Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Read online

  Of course, he hadn’t followed through. I rolled my eyes. That was a false name if I ever heard one, which meant there would be very little to go on. He would have spun a web of lies to hide his tracks. I would still have Zee look into him and have him check at Mary-Ellen’s place for any leftover magic. Just in case.

  I hung up on Mary-Ellen without a goodbye. So much for finding anything useful there.

  “You should be nice, or I’ll misfire on you,” Dinah lilted from her holster.

  “You would never give up the chance of killing someone,” I snapped. My guns were amazing, but they were also a serious pain in the ass when they wanted to be.

  Dinah sniffed again but went quiet.

  I made myself go to the back wall and the full-length mirror. To the side of it was another latch with a code pad. I plugged in the numerical equivalent of Bear’s name. 2327. There was a click and the latch opened. I swung the mirror open to reveal six shelves each a solid foot deep. The top shelf held all my fake IDs, passports, names, and information I’d stolen from my father along with the money.

  Money which filled the remaining five shelves. Five million dollars that I’d planned to never use. I didn’t need it. I didn’t want my father’s help for anything, even though I knew he owed me at least that much money for my services rendered and rivals slain.

  My back twitched, pulling at old scars.

  Hundred-dollar bills packed tightly in bundles of a thousand each. I grabbed two stacks and tucked them into a duffel bag. I would come back later for more weapons.

  With difficulty, I pulled the string to the light with my casted hand, plunging the narrow room into darkness before I stepped into the tack room. I pushed the saddle rack shut, the only sound, the latch clicking closed once more.

  Back at the house, Zee sat on the back porch waiting for me.

  His eyes were narrowed as I approached, flickering over the bag slung over my shoulder. “Feel better now that you’ve pushed yourself?”

  I shrugged. “I had to get a few things.”

  “That’s why you aren’t freaking out about the funeral? You think someone might show?” His eyes widened.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t think of it.” I lowered myself into the chair next to him, wincing at the throbbing pain in so many parts of my body.

  “I’m getting old, Nix.”

  Dinah snickered from her holster. “He is old.”

  “Don’t be rude,” Eleanor chided. “I always liked Zee.”

  He lifted both eyebrows. “The ladies are in fine form, I see.”

  I shrugged.

  Another time, he would have laughed off the comments. But not today. And I didn’t correct him, not after seeing the tremor in his hands. I glanced at him. “Something you want to tell me?”

  “Not right now. We have other things to worry about.” He looked out over the pastures covered in white, the fences dotting the farm, dividing it. “You should try to sleep. You’re going to need your strength for the funeral tomorrow.”

  I shook my head. “You first. I’ll be good until tonight.”

  He started to argue, opened his mouth, thought better of it and then stood. “Fine. I’ll be in the living room on the couch.”

  Abigail, the older of the two Malinois, went with him. Abe watched her go, but didn’t move from my side.

  “That’s it, then? You’re my best boy now?” I ran a hand over his head and he put his muzzle on my lap with the softest exhalation of breath, a doggy sigh.

  Nothing else could bring the emotion up through me like the understanding that Abe was missing Bear, too, that somehow, he knew his boy was gone forever.

  I pulled one of the magazines from my right pocket and carefully checked it over. I stayed where I was on the porch and pulled Eleanor and Dinah apart on the table next to me. They grunted and sometimes laughed while I cleaned them and put them back together. Mostly they laughed at me for struggling to work around a hand done up in a cast. But the task kept my mind on something other than the grief that wanted to consume me at every turn.

  I would not succumb to it. I refused to let my boys’ deaths slow me from finding those who’d done this to all of us. Nothing was going to stop me from making those at fault pay.

  Hell hath no fury like a mother whose bear cub was killed in front of her eyes.

  “I’m coming for you,” I whispered to the growing darkness. “Do you know who I am? Do you know what you’ve awakened?”

  Dinah and Eleanor went silent on the table, for once not answering me.

