
Bitten
K.L. Nappier
Bitten
Copyright © 2007 K.L. Nappier
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in Canada by Double Dragon eBooks, a division of Double Dragon Publishing Inc. of Markham Ontario, Canada.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN-10: 1-55404-475-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-55404-475-7
First Edition August 2, 2007
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Acknowledgments
How could I begin an Acknowledgments page with any other than the Indiana Writers Workshop? IWW has seen me through literary thick and thin for twenty years. But this time, in addition, a special thanks is owed to the IWW Fast Track Team that came to my rescue when my back was up against the deadline.
Toward the end of the writing of this novel, one of the founding members and matriarchs of IWW, Marjorie Stonehill, passed away. Hers is a friendship that can never be replaced. What she gave me shows in everything I write. Marge, say hello to Bob for us. May you both spend eternity having "a marvelous time looking at God."
Also, my gratitude goes to the specialist readers: My husband Richard for his careful attention to logic and outcome; Vickie Simpher and Lisa Velasquez for their priceless, readers' input; Dan Simpher, my blood 'n' guts expert; Felix Velasquez Jr. for making sure my characters' Spanish is fluent; Felix Velasquez Sr. for the Excel table of Simbolos Especiales, which was invaluable. Many thanks to you all.
Thanks are also due Dennis Lehane, his assistant extraordinaire Russ, & the 2006 Writers in Paradise "Writing the Cross Over Novel" Workshop Participants. What a teacher, what a group.
A toast to the Bib Crew: Bob, Brianna, Destiny Marie, Felix, Jonni, Justin, Katie, Lisa & Matt for their constant moral support and stress relieving.
But above all deepest appreciation to my family: most especially my parents Wanda, Dick & Doris; my love, my constant, my all, my husband Richard; sons Matthew & Nicholas and daughter-in-law Katie; my sister Vickie & her hubby Dan; my sister Jolene & her hubby Bobby; my brother Brian and his significant other Fred; my sister, Toni; my nephews & nieces Claudia, Brett, Paige and Scott; their spouses, Beth (Scott) and Mary (Brett); in birth order per family, their children Ricky, Kyle, Melanie, Brandon & Matthew (Brett & Mary); Kenneth and Alex (Scott & Beth's); Kendra, Chance & Hailey (Paige). You are all never farther from me than my own heart.
R.I.T.R.
Early Spring, 1950
First Night. Full Moon.
Max stared down at water so black, it swallowed moonlight as absolutely as the creature he stalked gobbled souls. He and David hadn't said a word while picking their way between the swampland's trees and over the cypress knees. They chose every step as if their lives depended on it. Any sound could be the sound that doomed them.
The Beast's trail had led them to the dark, lapping edges of the swamp's body. Until now, at least they'd had some semblance of ground under their feet, spongy and wet though it was. Swamp gas reeked in Max's nose and watered his eyes. He didn't dare raise his voice above a whisper, even with all the grisly little God-Knows-What trilling and shrieking from God-Knew-Where.
He waited until David had crept up to him, so close the broad rims of their hats brushed. The little wooden balls, dangling from the brims to thwart mosquitoes and gnats, waggled and clacked softly. Max whispered, "I don't want to go in there."
"Why?"
"Gators."
Max was too fixated on the dark, brackish water licking at his boots to look up. David kept his voice low, but he couldn't keep amusement out of it. "Alligators are a little low on our list of things to worry about."
Max looked at him. "Do you want to go in there?"
David lost his smirk and gazed down at the blackness. Yeah, Max didn't think so. But they both knew they had to.
"Shit," Max said. He leaned his shotgun against the nearest cypress and unstrapped the sidearm from his thigh. He looped the gun belt bandelero-style, waited while David did the same with his, then hiked his shotgun tight against his armpit and waded into the murk. "Why the hell did it have to come this way?"
"Enjoys the company of alligators, I suppose," David whispered back, working his way carefully after Max.
Sarcastic old Navajo . "You're sure it came this way?" Max asked.
David kept wading through. "As sure as you are."
Max wasn't that sure anymore. Well, actually to be perfectly honest, the truth was that he didn't want to be sure anymore, now that they were crotch-deep in black water.
The flick of something against the backs of his thighs stopped him cold. He looked down, knowing he couldn't hope to pierce the water's black veil. He would never see the six foot snake, or the fifty pound snapping turtle, or the ten foot gator until it had his ass in its jaws.
So quit thinking about it, he told himself, and wade. But when he heard the howl, he stopped. He stared at David. David was staring back.
He leaned close and whispered to Max, "How far, do you think?"
"Hard to say. I'm not even sure which direction it came from."
"We should stop a minute and try to feel it."
"David, it's really gonna be hard to concentrate while I'm standing in the middle of a gator infested swamp ..."
David didn't budge. Max heaved a sigh, and then closed his eyes, looking inward for the warning gut-twist. But the only knot in his belly was for the invisible toothies slithering around his legs. This wasn't the distinctive, rocky clench that warned him of the Beast's approach. He shifted his shotgun to his left side, removed his right glove and brought his palm close enough to see it in the filtered moonlight of the swamp. He waited.
The pentagram was there. Dim, but fully formed. The Beast wasn't nearby, but it wasn't far off either.
Another howl wafted through the swamp gas and cypress. David looked straight ahead. "That way."
 \*
They were back on dry land. Drier, in fact, than where they had entered on the swamp's other side. In the distance, ahead, was a dim yellow light filtering through the cypress limbs draped with beards of Spanish moss. Difficult to say how far off it was. Max couldn't believe it was there at all. They stood in silence while the mosquitoes and no-see-ums whined, thwarted and bloodthirsty, just beyond their hat brims.
"Is that lamplight?" Max whispered.
"It has to be."
"Way the hell out here?"
David shrugged. "The moon's directly above. It can't be that."
He took off his right glove and looked at his palm. Max did, too. The pentagrams were darkening, easier to see. David removed his other glove and reached into the medicine pouch belted at his hip. The pouch didn't hold the usual whatsis of a Navajo healer. Instead it was filled with the dried dung of local animals and other pungent dusts.
"We're sweating like pigs," he whispered, patting his face and neck with the mix. "If we were anywhere but here, the Beast would've smelled us coming for miles."
"Who'd have thought swamp gas would be a blessing." Max re-strapped his sidearm to his thigh, and then dipped his ungloved hand into the healer's pouch. "Pigs don't sweat, did you know that?"
David gave him a long-suffering, sideways glance as he powdered himself on the chest, hitting his armpits and dusting the sweat stains on his shirt. "No, I didn't know that." He shook the excess dust from his palms and strapped his own sidearm back in place. With a slight tilt of his head, he looked at Max: ready ?
And Max nodded back. Ready.
 \*
It was a shotgun shack, barely livable by the looks of it. In the dappled moonlight of the swamp its clapboard sides were gray and craggy, but Max doubted it'd look any better in broad daylight. How its gabled porch supported even the rickety rocking chair perched there, he couldn't imagine. But he could imagine his boot going right through the floor boards.
And yet lamplight made the interior of the shack glow golden. The front door was open, but a screen door -blotchy with rust and patched in several places-guarded the inside from whining little bloodsuckers. Max could see straight through to the back door, which was clapped shut with a long board through a couple of supports. In the clearing around the shack were racks loaded with massive alligator skulls and hides, huge turtle shells and a few mammal skins; beautiful, tawny and golden. Puma pelts.
There were no voices coming from inside but Max could hear sizzling and, even through the swamp gas, the smell of searing gator meat was strong.
They crept only as close to the clearing as they needed to get a good look, then receded back into the cover of the cypress. Through the ragged lace of Spanish moss, David kept an eye on the shack while Max looked around them in the dark, speckled here and there with outbreaks of moonlight.
He leaned in close to David's ear so the healer could hear him above the din of the swamp frogs and insects. "What do you think?" he whispered.
"It's a long way to come for a kill."
"Must be a hell of a feed."
David shook his head, pursing his lips. "No. Whoever lives here is the next host."
"The Chosen ? Nah ... can't be. It's too soon."
There had only been two kills. Max grimaced. Hell of a way to think of it: only two . But the hard reality was that the Beast normally hunted for much longer before choosing its next host. Max and David were lucky to have tracked this lineage down as early as they had.
Based on the remoteness of this place, though, there was something to what David said. The Beast had plenty of prey, with a lot less trouble, in the scattered network of small towns; a fertile hunting ground. So why would it choose a new host and move on so soon ... unless ...
"It's on to us."
David nodded. Max closed his eyes in dread.
"We better not wait any longer," David said. "Let's flip the vests."
"Yeah," Max replied, resigned.
Over their dark, long-sleeved shirts and pants, they had another piece of protective clothing. But this one was for an adversary more blood-frenzied than the mosquitoes. They wore hunters' vests dyed dark; handy in themselves for the pockets. But David had customized them with something special.
Taking shifts so one of them was always on guard, they slipped the vests off and turned them inside out. The inner linings were sown with thin plates of unpolished silver, about three inches square, covering the men front to back. They were careful to avoid any patches of moonlight. Close up, the sight of silver might cause the Beast to hesitate just enough to save their lives. But from afar, it would only be a beacon if caught in moonglow.
They fastened the inner buttons to make the vests secure. Nothing to do now but wait. They didn't dare try to warn the shack's occupant. Like it or not, whoever was frying that gator meat had to be given up as bait ... much as David had once used Doris Tebbe to distract Max. The only thing they could hope for was that the cook would stay put, making it harder for the Beast -if only a little-to get to him.
Without a word, Max and David settled in, sitting back-to-back. Then Max whispered, "I'm going to check my palm."
David kept vigil while Max brought his palm up close enough to see in the gloom. The pentagram was darker still. As many times as he had done this, it was still an effort to keep his breathing and pulse calm.
"It's getting close, David."
David didn't reply. There wasn't much point in it. Max waited to feel his friend's subtle movements, then swiveled his head in a mirror image of David's vigil ...
He froze. To his left, in the dark of the cypress cover, something trudged toward them, snuffling as it came. He didn't have to warn David. Smoothly, silently they lifted their shotguns, sighting in the same direction ... and waited.
Something dark, something big was loping their way, wolf-like in its movements. Max glimpsed it weaving through the cypress. He did his best to keep his breathing calm as he homed in on the creature's path, hitched up a leg and propped the shotgun on his knee.
Closer. Close enough for shooting now, but the idea was to try first for the pelvic basin. If not that, then to go for the chest or head, even though they hated to do it. But they had to do at least that. Anything less would just piss it off.
Closer ...
Something was wrong. The creature wasn't big enough. It wasn't stealthy enough. And as it trotted through patches of moonlight, its pelt wasn't glowing silver.
And then it was right in front of them. As startled as Max and David, it quick-stepped back a foot and sent up a howl of alarm that dropped into a cacophony of woof-woof! Woof-woof-woof-woof!
A dog! A huge, black, barrel-chested, son-of-a-bitch of a dog, but just a dog all the same. And even though it never made a move toward either of them, they were going to have to shoot it. They had to shut it up before it was too late, shut it up and move fast to a different location.
Max dropped a hand to his side arm, but it was already too late. An alto voice, rough as whiskey and tobacco, warned them from behind:
"You boys don't really wanna die over a dog, now, do ya?"
They lowered their guns and turned as the dog, growling and hackles raised, circled around to sit at the feet of its approaching mistress. She had a double barrel of her own, its round, steely sockets staring Max and David down from where it rested on an amply padded hipbone, snug in men's Levis.
"Ma'am --" David began.
"Put the guns down."
"Ma'am, you need to -"
" Put the guns down ."
Slowly, Max and David laid the guns at their feet. With her stare still fixed on them, the woman said, "Buttercup ... gun" and to Max's amazement, the dog plodded over, grabbed the butt of David's shotgun and dragged it over to its mistress. She didn't even have to prompt it to fetch Max's. Apparently, they had things like this down pat.
"Good girl." The woman pushed the shotguns behind her with a foot and a lock of gray-streaked, carrot-red hair slid from her topknot as she moved. She ignored that just like she ignored the mosquitoes.
"Ma'am -" David tried again.
"Now, with just your thumb and pointy finger, toss over those handguns. You first, Tonto. And you, Lone Ranger ... don't you move one damn muscle 'til I say so."
When those were at her feet she shifted the butt of her gun between her elbow and ribs, knelt, grabbed the side arms, stuffed them between her shirt and the Levi's waistband, and then collected the shotguns, tucking them under her free arm. She rose.
"Okay. What you're gonna do now is scoot along on your asses 'n' follow me while I back us outta the trees."
"Ma'am, you really need to go back -"
"You sound pretty stupid givin' orders right about now, you know that, Tonto? Come along ..."
Could they bolt? Maybe one of them. Maybe both. The way she was forced to hold her gun, the shot might go wild and miss its mark. Shotguns had a nasty kick when the triggers were pulled. But that was two "maybes" and one iffy "might" Then there was Buttercup to consider.
And all this was the least of their worries.
The men scooted along on the damp ground, dividing their attention between the woman, Buttercup and any sign of what was still out there somewhere. Max decided to take up where David had left off, trying to reason with the woman. He'd have to raise his voice to be heard over the swamps incessant trilling and croaking, but it didn't matter anymore. The woman and her damn dog had already caused too much commotion. The Beast had to know they were here, and it would be heading straight for them.
"Look, lady, we didn't come here to hurt anybody. For your own protection, you should go back into your ... uh ... cabin."
"Well, it's a good thing you didn't come meanin' harm since you can't do any, now that I got your guns."
"Those are only for protection," David said.
"Really? So's mine. Stop right there, that'll do ... no, no, no. No standin' up." The woman dipped down just enough to drop the men's shotguns safely to the ground. "Buttercup ... guns, porch."
By now they had moved out of the shelter of the cypress into the exposed clearing around the shack. The full moon shone down on them all like stage light. Max and David watched Buttercup drag each gun to the porch's bottom step.
Carefully, Max had been working his right glove nearly off his hand as he had scooted along. Now he brought his palm up and looked at it as he pretended to straighten the glove back into place. The pentagram stood out like a new tattoo. He felt that old, familiar warning as his guts twisted tight. Fresh sweat popped through his scalp. He didn't have to tell David they had no time left for alibis.
David started talking fast. "Ma'am, please, we're not hear to cause trouble, we didn't even know this place existed. We're tracking something dangerous, very dangerous, and the trail led here. Please . Take Buttercup and go inside."
The woman was perfectly calm and unconvinced. "You could say I'm a tracker myself. Whatcha huntin'?"
"There's a creature, a beast ... it's been stalking the towns. It's already killed twice, it's here in the swamp now, and it's close and heading right for us. Listen to me. You do not stand a chance. I am begging you. Give us our guns and go inside."
The woman's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, I heard about a couple killin's over the last two months. Somethin' made a real mess, they say, sure tore the poor bastards to shreds. One in Tavares, the other Mount Dora, as I recall ..."
Max nodded hopefully. "Exactly, you heard right."
But the narrowing of the woman's eyes just led to a smirk. She snuggled the butt of her shotgun more comfortably against her hip. "I'll give it to you boys, you're clever, usin' a little fact for your fiction. Gotta be the best excuse I heard yet from somebody comin' to steal my hides. But, really, now, how'd you hear about us? That son of mine's been talkin' too much over at Woodrow's bar-top again, ain't he?"
"No one's been talking to anybody," Max said. "Listen, lady, I wish we had time to earn your trust but we don't. Didn't you hear the howling earlier?"
Now she was almost smiling. "Yeah ..."
"That's the beast we're after," David said. "If we don't get to it, there's going to be more killing and it's going to begin with us. It knows we're here."
"That howlin'. You're sayin' that was your critter ...?"
" Yes ," Max replied.
She let out a laugh and a snort. "You two ain't from around here are ya? Don't you know there ain't nothin' in this swamp that howls but Buttercup? If you're tellin' me the truth, then you came all this way out here on your wild goose chase, trackin' my dog! Ha!"
Max and David shook their heads. "When was the last time you heard your dog howl like that ?" David asked.
Her smile faltered a moment, but then it returned with a mix of disdain and amusement. "Shit, boys. The swamp can do funny things to a sound." She relaxed just enough to push that errant lock of hair behind her ear. "Okay, okay. This has all been highly entertainin', but you made me take my supper off the stove and get cold. So why don't you make life easier on all of us and just get on out? If you make me shoot ya then I'll have to be the one to bury ya, 'cause I can't be tellin' the county sheriff 'bout that, no matter how good a friend he is." She waggled the gun barrels upward as a way of giving Max and David permission to stand. "Slow, now," she warned. "Thanks for the guns. I can always use 'em. And if you see that loose-lipped son of mine again, tell him the next hide that I'll be hangin' on the racks is his."
Max and David slowly rose. And the swamp's curtain of noise dropped away.
The woman's face crinkled in bafflement. Trembling, Buttercup jerked to the right with a ragged growl and stared past the clearing.
Max said, "Aw, shit ...!"
The men rushed for their shotguns. The Beast burst out of the tree line, a massive blur of silver, froth and fangs, brilliant and glowing under the full moon. They heard the woman gasp out, "Sweet Jesus in Heaven ...!"
They clawed for their shotguns and rolled between the Beast and the woman. She stumbled backward, letting both barrels loose right over their heads. The Beast's mass blotted out all light as it leapt over Max and David. They thrust upward and fired.
Through the clanging in his eardrums Max could hear the woman scream. He heard the wet, animal sound of fangs in flesh. The men leapt to their feet to see the Beast sprawled limp upon the woman, and Buttercup jerking viciously at the creature's neck.
They rushed over, kicking at the dog and hammering her with their gun butts, but she wouldn't let go until a moan came from beneath the Beast. The woman's right hand, flung outward from the impact, twitched. Buttercup let go of the Beast to snuffle and lick her palm.
"I don't believe it!" Max said, "She's alive!"
They bent to heave the carcass off her, but only the head and torso rolled away, barely attached to the haunches by scraps of fur and flesh. They pulled the woman out from under the remains, and her eyes fluttered open as Buttercup whined and circled, unable to reach her mistress through the men.
She said again, slurring, "Sweet Jesus in Heaven ..."
"Are you all right?" David asked, checking her over as Max helped her to sit up. "Are you in pain?"
"No ... Sweet Jesus that thing headed straight for me! It looked me in the eye, looked me square in the eye, and came right at me!"
Max helped David search for bite marks. The Beast's blood still had a silver sheen to it, but it would be fading soon. They looked for any gore that didn't catch the moonglow ... human blood. But the woman was drenched in nothing but shimmering viscera.
"Knock it off, knock it off!" she finally said, rolling her shoulders away from them.
Max took that as a good sign. She reached between them and comforted Buttercup with a shaky pat on the dog's broad head.
"Can you stand?" Max asked her.
"Yeah, I think so. Damn it to hell, what was that thing?"
Max and David each had her by an arm and helped her to her feet. That was when Max noticed that they, too, were covered with silver-tinged blood, and they all looked at the dead Beast.
David heaved a sigh. "I think we overdid it."
It was massive. But, hell, the Beast was always massive. Prehistoric in dimension, it matched pound for pound the legendary brawn of any ancient canine or sabertooth. It was beyond belief, beyond comprehension, even when it lay dead and as good as shot in two, its torso at a grotesque angle from the hind area.
The blood-the blood everywhere , turning the sandy soil to mud-was losing its luster now. But as long as the moon shone blanched and fierce on the carcass, the fur would never dull. The pelt was glistening as if silver leaf had been worked through it.
Wobbly, the woman knelt down to look long into the face of the Beast. She spread her hand, staring at the creature's fangs, exposed in its slack, gaping jaws, then looked at her fingers, trying to comprehend just how long those canines were. She whispered yet again, "Sweet, sweet Jesus. And the head! I just ... I never seen anything so damn big ..." She looked toward her right where the largest alligator skulls sat on sagging racks, then back again. "What the Sam Hill is this thing? Looks sorta like a wolf, from what I seen in pictures, but just look at it!"
"It's not a wolf," David said, starting to swat at mosquitoes. He glanced around until he spotted where his and Max's hats had fallen off. He went to get them.
Buttercup was snuffling up to her mistress.
Max said, "Lady, don't let your dog lick the blood."
"Buttercup, up on the porch," she ordered. The dog groaned and paced once or twice, unsure, but did as she was told. "So why shouldn't she lick at the blood? This thing got rabies?"
"Nah. It's just that we don't know if tasting the blood ... well ... at this point, it's hard to explain."
The woman stood back up, still shaken, but a gleam was coming to her eye. "This pelt's gonna fetch a shit load of money. Too bad it's in two halves."
"Money?" Max echoed, taking his hat from David.
Still looking down at the carcass, the woman said, "Aw, you'll get your cut, don't worry. I mean, hell, you boys helped kill it. 'Course you're also the one's who ripped it in two and that'll drop the price some. Still ... Hey, easy there, Tonto! What're you doin', diggin' for gold?"
David had his gloves off and was kneeling next to the carcass with his hands probing deep into the entrails. "No," he replied, "silver."
"Silver, huh. Okay, I get it. Tonto .. Hi-ho, Silver. Suppose I deserve that."
David nodded without looking up. "In spades. But I really am looking for silver."
Max's heart hammered with hope. "You think so?" he asked.
"Here's one. It's deformed but it's all there," David replied, almost smiling, but didn't take his hands out of the carcass. Max yanked off his own gloves, dropped to his knees and plunged his hands into the hot remains of the torso.
"What the hell are you two doin'?"
"Lady ..." Max looked up at her over his shoulder. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Millie, and what the hell are you doin'?"
"Here's two more," Max said, but he avoided pulling the silver out, too. He worked his fingers over them blindly. The impact had smashed them into the shapes of toadstools.
Nothing was said for a while, leaving Millie grumbling but too unsure to interfere. The swamp's night singers began their choruses again as the mosquitoes swarmed, gorging on the thickening pools of the Beast's blood.
Finally, David said, "I think that's all in this end."
"Me, too," Max replied. "You let both your barrels go, right?" David nodded. "Then the fourth must've gone all the way through."
"You had two apiece a-what?" Millie snapped.
"Solid cartridges," David replied, pulling his hands out. "We had our shotguns loaded with solid cartridges."
"You use solid slugs? Through and through? I never heard of such a thing! How you keep your aim steady enough to hit anything farther'n a yard or two?"
"Most of our work's close up." Max stood and motioned toward David as they tried to find a dry place on themselves to wipe their hands. "He makes them special. Buckshot would be impossible to completely clean from the wound. Same for a fragmented casing. If the slugs are solid, they're easier to retrieve."
"You ain't really saying they're whole made of silver --"
"I'm really saying."
Astounded, Millie looked at their empty hands. "So where are they?"
"We can't remove them yet," David said. "We only wanted to know where they were so we can get to them quickly later."
Millie's face scrunched until it looked like a pear gone rotten. "Why?"
Max and David glanced at each other. Then Max said, "You believe us now? What we've told you about this thing?"
Millie planted the palm of one hand on a blood-soaked hip and swatted mosquitoes with the other. "Safe to say. Yeah."
"Then trust us just a little longer."
 \*
There was plenty to do until the right moment. The Beast's carcass had to be wrapped into the tarp Millie provided. Max and David salvaged what they could of what had dropped out of the Beast and placed the gore in a bucket. David looked at the entrails there and pursed his lips.
"There's a lot of dirt stuck to the guts," he said. "Do you think if we leave them that way, they might infect?"
Max, standing beside him, crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Maybe we should clean them ..."
Millie hissed in disgust, washed up now with a netted, beekeeper-style hat of her own on. She was sitting on the bottom porch step with Buttercup. "Shit, boys, whadiya gonna do, eat 'em?"
"No," David replied, stilling musing over the bucket. "It's just that we've never made such a mess of it before. Frankly, we're not sure it's going to work this time."
"Listen, fellas. You gonna tell me the whole tale or just keep feedin' this to me piecemeal?"
Max turned to her. "Right now we've got to keep moving. I promise things will be clear before the night's out. You said you trusted us and, believe me, we've done this plenty of times ..."
"Yeah, well ... Tonto there said you never made such a damn mess before, too."
David turned to her and said, "Are you trying to insult me, Millie, or should I just assume you're stupid?"
Millie smirked. "Well, if you don't like Tonto, I'll need somethin' else to call ya."
David gave her one of those looks he'd used on Max plenty of times over the years: his irked, suffer-the-fools one. Then he glanced Max's way, and Max knew he was wondering if they should stick to the aliases they'd been using for this trip. It was precaution they had learned to take. They didn't always make friends when they were on a hunt. Max gave him a shrug: what the hell?
"My name is David. His is Max." First names only, at least for now. "Do you have a second pail? Or a washtub?"
"Got both."
Max cocked his head amiably. "Then lead us to your pump."
Max and David didn't find any buckshot in the carcass, so Millie's shots had gone wild, a good piece of luck if all turned out well. All they had to focus on, then, was the damage they had inflicted and they did what they could to clean the bucket of remains at the outdoor pump. Millie made herself useful by keeping Buttercup shooed away from the Beast's covered carcass. Finally, the men washed themselves up as much as possible, and Max looked toward the sky. The moon had dipped below the cypress.
"We better get in place," he said. "Millie, you mentioned a break in the trees somewhere near ...?"
"Back of the shack, is what I said. Not far off. Got us a trail that leads into better water. More bayou than swamp. Gonna lug that thing down there?"
"Yeah."
"Gonna tell me why?"
"Not yet."
Millie stared at Max and David a moment as she scratched behind Buttercup's ear. "Welp, I'm all pins and needles. Gotta flatbed cart you can use."
They left an unhappy Buttercup closed up and cursing in the shack while the three made their way down the trail. Millie led the way, lantern in hand, as the dense cypress gave way to saw palmetto. The air began to freshen, and Max could see mangroves hunched like a lowlying wall behind the palmetto scrub.
They came to the shore of the bayou, its glistening, briny waters flowing clean and easy through the canals of the mangroves. Max and David caught a sweet, heady breeze blowing just enough to discourage the bloodsuckers, and they took off their hats and gloves with relief.
Ahead was Millie's rickety dock, jutting out over the water some fifty feet. To its right sat a flat bottomed air boat, its caged propeller perched behind the pilot's elevated seat, and a rust-dappled canoe. To the left, the bayou stretched lagoon-like beyond the mangroves. The sky was starlit, wide open, with only a few clouds glowing bluish white, and the moon was making its descent straight down the mouth of the mangrove canal.
Max and David sized up the dock.
As if reading Max's mind, David said, "It's too narrow. If we keep the carcass on the cart, there won't be room for both the Beast and us. We're going to have to carry it from here."
Max nodded. "Let me set the bucket out there first."
He grabbed the pail from the cart, testing the dock boards as he went. Millie, pulling off her netted hat, called after him irritably, "Mister, that dock'll be standin' longer'n you!"
The creaking and giving under his boots didn't back Millie up on that. Max kept his pace cautious as the moon slipped farther down the dome of the sky. He set the bucket on what looked to be some of the more secure boards and made his way back.
"I don't know if it'll take the weight," he told David.
"We don't have a choice. There's too much cover from the mangroves to try for it right here."
"Boys, I am tellin' you that dock is a rock."
Yeah , Max thought, and it'll probably sink like one when we get this carcass on it. He and David stepped to either end of the cart and got a firm grasp on the tarp.
David counted, "One ... two ... up ...!"
"Aww, crap, this son-of-a-bitch is heavy ..."
"You already knew that ..."
"Yeah, yeah, just walk, okay, walk!"
"I am walking, but you can't get on the dock waddling backwards like that. Turn around ... just ... lay your end down for a second and turn around ..!"
Max lowered his end of the tarp, caught his breath for a moment and sized up the moon. It seemed as if it just couldn't wait to set now. He turned his back to the covered carcass, dipped down and reached behind him. He got a good grip and said, "Okay."
They lifted and began shuffling onto the dock. Millie started to follow.
"Don't!" David shouted over his shoulder.
"Don't 'don't' me on my own property!"
"Just wait to see how the dock takes this load."
"I already told you-"
"Millie, please !"
"All right, all right, go on with ya then!"
They tried to keep their footing close to where the boards would be strongest, nailed onto the dock's support beams. But it made for clumsy, slow going. Max was panting and worried. The carcass was getting badly jostled. Would the silver work its way out before they even got the Beast unwrapped? Will it have worked farther into the body, so that he and David would have to spend precious seconds probing for it again, maybe missing moonset? Either one, and all this effort after the kill would have been wasted.
At last they were free of the mangrove shadows. The moon, far past its arc, flooded them with light.
"Easy down," David said.
Slowly they bent. The dock creaked low and long under the Beast's dead weight but, so far, it was holding. They unfolded the tarp from the carcass. Max picked up the bucket, brought it to the gaping ends of the two halves and gently tilted it to let the viscera slide out.
He started probing for the two cartridges he had located earlier and had to stifle a gag. It was worse, somehow, working his hands through cold, slick innards than warm ones.He heard the grisly sounds of David probing for the other cartridge, and David warned, "It's about to set."
