Among the Debris (Son of Rain #2)

by Michelle Irwin

  She was right, they were much more common in the US, especially living among the descendants of the slaves who worked on rice plantations in the south, the Gullah people—many of whom openly acknowledged the existence of boo hags even in this age of disbelief.

  With the world getting smaller and smaller with air travel and easy transport though, it was becoming common for all creatures to be found outside of their traditional settings.

  Toni stood up. “We know what it is now at least. That means we can kill it.”

  “That’s going to be tough,” I said. “Everyone else is on assignment, so it’s just the two of us.”

  “And one of us will have to be asleep to draw her out.”

  Toni was right, but it wasn’t something I was looking forward to. Trying to sleep when I knew something sinister would be creeping into my room went against my every instinct.

  If we didn’t find a way to destroy the creature though, I would go crazy. Or worse.

  There were only so many nights a person could be ridden before the hag consumed the entirety of their life force. Worse, according to all lore, heaven help any poor soul who interrupted one while they fed like Toni and I were planning to do.

  We spent the rest of the day updating ourselves on any developments about boo hags in the Rain databases as well as gathering up our supplies for the night-time raid.

  KNOWING THE camera was in one corner of the room, that Toni was watching me through it was a strange feeling as I tried to go about my usual bedtime routine. Both Toni and I had agreed that it was best if I did everything the same as normal. That way, I wouldn’t give the boo hag any reason to suspect that I had any knowledge of its presence in my room for the last few nights.

  It was a difficult task not to keep one eye on the camera, and the other on the bureau where the creature had been when we’d watched the playback of the previous nights. The only thing that kept my gaze from straying in that direction was that if it did suspect I knew, it was likely to tear me to pieces or take my skin for its own. Neither of those alternatives was appealing.

  Instead of getting undressed like I normally would, I gave a small wave to the camera. If things went well tonight—if I was still alive in the morning—I would do what I could to block the feed. If nothing else, it would prove whether Toni’s assertions that she wasn’t monitoring the camera were accurate. If she confronted me about the blockage, I would know she was lying.

  After watching the feed and confirming the supernatural cause for my exhaustion, we’d formulated a plan. I would be the bait, Toni would ensure that the hag didn’t get a chance to ride me while I slept, and Graham had been given instructions to try to track the creature’s skin and destroy it. All of the lore indicated that the skin—borrowed from a previous victim—was usually left somewhere secure but nearby the victim so that the hag could return to it before sunrise. If the hag was outside of the skin by the time the sun rose, she’d perish.

  Pushing what needed to happen overnight out of my head, I headed to the bathroom to shower and change. The moment I stepped into the sterile, white space, I felt self-conscious that there might be another camera hidden in there, still unknown to me.

  I checked around the cornices, looking for any trace of a hole or gap within which a camera could be hidden. I even checked behind the mirror for wires before moving on to the towel racks to do the same. Satisfied as I could be that there was nothing recording me, I got ready for bed.

  Despite the lethargy I’d battled for the better part of the day, once I was under the blankets, I struggled to actually sleep.

  How am I supposed to relax when I know what’s coming?

  I considered redressing and heading to the Dove for a few more drinks to knock me out, but it was too difficult to find the energy to get out of bed. I couldn’t force myself to get up, but I couldn’t make myself sleep either.

  “This is ridiculous,” I murmured for the benefit of Toni, who I knew was listening in and watching on this occasion.

  It was possible the boo hag was already in the room, or that it’d sneak through the window later at night. Either way, it wouldn’t reveal itself until I was asleep. Pretending to sleep wouldn’t work. I closed my eyes and turned my mind to relaxing thoughts.

  Before long, Evie was there in my thoughts, laughing at something I had said or done. It wasn’t the overly real dreams I’d been having though. Instead, it was the quiet visions of introspective memories. Sorrow tinged the thoughts, but most of the anger had gone. With each new day, I felt less able to cling to the rage that had first burned through me with my discovery of what she’d forced me to feel.

  Lying in bed, trying to sleep but instead having long stretches of time to turn thoughts of her over and over in my mind, it became clearer that even if she’d done something to force me to feel that much love for her, it might not have been her fault.

  Just as Lou cornering and confronting her was no doubt the catalyst for the fire that had destroyed so much, I had to take some degree of responsibility for what had happened. I’d pursued Evie long before we’d shared our first kiss. From the day she had arrived at high school, she’d been a source of fascination and fantasy for me.

  Zarita’s words about David began to make more sense.

  “I believe that even if that were true, I don’t think the man would have cared. He was so smitten that he would have happily given her his heart for just that one kiss.”

  Even knowing what I knew now, I wasn’t sure if I could have resisted her back then.

  My mouth lifted into a smile as I recalled the subtle differences between her various smiles. I spent my waiting moments turning each memory I had of her over in my mind.

  Sometime later, I felt the weight of her on my hips and her hand press over my heart.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “CLAY.”

  IN MY mind’s eye, I could see the wicked smile that played upon Evie’s lips and twisted her voice into a tool of seduction. I tried to lift my hand toward the sound, intent on caressing her cheek and drawing her lips to mine, but I was unable to move.

