“Madeline,” he said, straightening up in front of the car. “I had to stop you from leaving.” He paused, turning his head and taking her in. “Your gift … is amazing.” Again she noticed the strange accent she couldn’t quite place, just a hint of it in the consonants. “You touched me … and you knew. I could feel myself filling you with my memories. That gift is your destiny. You shouldn’t run from it. We all have our special … talents.” Just then the skin on the upper half of his face rippled and turned black, smooth as sharkskin and dark as ink. The pupils widened, engulfing the iris, then the white, until just black remained. The eyes bored into her.
Her mind froze. She couldn’t think. She backed away, her eyes filling with the creature and the gas-leaking car. She didn’t know which she was more afraid of: getting blown up or torn apart by the creature. If she turned and ran, he would chase her, but at least she’d be away from the car when it went up. If she stayed, she’d get blown to bits and torn apart.
Madeline took off. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him sprint forward in pursuit. Darting away from the ditch, she looked at the meadow ahead and then the road. She knew she couldn’t run straight for her car now. If she darted back around, he’d intercept her. The dark meadow was her only option. Maybe she could lose him in the tall grass, get far enough away and then lie flat, out of sight. Or if she gained enough ground, she could double back to her car.
Panting and leaping over tall grasses, she hit the meadow. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could see that tremendous granite outcroppings rose on both sides of her, bordering the meadow. No use darting to the side.
Zigzagging left and right, she leapt over tree stumps and windfalls of old branches. Behind her, the creature threw up branches and pinecones in its wake. Clouds slid away from the moon and made it easy to see anything big sticking out of the ground. She leapt over half-buried logs and large rocks. Chancing a glance behind, she saw a furtive bounding dark shape only twenty or so feet behind. She tripped on a rock, managed to regain her balance, tripped again, stumbled, righted herself.
Behind her the running footsteps thrashed through the tall grass, then took on the eerie quality of loping. It was on all fours. She could hear the rhythmic thump of each foot. In her mind, she could see the creature’s black form speeding through the trees, the gleam in its eyes as it hunted her.
A dull whump sounded behind her.
She had completely forgotten about the car. Glancing back, she saw bright licks of flame on the road at the edge of the meadow.
Then a tremendous weight crashed into her, sending her sprawling into the grass. The creature landed on her back, his claws curling around her shoulders, his legs straddling her body. With a whoosh, air exploded from her lungs, and she lay stunned, struggling to breathe. Then, slowly, oxygen returned, and she felt the crushing weight of him on top of her. She writhed beneath him, grass sticking in her mouth, pinecones piercing her cheek.
He moved his face down next to hers. Round red eyes filled her view. He had completely reverted to the sleek black creature she’d first seen on the mountain. A shadow with weight. “You give a good chase.”
The sound of creaking bones and snapping sinew erupted, and the creature shape-shifted again. She felt him grow very cold and then hot on top of her, the eyes, still near her own, closed as if in ecstasy. A face formed, one she didn’t recognize. Chiseled, classically handsome features. Olive skin, shoulder-length black hair falling in front of his face. He snapped open his eyes—deep green. They focused on her.
She jerked to one side, trying to throw him off. “You don’t like my real face?” he asked. “But you’re the first person I’ve shown it to in such a long time.”
Kicking out at his knees and elbowing him in the gut, she managed to flip herself over and came face-to-face with him. He still sat on top of her. His eyes flashed brightly, hot as embers, momentarily burning her retina. Quickly she punched him in the face, and he grunted but did not move off her. Rearing her hips up, she tried to throw him off, make him lose his balance. But smoothly he matched her moves with his own, never even coming close to falling over.
She struck him in the throat. He coughed but remained stationary. A fury of panic welled up within her, and she grabbed his neck, desperately trying to choke him. But instead, he brought his hands up and closed around hers in an almost tender gesture.
