by Ward Parker
Who had done this?
She still had the cartridge in her mouth. It was time to shift back to human form.
After she had dressed in the bus, she put the cartridge in her purse. She found a blanket on the luggage shelf above the seats and stepped out just as the other wolves were returning. They whined and whimpered as they climbed aboard.
Josie found Kevin sitting on the ground where she had left him, hiding his privates with his hands. She covered him with the blanket.
“There were two of them, coming out of the woods,” he said. “I had heard the shots, I knew what they had done, and I was furious. I charged them.”
“You were in wolf form?”
“Yeah. While you guys were off hunting, I wanted to enjoy the woods a little myself, it being new territory and all.”
“You put yourself at much greater risk of getting killed by shifting.”
“I know. I couldn’t help myself. But they must have run out of silver bullets. One of them shot me with a regular bullet. Trying to recover from that wound must have set me off to shift back. As I did that, the one with the rifle clobbered me in the head. They parked their car over there.” He pointed to the side of the building that was out of view of the bus.
“Who were these men?” Josie asked.
“Cops. One of them was that detective in the sunglasses who questioned us after Mary Beth was killed.”
Affird. Josie had felt suspicious of him and should have trusted her instincts.
Then she remembered: The man in the diner next to her, the one who had left the newspaper behind, was a cop. She had seen his I.D. card on a lanyard around his neck.
He must have known who she was and deliberately left the newspaper opened to the article on the factory, hoping that she would see it and read about the abandoned rural land. They were being set up. She was furious.
And scared as hell.
So, what do you do with a dead body and a bus driver with a head injury? You can’t call 911 and have the police find you again trespassing on rural land. The honest cops would know something odd was up. The dirty cops like Affird, the executioners, would cackle with glee as you played your role in their evil schemes.
Josie decided quickly. Quickly enough that it made her feel guilty.
Kevin would shift back into werewolf form and allow his head wound to heal supernaturally. Teresa, though, created a dilemma.
They couldn’t pretend she had died in her sleep when she had bullet wounds. They couldn’t dump her at a hospital like a gang-violence victim. Septuagenarians don’t end up that way.
Tanya insisted they needed to involve the police so there would be a record of the murder and eventually Affird could be held accountable. Josie wasn’t so sure.
“It’s all but admitting what we are,” Josie said. “He shot at a creature in wolf form. If we bring her to the hospital as a human, it proves that she and you and me are werewolves.”
Josie explained the situation to Missy in her living room before dawn. Missy had just returned home after night visits to her vampire patients.
“I think this is unethical for someone in my profession,” Missy said.
“It’s the authorities who are unethical,” Jose replied. “In the end, we’re going to report the death and lay Teresa to rest properly. It’s either this or feed her body to the alligators. We have to protect ourselves from Affird and his cronies.”
It was a gray area for Missy’s ethical concerns. And she knew how toxic and dangerous Affird was. She’d been in the next room when the detective executed a werewolf, just after the shifter had returned to human form. And she’d prevented Affird from staking Leonard Schwartz, her vampire patient.
She nodded at Josie, collected some medical and magickal tools, and followed the elderly werewolf into the shuttle bus parked in Missy’s driveway.
“I’m going to move quickly so you can get this bus out of here,” Missy said. “We don’t want my neighbors seeing it.”
Missy nodded grimly to the rows of frightened old ladies whose faces looked sallow in the overhead light. In the rear row of seats lay the body covered with a blanket. Josie removed it.
“We left her lying on her stomach, so you can access the bullet wounds.”
One entry point was on Teresa’s shoulder blade. The other was on the rear of her thigh. Missy pulled a headlamp onto her head and turned it on. From her satchel she took a pair of forceps. She used her index finger to probe inside each wound, the same technique doctors used until modern medicine. The bullet in the shoulder hadn’t traveled far, stopping when it hit bone. The one in the thigh had passed through the muscle and exited in the front of the leg. She then used the forceps to extract the one slug. It was crumpled and no longer resembled a bullet. It definitely looked like silver. She handed it to Josie.
“Now we know for sure the killer uses silver bullets,” Josie said. “That rules out Mary Beth being shot in the heart with a normal bullet. I found an empty cartridge at the scene and I’ll find an expert to identify it.”
Missy’s next task was like what an embalmer would do to conceal a wound on a corpse. But rather than using makeup, she was using magick.
Chanting softly so the other women on the bus wouldn’t hear, Missy sprinkled a specific mixture of herbs and mineral powders upon each wound. She then placed a few drops of myrrh in the openings. Holding her usual power charm in her left hand, she summoned the energies within her, from the air, from the earth below, from the ocean, and with her right hand traced a circle around Teresa and a star-shaped pentagram within it. She felt the power grow and released it.
Then, before her eyes, the bullet wounds disappeared.
It was only an illusion. The wounds were still there, but the normal human eye could not see them because the spell blocked the light waves. From her bag she withdrew a cloth amulet on a leather cord which she put around Teresa’s neck. The pouch was filled with the same herbs and powders she had sprinkled on the wounds.
