by Dana Fredsti
I looked over in disbelief at Ron—a total bro-dude sporting a backwards baseball cap over a shaved pate and goatee, wearing a black tank top with the words “Do you lift?” spread out across an impressive beer paunch—urging Kyle, his sensibly reluctant companion, to stand at the edge of the parking lot so he could take a picture with his smartphone. As far as I was concerned, Ron was one Snapchat away from a broken jaw.
The seaweed dragon surged up and over the curb, across the sidewalk, and straight into the parking lot. Before I could react, it unfurled more ribbon-like tendrils and snatched Kyle off his feet, dragging him screaming into its center mass. Pods quickly filled up with blood even as Kyle’s screams faded into a gurgling moan. Unbelievably, Douche-Bro continued to take pictures even as the rest of the onlookers finally scattered, screaming just like a coached crowd of extras on a film set.
Douche-Bro wasn’t fast enough. One of the tendrils lashed out and wrapped around his ankle with a sharp tug, jerking the man off his feet and pulling him toward the same mass of fronds and pods currently feasting on his now silent and limp friend. Douche-Bro screamed again, and I saw that the thing had wrapped another frond around his leg and was now feeding.
Shit!
I vaulted over the hood of a car directly in my path, raising the lug wrench as I hit the ground running. The thing reared up as if to greet me, a noise emanating from it—like the roar of a lion, if it could breathe underwater. Several of its frond-like appendages reached for me, giving me a closer look at the undersides—sucker-like mouths ringed with sharp, jagged teeth, some still stained with blood and scraps of flesh.
I ducked under the appendages whipping towards me and stabbed the sharp end of the lug wrench into the stalk connected to the frond suckling on its victim’s leg. The seaweed dragon roared again, sounding even more pissed off, but it didn’t let go of its current meal. I reach down and tried to pull the man away from its grasp, but his scream took on notes of agony as the tendril tightened. I need something to slice through the stalk above the tendril, and the lug wrench wasn’t gonna cut it.
Even as this thought ran through my mind, another ribbon unfurled and snatched the wrench from my grasp, tossing it to one side as a tendril slapped itself on my left arm, wrapping around my biceps. I felt an exploratory nuzzling of the suckers and then teeth on my flesh. The nuzzling turned into needles of agony as it started to feed. I didn’t have long, but the guy next to me had even less time—I needed to do something fast.
I reached into the pocket where I’d shoved the plastic knife, thanking whatever weird reflex made me pocket it instead of tossing it on the ground. Pulling it out, I slashed the edge right across the stalk above the frond currently snacking on my arm. A gash appeared in its flesh, a clear viscous fluid almost jelly-like in texture oozing out of the wound as the thing gave a roar of what I hoped was pain and not just “I’m gonna kill you, bitch” rage.
Gotcha.
I dug the edge of the knife into the gash, sawing back and forth until I’d cut all the way through. The teeth digging into my flesh went lax as I separated the toothy tendril from the rest of the creature. Pulling it off my arm, I cast it to the ground, wincing as it took some of my flesh with it just as Cayden joined the fight.
“Can you keep it off me?” I yelled. He nodded with what I can only call a crazy-ass grin on his face. Wielding his crowbar with almost barbaric abandon, he dodged in between the stalks and tendrils with the brutal grace of a toreador, his face glowing with the sheer joy of battle, like a berserker of old.
I started sawing away at the tendrils feeding on Douche-Bro. The monster was less willing to give him up without a fight, more fronds slapping on and around the man even as I sliced through one and then another. Hacking and slashing as if clearing a path through a jungle, I still couldn’t quite believe that Starbucks plastic cutlery could hold up to this abuse, amulet or no amulet. Finally, I detached all the ravenous suckers, grabbed Douche-Bro under his arms and yanked. We stumbled backwards, just out of reach of the thing as it tried to reclaim its lunch.
Several people ran over to help as I got to my feet. The man groaned, his face ghastly pale. I had no idea how much blood he’d lost, but it didn’t look good.
