Stolen Souls

by Debra Dunbar

It should have been easy, finding a finger in a sports car, but wherever the thing had landed when she’d flung it off her lap, it wasn’t readily visible. Grimacing, Nyalla stuck her hands into the plastic bags and reached under the passenger seat, feeling around for something small and finger–like. Instead, her hand hit something large and hard. And heavy. Bracing herself, she pulled with both hands and extracted a flat stone from under the seat.

  John Mayfield. The stone had been split in a diagonal under the name, so the dates of birth and death were missing. Nyalla frowned, wondering how Boomer had managed to carry the heavy stone and get it under the seat without anyone noticing. Perhaps she’d been more taken with this policeman then she thought.

  Placing the stone on the ground, she once again dove her hand under the seat, patting around blindly in search of the finger. She finally found it at the very back, her arm completely under the seat, her shoulder on the floor as she reached for it. Trying not to look, she carefully brought it forth, rolling the plastic bag from her hand around the finger and sealing it. Ick.

  With the body part safely in the freezer behind the mint chip ice cream, Nyalla paced the floor. How did she report this? Call 911? Wait and spring it on Eric during their date tomorrow night? And then there was the troublesome issue of the grave marker. The police would surely believe Boomer found and carried the finger home, but a ten–pound piece of granite? They’d think she stole it, that she was some kind of crime–scene looter. Her stomach knotted into a hard ball. What was the punishment for that? Would they lock her away for life? Things that were no big deal here would have gotten the death sentence with the elves, yet other stuff seemed to result in disproportionate penalties.

  When in doubt, delay a decision. It had been her mantra for the past few months — no need to start changing it now. That problem put aside, Nyalla returned to the computer and typed in a name. Immediately a series of news articles and videos appeared — John Mayfield, hit head–on by a truck while driving to work one morning. He’d been in hospital, only to die a few months later, leaving behind a wife and infant son as well as a mother and brother. How tragic to lose someone only to have their final resting place disturbed. Nyalla looked at Boomer. Please don’t let it have been him, she pleaded silently.

  A loud buzz startled Nyalla, and she glanced at her cell phone, vibrating across the coffee table. It was Candy, the second of the tag–team duo tasked with ensuring Nyalla was okay and acclimating to her new life. She hesitated, not wanting to worry the woman by ignoring her call. Michelle seemed to be the buddy type, while Candy was more motherly. She was also a werewolf, which fascinated Nyalla no end.

  Taking a deep breath, Nyalla picked up the phone. Did no one trust that she could look after herself? Not that she could, but, still, it was disheartening that everyone she knew had so little confidence in her.

  “Hi Candy.” Nyalla tried to keep her voice light and cheerful, as if she’d spent a lovely day beside the pool and not digging a severed finger out of Sam’s wrecked car.

  “Hi Nyalla.” Candy’s voice held a stern note behind the gentle greeting. “I’m disappointed you won’t be joining us tonight.”

  Candy had been so good to her, and she seemed more likely than the extroverted Michelle to understand what Nyalla was going through.

  “I … I just can’t,” she stuttered, trying to find the right words to express her fears. “All those people, and they talk really fast. Plus it’s loud. I can’t understand half of what anyone says. I smile and nod like an idiot, then eventually they stop talking to me and I just stand there for hours. They know I’m different. They know I don’t belong there.”

  “Nonsense.” Rather than wound her, Candy’s brisk tone cut through her fears. Nyalla felt her back straighten. “Your English is amazing. Besides, how do you expect to learn your way around the human world if you sit on a couch watching television all day? Even I can’t understand half of what people are saying in a bar. I spend most of the evening shouting ‘what?’ at them. There’s no shame in asking someone to slow down or to repeat themselves.”

  “Can’t I do that somewhere else? Why do I have to go to a bar? I’m not even legally of age to drink.”

  It was all so stupid. She’d been allowed wine with the elves since before she could walk.

  “All right, then.” The werewolf made an odd sound, as if she were smothering a laugh. “How about just you and I? Someplace more quiet. Sushi. And putt–putt.”