A surging wave of powerful energy hit her. She fell back against the ground, a blinding light enveloping her mind, the creature relentlessly holding on to her hands. Her eyes fluttered in her head; her back arched. A tremor began in her chest and spread throughout her body, her legs and arms shaking violently. Still he held fast. She tried to break the connection, tried to break free.
Too intense. Too intense.
Waltzing, dizzy, at a masquerade ball in eighteenth century France, twirling a blonde-haired woman around the dance floor and laughing giddily …
Feasting on corpses on a medieval battlefield, lifting shields and digging into the waiting flesh beneath, licking bones and finding the delectable soft parts …
Swimming through frigid waters toward a Viking longboat, the seamen unaware, backs turned, climbing silently over the rail, and then sinking into warm, delicious flesh …
Stumbling, drunken, from a pyramid in the Mayan jungle, the hiss of a volcanic vent nearby filling the air with a foul, sulfurous smell …
Dragged in a net behind a Roman chariot, a spear painfully jammed between the ribs, gasping for a breath, mouth full of dirt and blood …
Standing on the balcony of a sangha in mountainous Ti-bet, silent snow cascading down, a flurry of flakes dusting stone railings and worn steps, ancient trees …
Staggering alone across the vast sands of the Sahara, lips cracked and bleeding, mouth parched, eyes searing …
Fighting with a lion over a water hole in the Kalahari, snarling and snapping, the lion lashing out, claws biting deep …
Standing outside an ancient Sumerian city, at the edge of a great void, a black opening in the earth, standing transfixed, staring. Then something moving in there, glistening, sinewy, writhing down there in the darkness, then rushing up, up—
Gasping, the creature flung her hands to the side. Madeline lay still, heart pounding, her mind stumbling over the images, her eyes unable to open. “Oh, gods,” he croaked. “So far back … even I’d forgotten.”
Her eyes fluttered and opened. For a minute she couldn’t fix on him, her focus swimming. Then the blur dissipated, and she saw him, still straddling her, his head in his hands. He looked completely human now, still in the ranger’s clothes, and he appeared—she couldn’t believe it—stunned. Upset. Vulnerable, even.
“I don’t think I’ll kill you after all,” he said, taking his hands away from his face.
Heat hit her. The meadow was completely on fire. The reek of gasoline filled the air. The burning car was still intact on the road, but it was utterly consumed in flames and would explode any second.
“The car,” she mumbled, spitting out a blade of grass. She could hear the roar of the fire over their labored breathing. Firelight flickered on the granite walls to both sides. She struggled to throw him off. “It’s going to go up!”
Coming out of his daze, the creature snapped his head to the road and then turned back to her, his now-human hands gripping her shoulders. She twisted beneath him, trying to get out. A bright flash lit up the sky, followed by a deafening explosion. A concussive blast knocked him off her. She threw her hands up over her head as a rain of debris came down: bits of colored lenses, seat springs, a spark plug. When it stopped, she peered out. The creature lay a few feet away, groaning. Blood dripped from a head wound. Quiet crackling followed the cacophony. She looked back at the car. Flames shot from it, alighting on more of the meadow. The summer had been hot and dry, and the grass went up amazingly fast.
For a second she was five again, watching immobilized as a golden fire roared toward her. She had been on a picnic with her
family in the woods, and a hot piece of metal had fallen from the exhaust pipe of their car and set the woods on fire. Her father had jumped up, grabbed a metal rake out of the car, and tried to control the flames by raking leaves and pine needles away, exposing earth. She’d stared on in horror, the flames dancing closer and closer while her father screamed at her to get back. She had, while her mother raced forward to stamp at flames. They’d put it out then. Everything had been okay.
But now flames crawled and spat, drawing ever closer. She got to her feet. The entire expanse of the meadow was ablaze, reaching from one granite cliff clear across to the other.
