Midnight Squad: The Ties That Bind

by J. L. M. Visada

  Katy stopped at the door, reached up to knock, and hesitated. Then took a steadying breath before knocking, and a few moments later the door swung open. Standing in the doorway were three tall…bodies. They were dressed entirely in black. In one hand they were holding whips made from bones, and in their other hand they each held their own heads.

  “Oh shit!” Penny screamed and grabbed Grim, pulling him back just as one of these creatures cracked their whip. The bones passed right through where Grim’s head would have been, and then imbedded into the wall. If Penny hadn’t moved Grim when she did, then he might have been killed. “Don’t just stand there, run!”

  Katy was still standing in the doorway. It was just a miracle that those things hadn’t already killed her. Danika snatched Katy, and we all started running down toward the van. Those…things kept following us slowly. The van roared to life just as one of those creatures pulled its arm back to crack that bone whip again. The whip struck the hood, and shredded the metal. Grim stepped on the gas, and squealed out of the driveway. I took a look back at the creatures. They raised their heads up, and the decapitated heads whistled. Suddenly we heard the clip-clop of horses.

  Three black horses cantered to the creatures. The heads were clearly not human. They had long pointy ears, and their heads were mottled and rotten. The heads had large eyes that darted around, and they all had an evil grin that looked too wide. The grinning mouth was so large that it looked almost like a hinge. Grim threw it in drive and we squealed out of there. At first we thought we’d just barely escaped, but then those things rambled up onto their horses, and began chasing us.

  The horses were at full gallop before long, and catching up to us. Penny was rocking back and forth, “OH SHIT…OH SHIT…OH SHIT…OH SHIT!”

  “What the hell are those things?” Grim screamed.

  Danika screeched, “Dullahans!”

  “Dull of whats!?” Grim screamed.

  “Dullahans. Think the faery equivalent of headless horsemen.” Danika answered.

  “Why the hell are there headless fairies at Katy’s house?” Janine screamed.

  Penny responded, “The Darkness.”

  “They are The Darkness?” I squealed in terror as we took a corner too fast. Tires screamed, and smoked as Grim fought to keep us on the road.

  “They work for the Darkness. Dullahans are The Darkness’s hit squad.” Penny screamed in terror.

  “Hold on!” Grim yelled, and whipped the van around a corner. The tires screamed again, and we actually started to go up onto two wheels. We very nearly tipped over, but somehow Grim was able to keep us upright. I looked behind; the Dullahans were getting closer.

  “Any ideas?” Niki screamed.

  “Maybe Grim could do that scythe thing?” Danika howled as we almost rolled the van again.

  “Pretty sure my one scythe gets beat by their three whips. Penny…Penny?”

  Penny was practically frozen in terror. “Penny!” Grim screamed, and a second later Penny snapped back to attention.

  “How can I help?” She asked.

  “You know more about these things than any of us. How do we stop them?” Grim yelled.

  “You can’t.”

  “What do you mean, we can’t?” Janine yelled.

  “Dullahans cannot be stopped. Locks, and gates just open for them. If they call your name then you drop dead right there, and they mark you for death by throwing blood on you.” Penny’s voice was distant, and hollow with fear.

  “Lightbringer!” I heard the voice, hollow and dry. When I turned around one of the Dullahans was riding beside my window. It’s too-wide grin was opening and closing like it was trying to talk to me. Its eyes darted in all directions, and rarely did they agree about what direction to go. The Dullahan used its whip, and turned the front windshield into a web of broken glass.

  “Penny! Think! There’s got to be some way to get them to leave us alone, or at least buy us enough time to make a plan.” Grim yelled.

  “They are afraid of gold. If we had gold then they’d leave us alone.”

  “Okay, so who has some gold?” I said, and looked around at everyone. Nothing….great. “Earrings, bracelets, belly button rings, someone has to have some gold somewhere?”

  “Sorry, I’m more of a silver type of girl.” Niki said.

  “Not big on jewelry. Hard to keep it on when I shift.” Danika explained.

