The Halloween Collection
by
The Indie Eclective
Copyright © 2011 by The Indie Eclective
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition License Notes
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
The nine authors in this collection retain and hold their individual respective rights to their stories.
Cover Art by Tamra Westberry
Mind- Blower by Talia Jager
The Village of Those Who Touch the Dead by M. Edward McNally
Haunting in OR 13 by Alan Nayes
Haunted House by Julia Crane
To Taste of Shimmering Revenge by Jack Wallen
Ralphie, the ‘Special’ Werewolf by P.J. Jones
Sunwalker’s Kiss by Shéa MacLeod
Magickal Vendetta by Heather Marie Adkins
The Rhyn Trilogy: Origins by Lizzy Ford
Mind-Blower
Talia Jager
After driving up a steep incline, Daxton parked, and we got out of the car. He took my hand and led me into the forest. “Where are we going?” I asked for the millionth time. Patience wasn’t my strong suit.
“I told you Kassia, it’s a surprise.” He grinned at me, showing off the dimple on the right side of his mouth.
“Good thing you’re cute.”
He laughed and we continued walking beneath the dark canopy of trees overhead. Small animals scurried around. Coming to a flat area, he stopped walking and said, “Close your eyes.”
“You’re kidding, right? We’re in the middle of nowhere and you want me to close my eyes. What if I trip and fall over a branch?”
He stood in front of me, his brown eyes shifting to a softer shade of gold. “Do you think I’d let you fall?”
I knew he wouldn’t. I trusted him completely. Sighing, I said, “Okay, fine.” Slowly, I closed my eyes.
His warm hand slid into mine and he very carefully led me further. A few steps later, he stopped. “You can open them now.”
I sucked in a deep breath. We were high in the sky, on top of a mountain. A cliff was before me and all around the leaves were turning brilliant colors of red, orange, and yellow. “It’s like one of our dream spots,” I said softly.
Daxton nodded making his sun-kissed hair fall in his eyes. I reached up and brushed a lock back to the side. The corners of his mouth pulled up into my favorite lopsided grin.
“I stumbled upon it and knew you’d love it here.”
Peeking over the edge, I said, “It’s a long way down.”
He laughed. “We’re not going down. We’re staying right here. I have more surprises in store for you.”
He spun me around. A blanket was spread out on the ground beneath a cooler, some lights, and a couple more blankets. I smiled. He sure did know how to win a girl over. “What did I do to deserve all this?”
He put his arms around my waist and pulled me close to him. “You fell in love with me.”
Blushing, I responded, “Wasn’t hard to do.”
Slowly, he leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, “I love you.” His voice sent a tingle through my body, setting it on fire.
I moaned quietly and closed my eyes. His lips were upon mine in a second and we moved together in harmony. I didn’t ever want to let him go. Knowing I’d have to, I gently pulled away. Our eyes met and I swear I saw into his soul. I could see how much he loved me.
“You want me to take you anywhere?” he asked breathless.
“No. I don’t need a dream tonight. This is perfect.”
Daxton was a dreamer. His gift was that he was able to take himself and anybody he was touching to another world or place. We didn’t physically go there. Our minds did. It was a wonderful, beautiful gift that we loved to use. One much different than my gift of pain and death. I was a mind-blower, which meant I could cause pain to anyone in my sight. If pushed far enough I could even cause death. But tonight, I didn’t want to think about our gifts. Tonight, I wanted only to be with Daxton.
As if sensing my thoughts, he pulled me toward the blanket. “Let’s eat then. We don’t have much daylight left.”
He brought me over to the blanket and we sat down. He pulled out sandwiches and fruit, the ultimate picnic meal. “So, how did you happen to stumble upon this?”
He chewed his food and then answered, “Zane needed to talk. So, we went for a walk. Somehow, we ended up pretty far from home and found this place. It reminded me of the cliff in our dreamland. I knew I had to bring you.”
“What did Zane need to talk about?”
Daxton hesitated. “I shouldn’t.”
I gave him my ‘you-better-tell-me’ look. “You know you will.”
He sighed. “He’s just…worried. About Mira. He thinks she’s holding a lot in and he wanted to know what I thought he should do.”
“Oh.” I looked away. My best friend was Zane’s girlfriend. She had been attacked not long ago. Dealing with the ordeal was hard for her. She was so used to being strong and independent. Truth was, I was worried about her too. But, looking out into the horizon, I decided that tonight I needed to let that go and be with Daxton.
I changed the subject. “Did you hear about the ceremony coming up?”
“Yes. I hear they are honoring you.”
I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “They are honoring all of us.” I knew that because I’d insisted. I told them I wouldn’t accept any award unless we all got one. They were giving me an award for saving the school and ultimately the world from demons in last month’s battle. That had been one situation where being a mind-blower had come in pretty handy.
It was nearing sunset. The sky was exploding into different shades of pink and orange. “Wow,” I said under my breath.
“Beautiful huh?”
“Mhmm.”
He held my hand as the sun went down below the horizon. I rested my head in his lap and he stroked my hair.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“How lucky I am.”
He scoffed. “Lucky?”
“To have you. You could have had any girl you wanted and you chose me, even after the way I acted towards you the first day.”
“I believe in fate.”
“Really?”
“We were meant to be together. I knew it the second I laid eyes on you.”
“You did?” I remembered back to that day. I remembered holding his eye for quite a long time. I made him look away first. There was something about him. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was fate that brought us together and love that keeps us that way.
Some awful smell tickled my nose, and I hid my face in my shirt. “What is that?”
Daxton’s nose was crinkled up too. “Smells like…” He took a deep breath.
We both recognized it at the same time. The disgusting smell of sulfur. And outside of the science lab, the only place I had ever smelled it was when demons were near. “Do you think…?”
“Here?”
“What else could it be?”
A branch snapped in the distance, and I sat up. Something was coming. We were on our feet. I couldn’t see anything now that the sun was down. I grabbed his hand and pulled him.
“What are you doing?” he exclaimed.
