I frowned. We’d fought more wights than I cared to remember not long ago, but ghouls . . . ghouls were just nasty. “Wights eat both spirit and body. Ghouls devour flesh only, but they’re cunning, and until you torch them or tear them from limb to limb, they’ll continue to fight. Even a severed arm can attack until you chop it up.”

“Delightful,” Chase said, and his tone perfectly mimicked Camille’s. I started to laugh, and he frowned. “What?”

“Nothing. I think we’re rubbing off on you. Okay, to kill a ghoul, silver always works, but it has to be big silver. No silver dimes, if they even still make them, no silver spoons. Silver as in big whopping silver. The metal sucks out the magical energy they’ve been infused with. As for other weapons, you can smash them with a hammer. Maces work. But to thoroughly destroy them, you really need a blade to cut them into little pieces.”

“What about magic?” he asked, looking decidedly queasy.

“Fire works, magical or not. Ice, not so much, unless it freezes them solid so they can’t move. Most other spells won’t do any good. Oh, lightning works. They can’t drown, and they can live without air, so strangling really isn’t an option. But if you cut or twist off their head, they can’t see what they’re doing, so they make easy targets to pound on until they’re fully . . . dead. Again.”

Chase stared at me like I was a psycho.

“What? You asked.” Why did I always have the feeling he thought I was going to change into a three-headed people eater or something equally monstrous?

“I know, I know.” He shook his head. “I’m just amazed by the variety of ways you come up with to destroy people. Or things. Things that shouldn’t be walking around. What about you? Can you drain their blood?”

I grimaced. “What do you think I am, a syringe? First—just so unappetizing. Do you have any idea of what those things taste like?”

He grimaced. “No, and I don’t want to find out.”

“Fine, but their blood tastes like dirt and feces and worms, so no, thank you. Second: Whatever blood most of them had when they first died is long gone. Dried up. Think bag of walking bones with decaying flesh. I have no stomach for drinking the liquids that form when they decompose. How about you?”

That did the trick, because he abruptly shut up and returned to Delilah’s side.

“Grab whatever you can to give them a good thrashing. Tasers won’t do the trick; if you use lightning or electricity, you need to fry them to a crisp with it, not tickle their funny bones,” I called out behind him.

As we hurried along the path, we saw several teens who either hadn’t heard the commotion or had ignored it. Chase sent one of his men over to firmly escort them out of the cemetery. We rounded the path, which wound through a patch of weeping willows, all old as sin and heavy with their long streamers of lacework leaves. I ducked under one of the strands as the sounds of growling came from up ahead.

As we rounded the corner, I stopped, motioning for the others to put the brakes on. Up ahead, in a pack that looked to be close to twenty members strong, hunched a group of ghouls.

They stank to high heaven. Some were long dead, others were still ripe and fresh. From where we stood, none of them looked like they’d been enchanted to last for the duration. No, they were castaways, raised for battle. Or for havoc. Ghouls like Martin—who belonged to Wilbur, our neighbor—were more resilient.

The ghouls who had their backs to us slowly turned. I groaned. They’d been feasting, and their dinner of choice was an older gentleman, thoroughly gutted by now. Camille sucked in a breath, while Kitten whispered something under hers. Chase cleared his throat, apparently waiting for me.

“Okay, we’re going in. Just remember—they’ll fight until you tear them apart. You can’t just take an arm off, or a leg. They’ll fight until they’re in little pieces, or unless somebody casts a spell to negate their enchantment. And unless Morio’s got one of those hidden in that handy bag of his, we’re about to put on a show, folks.” I glanced at him, not expecting anything, but still, a quiver of hope ran through me.

But Morio just laughed. “No such luck. But I’ve got a silver blade, and so does Camille.”

“Then in for the fight. And be careful. They’ll gnaw on any body part they can get hold of.” As I tried to gauge their strength, it occurred to me that for once, it would be nice to fight an opponent who wasn’t a pile of rotting flesh, or at least one who used deodorant. And then, pushing whimsy out of my mind, I moved in. It was time to rumble.