"Shit." Max kept probing. Where the hell were they?
"I can't find ... no, I found it! Max, how're you doing?"
"I'm working on it ..."
"You've got to hurry ..."
"Then just let me look, all right?"
"It's setting , Max!"
"I heard you the first time! I got ... I got ... got 'em both!"
"Then get out of the way, you're casting a shadow!"
Keeping his hands buried in the carcass, Max stretched one leg across to the other side. The board beneath his foot bowed ominously and he froze. One of the cartridges almost slid out of his fingers.
David's plea was a strangled whisper. "Hurry, Max .."
He found his footing, held his breath, pulled his other leg over the Beast. The moon's final beams were upon the reddish-gray of the entrails and carcass's gaping cavities.
"Now!"
Max and David yanked outward. David's silver popped from his fingers like a tiny newborn creature and fell in the bayou. They watched the carcass, barely daring to breath ...
The Beast's eyes flew open, then rolled white. The mouth stretched wide and a wet, sucking gasp pulled air into its lungs. Somewhere behind them, Max heard Millie shriek, "Dear Lord Jesus, it's still alive!"
The Beast grated out a wail. The torso shuddered and the ragged edges where it had been shot through started stretching. New, red muscle collected, whips of spinal nerves burst from the vertebrae, bone calcified over them, raw, pink flesh rippled across, all spanning, connecting, pulling the nearly severed hind quarters close. The entrails heaped upon the tarp near the wounds were grazed by the growing tissue and pulled inward.
The dock groaned and swayed. Max heard, much nearer now, "My Dear, Sweet, Lord Jesus, help me, Lord Jesus..." Millie was on the dock and as close as she dared.
The Beast flung into convulsions. The dock shook beneath them. Max, David and Millie dropped to their knees and hung on for dear life. There was no telling which of the bangs and pops were coming from the strained boards and which were coming from the Beast's body as it flexed and bent in metamorphosis. The wounds were completely sealed now and the bright, silver fur, suddenly dripping wet, began sliding from sweating flesh. The great bushy tail whipped between hind quarters, cracking and shrinking into human buttocks and legs. The mouth gaped as the muzzle grated, receded, the fangs pulling into the gums, the bones of the skull rounding and snapping.
Feverishly, David was wiping the clumped fur from the newly formed human face; just as he had done for Max, once, all those years ago. And a wail of gut-wrenching heartbreak came from behind them.
Millie rushed in, muscling them out of the way, her face distorted in torment. She fell to her knees sobbing and pulled the shivering, unconscious man against her.
"Oh my God, my God! My baby boy! Oh, my poor, precious baby boy!"
The dock gave up one last, long-suffering groan and dumped them all into the bayou.
The Swamplands of Central Florida
Early Spring, 1950
First Night. Full Moon Set.
There was a table of linoleum and rusted chrome in Millie's little kitchen, and that's where they settled, their shoulders draped in ragged towels, their hands cupping tin mugs. The screen door at the other end of the shack was matted with mosquitoes trying to find an unpatched hole, but the din of the night singers had no trouble coming right through the shack's walls.
In a shack with David, drinking coffee. Deja-vu.
At least Millie's cabin held up better than that "rock" of a dock of hers; better than Max had given it credit for when he'd first laid eyes on it. The floorboards had knocked with a satisfying solidity when the men carried in her son. He lay unconscious on an old sagging sofa against the north wall of the shack's other room.
The two rooms of the shack were nothing more than a single, long one partitioned by a few clapboards to either side. A wide space between served as the doorway. Through it, they could see one bony foot sticking out from under the blanket and Buttercup sprawled beside the sofa. She didn't seem to notice any trace of the Beast within the man.
Millie was still shivering. But even if they had all been sitting in the middle of a Minnesota winter rather than Florida in early spring, the look on her face would've told Max she wasn't trembling from any chill. After a few moments of sipping in silence, Millie rose sluggishly.
"I don't know about you boys, but I need a sweetener for my coffee."
She walked to the only cabinet in her makeshift kitchen, set under a clapboard counter that was built around the chipped basin and indoor pump. Everything else was wall shelving. A couple of army lockers sat on either side of the two-burner wood stove. The half-fried gator meat was still in the pan she had pulled to the side earlier.
She came back to the table with a bottle of Southern Comfort . Her tin cup was almost empty of coffee, but it filled to the brim when she poured in the Comfort So that was the "whiskey" Max had heard in her voice.
Millie took a long drink, then dabbed the corners of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger. "Help yourself, boys. You hungry? I can warm that pan up ..."
"Nah," Max said too quickly.
David didn't seem as put off by the thought. "Maybe later. Thank you."
"Then I'm ready for those answers you been promisin' all damn night."
Both men nodded and added a dollop to their coffees; as usual, Max more so than David.
"Ask away," David said.
As quickly as Millie seemed to regain her bravada, she lost it again. Her chin quivered and she asked, "My poor boy in there's possessed of a demon, ain't he?"
"No," David replied, "not the way you mean it. Your son will be all right. The Beast won't emerge from him again. Millie ... have you ever heard of something called lycanthropy? When a human takes on a form that some mistake as a wolf?"
"You mean ... like Lon Chaney Jr? In the Wolfman movie ...?"
"Sort of," Max said.
Millie shook her head, and in a stricken whisper replied, "What I seen tonight wasn't nothin' like that. Nothin."
"Perhaps, before tonight," David said, "it was all folklore to you. The effect of the full moon, the killing properties of silver ... the bite of the Beast that creates others like it ..."
Max picked up: "But what the Beast really does with its bite is move from host to host. Are you sure you weren't bitten when the Beast attacked you, Millie?"
"'Course I'm sure. In my business you better be careful 'bout bites and cuts. Things infect real easy out here. I'm good, don't worry."
Max leaned on the table. "Even a nick from those fangs, Millie --"
"What, you want me to strip so you can see for yourself?"
Max considered it a moment. He looked at David. But David said, "No, we believe you."
"Hell, I wasn't serious!" Millie looked utterly disgusted and went for her coffee-laced Comfort . She swallowed, dabbed the corners of her mouth again and asked, "So ... what happened to him, then, if he ain't possessed of a demon? You're sayin' my Jackie got bit by a ... by a werewolf ?"
"That's what many call it, yes," David replied. He leaned his elbows on the table and brushed a hand across his mouth, glancing at Max. Trying to explain what the Beast was, or was not, never got easier. "But, its form is deceiving. The Beast is more than one, single monster. It's not really born of this world. It's a malevolent, omnipresent entity that breaks through to our world ..."
"A mali-omni- what ...?"
David nodded sympathetically. "I'm sorry. The Beast is as hard to explain as it is to understand. It isn't just one physical creature. It emerges everywhere. It's very ancient and very powerful. It thrives on human fear. Not our little day-to-day anxieties, but our real terrors. The ones we feel in our bones. In our blood. The Beast needs our fear to exist. It starves without our terror.
"But to feed, it has to take on flesh and blood. To become flesh and blood, it must wait for a rupture between its plane and ours. The rupture happens during the first night of every full moon. All over the world, every First Night. The Beast erupts through its human hosts and, for as many First Nights as it can get out of each of them, hunts down the victims that it's drawn to. It maims and tortures, stoking the terror for as long as its victim can survive the torment. Then, just at the point before death ... it feeds."
Now came the awful revelation. Max could see it in Millie's face.
"No. Uh-uh. That couldn't of been my boy who did that to those people. That wasn't him that done those things. .."
"It was the Beast he hosted, Millie," Max said. "He was there, but trapped inside. It came from him, but -"
"No!" Millie pushed out of her chair and the towel fell away from her shoulders. Buttercup, startled, jerked her head up from where she lay in the other room. "No, Damn it! He'd never do such a thing, he'd never allow such a thing!"
"He wouldn't have been aware, Millie," David said. "Those who are bitten, the Beast's Chosen, usually aren't strong enough to recognize it."
" He wouldn't have no part in that! " She shouted, pacing and looking toward the room where her son lay.
"He would have to recognize what's living inside him," David insisted. "I can't describe how difficult such a thing is to know. Usually you don't know you're being used until the Beast is ready to move on. Then it has no interest in keeping the memory of its kills from you. Even better for it, in fact, if the host remembers. Once the Beast is done with you, it benefits from a former host's arrest and execution. Or suicide."
"Or insanity," Max added. "We've never seen a time when those weren't the result, unless somebody intervenes. Once it's moved on, death or madness in its former hosts play to the Beast's advantage. Hell, nobody believes in werewolves any more. Nobody wants to believe we've all got something inside us that's starved for terror, that thrives on it. Nobody recognizes it, nobody remembers ... until it's too late."
A hoarse, haunted voice said, "I remember."
They all turned. Jackie, weak and pallid, was standing in the doorway. One sinewy arm braced him there, the other barely managed to keep his blanket around his waist.
"Oh, Lord God, Mama. I remember."
 \*
Max and David gave them some privacy, pulling on their hats and gloves and going to the porch while Millie helped her son dress. They stood there a moment, listening to the night chorus and the mosquitoes, then stepped down to the clearing.
They finally smiled at each other, too tired and shaken to feel good just yet over their success. But at least they could smile.
"That one was touch-and-go," David said. "I can't believe he made it."
"Me neither. David ... in there earlier, did you really like the idea of Millie's cooking?"
"I was being polite, Max."
"Damn, that's a relief, because I couldn't-"
"But if she had put something in front of me, I'd have eaten it. How long have we known each other, eight years? You know I wouldn't insult someone by refusing a gesture ..."
"Okay, okay ... don't get so hepped up."
They both fell quiet, thinking over the night's events, listening to the chaos of the swamp songs and the murmurings of a traumatized mother and son.
Finally Max said, "What I can't figure out is how Millie wouldn't know her son was bitten."
David nodded. "With them living like this in such cramped quarters, how did she survive his inaugural First Night, let alone two of them?"
Unlike my wife , Max thought, unlike yours . First Night. Feeding night. His throat clenched and, looking at David, sensed he was thinking the same. Max cleared his throat and wandered a little farther out into the clearing around the shack.
"Y'know, it must've been more like this for the Beast, ages ago. Look how remote this place is. And look what these two do for a living. Either one of them off poaching -especially during the three nights of a full moon."
"And she being its Chosen." David walked from the porch steps toward Max. "Maybe easier to go undetected, if only for a little while, since the Beast was saving her as its next host. Even so .. she's his mother ... do you suppose she could've been protecting him?"
"I dunno ... you ever hear of something like that?"
David shook his head.
Max looked up to where the sky and cypress met. For eight years, now, his eyesight had been as sharp as before he'd been bitten; when the Beast's jaws had cracked the bones of his skull and corrupted his vision. And still he looked to the stars to assure himself he was no longer half blind.
"Nah," he said. "That's not how the Beast does things, we both know that. That's not the kind of protection it needs." Still ... "What about old man Stanislov, while he had you caged. He mention anything like that?"
"No. Never."
"Don't remember seeing anything like that in his journals ...?"
David shook his head. They fell silent again, mulling it over, though they already knew why Millie hadn't seen what had taken over her son. They knew what lengths those who were bitten would go to, unwittingly, hiding the metamorphosis as the full moon approached. They had done it themselves -the Beast within sending them into identical habits even though they were separated by culture and years-David bitten long before Max. Hunting trips. Sick leaves. Sweat lodge retreats. And, of course, it was easy for two men, each grieving widowers, to gain the understanding and sympathy needed to live remote lives.
Always easy, when those bitten didn't recognize what was inside.
 \*
Millie wanted Jackie to eat something, but he said he didn't have the stomach for it. Max was glad to hear it, until Millie turned her attention to him and David again.
"You two sure you don't want somethin'?"
"No, uh-uh," Max replied, "we're fine, thanks."
Jackie was dressed now and sitting at the table. Or, more to the point, slumped at the table, a tin coffee mug shaking in his grip. From time to time he'd smooth a palm over his bald head. Max remembered what that felt like.
It made him put a hand to his own hair, still mostly black in spite of a life that should have turned it white years ago. Mostly black except for a few wisps here and there ... and the large, silvery sides; the permanent reminders of what he once had been. He wondered how the silver had shown in Jackie's hair, after he'd been bitten.
Everyone carried that mark. But it was easily shrugged off as natural graying -or the natural trauma of being attacked by a wild animal-even if the one bitten was young like Jackie. David's was less obvious now, his hair cut shorter than it used to be and more heavily streaked with gray as the years passed. Even so, his mark was still the broadest band of silver there. As with the pentagram, you just had to know what to look for.
"It'll all grow back," Max said to Jackie. "Hair, eyebrows, whiskers, armpits ... every bit of it. You're gonna itch like ivy in a few days."
Suddenly, Jackie buried his face in his hands. Max's throat knotted. He glanced at David. They both remembered how that felt, too.
"They're hard to live with at first," he said. "The memories ... the images. Like a movie in your head."
His face still covered, Jackie nodded. Max reached over and pulled his hands away. "Look at me," he ordered, old military training kicking in. "Look me in the eyes. Don't look away until I'm done talking. You hear me?"
Jackie fixed his gaze on Max like a man clinging to the edge of a steep drop.
"You will learn to live with this. For the next few months, you're gonna be ass deep in the fires of Hell. But there's an end to it. You'll never be as happy as you might've been once. But there is an end to it. You believe me?"
Jackie worked his lips a moment, loose, moist and rubbery, before words finally made it through. "I wanna. I wanna believe you."
"Then believe me. I've been where you are." Max nodded toward David. "We both have."
"Sweet Jesus," Millie said, sitting quick and hard in her chair. "You sayin' ... you two were possessed of that thing?"
Max nodded. "David's the one who saved me. He and a woman who ... God only knows why she did. She had every reason not to. What I did while the Beast was emergent ... to people in her care and to the man she loved..." He couldn't bring himself to finish.
Mercifully, David interrupted. "We both have scars," he said, laying a hand against his belly, "right here where, in one form or another, the Beast in us was killed with silver. The weapon doesn't matter, only the metal. Silver that makes a fatal wound to the pelvic basin, to the chest or head area, is the only thing that destroys it. But the killing blow must be in the pelvic basin if the host is to survive. If it's to the chest or higher ... both the Beast and the host die. The host never re-emerges, then, even in death. It's a last resort."
Millie and her son froze, aghast and in awe, as if they were looking at the dread and glory of archangels.
"You did that on purpose?" Millie finally managed. "You meant to save my boy? You meant to kill that monster and save my boy, and you don't even know us?"
David went suddenly stern. "Understand two things. One, we didn't know Jackie was the host. If we had, we would have kidnapped him long before now and held him until we could strike the saving blow. Two, we always intend to kill the Beast. No matter what. If that had meant Jackie died along with it, we wouldn't have hesitated. In fact, you probably noticed, we didn't." He softened a little. "But we're very, very glad we hit the underbelly. We're not always so lucky."
With his glassy stare back on his coffee, Jackie accused more than asked, "You done this before, then ..."
"You're Number Fourteen for me," David said, "and Lucky Thirteen for Max."
"So there're others out there like you?" Millie asked.
Like us , Max thought. Of the handful who had survived Max and David's killing silver, which should he think of as like us ? The two who could barely live with themselves, let alone become hunters, who disappeared, never to be heard from again? Or the one that committed suicide while still in Max and David's care? Or the ones that had joined Max and David, who could only live with what they had done -while they had been in the Beast's grip-by hunting it down, Chosen by Chosen? "If you mean other hunters, yeah. Three of the hosts we stalked are hunters now, too. "
Millie stared at them a long moment. "That ain't much of a trappin' average."
"Yeah, well, you try your hand at it," Max said. He stood up and took his cup to the coffee pot sitting between the stove's burners.
"So ... you keep tabs on these others?" she asked. "They on the hunt now?"
The fatigue was thick in David's voice. "We always are. The Beast may be one entity, but it incarnates and emerges all over the earth, every First Night. This isn't the sort of thing you can take a vacation from."
Millie snorted. "Vacations're for rich people anyhow."
David almost smiled. "If you don't mind," he said, "we'd like to stay on for a while." He looked at Jackie and said to him, "Max is right about these next few months. They're going to be hard for you. But we won't be staying for that long. Just a week or two. Also, in your case, I think you should be monitored closely for infection. It happens from time to time. I almost lost Max during his first days after the save."
Jackie didn't react much beyond an assenting shrug, but Millie went a little pale again. "So, you're thinkin' that thing that was in him's not all the way gone? But you just said it was."
"No, not that. I'm talking about his weakened state and possible illness. In Max's case, it was pneumonia. In Jackie's, I'm concerned about the sand and grit. We did our best, but we weren't able to clean every bit of it off before ... everything ... went back in."
"Went back in what?" Jackie asked dully. He raised the coffee to his lips and slurped.
Max and David looked to Millie for this one. She said, "It's a long-ass story, son. It'll keep 'til we all get some sleep."
"One more thing," Max said. "The day of the next full moon, keep a close eye on Buttercup. Don't let her wander, and start watching her that morning to see if she behaves differently. Especially if she behaves strangely around silver. Any silver. Coins, jewelry, utensils. They're all good tests. If she does ... I know this will be difficult ... but if she does, you'll have to put her down that day. While she's still Buttercup. You won't be able to save her, but at least that's better than the alternative. We'll leave you with the silver to do it."
"Lord Almighty .. now you think that thing's in her?"
"No," David said. "No, we don't. But there's no point in taking chances. Buttercup's teeth were awfully deep in the Beast's neck. Frankly, though, we've been doing this a lot of years now. The Beast seems to be a human affliction."
"Damn glad to hear that," Millie replied, "'cause if any critters 'round here were to maybe turn into werewolves, seems to me it'd be those skeeters that swarmed on the blood early on --"
Her voice trailed off, and everyone eyed the front door, where countless little bloodsuckers whined and tested the rusty screen.
"Yeah. Well. Anyway," Max said, forcing his attention from the door. "Jackie? Okay with you? We can help you through this, if you let us."
"Lookin' for recruits?" Millie asked dryly.
Max shrugged. "It's a hard life to stomach, Millie, but that'll be up to him. He shouldn't even be thinking about becoming a hunter while he's recovering."
He looked at Jackie. He was barely listening. He was in no shape to think let alone carry on a conversation. The days ahead wouldn't be easy for either him or his mother.
"So ... anyway ... we need to stay as close to you as we can. Which town has the nearest motel to here?" he asked.
"Aw, go on with your motel talk. You're stayin' with us."
Max and David gave a quick glance around the shack. David, always the courteous one, said, "We don't want to be a burden. There's barely room here for the two of you, let alone us."
Millie looked at him as if he'd just spoken to her in Navajo. " Here ? Aw, damn. If I weren't so rattled 'n' tired I'd either laugh or shoot ya. You think we live here ?! We gotta house just outside Leesburg, boys, this is just our camp! Shit."
Max's face heated with embarrassment. "Hell, Millie. We're sorry. We thought -"
"I know what ya thought. You thought we're just a couple-a stupid white trash Crackers. What we are is a couple-a smart white trash Crackers. This business is messy, but you play your cards right, you do okay. Give the Law its due, don't go blabbin' and keep things on the Q.T. ..." she looked pointedly at Jackie "... plus we trade shifts out here, two weeks on, two weeks off. Keeps us workin' steady."
Max and David looked at each other. That would have put Jackie in the house near Leesburg during each moon's First Night. All alone, undetected by his mother, and close to the Beast's prey.
"But none of us is goin' anywhere tonight, boys. We'll just have to make do. So git comfortable best as you can." As if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, Millie clapped her hands together and said, "Now! I'm gonna make a nice meal for the men who saved my boy."
Ozark Foothills, Southern Missouri
Early Spring, 1950
First Night. Full Moon.
There was a break in the clouds as the late season ice storm eased for a few minutes. The moonlight that streamed through sparked against the Beast's fur, made all the more brilliant where the freezing rain clung.
Even in the wet and cold, the Beast found the trail easily, a route used regularly and carelessly by the prey to which it had been drawn. The prey was a stalker, too; a hunter in these deep woods, thinking itself the supreme predator, leaving traces of blood and fear on the soil and in the air as it beat a familiar path.
The scent trail crossed through a town. The sky closed and the freezing rain began again just as the Beast neared, slowing to consider its next move. The noises of humanity sometimes played to its advantage during a hunt, but tonight it was the ice storm that worked in the Beast's favor. In this remote area, especially in weather like this, the streets went quiet soon after dark. The only motion ahead was a few tin-hooded lights suspended over the town's main street, wagging gently as the ice fell, forming ragged claws around the hoods' edges.
The Beast skirted past the meager downtown, crossing the road quickly, its fur a flash of rippling silver at the edge of the streetlight. It moved back into the night and the wooded bluffs beyond. Over a rise, the Beast stopped and lowered its nose to the ground. The scent trail was still true, but muted.
Deeper into the cover of the oaks and the sugar maples, grown so dense and crowded the Beast's great bulk bumped and grazed against them. But soon enough it found a place where an old hardwood had fallen, smashing the surrounding saplings and creating a clearing. The Beast settled in to wait, certain of the prey's habits, certain that the one it sought would hunt tonight, too, no matter the weather ... and, yes! ... the Beast could smell it now, hear it coming.
This one was reckless, even though it thought itself clever, trudging boldly through the crackling underbrush until there it was, only yards away. Too late, the kill sensed the presence of one greater than itself and turned to stare into the eyes of its death. The Beast struck.
Together, they slammed against the frozen ground. Fierce, this one! A fighter! Stronger than expected. The first flash of shock in the prey's eyes quickly became rage, which was just what the Beast wanted, which was just what made it ravenous for more of its kind. The Beast had the throat, clamping hard enough to prolong the prey's pain and bleeding, but not so hard as to kill, no, not yet. It kept its gaze fixed upon the wild, outraged stare of its victim and yanked it clawing and gurgling off the trail, dragged it writhing and resisting to the shallow ravine nearby.
And here at last, at the edge of the fall, came the change in the prey's eyes, the awful awareness of death, rage tumbling backward into terror. The Beast braced its forefeet and thrust full into the bite ... hot elation and blood! ... Fangs knifing through muscle and bone, nearly clacking together. The kill went rigid. Then came the death spasms. The Beast hung on, eyes half-closed, shuddering in ecstasy, until the last of the terror trickled into its mouth.
Heart pounding with fury, the Beast jerked upward and swallowed whole the mouthful of sodden flesh and bits of bone. The kill flopped onto the ground. The Beast glared down at its handiwork a moment and then -with cold, spiteful delight-lunged back at the remains, tearing away the jaw as well.
As the Beast yanked upward the corpse slid backward, the thick layer of icy groundcover carrying it down the slope. It gained momentum, crashed into the frozen brook and there it lay, half buried in the fractured ice, steaming as the freezing rain beat down.
Thirty Miles South of Tohatchi, New Mexico
Early Spring, 1950
Morning. New Moon.
Max was still a little logy. They had gotten in late the night before, but as ever, Mina's cooking woke him just after dawn. He took his time with his after-breakfast cup, glad to feel the morning's dry desert chill against warm flannel.
Good to be home. Or, at least, as close to a home as he'd likely have again. If ever that saying about not being able to go back was true, it was true for him and David. But, hell ... Max didn't have anything to complain about. As exiles goes this one was top of the line, in his opinion; even if few people, nowadays, would agree with him. In these post-war boom times, the oil and the atom were the new monarchs of the west. What lay below the ground was more valued than what was on top, and any attention this part of New Mexico was getting was centered on Albuquerque and its role in the new nuclear age.
Northern New Mexico, west of the Rockies, was still Indian country, mostly poor and ignored with not much to its name but raw, throat-catching beauty. Sunrises flamed the distant layers of reds, golds, and pewter in the Dakota Outcrop and, as far as the eye could see: a crazy-quilt of sage, chaparral, yucca and juniper carpeted the low, rolling San Juan Basin. This time of year the desert was in bloom. Claret cactus, wild iris, sunflower, primrose ... the whole Basin was peppered with them.
Washes and ravines criss-crossed the land, red gashes like dueling scars on the Basin's face, waiting for the flash floods of summer. This was a country so remote that, in spite of its beauty, even God had forgotten where He'd put it. And that was just what Max and David had needed.
Too bad the Devil stumbled across it from time to time, which was the reason a quarter mile of property was guarded by barriers of dagger-thorned brambles and cactus, a hundred yards deep. The barriers discouraged intruders which were, thankfully, rare, but damned persistent when they showed up. They were usually self-styled Navajo sorcerers -called skinwalkers or witches-drawn by David's faulty reputation for being one of them.
Skinwalkers were the opposite of Native healers, whose training and traditions were meant to keep Nature in balance. That's what David was, a healer; one that, Max supposed, could be said to have a specialized field. But skinwalkers had a different agenda and sought David out: hoping to share his rumored powers or rob him of them, which sometimes included trying to kill him. It was an irony that David was probably the only one among them who had actually shape shifted.
But there were others, too, who might try to find them. Max and David didn't always make friends when they hunted. Since they inevitably showed up while the Beast was in the midst of slaughter, it wasn't unusual for suspicion to fall on them. They'd long ago learned the value of aliases, and David had cut off his ponytail and stopped wearing anything that made him more conspicuous than he already was in a white crowd.
Considering all this, the wide, repeating layers of thorny brambles and barbed cactus didn't seem extreme. Neither did the two consecutive electrified gates that guarded the only entrance, or the electrified wire grid hidden just below the roots of the outer brambles to discourage diggers. These were powered by large battery cells, the lead wires buried deep and extending past the hedges to those cells. Living so far out, Max and David had to generate their own electricity. A Ham radio was their soul telephone service.
It was just as well. They didn't get many visitors. Because of the occasional trouble that came through Tohatchi on its way to the compound, Max, David and Mina weren't very popular with the locals. Likewise, the only people who were welcome at the compound were the other hunters. And Doris Tebbe.
Besides looking out for human risks, there was one other precaution they had taken. The Beast had never come to their door, but it was a threat too well known to take for granted. So the electrified gates were lined with silver, long ago tarnished black. Buried with the electrified wires, more silver. Where there had once been spaces between the rows of brambles and cactus, silver again.
Here on the house side of the barriers, though, lay a little manicured paradise within the larger one of the Basin. In contrast to their stocky, utilitarian cousins guarding the perimeter, Saguaro cacti towered over the red earth. Junipers were coddled and cultivated by Mina. Desert blossoms and native remedies crowded the flower and herb bed that followed the wrap-around porch along the house. In a way, the inner grounds reminded Max of the Japanese-style rock gardens that had sometimes been kept by the Tulenar camp internees.
Bought seven years ago with David's money, the ranch compound had been owned by a man who'd made it big and then busted just as big over the course of the war. The house itself was as open and expansive as the land, the Wild West fantasy of an eastern transplant. Roomy, rustic excess. The house was all on one floor, since there had been a half-mile of acreage to build on. High pitched roof, exposed pine beams in vaulted ceilings. Real John Wayne stuff.
The interior had the same Navajo sensibility as the exterior -simple and uncluttered-which suited Max just fine. But what little they did have was quality. As long as they had to live in near exile, David had said, they might as well make it tolerable. The leathers were dark and buttery; the woods were coastal red, oak and ponderosa pine. Accents were bold striped woolens. Not much art, but what was there really meant something to the men and to David's young cousin Mina (well, younger than either of them, anyway. The older he got the more anyone under forty looked like a kid to him).
It was David Alma Curar's money that supported all this, as well as fed and clothed them. Max would've liked to have seen Millie's face, had she known what David was worth. When she'd quipped that vacations were for rich people, it was clear she never thought an Indian could be one.
Since early manhood, David had been a silver artisan. He had gradually built up a stable of jewelry shops (which shows just how ballsy the Beast could be, going after a silversmith). By the time he and Max had crossed paths, David was already in the money. But David didn't find his calling as a healer until after he was bitten, after his family and community accused him of being a skinwalker, and after Stanislov had ripped his belly open and took him back from the Beast. Shunned, he took on another name and had to travel long and hard to find a healer who'd accept him as an apprentice.
That everything had to be on Alma Curar's dime long ceased to be an issue with Max, who couldn't do anything about it anyway. Army Captain Maxwell Pierce was legally dead. He had disappeared during the most grisly event in the history of the U.S. Japanese internment camps. Four internees were slaughtered at the camp called Tulenar. There were five official deaths, if you counted Max, who -like one of the victims-was never found. He and that poor nurse, Nancy Tamura. The mother of twins. It had always mortified Max to be considered in her company. He was the one who had torn her to bits.
What he had been doing all these years was dedicated to her memory and the memory of the rest of his Tulenar victims ... and those that had come before that. What else was left for him? He was doomed to the hunt for the rest of his life. Which he was certain would end like his victims' had at Tulenar.
Max gave himself a mental shake and turned from that last thought. He took in another deep breath of cool New Mexico morning, and then went inside. He heard David at the Ham radio, dialing through the frequencies, looking for news. Static and whistles led Max through the wide, open living area into the dining room-turned-office.
