On a good day, Tracy S. Morris has photographed two of the Presidents of the United States. On a bad day, she's been dragged behind a speedboat on an icy lake in freezing rain. She's been a photographer, reporter, writer, fencer, historian, costumer and gardener. She is a black belt in tae kwon do, and a self-confessed kamikaze speller. Tracy is the author of the "Tranquility" novellas, which are available from Yard Dog Press, and writes paranormal articles for Firefox News. She currently lives in Fort Smith, Arkansas with her husband and two dogs. Find her on the web at http://www.tracysmorris.com.
"Be glad I came along, Celeste. I know how these suburbanites are. They'll wait until you're not looking, then sneak up and bite you. Before you know it, you'll crave half-caf mocha lattes and drive a minivan when the moon is full."
Celeste looked from her notes to the well-manicured lawns and cookie-cutter red brick houses of Branson Estates, as the rented silver Taurus glided past. Then she shot a sideways glance at Lucky. His lip was curled up into a sneer.
City wolf goes to the country. She shook her head.
"You're a sensitive man, Lucky."
"I'm in touch with my feminine side." Lucky put one hand over his heart. "Every lunar cycle I become very moody."
"Moody. That's one way of looking at it." Celeste frowned. "You also try to eat the face off anyone who'll come within reach."
"All part of my charm," Lucky said. "Why do you think
I have so many werewolf groupies?"
"Why did I bring you along again?"
Lucky smirked at her. "Because I'm cute and fuzzy and you like to scratch my ears."
"No, that's why you like me. You're the guy who keeps showing up on my doorstep when there's something unseelie you want me to go step on like I'm some kind of arcane Orkin man."
"I thought you asked for my help on this trip." Lucky showed off his razor-sharp canine teeth when he smiled.
"Something about a story that was going to get you off the copy editing desk and onto the front page at your newspaper? What was it you said? 'I need a fuzzy armored tank to back me up." '
"So you keep reminding me," Celeste muttered as she turned back to her map.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the car until eventually, Lucky cleared his throat. "Three disappearances?"
"That's what my cousin, Elvis, said. Something out in Table Rock Lake sucked a couple of fishermen and a tourist down. They still haven't found the bodies. It could just be giant catfish, but it might be something more."
"Wait—your cousin is named Elvis?"
"Yes."
"Who names their child Elvis?"
"The Presley family?"
"You guys really are from Dogpatch, aren't you?"
Celeste tilted her head. "Got it in one."
Lucky blinked. "Really? I was joking, but . . . there's really a Dogpatch?"
"Not anymore," Celeste shook her head. "It was in
Arkansas. There used to be an amusement park. Uncle Merle played Li'l Abner." She shifted her gaze to the road ahead. "Turn here."
Lucky steered the rental onto a rocky dirt road. Low-hanging tree branches hung like claws, scraping the roof of the vehicle as they passed. When Lucky's foot moved from the gas to the brake, Celeste leaned over to get a better look at the speedometer. With a stab of annoyance, she realized that they were only going five miles per hour. "You know, we can speed up."
"Not if I want to get my deposit back on this rental," Lucky said. "They take money off for a damaged paint job."
"I told you we were going to the suburbs."
"Yeah, but I was thinking Bree Van de Kamp, not Jed Clampett. Does your cousin live out here?"
"He lives closer to the strip. We're going to Table Rock Lake first. I want to scry around. Pull off here." The road wound past a clearing on the lakefront with a picnic table. Lucky pulled up next to the table and parked. The sounds of cicadas filled Celeste's ears and heat and humidity saturated her the moment she opened the car door.
Before them, Table Rock Lake stretched out like a giant mirror. The weedy embankment sloped gently away from the picnic table. Celeste and Lucky hiked down to a point where the land extended in a long thin finger out into the placid water.
Her eyes remained fixed on the surface as she felt the area with her extra senses. Somewhere out in the lake she felt a dark presence. Something out there had intelligence and malevolent will. Despite the heat, an arcane chill raised gooseflesh up her arms. She rubbed her hands up and down them.
"Do you sense something?" Lucky asked.
She nodded slowly as she tested the feel of the thing. Under the force of her attention it twisted away.
She growled in frustration. "I can't get a lock on it. I need to get closer."
Lucky nodded to the spit of sandy dirt that stretched out into the water. "Maybe out there?"
