Cassandra Case Files Page 7

  KC sniffed the air as the wind turned. “You catch that scent?”

  Mack nodded. “Yeah, but it’s... different now. Definitely the other rougarou I smelled yesterday, but its scent has... changed.”

  “That good or bad?” Mr. Durand asked.

  “In our line of work, we just default assume it’s gonna be bad,” KC sighed. “Your eyes are better than mine, babe. You see anything?”

  Mack shook his head. “No, just shadows. What time is it?”

  “Ten ‘til midnight,” Mr. Durand supplied, peering at the glow in the dark hands of his watch.

  “That’ll be what he’s waiting on,” Mack grumbled.

  “The one we killed yesterday didn’t show itself until midnight,” KC explained. “Only, it’ll be Halloween in ten minutes tonight.”

  They waited with growing unease as Mr. Durand watched the time for them, counting down the minutes until midnight. Then, they waited for a few minutes more until Mack said, “I see something...”

  A humanoid figure sauntered out of the woods behind the barn. The creature’s head was even with the bottom of the hayloft door, which meant that it was at least ten feet tall. Both of its hands were raised to shoulder level, and in one hand it clutched a branch that had a dirty, blood-spattered, formerly-white t-shirt tied to it like a flag. The hairy giant was definitely another rougarou judging by the striking resemblance to the creature they’d killed the night before.

  “Hello! I come in peace!”

  Mack shook his head and slapped a hand to one of his ears. “Did... did I just hear him speak English?”

  KC nodded her head. “Yeah, and he’s got a British accent, too.”

  The giant stopped in the middle of the farmyard, and it didn’t have to crane its neck very far to look up at them. The previous rougarou had been lanky, almost skinny, compared to the muscular specimen facing them now.

  “I must say, this is a lovely farm you have here, Mr. Durand,” the rougarou announced.

  “You know my name?” the farmer exclaimed in shock.

  “Yes, I do, quite,” the rougarou chuckled. Its voice was a masculine tenor, completely out of congruence with its enormous form. “I know many things, of course. I am a well educated and broadly traveled man of numerous and esoteric experiences.”

  “You’re not the rougarou,” Mack guessed.

  “Oh, you’re the bright chap, aren’t you,” the giant praised. “No, indeed, I am not. Well, to be entirely fair, I am the rougarou now. You see, even though rougarou are half alive, they’re still half undead and all demon, and if you’ve sussed out a demon’s True Name...”

  “You can command the demon, even destroy it,” KC finished.

  “Quite right, young lady, quite right indeed!” The not-a-rougarou was quite jovial, affable even.

  “What do you want?” Mack demanded. “You wouldn’t be standing her under a... flag of parley, chit-chatting if you didn’t want something. What is it?”

  “The heart, obviously.” The giant touched its own chest. “You see, I can feel it calling to my host body, and I can make great use of the spiritual energy stored within that fleshy container. She whom you have slain was my mate. Yes, I’ve been riding around in this body for some time now, and, well, a man has urges, you know?”

  “Why do you want it?” Mack growled.

  “Um, sentimental reasons?” The smile the not-a-rougarou treated them to was simultaneously comical and horrifying.

  “Or maybe you wanna use the energy to summon a new mate? Create an army of undead?” KC scoffed.

  “As a show of my eternal affection, naturally,” the giant protested.

  “And what would we get if we turned the heart over to you?” Mack asked.

  “I would leave the Durands in peace, never to be bothered by myself or my minions ever again.”

  “I suppose we’d have your word on that?”

  “Wouldn’t that be enough? Obviously, I’m no mere demonic beast. I am a man of class and honor!”

  “You’re not a man at all, necromancer,” Mack snarled.

  The creature actually looked surprised when Mack’s arrow hit it in the chest. It looked down at the arrow and actually flicked at the shaft with one clawed finger of its freehand.

  “Look, mate, do you not understand what a flag of truce mea-gawk!”

  Mack’s second arrow had entered the not-a-rougarou’s mouth and buried the head in the spinal column.

  The monster dropped its “flag of truce” and stared at Mack with its hands on its hips, tapping one foot.