  “I left my jewelry at the hotel. Mom and Dad thought stuff like that was inappropriate. Oh God, what did they do to my parents?” Katy sobbed. “Grim, we have to go back. My parents could be in real trouble.”

  Grim tightened his grip on the wheel, “Call them, we can’t go back right now. We need to ditch these guys first. Then we can make our way back. DD? Penny? Do either of you have any gold?”

  I shook my head no, and Penny yelled, “No!” Then she resumed her nervous rocking back and forth. She was terrified. Penny was normally much more together than this, but these guys had her really spooked. Katy was dialing as fast and furious as she could. Her emotions were getting the better of her. She hit send, and then the cell phone sparked. She was in such a hurry that she wasn’t careful about her powers, and so her magic just fried the cellphone.

  “Son of a bitch!” She screamed, and unfortunately for the rest of us her powers must have done something to the van, because it started sputtering. We were slowing down. “Oh crap! I’m sorry, guys.”

  “Not your fault. Who plans for this kind of crazy crap?” Grim growled, and then twisted the wheel, slamming our van into one of the horsemen. The impact sent the Dullahan rolling across someone’s lawn. It dropped its head, and the head kept rolling. It finally stopped when it crashed face first into the crotch of a garden gnome lawn ornament. Then it just disappeared. Under different circumstances, it probably would have been funny. Of course, being chased by these dullahan things, and realizing they might very easily kill us kept it from being even slightly humorous. Except to Grim, he was laughing his head off and making some weird joke about giving head. He’s smarter than I probably give him credit for, and I know he cares about us all, but sometimes I really do worry that he’s a few tacos short of a combo platter.

  The van sputtered to a stop. The horseman circled us. “Lightbringers!” They screamed.

  “I don’t think they can kill you by calling your name.” Grim whispered. His lips barely moved, and he was trying to hold still.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Why chase us? If they could just call our names then we’d have never made it this far.”

  “And that helps us how?” I asked.

  “If that’s complete crap, then we have a chance. Remember how the werewolves ran from me?”

  “Yeah.” I said.

  “Well, what happens if they don’t freak out? What if instead of running, and letting me pick them off one by one, they instead took me on?”

  “They’d have shredded you to bits, and then us afterward.” I said.

  “Okay, so everyone runs to avoid hearing their names called, right?” Grim sounded a lot more confident.

  Penny stopped rocking, “What exactly are you saying?”

  Grim turned, and grinned. “Penny, honey…are these guys stronger than you?”

  “No, they’re faeries. I mean sure they’re kind of big for faeries, but faeries aren’t much faster or stronger than humans. Most faeries are actually kind of tiny. All faeries have magic, but faerie magic isn’t particularly dangerous. It’s mostly glamours. It screws with your perceptions of things, but…oh God, now I feel so stupid.” Penny slapped herself in the forehead.

  “What?” Janine asked.

  “They are fae. We outnumber them. Either Danika or I could probably mop the floor with them in a fair fight.” Penny grinned evilly.

  “So we’ve been running because?” I asked.

  “Because we believed the hype, and because we were all really stupid.” Danika laughed.

  “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
Niki asked.

  Grim was drumming his fingers in eager anticipation. “Simple, I’m going to slip out and distract them. Then you guys get out and beat them like piñatas. Don’t stop ‘til the candy pops out. Janine?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hop inside my little sister, and don’t let those bone whips get near her. That way she can fight with us and not get hurt.”

  “What about DD?” Niki asked, and I had to agree. Yeah, what about me? I didn’t want Niki to get hurt, but I don’t want to get hurt either. I looked back and forth from Grim to Niki.

  “Well I’d prefer if DD stayed in the car. She isn’t really much of a fighter, and if one of you is going to have a throw down with these things, then I’d prefer it be the one with a decent right cross.” Grim looked back at me. “Besides, you’re the only one of us that might be able to get this van running again. So while we’re out here dealing with these things, see if you can tinker with something in here to get us going.”

