CHAPTER 5
Ghouls
Eliot stood outside the tall narrow building that belonged to the witches. He'd refused to allow the witches back into the pub and he refused to allow any of his pack to come with him. Of course, that meant that they were all waiting in the van behind him.
He stopped at the door and would have knocked, but he saw the 'Open' sign in the window and the carefully painted store hours. He pushed the door open and listened to the cheerful tinkle of a bell above the door. "Hello?"
"Just a moment!" Josette's voice carried from the back of the shop.
Eliot looked around the shop and chided himself when he realized that it was a very normal apothecary shop and not the black lair of pure evil he'd been expecting.
"Mr. Spencer." Josette smiled. "I'm surprised to see you so soon." Her features sharpened for a second.
Eliot felt his eyes go yellow.
'stop growling' Parker's voice came across his earbud.
"Are you here to tell me that you won't help?" Josette tilted her head a little to the side analyzing him.
"Actually, we are planning on helping you." Eliot purposely relaxed his posture and brought his eyes back to their human blue. "We need you to stop Atsutsa. He tried to attack a friend of ours and he has attacked one of my pack."
Josette's eyes went wide. "You know where to find him?"
"I know where he has been recently."
"Alex!" Josette called over her shoulder. "Alex, the wahya and his pack have found Astutsa!"
Alexandra hurried to the counter next to her sister. "Where?"
"Near Treyson's Gym." He held out a slip of paper that had the address.
Alexandra took it and looked at it closely before handing it to her sister.
Josette clutched Alexandra's hand. "It's across the river."
"Is that a problem?" Eliot looked at them and felt like his eyes were a little out of focus since he seemed to be seeing both their human aspect and their witch aspect at the same time.
"We cannot cross the river. It was part of the bargain when we were bound to this place." Josette looked at him and seemed to blink deliberately at him.
His vision cleared and he only saw their human faces. He felt the skin on his neck prickle, and he growled loud enough for the women to hear him. "Don't. If I feel like you are trying to do anything to me or my pack this is over."
"No harm was meant wahya. She was only trying to help." Alexandra spoke quietly with her palms out in a placating gesture.
Eliot nodded and his growl died away. "If you can't go to the boy, how do we stop him? I'm afraid he will kill someone if he isn't stopped."
"Just a moment." Alexandra walked to the back of the shop.
"You will need to place a band on his left wrist. The band is an enchantment. Without it he is unreasoning and uncontrollable. With it he is a danger to no one."
Alexandra came back with a braided leather band in a handkerchief. She held it out to him but when Eliot reach for it, she pulled it back. "Be careful wahya. This band will tie anyone that wears it to us." Her eyes went yellow, and her voice took on a hushed tone. "You are bound to the woman who gave you that band." She looked at the leather cuff on his wrist. "But that is a gentle thing. A tender thing. We are not that. We would be, but we are not. We…"
Josette placed her hand on Alexandra's arm. "That's enough Alex."
Alexandra's eyes went back to brown, and she shook herself as if she were waking from a nightmare. She held the band out to Eliot again. "Be careful wolf."
He picked the handkerchief up by the corners and wrapped it around a couple of times, before he tucked it into his pocket.
"Is there more that we need to know? Something you couldn't tell us if we didn't know what you are. Something that could help us help you?" He looked back and forth and blinked when he saw the double image again.
Josette gave him a small smile that communicated that she knew what he was seeing. She looked at Alexandra and nodded. "We had hoped that you would help. We knew that if you did you might need to know more. We want to tell you a story."
"Okay." He felt like there was something he was missing.
Alexandra stepped from behind the counter. She reached toward Eliot's face.
His eyes went yellow, and his teeth shifted to fangs. A growl rumbled in his chest.
"No harm wahya." Alexandra smiled.
'Eliot, do you need backup?' Quinn's offer was growled across the earbuds.
Alexandra closed the last few inches so quickly that Eliot couldn't avoid her. He felt her fingers on his face and suddenly the room disappeared.
Eliot could feel the cold water of the stream flowing past. The cold seemed to threaten to steal all the warmth from his body. He couldn't move.
"Peace wolf." Alexandra stood next to him in the stream her hand on his shoulder. "We are only here to watch."
