The woods were as dark as night because of the elf’s presence. She was Darkness, darkness at its most evil and cold, and I had walked into her territory with two almost empty spray bottles and a pocketknife.
Was I stupid or what?
I belly-slid my way into the shadows, hearing her cackle behind me as her victory drew near. She could taste it. I was hers, and she knew it. Fate was with her on this day.
Until it wasn’t.
A huge gray wolf jumped on the elf’s back, grasping the elf’s neck between her jaws, bringing the ferocious beast down. Shura continued to shake the elf by its nape, handling her like an unruly kitten. I scrambled to my feet with a gargled cheer, which was all I could manage as pain coursed through my body from my injuries.
Just as suddenly, my delight stopped short, and I gasped in horror as the elf’s tail arched and plummeted for Shura’s body.
“Shura! The tail!”
I twisted off both bottles’ tops and dodged in, making it in the nick of time as Shura was forced to let go and the tail slammed into the earth where her midsection had been. I poured the rest of the bottles’ contents on the elf’s head, and her skull fizzed and sputtered, emitting a musty barbeque odor.
The elf tried to scream, but her face was in the dirt, and all we got was a muffled snort that sounded as if she was asking us to stop, but Shura gave no quarter. The wolf had taken the initiative and snapped her teeth on the elf’s tail just below the point, grinding the appendage into tiny bits and pieces while I watched it separate. The tip fell to the earth, and deep green blood gushed out. Shura shuddered and staggered toward the path, coughing and spitting as she rid herself of the elf’s gore.
The elf turned its eyes toward me, beaten and dying. “Let me go,” she said, her voice quavering.
Maybe if she got home in time, she could be saved, and the thought almost stayed my hand, but then I remembered she stole a child out of his bed, and I dithered no longer. I extracted David’s knife and plunged it into the back of her neck, at the spine, twisting it until she no longer moved. Her body collapsed like a balloon, and as I stumbled back, it turned into an oily black slick that oozed into the ground. The grass died wherever the oil touched. I studied the widening grease stain and looked at the small knife in my hand. It shouldn’t have been able to do that much damage.
Yet…a child’s weapon to find a child. An innocent’s gift to find an innocent stolen. Magic comes in many forms.
Chapter Fifteen
Shura and I meandered through the park toward home. I couldn’t move fast, given the pain in my knee and the burning claw marks on my back, and I needed some quiet time to soak in the last few hours’ events.
Someone was offering an enormous ruby from a French king’s crown as a bounty for my head, or body I suppose, as long as the head wasn’t with it. The ultimate goal was my death. I couldn’t imagine who I’d killed that would inspire such retribution, and I had no idea who would have access to such a prize.
There’s a wheel that lasts generations, longer than your life span. What goes around, comes around.
“What?” I looked around for Blaze and realized he wasn’t anywhere nearby. I slipped the tiny Buddha out of my fanny pack.
“Are you talking to me?”
Shura’s eyebrows rose to her ears.
The Buddha’s jade tummy expanded as he took a long inhale and then let it out. Meditate on this. What if it wasn’t you who did anything? What if this is karma circling around after a long, slow stroll through time. Karma doesn’t measure time like you do.
“I’m paying for someone else’s crime? Why?”
Buddha’s eyes were closed, and he was silent.
“Oh, no, you don’t! You have to give me more than that.”
You may pay for a crime you didn’t commit, if you benefited from it.
Buddha fell silent, and I knew that was all I was going to get. I told Shura what he’d said, and she huffed in disgust. She didn’t understand either.
Confused, hurt, and thoroughly pissed off, I limped the rest of the way home, Shura patient by my side. Despite my foul mood, I smiled when David ran toward me, arms out for a hug.
“I knew you’d do it! I told everyone that my mom always kills the monsters!” He wrapped his arms around my thighs, and I bent to kiss his head. I held myself still for a moment, enjoying his scent, that special scent that was only his, and I prayed that nothing I ever did would circle back to him.
