See the pretty person. Stalk the pretty person, Kill the pretty person.
HarperPrism An Imprint o/HarperPaperbacks
A werewolf moon hung over the valiey, but there were still too many places for shadows to hide.
Branches creaked in the passing of a slow wind; a scrap of paper trembled in the gutter; a dog barked nervously, yipped, and fell silent, the blare of a distant freight train sounded dull, sounded hollow.
The single flap of night-black wings.
The not quite audible step of something large on dying grass.
October night, with a hint of frost and blood.
Polly Logan wasn’t scared. She liked to walk through the middle of the night. She had friends, lots of friends, and they wouldn’t let anything hurt her. The only thing was, they didn't like it when she left the house for a walk. Not after sunset, anyway. Certainly not alone.
But she wasn't scared.
The town of Lookout Mountain was too small to have bad people who would want to do bad things to someone like her. It was a pretty town. A nice town, high enough above the world that she could almost touch the sky. Not at all like Chattanooga, sprawled down there in the-valley, at the base of Lookout Mountain itself. It was too big, that city; too many wide streets and too many dark streets, too many people moving around all at once. It made her nervous, and she didn't like to go there, not even to the doctor who took care of her and kept her well.
Except when they took her to the aquarium, that is. That part was fun, and she never got tired of it. You ride up to the top of a real long, shiny escalator, then walk down and around, down and around, with so many fish, so many colors, and the gentle sound of running water all around her all the time.
That was fun.
This was fun.
Walking along the street, listening to the night, watching the stars and the werewolf moon.
Not that she really believed in werewolves.
She knew she wasn’t as smart as most people, but she also knew she wasn't a little girl anymore either. She was a big girl, nearly twenty-five, practically a woman, and big girls who were practically women didn't believe in werewolves and vampires and ghosts and big hairy monsters who lived in the bottom of the Tennessee River.
They just weren’t so.
Just ahead, on the corner not far from her destination, a flock of autumn leaves swirled in the light sifting from the streetlamps. She watched the spinning colors, and giggled when they darted toward her suddenly. She used her hands to bat them away from her face, turning with them, giggling, until they all fell down.
"Fun," she whispered, and plucked a stray leaf from her long blond hair. It was perfect, not a rip in it, so she tucked it into her down parka, reminding herself to show it to Miss Doris in the morning.
After she had her visit with Kyle.
A blush touched her cheeks, and she swiped a finger across them as if to brush the blush away.
Kyle.
She shivered with pleasure, and quickened her step.
This was fun.
it didn’t matter that all the houses she passed were either dark or only had a single light burning over the front door; it didn't matter that the only sounds she heard were her footsteps on the pavement, and the soft sigh of her breathing.
This was fun.
It was nearly Halloween, and it was fun.
She turned the corner, smiling broadly to herself, once in a while sweeping a hand over her face to push the hair away.
"You'll come to see me, won’t you?" he had asked just that afternoon, smiling so hard his face squinched up, and all she could see were his lips and his freckles; "It's a pain being all alone, you know? Why don't you stop by, and I'll give you a private tour."
Too surprised and shy to speak aloud, she had nodded so hard she nearly made herself dizzy, and ran all the way back to the house, where she sat in her room and stared at all the pictures of the animals she had drawn, waiting for them to tel! her what to do. To tel! her it was okay.
A long time ago, Miss Doris had said, "Don't you ever speak to strange men, you hear me, child? They’ll take advantage of you, poor thing, and you won’t even know it. A strange man tries to speak to you, touch you, you come straight home and tell me right away, and I'll see to it he never speaks to young girls again."
Miss Doris said that a lot.
Polly always nodded, too, and swore she would never, ever let anyone she didn’t know touch her or speak to her, unless Miss Doris said it was all right first. She may not be very smart, but like Miss Doris always said, she wasn't stupid either.
But Kyle, he was different. She didn't know why, exactly, but he was.
He worked at the little park where the town stopped at the end of the mountain, sometimes in the daytime and sometimes in the nighttime. He wore a uniform, just like Officer Zielke did, even though he wasn’t a real policeman. He helped the tourist people who came from all over to look at the Civil War monument, or to look down at Chattanooga and take lots of pictures, or who wanted to know how many states they could see from the bluff on a real clear day.
He was kind. Really kind. And he never, ever tried to touch her. Never, ever made fun of her.
Not like the kids in her school. The one she went to before she came to live with Miss Doris, that is.
Polly, Polly,
Oft good Polly,
Ain’t it true
You're off your trolley?
That wasn’t fun.
That had made her cry.
Kyle didn't make her cry. He made her laugh. He made her cheeks feel all warm and her tummy all cozy. He once bought her an ice cream cone, and gave her his handkerchief when the cone started to melt all over her fingers.
Polly, won't you come and visit me tonight?
She ducked her head and hurried on, counting her footsteps, thinking about Kyie and how he lived in his very own castle and how she might live in a castle, too, one day. Why, she might even be called a—
"Polly Logan, my heavens, what on earth are you doing, young lady?"
She jumped, a hand darting to her throat to stop a scream, when a round, little man stepped out from behind a thick, tall hedge He didn’t have much hair, and what he did have was pure white. His coat was long, his hands gloved, and behind him on a leash was a tiny dog that looked all hair and legs.
"Oh, Mr. Abbott, you scared me!"
Baines Abbott grinned an apology. "I'm sorry, dear, but I didn't expect to see anyone out this late. Hush, Beau," he snapped at the dog, who hadn't done anything but growl a little. "Dog thinks he's a giant sometimes. Polly, does Miss Doris know you're out so late?"
"Yes, sir, she sure does." She nodded vigorously. "I’m just taking my ... my evening constitutional.”
He laughed silently. "Polly, you are truly something else, do you know that?” He looked quickly side to side and gave her a wink and a silly pretend scowl. "Okay, young lady, I won't tell. But only if you promise me you’ll get yourself home right away, you hear? Little lady like you ought to be in bed this time of night." He squinted at the sky and tilted his head. "Besides, it looks like there’s some weather coming." He sniffed. "Rain or snow, I can't tell."
She looked as well, and saw a silver-edged cloud cut the huge moon in half.
"Home, Polly," Mr. Abbott said gently. "Go home."
She nodded, promised him she'd just go around
the next corner, and head straight back for her bed, cross her heart and hope to die.
Beau barked, once.
Abbott hushed him, laughed, and walked away quickly, the terrier scampering to keep up.
Oh, my, Polly thought; oh, my.
Her heart slammed against her chest, her lungs worked double-time, and suddenly her knees didn't want to work anymore.
That big, old moon wasn’t very pretty anymore.
Maybe Mr. Abbott was right. Maybe she ought to turn right around and go back home before Miss Doris found out she was gone. She would apologize to Kyle first thing tomorrow, and he would understand. He always understood. He certainly wouldn’t be mad. He wouldn't want her caught out in a storm.
Polly, Polly.
Moonlight faded.
The wind kicked, and the leaves didn't tickle anymore.
She frowned in indecision as she looked over her shoulder, biting down softly on her lower lip. She only had one more corner to turn, though; just one more corner. She could run real fast, tell Kyle she had to go home, and run back, and nobody would ever know she'd been gone.
The short street was empty.
One car was parked at the curb, its windshield like a narrow, black eye.
All the houses were dark, not even a porch light, not even a glow from the handful of small shops.
Not even the lights of Chattanooga reflected in the sky.