She looked away from him and he followed her gaze. On the bank of the river was a small indian village. There were a couple of houses that made Eliot think of pictures that he'd seen of Iroquois longhouses. But these were sunk into the ground long and low but sturdy looking. There were also several shelters that looked sort of like wooden teepees. Wide flat pieces of bark had been stacked around a central point leaving a gap to one side as a door.
The glow of fires from the shelters provided a warm soft light to the early morning and seemed to invite him out of the stream. He felt Alexandra's hand tighten on his shoulder.
"Stay here. If you leave this stream, you can never come back."
He watched as first one and then another tall dark form slipped from the trees. Five tall women with beak-like noses, sharp cheekbones and large eyes spread out around one of the long low houses. They opened their mouths and raised their hands as though to sing. A buzz that became painful pressed into Eliot's chest and stabbed at his ears.
Children came in ones and twos from the various homes in the village. With happy trusting faces they hurried to the tah-tah-kle' –ah. Eliot felt sick as he watched one of the witches reach into a young boy and pull him out of his skin. She dropped the body into a large sack and held the skin up in her hand. An owl swooped down and carried the skin away into the treetops. Each of the witches carried their bloodstained sacks back into the forest.
As the sun rose the remaining children woke from their trances and began to wail in terror. Before long the whole village was in mourning.
Eliot turned an angry disgusted look on Alexandra.
"Keep watching wolf. The story is not done."
A wisp of mist floating low to the ground slid into the village. A woman weeping near the entrance to her home was momentarily enveloped by the mist. Her skin took on an ashen cast and several gray hairs appeared in the dark curtain of her hair.
The mist seemed heavier less translucent as it moved to a man holding a small girl in his arms while he wept near the spot that the first boy had died. The mist settled over father and daughter. Much like the woman the man seemed to age slightly and sicken. The girl in his arms started to cough and her cheeks became gaunt.
The mist began to form into the shape of a man as it moved from victim to victim. No one seemed to notice the mist but nearly everyone in the village was affected.
Eliot felt the cold water of the stream push hard at his legs and he looked down to make sure that he wasn't losing his footing in the numbing water. When he looked up, they were looking at a different village.
The scene was nearly identical but this time the mist started out in the shape of a man. The man walked through the village running his hands through the hair of the people who mourned. With each person he touched he became more solid, less translucent.
The cold water shoved at Eliot again and again. He watched as the witches killed children and the mist man left sick people in his wake.
"Eliot? Eliot!" Parker had started to panic when they'd all heard something like a whimper come across the earbuds.
Parker reached for the handle to the side door of Lucille, but Quinn's hand was there first. With werewolf speed, Quinn grabbed Parker by the upper arms and gave her a shove that landed her in Hardison's lap. He hopped backwards out of the van and pointed at her and Hardison.
"You two stay put." He couldn't help a little growl as his eyes went blue and he ran across the street.
He threw open the door to the shop and saw Josette at the desk with her eyes closed and Alexandra bent over Eliot with her fingertips spread out across his face. Eliot's eyes were open, pupils blown and fixed on some point not in the room. Sweat had beaded up on his face and he was barely breathing.
"Quinn, what's happening?" Parker demanded.
He knew if he didn't answer her, she and Hardison would both be in the shop in seconds. "Hang on." He grabbed his phone and placed a video call to Hardison. He turned slowly so that they could see the room. "I don't know what's happening. I don't think any of them know that I'm here."
"Are Josette and Alexandra connected by anything?" Hardison asked.
"Just the floor." Quinn frowned. "Why?"
"Throw something at Josette." Hardison growled.
"Alexandra is the one that has Eliot!" Quinn held the phone closer to Alexandra's face to make sure that Hardison could see the difference.
"I know. Just knock Josette over with something already!"
Quinn looked around and found a basket that held a collection of greeting cards. Swinging it by the handle, he flung it into Josette's chest knocking her off her feet.
Josette fell with a squawk and rose with a groan. She turned red eyes on Quinn.
He felt fur spring up on the back of his neck and his teeth lengthened to fangs. "Let Eliot go!"
Josette climbed over the counter in a way that reminded Quinn of how Atsutsa moved.
Quinn's fingers shifted to claws and he took a step closer to Alexandra and Eliot. Josette stood from her crouch and shook herself.
