Revenant (13 page)

Before the three men can make any further scene—if they plan to—the door opens again. I glance back over my shoulder and spot a uniform, a hat, a gun. The tall, slim man with a young face for a man who smells so old tips his hat to the diner owner, eyes never leaving the trio in camo.

“Evening, Dorothy,” he says in a cheerful voice. His eyes drift over me then back to the troublemakers. “Boys.”

They grunt at him, but seem to unwind. Trouble averted. That is, if Mr. Officer hasn’t run my plates. Damn, why didn’t I stop to have them switched out before now? One more detail slipped through. I’ve entirely lost my edge.

A bell dings and Dorothy turns away to the window behind her. Three Styrofoam trays in a plastic bag slide over the counter at me. She winks slowly. “You travel safe now, sweetie.”

I nod to her with a smile of my own. “Thanks.” The three burly boys don’t make it easy to turn and leave, but with the glowering eyes of Dorothy watching and the deputy tipping his hat to me, too, they don’t have much choice.

Neanderthals. Any other time, I’d have taken them out back and given them a lesson they would never forget. And would encourage them to treat women with respect from now on. But I have Sage to think about and this cop to avoid.

I breathe a sigh of relief into the night air as I exit, hurrying to the car. It’s not until I pull open the driver’s door, I realize something’s wrong.

At the exact moment the sound of growling reaches me.

And the door to the diner opens, three heavy sets of footfalls exiting.

The plastic bag hits the driver’s seat as I spin, eyes huge, from the empty cabin of the minivan, and spot Sage across the parking lot.

He’s standing in front of the jacked-up truck. At a dead white-tailed buck strapped to the hood.

***

I smell the tang of the dead deer’s blood too late, my senses as dulled as my skills. How did I miss the fresh kill? It’s a perfect lure for Sage in his state. This can’t be happening. Why did I leave him alone? I lurch forward, already running for him, but it’s too late. The big men have seen him, are reaching into the back of the truck, pulling out rifles.

I may have to teach them a lesson after all.

“You! Boy!” The one Dorothy called Jake points his shotgun at Sage, but my love ignores him. I can feel Sage’s wolf straining against his physical form, wanting to manifest, to rip apart the carcass and feed on it. But Sage is stronger. I siphon him power to keep him stable, but I’m still ten feet from him and he’s looking down the barrel of a gun.

A burst of magic-driven speed puts me at Sage’s side in time to knock the shotgun away. Whether this man is willing to kill or not, I can’t take that chance. Jake’s scowl makes him look like a devil disguised in human form. Hate and bitterness and a slew of other human emotions tied to darkness cross the man’s face, his friends just as bad.

I know their kind, have encountered them before. Even trained a militia group when it pleased Andre to support their anti-government paranoia. I’ve had to bring down men like him, hard. And I’m willing to do so again. I do my best to let him see it in my eyes. He doesn’t scare me.

Hopefully, that will scare him.

But I can’t stay here in a stand-off with three men with guns. There’s a deputy inside the diner who can cause me no end of problems if I catch his attention any further. Which means retreat.

“Back off.” I glare at Jake, tugging at Sage. “He was just looking.”

“He better just be,” Jake rumbles, gun coming around again.

Sage fights me, the wolf fights me, but another shot of magic makes him move. I’m now desperate to escape this, spotting the deputy approaching from the diner door.

He glances over Sage and me, coming to a halt as I continue to fight against the need in Sage’s wolf to feed on the carcass. “Put those damned guns down,” he says, though he’s still looking at me.

“Kid here was messing with our kill.” Jake does as he’s told, regardless his argument. Considering Sage hadn’t touched the deer—well, not yet—his complaint is invalid.

The officer nods to me. “He okay?” He seems nervous, hand on the butt of his gun, other reaching up for the two-way on his shoulder. Please, don’t call for backup.

“He’s fine.” I squash Sage’s low growl with more power. There’s no way the Enforcers will miss my magic use this time. Werewolves in the US or not, I’m sure there are none in Arizona. And letting out the amount of power I am is as obvious as waving a flag in the air, telling them to come and get me. We have to go. “Thanks, we’re leaving.”

The three men watch as I drag Sage away, the cop following slowly. I shove my love into the passenger’s seat, smothering him with power, turning to find the officer is looking at the plates on the back of the van.

