A Haunting in the SWATS (The Savannah Swan Files Book 1)

by Balogun Ojetade

  The detective looked away.

  The monster girl shared some words Lashey could not hear with the detective. Whatever they were saying would not be good for her. Lashey bit her lip and choked back her tears. No one was coming to save her. If she wanted to get out of this mess alive, she would have to rescue herself.

  Lashey knew she was not just a little girl. She could call spirits and let them live inside her. If she wanted, she could even bend those spirits to her will.

  The torture she had endured had done something to her head. She could think differently now; see things that had been hidden from her before.

  Lashey looked at Phil. He nodded to the monster, but his eyes kept flicking back to Lashey. He looked sad and afraid.

  “Watch her,” the monster girl said, then floated out of the cell. “If anything happens to her—”

  Phil nodded then lowered his gaze to the floor. The conjured girl drifted away, disappearing down the hall.

  Lashey furrowed her brow in concentration then reached out to Phil’s spirit.

  Look at me.

  Phil’s eyes drifted back to Lashey. For a moment, she could see herself through his eyes. Her wounds were terrible.

  She smiled at him. She did not want him to be afraid of her. She wanted him to trust her. It would make things easier.

  He smiled back, but it was a weak and sad expression. Lashey did not think he meant it, though he wanted to.

  She reached out for the detective, feeling his spirit stretch out between them. Most of Phil’s spirit was still inside him, but there was a piece of it inside her, now. Lashey could feel it, like a little drop of oil floating on the waters of her mind.

  He rubbed a hand over his face then looked away from Lashey.

  Lashey didn’t want to do it. It felt wrong. She did not want to do wrong. But she did not want to stay there either. She had to get away.

  “Detective,” she whispered, “I need your help.”

  Lashey prayed her plan would work.

  She held tight to the piece of Phil in her head then pushed her need into it. She took her fear of the cell and her desire to be free then wrapped them around that piece of the detective.

  “Save me,” she whispered.

  Phil recoiled from the words like someone had slapped him. His eyes rolled wild in their sockets, then he bit his lip so hard blood ran down his chin. He shook from head to toe, then stared at Lashey with flat, empty eyes. He started for her cell, hands stretched out in front of him.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Carter woke to the sound of whining dogs. He opened his eyes to pre-dawn darkness, trying to remember where he was. There was no one else at the camp; he was alone. Something scratched feverishly at the door.

  His parents were gone. His sister was gone. A dollop of panic splashed into his stomach and got him moving.

  Something was wrong.

  “Jesus; all right. I’m coming.”

  He unlatched and opened the door, shivering as the cold morning mist lapped against his skin. He wrapped his arms around his naked torso. A pair of honey badgers, three bloodhounds and an enormous black bear milled outside the door. They turned toward Carter, then turned back to stare out into the morning darkness.

  Carter left the door open then turned to get some clothes. The animals followed him into the cabin, flowing around him like a flood of shadows. They bumped into the furniture, knocking chairs back and scooting the table across the floor. Carter could see they were there to assist him – a “gift” from his father, no doubt.

  “Let me get dressed.”

  Carter scooped a long-sleeved Henley shirt off the arm of the couch then shrugged into it. He watched the animals move around, feeling at once relieved and disturbed by their presence. Carter wondered how many of them there were and who they really served.

  He buttoned his shirt then shoved his feet into his boots.

  “Is it Savannah?” he asked the animals.

  The bear shook its head, then let out a long, low moan.

  Carter wanted to go with the creatures; to shed his skin, get down on all fours then run with them into the darkness; to let the animal loose. It would all be so much easier than trying to be a man.

  One of the dogs plowed its big head into Carter’s thigh, pushing up against him so hard Carter almost lost his footing. He scrubbed the hound’s head with his nails, digging into the thick black fur to scratch its scalp.

  Carter flopped back onto the couch. He tied his shoes then buckled the belt on his jeans.

  He helped himself up onto his feet with one hand buried in the dog’s fur. It walked with him to the door then leaned heavily against his legs.

  “If it’s not Savannah, then it must be Dad.”

  The dog raised its snout then chuffed in agreement. Its deep, amber eyes glowed with a warm light.

  “Thought so.”

  Carter followed the motley pack outside, locking the door behind him. The animals raised their noses into the wind, and Carter did the same. He caught a whiff of honeysuckle and sage, sandalwood and roses. The alpha dog chuffed then pushed its nose into Carter’s hand.

  “Okay, boy. Lead on.”

  The dog snapped its jaws and caught Carter’s hand in its mouth, a secure grip on his fingers. It looked up at him with big brown eyes that flickered with primal flames. Then it released his hand and ran.

  Carter ran with the animals, free and fast; part of the pack.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Savannah found the knife that cut her. It was a crude, curved blade mounted on a handle made from a deer’s antler, still clutched in a dead cop’s hand. She had two just like it tucked in her belt; trophies from the fools who had tried to stop her. She kicked the knife out of the dead man’s hand. It sparked off the stone. The cops; the molly-heads; the meth-heads. Who else was in on this madness? How many had turned to the There Road out of fear and desperation? How many had turned because of her and how she had done her job?

