Skeleton Crew (12 page)

“Nooooooo!” she screamed. Her face disintegrated like a sandcastle in the wind and her voice became a distorted, low-pitched moan. Her fleshless mouth stretched wide in a tormented snarl, revealing a blackness as thick as the bottom of a grave. Her head jerked spasmodically atop her gnarled spine and she reached for me with skeletal hands.

“Now
that's
some scary shit,” I said. Then I turned and ran.

I didn't even try to summon the glamour. I'd temporarily psychoed the pain away, but I was pretty sure it'd be back with a fucking party hat on if I tried the fairy mojo again. If it came back, I knew I'd go down. And if I went down, I'd have Maggie's freaky ass all up on me. So I just ran, and screamed. Mrs. Dawson put me solidly in touch with my terrified inner child, so I didn't even have to fake it.

Abe Warren appeared out of the mist directly in front of us with his crossbow in one hand and a small wooden music box in the other. The music box was open and it was playing “Frère Jacques.” The tempo was too slow, like the box was winding down, and the music was just slightly off-key. It was eerie, like the sound was being pulled from the bottom of a well, or pulled into one. The melody bent and turned in my mind and I could almost hear another song, a different song, in the spaces between the notes. If I could focus, if I could just
listen,
I was sure…

The sound froze Mrs. Dawson in place, her head cocked to the side, listening. Her form wavered and she was the little old lady in a seersucker suit again. Her wondering smile and bright eyes almost made her beautiful.

I watched in dreamlike fascination as Abe set the music box on the ground and lifted his crossbow. It was a plainly wrought weapon, a brutal tool without artifice, dark, unadorned wood bound in dull iron fittings. The bow was lashed to the stock with what looked like hemp cords. The bolt was short and heavy with a wicked steel tip and rested lightly in the shallow groove that ran along the top of the stock.

“Boneyards are no place for the living,” the ghost-hunter said. “Even witches.” He braced the weapon and aimed
carefully. “Rest now, spirit,” he said, and he squeezed the trigger.

Adan hit him just as he loosed the bolt. It flew wide and never reached Mrs. Dawson. It stopped when it buried itself in my stomach. The impact knocked me onto my back and I felt a cold numbness spreading through my gut. I heard Mrs. Dawson scream and it sounded pretty good—too bad she couldn't have managed it earlier. I heard Honey's wind-chime voice, and maybe even Jack's only slightly deeper one. I lay there on the ground and looked up into the darkness that hung like a velvet curtain overhead. The mist seemed to roll toward me, a slowly tightening circle, the shadow-world collapsing in on me as my vision dimmed.

From somewhere far away, words hammered at my retreating consciousness. I knew the voice—I'd just been thinking about it, hadn't I? Maybe not. Maybe the voice was one I'd known long ago, a voice that pulled at the thinning threads of memory. It didn't matter. I was sinking, falling into that endless black ocean—hadn't I been looking
up
at it?—where words and voices had no meaning.

“Domino, you stupid cow!” Honey yelled, right in my face. “Magic and mind! That's all you are. Remember!”

I opened my eyes and sat up, forcing Honey to spring away from my chest and hover in the air. I looked down at the crossbow bolt protruding from my belly. Azure juice poured from the wound and pooled on the ground around me. I pulled it out and tossed it away.

“Feel weak,” I said.

“Of course you feel weak! You've lost a lot of juice. But you've got plenty left. You're not going to die unless you lie there and let yourself bleed out.”

“Oh,” I said. “That's cool.” Adan and the ghost-hunter were rolling around on the cemetery lawn, occasionally
landing a punch but mostly just wrestling. When he noticed I was up, Adan glared at me through a headlock. “Grab him,” he croaked through clenched teeth. “Hell of a plan.”

Jack was flying circles around the scuffle. He had a silver sword, just like Honey's. I looked at him and spread my arms. “Dust the son of a bitch, Jack.”

He shook his head and kept circling. “Protected,” he said.

Damn. I probably should have seen that coming. Just because he was dead didn't mean Abe was stupid. I didn't know what else he did to pass the time, but he hunted ghosts and abducted psychopomps in the Between. He'd probably
have
to be juiced up some kind of way. I looked at him with my witch sight and immediately saw the talismans. A medicine bag hung from a leather thong around his neck. An eagle feather dangled on a braided cord from his hat. He even had a brass Civil War belt buckle that was juiced with fairy magic, or something like it.

