Phone in hand, Red zoomed in on the chest of the body, snapping a few more grotesque photos to send to Vic later for his opinion before putting it away and zipping up the pocket.
The sheriff rejoined her. “You have any last observations to share? There were symbols on the last body, but the decomp level made deciphering them impossible.”
“I have access to online databases that might clue me in when I get to a laptop.” She lifted on her tiptoes peer into the ring of stones then the top branches. It couldn’t have been easy to get a struggling person into either. Could it have been a demon after all? A mage would have to use strong enchantments to overcome a man’s survival instinct even if he came willingly. “How did they get the body here? There are no tire tracks, not an ATV or a wheelbarrow, and he wasn’t a small guy. You noticed how there isn’t a sign of a struggle either? The leaves are thick enough to hide footprints, maybe, but not a fight.”
“Just like the first.”
“The victim could have been bewitched into letting them cut this throat and string him up. That’s something a witch, some vampires, or demon—actually a few kinds of demon—could do.”
Callaway wrote out her cellphone number in her pocket notepad, tearing out the page to hand over. “Text me tomorrow, and I’ll tell you what we learn. Now head off before my deputies get here.”
“I can’t leave you alone.”
“I’m not waiting in this eerie-ass haunted forest.” Callaway ushered her away from the body, through the trees, and down the embankment to the road. “I’m going to stay right in my locked cruiser, nicely armed, until backup arrives.”
Red tucked the number in her pocket. “Are you sure?”
“I’d keep you with me, but I don’t want to explain your profession in a police file or to my deputies on your first night here.”
“Point taken.” She took that as another sign that no one had connected her to the deaths of the assassins. Vic had been right. The bastard was probably right about the rest of her worries too. Fishing the van keys out of her pocket, stalling for time, she had something else to face that scared her more than the body that she left behind—Lili’s Diner and whatever she found there on Emma Peters.
As if thinking of the dead summoned it, an evilly foul odor drifted in on the breeze. Slow-moving forms hobbled out of the forest. Stringy wet hair draped over speckled bloated faces that no longer looked human. Their eyes were as white and luminous as the moon. Silent as the graves that they crawled out of, the colony moved as one. Decayed limbs shuffled across the road as placidly as deer.
Red tightened her fingers around the keys. She wasn’t outfitted for this. Guns wouldn’t help them even with silver bullets. These monsters didn’t feel pain. Her hunter’s kit had holy water, salt, wolfsbane, and a blessed cross. The ghostflowers were in the van. She calculated the risk of bolting for it versus waiting completely still in hopes that the rotting figures moved on without noticing them.
“What are those things? Zombies?” Callaway hissed.
“Worse. Ghouls.”
3
Slow, dumb, and mute—over a dozen ghouls lumbered on the forested highway, blocking their way to Charm. The stench of putrefaction hit like a baseball bat even thirty yards away. Red had seen two in the local cemetery on her last visit, but this was a full-on infestation. She’d wanted a distraction from going to Lili’s Diner but not like this.
Even if they were faster and cannier, zombies were easier to contain after finding the source—the necromancer reanimating them. Ghouls were their own species, not merely dead humans. They didn’t need speed or smarts. If their heads were attached, they could infect a human with a scratch of their blackened teeth. The victim would rot from the inside, swelling and rotting as if submerged in water. A lucky few died at that point; the rest fully transformed into something undead.
Callaway stepped forward, touching her gun holster.
“That won’t help as much as you think. I have a sword you can use, if it comes to it,” Red said. Vic had squirt guns packed, but they needed time to fill them with a mix of water and ghostflower oil. Most powerful herbs intensified their strength when infused in sacred oils, and these were alchemist grade. It would hurt like a sun of bitch on contact and even a drop in the mouth of a ghoul could kill. “But that’s too many to fight by ourselves. We only need to get bitten once to turn.”
“You said they’re worse than zombies!”
“Exactly. We need backup.” Red had learned new tricks, but nothing to pierce a ghoul’s preternaturally protected hide. Direct spells didn’t stick to them. “Don’t tell me it’s so boring here that you’re looking for trouble.”
