Bare Bones (30 page)

Low sodium diet, but beyond that I wasn’t sure how helpful the salt sensitivity would be. If I were lucky enough to catch one out of his human skin…but how likely would that be?

“Anything else?”

Sean nodded. “We’re vulnerable to magic. A spell will work on us just as it would on a human.” He eyed Trusty, his mouth twisting downward. “A Templar can permanently disable or kill us with their sword. Only a consecrated weapon will work. Guns or normal weapons have no lasting effect on us, but
that
will put us in the grave.”

And he’d sat here, having martinis with me with a lethal weapon inches from him. It made me realize how much Sean wanted to help—both the humans in his town and his Boo Hag family. It made me realize that in spite of his fear of discovery he’d decided to trust me—his girlfriend’s friend.

Now it was time for me to trust him.

“The three seem to have split up. The two boys are in the city, wearing the skins of musicians in a local band as of last night. The girl went up north a few days ago on her own. She’s taken at least one vampire skin. Possibly two.”

His eyes flicked toward mine. “A vampire skin? We don’t mess with vampires. In fact, we stay as far away from them as possible. I can’t imagine what a Boo Hag would do with a vampire skin.”

I pushed my half-empty glass away, needing a clear head for this. “I overheard the girl once, before I knew she was affiliated with the killers. She seems to have a thing for vampires, a kind of fetish. Is that normal?”

He shrugged. “Nothing about these three is normal. We educate all of our children. They have access to television, magazines, current culture—all this is so they can better assimilate when they move in the human world. I know there are humans who are fascinated with vampire culture. I guess a Boo Hag could be the same.”

The movies, the books. Vampire folktales carried that forbidden erotic component that reality supported. How many times had humans been fixated on the legend, only to fall hard into a blood-slave life once they discovered there was truth to the tales? A human with an obsession with vampires would either cosplay, or take up with the real thing either as a blood slave or Renfield. I guess a Boo Hag that was equally obsessed would take a skin. Judging from what Dario said about the reported taste of their blood, the life of a slave would be off the table. And I doubted they could be turned. The only way a Boo Hag could get close to vampires was by becoming one the only way they knew how.

Yikes. “How bad is this going to be? How is a Boo Hag going to react to wearing a vampire skin?”

Sean slowly shook his head. “We’re constrained by the knowledge and somewhat by the physical limitations of our skin’s former owner, so I don’t see how useful a vampire skin would be to one of us. At night we shed our skin to go ride. She couldn’t wear a vampire skin during the day or it would disintegrate in the sun, leaving her exposed in her natural form. And if she wore it at night…she can drink all the blood she wants, but it’s not going to sustain her for long. A Boo Hag needs to ride, or they’ll starve to death.”

“How long can she go without feeding?” I wondered how crazy this teen was, if her vampire fantasy would kill her before we managed to catch her.

“Six, seven days maybe. She’s going to be really weak after a few days.”

“So we’ve got vampire-wannabe Bonnie, and two rock musician wannabe Clydes,” I mused. “Any ideas on how to find them?”

“You could try the victims’ homes. We take on more than a human’s form when we wear their skin. We have their memories, their skills, their knowledge, and a good bit of their personality. The longer we wear a certain skin, the more we become attached to that persona.”

This had to be the weirdest thing I’d ever heard of, but it made Lawton’s strange words in the basement suddenly clear. He’d loved being Lawton, and missed that person. And when he’d become Brian Huang, it had been hard to force himself away from the responsibilities the man had held dear.

“So you’re a mix of the Boo Hag you’ve always been and Sean Merrill?” I asked.

He nodded. “I’ve never had a problem with snakes, but Sean was terrified of them. I jump three feet every time I see one now, and even though I know deep down there’s nothing to fear, I can’t help myself. I also now love baseball and find myself longing to vacation at a very specific campground in Tennessee.”

“These guys switched after being in Brian Huang and Bradley Lewis’s skins for days. How easy is it to do that?”

“It’s not. Switching skins daily probably wouldn’t be too difficult. You wouldn’t have time to get used to the human you’re taking on. Keeping one on for a week and then switching would be very jarring, downright painful. A Boo Hag would need to have a good reason to switch, and afterwards they’d be very reluctant to switch again unless absolutely necessary.”

