Vampire Campfire by Clare Kauter

Author:Clare Kauter [Kauter, Clare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-26T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

“What exactly is going on?” Ravi whispered.

“Don’t worry your transparent little head about it, Ravi,” I said. “This is police work. Too complicated for a ghost like you to concern yourself with.”

I bent my knees and raised my hands, ready to cast. The energy from the talismans I was wearing flowed into my body and bolstered my powers. Feeling around, I pinpointed the grabbers’ locations. They weren’t far away now, and they were running towards us at speed. I stretched my neck, cracked my knuckles and prepared to attack.

Even though Henry knew I’d taken on grabbers before and won, I could tell he hated this idea.

“You’re going to arrest them?” said Henry. “Why not just kill them? Surely that would be safer.”

I frowned. That hadn’t been what I’d expected Henry to say. He was almost always disapproving of murder.

“We need to question them,” I said. “They might know something about those missing magicals. And Henry, I’m not sure I like this bloodthirsty side of you.”

“When it comes to grabbers, they deserve whatever you can throw at them. They’re scum.”

“What are grabbers?” Ravi asked.

“Pure evil,” said Henry.

“We’ll explain later,” I said. “They’re almost here.”

The grabbers had stopped at the fork in the road and were now advancing towards us more slowly. My guess was that they’d sensed that we weren’t running and had decided to be cautious in their approach in case it was a trap. When they picked their way through the forest, they didn’t bother about moving quietly. Twigs broke underfoot, leaves rustled as they brushed past trees and one of them was even whistling. The tune was in a minor key and I didn’t recognise the melody, but it sounded like some sort of twisted lullaby.

The grabbers broke into the clearing where we were standing. Henry clenched and unclenched his fists. He was terrified – and with good reason – but he was hiding it pretty well. I only knew because I knew Henry. Ravi had no clue what was going on so he just lurked in the background. I stood my ground.

Grabber number one was dressed in head to toe leather. Actually, head to ankle leather, because he wasn’t wearing any shoes. His feet were dirty and calloused, and his toenails were overgrown and black, matching his fingernails. He held his right hand in front of him, palm up, a contained ball of dark electric energy hovering and zapping in the air above it, backlighting his overgrown nails. His hair was long and matted, as was his beard.

The other grabber wore a singlet that had once been white, but was now stained all over with blood and dirt. She carried a knife in her left hand and when she grinned I could see that she was missing several teeth. I was grateful that the forest was so still, because I certainly didn’t want to be standing downwind from these two.

“What have we here?” said the male grabber. “A shifter, a ghost and a witch.”

“Shifter’s going to get us good money,” the other grabber commented.

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