by E A Comiskey
Her smile faded into earnest solemnity. “Abso-freaking-lutely, I believe. I believe there is so much more in the world than the average person ever sees…infinitely more. People are blind, ignorant, afraid of everything. I don’t know about supernatural, though. The word implies that those things are above nature, or outside of it. I don’t think that’s possible.”
“You don’t think something can be unnatural?”
“Sure. Unnatural, but not outside of nature. Nature is perfectly balanced. Every evil has an opposing good. Every darkness can be banished by light. There is always balance.” She lifted the bottle. “More wine?”
Burke looked at the empty glass. “Sure. Why not?” She waited until it was full and asked, “What about magic?”
“Define magic,” Wiper said.
She had to think about that. “Power that can’t be explained. It could be anything. The power to make someone sick or restore them to health. The power to bring luck to a person, good or bad. The power to…I don’t know…sense patterns in things.”
“Patterns?”
“Yeah. You know. Like…signs from God. Patterns that point to something.”
Wiper slipped her hands into the pockets of her baggy jeans. “A thousand years ago, you could have been burned at the stake for mixing baking soda and vinegar to make a bubbly fountain.”
“So.”
“So, magic is just the name we give to things we haven’t named yet.” She paused. “You can do this magic, right?”
“What makes you say that?”
The unusual, wide smile returned. “Because everybody can. Some people just forget the power within them.”
“Say I was reminded of it due to...unusual circumstances.” She drank and was surprised to realize she was already at the bottom of the second glass. “What do I do about that?”
“You embrace it, and you thank God for whoever brought you back to yourself. Kids, they know, but most people go through their grown-up life blind to who they are and whose they are. If someone gave you your magic back, you should be kissing the ground they walk on.”
Hot tears stung Burke’s eyes and she blinked them away, tired of crying. “Okay. But what do I do with what I know now?”
Wiper tilted her head a little to one side, making the light dance on her glittered cheek. “You do like John Wesley?”
“The preacher?”
“That’s the one,” she confirmed. “You do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can, for as long as you ever can.”
“That’s good,” she said.
“Yeah. Just imagine if the world took his advice.”
Talking to this stranger was better than the therapy she’d paid thousands of dollars for after her divorce. She couldn’t help but share one more thing. What difference did it make if she was acting like a fool? She’d probably never be in this tiny town again for the rest of her life. “You know, my grandfather is a racist. What do I do with that?”
“Fear and ignorance are the roots of racism, right? Love him. Teach him. What else is there to do?”
“He really pisses me off,” Burke admitted.
She chuckled. “Sounds like a pretty normal family to me.”
Burke found herself laughing along with her. “Do they teach you wisdom in bartending school?”
“Nah.” Wiper blinked. One set of lids clicked together from the sides of her eyes before the second set fluttered. It was a motion so fast it would have been easy for Burke to convince herself she’d imagined if she hadn’t come to this town to kill a creature that could shapeshift into a tree. “I’ve just had a lot of experience dealing with how to be happy while being different from those around me.”
Burke swallowed hard. “Are you…”
The girl moved forward and took the glass from the bar. “I’m just another cog in the wheel, doing all the good I can.” She rinsed the glass clean and placed it in the rack. “This drink’s on me. Go work your magic, Burke.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled and sparkled. “You’re very welcome.”
Newly fortified against her own wild emotions, Burke returned to the motel to find her grandfather locked in the bathroom.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rchard
The tap on the bathroom door was soft. Richard rose and stood on numb legs.
With nowhere else to go, he’d plopped down on the closed toilet seat and cried like a little boy. Once the tears dried up, he wanted nothing more than to lay down and take a nap. His many years, a yoke too heavy to bear, pressed down upon his body and his spirit. But he couldn’t go out there with Stan Kapcheck. To be so weak in Stan’s presence was adding insult to injury. Now, the entire lower half of his body was full of pins and needles from sitting on the john so long.
He opened the door and Stan stood there. “Time to go, if we’re going to do this.”
Richard asked the question he’d been pondering for the past quarter hour or so. “Did being a hunter give your life purpose?”
“That’s fair to say. I have seen terrible things, but in the end, I kept going out, again and again. Maybe, in all that, I saved the person who will find the cure for cancer or the key to world peace.”
“I don’t have a purpose anymore. I haven’t had one for a very, very long time.”
Stanley leaned on the crutch under his left arm, reached his right arm around his back, and produced the revolver from his belt. He lifted Richard’s hand and slapped the gun into it, closing his hand over the other man’s. “Welcome back, old boy.”
Richard felt the corners of his mouth turn up. The weight of the weapon sent a surge of satisfaction up his arm, straight into his heart.
“Go get the girl,” Stanley said. “You need her.”
It took her so long to open the door at his knock, he wondered if she’d driven away without them. Finally, she was there, her face an emotionless mask.
“I’m a fool. I don’t know how to change, but I’m willing to give it a shot if you’re willing to help me. I need your help, Burke.”