“Running!”
Leaves and twigs crunched under our feet as we ran through the thick forest. Branches reached out like arms and yanked off strands of my auburn hair. Tears sprung to my eyes, but I knew I had to keep quiet if we were to escape.
“What are we running from?” he asked out of breath.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”
“Can’t you just kill it—whatever it is?”
“Not if I can’t see it!” I yelled panicky. I heard more noises, but I couldn’t see anything. I felt blind and helpless. “C’mon! We’ve gotta get out of here.”
He ran next to me for a few more minutes. My heart was racing and my legs felt like they were going to explode. Daxton was breathing heavily beside me. Something grunted behind us, accompanied by the sound of pounding feet. It was fast, whatever it was. The tall trees were blocking the moonlight, and I couldn’t see a thing. I tripped a couple times.
“Damn.” I stood up and brushed something wet and sticky off my hands. Must be blood, but it was hard to tell in the dark. Pushing the pain out of my mind, I looked around trying to find an escape. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Kill them.”
“How? I can’t see them. I can’t focus. I’m powerless.”
“What if you try? I’ll help you.”
“How are you going to do that? It took a warlock and a shaman to train me.”
The sulfur smell made my stomach churn. The hair on my arms stood straight up. The demons were near. They were being quiet now. That scared me more than when I could hear them chasing us. Clenching my hands into fists, I spun around trying to find them.
Daxton grabbed me and pulled me close. “Let me help you.”
I let out a deep, shaky breath. “Okay.”
He turned me around and stood in back of me, his fingers interlocked with mine and our arms crossed in front of my chest like I was giving myself a hug. “Close your eyes.” I didn’t like closing them when there was danger around, but I did. “Now open your mind.”
“Open it to what?”
“Just…open your mind.”
I sighed and thought about the demons, their horrible smell and their scary eyes. I thought about how much I hated them and how I wanted to kill them all. “This isn’t working,” I muttered.
“Because you’re not letting it,” he said, his voice laced with frustration.
“I’ll try again.” This time I kept my eyes open, and I pictured the demons. I opened my mind and remembered how freaky they were. I thought about the purple swirls that came from my mind when I was focusing, and I tried to draw them out. Okay, swirls, find the demons. Wonderful. Now I was talking to the colors in my head.
The swirls responded. They seemed to erupt from my mind and quickly streamed out into the forest. When the swirls touched a demon, the whole demon lit up a purple color. “Oh!” I gasped.
“You’re seeing something?”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“I can see them now.”
The cat-hound hissed at me with its pointy ears sticking straight up. Its nose crinkled and red eyes glowed through the purple making me shudder.
“What do you see?” Daxton asked.
“Cat-hounds. Lots of them.”
“You know what to do.”
I did. I focused on them, clenching and unclenching my hands over and over again. I let my power take over, starting from the innermost part of me until I couldn’t hold it in anymore. It poured out of my mind, commanding the demons to die. They screeched and flopped to the ground. Then they melted into the earth. I stood absolutely still for a minute, listening for more. The woods were quiet, and I didn’t hear anything else.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked.
“Um…no.”
Great. I had led us too far, and we were lost. Daxton took out his phone and tried to get a signal. He shook his head. I tried mine with the same result. “What are we going to do?”
“Ever been camping?” he asked.
“If you consider trekking across the country with Vala camping, then yes.”
He snickered. “I’m sure that was fun.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tons.”
He sat down on the ground and opened his arms. I snuggled into them. The night had brought on a chill. My thin shirt wasn’t going to cut it. I shivered.
Daxton wrapped his arms around me tighter. “I’ll keep you warm.” He put his finger on my chin and lifted it up. Our noses touched, and I could feel his breath on my lips. Gently, he brushed my lips with his. The soft kiss quickly became more intense, and I found myself heating up.
Pulling away, Daxton asked, “Is that better?”
“Mhmm.” I smiled lovingly.
He stroked my hair until I fell asleep in his arms.
* * *
A few hours later, a snort woke me up. Standing in front of us was a black demon bull with narrow red eyes. The stench coming from him was overwhelming. When our eyes met, chills ran through me. Silently, I squeezed Daxton’s hand. I felt him tense behind me.
I concentrated on the demon, and he let out a terrifying sound. My power rose again and I released it at him. Before I could finish him off, something cold and bony grabbed my wrist. My head snapped to the side and I gasped when I saw little demons all around us. “They’re everywhere,” I whispered, kicking one away from my foot. He was fast and came right back, digging his teeth into my leg. I yelled out as the sharp pain shot up my calf.
Daxton quietly reached down to where he kept his dagger. “Kill the big one. I’ll take care of the one biting you.”
I looked back at the demon bull. He was standing up straight again and getting ready to charge. I knew I only had seconds. And that was all I needed. I focused and my body started to shake as the power took over again. Die! Two seconds later he was on the ground, this time for good.
I turned to see Daxton shoving the dagger into the demon that was chewing on my skin. He flung backwards and melted into the ground. The other little demons around him started chattering. Even though I couldn’t understand their language, I knew they were angry.
Focusing on the demons, I let my power rise once again, and took them down. “Where are they coming from?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We need to get out of here.”
“I know.”
I squinted into the darkness as a soft glowing light appeared up ahead. I couldn’t look away from the warm, calming, light blue glow. The hazy ball seemed to be pulsing. Somehow, I knew it was nothing to be afraid of.
“What is that?”
When he didn’t answer, I looked back at him. He was staring at the light, too.
It grew brighter and floated closer until it was within arms’ reach. Then the light morphed into a beautiful faery with translucent wings fluttering quickly. She had long brown hair, which reached halfway down her back and big, green eyes. “I’m Laurel. Noe sent me.”
“Noe?”
“Yes. She said you were lost.”
Oh that Noe. I could have just kissed her. Noe was a predictor. She could see the future. She had trouble seeing things when demons were involved, but she must have been able to see us getting lost. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiled. “Now, let’s get you out of here.”