David sat hunched before the big contraption, which filled the table against the windowed wall opposite the doorway. Mina was at the dining table where the microfilm viewer sat, scrolling through the newspaper spools that she had sent away for while the men were in Florida. Newspapers, tabloids, maps and well-scribbled notebooks were sprawled across the ten-seater table that the former owner had left behind. It hadn't been used to eat on since. There, too, sat Doris's latest letter, already opened. Max looked forward to reading it.
He skirted around Mina, giving her long, black braid a tug as he headed toward David, who had switched over to a little used frequency; the one the hunters preferred for hailing each other. After broadcasting the ranch's call sign, David began a more abbreviated code, a kind of radio-alphabet nickname he'd assigned to each team of hunters:
"Bravo, Bravo, Bravo this is Alpha, over ... Bravo, Bravo, Bravo this is Alpha, over ..." David's call was left unanswered. He tried the other. "Charley, Charley, Charley, this Alpha, over ..."
A woman's voice came back, strong and clear. "Alpha, Alpha this is Charley, over."
"Amy," David greeted. "What a great signal this morning. You sound like you're downtown."
"I am. Downtown Victoria."
"At your home radio then."
"When did you two get back?"
"Yesterday."
"We're glad you phoned us from Florida" she said. "It put our minds at ease. How's the new guy? Any chance he's with you?"
"No. But I think he's going to be all right. It's too early to tell if he'll decide to hunt."
"Congratulations on the save ..." Her voice trailed off. The last hunt she and Paul had gone on hadn't ended well. It had been either a wild goose chase or a dead end. It wasn't likely any of them would ever know. That kind of uncertainty was hard to live with, not knowing if you had let the Beast get away. In some ways, it was worse to live with than a kill: where the host can't be saved and dies with Beast.
Max reached over David's shoulder, pressed the microphone button, and changed the subject. "Hi, Amy ... How's springtime in British Columbia?"
Amy laughed, back to her old self, and replied, "The sea foam's blowing over the break water and freezing in mid-air. But we're nice and toasty in front of the fire. It's good to hear both your voices. Paul's waving at you on this end. We're both very happy for you and the save."
"I was just trying to raise Samuel," David said.
"I heard you hailing him. I doubt he's on a hunt. You know he would've left word if he was. Maybe he's just away from the radio."
Samuel had been Max and David's first save and first to join the hunt. Other than them, he was the most experienced and had made two kills. But he had also made two saves. The ones he'd saved - like two of Max and David's survivors-had disappeared, never contacting the hunters again.
Samuel worked alone, saying he preferred things that way. He insisted that spreading the hunters over three locations, rather than two, made the most sense. "And, anyway, one squat little colored man working in Mexico," he'd quipped, "isn't near as noticeable as he is in the states, living with a tall, lanky white man, let alone a red stocky one." He had taken up the hunt on his own as soon as the three of them had agreed he was ready, and had settled where his last hunt had led: south of the border.
But, it'd be good to pair him with someone if they ever got the chance. Max couldn't imagine the trial of living this life alone. He and David -and from almost the beginning, David's cousin Mina, their "administratrix"- were a team.
From the corner of his eye, Max saw Mina slow the film reader and peer more intensely at the screen.
"Look," she said.
Max moved to read over her shoulder.
"Got to go," David said into the microphone, "Mina may have caught something."
"Sure. Give her our love. Let us know what you find ..."
David signed off, came to Max's side and began reading along with him.
"This is page A-9 of the St. Louis Globe Democrat ," Mina said. She pointed out the column:
Grisly Deaths Confirmed As Animal Attacks
Though still unresolved, human foul play has been ruled out in the deaths of a Branson man and a Hollister teenaged girl. Authorities remain convinced the attacks were by a single animal, but are not ruling out multiple animals. Evidence points to a wolf or wolves of unusual size, most likely male. A series of hunts continue. It is believed the animal was raised illegally and may have escaped from its owner or was released into the wild. Wolves have not lived in the wild in Missouri for over a century. No evidence of rabies has been found.
People in Taney County should exercise caution, particularly at night and in rural or isolated areas. Those with information regarding large undomesticated or exotic animals kept as pets, or who may have information regarding the attacks, are urged to contact law enforcement or local animal control officials.
"What's the newspaper's date?" Max asked.
Mina scrolled back up to the top. "The tenth."
More to himself than to David or Mina, Max said, "Not much detail. No recap, no dates on the attacks ..."
"Which means this is just an update on old news reported some time ago," Mina replied.
And that meant there could be more deaths that hadn't been connected to the two in the article. "Is this the most recent microfilm you have?" David asked.
Mina nodded. "Came in the mail two days ago. I'll go back through the older films."
It was doubtful she'd find anything. Mina was a meticulous researcher. Something as obvious as this would have jumped out at her, especially in the regular news. The pulp tabloids with their two-headed Moonmen babies and stories of Chupacabra the Goat Sucker were usually better leads than legitimate newspapers. This was a real find.
More likely, the spool that had contained the original column had never made it to her. After all, theirs was not an exact science. There was no Academy of Lycanthropy with archives and updates at their beck and call. Sure, they had improved as hunters over the years, and having a handful of others join the hunt was a coup. But their work, even in these boom times of technology and progress, was still hit-and-miss.
David sighed. "I'd hoped to check on the shops during the down time."
Mina, rewinding the spool, replied, "I'll take care of it."
David nodded, watching the screen as the spool spun hypnotically backward. His arms were crossed thoughtfully. "Will this be close to your hometown?" he asked Max.
Max shook his head. "I grew up a nice midtown boy in Florissant just outside St. Louis. Branson's in the middle of nowhere, a popular stopover for campers. Neither of my parents were much for the great outdoors. Other than knowing it's a full day's drive south, I couldn't tell you where the hell Taney County is, let alone Branson or Hollister."
The men stood silently then, neither wanting to say it aloud. Shit , Max thought, we just got back. They watched Mina box up the spool and take it to the file cabinet.
Max took a final gulp of coffee, and then set the cup on the table. "Okay. Well. We're the closest ones to the site. Better get packing."
He turned to leave for his bedroom, but Mina called, "Hey! Cup. Kitchen."
Branson, Missouri
Early Spring, 1950
Midday. New Moon.
Max hadn't been back to his home state since his parents' deaths, both within a few years after he had enlisted in the Army. But he sure remembered this kind of Midwestern spring. The kind where winter was leaving under protest, dragging its cold, drizzly heels. Tomorrow the sky might burst out sunny and blue and the temperature become a mild seventy-two. But not today.
Branson was a small town growing into a scenic get-away spot. On its main street, Max and David parked the rental car they'd picked up in Springfield and ducked under the protection of an overhang in front of Lewis' Restaurant . Max pulled opened the door, and the cozy smell of small town coffee and deep fat fryers met his nose and warmed his lungs. The lunch crowd had a local look to them, glancing up a moment, and then going back to their meals.
To their left was a Formica lunch counter with a few metal swivel stools available. But Max and David went for the bank of high-backed, wooden booths to their right as a couple finished and got up with their check. They pulled off their fedoras and heavy jackets, beaded with drizzle, hung them on the coat hooks screwed to the ends of the high-backs and settled in.
When the waitress approached, she couldn't keep from staring at David, but he had long gotten used to that reaction. After a moment she collected herself, picked up her forty cents, piled the dirty plates and glasses together at the end of the booth and said cheerily, "How you two doin'?"
"Good, thanks," Max replied. He and David grabbed the paper menus held against the napkin holder by the ketchup bottle.
"You want coffee?"
"Please."
She pulled a pencil and check pad from her apron pocket. "Need cream?"
"Nah."
"You a couple of our early ones?" She kept glancing at David.
David finally showed her some mercy. "Early what?"
"Well, you know ... visitors. Tourists. Sure am sorry about the weather for you. Summer's gonna be slow in coming this year. It's been cold and icy most of Spring."
She seemed more eager to chat than take their order, which was fine with Max and David. They were long past the need to give each other knowing glances when an opportunity was sensed. Max made his selection and looked up at the waitress pleasantly.
"I'm ready when you are."
"Sure ..." she poised her pencil.
"I'll do the burger platter. Onion rings 'stead of fries," he said, letting himself slide into his old Missouri mannerisms.
"Everything on it?"
"Sure. And a sody when it comes."
" Sody ? You must be from north of here."
"St. Louis, originally."
"You want Pepsi, orange or white pop? Oh, I'm sorry," she added with a wink, "or white sody ?"
Max and David laughed appreciatively. The waitress looked at David and smiled, scrunching her nose. "How 'bout you?"
"I'll have the roast beef sandwich."
"White or wheat?"
"Wheat."
"Toasted?"
"Yes, thanks."
"You just doin' coffee?"
"Maybe a glass of water, too."
"'Course, I know you're not from around here."
David gave her his best you-pegged-me smile.
"You're from out west, aren't you? Y'know ... you mind me sayin' this ...? It's not every day we get an actual Indian come through here. Ozarks used to be Indian country, though."
"You don't say ..."
"Sure was. The Osage."
"I wouldn't have guessed."
"You mind me askin' ...? What kind are you?"
"Seminole."
"Don't know them."
"They're mostly in Florida now."
"Can't blame 'em. I'd move there myself if I could!" The waitress scrunched her nose again and gave David a demure little poke with her fingertips. She drew a deep breath that ended in a sigh. "Anyway ... let me get this to the kitchen. My name's Debbie. What's yours?"
"Tim," said Max.
"Sitting Bull," said David, which put Debbie into fits of laughter. Max and David smiled.
"Let me say it is just an honor to meet you. Really," she said to David as soon as she caught her breath. "This is just a real thrill. You're good people, I can tell. Well ... like I said .. let me get your order to the kitchen."
She collected the dirty dishes. David watched her walk down the line to the kitchen's window. She dumped the dishes in the busboy's tray, stuck the check on the order wheel and tapped the bell. While the cook spun the carousel around to read, Debbie whispered into the busboy's ear and gestured toward Max and David's booth.
Max looked at David. "'Sitting Bull' ...?"
David shrugged. "I'm sitting, aren't I? We just fed her load of B.S., didn't we?" He looked toward Debbie, again. "Chatty, isn't she?"
"Lucky us," Max replied, and meant it.
The busboy came by and wiped down the table, trying so hard to keep from staring at David that his chin mashed against his chest. There was a display case showing off homemade pies just across from the booth, and he made a point of wiping that down, too, so he could get a good look from a safe distance. As soon as Debbie came back with the food, the men went straight to work.
"Thanks, Debbie," Max said. "Say ... y'know .. we're just passing through this time around, on business. But the area sure is pretty. Y'say you get a lot of tourists?"
"Well, we're no Florida or anything," she replied, smiling mostly at David, "but, yeah, it's been buildin' up ever since the war. We got Marvel Cave and Lake Taneycomo. They're big attractions for folks from Springfield. Sometimes even St. Louis." She scrunched her nose at Max. "And they just started buildin' the dam. That oughta be done in a few years and we're all real excited about it. And a lot of people make it down in December for the Adoration Lighting. Got a Baby Jesus scene twenty-eight feet tall on Branson Mountain's bluff. It's really somethin' to see. 'Course, Fall's real busy here with people comin' for the colors. But mostly folks start headin' down a hair later than right now ... middle a' May, early June. This weather keeps up, though, it's gonna put everybody off."
While David dug into his sandwich, Max dunked an onion ring in ketchup and said, "Well, it's real nice, the countryside. It sure looks unspoiled. Y'know, on our way here, somebody told us this area had wolves."
Debbie's eyes went wide. "Oh, you heard about that? So you must've heard about the people it killed ..."
Max looked amazed. "No!"
Debbie rolled her eyes and laid a hand on her heart. "Oh, it was awful . But they don't really think there're any wolf packs around. They're pretty sure somebody was raisin' one that got loose."
"That's terrible," David said. "Let's hope they catch it soon."
"Oh, they did!"
Max and David were stunned into silence. David was the first to recover. "They did?"
"Well, they didn't catch it. They found its carcass. I can tell you we are all sleeping a lot better."
They managed to keep their cool. Max asked, "When did this happen?"
Debbie glanced up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Couple days ago."
"Where'd they find it?"
"Back in the bluffs, but I'm not all that sure exactly where. I was just relieved to hear about it. Heard it on the radio comin' in to work that day."
"Sounds as if they're certain they've found the right animal," David said.
"Oh, yeah, it was huge. Huge! But they got it on ice so they can run some sort of tests, just in case. Make sure it's the same one that did the killin'."
"Geez ..." Max bit into another onion ring before musing aloud, "Where around here would you keep a dead wolf for tests?"
"The only place you could!" Debbie said, giving him a playful little poke. "Truman 'n' Sons."
 \*
"What I want to know is, after all these years, why can't there be some consistency, a little routine. Why does it always have to be so damn different every time?" Since that didn't get a rise out of David, Max leaned back in the passenger seat of the rental car and grumbled, "Another great moment in our history. Breaking into a funeral home."
Truman and Sons' was a white two-story structure, its bulk and surrounding grounds taking up an entire block. The only way the antebellum mortuary could have looked gloomier than against gray skies and drizzle was to see it in the dead of night in that same drizzle. And that was how they were looking at it now. The jaundiced glow of Branson's meager street lights barely illuminated it.
Earlier in the day, they'd eyed up the property. There was a chalk pebble driveway that led to a detached, three-car garage behind the mortuary. At the back of the funeral home, white wooden steps led to a door on the second story; the Truman family living area was Max's guess. A garage door was built into the back of the funeral home, and that would be where the remains of local loved ones -and one supposed wolf carcass-were taken.
After their informative lunch with Debbie, Max and David had settled into the Branson library, reading back issues of the Springfield News-Leader . They found the information that had been absent from Mina's Globe-Democrat microfilm: all the details of the attacks' aftermath. One other person besides the Branson man and Hollister teen had gone missing and was presumed a victim: Lloyd Stonehill. Like the girl, he had been a Hollister resident. He had been a loner, new to the area, and raising cattle. He was considered a likely victim, since the remains of a slaughtered cow and her calf were found on his property by someone who'd noticed he hadn't come to town in a while. He wasn't declared legally dead yet, but officials weren't holding out much hope.
There was also news of the experts invited down by the Taney County coroner: a respected veterinarian from Springfield and a zoologist from St. Louis. They were going to transport the carcass to Springfield tomorrow, so Max and David didn't have a minute to waste. That's why they were parked on the street about a half-block behind the mortuary, peering through the windshield and the night's cold drizzle.
"Shit," Max said. "I hate this."
David's only reply was a sigh. He opened the door and climbed from behind the steering wheel.
"Yeah, well ... shit," Max said again and brought his watch close, squinting in the near dark. 1:43 a.m. He got out of the car.
Hunched against the drizzle, they approached the first floor's back door, feeling exposed in black clothes against white sideboard. Max tried the door. It was latched. Through the years, he and David had discovered lock picking was a useful skill. He pulled out his picks as David kept watch, and they stepped through in a matter of seconds. David closed the door quietly. They stood motionless for a time, letting their eyes adjust, listening for any sounds that might warn they weren't alone.
They were in the unloading area. To their left was the long, black silhouette of the funeral home's hearse. The air was cool and dry, with a slight trace of chemical tang. They stayed stock still, listening a little longer. The only sound was a barely discernible mechanical hum.
Several paces ahead and to the right were two doorways, one double-doored and one single. Next to these was something that appeared to be a large, open room with an accordion gate stretched across the entry. David went to it, trying to keep his wet sneakers from squeaking against the painted concrete floor. Max followed.
"It's an elevator platform," David whispered, looking in.
Max stepped over to the single door and opened it cautiously. Through the gloom, he made out a sloped ceiling and white painted block walls enclosing the stairs. "The embalming room must be in the basement," he said, "and they use the elevator to move the bodies. The double-doored entrance probably leads to the funeral home."
He stepped through the doorway and ran his hand along either wall. To one side, a lead pipe banister descended into blackness. Against the other wall, a switch -round and bulky-was attached to a thick wire that angled downward. Max waited until David had joined him and closed the door behind, and then he flipped the switch.
The stark white of florescent light flickered on below them. The only thing they could see at the bottom of the narrow stairwell was the floor; the same gray-painted concrete as the steps. The chemical smell was stronger. Max and David followed their noses.
Once out of the stairwell, they were standing in a roomy basement turned long ago into the mortuary's prep room. Not a window in the place. Max and David's eyes teared against the ambient chemical sting. To their left, a long Formica counter was built against the wall with numerous metal drawers and cabinets built under it. There were wood and glass-paneled shelves above, filled with jars and bottles of who-knew-what. Rubber tubes, bottles, aprons, gloves, towels and canisters sat on the counter along with needles, clamps and other shiny metal tools, all arranged neatly in their place.
Two oblong white enameled tables on wheels waited in the middle of the room, their edges raised, the surfaces with a shallow slope toward a center drain. Between the tables, in the floor, another drain. Above them, protruding from the low ceiling was a metal hood with a fan encased in wire: the exhaust system for this windowless place. Against the wall at the head of the tables rested a pale green enameled machine with metal-ended rubber tubes, dials all over it and wide, empty sockets where things were obviously meant to be screwed into it. Fluids, probably. Pumped in or pumped out.
Here it is, Max thought, where we all end up. Either whole or in pieces.
David's harsh whisper brought him around. "Max ..!"
"Yeah," he whispered back.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
David was standing at the wall opposite the counter, where three white refrigerator-like doors, about three feet square, were built shoulder-high into the block. Below these was a slotted metal panel the same size as the doors, with something whirring steadily behind it. Refrigeration for the dead.
"Wow," Max whispered, walking over. "Small town morticians with the latest in amenities."
"This is probably the only funeral home for miles around. No doubt, Mr. Truman and his sons put these to good use."
"Well, let's see the latest," Max said and grabbed the thick black handle of one of the end doors. He yanked it open and was met by chilled air and the aged soles of two human feet, one of them with four gangrenous toes. Max nearly slammed the door against the stench before catching himself in time to ease it shut. He lurched away, gagging.
He braced his hands against his knees and looked at David. "Your turn," he said.
David eyed the enameled doors. "You know, traditionally, as a healer, I'm not supposed to be near the dead, much less handle human corpses."
"Too bad, Medicine Man." Max straightened up and nodded toward the doors.
David gave him a wary, half-smile. His Adam's apple bobbed, and then he reached for the door at the farthest end. He pulled it open and stared. "Bingo."
The smell of decay crawled across Max's face as he came to David's side. David reached in, pulled on the long tray and the Beast's massive carcass glided out before them, head first. The men tugged bandannas from their back pockets and covered their noses. The size of it and the silver glint to the fur (the color of gun metal in the prep room's unnatural light) was unmistakable. At first, Max and David could only stare, caught between relief that one more incarnation of the Beast had been obliterated and a melancholy for the lost host, wondering who he or she might have been. Most likely, the cattleman who was missing.
There was only half a carcass on the table. It had been cut cleanly just above the hind quarters. Perplexing at first, until David went to the middle door and looked in. There lay the rest. It had been sawed in two in order to fit into the human-sized compartments. But other than the surgical severing, all the damage was at the head.
"Sweet Mother of ..." Max whispered under his bandanna. "Look at that."
The Beast had been all but beheaded. The lower jaw was completely ripped away. There wasn't a scrap of it left, not a bone shard to be seen. Where the throat and most of the neck should have been, nothing but strips of hide lay stiff and shriveled like a tattered veil over the gap.
The men straightened up and looked at each other. David's expression was as confounded and disturbed as Max felt. "What the hell ?" Max said.
David shook his head, looked around for a moment, and then went to the counter at the opposite wall. He tied his bandanna to his face, picked up a pair of the rubber surgical gloves and wiggled them on. Back at the Beast, David dipped his hand into where the throat used to be and pushed back the stiffened flaps of hair and hide.
"I don't see any silver," he said, then dug deeper, probing into the exposed cavity between the shoulders. He shook his head and shifted, working his fingers up into the meat against the skull. "I don't feel anything. No slugs ..." he kept working "... no sharp objects ..."
He pulled back the remnants of neck muscle and worked his fingers around the vertebrae jutting out from where the neck was barely attached to the sinew between the shoulder blades.
"See here," he said.
Max pressed his bandanna closer around his mouth and nose and came in for a look. "See what?"
The spinal cord between two vertebras was ripped and thready, barely connecting the two bones. David fiddled with the vertebra that was most exposed.
"There's a nick out of it," he said, "as if something struck against it. Like a blade? A pick?"
Max peered more closely. "How can you tell? I mean, how do you know that isn't what a vertebra just looks like?"
David shrugged, still thumbing the disc. "Growing up Indian," he replied, "slaughtering my own sheep."
"I don't know, David. All that damage doesn't look like the clean work of a knife or axe."
They were quiet a moment, at an utter loss. David kept digging around, working his way up on what was left of the neck.
"You can see the same kind of nick on the bone here, too, near the base of the skull." He straightened back up and looked at Max. "What do you think?"
"You'd know better than me."
"Making my own mutton doesn't make me an expert. But my guess is, once the necropsy is done by the ones who are, they'll post the results in the local paper. Until then, we're not going to learn much. "
"If we show up tomorrow, we might find out a little more about how the remains were found, though."
David nodded. He crossed over to the sink, washed the rubber gloves and put them back in their place. The smell of rot was becoming unbearable. Max rolled the carcass back into its compartment.
"Let's get the hell out of here."
 \*
The four men in suits milled outside the hearse's garage, which was open this morning. Max guessed they were Mr. Truman and one of his sons, plus the county coroner and the veterinarian. From their car, Max and David had watched as the two presumed to be the coroner and vet had driven up. When a final car arrived and deposited a man in khaki trousers and zippered jacket, Max and David pegged him as the zoologist and got out of their own car. They caught up to the group just as they turned to go into the mortuary.
"Hello!" David called. They turned to watch his and Max's approach.
Max's belly was tight with anxiety and anticipation. He and David were in their airport clothes, the suits and fedoras they had worn for the trip to Missouri. They were still rumpled, but they were the only suits they had with them. Max's had a coffee stain he couldn't quite dab out, and it stood out a little against the gray wool. He just hoped the bluff they were about to try would explain why they were showing up looking like this.
As they joined the group, David stretched out his hand and all the men took it in turn, eyeing him and Max quizzically. "I'm Joseph Wenatchee and this is my associate Tim Elliott."
"How-ya-do. How-ya-do," Max said, shaking hands all around. "Excuse our appearance would-ja? We only got into Springfield late last night and had to hurry down this morning."
David launched right into the ruse. "We've been following the story about your man killer and we're hoping your discoveries will help our own work," he said.
The two presumed-to-be-Truman's didn't have much to say, and the man Max pegged as the county coroner crossed his arms warily, sizing up Max and David. It was the veterinarian and the coroner who did most of the talking:
"I'm Ed Webster, DVM," the vet said pleasantly. "Where you from?"
"Washington State," David replied.
Dr. Webster cocked his head. "What is it you think we can help with?"
"We work in conservation relating to the Washington state parks. There's been a series of presumed wolf attacks near the borders of a couple, but there are just not that many lupine authorities around anymore, Dr. Webster, even where we come from. So we're getting expert opinion from all over. In our research, we stumbled onto this story while scrolling through some library microfilms."
Max shut up and waited to see if anyone would buy it. It was a fast and loose tale, and they hadn't had much time to perfect it. But he and David were depending on the fact that there would be no particular reason to doubt their story.
David was poised with a pencil and note pad, as if ready to jot down every word of wisdom.
The coroner chimed in. "Our situation is probably a different one from yours. This isn't a case of a wild pack or even a single wild wolf. This was an animal let loose ... or got loose .. from its owner."
"Oh ... I see," Max said, affecting disappointment. "And your name is ...?"
"Sam Crozier. Sorry you came all this way for nothing."
"How you know it isn't wild?"
"The size, for one. No wolf in the wild could ever be as big as this --"
"But that's what we're here to determine," Dr. Webster interrupted. He nodded toward the zoologist. "Neither Mr. Taylor nor myself has had a chance to examine it yet. But, yes, from Mr. Crozier's description, it's doubtful."
His pencil still at the ready, David homed in on Mr. Crozier. "Telling us how it was trapped and killed would still be very helpful .."
"Well ... I wish I could say that's what happened. But the truth of it is, a local man out hunting happened onto the carcass."
From the corner of his eye, Max saw David swallow disappointment -the real kind this time-as he jotted down Mr. Crozier's comment for affect. "Is that so?" Max said.
"In a way, we're lucky to have had a stubborn winter this year. There was a late ice storm come through a few weeks ago. It went a long way in preserving the animal. A local man out trapping wanted to get to his snares as soon as there was enough thaw and that's when he spotted it. It was half buried in a frozen stream and covered with an ice layer."
"That's one of the things we'll be determining," Mr. Taylor, the zoologist, said. "How long the animal's been dead, as well as how it died."
"Can you tell anything just by looking at it now?" David asked, deferring to Mr. Crozier again.
"All I know is that it's a damn mess. Throat's gone and lost its jaw in the bargain." He glanced toward Webster and Taylor. "Of course, I can speculate ..."
"Please ..." Max coaxed.
"No, no. I'd rather consult with Dr. Webster and Mr. Taylor first."
"Will you do the necropsy here?"
"Just cursory," Webster replied. "We'll transport the carcass up to Springfield for a thorough exam."
"Would-ja mind if we tagged along?" Max asked. "We understand you're only doing a quick looky-lou, but--"
Now, Mr. Truman spoke up. "No. I'm sorry. But we have the remains of one of our longtime citizens in the home. We really need to have this situation with the animal resolved as quickly as possible so we can see to him."
Max held up his hands, all innocent intent. "We won't say or touch a thing. Ya won't even know we're there. Just flies on the wall ..."
"No," Truman repeated, courteous but firm. "I'm sorry."
"Okay. Sure. Understand. Too many cooks, eh?"
Truman smiled politely but made no move to lead everyone inside.
"Well ... hey, thanks," Max said, shaking hands all around once more. "You've been more helpful than you think."
David made his final handshaking round, and then they headed back to the car. Behind the dash, they watched the group disappear into the funeral home.
"It would've been a bonus to get in there with them," David said.
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." Max leaned into the seat and drummed his fingers on the car door's arm rest. "Now what?"
"Back to something more routine. Just like you like it," David replied. "Let's see if we can track down who the host was."
The Morris Hotel and Boarding House
Morehead City, North Carolina
Early Spring, 1950
Dusk. New Moon.
From his sleeping room in the flophouse, he watched the light soften over the harbor. It had a shabby charm, but it was an east coast view and he missed the west's coastal sunsets. He coughed, then took another long drag off his Lucky Strike.
He felt restless but that was nothing new. He was always eager to move on whenever he could, even as he yearned for home. Smoking helped. Drinking didn't. When he drank, he always got drunk. Which always ended him up in a jail somewhere, because he'd pick a fight if he wasn't lucky enough to cross paths with someone who didn't like the looks of him and wanted to start one first.
But the last time that had happened was years ago, when he'd found himself in some Texas backwater with a two-cell jailhouse. He had watched the moon grow more bloated night after night, the sweat dripping from his forehead, not knowing if he'd get out before it was completely full. The bail money had come through just in time and he hadn't touched a drop of booze since.
The phone rang, startling him even though he was expecting the call. He picked up the receiver, "Yeah."
"It's me."
"Who else would it be?"
His comment was met with momentary silence, then, "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, sure. Sorry. Just tired. How about you?"
The answer was as sarcastic as his had been irritable. "Oh, never better."
He ignored the comeback and tried to lighten things up. "So whatdiya know, whadiya say?"
There was another meaningful pause. This call wasn't going to be a routine checkin. "I think they found your last kill."
The words stopped him in mid-drag. Finally, he pulled the smoke the rest of the way in and watched the dusk deepen over the harbor.
"Are you there?"
"Yeah."
"Come home."
He drew on the Lucky until it nearly burned his fingers, and then crushed it into the spent butts crowding the ashtray. He coughed, then said, "No."
"You don't have time to chase this line down."
"When'd you find out about them?"
"When do you think? They don't make a move without keeping everyone updated. They're in Missouri now."
"Okay. Stay by the Ham. Let me know when you learn more."
Again came the command. "Come home."
"Listen ... you don't have to worry. This is a solid lead. I head out tomorrow and I'll be in Freeport by nightfall."
"It's not solid. You don't know if it's true, we've never seen this before... "
"David has."
"No, he hasn't, not personally."
"I'm telling you, this is real."
"The going will be too slow. Leaving the country, for godsake? It's not worth it for something so uncertain."
"What's the alternative ..."
" Come home ."
He snatched up his pack of Lucky's. "You tell me how that's an alternative. This way I have a crack at a host instead of some ... instead of some poor ..." He coughed again and pressed the receiver between his ear and shoulder while he fumbled for a cigarette.
Another silence over the phone before the reply came, defeated: "I know ... I know."
He lit up. "I better go. This is costing money."
"I don't like this. We'll be out of contact too often."
