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  Rangers

  Sam and Sam Book One

  Chloe Garner

  Second Edition Kindle eBook

  Copyright © 2014 Chloe Garner

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Covers by Christian

  Published by A Horse Called Alpha

  Work by Chloe Garner

  Anadidd’na Universe

  -Rangers

  -Shaman

  -Psychic

  -Warrior

  -Dragonsword

  -Child

  -Book of Carter

  -Gypsy Becca: Death of a Gypsy Queen

  -Gypsy Dawn: Life of a Gypsy Queen

  -Gypsy Bella: Legacy of a Gypsy Queen

  Other Urban Fantasy

  -Hooligans

  Science Fiction

  -Portal Jumpers

  -Portal Jumpers II: House of Midas

  -Portal Jumpers III: Battle of Earth

  Space Western

  -Sarah Todd

  For Cita, who gets it.

  “Look, Sam, out there in the world, there are good things, and there are bad things. Most people can find most of them, and they deal with those things, but we, you, your brother, your mom, and me, we can see the rest of them. We find the bad things, and we kill them. It’s that simple,” Sam’s father told him. He was five, and within the next few years, he would be an orphan.

  “In the beginning, God and the Devil made a bet. All of the stories start there. It’s because it’s true. The mortal life is just an elaborate exercise in picking teams for the final battle that happens some time after the end of time; God knows when. They come here, they push people, and they try to get the important players to pick their side. That’s what they say, anyway. What they really do is come here and screw off, and that’s when I track them down and I kill them. Either side, light and dark, whatever. They get out of line, I kill ‘em,” Carter told Samantha. She was nineteen, and within the next few years, she was going to die and, as usual, find out just how bad Carter was lying.

  That’s how it started.

  RANGERS

  Samantha stood at the entrance to the old mine. Smelled the air.

  She tipped her head to the side as she listened to the sound of voices coming up the mineshaft. It sounded like they were winning. She shrugged off her backpack and leaned it against a post, waiting.

  <><><>

  Sam and Jason walked along the cart rails up out of the mine. Sam itched at the scratches on his forearms and tried to ignore the bite on the back of his neck. He shrugged his shoulders up against it and glanced at Jason.

  “Some wingman you are,” he said. Jason snorted.

  “I told you, man, I don’t know where he came from. It’s not like I didn’t have my hands full with the other two.”

  Sam itched his neck against his collar again. Jason grinned.

  “It’s just a little bite. You’re such a baby.”

  “It’s the nails,” he said, looking at his arms. “You can’t get away from them.”

  “I hate those guys. There’s always one more.”

  They got within range of the mine exit and snapped off their flashlights. Jason put away his knife and Sam dropped the baseball bat down next to his knee. He frowned. That looked like a shadow.

  He glanced at Jason, who nodded. Jason’s hand went into his jacket, where it would be resting on the grip of his handgun.

  There was a girl silhouetted against the dusky white light, just standing. Sam frowned.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Miss,” Jason said. “This mine is dangerous.”

  “The supports are going,” Sam added.

  The hatchet swung casually from behind her leg and Sam stopped. Jason didn’t.

  “We’re serious. You shouldn’t be here.”

  The flick she gave the hatchet was quick and practiced. Sam lunged right to avoid it and heard the thunk of metal lodging into wood. She followed her weapon into the mine shaft, pulling a knife from a sheath on her calf without breaking stride. Jason had whipped around, following the path of the hatchet. Sam was bracing to meet the girl when he heard the screech.

  She breezed past Sam and he turned. The hatchet was buried in a wooden beam through the body of a gremlin. It screamed at her, mouth full of needle teeth gnashing at her as she approached, and she grabbed first one wing, then the other, cutting them off with ruthless strokes. It screamed at her again and she stabbed it in the head. It ashed.

  The three of them stared at each other silently for a moment, then she wordlessly yanked the hatchet free and walked back to the mouth of the mine, retrieving a huge mountain pack that Sam hadn’t been able to see before.

  “There’s always one more,” Jason muttered.

  “We would have had him,” Sam said.

  “Sure,” she answered. He couldn’t tell if that was sarcasm or not. She tipped her head to the side, pulling up her sunglasses to look at his arms. “Sure.”

  Jason grinned.

  “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?” she countered.

  “I’m Jason, and this is my brother Sam,” he told her. Sam tried to hiss at him but wasn’t fast enough.

  “I’m Sam,” she said. Jason shook his head.

  “We’re all full up on Sams. You like Sammy or Samantha better?”

  She stepped toward Jason, her eyes narrowing along the bottom like an evil smile that didn’t show up.

  “Sam,” she said. He nodded.

  “Samantha it is,” Jason said. Sam realized he had forgotten about the knife she was still holding right up until she put it to Jason’s throat. Jason coughed.

  “Sam. Whatever.”

  She nodded and pulled her sunglasses back down, bending down to sheathe the knife again.

  “You from around here?” Jason asked. Sam sighed. He nodded a can we go? at Jason as the girl was straightening, and Jason smiled at her brightly.

  “I wander,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?” Sam asked.

  “Felt like the right place to be,” she said, tilting her head again to look up at him. He shrugged and looked away.

