by Frank Hurt
“West. Left. No, sorry, right—your right. You’ll go exactly one mile west, then about three-quarters of a mile north. It’s supposed to be to the west of the road. Arnie’s notes say…trees.”
What Ember’s ears mistook for gravel was instead hail. Pea-sized ice joined the rain, sporadically pelting the body of the vehicle. She shouted at the windshield. “Trees? What about trees?”
She glanced at her odometer, then saw the intersecting gravel road. Ember slammed her foot on the brake pedal, fishtailing as she made the turn. The roadbed was covered in grease, or so it felt. Her progress slowed further. The all-wheel-drive vehicle slid from one shoulder to the other as mud flung from its tires.
“Stephanie? Hello?” Ember redialed the number, but her phone found no signal. She wasn’t sure she would be able to hear the woman, anyway, as the hail storm battered the SUV. Marble-sized ice cracked against the driver’s side window, testing the strength of the glass.
She chewed on her bottom lip and concentrated. Her hands whipped the steering wheel abruptly left, then right, somehow managing to keep the Toyota out of the ditch. “This was such a bloody bad idea.” She couldn’t even hear her own voice beneath the deafening percussive barrage of hail.
The fewer than two miles of greasy gravel took almost as long to drive as the preceding 27 paved miles. Before the hail relented, the Highlander was riddled with tiny pockmark dents over the hood, roof, and driver’s side of its body. A new crack appeared in the otherwise pristine windshield. Sticky mud had built up beneath the fenders, giving noisy resistance whenever the front tires turned.
The storm continued to rage, though the rain had let up enough for Ember to see an old homestead ahead and to the left. The weathered rooftops of a couple of run-down buildings were visible through the grey, leafless skeletons of dead trees. The trail leading into the site was undisturbed mud and dirty, standing water. She straddled the tracks, keeping her tires on the uncut crested wheatgrass for traction.
They’re probably not even here. Even if this is the right place, they’ll be long gone before this bloody storm moved in. I’m going to end up getting myself stuck out here and—
Her internal monologue was cut short when she crested a low hill. Two pickups were parked in the overgrown yard ahead. One was a dirty beige Chevy with a square hole broken out of the rectangular grille. The other was a white diesel Ford with a utility bed and the Schmitt Brothers Welding Service logo on its door panel.
They’re here! But they’re just working. Everything will be fine. Rik will be surprised to see me, I’ll ride out the rest of the storm with him and Arnie, and we’ll leave together. I’ll need to apologize to Debra for the way I left her, but she’ll understand.
Even as she painted the scenario an optimistic color, the moment she thought of Debra the woman’s voice joined her inner dialogue. There’s no harm in being cautious.
She turned her vehicle’s headlights off and idled to a stop. She parked about a hundred yards away from the other two vehicles and the dilapidated garage. Ember recalled how the Highlander’s door chimes cheerfully betrayed her stealth when she had parked at the old Air Force Station almost three weeks ago. She had no interest in repeating that mistake.
She waited for another flash of lightning and its inevitable thunderclap. When it arrived, she quickly exited the SUV and shut the door, letting the storm’s fury mask her arrival.
Cold rain met her, carried almost horizontally by the wind. She held an arm up against her face to block the onslaught as she quickly walked through the prairie grass toward the garage. She was just outside the building when she heard it.
At first, she thought the wind was tricking her. When she heard the scream a second time, there was no mistaking it.
Ember dropped to a squat and looked around. She saw nobody, heard nothing for several minutes. She was just about to stand up when she heard another scream. It’s coming from the garage.
She shivered, though whether from frigid rain or from surging adrenaline, she didn’t know. She silently cursed herself when she realized she had left her phone in the vehicle. Ember looked over at Alarik’s welding truck. The conversation she had had with Anna flashed in her mind. Rik keeps a gun beneath the seat.
Ember crouch-walked over, using the Ford as cover in case someone was watching from the garage. Another thunderclap rattled her teeth. Her instinct was to drop to the ground, to find cover. Instead, she opened the driver’s side door of the welding truck.
