“What? I already ate. Nothing for me.”
The smiling young woman did not move.
“Chicken, beef, or vegetarian option?”
Tara wondered how long she had slept. The subdued light in the cabin seemed ever dimmer. She focused and noticed that everyone else seemed to be asleep or at least silent.
“Nothing for me, thanks!” she said firmly.
The flight attendant looked unhappy, her professional smile freezing in that “Oh god, another one” look. Tara felt resentful, put upon. She was about to ask the woman to just leave her in peace when the attendant’s face began to change. Her nose and mouth started to bulge outward, her eyes grew larger and took on a golden tinge. She was suddenly, impossibly, midway between a werewolf and the Great Dane in the movie.
“Chicken, beef, or vegetarian option!” snarled the woman, slaver splashing from vast jaws. “Or would you rather I ripped your lungs out and shoved them down your throat?”
“No!”
Tara jerked upright and heard her blonde neighbor snoring mildly, mouth open, a hint of drool that Tara felt an impulse to dab at. She resisted and checked the time—halfway to America. She felt there should be some kind of announcement, at the very least a short burst of “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Or, given that they were heading for the Big Apple, maybe the theme from Shaft…
Tara’s reverie was interrupted by someone peering at her over the back of her seat. The little girl, hair in bunches, gave Tara a suspicious look. Tara smiled sweetly up at the girl, but instead of smiling back, the child looked downright scared, eyes widening in alarm. Tara looked down and saw her fingers were now covered in reddish hair and growing black claws in place of her nails.
The transformation was dream-swift, and she leaped eagerly over the seat back and onto the little girl, who squealed and protested but was quickly consumed. The girl’s mother, a plump woman, was irate and kept pressing the button for the attendant until Tara ripped off her arm. The blood, Tara noted, was ruining her new jeans as it would never come out. This made her furious, and she bounded on, down the cabin, tearing off heads, ripping throats, until she got to the front of the plane.
The door to the cockpit was open. The cockpit was also her childhood bedroom, the airliner’s controls somehow attached to her dressing table. Her mom and dad were the pilots. They didn’t notice her coming to kill them because they were arguing, as usual. Tara snarled, frustrated. If they didn’t even notice her, how could she rend them limb from limb?
“Hey, I’m a werewolf!” she insisted.
“No, really, you’re not, honey,” her dad said.
Her mother turned away, unspeaking.
Tara howled. Small items started to rise into the air, flew around the cabin—a hairbrush, a perfume bottle, and Herbie, her old plush cat. Her folks stopped their row long enough to look at her, her mother in exasperation, her father in disappointment. Objects swirled through the air—a maelstrom of commonplace things made strange by levitation.
“Darling?” said Josh, appearing behind her. “Don’t snarl, it’s unbecoming.”
She tore his face off with a swipe of her talons, the mask of flesh flying free of the bloody skull bones. The face that fell onto the floor of her bedroom bore a reproachful expression.
“Sorry,” she said, “but we hurt the ones we love.”
This time she woke up for real. The dream had been absurd, yet vivid. She examined the backs of her hands for hairs before she fully escaped from it. The blonde woman was looking at her with some amusement.
“Bad dreams, honey?”
Tara smiled sweetly at her.
“Guess so.”
Before Blondie could speak again, the captain announced their imminent descent to JFK.
***
The kitchen roof was treacherous. Their boots were drying downstairs, along with their hiking clothes. Phil and Nicky were in borrowed sweats and socks, which didn’t fit well, but they managed to avoid skidding and got to the drainpipe. Nicky, lighter and far more agile, was first down and ran a dozen yards to the unlocked Land Rover. By the time Phil clambered into the passenger seat, she had gotten it started and was yanking angrily at the stiff handbrake.
“We’re stealing someone else’s car, you know that?” Phil said. “This is mad, I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Don’t care,” she replied. “Worth the risk. You heard what he said. You saw he was nervous from the start. If it’s all a big joke they can’t complain. If it isn’t—at last, bloody thing!”