  “That was impressive, with the axe,” Jason said. She shrugged.

  “Not an axe.”

  Jason persisted.

  “You have plans for dinner?”

  She rubbed her nose and looked back at Jason.

  “I could use a ride back into town, I guess,” she said. He nodded and started walking toward where they had parked the Cruiser. The girl glanced at Sam, then followed Jason up out of the mine.

  “I’ve got another bag over there,” she motioned.

  She left them standing on the old cart rails as she wound down to a spot where a stand of rocks split the sparse hillside forest.

  “Dude, what are you doing?” Sam asked. Jason shrugged.

  “I want to figure out what her game is.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Besides, she’s hot.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Sam glared at Jason for a moment.

  “You think about why we don’t let strangers in the Cruiser?”

  Jason paused for a second, then rolled his eyes.

  “Come on, man, the way she threw that hatchet, handled the gremlin? She’s a Ranger.”

  “We don’t know her. Why was she here, too? Why didn’t she say something?”

  “You see that knife?” Jason asked. Sam nodded. Samantha returned, carting a huge duffel bag over one shoulder.

  “You walked up here like that?” Sam asked. She shrugged.

  “That knife is really nice. Can I see it?” Jason asked. She shrugged and pulled her foot up to reach it. She handed it to him and they started down the washed-out gravel path again. Jason fingered the blade, holding the point against a fingertip and
spinning it in front of his eyes.

  “Never seen one like this before,” he said.

  “Wrought-iron spike with stainless steel blades,” she said.

  “Can I help you carry that?” Sam asked. She glared at him.

  “Nice. Where’d you get it?”

  “A friend gave it to me,” she said.

  “Seriously. I feel bad,” Sam said.

  “She’s got it, Sam,” Jason said.

  “So… You wander?” Sam said. She nodded, watching Jason play with the knife.

  “Wander where?” Sam asked. She shrugged.

  “Around.”

  Jason flipped the knife to hold the blade in his palm and handed it back to Samantha.

  “Impressive.”

  She smiled.

  “I’ll tell the one who made it.”

  “Where would I get one, if I wanted a knife like that?”

  She smiled without warmth and raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Seriously? You’re not going to tell me?”

  She shrugged, sheathing the knife again.

  “It’s a stiletto,” she said.

  “You have to go to dinner with us,” he said.

  “You’re carrying your own body weight,” Sam said.

  “Not quite,” she said. “I keep track.”

  “What’s in there?” Jason asked.

  “Stuff,” she said.

  “Jason,” Sam said. Jason spread his hands.

  “What? I’m being social.”

  “Why?” Sam asked. “We just killed a flock of gremlins. Why are we acting like this is normal?”

  “Gremlins?” Samantha asked.

  “You’ve never seen them before?” Jason asked, turning around to walk backwards.

  “I… I wouldn’t have known what to call it,” she said.

  “But you just happened to know how to kill it?” Sam asked her. She laughed.

  “Most things die when you stab them in the face,” she said. Sam wagged his head back and forth. That was mostly true.

  “So you’re just up here wandering around with a hundred pounds of gear and randomly stumbled across us and had the right weapons ready to kill the last gremlin in the flock we were exterminating.”

  She shrugged.

  “Sure.”

  “Why are you wandering around with a hatchet out?” Sam asked.

  “I believe in being prepared,” she said. Jason snorted.

  “Feel better?”

  “Flock,” she said mockingly.

  “It’s the proper unit,” Sam said.

  “I prefer colony,” Jason said confidentially. Sam glared at him.

  They reached the abandoned service road where the Land Cruiser was parked and Jason unlocked the back hatch and opened it for her. He dumped his backpack in and turned to help Samantha with her gear. She leaned her head to the side and lifted her sunglasses again.

  “Looks like you’re a couple of boy scouts, too,” she said. Sam glared at Jason, who smirked at him.

  “I bet we have mutual friends,” he told her.

  “I doubt that,” she said. Jason looked over his shoulder at Sam.

  “I think she just called us amateurs.”

  Samantha got into the back seat and Sam and Jason took their accustomed seats to head out.

  “I’m starving,” Jason said.

  “Jason, quit it,” Sam said. Samantha made a little coughing noise. Sam looked back at her.

  “Look, I haven’t been around people much, lately. I’d love a little bit of company, if you guys don’t expect too much.”

  “See. She wants dinner, too,” Jason said. “I want pizza.”

  <><><>

  Sam and Samantha stared at each other awkwardly as Jason left to go get more beer. She looked down at her plate, then back up at him. He tried not to stare, but looking anywhere else felt more disingenuous. She poked at her pizza with a fork, then looked at the wall.

  “Dude, the bartender’s hot,” Jason said, sliding into the seat next to Samantha again and dropping a beer in front of each of them. Her first one was gone; Sam was only halfway through his.

  “Jason,” Sam warned. Samantha leaned forward to look around Jason.

  “What? She is hot.”

  Jason grinned.

  “See? I tell Sam all the time that there’s nothing wrong with appreciating how a woman looks.”

  She took a bite of pizza and shrugged.

