Black Mountain Magic (Kentucky Haints #1) Page 2

  “Is it true?” Holden asked. “Was there an attack last night?”

  Jack sighed. “Zeke can’t keep his mouth shut, he’s worse than Deacon. He had to brag about it this morning at Pam’s.”

  “Pam’s?” Lorena asked.

  “Diner in town.” Jack jerked his head to the side. “We sometimes have breakfast there. Zeke loves an audience. We had a feeling you’d be by as soon as you caught wind. Can’t keep a secret in this town, not with Zeke Perkins around.”

  Holden stared at him. “So it’s true, you were attacked.”

  Jack nodded. “They set on us when we were coming back from your place. Whole mess of ‘em, didn’t know till we got out of the truck. It was an ambush.”

  “Why did you get out of the truck?” Lorena forced herself not to shout. “Do you have no sense of self-preservation?”

  Jack squinted at her. “With all due respect, ma’am, we’ve been doing this since we were boys. It’s our job. Our legacy, even. We keep this place safe as we can. We know how to pick those nasty buggers off. We’re good at it. We just never had them pull an ambush on us before.”

  “We’re here to protect you.” Holden made no effort to hide his distress. “You don’t need to do your ‘job’ right now.”

  “This ain’t no new thing.” Jack frowned at him. “There’s been all sorts of foul creatures roaming this land since before the first settler put foot on it. The only time you come sticking your nose in is when things get heated and you figure you ought to stop wasting our tax dollars.”

  Lorena held out a hand. “Mr. Kelley, we’re not here to usurp you. I realize you’ve taken care of things this long, and you’ve done a wonderful job, truth be told. But the Wolvites are inexplicably multiplying. When supernatural creatures do that, it’s usually a very bad sign. It’s something we need to handle.”

  “It’s been bad before. Back in the sixties, before your agency was even heard of. My Daddy and his cousins took care of it. Ain’t nothing new under the sun here.”

  Lorena recalled her education on the subject. “They were driven out of the mountains by wildfires, I’ve read about it.”

  “You read about it ma’am, but there’s people here who lived it. Not to mention they got all riled up when we were kids, too. That was the first time you came barging in here.”

  Before she could speak, Holden cut in. “You were attacked last night, and there was a casualty?”

  Jack squinted. “No, he ain’t dead.”

  Holden pinched the bridge of his nose. “It also means injured.” The words you ignorant hillbilly went unspoken.

  “We heard Deacon was bitten,” Lorena said. “Is that true?”

  “Yep, they got him from behind. Sneaky little…”

  Lorena tensed. “Is he—”

  The door to the house opened and Deacon stepped out into the morning light. He looked quite good for a man recently mauled by a deadly supernatural creature. He wore a gray t-shirt that clung voraciously to his solid mass of a chest. In short sleeves, his arms looked even bigger. Never mind picking her up, he could probably lift a car.

  He held a coffee mug. Bandages encased his right arm.

  “I reckon I owe you five bucks,” Deacon hollered to Jack. “I thought it would for sure take at least till this afternoon for word to get back.”

  “I told you.” Jack looked over his shoulder. “When Zeke tells a story it’s from here to the mountain before you can light your pipe.”

  Lorena lurched toward Deacon, her throat tight. He stood at the top of the steps, barefoot, unruffled.

  “You were bitten.” She stared at the bandage. “Oh, God.”

  He lifted the mug to her. “Morning.” He took a sip, his eyes bright over the rim.

  “We have an issue now.” Holden raised his voice. “We need to get him into quarantine. And we’re going to need help, clearly, since no one around here wants to look out for their own safety.”

  Lorena could barely speak. “We haven’t developed a treatment.”

  “That why you’re looking so worried?” Deacon smiled. “I knew you were sweet on me.”

  A painful memory rushed forward, but she made herself focus. Wolvites transmitted a disease in their bite akin to rabies, but much worse. The venom made human victims demented and agitated, before it liquefied their internal organs, all within two to three days. A painful and horrifying process.