The door of the farmhouse opened, spilling yellow light onto the wet cobblestones of the yard. A tall figure stood silhouetted for a moment, then fell forward. Nicky was concentrating on getting the Land Rover into gear. It was parked facing the low farmyard wall, so she reversed in a wide arc to turn it toward the gate.
Phil, staring toward the house, made a choking sound.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Just drive!” he shouted.
Nicky put her foot down just as something struck the side of the Land Rover. The tremendous bang confused her, and she swerved, almost clipping a stack of oil barrels. The gate loomed up in the headlights. Nicky glimpsed something moving, a big shape that seemed to be clambering up Phil’s side of the vehicle. The sound of glass breaking was almost drowned by a full-throated yell from Phil. She had never heard him shout in genuine terror before.
“What is it?” she demanded, but he seemed to be paralyzed by fear.
They were bouncing along a dirt track toward the actual road. Nicky risked a glance in the rear-view mirror and saw a huge, dark hand reaching in through the rear side window. It seemed to be covered in hair, the fingers tipped with black talons. She had no time to ponder what this meant, only knowing that it was a threat.
Nicky swerved again, this time deliberately slewing the rear of the Land Rover in the winter mud. She looked in the wing mirror and saw something dark rolling over in the gloom behind them, briefly red-lit by the Land Rover’s rear lights. More shapes moved, low, bounding along in their wake.
“What the hell?” she shouted. “Are those bastards in ape suits or something?”
“I don’t know, drive faster,” said Phil, twisting round in his seat. “Fast as you can without risking a crash, but for Christ’s sake don’t slow down.”
***
The beast lost all doubt, all sense of past or future. It shed its human weaknesses and soon forgot them in the thrill of the hunt. The thing that fled from them was half-understood, a hard object that sped into the night, red lights glowing. The roar it made was strange, disturbing, but very easy to hear. The urge to chase it was strong.
The pack leader was not following directly, though. That was hard to understand. Conflict within the beast’s mind made it hesitate for a moment, then follow the leader. The pack was a living thing in itself, part of the beast, the only community it could imagine. Without language, the leader urged them on. They cut across country, bounding over fields, leaping walls, as the sound of the unnatural thing that held their prey rose and fell in the distance. But never quite faded to nothingness.
***
They reached the single-lane tarmac road, and Nicky turned left, simply because she had to turn. This took them downhill, along a winding route between two stone walls. Phil was looking out of his window, staring back at the lights of the house. She kept the speed at around thirty, feeling the wheels of the unfamiliar vehicle slipping a little as she handled the bends. The headlights picked out icy patches where puddles had frozen in potholes on the neglected road.
“We must be well ahead of them now,” she commented. “Did they have another car?”
Phil did not answer. He was still staring back the way they had come. She repeated the question.
“I don’t know,” he said distractedly. “Stay focused on the road, you’re skidding all over the place.”
“You want to drive?” she asked.
“No, don’t stop!” he said in
stantly. “We can’t afford to risk it.”
There was a short silence as they did a series of hairpin bends where the road followed a narrow declivity between two hillocks. After the road straightened out, Nicky asked him what he had seen.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I—I don’t think it’s a joke. Don’t know what’s happening. Christ, I wish we had the GPS, we could be driving around in a big circle.”
Nicky suppressed her annoyance and felt some satisfaction that she could be just irritated with her old man again. That was a welcome touch of normality after their crazy evening. They came to another sharp bend, and she slowed to take it carefully. A shape bounded out from behind the stone wall. Nicky glimpsed yellow eyes, a gaping maw with fangs, and a very red tongue.
The creature was moving so fast that she reacted out of pure shock and slammed her foot on the brake while spinning the wheel far too hard. The Land Rover fish-tailed wildly as she tried and failed to regain control, then its left rear wing smashed into the wall. The engine cut out. Heart thumping in panic, she started the engine and changed gear.
