“Your saints and angels can’t save you now,” a voice echoed off the wood floor.
Father Xavier spun around, holding out the cross-dagger. “Who’s there?”
Brother Andre stepped to the edge of the fire glow. “Hello, Mentor.”
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At the fourth floor, Tom ran through the Pendleton home. Smoke filled the parlor. The paint on Lady Pendleton’s portrait melted and dripped. Tom coughed and hunched over, covering his mouth. “Willow!”
“Help me!” she cried from down the hall.
He ran to her bedroom. At her doorway, a wall of heat knocked him back.
A fiery blaze consumed the bed, walls, and ceiling. The floor was covered in blood and the remains of a skeleton with severed bones. Avery Pendleton’s misshapen head was propped against his lap.
Willow sat at her beauty table, brushing her hair and humming. She wore a red ball gown. The cracked mirror reflected a crimson face. Lidless eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you, lover.” She turned, facing Tom. Her facial bones shifted into a demon.
Tom backed away, stumbled down the hall.
Willow appeared at the threshold, silhouetted by a wall of fire. “This time you’re all mine.”
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Down in the ballroom, Brother Andre remained in the gloom that bordered the chalked line. He was wearing a priest’s cassock and white collar. “Surprised to see me?”
Father Xavier gasped. “How on earth…?”
Andre just smiled, his radiant blue eyes gleaming with arrogance. There was not a bird scratch on his face.
Father Xavier felt the sting of betrayal. “I trusted you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Father, but I’ve found a new mentor to follow.”
“Whatever demon is influencing you, don’t give in. Remember your vows, Andre. You took an oath to be a soldier of the Society of Jesus Christ.”
The young missionary laughed. “Frankly, Father, I find Catholic priesthood to be too frustrating. I mean, the Church takes away our primal desires? Castrates us? And then expects us to live in a world of lustful women without giving in to temptation? I just don’t understand the purpose.” He ran a hand down his black robe. “I’ve found a new religion to follow. And on this path I don’t have to vow to forego sex.”
“I knew your spirit was too weak,” said Father Xavier. “Willow’s succubus seduced you, didn’t she?”
“For two years I flogged my thighs to hold back my desire for her. I’ve endured enough pain on behalf of the Church.” Andre smirked. “Now that Pendleton is gone, Willow and I will spend an eternity together.”
“You ignorant fool,” Father Xavier spat. “You have been tricked by Satan. Your eternity in hell will be spent suffering for your sins.”
“We disagree.” The young Jesuit suddenly spoke in dual voices, “Under Lucifer’s rule, hell shall finally come to earth, and all mankind will know true ecstasy!”
Father Xavier said, “Lucifer holds no power in the kingdom ruled by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!”
“I admire your passion, priest.” Andre’s cheeks grew thinner as he walked the edge of the chalked border. “We are a lot alike, you and I. We were both sent here to carry out missions to serve our gods.”
“And what is your mission, demon?”
Andre twirled his bony hand. “To make sure every man finds the pleasure he seeks. Such as your cravings for caviar and crackers, and your father’s needs to have affairs with teenage girls.”
Father Xavier felt as if he’d taken a blow to the chest. He raised his cross with a shaking hand. “What is thy name, demon?”
Andre’s eyes went solid black. “I am the one you’ve been seeking your whole pathetic life, eunuch.” His face shape-shifted into Gustave Meraux.
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Upstairs, Tom raced through the smoke that filled the Pendleton home. Behind him ran Willow. Her dress and hair were on fire. She ripped off the tatters. Pulled out her hair. She slapped at her scorched flesh, unleashing screams like a coven of burning witches.
Tom dashed through a maze of corridors and hid behind the dining room table. His lungs burned. He crouched down low, sucking in air. On the floor lay Walter Thain’s bones, picked clean. Tom ignored this fact and jammed fresh bullets into his revolver. He spun the wheel and cocked the hammer.
