A Haunting in the SWATS (The Savannah Swan Files Book 1) Read online

  “They’re here,” Carter screamed, his voice a fractured wail.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The last step crumbled to ash under Savannah’s heel. Off-balance, she stumbled down the mildewed stairwell before skidding to a halt in a cramped hall. The hotel’s kitchen, to her left, was a nightmare of filth. The sink overflowed with unwashed dishes scabbed with molding food, and the dull steel island was littered with scraps of maggoty barbecue and stale pizza crusts. She saw a paring knife on the island and grabbed it.

  Carter screamed again. Savannah followed her son’s tormented voice. A muffled whirring came from somewhere deep under the hotel. Savannah’s feet picked up splinters from the naked wood flooring as she ran. The knife felt small and pathetic in her hand, and she yearned for the comforting weight of her revolver.

  The hotel was a maze of squalid rooms and rotted hallways. Savannah’s memories of the place were worn thin and faded by the passage of years and countless marijuana joints. She tried to keep track of her steps; it would be too easy to get lost in this place.

  She pushed through a warped door and remembered a little girl, screaming in her bed, terrified of the woman chasing her grandfather. Another door and the memory of a young man on the floor, choking on blood from a nose smashed in by a savage strike from the grip of Savannah’s revolver.

  Savannah kept her eyes low to avoid the cryptic scrawls that scarred the walls and kept moving to outrun the ghosts of her past. She cursed herself for not finishing off the whole Porter family, who occupied three-quarters of the hotel’s 21 rooms, when she had the chance. One day of mercy was going to cost her a shitload of pain.

  Carter’s voice broke into a pitiful whine.

  Savannah chased the sound through a grungy utility room filled with empty bottles of cough syrup and found what she was looking for on the other side: the stairs to the basement – dusty and stinking of its depths.

  This was where she found the old man, Pigmeat Porter, clutching the hem of his bathrobe to form a pouch that was loaded with so many fetishes and idols the fabric was stretched near to breaking. Pigmeat had come to the basement hoping to make one last stand, but his gods had abandoned him that day.

  Savannah stood at the top of the stairs, half her mind looking to the future, the other falling back into the past. She remembered Pigmeat screeching, arcane and profane words tripping over his tongue and fouling the air with the overpowering scent of shit. She remembered leveling her revolver at Pigmeat’s face, the weapon warm and heavy in her hands. Pigmeat had trafficked on the There Road; had made deals with creatures Savannah was sworn to oppose, and the Root Woman was well within her rights to blow the bluesman’s head off.

  But there were children begging for their grandfather’s life; half-witted sons pleading with her to spare their sick old man. And Savannah had shown them mercy. She had given them fifteen minutes to pack whatever meager belongings they could, barring those that could be used for the kind of sorcery she had come there to end in the first place.

  Then she had gone room to room, splashing gasoline and dropping road flares. She had walked out the front door, past the crying family gathered in their little parking lot, tossed the last of her gas and flares into the lobby of the hotel, then drove her SUV into the night.

  Her strongest memory was of the flickering in her rearview mirror – fire and shadow – and the huddled, weeping family. A pathetic clutch of broken fools who should have been singing praises that they were still alive instead of crying over what they had lost.

  Had Savannah known what was to come, she would have made those brats watch as she torched the whole place and their grandpa with it. Then she would have put a bullet in each of their bratty heads and called it a day. She had been merciful, and look where that had gotten her.

  The smell wafting up from the old stone passage was thick with age. The stairs and the old basement they led to were older, by far, than the hotel built around them. Savannah felt the throbbing presence of a dark power. She paused on the steps. She did not want to go into that basement. She did not want to face whatever was down there in the darkness. But more than that, she did not want to leave her son to the thing’s attention.

  Savannah crept down the steps on the balls of her feet, knife held out ready to slash or stab anyone or anything that got in her way.

  She found herself in a small, earthen room lit by candles that melted inside crude sconces hacked into the walls, which were covered by elaborate carvings of glyphs. The carvings exerted a magnetic pull on her eyes. The whirring she had heard upstairs was much louder here, a heavy rasping that made it hard to think. The Root Woman focused on the one thing in the room she understood.

  “Van,” Carter gasped. “Get me the hell out of here!”

  They had laid Carter on his back atop a low stone table. His arms, legs, and head draped over the edges and were bound in thick chains fastened to the table’s base, bending Carter into a crab-like posture.

  “It’s on me,” Carter whimpered, his voice breaking with fear. He bucked against the chains, but there was hardly any give to them.

  Close up, Savannah could see it was not a table. The round rocks were the top of some sort of pit, the bottom hidden in shadow. The whirring was coming from the hole’s depths.

  “Get it off,” Carter whimpered. “Get it off me before it gets in.”

  Carter was stripped down to his boxers, but Savannah could not see anything on him. The boy’s skin was bruised and scratched, but he was in better shape than Savannah.

  “Carter, I don’t—”

  “Get it off!” Carter screamed and bucked. His body arched up against his chains in the throes of blind panic and pain. He thrashed from side to side, and Savannah was afraid the boy would rip his own arms out of their sockets if he kept it up.