Something had changed.
Now that Mr. Abbott and Beau had gone, the night was somehow different.
It was the same wind, and the same leaves dancing, and the same stars, and the same buildings there always were . . . but it was all different, too.
It wasn't nice anymore.
I’m not scared, she told herself.
Polly, Polly.
I am not scared.
She ran to the corner and looked down the street. Empty. Dark.
When the blacktop ended, the castle began, fieldstone and high, higher still with turrets on either side of Point Park’s high arched entrance. It was dimly lighted, and the light stained the stone with shadows, making the black iron gate beneath the arch look solid. She didn't know why, until she realized all the lights in the small park beyond were out.
"Oh, dear," she whispered.
She didn’t know what to do.
If Kyle was there, why were the lights out? If Kyle wasn’t there, why hadn't he told her?
She walked closer, very slowly, biting softly on her lower lip.
This was kind of like that night last summer, when she had seen the pretty light in the sky. She really was scared then, because it was sun-bright and almost green, and it moved very fast over the mountain, too fast for her to follow. At first she thought that maybe she had imagined it, like Miss Doris tells her that she imagines lots of things. But it came back a few minutes later, and it was lower, and although she couldn’t see what made it, she had a
bad feeling. She had a bad feeling that whoever was in the thing that made the light was in big trouble.
Then it disappeared.
lust like that, it disappeared.
And just like that, before she could breathe again, there was a really bright light, this one all orange and blue and green and yellow, and a loud noise that nearly knocked her to the ground.
And then it was dark again.
And no one had believed her when she told them she'd seen a light.
Other people had seen it and told the television and the newspapers about it, too, but no one had believed her.
They hardly ever did.
Now they wouldn't believe her when she told them that the lights in the park were all out. They weren't supposed to be; Kyle was supposed to keep them on all the time.
Her eyes widened.
Maybe he's hurt.
She walked faster.
Maybe he fell down when the lights went out, and now maybe he's hurt.
She almost ran, a tear blinding one eye, the wind nudging her, leaves suddenly lunging out of the trees to tangle in her hair and scratch at her face.
She nearly collided with the gate, stopping herself just in time by grabbing the bars.
"Kyle?” Very quietly; she didn’t want to get into trouble.
No answer.
"It's Polly.” Very quietly; she didn't want to get caught.
There were no lights, but she could see the trees anyway from the oddly muted glow of the city hidden below. Dark holes in the night, and boulders and trees along the rim of the bluff.
"Kyle?"
She heard a noise: a snuffling, and a low growl.
Her mouth opened; she couldn't say his name again.
Then something reached through the bars and grabbed her ankle. She yelled, and fell onto her rump, kicking and screaming, until her ankle was free. Kicking again and crying until she saw the hand, its fingers curled and trembling hard.
"Polly."
Until she saw Kyle's face, pressed against the bars.
"Polly .. . please ..
It was red.
Sometimes, when he was alone, he liked to call himself Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces.
Not that he had a thousand faces, or even a couple of dozen, for that matter. But it felt like it. A touch here, a mustache there, once in a while a hairpiece, and he was, as always, someone else.
it didn't take much. People seldom saw what they thought they did.
What he did have, however, was a thousand names.
For a while, back at the beginning, he had tried to keep track of them, just for the hell of it. He gave up after five years; the list had grown too long. Now he let the others do it, to make sure there were no duplications. He had enough trouble as it was keeping in mind the name he had now. A hazard of the game; like playing six roles in a play simultaneously, you have to make sure you react to all the right cues, or you'll be exposed for the fraud you are.
All of them.
"You know,” he said to the man on the other end of the line, "just once I'd like to be John Smith, you know what I mean? Or Harry Truman.”
There was no response.
The man sighed and shook his head. It was a good thing he liked his job, because the people on the other end didn't have much of a sense of humor. Especially when it came to something like this.
"Mr. Blanchard," his caller said. A mild scolding, and a suggestion to get on with it.
Miles Blanchard rolled his eyes at the empty motel room, and picked up a tumbler from the scarred nightstand. The Southern Comfort—no ice, that would be a crime—tasted good. He made sure his caller heard him drinking.
"Mr. Blanchard."
"I know, Mr. Crimmins, I know, I know." Wearily he swung his legs onto the bed, toed off his shoes, and settled himself against the headboard.
The room was in twilight; the drapes were closed; the only light was from a lamp on a table beside the bolted-to-the-dresser television. No sounds in the corridor. No traffic outside save for the occasional arrival of a bus at the depot next door.
It was well after midnight.
"The girl's name is Polly Logan. She's a retard—"
"Mr. Blanchard!"
Blanchard ignored him. "—who's living with a woman named Doris Maurin. It's a foster care thing mixed in with a halfway house for loonies or something. The kid has no family. She can stay on her own if she has to—and apparently she will one of these days—but she’s been in and out of institutions all her life what with one thing and another, but mostly because of the no family thing. She's only been out of this last one for fourteen months. The Maurin woman is supposed to get her used to
the outside. Help her get a job to pay rent, stuff like that.”
"Was she hurt?”
"Nope. A bruise on her ass when she fell, that’s all. A couple of scrapes on her hands. Nobody knows why she was at the park in the first place. She’s not talking to anyone. She just sits in her room and draws pictures of her favorite animals or something."
"Have you seen them? The pictures?”
"No, sir, 1 haven't.”
"Do so, Mr. Blanchard,"
"Sure thing.”
The drapes fluttered as a draft slipped through the window frame, a touch of November that made the room seem darker, and smaller.
"Continue."
Blanchard shifted, "Apparently the Geliman guy tried to grab her leg or something when she got there, and that’s what knocked her over. Scared her half to death. He was already mostly dead, and he was absolutely dead by the time the paramedics got there. A neighbor walking his dog called them when he heard the girl screaming.”
"Who was this neighbor?”
"A guy named Baines Abbott. He runs a gift shop up on the mountain. Tourist stuff mostly. The Civil War, things like that."
"What does he know?"
"That Geliman’s dead, that's ail. He’s a harmless old coot. For now."
“If you say so, Mr. Blanchard. Did this Geliman say anything to the girl?"
"Nope."
"Cause of death?"
"No blood." He grinned at the ceiling.
"Mr. Blanchard ..
"Yeah, yeah, right, I’m sorry." He took another drink and stared at the tips of his black socks. "Simply put, he bled to death from several deep gashes—one across the chest, one across the throat, a couple across the gut. He was attacked on a path just inside the entrance, according to the local M.E., and dropped pretty much right away. Evidently, he crawled to the gate, probably trying to get some help. Just bad luck the kid showed up when she did."
"i wouldn't call that bad luck, Mr. Blanchard."
"I meant for the kid.”
“I see.”
Blanchard grinned again, drank again. He had never met the man who called himself Terrence Crimmins, and frankly never wanted to. Twisting the guy's tail long-distance was one thing; face-to-face would be something else again. He had no illusions about the man’s power, or the danger he represented. Blanchard was perfectly satisfied receiving his instructions, and his payments, via intermediaries or the mail. Or, on special occasions like this, over the phone.
Crimmins was the only man Miles Blanchard had ever feared.