  “Don’t seem like you’re killin’ him so much as causin’ him an inconvenience,” Mr. Durand observed as he took the Mossberg off safe with an audible click.

  “Dang it,” Mack spat. “He’s gotta be some kind of lich.”

  The creature rolled its eyes and performed a little golf clap.

  “Wow. You really gotta give the guy props for being able to emote sarcasm in that body,” KC said. “So, Plan B?”

  The rougarou lich had managed to pull the arrow shaft out of its mouth. The obsidian head had broken off inside. “Is this obsidian?”

  Mack reached over to KC and took the SLP from her and replied, “Yep.”

  “Oh, bother. That’s not going to heal at all properly.”

  “Get ready, KC,” Mack whispered as he racked the charging handle with one hand. He’d already undone his vest and removed his Ruger to the waistband of his sweats.

  KC’s tactical vest held pouches that contained her spellcasting gear. “Mr. Durand, I’m about to knock myself on my ass. When that happens, there’s a flask in my upper left-hand pouch. Catch me, and pour that flask in my mouth.”

  The rougarou lich had by now removed the arrow from its chest. “I suppose you’re not going to be reasonable, what?”

  “I’m sworn to the Accords, lich,” Mack responded. “If I help you, somebody like me will hunt me down.”

  “Who’d bloody know?”

  “I would, and that’s enough.”

  Mack raised the shotgun and the revolver in either hand and opened fire. He wasn’t entirely sure how well the arrowheads packed into the shells were doing ballistically, but the wounds created by the shotgun blasts didn’t appear to be healing. “Now, KC!”

  KC’s eyes glowed red as she called upon her dhamphir strength to empower her spell. She removed one of the fireball spell components from a pouch on her vest and an ornate Zippo lighter from her pocket. “De réir spiorad na tine, ordaím duit é a dhó!" As she spoke her spell, KC flicked the Zippo open igniting the flame. Then, she thrust her hand forward, passing the strike-anywhere match head through the Zippo’s open flame, and on the last syllable, the paper-wrapped match took on the shape of a flaming arrow that streaked across the intervening space centered on the rougarou lich’s torso.

  A sphere of white light appeared around the lich, stopping just short of Busster. The sphere lingered for a second before collapsing back into itself. The yard was blackened where the sphere’s light had touched. The rougarou lich was still standing, but it was swaying on its feet, completely hairless, skin charred.

  Mack grabbed the obsidian daggers from his vest before shucking it and leaping from Buster’s roof. Before he even hit the ground, he shifted into his battle form. As he reached the lich, Mack thrust the larger of his two daggers up under the giant’s jaw, driving the stone blade up through the soft pallet into the brain. With his other hand, Mack drove the smaller obsidian dagger straight through the sternum, burying the blade deep in the heart. A shock wave of energy burst from the rougarou lich’s body, powerful enough that it threw Mack all the way back to Busster.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Durand had caught KC as she collapsed. He followed her instructions and poured the flask of human blood into her mouth. KC roused almost instantly, but she didn’t jump right back up.

  “Ow,” she moaned.

  “You okay?” Mr. Durand’s concern was obvious in his expression.

  “I feel like I hav
e an angry bull in my head trying to head butt his way out, but otherwise, I’m not dead, so yay for me?” KC rambled.

  The shock wave hit the bus at that moment, and Mack’s body slid to a stop against the rear tire.

  “Did ya kill it?” Mr. Durand demanded as he looked over the side of the bus down at Mack who was reverting to his human form.

  “He’s dead enough for our needs,” Mack groaned. “How’s KC?”

  “She’s complainin’ ‘bout a headache but otherwise in one piece. Uh, ya want fresh clothes?”

  “Yes, please. There’s a fresh shirt and pants laid out on the bed.”

  “Want Leann to bring it to ya?”

  “No, you can just drop it down on me from there. I think I might just lie here for a second while my spine reattaches itself.”

  “What?” Mr. Durand exclaimed.

  “shock wave broke my back, but it’s healing. One of the many advantages to being a werewolf.”

