Half-Made Girls

by Sam Witt

  Elsa struggled against the Stranger. Her hands felt clumsy, like the time she forgot her mittens and played in the snow too long. She reached for the mask, but it slid away from her stiff fingers. The bloody eye gleamed with ancient malice.

  “By the tithe and shade,” Elsa began the words of banishment, forcing them from between numbed lips. This wasn’t fun anymore, it was scary. “Begone from my -“

  Thunder rolled through the little house, and Elsa’s mouth snapped shut before she could finish the old words. The mask spun on the table, whirling faster and faster, the clay bulging and warping as it turned. The eye glared into Elsa, and she felt its hate, a vile darkness that had been fermenting for eons, waiting for this moment. It was coming. It would kill them all.

  It already had her father. It already had Alasdair. She could hear their shouts and screams, feel their pain. The blood spilled out from the eye, and she could see her father drowning in it.

  Elsa struggled to open her mouth, to warn her mother.

  But she was afraid it was already too late.

  CHAPTER 13

  JOE HUSTLED UP the stairs, panic shifting his heart into sixth gear. He had to find the key or something to break Al’s chains before his captors returned.

  He made his way through the first floor, stopped dead at the door to the kitchen. There, on the table, the familiar dark-brown neck and black label of his old friend, Jack. Joe licked his lips, clenched his fists.

  Pyramids of old pizza boxes, empty tins of Spam crusted with old flecks of processed pork, mounds of gnawed rib bones crowned by green-eyed flies surrounded the bottle. Joe didn’t care. It could have been stuck in a pile of shit, and it wouldn’t have made any difference to his thirst.

  He took three swift steps into the kitchen and yanked the crusty bottle off the table. He flicked curds of something yellow and sticky off the bottle’s mouth with his fingers. He stared at the whiskey, knowing he should put it down and walk away. His forehead itched, and the discomfort pushed him over the edge. Joe tilted his head back and poured the booze in, gulping the first draught so fast he didn’t even taste it.

  His tension and fear eased back as the liquor scorched the back of his throat. The second drink was more satisfying, a rich, oaky flavor that reminded him of campfires and summer nights. His hands stopped shaking.

  He had time for a couple more slugs, enough to get him back on top of things. Enough to smooth the edges of his nerves.

  Joe leaned against a filthy kitchen counter, ignoring the roaches that scattered at his approach, and lifted the bottle to his lips again. He’d get around to finding the key, right after one more drink.

  The third drink went on and on. His lungs burned with their need for oxygen, but still he drank. The Jack sloshed around in the hole in his soul, enough to whet his appetite but not enough to satisfy. Never enough for that.

  The bottle ran dry just as the front door screamed open on rusted hinges. Joe clenched the thin neck in his hand. Greasy drops of sweat trickled through the dried blood on his chest and back. His vision blurred, steadied, blurred again, and his head felt thick and loose on his neck. “Fucking idiot,” he cursed himself.

  Faded copper light poured in through a window at the kitchen’s west end. The sun was going down and dragging Joe’s heart along with it. He thought of the bat he’d killed in the attic, the other one he’d smashed in the basement, the big swarm of them up on the ridge, and the well filled with still more of the fucking monsters. With the darkness descending, they’d be coming out to feed. Al was strapped right over their hole, a helpless meal for the taking. Joe clenched his fist around the bottle. He wanted to smash it against his own head, clear his thoughts with the bright, pure fire of pain.

  He hated himself as much as he hated his need for the bottle.

  The gang piled into the house like a pack of dogs, growling and jostling one another as they headed for the kitchen. The cat-piss stink of longtime meth heads poured into the house along with them, stinging Joe’s nose before he could see them.

  The Night Marshal shuffled around the table on the balls of his feet, then pressed himself tight up against the doorway. He drew his hand back over his head, ready to swing the bottle down at the first freak to come through the door. He hoped his aim was steady enough to get the job done.

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE FIRST OF them never saw the bottle coming. Joe brought it down across the bridge of the kid’s nose so hard it dropped the young man to his ass in a spray of blood and snot.