He glanced at the black box that cradled the original receiver, at the quartet of tiny red bulbs that glowed steadily on the side, an indication that the scrambler was in charge and hadn’t been breached. "The police," Crimmins said calmly,
"Nothing. Zip. No prints anywhere, the ground’s too hard and the grass too short. No weapon. No prints or anything else in the blood Geliman left behind on the blacktop. Because the gate was locked, they figure the killer had to have come over the wall that extends on either side of that castle thing in front, but they can't find out where. He sure as hell didn't climb up the bluff.
"As for the alleged assailant, it has been suggested to the papers that this could be a unique case, nothing more. A Florida panther migrating north because he's been squeezed out of his habitat. Or a wildcat spooked out of the Smokies, looking for new territory.” He emptied his glass. "Or maybe some twisted maniac who’s got himself a set of slice-and-dice fingers like Freddy Kruger."
"Kruger, Mr. Blanchard?”
Blanchard rolled his eyes again, wishing his employers would take a look at the real world once in a while. It would make his life a whole lot easier. "A guy in the movies, sir. Kind of a monster who has knives stuck to his fingers.’*
"I see.”
I'll bet, Blanchard thought and yawned silently.
"And do they believe it?"
Blanchard nodded, glad Crimmins couldn't see how smug he looked. "Yes, sir, they sure do. Sort of.” He glanced at a copy of the Chattanooga Times on the bed beside him. "The TV says it's a maniac. The papers say it’s an animal. They have experts on both sides coming out of their ears.”
"My congratulations, Mr. Blanchard. An interesting bit of confusion. Well done, indeed. How do you think they will resolve it?"
"My best guess? It's been eleven days, so probably they'll come down on the maniac theory. Geliman wasn't eaten, and there were no parts missing. Plus, barring any other sightings or attacks, it's probably going to die down to just some editorials by the weekend, back page by Monday. They've still got conventions coming down here. Thanksgiving tourists, things like that. 1 don't think anyone wants to stir that particular pot again.”
"Ah;” Nothing eise for a moment until, "Please wait."
Blanchard crossed his legs at the ankle and stared at the ceiling. As always, from the sound of it, the man was on a speaker phone, and right now he'd be conferring with whoever else was in the room. Wherever that was. Blanchard hated this part. The waiting. He had long ago stopped trying to second-guess his employer; he hadn't yet been right, and once it had nearly gotten him killed. He only hoped they wouldn’t want him to take care of the kid. She seemed really sweet, a real innocent. And from what she had seen, and from what he had learned of her reaction and current condition, she’d probably be back in an institution anyway before the year was out. Traumatized for life, or something like that.
"Mr. Blanchard?"
"Still here, sir.”
"After you check on that poor child's drawings, we would like you to stay down there for a few days more. Say, at least until Thanksgiving weekend. Look around. Keep the media . . . distant. Be aware.”
Blanchard frowned. "Sir, no offense, but I don't think that's a good idea. I've been down here for nearly two weeks already. I've been all over that damn mountain, and I haven’t found a thing except rocks and bushes. There just isn't anything there. Besides, nobody's seen anything, nobody’s heard anything, nobody knows anything. The girl is a joke, and Gellman’s dead. If I keep snooping around without good cause, somebody's bound to get suspicious."
"Your... kit isn’t reliable?’’
He glanced at the compact makeup chest on the dresser, and at the small drawers beneath it where the rest of his tools were. "I don't want to sound immodest, Mr. Crimmins, but you already know I’m pretty damn good at what I do. But 1 have to remind you, sir, that i'm not a miracle worker. This may not be .. . where you are, sir, but these people aren't stupid. I'd like to suggest that the last thing you want me to do is to have to leave town in a hurry."
A pause before: "I’ll think about it. Be available tomorrow night."
The connection broke, and Blanchard immediately unhooked the scrambler, dropped the receiver onto its own cradle, and packed the scrambler in a small padded carrier he placed in a suitcase kept in the room's closet. He did this all without thinking. It wasn’t until he had made sure the telephone was still working that he aimed a kick at the dresser.
“Son of a bitch!"
He snatched up the bottle of Southern Comfort from the floor beside the bed and nearly flung it against the wall, catching himself just in time.
Damn them, he thought, rage tightening his chest; why the hell don't they come down here for a while? Why don’t they spend some time in this two-bit burg with nothing but college basketball games and a fucking fish house to kill time with? Why don't they stay in a place where the fucking bar closes at midnight?
Jesus H. on a—
The telephone rang.
"What?" he demanded, taking a pull straight from the bottle.
"Is this Miles Blanchard?"
A woman, her voice deep and husky, and he blinked several times before he realized who it was.
He swallowed quickly, nearly choking himself. "Yes, it sure is.” ■
"This is Della speaking. We spoke earlier this evening? i tried to reach you before, Miles, but the phone was busy."
He sat on the edge of the bed, the bottle between his legs. “Sorr^, darlin'. Unfortunately, business never stops in my line of work."
"This late?" Honey and velvet now. "My, my, you Northern boys don't rest at all"
He sighed heavily, loudly. "I know. It’s a crime, but what are you going to do?”
''So . . are you still up for some company?"
“Oh, yes. Now more than ever."
"Wonderful. I have to ask you a question, though, before I come over. Please don’t take offense."
He waited.
"Are you a cop?"
He gaped at the receiver, grinned at his reflection in the long mirror over the dresser, and said, “Darlin', believe me, the last thing in the world I am is a cop."
And the first thing he did after hanging up was take his gun from the nightstand, slip it into its holster, and put it all into the bottom dresser drawer, beneath his white shirts.
The last thing he did was utter a quick prayer that he wouldn’t have to kill this woman who called herself Della.
The autumn leaves were long gone, and the blue of the sky over the Capitol had shifted from hazy summer soft to clear winter sharp. Shortly after sunset, whitecaps rose and sprayed ahead of a strong wind that gusted down the Potomac. Flags snapped like gunshots, and automobiles trembled when they were caught broadside at the city’s wider intersections. Light from streetlamps and Christmas decorations in store windows, looked brittle and slightly hazed.
The Mall was nearly deserted.
A few scraps of paper tumbled across the short, browning grass, and a long, brown cat raced for the leeward shelter of the Metro station.
A man, his hands burrowed in black topcoat pockets, watched the cat from the steps of the Air and Space Museum, and smiled to himself as it briefly, vigorously, attacked a candy wrapper that skittered ahead of it, before sitting calmly, only its tail twitching.
It looked in his direction only once. And when it did, he saw the eyes gleaming narrow, and sensed the soft warning growl deep in its throat before it decided to take a moment to preen its whiskers.
He laughed without a sound and left the museum behind as he angled between parked cars and crossed the street, pausing on the opposite sidewalk while he checked his watch, for no reason at all.
Up to his left, the Capitol building seemed inordinately small despite all the spotlights, hunkered down against the cold black of the early-evening sky.
A siren called, somewhere to his right.
On the wind rose scents he ignored—gasoline and warm metal, cooling stone and exhaust, a young man hurrying east on the far side of the Mall, an old woman lying asleep, wrapped in rags and newsprint, dying.
He shivered when the night air slipped down his upraised collar, and he hunched his shoulders before moving on, watching his streetlight shadow slip ahead of him, and swing behind. He had no clear idea of where he wanted to go, or where he would end up; for the moment, just being outside, being able to breathe fresh air, was good enough.
The wind died.
He walked on, paying little attention to the traffic or the occasional pedestrian. He heard only the sound of his heels on the pavement, looked up only when he wanted to cross another street. He supposed he should head for home, but he knew he would be just as restless there, and more confined. He'd only end up going out again.
