Hellsinger 01 - Fish and Ghosts (P) (MM) (32 page)

He’d been a better student with traditional subjects. Somehow, he hadn’t seen himself following the family business, paying more attention to the reason Diet Coke exploded when a Mentos was dropped into it than whether or not four naturally claimed butterfly wings were necessary for a love potion. Still, something of a warning tingled at the empty recesses of his brain where he’d shoved his childhood. Something about porous organic material becoming a vessel for a ghost’s energy. It came to him in a snap… just as Tristan plunged a silver letter opener into Winifred’s wiggling tongue.

The blond stopped the tongue dead in its slug-like tracks.

Winifred, however, was a whole different kettle of snails.

“Mom, you used organic grains for the summoning.” Wolf turned his mother around. “Ground chicken bone. You spread it on the sand circle.”

“Fuck, you’re right.” Meegan paled. “I put the chicken grit where I’d put the bones. Right on top of the sands.”

“Yeah, and when you called her up, you gave her something organic to pour into. Mom, that’s why you’re supposed to use the whole bone. A ghost can’t animate something that large. The ground-up dried bone you laid down? She can
use
that. That’s why she’s here. Smoke, bone, and mirror, Mom. That’s what keeps a ghost contained in the circle. You
broke
the circle.”

What little he’d retained as a kid, Wolf couldn’t forget about the big three in summoning: smoke, bone, and mirror. Like the holy trinity of Creole cooking, nothing good could come out of altering the basics. The hint of smoke from a candle was enough to break down the light spectrum so a ghost could cross over, and the salt acted as the mirror, its tiny fractal surfaces shiny enough to trap a spirit from wandering, but it was the bone that drew the spirit. A representation of life, the bone was meant to be used as lure to draw the ghost’s attention but it needed to be fairly large too heavy for the malevolent spirit to possess and move about.

Much like Winifred was doing right now with the chicken bone grit sliding over the floor and up into the body she was building with her willpower and hatred.

It was one of the major tenets drilled into every Hellsinger since they were able to hold their first salver of salt. Never ever give a ghost a chance to grab hold of the physical world or you’d have a shit of a time getting it to leave. From the way Winifred was cackling from her tongueless maw, Wolf had to wage a battle he was ill-prepared to fight.

“Fucking shit damn it to hell,” Meegan swore. “I am
so
stupid! What was I thinking?”

“Yeah, let’s have that conversation later. I’ve got to get Tristan out of her way.”

Tristan was out in the open, and the ghost had him in her crosshairs. Before Wolf could detach himself from his mother, Winifred was on his lover, her fingers snaking out from her hands to press at the lips he’d just kissed. Black goop dripped from the ghost’s torn-apart cheeks, and the slime splashed onto Tristan’s bare arms, leaving red welts where it hit.

There wasn’t much mistaking Winifred’s intent. For all of Tristan’s ignorance about ghosts and Wolf’s fuzzy awareness of the supernatural, they both knew there was something paranormally attuned about Tristan, and from where Wolf stood, Winifred’s assault was less about revenge and murder and more about gaining control of Tristan’s body.

“Yeah, I never really liked sharing.” Wolf grabbed at one of the fallen boxes of salt his mother had left under the now-upended table. “And I sure as fuck ain’t going to share him.”

The red cardboard box was battered, and Wolf had to cup his hand over a tear on its side or he’d have lost all of it in the dash to reach the reception desk. Yelling over his shoulder at his mother, he began to fill a coffee cup with some of the salt.

“Mom! Blow all the candles out.” He caught a stir of bright hair from under the table. “Gidget, get out from under there and give us a hand. Drag Matt with you. Mom, figure something so we can fix this. We’ve got to send this bitch back to where she came from.”

He didn’t stop to see if the others were moving. Wolf was focused on one thing… stopping Winifred from crawling inside of Tristan’s body and doing God knows what with it.

If there was any time he regretted not listening to the complicated “lessons” his older relatives ran him and his cousins through, it certainly was now. Okay, maybe when Winifred first appeared ranked up there in regretting his inattention, but the stakes were higher now.

The thought of losing Tristan—any part of Tristan—made something inside of him curl up and die. Painfully.

Suddenly the few pounds of salt he was holding didn’t seem enough. He’d need an entire salt mine to bury Winifred so deep she couldn’t resurface, but what he had would hopefully be enough to get her off of Tristan.

