Lynx was right about one thing. The fire packet wasn’t lethal enough. I’d made better since then. How many would it take to kill a ghoul? How many chances would I get anyway?
While I mixed new fire packets from soft silver, White Feather retrieved the remains of the tattoo ink from the backyard safe. Theoretically the ink should provide us with an early warning, but the construct ink was now removed a degree or two from the actual ghoul. Still, all the tats had been made from some of the same blood sources.
I set the first part of the witching fork and White Feather set the second. The magic would either follow the convoluted path or it wouldn’t.
There were only four large cemeteries in Santa Fe, but countless smaller ones. For that matter, local ghost stories—which could easily be lost souls—were as common as restaurants, especially around the churches in Santa Fe.
“We better hope the ghoul doesn’t park itself in The National Cemetery. We could hike that all night and Rosario next to it and never spot the ghoul,” White Feather complained.
“Meanwhile, some other ghosts or haunt will probably kill us. We’ll never get this job done,” was my own sour prediction.
“You do have a tendency to attract ghosts.”
I sniffed. “I do not.”
White Feather turned his attention back to the Google map. “San Isidro is nice and isolated, but it’s small. Wouldn’t feed a ghoul for long.”
“National is closer to where Joe has been operating. Near the plaza and the jewelry stores. But who knows how much information the ghoul retains from its host?”
“Fairview and Guadalupe aren’t really any further from the plaza than National,” White Feather estimated.
Lynx finished his burrito and pulled out his cell phone. I sincerely hoped he wasn’t texting Tara as a “just in case.” If the ghoul ate any of us, she wasn’t going to be able to squeeze us back out.
I studied the map. “The other part of Rosario is directly across the street from St. Vincent’s Health Center. Plenty of new business for the cemetery. Just roll the bodies straight over, no waiting. Did Gordon agree to ask the patrols to watch for any disturbances at the graveyards?”
“Supposedly, but he accompanied Mat to Tent Rock. Do you two really think Martin will know where the ghoul is hiding?”
Lynx snapped his phone shut. “Fairview.”
“What?” We faced him.
“Got a friend at the deaf school nearby. Met him a few months back, remember when you got yourself chased there?”
Nice way to phrase “running for my life” from some overzealous bouncer guy who had followed me from a nearby club with his gun. “I remember.”
“My friend was in the graveyard that night. He’s not supposed to be, but it’s the only place he can hear. So he hangs out there a lot. Not like you were hard to find with all the noise you were making, but he could hear the ghosts complaining about you. Some ghost dude told him trouble was brewing, and once he figured out I was looking for you, he said he’d watch my back. Didn’t need it, but that isn’t the point.”
“Wait a minute. Didn’t you just say he attends the deaf school?” Lynx nodded. “And he hears ghosts in the cemetery?”
Lynx shrugged. “Ghosts talk. They don’t even have to sign to him. I texted him just now, and he said there was shrieking and then nothing but quiet. Said it ain’t ever quiet in the graveyard.”
White Feather asked, “He doesn’t hear anything but ghosts?”
“None of my business if he does. We hang out now and then. Plus, you never know where business might come from, and he’s thrown some my way. He’s cool.”
I did not want to know what kind of business Lynx did for a deaf kid who could hear ghosts. Not that Lynx would tell me anyway. “You better text him back and tell him to stay far away tonight.”
Lynx gave me his slant eyes, which I assumed meant he had it covered.
Chapter 39
Grounding in a cemetery is barely tolerable for an earth witch. Yes, Mother Earth claims bodies, ashes to ashes and all that, but it takes time and there’s a lot of stuff between reclamation and died yesterday. Not every grave is peaceful either. Some are too peaceful, guarded by a sense of holiness that means setting off a spell near one would be a big mistake.
There were metals, including silver, in cemeteries. I did not want to call any of it, not even by accident. Underneath my feet, fluid was especially suspect including ordinary mud on my shoes. This was New Mexico. No one wasted water on a lawn in a cemetery, especially in the dead of winter. Anything oozing under the ground was...I did not want to know. I did not want to think about it, and I did not want to ground to it, around it or through it.
