Chapter 20
Meera
The ghoul did not stand a chance.
The SUV lurched as we hit it, and I clutched the seat, bracing myself as the impact sent a shudder through the frame.
The ghoul’s body exploded against the hood, its rotting innards splattering across the passenger side.
Black ichor sprayed across the window, thick and glistening, dripping down the glass in slow, viscous streaks.
I gagged, pressing a hand over my mouth.
I’d heard all about ghouls on the news, and I had no qualms running one over. They were basically undead summoned from another dimension to do the summoner’s bidding. Though sometimes, they ended up attacking the fool, bringing them over instead.
These ghouls were even more rotten than the ones I’d seen in the videos. The ones in the videos had been… fresher? Less decayed. Was it random? Or did it mean whoever cast the spell did a shit job?
Graham continued driving, the tires screeching as we turned onto the main road. I twisted in my seat, watching the road behind us for any sign of pursuit. I saw nothing but a putrefying puddle on the pavement.
We drove in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the pounding of my heart. Graham finally slowed as we approached a gas station. He turned in and parked in a spot at the side away from the pumps.
“You okay?” he asked, killing the engine.
I nodded. “Yeah. Just, um… processing.”
He studied me for a second in the rearview, then reached for his phone.
“Mateo? A new development. We were attacked by ghouls at the farmers’ market.”
I strained to hear the other side of the conversation, but all I caught were muffled words, too faint to make out.
“I’m pretty sure they were after her. They followed us. Ignored everyone else.” There was a pause. “We’re fine. But the SUV is covered in ghoul guts.” Another pause. “Hmm. Thought so. Okay. We’ll stop by Desmon’s, but give us a few minutes to clean this vehicle up.”
He hung up and turned to me. “Come up here.” He patted the passenger seat.
I eyed the disgusting goo trailing down the passenger side windshield.
“Just pretend it’s a giant bird poop.”
That lightened the mood and had me chuckling. Now that Graham wasn’t being all grumpy and trying to ignore me, he was pretty easy to get along with, even after the stress of a ghoul attack.
“That would be one big bird butt.” I unbuckled and climbed into the front seat. “I’m surprised it doesn’t smell like rotten ghoul in here.”
“The Redrock SUVs have heavy-duty filters just in case of chemical attacks.”
“Has that happened?”
“Once or twice. We plan for anything.”
“No kidding.” That reminded me of the other SUV we’d left in a ditch. “Whatever happened to the other vehicle?”
“It’s at the garage. It’s mostly just the tires and cosmetic damage from the rollover.”
“And bullet holes?”
“Those too.”
“Did they recover my bag?”
“Sorry. They didn’t. I think some idiot grabbed it thinking it must be the one with Omelet in it.”
“Ah, oh well. At least it pissed someone off when they realized it wasn’t.”
The car wash was a small, automated one, the type with the big spinning brushes and the conveyor belt that pulled you through.
Graham drove up to the entrance and rolled down his window, feeding a few bills into the machine.
The light turned green, and the conveyor lurched forward, dragging us into the tunnel.
I watched through the windshield as the first set of brushes descended, their bristles whirring as they scrubbed at the ghoul guts.
The water turned gray almost immediately, streaking down the glass in thick rivulets.
I leaned forward, fascinated despite myself.
The first round of foam was white. The brushes moved, scrubbing first at the hood, then the sides, and this time, the water ran clearer, the worst of the gore washed away.
Then came the purple, pink, and blue foam.
“Is it silly that this always makes me feel like a kid again?” I asked, trailing my fingers over the colorful rivulets running down the glass.
“No. Did your parents bring you through often?”
“Nope. But that’s what made it special. Dad would splurge on a real car wash just once a year to get the salt and grime off our rusted Accord in the spring.
We’d go as a family, just Maa, Dad, and me.
And afterward we’d go for ice cream.” I tried to blink away the tears at the memory.
“My parents fought a lot, but those yearly outings were always happy.”
The light in the front turned green, the dryer stopped blowing, and we rolled out of the car wash into the sunlight.
“I heard on the news that ghouls are usually summoned from another dimension. Is that true?”
“It is. Sometimes by accident, and other times on purpose, to track down someone. You’ve met Emily.
Some witch at her old apartment accidentally opened up a portal, and a bunch of ghouls came in.
The witch didn’t survive. The ghouls broke out of the apartment, and since Emily lived on the same floor, they went after her instead. ”
“Why would they do that just because she lived on the same floor?”
“Unless they are given a special directive, ghouls latch onto anything that reminds them of where they were first brought into the world. In her case, they’d been accidentally summoned.”
“But you don’t think this was an accident,” I said, my voice coming out steadier than I felt.
“No. Someone sent them after you.”
I twisted my fingers together in my lap. “I’m pretty sure Karim doesn’t have magic. Unless he’s been living another type of double life.”
“Not him. Desmon looked into him and into his cop friend Owen too. We don’t think they are working with the wizards or the shifters.”
