Spells, Salt, & Steel--A New Templars Novella

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Not to mention two garden sheds and a gazebo,” Sheriff Sumbitch added.

  “Damn.”

  I reached Elvira and felt a wave of relief when I saw absolutely nothing on the back seat. Thank God I put the bag away right. I turned slowly back to the sheriff, making sure my hands were always in sight. “My permit’s in the glove compartment. You want to get it?”

  He shook his head. “You get it. Just—go slow.”

  I had no desire to end up with a bullet in my back, so I did what he said and handed off my concealed carry permit. He eyed it and gave it back, quickly enough that I knew the whole thing had been about pecking order, not that he cared about the permit itself. Fucker.

  “How long are you staying in the area?”

  I shrugged. “Probably head out after dinner tonight,” I said. “Haven’t been in such a fine forest in quite a while—spend most of my time down in Pittsburgh, and there’s hardly a tree in sight. Thought I’d check out the damage, take some photos for my report, and play a little hooky out on the trails,” I added with what I hoped looked like a goofy nothing-dangerous-here grin and a wink and a nod about wasting company time.

  “Have fun,” Sumbitch said in a flat, bored tone. “Don’t go in the damaged buildings, and remember—nothing’s in season, so I don’t care what you see out there, unless it attacks you, don’t shoot it.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” I said. Fake sincerity is something I practice every poker night. My track record of winnings says I’m pretty good.

  I watched Sumbitch swagger back to his patrol car, as I lingered on the pretense of fishing out a bottle of water from my cooler and drinking it down. Once he was out of sight, I hiked back to the scene of the crime and wondered how one hungry were-squonk could possibly be anxious enough to chew through the whole eastern side of an entire log cabin. I did, however, decide to spend today checking out the trails and the rest of the damage and tackle hunting tomorrow. That meant taking Steve up on his offer of a second night’s stay. I’d still get back in plenty of time for my vacation. And I might have the chance for coffee with Sara.

  I grabbed a hot dog at a gas station for lunch and headed back to Patterson’s Diner for supper. The diner had good old-fashioned homemade meals, and the fried chicken special with real mashed potatoes and green beans cooked with ham was a treat. Some days I needed comfort food. By the time I came back from the diner, I felt embarrassed. I was a divorced thirty-five-year-old guy; surely if I could snuff zombies and werewolves, I could handle a cup of coffee with the nice lady who ran the bed and breakfast. Nice single, widowed lady who was kind of cute in a preppy sort of way.

  Just coffee. To be polite. Give me something to think about before my epic were-squonk hunt tomorrow.

  I heard voices when I came into the front hallway. “I can show you to your room, Mr. Conroy,” Sara was saying with the same friendly warmth she had put into my greeting. “I hope your sales presentation goes well. It would be lovely if you stayed with us the next time you’re in town.”

  Sara nodded and smiled as she passed me, leading the way for Mr. Conroy, a tall blond in a blazer and dress slacks who had a jaw like a movie star and a build like a hometown football player. I’m over six-two and in good shape, but he looked to be about five years younger and had a couple of inches more height—and way less mileage.

  I managed to slide from panic at the possibility of being pursued to a twinge of jealousy at being easily replaced, to crow-flavored chagrin at the unwarranted and somewhat vain conclusions I had jumped to. Sara hadn’t been flirting; she was just the kind of person who treated everyone she met like an instant friend. Now that I realized she wasn’t interested, I felt disappointed. It had been a long time since I’d looked forward to a cup of coffee with a pretty lady who wasn’t Chiara or Blair, and that wasn’t the same at all.

  Still, coffee or hot chocolate sounded good, so I made my way back to the B&B’s kitchen and found the single-serve pod brewer with a rack of clunky pottery mugs and plenty of fancy fixings. I chose a hot chocolate pod and pressed the button, then waited for it to finish.

  “Did you enjoy your dinner?”