"It's worth a try."
The sandy ground sank under their feet as they walked onto the stretch of land. Once they reached the very tip, she stretched out her senses again. To her dismay, Celeste couldn't sense the dark presence.
"It's not here anymore."
"That's a good thing, right?" Lucky asked.
"Maybe," she shrugged. "It may have moved on to a deeper part of the lake. Or maybe it's just lurking. Waiting for us to leave."
"That's comforting." His own head turned slowly as he scanned the area. Suddenly, he paused and squinted while shading his eyes from the sun.
"What?"
Lucky frowned. "I thought I saw something." He craned his neck and stared out at the still water. Without warning, a large shape erupted from the depths. It arrowed up the shore at them with preternatural speed. Celeste had the briefest impression of water glistening as it streamed from the body of a dark, angular creature. Even as she jerked away from the thing, she snapped an arcane shield around herself.
Then Lucky was between her and the creature, a solid, safe barrier of muscle and bone.
With distance, she could see that it resembled a shark: bulbous eyes, row upon row of sharp teeth, nose like an arrow. Lucky locked his arms around it. His biceps bulged through the shirt he wore as he tried to wrestle it back into the water.
Celeste's heart sped up as she watched her best friend tangle with the beast. She knew that he didn't have nearly enough strength now—with the full moon several weeks away—to combat the shark.
I've got to do something. She scanned up and down the beach for some kind of weapon that she might use to help Lucky. Then her eyes fell on a large rock. She chewed on her bottom lip as she watched the two grapple for mastery. Aren't sharks supposed to be sensitive at the tips of their noses? She picked up the rock, ran up to the struggle and pelted it at the beast.
The rock sailed as if guided by an unseen hand directly into the shark's nose. The monster flinched, worked its massive jaws in obvious pain and then slid ponderously back into the water.
In the wake of its leaving, Lucky stumbled. He would have fallen if Celeste hadn't been there. She locked her arms around him and pulled him to her. Where her hand touched his side she felt stickiness.
"Side hurts," he muttered.
Blood coated her hand when she pulled it away. She held her breath and glanced up the hill where they'd parked the rental.
"Lucky, can you get back to the car?"
"I'll try," he said. He leaned most of his weight on her as they shuffled back to the car.
Celeste's lungs burned as she struggled with her burden. By the time she opened the car and let him flop into the passenger seat, her legs wobbled from exhaustion. She looked down at him as he sprawled across the seat, leaking blood onto the floorboards.
I don't think we're going to get our deposit back.
She rounded to the driver's side and readjusted the seat to fit her smaller frame. The first time he lets me drive would be when he's bleeding to death.
Once they were under way, she did her best to keep one eye on the dirt road and one on Lucky, as she whipped the car around a turn. The car fishtailed and gravel fanned out from the back wheels. Celeste bit her lip, as she wondered if they were going to spin out. But she'd grown up on country lanes just like this one and she knew how to baby a car back onto course.
"Lucky?" She leaned over and prodded him. "Lucky!"
"What?" He opened his good eye to glare at her.
"Just wanted to let you know that if you die on me—I'm going to take up Necromancy. Then I'm going to bring you back so that I can kill you myself."
He chuckled, then winced and grabbed his side. "Are you hurt? Make sure you don't get any blood on you. Last thing we need is for you to go furry too."
Celeste ran a mental diagnostic on the thin arcane barrier she'd conjured when this whole mess started.
"Not to worry. My magic shield is still up."
"You know, for someone who hates magic—you use it a whole lot."
"Yeah? And for someone who's bleeding to death—you sure talk a whole lot."
She could see a blacktop highway up ahead. Celeste set her jaw and punched the gas. The car bounced once as it crossed onto the new road and then rocketed onward.
"Where are we going?" Lucky asked.
"I'm taking you to see my cousin. He's a vet. He'll know what to do."
"A vet?"
"I'd take you to a hospital, but . . . " She flapped a hand in his direction. "Werewolf."
"I hate you."
"I know." Celeste rolled her eyes. She wondered how she got into these messes in the first place.
The sign in front of Elvis' clinic said VET, TAXIDERMY AND PET GROOMING. NO MATTER WHAT YOU GET YOUR DOG BACK. She parked the vehicle at a lopsided angle in the driveway and left the keys in the ignition and her own door open when she arrived at the clinic.
