Blightmare (The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 5)

by A. J. Aalto

  I’d be a good girl this time, though. No more tramping along on the left hand path. My goddamned shadow was peeled in half, and while that hadn’t led to any discernible health or wellness issues yet, I couldn’t imagine it was a good sign. I wandered into the kitchen, sliding out of his view.

  There was a length of rope in the mudroom. As I tiptoed past the fridge, I started rubbing my hands together rapidly, feeling the heat rise in my palms. Psi responded eagerly, but not from within me; this energy was flowing from my home office, and I shoved it out, imagining Ruby Valli’s grimoire squirming in my herb cabinet. Her dark magic was persistent, and it took effort to thrust it aside and access my own. I began to form the words of my spell to draw earth magic from the frozen ground outside, unraveling the end of the rope to prepare it. I gave a quick sort of the goddess aspects in my mind, ignoring Her darker influences, for there was no mistaking that She had marked me as requesting Her powers of life and death. Boy, had that been a big mistake. Now everything with a grim side was sniffing me out.

  That was okay. I could return to the light, to hearth and home. Slowly, simply. Avoiding complications.

  Whispering, I summoned, “Hail Rhea, true and strong, guide my hand to right the wrong.” I eased the mudroom screen door open slowly, careful not to let it squeak, holding the edge of the door to help it close gently and quietly. I tiptoed barefoot in the snow-slicked grass, barely registering the wet chill, listening for the sound of the intruder at my window. Drawing power from the cold ground with every step I took, I allowed it to rush up my legs, welcomed it as it filled me, urging it to sweep up and load me like a weapon. My arms trembled with potential.

  The element of surprise decided to be a two-timing fuck, so I was not at all prepared for him to charge around the corner in my direction. I recovered quickly and chucked the rope at his head. It spread out in a tangled net as he cast his arms up in front of his face and tried to bat the rope aside. That’s when I pounced, tackling him to the ground. Raw, solid Earth magic rode me hard and fast. He bucked me off, but I rolled to my feet and dove again, landing on his body with a grunt. His arms were powerful, but mine were quickened by bold magic; he wasn’t expecting to be unable to overpower me, and that had him flustered. I tightened my knees around his legs and manhandled him onto his belly. My time was limited; the spell was fading fast and so was my extra boost of strength.

  My hands were a blur as I made quick work of wrapping the rope around his neck. When his hands went up instinctively to protect his throat, I looped the rope around them, trapping them under his chin. It was messy but effective. Dragging the rope away from his tangled arms, I slammed my thighs together on his legs then tied his ankles with a terse yank. He objected, one long string of impressively complex curses; I stored a couple of them for later use.

  “Just another moment, Rhea, mighty mother,” I muttered, but the taint of the left hand path had weakened my connection to the right, and crippled my call to the light. “Shit, shit, shit.” Sweat broke out on my upper lip as I jerked the knots tight despite his thrashing. “Lay still!”

  He choked on the word, “Maniac!”

  “You’re my stalker,” I said, rolling off of him at last, “not my shrink. Or the Internet.”

  It was the ugliest of ugly hogtie jobs, and I’d be laughed out of any professional henchman's tie-up-your-victim class. He had room to wriggle a bit, and flung his face from side to side against the frozen grass.

  “You can’t keep me trussed up on your lawn,” he informed me.

  “Blow it out your ass, thumbfucker,” I retorted. “I’m a drunk witch in mourning. I can keep you hogtied wherever I want.”

  “When you sober up, I promise you’ll regret this.” He growled and tried to shimmy free, but only succeeded in flopping to one side.

  I kicked him in the thigh where it would cause a charley horse and a really impressive bruise. Unfortunately, three of my new Grizzly Bedazzler nails drove right through his jeans and embedded in the meat of his thigh, and snapped clean off my toes. He screamed as blood began to darken the denim around where I'd popped him.

  I said, “Seems to me the guy on the ground, tied up and bleeding, won’t be callin’ the shots. You just ruined my brand-new pedicure, shitwaffle.”

  He clenched his jaw and breathed deeply though his nose in an effort to master the agony. It was fairly impressive. He might even die of hypothermia if he doesn't bleed out, since it looks like you missed the femoral artery, my brain piped up helpfully. Hood probably won't be too impressed, though.