Which gave me a thought, a thought so heavy that when it crashed down on my shoulders, I staggered from the sheer weight. I didn’t have time to examine it, so, with an effort of will, I pushed it aside, gathered it in a ball, and stuffed it into my hindbrain to examine later.
Nathaniel ran to greet me, Devi and Daniel at his heels. He scooped me up like a baby and carried me the rest of the way to Judy and Joseph’s house, where he placed me on the lawn.
“That was very Richard Gere of you.”
The corner of his eye twitched. “You weigh more than Debra Winger.”
“How do you know? When was the last time you carried Debra Winger?” I punched him on the shoulder. “I’m a Monster Hunter. I have muscles. They weigh more.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Nathaniel responded with a wink. An ambulance medic arrived holding a much-needed ice pack and moved everyone except Nathaniel aside so she could look at my back. Her name tag said Amy Beth Walker Nolan.
“These are claw marks!” Amy Beth said, staring into my eyes. “Now, don’t lie. I can’t treat you if you don’t tell me what this is.”
I sighed and went for broke. “A black elf.” I waited for the obvious reaction, but I didn’t get it. Instead, she nodded. “Haven’t seen one of them since Afghanistan. You need an antibiotic and a tetanus shot.”
She spoke in a quiet voice that only I could hear. “I’m authorized by DEMON to give you both. If you see the edges getting black, call me immediately. Here’s my card. You understand?”
I startled. “DEMON? I’ve heard of them but have stayed out of their sights. I don’t need the bureaucracy. You work for them?”
“You got it. The Department of ExtraDimensional, Mystical, and Occult Nuisances.”
“Sounds like someone really wanted the acronym to spell DEMON.”
She laughed. “It does, doesn’t it? I worked with Agent Amy Hall. Do you know her?”
“I don’t know her personally but heard a little bit. A real spitfire, right? Sorta Bubba’s girlfriend?”
“More than sorta.”
“There’s something I can’t quite picture about that…” I scratched my head and gave her a sideways glance. I leaned in close and looked both ways to make sure no one was listening. “I mean, how can that work…he’s so big and she’s so…”
“Normal sized? Slim? Yes, true, but so is anyone compared to Bubba.”
“Yeah, but…” I cocked my head. “You think she’s always on top?”
Medic Amy Beth Walker Nolan held out both hands. “Oh, no! I’m not going there. You can’t make me.” She wrinkled her nose. “Crap. Now, I’m going to be thinking about that. Gross. Just for that, I’m going to make your tetanus shot hurt.”
“They hurt anyway.”
“True ‘nuff. Wait here.”
Chapter Sixteen
Three shots later, my family lay around the front yard on lounge chairs watching bonfire sparks fly into the inky night sky. Devi was on her fifth roasted marshmallow and David his seventh s’more. Daniel was still working on his first, but that was because most of the marshmallow was stuck to his cheeks, lips, and nose. He’d resorted to eating the chocolate and graham crackers straight.
The entire community was out, mingling, hugging, and comforting one another, relieved they survived the unthinkable. Every parent stayed close to their kids, grateful that it wasn’t their kid gone missing. I could guarantee that windows were locked that night.
Judy approached me, hands clenched, thumbs rubbing over one another
in an endless loop. “Jess, thank you for saving Joseph.” She gestured to her husband who was clutching a beer and watching his son’s every move. “We owe you a debt we can never repay.”
I held up a hand. “Stop saying that. You don’t owe me anything. This is my job, remember? That’s why I have Blaze and Shura to help me.” I placed a hand on Judy’s arm. Her tear-stained face brimmed with a mixture of sorrow, fear, and anger, and she kept rubbing her eyes as if trying to erase the memory of the last several hours from her mind. It wouldn’t work, something I could have told her, but imparting that information wouldn’t have helped her deal with the trauma of the day. Only talking about it would do that. Talking about it, as many times as needed, made the fear familiar and forced it to recede. You beat fear into submission; you didn’t avoid it, or it would gain power, growing larger, darker, and more paralyzing.
