To look out through my invisible cage’s bars.
There was actually a Border Road—that was its name—but I’d learned years ago that it sometimes drifted over to the Canadian side, so I couldn’t drive very far along it. The curse that bound me was absolutely unrelenting in its boundaries.
Someday, I would make my way across that border—or any of the others that bound me to the United States’ southwest—without doubling over in sheer agony. To do that, I was pretty sure I needed to permanently destroy the demon who’d created the curse.
Not this week, though. Time to go home for the holidays.
“Okay,” I sighed. “I’m ready. Tucson, here we come.”
Not that Daddy would be thrilled to see Wolf with me. I thought he was going to have a heart attack the first time I showed up at his house with a werewolf in tow. Probably the only thing that saved Wolf back then was the news that the silver werewolf had helped save me from the attack that had killed Gracie.
This time I was hoping for some Christmas cheer to put a damper on Daddy’s killing instinct.
I turned the van around from the end of Church Street and made my way back to I-15. Before I pulled out, though, the demon-hunting compulsion sliced through me like a knife through the guts, like the worst case of cramps ever. I slammed on the brakes and managed to slide to the side of the street as I doubled over, wrapping my arms around my waist. Pain whited out my vision for several seconds, and when I came to myself again I was whispering, “Okay, okay. I’ve got it, got it. Colorado. Fine.”
With my acceptance of the knowledge the compulsion gave me, the agony subsided to a dull ache centered behind my ribs, higher than its initial stabbing attack. I realized that Wolf had moved down beside me, his chin resting on my knee, my hands buried in the fur along his ruff. He tilted his head to examine me.
“Looks like we need to stop in Colorado first.” My voice was raw with the aftereffects of the compulsion.
He nodded in his particularly unwolflike way, rubbed his head against my cheek, and jumped back up into the passenger seat.
It could have been worse—I didn’t usually even get that much information about where I was headed. Once in a while, the pain that came with the compulsion simply grew sharper if I headed in the wrong direction and abated if I moved the right way.
Hell of a curse my family carried—confined to the southwest, cursed to hunt monsters, deathly allergic to silver. Always paying for something one of my ancestors did a long time ago. But I intended to break that curse. I’d spent my life hunting the son of a bitch who’d cursed us, who’d decided that the curse needed to be passed down through the generations.
When I did finally come up against him, he killed my cousin Gracie.
Never again, though. Next time, I’d be better prepared to take that fucker out.
I didn’t think this was him, though—the compulsion to go to Colorado didn’t feel like the one that had sent me to Tombstone to face the earth demon.
“No, this feels like a straight-up monster-hunt,” I said aloud to Wolf. I didn’t expect any kind of response from him—not really. I had taken to talking to him aloud as often as possible. If he ever answered me, I’d probably scream my fool head off. In a lot of ways, it was like talking to myself or to a dog. I had to be careful not to let that tendency go too far. It was one thing to bury my hands and face in his fur when I was in pain. It was, however, something entirely different to rub my hand across his head as I walked by like I would a dog. I’d learned that the hard way. Wolf didn’t bite me, but he sure growled like he was about to.
Still, as we headed toward Colorado, I speculated aloud to the non-shifting shifter who’d become my de facto partner.
In the winter snow, it took us two full days to reach our destination, a tiny town high in the San Juan Mountains, nestled at the base of a canyon winding up into the mountains, its walls rising high above the town.
We stopped at a nearby campground, pulling the van into a secluded spot for the night even though the camp was technically closed for the winter. I doubted anyone would be out here to check on us.
In the morning, I’d go into town and see what I could figure out. Until then, I had a new-to-me book I’d picked up at a library sale in some nowhere town we’d passed through, a flashlight with rechargeable batteries that were all full up on power, and the silence of snow falling outside.
I’d gotten used to traveling with Wolf, but the van wasn’t really big enough for two people, or even one person and one werewolf. Several years ago, I had retrofitted the back end with a single bed along one wall, built-in drawers beneath that. The other wall held cabinets, drawers, and a tiny cooking area, complete with a hotplate and a basin for wash-water. Before Wolf joined me, it had been ideal for one person.
Now I found myself drawing the curtain between the front and back parts of my living quarters more often. Not that Wolf wasn’t a perfect gentleman—he was. Any time I started to change clothes, he politely averted his eyes, generally moving to the front passenger seat, which he had claimed as his own.
At night, he slept on the floor beside my sleeping pallet. After he joined me in Tombstone, I stopped at Goodwill and picked up extra blankets for him. There had been a few times, though, when I had been tempted to move down there with him on a particularly cold night.
This was one of them.
One of the problems with my monster-hunting first alert system was its lack of specificity. Horrible pain in my gut didn’t really help me know what I was going to be facing. Hell, even where I was going was often only a guess.
As far as I knew, there was nothing in the tiny town of Creede, Colorado, that warranted my presence. Whatever the danger here might be, it wasn’t obvious at first sight.
A single street made up the bulk of the downtown area, and it was lined with tourist stores carrying overpriced silver jewelry—the kind that made me jerk my hand away in pain when it burned me as I flipped through the display.
This time of year, the entire town was blanketed with white snow. I took Wolf into a local store—San Luis Sports. They were nice enough there to help me figure out cold-weather gear. I had the basics, of course—a warm coat, a scarf, a hat. But this high up in the mountains, I was feeling the altitude in all kinds of ways. Not only was it bitter cold, but I kept running out of breath. I hoped I’d be able to acclimate in time to fight off whatever monster had called me here.
In the meantime, the new hiking boots I bought wiped out most of the last of the money I’d earned at a waitressing gig a while back. Monster hunting didn’t really pay the bills. I was going to have to find work.
I took a moment to assess my clothing. Anywhere else I’d have to head back to the van to change. Lucky for me, the Colorado mountain aesthetic is more about function than form. In my flannel shirt, jeans, and sweater—and now new hiking boots, too—I fit in perfectly with the people I saw strolling along the main street.
The guy running the register was blond, probably in his late twenties—around my age—and everything about him screamed ski instructor. Mr. Cutie Blond’s nametag said he was Steve. I figured if anyone would understand the need for seasonal work, Steve would.
“Hi. Blaize Silver.” I held out my hand for him to shake as I introduced myself. “I’m new in town and looking for work. You know of anything?”