you want to be the one responsible for that?
Neiland narrowed his eyes, contemplating. "I'll take that chance." Alex's face registered disbelief as he turned for the door.
Strolling over to the water cooler in the main office, Neiland noted that he was the only one in the station. Chief Wallace had left over an hour before, citing a pressing meeting he needed to attend. Neiland smiled to himself, all but certain the "pressing meeting" had something to do with him pressing himself against Elsie, the butcher's wife, across town. It was supposed to be a secret, but as such, it was the worst in the county. Peters and Webster, on the other hand, had probably gone out for take-out, which they did about this time every night--and always without asking Neiland if he wanted anything, with the excuse that since his shift ended soon, he'd probably pick up something on the way home. They were right, of course, but still...
Neiland grabbed a cup from the stack next to the cooler and began filling his cup. As he did, he heard the station doors open and close behind him. He took his cup and turned--
"You know, one of these days I'm gonna surprise y'all and get..." Confusion painted his face.
Tristan and Roxy stood, glaring back at him.
Neiland's body smashed the door separating the cell area from the rest of the station off its hinges. He crashed to the floor, rolling several times before colliding with the wall at the end of the chamber. Alex jumped back from the bars, braced to fight. She fought through another tremor, partially silhouetted by the moonlight pouring in from the window behind her as Tristan and Roxy sauntered in.
"And here I was thinking it was chow time," she snarked.
"It is," Tristan said with a cocky smirk, "but not for you." He strolled up to the bars, fixing Alex with an icy, yellowed stare. "See, this isn't the first time we've dealt with a hunter. No, not by a long shot. In fact, we've killed several of your kind." Alex glared at Tristan with contempt. "We've also learned a lot from your kind, too. We both love to hunt. And we both love to kill. The only difference is that we do what we do for survival. You? Your kind hunts for sport. But we also share also share another similarity. We both work in packs, and I'm pretty sure by now you've called some of your hunter friends to come into town to help."
"That's where you're wrong," Alex said, defiant. "There is no other hunter. It's just me."
"Then you're even stupider than you look," Roxy snapped. Alex shot her a look.
"Still, if you've come sniffing around," Tristan said, "I'm sure there will be others, which leaves my pack with two options--run, again--or stay, and fight." He placed his face to the bars. "And we're all done with running. Especially from an inferior species."
Alex narrowed her eyes. She fired off a thrust kick--
Tristan dodged back, laughing, as the sole of her combat boot jammed into the bars. "You got a lot of fight. I love that. But unfortunately, it ain't gonna make a bit of difference, because this town is ours, and we'll kill anyone who gets in our way to keep it--starting with you." He flashed a murderous grin.
Alex cut her eyes to Neiland. He was coming to, shaking out the cobwebs. All he needed was to get to his gun and--
A gun cocked. But it wasn't Neiland's. All attention turned to a well-rounded figure standing in the busted-out doorway--
Chief Wallace. The barrel of his pistol trained on Roxy's skull.
"Chief!" Neiland grumbled, still on his belly. He clutched the back of his head with one hand while pointing with the other "Be careful! They're on something!" Wallace took another step into the room, then, to Neiland's horror, turned his gun on him. "Chief! Wha...What are you doing?"
"He's one of them," Alex growled. Wallace flashed her a smirk.
"One of who?" Neiland asked, his voice cracking into a discombobulated squeak. His eyes darted from Alex to Wallace to Tristan and Roxy.
"As you can see, we've done a little recruiting since we've been here--and trust me, he's not the only one."
The statement sent an icy jolt through Alex's overheated body. She had no idea just how big the problem was, only that it was bigger than she had anticipated--and she wasn't in a position to do anything about it.
Tristan looked to Roxy, jerked his head toward the door. She took the cue and strolled out past Wallace. Tristan stopped alongside him. "Time to you to earn your keep, neo. Make us proud."
"My pleasure," Wallace said, his voice already rougher and heavier than usual. Tristan walked out into the main office;
Alex and Wallace sized each other up.
TWENTY
"I don't understand," the dark-haired mother of a fourteen-year-old daughter said as she, her daughter, and husband entered the sanctuary. They were followed by a young female jogger, her toned body still glistening with fresh sweat, and a haggardly old homeless man, somewhere between his late fifties and early sixties.
Kristen filed in behind them, followed by Baines, who carried his shotgun. He closed and locked the doors behind them. The mother turned back, got in Baines' face. "You said it was dangerous to be out there, but you never said why."
"He did say," her husband replied, stepping up and placing a hand on her shoulder to calm her. "He said the thing that killed that Moreland girl was out there."
"And you just believed him?" the wife countered. Then, to Baines, "If it's so dangerous out there, why didn't you take us to the police department? Why did we come here?"
"It is a church, Brenda," the husband offered.
"Shut up, Carl!" the wife roared back, escalating. Baines put his hands up to diffuse the situation.
"Ma'am, please. My daughter and I brought you here because it was close, and we needed to get inside as soon as possible. Now if you'll just take a seat anywhere, we have some food and drink we can get you." He nodded to Kristen, who silently took the shotgun and went to the alter where they had blasphemously laid out the rifles from Baines' bedroom along with the boxes of ammunition. She set the shotgun alongside them.
The jogger watched the whole way. "What's with all the guns?" she asked, removing the bluetooth earbuds she was wearing while on her run. Her phone was tucked in an armband on her left bicep. "Is this some kind of zombie apocalypse or something?" The tone of her voice reflected seriousness as well as fear. She looked to be just north of twenty, and had obviously watched too many shows about dead folks walking.
"It's for our protection," Baines said, heading to the front of the church. "Don't worry, I'm experienced." He glanced back at Carl. "How 'bout you, sir? Have you ever handled a rifle?"
"Yes I have," he said nervously.
"Good. I might have to call upon your assistance should I need it."
The Huntress (Lupus Moon Book One) Page 9