Damn. Damn it all to the deepest hell imaginable. I slip past him, ignoring his eyes as his gaze rises to follow me. I wave a little before slamming the driver’s door and gunning the engine.

Sage is devouring the food, the scent no longer making me hungry, but sick to my stomach. I ignore him, let him gorge his wolf, while I glance back at the diner in my rear view mirror. The cop is talking into his two-way, probably running my plates. Stupid, suspicious, small-town deputy.

Time to dump the van.

I pull over after a mile at the top of a runaway lane built for big rigs, burying it into the woods and scrub as far as I can. Sage is just finishing the last of the meat, fries and buns and condiments scattered everywhere. He looks up at me with regret, coming back to himself, shaking and groaning softly.

“Charlie, I’m sorry.”

I leap out of the van and run around the side, jerking the door open and pulling him out with me. He’s still in bare feet, dressed in scrubs. No wonder the sight of him set off alarm bells with the deputy. Dumb, Charlotte. Just dumb. This is going to be difficult. And we have no time. The sound of a siren fires off in the distance. The cop is coming and we have to go.

The rumble of a big engine I’ve heard before is closer and I only recognize it as we plunge into the trees. Sage doesn’t complain about his feet, though, and I understand why when I look down. They’ve changed, transformed into paws, for the best in this situation, but just adding to our troubles. They can’t see him like this.

“Run!” I pull him along, feeling him shift beside me, changing further before returning to human. I drop my shields to support him. It doesn’t matter now. Keeping him stable while we run from our pursuers is the only thing I can think about. I’ll deal with the Enforcers if they show.

When they show.

The hunters are coming. I catch the scent of the three men on the wind blowing over my shoulder. The siren has fallen quiet, so the cop must be out there, too. But I’m not as worried about him as I am the three giant hunters. Maybe they wouldn’t shoot Sage or me in the parking lot of a diner. But these are their woods, their mountains, and if they spot us, if they spot Sage half-turned, I know it will be shoot first and hide the bodies before the deputy can report it.

I glance at my love, the fur bursting from the skin of his arms, the stretching of his muzzle. Like I said, I know their type. If they see Sage change from human to werewolf? He’ll have a bullet in his heart before I can do anything to stop it.

We can’t run forever. I make a decision, dragging Sage down beside me behind a rock and smother us with power. He fights me, trying to run, and I’m forced to knock him out with magic. As his eyes roll back in his head, I feel the approach of the hunters and know we’re out of options.

***

My magic slips outward like a net, covering us in mirage. It’s one of the first things a werewolf learns to do, to hide their true self from normals. I’ve taken it one step further, disguising us completely, or as best I can, from human eyes. Though, if they stumble on us physically, we’re out of luck.

All this power output will summon the Enforcers, without question. They’ll recognize werewolf magic—identify it as my magic with all of this to work with—and investigate. All bets are off on how long it will take them to realize it’s me. We can’t just sit here.

I shoulder Sage’s unconscious body, half-shifting into werewolf form to make the job easier. He groans but falls silent again as I stride through the scrub and up the side of a steep hill. I can’t risk taking a trail, I have to make my own. At least my wolf-paw prints won’t equate to the sandals I discarded. It should throw the hunter’s tracking off if they can’t find human feet to follow.

Unless they deduce the girl’s feet turned to wolf paws are mine. Then we’re in a whole other kind of trouble.

I stumble and almost drop Sage at the sound of voices behind me. They are closer than I expected, this is their territory. Alone, I could outrun them easily. But burdened by Sage, I’m a target. How did they track me? They have to have made the connection.

It’s either keep running or stand and fight. And I’m mighty tired of running. A narrow pass at the top of the hill, sided by scrub and a few trees, looks like a great place to make a stand. I slip through it, setting Sage down on the downward slope on the other side, before turning to scan the brush behind me. The three hunters are making their way toward me, guns up and ready. They don’t see me, yet, but they are following my wolf tracks.

“Can’t be,” one hisses. “She’s just a girl.”

“You saw them footprints shift,” Jake snarls back. “Now shut it before she figures out we’re here.”

“Too late,” I say. The three look up with shouts of fear, though I’m in human form. “If you leave now, I’ll let you live.”