“But these three came here as teenage kids—kids who had been reported as missing ten years ago. After ten years in those skins they switched?”

“It’s like getting a static shock,” Sean explained. “The first transition would be the hardest. I’d imagine they would slow down their identity changes either because of the discomfort or as a natural part of the maturation process. We
want
to live our human’s life. We take on their mannerisms, likes and dislikes. If they find a human whose personality and lifestyle they truly enjoy, they won’t want to give it up. From what you’ve told me, they’ll probably want to stay as Dawson and Strike. Unless they feel their lives are in danger, they won’t want to keep changing identities. They might keep killing, but as a Boo Hag, they’ll eventually want to stay with one human form as long as they can.”

But in the meantime they’d disappear into the crowd, never to be seen again. I doubted they’d ever be truly mature enough to exist in human society at this point. They’d always be murderous teenage runaways, endangering themselves and possibly the humans they encountered and rode.

“So right now I’ve got Travis Dawson and a kid named Strike, both late teens and both members of the band Rabid Rabbit. From what I overheard they like these two identities—at least Travis aka Gary does. So, would they head back to live in their parents’ basement or something?”

“I don’t think so. I’m thinking that these young wouldn’t want to be subject to adult rules. It would remind them too much of Grandmother and the restrictions they ran away from. Maybe the band has a place? Or they’re staying with friends of Travis and Sammy’s?”

Possibly. I remembered them saying something about a rehearsal spot. “They can’t be living on the street, can they? It’s going to be hard to find them if they’re holed up in a cardboard box beside a dumpster.”

“Boo Hag want company, so I’m assuming they would be naturally drawn to the society their humans enjoyed. Check friends and places where Strike and Travis used to go. There might be a chance you’ll catch them there.”

That gave me good leads on the two boys, but what about the girl? “The one with the vampire skin, do you think she might actually try to seek out other vampires? The victim wasn’t a member of the
Balaj
, but even rogues have a natural inclination to group together. Vampires don’t like to be solo.”

Sean shrugged. “I don’t know much about vampires. Boo Hag don’t like to be alone, and I’m guessing if she’s wearing a vampire skin, she’ll seek them out.”

Which meant there was a good chance Dario would catch her. I sent off a quick text to him, asking him to try to not kill the vampire imposter if they caught her, and that I had more information for him.

“What happens to a skin that’s not in use? Let’s say they’ve got six or seven of them, do they stay preserved when they’re not regularly worn?”

Sean shook his head. “The skins will last a normal human lifetime if worn continuously. Removing them at night doesn’t seem to affect the preservation, but I’d assume a few days of non-use and the skin would begin to decompose.”

This might be a self-limiting factor, eventually forcing the Boo Hag to narrow down to one or two skins at a time. I could only hope they were fond enough of Travis and Strike that they were still wearing them. Tremelay should be able to check out friends of those two and hopefully narrow down spots where they might be located.

“Thanks. This was a huge help,” I told Sean as he packed up the martini supplies.

“Like I said, I was very reluctant to share this with you, but I like Janice and you’re her friend. I felt you needed to know. I’m trusting that I’m not going to wake up one morning with a sword in my chest?”

My smile probably wasn’t as reassuring as he was hoping for. “That’s going to depend on you, Sean. You choose your path, but you better make sure it’s a righteous one.”

A
FTER SEAN LEFT
I sat, stunned and a bit tipsy from my liquid lunch. I’d been at the end of the line thinking these guys were skinwalkers and in a matter of hours I knew what they were and how to stop them.

Boo Hag. And my friend was dating one of them. But I’d think about that another time. Right now I needed to prepare myself to be more of a Templar and less of mage.

I tried to meditate, tried to pray, but each time doubt disrupted my concentration, occupying my thoughts. How could I be true to the Templar purpose when I’d killed a man, stabbed him in the back as he’d turned to leave. How could anything justify that?

