The Ghost and The Graveyard (The Monk's Hill Witch)

by Jack, Genevieve

  He nodded. “The herbs that grow around the house are yours. You planted them in your last life. Everything from goldenseal to lungwort on this property and in the wooded acres to the back.”

  I gazed at the wild field to the side of the cottage. “How do I know what’s what?”

  He slid his hand into my back pocket, temporarily rendering me mute with desire. I rolled into him and landed a kiss on his mouth, but he pulled back.

  “There’s an app for that,” he said, grinning just a little too widely.

  “Yeah, we have work to do,” I said. “Keep your hands off me.”

  He laughed and we got busy gathering the ingredients I needed, using my phone to verify I had the right plants. By the time we had everything, it was already 1 p.m. and the sun was due to set at 6:45. I followed him through his front door, anxious to get started.

  The skulls were back, as were the candles and the creepy paintings.

  “That first night, when I ran to your door, I wasn’t just seeing things.”

  “No,” he said. “This is caretaker magic. Not as strong as yours, but it will help strengthen the spell. We’ll need all the help we can get, considering the time of day.” He placed a cauldron on the floor between the skulls. I started mixing the herbs I’d collected with the wet ingredients from the pantry, which Rick brought to me as I asked for them. When it was done, I’d made a salve that smelled like eucalyptus.

  “It says I’m supposed to spread it on the closed eyes of the searcher and that when I wipe it away, the spell will reveal the path to the vampire. It doesn’t say specifically how it works. Should I wipe it on me or on you?”

  “You’d better use it, mi cielo. That way I can protect you as you follow the path. Some of these spells are rather compelling, incapacitating the user to anything but the chase until the object or person is found.”

  “Sounds logical,” I said. I smeared each eyelid with the stuff, thankful that I hadn’t worn makeup that day. I waited a minute or two and then wiped it off. At first I didn’t notice anything different but as I stood up and turned in place, a red dot appeared in the northwest corner of the room, as if someone was shining a pointer in that direction.

  “He’s that way,” I said, pointing at the wall.

  “Let’s move outdoors and see where it takes us.”

  I followed Rick out the door and toward the rear of the house. The red dot hovered in the trees, beckoning me to follow it into the woods. “He went through the forest,” I said.

  We picked our way through the brush and trees, the thick forest floor tripping me more than once.

  “Marcus was wise to come this way. The forest provides shelter from the sun. He may have been able to continue after the sun came up, if he wasn’t exposed directly.”

  “How far do you think he could’ve gotten?”

  “I’m not sure. Marcus seems to get stronger every day. The way he fought last night…” He shook his head. “I won’t underestimate him again. Perhaps you should ride on my back so we can navigate the forest more quickly.”

  I wasn’t excited about the idea, but I climbed onto him piggyback-style anyway. It would be faster this way, and I was all for killing Marcus well before the sun went down. With my legs tucked under his arms, Rick jogged in the direction I pointed, accelerating to the point where the trees blurred. When it was time to change course, I tightened my grip around his neck and signaled with my hand. After an hour of running hard, my thighs ached and I begged him to stop so I could rest.

  “Damn. Did you ever think he’d make it this far?” I asked Rick.

  “No. I confess I didn’t.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “I believe we’re close, though. I smell something coming from there.” He pointed to a place where the trees parted. The red dot glowed.

  “The spell agrees. Let’s move.” I forced my sore legs to run toward the clearing. Rick followed at a walk, which must have seemed painfully slow to him. The trees split, growing farther apart until I was certain we were on a man-made path, and then we emerged from the shade of the trees into a clearing. At the center was a shack made from roughly hewn logs and branches that looked like they were broken manually from their source and crudely cemented with mud.

  “He’s here. I can smell him.” Rick pointed at the shack.

  “Do you think he built that last night?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve seen hunters build these to hide in during deer season. I think Marcus was lucky to come by this.”

  “So he’s inside, then?” The thought of being so close to my killer made my blood run cold.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the plan? How do we kill him? Stake through the heart?”

