"You can tell him that," David whispered. "You can tell him at night, in your prayers. You can tell him when the time comes to cross over and meet him."
"Oh God. Oh God. You really believe that?" Doris asked, overwhelmed with a strange, blissful hope at hearing his words; a sensation so alien to her that her first thought was to defend against it. But this time she would choose to feel, choose to trust.
"I come from a different tradition," David replied. "The Navajo view isn't quite so... so ethereal as yours, when it comes to an afterlife. But, I believe in it a lot more than I used to."
Emptied so, Doris would have liked nothing more than to let David keep holding her, keep teaching her how to grieve. But this emptying out let her remember, too, where they were. She started to struggle upward, but David said, "Ssh. While you're in this state, tell me if you feel we're in the right place."
Doris lay quietly a few seconds more, then pulled herself into a sitting position to blot dry her face with her hands. "No," she said, and was certain for the first time in her life of her gut instinct.
"I missed. I missed!" David said, for the first time in an hour raising his voice. He managed to calm himself a little as he stood up, then helped Doris do the same.
"This will be the first place the search parties come," he continued, "yielding two of the three kills as it has. The beast knows. It wants the Army -it probably wanted us- to come here immediately. There'll be another place."
Doris sickened. "God, how can we possibly find it..."
"I've been through this whole area, that's not the problem. The problem is guessing right on two or three possibilities. We're running out of time...but so is the beast."
David walked away, thinking out loud again. "Nearby, but not so near these other kills that the fresh one will be found prematurely. It needs time enough to slaughter and a guarantee that the remains will fuel more terror." He stopped his pacing and looked at Doris. "And it wants you. Its Chosen."
A split second before he continued, Doris realized his point. "If it sees you," he said, "it'll take the opportunity to attack."
"You want me to be a decoy."
"Remember it doesn't want to kill you, it wants you to receive. You won't likely die."
"But I'll be bitten."
"We'll try to stop that, too. I won't be farther away than is absolutely necessary."
"And if I am bitten, David. Then what?"
David was quiet a moment. "Then you have the same options as Max."
"I can tell you what my option will be. I won't go through what I've seen Max go through. I won't do what he's done. If I'm bitten...you understand... if I'm bitten..."
"I understand."
"Then I'll do it."
David cupped Doris's hands in his and squeezed a moment before standing a part, quieting himself. In the pale, tree-filtered moonlight, she heard him whisper, "Where will you go, brother? Where will you feed tonight?"
His eyes lit suddenly. "I think I know."
/ / / /
They trudged from that hill to the next, a tall, worn mound chewed cruelly on its windward face by the elements. There the trek ended at a rocky overhang. It jutted above a scrub-filled area of blunter slope, one hundred feet below it.
"I brought us too high," David said, his voice low and cautious again. He seemed more tense now. "We'll have to climb down. Over there...we'll still be more or less hidden as we descend."
They had to work around the overhang. As Doris struggled along behind David, she looked up briefly to see the panorama of the small valley. What she saw was Tulenar in chaos. It was ablaze in light and she could see the disembodied beams of electric hand torches and Army Jeeps. Telltales of people swarming the perimeter. The beast had struck.
David had already braced where the sloped clearing met the hill, and it was a moment before Doris realized he was demanding her attention by tossing pebbles at her. He waved her down, split between watching her descend and keeping a lookout for the beast. Once down, David whispered, "You've seen what's happening in Tulenar. We're out of time now. I just pray we're in the right place."
Doris wiped her hands against her dungarees and followed David, bent low to prevent too much profile against the brilliantly lit night. They were headed downward, a definite disadvantage, but the only cover to be found was at the lower border of the scrubby patch, where a few large bushes clung against the hillside. Panting, they huddled together behind one fat bush, gnarled and thorny, and Doris immediately began readying her bow.
She whispered, "What makes you think it'll come here?"
"It's the only place so exposed to Tulenar, yet not too far from the other site. By morning, a body lying against this slope can be seen through binoculars anywhere in the camp."
He looked at her. "We need to make sure the beast sees you as soon as it comes into view. It may abandon whoever it's taken to attack you instead. It knows this is its last moon with Max. Its priority will be to prepare you for receiving. The last feed is expendable, if it must choose. And we'll make it choose."
"What about the victim? Even if we can save --"
"I know. We can't think of that now. Let's get past the beast first. How are you doing?"
Doris swallowed and took a deep breath to control her panting. She nodded. "I'm all right. You?"
David smiled. "Terrified."
Doris was surprised that she could smile back. "How are we going to do this?"
"We can't just stick you out in the middle like a sacrificial goat. The beast is a thinking being, it's not stupid. We have to let it believe it's surprised you while stalking it." David swiped at his brow. "We're sweating badly. That's not good."
