June’s features were lost in the recesses of a hooded sweatshirt and a rain poncho. “Good to see you again, too.” She gestured to the three figures behind her. “Mind if we come in? They need to talk to Jessa.”
“Jessa’s in bed,” he said, knowing what they would think from his shirtless appearance. “Can you come back later?”
“Well, we don’t mean to interrupt you,” June said with a grin.
“This is serious business, son.” Tom Stoke, the sheriff, stepped through the door, crowding June out of the way. It chafed Graf’s nerves to be called “son,” even though the man couldn’t have known that Graf was older than him.
Graf blocked the rest of them with his body. “What’s going on?”
“We’re really more interested in talking to Jessa,” one of the other men said, and June shrugged.
“I’ll go on up and get her,” Graf said eventually, opening the door and ushering the rest of them inside, where Sheriff Stoke wandered the living room, examining it as though it were a crime scene. “Make yourselves at home for a minute. She’s gonna need help. She had a bad fall.”
He hoped she’d heard him up there. He had no doubt she’d been listening. When he got to the top of the stairs, she stood in the doorway already. “Who’s down there?” she asked, a little louder than normal. To show she wasn’t hiding anything, he assumed.
He picked up the shirt he definitely needed to hide and pushed it under the bed before returning to her side to help her limp downstairs. “Some dudes, and June.” He noticed her shudder as he lifted her and cradled her against his bare chest. He hoped it was a shiver of restrained sexual desire and not fear at the mention of the council, but he figured it was, sadly, the latter.
When they reached the living room, June, who’d remained standing by the door, gasped. “Honey, what happened to you?”
“Bad fall,” Jessa said with an unconcerned laugh. “I was going after an egg up in the hayloft and lost my balance.”
“Fell straight down,” Graf supplied. “I thought I was gonna get to her and she would be dead.”
The same man who had spoken before cleared his throat. “Well, I’m sorry to hear about that, but we really need to get down to business. None of us want to be out past nightfall, not with what’s been happening lately.”
“Why, what happened?” Jessa asked as Graf set her in the armchair. Lies rolled off her tongue smooth and convincing. It amazed him and scared him, just a little. He’d never met a better liar than Sophia, and Jessa wasn’t far off.
Before the man could answer, Jessa laughed, startling everyone in the room. “I’m sorry, I just realized that my friend here doesn’t know most of y’all. This is Graf.”
“We’ve met,” Stoke said, smoothing a hand over his yellowed beard. “This here’s Dan Beech and Wade Cook.”
“Nice to meet you. I hope it’s under good circumstances,” Graf added quickly. “But I’m guessing not.”
“No, son. We’re here because there’s been another disappearance.” Tom fixed his beady gaze on Jessa. “Chad Shelby.”
Jessa didn’t miss a beat. “What? Oh my God! Well, where did he go?”
“We don’t think he went anywhere,” the one named Wade said, scratching at the short stubble that covered his head. “We think something happened to him.”
“Well, how long has he been gone? Did anybody tell his mom?” Jessa asked, looking each man straight in the eye.
“She knows,” Tom said. When he spoke, only his mustache moved.
“Well, how’s she doing?” Jessa continued, as if blithely unaware that they had come here to interrogate her about the murder.
The second he thought it, Graf realized he must have looked guilty from the start. And damn it, June had seen. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and pushed her hood down.
“Not so good, Jessa. That’s why we’re here.” Tom looked to the other two men as if seeking support. “We know he was headed out to see you last night, after the search party came in. And we know that he never came back.”
“Is he here now, Jessa?” June asked quietly.
“No, he’s not here,” she said, still giving those honest, bewildered glances. “He didn’t come by last night, either. I waited up for a while, but he never showed. The last time I saw him was yesterday morning, when he brought over the stuff from the auction.”
The men exchanged glances. There was some thing they weren’t telling her. They were trying to let her hang herself. Graf would have been worried, if he didn’t have total faith in Jessa’s deceptive little mind.
