Dweller on the Threshold (15 page)

Blythe didn’t wait for me—she ran right into the store. I slowed and kept to the shadows so I didn’t alert this guy to my presence. Nothing about her body language told me she was afraid. In fact, her shoulders just kind of sagged. I sneaked closer. “Oh damn,” I muttered on a long breath, getting a load of the mess in there.

Fred and Phro had followed me to the shop and they stood to the side, waiting to see what I was going to do.

 
I put my hand on the door handle, but stopped for another second before going inside because I saw a decidedly flirtatious, watery smile cross the witch’s face…along with batting eyelashes and
oh my Goddess,
she was even twirling a blonde curl around her finger. Guess she’d forgotten about the bulky grey sweat suit. I smirked.
The cop must be a looker.
I could only see his back from here, but he did have a very nice head of thick rust-colored hair. An unusual color for a man, come to think of it. It didn’t have that natural rustiness to it, but the kind one got from experimenting with different mixes.

A memory teased the back of my mind. Feeling the creep of suspicion tingling along my back, I stepped to the side and out of sight in case he turned. When he did, I nearly swallowed my tongue. Damn. He was a pretty boy. In fact, he looked a little
too much
like Brad Pitt with his square jaw, full lips, long lashes and the requisite wicked, sparkly-toothed grin.

Nice, muscular definition graced the arms showing underneath his sleeves and his skin was the rich color of dark honey. He didn’t even look dorky in the uniform shirt.
Nice trick, that.

But something was really off. My skin was crawling and my heart beat a fast tattoo that rattled my rib cage. I’d learned long ago to pay attention to any warning my body gave off, so I narrowed my eyes and looked for the cop’s spirit guide.

He didn’t have one. That made him
not
human, which wasn’t necessarily bad. There were a few non-humans who worked as cops. Were-creatures did, though they did have spirit guides since they were technically still partly human. Vamps, and yes, there were decent ones, though they were pretty few. Vamps didn’t have guides, but this guy wasn’t one because I could always spot their subtle glow. He didn’t feel like a necromancer either, though I’d know for sure when I got close. Some necromancers didn’t have guides—something about the powerful ones having too much control over the dead.

Turning my gaze back to Blythe, I saw that crying worked to her advantage. Instead of the ruddy, splotchy red most people suffered, her cheeks had blossomed a healthy, flowery pink, her eyes had turned sky blue with the tears making them shiny. I rolled my own eyes. Not fair. Seriously not fair.

The cop was flirting back. I could tell by her giggles.

Blythe moved as if she were going to join him behind the counter and he stepped around the end of it. Like he was keeping his body out of sight completely.

Oh shit
. When he shifted again, I saw what was off. He didn’t step or shuffle like a human. He moved too carefully, his legs lifting in an exaggerated fashion before he set them down…

That was certainly no cop.

I slammed through the front door. It made a satisfying crash against the wall. The powerful entrance was lessened a bit by the tinkling sounds of bells, but oh well. He didn’t have time to move and sure enough, when I looked toward his feet, I didn’t find shoes. Or feet. Just hooves—as I’d expected. I put one hand over my nose. “Thought I smelled something rank. You trash this place?”

“Beri!” Blythe hissed. One sleeve fell over her hand and she angrily shoved it back up. “He’s a cop. He wouldn’t have done this.”

“He’s not a cop. He’s a ghoul.”

She frowned and gave up on the dangling sleeve, using it to wipe her face. “That’s not very nice, Beri. Ghouls are white-eyed, dead people who shuffle around eating humans.”

The thing actually wrinkled his pretty Pitt nose at her, insulted.

I couldn’t help it. I dropped my hand and laughed. “I think you hurt his feelings, Blythe.”

“Oh goodness, I’m so sorry.” She rushed toward him as if she planned to give him a hug.

“Stop!” I curled my lip at the stupid woman. “Jeez, Blythe, stay away from him. And you’re talking about zombies. Ghouls are shapeshifters whose natural form resembles that hairy character on
The Munsters
, only with longer legs and hooves. They’re also a little trickier than zombies. Not too smart, though. This one is using glamour to make you trust it…make you want it. You don’t.”

