Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy Book Series
Roxanne Fosch Files by Jina S. Bazzar
Series Excerpt
I crossed to the state of Nevada somewhere around sunset the next day and took the first exit I found before heading for one of those no-name motels. Driving for more than twenty-seven hours made my leg throb anew, even if there were nothing but ugly scars where the vampire bit me. To top it off, a low-grade headache had started a few miles back, and I decided to call it an early night. Plus, there was a loud grinding noise coming from Thunder's old engine that worried me. I parked in front of the office, took out my wig and contact lenses. I didn't want to be recognized if Logan—on the off chance he was following—happened to describe me. I paid cash for the room to the clerk behind the simple desk, a paunchy middle-aged white guy with greasy hair, who was too busy eating sunflower seeds and watching a game to really notice me. He didn't even bother with any niceties. He motioned to the soap and travel sized shampoo for sale with a grunt and flicker of his hand in case I needed them. I did. I paid for a bottle of shampoo and conditioner and a bar of soap and headed for number thirteen.
The motel was an L-shaped, two-story brick structure, and room thirteen was the last one on the shorter leg, on the ground floor.
The lights outside had burned out, giving a deserted, eerie feel to the place. There were only three vehicles in the entire parking lot, including mine.
Now, I'm not usually a superstitious person, on the contrary, I like to believe I'm very sensible. Still, something about number thirteen, that dark doorway, that feel of abandonment, combined with that still present sense of foreboding—well, let's just say that number thirteen gave me the heebies. For a long time, I just sat in the darkened car. I don't know what I was expecting to happen, but there I was, hands gripping the steering, waiting.
Finally, I climbed out, walked purposefully to my room and unlocked the door, determined to get a good night's sleep.
As far as those kinds of establishments went, the room was just a common room, if not a little thready. The important part was that it was semi-clean.
Before going inside, I gave one last look back at Thunder, closed and locked the door with a flimsy chain that wouldn't hold a determined child back, much less a preternatural.
* * *
I woke up a couple of hours later and knew I was not alone. Years in the PSS taught me not to react and give myself away. My mind, fully awake, whirled with all the possibilities to incapacitate the intruder. If I could just see what he was… oh, but he was good. I could hardly hear anything. And he was close. Very, very close. He shouldn't have been able to get this close without waking me.
It was probably Logan, but I learned long ago never to close my mind to other possibilities. I wanted to crack my eyes a little and make sure, but was afraid the intruder was watching for any signs he'd awoken me. So I played possum and waited for him to get closer. He was so good; I could barely hear the rustling of clothes and his low, even breathing.
I waited, one more step. Not having the advantage of knowing what I was against, all I had was the second I'd get if I could surprise him. A step and I rolled, catching a glimpse of something long and metal hitting the pillow where my head had been just a second before. Stuffing from the pillow exploded from the sides, and—I swear I felt the iron frame of the bed bend and dip a little.
Shocked, I wondered—even as my little inner voice screamed for me to run—if he was trying to kill me. Had the PSS given up on capturing me and just wanted me out of the grid? Was it because of the vampire incident? I didn't have time to ponder that. I grabbed the cold metal thing he'd tried to hit me with and pulled. He didn't let go but came forward with it. I jerked my hand into talons and tried to slash his neck, but he dodged just in time and I only managed to slice a small gash high on his cheek. I jumped out of the bed, pulling the metal thing with me, but he jerked it away and it slipped from my hand. Blood, really dark blood, began to ooze from the gash high up on his cheek.
He wobbled once, unbalanced when the metal thing–a baseball bat–slipped from my hand and turned to face me. He was definitely not Logan. The man had a blue aura twisted with something very dark—black? Blue was for ordinary humans, while black… black could be many things I couldn't take the time to ponder. I noted though that the blue was very faint and that whatever the black was, it was taking over his humanity.
He gave me a wide, deranged smile, something I could see clearly despite the dimness of the room, and took a step forward, swinging the bat at my head. Instead of backing away, I took a step forward, grabbed the bat and held on to it while going for the neck again. Again he dodged by a fraction, pulled the bat back. A hand snaked out, grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked me forward. Awkwardly, I raised my talons and sliced a path from shoulder to shoulder. His face twisted with a ferocious snarl, and he twisted his hand in my hair, increasing the pressure. I cried out and slashed at his wrist, and the pressure in my scalp loosed. I immediately took a step back and fell straight into someone else's arms. There were two of them!
How could I have missed something like that?
I struggled to pull my arms free, and to my astonishment and increasing alarm, I couldn't. The man behind me had me locked into a bear hug, efficiently keeping both my arms pinned to my sides. The smell of sour sweat and leather wafted off from him in acrid waves. And he’d immobilized me with apparent ease.
Bad Boy One with the bat came forward, the crazed, deranged smile fixed on his lips. The predatory way he moved, the look in his eyes, vacant from any signs of humanity, told me that whatever he had in mind, it wasn't to club and hustle me unconscious to the nearest PSS base.