Tom clicked his tongue and rested his hands on his knees. “The thing is, Derek says he walked over with Chad. Says he saw him come into your house.”
“Well, if Derek said, it must be true,” Jessa said, dropping all pretensions of friendliness.
Dan broke in. “We’re not saying we believe his word over yours, Jessa. Hell, I’m wondering what he was doing skylarking around while his wife and babies have gone missing. But we had to check it out.”
“I know you did. And I know you gentlemen like to keep a real tight ship around here. But I gotta say, it’s pretty insulting to have you come in here and in sinuate that I did something to Chad.” She paused. “That’s what you came to check out, isn’t it? Or were you hoping you’d find him here, so you could run back to town and spread the gossip around?”
“Now, you know we ain’t that type of people—” Tom began.
Jessa interrupted him. “Yeah, well, you’re the type of people who would believe Derek when he hasn’t told anything more than a half-truth in the past five years. I didn’t see either Derek or Chad last night. I guess that was a good thing, because my new friend here is pretty possessive. We hit it off right away, and he doesn’t really care for other guys coming around.”
Graf wondered where she was going with this lie—okay, maybe it wasn’t a lie, because he hadn’t liked the two guys who had come around so far—when it all became clear.
She smirked. “If you all saw Derek today, you saw what Graf here did to him for sniffing around me this morning.”
“He said It did that to him,” Wade said with a grin. “I guess he didn’t want to admit he got his ass kicked.”
Tom didn’t look like he was enjoying the exchange as much as the councilman was. “If you don’t want trouble, you’ll all stay away from each other from now on, you hear?”
“It’s a small town, sheriff,” Jessa said, meeting his cold glare. “Believe me, I haven’t been trying to run into him.”
Tom stood and held out his hand to Graf. “I told you to keep your nose clean, and we wouldn’t have any problems.”
“Clean as a whistle, sheriff,” Graf said, but he couldn’t manage to make it sound sarcastic. It came out mostly nervous.
The council filed out after Tom, but June hung back. “You just made yourself some enemies,” she warned Graf. “And there’s blood on your carpet.”
Then she closed the door and left.
“We’re so fucked,” Jessa whispered, staring in horror at the door. “We’re so fucked.”
Graf held a finger to his lips and went to the window to make sure they were all out of earshot. All four figures were walking across the lawn, Tom gesturing broadly with his short arms, the rest nodding in agreement. June had pulled up her hood and rain poncho, and walked with her hands in her pockets.
Graf turned back to Jessa. “You did so good. I almost believed you when you said you hadn’t seen Chad.”
“They could tell,” she said, trembling. “I lie all the time. They know better than to believe me. And June saw the blood on the carpet.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t say anything in front of the other guys.” Why she hadn’t was anybody’s guess, but Graf wasn’t going to complain. “She knows some thing isn’t right about me, that’s for sure. I can tell by the way she looks at me. But she’s not ready to tell them about it. Which makes me think she’s not too keen on her town council
buddies.”
“They’re not too keen on her, either,” Jessa agreed. “Tom thinks she pokes her nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“She does, and that’s why she’s valuable to have on our side.” If she is on our side, Graf thought, but he didn’t need to say anything like that to Jessa and get her all paranoid.
“And Derek didn’t say anything about you biting him.” Jessa paled. “Oh, God, he had that bite. And he said It did it, which would have covered for us. But I told them.”
“It’s okay, they seemed pretty satisfied to believe Derek got smacked down.” If anyone asked, Graf would be happy to admit to taking a chunk out of Derek. It wouldn’t make him seem like the sanest person in town, but it would at least keep people from messing with them.
“They’re going to find Chad’s body here, close by the house, and they’re gonna know we did it.” She dropped her head to her hands. “I wish we could run, just get out of here and never look back.”
“Says the woman who didn’t want to leave her house just a few hours ago.” Graf took her by the shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. Just keep doing what you did tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better liar.”