  “Clay!”

  The tone was harsher, more desperate, and didn’t quite sound like Evie.

  “Clay, get your arse out of that bed right now, or I will personally kick it to kingdom come!”

  I sat up as Toni’s voice overtook Evie’s and pulled me from my dream. At some point during the night, I must have fallen asleep and the boo hag had appeared for its nightly fix of my energy.

  My heart thumped a wild beat against my chest as I was torn from an unhealthy sleep. I tried to force myself to focus on the situation, but it was hopeless at first. It took my eyes longer than it should have to adjust to the darkness in the room. When they did, I could see the hag pressing against the door to the bathroom, struggling to reach Toni who was trying just as hard to keep the creature out.

  The door bounced and banged against the frame as the two of them fought—the hag to push the door open and Toni to keep it closed. The hag’s long claws slashed at the opening, coming dangerously close to Toni’s arm.

  “The sesame seeds,” Toni snapped at me as she pushed harder against the door, trying to force it shut and get some distance between her and the sharp claws of the boo hag. If she succeeded, it would leave me alone on this side of the door with the hag.

  The hag’s head twisted in my direction. When it realized I was awake and moving, it turned its attention away from Toni and onto me. Knowing that if I let it get its claws into me I would be killed, I twisted my torso and barrel-rolled off the bed. The hag leaped onto the covers, and I rolled underneath the frame. The moment I’d escaped out the other side, I reached for the container of sesame seeds that Toni was talking about.

  My fingers closed around the plastic case at the same time that the hag’s claw pierced my wrist. Rotating my arm away from her grasp, I flung the container of seeds roughly in the direction of the nearest wall, hoping that the force of the landing would dislodge the lid
and send the small grains scattering around the room.

  The hag released my hand and raced over to the container, and I sagged a little with relief that my plan must have worked. I looked over, horror-struck to see that only a handful of the sesame seeds had spilled, which would barely keep the hag busy for a minute.

  Toni and I collided as we both raced to free the rest of the contents of the container. The hag howled in anger as thousands of grains scattered all across the room, some skittering under the bed, others flying across to land near the window.

  Toni’s hand closed around my uninjured wrist, and she pulled me into the bathroom, slamming the door as soon as we were through it.

  “It’s counting too quickly,” she said. “What else have you got?”

  I snuck a quick look out of the bathroom and saw that she was right. The creature was moving far too quickly and clearly counting all of the individual seeds with record speed. “You were the one who came up with using its arithmomania to our advantage. Is that all you brought?”

  “There were over eight thousand seeds in that freaking container. I would have thought that would have kept the damned thing busy for a while.”

  I could understand her assumption—even if it left us up the proverbial brown creek lacking appropriate rowing equipment. “Well, what else was in the lore?”

  “Holes in sieves.”

  “Are there any of those here?” I peeked out into the main room again. The hag was still busy, but was already halfway around the room.

  “Not unless you brought any with you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I packed a dozen sieves into my backpack when I left the States because they are essential travel equipment.”

  “Well, maybe if you’d had one above your bed, you wouldn’t have been ridden so hard, long, or often.”

  “With the speed that thing is counting those seeds, I would say it would have counted the holes in a colander in a matter of seconds.”

  “True.”

  “What else?”

  “Bristles in a broom . . .” She met my eye as I opened my mouth. “And before you ask, no there’s not, unless you’ve got one.”

  Ignoring her comment, I had an idea. “Wait, I’ve got it. Salt.”

  “Salt?”

  “Thousands and thousands of tiny grains. Should keep her busy long enough for us to paint.”

  “Okay, there’s only one problem, I didn’t bring salt.”

  “I’ve got some in my bag.”

  She didn’t ask why I carried salt—everyone in the Rain knew there were enough creatures that salt either slowed or destroyed that it was a useful tool in any arsenal. “When we open the door, I’ll try to mix up what the hag has counted and needs to count still. You go straight for the salt.”

  I nodded. “Be careful.”

  The hag would be torn between her compulsive need to count every grain and her desire to harm both of us.

  Toni grinned up at me, the same manic look in her eyes that she’d had before chasing after the black annis.

  “On three,” she said.

  I prepared myself as best as I could.

  “Three!” she shouted as she pushed the door open.

  I had expected her to start from one so it took me a second to catch up. Despite my surprise, I gathered myself quickly and ran for my bag. Deep down at the bottom, underneath all of the clean and dirty clothes, which I repacked every night just like Evie had taught me during our months on the road together, I found the box of sea salt I’d brought from home.

  When I looked up, the hag was just about to lunge at Toni.

  “Hey! Count this!” I ripped the lid off the box and scattered the salt across the floor. Some of it sunk into the thread of the carpet, but I hoped that would just keep the hag busy for longer.

  Instead of obsessively counting the grains of salt, the boo hag reared up and screeched out an ear-piercing cry of agony.

  “Oh shit! That’s right, they hate salt.” Toni grimaced.

  The creature turned its head back and forth between me, Toni, and the salt scattered all around the room.