I walked over to where I'd dropped Ned when I got plugged by the crossbow and picked it up. I felt something cold and wet on my mouth, and brushed the back of my hand across it. It came away slick with glowing blue juice. I had a fucking nosebleed. I was pretty sure it wasn't on account of being shot, either—it was the glamour.

I walked slowly toward the wrestling match, holding the gun at my side. When I got close enough that I could probably shoot Abe instead of Adan, the ghost-hunter somersaulted out of the fracas and rolled deftly to his feet. He flicked out his hand and a net blossomed in front of me, its silver, silken threads as fine as a spiderweb. It expanded to an impossible size and settled gently over me. And Adan. And Honey. We all went down in a tangle.

Jack was the only one who'd avoided the snare—besides
Mrs. Dawson, I mean, but I wasn't exactly counting on her to save the day. She'd removed a white handkerchief from her white purse. She was sobbing quietly and dabbing at her eyes. Jack wheeled around in a wide arc and flew at the ghost-hunter, his sword at the ready in a two-handed grip. Abe leveled the crossbow—he'd somehow managed to reload it—and backed away.

“Don't make me do it, son,” he said. “You're fast, but I don't miss.”

Jack pulled up and looked over at me. I thought about pointing out he'd missed Mrs. Dawson, but I shook my head. We all watched as Abe tipped his hat and backed into the mist.

The piskie cut us free with his sword as soon as it became clear we'd never get out of the net without his help. The strands were so thin and delicate-looking they were almost invisible, but they were also incredibly strong. We couldn't tear them apart and every effort to do so only entangled us further. It took Jack a good ten minutes to saw a big enough hole in the net that we could pull ourselves free.

“It's important at a time like this not to point fingers,” I said.

Adan tilted his head from side to side and rubbed his neck. “It's okay by me if no one ever finds out about this.”

“What are we going to do now, Domino?” Honey asked. “The ghost-hunter will be on the lookout for us. He'll never fall for the trap again.”

“I'm not sure it counts as a trap if the trappers all get their asses kicked,” I said.

“Not a good trap, at least,” said Jack.

I scowled at him. “Yeah, so I'm going after him.”

“How are you going after him?” Adan asked. “He could be anywhere.”

“I can track him. I was just really hoping I wouldn't have to do it.”

No one said anything but they all had rather skeptical expressions on their faces. I gave them a mean-spirited smile and turned into a barghest.

Once upon a time, King Oberon had sicced a pack of the ghost dogs on me. I'd also seen the dogs with his armies. I'd asked the fairy king about them later, and he'd told me the hounds were useful because they could track quarry through the mist in the Between. The sidhe used them for hunting and also for war.

I couldn't really check myself out but I knew from previous encounters it was an impressive beast. The barghest was a massive black mastiff, far larger and more powerful than any mortal hound. The blocky, muscular body was nearly four feet tall at the shoulder and had to be pushing five hundred pounds. Thick, curved talons sharp as knives curled from its paws, and its mouth bristled with long, yellowed fangs. Its eyes blazed red like hellfire.

Unfortunately, using the changeling's glamour damn near killed me. The bone-chilling cold of the Beyond flared inside me, and icy blades of mindless agony scraped across every nerve ending in my new body. The breath went out of me and I collapsed in a furry heap on the ground, whimpering and mewling.

“Domino, stop it!” Honey yelled, swooping down to me and alighting by my head. I watched her with one burning eye as she looked up at Adan. “I told her this magic was not for her. I told her it would kill her.”

Adan knelt beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder. His touch caused the pain to flare up again and I flinched, but I lacked the strength to move. I growled at him and my gums hurt when I bared my fangs. I lay there,
my breath coming in short, fast spasms, and the play of my hide across my ribs sent white-hot needles lancing deep into my core.

“Most humans can't survive this magic, Domino,” Adan said, gently. “Not even sorcerers. I'm different—I told you, I don't know why—but even I can't shapeshift. This magic isn't for us.”

