Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers

by SM Reine

  Gerda laughed. “That’s coming from a witch who just took two pot shots at me.”

  I tried again. “You’re not a cold-hearted killer, Gerda. You are not like your father.”

  “No, I’m not. He was one of a kind, but you can only delay your destiny for so long. I am now a killer. And I like it. But despite this brat’s constant bawling, I still want to be his mother. So unless you want to see his cute little head cleaved from his shoulders, I suggest the two of you head back toward the shed there.”

  Tabby and I glanced at each other, hesitating. Without us, Petey would be at the mercy of a vindictive woman who was getting crazier by the minute.

  “Go on,” said Gerda, shaking the blade. “Get going. I have to bandage my leg, thanks to Miss Bitch, and then get moving. I have a flight to catch.”

  “Okay, we’ll go,” said Tabby. “Just please don’t hurt, Petey.”

  She pressed the blade against Petey’s neck and I could see his tender skin indented. “That depends on whether or not you get into the shed within the next five seconds.”

  Tabby whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “Cover me, Al. Get behind me.”

  She turned and headed toward the shed. I slipped in behind her and blocked Gerda’s view of the pistol handle sticking out of her jeans waistband. Together we walked around the pit, neither of us looking at the body in it, and entered the shed.

  39

  “Now shut the door,” Gerda instructed.

  I reached out and pulled the double doors shut.

  Grunting, I heard her shuffle over. Petey was mumbling something incoherent, the crying subsided. Although clearly upset and subject to much hostility of late, the kid seemed remarkably cool under pressure. Must have gotten that from Amanda.

  At the door to the shed, Gerda paused. She fumbled with something outside the door, which banged repeatedly against the metal. Finally there came a resounding click, followed by a sigh of satisfaction from Gerda.

  “There now,” she said. “Oh, and Tabitha...his name’s not ‘Petey’ any more. It’s ‘Charlie.’ He’s my little Charlie.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “I think so,” she said through the door, laughing.

  The shed was dark, the only light coming from a hint of crack along the double doors. There were no windows or even vents. Thank God we were in spring, and night was coming. The shed, for now, was cool.

  “I was going to bury my sacrifice as a courtesy, but now I think I must get myself cleaned up and get running along,” Gerda said.

  In the darkness, I could just make out Tabby pointing her gun at the door, guessing at the direction of Gerda’s voice. But I knew she wouldn’t shoot without knowing whether Petey was out of the line of fire.

  Kah-dooon.

  From inside the house came a crashing sound, as if someone had upended a table. Then came a thundering rumble of wood, growing louder as the noise descended.

  “Who’s there?” Gerda called, a little nervous.

  “Did you call back-up after all?” I asked Tabby.

  “No, that’s something else.”

  The footsteps

  “Who’s in there, Al?” Gerda’s slightly muffled voice was filled with a hint of panic.

  “I don’t know. But open the door and we can help you.”

  “Bullshit,” she hissed.

  Something heavy nudged against me and I grabbed it. Cold steel. A crowbar. I wedged it in the crack of the door, near the hasp and the lock.

  From somewhere came the trudging of boots on the patio. Whoever was coming was making no attempt to conceal the fact.

  “Who—?” Gerda’s raised voice was cut off. Something close to a hysterical cry seemed to bubble slowly through her, rising up through her torso and chest, until finally she managed a strangled scream.

  “No! No-o-o! It can’t be.”

  Inside the shed, Tabby turned to me. “Daddy’s home.”

  40

  More stomping of booted feet—or, in this case, booted clay feet—as the golem continued unerringly toward its target: Gerda. I wondered if it even knew that it was dressed up to look like her father.

  With clay for brains, probably not.

  The next thing we heard was a small thump, followed immediately by a huge wail from little Petey.

  “She dropped him,” said Tabitha.

  “Do you blame her?” I asked. “Her fucking dead father is standing out there in front of her. Even if she’s been dabbling in magic, that’s got to be an eye-opener. Ah, shit, she’s going to need three lifetimes of therapy.”

