The floor of the attic—loosened by the C4—fell through into the room below. I barely caught myself on my hands and hauled myself up, my breath fast, a heated sweat starting. Below, in the house, I could hear the sounds of fighting.
Soul landed beside me with that flowing, blurring motion that was in no way human. She didn’t bother with the innocent look this time, no longer caring that she had proven herself some kind of shape-shifting supernat. She gestured for me to lead the way. I didn’t argue, but this time I tested the joist before dropping my weight on it.
I landed on the floor just as the first rays of the sun burst across the horizon. Pinkish light filled the sky, brightening everything. Including the fight in the center of the house. In a single eye blink and inhalation, I took in the scene and found pattern in the madness. The stench was awful—death and a miasma of dust and rot. And two monstrous things were fighting Bruiser. One looked like a wasp with human legs and arms; the other like a spider. Spidey vamp, for real. And Bruiser was standing over Rick, who wasn’t moving at all. Crap.
Bruiser’s swords moved so fast I couldn’t follow, cutting, cutting, a whirlwind of steel, the center of the double-edged blades silver plated and catching the pink glow. It seemed important for half a second until one thing whirled and lashed out at me.
I leaped to the side, into a ray of light. The spidey-revenant-vamp-thing didn’t follow. I drew my M4 and braced it against my shoulder. Aimed at what looked like a stinger, two-pronged and wicked sharp. I fired. And fired again. The stinger was gone, leaving a drooling stump and a wash of greenish goo. All I could think of was the old movie Ghost Busters until, off balance, the thing reeled to me and I got my first good look. This was no Casper.
The carapace that seemed to grow out of its back looked like a huge hornet—not human at all, though it had only vestigial wings. It had a human jaw and vamp canines. Its eyes were multifaceted. Its shoulders, torso, and legs were human, though furred and striped like a hornet. And on its chest hung a pocket watch. I didn’t bother aiming for anything that might kill it. I aimed at the amulet and fired. The vamp jerked to the side as if it knew what I aimed at. I fired. And fired. Hitting the creature, knocking off chunks, but seemingly doing little damage. It came at me. Rushing on its human legs.
Backpedaling fast, I fired again. This time I hit the amulet. The spidey vamp stumbled. I had one shell left and braced my feet. Took careful aim at the amulet hanging on the thing. Fired my last shot.
The silver fléchettes smashed the amulet. The creature fell. But it was still twitching. I pulled my vamp-killer and started hacking at the neck. Its flesh was hard, with a carapace just under skin. But I kept at it until the head separated from the rest of the misshapen thing and rolled a short distance, hit a brick from the fireplace, and stopped in a ray of pinkish light. An eye seemed to be looking up to me, as the head started to sizzle and burn. The stink of rotten, burning meat filled the air.
The body was still in shadow. I leaned down and gathered up the remains of the amulet. Stuffed it into a pocket. And pulled the spidey vamp across a black arc painted on the floor and into the sunlight. It weighed a ton. The body started to smoke. Good riddance.
Reloading from my handy-dandy belated birthday present was a whiz. It was only six rounds, but it was a lot faster than pulling them from an ammo bag. I was breathing hard as I readied the weapon and took in the room.
Bruiser was still fighting, but now Soul stood over Rick, her arms doing something witchy with blue sparks flying. It looked like a ward, but it didn’t seem to be doing much. “Go for the amulets!” I shouted, pressing the stock against my shoulder. “Bruiser! Drop and roll!”
As if he understood perfectly, Bruiser folded his blades and threw himself into a somersault, over the blades and behind me. The spider he was fighting spun to follow and saw me. I didn’t waste time evaluating it; I just spotted the amulet in a patch of spiky hair, aimed, and started firing. I must have hit it, because the spidey thing fell. I had no idea where its head was located. Bruiser pulled a shotgun and fired four rounds, two into each eye. It went still. He reloaded and started firing again. Soul raced into the back of the house, into the shadows.
I bent over Rick. He was bleeding from the mouth but was breathing, and I could see his pulse in his throat. I checked his pupils, which were equal and reactive. But his earpieces were gone. Not good. Even though the moon was over the horizon, it was still full—even more than last night. As I released his eyelid, his hand slammed into my side with all the power a were-animal can muster. Knocking me to the side.
I rolled with the force of the blow and ended up with Rick on top of me, his eyes a brilliant golden green. He growled and hissed and showed me his teeth. Soul appeared behind him and placed her hands on his head. Rick went still as a block of ice. His partner was holding the earpieces. The glow of his eyes faded, and he took the earbuds and inserted them. He drew a deep breath and stood, pulling me to my feet.
My ears were mostly gone from the concussion of the explosives and shotguns, but the shadows on the walls told me we weren’t finished. The wolf was in the back of the house, fighting for his life. I pointed and Rick sped past me into the back room, Soul on his heels.
Eli had made it inside at last, and he and Bruiser raced through another doorway on the right. That is when I realized. There were no witches here. Not one.
“Son of a freaking gun,” I muttered. “We’ve been conned.” On the run, I picked up the parts of the amulet that I could find and stuck them into another pocket.
The front part of the house had been a kitchen, dining, and living room. Now the roof and ceiling sagged, and the space was full of brick and debris from the exploded chimney, green goo, and smoking and burning bodies like aliens out of a horror movie. No furniture. No nothing except a weird black painted arc on each of the floors.
The back of the house was much darker, divided into two bedrooms and a bath, all damp, with wallpaper hanging off the walls and furniture debris scattered everywhere—parts of a bed and mattress, parts of tables and chairs, a busted bathroom sink and toilet, and human bodies, clearly drained and left to rot or rise as vamps, as nature and the intent of the master intended.
Two of them were children.
My Beast couldn’t take the sight of more dead children. She roared inside me, screaming, Kits! I dropped the empty shotgun as power struck through me like a battering ram and I/we leaped for the back of the thing in the room. In midair I drew a nine-mil. The thing was seven feet tall and had pinchers, which I ignored. I landed on his back, reached around, grabbed the chain holding the amulet, and fired repeatedly into the pocket watch, the bullets and ricochets hitting the creature or bouncing off.
It roared and I/we pushed off with back legs. Sprang to the floor. As I fell, I ripped the busted amulet from his neck. Dropped and rolled. Eli emptied his sub gun into the thing’s head. I put the busted amulet into a pocket. I was gonna run out of pockets soon. Which made me laugh. Eli looked at me like I was crazy, and then he laughed with me.
He pointed to the front of the house and grabbed a pincher. I looked at the iron-covered windows and understood. I grabbed a human-shaped foot, and together we dragged the thing into the sunlight. When we trotted into the last room, we found Rick and Bruiser hitting the last creature with swords, trying to decapitate it.