Bare Bones

by Debra Dunbar

“If Grandmother comes looking for us, it won’t matter whose skin you’re wearing.” Lawton looked up, his eyes weirdly bulging without lids. “You don’t need to kill anyone else, Gary. Just take the rest-stop guy and Strike’s skin and get out of town.”

  Which would leave Lawton with nothing. He had seemed to appease Gary with his explanation of my body disposal, but the kid clearly knew he wasn’t getting out of this house alive.

  “I don’t like Strike.” He kicked the duct-taped man’s leg. “I’m not sure I like this guy either. Maybe I’ll run out this afternoon and see if I can find someone else. Someone who’s cool. Someone who’s not a loser like this guy.”

  I saw a movement at the opposite doorway and panicked. Oh no. Not now. Not when Gary was so close to the hostage.

  “Police.” Tremelay appeared in the doorway, shotgun poised. From his angle he couldn’t see either Lawton or the green-haired kid. I could only hope he’d heard them talking and figured out their locations from their voices.

  It might not be ideal, but it was time for action. I ran, trying to get between Gary and the human, but was not match for his speed. Gary grabbed the human, yanking him off the chair and pointing his knife-like finger at the kid’s throat. I hesitated, knowing that I couldn’t manage to kill Gary before he killed his hostage.

  Gary pivoted, dragging the kid in front of him as he angled himself in a defensive position. Tremelay moved to the side, trying to flank him, but the Boo Hag jabbed his finger into the human’s chin. Red trickled down. The hostage’s scream was muffled by the duct-tape across his mouth.

  “Stay right there, both of you. Sword on the ground.”

  Of course he was more nervous about my consecrated weapon than he was Tremelay’s shotgun. I’d seen the negligible effect bullets had on a Boo Hag. I doubted bird shot or slugs would be any different. I’d worried that when it came time I wouldn’t be able to kill the Boo Hag teen, but now that he had his knife against another’s throat, I was finally onboard with the plan. But I knew Gary wouldn’t think twice about killing this man, so I gently eased my sword to the floor and slid it away with my foot.

  I might not have my sword, but I still had a few spells up my sleeve, and hopefully if Tremelay could get in a distracting shot, I’d be able to use one and get Gary away from his hostage.

  “Too many have died, Gary,” Tremelay said, his gun still trained on the human shield. “We’ve caught Bella. We know what you are. Grandmother is on her way. Let the kid go and you’ll live to go home with her.”

  “If you know what I am then you know that gun of yours isn’t going to do shit to me but mess up my clothes.” Gary’s voice was cocky. He edged backward toward Lawton dragging the bound human along with each step.

  “There’s no way out,” Tremelay warned him. “Wait for Grandmother and you’ll live. Kill that man or escape today, and you’ll die. She’ll find you, Templars always do, and when she finds you next time, she’ll kill you.”

  Gary laughed, his eyes still on me and my sword as he continued to back up. “Idiot. You think Grandmother is going to spank me and send me to bed without cake? We’re all dead, whether by that Templar’s sword or at Grandmother’s hands. We’ve put the whole community at risk. There is no punishment for that except for death.”

  My immediate reaction was to glance at Lawton with sympathy. He’d done all he could to help. A death sentence seemed rather harsh in his instance, but it’s not like I could offer any alternative.

  “Then pick your death, because this is over right here, right now.”

  I admired Tremelay’s confidence, but couldn’t see how anybody but Gary had the upper hand right now. He had the hostage, and I just couldn’t let him kill this guy right in front of me.

  The Boo Hag laughed. “Wrong. You’re both going to stay here while I leave. Do whatever you want with Lawton. I don’t give a shit about him. Let me go and you can have him.”

  Mirroring Gary’s move I came around the dining room table and realized what was going on with the other Boo Hag. Lawton wasn’t just naked, he was huddled in a huge, thick ring of salt. Gary had stripped him, trapped him, and now was ready to sacrifice him to us. Jerk. But Lawton wasn’t the only one I had sympathy for at the moment. The poor kid with the green hair was shaking like crazy, whimpering noises coming from behind the duct tape. I was sure he’d read the papers and knew what his fate was going to be.

  “Let that human go,” I told Gary.