It had been so easy when I was a child riding through the fields with the sun’s golden rays on the tall grass. I’d been so sure that God would guide me, would keep my aim true and my heart pure. I’d always felt the knowledge that had come with that fateful bite of apple in the Garden of Eden had been self-awareness, that the burden humanity bore in our eviction from paradise was free will. God’s righteous path wasn’t so easy to discern anymore. It was overgrown with briars and fallen trees blocking our way. Do we go around? Do we chop our way through? Are we even on the right path anymore?

I guess that’s where faith came in—that elusive wisp that I’d left in a forgotten place. I was lost in the woods and I wasn’t sure which path was the righteous one.

Yeah, I was dedicated to protecting Pilgrims on the Path and yet I couldn’t even find my own way.

Giving up on the meditation I called Tremelay to fill him in on all I’d learned.

“Okay. Skinwalkers, Boo Hag…how do we catch these kids and how to I make sure they stay in jail this time? That’s what I need to know.” The detective sounded all business. His confidence was infectious.

“Salt can take them down and even kill them, but I’m not sure how that is going to help. Take their skin away and surround the jail cell with a thick layer of it? Coat the bars and windows with it?” Sword. Magic. Salt. None of them were practical for long-term incarceration.

“They could always make a deal with a prisoner or guard to scrape away the salt and poof they’d be gone. No one is going to understand the importance of surrounding one guy’s cell with a mineral. And skinless?
That’s
gonna cause a panic.”

I grimaced. “Solitary confinement?”

Tremelay sighed. “Again, how are we going to convince both a judge and our correctional system the need to lock three teenagers up in solitary, in cells with salt cemented all over the place?”

“How are you keeping the Fiore Noir mages in place?” The prosecutor must have worked something into the sentencing guidelines, otherwise the mages would be charming and hexing their way into an early, and very illegal, release.

“We explained to the judge that allowing them magical items would cause a disruption and possibly make them targets for prisoners who would believe they were devil worshippers. The defense attorneys tried to pull the religious freedom card, but the prosecutor was able to prove this had nothing to do with religion. Heck, half of them went to church regularly and even took communion.”

None of that would work. Boo Hag didn’t need spell books or components. They’d just shed their skins and be gone. And I was beginning to rethink my original suggestion. “I don’t think we can do the salt-lined cell anyway. They’d starve. They need to slip away each night and feed from sleeping humans. They can’t do that if they’re confined.”

“We’re just not set up to deliver justice to non-human offenders,” Tremelay confessed.

We weren’t, which was why the vampires took internal matters into their own hands. There would be the same problem with an incarcerated vampire. They’d either burn in the sunlight, starve to death, or bend the bars of their cells and strong-arm their way out come night time.

There was no way to make a justice system run by humans who didn’t believe such creatures existed work in these cases. I was back to the torturous decision I’d made with Dark Iron. The one where killing the offender was the only justice available.

I looked at my sword on the kitchen counter. This was the sole solution. Kill Gary, Becca, and maybe even Lawton. Their only pardon would be if Grandmother could get here first. Even then, I wasn’t sure I wanted to let her cart away murderers. What punishment would they meet at her hands? Sean was adamant this wasn’t typical Boo Hag behavior. I’d like to believe him, but this Grandmother had been negligent and allowed three of her charges to escape. Who’s to say that wouldn’t happen again? I’d need reassurance that it wouldn’t, otherwise the Boo Hag and I were going to have a problem.

“Any leads on their whereabouts?” I asked, my eyes still on my sword.

“We’ve interviewed family and friends. We’ve got eyes on their band practice spot, and their hangouts. They think you’re dead and that they’re safe. I’m willing to bet these two will turn up in the next day or so once they’re convinced the coast is clear.”

I nodded, even though Tremelay couldn’t see me. “If you get wind of them, even a rumor, call me. I’ll take care of the situation. I’ll deliver justice.”

And I would, no matter how difficult that would be for me.

Tremelay was silent a moment and I know he was having a battle of his own. He was a cop. His whole life was dedicated to arresting offenders and seeing them judged by a jury of their peers, serving time through a human correctional system. He’d be green-lighting me as a vigilante, and even though these killers weren’t human, that had to have been just as difficult for him as killing the Boo-Hag would be for me.