Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  Even so, she couldn’t leave him. Decision made, she took off running. They added on to the cemetery over time in a haphazard manner giving it a nebulous shape. She needed to cut through another section to cross into the one she wanted, but stuck to main paths in the interest of speed.

  Henrietta waylaid her. She had died in her eighties, but spent a lot of time in the cemetery while still alive. An incorrigible gossip, Myka tried to avoid her but failed.

  "Myka! How is your night going, dear?"

  "Not fabulous, very busy. I can't stop to chat." She tried to keep going, but the ghost grabbed her arm. Henrietta was strong for an old lady.

  "Oh, I bet. I've just seen a young girl skipping past with Dax. I do hope he hasn't lost his last life. He's such a friendly cat. Always appreciative of the tuna cookies I made."

  Myka tried not to gag at the thought of tuna cookies. "No, he hasn't lost his last life," yet, "but the girl grabbed him and I do need to get him back. Which way did they go?"

  "Oh, dear. That is quite the pickle." She confirmed they'd gone into the children's section. "Do be careful, dear."

  Myka groaned. Within minutes, the whole cemetery would know she'd lost her cat.

  Section F was surrounded by a three-foot, wrought-iron fence. She gave up looking for a gate and threw herself over. Dax's body shifted in the backpack, throwing her off balance, and she stumbled into the wings of an angel statue that oversaw the area.

  The statue was fine, but her shoulder would sport a nice bruise come morning. Giggles sounded from her right. A group of children sat in a circle, watching her with wide eyes. One little boy started laughing, his arms hugging his stomach. She was sure if he'd been corporeal, tears would have been streaming down his face.

  "It's not that funny."

  He laughed harder. Myka ignored him.

  A girl sitting ramrod straight on the very edge of a sarcophagus sniffed. "A lady should always be graceful."

  "I'm afraid I'm neither." She wiped her hands on her jeans. "Have you seen a young girl with ringlet curls in a formal dress? She would have been carrying a cat."

  The boy sobered. "Clementine wouldn't let us play with the cat. She ran off."

  "Where did she go?"

  The prim girl studied her fingernails. "She ran off toward the back. We told her not to go, but she never listens."

  "Which direction?"

  The girl threw her arm in a wide arc. "That way."

  Myka resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Great. Thanks." She took more care getting over the fence this time, turning back to warn them. "Be careful, and stay away from the breaches tonight. You don’t want to get hunted by accident."

  They answered in unison. "We will."

  They established section G in the sixties, but more pressing for Myka was that it held another breach. Which meant another hunter was there. She jogged a winding path through headstones and crypt entrances, chanting a mantra under her breath. "Don't let it be Steven. Don't let it be Steven. Don't let it be..."

  "What are you doing here?"

  She almost groaned out loud. "Hi, Steven." He had been a hunter two years longer than her and was Myka’s go-to when she needed to spar. He was also a stickler for the rules. She was most definitely not following the rules.

  His eyebrows slashed down as he looked over her head behind her. "Who's watching the rift in A?"

  She pulled her scythe from her wrist and it solidified just before slicing the head off the poltergeist that crawled out of the hole behind him.

  He grumbled something about a distraction before crossing his arms over his chest. "Well?"

  "No one at the moment, but it's an emergency."

  He pinched the bridge of his nose—the centerpiece of his Roman-sculpture level of a perfect face.

  "What happened?"

  "Kind of long story and I'm on a timetable. Have you seen a little girl come through here with Dax? Ringlet curls, formal dress?"

  "No. How did you manage to lose your watcher?"

  She sputtered. "It wasn't my fault! He got bored and went between. She appeared out of nowhere and grabbed him. They disappeared before I could catch her."

  Steven let out an imaginative string of curses. "He'll lose a life if he's not back in his body by sunrise."

  "I know!" She grimaced. "It's his last one." She never realized that many curse words existed. She thought some had to be in other languages.

  A hand appeared from the breach and grabbed Steven's ankle. He kicked at it, but it didn't let go. He reached down and yanked, pulling the rest of the spirit out before swinging his scythe through its middle.

  Myka stood dumbfounded, staring at his muscles bunching under a tight black t-shirt. She realized he'd spoken when he repeated himself.

  "You should look in section F where there’s a lot of kids."

  "I went there first. They said she came this way."

  "I haven't seen her and if she came into this section, I would have."

  A huge wraith rose from the breach and they worked together to send it back. "Wow, this rift is super active. Ours was dead. No pun intended."

  "Right." He shook his head. "Try the cherub fountain."

  "Thanks!"

  He yelled after her as she sprinted away. "Good luck, but if you don't find him in two hours, you need to go back to your breach!"

  She waved without stopping.

  The cherub fountain was the centerpiece in H, just beyond section A. She swung by her post on the way and took care of two emerging spirits. She angled away from the largest mausoleum in her section. She didn't want to get caught by the groundskeeper, a nice man who insisted on sleeping in the cemetery on Halloween to guard against mischievous kids. She cringed when her boots crunched across a gravel road and she had to hide behind the headstone of the honorable William Massey. At least a minute ticked by while he searched for the source of the sound before he gave up and went back to his camp chair and beer.