He rounded a corner into a small, upscale shopping district and had to sidestep around a sidewalk Santa Claus packing up his gear while talking to a little girl who kept giggling and glancing shyly up at her mother.
It was a scene straight out of Hollywood, and he couldn't help a.grin as he glanced back in time to see the child and Santa solemnly shake hands. The handshake was a promise, and he hoped someone would keep it.
Fifteen minutes later he paused in front of a newsstand looking ready to close up for the day. A low bench beneath the window held picked-over stacks of out-of-town and foreign newspapers; in narrow racks that flanked the bench were magazines that were, in the main, concerned with news and opinion; the foreign ones here were mostly fashion and sports.
He didn't see anything to spark his interest.
All right, he told himself; this is getting ridiculous. Make up your mind.
His problem was not boredom, nor any particular malaise. It was a lovely evening, the decorations were cheerful, and aside from the persistent restlessness, his own mood was close to buoyant.
It was hard not to break into a run, just for the sheer joy of it.
The problem was an uncommon but not unfamiliar situation: at present he was involved in no active assignments, urgent or otherwise, and as far as he could tell from the reports he received, there didn't seem to be anything coming up anytime soon that would require his attention, peripheral or otherwise. Which left nothing but those same reports to be read, studied, and, the chances were, burned or shredded and summarily stashed in the circular file.
He had, at the same time, plenty to do and nothing to do at all.
He also knew that the holidays would soon take care of that. The lull before yet another storm.
The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas were potentially .explosive. Depression and psychoses tended to build during these few weeks as daylight shortened, the cold deepened, and some people were reminded by the season’s excess of all the things they didn’t have, or believed they didn't have—family, money, expensive gifts, connections with others. By tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, there would undoubtedly be a flurry of kidnappings, murders, and suicides; then he would have more work than he would have time to complete.
Reading. Studying. Looking for the clues that would lead him to his prey.
It was out there; it always was.
He knew it; he just couldn't see it yet.
But that was tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that.
Right now, he was ... monumentally bored.
He laughed at himself as he walked on, absently pushing a long-fingered hand back through dark-brown hair lightly flecked with silver and curling slightly toward his shoulders. A block later he turned into a residential side street whose lighting was nearly nonexistent, most its illumination owed to electric candles in townhouse windows and colored lights around the doors. Brick and polished granite facades, swept stoops and sidewalks, plus waist-high, black iron fencing in front of each building, attested to the modest affluence of those who lived inside. Traffic was swift here as automobiles took shortcuts from one thoroughfare to another.
An elderly couple passed him, arm in arm, shopping bags in their free hands, chatting softly to each other in French.
He nodded to them and moved on, thinking that maybe, before he compietely exhausted himself, he would give it up, go home, get some sleep.
Tomorrow, remember, he told himself; or the next day, or the day after.
A soft, sudden cry cocked his head, and he glanced over his shoulder. The shopping bag couple stood with their backs to him and a narrow-bored tree, facing someone taller and much heavier, a kid, whose features were in shadow. He instantly stepped to one side, blending his own dark form with that of a curb-side tree. It didn't take but a few seconds to understand that the kid posed a threat, and, by the way the old Frenchman slipped a protective arm around the woman's shoulders, a dangerous one as well.
A swift scan of the area showed him no signs of Metro police, nor were there any nearby pedestrians he could call on for assistance.
The kid leaned forward, a clear menace, and the couple cringed.
The man knew this wasn’t his affair, but there was fear down that street, and very likely death if the kid was spooked or didn’t get what he wanted; he wasted no more time.
He unbuttoned his coat, grabbed a cellular telephone from his pocket, and as he headed back down the sidewalk, put it to his ear. He spoke just loudly enough to be heard, while he gestured extravagantly and impatiently with his left arm. He was a man clearly absorbed in his conversation, the rest of the world nonexistent.
The kid stiffened as the man approached, turning his back slightly to the nearest townhouse, blocking easy view of whatever weapon he held.
"I don’t care," the man in black snapped. "The senator wants it done tonight, so make sure that you do it. Screw up and it’s your ass, not mine.”
He could see the victims' eyes pleading, could see the Frenchman's mouth open, could see a shift in the kid's stance which immediately stifled any call for help the others might have made.
"Whatever you have to do," he demanded as he passed them, noting the way the potential assailant had his right hand tucked into his coat at chest level, "lust make the calls, all right? lust make the damn calls."
A single step past them, and in one swift motion, he jammed the phone into his coat pocket and pulled out a gun, turned, and placed the barrel hard against the kid’s nape, to make sure he knew he wasn't bluffing.
"FBI," he said, the first thing that came to mind. "Drop it, get to your knees,"
it always happened: that eternal split second when the target had to make a decision whether or not he had a chance of escape or retaliation. A subtle tension, a subtle shift of balance, sometimes a held breath—all the signs, and no infallible way of reading them
The man pressed the barrel harder against the kid’s neck, just a little and leaned closer, just close enough for the man to hear the deep guttural snarl.
"All right, man, all right," the kid said wearily, shoulders slumping in defeat. "Just take it easy, okay? No problem. Ain’t gonna hurt nobody."
"Drop it,” he insisted.
The right arm lowered slowly, and he saw the glint of a blade just before he heard it strike the pavement near the curb. “Down!” he ordered, as his right foot kicked the knife out of reach.
The kid slumped obediently to his knees and sat back on his heels, his hands already behind his back without having to be told.
The man in black wasted no time—as he bound the wrists with handcuffs, he asked the woman to knock on the nearest door and have someone call the police; she didn't need to be asked twice. Then he stopped the old man in the act of reaching for the blade. "The police will take care of it. You just relax, catch your breath.’’
Once the kid was secured, he had him sit against the trunk of the tree, legs splayed. He was young, thin, wearing nothing but a T-shirt under his coat. A sketch of a mustache darkened his upper lip.
"Thank you," the old man said.
He smiled. "My pleasure. Believe me."
“Comment raws appeliez-vous. monsieur?"
"Turpin," said the man. "Richard Turpin."
The old man nodded to the weapon. "He would have killed us, 1 think.”
The blade was long, two-edged, and by the gleam of it, freshly sharpened. It wasn't a stabbing knife; it was a slasher, meant to open arteries no matter how it was whipped at the intended victim.
"I didn't want to kill nobody," the kid grumbled behind a scowl.
“You will go to jail," the old man said.
"Fuck you," the kid said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "You got lucky, that’s all. Fucking angel here, you oughta kiss his ass.”
Without a word, Richard gestured to the old man—wait for your wife by the steps—and squatted in front of the still grumbling kid, surely, Richard thought, barely out of his teens. He stared until the kid met his gaze.
"You have a name?”
"What’s it to you?"
"You have a name?”
The kid looked away in disgust. "Fuck off."
"Do you have a name?"
The kid sighed heavily and looked back. "Chris, okay? You got a problem with that?"
Richard smiled, barely. "Tough dude like you, you're called Chris?”
The kid sneered. "Dude? Dude? You some kinda joke, man?" He laughed and looked at the street. "Dude. Jesus Christ." He laughed again.
Richard leaned closer, his voice lower, his back to the old Frenchman. "Tell me something, Chris—do you want to live until morning?”
The kid rolled his eyes . . . and looked.
Richard knew exactly what he saw—an ordinary man somewhere in his thirties, lean, clean-shaven, with eyes that tucked up slightly at the corners; a hint, some thought, of the Orient there.
