It had been in this place countless times through innumerable incarnations, as intimate with the lay of the land as every race of humanity that had come and gone here. It had only to peer through the eyes of its host -the one thing that never transubstantiated upon the Beast's emergence-to know exactly where its obsession would lead it.
As the moon arched higher, hunger burned hotter. The Beast anticipated all the ways to claw and shred and yank. How to draw out the kill's torment, how to hone it to the highest possible peak before the prey gave out and all that rich, burning horror vanished.
The Beast was almost through the forest now, loping along as best it could with a misshapen foreleg, made nearly whole by the emergence but not quite. Soon it would break through the trees. It would step onto flat land and limp into the dark gaps between Luperón's little buildings, pushing on toward the church where so much tempting, tangy anxiety wafted through the very walls. Future kills, cowering within. But fewer and fewer remained here. Soon it would be time to move the host onward to more abundant grounds.
Now, at the forest's edge, the Beast pulled its thoughts back to the prey that was marked for this First Night, whose dread the Beast had patiently honed over the past moonrises, layering one kill over another, each one building on the next. Its lust was so heated the Beast drooled with anticipation, dripping long, silver trails as it stepped out of the forest boundaries and slunk into the dark gaps between the abandoned buildings of Luperón .
* * *
Max wondered if the Beast would have only half a foreleg since Papo Salvador was missing half an arm. He and David had never hunted a lame lineage before. Would there be an advantage? Not much of one, he figured. The difference between the Beast when it was whole and the Beast when it was less-than-whole was probably the difference between a strong tornado and a so-called weak one. Human flesh wouldn't hold up in the vortex of either.
A small, golden glow bloomed in the window Max was watching: Sister Veronica, retiring to the apartment. He shifted and, at his back, he felt David do the same. Max dipped into one of the pockets filled with the pungent dust meant to mask his own human scent and clutched a handful. Never breaking his gaze, he worked his hand under his shirt to re-apply the mix to his armpits, then dipped again to renew the powdery layer on his face.
Huddled at the weedy edge of the mangroves, he felt the land breeze pick up as it moved seaward, away from any approach the Beast might take. An advantage for him and David, lessening the chances of the Beast catching their scents. Max hoped it was a good omen.
* * *
In spite of its unnatural size, the Great Beast's movement was a smooth glide as it skirted the road to Luperón, careful to remain within the shadows of the mahogany forest. Even in this remote and nearly abandoned place, it wouldn't risk the beacon of the moon on its pelt, especially brilliant on this Great Incarnation. It faintly glowed, even without moonlight to fire it, having fed for so many years on the ultimate feed ... its own kind. In effect, its own self.
The fear and blood of human kills was a dilute, unsatisfying gruel to be suffered only by necessity. Its true hunger was for the Lesser Beast; although, this time, the close proximity of the Ones Lost was a fierce temptation for diversion. The Ones Lost: those who had been among the Chosen, whose nature was such that they had been selected as perfect, witless hosts. Those who were rightfully the Beast's and should be long dead, but had tricked their proper fate.
There had been few of these over the long-reaching history of the Beast. Even fewer, those senseless enough to seek the Beast out and try to annihilate it. Gnats nipping at the monster's eye. For millennia, it hadn't been in the Beast's nature to give them much thought ... other than a hot surge of jealousy and rage before tearing them to shreds, if it could, should their paths cross. But something was changing. There was a disruption in the lineages that edged beyond the occasional losses the Beast had suffered at the hands of a Lost One. And the Beast, ever adaptable - especially in the form of a Great Incarnation- was becoming attuned to it.
Ahead the cloudless, moon-filled night revealed the ramshackle buildings of Luperón. The Great Beast slowed its pace. Now came the time for patience and observance. It already knew the path of the Lesser Beast and preferred to wait for the Lesser to make its own kill before, in turn, being fed upon. A Lesser, freshly sated with agony and terror, could bring the Greater to shudders of ecstasy during the kill.