“He needs an ambulance,” I said, turning him over to the good Samaritans, “but in the meantime, try and stop the bleeding.”
“Gigi, no!”
I turned at the sound of the sharp, panicked scream, my blood turning to ice as a toddler, hair a mass of soft brown curls like an adorable little hobbit, ran towards the monster.
“Doggie!” she cried, chuckling happily. “Big doggie!”
I swear the thing snapped whatever passed for its head around, focusing on the child like a lion scenting its prey. I gave an incoherent yell, knowing I wouldn’t reach her in time.
Cayden vaulted over the back half of the creature, scooping the little hobbit up his arms just as its tendrils descended. They missed the little girl, wrapping around Cayden’s torso instead. He gave a roar of pain and rage that matched the level of bone-rattling fury of the thing attacking him.
The creature seemed to be focusing all its malevolent attention on Cayden. Frond after carnivorous frond wrapped itself around him as he shielded the little girl with his body and arms, creating a protective cage around her and letting the tendrils attach themselves to him instead. It would only be a matter of time, however, before they found their way through. I could hear the little girl screaming, although whether from fear or pain I couldn’t tell.
Screw that.
Giving a battle cry of my own, I jumped in and began the task the slashing through the seaweed dragon’s pulpy flesh, severing stalks and ripping the tendrils off Cayden even as the pods expanded with his blood. As I chopped, I noticed an especially fat blood pod shrinking, and the stalks near it revitalizing, as if they were getting some high-quality plant food.
Right.
Rolling to the side, I seized the lug wrench and stabbed the business end straight into the pod. It burst, spraying blood all over the place like the cheesiest of special effects. The stalk immediately withered.
“Cayden!” I shouted. “We have to take out the blood blisters so the fucker can’t heal itself!” I popped another juicy one with the plastic knife, taking a vicious satisfaction as another stalk lost all its vitality, its tendril dropping from Cayden’s arm. He grinned at me, eyes shining with the light of battle as one hand tightened around the crowbar and he began puncturing any pod within the reach of that arm while the other one still sheltered the toddler. I went to town on the rest of the blisters, the amulet cold fire against my skin, the back of my neck burning and itching like supernatural psoriasis as I punctured pods and chopped through withering stalks. Tendrils that tried to attach themselves to my flesh shriveled and dropped.
As the freshly ingested blood ran out of the last deflated blister, the seaweed dragon staggered. A ululating keening emanated from its core. It slowly crumpled to the asphalt, its cries fading into a pitiful mewling. The tendrils in front lifted again, one of them reaching for me, the tip of it brushing my face before falling limply into what now looked like a mass of bloody seaweed.
“It’s dead.” I managed to choke out those two words between pants of exhaustion.
Pushing myself up onto hands and knees, I rolled over so I was sitting, hands propping me up into an upright position. The pavement was hot against my palms, but I wasn’t ready to move quite yet. Cayden was still shielding the child with his body, his designer shirt ripped in more places than I could count, blood oozing out of numerous abrasions and puncture wounds.
He slowly straightened, the crowbar falling to the asphalt with a metallic clatter as his arms dropped to his sides, revealing the crying toddler. Totally unharmed. My heart slowly unfroze and unshed tears burned my eyes.
Hell, I don’t even like kids, I thought even as several fat teardrops escaped and plopped onto the ground.
Sobbing hysterically, the mother ran over an
d scooped the child up in her arms. She said something to Cayden that might have been “thank you,” but it was hard to tell what with all the crying. Cayden nodded and then collapsed onto the pavement next to me, breathing heavily. A short distance away from us, Douche-Bro’s iPhone lay in a puddle of blood.
“Good job there,” I commented, surreptitiously dashing my tears away.
He nodded. “You didn’t do too badly yourself.”
We sat for a few minutes in an oddly companionable silence while everyone around us talked in loud voices, trying to digest what they’d just witnessed. It wasn’t often that something from the dark side crawled so blatantly out into the light of day.
