“He’s wearing similar clothes to Yoshi as far as I can tell,” Angelo says.
“Diego, can you—” I start to ask.
"I'll ask his kin if he knows Yoshi, see if they have a connection."
I stare down at what was left of the Japanese-American. My heart sinks. “Can you imagine going out for a short hike and being captured by some kind of monster? Henrietta was right. She thought the monster would strike again, but so quickly…”
As before, we don’t find anything to lead us toward the perp. By the time I return to the station, Diego’s waiting for me.
“Yoshi, Nobu, and Ryo Nomura are all good friends, and they love to go out for hikes.”
“Where is Ryo?” I demand.
“He’s missing.”
“We might not have time to save him.” I run a hand through my hair. “Just the three of them?”
“Yes, but…”
There’s no reason to think the monster will stop at three.
“All right. Come on. Let’s talk to Henrietta.”
She has nothing for us except to say that Nobu didn’t bleed out. “As far as I can tell,” she says, the medical examiner more subdued than normal, “it seems to me that he died of fright.”
“His heart just stopped?”
Henrietta nods. “You know, there are good ways to go out and bad ways. I mean, to die when you’re happy, when you’re feeling good, on top of the world… Or even when you’re sleeping, for the world to just end when you’re dreaming…”
“What if you die in the middle of a nightmare?” Diego asks. “Will you be stuck in that nightmare for the rest of eternity?”
“No, goof,” I say, trying to lighten the mood some. “There’s Heaven and Hell.”
“Have you been to Heaven?” he asks me.
“No.”
“Really? Because I could’ve sworn I’ve taken you there.”
Henrietta blinks a few times. “I was trying to make a point, but forget it.”
“I’m sorry.” I shoot Diego a look.
He mouths, “You started it.”
I shake my head and then clear my throat. “So, what creatures are cannibals?”
“Amarok and his wolves are all dead and gone, right?” Diego asks.
“As far as I know, and they don’t leave bodies looking like this,” I say.
Amarok had been a terrible creature, a zombie-vamp-werewolf thing. He had been immortal to some extent, and he died not once but twice, but he’s dead for good this time. Lucifer handled him.
Yes, I’ve spoken to Lucifer. It’s not something I ever want to have to do ever again.
“There’s Baba Yaga,” Henrietta says. She eyes me. “She’s a cannibal.”
“I’ve heard of that name before,” I say slowly, “but I’m not familiar with the legend.”
“Well, I don’t know if she’s even real, if there’s only one Baba Yaga or if there are many,” she starts.
“I heard that it’s a trio of sisters all with the same name,” Diego interjects.
I mock-glare at him. “How can you know something that I don’t?”
He grins. “I’ve been looking up cannibals.”
“You have?” I blurt out. “When?”
“When you were out to lunch with Samantha before I found the second body.”
“How did you manage to do all of that?”
Diego flushes. “I was walking around the mountain, looking on my phone. I kicked his boot and almost fell right on top of him.”
“Diego! You can’t go out on the mountain by yourself!”
“It was during the day,” he protests.
“And look at how Nobu fared,” I pointed out, gesturing to the dead body.
“Good point,” he mumbles.
“Anyhow,” Henrietta says, “Baba Yaga is one sick witch. She’s actually a shapeshifter, but she has no skills because she only ever looks like a wicked old woman. Why would you do that? I mean, if I could shapeshift, the last thing I would consider would be an old woman. Puh-leaze! Oh, and get this! She—or the sisters—fly around in a mortar! Guess how they steer it? Yes, with a pestle! Isn’t that a riot!”
“That’s a real hoot,” I murmur.
“She’s twisted,” Diego says. “She lives in the woods in a hut made of chicken legs.”
“Seriously? Guys, no one would miss that,” I argue. “This can’t be real.”
“The fence around her place is made from human bones that she’s eaten clean,” Henrietta says.
“And these bones are hardly picked clean,” I say. “It’s not her, sisters or otherwise.
