Autumn Bones

In silence, we waited for the Tall Man’s—for Grandpa Morgan’s—response.

“Sorry, bwai.” There might even have been a hint of regret in the rusty voice. “But your mother bound me to her will.”

And then, “CAVANNAUGH!”

Grandpa Morgan had loosed the reins on the Tall Man and given him his head. The axe rose, the skull turning in search of Stacey Brooks. Stefan straightened, hoisting his sword, his irises like pale rims of frost around his pupils.

“Easties, fire!” I shouted, praying that Brandon and his friends were still up there manning the ramparts.

My prayers were answered. Atop the roof of the old Birchwood Grill building, the industrial-strength water- balloon launcher twanged over and over, launching a barrage. The Tall Man flailed, batting at the onslaught. It wasn’t anything more than an annoyance to him, but all I needed was a moment’s distraction.

“Now!” I shouted to Lurine.

Her iridescent tail shot forward, snaking around the skeleton’s bony ankles, upending him with a single yank. The Tall Man clattered to the ground, bones and armor rattling. Stefan was on him in a flash, both booted feet stomping down hard on the skeleton’s axe-wielding arm, the point of his sword jamming into the exposed vertebrae at the back of the Tall Man’s neck through the same gap under the helmet that I’d spotted.

Of course, there was no magic in his blade, only skill, and it seemed the skeleton was held together with death magic, not sinew. Blue lightning crackled as the Tall Man flung him off with supernatural strength, rising to one knee.

One knee was good enough for me. It put the nape of the Tall Man’s neck at right about eye level.

Stealing up behind him, I drove dauda-dagr home.

It cut through the brittle old bones like butter. The blue lightning vanished. The Tall Man’s figure collapsed.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Too soon, of course. The air around the fallen heap of bones and metal roiled, smelling of scorched hair and rot. Without a host to contain it, Grandpa Morgan’s duppy was manifesting at long last.

“Gentlefolk of the coven!” Casimir called in a fierce, determined voice. “My darlings, our time has come!”

Sinclair turned to me. He held the empty pickle jar in one hand and the sad, trampled reminder of Jojo in the other, and the determination in Casimir’s voice was echoed in his level gaze. “Stand back, Daisy. We’ve got this.”

I nodded. “Do it.”

I admit it—I’d had my doubts about the coven. But they converged in a circle around the Tall Man’s armored bones and held hands, with Sinclair in the center, facing his grandfather’s spirit. Sandra Sweddon, Warren Rogers, Mark and Sheila Reston, Kim Crandall, Mrs. Meyers, whose first name I really ought to learn . . . their ordinary, mortal faces were strong and beautiful as they chanted an invocation.

Grandpa Morgan’s duppy fought them. It manifested in a shifting array of forms: a bull-calf with fiery eyes, chains jangling around its neck; a black dog with its hackles raised; a giant fish leaping and twisting in midair.

Members of the coven held fast to one another’s hands and chanted louder, their voices strong.

In the center of the circle, Sinclair opened the empty jar, the sprig of joe-pye weed tucked into the breast pocket of his polo shirt. He uttered a word—a word like the word his mother had uttered in the cemetery, all stern, tolling syllables that sounded as if it came from before the dawn of recorded time.

The duppy’s appearance dwindled into that of a stooped, elderly man with tired, bloodshot eyes, gazing at his grandson with a pleading expression.

Sinclair said the word again.

A cool, crisp autumn breeze sprang up, banishing the scent of decay and blowing the manifestation of the duppy into tatters. There was a . . . a sucking sensation, like what happens when contestants on Iron Chef America use the vacuum sealer.

With a deft, deliberate twist, Sinclair screwed the lid onto the pickle jar, capturing his grandfather’s spirit.

It was done.

Forty-seven

In the aftermath, I burst into hysterical laughter. I couldn’t help it.

“Daisy.” Stefan’s calm voice anchored me. “Are you harmed?”

“No.” I wasn’t entirely steady on my feet, but the sense of debilitating weakness was beginning to fade. “I’m okay. Is everyone else okay?”

Unfortunately, the answer was no. At least the Tall Man hadn’t succeeded in doing a lot of damage. His axe had nicked Lurine’s coils, and Stefan had a gash in his forearm. He assured me it was nothing, although blood was soaking through the bandanna he wrapped around it. Jen was shaken by her encounter with Clancy Brannigan but otherwise unharmed. Her sister, Bethany, was displaying the bullet she’d expelled from her chest—don’t ask me how, since I’m not up on the intricacies of vampiric healing abilities—with all the pride of a first grader with the coolest item at show-and-tell. While Stacey Brooks was either in a state of shock or pretending to be in order to justify clinging to Sinclair’s arm, she didn’t have a scratch on her.

But despite the best efforts of the ghoul squad, there were injuries among the spectators. No fatalities, thank God, but there were a lot of scrapes, bruises, and sprains, two nonfatal cardiac incidents, and one probable case of broken ribs.

And Cooper was ravening.

It was the panicked cries for help somewhere in the crowd that alerted us. I kindled a feeble shield and followed Stefan as he strode down the street, leaving the police and the arriving EMTs to deal with the injured.

Aside from Stefan, all the other Outcast had beat a prudent retreat when they’d reached the limits of their discipline. Not Cooper. He’d overestimated his abilities, and now he was confronting a trio of tourists: Mom, Dad, and a teenaged daughter who was standing slumped and vacant-eyed in the circle of her mother’s arms while her mother shouted for help and her father, looking terrified, took a protective stand in front of them.

“...scared, are ya, boyo?” Cooper was taunting the father. “That’s all right, then. I like scared, me.” He made a rude, deliberate slurping noise, his features contorting in ecstasy. “Yum, yum!” The tourist dad’s face turned slack and blank. “That’s right, let good old Cooper take care of you, make all your fears go away. Though there’s nothing quite as tasty as the terror of a sweet little bird like your daughter, innit?”

“For the love of God, leave us alone!” the mother cried in a shrill voice, wrapping her arms tighter around her daughter.

“Don’t you worry yourself, Ma,” Cooper replied jauntily. “God’s got nothing in the world to do with it. But I promise, it won’t hurt a bit.”

“Cooper!” Stefan said sharply. “Stand down!”

“Big man.” Cooper turned. There was a note of scorn in his voice. His pupils were fully dilated, swallowing all traces of his blue irises, and his eyes shone like dark moons in his narrow face. “Always trying to make us into summat we’re not. When are you going to learn? We’re not heroes, not the likes of us. We’re Outcast.”

Stefan locked gazes with him. “Nonetheless.”

“The lass was out of her head with terror, boss,” Cooper said, looking away with an effort. Reaching past the unresisting father, he chucked the teenaged girl under her chin. “Look at her now! Meek as a lamb.”

The mother screwed her eyes shut tight, shutting out the world. “Will somebody please do something?”

Cooper turned the black pits of his gaze back toward Stefan. “You heard her, big man. Do something. Why