Murmur Read online

  “Yes, I spy them. How shall we proceed?” Kiki asked. Veruca considered her options.

  “Can you see what they’re doing? I can see their souls, but not their exact actions. Is Finn hurt?”

  “He does not appear so. They’ve tied him to a tree and stripped him naked. He does not look distressed.”

  “No, Finn’s rarely bothered by being naked.” Veruca sighed, shaking her head. Even in the darkening evening and bound to scratchy bark, Finn would choose to look on the bright side of the situation. Considering he was surrounded by a gaggle of women with names like Karen and Cynthia who ranged in age from thirty-seven to forty-nine, his own exposed genitals would be the last thing he was worried about.

  The first thing he was thinking about, but the last thing he was worried about.

  ****

  Finn had no idea what was going on, but that hadn’t stopped him from enjoying himself.

  The afternoon had started off well, with an aimless drive alongside the love of his life and the promise of adventure and eventually cuddles at some unknown B&B. Even when he’d been waiting patiently in the car for Veruca to bring back snacks and he’d spotted an older lady looking lost at the end of the block his mood hadn’t dipped. Aiming to help her, he’d gotten out, jogged over, and offered his services along with a generous dose of his bottomless charm.

  She’d been so pleased at the sight of him—not an unusual reaction, in Finn’s experience—that she’d practically fawned at his eagerness to help look for her little dog, Data. Data was a puppy, she’d said, easily distracted, excitable as could be and barely big enough to properly fit his collar. It wasn’t the first time she’d been left holding an empty lead, searching for her little friend and hoping a dashing stranger would step in.

  They’d gone through the park, chatting all the way, and Finn had kept a bead on Veruca’s essence, the tug of it in his heart and the glow of it behind his eyes. Sensing souls was an entirely new sensation to him, one he probably wouldn’t have been comfortable with if it hadn’t specifically been Veruca’s soul bound to his.

  He couldn’t sense her feelings or mood or anything like he knew some special people with bits of fairy blood could do, but he could tell how she moved and if she’d started running or acting erratic. He’d have known she was worried for him and gone back to assure her he was safe.

  He and the woman—Gloria, she’d said her name was—had ended up at the opposite end of the sun-dappled park, entirely at a loss as to Data’s location, but still happily chatting about this and that. Gloria had stopped them both at the edge of a crosswalk, regaling him with tales of how she’d come to adopt Data, how she had plans to teach him all sorts of fun tricks, and Finn had mostly been paying attention.

  Veruca was closing in on him now, he’d realized, curiosity and a little bit of worry edging in on his happy mood when her speed had increased and she’d started jogging. He’d spotted her just before darkness had descended, hands had gripped him, and he’d been dragged into the back of a cozy car and driven away from his love at an unreasonable speed and along an unpredictable course.

  Still, many turns, slows, and stops later, he could hear only the voices of women around him. Usually, Finn knew ladies like the back of his hand. If there was anything he could talk himself out of—or into, he knew from experience—it was the arms of a dozen women at once.

  They’d shushed him on the drive, though, ignoring his questions and posing some of their own.

  “Do you think she saw my face?”

  “Do you think she knew him?”

  “Do you think she caught the license plate?”

  “Do you think we can stop for something to eat?”

  “Can’t you shut up about food for, like, ten minutes, Linda?”

  Finn felt sort of bad for Linda, and not only just because his own stomach was growling. Veruca had stopped for snacks for a reason, after all. Neither of them had eaten since breakfast.

  Unknown destination aside, the drive was mostly pleasant, if Finn didn’t think too hard on the fact that he’d ended up bound and cramped and unable to get a word in edgewise. They’d traveled for a long while, and Finn had passed the last chunk of the time in silence, judging the situation by the idle chatter of his captors. They didn’t sound like maniacs or murderers. Cynthia and Fabi were talking about their kids, Linda had gotten a pack of some crunchy snack that had eased her grumpiness, and Karen spent most of the drive humming along to the Oldies station, at least until the signal bad gone bad and they’d turned it off.

