Bare Bones

by Debra Dunbar

  Oh. Yeah. I was the victim. The only known survivor. Of course they wanted me to come in. “Can’t my statement wait until I’ve cleaned up a bit and taken a nap?”

  The detective squirmed again. “No. It’s not just a statement. They’re considering charging you with firing a weapon in a public place.”

  He had to be joking. He must be joking.

  “If it had been me, I still would have needed to fill out a stack of reports to justify every bullet fired,” he explained, his voice pleading with me to be cooperative. “I want them to see you injured, not all cleaned up and rested. I want the reporting officer to see you and know you were fearing for your life. That plus your very valuable information on the skinner case should make all of this go away.”

  I was never carrying a gun again. This was total bullshit. Supernatural baddies killing innocent people, and I was going to be hung out to dry for trying to stop them. With a gun. None of this would have happened if I had gotten my sword past the girl at the door. I still would have wound up duct-taped in the basement of an abandoned house, but at least I wouldn’t be facing jail time.

  “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

  Tremelay helped me to my feet. I made sure I shuffled to his car like a B-movie zombie, exaggerating every ache and pain. I knew it wasn’t his fault, but someone needed to feel guilty about this whole thing.

  This time it was my turn in the hot seat of the interview room. Five officers were squashed with me in the tiny space. I was pretty sure that was against regulations as well as the fire code, but there seemed to be a lot of interest in Tremelay’s occult expert who’d gotten nabbed by the skinner and managed to walk away with her skin mostly intact.

  The five officers looked carefully at me. My pants were shredded and stained with blood. My arms had diagonal cuts all over them. I took a few shallow breaths and tried to look miserable. It wasn’t a stretch, even for someone with my poor acting ability. Once again I recited my story, carefully omitting the rebound spell and any magical details that would make me look like a crazy. Although I guess I could explain it all as confusion from my whack on the head.

  “They were both cutting you with knives?” One of the officers asked. He was busy scribbling in a notebook. I assumed he was the one who was going to have to fill out the report on the shots-fired-at-the-rave call.

  “Just the one. The other guy seemed reluctant to join in, but when I started bashing my attacker in the face with the pistol, he decided to help his buddy.”

  “Wait. You fired the gun, emptied it, but still didn’t take down your attacker?”

  Here’s where I got to look like a complete idiot, someone who should never be allowed to even look at a gun, let alone fire one.

  “Yeah. Maybe he was wearing a vest?” It was my only idea that might salvage my reputation as a sort-of badass Templar.

  “At that range it would have knocked him back.” The officer rubbed his chest, clearly remembering the feel of a slug hitting a vest. “It would have had some effect, even if it didn’t kill him. But we didn’t find any slugs in the walls either. Where the heck did you aim when shooting?”

  Crap. Back to looking like an idiot. I rubbed the bumps on my head and blinked innocently. “He’d bounced me against the concrete back wall earlier. Maybe my vision was wonky? I’m trying to remember as best as I can.”

  It must have worked because my interrogator moved on. “Then the other guy hit you in the head and you don’t remember anything until waking up, duct-taped in a basement?”

  “Yeah. They came down before I could get free and started discussing how to kill me.”

  I saw the sympathy on their faces, especially the woman standing next to the guy scribbling in the notebook. “Did they rape you?” she asked softly.

  “Thank God, no.” I shook my head. “The one who’d attacked me at the concert told the other to kill me and dispose of my body.”

  The woman exchanged a glance with one of the other officers. “So it sounds like the one is more of a reluctant accomplice. Maybe the main killer has some kind of hold over him, a family member’s safety perhaps?”

  “He let me go, and left my cell phone so I could call for help.” I’d already told them this, but it bore repeating. I really wanted Lawton to escape the death penalty if possible.

  “And you recognized them?” The note-taking officer asked.

