Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

I wasn’t born so much as summoned.

—T-shirt

Halle’s new last moment bore little resemblance to the first one. In this one, she lay naked on a tile floor, her arm covered in blood as she reached out, trying to touch the person who lay on the floor beside her.

Me.

I lay dead, shot in the back, probably trying to get her to the bathroom, so something had clued us into the fact we were in trouble. Just past me stood a man. Since Halle was focused on me, only his legs showed in the vision. Dark gray slacks. Spit-shined Oxfords. And the barrel of a semi-automatic assault rifle.

A calmness enveloped me, despite my pulse having gone supersonic. Thanks to the vision, we had the upper hand. I had to use it to our best advantage. I had to think while the adrenaline spike cleared my head. Her last moment changed after I put her phone in the microwave. He’d probably been listening in and realized I’d caught on when the sound flatlined.

Halle didn’t move. She cradled the pup and waited, trusting me to fill her in when I could.

My first priority was to get her out of there, but Meacham was outside somewhere with an assault rifle. We couldn’t just go out the front door.

I rushed to my bag, tore through it, and tossed her a T-shirt and a pair of sweats. They would swallow her, but her dress could hinder her escape.

She put them on without question as I hopped into a pair of jeans and ran to the bathroom. The window, probably around the size of Meacham’s dick, was too small for Halle to get through, and there was no adjoining door.

Fuck. What had clued us in? Why had we been running for the bathroom?

I glanced at Halle again, studied the memory once more, and looked for the slightest clue to help me devise a plan. At the corner of her vision, shards of glass were on the carpet by Meacham’s feet. He was going to shoot us through the window. The curtains were drawn, so he couldn’t see in, meaning he may have a thermal-imaging scope. But even thermal imaging couldn’t see through walls like in the movies. And the first shots he took didn’t hit their marks, allowing us to run for the bathroom.

Realization hit me. He’d intentionally shot out the window and then used his scope to find us. This time, we would act first.

I grabbed Halle just as the first shot hit the wall beside my head.

Halle yelped but allowed me to drag her into the bathroom while three more shots penetrated the window and showered plaster around us. I laid her in the tub with the pup in her arms. My only hope was to lure him inside and then disarm him.

I handed her my phone. “Call the cops and stay put, no matter what you hear.”

She nodded, her breaths ragged with fear.

I tried to take the pup out of her arms, but she fought me for the first time, shaking her head frantically.

“I’m going to drop her out the window. She’ll be safer outside.”

She conceded with a hesitant nod and handed her over.

I opened the tiny window and dropped the pup onto the ground. She whimpered, already spoiled by Halle’s attention.

“I’m sorry,” Halle said when I turned back to her, huge tears swelling in her eyes. “This is all my fault.”

I knelt beside her. “No, it’s his fault.”

She frowned. “Then whose is it, if not mine?”

“Unless I’m greatly mistaken, it’s Paul Meacham’s.”

“Paul?” she asked taken aback. “He’s our head of security.”

“Yes. And I believe he was the man in the forest. He’s been stalking you, toying with you, for seventeen years.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth.

I pointed to the phone and said, “Cops,” before leaving. I considered lying on the floor and pretending I’d been shot, but knowing that asshole, he’d put a few more in me for good measure. So, I pressed myself against the wall by the door and waited. If he was any good at this, he’d look through the crack after opening the door and check behind it before entering. Here was hoping he sucked.

“He’s coming,” Aunt Lil said, and I turned to see her cowering beside me, peeking from behind my arm.

“Can you tell me when he gets to the door?”

“You want me to go out there?” she asked, appalled. When I offered her my best grin, she winked at me. “Sure thing, handsome. But maybe you should call for some backup.”

“Halle’s calling the cops.”

“No, I meant some more…aggressive backup.”

Somehow, I’d been assigned as hellhound wrangler at the compound. Probably because they all slept with me. But that didn’t mean I knew anything about how to control them. “I don’t know how to summon them. And even if I could, they’re incorporeal.”

“For the most part, but they’re hellhounds. Have you learned nothing?”

