The guys advanced, Pete still trying to recover but watching the action. “I’m gonna fucking kill you!” he yelled, frowning mouth raining spittle. As they advanced, Madeline retreated, waiting to kick or hit any of them if they came close enough.
And then she backed into someone.
She hadn’t even seen a fifth person—realized he must have flanked her and that she had to whirl around and smash him with every bit of strength she could muster. Madeline spun around, her hand looking to connect with a throat or eyes. But she whirled around in darkness, her hand striking only air, her eyes meeting only the black behind her.
“Someone call for help!” she screamed.
“I can do better than that,” said a voice from the darkness. And then she saw a part of the night come alive, straightening up out of the shadows. Two red, luminous disks blinked into view and narrowed in the darkness.
“Holy shit!” one of the drunk guys yelled. She heard someone stumble back and fall on the ground. She had her back to the four guys but didn’t care now. The creature filled her vision, and she stood staring at it, frozen.
It placed a clawed hand on her shoulder and pushed by her. Madeline whirled around, not taking her eyes off it for a second.
“You pathetic swine,” it growled. “I’m going to slit open your bowels and force you to eat what I find.”
The guys stumbled back as the creature approached. One guy in the back broke away and took off down the road. In an instant the creature was down on all fours, loping after him. It met him a few yards away, leaping onto his back and twisting his neck fatally.
Then it spun around, eyes locking on the remaining three. In an instant it was among them, claws slicing open stomachs and throats, slashing at skin, tearing at meat. When it finished, four bodies lay sprawled around its feet. Then one of its hands suddenly elongated, becoming a sharp, gleaming silver spike. The creature reared its arm back and plunged it forward, driving the spike deeply into the closest body. A sizzling sound filled the night, and Madeline watched as the body melted and sputtered, sparked and flamed, then erupted in a cascade of ashes. The creature leapt to the other bodies, thrusting the spike within, filling the night with the sounds of spitting fire. In under half a minute only ashes remained of the bodies, carried away on the wind and soaking into the pools of blood on the asphalt.
And then she was alone on the road with the creature.
The creature stood up before her, the long spike shortening and re-forming into an ink-black hand. She could see the creature bore no mark whatsoever where she’d struck it with the ax. Its black skin was smooth and unscarred. She marveled at its strange, sharklike skin and lack of features. It was shadow come to life. An ebony wraith.
A solid lump formed in her throat. She stood transfixed, watching the eyes in the darkness. They had no pupils, just pools of ruby light.
“Where is Noah?” it asked, its voice low.
She moved backward and opened her mouth, but at first no sound came out. “I—I don’t know,” she finally managed.
The creature cocked its head and looked closely at her. “He can’t be far away. Not with you here.” She could hear a hint of a foreign accent but couldn’t place it. “After all, he’s still trying to make up for it.”
“For … for what?”
“For letting her die.”
It stepped closer, breathed in deeply, then reached one long-clawed hand up to her hair. The claws combed through it gently, and she flinched away. “Does he know about you?” the creature asked.
Madeline frowned, confused by the question.
“Touch me,” it said.
Madeline didn’t move.
It lowered its hand, reaching to her side and closing around her fingers. Then it raised her hand, placing her fingers on its chest. An overwhelming sensation swept over her—a vast, incomprehensible amount of experiences, thoughts, and emotions—and one extraordinary sensation of age. It was old, older than she could fathom. Heat began to tingle in her fingers, traveling through her hand, up her arm.
And then the visions came, scorching geysers erupting behind her eyes.
A handsome young man, the creature in disguise, she realized, hopping into a hansom in Victorian London, then laughing, drunk in a tavern, conversing with its next victim, a rosy-cheeked young playwright, a linguistic genius …
Stumbling through an alley in Prague, starving, panting, hiding in shadows as a group of Nazi soldiers march by. The last one looks into the alley, sees the creature disguised as a young man in a tattered woolen coat. The soldier, sneering, pulls the gun from his holster and fires into the shadows as a terrible pain erupts in the belly of the beast …
In a parlor in Vienna, listening to an amazing pianist, a young woman, so vibrant, aching to tear into her and devour every morsel, to taste that sweet flesh, as tantalizing as the music itself …
Coughing, staggering, smelling of goat urine and feces, the creature dragging itself out of a barn in a drunken stupor, not drunk on ale, but drunk on flesh, meat from the body of a traveling bard with the ability to spin tales that spellbound listeners. The creature makes its way toward a castle in the distance. It has a hiding place there, a hidden corner of the catacombs where it can digest undisturbed …
Hiding in the shadowed galley of a Viking longboat, waiting for a cartographer to descend into waiting jaws, so eager to devour that knowledge, the thirst for places unseen but for the cartographer’s eyes, soon to be the creature’s alone …
In a grove of trees on the island of Anglesey, stalking a Druidic priest, fires erupting, cries of battle as the Romans invade, all turning to chaos, the Druid lost, wasted, dead before the creature even gets a chance …
Stalking the well at Alexandria, chariots rumbling by, the creature memorizing the routine of the Greek geophysicist, imagining the tasty meats of the brain, salivating, adjusting its garb stolen from a fellow scholar and the laurels crowning its head. Soon. So soon …
Midnight at an Egyptian festival, the full moon bright on the Nile, the young pyramid architect caught unawares in the grove of palms, the rustling of the trees’ fronds muffling the sound of eager feeding …
“What do you see?” the creature demanded.
