He threw back the blankets, snatching up the pants draped over the foot of the bed. He grabbed the loaded thirty-aught he kept behind the front door and hurried out across the yard. The noise coming from the barn was horrific. The last time he heard animals make such a sound was when he'd worked as day labor at a dog food factory. It had taken a gallon of Mad Dog to wash the echoes of the mustangs' screams from his head.
As he drew closer, Nate could see that the barn doors were standing wide open.
Cloverleaf, his prize mare, bolted clear, eyes rolling in equine terror. Nate leapt out of the way, narrowly avoiding being trampled by the frightened horse as it fled into the night.
"Who's there? Show yourself! I got a gun?'
He shouted over the frantic lowing of the agitated cattle and the sound of horses and mules kicking at their stable doors.
Nate retrieved the battery-powered flashlight he kept inside the door and played the beam around the interior of the barn. Panicked livestock stared back at him, their eyes showing white.
Nate focused the flashlight beam on Cloverleaf's stall. The mare had reduced the slats to splinters in her desperate attempt to escape. He then pointed the light at the stall next to Cloverleaf's, which housed one of the plow mules. At first he thought it was empty as well, then he saw a dark bulk sprawled in the hay. He moved in closer to get a better look and saw that the poor beast's mouth hung open, it's tongue dangling to one side, bloody froth covering its muzzle, eyes just beginning to glaze over.
Wiley Simms raised his head from the dying mule's flank, his face smeared with blood and straw, and hissed at Nate like an angry possum.
Nate cried out, dropping the flashlight as he stepped back from the animal pen. Never in all his life, not even during his days hanging out drinking hooch under the overpass, had he seen such bestial hunger in a fellow human's eyes. It was as if every last vestige of sanity had been stripped away, leaving only stark, staring madness behind.
"Stay where you are, Wiley!" Nate said, leveling the gun on the gore-covered figure
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) crouched before him. "I don't want to shoot you, but I will if I have to!"
Wiley grinned up at Nate, bloody drool dripping from his quivering lips. The flesh of the mule was good, but nowhere as tender as the flesh of man. The ghoul no more knew why this was so anymore than a bird knows why it's warmer down south. But as the thought of eating the man crossed the dark, cold clay of it's mind, the ghoul felt something twitch in its hindbrain. Something that told him that the man was not to feed his hunger, but destined for another.
Following dinner, Rosie and Cade cleared the dishes from the table. After checking their homework, the twins were shooed off to bed by their mother. After dispensing good night kisses, Cade returned to the great room, to find his guest seated in a chair, staring into the fire in the kiva, her fingers steepled. The half-wolf, Fella, was sprawled before her feet like a bearskin rug.
"I'm impressed," Cade said. "Fella doesn't normally relax in front of strangers."
"We understand each other," Sonja said simply. "He knows I pose no threat to the pack.
In fact, he cut short his hunting trip because he caught wind of the
enkidu
I seek."
"How did you figure that out?" Cade asked half-jokingly. "Read his mind?"
"Yes. To a certain degree," Sonja replied seriously. "Please, sit down. There is much we have to discuss if we are to work together. I'm interested in learning about you and this town of yours."
"Why don't you just read my mind? That would save some time, wouldn't it?"
"Yes it would, but I doubt you would find the experience very pleasant. Besides, I would rather hear it from you. Tell me about yourself, Skinner Cade."
Cade shrugged his shoulders and sat down in a chair opposite his guest. "Very well. If you insist. But, remember, you asked for it. As I told you earlier, my name is Skinner Cade.
But that was not the name I was born with. My real name, my birthing name, is Skinwalker. My father was a
vargr
lord called Feral. My mother is a were-coyote named Changing Woman. And I was the product of rape.
"My mother and her mate had been lured to a meeting with the
vargr
under the pretense of signing a peace treaty. My mother's mate was slain and his killer mounted her. The
vargr
probably would have slain her as well, but she managed to escape and return to her people.
