Aspen (11 page)

Jynx started driving. They rolled slowly past a two-story brick building that had once been an elementary school, peered through the windows at the Grand Hotel and turned at the end of the street, where it became a dead end in front of the town’s church.

“Welcome to Devil’s Gate,” Jynx read.

“That’s not right, the name of the town is—”

“Devil’s Lake,” Jynx finished. “That’s never a good sign.”

The church was a large structure, almost three stories high, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. The building was made of brick with a central spire capped with a bent metal cruciform. The façade was white, with stained glass windows extending above the doors nearly to the roof cap. The front doors were made of heavy wood and stood almost two stories at the center. The wood was scarred and badly scorched, but still held firm against the darkness of the night

Jynx handed Aspen a flashlight and started up the long flight of stairs that led to the doors. Aspen followed, shining her light at the ash-covered lawn. It looked to her as if the ash was rippling in the dark, but where the light touched it, it remained unmoving. She shook it off as her imagination and joined Jynx where she stood at the door. She was running her fingers over the wood, pressing them into the scars and crevasses.

“Look at these,” she breathed. “They’re huge!”

Up close, the scars in the wood were even more sinister than they’d appeared at first. Each was wider than a man’s finger and started higher than a normal man could reach. They crossed and crisscrossed the wood dozens of times, over and over again.

“Nosferatu claws?”

Jynx shook her head. “No, no way. These are way too big. Maybe an alpha lycan on steroids or something, but not a skeeter. This thing had to be like eight feet tall.”

She looked at Aspen. “They’ve been locked up tight for years, we aren’t getting through without power tools or high explosives.”

Aspen stepped closer and ran her own bare fingers over the wood. All fae had an affinity for nature, and she could feel where the wood and metal meshed. She pressed her hand to the wood over the locking mechanism and muttered a word of power. With a sound like metal dragging on concrete the bolt slid back and the doors opened just enough to let a beam of light cut into the darkness.

Beside her, Jynx drew her pistol and pushed on the wood. Inside, the church was well-lit with candles that dribbled down the walls. Rows of wooden pews sat on either side of a royal blue carpet and ended at a sanctuary surrounded by a polished wooden rail. There was no sign of any occupants, but there were doors at the far end of the chamber.

Aspen entered and looked up at the balconies and stained glass windows. The artwork was done with care and skill, but the depictions were not the typical scenes of angels and saints, rather they were scenes of carnage and horror that didn’t belong in any church she’d ever been in. Whoever had done them was both a genius and a psychopath.

“Hello?” Aspen called. “Is anyone here?”

Jynx joined her. “There must be, some of the candles are fresh and the door was locked from the inside. You take the right, I’ll go left. We’ll meet back here in a few minutes.”

Aspen caught her hand as she started away. “Are you sure we should split up? I mean, splitting up is usually what gets people killed in movies and roleplaying games.”

Jynx made a face. “Asp, this isn’t a movie. This is real life and you’re a freaking fae! This morning you threatened to choke an alpha lycan to death and you faced down the Mistress of the City, chill out!”

Aspen wanted to say that was different, that she hadn’t had a choice and she hadn’t had time to be afraid. Now, she’d had time to think and she was afraid. Very afraid. But she didn’t, she nodded and let Jynx walk off, then moved down the opposite side of the room, weapon in hand. She reached the door in the corner and tested the knob. It turned beneath her fingers and she pulled it open the way she’d seen Raven do it many times before. Beyond was a short hallway of white walls and tiled floor, and a wooden staircase leading up.

She looked back at Jynx, who gave her a thumbs up, and started up the stairs. She treaded lightly and stopped at the landing, where she directed her light up the next flight. There was blood on the steps, a trail that started at the bottom and continued into the shadows above. Aspen touched a finger to the stain and found that it was dry, but no more than a day or two old. There was a good chance it belonged to Martel, or one of the people he’d brought with him.

Aspen used her knife to cut some of the wood free and slipped it into an envelope. She could use the sample for typing and try for DNA if they ever got back. She knew it wasn’t likely to do much good, but evidence was evidence.