“That’s something I wanted to discuss with you. I know your job is secret, but the other families deserved to know why you were the one to search for Joseph, and the cops acknowledged you as a consultant, so I figured it was okay. Anyways, I told them that Blaze is a rescue pony and Shura is a search dog, and they were relieved to have someone like you right here in our neighborhood. I mean, look what happened today! We need you here.” She drew a breath. “So, we had an emergency huddle a few moments ago, meaning me and the vice-presidents, and we unanimously decided that Blaze is an honorary member of the Neighborhood Association and that he and Shura are elite exceptions to our codicil.”
She gripped my shoulders; her whole body was shaking like a tuning fork. “Jess, I have no words for what happened today. It was my worst nightmare come true, but you saved him.” She hugged me tight, her body vibrating so hard I thought it would snap. She let the tears go, and I held her as they slid down my back, seeping into my bandages, which stung, but I didn’t let go. I cradled her for as long as she needed to be there.
It was the least I could do, given that I burned with shame and hypocrisy. I didn’t save Joseph. I got him kidnapped in the first place. I’m the reason he was snatched from his bed at night. Me. No one else. My dangerous life put other people in danger. First Liam, and now an innocent child, and Nathaniel was rightly worried about our own children. I swallowed the self-loathing that came with these thoughts.
I needed to focus. Danger circled ever closer; vultures spiraling in silent concentric circles earthward, pinning me in place like a butterfly to a board. I gave Judy one more embrace and stepped away from the fire and people to be alone with my thoughts.
Buddha, who was back on his shelf, told me that I could pay for someone else’s transgression if I had benefitted from it. I assumed that an infraction serious enough to instigate a call for my death would have to be a heinous crime, and there was only one person who could have accomplished this stunning feat in the paranormal community.
I knew her well, and yet, I didn’t know her at all.
My mother.
Now, the question was, who did she hurt, and what did she do?
I lived with her and studied her every move for most of my life, but she had secrets, some she shared with my father, but others…I doubted she shared everything. Unearthing the past could be dangerous, leading me to knowledge that I might not like, or that could hurt my dad, but I didn’t have any choice.
I did have a choice to be as good a person as I could be, and there was one thing I knew I could do, so I headed inside and opened my laptop. Rabbi Stein’s email sat unopened. I clicked on it and read the information. It was late, and I hesitated to call, but then I thought about what I would be doing if Nathaniel was taken from me, and I knew it wouldn’t be sleeping.
“Hello?” The woman’s voice was quiet, but not sleepy. I was right, she was awake.
“I know it is late to call, but this is Jess Friedman. Rabbi Stein gave me your name and number. He thought you and I might help each other. How have you been?”
That small amount of prodding and I got the whole story. Her husband died in a car accident caused by a combination of lake effect rain and a sharp curve. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, and there was no one to blame, so she railed against the Almighty. At the same time, she turned to the synagogue and its community for comfort and support. Her emotions were on overload.
I shared a little bit about me, about how my mom had died suddenly in a car accident, too. I only did this to empathize, and I made sure to listen more than talk. We conversed for an hour. I asked if she needed any food, and she gave a weak laugh.
“To be honest,” she said, “I’m overloaded with lasagna and brownies.”
“Bereavement leads to comfort food. Tell you what, come over for Friday night dinner, and I promise we won’t have lasagna and brownies.”
“It’s a deal.”
I thought about her situation the rest of the night, tossing and turning, considering what life would be like for Nathaniel and the kids if I were killed. Perhaps Nathaniel was right and I needed to retire.
I couldn’t take myself off the front lines, yet. The bounty was still on my head, and the trouble and danger were there, like it or not. The fight had come home to me, and it was time I went on the offensive. Tomorrow would be a strategy and training day. Plus, I needed to check on Liam. I hoped he was better.
I drifted off…
A voice woke me, adrenaline rushing through my veins at the clanging alarm from my subconscious. Forcing myself to move with care, I huddled next to the bedroom door, grabbing my bat, which I had propped in the corner.
