Ghoul Interrupted (25 page)

Cruz ignored him. “I say we hold these two until we get the truth out of ’em.”

Pena moved to the cell door and pulled it open, motioning to Gil and me. “Get your gear. I’ll drive you to your car and see if we can’t get it started.”

Gil moved with lightning speed, gathering up all our belongings and the few stakes we had left. As he was shoveling those into his backpack, however, Pena took notice of them. “Hold on,” he said, pointing to the spikes. “What’s that?”

Gilley placed one of the spikes next to a bar on the cell, where it pulled free of Gilley’s fingers and clinked against the metal. “It’s magnetic,” he explained. “We use them to fight the nastier spooks.”

Pena pulled the spike off the bar to examine it. “How?” he asked.

I answered him. “Either by putting it close to the spook to drive it back, or by driving it into the spook’s portal—the gateway it uses to enter or exit our realm for one of the lower ones.”

I expected Pena to ask me a few more questions about the spike and our methods. He didn’t. Instead, he surprised me by asking, “Can I keep this?”

I looked at Gil and he shrugged. “Sure,” I said.

Brody came back over to me then and handed me a slip of paper with some writing on it. “That’s a prescription for some antibiotics,” he explained. “And when was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

“Three years ago.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Brody nodded. “Okay. Change that bandage once a day and keep your arm away from water for the next ten days. You can have the stitches removed by me or your own doctor after that.”

I thanked Brody and got stiffly to my feet. The woozy feeling I’d been having became overwhelming then and I sank like a stone to my knees. “Whoa!” Brody said, barely catching me.

“I’m a little dizzy,” I told him.

“She hasn’t had anything to eat since yesterday morning except one small, cold, pathetic piece of pizza last night, which was all Deputy Cruz let us have,” Gil said, looking pointedly at the lawman, who had the decency to duck his chin when Pena glared at him.

“We’ll take you back to your car so you can get something to eat,” the sheriff said kindly, coming into the cell to take me easily from both Brody and Gil—neither of whom were nearly as tall or brawny as the large, muscular Pena. Gilley left my side to root around in the wreckage outside the cell, coming up with our phones and ID. “We’ll be taking these back,” he said to Cruz, who merely glowered darkly at him.

With the sheriff’s help I was soon loaded into his cruiser and we were headed down the long and winding road to our car. When we got to the entrance of the Pueblo, however, we discovered that our car was gone.

“Where’d it go?!” Gilley practically screeched upon seeing that our rental was missing.

“You’re sure you left it here?” Pena asked, parking the cruiser right next to the large sage bush where we’d left the rental.

“Positive,” I moaned. Had I gotten the added insurance for the car if it was stolen? I couldn’t remember.

Pena popped the locks and Gilley got out fast, running over to where our car had been parked to stare in astonishment at the ground as if he could blink it back into place. “Where’d you rent it from?”

“The Enterprise on St. Michaels,” I said.

“Seriously?”
Gilley screeched. “Someone
stole
our friggin’ car?!”

“Was it locked?” Pena asked, reaching for his clipboard.

“Yes,” I said.

Pena began scribbling on his clipboard. “Well then, someone either broke in and got it started, or they towed it.”

“You think someone had it towed?” I asked hopefully, remembering that I’d said no to the extra insurance.

“No,” Pena said. “I’d have a report on it if they did.”

I sank back in the seat. “Crap,” I said moodily. I was right. This was gonna be a long day.

 

Two hours later Gilley and I were finally sitting down to a meal when Heath burst into the diner we’d found near our hotel. I slapped my forehead. In all the hassle of dealing with the rental car theft, I’d completely forgotten about my boyfriend.

“I texted him,” Gil said, looking up when he heard my name called from the doorway.

I set down the forkful of pancakes and got up just as Heath swept me into his arms. “Are you okay?” he asked, hugging me tight.

“Fine,” I assured him.

“The demon attacked her,” Gilley said, most unhelpfully.

Heath stepped back but held me at arm’s length. “Brody told me.” He then looked down at my arm, lines of concern etched into his face. “He said he put fifty-two stitches into you.”

“They were really little sutures,” I told him, holding my bandaged arm up so he could see I was okay.