She put the envelope in her pocket and continued to the second floor. The hallway ahead was more a balcony than anything else, with two rows of pews on the right and a narrow walkway on the left. Candles, dozens of them, were wedged into every available nook and cranny. They flickered fitfully in the breeze from the open door and dribbled wax in pools on the floor. Aspen turned off her light and proceeded down the walkway. The floor was covered in thick blue carpet and her footfalls were almost silent. The absence of the steady sound made her shiver and reminded her of the silence found in tombs.

More lights flickered in the chamber at the end of the corridor. She stopped just to the side of the entrance and checked inside before entering. What she saw would stay with her for the rest of her life. A man in a cassock lay face down on the floor, his legs splayed, his arms exposed. Blue lines traced along his exposed skin and dribbled blue liquid from beneath his fingernails. More dripped from his ears and made a sticky pool on the floor around his face.

Barbwire was wrapped around his wrists and neck so tight that the skin was puckered and ripped while bloodstained cloth covered his feet, makeshift shoes to keep out the worst of the ash and rain.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was what he’d written beside him in his own blood. The words “Death is a Blessing” had been smeared on the wood in blood, and the letters still glistened wetly in the flickering candles.

Aspen swallowed and knelt beside him. She whispered a soft prayer for the dead then rolled him onto his side. His eyes, stained blue by the liquid in his veins, stared at her sightlessly. His face was pale, drawn and appeared much older than he really was, but she recognized him from the videos Martel had taken. He was one of the investigators on Martel’s team.

“What happened to you?”

Unlike Martel, he had visible signs of trauma that included multiple healing wounds to his torso and hands, sores on his feet the wept puss and scars all over him. And then there was the barbwire, which Aspen judged to be the cause of death. Based on the ligature marks on his neck and wrists, as well as the blood covered pliers near his right hand, she had a feeling he’d done it to himself.

What kind of psychosis could drive a man to commit suicide with barbwire?

She pulled a pair of gloves from the pouch at her waist then began to pat him down. Beneath the cassock he wore an old tee-shirt that read ‘Team Paranormal’ and jeans that were so ragged and torn they were almost shorts. The only thing in any of the pockets was a key to the Grand Hotel.

Aspen slipped the key into her pocket and closed his eyes. She was starting to go through the contents of the room, which consisted of two bookcases so heavy with books they were sagging, a desk and an old bedroll covered in blankets, when Jynx called her from somewhere outside. Aspen moved to the railing and looked down. Jynx was approaching the doors, gun in hand, with an expression that held worry and anger.

“What is it?” Aspen asked.

“Get down here, there is something out there, a lot of somethings,” Jynx said.

As if in response to her words, a creature appeared in the gap. It was a massive, hairless thing with no eyes, pale skin and a tiny mucous-filled flap where its nose should have been. Metal surrounded the top of its head like a permanent skull-cap and capped its fingers, turning them into wickedly curving claws like those of a sloth. It pushed at the doors, trying to force them open and allow its bulk into the room. Jynx opened fire, first charging and then backing away. Her bullets were bouncing off its hide like it was some kind of bipedal tank.

Aspen judged the distance to the floor and swallowed. She’d seen Raven jump more than twice that distance, but she was a Mistress. A normal person falling that far would break something or end up dead. But something told her she could do it, and she needed to do something before the thing got inside. Without further hesitation, she vaulted the railing and dropped to the floor between the pews. She landed on one knee and steadied herself with her hand before standing and adding the crack of her pistol to the cadence of Jynx’s Colts. She emptied the magazine to little effect and tossed it aside. Beside her, Jynx reloaded and resumed firing.

Aspen knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Slowly, but surely, it was pushing the doors open, oblivious to the onslaught of the small-caliber bullets. If it got in, with those claws, they were both dead. She took a deep breath and raised her hands, weaving them in a complex pattern she’d once seen her mother use. Words of the Fae poured from her lips, “Bheir mi dhuibh lasair!” When she spoke the final word, flames erupted from her hands, a column that bathed the creature and pushed it backward, away from the doors.

In that moment, Jynx saw her opportunity. She crashed into the door, throwing all her weight behind the impact. Muscles stood out on her arms like cords and she pushed the door closed, inch by inch. Aspen’s spell ended and she ran forward, adding her strength. Together, they forced the door closed and Jynx threw the bolt.

