by K. B. Draper
Ashlyn took the last swig of her own beer and handed it to me so I could place it alongside mine. “You think it’s related? I mean, that would make sense.” She nestled a little deeper into the chair. “A demon, the same demon from then, is what we’re looking for now, right?” Ashlyn’s eyes begged for confirmation, clearly needing once and for all to know that what she saw that night was real. The thing that took her father from her was real.
“The Reyna,” I offered her. She sat up straighter, a bit skeptical that I was able and willing to offer her the answers she’s been seeking for so long. “Reyna,” I repeated.
“Reyna,” she tried the word out. “Reyna or the Reyna, you said the Reyna, first?”
“The Reyna, I guess, as there’s only one, apparently. She also goes by the Spider Queen. She’s one of-”
“The Spider Queen I know about.” She threw off the blanket, standing abruptly and heading inside.
I jumped to follow her. “Ashlyn?”
“I have to look up something,” she said, already through the door and starting for a back room.
I followed on her heels. “Know about what?” I asked.
Ashlyn didn’t answer as she moved down a short hall, her hand on the door handle as she looked back at me. “So, you promise to not think I’m crazy?”
“I just told you I’m a demon hunter with a spirit taking up residence in a spare room of my body and you’re worried about you looking crazy?”
“True,” she agreed too freaking quickly. She turned the handle and pushed the door open.
I followed her in.
“I have a book about…” Ashlyn headed toward a wall of books that would have made any librarian lose her virginity right there on the spot.
“Ummm, wow.” I took a slow turn around the room, noticing the large corkboard taking up a good five by five-foot space behind the desk. It was a crime board, mocked up similar to what I have seen a hundred times in police stations. I’d used a version of it myself on a couple of crimes where I’d needed a visual to see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
Ashlyn had moved to the wall, scanning book spines, while I stepped in front of her father’s murder board. At the center, there was a picture of a handsome man with an unmistakable resemblance to his son, Josh, and the smiling eyes of his daughter. In the picture, he was standing in the middle of a campsite, tents, and a campfire prepped in the background, with a proud arm wrapped around the shoulders of a younger, smiling Ashlyn. I took in the photo. I could see the mutual love and pride between father and daughter and my heart broke for the child who had lost her father and for the woman who had never stopped looking for his killer.
Ashlyn came to stand beside me, laying a book on the desk behind us. “That was taken at our favorite campsite, the one he later …” She cleared her throat. “Where the Reyna attacked him. That picture is from my birthday, a couple of years before.”
“I’m sorry,” I said lamely.
Ashlyn looked at the photo for a long second. “Me too.” She turned back to the book she’d placed on the desk.
I continued to study the board. Above the photo of her and her father was a map of the park. X’s in red marker indicated spots of interest, each neatly labeled with an incident name, time, and date. She had added the three incidents from the last few days. Tacked black yarn led to the side where copies of incident reports were pinned. I scanned the first. It was a copy of the sheriff’s incident report from Tuesday morning. I had already read it thanks to Danny, and as before I smiled at seeing my name in the suspect box. The next report was Ashlyn’s from the second crime of the day. Vera Littlefield was neatly typed in the victim line. A satisfied grin hit the edge of my mouth when I found the suspect lines on this report still blank. I flipped to the second page and read the narrative of the report. Ashlyn was thorough, but she had left out the supernatural facts.
She obviously hadn’t had time to add tonight’s events so I moved to the other pinned reports, the reports of her father and the reverend’s wife. Although I had already seen these reports as well, I lifted the pages on Mrs. Cline. It was an exact copy of the one Danny had found, except for an additional witness statement signed by an eighteen-year-old Loretta Cline.
“I found her,” Ashlyn said from behind me. “Look.”
I let the pages of Mrs. Cline’s murder fall back into place to focus on Ashlyn’s discovery.
“It’s her. Or at least I think it is,” Ashlyn offered.
