by J. C. Diem
Giving up on trying to sleep at dawn, I rose, dressed and looked down at the mangled shoe. Zeus opened one eye then scrunched it shut again. He was trying hard to pretend he wasn’t responsible for the mess. With a sigh, I grabbed it and its intact twin and carried them downstairs. Both shoes went into the trash.
Mark was already up. He wore one of his usual dark suits and was sitting at the dining table reading something on his tablet. A half empty mug of coffee sat beside him. It had gone cold some time ago.
Taking his mug, I rinsed it out and made him a fresh coffee. He gave me a distracted smile of thanks then went back to reading. I fed Zeus then let him out into the tiny backyard for a bathroom break. He took a disdainful look around, already missing the spacious grounds of our compound. There was little of interest for him to examine and he followed me back inside when he was done.
Reece and Flynn probably wouldn’t be up for another hour or so yet. With plenty of time to kill, I made pancakes. I always made them when I was feeling down, especially when my father was away on one of his longer missions. He was part of the reason why I was depressed now, but I was also worried about Kala. I hated the thought of her being kept against her will even if she didn’t realize what was happening to her.
The scent of pancakes brought Flynn staggering downstairs while he was still half asleep. For once, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. When I brought a stack of pancakes over to the table, I got a close look at his back. I saw scars crisscrossing his skin that were so faint they were barely noticeable. Mark caught me staring and surreptitiously shook his head at me. He clearly didn’t want me to ask any questions.
Pretending that I hadn’t seen the scars, I plonked the plate down on the table and took a seat. I’d only seen Flynn without a shirt once. That had been near Bradbury when we’d woken up naked in the woods after we’d changed from our were-forms back to normal. To be honest, I’d been too busy staring at Reece to take much notice of Kala or Flynn.
He dug into the pancakes then stiffened when he realized he was only half dressed. Footsteps sounded on the stairs then Reece sauntered into the room. He tossed Flynn a t-shirt. “I thought you might want this,” he said.
Flynn’s smile was grateful as he caught it. “Thanks, bro.” He stopped eating long enough to pull the shirt on.
It was touching to see Reece hadn’t forgotten his squad mate’s aversion to anyone seeing his scars. It was also a little hurtful that Flynn hadn’t told me about them. Either he was ashamed of them or he didn’t trust me to know his secrets. For all I knew, I might not have the required clearance level to know what had happened to him.
The pancakes took care of my hunger, yet did little to raise my spirits. I made another pot of coffee while Flynn and Reece washed the dishes. The kitchen was too small and outdated to contain a dishwasher.
“I’ve done some digging and I’ve uncovered some interesting information about Lilydale,” Mark said when they were done. We gathered at the table again and took our usual seats. It was too quiet without Kala there to crack jokes and to make fun of us.
“It seems the ghouls have been in this city for a very long time,” he continued. “I found newspaper articles dating back well over a hundred years about bodies occasionally going missing from funeral parlors. None of the bodies have ever been found.”
“With a city this large there must be dozens of deaths each year,” Flynn noted. “Would that be enough to sustain a growing ghoul population?”
“Only up to a point, which is why I did some more digging. The police haven’t connected the dots yet, but I believe the ghouls have been seeking their food elsewhere for quite some time. There are reports of carcasses going missing from slaughter houses, of pet shops being raided and of animals being stolen from their yards.”
“It was only a matter of time before they turned to taking living humans and killing them for food,” Flynn deduced. “They’re too cowardly to attack adults. Naturally, they’d go after defenseless children.”
“Is it a coincidence that we arrived just as they started taking kids?” I asked.
Mark’s expression turned grave. “This isn’t the first time they’ve resorted to child snatching. The same thing has happened many times during the past hundred years. A swathe of animals and children will disappear then a disaster will happen to keep the ghouls fed for a while.”
“I can’t believe the cops haven’t stumbled across the truth by now,” I said. How could humans be so blind? I’d only been a member of the squad for a few months, but it felt like it had been a lot longer than that. It was sometimes hard to remember that I’d ever been oblivious to the supernatural underworld at all.
“Ghouls have a strong sense of self preservation,” Mark pointed out. “They are very good at staying hidden. We need to figure out how many of them are in Lilydale while the boys visit the pride.”
“You’re not going to enter the tunnels beneath the cemetery without us,” Reece said and it wasn’t a request.
“No,” Mark reassured him. “I won’t take that risk. Lexi and I will merely try to discover how many there are and where they congregate during the day.”
“Will the pride be up yet?” Flynn asked.
“They tend to be nocturnal, but someone should be on guard duty.”
“Then let’s get a move on.” Anxious to rescue Kala, Flynn pushed away from the table and headed upstairs to finish getting dressed. I followed him upwards and entered my room to grab my spare gun and some ammunition. My sniper rifle wouldn’t be of much use, so I left it in the backpack in the closet. Donning my holster, I put my military style tan jacket on to cover it.
Armed and ready, we left the house and climbed into the SUV. Reece retraced the route to the cemetery where Kala had wandered away. “Find Kala,” I instructed Zeus when he leaped to the ground.