The door burst open and a man in a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt and greasy black mullet came running out. Celeste squinted at him and realized that it was Elvis. Her cousin must have seen her roar up the driveway like Dale, Jr. He stopped at the edge of the lawn, and pointed a .45 at her. Immediately, she threw up her hands. Although she trusted the arcane barrier to protect her, she knew Elvis had a twitchy trigger finger.
"Cese? That you?" He squinted at her.
"It's me, Elvis. Lower the peacemaker. I got a werewolf in the passenger seat who needs stitching up." Before she could lift a finger to help, Elvis went to the car, put his shoulder under Lucky's arm and had him halfway back to the house.
Celeste watched as the two of them disappeared through the doorway. She stared blankly at the puddles of blood that had dripped onto the sidewalk. Through the haze of shock, she felt the prickle of eyes on her back. She turned to see a portly man in Bermuda shorts, a wife beater and orthopedic socks staring at her with wide eyes and an open mouth. He had obviously been watering his azaleas when they'd pulled up. Now he was absently watering his left shoe.
Celeste jerked her thumb toward the clinic and gave Elvis' rubbernecking neighbor a shaky smile. "Mauled by a poodle," she explained. Then she turned on her heel and walked to the house. When she shut the door, he was still watering his left shoe.
Inside, Elvis had sat Lucky up on the stainless steel table and was busily stitching up his side.
"Good thing you're a werewolf, otherwise whatever it was would've bit you in two," Elvis said.
Lucky winced as Elvis stuck the needle in his ribs again. "That's what they said when I lost the one eye." Celeste sighed in relief. "How did you lose it?" she asked.
"Jumping in front of a damsel in distress." He smiled at her lopsidedly. "The experience didn't seem to have taught me anything."
"I put up an arcane shield, you idjit." Celeste smiled to soften the meaning of her words. "Next time you jump in front of someone, try to make sure they're a little more damselish."
"I'll keep that in mind next time I've got the opportunity to jump in front of Bruce." Lucky winced again as Elvis tied off his stitches.
"You know not to lick these? Or do I have to put a giant lampshade around your neck?" Elvis asked.
Lucky rolled his eyes. "I'm sure I can manage." Then he turned to face Celeste again. "Did you get a better look at that thing? All I saw was teeth."
She scratched her nose as she remembered the attack.
"Looked like a tiger shark. Pointy face, gills, stripes on the side of its body."
"It didn't behave like any kind of shark I've ever heard of," Lucky said. "It crawled up on land to get at us. What kind of shark acts like that?"
"I think I know what it was," Elvis said. He crossed the room to the counter where his cash register sat. From underneath it, he pulled out a thick book. Then he held it up so that the others could see it.
Celeste squinted at the cover. Ozark Legends.
"I found this at the library while waitin' on ya'll to show up," he said. "It says here that before Table Rock Lake was built, this area had a lot of logging camps. They used to buy draft horses from Scotland."
"Of course!" Celeste snapped her fingers. "A kelpie! Legends say that if you can bridle one you can force it to serve you."
Elvis nodded. "Those old Celtic tales are full of people who forced one of those unseelie things to haul the stones to build this or that castle. They probably could pull a wagonload of logs better than a whole heard of oxen."
"Kelpie?" Lucky wrinkled his forehead. "Like an Australian sheepdog?"
"No," she scoffed. "Like the Jethro Tull song."
"Oh." Lucky drew out the single syllable. "But in the song, the kelpie was a horse. Jabberjaw back there was definitely not. And for that matter, why hasn't it attacked anyone before now?"
"Who knows?" Celeste shrugged. "Maybe it just now got free. I bet if we check along the shoreline around there somewhere, we'll find a bridle washed up somewhere. The important thing is to stop it. We need to get back out to that lake," Celeste said. "This time loaded for bear."
"Thought you might say that." Elvis reached back under the counter and pulled out a couple of fireplace pokers. "The unseelie in New York hate cold iron too?" he asked Lucky.
"Can't abide it," Lucky said.
"Good. Then you know what this is for." Elvis handed him a poker.
"Why don't we just shoot it?" Lucky took the poker between his thumb and forefinger.
Elvis scoffed. "You've been watching too much TV, city boy."
"Iron is too light for small caliber weapons," Celeste explained. "It's a nice idea—but not practical. We've got to do our killing up close and personal."
