Desolation
Desolation
Derek Landy
THE EPIC NEW THRILLER CONTINUES.Book two in the mind-blowing new supernatural thriller from bestselling author DEREK LANDY, creator of international sensation Skulduggery Pleasant.Reeling from their bloody encounter in New York City at the end of Demon Road, Amber and Milo flee north. On their trail are the Hounds of Hell – five demonic bikers who will stop at nothing to drag their quarries back to their unholy master.Amber and Milo’s only hope lies within Desolation Hill – a small town with a big secret; a town with a darkness to it, where evil seeps through the very floorboards. Until, on one night every year, it spills over onto the streets and all hell breaks loose.And that night is coming…
Copyright (#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
Visit us on the web at www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Derek Landy blogs under duress at www.dereklandy.blogspot.com (http://www.dereklandy.blogspot.com)
Copyright © Derek Landy 2016
Jacket photography © Larry Rostant 2016
Jacket design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016
Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Typeset in Joanna MT Std by
Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents
portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-
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permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008156985
Ebook Edition: © April 2016 9780008156947
Version 2016-07-04
Dedication (#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
This book is dedicated to all the horror icons who passed away while it was being written.
This is for Gunnar Hansen, and Angus Scrimm, and the mighty Wes Craven. Icons. Inspirations. Heroes.
And I’m left with nothing funny to say.
Sorry.
Table of Contents
Cover (#ub840b3bc-aa85-5ee0-bda7-04a5bb8da138)
Title Page (#ud1274232-ef52-543b-8130-95c36c1c4e56)
Copyright (#uf4e7d840-9f90-52e0-9cba-37b5361f5a9a)
Dedication (#u5b9a7052-7d6a-545d-b34c-861055131b47)
Chapter 1 (#ua4c33260-d77c-5d2f-a728-28907aaaad08)
Chapter 2 (#ub2b2a257-491d-5d99-9f58-43d95a2326c5)
Chapter 3 (#ub071c050-6084-54e7-847b-fc397eb5d675)
Chapter 4 (#u50996dd3-447c-5f7d-a782-f4dc24293fbe)
Chapter 5 (#udad1bc9d-fbf5-5d72-b35c-a7d34d0d42ee)
Chapter 6 (#u6f32fb2f-49ca-5636-9c5e-93ac45ad1e84)
Chapter 7 (#u8f52602b-d797-5a5b-9413-982101402d0c)
Chapter 8 (#ue3b85fdd-2530-553d-b645-b3b9fadf1cda)
Chapter 9 (#u71186787-f649-5038-947d-5d81e61fd4a4)
Chapter 10 (#u062d6f25-5538-52fa-bdb2-719e5c04a153)
Chapter 11 (#u8c075a04-74a4-5930-8bb2-77dec4dc8066)
Chapter 12 (#ua2fbb581-f740-5420-99cf-806ad127c491)
Chapter 13 (#ue4820eb7-39d3-59de-8899-c12c98e67c5f)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Derek Landy (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
THEY WERE ALIVE WHEN SHE WALKED IN.
Fourteen people, including the short-order cook and the waitress with the badly dyed hair in this little rest stop just outside of Whitehorse in Yukon. Everyone looked tired, this time of night. They ate pie or drank coffee or read newspapers or sat in their booths, focusing on their phones. Nobody glanced up when Amber entered. Nobody talked. Music played, drifting through from the small kitchen. Something by Bon Jovi. It was safe in here. None of these people wanted to kill her. She was getting good at spotting the telltale signs.
She went straight to the restroom. It was chilly, and not very clean, but she didn’t mind. She’d had to pee in worse places these past few days.
When she was done, she washed her hands. In the cracked mirror above the cracked sink, her hair was a mess and there were bags under her red-rimmed eyes. Her pale skin was blotchy. She looked like she needed a shower. She looked like a scared girl on the run.
Funny that.
Her belly rumbled and Amber turned off the faucet, wiped her hands on her jeans, and left the restroom.
They were all dead when she walked out.
She went instantly cold. All moisture left her mouth, her knees weakened, and every nerve ending jingled and jangled and screamed at her to run. But she couldn’t run. Her legs wouldn’t obey. She could barely stay standing.
Some of them had been attacked where they sat – others while they tried to escape. Bludgeoned to death, every one of them. A woman in a brown cardigan was slumped over her table, blood leaking from the mess in the back of her head. A trucker in a plaid shirt had half his face caved in. The waitress had been dragged across the counter. Blood dripped from the dented gash in her temple, forming a growing pool on the floor beneath her. Amber couldn’t see the cook, but knew he was lying on the floor of the kitchen. She could see his blood on the wall.
Fourteen people when she’d walked in. Fourteen corpses. But now there was a fifteenth person. He was sitting in the booth next to the door, his back to her, wearing a baseball cap and a grey, faded boiler suit. He was singing along to the radio. ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’ by Poison.
The booth moved closer to her. Closer still. No, it wasn’t the booth that was moving – it was Amber. She frowned, looked down at her feet as they took another step. Apparently, they were on their way out of the door, and they were taking the rest of her with them. She was okay with that. She didn’t want to stay here, anyway, not with all those corpses. She just had to pass this guy and then she could run out into the quiet street, shout for Milo, and he’d come roaring up in the Charger and they could get the hell out of there. Easy. No fuss, no muss.
The man in the boiler suit had a claw hammer on the table in front of him. It was bloodstained. There was a chunk of scalp hanging off it.
“How you doing?” he asked.
Amber froze.
He didn’t have a nice voice. It was curiously strained, like he’d spent most of his life shouting.
She kept her eyes on the door and took another step. And another.
“Amber, isn’t it?”
She stopped.
“Yeah,” the man said. “It’s you. I expected something else, to be honest. All the things you’ve done, I expected someone a little more …” he licked his lips, “… impressive.”
She looked at him. She had to. Her gaze moved slowly, and reluctantly, from the door to the booth. First she looked at the claw hammer, then at the remains of the pie he’d been eating. Then at his rough, worn hands, and the blood-splattered sleeves of his boiler suit. He was thin. Wiry. He had a narrow face and a pointed chin and a nasty smile. No hair. His cap had a faded logo Amber couldn’t make out. Her eyes finally settled on his and she had the strangest feeling of vertigo.
“You’re the one killed the Shining Demon’s representative, right?” the man asked. He had an accent. Southern. Georgia, maybe. “Made him go splat? I like your style. I’d been searching for the best way to kill that prick for years, but you got there first.”
“What do you want?” Amber asked.
“It ain’t what I want, little girl. It’s what you can give me.” He slid slowly out of the booth. He wasn’t tall, he had maybe two inches on Amber, but she took a step back nonetheless. “You’re my ticket,” he said.
“To what?”
He breathed in, and spread his arms. “All this.” His right arm dipped, and he picked up the claw hammer.
“Why did you kill these people?”
He gave her one of those nasty smiles. “No one told me I wasn’t supposed to. Besides, it’s been way too long since I got to kill new folks. Do you know what it’s like, little girl, do you have any idea what it’s like to be trapped in a middle-of-nowhere town where the biggest challenge is to find someone worthy to stalk? Jesus H. Christ, what is it with the young people of today? I’m old-fashioned and I make no apology for it. I like to stalk and kill teenagers. I like a challenge, you know what I mean? Teenagers are fit and strong and they’re surrounded by family and friends … but do you know what makes them so perfect to stalk? They run to parents, they run to cops, they tell them a bad man is trying to kill them, but no one takes them seriously. The look on their faces when they realise they’re alone – that they are truly alone – after a lifetime of being told they’ll be supported no matter what … Well. It’s just heaven, is what it is. But these days, trying to find one who can put up a decent fight is an impossible task. Worthy teenagers are a dying breed, and that is a sad state of affairs.”
That smile of his broadened. “So what about you, Amber? You gonna put up a fight? You’ve got that look about you. It’s in the eyes. Man, isn’t this just typical? I find a teenager who may actually be able to mount a challenge and I’m not allowed to kill her.”
Amber frowned. “You’re not allowed?”
“Nope. No killing the girl, those are my orders. I’m just here to bring you back.”
“You’re working for Astaroth.”
“On a first-name basis with the Shining Demon, are you? Must be nice. But yes, I am guilty as charged, as I said at my trial. Now you’ve managed to stay ahead of the Hounds, which is a feat that few have accomplished for this long, but now the professional is here to take care of business and to stop all this silliness.”
“I have money,” said Amber. “I can pay you to walk away.”
The man laughed. “Money? I don’t have any use for it. Besides, you can’t match what he’s offering.”
“Try me.”
“Freedom, little girl. See, I made a mistake when I made my deal with the Devil. A lot of us do. We get fixated on the people who caught us. All I wanted was to get my revenge on that Podunk little town – but when I was done? I couldn’t leave. I didn’t exist beyond its borders. The Shining Demon will, ah, broaden my remit. I’ll be able to travel. Kill people in new places. And this is just a taster of that. Look at me – Elias Mauk – killing in Canada. I’m gonna take my show on the road.”
“I … I read about you.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You’re dead.”
“That too.”
“You were executed.”
“Fried,” he said, whipping off his cap. A thick band of still-sizzling flesh wrapped around his head where the electricity had been focused. Amber could smell the burning skin from where she stood.
Mauk put his cap back on, and grinned. “They said I murdered twenty-two people. It was more like forty, but that was back when I was alive. Ever since the chair, my body count has grown. And after this? It’s gonna skyrocket.”
He took a step forward and she took a step back, holding up her hands.
“I don’t want to fight you,” she said.
“Oh, Amber, don’t you dare disappoint me now. Killing a room full of people is distressingly easy for someone like me. You gotta put up some resistance, at least.”
“You’re not the first serial killer I’ve faced,” Amber said. “You’re not even the first returned-from-the-grave serial killer I’ve faced. I killed Dacre Shanks.”
“Shanks ain’t got nothing on me.”
“Not anymore he doesn’t,” she said. “He came after me and I killed him. Now he’s dead and it’s the kind of dead that you don’t come back from. I’ll kill you, too.”
“I am liking this confidence,” said Mauk. “You’re definitely making the butterflies flutter, I’m not gonna lie to you. But Shanks was nothing. Take his precious little key away from him, and what did he have to offer? Tell me if this is true – when you found him, was he stuck inside one of his own dollhouses? I’ve heard he was stuck inside one of his own dollhouses. That’s funny. How’d you kill him? You step on him? Hell, you’re heavy enough.”
“Oh, I wasn’t like this when I killed him,” said Amber.
“No?”
“No,” she said, and she shifted.
Her bones lengthened and realigned and she grew taller. Her excess weight spread throughout her body and she became slimmer. Her brown hair turned black and her flushed skin turned red and two ebony horns blossomed from her forehead and curled back.
“There you are,” breathed Mauk. “Oh, you are magnificent.”
Amber didn’t bother agreeing as she grabbed him. She knew she was magnificent. He swung the hammer, but she ripped it out of his hand and tossed it aside. She picked him up, her newly formed muscles not even straining with the effort, and hurled him across a table. She caught a glimpse of her reflection as she stalked after him, and her sudden beauty was almost enough to make her pause. She still wasn’t used to it. A slight reconfiguration of her features was all it took to turn her from ugly human to mesmerising demon.
Ugly. There was a word she’d never used about herself before. Plenty of others had, in their crueller moments, but never her. She didn’t stop to wonder what it meant, as she watched Mauk take a steak knife from a dead patron, and it didn’t bother her. Precious little did when she was a demon.
Incredibly, Mauk was smiling as he came forward. Her skin tightened and black scales formed, and the knife skimmed across her armour without drawing blood. He tried stabbing at her again, but she was much too fast. She gripped his wrist and twisted. The knife fell and she hit him twice and he wobbled, and she took hold of the back of his head and sent him sprawling across the floor.
“Told you you should have walked away,” she said, and her fingers grew to claws.
Mauk groaned, turned over, and looked at her. He was still smiling. She didn’t like that. She was used to people dismissing her when she was herself, when she was ordinary old human Amber, but not when she was like this. When she was like this, she demanded respect.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Mauk, “you think you’re winning this little exchange? There’s a lot more to beating me than hitting me a coupla times.” He got to his feet. “See, when I kill, I like to … play. And my playmates, well … they just do whatever I tell ’em. Ain’t that right, my friends?”
The corpses stirred, and all the dead people in the rest stop slid out of their booths and stood, and Amber heard some distant part of herself scream.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
ALL HEADS TURNED and dead eyes opened. Amber backed off as the patrons came at her, their faces blank and splattered with their own blood.
“Stay back,” Amber warned, shoving the waitress. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare—”
They grabbed her and she cursed, struggled. She didn’t want to hit them, didn’t want to hurt them, but they were dead, they were already dead, and it was too late for them so she started slashing with her claws, punching, headbutting, and they kept coming, and now her arms were pinned and one of them had her by the throat and they pushed her back, this solid mass of corpses working as one, and they forced her into a booth and started crawling on top of her until she could barely breathe.
“Get them off me!” she screamed. “Get them off!”
Through the tangle of limbs, she watched as Mauk put the claw hammer on the table. Then he stepped back, taking a small pouch from inside his boiler suit. He dipped his fingers in, drew out a handful of black powder, and crouched. Amber lost sight of him, but she knew what he was doing. He was making a circle.
“We’re gonna be taking a trip,” he said.
“I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”
He stuck his head up into her line of sight. “Hey, you be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you. The Shining Demon only told me to bring you to him alive. Now there’s alive, and there’s barely alive – I don’t much care which one it ends up being.” Then he ducked down again.
She listened to the soft hiss of the powder. There were six or seven people lying on top of her, but they were still. They didn’t even breathe. Her eyes settled on the claw hammer. She tried to reach for it.
Mauk stood, put the pouch back into his boiler suit, and slid into the seat opposite. He pulled the hammer a little closer to him.
“Your parents were after you, ain’t that right?” he asked. “Yeah, I heard all about your folks and their friends. They actually wanted to eat you? That’s messed up – and I should know. But you evaded them – you, a sixteen-year-old kid, evaded a bunch of demons a hundred and something years old. Not only that, you killed the representative, smushed that overrated pile of crap Shanks, and you’ve managed to stay ahead of the Hounds of Hell.”
He whistled in admiration. “I mean, they’d have caught you eventually. It’s what they do. Astaroth sets the Hounds on you, they don’t give up till you’re caught, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it. You don’t fight the Hounds. You can’t beat ’em. Never heard of anyone managing that. You can’t hide from ’em, neither. They got your scent. But look at you. You’re still running. That says something about you, little demon. Says you are not to be underestimated. Under different circumstances, I would have been honoured to have stalked and killed you.”
He put a pair of handcuffs on the table. “But, seeing as how I’m gonna be delivering you to the Shining Demon, I gotta take precautions.”
The corpses moved on top of Amber, and they stretched out her right arm, pinning it to the tabletop.
“You’ll be wearing these,” said Mauk. “I don’t like to do it. I was in chains when they caught me and I didn’t much like it, and putting shackles on such a beautiful beast as yourself seems to me a crime of some magnitude. But I ain’t gonna underestimate you.” He opened the cuffs, then laid them to one side. “And with that in mind I gotta think about those claws of yours. No telling what manner of mischief you could get up to with those things. So we’re gonna have to do something about them, too.”
He picked up the hammer as the corpses flattened her hand fully against the table.
Amber started to panic. “What are you doing? What are you going to do? Tell them to let go of me. Tell them!”
Mauk’s free hand pinned her thumb. She turned it into a claw, tried to slash at him, but he laughed, and raised the hammer.
“Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t. I swear I—”
“This little piggy,” said Mauk, and brought the hammer down.
Pain rocketed through her and Amber screamed, tried to kick and flail, but the weight of all those bodies on top of her made that impossible. Tears came to her eyes, rolled down her cheeks. The pain was so immense that she almost didn’t feel him singling out her next finger.
“No!” she cried. “Please!”
He didn’t bother saying anything this time. With a happy smile on his face, he smashed the bones in that finger, too.
“You bastard!” Amber howled. She was sobbing. She was actually sobbing. “You bastard, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll rip your—”
The third finger was smashed and Amber lost her words to the screams that were being ripped from her throat. The fourth followed. Then the fifth. Finally, the corpses released their hold on her. She tried to retract her arm, tried to clutch it close to her, but to do so it’d have had to pass through the tangle of corpses. She held it in mid-air while she cried and struggled to breathe.
Then the corpses moved again. They had her left hand in their grip.
“No!” she screamed, trying to keep it underneath her, jammed between her chest and the cheap upholstery. But now they were turning her, turning her on to her back, and as her left arm was being pulled out of the tangle her right arm was being pulled in, and her broken fingers jolted and sent fresh waves of pain straight into her thoughts, blinding them, freezing them, slicing through them and leaving them in tatters. When the wave crested and her thoughts became her own once more, her face was pressed tight into someone’s torso, and she could feel the surface of the table beneath her left palm and Mauk’s grip on her thumb, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
The hammer found its target and she gasped.
It found its next target. And the next one. And now she was screaming once more, but it didn’t change anything, because she only had two fingers that weren’t broken and Mauk quickly reduced that to one. Amber fought the urge to puke. If she puked, she’d choke on her own vomit.
“And this little piggy went wee, wee, wee, all the way home,” said Mauk, and smashed her little finger.
While she screamed, the corpses climbed off her. One by one, the weight lessened, and she could turn her head now, and breathe in lungfuls of air to help her cry. Someone – Mauk, probably – had her hands in his. His skin was rough. Calloused. She barely felt the handcuffs slide around her wrists. The last corpse climbed off her and she sat up.
“There,” Mauk said. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
She ran her forearm over her eyes – that movement alone was enough to bring fresh tears – then blinked at him as he sat there, smiling.
“I didn’t wanna have to do that,” he said. “But I’m a cautious fellow. I see that you have sharp teeth, too. Let’s do each other a favour, okay? You try not to bite me, and I won’t smash each and every one of those pearly whites. I’d hate to have to ruin your beautiful smile. It is beautiful, ain’t it? I bet it is. Smile for me. Go on. Just a little smile.”
Her demon side wanted to snarl and snap and sneer, but her human side, the ugly, ordinary, weak side, just wanted to be spared any more pain.
She raised the corners of her mouth in a twitching, pathetic smile.
“I knew it,” said Mauk. “I’ve often wondered how much better-looking I’d be if Astaroth had made me a demon, instead of bestowing upon me the gifts I’d asked for. I’d be taller for a start, huh?” He chuckled, then slid out of the booth. “Come on now, girlie. The Shining Demon don’t like to wait.”
It took a few moments, but Amber got out of the booth, stood on shaky legs. The circle of black powder Mauk had made was just big enough for the two of them to stand in.
“Careful not to scuff the edges,” said Mauk.
She wanted to turn, run, but the corpses were watching her. She couldn’t fight, not with the handcuffs on and not when the slightest touch would bring her to her knees.
Mauk held out his hand. “Come on, Amber. Time to give this Devil his due.”
Amber took her first step, and headlights swooped against the window as a black 1970 Dodge Charger pulled up right beside the front door.
“Dammit,” said Mauk, ducking slightly.
The waitress clamped her hand over Amber’s mouth, muffling her cry of pain as she was dragged backwards. The other corpses went back to their seats while Mauk stood at the counter with his cap pulled low, pretending to read the menu.
The diner door opened, and Milo walked in.
Tall, clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots and a dark shirt with some grey in his hair and some grey in his stubble, he was usually good-looking enough to make people sit up and take notice. But not tonight. The corpses sat, slumped, heads down.
Mauk walked up behind him. “Excuse me, sir?”
Milo turned as Mauk started to swing the hammer. It was halfway to its target when Mauk’s whole body froze and his eyes widened.
They stood there, both men, looking at each other.
Milo always kept his gun holstered on his belt, under his shirt. He drew and fired in the time it took Mauk to blink. At point-blank range, Mauk went straight down.
But then the corpses started to stand up again. Amber tried shouting, tried to tell Milo they were already dead, but the waitress’s corpse tightened its grip. Milo backed away from the lumbering dead, keeping his finger off the trigger.
Amber opened her mouth wide and bit down on the waitress’s dead hand. Her fangs cut through bone as easily as flesh, and she spat out fingers as the corpses dived on Milo. They wrestled the gun from his hand and held him while Elias Mauk got back to his feet. He hadn’t lost that expression of surprise.
“You?” he said. “You’re her travelling companion?”
Milo stopped struggling, and watched as the incredulity spread across Mauk’s face.
“I heard you’d died,” the killer said. “I heard you’d finally lain down and accepted your miserable fate. What the hell are you doing here? What the hell are you doing with her? Answer me, goddammit!”
Mauk whacked the hammer into Milo’s head.
“Milo!” Amber shouted, doing her best to tear free. The waitress pushed her up against the counter, jamming her chest into the corner while her broken fingers jarred against the underside, and Amber whimpered and went still.
“What’s that?” Mauk said, frowning. “Milo? That’s what you’re calling yourself these days?” He shrugged. “As good a name as any, I guess.”
The corpses held Milo upright. Blood ran from his hairline, following the contour of his cheekbone to his clenched jaw. His eyes were bright, unclouded by concussion, and they were focused entirely on Elias Mauk, who now had one foot in the circle of powder he’d made.
Amber’s eyes flickered to the pack of cigarettes on the countertop, and the silver Zippo lighter beside it. She pushed back against the waitress, just enough to bring her hands up. The corpse responded by shoving back even harder, but Amber had already picked up the Zippo between her palms and brought it to her mouth. Her lips closed round the lid and pulled it open.
“You got old,” Mauk said to Milo. “Got some grey in that hair. See, you should’ve done what I done – you should’ve died first. That way, you don’t age – you get to stay young and beautiful forever. Like me.” He laughed.
Amber tilted the Zippo, pressed the wheel against the countertop, remembered all the stories she’d ever heard about how these lighters were supposed to start first time, every time, and then she shot her arms out straight. The grooved wheel dragged and sparked and the lighter lit.
She set it carefully down on the counter.
“I’m not gonna say it’s good to see you,” said Mauk. “Obviously, it ain’t. But it is good that you’re here. The instructions were: delivering the demon girl’s travelling companion is optional. As in I don’t have to include you in the package if I don’t feel like it. So I can kill you right here and right now. I can bash your brains in. How’s that make you feel, you taciturn son of a bitch? That gonna get a reaction outta you? Or how about this? I can take my time, break every bone in your body before putting you outta your misery, or you could beg for mercy and get it over with, lickety-split. So what’s it gonna be? You gonna let me kill you slowly, or you gonna beg your old friend Elias for a quick death?”
“Well,” Milo said at last, “this is awkward.”
“What is?”
“I actually have no idea who you are.”
Mauk laughed. “Bullshit.”
“I’m serious,” said Milo. “Should I remember you? I feel like I should, but …”
“Okay, I’m confused,” Mauk responded. “Are you lying to delay the inevitable, or are you just determined to be an asshole about this?”
Milo shrugged, which only pissed Mauk off even more.
With the hammer raised and ready for a swing, Mauk said, “You wanna try remembering me, or should I just get to cracking open your skull? All the same to me, buddy boy. All of a sudden, my curiosity over how you found yourself on that side of the line has faded to the square root of nothing.”
“Have you always talked so much?” Milo asked. “I think I’d have remembered someone who talks so much.”
Mauk’s lip curled. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”
Amber gritted her teeth, then twisted and rammed a shoulder into the dead waitress. The jolt to her hands made her cry out, but she used that pain to stomp on the corpse’s knee. The waitress toppled away from Amber.
“Somebody grab her!” yelled Mauk, but Amber was already closing her hands around the lighter, feeling the flames lick her palms, and as the corpses reached for her she dropped, sending the Zippo spinning across the floor.
It met the circle and the powder went up in blue flames, and before Mauk had even looked down the circle was complete.
“Oh goddamn—” was all he had time to say before he vanished.
Free of his influence, the dead bodies crumpled to the floor. Milo stood, scuffing the circle with his boot, and the flames went out.
He hurried over to Amber and helped her stand. He stared at her bloody, twisted fingers.
“Jesus,” he whispered.
She sagged against him and he held her weight. “I don’t feel well,” she mumbled.
“I’ll get you to a doctor,” he said. “But first you’re going to have to change back.”
“No. No, it’ll hurt too much.”
“We don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll heal. I’ll heal by myself.”
“Your fingers need to be reset. If we leave them, they’ll heal wrong. We need a doctor to do it right. I’m sorry. You have to do this.”
She tried arguing, but no words would come. Milo was right. She knew he was.
She reverted. The transformation itself, the shortening of all the bones in her body, both broken and intact, made her cry out.
But now the true pain came at her. No longer blocked by her demon form, it rushed at her all at once and burst behind her eyes. Her vision swam and the world tilted, but instead of falling to the ground she was lifted off her feet. The last thing she was aware of was Milo carrying her to the door, and then she blacked out.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
WHEN THE NIGHT FINALLY slouched its way across the horizon, Virgil was there to greet it grudgingly, his old bones shivering in the chill. There was a time, long ago, when he would have looked forward to the night, back when he could spend it sleeping soundly. There was a time, even longer ago, when he could have spent his nights doing other stuff, too – drinking and carousing and getting into trouble.
These days, the only trouble he got into was when his thoughts got mixed up in his head, and the only sleep that came to him was light, irritated and sparse.
How many times had he made the trip to the bathroom the previous night? Five? Six? Pretty soon he’d need to keep a bedpan close by, just to make sure he didn’t embarrass himself. Either that or just bite the damn bullet and check into one of those retirement homes, places with Lodge or Manor or Tranquil in their names. God’s Waiting Room would be more apt.
Even though they were headed into summer, he turned up the heat on the thermostat. There was cold, he’d found out, and then there was Alaska cold. He didn’t like being cold. Never had. He was a California kid, born and raised in the sun. And here he was, living out his winter years in goddamn Alaska. Was it smart? No, but then neither were the decisions that had brought him here.
His house was a shrine to the life he’d once led. His awards, all five of them, took up two shelves in the display cabinet. The movies he’d been in – cheap things, mostly, aside from Inferno at 30,000 Feet – were documented in the framed posters on the walls, but it was his TV work for which he’d won the greatest acclaim. A cult hit before anyone knew what a cult hit was, When Strikes the Shroud had brought werewolves and vampires and terrible gypsy curses into the living rooms of America for three wonderful seasons in the early 1970’s and, in the centre of it all, had been Virgil Abernathy, playing the eponymous Shroud, the masked, besuited, two-fisted seeker of truth in a world mired in nightmare.
Three glorious years. Talk of a movie. And then tastes changed and attention spans wandered and the Shroud was at last felled – not by killer or crazy or creature, but by ratings. Or rather the lack of them.
Not that he was bitter. Not that he allowed thoughts of what might have been to intrude upon his daily life. Not that he allowed himself to dream of yesterday instead of facing up to his mistakes of today, which were legion. No, none of that for Virgil Abernathy, once a hero to boys of every age and a seducer of women. No, to Virgil Abernathy there was only today. There was only the cold emptiness of today in a town that had never particularly wanted him, in a life that was growing ever more tired of him.
“Maudlin nonsense,” he muttered to his cold, quiet house.
And what had they replaced him with, he wondered (and not for the first time)? A quick perusal of the TV channels answered that little question. Reality television and twenty-four-hour news. Game shows and competitions where all your dreams came true if the people at home liked you enough to vote. Rich people doing ugly things. Poor people doing stupid things. And the shows? The scripted shows? Populated by actors with sharp cheekbones who did nothing but smoulder or grimace in equal measure. Where was the art? Where was the substance? He flicked over to a commercial for a pill whose never-ending list of possible side effects included death, then turned off the TV.
His doctor had told him, for the sake of his heart, not to cause himself any unnecessary agitation. But then his doctor was an idiot.
Virgil turned off the lights. Time for bed. Another day over with. Another one under his belt. He was building up quite a collection. Had more days than he could count. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do with them, once he’d collected them all. Maybe he’d set them free. Maybe he’d go to Edison’s Shard, the rocky outcrop overlooking the disused quarry in the hills behind his house, and throw the days to the wind, watch them flutter and fly and disappear. Or maybe he’d just stuff them in a jar and bury them in the backyard. Either one would suffice. No one would be using them again.
He was headed for his bedroom, but stopped, as he always did, by the window in the living room, and peered through the curtains. He glowered at the house beside his, with its porch lights that blazed with the force of a thousand suns every time a damn grizzly wandered into the backyard. How many times had he complained to that damn fool Snyder? In his younger days, there was no one who would dare say no to him, not when Virgil’s ice-blue eyes started to narrow. But that was then, and things had changed. Robert Snyder was a man in his forties, singularly unimpressive and a convicted felon to boot, and yet he felt confident enough to smirk away Virgil’s complaints. A boor of a man.
Virgil could see him right now, watching TV. Kimmel or Fallon or one of those. They were all the same to Virgil. Monologuers, the lot of them. Snyder sat in his undershirt with a beer in his hand. He looked warm. Virgil despised him.
He was just about to let the curtain fall back when movement caught his eye. There was someone else in the house.
Snyder had been married, but they’d split three years ago and she’d moved across town, back in with her mother. What was her name? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that, since Snyder’s wife had left him, Virgil had never seen anyone else in that house. No women, no friends, no one. No one but Snyder. And now this … this shape.
He was tall, whoever it was. Thin, too. He moved past the windows quickly but without urgency, from dark room to bright room to dark room. Virgil lost track of him and frowned slightly, wondering why he was still watching. Who cared if Robert Snyder had made a new friend? Virgil certainly didn’t.
Snyder drained the last of his beer and stood, scratched his expansive belly, and walked into the kitchen. He stood at the sink, looking at his reflection in the window, unable to see Virgil in his darkened house directly across from him. He washed out the empty beer bottle. Recycling. Well, he wasn’t all bad.
The visitor, whoever he was, came into the kitchen. He was pale, his skin a funny colour, and his mouth was wide. Very, very wide. He walked up behind Snyder and grabbed him.
And then snapped Snyder’s neck.
Virgil’s heart lurched in his chest and he ducked down. He didn’t know why he ducked down, he just did. Ducking down seemed like the thing to do. But now that he had, he was finding it hard to straighten up again. He half waddled to the bookcase, moving away from the window. His legs were burning, the treacherous things. When he was in the clear, he straightened up slowly, groaning as his hip popped and his back creaked.
Moving a little easier now, he sneaked to the window once more and peeked out. He couldn’t see Snyder or the figure. Either the killer had dragged him away or else he’d just let him drop out of sight.
Virgil thought about how crappy a neighbour Snyder had been. He had been rude and disrespectful and had threatened Virgil with physical harm on more than one occasion – and, while Virgil had held serious doubts about Snyder’s ability to follow through on those threats, there was no getting away from the fact that Snyder had been a young man in his forties and Virgil was an old man in his eighties with a bad heart. That was not, by anyone’s standards, a fair fight.
But Snyder was not a young man in his forties anymore. He was a body now. A corpse. He was remains. Whatever hopes and dreams he’d ever harboured were gone, evaporated into the ether the moment that figure had laid his hands on him. Virgil felt some sympathy for the guy, but it was the shallow type of sympathy that was easily forgotten and quickly put away.
Movement caught his attention. The figure was walking towards the back door.
Virgil hurried to his own kitchen, banging his leg off a chair in the dark. Cursing all the way to the window over the sink, he peered into Snyder’s overgrown backyard as the figure slipped out into the night. He seemed smaller now, under the moonlight. He had dark hair. That was odd. In the kitchen, Virgil could have sworn he’d been bald. He wasn’t nearly so pale, either, and he wore slacks and a vest over a short-sleeved shirt. The killer glanced his way and two thoughts spiked in Virgil’s head.
The first was, He’s seen me, he’s seen me, he knows I’m here, a thought that faded when the killer’s gaze moved on without stopping, taking in a full sweep of his surroundings.