  He laughed. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Tremelay took a step forward and I edged to the side, no longer trying to flank the Boo Hag. At this point I had a different idea. “He’ll slow you down,” I commented. “And you’ll need to really hustle once you get out of here. We’ll be right after you.”

  He shrugged, still backing toward the door, but at a different angle. Just a few more feet.

  “Let the human go, Gary.” Tremelay took another step forward. “Let him go unharmed and neither of us will follow you wherever you go. I’ll give you my vow and so will she.”

  No I would not. I shot a quick glare at Tremelay, not sure where he was going with this. I most certainly was going to hunt this kid down, whether he let his hostage go or not.

  “You can go somewhere on your own—you and Lawton and Becca,” the detective continued. “You can either make a life somewhere else, or go home to South Carolina.”

  “Fuck that,” he yelled. “I’m not going back. I’m never going back. And I don’t give two shits about Lawton or that vampire-loving freak. Kill them both for all I care.”

  I caught Lawton’s eye and hoped he got my unspoken message. Gary’s attention zeroed in on me as I moved a few steps toward him. His finger-knife dug deeper into the hostage’s skin. “Stay there or I’ll kill him,” he ordered.

  I held out my hands and stayed where I was, but it was clearly too close for Gary’s comfort. He moved backward, right into the salt surrounding Lawton. The other Boo Hag jumped forward, grabbing his friend around the neck and slamming him face-down into the salt. The human crashed against the floor with a muffled cry, and then I heard Gary scream. A horrible smell hit my nose, of burning flesh.

  But it wasn’t Gary who was burned, it was Lawton, hurt far worse than the other Boo Hag as his naked flesh hit the salt. Instinctively I reached out to grab him, wincing at the feel of wet slippery muscle and sinew in my hands. I kicked out, slamming my foot into Gary’s face and throwing Lawton to the side.

  Hands grabbed me and now I was the one with a finger-knife against my throat. The back of my head barely reached his shoulder, his long arm pinning me to his chest. “Bitch. I should have killed you after the concert.”

  “Yes you should have,” Tremelay told him. The shotgun roared and I ducked my head, feeling the knife nick the skin of my throat. My heart stuttered as the shot hit both me and the Boo Hag.

  It stung like a thousand scorpions. The arm around me dropped as the Boo Hag clawed at his face. I doubled over, rolling away as I hit the floor. The shotgun roared again and again and again, the sound closer with each shot. Gary screamed like he was being eaten alive and I opened my eyes to see Tremelay standing over him, loading more shells into the shotgun. The Boo Hag flailed and convulsed on the floor, crimson blood pouring from tiny wounds all over his face and body.

  I jumped up and ran to grab my sword. Tremelay’s weapon seemed to have had more effect than the pistol had, but I knew it wouldn’t kill the Boo Hag. Only I could do that.

  I picked up the sword, hearing the shotgun roar again. I turned, ready to save my friend from an angry Boo Hag and abruptly halted. The room was silent aside from the faint sound of weeping from the green-haired boy and the low moans of Lawton. Gary lay still on the floor, smoke curling from the hundreds of tiny wounds that dotted his body. One eye stared sightless at the ceiling, the other was a mess of oozing red flesh.

  How…how had that happened? Was the shotgun Tremelay’s consecrated weapon? Had his family not gone underground as I’d expected?
>
  I looked over to see the detective on the phone, calmly calling 911 as he held the shotgun at the ready, still pointed at Gary’s body.

  Everything hurt—my neck where the Boo Hag had cut me, little places all over my torso where I felt like I’d been bitten and some particularly mean person had rubbed salt in my wounds. I didn’t feel cold or fuzzy-headed. There was no light at the end of a long tunnel. I’d been shot, but I wasn’t dying. I hurt too much to be dying, so I looked down and saw crystalline chunks of white scattered around the floor.

  Salt. Tremelay had loaded his shells with rock salt. That clever, clever man. And what merely hurt me had done Gary in. The Boo Hag was still in his human skin, but the salt had eaten through beneath the flesh. Tremelay had acted, and this time it had been him who had saved the day.