She pulled out a first aid kit, a compact fire extinguisher, and a roll of toilet paper before she found the holstered handgun. Ember carefully drew the semiautomatic from its holster. She leaned into the cab of the truck to keep the firearm from getting wet as she first checked the magazine to ensure it was loaded, then reinserted it and pulled the slide back. A cartridge entered the chamber. She flicked the safety off with her thumb and hugged the gun like Josette had taught her.
Ember’s body shivered, but her attention was hyper-focused. She kept the gun pointed to the ground as she walked cautiously to the old garage. She squatted near the decaying, clapboard wall. It was blistered with ancient whitewash, though the neglected structure was mostly bare of any coating. A gap had rotted through between two horizontal boards, allowing her to peer through.
Inside, a dim incandescent light illuminated a man whose face she couldn’t see. He held a short, yellow rod with two tines on one end. The man was speaking to someone, but the wind prevented her from hearing his words. He slowly swung the rod over to a pile of chain.
A high-pitched scream cried out from the chain.
An ‘electric stick,’ Tara Bennett had said. He tortured her with an electric stick. Bloody hell, this is the Changeling Hunter. And he’s torturing Rik and Arnie in there!
Her breathing became shallow, rapid as she continued watching through the splintered hole in the wall. Her heart hammered against its ribcage, and adrenaline-fueled anger made her fingers curl into fists.
A gunshot erupted next to her.
Ember dropped onto her butt and slammed her back against the garage wall. Her eyes wildly sought the attacker. Only then did she realize it was her; in her fury, she had involuntarily pulled the trigger, discharging a round into the grass nearby. Fuck!
She had just enough time to find her footing when a man holding a black AR-15 rifle emerged from the narrow door at the other end of the garage, not more than 25 feet from where she stood. He was a thin, anxious man with receding hair and a mustache. He wore thick glasses that made his eyes look larger than they really were.
Those eyes registered surprise when they found a drenched blonde woman pointing a .45 caliber handgun at him.
“Hold it right there,” Ember shouted into the wind.
The man froze, his eyes wide. Eyebrows lowered as his initial surprise turned into a glare. The muscles in his jaw tensed, telegraphing his intentions.
“I mean it. Drop the—”
The Changeling Hunter swung the muzzle of his rifle in her direction.
33
That Looks Bad
Ember squeezed the trigger. Her shot went wide.
It was one thing to shoot at a paper target or at an unarmed person. To have someone return fire, that was a true combat stress test. She wasn’t ready for that reality.
Evidently, he wasn’t either. The Changeling Hunter panicked, shooting his rifle blindly as he ran to the beige Chevy pickup. Rounds flew high, snapping the air above Ember’s head.
She returned fire, holding her posture as steady as she could. Ember’s mind ignored the fact that she was being shot at, focusing on her task: stopping the serial killer.
Despite her careful aim, the moving target and high winds conspired to prevent the untrained shooter from hitting her target. It was only when the pickup started and began tearing through the muddy sod that Ember realized her magazine was empty. She hadn’t hit him.
But he hadn’t hit her, either.
“Bloody hell! I had you
!” She shouted into the wind as the mud-coated Chevy ripped parallel trenches through the prairie. The pickup found the gravel road, slipping and sliding as it exited and disappeared over a hill. The Changeling Hunter had escaped.
Her mind’s eye filed the man’s face into her memory. She hadn’t looked at him long, but there was something familiar about him, about his aura in particular. Ember would ruminate on that nagging thought later. A more pressing task demanded her immediate attention.
Please be alive. Oh god, please be alive. She tucked the spent pistol in her waistband and hurried into the old garage. The sharp odor of metallic blood and other body fluids hit her nostrils even before she entered the building. Incandescent light bulbs cast dim shadows across a macabre scene reminiscent of a slaughterhouse.
Arnie was slumped over, lying beneath a pile of heavy chains and his own blood. The wound wasn’t visible, but his midsection was wet, his clothes soaked black in the faint light.
Arnie wasn’t moving.
