Steal the Moon

Chapter Eight

The aswang’s nest reeked of death. The building was utterly silent as we moved through the door, but there was nothing peaceful about the quiet. This was the silence that came with absence—absence of life, of hope, of love. This place was devoid of joy. I’d read that the aswang was considered by certain scholars of the arcane to be the Pacific Rim’s version of the vampire. Walking into its lair, it was clear those scholars had never actually met a vampire.

Even the oldest of vampires surround themselves with life. They’re obsessed with the vitality of humans, and while they might break their toys on occasion, they would never be able to live like this. The aswang was truly undead. Unlike the vampire, whose body merely survived the process of death, the aswang had no spark of life in it. Vampires lived. They had ambitions and made plans. They sought out entertainments and diversions. They had a multitude of desires and for the most part, sought pleasure.

The aswang was different. It existed only to feed, to turn life into death.

Lee entered first because his senses were far better than any Declan or I possessed. He moved with the odd grace of a wolf stalking its prey. His head was down and it swept the area, moving from side to side. He silently pointed up and I nodded. She was on the second floor.

It was dark though the sun was bright outside. The windows were coated with filth, allowing little of the day’s glow inside the gloom of the building. Lee stalked down the hall and into the storefront. Declan was at my back, moving as silently as a warrior of the sidhe could move.

I had the Ruger in a double-fisted hold. Being a somewhat small female, I had to worry about kick back, and I’d discovered I was better able to handle the recoil with two hands. I was sure Lee could do The Matrix, shoot-with-two-guns-blazing thing that Daniel and Dev could do, but I didn’t have preternatural strength. I also didn’t have the strongest of stomachs I learned as Lee led us into the part of the building where the aswang should have been doing her work. My stomach rolled at the stench of death in the kitchen.

I must have gagged a little because Lee gave me a look. It silently asked what the hell I was doing hunting undead crap if I couldn’t stand a little decomp. I sucked it up and forced the bile down. It was nice to know Lee wasn’t the type who was going to coddle me and try to hide me from the nasty parts of the world. He silently asked if I could proceed, and even without the use of his voice, I could hear the sarcastic “princess” he added at the end. I gave him my unfriendly middle finger and he was satisfied.

I found myself in the middle of the butchery. It was a good thing most of the people around here avoided this place like the plague. If this bitch did get customers, I wasn’t sure what she was going to sell them. Though it looked like there was a side of rotting beef hanging in the corner, the rest of the place was filled with nothing that vaguely resembled a cut of meat from a grocery store.

The scent of formaldehyde assaulted my nose, and I saw the pale flesh of a corpse on one of the tables. I shuddered, but forced myself to study it. The corpse was that of an elderly man still wearing the top half of his suit while the pants had been removed. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that his legs had been chewed on. This was the aswang’s way. She was an eater of the dead. As the corpse was still mostly together, I had to assume she hadn’t liked her meal. Modern funeral home practices had to be hell on the aswang. It might have been the reason she’d been taking so many babies.

I almost tripped over something, my feet skidding across the floor. When I glanced down, I saw a pile of what appeared to be small dolls. Even in the gloom I could see they were effigies. I leaned down and touched one. It was made from plants and without magic looked like a primitive doll, the kind that didn’t have a face. The aswang had made them. This was what she left behind when she took the babies. A doll like this was what the poor woman had been left with when she lost her child. She’d known what it was, her intuition telling her what her eyes could not. Once the aswang had the child, the doll she left behind would be a perfect copy. Only her mother had known it was an empty reflection of her lost baby.

“Hit the deck!” Lee growled.

Behind me I heard Declan move, but I did as I was ordered and hit the floor just before I felt a mighty whoosh fly past my body. There was a loud squawking as the bird was frustrated in its attempt to take off my head. I flipped over and tried to get a sight line on the sucker. I laid on my back as close to the floor as I could and held the Ruger, ready to take my shot.

Lee prowled over to me, keeping low.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly, but the words were garbled. I was startled to see that his face looked like it was caught mid-change. I had seen many strong wolves who could change parts of their bodies. It was one of the ways to determine an alpha but by no means a sure thing. Zack and Neil had both mastered the power but only had it because of Daniel’s blood, and they could change an arm or a hand when they needed it. Lee’s snout was out and his teeth were long. His hands were indeed ugly claws, but the rest of his body maintained its shape.

He shoved my head down, taking care with his claws as the bird made a second pass. After it swooped past, Declan was on his feet, an arrow notched and tracking the bird as it flew. He cursed as it disappeared from view.

Lee shoved me under one of the tables, and I had to stop myself from shrinking back. There was another corpse under this table, but the aswang had gotten to this one before the undertaker had done his damage. This corpse was chewed on thoroughly but had enough flesh left hanging to make me really not want to be up against it.