Jake raises his shotgun, hands shaking, eyes huge, and I know what he’s going to say before he says it. “Werewolf.”

Damn it. I would have to encounter someone with experience. Still, I have to talk him down if I can. “That’s crazy.” Even I don’t sound convinced. I must work on my acting skills.

All three men quaver, their guns vibrating, aimed at my heart. “Killed one of you lot last year,” Jake says, voice steady if his body isn’t. “Filthy animals.” Fear and fury war in his words. “Bit my brother. Turned him into one of you.”

A revenant. Are they being tested here, too? I’ve heard nothing from the North American Council, but maybe they have no idea.

In a way, it’s fortunate these men found it and killed it. On the other hand, I can’t help but feel sympathy for the fallen and hatred for Jake and his friends.

“You don’t have to do this.” I’m surprised how calm my voice is, though this is what I’ve been raised to do, trained to be. I can take the three of them out easily, my mind tracking a path of attack on autopilot even as I try to talk Jake down. I don’t want to have to kill them, despite my disgust. But when I’m faced with guns, death is the most likely outcome.

For them, that is.

Jake’s hands shift on the shotgun, just a twitch, but enough for my hyper-alert senses to notice. “I’m going to hang your pretty head in my shed,” he says.

His finger tightens on the trigger while my muscles bunch and my wolf surges forward.

The air overhead bursts to life with flashes of blue fire as three Enforcers appear in the night sky. The hunters scream like little girls, staring up into the air for a tortured moment before turning and running back the way they came. I’m clearly the furthest thing from their minds, at this point. Two of the witches in black robes turn and chase the fleeing men, magic pulsing around them, knocking them to the ground. But the third Enforcer lands and walks wearily toward me, his face lined with worry.

“Charlotte.” Pender Tremere doesn’t threaten me, but I can tell from his posture, he’s prepared to take me down if I fight him. I’ve known Pender as long as I’ve known Syd. He’s always been forced to do the right thing, no matter if that “right” thing goes against true justice. I don’t envy him his position or the choices he’s been forced to make in the name of witch law. I fear, one day, when he’s finally replaced, he will perish within weeks of retiring, unable to bear his guilt any longer. For now, he is an old man in a younger man’s body, sad and quiet, but with the same determination I’ve always felt keeping him here, doing his duty.

“Pender.” The feeling is mutual, our duties parallel. I won’t let him take me in, take Sage to death. But I don’t want to hurt the Enforcer leader, either.

“We’re glad you’re all right,” he says. “We’ve all been so worried about you.” That’s Pender. Always kind, with a good heart. If only he would have the courage to step outside the parameters of what he’s been told to do. I know better than to argue with him, or try to convince him otherwise. He’s lost any spark he gained when helping Syd and Ethpeal to save Miriam from Batsheva and the Council so many years ago. He’s been a yes man for far too long to change now.

“Thanks.” I am grateful, knowing he cares, despite our opposition. I look over his shoulder at the two Enforcers who are bending over the fallen hunters. “Memory wipes?”

He nods, pushing his hood back. His brown hair is now mostly gray and thinning at the front, face lined and aged beyond his years. The weight of his role hasn’t been kind, nor the fact he seems to take everything so personally, as if each incident were his fault, and his alone.

“Will you come quietly?” His voice holds little hope, more pleading than anything. He holds out one hand, trembling slightly, hazel eyes brimming with moisture. He wants me to give in to him, to not make him fight me. But I simply can’t.

I shake my head, feel Sage stir behind me. He’s in control again, but his wolf is powerful, very powerful, and when he touches my hand, taking it and staring at Pender, I reach out and realize I can tap into Sage's energy.

“You know me better than that, Pender,” I say. “Would Syd stand down in the same circumstance?”

The Enforcer leader nods heavily, a tiny smile lifting his thin lips. “I hoped you wouldn’t fight me,” he says with a tiny, sad smile. “But I do know better. You’re more like her than anyone else I’ve met. Sometimes that’s a good thing, Charlotte. But not always.” He pauses. “She can’t save you, you know. Not from the law. He may not be a witch, but the council agrees with your people. That boy you’re traveling with puts us all in danger, and you know it. We have to bring him in.”