by J A Campbell
“Okay. I guess this is when Kevin made varsity track, even though he was already fast. You know, they tried to get him to take a track scholarship to a bunch of different universities,” Jin said.
“I believe he mentioned it at some point. He didn’t want to compete though. He still runs, right?” Walter asked.
“Every day. I usually run with him. We like the waterfront the best. Sometimes Mom comes.”
“Do you want to go jogging this morning?” I asked, wondering if that was a hint.
“No. Even Kevin is taking the day off. Saving up energy for cake and flashlight tag tonight.” She smiled.
“Gotcha.”
We fell into a comfortable silence, broken periodically as the rest of the house woke up and found Jin on the porch to wish her a happy birthday.
“Want me to make breakfast?” I offered once enough people were awake to feed.
“Yeah, shaped pancakes!” Jin grinned. “Monsters?”
I laughed. “Sure, honey. Eggs? Bacon?”
“You know it.”
I gave Jin another quick hug and headed into the kitchen to start breakfast.
One of the cousins saw me cooking, so he grabbed a few others and set the table and got out drinks. By the time I had the first batch of eggs, bacon and pancakes ready, the cooking scents had woken the rest of the house and everyone who was going to eat breakfast had gravitated to the kitchen.
Jin got the first plate then everyone dug in.
“Snowmen, Mom, really?” Kevin laughed. “That’s not a monster.”
“It is if you drive a sports car and live in the South,” I said.
“Well, if you drove a sensible vehicle,” Margaret said as she came into the kitchen, scowling at me.
I was almost shocked she had bothered to acknowledge me at all, but at the same time, she never missed a chance to dig at me.
“I can’t believe you haven’t managed to kill yourself with that thing you drive.”
Snorting, I shook my head. “Margaret, I’ve had that car longer than I’ve had any other vehicle I’ve ever owned. If something kills me, it probably won’t be my car.” That was more true than she would hopefully ever know.
“Besides,” I turned my attention back to Kevin, “I ran out of ideas. Normally when I do monsters, I only have to make enough to feed you two.”
“True.”
“So, I went with monsters and shapes. Pretty sure there’s a Christmas tree in there somewhere, too.”
“Yep.” Nicky pointed at his plate. “Best Christmas tree I’ve ever eaten. Thanks, Kat.”
“You’re welcome.”
Margaret got the last of the coffee and went out onto the porch in something of a huff.
The kids all knew she hated me, and a few stared after her with confused frowns.
I started another pot of coffee while the current batch of pancakes cooked and considered that maybe she didn’t like me because she did actually have some vague sense that I wasn’t human. She hadn’t really liked me the one time I had met her before I ended up with the kids, either. Perhaps she had more Hunter instinct than she let on.
Shrugging, I put it out of mind and flipped the pancakes.
Everyone ate until they were stuffed, and then rolled out onto the porch or into the living room. Jin and Kevin stayed to help clean up, but I shooed them away. “It’s your birthday. I’ll get it. Go have fun.”
“Do you even know how to load a dishwasher?” Kevin whispered, smiling mischievously.
“I’m not completely clueless,” I mock growled.
He laughed and headed for the living room.
I had the dishwasher running and had started on the stuff that needed to be hand-washed when Margaret came back inside.
“Out!” She pointed toward the living room.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll clean up. Get out of my kitchen.”
I rinsed my hands off and thought about refusing, but then decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
“Whatever, Margaret.” I headed for the porch instead.
“I’m sorry about her.” Walter sighed when he saw me.
“It’s not a battle that will ever be won. Where’s Jin?” I already had a general idea, but felt it was more realistic to ask.
“Down by the creek I imagine. That’s where she and a couple others said they were headed.”
“Great. What’s the plan for the rest of the day? Presents soon and games until dinner?”
“That sounds about right. Maybe corral them back here in about an hour?” Walter said.
