The uppermost part of the shadow—presumably Tony’s head—swirled around, like he was checking himself out. “Yeah, kinda creepy. Sorry ’bout that. You nuked me, guess this is the best I can do.”
“You tried to eat me, Tony.”
“Yeah, I got to apologize for that. Your ear okay?”
I nodded. Honey had dusted up a nice healing glam our for me and my ear was good as new. I’d have to get it pierced again, though. “So what was up with that? Why’d you bite me?”
“I don’t know what got into me, Domino. I just needed it, you know? It’s like when you’re real thirsty and you see some water and you just got to have it.”
“Like an instinct.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I didn’t decide to eat you, my body just needed it. I guess it’s a zombie thing, like in the movies.”
“That fucking bite better not turn me into a zombie, Tony, or I’ll come back and kill you again. I’ll come in with a plan and take my fucking time about it.”
“I don’t think it works that way, Domino. I didn’t get bit by a zombie and I still turned into one.”
“So what now, you’re a ghost?”
“Yeah, I guess, but I’m stuck here.” Tony floated toward me again and then stopped abruptly. “See? This is as far as I can go from where you lit me up. It’s like I’m chained to the fucking muslim.”
“Mausoleum.”
“What?”
“It’s a mausoleum, not a Muslim. So you’re trapped in the place where your body was destroyed.”
“Yeah,” Tony said. “Keshawn still over there, too. We was talking earlier, before you showed up. He can’t leave his hole.”
I had a spell that bound ghosts and I thought I might be able to reverse it to free Tony. I even had a spell that could banish a ghost to the Beyond. Problem was, I couldn’t cast either spell in this place. I could try to summon Tony into the mortal world but the odds didn’t seem good with him tied down in the Between. “Have you tried to manifest in the physical world, Tony? If you can, I might be able to cut you loose.”
“Nah, Domino, I can’t go nowhere. Like I said, I’m stuck.”
“I could shoot you. If I destroy your ghost form or what ever, maybe it would set you free.”
Tony didn’t say anything for a few moments and I got the feeling he was looking at Ned. “Maybe we could try something else.”
“I can’t really think of anything else, Tony.”
“I can wait. Maybe something will come to you.”
I nodded and was about to respond when a writhing mass of fleshy tentacles flashed down from above and coiled around the shadow. Tony screamed as the tentacles lifted him into the air. I looked up.
A severed head hovered in the air about ten feet above us. It looked male and mostly human, though the skin was a mottled gray and the features were twisted hideously. Long, black hair hung in greasy strands from the head, and the thin, glistening lips were drawn back to reveal a mouthful of pointed teeth. I realized the “tentacles” were actually flayed strands of muscle and tendon, impossibly long, extending from the severed neck. The tentacles were lifting Tony toward the toothy maw, and drool spattered down on the helpless shade.
All of this was enough to bump zombies down to Number Two on the list of things I just can’t tolerate. I brought Ned up and aimed, but just before I squeezed the trigger I saw the thing’s yellowed, bloodshot eyes snap to me. I fired, but the severed head dived with dizzying speed and the shot missed. Tony fell to the ground again and the tentacles released him. The creature turned its attention to me.
It zigged and zagged in the air as I tried to draw a bead with Ned. I fired and missed again, and then one of the tentacles flashed out and wrapped around my arm, immobilizing it. I struggled against it, but the tentacle was like a meaty vise and I couldn’t bring Ned up to take another shot. More tentacles shot out and wrapped around my legs and my waist, and the creature laughed. It sounded wet and diseased. Blood and saliva sprayed from the thing’s mouth and neck.
I reached for the fairy magic inside me, but I suddenly didn’t have the strength. I could feel my magic being drawn from me, into those tentacles, and they throbbed like bulging veins as my juice pumped into them.
The creature extended yet another tentacle, slowly this time, and it coiled around my throat, almost gently, like a lover’s caress. Tony finally picked himself up and flew at the monster, but its head snapped around, its mouth opened and Tony was swallowed up like smoke being sucked into an air cleaner. The creature made a vile gulping sound and licked its lips. Then it turned back to me. It drew close and its jaws stretched wide. Its hot breath smelled like rotten meat.
An arrow burst from the thing’s throat, just above its Adam’s apple, and blood and pus spattered my face. It was in my eyes and my mouth, and somewhere deep inside I started screaming.
I reached out with my free hand and grabbed a tentacle, pulling the creature to me. I took hold of the arrow and twisted it, grinding it against the raw edges of the angry wound, and then I head-butted the thing in the face. The creature shrieked and recoiled from me, and the tentacles withdrew.
“Big mistake, motherfucker.” I brought Ned up and fanned the hammer with my left hand. The monster jerked around in the air like a kite in a gale, but it couldn’t dodge all the ethereal lead the weapon threw its way. One shot pierced the wrinkled gray skin of its cheek and the other took it just above the eye. Black blood trickled down its face and sprayed from the exit wound in the back of its skull.
I heard a sharp snap and another arrow slammed into the side of the creature’s head. The arrow penetrated the monster’s temple and burst out the other side. It looked just like the arrow-through-the-head party gag, and I couldn’t hold back the giggle that bubbled up from the part of me that had gone a little mad.
The creature remained in the air for a few moments, bobbing like a cork in a pool. Then its eyes rolled up in its head and it collapsed in a twitching mass of tentacles. I stepped up to it, stuck the Peacemaker’s barrel in its ear and pulled the trigger a couple times. Maybe more than a couple.
I felt a hand on my wrist, pressing firmly but gently. “That’s enough, miss. It’s over.”
I looked up and saw a ghost. He was wearing a long leather coat and a wide-brimmed hat. Brown hair shot with gray spilled down from the hat to his collar. He looked to be in his fifties, and his face had a seamed and weathered appearance that suited him. He was holding an antique wooden crossbow in one hand and a large leather pack was slung over his shoulder. I nodded and reluctantly holstered Ned.
“That was a disembodied head that eats ghosts,” I said.
“The Karen tribesmen of Burma call it the kephn.”
“Around here we call it Pac-Man.”
The ghost shrugged and extended his hand. “I’m Abe,” he said. “Abe Warren.”
I shook his hand. “Thanks for your help, Abe. I’m Domino.”
Abe nodded and then squinted at me. “You’re alive.”
“Yeah, barely. Like I said, thanks.”
“What I meant was, you’re not dead. You’re not a spirit.”
“Right on.”
“So you’re a witch.”
“I prefer sorcerer. Or sorceress, if you have to be gender-specific about it.”
“A witch spirit-walking in a boneyard at night…I probably don’t want to know what you’re doing here.”
Abe