Witchwood (Monsters of the Nexus #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Nina

Sweetwater Point

Eleven Years Ago

Nina was miserable.

She adjusted the hood on her greatcoat. It didn’t help. She was still miserably wet, and the darkened sky only promised more rain.

Early spring rain beaded on the surface of the waxed fabric, but the coat did nothing against the cold. She was chilled down to her soul. Mud caked her boots and damp seeped in through her boots. She longed for a pair of dry socks and good fur-lined gloves.

Duty called, rain or shine. Such was the burden of a deputy.

If she had a nice desk job, she could be both toasty warm and dry, but she had no such vocation. She could be an accountant or a librarian, but no. Nina had to follow in the family footsteps, which meant she was a monster hunter.

After a fashion.

Technically, Nina was a deputy. Wearing a badge was as close as she could get to monster hunting in modern times, and being a champion of law and order kept the community safe.

If, when the seasons changed and the Nexus energies surged on the solstice, duty required Nina to patrol the streets for a wayward monster, she welcomed the opportunity.

Welcoming the opportunity was easier in theory on a warm summer’s day. Less so in a freezing spring rain. Regardless, rain or shine, Nina was exactly where she wanted to be, protecting Sweetwater Point and the people who called it home.

Monster hunting was an archaic profession. Once, when the human settlers were still finding their footing on Nexus and the entire colony was in peril of failing, the planetary government paid a generous salary. Hunters kept the colonists safe and the new settlements free from monsters.

Not long after the first appearance of the monsters and the collapse of the original colonist’s technology, the Navarre family traveled west and settled at the end of the partially constructed railroad.

There was no military fort then. Certainly no Sweetwater Point.

They hunted monsters on the fringes of human civilization, making the land safe and a town possible.

Now? There was the occasional bounty offered when a monster terrorized a village or township, paid out of the town coffers.

Monster hunting had not paid the bills in some time.

Short of funds, the Navarre family got creative.

They became the law and wore a badge. A few—her grandfather, for one—went into politics or became lawyers.

There was the odd blacksmith and even an accountant second cousin, but the majority of the Navarre family kept the peace in the town that sprouted where the railroad terminated.

Sweetwater Point always had travelers, some going into the West Lands to make their fortunes, homesteaders bringing livestock to market and needing supplies, and the military.

Soldiers were constantly coming and going to the nearby fort, and when they weren’t on duty, they were in town carousing and generally being a nuisance.

The vampire Draven haunted the mountains to the west, a constant force impossible to ignore.

While the vampire had not been seen out of his mountain fortress in more than a century, the military was always on guard.

In short, Sweetwater Point was a busy place. People and funds flowed through the town, which was exactly what the mayor and those with business interests favored. The sheriff had his hands full keeping the peace.

How he found the time to fuss over her, she hadn’t the slightest idea.

Lucas readjusted the hood on her cloak. “Do not let the fabric hang too far forward or you’ll obstruct your vision.”

Nina scowled. “Surely rain will obstruct my vision.”

“Then stand up straight and do not slouch.”

Nina very much wanted to kick Lucas in the shins, but they were no longer children. They were adults with responsibilities. He was sheriff of Sweetwater Point and she was a loyal deputy. A deputy did not kick the sheriff in the shins.

Even if he deserves it.

She pushed her shoulders back and stood a bit taller.

“You’re still a bit slouchy. You know, it’s not too late to apprentice to the blacksmith,” he said, his tone teasing. “Or finish your law degree like your ma wants.”

Nina’s mother had been very disappointed when she quit law school and joined up as a deputy. Law school was always her mother’s dream and not Nina’s.

“Blacksmith? These hands are too delicate for the forge.” Nina held up a gloved hand. “I’d rather be an accountant with Cousin Victor.”

“You wouldn’t last a fortnight.”

“I’d be warm and dry and inside .”

“As an apprentice? You’d have one lump of coal all winter and a desk by a drafty window.”

Unfortunately, that was a likely scenario. Second cousin Victor was not known for his generosity of spirit.

“Spite will keep me warm,” she said.

“Too stubborn to quit,” Lucas corrected.