Nodding, I stood up. “Ow!” I yelled and fell back to the ground. I had forgotten the demons had chewed off a piece of my leg for dinner.
“What’s wrong?” Daxton asked.
Laurel turned back around and flew closer. I pulled up my pant leg a little higher exposing the nasty wound.
“Demon bite?” Laurel asked.
“Yes.”
She put her tiny hand in her pocket and pulled out a vial. “I have some faery salve. It’ll help.” I knew it would help. I had used it many times when demons had gotten a hold of me. I could hardly feel her touch as she smeared the salve over the wounds. “There. Give it a few minutes, and you should be able to walk on it.”
She flew a circle around us. I assumed she needed to make sure the area was still demon free. My leg started tingling. I leaned on Daxton and stood up again. Very carefully, I put pressure on my leg. It felt a little weird, but it wasn’t painful. “I think I’m ready now.”
“Follow me,” Laurel said, her bell-like voice sounding urgent.
Her glow brightened again, and she flew ahead of us. We followed. By the time we got back to the car a couple of hours later, the dark sky had started to turn to a lighter shade of blue.
Laurel turned to us. “Here you are.”
“Thank you so much Laurel.” I smiled at her.
“Yes, thank you,” Daxton added.
“You’re very welcome. I’m glad I could help, child of the angels.” Our eyes met and she smiled back. Then she flew away.
Daxton laughed. “Child of the angels, huh?”
“It has a nice ring to it.”
“How’s your leg?”
“It’ll be fine. Are you okay?” I realized I hadn’t asked him if he had gotten hurt.
I lifted up his shirt and examined his back and chest before he could even answer. He laughed. “I’m okay. I guess you’re tastier than I am.”
I smiled and threw my arms around him. “I love you.” I pulled him closer and kissed him.
A shudder ran down my back. It felt like we were being watched. “Let’s go home.”
We hurried into the safety of the car, but as we pulled away, I could see a pair of red eyes in a bush. I knew they were always watching…waiting for their chance to get us.
* * *
“The Gifted Teens” Series by Talia Jager
Book One: The Ultimate Sacrifice
Book Two due to be released at the end of 2011
Talia Jager spends most of her time writing in the bathroom with a steady supply of chocolate, counting the days until her hormonal teenage daughter leaves for college…
http://taliajager.blogspot.com/
The Village of Those Who Touch the Dead
M. Edward McNally
Yu Pao Long was not much of a horseman. He was a man of back alleys and twisting lanes, and so had never had much cause to climb up on an animal’s back. It felt unnatural, but thankfully the spare horse brought by the village boy proved a docile beast. The boy led the way on a pony and the horse followed without Yu Pao having to convince it to do so.
They passed beneath the great Jade Gate of Tsheh and out of the port city to the desolate countryside stretching south. Polished brass cannons on the ramparts behind them pointed the way, but the guns were only ornamental. No invader would ever approach the city from the south, for the terrain there was unsuitable for an army. Centuries ago the lowlands had been drained, and a wide stone road on arches had been built by some Duke or Prefect who wished both a monument to his own practicality, and employment for the people of the city. In time the area around the sublime bridge had become a fashionable place for the wealthy of Tsheh to raise funerary monuments to both their ancestral and newly dead, and a vast network of graveyards and gardens came to fill the lowlands. It had been a beautiful place of tranquility and repose, as Yu Pao understood it, but such things never last.
A generation ago a typhoon off the bay had breached the coastal berms and dykes, inundating the lowlands and leaving the grand stone road as a muddy causeway that bisected what was now a shallow, dismal swamp. Twisting trees and stone memorials to the long-since dead stretched to the horizon. The taller monuments jutting above the brackish water were choked with vines and creepers that seemed to be trying to strangle the stone, with the patience of eons.
The place was not pleasant and it had an evil reputation, so while the causeway still rose above the morass few people cared to use it after dark. There was heavy traffic even in the late morning, and the two riders moved around groaning wagons bound for the great port that acted as a magnet for the produce of the whole province. The sun was bright but the autumn day cold, and while the brambly swamp to either side did not look quite so miserable by daylight, Yu Pao’s mood as he rode in silence remained dark.
They were not going far. After only three miles the ground rose as the area of the flood was behind them. A cluster of inns and freight yards lined dry ground by the road, but the boy on the pony led Yu Pao around them and up a modest hill along a well-worn path. A small village was nestled just beyond the rise, facing out over the swamps and the obscured monuments. When the necropolis had enjoyed its time of fashion, this village and its people had enacted the funerary rites observed there. They were made to do so well outside of Tsheh’s walls, for the mortuary profession was among the most Unclean of callings. Though that time was over and the village of today was little different than any other around the port, it still retained an old name in the rustic dialect of the peasants. They called it the Village of Those Who Touch the Dead.
The center of the village was made up of old stone buildings that had once been workshops—of a kind—or crematoriums. All were now homes. Around them in a circle stretched ruder hovels, and the boy on his pony led Yu Pao to one on the northern outskirts, with the swamps immediately below at the back end of the hill. Yu Pao had never seen the cottage, but he knew it from Jing-Sheng’s fond description: Humble but scrupulously maintained with a swept walk and bright red shutters under the sweeping eaves of old, mismatched tiles. The village was largely empty with the peasants out in the fields, but a cluster of old men waited by the front walk, keeping their distance from the dark, open door.
The boy dismounted first and held the horse’s bridle. Yu Pao swung out of the saddle, long hair in a top-knot swishing across the iron-shod tetsubo club strapped to his back. The weapon, along with his crisp civilian clothes, was enough to identify the man from Tsheh to the old villagers. They knew what he was, and they gave polite bows.
Yu Pao ignored them for now as he marched down the path to the front door, and inside. The place was small, having only two rooms, and the door allowed in just enough light to hint at a clean kitchen of modest furnishings, countertops and an old plank table. The second room was separated by a painted screen before the doorway, and the smell made Yu Pao jerk his head even as he entered.