  I nodded, thinking fast. Even though Gary had assumed Travis Dawson’s identity, I really didn’t want to sully the dead kid’s reputation. “Bradley Lewis was the guy who attacked me. He seems to be the ring leader. I didn’t recognize the other one. He was young, African-American, medium height and build. I think he was in the band? Or maybe not.”

  I hated to throw Bradley Lewis under the bus, but someone had to take the blame for this and Unknown Skinwalker Mage didn’t seem a sane response. Hopefully I was vague enough on Lawton’s description to allow him some legal wiggle room if he got caught.

  “Bradley Lewis?” the woman exclaimed. “But I thought the body from the Lewis garage came back as his.”

  I shrugged, trying once more for the dazed-and-confused look. “It was either him or he’s got a twin running around.”

  The officer finished scribbling in his notebook, then looked at the others. “Think I’m done here.”

  Thank heaven. They all filed out of the interview room, leaving me alone with my injuries on a hard chair with a Styrofoam cup of the worst coffee ever. It seemed like hours, but ten minutes later Tremelay came back in with a handful of papers.

  “They wanted to charge you with discharge of a weapon in a public place, but given the circumstances they’ve decided to drop the charges if you agree to ten hours of community service.”

  Community service. Exactly what I’d been doing for the last month, and I’d sure as heck done more than ten hours of it. “Does time served count? Protecting the city from death mages, and skinwalkers? Can I include that or do I need to squeeze in some soup kitchen hours in between hunting supernatural killers?”

  He winced. “I know, I know. Just go pick up trash in the park or something. Ten hours isn’t much.”

  For him, maybe. For me ten hours of community service was like a slap in the face. This sucked. Really, really sucked. I was at the rave doing official police business, accompanied by a detective who’d given me the gun, and I was now being punished for helping out. Just peachy.

  The rest of the process couldn’t have gone quick enough for either me or Tremelay. He fast tracked me through the paperwork, I signed on the line, then followed him to his unmarked car to drive back to the rave site where my Toyota was still parked.

  All I wanted to do when I got home was turn on some television and finish off that expensive chianti, then take a nap. Screw them all. Community service, my ass.

  But I was a Templar and I couldn’t let these skinwalkers run around my city killing people, even if the police had just given me the equivalent of a giant butt-hurt. There was no time for sulking. I had other things to do—like find out why my rebound spell hadn’t worked against whatever the two skinwalkers had done to make me so sleepy. And how I was going to subdue these two. They were strong and fast and impervious to bullets. They could change appearance, but outside of the sleepy-time thing, they didn’t seem to have any magical abilities. There had been plenty of opportunity to cast a spell, yet they hadn’t. According to the Garza book, which I was beginning to think was a complete fabrication, skinwalkers were basically witch-mages. Outside of mauling people in their animal form, the majority of their violence was in the form of spells. These kids were teens. Surely they would have known some basic spells by now? If their mentor had taken the time to teach them the very advanced techniques of using skins to assume another’s form, then he had to have taught them a few charms and hexes.

  I drove home mulling over my complete lack of reliable knowledge on these creatures. Garza had let me down. There weren’t many other texts I could turn to. In a wild mo
ment I considered calling the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. and asking them if I could speak to a specialist on Navajo spellwork. Maybe I’d been going about this the wrong way by checking my Templar books. I had no other ideas. Researching Native American myths and legends through the museum and internet sources might be my only option. Perhaps I’d get lucky and find a gem among the thousands of pages of muck.

  Making my way through the wards and physical locks, I entered my shabby apartment and put my sword on the kitchen counter, wincing as my bruised rib muscles pulled with the motion. The painkillers Tremelay had given me were wearing off, and who knew how much aspirin I had left from last month’s demon-attack injuries. I needed to start buying the stuff in bulk.

  The little fox figurine stared at me from the coffee table, its eyes once again bright red. I picked it up and brought it with me to the dining room table strewn with books and my laptop.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I told Raven. “Because I’m really going to need your help on this one.” I told her of the night’s, and morning’s, activities then set her in front of the laptop. Hopefully Raven could come up with something, because right now the only thing I was capable of was sleep.

