Savannah slapped the barrel away from her face, then slammed her forehead into the big man’s nose.
It made a squishy sound like a smashed-melon.
She tore the revolver from the big man’s hands, then drove her knee up between the molly-head’s legs.
The big man jackknifed, stumbling into Savannah, gasping for air and spraying blood from the wet mess of his shattered nose.
The Root Woman shoved him away.
The big man fell to his knees, coughing and choking on his own blood.
Savannah smashed the butt of the revolver down into the back of the man’s head.
The big man’s arms and legs went limp. He fell onto his face, leaking blood onto the ground. For one moment, Savannah thought about putting the revolver to the back of the adherent’s head and emptying whatever was left of his rotten brain onto the pavement. But, at least for the moment, she needed the man alive to explain what the hell he was planning with that conjured girl.
Carter was nowhere to be seen.
“Carter,” Savannah shouted. “It’s over. Come back!”
Night had fallen over the hotel. The sky overhead had become a velvet blackness lit with the silver gleam of starlight and the milky face of the moon. A mad beast growled in the distance.
The big man’s shoulders shook, and Savannah thought the man was having a seizure. Maybe she had hit him a little too hard and jangled something important loose in that rotten gourd he called a head. Then she heard the wet, rhythmic chuckling.
Rage burned hot in Savannah’s guts. She kicked the man in the ribs, shoving him over onto his back. She pushed the revolver’s barrel into the ruined smear of the man’s nose, then cocked the hammer with her thumb. The runes around the muzzle crackled and glowed white-green like the afterglow of a summer lightning strike.
“What are you laughing at, junkie?”
“Too late,” he laughed. “You’re too damned late.”
“This isn’t over yet.”
“Ain’t got the stones to do it.” The big man lifted his head, pressing his nose against the revolver’s muzzle until blood ran free over his cheeks and down the sides of his face. “Didn’t then; don’t now.”
Savannah heard Carter’s voice rise over the shrieking voices of the raccoons and mole rats, roaring as he hunted in the darkness.
She stared down at the big man in front of her, the man who had risen up from Savannah’s past mercies to drag her and her son to hell. She pushed the revolver against the man’s forehead, shoving his skull back and grinding it against the pavement.
“Go on, then. Ya think this ends here?” The man laughed again, his breath bubbling the blood from his nose into a pink froth. “We didn’t start this, Root Woman. This is your doin’.”
“Bullshit,” Savannah said. “I didn’t make you call to the darkness. We all choose our own path.”
“That what ya mama told ya fo’ she died? Be free to choose any path ya want, long as it’s the one that leads to her goddamn job?” The man laughed, choked on his own blood then coughed red into the air. “We all choose, but sometimes, the hand at your back gives ya a little shove along your path, don’t it?”
“Like you and your grandpa? Is he the one who taught you to play with conjured girls? Did he sell your useless ass to the darkness for a 40 of Old E and a carton of Kools?” Savannah leaned in closer. “I’ll find him, you know. When I’m done with you and your little pack, I’m going to find that old bastard and finish what I started.”
“Ya don’t even know. Ya so blind.” Another cough; blood drooled out of his mouth. “Come closer; I’ll tell ya what’s comin’.”
The front door of the hotel blew open, shoved to the side by a seething, mass of screeching vermin. Their voices filled the air, a multitude of piercing squeals.
The raccoons and mole rats hit Savannah like a hurricane filled with razor blades. Their screeching drowned out everything, filling her head with an agony that mirrored the pain in her body. Fangs slashed through her shirt, sliced through her jeans, dug bleeding furrows along her scalp. The weight of their bodies pushed Savannah to her knees, pressing her on top of the big man.
The bleeding man grabbed the Root Woman. He glared at Savannah, one eye swollen and bulging from its socket. His three-lobed pupil blazed, a crimson fire, pulsing in time with Savannah’s pounding heart.
“Ah-I-ee taste ee-you-oo, Root Woman,” the voice droned like a swarm of cicadas, forcing its way through the vermin’s wall of sound. “Ee-you-oo are salty-sweet… so delicious!”
The raccoons and mole rats clung to Savannah like a cloak of fangs, scraping furrows into her scalp and shoulders. They lapped at her blood and gnawed on her scabs, sucking the life from her as she struggled to tear them from her body. For every one she snatched away and crushed in her fist, five more fell on her, cramming their greedy muzzles against her flesh.
“Feel thuh-them-mm? The weakness? The draining?” The words flowed out of the man beneath Savannah; pouring out of an open mouth that did not move, as if the real speaker lurked deep inside his chest. Each syllable thrummed and trembled in the air, formed from a hundred different voices, like the chorus of cricket legs rising from the grass. “This is how all thuh-things-ss will end. Torn. Hollowed out. Empty.”
“Screw you,” Savannah spat.
“Thuh-they-ee drink,” the voice droned on, “and Ah-I-ee grow more powerful. Soon, ee-you-oo will be finished!”
Savannah felt the truth in the words. She was losing not just the strength to fight, but the will to do so. She had to end this before the creatures leeched her dry. She fought against the weight of the vermin, pushing herself up onto her elbow; putting some space between her and the big man. Savannah swung the revolver’s barrel up into the man’s chin, smashing the junkie’s teeth together with a sharp click.