  Savannah shook her head. She would not let herself get caught up in feeling bad for these bastards. They had chosen the dark road.

  The tunnel hooked downward in a gradual, sloping spiral. Savannah limped along, rubbing at the maddening itch in the center of her forehead.

  Her arm throbbed – a nagging pain that flared with every step. A week ago, Savannah would have walked through that fight and come out the other side with nothing to show from it but a pink welt and a couple of bruises. Now, she had a concussion and a pair of cuts that needed a swarm of stitches. With the mayor weakened, Savannah was weakened.

  Savannah dug the antler-handled knife out of her belt, then used it to slice off her sleeve at the shoulder. She used the cloth to wrap the cuts in her arm. The bleeding slowed. She would worry about stitches if she ever got out of the hole alive.

  WHEN I get out of this hole, she corrected herself.

  The tunnel narrowed. Its roof sank down until she was scooting along in a crouch that made her back ache and her thighs burn.

  She crept along like that for what felt like hours, leaning against the wall to take some of the pressure off her legs; crawling when she could not stand the pain any longer. The limestone wall of the cave was cool against her cheek. Her shirt was damp with smashed mushrooms that left her smeared with wavering purple light.

  Savannah heard the next problem before she saw it. Raised voices and a metallic clatter. She crawled forward until the tunnel’s wall dropped away and the path became a foot-wide ledge that spiraled down into a wide bowl of a cavern.

  A mob of naked men and women were scattered across the cavern’s floor. Most of them were sprawled out along the walls, meth pipes glowing cherry red over wavering flames. Others hunched in the middle of the floor, smoking joints the size of baseball bats. Those that were not busy getting high were fighting or screwing or both; their voices hoarse from screaming.

  Even at this distance, Savannah could see the changes working on the people of the SWATS. Pointed ears sloped back fro
m balding heads; noses, reduced to just nostrils, sniffing the air. In the shadows she saw something flicker past with long flaps of skin stretched between half-seen ankles and wrists. The tainted thing was in their blood. Savannah wondered if it had always been there.

  She sat down on the rim of the bowl, staring down at the mob of people she thought she was saving. She felt sick, the strength of her convictions leaking out as she watched the idiots chase oblivion. They were not villains. Hell, they were not even very good adherents. They were just poor people whose luck had run so dry they were willing to do anything, try anything, to escape the cold glare of reality.

  Down here, they did not have to worry about tomorrow. They were all equal down here; all spinning out their days through a haze of dope. That was where all of the SWATS were headed, if she did not put a stop to it.

  Savannah’s eyes were drawn from the squalor to a handful of men and women gathered around an enormous shrine of antlers and sharpened steel blades that loomed at the far end of the cavern. Their naked flesh was stained black with soot and filth, but even at this distance she could see the streams of blood running down their shoulders and arms. They shouted and shoved one another, jostling back and forth until one of the women was ejected from the scrum then shoved toward the shrine.

  She fell forward, arms outstretched. Ribbons of flesh curled up her forearms as blades and horns bit into her. The shrine shifted, jagged bone spears and wide steel blades rising up like great wings on either side of it.

  The woman screamed, but kept jamming her arm deeper into the tangled mass of steel and horn. Her voice rose in an ululating spiral. She bent at the waist, curled her legs, then sprang forward. The shrine’s wings scythed around her, whistling through the air.

  “I got it,” she wailed. “Pull me.”

  But the others shied away from her, shaking their heads, afraid to approach the slicing wings.

  “You bastards!” she screamed. “I’m keeping it all!”

  The others raised their voices in protest, yelling obscenities at the trapped woman.

  She leaned back until her ass was almost on the floor, putting all her weight on her trapped arms. The shrine released her by inches, scraping away more skin as she sagged away from its bulk.

  She groaned; then groans became a raw-throated shriek as her arms were dragged free of the shrine at last. She raised her bloody hands over her head, streamers of tattered skin dangling from her elbows. She clutched a baseball-sized chunk of cloudy crystal in her fists, stained with her blood.

  One of the men darted forward.

  The woman smashed his face with the chunk of bloody meth.

  Savannah’s old reflexes flared up. She wanted to stand at the lip of the cavern and rain hell down on these people who had given up on their humanity. She had done her best to save these ungrateful fools from their own terrible decisions for years, and this is what they did. They had given up on their lives and called up some mad deity who gave them an altar of pain and meth and molly and marijuana and a deep goddamned hole to wallow in while they turned their brains to mush.

  Savannah’s rage soaked into her skull like spilled blood.

  And then she realized it. There was something else inside her skull, too – a trespasser, who had set up shop days before, when Savannah had woken up inside the pig. That close to it, watching its followers grovel before the shrine of blood and blades, she recognized it. She was no longer sure which thoughts and feelings were her own, and which were crammed into the dark spaces of her mind by the dark god watching her.