  Sara’s voice made me jump, since I hadn’t heard her come up behind me. Whether or not she realized I’d been an asshole the last time we talked, I knew it, and I felt awkward. “Very much. I’d say it was like my mom used to make, but her cooking sucked.” Not that I remembered it much, since she died when I was twelve, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

  “That’s why it’s been in business so long,” she laughed, leaning against the counter while I reached for my hot chocolate. I held the mug like a shield, but I wasn’t sure which of us I was trying to protect.

  “Steve said you were going to get rid of the thing that’s been causing problems,” Sara said, going straight for the heart of the matter without any warm-up. “Can you do it?”

  Damn Steve for bringing a civilian into this. Then again, the damage the creature caused was plain enough. “I’m going to do my best,” I replied, chancing a sip of the chocolate and finding that it was actually good.

  “You know it’s not a woodchuck,” she said, giving me an uncompromising stare. “Or a beaver or termites, or some weird kind of wood rot, no matter what they say. I don’t think it’s natural, so I hope you came prepared.”

  I stared at Sara, and my mouth hung open as my brain tried to catch up with my ears. “What do you think it is?” I finally managed, realizing that I’d probably lost any chance to appear reasonably intelligent.

  “No idea. But these are deep woods, Mr. Wojcik. Old forest. Lots of places people never go, even nowadays. I’ve lived in these parts all my life. Long enough to know strange things happen out there, and stranger things live in those woods. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I nodded. “So do I.”

  She gave me an assessing look. I wondered how much Steve had told her about me, but I was afraid to ask. Instead, I took a long pull at the hot chocolate and wished it had a shot or two of whiskey in it.

  “You’re not the only hunter to come through here, you know.”

  My head snapped up, and she gave me a triumphant smirk. “I would have made you even if Steve hadn’t told me. You’ve got the look.”

  That probably meant a big truck, a duffle with suspicious bulges, and an overall sense of being ridden hard and put away wet.

  “If you get hurt, let me know. I was a nurse before I became an innkeeper,” Sara said, which explained the no-nonsense attitude underneath her friendly exterior. “My first-aid kit is a little more extensive than usual.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, finishing what remained in my cup. “If I do my job right, maybe I won’t need it, but that’s nice to know.” I managed a hesitant smile.

  “Offer still stands,” she said. “Come by for coffee afterward and let me know how it went. I’ll make sure there are muffins out early. Good luck hunting.” She turned away, and a few minutes later, I heard the click of a door as she entered the proprietor’s suite. I sighed, unwilling to try to identify exactly what I was feeling, and then I rinsed out my cup and went upstairs to bed, knowing I had a hunt in front of me in the morning.

  My phone rang as I closed the door behind me. Chiara didn’t usually call this late unless something important had happened.

  “Mark—glad I caught you. We’ve got a problem.”

  “Please don’t tell me it’s now a zombie were-squonk.”

  “No, that would be an improvement. I’ve been monitoring the communications in your area—police, EMT, hospital, National Guard,” Chiara said like it was no big thing to wiretap their lines in a place that could barely get a cell phone signal or cable TV. “There’ve been four bodies discovered in different places on the trails out there, gnawed to death with pieces missing.” She sounded shook. “Mark—it looks like the were-squonk’s got a taste for blood.”

  “How is that even possible?” I asked, sitting down on the edge of the four-poster bed.
“Squonks like eating trees, wood, houses.” I had several planks of cedar, redwood, and mesquite from the outdoor grilling section of the hardware store in my bag that I’d brought along to coax the creature into the open. I didn’t like the idea of tossing it a steak.

  “Squonks do. But werewolves don’t,” she replied. “Maybe it just took a while for the ‘were’ part of it to kick back in. I can’t find anything in the lore about this, so just be careful. I saw the crime scene photos—they’re bad, Mark.”

  “Shit, we also don’t know whether or not their bite is infectious.” This hunt had started to go sideways, and I hadn’t even gotten started.

  “Figure that it will be, and stay out of reach,” she snapped. “I mean it, Mark. Blair does not want to have to go up there and shoot your ass full of silver.”

  “Yeah, yeah. When am I not careful?”

  “We don’t have time for me to answer that.”