  “Unless you’re a pig,” she said. Jason choked on his beer and Sam laughed. She looked up at Sam and then Jason.

  “So… Why were you there, today?”

  “It’s what we do, Sweetheart,” Jason said, then stiffened. Sam frowned at him.

  “That’s the point of a knife in my leg, isn’t it?” he asked. Samantha chewed placidly.

  “I’m not sure yet how I feel about you calling me sweetheart,” she said. Sam grinned and downed the second half of his first beer.

  “We track down stuff like that,” Sam told her. “And kill it.”

  “How did you know it was there?”

  “Simon told us…” Jason said then grunted as Sam kicked him under the table.

  “Animals around here were being found dead. Kids said that big birds were attacking things in flocks. Most of them have signs, if you know what to look for,” Sam said.

  “Most… of what?” Samantha asked.

  “Creatures,” Jason said, leaning out over the table to rub his shin and glaring at Sam.

  “Creatures,” Samantha echoed, nodding as she considered. “Right.”

  “You don’t believe us?” Sam asked. She scrunched her face to one side.

  “I believe that you believe what you’re doing, but…”

  “Look, you saw it. You don’t have to believe us, but you did see it.”

  She smiled and tipped the fresh beer back, pouring half of it down her throat, then set it back on the table.

  “I know what I saw. But I don’t believe that you two make a life out of killing stuff like that.”

  “I don’t know that I’d always call it a life,” Sam said darkly.

  “It’s a great life,” Jason said. “And we’re the best.”

  “Mmm,” she said.

  “We have anything else around here tomorrow?” Jason asked. Sam considered the last of his pizza and shook his head.

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I was going to get her number, but if we’re headed out in the morning…”

  Jason stood. Samantha looked up at him as Sam attempted to drink the better part of the rest of his beer.

  “We’re gonna head out,” Jason said. “Where are you staying? Can we give you a ride?”

  She frowned and looked at her plate.

  “Normally I just stay wherever they won’t find me and make me leave,” she said slowly. She looked up at him again. “I guess I could start to act like a human again. Where are you staying?”

  “They have the vacancy sign lit?” Jason asked. Sam nodded, pulling out his wallet. Samantha pulled a bill out of her pocket and offered it to him. Sam looked at it for a moment, then at her face, then shrugged and accepted it.

  “Settled,” Jason said. “You seriously sleep outside?”

  “Churches, park benches. Gazebos are nice,” she said.

  “You’re a crazy person,” he told her. She laughed.

  “A crazy person who knows how to throw a hatchet,” she said.

  “Yeah, so be nice,” Sam said.

  <><><>

  “I’m just saying. She already saw it. What’s the big deal?” Jason asked the next morning as they packed up the room.

  “What was the point? What is she going to do now that she knows? Why would you tell her? It was obvious she isn’t a Ranger.”

  “You’re the one who brought it up. I was just trying to get her to go to dinner with us.”

  “And then home with you.”

  Jason shrugged. Sam steamed, throwing toothbrush, toothpaste, and razor into a pouch.

>   “I mean, can we talk about that again?”

  “No.” Jason held up a finger from the doorway. “No. You read, you talk to Simon, you do… whatever it is you do for fun. You don’t get to outlaw my fun.”

  Sam stared at him.

  “Fine, one of the things I do for fun.”

  Sam continued to stare.

  “Dude, it was just that one time.”

  “She was wearing a tutu.”

  “Well, the other one wasn’t that bad.”

  “Oh, the one in my bed?”

  Jason paused, then shrugged his mouth to one side.

  “Whatever, man. Besides, I quit hitting on her when I found out she had a screw loose.”

  “She butchered a gremlin like a chicken, and you weren’t worried about it until you found out that she sleeps in churches? We sleep in churches, sometimes.”

  “Only when I can’t find someplace better to sleep.”

  Jason saw the look on Sam’s face and rolled his eyes.

  “Fine. I’m sorry. All better?”

  Sam sighed, brushing past Jason to shuffle the clothes in his bag and zip it closed.

  “Can we just go? Simon has a lead for us, but we need to be in Macon tonight.”

  “Fine.”

  Jason grinned at him as they left the room.

  “You need to learn how to enjoy life.”

  Samantha was leaning against the car.

  “Sam,” Jason said.

  “What?” they both answered.

  “Her, you dork,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  She swallowed and rubbed her hands together, checking her backpack to make sure it wasn’t going to tip when she stood. She opened her mouth, closed it, looked up at empty space for a second, her mouth slowly opening as she stood, working something out on her fingers.

  “I want to go with you.”

  “Hell no,” Jason said, walking past her to open the hatch and toss his bag in. Samantha looked at Sam entreatingly. He winced.

  “It isn’t a good idea,” he said.

  “What?” Jason asked. “You’re the one who’s been on my case all morning about how we shouldn’t have even driven her back into town. Don’t go soft on me now.”

  She opened her mouth again, waiting for words to come.

  “You do… Okay, they aren’t important, but you do things, and I miss doing things. I should be doing things… and I know stuff.” Her eyes zapped to Sam. “I really do know stuff. You don’t think I do and I can’t tell you, but…”