“You smell amazing,” he said. “I love that perfume. I also love that you’re ticklish right here.” He sniffed again, and she leaned back.
“I am not.”
He moved in for another sniff. She tucked her chin down to stop him and pushed his shoulder. She was smiling wide. “Go smell my sister.”
“Now who’s the weirdo?” he asked. He turned to me and came in close, his body carefully not touching mine, his face lowering toward my neck.
“You smell like you. Did you change your shampoo?”
“Got lazy. I’m using Ryder’s.”
“Smells nice on you.”
“I like it.”
Odin grumbled something under his breath, and we all turned to face him.
“I’m not a ghoul,” he said.
“That’s pretty much what a ghoul would say,” Jean noted.
Odin glared at her then crooked his finger at Hogan. “Get it done with.”
Hogan stepped over to him, squared off, and took a big sniff.
“You smell like Doritos.”
“I was hungry. I had a snack.”
“You also smell like wood shavings and moss and motor oil.”
“Unlike some other people around here, I work for a living,” he griped.
“You don’t smell ghoul on any of us?” I double checked. “Where is the smell the strongest?”
Hogan lifted his chin, sniffed again then winced. “It’s the car.”
We all turned to stare at the car.
“The car’s a ghoul?” Jean asked with a mix of excitement and horror.
“That’s mechanical,” Odin said. “Ghouls are the unliving.”
“But they take on the shape of stuff they eat,” Jean said. “What if it ate a carburetor and turned into the car?”
“I just told you it ate flesh,” Odin said.
“Living flesh?” I asked.
Odin opened his mouth, then scratched at his beard. “Mostly, yes, but not always. I’ve known ghouls who got a strand of hair and could take on the form of the person it came from. Same with fingernail clippings, spit, tears. Really anything that carries DNA.”
That wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all.
“So if we have a ghoul,” I said.
“We do,” Hogan said through his T-shirt.
“It’s been in this car, or around this car. It can take on the shape of anyone in town.”
