Alaskan Fire (4 page)

Jack lowered his hand, looking
confused.  “Huh?”

“Second,” Blaze said, turning the
light on the room, “If you’re going to have any contact at all with the guests,
you’re going to stop making rude comments.  Period.”

“Rude comments?” Jack asked,
sounding perplexed.

She switched the light back to
his face.  “Suggesting I have a bit of draft horse in my ancestry?  Or that I’m
a ‘dumbass city-slicker?’”

“Well,” Jack said gruffly, “You
got big-ass feet and you fell in the lake.  Now do you mind?  I’ve got
sensitive eyes.”

Blaze stared at him, stunned by
his hypocrisy, and left the light on his face another few seconds.  Finally,
she turned it again to the inside of the lodge.  “So what do you think?”

Jack lowered his arm from his
face suspiciously.  “Think you got a hell of a deal on the place.”

“It’s a lot of work,” Blaze said,
shining the light around the basement floor, the light catching the reflection
of windows that were still boarded from the outside. 

“Yeah,” Jack said.  He gave her a
long, guarded look.  “What are you?”

“Business major,” Blaze said,
distracted.  “Ditched everything to come out here, though, so I can’t afford to
screw up.”  She crossed the room to shine her light on a pile of grass and
black deposits on the floor beside the wall.  “What is that?”

“Looks like a squirrel found its
way in here,” Jack said.  “They’ll probably be all over.  Stuff’ll be chewed,
too, so you’ll probably have to replace some walls and flooring.”  He paused,
seeming to hesitate.  “I mean really, what are you?”

Blaze flashed him again,
irritated.  “Remember what I said about rude comments?”

She almost
saw
his hackles
go up again.  “I’m gonna go get the rest of the groceries.”  He turned on heel
and left.

Blaze sighed.  As they’d loaded
the Cessna 206 while waiting for Bruce’s brother to arrive, Candy had warned
her that people in the Bush were…different.  Most of them, the energetic little
woman had told her, had retreated to the Bush because they couldn’t deal with
their problems in town.  Unfortunately, that meant most of them were eccentric,
egotistical, hard-ass recluses who wanted to be left alone.  Between Lance’s
brief recountings of Thornton’s past misdeeds and her first twenty minutes with
Jack in the flesh, Blaze got the general idea that her new mechanic fell into
that category, and that it was desperation—and a dearth of paying jobs in the
area—that had finally made him come out of his shell.

Jack dropped her remaining luggage
and foodstuffs unceremoniously at her feet, all in a single massive load, and
Blaze was pretty sure she heard some stuff crunch that shouldn’t have.  “I’ll
see if I can find some firewood,” he said, ignoring the sound of breaking glass. 
Then he was gone again, his broad back disappearing as he made his way to the
largest of the outbuildings.

Because she
refused
to dig
through her luggage to figure out which prized artifact of her life had
succumbed to the brute, Blaze started searching the basement for a good spot to
stow her stuff and take shelter for the night.  Near the back, she found a
small room with a tiny cot, dusty and stale-smelling.  Blaze’s feet would be
hanging off the end, but she decided it would work for now. 

“I’m taking this one for the
night,” Blaze said, as Jack stepped inside, muscles straining under a big
armload of firewood. 

Jack grunted and dumped the logs
beside the stove, then gave the tiny room a curious look.  “Owner’s suite is
upstairs, top floor.”

“I don’t feel like dragging duffels
all the way up there,” Blaze said.  “Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna change.” 
She gestured at the room.  “You want proof, here’s your chance.”

Jack flushed.  “Don’t need
proof.”  Then he turned and retreated again.  After a few minutes, she heard
something creaking against the nearby window, and a piece of plywood began to
pry free, allowing a blast of light into the dark basement.  Ignoring it, Blaze
dragged her belongings into the room she’d picked out and, by the bluish glow
of the LED flashlight, closed the door and sorted through her duffels for a new
set of clothes.

She found it—camouflaged
cargo-pants, a T-shirt, and a long-sleeved, button-up flannel shirt—and quickly
doffed her wet clothes to exchange for fresh.  She replaced her hiking boots
with the brand-new pair of work boots she had bought at the army surplus store
right before hopping on her flight, then topped the ensemble off with a pale
green boonie cap she had purchased at the same establishment.

