Chapter 6. Jenny
Jenny
Thirteen minutes passed from when I received Annette’s text to the moment she pulled into the shop’s back lot. Thirteen long, helpless, worried minutes.
Her message had said only, Coming home. Hurt. Need help.
For Annette to admit needing help meant it was serious. Possibly life-threatening. I’d written back asking for more information so I could be ready, but she hadn’t responded.
I was at her car door, first aid kit in hand, by the time she killed the engine. She grabbed her things from the passenger seat and climbed out, grimacing in pain and completely naked.
“What happened?” I’d seen plenty of injuries over the years.
Annette’s weren’t the most gruesome, but she’d certainly earned an honorable mention.
Her face, neck, and shoulders were red and blistered.
Mostly second-degree burns, though several of the blisters were broken and bloody.
Both eyes were swollen nearly shut. Her shoulders and chest had been burnt as well, along with one of her thighs.
These burns weren’t quite as bad, but they had spread across more of the skin.
“Holy water.” She hissed as I took her left arm to help her.
I looked her over as we walked. Blood trickled down her skin from the burns, but there were no deeper wounds, and I saw no signs of broken bones, but the burns were clearly agonizing. Her breathing was quick and tight and shallow, and her heart was running at double its normal speed.
The back door swung open to let us inside. “Thanks,” I said. “Start the shower. Cool but not cold.”
I guided her into the nearest bathroom just as the ceiling vent kicked on and water began to spray down. I set Annette’s things on the little shelf next to the sink, then checked the temperature of the shower. “This will help with the burning and get rid of any holy water still on your skin.”
She climbed in, trembling, then gasped as the water struck her burns. “Putain de merde!”
I grabbed two extra-strength painkillers from the first aid kit. “Take these.”
She leaned out to take them from my hand, popped both pills into her mouth, and dry-swallowed them in one gulp. Then she yanked the shower curtain shut.
“Who did this to you?” I asked. Now that she was home and safe and there was nothing immediate for me to do, my emotions had begun to bubble up. Fear and worry and anger, all cracking the calm of my initial crisis response.
“Kids. Three of them.” Her heart rate had slowed slightly, but it was still dangerously high. “They jumped me when I was on my way back to my car.”
“If they had holy water, they knew what you were and how to hurt you.”
“They were there to kill me. I think it spooked the little shits when their squirt guns didn’t melt me like the Wicked Witch of the West.”
My fists clenched. I’d used the exact same tactics once during my Hunter days, decades past. I’d chased a pair of leech-faced soul-sucking demons into a dead end behind the food bank back home. While I kept them busy, my friends had attacked from the roof with squirt guns and water balloons.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I should have gone with you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she said, the words tight with pain. “I’m a grown woman. I’ve been taking care of myself my whole life.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “You’re a badass demon detective who doesn’t need anyone. I still wish I’d been there.”
“Having you there would have made it a lot more entertaining,” she admitted.
The water stopped. She shoved the curtain aside and let me help her out. That more than anything else told me how much she was hurting.
She was shivering harder now. The heat kicked on in response to her trembling.
I set a towel on the toilet and helped her to sit, then used a second towel to pat her dry as gently as I could. Watery blood welled from the worst of the burns. “Don’t move. I’m going to put aloe cream on those burns and get them bandaged.”
“You’re going to make me look like a fucking mummy.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll use only the best, most stylish bandages, direct from Paris.” I began dabbing cream onto the burns on her neck. “What happened to those kids? Are we going to get an angry call from Duke about you leaving dead bodies outside his bar?”
“They ran off. I’m not sure how.” She hissed and jerked away.
“I didn’t want to kill kids, but they wanted me dead, Jen.
I had to put them down fast and hard. One should have had a full set of broken ribs.
I elbowed another hard enough to knock him out for the night.
But they just shook it off and bounced back. ”
“Were they human?”
She nodded.
Meaning they were either on drugs or packing magical power-ups. Either way, Annette was lucky it hadn’t been worse.
“I got a name from Duke,” she said. “Our guest this morning was Ronald Kensington. Drives a black van. Duke gave me the license plate number and everything.”
“Good.” I taped a bandage into place. “Where did you park tonight when you went to the Gauntlet?”