“Protect her,” Lee ordered.

Declan kneeled in front of me, weapon in his hands. He smiled down, and I noticed he’d dropped the glamour. He wasn’t concentrating on anything so silly as maintaining his Dev illusion now that we were fighting for our lives. His hair hit the floor as he crouched. He seemed calm and unruffled by the experience. “I will protect her. You kill the bird, and I will save the girl.”

Lee rolled his wolf eyes and then moved to the center of the room where he knelt down, that long snout scenting the air. He quickly found the bird’s perch but made no move to get it. He was waiting and it was a strangely active thing. Lee was patient and still, but I knew there was nothing complacent in him. The bird watched him with black, dead eyes. I held my breath for the longest moment, waiting to see who would break the stalemate first.

The bird gave a great cry, and a rush of wings filled the room. As the bird soared Lee leapt, his great mouth open, and caught the bird midair in his teeth. A loud crunch and the sickening sound of bones breaking cracked through the space. The wolf and the bird hit the ground again, and I knew the fight was over when Lee growled and got that meal he’d been hoping for.

He was back to normal and spitting feathers out when he looked down at me and Declan. The faery got up, helping me to my feet.

I gave my bodyguard a questioning look because I wasn’t sure he should have handled things the way he had. “Do you have any idea where that thing’s been? It’s dirty and what do you do? You eat it. Don’t you come to me later when you get a tummy ache.”

Lee grinned, and it made him look younger than his thirty-five years. “Tastes like chicken.”

I laughed, but my relief didn’t last long as I tripped and hit the floor face first. My gun shot out of my hands and tumbled away as I groaned with pain. I was about to look back and see what I had tripped on when something closed around my ankle and started pulling me under the table. My stomach was rolling again as I realized the freaking Internet hadn’t mentioned a damn thing about the aswang having control over corpses. Sure enough, a bony hand was pulling me inexorably toward fleshless teeth.

The people who had seen this particular power were probably all freaking dead.

Scrambling to get away, I tried to kick at my assailant. I glanced back and saw the corpse trying to get on its bony knees. Though its eyes were long dead, they seemed to look my way more out of habit than anything…unless the freaking thing could see through the corpse’s eyes.

This is why I don’t hunt. I steal. In all my years as a thief, I’ve seen some freaky things, but not once was I assaulted by rotting corpses, and it was a credit to my profession, if you ask me.

Declan hauled me up, and I heard the satisfying pop of those undead joints coming off. “I believe the creature has awakened the dead.”

“Ya think?” I was only slightly hysterical as I realized there was still a hand attached to my ankle. I reached down and forcibly removed the offensive, still twitching, limb. I tossed it across the room and wasn’t thrilled to see it start to move my way again.

Lee walked up to the hand and crushed it under his boots. “Zoey, behind you.”

I swiveled around quickly just as the corpse began to crawl out from under the table. It was missing an arm but it managed to slither along. I kicked out, catching it on the jaw which cracked under the force of my supercute J. Reneé jeweled ladybug sandals. I was really going to have to think about proper footwear the next time I went hunting. Living with Dev had made me soft.

Declan stepped on the corpse’s spine and the weight of his big body stopped all forward motion. The bones still twitched and pulsed with the need to follow orders, but it no longer was capable.

Shuddering, I reached down to pick up my lost gun. I had it in my hand when I heard that horribly now-familiar zombie groan and brought my eyes up just as three more corpses entered the room. They moved slowly, as though every motion was deliberate and required great thought, but these corpses were more flesh than bone. They also had stopped to get weapons. Two held long butcher knives and the third held an axe.

Lee sprang away from the zombies and across the room to join Declan and me. Even Lee shuddered a little when he stared at the creatures facing us. Declan notched an arrow and shot the one closest to him in the eye. It didn’t actually stop the zombie. It just gave the zombie a nice place for birds to perch.

“See, Dec,” I said with a frown at his cute little bow and arrow, “this is why we bring guns.”

Lee smiled and we both took aim. “Take off the head.”

The world was suddenly filled with the sounds of bullets cracking through the air. It took more than a couple of tries because we weren’t carrying the right kind of weapons, but then we hadn’t known we were going to be dealing with freaking zombies in the middle of Dallas. When killing zombies, the movies really do have it right. A shotgun is the only way to go. You have to take off the head, not just leave a neat little hole in it.

Usually.

I say usually because this time was the exception. I suspect it was because these weren’t true zombies. These were reanimated dead being controlled directly by another creature. For whatever reason, even after I had successfully blown my opponent’s head to smithereens, it just kept coming. Lee was having the same trouble and finally cursed and tossed his semi aside. His hands became long claws and despite the knife about to come down on his head, he leapt into the fray and began tearing the body apart.