An earth witch without her link is about as useful as feathers on a cow. The cow can’t use the feathers to fly and somewhere there is a naked, very unhappy chicken missing its feathers. I was that chicken.
It was four in the morning, and cloudy and cold enough to freeze a naked chicken, even though I’d worn my ski jacket. It had lots of pockets, which was a requirement because I’d emptied my backpack into them. The lethal stuff was on my bracelet, exposed for immediate access.
We parked the jeep along the roadway closest to the center of the graveyard. The jeep was one of White Feather’s projects, but at the moment, we needed it more for its clearance and space than its ability to run on alternative energies.
Lynx tagged along, much to my complete surprise. His mouth set tight, he had plopped himself in the backseat of the jeep and said not a word. I don’t know what he thought he could accomplish. I wasn’t sure what any of us could accomplish.
If we failed, our backup was Granny Ruth and Patrick. There was no doubt Granny was hard at work on a spell, but spells take time, and leaving a ghoul running loose for a few days to eat its way to superman strength was not a plan, it was suicide.
The cemetery road circled the perimeter and almost made a cross through it, but the right branch of the cross was angled. From the center, we could explore any of the sections.
Seen one grave, seen them all was my frozen opinion.
We trooped forward in an arrow formation, White Feather taking point and Lynx and I with the witching forks to either side and a step behind him. Using lights would only announce us as live bait, so we stumbled along in the dark. Well, White Feather and I stumbled; Lynx didn’t have much of a problem.
We tried to avoid the headstones, although we only passed two that had freshly mounded dirt. With the rest of the graves it was impossible to tell which direction the body had been buried in relation to the tombstone unless the plot was surrounded by a gate or rock border. Most of the graves had been around a long time, and the dirt was hard-packed. Many of the headstones were crooked, fallen or missing entirely.
We were halfway to nowhere when Lynx grabbed White Feather’s arm and yanked back, hard. My ring flared like a beacon as panic shot through me. I grounded, shutting the ring down, but it was enough to glimpse what Lynx had seen.
“Patrick didn’t say anything about the ghoul digging up and eating bodies.” My voice was a low croak as my brain processed the images. The grave in front of White Feather’s next step was a yawning pit of darkness. The headstone had crashed over into sunken earth. Dirt was haphazardly piled, landing mostly on two sides of a blackness that was either a hole waiting for a body or a hole now missing a body.
“Watch it with the light,” Lynx hissed at me.
“Sorry.” I hadn’t even known I could do that. Actually, I wasn’t sure I had done it. My panic may have caused the stone to contract or White Feather’s wind...no, it had been energy from Mother Earth. When I linked here, I barely skimmed, but power leaked up through the rock. I had felt the ring react before, but it hadn’t been dark enough for me to fully appreciate the flare of light. With my heart trying to crawl out my throat and leave, it was not the best time to concentrate on new discoveries.
The witching fork in my hand quivered in the direction of Acequia Trail, the
road that bordered the north and west side of the cemetery.
My nose twitched cold. My hands were lumps of ice. Was it because of the nighttime temperature or because we were wandering through graves and ghosts we couldn’t see? Of course, if we found our quarry and didn’t succeed, we wouldn’t have to worry about reserving a premium spot. We’d be gobbled up; no need to dig, no need for a headstone. We’d be nothing more than an impression on the face of a ghoul until the next meal.
Before we could get our bearings, a voice broke the silence. “Some-ing ‘ere.” The body that went with it stepped from behind a tall grave marker on our left, the same direction as Acequia.
I almost clamped down on a shriek, but didn’t quite manage it.
White Feather pulled my arm, dragging me back from the open grave and the human shape that had spoken from the other side of the pit. He smacked the human shape with wind, blowing it back and over.
“Moonlight...!” Was the human shape the corpse from the grave? Maybe the ghoul hadn’t eaten the corpse. Did that mean we had to kill a zombie too? Before we even located the ghoul?
