Chapter 3 #2
I run for the spot where I left my fishing rod.
I’ve never packed up my gear so fast or so messily, but I refuse to leave it behind.
The screams of the two battling horses echo through the forest as I finish up, and when I turn around, they’re leaping and rearing and striking at each other with their hooves.
It’s wicked and wild. I almost want to stay and watch, but my survival instincts tell me to get far, far away.
Common sense wins.
As I jog away from the pond, toward the dirt road where I parked my truck, I hear a shrill cry, a long wail searing through the night sky, and I know instinctively that it’s her. The first horse.
I throw my gear into the truck, hop in, and start the engine. I hit the gas immediately and roar off the grass onto the road while gravel spatters from under the tires.
My high beams turn the forest into an eerie mix of yellow and black, glare and shadow. I veer around a curve, then press the gas deeper once I have a straight path ahead.
Something is whizzing through the trees on the left side of the road. It’s a horse with reddish eyes, but it’s not galloping so much as soaring, bounding, half-flying. My driver’s side window is partway down, so I hit the button to raise it. Not that the glass would protect me much.
The front of my shirt is torn and soaked with blood, and I’m starting to feel the pain. But my adrenaline is too high for it to bother me much. My priority is staying alive.
The horse on the left is moving past my truck. There’s a spot ahead where the trees thin out, and I just know when I reach that point, my pursuer is going to leap out and try to throw me off the road. With the horse’s size and apparent strength, it could probably manage that.
I glance to my right and spot another horse—the blue-eyed one. I’m the prey, caught between two rival predators. I floor the gas and hope the engine can take it.
The horses both leap at the same time. A hoof rebounds from the hood of my truck, and I swear I hear a bone snap. I swerve, avoiding the worst of their collision with each other. As they tussle behind me, I drive away into the night.
My pulse hasn’t slowed an hour later, when I’m safely on the highway, headed back to Crescent Cove. It’s still high when I drive through the invisible wards that protect the town.
As a supernatural who occasionally visited Lou as a kid, I’m familiar with the barrier. It keeps non-resident humans out of the town, except during special events like music festivals, holiday fairs, or the occasional surfing competition.
Until Lou’s passing, it had been years since I spent more than a day or two in Crescent Cove. I could have visited more often, but I just… didn’t. Now that it’s too late, I wish I had taken the time, made the effort.
For the past ten years, whenever Lou wanted to see family, he’d come to us. And he showed up every year for the week-long family reunion. It was the only real vacation he ever allowed himself.
Since my early twenties, the reunion is the only time I see my family, too. Lou and I used to hang out together during most of it, going off to fish or making emotive potions in the kitchen of the big house we rented out for the event.
Though everyone enjoyed the benefits of our potions, Lou and I were always considered the least powerful witches in the family.
The others thought of us as under-achievers with lesser gifts…
like part-time baggers at the grocery store compared to the CEO level that the rest of the family had achieved.
I got sick of being treated that way. It’s why I don’t stay in touch with my parents, my siblings, or any of the other relatives. Distancing myself from them meant losing even more status in the supernatural community of Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area.
To make matters worse, I asked questions about the way things have always been done. That earned me side-eyes from the most powerful witches of the region.
Lou knew what I was going through. It’s why he left me the diner, along with a nice fat savings account that no one in my family knew he had.
Not that it’ll do me much good if I bleed out.
My wounds have mostly clotted, but there’s one deeper puncture positioned close to my heart, and dark red blood keeps flowing from it, so I head for Selena’s place.
I met her once during a rare visit with my uncle, when I accidentally slammed my finger in a car door and broke it.
Her tamales are infused with magic to repair and restore the body.
It’s the wee hours of the morning, and I hate to disturb Selena, but I don’t like the color of my blood, or the strange, floaty feeling I’m starting to get. This could be a mortal wound. Better tend to it.
I pound on the door, wait a few minutes, then knock again.
I hear Selena muttering right before she yanks open the door.
She’s gorgeous, tanned, with curly brown hair tumbling around her shoulders.
Her hair is lighter than I remember, bleached by the summer sun.
Her irritation barely fades when she recognizes me.
“Maverick Thane.” Her gaze drops to my blood-soaked shirt, and her lips tighten with purpose. “What have you done to yourself? Get in here.”
“Might get blood on your floors.”
“Happens all the time. Take your shirt off. Just stuff it in that trash can over there, it’s ruined. Sit down.”
I obey her because no one argues with Selena when she’s in work mode.
She microwaves a tamale for me after explaining that while it’s not the best way to heat them, it’s the fastest. I expect to take the food with me, but she makes me eat it in front of her.
After removing the damp paper towel and the husk, I take a bite.
Within seconds, I’m healing. Selena hands me a wet towel to wipe the blood off my chest so she can see the injuries clearly. She nods, satisfied with the way the flesh is knitting itself back together.
“You wanna tell me what happened?” she asks.
“No.”
In a town like this, secrets are a way of life. Even in a place where we feel relatively safe, us magical and supernatural folk like to keep some things to ourselves. Selena doesn’t push me to say any more. I offer her payment, which she refuses, but I insist until she finally accepts.
“Take better care of yourself,” she advises.
“I’ll try.” I give her a wave as she closes the door.
Hopping back into my truck, I drive to Main Street, circle around the storefront row, and let myself in the rear door of the Toast & Tide.
Ever since I can remember, Uncle Lou has rented out the second floor of his building to a werewolf couple. He lived in a studio apartment on the first floor, behind the diner. His living space is mine now, and my bathroom shares a wall with the diner kitchen. It’s not a bad setup. Easy commute.
Since I wasn’t planning to get any sleep tonight, I asked Tae to open the diner for me tomorrow.
Which means I should be able to grab a good four or five hours of rest before I’ve got to make an appearance.
Tae is a male gumiho shifter with top-notch cooking skills.
Thanks to his supernatural abilities, he can speed along the cooking process, a helpful trait for someone in the restaurant business.
But he doesn’t bake, and he can’t make the specialty drinks. Those are my gifts.
I might just break my personal rule and have one of my own potions tomorrow. I could use it after that mess tonight.
Does the town council know that there are man-eating horses roaming near Fuller’s Pond? It’s technically outside their jurisdiction, but it seems a little close for comfort. If humans start dying in the woods a couple hours from Crescent Cove, it could bring negative attention our way.
There’s a town hall meeting tomorrow night. I should probably go, so I can mention what I saw. I’m new here, but I want to make this work. Be a good citizen, contribute, all that crap.
After a shower, I stretch out on the creaky bed I inherited from Uncle Lou. He didn’t die on it, but I ordered a new mattress and sheets anyway. Pretty high thread count, too. Feels so damn good I wish I’d sprung for top-quality sheets earlier in my lifetime.
I close my eyes, but I keep seeing horses’ heads with finned ears and jaws that open far too wide, rimmed with sharp teeth.
Finally I grab my phone off the nightstand. I don’t use it much because I don’t have many people to text or call, and I got no use for social media. But it does come in handy sometimes.
I open the browser app and enter a few words into the search bar: sharp teeth water horse.
The first entry is titled “The Legend of the Kelpie.”
I tuck one arm under my head and settle in for some reading.