Her attention was drawn away to a groan from the other side of the garage. A coyote was bound within wraps of chain around a post reaching from the floor to the rafters of the dilapidated garage. She ran to the animal, dropping to her knees before it. Her voice was thin and high with anxious tension. “Rik?”
The coyote raised his head, his weary eyelids opening to focus on her voice. Even in the dim light, she recognized Alarik’s umber eyes within the animal’s face.
She held his bloodied muzzle in her palm. “Rik. Oh, god, Rik, what did he do to you?”
The coyote’s aura was weak. He let out a huff, the hot air blowing across her wrist. A faint mist of his blood appeared on her skin. The coyote trembled, emitting a pained grunt as he summoned what little energy remained to shift. His bones cracked and transformed, fur receding as tattered coveralls took their place. The stubbled skin of his neck revealed pairs of burn marks, and his nose was broken.
“Is he…is he alive?” His voice was nasal, hoarse from hours of torture-induced screaming.
“I don’t…I don’t know.” Ember ran her fingers along the links of the chain. The cold steel was sticky with coagulating blood. “I need to get you both out of here. He might come back.”
“Lock,” Alarik coughed. He squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw clenching. “Padlock. Get the grinder. From my truck.”
She pulled shaggy hair back from his forehead, inspecting him. “Right. The grinder.”
“It’s in a passenger side compartment. Yellow and black. Battery powered. Grab a face shield too.”
Ember bit her lip and nodded. She took another glance at Arnold’s unmoving body before leaving the garage. Her eyes burned as the wind snapped at her face. She dug through the utility bed’s side doors and found the tool Alarik had described. She oriented a rechargeable battery into the grip and snapped it home. Everything she touched bore her fingerprints, painted in Alarik’s blood.
The face shield was cumbersome, but Alarik insisted she wear it. He talked her through the task of using the angle grinder to cut through the padlock. The hardened steel produced a firestorm of sparks when the cutting wheel touched it. Ember hoped the fireworks wouldn’t find something flammable in the confined space of the wooden building.
When the trapped links were released from the severed padlock, Ember unwrapped the length of chain, running laps around the support column until Alarik was free. She noticed a pair of handcuffs laying on the wet cement.
He winced when he wrapped his hand around his right forearm. Alarik rolled onto his left hip and pulled his feet beneath him.
Ember dropped the chain in a rattling heap atop the broken concrete floor. This is what freedom sounds like.
She tucked both hands beneath his arm and helped him stand. Her gaze was fixed on his forearm, and the blood which trickled between his fingers. His right hand remained balled up into a tight fist.
“I’ll go get the first aid kit from your truck,” Ember offered. “We need to stop that bleeding.”
“Okay. Go.”
She knew exactly where the kit was, and she ran as fast as she could. Even so, Alarik had already cut through the lock on his brother’s chains before she returned. She noticed he was holding the grinder one-handed. He never unfurled the fingers of his right hand.
Ember handled the chain, as Alarik talked to his unresponsive brother. “You’re gonna be okay, little brother. We’re free. We’re getting you help. Hang in there.”
She opened the lid of the first aid kit so aggressively the plastic latches snapped off. Alarik insisted on bandaging his brother up, first. On the uneven, broken concrete floor, Ember pulled up Arnold’s shirt to find his abdomen smeared with blood. She ripped open a packet of gauze, using it to wipe his skin until she found the bullet wound.
“Fuck, that looks bad!” Alarik swore.
Ember chewed her bottom lip until it hurt, then chewed some more. If she allowed herself to say anything, she might be tempted to break down. Need to stay strong, need to stay strong.
She pressed the gauze against the open wound, ignoring the trembling in her own hands. “We need to focus on stopping the bleeding. Hold this. Push down.”
Alarik did as she instructed. When she pressed a second packet of gauze against the wound, Arnold groaned.
“Arnie! Arnie, can you hear me?” Alarik pleaded with his brother. “You’re gonna be alright! It’s gonna be alright.”
She wrapped a length of athletic tape over the gauze and around the man’s torso. It seemed to be a pitiful compression dressing. Ember wasn’t even sure if the bleeding had stopped since the gauze became instantly soaked.
