Joyce & Jim Lavene - Taxi for the Dead 02 - Dead Girl Blues (22 page)

“Help him,” Debbie pleaded. “You helped me, Lucas. You can help him too. Don’t let him go back to being that way. Please!”

Lucas put his hand on her head—the move he said was only for show. Debbie fell back on the floor, her eyes closed, not moving.

“I would help you if I could.” Lucas stared into Terry’s eyes. “Perhaps someday if Abe refuses to make this right, I may be able to help you stay human. Do you understand?”

Terry nodded, but he was already changing back into the beast. He ground out a harsh version of
I love you
close to Debbie’s head and licked her ear.

The change came on him faster after that. The human version of him was completely gone, leaving only the satyr-type animal that snarled at Lucas before bounding over Debbie and running out the front door.

Chapter Twenty-six

I was almost too stunned to deal with Debbie as she regained consciousness. She was completely back to her normal self, and she was furious with Lucas.

“How could you let him go that way?” She pounded on his chest. “He’ll kill someone or someone will kill him. We have to find him and bring him back. If you can’t fix him, Abe will, or some other sorcerer who can actually do magic. You’re useless, Lucas. I don’t know why Skye keeps you around.”

She stared at him and then ran out the door after Terry.

“I’m sorry. She doesn’t understand. I know you did what you could. You saved her.”

“No need for apologies. Her heart was torn. I expected nothing less.” He put his arms around me. “I’m very happy that you are unharmed.”

“Thanks.” I took my phone out of my pocket and held it up. “I have all the proof I need right here to make sure Artemis doesn’t mess with Abe anymore.”

I pushed play on the phone, but there was nothing except static. None of Artemis’s words had recorded. Full of anger and too much emotion, I threw the phone against the wall.

Lucas looked at the smashed phone on the floor. “I thought you said that was a costly apparatus.”

“I did.”

“Then why—?”

“Shut up, Lucas.” I started toward the door. There was nothing more I could do there. “I’ll meet you at home.”

I saw him gather up the parts of the phone but left anyway. If he wanted to play with it, that was his thing.

Addie wasn’t around when I got back. I’d have to find her and thank her for what she did, but that would have to be later. I poured myself a glass of Tennessee whiskey and brooded at the kitchen table. I still had a couple of hours before Kate got home.

“I’ve done some research on werewolves while you were away.” Lucas made tea for himself and sat with me. “I’m not sure how much of what is on your computer is accurate, but many of the ways they show to kill the beast are wrong.”

“Yeah.” I sipped the whiskey, feeling it race through my body.

“You do still want to kill the wolf, I assume?”

“I’m meeting Gerald there tonight at moonrise.” I glanced up at him. “I don’t really want to kill it—there’s a man or woman in that wolf skin. I’d rather catch it and turn it over to the police for trial. But I guess that’s just old habits dying hard. One way or another, we should be sure it never kills again.”

“I think I may have devised a plan, although I still strongly urge you not to attempt it. I understand your need for vengeance, but it’s more likely that the wolf will kill you.”

“Can I be killed by it? I’m a zombie, right? I can’t be killed by conventional means.”

“I wouldn’t call death by the hand of a werewolf conventional, Skye.”

“So it could kill me.” I thought about it, emotionless. “What’s your plan?”

The house phone rang, and Addie was quick to answer it. She did her answering machine routine and turned to smile at Lucas. “What are you doing here, Skye?”

The voice on the phone was Tim Rusk. He must have looked up my home number when my cell phone didn’t work.

“Skye, this is Tim. Can you meet me at that little bar off the highway where we met last time? I’ve got some information for you. Whatever you do, don’t bring Gerald Linker. I’ll be there in about an hour.”

Addie hung up the phone.

“You did very well.” Lucas commended her with a smile. “I don’t understand the message followed by the ‘beep’. Wouldn’t it be simpler to answer the phone as yourself?”

“Simpler maybe, except everyone knows I’m dead.”

“Oh yes. There’s that.”