  She slowed her pace until she was over the road and into soft, silent grass. Her pack bounced against her when she started jogging. "Oh great, you're in rigor. Don't you dare start to stink! I swear I'll leave you behind!"

  She didn't mean it. They didn't always get along, but she couldn't imagine life without him. Even if his threshold anxiety kept him from going through doors seconds after demanding they be opened.

  The fountain sported three flying cherubs in all their chubby naked glory holding various things that spouted arcs of water into the waiting pool. It wasn't the grandest fountain in Beckwith—that designation went to the four-tier monstrosity that sat at the very center—but it was the creepiest.

  Myka ran all the way around it, looking in every direction. No Clementine. She sat hard on the lip of the pool, not caring that her butt was now damp. She'd have to give up and go back.

  Just as she decided to leave, Clementine appeared, holding a still-struggling Dax. "Oh, hello," she said as if they'd happened on each other during an afternoon stroll.

  "Hello. I need you to let go of my cat, please."

  "No." She twisted to pull him further away. "I don't think I will."

  She couldn't reap the girl for fear of hitting Dax, and she was running out of ideas. "He doesn't belong to you."

  "Does so. I found him."

  "Give him back, you little brat!" She grabbed for him, but Clementine was faster and ducked away. Myka gave chase, and around the fountain they went.

  They both came to a dead stop when another ghost appeared, blocking their path. A tall woman with even taller hair in a minidress with go-go boots, her mouth turned down in a frown. "I'll take that." She snatched Dax out of Clementine's arms and disappeared.

  Clementine wailed. Myka shook her until she sobered up enough to speak. "Do you know who that was?"

  She sniffed and ran her arm across her nose. "Everyone knows her. She's mean."

  “Well? Who is she?" Myka was losing patience.

  She answered in a mocking sing-song. "Mary Ellen Smith." />
  Myka grumbled. Executed in the sixties after she murdered a group of infants under her care, she was notorious not only for her crime but also the height of her beehive.

  "Where would she have gone?" Myka was talking to herself but the little girl answered anyway.

  "Out." She looked toward the entrance to the cemetery. "She always wants out."

  "Son of a biscuit eater!"

  "It's not ladylike to swear."

  "Good thing I'm not a lady!" Myka shoved past the little girl and took off toward the cemetery's boundary.

  It was a good thing there was nothing wrong with Dax's lungs. She followed the sound of his angry screeches. In short order, she could see the pair ahead of her. The murderess was weaving, struggling with her bundle of hiss and claws.

  Still, she outpaced Myka, so when her destination became clear as they crossed into the newest part of the cemetery, the hunter sighed in relief.

  Myka trotted around an obelisk to see her holding Dax's spirit above the newest and smallest rift. No hunter was stationed here because it was too small for anything big enough to be a problem to get through. But it was big enough for a cat. "Stop!"

  Mary Ellen's head whipped and it impressed Myka that her hair didn't move an inch. How much hairspray had she used on that thing?

  "Back off, hunter! This cat is my ticket out of here!" She took two steps back, but still held him above the hole.

  "How do you figure? If you drop him, I'll come after you twice as hard and cross you in an awful way for the trouble."

  A grin split her lips, and Myka realized she'd messed up.

  "Oh. This groovy kitty belongs to you then?" She pulled him into her chest and he pushed against her, hissing.

  "Wow. You actually said groovy. I thought that wasn't a real thing." She took a few slow steps to the right, making her way between Mary Ellen and the boundary.

  Her eyes turned black and her mouth split into a wider maw. "Shut up!"

  Just a few more feet. "Did you say outta sight too? Burn your bra? Oh, how was the free love movement?"

  "I said, shut up!"

  She made it and nodded to Dax, who picked up on the cue and got an arm free. He raked his claws across her cheek. "Let me go!"

  She screeched and flung him down. He splayed all four legs and caught himself on the rim of the breach. He took off like a cat out of Hell.

  Mary Ellen had tried to bolt for freedom but ran into Myka. The hunter rounded on Mary Ellen, whose entire face had turned black with rage. She shrugged out of the backpack and tightened her grip on the scythe.

  Instead of rushing her like she expected, the spirit took off in the other direction. Myka groaned. "More running?"

  As soon as she was within reach she put everything into a swing and caught her across the shoulders with a wide sweep of the blade. The cut was only deep enough to stop her forward movement. Mary Ellen screamed with rage.

  "Forget the cat. Next year I'm coming for you!"

  "Great." Myka readied the scythe. "Something to look forward to." The blade sang as it came around, separating Mary Ellen's head from her body, her twisted face disappearing like smoke.

  The hunter took a deep breath. She used a more sedate pace to return to the dropped backpack and pulled the now stiff body of her watcher out. "Dax! Come here before you start to stink."

  His spirit raced over and slid to a stop, staring at his own corpse. She upended the scythe and used the wooden handle to knock his spirit back into the body and held her breath until she saw his chest rise and fall.

  They made their way back to her post in silence. She walked between the graves and he jumped along the top of headstones and crypts, racing ahead and back to test his muscles and celebrate not being dead.

