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Mackenzie walked along the hard shoulder with her thumb out. A truck drove by, honked at her and kept on going. It was the third vehicle to pass her in the last hour.
A cool breeze touched her face in spite of the hot sun directly overhead. She felt exposed out here on the road, the only weapon she had was a switchblade but she didn’t exactly want to get that close to a Pariah to use it.
She hoped one of them caught up with Taryn and ripped his face off for leaving her. Another car came along, a dark blue sedan. This one slowed down. The car stopped a few feet ahead of her. She jogged up to it.
“Luke?”
“Mackenzie, thank God you’re okay. Get in.”
She climbed into the car, “How did you know to look for me?”
“I heard the car screech off in the parking lot, I went back to check on you and you were gone. I was worried so I’ve been driving around looking for you.”
“I’m okay. Thank you for finding me.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay. Do you want to tell me what happened? Are you involved with a gang? Is that why all the secrecy?”
Mackenzie laughed at the thought, “No, I’m not in a gang.”
“You can tell me, you know,” he said.
“Can we put some distance between us and East Falls first? I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
He started the car and they drove back to the truck stop she had been at earlier. They parked at the back of the building. Luke went inside and got them some food and coffee.
While they were eating, Mackenzie told him the edited version of what had happened. She told him she came looking for her father, that he was in trouble with his family and they were looking for him. Beyond that, she was at a loss. She couldn’t exactly tell him demons were after her.
“I don’t get it. Why are these guys chasing you? Do they think you have whatever it was your dad took?”
“Whatever my dad took is long gone. It was in the shop when it burned. My dad was in it too. He died.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged, “I didn’t know him so...”
“Still, it’s a hard thing to hear. I don’t really speak to my family, my brother especially, but if something happened to them, I know I would be upset.”
He finished his food and tossed the wrappers in a trashcan.
“So, what do you want to do now?”
“Honestly? I just want to go home.”
“LA? Well, I’ll tell you what. I have to do some things but when I’m finished I’ll drive you home.”
“Sounds great.”
“I’m just going to make a phone call. Be right back,” he said. She watched him walk into the truck stop. Could she trust him? She didn’t know and that was the problem. So much had happened in the last few days and in this town, she wasn’t sure she could trust anyone. But one thing she did know for sure, she hadn’t told Luke where she was from. The second he was out of sight, she got out of the car and took off into the woods.
Once in the woods though, she became lost in a matter of minutes. She really was a city girl.
“Mackenzie,” Luke shouted. He was closer than she would have liked. He didn’t sound angry though, just worried.
She walked deeper into the woods. The trees became thicker and it was hard to get past them. Brambles caught at her clothes.
“Mackenzie?”
He had caught up with her.
“Luke, I thought I saw something out here and I got kind of turned around.”
“The car’s this way.” He gave her a curious look.
“How did you know I was from LA?” she blurted.
“What?”
“Just answer the question.”
“The license plate on your car. It was from LA, I just assumed you were too.”
She could have slapped herself, “Right, of course.”
“Mackenzie what is going on?”
She saw a movement from the corner of her eye and moved out of the way just in time as a Pariah took a swipe at her.
It was the female from before.
“Oh my God, what is that?” Luke cried.
“Run, Luke.”
They tore through the woods, stumbling and tripping over tree roots. MacKenzie felt a limb rake her face. The Pariah was close behind. Any second Mackenzie expected the thing to grab her. She leapt over a tree log but landed badly on her ankle and she went down, engulfed in a pile of dead leaves.
Luke saw her fall and skidded to a halt. He turned back to her and pulled her up, “Keep moving,” he ordered. Ignoring the throbbing in her ankle, she held onto his hand as they ran.
They made it to the car, but as Mackenzie pulled open the car the Pariah grabbed her. Sharp claws dug painfully into her arm as she was thrown to the ground. She scrambled backward, trying to stay out of its reach while grabbing for her knife. It launched itself at her, its sharp teeth going for her throat.
Mackenzie opened her eyes. Lying on the concrete parking lot, vision blurred, she realized someone was working on her arm. She remembered blocking the Pariah’s teeth and the excruciating pain that had precipitated the black out.
With a painful twist of her head, she located the Pariah a few feet away, curled in a fetal position, its eyes fixed and staring.
Turning her head back, she realized it was Taryn working on her arm and she tried to jerk away. “What’s going on?” she mumbled.
“Stay still,” Taryn ordered.
Her eyes scanned the parking lot. Luke was leaning against the car with his arms crossed. Something was wrong. Luke was far too relaxed. Taryn wouldn’t even look in his direction; he busied himself packing items into a medical kit.
“You can sit up now,” Taryn said.
“Is it dead?” she asked.
“Yes, an iron knife is the only way to kill them,” Taryn said.
Luke snorted and Taryn shot him a dangerous glare.
“Private joke?” Mackenzie asked climbing to her feet. The ground shifted beneath her. Taryn and Luke both took a hold of her arms to steady her.
“I’m good,” she said, shaking them off, “Somebody want to clue me in here?”
Neither of them spoke.
