Total pages in book: 12
Estimated words: 11248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 56(@200wpm)___ 45(@250wpm)___ 37(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 11248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 56(@200wpm)___ 45(@250wpm)___ 37(@300wpm)
I make a face, hand going to my stomach. I’m not going to let anyone cut you out of me, baby, I mentally promise.
“Okay…so this demon cuts people open, removes their intestines—which she just leaves, how rude— fills them back up with rocks and sews them shut. Great.”
Lucas flips through the papers, finding an official report for Hector. “His cause of death is listed as a heart attack, not blood loss. There were high levels of troponin in his blood.”
“Seven devils!” Evander’s brown eyes widen. “I think I found our demon.” He gets up from his chair and puts a large book on the coffee table. We all gather around. “Frau Perchta, a type of demon hailing from the Alpines, known for her trade-mark style of killing. Slicing open stomachs, filling them with rocks, and then stitching them back up.”
“The belly-slitter,” Ruby reads. “It has to be her.”
“She fits the bill,” Evander goes on. “She starts killing twelve days before Yule—yesterday—and will kill every day until the shortest day of the year, and then disappears into the mountains again.”
“We don’t have any mountains around here,” Kristy says, shaking her head.
“None of us have been able to sense her,” Evander thinks out loud. “She was gone as soon as she made a kill.”
“She’s jumping dimensions,” Ruby finishes. “The mountains aren’t on this plane.”
“Dammit,” I grumble, knowing that will make her harder to catch. “Does it at least say how to kill her?”
“There’s not much in here.” Evander shakes his head and taps the small entry in the demonology textbook. “This reads as if she was merely a legend, even to our kind.”
“She’s going to kill again tomorrow,” Kristy says, unnerved. “And we have no idea how to stop her or who she’s going to target.”
“I might have a theory on that,” I say. “Someone who doesn’t like Christmas. And before you come at me, I drove by Kate’s house. She still has Halloween decorations up and I looked at Hector’s wife’s Facebook page. They are atheists who don’t celebrate any sort of religious holiday, though Christmas is not really religious anymore. It’s about decorations and presents and really catchy music.”
“Usually, people say the opposite,” Evander chides. “Though, I do think Callie might be onto something.”
“We’re dealing with a real-life Grinch?” Ruby asks incredulously.
“Not exactly.” Evander points to the last line of the short entry about Frau Pertcha. “Basically, she picks victims of some sort of moral corruption and punishes them.”
“Hector was having an affair and his negligence caused his company to go into financial ruin,” Lucas says and pulls out another paper from the police file. “Kate has a history of DUIs. Her license was currently suspended and was under investigation for a hit-and-run in Newport that left two people in medically induced comas.”
“Okay…so we find someone else with a fucked up past and stake out their house?”
“Uh, guys?” Kristy spins her laptop around, showing us a news article from ten years ago, with the headline reading Christmas Killer Strikes Again. “She’s killed before and, if she follows the same pattern, she doesn’t kill one person a day until Yule. Each day, she kills one more than the day before.”
We all look at each other. One more person is going to die before the night is over.
CHAPTER 4
“What are we waiting for?” I get to my feet. “Let’s go on a demon hunt.”
“We don’t know how to kill her yet,” Ruby rushes out.
“Doesn’t matter. We have to stop her. She’s going to ruin Christmas!”
“You mean she’s going to violently kill another innocent victim, and that’s why we have to stop her,” Evander corrects.
I wave my hand in the air. “Yeah, that too.”
“Can you do a tracking spell?” Lucas asks.
“In theory, yes,” Evander answers. “But if she’s jumping dimensions, we’ll only be able to get a reading once she’s back on our plane. Do you have a map of Thorne Hill?”
“Several.” Lucas speeds out of the room, going into the library to get one of the many maps I’ve printed just for occasions like this. Kristy is the best at divination out of the four of us and we sit back, waiting as she chants and sprinkles black salt on the map. The little granules of salt start vibrating, and then gather together.
“There’s a mass of dark energy at Thorne Hill High,” she says softly. “The school day is over but I’m sure there are still kids there.”
“Talk about a cesspool of potential victims too. Teenagers,” I add with a shudder. “We need to get there—now.”
“Don’t we need a plan first?” Ruby closes her book.
“I’m going to go with my usual—don’t die.” I shrug. “I have vanquishing potions, weapons, and this.” I hold out my hand, summoning hellfire. A red glow surrounds my hand and I stare at the flame, wanting to feel the heat of the fire crown around my head again.