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“Hot tip: names might hurt me, but buckshot won’t.” I grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and yanked it to the side, pulling Penelope with it. The gun fired, but the shot went wide, knocking the bark off a nearby tree.
It wasn’t strictly true that buckshot couldn’t hurt me; it just couldn’t kill me.
I was complicated.
Using the butt of the shotgun, I shoved Penelope to the ground, then tossed the gun out of reach.
“Stop her,” Penelope growled.
Brenda shot her a helpless look. “With what? She defeated my wicker basket.”
I left them to argue and raced toward the pond. The stench of moonshine was stronger here. Maybe the witches had indulged themselves before the big moment. Liquid courage for the atrocity they were about to commit.
And, suddenly, there she was.
A wooden post protruded from the center of the pond and tied to that post was Ashley Pratt. It seemed pretty rich for a coven of witches to tie another woman to a stake with the intent to kill her. They’d dressed her in a golden chemise. The fabric shimmered in the moonlight, as if sewn from the light of a thousand stars. They wanted Ashley to be seen—so where was the gwiber?
A snapping sound interrupted my thoughts. I turned to see a gigantic crocodile-like creature lumber in Ashley’s direction. Not a gwiber. Her scream could’ve split wood.
“Don’t move,” a voice yelled.
Kelsey had joined the other witches in the backyard, along with Sierra and Margaret.
“Let the beast feast on her flesh,” Margaret added. “One human girl is worth the exchange.”
Confusion flooded my mind as I kept my focus on the monster. Where was the gwiber? Even more concerning, what were the odds that Ashley would be terrorized by the Lake Placid type of creature that had given her nightmares in childhood?
Slim, that’s what they were. Very slim.
There was no time to think it through. Right now, I had to get the monster’s attention away from Ashley. I ripped an axe from my pack and threw it. The witches watched as it arced through the air, over the creature’s long body.
“Ha! You missed,” Kelsey said with a satisfied smile.
I twisted to face her. “I wasn’t aiming for the creature.”
Her smug expression evaporated when she saw where the blade of the axe landed. It sliced through one of Ashley’s ropes, freeing her right hand.
The sight of the weapon seemed to anger the monster because it opened its massive jaws and released a deafening roar. The witches’ hands slammed against their ears. The creature swiveled away from the pond and flattened itself on the ground.
“What’s it doing?” Margaret asked. “Why is it facing us instead of the offering?”
“Because we didn’t finish the preparation,” Brenda moaned.
“It just needs a command.” Kelsey ran directly into its path and jabbed an angry finger toward the pond. “She’s behind you. That’s your offering. Go take it!” She turned to face the others. “Maybe we need to say it in Spanish? Can anybody translate?”
“Phaedra could.” Brenda faltered.
Kelsey shouldn’t have turned her back to the creature. The crocodilian monster pounced on the redhead and swallowed her whole.
Brenda screamed. “Penelope, do something!”
“What do you think this sacrifice is for, you stupid cow? It won’t obey me yet,” Penelope barked. “Sierra, get rid of this nuisance.”
This nuisance was currently having a moment of clarity. The sacrifice. The moonshine. The missing gwiber. The unlikely crocodile monster. Kelsey’s seemingly ridiculous question about asking in Spanish.
“That’s a culebrón,” I announced to no one in particular. The culebrón was a shapeshifting monster associated with the rural Chilean countryside. It had a fondness for aguardiente, hence the moonshine, which may be how they summoned it, and its domestication was best achieved through sacrifice. Its regular form was a monster-sized hairy snake with the giant head of a calf, but the creature can shift into whatever form frightens children the most. Based on its current form, Ashley’s inner child was still traumatized by crocodilian monsters.
“You will not ruin this for us,” Penelope said. “The stars have finally aligned, and tonight we domesticate the culebrón.”
