Shotgun Sorceress - By Lucy A. Snyder Page 0,94

bile rose hot in my throat. Those filthy yellow cockroaches were gonna pay for this. I grabbed my M1 rifle and a grenade and vaulted over the log. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I pounded across the clearing. I felt lances of fire slash my shoulder, my thigh, as I pulled the grenade pin and hurled it into one of the black slits.

The percussive gust nearly knocked me down, but as soon as the orange bloom of fire died I kicked open the door and fired a half-dozen rounds into the bunker. When no one returned fire, I jumped down inside.

A half-dozen Japs lay sprawled on the concrete floor, faces and bodies torn apart by shrapnel. Then I heard a ragged moan and saw one of them start rolling around. The kid was maybe sixteen or seventeen, his face a blood-speckled mask of shock. His close-cut hair looked like the down of a black duckling.

In two strides I was on the Japanese soldier and bashed his face in with the butt of my rifle.

“Ah, truly the deed of a mighty warrior!” came a laugh behind me.

I whirled around, but found my arms were paralyzed, my rifle useless.

One of the corpses rose, and in the dimness I first thought it was a man dressed all in black. But when it stepped into a shaft of sunlight, I saw it was a naked woman, her whole body charred almost beyond recognition, cooked flesh peeling from the bones of her face and hands. Her eyes were bright amber, live coals glowing in the ruin of her face.

She raised a hand, and my dog tags slithered up my chest to my throat. The chain jerked tight, then broke, leaving a stinging track on my neck. The tags flew into her open palm.

“Henry Schleicher, corporal,” she read aloud. “You please me. You’ve sent many souls to my realm today. Now you’ll drop your weapon and please me more.”

My hands released the rifle and I staggered backward to fall against a pile of bodies in the corner. To my utter horror, I realized I had an erection, and the woman was coming for me, her grin baring rows of gray shark’s teeth—

The vision mercifully ended as Pal snatched the bone from my hand. My throat and jaw ached, and tears stung my eyes.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Charlie asked.

“You were screaming,” Pal added.

“Think I’m gonna be sick,” I croaked. “Get me out of this.”

They untied me and I lurched into the bathroom to throw up. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, calmed myself down, and went back into the room.

“Okay. Let’s try this again, guys.” I sat back down on the chair.

“You’re sure?” Charlie asked.

I shook my head. “Not really. But this is still the only idea I’ve got.”

Once they strapped me back in, Pal put Henry’s remains in my hand and I slipped into the next memory:

“Can you guess my name?”

My heart froze. The girl stood beside my bed. Her slim body was shoehorned into torn, faded jeans, a black T-shirt, and tall boots. She’d cut off all her hair, buzz-cut it nearly to the scalp.

“How’d you get in here?” I stammered, blushing at the hard-on straining against the elastic waistband of my pajamas. I crossed my hands in front of my fly.

“What, you won’t even guess? You’re no fun,” she pouted. “Anyhow, I’m Miko, and I’ll be your demon for the evening.”

“How’d you get in here?” I repeated.

She nodded toward the open window. “Climbed your ivy. Same as when I came for your wife.”

It took a moment for the implication of her words to sink in. “You … you killed Violet.”

Another nod. “She was distracting. Not very satisfying, though; I had to kill an old man in a nursing home today, just to make sure I’d be halfway sane when I came here tonight.”

I couldn’t keep from staring at the gun on the table. There was no way I could get to it before Miko did.

She followed my gaze. “Is that for me, Henry? You can’t kill me, you know … thanks to dear ol’ mom, I have no soul. What’d my mother look like when she raped you, Henry? Burned or wormy or what?”

“Your moth—Oh dear God.” The room started swimming before my eyes.

“She looks like a big smoke cloud now. She and my brother were fighting over the souls in the war, and Kagu-tsuchi tricked her into being at Hiroshima when Little Boy blew,” the girl continued. “Did you

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