“No!” Bailey shouted, shoving Kimmy out of the way. Rich and Chad grabbed her arms, pulling her off her feet and dragging her towards the lodge.
It doesn’t have to be easy, the voices said in stereo, their words echoing through her skull. Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick. You can lose yourself in bliss… or in pain. Tick-tick, tick-tick. Either way, you surrender. But whichever you choose will be forever.
“Agh!” Bailey snarled, ripping her arm free from Chad’s grasp. The ticking in her head became unbearable. She spun around and drove her foot into the back of Rich’s knee. He released her other hand and went sprawling to the ground. She raced away from her friends, heading back down the mountain, only to find her path blocked by half a dozen strangers with vacant, staring eyes.
She veered off course, willing her body to move faster than it ever had before, leaping over rocks and low bushes while a growing crowd of pursuers formed up behind her. She had no idea where she was going, but the moon gave her all the light she needed. She spotted another opening into the trees, and she headed downwards again, her legs aching with every step. She made it into the woods, but she took only a few steps before the ground vanished out from beneath her.
The trees hid the moon as she fell into darkness, tumbling a long way down. Branches scratched at her face and limbs, until finally she came to a rest at the foot of a large boulder. She tried to stand, but her strength was gone. She tasted blood in her mouth, and she could barely feel her arms and legs.
“Are you done?” a voice asked, and Bailey lifted her head weakly. A thin, blonde girl stood over her, the wind sending ripples through her flowing white dress. She stared down at Bailey with luminescent blue-gray eyes.
“She’s done,” another girl answered, appearing from the opposite direction. This one was a little short, with darker hair and rounder features, but with the same eerie gray eyes. “She was done before any of them. She led them here to us. They’re her family, and she never wanted to leave them.”
“Yes,” Bailey whispered. The ticking in her head grew louder and louder. “They’re my sisters.”
“She couldn’t surrender until she was sure we had them all,” the blonde specter said. “But now she can rest.”
“Yes,” Bailey replied softly, a warmness passing over her. “Yes, I want to rest.”
“Come with us,” the dark-haired girl said, extending a hand to her. Bailey took it, rising easily to her feet.
“How do you feel?” both specters asked in unison.
Bailey looked straight ahead, staring at the moon peeking between the trees. She found herself unable to blink, lost in its light. The ticking in her head grew stronger and steadier, until it drowned out everything else, replacing her breath and the beat of her heart.
“Relaxed,” she said, and the gray-eyed girls took her by the hand and led her into the darkness.
Spellbound
California, June 2014
“You look like crap,” Doug said. Demi collapsed into the booth across from him in the nameless diner next to their motel. Her face was puffy and blotted, and her hair was a mess, but she was too out of it to care. She hadn’t counted the empty beer bottles lying around where she’d awakened on the floor of her room, but from the pounding in her head she felt like it must have been a personal best.
“Shut up,” Demi said irritably, grabbing the plate of waffles that sat on the table in front of Doug and abruptly digging in.
“Help yourself,” Doug said with a shrug. “I guess I was finished.” Demi reached across the table and grabbed his coffee, taking a deep gulp through a mouthful of waffles. Doug winced like the sight was physically painful to him. “I’ve seen monsters less scary than you,” he muttered under his breath.
She glared at him through half-narrowed eyes. Before the last few months, she’d never really thought about the things that lurked just at the edge of the light, haunting the deepest forests and empty highways, driven by desires and needs she couldn’t even begin to fathom. But she knew monsters—she was one herself.
Not in the literal sense, not like the pair of ghouls they’d taken out a couple weeks back. But the things she’d done in her past, the pain she’d inflicted—and enjoyed—made her just as horrible as any of the creatures she and Doug had spent the past few months hunting. She could tell herself it was all for her country, for the greater good, that she’d only been following orders. That was all true, and yet it didn’t help her feel any better. She tried not to think about those times, and sometimes that required a substantial amount of booze. At least when she was hungover she couldn’t hear the screams.
