“Did you see that?” cried Nick from the doorway. Everyone had gathered when they saw me go outside. All their faces were white and stark. I was willing to bet they hadn’t seen anything like that before either.
I turned my attention back to the creature quickly disappearing into the rising mist. My instinct was to scream, but I started fiercely trembling instead.
Ed was at my side. “What the hell was that?”
I shook my head. Couldn’t speak. Would scream if I tried. But something else took over—those damned Chosen Host skills—making me take off and run after her.
She was far ahead, and I wasn’t gaining on her, even going full pelt as I was. While her strange gait—butt in the air, running on hands and feet—was freaking me out, I had to keep her in my sights. Something told me to raise my arm; the familiar whistling sound of the crossbow coming toward me gave me a smidgen of confidence. When it slapped into my hand, I clutched it hard. I glanced quickly at the bolt in the flight groove and knew I’d never seen it before.
She was still galloping down the street when she made a sudden turn at the church. She ran past it and toward the dark gates of the cemetery. Don’t go in, don’t go in, I chanted in my head. But when had anything gone my way lately?
She leapt right over the closed gate. I slowed, my boots slapping the wet pavement as I came up to a halt in front of the gate and clutched the cold metal bars in my hand.
Nick and then Ed came up on either side of me, breathing hard. “What the hell was that?” Ed asked again.
“Call me crazy,” I said, “but I’m betting that wasn’t really a little girl.”
“But I know her,” said Ed. “And…Jesus.” He loosened his tie and his collar. “A few days ago— It’s Lexy Johnson.”
Nick snapped his head toward Ed. “Lexy Johnson? You mean…the little girl who…who…”
Ed nodded. He stepped up to the gate and peered through, scanning the tombstones and monuments.
“She what?” I asked Nick, then Ed. “She what?”
Nick finally answered. “She died. She fell off the roof of her house three days ago. Her funeral was yesterday.”
“She wasn’t a ghost.” I checked the crossbow. It wouldn’t need to shoot a ghost. This bolt was designed to kill something from the Booke. “But she’s dead. And she’s not a Viking.”
“Wait,” said Nick. “You mean she’s a zombie?”
“I don’t know. Hey,” I turned, looking back down the street. “Where’s the rest of the coven?”
Nick’s eyes were wide, scanning our surroundings. He licked his lips. “Ed told Jeff to stay and tell the others when they arrived.” Nick couldn’t seem to help himself from looking behind him again. “I left before I realized what I was doing.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here.” I girded myself, securing the loaded crossbow in my hands. “I’m going in.”
Ed’s hand wrapped around my arm and squeezed. “Kylie, no.”
“Ed.” I lifted the crossbow to show him. “I’ve got this, and it armed itself. That means I’m up.”
“You’re serious about this? Jesus. Let me do it. Hand me the crossbow.”
I snatched it back. “Don’t you get it? This is my mission. It’s mine.”
“But…” He didn’t know how to argue it.
I could see the pain on his face, and I wanted more than anything to kiss it away from him.
“Then have my back,” I said gently.
I saw the change in him immediately. He straightened and had his gun in his hand so fast it seemed a blur.
Nick raised his trembling hand. “Uh…third banana, here. Without a weapon, I’d like to remind you all.”
“You don’t have to come, Nick.”
He looked behind him one more time to the darkening street, filling with mist. “Well, I’m not going back there alone.”
No more talk. I pushed against the gate, which opened with a good, old-fashioned horror movie whine. I stepped up the walkway and looked around. “Ed, do you know where her…her grave is?”
“Yeah. Up this way.”
It was the perfect cliché cemetery. There was a kneeling, weeping angel to my right and a vine-covered crypt up ahead to the left. Did they deliberately design these places to look extra scary?
“I am sooo creeped out right now,” said Nick.
“Me, too,” I said, yet my feet kept moving.
