The thing was a giant silver worm with a bullet-shaped head. The scales and unusual color had thrown me. So had the fact its head unzipped down the middle, revealing jaws with needlelike teeth jutting up like the world’s deadliest pincushion.
Goddess bless, what a mess.
I only prayed the creature was this much of a nightmare before the witch got ahold of it. I was hardly an authority on oddities of the magical world. There were simply too many. New ones born every day. I just hoped this one was natural. We did not need an enemy this creative. Or gross.
Silvery coils tightening, the worm readied to spring at the daemon’s head, jaws wide open.
The daemon let it come, and he punched it in the face. Except it had no face. Just mouth. His arm shot down its throat, there was a meaty wrenching sound, and the daemon pulled back a handful of organs.
The nightmare worm thrashed on the warm oak floor, its blood tinting the planks a milky pink.
I tore my focus from the spectacle to check for a second worm, but I saw and heard nothing, proving the creative witch had been creating the sound effects to distract me.
“Smell bad.” The daemon dropped the vitals onto the floor. “Long dead thing.”
Unsure if he meant it was a long and also dead thing or a thing that had been dead a long time, I let it go to avoid asking. Mostly because I didn’t want to open my mouth and taste the air in this place. The room was downright foul from the ripe bodies the daemon had torn into pieces to reach me.
“Reminds me of those dancing tube things at car dealerships.” Clay stepped beside me. “What was it?”
The daemon didn’t answer, so I gagged as I told Clay, “A giant worm with a head zipper.”
“I’ll grab some pics for our records, but you need to ash him quick.”
“Why?” I brought up my wand. “The mess is made.”
“Some worms can regrow bodies from their heads and heads from their bodies if you cut them in two.”
“I…did not know that.” I cranked my head toward him. “Have you seen one of these before?”
“A contestant on Spooky House Delights got fined for using store-bought gummy worms to decorate their Halloween gingerbread house. He mentioned the tidbit about the worm, and it was so freaky I had to look it up, but it didn’t do him any good. The ruling stood, and he lost. Pity too. It was an impressive feat of cookie construction.”
“Halloween gingerbread is a thing?”
Phone in hand, he recorded the worm thrashing then took snaps for good measure. “Yup.”
“Learn something new every day,” I mumbled, staring in morbid fascination at the worm.
“I could drop a word in the mayor’s ear, see if she might want to add a gingerbread competition to those holiday festivities coming up in December.” His expression was delightfully evil. “I might offer to judge.”
“Give that woman any more ideas, and I will mold you into a birdbath for Mrs. Gleason’s backyard.”
Mrs. Gleason was eighty pounds soaking wet, with a beehive hairdo that added a foot onto her height. A good neighbor and a better friend, I was lucky to have her watching the house while I was away. Her and her shotgun, Bam-Bam, who wore matching outfits. Yeah. It was a whole thing.
That said, she had also shot Clay in the butt the first time she spied him sneaking around my property.
“That woman has fine aim.” He rubbed his left cheek. “I was impressed by how steady she held the gun.”
“We’re clear.” Asa joined us in his ratty slacks and bare feet. “The horde is dead.” He frowned. “Again.”
“We need headshots of the zombies to send the Kellies. Failing that, we need fingerprint scans.” I wrinkled my nose at the task. “Families need to be notified. So does the director.”
“I’ll get on it,” Clay volunteered, pulling out his cell. “I’ll give Colby the all clear while I’m at it.”
Alone with Asa and a whole lot of dead zombies, I raked my gaze over him slowly, checking to ensure he hadn’t taken any new damage. If a hipbone caught my eye and snagged it, it wasn’t my fault. His pants, I decided, definitely had elastic, but the waistband had been stretched to its limit.
“I like the way you look at me,” he rumbled, his eyes burnt crimson.
“Like I’m worried you might have fresh holes I need to plug?”