The pinned tongue was slowly dissolving into sand and grit, its twisting remains oozing out a thin black trickle of gore onto the lobby floor. The inky smears on the opener were drying, the stains slowly turning to a wispy smoke, leaving the blade in soft gray plumes.

“Open the curtains! We need to get this place lit up.” If blocking the light gave Winifred an advantage to rise, flooding the lobby with it could only help Wolf’s cause. Not stopping to see if Meegan was listening to him, he launched himself at Winifred, armed only with a cup of rock salt and a feeble hope it was enough to push her back. “Come on, bitch. Let him go.”

Her fingers were pushing Tristan’s lips apart, invading him in a grotesque mockery of the pleasures he and Wolf shared in Tristan’s bed. That had to be taken care of first. Aiming for Winifred’s wriggling appendages, Wolf dumped the cup of salt over Tristan’s mouth, hoping the sear of the salt would be enough for the ghost to let him go.

Her high-pitched screams were definitely a good sign the salt was working.

Too bad he hadn’t thought about the salt dissolving her flesh and filling Tristan’s gullet with burnt grind and inky slime.

Winifred flew off of Tristan, her ruined hands smoking and sizzling as she waved her arms around in agony. Pushing in between the ghost and his lover, Wolf turned Tristan over and pounded his back to clear his airways. The blond spat out wet mouthfuls of sand, gagging on the gore he couldn’t get off his tongue, and his accusing eyes were a stormy green when he straightened up to look up at Wolf.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Tristan cleaned his tongue with his nails, flicking off a thin layer of moist grit.

“No, I’m trying to save you.” If Tristan was grumpy, it was a good sign he wasn’t too injured, and Wolf gave him a quick hug, then began to brush away as much of the sand and salt as he could see. “Okay, now to find a way to get rid of her once and for all. Can you stand up?”

“Yeah.” Tristan let Wolf hoist him up. Peeking around his lover’s shoulders, he frowned. “Shit, she’s coming back.”

“Grab the box and throw salt at her. We’ve got to disrupt her—” Wolf didn’t get much further when the lobby flared with light. It poured in from the windows and from the old-fashioned bulbs above them as Meegan and Gidget threw back heavy curtains and turned on the chandeliers.

Winifred’s mouth peeled back from her uneven teeth, crackling her already damaged cheeks. Her lips stretched up over her purplish gums, her skin mottled with uneven black and pink. Her arms hung loose from her shoulders, her wrists nearly at her knees, but her nests of serpentine fingers were gone, seared away from the dense coating of rock salt still clinging to her burnt stumps.

Matt dragged himself closer to Wolf, clutching a couple of salt boxes to his chest. His jeans were wet with blood, the denim soaked black around a nasty looking tear on his thigh. His hands shook violently when he passed one of the boxes over to Wolf, and either fear or blood loss stole the color from his face.

“Go hide behind the desk. If she can’t see you, she’ll leave you alone. I’ve got this.” Tristan took the other box from Wolf’s trembling technician. Matt looked at Wolf for reassurance, and Wolf nodded, urging his assistant to take cover.

“I dropped my cell phone back there someplace.” Wolf had to shout to be heard through Winifred’s increasingly frantic shrieks. “Call my cousin Cin. See if he can’t get someone here. We’re going to need backup if we can’t drive her out.”

Matt looked like he was about to protest, and Tristan shoved his shoulder, pushing him toward the reception desk. Stumbling, the young man ducked down behind the mahogany swerve, and Wolf could only hope he found the dropped phone to call in reinforcements.

Gidget was now throwing as much of the sand and salt as she could gather from the floor at Winifred as Meegan circled the ghost, her fractured Latin exhorting the ghost to leave the premises. Despite the chanting and splashes of toxic grains, the phantom stood fast, flailing at the women with her truncated limbs.

“Take the salt.” Tristan shoved his box into Wolf’s hands. “I’ve got an idea. Keep her here. Don’t let her leave. I’ll be right back.”

“Yeah, I think leaving’s the last thing on her mind.” Wolf glanced at the ghost doing battle with his mother. “Where are you going?”

“You’ll see. Let’s hope this works.”

Meegan had found a fireplace poker and was coating it with cooling wax from the candles. Dipping the poker’s end into the wax, she packed salt into the slick and stepped in, swinging her crusted-over weapon at the ghost, beating Winifred about the head. It was effective enough to sting at least, because when the cold-iron-and-salt hook struck Winifred’s forehead, sparks flew, and a thick gash opened up above her eyebrow, sending speckles of grit tumbling down the front of her dress.