Ed led the way up onto the grass. We walked between tombstones as the light was falling and fog was rising, sending fingers of mist hovering over the lawn. I hadn’t even had time to grab my jacket. I wish the crossbow could have picked it up on its way out.
I held the crossbow at my shoulder and aimed it forward but kept looking all around. We came to a rise and walked upward. Ed stopped, and I came up behind him.
“What is it?”
He was shaking his head at something ahead of us. “What. The. Hell.”
I had a feeling he’d be saying that a lot in the near future. When I came around him, I saw it too. The grave had been opened, with dirt sprayed all over as if it had been dug up by some enormous dog. The coffin had been dragged up out of the grave. A child’s coffin. It was white with a sort of lace pattern—something dainty for a little girl. And it was spattered with blood.
The lid had been torn open, hanging on one remaining hinge. I didn’t want to look. I was about to chicken out and make Ed go…when my hands tightened over the smooth ebony and silver contours of the crossbow, feeling its organic lines and sensuous curves. It reminded me that it was my job to look, to investigate, and to kill whatever it was that had possessed that innocent child.
Ed was surprised when he saw I was right beside him. “Kylie, you need to step back.”
“Ed, what I need to do is go forward.”
“Sweetheart, there’s blood all over that.”
I stopped. “You…called me ‘sweetheart.’”
He blinked. “Yeah.”
I slowly blew out a breath. I liked the feeling I got from his words a little too much, but I had to shove that aside. “I have to see what happened.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I’m not going over there,” said Nick, his voice quavering.
I barely acknowledged him. This might be the worst thing I’d ever had to do. No, my mother’s funeral was the worst thing I’d ever had to do. But this was a close second.
We got to the opened hole. I could now see streaks of claw marks on the coffin and more dug into the edge of the grave—and I could smell something too. It was the scent of death, but more than that. It was what I smelled when I was at the murder scene of Dan Parker, the old Congregational Church’s caretaker. He’d been murdered—sacrificed, so the Wiccans believed. And we hadn’t a clue as to who had done it. That was another thing we’d have to discuss with Ed.
We slowly rounded the other side of the open coffin, and I got my first glimpse of the contents. “Oh, God.”
She was there. But…parts of her were missing. And a big chunk was cut out of her abdomen. Wait. Not cut.
I stepped closer.
Bitten. Chewed. Eaten.
I turned away and threw up all over someone’s grandmother’s tombstone. I sank down and leaned on the stone when I was empty.
Nick winced and squirmed somewhere behind me. “Jesus, Kylie. I’ll pay you anything not to tell me.”
Ed’s hands were on my shoulders, a comforting presence. “You should go. I’ve got to call this in.”
“No, wait. I have to—”
“You don’t have to do anything else.”
I put a trembling hand to my forehead. “Is it her?”
He turned and grimaced as he looked it over. “Down to the same plaid dress and red tights.”
“So…something got her just as we caught up to the grave?”
“That doesn’t seem likely.” Ever the detective, Ed’s eyes constantly roved around the scene as he spoke, searching. “I don’t…I don’t think she left her coffin.”
I ran my sleeve over my sweaty forehead. Sweat and freezing cold. What a great combination. “What do you mean?”
“I’m looking at her shoes, her hands. She wasn’t running on mud and gravel. She’s clean…as far as that goes. And…you know. The rest of her…her face—mouth and eyes. Still sewn shut. It wasn’t her.”
“Then…what was it we saw?”
“I don’t know. That’s the Wiccan’s department, isn’t it?”
I looked down at the crossbow. It had disarmed.
“Go, Kylie,” he said. “Take Nick with you.”
I lifted the crossbow weakly. “But maybe I should…”
“You should go back to the shop.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.” I spit the bile from my mouth and unsteadily raised the crossbow.
There was an endearing twinkle in his eye. “Then wait here while I call it in.”