Elvis led them out the front door and over to the garage. Inside sat a black four-wheel-drive pickup truck and a trailer with an aluminum fishing boat.
Lucky stopped and stared at the boat. "Wait! We are not going out on that lake in that!"
Celeste put her hands on her hips. "Why not?"
"Why not?" He waved at the flat-bottomed boat.
"Look at it, Cese! In case you didn't notice, we're going up against a kelpie with a fire poker. We're going to need a bigger boat!"
Celeste fought off a stab of annoyance. "It's a johnboat," she said. "They were invented for poling around the rivers up here in the Ozarks. It's got a wide bottom, so it won't tip over, even if the kelpie tried to crawl up in it with us."
She turned away to climb into the truck next to Elvis.
"Besides." She threw back over her shoulder at Lucky.
"You want safety? Stick out your thumb and see if you can't hitch a ride on that great big paddle boat that the tourists love so much. But I'm going back out there." She heard Lucky huff in annoyance. Then the werewolf climbed with stiff movements into the passenger seat of the truck. She looked down to hide the smug grin that battled its way onto her face.
This time, Elvis steered them through a dusty, reddirt campground. At the one end, the road terminated with a boat ramp that sloped down to disappear into the lake.
Celeste and Lucky got out of the truck to watch as Elvis launched the boat into the water and then beached it into the red clay lakeshore. They held it there at the beach as the vet parked the truck.
Then Lucky helped the two of them into the boat and pushed it back out into the water. When he leaped into the end, the flat-bottomed boat barely rocked.
"See? Stable!" Celeste crossed her arms.
Lucky mimicked her pose. "We'll see. We haven't taken it through the sudden death match yet."
"You're a cheerful ray of sunshine," Elvis said.
"Injured. This morning," Lucky snapped.
Elvis picked up a set of controls for the trolling motor and steered it out into the lake. As they slid into deeper water, Lucky touched Celeste's arm, and pointed to the water.
She turned in time to see the water off to their right swirl a little.
"What did you see?" she peered into the dark, green depths of the water.
Lucky shrugged. "It was gone before I could get a good look."
Celeste chewed her bottom lip nervously. "Do you think it was a fish?" Please, let it be a fish.
"You know, I watched Jaws when I was little," Lucky said. "My dad told me it was based on a true story. There was a shark that swam upstream into a freshwater outlet in New York sometime around the turn of the century and killed a bunch of swimmers. After that, I wouldn't take a bath for months. Only showers."
"What got you over it?" Celeste asked.
"Dad made me watch Psycho," Lucky said. Celeste blinked. "That explains a lot."
"Here," Elvis reached under his seat and produced a red nylon bag. He threw it to Lucky. The werewolf opened it to reveal a half-dozen glow sticks. Lucky raised an eyebrow.
"Might have just been a fish," Elvis said. "Also might have been a kelpie. The water is pretty shallow here. So if we light up the lakebed, we'll know."
Lucky snapped a glow stick and threw it overboard. As the stick drifted downward it illuminated a large streamlined shape, a shape that was hurtling toward the bottom of the boat at an alarming speed. Reflexively, Celeste threw up her arcane shield again.
The boat bucked like a wild bronco. One moment she was thrown from her seat and into the bottom of it, the next she was in the air, looking down on the water. Then she plunged below the surface.
The water was icy cold. It stung like a thousand needles over the surface of her skin before fading to a chilling numbness. Celeste came up, coughing and spluttering. Water streamed from her eyes. She had just a moment to register the sounds of Lucky and Elvis shouting before the feeling of something razor-sharp clamping onto her ankle and pulling her under.
If not for the arcane shield that wrapped her skin like lightweight body armor, she might have been severely lacerated. Instead she felt the bone-grinding pain of being held in a viselike grip and pulled downward.
She kicked out with her free leg, and connected with something solid. Abruptly, the hold on her ankle vanished. She surfaced and looked around frantically.
The johnboat lay upside down, floating a few feet away. Its trolling motor rose to the sky like a rude salute. Lucky knelt on the upturned boat, clinging stubbornly with one hand to the motor and clutching the poker in the other.
As soon as he saw her, he waved frantically. "Cese! Get up here!"
Celeste scanned for Elvis, but her cousin was nowhere to be found.