“Make sure this amulet stays on her at all times, or the spell will be broken,” Missy said to Josie.
“I will. Thank you,” Josie said, placing her hand on Missy’s arm. “You don’t know how much I appreciate your help.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Missy said, walking up the aisle of the bus. “That goes for all of you.”
She stopped before getting off.
“Is your head okay?” She asked Kevin, noticing a patch of missing hair with pinkish scar tissue.
“Yes, thank you. A cop smashed me on the head with his rifle, but I healed when I was in wolf form.”
Missy waved goodbye to the Werewolf Women’s Club and exited the bus. She worried about Josie and the others. Werewolves always have a hunger for revenge, and the police were a dangerous target for them to seek it.
17
Growing Threats
With all the distractions, Missy hadn't had much time to think about Josie. She worried deeply that the werewolf would do something foolish regarding Detective Affird. Missy called her to gauge her mood.
“How have you been?” Missy asked. “I'm sorry I haven't checked on you since Teresa passed.”
“‘Passed’ sounds like she died in her sleep. She was murdered.”
"I know. Sorry. How are you holding up?"
“I'm more consumed by anger than by grief right now,” Josie said.
“Yes, it's unfair.”
“And it will be redressed.”
“No, Josie, don't even think that way. You can't go after a cop. That's crazy.”
“I don't want you involved, dear. It’s safer if you know nothing about it. Let’s change the subject.”
“No,” Missy said. “I can't allow you to do something so dangerous and reckless.”
“I know a thing or two about killing.”
“Have you killed a person before? Don't answer. I don't want to know.”
“That's the right attitude. It's better if you don't know.”
“Look
, even if you're able to take out Affird, the police won't let it rest. They will do whatever it takes to find his killer. And if they find you, it will endanger all the werewolves in Seaweed Tower.”
“Do you think I haven't thought about that? But the Werewolf Women's Club wants vengeance, too.”
“Remember, you don't know for sure that Affird did it.”
“He was at the murder scene both times. And just to be sure, I'm having someone check the forensics of the bullet and casing.”
“Without the police's resources, how will you find the gun?”
“Missy, don't you believe he did it?”
Missy hesitated. She knew what Affird was capable of. He was her most likely suspect.
“See? You, too, think it was him,” Josie said.
“It doesn't matter what I think. It's insane to go after him.”
“You understand that we can't go to the police and accuse him? This is the only way. Affird went outside of the justice system and we'll have to as well.”
“Maybe you'll have to accept not getting justice,” Missy said sadly. “In today's world, the most important thing for supernaturals is survival.”
“I will not accept injustice.”
Missy sighed. “Please promise me you won't do anything yet. Give Matt and me some time to investigate more.”
“There's not much time left.” Josie said.
After Josie said goodbye, Missy immediately called Matt.
“I'm afraid Josie is going to do something rash. We need to find out who's hunting the werewolves.”
“I kind of assumed it was Affird. Didn't you tell me he was seen on the property where the last woman died?”
“That hasn't been confirmed,” Missy said. “I don't want Josie taking revenge against Affird. Even if he did do it. Let's keep looking. Maybe we'll find another lead. Maybe we won't. At the very least we can distract Josie until her anger cools down.”
Missy was concerned. After Jack had texted her with the address of the person who was allegedly her mother, Missy had tried calling him. She wanted more information. She wasn’t going to show up blind and confront the woman. But he never answered her repeated calls and texts. Were all ogres that rude? She tried one more time at dawn. When there was no answer, she went to bed.
The clatter of a lamp falling to the floor woke her at noon. The cats had been known to cause such a thing. Today, it wasn’t a cat. It was a ghost.
“What do you want, Don Mateo?” she mumbled into her pillow.
“We had intruders while you slept,” the ghost said.
She sat up quickly. “Who? Where?”
“The back porch. I suggest you come see for yourself.”
She had gone to bed in a T-shirt and yoga pants, so she jumped out of bed and headed straight through the living room to the sliding glass doors. And stopped, stunned.
The screened porch was filled with gnomes. They stood densely packed in a crowd like tourists outside the studio window of a television morning show, all facing in one direction: at her.
It was an eclectic collection of gnomes, like a catalog photo for a gnome-supply company. They were all bearded, pot-bellied older gentlemen with various pointy hats. But some were dressed in traditional peasant outfits, others in winter garb, still more in Florida-themed bathing suits. She recognized the gnome decoy in the Hawaiian shirt she bought from the thrift store. There were Santa gnomes, gnomes with collegiate logos, gnomes in suits and ties, gnomes in chef’s whites, and gnomes representing just about every trade and profession. Some gnomes brandished gardening tools while others held golf clubs and baseball bats—even guitars and saxophones. A surprisingly large number of gnomes bent over with their butt cracks showing or sat on tiny gnome toilets. It was a gnome collection to put Freddie to shame.
“How did they get here?” Missy instinctively asked, realizing it was a stupid question. The gnomes had simply walked here.