A vague part in the back of her mind, beyond the visions, the anguish, the searing pain, remembered how to speak. But Madeline could see nothing but the visions. Her eyes filled with them, unable to see the creature, the woods. “You … were shot,” she breathed, “in Prague … and before that, you were in London, happy …”
She wrenched her hand free and gasped, sights of the real world flooding into her once more. The road. The bathroom. Pine trees.
The creature.
It stared at her, eyes wide, silent.
Neither spoke, Madeline forgetting to breathe. Images still swirled in her head, a cacophony of sounds and smells and images from a dozen other times. She could still smell bread baking in an eighteenth-century Viennese bakery, could taste a bitter root pulled from the earth in ancient Norway.
“Stefan!” Noah’s sudden cry cut through the heavy silence between them.
The creature looked past Madeline’s shoulder. Then it backed up, retreating completely into the darkness, just melting away. For a second she saw the red eyes moving in black, and then even they were gone.
Madeline heard Noah’s boots thumping on the pavement behind her, approaching quickly. She didn’t dare turn away, afraid the creature might bound back out of the darkness and take off her head with one powerful swipe.
“Madeline!” He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly. “Did he hurt you?” Madeline’s head pressed against his chest, and he felt warm and reassuring. She shook her head.
“But—I heard screaming.”
“It wasn’t me,” she said and pulled away. Silently she indicated the blood on the asphalt.
“Oh, no,” said Noah.
Maybe it was cold, but Madeline just felt relieved. Those guys would never bother her or a
ny other woman again. She felt oddly numb and shaky and just wanted to sit down.
Noah evidently saw this on her face. “What is it? What happened?”
Madeline shook her head. After a long pause, she said, “He … he defended me.”
“What?” Amazement.
“The blood … is from these guys who were attacking me. He just came out of nowhere and …” Madeline thought of the intensity of the moment, of the creature’s claws, fangs, the ferocity of his attack.
Noah looked as surprised as Madeline felt.
“Has this ever happened before?” she asked.
Noah raised his eyebrows in bewilderment. “No. At least, not when I’ve been around.”
“Who—” Madeline swallowed, afraid of the question she wanted to ask. “Who does he usually kill? What sort of person?”
“Two kinds of people,” Noah answered. “Carefully chosen victims, and people who get in the way of his pursuit of those victims.”
A dark, terrible thought crept into her mind as her savior turned back into her killer. “Do you think he killed those guys so that he could still be the one to murder me?”
“Gods,” Noah breathed. “Probably.”
“That’s terrible!” Madeline almost yelled. “What kind of twisted, demented, screwed-up—” She stopped short when she realized how much her voice had raised. “Why me?”
“In the past, he has always chosen victims of extraordinary talent. Something that sets them apart from the rest.”
“You said he killed randomly!”
“I lied. I wasn’t sure if he had chosen you as a specific victim, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Well, I’m worried.” She swallowed back a painful lump that had suddenly moved into her throat and begun to home decorate. “Exceptional talent?”
Noah nodded. “He’s killed writers, inventors, architects, scientists, a classical pianist once …” His voice trailed off.
He knows? she thought, unnerved. This creature knows? “Touch me …”
“Do you know why he’d be after you?”
Madeline quickly shook her head. She just wanted to get away. Go home. “I guess I’m just one of those people who got in the way.”
Noah looked closely at her and then shook his head. “I don’t think so; he’s hunting you. If you were merely in the way, he would have just killed you outright.”
Madeline just wanted to slink away somewhere, make herself as tiny as possible. She looked to where it had vanished, though she knew it could probably leap out from anywhere it wanted, tearing them both down to bloody nubs. “Let’s go inside somewhere,” she said. “Somewhere light.”
“Of course!” Noah said quickly.
He took her arm, and they walked back toward their cabin, Madeline glancing behind all the while.
Up ahead, the cabin lay in the shadows of the pines, shielded from the dusk-to-dawn glow of the campground light posts. Madeline was leery to go toward the cabin, nestled in the dark, and she walked slower and slower, until Noah slowed to a stop beside her. “What is it?” he asked.
“It just looks so … small, so fragile.” She stared at it reluctantly. “Like the creature could tear right through the walls.”
He followed her gaze, studying the shadowed building. “I’ll be with you. Even if we manage to get some sleep, I’ll be right outside the bedroom on the couch.”
Madeline screwed up her face in hesitation. “What if he knows which one is our cabin?” She paused. “He could break in while I’m sleeping, slash your throat, then find me in the bedroom.”
“Glad to know I’ll be so helpful in this dark scenario of yours.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.
She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge, as you can imagine.” Her head pounded. Gently she checked the bandage again.
“I understand. Tell you what, then. We’ll go to the cabin. We can lock the doors, latch the windows, drink a cup of tea. I’ll stay up and keep guard.”
“But you’re already exhausted!”