“How did you get down so fast?” she panted, sagging against the door.

Aspen sat next to her, feeling the drain of her magik. “I jumped.”

Jynx started reloading her spent magazines with spare cartridges from her pockets. “That’s like a twenty-foot drop, Asp.”

Aspen closed her eyes. She could feel the creature on the other side. It had friends out there in the darkness. “It looked higher when I did it.”

“Whose familiar did you say you are, again?”

Aspen opened her eyes. “Fürstin Ravenel Tempeste, why?”

Jynx continued loading. “Because normal familiars can’t do that. They have powers, sure. They live longer, move faster, heal from either blood or food, but they aren’t vampires. You should have broken your neck, or at least a leg.”

Aspen watched her reload. “Maybe it is my fae blood then. My mother had wings, maybe I can fall further or something.”

Jynx slammed the magazines home and holstered her weapons. “I doubt it. Fae half-breeds are usually expert casters and have an affinity for nature, but that’s all I’ve ever heard of. Piper might know more, but there is definitely more to you than meets the eye, Aspen.”

Aspen didn’t know what to say. She was a good caster, especially when she had faerie dust on hand, but she’d never had any other abilities. She knew that, somehow, it came from Raven and her blood.

“What did you find upstairs?” Jynx asked.

The question was clearly raised to break the silence that had fallen over them and the church. Whatever the creature and its companions were doing, they were staying far too quiet.

“I found one of Martel’s people.”

“Good, where is he? Maybe he can tell us what the hell is going on.”

“He’s dead. As far as I can tell he committed suicide after exhibiting the same symptoms as Martel,” Aspen said.

Jynx ran a hand through her hair. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Aspen stood and offered Jynx her hand. “Come on, Jynxie, this place has to have a back door. Let’s get out of here before those things finish rallying or whatever.”

Jynx took the offered hand and Aspen hauled her to her feet at the same moment that the door rattled with the force of an impact on the other side. Jynx glanced at the door then back at Aspen. “I didn’t find much on the other side, just some signs that somebody had made camp maybe in the last few years. A couple of sleeping bags, a lantern and some MREs that expired when I was ten. Where do you think we should look?”

The doors shook with another thunderous impact and the windows above shattered inward. Shapes, similar to the creature they’d already seen but smaller and more agile, appeared in the broken frames, wide grins on their lipless mouths.

“Wherever we look, it should be somewhere not here. Run!”

Aspen took Jynx’s hand and pulled her away just as one of the creatures pounced where she’d been standing. Jynx let herself be led and shot at the creatures with her free hand. Two of them fell to the ground with smoking holes in their skulls and Jynx yelled her triumph.

“At least bullets kill some of them!”

Aspen was too busy running to answer. She dragged Jynx through the sanctuary and through the door at the back, which led into a small corridor at the back of the church. She slammed and locked the door behind them and called a wisp to light their way. There were doors at either end and another that was open into a small, cluttered office that looked like it hadn’t been used in some time.

Behind them, the door shook and rattled in its frame. Aspen could hear the creatures gibbering on the other side and she raised a hand, using magik to hold the door shut.

“Find an exit, I can’t hold this for long!”

“I’ll be right back!”

Jynx ran off, her boots pounding on the wooden floor. Aspen glared at the door and concentrated all her strength in keep it shut. Every impact against the wood felt like it was pounding in her skull. Her brain felt like it was going to slide out of her ears at any moment. She grit her teeth and held on. It seemed like an eternity before Jynx returned, weapons in hand.

“I found it, let’s bail! Let go of the door!”

“If I let go, they’re getting through!” Aspen said through clenched teeth.

Jynx held up her pistols. “I got it, come on!”

Aspen backed away and released the door. It slammed open and the thudding in her head was replaced by the staccato of Jynx’s pistols. Together they backed away from the smoking corpses until the door was choked with them, preventing more from coming through. Aspen locked the next door behind them and they ran down a short flight of steps and out through an old fire door. The screech of rusted metal was loud enough to wake the dead, but at least they were out in the open. Aspen was surprised to see the starry sky above them and no sign of the ash-fall or the residue. It was as if it had been nothing more than a dream.