  There was no answer, but for the long howl of a wolf in the mountains. Abe sat up and a growl trickled from his throat as he bared his teeth, his hackles rising along his back. I didn’t tell him to shush. He was no longer a family dog any more than I was a wife and a mother.

  I wanted to snarl with him, show my teeth and dive into the fray. The time would come. Now I had to be patient. I had to heal.

  Then, and only then, would I hunt down my prey and pull them apart while they begged for mercy.

  Mercy I would never give them as long as I drew breath, that they would never find in my hands.

  “We’ll kill them all,” Eleanor whispered in the dark. I nodded.

  “Every last one.”

  Chapter Four

  The funeral was held at the Mormon church. Of course, that was all Mary-Ellen. I kept reminding myself she was being helpful, that she was trying to be kind. Of course, she was a sobbing mess as she tried to gather me into a hug within seconds of stepping into the chapel. It was almost enough to make me pull Dinah from under my loose-fitting shirt and hip-length wool coat.

  “She wore pants?”

  I heard someone whisper those words a little too loudly. I turned slowly, not recognizing the woman and not caring. Judgmental bastards.

  Dinah and Eleanor grumbled under my coat. They knew when to keep it down. I did not.

  “I’ll wear whatever the fuck I want to the funeral of my son and husband, and you’d do well to keep your goddamn mouth shut.” I locked eyes with the woman, but not for long because she couldn’t hold my gaze. She muttered something that may have been an apology and scuttled away.

  Zee was at my elbow. “That was subtle.”

  Dinah shivered in her holster, a laugh held back.

  I nodded. “She was lucky I didn’t draw on her.”

  He grunted. “Lucky it was your left wrist that broke.”

  I almost laughed because it was a long-standing joke that even though I was right-handed, I drew my weapons faster with my left. I wondered if that would be true now that the left had been broken. I also knew our banter was nothing more than a distraction for what was coming.

  We were seated at the front, which meant we had to walk down the long aisle between the pews. I took the chance to look at every person already there.

  Not that there were many. Some of Bear’s school friends and their parents, Mary-Ellen’s family, a few other members of the local congregation and community, Justin’s best friend, Noah.

  He raised grief-stricken, red-rimmed blue eyes to me. They had been like brothers. That’s what Justin had said. How many times had we had him over for dinner? Now when I looked at him, I wondered what he knew about Justin’s path, and what he’d tell me if I asked. I gave him a nod and he stood as though I’d beckoned him. Shit. I did not want a hug from him for multiple reasons, the most obvious being I didn’t want him asking why I was packing a pair of guns into a funeral.

  When he drew close, his hands raising to embrace me, I shook my head and took a step back. “Don’t hug me.”

  “Of course.” He dropped his hands, then ran one through his shaggy blond hair. “Look, I know it’s hollow, but I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I . . . I can’t believe they’re both gone. I wish . . .”

  I nodded, hoping if I didn’t speak he’d get the hint. Apparently not.

  He glanced at his hands. “I know that you are going through a lot, right now, and I want to be there for y
ou. Justin would want me to help you with anything you need.”

  I nodded again, watching him closely, noting how his eyes dipped to the left. The left meant a lie was coming. This was about to get interesting.

  “I know he has a ton of his skiing stuff in his office. I can help you clean it out, pack it away, get rid of it. And if it’s too much, you don’t even have to be there, I can sort it all out, get it packed for you. If you want.” His deep blue eyes were sincere, but there was something . . . off. Besides the lie, that was. More like there was an urgency to his offer.

  Zee cleared his throat. “We’ll let you know when we start that.”

  Noah turned and gave him a smile. “Sure. You’ve got my number. I’m in town for at least a week or two now.”

  In town. He didn’t live here. What was he doing here then, staying so long after the funeral? He and Justin always met at their ski destinations. The reality was, Noah didn’t live anywhere. He floated from place to place according to Justin. Ladies’ man, talented skier, party animal. That was Noah. Again, according to Justin.