He also saw the face shimmer, saw the green that filled those eyes; not emerald, but green fire.
He saw the teeth.
It lasted no longer than a blink.
It was enough.
"Oh, man,” the kid said hoarsely, pushing back as if he could force his way through the trunk to the other side. "Oh man, what the—"
Richard patted his cheek once, not lightly. "Be a good boy, Chris. Watch your mouth." A smile, a shimmer, a hint of teeth again, more like fangs. "And watch your back, son. Nights are long this time of year."
The kid couldn't speak; he could only gape as he tucked his legs in, huddling now, bravado evaporated.
With a deep breath Richard rose, and less than a minute later the first patrol car arrived with lights and sirens. He identified himself to the officer who jumped from the vehicle before it had completely stopped and filled him in on the incident.
And as soon as the inevitable confusion became acute enough, he slipped away; they wouldn't know he was gone until it was too late.
He didn’t worry about anything the kid might say. In an hour the boy would convince himself he hadn't seen a thing, that it had all been lights and shadows. A shame about the old couple, though. They had fussed over him to an almost embarrassing degree, and he didn’t have the heart to tell them he wasn't what they thought he was.
Not in their wildest dreams.
Not in their worst nightmares.
Once he was back on the street again, however, his step was lighter and his smile broad.
What he hadn't tried to explain, and what they might not fully comprehend, was that his momentary pleasure of helping them out of a dangerous, perhaps lethal, situation, came not entirely from the possibility of saving their lives. It was wonderful that no one had been hurt; it was a bonus that it had all happened so cleanly in less time than it would take them to tell it when they called family and friends.
But it was even better, and in some ways more important, that another member of the opposition would now be off the streets for a while.
That kid wasn't a drug lord, wasn’t a mass murderer, wasn’t a major thief wanted in a dozen states.
But as young as he was, he was the opposition.
Clumsy, maybe; maybe even inept.
But he was the opposition, even if he wasn’t the usual prey.
Chalk one up for the good guys, he thought.
For a change.
In the words of her first hang-gliding instructor, Trish McCormick was "drop-dead gorgeous, a damn good student, and out of her freaking mind.” And the first time he had tried to cop a fee! during one their sessions, she hadn't wasted her time telling him off. She had slugged him instead, and though her knuckles had ached for several days afterward, she hadn't felt the least bit guilty.
He had been fired two days later.
As for his opinion of her, she knew it was one held by more than,a few. The "drop-dead gorgeous" part she wasn't too sure about. That she was pretty she already knew, without conceit; how much further that went depended, she supposed, on those who saw her. She had never let it get in her way.
She was also, for the most part, a pretty good student in whatever she put her mind to learn. That was, more than anything, a matter of pride. Despite the changing times, people who saw a woman like her, with rich and thick blond hair, automatically concluded she was dumb as a post. But she had long ago decided that the only person she had to prove anything to was herself; if she failed now and then, and she did, she couldn’t accuse herself of not trying.
The "out of her freaking mind” was something else again. Without question, she knew that was pretty much accurate, and she actually liked it. If. that is, they were referring to the chances she liked to take as she searched for ways to find out just how far she could go without scaring herself to death.
She had been doing it for years, ever since she was a teen and some half-baked, so-called Southern gentleman had told her she had the perfect figure for motherin' and cookin', so why did she want to ruin all that by, of all things unwomanly on this man’s earth, learning to drive in a NASCAR race.
She had taken strong exception.
And now that she was just past thirty, without children or marriage or very many regrets, the only true limit she had discovered was cave exploring. The idea that tons of rock and earth could slam down on her at any moment, without warning, and trap her, alone, in total darkness, had given her nightmares for a week after her first experience underground. Thinking it a common reaction for the initiate, she had tried it again, and again had nearly panicked.
A limit had been found; but only in one direction.
Today she was headed, in a sense, in a totally opposite one; today she would fly.
She loved it.
She loved the rush of wind against her face when she leapt off the mountain; she laughed aloud each time the wings that held her up shuddered against a gust and drove her muscles close to cramps as she forced the glider to do what she wanted; and she never landed without a shriek of sheer joy.
It didn't matter that she didn't do it very often. Her work, and her bank account, often conspired to hoid the experience down to once or twice a month, if that. It didn’t matter in the long run, however, because she desperately didn't want it to become ordinary.
She couldn't have stood that.
She couldn't have stood to lose the exhilaration.
In fact, her routine on flying days had been deliberately set to enhance that feeling: slow getting up, carefully filling time during the hours before flight by shopping or cleaning house, driving up Lookout Mountain at a pace that drove those who followed nuts, and sitting as she did now in the graveled parking area, watching others soar.
Leon's Air wasn't much of an operation, and not nearly as used at the other launch spot, a mile north along the ridge. But it had a feel to it she liked. It consisted of a large barnlike shed for storing rental equipment, the graveled parking area, and a five-foot concrete launch lip that extended over the edge of the drop.
There wasn't really room for much else.
The ridge here was only a hundred yards or so wide, barely accommodating the two-lane paved road that led back to the town of Lookout Mountain, some shrubs and trees on the east side, and Leon's place on the west. With the trees bare and the wind in constant motion, it often seemed as if she were walking on the edge of a two-sided cliff.
A man stepped out of the shed and waved.
She grinned and climbed out, the wind instantly taking her long blond hair and slapping it across her face.
"Hey," Leon Hendean said. "Happy almost New Year." He was tall, heavy without the fat, and bearded.
A bear who spoke quietly and gently . . . when he spoke at all.
Trish shivered as December cold slipped under her clothes, and thought, only for a moment, that maybe she'd picked a bad day. The sky was overcast, the wind a bit strong, and she was, for the time being, the only one here.
Sunset was only an hour away.
She made her way to the concrete lip and looked out over the valley. Nearly two thousand feet below she could see broad patches of green—some were farms, at least two were landing sites for the two hang-gliding operations. The rest of the land was heavily wooded, broken only by a winding two-lane road that ran north and south. What she couldn't see was the storage shed below Leon’s, the truck used to cart flyers and equipment back up the mountain, and the van that doubled as an ambulance in case of an accident.
Her hands fisted in her flight-jacket pockets.
"You going?” he asked, a few steps behind her.
It was weird—he ran this place, a growing favorite among those who liked to pretend they were eagles, but he never stood close to the edge. Trish, on the other hand, delighted in it, checking the area for emergency landing spots while knowing that, except for the valley floor, there were none. The mountainside was choked with rocks, trees, and brush, and for a good third of its height, it was vertical.
She had long ago conquered that unbearable feeling of wanting to let go, to just fall. Flying was a better way to get to the ground.
"What do you think?” she said, stepping back to stand beside him.
"Strong, but not impossible."
"Am I the first?"
He shook his head. "Had a bunch around noon, before the clouds came in. No reports."
No updrafts, no sheers, no abrupt changes in wind speed.
"Then what the hell, Leon.” She poked his arm. "Besides, it’s my century."
His grin made her smile. She had promised him a date on her hundredth flight, and was pleased he had remembered.
"Supergirl," was all he said, however, and she spent the next twenty minutes preparing for the jump, double-checking the equipment she knew he had already checked a dozen times that day, pulling on an insulated, modified flight suit to protect her against the cold, setting helmet and goggles, and making sure the bag into which her legs would be tucked was safely affixed to the glider's frame by its harness.