The second thought was, I know that guy. I know that guy, but it’s impossible. It can’t be him. The guy I’m thinking of is eighty years old and living in Arkansas.
He watched the killer jump the back fence and disappear, then stayed where he was for twenty minutes before he allowed himself to relax. Slowly, his heart stopped beating a tango. The thought occurred to him that it might be a good idea to call the cops. He took his phone from his pocket. The screen lit up, way too bright in this dark house, and he did his best to remember how to work it.
Headlights swept past the window. Virgil moved quickly back to peer out, just in time to see a police cruiser stop in Snyder’s driveway. Relief washed over him. The lights weren’t flashing, but he didn’t mind that, not when he saw Chief Novak step out. Novak was a good cop – strict as hell, but smart and fair. He was with another officer, a big guy – Virgil thought his name might have been Woodbury – and as they walked up to Snyder’s front door he debated whether or not to tell them what he’d seen.
The front door must have been unlocked because the two cops walked right in. Virgil saw them cross the living room, heading into the kitchen, until they were standing where he had last seen Snyder. They looked down and talked to each other. They didn’t seem surprised. They didn’t even seem perturbed. They both bent down and when they straightened up they were carrying Snyder’s body between them.
“Oh, goddamn you,” Virgil whispered, watching them take the corpse out of the house and dump it in the trunk of the cruiser. Woodbury went back to shut the front door, then rejoined Novak and they drove off.
Virgil stood there in his dark house.
“Well, hellfire,” he said.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
IT WAS A BRAND-NEW dream, this time.
Amber was back home, in Orlando, and it was hot and muggy and the a/c wasn’t working, but the heat wasn’t affecting her like it usually did. Her brow was cool as she sat at the table and told her parents about her day at school. She hadn’t been bullied and she hadn’t been called in to Principal Cobb’s office, so today had been a good day.
Her parents listened, nodded, smiled with affection, and offered advice and encouragement. Betty set the table while Bill fussed with the oven. He opened the oven door and the heat spilled out and circulated with the already warm air. Dream-Amber started to sweat.
The dream did that fast-forward thing that dreams do, and now they were eating, and talking, and chatting. Bill and Betty remained cool. Amber’s sweat poured down her face and splashed on to her plate, but she was starving, so she finished her food and asked for a second helping. Her parents laughed and Bill took her plate and stood, carving knife in hand. He cut a large slice from the roast, and Amber noticed for the first time that the roast was Imelda, laid out on a large silver tray on the table, garnished and basted and smelling divine.
Bill handed Amber back her plate and she dove in, chewing on the tender meat while blood mixed with the sweat on her chin. It was glorious. Imelda’s skin crackled in her mouth.
Then she realised it was a dream and she woke up.
The first thing she registered was the cold. The second was the happy purr of the Charger as it gently rocked her in her seat. And the third, as she opened her eyes, was the pain in her hands. She lifted them off her lap, wincing but not screaming, which was an improvement. She could only see the tips of her fingers above the thick bandages – they were purple, swollen and sore.
“How you feeling?” Milo asked, keeping his eyes on the dark road ahead.
“Like all my fingers have been smashed,” she replied.
“Not all of them,” he said. “The doctor said your left thumb is badly bruised, but not actually broken.”
“And there I was feeling sorry for myself,” she mumbled. She looked down at herself. “Did I puke? I don’t remember puking.”
“You did,” said Milo.
“Damn.” She noticed he was wearing a different shirt. “Did I puke on you?”
“You did.”
“Sorry.”
“She gave me pills for you. You can take another in a little over an hour.”
Which left just enough time for the pain to build nicely. Amber straightened up, careful to keep her hands steady. “That guy … he said Astaroth knows where we’re headed.”
Milo nodded. “Figured as much.”
“Did you recognise him?”
Milo shook his head. “You catch his name?”
Amber hesitated. “Elias Mauk,” she said.
“I’ve heard of him,” said Milo, “and I got the impression we’d been friends once.”
“Friends? He wanted to kill you.”
“We must have had a falling-out. Hell, for all I know, maybe we were partners. Serial killers in cahoots.”
“His face didn’t spark any memories?” she asked. “His voice?”
“Nothing,” said Milo. “My life is still as blank as it’s been for the last twelve years.”
“He, uh, he seemed to know that Milo isn’t your real name.”
“Yeah.” They got to a dark and empty crossroads, and the Charger creaked pleasantly as they turned right. “I wonder what it is.”
The phone in her jacket rang. Amber held up her bandaged hands.
“Oh yeah,” Milo said. She twisted slightly and he reached into her pocket, took the phone out, and thumbed the answer button. He set it to loudspeaker.
“Uh, hello?” said the voice on the other end. “That Amber?”
“I’m here,” she said.
“Oh, Amber, hi. This is Jeremy?”
“Hi, Jeremy.”
“The guy you gave that hundred bucks to?”
“I know who you are, Jeremy.”
“Right,” Jeremy said, “yeah, sorry. Anyway, you wanted to know if a group of bikers turned up?”
Her mood turned cold and plummeted. “Yes, we did.”
“Well, they just passed through town,” Jeremy said. “Not more than two minutes ago. Five of them. Long hair, leather jackets, beards, the works. Rode straight through without stopping. Didn’t look left or right, just kept looking ahead.”
“Thanks, Jeremy,” said Amber. “Don’t spend that money all at once.”
Milo hung up and slipped the phone back in her pocket. She looked at him.
“How far back is Jeremy?”
“Twenty hours,” said Milo. “Maybe twenty-two.” He glanced at her. “We knew we couldn’t shake them.”
“I know,” she said. “But still … It’d be nice if something went our way for once, that’s all.”
“Astaroth can send whoever he likes,” said Milo. “The fact is, the Hounds are at least twenty hours behind us and we are ten hours away from Desolation Hill. No one’s going to stop us.”
“You need to sleep.”
“I will. We’re on a straight blast into Alaska. Once we sneak across the border, I’ll take a few hours’ rest. When we get where we’re going, I’ll sleep a full night.”
“That’s providing everything we’ve heard about Desolation Hill is true.”
“You think Buxton was lying?”
“No,” said Amber. “But just because Gregory hid there for a few weeks doesn’t mean we can.”
“We don’t have a wide variety of options available to us,” said Milo. “He thinks we’ll be undetectable to the Shining Demon and the Hounds once we’re inside the town limits, and I trust him to know what he’s talking about. That’ll at least give us time to get our breath back and formulate some kind of plan.”
“Because our plans always work out so well for us.”
He didn’t respond to that. She didn’t expect him to.
They drove on in comfortable and familiar silence. The knob for the radio remained, as ever, untouched. Even if she’d wanted to turn it, her bandaged hands would have made that impossible. Besides, she’d grown out of her fear of quiet moments. She didn’t need music to fill the silences anymore.
She took a few more pills and the rising pain faded to a manageable throb as she looked out at the endless parade of trees. She wondered what kind they were. It was hard to tell in the dark, but she thought they were spruce, although she was no expert.
“What kind of trees are those?” she asked Milo.
“Green,” he said, and that’s how the conversation ended.
They passed sleeping houses and sleeping cars and an impressive array of parked pickups with slide-in campers that reared up and over like one dog humping another. It got ridiculously cold in the car and Amber wrapped herself awkwardly in a blanket. The stars tonight were astonishing.
“See the stars?” she asked Milo.
“Bright,” he grunted.
She nodded. Yup. They were indeed bright.
She slept, then, and didn’t dream, and when she opened her eyes the Charger was slowing and there were lights flashing lazily ahead of them.
She sat up straight, the blanket covering her hands. “Cops?”
“State trooper,” said Milo. His face was pale, his features tight. They were already in Alaska, which meant he’d been driving too long. The Charger had started whispering to him.
Amber saw the trooper, in his jacket and a wide-brimmed hat, holding up one hand. The Charger stopped beside him and Milo wound down the window.
“Hey there, folks,” the trooper said, leaning in and smiling. “This is a heck of a nice vehicle you’ve got here. Don’t see many of these old muscle cars round these parts, let me tell you. What is she, a ’69?”
“’70,” said Milo.
“1970,” said the trooper, and whistled appreciatively. “Gee whiz, you’ve kept her in a good condition.”
“Thanks,” Milo said.
“Sure thing!” He bent lower, and smiled in at Amber. “Hey there, little lady.”
He had light stubble on his chin and his shirt didn’t fit right. The top button wouldn’t close round his thick neck. There was blood on his tie.
That was all Milo needed. He’d been behind the wheel for nine or ten hours without much of a break and certainly no sleep, and this was all it took to make him snap. He shifted, growing horns, his skin and hair now the deepest, most impossible black, and, when he snarled, the same red that spilled from his eyes spilled from his mouth. He grabbed the trooper’s tie and yanked hard as he hit the gas. The Charger lurched forward, picking up speed, dragging the hollering trooper along with it. They passed the patrol car and Amber glimpsed a bare leg sticking out of the grass behind it.
The man in the trooper uniform gurgled and cursed and clung to the side of the Charger as they hurtled uphill. His right hand disappeared for a moment, then came back, holding a pistol that he quickly dropped when they went over a bump.
They got to the top of the hill and evened out, and Milo released his hold and the road snatched the man from the window. Milo braked, testing Amber’s seat belt and jarring her hands.
He put the car in neutral and got out.
Amber stayed where she was, the Charger’s low rumble helping to calm her beating heart. The sky was beginning to brighten. Cold, startlingly fresh air filled the Charger.
There was a sharp wail of pain that was abruptly cut off.
She angled the rear-view to watch Milo drag the body into the bushes. Once that was done, she knew, he’d go back down the hill, stuff the real trooper’s corpse in the trunk of the patrol car and park it somewhere out of sight.
Then she’d insist that he get some sleep. They were in Alaska now, with maybe five hours of driving ahead of them, and the Hounds were still twenty or so hours behind. For the first time since all this began, Amber allowed herself to wonder if this was maybe the first step towards everything being suddenly okay.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
IT TOOK LONGER THAN expected to find Desolation Hill.
They finally got to it a little before midday. This troubled Milo. Amber could see it in his face, and she didn’t have to ask why. They should have turned on to its streets without even thinking about it, such was the power of the Demon Road, or the Dark Highway, or the blackroads, or whatever name you used to describe the phenomenon of horror seeking horror. Such things were intertwined. Fate guided travellers on the blackroads, steering them to people and places that had been similarly touched by darkness. Sheer coincidence alone should have led Milo and Amber right on to the town’s main street.
Instead, they took several wrong turns and passed the turn-off without even noticing it. Once they’d found their way on to it, the road took them on a winding line between snow-topped hills until they came to a sturdy old sign that said
Just before the sign, a narrow track led off to their right, and directly beyond it the main road continued straight for a while before veering off and getting lost behind overgrown bushes and tall trees.
Milo pulled the Charger over to the side of the road.
“Why are we stopping?” Amber asked. “We’re here. We actually made it. What’s the problem?”
“We don’t know what’s waiting for us,” said Milo.
“Sure we do,” she said. “I’ve read you the town history. It’s short and boring. It’s a small town with a creepy name where nothing exciting ever happens.”
“That the internet knows about.”
“The internet knows all,” she said. “It’s the one place we’ll be safe from the Shining Demon.”
“But why?”
“Is that important?” she asked. “I mean, obviously it’s important, yeah, but is it important now? Is it important right now, at the side of the road? All we need to know is that we’ll be safe in there.”
“Buxton only lasted a week.”
“He said it was a weird place. That’s fine with me. I can handle weird. Milo, we can sort this out later. We can ask questions and get answers. But I’m tired. You’re tired. We need a good night of sleep. We need to stop running.”
He sighed, and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Damn right I’m right.”
“Okay then, we go in, we don’t attract any attention. We speak only when spoken to. We fade into the background, understood?”
“I’ll try.”
“Try?”
“It’s a small town in the middle of nowhere. Newcomers are going to be noticed. That’s kind of inevitable.”
“Yeah, maybe, but we do our best to keep a low profile.”
“Agreed.”
Milo paused for a moment longer, then put the Charger in gear. “Okay then.”
They pulled out on to the road and passed the town sign and the Charger bolted forward suddenly and Amber yelled as she shifted, pain flaring in her hands, the shock of the change nearly blinding her to the fact that Milo, too, had turned into his demon-self. He jammed his foot on the brake and the Charger slid to a halt, growling in protest.
Cradling her hands to her chest, Amber met Milo’s burning red eyes. They were narrowed. He looked behind them, then in front, then stuck his head out of the window and looked up. Expecting an attack. Expecting something.
They waited. The Charger waited. But nothing came.
Milo’s skin lightened and the burning red left his eyes and mouth, and his curved horns retreated into his hairline.
“What the hell?” said Amber.
Milo examined his hands. “I don’t know. I can still feel—”
He shifted again without warning, into that black-skinned, horned demon, and he snarled in irritation and immediately reverted to his normal self.
“That was weird,” he muttered, then looked at her. “You’re going to have to change back.”
“But it hurts.”
“You have to change, and then you’ll have to fight against the impulse to shift again. It’s strong. It’s very strong.”
“For Christ’s sake …”
She gritted her teeth and reverted, and fresh pain sprang from her fingers and blinded her to her own thoughts and there was another flash of pain and she was a demon again.
“I can’t do it,” she gasped. “I can’t.”
“Revert,” said Milo. “And hold.”
“Give me a minute.”
“Now, Amber.”
“I’ll try again in a minute, you dick!”
“Now,” Milo snarled, his eyes starting to glow red, and Amber snarled back and reverted and this time she held it, despite the pain, and she focused on staying a normal, clumsy, ugly human …
And when the pain retracted far enough she took a deep, deep breath.
“Well done,” Milo said, settling back into his seat.
“This is horrible,” said Amber. Every inch of her wanted to shift. Her nerve endings jumped. Her skin was electric. The human form she inhabited was all wrong. “I feel like I need to pee,” she said. “I don’t need to pee, but you know that feeling? When you’re about to burst and you know that all you have to do is relax and it’ll suddenly feel so much better? It’s like that, times a thousand.”
Milo looked at her for a while. “Right,” he said at last. “Not the analogy I’d have used, but fair enough.”
“What’s wrong with us?”
Milo didn’t answer. He just got out of the car. Amber turned in her seat, watched him walk to the sign. He passed it and turned, a curious look on his face. He took a big step back to the Charger and shifted.
He stepped to the other side of the sign and reverted.
Scowling, he walked back to the car, shifting as he did so. By the time he got behind the wheel, he’d reverted again.
“This town is a curiosity,” he said.
“You think whatever shielded Buxton from the Shining Demon is the same thing that’s making us shift?”
“It’s likely the reason, yeah. Pity he didn’t mention this to us before he flew off.”
“I don’t like this,” said Amber. “I don’t like this feeling.”
“How’re the hands?”
“They hurt. Like, a huge amount.”
“We’ll get to that motel you found on the map,” said Milo. “You’ll be able to shift behind closed doors, and you’ll heal faster as a demon. A day or two, tops.”
He was probably right. The swelling had already gone down and her fingers were returning to their normal colour. Being a demon had its advantages.
“Sorry for calling you a dick,” she said.
“That’s okay. Sorry I snarled.”
“Guess we’re a little ruder than we’d like to be when we’re horned up.”
Milo looked at her.
“I should probably use a different word for that,” she said.
“Probably,” he agreed, and they started moving again. The town was affecting the Charger, too – its rumble was deeper, and somehow even more menacing, than usual.
Amber had examined the map online a dozen times before now, and as they drove she did her best to match it with her surroundings. They passed a used-car lot (TODD’S NEARLY NEW CARS! BEST PRICES!) hemmed in by a chain-link fence. The cars stood in their rows like prisoners in an exercise yard, their gleaming potential bridled by circumstances beyond their control.
Beyond the lot was a gas station, complete with small convenience store, and then they were in the town proper. Main Street was the widest street the place had, and the longest, and it boasted a church and a healthy array of businesses. The Hill Hardware Store was next to Lucy’s Laundromat, which stood opposite Doctor Maynard’s office, which in turn stood next to Reinhold’s Pharmacy. Moraga Discount Store was the massive building on the east side of the square, a slightly raised public meeting place in the exact centre of Main Street that the road itself circled. The west side was taken up by the grander Desolation Hill Municipal Building, which had eighteen steps leading up to its doors and pillars on either side, marred only by the scaffolding that scaled it from ground to peak like the skeleton of a building that had been left there to die. There was nothing on the square itself except what looked like an old wooden mailbox on a post that had been set into the concrete.
The Charger drew some curious looks as it passed. Amber was used to that – it was certainly an impressive car. But today she thought the attention they were getting was different, somehow. Not hostile, exactly, just … wary.
Milo turned off Main Street, passed a bar named Sally’s, and kept going through a residential neighbourhood. The town itself continued up into the hills, into all those trees and all that snow, but they took a narrow blacktop without a yellow line up to a tall building that looked like it should have been perched on the edge of a cliff somewhere. The Dowall Motel was the only place to stay in the area, not counting a few bed and breakfasts, and the sign said there were vacancies.
They parked outside and got out. It was the beginning of May and there was a startlingly blue sky and yet Amber’s breath still crystallised in the air. She doubted it was much above forty. On Main Street there had been no snow, but up here, elevated slightly, it was still packed tightly at the sides of the road.
Amber had spent her whole life feeling miserable in the heat, so she wasn’t about to start complaining about the cold. Even so, the temperature was making her hands throb with a renewed vigour, and she hurried into the motel while Milo carried in their bags.
Inside, it was warmer. The wooden floorboards creaked under her weight. A moose head hung over the front desk, its terrific antlers rising to the high ceiling. A man came out of the back room. He looked young, in his thirties, but his side-parted hair had already gone grey and he held himself so stiffly that a sudden draught might possibly have snapped him in half.
He saw them and looked confused. Amber smiled, and led Milo to the desk. The man wore a little badge that identified him as Kenneth.
“Hi, Kenneth,” said Amber.
Kenneth didn’t answer. He had a mole under his right eye.
“We’d like a couple of rooms, please.”
Kenneth looked at them for quite a long time before speaking.
“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” he said.
This struck Amber as a somewhat strange thing to say.
“This is a motel, isn’t it?” Milo asked.
“Indeed it is,” said Kenneth.
“And you rent out rooms to visitors, don’t you?”
“Indeed we do,” said Kenneth.
“So do you have any spare rooms to rent out to us?”
“Indeed I have,” said Kenneth. “I just wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.”
Silence threatened to descend.
“Should we have called ahead?” Amber asked.
Kenneth blinked at her. “We don’t take reservations over the phone.”
“Online?”
“We don’t have a website,” he said. “My mother never approved of the internet. She said the internet was a filthy place for perverts and degenerates who only want to watch pornography.”
“It also has cats,” said Amber.
“We don’t allow animals,” Kenneth said quickly. “My sister is allergic to animal hair. If you have cats, you can’t stay here.”
“We don’t have cats,” Milo said. “We don’t have any animals. Is there anyone else staying here right now?”
“No.”
“Then could we please have two rooms?”
Kenneth hesitated.
“I’m a little puzzled,” said Amber. “You don’t take bookings online or over the phone, and obviously you don’t like it when people turn up unannounced … so how does anyone actually stay here?”
“The motel is not very busy,” Kenneth said.
“I’m not surprised.”
“I can let you stay,” Kenneth decided, “but only until Wednesday. On Wednesday you must leave. We are fully booked up for Wednesday.”
Amber frowned. “How?”
“I’m sorry?” said Kenneth.
“How has anyone been able to book for Wednesday, since you don’t take reservations over the phone and you don’t have a website?”
“A long-standing arrangement,” said Kenneth. “You must be gone by ten o’clock on Wednesday morning.”
“I guess we could stay at a bed and breakfast,” said Milo.
“You misunderstand,” Kenneth said. “You must leave our town. On Wednesday we have our festival.”
“I like festivals,” said Amber.
“It is a private festival,” Kenneth said. “For invited townsfolk only. You must leave by ten in the morning.”
At no stage did Amber think Kenneth was joking, and yet she waited for the punchline all the same. When it didn’t come, Milo spoke up.
“Sure,” he said. “That’s fine.”
Kenneth hesitated. “Maybe you shouldn’t stay,” he said.
“Of course we should,” Amber assured him. “We’ll be gone by the time the festival starts – it’s all good. We totally understand. Today, tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday and then we move on. You got it. How long does the festival last?”
“One night.”
“Then how about we come back on Thursday?”
“Thursday and Friday are for clean-up.”
“Then Saturday,” Amber said, smiling. “If we leave and come back for the weekend, would that be okay?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. We’ll do that. So put us down for four nights now, and then Saturday. If we like it here, we might even stay longer.”
Kenneth nodded. “Very well. Welcome to the Dowall Motel. This is a family business.”
Amber gave another smile. “Well, okay then.”
Kenneth showed Amber to her room, and Milo dropped off her bag and followed Kenneth to his. Amber shut her door. The room was old-fashioned but clean, and smelled of fresh air and green trees. It had a fireplace that wasn’t to be lit and a good-sized bed. It had a bathroom with a bathtub and a window that looked out over the town. It was a good room. A fine room.
Amber stood at the window. From here, she could almost see the road they had come in on, the one with the sign. That would be the road the Hounds would use. They were anywhere between ten and fifteen hours away, but it took Amber a long time to stop watching for their arrival.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
VIRGIL FOUND THE NUMBER scrawled in an address book that had slipped down the back of a file cabinet. He tried to ignore the other names – seeing them brought pangs of recognition and regret – but despite himself he glanced through them. Here was Erik Estrada’s number. Good kid, that Erik. Burt Reynolds. Lynda Carter. Ah, Lynda Carter. Robert Culp. Farrah Fawcett’s number was here. He’d never managed to get with Farrah because of his (strained) friendship with Lee Majors – but he’d wanted to. Oh my, how he’d wanted to.
Then he found the number he was looking for, and he took out his ridiculous phone and eventually figured out how to make a call.
It was answered by a woman who told him the person he was looking for no longer lived there. She went off for a few minutes, eventually coming back with another number. He called that, and it was answered by a man who gave him the number of a retirement home. Virgil rang the home, gave them the name, and waited.
“Yeah?”
The voice on the other end sounded old, frail and ill-tempered.
“Javier?” said Virgil.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Virgil. Virgil Abernathy.”
There was a silence, and then,
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why? Why’re you calling? Why the hell’re you calling me? It’s been forty years and now you’re calling me and I want to know why, goddammit. If you’re calling to apologise, you’re about forty years too damn late.”
Virgil frowned. “Why would I be apologising?”
“You’re the one calling me!” Javier shouted. “You’re the one calling and now you have the, the, the nerve to ask why you’re calling? I’m the one asking why! I ask, you answer!”
“Javier, I really think we’re getting our wires crossed here …”
“Dementia, is it?” Javier said. “You know that you owe me an apology, but you can’t remember why, is that it? Y’know something? I’m glad. I’m glad your mind is leaving you. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fella.”
“My mind is fine, Javier, but to be honest you’re starting to irritate me here.”
Javier hooted down the phone. “Oh, is that right? Oh, is that right?”
“I just called to check on you,” said Virgil. “I’ve been thinking about the old days a lot and I saw someone last night who could have been your double from back then, someone who I would have sworn was you if I hadn’t known what age you were. I’m calling to ask if you have a son or a grandson and if they’re anywhere close to Desolation Hill.”
“I don’t know where that is,” said Javier, “but it sounds like just the place you deserve to be.”
“Do you have anyone in your family that looks just like you did forty years ago, or not?”
“No!” Javier yelled. “I don’t have any children, you dirty, lying, treacherous sonofabitch! I never had children and I never got married! The only woman in the world I ever loved looked at me like I was a joke and it was all your fault!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Darleen!”
Virgil frowned. “Who?”
“Darleen! Darleen Hickman!”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“The wardrobe lady on set,” Javier said, anger biting at his words. “I fell in love with her and you knew it. There was a future there. A possibility. But you couldn’t let that happen, could you? You couldn’t stand the thought of any pretty girl being with anyone but you, the starof the show.”
“What is it you think I did, Javier?”
“You know damn well what you did. You gave me that nickname.”
“What nickname?”
“Don’t make me say it.”
“I don’t know what it is we’re talking about.”
There was another silence, and then, “The Goat-molester.”
Virgil’s laugh was as loud as it was unexpected, and he immediately felt bad. “Oh right, yeah. That. Uh … and that damaged your relationship with the wardrobe lady?”
“Darleen,” said Javier. “And of course it did. Everyone was laughing at me behind my back. Nobody took me seriously from that moment on. She had feelings for me – real, actual feelings – but how could she look at me in the same way once she’d lost all respect for me?”
“I’m … I’m really sorry, Javier. I’d forgotten all about that.”
“I hadn’t,” said Javier bitterly. “That ruined my life, Abernathy. Ruined it. And it’s all your fault.”
“I’m sorry,” said Virgil. “I am genuinely sorry, Javier, I really am. I had no idea it would cause you such hardship. The only thing I can say is that it wasn’t done with any degree of maliciousness. It wasn’t personal.”
“It felt personal.”
“And I regret that. I do. Please accept my apology.”
“You know what?” Javier said. “I don’t. I’ve been waiting forty years for you to say sorry, and now that you have, it means nothing to me. You were a sonofabitch then and you’re a sonofabitch now. I hope you do get dementia. I hope you get dementia and you die a slow, horrible death.”
“Right,” said Virgil. “Well, in my defence—”
“Your defence can go to hell.”
“In my defence,” Virgil persisted, “and taking all things into account, with the benefit of hindsight and whatnot, I don’t know … maybe you shouldn’t have molested that goat.”
Javier hung up.
(#ulink_3d50a231-642a-5b2d-af15-fb1e55693a72)
SOMEONE KNOCKED ON HER door and Amber woke immediately and went to spring out of bed. As she was moving, she realised two things. The first was that she had shifted during the night and was now in full demon mode. The second was that she was about to put her full weight on to her left hand, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The pain hit her like an electric shock. She pulled her hands into her chest, rolled off the bed, and landed on her feet in a crouch, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out.
That knock again. It was calm. Unhurried. No urgency to it.
Amber waited for the worst of the pain to pass, then straightened, and moved slowly to the door. “Who is it?” she called.
“Me,” said Milo.
“Anyone else with you?”
“No.”
She gripped the key between her palms and turned it, and the lock clicked and she stepped back as Milo opened the door.
He saw the look on her face and frowned. “Hurting?”
“A little. I’ll take the painkillers.”
“You shift when you were sleeping?”
“Yeah. You?”
He nodded. He was clean-shaven and his eyes were calm – the benefits of a good night’s rest. “I’m going to head out to the edge of town,” he said, “keep watch for the Hounds.”
“Let me get dressed.”
“No need. I’m just going to be sitting there. You take a look around, see what’s what. If we can hide out here, it’d be nice to know what the town has to offer.”
Amber frowned. “You mean … we’re going to be apart? During the daytime?”
“Is that okay with you?”
“Sure. It’s just … I haven’t been alone in the daytime for … a while.”
“You’ll adjust.”
“What do I do?”
“Whatever you want. Go for a walk. Have some breakfast. Relax. It’ll come back to you. Oh, and …” He pointed to her face.
“What?”
“You can’t go out horned up.”
“Oh yeah. Sure.”
He nodded, and walked off, and Amber closed the door behind him and locked it again. Then she looked around and wondered what the hell she was going to do.
She swallowed some painkillers and brushed her teeth and peed, and as she was peeing she looked at the tub and tried to remember the last time she’d had a real bath. She filled the tub and added in all kinds of crazy liquids until the bubbles nearly spilled out on to the floor. Then she took off her clothes and climbed in, one long red leg at a time. Bracing her bandaged palms on the tub’s edge, she lowered herself into the water, gasping, until her ass touched the bottom. She laughed, then, and sank further, until the hot water was up to her chin.
“Oh, this is nice,” she muttered to the room.
She closed her eyes, breathing in the steam, letting it clear her head of any residual sleepiness. It had been so long since she’d been able to relax, to think of anything other than the chase. Even now, there was a part of her that was still on edge – but it was a small part, and she could have easily drowned it out if she’d been so inclined.
But of course she didn’t. Just because Gregory Buxton had vanished from the Hounds’ radar when he was in this town didn’t mean she would, too. And even if she did, so what? The Hounds would still be able to ride on in here and search. They didn’t need supernatural powers to find her – they just needed eyes.
So she kept that edge, the part of herself that remained wary, and she let it bite at her thoughts and burrow into her head. That edge had helped keep her alive after Imelda had died. After Glen. After her parents.
She wondered about them, where they were, what they were doing. How they were doing. She felt a curious mix of satisfaction that she’d fouled up her parents’ plans, that she’d forced them to go on the run with Grant and Kirsty Van der Valk, that Astaroth was almost as pissed with them as he was with her … but also concern. That part puzzled Amber. She didn’t care about them. They had bred her to be killed and eaten, just like they had her brother and sister whom she had never known. She was not concerned for their well-being.
She was definitely, definitely not. She was almost sure of that.
Thoughts of her parents irritated her, but there was only one other person she could think about that would banish them to the back of her mind, and that was Glen. She only thought about him when she was in demon form. Her heart was harder when she was like this, better able to cope with what had happened to him. With who he was now. What he’d turned into.
She’d been aware of him following her. Some nights she’d look in the side mirror and glimpse something moving behind them. Some nights, when the Charger was quiet, she could hear him above her, his clothes fluttering in the wind.
Why he was following her, she didn’t know. She’d been told that most breeds of vampire were pack animals – they stuck close to the one who’d turned them. But the vampire that had killed Glen had vanished, and his undead family back in Cascade Falls were in disarray – certainly the patriarch was no longer around to guide them. Amber had seen to that personally.
That might be it, of course. Glen could be following her to kill her, to exact revenge for Varga’s death. She doubted it, though. Revenge didn’t seem to be Glen’s style, soulless monster or not. No, what was infinitely more likely was that Glen’s preoccupation with Amber – especially in her current form – had stayed with him even after his death. Maybe it was the one thing he was clinging on to. Maybe he had designs on a coffin built for two.
Amber closed her eyes and held her breath, and submerged so that only her knees and her hands and her horns were above the water line. Down here, in the muted world of the bathtub, she opened her eyes again and looked at herself. She couldn’t blame Glen for his preoccupations, of course. Was she not as magnificent as everyone said? Was her figure not astonishing? Were her features not flawless?
She loved being this way. She loved being tall and red and horned and beautiful. She loved being sexy. She’d never been sexy, not as an ordinary human. Sexiness was for other girls, not for her. Never for her.
She broke the surface of the water, and smiled.
Until now.
After her bath, Amber went for a walk. The people seemed friendly enough, even if she did catch them staring at her from time to time. On three occasions she actually glanced at her bandaged hands to make sure she wasn’t in demon mode, then she put it down to the fact that visitors were probably a rarity around here.
It was a pretty town, surrounded as it was by trees and snow-covered mountains and looking up into a huge blazingly blue sky. It had a smell to it, too – fresh and open and healthy. Invigorating, even. Amber fully acknowledged all of this. Further, she had no trouble admitting that it was downright lovely to see every store open for business – that being quite a change after spending the last few weeks driving through small towns teetering on the edge of survival.
Watching the people file into church, she figured that there was absolutely nothing about Desolation Hill that she found disagreeable, and yet something had got its hooks into her and was pulling her down.
Deciding that breakfast might improve her mood, she stepped into Fast Danny’s, the only one of the three cafe/diner joints on Main Street open on a Sunday morning. There were a few patrons sitting at tables, all of whom examined Amber when she walked in. She ignored them, chose a table in the corner, and sat, started reading through the menu.
The waitress came over, a woman in her forties who looked like she’d had a busy morning. Her nametag identified her as Brenda.