  Savannah reached under her son then ran her hands along Carter’s back. Her fingertips brushed against something soft and warm that turned on her with demented ferocity. Pain blossomed as needles plunged into her hand again and again, shredding the skin of her palm.

  The Root Woman clenched her fist around the tormentor on Carter’s back. It squirmed in her grasp, claws scratching at her wrist even as its teeth tried to rip chunks out of her hand. Savannah squeezed, and the mole rat’s body ruptured like an overripe peach. She flung it to the floor in disgust.

  Even as damaged as it was, the mole rat limped across the floor. Its single, beady eye, glared at Savannah, filled with an ageless hatred.

  Savannah lifted her heel, then brought it down on the hairless monstrosity’s upturned alabaster face.

  “Get me out of here, mama,” Carter panted. “Hurry!”

  Savannah tested the chains. The manacles around Carter’s wrists and ankles were corroded and sticky with filth, but the old iron was an inch thick. Even if she had a bolt cutter and the time to work on the heavy links, Savannah knew she would never get through them.

  “I need the key,” Savannah said.

  Countless creatures skittered and screeched in the pit.

  “They’re coming,” Carter whispered. “They can smell my blood. I can smell their hunger.”

  “Carter…” Savannah sighed. “I have to go back upstairs and find the key.”

  “Don’t leave me,” Carter begged. “Mama, please. Don’t leave me down here with them.”

  Savannah rested a palm on Carter’s sweat-slick forehead. “Hang in there. I won’t be long.”

  “Then just kill me.” He stared into his mother’s eyes. “Don’t let them eat their way into me. Don’t let it end like this.”

  “I’ll be back,” Savannah headed for the stairs. She had to get away from Carter. She could not take seeing her son in such torment.

  “I’ll change,” Carter whispered at his mother’s back in a low and petulant voice. “If you leave me down here with them, I’ll do it.”

  Savannah turned to stare into her son’s eyes, trying to see the limits of the boy’s desperation. Carter was not lying. If pus
h came to shove, he would do the one thing he had spent most of his life avoiding. Savannah hoped the boy would be able to find his way back from the abyss if he did let loose.

  “Don’t make me put you down, son.” Deep sorrow tinged Savannah’s words at the thought of what might come to pass. “Don’t force my hand like that.”

  “Then, don’t leave me,” Carter said. His voice was a panicked whisper. “Please.”

  Savannah turned her back on her son then headed for the stairs.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lashey ran the scalpel across the dove’s throat. Heavy drops of blood rained into the clay bowl. Outside, ancient oaks, bowing before the gusting wind, cast shadows through the window and over Lashey’s face. “For the angel who watches me by day.”

  The flames of the nine white candles on Lashey’s little workbench grew tall. “For the Good Mothers that show me the night’s way.”

  Lashey lay the bird’s body on the right side of the bowl and the bird’s head on the left. “For the ancestors that answer the questions I say.”

  The towering flames of the candles curved inward, bowing over the clay bowl and the bloody offering it contained. One by one, the flames shrank then winked out. Lashey kissed the tip of each finger, then prepared to plunge both hands into the bowl.

  “Lashey, only your left hand.” Her father was always reminding Lashey of The Rules. “Spirit don’t shake with the right.”

  She wrinkled her nose at her father’s warning. “It’s alright, Daddy, me and the spirits have an understandin’.”

  “Let’s not take any chances, little lady.” Rashad went back to sorting his herbs. It made Lashey sad to see her father doing such boring work. People said he was something special back in the day, when he was younger.

  Lashey obeyed her father, but resented being told what to do. She knew what she was doing; she was good at this. She held the bowl with her right hand and patted the blood in the bowl with her left.

  She lifted the bowl over the workbench with both hands then upended it. The blood, now congealed to a pudding, fell to the wooden bench with a wet slap, flattening slightly before drawing up into a smooth, red-brown ball.

  Lashey picked up the ball then pressed it to the space between her eyes. The blood-ball collapsed, spreading until it covered Lashey’s entire face. Lashey tossed the hood of her sweater over her head. The blood seeped into the corners of her eyes, her nostrils, her ears and between her lips until it was all gone, replaced by deep shadows that concealed Lashey’s pretty features.

  “Why do we have to do this down here?” Lashey asked her father. It was stuffy in the guesthouse when the two of them were both working. She wanted to take her things up to the main house, maybe set up a nice space in the basement where she could spread out.

  “You know why.” Rashad did not look up from his mortar and pestle, but Lashey could see him bear down harder on the stone mortar.

  “It’s not fair. I’m not the Root Woman. I shouldn’t have to follow her dumb rules.”

  “Lashey,” Rashad warned.

  “Hmmph.” Lashey folded her arms across her chest. From the corners of her eyes, she could see shadows shifting, straightening up and standing tall as they crowded toward her. She wondered what it would be like to do this in a bigger room, where more of the spirits could gather around. Maybe she would have more to choose from. Maybe more girl spirits would come that way.