The flame-covered succubus shrieked as it ran past the dining room. Her bare feet thumped along the floorboards down the hall. Tom considered chasing the demon, but the haze was too thick. His biggest concern was finding his way back to the stairs. Fire was spreading into the parlor. Orange tongues licked the ceiling over the dining room table. A heavy beam came crashing down.
Tom rushed out into the hall. Heard thumping along the floorboards. He turned as the succubus pounced, knocking him to the floor. His pistol skidded away.
Willow straddled him. Tom grabbed her wrists. She was bald and naked, her black and pink skin clinging to her frail bones in patches. She smelled like boiled tallow and charred meat.
The cannibal within Tom hungered to tear his teeth into her half-cooked breasts.
Willow gripped his jaw. “You want to eat me, don’t you, lover!”
“No!”
“Ravage me!” She clamped her thighs tight around his waist.
“No, damn it!” He fought to push her off, his fingers sliding down greasy skin.
She roared inches from his face. “Then I will eat you!” Her mouth ripped open. A dozen shark’s teeth sprouted from her dripping gums. She cackled like a madwoman.
Tom reached for his belt, gripped the cross-dagger, and drove the blade into the back of her skull. Willow arched her neck, wailing at the ceiling. Her eyes caught fire. Her face turned black with orange cracks. And then the demon’s head burst into an explosion of charcoal. She slumped across his body. Tom rolled her off.
He picked up the holy dagger. His pistol with the Hatcher family crest was lost somewhere in the fire and thickening smoke. Coughing, he made his way to the stairs.
Orange-blue flames snaked across the floor, torching the railing. Tom hurried down the winding staircase with an even greater sense of doom. Somehow, he and Father Xavier had to get the hell out of Noble House.
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Gustave’s cassock transformed into an upper-class business suit as he casually walked the arc of the chalked line. Flames from the fireplace rippled in his jet black eyes. “Xavier, did you ever wonder how your father made his fortune?”
“You leave my father out of this!”
“He was never there for you, was he? Always traipsing off with his young mistresses. Little sluts not much older than your sister.”
Father Xavier remained paralyzed as his childhood flashed before his eyes…living in a giant mansion…his father always away on business trips…Xavier’s mother drinking heavily…his sister, Mirabelle, becoming possessed by a demon and slashing her wrists in the tub.
Father Xavier’s throat constricted as he remembered the thing that had clawed at his bedroom door. Let me take you to where the children play forever. “It was you…”
“Yes, I took your precious Mirabelle. I would have taken you, as well, had you not been so damned righteous.”
Father Xavier felt his rage building. “Why…why did you take her?”
“Your father failed to fulfill his agreement with me.” Gustave grimaced, showing sharp teeth. “And the sins of the fathers always fall upon the children.”
“Father!” Tom ran into the ballroom. “Upstairs there’s a…!” He froze.
Gustave grinned. “Welcome to the party, Tom.”
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Tom nearly choked on his own breath. The entity in his belly shot out cold spikes at the sight of the Cannery Cannibal. Gustave Meraux and Father Xavier stood opposite one another, the crackling fire in the hearth at the priest’s back, the shimmering light reflecting off Gustave’s high-boned cheeks. His black and silver hair was slicked back. His eyes gleamed like polished black stones. “At last we meet ag
ain.”
Tom’s hunger returned. So did his rage. He tried to speak, but his words came out in a harsh growl.
Gustave smiled, blinking his eyelashes. “I wouldn’t be happy to see me either.”
Tom walked toward him, pumping his fists.
Father Xavier held out a palm. “Stop, Tom. Don’t come any closer.”
“I’m going to strangle this fucking cannibal.”
“He’s feeding off your anger,” Father Xavier said. “Keep your thoughts on God.”
Tom halted, his entire body shaking.
Gustave folded his arms. “I’m afraid you can’t save this one, priest. He and I have a contract to settle.”
Tom said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Remember the human flesh you ate?”
Tom recalled the woman’s cadaver on the slab at the morgue. Stealing small samples of flesh and cooking them at home. The rich, juicy flavor. The sudden surge of power in his body.