The nightmare creature leaped onto the hood and paused for a moment. Phil was quietly repeating “No, No, No,” in a low, child-like voice. She looked over and saw another monstrous visage at the passenger window. She gunned the engine and flung the Land Rover forward, instinct telling her to flee. The beast on the hood almost lost its balance, but then lashed out with massive claws and smashed through the windscreen. Nicky tried to dodge, but claws raked her left cheek and tore her ear. She screamed as she felt blood cascade down her neck.
Wheels spinning, the vehicle skidded wildly, straightened out for a second, then ran straight into a wall. The first monster was flung into the darkness, falling out of sight. Nicky, sobbing with pain, tried to reverse. The engine, though still running, roared impotently. They were hung up on something. Phil’s window burst in, and a creature grabbed his throat. Nicky tried to help, pulling at his arm, then trying to pull the talons off of him, but they were too strong.
The driver-side door opened with a metallic crash, like it was being torn off its hinges. Pain shot through her thigh as she was dragged back, only her seatbelt keeping her inside. She began batting frantically at her assailant with her hands. Slavering jaws snapped at her fingers, and she screamed, kicked out. The creature grabbed her ankle in its paws, bit down. The pain was so intense that she lost consciousness.
Nicky came to for a few fleeting moments, suddenly free of pain, but feeling intensely cold. Her head bumped on the road, then she felt grass hissing by beneath her. The lights of the Land Rover were some ways off. She heard a distant howling and snarling, inhuman, and the screaming of a man in pain. Two creatures crouched over her, one gnawing at the stump of her ankle, the other ripping at her belly, tearing out lengths of yellow gut.
The cold was gone now, replaced by a weird numbness. Phil had stopped screaming. Nicky hoped she would see him again. Somehow. Somewhere.
Chapter 7
Tara’s Christmas with her mom and her boyfriend was made bearable by a steady stream of visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins of various ages. Her brother Tommy turned up with his latest boyfriend. Their mother did her usual purse-lipped impression of someone who finds same-sex relationships a disturbing novelty, like dating an android. Tara and Tommy ended up loading the dishwasher and catching up in their usual bickering fashion.
Nobody had mentioned Josh’s death apart from her mother asking her if she were all right, with the unspoken coda “you should be strong, you’re my daughter.” But as soon as Tara had suggested they clear the dishes, she had known she was in for the third degree.
“You can talk about it, you know,” Tommy said. “Just because they don’t want to, doesn’t mean you can’t. Mom never does the awkward stuff, you know that.”
He jerked a head at the door to the dining room. The sound of children laughing wafted through. Something bright blue and saucer-shaped flew past the door, buzzing quietly, lights flashing. A toy drone, designed to look like a UFO. It drifted back in the opposite direction, then picked up speed as it vanished from view. There was a thump, then a small voice started to wail.
“Objects flying around on their own, just like the old days,” Tommy said as an argument began next door. “So, how is the world of ghoulies and ghosties?”
“Up yours,” Tara grunted. “This goddamn trifle bowl thing is ridiculous—we’ll need to hose it down in the yard.”
Tommy put the bowl in the sink and turned on the faucet.
“Don’t change the subject, big sis,” he said. “Have you been having some of your old problems? You don’t think it’s a coincidence, this weird stuff always happening to you?”
Tara was all set to curse him out, but then leaned back against the freezer and folded her arms, looked him in the eye.
“Tommy, twice is not the same as always,” she said. “Maybe I had some peculiar experiences as a kid…”
“You were fourteen when that poltergeist shit happened,” he interrupted.
“As a kid,” she insisted, staring at him. “It was a crazy time, we were both miserable with mom and dad fighting all the time. Could be I did some stuff and then forgot I’d done it. I was losing sleep and acting up. But all that’s got nothing to do with Josh being—with what happened to Josh.”
Tommy shook his head.
