Silver and Shadows: A Halfmoon Investigations Urban Fantasy

by Tracy Sharp

  As we stood on the beach, watching the last of the moonlit ripples on the lake, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my duster and felt the ring still nestled in the left one. I pulled it out and showed it to Strummer. “This is the ring Rick dug up. The one that called to him, and allowed Baal to possess him. What do we do with it?”

  “I’m immune to the artifacts of dark magic. Give it to me and I’ll lock it away safely, along with several others I have hidden.”

  I handed it over to him, glad to be rid of it.

  He turned it over, eying it. “This ring is ancient. Interesting how it found its way to the back yard of someone who was so filled with grieving agony and revenge.”

  “You think it moved itself?” The thought was almost too creepy to entertain.

  “Either that, or it’s one hell of a coincidence.” Rae came up beside me, her voice and demeanor softer than it had been since I’d first laid eyes on her, when she’d so casually dropped a load on my car. She turned dark eyes to me. “I’m sorry about Astrid. I know she was a friend.”

  I gave a single, slow nod. There was suddenly a huge lump in my throat and I didn’t trust myself to talk right then.

  Candace walked up, joining us. She held her cell phone in her hand. “I have to call it in, Ezra.”

  I swallowed the lump down. “You can’t. You’re suspended. You don’t need the extra heat after the shapeshifter fiasco. They’ll lock you up on suspicion.”

  She released a long breath. “Right. I forgot.”

  “I’ll do it,” Fiona said. “I was just passing through. Thought I’d take a walk down by the lake.”

  Candace looked toward the parking lot, and I knew she was looking at Fiona’s car, working it out in her head, making sure the story was plausible. “It’ll work. But keep it simple. Don’t add anything to the story you don’t need to. It makes people look guilty.”

  “We are guilty,” Fiona said, and then let out a long breath. “I’ve never met Astrid before tonight, so it shouldn’t be that hard.” Her ghosts were moving around her legs, sensing a shift in her mood, protecting her, always.

  “You’ll need to tell your ghosts to scram,” Candace said.

  She raised her arms, watching as the ghosts wrapped around them like pet snakes. “They will. I can control them.”

  “Okay. We all need to get out of here.” I looked at Strummer, Rae, and Fiona. “Thanks for your help, guys.”

  “You’re welcome,” Strummer said. “Let me give you our cell numbers, so you can actually call us the next time you need us. I’m sorry about Astrid, Ezra. She is a great loss. Friends with true hearts are not easy to find.”

  I couldn’t talk. For a moment I found it hard to even breathe. I gave him a nod and handed him my phone to add their numbers to my contact list. He added mine to his, and then we silently headed to the parking lot.

  “Call us if you have trouble,” Candace said to Fiona. “Any kind of trouble. I don’t like you hanging around a desolate beach at night.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. My ghosts know all kinds of tricks to keep me safe. I’ll be fine. She waited until we were gone before making the call.

  Candace and I were quiet as I drove her home. Her motorcycle waited at the precinct, but we both thought it would be best if she waited until tomorrow to collect it. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight? I can sleep on the couch.”

  Candace opened her mouth to protest, but then closed it. “I’m not usually afraid of anything, Ezra. You know I can handle myself. But, what’s been happening to me over the last twelve hours... with Brodie, and the shapeshifter, and the phantoms hanging around the cruiser. Not gonna lie. I’m a little jumpy.”

  “Understandable. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  I followed her to her door and waited for her to unlock it. The sound of glass crunching under her feet made us both look up. I dug my cell out and used the flashlight feature. The beam from it was bright enough to see that her front door light had been smashed.

  “That’s not good,” I said.

  Candace pointed at the door, which was open about an inch.

  That definitely wasn’t good.

  She reached for her .38, forgetting that it was no longer there. She’d handed it over, along with her badge. “Shit.”

  I motioned her away from the door. She gave me a weird look but followed me back over to my car. “Kind of busy right now, Ez. What’s up?”