"We mean no harm." Josette leaned back against the counter.
"Look at him." Quinn tilted his head toward Eliot. "This isn't okay. You have to let him go."
Josette tilted her head as if she didn't quite understand his words. "The story is not done."
"I don't give a damn!" Quinn growled.
Josette tilted her head to the other side. A cold smile spread over her face. "As you wish." She started to walk toward Alexandra.
'Wait!' Hardison shouted over the earbuds making Quinn flinch.
"Wait!" Quinn stepped between Josette and Alexandra.
'What happens if they stop before the story is over?' Hardison couldn't hold back a wolf whine.
"He is in the stream. With no guide to bring him back his mind might wander the stream unless he can find the end of the story on his own." Josette's smile was cold, and her teeth were too pointy to pass for human.
"Bring him back." Quinn growled.
"It is almost done." Josette stared hard at her sister.
A medicine man had woken to see the witches leaving his village and, in his panic, and horror, he'd attacked them. Two of the witches turned on him and killed him the same way they had killed the children, but they left his skinned body for the village to find later.
Eliot watched, as a light seemed to hover over the body for a moment before it shot into the woods in the same direction that the witches had gone. The scene blurred for a second and suddenly he and Alexandra, while still in the icy stream, were standing in front of a cave that wasn't much more than a slit in the bottom of a huge cliff face. He watched as three of the witches ventured out in the middle of the day. He had thought that they would follow to see what the three were doing but instead they stood, fixed outside the cave.
Eventually he saw the same cloudy light he'd seen hovering over the medicine man. The light moved over the surface of the rock and eventually the light seemed to grow brighter. It took a moment for Eliot to realize it was the rock that was glowing. Eventually he could hear the pop and hiss as the rock continued to heat and glow a molten red. Smoke started to waft from the cave entrance and Eliot could hear the two witches inside start to cough.
Just as they came to the entrance of the cave, the heat of the rock reached a point that the rock could no longer contain. The explosion made Eliot flinch and Alexandra's hand on his arm steadied him. He knew that as close as they were, they should have felt the heat and the shockwave of the explosion, but they were apparently completely separate from what they were seeing.
After two of the witches died there seemed to be a shift in the last three. They didn't feed as often, and one by one Eliot noticed small signs of regret as the witches took children.
Eventually they made their way across a great river that Eliot knew was the Willamette River. Here they made a deal with a medicine man and were bound to place marked with a large stone. Eliot didn't recognize the carvings on the stone but even he could feel a pull toward it. He watched as the witches began to look more like women and stopped eating children.
The mist man had followed them from village to village and he had followed them here. Now he was fading again. Becoming smaller and more translucent. Eventually in a fit of rage he attacked one of the witch-women and tried to drag her across the river. Eliot watched as Vivian let herself be drowned rather than cross the river and break the binding that held her and her sisters to a good way.
A moment later Eliot groaned and twitched under Alexandra's fingers.
Alexandra stood with a gasp and turned to look at Josette. Josette gave her a smirk and tipped her chin toward Quinn.
Eliot's eyes focused and he staggered back a step. He looked to the side and saw Quinn. He squared up, shoulder to shoulder with Quinn, facing the witches.
"Eliot, are you okay?" Quinn asked quietly, without looking at Eliot.
Eliot nodded.
"They need to hear it." Quinn tapped one claw tipped finger just below his right ear.
" 'm fine." Eliot let a growl rumble in his chest.
'Just get out of there.' Parker demanded.
Eliot looked to the witches. "Why did you show me all of it?"
"Because we are not the only evil that lives here."
"How should we stop the ghoul?" Eliot used the European term to give him a tiny bit a mental distance from what he'd just experienced.
"Our kind has never tried to stop them before." Alexandra moved to Josette's side.
With a nudged to Quinn's elbow, they backed up to the door. At the door Eliot pushed the urge to shift at Quinn. Quinn frowned at Eliot but saw Eliot let his eyes shift back and forth between blue and yellow. With a half-smile Quinn kept an eye on the witches as he pulled the wolf back enough that he looked human by the time they stepped out of the door.
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They'd gone straight back to the pub and through the back entrance up to the loft. Eliot had assured everyone when he got back to the van that he was okay but had refused to elaborate.