“Just passing through?” Brenda asked, which struck Amber as an odd thing to greet someone with. At the Firebird, Amber had always greeted customers with a smile. There was no smile on show here.
“Kinda,” said Amber.
“Oh yeah?” Brenda said, but not in a conversational way.
Amber had a soft spot for people waiting tables. She knew what a crappy job it could be. That being said, Brenda’s attitude was not going to be earning her any tips.
“I’m staying for a few days,” Amber said. “At the motel.”
“The Dowall Motel?”
“Is there another one?”
Brenda didn’t bother to answer that. “Were you told about the festival?”
“Yeah. But we weren’t told what kind of festival it is.”
“It’s a local one,” said Brenda. “Townsfolk only.”
Amber decided that she didn’t like Brenda’s dismissive tone. She didn’t like being dismissed. Her skin itched. All she had to do was relax and she’d shift, and then she’d be taken seriously. Then she’d be respected.
“That was mentioned,” she said quietly.
Brenda nodded, apparently satisfied. “Okay then, what can I get you?”
And, all of a sudden, Brenda was in full waitress mode and Amber was left with all that hostility and nowhere to put it. “Uh …”
Brenda looked at her, eyebrows raised, waiting.
Amber felt the hostility drain from her. “The Danny’s Breakfast, please.”
“Will do,” said Brenda. “Eggs sunny side up or scrambled?”
“Scrambled.”
“Coffee or juice?”
Had she really been about to jump up and rip the waitress’s face off, just because of her tone of voice? She felt amazingly stupid right now.
“Juice,” she said. “Thank you. Oh, and …” Amber held up her hands. “I had an accident.”
“So I see.”
She gave Brenda a weak smile. “Would it be possible to have my breakfast, like, cut into smaller pieces?”
“You want it all chopped up?”
“Yes, please. Well, besides the egg. Because that’ll be scrambled.”
“Okay,” Brenda said dubiously. “Might cost you a little more, though.”
Amber frowned. “To cut it up?”
“It’s an unusual requirement.”
“But it’ll only take ten seconds.”
The waitress shrugged. “We’ll see if the cook is comfortable doing it. Will that be all?”
Amber hesitated. “Yes.”
Brenda nodded, and moved away as an old man came in.
“Hey there, Brenda,” he said.
Brenda smiled for the first time. “Good morning, Mr Tomlinson. How are you?”
“I’m doing good, thanks,” said Tomlinson. “And you?”
“Doing fine,” said Brenda. “Nice weather we’re having.”
“It is. It is nice weather.”
“Is it the usual, Mr Tomlinson?”
“Sorry?”
“The usual?”
“Oh yes, the usual. Ham on rye with mustard.”
“With the crusts cut off.”
“Just go ahead and cut them crusts off, you betcha.”
“You got it.”
The moment Brenda turned away from him to deliver the order, her smile was gone, and Amber watched as Tomlinson’s own smile slowly faded. He stood there, staring into space. Amber’s mom had once said something about friends and fake smiles, but that was Amber’s mom, so Amber banished the memory from her mind.
A woman came in behind Tomlinson and the smile suddenly reappeared as he turned.
“Morning, Jackie,” he said.
“Morning, Brett,” Jackie said. “Good weather for fishing.”
“It is.”
“Getting your usual?”
“Yes, I am. Ham on rye with mustard, with the crusts cut off. Hey, how’s little Everett doing?”
“He’s doing fine,” said Jackie. “He had a bad cough that went on for a few days. I thought it might be a chest infection, but it cleared up on its own.”
“I heard that,” Tomlinson said, nodding. “I heard he had a cough.”
Brenda arrived back, handed Tomlinson a brown paper bag. “Here you go, Mr Tomlinson. Your usual.”
“Much obliged, Brenda,” Tomlinson said, handing over the exact change. He tipped his hat to them both. “You have a good day now, ladies.”
They smiled at him and he walked out, and then they turned those smiles on each other.
“How you doing today, Jackie?” Brenda asked. “How’s that boy of yours?”
“He’s good,” Jackie said. “He had a cough, but it cleared up. You all set for Book Club tonight?”
“I am,” Brenda said. “What did you think of it?”
“A little racier than what I’m used to,” Jackie said. “Did you like it?”
“I thought it was fine. Racy, like you said.”
“Maybe too racy?”
“Probably too racy. What can I get for you?”
“Just a coffee, thanks. In one of those cardboard cups.”
“To go?”
“To go, yes. With cream and sugar.”
Brenda smiled as she busied herself at the coffee machine. “No fancy lattes or espressos for you.”
“No, thank you!” Jackie said, and both women laughed.
Amber didn’t know what the hell they had to laugh about, but she kept her mouth shut.
For the next few minutes, she sat there and watched the patrons and staff of Fast Danny’s interact with one another. They were unfailingly polite and bizarrely cheerful, and they walked around with bright smiles at the ready – smiles that vanished the moment they thought no one was watching them. But Amber was.
When her breakfast was ready, Brenda returned to her table, set the plate down. Along with her scrambled eggs, she had bacon, sausages and hash browns – all fully intact.
“Um,” said Amber, but Brenda was already walking away.
Amber looked back at her food, then tried to pick up her knife and fork. When she failed laughably at this, she did her best to catch Brenda’s eye, but Brenda was doing an admirable job of ignoring her. Exasperated, Amber looked around, accidentally making eye contact with an old man sitting alone. He wasn’t as old as Brett Tomlinson, but he was catching up fast. He gave her a little smile, glanced at her hands, and folded his newspaper. He stood and walked over.
“You need any help with that?” he asked.
Amber’s first instinct was to thank him for his offer and decline – but that wouldn’t get her food cut up.
“Thank you,” she said. “Yes, please.”
He nodded, hitched his pants and sat, then took her knife and fork and cut up the food.
“Thanks very much,” said Amber.
“No problem,” he said. “I’m Benjamin.”
“Amber.”
“What happened to your hands, Amber, if it’s not too personal a question?”
“I, uh, I caught them in a car door.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Say you did?”
She nodded. “Yep. Broke almost all my fingers.”
“Caught both hands in a car door?” Benjamin asked. “What on earth were you doing?”
“Well, uh, I’m not actually sure. It was something stupid.”
“I’d wager,” said Benjamin, but in a nice way, and Amber laughed. “Was it that black car you came in? Oh, don’t look so surprised. We’re a small town in the middle of nowhere in Alaska – newcomers set tongues a-wagging, and distinctive cars more so.”
“I see,” she said. “But no, it was another car. I’m just clumsy, I guess, and pretty useless until my fingers mend, so my uncle decided to take me on a road trip while I wait.”
“Always wanted to go on a road trip,” Benjamin said, a little wistfully, “but never had anywhere to go to. Where you headed?”
She shrugged. “It’s not the destination that matters – it’s the journey.”
Benjamin chuckled. “That what your uncle says?”
“My uncle doesn’t say an awful lot. What’s it like here, by the way? I’m assuming it’s a nicer town than the name suggests.”
“You’d think,” said Benjamin. He finished cutting the food and placed the knife and fork on the edge of the plate for Amber. “The people are pleasant, you can leave your door unlocked, and three hundred sixty-four days out of the year it’s as peaceful as peaceful can be. But the days are long and getting longer, and, if you want my advice, I wouldn’t stay here.”
Amber sipped her juice. “No?”
He glanced around, making sure no one could overhear. “This is not a nice place to visit, Amber. I have no doubt you’re going to be made to feel very unwelcome in the next day or so. You might even warrant a visit from the Police Chief himself.”
“Seriously? We haven’t done anything.”
“That doesn’t matter. Chief Novak is notorious for running transients out of town on the slightest of whims.”
“We’re not transients. We’re staying at the motel.”
“Novak’ll still see you as a transient – as will the rest of the fine folk of Desolation Hill.”
She leaned closer. “Benjamin, what’s this festival they’re all talking about?”
He smiled sadly, and shook his head. “I’m sorry. There are some things I’m not comfortable discussing in public. You have a good day now.”
“Oh God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
He stood. “You didn’t, young lady. Not at all. You have a good day now, you hear?”
He walked back to his table, picked up his newspaper, and left. Amber sat there until the rumblings in her belly became too loud to ignore, and she awkwardly picked up her fork and started spearing her food. She was halfway through her breakfast when her phone lit up by her elbow, and a message from Milo came through.
They’re here.
(#ulink_0185e52e-e863-5909-baa7-e7748ec014d3)
THE ROAD THAT EVENTUALLY became Main Street was the road they had taken into town, but it veered and meandered on its way there, and it was quicker to just cut through the trees. The instant she moved out of sight, Amber let the change happen, and she shifted and gritted her teeth against the pain in her hands. A few seconds was all it took for the throbbing to fade, though, and then she was feeling a whole lot better about a whole bunch of things – the town, the cold … even the Hounds’ arrival.
How tough could they really be, anyway?
She hurried, though. She didn’t like the idea of Milo facing them alone. Together they’d have a chance. Together they might even win. The idea made Amber smile. The Shining Demon could send whoever he wanted after her. She liked the thought of sending them right back again.
Her human side tried whispering in her ear – something about overconfidence. Amber ignored it. She knew what she’d heard. She knew the Hounds were pretty much unstoppable. She knew, technically, that she and Milo would barely be able to stand up to one of them, let alone five. These things didn’t matter. What mattered was how she was feeling right now, like she could take on an army of Astaroth’s lackeys and tear them all apart.
As she ran, she started to hear motorcycles. No shouts, though. No gunshots. No sounds of fighting. She left the trees, stepped on to the overgrown grass that lined the road, where she could see exactly where she was going and there was no danger of her passing the town boundary. She glimpsed the Charger, parked in among a clump of bushes, and looked around for Milo.
Amber got low and crept forward. She could see the Desolation Hill sign now, and the track that ran off to her left. A biker came roaring up that track and she went instantly cold and all her assurances abandoned her. He slowed to a stop and was joined a moment later by another one. The first Hound had a beard and the second one didn’t. The first was in denim and the second in leather. They both wore sunglasses. The first one’s bike was gleaming chrome. The other one’s was black. Neither of them spoke.
She couldn’t take them on. Not the Hounds. With or without Milo. They were the Hounds of Hell and they were unstoppable and they were pitiless.
She heard another engine coming from behind and flattened herself in the grass as a car approached. It passed her, and the bikers parted so it could get by. She watched the driver of the car peer at the Hounds. The Hounds never even glanced at him.
“Curious bastards,” Milo said from beside her, and she nearly screamed.
He was still in human mode. Amber didn’t know how he could stand the itching.
“Were you there the whole time?” she whispered.
He nodded. “It’s called hiding. You should try it.”
“I hid just then, didn’t I?”
“That was lucky. Red skin isn’t the best camouflage in grass.”
“Whatever.” She looked back to the Hounds. “What the hell are they doing?”
“Not much,” said Milo. “Every now and then, they … here, look.”
Amber looked. One of the Hounds got off his bike and walked forward a few steps until he was standing right beside the sign. He sniffed the air.
“Can he smell us?” Amber whispered.
Milo didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t think they can get in.”
Amber frowned. “Get in where?”
“Here.”
Her frown deepened. “What do you …? Wait – you mean they can’t get into the town? Why not? There’s nothing …” She stopped, watching the Hound. “Uh, Milo, are we being chased by mimes?”
The Hound had put his hand out, but it seemed to meet resistance in mid-air, like there was a sheet of glass directly in front of him.
“That’s the town line,” Milo said softly. “Whatever’s in here, whatever made us shift, is keeping them out. Looks like it’s also screwed up their radar. This close, they should have already zeroed in on your position, but they’re not even looking this way.”
“Are you sure?” Amber asked. “How can you be sure?”
“Good point,” Milo said, and he shifted into his demon-self and stood up.
“What the hell are you doing?” She tried grabbing his hand to pull him back down, but he was already stepping out on to the road.
The Hounds observed him as he approached. Amber stayed where she was.
To a chorus of revving bikes, Milo walked right up to the Hound and stood before him. When the Hound didn’t do anything, Milo hit him. The punch whipped the Hound’s head back, and it was enough to provoke him into making a move. But when his hands tried to close around Milo’s throat, they bounced off whatever invisible barrier separated them.
Amber stood up. She could see the other Hounds now. Dressed in denim or leather, bearded or not, they all wore sunglasses and all rode different kinds of bikes. She saw a Harley, and that was the only one she recognised. None of them had any expression on their face. Aside from the sunglasses, that was the one thing they all shared.
The others turned off their bikes, and the sudden silence rushed in to fill the vacuum. They got off and approached, but remained on their side of the town line. Amber felt their eyes on her as she joined Milo. He reverted to normal.
“This is interesting,” she said, unease running down her spine. “You think it runs around the whole town?”
“We’d better hope so,” said Milo.
Amber stood up a little straighter and addressed the Hounds. “My name is Amber Lamont. You know that already, right? The Shining Demon sent you after me because, in exchange for his help, I promised to bring him a man named Gregory Buxton. When I took his help but didn’t bring him Buxton, he called you. But Gregory Buxton is a good man – more or less. He’s done some bad things, some very bad things, but he’s a good man now, and I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t deliver him to the Shining Demon. You don’t have to deliver me, either. I haven’t done anything to hurt you, and you can’t get in here, anyway, so you could get on your bikes and ride away and tell the Shining Demon you couldn’t find me. I’m sixteen years old – I don’t deserve any of what’s happening to me.”
The Hounds didn’t move. The Hounds didn’t answer.
“Nothing?” Amber said after a moment. “You’re not going to respond? You’ve got nothing to say? You’ve been chasing us since New York and you have absolutely nothing to say to me now that we’re face to face?”
The Hounds looked at her.
“Come on,” Milo said softly, his hand on her shoulder. He turned Amber round and they started walking to the Charger. “There’s nothing more you can do. You put your case forward, now it’s up to them. You did it calmly and you didn’t antagonise anyone. I’m actually quite impressed with how you handled that.”
“Yeah,” Amber said. Then she swung round, walked back to the Hounds. “You know what?” she said. “You’re a bunch of jerks. Standing there all silent. You think you’re intimidating? You don’t intimidate me. Everyone is sooooo scared of you – but we stayed ahead of you without a problem. The only reason you’re this close to us is because we stopped and waited for you to catch up. And you still can’t get me. So screw you, dickbrains. Go have sex with your motorcycles, and when you’re finished with that go tell your boss that he can kiss my fine red ass.”
She tried to give them the finger, but ended up waving her bandaged hand at them instead. Hissing, she spun on her heel and marched back to Milo.
“Yep,” Milo muttered. “Handled that very well.”
She reverted, painfully, and they drove back into town without doing a whole lot of speaking. They parked in the motel lot beside a police cruiser and were heading inside when a uniformed man walked out, met them halfway.
“Mr Sebastian,” he said. “Miss Lamont, good afternoon. Welcome to Desolation Hill.”
He was in his forties, with dark hair and heavy-lidded eyes. He had a long, lined face, not entirely unattractive. His badge was gleaming on his black uniform beneath his open jacket, and his gun was holstered.
“Thank you,” said Milo.
“My name is Trevor Novak. I’m the Chief of Police here.”
“It’s a very nice town,” said Amber.
“It can be,” said Novak. “Although it has a habit of attracting the wrong kind of visitor.”
“Is that so?” said Milo.
“Regrettably. Especially at this time of year.” Novak looked at them both before continuing. “You have been told, I understand, about our festival. Naturally, you’re curious. I appreciate curiosity – it’s what has me here talking to you, after all. And, while I’m not about to satisfy that curiosity, hopefully I can explain our attitude to you. We’re a quiet town, or at least we want to be, and we value our traditions. This festival just happens to be our most cherished, most valued tradition.”
“What does it celebrate?” Milo asked.
“Our history,” said Novak. “Our culture. Our heritage. And our success. Many other towns, a lot like ours, dried up and were blown away after the gold rush. But Desolation Hill remained standing. Even more towns dried up and were blown away during the various recessions and depressions … but Desolation Hill has stayed strong. I put this down to the people. We have the single lowest crime rate, per capita, in America.”
Milo nodded. “Certainly something to be proud of.”
“It is, Mr Sebastian, yes. And I am proud.”
“We’re not planning on committing any crimes, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Amber said, offering up a smile.
“I’m not suggesting you were,” said Novak, not offering one in return. “I only wish to impress upon you the need to obey our rules. The festival is for townsfolk only. When you check out of the Dowall Motel on Wednesday morning, you will receive a police escort to the edge of town.”
“Uh …”
“It’s nothing personal,” Novak said. “I trust you won’t be offended.”
“Not offended,” said Milo. “But a police escort does seem a little extreme.”
“We take our rules very seriously. I’m sure you have questions, I’m sure you have many, but please understand that to ask these questions of the townsfolk could lead to a certain degree of irritation. We have traditions we would prefer to keep private, and questions we would prefer not to answer. I’m sure you and your … niece appreciate this desire.”
Milo took a moment. “Sure,” he said.
“I can, of course, see the family resemblance immediately,” said Novak. “Some of my officers, I’m afraid to say, are not so attentive to detail. They may have questions for you.”
“I’m sure there’s no need to bother them,” Milo said.
Novak nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. We like to mind our own business here. I trust you will do the same.”
“Naturally,” said Milo.
“Of course,” said Amber.
Novak adjusted his gun belt, and nodded to them. “Very nice to meet you, and welcome to Desolation Hill.”
“Thanks,” said Milo.
Novak walked to his car, went to get in, but paused. “One of my officers alerted me to some bikers on the edge of town,” he said. “They have anything to do with you?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, okay then. Have a nice day.” He nodded again, got in his car, and they watched him drive away.
“So what do you think of the place?” Milo asked.
“I haven’t decided,” said Amber. “People here are weird. They’re downright rude to me and they’re overly polite with each other. That Novak guy is a little creepy, and I don’t have a clue what this festival is about, but already it’s annoying the crap out of me. Plus, every second that goes by I just want to shift. It’s actually uncomfortable to stay normal.”
“It’s worth it, though,” said Milo.
“Yeah,” she said, a little grudgingly. “I really like this whole barrier thing they’ve got going on. What are we going to do on Wednesday? We can’t leave town – the Hounds will be on us the moment we try.”
“I thought they didn’t intimidate you.”
“Are you nuts? Of course they do. I just said that because they were freaking me out.”
“We’re not leaving,” said Milo. “We can’t be escorted out, either – that’d be like delivering ourselves straight to them. We’ll check out early, find an out-of-the-way place to park that’s still within the town limits, and camp out till Saturday. We keep our heads down, ignore anything to do with their festival, and we’ll be fine.”
“And in the meantime,” said Amber, “we find out who put up that barrier. It’s got to be someone like us, right? Someone hiding from a demon?”
“Maybe.”
“If we can talk to whoever’s behind it, maybe we can make a barrier of our own. You’d be able to do something like that, wouldn’t you?”
Milo frowned. “Me? I know nothing about this kind of thing.”
“Well, yeah, but you know the basics.”
“What basics, Amber? I know the lore. I know some of the traditions. I don’t know how to do anything. Buxton knows, not me, and he’s too busy setting up a new life for himself to come up here and give us advice.”
“Well … maybe we won’t need him. Maybe whoever put up the barrier will show us what we have to do.”
“I guess it’s possible.”
She gave him a disapproving frown. “You don’t sound convinced.”
“I hate to break it to you, Amber, but neither do you.”
(#ulink_84e30b38-4d23-5b9e-8458-090e62d6c9ba)
AUSTIN COOKE RAN.
He ran from his house on Brookfield Road all the way past the school, past the corner store that was always closed on Sundays, and up towards the fire station, where they kept the single engine that had never, in Austin’s memory, been used for any fire-based emergencies. The volunteer fire fighters brought it out every once in a while and parked it at the top of Beacon Way, the only pedestrian street in Desolation Hill, and they held pancake breakfasts for fund-raising and such, but they’d never had to put out any actual fires – at least not to Austin’s knowledge.
Once the picture of the smiling Dalmatian on the fire-station door came into view, Austin veered left, taking the narrow alley behind the church. His feet splashed in puddles. His sneakers, brand new for his twelfth birthday, got wet and dirty and he didn’t care.
With his breath coming in huge, whooping gulps and a stitch in his side sliding in like a serrated knife, Austin burst from the alley on to the sidewalk on Main Street and turned right, dodging an old lady and sprinting for the square. A beat-up old van trundled by. Up ahead he could hear laughter. A lot of laughter.
Three of them – Cole Blancard, Marco Mabb and Jamie Hillock. Mabb was the biggest and Hillock had the nastiest laugh, but Cole Blancard was the worst. Cole dealt out his punishments with a seriousness that set him apart from the others. Where their faces would twist with sadistic amusement, his would go strangely blank, like he was an impartial observer to whatever degrading activity he was spearheading. His eyes frightened Austin most of all, though. They were dull eyes. Intelligent, in their way, but dull. Cole had a shark’s eyes.
Austin waited for a car to pass, then ran across the street, on to the square. They heard him coming, and turned. Hillock laughed and punched Mabb in the arm and Mabb laughed and returned the favour. Cole didn’t laugh. He only smiled, his tongue caught between his teeth. He had a large handful of paper slips.
Austin staggered to a halt. He didn’t dare get any closer. He’d run all this way to stop them, even though he knew there was nothing he could do once he got here.
The ballot box was old and wooden. It had a slot an inch wide. Cole Blancard turned away from Austin and stuffed all those paper slips through that slot, and Austin felt a new and unfamiliar terror rising within him. Panic scratched at his thoughts with sharp fingers and squeezed his heart with cold hands. Mabb and Hillock took fistfuls of paper slips from their pockets, gave them over, and Cole jammed them in, too.
A few slips fell and the breeze played with them, brought them all the way to the scaffolding outside the Municipal Building. The three older boys didn’t seem to mind. When they were done, they walked towards Austin, forcing him to move out of their way. Mabb and Hillock sniggered as they passed, but Cole stopped so close that Austin could see every detail of the purple birthmark that stretched from Cole’s collar to his jaw.
“Counting, counting, one, two, three,” Cole said, and rammed his shoulder into Austin’s.
Austin stood there while they walked off, their laughter turning the afternoon ugly. One of those slips scuttled across the ground and Austin stepped on it, pinned it in place.
He reached down, picked it up, turned it over and read his own name.
(#ulink_95af4b82-1618-5019-95ce-86c347140f65)
THE VAN WAS OLD and rattled and rolled, coughed and spluttered like it was about to give up and lie down and play dead, but of course it defied expectations, like it always did, and it got them to Desolation Hill with its oil-leaking mechanical heart still beating. That was close to a 4,000-mile journey. Kelly had to admit she was impressed. She thought they’d have to abandon the charming heap of junk somewhere around Wyoming, and pool what little money they had to buy something equally cheap but far less charming to take them the rest of the way.
“I think you owe someone an apology,” Warrick said smugly.
Kelly sighed. “Sorry, van,” she said. “Next time I’ll have more faith in your awesome ability to keep going. There were times, it is true, when I doubted this ability. Uphill, especially. Even, to be honest, sometimes downhill. You have proven me wrong.”
“Now swear everlasting allegiance.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Ronnie,” Warrick called, “she won’t swear everlasting allegiance to the van.”
“Kelly,” said Ronnie from behind the wheel, “you promised.”
“I promised when I didn’t think the van would make it,” said Kelly. “Promises don’t count when you don’t think you’ll ever have to keep them.”
“I’m not sure that’s technically correct,” said Linda, still curled up in her sleeping bag.
“Hush, you,” said Kelly. “You’re still asleep.”
“Big Brain agrees with me,” said Warrick. “You tell her, Linda!”
“Two,” Kelly commanded, “sit on Linda’s head, there’s a good boy.”
Two just gazed at her, his tongue hanging out, and wagged his tail happily.
“Swear allegiance to the almighty van,” said Warrick.
“Not gonna happen.”
“Then swear allegiance to this troll,” he said, pulling an orange-haired little troll doll from his pocket and thrusting it towards her. “Look, he’s got the same colour hair as you.”
She frowned. “My hair is red. That’s orange.”
“It’s all the same.”
“It’s really not.”
“Swear. Allegiance. To our Troll Overlord.”
“Warrick, I swear to God, stop waving that thing in my face.”
He kept doing it and she sighed again, and crawled over the seat in front to sit beside Ronnie. “Pretty town,” she said.
Ronnie opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated.
She grinned. “You were going to say it, weren’t you?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You so were,” came Linda’s muffled voice. Then, “Two, get off me.”
Kelly grinned wider. “You were going to say appearances can be deceiving, weren’t you?”
“Nope,” said Ronnie, shaking his head. “I was going to say something completely different. I was going to say, ‘Yes, Kelly, it does look like a nice town.’”
“But …?”
“Nothing. No buts. That was the end of that sentence.”
“Warrick,” said Kelly, “what do you think? Do you think Ronnie is fibbing?”
“I’m not talking to you because you have refused to swear allegiance to either my van or my troll doll,” said Warrick, “but, on a totally separate note, I think our Fearless Leader is totally telling fibs and he was, in fact, about to utter those immortal words.”
“You’re all delusional,” said Ronnie. “Now someone please tell me where I’m supposed to go in the whitest town I’ve ever been to. Seriously, there is such a thing as being too Caucasian.”
“Take this left coming up,” Linda said.
“She’s a witch!” cried Warrick.
“It’s GPS.”
“Not a witch, then,” Warrick said. “False alarm, everybody. Linda is not a witch, she just has an internet connection. You know who was a witch, though?”
“Stefanianna North was not a witch,” Kelly said.
“You didn’t see her!” Warrick responded. “You don’t know!”
“Neither do you. You were unconscious the whole time.”
Warrick sniffed. “It wasn’t my fault I was drugged.”
“You weren’t drugged,” said Ronnie, “you were high. And that was your fault because it was your own weed you were smoking.”
“Aha,” said Warrick, leaning forward, “but why was I smoking it?”
“To get high.”
“No,” Warrick said triumphantly. “Well, yes, but also because of the socio-economic turmoil this world has been going through since before I was even born. My mother had anxiety issues when I was still in the womb, man. That affects a dude, forces him to seek out alternative methods of coping later in life.”
“So that’s what you were doing?” Kelly asked. “You were coping?”
“I was trying to,” Warrick said. “And that’s when Stefanianna came to kill me. I don’t remember much—”
“Because you were high.”
“—but I do remember her saying something like, ‘First I’ll kill you, then I’ll kill your friends.’ And I was all, like, hey, don’t you touch my friends, because I’m very protective of you guys, you know?”
Kelly nodded. “We bask in your protection.”
“But then Two woke up,” said Warrick, “and, as we all know, witches are terrified of dogs, especially pit bulls.”
“That’s not a thing,” said Linda.
“Well, maybe not particularly pit bulls, but we all know that witches are terrified of dogs, right?”
“That’s not a thing, either,” said Linda.
Warrick frowned. “So what are witches terrified of?”
“Fire,” said Ronnie.
“But then why did she run away? The moment she saw Two she screamed and ran.”
“That’s because Stefanianna is terrified of dogs,” Kelly said.
“Yes!” said Warrick. “Exactly! See?”
“But that doesn’t mean she’s a witch.”
“Why doesn’t it?”
“Because why would it?”
Warrick frowned again. “I don’t … I don’t see what you’re saying here.”
“Take a right, Ronnie,” Linda said. “Should be a hill up ahead.”
Ronnie took the right. “I see it. That where we’re going?”
“Yep.” Linda sat up. Her dark hair was a mess.
“How was your nap?” Kelly asked.
“Terrible,” Linda answered. “I feel like a hamster in a ball that’s been kicked down a hill for three hours. And Two kept farting.”
Two whined in protest.
“That wasn’t Two,” Warrick said meekly.
“Oh, you’re so gross,” Linda said, crawling forward. She left the cushioned rear of the van and joined Warrick on the long seat behind Kelly.
They got to the top of the hill and Kelly read the sign.
“The Dowall Motel,” she said, and frowned up at the building. “You know, for a pretty town, this is a creepy motel.”
“They better allow pets,” Warrick said.
“I don’t care,” said Linda. “All I want is a real bed tonight. I’m sick of sleeping in the van.”
“Swear allegiance,” Warrick whispered.
They parked, and got out, and Kelly immediately reached back in to grab her jacket. Two hopped out as well, started to hump a small tree, but Warrick shook his head.
“Sorry, buddy, you’re gonna have to stay in the van until we find out if they allow pets.”
“He doesn’t understand you, Warrick,” said Linda, rubbing her arms against the cold.
“Well, no, but he understands basic English, though.”
Linda looked at the dog. “Two. Stop having sex with the tree. Sit. Sit. Two, sit.” She raised her eyes to Warrick. “He’s not sitting.”
“You know he doesn’t like to be told what to do. It’s conversational English he responds to, not orders. We’re not living in Nazi Germany, Linda, okay? We have something here in America that I like to call freedom. Freedom to choose, freedom to worship, freedom to congregate in groups of like-minded individuals, freedom of the press and free speech and freedom to do other stuff … Land of the free, home of the brave. That’s where we live, that’s how we live, and that’s why Two won’t sit when you order him to sit.”
“Fine,” said Linda. “Then you tell him to do something.”
“I’m not gonna tell,” said Warrick. “I’m gonna ask.” He cleared his throat, and looked down at Two. “Hey, buddy,” he said, “mind leaving the tree alone and waiting in the van for a minute?”
Two barked, and jumped into the van.
Linda picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Coincidence.”
“Two’s a smart puppy dog.”
“Of course he jumped into the van. It’s freezing out here.”
“Come on, Linda,” Warrick said, shutting the van door. “Swear allegiance to the doggy.”
Kelly walked on ahead, into the motel, where the first thing that registered was a moose head on the wall behind the front desk.
The woman at the desk looked up. She was tall, skinny, with a mole beneath her right eye and a blouse buttoned all the way up to her throat. Dear God, she was wearing a brooch.
Kelly smiled. “Hi.”
The woman, whose nametag identified her as Belinda, frowned back at her. The others walked in, and Belinda’s eyes widened and she stepped back.
“You,” she said in a surprisingly husky voice. “We do not allow your kind in here.”
Ronnie and Linda froze.
“Me?” said Ronnie, a black man.
“Or me?” said Linda, a Chinese girl.
“Him,” said Belinda, pointing a trembling finger at Warrick.
“Me?” Warrick said. “What’d I do?”
“You’re a … you’re a beatnik,” Belinda said, the word exploding out of her mouth like a chunk of meat after a Heimlich.
“I am not!” said Warrick.
“We do not allow beatniks in this motel!”
“I’m not a beatnik! Stop calling me a beatnik!”
“Excuse me,” Kelly said, still smiling as she neared the desk, “but what seems to be the issue with beatniks?”
“My mother never approved,” Belinda said, practically livid with disgust. “She said never shall a beatnik sleep under this roof, and I say a beatnik never shall!”
Kelly nodded. “That’s very understandable. Beatniks are terrible people. Although Warrick isn’t actually a beatnik.”
“My mother said they will come in various guises.”
“Uh-huh. Yes, but the thing is Warrick isn’t one of them.”
“I hate jazz music,” said Warrick.
“He does,” said Kelly. “He hates jazz music.”
“He’s got a beatnik beard, though,” said Belinda.
Warrick frowned. “My soul patch? I just don’t like shaving under my lip. My skin is sensitive, man.”
“I assure you,” Ronnie said, giving Belinda a smile, “my friend isn’t a beatnik. He just shaves like one. He listens to regular music and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk about bettering his inner self.”
“I leave my inner self alone and it leaves me alone,” said Warrick. “We’re happier that way.”
Belinda hesitated.
“The moment he starts wearing berets and playing the bongos,” Kelly said, “we’ll kick him out ourselves.”
“Very well,” Belinda said dubiously. “In which case, welcome to the Dowall Motel. This is a family business. How may I help you?”