  The kid’s eyes fluttered up to show their jaundiced whites, and his breath glubbed in and out through the mushy ruin of his nose. He fell to his knees, then crashed forward onto the kitchen floor. Blood ran out of his face and flowed across the curling linoleum tile.

  “What the hell?” A second man shoved his head through the door to get a look at what was happening.

  The Night Marshal switched his grip and brought the bottle down in a vicious overhand stab. The blow slammed into the second man’s forehead with a hollow pop, and Joe followed it up with a punch to the solar plexus that drove the man back into the others behind him.

  Joe ducked his shoulder and threw his weight into the knot of confused men. His feet skidded on the tile, turning his attack into a headlong fall into his attackers.

  Their legs tangled as they tried to regain their balance, and the whole pack of them fell back into the entryway. They hit the ground hard enough to crack the old floorboards.

  Al screamed from the basement, a wordless exclamation of rage and panic that dumped an ice-cold wave of fear down Joe’s back. He was running out of time. They all were.

  Adrenaline shoved Joe back to his feet, and he took advantage of the meth heads’ confusion to get clear. He scrambled over the four of them and fled deeper into the house. He was no longer searching for a way to free Al, but for a weapon. He needed to even the odds, before it was too late.

  Al howled from the basement, the sound so tortured it no longer held any humanity. Joe knew that sound. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Joe crashed through the mess of a bedroom, threw himself down an L-shaped hall and into some sort of parlor. Something glowed in the little room, a ball of oily light sitting on a low, triangular table made of hickory branches and deer antlers strapped together by strips of tendon and leather. The light ignited the runes scribbled on Joe’s torso and neck. The glow itched like poison oak, but Joe found himself helpless to do anything but stare at the light. It burrowed into his mind and strangled thoughts before they could form. There were words, buzzing, rasping, but he couldn’t understand what they were trying to tell him.

  “Nice try, Marshal.” Joe recognized the voice behind him. It was the man from the ridge. “Shoulda gone out the front door when ya had the chance. Now yer fucked.”

  A thick arm wrapped tight around Joe’s neck, squeezed.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Joe wheezed, shaking off the witch light’s mind-numbing power at last. “You need to let us go.”

  The man laughed, and Joe felt hot breath against his cheek. “We ain’ never lettin’ ya’ll go, Marshal. Not after what ya done to the family.”

  “You don’t understand,” Joe gasped, “he’ll kill us all.”

  The man squeezed Joe’s neck harder still. “No one can kill me. Not anymore.”

  Joe’s vision flashed red, then black. His lungs screamed for air. He dug his fingers into the arm around his throat, but the big man didn’t loosen his grip. They didn’t understand what was happening. He had to make them see the danger before it was too late.

  He curled his legs up to his chest, using the unexpected weight to pull the man holding him forward. The big man bent at the waist, and Joe’s heels hit the floor. He snapped his head forward, then slammed it back, driving the attack with the strength of his legs.

  Something crunched against the back of Joe’s head, and he felt warmth roll down his neck. The noose of muscle and bo
ne around his throat went slack, and he lunged forward. He stumbled into the room, opening up some distance between himself and his attackers.

  Joe rubbed his throat and turned back to his attackers. He had to get out of here, get them all out of here before Al turned and came upstairs looking for blood. “Run,” he croaked, “get out of here while you still can.”

  The big man and his brothers (the grimy family resemblance was unmistakable) laughed and cracked their knuckles. The big man shook his head. “You don’t call the shots around here just now.”

  They came at him in a rush, no tactics, just a wall of heavy fists and flab-sleeved arms pummeling Joe’s head and shoulders. They put the boots to him once they had him on his knees, slamming kicks into his ribs and arms as he tried to shield himself.

  Joe didn’t want his boy to kill these men. He couldn’t have Al breaking the Night Law. Nothing was worth that.

  “Please,” he raised one hand, only to have a punch knock it aside and plow into the side of his head. He felt dizzy, couldn’t tell if it was a concussion or the booze or whatever they’d done to him while he was trapped in the belly of the pig upstairs.

