Halfway Bitten

by Terry Maggert

  My phone belled and I read the incoming text. “It’s Brendan. He’ll pick us up at my house for the drive. Says we’re going to the medical facility in Saranac Lake.”

  “Why there?” Wulfric asked. Saranac was well outside his normal range, and I wondered if he could handle crossing that much running water. I could see the same concern in his face.

  “That’s the nearest morgue. But . . . you’d better stay here. It’s too risky,” I concluded.

  He nodded, not in the mood to fight over what could be dangerous in more than one way. Not only would his vampiric nature rebel against so much flowing water, but explaining a large, exotic man with no recorded birth could get dicey if we were questioned.

  “I would ask you something about this examination,” Wulfric said, grimly. Violence danced under his words.

  “Name it.” I took his hand. His fingers were long, and they curled around my entire palm with ease.

  He closed his eyes in thought. When he opened them, they were dark and serious. “Take an image of her face for me. And, perhaps, any wounds you might see.”

  I nodded, slowly. The question of why hung between us.

  “I wish to put a face to this, this . . . affront. And if the wounds are visible, I can tell you what caused them. I’ve had a thousand years among the predators of this place, and there is no claw or fang unknown to me.” A sigh that was heavy with unwanted experience passed through his lips, and I leaned in to kiss him.

  “I won’t be gone long. You can have a staring contest with Gus, or you can sleep. Your choice,” I told him as we rose from the table.

  He responded with a derisive snort. “That cat never blinks. I can feel him passing judgement on me at every turn, like a fishwife who has pretty daughters.”

  I laughed at his frustration. Gus was judging him, just as he did the same to every human who came within range of the golden feline eyes. “Don’t fret, love. It means he tolerates you, and that’s far better than the other option.”

  “Which is?” Wulfric asked as we crossed the street in front of my house.

  “He can, ah, cough a hairball at will. He’s done so before and, given the chance, he can make your life rather gross,” I said, thinking of a date two years earlier that had ended badly thanks to Gus’ displeasure. And I wondered why I’d been single.

  Wulfric stopped on my sidewalk, turning to me in complete disgust. “That—beast—willfully soils one’s belongings with his foul leavings?”

  “Well . . . yes,” I replied mildly. “Don’t act surprised, he’s a cat. It’s what they do.

  Wulfric shook his head in amazement. “And you wonder why I prefer my goats.”

  I took him by the elbow, propelling him to the door as Brendan’s car rolled to a stop a few feet away. “My ride’s here. Play nice with the kitty. I’ll be home before dark, or you can call me if you’d like.”

  “I may do just that.” With great dignity, he opened the front door where Gus was waiting. With a shrug, he stepped through to begin his afternoon with my familiar.

  “Leaving Wulfric with Gus?” Brendan asked, his green eyes gleaming with mischief. He knew both of them, and delighted at the possibility of awkward interspecies tests of will. At my nod, he put the car in gear and said, “My money’s on Gus.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Late For Her Own Funeral

  It took too long to drive up NY-86, but we made it despite my thoughts growing darker with each passing mile. Brendan was unusually quiet; his relentless good cheer muted by our grim purpose. When we arrived at the Medical Center across from Lake Colby, I let a single deep sigh loose that had been bottled inside me, pushing against my chest with each breath. Something was wrong here—my witchmark danced with nervous energy and I felt a charge in the air around me. Without a word, we both crossed the parking lot and turned for the small morgue. The entire reason we were in Saranac Lake was because they had the closest morgue, the next nearest being all the way up in Malone. After a few calls in which he established his bona fides as a normal dude and not some random ghoul, Brendan found out our mysterious dead girl was here, unclaimed, which led me to the moment where I was practically skipping to follow him down the long, austere hall.

  I struggled to keep up with him. He’s tall and skinny, and he walks like they’ve just brought out crab legs at the buffet. We whisked through the first floor of the Adirondack Medical Center with no hesitation—if I’ve learned anything, it’s to act like you belong when you’re doing something that could be construed as troublesome. Asking to see a corpse was just that.