  “A Wolvite bite is still fatal,” she whispered.

  Instead of dissolving into panic at his prognosis, Deacon laughed. “You think we’ve had these things around here since God was a child and we ain’t aware of that? I reckon you don’t know how long we been doing this.”

  “I tried to tell ‘em,” Jack drawled. “Our Daddies did this. Their Daddies. And back and back until we first come across the ocean, I reckon.”

  “I don’t care how long your family has been killing them.” Lorena started losing her composure. “That doesn’t make their bite any less deadly.”

  Deacon stretched out his bandaged arm. “They sure do got some fangs on them, I’ll give ‘em that. Hurt like hell.”

  “You don’t seem worried.” Lorena blinked a few times. “Why not?”

  Deacon raised his eyebrows and took another drink.

  A thought struck her then, and she panicked.

  “Oh, God, I hope you weren’t thinking I could heal you. I’m a witch, but I’m not very good at it. Most of the time my powers don’t work and I don’t know the first thing about potions and tinctures or—”

  “Calm down.” Deacon made an ease-down gesture. “My Grammy is a witch, and a dang good one, begging your pardon. She can heal just about anything.”

  “I seen Grammy heal some real bad things.” Jack scratched his chin. “Except that one time Grandpa fell off that horse drunk, remember? Took her a while.”

  “I suspect that was on purpose.” Deacon slurped from his mug.

  “Witches can’t heal Wolvite bites.” Lorena looked between them. “Or, can your grandmother?” If she could, the agency would definitely be interested in that.

  “Nah.” Deacon came down the steps, bare feet slapping. “Ain’t no witchery can do that.”

  “Then…”

  “I’m not gonna die.” He walked over to her and held his arm out. “It’s already closed up. Still smarts a bit, though.”

  “Nothing some good whiskey won’t take care of,” Jack said.

  She had to tilt her head back to gaze up at him. He lowered his arm, passed his mug to the other hand, and hiked the side of his t-shirt up.

  The sculpted curve of his side and peek of a deep and sinuous V above the waist of his jeans distracted her for a moment. His musculature wasn’t what he intended to show off, though. A ragged white scar transversed his side, above his hip, in the shape of a wide, multi-fanged mouth.

  “This ain’t my first rodeo.” He held his shirt up a bit longer than necessary, then dropped it. “We all got some marks on us.”

  Jack bent and patted his knee. “Used to be able to run a mile in a minute. Dang mangy things.”

  Realization dawned. She sucked in a breath. “You’re Lycan!”

  “You’re Lycan?” Holden yelped.

  Deacon grinned. “Knew you’d catch on eventually.” He winked at her. “Pretty and smart.”

  Lycans were the only species known to have built-in immunity to Wolvite bites, possibly because they both diverged from the same ancestor.

  “Maybe you should have mentioned this when we first came to town.” Lorena’s distress melted away, to rapidly be replaced by massive amounts of irritation.

  “Why?” Deacon shrugged. “I’ve already given blood in Nashville.”

  Nashville hosted a major headquarters for their agency. Most Lycans were spread through the Appalachians, which fueled the theory that lycanthropy descended from the Scots-Irish who settled in the area. Lycan blood samples were kept in Nashville, donated for the purpose of furthering research into creating an antibody for
Wolvite bites.

  “Are you registered?” Holden demanded.

  Deacon scowled at him. “Yes, jackass. Why you think you bunch don’t get called to come around here that often? They know there’s Lycans here and we’re on top of it.”

  Lorena clenched her jaw to prevent a laugh from escaping. The wide-eyed, affronted expression on Holden’s face made it much harder.

  “Despite that,” Holden said icily, “the edict still stands. You need to stay inside at night and let us take care of this.”

  This would make butting heads with them even worse. To tell vulnerable humans to back off proved hard enough, but trying to collar Lycans would be nearly impossible. She was going to send a long email to the agency and ask why exactly they hadn’t been briefed that Lycans resided here.