“We’re on the edge of the village limits and there isn’t a hell of a lot to this village.”
“It’s safer to go after a colony that size in the day when they’re weaker. Or at least when we can gather a posse of hunters. They might cross peacefully and go on their merry way.”
“And do what—stand in line for the new iPhone? It doesn’t make me feel better if they have an appointment.”
The ghoul at the front of the colony turned, bulging white eyes narrowing at the van. He was less decayed than the rest. You could almost see a human in his moonlit profile. Maw opening in a silent hiss, he clicked his black jaws rapidly. He was communicating with the colony.
Red frowned. She had never seen this, only read the theories. Something else struck her—the ghouls were moving away from the ritual sacrifice. The corpse might have been out of reach, but it should have attracted them. Dead meat was their favorite. They only resorted to the fresh kind when desperate. She knew from experience after baiting their kind with roadkill in Louisiana. Swallowing her disquiet, she clicked the remote to open the side van door. She waved Callaway inside. “Get in.”
“Let’s barrel though them.”
“It’d be like hitting a steer with those numbers. Once we slow, the rest will swarm us.” Red pawed through a strapped down case behind the driver’s seat and plucked out a sword. Chipped in places, it wasn’t Excalibur, but it still had a sharp enough edge for a ghoul. She handed it to Callaway.
The sheriff arched a dubious eyebrow as she checked out the weapon. “Can’t I shoot them?”
“They can walk anything off but losing their heads.” Red wasn’t crazy for swordplay either; she only knew which end to stick the bad guy with even after Vic had attempted to teach her the basics. There were two things that killed ghouls: ghostflowers and decapitation. They were just lucky the foul things were slow enough that a rookie could get a decent chop. She grabbed an axe, setting it on the case between the seats before scrambling into the driver’s side.
“We can’t lead them into town,” Callaway said, dropping her borrowed blade to get into the front seat.
“Judging by the size of that infestation, they’ve been in your town awhile. We’ll take a back road to meet up with your deputies or local hunters, whatever we find first.”
Callaway sighed and lifted her sword. “It’s been one hell of a first week on the job.”
“I think this is going to be your new normal,” Red said, cranking the engine. “We can gather a posse, alert the town Hero—”
“Look!”
One ghoul galloped toward them, quicker than any ghoul had the right to. The colony followed at impossible speeds.
Red put the van in reverse, tires squealing as the Millennium Falcon sped backward. “Get out the ghostflower oil from between the seats. There are white petals infused in it.”
Callaway riffled through the wooden case, which contained the most common magic defenses. She pushed aside a cannister of salt to palm a large vial.
The ghouls gained on the vehicle.
Red braced herself, stomping on the gas, checking the side mirror to navigate backwards.
Dead rotting flesh washed over the van. A ghoul fell under the tires. Another jumped on the hood, scrambling up the windshield, leaving gross streaks on the glass. More brushed agai
nst the doors. As soon as the impact rippled through the van, they were gone. Even the one stuck under the wheel dragged itself out. The colony shrunk in the side mirror, sprinting into the forest.
“Where are they going?” Putting the transmission in park, Red pressed her face against the window to watch them go. She’d never seen ghouls act like that.
“Be happy they’re running away.”
Unnerved, Red checked the side mirror again.
A shockwave of energy slammed the van, forcing her against the seat.
Eyes flipped open as if by a blast of G force, she squinted against the brilliance. She’d read Charm was a weird village, tucked beside the Pacific Ocean and a crossroads between dimensions and multiverses, but she’d expected a hyped-up vortex. The library hadn’t prepared her for this.
White lighting hit the ground, darkening to an electric blue as it widened by a foot, melting the asphalt underneath. She had witnessed a domesticated portal open before. It prepared her as much as seeing a fat tabby cat and then meeting a tiger in the jungle.
A beautiful feminine face peered from inside the jagged window to another world. Southeast Asian by her features, there was something sad and terrible in her dark eyes. She lunged. The surface bulged like an iridescent cocoon around the head.