“We don’t have any reservations,” said Ronnie, “but we were wondering if you had any rooms available? Two twin rooms, ideally. We don’t mind bunking up.”
“How long will you be staying?”
“We’re not sure,” said Ronnie. “A week, maybe?”
Belinda shook her head. “Sorry, no. Out of the question.”
“I’m, uh, not sure I understand …”
“There is a town festival,” Belinda said, “for townsfolk only. You can stay until Wednesday morning, but will then have to leave.”
“We can do that,” said Linda. “What does the festival celebrate?”
“The town.”
Linda smiled and nodded. “And it is surely a town worth celebrating.”
“A question, if you please,” said Warrick, squeezing between them. Belinda recoiled slightly. “This motel. Is it pet friendly?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Is it friendly to pets? For instance, my dog. Is it friendly to my dog?”
Belinda looked horrified. “Are you asking if your dog is allowed inside the hotel?”
“That is what I’m asking, yes.”
“No.”
“Is that a ‘No, my dog is allowed,’ or a ‘No, my dog isn’t allowed’?”
“No pets are allowed on the premises,” said Belinda. “My brother is extremely allergic. Having an animal under this roof could kill him.”
“What if I told you he was house-trained?”
“Absolutely not.”
“What if I told you he would not try to have sex with any potted plants you may possess, or any of your favourite stuffed animals? Still no? Then I will be forced to sleep with him in our van. Is that what you want? Me sleeping in a van? This isn’t California, let me remind you. This is Alaska. It gets cold here. You’re really okay with me spending the night in a van, freezing to death while my oversexed dog humps my head?”
“Animals are not allowed.”
“What if we sneak him in without you noticing?”
“We’re not going to do that,” Ronnie said quickly.
Warrick nodded, and did the air quotes thing. “Yeah, we’re ‘not’.”
“We’re actually not,” said Linda. “If Warrick won’t go anywhere without that dog, he can sleep in the van and take the consequences. The rest of us would like beds, please – until Wednesday.”
“When you will depart,” said Belinda.
“When we will depart,” echoed Linda.
They were shown to their rooms and Kelly dumped her bag on her bed and went to the bathroom while Linda showered quickly. Then they switched, and got changed, and met the guys outside.
They drove through town, familiarising themselves with the layout before focusing on the quieter streets. They followed the few small scrawls of graffiti like it was a trail of breadcrumbs, losing it sometimes and having to double back to pick up the trail again. It took them the rest of the afternoon, but finally the trail led them all the way to a park, at the bottom of the hill that led to the motel.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” said Kelly.
They got out, went walking. Kelly zipped up her jacket while Two ran in excited circles. On the east side of the park there was a small building that housed the public restrooms. Facing the park, it was a pristine example of a public utility that was kept up to snuff. But the interesting stuff was all across the back in layers of names and promises and oaths and declarations.
Kelly was a quick study, but even so her ability to decipher the messages hidden in graffiti could only take her so far. Ronnie was better at it, and Linda was better still, but Warrick was the master. He was the one who’d told them all about it, after all. Graffiti was the cave painting of the modern world, he’d told Kelly after she’d taken her first trip in the van.
That had been her recruitment, she supposed. Once she was part of the group, one of the gang, he felt comfortable telling her his secrets. A town’s history, its true history, he said, could be found in the scrawls and crude pictures hidden from the prying eyes of the disapproving authorities, those to whom whitewashing a wall was the same as whitewashing a mind. They could paint over the truth as many times as they wanted, but the truth could always be scrawled anew.
Kelly found declarations of love and accusations of infidelity, she found boasts of conquests, of prowess and of physical exploits, and she found pictures of genitalia that were suspect in their accuracy.
“Look at this,” said Linda, pointing to a drawing of a thin man with a wide, smiling mouth, too big for his head. There was an artistry to it, some genuine talent, but there was something else – something about that smile that unnerved Kelly. Linda took a picture of it with her phone.
“Got something else,” Ronnie said. “A name – Donnie Welker. Says here the Narrow Man got him in 2003.”
Linda hurried over, documenting the message.
They found five more references to the Narrow Man, and then Warrick said, “Found it.”
They crowded round him. On the wall, almost at the corner and faded, yet isolated from the other scrawls, almost as if nobody dared paint over it, was a short rhyme.
The Narrow Man, the Narrow Man,
He’ll sniff you out, you know he can.
Counting, counting, one, two, three,
Your name he’ll call, his face you’ll see.
Tap at your window, tap at your door,
You can hide no longer, run no more.
The Narrow Man, the Narrow Man,
He’ll drag you to hell, fast as he can.
“He’s here, all right,” said Ronnie.
“Look at this,” said Kelly, waving to a group of kids hanging out in the trees behind them. “We have an audience.”
Two bounded over. A few of the kids backed away, but most of them made a fuss over the dumb dog as he licked their hands and rolled on to his back so they’d scratch his belly.
Kelly and the others walked over.
“Hi there,” she said. The kids regarded her warily. “Could you do us a favour? Me and my friends were wondering what that Narrow Man thing is all about. We’ve heard of him, we’re kind of geeks for this sort of crap, but we’ve never seen anything so concentrated as this.”
Some of the kids, the ones who were wary of the dog, glanced at each other and walked away.
One of the other kids who stayed gave a shrug. “So what’s the favour?”
“Actually, less of a favour, more of a … job, really.” Kelly took out a crumpled ten-dollar bill. “What can you tell us about him?”
“He’s a story,” said the kid.
“What kind of story?” Ronnie asked.
“Creepy bedtime story.”
“He’s the boogeyman,” said a girl.
“Yeah, that’s it,” the boy said. “The boogeyman. Comes out and snatches away naughty boys and girls.”
“What about the rhyme?” asked Linda.
“Just something we used to say. Something fun.”
Warrick took a treat from his pocket, tossed it to Two. “He ever snatch away anyone you know?”
“Are you stupid or something?” the boy asked. “He’s a story. He’s not real.”
Warrick jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I think whoever drew that picture thought he was real.”
“My cousin drew that,” said a smaller kid at the back, “and you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s a nursery rhyme. Just something kids used to say.”
“What about the counting, counting, one, two, three thing?” Ronnie asked. “What’s that mean?”
The kids looked at each other uneasily, until Ronnie produced another ten.
The first kid tracked it like a heat-seeker. “Everyone in town votes,” he said. “If you misbehave, parents and teachers and whatever will write your name on a piece of paper and put it into the box in the square. They do it to scare the younger kids into doing what they’re told.”
Kelly frowned. “And what are they voting for?”
Not to be outdone, the girl spoke up. “The Narrow Man comes for whoever gets the most votes. Or he’s supposed to, anyway. But everyone knows the votes are never counted.”
“That’s pretty messed up,” said Warrick.
“It’s a crock of shit,” the girl said, shrugging. “Like everything else people do here.”
“What’s the festival that’s happening on Wednesday?” Kelly asked.
The kids clammed up. Warrick sighed, and gave each of them a ten.
“We don’t talk about it,” said the first kid.
“So what is it?”
“We don’t talk about it.”
“But … dude, I gave you another ten.”
“So?”
They turned to go.
“Wait,” said Ronnie. “What’s your cousin’s name, the one who drew the picture? Maybe we can talk to him.”
“Doubt it,” said the small kid, “but whatever. Give me a twenty, stop your dog from humping my leg, and I’ll tell you.”
(#ulink_8231d1e2-badb-5e71-a8e9-e6a0e8697f4f)
AMBER SPENT MONDAY MORNING in Fast Danny’s. Brenda served her breakfast, then juice, then coffee, and then two hot chocolates, and Amber sat at her corner table with her earphones plugged into the iPad, using the cafe’s Wi-Fi to watch all of the In The Dark Places episodes she’d missed while on the run.
She’d hesitated before pressing play on the first one. Her life in the last five weeks had become stranger and much more fantastical than anything she’d ever seen on a TV screen. She’d witnessed true horror. She’d been subjected to true violence. She herself had killed. She herself had eaten human flesh. She had interacted with beings who existed beyond death, who traded in souls and powers beyond imagining, and she was pretty sure she was being stalked by a vampire. What effect could a dumb TV show have on her now?
As it turned out, an astonishing one.
Watching Dark Places was like going home – but instead of the home she’d always known, that cold place of silence and secrets, it was her other home, the home she had made for herself inside the world of the stories she loved. She knew everything about the actors, knew their birth dates and their pets’ names, but as each episode began the actors vanished and their characters appeared, and Amber forgot about the horrors biting at her heels and lost herself in the stories unfolding before her. She interacted with Brenda when she had to, ignored the curious looks of the people who frequented the cafe, and sipped her hot chocolate. The only part of her, the only part, that she did not relax was the part that was keeping her body from shifting into its demon form. That remained vigilant.
When she’d finished watching the final episode of the season – it had ended on a cliffhanger, of course it had ended on a cliffhanger – she took out the earbuds and sat back, absorbing the drama. The cafe was almost full by now, with people eyeing her table covetously.
Brenda saw that she had emerged from the screen, and came over. “Can I get you the cheque?”
Amber thought for a moment. “No, thanks,” she said. “But I’ll take a look at your lunch menu.”
Brenda made a big deal out of sighing, and headed off to fetch a menu. Amber grinned to herself.
She checked her phone, saw no message from Milo, and logged on to the Dark Places forum. Her bandaged hands made typing difficult, but not impossible.
The Dark Princess said …
I have returned …
RetroGamer! said …
Hi Proncess
*princess
Sith0Dude said …
hey
RetroGamer! said …
Damn typos.
Elven Queen said …
Princess!! We missed u!
Thoughts on finale?
Sith0Dude said …
Hey Elven Queen
The Dark Princess said …
Just saw it. WOW.
Though kinda knew they wouldn’t let Gideon die off so easily.
Elven Queen said …
Yeah, saw that twist coming from 3 episodes ago!
Sith0Dude said …
why is everyone ignoring me?
RetroGamer! said …
Was talking to BAC 10 minutes ago
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
There’s my girl!
The Dark Princess said …
BAC!
The world is a brighter place once more!
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
How’ve u been doing? Things been sorted since last time we chatted? *fingers crossed*
The Dark Princess said …
Not really, but I’m bravely fighting my way through it!
Sith0Dude said …
ur all ignoring me
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
Made up your mind about the con yet? Full cast PLUS Annalith’s gonna be there.
Wish I could go.
Elven Queen said …
Not ignoring you, Sith0Dude.
The Dark Princess said …
Haven’t really been thinking about it, but don’t think it’ll be possible. Things are still screwy
RetroGamer! said …
Everything ok, Princess?
The Dark Princess said …
I’m fine. Life’s just weird at the moment and not looking like it’ll ever go back to normal.
Elven Queen said …
Normal is boring.
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
You back in Florida yet?
The Dark Princess said …
Furthest thing from it. Alaska! LOL
Sith0Dude said …
the north pole?
The Dark Princess said …
Alaska isn’t the north pole.
Is it?
RetroGamer! said …
No.
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
Penguins live in the south pole, polar bears live in the north pole. That’s the rule.
Look out your window, Princess. What do u see?
The Dark Princess said …
Cars and people. No polar bears or penguins.
Sith0Dude said …
if you can’t see penguins u must be on north pole.
penguins would be everywhere on south cuz of no natural predators.
The Dark Princess said …
I don’t think that’s right, Sith0Dude.
Sith0Dude said …
No LAND based predators I meant. But they are prey to a range of top predators in the oceans.
Some penguins can swim up to 22 mph.
They get rid of saltwater they’ve swallowed by sneezing.
Elven Queen said …
Are you googling penguin facts, Sith0Dude?
Sith0Dude said …
no. just like penguins
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
How’s Wi-Fi in Alaska, Princess?
The Dark Princess said …
Better than expected! In a cafe right now and just streamed 4 eps without a problem. Say 1 thing for those polar bears, they know their Wi-Fi!
Sith0Dude said …
Most people think penguins mate for life, but Emperor Penguins usually take a mate for one year at a time
Elven Queen said …
Shut up about penguins Sith0Dude.
The Dark Princess said …
Gotta go guys. RL has just walked in.
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
When will u be on next?
The Dark Princess said …
Hard to say, got a lot going on. Laters!
Milo sat at the table and Amber logged off the messageboard.
“The Hounds still where they’re supposed to be?” she asked.
“They are. I followed one of them when he rode around the outskirts. Every so often, he’d test the barrier. Looks like it surrounds the whole town. We would appear to be safe, but I’m heading back out this afternoon, just to make sure. What have you been doing?”
Amber couldn’t help it. She smiled. “Just chatting with my friends.”
“And how are they?”
“Good. Still reeling from the final episode of Dark Places. It was brilliant. I’d tell you about it, but I don’t want to spoil anything.”
“I’m never going to watch that show,” Milo said, beckoning Brenda over.
“You should,” said Amber. “It’s better than those westerns you like.”
Milo grunted, then gave one of his smiles to Brenda that the waitress clearly appreciated. “Hey there,” he said. “Could I have a coffee, if it’s not too much trouble? Black, no sugar.”
“Regular old coffee,” said Brenda, “you got it. Anything else?”
“Nothing I can think of right now, thank you.”
Brenda nodded, practically curtsied, and hurried away.
“Doesn’t that get annoying?” Amber asked.
“Doesn’t what get annoying?” Milo said.
“That,” said Amber. “Women falling over themselves whenever you smile at them.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on. You do that smiley thing and they go weak at the knees every time.”
“That ‘smiley thing’ is me smiling.”
“Yeah, but it’s not, though, is it? You give them the extra big grin to get them blushing.”
“Hate to disappoint you, Amber, but my smile is the same size regardless of who I’m talking to.”
“So you’re telling me that if Brenda was a dude, you’d give him the same smile?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re flirting. Just admit it.”
“I admit no such thing because I’m not flirting. You’ll know when I’m flirting with someone because it’ll be really obvious and really bad.”
“You flirted with that lady back in Cascade Falls.”
“Veronica.”
“And did you or did you not get laid because of it?”
“What I did or did not do is none of your business, but that wasn’t flirting. That was talking. I’m okay at talking, when I’m in a talkative mood, and sometimes talking leads to other things.”
“Some people would call that flirting.”
“I call it being friendly.”
The woman at the next table got up to leave, but dropped her purse. Milo picked it up, handed it back to her. She smiled and he winked and she giggled.
As she walked away, Amber stared at Milo. “You winked at her.”
Milo frowned. “What? No, I didn’t.”
“You so did! You actually winked at her!”
“Did I?”
“I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Milo said. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What’s your flirting technique like?”
“I don’t have one,” she said.
“Sure you do.”
Amber shook her head. “It is literally non-existent, and I use literally both in the literal and figurative senses.”
“You just need practice,” Milo said. “Find someone you’d like to flirt with and strike up a conversation.”
“Like who?” she said, laughing.
“I don’t know,” Milo answered, looking around. He nodded to a young guy across the cafe. “How about him?”
Amber smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Coward.”
“He’s just not my type.”
“What is your type?”
She shrugged. “Not him.”
Brenda came over with Milo’s coffee.
“Thanks very much,” he said. Brenda smiled and blushed and hurried to another table before she melted.
Milo took a sip, and didn’t meet Amber’s gaze.
“Shut up,” he said.
(#ulink_7ac4ebc5-0c7b-514e-82de-b10a34cd4326)
WHAT HE HAD, and let there be no mistaking this, was a bona-fide mystery on his hands.
A murder mystery, to be exact. How many of those fell into the lap of someone like him every day? A murder mystery with police collusion. He knew what they called that, of course. They called it conspiracy.
Were all the cops in on it? He had no way of knowing. Novak and Woodbury, certainly, and maybe that other one, Officer Duncan. The one that never smiled. He doubted Lucy Thornton was involved – she always struck him as an honest sort of cop. And if Thornton was honest maybe her pal Ortmann was, too. But again he couldn’t be sure. They could all be part of this.
His heart was beating faster all of a sudden. This probably wasn’t a good thing, but for once Virgil didn’t mind. He was taking his pills and that’s all anyone could be expected to do in his position. He had a mystery to solve, after all.
Sure, his paranoia had been getting to him. Every creak in his house was a footstep. Every passing car was a police cruiser, come to silence him. He wasn’t getting much sleep. He wasn’t eating much. But so what? He had important things to be doing, for God’s sake. For the seventh time that day, he checked the windows and doors, made sure they were locked.
He watched an old man in a blue jacket shuffle along the sidewalk, reading from a scrap of paper and then looking up and around. Lost and confused, the same way Virgil spent most of his days. Not anymore, though. He realised, with a smile, that purpose had crept into his life when he wasn’t looking. What an odd sensation that was.
He set about making himself a sandwich. He had to keep his strength up, even if he wasn’t hungry. He laid out his ingredients, but hadn’t even buttered the bread when there was a knock on the door. His good mood soured. That would be Mrs Galloway. Every year she knocked on his door, gave him that condescending smile, and enquired as to his well-being before asking about his plans for Hell Night with all the grace and subtlety of a … a …
Goddammit, he couldn’t even think of a suitable insult.
Walking to the front door, he did his best to stifle his anger. It wasn’t easy. She wouldn’t even call it Hell Night. She called it “the festival” around him, as if he’d never heard the actual name in all of his years here. Condescending busybody that she was. He reached the door, calmed down, put a neutral expression on his face, and then opened it.
The old man in the blue jacket stood there. For a moment, Virgil didn’t know who it was. He was probably around Virgil’s own age. Hispanic. Shrunken. Then it came to him.
“Goat-molester?”
Javier Santorum snarled. When he did so, his false teeth clacked in his mouth. He drew back his spindly arm, his liver-spotted hand clenching into a liver-spotted fist. As a younger man, he’d telegraphed every punch in every fight scene they’d ever had (those in which he hadn’t been replaced with a stuntman) and it seemed his real-life technique wasn’t much better. He swung his fist in a wide, unsteady arc that Virgil could easily have dodged, back in the old days. But now, even though he saw it coming, he was still too slow to avoid it.
Javier’s fist bounced painfully off his cheek.
“Ow,” said Virgil.
“Yeah,” said Javier triumphantly. “How’d you like them—”
Javier had been a stage magician before he’d become an actor – Javier Santorum, Circus Magician and Escape Artist! – but Virgil had been a boxer, and those instincts never leave you. His left jab had slowed considerably over the years, but it still had that snap to it, and he still landed it with unerring precision, right on the point of Javier’s chin. Javier’s eyes crossed and his legs gave out, and he sat down faster than he’d probably managed for quite some time, and then flattened out on Virgil’s front porch.
“Oh goddammit,” said Virgil.
For a moment, he wondered if he’d killed him, but the rise and fall of Javier’s pigeon chest assured him that no, the idiot was still alive. He couldn’t leave him out on the porch, though. It wasn’t so much that the neighbours might wonder what was going on, but that Javier might get carried off by a bear or something on its way past. What an undignified way to go.
So Virgil prepared himself and, moving slowly, took a good grip on each of Javier’s matchstick ankles. Straightening up even slower than he’d bent down, he got himself in a good position, and pulled. Dragging Javier into the house was easier than he’d expected. The man seemed to consist of nothing more than dried kindling and leathered skin. His head bounced off the doorsill and Virgil grinned.
When he was inside, Virgil closed the door and went to fetch a glass of water. He stood over Javier, then, about to upend it over the other man’s face, when his mischievous streak lit up. He poured half of the water on to Javier’s crotch, and the rest he dumped on Javier’s face.
Javier spluttered, coughed, turned his head away and wiped his eyes. “What the hell … what the hell’re you doing?”
Virgil put the glass on the hall table. “Reviving you,” he said. “You looked dead.”
“That’s how I always look, you sonofabitch. You hit me!”
“You hit me first.”
“You deserved it!”
“Sorry I called you Goat-molester,” Virgil said. “It was the first thing that came into my head, honestly.”
“I don’t need your damn apology!”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came here to kick your ass!”
“You might want to do that from a standing position.”
“Screw you! I’ll get up in my own time!”
“Right. Sure. You wet yourself, by the way.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake …”
Javier struggled into a sitting position, then wiped at his crotch with dismay.
“Need some help?” Virgil asked.
“Not from the likes of you!”
Virgil shrugged.
Javier rubbed his chin. “You sucker-punched me.”
“No, I hit you back.”
“Yeah, when I wasn’t expecting it. I might have concussion. If my brain swells tonight, you’re to blame. Everyone will know you killed me.”
“Not if I leave you out for the bears.”
“There are bears?” Javier said quickly, looking around like he expected one to come ambling through from the bathroom.
“This is Alaska,” said Virgil. “We have everything here. Javier, are you sure you don’t want any help getting off the floor? You’re a long way down, and it’s a long way up.”
“I can do it myself,” said Javier. “Look at you, talking like an old man. You probably need those handles in the tub, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Virgil. “I also have a seat in the shower.”
“Ha! Like an old man!”
“Says the guy who can’t get up off my floor.”
“I’m waiting for my second wind!”
“What are you doing here, Javier? Why’d they even let you out?”
“Let me out?” said Javier. “It’s a retirement village, not a goddamn prison camp! I leave when I want to leave! If I want to catch a plane, I catch a plane! Don’t you be treating me like I’m an old man. I ain’t dead yet!” Moving slowly, and carefully, Javier turned over on to his hands and knees.
Virgil watched him. “Did you travel across the country just so you could hit me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Javier wheezed, crawling to the wall. “Hitting you was a bonus. Hitting you made the trip sweeter.”
“So why are you here?”
“The mystery,” Javier grunted. Using the wall to steady himself, he started getting to his feet. Virgil stared at him. He knew about the murder? How the hell did he know about the murder?
“My doppelgänger,” Javier continued. “Want to … see him for myself. See if he … really is my double.” Finally, Javier was standing again. “Oh, thank Christ,” he muttered.
“Someone looks a little like you and you immediately get on a plane?”
Javier glared. “You said he looked exactly like me. That’s what you said.”
“I know what I said, but you couldn’t have known that I wasn’t exaggerating. You took my word on something like that? Why?”
“Because I want to see him, goddammit. Is that so hard to understand? If I have a double who looks just like me from years ago, I want to meet him. Comprende?”
“You can’t meet him.”
“The hell I can’t! Where’d you see him? Just tell me where you saw him and I’ll do the rest.”
“He was in my neighbour’s house …”
“Well, okay!”
“… killing my neighbour.”
Javier paused. “What’s that you say?”
“You heard.”
“My doppelgänger killed your neighbour? That’s what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Well … why?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do the cops say about it?”
“That’s complicated.”
“In what way?”
“They’re in on it.”
“In on what?”
“The murder.”
Javier frowned. “You’re going to have to start at the beginning.”
“I was here. I looked into my neighbour’s house as your doppelgänger killed him. He snuck out, and before I could call them, the police turned up. The Chief of Police, actually. They took the body out in the middle of the night and covered up the whole thing.”
“Say it ain’t so.”
“I wish I could.”
“What kind of pills are you on, Abernathy?”
“Heart medication.”
“No pills that would make you hallucinate or imagine things or go crazy?”
“No crazy pills, no.”
“Cos it sounds like you’re on crazy pills.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“And you’re saying my double, my doppelgänger, is a killer? And you don’t know his name?”
Virgil hesitated.
“You do!” said Javier, eyes widening. “You do know his name!”
“I showed an old picture of you I got off the internet to the lady who delivers the mail, asked if she recognised this person. She said his name was Oscar Moreno.”
“My picture’s on the internet? Am I one of those internet stars I been hearing about?”
“No. As far as I can see, internet stars are cats and dogs and animals who do funny things.”
“Like Mr Ed?”
“I don’t think you’re quite getting it, but that’s okay.”
“And where does this Moreno guy live?”
“Across town,” said Virgil. “I looked him up in the phone book.”
“Just like you used to do on the show.”
“I guess.”
“Is that what this is?” Javier asked. “Are you falling into some delusion where you can no longer separate reality from fiction? Do you think we’re in an episode of the show right now?”
“If we were, you’d be Ernesto Insidio, evil mastermind, and I’d have to punch you again.”
Javier let a slow smile creep on to his face. “I think you might be nuts.”
“I really don’t care.”
“I actually think you might be losing your marbles. Do you know your own name? Tell me, are you Virgil Abernathy, washed-up television actor, or the Shroud, crime-fighting hero?”
Virgil looked at him, and shrugged. “I can’t be both?”
(#ulink_27df9602-8bdc-5de3-a362-8d06ff6c4483)
AMBER’S HANDS WERE GETTING better. They were still stiff, still discoloured, but the throb had reduced to almost nothing, and she could actually move her fingers now. She tested them on the walk from Main Street to the Dowall Motel, wriggling them a little in their bandages. The iPad was in the bag on her back and it bounced with every step she took. She was walking fast. After a day spent in her human form, she was ready to crawl out of her own skin.
She passed a park where little kids played on jungle gyms and swing sets while their parents looked on. The afternoon had turned to early evening, but it was still bright, still way too bright, and it was cold and getting colder, and they were all wrapped up in thick coats. Amber barely felt it. She started up the hill, keeping her eyes on the motel at the top. She envisioned herself walking into her room and stripping off her clothes and shifting, and had to bite her lip to keep from moaning.
A car pulled up alongside her, its window down.
“Hello there!” the driver said brightly.
Amber frowned at him and kept walking.
He was fat and balding, unexceptional, but his smile was intense in its friendliness. “I was wondering if you could tell me where Daggett Road is …?”
“I’m not from around here,” Amber said.
“What was that?” the driver asked, keeping pace.
“I’m not from around here,” she repeated, louder.
He shook his head. “Sorry, still can’t hear you.” He pulled in ahead of her and Amber stopped walking. He got out, holding a map. He wore a bowling shirt that did nothing to hide his bulk.
“I’m not from around here,” Amber told him again.
“I’m just looking for Daggett Road,” he explained, coming closer.
“I can’t help you,” said Amber. “I don’t live here, I’m not from here.”
“But look,” the man said, holding out the map. “I know where it is, I just don’t know where I am.”
Amber started to back up. “I can’t help you.”
“I won’t take up much of your time,” said the man. “I’m just trying to get to Daggett Road.”
“Please stay back.”
“Why?” the man asked, a wounded expression on his face. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m just asking for directions. Are you scared? Why are you scared? I’m just asking for directions.”
“And I told you I can’t help you.”
“But you haven’t even tried.”
“I’m not from the area.”
“I just want to find Daggett Road. Can you show me where we are on this map?”
“I don’t know where we are.”
“Of course you do,” the man said, and chuckled.
“Sir, I don’t know the name of the road we’re on, I don’t know how to find it on a map, and I don’t know where Daggett Road is. There’s a bunch of people down in the playground you could ask.”
“What playground?”
“You just passed it.”
“Yeah?” he said, and looked around. “Didn’t notice it. Maybe you could help me find the playground on the map?”
He stepped towards her and she held up a hand. “Stop.”
“Stop?”
“Stop where you are.”
He laughed. “This is America, young lady. Land of the free. You can’t tell me what to do. If I want to walk, I walk.”
He took another step, and another, matching her backwards steps.
She snarled. “Sir, if you take one more goddamn step, you’re going to regret it.”
“Yeah?” said the man, and then he showed her the gun he was holding under the map. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”
Amber’s eyes widened. The gun was an automatic, and it had a silencer on the muzzle.
“Don’t do it,” the man said. “Don’t change. Moment I see horns, I’m putting a bullet between them.”
She didn’t need to ask him why he was here.
“Where is he?” the man said. “The Ghost. Where is he?”
“Who?”
“The Ghost of the Highway,” the man snapped. “I know he’s here with you, so where exactly is he?”
She thought about lying, but couldn’t come up with a way to exploit a lie, so she decided on the truth. “He’s keeping an eye on the Hounds,” she said. “You know about the Hounds, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I know about the Hounds. But where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He drives around a little. Checks the perimeter.”
He aimed for her head. “Where is he?”
Amber swallowed. “Over that way.” She jerked her head to show him.
“Then we’re going in the opposite direction,” the man said. He motioned to the car. “In you get. Go on. No, the driver’s side.”
“What?”
“You’re gonna drive us right up to those Hounds, and I’m gonna sit beside you and keep this gun pointed straight at your gut.”
“I can’t drive.” She held up her hands. “I can’t grip the wheel.”
“What?” He shook his head. He looked furious. “What the hell did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Amber replied. “It was a guy like you, someone who wanted to take me back to the Shining Demon. He did this.”
“Shit.” The man stared at her. He started chewing his lip. “Shit. Well, I can’t drive. I gotta keep the gun on you.”
“Don’t know what you want me to do about it.”
“Shut up,” he said. “Shut up and let me … Okay, right, Plan B. We walk outta here.”
“Walk out of town? That’s miles.”
“You think I’m happy about it? Walk ahead of me. We stay away from anyone we see, you understand? If you try to be sneaky and alert someone to what’s going on, I kill them, you dig? Get going.”
They got to the park and cut across it, staying out of sight of the kids and their parents. Every minute or so the man would issue another instruction to steer clear of houses or roads or people walking their dogs. They got to an old walking track and stayed on it for a while.
“So who are you?” Amber asked.
“I don’t recall saying anything about small talk.”
“This isn’t small talk,” she said. “I think I deserve to know the name of the man who’s going to deliver me to the Hounds.”
She heard the smirk in his voice. “Yeah, maybe. Name’s Phil Daggett – though most people know me as the Yukon Strangler.”
“Serial killer?”
“There is not a name for what I am.”
“You a friend of Elias Mauk, then?”
“He’s never had the privilege of meeting me. But he will. When this is over and I get the power I want, they’ll all wanna meet me.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. His face was red and his breathing was laboured. He wasn’t used to this much exercise. Neither was she, for that matter. She didn’t want to imagine what her own face looked like.
“You’re still alive,” she said.
“Eyes front.”
Amber looked ahead as she walked. “You’re still alive,” she repeated. “Most of the killers who sign up with the Shining Demon wait until they’re dead to … Wait. You haven’t signed up with him, have you?”
“No more talking.”
She stopped suddenly, and turned.
Daggett pulled up, confused. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You haven’t made a deal with him, have you?” she asked. “So why are you here?”
“Get moving.”
“Not until you answer my questions.”
“I will kill you right now if you do not start walking.”
“The Shining Demon wants me alive,” she countered. “So come on – what’s in it for you?”
He hesitated. “If I hand you over, I get my deal.”
“You tried to make a deal before this,” she said, “but you weren’t interesting enough, were you?”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Explain it to me, Phil, or I’m not moving.”
“Goddamn you, you little bitch …! You march when I goddamn say you march!”
“Explain.”
Fury danced in his eyes. “I tried to make a deal,” he said. “So what? I tried and it didn’t work. It doesn’t work for everyone. I understood. I didn’t let it stop me. I kept going out, I killed more women – whores and sluts and filthy, filthy creatures, the lot of them – because I knew, I knew that if I could just prove myself worthy of his interest, all my dreams would come true. Then the night before last my bedroom was filled with this light, with this incredible light … I figured it was a sign. I figured he was calling me. I did the whole circle thing … and it worked, and I was in his castle.”
“And he offered you a deal if you could come in here and drag me out.”
“I jumped in my car immediately. I didn’t think I’d be the first to find you, but hey.” He shrugged, and smiled. “I guess it’s my lucky day.”
Amber frowned. “The first?”
Daggett laughed. “You didn’t think I was the only one, did you? Everyone who’s ever tried to contact him and failed, he summoned. They’re all on their way here. Serial killers of all kinds are closing in on this town as we speak.”
