Neil smiled. "You'd better
run, sister. As fast as your feet can carry you, because you're
nothing but
meat
to me now."
In that instant, Grady
shoved Kate aside and "Go! Now!" he roared, as he brought up the
rifle and fired without pausing to aim. There was a
thunk!
like an arrow
slamming into tree bark and Campbell spun around in a circle, then
staggered, blood jetting from the side of his neck.
Kate ran, and quickly
cleared the circle of light. In an instant she was gone, the
ringing in Grady's ears from the gun blast giving her flight a
soundless, curiously dreamlike quality.
That's my girl
, he thought,
struggling to reload as the group of men looked from him to the
stumbling figure of their brother Campbell trying to stem the flow
of blood from a wide dark hole in his neck.
And then they changed. The
effect was like someone pouring scalding hot water over ice
sculptures. One moment they were standing stock-still, pale figures
in the half-light, tendrils of fog coiling at their feet; the next
they had fallen forward, shriveled while lengthening, blazing with
light while darkening, until they were crouched before him, then
moving with the eerie synchronicity of tigers stalking
prey.
All except Stephen, who
stood, arms crossed, studying him.
Grady's hands were
trembling uncontrollably and he watched in dismay as the first
cartridge bounced across his fingers and vanished at his feet. He
quickly procured another, eyes flicking from the stock to the sleek
dark figures pouring like oil toward where he stood by the
lantern.
"C'mon, c'mon," he urged
himself and slammed the bullet into the chamber. It stuck. "Damn
it!"
Claws found his legs, and
the air filled with a chorus of clicking hisses.
He winced and restrained a
gasp of pain as those nails punctured his right ankle and drove
deeper and deeper until they scratched bone. Warmth flooded his
shins and it felt as if a river of his strength was leaving him. A
moment later, they found his left ankle.
He rammed the heel of his
palm against the cartridge and it went in with a sharp clack. With
a triumphant nod, he raised the rifle and aimed it down.
It was like standing in a
river of tar. Sinewy black limbs flashed and tore at him; blazing
white eyes rose, cresting the mist and gone again. Frantic, he
adjusted his aim. They swarmed around him. Another razor-sharp
pain, followed by a tugging and something ripped away, setting his
leg on fire. He muffled a scream and tried to pull away.
He couldn't
move.
They had him anchored
where he stood, a tree waiting to be razed by saws of bone. And in
a moment he would fall.
They're going to do it
slowly
.
He thought of his son, of
Kate, and of the boy he'd loved so much now tearing at him like a
maddened animal, and tears filled his eyes.
One of the creatures rose
from the mist, claw raised and aimed at Grady's face. Suddenly,
something sailed over its head and hit Grady's cheek softly before
rolling and landing in the crook of his arm.
It was his cap. He looked
questioningly at Stephen, who said, "It will be cold where you're
going."
Grady took the cap and
donned it, tugging on the brim until it fit snugly. Oddly enough,
he felt more secure with the cap than he did with the rifle. Habits
were like a pair of comfortable old shoes, he supposed.
The creature before him
leaned in and in the second before it sliced open his belly, he
found himself wondering if it was Neil. He hoped not, hoped that
none of the claws ripping at him belonged to the boy, that perhaps
he was watching, with sorrow and regret, from somewhere in the
fog.
"I have one last thing to
say to you," he said to Stephen. "A little mistake I'm sure yer
unaware of."
"Is that so? Do
tell."
Grady did, and then, with
a smile, swung the rifle around so the muzzle was a dark eye
staring him in the face. With a whisper of "God forgive me," he
gripped the barrel with one hand, brought it up under his chin,
then reached down and depressed the trigger with his
thumb.
He was sung into oblivion
by Stephen's outraged cry.
30
Kate ran, stumbled, fell
and quickly got to her feet, then ran on, sweat beading her brow,
her breath adding to the rising mist as she wept in hitching sobs
that threatened to suck the air from her. On she went, over the
stony mounds and down into the valleys, through the network of
drooping dying trees and across babbling streams that would soon
become ice. She slipped and fell again, jarring her elbow against a
rock and howling with pain, cursing with frustration as she rose,
the pistol heavy and useless in her hand.
I should have stayed with
him
, she thought miserably, but knew she
would have been unable to help him if she had. The gun was for
show, meant to scare, not kill. Grady had trained her how to use it
and she had been quite adept at pegging old cans and bottles from a
considerable distance. But cans and bottles were not men. They
didn't have eyes that looked back at you and watched you preparing
to cross that tumultuous river between good and evil into the realm
of murderers. She would never have been able to kill one of them.
They could have shot Grady before her very eyes and she would have
aimed, cocked the gun and yes, maybe even squeezed off a shot, but
it would have gone astray because she would have ensured it would.
Killing was not a part of her design, but because of that, she was
quite certain she had left Grady for dead. Now her own brother and
his new brethren were hunting her down, and even if she somehow
managed to avoid them, the guilt would find her wherever she
went.
A shot splintered the
night behind her. She half-turned, then sobbed and kept going, her
heart racing, pulse tapping in her throat.
A chorus of shrieks flayed
the air and this time she did stop, uncertainty keeping her
still---and oh how good it felt not to be running. She listened. Had
that been a sound of creatures in pain? She'd only heard one shot
though, so how would Grady have managed to hurt the rest of them?
The lanterns were like the gleam in the eyes of a mouse from where
she stood, and yet she considered going back. She shivered, and
waited, watching those lights, half-imagining she could hear
Grady's victorious summons.
