Blood and Black Suits (Briar's Daughter Book 1) Read online

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay, you told me,” I said. “And you made a promise. If I decide to stay, we’ll stay.”

  “I did,” he agreed.

  Now that the fatigue had caught up with me, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into all that at the moment. I was way too tired to keep trying to deal with this. It was almost 1:00 am. Not that late, but it had been a long day followed by an even longer night.

  “Can I sleep on it?” I asked.

  “Almost,” he said, and then he grinned. “I want to tell you about one more thing.”

  IX

  I felt like I could barely keep my eyes open. But I said, “Lay it on me.”

  “It’s about the Association. Kind of.”

  Dad’s whole demeanor was different now. He seemed… excited? It was enough to wake me up a little.

  “Alright.”

  He grabbed a folded stack of two or three pages of white paper next to where he’d put the newspaper down and said, “They’ve asked me to help them out with something. I don’t have to go anywhere. It’s just something for me to work on while I’m doing my regular hunting. In this letter, well, they also kind of suggested that they thought you might be looking to become a hunter yourself. You know, after graduation?”

  And now I was totally awake, felt like I couldn’t sleep if my life depended on it. They were talking about me?

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.” I wasn’t sure why I was being so reluctant to agree. I mean, I was definitely leaning more toward being a hunter than anything else at this point.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But I know you’ve at least been thinking about it.”

  I hadn’t said anything about it to Dad, directly, so I said, “And just how do you ‘know’ that?”

  “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, honey. It’s about as clear as the fact that Abby didn’t want to pick up the family business.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I waited for him.

  “I think the Association wants you to hunt,” he said, still smiling. “And that’s a good thing. It gives you some leeway with them. But I don’t want you to feel pushed into this. It’s a big step. Hell, I don’t even know if I’d want you to be a hunter, but I know you’d be a good one.”

  Whoa.

  Dad had never said that to me before. It was weird because I felt honored to hear him say that, but at the same time it was kind of disconcerting that he was so okay with me choosing such a dangerous path for my life.

  And then I noticed something weird. Dad held the letter pages absently in his right hand, and I could see from the couch that they were blank.

  “Uh,” I said. “You sure that’s the letter?” I pointed. “Earth to Dad, there’s nothing on those pages.”

  He looked at the letter as if I’d just told him he was holding a stinging jellyfish, and then he laughed.

  I was pretty lost.

  “No, no,” he said. “There’s plenty written on here, it’s just locked.”

  “And that means…?”

  “Witchcraft. The Association paid a witch to enchant this. Only I can read what’s on it.”

  “Whoa,” I said. I’d never heard of that, hadn’t even known that was a possibility. “How much does it cost them to get a witch to cast a spell like that?”

  “They might have one on staff. Not likely, but it’s possible.” He laughed the way someone would watching something really improbable, like a nun wrestling in the WWE. “But if they don’t have one on the payroll? I’m sure something like this wouldn’t come cheap.”

  “How ‘not cheap?’” I asked, both because I was curious and because I wanted to get a feel for how important this was to the Association.

  “Probably about ten grand.”

  I whistled, and Dad said, “How about I read it to you, okay?”

  When I nodded, he looked down at the blank pages to read. It was weird watching his eyes scan the white nothing of the papers. “Mr. Briar, we are writing to you in regards to an Association project that is and has been in progress, codename: Hidden Sight. In addition to you, five other hunters across the globe have been asked to participate. The details will be given upon your request. The compensation is an extra one-fifth of your bounty given at each assessment, whatever that may be.

  “The goal of Hidden Sight is to determine how it is possible that the general world—meaning governments, institutions, news and media outlets, and individuals not inculcated—have not yet determined with conclusiveness the existence of the supernatural. This is a high-priority project for the Association, and your commitment to it must reflect that. You will be expected to produce viable theories and evidence at each assessment, or at least make a considerable effort toward that end. Please do not accept this lightly. In accordance with that warning, you may have up to one calendar year from receiving this communication to decide if you desire to participate.”

  It was weird hearing this lawyer-ish wording come out of Dad’s mouth. As interesting as that “Hidden Sight” stuff was, my attention piqued even more as he read the next part.

  “Your daughter, Catherine Briar, is by all accounts on the path to join you in your work, probably to then become a hunter in her own right, independent of you. She has shown herself to be well-educated in matters of hunting and reasonably well-equipped for the work at hand considering her age and the slightness of her physical frame. If it is the case that she intends to be a hunter, we also extend this invitation to her upon her decision to hunt. No response is necessary at this time.”

  Dad put the page down. “And then it’s just signed ‘the Association.’”

  “No names?” I asked.

  “Never.”

  Again, I wasn’t really sure what to say. I just sat there for a moment, taking it in. I hadn’t even known they knew who I was. There was one time in Florida I wrote them an explanation for something I’d brought it, but was that really enough to warrant this kind of interest?

