Black Wings, Gray Skies (Black Hat Bureau 4)

8

“Meet us here tomorrow night,” Asa made it an order for Jilo. “Then you can show us.”

“All right, all right.” She finished collecting the change. “What time?”

“Dusk.” Asa took my hand. “Any later, and we’ll come hunting.”

“Might be later,” she warned. “Full dark is a requirement for my continued existence, unless you would like me to take a human avatar for the occasion. Their skins are thick enough to protect us from limited sun.”

They haggled over a time, eventually settled on one, then Asa ripped the lavender sachet at one corner.

“Apologies.” He tossed a handful of buds in her direction. “I want to ensure a safe exit.”

Grumbling under her breath, she began to count again, but there wasn’t any venom in it now.

Still, Asa kept a brisk pace in the direction of Hassell Street, and I matched it, eager to escape Jilo.

With his clothes in tatters, dinner out wasn’t happening.

So much for getting my sticky sorghum pudding fix.

Clay might stock an eclectic kitchen, but I doubted even he had those supplies on hand.

“You’ve been keeping secrets.”

“I wasn’t certain boo hags existed.” He held up a single lavender bud, turning it this way and that. “The idea a monster could be defeated by counting struck me as farfetched.” He rubbed it between his fingers, releasing its fragrance. “I’ll email you my notes on what I’ve learned about them so far.”

“Have you checked the Black Hat database?”

“The only new information it had to offer was that boo hags are an endangered species.”

“No wonder they’re almost extinct.” I shook my head. “Counting? Really? Such a lame weakness.”

Asa stifled a laugh and returned the bud to his pocket. “Do you think her offer of aid is legitimate?”

“A death here or there, a coven might—” I hesitated. “What do you call a collective of boo hags?”

“A grume.”

“Okay, a grume might dismiss the occasional death as accidental, but the predation of human children is specific. It draws attention that requires Black Hat to expend serious resources to keep those stories out of the news. That won’t last. It can’t. Even magic has limits. So does the tolerance of the other factions in the area, who won’t want the boo hags’ carelessness to spark a witch hunt that exposes us all.”

“We need to get ahead of this.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“We need to file paperwork for dredgers, see if we can recover some of our victims.”

“Are you sure we want to invite scrutiny on such an active harbor?”

For the grume to maintain its low profile, the boo hags must have tested their dumping grounds before committing to them.

Originally colonized by the English in 1670, Charleston had relocated to the peninsula by 1680. By 1740, more than half of South Carolina’s population were African and West Indian slaves. Forty percent of all slaves brought to America came through Charleston Harbor.

And they brought their folklore with them, giving familiar names to new iterations of old monsters.

So, yes, boo hags had plenty of time after the Gullah immortalized them in stories, in warnings, to figure out how to dispose of their victims without tipping off modern descendants to their ancestral truths.

Yet the leg washed ashore. In a tourist hotspot. One also popular with locals.