He wiped the mist off his face, pulling at his damp dress shirt. He’d left his tie and jacket at the farmhouse and had rolled his white sleeves up past the elbows. The midsummer sun blazed overhead, racing toward the zenith, but the shade in the wood on the opposite bank only seemed to grow darker.
Ryan unhooked the Royal Coachman from the cork handle. The reel spun and clicked as he stripped some line and snapped the rod back. The rod loaded nicely, and the coiled line at his feet shot through the guides on the forward cast. He shook the tip, paying out some slack, and let the fly drift.
The thunder of the falls cocooned him in silence, but he caught the changing shadows in the trees, nonetheless. His eyes shot away from the white wings of the Coachman. He peered into the darkness under the leafy branches, his hand tightening on the rod’s cork grip.
There it was again.
A familiar unease crept into Ryan; its chill seeped into his limbs. There, on the far bank, was the thing from his dream. The horned shadow tilted its head, then turned and disappeared among the thick, gnarled trunks.
A cold compulsion shook Ryan out of his stupor.
I need to get the hell out of here.
He tossed the fly rod onto the bank and scrambled away from the seething pool. He looked up the trail, winding its way back to Montfort Farm, but his feet turned to lead.
No, not that way.
He spotted a thick plank thrown across the brook, its far end buried in the mossy bank.
That way.
He planted an oxford on the gray, weathered board and hesitated.
Into the wood?
Ryan shot a look over his shoulder.
I need to go. Now.
He bounded across the board and sprang onto the far bank, scraping against the rough trunks as his hurried steps became frantic strides. His footsteps fell silent on the soft carpet of moss and dead leaves, and the roar of the waterfall dwindled into the distance. The unyielding paper bark of an ancient white birch brought his flight to an abrupt halt.
He rubbed the swelling knot on his forehead and spun around.
I’m lost.
“You can see him.”
Ryan tensed at the cold splash of adrenalin and backed into the trees. He looked up at the limb of a giant oak and followed the bare foot to the dangling brown leg and up to the stained cotton shift. A pair of hazel eyes burned among the leaves. Sophie sat on the branch and stretched, arching her back like a cat.
He raised an eyebrow. “See who?”
The full brown lips twisted into a knowing smile. “Herne.”
Sophie raised her fingers to her temples and wiggled them. Ryan’s gaze flickered among the shadows, but Sophie shook her tangled locks.
“He’s gone now. He’s got what he wanted.”
“What’s that?”
Ryan took a step back as Sophie dropped from the overhanging branch like a panther.
“You’re here, of course.”
They both turned as a gunshot cracked, its report echoing back off the mountain. Sophie stepped closer to Ryan and slipped a trembling arm around him, her thumb hooked into his belt loop. She nodded at the question in his eyes.
“Falls are back that way.”
Ryan leaned down to hear the words fall from her lips.
“Can’t shoot him no more. Herne’s done all the dyin’ he’s gonna do.”
“What is it?”
Sophie glanced up at Ryan.
“Things just got weird.”
***
“Wait.”
Sophie slapped the back of her hand on Ryan’s chest, and he paused. She’d led him back across Hunger Hollow Brook and through the trees, but she had shunned the trail. Ryan followed her outstretched finger to the spot where the trail entered the wood.
Tom’s Red Sox cap flashed blue and red in the undergrowth as he tromped out of the trailhead. Ryan’s eyes narrowed as he spotted the fly rod in Tom’s left hand, then they widened at the shotgun he carried in his right.
What the—
Sophie grabbed his arm and tugged. He turned, his mind racing. The brown hand gripped his bicep like a vise.
“You can’t go out there,” she said.
“What am I supposed to do, stay in the woods all day?”
He winced as she dug her fingers into his arm.
“Who do you think that shotgun was for? Why do you think he went to the falls?”
Ryan looked into the hazel eyes and sighed. For a moment, in the wood, he had thought maybe Rebecca had exaggerated. But no. The paranoid look in her eyes, the crazy talk of Herne—
Except you saw it, too.