  I stared at him as he continued to speak to dispatch, nothing betraying what the detective must have felt. I’d killed a man. I knew Tremelay. I knew this wasn’t how he wanted the situation to end. But he was a cop and safeguarding many meant he had to take actions that would no doubt cause him many sleepless nights.

  I might have the sword, but he was more the Templar than me. He did this every day, protecting his own Pilgrims on the Path, with a badge and a gun. If he was strong enough to do his duty, then who was I to be angsting over a smudge on my soul. I was God’s Warrior. It was my job to sacrifice myself, and even my afterlife, for the safety of my Pilgrims. Tremelay had faith in his institutions and system. I needed to have faith that God would guide my hand, and that at the end of the day, when my judgement came, I’d be found to have done far more good than evil.

  Chapter 36

  TREMELAY TOOK CARE of the hostage, carefully peeling the duct tape from him. I went to Lawton, unsure what I could do to help the Boo Hag. His feet were mangled bits of black and he was missing two fingers on his left hand where he had touched the salt while knocking Gary to the floor. I cleared away as much salt as I could, then brought him the folded skin of Travis Dawson.

  “Will it help if you put this on?”

  He looked up at me, his red-face twisted in agony. “It hurts so much. Please kill me.”

  Not if I could help it. “Put on the skin and let me know what to do. Should we wash your feet and hand? Soak them in water?”

  He shook his head, taking the skin from me with trembling hands. The Boo Hag slipped it on as if it were a jumpsuit. It molded and shaped around his body like a living thing. Now instead of a skinned corpse, a naked young man huddled before me. His hand was still missing two fingers, and his feet were still mangled, but somehow he managed to look better.

  “They’ll never heal,” he told me, his voice weak. “It hurts so bad.”

  Well, he was going to have to buck up and deal because if he wanted any chance at a future, we needed to get out of here. We. Tremelay might have taken the killing shot, but I didn’t need my name in another police report.

  “Here.” I threw Lawton an armful clothing that I found in a duffle bag against the wall. There was a backpack next to it which I didn’t look in, sure it contained the skin of rest-stop guy and Strike, possibly also Bradley Lewis.

  “I found that guy holding a knife to you.” Tremelay pointed to Gary’s body as he spoke to the trembling hostage. “He was going to kill and skin you, but I shot him and killed him. No one else was here.”

  The boy might have green hair, but he was quick on the uptake. His dark-brown eyes glanced at me, then briefly at Lawton before he shuddered and turned away, nodding. “No one was here except for me and the killer.”

  “Can you walk?” I asked Lawton. The Boo Hag was busy wrapping his feet in extra shirts, tying them in place with socks.

  “I’ll need help.”

  I got him to his feet then put my arm around him, catching my breath as I half-carried the boy over the fat ring of salt. Sirens sounded in the distance. I was still hurting from last night, but there was no time to baby my injuries. We needed to get out of here fast, or we’d both be facing questions neither one of us wanted to answer.

  Lights were on in the neighbors’ houses but thankfully no one was outside to see us leaving or hobbling down the street. I’d parked two blocks away and I’m sure that was the most agonizing walk Lawton had ever made in his life. Mine too, since I was supporting much of his weight and still feeling the effects of my bruised ribs.

  We collapsed in my Toyota. I dialed Sean and watched Lawton with concern. The boy’s face was ashen, his eyes glassy as he stared blankly out the window.

  “Gary’s dead,” I told the elder Boo Hag the moment he picked up. “I’ve got Lawton, but he’s hurt. He was without a skin and being held in a salt circle and got it on his feet and hand.”

  I heard Sean’s sharp inhale. “There’s not much you can do to help him. He’ll either heal or he won’t, and in the meantime he’s going to be in pain. Where are you?”

  Silent police cruisers, lights flashing, roared by us. “Canton. Tremelay is dealing with the police reports. Gary had a hostage, who is thankfully alive and unhurt. But what should I do with Lawton?”

  “Grandmother is here with me and Becca. We can meet you at your house.”

  “Okay.” I disconnected and stared at my phone. I wasn’t thrilled about taking Lawton to my house, or playing host to the matriarch Boo Hag. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to turn him over to her. I shot the kid a questioning glance and he nodded weakly.

  “I want to go home.”