“I had to understand what drove a monster like you to cannibalize women.”
“And you took pleasure from it.” Gustave twirled his hand as he spoke, his long-boned fingers making gestures. “You devoured every piece of her meat, didn’t you? Then you felt the rush and craved more. In essence, you became a cannibal like me.”
“No, I only ate those few bites. You murdered over a dozen women.”
“One bite of human flesh is all it takes to seal a contract with me.” The cannibal grinned, exposing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. “The dark lord whom I serve is waiting for you right outside. It owns your soul, Tom, and I’m here to claim it.”
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At the first light of dawn, Anika and her warriors ran through the fog toward Noble House. A fire consumed the entire roof and top floor. The dormer windows exploded with gusts of flame. Black smoke drifted over the fort.
Anika and Swiftbear ran side by side, the two braves right behind them. As they neared the log mansion, the mist thickened. A fierce wind knocked Anika sideways, and she fell to one knee. Snow blinded her eyes.
Beasts howled from every direction. The warriors hollered, their voices trailing off. Anika stood, bracing herself against the storm. She wiped sleet out of her eyes. And found herself alone. “Swiftbear!”
Amidst the fog echoed a maddening clash of growls and battle cries. A man’s wailing voice was cut short.
Anika raced toward Noble House, using the burning sky as her guidepost. A stench of carrion pummeled her senses. She froze like a rabbit wary of a predator. As the haze drifted, she saw a monstrous shape. She made out the skeletal back of a giant, man-shaped beast with broad shoulders. It was sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the steps to Noble House, its bony arms resting on its legs. Elk antlers jutted from the sides of its enormous head.
Anika crouched behind the well, quivering. Sitting before her was the creature she’d seen painted on petraglyphs. The Ancient One. The first winter manitou. Her heart nearly stopped when the windigo turned its head, facing her.
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The raging thing inside Tom expanded ice-cold hatred up into his chest. His forearms and finger bones stretched. He twisted his head, snarling.
“That’s it,” Gustave said. “Give in to the beast.”
“Fight it, Tom!” Father Xavier yelled. “Keep praying for salvation.”
Tom’s mouth salivated. His stomach caved inward. He circled Gustave and Father Xavier like a predator sizing up its prey.
“Eat the priest,” chided Gustave. “Eat the lamb’s sweet meat!”
Father Xavier’s flesh suddenly smelled like juice-dripping lamb. His blood, like the sweet aroma of port wine. His bone marrow, like honey.
The priest opened his exoricsim book and waved his cross. “God the Father commands you! God the son commands you! Christ orders you, he who is the eternal word of God, become man!”
Tom growled.
“You’re becoming one of us now,” said Gustave.
Tom squeezed his fists. “No, I won’t give in!”
At the staircase, the railing crashed down as the fire from upstairs reached the landing. Smoke and serpents of flame drifted across the ceiling.
Gustave held out his arms. “We will be brothers in hell, you and I.”
Father Xavier shouted, “Fear take flight, when the holy and terrible name of Jesus is invoked by us!”
Gustave reeled and grabbed his ears. “Shut up, eunuch!”
Tom’s fury unleashed. He loped like a wolf and charged his prey.
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Outside, the horned beast’s eyes penetrated Anika. Its shredded lips pulled back in a wide grin, exposing racks of icicle fangs. She felt petrified as a claw as long as a knife blade pointed in her direction.
A dozen windigo cries erupted in the storm. Stick-like bodies charged through the fog. Anika turned, gripping her spear and tomahawk. A decrepit old man with pale white eyes loped toward her. She impaled his brittle chest and shoved him into the well. The spear fell with him.
A hairless wolf leaped for her throat. Anika swung her tomahawk, shattering its muzzle. The next attacker was a giant with stilt-like legs that stretched up into the swirling black smoke. She sprinted across the courtyard through the fog. A pack of windigos ran behind her, roaring.
