by D V Wolfe
I shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. It just said things that made it pretty clear it wanted me dead.”
“Shit,” Nya said and her brown eyes met mine. “Bane, we have to end this. You don’t have time to dick around with this bastard. From everything I’ve heard, he’s pretty hellbent on making sure you don’t hit your number and that you return downstairs early and painfully.”
“Sounds like a nice guy,” I said.
Nya tossed the newspaper she was holding to me. “Third page, the second article from the bottom.”
I flipped the paper open and searched for the article. I felt a tickling sensation on my neck and I turned my head slightly to see Noah leaning in to read too, his staticky hair crowding me as he searched the page. I did my best to ignore the tickling sensation and read the article.
“Paige Deveroux, age eighteen, was reported missing on Monday morning. The last time she was seen was on Friday morning by her parents Margaret and Tony when she left for school. After school, she was supposed to go with friends to a party but never showed up. If you have any information, call the Station Police Department.” The short article was accompanied by a picture of a pretty blonde teen wearing a cheerleader uniform and waving a pom-pom at the camera. I looked up at Nya. “So this is how we know that the incubus is here?”
Nya nodded. “Apparently he has a type. My source has been tracking this asshole for a long time. She’s just always been a town behind him.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And is your source joining us since this has been such a pain in her ass for so long?”
Nya shook her head. “No, she’s in Michigan this week hunting a coven of vamps. She was all too happy to offload this case from her plate, especially when I told her that we pretty much had to kill this guy.”
“Did you tell her why?” I asked.
Nya shook her head. “Nope, and she didn’t ask. You know hunters and not really wanting to know too much information. Some, yes. If it’s helpful to what they’re doing? Absolutely. But dragging them into other hunter’s shit storms? Not so much.”
I grinned at her. “Well except you. You’ve voluntarily driven into this shit-clone. You didn’t have to do all this, Nya.”
Nya met my gaze and her eyes were soft but her jaw was set. “Yes, I did. You’re not dying by this asshole’s hands if I can help it.”
I got to my feet and hugged her. Nya laughed and pushed away from me. “Alright, enough with the Hallmark made-for-TV moment. We need a plan.” She cut her eyes to me. “A good plan.”
I threw my hands up. “So I come up with shit plans. I’m all ears, every time, just in case someone else has something better to offer.”
“Well I do,” Nya said and she went back to digging through her bags.
“Can we...help...or something?” I asked, looking around at the rest of the bags.
“No,” Nya said. “Don’t touch anything. It’s in here somewhere.”
Noah and I looked at each other, but we didn’t say anything while we waited for Nya to find what she was looking for.
“Ah-ha!” Nya said. She pulled out what looked like a light blue glass pyramid with some kind of red stone suspended in the glass.
“Uh, a truckstop tchotchke?” I asked.
Nya gave me a withering glare and held the pyramid out to me. “My source gave me this to help us track him. The glass is normally clear as is the stone. See how it’s blue now? That means we’re close to the bastard. When the red stone starts bleeding, he’s in the room with us.”
“Bleeding?” I asked.
Nya heaved a weary sigh. “Yeah, the thing turned blue in Denver, but then the stone turned red when I reached Station. Now we just have to figure out where he would be in town and then wait for the stone to bleed.”
“Wow,” Noah said. Nya and I turned to look at him. He was shaking his head. “I was just thinking about what pre-Bane me would have thought if I’d heard that explanation.”
I slapped him on the back. “Aren’t you glad you live in a post-Bane world now?” I looked back at Nya. “Ok, so I’m guessing the plan is to take that paperweight…”
“Confining crystal,” Nya corrected.
“Right,” I started again. “We take this thing with us and stare at it like some new-age cult while we’re at burger joints, and parks, movie theatres, and maybe when we do some breaking and entering, all the while, waiting for the thing to bleed?”
Nya shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”
I shook my head. “How is this thing attuned to the incubus? I mean, how do we know it’s tracking this incubus that has this sword?”
