Switchblade Goddess by Lucy A. Snyder

rickety, weather-grayed clapboards; half the nails had rusted out of the wood and the paint was so dirty and peeled it was impossible to tell what color the shack had originally been. “I feel compelled to remind you that sarcasm and facetiousness are my domain, thank you very much—so I’m going to pretend you did not ask that question.”
    “Touchy, much?”
    “I love you, too.”
    We stepped down off the bank onto the dry, smooth stones lining the creek bed. Tan mud beneath the gray pebbles crackled with every step. I paused, blinking through different gemviews to see if my ocularis could pick up anything in the shack. Unfortunately, the view that helped me see right through the walls in the hellement didn’t show me much in the real world. If it hadn’t been for the isolation field, I was pretty sure I would have been able to sense Miko’s presence, if only as a bad feeling tweaking my spine. And realizing that the field gave her magical camouflage made me wonder if she’d picked this place not from desperation but by design.
    I raised my Mossberg and trained it on the front door of the shack. My hands were quivering; I tried to steady them. If Miko was in full possession of her powers, the shotgun might as well have been a water pistol, but then again there was no way to know how much she’d been weakened by the Goad inside her. I didn’t have her pegged as a masochist, anyhow, and she might not be in a hurry to get a face full of tungsten alloy tactical pellets. Supposing she was still sane enough to see reason, of course. Shit.
    “Miko, are you in there?” I shouted, far louderthan necessary, but I was trying to get myself fired up so that maybe I wouldn’t feel so damn scared. “We can help each other, Miko. You want that devil out of you, don’t you? I can help you with that.”
    No reply.
    I inhaled deeply through my nose, and began to step carefully onto the creaking porch, watching the dark windows. Seeing no movement, no sign of ambush, I pushed the empty screen frame aside with my boot and nudged the front door open with the barrel of my shotgun.
    “Miko?” I whispered.
    In the dimness, I saw the dusty frame of an old army surplus cot, the olive drab fabric rotted to tatters, and a couple of broken-down lawn chairs decorated with a scattering of old crushed beer cans. An old Marlboro ashtray and a discarded bait bucket lay among the blown-in leaves on the warped, dirty floor. Faded posters of dogs playing poker and some forgotten Playboy Playmate decorated the far wall. Nothing moved. I held my breath, listening for sounds of boards creaking under shifting feet, sounds of someone else’s breathing, but all I could hear was my own pulse pounding in my ears.
    I pushed the door open a little wider and stepped inside.
    A sudden blur of movement from the shadows, and something grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, yanking me into the shack, jerking my finger on the shotgun’s trigger. The boom nearly deafened me. Miko gave a grunt of pain and released the gun, but she’d already sent me tumbling sideways. I caught a glimpse of her belly torn wide open by the shotgun blast as I wentpast her. I fell heavily and slid across the gritty floor. My impact knocked one of the lawn chairs over and sent beer cans clattering, but I didn’t lose my grip on my shotgun.
    I barely had time to sit up and rack another cartridge into the chamber before she’d gathered her slippery guts up and expertly packed them back into her body, her flesh sealing below her fingers. I’d never seen any creature be able to heal itself so quickly, not even a werewolf in full lunacy.
    “Miko, I can help—” I began, but she screamed and leaped at me, the movement inhumanly fast.
    So much for negotiation
, I thought as I swung my shotgun up, managing to catch her hard under her chin with the barrel as she fell upon me. I pulled the trigger. The blast took the left half of her head off, showering me with blood and bits of bone and