A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  The back yard exploded with light. That thing . . . it was pounding on the wards, trying to break through them. Light and smoke flared again and again. The possum, still perched on its fencepost, cried out in its shrill nasty voice. “Aid us!”

  All around, ninja rats climbed up the posts and started to beat on the wards as well.

  The dogs were frantic now, racing back to defend me as I scrabbled to my feet, the necklace still wrapped around my hand. They ran just passed me, and took a stance, barking and farting for all they were worth.

  I staggered up, trying to look everywhere at once. Dr. McDougall had planned the wards for ninja rats, not corpses. I didn’t think—

  The possum shrieked something and gestured with its free hand. The ninja rats all started to glow . . . and became man-sized.

  Time to go.

  I started moving back, unwilling to turn my back. The dogs ran behind me, then in front, barking madly.

  Wan retreated as well, focused on the corpse, waving his tiny sword back and forth as if in challenge.

  The corpse paused for a moment, as the others continued their assault. Its dead eyes raked over me and it smiled. “Kaaaaaate.”

  My stomach heaved. I retched a bit, but kept moving back toward the house. I wanted walls between me and that thing.

  The corpse laughed, as if it knew my fear. From nowhere it pulled an odd hooked sword with a flourish. The blade glowed green. That couldn’t be good.

  The corpse gripped the blade with both hands and brought it down with a scream. The edge sheared through the golden glow. The ward popped like a bubble.

  The ninja rats flowed up and over the fence like a tide.

  The dogs yelped and ran for the house again.

  “Kate,” Wan screamed over his shoulder. “Put it on. PUT THE NECKLACE ON.”

  I looked at my hand.

  The necklace was full size now, no longer hidden from the world in the pommel of Wan’s sword. The large pieces of cut jade were linked with golden strands, and the medallion hung down, glimmering softly in the light. I lifted it with both hands, and slipped it over my head. Somewhere, someone or something shrieked in anger as it settled on my skin.

  Time seemed to stop. The ninja rats were still coming, but slowly, all Matrix-y. Sort of a Flying Mouse, Hidden Possum kinda thing.

  But even as I watched time slow, I was focused on the necklace. I’d been right. The jade pieces felt cool against my skin, but they warmed quickly, taking heat from my body. The medallion fell right between my breasts, as if designed to lie there and cover my beating heart.

  “What do you need?” It wasn’t a voice, it was just a question that formed in my being, a feeling of support, of strength. “What do you need?”

  I lifted my eyes to the oncoming rats and the corpse was floating over the fence toward me. “Help,” was my only thought. “Help us.”

  The movie effects ended. The first of the rats reached Wan, swinging its sword straight down at my little friend.

  Wan raised his sword—

  Another interposed.

  A girl stood there, dressed in traditional flowing robes the color of a daffodil in spring. She had two sharp daggers in each hand. As she parried the blow with one, she drove the other into the rat’s heart.

  It collapsed.

  Suddenly there were a dozen girls, each in a spring color, fighting the rats. I froze, watching as they took out their opponents with graceful, flowing movements more dance than battle.

  The possum was still on the fence post, gesturing with its walking stick, cursing. I reached down to the rim of the koi pond, grabbed up a rock, and hurled it with all my might.

  It hit old Ugly-Stinky right between the eyes, rocking him back.

  Hah! I reached for another rock.

  “Kaaaate . . .”

  I’d forgotten the corpse.

  It had floated down behind me and grabbed my uplifted hand, pulling me off balance. The stench was eye-watering and I gasped in an effort to breathe.

  The corpse reached for the necklace.

  “KATE!” Wan screamed, but he was too far away and too small to do much of anything.

  Two of the girls darted toward me, their blades out.

  I turned, grabbing at the thing’s hair, trying to yank its head back and away from me. But the monster chuckled and jerked me around, forcing my arm up into my back. I cried out, my nerveless hand dropping the rock. Now it had my hair, pulling my head back, exposing my neck. I could feel its thick black nails on my skin.