  That did sound better, although …. Nyalla cast a quick glance over at the freezer and made a quick decision. The best way to take care of Boomer’s and her problem was to cover it up. They’d sneak back tonight after dark and put both the gravestone and the finger back, and then leave. No one would be the wiser.

  “I really can’t, Candy. There’s something I have to do tonight. Not pizza and a movie on the couch either. It involves me leaving the house.”

  She didn’t tell the werewolf that it didn’t include any interactions with other humans. Hopefully the idea that she was getting out would be enough to satisfy Candy.

  “Mysterious. Okay. You win, but you’re not weaseling out of tomorrow night with Michelle and me.”

  Nyalla frowned, wondering what weasels had to do with the topic at hand. She hated to cancel on Michelle and Candy. Anything would be less frightening than eating crabs and trying to make small talk with some man she didn’t know. Even a noisy happy hour would be better.

  “I’d love to, but I have a date. Can we re–schedule for another night instead?”

  Stony silence met her words.

  “Hello? Candy, are you still there?”

  “Yes, yes. Date? Did you say you had a date?” Candy’s voice rose with excitement. “Wait … what were you wearing at the time? Or not wearing, I should ask?”

  Nyalla put a hand to her flushed face and glanced down at her snug tank top. How the heck was she supposed to know revealing certain parts of her body in public was against the law? Nudity had not been a crime among the elves. The first time she’d taken her shirt off at the park, Candy had nearly gone into hysterics.

  “I was fully clothed,” she assured the other woman, purposely not mentioning her lack of undergarments. Candy was particularly appalled at Nyalla’s reluctance to wear a bra. The stupid things were terribly uncomfortable.

  “Mmm.” Candy didn’t sound convinced.

  “He knows Wyatt and Amber,” Nyalla explained hastily, lest the werewolf think she was picking up strange men. “He is a police officer. I met him at the cemetery.”

  “Well. That’s a new one. I’ll have to try hanging out at the cemetery more often. Please call me and let me know how it went, okay?”

  There was affection along with the concern in Candy’s voice. Nyalla knew the other woman worried about her, probably more than anyone besides her brother Wyatt. She’d make sure to call her directly after the date, once she was safely home with Boomer by her side. Boomer. She looked at the hound dozing on the floor and lowered her voice.

  “Sure. Hey, Candy? Can I ask you something about Boomer? Would he ever dig up a body and … eat it?”

  What an awful question. Candy must think her insane for asking such a thing.

  “Well, he is a hellhound — a half demon. I can’t see a regular dog going to all that trouble when there’s perfectly good chow in a bowl at home and road–kill all over the place, but demons do weird stuff.”

  Yes, they did. Nyalla wouldn’t put it past one of them to dig up corpses for fun, or munch on long–dead remains. Once again she glanced over at the dog, who’d woken from his nap and was regarding her intently.

  “Do you want me to come over, Nyalla? I’m very knowledgeable when it comes to animals. I can check out whatever it is he dragged home.”

  Oh no. No way was she showing Candy the severed finger she’d hidden behind the ice cream. “I’m sure it’s just another rabbit or something. You know how dogs are.”

  “Yes. They eat stuff that we werewolves would
n’t touch if we were starving to death. I can sympathize. My cat, Oscar, brings dead mice home all the time.”

  Probably not human body parts, though. “I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow night,” Nyalla added. Talking on the phone to people always felt awkward. She never really knew what to say or how to end the conversation. Thankfully, Candy said her goodbyes and left the girl to turn once again to the hound, still watching her from across the room.

  “Do you dig up and eat human corpses?” she asked, trying to put as much stern command into her voice as possible.

  Boomer cringed, his expression guilty.

  Nyalla let out a sigh and rubbed a hand over her face. “Whose finger is it, Boomer? You got it at the cemetery, right?”

  The hound nodded, then went to the grave stone and nudged it.

  “Why would Boomer bring home a finger?” Nyalla mused. “Of all the horrible things … why?”

  Boomer scooted the heavy marker across the floor with his nose, pawing at it as it came to a stop against the leg of the sofa. John Mayfield.