  “The paint!” I shouted at Toni who was closest to the special concoction we’d ordered from a shop called Wickes earlier that day. Haint blue: an unusual pale blue-green shade reminiscent of the color of death resting on a body.

  With the boo hag still shrieking at the sight of the salt and searching desperately for an escape, Toni worked as quickly as she could to leverage the lid off the tin. Originally, our plan had been to paint the hag into a corner with the haint-blue paint, but I had a different idea now.

  Without words, I indicated to Toni that she should toss the paint at the creature. There would be one hell of a mess to clean up in the morning, but if worked, at least we’d be alive and the creature would be off the street.

  If it didn’t work . . . Well, looking on the bright side, I wouldn’t have to do the cleaning.

  Gathering my drift from my terrible game of charades, Toni lined up her strike and swung the can in the direction of the boo hag, holding onto the tin and letting the paint fly from the opening. It was hard to see the exact hue of the paint in the darkness, but due to its light shade, it was easy to see the stream arc into the air before falling all at once, covering about half of the Hag—as well as giving the carpet a coating of the thick sludge.

  For a moment, the silence was deafening as the sudden stop to the screeching rang in my ears louder than the noise that preceded it had.

  Then the hag found a new volume I hadn’t dreamed possible as it tore at the paint now coating its body. Even in the darkness, I could see that the paint had wrapped around the exposed muscle and sinew, and had slipped beneath exposed veins. Wherever the paint covered the boo hag, the substance clung tightly and refused to shift, even with the wild thrashing of the creature. I pressed my hands against my ears to lessen the intensity of the screams, worried that the sound could burst my eardrums if I didn’t.

  After a few seconds of watching the creature tear at its own body, it was obvious how much pain the boo hag was in. My heart actually ached for it. Toni and I had unintentionally tortured it. With a shock I saw I was no better than Lou, in that moment at least. No better than any of the Assessors in any division of the Rain.

  I clenched my jaw and turned from the sight as I tried to compose myself. “Can’t we find some way to put it out of its misery?”

  The boo hag barely paid either of us any attention as it clawed away huge hunks of its own body in an attempt to escape from the Haint-blue coating we’d given it. The screech had turned to a noise that sounded like sobbing, and I grew sicker by the minute.

  Even if it had been unintentional, I’d caused it so much suffering. There had to be ways to destroy the creature without so much agony. Watching the creature writhe further solidified my forgiveness for Evie. Although I hadn’t intended to inflict prolonged pain, it was because of me the creature was in distress. Maybe it had been the same when Evie inflicted her spell on me; maybe it had been a consequence that she’d never imagined.

  “There’s nothing we can do for it until morning.” Toni placed her hand on my shoulder.

  Once dawn broke, the light of the sun would destroy the creature if it wasn’t back in the safety of its borrowed hide.

  I moved toward the bed and slid to the ground to sit with my back against it.

  Toni followed me, sitting beside me before pressing a key into my hand. “You must be shattered, go to my place and get some sleep. I can handle this on my own.”

  I shook my head. “It’s my fault we’re in this situation.”

  “How do you figure?”

  I couldn’t understand what she meant by her question—wasn’t it obvious? I was the one the boo hag had ridden while I slept, there must have been something I’d done that had drawn it in.

  “Obviously I was too attractive a target for it to refuse.” I’d meant it as a joke but was unable to infuse my voice with the right mirth to make it work.
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  “I wasn’t going to say anything until I could find out more, but the person who was in this room before you ended up going to Oxford Castle for treatment because he wasn’t fit for operation.”

  I caught her drift immediately. “The boo hag was riding him?”

  “It’s possible that the creature has been living in this room the whole time. I just never thought . . .” She frowned. “Until you started to show the same symptoms, I didn’t even consider that it could have been supernatural. I thought he just wanted to get away. Because of the fae partnership.”

  “He was the one who betrayed you?” I recalled her statement about the fae being more trustworthy than other Rain members.

  She looked away from me, her silence more confirmation than any words could have been. She turned back to stare unseeingly at the boo hag. “I was just lucky he was already operating under a diminished capacity and that Granddad doesn’t believe I could do anything so stupid.”

  “Why do you do it if you know it’s wrong?” Even as the words came out, I wondered if she’d interpret them to be another sleight on the fae. Although they might have deserved it, I had agreed to disagree on that point. “What I mean is, wouldn’t it be easier just to leave the Rain altogether? Go somewhere else and start fresh.”

  “You offering to spirit me away, cowboy?” She chuckled. “Seriously though, why would I? I can work within the system and still do some good. I can help people. If I turned my back on all this, or tried to openly fight the system, I couldn’t do anything worthwhile to help anyone. Tell me, has being open and honest about your doubts made your life any easier?”

  I let loose a sarcastic bark of laughter.

  She rested her head on my shoulder. “Exactly.”

  Watching the hag as it continued to writhe and tear at itself, I felt a compulsion to be completely honest with Toni. The howls of pain had quieted as the hag began to lose energy in the battle with the paint scorching trails over its body.

  It was easier to deal with the noise and the sight of the thrashing creature with the distraction of conversation. Being careful not to give anything away about Zarita, I answered her question from a few days earlier.