Apparently, not.

“He’s at the door,” she whispered like he would’ve heard her had she not.

If I could disarm him and get him out of the hotel room, Halle could make a run for it. Hopefully, someone saw him walking across the lot with an assault rifle and called the cops, if for no other reason than to back up Halle’s story. But I didn’t hear sirens yet.

One shot took out the locking mechanism. He kicked the door open and entered without checking behind it. Amateur.

I waited half a second then shoved the door with every ounce of strength I possessed. The rifle went flying, and I tackled him in his midsection, steering him outside. But he was big. He dug in and slowly pushed me back inside the room, my bare feet unable to get traction. We fell to the floor and rolled, each vying for the upper hand.

“Get ‘im!” Aunt Lil shouted, shadowboxing as she looked on.

When he claimed the top position, I wedged a knee between us and dislodged him so I could scramble to my feet.

He stood, too. A little slower. A little stiffer. But he had bulk on his side. I had speed on mine.

He raised beefy fists, and I recognized the hand, the one holding a straight razor in the reflection of Halle’s supposed suicide. The rage simmering beneath my boyish exterior began to boil the blood in my veins.

Why? Why would someone torment another human being for seventeen years? What did he get out of it besides a banal pleasure? Still, seventeen years. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

A humorous grin played about his bloodied mouth. “I was a boxer, too, sport.” He’d looked into me. “And I wasn’t hit by a truck yesterday.”

I groaned. “Why does everyone keep saying that? I was sideswiped.”

“Where is she?”

“You went to a lot of trouble to make Halle believe she’d killed you seventeen years ago.”

“Yeah, well, she’s worth it, don’t you think?”

I ignored my knee-jerk reaction. “I do, actually.”

“A little gullible, and her taste in men leaves a lot to be desired, but nobody’s perfect.”

“Is that the only way you can get a girl to notice you? Stalk her until she believes she’s insane?”

He swung.

I ducked.

But he was faster than he looked. He caught my shoulder, and I fell back against the dresser. He rushed me while I was off balance, planning to use his weight to his advantage.

This would hurt.

After the truck incident, I was already sore. He had to weigh upwards of two hundred and fifty pounds. I calculated what that would do to my ribs and my chances of recovering enough to take him afterward. Then I thought about the beautiful woman in the bathtub. Of how frightened she must be. Odd how quickly the mind worked in these situations. Or maybe it was just my particular brain.

I hadn’t taken a swing at an opponent in over five years. The last time I did, someone died, and my entire crew had paid the price by living on the run. But when I saw Meacham lunge forward, an instinct that had taken years of training to sharpen and hone flared, and I took the shot. A left hook to the jaw. One defensive blow. The exact same one that’d killed the guy at the bar all those years ago.

His head snapped to the side, and he crumpled, but inertia sent him flying into me. We crashed into the dresser, splintering the wood in two before we collapsed onto the floor.

I heard a hoot and a scream as Halle came running out, and Jason ran in. Aunt Lil hooted, but it was hard to tell which of the other two had screamed. I liked to think it was Jason.

Halle rushed over to me, grabbed my arm, and tried to pull me away from Meacham in a desperate attempt to save me, but he was out cold. I pulled her against me, lifted her chin until our eyes met, and chastised her. “You called Jason?” I asked, appalled. “I told you to call the cops.”

“Jason’s faster.” She tried to squirm out of my grasp to check my wounds, but I held her steady. She felt good. And I was about to fall over. “And I did call the cops. They’re on the way.”

I looked at Jason. “Thanks for showing up too late to do any good, asshole.”

He was still taking in the scene, as was Nolan, the hotel clerk who’d gone to high school with Halle and had probably had a crush on her ever since. “My boss is going to kill me. Is that a gun?”

“That was a nice shot, kid.” Aunt Lil gave me two thumbs-up. “But did you know your hotel room is crawling with hellhounds?”

I glanced around. One by one, hellhounds melted out of the walls, stalking toward Meacham, their teeth bared as they emitted a low, guttural growl. They were massive, more like bears than hounds.