Her eyes sparkled in the dim light. “All right.”
“Stanley says it’s time to go.”
“Let me get my sweater.”
A tentative little finger of warmth poked his heart. The last time he’d felt hope was so far in the distant past he almost didn’t recognize it for what it was.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Finn
Hot blood pumped hard through Finn’s body. His feet smacked the ground in rhythm with his pulse, the slap of his sneakers against the pavement, a primal drumbeat in time with the breath of the universe. At the top of the hill, he slowed to a stop and stood with his hands on his hips.
“It’s beautiful,” Sara said. She’d kept pace next to him for ten miles without ever breaking stride. Once or twice he’d had the feeling she was deliberately slowing her pace to match his.
“I didn’t know you were a runner,” he said.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she answered. “How do you feel?”
For days, he’d worried that he was getting sick, swinging wildly between fiery bursts of productivity and creativity and long stretches of coma-like sleep. Sara had fussed over him, watched him, fed him, and never once asked for anything other than his company.
That afternoon, she’d asked, “What makes you feel most alive?”
He didn’t even have to think about it. “Running. When I run I…”
“What? Tell me, please.”
“I feel connected to the universe. You ever see those religious fanatics? The ones who hold out their hands and weep and faint in church? When I’m running, I get it.”
“You haven’t run since I’ve met you,” she said.
Of course, he hadn’t run. He’d been in a downward, self-destructive spiral of writer’s block when she showed up. Once she came, he began pouring out his soul into his new book, sleeping his l
ife away, or drinking with her. As for the smoking, well... Backing off the cigs would probably go a long way toward feeling healthy again.
“I can run,” she said, interrupting his thoughts.
“What?”
“I’m a good runner. Let’s run.”
“Sara…” The last race he ran was the monstrously grueling San Francisco Marathon. He’d come in third place. There was no way this little girl could keep up with him and he’d never find a good pace if he worried about her.
“Please, Finn? Just a little one?”
He had relented, and here they were, on top of the hill eleven miles from his house and she was barely out of breath. Maybe she wasn’t an author stalker. Maybe she was a runner stalker.
“Who are you, Sara?”
She grinned up at him. “It’s beautiful up here, Finn. Look around.”
He did. It was. This was one of his favorite spots. From the top of this hill, he could see to every corner of his family’s land. Sierra Vista sparkled in the distance. Across a wide stretch of desert, Sheep’s Head Mountain watched over them. “Look at this,” he said. Taking her hand, he led her down a little way, toward a thick grove of desert willows. A little pool, just big enough for two people, bubbled there, a hot spring pushed up to the surface of the dry desert.
She raced to the edge and squatted down to wiggle her fingers in the water. “Oh, Finn! It’s perfect. No wonder this is your favorite place!” She stood again and tugged the sports bra she’d worn as a top over her head. Her full breasts, young and perfect, were bared to him. Before he could find the presence of mind to say anything, she kicked off her sneakers, dropped her shorts in a little pile with her bra, and stepped into the water. She sank down into it with a sigh of pleasure, turned to face him. “Come in with me, Finn. Why else would you have brought me to this place?”
He stood frozen. Every part of his brain screamed that this was a bad idea. He hadn’t brought her to the spring intentionally. He’d run, and this is where his feet had carried him. But while his brain was screaming that he ought to turn around and start running again, his body wanted very much to stay.
“Sara, if I come in there, I’m going to make love to you.”
She chewed on that perfect lower lip. “Why else would you have brought me to this place?” she asked again.
“I don’t know anything about you. I must be twice your age. I’m clearly mad and probably dying from some weird disease that makes me sleep twelve hours a day. This is a terrible idea.”
She cocked her head. “You talk too much, Finn. You’re learning how to have fun again, remember?”
He couldn’t exactly remember deciding to undress, but he found himself stepping into the silken warmth of the water. Then her hands were on his body, hotter even than the steaming spring. Finally, he managed to catch that lip between his teeth. It was exactly the delight he’d expected it to be.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Richard
The headlights of the SUV pierced the darkness and revealed miles and miles of fields. Hay gave way to corn. Corn turned into more hay. Occasionally a stand of marijuana would crop up. Richard didn’t think he would ever get used to the idea that hash was legal. Strange times when a man could smoke a bone in public, but the lefties would throw a fit if he lit a tobacco pipe.
At half past midnight, Burke pulled the car to the side of the road and killed the engine.
The thick curve of the waxing moon peeked out from behind a cloud and hid its face again, leaving the world beyond their little bubble smothered in heavy black. Burke opened her door. A cool breeze crawled through the open door and slithered around the edges of the car’s interior. Déjà vu swept over Richard.
They’d left the Cadillac on a gravel shoulder in Spearfish and walked off into the night and they’d nearly died twice over.
Burke said, “I’ll leave the keys, Stan. Maybe you should move up here to the front, just in case.”
“Thank you, dear. I’m quite comfortable. I’m sure you won’t be long.”