“Thank you for answering today and for giving Lucas my message,” I broke into their conversation. “You saved Debbie’s life. But you don’t have to try to sound like an answering machine. You don’t have to say who you are. Just answer and tell them you can take a message. They’ll think you’re the housekeeper or something.”

She pursed her lips, said, “I guess nothing is ever good enough, is it?” and vanished.

“Never mind.” I finished my whiskey and glared at the table.

“There was nothing either of us could do for Terry,” Lucas reminded me. “Not all magic is reversible. If that is Abe’s spell on him or if it truly is a mistake as he claimed, he may be the only one who can change it.”

“And since Terry not being there anymore will probably get him Debbie, I think it’s unlikely that he’ll change it.”

“That may be so.”

I wanted to tell Lucas what Artemis had told me about him being my father. I didn’t believe it, but it bothered me. I couldn’t find the words, and part of me was afraid if I said it out loud, it would be real.

We talked about possible ways to kill the werewolf. Most of them involved enchanted bullets, spears, or knives. I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. He was willing to attempt the enchantments on those weapons if there was no way he could talk me out of it.

Feeling a little abused by magic, I was glad that he still felt the need to discuss the options with me instead of using his magic to make me go one way or another.

I left to meet Tim at the bar. Lucas said he’d practice spelling several items to find out if he was capable of it before Gerald and I went against the werewolf. I wasn’t sure how he’d figure that out until I saw him in the rearview mirror as I was leaving. It looked like he was trying to get the garden shears to cut one of the bushes near the house by themselves.

If that was the case, it was a miserable failure. The garden shears danced around on top of the bush and then went after him. The last glimpse of him—the ancient, feared sorcerer from the past—was running into the house and slamming the door behind him.

“God help us, Gerald. I hope Tim has something better.” I pulled the van onto the main road.

Tim was waiting for me at the bar. It took me longer to get there because I had to stop for gas. The bartender nodded when he saw me and got me a beer. I thanked him, surprised at his memory, and sat opposite Tim at the table.

He glanced at his watch. “I was about to leave. Where were you?”

“I had some errands.” I wondered why he was so edgy. I hoped he hadn’t paid Gerald a visit and found him stocking up on werewolf-killing weapons. “What’s up?”

He was in his uniform but must have been off-duty since he was drinking too. Not beer this time but scotch. Not the best scotch either by the smell of it.

“You got Linker out of jail, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “I don’t think he belongs in jail. Do you?”

“Where else would he be ranting about werewolves killing his wife?”

“Maybe a mental hospital—if it wasn’t true.”

“Don’t tell me a level-headed woman like yourself is getting dragged into his crazy fantasies.” He shook his head and polished off his scotch, pointing to the glass when he caught the bartender’s eye.

“How do you know it’s crazy?” I leaned forward and whispered the question. “I might’ve thought that too a few years ago. But I’ve seen stuff that doesn’t have a rational explanation. Open your eyes, Tim. It’s out there.”

I thought he might get up and walk out. This wasn’t a conversation most rational people would get involved in. If I hadn’t been so upset by everything that had happened that day, I might not have said anything. I didn’t really think I could convince him that I’d been dead for three years and had a sorcerer living with me.

“There’s something I have to show you.” He took a wrinkled sheet of paper from his pocket and smoothed it out on the table. “This is a map of this area and about fifty miles around it.”

That wasn’t the response I’d been expecting. “What’s with all the red X’s on it? What do they represent?”

“People who were killed just like your husband and Gerald’s wife.” He took a deep, ragged breath as the bartender brought his new glass of scotch.

I looked at all the X’s on the map. There had to be two hundred of them.

“Some of these deaths are attributable to wild animal attacks, no vehicles involved. But too many of them are accounts of people being ripped from their vehicles after accidents and breakdowns. After each event, the victim was mauled and dragged too far away from the vehicle for them to have crawled or been thrown.”

I searched his face. His eyes were filled with terror and questions.

“What do you make of it, Tim?”

“It’s impossible. The wild population isn’t there for that number of animal attacks, much less the incidents with the vehicles. I don’t know what to make of it. But now that I know your reasoning, Skye, I like it even less.”