“Across from—” She stopped. “Why do you want to know?”
I forced myself to speak calmly. “You did your detective thing. It’s my turn. I’ll start by tracking the kids. Their scent is on your clothes. If that trail goes dead, I’ll hunt Ronnie. His name and vehicle should be enough for me to find him.”
“We don’t know if those three have any connection to Ronnie.”
“You think it’s a coincidence?”
“No, but I work with facts, not feelings. Sherlock Holmes-style. And you . . . This isn’t what you do anymore. You had damn good reasons for leaving that life behind. My grandson might not understand, but I do.”
She didn’t realize how angry I was or how scared. They’d tried to kill my friend. The urge to hunt and punish was overwhelming.
I hid my struggle behind a smile as I moved to the burns on her shoulder. “You heard that conversation with Morgan?”
“I’m very observant.”
“You mean you snoop.”
“Potato, potahto.” Her pulse continued to ease, though she remained pale and sweaty.
I must not have hidden my feelings as well as I thought, because Annette caught my wrist and turned serious. “Hey, look at me. I’m all right. You don’t have to worry, okay? Believe me, I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring.” I tore open the next package of gauze.
Annette healed quicker than humans, and her skin was immune to scars or other blemishes, but she’d be hurting and messed up for most of the week.
“How do you think they found you? Were they just waiting around outside the Gauntlet for the first demon to walk out?”
“Shit. I didn’t even think about that. I must have gotten holy water on the brain.
Stupid!” She tried to stand. Her legs wobbled, and I guided her back down.
“I don’t think they knew about the Gauntlet.
They asked me where to find ‘the rest of my kind.’ No, they were there for me.
They must have been watching the shop and followed me when I left.
I need to check the outside security footage. ”
“You need to stop squirming,” I said firmly. “I’ll get you something to help you relax, along with more pain meds. Then I’ll check around outside to see what I can find while you sleep.”
“Dammit, Jenny. They know where I live. They could be out there waiting for their next shot.”
The rage of the goddess heated my blood. “I very much hope so.”
· · ·
This isn’t a hunt, I told myself as I circled the block for the third time.
A true hunt would have begun with a ritual prayer. I’d be carrying my bow and blade. And I would have felt Artemis’s presence with each step, a silent companion who brought comfort and confidence and security.
I missed my goddess. I missed my friend.
As I walked, I checked every shadow and every window, peered beneath every parked car. I scared a few cats, a possum, and a pair of rabbits.
The only human I encountered was Denise Woodward, who was out walking her dog Walnut. I’d known both Denise and Walnut for almost ten years. The only threat either of them posed was if you were allergic to dog fur.
“Are you catching cold, dear?” she asked.
What? Oh—I’d been sniffing for scents. “Just enjoying the night air.”
“You should be careful walking alone this late. Have you considered getting a dog like Walnut?”
I studied the overweight, arthritic cocker spaniel who was happily panting and drooling at the end of his leash. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”
I’m not hunting. Yet here I was, out on patrol like I was a teenager again.
My knees ached, and the initial fury and adrenaline from Annette’s attack had worn off.
I should be back home checking on Annette’s injuries.
And checking to see whether Annette’s grandkids had left any of those chocolate chip muffins for the rest of us.
My gut told me to keep walking. My gut also wanted muffins, but I ignored that the best I could. Several times I’d caught a mote of Ronnie’s scent, so faint I didn’t know if it was real.
I broadened my search. I was finishing my fourth lap through the neighborhood when I spotted an old black van parked on Chestnut Street, two blocks back from us.
The kid in the driver’s seat had a narrow line of sight between the houses and buildings to our shop.
At that distance, hidden behind tinted windows, he probably thought he was invisible.
I couldn’t make out details, but his silhouette matched what I’d seen in the security footage. He had binoculars in one hand. His attention was fixed on Second Life Books. “Hello, Mr. Harbinger.”
I kept walking until I was out of sight, then hopped a fence and cut through my neighbor Mindy’s backyard. My goddess-blessed senses also let me dodge the land mines Mindy’s three Yorkies had scattered through the lawn.
Another fence and a narrow side street brought me onto Chestnut Street, about a hundred yards behind the van.