One black eyebrow went up. “And how would a spirit do that, hmm? My disembodied voice wouldn’t scare you?”
Blythe tilted her head, opened her mouth, then must have seen the ridiculousness of arguing with that solid point so she shut it and made a harrumph noise instead. “Why did we run anyway?”
“There are dead spirits and something even bigger was headed our way. Had a feeling we didn’t want to meet up with it.”
“I’ll check it out,” Phro said and disappeared again.
Blythe napped on the way back to the motel. I’d guessed right. We had about an hour before the vamp would probably wake up. I didn’t think he could get out of the box, but if he did, it would take a while for him to chew through the sweatshirt I’d wrapped around the box.
I pulled us in front of Perk and Work, grinning when Blythe’s giggles sounded from the backseat. “Yeah, it’s a bad name, but I have a feeling the Wi-Fi rocks because there were a lot of teenagers here earlier.”
She grabbed her laptop and walked into the place ahead of me. As I stepped in, all conversation stopped. Two kids, who’d been leaning over another’s shoulder to see his monitor, straightened immediately. The one sitting minimized his window fast.
I so did not care if they’d been looking at porn. What I did care about was the scent of coffee. There was one fancy-looking coffee machine behind the bar, but nothing else that suggested this was a cafe. Nothing on the walls, no menus. “Is this a coffee shop or a place to use Wi-Fi?”
The girl I’d seen earlier with the spiky white hair cleared her throat. “We’re not actually o—”
She shut up when the boy in the brown leather jacket stood up and elbowed her. “You can use the Wi-Fi. There’s no charge for it or for the coffee. Brock, you wanna make some fresh?”
Blythe, like me, hovered near the door. I met her gaze and shrugged before looking back at the kids. “Sorry. We thought this was a public cafe.”
“It used to be. We just never get customers, so it’s more of a place to hang out now.”
I immediately wanted to know how it stayed open then, but decided to let it go. We needed their Internet. Blythe moved to a back table and I sat next to her. A kid who stood as tall as me—Brock, I assumed—started grinding coffee beans and working that pot with all the careful consideration of a scientist in a lab. The scent of dark roast joined the burnt-wire odor of hot electronics. Two teens who looked around sixteen sat with their chairs leaning against the wall, game controllers in their hands and earphones on their heads. The boy who’d spoken seemed a little older, possibly eighteen. He sat back down next to the girl. Both of them watched us.
“The band website changed,” Blythe whispered. “There’s a new video up.” She opened her bag and pulled out a pair of earbuds.
I was no longer surprised by anything that came out of that bag. I took one of the buds, stuck it in my ear and I leaned over to watch. Once again, beautiful voices sang in harmony and as before, their faces were blurred. “I don’t get it. It’s nearly an identical video. I think even the song is the same. The only difference is the background, but even then it’s just a different forest.”
Blythe shut off the music. “I’ll keep searching.”
“The next concert location has to be somewhere. How else would they sell tickets?” I smiled at the kid who set two mugs of coffee down on the table next to us. “I’d like to pay for the coffee at least.”
“No need,” he said, his voice as big as his shoulders. “Rory’s uncle gives it to us free.”
I took a sip and fought the urge to roll back my eyes and slump to the floor. “Wow. It’s good.”
Rory, the boy in the leather jacket, spoke up. “Brock makes it the best. We have creamers in a mini-fridge out back there if you want some.”
“It’s fine. I would like to ask you all a few questions, though. Do you know anything about a recent Staglina concert?” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Phro’s appearance. She crossed her arms before looking around the room.
“A little.” He shrugged, but didn’t meet my eyes. His hands fidgeted on his lap. “We heard about the police going out there to break it up.”
The kid had lied to me. Didn’t blame him. I was just some stranger who’d walked in to mooch coffee. So I decided to try a little honesty. “A friend of ours got mixed up with the band and we’re trying to find her. It’s important. We think she’s in danger.”