The Great Beast salivated at the thought and slid its tongue into the crease between muzzle and fang, licking at the remnants of blood there. Merely human, but it whetted the appetite.
* * *
David's whisper was harsh and staccato. "There!"
Max saw it. To the west, in a narrow slot between two abandoned buildings . A black, hulking shadow within the shadows. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears. The shadow leaned forward and moonlight caught its muzzle, bouncing off like the sparkle of glitter. The creature hunched back into the dark.
Max fixed on the Beast. He felt David's slow movements as he brushed against him, and knew David was reaching into the vest pocket that held the blow pipe and silver darts.
The moon had just begun tipping into its descent, joined in the sky by nothing more than a scatter of clouds. The plaza in front of the church, and the grounds behind it, were awash in moon glow. Between its hiding place and the narrow shadow at the church's base, the Beast had no shield from the light. Its awful beauty would make it a gleaming target for several seconds.
Which the Beast would know every bit as much as Max and David did. It might even know they were somewhere near. The Beast was taking its time, ever cautious, sizing up the area before making its move. Max heard a nearly imperceptible snick -David had slid a dart into the blow pipe- then the night went dead calm.
They watched. The Beast remained motionless.
Then a change. The light dimmed. A cloud moved between earth and moon. Poor cover, to be sure, but it was all the Beast could hope for tonight. It bolted forward and Max and David surged from their blind.
It was lame! The Beast was lame, with a curious rolling lope to its gait, but damn it was still swift! David blew, missed, reloaded, blew again and maybe it was the Beast's lameness that helped, because the second dart found the mark. There was a sharp yelp, guttural and angry, but the Beast kept going even as it snapped at the shoulder where the dart was embedded. Max yelled, aimed his shotgun and David reloaded the blow pipe for another go. The Beast slid to a halt and David blew again as it turned toward them. The dart struck its bad leg.
The beast snarled, shook the dart loose and faced them full on.
"Come on, you son of a bitch!" Max bellowed.
Then everything went wrong.
A band of men hurtled around from the front of the church, clutching what weapons they had -ax handles, machetes- certain of Chupacabra and called to arms by the clamor that Max and David had created. Too late the men skidded to a halt, frozen in place by the chilling, all-too-human eyes within the massive head of the Beast as it turned to meet them.
David roared, "No, go back!" He and Max ran forward, trying to find their aim. "Go back inside! Go back!"
Time and motion slowed in Max's brain as if everything was happening on the ocean floor. Sister Veronica at the window, then pushing open the apartment door. Her face a mask of shock and horror as she screamed for the men to run inside. The shrieking mass turned to rush the open door and the Beast plunged headlong into them, shredding, crushing, slaughtering as it burst through to her.
Veronica stumbled back. The Beast rose on its hind legs, towering over her, clamped its jaws around her head and dragged her back into the church.
Max and David trampled over the dead, slipping on blood and viscera, pushing through the bedlam and into the sanctuary, into more madness, their ears ringing as screams echoed off the walls. Far ahead of them, the Beast was yanking Sister Victoria down the center aisle toward the church doors while women and children clawed at the shuttered windows and co
llided with Max and David.
Against the doors, the Beast pulled up short, dropping Veronica to the floor while Max and David fought the current, screaming for people to get out of the way, get out of the way, move! The sister was still alive. Max could see her hands lifting slowly, listlessly. The veil of her head covering cloaked her face like a shroud, soaked with her blood. The Beast charged the doors and they splintered apart with a sharp crack, ramping up the people's panic. The Beast clamped its jaws around the sister's waist and bolted.
By the time Max and David made it to the shattered doors, the only sign of the Beast or Veronica was a blood trail heading southeast.
Chapter Sixteen
In The Mahogany Forests Surrrounding Luperón
Spring, 1950
First Night. Full Moon.
Rage and hunger mounted with every labored step, the shoulder above the Beast's good foreleg burning where the silver dart was buried, hindering its pace. And now the prey was dying -dying!- her blood wasted on the ground as her consciousness faded and, with that, her terror. There was no time to stop and revive the female, force her back to her senses so the Beast could sate its hunger. The Lost Ones were in pursuit.
