An Ex to Grind in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 5) Paperback – September 4, 2014 (41 page)

James Dean’s wide eyes met mine. He made a gurgling sound in his throat, his tongue lolling partway out.

“By whose order?”

What did he mean by whose order? Me and my can of whoop ass, that was who. “Put him down!” I said again, louder, treating him as I would a disobedient child.

“As you wish.” He threw James Dean across the room with jaw-dropping force. The greaser slammed into the wall headfirst with a loud, sickening thud, leaving a trail of blood down the wall as he slid to the floor, landing in a tangled heap.

I rushed over to the greaser, squatting next to him.

He was still alive, but his neck was twisted around at a horrible angle. His eyelashes fluttered. He coughed, blood splattering. His mouth moved like he was trying to speak. His breath sounded gurgled, labored. Under the scent of blood, I could smell the pomade he’d used to slick back his hair.

Damn it. How many people had to die in my nightmares? How many times was I going to have to face off with monsters before I could return to happy dreams full of rainbows, chocolate, and poppy fields?

Sighing, I stood, facing my nemesis. “All right, you ugly son of a bitch, let’s do this.”

The albino hefted his medieval ax. “Do what, human?”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?” I’d replayed this scene in different variations more times than I could count over the last few months. Usually the nasty bastard came at me with his barbed, shiny hook. The ax was a new touch, along with the shrunken heads, but the scene was the same otherwise. “Let’s get on with the usual fight-for-my-life crap. Lose the ax, though. Try leveling the playing field for once.”

“The ax?” The albino looked down at the blade in his hands and then back at me. “You speak of this?”

“Yes, that weird battle ax thing you’re holding.” I must have conjured that up thanks to the old
Conan the Barbarian
movie I’d watched the other night with Natalie.

“It is a scythe,” he clarified.

I rolled my eyes. “Are you seriously going to stand here and argue with me about the name of that stupid thing?”

He swung it back and forth between us, his lips pulling back in a snarl. “You have made a grave mistake, wench.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, dickhead. Put the ax down and fight like a man.”

“But I am not a man.” The albino hefted the ax back and forth between his hands.

“Do you always pick on things smaller than you?” I asked, moving sideways, keeping space between us. Was I going to live through this nightmare, or die from his blade and wake up sweating and clutching my throat like so many other times?

“It is in my nature to hunt smaller prey.”

“Fine, you big bully. Take a swing and let’s get this dance started.”

“Violet!” the guttural sound of my name coming from the dying man was new, a different dreamland special effect. One that gave me pause.

“What?” I called out, keeping my focus on the ax.

The greaser coughed again; it sounded thick with blood.

The albino lifted the ax. “As you command, wench.”

He swung, I dodged, darting around the side of him, faster in my dreams than I ever had been in real life. I ended up closer to the greaser, who was battling a rally of coughs.

“Let go of the ghost, buddy,” I told him. “This might get ugly here soon. Trust me, I’ve had these nightmares before.”

“Boots,” the greaser gasped. “Run, damn it! Run!”

I heard his death rattle, and then silence. I glanced down into the wide, glassy eyes of the greaser. Blood dripped down his chin. His chest no longer hitched.

Did he call me
Boots
?

The albino closed the distance between us. A mark on his left cheek caught my attention. Was that a birthmark shaped like a horseshoe or a dirt smudge? Something tried to surface from my memories. Something about Cooper. I struggled to dredge up why that mark even mattered.

He raised the ax again

“Wait!” I held up my hand.

He didn’t, swinging a slicing blow at my neck.

I slammed back against the wall the greaser had dented, the blade slicing through my hoody right above my left breast.

I felt a burning sting. Pulling my hoody and T-shirt aside, I touched where the blade had cut me. It was shallow, but deep enough for blood to well and trickle down, tickling as it went.

Uh oh.

Boots?
Only Doc ever called me Boots. That had never happened before in any of my nightmares.