“You attract weirdness,” he insisted. “It’s not just dishes being smashed. Pictures falling off the wall. That was bad enough, but before that, there was that old woman who lived in the woods, when we stayed at that… that cabin. You remember, on Sagamore Lake? She thought you were the Second Coming or something, babbling about you having a destiny.”
Tara barely remembered what he was talking about. Tommy often embroidered the details of events he had not even witnessed. In this case, she suspected he had been eavesdropping on mom and dad sometime and got hold of the wrong end of the stick. But she did remember a woman, ancient-seeming as all elderly people appear to the young. And she recalled a hut of some kind and the pungent smell of smoke.
“That was just a confused homeless woman,” she said firmly. “I wandered off, and she brought me home because she wasn’t evil crazy. She was probably an old hippie who took one too many tabs of bad acid.”
Tommy shook his head again.
“Third time’s the charm, sis,” he said. “Prediction when you’re a kid, then weird events when you come of age, and now this.”
“Come of age?” she giggled, despite her annoyance. “What is this, historical romance? ‘Forsooth, the lady Tara hath come of age, Sir Jasper.’ And I was only fourteen!”
“You know what I mean!” insisted Tommy. “It’s like a three-stage thing in some fairytale—witch in the woods when you’re a kid, then some kind of power when you’re a teen, and now...”
Tara crossed her arms, waited. It was her standard tactic, to let Tommy either erupt like a diva and storm out or—more commonly—simply run out of steam.
“‘Now,’ what?” she said. “I’m doing astrophysical research into detecting planetary systems of distant binary systems—K-class dwarfs mostly, thanks for asking. Which you don’t. Because nobody in this family ever asks me how I am because you’re the big drama queen—pun intended—who always has to be the center of attention.”
She reached over and turned on the dishwasher.
“Job done," she announced. “I’m going out for a jog—a short one, ’kay? Wanna join me?”
Tommy’s aversion to exercise was almost legendary. As she walked out, she expected a parting shot from him and wasn’t disappointed.
“Maybe the third stage is fighting monsters, sis. You thought about that?”
***
On one of the dull, gray days between Christmas and New Year’s, Westall and Mortlake met at the Greasy Spoon to discuss progress—or the lack of it. The detective explained that missing persons reports were meager and none of them seemed suspicious in a way that Mortlake would f
ind interesting.
“We could have missed someone,” Westall admitted. “But it’s a free country, you know? If people want to wander off at random and not take sensible precautions, that’s basically a human right.”
“And always has been,” Mortlake agreed sadly. “Is this coffee getting worse, or is my palate finally improving?”
“Bit of both,” grimaced Westall, putting his own mug down. “So, your little American friend’s gone home for the holidays? Is she coming back?”
Mortlake shrugged.
“She said she would, she doesn’t strike me as a quitter. And of course, she has actual studies. Whether she’ll feel she wants to fight the forces of evil come New Year is another matter. Time away, with family, has a way of making people reassess their life choices.”
“Which are, in this case, life or death choices,” Westall pointed out. “I seem to recall things haven’t worked out brilliantly for eager young assistants in the past.”
Mortlake looked past the detective at the doorway, where a couple of older ladies had just bustled in out of the rain, laughing and folding their umbrellas.
“Sorry,” said Westall. “Bit on the nose. Not your fault. It’s this time of year, when nothing happens. Oh, except for one point. I did some discreet and very unethical checking on Gonfallon’s buddies. The whole gang seems to have gone off together for Christmas, then one reappeared a couple of days ago.”
He held out his phone to show Mortlake a picture. It was a head shot of a young-ish, dark-haired man with a smug expression.
“Who’s that?” asked Mortlake.
“The Honorable Charles Belmont, who will one day be Marquess of Felpersham when his old dad pops his clogs. And he’s recently developed a limp—and please don’t respond with the ‘A limp what?’ or similar terrible joke.”
“Damn,” Mortlake said, smiling. “How well you know me. But what if a rich man had a skiing accident, or something like that—why is your spider-sense tingling?”
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