  By all accounts? they’d said, and She has shown herself to be… What the heck were they talking about? Where were they getting this info? From Dad? Probably not just him, since his opinion was obviously slanted in my favor. Not to mention they were fingering me for this project, Hidden Sight, when it sounded pretty exclusive.

  Talk about weird.

  “Now,” he said, “you can sleep on it.”

  X

  In the morning none of that weird Association stuff or the “black suits” seemed real. What did seem real was getting ready for school the same way I had for the last two months. It felt right, pulling on my rosy tights, a black cotton skirt, and my The Clash t-shirt. If felt right, putting on some eye liner and a small amount of rosy lipstick to match. I pulled my straight black hair back into a simple pony tail and smiled at myself in the mirror.

  I felt like a real person living her real life.

  I did kind of look like Victoria, who was the prettiest vampire I’ve ever known. Except a) I wasn’t nearly as pretty, and b) Victoria didn’t smile. That was okay, though. I liked the way I looked when I smiled, and judging by other people’s reactions, they did too. I wasn’t a big smiler a couple years ago, but then I figured out you can be a little a goth-inspired look without the constant brooding.

  I didn’t always wish that my family could be one-hundred-percent normal—I cherished a lot of the memories I had about everyone we’d met, human and otherwise, and I was grateful that I knew more about what was really out there than most people—but that morning I did feel a little pang of regret that things couldn’t be different than they were.

  What if I could just be… normal?

  What if I knew without much doubt that I’d be going to CHS next year, and graduating there the year after that? What if I didn’t feel compelled to leave Campville at all except maybe to go to college for four years or whatever, coming back every summer and every Christmas? Some weekends, too, if I didn’t go way far away.

  What if Dad could just stay in this
house the rest of his life? In this scenario I’d get married someday to some guy from town, a human guy, and we’d get a house nearby. This could just be our town. When kids rolled around, this would be the only kind of town they really knew about, and Grandpa would be right down the street. They could go to the same high school I did, and then put their roots down here too.

  I realize this is not exactly every teenage girl’s dream life, and obviously I was overlooking some major flaws—like the fact that there wouldn’t be much here to fuel my need for action, adventure, and fear—but as I got ready that morning it sounded good to me. Of course, I didn’t know what Dad would do in my fantasy. He didn’t exactly have a huge list of skills that didn’t involve hunting down the denizens of the night, and he’d have a hard time finding a career at his age that would actually interest him. At this point we lived off of the hunter bounties the Association paid him at his assessments.

  My wish for this simplified, quaint life might be stupid, but I still thought at least part of my dream could be a reality. It would be nice to just at least be able to stay here until I graduated. I wanted to keep the friends I had, my room, and our pretty little house. After everything I’d been through and sacrificed for my dad’s obsession/profession, I didn’t think that was so unreasonable.

  The kitchen smelled like bacon and eggs, and my stomach growled. Dad served me up a plate along side a glass of not-from-concentrate OJ (the only kind I really liked), and said, “Well?”

  “Well, what?” I said around a forkful of food. I was pretty good about not smearing my lipstick, but I gave myself a little mental reminder to take a look at it before heading out the door. I realized it would be easier if I did my make-up after, but Dad didn’t usually have my food ready early enough for that.

  “Well, have you decided if you want to be a pill about Campville or not? I gave you all night to think about it.”

  “Considering I didn’t get to bed until well after midnight, I wouldn’t really call that ‘all night,’ but yeah I made up my mind.” I took a swig of the sweet, citrusy juice. “And I have decided to be a pill.”

  He gave a heavy, theatrical sigh, but he didn’t seem too devastated. Had he been hoping I’d say that? If so, why, after the stink he’d been putting up about moving?

  He said, “Okay, then… I might need your help.”

  I swallowed the bite I’d been in the middle of without tasting it. I hadn’t been expecting this. “You mean… with hunting?”

  “Kind of.”

  This had never happened before. Obviously, I’d gotten in more than a few close-calls and scrapes in my time, and I’d even been a help to Dad on a number of occasions, but he had never asked me for assistance like this. In the past, he’d been hell-bent on keeping me as far away from the danger—and the action—as possible. But maybe that was changing after the Association had sent that letter.

  I was both nervous and a little excited. For me, it was a big deal that he was asking. I said, “What can I do?”

  “For today,” he said, “I just want you to be really, really careful. I think it’s going to take these guys a while before anything serious happens, so we should have time to talk about it when you get out of school. Just make sure you aren’t alone, ever. Don’t even go to the bathroom by yourself. It’s possible they know about me, and that could make you a target.”

  I smiled brightly so he wouldn’t take it the wrong way, and said, “What else is new?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I,” I told him with real gravity, “I promise. I won’t take any chances today.”

  He studied me, and then gave me a nod. I guess I passed whatever little test he’d just put me through. “Finish up your food and grab whatever else you might need for today. I’m driving you.”

  I didn’t normally like that—I usually just took the bus or walked with Becca if she could force herself out of bed early enough for that—but I knew better than to argue this small point.