“Don’t you go out there, Ryan Stockbridge. I’m tellin’ you, Tom wouldn’t need a gun this time of year for ’else.”
Ryan pulled her hand off his arm.
“Why would Tom be after me?”
Sophie looked past Ryan and blew a deep breath. “He’s gone. Out into the field. I hear the tractor startin’. Must be why Becca changed the combination, why she took Olivia’s books out of her room and put ’em in the safe. They don’t want you to know.”
Ryan looked back toward the barn. The sputtering of the tractor had faded over the top of a knoll.
“Know what?”
“’Bout Herne, of course.”
***
Ryan chirped the lock on his Audi and popped the trunk. As he pulled out the tire iron, his ears strained to hear the puttering of the tractor. Satisfied that Tom was still busy, he grabbed Sophie’s hand and dragged her into the house.
The safe was probably decent enough for Greenfield, but Ryan figured it’d been ordered out of an office supply catalog. He made quick work of the hinges and the steel door thudded on the floor. Sophie reached in and grabbed a leather bound journal.
“Your grandmother’s. Before that Stockbridge fella took her away to Hartford.”
As she handed Ryan the journal, a sepia-toned photo fell out of the yellowed pages, landing facedown. Ryan swiped the photo off the floor and flipped it over.
“This can’t be real.”
***
He stared at the large brown eyes of the shirtless boy gazing at him out of the photograph. He was drawn to the twin prongs jutting up from the thick patch of black hair on the boy’s head, just above his temples. The photograph had been taken from the waist up. Ryan was beginning to think he knew why. The back porch of the old Victorian filled the background, and there was the giant maple, only a sapling.
Sophie tapped the portrait. “Bernard. Your gramma Catherine’s father and my great-great-grandfather. Herne’s son.”
Ryan squinted at the faded handwriting on the back of the photo.
“Bernard. Bernard Montfort.”
He looked down at the old desk. His finger traced the BM inside the heart. Sophie’s finger was on the ES.
“Emilia Stoddard. Catherine’s mother.”
Ryan looked up with understanding in his eyes. “Stoddard? Like Tom Stoddard?”
Sophie nodded, and Ryan’s gaze drifted to the window looking out on the barn.
“Oh, shit.”
Sophie grabbed his hand. “Wait till you see what I got upstairs.”
He followed Sophie to her bedroom at the opposite end of the hall from his. He raised an eyebrow at the wooden barrels in the corner, connected to each other by plastic tubing. A crate of empty green wine bottles sat nearby. The fireplace was dominated by an oversize replica of Bouguereau’s Nymphs and a Satyr, the unwilling beast being dragged toward a woodland stream by a tangle of naked limbs.
Sophie grabbed the half-empty wine bottle on her bureau, popped the cork, and took a long swig. She smiled knowingly at Ryan and handed him the bottle.
“Ain’t no harm, not for us anyways.”
He lifted the bottle to his lips.
Sophie knelt down by her bed, pulled a wooden trunk out; she opened the lid and grinned. “Wanna meet him?”
“Herne’s in the trunk?”
She reached in and raised h
er arms reverently, like a priest raising a chalice of wine. Ryan set the bottle back on the bureau and took a step forward, mesmerized. Kneeling, he stared into the deep eyeless sockets, gazed at the row of yellowed teeth in the upper jaw, and gasped in disbelief at the curved horns protruding from the top of the skull.
“Old Samuel Montfort kept it after he shot Herne for messin’ with his daughter. If it weren’t for Emma meetin’ Herne in Westminster Wood, you and I wouldn’t be here.”
Ryan reached out to touch the skull, paused, and drew his hand back. “So how many were there?”
“Well, there was Bernard—you saw him—then the male Montforts, and finally Gerard, my daddy. None of ’em lived long.”
Sophie turned the skull around and gazed lovingly into the eye sockets.
“He’s been watchin’ over his children. He saved you from Tom today, brought you to me. He knows we’re the last.”
Ryan’s face darkened at the mention of Tom’s name. “Good God, he really was after me, in the wood?”
