Bron pulled up before a gas tank and shut off the engine. When he turned, he held the piece of glass before him. “Kisanthra, I’m a Retriever. I work for an organization that retrieves lost artifacts, items of magical nature and various other things that I’m sure you’d understand if I took the time to explain, because your acceptance of the harpie was easy enough.”
“I believe in a lot of things. But this is the first time I’ve ever been given tangible proof. I sure hope those photos turn out.” She snapped the small, square piece of glass with a fingernail. “You retrieve things? Does it have to do with harpies?”
“It shouldn’t. It’s to do with this.”
She took the piece of glass when he offered it, and again, it slipped out of her grip and affixed to the front of her shirt.
“Hell,” he muttered. “This mission was supposed to be find and seize. There’s no way—” He beat the steering wheel with a fist.
His anger had come on so suddenly and felt palpable to Kizzy. The thought to flee resurfaced. But it was already dark outside. Not as easy to spy a raven-winged bird man flying overhead.
“I don’t get it.” She tore away the square piece from her chest, which looked innocuous enough. Maybe it wasn’t glass? It wasn’t clear but was smooth and had a good weight to it like some kind of stone. “What is this thing?”
“It’s a tracking device. Sometimes the items I’m sent to retrieve are in an unknown location. Acquisitions had a tracker bespelled, and, apparently, it led me straight to the item.”
“Acquisitions?”
He nodded. “That’s the name of the organization I work for.”
“Generically nonspecific. And you are a Retriever. That’s kind of cool. You get more points for the Indiana Jones vibe you’re putting off. And you had me right up until you said bespelled.”
“Right.” He snatched the tracking device from her and opened the truck door. “The item I’m looking for is the Purgatory Heart. And—” he stepped out and leaned his head in “—apparently it’s inside you.”
Door closing behind him, he turned and shoved the gas nozzle into the tank at the back of the truck.
Kizzy sat frozen, her jaws agape as she watched him stride inside the station. Long sure strides. Peripherally aware as he glanced side to side. His hands flexed at his sides, where she noted a holster strapped to one thigh, but she couldn’t determine what was in it. He was some kind of Indiana Jones Wild West gunslinger. No one would mess with that man. He knew how to take down harpies.
“Purgatory heart? What the...? He’s not making sense. That tracking device landed on me. Right over my heart.”
And if she gave it any amount of thought, putting the words retriever and find and seize together...
“Oh, hell, no. No one is seizing my heart. I think we’ve shared enough adventure for one day, Mr. Jones.”
Checking through the gas station windows, she couldn’t see his tall, dark-haired figure. Must have wandered toward the back of the store.
Grabbing her camera bag, Kizzy slid out of the truck, and, with careful glances toward the red-brick-walled station’s front doors, she ran around beside the building and down an alley hedged on both sides by glossy-leaved forsythia that had long ago shed its bright yellow flowers.
She wasn’t afraid of walking through the town so late. It wasn’t people she had to worry about. She had to hope there had only been five harpies. Of which, Bron had slain them all. She was no longer in the mood to take pictures of vicious flying bird men.
A stretch of garage bays where the gas station mechanics worked on vehicles grew up behind the hedges to her right. The sounds of tools clanking and a hydraulic lift disguised her stumble over a mess of tangled plastic shopping bags and weeds.
Her rental was at the city center. It was a small town, population around eight thousand. When she’d resided here before the accident, she’d lived in a quaint neighborhood, but a handful of blocks’ walk from her elementary and middle schools; it had been her home since birth. Small town. Small, safe upbringing.
Wildly expansive imagination.
Oh, yeah, she had always been the weird girl.
Striding quickly, she guessed it was a couple miles’ walk to her rental apartment. She dodged left and let out a yelp when a growl alerted her to a dark, man-shaped shadow looming beneath a willow tree.
“Bron?”
“Sorry, sweetie, your dog of a boyfriend isn’t here to save you.”
“My dog...?” She didn’t understand that. Bron was actually very handsome.
A man stepped from the shadows. Thin, blond and clad in enough black to give a goth a run for his money. Goths had never been big in Thief River Falls. But they did have a few token outliers that represented all sorts. He grinned at her, revealing fangs that jutted downward from his upper row of teeth.
“Seriously?” Kizzy knew to her bones those were not the fake dental acrylic fangs some goths sported. She clutched her camera bag, then thought better of taking advantage of a photographic moment at a time like this. “Vampires exist, too?”
“Surprise,” he offered with a splay of hands and no humor whatsoever. “You want a bite?”
“Uh...” Did she?
Was she considering the offer? No, she was not. He’d taken her by surprise and... It was just so cool to learn about yet another paranormal creature.
And then her brain did the right thing and switched to survival mode. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
She took a few cautious steps backward and gripped the gold cross on the chain around her neck. She wasn’t deeply religious, but when faced with a vampire—oh, yeah, she believed.
“Not going to help,” the vampire said and laughed. “Not baptized, bitch!”
She didn’t know what that meant—the man lunged for her and managed to grip her wrist. Kizzy shrieked. She was three blocks away from the gas station and didn’t think Bron would hear her over the sounds echoing out from the garage. For all those times she had mused over whether or not carrying a wooden stake would be a wise decision, she now regretted not going with her instincts.
The vampire was strong. Even as she struggled and planted her feet, he managed to drag her under the long, spindly branches of the willow tree. It was darker under there, and they weren’t in a residential area. Most businesses had closed for the evening. Would anyone hear her scream?
He twisted her wrist, yanking her closer. Kizzy went for the scream again.
“Quiet! Just a quick bite, and then I’ll take that heart of yours.”
“My heart? H-how do you know about that?”
“Followed the vibes, baby.” He grinned a bloody smile. One of his fangs must have cut into his lower lip.
Vibes? What was he talking about? He sounded more like a stoned sixties hippie than a bloodthirsty creature of the night.
This was not happening.
But, yes, it was. And if she wanted to escape unbitten—and, apparently, with her heart intact—Kizzy needed to get smart. Fast.
She grabbed at the willow branches with her free hand. The long, slender branches were remarkably strong. Pulling up with that hand, and using the elastic-like give of the branches for propulsion, she was able to kick up toward the vampire and landed him on the chest. He released her with a grunt—but then a vicious growl preceded his lunge for her. Arms opening to clutch, he wasn’t able to grab her again because something slammed him against the tree trunk.
Someone, that was.
“Bron.” She gasped and stumbled backward, then answered the call of the adrenaline rush and fell to her knees, clutching her chest and, in the process, her camera bag.
Beneath the concealing umbrella of the willow’s slender fall of branches, the vampire howled. Bron stepped back, a wooden stake clutched in hand. He replaced the stake in the holster strapped to his thigh.
“Crap,” Kizzy muttered in awe.