I was about to reply when a rising howl from well east of us caught both of our attentions. Two more wolves joined the call, both east.
Walter and I shared a look.
“Maybe I’ll just go hang out down by the creek with them too,” I said.
“You armed?”
“Yep.”
“Good.” Walter frowned. “I need to call Martin and check in with him.”
“Let me know what he says,” I replied grimly. I really didn’t want to get involved in a werewolf turf war, but I would if it meant keeping Jin’s family safe.
He nodded and headed into the house. I jogged to the tree line before sinking into the shadows. I wondered exactly how much attention Jin was paying right now. Grinning, I stalked through the woods, both hoping I would surprise her and hoping I wouldn’t at the same time.
I moved from tree to tree, keeping up a moderate pace since I did actually want to reach the kids somewhat quickly, though I placed my feet carefully to avoid noise in the leafy clutter that covered the forest floor. Much of it was softly decomposing and didn’t crunch, but the occasional dry stick might give me away if I wasn’t careful. Though my natural element wasn’t the forest, I had just enough experience stalking deer for food in these woods that it wasn’t too hard to stay quiet.
Pausing at the tree line, I watched as Jin and a couple of the others walked up the creek bed, stepping from stone to stone.
One shifted and Katie, a slightly younger cousin, shrieked as her foot got wet. Jin laughed then froze before tilting her head and looking around. She didn’t quite zero in on me, but she got the right general area, so I stepped out into the open.
Her shoulders relaxed and she smiled. “Hi, Mom. You heard the howling?”
“Of course. Partially why I came out here.”
“There aren’t wolves around here,” Katie said frowning. “What was that? Coyotes?”
“Or dogs maybe,” Geoff said. He and Katie were always up for tromping in the woods with Jin, so I usually found them together at family gatherings.
Jin didn’t reply.
“Walter wants you to come back and open your presents soon.” I smiled.
“Sure.” Jin perked up. “Let’s go.”
We headed back, and I looked forward to the heart attack Margaret was going to have at some of Jin’s presents.
Most of Jin’s presents were pretty standard things for someone her age. A couple of t-shirts with cute sayings or pictures, gift certificates, things like that. She loved them all, of course. I deliberately left the controversial ones for last.
She glanced at me after she opened the last gifts that weren’t sitting over by me and Walter.
Winking, I tossed her a set of keys.
She grinned. “Ford what?” She asked after looking at them.
I hit send on my phone and texted her the picture that Hawk had texted me after he dropped the small truck off at my place.
Her eyebrows rose and her smile nearly split her face at the picture of the new Ranger. “Ohhhh.”
Her cousins exclaimed as she passed her phone around.
“You know she’ll just wreck it,” Margaret said angrily. “All kids wreck their first cars.”
“Um, I still have my first car,” Kevin said.
“Yeah, so do I,” a few of the others chimed in. Clearly more of them than just Walter were annoyed with Margaret.
“Jin has been d
riving high performance vehicles on a track since she was thirteen,” I said. “She knows how to handle a vehicle, and she’s well versed in traffic laws. I wouldn’t get her a vehicle she couldn’t handle.”
Margaret, wisely, didn’t answer.
Kevin handed his present over next. I had helped him pick out some throwing knives that would be useful to Jin if, or rather when, she finally started going on Hunting missions with me.
She gave Kevin a big hug once she opened the package.
I could actually hear Margaret’s blood pressure spike. I wondered if she remembered Charity’s sixteenth birthday. I imagined she had received similar gifts.
Smiling, I slid Hawk’s gift over to her.
This one was a Viking style short sword, quite appropriate for beheading vampires. I liked them myself, though I typically carried a Roman Gladius.
If anything, her smile broadened.
Walter glanced at me, eyebrow raised and I mouthed the word, “Hawk.”
Walter’s eyebrows rose. He mouthed the word ‘really?’ back and I nodded.
Margaret said nothing, just glared daggers at Walter as he handed her last present over.