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Derek Landy
THE EPIC NEW THRILLER CONTINUES.Book two in the mind-blowing new supernatural thriller from bestselling author DEREK LANDY, creator of international sensation Skulduggery Pleasant.Reeling from their bloody encounter in New York City at the end of Demon Road, Amber and Milo flee north. On their trail are the Hounds of Hell – five demonic bikers who will stop at nothing to drag their quarries back to their unholy master.Amber and Milo’s only hope lies within Desolation Hill – a small town with a big secret; a town with a darkness to it, where evil seeps through the very floorboards. Until, on one night every year, it spills over onto the streets and all hell breaks loose.And that night is coming…
Copyright (#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
Visit us on the web at www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Derek Landy blogs under duress at www.dereklandy.blogspot.com (http://www.dereklandy.blogspot.com)
Copyright © Derek Landy 2016
Jacket photography © Larry Rostant 2016
Jacket design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016
Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Typeset in Joanna MT Std by
Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents
portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-
exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on
screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded,
decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information
storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or
mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written
permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008156985
Ebook Edition: © April 2016 9780008156947
Version 2016-07-04
Dedication (#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
This book is dedicated to all the horror icons who passed away while it was being written.
This is for Gunnar Hansen, and Angus Scrimm, and the mighty Wes Craven. Icons. Inspirations. Heroes.
And I’m left with nothing funny to say.
Sorry.
Table of Contents
Cover (#ub840b3bc-aa85-5ee0-bda7-04a5bb8da138)
Title Page (#ud1274232-ef52-543b-8130-95c36c1c4e56)
Copyright (#uf4e7d840-9f90-52e0-9cba-37b5361f5a9a)
Dedication (#u5b9a7052-7d6a-545d-b34c-861055131b47)
Chapter 1 (#ua4c33260-d77c-5d2f-a728-28907aaaad08)
Chapter 2 (#ub2b2a257-491d-5d99-9f58-43d95a2326c5)
Chapter 3 (#ub071c050-6084-54e7-847b-fc397eb5d675)
Chapter 4 (#u50996dd3-447c-5f7d-a782-f4dc24293fbe)
Chapter 5 (#udad1bc9d-fbf5-5d72-b35c-a7d34d0d42ee)
Chapter 6 (#u6f32fb2f-49ca-5636-9c5e-93ac45ad1e84)
Chapter 7 (#u8f52602b-d797-5a5b-9413-982101402d0c)
Chapter 8 (#ue3b85fdd-2530-553d-b645-b3b9fadf1cda)
Chapter 9 (#u71186787-f649-5038-947d-5d81e61fd4a4)
Chapter 10 (#u062d6f25-5538-52fa-bdb2-719e5c04a153)
Chapter 11 (#u8c075a04-74a4-5930-8bb2-77dec4dc8066)
Chapter 12 (#ua2fbb581-f740-5420-99cf-806ad127c491)
Chapter 13 (#ue4820eb7-39d3-59de-8899-c12c98e67c5f)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Derek Landy (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
THEY WERE ALIVE WHEN SHE WALKED IN.
Fourteen people, including the short-order cook and the waitress with the badly dyed hair in this little rest stop just outside of Whitehorse in Yukon. Everyone looked tired, this time of night. They ate pie or drank coffee or read newspapers or sat in their booths, focusing on their phones. Nobody glanced up when Amber entered. Nobody talked. Music played, drifting through from the small kitchen. Something by Bon Jovi. It was safe in here. None of these people wanted to kill her. She was getting good at spotting the telltale signs.
She went straight to the restroom. It was chilly, and not very clean, but she didn’t mind. She’d had to pee in worse places these past few days.
When she was done, she washed her hands. In the cracked mirror above the cracked sink, her hair was a mess and there were bags under her red-rimmed eyes. Her pale skin was blotchy. She looked like she needed a shower. She looked like a scared girl on the run.
Funny that.
Her belly rumbled and Amber turned off the faucet, wiped her hands on her jeans, and left the restroom.
They were all dead when she walked out.
She went instantly cold. All moisture left her mouth, her knees weakened, and every nerve ending jingled and jangled and screamed at her to run. But she couldn’t run. Her legs wouldn’t obey. She could barely stay standing.
Some of them had been attacked where they sat – others while they tried to escape. Bludgeoned to death, every one of them. A woman in a brown cardigan was slumped over her table, blood leaking from the mess in the back of her head. A trucker in a plaid shirt had half his face caved in. The waitress had been dragged across the counter. Blood dripped from the dented gash in her temple, forming a growing pool on the floor beneath her. Amber couldn’t see the cook, but knew he was lying on the floor of the kitchen. She could see his blood on the wall.
Fourteen people when she’d walked in. Fourteen corpses. But now there was a fifteenth person. He was sitting in the booth next to the door, his back to her, wearing a baseball cap and a grey, faded boiler suit. He was singing along to the radio. ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’ by Poison.
The booth moved closer to her. Closer still. No, it wasn’t the booth that was moving – it was Amber. She frowned, looked down at her feet as they took another step. Apparently, they were on their way out of the door, and they were taking the rest of her with them. She was okay with that. She didn’t want to stay here, anyway, not with all those corpses. She just had to pass this guy and then she could run out into the quiet street, shout for Milo, and he’d come roaring up in the Charger and they could get the hell out of there. Easy. No fuss, no muss.
The man in the boiler suit had a claw hammer on the table in front of him. It was bloodstained. There was a chunk of scalp hanging off it.
“How you doing?” he asked.
Amber froze.
He didn’t have a nice voice. It was curiously strained, like he’d spent most of his life shouting.
She kept her eyes on the door and took another step. And another.
“Amber, isn’t it?”
She stopped.
“Yeah,” the man said. “It’s you. I expected something else, to be honest. All the things you’ve done, I expected someone a little more …” he licked his lips, “… impressive.”
She looked at him. She had to. Her gaze moved slowly, and reluctantly, from the door to the booth. First she looked at the claw hammer, then at the remains of the pie he’d been eating. Then at his rough, worn hands, and the blood-splattered sleeves of his boiler suit. He was thin. Wiry. He had a narrow face and a pointed chin and a nasty smile. No hair. His cap had a faded logo Amber couldn’t make out. Her eyes finally settled on his and she had the strangest feeling of vertigo.
“You’re the one killed the Shining Demon’s representative, right?” the man asked. He had an accent. Southern. Georgia, maybe. “Made him go splat? I like your style. I’d been searching for the best way to kill that prick for years, but you got there first.”
“What do you want?” Amber asked.
“It ain’t what I want, little girl. It’s what you can give me.” He slid slowly out of the booth. He wasn’t tall, he had maybe two inches on Amber, but she took a step back nonetheless. “You’re my ticket,” he said.
“To what?”
He breathed in, and spread his arms. “All this.” His right arm dipped, and he picked up the claw hammer.
“Why did you kill these people?”
He gave her one of those nasty smiles. “No one told me I wasn’t supposed to. Besides, it’s been way too long since I got to kill new folks. Do you know what it’s like, little girl, do you have any idea what it’s like to be trapped in a middle-of-nowhere town where the biggest challenge is to find someone worthy to stalk? Jesus H. Christ, what is it with the young people of today? I’m old-fashioned and I make no apology for it. I like to stalk and kill teenagers. I like a challenge, you know what I mean? Teenagers are fit and strong and they’re surrounded by family and friends … but do you know what makes them so perfect to stalk? They run to parents, they run to cops, they tell them a bad man is trying to kill them, but no one takes them seriously. The look on their faces when they realise they’re alone – that they are truly alone – after a lifetime of being told they’ll be supported no matter what … Well. It’s just heaven, is what it is. But these days, trying to find one who can put up a decent fight is an impossible task. Worthy teenagers are a dying breed, and that is a sad state of affairs.”
That smile of his broadened. “So what about you, Amber? You gonna put up a fight? You’ve got that look about you. It’s in the eyes. Man, isn’t this just typical? I find a teenager who may actually be able to mount a challenge and I’m not allowed to kill her.”
Amber frowned. “You’re not allowed?”
“Nope. No killing the girl, those are my orders. I’m just here to bring you back.”
“You’re working for Astaroth.”
“On a first-name basis with the Shining Demon, are you? Must be nice. But yes, I am guilty as charged, as I said at my trial. Now you’ve managed to stay ahead of the Hounds, which is a feat that few have accomplished for this long, but now the professional is here to take care of business and to stop all this silliness.”
“I have money,” said Amber. “I can pay you to walk away.”
The man laughed. “Money? I don’t have any use for it. Besides, you can’t match what he’s offering.”
“Try me.”
“Freedom, little girl. See, I made a mistake when I made my deal with the Devil. A lot of us do. We get fixated on the people who caught us. All I wanted was to get my revenge on that Podunk little town – but when I was done? I couldn’t leave. I didn’t exist beyond its borders. The Shining Demon will, ah, broaden my remit. I’ll be able to travel. Kill people in new places. And this is just a taster of that. Look at me – Elias Mauk – killing in Canada. I’m gonna take my show on the road.”
“I … I read about you.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You’re dead.”
“That too.”
“You were executed.”
“Fried,” he said, whipping off his cap. A thick band of still-sizzling flesh wrapped around his head where the electricity had been focused. Amber could smell the burning skin from where she stood.
Mauk put his cap back on, and grinned. “They said I murdered twenty-two people. It was more like forty, but that was back when I was alive. Ever since the chair, my body count has grown. And after this? It’s gonna skyrocket.”
He took a step forward and she took a step back, holding up her hands.
“I don’t want to fight you,” she said.
“Oh, Amber, don’t you dare disappoint me now. Killing a room full of people is distressingly easy for someone like me. You gotta put up some resistance, at least.”
“You’re not the first serial killer I’ve faced,” Amber said. “You’re not even the first returned-from-the-grave serial killer I’ve faced. I killed Dacre Shanks.”
“Shanks ain’t got nothing on me.”
“Not anymore he doesn’t,” she said. “He came after me and I killed him. Now he’s dead and it’s the kind of dead that you don’t come back from. I’ll kill you, too.”
“I am liking this confidence,” said Mauk. “You’re definitely making the butterflies flutter, I’m not gonna lie to you. But Shanks was nothing. Take his precious little key away from him, and what did he have to offer? Tell me if this is true – when you found him, was he stuck inside one of his own dollhouses? I’ve heard he was stuck inside one of his own dollhouses. That’s funny. How’d you kill him? You step on him? Hell, you’re heavy enough.”
“Oh, I wasn’t like this when I killed him,” said Amber.
“No?”
“No,” she said, and she shifted.
Her bones lengthened and realigned and she grew taller. Her excess weight spread throughout her body and she became slimmer. Her brown hair turned black and her flushed skin turned red and two ebony horns blossomed from her forehead and curled back.
“There you are,” breathed Mauk. “Oh, you are magnificent.”
Amber didn’t bother agreeing as she grabbed him. She knew she was magnificent. He swung the hammer, but she ripped it out of his hand and tossed it aside. She picked him up, her newly formed muscles not even straining with the effort, and hurled him across a table. She caught a glimpse of her reflection as she stalked after him, and her sudden beauty was almost enough to make her pause. She still wasn’t used to it. A slight reconfiguration of her features was all it took to turn her from ugly human to mesmerising demon.
Ugly. There was a word she’d never used about herself before. Plenty of others had, in their crueller moments, but never her. She didn’t stop to wonder what it meant, as she watched Mauk take a steak knife from a dead patron, and it didn’t bother her. Precious little did when she was a demon.
Incredibly, Mauk was smiling as he came forward. Her skin tightened and black scales formed, and the knife skimmed across her armour without drawing blood. He tried stabbing at her again, but she was much too fast. She gripped his wrist and twisted. The knife fell and she hit him twice and he wobbled, and she took hold of the back of his head and sent him sprawling across the floor.
“Told you you should have walked away,” she said, and her fingers grew to claws.
Mauk groaned, turned over, and looked at her. He was still smiling. She didn’t like that. She was used to people dismissing her when she was herself, when she was ordinary old human Amber, but not when she was like this. When she was like this, she demanded respect.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Mauk, “you think you’re winning this little exchange? There’s a lot more to beating me than hitting me a coupla times.” He got to his feet. “See, when I kill, I like to … play. And my playmates, well … they just do whatever I tell ’em. Ain’t that right, my friends?”
The corpses stirred, and all the dead people in the rest stop slid out of their booths and stood, and Amber heard some distant part of herself scream.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
ALL HEADS TURNED and dead eyes opened. Amber backed off as the patrons came at her, their faces blank and splattered with their own blood.
“Stay back,” Amber warned, shoving the waitress. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare—”
They grabbed her and she cursed, struggled. She didn’t want to hit them, didn’t want to hurt them, but they were dead, they were already dead, and it was too late for them so she started slashing with her claws, punching, headbutting, and they kept coming, and now her arms were pinned and one of them had her by the throat and they pushed her back, this solid mass of corpses working as one, and they forced her into a booth and started crawling on top of her until she could barely breathe.
“Get them off me!” she screamed. “Get them off!”
Through the tangle of limbs, she watched as Mauk put the claw hammer on the table. Then he stepped back, taking a small pouch from inside his boiler suit. He dipped his fingers in, drew out a handful of black powder, and crouched. Amber lost sight of him, but she knew what he was doing. He was making a circle.
“We’re gonna be taking a trip,” he said.
“I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”
He stuck his head up into her line of sight. “Hey, you be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you. The Shining Demon only told me to bring you to him alive. Now there’s alive, and there’s barely alive – I don’t much care which one it ends up being.” Then he ducked down again.
She listened to the soft hiss of the powder. There were six or seven people lying on top of her, but they were still. They didn’t even breathe. Her eyes settled on the claw hammer. She tried to reach for it.
Mauk stood, put the pouch back into his boiler suit, and slid into the seat opposite. He pulled the hammer a little closer to him.
“Your parents were after you, ain’t that right?” he asked. “Yeah, I heard all about your folks and their friends. They actually wanted to eat you? That’s messed up – and I should know. But you evaded them – you, a sixteen-year-old kid, evaded a bunch of demons a hundred and something years old. Not only that, you killed the representative, smushed that overrated pile of crap Shanks, and you’ve managed to stay ahead of the Hounds of Hell.”
He whistled in admiration. “I mean, they’d have caught you eventually. It’s what they do. Astaroth sets the Hounds on you, they don’t give up till you’re caught, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it. You don’t fight the Hounds. You can’t beat ’em. Never heard of anyone managing that. You can’t hide from ’em, neither. They got your scent. But look at you. You’re still running. That says something about you, little demon. Says you are not to be underestimated. Under different circumstances, I would have been honoured to have stalked and killed you.”
He put a pair of handcuffs on the table. “But, seeing as how I’m gonna be delivering you to the Shining Demon, I gotta take precautions.”
The corpses moved on top of Amber, and they stretched out her right arm, pinning it to the tabletop.
“You’ll be wearing these,” said Mauk. “I don’t like to do it. I was in chains when they caught me and I didn’t much like it, and putting shackles on such a beautiful beast as yourself seems to me a crime of some magnitude. But I ain’t gonna underestimate you.” He opened the cuffs, then laid them to one side. “And with that in mind I gotta think about those claws of yours. No telling what manner of mischief you could get up to with those things. So we’re gonna have to do something about them, too.”
He picked up the hammer as the corpses flattened her hand fully against the table.
Amber started to panic. “What are you doing? What are you going to do? Tell them to let go of me. Tell them!”
Mauk’s free hand pinned her thumb. She turned it into a claw, tried to slash at him, but he laughed, and raised the hammer.
“Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t. I swear I—”
“This little piggy,” said Mauk, and brought the hammer down.
Pain rocketed through her and Amber screamed, tried to kick and flail, but the weight of all those bodies on top of her made that impossible. Tears came to her eyes, rolled down her cheeks. The pain was so immense that she almost didn’t feel him singling out her next finger.
“No!” she cried. “Please!”
He didn’t bother saying anything this time. With a happy smile on his face, he smashed the bones in that finger, too.
“You bastard!” Amber howled. She was sobbing. She was actually sobbing. “You bastard, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll rip your—”
The third finger was smashed and Amber lost her words to the screams that were being ripped from her throat. The fourth followed. Then the fifth. Finally, the corpses released their hold on her. She tried to retract her arm, tried to clutch it close to her, but to do so it’d have had to pass through the tangle of corpses. She held it in mid-air while she cried and struggled to breathe.
Then the corpses moved again. They had her left hand in their grip.
“No!” she screamed, trying to keep it underneath her, jammed between her chest and the cheap upholstery. But now they were turning her, turning her on to her back, and as her left arm was being pulled out of the tangle her right arm was being pulled in, and her broken fingers jolted and sent fresh waves of pain straight into her thoughts, blinding them, freezing them, slicing through them and leaving them in tatters. When the wave crested and her thoughts became her own once more, her face was pressed tight into someone’s torso, and she could feel the surface of the table beneath her left palm and Mauk’s grip on her thumb, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
The hammer found its target and she gasped.
It found its next target. And the next one. And now she was screaming once more, but it didn’t change anything, because she only had two fingers that weren’t broken and Mauk quickly reduced that to one. Amber fought the urge to puke. If she puked, she’d choke on her own vomit.
“And this little piggy went wee, wee, wee, all the way home,” said Mauk, and smashed her little finger.
While she screamed, the corpses climbed off her. One by one, the weight lessened, and she could turn her head now, and breathe in lungfuls of air to help her cry. Someone – Mauk, probably – had her hands in his. His skin was rough. Calloused. She barely felt the handcuffs slide around her wrists. The last corpse climbed off her and she sat up.
“There,” Mauk said. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
She ran her forearm over her eyes – that movement alone was enough to bring fresh tears – then blinked at him as he sat there, smiling.
“I didn’t wanna have to do that,” he said. “But I’m a cautious fellow. I see that you have sharp teeth, too. Let’s do each other a favour, okay? You try not to bite me, and I won’t smash each and every one of those pearly whites. I’d hate to have to ruin your beautiful smile. It is beautiful, ain’t it? I bet it is. Smile for me. Go on. Just a little smile.”
Her demon side wanted to snarl and snap and sneer, but her human side, the ugly, ordinary, weak side, just wanted to be spared any more pain.
She raised the corners of her mouth in a twitching, pathetic smile.
“I knew it,” said Mauk. “I’ve often wondered how much better-looking I’d be if Astaroth had made me a demon, instead of bestowing upon me the gifts I’d asked for. I’d be taller for a start, huh?” He chuckled, then slid out of the booth. “Come on now, girlie. The Shining Demon don’t like to wait.”
It took a few moments, but Amber got out of the booth, stood on shaky legs. The circle of black powder Mauk had made was just big enough for the two of them to stand in.
“Careful not to scuff the edges,” said Mauk.
She wanted to turn, run, but the corpses were watching her. She couldn’t fight, not with the handcuffs on and not when the slightest touch would bring her to her knees.
Mauk held out his hand. “Come on, Amber. Time to give this Devil his due.”
Amber took her first step, and headlights swooped against the window as a black 1970 Dodge Charger pulled up right beside the front door.
“Dammit,” said Mauk, ducking slightly.
The waitress clamped her hand over Amber’s mouth, muffling her cry of pain as she was dragged backwards. The other corpses went back to their seats while Mauk stood at the counter with his cap pulled low, pretending to read the menu.
The diner door opened, and Milo walked in.
Tall, clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots and a dark shirt with some grey in his hair and some grey in his stubble, he was usually good-looking enough to make people sit up and take notice. But not tonight. The corpses sat, slumped, heads down.
Mauk walked up behind him. “Excuse me, sir?”
Milo turned as Mauk started to swing the hammer. It was halfway to its target when Mauk’s whole body froze and his eyes widened.
They stood there, both men, looking at each other.
Milo always kept his gun holstered on his belt, under his shirt. He drew and fired in the time it took Mauk to blink. At point-blank range, Mauk went straight down.
But then the corpses started to stand up again. Amber tried shouting, tried to tell Milo they were already dead, but the waitress’s corpse tightened its grip. Milo backed away from the lumbering dead, keeping his finger off the trigger.
Amber opened her mouth wide and bit down on the waitress’s dead hand. Her fangs cut through bone as easily as flesh, and she spat out fingers as the corpses dived on Milo. They wrestled the gun from his hand and held him while Elias Mauk got back to his feet. He hadn’t lost that expression of surprise.
“You?” he said. “You’re her travelling companion?”
Milo stopped struggling, and watched as the incredulity spread across Mauk’s face.
“I heard you’d died,” the killer said. “I heard you’d finally lain down and accepted your miserable fate. What the hell are you doing here? What the hell are you doing with her? Answer me, goddammit!”
Mauk whacked the hammer into Milo’s head.
“Milo!” Amber shouted, doing her best to tear free. The waitress pushed her up against the counter, jamming her chest into the corner while her broken fingers jarred against the underside, and Amber whimpered and went still.
“What’s that?” Mauk said, frowning. “Milo? That’s what you’re calling yourself these days?” He shrugged. “As good a name as any, I guess.”
The corpses held Milo upright. Blood ran from his hairline, following the contour of his cheekbone to his clenched jaw. His eyes were bright, unclouded by concussion, and they were focused entirely on Elias Mauk, who now had one foot in the circle of powder he’d made.
Amber’s eyes flickered to the pack of cigarettes on the countertop, and the silver Zippo lighter beside it. She pushed back against the waitress, just enough to bring her hands up. The corpse responded by shoving back even harder, but Amber had already picked up the Zippo between her palms and brought it to her mouth. Her lips closed round the lid and pulled it open.
“You got old,” Mauk said to Milo. “Got some grey in that hair. See, you should’ve done what I done – you should’ve died first. That way, you don’t age – you get to stay young and beautiful forever. Like me.” He laughed.
Amber tilted the Zippo, pressed the wheel against the countertop, remembered all the stories she’d ever heard about how these lighters were supposed to start first time, every time, and then she shot her arms out straight. The grooved wheel dragged and sparked and the lighter lit.
She set it carefully down on the counter.
“I’m not gonna say it’s good to see you,” said Mauk. “Obviously, it ain’t. But it is good that you’re here. The instructions were: delivering the demon girl’s travelling companion is optional. As in I don’t have to include you in the package if I don’t feel like it. So I can kill you right here and right now. I can bash your brains in. How’s that make you feel, you taciturn son of a bitch? That gonna get a reaction outta you? Or how about this? I can take my time, break every bone in your body before putting you outta your misery, or you could beg for mercy and get it over with, lickety-split. So what’s it gonna be? You gonna let me kill you slowly, or you gonna beg your old friend Elias for a quick death?”
“Well,” Milo said at last, “this is awkward.”
“What is?”
“I actually have no idea who you are.”
Mauk laughed. “Bullshit.”
“I’m serious,” said Milo. “Should I remember you? I feel like I should, but …”
“Okay, I’m confused,” Mauk responded. “Are you lying to delay the inevitable, or are you just determined to be an asshole about this?”
Milo shrugged, which only pissed Mauk off even more.
With the hammer raised and ready for a swing, Mauk said, “You wanna try remembering me, or should I just get to cracking open your skull? All the same to me, buddy boy. All of a sudden, my curiosity over how you found yourself on that side of the line has faded to the square root of nothing.”
“Have you always talked so much?” Milo asked. “I think I’d have remembered someone who talks so much.”
Mauk’s lip curled. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”
Amber gritted her teeth, then twisted and rammed a shoulder into the dead waitress. The jolt to her hands made her cry out, but she used that pain to stomp on the corpse’s knee. The waitress toppled away from Amber.
“Somebody grab her!” yelled Mauk, but Amber was already closing her hands around the lighter, feeling the flames lick her palms, and as the corpses reached for her she dropped, sending the Zippo spinning across the floor.
It met the circle and the powder went up in blue flames, and before Mauk had even looked down the circle was complete.
“Oh goddamn—” was all he had time to say before he vanished.
Free of his influence, the dead bodies crumpled to the floor. Milo stood, scuffing the circle with his boot, and the flames went out.
He hurried over to Amber and helped her stand. He stared at her bloody, twisted fingers.
“Jesus,” he whispered.
She sagged against him and he held her weight. “I don’t feel well,” she mumbled.
“I’ll get you to a doctor,” he said. “But first you’re going to have to change back.”
“No. No, it’ll hurt too much.”
“We don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll heal. I’ll heal by myself.”
“Your fingers need to be reset. If we leave them, they’ll heal wrong. We need a doctor to do it right. I’m sorry. You have to do this.”
She tried arguing, but no words would come. Milo was right. She knew he was.
She reverted. The transformation itself, the shortening of all the bones in her body, both broken and intact, made her cry out.
But now the true pain came at her. No longer blocked by her demon form, it rushed at her all at once and burst behind her eyes. Her vision swam and the world tilted, but instead of falling to the ground she was lifted off her feet. The last thing she was aware of was Milo carrying her to the door, and then she blacked out.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
WHEN THE NIGHT FINALLY slouched its way across the horizon, Virgil was there to greet it grudgingly, his old bones shivering in the chill. There was a time, long ago, when he would have looked forward to the night, back when he could spend it sleeping soundly. There was a time, even longer ago, when he could have spent his nights doing other stuff, too – drinking and carousing and getting into trouble.
These days, the only trouble he got into was when his thoughts got mixed up in his head, and the only sleep that came to him was light, irritated and sparse.
How many times had he made the trip to the bathroom the previous night? Five? Six? Pretty soon he’d need to keep a bedpan close by, just to make sure he didn’t embarrass himself. Either that or just bite the damn bullet and check into one of those retirement homes, places with Lodge or Manor or Tranquil in their names. God’s Waiting Room would be more apt.
Even though they were headed into summer, he turned up the heat on the thermostat. There was cold, he’d found out, and then there was Alaska cold. He didn’t like being cold. Never had. He was a California kid, born and raised in the sun. And here he was, living out his winter years in goddamn Alaska. Was it smart? No, but then neither were the decisions that had brought him here.
His house was a shrine to the life he’d once led. His awards, all five of them, took up two shelves in the display cabinet. The movies he’d been in – cheap things, mostly, aside from Inferno at 30,000 Feet – were documented in the framed posters on the walls, but it was his TV work for which he’d won the greatest acclaim. A cult hit before anyone knew what a cult hit was, When Strikes the Shroud had brought werewolves and vampires and terrible gypsy curses into the living rooms of America for three wonderful seasons in the early 1970’s and, in the centre of it all, had been Virgil Abernathy, playing the eponymous Shroud, the masked, besuited, two-fisted seeker of truth in a world mired in nightmare.
Three glorious years. Talk of a movie. And then tastes changed and attention spans wandered and the Shroud was at last felled – not by killer or crazy or creature, but by ratings. Or rather the lack of them.
Not that he was bitter. Not that he allowed thoughts of what might have been to intrude upon his daily life. Not that he allowed himself to dream of yesterday instead of facing up to his mistakes of today, which were legion. No, none of that for Virgil Abernathy, once a hero to boys of every age and a seducer of women. No, to Virgil Abernathy there was only today. There was only the cold emptiness of today in a town that had never particularly wanted him, in a life that was growing ever more tired of him.
“Maudlin nonsense,” he muttered to his cold, quiet house.
And what had they replaced him with, he wondered (and not for the first time)? A quick perusal of the TV channels answered that little question. Reality television and twenty-four-hour news. Game shows and competitions where all your dreams came true if the people at home liked you enough to vote. Rich people doing ugly things. Poor people doing stupid things. And the shows? The scripted shows? Populated by actors with sharp cheekbones who did nothing but smoulder or grimace in equal measure. Where was the art? Where was the substance? He flicked over to a commercial for a pill whose never-ending list of possible side effects included death, then turned off the TV.
His doctor had told him, for the sake of his heart, not to cause himself any unnecessary agitation. But then his doctor was an idiot.
Virgil turned off the lights. Time for bed. Another day over with. Another one under his belt. He was building up quite a collection. Had more days than he could count. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do with them, once he’d collected them all. Maybe he’d set them free. Maybe he’d go to Edison’s Shard, the rocky outcrop overlooking the disused quarry in the hills behind his house, and throw the days to the wind, watch them flutter and fly and disappear. Or maybe he’d just stuff them in a jar and bury them in the backyard. Either one would suffice. No one would be using them again.
He was headed for his bedroom, but stopped, as he always did, by the window in the living room, and peered through the curtains. He glowered at the house beside his, with its porch lights that blazed with the force of a thousand suns every time a damn grizzly wandered into the backyard. How many times had he complained to that damn fool Snyder? In his younger days, there was no one who would dare say no to him, not when Virgil’s ice-blue eyes started to narrow. But that was then, and things had changed. Robert Snyder was a man in his forties, singularly unimpressive and a convicted felon to boot, and yet he felt confident enough to smirk away Virgil’s complaints. A boor of a man.
Virgil could see him right now, watching TV. Kimmel or Fallon or one of those. They were all the same to Virgil. Monologuers, the lot of them. Snyder sat in his undershirt with a beer in his hand. He looked warm. Virgil despised him.
He was just about to let the curtain fall back when movement caught his eye. There was someone else in the house.
Snyder had been married, but they’d split three years ago and she’d moved across town, back in with her mother. What was her name? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that, since Snyder’s wife had left him, Virgil had never seen anyone else in that house. No women, no friends, no one. No one but Snyder. And now this … this shape.
He was tall, whoever it was. Thin, too. He moved past the windows quickly but without urgency, from dark room to bright room to dark room. Virgil lost track of him and frowned slightly, wondering why he was still watching. Who cared if Robert Snyder had made a new friend? Virgil certainly didn’t.
Snyder drained the last of his beer and stood, scratched his expansive belly, and walked into the kitchen. He stood at the sink, looking at his reflection in the window, unable to see Virgil in his darkened house directly across from him. He washed out the empty beer bottle. Recycling. Well, he wasn’t all bad.
The visitor, whoever he was, came into the kitchen. He was pale, his skin a funny colour, and his mouth was wide. Very, very wide. He walked up behind Snyder and grabbed him.
And then snapped Snyder’s neck.
Virgil’s heart lurched in his chest and he ducked down. He didn’t know why he ducked down, he just did. Ducking down seemed like the thing to do. But now that he had, he was finding it hard to straighten up again. He half waddled to the bookcase, moving away from the window. His legs were burning, the treacherous things. When he was in the clear, he straightened up slowly, groaning as his hip popped and his back creaked.
Moving a little easier now, he sneaked to the window once more and peeked out. He couldn’t see Snyder or the figure. Either the killer had dragged him away or else he’d just let him drop out of sight.
Virgil thought about how crappy a neighbour Snyder had been. He had been rude and disrespectful and had threatened Virgil with physical harm on more than one occasion – and, while Virgil had held serious doubts about Snyder’s ability to follow through on those threats, there was no getting away from the fact that Snyder had been a young man in his forties and Virgil was an old man in his eighties with a bad heart. That was not, by anyone’s standards, a fair fight.
But Snyder was not a young man in his forties anymore. He was a body now. A corpse. He was remains. Whatever hopes and dreams he’d ever harboured were gone, evaporated into the ether the moment that figure had laid his hands on him. Virgil felt some sympathy for the guy, but it was the shallow type of sympathy that was easily forgotten and quickly put away.
Movement caught his attention. The figure was walking towards the back door.
Virgil hurried to his own kitchen, banging his leg off a chair in the dark. Cursing all the way to the window over the sink, he peered into Snyder’s overgrown backyard as the figure slipped out into the night. He seemed smaller now, under the moonlight. He had dark hair. That was odd. In the kitchen, Virgil could have sworn he’d been bald. He wasn’t nearly so pale, either, and he wore slacks and a vest over a short-sleeved shirt. The killer glanced his way and two thoughts spiked in Virgil’s head.
The first was, He’s seen me, he’s seen me, he knows I’m here, a thought that faded when the killer’s gaze moved on without stopping, taking in a full sweep of his surroundings.
The second thought was, I know that guy. I know that guy, but it’s impossible. It can’t be him. The guy I’m thinking of is eighty years old and living in Arkansas.
He watched the killer jump the back fence and disappear, then stayed where he was for twenty minutes before he allowed himself to relax. Slowly, his heart stopped beating a tango. The thought occurred to him that it might be a good idea to call the cops. He took his phone from his pocket. The screen lit up, way too bright in this dark house, and he did his best to remember how to work it.
