by M. D. Massey
Is that—is she laughing?
Our previous meetings and discussions had been all business, and thus I hadn’t offered her much in the way of humor on those occasions. Janice tried to stifle it so as not to make more noise than necessary, but she sounded like a goose with a cold. Moments later, she was wiping tears from her eyes.
“Oh, Colin. Gran was right. It is easy to get a rise out of you.”
“Well, that’s one thing you have in common with her—a penchant for making me uncomfortable.” I smiled to be a good sport, pointedly avoiding any mention of her zany, off-putting laugh. “Anyway, I’m going to sneak up on the necklace thief now. Remember, ninety seconds.”
She gave me a wide-eyed grin that said she thought I was a riot. I heard her snort-chuckling as I slunk off into the trees to our right. As I crept through the little patch of woods surrounding the graveyard, I could just make out the age-pitted, moss-covered gravestones that dotted the clearing. A rusted chain-link fence surrounded the graveyard, probably put there to keep the local kids out. In all honesty, though, the place was creepy enough that any teen would steer clear of it.
It took maybe a minute to sneak to the other side of the graveyard, and a few seconds more to case the place. It consisted of a small patch of grass and tombstones, maybe a hundred feet across and almost completely overgrown with weeds and brush. Sadly, it appeared none of the graveyard’s occupants had descendants who were still around to keep the place up.
Or perhaps none are still alive to see to that task.
Although the place looked to have been abandoned by the living, the occupants themselves were definitely in attendance. I spotted the revenant, a tiny little wisp of a thing that couldn’t have been older than twelve when he’d been murdered. That one was surrounded by a dozen or more animated skeletons in various states of disrepair. Most were just bones held together by desiccated strands of sinew, with a few patches of moldy skin and clothing covering them here and there.
As for the boy, he was a sad sight. He had a large, jagged gash bisecting his neck just under his chin. It looked as if someone had snuck up on him and slashed him from ear to ear with a saw blade, or maybe a rusty old knife. Although he was most definitely feral and dangerous, as all revenants were, his appearance saddened me to my core.
Why does it always have to be kids? And who the hell murders a child, only to turn them into a revenant?
I made a mental note to find out who the kid’s maker was so I could have a long, painful talk with them. But all feelings of remorse and pity aside, the kid had Janice’s choker in his hands—and we had to get that necklace back. I took a last look around to make sure there were no bokors lurking in the shadows. Then, with a deep, shuddering breath, I headed into the graveyard.
4
Once I entered the graveyard, I kept a low profile, slinking from gravestone to gravestone so as not to be seen. Thankfully the skeletons weren’t an issue, as far as detection was concerned. Animated skeletons generally lacked the ability to hear, and they mostly operated by direct commands from their master. So long as they didn’t see me, they wouldn’t detect my approach.
However, their presence might very well mean that whoever raised them was close by. It was a risk I was willing to take, because the sooner we got that necklace back, the sooner I could finish my date with Janice and fulfill my obligation to Maman Brigitte. Not that Janice was poor company, far from it. But owing any kind of favor to a god—especially one of both Celtic and voudon origins—was never a good thing.
I was nearly on top of them when the rev began sniffing the air in my direction.
Ah, shit—my cologne!
I'd slapped some on as an afterthought while I was getting dressed. Normally I didn’t use it, nor did I use any scented soaps or shampoos. It was an old habit from my hunting days, just one more trick to make it harder for enemies to detect me. You could always cover your own scent with animal urine, offal, or dung, but it was damned hard to cover up manmade perfumes unless you resorted to magic.
My lack of prescience regarding the potential activities of the evening was about to give away my presence. The revenant had definitely locked in on my scent, probably looking for a meal. There was no way I was going to surprise him now.
Gah! Should’ve known I’d be facing the supernatural tonight.
I mean, duh. Take one Colin McCool, add a voodoo priestess, multiply by the fact that this was a formal date, and then factor in a half-Celtic, half-voudon goddess as the X-factor, and what do you get? Mayhem, of course.