Meacham groaned and tried to get to his feet. He failed, ending up on his back, looking up at Halle and me. I wanted him to look forward to what his future held, but the only way to do that was to send him into limbo, a spiritual state between the living world and the dead.

I set Halle back, knelt beside him, and wrapped my hand around his throat. He was already halfway there. A little pressure for a few seconds should do the trick.

“Vause,” Jason said.

“Vigil,” I replied.

Halle knelt beside me. I expected her to try to stop me. Instead, she watched as I slowly drained the life out of his body, just enough for him to see them. For him to become aware.

When Meacham clawed at me, his thick jowls bulging out of his collar, his face turning a bright red, Jason walked over and put his foot on the guy’s arm, holding it down much like I was his other one. “I can’t condone this,” my friend said, grinding his shoe into Meacham’s wrist. “You’re hurting him.” He applied a bit more pressure, and Meacham cried out. “You have to stop.” He could now say in a court of law that he tried to stop me, and I was oddly okay with him throwing me under the bus in that situation.

Meacham’s eyes finally rolled back into his head, and he slowly became aware of the twelve massive beasts surrounding him. Some of them growled, drool dripping off their glistening teeth. Some barked and nipped at his feet and legs. Panic brought him back to consciousness, and I let go.

He choked and coughed, his gaze darting wildly about the room. “Wh–what was that?”

I, of course, looked while I had the chance. “When you die in your jail cell on December 3rd, 2033, at 2:08 in the morning of an apparent suicide, they’ll be waiting. They’ll rip your soul to shreds, wait for it to piece itself back together, then do it again. Over and over and over until hell opens up, and you get to meet your new master.”

He gawked at me, the fear on his face palpable because he now knew. He now believed. Actions had consequences.

“And if you think it won’t be painful, you’re greatly, greatly mistaken.”

Halle scooted closer to me, wrapping her arms around one of mine, wondering what I was talking about. I would have to explain later because she shouted so loudly, Jason jumped six inches. I may have, as well.

“Floraine!” she yelled, shoving out of my grasp and running out the door.

I wanted to go with her and make sure she was safe, but her only threat at the moment lay on the floor having a spiritual awakening.

Besides, I looked. The minute I saw her again, I looked and saw she would live a very long time.

* * * *

Two weeks later, Halle and I were saying our goodbyes to Jason and the gang. She was coming home with me to meet the fam, and we would decide where to go from there. I wanted her to be with her dad—who was thrilled with how things had turned out, despite needing a new head of security—and she wanted me to be with the juvenile delinquent destined to save the world. We were trying to come up with a compromise.

We stood by her truck, my bike on a trailer behind it, as I spoke with Jason. He wanted to talk to me before we left. Sounded important, so Halle took Flower for a walk to give us some alone time.

He gazed into the distance as though unable to look at me when he asked, “When and how?”

It took me a moment to realize he was asking about his fate. About his last moment. I’d wondered if I should tell him. Would it make any difference in the end? Would anything change?

I frowned and decided to give it a shot. “It’s not something you want to know. Most fates are set in stone. Yours is no different.”

He nodded, seemed to think for a moment, then repeated the question. “When and how?”

I stuck my hands into my pockets and said softly, “August, forty-three years from now. And violently.” Jason had come into the world violently. He would leave it the same way, being the good Samaritan he was. Nothing I could say would change that.

He tsked and gave me a single shake of his head as he toed a rock at his feet. “Figures.”

“Marry her.”

“I plan to.”

“And try to grow out of this asshole phase you’re in.”

“If you’ll try to grow out of your bitch phase.”

“Bitch?” I asked, only slightly offended.

“I forgot to tell you the other day, nice punch.”

“Thanks. Is my haircut really that bad?”

“Not as bad as your face, but yeah.”

“It’s a delicate balance.”

I watched Halle try to get Flower to shake with her. It was a delicate balance, as were most things in the universe.

* * * *

Also from 1001 Dark Nights and Darynda Jones, discover Graveyard Dog , The Graveside Bar and Grill , The Graveyard Shift , The Gravedigger’s Son .