Heath hugged me again, but all I could think about was how hungry and light-headed I still was.

“Heath,” Gilley said to him. “M. J.’s a little fuzzy from blood loss and low blood sugar. Let her sit down so she can eat, will ya?”

Heath immediately let me go and helped me into my chair, then came around and sat down next to me. I took up the fork again, so happy to finally get to eat uninterrupted.

“So what the hell were you two thinking, anyway?” Heath demanded.

I sighed and set the fork back down. But Gilley held up his hand to Heath and said, “We’ll eat first, explain second, okay?”

Once I’d plowed my way through nearly the entire stack of flapjacks, Gil and I confessed everything to Heath, including the part about the stolen volume of Pueblo histories, which Gilley had tucked back into the bottom of his backpack without anyone seeing it. To my surprise, Heath didn’t appear nearly as mad as I thought he’d be. He merely nodded and let us get on with the story.

When we were finally finished, he said, “I think you two should fly back to Boston today.”

“Hallelujah!” Gilley said, his eyes lighting up with the idea.

“Are you crazy?” I snapped, knowing exactly what Heath was thinking. “You want us to go away
now
?”

Heath put his hand gently on the side of my face. “This isn’t your fight, babe. It’s mine and my family’s.”

“Oh, and so far, you Whitefeathers are doing such a great job of defending yourselves,” I said, angry that he wanted to send me away.

Heath winced. “We’ll do better now that Pena’s on our side,” he vowed. “Hell, even my uncles are starting to come around. We all went over to the station and took a look at the damage. I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if you two hadn’t been safe inside that cell.”

“We’d have been safe inside our hotel room,” Gil muttered, earning a glare from me.

“We’re not leaving,” I told Heath, and I didn’t even bother asking Gil to stay. I just assumed he would. Or, should I say, I just hoped he wouldn’t throw a major hairy and have one of his epic meltdowns at the suggestion of staying.

Which is why he secretly shocked me when he sighed dramatically and said, “M. J.’s right. We have to stay. There’s no way you guys can handle this thing without us.”

Heath’s eyes moved to Gilley. “There’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to handle this thing
with
you two here either,” he reasoned. “But at least I won’t be distracted every minute worrying about you guys. Do you know I didn’t sleep a wink last night, I was so worried about you, Em? I didn’t think to check my e-mail till around four a.m.”

“Sorry,” I said, looking down at my lap. “I would’ve sent you a text or left a voice mail, but Cruz took our phones.”

“He can be a real prick,” Heath said, moving his hand to cover mine. “But the point is that you two need to go home and let me deal with this thing. It’s my family and my business.”

“Um . . . ow,” I said, pulling my hand away.

Heath sighed and reached for my hand again. “Em, you just don’t get it. If this demon attacks my family again and you’re in the room, I’m gonna have to make a choice between trying to defend you or one of them, and I can’t make that choice. I’d lose either way.”

“I
can
take care of myself, you know,” I told him.

Heath ran his fingers lightly across the outside of my bandaged arm. “Yeah, I can see that.”

I pulled my arm away from him again. “Heath, you have
no
idea how dangerous and ferocious this thing is! You can’t handle it alone!”

“Oh, trust me,” he replied. “I
do
know how dangerous it is, and I won’t be alone. I’ve got my mom and my family to help fight it.”

“But no one believes you!” I countered. “Your uncles think it’s a freaking mountain lion, for Christ’s sake!”

“Pena’s talking to Vernon and Rex right now,” Heath assured me. “I think after what happened last night at the station, there’s no way they can deny this thing exists or that this demon is out for blood.”

“Cruz thought it was a stunt
we
pulled,” Gilley reminded him.

Heath shook his head. “Cruz isn’t the smartest guy in the tribe, Gil. No one’s going to listen to him. They’ll listen to Pena.”

“We’re not leaving,” I said, digging in my heels.

Heath opened his mouth to protest, but at that moment we heard someone call his name and we all turned to look at the door. None other than Sheriff Pena himself was coming into the diner. He nodded to Gilley and me when he got to our table and said, “I see you took my recommendation on where to go for breakfast.”