The real question was why.
Until now, with the exception of her own gnome, she had been free of gnome trouble. So why all the gnomes now?
Her mother must have discovered that Missy had tracked her down. And it made her mad.
Having an angry, vindictive mother is a heavy load to carry. Having one who was also a black-magic sorceress was a nightmare.
A thud made her jump. A gnome had crashed into a window in the front of the house, shattering it.
The gnome, of course, was her gnome.
Missy cast a warding spell to drive the gnomes from her porch. The screens were all damaged on the gnomes’ way in, so she didn’t care what they damaged on their way out. After she cast the spell, she didn’t turn her back on the gnomes. She wanted to see how, exactly, they moved.
Suddenly, her porch was empty, and the gnomes loitered in her backyard. Missy hadn’t seen them move at all. Then, again, in a blink of an eye, half of them disappeared from her property, with only a few lingering along her wood fence.
Finally, her lawn was empty.
They must move too quickly for the human eye to register. She would have to capture them on video and slow it down.
Then again, she realized she really didn’t care. She didn’t want to see another gnome for the rest of her life.
The question was, would they come after her again, with violence?
It turns out, the gnomes had other assignments to complete before they dealt with her.
“Gnomes? What’s a gnome?” The vampire Leonard Schwartz said while Missy listened to his heartbeat with her stethoscope. It beat six times a minute which was a healthy rate for a vampire.
“You know, those cheesy little statues people put in their lawns? Look like elves or dwarves.”
“I never had a garden. I lived in a walk-up condo in Brooklyn. After I was turned, I slept in the building’s basement. Do I seem like the kind of guy who gardens?”
His heartbeat increased by one beat per minute. She was stressing him out.
“The gnomes are killing humans and making it look like an accident. They’ve been possessed by a demon.”
“Your magick can’t stop this?”
“No. I can’t stop the demon. I have to convince the sorceress who summoned the demon to stop it. And now, I’m afraid that’s going to be impossible.”
“Let me give you a little piece of advice,” Schwartz said. “I spent three hundred years in New York City. I know how to deal with difficult people. You have to find leverage over this sorceress. It doesn’t need to have anything to do with the matter at hand. It just needs to be some way to hurt her more than she wants to hurt you.”
Her phone buzzed. It was Matt.
“I’m sorry, I have to take this,” she said.
“We’ve got another gnome incident,” he said. “This time it was double duty.”
“Okay. I’ll be there after I finish this patient visit. Text me the address.”
“The gnomes just took out two more humans,” she told Schwartz.
“Humans are dumber than I thought,” he said. “Makes me feel less guilty feeding on them.”
After she finished Schwartz’s exam, she went home and changed. It was just after dawn when she drove to the address Matt had sent her.
18
Garden Gnomes vs. Garden Center
The address Matt had given Missy was a nursery and garden center just outside of Jellyfish Beach. She was familiar with it. They sold plants and trees wholesale to landscapers and at retail prices to homeowners. Missy liked the place because they had exotic, hard-to-find tropical varieties.
But what she had forgotten was that they also had garden gnomes. Pathways lined with palms and subtropical plants cut through the nursery’s sprawling grounds, connecting greenhouses and gardens. The owner had placed gnomes here and there beneath trees and beside benches. Some had been for sale and others were ornamental. Apparently, the gnomes were done with all that, because many of them were missing.
Missy wandered the paths looking for Matt who had arrived before h
er. It was early enough that the place wasn’t open yet and only Matt’s car and a patrol car were in the dirt parking lot. It was quiet and creepy, since Missy knew there were dead bodies here somewhere.
There were still a few gnomes around who hadn’t abandoned their posts, like the little fellow pushing a miniature wheelbarrow. Did this guy have blood on his tiny hands, or did he sit out the uprising here? He was a sorry-looking gnome. A bird’s droppings had splattered on his head and much of his paint job had been scraped off. He must have endured years of being out in the weather, getting hit by passing carts carrying bags of mulch and being abused by bored children dragged along with their parents.
Missy could empathize if this gnome somehow harbored resentment that had become animated through a demon’s powers. She had at first thought this would be a perfect place for the gnomes, but they were just part of the decor here and not cherished like at Freddie’s. And even the gnomes Freddie owned rose up against her.
The gravel path twisted around dense areca palms. Missy followed it around a bend and stopped short.
Two legs stuck out behind a palm tree ahead. They were dangling just above the ground, bent at the knee. Someone was sitting there.
She walked forward slowly, and as the path curved, she had a better view. There was, indeed, a person sitting on something next to the path.
The man was dead.
Flies had already found him. He looked like he had been doing his business, dropping some human fertilizer upon the plants. His shorts were down around his ankles, his hands rested on his thighs. His head tilted back with his eyes rolled upwards. He was a heavyset man in a khaki shirt that bore the logo of the business. Missy recognized him as the owner.
There was no toilet there. What was he sitting upon? Reluctantly, Missy moved closer.