Alarik refused treatment. “No time. We need to get him to the hospital.”
“And we will. With all the blood you’ve lost, what happens when you pass out? How do you expect me to load either of you up?”
“When’s the ambulance getting here?”
“What ambulance? It’s just me, Rik.” Ember tore another pack of gauze open and held it against his shredded forearm. “I didn’t have time to call anyone yet.”
He leaned against a wooden support beam as she wrapped up the wound.
At least in this case, the bleeding seemed to slow. Ember cut the dwindling roll of athletic tape and gestured with her chin. “Let me see your hand.”
“It’s fine,” he growled. “Let’s go.”
“Bollocks. Your hand is cut. You’ve kept it in a fist this whole time.”
“I’ll wrap it up on the road.” The man glared at her. His bruised and bloodied face, broken nose, and singed flesh made for a menacing sight. “We’re wasting time.”
Ember nodded once and swallowed. “I’ll pull my car around.”
The storm front had blown over, but winds continued to howl. The final vestiges of sunlight painted the abandoned farmstead a deep orange. The deluge of rain had left the grounds saturated in vibrant shades of avocado and moss.
The rented Highlander’s rear seat folded down, providing a larger cargo area. “Better to keep him lying, I think,” she explained as she helped Alarik load Arnold through the rear hatchback door. “Better to keep the heart lower than his wound.”
Alarik’s face was pallid. He said nothing but climbed in to sit next to his brother. Ember placed the first aid kit on his lap before shutting the hatchback.
She dug the Motorola flip-phone out. As her hand slid past a side pocket of the purse, she felt a surge of energy. The Leystone.
Ember palmed the zaffre pin, handing it back to Alarik as she began driving. “Here. Hold this against Arnie’s skin.”
“What is it?”
“A Leystone. A powerful Leystone.” Ember dropped the gemstone pin into his left hand. “Don’t ask how I got it.”
“I won’t,” he murmured.
She watched in the rearview mirror as he pinned the stone to the inside of Arnie’s blood-soaked shirt. Ember flipped open the phone and dialed one of the preset numbers.
A cheerful voice answered on the second
ring. “Parker Suites Lobby, this is Amee speaking. How may I help you?”
“Amee,” Ember breathed into the phone. “This is Ember Wright. I need you to get ahold of Dr. Elizabeth McMahon and any other Healers on staff at Wellness. I’m bringing in two changelings with gunshot wounds, one of them to the gut. Have the Healers get the Medical Center prepped right away.”
“Gunshot wounds? Shouldn’t you take them to the regular ER?”
“They don’t have enough time for ordinary surgery,” Ember hissed. She hoped Alarik couldn’t hear her dismal assessment. “They need proper Healers and Leystones. Get McMahon and anyone else. Hell, get everyone else. I’m on my way, about a half hour out of Minot. I’ll call their next-of-kin as soon as I hang up with you.”
“Okay, Ember. I’ll try—”
“Dammit, Amee, no trying! Make it happen. Call the bloody Viceroy at home if you have to. If we don’t get all hands on deck for this, the Changeling Hunter will get to claim two more victims tonight.”
34
What I Should’ve Done Weeks Ago
The body on the table barely resembled Arnold Schmitt.
His clothes had been cut away, his pallid, naked body concealed with pale blue sheets. His trim midsection was exposed, the skin surrounding the gunshot wound painted brown from the disinfecting Betadine. Three Healers worked on him: one administered general anesthesia and monitored his vitals, another focused her attention on his wound, and the third served as an assistant between the two.
“No civilians in the operating theater.” A surgical mask muffled Dr. McMahon’s voice. The brunette’s hair was pulled back tight against her scalp and covered with a navy-blue kerchief. Her nitrile-gloved hands held a triangle-shaped object, into which mana was being drawn from the Leystone ring on her finger. The object seemed to be a sort of magnet, drawing the lead bullet fragments from the patient’s abdomen without needing to open him up further.
Ember squatted by the pile of blood-soaked clothes. She found Arnold’s tattered shirt and unclasped the zaffre pin. “I’m not a civilian. I’m an Investigator.”