Tristan bolted off toward the ballroom, leaving Wolf holding both boxes of salt.

“Fuck, well at least he’ll be safe,” Wolf muttered to himself.

The boxes were both half-f, and he needed to find a way to cover Winifred with as much of it as possible. She was hard to get close to. Her spinning about made her dangerous, and Gidget’s face and bare arms were welting up where she’d been hit.

Handing the younger woman a box, Wolf yelled, “Get as much on her as you can. Like you’re spreading chicken feed.”

“I have never fed a chicken in my fucking life!” Gidget screamed back. “Chicken comes on Styrofoam trays or in little white globes.”

“Fucking hell, just watch.” Wolf poured some salt into his hand and flung the grains out, scattering it over Winifred’s back.

The ghost’s reaction was immediate—a screech of pain—and the buttoned-up back of her dress began to dissolve, peeling down into crumbling trickles. A thin cobweb sheath of shadows peeked out from between the tears in her outer layer, and Wolf hit her again, aiming for the viscous dark threads.

The salt hit the strands and passed through the holes between the lines. Smoke began to pour out of the holes, tearing the edges further. Wolf scattered another handful, aiming for the same spot, but the ghost turned, slapping at him with her fingerless hand, and he reeled back, a sharp pain creeping across his right cheek.

Gidget screamed when Winifred advanced on her, and the young woman flung out handfuls of salt crystals at the ghost, her thick mascara running down her cheeks from the tears on her lashes. Meegan wound up and struck again, catching the poker hook into Winifred’s neck.

“Wolf, I’m stuck!” Meegan called out as he was shaking off the hit. “I can’t get it loose.”

He had to step quick to avoid the ghost’s rubbery arms, but Wolf scrambled over the messy floor to grab at the poker’s wooden handle. Meegan released her hold and snatched up the box of salt he’d abandoned, filling her hand to strike Winifred down again.

Then the music hit them in its full discordant fury, and Wolf was nearly dropped to his knees by the rolling bass coming from the corners of the room.

“What the fuck?” Clapping his hands over his ears, Wolf tried to keep most of the cacophony out of his eardrums, but the screech of guitar stripped right through his fingers. The noise settled down, an undertone of thundering beats layered with a bluesy melody and the roil of a liquid-smoke voice.

I took his hand, ran to temptation and sin

Drowned in song, ink on a pin

Dusted off the rust, let go of my pain

Best thing I did, was come out of the rain

Wolf recognized the song. It was a few years old and still coming up on rotation whenever he shared a car with Cin. A chorus followed, something about pretty boys, stolen kisses, and fire escapes. Then the music shifted, toning-down distortion was gone, and the piercing pain in his ears had subsided.

Winifred, however, didn’t appreciate the music, even after it leveled out. Her shrieks of outrage and pain turned to a nearly soundless keening, but the edge of her voice lingered at the edge of Wolf’s hearing, drilling through his skull. If anything, the noise coming from the specter was harder on his ears than the music’s initial dissonance.

He also couldn’t yank the poker out of the back of her head, no matter how hard he tugged, and Winifred twisted around, lifting Wolf off of his feet as he clung on for dear life to the poker’s wooden handle. She spun again, her arms a whirligig of motion around her, and one truncated hand flew up, striking Wolf across the mouth.

Spitting blood, he did the sensible thing and let go.

Halfway through the flying arc through the wide lobby, he belatedly realized he should have been closer to the floor before he released the handle.

Wolf hit the floor hard enough to rattle his brain… or what little he had left. Tucking his elbows in did nothing other than making it easier for the parquet to find his funny bone, and he rolled somewhat, slamming his knees against the floor in an awkward attempt to come to a stop. The waxy sheen on the parquet definitely was thicker in places, and he hit a slick patch, scooting farther down the walk and tumbling against the lobby’s antique wainscoting before coming to a shuddering stop.

Right at Tristan’s bare feet.

His lover jumped out of the way, a thoughtful gesture until Wolf realized he probably moved so he wouldn’t be mowed down by Wolf’s legs and arms. Amid the tumbling and flying, the song played on, a rough growl of music guaranteed to make a long stretch of highway a little more interesting and a lot less lonely.