“It’s Roberto,” Lynx yelped. “Stop! It’s my bud, the one from the school!”
The breeze cut off, leaving swirls of dust from the sudden drop of forced air.
“Roberto?” I echoed. My brain registered what Lynx said even as the witching fork conveyed its own news. Roberto scrambled to his feet and darted sideways.
The witching fork tugged in the same direction almost as fast as he moved, following Lynx’s friend, the guy who was the reason we had chosen this graveyard.
Chapter 40
The open grave was between us and him. Roberto wasted no time diving behind a tall tombstone. The marker was a lumpy cherub perched on a larger platform, providing plenty of space to hide. The silver on my bracelet went hot and then cold. The turquoise shuddered its own warning.
Lynx dodged around me on his way to navigate the hole in front of us. He headed straight for the ghoul.
“Lynx, no!” I meant to yell, but it was a croaking gasp. “Lynx! The witching fork!” He wasn’t as practiced as I was in listening to the subtle tugs of the magic. The fork had definitely indicated.
“Lyyn?” Roberto’s voice was more ghost wail than speech. Because he was deaf, he’d probably never heard regular speech unless you counted the ghosts. And who knew how perfectly they enunciated?
Lynx loped around the open grave before coming to a sudden standstill. His hand was up; his head bowed down. The fork pull must have finally registered because he not only halted, he backed up a step, forgetting the dug-out pit yawning wide behind him. A funny sideways leap that only a cat could execute kept him from tumbling down into the open grave.
Roberto, still hidden behind the tombstone, made another noise, a gurgle or gasp.
I drew from Mother Earth through the diamond, slower this time. The contact rattled my teeth. Along with the sparks of light from the ring, the smell of decay and the displaced sound of far away wind chimes bombarded my senses. Holding this ground was worse than when helping Tara.
Metal grated on metal inside my head, but we needed the light. “Moonlight madness!” My calling light into the ring threatened to open every crypt within the cemetery. I dropped the witching fork, and snatched the silver dagger from my boot.
White Feather already held a short silver sword in one hand and a silver bayonet in the other.
Instead of Roberto pouncing on Lynx, the teen peered around the tombstone, transfixed by the light. Short black hair trapped bits of dirt and a long-lost leaf. His mouth formed a soundless cry that communicated nothing.
He scooted into the open, his hands clearly visible in a universal, ‘I mean no harm’ gesture.
The dark shadow that followed him was twice his height.
I opened my mouth to scream a warning, but it was far too late.
Lynx let loose a howl that must have banished any remaining ghosts straight into the next realm.
White Feather pulsed wind again, but none of us were close enough to help Roberto. The ghoul behind him was nothing but teeth and a curse.
“Get down,” White Feather yelled.
Faster than a human could move, a darker winged blackness smacked into the ghoul. Roberto half turned. He never saw what floated behind him because Lynx leapt, yanked Roberto around the stone, and pushed him face down into the dirt.
I’d have happily spent some fire power, but the growling, shrieking mass of ghoul and wings rolled end over end before it came apart into two separate bodies, neither of them human.
“Patrick!” Lynx yelled. His relief was short-lived.
There was no sign of Patrick’s glamour. He was all gargoyle, all beast. Seconds after he toppled the ghoul, it winked out of existence.
I blinked in disbelief, my dagger high.
The breeze swept around us, searching.
A faded outline, a shadow of deeper darkness, rippled near Patrick.
None of us had time to move. The ghoul was more ghost than substance until its amorphous arm reached for Patrick’s throat, just missing and crushing the top part of his wing instead. The teeth lunged next, all deadly fangs, maybe twenty of them.
A bald troll with shark teeth would win a beauty pageant by comparison.
Nothing about the monster resembled Joe. Its form was closer to that of the constructs, a deformed hag dragon, but deadlier and uglier. It had no feet, but it floated and drifted as fast as the gargoyle fighting it, too quick for my eyes to follow.