  A guttural howl rose up from the basement and coiled like a noose of ice around Joe’s guts. The boy had done it. Al had gone and changed.

  Now they were all fucked.

  CHAPTER 15

  “WE BEEN WAITIN’,” the big, greasy motherfucker said. He towered over Joe and had to bend at the waist to wrap his thick fingers in Joe’s hair. The addict wrenched Joe’s head back and stared down into his bruised eyes.

  Joe stared back. The big man’s left eye was wrong, the pupil so dilated it seemed to have swallowed all but the thinnest sliver of bloodshot white around its edges.

  “Been waiting’ a long goddamned time.” The big guy punctuated his words with a backhand slap that split Joe’s lips and made his ears ring like a firehouse bell.

  Half-deaf, Joe could still hear Al’s howling. The sound was so much worse than his pain.

  Joe stared back up at the freak, trying to form the words to warn him. But his lips were too swollen, and his jaw felt slack and too loose. He stared at the big, black eye until he realized the pupil wasn’t a single black hole. There was a trio of pupils, mashed together inside that thin band of white. They swirled around one another, a mad orbit that made Joe’s skin crawl.

  “Let us go,” Joe said, his voice thick and slurred. “Before it’s too late.”

  The men laughed, rough-edged hyena cackles. Joe felt sick, not for himself, but for Al. For what he’d done to his own boy.

  He’d used his kids. Tramped Elsa all over the county to look into so much weird shit he couldn’t even remember it all. Done the same to Al, night hunting trips and dawn hikes through the backwoods that ended with shotgun fire and shallow graves. Hunting the darkness was never easy, but Joe had lightened his load by leaning on his family. He’d warned them against walking the Left-Hand Path, threatened them by showing them what he did to others who fell to the darkness.

  If he didn’t get Al out of here, the boy would end up being one of the very monsters Joe had used him to hunt.

  And if Joe survived this mess, he’d be the one who’d have to kill the boy for falling to evil.

  Joe tried to push himself up, but the big man kicked his legs out from under him. Someone else kicked him in the kidneys, another someone planted a boot in his hip.

  Another howl echoed through the house, an ululating predator’s cry that froze the meth heads. Their eyes widened and Joe could see they all shared the same monstrous pupils in their left eyes. He knew once they turned their attention back to him, it would only be a matter of minutes before they’d stomped him to death.

  He took advantage of their distraction to draw on one of the gifts of his office, reaching deep into the dark hollow of his mind that held a portion of the Long Man’s eldritch power. With the wound on his neck now healed, Joe could turn that power to other uses. The supernatural strength poured into his veins, pushing his flesh far beyond its mortal limits. Hanging on to that kind of raw energy made Joe stronger, faster, tougher than he’d ever imagined possible. But for every second it blazed inside him, the power demanded a price and stole a day from the end of his life.

  Joe let his newfound strength propel him onto his feet. His fist hooked up under the chin of the big man with enough force to lift the freak off his feet.

  He followed through with a backhand that took the skinniest addict down. Joe felt something shift on impact, but couldn’t tell if it was his knuckles or the man’s jutting cheekbone.

  The big man came back at Joe, still dazed from the sucker punch but game for the fight. He threw a left hook, then a vicious swooping right when Joe tried to dodge away. The blow caught Joe in the ear, and the ringing in his head became a deafening dial tone buzz.

  “Still got some fight in ya?” The big man snorted and spat out a blood-slicked tooth.

  Joe led with a right jab that the big man slapped out of the air. Joe let his momentum carry him forward, and he stomped his left foot down on the inside of the big man’s right knee. The big man’s leg gave up on the job of supporting him with a sound like ripping cloth, and he went down with both hands wrapped around the ruined joint.

  One of the others hooked his arms around Joe from behind, bending him into a clumsy full nelson. The man clung to his back like a burr, wrenching at Joe’s arms while the big man struggled to get back to his feet.