Stretching exercises to ease her muscles while, at the same time, they prepared her mind to accept the fact that she was about to deliberately jump off the side of a mountain.
She barely remembered Leon helping her into the frame, hooking the harness, giving her a thumbs-up, bringing her to the edge.
She barely remembered the please God prayer.
She barely remembered the launch itself, concentrating instead on testing the wind as she swooped down the mountainside, then swooped up sharply until she was level with the shed's roof. She heard nothing but the wind, the snap of the glider's canopy wings, and her own muffled cries of delight as she banked to the left and began the downward spiral.
It was cold.
Too cold.
Despite her gloves, her fingers were freezing.
This was her least favorite kind of flying—taking herself all too quickly to the landing area. But she had underestimated the cold, and knew that if she wanted one more chance to play tag with the birds today, she wouldn't be able to take her time this time.
The valley shifted lazily, and all the noise was reduced to silence.
She was alone.
Out of her freaking mind with the indescribable, almost sexual feeling, of flying without natural wings.
That euphoria had, on more than one occasion, made her weep.
It also was a constant threat to her concentration, and she was startled when, five hundred feet down, a gust sideswiped her, driving her closer to the mountain wall.
She shifted legs and arms expertly and swung away, and down, and was caught again, this time taking her to the left, parallel to the trees that blurred past her.
Well, hell, she thought. She would have to gain some distance and dive a little. The wind wanted her to stay up, and the mountain wanted to take her. Not for the first time. A hazard of the sport.
Suddenly everything calmed and her speed decreased, and she was able to relax, just a little. Now, as she swung north again, she could see the details of the mountain's west face, truly gliding now instead of racing. Once, she had seen a family of deer picking its way across a clearing; once, not too long ago, she had seen something else, a dark creature she couldn't identify and hadn’t seen again. A bear, maybe, something like that.
Now she was flying.
Tension eased, and at a thousand feet she wondered if she could take a wide arc around the landing area instead of heading straight in. The clouds had already thickened; no chance she’d be able to go up again.
What would it hurt?
A decent flight now, and a longer flight later with Leon.
What could it hurt?
A flock of crows exploded from the trees to her right, out of the mountain, startling her as they flew overhead, and below her. At the same time, another gust, slapping her this time from above.
Something snapped.
She heard it, and her mouth dried instantly.
She felt it when the glider refused to obey her command to get the hell over there, down there to the green patch where now she could see the shed, and the truck, and the ambulance van.
Oh, God, please, she thought, searching the area just below for a safe place to land in case she couldn’t regain control; please.
The glider took her down.
Slowly, but too fast.
Her left arm ached, her gloved fingers almost released their grip on the crossbar, and for a wild, almost hysterical moment she was glad she had brought her own personal body bag with her—all they'd have to do when they found her was zip it up and cart her off.
The trees were too close.
A small clearing, canted and brown, broke the solid woodland wall.
Only chance, girl, she told herself, and headed straight for it.
Landing would be a bitch, she’d be lucky to break only a leg or two, but if she hit it dead center, she wouldn't break her neck against one of those trees.
Something snapped.
Trish fell, wings fluttering above her as she freed her legs, and braced herself to hit.
When she did, the fire in her ankles, her legs, her hips, drove her into the dark.
When consciousness returned, she was tangled face down in the frame, and she giggled when she realized she was alive. Broken ail the hell up, but still alive. As long as she didn’t move, Leon's valley people would find her. She knew that. He always followed his flyers with binoculars, radio in one hand, ready to transmit locations. Just in case.
"Okay," she said aloud, just to hear her voice. "Okay."
A test of her arms brought agony from her right leg, but it nothing she couldn't handle, and she wanted the damn frame off the back of her neck. Carefully, grunting, once screaming quietly, she managed to wriggle free.
There was no wind down here.
All she could hear was the sound of the crows.
She giggled again and, bracing for pain, lifted herself up on her elbows and looked around through the veil of her hair.
This time the scream was loud.
It didn’t last very long.
The early January night was raw, sometimes windy. Streetlights were brittle, footfalls sharp, and even a whisper sounded much too loud. The stars were gone, and light snow was promised over the city by morning.
Richard closed his eyes briefly; there was something more in the air.
A watcher.
Unseen, but out there, somewhere in the shadows.
His three-room apartment was in an old and small, undistinguished complex in Arlington. Although he was seldom there for more than a couple of weeks at a time, he had long ago come to a simple and effective arrangement with his landlady; she received treble the normal rent, and in return he was given unquestioning, absolute privacy— especially when he wasn’t there.
And because he liked her and wished her no harm, the day he took possession, he had added enough security measures at the door and windows to defeat a small army. Like the cat, curiosity would have killed her.
So far it had worked for almost eight years.
Now he stood at the living-room window, staring down at the empty street, one hand absently massaging the side of his neck. The holiday decorations were gone, from the streetlamps and from the houses across the way. The trees were bare. No cars were parked at the curbs.
Not a sound out there, and no movement at all.
Still, there was something out there.
He tapped a finger on the sill, a monotonous rhythm that quickly got on his nerves.
Something in the air.
He growled softly, almost a humming.
Perhaps it was time for him to take a late stroll around the block. The neighborhood wouldn't complain; he had made it a habit to let himself be noticed when he went out after sunset, just another fitness nut, out there walking off the pounds no matter what the weather was.
The telephone rang.
He started at the noise, then laughed at himself as he pushed a nervous hand back through his hair. You’re getting jumpy, he scolded, took one last look outside, and dropped onto the lumpy couch which, like all the other pieces of old, unmatched furniture, he had picked up from the previous tenant. One easy chair, a scarred side table, a standing brass lamp with a dark linen shade, a bookcase on the far wall, a thick wood shelf over his head on which perched a stone statuette of a night hawk, wings spread, eyes narrow.
The hawk was his.
"Richard?"
His smile broadened. "Fay? Is that you?"
"None other." Her voice was husky, almost masculine.
He looked across the unlighted room at the bookcase. He ignored the magazines and handful of books, concentrating instead on a niche that contained a two-foot high, blond-wood carving of a great horned owl.
"So what's up?"
"They need to see you."
He nodded, not bothering to add, it's about time. "When? Same place?"
"Yes. Tomorrow afternoon. Four.”
"Okay, fl\ be gone first thing. So how are you. Fay? It's been—"
"There’s no time, Richard," she said, oddly impatient. "Just be there. And Richard ... be careful."
She hung up.
He stared at the receiver for a second before replacing it in its cradle, then looked back at the owl.
A gust slapped at the window, causing the glow from the streetlamp to shimmer, and in shimmering, shifted shadows that made the bird's wings seem to move.
"What?” he asked softly. "What?”
In a desert whose mountains were made of sand, whose sky was streaked with light and dark shades of green that roiled like clouds in an unfelt storm, he made his way through the ruins of a temple, or a mansion that once belong to a king—pillars on their sides, snapped in half or snapped off at the base, only a handful still standing, holding nothing up but the sky; portions of walls against which sand had been banked by the constant furnace wind; statuary whose faces had been scoured blind; shards of bowls and urns.
There was heat, but he couldn’t feel it.
He never had.
He had been here before, not just in his dreams.
A sudden gust punched his spine and he stumbled forward, awkwardly catching himself against a crumbling, waist-high wall before he fell. On it, faded by the unseen sun, chipped by falling rock, were hieroglyphs. He didn't look at them, didn't need to. They comprised a fragment of a much longer tale, the story of his people and the battle that had finally forced them out of the land of the Lower Nile.