Struggling to escape, the being slipped into their reality inch by inch, pulling herself out of the crack with skeletal arms, wings pumping furiously from her shoulders. The portal closed swiftly on her hips. She shrieked victoriously, flying free out of sight, leaving her legs behind. Her torn dress didn’t hide the hanging entrails.
“What the fuck is that, Red? It’s-it’s…”
The exposed intestines didn’t freak Red out as much as the delighted wonder on the winged woman’s exquisite face. Not pain or alarm to be missing her legs. There was only one creature that could be that happy split in half. “A manananggal. Supposed to be in the Philippines. Also, extinct.”
“Guess we can take it off the endangered list. How do we kill it?”
“Pin it down. Add salt, garlic, or ash. Wait until dawn. Maybe fire?” Red shrugged. The painful journey through the rift had completed one of the steps for them—separating the manananggal from its bottom half. “I learned this cramming for a hunter test I never ended up taking. We’ll need to track it.”
The manananggal, wings gently flapping, hovered in the headlamps. Tragically beautiful, an aching longing came over her face. Her beautiful face and beckoning motions were so sincere, you almost forgot the gore below. The illusion shattered as a fluted pink tongue jutted from the mouth, elongating horribly to lick at the van’s hood as if groping to get closer to them. Legends said the creature used its appendage to poke through open windows and drink the blood and viscera of its victims. Red believed every campfire rumor now.
Sword in one hand, Callaway pointed to a cardboard canister in the case between the front seats. “First one to pin it down gets to salt it!”
“You’re a little too excited about this.”
The manananggal whipped her tongue like a club and broke the windshield.
Red shielded herself with leather-clad arms, grainy edges of glass raining on them. At the academy, she had learned how to hone her focus, names of magical correspondences to herbs, and how to create charms. High magic took patience and concentration. Emotions were discouraged as a distraction. Her instincts were more primal than the distinguished alchemists. She channeled the elements themselves. Made in a second, it wasn’t a conscious decision.
Sinking awareness deep into her mystical self, she dove into a connection with the earth and universe that she still knew so little even as it thrilled her. She evened her breathing as practiced under the banyan tree. Her focus spread outside herself, enveloping the air molecules, becoming one with the element, enticing it to her will, joining their power. Mortal terror fueled her. Visualizing her intention, she ignited it with magic to push a gust of wind at their attacker.
The manananggal blew sideways, tangling in the branches of a tree.
“Um, I think we need to take a beat.” Winded from the exertion, Red drew a rolled scrap of hide, embroidered with crystal beads in a grid, from the wooden case. She couldn’t keep manipulating the elements without help. Magic drained the user. She unfurled the leather, tapping into the charm modified from a levitation spell. “I’ll pin it with—”
Callaway bolted from the van.
“Damn it!” Red grabbed her axe and opened the door to go after the sheriff. She prodded her magic toward the elemental charm. The job would have been easier if she didn’t have her attention split.
Pausing, Callaway took aim, leaning on the hood, pumping bullets into the winged creature.
“You’re exposed out here!” Ears ringing, she gestured at the cop. “Come back. You’re only pissing it off.”
The manananggal shuttered and fell out of the sky, breaking oak branches as she fell and rolled onto the road.
“Guess guns do work.” Callaway smirked, reloading as she approached the face-down monster.
Red kept winding her magic through the levitation charm even as she grabbed the salt canister and got out of the van. “Don’t get too—”
Wings twitching, it soared straight up.
“Close.” Red stared at the sky. The supernatural creature might be killed by the sunset if not rejoined to her bottom half, but she could raise hell until then.
“I’ll get it.” Callaway shot upward.
The manananggal jetted down, dodging bullets. One hit the wing. The beast shrieked, long tongue unfurling.
The cop dodged, crouching.
Red reached out magically to her spell, levitating a fallen branch to fling it like a spear.
The manananggal dived under the branch and switched course, bearing down on her.
Red fell back from the impact, air trooping to her aid, but the blast sent them both to rolling on the road. Gravel and grit cut at her cheek.
