Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers (109 page)

Read Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers Online

Authors: Sm Reine,Robert J. Crane,Daniel Arenson,Scott Nicholson,J. R. Rain

Tags: #Dark Fantasy, #Urban, #Paranormal & Urban, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Horror, #Genre Fiction, #Literature & Fiction

“Okay,” I said. “Bullets are out.”

In one swift movement, his left arm swept in a mighty arc that sent me flying through the air. The force of the blow was inhuman and drove the wind from my lungs. Nothing could resist that. I tumbled over Gerda and into the pit, almost sure my arm was broken from the impact.

I landed on Poochy’s corpse and scrambled to claw my way out of the hole, which was slick with blood. With me out of the way, and Tabby backing slowly up against the house with a still-crying Petey in her arms, the golem focused on Gerda. Its massive, gleaming hands, forged flesh made of river clay, reached out and circled around her neck.

She cried out and tried to slink backwards. Her last “sorry” was cut off in mid-utterance as her vocal cords and neck were slowly being crushed by the mighty hands. Gerda spasmed and I got a desperate foothold and propelled myself to the lawn. My hand
thunked
on something metallic.

The shovel.

The golem was still standing over a very limp Gerda. Grinning wickedly, its head tilted down, as if he was going to open up his maw of mud and suck her down inside him.

Yelling a tortured “Banzai!” like I’d heard in Bruce Lee karate movies, I ran forward and slung the edge of the shovel into the creature’s shoulder. The coat split open and the dirty meat parted.

It figured. If you wanted to move clay, you needed a shovel.

A little encouraged, I tugged the blade free and delivered another blow, this time to the back of the head. The dirty mouth opened as if to scream, but no sound came out. When I pulled the blade out this time, a decent scoop of the bastard’s head came with it. I could only hope it was brains.

The sky was darker now, so I couldn’t see where Tabby was, but the next shot came from the patio. The bullet
zilched
into the golem’s back, and this time he reached up a club-fingered hand to wipe at the entry wound. Gerda gasped and struggled but was still gripped in one crude hand.

“It’s getting weaker!” I shouted, more for my sake than Tabby’s. I chopped again, this time imagining the goddamned serial killer as a mortal, torturing poor women for the vanity of his sorry soul, seeking to divine a magical power that should never have been his.

I swung again.

“Shit!”

My aim was bad. The blade sunk deep into its soft shoulder. I worked it loose, desperate, breathing heavily, peanut butter still rancid against the back of my throat. The golem did not even bother to look my way, it was so intent on finishing its mission.

I worked the blade loose. I raised the tool high overhead again, adjusted my aim slightly to the left, and brought the shovel down. I summoned all my strength, even saying a little prayer for all good things and maybe asking for a little mercy for us sinners, and let my rage, fear, and my little reservoir of love all flow into the swing.

It came down true, and in one clean sweep, with hardly any resistance at all, cut clean through the golem’s neck. The head sprang forward, spinning over Gerda’s own limp head like a football at kickoff.

I expected the golem to keep choking and fighting. It’s not like a clay thing needed its head. I braced for the sight of it running around like a decapitated chicken, arms flailing ahead like those of Frankenstein’s monster. But it went limp and still.

What had once been shaped as a man turned into a wet pile of amorphous mud. The hand that had been choking the life out of Gerda dropped to mush around her. As the mud slid out, the clothes collapsed, ending up in a soiled heap beside Gerda, the hat and sunglasses on top like a late-April Frosty the Snowman.

“Gerda,” I said under my breath, tossing the shovel aside.

She was tilted to the side and lay in the muddy slush. I checked her breathing. I shook her but her eyes remained closed.

Then Tabby was beside me. “Here,” she said.

As Tabby knelt over my wife, administering CPR, I held my son for the very first time.

+ + +

It was dark when Tabby finally gave up.

I didn’t say anything about Tabby’s death wish for her. It seemed pointless now. My wife was dead, the mother of my child was dead, Nana was dead, Poochy was dead, and Max Richter was hopefully dead for the final time.

But Petey was alive, and that almost seemed enough.