  There were a few spirits wandering without purpose around the breach that Myka sent back without issue. As far as she could tell, nothing had gotten out that shouldn't have.

  Dax head-butted her hand. "Thanks for coming for me."

  She scratched him under the chin and behind the ears. “You know I love you. But never ask me to make tuna cookies.”

  Kenzie writes kissy books set in other realms populated with supernaturals, aliens, and kickass heroines—some of whom are partial to wearing tight pants—while wrangling a husband, two boys, two cats and a pitbull.

  Find out more at kenziekelly.com.

  69

  Lead Me Not Into Temptation

  by Craig Martelle

  The number of cats is six hundred and sixty-six…

  “They shall do your bidding as you shall do mine.” The command thundered to their very souls.

  The orange and white fur stood out, fuzzy against the flames as the kitten stretched. “I feel your power. I see all.”

  “Our power. To protect and guide. Lead them to the precipice, where I will tempt them. They will jump to me. When they do, I will watch over them for all eternity.”

  “Are you God?”

  “I am an angel. I serve humanity. For those who can resist temptation, they shall be rewarded…in different ways. For those who cannot, I shall be rewarded. Do my bidding and bring them to the edge.”

  “As you command,” the cat replied.

  The calico jumped to the counter immediately after being put on the floor. She meowed a harsh rebuke while sliding across the countertop on the ice skates of extended claws.

  “Hold the line!” the big orange tabby called in a panic. “Rally and hold the line!”

  The calico flew through the air, landing on four paws and sinking eighteen claws deep into the human’s back. A yowl from both and the calico tumbled to a nearby couch. She darted to high ground to launch a second attack.

  “It’s bath time for the stinky kitty,” the human purred at the big orange, who was trapped in a corner, frantically looking for a path to freedom.

  A Maine Coon darted past, leaving a downed lamp in his wake.

  “Hold!” the tabby shouted into the chaos.

  “Gotcha.” The human pulled the frantic cat into her arms. Claws ripped and tore at flesh and fabric.

  “The abyss awaits. Face your mortality, bottom feeder,” the big orange articulated in a single long yowl.

  “We’ll have some fresh tuna when you’re done.” The human batted her eyelashes, but her grip remained iron, unbreakable shackles.

  “I hate you. If you give me the tuna now, we will delay our trip to the precipice,” the cat pleaded.

  “Hold the line!” the calico called.

  “Help me!”

  The tabby’s plaintive cry receded down the hallway. The door closed and silence returned. The calico paused to clean her face. Her paw tasted of blood. Not revolting. She decided she liked it. The temptation for more was strong.

  The Maine Coon reappeared. “Sucks to be him.”

  “It has always sucked to be him. He should roll less in that which earns him a bath.” The calico returned to cleaning her face.

  “And we’ll get tuna, too. We should encourage him more,” the deep voice of the Maine Coon suggested.

  The calico paused. “The abyss can wait. We shall endeavor.”

  “Solidarity?”

  The calico pawed her whiskers clean before hopping from the back of the couch to the rug. She trotted down the hallway, with the massive cat trailing after her. They stopped at the bathroom door. She cleared her throat of a hairball, leaving it where the human might step. “Humans are dumb!” she meowed.

  “Their lack of hair is disturbing. We shall push them over the edge,” the Maine Coon added.

  Another voice joined the chorus—the Russian Blue.

  “Where have you been?” the calico wondered.

  “Napping. What did I miss?”

  “Solidarity. Loudly say something impressive, so he continues to get baths and we get fresh tuna,” the calico offered.

  “May the dead mouse I give you not be dead,” he shouted at the closed door.

  “Try again,” the Maine Coon requested.

>   “You are tall, and tall is stupid!”

  The calico and Maine Coon looked at each other. “It’ll have to do.”

  “All together now.” The calico waved one paw in the air. “Clean our litter. Serve our food. Don’t be bitter. Life is good.”

  That was the mantra they repeated nightly when the human was deep asleep, a bonding rhythm to keep them focused on the mission. Words to bring the worshipers solace.

  Just until they tired and took the human to the abyss where the master waited.

  The splashing in the bathtub ended. The trio walked to the kitchen to await the fish, the freshest possible, straight from a newly opened can.

  The lock clicked, and the human stepped out. Wrapped in a bulky towel, the big orange glowered at the world before him.

  “The abyss, stupid human. It waits for you. Tonight, I shall slay you while you sleep. I shall laugh as you fall over the edge into my master’s arms. Tonight!”

  “Is the good kitty feeling frisky now that he’s all clean?” She put the bundle on the counter. The tabby shook the towel free.

  Three snorts told him the others had seen. He felt naked. He didn’t have enough tongue to repair the damage done by the human. He brushed his whiskers to no avail.

  “Tuna entree? The big can because it is so good, and everyone is so hungry.” She made sure the four bowls were in place.

  “Doom on you, human!” the tabby whispered. “Into the awaiting arms where pain and suffering will come. Tonight! I’m killing you right now with my mind.”

  She pulled the ring on the top, and the can popped. She removed the lid.

  The calico, the Maine Coon, and the Russian Blue plowed into the human’s legs, weaving and purring their pleasure.