Crossfire (Book Two of the Darkride Chronicles)

by Laura Bradley Rede

  “They’re beautiful,” I say. I can’t help thinking Cicely will be thrilled. She loves horses. That is, if the horses will have anything to do with her now.

  Naomi beams. “These girls are my business partners. In the tourist season, we rent out rides on the beach.”

  I laugh. It sounds like such a normal thing for a witch.

  “I know.” Naomi scrubs the brown horse’s neck with her palm. “But it keeps us in hay. My grandmother left the house to me when she died, but the girls help me pay my expenses.”

  “They’re great,” I say, “but I have a feeling they’re not what you brought me out here to see.”

  “You’re right. I’ll show you. But first…”—she gives the horse’s shoulder an affectionate slap that raises a cloud of dust—“First, chores.”

  And so I help her, hauling water buckets and slinging hay and rolling the rusted wheelbarrow to the manure pile. It’s easy for me, even tired as I am, and it feels good to lose myself in it, to do something physical and simple and helpful. We’re done almost too soon. When the horses are out in the little paddock, she turns to me, brushing a bit of hay out of her hair. “Follow me.”

  I do, all the way past the stalls to the back of the barn, although I can’t see why. There doesn’t seem to be much of anything back there, just a few pieces of rusted machinery crouching in the dim light, their blades like blunted fangs. Naomi edges past them and kneels on the wooden floor, pawing away the scraps of hay with her hands.

  An outline emerges: a big, square trap door set into the floor. Its edges are set with rows of locks, like stitches holding a wound. Naomi unlocks each one with practiced efficiency. The hairs on the back of my neck are starting to rise, and the urge to turn is strong, but I keep my breathing even. I want to see where this will lead.

  She grasps a big metal bullring set into the door. The door creaks, but it doesn’t budge. “Sorry,” she murmurs. “It’s been a little while.”

  I take the ring from her hand and pull. The door shudders open in a cloud of hay dust that sends us both into a fit of coughing. When the cloud clears, I see a set of wooden stairs, leading down into darkness.

  Naomi reaches behind the nearest machine and pulls out a warped cardboard box. I catch a glimpse of the red cross of a first aid kit as she fishes out a candle in an old canning jar. I expect her to pull out a match, but she only passes her palm over the wick and the flame flares to life. Shadows leap on the wall behind her. Her hair looks red as fox fur in the sudden light. She turns to me. “I’ll go first.”

  She disappears down the stairway like an animal into a den. I follow her, wedging myself sideways down the narrow steps. The stairs are wooden, but the tunnel itself must have been dug straight into the rocky peninsula—no easy feat now, never mind back in the 1800s. Magic must have made this place. Naomi’s voice rises up from below. “This used to be a root cellar for storing food.”

  “And what is it now?”

  Naomi raises her candle, filling the small room with yellow light, and I know right away what it is. The only furniture is an old metal cot on one side of the room. On the other side, a set of chains thick enough to tow a truck is sunk deep into the granite walls: two chains for the hands, two for the feet, with big manacles attached to the ends. They are tarnished almost black, but there’s no mistaking that they are silver.

  I freeze. It’s suddenly very clear why Michael sent us here. The place looks like prison and smells like home. “You have a dungeon.”

  “I call it a saferoom.” Naomi is watching me carefully, monitoring how I react.

  How do I react? Why is she showing me this? Part of me wants to beg her to let us stay. A place like this could be an answer to our prayers, if it meant D.J. could be safely locked down for the full moon.

  But another part of me wants to run. A place like this could be used against us. I want to trust Naomi—want it probably even more than I should—but she’s a witch who could charm me, with a cage I couldn’t escape. “How do I know this isn’t a trap?”

  “Ander, I know you have to be wary. I understand. You’re responsible for everyone’s safety. But please believe I want to help you.”

  “No offense,” I say, “but how do I know we can trust you?”