CHAPTER 22

As I jockeyed for a better position, the ghouls moved forward as a pack. I motioned for the others to spread out. Delilah and Chase moved to the right, Camille, Morio, and Vanzir to the left. Roz and I held center ground.

The ghouls paused, then mirrored our strategy, except there were a lot more of them than there were of us. How lovely to have a choice, I thought dryly as I tried to pick out the strongest of the group. Roz and I were best suited to attacking the ones with the most muscle. Luck held; the biggest brutes were coming right at us.

I heard the others suck in their breaths as our opponents drew close. And then—in that fraction of a second when all is silent in battle, when the lines have been drawn and all that you wait for is the final signal—I readied myself and sprang, Roz right on my heels.

Shouts rose as the others moved in, but all I could see were the two ghouls rushing toward me. Or, at least, shambling as fast as they could. Their flesh clung to bone like empty burlap sacks on a tree. Mold festered off the decay, oozing with carbuncles, the pus-laden boils giving their faces a lumpy look.

“You need some Clearasil,” I muttered as I took a swing for the biggest. He towered over me, even with his slumped shoulders and unbalanced gait.

I punched for the gut, hoping to double him over to where I could reach his head. With dead things, I could twist off their heads if I tried hard enough. Not pleasant, but it helped deflect their ability to situate their enemies. Then somebody with a blade could come in and hack them to bits.

The ghoul let out a low roar—the closest it would ever get to a shout—and I leapt for it, grimacing as my arms found purchase around his neck. He reeled backward from my sudden pounce as I managed to throw him off balance. I knocked him to the ground and swung around behind his head, pushing him by the shoulders to a sitting position. I couldn’t very well get at his neck if he was prone. He pawed at me, struggling to get away, but this was one area in which I held the advantage: I was a lot stronger than he was.

I maneuvered myself to where I was holding his chin in my left hand, the back of his neck in my right. With a sharp jerk to the left, the sound of bones breaking echoed in my ears, but I wasn’t done yet. Ghouls could get along just fine with broken necks. No, I had to tear off his head.

I pushed harder, hearing the rip of decaying flesh, and then I saw muscle—no longer firm and supple but spongy and ripe—and I poured on the sweat, twisting as the neck bones shattered. Within seconds, I was squatting there with the ghoul’s head in my hands. The eyes blinked at me in surprise, but they didn’t feel pain.

“Gross,” I muttered, tossing the head far from the body. “Need a blade here!”

Morio raced over, his sword drawn. As the ghoul flailed blindly, Morio darted in and out, hacking away. I left him to finish the job, glancing around to see how everyone else was doing.

Delilah and Chase were working together, pounding on one of the ghouls, while a second opponent pawed at Chase. It looked to me like the creature had gotten in a few solid swipes. We’d have to make sure everybody was treated; wounds from the undead, especially ghouls and zombies, became infected quickly.

Camille was holding a ball of energy in her hands, and as one of the ghouls descended on her, she danced to the side and, instead of targeting him, sent the ball directly into the midst of the pack where it would do the most damage. I quickly turned, covering my eyes as it landed with a loud explosion. The smell of singed flesh filled the air, and Camille began to cough.

At that moment, there was a loud screech as a large bird swept down, aiming not for us but for one of the scorched ghouls. Oh crap, a vularapture—an undead vulture. They were far more dangerous than the ghouls. We definitely had a full-fledged necromancer in the area; one who could do some serious damage. Luckily for us, vularaptures weren’t picky about their meals.

I darted a glance toward Vanzir, who was making quick work of his second ghoul. He had a methodical look on his face and went about it in a rough, if effective, manner. With one hand, he grabbed the ghoul’s throat, and with the other, he grabbed its hair and yanked. Hard. I hadn’t realized he was that powerful, because he pulled the freakin’ ghoul’s head right off the shoulders, the bones snapping like twigs. Of course, the ghoul might have had osteoporosis when she had been alive, making her bones brittle. The thought held an odd comfort for me.