Sophie nodded, running a finger over the horned skull. “The Reverend Stoddard was furious when his daughter Emilia ran off with Bernard. I guess Tom must be carryin’ some kinda family grudge.”
Ryan stood up, went to the window, and threw it open. “I don’t hear the tractor anymore.” He turned away from the window and grabbed Sophie’s arm.
“Rebecca hid all this from me on purpose, and I’m guessing she sabotaged your mother’s computer, as well. She’s working with Tom. We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
Herne’s skull clattered to the floor as Ryan dragged Sophie toward the door. He grabbed the handle to throw it open and had time for one surprised gasp before the butt of the shotgun crashed down on his head, sending the room into blackness.
Sophie’s screams pulled Ryan back from oblivion. Rough cords of rope bit into his wrists and ankles. The room sat at an odd angle. Ryan realized he was hanging off the bed, head down.
Tom threw him a wink as he dragged Sophie toward the door by her bound wrists. Blood ran down Ryan’s forehead, pooling in his eyes. He blacked out.
It was there when he blinked the crusted blood out of his eyes. The horned shadow in the corner grew, looming closer. He fought the searing pain in his skull, fought to keep from slipping back into blackness. His voice croaked.
“Help me get to Sophie.”
The door banged open. Ryan squirmed in the ropes. He grunted in surprise when, instead of Tom and his shotgun, Rebecca Kimball sat down next to him on the bed. Her fingers tugged at the knots around his wrists.
“He wasn’t supposed to hurt Sophie. She’d be harmless with you out of the picture. No way to make any others.”
The frayed rope ends finally budged, and Rebecca worked faster as she pulled out the knots. Ryan’s wrists broke free. He struggled against the spinning room as he sat up, working on the knots at his ankles. Rebecca paced in front of the fireplace while he freed himself.
“I promised Olivia I would take care of Sophie. Don’t let Tom hurt her.”
Ryan staggered to his feet. He glared at Rebecca. “Where?”
She nodded out the window. “The barn.”
***
Ryan stumbled out the front door and lurched across the clover-filled lawn toward the round barn. He wiped his forehead and grimaced at the bright red smear on the back of his hand. His bloodstained fingers wrapped around the iron handle and he threw the barn door open.
There, under the flickering blue fluorescent lights, knelt Sophie. Her brown arms were wrenched up into the small of her back and tied with frayed rope. Another section of rope held her slender neck down on the chunk of tree stump which Tom used to split wood.
Her eyes widened as Ryan stepped into the barn. Her lips moved but the screeching of the grinding wheel drowned out whatever she was trying to say. She winced as sparks landed on her cheek from the axe blade Tom held to the spinning stone. Tom looked up at Ryan. And grinned.
Ryan moved to step forward, when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He caught his breath as the horned shadow stepped from the darkness behind a woodpile.
He glanced back at Tom, who was rolling up the sleeves on his work shirt. The gleaming axe blade resting on the floor, the handle against Sophie’s shoulder. Her lips were parted in a soundless scream, overridden by the tortured grinding of the motor.
Ryan took another step. Tom’s raised finger shook as he grasped the axe with his other hand, swung it onto his shoulder. The horned shadow behind the woodpile beckoned him.
What the hell do I do?
The shadow drew back farther. A polished wooden handle gleamed in the cool blue light where the thing had stood. Ryan’s brows knitted as he recognized the antique pitchfork. His hand shot out. He seized the long handle and lifted it out of its nook.
Tom’s laughter rose above the screeching motor. Ryan turned and pointed the tines. They both knew he could never cross the barn before the axe fell on Sophie’s neck.
Ryan watched helplessly as Tom’s callused hands swung the axe into the air, slowing as it reached the top of its arc. He shifted his grip on the pitchfork, found his center of gravity; his arm drew back as he took two great strides forward.
Step, step, throw.
Ryan followed through just like he always had on the javelin field. The axe slipped out of Tom’s fingers, fell soundlessly to the floor by the grinding wheel. Ryan started forward, but there was no need. Tom had his fingers wrapped around the tines protruding from his chest. Then he collapsed, the pitchfork handle bobbing up and down on the grinding wheel.