Headlights swept past the window. Virgil moved quickly back to peer out, just in time to see a police cruiser stop in Snyder’s driveway. Relief washed over him. The lights weren’t flashing, but he didn’t mind that, not when he saw Chief Novak step out. Novak was a good cop – strict as hell, but smart and fair. He was with another officer, a big guy – Virgil thought his name might have been Woodbury – and as they walked up to Snyder’s front door he debated whether or not to tell them what he’d seen.
The front door must have been unlocked because the two cops walked right in. Virgil saw them cross the living room, heading into the kitchen, until they were standing where he had last seen Snyder. They looked down and talked to each other. They didn’t seem surprised. They didn’t even seem perturbed. They both bent down and when they straightened up they were carrying Snyder’s body between them.
“Oh, goddamn you,” Virgil whispered, watching them take the corpse out of the house and dump it in the trunk of the cruiser. Woodbury went back to shut the front door, then rejoined Novak and they drove off.
Virgil stood there in his dark house.
“Well, hellfire,” he said.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
IT WAS A BRAND-NEW dream, this time.
Amber was back home, in Orlando, and it was hot and muggy and the a/c wasn’t working, but the heat wasn’t affecting her like it usually did. Her brow was cool as she sat at the table and told her parents about her day at school. She hadn’t been bullied and she hadn’t been called in to Principal Cobb’s office, so today had been a good day.
Her parents listened, nodded, smiled with affection, and offered advice and encouragement. Betty set the table while Bill fussed with the oven. He opened the oven door and the heat spilled out and circulated with the already warm air. Dream-Amber started to sweat.
The dream did that fast-forward thing that dreams do, and now they were eating, and talking, and chatting. Bill and Betty remained cool. Amber’s sweat poured down her face and splashed on to her plate, but she was starving, so she finished her food and asked for a second helping. Her parents laughed and Bill took her plate and stood, carving knife in hand. He cut a large slice from the roast, and Amber noticed for the first time that the roast was Imelda, laid out on a large silver tray on the table, garnished and basted and smelling divine.
Bill handed Amber back her plate and she dove in, chewing on the tender meat while blood mixed with the sweat on her chin. It was glorious. Imelda’s skin crackled in her mouth.
Then she realised it was a dream and she woke up.
The first thing she registered was the cold. The second was the happy purr of the Charger as it gently rocked her in her seat. And the third, as she opened her eyes, was the pain in her hands. She lifted them off her lap, wincing but not screaming, which was an improvement. She could only see the tips of her fingers above the thick bandages – they were purple, swollen and sore.
“How you feeling?” Milo asked, keeping his eyes on the dark road ahead.
“Like all my fingers have been smashed,” she replied.
“Not all of them,” he said. “The doctor said your left thumb is badly bruised, but not actually broken.”
“And there I was feeling sorry for myself,” she mumbled. She looked down at herself. “Did I puke? I don’t remember puking.”
“You did,” said Milo.
“Damn.” She noticed he was wearing a different shirt. “Did I puke on you?”
“You did.”
“Sorry.”
“She gave me pills for you. You can take another in a little over an hour.”
Which left just enough time for the pain to build nicely. Amber straightened up, careful to keep her hands steady. “That guy … he said Astaroth knows where we’re headed.”
Milo nodded. “Figured as much.”
“Did you recognise him?”
Milo shook his head. “You catch his name?”
Amber hesitated. “Elias Mauk,” she said.
“I’ve heard of him,” said Milo, “and I got the impression we’d been friends once.”
“Friends? He wanted to kill you.”
“We must have had a falling-out. Hell, for all I know, maybe we were partners. Serial killers in cahoots.”
“His face didn’t spark any memories?” she asked. “His voice?”
“Nothing,” said Milo. “My life is still as blank as it’s been for the last twelve years.”
“He, uh, he seemed to know that Milo isn’t your real name.”
“Yeah.” They got to a dark and empty crossroads, and the Charger creaked pleasantly as they turned right. “I wonder what it is.”
The phone in her jacket rang. Amber held up her bandaged hands.
“Oh yeah,” Milo said. She twisted slightly and he reached into her pocket, took the phone out, and thumbed the answer button. He set it to loudspeaker.
“Uh, hello?” said the voice on the other end. “That Amber?”
“I’m here,” she said.
“Oh, Amber, hi. This is Jeremy?”
“Hi, Jeremy.”
“The guy you gave that hundred bucks to?”
“I know who you are, Jeremy.”
“Right,” Jeremy said, “yeah, sorry. Anyway, you wanted to know if a group of bikers turned up?”
Her mood turned cold and plummeted. “Yes, we did.”
“Well, they just passed through town,” Jeremy said. “Not more than two minutes ago. Five of them. Long hair, leather jackets, beards, the works. Rode straight through without stopping. Didn’t look left or right, just kept looking ahead.”
“Thanks, Jeremy,” said Amber. “Don’t spend that money all at once.”
Milo hung up and slipped the phone back in her pocket. She looked at him.
“How far back is Jeremy?”
“Twenty hours,” said Milo. “Maybe twenty-two.” He glanced at her. “We knew we couldn’t shake them.”
“I know,” she said. “But still … It’d be nice if something went our way for once, that’s all.”
“Astaroth can send whoever he likes,” said Milo. “The fact is, the Hounds are at least twenty hours behind us and we are ten hours away from Desolation Hill. No one’s going to stop us.”
“You need to sleep.”
“I will. We’re on a straight blast into Alaska. Once we sneak across the border, I’ll take a few hours’ rest. When we get where we’re going, I’ll sleep a full night.”
“That’s providing everything we’ve heard about Desolation Hill is true.”
“You think Buxton was lying?”
“No,” said Amber. “But just because Gregory hid there for a few weeks doesn’t mean we can.”
“We don’t have a wide variety of options available to us,” said Milo. “He thinks we’ll be undetectable to the Shining Demon and the Hounds once we’re inside the town limits, and I trust him to know what he’s talking about. That’ll at least give us time to get our breath back and formulate some kind of plan.”
“Because our plans always work out so well for us.”
He didn’t respond to that. She didn’t expect him to.
They drove on in comfortable and familiar silence. The knob for the radio remained, as ever, untouched. Even if she’d wanted to turn it, her bandaged hands would have made that impossible. Besides, she’d grown out of her fear of quiet moments. She didn’t need music to fill the silences anymore.
She took a few more pills and the rising pain faded to a manageable throb as she looked out at the endless parade of trees. She wondered what kind they were. It was hard to tell in the dark, but she thought they were spruce, although she was no expert.
“What kind of trees are those?” she asked Milo.
“Green,” he said, and that’s how the conversation ended.
They passed sleeping houses and sleeping cars and an impressive array of parked pickups with slide-in campers that reared up and over like one dog humping another. It got ridiculously cold in the car and Amber wrapped herself awkwardly in a blanket. The stars tonight were astonishing.
“See the stars?” she asked Milo.
“Bright,” he grunted.
She nodded. Yup. They were indeed bright.
She slept, then, and didn’t dream, and when she opened her eyes the Charger was slowing and there were lights flashing lazily ahead of them.
She sat up straight, the blanket covering her hands. “Cops?”
“State trooper,” said Milo. His face was pale, his features tight. They were already in Alaska, which meant he’d been driving too long. The Charger had started whispering to him.
Amber saw the trooper, in his jacket and a wide-brimmed hat, holding up one hand. The Charger stopped beside him and Milo wound down the window.
“Hey there, folks,” the trooper said, leaning in and smiling. “This is a heck of a nice vehicle you’ve got here. Don’t see many of these old muscle cars round these parts, let me tell you. What is she, a ’69?”
“’70,” said Milo.
“1970,” said the trooper, and whistled appreciatively. “Gee whiz, you’ve kept her in a good condition.”
“Thanks,” Milo said.
“Sure thing!” He bent lower, and smiled in at Amber. “Hey there, little lady.”
He had light stubble on his chin and his shirt didn’t fit right. The top button wouldn’t close round his thick neck. There was blood on his tie.
That was all Milo needed. He’d been behind the wheel for nine or ten hours without much of a break and certainly no sleep, and this was all it took to make him snap. He shifted, growing horns, his skin and hair now the deepest, most impossible black, and, when he snarled, the same red that spilled from his eyes spilled from his mouth. He grabbed the trooper’s tie and yanked hard as he hit the gas. The Charger lurched forward, picking up speed, dragging the hollering trooper along with it. They passed the patrol car and Amber glimpsed a bare leg sticking out of the grass behind it.
The man in the trooper uniform gurgled and cursed and clung to the side of the Charger as they hurtled uphill. His right hand disappeared for a moment, then came back, holding a pistol that he quickly dropped when they went over a bump.
They got to the top of the hill and evened out, and Milo released his hold and the road snatched the man from the window. Milo braked, testing Amber’s seat belt and jarring her hands.
He put the car in neutral and got out.
Amber stayed where she was, the Charger’s low rumble helping to calm her beating heart. The sky was beginning to brighten. Cold, startlingly fresh air filled the Charger.
There was a sharp wail of pain that was abruptly cut off.
She angled the rear-view to watch Milo drag the body into the bushes. Once that was done, she knew, he’d go back down the hill, stuff the real trooper’s corpse in the trunk of the patrol car and park it somewhere out of sight.
Then she’d insist that he get some sleep. They were in Alaska now, with maybe five hours of driving ahead of them, and the Hounds were still twenty or so hours behind. For the first time since all this began, Amber allowed herself to wonder if this was maybe the first step towards everything being suddenly okay.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
IT TOOK LONGER THAN expected to find Desolation Hill.
They finally got to it a little before midday. This troubled Milo. Amber could see it in his face, and she didn’t have to ask why. They should have turned on to its streets without even thinking about it, such was the power of the Demon Road, or the Dark Highway, or the blackroads, or whatever name you used to describe the phenomenon of horror seeking horror. Such things were intertwined. Fate guided travellers on the blackroads, steering them to people and places that had been similarly touched by darkness. Sheer coincidence alone should have led Milo and Amber right on to the town’s main street.
Instead, they took several wrong turns and passed the turn-off without even noticing it. Once they’d found their way on to it, the road took them on a winding line between snow-topped hills until they came to a sturdy old sign that said
Just before the sign, a narrow track led off to their right, and directly beyond it the main road continued straight for a while before veering off and getting lost behind overgrown bushes and tall trees.
Milo pulled the Charger over to the side of the road.
“Why are we stopping?” Amber asked. “We’re here. We actually made it. What’s the problem?”
“We don’t know what’s waiting for us,” said Milo.
“Sure we do,” she said. “I’ve read you the town history. It’s short and boring. It’s a small town with a creepy name where nothing exciting ever happens.”
“That the internet knows about.”
“The internet knows all,” she said. “It’s the one place we’ll be safe from the Shining Demon.”
“But why?”
“Is that important?” she asked. “I mean, obviously it’s important, yeah, but is it important now? Is it important right now, at the side of the road? All we need to know is that we’ll be safe in there.”
“Buxton only lasted a week.”
“He said it was a weird place. That’s fine with me. I can handle weird. Milo, we can sort this out later. We can ask questions and get answers. But I’m tired. You’re tired. We need a good night of sleep. We need to stop running.”
He sighed, and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Damn right I’m right.”
“Okay then, we go in, we don’t attract any attention. We speak only when spoken to. We fade into the background, understood?”
“I’ll try.”
“Try?”
“It’s a small town in the middle of nowhere. Newcomers are going to be noticed. That’s kind of inevitable.”
“Yeah, maybe, but we do our best to keep a low profile.”
“Agreed.”
Milo paused for a moment longer, then put the Charger in gear. “Okay then.”
They pulled out on to the road and passed the town sign and the Charger bolted forward suddenly and Amber yelled as she shifted, pain flaring in her hands, the shock of the change nearly blinding her to the fact that Milo, too, had turned into his demon-self. He jammed his foot on the brake and the Charger slid to a halt, growling in protest.
Cradling her hands to her chest, Amber met Milo’s burning red eyes. They were narrowed. He looked behind them, then in front, then stuck his head out of the window and looked up. Expecting an attack. Expecting something.
They waited. The Charger waited. But nothing came.
Milo’s skin lightened and the burning red left his eyes and mouth, and his curved horns retreated into his hairline.
“What the hell?” said Amber.
Milo examined his hands. “I don’t know. I can still feel—”
He shifted again without warning, into that black-skinned, horned demon, and he snarled in irritation and immediately reverted to his normal self.
“That was weird,” he muttered, then looked at her. “You’re going to have to change back.”
“But it hurts.”
“You have to change, and then you’ll have to fight against the impulse to shift again. It’s strong. It’s very strong.”
“For Christ’s sake …”
She gritted her teeth and reverted, and fresh pain sprang from her fingers and blinded her to her own thoughts and there was another flash of pain and she was a demon again.
“I can’t do it,” she gasped. “I can’t.”
“Revert,” said Milo. “And hold.”
“Give me a minute.”
“Now, Amber.”
“I’ll try again in a minute, you dick!”
“Now,” Milo snarled, his eyes starting to glow red, and Amber snarled back and reverted and this time she held it, despite the pain, and she focused on staying a normal, clumsy, ugly human …
And when the pain retracted far enough she took a deep, deep breath.
“Well done,” Milo said, settling back into his seat.
“This is horrible,” said Amber. Every inch of her wanted to shift. Her nerve endings jumped. Her skin was electric. The human form she inhabited was all wrong. “I feel like I need to pee,” she said. “I don’t need to pee, but you know that feeling? When you’re about to burst and you know that all you have to do is relax and it’ll suddenly feel so much better? It’s like that, times a thousand.”
Milo looked at her for a while. “Right,” he said at last. “Not the analogy I’d have used, but fair enough.”
“What’s wrong with us?”
Milo didn’t answer. He just got out of the car. Amber turned in her seat, watched him walk to the sign. He passed it and turned, a curious look on his face. He took a big step back to the Charger and shifted.
He stepped to the other side of the sign and reverted.
Scowling, he walked back to the car, shifting as he did so. By the time he got behind the wheel, he’d reverted again.
“This town is a curiosity,” he said.
“You think whatever shielded Buxton from the Shining Demon is the same thing that’s making us shift?”
“It’s likely the reason, yeah. Pity he didn’t mention this to us before he flew off.”
“I don’t like this,” said Amber. “I don’t like this feeling.”
“How’re the hands?”
“They hurt. Like, a huge amount.”
“We’ll get to that motel you found on the map,” said Milo. “You’ll be able to shift behind closed doors, and you’ll heal faster as a demon. A day or two, tops.”
He was probably right. The swelling had already gone down and her fingers were returning to their normal colour. Being a demon had its advantages.
“Sorry for calling you a dick,” she said.
“That’s okay. Sorry I snarled.”
“Guess we’re a little ruder than we’d like to be when we’re horned up.”
Milo looked at her.
“I should probably use a different word for that,” she said.
“Probably,” he agreed, and they started moving again. The town was affecting the Charger, too – its rumble was deeper, and somehow even more menacing, than usual.
Amber had examined the map online a dozen times before now, and as they drove she did her best to match it with her surroundings. They passed a used-car lot (TODD’S NEARLY NEW CARS! BEST PRICES!) hemmed in by a chain-link fence. The cars stood in their rows like prisoners in an exercise yard, their gleaming potential bridled by circumstances beyond their control.
Beyond the lot was a gas station, complete with small convenience store, and then they were in the town proper. Main Street was the widest street the place had, and the longest, and it boasted a church and a healthy array of businesses. The Hill Hardware Store was next to Lucy’s Laundromat, which stood opposite Doctor Maynard’s office, which in turn stood next to Reinhold’s Pharmacy. Moraga Discount Store was the massive building on the east side of the square, a slightly raised public meeting place in the exact centre of Main Street that the road itself circled. The west side was taken up by the grander Desolation Hill Municipal Building, which had eighteen steps leading up to its doors and pillars on either side, marred only by the scaffolding that scaled it from ground to peak like the skeleton of a building that had been left there to die. There was nothing on the square itself except what looked like an old wooden mailbox on a post that had been set into the concrete.
The Charger drew some curious looks as it passed. Amber was used to that – it was certainly an impressive car. But today she thought the attention they were getting was different, somehow. Not hostile, exactly, just … wary.
Milo turned off Main Street, passed a bar named Sally’s, and kept going through a residential neighbourhood. The town itself continued up into the hills, into all those trees and all that snow, but they took a narrow blacktop without a yellow line up to a tall building that looked like it should have been perched on the edge of a cliff somewhere. The Dowall Motel was the only place to stay in the area, not counting a few bed and breakfasts, and the sign said there were vacancies.
They parked outside and got out. It was the beginning of May and there was a startlingly blue sky and yet Amber’s breath still crystallised in the air. She doubted it was much above forty. On Main Street there had been no snow, but up here, elevated slightly, it was still packed tightly at the sides of the road.
Amber had spent her whole life feeling miserable in the heat, so she wasn’t about to start complaining about the cold. Even so, the temperature was making her hands throb with a renewed vigour, and she hurried into the motel while Milo carried in their bags.
Inside, it was warmer. The wooden floorboards creaked under her weight. A moose head hung over the front desk, its terrific antlers rising to the high ceiling. A man came out of the back room. He looked young, in his thirties, but his side-parted hair had already gone grey and he held himself so stiffly that a sudden draught might possibly have snapped him in half.
He saw them and looked confused. Amber smiled, and led Milo to the desk. The man wore a little badge that identified him as Kenneth.
“Hi, Kenneth,” said Amber.
Kenneth didn’t answer. He had a mole under his right eye.
“We’d like a couple of rooms, please.”
Kenneth looked at them for quite a long time before speaking.
“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” he said.
This struck Amber as a somewhat strange thing to say.
“This is a motel, isn’t it?” Milo asked.
“Indeed it is,” said Kenneth.
“And you rent out rooms to visitors, don’t you?”
“Indeed we do,” said Kenneth.
“So do you have any spare rooms to rent out to us?”
“Indeed I have,” said Kenneth. “I just wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.”
Silence threatened to descend.
“Should we have called ahead?” Amber asked.
Kenneth blinked at her. “We don’t take reservations over the phone.”
“Online?”
“We don’t have a website,” he said. “My mother never approved of the internet. She said the internet was a filthy place for perverts and degenerates who only want to watch pornography.”
“It also has cats,” said Amber.
“We don’t allow animals,” Kenneth said quickly. “My sister is allergic to animal hair. If you have cats, you can’t stay here.”
“We don’t have cats,” Milo said. “We don’t have any animals. Is there anyone else staying here right now?”
“No.”
“Then could we please have two rooms?”
Kenneth hesitated.
“I’m a little puzzled,” said Amber. “You don’t take bookings online or over the phone, and obviously you don’t like it when people turn up unannounced … so how does anyone actually stay here?”
“The motel is not very busy,” Kenneth said.
“I’m not surprised.”
“I can let you stay,” Kenneth decided, “but only until Wednesday. On Wednesday you must leave. We are fully booked up for Wednesday.”
Amber frowned. “How?”
“I’m sorry?” said Kenneth.
“How has anyone been able to book for Wednesday, since you don’t take reservations over the phone and you don’t have a website?”
“A long-standing arrangement,” said Kenneth. “You must be gone by ten o’clock on Wednesday morning.”
“I guess we could stay at a bed and breakfast,” said Milo.
“You misunderstand,” Kenneth said. “You must leave our town. On Wednesday we have our festival.”
“I like festivals,” said Amber.
“It is a private festival,” Kenneth said. “For invited townsfolk only. You must leave by ten in the morning.”
At no stage did Amber think Kenneth was joking, and yet she waited for the punchline all the same. When it didn’t come, Milo spoke up.
“Sure,” he said. “That’s fine.”
Kenneth hesitated. “Maybe you shouldn’t stay,” he said.
“Of course we should,” Amber assured him. “We’ll be gone by the time the festival starts – it’s all good. We totally understand. Today, tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday and then we move on. You got it. How long does the festival last?”
“One night.”
“Then how about we come back on Thursday?”
“Thursday and Friday are for clean-up.”
“Then Saturday,” Amber said, smiling. “If we leave and come back for the weekend, would that be okay?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. We’ll do that. So put us down for four nights now, and then Saturday. If we like it here, we might even stay longer.”
Kenneth nodded. “Very well. Welcome to the Dowall Motel. This is a family business.”
Amber gave another smile. “Well, okay then.”
Kenneth showed Amber to her room, and Milo dropped off her bag and followed Kenneth to his. Amber shut her door. The room was old-fashioned but clean, and smelled of fresh air and green trees. It had a fireplace that wasn’t to be lit and a good-sized bed. It had a bathroom with a bathtub and a window that looked out over the town. It was a good room. A fine room.
Amber stood at the window. From here, she could almost see the road they had come in on, the one with the sign. That would be the road the Hounds would use. They were anywhere between ten and fifteen hours away, but it took Amber a long time to stop watching for their arrival.
(#u49759488-634d-5d0c-9fd9-7feb56fa9885)
VIRGIL FOUND THE NUMBER scrawled in an address book that had slipped down the back of a file cabinet. He tried to ignore the other names – seeing them brought pangs of recognition and regret – but despite himself he glanced through them. Here was Erik Estrada’s number. Good kid, that Erik. Burt Reynolds. Lynda Carter. Ah, Lynda Carter. Robert Culp. Farrah Fawcett’s number was here. He’d never managed to get with Farrah because of his (strained) friendship with Lee Majors – but he’d wanted to. Oh my, how he’d wanted to.
Then he found the number he was looking for, and he took out his ridiculous phone and eventually figured out how to make a call.
It was answered by a woman who told him the person he was looking for no longer lived there. She went off for a few minutes, eventually coming back with another number. He called that, and it was answered by a man who gave him the number of a retirement home. Virgil rang the home, gave them the name, and waited.
“Yeah?”
The voice on the other end sounded old, frail and ill-tempered.
“Javier?” said Virgil.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Virgil. Virgil Abernathy.”
There was a silence, and then,
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why? Why’re you calling? Why the hell’re you calling me? It’s been forty years and now you’re calling me and I want to know why, goddammit. If you’re calling to apologise, you’re about forty years too damn late.”
Virgil frowned. “Why would I be apologising?”
“You’re the one calling me!” Javier shouted. “You’re the one calling and now you have the, the, the nerve to ask why you’re calling? I’m the one asking why! I ask, you answer!”
“Javier, I really think we’re getting our wires crossed here …”
“Dementia, is it?” Javier said. “You know that you owe me an apology, but you can’t remember why, is that it? Y’know something? I’m glad. I’m glad your mind is leaving you. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fella.”
“My mind is fine, Javier, but to be honest you’re starting to irritate me here.”
Javier hooted down the phone. “Oh, is that right? Oh, is that right?”
“I just called to check on you,” said Virgil. “I’ve been thinking about the old days a lot and I saw someone last night who could have been your double from back then, someone who I would have sworn was you if I hadn’t known what age you were. I’m calling to ask if you have a son or a grandson and if they’re anywhere close to Desolation Hill.”
“I don’t know where that is,” said Javier, “but it sounds like just the place you deserve to be.”
“Do you have anyone in your family that looks just like you did forty years ago, or not?”
“No!” Javier yelled. “I don’t have any children, you dirty, lying, treacherous sonofabitch! I never had children and I never got married! The only woman in the world I ever loved looked at me like I was a joke and it was all your fault!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Darleen!”
Virgil frowned. “Who?”
“Darleen! Darleen Hickman!”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“The wardrobe lady on set,” Javier said, anger biting at his words. “I fell in love with her and you knew it. There was a future there. A possibility. But you couldn’t let that happen, could you? You couldn’t stand the thought of any pretty girl being with anyone but you, the starof the show.”
“What is it you think I did, Javier?”
“You know damn well what you did. You gave me that nickname.”
“What nickname?”
“Don’t make me say it.”
“I don’t know what it is we’re talking about.”
There was another silence, and then, “The Goat-molester.”
Virgil’s laugh was as loud as it was unexpected, and he immediately felt bad. “Oh right, yeah. That. Uh … and that damaged your relationship with the wardrobe lady?”
“Darleen,” said Javier. “And of course it did. Everyone was laughing at me behind my back. Nobody took me seriously from that moment on. She had feelings for me – real, actual feelings – but how could she look at me in the same way once she’d lost all respect for me?”
“I’m … I’m really sorry, Javier. I’d forgotten all about that.”
“I hadn’t,” said Javier bitterly. “That ruined my life, Abernathy. Ruined it. And it’s all your fault.”
“I’m sorry,” said Virgil. “I am genuinely sorry, Javier, I really am. I had no idea it would cause you such hardship. The only thing I can say is that it wasn’t done with any degree of maliciousness. It wasn’t personal.”
“It felt personal.”
“And I regret that. I do. Please accept my apology.”
“You know what?” Javier said. “I don’t. I’ve been waiting forty years for you to say sorry, and now that you have, it means nothing to me. You were a sonofabitch then and you’re a sonofabitch now. I hope you do get dementia. I hope you get dementia and you die a slow, horrible death.”
“Right,” said Virgil. “Well, in my defence—”
“Your defence can go to hell.”
“In my defence,” Virgil persisted, “and taking all things into account, with the benefit of hindsight and whatnot, I don’t know … maybe you shouldn’t have molested that goat.”
Javier hung up.
(#ulink_3d50a231-642a-5b2d-af15-fb1e55693a72)
SOMEONE KNOCKED ON HER door and Amber woke immediately and went to spring out of bed. As she was moving, she realised two things. The first was that she had shifted during the night and was now in full demon mode. The second was that she was about to put her full weight on to her left hand, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The pain hit her like an electric shock. She pulled her hands into her chest, rolled off the bed, and landed on her feet in a crouch, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out.
That knock again. It was calm. Unhurried. No urgency to it.
Amber waited for the worst of the pain to pass, then straightened, and moved slowly to the door. “Who is it?” she called.
“Me,” said Milo.
“Anyone else with you?”
“No.”
She gripped the key between her palms and turned it, and the lock clicked and she stepped back as Milo opened the door.
He saw the look on her face and frowned. “Hurting?”
“A little. I’ll take the painkillers.”
“You shift when you were sleeping?”
“Yeah. You?”
He nodded. He was clean-shaven and his eyes were calm – the benefits of a good night’s rest. “I’m going to head out to the edge of town,” he said, “keep watch for the Hounds.”
“Let me get dressed.”
“No need. I’m just going to be sitting there. You take a look around, see what’s what. If we can hide out here, it’d be nice to know what the town has to offer.”
Amber frowned. “You mean … we’re going to be apart? During the daytime?”
“Is that okay with you?”
“Sure. It’s just … I haven’t been alone in the daytime for … a while.”
“You’ll adjust.”
“What do I do?”
“Whatever you want. Go for a walk. Have some breakfast. Relax. It’ll come back to you. Oh, and …” He pointed to her face.
“What?”
“You can’t go out horned up.”
“Oh yeah. Sure.”
He nodded, and walked off, and Amber closed the door behind him and locked it again. Then she looked around and wondered what the hell she was going to do.
She swallowed some painkillers and brushed her teeth and peed, and as she was peeing she looked at the tub and tried to remember the last time she’d had a real bath. She filled the tub and added in all kinds of crazy liquids until the bubbles nearly spilled out on to the floor. Then she took off her clothes and climbed in, one long red leg at a time. Bracing her bandaged palms on the tub’s edge, she lowered herself into the water, gasping, until her ass touched the bottom. She laughed, then, and sank further, until the hot water was up to her chin.
“Oh, this is nice,” she muttered to the room.
She closed her eyes, breathing in the steam, letting it clear her head of any residual sleepiness. It had been so long since she’d been able to relax, to think of anything other than the chase. Even now, there was a part of her that was still on edge – but it was a small part, and she could have easily drowned it out if she’d been so inclined.
But of course she didn’t. Just because Gregory Buxton had vanished from the Hounds’ radar when he was in this town didn’t mean she would, too. And even if she did, so what? The Hounds would still be able to ride on in here and search. They didn’t need supernatural powers to find her – they just needed eyes.
So she kept that edge, the part of herself that remained wary, and she let it bite at her thoughts and burrow into her head. That edge had helped keep her alive after Imelda had died. After Glen. After her parents.
She wondered about them, where they were, what they were doing. How they were doing. She felt a curious mix of satisfaction that she’d fouled up her parents’ plans, that she’d forced them to go on the run with Grant and Kirsty Van der Valk, that Astaroth was almost as pissed with them as he was with her … but also concern. That part puzzled Amber. She didn’t care about them. They had bred her to be killed and eaten, just like they had her brother and sister whom she had never known. She was not concerned for their well-being.
She was definitely, definitely not. She was almost sure of that.
Thoughts of her parents irritated her, but there was only one other person she could think about that would banish them to the back of her mind, and that was Glen. She only thought about him when she was in demon form. Her heart was harder when she was like this, better able to cope with what had happened to him. With who he was now. What he’d turned into.
She’d been aware of him following her. Some nights she’d look in the side mirror and glimpse something moving behind them. Some nights, when the Charger was quiet, she could hear him above her, his clothes fluttering in the wind.
Why he was following her, she didn’t know. She’d been told that most breeds of vampire were pack animals – they stuck close to the one who’d turned them. But the vampire that had killed Glen had vanished, and his undead family back in Cascade Falls were in disarray – certainly the patriarch was no longer around to guide them. Amber had seen to that personally.
That might be it, of course. Glen could be following her to kill her, to exact revenge for Varga’s death. She doubted it, though. Revenge didn’t seem to be Glen’s style, soulless monster or not. No, what was infinitely more likely was that Glen’s preoccupation with Amber – especially in her current form – had stayed with him even after his death. Maybe it was the one thing he was clinging on to. Maybe he had designs on a coffin built for two.
Amber closed her eyes and held her breath, and submerged so that only her knees and her hands and her horns were above the water line. Down here, in the muted world of the bathtub, she opened her eyes again and looked at herself. She couldn’t blame Glen for his preoccupations, of course. Was she not as magnificent as everyone said? Was her figure not astonishing? Were her features not flawless?
She loved being this way. She loved being tall and red and horned and beautiful. She loved being sexy. She’d never been sexy, not as an ordinary human. Sexiness was for other girls, not for her. Never for her.
She broke the surface of the water, and smiled.
Until now.
After her bath, Amber went for a walk. The people seemed friendly enough, even if she did catch them staring at her from time to time. On three occasions she actually glanced at her bandaged hands to make sure she wasn’t in demon mode, then she put it down to the fact that visitors were probably a rarity around here.
It was a pretty town, surrounded as it was by trees and snow-covered mountains and looking up into a huge blazingly blue sky. It had a smell to it, too – fresh and open and healthy. Invigorating, even. Amber fully acknowledged all of this. Further, she had no trouble admitting that it was downright lovely to see every store open for business – that being quite a change after spending the last few weeks driving through small towns teetering on the edge of survival.
Watching the people file into church, she figured that there was absolutely nothing about Desolation Hill that she found disagreeable, and yet something had got its hooks into her and was pulling her down.
Deciding that breakfast might improve her mood, she stepped into Fast Danny’s, the only one of the three cafe/diner joints on Main Street open on a Sunday morning. There were a few patrons sitting at tables, all of whom examined Amber when she walked in. She ignored them, chose a table in the corner, and sat, started reading through the menu.
The waitress came over, a woman in her forties who looked like she’d had a busy morning. Her nametag identified her as Brenda.
“Just passing through?” Brenda asked, which struck Amber as an odd thing to greet someone with. At the Firebird, Amber had always greeted customers with a smile. There was no smile on show here.
“Kinda,” said Amber.
“Oh yeah?” Brenda said, but not in a conversational way.
Amber had a soft spot for people waiting tables. She knew what a crappy job it could be. That being said, Brenda’s attitude was not going to be earning her any tips.