“Thanks?” she said tentatively.
“Believe me, that means a lot coming from me.” He stepped back. “Do you think we need to talk to June? Handle things with her?”
“I don’t know. I guess it wouldn’t be a bad idea. But what are we going to tell her? ‘Hey, he’s a vampire, don’t say anything’?” Jessa chewed her lip. “Maybe we could ask her what the town council wanted with me, and if there’s anything I should be worried about… We can go after I get my chores done.”
“How are you going to do chores with a sprained ankle?” He didn’t like the idea of her just walking around on it. If they were in as much trouble as she thought they were, it wouldn’t help if she didn’t at least try to heal.
“I’ll get by. This isn’t the first sprained ankle I’ve ever had. And chickens get hungry regardless of how you’re feeling.” Farm-girl logic.
Graf wondered if she knew how stupid she sounded. “Look, this storm doesn’t seem to be letting up. It’d probably be safe for me to help you out.”
“But it’s daytime.”
“The cloud cover will protect me. If it breaks up, you’d be free of at least one problem, right?” He laughed a little, but it sounded lame when she didn’t laugh with him.
She sighed and said, “If you think you’ll be okay,” but it was obvious that she didn’t want his help, and didn’t even think she needed it.
He took a T-shirt out of the bureau upstairs, then helped her limp out to the barn. They were barely halfway across the backyard when Jessa said softly, “Oh, no.”
Graf caught the tang of blood above the electricity in the air. The warm rain battered down on the white and brown feathers scattered in front of the barn door.
When they reached the animals, Jessa bent down and lifted one limp body. “Oh, no,” she repeated, tears that she didn’t shed coming out in her voice.
“I don’t think It was here,” Graf said, scanning the yard. “I don’t see any tracks, or smell it.”
“You could smell It?” she asked, dropping to one knee to inspect another dead chicken.
“It has a very distinct scent.” He knelt beside her and gingerly lifted one torn wing. Ugh, chicken blood. “This is all crawling with salmonella, you know.”
She sat back on her heels, making a pained face as she jostled her wrapped ankle. “No, It has taken chickens from me before. All that’s left are feet and feathers. It eats the rest. Someone else did this.”
“The council guys?” It didn’t seem like a good way to get reelected, but they had also put someone to death for witchcraft and scored votes.
She shook her head. “No, we saw them go, and they wouldn’t have had time to double back. This was a warning.”
“Oh, that was nice of Derek.” He paused. “That is who you’re thinking of, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Let’s take these into the barn and start butchering them. No sense wasting the meat.”
Graf helped her, unenthusiastically, to bring the chickens into the barn. Fifteen of the poor bastards, hacked to pieces by the chicken-murdering son of a bitch.
“Go in the house and get the big silver pot out from under the sink,” Jessa ordered. “Fill it up and put it on to boil, so we can scald ’em. I’ll wring the heads off the ones who still have them.”
There was really no place he would rather be than away from something that involved twisting the heads off anything. Unless it was him doing the twisting, and the head being Derek’s. He stepped out of the barn, back into the rain, and immediately the smell of It hit him in the face like a dead chicken. “Jessa, we have to get back in the house right now!” he hissed over his shoulder.
And as soon as he spoke, It came around the corner of the house. He got back in the barn and had his hand over Jessa’s mouth before she could say a word.
“Listen very carefully,” he whispered. “It is out there right this second. Where is the best place to hide?”
She raised one finger and pointed up. He tossed her trembling body over his shoulder and scaled the ladder into the hayloft. When they reached the top, he dumped her down onto a pile of folded burlap sacks and whispered, “King Kong made that look a lot easier.”
“Quick, get behind the engine.” She stabbed her finger toward the rusting shape of a tractor engine sitting on a platform of cinder blocks. A rope sling looped around the hunk of metal from when it was first lifted up to be forgotten in the hayloft.