  I let out a deep, frustrated, butterscotch-flavored sigh and leaned over. “I'm going to drag you inside so you don't freeze to death out here. If you bleed on my floor, it's going to make my revenant want to eat you even if you weren't being a creepy creeper who creeps around my chamber door. So, here's the deal. I untie you, you limp your so-kicked ass into the house, and if you try anything stupid, I'm going to shoot you and claim it was self-defense after you broke in.”

  His breathing stopped for a moment as he bit down on several possible answers. “They warned me you were a massive pain.”

  “Oh yeah?” Point: they. “Who’re ‘they’?”

  “Look, you can’t do this.”

  “Looks like I already did. And you're the one who, by my count, has been stalking me, breaking into my office, trespassing on my property, and attempting assault, so you're still winning the fucknut sweepstakes four to one.”

  “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  I briefly considered calling his bullshit bluff as well as his shitty grammar and name-dropping that I already knew with whom I was dealing. “Neither do you. I was banned from playing Hot Potato at recess, bitch. Ask yourself, what kind of kid gets banned from Hot Potato? You don’t wanna play with me, buddy. Nobody wants to play with me.”

  The truth was, I always panicked, flailed, and chucked the hot potato bean bag into some poor kid’s face; once I even threw it clear through a window. I spent many a recess in grade school indoors helping the custodian dry mop the hallways.

  He turned his face against the grass to catch his breath and craned up at me. “Maybe my approach wasn’t the best. Let me up and we’ll talk about this like civilized human beings.”

  I still didn’t know what “this” was, but the civilized part sounded good. “Over tea and crumpets?”

  “What the fuck ever,” he ground out. “Could you just?” He indicated to his bondage with a jerk of his head.

  “Are you gonna be a good boy now?” I put one hand in his back pocket and pulled out a slim, brown leather wallet. He had a bit of cash, some bank cards, a Visa, and his old police ID, along with some business cards. I tossed it in the cold, wet grass by his face. “Well? Are you going to behave, Mitch? I have a lot more scissors here, and you have a lot of un-stabbed ass.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Promise not to blow up my house or eat my face?” I got up close to him so I could check his eyes for the degree of rage he was feeling; the Blue Sense was being eerily silent about it. I showed him my little finger. “Pinky swear?”

  “There's something really fucking wrong with you, lady.”

  I sighed. “Party pooper.” I tried to untie the rope with my bare fingers, but I’d tied it too tightly, so I took the knife I’d bought from Footer and Solmes' out of its belt sheath. The knife was sharp and made quick work of sawing through the rope. When he was released, he laid flat in the grass for a bit, collecting his thoughts and feelings, making decisions that I wasn’t privy to.

  “You don’t want to be on my bad side,” he said.

  “That's too fucking bad, since you're already on mine,” I said. “I need a punching bag, and you seem determined to volunteer, pal.”

  He advised, “I will make your life difficult if you fuck with me.”

  “So you keep saying,” I said, “but you’re just a bunch of bones in a meat suit whose ass I've kicked and shanked twice already, and who I am still pretty
damn willing to leave in my yard to freeze to death, if you don't get eaten by a coyote or a bear first. You kinda suck at being intimidating, Mitch. Did you always draw the short straw and have to be the good cop when you interviewed perps?”

  He popped to his feet with surprising agility, despite his fresh wounds, which didn't bode well for me if he decided to go for some more hand-to-hand, even with the knife in mine. The lack of extra power in my veins had left a palpable void and I felt physically weakened by the experience. I pointed at my mudroom door in silent invitation, and waited to see if he’d go. His breath fogged the cool air and then he marched off into the cabin, limping asymmetrically from the stab wounds in his ass and where I'd kicked him. I hadn't quite evened him out, I guess. I tried to feel bad about it. I didn't try very hard, or feel very bad.

  Instead, I pulled up a bit of psi, but I got nary a hint from the Blue Sense. Probably, I shouldn’t try heavy duty strength boosts when I’m drunk; my Talents were as limp as my half-a-shadow, which I steadfastly ignored on my way back into the cabin, where, after checking to make sure he wasn't doing anything nosy or stupid – he was just pulling my acrylic nails out of his leg with a grimace – I ducked into my bedroom to retrieve my Mini Cougar and tuck it into the back of my pants and putting on a warm, dry pair of slippers before padding back into the kitchen.