Declan sent me a regal frown even as the other two zombies shuffled our way. “Yes, Zoey, your guns have been entirely effective at splattering brain tissue across the room. Now, if you will allow me?” He snapped a finger and Padric showed up as though twisting reality around him. He emerged from wherever he hid and handed Declan a long silver sword. The prince nodded and Padric was gone again.

“Hey, we could use some backup here.” He had a whole army hidden in some weird pocket world.

Declan hefted the sword easily. “We don’t need Padric for this. I can handle a few undead.”

I pulled the knives out of their sheaths and sighed because I hate wet work. I would way rather shoot something from a distance than have to get up close and personal. It usually gets gory and my clothes get crap on them. Not to mention the fact that I almost always get hurt.

One knife in each hand, I followed Declan into the fray. He wielded the sword with the grace of a master and blocked the knife the zombie held.

I kicked out, trying to get my guy off balance. He went down with a satisfying thud, and I put my weight into breaking his spine.

The truth is zombies, while creepy and nasty, aren’t really all that hard to deal with. They tend to be slow and spend an enormous amount of time groaning. They really will eat your brains but then they’ll pretty much eat whatever part of you they can get their mouths on. As I had blown this bad boy’s mouth off, I just needed to avoid that freaking axe and cut off enough pieces to make it stop moving.

Lee was busy tearing his zombie apart with his bare hands. Declan had split his in half with a single sword stroke, and I brought my knife straight down on the corpse’s shoulder. I chose the one that moved the arm holding the axe because I didn’t want to get anything chopped off. I was pretty sure if I survived this that Danny and Dev would be taking a piece of my hide, so I wanted to keep it intact.

I kicked the arm along with the axe to the other side of the room. The body was convulsing as though whoever was animating it was in definite distress. I let one of the knives drop and held the longer one directly over my head. I leapt over the body, straddling it, and brought the knife down onto the sternum with every bit of strength I had in an attempt to split the body in two. The bones cracked and finally an eerie silence came over the room.

Declan surveyed the battlefield with a satisfied smile. “It was a good exercise. It has my spirits up, along with other things.”

Declan was annoying, but he’d been fairly good in a fight.

“Well, put those other things down for now, boy, because the job isn’t done.” I wiped a chunk of…something off my shoulder. This is where a true hunter reveled in the blood and the kill and I just wanted a freaking shower. I put aside my need to unleash a girlie squeal and picked up my bag, replacing my knives. I switched the rounds from silver to salt in the Ruger and pulled out my secret weapon: a really big-ass jar of minced garlic from Ether’s kitchens. I tossed it to Declan, who looked at me like I was crazy but held it anyway.

“Zoey, I’ll go first,” Lee offered.

“No, this is my gig, Lee.” I took the stairs at a run. I didn’t intend to give her time to wake the local graveyard. The second floor was simple, three doors all on the right side. The first was a bathroom that could have doubled as a horror movie set. I found what I was looking for in the second.

The aswang was in human form, her cadaverous body in the middle of a filthy mattress. Her skin had transformed from white to a sickly yellow and there was an arrow protruding from her belly. A foul stench hit my nose, and I fought not to gag. I probably should have felt some bit of sympathy. I knew what it felt like to get an arrow stuck in my gut, but then I hadn’t eaten any babies lately so I figured the bitch deserved it.

She stared at me, and I saw it in her eyes. She was done. She was completely spent. In her state, it had probably cost her every bit of energy she’d had left to control the corpses the way she had. So she wasn’t going to fight me. I still had questions to ask. “Who hired you?”

“Help me.” The plea came out in a reedy voice. Her eyes were black, but even in the dim light I could see their dullness. Now that I was close, I could see the paper quality to her skin. Though she had no real blood in her body, the wound still puckered and appeared filled with some sort of puss.

“I will help you die after you tell me what I want to know,” I stated firmly and with no sympathy.

“I will tell you if you help me live.” She panted the words out as though the very act of speech was painful.

I shot her in the leg, the dead flesh flying apart like tissue paper. Though the flesh was dead, the creature howled in pain. “I need the garlic, Declan.”

“Over the wound?” he asked and I nodded. He took a handful of the herb and slapped it on the crevasse I’d created. The minute the garlic hit her open flesh, the aswang screamed, her agony a palpable thing in the room.

When she stopped screaming and her wailing ground down to a low sob, I leaned in. “Who hired you? I can do this all night long or I can take your head quickly. It’s up to you.”

