Nobody's Ghoul

by Devon Monk

  Nobody’s Ghoul

  ORDINARY MAGIC - BOOK 8

  Devon Monk

  Nobody’s Ghoul

  Copyright © 2021 by Devon Monk

  ISBN: 9781939853226

  Publisher: Odd House Press

  Cover Art: Lou Harper

  Interior Design: Odd House Press

  Print Design: Odd House Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or book reviews.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Nobody’s Ghoul

  Police Chief Delaney Reed can handle supernatural disasters. With gods vacationing in her little town of Ordinary, Oregon, and monsters living alongside humans, she’s had plenty of practice.

  But trying to handle something so normal, so average, so very ordinary as planning her own wedding to the man she loves? Delaney is totally out of her depth.

  When a car falls out of the sky and lands on the beach, Delaney is more than happy to push guest lists and venue dates out of her mind. The car appears empty, but someone has slipped into Ordinary with stolen weapons from the gods. Someone who has the ability to look like any god, monster, or human in town. Someone who might set off a supernatural disaster even Delaney can’t handle.

  For my family, and all you Ordinary dreamers out there

  * * *

  (Oh, and Megan? Gan and Moosh!)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Devon Monk

  Chapter One

  Okay, so the truth was things had gotten a little out of hand. Tell one god about an under-planned, under-decided, not-even-scheduled-yet wedding, especially if that god was Crow, and suddenly another god wanted to know when they’re getting an invitation. And then another god. And then a dozen.

  I’d muted my notifications and refused to look at that message string for weeks. Things were better that way. Well, not for the wedding. Or the gods. Or my fiancé, Ryder Bailey, who was doing all the heavy lifting on the wedding planning. But it sure made me panic a lot less if I didn’t have to look at the invitation list growing by the minute.

  “How many gods, Delaney?” Ryder asked over piles of paper strewn across the breakfast counter. He’d been dragging his fingers through his light brown hair, and now it stuck up sideways away from his ears.

  I shook my head like I was lost in cooking breakfast. “Oh, you know,” I said, going for vague.

  He narrowed those green eyes. “Delaney?”

  “Gods?” I asked, like I’d never heard of such a thing. I poked at the white part of the egg hoping I looked really busy.

  “Most of them?” he asked.

  I made a noncommittal noise and clicked the hood fan up a notch.

  “All of them?” he said over the noise of the fan. “Did you invite all the gods in Ordinary to our wedding?”

  “Technically, no.” I clicked the fan up one more notch.

  “I need a list,” he shouted over the jet engine roar. “Gods and, you know, everyone else. All your people. You said you’d get me a list. Hey. Hey, Chief Reed, I know you can hear me.”

  I leaned in and frowned harder at the egg. It had gone brown at the edges surprisingly quickly. It was starting to smell, and I wasn’t sure it was a good smell. I dug at it, trying to get the spatula under before it burned.

  My sister, Myra, had taken pity on me (again) and walked me through breakfast (again): eggs over easy—and if that failed, scrambled—sausage in a different pan, and toast.

  Add some fruit and coffee, and I could officially claim I knew how to cook a breakfast.

  I wanted to do this right for once, for Ryder. He’d been doing all the wedding planning since I’d been putting in extra hours at work.

  And by “putting in extra hours”, I meant I’d been hiding out at work so I could avoiding planning the wedding.

  I didn’t know why, but every time I worked myself up to do something for the wedding: flowers, food, guest list? I just froze and all the worst-case scenarios of every possible choice ran through my head like a video stuck in fast-forward. A minute or so of that was traumatizing enough to make me back away from making even the smallest decisions.

  Ryder had put up with it for six weeks before he pulled all the neglected tasks to his side of the To Do list, told me he had it under control, and that was that.

  I knew I wasn’t pulling my weight on the wedding. Breakfast was my attempt at an apology, and now even that was going up in smoke.

  I jiggled and scraped, flipped the spatula upside down to get some leverage and pushed harder. The egg popped free, half of it soaring over the edge of the pan before landing with a plop onto the burner.

  “Crap!” I yanked the pan off the burner but there was so much egg everywhere. On the burner, down the side of the pan, in the pan. Egg goo stretched, more of the whitish-yellow snaking across the burner and going black in an instant.

  Smoke plumed in a ropey spout, a tiny reverse tornado, the stink and greasy gray of it sucked up by the fan. The sausage wasn’t doing so hot either. It curled in on itself protectively, exposing pink on the top, purple-y on the sides.

  I was pretty sure Myra’s sausages hadn’t been purple.

  I could fix this. I could do this.