  I couldn’t really argue with Grim’s perspective, but I was still a little hurt. I mean sure, I’m a lover, not a fighter. Okay, maybe I’m not much of a lover either considering I’ve been living in a nookieless desert while all my friends are spending their nights putting the bow chikka into the bow chikka wow wow for quite a while now. Still, it kind of hurt my feelings that in our group nobody really wanted me to be part of the throw down. It just reminded me of all the times I got picked last in sports. It just kind of picked at some old wounds, but now isn’t the time for my own pity party. “Okay.” I said, and started racking my brain for any way to get this van running again. With any luck Katy just fried one of the fuses. We have spares, but if she cooked the actual onboard computer that governs everything about how this van runs, then we’d be spending tomorrow morning walking through car lots…walking being the operative word. I shuddered a little and started running through my mental checklist. It’s Florida, which means humidity. The last thing I want to do is wander around Florida car lots having some jerk with teeth that are way too white to be real ignoring me while trying to sell Grim a car. It’s infuriating. I mean I show up, and we make it clear that I’m clearly the one with the money. Then some…jackass ignores me, and starts chatting away with Grim as though he makes all the decisions. Even when Grimmy tries to get them to talk to me, they just call me little lady, and tell me that I’d be able to carry lots of groceries. It’s just insulting.

  It’s like when we all have dinner together at a restaurant. They just hand Grim the check. I can be waving my credit card like a mad woman, and the waiter slides that little black leathery book thingy that holds the bill right past me to Grim. It’s bad enough when it’s some guy, but when it’s our waitress…come on! Whatever happened to sisterhood, and I am woman hear me roar? Don’t even get me started on how they treat me when I go to the garage. They just treat me like some airheaded bimbo waiting for them to solve all my problems. I’m not stupid. I know exactly what’s wrong, but I just don’t want to spend the next two to four hours getting all dirty fixing it. So I take it to a mechanic, and tell him what’s wrong, and then they give me the “little lady” treatment. They act like boobs take away my ability to understand simple mechanical functions, or they just treat it like it’s really cute that I think I know something about cars. Then when I get the vehicle back they’ve tacked on three or four other things they thought “needed repairs”. I just changed the windshield wipers a week before I brought it in, why would I need a new pair, and I certainly don’t need a pair of twenty dollar wiper blades, and a two hour labor cost at seventy dollars per hour. One hundred and sixty dollars for wipers I don’t need! My four dollar new wipers were fine, and why did it take you two hours for something that took me five minutes. I’m an M.I.T. graduate that can build…damn near anything! So if nothing else I know when I’m being hosed.

  “Grim duck!” Niki’s scream brought me back to reality. When did they get out of the van? I looked around. Danika and Penny were circling the dullahans. Two dullahans were back to back, and trying to avoid being separated. The third dullahan still hadn’t reappeared since Grim hit it with the van. Grim was sprawled out on the ground as though he’d just jumped out of the way. I assume he was dodging the whips. Then I heard the sound of hooves crashing against pavement. The third dullahan rode his horse like a madman, and then actually had it leap over our van. Then it hopped down to join the other dullahans. The horse ran off to God knows where. It was now three dullahans versus six. Well, five if you count Janine and Niki as technically one fighter.

  Danika had changed into her wolf-human hybrid. Thank goodness I designed her body armor out of fairly flexible material. It wasn’t quite on par with spandex, but knowing that she could change her physical form made me think out of the box. Her armor wasn’t quite as dense as the others when she changed, or I suppose I should say the fluids that were in the armor were stretched to cover the larger surface area of the wolf-human hybrid. Since the same fluid was covering a larger area, it didn’t offer nearly as much protection, but Danika could heal from most wounds, and so her armor was really just designed to minimize how much damage she took. Whereas the other’s armor stopped pretty much anything, Danika’s armor, at this point, could only take rounds up to a forty-four magnum. It was a tradeoff that I wasn’t really happy with, but until someone figures out a way around the laws of physics I don’t really have much choice in the matter.