With her heart hammering in her chest, she swam to the boat with long strokes that splashed whitecaps around her. Lucky extended the poker to her. She took the end, and let him hoist her onto the upturned flat bottom.
"Where's Elvis?" She jerked her head from one side of the boat to the other with wide eyes, hoping that the vet would surface.
"Over here!"
Celeste followed the sound of his voice to the lakeshore and saw Elvis standing there.
"How did you get over there?"
"Swam!" Elvis said.
"The wonders of adrenaline," Lucky muttered to her. Celeste searched the lake for signs of whatever had attacked them. But the surface was still and no shadow flitted between the boat and the glowing light below. She grasped the trolling motor just as Lucky released it and crawled over to the edge of the boat to yell at Elvis.
"Did you get a good look at it?"
"This time," he said.
"What did you see?"
"Looked like the thing that attacked us before," Lucky said. "Like a casting reject from The Discovery Channel: grey skin, stripes along the sides. Lots of nasty, pointy teeth."
"Behind you!" Elvis' plaintive warning carried across the stillness of the lake. Celeste turned in time to see the kelpie arrow toward them through the water like a knife through hot butter.
Lucky recoiled, then crawled to the spot where Celeste clutched the trolling motor. He wrapped his arms around her and the motor just as the kelpie shot over the edge of the boat and started crawling toward them.
The capsized vessel rocked and pitched, but they held fast to the motor as if they were glued.
When the boat threatened to sink under their combined weight, Lucky suddenly released her and held the poker high over his head like a warrior in a bad medieval movie.
This is usually the part where the guy with the bad sword technique gets cut in two, Celeste thought. With a quick gesture and a hastily spoken word she sent a bolt of pure energy at the kelpie. The creature recoiled, causing the boat to rock unsteadily and throwing Lucky back down to the hull.
" 'It's got a wide bottom, so it won't tip over, even if the kelpie tried to crawl up in it with us,' " Lucky parroted as he tried to rise to his knees again. "Why do I ever listen to you?"
"Shut up!" Celeste snapped.
As if throwing off a stupor, Lucky shook his head. Then he lifted himself back onto his knees, held the poker aloft like a lance and aimed for the kelpie's bulbous eye.
When he threw the improvised weapon, it sailed true, striking the creature's vulnerable socket. The kelpie jerked once and shook its head. Lucky lunged for it and seized onto the poker. In one fluid motion, he pulled the weapon free, swung it in a momentum-building arc and bludgeoned the creature. This time, it jerked again and slid into the water.
Celeste compressed her lips, crawled to the side of the boat and peered into the water. In the phosphorescent light of the glow stick she saw the kelpie's body sink through the shallow water. A dark stain leaked from its head.
A clatter of metal told her that Lucky dropped the poker. Seconds later he lay next to her on the edge of the boat peering over. He stuck his tongue out to one side and smiled around it. "Candygram?"
"If you make any more shark jokes, I'm going to beat you with that poker," Celeste said.
"No worries," Lucky said.
Now that the immediate danger was over, she felt the frigid water that soaked her to the skin. Lucky released the side of the boat to run shaking hands through his wet hair. Celeste realized that her hands were also shaking.
"Celeste?"
"Yeah?"
"You got your story yet?"
"I think so." Celeste looked up as she thought about what she would need to finish the story. "I've got to get some more background information and a couple of pictures of the carcass. But page one here I come."
"Good. Because I'm done with this guest shot on shark week. I want to go back to New York where things don't eat you."
"What about the sewer alligators?"
Lucky winced as he eased himself into the water. Then, pushing the boat ahead of him, he doggie-paddled to the shore. "They aren't hurting anyone," he said.
"They can stay in the sewers."
Elvis met them at the beach. "Thanks for bringing the boat back," he said. "I reckon ya'll want to use the shower back at the clinic."
"Actually, I think we want to cut this visit short," Celeste said. "You know the old saying, guests are like fish."
"They eat tourists when they're not looking?" Elvis scratched his head.
"Never mind," Celeste said. "I think we just want to drop our rental off and fly home."
"If you say so," Elvis said. Then he grinned at Celeste.
"Ya'll think I can have that kelpie carcass?"
"Elvis." Celeste threw her hands up. Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. "What the heck do you want with a kelpie?"
"I thought I'd stuff it and mount it on the wall," Elvis said. "You gotta admit, this is a heck of a fish story."