Michele Hauf - Her Werewolf Hero

Chapter 4

“I’m sorry,” Bron offered as he headed down the highway away from the vampires, who could run fast but not faster than the seventy miles per hour he currently drove. He was surprised to find so many vamps in a town of this size. On the other hand, they could be a tribe. “I haven’t had the opportunity to handle this correctly.”

“This?” Kizzy asked with as much disbelief as he would expect after everything she’d experienced in the past few crazy hours. “What is this exactly? Show me that tracker thing again.”

He dug the tracker from his pocket, and before he could hand it to her, it flew from his grip and landed on her chest.

“Seriously? This is getting ridiculous.” She peeled it off and studied it. “What’s it made of?”

“Crystal.”

“And you said it was bespelled? Does that mean a witch did something to it?”

“Yes,” he answered, because he wasn’t good at lying. And some humans could handle the truth. And he trusted those who could. But that didn’t mean he was going to spill every explicit detail. Need to know. And she didn’t need to know much.

“And this thing is supposed to lead you to the Purgatory Heart,” she said, working it out as she turned the tracker over in her hands. “And since it’s landed over my chest, I assume that means it’s my heart?”

“The spells from the Crafts and Hexes department have never led me wrong before.”

“Crafts and Hexes? What is this place you work for?”

He navigated the truck around a tight country curve. His jaw remained as tight as the curve.

“All right, no answer for that one,” she said. “Will you at least tell me what’s a Purgatory Heart?”

“Can I explain when we stop?”

“When are we going to stop? Where are you taking me?” She scanned the darkness that swept by the vehicle. The ditches had been freshly mowed, and the scent of grass carried in over the gasoline fumes and her distractingly alluring perfume. “I need some answers, and I think you’ve got time now. The vampires are no longer on our tails. So spill.”

He noticed her holding the tracker with one hand and positioning her camera to snap a shot.

“Do you have to take a picture of everything?”

“Yes. It’s my job. I have a blog that yields millions of hits a year, and I publish pictures of—”

“Vampires?”

“No. Yes. Well. My pictures capture the idea of the paranormal.”

He shot her a raised brow.

“They are convincing, but I’ve never actually met a real vampire. Until tonight. Do you know how I’ve longed to capture the paranormal on film? I think I got the harpies, but I didn’t have a chance to get the vampire. Vampires!” She chuckled. “I actually just said that. What a crazy night. I think I need vodka. There’s a dive bar in the next town. We should stop there.”

“It would be wise if you could retain all of your senses. At least until I can be assured no one else is after you.”

“Spoilsport. Just as well. I’m a teetotaler. My drinking is like my photography—it’s more of an idea than the real thing.” She tapped the crystal with a fingernail, and it produced a crisp ting. “You said this tracker thing sends out vibrations?”

“Yes. I’ve been told it somehow communicates with the item—that being the Purgatory Heart—and sends out vibrations. Or maybe it’s the heart that sends the vibrations. Not positive on that one. Unfortunately, any paranormal within range of those otherworldly vibrations will also feel them. If they’ve an interest in obtaining the heart, or even not—they may simply be curious—it will bring them round.”

“What is it about my heart?” She clutched her T-shirt, then shook her head. “No, wait. Let’s do it your way for now. Let’s put some distance between whatever is after us and find a place to rest. I’m so tired. And hungry. There’s a town about ten miles ahead. Basically a truck stop with a diner.”

“And a dive bar?”

“I was kidding about the drink. Unless you want one?”

He shook his head.

“Can we stop at the truck stop?”

Her eyes pleaded, and Bron felt a twinge in his chest that he’d not felt in a long time. Compassion? Or perhaps just hunger. He hadn’t eaten and was hungry. Had to be hunger.

A human woman sat beside him. She was not a part of the mission. The heart wasn’t supposed to be beating. Nor was it supposed to be inside the chest of a pretty woman who had an insatiable curiosity for the paranormal realm and—that damned camera. She couldn’t be allowed to have such damning photographs of anything from the paranormal realm. Would she post them online? A million hits? That was something he must not risk.

“Yes, something to eat,” he muttered. “And a room for the night.”

“You honestly don’t think it’s safe for me to return to Thief River Falls?”

“Do you?”

She considered it a few seconds, drawing her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms about them as she shook her head. “No.”

He’d rent a room. She could sleep. And he could make sure all the photos she had taken were erased.

* * *

The truck stop sat before a small motel featuring fewer than ten rooms in the back lot near a sunflower field. The decor sported dark wood paneling and pine furniture with rough-cut carvings of grizzly bears on the headboards and the chair arms. Red-and-yellow plaid curtains matched the bedspreads. Kitschy country. Bron had seen the inside of enough motel rooms and hotels not to care anymore. As long as the bed was halfway comfortable and there was running water, he was satisfied.

Kisanthra had made a beeline to the bathroom as they entered the room, calling out that she wanted to freshen up and that might take a while so not to worry about her.

He wouldn’t worry about her. Unfortunately, their paths had crossed, and now he did have to deal with the situation. Find and seize? Unlikely.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Acquisitions. It was late, and the office was overseas, which put their time early in the morning, but dispatch, a 24/7 position, answered. He asked her to patch him through to the director’s messages and left a short one.

“The Purgatory Heart is in someone’s chest. Unable to seize. I await further instructions.”

If that didn’t get the point across he didn’t know what else would be required. The director would probably pull him from the mission. Bron had never taken an innocent life to gain an object he’d been assigned to retrieve. Not unless that life threatened him or others, that is. And in that case, it generally was not an innocent.

But could he leave the heart—and the woman—just like that?

Sitting on one of the two twin-size beds that had seen better days—probably better decades—and facing the bathroom door, he listened to the water splash in the sink. A vampire had almost sunk his fangs into her neck. Kisanthra Lewis was—and would be—pursued by every degenerate that could pick up on the universal vibrations. She was not safe. And while it wasn’t his job to play babysitter, he had inadvertently been the one to lead those aggressors to her.

He couldn’t walk away. He had to ensure she was safe. Yet how to do that? So long as her heart beat in her chest, he felt sure she’d be a target.

The director had said the heart had been grasped by a soul from Purgatory. How was that possible?

There were a lot of times he didn’t completely understand the nature or power of the items he had been ordered to retrieve. Didn’t matter. He had a job; he carried it out. He looked forward to the next mission and the next. He enjoyed the adventure, the quest and, oftentimes, the race for the prize. The satisfaction in completing a task that very few could. He did not require accolades, only another assignment. The next fix.