  “I should probably tell the police about this, but I can’t explain how the headstone piece got in the car.”

  Boomer patted it with his paw again, and Nyalla moved it to the top of the coffee table, worried the dog would somehow damage it.

  “Tonight we’re going back to the cemetery and putting these things back. You’re going to show me where you found them, right Boomer? And no more eating dead people. Okay?”

  The hound wagged his tail. Nyalla took note that he didn’t nod this time.

  4

  Nyalla stood outside the locked gate and bit her lip as she read the words on the yellow tape. Police Line — Do Not Cross. One more law she would break — this time knowingly. Plus she was going to need to climb the fence and wasn’t exactly dressed for it. She glanced down at Boomer.

  “Can you jump it?” she whispered.

  He cocked his head at her and tugged on the leash. Her heart sped up at the thought of him running away and leaving her alone in the dark. Normally Boomer was never on leash, never even wore a collar. Tonight, carrying a stolen grave stone and a severed finger, she had needed the reassurance of his close presence. It was like an umbilical cord, tying her to him, rather than a restraint for the hound.

  “Don’t leave me,” she begged as she reached down to unsnap the nylon lead from the hound’s collar. He looked quizzically up at her, then walked to the gate and bit the chain. It fell apart like butter in his jaws and dropped to the ground. The door eased open with a nudge from his nose. Nyalla ducked under the yellow tape and followed Boomer into the cemetery.

  The evening was warm and humid, even at this late hour. Mist rose from the ground, obscuring the neatly trimmed grass. Insects sang in the distance, accompanied by the occasional owl. It should have seemed peaceful, but the hair rose on the back of Nyalla’s neck, and her breath caught in her throat.

  The hound led her past a line of rounded granite markers into a section where the stones were only a few inches above the ground. She carefully followed Boomer’s line, worried that with the mist and nearly moonless night, she’d stumble over one. Abruptly the hound halted.

  “Is this it?”

  Without waiting for a response, Nyalla knelt down and placed the broken piece of headstone on the grass, relieved she didn’t have to continue carrying the heavy thing. Then she reached into the small purse she’d slung across her shoulder and pulled out the other thing she was glad to dispose of. Opening up the plastic bag, Nyalla dumped the finger onto the ground beside the broken headstone, reluctantly putting the bag back into her purse.

  She heard the finger hit the ground with a soft thump. It was then she realized the insects and birds had fallen silent. Humidity hung like a cloak on her skin. In the stillness, her breath sounded like a windstorm. She reached out a hand to touch Boomer’s warm fur.

  The hellhound growled. His body rumbled with the sound, and his eyes glowed a bright orange as he swiveled his head to stare ahead. The mist swirled up from the ground to her knees, and Nyalla felt a cold sweat form on the back of her neck.

  “Boomer?” she whispered. He growled again, and she strained her ears and eyes to make out what had bothered the dog.

  Crack. Shuffle. Like something dragging across the grass.

  Time to get out of there. Her heart thumped, and she reached forward, groping for Boomer’s collar to re–attach the leash. There was another noise nearby, like a large branch being broken. With a snarl, Boomer leapt forward, tumbling Nyalla headlong onto the damp ground.

  Scrambling to get up, Nyalla scraped her knee against the broken headstone. Growls and the sound of snapping jaws filled the air, but she couldn’t see a thing with the mist rising several feet above the ground and cloaking all but the tallest of headstones. She hesitated, uncertain whether to call Boomer back and risk distracting him from whatever he was fighting. Was it a raccoon? Another dog? Or something else? None of the options sounded good to her — an unarmed girl wearing shorts and canvas sneakers in a dark graveyard. What was she going to do — beat the raccoon away with her little purse?

  The sounds of fighting drew nearer, and Nyalla saw a dark shape rise above the ground fog. It was big. Bigger than a raccoon. Bigger than a dog. Spinning about, she ran, hoping that Sam kept something in the Suburban that would help her fight off a giant …whatever it was.