Lee was watching the scene before him with a frown on his face. I couldn’t tell if it was merely the seriousness of the situation or if he was disappointed in me. I couldn’t care. If he walked away from this thinking I was a stone-cold bitch, then that was how it was going to have to be. After today, he probably wouldn’t be my bodyguard anyway. If Dev left with Declan because he was sick of me, then I certainly wouldn’t be able to pay him. Despite what Declan thought, I wasn’t about to be bought off. Dev might throw me out, but I wouldn’t be taking anything with me.

When the creature was silent I reached down, took her stick-like arm in my hands and twisted as hard as I could until the arm began to tear off. She was extremely vulnerable without her familiar, without flesh to feed upon, with that arrow poisoning her. I wasn’t about to let go of my advantage. I nodded at Declan, who covered the sinew in sticky garlic.

“Please,” the creature begged after she became too tired to wail further. “It was a demon or what once was a demon.”

Lee cursed. “I told Zack this was about Halfer.”

Lucas Halfer was a never-ending pain in my ass. “What did he want from you?”

She shook, her entire body trembling, and I wondered what death was going to be like for the undead. Was there some other plane they fled to when the body they inhabited was gone?

Finally, she began to talk. “He came to me. He promised me many corpses. He told me he knew a place where there were so many babies, I could feast forever.”

“He lied.” It was kind of what demons did.

She smiled, a ghastly thing. “Oh, but he did not. At least not at first. No one believes here. No one sees me here. They do nothing to protect themselves, and I had many babies. Their blood is so sweet I thought I had found paradise. Then he gave me his price.”

I waited but let her see the gun. She needed to know she was far from anything like paradise now.

“He told me I must kill you,” she whispered. “I did not want trouble with the vampire, but Halfer threatened to out me. He said you had to die before the Strong Arm of Remus got here.”

Lee gasped, his eyes widening. “That’s a legend.”

It wasn’t one I’d heard of. “What’s the Strong Arm of Remus?”

Lee shook his head. “It’s a story wolves tell their pups when they want to scare the crap out of them. It’s nothing, Zoey.”

“The demon does not think so.” The aswang shuddered. “He says it is hidden, and he wants it. He wants to control the wolves. I was to kill you before the fifteenth of July. He said you would get the object if I did not kill you.”

“I don’t even know what the object is,” I admitted.

“He was paranoid. He was sure the vampire was always behind him. He is…not right in his mind.” She moved her attention to Lee. “She is cruel. Will you be kind? Please kill me. I no longer wish to play these games.”

“He won’t help you.” I couldn’t give in now. “Where is Halfer?”

“I do not know,” she replied, and I watched as she tensed for more pain. She truly believed it was coming and yet she held out. “He always sought me. I did not follow him. I just wanted to be left alone to feast.”

I held my hand out to Declan, who tried to pass me the garlic. The aswang’s eyes had closed, her mouth tightening as she waited for more torture. And that’s exactly what it would be if I continued. “No, she’s done. She doesn’t know anything else. I need the sword now.”

“This is the sword of a warrior. This is the sword of a king.” Declan twisted the handle my way. “You wish to use it? What do I get in return?”

“I won’t punch you in the face again,” I offered.

He held the sword out, hilt first. “That is not what I would have chosen, but it will do. You actually have quite a powerful punch. Do not damage it.”

“I’ll try.” I gripped the sword with two hands. This was my job to do.

I turned back to the pitiful thing on the bed and actually managed to feel the slightest stir of something resembling sympathy. I raised the sword and brought it quickly down, separating her head from her neck. I tossed Declan back his precious sword which was quickly and efficiently taken by Padric. “We have to find an incinerator. We can burn the body here, but I’d rather the head was done elsewhere.”

It’s always a good idea to keep the head separate from the body when dealing with the undead. They have a pesky habit of putting themselves back together.

Lee tossed the head my way and wrapped the body up in the dirty sheet. Declan went to make a nice fire in the butchery, and Lee turned his brown eyes to me.

“Did you enjoy that, Your Highness?” His voice was neutral. It was the first time in my memory that he’d used my title. I got the feeling Lee wasn’t really into the whole royalty thing.

I thought about it for a moment and answered him honestly. “I didn’t. I thought I would, but in the end it’s all just death, and there is nothing joyful or fulfilling about it. It was necessary, Lee. It had to be done.”

He considered me for a moment before finally allowing himself to crack a small smile. “I’ll take over the duty of guarding you, Your Highness. Zack isn’t strong enough. Even if Quinn refuses you, and I don’t believe that will be the case, I’ll stay on until the demon is found. I’ll protect you, and other than a situation that I feel completely compromises your safety, I’ll follow your lead.”

“No more itineraries?” I asked with a half-smile because it sounded a little like heaven.

“None beyond the ones you set.”

I sighed with relief. “Thank you, Lee.”

We joined Declan and proceeded to make sure the aswang troubled us no more.