I wasn't sure what the lectures were supposed to accomplish since I was already a dog. They were probably just getting warmed up for later—I knew I'd hear about it again. And again. For now, I just tried to curl my oversized, vaguely canine body into the smallest possible ball and wait for the torture to pass.

Eventually, it did. I struggled awkwardly to my feet and shook myself, the convulsions beginning at the ruff of my neck and working their way along my body, more than eight feet to the tip of my tail. I was fucking huge.

I trotted over to where Abe Warren had disappeared into the pale mist. I sniffed at the air. I wasn't completely sure I'd be able to track the ghost-hunter. I knew the changeling's magic covered a lot more than shape or form—when I'd used it to shift into a copy of Anton, I'd been able to speak Russian. I had no idea how it was possible, but I knew it worked, at least to that extent. But I really didn't know if it could mimic the abilities of a supernatural creature. I figured it must have some limits—the changeling had not, in fact, assumed a godlike form and pounded me into sand—but I had no idea what they were.

As it turned out, the shapeshifting glamour was able to reproduce the barghest's magical nose well enough. I immediately caught the scent of the ghost-hunter on the wind and followed it into the mist. I heard distant shouts behind me but they were quickly swallowed by the fog.

Abe hadn't gone far. I found him walking along Whittier Boulevard west toward downtown. I came out of the mist about a hundred feet behind him, and immediately skulked into the deeper gloom that hugged the buildings lining the street. I trailed him silently, slowly narrowing the distance between us. I was maybe thirty feet behind him when he ducked through a gap in a chain-link fence and walked across a basketball court toward a small, Catholic elementary school. He skirted the school grounds and headed for the back of the modest, redbrick structure of Santa Isabel church that fronted Soto Street.

I loped across Whittier and darted through the fence. A plastic banner reading Our Future Is Bright, Drug Free hung by one corner next to the hole in the wire. The ghost of a junkie did the dope-fiend shamble at midcourt. He looked more like a proper zombie than the actual zombies I'd seen. “Nice doggy,” he mumbled when he saw me. I ignored him and quickened my pace as I stalked the ghost-hunter through the night.

Abe was headed for the back door of the church. Once this became clear, I had a decision to make. I knew I couldn't let him enter the sanctuary. I was already probably on consecrated ground. It felt uncomfortable, unwelcoming, like God had posted a No Hellhounds Allowed sign at the property line. I was pretty sure I couldn't pull off another glamour anyway, but I knew I wouldn't be able to do it inside the church. The ghost-hunter might have allies in there, too. The question was whether to make a play in doggie form or risk shifting back.

Abe made the decision for me. He froze about twenty feet from the door. He turned and looked behind him. His gaze panned over the cramped schoolyard, and then…I couldn't be sure, but since my coat was black and I was skulking
in the deep shadows of the nighttime Between, I guessed he might have spotted my baleful, burning red eyes in the darkness. Really, it was a pretty crippling design flaw. Good for scaring the breakfast out of unwitting civilians, maybe, but worse than useless if you needed to do some serious stalking.

I snarled and crouched, feeling the muscles coil along the length of my powerful body. I launched myself into the air and saw the ghost-hunter's eyes grow wide. He started to turn, thinking to make a dash for the church door, but he might as well have been trudging through half-dry cement. He had just about enough time to gulp, and then my massive body crashed into him. Damn it feels good to be a monster.

The impact didn't send Abe flying through the air; there wasn't even any sprawling or tumbling. He went down where he stood and stayed there, like a piano had been dropped on him. He tried to turn under me, to get his arms up to protect his head, but I dug my claws into his chest and clamped my jaws onto his neck. Actually, I got a piece of one shoulder and part of his head, too—my mouth wasn't exactly a precision instrument. It did the trick, though, and I felt his body go limp. I'd been as gentle as I could and I assumed he was surrendering rather than dying.

I lifted him effortlessly and trotted back across the playground to Whittier. I wasn't sure I could get through the gap in the fence without snagging Abe on it, so I leaped over it and into the street. I landed easily, my claws digging into the asphalt, but the ghost-hunter got knocked around a little. I heard him whimper and shook him a couple times—it was barghest for “hush.” Then I turned and loped into the mist.