“I’m staying for a few days,” Amber said. “At the motel.”
“The Dowall Motel?”
“Is there another one?”
Brenda didn’t bother to answer that. “Were you told about the festival?”
“Yeah. But we weren’t told what kind of festival it is.”
“It’s a local one,” said Brenda. “Townsfolk only.”
Amber decided that she didn’t like Brenda’s dismissive tone. She didn’t like being dismissed. Her skin itched. All she had to do was relax and she’d shift, and then she’d be taken seriously. Then she’d be respected.
“That was mentioned,” she said quietly.
Brenda nodded, apparently satisfied. “Okay then, what can I get you?”
And, all of a sudden, Brenda was in full waitress mode and Amber was left with all that hostility and nowhere to put it. “Uh …”
Brenda looked at her, eyebrows raised, waiting.
Amber felt the hostility drain from her. “The Danny’s Breakfast, please.”
“Will do,” said Brenda. “Eggs sunny side up or scrambled?”
“Scrambled.”
“Coffee or juice?”
Had she really been about to jump up and rip the waitress’s face off, just because of her tone of voice? She felt amazingly stupid right now.
“Juice,” she said. “Thank you. Oh, and …” Amber held up her hands. “I had an accident.”
“So I see.”
She gave Brenda a weak smile. “Would it be possible to have my breakfast, like, cut into smaller pieces?”
“You want it all chopped up?”
“Yes, please. Well, besides the egg. Because that’ll be scrambled.”
“Okay,” Brenda said dubiously. “Might cost you a little more, though.”
Amber frowned. “To cut it up?”
“It’s an unusual requirement.”
“But it’ll only take ten seconds.”
The waitress shrugged. “We’ll see if the cook is comfortable doing it. Will that be all?”
Amber hesitated. “Yes.”
Brenda nodded, and moved away as an old man came in.
“Hey there, Brenda,” he said.
Brenda smiled for the first time. “Good morning, Mr Tomlinson. How are you?”
“I’m doing good, thanks,” said Tomlinson. “And you?”
“Doing fine,” said Brenda. “Nice weather we’re having.”
“It is. It is nice weather.”
“Is it the usual, Mr Tomlinson?”
“Sorry?”
“The usual?”
“Oh yes, the usual. Ham on rye with mustard.”
“With the crusts cut off.”
“Just go ahead and cut them crusts off, you betcha.”
“You got it.”
The moment Brenda turned away from him to deliver the order, her smile was gone, and Amber watched as Tomlinson’s own smile slowly faded. He stood there, staring into space. Amber’s mom had once said something about friends and fake smiles, but that was Amber’s mom, so Amber banished the memory from her mind.
A woman came in behind Tomlinson and the smile suddenly reappeared as he turned.
“Morning, Jackie,” he said.
“Morning, Brett,” Jackie said. “Good weather for fishing.”
“It is.”
“Getting your usual?”
“Yes, I am. Ham on rye with mustard, with the crusts cut off. Hey, how’s little Everett doing?”
“He’s doing fine,” said Jackie. “He had a bad cough that went on for a few days. I thought it might be a chest infection, but it cleared up on its own.”
“I heard that,” Tomlinson said, nodding. “I heard he had a cough.”
Brenda arrived back, handed Tomlinson a brown paper bag. “Here you go, Mr Tomlinson. Your usual.”
“Much obliged, Brenda,” Tomlinson said, handing over the exact change. He tipped his hat to them both. “You have a good day now, ladies.”
They smiled at him and he walked out, and then they turned those smiles on each other.
“How you doing today, Jackie?” Brenda asked. “How’s that boy of yours?”
“He’s good,” Jackie said. “He had a cough, but it cleared up. You all set for Book Club tonight?”
“I am,” Brenda said. “What did you think of it?”
“A little racier than what I’m used to,” Jackie said. “Did you like it?”
“I thought it was fine. Racy, like you said.”
“Maybe too racy?”
“Probably too racy. What can I get for you?”
“Just a coffee, thanks. In one of those cardboard cups.”
“To go?”
“To go, yes. With cream and sugar.”
Brenda smiled as she busied herself at the coffee machine. “No fancy lattes or espressos for you.”
“No, thank you!” Jackie said, and both women laughed.
Amber didn’t know what the hell they had to laugh about, but she kept her mouth shut.
For the next few minutes, she sat there and watched the patrons and staff of Fast Danny’s interact with one another. They were unfailingly polite and bizarrely cheerful, and they walked around with bright smiles at the ready – smiles that vanished the moment they thought no one was watching them. But Amber was.
When her breakfast was ready, Brenda returned to her table, set the plate down. Along with her scrambled eggs, she had bacon, sausages and hash browns – all fully intact.
“Um,” said Amber, but Brenda was already walking away.
Amber looked back at her food, then tried to pick up her knife and fork. When she failed laughably at this, she did her best to catch Brenda’s eye, but Brenda was doing an admirable job of ignoring her. Exasperated, Amber looked around, accidentally making eye contact with an old man sitting alone. He wasn’t as old as Brett Tomlinson, but he was catching up fast. He gave her a little smile, glanced at her hands, and folded his newspaper. He stood and walked over.
“You need any help with that?” he asked.
Amber’s first instinct was to thank him for his offer and decline – but that wouldn’t get her food cut up.
“Thank you,” she said. “Yes, please.”
He nodded, hitched his pants and sat, then took her knife and fork and cut up the food.
“Thanks very much,” said Amber.
“No problem,” he said. “I’m Benjamin.”
“Amber.”
“What happened to your hands, Amber, if it’s not too personal a question?”
“I, uh, I caught them in a car door.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Say you did?”
She nodded. “Yep. Broke almost all my fingers.”
“Caught both hands in a car door?” Benjamin asked. “What on earth were you doing?”
“Well, uh, I’m not actually sure. It was something stupid.”
“I’d wager,” said Benjamin, but in a nice way, and Amber laughed. “Was it that black car you came in? Oh, don’t look so surprised. We’re a small town in the middle of nowhere in Alaska – newcomers set tongues a-wagging, and distinctive cars more so.”
“I see,” she said. “But no, it was another car. I’m just clumsy, I guess, and pretty useless until my fingers mend, so my uncle decided to take me on a road trip while I wait.”
“Always wanted to go on a road trip,” Benjamin said, a little wistfully, “but never had anywhere to go to. Where you headed?”
She shrugged. “It’s not the destination that matters – it’s the journey.”
Benjamin chuckled. “That what your uncle says?”
“My uncle doesn’t say an awful lot. What’s it like here, by the way? I’m assuming it’s a nicer town than the name suggests.”
“You’d think,” said Benjamin. He finished cutting the food and placed the knife and fork on the edge of the plate for Amber. “The people are pleasant, you can leave your door unlocked, and three hundred sixty-four days out of the year it’s as peaceful as peaceful can be. But the days are long and getting longer, and, if you want my advice, I wouldn’t stay here.”
Amber sipped her juice. “No?”
He glanced around, making sure no one could overhear. “This is not a nice place to visit, Amber. I have no doubt you’re going to be made to feel very unwelcome in the next day or so. You might even warrant a visit from the Police Chief himself.”
“Seriously? We haven’t done anything.”
“That doesn’t matter. Chief Novak is notorious for running transients out of town on the slightest of whims.”
“We’re not transients. We’re staying at the motel.”
“Novak’ll still see you as a transient – as will the rest of the fine folk of Desolation Hill.”
She leaned closer. “Benjamin, what’s this festival they’re all talking about?”
He smiled sadly, and shook his head. “I’m sorry. There are some things I’m not comfortable discussing in public. You have a good day now.”
“Oh God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
He stood. “You didn’t, young lady. Not at all. You have a good day now, you hear?”
He walked back to his table, picked up his newspaper, and left. Amber sat there until the rumblings in her belly became too loud to ignore, and she awkwardly picked up her fork and started spearing her food. She was halfway through her breakfast when her phone lit up by her elbow, and a message from Milo came through.
They’re here.
(#ulink_0185e52e-e863-5909-baa7-e7748ec014d3)
THE ROAD THAT EVENTUALLY became Main Street was the road they had taken into town, but it veered and meandered on its way there, and it was quicker to just cut through the trees. The instant she moved out of sight, Amber let the change happen, and she shifted and gritted her teeth against the pain in her hands. A few seconds was all it took for the throbbing to fade, though, and then she was feeling a whole lot better about a whole bunch of things – the town, the cold … even the Hounds’ arrival.
How tough could they really be, anyway?
She hurried, though. She didn’t like the idea of Milo facing them alone. Together they’d have a chance. Together they might even win. The idea made Amber smile. The Shining Demon could send whoever he wanted after her. She liked the thought of sending them right back again.
Her human side tried whispering in her ear – something about overconfidence. Amber ignored it. She knew what she’d heard. She knew the Hounds were pretty much unstoppable. She knew, technically, that she and Milo would barely be able to stand up to one of them, let alone five. These things didn’t matter. What mattered was how she was feeling right now, like she could take on an army of Astaroth’s lackeys and tear them all apart.
As she ran, she started to hear motorcycles. No shouts, though. No gunshots. No sounds of fighting. She left the trees, stepped on to the overgrown grass that lined the road, where she could see exactly where she was going and there was no danger of her passing the town boundary. She glimpsed the Charger, parked in among a clump of bushes, and looked around for Milo.
Amber got low and crept forward. She could see the Desolation Hill sign now, and the track that ran off to her left. A biker came roaring up that track and she went instantly cold and all her assurances abandoned her. He slowed to a stop and was joined a moment later by another one. The first Hound had a beard and the second one didn’t. The first was in denim and the second in leather. They both wore sunglasses. The first one’s bike was gleaming chrome. The other one’s was black. Neither of them spoke.
She couldn’t take them on. Not the Hounds. With or without Milo. They were the Hounds of Hell and they were unstoppable and they were pitiless.
She heard another engine coming from behind and flattened herself in the grass as a car approached. It passed her, and the bikers parted so it could get by. She watched the driver of the car peer at the Hounds. The Hounds never even glanced at him.
“Curious bastards,” Milo said from beside her, and she nearly screamed.
He was still in human mode. Amber didn’t know how he could stand the itching.
“Were you there the whole time?” she whispered.
He nodded. “It’s called hiding. You should try it.”
“I hid just then, didn’t I?”
“That was lucky. Red skin isn’t the best camouflage in grass.”
“Whatever.” She looked back to the Hounds. “What the hell are they doing?”
“Not much,” said Milo. “Every now and then, they … here, look.”
Amber looked. One of the Hounds got off his bike and walked forward a few steps until he was standing right beside the sign. He sniffed the air.
“Can he smell us?” Amber whispered.
Milo didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t think they can get in.”
Amber frowned. “Get in where?”
“Here.”
Her frown deepened. “What do you …? Wait – you mean they can’t get into the town? Why not? There’s nothing …” She stopped, watching the Hound. “Uh, Milo, are we being chased by mimes?”
The Hound had put his hand out, but it seemed to meet resistance in mid-air, like there was a sheet of glass directly in front of him.
“That’s the town line,” Milo said softly. “Whatever’s in here, whatever made us shift, is keeping them out. Looks like it’s also screwed up their radar. This close, they should have already zeroed in on your position, but they’re not even looking this way.”
“Are you sure?” Amber asked. “How can you be sure?”
“Good point,” Milo said, and he shifted into his demon-self and stood up.
“What the hell are you doing?” She tried grabbing his hand to pull him back down, but he was already stepping out on to the road.
The Hounds observed him as he approached. Amber stayed where she was.
To a chorus of revving bikes, Milo walked right up to the Hound and stood before him. When the Hound didn’t do anything, Milo hit him. The punch whipped the Hound’s head back, and it was enough to provoke him into making a move. But when his hands tried to close around Milo’s throat, they bounced off whatever invisible barrier separated them.
Amber stood up. She could see the other Hounds now. Dressed in denim or leather, bearded or not, they all wore sunglasses and all rode different kinds of bikes. She saw a Harley, and that was the only one she recognised. None of them had any expression on their face. Aside from the sunglasses, that was the one thing they all shared.
The others turned off their bikes, and the sudden silence rushed in to fill the vacuum. They got off and approached, but remained on their side of the town line. Amber felt their eyes on her as she joined Milo. He reverted to normal.
“This is interesting,” she said, unease running down her spine. “You think it runs around the whole town?”
“We’d better hope so,” said Milo.
Amber stood up a little straighter and addressed the Hounds. “My name is Amber Lamont. You know that already, right? The Shining Demon sent you after me because, in exchange for his help, I promised to bring him a man named Gregory Buxton. When I took his help but didn’t bring him Buxton, he called you. But Gregory Buxton is a good man – more or less. He’s done some bad things, some very bad things, but he’s a good man now, and I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t deliver him to the Shining Demon. You don’t have to deliver me, either. I haven’t done anything to hurt you, and you can’t get in here, anyway, so you could get on your bikes and ride away and tell the Shining Demon you couldn’t find me. I’m sixteen years old – I don’t deserve any of what’s happening to me.”
The Hounds didn’t move. The Hounds didn’t answer.
“Nothing?” Amber said after a moment. “You’re not going to respond? You’ve got nothing to say? You’ve been chasing us since New York and you have absolutely nothing to say to me now that we’re face to face?”
The Hounds looked at her.
“Come on,” Milo said softly, his hand on her shoulder. He turned Amber round and they started walking to the Charger. “There’s nothing more you can do. You put your case forward, now it’s up to them. You did it calmly and you didn’t antagonise anyone. I’m actually quite impressed with how you handled that.”
“Yeah,” Amber said. Then she swung round, walked back to the Hounds. “You know what?” she said. “You’re a bunch of jerks. Standing there all silent. You think you’re intimidating? You don’t intimidate me. Everyone is sooooo scared of you – but we stayed ahead of you without a problem. The only reason you’re this close to us is because we stopped and waited for you to catch up. And you still can’t get me. So screw you, dickbrains. Go have sex with your motorcycles, and when you’re finished with that go tell your boss that he can kiss my fine red ass.”
She tried to give them the finger, but ended up waving her bandaged hand at them instead. Hissing, she spun on her heel and marched back to Milo.
“Yep,” Milo muttered. “Handled that very well.”
She reverted, painfully, and they drove back into town without doing a whole lot of speaking. They parked in the motel lot beside a police cruiser and were heading inside when a uniformed man walked out, met them halfway.
“Mr Sebastian,” he said. “Miss Lamont, good afternoon. Welcome to Desolation Hill.”
He was in his forties, with dark hair and heavy-lidded eyes. He had a long, lined face, not entirely unattractive. His badge was gleaming on his black uniform beneath his open jacket, and his gun was holstered.
“Thank you,” said Milo.
“My name is Trevor Novak. I’m the Chief of Police here.”
“It’s a very nice town,” said Amber.
“It can be,” said Novak. “Although it has a habit of attracting the wrong kind of visitor.”
“Is that so?” said Milo.
“Regrettably. Especially at this time of year.” Novak looked at them both before continuing. “You have been told, I understand, about our festival. Naturally, you’re curious. I appreciate curiosity – it’s what has me here talking to you, after all. And, while I’m not about to satisfy that curiosity, hopefully I can explain our attitude to you. We’re a quiet town, or at least we want to be, and we value our traditions. This festival just happens to be our most cherished, most valued tradition.”
“What does it celebrate?” Milo asked.
“Our history,” said Novak. “Our culture. Our heritage. And our success. Many other towns, a lot like ours, dried up and were blown away after the gold rush. But Desolation Hill remained standing. Even more towns dried up and were blown away during the various recessions and depressions … but Desolation Hill has stayed strong. I put this down to the people. We have the single lowest crime rate, per capita, in America.”
Milo nodded. “Certainly something to be proud of.”
“It is, Mr Sebastian, yes. And I am proud.”
“We’re not planning on committing any crimes, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Amber said, offering up a smile.
“I’m not suggesting you were,” said Novak, not offering one in return. “I only wish to impress upon you the need to obey our rules. The festival is for townsfolk only. When you check out of the Dowall Motel on Wednesday morning, you will receive a police escort to the edge of town.”
“Uh …”
“It’s nothing personal,” Novak said. “I trust you won’t be offended.”
“Not offended,” said Milo. “But a police escort does seem a little extreme.”
“We take our rules very seriously. I’m sure you have questions, I’m sure you have many, but please understand that to ask these questions of the townsfolk could lead to a certain degree of irritation. We have traditions we would prefer to keep private, and questions we would prefer not to answer. I’m sure you and your … niece appreciate this desire.”
Milo took a moment. “Sure,” he said.
“I can, of course, see the family resemblance immediately,” said Novak. “Some of my officers, I’m afraid to say, are not so attentive to detail. They may have questions for you.”
“I’m sure there’s no need to bother them,” Milo said.
Novak nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. We like to mind our own business here. I trust you will do the same.”
“Naturally,” said Milo.
“Of course,” said Amber.
Novak adjusted his gun belt, and nodded to them. “Very nice to meet you, and welcome to Desolation Hill.”
“Thanks,” said Milo.
Novak walked to his car, went to get in, but paused. “One of my officers alerted me to some bikers on the edge of town,” he said. “They have anything to do with you?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, okay then. Have a nice day.” He nodded again, got in his car, and they watched him drive away.
“So what do you think of the place?” Milo asked.
“I haven’t decided,” said Amber. “People here are weird. They’re downright rude to me and they’re overly polite with each other. That Novak guy is a little creepy, and I don’t have a clue what this festival is about, but already it’s annoying the crap out of me. Plus, every second that goes by I just want to shift. It’s actually uncomfortable to stay normal.”
“It’s worth it, though,” said Milo.
“Yeah,” she said, a little grudgingly. “I really like this whole barrier thing they’ve got going on. What are we going to do on Wednesday? We can’t leave town – the Hounds will be on us the moment we try.”
“I thought they didn’t intimidate you.”
“Are you nuts? Of course they do. I just said that because they were freaking me out.”
“We’re not leaving,” said Milo. “We can’t be escorted out, either – that’d be like delivering ourselves straight to them. We’ll check out early, find an out-of-the-way place to park that’s still within the town limits, and camp out till Saturday. We keep our heads down, ignore anything to do with their festival, and we’ll be fine.”
“And in the meantime,” said Amber, “we find out who put up that barrier. It’s got to be someone like us, right? Someone hiding from a demon?”
“Maybe.”
“If we can talk to whoever’s behind it, maybe we can make a barrier of our own. You’d be able to do something like that, wouldn’t you?”
Milo frowned. “Me? I know nothing about this kind of thing.”
“Well, yeah, but you know the basics.”
“What basics, Amber? I know the lore. I know some of the traditions. I don’t know how to do anything. Buxton knows, not me, and he’s too busy setting up a new life for himself to come up here and give us advice.”
“Well … maybe we won’t need him. Maybe whoever put up the barrier will show us what we have to do.”
“I guess it’s possible.”
She gave him a disapproving frown. “You don’t sound convinced.”
“I hate to break it to you, Amber, but neither do you.”
(#ulink_84e30b38-4d23-5b9e-8458-090e62d6c9ba)
AUSTIN COOKE RAN.
He ran from his house on Brookfield Road all the way past the school, past the corner store that was always closed on Sundays, and up towards the fire station, where they kept the single engine that had never, in Austin’s memory, been used for any fire-based emergencies. The volunteer fire fighters brought it out every once in a while and parked it at the top of Beacon Way, the only pedestrian street in Desolation Hill, and they held pancake breakfasts for fund-raising and such, but they’d never had to put out any actual fires – at least not to Austin’s knowledge.
Once the picture of the smiling Dalmatian on the fire-station door came into view, Austin veered left, taking the narrow alley behind the church. His feet splashed in puddles. His sneakers, brand new for his twelfth birthday, got wet and dirty and he didn’t care.
With his breath coming in huge, whooping gulps and a stitch in his side sliding in like a serrated knife, Austin burst from the alley on to the sidewalk on Main Street and turned right, dodging an old lady and sprinting for the square. A beat-up old van trundled by. Up ahead he could hear laughter. A lot of laughter.
Three of them – Cole Blancard, Marco Mabb and Jamie Hillock. Mabb was the biggest and Hillock had the nastiest laugh, but Cole Blancard was the worst. Cole dealt out his punishments with a seriousness that set him apart from the others. Where their faces would twist with sadistic amusement, his would go strangely blank, like he was an impartial observer to whatever degrading activity he was spearheading. His eyes frightened Austin most of all, though. They were dull eyes. Intelligent, in their way, but dull. Cole had a shark’s eyes.
Austin waited for a car to pass, then ran across the street, on to the square. They heard him coming, and turned. Hillock laughed and punched Mabb in the arm and Mabb laughed and returned the favour. Cole didn’t laugh. He only smiled, his tongue caught between his teeth. He had a large handful of paper slips.
Austin staggered to a halt. He didn’t dare get any closer. He’d run all this way to stop them, even though he knew there was nothing he could do once he got here.
The ballot box was old and wooden. It had a slot an inch wide. Cole Blancard turned away from Austin and stuffed all those paper slips through that slot, and Austin felt a new and unfamiliar terror rising within him. Panic scratched at his thoughts with sharp fingers and squeezed his heart with cold hands. Mabb and Hillock took fistfuls of paper slips from their pockets, gave them over, and Cole jammed them in, too.
A few slips fell and the breeze played with them, brought them all the way to the scaffolding outside the Municipal Building. The three older boys didn’t seem to mind. When they were done, they walked towards Austin, forcing him to move out of their way. Mabb and Hillock sniggered as they passed, but Cole stopped so close that Austin could see every detail of the purple birthmark that stretched from Cole’s collar to his jaw.
“Counting, counting, one, two, three,” Cole said, and rammed his shoulder into Austin’s.
Austin stood there while they walked off, their laughter turning the afternoon ugly. One of those slips scuttled across the ground and Austin stepped on it, pinned it in place.
He reached down, picked it up, turned it over and read his own name.
(#ulink_95af4b82-1618-5019-95ce-86c347140f65)
THE VAN WAS OLD and rattled and rolled, coughed and spluttered like it was about to give up and lie down and play dead, but of course it defied expectations, like it always did, and it got them to Desolation Hill with its oil-leaking mechanical heart still beating. That was close to a 4,000-mile journey. Kelly had to admit she was impressed. She thought they’d have to abandon the charming heap of junk somewhere around Wyoming, and pool what little money they had to buy something equally cheap but far less charming to take them the rest of the way.
“I think you owe someone an apology,” Warrick said smugly.
Kelly sighed. “Sorry, van,” she said. “Next time I’ll have more faith in your awesome ability to keep going. There were times, it is true, when I doubted this ability. Uphill, especially. Even, to be honest, sometimes downhill. You have proven me wrong.”
“Now swear everlasting allegiance.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Ronnie,” Warrick called, “she won’t swear everlasting allegiance to the van.”
“Kelly,” said Ronnie from behind the wheel, “you promised.”
“I promised when I didn’t think the van would make it,” said Kelly. “Promises don’t count when you don’t think you’ll ever have to keep them.”
“I’m not sure that’s technically correct,” said Linda, still curled up in her sleeping bag.
“Hush, you,” said Kelly. “You’re still asleep.”
“Big Brain agrees with me,” said Warrick. “You tell her, Linda!”
“Two,” Kelly commanded, “sit on Linda’s head, there’s a good boy.”
Two just gazed at her, his tongue hanging out, and wagged his tail happily.
“Swear allegiance to the almighty van,” said Warrick.
“Not gonna happen.”
“Then swear allegiance to this troll,” he said, pulling an orange-haired little troll doll from his pocket and thrusting it towards her. “Look, he’s got the same colour hair as you.”
She frowned. “My hair is red. That’s orange.”
“It’s all the same.”
“It’s really not.”
“Swear. Allegiance. To our Troll Overlord.”
“Warrick, I swear to God, stop waving that thing in my face.”
He kept doing it and she sighed again, and crawled over the seat in front to sit beside Ronnie. “Pretty town,” she said.
Ronnie opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated.
She grinned. “You were going to say it, weren’t you?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You so were,” came Linda’s muffled voice. Then, “Two, get off me.”
Kelly grinned wider. “You were going to say appearances can be deceiving, weren’t you?”
“Nope,” said Ronnie, shaking his head. “I was going to say something completely different. I was going to say, ‘Yes, Kelly, it does look like a nice town.’”
“But …?”
“Nothing. No buts. That was the end of that sentence.”
“Warrick,” said Kelly, “what do you think? Do you think Ronnie is fibbing?”
“I’m not talking to you because you have refused to swear allegiance to either my van or my troll doll,” said Warrick, “but, on a totally separate note, I think our Fearless Leader is totally telling fibs and he was, in fact, about to utter those immortal words.”
“You’re all delusional,” said Ronnie. “Now someone please tell me where I’m supposed to go in the whitest town I’ve ever been to. Seriously, there is such a thing as being too Caucasian.”
“Take this left coming up,” Linda said.
“She’s a witch!” cried Warrick.
“It’s GPS.”
“Not a witch, then,” Warrick said. “False alarm, everybody. Linda is not a witch, she just has an internet connection. You know who was a witch, though?”
“Stefanianna North was not a witch,” Kelly said.
“You didn’t see her!” Warrick responded. “You don’t know!”
“Neither do you. You were unconscious the whole time.”
Warrick sniffed. “It wasn’t my fault I was drugged.”
“You weren’t drugged,” said Ronnie, “you were high. And that was your fault because it was your own weed you were smoking.”
“Aha,” said Warrick, leaning forward, “but why was I smoking it?”
“To get high.”
“No,” Warrick said triumphantly. “Well, yes, but also because of the socio-economic turmoil this world has been going through since before I was even born. My mother had anxiety issues when I was still in the womb, man. That affects a dude, forces him to seek out alternative methods of coping later in life.”
“So that’s what you were doing?” Kelly asked. “You were coping?”
“I was trying to,” Warrick said. “And that’s when Stefanianna came to kill me. I don’t remember much—”
“Because you were high.”
“—but I do remember her saying something like, ‘First I’ll kill you, then I’ll kill your friends.’ And I was all, like, hey, don’t you touch my friends, because I’m very protective of you guys, you know?”
Kelly nodded. “We bask in your protection.”
“But then Two woke up,” said Warrick, “and, as we all know, witches are terrified of dogs, especially pit bulls.”
“That’s not a thing,” said Linda.
“Well, maybe not particularly pit bulls, but we all know that witches are terrified of dogs, right?”
“That’s not a thing, either,” said Linda.
Warrick frowned. “So what are witches terrified of?”
“Fire,” said Ronnie.
“But then why did she run away? The moment she saw Two she screamed and ran.”
“That’s because Stefanianna is terrified of dogs,” Kelly said.
“Yes!” said Warrick. “Exactly! See?”
“But that doesn’t mean she’s a witch.”
“Why doesn’t it?”
“Because why would it?”
Warrick frowned again. “I don’t … I don’t see what you’re saying here.”
“Take a right, Ronnie,” Linda said. “Should be a hill up ahead.”
Ronnie took the right. “I see it. That where we’re going?”
“Yep.” Linda sat up. Her dark hair was a mess.
“How was your nap?” Kelly asked.
“Terrible,” Linda answered. “I feel like a hamster in a ball that’s been kicked down a hill for three hours. And Two kept farting.”
Two whined in protest.
“That wasn’t Two,” Warrick said meekly.
“Oh, you’re so gross,” Linda said, crawling forward. She left the cushioned rear of the van and joined Warrick on the long seat behind Kelly.
They got to the top of the hill and Kelly read the sign.
“The Dowall Motel,” she said, and frowned up at the building. “You know, for a pretty town, this is a creepy motel.”
“They better allow pets,” Warrick said.
“I don’t care,” said Linda. “All I want is a real bed tonight. I’m sick of sleeping in the van.”
“Swear allegiance,” Warrick whispered.
They parked, and got out, and Kelly immediately reached back in to grab her jacket. Two hopped out as well, started to hump a small tree, but Warrick shook his head.
“Sorry, buddy, you’re gonna have to stay in the van until we find out if they allow pets.”
“He doesn’t understand you, Warrick,” said Linda, rubbing her arms against the cold.
“Well, no, but he understands basic English, though.”
Linda looked at the dog. “Two. Stop having sex with the tree. Sit. Sit. Two, sit.” She raised her eyes to Warrick. “He’s not sitting.”
“You know he doesn’t like to be told what to do. It’s conversational English he responds to, not orders. We’re not living in Nazi Germany, Linda, okay? We have something here in America that I like to call freedom. Freedom to choose, freedom to worship, freedom to congregate in groups of like-minded individuals, freedom of the press and free speech and freedom to do other stuff … Land of the free, home of the brave. That’s where we live, that’s how we live, and that’s why Two won’t sit when you order him to sit.”
“Fine,” said Linda. “Then you tell him to do something.”
“I’m not gonna tell,” said Warrick. “I’m gonna ask.” He cleared his throat, and looked down at Two. “Hey, buddy,” he said, “mind leaving the tree alone and waiting in the van for a minute?”
Two barked, and jumped into the van.
Linda picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Coincidence.”
“Two’s a smart puppy dog.”
“Of course he jumped into the van. It’s freezing out here.”
“Come on, Linda,” Warrick said, shutting the van door. “Swear allegiance to the doggy.”
Kelly walked on ahead, into the motel, where the first thing that registered was a moose head on the wall behind the front desk.
The woman at the desk looked up. She was tall, skinny, with a mole beneath her right eye and a blouse buttoned all the way up to her throat. Dear God, she was wearing a brooch.
Kelly smiled. “Hi.”
The woman, whose nametag identified her as Belinda, frowned back at her. The others walked in, and Belinda’s eyes widened and she stepped back.
“You,” she said in a surprisingly husky voice. “We do not allow your kind in here.”
Ronnie and Linda froze.
“Me?” said Ronnie, a black man.
“Or me?” said Linda, a Chinese girl.
“Him,” said Belinda, pointing a trembling finger at Warrick.
“Me?” Warrick said. “What’d I do?”
“You’re a … you’re a beatnik,” Belinda said, the word exploding out of her mouth like a chunk of meat after a Heimlich.
“I am not!” said Warrick.
“We do not allow beatniks in this motel!”
“I’m not a beatnik! Stop calling me a beatnik!”
“Excuse me,” Kelly said, still smiling as she neared the desk, “but what seems to be the issue with beatniks?”
“My mother never approved,” Belinda said, practically livid with disgust. “She said never shall a beatnik sleep under this roof, and I say a beatnik never shall!”
Kelly nodded. “That’s very understandable. Beatniks are terrible people. Although Warrick isn’t actually a beatnik.”
“My mother said they will come in various guises.”
“Uh-huh. Yes, but the thing is Warrick isn’t one of them.”
“I hate jazz music,” said Warrick.
“He does,” said Kelly. “He hates jazz music.”
“He’s got a beatnik beard, though,” said Belinda.
Warrick frowned. “My soul patch? I just don’t like shaving under my lip. My skin is sensitive, man.”
“I assure you,” Ronnie said, giving Belinda a smile, “my friend isn’t a beatnik. He just shaves like one. He listens to regular music and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk about bettering his inner self.”
“I leave my inner self alone and it leaves me alone,” said Warrick. “We’re happier that way.”
Belinda hesitated.
“The moment he starts wearing berets and playing the bongos,” Kelly said, “we’ll kick him out ourselves.”
“Very well,” Belinda said dubiously. “In which case, welcome to the Dowall Motel. This is a family business. How may I help you?”
“We don’t have any reservations,” said Ronnie, “but we were wondering if you had any rooms available? Two twin rooms, ideally. We don’t mind bunking up.”
“How long will you be staying?”
“We’re not sure,” said Ronnie. “A week, maybe?”
Belinda shook her head. “Sorry, no. Out of the question.”