  “What are you planning to do? Just stroll in there?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind, yeah.”

  Cops.

  “Listen, if it’s a shifter or other supernatural creature, your gun wouldn’t help you anyway.” I told her. My eyes flicked to the outline of something clinging to her lower leg that could only be a knife. “But that knife you’ve got strapped to your leg might do some damage, depending on what it’s made of. Let me see it.”

  Her face brightened as she seemed to remember the knife. “Oh, yeah. A lady named Iona who owns a mystical shop in Albany gave it to me, after Brodie tried to kill me. She took care of him with something similar.”

  I raised my brows at the deadly looking knife. “I know Iona. She’s good people.”

  “Yeah. She saved my bacon.” She handed the dagger to me and I turned it over. It gleamed under the light from my phone.

  I nodded. Impressed. “This blade is iron and silver. Perfect for all sorts of monsters.”

  “Good to know. But let’s admire the craftsmanship later.” Candy took the knife from me and held it up, at the ready, using her other hand to push open the door and step inside. She stood still for a second, listening, looking around the room. Then she whispered, “Stay here.”

  “Not a chance,” I whispered back.

  She threw me an annoyed look, but continued into the room. I stayed close behind her, ready to use my new-found wizard magic at any time. Strangely, even as my heart battered my chest and adrenaline shot through me, I felt a rush of pride and excitement. I was a wizard. The real deal. I might not even need weapons to kill monsters.

  There were many questions I needed answered, I’d needed to find out the secret that Strummer mentioned to Baal. I’d get to that later. But for now, the knowledge that I was a wizard was enough.

  The sound of low growling made my skin break out in gooseflesh. There was an animal in the house. And the sulfuric smell of it told me it was a supernatural one.

  I sensed movement up ahead. “Wait.”

  Candy stopped.

  We looked around in the gloom, waiting. I felt my hair lift at the back of my neck, and on my arms and legs.

  I saw a dribble of sweat trace its way down the back of Candy’s neck.

  Something moved up ahead. A whisper on carpet. Then another. And another.

  And then we saw it.

  An enormous, muscular creature with two huge, blocky heads, ears pointing up, stepped slowly into the hallway from Candace’s bedroom. Hell hound. Both heads bared mouths full of razor sharp, spike-like teeth, the eyes glowing red.

  I raised my hands and focused all of my intent on zapping the thing. Heat raced up my arms, making them tingle, and I grinned as I felt energy crackle in my fingers.

  It snarled and growled, mouth frothing.

  I threw my hands forward, pointing at the hell hound. “Eat this, you ugly mutt.”

  My fingers sizzled faintly, and nothing else. “Oh, snap.”

  “Any other ideas?” She said, her tone rising in fear.

  “You’ve got the knife. Use it if it comes at you.” I grabbed Sally from my holster and aimed at the thing just as it started toward us. Candace stepped forward and jammed the dagger into one of the creature’s throats. The blade glowed as Candace sliced through the flesh easily, severing most of the neck, but leaving the head hanging by a few bloody strings. The swinging head gnashed its teeth silently, while the other head howled.

  The hell hound launched itself into the air, just missing Candace’s blade. It came straight for me, an
d I followed it, aiming for its heart. Shooting a moving target isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. If I missed this thing, it would tear out my throat.

  But in that second I felt myself grow calm, and my eyes became hyper focused. When the creature was a mere couple of feet from me I pulled the trigger.

  And missed.

  Vaguely, I heard smashing glass. A window had shattered. Someone had either gotten in or Candace had jumped through a window. I didn’t think she’d leave me to fight a hell hound on my own, so someone must’ve broken in. Or something had.

  The hound’s front claws gouged my chest as it landed on me, and the hanging head snapped jagged teeth, trying to get at my face. The head that was still attached frothed, chomping at the air, aiming for my throat. I tried to use my arms to push it far enough away that I could shoot it again. Sally is long, and the hell hound was right on top of me.