Rory looked at the blonde girl and she nodded and went into a back room. He turned back to me. “We actually know a lot about the band. Well, as much as anyone can find on the Net. We’ve been tracking the concerts and have a map and list of people who’ve gone missing at some of them.”
“Really.” I set down the mug. “All that. Why?”
“An online friend of ours is one of the missing kids. We started digging and”—he looked around the room—“let’s just say we all share an interest in unusual things and we’re all really good at finding stuff on the Net.”
I got the strangest feeling right then. Surely not. Blythe getting sick at that section of highway and me thinking I’d spotted Fred in front of this motel. I glanced over at a silent Phro who had strangely enough kept her mouth shut in here. She stared back, her eyebrows high in question.
Shivers danced over my spine.
Had Fred been able to appear long enough to lead me to these kids? The coincidence of them being into “unusual things” was too damned big to swallow easily.
I peeled into the dimensions, looking for the kids’ spirit guides and found them milling about near the coffee machine, all watching me. I wished I could ask them questions, but from experience knew most spirit guides wouldn’t share anything about their charges and besides, I wouldn’t be garnering trust from these teens by suddenly talking to empty spaces. To keep from being distracted by the extra spirits, I pushed back out of their dimension, blocking sight of Phro as I did.
The girl came back into the room and handed Rory some papers.
“That’s Sarah,” Rory murmured, looking through the papers. “She’s the one who first started following Staglina.” He squinted at one sheet. “One of these has the place we think the next concert is. We’d planned to go to the last one but had car trouble. Tea Bag drives a piece of shit.”
One of the kids with a controller threw a wadded-up paper at Rory. “Hey now. At least I have a piece of shit to drive.”
Rory nodded. “True.”
Before he could say anything else, another girl slammed into the cafe. Her cheeks were ruddy with cold, her long black hair wild about her head and her eyes had a look I recognized all too well. Terror. “There’s something like a bear in the parking lot.”
Every teen jumped up and ran to the window. One of the gamers knocked over a stack of books. He jumped the pile and pressed his hands and face to the glass. “That’s no damned bear.”
I caught a streak of brown through the parking lot and figured out pretty quickly that whatever was out there moved too fast for a bear…or a human. I pulled my dagger and Nikolos’s from my wrist sheaths.
Rory turned when my chair creaked and his mouth fell open when he saw the knives. I laid them on the table and pulled off my hat so I could tighten the bun I’d twisted my hair into. They’d seen my hair already—not that I truly cared. I still wore the hat mostly just to blend in. Since the battle with the Dweller, I’d found myself caring less and less about what people thought when they looked at me.
A loud groan of metal sounded before a crash and I glanced outside to see a beige S10 pickup rolling across the parking lot.
“My piece of shit,” Tea Bag whined.
“You all need to stay inside.” Without waiting for their agreement, I picked up my knives and ran out the front door.
Chapter Six
“It’s Bigfoot in basketball shorts,” Phro said.
My first thought was ghoul. Thick tufts of golden-brown hair covered it from head to its…whoa, its feet were on backward. Not a gh
oul then—they had hooves instead of feet. The thing moved fast, racing around the cars in a zigzag pattern that made me dizzy. It caught sight of me and slowed, steps growing more awkward. The shiny red shorts looked ridiculous. Baggy and striped, they should have been to its knees…but it didn’t have any.
I stared, unable to wrap my mind around how he—because now I saw it was definitely a he—could walk, hell, function, with his body all jacked up like that.
He stopped about twenty feet from me, narrowed his already slash-eyed gaze and showed me fangs. At least five inches long, they jutted over his thin lower lip and they glistened with saliva as he opened his mouth wide and released an ear-splitting roar. Sounded like a jungle cat and a wild red fox had twisted their howls together into a higher frequency.
The noise stabbed into my ears and I winced and tightened my fingers around the knives. He lurched another step toward me, the sounds coming from his throat dropping to low, growling noises.
“If that’s its only form of communication, you’re in trouble.” Phro curled her lip. “It’s so dirty. I bet it stinks.”