I looked at the picture Ashlyn had a finger pressed to. It was an old school, black-and-white ink drawing of two figures with a cavern or dark cave as their backdrop. Cocoons were hanging from the ceiling. “Son of a bi-” I started but let the words die off as my eyes went to the two figures center stage.
A man was on his knees, an outstretched arm reaching for a nonexistent savior. His face was frozen in a scream. The woman stood in profile, long raven-black hair flowing at her back, black eyes fixed on her victim, hunger depicted on her face. Her hands were talons, and her fangs were revealed by a wicked grin.
“I never connected her until you said Spider Queen.” I mean, now that I look at this picture, I can see it. She’s more spider looking here but I didn’t see any of this.” She pointed at the cave and cocoons.
“We have.” I turned back to the map of the forest, taking a second to orient myself, then pointed. “Here. She has a den or whatever.” I studied the map, sizing up the location of her den and the sites of the previous crimes. “She doesn’t stray that far from home.” I fought the urge to leave right then to go ding donging her den of death and put an end to her twelve-year run. And I would have if I didn’t have a strong suspicion that there was more to this story. “Tell me about …” I tapped a finger on the red X indicating Mrs. Cline’s murder location. “What happened here?”
Ashlyn moved the book aside. “I’ll tell you what I know. As you can imagine, the good Reverend has his own God’s will version.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Official findings say it was a bear attack like my father’s.”
“And the Reverend’s story?”
“Reverend Cline, his wife, and Loretta were out there that night as well. I don’t know the reason; they’re not really the camping type. Wayne Jr. was at the ballgame. I actually saw him with his little band of followers before I left and headed out to the campsite. Anyway, the three of them were,” she paused to air quote, “out communing in God’s glorious creation when a heavenly light came down and took the dear Mrs. Cline from this world to do His will in the glory of heaven as she had done on earth.”
I snorted. “So he saw his wife murdered.”
“Yes. Well, he doesn’t say murdered, but he was there, yes.”
“And the sheriff? What does she say?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“She didn’t see it happen?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I think she did. I sought her out after I returned to school, found her in the hall, and asked her what she’d seen. Told her what I’d experienced; that it wasn’t a bear that killed my father.” Ashlyn threw up a hand. “She teared up, started shaking her head, and ran off. And that was the last day she was at school. The Reverend shipped her off somewhere. When she came back about five years later she was a totally different person. Closed. Angry. Married.”
I raised my eyebrow at the way she said “married.” “What, she wasn’t the marrying type?”
“Not until it was legal in 2015, she wasn’t. If you know what I mean.”
“Ahhh, so our friendly sheriff was into women before she was swept away to places unknown.” I thought about it. “Explains the permanent scowl.”
Ashlyn nodded in agreement. “I tried to talk to her when she got back into town, but she won’t even acknowledge that night. Acts like it never happened.”
I thought about the folder labeled “mom” on her desktop and knew that wasn’t exactly true. But telling Ashlyn anything different would also te
ll her that we’d broken into the sheriff’s department’s computer system, and I’d just about done enough confessing for one night.
I looked back at the board, scanning the other pieces of information connected to her father’s picture. There was a line down to an index card that simply read “Native American Man?” written in neat black lettering. I smiled. I would help her solve that little mystery soon enough. Beneath Grand’s index card there was another that read, “NA, black/graying hair late 50s/60s, strength, speed, fighting skills, white eyes.” The words white eyes were underlined twice and then on a line by itself were the words “Savior. Protector. Kind.”
My heart tripped over the last of my emotional barricades. I knew those simple words were the key to Ashlyn’s response, or lack thereof, to me and what I am; the reason for the curiosity versus panic when she’d seen my eyes. She didn’t see me or Grand as something to fear, rather as something that had tried to protect her and her father. Even though she didn’t know exactly what we were, as her third card had: Spirit/Ghost, Human, Hunter, Warrior, Supernatural and a big black question mark.
I checked the desk behind me, plucked the black magic marker from the penholder, unpinned the card that had her list of possibilities, flipped it over and wrote, “Hoyo Abi,” then pinned it back in place.