  I found Dunlop in the kitchen, one of my dish towels wrapped around his wounded leg, filling my tea kettle and putting it on to boil, making himself annoyingly at home. I snapped on the florescent light bar over the sink, and it flickered before deciding to light the room. There were color swatches taped up to the wall beneath the sink light in various shades of near-white. My moose antler chandelier had been removed for redecorating. In his efforts to schnazz up the place, I suspected Harry was planning on making the antlers disappear permanently. With only the sink light available, evenings in the kitchen were dim without the vanilla candles Harry had lined up in safe spaces, but I didn’t dig the idea of chatting with this guy in the romantic glow of scented candlelight.

  Dunlop eased into a chair, the one by the fridge that Batten had always preferred to sit at when he helped himself to the beer Harry kept on hand for precisely that purpose. I saw why; it had a clear view of the pantry, the mudroom door, and, to his left, the front door. From that seat, he could see what was coming. I wondered if it was a habit so ingrained that he did it without thinking.

  “Got a thing for cops, huh?” His hands made busy work of straightening the froggy salt and pepper shakers on either side of a bud vase with a single yellow Gerbera daisy.

  “If this is you asking for a roll in the hay,” I said, “I’m all rolled out.”

  He nodded as though I’d confirmed his statement. “You’re a badge bunny.”

  “Am I?”

  “Well, first, there was Mark. And the good sheriff is here at all hours.” He paused, waiting for me to deny it.

  I wasn’t interested in what Mitch Dunlop thought of my friendship with Hood, so I stared at him with the blank face I’d copied from Golden. The silence stretched; it was soon punctuated by the kettle creaking as it started to warm.

  He added, as if it was the right bower in his hand of trump cards, “Lunching with Chief Deputy Morgan Sally.”

  I gave him my yeah-so face and remained silent.

  “You make a cute couple,” he prodded.

  “It’s all me. I make everything cuter.” I fluttered my lashes for effect, which my over-plucked eyebrows totally undermined.

  “The deputy had his arm around you,” he chided, adding a Harry-like tsk.

  I smiled. “He did that for your benefit.”

  “Because I’m supposed to care?”

  “Apparently, you do.” I shrugged. “You’re the one stalking me, and then bringing it up. I can’t imagine why.” I gazed at him as coolly as my ridiculous new eyebrows would allow. “What's the matter, Dunlop? Run out of deer to fuck in the Yoop, so you came out west to bang an elk and get the hots for me instead? I'll warn you now, I don't grow antlers, and if you try and rut in my kitchen, I'll cut your dick off.”

  He didn't take the bait. “You go through these men one after another, don’t you?”

  I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “Is that what I do? That sounds awesome. Maybe I should try doing them all at once, shake things up. What do you think?” The teakettle rattled as the water within got warmer, even if Dunlop's assumptions didn't.

  “You don't have an ounce of self-preservation, so you get with men who can save you. Protect you. Maybe from something else, maybe from yourself.”

  Okay, that stung, even if he was firing blindly. I didn't do a very good job keeping that off my face, for which I was totally going to blame the schnapps.

  “You're a self-destructive, self-sabotaging disaster. Why else would you untie a man who has found you twice and invite him into your kitchen while you're home alone?” He didn't stand up, or even make any overt suggestion that he was going to make a move, but he had a point. Harry was over at my office. Wes was in Canada. I was the Prime Minister of Dumbfuckistan.

  Dunlop pressed his advantage. “Maybe Mark wasn’t even your first target, victim, whatever.”

  “Victim. Wow.” I thought about how many times Batten tried to initiate hot, steamy sex with me, and the few times I’d jumped at the chance, and how much we’d enjoyed each other’s bodies. I laughed a bit. “That poor baby.”

  The suddenly urgent summons of the kettle jolted Dunlop, and he rocked to his feet with a wince.

  Steam wasn't all that was escaping from the teakettle; a very familiar red mist was coalescing, like a djinn freed from a particularly vile lamp. It formed three heads and a portly little body, complete with chicken legs.

  “Hiya, Toots,” the image of Asmodeus said.

  “Aw, come on,” I huffed. “I swore off demons this year!”