He tugged open the large leather pouch bound against his belt, the one with the powdery mix of dung and sage. He opened his shirt, dipped his hand in the pouch and began dusting his face and chest, letting the dregs scatter over his clothing as well.
"You, too," he said. "We don't want the beast to discover you before we're ready."
The pouch was on her side, so Doris helped herself, rubbing the pungent mix onto her face like grainy powder, sprinkling it down the back of her neck and between her shirt and chest while David whispered the plan. He nodded toward his right.
"Behind that bush, where the wind's built up a nice blind of debris. We'll put you there. The beast will drop its prey and step back. It wants to give its victim a chance to recover from the drag before it begins the torment. Take aim then. If it's close enough, go ahead and try for the kill. If it's not, shoot anyway. That will make it come for you."
"It's bound to know I'm not alone, David." Doris wiped her dirty palms against her thighs.
"You're right. But remember that it's feeling the press of time, just like we are. Greed and need. We have its base desires on our side."
Doris nodded and looked at her palms, a reflexive check to ensure they were clean. She did a double take. She stared carefully at her right palm. The pentagram was there. But before she could say anything, before she could ask David to look as well -because there was something different there, something changed- a howl, clear and loud and long, stabbed her ears.
David gave her a push and she was running to the selected blind, her heart rolling like a boulder inside her chest. At first, the infusion of adrenaline was dizzying, but in an instant it became such a bonding force in her blood that her senses crystallized, becoming acute to the point of pain. She did not want to be so conscious, so aware of even the feel of the hair on her scalp, of even the smell of the beast as it crested the sloping scrub field, just below the overhang.
It was favoring its left leg. That must have been where David's bullet struck. And it had a curious, white clad bundle clamped in its jaws that confounded Doris at first. A moment passed while she knelt, tense and ready, before she made out the hands and feet of a child dangling, limp as a broken toy.
The white sleeves of the child's nightie almost hurt Doris's eyes, and it was obvious that the rest of the little gow
n had been white, too, not so very long ago, instead of black with blood in the moonlight. The blood was so fresh, it pasted cloth to flesh.
The beast, its fur shimmering under the moon, limped into the clearing. It sat, panting around the bundle in its jaws, which stirred a little, offered a thin mewling. The beast swiveled its head, giving Doris full view, and she had to mash her hand against her lips to keep from moaning.
God, dear God! It was Joy! It was Harriet and Jesse's daughter.
Doris tasted the blood of her bruised lips. The muscles of her arms galvanized and she was on her feet, letting loose the arrow before she could think. It struck true, burying into the beast's left haunch.
The beast howled like the damned, dropping little Joy with a thud, thrashing in its agony, struggling to grasp the arrow's hilt between its jaws. David was suddenly in view and the report of his gun rang off Doris's shoulder. But the bullets struck just below the writhing beast and just beyond, telltale puffs of dust and debris marking each miss. The beast looked up wildly, gnashing, its bellows wet with froth. But it managed to its feet with stunning speed, regardless of its anguish, its left hind leg dangling as it made for David.
Doris already had her bow readied and she screamed as she loosed the next arrow. It soared over the beast's head. The beast stopped abruptly and turned its brilliant, human eyes on her. David was moving away from his hiding place, angling the beast into a cross fire between him and Doris. The beast looked David's way only a moment before it curled its black lips away from the fangs and took two threatening steps toward Doris.
"No, over here!" David shouted and fired the gun, but he missed horribly. "Maxwell! Maxwell! Over here!"
/ / / /
His name was being called. Was he dreaming? Was it David? Max's vision was watery and tunneled as images faded into view, wavering as though he saw them through a thick liquid. He felt himself pushing through a denseness, a deep grave, but the pain in his leg, God it was endless. It was keeping him down. Wasn't it? Wasn't that his pain?
He kept pushing. No, not his pain. Something else. The pain wasn't his. Something else was trying to bind him, clinch him back into nothingness. And then suddenly, it all felt familiar.
No! he wanted to scream out, but his voice came to his ears like a blood-curdling howl. No! he cried again, but his voice was still lost in the howl of the beast.
Now he began willing with all his might, recognizing the searing agony in his leg as his ally, not his enemy. And he somehow managed to think, Roll over! Roll over! Expose the belly!
He willed a sense of pressing backward, felt the denseness pressing back, trying to suffocate him, bind him into motionless and sweet oblivion. Again! Push! A leaden thump vibrated through him, he sensed himself listing as though he had fallen on his side, felt hot, molten agony spread through his leg and knew he had fallen against the wound. He blinked, tried to peer through his thick liquid vision and thought he glimpsed Doris Tebbe staring at him, terrified and unsure, her bow drawn hesitantly.
Then she dropped it altogether, reached behind her, and came back with a fist full of arrows, her eyes afire.