“Okay, so I wasn’t going to say anything,” Doug said. Demi swallowed the last of his waffles. The sound of his voice in the morning always gave her a headache.
“That’s a good idea,” Demi said. “Let’s leave it there. Waitress!” she called out, flagging down a middle-aged woman in a pink apron. “Can I get some coffee here?”
“Yeah, sure,” Doug said, rolling his eyes. “Look, you need to take it easy on the hooch. You look like you got in a bar fight with a raccoon.”
“Little bitch was asking for it,” Demi said with a shrug. The waitress appeared with a steaming cup of coffee. “I’m gonna need bacon, some biscuits and gravy, and four eggs, stat. You want anything?” she asked Doug. He rolled his eyes again. “Suit yourself,” she said with another shrug.
“If you want to kill yourself, there are faster ways,” Doug said. “Ways that don’t involve risking my skin too.”
“No drinking on hunts, roger that,” Demi said, taking a sip of the coffee. It was cheap, strong, and overcooked—exactly how she liked it. “Why do you think I got it out of my system last night? Trust me, you’re better off with me hungover than when I have the nightmares. The drinking helps.”
“You should really see someone about that,” Doug said.
“Thanks, dad,” Demi said with a sneer. “So what about your guy? Does he have a case for us or what?”
“Depends,” a man said, appearing over their table. He was in his late fifties, the lower half of his face obscured by a scruffy gray beard. He was wearing a suit, but it was badly wrinkled, a mustard stain obvious on his tie.
“This him?” Demi asked, her hand sinking below the table.
“Easy, sweetheart,” the bearded man said. “Just here to talk.”
“So talk,” Demi said, her finger resting against the trigger of her sidearm beneath the table.
“It’s okay,” the bearded man said, sliding down into the booth next to Doug. “They warned me you weren’t big on trusting new people.”
“Can’t be too careful,” Demi said, glowering at him. The waitress brought her food, and Demi began to eat one-handed, her gun still fixed on the other hunter.
“The name’s Owen Hunter,” the man said.
“Owen Hunter?” Demi asked. “You’re a hunter named Hunter?”
“It’s not my real last name—Hunter is just a surname a lot of us hunters use. Kinda helps us pick each other out.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Demi said, clicking her tongue. “So it’s not just you? There’s actually a whole bunch of redneck idiots out there calling themselves Hunter. I bet you think it’s low-key too. If I were a vampire, you boys wouldn’t last a month.”
“If you were a vampire, you wouldn’t leave this diner with your head on your shoulders, sweetheart,” Owen said. He forced a smile. “Anyway, I was in Texas hunting a nest of vamps when I got a call about something weird going on around here. Buddy of mine gave me your number—said he worked a spook case with you a couple weeks back in Wisconsin. Something about a haunted brewery?”
“Don’t even bring that up,” Doug said. “She got wasted and shot me.”
“Shot at you,” Demi said. “And it was just rock salt. You were fine.”
“I wasn’t fine,” Doug mumbled, rubbing the shoulder where the salt shot had winged him.
“It wasn’t like I
was aiming for him,” Demi said. “There was a ghost behind him. And blackout drunk or not, I always hit my target.”
“Yeah, but not always just her target,” Doug grumbled.
“What are we dealing with here?” Demi asked. “Ghoul? Another haunting? A werewolf would be fun. Haven’t had one of those yet.”
“Not sure,” Owen said. “There’s been a lot of disappearances in the mountains, most of it around a town called Spencer. The place has a population of twenty-seven, and no one’s heard from any of them in weeks. There’s also a string of missing-person’s files open on people whose last credit card purchases were somewhere in or near Spencer.”
“And you think whatever’s making people disappear is up our alley?” Demi asked.
“Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” Owen said. “Saddle up, kiddos. We’re about three hours out from Spencer. We hit the road now and we’ll be there in time for lunch.”
***
“This place better be open,” Demi said. They pulled into the gravel parking lot in front of a ramshackle diner on the side of a mountain road. “I’m starving.”