  The hanging head sank teeth into my arm and the pain was so fierce that the breath went right out of me. But I still didn’t drop Sally.

  The hound’s remaining attached head kept coming at me, dripping saliva onto my chest and neck. I shoved my a hand up and jammed two fingers deep into its eyes. It shrieked and backed off just enough for me to raise Sally up. With gouged, dripping eyes it came at me again, blindly snapping at my face, and I shoved the Sally’s barrel deep into its throat.

  I pulled the trigger and its head exploded.

  Pulling Sally out of what was left of the head I’d just shot, I pressed her into the ear of the head still chewing at me, and pulled the trigger again.

  The teeth stopped biting as the head blew apart, but the portion of muzzle holding the hell dog’s top teeth remained embedded in my arm.

  I pulled the bloody remains of the hound’s muzzle out of my arm, wincing, and tossed them to the floor. Adrenaline had numbed some of the pain, for now, but I was pretty sure it would come back with a vengeance.

  It took me a second to realize that Candy was gone.

  “Candy!” I pushed myself up and scrambled toward her bedroom, where I thought the sound of breaking glass had come from. Either someone had broken in or someone had broken out. I was hoping for the latter.

  But when I got to her room, she wasn’t there. I ran to the window, now open, wind blowing the curtains inward. I peered down into her side yard. “Candace!”

  There was no answer.

  15

  Candace

  As Candace moved to slice the monster’s other throat, she felt a steely grip wrap around her upper arms and lift her off her feet. In an instant she was whipping backward, her hallway and bedroom walls whizzing by at an otherworldly speed. She had time to realize that something supernatural had hold of her as she heard glass break. She only registered that they’d smashed through her bedroom window as she watched shards of glass fly outward from the air as she was pulled away from the house.

  Something was holding her tight, binding her upper arms, as it flew backward though the night. She looked down at the ground beneath her feet, only a blur under starlight. She realized that she still had the knife. She clenched it, and in one swift motion Candace jerked the lower part of her knife arm up and sliced at one of the arms that held her.

  Candace heard a surprised shriek of pain, and the grip on her loosened. She sliced the other. She sliced again and again until she felt the arms let go of her. A shriek of shocked fury ripped through the night.

  And then she hit the ground, a spike of pain shooting through her hip. She rolled over and over, and finally stopped. She was disoriented, and it took a few seconds to push herself up to her knees, and then to her feet. She frantically looked above her for the thing that had held on to her, bulleting through the air. She turned, and then she saw it.

  The female had landed a few feet in front of her, and it was like looking in a mirror.

  She was staring into her own eyes. A chill went through her.

  Her duplicate smiled at her, and Candace had a second to stare at her before her copy kicked the knife from her hand, and grabbed her by the throat. Candace hadn’t even seen her move.

  Within seconds, the world faded away.

  Ezra

  I ran from Candy’s room and out the door, shouting her name. I scoured the ground beneath her window, searching for something, anything that would tell me where she’d been taken. On a square of light shining on the ground beneath her smashed window, my eye caught sight of something. I picked it up. It was her powder blue hair band.

  The sound of a twig cracking made me look up.

  Candy walked toward me, a grin on her face.

  Relief washed over me so fast that I legs would buckle. “Candy. Holy hell. I thought something really bad had happened to you.”

  “Something really bad did happen to me.” She had a strange smile on her face.

  “But you’re okay. What happened?” I squeezed her hair band between my fingers. Her hair was still tied back, with a light blue hair band. Did she carry more than one? I was about to hand it to her, but something held me back. Instead I shoved it in a pocket to deal with later. My mind was confused, and it seemed like I couldn’t string two thoughts together. A state that often happens to me when I look at Candy, but something was definitely off about her this time. Looking at her, I felt drugged.

  “Something, I don’t know what it was, but I think it was one of those things that got Brodie, grabbed me from behind and took me for a little ride.” She still wore that odd little smile.