  “How do I know I can trust you? You told me you have control over whether or not you change. Well, I’ve never known a lycanthrope with self-control, but my instincts are telling me to trust you. Why else would I be down here in the dark with you? No one else knows we’re here. You could do anything to me.”

  She means I could hurt her. I’m sure that’s what she means. But when she looks up at me with those gray eyes, one lock of red-gold hair curled like a question mark against her neck, something else entirely crosses my mind…

  No. I shake it off. It must be some affect of the charm magic that makes me want to kiss Naomi. I’m in love with Cicely.

  I look away. “Okay, I trust you, it’s just… why didn’t you just tell us about the saferoom when we first arrived?”

  “Honestly? I didn’t know if I wanted you to stay longer than a day. I didn’t know if I could take that risk.”

  “Of getting hurt?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Though maybe not in the way you mean.”

  I’m not sure what she’s saying. “And now…?”

  She stands up a little straighter. “I want you here.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  She glances away. “I don’t know. I’m worried about you all. I don’t feel right, turning you out where you could get killed, or D.J. could kill someone else. Plus,” she smiles at me shyly, “it’s nice to have company.”

  The loneliness in her voice feels so familiar. I know it like I know the old scent of wolf in this room. “Your grandmother built this place?”

  “Lycanthropes came asking her for help, so she modified this room so they had a safe place to be. What they wanted, of course, was a cure, but she never found one.”

  “You said she passed on a few years ago, right? But by scent, this place has been used more recently than that.”

  “She was working with a werewolf when she died. He stayed on after she was gone, and I tried to help him.”

  Did the werewolf kill her, I wonder? But I don’t dare ask. “Who was he?”

  She crosses to the little cot, slides a shoebox out from under it and opens the dusty lid. Inside is a little bundle of papers, wrapped in an old flannel shirt. She pulls out a photo and holds it out to me.

  The picture looks like it has been through a war, but I can still see it’s a photo of a guy with scruffy, light brown hair and brown eyes. He’s probably about our age, but he looks older and younger at the same time: younger because he has a boyish, open face. Older because he looks tired down to the bone.

  But he’s still smiling, a sort of goofy, lop-sided smile. The smile of a guy in love.

  I suddenly feel like I’m trespassing. This isn’t my business. I hand the picture back.

  “His name was Jonah.” Naomi takes the photo back quickly, like now that she’s seen it again, she can’t stand to have it out of her hands too long. “He always kept this picture of himself nearby. He said looking at it—seeing himself human—helped him hold off the change.”

  I nod. Like the mantras Michael gave me. Did it help? Who knows. But we all need something to cling to, some sort of anchor.

  Though, I suspect it was Naomi he really held on to. It’s clear from the look on her face that she loved him. I can’t help wondering if this is why she let me stay, because I remind her of him.

  “What happened to him?” I almost don’t have to ask—the answer is written all over her face—but I can’t stop myself.

  Reluctantly, she sets the battered photo in its box. “I lost him.”

  Lost him. I wonder how. We werewolves don’t go quietly in our sleep; someone must have taken him out. I know I should ask the specifics for our own safety, but I don’t want to press her. Her eyes are already misty, and I can’t
take it when girls cry.

  Instead, I take hold of one of the chains. The minute I touch it, I can feel it burn my skin, feel my energy being sapped, so I know the silver is good.

  She watches me. “What does it feel like? I’ve always wondered.”

  “Hurts, I guess.” I give the chain a hard tug, but it’s sunk deep. “You ever jump-start a car? You know when you hook the cables to the dead car, and you can hear it start to draw on your battery, hear your car’s motor go rough? It feels like that.”

  She nods. “So will that hold D.J.?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “D.J.’s young, but he’s a Hunter, so he’s probably a lot bigger and stronger than Jonah was, and he may be bigger still by the time full moon rolls around. Plus, this will be D.J.’s first change, so it’s likely to be rough. But I think this will do it.”

  “And what about you?” She watches me curiously. “You said you don’t need to be locked up on the full moon.”

  “Like I told you, I only change when I want to now.”

  “But how is that possible? There aren’t any spells that would do that—believe me, I looked!”