Got the
bastards, Kate. Come on! Killing their master killed them all, by
God!
But the cry didn't come,
and after what felt like hours of waiting, the lanterns went
out.
Allowing her to see the white eyes
burning through the mist as the creatures closed in on
her.
***
Sarah opened the door, her
eyes narrowed against the fluttering flame of Mrs. Fletcher's
torch. "Do you know what time it is?"
"No. It doesn't matter. I
need your horse."
"What?"
"Your horse. I need to
borrow it. There's trouble."
"Are you hurt?" Sarah
asked dreamily, inspecting the blood on Mrs. Fletcher's skirts. "I
have some bandages if you---"
"For Christ's sake, the
damned
horse
,
woman!"
"All right, calm down!"
Sarah said, looking no more awake despite the charwoman's outburst.
"My horse is gone. Your friend Mr. Grady and the young lass took
it. I told them not to be too long. Do you think---?"
"You need to come with
me," Mrs. Fletcher said gruffly, grabbing Sarah by the sleeve. "And
bring a weapon of some sort. Your husband's rifle if you have
it."
Sarah pulled away, finally
awake, and annoyed. "I beg your pardon? You just woke me out of
bed. I'm not going anywhere."
Mrs. Fletcher clenched her
teeth and stepped close enough to make Sarah's eyes widen. "Yes you
bloody well
are
.
We're goin' to see the man responsible for your husband's
death."
Sarah paled.
***
The village slept,
swaddled in a cocoon of blissful ignorance. At every door,
sleep-narrowed eyes radiated hostility at having been woken up to a
harsher reality.
And at every door, Mrs.
Fletcher's story changed:
"A child is
missin'..."
"There's a murderer on the
moors..."
"They say Grady has caught
the Beast of Brent Prior..."
At every door, sleep fled
quickly. Overcoats were slung on, weapons were gathered and the
horses saddled.
Within a half hour,
thirteen men, seven youths and five women, including Mrs. Fletcher
and Sarah Laws, armed with an array of weapons, from sickles to
shotguns, crossed from the muddy village road onto the moors, the
unified light of their blazing torches like a shield against the
night, and whatever it cloaked.
31
They were close. Kate knew
it without looking back over her shoulder. She could feel them
coming, as if their hunger had preceded them in tangible waves that
brushed with wicked promise against the nape of her neck. They
dragged at her eyes, willing her to see them and let the fear
cripple her, but she refused, her legs like pistons as they
desperately tried to maintain the speed her brain
demanded.
Then, through the mist
ahead she caught sight of something.
Fire.
More of them?
she thought with dread clutching at her heart.
Had those men she'd seen only represented a portion of a greater
number? The idea that they might be spread across the path ahead
was almost enough to drain the fight from her. As it was, she
allowed herself to slow, but not by much. She was wheezing now, her
lungs singing with the pain of every breath.
Another few feet and the
fire separated; became a number of smaller flames, and beneath them
round warm faces were crumpled up in concentration, peering into
the dark.
A few feet more and
something inside her pleaded with her to stop, to change direction
and hide until she could be sure these people were not the enemy,
but her legs weren't listening and carried her forth until at last
she slowed, then stopped and stared, irritated that the clouds her
breath made were occluding her view of the gathering.
She knew them.
The elation was late in
coming, held up at the door by caution, but after a moment spent
catching her breath, she allowed relief to numb her.
She was close enough now
to see that the lights were indeed torches, held high by concerned
looking folk on horseback, all of whom she recognized. And there,
amongst them, though Kate scarcely dared believe it, stood the
reassuring bulk of Mrs. Fletcher, talking animatedly and gesturing
at the darkness around them.
Kate closed her eyes, her
thundering heart setting off fireworks behind her eyelids, then
opened them again and cried out with as much force as she could
muster, "I'm over here, Mrs. Fletcher!" Despite her exhaustion and,
not content to wait, Kate began to jog toward the crowd.
I'm going home. They didn't catch me.
I'm going ho---
The tattoo beat of
galloping feet behind her, getting louder, and louder still and she
turned with a gasp of horror as a creature carved from the night
sky itself, a nightmare with full moons for eyes leapt for her, its
jaws open wide. She was dimly aware of more moons floating out of
the dark and then she lunged forward, away from the creature and
toward the crowd.
"Mrs. Fletcher!" she
cried, and then her feet were gone from under her. She went down
hard, the loamy earth thudding against her jaw, sending a fiery
ache up through her teeth. Specks of light pulsed in her eyes and
she moaned, then quickly rolled over on her back.
They were there, two of
them, standing before her, limbs spread wide, bellies low to the
ground, and following behind them, like a man out for a late
evening stroll, was Stephen Callow, his hands joined behind his
back, eyes on the crowd still crying out to the dark.
"You almost made it," he
said, and the cheerfulness was gone from his tone. He almost looked
worried, which made no sense at all to Kate, though she would not
have been surprised to learn her ability to judge expressions, or
anything else for that matter, had faltered over the last few
hours. But still, there was something different about the man's
eyes now, something almost gentle about them, an evaluation she
found absurd.
"Where's Grady?" The
question wouldn't leave her until she asked it, even though she
didn't want to hear the answer.
"Dead," Stephen said. "By
his own hand."
She remembered the single
gunshot and almost smiled despite the swell of grief and sorrow
that rose within her. Though she had known deep down that he was
lost to her, she had also known he would fight to the end, and he
had, refusing to let them take him. Memories tried to overwhelm
her, a cold river flecked with icy regret, and she stopped it, let
the anger burn it away.