Jin pulled off the paper to reveal a black plastic case. She recognized it as a gun case and glanced up at Walter.
“They were your mother’s and father’s.” He smiled and gestured for her to open it.
She did and stared, wiping away a tear before she reverently touched one of the .45s. She didn’t pull them out of the case, but looked up again. “Thanks, Grandpa.”
One other favor Hawk had done was to retrieve the Parkers’ weapons from the police evidence locker. I hadn’t told Walter how I’d gotten ahold of them when I had returned them to him, but he might have guessed.
Margaret opened her mouth, but Walter had been watching her. “Margaret, if you can’t say something nice, shut up,” he snapped.
Walter rarely raised his voice, or snapped at people, so no one was surprised when Margaret’s teeth clicked shut.
“Wow, you’ve got quite the arsenal,” Kate said. “I didn’t know you were into weapons.”
“Yeah,” Jin said. “It’s a hobby. Mom takes us shooting a few times a month, and I do martial arts.”
“Cool.” The kids all accepted that.
I helped her gather up her things, and we took them back to my room. There was a gun case in there, so I slipped the weapons inside and handed her one of the keys. “There’re a lot of people here, so let’s just keep all this safe.”
She nodded. “I can’t believe Grandpa had their guns. I’m...”
I pulled Jin into a hug. “We were able to retrieve them. They needed a little repair, but apparently he got them fixed.”
“I just hope I can be worthy of them.”
“Oh, honey, you are.”
“But, what if I don’t want to kill vampires?”
Hesitating, I formulated my response. This was what Walter had been worried about. “Honey, just like there are bad people in this world, there are bad vampires and werewolves, and regular humans aren’t equipped to deal with them. You are. You don’t have to take up the life of a Hunter if you don’t want to, but you need to be prepared in case you end up in a situation where you have to defend yourself and others.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Besides, I might need backup someday.” I squeezed her tight.
She gasped. “Need to breathe.”
Laughing, I let go of her. “Now, I think you should go hang out with your friends. Dinner isn’t too far off.”
Jin nodded and left the room. I sank down onto my bed and stared at the safe. She was growing up so fast.
“You’re going to get her killed like you got Charity killed.”
I walked out on the porch just in time to hear Margaret lay into Walter.
“Walter didn’t get Charity killed,” I growled as I came up behind her.
She jumped and spun around, turning her glare to me. I was so done with her crap.
“Walter put all these stupid ideas into my sister’s head, and then she went out and got killed. There’re no such things as werewolves or vampires. Walter told me Charity got involved with the Mob, and that’s how she died.”
I had never been more tempted to bare my fangs at someone. I refrained, barely.
Walter put a hand on my arm and I unclenched my fists. “She didn’t get involved with the Mob, Margaret, though it did kill her. Charity and Alex were a fantastic team, and they rid the world of many bad vampires and werewolves. And yes, the supernatural exists.”
“No. It. Doesn’t.”
I could take a lot, but the disrespect she showed to my best friends was pushing me over the edge.
Walter tugged me back, but I didn’t budge.
“And you, you claim to love the kids, and you raised them. Whatever misguided idea that Alex and Charity had about you taking them instead of family, I will never understand. You should be ashamed, teaching her all these things and filling her head with lies.”
Walter let go of my arm. “You want to punch her, go ahead. I’m done.” He walked to the other end of the porch.
Fist tight, I almost did.
Margaret flinched under my glare.
“I do love the kids and I’ve taught them everything I can think of to help them survive in this world. Even if they never encounter a pissed-off werewolf, the likelihood of Jin or even Kevin encountering a pissed-off human is high. She can defend herself and will.”
Margaret’s angry retort was cut short by a scream from the woods where the kids played flashlight tag.
I froze, senses stretched out. Werewolves.
Damn it all.
“Thought you said the local pack was friendly,” I growled.