“You obviously don’t know as much as you think.” He snarled before looking me up and down. “I don’t recognize what you are.” He leaned over, drew in a deep breath through his nose. “Smells female. But what kind of female?”

I’d had enough of things questioning my humanity lately. Narrowing my eyes, I stepped over a high pile of broken pottery, catching Phro and Fred coming into the store out of the corner of my eye.

He came toward me and I grimaced. I hated,
hated,
the way ghouls walked. Their humanoid form called for feet—but no, they had hooves, which gave them this disjointed sort of rolling lurch or stagger. Now that it wasn’t trying to pass for human, it didn’t try to mask the loud clomping sound when those hard things hit the stone floor. Glass crunched under the heavy weight.

I knew a thing or two about ghouls after having tracked down one who’d been terrorizing a trailer park in Mississippi. That one had shifted into something resembling Pan with a stupid flute and hairspray-teased hindquarters. He’d driven people to distraction playing off key, then beat them up or outright killed them when they complained. Stronger than regular humans, he’d gotten the drop on me at first. But I’d managed to win in the end. I’d researched them after that. Had a little trick or two up my sleeve, in fact.

I reached for my belt.

“Uh, Beri?” Blythe took another step. More paper rustled under her feet, a ceramic mortar rolled across the floor and smacked into the wall when she accidentally kicked it. She suddenly let out a cry and picked up some sort of fuzzy stuffed animal off the floor to cradle against her chest. She looked back at me, her eyes glued to my hands. “What are you doing?” she whispered. Loudly.

Amused, I cupped one hand in front of my mouth, speaking behind it in an equally loud stage whisper. “If you loosen your belt, a ghoul will go away.”

He cleared his throat noisily. “No, I won’t.” Taking another step, he tried that disarming male-model smirk on me. It just made me laugh. Frowning, he stopped. “I can hear you whispering. Ghoul ears are good.”

“Well your shapeshifting ability isn’t.” Blythe pointed. “You forgot your feet.”

My heart had slowed, my stomach settled. This ghoul thought he had his scary on and I thought he was silly. He shouldn’t have used Brad Pitt as his image to copy. “Blythe, they can’t change their feet. That’s how I knew what it was.”

“Well, that’s dumb.”

“Enough!” He followed the yell with a rumbling growl. “Stupid humans—just give me the book and I might let you live.” The ghoul’s face began to melt. His eyes grew bigger and slid down his face—disgusting, really. I scowled and closed my hands into fists as those cheeks filled out. They bubbled and turned into these gelatin-like protrusions that poofed up to curl around the eyes. His nose disappeared, leaving two huge holes in its place. Teeth sharpened as his mouth widened and lost lips.

“You are one ugly fucker.” I gave up on the belt. The buckle was already loose and the ghoul still stood before me, skin shifting around like clay being molded by huge invisible hands. No matter how much research I did on creatures, not everything worked. This wasn’t the first time a piece of information had been wrong. Hopefully, the other stuff I’d learned wasn’t.

Tons of shaggy matted hair grew from the sleek copper cap he had before. The color stayed the same but I was sure I could see small insects crawling around in that knotted mess. He shook his head and clumps of hair bounced on those cheeks and down over his chest and stomach. I could see more hair bulging the material of his cop clothes.

Ghouls, fortunately, were some of the vainest creatures in the world. Hard to believe with their matted oily appearance, but it was true. And occasionally, if they were feeling generous, they’d forgo giving a human a gory, extremely painful and disgusting death with those teeth if that human offered to groom them.

Hair started growing from his chin. Something the size of a cockroach scuttled through it.

Ugh.
I wasn’t even making the offer. Fortunately, I had another little ghoul fact up my proverbial sleeve. One I knew worked. I just had a couple of questions first…

 
“What book are you talking about?”

The ghoul waved his thumb toward Blythe. “She knows of what I speak. It’s older than any book in existence. This”—He turned his head, curling his upper, hairy lip at her—“witch has it. She’s not supposed to.”