He said nothing, feeling stubborn. He lit up.
An exasperated sigh came across the line, then: "All right .. wire me as soon as you can. And call every time you can find a phone."
He didn't want to hang up with this tension between them. He tried to lighten the mood again. "Collect from the Caribbean? That'll be a pretty penny."
"As soon as you can."
"Always. You know that." He heard a soft click -a connection severed near the coast of a different ocean-and he set the phone's receiver in its cradle.
The harbor was almost dark now. The lights of the little port town were beginning to come on and he could make out lamps glowing through the portals of some of the sloops and trawlers at anchor. There was relief in knowing that these and the stars would be the only things shining tonight.
He heaved a sigh, which ended in another cough, and wondered if he should have covered his tracks a little better. It had always been a matter of time before Max and David crossed his path. It was surprising that it hadn't happened before now. He took another drag, then mindlessly scraped his thumbnail back and forth across his teeth, trying to recall if he had been sloppy in any way back in Missouri ...
Two days before the last full moon. The memory of those papers gathered up and stacked hastily as he'd heard the host coming through the door. He had just barely made it out the window ...
His hand clenched and he cursed himself. They'd figure out who the host had been. It was just a matter of time. And then they'd find what he had found. Sure they would. Even if the host had put everything back in place. And they would make the same connection he had made. Worse, they had the money to fly and would head here as soon as they could. The only unknown was when . But it wouldn't be much longer.
He finished the Lucky, jammed the butt into the ashtray pile and rubbed his face. Forget it. No point in worrying about it. Even if they already knew what was going on, they were still in Missouri. They would have to figure out exactly where to go and how to get there. A lot of things to put together before the next First Night.
At least, he was already here and set to leave tomorrow.
He tried to relax, let his mind wander, and his gaze drifted to his rucksack sitting on a small table in the room's corner. He walked over, snapped on the hooded light hanging over the table, and rummaged to the bottom of the bag. He lifted the jawbone.
Tracing his fingers across it brought a smile. He studied it under the light: the smooth white base, the yellow fangs longer than his fingers, the molars thicker than his thumbs. Cleaning it was how he had spent his evenings between travels. Tonight he'd wrap it carefully, pack it up and, tomorrow, leave it at the room manager's desk for mailing back home.
When he caressed the bone, even on a moonless night, he could feel the Beast inside him stir.
Three Miles Southwest of Hollister, Missouri
Early Spring, 1950
Dusk. New Moon.
To get a lead on whom the Beast's host had been, Max and David began with the last presumed victim, Lloyd Stonehill. The Springfield News-Leader stated that he was missing, his body yet to be found. But it was Max and David's hunch that Stonehill lay in two pieces at Truman and Sons; in death, his flesh irretrievably tangled with the Beast's.
Finding where Stonehill had lived was proving almost as hard as finding the missing man himself. It wasn't lack of information that had eaten up most of the day. Max and David's ruse was that they were retired Army buddies looking for property to buy, which the Hollister locals seemed to accept when they gave directions. But every time Max and David got lost on the winding, unmarked country roads, they had to backtrack to Hollister again. New directions were given only after the ritual of country courtesy was repeated: a fresh round of somber, respectful shaking of heads as people considered the man's fate, then Max and David had to offer up friendly small talk of their own.
The winning directions came from the two-man police force in Hollister's town-hall-slash-courthouse-slash-jail: north on State Road 65, a few miles west on County Road 76, then "turn left on a gravel road that you'll see right after the last Burma Shave sign. Follow that 'til it peters out and you'll see a gate and a dirt road there on your left again. That's the Stonehill place."
The metal gate was chained and padlocked. On either side, pasture -fenced with barbed wire-bumped up against a double row of oaks that canopied the road. A few black cows (or bulls, maybe, for all Max knew) looked up from their twilight grazing, the only witnesses to Max and David as they abandoned the car and scaled the gate. A few minutes later, the oak canopy gave way to land cleared for an unexceptional two-story house with gray slate siding and wide expanses of grazing land. The land was partitioned into smaller sections with barbed wire.
There was a scraggly little yard on the approach to the house and a red Chevy truck parked to the right. Lloyd Stonehill had been a single man living alone, but for caution's sake Max went to the front door and knocked, not really expecting an answer and not getting any. David walked around the right side of the house while Max went the opposite direction.
They met in the back yard, roomier than the front. Beyond there, the land sloped downward. The dirt road that had led them to the house continued on, leading to a sizeable barn of corrugated steel, rusty in patches but sturdy. There was a John Deere tractor, covered by a tarp, and a few pieces of equipment that looked to Max as if they were meant to be hitched to the tractor.
They found another gate between the barn and the house. This one was just three lengths of barbed wire attached to a five-foot pole meant to be dragged away from the fence post. A loop of wire kept it in place. David thumbed it over the pole's top and he and Max walked down the slope toward the barn.
There wasn't much to see. The road narrowed into two bare ruts which, in turn, faded into a field sprouting with new spring green. There were no cattle in the barn. Just dust, hay bales and empty stalls. No lingering signs of a slaughtered cow and her calf, either. The land continued its slope to another stand of trees that lined a river bank.
They stood looking around a moment, then David said, "What do you think? Break and enter now or come back after dark?" But as they made their way back toward the house, they saw a man walking down the ruts toward them. And he wasn't smiling. Just over the rise, several cows (or bulls; Max still didn't know the hell which) trotted down the line of fencing, as if following him.
Max took the initiative. "Hi, there!"
The man nodded back, but still didn't smile as he came up to them. Max stretched out his hand and tried to remember which name he was using for this trip. "Are you taking care of the Stonehill property? I'm Tim Elliott. And this is Joseph Wenatchee."
The man accepted Max's hand shake, then David's, but he wasn't enthusiastic about it. His expression was still flinty. "I'm Lloyd's neighbor. Ben Hoffman. That your car at the gate?"
"Yes, it is."
"I'd appreciate you stating your business."
"Oh, sure! Didn't mean to be rude. I'm from St. Louis, originally. My family used to spend summers around here when I was a boy. Joseph and me are Army buddies, retired now, looking for property."
"So you farm?" Mr. Hoffman asked, still unfriendly.
"I do a little," David replied. "But, mostly, we're just looking for a couple of places out of the hustle and bustle."
"Officer Whitley told us how to get here," Max said. "He mentioned Mr. Stonehill's disappearance ... probably a victim of those wolf attacks we read about? We meant no disrespect. But, as long as we were in the area, we wanted to take a look at the place before contacting his closest people. We went to the house and knocked. Nobody home."
Hoffman relaxed a little at the mention of Officer Whitley's name. But his manner was still reserved. "Aren't no close people. 'Least not any that's been found. Another few months, unless Lloyd shows up, this place'll go to foreclosure and up for auction. But I gotta tell you, boys, I aim to be the high bidder for both the property and the remainder of the heifers. 'Bout twenty-five of his acreage is east and runs up against my west."
Max and David nodded gravely, took a moment as if they were thinking over what Hoffman told them, then began back pedaling.
"Well," Max said, "to be honest, Mr. Hoffman, I don't think we're likely to be at the auction trying to outbid you then." He looked questioningly at David, who nodded again as if he were inclined to agree. "It's a fine property," Max continued, "but we're not looking for this much land. Not on our Army pensions. We were hoping to talk to his family about buying an acre or two apiece. But if it's headed to foreclosure as a whole, that takes care of that."
Hoffman finally offered them a smile, albeit a cautious one, and his posture relaxed a little more. Max asked respectfully, "Was Mr. Stonehill ... I'm sorry ... we don't know if he's passed on yet ... is Mr. Stonehill a good friend of yours?"
Hoffman shrugged off the apology. "Nobody 'round here believes he's still alive. No, not a good friend. Didn't know him long enough. But he was a decent neighbor, for a new fellah."
"Is that so?" David asked. "He wasn't from here?"
"Picked up the place from Mrs. Penn. A widow lady, looking to move to town. I'd been helping her with the place since Bud died a year ago. I made her a fair offer, but Lloyd's was a damn sight more than what the land and cattle was worth. Same thing's happening in Branson ... strangers come in, buying up, not knowing what the hell they're doing. Well ... couldn't blame Emma for taking his offer over mine, for what she said he paid. The auction'll bring things back to balance now, anyway."
"That's awfully big of you, to feel that way," Max said.
Hoffman shrugged off the flattery, as he had the apology, and slid his hands into the side pockets of his overalls. "My name ain't Saint Hoffman. Truth is, I was more than ready to not like him, but he turned out to be a pretty good guy. Just green, was all. And he wasn't afraid to say so, about himself. Matter of fact, I bought most of his stock not long after he took over. He only wanted about a dozen head. Kept to himself, mostly, but he was all right. Didn't pester anybody and helped out best he could in return for being helped."
He looked toward the cattle, milling about at the barbed wire. "That's why I'm here now, to mind the heifers. Appreciate it if you'd move your car. Gotta bring the feed down."
"Yeah, sure," Max said, and they followed Hoffman as he walked toward the little herd. It seemed they had all made it to the fence by now and some began to low as Hoffman approached.
"Ho, bossy, ho, bossy," Hoffman called in a calming voice. He unhitched another pole-and-wire gate and the animals past through, trotting faster the closer they got to the barn. Hoffman lead Max and David through the gate to the other side. He fastened the pole in place and they began the trek back to the car.
"I'd think this would be a big job for someone who didn't know what he was doing," David said.
"Big job even if you do. Got to say that for Lloyd. He wasn't afraid of work."
"He must not have been a stranger to it, then," David replied.
"From what he said, he wasn't."
Max laughed amiably. "Sounds like he didn't hold down a cushy office job before moving here."
"A Merchant Marine's what he told me. Ten or fifteen years."
"How about that! Joe and me know the M.M.'s from the War," Max lied. "Good people. Did he ever mention the ship he worked on?"
Watching the road as they ambled along, Hoffman finally offered a slight smile. "Saturday nights, a few of us might find ourselves up at the Bobber Tavern ... he only joined us a time or two before he disappeared, and then only after a lot of damn coaxing. But once he got started he could sure tell some tales." He tilted his head and squinted thoughtfully. " Esso Cardonia , was the one he served on longest he said. His best stories were about that one. Toward the end of his travels ... think he said he was on the Southport Gem ... Northport Gem ... something like that. He didn't much like talking about that one. Why, you know it?"
Max filed the names in his mind for later use. Southport Gem, Northport Gem He shook his head and said philosophically, "Eh, it was a long shot. And, anyway, I'm talking back during the war ..."
"Yeah ... well ... like I said, he didn't talk much about that last ship. Mostly the other. I got the feeling his days on that last one weren't so good."
I'll just bet , Max thought.
They were at the gate and their window for small talk was closing fast. David asked outright, "The last ship he was on. What was its home port?"
"Oh, hell, I don't remember," Hoffman replied; not really testily, but it was clear he wanted to get to his task. Dusk was slipping into night. He walked over to his truck, pulled off the road as far as possible without leaning into the ditch. He opened the driver side door and got in.
"Well, good to meet you, Mr. Hoffman," Max said, slipping behind the wheel of the rental. "We appreciate you telling us what you know about the property. I think we'll look elsewhere."
David leaned on the hood of the car and waved. Hoffman waved back, distracted, and started the truck. David got in the car. Max backed it out of Hoffman's way and they sat there, engine idling, as his tail lights disappeared down the road to the Stonehill house.
"Well. Still think we should come back later?" Max asked.
"I don't know ... Merchant Marines ... the trail to where and when Stonehill was bitten is probably long lost. We could be taking chances coming back tonight, and going to a lot of trouble for no pay off."
They sat quietly, weighing the risks. Hoffman was sure to lock the gate when he left. If they returned, scaled it again, and broke into the house, it would be a long way back to the safety of the car if something went wrong. On the other hand, in the wee hours of the night, out here amidst acres and acres of pastures and fields, only a few scattered houses tucked far back from the main road ...
"What the hell. We've come this far," Max said. "Better bring our picks, so we can get the car down to the house."
 \*
In the moonless dark, with a coyote crooning somewhere in the pastures, David found what they were looking for. He had been rummaging through Stonehill's writing desk while Max searched the only bedroom in use.
When he heard David call, Max closed the dresser drawer he'd been rifling and followed his flashlight beam to Stonehill's sparse office. There was a banker's light on the desk but, like Max, David was using a flashlight for the sake of caution. He glanced up at Max as he came in, then back at something in his hand.
David's beam was trained on two pieces of tax papers, mundane and uninteresting except for these words: ... Packet Vessel Southport Jewel. Home register: Morehead City, North Carolina.
"There you are, brother," David murmured to the papers.
"Well, well." Max let his own beam idle across the desk and started fiddling with the clutter there, fingering the ink blotter, leafing through a thin stack of papers on the corner by the lamp. It was a hodge-podge of unrelated material, as if Stonehill had gathered it in a half-hearted attempt to tidy things up. Max stopped when he uncovered a letter paper-clipped to an envelope. Its postmark was from the Dominican Republic.
"David. You see this?"
David laid down the tax papers and left the chair to stand beside Max. "No," he said, "I started in the desk's file drawer. What have you got?"
Max motioned for David to read along with him:
February 20, 1950
Dear Mr. Stonehill,
It is so kind of you to ask after my husband. Each day we thank the Saints Andrew and Nicholas, the Blessed Virgin and Our Dear Lord for Papo's continuing recovery, for it is no less than a miracle. He heals quickly, though the disfigurement will be with him always, but at least he is with us, and each day we grow more hopeful he will be able to return home.
The doctor still expresses amazement that either of you survived such an ordeal and credits your quick actions with saving Papo. Had the Saints and Our Holy Mother not lead you to the attack and quickened your hand, my children would have lost their father and I would have lost the love of my life. I thank you again from the bottom of my heart.
Please do not concern yourself for our sake. I simply cannot accept your generosity after you have done so much for us by delivering Papo from certain death. The only gift my family ever wishes from you is your company one day, should you ever return to our home, so that we may celebrate with you our mutual good fortune and together make offerings to the Saints and the Blessed Virgin.
As for Chupacabra himself, the government men came. They did away with his body. They say since he is dead, why now start a panic? Our own commandante protested, but what can he do? He has been ordered not to speak of the incident. They scold us as well and warn of strong punishment if we spread 'lies.' Their word, not mine. But they cannot completely silence us. I whisper and my neighbors whisper. People should know the truth.
I go now to visit Papo, so I will end with thanks to you yet again and prayers that Saint Nicholas and the Blessed Virgin keep you safe on your voyages so that you may return to us one day.
In Eternal Gratitude,
Rosa Maria Maya Salvador
"Chupacabra." That was the telling word. Max first learned the legend when he was in Mexico, but the creature was infamous throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. A monster as old and illusive as vampires and zombies ... or werewolves. It was tracking Chupacabra across the Californian border that had taken Max, David and Samuel south to Mexico several years ago. The chase had paid off; not in a save, but at least the kill had ended one more incarnation of the Beast.
So that was that. Lloyd Stonehill had indeed been the Beast's host, bitten while performing a heroic act. What sad irony.
But even as the letter ended that mystery, it produced another. The letter was describing the Beast and what it had done to Se?ora Maya's husband and Stonehill. And yet her husband was alive?
David grabbed the letter away from Max and swore under his breath; the Navajo equivalent of "son-of-a-bitch."
"We have a twin," he said.
 \*
Amy's voice came back reedy over the phone and full of grogginess. It was hours before dawn in British Columbia. "You're going where ?"
"To the Dominican Republic," Max repeated. He adjusted the motel room's blinds against the early morning sun. Behind him, David was packing some clothes over the false bottom of the weapons trunk. "It's on the island of Hispaniola. We left Branson last night and we're in Springfield now getting ready to catch a commuter flight to St. Louis. Then we're on a plane to the east coast. From there we're going to have to find our way over to the Bahamas and work our way down the Caribbean chain."
Amy didn't answer right away, then finally said "okay" with a lot of uncertainty.
"Have you or Paul heard anything from Samuel?"
"No, not yet ..."
"Well, shit, where the hell could he be ...? Have you tried calling him?"
"Both ways. The phone operator couldn't make a connection, but that could mean anything. You know how it is there. Sometimes the electricity's up, sometimes it's down. On the other hand, I couldn't raise him on the Ham, either. But ... I don't want to worry yet. They could be having fuel problems, too. It's not as if both haven't happened at once before."
A fuel shortage would mean no diesel for Samuel's emergency generator. "Okay ... all you can do is keep trying. Maybe when you check in with Mina, she'll have heard something this morning. If she hasn't, ask her to write him. Have her send him a wire, too." It finally occurred to Max he hadn't explained to her what was going on yet. "Amy ... David thinks the Beast we found here in Missouri was part of a twin incarnation."
For a second or two, all that came back to him over the phone was the soft crackle of static. Finally she said hesitantly, "Wait .. you mean like he mentioned once a while back ...?"
"Like he'd read in one of Stanislov's journals."
"But the odds ..."
"I know, I know. But we found a letter. It reads as if the host, Stonehill, may have stumbled onto the Beast before it could finish off a victim. Somehow, he managed to kill it before it could take out either him or the victim."
"Max ... the prey surviving? A twinned incarnation? Either is a one in a million chance. Even the journals only mention something like it happening once, and that was ages ago. Long before any of us were even born ..."
"If you read that letter, Amy, you'd feel like we do."
"But ... well ... it's just ..."
"Look, I know this is a lot to wake up to. What time is it there anyway? 4:30 or something? We'll call you again when we get to Morehead City."
"Where ...?"
"Morehead City, North Carolina. It ties in with what we found here. We want to make sure we don't miss anything on the way. Be on the radio to Mina at the regular time, all right?"
"Sure, yeah, but ... yeah. All right. Don't worry."
"You, too." Max hung up and looked over at David, waiting by the open door. The suitcases and trunk were ready to go.
"Is everything good?" David asked.
"Still no word from Samuel."
David frowned at the news, but there wasn't much to say or do about it for the time being. Max walked over and, together, the men hoisted the weapons trunk. Max grunted, then said, "Is it me, or does this thing get heavier every time?"
"It's you," David replied. "You're getting old."
"Speak for yourself, gramps."
 \*
Morehead City's Port Authority Director turned to other business as the two strangers left his office. The north end dock master tapped at his open door.
Looking up, he greeted, "Hey there, Ed. Come on in."
"Hey, yourself, Barry." Ed made his way along the narrow floor space between the director's desk, filing cabinets and the two metal folding chairs Barry had had his secretary bring in for the visitors. Ed glanced back toward the door once he was at the side of the desk. "Was that an Indian, just was here?"
Barry tossed the Southport Jewel's file into his "out" box, and then took a good stretch as he leaned back in his chair. He was near the end of his long day and the thought of his wife's chicken fried steak was on his mind.
"With the Yankee. Sure was. They wanted to know about the Southport Jewel ."
Ed plopped into one of the metal chairs. "The 'Jewel ? Again? For a long gone vessel, it's sure getting attention. Of all kinds, huh? First that one here a couple days ago, now these two?"
Barry yawned, gave the back of his fresh haircut a quick scratch, and then called toward the office door to his secretary: "I'm about done in here, Rose, how 'bout you?"
She called back, "I am, Mr. B."
"Okay, sugar, you go on, then, when you ready." Returning to Ed, he said dryly, "Yeah, been a regular United Nations tromping through. Probably on account of the Jewel's curse."
Ed grinned. "When that kind of jag gets started, it does bring out the cuckoos, don't it? Welp ..." He slapped his knees with purpose and got to his feet. "Just came by to tell you we found a slipway for the Olivia. She's secure and her crew's already off looking for a place to get drunk."
Barry chuckled as he left his desk. "Here, I'll walk out with you ..." He let Ed pass through the door first, then closed it behind them.
Ed asked, "Those two asking about the 'Jewel ... did they learn about her from that other one that was in here a day or so ago?"
"Didn't seem like it. But, anyway, I didn't ask. What I did was make it clear I don't appreciate their kind sniffing around the docks, and I said I wouldn't put up with them asking the stevedores any questions. Damned if I'll go through that, again .. stirring a bunch of superstition back up. Anyway, once I told them she'd been re-christened and sold off, they lost interest and asked about a puddle jumper for hire. Sent them looking for that Yankee kid Avery. Say .. you got supper plans? My wife's fixing her special chicken fried steak ..."
 \*
Max and David had learned things of interest while talking with the port director, but nothing really helpful. To their surprise, Lloyd Stonehill's vessel hadn't been a Liberty or Victory Class ship left over from the war. The Southport Jewel had been nothing more than a 100 foot diesel mail boat, purchased in Puerto Rico. Stonehill's Merchant Marine history had led them to a faulty assumption. It appeared he opted for lighter duty after his service.
The Southport Jewel was supposed to have arrived in Morehead City to begin shipping mail bags and other supplies to the Northern Bahamas. Whether Stonehill had intended to crew on the new route or had only hired on to bring her to port, Max and David would probably never know. But they did know that what should have been a routine stopover in the Dominican Republic had changed both Stonehill's fate and that of the Southport Jewel for the worse.
From the start, the port director gave Max and David the bare-bones facts and not much else. And when they had mentioned the talk on the dock about the boat being cursed, the director became gruff. He wouldn't tolerate the subject. Because of the rumors, no one in Morehead City would crew the Southport Jewel ; which meant her owner had to take a loss and sell her months after buying her. He'd had to hire a captain from another city to sail her to Wilmington.
This didn't mean the trip to Morehead City was a bust. Max and David needed to make sure there were no loose ends before finding their way to the Dominican Republic and that's what they had done.
With the day nearly gone, they were walking down a private pier north of the Morehead City Port. They were on their way to see the pilot-for-hire that the port director had recommended. At its end a sleek metal single-prop water plane was tied, bobbing gently on her pontoons. She had handsome sky-blue accents against - wouldn't you know it , Max thought-glowing silver skin. The fellow kneeling on the port wing with his upper half dipped into the cockpit presented Max and David with a bony half-moon.
"Hello ...!" David called and the guy struggled up to look at them over his shoulder.
"Daddy-O," he said in a lazy voice. He dropped a ratchet into the cockpit and climbed off the wing.
"Are you Avery Gillis?"
"Only to jims not in the know."
He sauntered over as he pulled a bandanna from his sagging short pants and wiped his face, his bare chest and then his hands. He was younger than he first appeared, in his early or mid twenties, with a shaggy shock of white-blond hair. What looked like white jaw stubble from a distance turned out to be a narrow band of beard the same color as his hair. They shook hands as Max and David introduced themselves with their latest aliases.
"We understand you're for hire," Max said. "We need to go south."
He wasn't sure Gillis had heard him. The kid fixed a gaze on David that was somehow both passive and intense. "Say, man. Are you a real Indian?"
"As opposed to a fake one?" David replied dryly.
Gillis tilted his head and smiled slowly. He held out his hand again to David, shaking more firmly this time. "Cool," he drawled, "cool. Good to meet you, man." He offered his hand to Max again. "Cool to meet you both."
"So," David said. "Are you for hire?"
"Where you need to go, jack?"
"Pretty far," Max said. "We'll need you over the course of several days. You available, Mr. Gillis?"
Gillis's eyes lit up. "Nix the Mr. Gillis, that's my old man. Jims in the know, they call me Mezz. So, where to?"
"The Dominican Republic."
Mezz spun out a long, low whistle. "Hell, dad, I thought you're talking Miami or Nassau."
"Is it a problem?" David asked.
"Doing it in a few days, it is. We're gonna have to island hop aaaall the way down the Bahamas. Weather forecasts aren't reliable more than two or three days out, plus other island imponderables. So no can do on a time guarantee. Gotta level with you. My bird and me's not flown farther south than Great Exuma. And fuel's gonna cost a whole lotta grease for this one. Listen, dads, I'm all for it, but you're gonna get there a lot cheaper by boat."
"A lot slower, too," Max said.
"You in a hurry?"
"We're on a time schedule, yeah."
"Mother Nature thinks Father Time's a drag."
Max and David didn't say anything.
"But, hey, we'll do it your way, you're the paying customers." Mezz ambled past them, heading toward a little house on the shore end of the dock. "Why don't you step into my office, as those of your years are fond of saying? We'll talk palm grease, I'll put a heavy side on the box and educate you to a new beat. Unless maybe you already dig jazz ..."
Max cocked his head toward David as they followed. "Did you understand anything he just said?"
 \*
Cleaned up, Mezz wasn't much better dressed than he had been yesterday, bare-chested in his work clothes. He was in a Fruit-of-the-Loom tee-shirt, a clean pair of shorts and was sockless in a pair of Keds, waiting for them beside his "beautiful bird." Most of his pride, it seemed, went into his modest little house, his dock and -most of all-his airplane the Mellow Wren .
And what the hell was he wearing on his head? Max smiled. Oh, to be twenty-five again . He couldn't resist: "I thought your nickname was Mezz, not Frenchy."
Mezz smirked as he sauntered down the dock to take Max and David's suitcases. "And just when I didn't figure you as a clyde, man. This is the new thing, the cat's meow in the Big Apple. You'll be spying many more one day, when beat's the scene across the nation."
"I didn't understand a single word you just said," Max replied.
"Simple English, jack, but in a heavy, new form." Mezz stowed the suitcases, then turned around, snatched the beret from his head and put it on Max. "This'll put you in the scene, dad ... ehhh ...maybe not."
David chuckled as Mezz took his beret back, then said to Max, "Speaking of heavy, we've got one more thing to bring on board."
They started back up the dock toward the taxi and Mezz followed.
"It's okay, Mezz, we've got it," Max said, assuming the kid wouldn't need more than that to focus on lighter duty; maybe rearranging the luggage or what-have-you.
Instead he kept following them. The cabbie was winding up the length of rope he'd used to keep the over-stuffed boot tied down. David reached in to heave the weapons trunk halfway out and before Max could move, the kid was maneuvering the handle out of David's hands.
"Honest, Mezz, we've got this one," Max said, more firmly this time.
"Neigho, pops, Mrs.Gillis didn't raise a lazy jim. Just grab the slack at the other end."
The three of them hauled the trunk the rest of the way out while the cabbie got back behind the wheel. David grabbed the other handle, threw a wary glance toward Max, and they headed toward the airplane.
"Ow, jack! What're you hauling in this coffin ..?"
"Equipment for our business," Max said, following behind.
Mezz stopped cold, set down his end and turned to them, his face grave. "I'll say this plain, so you hear me clear. I'll turn on to a thing or two, a little hooch or a touch of tea-smoke now and then, but if you're holding big, my bird don't fly."
"I thought you just said you'd speak plainly," David said, lowering his end of the trunk.
"Drugs, man! Or bootleg or guns, either, while we're on the subject. Not on my plane."
"Kid, when was the last time you've heard of somebody smuggling contraband out of the U.S.?" Max retorted.
Mezz repeated, "My bird don't fly."
"We're not smugglers," David said.
"Not on my watch, you're not, and that's bible, you dig? I don't want the G-men clipping Mellow Wren's wings. She's all I got."
The trick to these situations was to not hesitate. Max dug in his pocket and tossed Mezz a small key. "Open 'er up."
Mezz didn't hesitate either. He knelt on one knee, fit the key in the lock and tossed the lid back. He smirked up at them as if he couldn't believe they'd be so foolish. " Clothes ?" He pushed back the layer of clothing to reveal a couple of disassembled tripods and some weighty camera equipment.
But to Max's amazement (and, admittedly, admiration) this still didn't satisfy. Mezz yanked out the equipment, ran his hands along the inner lining and found his way into the false bottom. He pulled it up and lost his smirk with an "ohh ... man ..." as he gazed at the bars of silver laying there, planted there for occasions just like this one. The question was, would he realize there was a second false bottom, where the silver arsenal and the weapons lay?
David's tone was firm with mock irritation. "Just as we told you, Mezz," he said. "We're corporate researchers. And when we travel to remote places, bribes are a part of the business. Silver opens more doors than currency. But you seeing this doesn't change anything, Mezz. We can't discuss our job with you."
Mezz was quiet a moment, staring at them hard. "Straight up, dads, me to you. If this coffin comes back light on loot and heavy on bootleg, then you lose your ticket home. Mr. and Mrs. Gillis won't be seeing their son's mug on the post office wall, you dig? They fronted this biz and I'm not gonna turn around and kick 'em for that love."
"You have our word," Max said. "That's not what that silver's for."
Mezz took a long moment, still eyeing them, before putting everything back in its place. "Research must be risky business, dads, if you gotta carry all this palm grease ..."
"We're comfortable with our risks."
"I spy now that I should've upped my price."
Max and David's silence was stony. Mezz gave them a final long look before getting to his feet. "No, we're mellow, dads. The price we already shook on is righteous. I am a shrewd judge of character. Even with all this cloak and dagger, my gut says you're cool."
You're a better judge of character than we are , Max thought. He wouldn't underestimate the kid again.
Mezz rose, looking determined if a little wary. "So let's load this coffin, dads. We're wasting daylight."