“I don’t like it either.” I glanced toward the bar where the bartender was drying glasses. There were a few other men that were drinking beer and watching sports on TV. “I don’t like thinking that there are werewolves out there killing people. I don’t like that there is anything out there I can’t kill with my Beretta.”

“How do you deal with it? I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about it. It feels like the whole world has gone insane.”

I agreed as I sipped my beer.

He finished his new glass of scotch and called for more. “So what do we do about it? What do you and Gerald have planned?”

His question rolled around in my head. I wasn’t sure if I should tell him the truth even though he seemed to be a new believer in the supernatural. It had been thrust on me at the same time that I’d found out I was dying. I had to make a decision immediately, and I had chosen to go on.

But I didn’t think he was ready for that kind of commitment.

“Whatever is killing people out in those woods at the top of the hill—we’re going to kill it. I don’t know if it’s a werewolf. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think it’s human. Gerald won’t be at peace until it’s dead, and I owe him that after bringing him into this. I’d like to catch it, but neither one of us can do it alone. I’m siding with him.”

Tim let my words sink in. “You know, it’s been an age since I went hunting. When are you gonna to do it? Maybe you could use another hand.”

“Are you sure?” I searched his face. “I don’t know what we’ll find out there, and I have it on good authority that we may not survive the experience.”

“If all this is true, I plan to retire anyway.” His grin was crooked. “My wife always told me I’d go out with a gun in my hand. She may be right.”

“Okay. We’re meeting at the woods at seven p.m. Bring whatever you’ve got. We aren’t sure what can kill it. I hope between the three of us that we have whatever it is.”

He nodded. “I’ll be there.”

I put my hand on his. “Don’t let me down on this, Tim. If you think it’s crazy, just don’t show up. I don’t want to see a group of law enforcement up there waiting for us.”

“That’s not what I’m about.” He glanced at the map and the X’s on it. “My little girl is twenty-three now. She travels those roads to school and back in Nashville every day. Her car broke down on the side of the road last week. If it wasn’t for a farmer who picked her up and brought her home, she could’ve been one of those X’s. That’s what
I’m
about.”

I finished my beer and got up to leave. “I’ll see you at seven.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

I stopped by the school and surprised Kate by getting her off the bus. We went to the convenience store in Wanderer’s Lake and each got junk food snacks and sodas. We sat on the shore and picked up empty clam shells. Each of us tried our hand at skipping stones across the water.

Being with her, watching her laugh and run down the shore, almost made me back out of helping Gerald.

I was supposed to be here to watch her grow up, not hunt for Jacob’s killer. Maybe that was why Abe had told me not to investigate his death. Looking back was never a good thing. No matter what I did, I couldn’t bring Kate’s daddy back to life.

But I was pretty sure there was no such wisdom behind Abe’s request.

It was more likely that he’d created werewolves with his zombie magic, by accident of course, like the creature Terry had become. Abe might even know that Jacob was killed by one of his creations. I wouldn’t go so far as to think he’d set up Jacob’s death, but I felt like anything was possible.

Maybe he knew I’d end my twenty year service to him if I went against the werewolf. That would mean the tiresome ordeal of looking for someone else to pick up his people when it was time for them to go.

But as much as I loved Kate, I was also determined to find out what had happened to Jacob. My heart still ached when I thought about him being gone. A part of me hoped we were right about a werewolf killer. Taking an unruly, murderous beast’s life would be a satisfying end to the ordeal.

If I was killed while doing it, I had at least given my daughter a few years to grow up. Addie was much stronger now, and Lucas had sworn to protect her. I believed that he would. They wouldn’t be me. I had to hope Kate would understand if the worst happened.

“Why are you so sad and quiet?” she asked, holding a quartz rock in her hand.

“I don’t know. Just thinking, I guess.” I smiled for her benefit.

“You’re thinking about Daddy, aren’t you?” She sat on my lap. “I know because I look like that when I think about him too.”

I hugged her close. “Yes. I was thinking about Daddy.”

“Grandma says it’s good to remember him but bad to be sad. She says he’s in a better place now and that he loves us very much.”