I turned to leave, gesturing for Oscar and Morrie to head toward the road. Horse and rider continued to stand there. I felt the itch of eyeless eyes watching me.
“I said, you can follow us.” I stepped behind the horse to try and encourage it to move. I waved my arms, but the horse remained rooted in place, so I stepped closer.How do you get a spectral horse to move? I can’t exactly feed it an apple—
“Ah…Mina.” Morrie looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. I opened my mouth to ask him what was so funny when a stream of foul-smelling water drenched the front of my clothes.
“Argh!” I leaped back. Oscar barked with excitement. He thought it was great fun.
The horse wasn’t moving because he was taking a piss.
All over my brand new catsuit.
“Yuck.” I limped over to Morrie. “You might’ve warned me.”
“And miss the delighted expression on your face? Never.” Morrie’s finger stroked my chin, tilting my head up. He leaned in close, giving me a moonlit view of the aristocratic planes of his face and those cheekbones made of razor blades. His voice rasped. “Besides, I heard a rumor horse piss is actually an aphrodisiac.”
He tipped my head back with his thumb to claim my lips. I forgot about the Headless Horseman and the very real, very smelly piss staining my best cat-burglarizing outfit. We poured all the adrenaline and fear of the evening into the kiss, and it burned with our need for each other—
Okay, maybe I didn’t entirely forget about the horse piss. I pulled back, wrinkling my nose. “Can we revisit this later, when I don’t reek of equine urine?”
“As you wish.” Morrie wrapped his arm around my shoulder as we trudged back along the wide path toward the village, the clop-clop of hooves behind us as the Headless Horseman fell in line. Oscar tugged on his lead, keen to return to the bookshop.
We walked past the old train station where the homeless population of Argleton hung out. It looked as though they were having a rager – a fire blazed from an old oil drum beside the tracks, and I heard a chorus of voices singing bawdy folk songs along with a screeching fiddle.
As we trudged past, Earl Larson leaned out the window of an old carriage. “Hullo, Mina, Morrie.”
“Hi, Earl. How’s your kitten?”
“Oh, he’s a right piece of mischief; got us kicked out of the cafe the other day for stealing kippers.” Just then, Oscar perked up, and I knew a tiny black kitten face had popped up beside Earl. “Would you like to stay for a cup of tea?”
“Um, I can’t stop now.” My heart pattered against my chest. We needed to move on before Earl noticed our decapitated friend. I also badly wanted to get out of my piss-stained catsuit.
“You should come by the bookshop next week,” Morrie piped up. “Heathcliff’s got some new books set aside for you, and we’re having a bunch of little events for the festival. Oliver’s making Halloween cookies.”
I elbowed Morrie in the ribs.Are we just going to stand here making chitchat and pretending the rider behind me has all his bodily appendages?
“Might do, might do.” There’s a pause, then Earl said, “Doesn’t talk much, does he?”
“Who?”
“Your jockey friend.” Earl nodded to the Headless Horseman.
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “No. Not so much.”
Earl waved a flask at us. “Well, you know where to find me if you need a little of Earl’s drum-cider to loosen his tongue.”
We waved goodbye to Earl and led horse and rider up the hill, past darkened terraced houses and the crumbling village skateboard park. As we turned onto Butcher Street and dodged around Lachlan Enterprises’ scaffolding, I couldn’t help but glance toward Mrs. Ellis’ old flat. It was shrouded in darkness like the rest of the village, but something about this particular darkness sent a shiver down my spine.
As we trudged up the steps, Heathcliff leaned out the shop window. “What time do you call this?”
“Time for oscillating our unmentionables, you saucy specimen of manhood,” Morrie called back.
Even though I couldn’t make out his face, I knew Heathcliff was glowering. He’d been in a near-constant state of glower ever since he’d rescued Morrie from the Barset Reach falls and the three of us shared an intense kiss. I thought that kiss meant he’dfinallybe able to acknowledge his feelings for Morrie, but instead, Heathcliff had retreated from both of us, which of course spurred Morrie to even greater heights of provocation. The resulting standoff added yet another item to my growing list of ‘shit Mina needs to deal with while she’s trying to save the world from a bloodthirsty fictional vampire.’
“Heathcliff, my love,” I asked sweetly. “Did you happen to notice a black horse with a headless rider hanging out in the shop this evening?”
Heathcliff grunted. “The walking glue factory showed up after you left. The fellow riding it was agreeable enough, but that long-faced bastard shat on the rug. I shoved them both out the door and said they’d better find you.”
“Well, they did.” I stepped aside, giving Heathcliff a view of our new friends. The horse lowered its head and snorted at Heathcliff, while the rider jiggled in his saddle, as if to say,‘Don’t let that surly bastard torment me again.’