“There’s a Romanian myth about Muma Pădurii,” Henrietta says, undeterred.
“Muma what?” I ask.
“Muma Pădurii. It means ‘mother of the forest.’”
“If she eats people, she’s not a great mother,” I mumble.
“She can shapeshift too, just like Baba Yaga, but unlike Baba Yaga, Muma Pădurii’s real form is that of an old woman. Ugly as sin. Maybe her sins have turned her ugly. I don't know. She likes to boil children and make a soup of out them."
“Nobu and the others are in their early twenties,” Diego says. “They aren’t children.”
“And they’ve been bitten not turned into some kind of human soup.” I grimace. “The only thing I know is that the wendigo is a cannibal, right?”
Diego nods. “I thought about that because not only does a wendigo fit the murders, but one would fit those thefts too.”
“Really?” I ask eagerly.
He grins. “Yes, chica. They’re known for their vices, especially gluttony and greed. They’re evil through and through.”
“Malevolent,” I murmur.
“Cannibalistic,” Henrietta adds.
“They’re a supernatural being,” I say slowly. “They aren’t a spirit, I don’t think.” I eye Diego suspiciously. “Why didn’t you suggest them earlier?”
“Because they’re also associated with coldness. It’s summer here. Why would they be here?”
“But they’re gluttons, and they’re like vampires in that they can’t be satiated, right?” I argue. “They aren’t satisfied killing and eating one person, and they haven’t even been able to consume one person entirely.”
“You keep saying ‘they,’” Henrietta points out. “Are you certain there’s more than one?”
“No. You’re right. That the bodies are only partially eaten suggests only one is responsible. Maybe… maybe it’s a young wendigo, away from the others. A young one. A child or a teen.”
Diego throws up his hands. “It’s summer,” he stresses.
“I know, but this fits the best,” I say desperately. “Maybe we can look around for ice cream places. An ice cream trunk!”
“Because ice cream trunks go on the mountain,” he says.
“You’re a killjoy,” I mumble.
“’Rissa, you know I want to find the perp as badly as you do,” he says.
“I know.” I grimace. “Maybe the killer is just a shapeshifter of some kind. A bear shifter. Something else. Can bears go rabid?”
“A rabid bear shifter,” Diego says, shaking his head. “If that’s bingo, I don’t want to play anymore.”
“Just about any animal can become rabid,” Henrietta cuts in. “They just have to be bitten by something else that has rabies, so yes, there could be a rabid bear. I don’t know how a rabid shapeshifter would be. That’s one terrifying idea.”
“Are you shaking?” Diego asks her.
“N-No. Nothing scares me,” she says. She lifts her nose into the air. “If anything, I’m the kind of girl who roots for the serial killer in the slasher films.”
We gape at her.
“What?” she asks innocently. “In my defense, those characters are asking for it. They’re all so stupid! You never run upstairs, and they never charge their phones. It’s possible to have a signal anywhere if you have a hotspot on your phone. I mean, there are ways to survive just about anything
.”
“Ways to survive…” I turn to Diego. “Samantha wanted me to have a camping trip for my party.”
“I heard about that,” he says.
“I can’t believe you want it canceled and not to have one at all,” Henrietta cries. “We were going to turn it into a really fun time! It was going to be a murder mystery-type thing, and you were to solve it, and then it would’ve been a surprise with a huge party, and Diego and everyone would’ve been there… and now we definitely can’t have it because I just ruined it.”
She hangs her head, and she looks so crestfallen that I want to hug her, but she’s wearing blood gloves, and we’re in a morgue, and there isn’t a place where you don’t hug than the morgue.
“It’s all right,” I assure her. “I won’t tell Samantha that you told me, and Diego won’t either. Right, Diego?”
“Right.”
“But you and I should go camping.”
“Because there are ways to survive just about anything,” he says with a grin.
“Oh, I’ll send you a list of what you’ll need to pack!” Henrietta cries. “You can’t ever be too careful. I’ll email it to you. I have all kinds of survival lists for different things.”