“You ate your breakfast and mine,” Doug groaned. The three of them stepped out of the car, a secondhand 2002 sedan Doug had picked up for eighteen hundred bucks and left registered in the previous owner’s name. They made their way to the entrance, only to find the door shut tight. A low awning covered a wooden porch along the front of the building.
“Huh,” Owen said. “Looks like no one’s home.”
“Seems awfully fishy for the middle of the day,” Demi agreed. “There’s another car in the lot though,” she said, pointing to a black SUV parked haphazardly at the edge of the road. “Someone’s around, somewhere.”
“Most of the missing persons’ last purchases were made here,” Owen said, banging on the door. “Let’s open her up and take a look inside,” he said when no one came to the door. He knelt in front of the door, picking the lock while Demi and Doug kept watch.
“Here we go,” he said after a moment, and the glass door creaked open.
“Keep an eye out,” Demi told Doug as she headed after the old hunter. “I don’t want any surprises like in San Jose.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Doug grumbled, fumbling for a cigarette. “We’re never going to stop talking about that, are we?”
“Any idea what we’re dealing with yet?” Demi asked. Owen waved a flashlight around the empty diner. It was a simple lunch-counter with a few booths attached to a small convenience store—four aisles of basic dry goods and a fridge full of beer. He hopped the counter and went back to the kitchen to continue investigating.
“Someone’s still paying the power bill,” Demi said to herself, opening the fridge and helping herself to a tall can of beer. She drank the entire thing in a single long gulp, tossing the crushed can onto the floor behind her. “What?” she asked when Owen emerged from the kitchen and gave her a strange look. “I was thirsty.”
“No idea,” Owen said, replying to her original question. “The usual suspects are always vamps, werewolves, and skin-walkers. This doesn’t really look like any of them, which means we’re dealing with something really weird.”
“I’m not convinced this is our kind of thing,” Demi said. “It’s weird all right, but not our weird.”
“Maybe,” Owen said. “I don’t see any sign of a struggle anywhere. It’s like the owner just closed up shop and took off. Something just don’t sit right with me, you know?”
“Yeah,” Demi said. An uneasiness passed over her, and she gripped her gun like a safety blanket. “Me too. Let’s grab Doug and check out the next place down the road. Maybe we’ll have more luck there.”
“I’ll hit the head and meet you out front,” Owen said, retrieving a key attached to a large wooden stick from behind the register while Demi wandered back outside. Doug was nowhere to be found. She scanned the parking lot, figuring he may have simply decided to circle the building. But then she noticed the cigarette lying on the porch, its tip unburnt. A floorboard creaked behind her, and in half a second, her gun was drawn, leveled straight center-mass at a blonde girl. She wore ripped jeans and a band t-shirt, her blue eyes staring wildly out into space. She looked to be in her early twenties, moderately athletic. She didn’t seem like much of a threat.
“You seen my buddy?” Demi asked her, slowly lowering her gun. “Tall, looks kinda horsey?”
“Looking for a friend?” the girl asked, her words slow and monotonous. “Come to the lodge.”
“Yeah, that’s gonna be a pass,” Demi said. “Do you know where everyone is?”
The girl nodded slowly. “The lodge,” she said, pointing towards the mountain that loomed over the diner.
“What’s your name?” Demi asked, raising her gun again. Owen had been right—this was their sort of thing after all. A migraine swept over her skull, and she grimaced, an awful ticking in her ear. This was the last time she hunted hungover—well not likely, but it was good to have goals.
“I am only a pilgrim,” the girl said, slowly reaching out towards Demi. She kept her gun tightly in one hand and slapped the girl away with the other. The moment her skin connected with the blonde she saw herself standing in a black void at the edge of an equally black sea, two feathery white shapes moving gracefully over the still waters.
In an instant it was all over, and Demi leapt away from the strange girl, stumbling inside the diner as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. She turned back around to see the girl standing in the doorway, her eyes glazed and unfocused.
“You’ve seen it,” the girl said, holding out her hand. “Come with me.”