The back shutters were open, allowing in light and more than a few fat, black flies from the swamp below. The room was a sleeping chamber with mats on the floor, and Jing-Sheng was sprawled across the larger of the two. Yu Pao knew him mostly by the intricate tattoos from his left wrist to elbow: Images of choppy waves, a sea dragon, square coins with hollow centers. Jing-Sheng’s face was mauled, the blood already congealed in his long hair on the floor around his head like a dark corona. His abdomen was dug out like a half-made canoe, and the flies trundled busily about on exposed entrails.
Yu Pao looked down at his old friend and Clan brother only briefly before spreading a blanket over the remains. Flies trapped under it buzzed angrily. He turned away and marched back outside.
The boy with the horses and the village elders had found somewhere else to be. One man waited in the packed-dirt street, leaning on a staff. His face was so wizened it seemed to be shriveling into itself beneath a sparse beard of long gray and black hairs intermixed. The shapeless old robes draping him may have started as white long ago, but they were now a grimy yellow. One eye was milky and sightless, the other was sharp and steel gray. It was that one he focused on Yu Pao before bowing.
“Gentleman of the city,” the old man said.
Yu Pao had no interest in pleasantries. “What happened here?” he demanded, hands in fists at his sides. Besides his tetsubo, Yu Pao wore a long tantu dagger in a sheath on his hip. The shorter blade of a throwing uchni-ne rode within his right sleeve.
The old man straightened as much as he was able and got quickly to the point.
“None know for certain. The woman Baojia awoke and found your friend as you see him now. She has no memory of anything that happened in the night.”
“That seems unlikely,” Yu Pao said, voice as ever polite, but unmistakably hard. “It would not have been quiet.”
“No,” the old man agreed. He had plainly seen Jing-Sheng’s body, the lower ribs snapped and wrenched open. “Yet what happened in that room may have occurred without the woman knowing, for she may not have been there. Not as herself.”
Yu Pao looked more carefully at the old man’s robes: Voluminous and of a cut that had once been in style, long ago. The feet poking from beneath the hem were in worn cloth shoes with pointed toes.
“You are no sort of mayor of this village,” Yu Pao said, and the old fellow shook his head once.
“I am not. My name is Da-An, and for a time I was court wujen in the Emperor’s service.”
“A wizard,” Yu Pao said, though without much enthusiasm. As a native of the cosmopolitan city of Tsheh he was not burdened by any superstitions regarding the practitioners of magic. He did, however, know that their craft was often about as reliable as a wet matchlock pistol. Yu Pao was a man who appreciated the sureness of a tempered steel blade.
“So I was,” Da-An said. “And though it has been many years now since I walked that path, I still know the shadow left behind by the visit of a dark spirit.” The man’s single eye focused on Yu Pao’s. “It is something that is easier to show, than it is to tell.”
* * *
The woman awaited them at a neighboring house some distance from her own. The mistress of that place was in her yard with a pack of small children running around her, one of whom stopped playing and met Yu Pao’s eyes. He was a small boy whose face was familiar enough that he must have been Baojia’s young brother.
Baojia herself sat inside at a kitchen table, though she stood as Yu Pao entered. Her eyes were red from weeping and they widened as she saw him, for they had met several times when she had visited Jing-Sheng in the city.
“Mr. Yu Pao Long.” she said formally and began to bow, but Yu Pao stopped her with a gesture.
“Do not concern yourself with that, Jia,” he said familiarly. “This is a time for condolence, not manners.”
The woman met his eyes. She was indeed very pretty, for Jing-Sheng had loved pretty things. Peasant or not, the young woman had the look of health and cleanliness, accentuated now as she had plainly just bathed. Whatever had or had not happened in her sleeping chamber over the night, it was likely she had awakened soiled by her lover’s disembowelment.
“I am so sorry, Yu Pao,” she said. “I have no idea, cannot imagine…this thing is unspeakable.”
“For us both, I am sure,” Yu Pao agreed.
Da-An had entered behind him and moved quietly to one side, across the table from Baojia. The woman gave the shriveled old man an uneasy look. He held a small, flat object wrapped in cloth before him, little bigger than a deck of painted cards.
“You understand what Da-An believes has happened?” Yu Pao asked, and Baojia nodded, glancing from him to whatever it was the wujen held, and back.
“Yes, but I do not believe I could…”
“Jia,” Yu Pao said, catching and holding her dark eyes with his. “Two weeks ago, after we all attended the spectacle at the Imperial Theatre, you chose to return here alone, after dark.”
“My brother was sick,” Baojia said. “And you and Jing-Sheng had to…work.”
Yu Pao nodded. “Da-An says you returned to the village only at daylight, and in a disheveled condition. With no memory of the journey home.”
“Were you marked?” Da-An asked, and Yu Pao saw that Baojia would not be a good bluffer at a game of dice or cards, for she was all tells. Her head snapped toward the old man and she blinked rapidly, one hand rising toward her own breast before she lowered it back to her side and gripped the material of her coarse robe.
“I…I was…”
“Bitten,” Da-An said, and the woman gave a nod that was almost a spasm.
Yu Pao met the wujen’s eyes and nodded. He looked around, picked up a dry cloth from a counter, and swiftly twirled it into a band. Baojia blinked at him with her slashing eyebrows high.
“Da-An believes, if things are as he thinks, that there will be a shadow upon you,” Yu Pao said gently. “Something that can be seen, but only by others. It is necessary that you are blindfolded, though only for a moment.”
Da-An set his object on the table and carefully unwrapped the cloth. There was a woman’s hand mirror within: An expensive thing of clear, unblemished glass, wrought around in silver scrollwork. Baojia looked from it to the blindfold in Yu Pao’s hands and seemed as alarmed by the one as the other. He mouth moved without speaking, and Yu Pao said her name again.
“Baojia. I am the friend and Clan brother of Jing-Sheng, who cared for you greatly. I vow that you need not fear me. I am here to help, as my brother would want.”