I held up a fire packet for White Feather, and crushed the elements. His wind picked it up and tossed it, but the ghoulish nightmare either sensed it or had the luck of the devil on its side. It winked out again.
The fire ignited on nothing. Patrick ducked away from the flames while the ghoul faded again and let it burn.
The fireball provided Patrick seconds to regroup, and it allowed me time to fling silver beads with careless abandon. Some ghosts had problems with silver, although I’d never understood why. If any ghost deserved to be affected it was this one; part shifter, part vampire, black magic and one hell of a lot of ugly.
The beads and one arrowhead hit as the physical shape of the ghoul returned, freezing the silver somewhere inside the creature. It must have hurt because the ghoul roared and batted at itself.
“Go for the neck,” Lynx said from my right. “Sever the head.”
Patrick was fast. While the ghoul clawed at its insides after an itch it couldn’t scratch, Patrick flitted forward and ripped its throat out. Blackness erupted, a fountain of rotted flesh and ooze.
Patrick stumbled back, his clawed hand and arm smoking. He shook it violently, flicking off chunks of disgusting flesh.
I lofted another fire packet. White Feather directed it, faster this time. Lynx dragged Roberto further away while the two of us crept closer. The ghoul was already healing. Its dance with Patrick should have warned us. If we didn’t finish it off before it attacked again, we didn’t have a chance.
I was wrong. We didn’t have a chance anyway. The bottom of its jaw still dripped black blood when there was suddenly nothing but teeth in front of me.
“Damn you to the nethers of hell!” I tossed a silver ball filled with holy water, explosive powder, nettle and Granny’s spider poison right into its jaws. The fire might not kill it. The curse might not follow him across whatever barriers kept him in cross-existence.
A strong wind pushed against and through the howling mass of death. I felt the silver in White Feather’s sword plunge straight into what would have been Joe’s heart.
The ghoul barely shivered. It reached back a clawed appendage and ripped the sword free from White Feather’s hand.
I smashed another packet and hooked it on one gleaming fang as the ghoul swung the sword. The blade flashed down towards White Feather. It hit wind, but that only slowed it. My pull on Mother Earth against the silver screamed, sparking the diamond into a white hot stream of light aimed between the swor
d and White Feather’s flesh.
I could move silver. The silver sword...would. Not...hit...White Feather!
The blazing fire from my ring slapped the silver back and up, smashing it into the shapeless head of teeth. The maw opened into an unearthly scream. Pain vibrated across my skin as though it had touched me. A swipe from one clawed appendage shredded my coat.
Mother Earth fed through me, enraged at the abomination. Where the light touched, the ghoul smoked, but if the creature experienced any hurt, it ignored the pain. A melting, smoking arm flashed through the center of the light, pushing soul-sucking darkness. The enraged evil was determined to extinguish my link to earth.
I lost my sense of self; there was nothing but raw earth power erupting through me across the planes of diamond. The stink of putrid smoke may have killed me off had White Feather not added his weight to the fight. The force of a tornado burst through the ring.
I sucked in air that wasn’t tainted with sulfur and rot. My head cleared barely in time to spot the ghoul feeding parts of itself into a new, lengthening arm that reached around the wind and light. The other arm fought and burned without respite.
I shrieked the word of power to ignite both fireballs. The entire graveyard, dead and alive, heard me. White Feather didn’t have wings, but he managed to fly backwards without slowing the power pushing against the ghoul.
For a heartbeat and another breath of fresh air, nothing happened. If anything, the explosion expanded the darkness of the shapeless monster. Then, its head burst into a mist of ghoul spray.
Like any good witch, I ducked.
The rest of the dark mass stretched as though it might contain the fireball it had swallowed. The beast flickered, an attempt to wink out of existence, but a huge chunk tore loose, releasing a soul-sucking screech that must have been the gates of hell opening.
Ghoul ichor just missed me as I rolled to the right.
The glint of a silver sword sliced through the night, cutting and slashing at pieces of a black hole.
Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series) Page 23