I grimaced in disgust as I caught a glimpse of my clothing. “This is gonna be a fun one to explain to Sean,” I said, as much to myself as my companion. My jeans and tank top were totaled. What wasn’t ripped and/or shredded was coated in a viscous mix of brownish goo and blood. I smelled like two-day old seafood leftovers left out in the sun. My only consolation was that Cayden’s clothes were in the same shape.
“Want to use a shower at my place?” A pause, and then, “There are at least five.”
We looked at each other. My breath caught in my throat as the sense of stillness closed in until it seemed to encase just the two of us. Oh, I was tempted. So very, very tempted. But there was smart and there was stupid, and jumping into bed with a guy who’d just hired me fell solidly into the latter category. Hoping that the temptation I felt wasn’t blazing out from my face, I shook my head and smiled.
“Nah,” I said. “Although this would have been the most action-packed first date I’ve ever had, let alone a job interview.”
He laughed, showing white teeth. Lots of them.
“Fair enough.”
All around us, people were standing or sitting in dazed shock. I wondered how the Kolchak Division—the LAPD’s “this shit ain’t right” weird case unit—was going to handle this. The odds of all these survivors knowing about the supe community was small to zilch.
“Some of them won’t even remember it,” Cayden said.
Had I spoken out loud? “Huh?”
“These people,” he replied, his gaze seeing something so far in the distance I couldn’t begin to fathom what it might be.
“How do you know that?”
“The canopy of darkness. You can see it, probably feel it as well. Most people can’t unless they’re part of the supernatural world or open to the possibility. If they’re not, they’ll most likely only remember what just happened as a horrific traffic accident. That’s how it will be reported.”
“What about people like you and me?” I wiped a smear of foul-smelling glop off my face. “We’ll remember what really happened. What if we decided to report it?”
“Would you?”
“No, but that’s beside the point. What about that poor stupid jerk with the iPhone? If he lives, his video will be all over social media.”
He shrugged. “You know how easy it is to cry Special Effects Wolf.”
He had a point.
“So.” Cayden looked at me speculatively. “Was it just me, or was that thing gunning for you?”
I seriously considered lying. I mean, the truth was a lot to unwrap, even after battling a carnivorous kelp creature. But I owed it to the guy to let him know what he might be letting himself in for if he hired me. No, lying definitely wasn’t an option.
“It wasn’t just you,” I said reluctantly. Then I stopped, uncertain what to say next. Cayden waited patiently, as if he had all the time in the world and we were seated on a comfy couch instead of on hard, hot asphalt.
Here was my quandary. How much should I tell him? Sean hadn’t given me any guidance as far as who to tell and who not to tell about my fucked-up family legacy, and I hadn’t asked. It wasn’t something I wanted to share with anyone. Now, however, the demonspawn was out of the bag.
I took a deep breath, but before I could say anything, sirens wailed in the distance as if in a dream, increasing in volume and substance until the sound finally penetrated the strange cone of silence. Cayden and I watched as police vehicles, including the distinctive khaki-colored Ford Crown Victoria of the Kolchak Division—the logo of a straw pork-pie hat with a red-and-black band nestled unobtrusively in the lower left corner of the rear window—pulled into the driveway at the south end of the market.
I groaned when I recognized Detective Maggie Fitzgerald in the driver’s seat. Not that there was anything wrong with her—unless you pissed her off and then she’d go all banshee on your ass—but she was bound to recognize me too. She’d been the detective in charge when people had started dying on Pale Dreamer and considering the fallout from that little slice of cinematic hell, the last thing I needed was more notoriety or a reputation for being the Jessica Fletcher of Hollywood. With my luck, the dead seaweed dragon would turn out to be a famous director’s distant relative, thus getting me banned from the Industry in perpetuity.
Cayden grinned. “Don’t worry,” he said as if reading my mind. “I have connections.”
“Can you keep me off social media?”
“I’ll make sure your name stays out of the papers, the columns, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, all of it. There’ll be nary a tweet connecting you to this unfortunate event.”
“And in return?
“Promise me we’ll continue this conversation later.”