Blocked from the road, her only choice was to run farther into the meadow. The creature still lay injured, groaning, trying to rise. She ran a little way before stopping in front of a thick branch. If she hit him now, while he was down, maybe she could knock him unconscious. Since she couldn’t kill him, it was her best bet. Quickly she ran to the branch and picked it up. It was heavier than she expected, but she carried it to where the creature lay and then hefted it over her head. He rolled over on his back, and his eyes went wide when her saw her standing over him. She brought the branch down hard, aiming for his head. Reflexively he brought his arm up to shield himself, and the branch connected with a sickening smack. The creature howled in pain, and she raised the branch again for a second blow. She struck violently as he tried to roll away. The end of the wood crashed down on the back of his head.
He went limp.
She dropped the branch and ran.
The meadow stretched on a little farther, and she bounded over rocks and logs, her dark, flickering shadow from the firelight making progress difficult.
And then, with a horror, she saw a granite wall loom up before her.
She was trapped. The two cliffs on both sides met here at a tremendous granite outcropping that curled around, meeting the road at both of its ends. She was trapped in a half moon of tall grass and wildfire. Desperately she tried to climb up the wall. It was sheer—no handholds or footholds—and it leaned out toward her, so she couldn’t even leap up and cling to the sheer rock itself. She groped along the cold stone wall, smoke reaching her and forcing her to cough. Her eyes teared, blurring her vision. With frantic hands, she felt the rough surface for any nook and cranny, and each time she found purchase she tried to raise herself up, only to fall to the ground again.
It was no use. She couldn’t climb it.
Hands bleeding and fingernails torn, she turned to face the fire.
11
BEFORE her, fire raced forward, devouring grass and dead-fall in its wake.
Madeline ran along the granite perimeter, trying to find a break. Acrid smoke filled her lungs. It was no use. The cliff was uncompromising, smooth, tall, and hopeless. Still the fire advanced. She was trapped.
She looked to where she’d clubbed the creature and saw that fire had already consumed that part of the meadow. She only had maybe two minutes before it would sweep over where she stood and then burn itself out against the cliff face.
She leapt at the wall, clawed it, tried to run up it, grab it. Nothing. The angle at which it leaned in toward her made it impossibly steep. She fell flat on her back. It was too late. The fire was coming.
Scorching smoke seared her lungs, and she couldn’t get a breath. She spun all the way around, not seeing a single escape route. Panting, she stood there, ready to bolt in any direction, not knowing where to go, her mind reeling and eyes streaming.
And then she heard her father’s words, clear and loud, as if he were standing right next to her, just like he was that day when she was five.
“If you’re caught in a wildfire, there are three things you can do. Look for a natural firebreak, like a ridge of rocks or water, and get on the other side of it.”
She looked at the unforgiving granite cliff and bit her lip.
“If fire is on both sides of you, submerge yourself completely underwater, like in a river or creek, while the fire passes overhead.”
No water in sight.
“If there is no water or climbable fire break—”
Madeline gulped for air.
“Bury yourself.”
Immediately she stripped off her coat and laid it flat on the ground, then dug into the ground with her bare hands, dumping handfuls of dirt onto the coat. The lack of summer rains made the soil loose and easy to dig into. She dug handful after handful, using her fingers like scoops.
But it wasn’t enough. The fire crept closer, and the space she’d dug wasn’t nearly big enough to cover her. Nearby lay a large, flat piece of sturdy bark. Grabbing it and using it as a shovel, she piled more and more dirt on the coat. Then it suddenly hit her that the coat was made of synthetic material. If the fire swept over her, the heat would melt the coat right into her flesh. She couldn’t use it. She stripped off her long-sleeved cotton shirt, poured the dirt from the jacket onto it, and then flung the jacket away. With the shirt covered, she piled the dirt up next to the hole itself. Desperately she dug faster, sweat dripping off her body and stinging her tearing eyes. Her lungs felt on fire, mucus streaming from her nose.