“You do?”
“Well, yeah. Especially because zombies might actually be real. If there ever is a zombie apocalypse, this girl is going to survive.” Henrietta beams.
I just grin. She’ll outlive us all. That I’m sure.
***
Her list is thorough and I mean thorough. It takes us three hours to get everything we need, and we head up the mountain. There’s no way to know if Ryo is being held and possibly eaten on the mountain or elsewhere, but we do have reason to believe they were snatched off the mountain. Their car, which we found, had been left behind, their supplies gone, presumably with them during their trek. Maybe we can find their camp even if we can’t find the killer.
Or if the killer doesn’t come for us. That’s a distinct possibility. A shapeshifter or a wendigo might be able to tell that I’m not human and decide to pass me by. The vamps, when they first showed up, killed humans, but they left me be. They didn’t want to risk the wrath of my father.
For hours, we march, trying to find something, anything, but we don’t.
And then, I shiver.
“It’s cold,” I murmur. “Or is that just my mind playing tricks on me?”
“Not unless my eyes are too.”
“Your eyes?” I glance at him and see white specks in his hair.
It’s flurrying.
How? It’s July!
“The cold,” I murmur.
“Wendigo,” we say at the first time.
Just then, a nasty roar sounds behind us. I whirl around, my gun out, raised and pointed.
A bear leaps out from behind a tree. It swipes at Diego. I fire, but the bear is moving too fast, and the bullet sinks into a tree.
Diego has his gun out, and he points, but the bear knocks his hand to the side.
Before I can think about what I’m doing, I toss my gun aside, lunge forward, and yank on the bear’s tail.
Because I’m smart like that.
The bear half-turns toward me, jaw snapping, and I try to steady my breathing, to not freak out.
Diego grabs his gun as the bear steps toward me. I scramble onto the bear’s back to get out of the way of its snapping jaws, but the bear just lies down and rolls over, crushing my leg, pinning it against the ground.
But the bear forgot all about Diego in its quest to attack me. My fiancé marches right up to the bear, places his gun to its forehead, and squeezes the trigger.
The bear’s dead.
But was the bear the killer?
Chapter Five
I shimmy and twist and yank and somehow manage to free my leg. Diego helps me to stand and gives me back my gun.
“You’re a badass,” he says, his eyes dark.
“Thanks.”
“A reckless one,” he grumbles.
“All’s well that end’s well.”
“I don’t think the bear would agree.” He kicks the bear. “It’s really dead.”
“You, ah, blew its brains out.”
“Yes, but… it didn’t fight like a bear. The way it rolled over like that, it was smart, but a shifter should’ve turned back to human when it died, right?”
“I think so, yes.”
I exhale deeply and walk around a bit. My leg limps slightly, but I can already feel it healing. One of the perks of being what I am, fast healing. Not as fast as some paranormal creatures, and contrary to some myths, vampire blood can't heal everything and can even kill some people. Not me, though. I can drink it, and there have been times when I've had to because Diego's right. I can be reckless at times, and sometimes, that means I get injured, seriously so.
A twig snaps, and I glance up to see a huge, monstrous shadow stretching toward us. The snow is beginning to fall hard and stick to the ground some, which amazes me because it should be far too warm for that, but when I blow out a breath as I lift my gun, I can see fog leave my mouth. The temperature here has significantly dropped, so much so that I’m shivering, and it’s almost impossible to keep my aim steady.
A form steps among the trees, and then I can see the creature.
Monster is right. The wendigo has a skull over his head, some kind of antler sticking out above the ears. His arms are unnaturally long, touching the ground, his legs twisted and warped, looking almost more animalistic than human. He wears shorts of some kind but no shirt, and I can see more than just his ribs. I can see his organs, including his beating heart. The wendigo looks so gaunt to the point that I don't know how he's alive.
A super skinny, emaciated man. A supernatural being, yes, but we can take him on, no problem.