Ashlyn stared at the card and then at me. “Thank you,” she whispered. “So do you know who he-”
“I have a good idea,” I answered. “I’ll get a message to him.”
“That would be nice. I’d like to thank him. I never got to thank him.”
I gave her a nod. “Of course.” I took in the board again. “Why don’t you grab your book, and let’s head back to the living room, sit down, and see what all it has to say.”
“Sure.” She gathered the book, a new energy about her as she headed for the door.
I took another look around the room before shutting off the light behind us.
I grabbed us both another beer as she read the book’s passages about The Spider Queen. Most of it was generic lore, but I did pay particular attention when it came to “spews a venom-laced mucus that paralyzes her victims before devouring them or enveloping them in a tacky web for later consumption.” Lovely. Plan A: Don’t let her hawk a venomous loogie on you. I popped the tops of our beers and sat next to Ashlyn. “Any other super fun facts we should know?”
Ashlyn ran a finger across the lines of text and turned the page, stopping at the picture there. “Ummm, so here’s a minor fact. She’s married to Satan!”
I leaned back into the couch. “Yeah. I already got those headlines.” Her mouth went fish out of water on me—open, shut, open, shut. “Next fun fact is that they’re apparently on the outs because she went and got knocked up by a Nolia.”
Ashlyn grabbed her beer, dropped back into the cushions, and took a long swig. “The guy you saw in the woods,” she finally said, piecing the parts together.
“Looks that way.”
She rolled her head toward me. “How are you not terrified?”
“How are you not?” I countered.
She sighed. “Oh, I am. I think I’m still riding the high of knowing I’m not insane.” She took another swig. “No one believed me. My mother. My brother. The whole freaking town.”
“Most people don’t want to know. They are too scared to deal with a truth that is, well, generally super unpleasant.”
She considered me for a long moment. “Is that what happened in Seattle? Did someone find out the truth and not want to deal with it?”
I took a drink of beer. “Pretty much,” I said.
Ashlyn turned to face me, pulling her legs up in front of her. “Would you tell me about that? Her, I’m guessing?”
“Sure you don’t want to hear more about demons? That’s way more fun.”
“Later. Now I want to know about AJ. Where were you born? Do you have brothers? Sisters?” She smiled at me. “Tell me about you. Just AJ.”
I blinked at her. Just AJ. That was the moment I chose to kiss her. I leaned forward before I could talk myself out of it, reached out, my hand cupping the back of her head, and pulled her to meet me halfway. She didn’t resist. Actually, she mimicked my movements, her hand sliding between my neck and my hair as we met in the middle. My beer found the table blindly as I pulled her closer.
The kiss went from first date at your parent’s doorstep to the kind of kiss that led to bedrooms. It was the groan that escaped Ashlyn’s lips that shot it into “Naked. Now.” territory. Her lips were soft, her tongue adventurous. Two things I particularly like when it comes to mouths and tongues. There was no learning curve when it came to our first kiss. We melded seamlessly, an intimate exchange of desire and need.
I forced myself to pull away from her. If she’d been anyone else I wouldn’t have cared. I would simply have chased after the craving and satisfaction I sought. But Ashlyn was different. Though I knew the outcome would be the same, Danny and I would leave eventually, she meant more to me than a few days of satisfaction.
I leaned back, wrapping a loose strand of her hair around my finger. She looked at me, her chest visibly rising and falling with excited breaths. “So, that was … umm, rather pleasant.”
A chuckle escaped through my own ragged breaths. “Rather pleasant?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged a teasing shoulder. “I’ve had worse. I’ve had-”
“Don’t.” I raised a finger, pointing it at her. “Do not even dare finish that sentence.”
Ashlyn caught my finger, laughing at my playful threat.
I set her beer on the table next to mine, then pulled her into my arms and held her. I took comfort in not only her warmth but her acceptance of me. I was not foolish enough to believe we could be together long-term, though my heart was pounding out a tune to that very song.