  “Use the bar,” Tabby said.

  I tested the angle and then threw all my strength into a wrenching yank. Screws popped loose but the hasp still held. I was afraid the noise and the panic would cause Gerda to go wild with the cutter.

  I repositioned the crowbar, found purchase, and tugged, throwing my shoulder into the door this time. Bone clacked against wood and the metal vibration jarred me all the way to my molars, but the door flew open and I nearly landed on my face.

  Petey wailed bloody murder. Gerda was babbling through heavy sobs. “Sorry, Daddy, I been a bad girlie. Sorry, Daddy, I been a bad girlie.”

  As I picked myself up, Tabby hustled around me. Gerda was on her knees, hands raised and palms out as if warding off a coming punishment. “Don’t hurt me no more, Daddy.”

  Her plaintive, childish pleas tugged at my guts. For all her conniving, murdering ways, she had once been as innocent as any of us.

  And hulking over her was the stuff of nightmares. He was still wearing shades, perhaps to disguise the fact that he had no eyes. In the encroaching darkness, his face was nearly obscured by the hat, and the collar of his coat was turned up. He was just the way he’d been the night before in the rest home for retired witches. But what else could you expect from a creature conjured from beyond? It wasn’t like he’d pop into Michel’s House of Style for a makeover.

  Tabby ran beside Gerda and scooped up Petey, who was slapping his hands together as if he wanted to make mud pies out of the stranger.

  The golem bent over Gerda, who was now bawling hysterically and shuddering violently, acting a little like Petey had during his fearful tantrums.

  “Please, Daddy,” she whimpered. “Me sorry.”

  I did something that surprised even me. I scrambled away from the shed and shoved my way between Gerda and the abomination that was in the image of her father. Her father was a big man, if the likeness was true, and Nana seemed like the type who dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s when it came to building nightmares. He bore down on me steadily, his thin lips unmoving, his brownish skin gleaming wetly, yet managing to look powdery all the same. He stomped and the ground shook beneath me. Good Christ, he was a big man.

  “Leave Gerda alone,” I said, not recognizing my own voice.

  “Get away, Al,” Tabby yelled. “I’ve got Petey.”

  “I can’t leave Gerda like this,” I shouted. “I’m the reason he’s back.”

  That grin was horrible. Was that how Gerda remembered her father? With that sick sort of half grin on his thin lips? The smirk of the sociopath, the gleeful expression of hell on earth.

  Tabby’s gun fired and something went splat in the golem’s neck, spitting bits of moist soil onto my face. But as quickly as it appeared, the hole closed with a wet slorp. The grin, which had vanished upon impact, now returned.

  “Okay,” I said. “Bullets are out.”

  In one swift movement, his left arm swept in a mighty arc that sent me flying through the air. The force of the blow was inhuman and drove the wind from my lungs. Nothing could resist that. I tumbled over Gerda and into the pit, almost sure my arm was broken from the impact.

  I landed on Poochy’s corpse and scrambled to claw my way out of the hole, which was slick with blood. With me out of the way, and Tabby backing slowly up against the house with a still-crying Petey in her arms, the golem focused on Gerda. Its massive, gleaming hands, forged flesh made o
f river clay, reached out and circled around her neck.

  She cried out and tried to slink backwards. Her last “sorry” was cut off in mid-utterance as her vocal cords and neck were slowly being crushed by the mighty hands. Gerda spasmed and I got a desperate foothold and propelled myself to the lawn. My hand thunked on something metallic.

  The shovel.

  The golem was still standing over a very limp Gerda. Grinning wickedly, its head tilted down, as if he was going to open up his maw of mud and suck her down inside him.

  Yelling a tortured “Banzai!” like I’d heard in Bruce Lee karate movies, I ran forward and slung the edge of the shovel into the creature’s shoulder. The coat split open and the dirty meat parted.

  It figured. If you wanted to move clay, you needed a shovel.

