Aster set her son Puma down on the gravel and pulled me into a hug. I relented, even though she’d just called me a bitch. Seeing her so grown up brought my absence into sharp relief. I’d missed so much. The weight of it pressed against my shoulders. The emotions I’d tried so hard to hold back scratched at the surface of my psyche. I’d wanted to stay away after Dad died. I thought they all wanted me gone. I couldn’t undo what I’d done all those years ago. If I couldn’t forgive myself, how could they?
“It’s good to see you too, Aster. Still the little shit I remember, I see.”
“Hey, don’t fucking curse in front of my kid,” she said, lifting Puma. I chuckled and leaned against my car door.
“Mom sent me out here to ask about Benedictus. I need the sword to defeat a very dangerous enemy. Everyone’s life is at risk as long as I’m here.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure. I know it’s in long-term storage. But which one? You know Mom has so much stuff. That was just one of the items we stored for her. Darn, I told Margery it wouldn’t matter if we cataloged it or not. We never expected anyone to need any of it.”
“Why is this so difficult? Benedictus was one of Dad’s most prized possessions. It’s the Sword of the Dawn for God’s sake. Why is everyone acting like it’s a useless tchotchke?”
“None of us use swords,” Aster said, shrugging. “It might as well be a tchotchke.”
“Do you have any idea what could happen if that thing fell into the wrong hands?”
“That’s exactly why we put it in long-term storage,” Aster countered.
I groaned, looking up at the sky. The whole family was messing with me. I could feel it in my bones. But why? Did they want to be sucked dry by a ruthless vampire? They never listened to me in the past. Why did I expect them to now?
“While I go through my notes to try to remember where it is, I could use some help around here. I’ve had livestock go missing, and the Farmer’s Market is tomorrow. Could you be a doll and help me out? You look dressed for it.”
“This is Mother’s doing,” I muttered.
“I didn’t think Executioners went around dressed like day laborers.” She smirked at me and began to walk toward the house. I followed, humiliation blooming in my gut. The last thing I wanted to do was clear out some scrubby land. I’m a trained killer, not a farm hand.
We entered Aster’s modest old farm house and sat at her kitchen table where she poured me a glass of lemonade and handed me her wiggling son. She had the place decorated in a mixture of hippie flare and Native American fine art. I held the toddler like he was a piece of rancid meat. I didn’t want to let it too close to me lest it contaminate me with its baby-ness. Plus, he smelled.
Aster sat a turkey sandwich in front of me, and the child squirmed out of my lap and toddled away. Aster watched her son walk through a beaded curtain and into the living room as she sat across the knotty pine table from me.
“I’ll look up the spell we used while you’re out clearing the land. I just have too much to do right now.” Her head perked up as the sound of a motorcycle motor rumbled and died in the driveway. She stood and went to look out the kitchen window.
“It’s Raven. Good. He can show you. I need to put Puma down for a nap.”
I gulped the sandwich in my mouth, my throat contracting too much to swallow. My whole body went numb as my face burned. “Raven’s here?” I stood and backed away from the front door that led into Aster’s kitchen. I couldn’t face him. Facing my sisters was bad enough. He didn’t deserve what I’d done to him. No one deserved what I’d done. But he deserved it the least. He’d loved me. The real me. Cold-blooded killer and all.
“I can’t,” I said, grimacing and looking for a place to hide.
Aster obviously didn’t hear me or she didn’t care because she flung the front door open without a second look at me. Raven stood on the porch, the sunlight illuminating his back. His dark hair was cropped short. The last time I’d seen him, it had been long down his back. He wore a black leather jacket and dark blue jeans with a detective badge hooked to his belt. The mirrors of his sunglasses reflected my form, in my overalls and red bandanna. This would be what I’d be wearing when I saw my ex-boyfriend again for the first time.