He held out a hand. I took it, looked into those blue eyes, their expression just this side of crazy, and said, “Deal. Do I have the job?”
Cayden’s mouth curled up in a smile.
“Yeah. Yeah, you do. Are you sure you want it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I am.”
“Good. We’ll need you to fly out to New Orleans for rehearsals in the next few days. The sets and locations are already in place. You’ll meet the rest of the stunt crew, start choreographing and rehearsing with the cast. I’d like you to take on training the actresses playing Laveau and Perrine, and you’ll be doubling Laveau. You up for it?”
I nodded, trying not to seem too excited, because Cayden seemed like the type who’d make fun of me for being anything other than blasé.
“I’ll be in touch with your agent.”
“That’s Faustina—”
“Faustina Corbin, I know.”
Of course you do.
“Is this yours?” Cayden held out a hand, a leather cord draped over his fingers, gold disk dangling from it. I snatched it from him, heart pounding as I realized how close I’d come to losing my mother’s amulet…
And my ability to fight Lilith’s demonic rug rats.
“Thanks,” I finally managed. The leather cord had snapped, so I tucked it away in a pocket of my jeans. I’d have to get a replacement. Until then, I’d put it in one of my neoprene pouches that I used on set. Maybe that was safer all the way around these days. Today was an object lesson that I could never be sure when unexpected relatives were going to show up.
* * *
“Will it be safe?” Polli’s voice was hoarse and oddly liquid at the same time. No surprise there. She and Hyla—most of their family, really—always sounded two steps away from a frog chorus.
“Of course.” LeRoy was irritated by the question. “The lagoon is behind the Veil. The Thaumaturge will stay here until the metamorphosis is complete and it’s time for the summoning.”
“What about the others?” Hyla asked.
“It has been taken care of,” he replied shortly. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled very slowly. He really needed to work on his anger management.
Walking to the small shimmer that marked the border of the Veil and crossing to the other side, LeRoy cast a derisive glance, as he always did, at the shacks that passed as houses for the Castro clan, all of them beyond ramshackle. Weathered boards, gray and tinted with green moss, sagging porches and spider webs festooning the railings and rafters. Yet even the most dilapidated shack had a satellite dish on it.
LeRoy sne
ered with barely veiled disgust. Even deep in the Bayou modern technology insisted on creeping in and taking a hold of things. He hoped the faith of the Castro family was strong enough to aid the harbingers in the summoning.
At first glance, the kids running around playing kickball seemed perfectly normal, the sound of their laughter and screams the same thing heard at any happy gathering of children… but if you stopped and really listened, the laughter sounded like croaking, the screams and squeals guttural, as if something got stuck in their throats before the sound was forced out. The children’s skin was so pale that they seemed tinted green. Thick, rubbery lips. Large watery eyes. Underslung chins, practically nonexistent. These were the effects of inbreeding—not surprising in a backwoods clan like the Castros.
LeRoy despised them.
Years ago, before his first failure, he had approached the Marcadet family, sworn enemies of the Castros, in hopes of gaining an alliance with them instead. They were more intelligent and certainly more pleasing aesthetically, especially the women. His offer had been slapped down hard, and he’d sworn someday he’d have satisfaction for the insult. Then again, the Castros had been worshipping ancient, diseased gods for as many decades as they’d been inbreeding. He would take what he would get. Soon it wouldn’t matter.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The reception of the news of my upcoming job was what some would call a mixed bag.
Randy: “You have got to be fucking kidding me. Cayden Doran is bad news!”
Sean: “That’s great, sweetheart.”
Eden: “New Orleans? Holy shit, that’s awesome! What’s the production? Are they still casting? I wanna go!” Then I told her the co-producer’s name and it was, “Well, maybe I can swing a visit while you’re filming. I haven’t been to New Orleans in years.”
Seth: Silence.
These, of course, are the short versions.
When I told Sean and Seth I’d been offered a job shooting in New Orleans with good pay and a real budget, Sean’s feature-length response had been, “Hon, that’s great news!” while Seth just stared at me, stone-faced.