The Beast would have to make a decision soon: finish this failed kill -find some brief seclusion where it could get what feeding it could- or use the female to divert the Ones Lost. Drop her in their path, so the Beast could make its escape. With all of Luperón now on alert and the full moon well into descent, the Beast was sure to go mad with starvation for the duration of First Night. But at least it would survive to emerge again.
With its hot, broad tongue pressed against her middle, the Beast felt a subtle strengthening of the female's heartbeat. She made a thready, mewling sound and the Beast's hunger surged. There might be time after all. It knew it could never make it to one of its preferred lairs, but with a renewed pace, it might keep ahead of the Lost Ones long enough to draw something -anything- out of the dying lump clutched in its jaws. Just enough to get by, so the Beast could disappear once again into the utter black of the mahogany forest, back into the body of its host.
* * *
Max had to force the images out of his mind: of blood spray, black in the moonlight. Of people dropping before the Beast like so many lambs hemmed in for slaughter. He had to force the sounds out of his mind: the screaming. The wailing. The wet rattle of blood filling lungs.
Not now. Can't think of it now. Think only of Veronica. Get to Sister Veronica ... And get to that son of a bitch and plaster its goddamn hide against the farthest wall in Hell.
"Max!"
He stopped and turned toward David's harsh whisper. It came from behind, where Max must have marched blindly past him. David held up his hand, his fingers dark with human blood. He gestured to their left.
"This way."
Max gave him a curt nod and followed. As soon as he did, he felt the twist in his stomach again, leading him in the right direction. The clench that had begun to fade as the images of butchery at the church overwhelmed him. He gave himself a mental shake and risked looking at his palm while David led the way. They were gaining.
* * *
"Veronica! Sister Veronica!"
Dimly, ever so dimly, she became aware she wasn't moving anymore. With a great deal of effort, she managed to open her eyes. Just a little bit. Madre , it was very hard to do. She saw the dark silhouette of leafy trees above her. Stars. Moonlight.
And where was it she had been going, that she wasn't moving anymore? To the green grocers? Yes, mamá had asked her to go. She had said, Marguaríte, darling, Se?ora Castílla told me the black olives were perfection. Go fetch a sack for me?
"Sister!"
No, but that can't be right. Mamá didn't speak English and, in any case, didn't call her Sister Veronica, even after she had taken her vows. Then where had she been going? She remembered she had been ... she had been moving ... and there was something ... terrible ... beyond imagining ... There was agony. Not so much of the body, although there had been much of that, too. But of the soul.
There was no agony now.
A face came very close to hers. A man's. How unseemly.
"Sister ... Oh, God ... It's me, Max ... I mean, Stonehill. You know me as Stonehill. You don't have to worry now, the Beast's gone. It's fled."
She had little feeling in her body, not even the suffering of before (and why was it that she remembered she had been in torment?). But she could feel herself being lifted into a sitting position and the view gimbaled, making her dizzy. She felt herself loll backward and her head covering slip away before the man caught her in the crook of his arm.
He was saying something again but now she couldn't understand him. She asked him, " ¿Qué? "
He answered, this time in proper Spanish. "Can you hear me?"
"My veil, it's slipped off. Where's mamá ? I can't stay. She sent me for olives ."
This man looked as though he might weep. Poor, poor fellow. "It's all right," she said, even though she didn't know the source of his pain. "It's all right. God is with you, you know."
A sob caught in his throat and she felt so terribly sorry for him. She felt the warmth of his palm as he pressed it against her cheek. It finally occurred to her why he was saddened. Yes, of course. She was dying.
"Oh, that's so kind of you," she said, feeling suddenly much colder, much sleepier. "That is so kind. Please don't worry. God will send His angel soon."
And there. Just over the man's shoulder. A whiteness, a brightness, glorious and round and brilliant, veiled by the leafy trees . She smiled.