  “Let me go in first. The pathologist on duty seemed friendly, but I don’t want us barging in. I’ll tell her we might know the victim, and see how it goes,” Brendan said.

  Just then, a pleasant-looking woman in scrubs walked out, reading the screen on her phone. Her scrubs were blue, her hair ash blonde, and she looked tired. She carried an empty coffee mug and I waved Brendan to me as my charms fell into my hand without a second thought.

  “Hey, I—” was all he got out before I whispered the invisibility spell into the space between us. There was a sense of lightness, and then nothing unusual at all.

  “Quietly, now.” I walked to the door with quick steps, sliding through as I pulled him in my wake.

  “Are we ghosts?” he asked, bewildered.

  The cooler was a walk-in, and I tugged him onward without pause. “Sort of. We’re invisible. Just be quiet, okay?”

  He mumbled something about witches and Halloween, but I shushed him as we took a look around the lab. It was empty of employees. For now.

  “Follow me. In here,” I directed as I pulled the long handle to the cooler. It clacked with a jarring noise and we both jumped, only to settle as the door swung open to reveal a small cold room designed to hold, at most, six bodies.

  The shelves were empty, save one large covered form. It was enormous, and I knew it couldn’t be the girl.

  “You’re sure this was it?” I asked as the door closed behind us. It was frigid, but not more so than our winters, and the fan blew cold dry air over us so that we had to raise our voices to be heard.

  “Yeah, positive.” He looked around in confusion, then pointed to the left hand side of the smooth steel table on the lower level. There were drops of something gleaming on the polished metal. He went to touch them, but I snatched his hand away.

  “Don’t. Let me.” I took a pen from my pocket and dragged it through the closest drop of liquid. It wasn’t red, nor was it black, but something in between. There was a pearlescent haze over the quivering blob that broke apart into a kaleidoscope of moody bits. Looking at the end of the pen, I brought it close to my nose and sniffed.

  It was death. Not the kind of scent from a person who has passed on into the nether and is returning to a more natural state, but the corruption of something unclean. A thing that is not alive, but willfully denying the completion of its life. There are few things with that smell of violation, but I know most of them. There are ghouls, and ghasts. Mummies. Even the odd wight, or a lich that uses dark arcana to maintain a place somewhere in the muck of existence, but not the being this fluid came from.

  “What is it?” Brendan asked. His eyes were round and filled with fear.

  “Smell this. I want you to know and remember.” I held the pen out to him and he took a delicate sniff, the noise of which was lost to the whirring fan above us.

  Brendan recoiled with animal instinct as the inhuman stench of a vampire filled his nose. “That’s unholy.” His voice was a rasp and he coughed, hard.

  “Vampire. There is nothing else like it in this world. Remember that, and it might save you someday. Okay?”

  He nodded at my exhortations. I didn’t think he would ever forget what he’d learned, but it didn’t hurt to drive the point home. Like a stake, if you will.

  I looked over his shoulder at the zippered bulk of the unknown person who stretched on the right side table. “We’d better look. Something isn’t right.”
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  “If . . . if you think so.” He swallowed, and I swore his Adam’s apple creaked like a screen door in a growing breeze.

  “I do, but still,” I said, letting my charms spread across my palm, which I held up and out like a talisman against the unknown. “Unzip the bag, please.”

  He didn’t want to but, then again, neither did I. With more courage than any librarian ought to have, he pulled at the zipper in a smooth motion, stopping only when I waved him off as he neared the feet of the body.

  “That’s good enough. Let’s take a look.” I took a breath of the cold air and flipped the fabric back with a magician’s flair.

  “Oh, for the spirits’ sake . . .” I fought the urge to cry.

  It was Edward. Or, what had been Edward.

  “Oh my God.” Brendan blanched, and I wasn’t far behind.

