Once Broken (Dove Creek Chronicles) (4 page)

Hugo gave me a lengthy, humorless look without saying anything. To Solomon, he said, “Thank you for getting her out of there. I trust there will not be any charges?”

Solomon shook his head. “No, the night deputy is friendly with the farmer. Said he’d talk to him.” He glanced back at me and added exactly what I’d been expecting to hear: “Burned your get out of jail free card.”

He crossed the room and took the empty recliner opposite Casey’s.

I felt like a chastened child, which served only to get my damned pride up even more. Moving a chair from the dining area, I pulled it up next to Aric and sat. My ego may have been stung by Hugo and Solomon’s exchange, but I wasn’t infantile enough to sit and pout. I braced myself and apologized because, more than my allies, these people are my friends.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” I said mostly to Jocelyn and Casey, since they were the ones who looked like they’d taken one for the team. “There was a vampire. I had no choice.”

Jocelyn nodded in acknowledgement. Casey said, “Don’t worry about it, darlin’.”

I felt relieved at having gotten past that. It was a feeling that didn’t last nearly long enough.

“You could’ve
chosen
to call it in,” Gabriel pointed out.

I looked at him and narrowed my eyes. “And risk the lives of an unsuspecting family? I don’t think so.”

He was about to argue, but Hugo called us back to order. “Regardless of the circumstances, we were all blindsided tonight. The vampires may have wanted Remi to be distracted. At this time, we cannot know for certain.”

I regarded Hugo with a question in my eyes. Apparently, there were a few holes that I needed to have filled. He obliged.

“Jocelyn and Casey were ambushed. By humans.”

“I’m sorry . . .
What
?” I asked, glancing back at the pair of them. My mind raced through possible explanations. “Are they working with the vampires?”

“We do not know. They and Gabriel were fortunate just to escape with their lives, let alone any intelligence,” Hugo answered.

Jocelyn jumped in. “There wasn’t a vampire in sight. But these weren’t regular people. They had . . . Abilities.”

“Like something straight out of a comic book,” Casey added. “They had us beat until Gabe came and helped even the odds, then they disappeared when we started gettin’ the least bit of an advantage. Vanished into thin air.”

I looked back at Hugo, but he had no more answers. “They were long gone before Aric and I arrived,” he said.

“There’s one more thing,” Jocelyn piped up. “They all seemed to answer to a woman they called Cerise. She could breathe fire, like a . . . Well, like a dragon.”

A sickly feeling crawled into the pit of my stomach. This was like nothing else we had ever seen, and the thought of going up against living, flesh and blood humans rattled me. Not to mention that we’re just a bunch of regular people. No special powers.

I sat up straight and looked around at the others. “So what are we gonna do?”

chapter two

Dove Creek has long been a hub of supernatural activity. Back during the oil boom of the 1970’s, the town population swelled to its all-time high. Almost overnight, it became larger than anyone ever thought possible. The oil gushed and the money flowed. Talk started up about how Dove Creek could come to rival Westview, the city on the other side of the lake. This tiny town was moving up in the world.

Then the murders started.

At first, people believed there was a serial killer on the loose. A body here, a disappearance there . . . They could find a way to justify the rising death toll. The local law enforcement even found a suspect: Wilson C. Scott. He was tried and convicted, framed for murders he didn’t commit and got a middle initial in his name just like every other notorious killer.

And the murders didn’t stop.

People fled Dove Creek just as fast as they had flocked in. Coupled with waning oil prices, the dark mark of death overshadowed any hope the town had of becoming a full-fledged city. The only people left were the ones whose families had been here for generations; my family and Gabriel’s family were among them.

There were a few people who decided to stand up and do something rather than cower in the church pews and pray like the rest of Dove Creek did – and still does. People in this town know that there are abnormal occurrences and creatures that by all accounts shouldn’t exist, but they don’t acknowledge them. Not out loud. There’s a church on every corner. There are enough seats in the pews for every man, woman, and child, and that’s not counting the choir lofts. It leaves little doubt that people
know
something isn’t right about this town.

Why
this
town? A long time ago – no one knows how long exactly – a Crossroads settled in right around Dove Creek. This is a supernatural Crossroads I’m talking about, not a place where two roads intersect and people pause and stare at each other over their steering wheels at a four-way stop. Don’t think of a crossroads as a fixed, tangible thing. It’s fluid. It’s a place where the various planes of existence blur together ever so slightly, where the veil between them is at its thinnest.

Demons figured out a way to crawl out of the Plane of Perdition to torment the Mortal Plane. It’s been Old Testament around here ever since.