  There’s a hunger in her eyes I know all too well. She wants to believe in a cure, and part of me wants to tell her everything. We’ve been honest with each other so far, and she’s trusting us with her life by letting us stay here. But would telling her the truth—that the hunters are trying to magically engineer super-wolves—really be doing her a favor? Or would it just put her even more in the middle than she already is? I think of what Michael wrote on his note: Involve her only if you must.

  “I didn’t do it. My family did. And it’s just specific to me, because I’m the alpha wolf of my little pack. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.”

  I see the hurt and disappointment on her face. She could charm the answer out of me if she wanted to, I think, but Naomi isn’t going to push it. She nods. “I understand.”

  No, I want to say, you don’t. And I don’t want her to. This ability to change at will didn’t come free. I had to kill my older brother to become alpha of this pack, and no matter how merciful and necessary his death was at the time, I’ll have to live with that forever. That, and the responsibility of taking care of D.J.

  But I don’t say anything. Frankly, I’m not ready for Naomi to see me as a killer, no matter how true it may be.

  She is still studying me. “Will you at least show me?”

  “Show you what?”

  “How you change,” she says. “I want to see.”

  “Really?” I look at her skeptically. “You aren’t afraid?”

  She smiles sadly. “I’ve seen a lot of transformations, Ander.”

  I think about it. “Okay, but turn your back.”

  She looks surprised. “Why?”

  “Because I just bought these jeans and I’m not ready to shred them yet.”

  “Oh!” She turns around quickly, covering her eyes with her hand. “Of course.”

  I pull my t-shirt off quickly and toss it on the cot, then take off my jeans and boxers and lay them there, too. It feels strange to be standing naked in the same room with a girl I just met. Dangerous. A week ago, doing something like this would have made me turn for sure and Naomi would be dead. Now, it makes me feel like I’m cheating on Cicely. If Cicely and I are even together.

  I’m not doing anything wrong. I let the transformation happen part way, just enough so I don’t feel like an exposed human any more. “Okay,” I say, “turn around.”

  She does, cautiously, and I let the transformation take me, as easy as letting out a breath I’ve been holding for a long time. I remember when the change used to shatter me and rebuild me, bone by splintered bone, but now it doesn’t hurt at all—in fact, it feels good, the way it might feel to stretch your legs after a long time shut in a cage. In seconds I’m standing in front of her on all fours, hunched like a huge bear, my face part-way between wolf and human, my body covered in coarse hair. I’m buzzing from the transformation, my whole body humming and alive. I give her a wolfie smile. “Ta da!”

  Naomi’s eyes are wide. Her mouth hangs open in awe. “That was… beautiful.”

  Somewhere under the fur I think I blush. I know she means the way I change—no one could ever consider the way I look beautiful—but it still makes me happy to hear her say it. “So you don’t want to run screaming?”

  She answers me by taking a step closer. I’m taking up a lot of the room now, and that one step closes the space between us like a healing wound. Slowly she reaches out her hand and lays her palm against my neck. It sinks into the thick fur of my rough coat and I feel her energy pour into me, warm and thick as honey. Her hand is so small against me. “Incredible.” Her voice is a whisper. She runs her hand slowly down my shoulder, down to my chest, to where my heart is pounding through my fur. It races faster at her touch.

  I take a step back. It’s too much. No one has ever touched me gently in this form. I was never able to let them. The closest I ever came was with Cicely, the first time we kissed, when I was half-way between human and monster, and even then I had to be chained to my bedroom wall…

  Cicely. The thought of her makes me feel guilty. Shouldn’t it be Cicely I let touch me? Cicely who makes my heart race?

  “What?” Naomi’s eyes search my face worriedly, but my wolf expression is too hard to read. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, it’s not that.” Naomi looks so small and fragile compared to me in this form, and I don’t want to hurt her. “It’s just… I’m not used to this.”

  Her look is full of understanding. “That must be awful, never to be touched.”