  A little encouraged, I tugged the blade free and delivered another blow, this time to the back of the head. The dirty mouth opened as if to scream, but no sound came out. When I pulled the blade out this time, a decent scoop of the bastard’s head came with it. I could only hope it was brains.

  The sky was darker now, so I couldn’t see where Tabby was, but the next shot came from the patio. The bullet zilched into the golem’s back, and this time he reached up a club-fingered hand to wipe at the entry wound. Gerda gasped and struggled but was still gripped in one crude hand.

  “It’s getting weaker!” I shouted, more for my sake than Tabby’s. I chopped again, this time imagining the goddamned serial killer as a mortal, torturing poor women for the vanity of his sorry soul, seeking to divine a magical power that should never have been his.

  I swung again.

  “Shit!”

  My aim was bad. The blade sunk deep into its soft shoulder. I worked it loose, desperate, breathing heavily, peanut butter still rancid against the back of my throat. The golem did not even bother to look my way, it was so intent on finishing its mission.

  I worked the blade loose. I raised the tool high overhead again, adjusted my aim slightly to the left, and brought the shovel down. I summoned all my strength, even saying a little prayer for all good things and maybe asking for a little mercy for us sinners, and let my rage, fear, and my little reservoir of love all flow into the swing.

  It came down true, and in one clean sweep, with hardly any resistance at all, cut clean through the golem’s neck. The head sprang forward, spinning over Gerda’s own limp head like a football at kickoff.

  I expected the golem to keep choking and fighting. It’s not like a clay thing needed its head. I braced for the sight of it running around like a decapitated chicken, arms flailing ahead like those of Frankenstein’s monster. But it went limp and still.

  What had once been shaped as a man turned into a wet pile of amorphous mud. The hand that had been choking the life out of Gerda dropped to mush around her. As the mud slid out, the clothes collapsed, ending up in a soiled heap beside Gerda, the hat and sunglasses on top like a late-April Frosty the Snowman.

  “Gerda,” I said under my breath, tossing the shovel aside.

  She was tilted to the side and lay in the muddy slush. I checked her breathing. I shook her but her eyes remained closed.

  Then Tabby was beside me. “Here,” she said.

  As Tabby knelt over my wife, administering CPR, I held my son for the very first time.

  + + +

  It was dark when Tabby finally gave up.

  I didn’t say anything about Tabby’s death wish for her. It seemed pointless now. My wife was dead, the mother of my child was dead, Nana was dead, Poochy was dead, and Max Richter was hopefully dead for the final time.

  But Petey was alive, and that almost seemed enough.

  He hugged me and cooed against me, not understanding the carnage around him. To him, it must have simply looked like playtime was now over for the day. I rocked him back and forth, muttering his name, until he drifted into Napland.

  We went inside the house. At least the power was on, so we could flip the lights and avoid walking through any more blood. I wasn’t quite sure if Gerda had successfully conjured any curses, so I kept away from the shadows.

  We found the phone in the kitchen, but the service hadn’t been connected. Tabby dug through Gerda’s purse and found her cell, then put in a call to the police. She didn’t bother trying to explain. We sat at the table, Petey hugged to my chest, as we waited for the flashing lights and sirens. Petey had a few scrapes and scratches, but otherwise appeared to come out of it in the best shape of any of us.

  “What do we tell them?” I asked.

  “The usual. Big ugly clay dude shows up and goes nuts. Kills a couple of people, and then we rain on his parade.”

  I nodded. “Sounds legit to me.”

  “Or we could go the self-defense option. Same story as I was going to use the first time, only now we spin it as a wrestling match instead of a shoot-out.”

  “And I missed it all, because I was down in the hole with the baby and the dead guy.”

  “You look the part.”

  She was right. I was coated in dirt, blood, and some of that sticky clay that I didn’t like having stuck to my skin. It almost felt alive, and I imagined it morphing into little worms that would burrow into my skin.

  “It’s for the best,” Tabby said. “Yes, definitely for the best.”