When I was born I was one of a set of demi-twins. My wife, Rosie, was my littermate.
While we shared the same mother, we had different fathers.
"My mother would have killed me at birth if not for the human midwife who helped deliver my sister and myself. The midwife took me to a foundling home; where I was adopted by the people I would grow up believing to be my parents, William and Edna Cade.
"The Cades cherished me as only those who know the true value of a child can. I never once doubted the depth and sincerity of their love for me, no matter what. They knew I was different from other children, but it never changed how they felt towards me. Like most
vargr
reared amongst humans, I had a hard time being accepted by my peers, and was often the butt of cruel jokes and vicious pranks. I could have become embittered and twisted, like so many other secret monsters, but the love of my parents kept me strong. I never knew how incredibly lucky I was to have been adopted by the Cades until I went out into the world and met others like myself who had known nothing but abuse at the hands
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) of the humans who raised them. My mother, rest her soul, loved me even after she discovered the truth about me. I was only ten years old at the time..."
Cade fell silent and his gaze became distant, as if he was looking at something far away.
After a few seconds he swallowed hard and resumed speaking, but there was now a slight hitch in his voice.
"My father had taken me deer hunting for the very first time. When I bagged my first buck, he said it was a rite of passage, marking my transition from boyhood into manhood.
He blooded my cheeks— smearing my face with the fresh blood of the deer I had brought down. And, without meaning to, I changed for the first time.
"My mother found me crouched over his dead body, gnawing on his carcass like a rabid beast. Instead of killing me for the monster I was, she took me home, cleaned me up, and protected me, not only from others, but from myself as well. She succeeded so well I had no memory of what I had done that horrible day until shape shifting for the first time as an adult.
"When I discovered the truth about myself I thought, at first, that I should find others of my kind. I thought I might fit in better with other werewolves than I did with humans. But I discovered that I could never truly fit in amongst them. The purebred
vargr
proved to be ravenous, blood-drunk maniacs who used humans to sate their appetites. Faced with the possibility of centuries of life as a cannibal and serial rapist, I was on the verge of suicide.
"It was not until I met my mother's people, the coyotero, that I realized there was indeed hope for myself. The coyotero know how to live in balance with their world and those who share it with them. That is why the
vargr
hate them so. The
vargr
came to this country with the white man, and like the white man, they were an arrogant and greedy breed. They came very close to wiping the coyotero off the face of the earth.
"The coyotero taught me that just because I have wild blood in my veins, that does not mean I must live like a beast. The coyotero have co-existed in relative harmony with the native peoples of the Southwest for millennia. While they have been known to eat the occasional human now and again, their relationship with the desert tribes has been benevolent—hence the importance of the trickster-god Coyote in Native American mythologies.
"With the coyotero 1 saw how it was possible for human and Pretender to live together, work together, and fight together against a common enemy. I know from personal experience that the role of a monster is a cruel one. To live the life of a Pretender means you can never truly be at peace, either with the world or yourself. You are constantly on the prowl, fearful of exposure or challenges from more powerful, far deadlier Pretenders.
All Pretenders play at being humans, but not all of us do so simply in order to better prey upon the flock. Some of us pretend because we dream of having a family and a home and a place in society where we belong and can live without fear.
"Nonesuch was born of that dream. We have worked hard to make Nonesuch a place where human lives beside werewolf, where werewolf hunts alongside were-coyote. Any Pretender who has wearied of the endless cycle of hiding and killing and living in fear is welcome to join us and start a new life, one free of predation and exploitation. We hope as word of what we're doing spreads amongst the underground that more and more Pretenders will find their way to us. There are those on the town council who still believe we owe this Vasek a hearing."
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)
"Believe me when I tell you, Sheriff Cade: never trust an
enkidu."
"Does that include you as well?" Cade asked, lifting an eyebrow.