I leaned back against the seat, watching Darlington through the new, sparkling clean window. “I thought they’d leave me alone now that I’m in Darlington and they know Desmon has the egg." It had made sense, at least in theory. “If the egg was the ultimate prize, why keep chasing me?”
“I thought so too.” Graham’s hand found mine, his fingers lacing through mine. “Let’s get to Desmon’s and find some answers.”
I blinked at the guy who sauntered into the library like he owned the place. This was Desmon’s personal wizard?
His hair stood up in stiff, gelled spikes, he wore piercings and had enough metal on his belt and shoes to set off every metal detector from here to New York. He looked ready to go to a concert, not cast some magic for a dragon.
Something about him looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.
But then it was hard to look past his tight pants and general devil-may-care mannerisms, like he was the main character in this story, and you better not forget it.
He got away with it too, probably because of his charming good looks.
“Ah, so you’re the egg lady. Nice to make your acquaintance.” The man bowed low, surprising me yet again. “Seth at your service.”
“Seth. Hi, I’m Meera.”
“Matty here tells me you’ve been having ghoul troubles.”
Mateo grumbled in the corner where he stood leaning up against a bookshelf with his arms crossed over his chest. He was in his manticore form, and I’d almost screamed when I’d first seen him until I recognized his face, despite the feline cast it now had.
With the body of a lion, but standing upright, Mateo looked half-man, half-beast. He had wings too, which reminded me of dragon wings, even though technically I’d never seen Desmon as a dragon. I hadn’t even noticed his tail until he’d moved. It wasn’t a lion’s tail, but a scorpion’s.
I’d never thought I’d see a manticore in the flesh.
“Ghouls found us at the market.” I quickly recapped the story.
“Judging by your description of how far gone these ghouls were, I’d say that the caster either wasn’t very experienced, or they didn’t really care.”
“Didn’t really care?” I asked, confused.
“Either not being paid very well, or forced to do the work.” Seth picked up a book from the shelf and flipped through it as he talked. “Unless of course they did it themselves, in which case, they just suck. Either way, it’s a good thing for us.”
“How so?” Graham asked.
“If you can capture one of the ghouls, I might be able to get some info out of it.”
“How?” Mateo asked with a roll of his eyes. “They can’t even talk. Their vocal cords are all rotted out.”
“Oh, look who knows everything,” Seth singsonged. “I don’t need them to talk, silly. I can just reverse-engineer the spell that brought them here and figure out what the command was.”
“Capturing isn’t going to be difficult,” Graham said. “They are slow. But transporting is another challenge. There ain’t no way I’m letting any one of those into a Redrock vehicle. And I doubt we could drag one behind us. They’re falling apart already.”
“We could lure them somewhere out of the way.” Seth looked pensive.
“Desmon bought the old fabric mill after the fire, as well as the warehouse next to it. We can set something up there to trap one. I might need a few days to run it by the boss and look up the right spells. I’ll call you when it’s ready.
I’ll need to borrow you, Matty, for some heavy lifting. ”
Mateo grumbled, and Seth just grinned. I’d never known what people mean by a “shit-eating grin” until now.
“Welp,” he said. “If that’s all, I’m heading back home. My wife and husband aren’t going to please themselves… wait, actually they are, but I want in on it.”
“Too much info, Seth.” Mateo looked ready to toss him out the window.
The wizard opened a portal in the library, this one a swirling black, unlike the one that had taken me to the Redrock penthouse last time.
“I’ll call when I need you, Matty.” Then he stepped through the aperture.
We were walking down the opulent hallways back toward where Graham had parked when Carly showed up with an elegant older woman who looked strangely familiar.
“Aww, did I just miss my Seth?”
Her Seth?
“You did, Elana.” Graham gave her a curt nod. “But he’ll be back. And you can come visit us any time.”
“Of course.” Elana turned to me. “You must be—”
“No offense, but please don’t call me the egg lady,” I said preemptively.
She looked taken aback for a moment before she burst into laughter. Familiarity hit me again. And that was when I realized why she was so familiar. I’d heard that laugh before!
“You’re Tansy’s mother!” I blurted out.
“I am!” she exclaimed without skipping a beat.
Now that it was confirmed, I saw the similarities clear as day. I now understood where Tansy had gotten her model looks from. And now that I thought about it, didn’t Tansy have ridiculously strong magic she didn’t find out about until she was an adult? And didn’t she say she had a brother?
“So that means Seth…” I trailed off.
“You got it,” Carly said. “Seth is Tansy’s brother. But they didn’t meet until they were grown, so that explains why one is so sweet, and the other one kind of gives off villain vibes. But Seth’s good once you know him.”
“Mateo looks like he’s going to rip Seth’s head off,” I said quietly, glancing back toward the library.
Elana chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry about them. They’ve been going at each other for years. Let me guess, Seth is still calling him Matty?”
I nodded.
“He hates that. Why don’t you guys stay for lunch since you’re already here? I tried my hand at those fluffy soufflé pancakes again, and this time they didn’t flop!”
Mateo stepped around the corner. “Did someone say pancakes?”