Two Miles from the Town of Imbert
República Dominicana
Spring, 1950
Midday. Second Quarter Moon.
Max had to hand it to Mezz. In spite of the wild ride, the kid wasn't going to let him get the better of their debate:
"Naw, man," Mezz yelled over the radio as it blared one local wailer after another. His eyes flitted between Max and what he could see of the road. "It's not like I don't give Yardbird Parker and Dizzy their propers. And I dig that you even know who they are, even if you don't feel 'em. But I weep, pops, to hear you say Glenn Miller is jazz!"
Max raised his voice over the music, too. "As far as I'm concerned, he's my kind of jazz."
Every time their driver careened around a blind corner, Mezz looked ready to claw the cracked leather off the old Packard's arm rest. He was sitting with Max in the back seat and, from time to time he tore his stare from the road and looked at Max. But he could only do it in short bursts.
"How can you say that after I educated you about the righteous Mr. Davis?"" Him ? I can't believe that guy talked somebody into recording him. He can't even keep a tune going without losing where he was in it."
Max sensed the next curve coming and splayed his legs for support. David, sight-seeing from his open window up front, swayed like an old salt at sea. Mezz went wild-eyed and grabbed the arm rest again with both hands.
"Holy crap! Who taught this Clyde to drive ..."
"We warned you to stay in Santiago ," David called back, his face still into the wind.
Mezz ignored him and went back to the debate, "Davis is a genius of a gabriel who can pull growls out of a trumpet like you've never heard before ... I just hope I live to hear more after this wild truck ..."
"Y'know," Max replied, "you keep calling this so-called movement of yours 'beat,' but the music you listen to sure as hell doesn't have any."
"C'mon, pops! After five days of us all island hoppin' in the Mellow Wren , have we still nothing more in common than a love of guzzlin' Caribbean brew?"
David looked over his shoulder and shouted his two cents. "If we drank all the beer in the West Indies, Mezz, it wouldn't make jazz of any kind sound good."
"Hell, you're a Classical man," Max shot back, waving David off. "Nothing made after 1900 sounds good to you."
"If either of you really liked a good beat," David replied, "you'd get yourselves to a pow-wow ..."
" Permiso, se?ores. " Ricardo, the driver, snapped off the radio. " Aquí est á Imbert ."
The little town came into view and Mezz glanced heavenward before slumping back. "I give the Man Upstairs all due proper."
The Packard braked and was powdered by its own dusty backwash. Max, David and Mezz emerged and, immediately, all eyes were on them. In a land of compact people with cinnamon complexions, the three of them stood out.
Imbert was a speck against the hill country sprawling at the feet of the Cordillera Central: the mountain range that bisected the lush little Caribbean nation. Like the bustling city of Santiago, Imbert was a valley town set beside a river. But Santiago' s Rio Yoque del Norte spilled into a large, sparkling lake that could support a robust metropolis. Both Imbert and its river were more remote and much more humble.
"Damn," Mezz said, looking around. "How can countryside pretty as a beat queen stow away such an ugly town."
"It's not ugly, son," David said, "It's just poor."
"It's filthy, jack."
"Is it? Take another look."
The wooden sidewalks were warped, the plaster walls patchy and faded and the windows were glassless, with only plank shutters for security. But the streets were free of trash and the walkways swept. The women wore tidy ponytails, the men's jaws were clean shaven, their mustaches trimmed. The children were barefoot, but every one of them had hair that was trimmed and clean.
The town, like most settled by the early Spaniards, had been planned around a square -the plaza central - that sat before a church. In this case the little Catholic church was stucco-ed and whitewashed, a modest one-story with a cross at its pinnacle and its bronze bell free-standing next to the front door. The plaza -a simple grassy knoll with a few shade trees-was hemmed in on two sides: the crossroads to its west and south, and a kind of narrow service road on the east.
The main street ran north-south, and there were a few buildings on either side of it. But the bulk of them clustered around the plaza. All in all there weren't more than about a dozen buildings, roofed with corrugated tin.
Ricardo had stopped in front of a storefront with the faded word comida painted over the open door and two small wooden tables set to either side of it on the walkway. It was the closest thing to a café in the town. As the driver helped them lift the luggage out of the trunk, he was swamped by people trying to haggle a price to be taken to Santiago. He made his deals, crammed ten people into the Packard, cranked up the radio again and waved adios as he sped away.
Max looked around, looked at the little store and said, "So .. let's have a cerveza ."
They set the luggage and trunk against the wall by one of the tables, and the man who had been staring at them from the doorway came over quickly.
" Buenas Tardes ," Max greeted. " ¿Usted habla Inglés? "
" Buenas, se?or. No, lo siento "
" No hay problema, se?or. Mi espa?ol es adecuado ."
" ¿Puedo ayudarle? "
" Si, cerveza, por favor "
" ¿Grande o peque ? a? "
Max thought about it. " Una grande, por favor "
The proprietor nodded, introduced himself as Antony and disappeared back into the store.
"That's hincty and rude of you, pops," Mezz groused, "talking Spanish in front of me when I don't understand a word."
"We've hardly understood a word you've said since we met you," Max replied. "Like 'hincty.' What the hell does that mean?"
"It means you're being snooty, man."
"All he did," David said, "was check to see if we could speak English with the man -which we can't-then order some beer. It's doubtful we're going to find many who speak English here. And we've got work to do. We can't stop and translate for you every time we talk to someone."
Mezz was petulant. "Ever since we trucked out of Santiago, you two've been acting like you don't want me around .."
Max leaned his forearm on the table. "We don't, remember? We told you to stay in the city. What you should be doing is looking after your plane. What if somebody strips the Wren down?"
"You're the ones who told me she'd be comfy cozy in that boat house."
"The idea was for you to enjoy a little of Santiago without feeling like you had to guard her day and night, not take off across the damn country. How're you going to check on the Wren 'way the hell out here? This republic's run by a two-bit dictator, Mezz, just how trustworthy you think a dock master's gonna be?"
Mezz went sullen and slumped down in his chair. "What's the point in travel without a little adventure? Just wanted to spy out a country I never trucked through before ..."
"Hey, guess what? Adventure has a down side to it."
"Max, come on ..." David interrupted.
Max leaned back. No sooner had he gotten that off his chest, than he felt guilty. It was his and David's fault, after all, that the kid was sitting here in Imbert. They had put him too much at ease about the Mellow Wren , and they had felt the pinch of time too painfully, thanks to the delays they had run into in the Bahamas: a couple for weather and one waiting on fuel. As soon as Mezz had insisted on coming along, what they should have done was pretend to settle into a little lodge in Santiago, spent the afternoon getting the kid drunk, then stolen away by nightfall while he was passed out.
Instead, Mezz had slid into the backseat with Max as David spoke with Ricardo in the front. While the three of them started arguing in English about him staying, Ricardo had pulled away from the dock, the blast from his radio leading the way. They had let it go at that, torn between the kid's welfare and the waxing of the moon.
Antony returned with three glasses and a beer bottle twice the size of any served in the U.S. Max watched the struggle on Mezz's face. He glowered at his glass while David poured. He was worried about the Mellow Wren , now, even though he was trying not to show it. When he didn't take a drink right away, Max tried patching things up.
"Look ... Mezz ... Sorry. Your plane's gonna be fine. That's the whole point of giving the dock master a taste of the bribe and holding the rest until we get back. He sure as hell knows he won't get the rest if he lets anything happen to her. Besides, as far as he knows, we're all still in the city and can check on the Wren . Really, the Dominicans have a good rep, even if their presidente is a bastard."
Mezz eyed Max a moment, then David, then grabbed his beer. He took a long drink, licked his lips and said. "He just called you 'Max.'"
Shit . "It's my nickname."
"You only use it in this country? Didn't hear him call you that on the long haul down here."
"All right," David conceded. "His name's Max and mine's David. Our assumed names are just a precaution, Mezz. Our work is sensitive."
"Makes me wonder what else I should 'assume' besides your names." He took another drink and asked, "So what's next?"
"Next we look for a place to stay while we track someone down," David replied.
Mezz, leaning his chair on its back legs, gave the little town a once-over. "So where you figure the inn is?"
"I doubt there is one," David replied. "Not in an outpost like this. We're probably going to have to room with a family. Probably more than one, since there's three of us. Either that or ..." He shrugged, gave Max a look and a wry smile. Max chuckled.
"Come on, man, you're jackin' me around too much."
"Or we rent three cots at the local brothel," Max said.
"At the what ?"
"The brothel. It's a place where you -"
"I know what it is, man. Ohh ... I dig ... you're still jackin' with me."
"No, we're not."
Mezz snorted. "Bullshit, pops. A dump like this has a cathouse, but no motel? You peg me as real dim bulb, don't you?"
"No joking," Max replied. " Imbert's a stopover between two larger towns. It'll have a cathouse. And probably a cockfighting ring. But no nice, tidy little motel. Didn't you see that little gang of women lounging around the building on the east end?"
"Naw, man. Seriously." Mezz put his glass to his lips and looked eastward, then began to look worried. "Seriously? This is bible?"
"As bible as a heart attack."
David was more inclined to give the kid a break than Max. "We buy the cots, not the services," he said. "The women will double up elsewhere or stay with family for the night."
"But ... but what if they ... you know ... what if they want to stay?"
Max grinned. "Don't worry, they'll barter."
David chuckled, finished his beer, then made arrangements with the storekeeper to keep their luggage and trunk secure in the store's pantry. Mezz looked as though he felt a little dizzy. Max figured it was probably time to let him off the hook.
"Easy does it, kid. This is just how it's done sometimes. The chicas won't bother you. It's the madam you'll need to haggle with --"
"Cut it out, man ..."
Max clapped Mezz on the back. "Okay, okay. We'll go on over in a couple of minutes so you can see for yourself. Get a better feel ..."
"Yeah, very funny, pops."
Antony, who had been waiting for an opening, asked if his customers would like something to eat.
" No, gracias, se?or " David replied, " pero, dónde está el correo ?"
Antony pointed to himself and smiled. " Soy el correo ."
"Cut me some slack on the Spanish, would ya?" Mezz pleaded to Max.
"David asked where to find the post office. Seems we're already there. Looks like this guy's the town grocer, restauranteur and postmaster."
David set down his glass and, as he fished the Stonehill envelope from his back pocket, he asked the storekeeper, " ¿Usted conoce a esta se?ora? Tenemos noticias de su familia en los Estados Unidos. ¿Puede usted decirnos donde encontrarla?"
"He's asking if he knows where to find a certain woman that can help us with our research. He's telling him we have news from her family in the U.S."
"So do you?" Mezz asked.
Max shook his head as he took another drink, then said, "It's just to assure him we don't mean to make any trouble for the lady."
"So do you?" Mezz asked again, and just when Max was about to tell him not to be a sap, the look on Antony's face stopped them all cold.
" Dios Mío ," he prayed in a near whisper. He handed the envelope back slowly. " Lo siento. Esta mujer vivió en una aldea peque?a llamada Luperón. Pero ... ella está muerta ahora ... junto con sus ni?os ."
Max and David looked at each other, sickened in spite of the fact they knew something like this had to have already happened.
Frustrated, Mezz snapped, "What is it, man, what?"
"She's dead," David replied. "And all her children with her."
Mezz stopped his glass in mid arc and slowly set it down. David finally put the envelope back in his pocket and said, " Esa s son noticias terribles. Debemos ir a su hogar, de modo que podamos volver y explicar a su familia lo sucedido ."
Max leaned toward Mezz and translated in a low voice: "He said this is terrible news. He said we'd like to visit her home before going back to the U.S. to tell her family."
Antony looked uncomfortable about it but replied, " Claro ," and Max translated as the storekeeper continued:
"He said he understands. There's two buses that make stops here during their runs. The smaller one allows people to get from Luperón to here, then it continues to Puerto Plata. Or if they're going the opposite direction, they can catch the larger one that comes through on its north-south run between Puerto Plata and Santiago. Luperón's the one we want. We can catch it later today, making its late afternoon run back to the town, or just after sunrise tomorrow morning."
Antony had begun to go back in his store, but stopped. When he turned back to them, he looked even more troubled. " Se?ores ..."
"¿ Sí? "
He hesitated, rubbing his palms together. Then he began to speak rapidly, so much so that Max had trouble following him. David, too, apparently, because he urged Antony to slow down.
He was imploring them to reconsider. Please reconsider. Their course was not a wise one. Don't go, he was saying. Don't go to Luperón. No good would come of it. Simply tell the woman's family in America that she and her children died of disease. Luperón was nothing now but sorrow and death.
" ¿Por que? " Max asked. " ¿Que encontraremos allí? " Why? What will we find there?
The storekeeper looked away almost irritably. When he turned to them again, his eyes were fierce. "Chupacabra," he hissed.
 \*
Sunset cast a soft light on little Imbert, but it couldn't soften Max and David's mood. They were sitting with Mezz at one of the three tables under the brothel's tin-roofed veranda, picking at the stew that the madam, Se?ora Mari, had set before them. Behind them, a thin, elderly man plucked out a tune on his mandolin. The town's three prostitutes were leaned back in rickety chairs, chatting and sipping dark rum.
It was long past time to say what needed to be said. Max dropped his spoon in the stew and looked at Mezz.
"Tomorrow," he said, "both the bus that runs to Luperón and the one that goes to Santiago come through not long after daybreak."
Mezz put his own spoon down. "I know what you're thinking ..."
"And we know what you're thinking. You can't come with us."
"Why not?"
David said, "This isn't a lark anymore. We were honest with you about what the storekeeper told us. Things have taken a turn. Our work is sensitive and it's risky. Risky, as in dangerous."
"Mrs. Gillis didn't raise a coward--"
"We're not being clear enough? This isn't about you being brave," Max said. "It's about you being in the way. We can't do our business with you underfoot. You don't understand anything about it, and that can get us all killed."
"I don't buy your cruel hype for a second, jack. You're watchin' out for my back. I'm gonna do likewise for you."
"We don't want you looking out for our backs and we don't want you in our business," David said. "Go back to your plane and do what we've paid you to do. We are not your friends, Mezz, we're your customers."
Mezz leaned back, his face stony. "I don't believe a word -"
"Do we look like we give a shit what you believe?" Max snapped.
Even in the low light, he could see the kid's face flush. Mezz pushed away from the table. "Yeah. Sure," he said, his voice brittle. "Copasetic, dads. It's your grease in my kick so I'll go back to work. See ya in Santiago."
He grabbed one of the grandes off the table and marched off. Max waited to make sure he was well away before slumping forward. "Shit," he said, propping his elbows on the table. He rubbed his face.
"We'll make it up to him when we get back," David said reassuringly, but Max knew David was thinking what both of them always thought just before a hunt:
If we get back .
Imbert , República Dominicana
Spring, 1950
Dawn. Second Quarter Moon.
Birdsong and dawn seeped through the shuttered window and woke Mezz. His room was between Max and David's, the dividing walls just rows of thin planks cannibalized from some abandoned hut. He heard them yawn and scratch and get off of their creaky cots. He could see their movements through the gaps.
When they tapped on his door, then peered in, he pretended he was still asleep.
He stayed put until the rattle and growl of an overworked bus came into town. He heard Max yakking a question in Spanish and recognized the word Luperón in his question. The driver yelled over the rattling engine, " Sí ," and then Mezz jumped off the cot to open his shutters. He leaned out the window in time to watch the ass end of the bus heading west. With no other passengers, it was easy to glimpse Max and David sitting inside, 'way too tall to be locals.
Mezz smiled to himself, smug and sure they'd bought his act last night. Not that Max and David hadn't put on a good show themselves. What they had said to him, and the way they said it, had enough sting to make him start wondering, after he'd drained that grande. But by the time his beer buzz wore off, he was back to being certain they'd just been jackin' with him.
No matter how evil they pretended to be, he knew they were good jims. No way to really hide a heart. It just comes through. Mezz liked them and, anyway, he wasn't about to get this close to an adventure, a real killer-diller, then turn tail and run. He didn't know exactly what it was they were up to, but it was one wild truck, he was certain, since they were so worried about Mezz's hide. There must be bandidos skulking behind every tree, where they were going. Sons of bitches that would slaughter a whole family. Max and David would need all the help they could get.
So his plan was to cool his heels in Imbert, see if they showed back up on the late bus or not. If it was "not," he was going to be on that Luperón ride himself at daybreak. Once he was there and they'd got their bitchin' out of their system, they'd be glad for the extra set of hands.
He dressed, ate the soup that Se?ora Mari served for breakfast and sipped strong coffee sweetened with condensed milk. When Flora, the prettiest of the lot, sauntered in, yawning from wherever it was she had spent the night, he passed the time flirting with her. Wow, it was sexy , man, gammin' to a chick when neither understood a word the other was saying. Had to be all in the eyes and body groove. He got even braver, copped a feel, kissed her ear, then lost his nerve. He tipped her and Se?ora Mari and went back to his room, rubbing his crotch.
The sun was just a little past its zenith when, sipping a peque?a sized beer at the storekeeper's, Mezz heard the Dominican blair of a car radio. It preceded an old Hudson Eight skidding into town. Just like Mezz's driver the day before, this one stopped the car in front of Antony's store and shut down. The paying customer leaned over the back of the driver's seat and, as he handed the driver a slip of paper, told him in English, "Ask that man if he knows where I can find this person."
To Mezz's surprise, the driver looked right at him and yammered in Spanish.
Mezz said, "No, jack, I'm American."
The fellow in the back of the car leaned toward his open window. His looks took Mezz by surprise. Enough so, he asked stupidly, "You American, too?"
The man smirked, took a long drag off his cigarette and said, "Yeah. Me, too."
By now, Antony had come out and was talking with the driver. When he was handed the paper, Antony glanced sharply at Mezz, then pushed the paper back at the driver as though it had turned rotten and stinking in his hand. He spoke rapidly in Spanish, but Mezz picked up one word: Luperón.
The driver turned to his rider and started to translate, but Mezz interrupted as he clambered to his feet. "Hey, man, you goin' to Luperón?"
The rider eyed Mezz a long moment, then asked his driver, "Is Luperón where we need to go?"
"Yes, but the storekeeper say -"
"Jack! I'm headed that way myself. How's about we split the fare?"
The rider shook his head and took another drag. "Not interested."
"Aw, come on, man, I got a couple friends I gotta meet there and the next bus won't truck that way 'til dawn tomorrow."
"I said I'm not interested."
"Look, I'll grease the whole ride from here to there. All on me, jack, whatdiya say. Cop a fellow Yank a break, huh?"
It was as though something clicked on behind the passenger's eyes. "You said you have a couple of friends there? American, too?"
"Red, white and blue, man. Or, at least, red 'n' white." Mezz grinned at his own joke, even if the clyde he was talking to wouldn't be able to get it.
The man sat back, staring straight ahead for a moment, then came back to the car window. "Well ... tell you what ... yeah ... sure. Why not?" He opened the back door and scooted over.
"Righteous. Righteous! Thanks a lot, man. Wait just one sec, okay? My gear's stashed inside, won't take a minute ..."
Antony was right behind him, barking in Spanish all the way as Mezz ran in to snatch up his ruck sack and the clyde kept it up all the way back out. Not even a fat tip shut him up. His yap was still flapping as Mezz hopped into the back of the car and they left him in the dust.
Mezz looked at his fellow passenger and thrust out his hand. "Thanks again, jack," he said, raising his voice over the car's radio. "And I meant what I said. I'm greasin' this ride the rest of the way."
The man switched his cigarette over to his left and accepted the hand shake. "If you insist," he shouted back.
"Where'd you come in from, jack?"
"From Puerto Plata. How about yourself?"
"Flew my bird in to Santiago. Gotta good-sized lake there that takes small and medium cargo flights. Easy Street, y'know? Less tubs to dodge and calmer water than a seaport landing."
The man took a long drag off the cig. "Really. You're a private pilot? You have a plane?"
"A beauty, man, she's a cool beat queen."
"Sounds nice. These friends you're meeting ... they hired you to fly them here?"
"All the way in and back out again. Hey, I'm sorry, man, rude of me not to do an intro." He held his hand out once again. "I'm Mezz."
The man smiled and accepted the second handshake. "Well, Mezz, I'm glad to meet you. Call me Art. "
"Man, it is something , you comin' along when you did. Imagine the luck!"
"Yeah," the man replied. "Imagine."
Luperón , República Dominicana
Spring, 1950
Midmorning. Second Quarter Moon.
Luperón was about the size of Imbert. But, while Imbert was set at a crossroads between two growing cities, Luperón was a fishing village with a little harbor enclosed by three sides of hill country. True to its Spanish roots Luperón centered around a tree-lined plaza central fringed by a dozen or so buildings.
The bus driver stopped in front of the plaza, where forty or more people were waiting, heavy with luggage, goats and chickens. They didn't have the look of day trippers or traders going into Puerto Plata or Santiago to buy and sell goods. Their faces were grim; half appeared to be entire families. These were people leaving permanently, burdened with their dearest possessions.
Max and David had to push against the current to get off the bus. The driver muscled his way through, too, climbed onto the top of the bus and started catching luggage tossed to him as the riders jockeyed their way in. About half of the would-be passengers were edged out, and somewhere inside a man and woman began calling in a panic, realizing one of their children was still among the unlucky ones outside. Several people pushed and shoved the little one through the crowd until she could be grabbed by those pressed against the bus's entry and pulled inward. The driver finished lashing down the luggage, climbed down and squeezed back into the bus.
Those left behind backed off to sit beneath the plaza's shade trees, with nothing to do now but wait for the late afternoon run, when they would begin the struggle to board once again.
"God in Heaven," Max said. "This town is close to being emptied."
The people were eyeing him and David curiously as the two of them looked around. Most of the buildings were shuttered or boarded up. The only activity was in the plaza itself or far past the west end, where the dirt road became a rough stone and concrete wharf. There, Max could see a few fishermen returning from their early morning runs, lashing their little two-man barcas dockside and hoisting their catches to shore. But most of the simple wooden vessels were idle; abandoned and bumping against the wharf, their masts bare of canvas.
"If this town gets much emptier, the Beast'll be on the move soon," Max said. Maybe Papo Salvador -the suspected host-was on the bus right now as it trundled eastward. "I hope to hell whoever translated Se?ora Maya's letter is still here."
"My guess is that he is," David replied and nodded toward the north end of the plaza. There sat Luperón's little church. About the size of the one in Imbert, this one didn't have stucco over its bricks, although the bricks themselves had been whitewashed.
Max nodded. If anyone in this fishing village spoke English, he'd most likely be the priest. David paid a man the equivalent of his family's bus fare, and the villager helped lug the weapons trunk and suitcases across the plaza and into the church.
Inside, with all the windows to the little sanctuary shuttered, the gloom still held the coolness of the night before. There was the smell of old, varnished wood and sea air dampness. Max and David walked down the aisle between the pews, and Max called, " Hola ! Hello? Anyone here?"
They were wandering around the altar when a door to the left opened and a woman -tall and pale for a Dominicana - approached. In the gloom, her face floated disembodied like a ghost's, an effect of the floor-length dress and long, black head covering: a nun's habit. But the aura of melancholy she wore was no effect.
" Buenas ," she greeted, fatigued but pleasant, offering a smile. Then she tilted her head in surprise and said in fluent, accented English, "But you're not Dominicans. British? German? Did I hear you call out in English?"
"Yes, we did," David replied.
"But neither your accent nor your face, sir, is British .."
"American."
"American! Both of you?"
"I'm the original," David replied, "he's the knock-off."
She laughed and seemed relieved to have a reason for doing it. She was young. Max guessed not even thirty (but, hell, as Max got older everyone seemed younger).
"My gracious! Goodness ... welcome, I'm sorry, welcome to Luperón. It's just that we get very few foreigners here, and even fewer Americans. Let me open some of these shutters .."
Max and David helped her and, as the light entered, the growing heat of the day wafted in with the sea breeze.
"Please, sit with me," she said, moving to the front pew. "I'm Sister Veronica Maria."
"I'm Mark Stonehill," Max replied, "and this is Daniel Johnson." He and David sat to either side of her.
"Stonehill? What a coincidence." The sister tilted her head again, a mix of curiosity and concern in her eyes. "Or is it?"
Pay dirt . "No, sister, no coincidence. Lloyd was my cousin ..."
Her expression plummeted. "Was ...?"
"Yes, Sister. He passed away a few weeks ago."
" Madre Mía " She was visibly shaken by the news and crossed herself slowly. "May God rest his soul. What happened? "
"An infection." Of a sort .
"Oh ..." Her gaze drifted, as though she was contemplating all the tragic news coming her way lately. "Poor, poor Mr. Stonehill. Did he suffer?"
"For a little while, yes," David said. "But not as long as some."
"Ah ... dear. This is dreadful news. He was a hero here, you know."
Max smiled. "That's not the way he told it."
"That would be the way of such a man, I suppose."
"Did you know Lloyd well?"
"No one here knew him well. He and the other men on his boat were with us only a short time. Their stay would have been even shorter had he not been injured in that awful attack. They had come around from re-fueling in Puerta Plata and had only anchored here to wait out some rough seas and weather."
"He was always reluctant when he talked with us about it," David said. "But he did admit to helping save a man while he was here ... a Se?or Salvador. That's his name, right? Se?ora Maya's husband? She kept in touch with Lloyd."
"He said he only helped? He was being modest. He was the only help, until others arrived afterward."
"We thought so, once we found this in his effects."
As he had in Imbert, David fished Se?ora Maya's letter from his back pocket and showed it to the sister. She looked at it, her smile sad and wistful.
"Yes, I remember writing this for her. She didn't speak English, you see. In any case, like most here, her education was limited. Trujillo sitting in his government palace cares very little about schooling so far away from Santo Domingo. Father Bartholomew and I do what we can ... I mean -rather-did what we could." She gave the letter back to David. "But ... there's something you should know ..."
To spare her, Max interrupted. "When we came through Imbert, we heard about Se?ora Maya and her children."
Sister Veronica looked at him, her expression pinched and stricken. "After such joy over the recovery of Papo and Mr. Stonehill, we cannot bear what has happened to Rosa and the children ... and to Bonito ... and to Father ..."
Max swallowed. One thing at a time , he told himself. First, he and David had to find out all they could about the twinned incarnation. "We were hoping to meet Se?or Salvador. That's one of the things that brought us here. But, now, after hearing the news, we thought he might have moved away."
"Papo? No, he's still here. I'm sure it would please him to meet a relative and a friend of Mr. Stonehill's."
Without a trace of irony, David replied, "We're relieved to hear that. Can you tell us where to find him?"
"Well ... of course, but ... please understand. Life here for us has become ... difficult. And in all of Luperón, Papo has suffered the greatest. He lost his entire family less than three months ago. I'm sure you're very curious and want to hear about Mr. Stonehill's bravery but ... Papo remembers little of that night. And so much has happened here since then." Sister Veronica was looking at David, but seemed to lose focus for a moment.
"We understand," Max said. Se?or Salvador's amnesia was no surprise. A lot of hosts couldn't recall much about being bitten. "Maybe it would be too painful for him, asking him to talk to about what he and Lloyd went through. "
"Could you tell us about it, Sister?" David asked.
"Oh, yes, everyone in Luperón can tell the tale." Sister Veronica finally managed to smile again, if only a little, and crossed her hands in her lap. "The Saints guided Mr. Stonehill's hand. He could not have done what he did without a miracle. The night is much darker down at the dock than in town, you see. There are no buildings or generators near. In the wee hours before dawn, when the men ready their boats, they do so by lamplight. Papo had gone there early because he had neglected to change out his fishing nets the day before. They have to be bundled in such a way for proper casting. That was when he was attacked.
"Clearly, divine grace put Mr. Stonehill there. The Britain and Bahamian he was sailing with had stayed behind at ... well ... to be frank, sirs, every Dominican settlement or town big enough to have its own cock fighting ring also is big enough to have its own bordello. You understand? Luperón is no different."
"Of course ..."
"As I said, Papo remembers nothing of the attack. He was bent over his nets and was struck from behind. Dear Mr. Stonehill ... he blamed himself for not acting more quickly. By his own admission, he was bleary-eyed from rum and beer. The creature was already stalking Papo when Mr. Stonehill chanced upon it. The creature had a remarkable pelt -a silvery sheen that is difficult to describe-and against the white of the road under the moon, Mr. Stonehill didn't realize what he was seeing until the animal moved.
"At first, Mr. Stonehill's drunkenness played tricks with him. From a distance he thought it was not one large creature, but two smaller ones ... dogs, slinking up to beg for scraps. The satos here -the strays -are always doing so. No one could have expected to see what he saw.
"Before Mr. Stonehill could even begin yelling, the creature had Papo in its jaws and was dragging him along the wharf toward the mangroves. Mr. Stonehill was running toward it, pulling the only weapon he had from the sheath at his belt, when the animal turned. He had only enough time to thrust the knife forward before the creature was upon him. The force of the animal slamming into him pushed his knife -and the hand holding it-deep into the creature's throat."