  The monster the conjured girls were meant to summon had been lurking inside Savannah, watching and listening. It knew her plan. It knew everything she had said or done for the past few days.

  Savannah could feel the eye of the thing watching her. And she could sense the eye’s owner. It was not here yet; it was still somewhere out past the bloodstained horizon, but it was coming closer.

  The shadow in her head spread its wings before the heat of her rage. It loved it; soaked up the hate and confusion; basked in Savannah’s visions of fire and lead. She felt its approval, and the haze started to lift from her brain. Her wounds buzzed with the familiar crawling sensation of healing too fast for flesh.

  Her forehead burned. The three-pupiled eye was coming closer. She could feel it somewhere beyond the cavern below her.

  She understood its plan now. It needed a host to bridge the gap between the world it called home and this one. It needed someone with the gift to house a spirit of such magnitude.

  It needed Lashey. And it needed someone to guard her while it spread its control far and wide.

  Savannah’s grip tightened on her pistols. The darkness inside her flowed into her arms, pouring, like ice water, down her spine. She felt stronger, younger. She was tired of being weak. She could be strong forever; all she had to do was what came natural. Go down there, put bullets into the weirdoes, and show them the face of the new head honcho.

  She had enforced Mayor Green’s will on the SWATS for years. Maybe it was time to let someone else call the shots for a while; give these bastards what they thought they wanted. She would rule the SWATS… all it would cost her was everything she had ever loved or believed in.

  “No,” she croaked.

  Savannah threw off the shadow’s touch. She heard it laugh as it flashed away, leaving her weak and wounded once more.

  The woman with the chunk of crystal meth howled from the floor of the cavern. She held the burning chunk under her nose then breathed in scalding smoke. Her eyes bulged in their sockets then shifted upward. She nodded as if listening to a voice no one else could hear.

  She thrust a bloody hand in Savannah’s direction.

  “Bring her,” she shrieked. “Bring her to Uncle Ned.”

  The meth-molly-and-marijuana-heads stirred along the walls, rising on stiff legs. They jittered and hopped as the drugs burned in their veins and bound their nerves into sparking knots.

  Savannah beat back the fear with her love for Lashey.

  “I’m comin’, baby. Hang on.”

  The mob roared.

  Savannah ran.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Phil was sick. There was something wrong in his head, or something wrong had started turning right, he could not tell which. His thoughts were cloudy and scattered; there were too many different things in his head all fighting for attention.

  He never should have let that girl in his car.

  The little girl in the cell watched Phil with big eyes. She was so small; so hurt. But there was something about her – something that scared Phil more than the conjured girls.

  All he had wanted to do was what was right, but somewhere along the way, he had taken a wrong turn, and now he was so far from the righteous path he did not know if he would ever set foot on it again.

  “Detective,” the little girl croaked through cracked lips. “I need your help.”

  Phil tried to ignore the girl. He did not want to help her. He wanted to follow the command he had been given. Just stand outside the cell, watch the girl, and make sure she did not go anywhere until the monsters came back. It was an easy job. That was what he should do if he did not want the monstrous girls to flay him alive.

  “Save me,” she pleaded.

  Phil found himself moving toward the cell, arms sticking out in front of him like a zombie in a cheap horror movie. His hands gripped the bars of the cell. “Please,” he whispered. “I can’t do this.”

  The poor girl could not even move. She lay there on a cot stained with her blood and stared at Phil. Strange carved spikes pierced her body at every joint, and one stuck up from her chest. “They’re gonna do somethin’ terrible to me, detective. Please.”

  Phil pressed his forehead to the bars. He could not think. He was afraid of the conjured girls; afraid of the Root Woman; afraid of what would happen if he helped this poor little girl; afraid of what would happen if he did not.

  He drew his head back, then slammed it
into the bars.

  In pain came clarity. For a moment, he was back in the cruiser, back with the conjured girl whispering to him; telling him terrible stories about what would happen to him; what the Root Woman would do to him. The memory curdled in his belly like sour milk. He felt weak; sick.

  “It’s okay, Detective.” The girl smiled at him. “Everybody gets scared sometimes. I’m scared, too.”

  Phil reared back, then slammed his head into the bars again.

  The grip on his thoughts loosened. Phil knew he was not a hero. He was just a detective on the shitty side of town; scared of the choices he had made; scared of the people who pushed him around and made him do stupid things; scared that his life was going to end with him as the villain of his own story.

  Phil was tired of being scared.

  “Mistakes,” he whispered. “I never should have listened to that girl.”

  She had done something to him in the car; planted a seed that had grown into madness.

  Phil looked at the little girl. Helping her was the right thing to do. He would get her out of the cell; get her out of this goddamned cave. That was the right thing to do.

  He found the key to the cell on the wall on the far side of the cavern. Phil lifted it off the hook then carried it back over to the bars. His hands shook so hard the key fell through his fingers before he could slot it into the lock. It was the first time in days he had done something of his own volition, and he was having a hard time remembering how to tell his body to act. He knelt down to pick up the key and caught the girl’s eye. He thought he might be too scared of the conjured girls to do this.