  “Leann! Grab Mack’s spare clothes and hand ‘em to me.”

  “Are we running, Ryan?”

  “We runnin’?” Mr. Durand asked KC and Mack.

  “No, I don’t think so,” KC said. “I’ll look after Mack, but he’s gonna need to eat. There’s a ham in the bottom of our fridge. If you’d be so kind as to bring it around?”

  Mrs. Durand had climbed up the ladder and handed the t-shirt and a pair of track pants to her husband. “What’s going on? I saw a bright flash and then felt an explosion!”

  “KC and Mack had to magic the monster to death, Leann. It was like somethin’ outta one of them Zoe Kenneth books, I tell ya.” Mr. Durand paused for a second. “Say, KC, has anybody ever told you that you look an awful lot like the girl on the cover of them Zoe Kenneth books?”

  “Only all the time,” KC laughed.

  Chapter Seven

  Lewisburg, West Virginia

  Wednesday, October 31, 2018

  ONCE HIS SPINE WAS healed and he’d consumed an entire ham, Mack gathered his gear and set out to track the rougarou lich’s trail back to its lair in the hopes of finding the lich’s phylactery. Mr. Durand had insisted on coming along, and his wife didn’t want to be left at the house by herself.

  “What are we doing again?” Mrs. Durand asked of KC. The two women brought up the rear of the party.

  “We’re trying to find the lich’s phylactery. It’s the vessel a lich stores its spirit in, separate from its body. Think of it like the spirit is an AI loaded onto a supercomputer mainframe that is safely locked away in a bunker. Then, the AI remote controls a drone to interact with the world. Even if the drone is damaged or destroyed, the AI is still safe in the bunker and can take control of another drone. We’ve gotta pull the plug on that AI now.”

  “If it’s like a computer, then, can’t it be anywhere in the world?”

  “It could, but liches like to keep their meat bodies close to their phylacteries just in case the phylactery is in danger, the meat body can move it some place safe, and close proximity ensures that the lich has total control over its host body. See, a lich can inhabit its own original body remotely no problem, but for it to have other bodies, those bodies can’t have spirits of their own. In other words, they’ve gotta be for real dead or at least brain dead. A for-real dead body is just another undead vessel waiting to be occupied, but with a brain dead body, a lich can pass for alive. That’s what this lich was doing with the rougarou. Somehow, he managed to kill the rougarou spirit without killing the rougarou’s body.”

  “Seemed more like a parasite to me,” Mack said as he stopped to sniff the ground.

  “Which meant the rougarou was still alive, and he was just ‘sharing’ the body with the demon,” KC mused. “Babe, that’s a disturbing thought.”

  “And it’s gonna have to wait ‘cause I think we’ve found it,” Mack said.

  The rougarou’s trail had gone deep into the woods, to a high embankment overlooking the river. Cut into the side of that embankment was a cave.

  “Mr. Durand might be best for you and Mrs. Durand to wait here,” Mack suggested. “We can see in the dark, you can’t.”

  “What about this?” Mr. Durand pointed to the powerful tactical light mounted to the front end of the Mossberg.

  “That might cause us more problems than solutions with our night vision,” Mack chuckled, “but once we’ve gone in, turn it on and point it at that cave mouth. Anything that comes out that isn’t me or KC, pump a round of kitchen sink into its chest.”

  Mack had traded his revolver for his FNX-45. He checked to ensure it was loaded with a round chambered.

  “What if it’s another rougarou in there?” Mr. Durand asked.

  “Between my battle form and KC’s teeth and claws, we should be able to tear it apart in close quarters,” Mack shrugged. “Ready, babe?”

  KC had replaced her compact TH40 with its full-size companion. “Yep.”

  “In we go.”

  THE CAVE WAS MORE LIKE a burrow at first. Mack had to crouch down and practically crab walk to make his way forward. KC just had to duck her head, but she was contemplating shaving her head instead of trying to wash out all the muck and potential bugs she was sure were finding their way into her locks. The rougarou, big as they were, would have had to crawl on hands and knees. At least the tunnel was wide enough for the two of them to make their way almost abreast of one another.