“I’m, uh, not sure I understand …”
“There is a town festival,” Belinda said, “for townsfolk only. You can stay until Wednesday morning, but will then have to leave.”
“We can do that,” said Linda. “What does the festival celebrate?”
“The town.”
Linda smiled and nodded. “And it is surely a town worth celebrating.”
“A question, if you please,” said Warrick, squeezing between them. Belinda recoiled slightly. “This motel. Is it pet friendly?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Is it friendly to pets? For instance, my dog. Is it friendly to my dog?”
Belinda looked horrified. “Are you asking if your dog is allowed inside the hotel?”
“That is what I’m asking, yes.”
“No.”
“Is that a ‘No, my dog is allowed,’ or a ‘No, my dog isn’t allowed’?”
“No pets are allowed on the premises,” said Belinda. “My brother is extremely allergic. Having an animal under this roof could kill him.”
“What if I told you he was house-trained?”
“Absolutely not.”
“What if I told you he would not try to have sex with any potted plants you may possess, or any of your favourite stuffed animals? Still no? Then I will be forced to sleep with him in our van. Is that what you want? Me sleeping in a van? This isn’t California, let me remind you. This is Alaska. It gets cold here. You’re really okay with me spending the night in a van, freezing to death while my oversexed dog humps my head?”
“Animals are not allowed.”
“What if we sneak him in without you noticing?”
“We’re not going to do that,” Ronnie said quickly.
Warrick nodded, and did the air quotes thing. “Yeah, we’re ‘not’.”
“We’re actually not,” said Linda. “If Warrick won’t go anywhere without that dog, he can sleep in the van and take the consequences. The rest of us would like beds, please – until Wednesday.”
“When you will depart,” said Belinda.
“When we will depart,” echoed Linda.
They were shown to their rooms and Kelly dumped her bag on her bed and went to the bathroom while Linda showered quickly. Then they switched, and got changed, and met the guys outside.
They drove through town, familiarising themselves with the layout before focusing on the quieter streets. They followed the few small scrawls of graffiti like it was a trail of breadcrumbs, losing it sometimes and having to double back to pick up the trail again. It took them the rest of the afternoon, but finally the trail led them all the way to a park, at the bottom of the hill that led to the motel.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” said Kelly.
They got out, went walking. Kelly zipped up her jacket while Two ran in excited circles. On the east side of the park there was a small building that housed the public restrooms. Facing the park, it was a pristine example of a public utility that was kept up to snuff. But the interesting stuff was all across the back in layers of names and promises and oaths and declarations.
Kelly was a quick study, but even so her ability to decipher the messages hidden in graffiti could only take her so far. Ronnie was better at it, and Linda was better still, but Warrick was the master. He was the one who’d told them all about it, after all. Graffiti was the cave painting of the modern world, he’d told Kelly after she’d taken her first trip in the van.
That had been her recruitment, she supposed. Once she was part of the group, one of the gang, he felt comfortable telling her his secrets. A town’s history, its true history, he said, could be found in the scrawls and crude pictures hidden from the prying eyes of the disapproving authorities, those to whom whitewashing a wall was the same as whitewashing a mind. They could paint over the truth as many times as they wanted, but the truth could always be scrawled anew.
Kelly found declarations of love and accusations of infidelity, she found boasts of conquests, of prowess and of physical exploits, and she found pictures of genitalia that were suspect in their accuracy.
“Look at this,” said Linda, pointing to a drawing of a thin man with a wide, smiling mouth, too big for his head. There was an artistry to it, some genuine talent, but there was something else – something about that smile that unnerved Kelly. Linda took a picture of it with her phone.
“Got something else,” Ronnie said. “A name – Donnie Welker. Says here the Narrow Man got him in 2003.”
Linda hurried over, documenting the message.
They found five more references to the Narrow Man, and then Warrick said, “Found it.”
They crowded round him. On the wall, almost at the corner and faded, yet isolated from the other scrawls, almost as if nobody dared paint over it, was a short rhyme.
The Narrow Man, the Narrow Man,
He’ll sniff you out, you know he can.
Counting, counting, one, two, three,
Your name he’ll call, his face you’ll see.
Tap at your window, tap at your door,
You can hide no longer, run no more.
The Narrow Man, the Narrow Man,
He’ll drag you to hell, fast as he can.
“He’s here, all right,” said Ronnie.
“Look at this,” said Kelly, waving to a group of kids hanging out in the trees behind them. “We have an audience.”
Two bounded over. A few of the kids backed away, but most of them made a fuss over the dumb dog as he licked their hands and rolled on to his back so they’d scratch his belly.
Kelly and the others walked over.
“Hi there,” she said. The kids regarded her warily. “Could you do us a favour? Me and my friends were wondering what that Narrow Man thing is all about. We’ve heard of him, we’re kind of geeks for this sort of crap, but we’ve never seen anything so concentrated as this.”
Some of the kids, the ones who were wary of the dog, glanced at each other and walked away.
One of the other kids who stayed gave a shrug. “So what’s the favour?”
“Actually, less of a favour, more of a … job, really.” Kelly took out a crumpled ten-dollar bill. “What can you tell us about him?”
“He’s a story,” said the kid.
“What kind of story?” Ronnie asked.
“Creepy bedtime story.”
“He’s the boogeyman,” said a girl.
“Yeah, that’s it,” the boy said. “The boogeyman. Comes out and snatches away naughty boys and girls.”
“What about the rhyme?” asked Linda.
“Just something we used to say. Something fun.”
Warrick took a treat from his pocket, tossed it to Two. “He ever snatch away anyone you know?”
“Are you stupid or something?” the boy asked. “He’s a story. He’s not real.”
Warrick jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I think whoever drew that picture thought he was real.”
“My cousin drew that,” said a smaller kid at the back, “and you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s a nursery rhyme. Just something kids used to say.”
“What about the counting, counting, one, two, three thing?” Ronnie asked. “What’s that mean?”
The kids looked at each other uneasily, until Ronnie produced another ten.
The first kid tracked it like a heat-seeker. “Everyone in town votes,” he said. “If you misbehave, parents and teachers and whatever will write your name on a piece of paper and put it into the box in the square. They do it to scare the younger kids into doing what they’re told.”
Kelly frowned. “And what are they voting for?”
Not to be outdone, the girl spoke up. “The Narrow Man comes for whoever gets the most votes. Or he’s supposed to, anyway. But everyone knows the votes are never counted.”
“That’s pretty messed up,” said Warrick.
“It’s a crock of shit,” the girl said, shrugging. “Like everything else people do here.”
“What’s the festival that’s happening on Wednesday?” Kelly asked.
The kids clammed up. Warrick sighed, and gave each of them a ten.
“We don’t talk about it,” said the first kid.
“So what is it?”
“We don’t talk about it.”
“But … dude, I gave you another ten.”
“So?”
They turned to go.
“Wait,” said Ronnie. “What’s your cousin’s name, the one who drew the picture? Maybe we can talk to him.”
“Doubt it,” said the small kid, “but whatever. Give me a twenty, stop your dog from humping my leg, and I’ll tell you.”
(#ulink_8231d1e2-badb-5e71-a8e9-e6a0e8697f4f)
AMBER SPENT MONDAY MORNING in Fast Danny’s. Brenda served her breakfast, then juice, then coffee, and then two hot chocolates, and Amber sat at her corner table with her earphones plugged into the iPad, using the cafe’s Wi-Fi to watch all of the In The Dark Places episodes she’d missed while on the run.
She’d hesitated before pressing play on the first one. Her life in the last five weeks had become stranger and much more fantastical than anything she’d ever seen on a TV screen. She’d witnessed true horror. She’d been subjected to true violence. She herself had killed. She herself had eaten human flesh. She had interacted with beings who existed beyond death, who traded in souls and powers beyond imagining, and she was pretty sure she was being stalked by a vampire. What effect could a dumb TV show have on her now?
As it turned out, an astonishing one.
Watching Dark Places was like going home – but instead of the home she’d always known, that cold place of silence and secrets, it was her other home, the home she had made for herself inside the world of the stories she loved. She knew everything about the actors, knew their birth dates and their pets’ names, but as each episode began the actors vanished and their characters appeared, and Amber forgot about the horrors biting at her heels and lost herself in the stories unfolding before her. She interacted with Brenda when she had to, ignored the curious looks of the people who frequented the cafe, and sipped her hot chocolate. The only part of her, the only part, that she did not relax was the part that was keeping her body from shifting into its demon form. That remained vigilant.
When she’d finished watching the final episode of the season – it had ended on a cliffhanger, of course it had ended on a cliffhanger – she took out the earbuds and sat back, absorbing the drama. The cafe was almost full by now, with people eyeing her table covetously.
Brenda saw that she had emerged from the screen, and came over. “Can I get you the cheque?”
Amber thought for a moment. “No, thanks,” she said. “But I’ll take a look at your lunch menu.”
Brenda made a big deal out of sighing, and headed off to fetch a menu. Amber grinned to herself.
She checked her phone, saw no message from Milo, and logged on to the Dark Places forum. Her bandaged hands made typing difficult, but not impossible.
The Dark Princess said …
I have returned …
RetroGamer! said …
Hi Proncess
*princess
Sith0Dude said …
hey
RetroGamer! said …
Damn typos.
Elven Queen said …
Princess!! We missed u!
Thoughts on finale?
Sith0Dude said …
Hey Elven Queen
The Dark Princess said …
Just saw it. WOW.
Though kinda knew they wouldn’t let Gideon die off so easily.
Elven Queen said …
Yeah, saw that twist coming from 3 episodes ago!
Sith0Dude said …
why is everyone ignoring me?
RetroGamer! said …
Was talking to BAC 10 minutes ago
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
There’s my girl!
The Dark Princess said …
BAC!
The world is a brighter place once more!
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
How’ve u been doing? Things been sorted since last time we chatted? *fingers crossed*
The Dark Princess said …
Not really, but I’m bravely fighting my way through it!
Sith0Dude said …
ur all ignoring me
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
Made up your mind about the con yet? Full cast PLUS Annalith’s gonna be there.
Wish I could go.
Elven Queen said …
Not ignoring you, Sith0Dude.
The Dark Princess said …
Haven’t really been thinking about it, but don’t think it’ll be possible. Things are still screwy
RetroGamer! said …
Everything ok, Princess?
The Dark Princess said …
I’m fine. Life’s just weird at the moment and not looking like it’ll ever go back to normal.
Elven Queen said …
Normal is boring.
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
You back in Florida yet?
The Dark Princess said …
Furthest thing from it. Alaska! LOL
Sith0Dude said …
the north pole?
The Dark Princess said …
Alaska isn’t the north pole.
Is it?
RetroGamer! said …
No.
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
Penguins live in the south pole, polar bears live in the north pole. That’s the rule.
Look out your window, Princess. What do u see?
The Dark Princess said …
Cars and people. No polar bears or penguins.
Sith0Dude said …
if you can’t see penguins u must be on north pole.
penguins would be everywhere on south cuz of no natural predators.
The Dark Princess said …
I don’t think that’s right, Sith0Dude.
Sith0Dude said …
No LAND based predators I meant. But they are prey to a range of top predators in the oceans.
Some penguins can swim up to 22 mph.
They get rid of saltwater they’ve swallowed by sneezing.
Elven Queen said …
Are you googling penguin facts, Sith0Dude?
Sith0Dude said …
no. just like penguins
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
How’s Wi-Fi in Alaska, Princess?
The Dark Princess said …
Better than expected! In a cafe right now and just streamed 4 eps without a problem. Say 1 thing for those polar bears, they know their Wi-Fi!
Sith0Dude said …
Most people think penguins mate for life, but Emperor Penguins usually take a mate for one year at a time
Elven Queen said …
Shut up about penguins Sith0Dude.
The Dark Princess said …
Gotta go guys. RL has just walked in.
Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …
When will u be on next?
The Dark Princess said …
Hard to say, got a lot going on. Laters!
Milo sat at the table and Amber logged off the messageboard.
“The Hounds still where they’re supposed to be?” she asked.
“They are. I followed one of them when he rode around the outskirts. Every so often, he’d test the barrier. Looks like it surrounds the whole town. We would appear to be safe, but I’m heading back out this afternoon, just to make sure. What have you been doing?”
Amber couldn’t help it. She smiled. “Just chatting with my friends.”
“And how are they?”
“Good. Still reeling from the final episode of Dark Places. It was brilliant. I’d tell you about it, but I don’t want to spoil anything.”
“I’m never going to watch that show,” Milo said, beckoning Brenda over.
“You should,” said Amber. “It’s better than those westerns you like.”
Milo grunted, then gave one of his smiles to Brenda that the waitress clearly appreciated. “Hey there,” he said. “Could I have a coffee, if it’s not too much trouble? Black, no sugar.”
“Regular old coffee,” said Brenda, “you got it. Anything else?”
“Nothing I can think of right now, thank you.”
Brenda nodded, practically curtsied, and hurried away.
“Doesn’t that get annoying?” Amber asked.
“Doesn’t what get annoying?” Milo said.
“That,” said Amber. “Women falling over themselves whenever you smile at them.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on. You do that smiley thing and they go weak at the knees every time.”
“That ‘smiley thing’ is me smiling.”
“Yeah, but it’s not, though, is it? You give them the extra big grin to get them blushing.”
“Hate to disappoint you, Amber, but my smile is the same size regardless of who I’m talking to.”
“So you’re telling me that if Brenda was a dude, you’d give him the same smile?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re flirting. Just admit it.”
“I admit no such thing because I’m not flirting. You’ll know when I’m flirting with someone because it’ll be really obvious and really bad.”
“You flirted with that lady back in Cascade Falls.”
“Veronica.”
“And did you or did you not get laid because of it?”
“What I did or did not do is none of your business, but that wasn’t flirting. That was talking. I’m okay at talking, when I’m in a talkative mood, and sometimes talking leads to other things.”
“Some people would call that flirting.”
“I call it being friendly.”
The woman at the next table got up to leave, but dropped her purse. Milo picked it up, handed it back to her. She smiled and he winked and she giggled.
As she walked away, Amber stared at Milo. “You winked at her.”
Milo frowned. “What? No, I didn’t.”
“You so did! You actually winked at her!”
“Did I?”
“I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Milo said. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What’s your flirting technique like?”
“I don’t have one,” she said.
“Sure you do.”
Amber shook her head. “It is literally non-existent, and I use literally both in the literal and figurative senses.”
“You just need practice,” Milo said. “Find someone you’d like to flirt with and strike up a conversation.”
“Like who?” she said, laughing.
“I don’t know,” Milo answered, looking around. He nodded to a young guy across the cafe. “How about him?”
Amber smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Coward.”
“He’s just not my type.”
“What is your type?”
She shrugged. “Not him.”
Brenda came over with Milo’s coffee.
“Thanks very much,” he said. Brenda smiled and blushed and hurried to another table before she melted.
Milo took a sip, and didn’t meet Amber’s gaze.
“Shut up,” he said.
(#ulink_7ac4ebc5-0c7b-514e-82de-b10a34cd4326)
WHAT HE HAD, and let there be no mistaking this, was a bona-fide mystery on his hands.
A murder mystery, to be exact. How many of those fell into the lap of someone like him every day? A murder mystery with police collusion. He knew what they called that, of course. They called it conspiracy.
Were all the cops in on it? He had no way of knowing. Novak and Woodbury, certainly, and maybe that other one, Officer Duncan. The one that never smiled. He doubted Lucy Thornton was involved – she always struck him as an honest sort of cop. And if Thornton was honest maybe her pal Ortmann was, too. But again he couldn’t be sure. They could all be part of this.
His heart was beating faster all of a sudden. This probably wasn’t a good thing, but for once Virgil didn’t mind. He was taking his pills and that’s all anyone could be expected to do in his position. He had a mystery to solve, after all.
Sure, his paranoia had been getting to him. Every creak in his house was a footstep. Every passing car was a police cruiser, come to silence him. He wasn’t getting much sleep. He wasn’t eating much. But so what? He had important things to be doing, for God’s sake. For the seventh time that day, he checked the windows and doors, made sure they were locked.
He watched an old man in a blue jacket shuffle along the sidewalk, reading from a scrap of paper and then looking up and around. Lost and confused, the same way Virgil spent most of his days. Not anymore, though. He realised, with a smile, that purpose had crept into his life when he wasn’t looking. What an odd sensation that was.
He set about making himself a sandwich. He had to keep his strength up, even if he wasn’t hungry. He laid out his ingredients, but hadn’t even buttered the bread when there was a knock on the door. His good mood soured. That would be Mrs Galloway. Every year she knocked on his door, gave him that condescending smile, and enquired as to his well-being before asking about his plans for Hell Night with all the grace and subtlety of a … a …
Goddammit, he couldn’t even think of a suitable insult.
Walking to the front door, he did his best to stifle his anger. It wasn’t easy. She wouldn’t even call it Hell Night. She called it “the festival” around him, as if he’d never heard the actual name in all of his years here. Condescending busybody that she was. He reached the door, calmed down, put a neutral expression on his face, and then opened it.
The old man in the blue jacket stood there. For a moment, Virgil didn’t know who it was. He was probably around Virgil’s own age. Hispanic. Shrunken. Then it came to him.
“Goat-molester?”
Javier Santorum snarled. When he did so, his false teeth clacked in his mouth. He drew back his spindly arm, his liver-spotted hand clenching into a liver-spotted fist. As a younger man, he’d telegraphed every punch in every fight scene they’d ever had (those in which he hadn’t been replaced with a stuntman) and it seemed his real-life technique wasn’t much better. He swung his fist in a wide, unsteady arc that Virgil could easily have dodged, back in the old days. But now, even though he saw it coming, he was still too slow to avoid it.
Javier’s fist bounced painfully off his cheek.
“Ow,” said Virgil.
“Yeah,” said Javier triumphantly. “How’d you like them—”
Javier had been a stage magician before he’d become an actor – Javier Santorum, Circus Magician and Escape Artist! – but Virgil had been a boxer, and those instincts never leave you. His left jab had slowed considerably over the years, but it still had that snap to it, and he still landed it with unerring precision, right on the point of Javier’s chin. Javier’s eyes crossed and his legs gave out, and he sat down faster than he’d probably managed for quite some time, and then flattened out on Virgil’s front porch.
“Oh goddammit,” said Virgil.
For a moment, he wondered if he’d killed him, but the rise and fall of Javier’s pigeon chest assured him that no, the idiot was still alive. He couldn’t leave him out on the porch, though. It wasn’t so much that the neighbours might wonder what was going on, but that Javier might get carried off by a bear or something on its way past. What an undignified way to go.
So Virgil prepared himself and, moving slowly, took a good grip on each of Javier’s matchstick ankles. Straightening up even slower than he’d bent down, he got himself in a good position, and pulled. Dragging Javier into the house was easier than he’d expected. The man seemed to consist of nothing more than dried kindling and leathered skin. His head bounced off the doorsill and Virgil grinned.
When he was inside, Virgil closed the door and went to fetch a glass of water. He stood over Javier, then, about to upend it over the other man’s face, when his mischievous streak lit up. He poured half of the water on to Javier’s crotch, and the rest he dumped on Javier’s face.
Javier spluttered, coughed, turned his head away and wiped his eyes. “What the hell … what the hell’re you doing?”
Virgil put the glass on the hall table. “Reviving you,” he said. “You looked dead.”
“That’s how I always look, you sonofabitch. You hit me!”
“You hit me first.”
“You deserved it!”
“Sorry I called you Goat-molester,” Virgil said. “It was the first thing that came into my head, honestly.”
“I don’t need your damn apology!”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came here to kick your ass!”
“You might want to do that from a standing position.”
“Screw you! I’ll get up in my own time!”
“Right. Sure. You wet yourself, by the way.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake …”
Javier struggled into a sitting position, then wiped at his crotch with dismay.
“Need some help?” Virgil asked.
“Not from the likes of you!”
Virgil shrugged.
Javier rubbed his chin. “You sucker-punched me.”
“No, I hit you back.”
“Yeah, when I wasn’t expecting it. I might have concussion. If my brain swells tonight, you’re to blame. Everyone will know you killed me.”
“Not if I leave you out for the bears.”
“There are bears?” Javier said quickly, looking around like he expected one to come ambling through from the bathroom.
“This is Alaska,” said Virgil. “We have everything here. Javier, are you sure you don’t want any help getting off the floor? You’re a long way down, and it’s a long way up.”
“I can do it myself,” said Javier. “Look at you, talking like an old man. You probably need those handles in the tub, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Virgil. “I also have a seat in the shower.”
“Ha! Like an old man!”
“Says the guy who can’t get up off my floor.”
“I’m waiting for my second wind!”
“What are you doing here, Javier? Why’d they even let you out?”
“Let me out?” said Javier. “It’s a retirement village, not a goddamn prison camp! I leave when I want to leave! If I want to catch a plane, I catch a plane! Don’t you be treating me like I’m an old man. I ain’t dead yet!” Moving slowly, and carefully, Javier turned over on to his hands and knees.
Virgil watched him. “Did you travel across the country just so you could hit me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Javier wheezed, crawling to the wall. “Hitting you was a bonus. Hitting you made the trip sweeter.”
“So why are you here?”
“The mystery,” Javier grunted. Using the wall to steady himself, he started getting to his feet. Virgil stared at him. He knew about the murder? How the hell did he know about the murder?
“My doppelgänger,” Javier continued. “Want to … see him for myself. See if he … really is my double.” Finally, Javier was standing again. “Oh, thank Christ,” he muttered.
“Someone looks a little like you and you immediately get on a plane?”
Javier glared. “You said he looked exactly like me. That’s what you said.”
“I know what I said, but you couldn’t have known that I wasn’t exaggerating. You took my word on something like that? Why?”
“Because I want to see him, goddammit. Is that so hard to understand? If I have a double who looks just like me from years ago, I want to meet him. Comprende?”
“You can’t meet him.”
“The hell I can’t! Where’d you see him? Just tell me where you saw him and I’ll do the rest.”
“He was in my neighbour’s house …”
“Well, okay!”
“… killing my neighbour.”
Javier paused. “What’s that you say?”
“You heard.”
“My doppelgänger killed your neighbour? That’s what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Well … why?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do the cops say about it?”
“That’s complicated.”
“In what way?”
“They’re in on it.”
“In on what?”
“The murder.”
Javier frowned. “You’re going to have to start at the beginning.”
“I was here. I looked into my neighbour’s house as your doppelgänger killed him. He snuck out, and before I could call them, the police turned up. The Chief of Police, actually. They took the body out in the middle of the night and covered up the whole thing.”
“Say it ain’t so.”
“I wish I could.”
“What kind of pills are you on, Abernathy?”
“Heart medication.”
“No pills that would make you hallucinate or imagine things or go crazy?”
“No crazy pills, no.”
“Cos it sounds like you’re on crazy pills.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“And you’re saying my double, my doppelgänger, is a killer? And you don’t know his name?”
Virgil hesitated.
“You do!” said Javier, eyes widening. “You do know his name!”
“I showed an old picture of you I got off the internet to the lady who delivers the mail, asked if she recognised this person. She said his name was Oscar Moreno.”
“My picture’s on the internet? Am I one of those internet stars I been hearing about?”
“No. As far as I can see, internet stars are cats and dogs and animals who do funny things.”
“Like Mr Ed?”
“I don’t think you’re quite getting it, but that’s okay.”
“And where does this Moreno guy live?”
“Across town,” said Virgil. “I looked him up in the phone book.”
“Just like you used to do on the show.”
“I guess.”
“Is that what this is?” Javier asked. “Are you falling into some delusion where you can no longer separate reality from fiction? Do you think we’re in an episode of the show right now?”
“If we were, you’d be Ernesto Insidio, evil mastermind, and I’d have to punch you again.”
Javier let a slow smile creep on to his face. “I think you might be nuts.”
“I really don’t care.”
“I actually think you might be losing your marbles. Do you know your own name? Tell me, are you Virgil Abernathy, washed-up television actor, or the Shroud, crime-fighting hero?”
Virgil looked at him, and shrugged. “I can’t be both?”
(#ulink_27df9602-8bdc-5de3-a362-8d06ff6c4483)
AMBER’S HANDS WERE GETTING better. They were still stiff, still discoloured, but the throb had reduced to almost nothing, and she could actually move her fingers now. She tested them on the walk from Main Street to the Dowall Motel, wriggling them a little in their bandages. The iPad was in the bag on her back and it bounced with every step she took. She was walking fast. After a day spent in her human form, she was ready to crawl out of her own skin.
She passed a park where little kids played on jungle gyms and swing sets while their parents looked on. The afternoon had turned to early evening, but it was still bright, still way too bright, and it was cold and getting colder, and they were all wrapped up in thick coats. Amber barely felt it. She started up the hill, keeping her eyes on the motel at the top. She envisioned herself walking into her room and stripping off her clothes and shifting, and had to bite her lip to keep from moaning.
A car pulled up alongside her, its window down.
“Hello there!” the driver said brightly.
Amber frowned at him and kept walking.
He was fat and balding, unexceptional, but his smile was intense in its friendliness. “I was wondering if you could tell me where Daggett Road is …?”
“I’m not from around here,” Amber said.
“What was that?” the driver asked, keeping pace.
“I’m not from around here,” she repeated, louder.
He shook his head. “Sorry, still can’t hear you.” He pulled in ahead of her and Amber stopped walking. He got out, holding a map. He wore a bowling shirt that did nothing to hide his bulk.
“I’m not from around here,” Amber told him again.
“I’m just looking for Daggett Road,” he explained, coming closer.
“I can’t help you,” said Amber. “I don’t live here, I’m not from here.”
“But look,” the man said, holding out the map. “I know where it is, I just don’t know where I am.”
Amber started to back up. “I can’t help you.”
“I won’t take up much of your time,” said the man. “I’m just trying to get to Daggett Road.”
“Please stay back.”
“Why?” the man asked, a wounded expression on his face. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m just asking for directions. Are you scared? Why are you scared? I’m just asking for directions.”
“And I told you I can’t help you.”
“But you haven’t even tried.”
“I’m not from the area.”
“I just want to find Daggett Road. Can you show me where we are on this map?”
“I don’t know where we are.”
“Of course you do,” the man said, and chuckled.
“Sir, I don’t know the name of the road we’re on, I don’t know how to find it on a map, and I don’t know where Daggett Road is. There’s a bunch of people down in the playground you could ask.”
“What playground?”
“You just passed it.”
“Yeah?” he said, and looked around. “Didn’t notice it. Maybe you could help me find the playground on the map?”
He stepped towards her and she held up a hand. “Stop.”
“Stop?”
“Stop where you are.”
He laughed. “This is America, young lady. Land of the free. You can’t tell me what to do. If I want to walk, I walk.”
He took another step, and another, matching her backwards steps.
She snarled. “Sir, if you take one more goddamn step, you’re going to regret it.”
“Yeah?” said the man, and then he showed her the gun he was holding under the map. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”
Amber’s eyes widened. The gun was an automatic, and it had a silencer on the muzzle.
“Don’t do it,” the man said. “Don’t change. Moment I see horns, I’m putting a bullet between them.”
She didn’t need to ask him why he was here.
“Where is he?” the man said. “The Ghost. Where is he?”
“Who?”
“The Ghost of the Highway,” the man snapped. “I know he’s here with you, so where exactly is he?”
She thought about lying, but couldn’t come up with a way to exploit a lie, so she decided on the truth. “He’s keeping an eye on the Hounds,” she said. “You know about the Hounds, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I know about the Hounds. But where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He drives around a little. Checks the perimeter.”
He aimed for her head. “Where is he?”
Amber swallowed. “Over that way.” She jerked her head to show him.
“Then we’re going in the opposite direction,” the man said. He motioned to the car. “In you get. Go on. No, the driver’s side.”
“What?”
“You’re gonna drive us right up to those Hounds, and I’m gonna sit beside you and keep this gun pointed straight at your gut.”
“I can’t drive.” She held up her hands. “I can’t grip the wheel.”
“What?” He shook his head. He looked furious. “What the hell did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Amber replied. “It was a guy like you, someone who wanted to take me back to the Shining Demon. He did this.”
“Shit.” The man stared at her. He started chewing his lip. “Shit. Well, I can’t drive. I gotta keep the gun on you.”
“Don’t know what you want me to do about it.”
“Shut up,” he said. “Shut up and let me … Okay, right, Plan B. We walk outta here.”
“Walk out of town? That’s miles.”
“You think I’m happy about it? Walk ahead of me. We stay away from anyone we see, you understand? If you try to be sneaky and alert someone to what’s going on, I kill them, you dig? Get going.”
They got to the park and cut across it, staying out of sight of the kids and their parents. Every minute or so the man would issue another instruction to steer clear of houses or roads or people walking their dogs. They got to an old walking track and stayed on it for a while.
“So who are you?” Amber asked.
“I don’t recall saying anything about small talk.”
“This isn’t small talk,” she said. “I think I deserve to know the name of the man who’s going to deliver me to the Hounds.”
She heard the smirk in his voice. “Yeah, maybe. Name’s Phil Daggett – though most people know me as the Yukon Strangler.”
“Serial killer?”
“There is not a name for what I am.”
“You a friend of Elias Mauk, then?”
“He’s never had the privilege of meeting me. But he will. When this is over and I get the power I want, they’ll all wanna meet me.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. His face was red and his breathing was laboured. He wasn’t used to this much exercise. Neither was she, for that matter. She didn’t want to imagine what her own face looked like.
“You’re still alive,” she said.
“Eyes front.”
Amber looked ahead as she walked. “You’re still alive,” she repeated. “Most of the killers who sign up with the Shining Demon wait until they’re dead to … Wait. You haven’t signed up with him, have you?”
“No more talking.”
She stopped suddenly, and turned.
Daggett pulled up, confused. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You haven’t made a deal with him, have you?” she asked. “So why are you here?”
“Get moving.”
“Not until you answer my questions.”
“I will kill you right now if you do not start walking.”
“The Shining Demon wants me alive,” she countered. “So come on – what’s in it for you?”
He hesitated. “If I hand you over, I get my deal.”
“You tried to make a deal before this,” she said, “but you weren’t interesting enough, were you?”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Explain it to me, Phil, or I’m not moving.”
“Goddamn you, you little bitch …! You march when I goddamn say you march!”
“Explain.”
Fury danced in his eyes. “I tried to make a deal,” he said. “So what? I tried and it didn’t work. It doesn’t work for everyone. I understood. I didn’t let it stop me. I kept going out, I killed more women – whores and sluts and filthy, filthy creatures, the lot of them – because I knew, I knew that if I could just prove myself worthy of his interest, all my dreams would come true. Then the night before last my bedroom was filled with this light, with this incredible light … I figured it was a sign. I figured he was calling me. I did the whole circle thing … and it worked, and I was in his castle.”
“And he offered you a deal if you could come in here and drag me out.”
“I jumped in my car immediately. I didn’t think I’d be the first to find you, but hey.” He shrugged, and smiled. “I guess it’s my lucky day.”
Amber frowned. “The first?”
Daggett laughed. “You didn’t think I was the only one, did you? Everyone who’s ever tried to contact him and failed, he summoned. They’re all on their way here. Serial killers of all kinds are closing in on this town as we speak.”
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Derek Landy
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Детские приключения
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: THE EPIC NEW THRILLER CONTINUES.Book two in the mind-blowing new supernatural thriller from bestselling author DEREK LANDY, creator of international sensation Skulduggery Pleasant.Reeling from their bloody encounter in New York City at the end of Demon Road, Amber and Milo flee north. On their trail are the Hounds of Hell – five demonic bikers who will stop at nothing to drag their quarries back to their unholy master.Amber and Milo’s only hope lies within Desolation Hill – a small town with a big secret; a town with a darkness to it, where evil seeps through the very floorboards. Until, on one night every year, it spills over onto the streets and all hell breaks loose.And that night is coming…