Baojia stared at Yu Pao, blinking more and more as it seemed her eyes might fill with tears. Da-An had begun to mutter, moving one hand with crooked fingers above the mirror on the table. Yu Pao held up the blindfold, and after a moment Baojia took it in trembling hands. She tied it across her own eyes while her hands continued to shake.
Da-An fell silent and held up the mirror with only his fingertips on the silver edges, as far as possible from the glass. Yu Pao took Baojia gently by the shoulders, and turned her to face across the table. He looked at her reflection in the mirror.
It was still her. Though instead of the blush of health and youth, her face was gray and waxy, cheeks hollow and her fine nose now wide, with flaring nostrils. But the main difference was her mouth. It stretched twice its real length in the glass, almost reaching her jaw bone. It was a line of sharp, snaggled shark teeth: So many that it seemed they must be locked together to hold her mouth closed. But they moved, rasping together like steel as she spoke.
“Can you see anything?” Baojia asked. Yu Pao focused all his will to not dig his fingers into her narrow shoulders.
“A shadow,” he said, and nodded for Da-An to lower the mirror before he removed the blindfold.
* * *
The rest of the afternoon was busy. Yu Pao spoke at length with Da-An, saw to it with the village elders that Jing-Sheng’s remains would be handled, then returned on the borrowed horse to Tsheh. He spoke to the chief councilor of the Clan, a man he called “Uncle,” and obtained certain permissions. Then he went to the Concordant Market by the south docks, and there found Qiao Lan—working. She was tasked this day to oversee the merchants, ensuring that those who were paying protection to the Clan were not robbed, while others were. Yu Pao bought her dinner from a cart with a great steaming vat of noodles on top, and they ate from wooden bowls while standing in the busy market square, adroitly handling chopsticks and slurping loudly as was the custom. Both stopped eating for a time, Yu Pao explaining the plan while Qiao Lan stared at him, aghast.
“With the eye of the buso that infected her,” Yu Pao concluded, using the common name for a dark spirit, “the wizard says he can fashion a cure for the disease. An untreated person will become buso themselves in a matter of weeks.”
“So what?” Qiao asked. “That is beyond your duty here, Yu Pao. Our Clan brother is dead, the debt we owe is upon the one who killed him. All obligations will be paid. There are no exceptions.”
“There are not,” Yu Pao agreed. “But the woman was only a weapon cast by the buso. I have spoken to Uncle, and it has been agreed. The thing we do will be to the honor of the Clan.”
Qiao rolled her eyes. Her face was rather plain apart from a full mouth that was distractingly expressive.
“Why is it that ‘honor’ only gets involved when I am to be used as bait?” she asked, frowning sharply. She eyed Yu Pao and paused to inhale one more noodle. “And why come to me? Surely any of our brothers and sisters would be willing to do this thing, since it is so very honorable.”
“Because I am, as ever, confident in your abilities, Skillful Orchid,” Yu Pao said, and she smirked at him. “Also, you owe me.”
Qiao blinked and pursed her lips. “How do you figure?”
Yu Pao looked to either side. Evening was drawing near, but some mothers with children were still buying dinner at the food carts on their way home. They gave Yu Pao and Qiao Lan a wide berth, for the club across the man’s back and the pistols at the woman’s hips left little doubt what the pair of them were, and no one wanted to jostle a yakuza. Still, Yu Pao leaned in closer to Qiao and spoke quietly.
“I ‘figure,’ because while I performed certain services for you, of a sexual nature, they were not reciprocated before you had moved on.”
Qiao blinked again, though her mouth flickered in a smile.
“Oh. Right. I had plain forgotten that.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Qiao snorted and chuckled. She had a throaty laugh that was not very ladylike, but could also be quite distracting.
“Fine then, for honor and obligation. When do you mean to do this?”
“Tonight.”
Qiao tilted her head. “What, like now?”
“I’m sure you had other plans when your shift ends,” Yu Pao said, “but bring him along. We’ll need a third. Who would it be these days, anyway?”
“Hao Gao.”
Yu Pao raised his own eyebrows. “The dumb bumpkin from the north?”
Qiao pursed her lips again, apparently considering the defense of her present beau, but finally gave a shrug.
“That’s the one.”
* * *
Hao Gao’s name meant Good and Handsome, and it was annoying to Yu Pao as it suited the young man. He was tall and well-assembled in face and form; his silhouette in the moonlight looming above Yu Pao’s as the two men walked slowly down the causeway road. The northerner’s straight back was unbowed by the heavy musket on a sling. Far ahead of them, a single spot of light shone where Qiao Lan was walking alone.
Hao said nothing for a long time, until the trio separated by distance had walked perhaps half the length of the causeway connecting the city to the village. To either side, the aspect of the swampy graveyard was entirely different under the night sky. The clouds above were patchy, and as they moved across the landscape of black trees and silvery stone, the shafts seemed to flicker and beckon like signals. Or warnings.
“Mr. Long,” Hao Gao said, formally as Yu Pao ranked him within the Clan. The boy would have only a single band of tattoos on his wrist at this point. Yu Pao made no answer as he watched the bobbing lantern light out ahead of them intently. It was swaying quite a bit, which would mean Qiao was walking with a pronounced and fetching roll to her hips. Probably not necessary in these circumstances, but surely habit whenever she operated as bait.
“I feel as though I should say something,” Hao Gao said. “I am not ignorant of your previous relationship with Qiao Lan, and feel it should be…in some way acknowledged.”
“Nothing to acknowledge,” Yu Pao said. “The Orchid found my love-making too…piercing and world-shaking. It is a burden I bear.”
Hao Gao stopped walking for a stride; Yu Pao knew because they were carrying a limp fishing net between them and he felt the tug. He sighed and looked back at the tall fellow’s shape in the dark.
“You have the woman, Hao Gao. Why not leave me with that?”
Hao paused another moment before saying, “Fair enough.” He resumed walking, and Yu Pao thought the young man from the north country was perhaps not as dense as he often seemed.