  I ran a hand back through my hair, mentally calculating what I had in my bag and what I would need for this new-and-improved squonk menace. “All right,” I said. “Thanks for the warning. I need to go through my stuff for tomorrow and see how much silver I brought.”

  “And Mark?” Chiara said. I had the feeling I didn’t want to hear what came next. “Just so you know—from the size of the bites, the creature’s gotten bigger. Forget Mastiff. Think cow.”

  Great. A predator cow with proportionally big rodent incisors and a taste for long pig. Whoop-dee-fuckin’-doo.

  Chapter 6

  A meat-eating, murderous were-squonk was bad enough, but thanks to the deaths, the woods were crawling with cops. Crime scene tape blocked off the whole lot where I’d met Sheriff Sumbitch, and I ended up having to park a mile away at a tourist overlook and pack in on foot. Good thing I’m a paranoid bastard and had topographical trail maps—real paper, not just on my cell phone, because most of the time, you can’t get shit for a signal out here.

  My gear bag probably weighed half as much as I did, but it had saved my ass more than once, and I just knew that whatever I left behind to lighten the load would be the one critical thing that I’d need to survive. It held my weapons, salt, silver, holy water, flare gun, ammo, lighter fluid, thermal blanket, cocoon bag, rope, hell—even pitons and a rappelling harness, which I’d used once and hoped never to need again. It also held enough emergency food and water for three days, Sterno, kindling and matches, plus a hand-crank radio/flashlight, and some specialty items I’d packed for hunting squonk. No wonder the damn thing felt like I was carrying a grown adult piggyback.

  Enough cops, cars, and noise surrounded the sites where the bodies had been found that I felt certain the were-squonk had retreated deeper into the woods. Rangers would have alerted any hikers or campers in the area to clear out, and I was counting on that making me the most appealing possibility for the creature’s next snack.

  I circled around all the excitement and tried to think like a squonk. The cops might be looking for a rabid wolf or a crazed bear, but the squonk’s prints wouldn’t be as familiar. I’d grown up stalking deer in woods like these from the time I could hold a rifle, and I knew that good tracking meant knowing what the hell you were actually looking to shoot. Which left me looking for paw prints for a dog-creature that was the size of a Holstein.

  Chiara had given me the coordinates for where the bodies were found, which I’d marked on my map. As far as I knew, squonks couldn’t climb trees. Not only did that cut down on places to search, but it eliminated the fear of a cow-sized wrinkly cryptid dropping on me from the branches overhead. Regular squonks kept to the lowlands, where there were plenty of fallen branches and saplings—easy food. If the cops were looking for a mountain lion, a bear, or a wolf, they’d go for the higher elevations and the rocky outcroppings. If I could stay out of their way, I might bag me a squonk.

  Once I left the police tape and responder squads behind, I realized they hadn’t mobilized search teams yet. Probably wanted to analyze their data and work through the red tape. This was my best chance to get in and out without dodging cops, and to get the squonk before it knew it was being hunted.

  I spotted the paw prints just north of the attack site. Squonks had six toes, and a print that was the wrong shape for either a wolf or a bear. I was betting the cops would ignore the strange prints because they were wedded to their idea of what killed the hikers, which could help keep them out of my hair if they did decide to go looking for trouble.

  I followed the prints deeper into the woods. Where the overhead canopy blocked the light, brush on the ground was thin, but in the clearings and along the banks of a small creek, plenty of bushes and saplings grew, providing lots of potential hiding places. I found some long, coarse dark hair caught on a bramble, and saw a smear of what might have been blood on some leaves, enough to tell me I had the trail.

  This stretch of woods seemed too peaceful to be home to a ravening were-monster, but I knew that some of the most beautiful scenery could conceal the most dangerous creatures, natural and supernatural. Still, I paused for a moment to just enjoy the trees and the setting, and realized that the grotto had grown much colder than it should have been at this time of year. That’s when I noticed the deer hunter.

  He was dressed all wrong for the weather, in a heavy parka, gloves, and boots, with a Russian style hat that had honest-to-God ear flaps. His hunting rifle would get him in trouble with the rangers for sure, since despite the license pinned to his cap, deer were definitely not in season yet. The man looked to be in his early sixties, with a gray fringe of short hair beneath his cap and a round face that reminded me of my grandfather. I’d bet pennies to pierogies he was Polish, too.