  “So sweet,” it hissed into my ear. “You will taste so sweet. I will lick your blood from the jade and—”

  Three girls ran up dressed in colors of peach, green, and daffodil. Their faces were lovely, but their eyes were like steel. “Release the Wise One,” Peach chirped.

  “Or face our blades, vampire.” Wan said, standing on Daffodil’s shoulder.

  Vampire? Oh, fu—

  Shards of lightning lanced the air around us, making my skin tingle. The thing holding me screamed in rage and pain. Suddenly I was free, and to my complete mortification, I slid to the ground like a limp sock.

  I barely managed to stiffen my arms, and lifted my head to find myself surrounded by pastel colors. The girls had surrounded me, protecting me from that thing.

  Lightning was still flashing, and I could hear someone—hopefully the vampire—screaming in pain.

  The girls swirled about me, a living moving shield, but I could see glimpses. The Doctor was driving that thing off, back toward the fence, using lightning like a scalpel. Further and further, until it finally screamed defiance and vanished up into the clouds.

  The possum was still on the fence post waving its walking stick, but I couldn’t have cared less. My vision was going with my strength, and I let it. They could handle the possum without me. I sagged down into the grass and let the darkness take me.

  The poor doctor ended up hauling me into the house. I woke to find myself in his arms, being settled on the sofa. He knelt next to me, taking my pulse. “Coffee?” he asked as my eyes opened.

  Bleh. Not for a while. “Jack Daniels,” I said, trying to clear my throat. “Bookcase.”

  “A woman after my own heart,” he said as he moved off.

  I struggled to sit up, only to find myself facing two rows of girls kneeling before me.

  “Wise one,” they bowed, and then knocked their foreheads to the floor three times in quick succession.

  “What the hell—”

  “They kowtow in respect. Befits your position as elder.” Wan was perched by my head, wiping his blade with part of a paper napkin.

  Elder. Hell. I put my head back against the cushion. The necklace was a warm comforting weight on my shoulders. The jade was warm and—

  There was a tinkle of ice, and the doctor thrust a glass in my hand, filled with Jack. “Here. I think you are going to need this.”

  I closed my fingers on the cold wet wonderful glass, and took a huge gulp. “What was that thing?”

  “Jiang Shi.” Wan said. “A vampire.”

  “That wasn’t a vampire,” I said. “Vampires are—”

  “A Chinese vampire,” Wan corrected. “From our folklore. They are created when a person’s soul refuses to leave their body.”

  “Powerful,” Doc said with a grimace.

  “Yes,” Wan said. “This one is very old and very powerful. It could move its arms freely, and it was dressed in the armor of the Qin Dynasty.”

  “You beat it off.” I looked over at the doctor.

  He shrugged. “I took it by surprise. Not sure what would happen if it caught me that way.”

  “Lovely,” I took another gulp and realized that all the girls were staring at me. I dropped my voice to a whisper, and hid my lips behind the glass. “Er . . . Wan . . . where did the girls come from?”

  Wan sheathed his sword, and gave me a wide-eyed innocent look. “Ah. Perhaps I neglected to mention your guardianship over the Twelve Sacred Warrior-Virgins.
”

  The doctor spit out his Jack.

  Oh, hell no!

  NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO

  Tanya Huff

  “I overheard a couple of uniforms talking today.” Her head pillowed on Mike’s shoulder, palm of her right hand resting over his heart, Vicki made a noncommittal hmm.

  “There’s been some vandalism in Mount Pleasant Cemetery the last couple of nights.”

  She tapped her fingers on sweat-damp skin to the rhythm of the rain against the window, wrapping it around the steady bass of his heartbeat. “You don’t say.”

  Mike closed his hand around hers, stopping the movement. “Someone dug a small firepit on a grave and cremated a mouse. The officers responding found wax residue on the gravestone, chalk marks on the grass, and evidence from at least four people.”