“Fine, what do we do about that?” she asked pointing at the Pariah.
“We need to bury it,” Luke said.
Taryn went to the trunk of his car and pulled out a shovel. He tossed it to Luke who caught it with one hand. Taryn lifted the body and flung it over his shoulder. They walked into the woods and Mackenzie followed them. They were lucky no one had seen what had happened.
A couple of hundred yards in, Taryn tossed the body onto the ground where it landed with a squelch. Mackenzie avoided looking at it. When Luke made no move to dig Taryn grabbed the shovel and started digging himself.
Mackenzie caught Luke’s eye. She gave him a ‘what the hell’ gesture. They stepped away from Taryn, out of earshot.
“Who are you really?”
“My name isn’t Luke. It’s Lucien Duke,” he admitted.
“You’re a Duke? And you know Taryn how?”
“He’s my wayward little brother. And a traitor to the Duke name.”
Mackenzie stared at Taryn as he dug furiously in the dirt. Brothers?
“So, you were playing me?”
“No,” Luke or Lucien said. He put a hand on her cheek and she found it hard to look away from his eyes. “I wasn’t playing you. You’re caught up in something that you don’t understand. I just want to make sure you’re safe.”
She wanted to believe him. He seemed sincere, and he did come back to help her. Unlike Taryn.
“Are you going to help me or not?” Taryn snapped.
Lucien sighed; he moved over to the hole and tipped the body into it, hitting Taryn in the process. He climbed out of the hole and shoved Lucien into a tree. They stood facing each other, eyes blazing and fists clenched. They were definitely brothers.
“God, you two are pathetic.”
She winced as pain ripped through her arm. She was going to have a killer scar when it healed. A nasty thought crossed her mind.
“Pariah aren’t poisonous are they?”
They broke their deadlock stare, “No, they’re not poisonous.” Taryn said. He set to work covering the body.
“I’m sorry about that. I told you we don’t get on,” Lucien said. He pulled a knife from a sheath at his back.
“Here, you should take this. It has an iron blade.”
She took it and tucked it into her belt of her jeans.
“We should get out of here. If the other one tracks the scent, it’ll be looking for us.” Taryn stalked ahead of them out of the trees. They took his car.
Taryn drove for about an hour before stopping. A few hundred yards off the highway nestled in a secluded copse of trees, sat a squat dilapidated shack. The windows were covered in boards, weeds were growing wild around it and the door was barely on its hinges.
Their shoes crunched loudly on the dead leaves as they walked through what once had been a yard. Hardly the Hilton, Mackenzie thought. The only things that had lived here recently were wild animals. She hoped they had long since moved on to better accommodations.
“We’ll stay here for tonight,” Taryn announced.
“Here? It doesn’t look too secure,” Mackenzie said.
“It’s a demon hideaway. Trust me it’s more secure than it looks. There are places like it all over the country,” Lucien said.
They went inside to find a few pieces of broken furniture and an old furnace. Lucien set to work lighting it. Something with a lot of legs skittered across the dusty floor and into a dark corner. Whatever it was, it had better stay in that corner, Mackenzie thought.
Chinks of light shone through the dirty windows. It smelled musty with an under-lying odor of rotten meat. Something had died in here, probably recently. Mackenzie suppressed a shudder.
“What if someone sees the smoke?” Mackenzie asked.
“This place is spelled. Most people drive right past it and don’t even see it,” Lucien said.
Mackenzie leaned down and righted a chair in the middle of the room. Dusting it off, she gingerly tested it for strength, then sat down. It groaned under her weight.
Taryn pulled out a map and spread it out on the table. He lit a candle and took out a knife of his own.
“Give me your hand,” he ordered Mackenzie.
“What? Why?”
“What are you doing?” Lucien asked.
“Now we know she’s related to Sebastian we can use her blood to find the talisman.”
Mackenzie looked to Lucien but she could see he was intrigued by the idea.
“And then what? What happens if we find it?”
“We use it,” Taryn said.
“We destroy it,” Lucien said, at the same time.
“You expect me to believe you would give up all that power?” Taryn sneered.
“That talisman has caused nothing but trouble. Think about it, at the end of the day we won’t get the talisman anyway. Father will. Do you really want him to have it? It would be chaos.”
“I agree with Lucien. If it hasn’t been destroyed already then we need to do it.”
Taryn looked like he wanted to argue, instead, he said, “We still have to find it first. Hand.”
She gave him her good hand. The sharp blade made a thin line across her palm that immediately welled with a strip of blood. She hissed in pain. He closed her hand into a fist and held it over the map, watching as blood dripped onto the paper, his words of a Latin incantation in a soft whisper in the abandoned shack. As her blood dried on the page, the drops began to glow in a fluorescent yellow, changing to oranges, then red. Moving across the paper as if it had a mind of its own, it converged in one spot. Taryn leaned in to see where it was.
“The pawn store. It’s been there all along. We leave at first light.”
As she and Lucian curled up on the floor in front of the fire to wait, his arm went around her shoulders.
Chapter 10
The night was a long one. Neither brother trusted the other enough to sleep. Taryn sat near the door in a chair watching their every move. Lucien and Mackenzie sat up, but didn’t leave the warmth of the fire.