  “This no-nut punk trying to horn in on what's Mine?” Asmodeus, currently a pint-sized, eighteen inch tall version of His three-headed self, inquired; His voice was still a room-filling baritone rippling with bitterness, ownership, and undeniable command.

  Dunlop, for his part, fell on his ass spectacularly and scrambled back towards the fridge. “What the fuck is that?”

  “I guess he can see you, Your Infernality.”

  “Kinda. Unfortunately, he can't make out a damn thing I'm saying, since that's just for you, Me, and the Bond. Really cuts down on the fun.” He sat on the edge of the counter.

  “So, Mitch, about that whole Home Alone vibe you thought I had going on? Not so much. This, here, is the travel-sized presence of The Overlord, Demon King of Hell, et fucking cetera, et fucking cetera, and He is jealously defensive of His playthings.” I pulled the bandage off my neck like Harry removing a silk cravat at a five-star restaurant. “So, even if I don't shoot you, you're not going to be so stupid as to try anything, are ya, punk?”

  Asmodeus chuckled, and I felt things wash through the Bond that I wished I couldn't. Pride. Wrath. Lust. I really didn't want to have to explain those to Harry if he got a taste of them.

  “I think you got his attention,” the demon king said. “Now stop treating my plaything like it's disposable. You're not done until I say you're done. But I'm digging the boozy spin on things; very opium den debauched. Ta ta, Toots.”

  With a puff of reddish smoke, which dissipated with merciful speed, courtesy of the still-wailing teakettle's steam jet, He vanished.

  “I. What. Shit,” Dunlop muttered, carefully and painfully regaining his feet.

  “Yes, you're what shit,” I assured him.

  He approached the kettle with new trepidation, and though he went about making tea on autopilot, rattled and accusing me of harlotry with his eyes, he was much less aggressive about it now. “Demons and vampire hunters. And all the while, you’ve got this dead thing you’re living with. Explain that to me.”

  I shifted to my nah face and started ripping the petals off the Gerbera daisy one by one, tossing them on th
e table. “How about you play a nice game of hide and go fuck yourself? Maybe you couldn't tell what Three-Heads was saying earlier, but I'm not exactly up for grabs.”

  “Sounded like someone trying to shove a live shark through a wood chipper made of Cannibal Corpse albums.” His eyes watched the petals fall. I sensed the mess was making him uncomfortable. He circled back around. “Did you explain it to Mark?”

  I continued adding to the disarray, letting my resentful silence do the talking for me, and wishing I'd left the butterscotch schnapps in the kitchen on my way outside, or that I'd grabbed the bottle along with my gun.

  “Did you explain it to him?” he repeated, searching the counter for tea bags and not finding them. He started opening cupboards randomly and sifting through my belongings until he found a box of something Harry had recently purchased. “Did you?”

  “I don’t know a lot of things,” I said, “but I know you don’t need to hear what was said privately between my lover and me.”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong. What happens to Mark is very much my business.”

  Happens? Present tense? Did this guy not know that Batten was dead? I let it slide without comment.

  “I get that you don’t like me, Dunlop,” I said, tossing the de-petalled daisy head aside. “And, frankly, if you did, I’d be really surprised. Generally speaking, this entire planet hates me. Maybe the whole universe. I’m cool with it, trust me. My widdle feewings will be A-OK. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t you tell me what the fuck you want from me? First you break into my office—”

  “Mark’s house.”

  “Actually, if you want to be precise, it’s Gary Chapel’s house, as he’s the executor of Batten’s estate. The point is, you don’t belong there, do you?”

  The words “executor” and “estate” didn’t cause him any outward grief or surprise, so I drew up my limping dose of psi and probed, finding that he knew about the handling of Batten’s affairs. He stewed at that, and the Blue Sense lazily reported that I’d poked a sore spot. It drove me forward.

  “Funny, for such a close friend of his, I’ve never heard of you. Batten didn’t mention your name. There are no pictures of you two playing hockey or ice fishing or hanging at your precinct together. Batten didn’t like to discuss his past, but he did have a sentimental side. He kept photos in his room. Just a few, but they were there. His parents with him as a baby, just before they died. His grandfather. His first fucking car. You? Weren’t in any of them.”