“Am so.” She plopped her hands on her hips. The ends of her sleeves over her hands kind of ruined the attitude. A long, blonde curl bounced over one eye. “I know what book you’re talking about and it was a gift.”

“From who?” the ghoul asked.

“Like I would tell you. Look what you did!” She waved her hands around in the air. “Why did you do this to my shop?”

“Why not?” He had lost the smooth, deeply grooved male voice, his tone now nasally. Must be all the hair up that schnocker. His clothes had started to rip as handfuls of hair pushed their way through and I could see he was obviously, disgustingly male. I made a mental note not to look that direction again.

I took a step forward and looked down my nose at him. Yeah, he had shrunk a foot or so during the transition. “Who sent you after the book?”

“Why do you think someone sent me?”

“Because ghouls never run the show—they don’t have the brains for it. You’re the low-bro on the totem pole.”

I caught Phro’s eye roll. The corners of my mouth tingled as a grin fought to get loose. I’d been waiting forever to use that line.

“You have balls,” he said.

“Bet mine are prettier than yours.”

“Maybe that female scent is a trick.”

I reached out and plucked a smooth, beautiful tiger’s eye stone from one of the shelves that still remained. My favorite stone—one that was supposed to give balance, strength and confidence. Running my fingers over the sleek surface, I deliberately let my gaze roll down to his groin, which was thankfully still mostly covered by the police uniform—though it was all bulging and strange with the hair…oh, and some of the seams had ripped. I grinned and flicked my gaze back up to meet his. “Maybe yours is, too.”

He screeched and lunged for me. I quickly stepped to the left. “Ah, ah, ah. Temper, temper.”

He whirled, hooves crushing the pottery shards. Nasty hair swung around—a long strand of it slapping my arm.

“Ew.” Phro scrunched her face before dismissing the angry, hairy thing entirely to go exploring. She’d been around for the last one. Ghouls weren’t much of a threat if you knew their weak spot.

Fred just stayed behind it, arms crossed, a smear of soot across his nose.

The ghoul had stopped to look over his shoulder. I didn’t think he could see Fred because he frowned, looked back at me, then jumped again.

“You’re not very good at this,” I said as I side-stepped him easily. He crashed into a display of crystals. “And you don’t smell so good.”

“I smell better than you. Ghouls don’t like honey.”

“I smell like honey?” I looked at Blythe for confirmation.

She nodded, not taking her eyes off the ghoul. “More like honeysuckle. There’s a wild undercurrent of something else. Like dirt.”

My mouth fell open. “Hey!”

“Don’t worry. It’s very clean dirt.” She stroked the fuzzy thing still clutched to her chest. It looked like a stuffed animal but I couldn’t tell what kind since part of it had been shredded and white stuffing stuck out everywhere.

The ghoul had stopped, obviously pissed that we weren’t taking him seriously. He scratched his chin before plucking a piece of glass from his hair. There was no blood on it. I imagined that hair was thick enough to be a pretty decent padding.

Sighing, I crossed my arms and glared at the thing. “Listen, we don’t have time for all this bullshit. Tell me who sent you and maybe I won’t kill you.”

“You can’t kill me.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Sure about that?”

He blinked, shifted as if he didn’t know what to do next. The last time I’d fought one of these I hadn’t known its weak spot. I’d taken a beating. But he hadn’t been after something.

Phro walked over to whisper in my ear. “Uh Beri, remember how strong that thing was in Mississippi? Do you really want to walk around with black eyes again?”

“He’s not fighting because he wants the book.” I bounced on my feet a couple of times, took a step forward and showed him my roundhouse kick, careful not to hit him behind the eye.

He grunted as his back slammed into the wall. Confusion muddied what I could see of his furry face. “He didn’t tell me you were strong.”

I had been about to kick him somewhere a little more painful. Instead, I stopped. Stepped closer. “Who?”

The ghoul’s eyes took on a noticeable sheen as he smirked. “You don’t even know what you’re up against. Pathetic.”