  Oh, God, you don’t know. I’ve made it this far by shutting down, but now that I know what it feels like, now that I know it’s a possibility…

  “We should go back to the house.” My voice is low and rough and laced with pain.

  Naomi looks disappointed, but she nods. “I’ll let you change back.” She turns, picks up her candle and walks up the steep steps, disappearing into the barn above. I hear the horses whinny in greeting.

  I take a deep breath and let the transformation happen in reverse. It used to be turning human again felt like coming home. Now it feels like putting on a formal suit after being in comfortable clothes.

  Although of course that’s silly, since I don’t have anything on. I get dressed in a hurry and head up the stairs, through the trap door, shutting it in a puff of dust behind me. Naomi is already waiting for me by the barn door. Outside, the sun is dazzling and my spirits feel brighter, too. We have a place to stay. We have someone on our side. A cautious hope fills me as Naomi and I walk back to the house, side by side. There’s only a foot of space between us, but somehow the gap seems wider, compared to the feeling of her hand in my fur, and I’m temped to bridge it somehow, but that would be a bad idea. I put my hand in the pocket of my jeans to make sure I don’t touch her by mistake.

  My fingers touch something small and sharp instead, and I remember. “Wait,” I say.

  Naomi pauses, just outside the back door. “What is it?”

  I step closer to her, my hand brushing her arm, touching her after all. “There’s something I want to give you.”

  Chapter 5: Cicely

  I sit bolt upright in bed, so fast I nearly hit my head on the slanted ceiling. Did someone call my name? I could have sworn I heard it.

  Maybe it’s Luke, stalking me as usual. I half hope it is. “Hello?”

  No one answers. Did I dream it? I couldn’t have, I remind myself. Enluzantes don’t dream. But it’s not like me to wake up suddenly like that. Lately my sleep has bordered on torpor, the deep sleep of the undead. Yet here I am, awake and on edge. How long did I sleep? I look at the clock on the bedside table. It’s only been an hour, which means it’s broad daylight outside. I shudder at the thought. I should be thankful my little bedroom is so dark.

  But honestly, I’m not. In the dark, the room looks strange. The pieces of furniture covered in she
ets are like bodies under shrouds. The wind off the water whips past the attic, and the old house creaks and settles so much it sounds like footsteps on the stairs. It’s enough to make me long for my old bedroom, in the trailer where my mother was never more than a room away. It isn’t ghosts, it’s mice, I think. This house is probably full of mice. The animal charmer probably attracts them.

  And why should someone undead be afraid of ghosts, anyway? I’ve never even believed in ghosts.

  But then, I never believed in vampires, either.

  I’m up and out of bed. I’m being stupid. My night vision is perfectly good now, right? I can see in spite of the dark, and I could smell or hear anything that came up here, long before it reached me, and I would probably be stronger than it, too. I whip the sheet off the nearest pile of boxes, tug another sheet off a chair. I pull the sheet from the full-length mirror—

  And stop.

  With the sheet on, the mirror looked ghostly in a Casper kind of way, but without it the empty mirror looks creepy for real. I suddenly want to see myself so bad it hurts—just to see something normal, something familiar. I cast around for the camera Luke gave me, but I must have left it in the van. Instead, I press the palm of my left hand against the cool glass of the mirror. “Show me Cicely!”

  The mirror springs to life, the shapes beneath its surface swirling like leaves caught in a storm. For a second I’m hopeful, but then—

  Nothing. Not even an image of the room I’m in. The mirror can’t find me.

  I slap my palm against the glass, making the mirror wobble on its stand, then quickly snatch my hand away. Who knows how many years of bad luck you get for breaking a magic mirror, and I’ve had all the bad luck I can take.

  Carefully, I lay my palm against the glass again. It crackles like static at my touch. I know someone who will make me feel better. Is it strange Ander is my stability, I wonder, considering for most of the time I’ve known him, he hasn’t been stable at all? But I know it will calm me to see him, big and solid like a rock in the center of a whirlpool. “Mirror,” I say. “Show me Ander.”