But her finger would not squeeze the trigger. Her left hand was numb as a stone, separated from her brain by a wall of pain. Savannah looked down at a foot-long blade jutting from either side of her forearm. Blood ran down its length.
The big junkie grinned up at Savannah. He ripped the knife free, then drove it into her arm again, skewering her bicep. The revolver fell from Savannah’s nerveless hand. Vermin swarmed it.
“Thuh-this-ss body will not die so easily,” the voice droned. The big man slid the knife out of Savannah’s arm, scattering blood in a glittering arc across the pavement.
Her arm flopped loosely from the shoulder, twitching at her side. “Wuh-we-ee will feast on ee-you-oo.”
Savannah looked down at the big man and saw her last chance. She curled the fingers of her good arm around her identification card. It filled the palm of her hand. She ripped it from the strap of the big man’s overalls, then held the stiff card out to her side.
“Not today,” Savannah reared up under the cloak of vermin. She slashed the edge of the card across the center of the junkie’s bulging eye.
The eye sprayed like a stomped packet of jelly, squirting dark and stinking fluid in all directions.
Savannah moved her attack to the man’s neck, swinging her hand in vicious arcs that carved a bloody groove across the big man’s throat.
The man’s neck yawned open.
Savannah felt the wind stir across her back as the vermin lifted from her shoulders. They scattered into the night, voices raised in a mad wail.
She thumped her fist against the dead man’s chest. Fatigue settled in her guts, leaving her weak and nauseated. She wanted to stay there, let the cool night air dry the sweat and blood on her skin, but she knew there was too much work left to do before the sun rose.
Savannah struggled to her feet. She grabbed her revolver then held it tightly in her hand.
A throaty growl and the thump of heavy steps called Savannah’s attention down the driveway. Carter’s eyes glowed firefly green in the moonlight. Long strings of slobber dripped from his maw and pattered onto the gravel. He swung his arms forward, dropping a pair of bodies that crumpled into
heaps in the driveway.
Savannah looked from the bodies back to her son. Carter was painted with blood.
“Son,” Savannah began, reaching out to Carter with her injured arm. Her fingers twitched. She shifted her grip on the revolver then raised it. “It’s over.”
Carter’s snout rose skyward, sniffing the air. He turned his eyes back to Savannah’s, then lowered his gaze to the revolver. His bestial head shook, slowly.
“You know what has to be done,” Savannah said. Her guts churned at the thought. Carter had done wrong, but he had done it for the right reasons. He had killed these men with his dark talents, which made what he had done a capital offense. As Root Woman, Savannah had no more choice in carrying out her son’s execution than she did in putting an end to the wicked shenanigans of the fools she had just fought. That did not mean she had to like it. “Don’t fight me on this. Make it easy on us both.”
Carter snorted then stabbed a bloody finger at the ruined body behind Savannah.
Savannah ignored the silent accusation and cocked the hammer of the revolver. “I could have covered you for the two in the hotel, but this? You know the law.”
Carter closed his eyes and let his arms fall to his sides.
Savannah’s blood ran cold in her veins. “I’m sorry, son. I never should have brought you into this. But what you did was wrong.”
“No,” Carter said. “What you believe is wrong.”
One of the bodies groaned. The other one cried out, clutching at the bloody wound across his face. They lay side by side, wounded, bloody… but alive.
Savannah stared at her son. She flicked a glance at the injured men, then the revolver dropped back to her side.
“Why?”
There was a sound like grinding meat, like snapping bone. Carter’s muscles twitched violently; his joints bent at odd angles. A few seconds later, he stood naked before her; bloody… and human. Long scratches covered Carter’s arms and legs, and his torso was criss-crossed by shallow cuts and scrapes.
“I had to know if you’d really do it,” Carter said. “If you’d kill your own child.”
Savannah watched her son walk away then disappear into the darkness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Savannah sighed then hunched over, careful not to break open any of her scabbing wounds. The bleeding had stopped for the moment, but experience told her she was one hasty move from tearing something open and leaking more blood into the dirt. The Root Woman was gifted with the ability to heal from her injuries much faster than other humans, but she knew she was close to her limits.
She was worried, too, about the weakness she felt since waking in the hotel. As the Root Woman, she was gifted with supernatural strength and vitality – the better to stand up to the evils she faced. It rested inside her, a heavy weight that she had been able to feel since the day she took up the mantle of Root Woman. But now, that weight felt lighter, less substantial.
She had gone through the hotel and found her leather jacket and boots, which were tossed in the corner of the kitchen with the rest of the trash. Her hat had not turned up, and she did not have the strength to go looking for it. She already missed it.
One of the molly-heads had escaped, fleeing in the mayhem. Savannah did not think he was much of a threat. The big man seemed like the limited brains of the operation, and he was a corpse.
Savannah wondered how she had come to this point. She should never have answered her mother’s call all those years ago. She should have stayed in Chitown, far from the SWATS; far from Rashad; far from the son she had not known. Maybe then her mother would still be alive. Carter and Rashad would be able to live as they chose, without worry about what Savannah thought or what the Law said. She spat, angry with herself for regretting a decision a decade past.