“Olivia?” he asked, taking off his sunglasses. Time had done good things for Raven Hunter. The slim boy had been replaced by a well-muscled man with a square jaw and a dark almond-colored complexion. He rested his black eyes on me and I almost melted into the floor. I gripped Aster’s cold, wood-burning stove for support.
“Hi, Raven. Long time no see,” the clichéd words dropped out of my mouth like dry sand. I wanted to say so much more.
“You look good. What brings you back home?” He smiled but there was tension behind the kind words.
“Thanks. So do you. I’m just here on a visit. I’m helping Aster clear some land today.”
“Gone five years and you arrive out of the blue to help do farm work? Interesting.”
“Raven. Be a doll and show her the place. I really need to put Puma down for a nap.” The sound of a baby wailing erupted from the living room. Aster groaned and hurried through the beaded curtain to get her crying son. “Thank you!” she shouted from the other room.
“Come on. I know what she’s talking about. Bear tried to rope me into doing it last week. Like a Portland PD detective has nothing better to do than clear out farm land.”
He motioned for me to follow him out the front door and I begrudgingly went with him.
“How long have you been a detective?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the rising sunlight as we stepped down the porch stairs.
“Two years. Five years on the force. I joined right after…college.” Right after I’d left to become an Executioner. Right after I’d left him.
He didn’t stop or look at me, he just kept walking. We passed through a barnyard and a gate out of the corral. Silently, we followed a trail along the ridge above the river. Tension wound between us, and we must have walked almost half a mile before he turned away from the water. We ended up on an overgrown parcel of land tucked against the forest. It looked as if nature had been trying to reclaim it for years.
Small evergreens poked out of the rocky soil and thorn-covered blackberry brambles twisted over most of the land. “Why doesn’t she just use her magic to clear this?” I asked, crossing my arms. I already felt hot and scratchy.
“Aster can’t kill plants. She can only grow them. I thought you’d know that kind of thing about your sister.”
“She was in high school when I left,” I defended. This time he turned to me. The mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes hid his thoughts, but his lips pressed together into a hard line. “So,” I said looking around. “How am I supposed to clear this out?”
“Bear’s fixing the rototiller, so you’ll probably have to use a shovel.” He stood there, his face completely serious when he fed me that line.
“Right,” I said, crossing my arms.
“There are some tools over there.” He pointing to a few tools leaning against a boulder.
I was angry now. If I hadn’t needed Benedictus, I would have walked away. If I’d still been an Executioner, I would have used the teleportation spell the Council had provided me with. I still had a few abilities of my own, but I had no idea how to use them to clear a field.
Finally, I nodded at Raven and walked toward the tools. “Fine. If this is what you all need from me,” I let slip.
“What do I need from you?” he asked.
I clenched my teeth. “Nothing. Forget about it.”
“Since when did I need something from you?” he asked, staring me in the face behind his glasses. His tall, taut body stood like a marble statue in the late morning sunlight. I frowned and turned back to the tools, bending over to pick up the fallen shovel. When I returned my gaze, he was staring at me.
“Did I say anything about you needing something from me? I meant my family.”
“Good. Because I haven’t n
eeded anything from you in a long time,” he said, a frown curling on the side of his mouth.
“Can I just do this?” I asked. This little trip down memory lane was getting painful.
“Have at it, sister,” he said, backing away before he turned to go.
Anger needled through his calm words. I wanted to say I was sorry, but how was I supposed to apologize for leaving him? It happened so long ago. We were both different people now. If I could take it back, if I could take everything back, I would. But if I did that, who would I be then?
Chapter 9
“Thanks,” I said instead. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”
He gave me a glace back before disappearing behind the foliage of the blackberry brambles. After he was gone, I put my hand to my forehead and groaned. What had I gotten myself into? My family were in top form this time, bringing in Raven. Lying about the sword was bad enough, but did they have to humiliate me too? As a team effort? Geesh!