Even though they didn’t have all the answers, my dad and two others were the ones who stood up to the new regime of fear and death. Along with his most trusted friend, David Lansing, and Maria Vega, a lady they worked with, my dad formed the beginnings of a group that would protect people. They trained together, they learned together, and eventually they began calling themselves the Amasai – the Strong. It was easier to keep quiet about what they were doing, lest they be treated like the village idiots. Their secret was shared only with my mother at first but as time went on, the Amasai started recruiting. Their ranks grew and Dove Creek became a little safer. They let the townspeople think that their prayers were being answered; in a way, they were.

About eighteen years ago, a young man named Hugo de la Cruz came snooping around town because of some of the stories he’d heard. He had come from Mexico to Texas to live with an aunt and uncle while he prepared for priesthood. But after learning that demons don’t stay in hell and people need more than faith for protection, he decided that he could better serve God with a sword in his hand.

That same man sat before us now, leader of the Amasai since all of the original members retired some years ago. He’s older of course, with a few gray hairs at his temples and small lines around his eyes, but still young enough that almost two decades of hunting vampires hasn’t slowed him down. A wiry man, Hugo is quick and much stronger than his slight frame would suggest. Even sitting down, he looks alert and energetic as though lighting in one place is all wrong for him. But he is always calm and composed. Like a wide, swift river; the surface is placid, but there are currents and life teeming in the depths.

It was Hugo who answered my question: “We w
ill do as we have always done – whatever it takes.”

“If –
when
– they hit us again, the werewolves can’t help us. You know the rules,” Gabriel said. “We’re on our own.”

Hugo appeared to think for a moment. “I will speak with Alex. There may be some form of communication we can use to summon them.”

The thought of a noble, ancient being like Alex with a smartphone almost made me snort. But I contained myself.

“Even if we
can
reach them, the wolves are forbidden from taking a human life,” Gabe said. Such a stickler for the rules.

I said, “It’s possible that their presence alone could help. A gigantic wolf is usually pretty intimidating.”

Gabe raised an eyebrow at my sarcasm. I lifted a shoulder as if to say,
what
?

“Wolves or no wolves, we’re dead in the water if they get the drop on us like that again,” Casey said. “We should figure out who they are and what they’re up to. Nobody can breathe fire without some kind of divine help and judgin’ by the fact that they’re gunnin’ for us, it ain’t the good kind of divine.”

“I can help with that,” Solomon said. “If any of you can get me descriptions or if you hear a name, tell me and I can use the databases at work.”

“And what about during the day?” Jocelyn asked. “We never have to worry about vampires coming after us once the sun is up, but the sun won’t slow these people down.”

“Everyone will have to be on their guard. Make sure you aren’t being followed when you go home. Take every precaution,” Hugo said.

Every single one of us fell silent. We looked around at each other, recognizing that our line of work had just become more dangerous than ever before.

Our ranks had already dwindled to six in recent years; Aric was still in training, so that would make seven. There weren’t enough of us to double up on our watch shifts, much less launch any sort of counterattack. We had the three werewolves, Alex, Gio, and Meg, but it was as Gabe said: They’re forbidden from taking a human life.

Werewolves are beings of the afterlife. This is their Purgatory. In order to prove themselves worthy, they’re given lupine
senses and strength. They’re drawn to the evil energy a vampire’s attack sends out. They help us take out the hell-spawn and they protect us, but they must do so without killing a living person. That is, if they want to spend the rest of their eternity in Heaven rather than Hell.

Hell has its own soldiers, too. Lesser demons aren’t able to walk the Mortal Plane in their true forms, and they can’t possess living humans. Long ago, they learned that they can take the bodies of the dead and use them as hosts. The catch is that they’re forced to drink
human blood regularly in order to keep their hosts, well,
fresh
. I don’t think they mind that, though. They seem to enjoy being leeches.

With the demon presence, the vampire is given immense capabilities. They’re stronger, faster, and more resilient than a mortal
being. But our advantage is in the killing. We can either behead them or pierce their heart with silver or wood, and holy water or fire will do in a pinch when we need to weaken them. When we kill a vampire, the demon is forced out of the human body and must return to the Plane of Perdition. The body it leaves behind returns to the state it should be in, depending on when the person died. Sometimes, little more than ash and dust is left behind.

It was a sure bet that the vampires wouldn’t back off while this new crew of adversaries was on the rise. Far more likely was the possibility that they were all working together somehow. So it was ten of us versus a multitude of enemies.

No sweat.

Our silence was interrupted by Meredith coming in the front door. Basket in hand, she stopped as soon as she shut the door behind her and took in our bleak expressions.