Nya put the confining crystal on the nightstand and started going through her bags again. “Bane, where do you think the blood came from? The stone was made with the blood of his first victim.”
18
“That’s kind of nasty,” Noah said.
I turned to look at him. “Really? That bothers you? What about all the other shit we’ve been through the last couple of weeks?”
Noah shrugged. “I don’t know. We have some dead person’s blood that we’re using to find her killer. Isn’t that kind of…”
“What most normal cops do?” Nya asked.
Noah shrugged. “I guess. I stand corrected. Still though…”
“Well,” Nya said. “It is a blood spell that she had to use on the stone, but it was for a good cause.”
I stood up. “Ok, let’s get to finding this asshole, so we can then find a different asshole.”
“I always love your plans,” Nya said, rolling her eyes. “They’re always so succinct. Luckily for us, Station isn’t that big. I’ve asked around and there’s a bar downtown that all the young kids go to, apparently.”
“So, his hunting ground,” I said.
“Possibly,” Nya said, nodding. She looked around at all the bags strewn on the bed, floor, and small table. “Fuck, I have no idea what happened to my truck keys.”
“Just jump in with us,” I said. “Do you have your room key?”
Nya grinned and pulled the plastic card out of her back pocket. “It fits in my pocket, so I won’t ever be able to lose it.”
Nya’s keys were almost a joke amongst hunters. She had bottle openers, pepper spray, a glass and seatbelt cutter, flashlight, chapstick, and about a hundred keys. I felt bad for the starter on her truck having to deal with all that weight. And despite their weight and size, Nya always lost them.
We traipsed out and I stopped her before she shut the door behind us. “Wait, in case fate decides not to spit in our faces tonight and we actually do end up catching this asshole, what are our plans for sword retrieval and super disposal?”
Nya shrugged. “We’ll play it by ear?”
I groaned. “And everyone gives me shit about my plans.”
Nya laughed. “No, we’ll keep him under wraps until sun up and then drag his ass out into the sunlight. That should fry him crispy.”
“Wait,” Noah said. “So Vampires don’t burst into flames in sunlight but incubuses do?”
“Incubi,” Nya said. “Yes, why?”
Noah shook his head. “No reason.”
“Ideas on restraints?” I asked Nya.
“I’ve used iron and salt before to pen one in until the sun came up,” she said. “I don’t have anything that will work on me though.”
I thought of the boat chains we’d used in St. Louis on the Johnson Meredith building and gave myself a mental slap for not throwing them in the truck when we were done. “Damn. I would have something if I’d remembered to throw it in the truck.” I said.
Nya shrugged. “It’s not eight yet, the hardware store is probably still open.”
We climbed in Lucy, Noah sandwiched between Nya and I again, and we headed for the main street. Station was like so many other tiny towns we’d been in recently. It seemed like every business in town was on this four-block strip, going down both sides of the road. We found the hardware store at one end of the line of businesses. We b
ought five feet of small link iron chain and a bag of road salt.
“Heh, you folks stocking up for winter already?” The man in plaid behind the counter asked when I hefted the salt bag over my shoulder.
“Early bird and all that,” Nya said, looking through padlocks. She finally picked one and threw it down next to the chain. I fidgeted, trying to get to my wallet and Nya held up a hand. “I’ve got this.”
I grumbled. “Fine but then I get dinner and drinks.”
“Deal,” Nya said. “But I think I got the better end of this. I feel like drinking tonight.”
“You all heading over to Mountain Mike’s?” Plaid guy asked. I could tell from the way he was looking at Nya that he was interested in her plans.
“Yeah,” Nya said, picking up on his interest and deciding to use it. She set the bills to pay down on the counter and then leaned forward, batting her eyes at him. “We’re new in town and we heard it was the place to go to meet single men.”
I had to duck my head so the guy wouldn’t see my smirk. Nya knew how to play innocents to get what she needed.
