Page 41 of Cold Sacrifice

“And Bastien can tell you the truth of it,” Sam said. “The way he should have done from the beginning.”

“He didn’t seem to know who was attacking the vampires,” I murmured. Or maybe he’d had a really good idea but hadn’t been sure enough to drag that horror out into the daylight.

When we arrived at Annabelle’s house, only Zach got out of the car with me. We’d agreed more than that was overkill. Sam and Remy would keep watch just in case the necromancer decided to follow me around the city—if, of course, she could truly come out of the ground into the sun, which I doubted.

Annabelle led Zach and me through the house and into the backyard. Her tooth-collecting chocolate lab followed us eagerly, and when she opened the door, he shot through the doorway and into the yard, where he proceeded to chase his tail for a good five minutes before getting bored and wandering off to explore.

“This will be the one time he doesn’t go dig up a tooth,” Annabelle muttered. “Hershey! Find a tooth! That’s a good boy. Find a tooth.”

Zach and I exchanged a look, both of us wondering if Annabelle Applegate wasn’t a little nuts.

But then Hershey put his nose to the ground and sniffed his way toward a large hickory tree. He walked back and forth, snuffling and snorting, and finally, he settled on a spot in the ground, dug furiously for all of ten seconds, then trotted with his tail high to his mistress.

She knelt down and held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

He did. Gently and slowly, he dropped a rather large, filthy old tooth into her palm. “Ick,” she said, getting to her feet. Then she gave Hershey a pat. “Good boy. Go play now.”

I looked at the tooth, then walked to the spot where Hershey had found it. I crouched at the shallow hole, looking around at all the other places where the pup had disturbed the earth.

The small holes made a wide, perfect ring around the big tree, and inside that circle was another, and then another.

Zach crouched beside me. “What’s making the rings?”

“Back when I was hunting the exsoloup for Jared,” I said, “I came across a few odd creatures while researching the alpha’s monster.” I pulled out my phone and two minutes later, I found what I was looking for. “Look,” I told Zach, holding out my phone.

He peered at the image on the screen. “Is that a…what is that?”

“It’s an ossling,” I told him, pulling back my phone.

“It looks like a groundhog,” he said.

I nodded. “Sort of. But its body is long, its shoulders narrow. And here. Look at that little face.” I tapped until I found the image I was looking for, then handed him my phone. “That’s no groundhog face.”

“It looks almost like a person’s face,” he said, giving me back my phone. He looked around, then stood. “Is it still here, do you think?”

I lifted an eyebrow, put my phone away, and stood. “Are you afraid of a tiny little ossling, Zach?”

“A little,” he admitted, his smile a bit sheepish. “You have to admit it’s a creepy thing. What if it attacks and attempts to rip your face off with those claws? How would you defend against it?”

I stared at him, torn between amusement and amazement. “It’s not aggressive or malicious. All it wants to do is find a safe place to nest, especially if it’s a female about to have a baby. They want nothing to do with people, except to steal their teeth after they’re dead.”

“So that’s what it’s doing,” he said, not in the least relieved. “Stealing human teeth to…”

“Make a fence of protection beneath a tree,” I said. “To an ossling, human teeth have magical and protective properties. She’ll move on, eventually. She has to know it’s not really safe here. If she’s having young, she’ll wait until the baby is old enough to travel.” Once again I whipped out my phone and showed him a picture of a baby ossling.

His frown eased. “That’s…cute.”

“Yeah it is.”

“Where’s the dad?”

I shrugged. “Who knows. The female finds a mate, but only to get pregnant. When she’s pregnant, they go their separate ways.”

Annabelle came over. “What are you looking at? Do you know what’s happening?”

I slipped my phone into my pocket. “I do, Annabelle, and it’s nothing to worry about. It’s not a ghost, not a demon, just a type of ground squirrel. It raids graveyards for nuts and happens to deep dive for some trinkets and loose teeth in very old cemeteries. The wood rots away from the old coffins, and these little guys bring the treasures back to their trees. Your little dog likes looking for them. He’ll be pretty disappointed when the squirrel moves on.” I gave her what I hoped was a winning smile. “There’s nothing at all to worry about.”

She shook her head. “I’m going to have someone come and tend to that creature, now that I know what we’re dealing with. We can set traps. I don’t want Hershey getting the rabies.”