I nod to Diego. He nods back, and we open fire. Our bullets hit him, but all of them, every single one, bounces off his bones, and we have to fall to the ground to avoid the ricochets.
Great. Now what?
I reach into my boots and remove a wooden stake that I keep there just in case. Vamps haven’t been in Bethlehem since we rooted every one of them out with the help of Blake, but I don’t ever want to be caught off guard just in case.
And yes, it’s July, but I wear boots more times than not specifically because that means I can carry more weapons on me. The world is a dangerous place, far more dangerous than most people realize, and I want to keep those people blissfully ignorant.
Diego grabs out a silver dagger, and I not to the left. He crouches and heads that way, whereas I stand.
“Hiya, Wendigo. Do you have a name? Can you even talk?”
He grunts and takes a step toward me. Good. If Diego can get around him, maybe he can stab him. That might have a better effect. I’m willing to bet that a silver blade will do more damage to the monster than a wooden stake.
“I’m sorry,” I say sweetly. “I don’t understand grunts. Can you use your words?”
The wendigo lungs.
I jump back and warily circle away from him, trying to get him to turn so that his back is to Diego again. “Or is your mouth too full of meat from the campers you ate? Yes, we know what you did.”
“Hunger,” he says in a voice that is inhuman.
I swallow hard and wish I hadn’t convinced the creature to speak after all.
“If you’re hungry, we can find you some meat. Doesn’t have to be human flesh, does it? How about a nice cow or—”
“Human flesh.”
I roll my eyes. “Have you even tried—”
"Try your flesh." His unnaturally long arm reaches out, and he snatches me, pinning my arms to my sides. I can't move as he brings my head toward his mouth. His teeth look decidedly human, I notice, and there are specks of meat between his teeth.
“You need to brush your teeth,” I admonish, struggling to break his vise grip on me. “You’re going to get cavities.”
Just where is Diego, and why hasn’t he stabbed the wendigo alre
ady?
And that’s when I see another wendigo. This one is smaller than the one holding me, but he has just knocked Diego to the ground.
Rage consumers me, but instead of turning toward the darkness and my demon side, I opt for the light. Heat comes then, the brightness of the sun, and the snow stops. The snow melts, and the wendigos start to melt too. The one holding me lets out a wail and drops me. The other shrieks and jumps up, nearly landing right on top of Diego’s face with his oversized feet.
That Diego almost got stomped on makes me want to change that heat from the light to Hellfire, but I force myself to stop, to hold back.
Maybe they should be arrested instead of killed.
But then the first wendigo launches at me, knocking me down. My handle on my powers evaporates, and I can barely see what’s going on.
“Get off me, you…” Diego mutters something in Spanish. “No! You get your ugly, smelly mouth away from me!”
The other wendigo is trying to eat him!
That fuels me, and it doesn't matter that the wendigo is so much longer than I am. I have the skills and techniques honed from years of martial arts training, and I flip us over, so I'm on top. I take my stake, and I jam it through the wendigo's ribcage, through its lungs, all the way to the ground, pinning the creature in place.
The wendigo reaches a long arm to grab me or the stake, but I grab the stake from my other boot, snap it in half over my thigh, and stake one of his arms down. In that time, he unstakes the one from his ribs, but I yank down his other arm, stake that, and then restake his ribs.
He’s not going anywhere, but the other wendigo is inches way from chomping on Diego, who is kicking and squirming, trying to shrimp his body away from the wendigo. It’s a deadly game of grappling, and if Diego loses, he’ll lose his life.
I grab a gun and aim. Diego’s moving too much for me to be able to get a perfectly clear shot, and then he screams.
The wendigo bit him.
I race over and repeat what had been done to the bear. Line up the shot with the nuzzle against the forehead and—
Wings appear, forcing themselves between the nozzle and the wendigo, and the angel yanks the wendigo back. He clamps some kind of handcuffs on the wendigo and then injects the wendigo with some kind of substance.
A Cursed All Hallows' Eve Page 133