Shadows in the Mist Page 5

  “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 see
med 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.

  Chapter Four

  I kept an eye out for the Draugr, looking over my shoulder about every five seconds. Erasmus sighed with impatience. “We don’t have to walk, you know.”

  “Oh. I forgot about your particular mode of transportation. Do you want to…?”

  He stepped forward. Without another word, he took my arm and stood with his face inches from mine. We locked eyes, and the sudden dark cold of teleportation took my breath away. When I blinked and looked past his shoulder, we were in the cemetery again.

  But he hadn’t let me go or stood back. He was still looking at me as if he wanted something. And I knew what that was. Why was it that when I was with Erasmus I wanted him, and when I was with Ed I wanted him? Could you juggle two men? Only if they agreed to it, I supposed.

  “Erasmus…” I pleaded.

  His fingers slowly uncurled from around my arms, and then his warmth was gone.

  The sheriff and deputy were still there. I could see the flashing lights from Deputy George’s Jeep as well as a few more cars. Maybe the coroner and some techs. We’d have to avoid them.

  “I wonder if any other corpses are newly buried here. Maybe Dan Parker. But where would he be?”

  “I can smell them, you know.”

  “Charming. Any more unique talents I should know about?”

  A smirk lifted one corner of his mouth. “I daresay, you know some of them already.”

  “Erasmus.”

  “Sorry,” he said without apology. He looked more animal than human as he raised his face and sniffed the air. And worse, he seemed to be enjoying it. Enjoying sniffing out a corpse. It was just one of many reminders that he wasn’t human and that I shouldn’t ever really let my guard
down around him.

  He pointed. “That way.”

  I followed him up a rise and under some wide-spreading oak boughs. I’m sure the cemetery was lovely during the day, all green lawns and shady trees. But at night it was dark, foggy, shadowed, and downright creepy.

  I could hear vague voices of the techs and coroner on the wind, which made it hard to listen to other things, like Viking zombies and a ghoul. Whatever a ghoul sounded like.

  Erasmus moved steadily ahead but stopped at the top of another rise. I came up beside him and followed his gaze. Something small and wiry was digging furiously at a grave. It reminded me a lot of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings stories. Only this was much worse.

  Erasmus made sure we were upwind as we carefully approached. The ghoul was more than boney—effectively a skeleton with skin stretched over it, wearing only rags. It had wisps of hair that looked green in the moonlight. Its mouth was set in a grimace that revealed long, human-like teeth, like a skull would have. And it kept on snapping its jaws in irritation. Its eyes bulged out too, or at least looked that way staring out of deep, bruised sockets. It was digging hard, tossing dirt everywhere. Like a meth addict trying to get its next fix.

  The crossbow was armed. I stopped and stood firmly on the uneven ground to get my balance. I raised the weapon to my shoulder, taking careful aim.

  Just as I was about to pull the trigger, it looked up, alarmed. It’s ping-pong ball-sized eyes focused on me as it drew back its thin lips and hissed, a skull grimace in full.

  I pulled the trigger, but it was too late. The ghoul had already moved. The bolt pinged off a tombstone and disappeared in the shadows. I didn’t worry since I knew it would magically appear back in the crossbow in an eye blink.

  The ghoul fell forward and started running on all fours as it had done when it was disguised as Lexy.

  I plunged down the hill, giving chase. Erasmus was beside me but soon pulled away, gaining on the ghoul with supernatural speed. He reached an arm out and nabbed the little creep. They tumbled on the turf, smacking against a tall, moss-covered obelisk.

  I slowed as I came up to them. Erasmus was wrestling with it, trying to hold it still. “Any time, Kylie,” he grunted.

  “Oh.” I swung the crossbow up, armed of course, and took aim. The thing was pretty pathetic-looking. It was whining and snapping its jaws and waving its thin skeleton arms. Its hair and skin tone were green, pale and sickly.