Nina gestured dramatically to their soggy surroundings. “And see how I flourish.”

Lucas huffed in amusement, then proceeded down the muddy street at an impressive clip. “You need to be more than stubborn in this vocation. Be aware of your surroundings. The rain will mask the approach of any devil intent on malfeasance.”

Nina held her tongue as she followed. Her cousin had a tendency to lecture. She did not mind as she knew it was a manifestation of his affection.

“Your pistol is a good tool but don’t rely on it in close quarters,” Lucas continued. “You’re more likely to shoot yourself than a beast. Use your blade.”

“This isn’t my first patrol,” she grumbled.

Lucas gave some variation of this speech during every solstice or equinox.

She wasn’t a brand-new recruit— she had six months’ experience, thank you very much —but there was comfort to be found in his familiar warning.

While she had not spent as many years patrolling the town as Lucas had, she was far from inexperienced.

“It doesn’t hurt to review the basics.”

“I’m confused, cousin. Which end of the blade goes into the monster?” she asked, trotting alongside him.

“That’s Sheriff Cousin to you.” He grinned. At least she assumed he grinned. Any expression was obscured by the rain and his mustache.

“I can’t believe Aunt Prudy hasn’t made you shave off that ridiculous thing,” she said. “It looks like a caterpillar.”

“As amusing as all this is, can we focus on the task at hand?” Captain Pearson’s clipped tone was as icy as the freezing rain.

Nina glanced over her shoulder at the soldier.

He was inordinately handsome, the kind of attractive with a straight nose, strong jaw, and silver hair at his temples that made her feel a little giddy.

He wore confidence as easily as he wore his uniform.

He spoke precisely and with clarity in a voice like cut glass, the kind of diction taught in expensive schools.

Fortunately, his cool countenance and look of perpetual disdain helped her recover from handsomeness-induced foolishness.

“You’re more than welcome to patrol on your own,” she said.

“I sought the sheriff’s assistance for his tracking skills, not to wander about in the rain for hours.

” The captain arrived at the sheriff’s office that afternoon with a problem.

It seemed he misplaced— how embarrassing —a werewolf.

Now the sheriff, every deputy in town, and a handful of soldiers scoured the streets searching for the wayward beast.

Nina was not impressed. Nexus surges happened on a predictable schedule.

A person could prepare. A responsible person.

Captain Pearson’s lack of oversight was now her problem.

Nina gave the captain a withering glare.

He failed to notice due to the hooded cloak and the rain, but the point was made.

His face was not so handsome that he was above criticism.

In fact, she prepared herself to deliver a blow of wit so devastating that handsome Captain Pearson would never recover when Lucas paused, holding up his hand for silence.

They were near the river. The lights of the town burned behind them and the prairie on the other side of the muddy banks stretched out before them.

“Can you sense it?” Lucas asked.

“You’re better at tracking than I am,” she said.

“The route to improvement is practice. Tell me what you feel.”

“Rain.”

Captain Pearson made a scoffing noise. “We do not have the time for a training exercise.”

“As my deputy said, you are more than welcome to patrol on your own,” Lucas replied, his tone stern.

“Get on with it then, witch.”

Lucas turned his attention to Nina. In the same stern tone that she felt was unwarranted, he said, “Close your eyes and focus.”

The work. This was no place for petty squabbles.

“Very well.” She closed her eyes and attempted to focus on something other than her cold nose, damp socks, and general sense of misery.

Monsters came in three varieties, for the most part.

Beasts, or werewolves, were the most common.

Their bites were contagious and could trigger a change in the unwitting victim when the Nexus energies surged.

Vampires were less common and their hunger drove them into towns and villages, where they were quickly discovered.

A beast could sequester themselves and suffer through the shift into their monstrous form in isolation.

A vampire did not shift between human and monster form.

They simply were, and they always hungered for blood.

Again, the predictable nature of a beast’s transformation made Captain Pearson’s oversight even more egregious, but she would strive to be charitable.

He could very well have ordered his troops to search for the wayward beast and stayed behind in the fort, but he was in the freezing rain, the same as her, a witch.