He hugged me and cooed against me, not understanding the carnage around him. To him, it must have simply looked like playtime was now over for the day. I rocked him back and forth, muttering his name, until he drifted into Napland.

We went inside the house. At least the power was on, so we could flip the lights and avoid walking through any more blood. I wasn’t quite sure if Gerda had successfully conjured any curses, so I kept away from the shadows.

We found the phone in the kitchen, but the service hadn’t been connected. Tabby dug through Gerda’s purse and found her cell, then put in a call to the police. She didn’t bother trying to explain. We sat at the table, Petey hugged to my chest, as we waited for the flashing lights and sirens. Petey had a few scrapes and scratches, but otherwise appeared to come out of it in the best shape of any of us.

“What do we tell them?” I asked.

“The usual. Big ugly clay dude shows up and goes nuts. Kills a couple of people, and then we rain on his parade.”

I nodded. “Sounds legit to me.”

“Or we could go the self-defense option. Same story as I was going to use the first time, only now we spin it as a wrestling match instead of a shoot-out.”

“And I missed it all, because I was down in the hole with the baby and the dead guy.”

“You look the part.”

She was right. I was coated in dirt, blood, and some of that sticky clay that I didn’t like having stuck to my skin. It almost felt alive, and I imagined it morphing into little worms that would burrow into my skin.

“It’s for the best,” Tabby said. “Yes, definitely for the best.”

I nearly screamed when a tiny shape darted out from the shadows.
Jimmy’s mouse!

But the little creature merely darted to the edge of a splotch of blood, sniffed, sat for a moment on its haunches, and wriggled its whiskers. No white stripe. Just an ordinary mouse. Almost cute.

“Boo,” I said.

It scurried back to safety.

The wind had picked up considerably, whipping through the branches outside. The house shook and I hugged Petey more tightly.

“What happens next?” I asked.

“There will be an investigation. I’ll be reprimanded. Perhaps even lose my job over this. Perhaps not. Either way, we found the killer and saved the child, so my bosses might have mercy.”

“Ah, the good-looking cop who doesn’t play by the rules. Every department needs one of those.”

She glanced at the book on the table, which had turned out to be another ancient book of spells. Just how many of those damned things were floating around, anyhow?

“I can always take up witchcraft,” she said.

I stared at her. “How could you even joke about a thing like that?”

She shrugged, exhausted. “Who’s joking? It’s in my blood, right? And blood seems to catch up with you sooner or later. Besides...”

I didn’t like the way she said that word.

“You never know what people are cooking up out there. And bullets and badges can’t always stop evil.”

“Great. Don’t hear this, Petey.”

He didn’t. He was asleep.

“What happens to us?” I said.

“We have a child to raise.”

“We?”

“I’m not doing it alone, and you’re the guy who couldn’t keep his mouse in his pants.”

“How do you raise a child?”

Tabitha looked at Petey. “One day at a time.”

“Damn. Isn’t that what people say when they quit drinking?”

“Yeah. So start saying it.”

I wasn’t sure if this was a happy ending or not. But it was an ending. I’d already survived one greatest fear, maybe two, but I suspected being a father would create fears I’d never known had existed. Gerda had paid for her father’s sins, and I wasn’t going to let Petey pay for mine.

“You know something?” she said, when we heard the first distant siren wailing across the valley.

“What?”

“I don’t hate you as much as I should.”

“That’s a start.”

“But I still don’t like you. And I haven’t forgiven you for Amanda yet.”

I hugged Petey, already used to his weight against me, the small shudder of his snores, the warmth of his smooth skin. “Boy, you Meads sure do know how to carry a grudge.”

About the Authors

Scott Nicholson is author of 17 books, including the bestselling Kindle thrillers
Disintegration and The Red Church
. He also portrays the comic book character The Digger and spends spare time revising his own epitaph. Learn more at
www.hauntedcomputer.com.

J.R. Rain is an ex-private investigator who now lives in a small house on a small island with his small dog, Sadie, who has more energy than Robin Williams. Please visit him at
www.jrrain.com
.

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