The rev was looking my way now.
So much for the element of surprise. Time to light this fuse and see what erupts.
I leapt out from my hiding place, swinging Dyrnwyn in a wide arc at the nearest skeletons. The instant it made contact with the first necromantic creature, the dark magic caused the sword to light up like a blow torch. Three of the skeletons split into two on my first swing, and another two of them fell to my backswing.
“Hello, fellas,” I said with aplomb as I sauntered into their midst, the sword hanging almost languidly from my grip. “Somebody forgot to invite me to your undead party thingy, so I invited myself. Hope you don’t mind.”
The rev leapt backward, landing on a short mausoleum-like structure half-sunken into the ground. It hissed at me, clutching the necklace to its breast. A beat after that, the skeletons reacted to my presence, each lumbering toward me with an awkward, shambling gait. As those numbskulls closed in on me, the rev took off at a run in my date’s direction.
“Janice, heads up—one jewel thief headed your way!”
Janice didn’t reply, so I had to assume that she was lying in wait and somehow laying a trap for our young, unfortunate friend.
Or, she didn’t hear me.
Shit.
I laid about with the flaming sword, wasting the undead bone golems with abandon as I ran after the revenant. Thankfully, animated skeletons were slow and clumsy unless under the direct control of their maker. Their current lack of direction made it a simple task to clear a path, which told me I needn’t worry about getting blindsided by magic.
Soon I broke free of skeletons and sprinted after the revenant. I hoped like hell that Janice had heard me, but of the few Irish traits I’d failed to inherit from my forebears, luck was chief among them. I extinguished the sword as I ran, because running full tilt with a sword in your hand was hard enough—even when it wasn’t on fire.
Moments later, I had the revenant in my sights. It had stopped at the edge of the cemetery nearest Janice’s house, probably because it had detected her presence. The voodoo priestess was nowhere to be seen, so I decided to take the opportunity to end this chase while the rev was distracted.
Without slowing down, I slipped my sword in my Bag and leapt at the rev’s back. While I could have chopped it down, I was worried that I might hit the necklace it held with Dyrnwyn. The obvious danger was damaging Janice’s magical doodad, and the not-so-obvious danger was that the two magical artifacts could react poorly upon contact. It had been known to happen, and the results might be anything from instant transmogrification or a massive explosion to opening a rift in space and time. It wasn’t worth the risk, so I tackled the little dead guy instead.
The moment my feet left the ground, I heard Janice call out from the trees nearby.
“Colin, no!”
Well, that can’t be good.
Just as I made contact with the revenant, I realized why he had been standing so very still at the edge of the graveyard, and why Janice didn’t want me tackling him. Tiny, nearly invisible bands of mist-like magic enveloped the creature from head to toe, threads so faint I couldn’t see them until I was right on top of them. And dancing along those wispy lines of magic were thousands of itty-bitty sparks of electricity.
Wouldn’t you know it, those threads trailed straight back to where Janice hid in the trees. For a split second, I had the opportunity to admire her handiwork. It was a neat little spell. The weave
s were designed to disrupt electrical conduction in skeletal muscle tissue without doing damage to the target.
A magic taser. Sweet.
And that’s the last thing that went through my mind before I got zapped.
5
When I came to, my date stood over me wearing an expression that blurred the lines between worry and amusement. Although her brow was furrowed with concern, she was clearly trying very hard not to crack a grin. Meanwhile every muscle in my body ached, likely from the violent spasms induced by Janice’s spell. My head felt muzzy, my vision was blurry, and I had a splitting headache coming on.
So, situation normal—all fucked up.
When I’d stopped seeing double, a quick look around the area told me that the revenant was gone. Janice crossed her arms over her chest as she tapped her foot nervously. I could tell she was pissed at me, and the best I could do was apologize for the error.
“Sorry for screwing up your spell. I take it the rev split when you released it?”
