Cutting Your Teeth (Cursed Corpses Book 1) by Caylan MacRae

Author:Caylan MacRae [MacRae, Caylan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Caylan MacRae
Published: 2023-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

22

Houndstooth

Ezra buries his nose into Quinn’s red-stained scarf and breathes in once more. He sticks his head out of the left backseat window to track the matching scent. It isn’t sweet, not like human blood, but it has a sharp spiciness that leaves the sinuses tingling.

“Still can’t get a hold of Fran or Abigail.” Killian ends the most recent failed attempt at contact before the call can go to voice mail. Again. His knee resumes bouncing in place, the stress having nowhere else to go.

“Take a left up here,” Ezra tells Marigold after catching a familiar whiff passing by.

Marigold speeds through a yellow turn-light. “Weird. I know Abi didn’t ever get into phones, but that’s never been a problem for Franca.”

“I’ll keep trying,” Killian sighs, as if preferring a fruitless distraction to none at all.

The three of them drive across town for hours, making slow but steady progress. Killian and Ezra pass the scarf back and forth to keep the smell close in memory, giving Marigold directions when the trail grows stronger one way or another.

The search eventually leads them up to Forest Park. Ezra’s map tells him they’re near the southwestern outskirts bordering the park proper.

“Wait.” Killian waves his hand for Marigold to brake. “We’ve passed something.”

She pulls the Impala off the roadside next to the sprawling woodlands. They all clamber out of the car and over to the tree line.

Marigold shines a flashlight into the dense gloom. “Is she in there?”

“Sure smells like it,” Ezra says. The scent trail has grown nearly as strong as the scarf itself, tugging at him like an invisible thread. He’d heard the phrase ‘seeing with your nose’ before but understood it as a thing only animals could do, not a thing Ezra thought would ever apply to himself. In fact, his sense of smell seemed downright irrelevant since coming into this new un-life. But where blood is concerned, that instantly becomes its only concern.

“Let’s not lose any more moonlight.” Killian catches the keys Marigold tosses at him to open the trunk. “Grab what you need and pray you don’t have to use it.”

“What’s the plan then?” Ezra peers over Killian’s shoulder as he pops another lock in the trunk’s false bottom to unveil a cache of weapons. Hatchets, fire axes, knives of all stripes, a hunting rifle, a pump shotgun with a sawed barrel, and a few bottles of homemade Molotovs are arranged on display.

“Aiming for as inconspicuous as possible. I’d rather it not come to blows if we can get in and get out clean.” Killian adjusts the holster straps anchoring a short blade parallel to his spine before throwing his bomber jacket over top and zipping it closed, only the barest hint of a hilt visible from the back of his neck.

“Going to pull the little lost lamb act?” Marigold asks, bumping her hip against Killian to scoot him out of the way. She takes out the hunting rifle—a modern Winchester if Ezra had to guess—and dutifully checks the safety,

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