“Well, yeah,” Plaid guy said, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, that’s really the only place to play a game of pool or get a decent drink in town. I mean, I don’t want to brag, but I used to have my pick of single gals at closing time.”
“Used to?” Nya asked, eyes big, boobs pressed together, and a vacant, but concerned expression on her face.
“Yeah,” Plaid guy looked annoyed. “Then this pretty boy moved into town. Stupid name, stupid hair and suddenly he’s the hot ticket in town. Doesn’t matter. He’ll breeze out of here and who will still be at Mike’s, waiting patiently?” He thumbed his chest which saved Nya, Noah, and I the embarrassment of having to answer his rhetorical question. “Me, good ole Merv.”
I choked, trying not to laugh.
“Well,” Nya said, handing the padlock to Noah and picking up the chain. “Maybe we’ll see you there tonight?”
Merv Plaid straightened up and gave Nya a very labored wink. “Maybe.”
We headed outside.
“Can’t wait, Merv,” Nya muttered, climbing into the truck cab after Noah.
“Good ole Merv,” I said, turning the engine over.
“I don’t know,” Noah said. “I feel for the guy. I mean, he was used to being the...did he actually say ‘hot ticket in town’?”
“Yup,” Nya and I said together.
“Nevermind,” Noah said. “Merv deserves whatever he gets.”
We drove two blocks and I turned Lucy down the side street next to Mountain Mike’s. The pub was single-story but massive. A dry cleaner and a used book store were two narrow slots at the end of the block, the rest was Mountain Mike’s. Painted above the door was a caricature of a burly man holding the handle of a cartoon axe, the blade dug into a stump that he was resting a foot on. The positioning of the axe handle or the caricature’s hand hadn’t been well thought out in the art stage and unfortunately, the color of the axe handle’s wood matched the color of the burly man’s skin.
“That’s unfortunate,” I said, craning my head to study the sign.
Nya snorted beside me. “Mike certainly thinks highly of himself.”
“Is that his…” Noah asked. I cut my eyes to him. He was squinting at the sign. “Oh, it’s the axe handle. But man, it looks like…”
“We know,” Nya and I said.
Noah dropped his gaze to us and shook his head. “I’m kind of creeped out by the two of you together. It’s like you can read each other’s minds.”
I moved closer to Nya and we grabbed hands and stared at Noah. “And ever, and ever, and ever,” we said. Nya had shown me that movie where the guy kills his family including his twin girls.
“Ok, that needs to never happen again,” Noah said, pushing past us.
We turned and followed him inside. The talking at the tables near the door dropped when we strolled through it, and for a minute, I wondered if a western movie style gunfight was about to break out. We were in Wyoming after all. A second later, the conversations picked back up. A sign near the door, written in black marker on a piece of white paper said, ‘SEAT YOURSELVES, OR DON’T. I DON’T CARE.’
“Charming,” Nya said, nodding at the sign. She glanced around the dimly lit room and headed off towards a table in the center. It would give us a three hundred and sixty-degree view of the room, but one of us would have to sit with our back to the door.
I pulled out the chair facing away from the door and said. “Noah, you sit here.”
Noah didn’t complain and threw himself into the chair before grabbing a menu. Sometimes I had to remind myself that Noah was still green at hunting and sometimes, it was just obvious.
Nya and I took the chairs across from him with cross views. She had a clear view of the bar and the front door while I had a view of the front door but a better view of the dining area to our right.
“Based on the sign,” I said. “I’m pretty sure there’s no table service and we probably need to just order at the bar.”
“I’ll do it,” Noah said. Nya and I gave him our orders and I pulled cash out of the hell wallet, doing my best to ignore the excavating feeling in my gut. Once Noah left the table, Nya turned to look at me.
“What?” I asked.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Nya said, meeting my gaze.
“What?” I asked again.