  Great, Finn thought as they road had changed from smooth cement to pinging gravel. Now I can’t get “Love Potion no. 9” out of my head.

  Once they’d hauled him out of the car and collectively dragged him through pine-scented underbrush and dirt, things had improved. Sure, they’d tied him to a tree and cut off his clothes, but he couldn’t blame them for that. Finn knew he was a fine specimen, and plenty of people had eagerly gone to great lengths to get him naked.

  The tree part confused him, but they’d been very nice once they’d take off the hood, offering him fresh fruits and cooing over his perfection. One of them—Finn couldn’t be sure behind the papier mâché masks they were wearing, but it sounded like Cynthia—had even given him a lovely sponge bath, paying special attention to certain very enjoyable parts of him. Then Karen had scolded her for her dedication to cleanliness, and she’d hurried to finish.

  Finn had tried to explain to them both that they were all welcome to clean him, that he could be a very dirty boy after all, but Karen wasn’t swayed.

  All the while, Veruca had been making her way closer, though she’d stalled once or twice. Finn reasoned that she was probably gathering weapons or an army or something to make sure she was fully ready to take on whatever situation she might find him in. He understood her worry, of course. His past had caught up with them both twice, and Veruca was nothing if not smart enough to learn from mistakes, even if they were Finn’s and not her own.

  He hoped she didn’t bust in guns blazing, since it sounded like these women were strange but not terribly dangerous. Linda was expecting, it turned out, and seemed the most nervous about the whole ordeal. Karen appeared to be in charge, thought she and Fabi had clashed a few times on whether an actual hierarchy had been decided. They were doing this collectively, after all, and no one was getting more out of it than anyone else.

  Even if Karen had snidely pointed out that it was her van and her life on the line if they were caught.

  Caught doing what, Finn wasn’t sure, but they’d gagged him as Veruca had slowed from a driving speed to a walking speed and then paused for a few minutes. He could probably persuade her not to press charges if he’d just be given the chance to talk to her once she got close enough. He hadn’t been hurt, really, and Cynthia’s sponge bath had been a treat.

  Even being tied up didn’t bother him. Finn rather liked being tied up, especially when naked and surrounded by women.

  “You got the goblet and the athame?” Karen asked, pulling Finn’s attention away from Veruca’s approach. He knew that word, he thought, but he couldn’t place it. Goblet was a no-brainer. He was Irish, after all, and knew goblets were what wine was occasionally sipped from. Athame, however, was a word he couldn’t get a handle on. Familiar, but not quite clear in his mind’s eye. Probably something related to the goblet, he reasoned, hoping it was a brand of liquor he’d heard of once or indulged in to the point of forgetting.

  That’d be nice, he thought, considering the cooling temperatures and the fact that the sun was being blocked out by the falling night and the swaying trees. It wasn’t yet chilly enough for there to be any shrinkage to worry about, but a little nip of some bourbon or whiskey would help his mood in any case.

  When he saw the knife, he jolted, remembering what athame was and realizing that there would be no goblet offered up, no wine passing his lips.

  ****

  Veruca watched Kiki close in, impressed by the way she m
oved through the forest without seeming to disturb it. She was corporeal, had an actual form in the human world, and yet she seemed to dematerialize rather than actually bumping a leaf or displacing the dirt. There was an ease to her movement that was less physical and more attitude as well, though Veruca had learned that came with the confidence of being a powerful demon.

  Night had descended further, which made Kiki’s approach less noticeable to the gaggle of women grouped nervously around Finn with their backs to the fire. They stood in a half circle, holding hands and chanting. To Veruca it sounded like nonsense, but she was far enough away that even if had been some proper language, she likely wouldn’t have been able to recognize much of it.

  The demon approached from the opposite side of the fire, stopping at the edge of it, close enough that any mortal would have been forced to worry about her robes being chewed into ash.

  Finn noticed her first, his pale blue eyes wide, the muscles along his swimmer’s-build body tensing visibly even in the low light.

  “Uh, ladies,” Finn said, loud enough that Veruca could hear him from her position. Taking that as her cue, she pushed up from her spot crouched in the brush and headed around the edge of the clearing the would-be coven had claimed, aiming to cut Finn down while Kiki dealt with her flummoxed followers.