“He needs to sleep, too, you know,” Noah said. “Not to scare you more, but he really likes to draw out the hunt. We probably won’t see him again tonight.”
“Well, that’s reassuring. About as reassuring as if you’d told me, ‘Don’t worry. We won’t get hit with another flash flood until tomorrow.’ ”
The chittering of a squirrel brought their attention up to a nearby tree. Madeline jumped. “It’s just a squirrel,” Noah said, putting a reassuring hand on her back.
The woods crept in on her, full of creaking wooden arms and reaching limbs. Then the disturbing hush of night fell over them, all animals save the squirrel quiet in the presence of a waiting, virulent predator. The quiet sigh of wind in the pines was alive with the breathing of the creature, and the chattered words of the squirrel were a terrified warning, uttered sharply and urgently.
“Let’s go inside,” she said, peering into the darkness beyond the dim yellow glow of the lights. “Now.”
Without a word, Noah turned and hurried with her to the cabin. Along the way he fished in his pocket for the keys, producing them as they climbed the two steps to the door. The chilly night air crawled down the collar of her jacket, and Madeline turned to keep watch behind them as he unlocked the door. She sniffed the pine-scented air, in case she could detect some unnatural scent on the wind. Only the familiar river and deep earthen tree smells greeted her. But somewhere out there, somewhere close, she could feel it … the heaviness of it staring at her, its red disc eyes narrowed with hunger.
As soon as she heard the lock disengage, she pushed past Noah into the cabin. “After you,” he said in a startled voice.
“Sorry, just anxious to get inside. Lock the door! Quick!”
Immediately, Noah entered, slamming the door behind him and reengaging the locks. Madeline sprinted around the cabin, rechecking locks on all the windows. The air inside was damp and chilly, and she shivered in the fleece jacket. After she was satisfied all entrances to the cabin were barred, she returned to the front door to find Noah staring out one of the windows, pushing aside one of the curtains.
She flipped a wall switch, spilling even more light into the cabin, then checked both rooms: the main room and the bedroom.
Noah turned to look at her as she returned to him. The pit of fear had given up its condo in her throat and opted to move into her belly. It spread itself out there, distributing its weight into one uniform mass of dread.
“I want to get out of here. Tomorrow I’m hitching a ride back to my car.”
He raised his eyebrows in concern. “Nonsense. My Jeep’s here. I’ll take you. You don’t need to hitch.”
“I’d leave now if I thought there’d be anyone on the road at this hour to give me a ride. Can’t we leave now?”
Noah shook his head. “He’s content to sit tight for now because he knows where you are. Leave, and he’ll pursue.”
“How reassuring.”
“You’d be putting yourself in danger again.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I can tell you one thing.” She squared her jaw. “I’d feel a hell of a lot safer hitching a ride to my car than sitting here like a waiting duck.”
“I think that’s a sitting duck,” Noah said, looking frustrated with the situation.
“I don’t care if the duck is doing a goddamn gold-medal triple lutz. Waiting here is suicide, precisely because that thing knows where I am.”
Noah walked to her and put his hands on her arms, trying to comfort her. “Stay here with me,” he said. “I’m your best chance for survival. I have the only weapon that can kill him. As long as you’re here, where I can watch over you, he won’t be able to harm you.”
She pushed the curtain aside just slightly and peered out. “He’s so … powerful. How would you fight him?”
“I have a way. I’ve done it before. I’ve completely foiled his plans several times.”
She looked at him, then, his face determin
ed. Then she looked back through the window. She couldn’t see anything beyond the bright glow of the dusk-to-dawn lights. Replacing the curtain, she turned to face him. She felt lost. Muggers could be tackled. Gunmen could be disarmed. But this creature was beyond anything she’d ever dealt with. Her life up to this point, even with its own strangeness, simply had not prepared her to fight a physical, supernatural being. Before last night, she didn’t even know such a thing could exist. Now she was expected to fight it. “He’s just seems so … undefeatable.”
Noah stepped closer. “He’s not. And I’m going to stop him.”
She looked at him doubtfully, but exhaustion crept up on her as she stood there, uncertain.
“C’mon,” he said. “You look beat. Why don’t you sit down? I’ve got some clean clothes you can change into.”
She looked down at his clothes she already wore, covered in dust from the hike down. “Soon I’ll have the whole set.”
He laughed. “And you’d be welcome to it. Just to see you warm and happy.”
The corner of her mouth turned up in a half smile.
“So how about it? Change into some warm clothes? I’ll make us some snacks.”
She sighed, giving in. She was still shaking from the encounter with the attackers, and even more so from the visions of the creature. The clean clothes, the food, it all sounded great. Especially the food. “Sounds wonderful. Okay. But … what about those guys? Shouldn’t we report it?”
“Haven’t we been through this already tonight?”
She felt angry and hopeless and shook her head. “I guess we have.”
“I’m sorry. I know this is tough.” He walked to his backpack and opened the top. Then he stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. “You’ll get through this, you know. You really amaze me, the way you’ve taken all this in stride, your bravery. I really admire you.”
She shook her head. “Well, we’ll see. Right now I don’t feel so admirable. I just feel scared.”
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