  “Uh huh.” Vicki rose up on her left elbow so that she could see Mike’s expression. He seemed to be completely serious. Although the pale spill of streetlight around the edges of the blind provided insufficient illumination for him to see her in turn, his eyes were locked on her face, waiting for her to draw her own conclusions.

  “You think some idiot’s trying to call up a demon.”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “And you think I should . . . ?”

  He shrugged, a minimum movement of one shoulder. “I think we should check it out.”

  “We?”

  His fingers tightened, thumb moving down to stroke the scar on her wrist. “I don’t want you there alone.”

  She had a matching scar on the other wrist, a pair of thin white lines against pale skin, a reminder written in flesh of a demon nearly unleashed on the city by her blood. But that had been years ago, when Vicki Nelson, ex-police detective, not particularly successful private investigator, had only just discovered that creatures out of nightmare were real.

  “Things have changed.” Turning her hand in his, she stroked in turn the puncture wound on his wrist, already healing even though it had been less than an hour since she’d fed. “I’m pretty sure vampire trumps wannabe sorcerer.” When he didn’t answer, merely continued to look up at her, brown eyes serious, she sighed. “Fine. A vampire and an exceedingly macho police detective definitely trumps wannabe sorcerer. Worst case scenario, it won’t be much of a demon if all they’re sacrificing is a mouse. We’ll check it out tomorrow night.”

  Dark brows rose. “Why tomorrow? It’s barely midnight.”

  “And it’s pouring rain. They won’t be able to keep their fire lit.”

  “So tonight . . .”

  Vicki grinned, tugged her hand free, and moved it lower on his body. “Well, if you’re so set on not sleeping, I’m sure we’ll think of something to do.”

  Mike Celluci had spent most of his career in Violent Crimes. One night, back before the change, when alcohol had still been able to breach the barriers Vicki kept around her more philosophical side, she’d called the men and women who worked homicide the last advocates of the dead—bringing justice if not peace. Over the last few years Mike had learned that, on occasion, the dead were quite capable of advocating for themselves. That knowledge had added a whole new dimension to walking in graveyards at night.

  By day, Mount Pleasant Cemetery was a green oasis in the center of Toronto, the dead sharing their real estate with a steady stream of people looking for a respite from the press of the city. At night, when shadows pooled in the hollows and under the trees and clustered around the hundreds of headstones, the dead seemed less willing to share.

  “Isn’t this romantic.” Vicki tucked her hand in the crook of Mike’s elbow and leaned toward him with exaggerated enthusiasm. “You, me, midnight, a graveyard. Too bad we don’t have a picnic.” She grinned up at him, fingers tightening over his pulse. “Oh, wait . . .”

  Mike snorted and shook his head but he understood her mood. It had been too long since they’d worked a case together. And okay, a cremated mouse and some wax residue wasn’t exactly a case, but it was more than they’d had for a while.

  He tugged her off the path, following the landmarks from the original police report. “It was this way.”

  As they moved farther from the lines of asphalt and the circles of light that barely touched the grass, Vicki took the lead.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked. With no moonlight, no starlight, and, more importantly, his flashlight off so as not to give away their position, he stayed close.

  “I can smell the wet ash from their fire. The candle wax.” She frowned. “Smells like gardenia.”

  And then she froze.

  Mike froze with her. “Vicki?”

  “Burning blood. This way.”

  He knew she was holding back so he could match her pace, his hand wrapped around her elbow as he ran full out, trusting her to steer him around any obstacle. They headed into the older part of the cemetery where ornate mausoleums housed the elite of the early 1900s. Clutching at her outstretched arm as she suddenly stopped, he nearly fell but found his balance at the last minute. They were close enough together, he could see her turning in place, head cocked.

  “There.” A mausoleum set off a little from the rest. “I hear four heartbeats.”

  Not for the first time, he wished she could return to the force. They had a canine unit, they had a mounted unit, they had a mountain bike unit for Christ’s sake—why not a bloodsucking undead unit? Her abilities were wasted within the narrow focus of her PI’s license.

  He could see a flicker of light through the grill in the mausoleum’s door as they moved closer.