When she stepped back out of the
room, the basement was well-lit from the three pieces of plywood that Jack had
pulled from the windows.  Her handyman was currently on his knees in front of
the fireplace, his grease-stained jacket thrown over a rough-hewn wooden chair,
his muscular shoulders bunching as he gently laid kindling into the fancy
box-shaped woodstove. 

When she stepped into the
basement with him, Jack looked up.  She saw both eyebrows go up as he took in
her new style of dress.

“Better?” Blaze demanded.

“Miss GI Jane,” Jack said.  “You
in the army, Miss Jane?”

Blaze scowled.  “The name is
Blaze.”

Jack grinned at her, green eyes
dancing.  “That like a nickname you got from the military, Miss Jane?”

Blaze stared at him for so long
that Jack went back to making a fire.  Finally, Blaze blurted, “Are you
trying
to piss me off?”

“Nope,” Jack said, “Trying to
figure out what sort of critter landed on my doorstep, that’s all.”

Blaze choked.  “
Your
doorstep.”  She waved a hand at the lodge around them.  “I’m sorry, did you
just spend six hundred
thousand
of your hard-earned dollars on this
place?”

“From what I hear,” Jack said,
still working with the fire, “It was an inheritance.”  He pulled back and got a
little cut-open pop-can full of clear liquid and sloshed it on the wood
inside.  Then he yanked a book of matches from his back pocket and struck a flame,
then touched it to the kindling.  The fire spread fast—not as fast as gasoline,
Blaze realized—but he had definitely used some sort of accelerant.

An inheritance. 
Blaze
found herself so infuriated that it was all she could do not to tell him to get
his tight, Greek-godly ass packed up and out of her lodge. 
Now
.

“And when I say my doorstep,”
Jack said, turning to her, “I mean my neck of woods.  I’ve claimed this place. 
Everything for about ten square miles.  Tied myself to the land, keep it nice. 
Kind of makes me anxious to see just what sort of critter is holing up right
smack in the middle of it.”  He peered up at her expectantly, then, like he was
waiting for her to tell him she was a Martian, and oh, by the way, here’s my
raygun and the keys to my spaceship.

Blaze sighed, looking at the dusty
drywall of the ceiling.  “Damn it.  Are there any
other
people that can
turn a wrench around here, or are you it?”

“You haven’t answered my
question, missy,” Jack said.  “I woulda said you got some snake in you, but
smell’s not right.  Kinda bitter.  Like burned metal.  Kinda like those
flame-throwing gorillas in Africa.”

“Get out,” Blaze said.

Jack stood up, but he leaned
against the wall and crossed his arms over his big chest.  Over the crackle of
the fire, he gave her a flat stare and said, “Are we gonna have to tussle,
then?”

Blaze stared at him, completely
unbelieving that he was not listening to instructions.  “I told you to get out
of my house.”

“‘Your’ house,” he growled, “Is
on
my
land.  I’ve kept it free of all sorts of nuisances and vermin for
over a hundred years, and I’d hate to let it down now.”

Blaze’s mouth fell open.  “You’re
insane.”

“Maybe,” he growled.  “And you’re
trespassing, tootz.”  And his growl sounded almost feral, animalistic, like a
warning rattle that was coming from deep in his chest.

Impossible,
Blaze thought,
listening to the odd sound.

“So, sweetie,” Jack said, still
leaning stubbornly against the wall, “Dispense with the bullshit.  Who are you,
and why the fuck didn’t you pay attention to the warning signs I posted all
over the place?”

He’s completely off his
rocker,
Blaze thought, staring at him.  She began to think of the gun she
had stashed in her duffel, in case of bears.  She glanced behind her.

“Wouldn’t try it, if I were you,”
Jack said.  “I’ve been shot about fifteen-hundred times in my life, and stabbed
a time or two before that.”  He flexed a bicep, then looked at her.  “Ain’t
seein’ much effect…  You?”  He grinned, and in the firelight, Blaze could have
sworn
she saw long, sharp canines.

“Uh, look,” Blaze said, deciding
that she really didn’t want to get into a brawl with a coke-snorting Bushrat
dopehead.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I was told the deed was
for thirty acres.  If you think some of that belongs to you, I’m sure we can
work it out in the courts.”

His mouth fell open and he
frowned at her.  “Are you smoking crack?”