Another gust forced him backward, half turning him around.
A third made him duck his head and move on, skirting a table tipped onto its side, nearly tripping through an empty doorway with no walls on either side.
The wind blew more strongly.
The sand didn't move.
He smelled fire and burning tar.
He heard his own breathing, rough and shallow, as he tried to keep his balance against the wind and the soft, shifting sands.
Through rooms and courtyards until finally he saw a fluted pedestal as high as his chest, standing alone in a wasteland of rocks and rocky sand. Its top was round and wide, its sides streaked with stains that could have been rust, could have been blood.
He walked around it slowly, frowning, reaching out to dust the pitted marble with his fingertips.
He had no idea what this was, or what it once held, until his left foot kicked something buried at the base. He leaned over and saw a streak of black, carefully brushed the sand away and blinked once, slowly.
It took both hands to lift the three-foot statue from the ground, and his face was streaked with perspiration as he placed it on the pedestal.
Anubis, exquisitely fashioned in onyx, every detail clear despite the. complete absence of color.
The jackal-headed god stood with one foot slightly behind the other, teeth slightly bared, eyes slightly narrowed.
Its left hand was raised shoulder-high, palm out.
Its right arm was raised over its head, but it stopped at the elbow.
The rest was gone.
He backed away from it slowly, scowling as he scanned the ground for signs of the missing limb. He didn’t know what the god had been holding in its other hand, and he didn’t care. The fact that it had been mutilated was enough to make him nervous.
The green sky darkened.
The wind began to scream through holes in the rock.
Something told him to leave, now.
And something else made him watch as Anubis turned its head toward him and opened its jaws.
Richard sat up abruptly, eyes wide, mouth open in a shout that never made it past a moan caught in his throat. His gaze snapped around the bedroom, half expecting to see an intruder waiting in ambush deep in the shadows. But there was nothing but the dresser, the closet door, and the first faint light of dawn slowly filling the window.
"Damn,'’ he whispered, and swallowed heavily. "Damn."
Wearily he dropped back onto the sweat-damp pillow and stared at the ceiling. The apartment was cool, he liked it that way, and it helped to drive away the remaining fragments of the nightmare even as he tried to figure out what it meant.
The ruins had been part of his dreamscape for years; most of the time they signified little, if anything, beyond the reminder of what his people had once had, and had lost. Every so often, however, the scene was altered, and every so often he found something he needed to know.
But he had never been afraid of them before.
Never.
He lay still for another minute, calming his breathing, clearing his mind, before ruefully deciding there was no chance he’d be able to find sleep again. Slowly he sat up again, and slid his legs over the edge of the bed. He scratched his chest and scalp vigorously, shook his head quickly, and moved to the window to check the street.
Under an overcast sky a car crawled east; the old man from up the street walked his yapping, mostly hair, dog; two kids on bikes delivered papers.
Nothing he hadn't seen a hundred times before.
Whoever had been watching last night was gone, and he still couldn’t figure out if it had been a threat or not.
He waited a few minutes longer, just to be sure, then spent the next hour preparing for his trip across the state to the outskirts of Roanoke. He wouldn't be back soon. The summons Fay Parnell had given him told him that much.
What he still didn't know was why she had broken off their conversation so abruptly. He had known her for several years, and for a brief and dangerous time they had been lovers. Mystery was, of course, a part of her allure, but he had never known her to show the slightest bit of fear.
Yet there had definitely been fear in her voice the night before.
For him, he wondered, or for herself?
He grunted sharply in a scold. Speculation was useless, and at this stage it would only get him into trouble. Not, he thought wryly as he dressed, that trouble and he were strangers. Not only was it part of his job, but he also managed to get into enough of it on his own, without any help from outsiders. He knew full well that impulse and instinct were often necessary to his survival; he also knew that once in a while, despite his best efforts, they stampeded reason, and left him scrambling for solid ground.
Whenever you feel the urge, Fay had once told him with a smug, friendly grin, count to five before you walk off the damn cliff, okay? And be sure you have a parachute.
The trouble with that was, by the time he remembered the advice, he was sometimes already on the way down.
Without the damn parachute.
Another grunt, this one more like a laugh, and once packed—a small cloth bag, nothing more, that he would keep on the seat beside him—he activated the apartment's elaborate security measures, pulled on a fleece-lined leather jacket, and stood before the owl.
Tell me, he asked it silently; tell me what you see.
Then he sighed and left, stopping in the large, once elegant lobby to knock on Mrs. Allantero's door. She answered immediately, as he knew she would. The woman never slept, and no one ever left the building without her somehow knowing about it.
She wore ancient slippers, and an oversize floral dress that made her look heavier than she really was. As it was, she barely came up to the middle of his chest. A squint at his bag over the top of her reading glasses: "You going away?"
"For a while, yes."
She nodded. "You be good, Richard. The world's going to hell out there."
He grinned, "i’ll take care, don't worry."
She didn't ask. when he would be back, didn't even blink when he handed her an envelope that contained the next four months’ rent, it disappeared somewhere into the folds of her dress. Then she reached around the door, and handed him a brown paper lunch bag, stuffed with cookies and, probably, an orange and an apple. It was another of their rituals; he seldom left town without one of her trip-snacks.
A quick good-bye, then, and he hurried outside, around the corner of the building to the side parking lot as he shivered against the unexpected damp cold. His car was purposely nondescript and looked as if it should have been traded in a dozen years ago. Yet it felt like a favorite glove—not pretty, but it fit him perfectly, it warmed up quickly, and as he pulled into the street, he looked back and saw Mrs. Allantero in her window. Watching; always watching.
Her left hand lifted in a tentative wave, and he smiled and waved back.
Surrogate mother, he thought.
He wondered, then, what she would think if she knew her star tenant and surrogate son was actually a member of a race that called itself the Garou.
She wouldn't know what that meant.
But she would, without a doubt, recognize a werewolf.
Shapes and shadows in the fog.
As the land rose toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, the clouds lowered, and across the increasing number of pastures and fields, pockets of mist and fog rose from creeks and streams, and crept out of the woodland. By Roanoke, shortly before sunset, most of the summits were buried in ragged gray, and thin, gray patches had slipped across the road.
Richard was uneasy.
just like the night before, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something out there, pacing him— flashes of dark movement in the fog, a breeze-caused rip in the mist to reveal something standing in a meadow, the sense of something on the highway behind him, keeping out of sight just around the last bend.
it was foolish.
It was probably an understandable combination of being summoned again after so long a layoff, the nightmare, and Fay’s inexplicable warning. A touch of imagination, a dash of paranoia; he was lucky he wasn't seeing UFOs land on the highway.
Nevertheless, the shapes and shadows were out there, and he was more than a little relieved when he crossed over Interstate 81 west of Roanoke and, a mile-and~a-half later, took a little-used side road down into a narrow valley where night was only a few minutes away. Open land had given way to trees and dense brush, the side road to his destination practically buried behind tall reeds hiding a shallow, wide creek on the right.
As always, he drove past it twice to be sure no one had followed, then took the right turn slowly onto a single-lane road, and stopped almost immediately. He checked the rearview mirror, rubbed his chin, and finally got out, trailing one hand along the car's side as he walked to the back bumper and checked the main road in both directions.
lust be to sure again.
Nothing,
And nothing in the thick woods across the way, nothing in the sky below the clouds.
