“After midnight, I heard the sound of crunching metal. I wasn’t sure what I would find, so I asked Mike to stay inside.
“He promised he would stay inside unless he heard me scream. Upon walking out to the lot, I heard the continued sound of crunching metal.
“Following the sound, I found the creature in the back eating the bumper off a car it had just pulled off. It may have just been chewing it up. I decided not to get that close.
“I hid behind a truck looking out when I could. I wanted to observe the creature as best I could without it seeing me. I must have been gone too long. Mike came out. He called out to me.
“The creature was so fast it was on top of Mike in just seconds. There wasn’t time for me to do much. I came up behind it, striking it with daggers.
“Sadly, a split-second before I struck the beast, it ripped out Mike’s throat. I used a spell to shoot electricity through the blades and struck it again. The creature ran off and I called 911.”
Officer Rodriguez was taking notes. His face was unreadable during her explanation.
“Where are the daggers you used on the creature?”
Harley didn’t remember. She must have dropped them. She looked down surprised to see the daggers back in tattoo form on her arms. Only it looked like there was blood added to the blades of the dagger.
She pointed to the tattoos on her arms. “They are here.”
Officer Rodriguez looked like she was a little insane. “You stabbed it with a tattoo?”
“The tattoos are magic. They bind the weapons to my skin. It’s an ancient magic. A friend of mine is the only one I know that knows how to do it.”
“Could you bring the dagger out and show me?”
Harley brought the dagger forth. She adjusted it so that Rodriguez could exam the blade. “Looks like there is blood on the blade from the creature. I am going to have the lab scrape some off.”
After carefully examining the blade, a tech scraped the blood off and handed the blade back to her.
“Normally we would tag that for evidence. I have a feeling it would just go back into tattoo form.”
Harley nodded. “It would.”
“Do you know what kind of creature it was?”
“No. I had planned on doing research to find out what we are dealing with.”
“Do you think you could describe it to a sketch artist?”
“Sure, that won’t be a problem.”
“Good,” Rodriguez called a sketch artist forward. Harley spent the next hour working with her to get a correct drawing of the creature.
They would email a copy of the sketch to her email. The station would also send it to all the local police and fire stations.
By the time, they were ready to leave, word came in that Mike had died. Harley fought the tears off. She wanted to be alone. They told her they didn’t need the clothes.
She wanted nothing more than to burn them. One of the officers followed her back to her hotel and even made sure she got inside the door. She stripped, putting the clothes in a plastic bag before stepping into a hot shower.
She turned the heat on as high as she could stand it and scrubbed. Harley scrubbed until her skin was red and raw. Then she sat down letting the water run over her and cried until the tears ran out.
It was a hotel shower so she didn’t have to worry about the hot water running out. She had no idea how long she was in the shower, but by the time she got out and dried off the sun was rising.
CHAPTER THIRTY
She called the police station to see if the hounds had been able to track down the creature. They had caught its trail but were too terrified to follow it. They also informed her that there were two additional paranormal teams looking around the area.
She had first call on what would happen with the case. Harley ordered breakfast and started researching the creature. Three hours later she found the Nandi Bear. She was certain that’s what she saw last night.
The only problem was the Nandi Bear was from Africa. The bear was named after the Nandi tribe. The animal is said to be fierce, its paranormal properties unknown.
There have only been five sightings since the shift. None have ever been tamed in any way. The last one of note killed over three dozen people before it was killed.
It took several witches to take it down. The Nandi Bear’s favorite feast was the human brain. Perhaps they had watched too many zombie movies as a young cub.
She read through the reports from the witches that had killed the last one. None of them had tried electricity. She had used it last night with some degree of success. Her only problem was she had not reacted soon enough.
Harley spent the rest of the morning coming up with an idea. The lot would need to close several hours early and they would need a steel reinforced cage large enough to trap the creature.
Arriving at around six at night Harley was relieved to find the cage was there and already in place. It was exactly where she wanted it. It took her nearly an hour to convince everyone to leave.
The last thing Harley wanted was another tragedy. The only way that could be avoided was to make sure she was alone. She’d simply sit in her SUV and wait for the creature.
She did agree to call Officer Rodriguez as soon as she heard it. She planned on using her blue tooth headset. Rodriguez would be able to hear if she needed help.
After everyone had gone