Ashlyn snuggled into me. “Now tell me about Addison Jo Mattox.”
Once the dam broke, it released a flood of stories and things I didn’t even know I wanted or would talk about. I started with the “AJ” stories of family and childhood, but they quickly blended with Norm, Danny, and Grand. The end being the next Hunter’s Moon.
“You won’t miss Norm when the Hunter’s Moon comes?” Ashlyn asked.
I’d never explored my thoughts on that matter. Since Norm had come into my life, I simply spent the days doing what needed to be done, to keep people safe, to keep the legend alive until I could return him to his rightful heir. But for nearly two hours now, I had spoken of how I’d become what and who I am today yet I didn’t have five words to string together about a life without Norm, Danny, or Grand.
Ashlyn’s fingertips stopped softly tracing up and down my arm as she looked over her shoulder at me. “AJ?”
“I … I don’t know,” I said. Eleven years ago, I was doing some serious hell no-ing at the idea of being a demon hunter, but now it is so much of who I am, I didn’t know how it would feel for it not to be a part of me anymore. “Yeah, I don’t know.” I offered again.
“Well, maybe when the time comes, you’ll have a clearer answer.”
It was nearly three a.m. when her head dropped to my shoulder. Her questions had slowed, as had her breathing. We sat on the couch, my arms wrapped around her, protective and possessive. When I knew I’d lost her fully to sleep, I rose slightly, grabbing a blanket from the back of the couch and pulling it over her. Then I took advantage of a rare opportunity, my own comforting sleep while holding a beautiful woman.
Chapter 11
I blinked when the light came through the windows. Dawn had come way too quickly, but the hours of sleep I had received were peaceful and re-energizing. Ashlyn was still in my arms. I kissed her softly on her head, moving a rogue tendril of hair that blocked her face. I simply sat there for a long moment, taking in the long lashes and the pouting lips that sent a GOOODDDD MORRRRNING!!!!! message to the rest of my body. I enjoyed the moment a little longer before gently sliding out from under her, needing to stretch and think.
I took another look in Ashlyn’s office at her wall of information. I already knew a lot of the facts she had posted, but seeing them displayed in front of me in an orderly and conscious manner versus jumbled thoughts and feelings that ping-ponged around in my head allowed me to see the possibilities, the connections, and I had a theory; it just needed validation.
Ashlyn was still asleep on the couch when I returned to the living room so I exited silently though her backdoor, slipping out and down to the edge of the forest. I needed a run. I needed to find the Nolia. I headed toward the area where we’d found the Reyna’s Den of Creepy. If I was a jilted lover wanting to find my ex, her house would be the first place I’d stake out. I climbed the cliff as Danny and I had before, arriving at the ledge and the Reyna’s den. The scent of demon wasn’t as strong as it had been before. I assumed with the Nolia on her tail, the Reyna might have packed up and changed locations. But I had my knives out just in case I was wrong. Been there, underestimated that. I entered the web-draped cavern. The cocoons that had once hung there were now empty, cut open along their sides, the corrosive goo still dripping onto the ground accompanied by a sizzle and a stinging pop every time a drip fell.
I moved further into the dwelling, a different scent luring me in. A “This is a Bad Idea, AJ” headline went scrolling across my brain but my feet weren’t interested in the message. Norm crept to the forefront, my senses going into four-wheel drive. I smelled searing flesh, heard rasping breaths; someone was still alive in there. My footsteps quickened, my head darting forward and behind with every step. I paused when I heard a moan. A man I quickly decided, as I adjusted the grip on my knives and moved around the bend in the path. I stepped into the cavern where a rock wall jutted out to create a roof and backdrop to a gruesome scene. The Nolia was there with one wing pinned to the rock like a cruel butterfly display, the other at his side broken or severely injured.
His head was down, layers and layers of spider webs pinning him to the rock. Goo or venom as I now knew, thanks to Ashlyn’s Demon-o-pedia, was dripping from his chest. It had already eaten through his metal breastplate and was working on his flesh.