When the hole was deep enough to partly cover her, she lay down in it and scooped the dirt over her legs. Then as the fire leapt and devoured leaves, closing in on her, she turned on her belly and pulled the dirt-covered shirt up over her torso and head. Quickly she cupped her hand over her mouth. The instant the fire swept over her, she knew. It sucked the oxygen right out of her little hiding hole. Heat swarmed over her body, and the unbreathable air under the shirt grew searingly hot. She cupped her hand tighter around her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. The heat was so intense that she imagined her shirt had caught on fire and would soon burn into her back, setting her jeans and skin on fire. Desperately she clung to thoughts of her father and his words. “Cup your hand. Try to keep the air cool in there. Wildfires pass quickly. Just keep calm. Keep calm.” She repeated the mantra in her head over and over as the heat became intolerable. Keep the air cool? she wondered. There was no air. Sweat trickled over her back and dripped from her chest. Had the fire passed over yet? How long had she been lying there? She was dying for a breath. Panic set in as the air became hotter. Involuntarily her lungs gulped for air, but found none. How would she know when the fire had passed? Wait for the heat to dissipate? For the oxygen to return? The air to become cooler? She couldn’t remember.
The heat remained intense. But suddenly, a flood of cool air filled her hiding hole. She gulped the air in, her lungs grateful and her head pounding. Did this mean the fire had passed? Why was the heat still so intense? Cool air continued to seep into her. The fire must have passed.
But then the heat turned from intense to painful. Crying out, Madeline involuntarily threw the shirt off herself. Rolling over, she saw that it had caught on fire, igniting the waistband of her jeans, too. Panicking, she rolled in her little hollow, extinguishing the flames. Beyond, the fire had moved on, feasting on the grass at the cliff’s edge. Farther out, all the way to the road, the meadow lay blackened and smoldering. Getting to her feet, she checked herself over for flames again, paranoid they were licking up the back of her jeans. Heat burned through her soles, and she realized they were melting quickly. She stamped the flames out on her shirt, which lay a few feet away. Picking it up, she saw that half of it was unsalvageable. One sleeve and part of the front were completely burned, the stench of singed cotton intermingling with the smoke and smell of burnt grass.
The jacket wasn’t so lucky. It had completely melted, the sleeves now stuck together. She grabbed it and looked toward the road. To her utter relief, her VW was still there, the road having acted as a firebreak. It hadn’t exploded. There it was, covered with twisted metallic debris and charred pieces of plastic from the ranger’s car, but it was still intact. Grabbing her shirt by the unburned sleeve, she ran across the blackened meadow. When she reached her car, the melted soles of her shoes slid on the asphalt.
Mucus rattled in her lungs, a
nd then a fit of coughing overtook her. Leaning over, she hacked and hacked, spitting out vile, black strings of phlegm.
Placing her hands on the hood of her car, she burst into a fit of hysterical laughter that ended in another coughing fit. She clutched her car, pressed her face against it, feeling the cold, friendly, familiar metal against her skin.
Ahead on the road, Steve’s vehicle sat burning and smoldering, huge plumes of black smoke spiraling into the sky. The stench of charred plastic stung her dripping nose and eyes. The last rollicking flames in the meadow demanded her attention. What of the creature? She scanned the smoking meadow. A few lumps broke its evenness, but they were old tree trunks and stumps. She didn’t see the creature’s charred remains.
A flash of hopelessness overtook her as she thought of the sheer undefeatable power of an animal that couldn’t even be killed by fire. The sense of her own mortality, so recently tested, shook her. And this creature, this thing, had no such concerns. It just traveled from country to country, from year to year, feeding on whomever it chose with no consequences.
And what of Steve? She remembered Noah telling her it could look like anyone it had killed. He’d been kind to her, and she had cost him his life. She thought of Steve’s sister in Missoula, and how she’d never get a visit from her brother again.
A sudden anger swelled up within as she realized the unfairness, the advantage this creature had over all its victims, past and future. They had no chance. It had been killing for at least two hundred years, and no one had stopped it yet.
Yet.
She had the ability to know where people were going before they were there, to know their motives, their thoughts. So far Noah had only been able to follow along in the aftermath of the creature’s killings, racing from country to country but always too late. He needed an advantage if he was going to catch the beast, needed to anticipate the creature’s next move.
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