At this point, I just had to do what they asked of me. If I ever wanted the one sword I knew could defeat Vincent, I had to appease the women of my family, and apparently the Hunter family too. I hefted a sharp hoe and slid a machete into my belt loop. I’d done this kind of thing before, a long time ago. I knew how to get it done.
Casting the inner spell that would allow my body to perform at hyper strength and speed, I began to plow the field and slash the brambles simultaneously. My sister had given me an entire acre to clear, as far as I could tell. It would take me a few hours to plow down the vegetation and turn the soil, but I could get it done by the end of the day.
I stopped several times to drink spelled water from the river. Cleansing water was a tiny spell every child knew, like starting a flame on a candle, or floating a feather. I ended up tying the bandanna over my head to keep the sweat from falling in my eyes.
As a warrior, I practiced my craft every day. Except on days I was stabbed in the leg and had to run for my life from a super-powered vampire with an ax to grind. All that exercise made me fit for almost any type of physical exertion. Including manual labor.
As the sun moved over my head from east to west, I came to a particularly overgrown stretch of blackberry brambles. These things had been tearing up my arms all day. I began to slash the branches while swinging the pike into the dirt at the same time. This had the effect of moving the blackberries out of the way very quickly.
I slashed through to the middle of the brambles and I found what could only be described as a half-eaten dead animal. A sheep? A goat? I curled my nose and stepped back. Gross. I leaned forward to examine the corpse. Aster had mentioned animals going missing. It must have been one of hers.
As I looked closer at the corpse it became evident that a normal predator hadn’t done this. The flesh looked torn rather than shredded. The bite marks were flat and shaped like a human’s thin round teeth. Strange.
I knelt down and examined the body. Aster needed to know what had been taking her animals so she could defeat it. It didn’t look like a wolf or a bear had killed it. There were no claw marks, only the bites made by flat incisors.
My senses weren’t as sharp as they were when I had my Executioner power boost. The Council really hooked us up with their proprietary spells and runes. I was handicapped without them. Sure I had my natural abilities; I would always be a supernaturally strong fighter, but without the Council, I wasn’t as strong or as capable. I couldn’t teleport. Couldn’t use telepathy. And the senses I used to detect supernatural ability was far weaker.
There was a flash out of the corner of my eye. I stood quickly, gripping the dulled machete in my right hand. I held the hoe in my left and turned slowly, taking in my surroundings. I had sensed a supernatural being at the moment I saw the flash. It was a strange impression, something I had never sensed before, but it was definitely there. Unmistakably paranormal. Was it Vincent? Had he found me already? I didn’t have any of my spelled weapons. All I had was a dull machete and a dirty hoe.
A shadow shot across my plane of vision, and I tried to make out what it was. It moved too quickly to see. I pivoted in its direction, stopping dead when it came into view. What stood before me was more of a shock than the sight of this creature normally would have been.
I saw a man. A human man. Roughly mid-forties, balding with a paunch, standing about five foot eight. This balding middle-age man hunched before me, completely naked and growling, blood dripping from his bared teeth. This guy was definitely not Vincent.
“Hey!” I yelled, pointing at the dead goat. “Were you eating that?”
The naked guy growled again and lunged at me. I was so surprised he almost hit me. At the last second I swung around and smacked him in the ass with the flat of the machete. I thought that would be the end of it, and it would send the guy tumbling to the ground. But the guy didn’t fall. He roared and spun for me, this time connecting with my midsection, throwing me to the ground. What the fuck?
I jumped to my feet, wielding the machete and the hoe as true weapons this time. I went into my fighting stance, ready for the man to come at me again. I cocked my chin and yelled. He came at me full force straight to the front. I easily deflected him. My goal was to incapacitate, and get to the bottom of it.
My machete came down across the flesh of his upper arm and sliced. The machete was slightly dull but it cut deep. I thought this would send him howling away, but it only made him angrier. He was growling like crazy now, blood spurting from the broken teeth in his mouth as he gaped at me. What had happened to this guy?