“What will it be, wench?” the albino hefted the ax, his eyes morphed into snake-slits again.

A flash of the last time I’d fallen asleep around Cornelius whizzed through my thoughts. We had been up at Mount Moriah that time. There’d been spittle in my hand when I’d woken up. Did that mean this was somehow …

“Shall I remove your head or heart?” the ugly beast asked.

… the real deal?

The cut on my chest throbbed. That was different, too.

My breath caught. I might really be fucked this time.

“Wait!” I held up my hands between us, forming them into a T. “I’d like to take a ten-minute timeout, please.”

He laughed, all heart-stopping and evil sounding. Vincent Price must have taken lessons from him. He raised the ax, his face contorting into a maniacal clown grin, his body bowing with strength and force. “Your time is no more, wench.”

The blade sliced through the air.

Chapter Twenty-One

And missed … barely, burrowing into the wall next to me.

I’d dodged his blade at the last second somehow. I didn’t waste time figuring it out. There was no way I was going to give him another chance to cleave me in two.

While the creep struggled to tug his blade free of the wall, I scrambled around him. But I wasn’t fast enough. He caught me by the hood and yanked me backward off my feet.

I landed flat on my butt with an “oof!”

He let go of me to double fist the ax handle and swing, giving me the split second I needed to roll out of the arc of his blade. The floor boards vibrated from the force of his blow. Jesus! The ugly bastard was a damned juggernaut.

I shoved to my feet and ran for the dining room, putting the table between us. Food sat on three plates, half-eaten, with forks and spoons at the ready, reminding me of the unsettling ghost story about Roanoke, Virginia. Serving dishes filled with mashed potatoes, meatballs, and green beans were centered on the table. I hurdled a tipped over chair.

The ax-happy-asshole stretched his neck and stalked after me, dragging his blade along the floor. Behind him on the wall above the splayed greaser’s body, I saw three letters drawn with red paint:
M I R
.

Where had those come from? I didn’t have much time to ponder the letters’ origin before the albino came up with a quick way to get around the table—chop it in half.

His ax fell, sending wood splintering every which way.

Before he lifted his weapon again, I grabbed a chair and slammed it down onto his back.

He stumbled forward into the wall, giving me the time I needed to race around the table mess.

His arm was too long, though. He snagged me again, catching me by the hair this time, and yanked me onto the broken table. I rolled down one of the broken halves onto the floor, landing facedown amidst green beans and potatoes. I pushed up onto my palms, my fingers squishing meatballs under my palms, the scent of tomato sauce thick around me. I’d missed landing on a serving fork by inches.

“No more games,” he said in his thick Slavic accent.

“Damned straight!” I grabbed the fork.

He raised that blasted ax again.

I gripped the fork and lunged at him, slamming the sharp fork tines into his thigh with a war cry that would have made Red Cloud proud.

The ax swooped sideways, missing his mark—me. His bulbous eyes widened, his expression looking surprised as he looked down at where I’d jammed the fork into his leg.

I glanced down, too, frowning at the line of black smoke rising from his thigh.

He roared in pain, sending me crab-crawling backward through the potatoes and splintered wood.

As I pushed to my feet, he reached down and jerked the fork out of his leg, pressing his hand over the smoking wound.

“What have you done?” His snake eyes measured me from head to foot. “What are you?”

I didn’t have time to stand around and explain the birds and bees to him. I glanced toward the window next to the dead greaser, doing a doubletake on the wall above him. Three more letters had been scrawled in what I realized was blood, spelling
M I R R O R
.

Mirror? What did that mean? Who was writing it?

A growl-filled groan from my nemesis made me whirl.

The smoke had stopped, but he was still clutching his thigh. His lip curled as he stared at me. “Who sent you?”

I thought of Cornelius and Doc, of the séance, but said nothing to him and backed toward the bedroom door, which was wide open, beckoning.