  “That only works in movies. There are three ways to kill Marcus—your blade, my teeth, and the sun.”

  I pulled Nightshade from the sheath on my back and started toward the shack. “Are you going to shift, or am I going to have to do this alone?”

  “If I shift, I won’t be able to fit inside. As crude as it is, this is someone’s property. I don’t wish to destroy it if I don’t have to.” He touched my shoulder and smiled like he had a brilliant idea. “I will pull him out of his grave and you cut off his head.”

  I swallowed hard. The head cutting off part didn’t thrill me. Even if it was a vampire I hated, I wasn’t sure I could do it.

  Clearly Rick picked up on my thoughts because he frowned and narrowed his eyes. But he didn’t say anything. Smart man.

  I thought back to last week, before I’d moved into the new house, before I was expected to know how to sort the dead or kill vampires. My how things had changed.

  Repositioning my blade, I reached for the door.

  The darkness of the shanty made me temporarily blind, but I was not deaf, which was why I could hear a shotgun cock. The back of Rick’s arm slid in front of my waist, pushing me behind him before the room came into view. Curled on the dirt floor, a man rocked cross-legged, staring at us through the site of his rifle.

  “Get out,” he rasped. His left side was covered in blood. A bite mark on his neck still oozed onto his shirt. Hmm. Marcus had a snack before going to sleep for the day. A bead of sweat dripped down the hunter’s forehead onto his shoulders. Shaking. Sweaty. Pale. He was hypovolemic from the blood loss and close enough to going into shock to make me wonder how he was still sitting up.

  “What’s your name?” Rick asked.

  “Shut up,” the man said.

  Rick held out a hand. “You’ve been infected. The thing that bit you has poisoned your blood. We can cure you but you need to come with us, and we have to kill the one who’s buried beneath you.”

  The man shook so hard I thought for sure the gun would go off in his hands. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Just go away,” he pleaded.

  Marcus is controlling his mind, Rick thought into my head, a new trick I wasn’t completely comfortable with. The man may be as good as dead. If Marcus forced him to drink some of his blood, he might be a changeling, a servant of the damned soon to become a vampire himself.

  How do we know if we can fix him or need to kill him? I asked.

  Check if his heart is still beating.

  And just how am I supposed to get past the gun to take his pulse?

  I’ll take care of the gun. Rick shot forward, lightning-fast.

  Crack. The gun went off, and Rick curled over.

  Chapter 26

  Something About Myself

  The shell blew through Rick’s chest. In the spray of blood and thicker things, I didn’t stop to check if any of it was mine. After all, the bullet that passed through Rick could have struck me, standing behind him. I didn’t think about myself at all or reach for the man’s neck to check if his heart was still beating. None of those things crossed my mind until after the sight of Rick with a hole in his torso elicited a reflex in me. Nightshade came around and decapitated the man before Rick could hit the floor.

  I stared, heart pounding as his head rolled to th
e side of the hunting shack. His body collapsed to the earth in a pool of his own blood.

  “I wasn’t sure you had it in you,” Rick said.

  I snapped my head toward the Rick I’d thought was dead, only to see the hole in his chest stitch itself. The wound, once clear through his torso, was now a shiny pink spot on the skin behind his mutilated shirt.

  “I thought you were dead,” I yelled.

  Rick’s heady laugh filled the room. “I’m immortal, Grateful. You know that.” He reached for me. His hands ran down my body, checking for injuries.

  “Ow,” I said as he brushed over my left shoulder. The shell had clipped me. Blood soaked my shirtsleeve.

  Rick stepped in close to me, his eyes locked on mine, eyebrows knit together in concern. He pulled the neck of his shirt to the side. “Your knife, Grateful,” he said.

  “What? Why?”

  “My blood will heal you,” he whispered. The grave look on his face made me think he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  I unsheathed my blade and sliced the skin over his collarbone. I sealed my mouth over the blood that bubbled there, and the hot fluid ran down my throat. The raw taste of him reminded me of the night before, and my pulse raced. My hands found his body, my fingers dancing over his newly healed chest. The world around me melted.