Roz, on the other hand, was charging in with a deadly looking blade. He sliced and diced his way through the ghoul in front of him and turned to help Chase, knocking aside the one trying to gnaw on the detective’s elbow.

“Thanks, man!” Chase called to him, dodging another swipe from the ghoul in front of him.

Delilah raised her dagger. The blade gleamed with a menacing blue tint. Not only had our father given us each a silver long knife, but recently, Delilah’s had spoken to her, telling her its name, which meant that the two were bonded now.

“Lysanthra!” Delilah’s voice echoed through the evening twilight, startling a nearby bird perched in a tree.

As I watched, the stars began to peek out against that tinge that straddles the line between blue and gray. For a moment, it looked like a silver light streaked down from one of the distant suns to strike the tip of the blade, but it couldn’t be. She laughed, then plunged the blade into the ghoul that she and Chase were fighting. There was a split second where everything seemed to pause, and then the ghoul mumbled something and fell in its tracks.

What the—? It had to be the silver of the blade, I thought, watching as Roz took over slicing up the ghoul while Delilah and Chase moved on to the next one. I turned back to assess the battle.

Camille’s spell had dropped three of them. Yay, her! She smelled a little singed around the edges herself, but at least she was still on her feet, and she hadn’t burned herself like before. Vanzir was taking care of yet another ghoul, and it looked like we’d gone through over half the pack.

I dove in to another one, this one weaker than the first and easier to handle. I figured, Why mess with something that works? and once again went for the head-off trick. Another moment, and I was onto a third, while Morio went into cleanup mode for me.

We—along with Chase’s men—cleared a path through the pack without injuries on our part, although Chase had sustained a few wounds he’d need to have checked out.

As I stood there, surveying the carnage, I noticed there was one last ghoul, but he was over by an azalea bush, crouching as if in fear. Ghouls tended to be emotionally challenged when it came to fear, so his actions made me pause. Hell, he was making it easy for me. I headed over, intending to dispatch him back to the grave, when I stopped short.

Martin. Martin the ghoul. Wonderful. Was our neighbor Wilbur behind all of this? I grunted as the others made their way to my side.

“What’s wrong—oh shit,” Delilah said. “That’s Martin, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s him, but he’s not talking.” I shook my head, trying to decide whether to put him out of our misery or leave him be.

He wasn’t trying to attack us, and if he’d been feasting on the old man, I couldn’t see any signs of it. No fresh blood on the face, no questionable matter staining his shirt. In fact, he was dressed quite conservatively in what looked like a faded pinstripe suit, and his neck appeared to have been fixed from when I’d broken it. Wilbur had welded a nice smooth steel collar around it, with a brace up the back of the neck to keep his head straight. Joy, a dandy and Frankenstein’s monster, all rolled into one.

“Wait—don’t hurt him!” The voice reached my ears faintly, and I spun around. There, running through the veil of dusk descending around us, was Wilbur. Wilbur the necromancer.

Chase looked confused. “Shouldn’t we take care of this thing?” he asked, pointing to Martin.

“His name is Martin, and he belongs to our neighbor.” I gave him a look that said, I know, I know.

“Oh, got it. Great. That explains everything.” Chase let out a huff of exasperation and motioned to his men. “Clean up that mess, and be careful. Some of those . . . things . . . might still have some life in them.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “We might get a little help here.” As Wilbur joined us, a worried expression on his face, I pointed to Martin. “You in the habit of losing that thing all the time?”

He stared at me, his concern turning to disinterest. “Martin has a habit of wandering off, yes. I try to keep him out of trouble, though . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked around. “What the hell happened here? Who owns all these ghouls?”

“We thought you might be able to tell us,” I said. “Since you’re a necromancer, and you have a sprightly ghoul of your own, we thought you might know who brought the rest of the gang back to life. Nice repair on the neck, by the way.”

Wilbur grunted. “I had to do something after you got done with him.” He glanced at the strange ghouls and shook his head. “I have no idea where these came from. They look crudely raised, though. Have you checked the cemetery for empty graves?”