Chapter Six – Sam

 

We exchanged numbers before I left, in case there was any holdup, and I headed back to my hotel room.

I'd found a shitty motel just outside of town on the main highway, the kind where semi tractors were parked out front all night, you could pay for fifteen minutes of magic fingers at a buck a pop, and, if you were so inclined, you could get the room by the hour.

Places like this were almost normal to me, at this point. They were the only ones that didn’t even raise an eyebrow when you paid cash, and rarely even asked for an ID when you signed in. Not that I was on the run or anything, of course, or trying to hide my actions.

But old habits die hard. Once a nomad, always a nomad.

On the way, I’d called Tabitha, let her know I was going to be staying in town a while. That the lead with the pretty assistant had panned out, and might be the beginning of a trail. Dr. Lawrence was hiding the body from me, that much was clear.

And, on one level, I could understand why. I was a reporter, after all, and my job was to get people to read articles. At least, that’s what he thought. Had I been in his shoes, I would have told me to shove off, too.

Luckily, though, Faith seemed as interested in the truth of all this as I was. I didn’t like the idea of using her this way, especially after having spent just a short amount of time with her, but I also didn’t exactly relish the concept of destroying her worldview and dragging her into the life of hunting.

I grabbed my duffel bag of tools out of the trunk of the old Camaro and headed inside with it slung over one shoulder, and my actual traveling pack hanging from the other. I opened the door with the key the desk clerk had given me and went inside, taking in the roach motel surroundings.

I whistled low. Not too bad. Decor of the 70s. Only a slight smell of urine, age, and mildew to the air, even to my shifter nose. I wouldn’t be shining a black light around or anything, of course. No telling what had gone on in a place like this. Some things were better left buried in the past.

I dropped my bags on the bed closest to the door and opened it up, began to rummage through the collected tools all of us at Full Moon Security brought on any of our jobs.

Holy water for demons. Cold iron for faeries and other creatures of Celtic myth. Ashen stakes for the occasional vampire, if we ever happened to run into one, and I didn't want to waste a silver bullet. A canister of Morton’s brand table salt (kosher!) to protect against curses and ghosts and summoned poltergeist. Most supernatural creatures couldn’t cross a line of salt, even if their inhuman lives depended on it. A small bag of sugar in case a leprechaun came after you. A bag of rice in case you found a Chinese or Japanese vampire. A bamboo shaft for the same. Shotgun shells packed with rock salt. Those would make anything stop for a second and question the decisions that had led them up to that point in their un-life. Spare pistols, and a small two-barreled derringer I'd bought on a lark because I thought it was funny to see such a tiny pistol in my big paw of a hand.

And, finally, a couple magazines of silver bullets for shifters who made the mistake of seeing humanity as a feeding ground. Those were my least favorite to deal with, but they were definitely the most versatile, since they worked on a few different things, including vampires. I could handle them just fine, but it was unsettling to know you were handling one of the few things that could kill you. Like playing with fire.

One of the things about America that made us great, but also a pain in the butt to hunt within, was that we were a nation of immigrants. When we traveled here, we’d brought not only our work ethics, our food, and our music, but also our superstitions and monsters. And then, of course, there were the ones the Amerindians had already had when the colonists showed up.

I reached into the bag, pulled out the double-barreled sawed-off shotgun I kept stashed there, along with my kit for oiling and cleaning, and went over to the table. I drew the pistol from the holster at the small of my back, and set it and the little hand cannon down side by side.

As my body relaxed into the motions of dismantling and cleaning my firearms, my brain began to wander to Faith Riley. Those full lips of hers. Those hips she cocked out to the one side. So unsure of herself, but still ready to take on the world, like a walking contradiction.

What was I doing here, thinking of her like this? I shook my head as I first worked the cleaning rod through the shotgun’s left barrel, then its right.

In this line of work, I always tried to keep things as professional as possible. That was for the best, especially when every possible moment could be dangerous.

But, shit, I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts.

When I was finished with the shotgun, I leaned it up against the wall. Just as I was about to sit down to work on my sidearm, though, my phone went off.

Kris.

Great.

Hopefully she hadn’t changed her mind and decided, instead, to pull me off the case and bring me in from the cold. After all, things had just started to get interesting. I set the phone down on the table next to my pistol and answered it, put it on speaker phone. Something she hated.