“I could say the same for you!”
Blaze cried.  “I’ve told you twice, now, to get out of my house, and you’re
still standing there.  You know, people go to
jail
for trespassing.”

That
got his hackles up. 
She could
feel
the energy in the room jump as he tensed his muscular
body and pushed off of the wall.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me,
sweetheart,” he snarled, pointing a finger at the floor, “But this is
my
home territory, and anyone with any brains knows to check out who’s claimed
what before putting six hundred thousand of their ‘hard-earned’ dollars into a
few acres right in the middle of someone’s home range.”

Blaze just stared at him.  “What
are you
talking
about?” she finally managed.  “This is America.  Nobody
can ‘claim’ ten square miles of land.”

He grinned fiercely, and Blaze
once again thought she saw the flash of teeth.  “That’s where you’re wrong,
sugar.”  He took a step towards her, and Blaze suddenly realized why it seemed
like she had been seeing his hackles raise every time he got angry.  His back,
unlike his face, was
hairy.
  Almost inhumanly hairy.  And the hair was
standing on end, so that it pushed up over the shoulders and up his neck,
puffing up his shirt.  “So,” Jack growled—and this time, the growl was
definitely not human, “Tell me what you are and stop fucking around.”  It was
his eyes, though, that finally made Blaze take a nervous step backwards.  As
she watched, they started to glow.  The black pupil elongated, becoming a
narrow slit.

“Listen,” Blaze whispered,
“Whatever you’re on, I’m sure it’s wonderful, but I really have no idea what
you’re talking about.”  She took another step backwards, into the bedroom.  She
glanced down at the doorknob, saw the lock.

“Don’t even try it,” Jack
growled.  In the flickering light of the fire, she thought she saw his teeth lengthening
to points.

Blaze ducked out of the way and
slammed the door shut.  An instant later, she twisted the lock and dove for her
duffel bags.

Which one’s got the gun?
she thought, panic clawing at her brain.  She had an insane woodsman in her
home, and he was obviously on some pretty expensive medication.  Blaze found
the duffel and had just knelt beside it when the door exploded off of its
hinges, the shattered bits of wood and paint so tiny that they drifted around
her like feathers.  Seeing that, Blaze’s body locked up all at once, her
frantic mind thinking that the door had somehow been hit by a shotgun—or a
small thermonuclear device.  She looked up, half-expecting to see the black
barrel of a gun pointed at her.

What stood on the other side,
however, was much worse.  Over six feet tall, it seemed to be a mixture of man
and beast—bearlike, but with more delicate features.  It stood hunched on hind
legs and was snarling, its compact body covered in four-inch-long brown and
blonde fur.

Those places, of course, that
weren’t still sporting ripped jeans and a shredded flannel shirt.

Blaze screamed and scrambled
backwards, away from her duffels.

The creature followed her into
the room, easily tossing aside the seventy-pound duffels as if they were made
of Styrofoam.  The eerie rumble was still coming from its chest, magnified now,
its snarl bearing long, saliva-soaked ivory fangs, its glowing green eyes fixed
on her with deadly purpose.

Blaze’s back hit the far wall
before she realized she’d left herself trapped.  She cringed as the thing
rushed her, then screamed as it pounded a taloned fist into the brickwork
beside her head, powdering it to dust.

“Answer me!” the creature
snarled, hellish green eyes only inches from her own.  “What the
fuck
are you?!”

“I don’t know,” Blaze whimpered,
hiding her head with her arms.  “Please.  I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

The creature grabbed her arm and
pulled it from her face as easily as if she had been a reluctant toddler.  It
peered at her, searching her face with its slitted eyes.  When Blaze tried to
protect herself from its gaze with the other arm, it, too, was removed with a
powerful, clawed hand and held above her head.  Blaze cringed, utter terror
leaving her struggling for breath.  She felt her lungs locking up, terror
clamping down on her chest like a vice.

The creature leaned close, its nightmarishly
fanged face dropping until its whiskers brushed her neck.  Blaze trembled and
tried to pull away, struggling to breathe, but the beast easily held her in
place.  She felt a cold draft near her jugular as it took a deep breath near
her neck, nostrils flaring.

Feeling the warm tongue slide out
and lick her throat, however, Blaze lost it.  She screamed and kicked out, catching
the thing between the legs with all the strength of her terror.