  I nearly screamed when a tiny shape darted out from the shadows. Jimmy’s mouse!

  But the little creature merely darted to the edge of a splotch of blood, sniffed, sat for a moment on its haunches, and wriggled its whiskers. No white stripe. Just an ordinary mouse. Almost cute.

  “Boo,” I said.

  It scurried back to safety.

  The wind had picked up considerably, whipping through the branches outside. The house shook and I hugged Petey more tightly.

  “What happens next?” I asked.

  “There will be an investigation. I’ll be reprimanded. Perhaps even lose my job over this. Perhaps not. Either way, we found the killer and saved the child, so my bosses might have mercy.”

  “Ah, the good-looking cop who doesn’t play by the rules. Every department needs one of those.”

  She glanced at the book on the table, which had turned out to be another ancient book of spells. Just how many of those damned things were floating around, anyhow?

  “I can always take up witchcraft,” she said.

  I stared at her. “How could you even joke about a thing like that?”

  She shrugged, exhausted. “Who’s joking? It’s in my blood, right? And blood seems to catch up with you sooner or later. Besides...”

  I didn’t like the way she said that word.

  “You never know what people are cooking up out there. And bullets and badges can’t always stop evil.”

  “Great. Don’t hear this, Petey.”

  He didn’t. He was asleep.

  “What happens to us?” I said.

  “We have a child to raise.”

  “We?”

  “I’m not doing it alone, and you’re the guy who couldn’t keep his mouse in his pants.”

  “How do you raise a child?”

  Tabitha looked at Petey. “One day at a time.”

  “Damn. Isn’t that what people say when they quit drinking?”

  “Yeah. So start saying it.”

  I wasn’t sure if this was a happy ending or not. But it was an ending. I’d already survived one greatest fear, maybe two, but I suspected being a father would create fears I’d never known had existed. Gerda had paid for her father’s sins, and I wasn’t going to let Petey pay for mine.

  “You know something?” she said, when we heard the first distant siren wailing across the valley.

  “What?”

  “I don’t hate you as much as I should.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “But I still don’t like you. And I haven’t forgiven you for Amanda yet.”

  I hugged Petey, already used to his weight against me, the small shudder of his snores, the warmth of his smooth skin.
“Boy, you Meads sure do know how to carry a grudge.”

  About the Authors

  Scott Nicholson is author of 17 books, including the bestselling Kindle thrillers Disintegration and The Red Church. He also portrays the comic book character The Digger and spends spare time revising his own epitaph. Learn more at

  www.hauntedcomputer.com.

  J.R. Rain is an ex-private investigator who now lives in a small house on a small island with his small dog, Sadie, who has more energy than Robin Williams. Please visit him at

  www.jrrain.com.

  + + +

  OTHER BOOKS BY J.R. RAIN:

  VAMPIRE FOR HIRE

  Moon Dance

  Vampire Moon

  THE JIM KNIGHTHORSE SERIES

  Dark Horse

  The Mummy Case

  The Lost Ark

  The Body Departed

  Elvis Has Not Left the Building

  SHORT STORIES

  The Bleeder and Other Stories

  Teeth and Other Stories

  Vampire Nights and Other Stories

  SCREENPLAYS

  Judas Silver

  Lost Eden

  THE SPINOZA NOVELLAS

  The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo

  COLLECTIONS

  Rain Dance: Three Novels

  Rainy Nights: Three Novels

  Black Rain: Dark Tales

  Knighthorse: Three Novels

  Vampire for Hire: Two Novels

  Dark Quests: Two Screenplays

  ANTHOLOGIES

  Vampires, Zombies and Ghosts, Oh My!

  + + +

  OTHER BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON

  Disintegration

  The Red Church

  Speed Dating with the Dead

  The Skull Ring

  Drummer Boy

  Forever Never Ends

  As I Die Lying

  Burial to Follow

  October Girls

  Crime Beat

  Story Collections

  Curtains

  Flowers

  Ashes

  The First