"That's incredible," David said.
"What it is, sirs, is miraculous," the sister replied, "as was the healing of both Papo's and Mr. Stonehill's wounds. Papo should have died that night. Indeed, he very nearly did. But Mr. Stonehill didn't allow it." She looked at Max. "I'm sure you already know your cousin was a war veteran ..."
Max nodded. "Merchant Marines."
"He credited his service for his life-saving skills. Dragging himself out from beneath the dead creature, he went to Papo and -while he couldn't entirely stop it-he kept the bleeding to a minimum and breathed life back into him every time Papo's own breath stopped. This he did in spite of his own injuries. His wrist was broken from the force of the attack. And the thing's fangs had imbedded between his shoulder and breastbone. He had to pull himself off those fangs before he could go to Papo's aid.
"By the time he had Papo's chest and arm trussed, men were coming to their boats. They hurried to fetch our grocer, who owns an old truck ... all there is in Luperón ... and Mr. Stonehill kept Papo breathing all the way to Puerto Plata."
"Lloyd left a lot of that out," Max said. "It was hard to get him to talk about it very much."
Sister Veronica nodded. "Who would want to recall such a horror? The entire town prayed day and night for them. And what joy it was, when our prayers were answered. Beyond expectation. Word came from the Puerta Plata clinic that both men were healing at a remarkable pace, although Papo's left arm was too badly mangled to be saved. The doctor removed it from the elbow downwards. Yet, even with such injuries, Mr. Stonehill left the clinic in a matter of days and, Papo, less than two weeks.
"But now you bring word of Mr. Stonehill's death. After all he endured, to be taken by an infection ... was it somehow related to his wounds?"
"Yes, it was," David replied.
Sister Veronica shook her head and seemed to lose herself in thought. Then she said, "With what is happening here, your news is grief upon grief."
"We saw all the people leaving," Max said. "And while we were in Imbert, besides the news about the se?ora and her children ... well ... we heard rumors ..."
The sister's hands fluttered toward her face and shielded her eyes. From beneath her palms, her voice was muffled. "Grief upon grief," she said again, then wiped tears from her lashes before folding her hands back onto her lap.
Max leaned toward her and coaxed, "Sister, what do you think is happening here?"
Sister Veronica hesitated a moment, then said, "You know, until the attack on Papo and Mr. Stonehill, I believed only in the grace of the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Mother and all the Heavenly Saints. When I was a little girl growing up in Spain I also believed in Satan, though that belief had been fading long before I took my vows. Perhaps ... perhaps I'm beginning to believe again."
"Sister," David began, "you didn't once name the animal that attacked Se?or Salvador and Lloyd. You don't seem to think it was a dog -even an impossibly large one. Or even a wolf."
Sister Veronica looked at him. "You didn't see the carcass. You'd have to see it to understand. That thing was no dog. And a wolf? Wolves have never been native to this land."
"But people have been known to keep exotic animals. Maybe some wealthy land owner liked the idea of owning a wolf pup-"
"This was no wolf, sir."
"Why are you so sure?" Max asked.
Sister Veronica's eyes flashed. "It was no wolf." Then she sighed and lifted her hands from her lap in a momentary, helpless gesture. "I don't expect you to understand. You didn't see the thing."
Max said simply, "Chupacabra."
Sister Veronica looked at him with a start. But then, seemed disappointed. "Oh. I see. The rumor you heard in Imbert."
"What if we told you we believed in Chupacabra, too?"
The sister cocked her head warily. "Why would two Americans believe in such a thing?"
"We're acquainted with a mystery or two ourselves," David replied.
"Sister," Max said. "Do you believe what attacked Se?or Salvador and Lloyd that night was Chupacabra?"
There was still a wariness in her eyes, but she replied, "Anyone who'd had the chance to see the carcass before Trujillo's men took it away named it Chupacabra. Though, I did not. Nor Father Bartholomew. Not at first. But even if I had agreed with the others, it's my duty to care for these people not send them into a panic. But then .. but then, the mutilation of Rosa and her children." The sister put her hand to her mouth a moment, swallowing hard, before lowering it again. "They were all ... the house was smeared ... The younger three were so close in age that we're still not sure if the remains were properly matched to each child ..."
Gently, David asked, "How is it that Papo Salvador survived?"
"He is still adjusting to life with half an arm, you see. So until he feels capable to return to fishing, he has taken up harvesting the freshwater shrimps -what would you call them in America-crayfish, yes?" She measured the air with her index fingers; about five inches or so. "They grow large in this country. He makes ends meet this way. He was away when his family was killed. Up in the forests making camp near the streams." Sister Veronica's gaze wandered once more and she shook her head slowly. "To go through so much. Having to leave his family for days at a time so he might feed them, so soon after returning from the clinic ... then to come home to ... to that."
Max cleared his throat. "It's ... it would be horrifying." And it'll be even more so, once Papo remembers he's the one who butchered them .
"A few weeks later, Bonito Alvarez was killed. And then ... then Father Bartholomew ..." This time the sister thrust her head upward, blinking back tears and breathing hard. "Both of them the same as the children and Rosa."
Max and David fumbled around their pockets. David was the first one to come up with his bandanna. He tucked it into the sister's right hand, then glanced at Max with a sudden, distressed look. Sister Veronica leaned forward and sobbed.
Max and David waited. Eyebrows arched in a question, Max looked across the sister's back at David. David mouthed the word, "Later." Max, with the sour taste of dread in his mouth, nodded.
Slowly Sister Veronica righted herself, wiping her eyes. "So, yes," she said, bitterly. "Yes. I believe, now, in Chupacabra. God's Saints sent us a miracle through Mr. Stonehill to thwart Satan's approach. Satan answers by bringing Chupacabra back from the dead to tear Luperón apart."
"Will you go, too?" David asked, doing a hell of a job of sounding calm. But Max knew David too well not to know what his dueling hopes were: one, that she would go, and, the other, that she would stay. If David had seen what Max thought he had seen, then, because of Sister Veronica, the Beast was staying, too.
"How can I go? How can I leave them?" The sister gazed wearily ahead, trembling a little.
"It looks as if most of them are already gone," Max said, knowing he sounded too eager for her to leave, but he couldn't help it.
"No," she insisted. And, as if trying to convince herself more than Max or David, she added, "If only one person remains I must, too."
They all went quiet then, until Sister Veronica drew a deep breath, mustered a weak smile and returned David's bandanna. "But enough. You want to meet with Papo. I'm sure he will welcome your visit. Let me draw you a little map."
She left through the door beside the altar.
Max whispered, "You're sure you saw it?"
"Not as sure as I want to be. We need a better look."
Max mumbled an oath. Sister Veronica came back with a pad, a pencil and something wrapped in a clean cotton cloth. She began jotting away: lines for pathways, squiggles for river beds, squares for shacks. She drew little arrows, pointing the way through the landmarks to Papo Salvador and the Beast.
"This should get you there," she said as she worked.
"Sister," David said, "our Spanish is passable, but, to tell you the truth, we could use your help as a translator. Is there any way you could go with us to Se?or Salvador's?"
She stopped drawing for a moment to consider. "If you can wait until tomorrow morning, I can accompany you then."
"What about this afternoon?" Max asked. "Or this evening, maybe?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, this won't be possible. Without Father Bartholomew, I am all that is left for the people. Soon they will begin wandering in for prayer and solace, and that will happen off and on until the late-day bus leaves. Then anyone who is left behind this evening will stay the night in the sanctuary. No one here risks a venture after dark now. But I will be happy to meet you early tomorrow morning."
"Sure, sister, thanks," Max said, and took the map when she tore it from the pad.
"And this," she said, taking up the cotton-clothed bundle. She looked at Max. "I suppose this is also what brought you to Luperón?"
"Sister ...?"
"Because of Mr. Stonehill's passing. You said there was another reason why you have come, other than to meet Papo." She motioned to Max and when he held out his hands, she gave him the bundle. "If the circumstances here were different ... if our future in Luperón were not so uncertain ... I would ask that you allow it to remain with us. It has become a local object of veneration for the townspeople. But now I think it would be better if it were taken to safety. To Mr. Stonehill's family."
Max stared at the bundle a moment before carefully pulling the edges of the cloth back. And there lay Lloyd Stonehill's blade, broad and weighty, a magnificent Bowie knife. It had been cleaned of all traces of blood, lovingly cared for since that fateful night, when Lloyd had driven it wrist-deep into the throat of the Dominican lineage.
The ornate silverplate trim, glorious against the hilt's black leather, gleamed softly in the light of Sister Veronica's little church.
 \*
If a crossroads town like Imbert didn't have enough overnight travelers to keep an inn, Luperón was even less likely. But what Luperón did have was an abundance of abandoned buildings and homesteads. The sister recommended a few houses that had been freshly vacated and Max and David chose one that put them between Sister Veronica and Papo Salvador. One of the few fishermen left in town had two teenaged sons, and the sister sent for them to help Max and David tote their belongings. They paid the boys, as well, to return to town for larder, cooking supplies and coffee.
The house was relatively clean, having been left behind only days earlier. A pretty nice place. It even had a plank floor. It was a two room, tin-roofed, log and plaster hovel that still had its furnishings: a table with four chairs in the front room and a wooden bed with a woven rope center, not quite the size of an American double bed. Not much by some people's estimates, maybe, but a lot better than renting cots at the local cathouse. That thought brought Mezz to mind, and Max smiled to himself as he and David flipped a buffalo nickel to see who got the bed.
"Shit."
"Better luck next time," David said without a trace of regret. He turned back to the weapons trunk, crouched down and flipped it open. "When Aldo and Reubén come back, why don't you see if somebody has another bed to sell?"
"Already there in my mind," Max replied, looking over David's head. "Everything intact?"
David pulled out the layers of clothing, photo equipment and first false bottom with its silver. He popped out the second false bottom, eyed the handguns, the shotguns and did a cursory count of the cartridges and other munitions. "All good." Max handed him Lloyd Stonehill's knife, still wrapped in its cloth, and David tucked it in with the weapons. He dropped the top back down.
They took two of the chairs and went outside, where the former occupants had made a front porch of sorts: a stand-alone pavilion that was a network of wooden uprights and cross-poles supporting rusty tin panels spotty with holes.
They sat together without a word for quite a while. Having been friends and allies for so many years, their small talk days were behind them. They only thought aloud when they were ready for one another's input, or when Max felt like yanking David's chain.
Eventually they saw the two boys making their way up the rutted road with a small horse carrying the supplies. Max and David stood and sauntered out to the edge of the road to watch their approach.
David said, "It's just as well that Sister Veronica couldn't come with us today."
Max mulled that over, then nodded. With so little time left, keeping the rest of the day to themselves to plan was probably a better way to spend it. He thought, too, of what the sister had said about the people of Luperón and the night: No one here risks a venture after dark . That was going to make it a lot easier for him and David to spy on Papo Salvador. A lucky break.
And they needed all the breaks they could get. First Night was less than seventy-two hours away.
República Dominicana
Spring, 1950
Midday. Second Quarter Moon.
Through hooded eyes, Art -as he was calling himself for this hunt-watched his traveling companion clutch the edge of the back seat.
Mezz yelled over the car radio to Art, "Doesn't anybody in this country know how to drive?"
Mezz . It wasn't even a real name. In this new movement slouching out of New York, the term was supposed to mean something like "genuine" or "excellence." But just like this guy, spoiled and coddled by his well-off parents, the beat movement was a sham. A bunch of white kids pretending they were disenfranchised, when they'd never suffered a day in their lives. Even their language was an identity theft; stolen from jive, the lingo of the jazz community. The only thing Art had in common with Mezz and his kind was their generation.
Mezz. You're as naive and phony as your name. If you were half as savvy as you like to think, you wouldn't be so gabby, spilling everything you know -or what you think you know-about Max and David. Yeah, I know who they are. You think you're clever, just because you don't name names? Mezz. What a piece of work you are. What a piece of luck.
Maybe to relax himself, maybe because he just couldn't hide his curiosity anymore, Mezz launched into small talk.
"So, Art, what the hell brings you to this backwater, man?"
"I've never been here before. Came to see what I could see. I heard the people and the countryside were the cat's meow." He gazed out the window and smoked, waiting. Waiting for the question he knew Mezz was dying to ask.
"Where you from? Originally, I mean."
Yeah, there it was: vulgar curiosity masked as polite interest.
Art smiled as he flicked his spent cigarette out the window and fished another one from the pack in his shirt pocket. "I like to think of myself as a citizen of the world."
Just as Art figured he would, Mezz let the question go and warmed to the bullshit. "Yeah ... yeah, I dig. Me, too. Who needs borders, right?"
"Exactly, my friend." Art pointed toward Mezz with his cigarette hand: affirming, chummy. "It's the new view. The authentic way to be. The oldsters? Too damn busy rearranging lines on their maps." He tapped the side of his head. "Still fighting wars in here, you know?"
Mezz nodded. "Too sad and too true ..."
"It's not that I don't respect what they've done. But they've forgotten why they fought in the first place. It wasn't just about a free world, it was about freedom of the mind."
"That is bible, jack. You are speakin' gospel."
"The trouble is, that respect doesn't go both ways. They still treat us like the kids they were protecting from the Nazis, you know?"
Mezz tried to do some pointing of his own for emphasis, but he couldn't leave the seat's edge unclutched long enough. "Hey, we're all grown up now. They need to dig on that."
Art nodded and, as he leaned toward the front seat, affected an agreeable nonchalance in his reply. "Nice to meet a kindred spirit." Then he yelled over the music to the driver, "When we're about a mile from the town, general, you can drop me off."
He brought his attention back to Mezz and made his first real move. "We must be getting close to Luperón by now. We're going to beat the bus by a couple of hours easy. From what you've told me, your hires are the kind of guys that would truss you up and stick you on the bus themselves."
"Neigho, nothin' like that," Mezz said. "They may be a couple of dads, but they're righteous. If it comes down to lettin' me stay or cold-cockin' me, they'll vote 'stay'."
You idiot. They'd cold-cock you, all right, if it meant keeping you safe or keeping you out of their way.
"I didn't mean that literally," Art replied. "It's just, these oldsters sound like they've been around the block a couple of times. Suppose they glad-hand you and suggest a round of beer? Maybe, after a few of those, they start on rum shots, last man standing, that kind of thing?" The look of uncertainty on Mezz's face was gratifying. "Next thing you know, you more or less wake up on the bus headed out of Luperón."
Mezz recovered to a degree and shrugged off the comment, flexing his wiry arms. "Hell, I'm no youngster when it comes to guzzlin' foam, jack. I know my frame deceives, but trust me --" he slapped his thigh "-this leg right here is hollow."
Art just smiled in reply and let his silence linger beneath the blare of music. Mezz worked his lips, as if chewing on Art's last comment. The driver slowed, turned down the radio, and said, "We are here maybe one mile from town, se?or ."
"This'll do, thanks."
The lay of the land had opened up a little, so that the road was neither tightly hemmed in by deep, plant-choked ditches nor dense, mahogany hillsides. The driver pulled well to the side. He left the engine running, hooked his arm over the back of his seat and waited.
"This is my stop," Art told Mezz, who was looking around, perplexed and frowning.
"I figured you had a chick or a buddy livin' in a little nest just outside town. But, man, this is just more of nowhere, jack."
"I'm a camper, Mezz. Cuts costs and it beats some of the fleabags I've come across while on the road." He timed his next comment, waiting a moment, then said, "Look, you're welcome to come with me for a few hours. This is beautiful country and I'm looking forward to some hiking. That way you can kill a little time, let the bus come and go before looking up your friends."
Mezz brightened a little, as if he were tempted, but then replied, "Neigho, man. Thanks, but better not. I mean, hell, no telling what kinda trouble they're already in."
Art lit another cigarette, smiled and opened his car door. "Suit yourself. But if that's your only worry, bandidos do most of their dirty work after sundown. You're more at risk of being sent back to Imbert by your hires than they are of being robbed in broad daylight. " He got out of the car, then ducked his head back in. "Mind helping me with my gear?"
"Oh! Sure, man, no sweat ..."
As Mezz hopped out of the car, the driver did the same. But Art held him back a pace. "S'okay, amigo," he said, close and genial in the man's ear, "we've got it. Once we have our things you can head back." He had already paid the driver to get him to Imbert and now slipped him a generous handful for the Luperón leg.
The driver was clearly relieved to not be going the whole way. "Thank you very much, se?or ." He walked back to unlock the trunk then returned to his seat and cranked up the radio again.
"Could've used a little help here," Mezz grumbled to Art, who shrugged.
"Yeah. Must be time for his midday rum and siesta."
Mezz laughed and, as he was setting down the small locker that held the cooking supplies, Art pulled out Mezz's rucksack, as if to make it easier to reach the rest of his own gear. He positioned himself so the driver could see him via the Hudson's side mirror. When he and Mezz had pulled out the last of the equipment, Art nodded pleasantly at the man. The driver waved and peeled out, radio at full volume.
Mezz jerked upward. "Hey! Hey!" He chased after the Hudson as it made a U-turn, but Art pushed the crate of canned goods just enough to catch Mezz's foot. He stumbled, saved himself from falling, but by then the car was uncatchable, trailing a stream of dust and fading Dominican merengue.
"Aw, Shit!"
"Damn! Man, Mezz, I'm sorry. Stupid son-of-a-bitch, he must've misunderstood!"
"Well, hell, jack, he left without gettin' paid, what cabbie leaves without gettin' paid!"
"No, Dominicans always get their money upfront. I paid him back in Puerto Plata to take me where ever I needed. It's okay, Mezz, don't worry about that. It's just ... damn, anyway, tough luck!"
Mezz paced, looking up and down the road. In the still air, Art listened to the locusts sing as he stood in the dusty grass, lit another cigarette and watched Mezz.
"Aw ... it's okay," Mezz finally said, walking back. "It's not your fault."
"It's not more than a mile or so to town. That's not such a bad hike."
"A longer hoof than it needed to be ..."
"Look. I'd feel bad about you paying me for the trip from Imbert after the screw up." When Mezz began a half-hearted protest, Art insisted. "No, I mean it. Say what you want, but it's clear I confused the guy."
"Yeah ... but ... yeah, okay, if that's the way you want it." He looked worried, gazing off toward Luperón.
Art stuffed his lighter and pack of Luckys back into his shirt pocket and came up to Mezz. "Man, those old men of yours don't know a good friend when they meet one. They dump you in Imbert like they were sending you back to kindergarten and you still won't give up on them."
He walked over to his camping equipment, squatted down and opened the supply locker as if checking things over, his palms going clammy as he stared at the hatchet inside. He twisted around to look up at Mezz.
He said, "I don't mean to keep you from your journey, but could I ask one more favor? I need to find a good camp site, and an extra pair of hands would make the set up a lot easier. When I get into town tomorrow, I'll come find you and all the grandes will be on me. Including for your hires."
Mezz gazed off toward Luperón, again. "I'd like to, man, but ..."
Art rose up, leaving the hatchet where it lay, but also leaving the locker lid open. He walked over to Mezz once more. "Okay, admittedly, I'd sure like the help setting up camp, but here's how I think it'd work out better for you, too. Think about this, Mezz. What's going on here could be a blessing in disguise. If you had breezed into town in that car, all hepped up like Superman, those friends of yours wouldn't have seen you as anything but some kid that was getting in the way of their business. Right? Am I right?"
"Hey, once I can get in their ear --"
"Laying low until the bus leaves would mean you have the rest of the afternoon and the whole night to get in their ear. You head in there now, you've got an hour, an hour and a half at best to make your case." Art backed off a step or two, his hands up as if done with the whole subject. "But, hey, you do what you're gonna do. I'm just saying that if you want to impress those dads, maybe you should show them a little patience and savvy."
He backed toward the locker again, watching Mezz think. He let his fingers graze the open lid. Mezz turned, a look of mock accusation on his face.
"You're just lookin' for a strong back, jack."
Art smiled and shrugged. "Just what I said. But I like you, man. I mean, you're a world citizen, like me. I think you got something to show those old farts."
Mezz smiled. "Okay. But I'm warnin' you, I will cash in on those grandes tomorrow. I told you before, I gotta hollow leg."
 \*
For effect, Art suggested they carry what they could, but his only real interest was carrying the hatchet in his backpack, saying it'd come in handy if they needed to do a little clearing. He didn't know if Mezz had any weapons in his ruck sack, so he suggested that Mezz leave it for last. Better to take the tent first, so they can get it staked down and ready for the rest of the equipment. Art handed him the tent bag and Mezz slung it over his arm. They hauled the rest of the equipment and supplies from the roadside and stashed them behind some scrub.
It was tricky; finding the right place to do what had to be done. Mezz balked at the idea of marching headlong into the forest, where the palms and mahogany looked impenetrable. "Hell, man, we're gonna need more than your hand ax to cut our way into that."
And Mezz insisted they may as well walk toward Luperón in their search for a camp site. Art didn't dare make a move out in the open, not knowing when a vehicle, a pedestrian or someone on horseback might appear any moment. So he walked on, biding his time.
In a short while they came upon Luperón's cockfighting ring and, not long after that, its shabby little whorehouse. They hadn't run into another living soul the whole time. Now it looked as though even this two-cot brothel had been abandoned.
Mezz dropped the tent bag and stretched his back. "Man, this place is a ghost town. The storekeep back in Imbert got all evil on us with dire warnings, but, jack, I did not surmise the place would be such a drag."
Neither did I , Art thought. He wondered if there was enough prey left to keep the Luperón incarnation interested. Or was the Beast already on the move? The complications were increasing. Max and David had very nearly beaten him to the Dominican Republic. Now it looked as if the Beast may have already used up its feeding grounds. And there was Mezz to deal with, if Art was to have any hope of grounding Max and David. He felt a little sick and the Beast within him was stirred by his agitation.
Get over it , he told himself. You were bound to cross paths with them sooner or later. And you are every bit the hunter those two are. Every bit as good at thinking on your feet.
Mezz swiped the back of his hand across his sweaty upper lip. "Jack, I can definitely use a beer now. Let's get this trek done and over with."
Art lit another Lucky and wandered beneath the brothel's verandah to the wooden counter that served as the bar. Behind it was an old, warped locker chained to a knot hole in one of the bar's planks.
He called out, "Hello," to make sure he and Mezz were the only ones there.
When he walked inside, then around the back of the whorehouse, Mezz wandered with him. Behind the brothel were the signs of permanence: a little vegetable garden, a water well, a couple of mango trees, a small brick and beam root cellar. But no occupants. They returned to the bar beneath the verandah.
Not a soul. This was a good a place as any.
"Well, if everybody's gone ..." Art said, pulling out his pocket knife. He chose the sturdiest blade and worked it until it was well behind the facing of the locker's hasp. With a couple of yanks and a grunt, the hasp tore free, dangling useless along with the padlock. He pulled out a rum bottle. "... They won't mind if we help ourselves." Smiling, he held it up for Mezz to see.
Mezz looked amazed, amused and nervous. "Damn, jack! You got skills. But ... I mean ... ain't we takin' a cat's rightful gravy ...?"
"We'll make it right. Anyway, from the way things are looking, the whole town might be deserted. Hell, this is their whorehouse and nobody's here. What does that tell you? They're not coming back."
"I dunno, man." Mezz looked toward the road. "I mean, it ain't like I got jelly in my spine. But maybe I should truck along, get square with my friends, y'know? Why don't you think about setting up camp close to here? Not such a bad spot, close to water and all."
Art waggled the rum bottle. "Aw, come on! They practically make this stuff in their back yards, why do you think they didn't bother to take it with them? Besides, the bus hasn't come through yet. You show up too early and you're cooked." He stood and looked around. "You're right, this is nice right here. Let's quench our thirst, and then hike back for the rest of the equipment."
Mezz seemed unsure. Art gave it the briefest of rests, then -as if coming up with a new idea-he set the rum down and shrugged out of his backpack, setting it on the bar in front of him as he opened it.
"You know what? Screw going back for the supplies. There's nobody around to bother them, even if they weren't tucked into the scrub. I can borrow some bedding, grab some mangos and some spuds from the garden, get a can of Spam out of my pack. I'll get a fresh start at first light. Let's park our asses right here and you'll be able to see when the bus comes through. I'll toss some pesos in the locker for what we drink."
He watched Mezz watch him as he picked up the bottle, rocking it back and forth like a metronome. Finally Mezz wiggled his eyebrows, a conspirator in mischief. "Open that queen up, jack."
 \*
Art made sure Mezz quenched some of his thirst from the brothel's well before pouring the first drink. If Mezz were to start feeling queasy instead of high, he might not make it through the first rum. Perhaps he'd try to leave for Luperón, and that would make things much harder. But the cool well water paved the way for the booze and, on an empty stomach, Mezz relaxed quickly.
Drinking wasn't something Art looked forward to. He hadn't touched a drop in years. But there was no getting around it this time. He cut his own drink with water far more than he did Mezz's, shielding the ruse behind the tin pitcher and the rum bottle on the table. He distracted Mezz by pointing out plant and bird life while he made up facts about them. The first rum was followed by a second. Mezz didn't seem to notice how Art nursed his. A third rum followed the second for Mezz. The sun dipped below the tree line. They watched the Luperón bus coming in late, lumbering toward town.
"Hey!" Mezz exclaimed woozily, "there's my cue, jack. Y'say I'm about a thirty minute hoof to town, y'think? No way in hell I'll be there before the bus circles back now. I'm set."
Art yawned and leaned on the table as if he felt the rum as much as Mezz. "Sure you don't want one more for the road?"
"Thanks, man, but I better split." Mezz rose, dug into his pants pocket, and then laid a palmful of pesos on the table. "Here's my part of the damage. This's been the cat's meow, meeting and drinking with you. You're the best. One righteous jim."
Art smiled, stabbed his cigarette out on the table and stood, too. Mezz thrust his hand out unsteadily. "Gonna see ya 'round, right?"
Art slapped his hand into Mezz's for a firm shake. "Sure. I'm going to be here a few days."
"Hoo!" Mezz exclaimed with a loopy grin, still shaking Art's hand. "Man, I am sent . Sure you ain't tryin' to do what you surmised of my buddies? Y' know ... get me all boozed up so you can ship me out?"
Art chuckled, still clinging to Mezz's hand, shaking it, tightening his grip, as he grabbed the rum bottle by its neck. "Naw," he said. Then he swung.
Mezz fell hard against the dirt, blood spurting from beneath his beret. He groaned, tried to pull himself up. Art switched the bottle to his right hand and hit him again. This time he stayed down.
He looked down at Mezz's still form and said, "I boozed you up so I could cold-cock you."
Luperón , República Dominicana
Spring, 1950
Morning. Third Quarter Moon.
An hour after sunrise, as they sipped strong Dominican coffee under the tin roof of their pavilion, Max and David saw Sister Veronica walking up the road. She was escorted by Aldo and Reubén, whom she sent on their way when Max and David rose to meet her.
As the three of them started out, Sister Veronica said, "I was torn between two emotions after the two of you left me yesterday. I worried for you staying in the house you chose. I would have preferred you took up with a family or at least stayed in an empty house closer to town. Yet, if I may speak plainly, there is a strength about you both that helped me sleep a little better, so that my worries were not so great."
She looked long at Max and David. In the brilliant morning -in spite of the fatigue in her eyes-her youth was more obvious than it had been in the muted light of the church. In a motherly voice that made Max chuckle, she gently chided, "But you don't seem so very rested yourselves."
David replied, ""We were a little restless. But we're feeling fine."
And also a little guilty , Max thought. Because of their late night trek, they knew what they would find at Papo Salvador's or, more to the point, what they wouldn't find. Yet they wanted the sister with them, anyway. They wanted to walk with her, learn as much as they could about her nature. If what David had seen in the gloom of the little church really was forming in her palm, then they had to take advantage of it ... no matter how bad the spider-crawl in their guts got for doing so. She would be the reason the Beast was lingering in Luperón. They needed her as much as she was going to need them.
As the road angled upward, Max feigned small talk. "Did you have many stay at the church last night?" He already knew the answer. He and David had had a very busy night, trekking between Papo Salvador's homestead and Luperón.
"A handful."
"How about you, sister? Do you stay with them?"
"Only until most of them settle into sleep. I moved into Father Bartholomew's apartment not long after ... not long after his passing. Before, I lived with the Patricio family. But, they are gone now. They are among those who left after Bonito Alvarez was lost to us. "
"The father kept an apartment, then," David said.
"Well, to call it an apartment is, perhaps, too generous. There is a cot and little side table in a small room adjoined to the church's office. I stay there to be close to those who shelter in the sanctuary at night."
"And maybe," David suggested gently, "so you're not so alone yourself."
They walked on silently for a moment, then Sister Veronica replied, "Yes. Of course. It would be a sin against God to not admit my weaknesses."
"Fear itself isn't a weakness," David said. "But when we don't learn how to deal with fear, we become weakened."
The sister looked at him, an impish appreciation in her eyes. "My goodness, Mr. Daniels. Perhaps you should consider conversion and priesthood."