  Edward hadn’t been killed, he’d been ravaged. A fist-sized chunk of his neck had been bitten out, and there were deep, vicious cuts down each side of his chest. One arm looked broken.

  One arm was gone.

  I stifled a sob and looked away. He’d been a big guy, but now he seemed reduced. Violated, even. There’s nothing pretty or dignified about death, and I felt a surge of anger at the loss of this man. I thought about his Texan accent, and his presence. Brendan swore, a low sound of frustration and anger.

  “What is that?” he asked. There were drops of blood underneath Edward’s leg, and in the middle of them were the marks of three fingertips.

  I felt my stomach drop. Someone had braced themselves to examine him, maybe, but even that idea seemed off. “Lift his leg for me?”

  Brendan quailed before finding his nerve when I gave him a reassuring smile. Bolstered by my unreasonably-upbeat attitude in the morgue, he propped Edward’s big leg with a measured heave.

  “What are we looking for?” Brendan asked.

  I shrugged. I wasn’t sure myself, but I reached out with my power and let it trail gently over Edward’s body. I was careful to think of reverent thoughts; it was critical to be kind to the shell of a man who had already been violated once.

  “I don’t know, but it isn’t here. There was something, but it’s gone.” We’d missed it, whatever it was, and I felt a black mood begin to drift over me like a bank of storm clouds. I flung the pen in disgust and barely stopped myself from punching something. It wasn’t my most adult move, I admit it, but it seemed like the only thing to do.

  “Would it be that?” Brendan pointed where my pen gleamed near the aluminum transition marking the entrance to the cooler.

  I looked down. There, near my discarded rage pen, was the outline of a foot. A bloody outline, smeared as if left in great haste.

  Kneeling to retrieve the pen, I measured the imprint with my hands. “Does that look like the foot of a young girl?” It was narrow and long, with distinct ticking from claws. Not human. Definitely not petite.

  “Should you, uh, smell it?” Brendan asked. “You know, in case it smells like a vampire?” He shrugged. His logic was solid, but I didn’t need to smell the floor in a morgue under any circumstances. I have standards.

  “Why me?” I countered.

  “Because, you’re the expert.” He folded his arms with the confidence of a trial lawyer.

  “Well, I don’t need to. Because it’s human blood; probably Edward’s. Something came in here and took a bite out of him, and drained him even further. I have no idea why, but I know we won’t find out standing around here. So, if you please?” I motioned to the door. “Quietly. We’re still under my spell, but we aren’t silent.” I began to move and signaled him to wait with a sharp gesture. Pointing at the footprint, I knelt to pry something from the sticky outline, before putting it in the pocket of my jeans. I nodded once, ignored Brendan’s raised brow, and said, “I’ll explain outside.”

  He began an exaggerated pantomime as we pushed on the plunger to open the door. I peeked out to see the pathologist stirring a cup of instant soup while frowning. I didn’t blame her, there was something incredibly sad about tiny dried noodles in a foil pouch. “I feel your pain, sister,” I muttered as we began to creep across the lab like a pair of cat burglars. We’d made it to the main hall door when the metallic thump of the freezer closing caused all three of us to turn in surprise.

  “Twice in one day. I must be seeing things.” The pathologist cast a gimlet eye at the cooler, and then at her soup. “I need a vacation. And some real soup.” Her sigh was real, and I knew she hadn’t seen two ghosts.

  But she’d heard a librarian, a witch, and a vampire. Just not all at once, and it was up to me to figure out who had been here first.

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Sawdust Memories

  “What did you pick up in there?” Brendan asked with some interest.

  We were in the car, moving away with that kind of studied nonchalance that meant we’d clearly been up to something and were in the process of getting away with it.

  I prized the sticky little nugget of grossness out of my pocket. “Sawdust.”

  Brendan smiled and pumped one fist. “This changes everything, Carlie! I mean, sure, we live in the middle of one of the largest forests on the planet, and yeah, every other person works with wood, or logging, or the forestry service, but by golly you have cracked the case!” He grimaced at me with more sarcasm than any librarian should be allowed to know, let alone implement, especially in the car with a witch.