  Eventually, the tunnel turned forty-five degrees and became taller, widening out into a proper chamber. This was the lair of the rougarou. It was simultaneously homey and cluttered with junk. Mack was fairly certain this duo were the cause of many disappearances among campers and hikers in these mountains. He counted at least half a dozen pack frames littered about. At the back of the chamber was a nest bed made of an uncounted number of sleeping bags and foam pads piled as thick as a good mattress.

  A human whimper drew Mack’s attention.

  Huddled in a nook was a short man of slender stature. “Please don’t hurt me!” he begged piteously.

  “Seriously, dude?” Mack scoffed. “You didn’t think I wouldn’t recognize your voice. Or your scent?”

  “Oh, bloody hell,” the lich sighed.

  He turned suddenly to fully face them, raising his hands to bring to bear some kind of wand or staff. Whatever spell he was attempting to cast in self-defense failed as sixteen rounds of .45 ACP and another sixteen rounds of .40 S&W tore through his body. Mack swapped magazines as KC pulled a kukhri from a sheath on her back.

  “I hope he doesn’t have any more spare bodies lying around,” KC quipped as she used the large, heavy knife to quickly chop the lich’s head off while Mack kept her covered. She held the head up to show Mack. “Aw, he was kinda cute.”

  “Let’s find the phylactery,” Mack grumbled. “I really need a shower.”

  “Oh, will you wash my hair for me? That’d be, like, super sexy, you know.”

  Mack chuckled as he began tearing through everything stored in the chamber. “We should salvage this camping gear. Some of it’s really high-quality stuff.”

  “Hey, I found the lich’s pack,” KC called out. She held up a British passport with the small man’s picture.

  Mack took it from her. “Percival Walden-Smythe? That has to be the most British name I have ever heard.”

  “You’re not gonna believe this, babe,” KC giggled.

  “You found the phylactery?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, let’s see it.”

  KC held up a positively ancient-looking tea kettle.

  “Seriously? He used a tea pot for a phylactery?”

  “Well, he was terribly British, wasn’t he?” KC laughed.

  “How are we gonna destroy it, then? I mean, it’s already banged up, so obviously brute force won’t be getting the job done.”

  KC produced one of her playing cards. “Fire bolt. Should melt it into slag.”

  “Well, alright, then. You do your thing, babe.”

  “Soinneáin tine!” KC
barked and threw the card at the tea kettle.

  The card instantly transformed into what looked like a dagger made of fire. The fiery blade sank into the kettle, which began to melt and deform around the blazing shaft. In a matter of a minute or two, the kettle was a puddle of copper, tin, and pewter. The lich’s body instantly burst into flames and just as quickly collapsed into a cloud of dust. The head still remained.

  Mack stuffed the head into the backpack along with the passport. “We’re gonna have a lot of paperwork to do.”

  “Yeah, but it’s gonna be worth it. We’ve taken down two super rare undead, three counting the lich’s original body, executed a necromancer, and destroyed a lich’s phylactery. Babe, the first rougarou alone is worth enough to pay off the note on Little Boy Blue, and the bounties go up from there.”

  LEWISBURG, WEST VIRGINIA

  Thursday, November 1, 2018

  AFTER SOME ARGUING, Mack and KC accepted a check for $500 from the Durands.

  “You more than earned this,” Mr. Durand said, thrusting the check into Mack’s hand.

  “But we’re looking at a 50 grand payday, minimum, from the bounty claim,” Mack sighed, “and that big black circle burned into your yard will need to be resoiled before anything’ll grow there.”

  “That’s what farm insurance is for. The agent’s a friend of mine. If I tell him it was from a freak lightnin’ strike, he’ll write it up like that and pay out for it. Besides, son, y’all are gonna need some operatin’ capital until you can make your bounty claim.”

  KC took the check from Mack. “He’s right, babe. Thank you, Mr. Durand. We appreciate your prompt payment.”

  “I hate taking money from people I find myself thinking of as friends,” Mack grumbled.

  “Well, we’ve grown quite fond of the two of y’all, too,” Mrs. Durand laughed.