Instead of kitchen utensils for legs, the vamps’ opponents kicked with backward facing feet. Their long hair whipped around as they wrestled and clawed at the Catholic schoolgirls. The vamps grunted and screamed. Their opponents chirped like exotic birds. It was all kinds of hot and would’ve made one hell of a p**n . Too bad these p**n stars wanted to munch on my soul like pretzels.
Edith Anne, the Catholic with the crazy long tongue, let out a scream and slammed one of the spirits into the floor. She straddled her and hammered her fist repeatedly into the spirit’s skull until black blood smeared her white shirt and the spirit’s body buckled inward.
The vamp with the librarian glasses cleaved into another spirit’s stomach and yanked out rows of decaying bowels. I continued to catch portions of the action as the vamps bashed into the entities. They held their own and then some. Thankfully, so did my girl, Celia.
The freak Celia fought tried to kick her with her wooden limb. Celia was ready for her. She locked onto the leg with her arm and belted it with the heel of her foot. The spirit shrieked. A loud snap followed by splintering wood signaled the abrupt loss of her bizarre and creepy-ass appendage. It also provided Celia with one hell of a weapon. She lifted the cracked piece and stabbed it through the spirit’s chest. The spirit bolted up, releasing a flow of gray foam from her mouth and slicing her wicked nails at Celia. Celia scrambled behind her, yanking back the entity’s hair and using her claws to sever the spirit’s head.
Blood the color of concrete splashed me across the face and bare chest. Celia held the head of her opponent, scowling at me.
“What?” I asked defensively. “I’m numb from the waist down.”
Celia gave Little Bren a quick glance, her voice less than patient when she spoke. “That’s not what it looked like to me.” She tossed the demon’s head aside just as Misha’s vampires hurried to her. “Did we get them all?”
The naughty librarian/even naughtier Catholic schoolgirl wiped her bowel-smeared hands on the back of some guy’s shirt. “Yes. The trance should lift soon.”
Celia watched the mist recede into the spirits as their bodies bubbled and frothed. “What were those things, Agnes?”
Agnes adjusted her cle**age before she began rebraiding her long pigtails. For a vamp, she had her priorities straight. She motioned behind her to where the body she had fun disemboweling had begun to disintegrate. “Ciguapas. They’re Dominican. They’re said to lure men into the forests to have sex with them.”
I shrugged. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
That earned me a smile from Agnes. “No, but then they kill them afterwards.” Her smile widened. “Slowly. Sometimes even over weeks.”
Celia pointed to the one with the leg found in the culinary section. “What about that one?” She jerked back when the abandoned head popped, fizzled, and crumpled inward.
Agnes eyed the cracked limb as it began to char and crumble. “That’s La Tunda. She’s Columbian and downright nasty.”
Celia shuddered. “Yeah. That wooden leg is hideous.”
“It is,” Agnes agreed, stepping back and adjusting her tiny glasses. “But that’s not what I meant by nasty. She emits a gas by breaking wind in order to keep her victims docile and dazed.”
“Ew,” the rest of us said. Hell, I guess that explained the blasting trumpet. “I told you I couldn’t move,” I mumbled to Celia.
Celia threw her hands out. “Then how come the vampires and I could?”
Agnes watched me fix my pants. “La Tunda’s powers don’t work on supernatural beings. Unless, of course, they’re easily influenced.” She giggled. “Or aroused.”
Celia pushed her hair away from her face. “Well, the important thing is that they’re back to blazes where they belong.” She lifted a few of the swaying bodies off the floor when they started to stir and the music exploded over the speakers. “Help me get them up, and be sure to alter their memories. They’re starting to wake up and God only knows what they saw.”
I hoisted a few off their feet, pausing when one of the vamps stopped for a bite. “Edith, cut it out!”
She scowled at Celia and took one last defiant lick. “What? I haven’t eaten all night and I’m thirsty, damn it.”
Celia opened her mouth to say something to her, but then stopped suddenly. Her head whipped around. “Bren, where’s Danny?”
I straightened and veered behind me. His scent failed to reach my senses. “The last time I saw him, he was with the naked chick you took out.”
Celia urged the vamps forward. “Find him. Make sure he’s okay.”