  There would be no bloodshed, as far as Veruca had suggested, but she could see enough darkness tainting the souls of the women that she wouldn’t have minded if Kiki felt the need to defend herself or even proposition some of the women into signing over their souls for whatever it was she could offer. Maybe Veruca would end up seeing many of the ladies again in a few years, when their contracts were up and it was time to collect their souls.

  Screams and yelps filled the inky evening as the women turned and found Kiki towering menacingly over their fire. She lifted one arm slowly, curling her fingers loosely until she was pointing at the group, still eerily silent. One of the women, the one whose soul was not only pure, but also joined at her middle by the newly formed essence of a fetus, stumbled back from the others, whimpering twice, before turning and cowering behind a low pile of bags and clothing.

  “What the hell?” a woman named Fabi cried, starting a chorus of questions dominated by fear but pierced here and there by outrage. Veruca let them chatter nervously as Kiki continued to point rather than explain her presence. By the time Veruca got to Finn the quiet had taken over again, and she was forced to hold her switchblade close so the snikt of it unfolding wouldn’t alert the women to her presence.

  “My love,” Finn whispered, just this side of quietly. “I missed you.”

  “Shh,” Veruca warned, crouching to work at the rope that held both his ankles in place at the base of the trunk.

  “I knew you’d come for me,” Finn said, failing once again to whisper properly. Two of the women turned, distracted from Kiki’s presence by Finn’s inability to be stealthy.

  “Hey!” Julie whined. “They’re trying to take the sacrifice!”

  “Sacrifice?” Finn cried, nearly drowned out by Karen’s protest. She launched herself forward, producing a blade of her own from somewhere in her robes, running full-tilt toward Kiki. Rolling her eyes, Veruca let the woman be, still focused on rescuing Finn, though she could hear Linda mumbling to herself in disbelief, off to the right.

  “Careful,” Finn warned, calling her attention to Julie closing in and giving Veruca enough time to roll out of the way of the awkward kick aimed at her face. Her training took over, letting her hop to her feet before the unskilled housewife had even realized her kick had completely missed. Holding her short blade out, Veruca bared her teeth, darting forward and swiping loosely. She didn’t want to do any true harm, but her experience had taught her that usually regular people would react to a swift attack by simply running off rather than retaliating.

  Julie only scoffed, having produced a blade of her own from somewhere. Veruca dodged, forced to evade as a basic steak knife arced through the air clumsily in front of her face. The fact that the woman had reacted to Veruca’s attacks with such rage should have been surprising, but the darkness of her soul—and the fact that she’d knowingly signed up for human sacrifice—let Veruca know Julie was far from regular.

  The scene further into the clearing was just as chaotic, Kiki dodging the rest of the coven as they went at her with kitchen tools of their own. Many had brought knives in various shapes and sizes, but Fabi had thought something blunter would do the job and was swinging a heavy meat tenderizer ruthlessly toward Kiki’s mid-section. She was too short to do damage much further up.

  Still dodging, Veruca watched Julie’s movements, hoping for some sort of opening, but certain that patience and caution would serve her better than jumping in and trying to get under the woman’s non-existent guard. It was probably the first time Julie had ever properly fought anyone, but Veruca knew that blind confidence with a blade could still do a fair amount of damage.

  Sure she could see the girl tiring and losing her balance, Veruca leaned left, aiming to crouch down and under a swipe before coming up and socking her fist straight into Julie’s nose. The girl stumbled and got lucky, however, and Veruca felt the serrated edge slice into the back of her forearm, burning as blood spurted.

  “Coño de madre,” she spat. She hadn’t grown up in Venezuela, but her parents had, all the way until Belial had plucked the whole family out of the unstable country and plopped them into new identities in the States. Veruca had picked up on some of their less than savory terms, even though she knew they probably hadn’t meant to impart those particular pockets of the Spanish language.