“I’m glad you’re sure,” she said. “I’m not sure of anything right now.”
“You’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Stick to the plan and you’ll be fine.”
“Stanley, I don’t—”
“You’ll be fine,” he said again. “We will all be fine. Just stick to the plan.”
She clasped and unclasped her fingers around the steering wheel. “Okay. Ready, Grandpa?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Richard opened his own door and heaved himself out. Not wanting to fall over and break his hip again, he held on long enough to make sure all the parts that were supposed to be working to keep him upright were going to do their job. Everything held. He nodded in satisfaction. “You keep outta trouble,” he said into the car. It didn’t sit well with him to be leaving Stan alone in this lonely place, but Stan had insisted on coming along and there was no way he’d be able to keep up with them.
“You do the same,” Stanley said. The dome light twinkled merrily in his eyes.
The night seemed to eat the little snick of the door closing, so that the metallic click barely registered above the pounding of his own blood.
Burke retrieved two guns and two flashlights from the trunk and gave one of each to Richard. “Lead the way. I’ll follow,” she said.
Richard strode off in search of the monster. That was the plan. He’d go first. She’d stay back. It couldn’t attack both of them at once.
His feet left the road, found their way, one in front of the other, across the uneven, sloping, rocky terrain. Trees loomed in the distance before him, velvet shadows on a black canvass. The heartbeat within his chest was not fluttering, but thudding fierce and strong.
He smiled.
Behind him, the earth protested Burke’s steps with soft crunching noises. Her presence was a comfort. She hadn’t left, hadn’t given up on him. A chance still remained to right what was wrong.
Once they entered the canopy of the woods, he realized that the night sky actually had been offering some small gift of light. Now he slowed, struggling to make out what lay even a few inches in front of him.
It was very quiet. Too quiet. “Burke?” he whispered. “Burke are you still there?”
No answer.
Now his heart fluttered. “Burke?” He turned in a slow circle, but there was nothing to see but inky night. With a trembling hand, he lifted the heavy flashlight. The beam pierced the darkness. He swept it to the left.
Nothing.
He turned to the right.
A shadow dashed away from the glow, disappearing behind a tree.
With his man parts clawing their way up into his belly, he inched toward the tree.
A powerful blow caught his lower back, sending him sprawling onto the hard earth. The flashlight smacked into the ground and went dark, just as a second jab smacked into his side hard enough to crack his ribs. Instinctively, he curled into a tight fetal position.
A gunshot rang out so loud it left a tinny din in his ears. The flash of powder blazed in the night and he heard something fall hard onto the ground next to him. Light shone down, directly into the furry, fanged face with its horrid humanoid features. Wounded, but not dead, it snarled at him, lurching ineffectually in his direction. A second shot slammed into its head and it lay still, staring at Richard with lifeless yellow eyes.
Burke squatted next to him. “Grandpa? Are you—”
The black, clubbed tail shot out of nowhere, slamming into Burke so hard it lifted her from the ground and tossed her a few feet away. Richard spun onto his back to look at the monster that disappeared behind a tree. He glanced at his granddaughter, struggling to lift herself onto hands and knees. From the corner of his eye, in the glow of her fallen flashlight, he glimpsed a dark shadow slinking toward her.
In one motion, he lurched for the gun he had dropped, rose to his knees, and fired. His finger developed a mind of its own, pulling the trigger again and again, emptying the chamber com
pletely. With each round that tore into the hidebehind’s body, it jerked again, and when there was nothing left but a hollow clicking sound, it fell beside its mate.
Burke pushed herself up and looked at him. Blood poured from a cut near her scalp, making the right side of her face shine in the faint light.
“Are you okay?” they both asked at the same moment.
“No,” they both answered.
Her lips curved into a smile. A tiny chuckle slipped out. It grew into a genuine laugh and swelled up to hysterical, gasping guffaws.
He gaped at her. “Are you mad?”
She pointed at the two dead creatures. With tears of mirth running down her face, she said, “You were so scared!”
“Me?” He planted one foot on the ground and ignored the searing pain in his side in order to stand. “You screamed like a girl!”
She laughed even harder. “I am a girl!” she whooped, falling back against the large oak behind her.
As though her hilarity were contagious, he felt it creep into him and, a moment later, he, too, was panting for breath. He remembered laughing like this with Stanley after killing the bowrow, and he wondered if adrenaline weren’t just about as good a drug as laughing gas.
Once they were able to pull themselves together enough to walk, they retraced their steps to the road, each leaning heavily against the other.
The white SUV was there, exactly as they had left it, easy to spot by the glow of the dome light.
The dome light that was on because the back door was open.
The back door was open, and Stanley was gone.
A lingering smell of roses hung in the air.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Finn
“Finn. Finn, baby. Wake up.”
Sara’s voice came to him from a thousand miles away. “Finn. Come on, baby. Back to the land of the living for now.”
His eyelids were lead weights. He’d once finished a triathlon. He’d had strength enough for that, but not strength enough to move even those tiniest of muscles now.