The albino grabbed the ax handle, using it as a crutch to limp toward me. “Who are you, wench?” he took another hobbled step, his face tight with pain or fury or both. I wasn’t going to ask for clarification.

“Your nightmare,” I told the albino and dashed toward the bedroom door, slamming the thick oak door behind me. A skeleton key was in the lock. I turned it and twisted the knob, making sure it was locked.

Stepping away from the door, I listened for the sound of his footsteps. My breath raced in and out, my heart thumping hard and fast.

The knob twisted on its own.

Crikey, that juggernaut was a persistent son of a bitch.

I needed a weapon. If the fork hurt him, maybe I could stab him with a piece of broken glass.

Turning toward the dresser mirror, I squeaked in surprise at the sight of Freesia standing there in the reflection. The video camera blinked red behind her. She summoned me with her hand, hurrying me.

The
mirror
.

The message scrawled in blood on the wall.

Oh, yeah, the mirror. But how did I …

A boom hit the other side of the bedroom door, rattling it in its doorframe.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I raced around the bed, skidding to a halt in front of the mirror.

How was I going to …

BOOM!
The door shook again.

“Go away!” I yelled. “I’m a little busy in here right now.”

Damn it, if that freaky-eyed asshole would just give me a moment to think.

I frowned into the mirror, trying to concentrate on Freesia’s face, her brown eyes, her arm and hand.

A splintered crashing sound resounded behind me. His ax had punctured the wood, I knew it. I dared not look around and let the terror I could feel welling inside of me take over and render me helpless.

Freesia’s hand.

I closed my eyes and thought of the demon’s tongue I’d grabbed onto in the darkness of my mind at Wild Bill’s gravesite. I remembered Cornelius’s meditation teachings, the candle flame on which he’d told me to concentrate. I let my mind reach into the shadows.

Freesia’s hand.

A crash sounded behind me, muted as my mind turned inward. I imagined a wall of bulletproof glass behind me, blocking the juggernaut, and focused on that flame, on reaching further into the darkness and beyond.

Freesia’s hand.

I grabbed her palm, clutching it tight. She pulled hard, dragging me all of the way into the blackness. I could feel myself falling, falling, falling.

And then I landed on something hard.

Pain shot out from my elbow, making my fingers tingle. I groaned and rolled off of my arm.

Then I remembered my attacker and sat up, my gaze darting all around the bedroom, searching for him and his sinister ax. Freesia lay on the floor next to me, her eyes wide, her mouth slack-jawed. I could hear her panting.

“Holy shit,” she said. She looked across at Cornelius, who was squinting into Ms. Wolff’s bedroom mirror. “Did you see that? Hot damn! That was way more intense than the Ouija board games we played in college.”

“Shhhh,” Cornelius said, leaning his ear close to the mirror. His wool coat almost brushing Layne’s picture.

“Where’s Doc?” I asked. “Why are we in the bedroom?”

“We moved in here to help you get back out,” Freesia whispered.

“He’s still in there,” Cornelius said, leaning his head on the mirror. He began his rhythmic hum.

“Who’s in there?”
The killer?

Clutching my throbbing elbow, I spun on my hip. They must have moved Cornelius’s square into the bedroom while I was out of it. Ms. Wolff’s twin bed had been pushed back, making more room between it and the dresser. Doc lay flat on his back in the opposite corner, near the end of the bed. His eyes were closed but movement fluttered underneath them, like butterflies under a sheet.

Oh, no. I crawled over to him, feeling his cheek, his neck, his hand. His skin felt cold and clammy.

Still humming, Cornelius knocked on the mirror.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I frowned over at Freesia. “How long has Doc been out?”

Cornelius lifted his head from the mirror, catching his breath and humming some more. Then he knocked three times on the mirror again.

“I don’t know,” Freesia said, joining me at Doc’s side. “We moved into the bedroom when we realized you had left the square and sleepwalked in here. We found you standing in front of the dresser mirror.”