All she wanted was to save her city from the darkness, to uphold the Road Laws and keep people safe from the strange powers and monstrosities that called Atlanta – and especially the SWATS – home. Somewhere, along the way, her best intentions had turned to blood and nightmares. People she thought she was protecting were afraid of her. Fools she should have killed had crawled up out of her nightmares to make her regret her moments of mercy. She did not see how any of this would end well, for anyone.
Headlights crawled off the main road and up the long, winding driveway. The yellow glow played over spilled blood and broken bodies: the corpse in coveralls; the two wounded molly-heads; the pair of severed torsos. The old car rattled to a stop, and its lights died. Savannah limped off the porch over to the car. She felt old. She needed a smoke to calm her twitching nerves. But there was still a lot of work left to do before she could rest.
The detective hauled his belly out of the patrol car. He flicked his flashlight from body to body. The bright light swung up to Savannah’s face. The Root Woman raised her hand to shield her eyes.
“Really, Phil?” The light shifted back to the ground. “Thanks for coming.”
“Can’t be too sure.” Phil stepped up to Savannah and looked her over. “You look like road-kill.”
“You bring the stuff?”
“Much as I could get on short notice.”
Savannah followed Phil to the back of his vehicle. The detective opened the trunk. Inside were six blue-and-white cylinders that looked like oversized tubes of cookie dough, a black box with a big red X taped across its top, and plastic bottles of kerosene in various colors. Savannah picked up a cherry-red bottle and held it to the trunk’s weak light.
“Cranberry?”
“Best I could do. Least it’ll smell good while it burns.”
Savannah grunted at that then loaded the bottles of kerosene into the plastic grocery bags in the detective’s trunk. “I’ll take the top floor, you do the —”
“No.” The detective shook his head. “I’m not burning down a building. That is not my job.”
“Phil, these molly-heads made that girl down at the restaurant. Burning this place is justice. It is your damned job.”
“That’s your justice; your law. You got a court order to start a fire here?” Phil spat a grainy glob of tobacco juice onto the gravel. “No? Then burn the place your goddamn self. I can’t be party to that.”
“Fine. At least carry some of this crap.” Savannah shoved a pair of bags into Phil’s hands, then loaded up two more for herself. “You owe me at least that much for cleaning up this mess.”
“I don’t owe you shit,” Phil muttered. But he followed Savannah up the rickety front steps and into the house.
Savannah wound her way through the house, splashing kerosene around as she went.
Phil followed in Savannah’s footsteps. “You slaughter the whole family?”
Savannah laughed. “I should have the first time I came here. I didn’t this time either. Two of the three out front are still alive. Another one of the slippery bastards got away. The two torsos in the doorway were…an unfortunate accident.”
“Too bad. Sounds like paperwork for me.”
“I could drag the two live ones in here and light ‘em up, if that’s what you want.” Savannah emptied the last of the bottles then led Phil into the sitting room.
“A little late, now.” Phil spat again. “You can’t just tell me that kind of shit. Have a little consideration for the actual law.”
“What’s gotten into you, Phil?” Savannah took a bottle from Phil’s bag. A high keening filled the room, crawling out of the witch-light on the table and digging at her eardrums, scratching at her nerves. Savannah shoved the shaken detective out of the room. “You-know-who isn’t going to be thrilled if you keep bristling up every time I ask for a little help.”
“I’m tired, and I’m the detective here, not your errand boy. I won’t stop you, but you can’t ask me to break the law.”
Savannah did not say a word as she finished soaking the place with kerosene. Her head swam from the fumes, and she was too tired to fight. She led the detective back out of the hotel to the trunk. “We’ll talk about t
his later, after I’ve had a chance to have a smoke and sleep for a few weeks.”
Phil shrugged. “Caps in the box with the X. I’ve got the detonator right here.”
Savannah stuck her hand out. The Chief Detective slapped a little black wand across her fingers. “Just hit the button when you’re ready to blow it up.”
The Root Woman tucked the detonator into her blouse pocket then picked up the caps and explosives. She carried them into the house, ready for it all to be over.
She found her way to the basement, trying not to look at the rim of the pit, splattered with blood, or the chains with moist shreds of Carter’s flesh still clinging to them. She crouched next to the hole then opened the box of caps. She stabbed one into each of the tubes, pushing and twisting them to secure the electrodes in the clay. She threw two of the tubes down next to the pit, then left the basement. She chucked another pair of tubes into the sitting room, threw one up the stairs, and tossed another into the kitchen.
Back outside, she grabbed the dead big man by the ankles then hauled him up the driveway and into the hotel. She tossed the pair of torsos on top of him.
Savannah waggled the wand in the detective’s direction. “Mind giving me a ride up the road before I set this off?”
“Sure.”
“Can we load these two up?” She pointed down at the two groaning men. “Put them in a holding cell until I can get down to see them in the morning?”
A Haunting in the SWATS (The Savannah Swan Files Book 1) Page 8