  Chapter 31

  MY EYELIDS WOULDN’T open. I couldn’t move, but I could hear and feel everything. I recognized the dank smell of mildew and turpentine and my heart raced as I realized I was back in the basement. I’d just escaped…hadn’t I?

  “Don’t mess up her skin,” I heard Gary say. “It would be really cool to be a Templar. Imagine what I could do in that skin. I could take my Oath, gain entrance to the Temple, steal all that magical shit. Her family would never know. I’d visit them and slaughter them in their sleep. Everyone would think it was a Lizzie Borden murder.”

  I heard a girl’s laugh. “I’ll be careful. A Templar and a vampire. We’ll rule the world. Forget about this stinking town. Forget about Lawton. He was always a weakling, always a cry baby. We don’t need him.”

  It felt like a razorblade was slicing into my waist. I tried to scream but nothing came out. Inch by agonizing inch the pain moved upward and outward, my skin separating from the muscle. Why couldn’t I wake up? I needed to wake up.

  My own hoarse shriek woke me. I flailed against invisible foes before realizing I was alone in my bedroom, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. My ribs ached with every deep breath, my head throbbed. Desperately needing to check, I threw off the covers and pulled up my tank-top, running my fingers along my waist. There was nothing there beyond the rough circle of the demon mark.

  It was bad enough losing sleep over my killing Dark Iron, now I was having nightmares about being skinned alive. This had to stop. I needed to come to terms with my choices, have faith in my abilities as a Templar, and face my fears head-on.

  A Templar. Maybe that was my problem. I’d been chasing these skinwalkers like a mage with a research book in one hand and spells, or a gun, in the other. My faith had been shaken and I wasn’t thinking of this as a Warrior of God. Research was good. Research helped you prepare for what you were about to face. But when you faced it, all a Templar needed was her sword and her faith.

  I had my sword. Time to find my faith.

  The shower felt good aside from the sting of dozens of slices on my arms and legs. Once I was clean I treated and bandaged my cuts, an entire box of Band-Aids now decorating my body. Refreshed, I headed toward the laptop with renewed purpose. Tremelay was, no doubt, checking all the addresses associated with Travis Dawson and this Strike kid. I’d spend the rest of the day in research and in prayer, and when the night came, I was going to hunt a skinwalker. Two actually, although I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill the one.

  The cursor blinked on my laptop. Raven had been hard at work while I’d slept. Your> reversal spell was solid. The sleepiness must not be a spell. Chloroform? Some kind of nitrous gas maybe? When they cut you with the knife, did they dose you with something?

  Raven had come through, managing to type on the computer. I wanted to hug her, but hugging a three inch resin fox seemed kind of weird.

  My spell was good. At least I knew I hadn’t flubbed that one up, but then what was the sleepy-time thing the skinwalkers had used on me? “I would have smelled chloroform, although nitrous or some other knockout gas is a possibility.” I said to Raven. “But if he had a canister of gas I think I would have noticed, and wouldn’t he have been affected too?”

  The keys tapped slowly, one agonizing letter at a time. Maybe not skinwalker?

  I really didn’t want to face that option but none of the methods Garza suggested had worked. And Lawton insisted he hadn’t killed anyone—which was a key means in gaining the skill. And now the weird sleep thing. A skinwalker should use spells. These guys didn’t use spells. And whatever they’d done to make me want to take a nap in the middle of a fight for my life it wasn’t magic. It had to be a skill native to a non-human creature.

  I’d been wrong. Which meant I was back to square one. Not skinwalker. Not shapeshifter. Not demon possession. What were these things?

  In desperation I shoved the Peterson and Garza book aside and searched for “creature,” “supernatural,” “human skin” on the internet.

  What came up was a mishmash of parasitic skin infections, video game references, and a whole host of very creative tattoo art. Out of desperation I added “South Carolina” to the mix, figuring the kids had been taken and held in the state for ten years. It was possible whatever creature took them was indigenous to the state.