  Grim disappeared into The Black, and then his black billowy smoke rose up from under the dullahans. I watched as Grim’s hands reached up and snatched at two of the dullahans, but his hands passed right through like they weren’t even there. Grim’s hands sank back down, and he rose up from The Black next to my car door screaming, “They aren’t real! It was like grabbing smoke!”

  Penny and Danika began circling closer. They were normally pretty scary when they suddenly went all claw and fang in a normal training session, but now that they both realized these dullahan faery things were more illusion than real…the two women were actually terrifying. Danika and Penny were lunging in and out to keep the dullahans off balance. Danika was actually drooling and snapping at them like an angry Rottweiler, and Penny was laughing in almost evil glee at whatever she had planned for these dullahans. One of the dullahans cracked its whip at Penny, and for the first time she just stood there. I winced as it struck her, Grim howled as he watched helplessly while it impacted. His voice was terrified, and sounded barely human. He sounded like some crazed animal for a moment there, but then the whip just disappeared. It wasn’t even real.

  “I knew it! It’s just been a mind fuck this whole time.” Penny grinned, and her fangs extended. The dullahans moved nervously. They must have figured out that all their tricks had failed them. Just then, Danika leapt at one of the dullahans. Her body passed right through it, but as she went through, her foot struck the head. The impact with the head caused the dullahan’s body to disappear immediately. The head rolled along the ground before flickering and disappearing. The head was an illusion, and it was hiding a tiny blue faery. Danika rolled to her feet, and snatched up the tiny dullahan from the ground. It was either unconscious or dead.

  No one said anything; they didn’t have to. Niki leapt at one of the heads, and snatched the little blue dullahan inside, and Penny grabbed the other dullahan. She held it up and looked at the tiny blue faery that was now trying to bite and kick at her. I realized that the battle was over, and I still hadn’t started working on the van.

  I began searching through the vans fuses, and thankfully, Katy had only burned out one. After replacing it, the van roared to life. I was ready to gloat, but then I heard Grim screaming, and I peeked up over the steering wheel.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you!”

  Penny smiled, “I had a hunch.”

  “A hunch! Are you crazy? You could have been killed!” Grim was screaming, and his knuckles were white. He was actually shaking in anger.

  “Come on, worst case scenario it give
s me a nasty cut, and then I heal. It was just an illusion.”

  “We didn’t know that. You saw the hood, it could have cut you in half. I could have lost you…you idiot!” Grim was looming over her. As each second ticked away he grew more angry.

  “Look at the hood now. It’s fine. It was all an illusion. A great illusion, but still just an illusion. I wasn’t in any danger.” Penny said calmly.

  “We…didn’t…know…that! You could have been killed. Don’t you ever…EVER…do that again!” Grim was in a rage. His finger was inches from Penny’s face.

  Penny knew he was angry, and instead of arguing she just kissed the tip of his finger and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Every time Grimmy opened his mouth to yell at her, she just kissed his finger, and he stopped. He kept trying to scream and yell, and when his mouth opened she just kissed his finger, and that alone kept breaking his train of thought. He was still in a rage, but it was like that simple little gesture kept hitting a reset button inside Grim. He just couldn’t yell and scream at her when she did that. Thankfully I was far enough away that they couldn’t hear me laughing under my breath. It was just so cute that she knew him that well.

  Finally his shoulders sagged in defeat after the fifth time he started trying to yell at her, and she met his efforts with an adorable little finger kiss. Grim was beat and he knew it. Instead he wrapped her up in a giant bear hug, “Just don’t do that anymore, okay? I was scared.” Penny dangled from his arms like a tiny little doll.

  “Okay, I’ll try. Now why are you so twisted about this? Normally you don’t freak out like this.” Penny asked.

  Grim stiffened, “I’ve been hearing that song.”

  “What song?” Penny said.

  “The song. I’ve been hearing the chicken dance everywhere we go since we left to head towards Katy’s parents.”