  I’d never seen anything to dispute it. Even now, this close to Noah, there was a whiff of beer under the cologne he wore, and maybe the red-rimmed eyes weren’t from sorrow so much as overdoing the drinking the night before.

  Not that I was judging. If he needed to drink to get through his best friend’s funeral, so be it. I wasn’t much of a drinker; the last thing I wanted was to have my senses blurred.

  “I’m surprised you’re so . . . together,” Noah said softly. He put a hand to the edge of his sport coat. “I have a flask if you want.”

  I kept my eyes on his, cool. “My mother told me once that if you loved someone enough that it hurt you when they died, you shouldn’t try to erase the grief. The grief was what told you how deeply you loved them. So, I’ll pass.”

  Zee grabbed my good arm and steered me away from the now slack-jawed Noah. “Your mom really say that?”

  “Yes. Right before I left that life behind.” She’d said it right before she’d died.

  Finally, we were in our seats after dodging a few more sympathetic smiles and attempts at hugs. No one seemed surprised when I recoiled from them. Hell, I’d been doing it since we’d moved here, so my behavior was nothing new.

  I closed my eyes and tried to listen to the sounds around me outside of the speaker at the pew talking about life and death and losing loved ones. The cough of someone in the back, the whisper of a child, the crinkle of a tissue.

  But it was the scuff of a shoe on the edge of a doorway that turned me around in my seat.

  There at the back of the chapel stood a man I didn’t know, one who didn’t belong in Jackson Hole. Suit and tie, all dark colors as per most funerals, he could have been anyone. Could have just been here to support the loss of a local man and his son.

  Except, I was sure it was the man from the hospital.

  I gripped Zee’s arm, and he slowly turned so we were both looking at the man. Those around us turned too, of course, and the man slipped into the room and sat in the back pew, bowing his head, then lifting it so just his eyes were on mine.

  Zee faced the front once more. “Stop staring at him.”

  But I couldn’t. My eyes narrowed and the man . . . he smiled at me, and tipped his head. I was up and moving, and so was he. Away from me, out the back doors of the chapel. I hurried down the pews as fast as I could, to the gasps of the people there. Let them have their fucking show. Let them have their gossip. That man, whoever he was, knew something about the death of my boys.

  “Hurry,” Dinah urged me, twitching in her holster.

  In the foyer of the chapel, the man in black was gone and I didn’t know which direction he’d slipped. There was parking on two sides of the chapel. The door closest to me would make sense, but there was no swirl of cold air and snow from the door opening. I hurried down the hall to the other exit. Zee caught up to me and passed me. He didn’t ask if I was sure.

  I was and he knew it.

  He ran, I hobbled, and the rest of the congregation followed at a hurried, whispering, pace. Noah caught me by the arm as I stepped out of the church. “What is going on?”

  “Old boyfriend.” The lie was easy and out of my mouth without hesitation. “I told him not to come, but . . .”

  “Oh.” His hand slid from my arm and I walked out to the parking lot where Zee stood watching a black sedan drive away.

  “Plates?” I asked softly.

  “No, they were blacked out.”

  Of course.

  The bishop ushered us all back in, and the funeral was wrapped up in what I suspected was record time.

  Bear would have laughed; he would have thought it was great fun that Zee and I had broken up something that was supposed to be solemn and quiet. That made me smile, the first smile since he’d been gone. Small, fleeting, but it was there. He was still with me, and that would be enough for today.

  After that, we followed the hearse to the cemetery. We were the only ones who went to the actual burial, though Mary-Ellen fought to come with us. I denied her to her face, thanked her for all she did and left her there at the church with the plates and plates of food, punch, and gossip mongering.

  Seeing Bear and Justin go into the ground . . . this was the part I didn’t want anyone else around for, the part where I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears. To say my final goodbye, to lay them both to rest and start on a new chapter in my life.