  Skinwalkers. Page after page of skinwalker lore, a few articles about a taxidermist who gave ghost tours, and a legend from Gullah culture about something called a Boo Hag.

  Hag was typically another name for witch, and I’d already determined that these two guys weren’t casting spells, so I set that one aside and started reading the skinwalker articles, hoping outside of all the crazy misinformation on the internet, somebody would have insights into how to stop these guys. At this point I didn’t care what I called them, I just needed to catch them.

  I was on my third cup of coffee and on page two of my internet search when I heard a knock. It was Sean Merrill at my door.

  Chapter 32

  WHAT WAS JANICE’S boyfriend doing here? Without Janice. And how did he get my address? This was even more suspicious than him stopping by the coffee shop where I worked.

  “Can I come in?”

  There was no reason for me not to invite him in, other than the fact that he was my friend’s boyfriend and he was carrying something that looked like a large hard-sided briefcase from the ’80s.

  I was curious, though. Even cut up and with a mild concussion, I was reasonably confident I could take down the tall, skinny developer if he tried anything. Especially with my sword at hand.

  “Yeah. Come on in.” I’d need to tell Janice about this visit. It was just too weird for her boyfriend to come calling on me solo.

  Sean walked in, setting the odd briefcase on my kitchen counter and wandering over to the dining room table where my laptop sat open to a page on Shaman skinwalkers. He ran his finger down the monitor while I waited with growing impatience for him to speak.

  “Skinwalkers mainly use animals to assist their journeys across the veil into the spirit world, as well as to assume the form and power of the animal, whether for benign reasons or not.” He closed the laptop. “You’re looking in the wrong place. You need to be researching Boo Hag.”

  Every muscle in my body tensed. A land developer, a patron of the arts, and now a man knowledgeable about North American paranormal creatures. Who was this Sean Merrill?

  “Boo Hag.” I let the words hang in the air, as a sort of prompt for him to go on.

  “The killers,” he explained patiently. “They’re not serial killers or skinwalkers or demons. They’re Boo Hag.”

  “They don’t cast spells.” I wasn’t sure why I was telling him this. Perhaps it was because I was frustrated and desperate. Heck, if I was
relying upon the internet to give me the answers, I shouldn’t balk at listening to what this guy had to say.

  “No. Boo Hag aren’t the witches that the legends say. We’re a race of creatures that live primarily in the Carolinas.”

  We. A chill went through me. Sean moved toward the kitchen, flipping the latches on his briefcase. I flinched with each snap, wrapping my fingers around the hilt of my sword.

  “Sit down.” A smile took the command out of the words. Out of the briefcase came two martini glasses, a bottle of Haymans 1850 Reserve gin, and a slew of accessories. “You a one or two olive woman?”

  “It’s barely after noon,” I protested.

  He opened the gin and poured a generous amount in the tumbler. “It’s never too early for a martini.”

  This guy would have fit right in with my family. Martini lunch, indeed. I sat, not sure what to make of this. “Two olives. Dirty, please.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows, the first suggestive move he’d made since he’d come through the door. “I always figured that about Templars. It’s the straight-laced ones with swords who like it dirty.”

  Sean poured the two martinis, placed one before me then sat down opposite me with the other. “Back to the topic at hand. Boo Hag generally live in clans. We survive by taking a small amount of life essence from the breath of sleeping humans. We seldom kill unless cornered and threatened. We’re a secretive race, who only want to live in peace among the humans.”

  Yeah. Except there was something missing from his speech. “These three have killed. And what’s with the human skins? That hardly seems peaceful.”

  He winced, taking a sip of his martini before answering me. “Our natural form is alarming to humans. There’s no way we’d survive if we walked around looking like a skinned corpse. Each of us find a human to impersonate. We take their skin, and become that person, keeping that identity until the human skin ages to the point where we can no longer use it. Generally we need to assume a new identity every forty to sixty years, depending on the age of the skin when we take it.”