“I don’t think that’s the locals.” Walter ran toward the house where I knew he kept a shotgun over the mantel. It was loaded with silver slugs.
Margaret glanced at him, and while their attention was turned, I leapt over the railing and sprinted, vampire fast, into the woods.
“Everyone, come to me!” Jin shouted as I ran past her position. The wolves were further out and I smelled blood.
Slowing momentarily, I took the time to shout at Jin, “Get them back to the house!”
The other kids were obeying her and she herded them through the woods. I hoped whoever it was the wolves had would keep their attention long enough for the rest to get to Walter’s protection. I knew he wouldn’t be sitting on the porch waiting, but he would meet up with Jin and get them back.
If I hadn’t missed anyone, there were four wolves gathered around the blood scent. If they had been out to simply murder humans, they would have hit more of the kids.
I burst into the small clearing just as one of them was throwing Geoff over his shoulder. The blood smell came from Geoff, and I was pretty sure they had sliced him with their claws, effectively either murdering him, or turning him into a werewolf should he survive the change.
Two of the werewolves were in wolf form, and none of them had expected a vampire to burst into their midst. I drew and fired more quickly than they could react. I only had eight rounds, but I couldn’t shoot at the one carrying Geoff, anyway, so I unloaded into the two in wolf form. One died instantly, the other yelped and tried to change back before I made the killing shot.
The other two recovered, one slammed into me and I heard Geoff cry out. I lost my grip on the gun, but I was down to one shot anyway, so I sprouted claws and twisted as the female bore me to the ground. She landed on top, but I kicked out, catching her in the stomach and throwing her off of me.
The male had dropped Geoff and came at me with a large branch in his hand. He had recovered from his surprise enough to figure out what he faced. I hadn’t trained the vast majority of my life to be staked by this asshole, though. Running forward, I threw my shoulders backward and slid on my hip across the leaf littered ground and came up behind him. When he turned, I tore out his throat.
Hot, coppe
ry blood sprayed my face and he gurgled, clutching his neck and falling to his knees.
The woman screamed, coming up with my gun and firing. I dodged the last bullet and winced as she dry fired a couple of times before tossing the .45 to the forest floor. She partially shifted, sporting a deadly set of her own claws, and stalked forward.
I sensed humans in the woods and knew I needed to end this fast. Letting my claws blend back into my body, I flipped out a throwing knife.
She tried to dodge, but I waited to throw it until I was sure of her path.
It sank into her thigh. She screamed as the silver did its work. Silver didn’t do me any favors, either, so I had a touch of sympathy, but only a touch, which faded when I heard Geoff whimper.
She pulled the knife out of her leg, but I was already there with the other and sank it into her heart. She spasmed and the light faded from her eyes.
Were I a human Hunter, I would have removed their heads or otherwise made sure they were really dead. It could be hard to tell with weres. However, my vampire senses let me know they were well and truly dead. The two I had shot had already reverted to human form.
“Geoff,” I said.
“It hurts,” he looked at me with wide eyes that were already clouding with pain and fever. He wouldn’t be coherent much longer.
“I’m going to get you back, Geoff.”
He nodded and I picked the kid up in a fireman’s carry. He was fourteen and not small, so it was a bit awkward, but I wasn’t about to leave him out here. The wolves hadn’t wanted to kill him, they’d wanted to turn him, so his wounds weren’t deep. Still, blood soaked into the back of my shirt. The front was already coated with were blood. Grateful I had fed well the night before, I hurried back toward the humans in the woods. One of them was Walter, another was Jin. As soon as I got near, I slowed to a more human pace and did my best to shield myself again.
A few minutes weren’t going to make that much of a difference to Geoff at this point.
“Kat!” Walter almost blinded me with his headlamp and I hissed.
Jin shined a flashlight my way, but didn’t blind me. The others were some of Jin’s uncles on Alex’s side of the family that I didn’t know nearly as well as I knew the kids.