That had both men chuckling. David replied, "In my people's tradition, I'm a healer. That doesn't quite translate to priesthood in Catholicism, but ..."
The sister smiled. "I understand better than you may think, Mr. Daniels. This is, after all, the República Dominicana . The Indian blood of the Tainos is still strong in her people. I see it every day."
They walked on, the road following the rise and fall of the land, the conversation rising and falling, too, between moments of pleasantries and companionable silence. The day began to heat up. Then the palm thatch roof of Papo Salvador's log house appeared over the final rise.
The sister brushed at the sweat trickling from beneath her head covering, then pointed. "You see that place? We're almost there."
We know , Max thought. Just as he and David knew the hill would flatten into a small steppe that Papo Salvador and his wife Rosa had painstakingly turned into a modest plot with chickens and, probably, a pig or two. Where they had been raising not only a brood of farm animals, but also a happy little brood of children.
Where Papo must have left his bed every morning, long before sunrise, to mount the bicycle that now leaned abandoned against the house, and rode into town and on toward the wharf. Where he must have returned in the early evening, as exhausted from fishing and the trading of those fish as Rosa would have been from tending their children and their farm.
Where they would have faithfully risen every Sunday morning to dress the family in their least worn and least patched best; to walk into town and begin their day at Mass. To collect what earthly pleasure they could in the plaza central with sisters and brothers, cousins and friends, and while away a few precious hours before beginning their labors again in the predawn morning of another Monday.
We know , Max thought, that the only thing remaining of that hard, sweet life was a log-and-plaster house suffering neglect, an overgrown yard where the chickens now fended for themselves and where the pig pen lay empty, its mud dried and cracked.
As they crested the steppe, Sister Veronica slowed. It had to be difficult for her to be here, where Rosa and the children met terrible deaths. But after a moment, she collected herself and called out, "Papo! Hola, Papo ...! ¿Está en su casero? " When she got no reply, her smooth, young forehead creased. "He must not be here," she said.
We know that, too, sister. He's gone. Because the Beast doesn't feel safe here as First Night approaches. Cunning bastard that it is, it never emerges twice in the place of its inaugural kill. So it spurs Papo on to somewhere more secretive, to prepare its unwitting host for its return.
Still, they walked her to the door of the little house. The sister rapped her knuckles against it. "Papo ... Hola ... Buenas, Papo .." She looked around as if to take in the creeping decay of the homestead then tentatively opened the door and peered into the empty house.
"Have you been here since the family's deaths?" David asked.
"No." She closed the door. "I should have been, but .. No. Not since the burial ceremonies."
"Where do you think Se?or Salvador might be?"
Sister Veronica rested her palms against her hips and seemed relieved to turn from the house. She looked toward the dense mahogany of the foothills marching ever upward, the foliage moving from hardwood to conifer as the hills gave way to mountains. "Oh ... I would suppose he is off harvesting the fresh water shrimps." She turned back to look around the property again, and then said thoughtfully, "He's not living so well here, it seems. Maybe he is not living here, now, at all. Who could blame him, but ... I would have thought he would tell me."
"When was the last time you saw him?" Max asked.
"Perhaps ... last week, maybe. No ... sooner. Four or five days ago."
"In town?"
"Yes, getting supplies." She shook her head, suddenly irritated with herself. "I'm sorry, I should have thought of this before bringing you all this way. He visited me at the church, for prayers. He always does before heading off to camp." She looked around one more time. "See, his cart and burro are gone, so he must yet be there. But I would have thought he would return by now. The harvesting is very good in the nearby streams. He isn't usually gone for so very long."
There wasn't any reason to linger at Papo's, except for one remaining matter. Max took a few steps to the sister's right, angling between her and the sun. "So he came to see you before he left?"
Still taking in the condition of the homestead, she replied, "Yes, he comes often. Especially since his family was taken."
"He comes to see you just to pray, you think," Max said gravely.
That brought her attention fully around. She turned quizzically toward him and, in doing so, was stabbed in the eyes with sunlight. She lifted her hand, palm outward to block the glare ...
And there it was. Deceptive to the untrained eye; a seeming aberration, a fluke of nature, if noticed at all. A circle roughed out within the natural creases. And within the loose circular shape, the uneven -but to Max and David-the five unmistakable points of a star. The pentagram, deepening on Sister Veronica's palm as First Night approached. Not the dark pentagram of the Beast, but the paler one of its prey.
"Of course," she said, offense at the fringe of her reply. "Why else?"
Right here, right now, Max could change everything. He could grab her wrist, show her the lines joining, deepening, entwining in her palm, moving toward fulfillment just as the moon was. He could tell her everything and to hell with the consequences. Even if it meant she recoiled with denial and fear and hatred for him and David. Even if it meant she might rally what few townspeople were left and send him and David fleeing for their lives into the high foothills, forcing them to abandon the hunt for the Beast.Or even if it meant Max and David would beg her to flee. To get the hell out of Luperón . Run! Run while Papo Salvador is at his camp, thinking that he's only there to harvest crayfish instead of preparing the Beast for its emergence. Max could do that. He could tell Sister Veronica go now! Before the Beast returns for you! She believed in Chupacabra. Would it be so hard to convince her?
But if she went, so would the Beast. Long before it approached the church, it would sense the absence of her fear. It was notoriously adaptable. It would change its plan; choose a new victim, someone wholly arbitrary if necessary, anything to get by. There would be no telling if Max and David could find the Beast before it dragged the victim off for a slow, torturous feed on the unlucky one's fear. And then it would disappear into the Dominican wilds, vanishing until the next First Night, weeks and weeks away.
By then the Beast would know of Max and David's presence. Luperón , struck yet again, would complete its transformation to a ghost town; abandoned even by its tormentor for fresh hunting grounds. And in this new day and age of mobility and travel, even in a poor country like this, those hunting grounds could be anywhere.
Or maybe, just maybe, Sister Veronica would stay. Maybe she would willingly put herself in harm's way to help them strike this blow to the Beast. Maybe she would work with them, as Doris Tebbe had, the likes of which neither Max nor David had seen since.
So many maybes. Too many. With the approach of First Night, less than seventy-two hours away, Max was thinking of all the failures in between Doris and now, not the successes.
"I'm sorry, Sister," he said, moving to relieve her from the sun's glare. "I didn't mean any offense. I only meant that he might have a little crush on you, lonely and sad as he must be."
She tilted her head, still looking perplexed and ready to be insulted. "I don't understand your meaning with this 'little crush'?"
"It's American slang. Innocent infatuation."
David suggested a Spanish equivalent. " Un enamoramiento inocente "
Sister Veronica blushed and looked away with a shy smile. "Mr. Stonehill, such silliness. Certainly not. Papo is an honest man and a good Catholic."
"I'm sure. I'm sure he is."
The offense apparently forgiven, she glanced around the homestead a final time and said, "Well ... there is little point in remaining. Shall we leave?"
"Where does Se?or Salvador go for the crayfish, do you know?" David asked as they began walking.
"I'm sorry, I don't."
"Do you think anyone else would know?"
"Perhaps. There are a few men who do the same. But, you know, they would all be very jealous of their favorite camps ... like fisherman are of their special places. So I'm not certain those who are still here would know of Papo's camp. But we can ask, of course. Truly, though, I see no reason for you to go to such trouble to find him. The forests are dense and a stranger to them can be easily lost. Papo will return soon, I'm certain."
Me, too, Max thought, as certain as moonrise .
 \*
Under the pavilion of their little house, Max poured rum into his coffee cup, then looked to David, who shook his head and sipped his coffee straight. Max brought his cup to his lips and turned to watch the setting sun shoot bands of amber through a cloud cluster. For just a moment, the sun seemed snagged on the rolling western horizon. It had been another long day. But another night's work was ahead of them. It was the only one left to them before First Night.
David picked up the conversation Max had interrupted to fetch the rum. "We're not going to find him in those hills. Not in time for emergence."
It was hard to say if the men Sister Veronica had introduced to them didn't know the location of Papo's camp, or if they didn't want to be caught in the foothills with Chupacabra on the loose. It didn't matter. The bottom line was that nobody was guiding them anywhere. About the only insight the village men offered was that they thought Papo was loco to go out on his own. But, it was to be expected of a man who had suffered so much. They chalked Papo's behavior up as a death wish.
Max and David stared blindly forward, lost in thought. But, hell, Max knew if they sat on their asses and pretended to think this through until sun-up tomorrow, nothing would change. There was only one way to play this now and they both knew it. The Beast could come in from any direction. But there was only one place it would head.
Or, more to the point, to one person.
"She usually beds down around 9, 9:30," Max said. "This month, that gives the beast plenty of time before moonset. It can afford to wait until she's left the people in the sanctuary and gone into the apartment."
David nodded, as he took another sip of coffee. "Always grateful for small favors."
The Beast preferred stealth. Since there would be plenty of time to wait for the sister to bed down, it wasn't likely to go plowing through the hold-ups in the church, slashing and slaughtering on its way to her.
Of course Max and David could hedge their bets. One of them could watch the approaches to the sanctuary while one waited near the little apartment at the church's northeast corner. But it was never a good idea to separate unless it was absolutely necessary.
So here was the plan. The lure: a secluded little room in the back of Luperón's church. The bait: Sister Veronica. Young. Unwitting. Determined in her duty and in her faith.
David sighed. "Well," he said. He put his cup on the ground, then stood. "I need to get ready for sunset."
Prepare in his makeshift sweat lodge beside the house, is what he meant. It had been built as best as he and Max could manage with the supplies and time they had. His invitation was unspoken. David had offered it aloud only once, years and years ago, on their first hunt together. He'd said:
"You know, Max, you're welcome to join me. You won't have to sing with me. You won't have to do anything I do. The way you pray, or not pray, will be up to you. But you're always welcome to join me."
Sometimes Max did. Sitting quietly in the squat little structure, feeling the tickle of the sweat as it snaked over his skin. The sing-song of David's chanting was trance inducing for himself and, occasionally, very nearly so for Max; very nearly letting him in on God's secret.
But other times, Max was too tense or too angry. Sometimes so bitter with the way he had to live and kill that he couldn't even bear watching David walk toward the sweat lodges they always built together.
He crossed his ankle over his knee and poured himself another shot of rum.
Luperón , República Dominicana
Spring, 1950
Just past Sunset. Third Quarter Moon.
Art squatted next to the little door of the whorehouse root cellar and gave it a knock with the baton end of his flashlight. "Mezz? Can you hear me?" No answer.
He rubbed his face and sighed. He should have killed Mezz yesterday. When he had started swinging that rum bottle, he should have kept swinging until the job was done, then got rid of the body the way he'd gotten rid of Mezz's ruck sack. That's what Art had meant to do, had been sure he must do. But once Mezz was lying unconscious at his feet, once Art had hesitated and knelt to feel for a pulse ...
Damn it, he wasn't the killer! The Beast was. And he was the one who controlled the Beast, not the other way around. That was his talent. That was his duty.
He knocked on the root cellar door again. "Mezz, if you can hear me, you need to say so." Still he was met with silence. "I'm not opening up until you talk to me ... I've got some water for you. So if you're still alive down there, you better--"
"Yeah ..." Mezz's voice was weak and defiant at the same time, muffled inside the root cellar.
"Okay," Art said, "this is how it's going to work. I'm going to slide the door back a couple of inches. You stay on your ass and scoot to the opening where I can see you. I've got a gun, Mezz. So no funny business. You understand?"
There was a moment of silence, then a sullen, "Yeah."
The cellar's wooden door was more of a hatch, really, set into metal slide brackets bolted into the cellar's brick frame. Once Art had emptied it, it made a reasonable hiding place to dump Mezz, with its six-foot depth and little pull-up ladder. Art rose, unsnapped the strap on his gun holster, and went to the opposite side of the cellar door. It wasn't easy to move it from that end, but he was taking no chances that Mezz might have wriggled out of his bonds and was lying in wait.
He grabbed the door's edges and, grunting, yanked it open a couple of inches. Coming back around, he stood with one hand on the gun's grip and shined his flashlight into the slit. The beam landed in a sliver on Mezz's face, caked with grime and dried blood.
"Okay, show me your hands."
Mezz worked his mouth, obviously sticky with thirst. "What about the water?"
"Let me see your hands."
The one squinting, bloodshot eye that was illuminated by the flashlight closed, either in frustration or fatigue, and then Mezz's face vanished. After a moment of labored sounds, he turned his back and passed his hands under the beam. They looked a little swollen and the rope binding them still seemed firm.
"Now your feet."
"Aw, come on!"
"Feet, Mezz."
Mezz wriggled around until his bound ankles came into view. Satisfied, Art went back to the far end of the door and tugged it open another few inches. He returned, lit a cigarette, then squatted down and poured only a sip or two from his canteen into a tin cup.
He tongued the Lucky into the corner of his lips. "Bring your face up as close as you can." Art dribbled the water into Mezz's open mouth. "How're you holding up?" he asked.
Mezz swallowed and said, "Fuck you!"
"Not too bad, then. From the looks of your eyes, though, you probably have a concussion. Hurts to raise your voice, doesn't it?"
Tears rimmed Mezz's lashes. "How 'bout some more water, man, please ?"
Art thought about it, drew on his cigarette, and then finally poured enough for a couple more sips. As he let the water trickle into Mezz's mouth he said, "I know it's hard to believe, but I'm really sorry about this. If you just relax and don't give me any trouble, this will be over by tomorrow night."
Mezz swallowed. "How long have I been down here?"
"One full day. You were out all last night and today. Or at least every time I came to check on you."
Mezz's eyes welled again. "What's goin' on, man? Why are you doin' this to me?"
"Just rotten luck, general. I can't let you meet up with Max and David. Not until I'm done here."
Mezz looked perplexed. "You know them?"
"I know them."
"So ... you're a competitor of theirs or something?"
Art smiled and took another drag. "Yeah."
'What the hell are you jims into?"
"It doesn't matter, where you're concerned."
"So ... hey ... okay, whatever it is, it's not like I'm a partner of theirs. They just pay me. If you can beat their price, I'm on your side."
Art smiled even more. "Thanks, but no thanks."
"Or I can just go away, man! You can pay me to just go away!"
Art set the tin cup down and picked up his flashlight again. "Even if I believed you, I wouldn't take the chance. Anyway, you've got a concussion, Mezz. You're too weak to help anybody or go anywhere."
He stood and Mezz said quickly, "Hey! Hey, but ... how 'bout just a little more water, okay?"
"Sorry. I can't have you getting any strength back. Not for the time being." Art looked up at the darkening sky. The moon, nearly full, was just cresting the trees. It was time to watch the watchers, to shadow Max and David once again. "I promise you. After tomorrow night, it'll all be over."
 \*
Papo Salvador steadied the trap by pressing what remained of his left arm atop the wire framework. He reached inside the chum bucket, tossed a few chunks of fish inside the trap, then waded into the cool water to set the trap next to a bulge of mossy rubble. He secured it with a wrought iron stake so the current couldn't nudge it downstream.
He stood, arched backward to stretch his spine, then looked glumly at his handiwork beneath the crystalline water. This was the time of day he dreaded most, when the last of the traps were set, leaving him with hours of nothing but his own thoughts within the cavernous black of the mahogany forest. He stood, feeling the stream swirl and tug at his pant legs, and watched one of the first fresh water shrimps edge from beneath the rubble to begin its evening hunt. As long as his hand, it scuttled and stopped ... scuttled and stopped ... following the scent of the bait into the trap. There it settled down for its feast, completely oblivious to fate, startling only when Papo moved to wade out of the stream.
Too late for you, chico. You'll never find your way back out now. He carried the chum bucket a ways before dumping what was left onto the ground. If he dumped the bait into the stream -or even on the banks-the shrimps would come looking for it and diminish Papo's harvest.
But, now, he couldn't put off the night any longer and carried the empty bucket back to camp.
He heard his burro Angelita as she brayed somewhere in the gloom deepening around the camp. He liked to pretend she was letting him know that she had found the perfect undergrowth to graze on as she wandered unfettered and unneeded until the long hike homeward. Or that she was assuring him that she was never very far, just waiting for his whistle to call her back.
He liked to pretend that Rosa was out there with her, even though that had never been. That he was young and Rosa was young, the two of them newly married, with only the promise of their children to come; because the fantasy wouldn't work if Rosa was deep in the woods, trying to keep track of their little ones. Nothing in the forest mimicked the children's laughter or their squealing or Rosa scolding them to stay near.
There was nothing in the forest but birdsong or insects chirping or frogs calling ... or Angelita braying from time to time. So Papo built his fire, rubbed at his mustache and pulled the half-smoked cigarro from his shirt pocket, lighting it with a piece of kindling. He leaned against a tree and used his bed roll as a seat cushion, his eyes hooding as he gazed out into the woods, pretending that Rosa was just beyond his sight, out there seeing to Angelita. Out there collecting a few wild herbs or root vegetables. Out there getting just one more something before coming back to camp to join him. Both of them young. Both of them just beginning their life together. His left arm ached below his elbow where it no longer was, and - if he didn't look-that made the pretending more real.
But once the night settled into the forest, blackening everything outside the feeble circle of his camp fire, the pretending stopped. Because Rosa would have returned by then. The night blotted out his fantasy as surely as it did all else. Once that happened, it was time to pull the goat jerky out of the supply locker that sat on the cart. That, and the rum.
As he lifted the bottle from the locker, a glint high in the tree line caught his eye and he looked toward it suddenly, his heart in his throat as he thought hopefully, ridiculously, Rosa? Her ghost, perhaps? Perched there, looking down upon him, smiling down upon him?
Of course not. Estúpido. It was only the moon, very nearly full, as it cleared the tree tops.
Luperón , República Dominicana
Spring, 1950
Sunset. First Night. Full Moon.
The last day came and the last day went, filled with brilliant Dominican sunshine, empty of even the most futile hopes of finding Papo Salvador before he vanished and something altogether other emerged. Max and David worked side by side, without saying a word, very nearly feeling the sun's red, raw slide as it disappeared behind the western tree line.
The shotguns were oiled and cleaned. The silver cartridges loaded. The side arms each strapped to a dark-clad thigh. The silver-lined vests were laid out on the bed, some pockets filled with local herbs and animal dung, dried over fire and crushed into a coarse powder. One of David's pockets held a blow pipe and several thin, silver darts. He picked up his vest and slipped it on, silently handing Max two more cartridges. Max pocketed them.
With all hope gone of finding Papo Salvador, the plan was to first try turning the Beast away from Sister Veronica. That's what the silver darts were for, to get its attention, force it to charge at them instead. If they could get a clear shot at the pelvic basin -possibly saving the host-they'd take it. But the chance for that at this stage of the hunt was almost nil. And they wouldn't waste precious moments looking for it.
If they failed to turn the Beast toward them, Max and David would go for a wound or an outright kill, whichever came first, anything to stop it from getting to the sister. With a wound, two things could happen. If they hurt it badly enough, Max and David might get close enough to try again for the belly and an honest chance at saving the host. Or the Beast might run. In which case the hunt would take on a whole other character. No amount of planning would help them then.
They took up the shotguns and stood at the threshold, waiting until the color of twilight had nearly bled out.
 \*
Waves of nausea and vertigo washed over Papo Salvador. He sat quickly on the little stream's eastern bank and cursed when the chum bucket upended, spilling most of the fish parts. A sudden sweat rippled across his face and stuck his shirt to his back and armpits.
Díos! I'm going into the fits again . Fear knotted in his belly to the point of aching. When will they stop? It's been months, now, please Dear Lamb of God, when will you heal me of these fits?
But Jesus would not be healing Papo tonight, it seemed. He had to try to make it back to camp and prepare as best he could. He began to rise, but another wave of vertigo stopped him and this time he vomited next to the spilled chum.
All right. Calm yourself, fool. The fits have not killed you yet, so don't panic. I will not be going anywhere until this passes. All right. But I must move away from the stream, at least, and avoid a face down tumble into it. At least I must do that.
His legs wouldn't hold him, so he crawled away from the stream as best he could before collapsing. His stomach clenched into a series of dry heaves so violent every muscle in his body cramped. He was left spent and weeping, sucking desperately for air. Somehow he found the presence of mind to fumble inside his trouser pocket and retrieve a length of twine bound into a coil.
He mashed it between his teeth, hoping to save his tongue, and pulled himself off his belly onto his side. His knew his breath was too fast, but he couldn't help panting like a wild animal, biting on the coil of twine. As consciousness fragmented, he glimpsed the moon, full and lustrous, ascending beyond the mahogany.
Rosa? Rosa?
 \*
When he heard footsteps above the root cellar, all Mezz could think about was water! food! He hadn't thought about Max and David since ... he wasn't sure anymore. Was it yesterday when Art had told him this would all end? There was so much thirst, so much hunger ... there was the throbbing of his head and periods when he awoke with a start, aware only then that he'd blacked out ... he didn't trust his sense of time anymore.
The cellar door slowly grated backward and Mezz struggled into position, anticipating, his mouth even watering. It was hard to sit up. His legs ached and cramped above the knees and were mostly numb below. He couldn't feel his hands at all anymore.
To his surprise, the door slid all the way back this time, exposing the inky violet of a sky just after sunset. His heart leapt and Mezz nearly wept there and then. He's letting me go! He really is, he's letting me go!
Art came into view, sweaty and looking sick, sucking on a cigarette. He sat heavily, dangling his legs over the edge of the root cellar, then pulled the Lucky from his lips with a shaky hand and tossed it away. Mezz wanted to hate Art, but at the moment the only thing he could feel was gratitude.
With a sob in his throat, all he could say was, "Thanks, man. Aw, thanks, man."
Art's speech was slurred. "Sorry it has to be this way, Mezz."
"S'okay. No hard feelings. Thanks, man, thanks for keeping your word. And I'll keep mine, I swear. All I'm gonna do is split, soon as I get my legs back. I promise."
Art hunched forward, clutching his belly as if he was cramped up. He raised his head and peered into the distance, looking hard at something. He said, "It's coming. It'll be up any second ... Mezz, you ever hear of ... hear of 'collateral damage'? It's a ... military term .."
Mezz didn't know what the hell Art was talking about and he didn't care. He ignored the creeping unease in his gut and started pumping his legs as best he could within the bonds, trying to get the blood circulating. He's letting me go!
"It'll probably take me a couple-a minutes to stand up, okay? But I swear on Mrs. Gillis's life that I'm gone, man, splitsville just as soon as I can feel my feet. I swear."
"I'm really sorry," Art said again, the slur worsening. His arms crawled up his sweat-soaked shirt and he started yanking at it, popping buttons.
A sickening chill filled Mezz's belly. But he didn't want to feel that. What he wanted to feel was the elation again, the gratitude. Art's letting me go, he is, he has to be letting me go! But a dread was rising to his throat, putting a tremble in his voice when he said, "No, no, man! You don't have to be sorry, I swear to God, you don't have to be sorry! You're doing the right thing, man, you're letting me go. Right? Right?!"
With his shirt half torn, Art started fumbling at his trousers, tipping onto his side, whimpering and kicking and yanking as if something had crawled up a pant leg. He pushed off his ankle boots with his feet. His head twisted funny and swivelled around with a nauseating crack until he was staring at Mezz. And then ... and then ...
"Jesus!!!" Mezz pushed back, shrieking. He pushed back, he pushed back, until he collided with the wall.
The Beast's mass was too great to fit wholly in the cellar. But it didn't need to.
Luperón , Republica Dominicana
Spring, 1950
First Night. Full Moon.
Something wasn't right. More than the usual "not right." Max knew the difference between the knot in his gut that always accompanied a hunt and the twisting that forewarned of the Beast's proximity. It was the result of having once been bitten; a lingering connection that allowed a former host some minor advantage in tracking the Beast. Max looked at David and knew he felt it, too.
David said quietly, "Maybe it's closer than we thought."
Max nodded, and they shifted from sitting at each other's elbow into the more defensible back-to-back position. They couldn't afford much talk right now, tucked away in the scrub foliage fifty or sixty yards from the back of Luperón's little church. But Max thought to himself, That's gotta be it. We've misjudged how long we had. The Beast is moving in quicker than we figured. Yet that didn't seem quite right, either.
Max gave himself a mental shake. If Sister Veronica was going to survive the night , then he better keep his attention in the right place. He brought his focus back to the little apartment in the northeast corner of the church and waited for a dim glow to rise in its small window. When that happened, it meant the sister was settled in for the night. The bait, then, would be in the lure.
The night deepened, and time crawled.
 \*
Because the host was defective, the Beast of Luperón was lame. That this imperfect vessel was not really a Chosen, that the Beast had found itself too soon reincarnated, made it weaker than usual. A weaker incarnation only made the Beast all the more ravenous.
It had been in this place countless times through innumerable incarnations, as intimate with the lay of the land as every race of humanity that had come and gone here. It had only to peer through the eyes of its host -the one thing that never transubstantiated upon the Beast's emergence-to know exactly where its obsession would lead it.
As the moon arched higher, hunger burned hotter. The Beast anticipated all the ways to claw and shred and yank. How to draw out the kill's torment, how to hone it to the highest possible peak before the prey gave out and all that rich, burning horror vanished.
The Beast was almost through the forest now, loping along as best it could with a misshapen foreleg, made nearly whole by the emergence but not quite. Soon it would break through the trees. It would step onto flat land and limp into the dark gaps between Luperón's little buildings, pushing on toward the church where so much tempting, tangy anxiety wafted through the very walls. Future kills, cowering within. But fewer and fewer remained here. Soon it would be time to move the host onward to more abundant grounds.
Now, at the forest's edge, the Beast pulled its thoughts back to the prey that was marked for this First Night, whose dread the Beast had patiently honed over the past moonrises, layering one kill over another, each one building on the next. Its lust was so heated the Beast drooled with anticipation, dripping long, silver trails as it stepped out of the forest boundaries and slunk into the dark gaps between the abandoned buildings of Luperón .
 \*
Max wondered if the Beast would have only half a foreleg since Papo Salvador was missing half an arm. He and David had never hunted a lame lineage before. Would there be an advantage? Not much of one, he figured. The difference between the Beast when it was whole and the Beast when it was less-than-whole was probably the difference between a strong tornado and a so-called weak one. Human flesh wouldn't hold up in the vortex of either.
A small, golden glow bloomed in the window Max was watching: Sister Veronica, retiring to the apartment. He shifted and, at his back, he felt David do the same. Max dipped into one of the pockets filled with the pungent dust meant to mask his own human scent and clutched a handful. Never breaking his gaze, he worked his hand under his shirt to reapply the mix to his armpits, then dipped again to renew the powdery layer on his face.
Huddled at the weedy edge of the mangroves, he felt the land breeze pick up as it moved seaward, away from any approach the Beast might take. An advantage for him and David, lessening the chances of the Beast catching their scents. Max hoped it was a good omen.
 \*
In spite of its unnatural size, the Great Beast's movement was a smooth glide as it skirted the road to Luperón, careful to remain within the shadows of the mahogany forest. Even in this remote and nearly abandoned place, it wouldn't risk the beacon of the moon on its pelt, especially brilliant on this Great Incarnation. It faintly glowed, even without moonlight to fire it, having fed for so many years on the ultimate feed ... its own kind. In effect, its own self.
The fear and blood of human kills was a dilute, unsatisfying gruel to be suffered only by necessity. Its true hunger was for the Lesser Beast; although, this time, the close proximity of the Ones Lost was a fierce temptation for diversion. The Ones Lost: those who had been among the Chosen, whose nature was such that they had been selected as perfect, witless hosts. Those who were rightfully the Beast's and should be long dead, but had tricked their proper fate.
There had been few of these over the long-reaching history of the Beast. Even fewer, those senseless enough to seek the Beast out and try to annihilate it. Gnats nipping at the monster's eye. For millennia, it hadn't been in the Beast's nature to give them much thought ... other than a hot surge of jealousy and rage before tearing them to shreds, if it could, should their paths cross. But something was changing. There was a disruption in the lineages that edged beyond the occasional losses the Beast had suffered at the hands of a Lost One. And the Beast, ever adaptable - especially in the form of a Great Incarnation-was becoming attuned to it.
Ahead the cloudless, moon-filled night revealed the ramshackle buildings of Luperón. The Great Beast slowed its pace. Now came the time for patience and observance. It already knew the path of the Lesser Beast and preferred to wait for the Lesser to make its own kill before, in turn, being fed upon. A Lesser, freshly sated with agony and terror, could bring the Greater to shudders of ecstasy during the kill.
The Great Beast salivated at the thought and slid its tongue into the crease between muzzle and fang, licking at the remnants of blood there. Merely human, but it whetted the appetite.
 \*
David's whisper was harsh and staccato. "There!"
Max saw it. To the west, in a narrow slot between two abandoned buildings . A black, hulking shadow within the shadows. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears. The shadow leaned forward and moonlight caught its muzzle, bouncing off like the sparkle of glitter. The creature hunched back into the dark.