Fear fueled my adrenaline and I struggled in earnest. The man holding me responded by compressing his tree-trunk arms tighter, close to breaking my ribs, making it hard to breathe. Bad Boy One's smile grew at my struggles, enjoying my fear. He swung the bat with both hands to the left, taunting, then to the right, the second time with only half a lousy inch away from my nose. If he swung the bat a third time, it was going to break my jaw at best, crack my skull at worst. That is, if it didn't outright kill me. Bad Boy One took one more step and I stopped struggling. My heart was drumming a fast rhythm, almost one single inseparable tone. A wild gleam of anticipation entered his eyes before he raised the bat again with a low whistle of air. I shifted, replacing my weight to the balls of my feet, and pushed. I connected with Bad Boy One's chest with all the strength I could muster while being held, which, providing the fact that I was braced against Bad Boy Two, was a lot.
He—they were supposed to have gone down. Hard. Instead, the impact only sent Bad Boy One staggering a few feet, hitting the night stand on his way and falling down to one knee with a thud, while Bad Boy Two also stumbled, but still didn't let go. I stabbed the talons of my right hand on his thigh and he staggered back with a grunt and, when his arms loosened a fraction, I threw my head back, hitting him on the jaw hard enough that I saw stars. I struggled and buckled and managed to gain an inch or two, then buckled and wriggled harder, loosening his hold. The instant I wriggled free, I threw myself sideways and crawled some distance, pushing myself with hands and feet, but Bad Boy Two was faster than I anticipated, grabbing my scarred ankle and pulling me back hard. I kicked with my free left foot and struck his thigh, but besides a grunt, I got no reaction. I stomped twice more in quick succession, and there was a sickening popping sound. Bad Boy Two fell to his knees, hollering inhumanly, the sound kick-starting my fear to a higher level. His grip only tightened more painfully. I'd have his hand perfectly printed around my ankle like a henna tattoo.
By that time, Bad Boy One closed the distance between us, his face distorted by anger. I jerked my hand, ready to cut off Bad Boy Two's hand with my talons, but that would expose my side to Bad Boy One, so first I tried slashing the latter. However, the angle wasn't right and I only managed to hurt myself by slashing at the iron bed frame. Whatever that black on their aura was, it gave them speed, endurance and strength. Bad Boy One sidestepped my next attempt to slash his foot off, stomped hard on my hand and kicked me hard with his hiking boot, hitting me square between my lower left rib and hip bone. I saw stars sizzle and explode in front of me. I curled myself into a defensive ball before Bad Boy Two let go of my ankle and stood, the popping sound apparently hadn't been a broken bone because he joined his companion and they both began kicking and stomping me to death. I had enough sense to cover my head, though after a while I realized I was just prolonging the inevitable.
An eternity later, I heard the sound of a loud boom and a roar. At first, I thought I had been the one screaming, but after some confusing and painful precious seconds passed by, I realized there was no one kicking me. I coughed and stars exploded in front of me and I think I blacked out for a second or ten. There was blood in my mouth and I wondered, vaguely alarmed, about its origin. I heard grunts far away and the sound of flesh hitting flesh. A voice in my head told me to go go go go, and I had enough survival instinct left to crawl out of the room and get to my feet slowly, so, so slowly, supporting myself on the doorframe. I felt disoriented, and when I looked back found Logan, his familiar aura—what? Wrestling one of the bad boys while the other lay writhing on a heap, a growing pool of blood between his head and shoulder. A gun lay between the guy and the door, no doubt the weapon responsible for the pooling blood. I turned my attention back to the fight in time to see Bad Boy One scoop up the bat from the floor and swing it in a swift arc at Logan's head, and miss when Logan dodged just in time. The bat whistled by his head in a downward motion, only to glance off his shoulder with a sickening thwack. And even though the blow must have hurt like a bitch, Logan didn't miss a step. He closed in and punched Bad Boy One with an upper cut to the jaw, then tackled him to the ground. They rolled around in the confined space, each trying to get the upper hand and strangle the other. Briefly, I debated picking the gun up. Should I help? While I hesitated, Bad Boy Two, still writhing on the floor, gave an inhuman howl, and as I watched his aura flashed once, then turned completely black. Or maybe I should not.
I decided I didn't want to know the outcome of the fight and staggered out to Thunder. There were two motorcycles and a black Range Rover that hadn't been there earlier.
I also noticed the reception guy crouched by the dim office door, talking urgently on a cell phone. He saw me and stood, his six-months gestating belly protruding forward, his torso and legs bare to the chill wind. He crouched again when something back in room thirteen broke with a loud crashing noise. Probably the TV.
“They're shootin’ and breakin’ everythin’! Just send someone, damn ya!” he shouted into his cell phone. “One of them is runnin’!” he screamed in outrage, watching me go.
Not wanting to find out who he was talking to, I went around to the truck's bed as fast as I could move, thankful the lights outside room thirteen had burned out, and uncovered the extra key I had glued under the leather carpet in case of emergencies like this. My body hurt all over, and I hunched forward to ease some of the pressuring pain.
I had difficulties pressing the clutch and gas pedals, but I clenched my teeth and backed out of the parking lot, tires screeching.
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