Putting his nose down, he picked up her scent and trotted across the road. We followed him for several blocks into the heart of the city. He eventually stopped in front of a three story building. The door was closed and a notice said it would reopen at eight pm. A sign above the door proclaimed that we were standing in front of the Nightstalker Club. I found that to be ironic considering the town was apparently inundated with ghouls.
Flynn took a deep breath. “I can taste six different types of werecats in there. They’re both pure blood and bitten. I didn’t know there were that many different types of feline shifters.”
“It seems the Rex has gathered every known species of werecat that I’m aware of,” Mark informed him.
My curiosity got the better of me. “What types are there?”
“Lions are supreme, of course,” he said with a wry smile. “In order of their hierarchy, there are also tigers, cougars, jaguars, leopards and cheetahs.”
It was nice to hear that Kala’s species was third on the list. Then I remembered that her pedigree was far lower than a pure blood’s. She was like me, the lowest of the low compared to what amounted to royalty to our kind. “What about canines?” I queried. “Are there any other types apart from wolves?”
Mark inclined his head. “I’ve heard there are German Shepherd, Doberman, Rottweiler, Hyena, Jackal, Dingo, Pit-bull, Great Dane and Bull Mastiff shifters, but there are bound to be more. Canines have a diverse range of breeds and cross-breeds.”
“Don’t forget werefoxes,” Flynn added and received a nod of acknowledgement.
Reece gestured to a café that was open further down the road. “Flynn and I will stake out the club for a while before we knock on the door. It doesn’t sound like anyone is on duty yet.” There was no movement coming from the lower floor.
“Call me if you encounter any problems,” Mark said to Reece. He saluted our boss and they ambled towards the café.
Mark, Zeus and I returned to the cemetery, but stayed on the fringes to avoid the headstones. “You’re strong,” Mark said to me when we exited from the SUV, “but you’re still young and untrained. I very much doubt that you were able to escape
from a pack of ghouls without assistance. Tell me what really happened,” he ordered.
Hunching my shoulders, I slid my hands into my pockets. “If I tell you, you’ll probably want to shoot me,” I said bleakly.
“You raised some zombies.” His tone was matter-of-fact rather than accusing.
I cut a quick look at him. “How did you guess?”
“Reece told me that you sent the zombies in New Orleans back to their graves after you killed their master. Only a necromancer has the power to command a zombie that someone else raised. Not even a bokor could have pulled that off.”
I swallowed down the lump that tried to form in my throat. “I should be locked up before I hurt anyone.”
He chuckled and it sounded genuine. “I don’t think there’s any need for that.”
“Every account that I’ve read in the archives about necromancers says that they’re evil.”
“Do you feel evil?”
I pondered the question then shook my head. “I’m not sure how I feel sometimes.”
“You only raised the dead under extreme duress,” he pointed out. “Do you think it will become a common occurrence?”
“I don’t have any plans to raise any more of them,” I said with a shudder.
“How many did you call and how did you get back up to the surface?”
“There were twenty of them and I sent them after the ghouls. I was wondering how I was going to get out of the tunnels and one of them shambled over to me. He knew that I needed his help without me even saying anything. He picked me up and I asked him to take me up to the surface. The ghouls have the same ability as zombies to move through dirt like it isn’t even there, by the way.”
He shook his head in wonder that was tinged with awe. “I almost wish I could experience that for myself. What was it like?” His hand twitched towards the tablet that was stashed in his jacket, but he resisted the urge to take notes.
I struggled to find an explanation. “It was almost like the zombie was part of the earth itself. The dirt parted for him like it was water and kind of propelled us upwards.”
“Fascinating.” His eyes shone in suppressed excitement. I was pretty sure his greatest joy in life was learning.
“There’s no air when you’re encased in dirt, yet it was almost…peaceful.” The sensation hadn’t lasted long before we’d surfaced and I’d been able to breathe again.
“How many ghouls are down there? Can you sense them like you can with zombies?”
I knew what he wanted me to do and I was aware that it was necessary. Still, I didn’t relish the idea of trying to find them with the strange sense that set me apart from other shifters. Closing my eyes, I searched for the creatures that lived beneath the graveyard.
I found small pockets of them dotted here and there. “There are at least thirty in this cemetery alone. There were a couple of dozen more before the zombies tore them apart.”
“I almost wish you could raise a lot more zombies and set them loose in the tunnels,” he said wistfully.
“It took a lot of blood just to raise twenty of them,” I said wryly. “My blood, to be specific. I don’t want to go through that again.” I wasn’t sure I’d survive the experience if I did.
“No, I imagine it must have been very painful and traumatic.”
“There are three more cemeteries in Lilydale, right?”
“Yes.”
“I guess we’d better check them out as well.”
“You’re right. The disappearances of both corpses and children were spread all across the city. We could very well be dealing with more than one pack of ghouls.”
That had been my hunch as well. The fact that he agreed with me didn’t bode well for us.
₪₪₪
Chapter Seventeen
We returned to the SUV and Mark used the GPS on the dashboard to locate the next graveyard. It was to the south and it took us ten minutes to drive there. Mark parked around the corner where our vehicle would hopefully be less conspicuous. We made a strange trio as we backtracked on foot.