  It seemed to take hours to reach the car. She stumbled on headstones, banging her hands and knees on them as she felt her way through the thickening fog. The iron bars of the open gate stretched out before her, the Suburban on the other side. Free from the lines of headstones, Nyalla sprinted, yelping as her foot connected against something that gave slightly, like an enormous bag of flour. Down she went, half sprawled across the obstacle, her hands and face slamming into the soft grass.

  What the heck? There hadn’t been anything here when they’d entered. Whatever this was, it blocked the entranceway, keeping the gates from swinging shut. Feeling around behind her, she touched the familiar texture of fabric and the rough grit of dirt covering its surface. Under it, something gave, gently resisting the downward pressure of her fingers for a few inches until she felt something firm. Liquid, thick and oily, spread up around her fingers. The smell hit her nose — sweet, cloying and musty. Nyalla gagged and jerked her hand, wiping it frantically on the grass. Trying to put as much distance between her and this thing that smelled like a dead deer in the August sun, she sprinted for the car.

  Shaking, she unlocked the SUV and dug through the back to find a flashlight and a tire iron. The snarling and snapping noises had stopped, but the insect song hadn’t resumed. The slam of her car door echoed across the graveyard.

  “Boomer?” Nyalla clicked on the flashlight and gripped the twelve inches of solid metal in her other hand.

  “Boomer, come here, boy!”

  This time her voice was stronger. The fog had dropped to only a few inches from the ground and was clearing in patches. In the distance, a cicada sent out a tentative song. Nyalla swept the beam from the flashlight across the ground, pausing on what appeared to be a lump of rags blocking the entrance. She didn’t want to look. No way did she want to see what that was. In spite of her thoughts, her feet moved forward, and her eyes involuntarily lowered.

  The corpse’s skin was waxy and gray, stretched tight against high cheekbones and an angled jaw. His hair was disheveled and dirty, torn from the skull at the temple. The clothing hung loose on the body, ripped and tattered as if something had begun to claw it off. She jerked the light upward and held her breath, willing herself to step over the dead body and into the cemetery.

  Nyalla searched the entire graveyard, line by line. The fog had vanished, summer song returning to the night, but she held tight to the tire iron and flashlight with all her strength. This was supposed to be a quick evening’s work — just drop off the stolen items and drive back home. Every second she lingered, swinging the bright light around the headstones, she
risked discovery. There was a corpse by the gate. There was a finger somewhere on the ground. Broken stones lay everywhere, and clods of dirt were churned up from what had been neat sod the day before. If she was caught, she’d be arrested, and who knows what those crazy humans would do to her. She might have to spend the rest of her life in their dungeons. Fear sent her heart to racing, but she couldn’t leave — not until she’d found Boomer.

  At least they wouldn’t arrest the hound, but would they shoot him? Tears sprang to her eyes as she realized he was nowhere in the cemetery. Had he jumped the fence, chasing after whatever giant animal he’d been fighting? Making her way back to the SUV, Nyalla avoided looking at the corpse, and began a search of the area, driving slowly down each road, calling the hound’s name out the open window.

  After an hour, she gave up and drove home, praying that Boomer wasn’t hurt and that he came back in the morning as always. Was this what the crazy hound had been doing each night? Going to cemeteries and digging up corpses? Getting into fights with big snarling animals? Irritation blended with her fear over the dog’s safety, and she swore to start locking him in the house at night. She’d never sleep again knowing he was out doing such things, worrying that he’d not make it home come morning.

  The house was comforting after her harrowing night out. After a quick shower to scrub off any reminder of the squishy corpse she’d fallen on, Nyalla put on a pot of coffee. It would be a long night’s vigil as she waited anxiously for Boomer to return. At least she’d gotten rid of the broken headstone and the finger. No one had seen her prowling around the cemetery to link her to the crimes. That was worth a sigh of relief. If only that dratted hellhound would come home.

  A noise from the rear of the house caught her attention. Nyalla leaned back, looking through the kitchen toward the long row of French doors that separated the house from the pool and patio. There, standing in front of the tall panes of glass was Boomer, a trail of muddy paw prints staining the maple floors behind him. He caught her glance, and his tail wagged furiously as he grinned at her.