Maybe, he thought, and not for the first time recently; maybe I'm getting a little too old for this game.
As he turned to get back into the car, a flurry of crows exploded noisily out of the trees across the road, spinning dead leaves and alarms in their wake. He spun instantly into a crouch, cocking his head to listen as the flock's cries faded into the hillsides, straining to find movement in the twilight beneath the branches.
Most the trees were pine, but there were gaps he could see through, and shadows that dipped and wavered as a breeze slipped out of the woods into his face.
Slowly, uncertain, he rose and crossed the road, sidestepped down and up the mossy sides of a shallow ditch, and made his way in.
A crow called in the distance.
It could have been a deer, a bear, but their recognizable scents were not in the air; the birds could have spooked themselves, but he didn't think so.
He moved around a gnarled, half-dead pine, letting the lower branches glide off his left arm and shoulder.
Above him, the breeze had kicked into a wind, soughing, scattering leaves, snapping off dead twigs. Good and bad: it would mask his own movement, but he wouldn't be able to hear anyone else’s.
Another ten yards that took him ten minutes.
Pine needles on the ground matted into strips of brown and dull green; the nearly flat body of a long-dead squirrel lying beneath a laurel; a small pool of black, stagnant water that rippled thickly when the wind touched the surface.
He saw no prints, caught no spoor, and was about to give himself a swift mental kick in the butt, when he saw something quivering in a bush off to his right.
The branches, thick and dark gray, were horned, and a small piece of cloth struggled near the bottom. He pulled it off between thumb and forefinger, held it close to his eyes, then squinted into the wind. Still no prints, but this time he had the scent.
Human.
And long gone.
There was still a chance Richard might catch him—whoever it was had probably bolted when the crows took flight—but there was no time.
And for the moment, there was no danger.
Still, he waited a few minutes more, just in case, before returning to the car and rattling over a narrow wood bridge in serious need of repair. The road beyond was mostly stone and potholes, a deliberate discouragement to the casual weekend explorer.
A quarter of a mile later he reached a broad clearing and took his foot off the accelerator, letting the car roll to a silent stop.
The house, despite its size, was not very imposing. It had been constructed to follow the top arc of the long circular drive that fronted it, yet it didn't seem to be that large. Towering firs on the slopes behind and away on its flanks shrank the single-story brick and white-trim building, and even its one-acre front yard with its evergreen shrubs and now barren gardens looked little bigger than a postage stamp. The eagle weather vane in the center of the peaked roof, its brass dull without sunshine, quivered. Carriage lamps on either side of the paneled, double-front doors were lit, but the amber glass seemed less welcoming than cold. All the windows were blinded by closed draperies.
Had that casual weekend explorer gotten this far, he would have sworn, despite the lights, that the place was deserted.
Richard frowned his bemusement when he realized there were no cars parked on the drive. There should have been. Six or seven, at least. A spur off to the right led to an old stable converted into a six-car garage. The three that he could see were open, and there were no vehicles in there either.
He checked his watch, and the frowned deepened momentarily. He wasn’t late, and he doubted the others were, either. He would learn the reason for their absence soon enough.
He parked just past the entrance and opened the car door, shivering slightly at the chill that ruffled across his face. A good feeling. The scent of fir and pine, the scent of untainted air—a good feeling that would do until he was given the reason for the summons.
He glanced at the darkening sky, and the clouds were lower still.
A crow called from the woods, and was answered by another, coasting beneath the clouds.
The wind sent a single leaf spiraling over the roof.
Richard watched it vanish behind the weather vane, and shook his head. He had never really liked this place. It was too isolated, too vulnerable. A glance over his shoulder, a scowl into the wind. That human, whoever he was, might be in there, in the trees, either watching and nothing more, or fixing the sights of a rifle on his head.
"Enough," he told himself angrily. There was always the possibility it had only been a hunter or a hiker, it wasn't necessary to turn every' shadow into something sinister.
Yet Fay had said, be careful when there shouldn’t have been anything to be careful of at all.
He was almost tempted to walk around to the back to do some checking on his own, but the temptation faded quickly, and he slipped his right hand into his trouser pocket, fingers closing around a small cloth bag. He squeezed it once, for luck and reassurance, then strode cautiously to the front door.
Unlike his previous visits, there was no sign of greeting.
None at all.
Suddenly, ridiculously, he felt like the heroine in an old suspense movie—she and the audience knew full-well there was danger on the other side of that door, and contrary to all reason, she opened it anyway.
She and the audience were always right.
"Damn," he muttered. This was stupid. What the hell was the matter with him?
... be careful. . .
He took a slow deep breath and knocked.
The right-hand door opened immediately, soundlessly.
He started, cursed himself for the reaction, and stepped inside .without waiting for an invitation, nodding once to a middle-aged woman dressed in a severe, expensive brown suit, no flourishes at all, her solid brown hair tightly caught in a bun at her nape.
"Afternoon, Hester," he said pleasantly. "Will you tell them I'm here?''
Not a smile in return, just a sharp commanding nod that told him to stay where he was.
He didn't argue.
The foyer was large, with a polished flagstone floor and undecorated white walls split by exposed beams. Dim light fell from a small teardrop chandelier in the center of the ceiling. At the back, sliding glass doors overlooked a yard nearly the size of a football field, mostly brown now, and spotted at the back with shaded patches of snow that must have fallen the night before. In the middle of the walls right and left were entries to corridors he knew ran the length of the house, all the rooms opening off them, a curious arrangement he had never bothered to question
No one lived here.
As far as he knew, no one even stayed here overnight. Not even Hester Darchek.
The foyer was too warm. He unzipped his coat, then slipped it off and draped it over his left shoulder, moved it from there to drape over his right arm. He walked to the glass doors and stared at the yard, walked back to the entrance and stared at the tips of his shoes, tried counting the bulbs in the chandelier, and decided that if he didn't do something soon, he was going to drive himself crazy.
Hester returned a minute later, beckoned once, and he followed her into the hall on the right, its thick floral carpeting smothering their footsteps. Again, there was no ornamentation on the walls, the only light from candle-shaped bulbs beneath milk-glass chimneys i.n sconces beside each dark-wood door they passed.
Not a sound.
Not even the rising wind.
He wanted to whistle something, anything, just to break the silence, but he had a feeling Hester wouldn't approve,- he also had a feeling, without really knowing why, that he wouldn't be very happy if he ever sparked her ire.
Still .. it was tempting.
Halfway along, the woman paused just long enough to gesture him to an open door before she headed back toward the foyer, hands clasped at her stomach.
Richard smiled pleasantly as she passed, and rolled his eyes when, as usual, there was no response.
In all the time he had known her, if "known" was the word, she had never spoken more than a few words at a time, never smiled, never broken the indifferent mask she wore.
A deep voice with a touch of an English accent said, "Do come in, Richard, come in."
The room was a full twenty-five feet on a side, the walls papered white-and-rose on top, with dark walnut wainscoting below. A carved oak sideboard stood to the left just inside the door, and in the center was a gleaming refectory table large enough to seat eighteen.
There were no windows or other exits.
There were no lamps; the only illumination came from hooded bulbs embedded in the ceiling, one for each of the eighteen chairs. All else was in deep shadow.
There were only three others in the room.
Instantly, Richard felt all his defenses go up.
There should have been, at the very least, nine or ten men and women here.
His first thought was, lesus, it’s a trap.