  “Sounds good,” I told him. The possibilities of what he might ask of me were racing through my head like thoughts of new toys through a five-year-old’s dreams the night before Christmas. I texted Becca to let her know, but she didn’t respond. I shook my head. Poor girl was probably still in bed and would have to rush to get to school on time.

  We got in the car and headed toward CHS, but we weren’t even halfway there before the unexpected happened. On the corner of our street and Madison Way, we saw them, black suits and all.

  XI

  There were two of them, going door to door just like Dad had said.

  “Put your head down,” he hissed, “so it looks like I’m alone.”

  Without question, I obeyed, ducking my head so it was level with the glove box. It was like he was my drill sergeant, and I was a grunt. When my dad spoke like that, I acted first and asked questions later. What can I say? It was just my goofy little way of not getting my head sliced off my body or something.

  “I guess there are no bounties on these guys yet, right?”

  He half-laughed. “You would be thinking about that at a time like this. Of course there’s not, but that doesn’t mean they won’t pay.” He spoke in hushed tones, even though there was no way they would hear us in our car across the street. Well, if they were human there’d be no way for us to hear them, but since we didn’t know what their capabilities might be at this point, I guessed Dad was just being cautious.

  “I’m sure they’ll give us a good amount,” I said, thinking about the money. New monsters were just about the most valuable kind you could bag. I thought about the windfall we’d had from bringing in that huldufólk a couple of years ago, and mentally whistled.

  The one downside to new creatures is you had to have some kind of proof of their existence if they were unregistered, so hopefully we’d be able to get at least a chunk of one of their corpses.

  I know, I know, what a pleasant thing to hope for…

  Dad pulled over six houses away from the one they’d just left. They were moving farther from us down the street, getting to the next house. Dad got a map out of the glove box, making it momentarily hard for me to keep my head as low as we both would have liked. He unfolded it, but kept one eye on our quarry. This was an old trick of his, but it was also an effective one. I don’t think Dad really realized how many of his little tricks, maxims, and rules I’d picked up on over a lifetime of being his daughter, and actually I’m pretty sure he never intended to teach me as much as he did because me following his footsteps had never really been his number one plan.

  But I knew how he operated, and this map thing was so typically Dad. In his mind, making yourself uninteresting trumped making yourself invisible. Trying to hide behind dumpsters or peek out at the “bad guys” from behind a fence really wasn’t his speed, as he thought you were about ten times as likely to be noticed pulling stupid crap like that.

  “They’re going inside,” he said, and opened his door. “Drive yourself to school.” Before I could protest, he closed the door and started sauntering down the street.

  My heart was pounding. I didn’t know what to do. I knew Dad had been in way more dangerous situations than this, that he did in fact often face death the way some people faced a too-full email inbox as part of their jobs, but this was different. I mean, I was right here. Could I really just drive to school? Not to mention the fact that I hadn’t passed my driving test and didn’t exactly, technically, explicitly have a license yet even though I was closer to my seventeenth birthday than my sixteenth.

  Without poking my head up too much, I reached over and almost cut the engine, but then I thought better of it. We might need to make a quick escape. It’s not like there was a big-time crime problem in Campville, and I was pretty sure the car would be okay if I just left it running.

  I peeked over the dashboard, but I didn’t see him. He was probably already inside. But what did that mean? What excuse had he made to go into someone’s house like that? If he was totally blowin
g his cover, that meant big-time action. Someone or something might die. Then again, he had his utility belt on him, and there were more little “problem-solvers” in there than even I knew about. He might have something in mind I couldn’t even guess at.

  I slipped out my side of the car and closed the door behind me. Its clapping shut sound seemed about twenty times louder than normal. There was a guy raking leaves three houses down in the opposite direction from where my dad had gone, and he looked up at me—probably because the car was still running—but he didn’t say anything.

  Mimicking my dad’s patented “I have every right and reason to be here, and those reasons are all really boring” amble as best I could, I headed down toward the house he’d presumably gone into, the one I’d last seen the black suits approaching.

  It was surreal to be caught up in something like this in the middle of the day, and I’d always thought so. I was accustomed enough with the idea of the supernatural that I wasn’t in constant flip-out mode when stuff like this happened at night time, because, you know, stuff like this kind of makes sense at night. But when it’s a beautiful October day? Light breeze, sun shining, trees shedding their multi-colored leaves?

  It was just weird.

  I knew Dad was going to be mad at me for not obeying him, but something about this just seemed really off to me. I felt the cell phone in my pink-skull-adorned clutch just to make sure it was still there. 911 was pretty much a no-no in the hunter world, but if it came down to making the Association mad at me, or Dad getting himself killed, I knew which one I’d choose.

  The impromptu showdown—if that’s what this was turning into—looked like it would be held in a cute blue one-story house that was typical of the area; it was modestly-sized but well-loved and kept up. The paint wasn’t peeling, and there wasn’t a bunch of garbage or junk in the lawn.