  “Lorena.” Holden jerked his head toward the driveway. “We have work to do, now that we know these citizens are all right.” He turned and stalked away.

  She stood a moment longer, words caught on the back of her tongue.

  “We should have dinner,” Deacon said. “I bet you have lots of questions for me.”

  He wasn’t wrong. She’d never met a Lycan, though she’d read plenty about them.

  “I wouldn’t mind getting together in a professional capacity.” She kept her tone neutral. “Out of purely scientific curiosity.”

  “Well, you got my number.”

  “Lorena!” Holden yelled.

  She turned toward the driveway, but looked back at Deacon. “I’ll call you.”

  He looked her over. He might as well have reached out and touched her, and slid those big hands over her every curve. His Lycan status added a whole new interesting dimension to him that made it difficult to keep her professional demeanor.

  “You be careful out there,” he said. “Keep that gun on you.” He glanced at her thighs.

  “I will. You also be careful. Don’t get bitten. Again.”

  She walked to the driveway and forced a straight face as she climbed in the truck.

  “Lycans.” Holden spoke with distaste. “Just what we need.”

  “I know,” she murmured.

  As they backed out, she gazed at Deacon and Jack, who stood in front of the house merrily waving.

  * * * *

  “I’m gonna take your money,” Deacon told Jack. “You and Zeke are gonna be poorer by the end of the week. Mark my words.”

  They sat in Deacon’s kitchen as Deacon replaced his bandages.

  Jack snorted. “Right. You drink all the damn coffee? I need a pick-me-up. What a night.”

  Deacon nodded toward the coffee maker. “Get you some.”

  His arm hurt, though not as bad as last night, when it burned and ached and the pain made him madder than a cat with its tail caught in a fan. He’d probably have issues with his elbow now, like Jack did with his knee.

  “I’m gonna go see Grammy.” Deacon finished taping the bandage. “Find out how to catch me a witch.”

  Jack stood in front of the coffee pot. “Oh, you’re gonna cheat, are you? Well, I reckon that’s better than making a fool of yourself like usual.”

  “I beg your pardon. I ain’t never made a fool of myself.”

  He had though, lots.

  With his fresh bandage in place, he left the house. His grandmother lived on the other side of town, in a big old brick house on a hill. One of the oldest houses in Blue Ditch, put up before the town even had a proper name. Despite its age, the structure remained as sound as the day they laid the first brick. He drove up the dirt driveway and parked next to his grandfather’s truck. Woods surrounded the yard, like at his place. They had a high fence, too. Maybe the fence provided a false sense of security—it wasn’t as if Wolvites couldn’t climb—but it made everyone feel a little better.

  Deacon found his grandmother in her garden, out back. She sat in a wicker chair and wore a long blue dress, her white hair pulled up. She eyeballed him over her glasses while she picked apart a slender green leaf. She had her herbs spread out beside her on a small folding table. The plants around them stood knee-high and lush. She pulled most of them up in the fall. Even her magic couldn’t make things grow in winter.

  “Heard you had a bit of trouble last night.” Her tone told him he was about to get a tongue-lashing. “Were you fooling around?”

  “They ambushed us. Swear they’re smarter than we give ‘em credit for sometimes.”

  She looked at his arm, where it dangled at his side. “Expect you’ll be having some words with the government people.”

  “Already have.”

  “Expect they’re none too happy.”

  “They ain’t. But you know, that woman, she’s a witch too.”

  She raised her thin eyebrows above her glasses.

  “Says she ain’t very good, though. Says her magic don’t work half the time.”

  “I’m sure she’s never honed it.” Grammy huffed. “Magic and science don’t belong together. Why does everything have to be put under a microscope and explained?”

  He shrugged and tucked his hands in the pockets of his pants. His arm still ached. The bastard got all the way down to the tendons. Hell of a lot of blood. Actually made him lightheaded and he nearly passed out when Jack dumped whiskey on it.

  “I remember something Grandpa told me.” Deacon kicked at the soft dirt beneath his boots. “He said when he met you, you didn’t have no love for a Lycan man.”