He spoke into his shoulder mic and got Deputy George, while we waited. It wasn’t long till we spotted the flashing lights of his police Jeep rambling up the drive. He got out and stared at Nick. Deputy George didn’t often acknowledge him in public, but Nick gave him a bro-style chin raise in greeting.
“Jeezum rice!” cried George when he saw what Ed was staring at.
I slipped away toward Nick.
“Hey!” George called after me. “Where do you think you’re going? Put down the weapon.” He reached for the flap snapped down over his holster, but Ed covered his hand.
“She can go,” he said.
“But Sheriff…”
“She and Nick can go.”
Deputy George squared on Nick, mustache and all. “Ni—uh, Mr. Riley? What are you…what are you doing here?”
Nick gave me a desperate look, but it was Ed who saved the day. “They followed some animal into the cemetery and called me."
“An animal? What kind of animal?”
“They don’t know.” Ed gestured for me to go.
I swung the crossbow down, trying to hide it by carrying it next to my thigh with one hand, and took Nick’s arm with the other. We hurried down to the cemetery gate. Nick looked back, but the deputy never glanced his way. Once we got to the street, we ran.
Nick tried to slow me down. “What’s the hurry?”
“The Draugr.”
“Shit!” He then grabbed my arm, and we sprinted back to the shop. When we got to the porch, I scanned the woods.
“Fog is thick around here,” I said.
“I’ve never seen it like this.”
“Really?”
“I mean, sometimes it comes up from the coast when a storm’s coming—the ocean’s only over that ridge and down the road—but this is wicked thick.”
“Do you suppose it comes with—” Was something moving out there? “Let’s get inside. Maybe Jolene—”
“Yeah. We’ve got a lot to ask that girl.” He held me back as I grabbed for the door latch. “Do you think George and Ed will be okay?”
“They’re both armed, and they’ve got a car. And good old-fashioned bullets seem to do the trick with those zombie guys…at least for a while.”
“I know I said we should tell George, but maybe it isn’t a good idea. He already hates that I’m into the occult.”
“What if he knew it was real?”
“He’s an every-Sunday churchgoer. He already thinks it’s real, and that I’ll go to Hell for being involved in it.”
“But can’t you tell him you’re one of the good guys?”
“I don’t think he thinks there are good guys involved with this.”
“Yeah. When I saw him at the Chamber of Commerce get-together at the church, he seemed part of the Ruth Russell crowd.”
Nick sighed. “He’s Mister Conservative all right. Why do you think he’s closeted?”
“Well, Mission One is to convince him that you are one of the good guys.”
“Isn’t Mission One to get rid of the Draugr?”
“It’s one of the many missions. There’s a whole list. Haven’t you noticed?”
When I pulled open the door, Doc was suddenly in front of us. “What happened? Where’s Sheriff Ed?”
Seraphina grabbed me and looked me over. “Good goddess, that was terrible. Jeff said—”
I pushed past her and went straight to Jolene. “Ed’s fine. We’re all okay. And that was no little girl. Ed said that it was someone called Lexy Johnson and that she died a few days ago. We followed her…it…whatever…to the cemetery, and when we got to her grave, it was all dug up, the coffin was hauled up and opened, and she was partially…well, eaten. At least, that’s what it looked like. But the sheriff said that she didn’t appear to have left her coffin. So…what was it?”
Jolene didn’t even need to grab her tablet. “That sounds like a ghoul. They hang around graveyards, mostly prey on children, and eat the dead. Then they take on the form of the ones they recently…um, ate.”
“So it wasn’t Lexy.”
“No. It was the ghoul just taking on her form.”
“I’m pretty sure it came out of the Booke. The crossbow armed itself with a bolt I’ve never seen before.”
“You are correct,” said Erasmus Dark, appearing out of nowhere.
We all started.
I shook the crossbow at him. “Stop doing that!”
He looked at me with just the merest of smiles. “Doing what?”