Something. Something on the edge of my hearing, a trace of sound. I closed my eyes and listened harder. It was outside, not in the house, coming from the front. I slipped into the shadows of the hallway and tiptoed to the living room, where my tomahawk practically leaped into my hand. Armed with a bat in my left fist and my ‘hawk in my right, I pressed my back against the front door.
A stench drifted in through the cracks of the doorframe, something rotting, like food left out in the sun. It smelled burnt, no, that wasn’t right. It smelled like heated, softening plastic.
The scent moved, shifting from the front. I moved to the back of the house, opened the sliding door as quietly as possible and found Blaze staring at the roof, wings at the ready, head and neck stiff as he, too, sought the cause of our disturbance.
A shadow moved high up on the roof, and I flung my tomahawk, aiming slightly to the left, following the shadow’s directional shift, trying to get in front of it. The ‘hawk returned to my hand unbloodied, begging me to try again.
Blaze took off, charging at the solid black blot on the sky, but tumbled as he was hit by a long, bone-white hand.
“Pascal!” My voice was a hushed, airy scream, as I realized who it was.
The dark smudge turned, and Pascal removed his hood, part of a long, black cloak that covered his entire body.
I gasped at the sight. His face was still dripping like a melted crayon, the holy wine denying him the ability to heal.
“Why are you here?” I demanded. “Do you want to fight right now? Because I’m ready anytime! Do you want to tell me the truth about my mother and who placed a bounty on my head?” Pascal averted his gaze, which infuriated me.
“Face me!” I chucked the ‘hawk again, but Pascal, even injured as he was, ducked, and the weapon only shaved a few strands of hair.
Pascal’s voice wheezed in the night air. “I’m not here to fight you, granddaughter.”
Blaze raced in, launching himself at Pascal, but the vampire was already gone.
Pascal’s voice came on the wind. “I’m protecting you.”
Granddaughter? Protecting?
Blaze and I looked at each other, both paralyzed by those words.
What. The. Hell?
End of the Line
Chapter One
The monster with the wild hair stomped her foot and gnashed her terrible teeth, then, rethinking the approach, gave me weepy, doe-eyed stare, and said, in a sweet voice, “A mock sleepover, then? Four gi
rls and they leave at midnight? That’s almost as good as a real sleepover.”
Devi, my daughter, wanted a sleepover, and my five-year-old mini-me was a good negotiator. She also had her father in her hip pocket, not that he would admit it, and I perceived he was about to give. I jumped in to bolster his resolve.
“Devi, you are too young for any kind of sleepover. Maybe next year.”
The insidious little minx turned to her father. “Daddy, can’t you think about it?”
The kiss of death. He never said no to her.
“Honey, Mommy and I will talk about it tonight, okay?” He dropped a kiss on the crown of her head.
“Thanks, Daddy!” Off she went, knowing full well that she’d all but won, the schemer.
Nathaniel turned to me, using the same eyes that his daughter applied so successfully. “What do you think, Jess? How could it hurt? She’s so excited.”
“Nathaniel, how could it hurt? It will hurt a lot when a monster attacks the house because of the bounty on my head and I have to worry about four more little girls in the crosshairs.”
“Didn’t you get that witch to cast a protective spell? What’s her name again?”
“Lila Hanft.”
“So, what did she do? A protective spell, right?”
“Yes, she did, but it’s specific to us. I’ll have to get her to widen it to include anyone in the house or in the yard. It will be pricey. She’s gotten pretty uppity since that cranky wizard, Donald Kirby, retired to Florida. She knows she has us by the short and tinies.”
“Ick. That’s a terrible turn of phrase. Please don’t use that again. What about that Vodun priest? Can he help strengthen the protective spells? Jim something-or-other?”
“Jim McDonald? Are you kidding me? He’s so pasty white I don’t think he’s even been to the southern United States, much less Africa. Trust me, he doesn’t have a drop of African or Vodun blood in him. He’s Scottish, for goodness’ sake. He wore a kilt when he thought I wasn’t looking, and I’m pretty certain he wore it true. He’s a complete fraud. I already turned him into the police once for selling fake fetish necklaces.”
The Devil's Been Busy Page 28