I flung up the window, reversed my Colt, and leaned out to slug her in the head before her finger could pull the trigger. She went down silently, but she was not dead.
“Finish,” I said.
Felicia did.
I unlatched the back door and pulled in the woman by her booted feet as quickly as I could. Felicia began hauling in the man, but he was too heavy. My mother appeared out of nowhere and grabbed one foot while Felicia took the other, and together they dragged the body into the school. I took a final look around before I shut and locked the rear door.
My mother looked green around the gills. We’d stowed the bodies where they wouldn’t be the first thing you saw if you opened the door. That was all we could manage; there aren’t a lot of hiding places in a one-room school.
“Don’t look at ’em, Mom,” I said. “It’s done.” I was already worried about the drag marks we’d left in the dirt.
Felicia went to the front windows. “Someone’s coming,” she said quietly.
I was beside her before you could say Jack Robinson. “It’s my stepfather,” I said with relief. I unbolted the door and opened it a crack. Jackson broke into a trot. In seconds, he was in and looking around wildly for my mother. They came together like a magnet and a nail. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t, either, but they didn’t need to.
Jackson was more bulldoggish than handsome, but you always knew he was in the room. And he was a good thinker. He’d propped the shotgun against the wall carefully. After he’d reassured himself that my mother was all right, he noted the bodies lying up against the wall. When he didn’t see bullet holes, he turned to my half sister.
“Jackson, this is Felicia,” I said. “She came with Eli’s brother on the train.”
“Felicia,” he said easily. “It’s good to meet you. Where are Eli and Peter?”
“We don’t know,” Felicia said. “They left this morning to run errands, and we just came down from the cabin a few minutes ago.”
“They dropped by the Antelope and ate lunch there,” Jackson said. “I enjoyed their company.” He paused. “And you haven’t seen them since? Where were they going to get wood?”
“Trader Army’s or Franklin’s, I don’t know which.”
“They still wearing their vests?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Might be good, might be bad,” Jackson muttered.
“Why?” Felicia asked.
“They’ve got all their spell stuff with them, but they’re marked out as grigoris,” I said.
She shook her head at herself. “Of course.”
“Did the mercenaries come into the Antelope?”
“I was already going out the back door, so I don’t know,” Jackson said. He grinned, but not like it was funny. He had to live with running away, because sometimes running was the smart thing to do. “My bartender and the desk clerk got out, too. I had to stay put in the stables for a while to avoid the patrols.”
I crouched down to search the woman. My mother sat on one of the benches and looked away. Jackson helped by taking the second body.
“Dammit,” I said.
The pockets were empty of identification. The woman was carrying a handkerchief, two bobby pins, and a comb. The man had a handkerchief, a picture of a young man, and a cross.
Their weapons were standard weapons, in use by the US Army when there had been a US Army. The woman wouldn’t have been in the ranks then. A lot of things had changed besides the name of the country we lived in.
“I found something important in a dead man’s shoe one time,” Felicia said.
She crouched to untie the man’s brown boots, but first she had to remove the canvas leggings. Felicia’s mouth pursed when she found nothing but dirty socks. She set to work on the woman’s feet but didn’t have any luck.
“These are some thorough people,” I remarked.
Jackson had watched Felicia work with a half smile on his face, while Mom had kept her eyes averted.
Jackson’s muscles tensed. “Heads up,” he said, almost in a whisper.
We all froze in place, Felicia and me crouched on the floor, my mother sitting on a bench, Jackson close to a window a yard from the man’s body. He flattened himself against the wall. My mother started to slide off the bench to the floor, but he held up his hand, palm toward her. She settled back. Movement is eye-catching.
We all listened.
“Where’d they go?” a voice said. I figured it was a young man, and I figured he was standing just outside the fence around the yard of the schoolhouse. He wasn’t making any attempt to be quiet. “All the people who live here?”
“They ran for their homes,” said another man, who sounded older. “They got to figure out what’s happening.”
“You think they’ll fight?” the younger one said hopefully.
The older man laughed, a relaxed chuckle. “You better hope not, Nick. These ain’t city people, these are country people. They can shoot, and they’re tough.”
Damn straight. There was something about his voice, a little too loud and more than a little self-conscious. The older man suspected some of those “country people” might be listening… and ready.
“Where are Merle and Betty?” the younger man said. “Weren’t we supposed to meet them here? This is the schoolhouse, sign says.”
“I don’t see hide nor hair of them,” the older man said. “Maybe we’ll see them back at the truck.” He did not sound convinced of that. “Let’s just mosey on.” Definitely uneasy. Definitely thought someone was listening.
“We should wait a while longer,” the younger man said. Jeez Louise, the kid couldn’t shut up. “Last time I saw them, they were walking between the buildings right east of here.”
I drew a silent breath in, let it out just as quietly. My Colts were ready in my hands. Easy death, I thought, but the idea that now if I died, it would be in front of my mother… I got more and more tense. I could see Jackson was ready to leap to his feet.
But we all waited.
Even Felicia, who was strung like a bow, almost quivering. The power was building up inside her to an intolerable level. She smelled like Eli, like a grigori… like magic.
I had the same father. I had no magic skill, but I could smell it being used. And I could boost its use by a real Grigori. Maybe I could take a little bit off the top as well. Might be a good time to use that little talent. I reached out very slowly and laid my hand on her shoulder. Felicia shivered. I began drawing off some of the overload as evenly as I could manage. I hoped I wasn’t blundering into something that would backfire. But after two minutes, my half sister could manage. She relaxed.
Sometimes I wondered why the Rasputin School required Felicia to finish the low-level grigori courses when it was obvious she had power running out her ears. But after something like this, I understood. Control was everything to a grigori. Control and focus.
“I guess they ain’t coming,” said the young man, and yawned.
I had gotten so intent on Felicia I had forgotten they were there. That was stupid.
“I guess not,” the older soldier said.
In the distance, someone gave a shrill whistle.