Ignoring him seemed the most sensible thing to do. “Okay,” I said, pacing with the crossbow. I felt better holding it. “We’ve got a ghoul from the Booke, the Draugr from…who knows where, Andras out hunting me, and Baphomet. Have I left anything out?”
“The pentagram you saw at the church,” said Seraphina.
“And the gruesome death of Dan Parker,” said Doc.
I nodded. That was…a lot. “Help me out here.” I continued pacing in front of my fireplace. “What should we do first? I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. Like I need to delegate.”
“That’s exactly what you should do, Kylie,” said Doc. “I think you need to concentrate on the ghoul since you’re the only one who can get rid of it.”
“Okay. Good idea.”
“And Mr. Dark,” he continued, “needs to stay close to you in order to keep an eye out for Andras. He could pounce at any time and, well, they’re both demons, so…”
Erasmus flashed a smile full of extra teeth. “Yes.” He drew the sound out till it was almost a hiss. A feeling that wasn’t entirely unpleasant rippled up my spine in response.
I nodded. “Then how about Jolene and Seraphina research the Draugr—”
“And I can hunt them down,” said Jeff, with a distinctly wolfy growling voice. The way he now seemed to linger in the shadows made me forget he was there.
Doc was momentarily distracted by the change in Jeff’s voice. After all, Jeff’s ears were also getting pointy. “Uh…yes, Mr. Chase. That seems like a good idea. You might even be immune from them.” He glanced at Nick. “And Nick and I will investigate the pentagram.”
“What about Dan?” said Nick.
“Well, now that Sheriff Ed is…one of us, he can investigate it with new eyes and, hopefully, with new suspects in mind.”
Good. This was good. Breaking it down into bite-sized chunks was easier. Except that “bite-sized chunks” made me think of poor Lexy, making me queasy all over again. I set the crossbow beside me as I sank into a chair. “All right. Jolene, the ghoul. Will it be looking for another body? And if it isn’t, how can I find it?”
“It likes hanging out in graveyards, and since we only have the one in town, that should make it easier, I guess.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Then…I should go back tonight?”
“Are you up to it?” asked Nick.
“Yes, she is,” said Erasmus.
Nick got in close to him, which was pretty brave considering how the demon mostly just scared him. “Is she allowed to speak for herself?”
“She is sitting right here,” I reminded them. “And yes.” I picked up the crossbow and rose. “I’m up to it.”
Nick folded his arms, clearly at his wit’s end with Erasmus. “Kylie, you don’t have to go.”
“Yeah, I kind of do. Check out the pentagram thing.” I saluted with the crossbow, grabbed my coat this time, and went outside.
I shoved the crossbow into Erasmus’ hands while I slipped on the heavy jacket.
“So now your lover knows about all this,” he commented matter-of-factly.
I zipped up my jacket and snatched the crossbow back, then dug out the beast-faced amulet from under my shirt and thrust it at him. He narrowed his eyes and scowled. “See this? You and me. This is our relationship. And the Booke. That’s it.”
The scowl deepened.
I stuffed his amulet back into my jacket and adjusted the collar before turning toward the street. Tendrils of mist curled around the silver-barked tree trunks of the woods across the way. With a steadying breath, I stepped onto the wet pavement.
“I sent you a message,” he said. “Did you receive it?”
My heart lurched. That raven splatter, the message just for me, saying he was coming back…to me. His words were meant to cause that reaction. I gave him the satisfaction of turning toward him. “Yes. How…how did you manage to do it? I mean…that was weird magic, right? Weren’t you mortally injured from the spell?”
His scowl turned to puzzlement. “I don’t know how I managed it.”
“Could have at least sent it in English.”
“I was a little distracted at the time…with unimaginable pain.”
He knew that would do it. I stepped toward him.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it. In the end, it seemed like a waste of time and it could have killed you. I don’t want you dead.”
He gave me one of those heart-meltingly intense looks. I almost…almost leaned into him.
“Come on,” I said instead, marching up the road.