  Lashey loved her mommy, but she did not like the way Savannah made her feel about her gifts – like they were secrets she should keep to herself.

  Unless Savannah needed her help. Then it was just fine to talk to the spirits and wear her hoodies. Then it was cooler than an Eskimo eating ice cream in an igloo to walk along the edge of the There Road her mother was always warning her about.

  “Your mommy loves us, Lashey. But she has to be careful.”

  “Maybe she should live down here. There are more of us. We shouldn’t be all jumbled up together down here. We should stay in the main house.”

  “It’s best this way.” Rashad brushed the hair out of Lashey’s eyes. “Your mother only wants what’s best for all of us.”

  “I’m going to ask her to let us move up to the main house. We’re her family.”

  “Don’t.” Rashad’s voice was suddenly cold. “Leave it be.”

  “Hmmph.” Lashey decided, then and there, things had to change. Her mama had a big house with enough rooms for all of them. She would have to learn to get along with her family. She would have to learn to let them do what came natural. She was proud of her mother and what she did. Why couldn’t she be proud of her the same way?

  One of the spirits stood taller than the rest. It floated toward her then hovered just at the edge of her sight.

  “Hello…” Lashey’s voice took on a singsong lilt as she coaxed the spirit closer. “You from my daddy’s side, or my mama’s?”

  She took a deep breath. The air was cool in her nostrils, and had a strong, musky scent. This spirit wasn’t family at all.

  “Daddy—” Lashey’s voice froze in her throat. The tall spirit leaned in over Lashey. She could hear it sniffing her locks, which poked out from under her hood. The cold fell on her like a cloak, heavy and thick.

  “Ee-you-oo can come live in Mm-my-eye house.” The spirit’s voice buzzed like a bee hive. “Your Mm-mama-ah is here.”

  Lashey searched for her father, but her eyes felt fuzzy and weak. She could not see anything except for the spirit.

  “Ww-we-ee will be together,” the spirit whispered. Lashey’s head throbbed. She thought of a storm of hairless white balls of teeth, billowing up from some dark hole. “All of Ee-you-oo and all of uh-us-ss.”

  “By the power of the blood and the authority of the Seven African Powers,” Lashey began the words of banishment, forcing them from between numbed lips. “Begone from my—”

  Thunder rolled through the little house.

  Lashey’s mouth snapped shut before she could finish the incantation.

  The tall spirit glared at Lashey, and she felt its hate, a vile darkness that had been fermenting for eons, waiting for this moment. It was coming. It would kill them all.

  It already had her mother. It already had Carter. She could hear their shouts and screams; feel their pain.

  Lashey struggled to open her mouth, to warn her father.

  But she was afraid it was already too late.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Savannah hustled up the stairs, panic shifting her heart – and legs – into sixth gear. She had to find the key or something to break Carter’s chains before their captors returned.

  She made her way through the first floor, returning to the kitchen. There, on the table, pyramids of old pizza boxes, empty tins of Spam crusted with old flecks of processed pork, and mounds of gnawed rib bones crowned by green-eyed flies surrounded a bottle of half-consumed Tanqueray.

  The front door screeched open on rusted hinges. Savannah grabbed the neck of the bottle, then held the bottle above her shoulder, ready to strike.

  Faded copper light poured in through a kitchen window. The sun was going down. She thought of the mole rat she had killed in the attic, the other one she had smashed in the basement, the swarm of raccoons in the forest, and the pit, filled with still more of the goddamned vermin. With darkness descending, the mole rats and coons would be coming out to feed. Carter was strapped right over their hole, a helpless meal for the taking. Savannah clenched her fist around the bottle.

  The gang piled into the hotel like a pack of dogs, growling and jostling one another as they headed for the kitchen. The syrupy sweet stench of longtime molly-heads poured into the house along with them.

  The Root Woman shuffled around the table on the balls of her feet, then pressed herself tight up against the doorway. She drew her hand back over her head, ready to swing the bottle down at the first bastard to come through the door.

  She didn’t have long to wait.

  The first of them never saw th
e bottle coming. Savannah brought it down across the bridge of the man’s nose so hard it dropped him onto his haunches in a spray of blood and snot.

  The young man fell onto his back. Blood ran out of his face then flowed across the curling linoleum tile.

  “What the hell?” A second man shoved his head through the door to get a look at what was happening.

  The Root Woman slammed the mouth of the bottle into the crest of the second man’s head, dropping him to one knee, then followed up with a knee to the solar plexus that drove the man backward into the others behind him.

  Savannah dipped her shoulder then threw her weight into the knot of confused men.

  Their legs tangled as they tried to regain their balance, and the whole pack of them fell back into the entryway. They – and Savannah – hit the ground hard enough to crack the old floorboards.

  Carter screamed from the basement, a wordless exclamation of rage and panic that dumped an ice-cold wave of fear down Savannah’s back. He was running out of time. They all were.

  Savannah scrambled back to her feet, taking advantage of the molly-heads’ confusion to get clear. She scrambled over the four of them then fled deeper into the hotel. She was no longer searching for a way to free Carter, but for a weapon. She needed to even the odds, before it was too late.