  “That was my mother’s doing. She always told me to stay away from Lycans. Said they were nothing but trouble, drinking and carrying on.”

  “That sounds like Zeke and Jack, don’t sound much like me.”

  She fixed him with a stern gaze. He went all sheepish when she put that look on him.

  “Zeke got him a witch, though,” Deacon said. “Jack now, too.”

  “That girl of Jack’s is a poor excuse for a witch. She won’t listen to anything I tell her.”

  “You scare her, Grammy. You come on too strong, with trying to teach her things.”

  “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about the behavior of Lycan men, aren’t we?”

  “I try to behave myself.” He shrugged. “So what made you fall for Grandpa, if he was everything your mother told you to stay away from?”

  “I was young and foolish.” She set her plant aside on the table. “And it seemed romantic, being courted by one of the Lycans who kept us all safe. Wasn’t till after I married the fool I realized my mother was right.”

  Deacon chuckled. Though his grandparents did their share of bickering, they loved each other. He saw the way his grandfather looked at his grandmother, even now.

  “Tell me about this scientist witch,” she said. “What’s she like?”

  “She’s smart. Seems to know a lot.” He drew a hand out of his pocket and scratched his temple. “She carries a gun. I think she knows how to take care of herself. She’s pretty. Seems a stickler for rules though, seems to think we’ll actually follow them.”

  “So she’s smart, tough, pretty, and trying to keep you in line.” She slipped her glasses off. “And you’re here to ask me how to catch her, since I’m a witch, and she’s a witch, so I must know the secret to unlock her heart. Or her legs.”

  “No! It ain’t like that. I just—”

  “Don’t lie to me, boy.” She cleaned her glasses with the edge of her skirt. “We’ve seen them folks before. They come here when you were a boy, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “You know they’re on business, and they mean business.” She lifted her glasses above her head and squinted through them. “She’s here to do her job.”

  “I know that.”

  “And she’ll be gone soon as they get rid of them. She’ll be back off to the big city and you won’t see her again.”

  He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “It would be foolhardy to get yourself tangled up with a busy woman who won’t be around long.” She lowered the glasses. “Why can’t you just t
ake up with some nice girl here in town and get married?”

  “’Cause there ain’t no nice girls in this town.” That wasn’t entirely true, but then, “nice” girls didn’t tend to care much for him.

  She slipped her glasses back on. “What did she say about being a witch?”

  “Just said she was. Said she wasn’t good at it. Said it don’t work most the time.”

  She gazed off across the garden. As a child, he’d sprawl on the rug in front of her chair, reading a book or building with his Legos, while she worked with her herbs or wrote in one of her little books. The acrid smell of her potions and the flowery scent of the poultices she made would fill the house. The world seemed simpler then, even if he already knew how to shoot a rifle and had seen some dark, scary things.

  She gripped the arms of her chair and stood. She came barely to his shoulder, a short wisp of a woman. She seemed much taller when he was little, and sturdy, like a tower of stone.

  “I’ll give you something.” She took his good arm. “You may be a fool, but if I don’t help you, you’ll gaum things up even worse. Come on in the house.”

  Deacon walked with her. “Grammy, you don’t got no faith in me.”

  “You’re my husband’s grandson, of course I don’t.”

  Chapter 3

  Lorena turned off her phone and took a deep breath. What should she wear?

  She hadn’t brought anything dressy. She expected to spend most of the time tromping through woods and wading through mud, and dealing with dirty stinking were-creatures. Such tasks required jeans, t-shirts, boots, and a few heavy sweaters and a jacket in case the mid-fall weather got too cold. She didn’t do field work often, but it never involved a cute dress and heels.

  “You’re really having dinner with that Lycan?” Holden asked.

  They stood in the basement lab, Holden bent over a table, a cloth mask over his mouth and nose. She had a mask on too, because a foul, rotten smell hung on the air, and seemed to fill every corner of the low-ceilinged room. The smell made her stomach lurch, but for reasons that had nothing to do with disgust.