Yes, he thought, yes! But he lost the reason for him thinking that way, what had he intended to do? His vision darkened, he felt the pressure close against him, squeezing out breath, squeezing out thought and memory. He pushed again and remembered. The belly. The belly!
He could see stars now wavering in his vision, he could see the tops of trees. He must have rolled, he must have made it onto his back, and he saw Doris hovering above him -God! How her eyes burned!- her arms raised, her fingers clutching all those arrows. But he had to remember one more thing, something very important before he was gone, if he didn't remember now, he may not ever...
The Chosen One. The Chosen...
/ / / /
Doris struck. She plunged the arrows deep into the beast's soft, exposed belly and blood erupted like lava, surging hot over her hands, pelting her face. Her scream was lost in the screams of the dying beast. But they were human. They sounded like her own.
The beast gnashed toward her, just missing her fingers as she tumbled backward. Then came a shudder. One lone, quaking shudder. The beast lay back, amazingly gently, its hind legs sagging, one foreleg curling across its chest. The ribs heaved, froth and a noisy gurgle bubbled out of its gaping mouth. A final shudder evaporated into the cool night. All movement ceased.
Doris sat where she had fallen, her breath shallow and quick as she stared at the blood- soaked thing, the beast's essence glowing under the moon. David was suddenly at her side.
"That was a stupid thing to do, stupid!" he scolded in a shaky voice.
Still dazed, Doris turned her face to David, who added quickly, "Don't move, don't talk. You've got blood all over your face."
"Will it hurt me?"
"I don't know. Just don't taste it." David whipped off his headband, unknotted it and mopped at Doris's face and hands. "Stupid thing to do," he repeated. "You should have let me shoot. You put yourself right in my line. You could have been bitten."
"You weren't hitting anything. You can't hit the broad side of a barn," she said, the stun still in her voice. Then, "Oh, God...Joy."
"What?"
"The girl. See about the girl."
"Aw, the child," David said as though struck suddenly ill, and abandoned Doris to bend over Joy's limp form. He held the little hands in his own and shook his head. "She's dead."
Doris moaned and almost rested her arms on her knees, wanting to cradle her head there. But she smelled the blood on her sleeves and leather arm brace and had to settle for pressing her forehead into her palms. But looking into them reminded her with a jolt.
"David!"
David looked up from his task. He had pulled the dead girl from her contorted position and was laying her gently on her back, chanting something low.
"My pentagram, David. It's dark."
David left the child's body to look. Then he plucked at Doris's bloody sleeve. "The blood's losing its luster, too. Perhaps it's the fading of the beast."
"Perhaps? Don't you know?"
He looked up at her through his eyebrows. "It's not like I do this for a living."
"David, the pentagram was dark before we killed the son-of-a-bitch."
"Are you sure?"
"Well...my palms were dusty. I'd just used the dung and sage. I...I just don't know."
David leaned back on his heels, looking unsure and Doris again glimpsed the small, blood-soaked body of the child.
"Oh God. Joy. How could it go for a child, David, a little child?"
David swallowed. "The pattern fits. Youth is a very rich feed for the beast."
"We can't just leave her like that," she said.
"We have to leave her like that," David replied. "We can't take her with us, Doris. And even if we had the tools and time to bury her, it wouldn't be the best thing for her. Or her parents. She wouldn't be found so quickly. Besides, we're going to have our hands full, carrying the beast."
Doris stared at the healer in disbelief.
He said, "It's not over yet. The beast is dead, but Max is still in danger. Come here."
David led her past both the beast and Joy's body to gaze toward Tulenar. Streams of light betrayed the paths of search parties and motor vehicles fanning the area.
"I don't think we can get back to the shack in time to do this," David said. "But we may be able to wait out the moon's setting if we can find seclusion before the searchers make it through here."
"Do what, damn it, do what?"
"Bring Max back! If we miss the timing, he dies as surely as the beast."
Chapter 39
One and One Half Miles South of Tulenar Internment Camp
Pre Dawn. Full Moon.
They couldn't risk leaving an obvious trail by dragging the beast, tearing a gash through the dry needle carpet of the forest, smearing blood on the earth as they trudged along. Clumsy and repulsive as it was, there was no choice but to hoist
the carcass onto their shoulders.
David bore the haunches and supported the imbedded arrows. Doris didn't envy him that post, or the crucial responsibility of keeping the silver in place. Even as the beast had lain dead in the scrub field, the blood had stopped flowing, lost its luster. But the wound still oozed around the bundle of arrows. The soft flannel of David's shirt was black with gore.
Doris took up the head. Her shoulder braced the beast's own, one foreleg sagging across her chest, the other thumping her upper back. The eyes, milky with death, stared toward her own. The tongue lolled under her chin, the fangs exposed, threatening to graze her jaw every time she stumbled.
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