***
They emerged from the barn in time to see Rebecca’s Volvo fling sand and gravel into the air as it sped down the driveway, veering onto the dirt road leading to Greenfield. Ryan grasped the brown arm that clutched his waist. He pulled Sophie closer—watching the shadow move among the trees at the edge of the wood.
In Vino Veritas
By Robert Harkess
“See the blonde? The short, dumpy one?”
Marco jerked his head up and down.
“For the Master’s sake take her somewhere and fuck her. We’re already behind on quota for the week.”
Marco nodded again. “Yes, Leo. Of course.”
He started toward the girl and winced when he heard Leonides snort in disgust. Marco dragged his face into something he hoped looked sultry and tempting, and did what he could to inject confidence into his gait. It wasn’t easy. Leonides was a full head taller than he was. Damn it, they all were, with broad shoulders and muscles rippling across stomachs and down hairy thighs.
Another snort, and Marco stopped again. His hands started to shake as he tried to determine what he had done wrong now. He looked at his hands—his empty hands—and resisted the temptation to slap his forehead. He changed course slightly so that his path took him to a table from which he collected a pitcher of wine and two goblets, his fingers still quivering.
He closed in on the girl and she looked up at him, her expression one of gentle confusion. The male she had entered the club with snored gently beside her. Marco flicked a glance at him and looked away. The last thing he wanted to do was draw her attention to her companion. He smiled, lopsided, and waggled the goblets.
“Can I tempt you?”
The woman giggled, looked coyly aside for a moment, then nodded. “My name is Haylee.”
“Nice to meet you, Haylee,” he replied, forcing his grin wider and hoping he would be able to remember the name long enough. “I’m Marco.”
He handed her a goblet and poured from the pitcher. It was just wine. All of the guests had already been slipped their faerie-enhanced roofies, and the pitcher held nothing more than a cheap Californian red. Marco sloshed wine into his own goblet and put the pitcher on the floor.
He looked into the cup. It might be rubbish, but it was still wine. Just holding the goblet was making his heart beat faster. He raised it to his nose, inhaling deeply. His head swam and his tongue
clove to the roof of his mouth with a sudden desperate thirst. He lifted the wine, trying for a sip. As soon as it touched his lips he upended the goblet and drained it, wine spilling from the sides and dribbling down his face like blood. His ego engorged as fast as his penis. Dropping the goblet he carried on drinking from the pitcher. Marco held his hand out to Haylee. Her whole attention was raptly focused on his groin. He had to give her a nudge to snap her out of it.
“Let’s go somewhere away from this crowd,” he suggested, and she took his hand.
***
A little over an hour later Marco stumbled into a storage room next to the kitchen. He closed the door quietly, leaned against it, and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. He hung his head, only to be confronted by a view of his partially flaccid penis. He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on not throwing up.
He had left Haylee, wearing nothing but a contented smile, sprawled on a couch in a secluded corner. As soon as their sexual energy discharged into the collector, the effects of the wine evaporated and left him drained. He felt unclean and used. He covered his face with his hands. Before his heart rate or his breathing had returned to normal, the door shoved him mightily in the back and there was an angry hammering.
“Marco? Marco? I know you’re in there. Get back out on the floor. Pull another pathetic stunt like this tonight and I’ll pull your fucking head off and grind you for hamburger.”
The door slammed into his back again, lower this time as if it had been kicked. Marco waited long enough to make sure Leonides had gone before he stood. It was different for the others. As soon as they had finished with one customer, they reached for another pitcher and moved on to the next. Some even took the famous rhomboid purple helpers. Not that they needed them. Not for stamina, anyway. But there was the rumor that the drug made them bigger than any faerie magic could, and it was cheaper. There was a lot of bravado bullshit about getting off on the look of delight and fear in the eyes of the women. Marco had tried one once. All he had got out of the experience was a bright red face and blocked sinuses. And another reason for the other satyrs to mock him. He had avoided the pills since.
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