  “Oil!” I grabbed for the green bottle by the toaster, and realized I’d forgotten to push the bread down and smacked at the lever with one hand. I picked up the oil with the other, ready to pour it over the eggs to unstick them. But instead of pushing the bread down, the toaster bucked and clanged over onto its side.

  “Crap!” I lunged for the toaster. My shirt caught the handle of the egg pan, ramming the whole thing into the sausage debacle like bumper cars going ninety.

  I slapped at the toaster and grabbed for the pan.

  Strong, steady hands stopped me. One on my hip, holding me in place, one reaching for the pan but catching my wrist instead.

  “The eggs,” I said.

  Ryder made some kind of noise I could barely hear over the fan roaring above us. He stepped into me, his whole body fitting behind me. Then his mouth was at my ear and his low, sleep-smoked voice rumbled, “I got this.”

  I hesitated. Sure, he could do this. He was good at everything. But I could do this too. Making breakfast was easy. Anyone could do it.

  “Laney,” he coaxed.

  I thought about pushing it. Insisting I could deal with a very normal-world, regular-person disaster that lots of people dealt with every day. But his body was strong and warm against mine, tensed and waiting for me to let him jump in and take over. I relaxed against him and held my hands up in surrender.

  He moved the egg pan toward the unus
ed back burner, flicked off the front burner, and did something with the sausage to make the breakfast meat stop rocking so wildly. He shifted sideways, moving me into the curve of his arm, practiced as a dance move.

  I went with the motion, and he quickly got everything settled: smoke put out, pans arranged, toaster righted. He switched the fan to a lower speed, and finally off. The silence in the kitchen was suddenly very large.

  “Hey,” he said quietly, still holding me, his lips inches from my ear.

  “Hey,” I said, defeated.

  “How about I take over breakfast, and you take Spud out for a bathroom break?”

  “I can do this.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m capable of doing normal things like normal people,” I said quieter.

  His chuckle was low and warm. He planted a kiss on my temple, and his hands on mine lifted, tugged. Then he was twirling me out of the kitchen.

  I huffed a laugh, and my mood lightened. How could it not, when I was in the arms of the man I loved, looking up into his sparkling eyes?

  We came to a stop in the little hall space between the kitchen and living area.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” he said back. “It’s all going to work out.”

  “I know.” I knew we would work out no matter what.

  It was other things I was worried about. I didn’t have a problem dealing with the big stuff.

  The god, Mithra, tying Ryder to him even though Mithra pretty much hated me? No problem. Demons fleeing to Ordinary from and angry king of hell who might aim all that anger at us? Can deal. The only Valkyrie in town somehow even grumpier about being short-handed for her community events? Got it under control.

  But some things, easy things, normal things like the wedding or the guest list situation seemed bigger than me somehow. And so much harder to solve.

  “How about you take Spud for his walk, and when you come back, we’ll have breakfast?”

  “I can cook, you know. I am a normal person. I can do normal cooking.”

  “Obviously,” he said. “You are a very normal person capable of cooking so very normally.”

  I smacked his hip.

  He grinned, and I liked that smile on his face. Liked everything about him, really.

  “See you in ten, yeah?” He dipped is head a little and raised his eyebrows.

  “I can...”

  “So normal,” he interrupted. “Got it. And yes, I know you can.” He pointed at the door. “Your espresso’s gonna go cold if you don’t hustle.”

  The promise of espresso waiting for me put a jog in my step. I hopped into the entry hall and lifted Spud’s leash from the hook by the door.

  The jingle brought our border collie/chow chow mix galloping down the stairs and across the living room in a flash.

  Right on his heels was our dragon pig. Dragon pig was actually a dragon who liked to run around in the shape of a cute baby pig. A cute baby pig who ate cars for breakfast.

  “All right you two,” I said, “let’s get some fresh air.”

  Spud dropped into a sit, his fluffy tail wagging and wagging, his mouth open in a happy smile. I latched the leash to his collar and plucked up Ryder’s old gray hoodie, shrugging into it.

  Spud and the dragon pig bounded out the door with me. We spilled into the front yard and then down the sidewalk to the little footpath that rambled between weeds toward the shore of the lake.

  I took a deep breath of air that smelled of clean water, green moss, and dusty sand, then let it out in one big rush.

  Dragon pig grunted and looked up at me, its pointy little ears flopping back.

  “I’ve been a little stressed,” I said, as Spud sniffed around for a good pee spot.

  Dragon pig grunted in agreement.

  “It’s just...the wedding planning. All the details and decisions. People asking me what date to save, and where it will be, and how formal they should dress, and if there’s going to be an open bar and free weed, or just free weed. Then the gods keep dropping hints, and I can’t tell if they want to officiate, or just want better seating options. It feels like everyone is more excited about it than I am. That’s not normal, is it? Feeling like the wedding is a performance we have to put on for everyone else? Feeling this kind of fight or flight or freeze over my own wedding?”