  Teenagers. Peering carefully through the ornate iron-work, Mike could see four—three watching the fourth as she chanted over the smoking contents of a stainless steel mixing bowl set between the four white candles burning on the marble crypt in the center of the mausoleum. A triple circle about six feet in diameter had been drawn in what looked like sidewalk chalk on the back wall—a blue ring, then a red ring, then a white ring. In the center of the innermost circle was a complex scrawl of loops and angles.

  Mike knew better than to equate youth with an absence of threat but nothing about the kids looked dangerous. Two of them—a thin white female and a tall East Indian male—were all but bouncing out of their black hightops. One of them—white male, shortest of the four—stood with his shoulders hunched and hands shoved into his hoodie’s pockets, looking a little scared. The body language of the girl doing the chanting suggested she wasn’t going to accept failure as an option.

  He glanced down at Vicki and mouthed, “Demon?”

  She shrugged and lifted her head to murmur, “I have no idea,” against his ear.

  Whatever it was they were doing, they hadn’t done it it yet. Teenagers, he could handle. Demons . . .

  He could, but he’d rather not.

  Pushing his coat back to expose the badge on his belt, he pushed open the door. “Tell me,” he snapped in his best voice-of-authority, “that you’re not raising the dead, because that never turns out well.”

  The scared boy made a sound Mike was pretty sure he’d deny later. The other two froze in place, mouths open. The chanting girl stopped chanting and turned—white female, pierced eyebrow, pierced lower lip. She had what looked like a silver fish knife in one hand and an impressive scowl for someone her age. This close, he doubted any of them were over fifteen.

  “Ren!” Scared Boy took a step toward her. “It’s the cops.”

  “I can see that.” She shoved a fall of black and white striped hair back off her face. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done!”

  “What’s done?” Vicki asked.

  Mike hadn’t seen Vicki move so he was damned sure Ren hadn’t. In all fairness, he had to admire her nerve—if he hadn’t been watching her, he wouldn’t have seen the flinch as she turned to find Vicki smiling at her from about ten centimeters away.

  “The ritual.”

  “I don’t see a demon.” Vicki peered into the bowl. “Unless it’s a very small demon. Another m
ouse,” she added, glancing over at Mike.

  “Demons.” The bouncing boy rolled his eyes. “As if.”

  “That’s so last millennium,” the girl beside him snorted.

  Ren’s gaze skittered off Vicki’s face but, with the Hunter so close to the surface, Mike gave her points for the attempt. “If you must know,” she said as pride won out over a preference to keep the adults in the dark, “I’ve opened a portal.”

  “A portal?” Mike repeated, glancing around the mausoleum.

  “Might be a very small portal,” Vicki offered.

  All four teenagers looked over at the circles chalked on the rear wall.

  “It takes time!” Ren said defensively. She set the knife down forcefully enough that the metal rang against the stone, then moved around the crypt so that nothing stood between her and the wall.

  Given that Vicki made no move to stop her, Mike figured the odds of the portal opening were small.

  “Come on.” Ren beckoned to the others. “We need to be ready.”

  “But Ren, they’re cops!” the scared boy protested, hanging back as the other two joined her.

  “Their laws have no relevance here.”

  Mike sighed. The last things he wanted to do was spend the night arguing with teenagers. “Okay, guys, I get that you’re bored and looking for some excitement, but at the very least this is trespassing, so let’s just pack things up, promise to take up hobbies that don’t involve graveyards, and we’ll see you get home.”

  Ren ignored him. Spearing the scared boy with an imperious gaze, she snapped, “Cameron!”

  Cameron ran to join the others. Just then, the center of the chalked circle flared white, then black, then cleared to show a dark sky filled with stars too orange to be familiar. Mike thought he saw the dark silhouettes of buildings and was certain he could smell rotting meat.

  “We are so out of here,” Ren sneered as she stepped back through the circle, pulling Cameron with her. An instant later, Vicki stood holding the black and silver hoodie of the unnamed girl as the other two followed.