Graf let her crawl into the space behind the engine, right up against the wall. If It somehow made it up to them, It would have to go through him to get to Jessa. It would probably still get her, at that point, but at least he would put up a fight.
She pressed her face to the light seeping in between the boards and said, “Oh my God. Derek’s out there.”
Good, was the first thing Graf thought. Then he thought of what it would look like if Derek turned up dead on Jessa’s property, and Chad not far from it. “I’m going out there.”
“No—” Jessa whispered harshly. “Don’t. It…”
“It doesn’t see him?”
“No—no. It’s…” She covered her mouth. “He’s leading…It!”
Graf joined her at the wall. Outside, Derek walked five steps in front of the creature, taking a slow path around the house. They circled it two or three times, then headed toward the barn.
Graf held his finger to his lips in warning, but he was pretty sure Jessa couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to. Shock and confusion were plain on her face, but anger was there, too, as though she had some idea what was going on.
Which was good, because Graf sure as hell didn’t.
Derek stepped inside the barn, and Graf and Jessa ducked. “Jessa?” he called cheerfully. “Jessa, baby, are you in here?”
Jessa’s fingers curled into a fist as she crouched beside Graf.
“Honey, we need to talk about what happened this morning,” he continued, his boots falling heavily on the floorboards below. “We both lost our tempers, is all. I thought you were a burglar at first, you know? We were both just freaked out and reacted badly. Why don’t you come out, sugar?”
Just when Graf thought the jackass would wander around and talk to himself all day, Derek swore and stomped out of the barn. They waited until they saw him walk toward the house again, the monster tagging behind him like a pet dog, before they spoke again.
“What is going on?” Jessa asked, her voice low. “What was Derek doing with It?”
“Well, I think it’s pretty clear how It got here.” Graf shut up when he saw the creature whip its massive head around to stare in their direction.
Mercifully, Derek called out, “Come on, you stupid demon,” without looking over his shoulder. The creature sniffed the air, big puffs of steam issuing from its nostrils, then turned and fo
llowed its master.
“Derek can’t even do his own laundry, how’d he manage to get that thing here?” Jessa hissed, pushing away from the wall. “And why would he want it?”
“I don’t know.” Graf stood to get a better view of the two leaving the yard. “The important thing is that now we know who’s behind It. If he did it, he can undo it.”
Jessa rubbed her temples. “He has to have something to do with it, but I don’t know that he’s smart enough to actually do it.”
They waited in the barn until sundown, to be sure It was gone and Graf was safe to be outside. Then they climbed down from the hayloft and retrieved the gun from the house. Immediately, Jessa turned right back out the front door and Graf followed after.
“Who do we go to with this info?” he asked over the crunch of their shoes on the driveway.
“June.” Jessa had the gun over her shoulder, and, even with her ankle banged up, she marched like a toy soldier on some kind of revenge mission. Graf kept up with her, and hoped her anger would last until they reached the bar.
June’s Place was even more crowded than usual; Graf could tell from the shapes moving in the window. Bicycles stood in parking spaces that cars used to occupy. Jessa slowed as they entered the lot. “Something isn’t right.”
“I was just thinking that.” The nagging feeling that they should run prickled in the back of his mind. “I guess the only way we find out what is by going in there.”
Jessa went in first, her fingers clenched tight on the butt of the gun. The second they stepped through the door, the loud conversation ceased, and all eyes turned to them.
Derek stood on the bar, and at the sight of them, he grinned an evil-looking grin.
Fourteen
Hands closed around Jessa’s arms, and she saw Dave Stuckey going for Graf. Please, don’t do any vampire superstrength thing, she prayed silently. Graf wasn’t dumb, though. He shrugged Dave’s hand off his arm, but when he grabbed him again, he let him.
“What the hell’s going on?” Graf demanded angrily.
June wasn’t behind the bar. For once, she sat on the other side of it, watching the commotion with an expression of sadness.
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