  “Hey buddy!” I called. “Give it a rest. Deer season’s still a couple months away. Get out of here before the cops see you.”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. Instead, he walked up to a large oak with the kind of thick branches just perfect for a tree stand and stared up into the canopy as if trying to figure out how to climb up there. I followed his line of sight, but tree stands in these woods have to be temporary and can’t damage the trees, so there was nothing up in the canopy for him to find.

  The hunter turned toward me, his head held at an unnatural angle. That’s when I realized I could see right through him.

  Shit. A dead deer hunter. And I could guess how it happened, too. Guy probably came out hunting solo, fell out of a tree stand way back here in the woods, and broke his neck. In the winter, with deep snow, a body might not be found until the thaw.

  So the guy might be stuck here for eternity, on his last hunt in the middle of a beautiful forest. All in all, not the worst that could happen to a fellow. I wondered about poking around the base of the tree to see if I could find his bones. If so, a quick salt and burn could let him go on to the happy hunting ground in the sky. Then again, from the cut of his jacket, I figured he had probably died back in the fifties, and the bones had probably been carried off by scavengers long before I was born. For no good reason, I found myself calling him “Gus.” Gus the dead deer hunter.

  He looked straight at me, took in my clothing and bag, and gave me a nod, then tapped his license, either to warn me off from “his” hunting territory, or maybe to let me know he paid his fee. I nodded back, one hunter to another, and he shouldered his rifle and headed off, vanishing into the trees.

  Did he hunt ghost deer? I wondered. Or was the poor fellow stuck for eternity taking phantom shots at live buck that would never become his trophies? I hoped he had some ghostly beer to tide him over.

  I started to follow the squonk’s trail, and suddenly Gus appeared in front of me. He blocked my path, but his expression looked more worried than aggressive. Gus held out his see-through hand and waved me back, warning me to stop.

  “You’ve seen it? The strange creature?” I asked. Some ghosts can hear, and others are just harmless repeating apparitions, memory loops that play out over and over without change. Since Gus seemed to be reacting to me and making up his ow
n script, I figured talking to him couldn’t hurt.

  He nodded, and I pulled the shotgun out of my bag. “I’m a hunter, too,” I said. “I hunt those things. Can you help me find it?”

  Gus grinned and nodded. Fuck-freaking-tastic, I had my own spectral Sacajawea. Top that, Lewis and Clark.

  Following a ghost isn’t like following any other guide. Gus appeared and disappeared with no apparent pattern, sometimes standing disconcertingly half-in and half-out of large trees, hovering over places where the path suddenly changed levels, or going through a large boulder that blocked the path and then having the nerve to glare when I took time to go around. I kept checking for the squonk’s footprints, verifying that Gus wasn’t leading me into some kind of nefarious deer hunter ambush, but my guide actually seemed worried about the strange new animal in his forest and was eager to help.

  The squonk headed north, and so did I. I had a theory and wondered how smart squonks were. The attacks had occurred at trailheads, where hikers and hunters parked and headed into the woods. Easy pickings. Maybe the squonk considered them to be food delivery points. If so, we were just a few miles from the start of the next trail. I had no idea how much of the forest the cops would close off, or whether hikers would listen to the warnings. But if pickings were slim, I might be able to lure the squonk in without too much of a fuss, and then the only challenge was figuring out what to use to take him down.

  I reached the gravel lot where the trail began and found it empty. The lot opened onto a two-lane park road, and a wide, flat clearing covered in bark mulch held a couple of picnic tables, a sign with a map and a copy of the park rules, and a modern, cement block one-room bathroom that was really an outhouse with a porcelain toilet. The clearing looked like the perfect place to lure the squonk, not as exposed as the parking lot, or with as many places for him to hide as in the actual forest.

  I’d brought some special supplies for this hunt, after thinking about the creature’s squonk-ness. I hoped my hunches were right because I had no desire to be the squonk’s next dinner or his were-buddy.