She reached a corner wall. Climbed up the ladder. A snarling child windigo scurried up after her, grabbed her ankle. She kicked its face. It fell down upon a horde of others. She hurried up the ladder, her eyes on the watchtower. She climbed inside the hole in the floor. More beasts were leaping onto the ladder, ascending at an incredible speed.
Anika shut the trapdoor and slid across the metal bar. More windigos ran along the landings on either side of the guardhouse. She closed all the portals, latched the door. Claws scratched at the floorboards and walls. Fists pounded on the roof.
She reached into her medicine bag and pulled out a handful of white shells. Each was carved with a snow owl. She dropped them across the floor. As the windigos wailed all around the watchtower, Anika squeezed a shell in her hand and prayed to Grandmother Spotted Owl.
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Tom tackled Gustave, knocking him to the floor. The beast within raged as Tom pounded the cannibal’s face. Drove his thumbs into his eyes, pushing them back into his skull, squishing them. Gustave screamed. A force knocked Tom back. He flew ten feet and skidded across the floor.
Gustave leaped to his feet. Blood hemorrhaged from his eye sockets. “Surrender yourself to me, Tom.”
“Never.” He stood, gripping his bruised ribs.
“Let your demon take over.”
Tom’s skeleton felt as if it were turning to ice. His spine lengthened. “No!” Tom pulled the cross-dagger from his belt. It burned his hand, but he didn’t let go. The demon caged within Tom’s bones released a wail of terror.
Gustave stepped forward, blindly. “What are you doing?” His face was streaked with blood, his eye sockets hollow red pits.
Tom squared up to the Dark Shepherd. The beast who had murdered his wife and unborn child. “I am not going with you.”
“Then we will take you by force.” The madman cackled. The ballroom echoed with a chorus of squeaks and cawing. Rats crawled up from the cellar. A swarm of black birds flew into the ballroom. Satan’s scavengers formed into a black twister of fur and feathers. They roared together as one enormous beast, standing as high as the ceiling.
A force knocked Tom back.
Father Xavier charged out of his sacred space, waving his cross. “God of heaven! God of Earth! God of Angels! Creator of all invisible beings!” The exorcist stepped between Tom and the oncoming swarm. “From the ambushes of evil spirit, free us, O Lord!”
The black spiral of claws and talons exploded outward, circling Father Xavier, Tom, and Gustave like a cyclone. Orange-blue flames spread across the ceiling, rolling in waves of scorching hot air.
Trapped within the whirling black funnel, Tom stood back to back with Father Xavier. The priest kept praying, “Our Fa
ther, Who art in heaven…”
Rats and ravens hopped off the spinning wall, clinging to Gustave’s rail-thin body, gathering around his head until the only thing visible was his red-streaked face. He spoke in multiple voices. “Your fate is sealed, Tom. Kill the priest and join us or our minions will feast upon you for an eternity.”
The exorcist continued shouting at the swirling black mass. “...May your kingdom come! May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”
Gustave pointed to the priest. “Eat the holy Eucharist, and you will be saved!”
Tom’s cravings for meat returned, more ravenous than before. His leg bones stretched until he towered over Father Xavier and Gustave by two feet.
“Eat or be eaten!” the legion commanded.
Tom slowly turned, raised the cross-dagger above Father Xavier’s back.
“…lead us not into temptation! But deliver us from evil! Amen!” The exorcist spun around, aiming his cross. “God have mercy on this man’s soul!”
Tom, growling, turned around and rammed the holy dagger into Gustave’s eye socket. The cannibal demon shrieked. Shafts of white light shot out of his eyes and mouth. Vibrant rays lanced through cracks in his face until Gustave’s head glowed like a fiery sun. The cries of lost souls released from the Dark Shepherd’s throat.
“Tommmmmm…" Beth Hatcher’s voice drifted upward.
Tom backed away, reaching toward the ceiling with a long bony arm. “Beth!”
Her voice faded into the cacophony of a thousand other souls.
White flames engulfed Gustave’s body. The rats and ravens squealed and disintegrated as the holy fire spread through the spinning swarm.
Then the room exploded with blinding white light.
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Dead of Winter Page 38