While there was a fence around the cemetery, there weren’t any gates to bar us from entering. Zeus padded along beside me as we made our way around the edge of the boneyard. He could smell the ghouls and looked around warily. They’d been above ground sometime during the night and their scent still lingered.
After some mental probing, I discovered small groups of them down below. There were more of them this time. “I can sense around seventy of them.”
Mark’s brow furrowed in worry. “I’ve never heard of an infestation this large before.”
“What makes Lilydale so different?”
For once, he didn’t have an answer for me. “Come on,” he said and urged me back towards the SUV. “We need to see how many more are hiding beneath the city.”
It took nearly an hour to travel to the other two cemeteries and for me to search them with my senses. I counted roughly forty ghouls in the third graveyard and fifty or so in the final one.
“All up, we’re looking at nearly two hundred ghouls,” Mark summed up. “No wonder they’ve resorted to eating pets and stealing children. They’ve been known to eat their own kind, so they’ll have some food for a while now that your zombies tore so many of them apart.”
“That’s a plus,” I said with a strained smile. It was nauseating that they were cannibals, but some part of me thought it was only practical. If they could eat rotting animal carcasses then they wouldn’t baulk at snacking on their own kind.
“We should get back to the others,” he said.
Reece had checked in twenty minutes ago to say that he and Flynn were about to knock on the nightclub door. I tried to see through Reece’s eyes, but I couldn’t get through his shield again.
We drove back to the club to see that Reece and Flynn had returned to the café and that they weren’t alone. Officers Tompkins and McSweeny were with them. We parked down the street and climbed out.
“Whoa,” Tompkins said and started to his feet when Zeus jumped out of the back of the SUV. “That is one mean looking dog.”
“His bark is worse than his bite,” I lied when we approached the table. I knew very well that his bite was every bit as ferocious as his bark.
McSweeny stood as well and knelt beside my guardian. She offered him her hand and Zeus sniffed it warily. He looked up at me for my reaction. “She’s a friend,” I told him and he licked her fingers in acceptance.
“It almost seems like he can understand you,” she said and scratched his ears. His tongue lolled out in instant ecstasy.
“He’s very intelligent,” Flynn told her. “But he’ll drive you nuts if you play fetch with him.”
Zeus’ ears pricked up eagerly at hearing his favorite game. “Not a chance,” I laughed. “It’s work time, not play time.”
“Speaking of which,” Tompkins said as he took his seat again. “Have you learned anything yet?”
Mark could hardly tell him the truth about what we knew so far. “We haven’t located the missing children as yet. I’m confident that we’ll find the perpetrators soon.”
McSweeny took her seat next to Flynn again. “Will you turn them over to us if you find them?” Mark’s answer was a tight smile that spoke volumes. Sweeping her eyes over our group, she noted the slight bulge beneath my left arm and knew that I was carrying. “What do you plan to do with the kidnappers?”
Reece’s eyes turned wintry. “We’ll make sure they never harm another child again.”
Tompkins and his partner exchanged a long look. “I can live with that,” he said. “How close are you to catching them?”
“We’re narrowing down their location,” Mark replied. He couldn’t give them an exact date of when we’d be able to destroy the ghouls. First, we needed to get Kala back. There were far too many of the creatures for just us four to take on.
“May I speak to you alone for a moment, Agent Bailey?” McSweeny said to Flynn. Tompkins rolled his eyes, but he didn’t
protest as his young partner walked away with Flynn at her side.
Knowing we’d be able to hear them, Flynn moved them further up the street until they were out of our earshot. He didn’t take Zeus’ hearing into account, though. I borrowed the Rottweiler’s ears as the pair came to a stop.
“Are you single?” McSweeny asked him baldly.
“Yes,” he said after a slight hesitation.
“Do you find me attractive?” I heard the vulnerability in her voice and so did he.
“Very.” Even from a distance, I saw his face redden slightly.
“How long will you be in town?”
“I’m not sure. Probably two or three weeks at the most.” The next full moon was three weeks away and we had to find somewhere to hunt by then. It was no longer crucial to find somewhere to lock ourselves up for the safety of humans. Reece and I could control Kala and Flynn when we shifted, but things could get tense if we didn’t have anything to eat. Our appetites were prodigious when we were in our were-forms.
“Is there any chance you might like to go out on a date with me?” It was difficult for her to put herself out there like that and I admired her courage.
Flynn’s gaze strayed to us and I nodded emphatically. He looked from me to Zeus and realized I’d overheard their conversation. He frowned at me and McSweeny mistakenly thought it was aimed at her. “Never mind. I can see the idea doesn’t appeal to you.”
He caught her hand before she could turn away. “I’d love to go on a date with you,” he said earnestly, “but I don’t want to give you false hope that I’ll be here for long.” This was a side of him that I’d never seen before. I wished Kala was with us to witness it.
“I’m not asking for forever,” she said. “It would just be nice to be wanted for once.”
“Never doubt that you are beautiful,” he said and lifted her hand to his mouth. “Give me your number and I’ll make the time to go on a date with you.”