"Ah, you see? There he is now."
* * *
He felt David's hand on his shoulder. He heard the terrible ache in his friend's voice, bound deep in his throat, socked away for later: "Max ... Max."
He managed to pull his eyes away from her face, gray in the moonlight, streaked with blood, serene in death.
"We've got to go," David said.
He was right, but Max couldn't make himself move. He looked back at Veronica's face, tucked against his arm, her vacant eyes hooded. With his free hand, he reached for her head covering, cold and wet with blood, but wasn't sure how to fit it in place.
"This is exactly what it wants us to do, Max, you know that. We have got to go. We'll come back for her."
Max heard his own voice in his head. Move! He slid Sister Veronica from his lap, grabbed his shotgun and stood.
* * *
The Great Beast plodded to a halt, tilting its thick muzzle upward and drawing in a long pull of air. Smells filled its misshapen head and swirled at the back of its tongue, telling it, yes, the Lesser was heading straight toward it, though the Lesser was farther off than it should have been. Better, then, to move away from the trail for the time being. The Greater didn't want its own scent hanging in the wooded air, barely stirred by the weak breeze.
The trick was to make sure the Lesser Beast didn't sense the Greater's presence until it was too late. And that meant the Great Beast had to strike quickly and kill quickly. Unlike with human prey, there could be no long, languid tease to increase the richness of the feed. The death play with a Lesser, by necessity, was much shorter. But then again, no human terror, no matter how carefully culled, could compare to the surge of shock and dread in the last seconds of a dying Lesser, its eyes wild with horror, locked onto the Greater's heated gaze. No feed as rich as that of the Lesser realizing its own end, never known or imagined until that moment, its sense of self usurped, drained, collapsed into this greater, greedier monster. Brother eating brother.
The smells drifting toward it told the Great Beast that the Lesser had failed. This lamed incarnation was weaker than its twin had been; the one devoured during the prior First Night, in the frigid late spring of the Ozark foothills. The tang of the Lesser's musky scent betrayed rage, wounds and wild, unsated hunger.
The scents wafting in behind those of the Lesser told the Great Beast even more. The Lamed One had unwelcome company. It had
not evaded the Ones Lost, who had come to this place to take what was rightfully the Greater's. Already weak and made weaker by them, this Lesser would be a disappointing, imperfect feed. This vexed the Great Beast, and a growl rumbled deep in its throat.
But it never once considered giving up the hunt of this First Night, of leaving the Lesser to the Ones Lost and going off to make do with a human kill or two back in the blood strewn settlement of Luperón.
Instead, it would devour the Lesser Beast as planned and top off the imperfect feed as best it could by hunting down at least one of the Lost Ones. Eat them both, if there was time before moonset.
* * *
Above Max and David, the forest canopy tossed and swayed as the night breeze was drawn from the Corderillas Mountains toward the sea. But down here, amongst the thick trunks and gnarled roots, amongst the succulents and briars tugging and tearing at their pant legs, it was reduced to wisps sieving through the forest, dense with mahogany, scattered here and there with scraggly palms, tenacious and stubborn. So far, the trail of the Luperón Beast was leading east while the meandering ground breeze carried Max and David's scents crosswise. It was a small mercy, but they'd take any they could get.
The night was waning. Max figured they must be a good mile into the forest. From the tightness in his gut, he had expected them to be closer to the Beast by now, but his palm kept telling him a different story. Their pace was steady and the pentagram nestled in the creases hadn't dimmed, but it hadn't increased either.
He decided it was the failure, the utter failure, the deep, wrenching heartache that this hunt had become. That was what had him knotted up so badly, that was what was messing with the usual signals. He swore to God, and then to those unlucky bastards Papo Salvador and Lloyd Stonehill and, most of all, he swore on the memory of Sister Veronica, that this hunt wasn't going to end in vain. The Luperón lineage was going to tumble head first into the deepest, darkest pit of Hell, carrying Max's silver with it.
Bitten Page 14