  Dragon pig squeaked and trotted toward the water, startling a couple crows up into the sky. The crows landed in the trees behind us and called out their displeasure. Dragon pig made a pleased sound. Spud finished his business and galumphed toward his buddy, his leash dragging behind him.

  “Five minutes,” I called after them. “I want that espresso hot. I mean it this time. No long walk. Just a shorty stroll.”

  Dragon pig grumbled at me and followed the water’s edge, Spud splashing through the shallows beside him. They both stopped to sniff around a rock, and the dragon pig swallowed it whole before moving on.

  My shoes sank in the dry sand and little reedy grasses slapped at the hem of my pants. The wind was cooler by the water, but the sun poured down a soft, early summer morning heat.

  Bertie, our local Valkyrie, couldn’t have chosen a better week for the annual talent show. With any luck the outdoor stage would be dry this year and no one’s picnic lunches would be ruined.

  I knew she had upped her firework budget, and lured a bunch of food vendors to offer treats. It was going to be a hit, because, really, almost everything she touched turned into a tourist magnet.

  Tourists meant money, and our little town always needed funds.

  I made a mental note to remind everyone on the force I was going to need all hands on deck for the event.

  We still hadn’t hired someone to take over Roy’s position at the station since he’d retired. We’d been rotating front desk duty, which worked for a stopgap, but was putting a bit of a strain on our small department.

  We only had five full-time officers: Me, my sisters Myra and Jean, and the two cops we’d nabbed from Tillamook just north of us: Hatter and Shoe. Our reserve officers: Kelby, Ryder, and Than helped part time, but they all had full-time jobs on the side.

  I needed to hire someone else full time, but had been holding off until things settled down. The only problem with Ordinary was that things never settled down.

  Spud was working on a stick, biting each end of it, then the middle, then each end again as he tried to decide how he was going to drag the thing back to the house. Dragon pig had found a pile of rocks someone had stacked, and was currently perched on the top like a king.

  Or a like dragon on a mountain. Or a pig on a pile of rocks.

  Mostly that last thing.

  The crows muttered and clucked in the trees, and a trio of seagulls piped across the sky, cruising for forgotten French fries or bits of bread.

  I tipped my face to the sky. Clouds rolled and shuffled like foam churning at the wave-edge of the heavens. My gaze ticked west, following the blue out and out for miles.

  Dragon pig growled. Spud dropped his stick and woofed.

  The crows suddenly went silent and took wing eastward, fast.

  The waves on the lake, the wind, the buzz of insects all stilled. As if this moment was stalled between the tick and tock of time.

  Something magic was happening. Something supernatural.

  “Holy crap,” I breathed. “Spud, Dragon pig, come on. Now.” I shot off toward the house, my gaze on the horizon.

  The westward sky wobbled like someone had stuck a soapy finger into oil, forcing the blue out to form a ring around a glossy golden disk in the sky. The disk flashed with blue fire and then…

  “What the...?”

  …a car tumbled out the sky and hit the beach a couple miles north.

  A seagull called out, the wind picked up, tick followed tock, and the day once again seemed like any other day in Ordinary, Oregon.

  Chapter Two

  Ryder took one look at my face and dumped the espresso into travel mugs. He grabbed the toast, hooke
d both mugs with one hand, and shrugged into his Carhartt Jacket. I got Spud off his leash and told the dragon pig to stay and look after him.

  “What happened?” Ryder asked as we jogged to the driveway.

  “Magic, I think. Big magic.”

  He slid into the passenger side of my Jeep. I took the wheel and got us moving north.

  “What kind of magic?” He settled the cups into the holders, balanced the toast on his knee, and reached for the police radio.

  “Hole in the sky.”

  “Got it,” he said, taking the supernatural weirdness of our town like a champ. There were days when it was hard to remember he’d only found out about the monsters and gods and magic of this place a couple years ago.

  There were days when it was hard to remember he used to be part of the Department of Paranormal Protection, a governmental agency that hired people to hunt monsters. People who could do a lot of damage to our town.

  But there wasn’t a day when I wasn’t thankful for Ryder finding out just how un-ordinary Ordinary was, and then immediately quitting the DoPP. He’d taken our side and had become an important part of keeping our secrets safe.

  “Jean and Myra?” He switched from the police radio, which was monitored by a handful of mortals who didn’t know about magic, to his phone.

  “Yes.”

  “North?”

  “I think 50th Street. Tell Myra to sweep the beach from 40th up, and Jean to...”

  “Delaney’s here with me. You’re on speaker,” Ryder said responding to the call he’d answered before the phone even rang. “Jean,” he told me.