  That smile seemed out of place, and I found it unnerving. “How did you get away from it?”

  My eyes dropped to the knife in her right hand. She held it proudly up. “This thing comes in handy. I need to go thank Iona for it. I’m going to pay her a visit.”

  I watched as she did a few slashes through the air like a knife fighting expert. Weird, because Candy was left handed. Maybe the left was her gun hand and the right was her knife hand? It didn’t make sense, but right now nothing did. Damn, I was tired. So tired.

  Something wasn’t right. I felt like I should know what it was, but I just wasn’t thinking straight.

  Her abnormally bright eyes flicked to my arm. “You look a little worse for the wear.”

  I raised my arm to look at it, seeing the blood soaking the now tattered arm of my duster. All at once the agony I’d been numbed from slammed into it, and my head hurt so badly that I swooned.

  Candy walked over, and I noticed, through my haze of agony, that something was off about her movements, too. She seemed... slinkier. But that wasn’t quite right, either. It was as if her arms, legs, and torso were stretching.

  I blinked as she slunk toward me, and then shook my head to clear it. It didn’t help, but instead seemed to make me feel dizzy. And then Candy was standing in front of me, smiling that creepy little smile. “Just close your eyes, Ezra. Sleep.”

  My eyes grew heavy, but then I saw something that broke her spell and woke me up at all once.

  Candy’s mole. It was on the wrong side, sitting above the right side of her mouth.

  Candace

  Candy was dreaming. She was a little girl of five visiting her father in prison. But there was no visiting room. She stood in front of his cell as his big fingers clenched the bars and he stared down at her with his cold, green eyes. Eyes she’d never found comfort in. Her father had always been like a cold wind going through her.

  She stood looking up at him, not knowing what to say, and feeling so chilled; right through to her soul. She wanted to leave. Looking at her father reminded her of the time her aunt had taken her to the aquarium, and they stopped in front of the shark tank. The eyes of the sharks were emotionless, bottomless.

  She turned to leave, but the creaking of the cell door made her turn back. The cell door had opened, and now her father had her by the arm, and he was dragging her into his cell with him. His lips didn’t move, but his voice was in her head, loud and clear.

  You don’t belong out here, little girl. You belong in hell.
I’m going to make sure you get there.

  Candace’s eyes snapped open, her heart pounded in her ears.

  Someone was tugging on both of her arms now. She was being dragged across a field. Her arms were stretched over her head, and he had hold of both her wrists as he dragged her backwards, deeper into the field. Small rocks cut through her t-shirt as if she wasn’t wearing one at all. She squinted and peered into the darkness, trying to see who was dragging her. She could make out wide shoulders, and a large, strangely round head. The guy’s head looked like a friggin’ bowling ball.

  He panted as he kept talking. “Yes, Ma’am. There’s a reason you passed out drunk on my doorstep. The devil brought you to me. He wants a sacrifice, and I’m gonna give him one. Gonna send you to hell, where drunk whores like you belong. My mother was a drunk. I hate drunks.”

  A lunatic. Lovely. Candace tried to calm her panic so that she could figure out how to get out of this.

  If he thought she was still sleeping, she’d have a better chance. She’d make her move when he let her arms go. If he was just a typical, woman hating nutcase, she could take him. She squinted between her eyelashes at his pants pockets to look for the outline of a gun. It was dark. She couldn’t tell. And even if he didn’t have one in a pocket, it could be tucked into the back of his waistband. But his sweatshirt was bulky. He was bulky all over.

  He stopped and dropped her hands, and she let them flop to the cool, damp grass. She could smell damp earth, like this place never quite dried completely out from the rain.

  It became darker behind her eyes and she knew he was leaning over her, blocking out the moon. His breath on her face turned her stomach. It smelled like he’d been dining out of a cat box. All the breath mints in the world wouldn’t help this guy. He was way past helping; in so many ways.

  He stayed like that, watching her, his breaths coming faster as his excitement over having her at his mercy took over.