  Zee was on one knee, his hand over the top of the smaller urn. He murmured words I couldn’t hear, didn’t want to hear, because as he spoke, his shoulders shook and one hand went to cover his face. He kept his head bowed for a long time. A tiny flare of light whispered around his fingers, golden and soft. I didn’t know what kind of spell he put on Bear’s urn, but I could take a guess.

  “No one will be able to take his spirit,” Zee said, a frown creasing his face, and then he shook his head as if some insect had landed on his skin.

  I nodded, but was unable to answer past the constriction in my throat.

  I looked to the sky for strength, to find the words I needed to say my final goodbye. There were no words waiting for me there, which left me looking around the cemetery for something, anything, to get me through this. Instead of inspiration, suspicion met me head on.

  A dark sedan, the same one from the chapel, was there, parked far enough away that if I’d been anyone else, I would doubt what I was seeing. Far enough away that if we tried to give chase, we’d lose them.

  I lifted my bad hand and flipped them off. If they were watching, they’d see it.

  I put a hand on Zee’s shoulder and he stepped back, then I went to my knees. I leaned my head against the light-colored wooden urn. “I love you, my boy. This isn’t goodbye. I promise you that. Wait for me on the other side because I won’t be long, and we won’t ever be apart again.”

  Strange that a killer like me could believe in an afterlife. Maybe that’s why I had been so good at it, though. I didn’t see death as being final.

  Tears slid down my cheeks but they didn’t choke me up, they freed me. There was a strange peace in having the charge to go after his killers. I whispered my love to Justin, pressing my hand to his urn. I would miss him, miss his laughter and his smile. His boundless love and energy, the way he made me smile. The way he’d shown me I was more than the name that had been attached to me for so long.

  I turned away and touched Bear’s urn again . . . Bear . . . he was part of my heart and soul in a way I’d never understood before he’d been born. Even when I’d been pregnant I hadn’t understood the depth of love between a mother and child. My fingers trembled as I clutched at what was left of my son.

  “We’ll make this right, Nix. We will,” Zee said.

  “I know.” I took a step back and then another and another until I was at the truck and could breathe once more. I looked over to where the sedan had been parked. Of course, it was gone. “They’re watching me.”
r />   “Making sure of what?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “That I don’t suspect?”

  “Well, you blew that at the church.” He snorted.

  I rubbed a hand over my face as he pulled away from the cemetery. “Then what are they looking for?”

  “We’ve been out of the game long enough that we’re getting slow.” He gave a rough laugh. “If they’re keeping an eye on us, it’s because they want to make sure we aren’t . . .”

  “At home. Could they break the wards?” I whispered and his foot was already on the gas pedal, the tires biting into the snow and drifting us through the first corner.

  “If they have another Hider, yes. They could do it.”

  The drive home was almost an hour in normal conditions, and Zee had us home in half that.

  He hit the brakes hard as we reached the end of the driveway and we slid sideways once more. I was out of the truck as soon as it stopped and forced myself into an awkward run up the steps of the house.

  Zee spun in a quick circle, his eyes narrowed. “The wards are gone. It has to be a Hider. Watch yourself.”

  “Abigail, Abe!” I called the dogs and gave a sharp whistle.

  There was the faintest of cries from the living room. I bolted through and then skidded to a stop. Abigail lay flat out, her eyes glazed, the bullet having gone straight through her skull, dead center. Abe fought to crawl to me. Blood poured from a wound in his chest, and his breath came in wheezes that splattered his lips with red foam. “Get him to the vet,” I yelled at Zee. “Go, go!”

  “He’s just a dog,” Zee yelled back. I spun on him.

  “He was Bear’s dog. Get him to the damn vet!”

  Zee shook his head. “When the house is cleared.”

  I wanted to scream in frustration, even though I knew, logically, he was right. Which meant the faster I helped him clear it, the faster we’d be moving. “Abe, bleib.” Stay.

  I pointed at the floor and he stopped moving, though the gurgling breath didn’t slow. I pulled Dinah and Eleanor out, and the ladies settled into my hands as though they were an extension of my body.