Kindling The Darkness. Jane Kindred

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СКАЧАТЬ grimaced as the burgers arrived. “Sorry. I wasn’t planning to talk about that while we ate.”

      “Why not? Isn’t that why you brought me to Jerome? I didn’t come for a social visit.”

      “No, of course. And to be clear, I did not bring you here. I was outvoted, if you recall. But don’t you ever take a break?”

      Lucy shrugged. “I’ll take a break when they do.” Which seemed like it was going to be never. She dug in to her burger, having forgotten how hungry she was until now. “So, where were the other attacks?”

      “A hiker was killed in Deception Gulch near the old mine at Hull Canyon, and a couple of campers were torn to shreds near Woodchute Trail. And there was one more sighting recently at Hogback—the Old Miners Cemetery just south of town. But no contact there.”

      “So it’s staying close to Jerome.” Lucy washed down her burger with a sip of root beer. “I wonder why.”

      Oliver gave her a wry smile. “Some people like it here.”

      “No, I’m sure they do. I mean, why, specifically, would it gravitate toward a small town with limited hunting and few places to hide in an area that’s neither urban nor wooded. Werewolves tend to prefer hunting grounds near large groups of people where they can blend in and stalk at night, or they isolate themselves and hide in undeveloped forestland and hunt small game. But this one—if it is indeed just one—has gone a few miles out, perhaps to hide, but then returned to the center of Jerome, where it made a brazen kill that it could have been caught at.”

      “Maybe it isn’t afraid of being caught.” It was an unsettling idea.

      While they both concentrated on their food, Lucy pondered where to start her hunt.

      After a moment, Oliver set down his burger and took a drink of his porter. “So, how do you intend to catch it?”

      “I don’t intend to catch it. I intend to kill it.”

      His hard jaw was set even harder. “So you’re judge, jury and executioner.”

      “That’s right. That’s what people like you pay me to be. What did you expect me to do, put it in a zoo?”

      “Doesn’t your biotech company develop drugs to help shifters lead ‘normal’ lives?”

      “We have certain promising pharmaceuticals in development but none on the market yet.”

      “Isn’t that your brother’s bailiwick? You both inherited the company, didn’t you?”

      Lucy breathed evenly. “Lucien has a lot of responsibilities that keep him from the day-to-day operations. But yes, Smok Biotech is Lucien’s particular area of interest, and the anti-lycanthropy project is one that he’s spearheaded.”

      “There are rumors about him.”

      Her hand remained perfectly still around her glass, and she kept her expression neutral. “Rumors?”

      “That he’s actually at some swanky rehab center in California, and his addiction is being quietly covered up.”

      She made a dismissive sound and emptied her glass. “Lucien isn’t an addict. Rest assured, the company is in very capable hands. My brother just happens to be a rather private—and busy—person. You can spread that around your rumor mill.” Lucy set her napkin on the table and pushed her plate away. “I’ll take a drive out to Hogback and see if I can spot anything unusual. In the meantime, a sketch of the creature would be useful in determining what we’re dealing with. Did you get a detailed description from any of the eyewitnesses?”

      “I’m afraid not. We have fairly limited resources at our disposal. But I do have this.” He took out his phone and displayed the photo, turning it toward Lucy on the table. “The eyewitness at the Gold King Mine got a picture of it before it took off. I’m afraid it’s not very clear.”

      Lucy studied the blurry image, like a photo of Bigfoot through the trees, only this was a large, dark, doglike shape on its hind legs, its muzzle caught in midsnarl. As unclear as it was, there was something unsettling about the image. The creature seemed fully aware it was being photographed, as if it was posing for the camera, the snarl a ghoulish grin.

      And it was a dead ringer for the thing Lucy had shot this morning.

       Chapter 4

      Lucy studied the photo on her phone while she waited for dark. It was blurred—as her glimpse of her attacker this morning had been—but she was certain that if it wasn’t the same creature, it was one of its kind.

      After seeing the picture, she’d changed her mind about the sighting in the cemetery. What this creature wanted was prey, and it seemed to prefer getting as close to populated areas as possible. It was likely to try again closer to town. And the creature that had attacked her this morning was intelligent and had sought her out on purpose. She needed to begin thinking the way it would.

      Most likely, it knew she was here. And it was probably proud of its kill. It would return to the site of its latest victory to gloat, knowing she’d be there.

      As dusk fell, she got out of the car and walked down the embankment where they’d seen the tracks before climbing up the other side of the hill into the area marked No Trespassing. Full dark had hit. It was a new moon. But Lucy had no trouble seeing in the dark. Her cycle was perfectly aligned with the lunar month—and with PMS came the weakening of the drug that suppressed her condition.

      Lucien’s anti-lycanthropy compound had come in handy after their twenty-fifth birthday ushered in the transformation. There had been just one little problem with Edgar’s calculations when he’d sold his firstborn son’s soul to the devil: he hadn’t figured in the fact that Lucy and Lucien represented a rare occurrence of opposite-sex monozygotic twins—genetically identical except for an extra X chromosome—and the curse had affected both of them. Lucy’s change was only partial, but partial was enough. She’d become sufficiently practiced that she could use her infernal enhancements when she needed them, but Lucien’s compound kept her from being a slave to them. It was “shift control.” And like birth control, it only effectively balanced her hormonal cocktail about twenty-one days out of the month, leaving her vulnerable to accidental transformation during that critical week.

      Lucy scanned the darkness for movement. She didn’t have to wait long. Along the perimeter of a tailings pond—the slurry from leftover mining waste—something was skulking. It crouched on all fours, stepping out slowly into view, before rising on its hind legs to face her, letting her know it saw her, too. If it was the same creature, it showed no sign of being injured. And this time it laughed. The unnerving sound carried unnaturally, echoing across the hillside, and Lucy made the mistake of reacting, a slight recoil, a barely perceptible shudder. In that split second of reaction, the creature sprang into motion, striking her as it pounced and rolling with her over the ground with its claws slashing.

      She couldn’t reach for her gun from this angle. She should have had it ready. Her reflexes and instincts were shit when she was this tired.

      Lucy scrabbled left-handed for the knife in her boot while defending herself from the creature’s claws with one arm, her fingers closing around the handle СКАЧАТЬ