They were well beyond the halfway point when the light ahead stopped, as did the men. Yu Pao gave Hao a push on the shoulder and the two moved apart, raising and stretching the net between them. Yu Pao narrowed his eyes though he could see nothing but the unmoving light in the distance, for a larger mass of drifting clouds had blotted out the moon and stars. Hao started to speak but Yu Pao hissed for silence.
The light ahead dropped to the ground, the wick within the lantern sputtering, and Hao gave a cry.
“It is fine,” Yu Pao whispered. “She dropped it to run. Lower the net.”
Hao did so along with Yu Pao, lowering the weighted casting lines to the stone surface of the road so that Qiao could run across it as she fled toward the men, and they could stand to snare what chased her. It was a simple plan, which Hao threatened to unravel immediately.
“She’ll never make it back this far.”
“Shut up. Yes she will.”
“You…you can’t know that for sure…”
“Trust her. She’s not shy, she would be screaming by now were there trouble.”
The net was pulling in Yu Pao’s hands as Hao inched forward. Yu Pao hissed and gave it a sharp tug, then fell over on his back as Hao released his end. The young man shouted Qiao’s name, and raced toward her in the dark.
“Terrible taste in men,” Yu Pao muttered, scrambling to his own feet and leaving the now useless net lying in the road as he ran after the tall dullard, whipping his tetsubo from his back.
What happened in the dark was totally predictable. Qiao and Hao Gao collided at a sprint with a grunt and an irate profanity. Yu Pao could only dimly make out the thrashing tangle of them as he stepped around it, holding his club out in front and snarling “Light something!” The blackness ahead of him was profound, though he thought he could hear nails rasping across stone.
“Give me a flint!” Qiao’s voice demanded.
“I, I don’t have one…” Hao Gao mumbled thickly, sounding half-stunned. Qiao swore again.
“It is a good thing you are pretty,” she snarled, then rose behind Yu Pao and fired a pistol in the air.
She was holding the oil-soaked head of a torch to the breech of the wheel-lock. In the flash of the spark, Yu Pao saw something gray and humanoid scrambling toward him on all fours, and he lunged to meet it, swinging his club. The torch bloomed into life and he saw more detail. The buso was a naked thing of gray flesh pulled tight around sharp bones, with a now-familiar gaping mouth of shark teeth in rows, set beneath a single, red eye in the center of its horned skull. Yu Pao swung low for its knee, thinking to cripple it, but as the creature was loping on all fours the iron-shod tetsubo crashed into its left elbow.
Bone snapped and the buso emitted a hissing roar but it pressed on, shoulder driving into Yu Pao’s side and spinning him to the ground as though he had been clipped by a passing wagon. The thing sprang at Qiao Lan, holding her torch aloft, and she whipped the creature across the face with her spent pistol even as it plowed into her. It tried to seize her but the arm Yu Pao had hit flopped useless and only one clawed hand of filth-encrusted nails snagged her tunic. Qiao shook loose of the garment and it tore the rest of the way off of her, revealing a thick vest of heavy leather from which three charged pistols still hung. Her arms were bare and the left was tattooed from wrist to shoulder, and as Yu Pao knew from fond experience, more than halfway across her back.
The buso rolled across paving stones, scrambling up to face the trio of yakuza again. Yu Pao got to his feet and dropped his club in preference of his uchi-ne, sliding the blade into his right hand from the sleeve of his coat. Qiao dropped the spent gun and drew another, but before he could throw or she could shoot, Hao Gao stood up in front of both of them.
“Get down!” Yu Pao and Qiao shouted together, but before either could have added “Jinx!” the buso sprang on its sinewy legs and crashed into Hao Gao as he struggled to shake his musket free from the shoulder sling. The big man reeled back, jerking his head away as the toothy maw snapped in front of his face and the red eye gleamed. Filthy nails tore bloody gouges down his thighs through heavy trousers as Hao Gao screamed and flailed, musket swinging loose from one arm. The stock of the long gun whipped through the air, and hit Qiao in the ear.
Her eyes fluttered and she sat down hard in the road, torch falling to the pavement. Yu Pao let the mass that was the creature raking and snapping at Hao Gao stagger past him, then stepped behind it and drove his uchi-ne hard into the buso’s armpit.
The thing made its hissing roar and sprang away, scampering across the road even as Hao Gao finally fell to the ground. It took Yu Pao’s blade with it and the cord connecting the hilt to a loop around his wrist played out, for an uchi-ne was meant to be drawn back in, if a throw missed. Thinking the blade would pull free Yu Pao dove for Hao Gao’s musket, but as the buso reached the edge of the circle of torchlight, just at the edge of the causeway itself, the creature grabbed the cord with its good hand even as it dove off the side.
Yu Pao widened his eyes and was yanked forward off his feet, knees and elbows bashing stone and his right arm shooting forward as all the creature’s plummeting weight pulled at the cord. He slid roughly after it, drawing his tantu dagger to slash the cord, but did not have time before his chin banged the curb. The world behind Yu Pao’s eyes went white and star-filled, and he seemed to be falling through space. He heard but did not really feel the splash.
The water of the swamp was awful, slicked-over with algae and tasting of corruption. It was however enough to shock Yu Pao back into the world and he jerked and spat as he sat and then stood in it, the cord to his wrist now slack. The water was only to his knees but the night was again wholly black down below the causeway bridge. There was tall stone beside him and Yu Pao put his back to it, though he did not know if it was a stanchion or a grave.
“Yu Pao?” Qiao’s voice called above him, and when he answered, “Alive,” the guttural hissing came from only a few feet in front of him.
Clouds passed by the moon. The gray light shown down on an alleyway of monuments, the names on the graves long-since scoured away by the brackish water. Yu Pao had his back to one as did the buso facing him, shattered arm hanging limp and black blood staining its side. The red eye burned and row upon row of teeth were revealed as the thing’s whole face seemed to split in a leer.
Club up on the road, two blades lost in the water somewhere. Yu Pao had nothing in his hands but his hands, and the soulless thing leapt at him.