  “There’s no need for your sass. I’m merely pointing out that this is, in fact, sawdust. And it was probably between the toes of whatever it is that took a bite out of Edward. So if you’d be so kind as to stow your ‘tude, I won’t be forced to redecorate your house with Thomas Kinkade paintings.” I smiled sweetly to let him know the threat was real.

  He sniffed, disdainful as a French barmaid. “Paintings can be taken down.”

  “Of course they can, dear. But you won’t want to take these down, since they’ll all match your new magically-applied permanent tattoos. Imagine how popular you’ll be with people over seventy. Cat ladies. Fans of shows like Castle or NCIS:Topeka. You know. The tragically hip,” I said, leaning in to examine his arm for an appropriate spot for the new ink.

  He smiled at me like a robot. “I would like to enthusiastically apologize to my new, and may I say stunningly-beautiful, overlord. Please accept my obedience as part of a—”

  “Okay, good enough. Your skin remains free of snow-covered cabins and general stores with rusty signs. For now.”

  He dipped his head to acknowledge our truce, and I subsided into a kind of daze while the scenery passed by us in a green flicker. I needed time to think. I needed Gran, and Wulfric, but most of all, I needed answers.

  Witches don’t like being kept in the dark. We’re magickers, not mushrooms, and I resolved to find out who was spreading death on my lands.

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Other Lone Wolf

  Afternoons aren’t sad or boring when you’re snuggling in between creatures of two species who are both vying for your attention. Make that two and a half species, since Wulfric wasn’t completely human or vampire. We were sprawled on my couch, discussing the morgue and what he’d seen during his most recent loop through the woods. Unlike me, he actually did smell the piece of sawdust, causing Gus to reward him with a look of pure disgust. Gus might be a cat, but he was remarkably fussy in the way an Italian grandmother might protect a white couch. Overcome by the unsavory presence of human blood, Gus leapt from the couch and strolled out to eyeball his food dish, which was perilously close to being half full. Naturally, that meant he thought starvation was imminent, so I began to mentally prepare myself for a plaintive yowl from the kitchen.

  “I am thinking that we have an uncomfortable solution facing us.” Wulfric trailed a lazy finger over my calf muscle, leaving it for a whirling moment on the bend of my knee. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. It was hard to listen, but his face was a study in thoughtful consideration.

  “Mmm-hmmh,” I answered, in my most schol
arly fashion. His touch really did release the philosopher in my soul. Animalistic tendencies seemed to follow right behind that higher plane of civility, but for now I was paying reasonably close attention to his ruminations.

  “You found sawdust, and there is a missing body. There are clowns inundating your town, a ringmaster from a circus that reeks of magical influence, and lone wolves coming out of the deepest wood to threaten innocent children. Is that an accurate summation of the current status?” he asked, his voice deep and careful.

  “You forgot the horrible murder of Edward,” I added bitterly.

  “Of course, I meant no discourtesy to his memory.” He inclined his head in a formal gesture and went on. Manners were important to people from Wulfric’s time. And my Gran, come to think of it, but for Vikings, manners, or a lack thereof, could get you killed. “In essence, your town is in a rising storm of magical trouble. Blood has been spilled. I see only one solution to further the gain of information that can prevent more violence, and I’m not sure that you will like it.”

  “Whaaaat?” I said, drawing out the word slowly as I cut my eyes at him with growing suspicion. I don’t like surprises, unless it’s my birthday. Or a holiday. Or some kind of food. All right, any kind of food, but no butter beans. They taste like sand and smell like feet. Other than that, food is good.

  “Carlie? Are you here?” Wulfric asked.

  I’d been overcome with thoughts of pie. “I am now. Sorry. Go on,” I said, somewhat sheepishly.

  “I think we must go out tonight. And I think we must go to wherever the clowns are to be found.” He looked at me from under his lashes, watching for a reaction.