  “But she’ll kill you,” I reminded him softly. “I know you’re hurt, but I can drop you somewhere and if you can make your way out of the city, you’ll be fine. I’ll tell them you’re in a different skin to delay them.”

  “No,” Lawton replied, a bit of firmness creeping into his voice. It was the first time I’d ever heard him so lacking in fear. He’d helped take down Gary, had saved that green-haired kid’s life with his actions. Maybe the boy was growing up.

  “I just want to go home,” he continued. “I don’t want to be on the run all by myself. I’m hurt. I can’t make it out here in the human world. I just don’t have it in me. I’d rather go home and die in peace.”

  It was his decision, and one I couldn’t really fault him for given all he’d been through.

  “Okay.” I started the car and headed toward Fells Point and my apartment.

  ***

  GRANDMOTHER WAS A tiny woman with wiry salt-and-pepper hair and the face of a dried apple. Beady black eyes stared intently at me as Sean made the introductions. I wasn’t sure of the proper etiquette for greeting a Boo Hag elder, so I shook her hand.

  She nodded at me, her hand cool and dry in mine. Then she turned to Lawton with a tsk sound. “Boy, you three have caused me quite a lot of grief. Why did you run off like that?”

  Lawton was standing respectfully, his head bent low. Blood had seeped through the makeshift bandages on his feet. My carpet had seen worse. I was more concerned about the poor kid’s fate than any cleanup I might need to do later.

  “Gary said you’d decided to kill us, that you’d made a mistake letting us live past infancy. He said we could live free if we just got away. Becca could become a vampire. He’d help me with skins and adapting to human life. And we’d all live.”

  Grandmother tilted her head and looked intently at the boy. “So Becca stole the keys and you slipped me a little something in my late-night tea. I’m ashamed of you Lawton. To so easily come under the influence of someone like Gary… I’m so ashamed.”

  He reddened. “I’m sorry Grandmother. You were right. We shouldn’t have lived. I’m ready to accept my fate. I just want to die at home. I miss home.”

  The woman sighed and turned to me. “Have you ever taken a life, Knight Ainsworth. One of your own kind, not in the heat of battle or while defending yourself. Have you coldly judged another a threat to your people and a danger to all and played God with their life?”

  It was as if every one of her words punched me in the gut. I didn’t reply, but I knew she read
the answer in my eyes.

  She nodded in a quick sharp motion. “It’s even harder to make that decision about a child. For hundreds of years I have culled those Boo Hag children who, in my judgement, might be a danger to us, whose personality might put us all at risk of extermination. Might. It’s never a clear decision and each time I took a child’s life that action took a piece of my soul.”

  “Isn’t there some way…some kind of rehabilitation or institution you could keep them in? A way of separating them from the human world?” My conscience was guilty enough, I couldn’t imagine how she must feel. I thought of my nephews, of Jet, and knew I could never make that call. Never. I’d reconciled myself to killing teenagers, but babies? No.

  Grandmother shook her head. “We’re only fifty, give or take. We have no way of securing the wayward and dangerous ones, as you’ve just witnessed. Centuries of taking the lives of babies… I’d decided to try something different. Instead of killing these three, I spared them. I’d hoped I could change them, that in time they’d come around. And now many have died and we are exposed. I fear the day may have come where we will be hunted and put down like monsters.”

  “We have no desire to hunt you down as long as you can live peaceably with the humans.” I told her. Sean had said they avoided killing unless there was no other alternative, or in cases of self-defense. We did the same. There was no reason to annihilate the entire Boo Hag race just because of identity theft and the actions of two disturbed teens.

  I wasn’t exactly good at judging who were and weren’t the monsters, but at least I could give her this reassurance that neither Tremelay nor I would target the Boo Hag. Gary had paid for his crimes with his life. Marsielle was insane and likely to die either by starvation or at Grandmother’s hands. Lawton…well, I saw a glimmer of salvation in Lawton. And it was Lawton’s life I wanted to leverage in this situation.

  “I have a request though.” I pointed at Lawton, the boy staring at us wide-eyed. “Give him a chance. He saved my life, risking his own to defy Gary’s order to kill me. He saved a human hostage and help us take down Gary just now. He’s injured. He’s scared. But I think he might be okay.”