She chewed the corner of her lip and nodded. “I couldn’t release you without also releasing him, because the spell doesn’t work that way. I’d hoped he’d be incapacitated long enough for me to separate you two so I could zap him again. But as I was untangling you, the little turd jumped up, knocked me over, and headed west through the trees.”
“Again, my apologies for messing up your trap.” I slowly sat up, rubbing my head with one hand while propping myself up with the other. “My compliments on the spell work, though. It packed a punch.”
Janice brushed bits of grass and dirt off her dress. “Hadn’t ever tried it out on a live person before, or a dead one for that matter, so I honestly didn’t know how it’d affect you. Seems the undead recover a lot faster from being zapped by electricity—who knew?”
“Yeah, who’da thunk it?” I replied ruefully. “You said the rev headed west?”
Her expression brightened. “Ah, your memory is coming back. See? You’re recovering already. I don’t think he’s gone far though—”
I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “Janice, what do you mean my memory is coming back?”
“Mmm, well—you were mumbling incoherently for a time, and drooling quite a lot. In fact, you’ve still got something right there,” she said, pointing in the general direction of my face. When my tragically-uncoordinated face wiping attempts failed, Janice hiked her dress slightly to squat down beside me, reaching forward with her thumb to wipe something from my chin. “There you go—all better.”
I might’ve felt like shit, but I still noticed the smooth curve of her calves—and she noticed me noticing. I blushed a little at being caught, but she merely smiled coquettishly when I noticed her noticing me noticing her.
“Ahem—maybe we should go catch that revenant?” I proffered as I stumbled to my feet.
She stood as well, quicker than me so she could help me up. I almost waved her off, but when my knees began to give, I let her.
Note to self—don’t piss Janice off while standing in a mud puddle.
My date cocked her head at me. “Listen, if you’re still too weak, I can handle it on my own. That rev’s small, and since you took out most of those skeletons, I think I can handle it on my own.”
I shook my head. “There were still a few left.”
“Nope, took care of them. Pretty easy to de-animate if you know how.”
“Still, I should go with you,” I said, leaving it unspoken that if I didn’t and something happened to Janice, Maman Brigitte would kill me. “Just, ah… give me a moment to fully recuperate.”
Closing my eyes, I stilled my mind and slowed my breathing. Then, I changed the rhythm and timing of my breaths, adopting a super-oxygenating pattern that would help clear my head and hopefully allow me to continue the chase. It was an old druid trick, not really magic but instead a learned and practiced manipulation of the human body’s capacity to recuperate. In a minute or so, I felt well enough to walk.
“Okay,” I said as I opened my eyes. “I’m ready to go.”
“Sure, no rush or anything,” Janice said, playfully rolling her eyes. “Seriously, though, if you weren’t so cute I’d have left your ass in the dirt. So, get a move on already.”
She took off at a jog through the trees, but at a much slower pace than earlier. Painfully, I pushed myself to my feet and followed her down a well-used game trail. We ran toward some street lights ahead, passing by an abandoned homeless camp consisting of a collapsed pup tent, a couple of rusted folding chairs, and lots of trash and human refuse.
Secretly, I hoped Janice was right and that we wouldn’t have far to go to catch up with the rev again. Although I still felt a bit unsteady, I wasn’t going to let her know that. A guy needed to retain some dignity, after all.
Thankfully, my date and I didn’t have far to go. We broke from the trees, exiting the small wooded area onto a dead-end street lined with small, rundown single-story homes. Most of the homes had wooden clapboard siding, peeling white paint, and low-peaked, shingled roofs that were about ten years and a few hailstorms past the date they should’ve been replaced. A few of the houses were brick, and some were brightly-painted in pastel pinks, yellows, and blues. But even the yards that were free of trash and junk displayed the same signs of dilapidation and disrepair you’d find in most poor urban neighborhoods.
Many of the cars parked on the street and in the gravel or cracked concrete driveways were old and in similar disrepair, but here and there I saw late-model luxury cars and SUVs with oversized chrome rims and low-profile tires. The night was still young, and thus some neighborhood residents were sitting on their front porches, chatting, drinking, and listening to music in the mild evening air.