“Do you think he’ll try to stop us from destroying it?” she asked Lucien softly.
“Count on it,” he whispered back, “Just ignore him.”
She turned away from him and faced Lucien.
“So I hear you’re like an assassin. Is that true?”
He laughed softly, “Do I look like an assassin?”
She shook her head.
“Don’t believe everything you hear. Yes, there are assassins, my father’s foot soldiers, but I’m not one of them. I’m sure you imagine hell fire and torture chambers when you think of demons. I live in San Francisco. I have a studio apartment; I really do work at a newspaper.”
“So why are you here?”
“My father sent me to check what Cray and Taryn were up to. He knew Cray was obsessed with the talisman; he was worried he had found it. I’m sorry I lied to you.”
She gave him a small smile, “I guess you couldn’t exactly open with ‘hi, I’m a demon.’”
“Guess not. You should try and get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired.” Even as she said it, she felt her eyes closing. All the adrenaline from the day had worn off and she was exhausted. She leaned her head against Lucien’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, sunlight speared a gap in a board to the east. Lucien had his head on his knees, sleeping. Taryn’s head was on his chest, asleep as well.
She stretched stiff legs and got up, stomping them to get feeling back. The wound in her arm was a dull ache and she glanced down. The bandage would need changed soon. She looked out the boarded up windows. Quiet. Nothing moved. The sun rose over the treetops across the road, a red-yellow ball of fire. A light breeze was blowing, but there was no sign of life anywhere. She shivered.
She was trying to think of a way to get the talisman before Taryn. He was strong but it was two against one. She would need some kind of distraction when they found it. Then she and Lucien could run for it.
“You can’t trust him, you know,” Taryn said in her ear, making her jump.
“And I’m supposed to trust you?” she retorted.
“No, you’re not. Our families have killed each other for centuries to get that talisman, Lucien is no different.”
“Thanks for the advice. You’ll forgive me if I don’t take any of it.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Lucien stirred, “What time is it?”
“Dawn. We’re leaving now,” Taryn said.
Lucien gave her a curious look; she shook her head to show it was nothing.
They drove back to East Falls. Mackenzie sat in the back seat, leaving Lucien the front seat to keep an eye on Taryn.
They were approaching a mile marker outside of town, when Taryn slammed on the brakes.
“Why did you do that?” Mackenzie cried.
“Look,” he said, pointing at the road ahead of them. She leaned forward in her seat for a better look.
“I don’t see anything,” she said.
“Look carefully,” Lucien, said, “Do you see the way the air seems to ripple?”
She squinted at the road. She could see the ripples like steam rising off the road.
“What is it?”
“An early warning system. It lets the Pariah know we’ve entered the town,” Taryn said.
“Can’t you wave a magic wand or something to get us through?”
They both stared at her with the same incredulous expression. She could see the family resemblance now.
“We can’t go through, but we might be able to go around. It stretches into the woods. Let’s find out how far,” Lucien suggested.
Taryn pulled the car over to the side of the road and they got out.
“Only walk where I walk,” Taryn ordered.
“Whatever you say, fearless leader,” Lucien replied sarcastically.
“Do you have a plan yet?” she asked him.
“We play along for now. Let him think he’s in charge. There’s probably spells on the talisman that you can see through, otherwise he would have ditched us already.”
“Maybe we should ditch him. If he can’t get to the talisman without me then we should go.”
“You don’t know my brother. He’ll find a way around it. It’s better we find it first.”
“So we can destroy it?” she said, just to be sure.
“Of course.”
He saw her frown, “Mac, I want rid of that thing just as much as you do. It’s the only way we’ll all be safe. No one should have that kind of power.”
For over an hour, they searched for a gap where they could enter without warning the Pariah of their coming. Finally Taryn halted.
“Do you see that?” he said to Lucien.
“A weak spot. Can you get through it?”
“Yes, but it will take time.” He pulled some supplies from his bag and knelt on the ground to work.
Mackenzie leaned against a tree.
“It looks like Taryn picked up a lot from Cray. The Kings are the spell casters,” Lucien noted.
“And the Dukes?”
“We’re more—physical.” He grinned at her and led her around the tree, out of sight of Taryn.
“What do you see? When you look at the force field thing?” she asked.
“It looks like purple energy pulsing away. You can’t see it ’cause you’re a half blood.”
“And if we’ve learned anything from Harry Potter, that’s a bad thing,” she joked.
“No, it’s a good thing. It means you got to grow up in the regular world. Sometimes I wish I could stay in it and not be dragged back here.”
“What would you do, if you lived in the regular world all the time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe find a pretty girl, like you.”
He kissed her, moving closer until his body was pressed tight against her, pinning her against the tree. She wasn’t complaining, she loved the feel of his lips against hers.
“I’m through,” Taryn called, a short while later.
Mackenzie and Lucien pulled apart. She fixed her clothes and moved over to the hole Taryn had created. He saw their red faces, disheveled appearance, and gave them a disgusted look.
“Let’s go.”