* * *
Baojia underwent no change that night, but not surprisingly she could not sleep. She had been sealed inside her home by her friends and neighbors, shutters and doors all nailed shut, and the little house was hot and cloying. She sat in a chair in the dark kitchen, for though she had scrubbed the sleeping chamber all day after Jing-Sheng had been removed, with the windows shut the lingering smell was trapped inside with her.
Long after midnight there was a knock on the door that made Baojia jerk, then cringe away. The knocking was repeated, and her name was softly called. Baojia crept to the door and put a hand flat against the wood, answering in a whisper.
“Yu Pao?”
“Yes.”
There was the whine of iron and wood as Yu Pao used a bar to pry the nails from the doorjamb. Baojia felt her way familiarly around her own kitchen and had the lamp lit on the table by the time the door opened, and Yu Pao limped in.
His face was scratched, clothes filthy, but he seemed otherwise well. He bowed to Baojia formally.
“It is done. The buso is slain. My friends have taken its remains to the wujen.”
“Da-An, he can…he can make a cure?”
“He claims so, yes.”
Baojia stared at the man, at Jing-Sheng’s good friend, and felt the deep grief she had walked with all day erupt within her. She sobbed, hard, and threw her arms around the yakuza.
“I am so sorry, I am, I wish…I wish I had been killed by the monster, rather than this. It is not fair…”
“Very little ever is,” Yu Pao said, wincing for his aching body. Baojia noticed and released him, drawing back.
“I am sorry, you are injured…”
“Trifles,” he said. “I have had worse and surely shall again.” He looked at her tear-tracked face in the lamplight. “You need rest, Jia. Have you slept at all?”
Baojia shook her head. “I cannot. I do not know where I go when I sleep.”
“That will be remedied soon,” Yu Pao promised. “At least sit down, and let me open your windows. The air in here is…unwell.”
Baojia nodded, and allowed Yu Pao to settle her down on a chair. The man limped back to the open doorway, where he had left the heavy iron pry bar leaning.
“You are far too kind to me, Yu Pao Long,” she said. He took up the bar.
“Nothing that has happened here is your fault, Baojia. You are a good woman and a good person. A good sister to your brother, and a friend to my friend. The obligation is on me.”
Baojia did not fully understand that, but she nodded anyway as Yu Pao stepped behind her.
* * *
The tall yakuza with bloody bandages wrapped around his legs deposited the basket on Da-An’s table, and lifted the lid. The old man stared down at the terrible visage of the buso: A nightmarish thing if ever he had seen one, no less fearsome in death than it had been in the quasi-life of the dark spirit world. A black bullet wound was blasted in its forehead, just above the intact red eye.
“Good shot,” the wujen said.
“Yes it was,” the woman with the brace of pistols strapped to her chest agreed. “You say your potion will keep?”
Da-An nodded, though a trifle sadly. He looked down at the eye and sighed. The woman spoke curtly.
“Then make it, and save it should something so terrible ever happen here again.”
The yakuzas moved for the door, and Da-An looked after them.
“It is not too late,” he said. “I can still cure the woman. Her role in this was none of her doing. The cause of your Clan brother’s death is dead in this basket.”
Hao Gao and Qiao Lan stopped, the tall fellow looking at the woman almost hopefully. Her gaze was steely in return. Hao Gao sighed, and spoke the mantra of the yakuza before the two of them returned to the darkness of the night.
“All obligations will be paid. There are no exceptions.”
* * *
Thanks for reading. The preceding story is set within the world of the Norothian Cycle (by M. Edward McNally) a Musket & Magic fantasy series in which Yu Pao Long is a player.
The Sable City (Book I)
Death of a Kingdom (Book II)
The Wind from Miilark (Book III), Coming Soon
Ed McNally is unable to produce a brief bio at this time as he has been treed by a marauding pack of javelinas in the Sonoran Desert.
http://sablecity.wordpress.com/
Haunting in OR 13
Alan Nayes
The hospital corridor buzzed with activity. People wearing white lab coats dashed down the halls in both directions. Some sported Halloween regalia—Obama, Spiderman, and Wolfman zipped by. Above all the commotion, the intercom blared out loudly.
“Dr. Wilkens. Extension 2-0-1-6 stat…2-0-1-6 stat.”
Sara McCaffe blinked her pale blue eyes before looking briefly at the speaker overhead. Hmm…2016, she thought to herself. Medicine intensive care. Not her idea of fun.
While spending what seemed an eternity on the medicine service, she had grown to hate those stat pages. All of them emergencies. She was ready for a change. As a junior med student at California Medical College, she was looking forward to her next rotation—surgery. All her life she’d dreamed of being a surgeon. Now she’d get her chance. She couldn’t blow it.
Ignoring the throbbing in her head, Sara rushed down the crowded hallway, brushing by a fourth-year student in a beat-up Tiger Woods’ mask. Like her, he was in a hurry. The constant pressure was enough to drive a sane person mad. After what happened last year around this time during the surgery rotation—a student in the class ahead of her had cracked under the strain, and rumors were he’d been institutionalized—she vowed no amount of stress would ever cause her to buckle. No way.
“There,” she mumbled, staring toward the end of the corridor. A faded sign read McDermitt Building. Sara paused for a moment. It’d been two and a half years since she’d been in McDermitt building. Seemed like ages ago. Recalling what her instructor had told her, the surgery greens were kept in the basement.
Pushing the blonde bangs from her oval face, Sara walked to the entrance and shoved the dark gray door open. She ducked past a fake spider web. What was it with these people? Didn’t they realize Halloween was one big joke? Ghosts and goblins and witches and hauntings—great for kids, but not for someone serious about a career. Who really believed in that shit anyway? Not her.
She looked to her right. A flight of stairs led up to the second floor. From there it was a short walk to the operating rooms. To her left, a short ramp led down to a second door into the basement.
Descending toward her left, Sara could hear her breathing echo lightly off the narrow enclosed corridor walls. Shivering slightly, she didn’t remember it being so cold and damp in McDermitt Building. Folding both hands up under her arms, Sara neared the heavy metal door leading down below. Unexpectedly, it swung open, barely giving her enough time to step aside.