“You there, Fitzgerald?” Kris asked, her voice losing all the depth and warmth it normally had in person.

“I am. What’s happenin’, Cap’n?”

“Do you have me on speaker phone?” she snapped.

“Cleaning my sidearm and need my hands free. Can I help you with something?”

She grumbled a little, but didn’t pursue it further. “Tabitha says you got a lead? Anything of interest?”

“She give you the rundown about the flesh stripping, all that?” I asked as I began to strip apart my sidearm.

“Yeah.”

“Sounds to me like maybe a skinwalker, but this is pretty far out of their normal habitat.”

“Right. Generally in the southwest, Navajo areas.”

“Exactly. She’s looking to see if there’s anyone in the area that might be descended from them. Pretty sure there’s never been a white man on record as being one. Other strange thing is the pig skin. Normally they go for some kind of predator, like a coyote or wolf.”

“Could be part of something else,” Kris suggested. “A curse, maybe? Maybe someone is trying to lay one on the rancher who the pig belonged to? Someone in his family?”

“Yeah.” I ran the rod, with its little wad of cloth at the end, through the barrel of the pistol. “Might be. Too early in the case, I think, to say anything for certain. Hell, still not even sure this is supernatural in origin.”

“What else do you have, ideas-wise?”

“Blood loss is maybe vampire, but doubtful. Never heard of one that strips skin like that, though.”

“Not any that I’ve ever encountered, either,” she agreed. I could tell she was biting at the cuticle on her right thumb as she paused. “Which way are you leaning on this?”

“Cultists, to be honest. You can use the pig skin to do a few things, from what I’ve read, not just make magical footballs.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“What?” I asked. “I’m serious. You could make a grimoire, use it as a sacrifice, make part of a cloak. Or, you know, magical footballs. You know how Texans are about their high school teams.”

“Well, I’ll have Tabitha look to see if any small school suddenly goes on a magical winning streak.”

“Just saying: it’s not outside the realm of possibility.”

“How much longer till you meet up with your contact?”

I twisted up my wrist and checked the time on my watch face. I always kept it on the bottom side so I knew there wouldn’t be any chance of reflection at night. “Few hours from now.”

“Well, keep me apprised of the situation.”

I sighed, found myself getting a little annoyed. Col. Harrington had never run an operation like this before, with him looking over my shoulder every five minutes. Or even once during an operation. I never had to keep him apprised, or expect to be monitored.

It wasn’t Kris’s fault, though. She was a good leader for ops. When it came to planning something, and carrying it out, she was the woman to have on your side. She thought of every contingency, kept an eye on the whole team. Real hands-on.

But with these kinds of things? Where you had to learn to let the reins go, and just let the hunter hunt?

Nope.

“Fitzgerald?” Kris asked. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, Kris. Everything’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Silence on the other end of the line for a moment. “I’m getting on your nerves, aren’t I?”

“Nope,” I said, grinning a little. “Just wondering when you’re gonna let me do my job, is all.”

“Shit.” She growled a little, mostly at herself, I thought. “You know what, just keep in touch with Tabitha, okay? If I have any questions, I’ll find out your status from her.”

I didn’t say anything. After years of working with Kris, I knew she wasn’t quite finished yet.

“Just, you know, call if you need any help.”

“Will do, boss.”

I reached over, punched the end button, and went back to cleaning my gun and thinking about Faith Riley.

I ain’t gonna lie, I was looking forward to this nighttime infiltration of the county morgue.

Even though I knew I shouldn’t have been.

As I finished up cleaning my guns and sharpening the knife I kept stuck in my boot, the neighbors next door decided to put both those hourly rates and magic fingers on the bed to work. I went over to the little coin feeder for the magic fingers mechanism, wondering.

“You know,” I said to no one in particular as I dug around in my pocket for a dollar’s worth of quarters. I steadily thumbed them in, and the bed reared to life. I chuckled as I sat down, pulled off my boots, and climbed on top of the covers. “You only live once, right?”

And so it was to the tune of two groaning humans, and a headboard slamming against our shared wall, that I finally dozed off to sleep, all while those magic fingers gently vibrated my whole body.

The first thing you learned when you were in the military was that anytime was sack time, no matter where you were. Because you never knew when you might get it next.