  Joe reckoned he could beat the three of them if he put his mind to it, but he didn’t have time for fucking around. If Al broke loose and found him tangling with these idiots, there’d be nothing but blood and scraps left of all of them, including Joe.

  As if sensing Joe’s worries, Al roared from the basement, and a brittle, metallic crunch echoed through the house.

  The Night Marshal threw himself backward, fell into one of the bentwood rockers, and set the witch glass wobbling on its heavy table. The man on Joe’s back screeched in pain as the chair splintered apart under their weight.

  The big man lurched forward on his good knee, hands stretched out for the globe.

  Joe grinned from the floor and kicked the edge of the table with both feet. “Catch.”

  The big man cried out, and the other addict, still on his, feet stared at the luminous ball in horror. The glowing globe tumbled off the edge of the table.

  Joe rolled off the wounded meth head behind him, grinding his foot into the man’s groin. He ran from the room, grinning at his attackers’ howls of pain and despair. As he fled, Joe released the Long Man’s power. It had served its purpose, he’d do the rest on his own.

  There was still time. He needed the freaks to chase him out of the house. Al would still get loose, but if he couldn’t find anyone to kill, Joe wouldn’t have to worry about dealing with the aftermath.

  He ran, kicking open doors and throwing himself down hallways, trying to stay just ahead of the assholes, keep them running.

  The big man thumped after Joe, shaking the whole house with his limping strides.

  Joe blew through a door that slammed back against the wall behind him and fell off its hinges.

  One of the tweakers was waiting and threw a clumsy punch that caught Joe on the chin. The blow threw the Night Marshal to the side, and he caught himself against a wall coated in peeling paper.

  Joe came back around with punch of his own. He pulled it at the last second, landing a blow just hard enough to get the addict’s attention. If he knocked the idiot out, Al would have him filleted in a heartbeat. “Run,” Joe growled, and kicked the downed man in the ribs. “Get out of here if you want to live.”

  Another metallic crunch came from the basement, followed by the sound of something heavy falling to the floor. An enraged roar shook the floorboards, sending Joe and the addict running in opposite directions.

  Joe’s memory was fuzzy. He could remember the general layout of the house from his last visit, but the specifics were lost to years of
marinating his brain in whiskey. He kept his head down and his legs pumping, doing his best to get back to the front of the house and out the door.

  Other feet were pounding the floorboards, the addicts trying to catch Joe or escape, running every which way.

  Something heavy hit the basement stairs at a full run, its steps a rolling thunder as it scrambled up to the ground floor.

  Joe’s mouth went dry. He wanted another drink more than he’d ever wanted anything. Al was coming.

  “Run!” he shouted. Following his own advice, Joe scrambled for an exit. He felt sick and clumsy, the booze in his gut agitated and bubbling from the adrenaline dumping into his system.

  Another roar shook the house, this one close enough Joe could almost feel its pressure against his skin. They were all running out of time.

  Joe burst into a hallway he recognized and darted to the left. The front door was wide open. He just had to get to it.

  Two of the junkies beat him to it and tangled up as they tried to get through the doorway. They pushed and shoved at one another, their drug-addled brains misfiring with panic.

  Joe ran toward them, intent on pushing them both through the door. Ten long steps, a quick shove, and they’d be in the wind. He could deal with them after he got Al back under control. Now that he knew who was behind the mess at the church, he could clean it up later.

  A sleek, blood-slicked figure burst into the hall before Joe. Its arms were long enough to drag the ground when it stood upright, and its legs were squat and coiled to spring. All-too-familiar eyes glared at Joe over a canine snout bristling with fangs as the beast let out a hunter’s cry.

  The Night Marshal’s stomach tightened, and he felt his pulse pound in his ears. Years had passed since the last time he’d seen his boy change. It was still terrifying. “Al,” Joe said, “don’t do this.”

  The demonic figure whirled in the hall and swept its, long, taloned fingers at the men in the doorway. They shrieked in pain and fear as they were thrown through the door. Al followed them into the fading light of the setting sun, howling his rage as he disappeared down the front steps.