The manananggal yanked Red’s hair and her tongue flicked out like a switchblade.
Red played her last card. “I’m claimed by a vampire!”
The beast laughed. “I care little for half-breed claims.”
Red sucker punched the manananggal in mid-chuckle.
The manananggal shrieked, a branch suddenly jutted from her chest with Callaway behind her. She crawled away from the hunters.
Kicking the supernatural onto her back, Red rolled to the side to grab the salt and popped the top. She flung it over the creature. The eerily beautiful face and twitching wings froze. She pushed herself up, waiting for the manananggal to move.
Callaway screwed up her face. “Is it dead?”
“Not yet.” After cleaning her hands on her jeans, Red smoothed her hair, removing the loosened ponytail, mindful of her stinging scalp. “We can smear garlic on it for good measure. Contrary to myth, it doesn’t do anything to regular bloodsuckers.”
“How many kinds of undead are there?”
“Technically, manananggal aren’t undead, they just drink blood. Like most Supremes, Cora Moon would have kept the other species out of LA. Buckle in, you have a whole supernatural animal kingdom to explore here.”
“Goodie for me.”
Red walked back to the van, picking out a warm jar of minced garlic from the case between the front seats. The generic stuff from the grocery store worked fine. She called over her shoulder. “We need to keep it from finding another portal and rejoining its lower half before dawn. I’ll have to double check to see if we can burn it and save some time.”
“I can put it in a shed behind the station.” Callaway scowled. “It’s going to make my patrol car stink in the meantime.”
“We’ll take in in my van. I’ll burn it in the cemetery. You have your hands full already.” Red put herself into the busy work of cleaning up a case. The two worked quickly, dumping more garlic on the manananggal, then wrapping it in a plastic tarp and into the van on top of multicolored bean bag chairs. She closed the d
oors. “I can’t be certain since the sacrifice looked days old, but this demon could have been attracted or summoned by the ritual. The first body might have been a dress rehearsal.”
“Or that’s where all those ghouls came from.” Callaway sighed. “We have to keep this off the news.”
“I don’t need to break the Dark Veil again. One vampire tribunal was enough for me. I’ll help you off the record.” She closed the doors, her sense of time returning as the adrenaline faded. “Shouldn’t your deputies have arrived?”
Callaway tensed and turned away with her phone, barking out the question to dispatch.
Red gave her privacy and moved back to the front of the van, gathering up more ghostflower oil from the weapons case between the seat. Three vials were all she had. They could make it last against the ghoul colony in a future hunt if it were diluted in squirt guns with water. A quick drive to get grave dirt and she could crank out ghoul hexes to outfit a whole gang of hunters. They’d need them.
“There was a car accident on main street. The team is tied up.” Callaway rejoined her, explaining with a grumble. “I don’t exactly have the same resources as I did on the LAPD. They still use typewriters at the station.”
“I was told this place was like Mayberry. I’m not seeing it yet.”
Ghouls charged out of the trees toward the Millennium Falcon, their dead arms pumping as their legs covered the scant yards. Their jaws snapped as if anticipating biting into bleeding flesh.
Callaway cursed, firing in a rapid noisy blast. A spray of bullets pierced dead flesh. The ghouls shuddered, black ooze dribbled from the holes, but they kept coming.
Passing a sword from the van to the cop, Red tapped into her magic, reconnecting with the air spell embedded in the leather and crystals on the dashboard. It was for a distraction. This wasn’t a fight for a duo, no matter how dynamic. All the ghouls had to do was nip one of them, and it was a death sentence.
The front ghoul clicked his jaw. Despite the white eyes, a touch of humanity clung to his decaying countenance. He looked fresh enough for people to still grieve him, perhaps a family who deserved better than their loved one gnawing on roadkill and haunting graveyards. Knowing it was a waste and a mercy, she channeled the air to rocket a vial of ghostflower oil at him, plugging his mouth. His maw chomped on the glass, and he fell over.
Small Town Witch: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 5) Page 3