“Look,” Demi said, holstering her gun. “I don’t want to kill you if I don’t have to. That being said, I’ve got no objection to beating your creepy ass.” She drove her fist into the girl’s face with enough force to level a much larger opponent, but the blonde was barely fazed.
“What’s your deal?” Demi asked, shaking her hand out. She backed behind the lunch-counter, and the blonde continued towards her. “You under a spell? Hypnotized? Or are you just some psycho? I mean, give me a hint so I know whether to shoot you or not.”
“Once you’ve seen, you can’t go back,” the girl said, and Demi pushed through a swinging metal door into the kitchen. The blonde marched towards her, following her behind the industrial grill that occupied the center of the room, ducking beneath heavy pots and pans that hung from overhead racks. Demi grabbed a skillet off the rack and swung it at the girl’s face, hitting her with enough force to break her nose. Still, the girl kept staring with those vacant blue eyes.
“Come on, blondie,” Demi groaned, stumbling backwards and tossing the skillet aside. “Focus,” she said, holding up her hand and snapping her fingers repeatedly. “Look at me! Right here!” Her head was still ringing with a rhythmic ticking that refused to subside.
“Hey,” Owen said casually, appearing in the doorway. He watched Demi slowly circling the grill with the zombified blonde. “What’s goin’ on?”
“What does it look like?” Demi said, walking backwards away from the bloody-faced woman, the ticking in her head growing increasingly infuriating. “She’s obviously hypnotized or something. I’m trying to snap her out of it.”
“Did you try hitting her on the head?” Owen asked, taking a bite of an apple he must have pilfered from the store. “That usually does it.”
“Did I try hitting her on the head?” Demi muttered under her breath. “Of course I did!” she shouted, nearly losing her balance rounding the corner of the grill towards Owen.
“Huh,” Owen said with his mouth full. “Did you try doing it really hard?”
“Oh, good lord,” Demi said. “I’m new to hunting, not bashing people’s heads in. Of course I hit her hard—look at her face!”
“Hmm,” Owen mused. “Well, did you try lighting her on fire?”
“If I wanted to kill her, I would have shot her,” Demi said, clenching her fists. “Doug’s mis
sing, and she might know something. Have any suggestions other than burning her to a crisp?”
“Gang way,” Owen said, shoving past her with a lighter in one hand and a bottle of cooking spray in the other. He flicked the lighter, and a flame danced to life. He aimed the bottle of oil towards the strange girl’s face. The oil passed through the flame and ignited, sending a sizeable fireball shot towards the blonde. She let out a scream and waved her hands, frantically shielding her eyes.
“What the hell?” the blonde asked. She fell to the floor and batted out the flames in her golden tresses.
“See?” Owen said, shrugging. He set the cooking spray down on the counter and took another bite of his apple. “Not just a pretty face.”
“Get up,” Demi said, grabbing the blonde by the wrist and hefting her to her feet. She gripped the girl’s throat with one hand while she found the controls for the grill with the other. Blue flames leapt into existence beneath the huge cast-iron surface.
“What are you doing?” the girl asked. “Who are you people?”
“We’re just three buddies having a friendly conversation next to a hot grill,” Demi said. “At least I hope so. Because if we aren’t friendly with each other, one of us might shove the other’s pretty little face down into the fire. That would be… not good.”
The girl’s eyes went wide with fear. “Help me,” she gasped, her eyes going out of focus for a moment. “I can still hear it.”
“Hear what?” Demi demanded, squeezing her throat tighter. “What’s going on here?”
“Hold on,” Owen said, putting a hand on Demi’s shoulder. “Let’s just start with her name. Let her go, would ya?”
“Fine,” Demi said, releasing her grip on the girl’s throat and taking two steps back, her hand resting on the grip of her sidearm. “I’m Demi, this is Owen. We’re looking for our buddy Doug. Your turn.”
“I… my name… it’s Bailey,” the blonde said.
“You sure about that?” Demi asked her. “Looked like you had to think about it.”
Demi Mondaine: Volume One Page 12