I smiled. “It was just what the doctor ordered,” I told him.

He pointed to my arm. “How’s the wound?”

“Sore, but I’ve been assured it’s not fatal.”

Pena’s serious face softened and the edges of his mouth lifted. “Glad to hear it,” he said. He then pulled over a nearby chair and turned it around to straddle it like he’d done when he’d asked Gil and me about our night in jail.

“I’ve had a long talk with Vernon and Rex,” he began, “along with your mom, Heath, and a couple of the other elders, and we all agree that some sort of evil spirit is out for Whitefeather blood.”

Even though the conversation was very serious, I felt my shoulders relax. Finally the tribe believed us! “We’re calling a tribal council,” he continued, “and we’ll be consulting with a few other Pueblos to see if they’ve ever dealt with anything like this.”

Pena paused long enough to reach into his pocket and pull out a plastic-wrapped toothpick, which he unwrapped and stuck in his mouth to chew. We waited in silence for him to continue. “My guess,” he said next, “is that none of the other tribes have ever encountered
anything
like what we’re dealing with at Zanto. I’ve also spent a lot of the past hour combing the library for a copy of the histories to see if there’s anything in there about this evil spirit . . . but it’s odd. I can’t seem to find the book anywhere.” Pena didn’t exactly come right out and accuse us, but the implication was there in his voice.

I cleared my throat and motioned with my head for Gilley to cough up the volume.

Gilley narrowed his eyes hard at me and looked like he wasn’t about to confess for all of ten seconds, and we had ourselves a little silent argument with plenty of glares, stares, head motions, shakes, chin thrusts, and finally a kick under the table. That was from me, of course, and Gil finally, reluctantly, and with plenty of grumbling reached into his backpack and pulled out the missing volume.

“We . . . uh . . . found this in the grass outside the library,” he said. “It must’ve fallen out the window or something.”

Pena curled his large hand around the volume and pulled it close. “You know books,” he said. “Always leaping off shelves and running out the door, trying to flee the confinement of their libraries.”

I chuckled, and was a little relieved that Pena actually had a sense of humor.

I then took the opportunity to fill him in on what we’d read in the histories. Pena listened without comment, and when I was done, he said, “If you’re right and it’s the black hawk that’s after the Whitefeathers, then this would be some serious shit we’d be dealing with. I’m no medicine man, but I do know that the older the spirit, the more powerful it is. The legend of the black and white hawks dates back centuries to the very first stories our people told.”

“What’re you going to do?” Gilley asked him.

“Officially?”

Gil nodded.

“Host a bunch of meetings, consult the elders in our communities, and probably hold a few ceremonies, which likely won’t do a damn bit of good, and in the interim this thing’ll continue to try and pick off your family, Heath, one by one.”

Gilley audibly gulped, but I saw the small glint in Pena’s eye and I knew there was more.

“Unofficially,” he said after rolling the toothpick around on his tongue, “we’d like to hire you three.”

I shook my head. Had he just said what I thought he said? “Wait . . . what?” I asked.

Pena pointed to the three of us at the table. “You guys are professional ghostbusters, right?”

Gilley, Heath, and I looked around at one another. “Uh . . . ,” said Gil.

“Er . . . ,” said Heath.

“We are,” I told him.

Pena reached to the belt around his waist and pulled out the spike we’d given him. “I’m not sure if you can kill this thing, but seeing how you defended yourselves against it last night convinced me to give you three a shot. I can’t pay you much—I’ve only got about two thousand earmarked for discretionary spending in our budget—but it’s yours if you’ll take the job.”

“We’ll take it,” I told him.

“Hold on,” Heath said abruptly. “Last time I checked, we were a team, and as a team I think we should vote on this.”

Uh-oh. “We don’t need a vote,” I said, directing my comment to Sheriff Pena. “We’re in.”

“Not without a vote,” Heath insisted, and the way he was eyeing Gilley, I knew what he was doing. He was going to try and get Gil to vote no and send the two of us packing.

I glared at Heath, then turned steely eyes on Gilley, silently warning him to vote with me or there’d be trouble. “I vote we take the job,” I said with emphasis while I continued to stare hard at Gil.