I wondered how the residents would react to a couple of well-dressed white folk chasing a kid up their street. They’d probably assume we were cops and mind their own business, but if there was any gang activity here, we might also draw attention from the wrong people. Just to be safe, I started to stealth-shift. I didn’t want to get shot, and it was much easier to take a gun away when you could move at vampire speed.
Now to find that stupid revenant so I can get this date back on track—and pay my debt to Maman Brigitte.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, a scream of sheer terror pierced the night.
“Well, I guess we know where the revenant went,” I murmured as I took off at a jog toward the commotion.
6
As we headed toward the screams, I scanned the area while Janice sprinted past me, crouching down behind a rusted 80s-era Pontiac sedan with three flat tires and a cracked windshield. My date peeked over the hood at a house across the street. Her eyes were fixed on the roof of the house, where our errant revenant sat perched in front of an upstairs bedroom window.
The screams, of course, were coming from a teenage girl who stood inside the house just feet from the rev. The thing was covered in blood and gore, and to the untrained eye it likely looked like an extra from a TV zombie show. My first instinct was to cross the street and deal with the rev before it attacked the girl, but her dad beat me to it.
Before I could make my move, a late-middle-aged black man in a wife-beater and tan Dickies work pants appeared in the window, holding an ancient breakover shotgun that looked to be chambered in 10 gauge.
Fucking elephant gun. Gramps knows what’s up, apparently.
“Ah, hell no!” the old man shouted. “No triflin’ ass white boy’s gonna come up on my roof and scare my little girl!”
The old dude stuck the barrel of the shottie out the window and pulled the trigger. The rev screeched like a banshee, then bolted over the eaves of the dormer, stopping at the roof’s peak where the old man couldn’t see him. The girl’s father leaned out the window, shaking his gun at what he must’ve assumed was a retreating teen.
“Rock salt and ghost pepper flakes! See how you like that, you little bitch-ass punk!” He shook the shotgun one last time before slamming the window closed. “And don’t
come back!”
Ouch. God love old people who refuse to take anyone’s shit. Still need to deal with the rev, though.
I stood up with the intention of taking a running leap at the roof where the rev now crouched, nursing its side. But as I did, Janice motioned frantically at me to stay put.
“Colin, get down!” she whispered.
“What?” I answered, looking up and down the now-empty street.
Rather than drawing a crowd, everyone had gone inside once they heard gunshots. People in poor, working-class neighborhoods knew that you didn’t want to get caught outside when the cops came to investigate gunfire. It was just too easy to get implicated in something you had nothing to do with. Best to just mind your own business and be glad it wasn’t you who’d gotten shot.
Janice shook her head at me and pointed beyond the house, past the roof where the revenant perched. The rev was just sitting there, moaning and making little gurgly noises while it rocked back and forth to some imaginary beat.
Never seen a rev do that before. Weird.
I watched the unfortunate undead child for a moment, wondering what could be causing it to act so strangely. Then, my eyes tracked beyond the house to the tall trees in the empty lots beyond. It was dark and my enhanced Fomorian eyesight hadn’t completely kicked in yet, but I could’ve sworn that one of the trees was moving.
Even stranger, the trees in this area were mostly live oak and cedar elm. Those species were large trees with lots of foliage that tended to have broad, gnarled trunks. But the tree that was moving was anything but thick and gnarled. Instead, it was tall, slender, and completely devoid of foliage. I kept my eyes on it as I cast a cantrip that would allow me to see better in the low light.
What the fuck?
When it came into focus, I realized that what I’d thought was a tree was no tree at all. Instead, it was a thirty-foot tall man, beanpole thin, wearing battered leather dress shoes, dusty black dress pants, and a matching suit coat with tails that draped down to his thighs. His legs were easily two-thirds his entire height, with arms just as disproportionate that reached well past his knees. He was bare-chested beneath the coat, and so thin as to be almost skeletal in appearance, with ashen skin pulled tight as a drum across his chest, neck, and skull.