“How bad is it?” 

“Not bad,” Hugo said. “But serious.”

I thought that sounded pretty optimistic, considering the talk we had been having. Meredith seemed to think so, too, as she tilted her head at him and gave him the kind of look only a wife could give a husband. Without a word, she called bullshit.

Meredith just celebrated her thirty-seventh birthday last month and has a serene, motherly quality about her. She is composed and graceful, but fierce when she must be. Though they are sisters, she and Jocelyn don’t look very much alike. Meredith is a little taller and fairer-
skinned. Her hair is a natural chestnut color and her eyes light brown. There is something about her that exudes kindness.

Both her son and her daughter are in grade school, and she swears up and down that raising two kids is more of a challenge than killing vampires with one hand tied behind her back. She takes good care of all of us; as a trained nurse, we rely on her to help us with injuries that aren’t hospital worthy.

The hospital ER is how she met Hugo. He had suffered a head injury that required stitches, and Meredith was the nurse who took care of him. If he had any thoughts of returning to his pursuit of priesthood, they flew out the window the moment he met her.

“Well, I brought breakfast. No offense, but
y’all look like ten miles of rough road. No matter how bad it is or isn’t, y’all need to eat and get some rest,” Meredith said.

We didn’t have to be told twice. We vacated the sitting area and followed the inviting scent of sausage and eggs toward the kitchen. As I put on a pot of coffee, Meredith opened the basket to reveal a dozen individually wrapped homemade breakfast sandwiches. Under the foil wrappers were fresh biscuits stuffed with sausage, eggs, and cheese. Where she finds the time to do this kind of stuff, I’ll never know.

She and Hugo hovered at the edge of the small crowd, their heads together and speaking in low voices. Solomon excused himself to get to work, taking a cup of coffee and one of the biscuits to go. Gabriel wasn’t far behind him, the only one of us to hold down a regular day job. I used the opportunity to sneak away, too, since I would need to catch a few hours of sleep before work.

WEEKDAYS AT THE PAWN SHOP
were always hit or miss, even in the summer months. I work during the swing shift most days; it starts late enough that I can get some sleep after being up all night, and I get off early enough to make it to headquarters before sundown in the summer. The autumn and winter months are trickier for my schedule, but I make it work.

It helps that Hugo owns Dove Creek Pawn and its two smaller satellite shops in Westview. The main shop was opened by the Amasai founders about twenty years ago as a cover for moving weapons and other supplies, as well as to make an income. My dad already had his firearm business, so it was an easy leap for them to get into this line of work.

Now, all of us except for Gabriel have some kind of job at one of the shops. I’m the manager of the main store, Jocelyn manages one of the Westview locations and has a great eye for jewelry purchases and sales, Casey is the resident mechanic and security guy, Garrett works on the electronics . . . We all have our duties.

On this particular afternoon, business was better than it had been during the peak of summer. Kids were getting ready to go back to school, so I showed a lot of things like musical instruments and bicycles. It wasn’t an interesting shift, but it was busy enough to go by quickly. I was glad to see
Aric when he got there in the early evening.

B
y the time he could get in the door, his fair skin was ruddy from the heat. He punched his timecard and joined me at the counter.

“Ready for summer to be over already.” It was the kind of offhand grumble that was meant to invite me to chime in.

“Soon.” I answered with a sympathetic smile. “Thank God for air conditioning, though, right?”

We hit a lull in customer traffic, so I left
Aric to take over as I excused myself to the office to take care of some paperwork. We had some sales spreadsheets that needed tending to.

My mind was divided, so I was glad of the kind of work which allowed me to simply go through the motions. As I typed some numbers into a page of the spreadsheet, I tried to make sense of the unnaturally powered people who seemed to have come out of nowhere. They were intent
on hurting us, that much was obvious. But why? How did they know to come after Amasai? How did they know who we were?

I decided that the answer to my last two questions was simple: They were cued by another of our enemies. My fingers paused over the keyboard as I mulled over the possibilities for answering why. Of the potential motives for provoking us, there were many.

“Hey girl! Thought you’d be rearing to get outta here.”

Yanked from my thoughts, I was noticeably jolted as the night manager came breezing into the office. Diana, a middle-aged gal with a friendly attitude and too much perfume, chuckled warmly. “Catch ya daydreamin’?”

“Guess so.” I made myself smile back. “These spreadsheets do it to me every time.”

“How are things? Anything good come in today?” Diana
asked as she stowed her purse in the desk drawer. I tried not to breathe in too deeply as she hovered so close. Though her perfume wasn’t cheap, the scent was overwhelming.