#scenebreak
The rabbit sat in a scrubby patch of grass and stared at Twist. Its whiskers twitched and its little nose wiggled. Its coat was brown and its long ears nearly doubled its furry height.
“Boo.” Twist lay on his stomach, staring at the rabbit.
The rabbit didn’t move.
“Boo!”
The rabbit stared at him. It seemed bored.
He snatched a handful of gravel and tossed it.
The rabbit jumped in surprise and scurried away, only to stop abruptly at the edge of the circle Twist had drawn on the ground with blood. It hopped backward and shook its head before leaping in another direction. That time, it stopped abruptly in mid-air as if hitting an invisible wall and dropped to the ground.
Twist jumped to his feet and whooped. It worked!
The rabbit scurried backward and huddled against the circle of blood as far away from Twist as it could.
Twist whooped again and was answered by the call of a hawk overhead.
He looked up to watch the hawk circle. “No way, bird,” Twist called. “Mr. Bunny’s all mine.”
He dropped onto his stomach again and stared at the rabbit. Slowly, he reached forward and met no resistance as his hand passed over the line of blood. So he could cross it, but the rabbit was trapped inside.
The book had called it a containment circle. Well, that was pretty self-explanatory. And it worked! Twist still had a hard time believing the dead witch’s book was the real deal. It was all so bizarre.
He had to make sure, so he jumped to his feet again and ran around the circle, picked up more gravel and tossed it at the rabbit. The animal jumped and scurried in a circle, clearly unable to penetrate the containment spell.
“Go Mr. Bunny!” Twist shouted, tossing pebbles one at a time and racing around the circle a few times for the sheer joy of seeing the spell work.
It was perfect. He could catch Fox and hold him. There was no way for him to get out.
Twist slowed to a stop, but the rabbit raced another lap, then it veered into the center of the circle and dropped onto its side, convulsing.
“Uh-oh, Mr. Bunny. Did you get overexcited?”
The rabbit screamed. It sounded just like a screaming child.
“Well, that’s creepy.”
The convulsions shook the rabbit across the gravel. It vibrated and jiggled as if a dog had it in its teeth.
Then it exploded.
Twist leapt back, covering his face with his arms and raising one leg defensively, but the blood and gore sprayed against the invisible wall surrounding the rabbit, hanging in the air as if sprayed across a glass cylinder. Bits of rabbit fur and chunks of bone fell to the ground, but the blood hung suspended.
Twist stared for a moment, then jumped in the air. “Woo-hoo!” He danced around the carcass and did fist pumps. “I blew up Mr. Bunny!”
Containment circle? More like awesome explosive circle of death. It was perfect. There would be absolutely no way to trace a death like this back to Twist. Warren would be so freaked out by it, he’d probably wet his shorts.
Forcing himself to calm down, Twist looked back down at the pile of bunny guts—
Wait. The rabbit sat in the middle of the circle again, staring calmly up at Twist as if nothing had happened.
“What the shit?” He crouched down.
The rabbit was grey, not brown, sort of silvery white, and . . . and the ground was clearly visible through its side. “Whoa. Ghost bunny?” Twist scooted a bit closer. “Did I make a ghost bunny?”
The spell had said nothing about ghost bunnies.
The translucent rabbit twitched its nose at Twist and moved closer.
So he could blow Fox up and then have his ghost to torment forever? Welcome to the bonus round!
The rabbit inched forward. . . then its eyes flashed with a red, hot fire.
Its mouth opened to reveal huge, ravenous fangs.
It leapt at Twist, roaring in rage.
Twist fell back on his ass and scrabbled away in terror. “Devil bunny! Devil bunny!”
The ghost rabbit hit the containment wall and bounced back, then leapt at the wall again, screaming in rage. A third time it leapt at the wall, then stayed there, scrabbling at the wall, screaming in fury, its burning eyes locked onto Twist’s.
He blew out a loud breath. Okay, so the ghost rabbit was insane and evil, but as long as it remained trapped in the circle, it still meant Twist could have fun with Fox’s ghost. He rose to his feet and brushed the dirt off his butt. Since the damn thing was trapped in the circle, its hysterical thrashing was pretty funny.
The hawk cried overhead, as if answering the rabbit’s wails.
The rabbit grew still. It looked up. It looked back at Twist. It smiled.
How the hell did a rabbit smile?
Then it stood up on its hind legs and stretched up and up, until it was stretched out like a cartoon. Then the stretched-out rabbit ghost left the ground and rose into the air, growing thinner and thinner all the time.
Twist shaded his eyes with one hand, but lost sight of the ghost rabbit against the bright blue sky.
“Off to rabbit heaven, Mr. Bunny?” Well, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if he couldn’t torment Fox’s immortal soul, but he’d take what he could get. Blowing him to blood pudding would be good enough.
The hawk circled and circled. . . then it faltered. It dropped several feet, flailing its wings as if it’d suddenly forgotten how to use them. It righted itself. Swooped once—
And dove.
What the heck? The damn thing was headed directly for Twist.
Was it after the rabbit carcass?
The bird’s eyes glowed red.
It screamed with the voice of a terrified child.
Twist dove for the ground as the bird’s huge talons reached for him. “Devil bunny!” He rolled with his hands over his head protectively, but the possessed bird missed. It rose into the air, called out its unearthly hatred and dove a second time.
Laying on his back, Twist scrabbled for the gun at his waist.
He pulled it out, pointed it straight up overhead with both hands and pulled the trigger again and again. Every bullet struck home.
Twist rolled out of the way as the hawk’s lifeless body pounded into the rocky ground.
He leapt to his feet and fired round after round into the corpse until it was a pulpy mess.
He stepped back, gun at his side, breathing heavy. Creepiest son of a bitching thing he’d ever seen. He wiped one arm over his face before realizing he’d rolled into rabbit corpse. Gore covered his shirt and pants, and most likely his face, now, too.
“Damn it to hell. This is my favorite shirt.”
He fired a couple of rounds into the matted rabbit fur at his feet. “Bad rabbit! Bad!”
He took a deep breath, glanced around. The ghost rabbit didn’t reappear, and the hawk seemed equally unlikely to move. He took another deep breath.
So maybe using the containment circle on Fox wasn’t such a good idea after all.