“Calm down, buddy,” I said, probably too late. If this guy even spoke English he wasn’t listening to it now. As he hulked at the edge of the blackberry brambles, I saw the wound I’d inflicted on his arm slowly knit itself closed. My eyes grew wide. That was definitely not a human thing to do. Okay, time to down this freak. I charged, gimpy weapons blazing. I slammed into his kneecaps with the butt of the hoe and sliced at his neck with my machete. In the instant my weapon should have cut an artery, the little guy vanished into thin air.
Chapter 10
I stood there for a moment in a state of complete shock. I had seen several paranormal creatures disappear like that only to reappear again a few feet away. But those creatures had been obviously paranormal, not some middle-aged human with blood on his lips. One had been a rabid white rabbit. And another had been a crazed jinn and who had been trapped in a bottle for two centuries. Seeing a human who looked as if he belonged in some cubicle somewhere vanish into thin air was a bit startling. I looked down at the dead goat again. The guy had obviously been eating it. Why? Why would the naked human be on Aster’s land eating one of her goats? It just didn’t make any sense. In all my years as an Executioner, I’d never encountered a being like this one. Unfortunately, without my extra abilities given to me by the Council, I didn’t have a sense of where to even start.
Standing outside Aster’s front door, I could hear her husband within. “Another goat is missing. That’s the third one this week. There hasn’t been a single sign of them. You think someone is stealing them?” Bear asked.
“Why would anyone steal a goat in this day and age?” Aster said.
I knocked on the door and walked inside. They looked surprised to see me when I plopped down at the kitchen table. “Well,” I said, looking from one to the other. The baby sat in his high chair throwing cereal on the ground for the dog. “I found one of your goats.” I waited a beat for their reaction, and their faces contorted into accusatory expectation.
“Where did you find it?” Aster asked.
“Over on that land you asked me to clear out. I finished by the way,” I said. “But you’ll never believe what I saw. I can’t believe it myself.” I shook my head, remembering the harmless-looking human. “There was this guy. He looked like a middle-aged accountant, paunchy and balding. But, get this, he was eating a goat.”
“What?” Aster and Bear said at the same time.
“Was he a homeless guy roasting it over a
fire?” Aster asked.
“No. He wasn’t. He was eating it raw with his teeth. When he saw me he disappeared.”
Bear stared at me, dumbfounded. Smooth brown hair hung down to his waist, and it shimmered as a shiver ran down his spine. When I had left five years ago, Bear had been Raven’s annoying little brother, just as Aster had been my annoying little sister. He’d grown into a handsome and capable-looking man. They had a toddler and another baby on the way. It was another stark example of just how long I’d been gone.
“What are we going to do about this?” Aster asked me.
“Nothing. It isn’t my job to track down goat-eating humans.”
“Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing an Executioner does?” Aster said, cocking her head to the side and crossing her arms over her full, pregnant bosoms. She was right. A disappearing, goat-eating human was exactly the kind of thing that Executioners dealt with. But I was no longer an Executioner and the Council hadn’t sent me to take care of this problem.
“Usually. But the Council hasn’t directed me to take this guy down. I’m not a freelancer. It’s against policy to work on my own.”
“Seriously, Olivia. I’m your sister. This…thing is running loose on my land. I’ve got a toddler!”
I sighed, sitting back in my chair, my body collapsing in defeat. She had a point. She was my sister and it was the least I could do to track the man down.
“Let’s make a deal. I’ll find this guy and take him out, and you remember where you put Benedictus.”
“I was going to do that anyway,” Aster said, her eyes widening at me in an irritated expression.
“Olivia, we’d be grateful if you helped us with this. Defeating monsters isn’t something either of us has any talent for.”
“Not even shifted?” I asked him, changing the subject. I could see Aster was growing angry at me, and I didn’t want to get on my baby sister’s bad side when she was angry.
“My bear form might be useful for catching fish and scaring off coyotes, but unknown paranormal creatures, no. I’m just an ordinary black bear.”