“Henner told us to knock on your coffin if we needed you!” I yelled at him.
“Would either of you, lovely ladies, mind filling me in on the details, hmm?” he asked, seeming completely unconcerned about the particulars.
“There’s a wendigo after us!” I blurted, not knowing how else to say it. Then I pointed out the back to the rapidly encroaching shape of the creature.
Lorcan blinked once, but showed no other outward indication of surprise. “Ah. So there is.” Then he turned to face me. “I suppose you want me to do something about it?”
I wasn’t sure what he could do, but I nodded mutely, watching with a rising sense of awe as he tugged himself free of the coffin. The dentist was apparently a Star Wars fan, because he’d been bundled up in a Death Star fleece.
“All this time I thought Danny was the poltergeist,” Bailey said, shaking her head, her eyes filled with guilt.
“We all did,” I answered.
“Offending the dead should be the least of your concerns presently,” Lorcan quipped as he stood, as best he could, in the interior of the hearse and shuffled to the back, hunched over all the while.
“What are you going to do?” Bailey demanded.
“Why, I’m going to ask the bloody creature if it would like to join me for tea,” he answered with a frown. “What the hell do you think I’m going to do?”
“Um, I’m not sure,” Bailey answered.
Then Lorcan began fiddling with the rear door, before pulling it open. Immediately, a rush of freezing air entered the void, and I shivered in spite of myself. Lorcan stood in the gap, clad only in a pair of black silk boxers, cutting an impressive figure. His pale skin glowed like alabaster in the splashes of street light we passed and his light, wild hair seemed to take on a life of its own in the night wind.
Then, casual as you please, he dove off the back of the hearse and onto the street, taking the brunt of the fall on one shoulder before rolling to his feet. There was a stripe of bloody red where the asphalt had turned his shoulder into hamburger.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” Bailey whispered.
“Well, then, that makes two of us.”
That was when I realized Marty had no idea what was going on in the back of the hearse. “Stop the car!” I shouted as I reached forward and banged on the glass that separated us. It was then that I realized where we were—right in front of the Half-Moon Bar and Grill. Lorcan was maybe halfway down the street and just beyond him, I could make out the wendigo in the darkness.
Marty brought the hearse to a screeching halt in front of the Half-Moon. His eyes were showing a lot of white when he peered through the back curtains at me.
“Get inside, both of you!” he directed. “Find Roy. Ask him if he’s got a gun or an acetylene torch. Maybe Lorcan and I can slow her down. Go! Hurry!”
My legs felt numb, and I was on autopilot as I accepted Bailey’s help, and together we started up the outside stairs leading to the closed and locked door. She pounded on it, as I prayed someone was there to hear us. There were a few cars parked in the lot…
In my periphery, I saw the wendigo take a vicious swipe at Lorcan, who dodged it with a laugh. Far from looking hurt, he seemed positively giddy to be fighting a monster.
“Oh come now, Babs! I know you’ve got more spirit than that!” he yelled out. “Try harder this time!”
Babs? Lorcan knew who the wendigo was? How was that even possible?
Possible in the same way that Henner appeared to know her and she appeared to know him.
The Half-Moon’s door opened and knocked me in the shin. A woman emerged, glanced down, and gasped; “Good Lord! I’m sorry!”
“Nevermind that!” I nearly barked. “We need to speak to Roy!”
At the sound of hollering in the street, the woman peered out and then swallowed hard. She turned back to the dark restaurant. “Ophelia! Send someone to give Lorcan a hand, won’t you?”
And she didn’t seem surprised… nope, she didn’t seem surprised at all that Lorcan was in the middle of the street, battling an immense shadow wendigo. Haven Hollow truly wasn’t like other towns.
Understatement of the century.
The woman knelt by my side and slid an arm around my shoulders, as Bailey took my other arm, both of them lifting me so I could walk. I didn’t even realize I was limping. I had to lean hard against Bailey and it was an enormous struggle not to puke all over her. The events of the night, combined with the concussion, were definitely taking their toll.
The woman led us to a nearby booth and helped me sit. Meanwhile, I saw two shapes streaking past the booth and toward the sounds of the fight outside. One was unmistakably Stanley Stomper... from the waist up, that is. From the waist down,was the muscular, rippling lower body of a Cleveland Bay stallion. The flanks of the... God... the centaur heaved with effort as he made a mad dash toward the front door, with something huge and hairy following close behind him.
“Um,” Bailey started. “What did I just see?”
“I think you saw a centaur,” I started. “Followed by… something else.”
At first I thought it might be a second wendigo. It was just as large, muscled, and hairy. However, when the creature came into focus, I could make out the few crucial differences. The dark fur was sleek, the frame very humanoid, the hands with their sausage-like fingers sorely lacking claws. It issued a bellow of challenge as it loped outside to face the wendigo, but it wasn’t a primal shriek. It sounded like a Silverback gorilla.
It sounded like RJ’s recordings of... bigfoot.
“My name is Janet Stomper,” the woman who had helped us introduced herself. “I’m Stanley’s wife.”
“And Stanley’s a centaur!” I said, barely recognizing my own voice.
She nodded and smiled down at me. “Yes, he is. Now, I need you to tell me if Barbra managed to cut you with her claws?” She looked at Bailey. “Either of you.”
“Was that other thing… a sasquatch?” Bailey asked.
“Yes, yes,” Janet said with a sigh. “Stanley and Roy can take care of themselves. Did Barbra hurt either of you?”
“No, Barbra didn’t touch any of us,” I responded.
But my thoughts were elsewhere—namely on the fact that Danny had been a leprechaun, Barbra a wendigo, and Stanley Stomper was a centaur. And apparently Roy Osbourne was a sasquatch. A Big Foot. A Yeti.
Hmm, I wasn’t sure if I could date him now. I mean…
Poppy, that is a conversation for another day!
“Stop fussing over the gypsy, Janet. She’s fine,” Ophelia Ponsobby announced from behind us. “Roy reported she fell and hit her head earlier in the day. I imagine the stress is making the concussion worse.”
Turning my head was a painful, nauseating motion, and it wasn’t worth the effort. Ophelia sat in the booth opposite us, a chilly smile playing at the corners of her lined lips.
“What are you?” I gasped.
“And what in the hell is going on?” Bailey demanded.
Ophelia folded her hands on the table in front of her, flicking a wolf-themed coaster to the ground contemptuously as she did so.
“I am a night hag. You’ve clearly guessed what Mr. Stomper and Mr. Osbourne are. Care to hazard a guess at Mr. Rowe’s species?”