  Continuing her assault, now fueled by pain as well as frustration and worry for Finn, Veruca drove forward, kicking her leg out and right into Julie’s stomach. The housewife grunted, losing her footing and hold of her knife. Following through, Veruca shifted enough to do what she’d been trying to do before being sliced open. Julie fell to her face in the dirt, stunned from the punch, if not completely knocked out.

  Leaving her injury unchecked, Veruca rushed back to Finn, knowing she only had another moment or two of work to get his legs free.

  “Veruca?” Finn demanded, worried, his head swiveling back and forth as he tried to see around the tree to make sure she was okay.

  “I’m fine,” she said, hoping he didn’t worry about the panting edge to her voice. It was only partly from the effort of fighting the girl, and mostly from outrage at the situation.

  “Is your friend okay?” Finn asked, before sighing with relief when his ankles were unbound.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Veruca said, sparing a glance for the demon as she went to work on the rope holding Finn’s midsection against the rough bark.

  “She’s got about three knives sticking out of her. Are you sure?”

  “She’s a demon, darling.”

  “Oh, right then.”

  Sawing as quickly as she could, Veruca looked up from the fraying nylon to examine how Kiki was handling the clumsy coven. Sure enough, she’d been penetrated thrice: in the thigh, abdomen, and, perplexingly, the left foot. The women hadn’t given up, though, still swiping with their remaining weapons, even if those weapons were just fists and feet.

  When one of the women turned and noticed that Veruca had succeeded in cutting down the rope that was chafing Finn’s belly, she shrieked, ripped off her mask, and charged. Veruca swore, poised in an instant to take Fabi’s assault head on, dodging the mallet aimed squarely for her face, but only barely.

  “Reaper,” Kiki called out, a growl of frustration edging her tone. “Your suggestion that I avoid harm is most vexatious.”

  “Fuck it,” Veruca called back, crying out when the rough side of the tenderizer licked by her face and scraped down against her collarbone. The pain was intense, almost as bad as having her forearm sliced open, and she wondered if the weight of the thing alone had fractured her clavicle. Rage seared through her mind and, without thinking, she jerked forward, flipped the grip on
the blade in her one fully useable hand, and stabbed it right into her attacker’s shoulder. Fabi yowled, dropping the weapon as a spasm ran down to her fingertips.

  Veruca watched her collapse to the ground, bleeding into the dirt.

  “Do what you have to do,” Veruca called out to Kiki, once she was sure Fabi was down for the count, her one good arm ruined by the blade embedded in her flesh.

  Kiki wasted no time, though she ignored the women still attacking her and focused her magic on the one coven member who’d just split off to run yowling toward Veruca and Finn.

  Moments before Tamara could attack Veruca, the woman seized, crumpling to the ground as if she’d merely tripped and lost her balance. Startled by the appearance of a corpse with a mysteriously broken neck, Fabi screeched and tried to shuffle awkwardly in the other direction. Veruca sneered, pointing loosely with her injured arm.

  “I just wanted my boyfriend back and now look what you’ve done. You lunatics.”

  ****

  Finn was wiggling, though he didn’t really mean to be. The situation had gone from confusing to terrifying, and he couldn’t control himself. Veruca had come to save him and he had every confidence she would succeed, but the demon across the clearing didn’t seem to be faring so well and Finn was pretty sure he’d spied blood dripping down Veruca’s arm when she’d moved to start cutting through the rope at his right wrist.

  Furthermore, something had changed at the edge of his perception, and he wasn’t entirely sure what it was, even though it felt thrillingly familiar.

  Finn had only truly discovered his necromancy when he’d met Veruca and she’d put him under the tutelage of a demon who’d aimed to whip him into shape. Prior to that, his power to raise the dead had been a scary accident that he’d run from in every way, shape, and form. Since training and learning to better harness the ability, though, he’d gotten to recognize the delicate ins and outs.

  When he felt the slither of his magic perk up, it confused him. He knew the feeling of blood on dead flesh, knew the impatience to mean that, should he choose, he could send his necromancy forth and raise a zombie. What confused him, however, was the fact that he wasn’t bleeding. Never before had the touch of someone else’s blood connected him to a corpse.