  He pushed me away, breaking the connection. “Forgive me,” he said, his voice cracking. “Marcus.”

  I nodded, my face hot.

  I turned toward the hunter’s body. His blood had puddled over the dirt floor and a thought came to me. “Do you think that blood is getting to Mar—”

  An explosion of earth blew through the shack, stripping my skin where it made contact. I was lucky Rick was slightly in front of me. I’d been shielded from the worst of it. But I choked on the cloud of dust that followed, closing my eyes tight against the abrasive grit. It was more than the little shack could withstand; the roof collapsed and then the walls fell in. Rick tried to shelter me with his body.

  Marcus stood in the rubble, eyes red and stomach bulging with the hunter’s blood. Through the gap between the wall and the fallen roof, the sun’s setting rays cut through the woods. Where the light touched Marcus’ shoulders, his skin steamed ominously. I raised my blade between us. Rick kicked out the remaining wall and folded over next to me, his skin splitting as the beast burst from within.

  The vampire seethed and ran for the shelter of the woods.

  I followed on foot while Rick took to the air, but there was no chance of catching Marcus, not with the way he pinballed from tree to tree with super human speed.

  I halted just inside the tree line. Do you know where he’s headed? I thought, testing my connection with Rick’s beast.

  I’m guessing Carlton City. There’s a free coven of vampires there.

  Do you think we’d have a better chance of heading him off than catching him here?

  Considering vampires are most at home in the woods, and he’s fortified with human blood, I’d say yes.

  I ran back out into the clearing. He landed next to me.

  Come, we need the car if we’re going into the city. You’ll never make it on foot.

  I climbed on his scaly back, tucking my knees behind his wings. With three running steps he took to the air. I gripped his shoulder blades as he climbed above the trees, soaring toward his cottage at breakneck speed. When he dove for the yard, my stomach dropped and I thought I’d be sick. He landed roughly, beginning to shift before we even stopped moving. I yelped as I slipped off his back, but he twisted his folding body and caught me in his arms before I hit the grass.

  His eyes were still black as he carried me into the house. They were the first and last part to change and I watched, enchanted, as they shifted back to gray. Setting me on my feet inside the back door, he threw on some clothes and pulled the Tesla around before I’d had time to walk through the house and out the front door. I climbed in, and Rick floored it, the last remnants of the sun sinking behind my house to the west.

  I tested my seatbelt a few times once I saw the speedometer top a hundred. To take my mind off the blur beyond the windshield, I decided to start some conversation. “Do you know where the vampires are staying?”

  “TiltWorld, down by the river.”

  “TiltWorld? The amusement park?” I turned in my seat to face him.

  “It’s closed for the season. There’s a barn near the back of the property where they have a fun house in the summer. The windows are blacked out and there’s a basement. It’s the perfect place for them to stay during the day.”

  “The Barn Blast. I’ve been there. You walk through a maze of fun mirrors and joy buzzers.”

  “Hmm, I’m sure they’ve redecorated.”

  “Wait, if you know where they are, why haven’t you taken them out?”

  “They’re free and they’re not breaking any laws.”

  “Is harboring a fugitive enough for us to put them away for good?”

  “You are the judge and jury. It’s for you to decide. But in the past, you were hesitant to condemn anything that hadn’t harmed or killed a human.”

  “What was my reasoning?” I asked.

  “The last thing we want is a supernatural rebellion. We’re not strong enough to take out the entire coven. Wielding your power sparingly is the best way to keep balance and control.”

  I shook my head. “We can’t let Marcus go free.”

  “You’re right, of course. But diplomacy may be in order.”

  “What good is having a bone sword if I’m not allowed to use it?” I sighed.

  His previously serious composure broke, and he flashed me a half-smile.