He did. “Smells like those white flowers that show up on Bradford pear trees in the spring. Kind of like garbage. And I think he understands us because he’s getting angrier.”
I had no idea what he was. In all the years I’d tracked down stories of supernatural creatures, he was new. I vaguely remembered reading about a creature with backward feet, but I didn’t know how to take him down.
Phro said I should study more. I’d kind of been hoping Castor and Blythe would take care of that part, leaving me to kick butt. I liked that part.
He jumped and my eyes flew open wide because I hadn’t been expecting him to be that agile—not without knees. I stepped aside, stabbed out with my right hand, but my knife only glanced off his thick pelt. He tried to grab me and I dodged long fingers that thankfully didn’t have claws. I leapt at him, grabbed two fists of hair…and it was hair instead of fur, long, dirty strands that tangled around my fingers. But I got a good grip, so I swung him around hard and slammed his head into the side of an SUV. He grabbed on to the rearview mirror, his strange legs scrambling to stand.
“You need knees, dude.”
The thing growled again and his toes curled behind him as he sprang into the air. This time, I didn’t step aside fast enough. Long fangs sank into my shoulder. I screamed at the razor-sharp pain and ripped away from his teeth, spinning around to kick him. I hoped he’d fall over, figuring it would be hard to get to his feet fast without knees.
He stumbled but didn’t go down, instead twisting around and leaping into the air. I ducked and brought my knife up but his pelt was too thick. Shoving the knives back into their sheaths, I watched him circle me. I flexed my thighs, balanced on the balls of my feet and this time when he rushed, I swung my right leg up in a roundhouse kick that slammed into the side of his head. His spine hit the red truck behind him, but he roared and came at me again.
I stepped to the side and ran a few yards, looking for his weak spot. That kick had made my wounded leg throb.
I misjudged his speed. Before I could blink, he’d wrapped his arms around me from behind and started squeezing.
“Too. Much. Love.” I struggled, lifted one foot to kick backward.
He grunted and squeezed harder, then growled a word that sounded like shadow in my ear.
Pain. My world became a haze of pain as it felt like he squished my insides together.
Blythe and the teens came running out of the cafe. Rory was yelling and I struggled to focus on him. “It’s a Kuru-Pira. You just have to knock it down.”
I knew that. Not what it was, but that knocking it down was a good idea. I sucked in what air I could and started a violent wiggle that had him grunting and struggling to hang on to me.
“Don’t let it pee on you!” Sarah yelled.
Because I was plastered to his front, there wasn’t a way for me to stop that from happening. I didn’t want to know what his urine would do to me, but just the thought freaked me out enough to make me struggle harder. I slammed my head back and heard a satisfying crunching noise.
It wailed and squeezed.
I saw black spots in my peripheral vision, even as Blythe ran up and flung her hands at us. Something behind me exploded. Blythe started mumbling, dropped to her knees and flung her hands at us again. So help me, if she caught me on fire, I was going to kill her.
“Look for mud,” Rory yelled at his friends. “Hurry! If you see a footprint, yell out!”
The kids scattered, weaving around the few cars left in the lot.
“Found one,” Brock yelled.
Rory stepped closer to where I struggled against the creature’s tight hold. “Okay, listen to me. I’m going to give Brock an instruction and you need to be ready, okay?”
Ready for what? I was seeing stars and was worried a rib had cracked.
He tapped Blythe’s shoulder. “Hey, what’s her name?”
“Beri.” Blythe started to fling up her hands.
Rory grabbed them. “Whoa, whatever you’re doing is seriously cool. Wish I could throw fire bombs, but I kind of like the buildings and trees around here.”
“I need my yellow bag,” she said.
“Okay.” He drew the word out. “Hey, Beri, still with us? Look at me!”
I was going to do more than look at him if he didn’t get around to the plan here. I tried to convey that through my gasps and flails.
“Brock! Put your palm in the footprint!”
