“Doom twinges?”
“Yeah.”
“So you came here to tell me Hogan’s going door-to-door to smell people?”
“Since it can take on the shape of any biological thing in town? No. He’s going to let me know if he smells it, but Myra’s looking into other ways we might be able to ferret it out.”
“Do those ways involve vampires?”
“Not unless you know something about ghouls I should know.”
“I’ve never met one I liked.”
“Good to know. Made any enemies among them?”
“Briefly. Before I killed them.”
I rubbed at the headache that been building behind my eyes all day. I wondered if I’d had any water today, or if it had been all coffee all the time.
From the slight ringing in my ears, I figured I’d gone full throttle on the java for a full twenty-four.
“How did you kill them?”
He smiled, and this time there was a little fang in it. “Any way that was available. They are not a fully living thing, which is why they prefer raw flesh.”
“Gross,” one of the players muttered.
“Says the man who mainlines sushi,” Senta said.
“Fish aren’t flesh. They’re whatever delicious is.”
I lifted my eyebrows, waiting for Rossi’s real answer.
“Break a ghoul’s neck,” he said, “snap the spine. Smash enough of it, it can’t maintain the shape it’s stolen. There are other things: weapons, spells,” he gave me a nod, “which are much less messy. And of course, much less satisfying.”
“Good to know.”
“Are you assuming it’s still a crab? Because with all the marine life around here…”
“Crab sushi is also what delicious is,” one of the other vamps allowed.
“…and other sushi afficionados,” Rossi went on, “your ghoul problem might take care of itself.”
“But why would it remain a crab? I think that was a disguise it used to sneak into Ordinary.”
“And why is it sneaking into Ordinary?”
“That’s always the question, isn’t it? So many people who are used to hiding show up here and it’s natural for them to think they are safer if they remain hidden. I’d think that was the case here, though dropping out of the sky in a car is the opposite of subtle.”
“But?”
“But the stolen god weapons showed up at the same time. It might not be connected, or it might be we have a ghoul who somehow got into several god realms, nicked powerful weapons, and then left them on doorsteps.”
“Never a dull moment around here, is there?”
“No. So keep your head down. Tell your people we need everyone to keep a low profile until we can get the hunter out of town.”
“You know us. We are the shadow. We are the night.”