“I know where your money comes from and what kind of payment Hell probably takes for their tabs.” Nya shook her head. “Just let me pay, please?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it, ok?” Nya came from a wealthy family. A super had killed her parents and her sister one night while she was at college. The whole family estate had passed to Nya, but apparently, her dad had been a closet gambler and most of it was spent on satisfying his debts. She always told me she had enough to do something, but not enough to do nothing. She was generous with her time, her money, and her skills. Why she chose to hang with me was the real mystery.
“You’re doing it again,” Nya said, crossing her arms and smirking at me. “You’re thinking. I can smell the toast burning.”
“Doesn’t that mean you’re having a stroke?” I asked.
“Just stop thinking about anything, but the case, for one night,” Nya said. “Easy peasy. We’re going to grab this douche before he can hurt any more girls, tie him up like a tantric sex slave and then drag his raping ass out into the sunlight for an early-morning bonfire.”
“Your words are such poetry,” I said to Nya.
“I know,” Nya said. “I should have been an English major instead of Napoleonic History and Theatre.” She dug the confining crystal out of her bag and set it down on the table.
“Does it look too obvious?” I asked. “I mean if he walks by us, is he going to know what that is?”
Nya shrugged. “No idea. I’d never even heard of one of these until my source gave it to me. Maybe she invented it.”
“Hey cool,” a bro said, wandering by our table, a beer in his hand. “Is that like a lava lamp?”
“Lava lamp attachment,” I said. “My fifty cats broke my last one.”
He moved on.
“So we’re at least the cool table with the conversation-starter centerpiece,” I said. Nya and I stared at the crystal. No blood. “Well, at least it isn’t lava-lamp-bro.” Nya leaned back in her seat and smiled at me. “What?” I asked again.
She shook her head. “You ever wonder what it would have been like to know each other growing up, and maybe go to college together?”
I snorted. “You mean get expelled from college together? With the shit we pull?”
Nya shrugged. “I guess.”
“Would you have stuck it out?” I asked. “Finished, I mean, if nothing had happened to your family?”
Nya shrugged. “Maybe. I wasn’t great in school.”
Noah came back with two beer bottles and a pint glass with ice and
soda. He was wearing a pissed off expression.
“What’s got your nethers in a vice?” I asked, taking a beer from him.
“The bartender,” Noah muttered.
Nya took the other beer and leaned back again. “Let me guess, he didn’t believe you were twenty-one and so he wouldn’t give you a beer.”
Noah shot the bartender a look over his shoulder and I looked past Noah to see the man standing still, his arms crossed, watching the three of us. I raised my beer to him and he nodded and then walked away down the bar.
“He said he was going to watch to make sure I didn’t drink one of your beers,” Noah snapped.
“So what did you end up with?” I asked.
“A coke,” Noah muttered.
“Ice-cold sunshine,” I said.
“A family treat,” Nya added.
We leaned forward with our beers to toast Noah and after a minute, he gave us a reluctant grin and clinked his pint glass against our bottlenecks. Then, we settled in to wait. From the looks of the two platters of fried food that the very bored bartender dumped on our table, Noah had ordered the entire appetizer menu.
Nya and I tried a couple of things, but for the most part, we just sat back and watched Noah chow down in wonder, bordering on disbelief.
“Where does it all go?” Nya asked.
“I know,” I said, turning to her. “it’s like he’s a human black hole.”
Another bro walked by and we all paused in eating and conversation to stare at the crystal. Nada. Noah went back to eating and something that had been nagging at me resurfaced.
“Hey, Nya,” I said, turning to look at her. “How did you come up with Denver, K.C., and this place?”
Nya was taking a pull on her beer and held up a finger, telling me to wait. I’d gone through two beers and I was nursing my third, knowing that we still had work to do tonight.
Nya set her beer down and sighed. “Long story, but the short of it is that I was looking for the sword first.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I still don’t get how you can track an inanimate object. Even with the symbiotic...whatever. I mean, unless it had one of those GPS things. Don’t tell me this ancient sword has been ‘lo-jacked’.”