The creature holding me went stiff, like his legs had locked up, and then he fell. He didn’t loosen his grip and I didn’t want him to keep crushing me on the ground, so I managed to use the fall to wiggle far enough down to bite his arm. I got mostly hair, but there was flesh underneath, so I clenched my jaw hard, wincing when he let out another of those screeching roars. Fangs touched my sore shoulder and I wasn’t letting him chomp on me again, so I bit harder. I tasted blood right when his arms loosened. I squirmed free, spitting and gasping. I rolled a few feet away, got to my knees and watched the creature. “As soon…as all the…air…returns…to my lungs…you’re dead.”
He didn’t get up, just awkwardly rolled side to side.
“A Kuru-Pira can’t get up unless he has something to help pull him up.” Rory came over to squat down beside me. “You fight really well.”
“Not well enough.” I started to feel like air could get into my lungs.
Rory pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling my uncle. He has a dog-catching business.”
I didn’t have my breath back enough to point out it wasn’t a dog, but I didn’t have a better idea. The creature looked so helpless, rolling frantically like a beetle stuck on its back, I couldn’t walk over and kill it. I could if it moved again though. The S10 the Kuru-Pira had thrown was on its side and still on fire. Luckily, the creature had rolled it away from everything else, so I didn’t think the fire would spread.
I looked at Blythe. “Fire bombs?”
She shrugged, chewed on her lip, and looked like she was getting ready to cry.
Tea Bag, the owner of the “piece of shit” as he’d called it, stood staring forlornly at the ruined vehicle.
Within three minutes, a van screeched into the parking lot and it stopped by Rory. Two men got out and opened the back. One pulled out a tranquilizer gun and the other opened a cage big enough for a bear.
“Catches dogs, huh?” I muttered.
Rory shrugged and grinned. His cheeks, red from the cold, got darker. “My uncles are prepared for this sort of thing. We’ve had some strange stuff going on around here lately, in addition to that concert.”
The one with the tranquilizer gun shot the Kuru-Pira. It screeched and flopped around before falling still. The uncles tied it up, then loaded it into the cage. They had to sit it up in the corner so its legs would fit inside. One of them walked over to us, his eyes narrowing on me. I stood, winced and held one hand to my lower rib.
&nb
sp; Rory cleared his throat. “Uncle Gale? This is Beri. She’s looking for a friend of hers who is in that band.”
Dark eyebrows drew together on the uncle’s face. “You kids didn’t go to that concert, did you?”
“Nah, Tea Bag’s truck broke down.”
Gale eyed the smoldering truck, frowned. “We’ll come back and tow that after we get that thing set up at the Preserve.”
Rory rolled his eyes. “There are two creatures out there and you call it that.”
“Three now.” He crossed his arms and frowned at something over my shoulder. I turned to see Blythe dumping baggies on the ground.
I rushed in to explain. “They’re herbs. She collects them. Not drugs. I know what it looks like.”
“Tell her to keep her herbs away from these kids.”
I nodded, just glad he was carting that thing off, because I sure didn’t know what to do with it. The demons I’d fought from the Dweller had sort of melted into mush. “Hey, Blythe, gather up your stuff and do whatever it is you’re doing back at the room. We have to take care of that other problem.”
“What other problem?” she asked as she shoved baggies back into her yellow purse.
“The ancient one.”
“Oh right.” She stood up and slowly walked to Tea Bag, tapped his shoulder. “I’m so sorry about your car. I can’t buy you a new one—I don’t have a job right now—but I can help pay for a used one. I’ll give you my address… Wait, my house burned down.” She bit her lip.
I took pity on her. Something, probably the fire bombs, had her completely frazzled. I walked over and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. Big, startled blue eyes looked up at me. “I’ll bring some cash by the cafe tomorrow, okay?” I said to the forlorn teen.
“Sure,” he murmured. “But you really don’t have to worry about it. It was a bad truck. Not even worth five hundred bucks.”
“Well, I’ll bring that and you can use it as a down payment on another, okay?”
“Thanks.” He stared at Blythe. “She’s not going to cry is she?”
Poor boy looked so alarmed, I grinned.
Blood of an Ancient: A Beri O'Dell Book, Book 2 Page 8