"Yes," she answered. "I could not hunt and destroy these creatures as well as I do if I did not have their darkness inside me. I can be a very dangerous woman, even when I don't wish to be."
"Perhaps that is true," Cade said with a shrug. "But I have learned to trust my instincts when it comes to people, whether they're human or not."
"And what do your instincts say about me?"
"That you're conflicted. And I have no doubt in my mind that you can be lethal when crossed. But, basically, I believe you are a decent sort. Whatever that sort may be"
Before he could continue, a muffled ringing sound came from the roll-top desk.
"What's that?" Sonja asked.
"It's the hotline," Cade explained, levering himself out of his chair. "We don't have telephone service, per se, but there are a few army-issue field telephones scattered amongst the older human citizens. My phone rings automatically the minute whoever is on the other end of the line picks up their receiver." He rolled the top of the desk back, and pulled an old-fashioned telephone receiver from its olive-drab canvas carrying case.
"Sheriff Cade speaking." He frowned, as if having trouble identifying the voice on the other end. "Mrs. Cowpers—? Is that you? What? I'll be right out! Maisie, I need you to lock your doors and stay away from the windows! Do you hear me? Don't let anyone in until I get there! Now stay put—help's on the way." He glanced up at Sonja as he returned the field telephone receiver to its case. "Maisie Cowpers says there's something in her chicken coop, and whatever it is, it's laughing."
The Cowpers place was a small parcel located a mile or so up the road from Nate Ferguson's spread. A couple of weeks ago, Maisie's husband of forty-seven years, Kerwin, upped and died of gut cancer, leaving her to raise chickens and candle eggs on her own.
As Cade pulled up in front of the Cowpers' house, Fella leapt out of the back of the vehicle before it came to a full stop. The half-wolf loped over to the chicken coop then went on-point, like a bird dog in the presence of hidden quail, his teeth bared and his hackles raised from nape to tail.
Taking his gun from its holster, Cade motioned for Son] a to flank him as he kicked open the door to the chicken coop. He glanced inside, grimaced, and then returned his weapon to its holster.
"Whatever was after Maisie's chickens has flown the coop."
"Could it have been an animal?" Sonja asked.
"You tell me," he said, motioning for her to look inside.
The walls of the coop were coated with blood, matted feathers, and the dripping yolks of shattered eggs. Chicken carcasses, fifty in all, lay scattered about like gory feather dusters.
Each and every bird was missing its head. The nesting boxes were overturned and what few eggs that had not been hurled against the walls had been trodden underfoot.
Sonja turned back around to speak to Cade, but he was already running towards the farmhouse.
"Mrs. Cowpers! It's me! Sheriff Cade?
He was answered by silence. As he stepped onto the front porch, he could see the front door was hanging open on busted hinges. Whatever
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) it was that had raided the chicken coop had kicked open the door, despite the heavy crossbar. All the furniture in the front room was smashed into kindling. Skinner dashed into the kitchen and then into the bedroom, only to find each room dark and empty.
He returned to the front room to find Sonja standing in the middle of the demolished furnishings, studying a shattered piece of Blue Willow china she had picked up off the floor.
"She's gone," he said, trying to keep the fear from his voice.
"Vasek's minion has claimed her for his master," Sonja said, dropping the fragment of ruined china back onto the floor. "If your friend is lucky, she'll die of a heart attack before the bastard has a chance to feed."
"Damn it! This ain't how it's supposed to be!" Cade spat, kicking the gutted remains of the Cowpers' sofa hard enough to reduce it to splinters. "I
promised
them a safe place for humans and Pretenders alike, and they
trusted
me!"
"Don't be too hard on yourself, sheriff," Sonja said. "There's no undoing what has been done. Once he converts a few humans, though, you can kiss your little attempt at Utopia goodbye. We've got to find Vasek's lair and take him out before he can surround himself with others of his making. But where to begin? This territory is full of abandoned mines and old graveyards..."