Gods and Monsters: Unclean Spirits Read Online Free

of solar lights stuck into the grass.
    His reflexes are like boots stuck in mud. He hasn’t been in a fight—hasn’t been a fighter —in years. He throws up his arm but between almost tripping and straight-up not-believing this is even happening, he’s too slow.
    The skillet cracks him across the head.
    Fireworks flash behind the dark of his eye—he staggers backward, falls onto his side, onto his hip. “Alison! Alison, it’s Cason—”
    Wham . The skillet comes down between his shoulder blades. Once. Twice. A third time. Hard, too—she’s stronger than she looks. She always was, maybe, but this is different. This is power a human does not normally possess. He turns, stops the next attack by catching her wrist—
    “Alison,” he pleads.
    But her eyes are wild. Frenzied. Barely even human.
    This isn’t anger. Or bitterness. Or lost love.
    She wants him dead. Genuine bonafide grade-A dead .
    The spell. The curse. Whatever the fuck it is, it’s still ‘on.’ Still active .
    And then the frozen wall slams down inside his head and a terrible thought is captured there in the ice: You’re not free at all, Cason.
    Alison bares her teeth and hisses. He gives her hand a twist and the fingers open—the skillet thuds into the grass. She screeches like an owl. Mouth open. Hungry teeth ready to bite. Cason’s muscle memory kicks in; he’s older, slower, sloppier, but written into his body are reflexes that cannot easily be deprogrammed—
    Her anger, hot and present, still falls against the old ghosts of his training. Cason twists his body beneath her, reaches up, flips her onto her back—the air blasting out of her lungs, her eyes losing focus.
    “Al, please, don’t do this.” Maybe if he can just—get through to her somehow? Clear the fog, move the clouds, pull her back down to earth. “It’s me. It’s Case. Baby, c’mon, think, think —”
    Suddenly—there’s Barney. Standing next to him. Face the very model of placid, child-like innocence. The undisturbed waters of a mountain lake.
    Moon eyes and pursed lips.
    And a glint of gold. A ribbon of window-light caught in a small blade.
    A paring knife, by the look of it.
    “Hey, buddy,” Cason says, and he’s about to ask, Whatcha doin’ with that —
    Barney stabs the knife into Cason’s back.
    Pain blooms like a bloody rose.
    Cason cries out. Tumbles off Alison with the knife still stuck. Gets his feet under him—starts to run, but then the dewy grass is slick under the soles of his boots and he goes down again. She’s on him. Fists beating into the sides of his head. One hand grabs the knife, starts yanking it like a lever.
    The boy hurries over to the skillet, picks it up with a mad, empty gleam in his eye.
    Cason’s mind is a pinball machine on full tilt. But through it all, a single thought screaming louder and louder: Don’t hurt her don’t hurt her don’t hurt either of them—
    Run .
    He grabs her arm, shifts his weight and twists—
    Alison flips over his shoulder onto her back.
    Barney’s mouth opens. A keening wails from the back of his throat—not a human sound, but the sound of storms and wind and rain tearing through an open window.
    Everything’s a blur—Cason’s back up, feet planted on the lawn, then on the sidewalk, careful not to trip on concrete buckled by tree roots swelling underneath. Barney’s after him, skillet spinning in the child’s grip. Before Cason knows what’s happening, he’s slamming hard against a yellow car door in the street—
    Big black hands grab his shoulders, pull him into the passenger seat through an open window. His feet still dangling—a skillet cracks hard against his ankle. It’ll bruise, but the thickness of his boot saves it from anything worse than that.
    “Holy shit, man!” Tundu cries, then steps on the gas like a man trying to break another man’s neck just by standing on it—
    Tires squeal.
    The car moves and Cason tumbles inside.
     
     
    T HEY SIT IN the car for a while.