  We hit traffic on the exit to Macarthur Avenue. Still, we made it to the parking lot of TiltWorld in ten minutes—less than half the time it usually took me to drive to the hospital. Rick paid no attention to the closed for the season sign as we rumbled up to the gate. A plywood cutout of an alien torso jutted out of a tilting spacecraft above the entrance, its grin indifferent to our arrival. Rick pried the lock open with his bare hands and swung open the massive chain-link door. Climbing behind the wheel, he drove through and then closed it behind us. We drove all the way to the back of the amusement park, the rollercoasters and midway games eerily abandoned.

  The sun had finished setting, and the darkness outside the car window reminded me of Marcus’ advantage. He could see in the dark and I couldn’t. Not to mention he was probably three times as strong now from the hunter’s blood. I wasn’t sure how big this coven was but Marcus definitely had the upper hand here.

  We reached the Barn Blast, but for some reason I didn’t think this fun house would leave me laughing. “I’m scared,” I said to Rick. “He’s killed me once. I don’t want it to happen again.”

  “I’ll keep you safe, mi cielo, but after what I saw today with the hunter, I think you can take care of yourself. Trust your instincts.”

  We exited the car and scanned the woods to the west of the warehouse. I didn’t see anything. “No red dot. Maybe we beat him here.”

  “Come,” he whispered. Rick motioned for me to follow him to the back door of the barn.

  The red dot glowed to life again. “Here. The door. He’s gone through here,” I said.

  He reached forward and twisted the knob. It was locked, but with a slight push of his hand, Rick broke the mechanism, and the door swung open on its hinges. The dark inside was thick, blinding.

  “Stay with me,” Rick said. “I can see in the dark.”

  I hooked my fingers into his t-shirt and followed him over the threshold. A suffocating smell filled my nostrils, earthy sweet copper I was all too familiar with. I smell blood, I thought to Rick. Better to use our connection than to risk calling attention to ourselves. Then again, Marcus had fed thoughts into my head last night. Maybe it didn’t matter.

  Not when you have Nightshade, Rick thought. She protects you from vampire mind tricks.

  Oh.

  The blood you smell is fro
m the animals. There are carcasses hanging from the ceiling. It looks like they’ve been draining the blood. This is a good thing. It means they’re not using humans.

  My shoulder bumped something that felt like meat and bone. I could hear the clink of chains above me and an awful image of a strung-up deer filled my brain. I had serious trouble thinking of this as a good thing.

  Be vigilant, mi cielo. I’m not sure I’ll be able to smell Marcus over the stench.

  We turned a tight corner, deep inside the barn now. Crack. Something slammed into me in the darkness, knocking me away from Rick. The sound was my skull hitting the floor. I shook my head and rubbed my aching scalp, frantically scanning the darkness. Without physical contact with Rick, I had no way to know where I was in the blackness.

  I heard scuffling in front of me and drew my sword, flipping up to the balls of my feet. Shit! This was new. Had I ever moved like that before? Rick? Rick? I called with my mind.

  To your right!

  A fist or some other body part hit me, and the whole right side of my face exploded. I sailed sideways, my left shoulder slamming into a wall I couldn’t see. Luckily, my suddenly tough and nubile body seemed to know how important Nightshade was and I landed with her still in my hand. I forced myself to stand, the pain in my shoulder making me gag. My face hurt like he’d broken my jaw and my left arm hung useless at my side. Luckily, I was a righty.

  The scuffling grew near. I circled my blade around me in a move that must have been remembered from my past life because it surprised my conscious mind. I hit nothing.

  I closed my useless eyes in the dark and focused on my other senses. Fists hit flesh. Growls. A shuffle across the floor in front of me. I smelled blood but also the sulfur scent of vampire. I had to do something, but how?

  Use my eyes, Rick thought to me.

  Like it was obvious or something that I could do that. I reached out of myself with my power, into Rick’s head. Behind my closed eyes, images flickered, a zoetrope of choppy action washed in red. The motion made me nauseous and I broke the connection. Rick growled. Teeth snapped. Disoriented, I shook my head and tried again. The images came back and, this time, I concentrated so hard sweat dripped down my face. I could hold this. I could see what Rick saw.