“Oh, didn’t mean to startle you.” Two women in green surgery scrubs stood in the doorway.
“No problem,” Sara lied, taking in a deep breath. Leaning against the wall, she gave the two scrub nurses some room to pass. “I’m a third-year med student. I was told to pick up my surgical greens down here.”
“Happy Halloween,” the plumper one wished.
“Halloween’s tomorrow,” Sarah corrected her. She would never understand all the fanfare associated with the day of werewolves and zombies.
“Okay,” the plump nurse replied, rolling her eyes at her skinny companion. “Oh, the greens. Keep going ’til you pass a large laundry chute. Across from the chute you’ll see a rust-colored door with disposal written on it. Just around the corner from that door they’ll be some shelves. Just pick out the size that fits,” she finished, resting her hands on her broad hips.
“Don’t I need to check them out or something?” Sarah asked.
“Na, there’s no one down there.”
“And only take what you need,” the thin nurse piped in. “If you students continue to walk off with the surgery outfits, there won’t be enough for us nurses.”
“Right,” Sara nodded, feigning concern.
Before Sara could leave, though, the plump nurse asked, “When’s your first surgery?”
“Early tomorrow morning. Supposed to be scrubbed and ready by 6:30.” Sara took a step toward the basement door.
“Where?”
“OR 13.”
“Operating Room 13?” The two nurses exchanged quizzical glances.
“Na, can’t be right,” the heavier one said. “Been no surgery in OR 13 for a long time now. How long you think, Bess?”
“Not for well…fifteen years. Who told you OR 13 anyway?” The thin one peered at Sara.
“My clinical coordinator. She gave me the schedule.”
The skinny nurse continued. “You relook your schedule, hun. Must be a typo. There’s been no surgery in OR 13 since the accident.”
“What?” Sara’s eyes widened.
“Very unfortunate. All five of ’em—just incinerated.”
“Come on, Bess,” the large nurse interrupted. “Quit making such a big deal about it to the new student. She’s gonna have enough on her mind with clamps and sutures.” Then looking back to Sara, “Hun, pick up your scrubs and don’t pay no attention to what ol’ Bess says.”
Sara watched as they began to leave.
Suddenly the plump one stopped. “Bess is right about one thing, though. Check and make sure you got the right operating room number.” Turning, the two nurses headed up the ramp out of McDermitt Building.
“You bet,” Sara nodded after them, wondering if they were just feeding her some hospital hearsay. Scrub nurses; they were probably trying to get her riled before her first case tomorrow. As if they were thinking it being Halloween wasn’t enough. Well, it didn’t work. Frowning, Sara started into the basement.
A stack of soiled surgical linen piled on the concrete floor marked the laundry chute. Most of the clothes were stained various shades of red.
Opposite the chute, she noted the door marked disposal. Now just around the corner.
“Shit,” she mumbled, clutching her knapsack tightly against one side, as a sudden metallic clang from the disposal chute caught her off guard. With her heart racing, she spun around and faced the origin of the absurd noise. A split second later, she sighed in relief. A new batch of dirty scrubs lay scattered below the chute opening.
Chuckling to herself, Sara returned to the business at hand—picking out her surgical greens and then getting back up to civilization. She didn’t like being alone in the basement.
Rounding the corner, Sara located the line of shelves. On the opposite wall, directly across from the uppermost stack of clothes, some jokester had taped a large cardboard skull. Real amusing. Grow up people.
She walked over to the uniforms and began to search. As the nurses had hinted earlier, the selection was not great. After several minutes she located what she was looking for, a medium top and a small pair of bottoms.
Stuffing the set of scrubs in her knapsack, Sara turned to leave. Around the corner she heard another load of dirty surgical scrubs hit the floor. This time, though, she reacted calmly, until the sudden wave of foul stench caused her to gag.
“Damn,” she grimaced looking about. Instinctively she began to breathe through her mouth. “What in the hell is that?”
Twisting around, she looked further down the hall leading past the scrub shelves. She wasn’t sure, but she thought it led to the freshman anatomy lab stairwell. However, this smell wasn’t of formaldehyde and cadavers. It resembled more the fetidness of decaying flesh.
Sara held her breath to avoid further gagging and started back toward the basement exit. Suddenly she stopped—dead in her tracks. The sight before her forced a breath as she gasped in surprise.
A tall emaciated figure dressed in poorly fitting faded green surgical scrubs stood silently about twenty feet in front of her. The man remained motionless in the passageway beside the stacks of dirty linen. In addition to the green scrubs, the silent figure wore an old frayed surgical mask covering his entire face except the eyes. Under one arm, he lugged an orange plastic pumpkin. It looked plastic anyway, though parts of it appeared to have been melted. And his eyes—something about the eyes.
Sara stepped back several paces. Her initial irritation turned to fear. The stranger’s eyes never blinked. She watched, trying to control her breathing. The dull, staring eyes didn’t waver; instead they remained fixed on her now perspiring face. She quivered slightly as a dribble of sweat slid down her neck. What the hell did this creep want? A fucking candle for his ugly melted pumpkin.
“Excuse me…Miss.” The emotionless voice caused Sara to jump. “I…just… needed…some…extra… surgical…gowns. Got…a…special…case… on…Halloween.”
Sara remained silent. Who the fuck was this clown? At the sound of his voice, though, her fear lessened somewhat. Stepping closer, she saw he also had on a thin blue hair net, the kind worn by personnel working around the operating rooms. Sara stood quietly while she watched him bend over, set the pumpkin down, and seize several scrubs from the basement floor. After a few seconds, she decided this stranger meant her no harm. Probably just a prankster.
Hesitating at first, Sara spoke. “Ah…I’m one of the surgery students. I’m supposed to start tomorrow—just down here getting my scrubs.”
Sara waited for a response. There was none.
She cleared her throat. God, she had to get out of here. “What’s that terrible smell?” she asked in exasperation.
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