"Now that we're home will you tell us what happened?" Parker stood in the way when Eliot tried to take the stairs up to the bedrooms.
"They told me a story. That's all." Eliot frowned.
"That's not all." Hardison growled and with a couple of taps to his tablet the big screen TV started playing the video Quinn had taken in the witches' shop.
Eliot cringed when he saw how helpless he had been.
"That's not what it looks like when someone tells you a story." Hardison zoomed in on Eliot's face with his pupils blown and the witch's fingers pressing into his cheeks and temples. He quickly put up a picture of preschoolers at story time. "That's what it looks like when someone tells you a story." He switched it back to Eliot's unseeing face. "Not that."
With a deep sigh Eliot walked to the couch and sat. "They showed me what they did and how it attracted Ghould to them. He isn't human either." Eliot rubbed at his temples as though he had a headache.
"Are you really okay?" Parker climbed onto the couch and curled into Eliot's side.
"They didn't hurt me." Eliot ran a hand up and down Parker's arm.
"That wasn't what she asked." Quinn stood at the end of the couch arms crossed.
Eliot's mouth quirked up at the corner for a moment. "I will be fine. I think it's just going to take a little while for the things I saw to settle. It just left me feeling uneasy."
The whole pack knew he was downplaying how he felt but they could also feel his confidence that things would be okay.
"So what are we going to do about the boy?" Hardison sat to Eliot's other side.
Eliot pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and unwrapped it carefully. "We need to catch him and tie this on his left wrist." Eliot held the band on the cloth so that everyone could see it.
"And what about Ghould?" Parker rested her head on Eliot's shoulder.
"I need to make a couple phone calls first. Then we'll figure it out."
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"Gemma?" Eliot felt the knot in his chest tighten in the second before he heard her voice.
"Eliot?"
"Gemma, uhm, do you have time to talk?"
"Yah, just a second."
The background noise died down and Eliot felt a little guilty since he was sure she'd walked out in the middle of work.
"What's going on?" She could tell that something was wrong. "Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm okay. You can check with the others." He'd meant to call Ms. Teo but he couldn't help it, he'd needed to hear Gemma's voice. But now he didn't know what to say.
"I believe you. So since you aren't hurt, what's wrong?"
"Uhm, I don't know exactly." He ran his hand through his hair. "Remember the witches I told you about?"
"Mhmm." She hummed her answer so that she wouldn't interrupt him.
"We went to talk with them to tell them that we would help. But then they…" He still felt unsettled and was a little scared that talking about it would bring it all back.
"They did something to you?" She thought about her time with the vampires. "Do you want to talk about something else for a minute? I want to hear about what happened to you but if it's too hard to talk about it right now we could talk about something else."
He sighed and felt things settle a little bit. "You have no idea how blessed I am right now to have you. I'm going to have to talk about what happened with Ms. Teo and Julio and I was dreading going through it again but, just like that, you make it feel easy."
"I know that sometimes there's something I need to talk about, but I would do almost anything to not talk about it. I think that feeling of; need to talk, need to not talk, is one of the worst. Sometimes it's easier to start with something that's off topic."
"I wish I was there so that I could hold you for just a minute." His wolf wanted to whine.
"I would hug you back and kiss your cheek." She felt a blush starting to color her cheeks.
"Just my cheek huh?" He teased.
"You said you'd only hold me for a minute, and I'd want more than a minute if I was really going to kiss you." She glanced around the back entrance of the restaurant and tried to be bold. "Your kisses are too good to rush through. And I'd want to run my hands into your hair. I love playing with your hair. But since you said we only have a minute I'll have to stick with a quick kiss on your cheek."
He huffed a laugh. "So literal. I'll try to be more specific next time."
"Now how do you feel?" She knew her blood was racing, and she would have to go back to work soon.
He took a long even breath in and out. "Better. A lot better. Thank you."
"Anytime El. Will you call me again later?"
"Yah, I'll call you tonight."
"I'll look forward to it." She couldn't help her smile. "Bye." She hung up and slipped her phone back in her pocket.
Eliot watched the screen until her picture disappeared. She almost always hung up before he did. He remembered her saying something about how it made her feel like he was leaving if he hung up first. "Bye."