Max fixed on the Beast. He felt David's slow movements as he brushed against him, and knew David was reaching into the vest pocket that held the blow pipe and silver darts.
The moon had just begun tipping into its descent, joined in the sky by nothing more than a scatter of clouds. The plaza in front of the church, and the grounds behind it, were awash in moon glow. Between its hiding place and the narrow shadow at the church's base, the Beast had no shield from the light. Its awful beauty would make it a gleaming target for several seconds.
Which the Beast would know every bit as much as Max and David did. It might even know they were somewhere near. The Beast was taking its time, ever cautious, sizing up the area before making its move. Max heard a nearly imperceptible snick -David had slid a dart into the blow pipe-then the night went dead calm.
They watched. The Beast remained motionless.
Then a change. The light dimmed. A cloud moved between earth and moon. Poor cover, to be sure, but it was all the Beast could hope for tonight. It bolted forward and Max and David surged from their blind.
It was lame! The Beast was lame, with a curious rolling lope to its gait, but damn it was still swift! David blew, missed, reloaded, blew again and maybe it was the Beast's lameness that helped, because the second dart found the mark. There was a sharp yelp, guttural and angry, but the Beast kept going even as it snapped at the shoulder where the dart was embedded. Max yelled, aimed his shotgun and David reloaded the blow pipe for another go. The Beast slid to a halt and David blew again as it turned toward them. The dart struck its bad leg.
The beast snarled, shook the dart loose and faced them full on.
"Come on, you son of a bitch!" Max bellowed.
Then everything went wrong.
A band of men hurtled around from the front of the church, clutching what weapons they had -ax handles, machetes-certain of Chupacabra and called to arms by the clamor that Max and David had created. Too late the men skidded to a halt, frozen in place by the chilling, all-too-human eyes within the massive head of the Beast as it turned to meet them.
David roared, "No, go back!" He and Max ran forward, trying to find their aim. "Go back inside! Go back!"
Time and motion slowed in Max's brain as if everything was happening on the ocean floor. Sister Veronica at the window, then pushing open the apartment door. Her face a mask of shock and horror as she screamed for the men to run inside. The shrieking mass turned to rush the open door and the Beast plunged headlong into them, shredding, crushing, slaughtering as it burst through to her.
Veronica stumbled back. The Beast rose on its hind legs, towering over her, clamped its jaws around her head and dragged her back into the church.
Max and David trampled over the dead, slipping on blood and viscera, pushing through the bedlam and into the sanctuary, into more madness, their ears ringing as screams echoed off the walls. Far ahead of them, the Beast was yanking Sister Victoria down the center aisle toward the church doors while women and children clawed at the shuttered windows and collided with Max and David.
Against the doors, the Beast pulled up short, dropping Veronica to the floor while Max and David fought the current, screaming for people to get out of the way, get out of the way, move! The sister was still alive. Max could see her hands lifting slowly, listlessly. The veil of her head covering cloaked her face like a shroud, soaked with her blood. The Beast charged the doors and they splintered apart with a sharp crack, ramping up the people's panic. The Beast clamped its jaws around the sister's waist and bolted.
By the time Max and David made it to the shattered doors, the only sign of the Beast or Veronica was a blood trail heading southeast.
In The Mahogany Forests Surrrounding Luperón
Spring, 1950
First Night. Full Moon.
Rage and hunger mounted with every labored step, the shoulder above the Beast's good foreleg burning where the silver dart was buried, hindering its pace. And now the prey was dying -dying!- her blood wasted on the ground as her consciousness faded and, with that, her terror. There was no time to stop and revive the female, force her back to her senses so the Beast could sate its hunger. The Lost Ones were in pursuit.
The Beast would have to make a decision soon: finish this failed kill -find some brief seclusion where it could get what feeding it could-or use the female to divert the Ones Lost. Drop her in their path, so the Beast could make its escape. With all of Luperón now on alert and the full moon well into descent, the Beast was sure to go mad with starvation for the duration of First Night. But at least it would survive to emerge again.
With its hot, broad tongue pressed against her middle, the Beast felt a subtle strengthening of the female's heartbeat. She made a thready, mewling sound and the Beast's hunger surged. There might be time after all. It knew it could never make it to one of its preferred lairs, but with a renewed pace, it might keep ahead of the Lost Ones long enough to draw something -anything-out of the dying lump clutched in its jaws. Just enough to get by, so the Beast could disappear once again into the utter black of the mahogany forest, back into the body of its host.
 \*
Max had to force the images out of his mind: of blood spray, black in the moonlight. Of people dropping before the Beast like so many lambs hemmed in for slaughter. He had to force the sounds out of his mind: the screaming. The wailing. The wet rattle of blood filling lungs.
Not now. Can't think of it now. Think only of Veronica. Get to Sister Veronica ... And get to that son of a bitch and plaster its goddamn hide against the farthest wall in Hell.
"Max!"
He stopped and turned toward David's harsh whisper. It came from behind, where Max must have marched blindly past him. David held up his hand, his fingers dark with human blood. He gestured to their left.
"This way."
Max gave him a curt nod and followed. As soon as he did, he felt the twist in his stomach again, leading him in the right direction. The clench that had begun to fade as the images of butchery at the church overwhelmed him. He gave himself a mental shake and risked looking at his palm while David led the way. They were gaining.
 \*
"Veronica! Sister Veronica!"
Dimly, ever so dimly, she became aware she wasn't moving anymore. With a great deal of effort, she managed to open her eyes. Just a little bit. Madre , it was very hard to do. She saw the dark silhouette of leafy trees above her. Stars. Moonlight.
And where was it she had been going, that she wasn't moving anymore? To the green grocers? Yes, mamá had asked her to go. She had said, Marguaríte, darling, Se?ora Castílla told me the black olives were perfection. Go fetch a sack for me?
"Sister!"
No, but that can't be right. Mamá didn't speak English and, in any case, didn't call her Sister Veronica, even after she had taken her vows. Then where had she been going? She remembered she had been ... she had been moving ... and there was something ... terrible ... beyond imagining ... There was agony. Not so much of the body, although there had been much of that, too. But of the soul.
There was no agony now.
A face came very close to hers. A man's. How unseemly.
"Sister ... Oh, God ... It's me, Max ... I mean, Stonehill. You know me as Stonehill. You don't have to worry now, the Beast's gone. It's fled."
She had little feeling in her body, not even the suffering of before (and why was it that she remembered she had been in torment?). But she could feel herself being lifted into a sitting position and the view gimbaled, making her dizzy. She felt herself loll backward and her head covering slip away before the man caught her in the crook of his arm.
He was saying something again but now she couldn't understand him. She asked him, " ¿Qué? "
He answered, this time in proper Spanish. "Can you hear me?"
"My veil, it's slipped off. Where's mamá ? I can't stay. She sent me for olives ."
This man looked as though he might weep. Poor, poor fellow. "It's all right," she said, even though she didn't know the source of his pain. "It's all right. God is with you, you know."
A sob caught in his throat and she felt so terribly sorry for him. She felt the warmth of his palm as he pressed it against her cheek. It finally occurred to her why he was saddened. Yes, of course. She was dying.
"Oh, that's so kind of you," she said, feeling suddenly much colder, much sleepier. "That is so kind. Please don't worry. God will send His angel soon."
And there. Just over the man's shoulder. A whiteness, a brightness, glorious and round and brilliant, veiled by the leafy trees . She smiled.
"Ah, you see? There he is now."
 \*
He felt David's hand on his shoulder. He heard the terrible ache in his friend's voice, bound deep in his throat, socked away for later: "Max ... Max."
He managed to pull his eyes away from her face, gray in the moonlight, streaked with blood, serene in death.
"We've got to go," David said.
He was right, but Max couldn't make himself move. He looked back at Veronica's face, tucked against his arm, her vacant eyes hooded. With his free hand, he reached for her head covering, cold and wet with blood, but wasn't sure how to fit it in place.
"This is exactly what it wants us to do, Max, you know that. We have got to go. We'll come back for her."
Max heard his own voice in his head. Move! He slid Sister Veronica from his lap, grabbed his shotgun and stood.
 \*
The Great Beast plodded to a halt, tilting its thick muzzle upward and drawing in a long pull of air. Smells filled its misshapen head and swirled at the back of its tongue, telling it, yes, the Lesser was heading straight toward it, though the Lesser was farther off than it should have been. Better, then, to move away from the trail for the time being. The Greater didn't want its own scent hanging in the wooded air, barely stirred by the weak breeze.
The trick was to make sure the Lesser Beast didn't sense the Greater's presence until it was too late. And that meant the Great Beast had to strike quickly and kill quickly. Unlike with human prey, there could be no long, languid tease to increase the richness of the feed. The death play with a Lesser, by necessity, was much shorter. But then again, no human terror, no matter how carefully culled, could compare to the surge of shock and dread in the last seconds of a dying Lesser, its eyes wild with horror, locked onto the Greater's heated gaze. No feed as rich as that of the Lesser realizing its own end, never known or imagined until that moment, its sense of self usurped, drained, collapsed into this greater, greedier monster. Brother eating brother.
The smells drifting toward it told the Great Beast that the Lesser had failed. This lamed incarnation was weaker than its twin had been; the one devoured during the prior First Night, in the frigid late spring of the Ozark foothills. The tang of the Lesser's musky scent betrayed rage, wounds and wild, unsated hunger.
The scents wafting in behind those of the Lesser told the Great Beast even more. The Lamed One had unwelcome company. It had not evaded the Ones Lost, who had come to this place to take what was rightfully the Greater's. Already weak and made weaker by them, this Lesser would be a disappointing, imperfect feed. This vexed the Great Beast, and a growl rumbled deep in its throat.
But it never once considered giving up the hunt of this First Night, of leaving the Lesser to the Ones Lost and going off to make do with a human kill or two back in the blood strewn settlement of Luperón.
Instead, it would devour the Lesser Beast as planned and top off the imperfect feed as best it could by hunting down at least one of the Lost Ones. Eat them both, if there was time before moonset.
 \*
Above Max and David, the forest canopy tossed and swayed as the night breeze was drawn from the Corderillas Mountains toward the sea. But down here, amongst the thick trunks and gnarled roots, amongst the succulents and briars tugging and tearing at their pant legs, it was reduced to wisps sieving through the forest, dense with mahogany, scattered here and there with scraggly palms, tenacious and stubborn. So far, the trail of the Luperón Beast was leading east while the meandering ground breeze carried Max and David's scents crosswise. It was a small mercy, but they'd take any they could get.
The night was waning. Max figured they must be a good mile into the forest. From the tightness in his gut, he had expected them to be closer to the Beast by now, but his palm kept telling him a different story. Their pace was steady and the pentagram nestled in the creases hadn't dimmed, but it hadn't increased either.
He decided it was the failure, the utter failure, the deep, wrenching heartache that this hunt had become. That was what had him knotted up so badly, that was what was messing with the usual signals. He swore to God, and then to those unlucky bastards Papo Salvador and Lloyd Stonehill and, most of all, he swore on the memory of Sister Veronica, that this hunt wasn't going to end in vain. The Luperón lineage was going to tumble head first into the deepest, darkest pit of Hell, carrying Max's silver with it.
 \*
Hunger. Hunger! Vengeance.
The lame Beast stopped running. It turned and cast a baleful gaze at the moon, now behind the tree line, on its steady course downward. The scents of the Ones Lost were growing stronger. Already hindered by this inferior host that should have been a kill -this dismal vessel it had been forced to abide within-it was weakened all the more by the silver dart still embedded and a feedless First Night. The Beast knew it couldn't outrun the Ones Lost before moonset, before remission. And if the Ones Lost found the unconscious host after remission, the Beast knew it would never see another First Night in this place.
Once, it had plotted to endure this crippled casing until it had gained enough power and strength for a proper transference. It had been biding its time, waiting for a true Chosen, one that was suitably witless and torpid, one filled with the conceit of ignorance and denial. But, now, that plan was gone. And, in its place, this one:
The Beast would stand. Weak as it was, it would affect to be weaker still. Tempt the Ones Lost closer, for it knew they hoped to add to their number, hoped to yank from the Beast its own. But, instead, one of them would return to the lineage, return to his role as host; to be used up, then discarded. One of them would receive before the moon set. Bitten once again.
 \*
Max stopped, clutching a fistful of David's sleeve to pull him up short. David checked his palm while Max listened and strained his eyesight. Something snapped somewhere. There was no other sound except the song and chirp of forest insects.
The Beast had led them deep into the interior, a haphazard of mahogany, palm and other trees muscling against each other. There was no trail. There never had been, other than the blood trail that had meandered through the hardwood maze to Sister Veronica. Now they didn't even have that to go on. They were left with old fashioned tracking, the wane and wax of the pentagrams in their palms, and the clench and relax in their bellies.
What had stopped Max short was one of those clenches, so fierce and sudden it put tears in his eyes. But he stood his ground and sensed David struggling against a wrenching of his own. When Max felt a quick tap against his hand, that meant David was taking up the watch so Max could glance at his palm. The pentagram there was as dark as it would ever get on a former host.
The Luperón lineage had to know they were there. Or, if not exactly where they stood, that they were only paces away. The Beast didn't have the mixed blessing of the stomach knots to warn it, but it did have supernormal hearing and smell. At these close quarters, no amount of smell-masking powder would fool the Beast, and the air was too still now for their scent to be carried away.
Another snap. Off to the right, past David. Then a flash on Max's left, like silver passing through a moonlit patch.
"Ten o'clock," Max hissed, and tracked the glow as it floated off some fifty feet or so, continuing left, and then vanished. It was trying to get behind them ... no ... another silver ripple, under a triplet of moonbeams filtered through the canopy. It was moving away from them.
Moving away?
Close to Max's ear, David whispered, "It's giving up."
Max nodded. It was trying for an escape. So close to moonset, it just wanted to lose them now, to conceal itself before remission. Once that happened, their chances of tracking the Beast would be nearly impossible. The pentagrams in their palms would go dormant, barely noticeable unless they had the unbelievable luck of stumbling right over the re-emerged, unconscious Papo Salvador. And who could say if they would ever find Papo again, if they lost their chance this First Night? There wasn't much Max and David could do but follow. They began a slow weave through the trees, using the pain in their bellies as a compass.
The mahogany was so dense they could barely glimpse between the trunks, and as the moon slipped lower, visibility -already poor-became poorer still. Trying to pick their way through was costing them precious time. Max grabbed David's sleeve again as soon as they rounded a tree. He pointed to himself, then ahead, and then made a walking motion with two fingers: he'd move on ahead, sacrificing quiet for a little more speed.
That meant certain death, if the Beast got to him before he could sense its presence. But David might have enough time to finish off the son-of-a-bitch while it was ripping at Max. David shook his head sternly and pointed to himself instead: he wanted to take the lead. But when David started forward Max blocked his way and began walking, forcing David to follow.
The pace picked up, and they made better time. But not good enough. The knots in his gut loosened. Doubt crept in. The Beast knew these woods better than any single being. It had emerged here and faded since humankind first set foot on the Dominican shoreline, just as it had on every point of the globe. Wounded or not -lame or not-trying to track the Beast, now that it had gotten so far ahead, would be like trying to track a snake under the forest's carpet. The moon was too close to setting. Max and David had run out of time.
They heard the sound of water and came upon an interruption in the trees. One of the many small creeks and brooks that carved through the foothills. Disheartened, Max stood on the mossy bank and turned his palm up to look forlornly at his hand.
In the moon-pale dimness of the creek's swath, the pentagram was deepening again.
He hitched his shotgun under his arm and rubbed a thumb into his palm to make sure it wasn't dirt settling into the creases. The pentagram remained. He heard rustling behind him and startled, but it was only David coming up to his side. This was incredible luck. Unbelievable, even.
Really unbelievable. Like a trick. His gut seized up. He looked at David, then across the creek to the jumble of mahogany and scrub.
The Beast sprang.
Max and David raised their guns, stepped back, never got a chance to fire, both weapons sent flying by a brutal side sweep of force hurtling up the creek bed. The Beast was knocked out of the air, hit broadside in a cacophony of bone cracks, wails and ear-splitting bellows, knocked clean out of the air, and sent crashing into the rocky creek.
Max and David lay sprawled, defenseless, in shock at the sight of the colossus ripping open the chest of the Luperón Beast. Puny and dull against the other, the lame beast's eyes bulged, terror-filled, locked onto the face of its killer even as its head slapped lifelessly into the water. Silver-tinged gore scattered in all directions, hot flecks arcing, smacking Max's face.
"Guns!" David shouted, shocking them both into action, leaping up, desperately searching for the shotguns. Too late, they saw them beneath the creek's blood-clouded water.
The Great Beast yanked away from its kill, the lame one's heart crushed in its jaws, and fixed its glare on Max and David. They jerked out their side arms and started blasting.
Plumes of silvery blood darkened against the brilliance of the pelt. An ear point shattered, a shoulder was pierced, a massive foot punctured. It backed up, shaking its great, misshapen skull. But nothing hit the vital areas of underbelly, chest or head.
They were dead. Max and David were both dead. But goddamn it, they'd go out like Lloyd Stonehill! They ran straight toward the Great Beast, guns thrust forward.
Bullets flew, but the only things they connected with were empty air and the gaping carcass of the Luperón Beast. This giant among hell hounds, this Great Incarnation, moved so fast it was as if it had become the forest instead of rushing into the depths. Max and David were left panting as the cold, blood-stained water swirled around their shins.
David lifted his gun hand, as if its weight was almost unbearable, and pointed east. Where a few lateral beams of the setting moon stole through, silver-tinged blood glowed against the tree trunks.
They waded out of the tainted water, and the hunt began again.
 \*
Only once before had dread been this absolute in Max. Only once had he felt this level of terror. He had been chained hand and foot to a metal cot, sobbing like a war orphan, while Doris Tebbe and David clung to each other behind an upturned table banded with silver. They had been trying to comfort each other as the three of them waited on the moon, not knowing if any of them would live to see the dawn.
Tramping alongside David now, Max's arms and legs shook so badly it felt as if his bones were rattling. He didn't know how he was standing upright, let alone walking. Yet he was, yet David was, stumbling and plodding and making enough noise to call down on them not just that thing that had knocked the Luperón Beast out of the air, but all the ghouls of Hell along with it.
He kept thinking, This is the night I die. This is it. And he wanted to weep again, he wanted to sob as hard as he had, chained on that cot in that shack all those years ago. Sob because he was going to die failing everyone he and David had come to help.
He could still see it in his head, that Great Beast. A normal incarnation had an awful beauty to it. The sight of one could freeze a victim in his tracks, the way the approach of a sudden, massive storm could disorient and bewilder. But this monster was a hulking, mutated mass barely encased by the host's stolen frame; the flesh around the eyes and snout fissured, tortured and bald.
The sheer mass of it! It had cracked open the Luperón Beast like a jackal tearing into a rabbit, its jaws ripping through the rib cage and into the beating heart while the weaker Beast howled in agony.
But why? Why go after its own kind, its own self? And why didn't it finish off him and David while it was at it? How long could it have taken such an Great Incarnation to bite them both in half, moonset or no moonset? Why had it stopped?
"Stop," David said.
With a start, Max realized the moon had set. First Night was over. Neither he nor David would be dying tonight after all. The thought didn't hold much comfort. They leaned against the trees and tried to muster a little more strength.
First Night was over, but the hunt wasn't. The blood trail was still fresh, though the smears they followed no longer had a silver sheen. Without moon glow to fire it, the Great Beast's blood was as dark in the night as any human's. Dark it might be, but there was a chance it might still lead them to the host.
They followed as long as the smears held out, their pace slower now because they had to search harder for them, resort to standard tracking again. Perhaps a quarter mile more and the blood dried up altogether. The Great Beast was so immense, Max and David's thirty-eight caliber silver wasn't much more wounding to it than the darts had been to the Luperón Beast; at least, not without hitting a vital area. The bleeding had stopped and, no doubt, the healing already begun.
The densest part of the mahogany gave way abruptly to scrub and spindly palms. Max could see signs of settlement just ahead. He and David stepped out of the forest and, after a minute or so, recognized where they were. They had emerged some thirty or forty yards behind the silhouette of a ratty little structure beside the road to Luperón . Tracking the Great Beast had led them in a kind of arc that ended less than a mile from town. This was Luperón's meager little brothel. Like most of the settlement, it had been abandoned.
Max and David gave the area a cursory scan, then knelt, hoping to find some sign of the Great Beast's direction ... maybe a depression or two from massive forefeet. Even better if the foot struck by a bullet was still seeping blood to mark a print more clearly. But the dark of a now moonless night made it impossible. The ground was too packed, the tough, weedy growth over it too hardy to stay trampled. They'd have to wait for daylight and hope something would show.
Max rose and looked more critically around him, exploring by starlight. He saw curious, dark blotches scattered around what looked like a rectangular hole in the ground behind the brothel. He stood motionless, wondering. David walked up to him and they stared together.
"Couldn't be," Max said, meaning the Great Beast's safe haven, the lair it would have fled to for the remission.
David shook his head. "Much too small for any lineage, let alone this one. And, so close to town, I wouldn't think so, but .. do those dark areas look like blood to you?"
Max nodded. "Could we have wounded it worse that we thought?"
"Then why so much blood here and so little on the trail?"
They stood a moment more, thinking things through. Then David said, "Your turn to cover," and started forward. Even with the moon long set, his approach was cautious. He kept his gun trained on the rectangular hole. At its edge, he peered inside but apparently couldn't see anything in the dark. Keeping one eye on the hole, he glanced around and prodded one of the dark patches with a boot toe. Max began edging up.
"Looks like a root cellar," David told him. "Most of this is blood all right." He kept his gun aimed at the hole. "Along with shredded clothing, a couple of boots."
Shredded clothes could be signs of a lair, but this place just didn't fit the picture. It was much too public. David knelt to pick up something cylindrical with his free hand and wiped it on his trousers. "Flashlight," he said and fired it up, training the beam into the hole.
He dropped it, fell to his knees, and buried his face in his hands.
Max knelt to his side. "Jesus, David. What is it?"
David couldn't answer, racked with sobs so deep he was mute, his fingers digging hard into his scalp. Max grabbed the flashlight and aimed it into the cellar.
 \*
They couldn't bear leaving Mezz the way they had found him. So Max climbed into the cellar while David closed his eyes and sang a funeral chant, his voice low, just loud enough for Max and, maybe, Mezz to hear. He motioned in the air and sang as Max cut away the ropes at Mezz's ankles, and pulled each leg back into position. He found Mezz's hands and arms, freeing them, too, and placed his head just above where the shoulders should have been. He tied Mezz's jaw closed with the cleanest scrap of cloth he could find, and fit the beret back on his scalp. Then Max and David slid the hatch shut, to protect him from scavengers.
How long they sat at the cellar's edge afterward, watching over Mezz, Max couldn't say; other than neither of them moved a muscle until dawn glowed pinkish in the east. Then, with his voice as hoarse as if he had been wailing for hours, David said, "We've got to get out of here."
So they fled, gore-smeared and bone cold with grief, leaving everything behind. Mezz. Sister Veronica. Everything.
Miami, Florida
Spring, 1950
Half Past Noon. Last Quarter Moon.
The first thing he did when his feet hit U.S. soil was find a good, all-American greasy spoon. He didn't have to walk far from the industrial docks of Government Cut. He ate his fill of a hamburger, Coke and fries, and then asked the waitress about a pay phone. She pointed him down the hall outside the pay toilets and he placed the call collect.
"I'm okay," he said as soon as the operator left the line, knowing what the first question would be.
"Damn it! I've been worried sick!"
"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I couldn't call before now. I had to lay low 'til I was sure Max and David were out of the area. Then I had to travel fast. I'm sorry it took so long, but I'm okay."
He didn't mention that he ransacked what Max and David had left behind, grabbing what was most useful for bartering his way out of the country. Taking any of the abandoned silver was out of the question, of course; even a single, small bar would be excruciating to his touch. Except for one thing ... a particular souvenir, too irresistible to abandon, in spite of how difficult it was for him to carry. Since he had been unable to collect one of his regular trophies during the hunt, he'd make a trophy of this.
A deep sigh came across the line, a familiar habit. They had been a pair for so many years, he understood the language of those sighs. This one said thank God, you're all right. I could throttle you. Then came the question, always pensive, "How'd it go?"
"Good. It went good." He fished out a Lucky without pulling the pack from his shirt pocket.
Another sigh: relief that had been held in reserve. "Did you see Max and David?"
The concern behind the question bothered him, but he tried to ignore it. He lit up and pulled the smoke in deep. "Yeah. But they didn't see me ."
"So you got to it before they did ..."
"Just barely." He touched his right ear. Perfectly healed, but tender. The silence on the other end irked him. It hinted of disappointment, so he said, "They shot me."
" What? "
That was better. "They shot me."
"With silver?"
"Yeah, with silver, what the hell else do you think they'd use?"
"But you're all right?"
"They didn't really shoot me . I was ... it was emergent. When I came to, there were a couple of bullets next to me. Worked loose when things receded, got back to normal. Nicked my ear. My shoulder's stiff. My foot's a little sore."
"Oh, God ... did the Beast do anything to them ... are they ..?"
"What. Are they alive? Hell, they're fine, they're just fine. They tried to kill me , but don't worry, they're both still alive."
"Stop it. Did you think I wouldn't care?"
"Since when did you switch sides?"
His question was met with yet another silence, this one stunned and offended. Finally: "Since when did we have sides to be on?"
It was his turn to sigh. "Okay ... look, this was a close one, all right? My nerves are raw. A lot of things went wrong, but ... the end result is what I wanted. One more lineage gone. And ... we're all okay. Me, Max, David ... nobody's hurt." He knew he sounded petulant, even as the next words left his lips, but he couldn't help it. " I'm the reason they're alive, you know. It took every ounce of will I had to turn the Beast. You've got no idea how hard it is to fight my way back to the surface."
He omitted how large a role the impending moonset played in Max and David's salvation, too.
Worry crackled though the telephone line. "Are you sure you're all right?"
He tried to lighten things up. "Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm just not used to the competition, is all."
"Why don't you come home, now, for a little while?"
He stretched the pay phone cord taught as he reached to an empty table and crushed the butt into the ashtray sitting there.
"You know I'd like that ... but ..."
"Please. I think ... if you'll listen for a minute, don't say anything and just listen. Maybe ... maybe it's time we talked about things again."
He went rigid, his voice tense. "What things?"
"You know exactly." Another sigh. "God, it's my fault, I know. This has gone on too long --"
"It's not time. The only reason this was a close call for them or me is because they chanced across my path. It was a fluke."
"And now they know about you! They're going to come looking for you ..."
"They can look all they want, they won't find me."
"Don't kid yourself. They --"
" It was a fluke. All right?"
The faint crackle of the phone connection was the only answer for a while. Just when he was going to ask, "Are you there," he heard, "Sure. Okay." Acquiescence, not conviction.
His throat was tightened by a twinge of heartbreak. "Come on, don't say it like that. Haven't we been doing this long enough for you to trust me?"
Love and concern came reaching toward him. "Don't you trust me , after all this time? Please, let's talk about this. We need to understand what our next move should be. Please . Come home."
He leaned his elbow against the wall, his forehead in his hand. He could use a rest, what little there could be before the next First Night. He hadn't been home in a very, very long time.
He stated the obvious. "I'll need to find a good mark to turn its attention ... you know ... in time for First Night."
"I understand. I'll start looking."
"I'm sorry ... I'm sorry you have to do that again ..."
"Just come home."
He started to fish out another Lucky, and then stopped himself. "Okay."
"Good. Good. Get here as soon as you can. You need money?"
"Yeah. I'm a little low, so, yeah." Over the phone line, he heard a background of static crackle and distant voices.
"Something's coming over the Ham. I better go. Call me back in fifteen minutes and tell me where to wire the cash."
"Okay. Hey ... did the package I sent before I left the states make it there?"
"It's waiting for you on the table."
Still feeling piqued, he couldn't resist goading. "Why don't you unwrap it? Set it on the shelf with the others?"
"Those are your trophies, not mine."
He fished out that Lucky, after all. "I've never seen it that way, myself."
A hesitation, a final sigh, then: "Hurry home."
Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring, 1950
Early Evening. Last Quarter Moon.
Mina was waiting beside the truck, all but wringing her hands as David and Max stepped off the Greyhound, nothing left to them but the Goodwill clothes on their backs and a small duffle holding an extra change between them. Max was off the bus first. Mina hurried over and hugged him tightly.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry it went badly."
She didn't know the half of it yet, but Max didn't have the gumption to tell her. He just nodded, sliding his hands beneath the long, black braid that draped her back and held her close. As David came up, Mina moved to him and pulled him into her arms, hugging him even more tightly than she had Max. David clung to her, his eyes squeezed shut.
Finally Max asked her, "Have you heard from anyone?"
"Yes, but later for that," she said as they walked to the truck. "Have you eaten?"
Max and David shook their heads.
"You want to go inside Chuli's? He's still open."
"No. Let's just go home."
"We're sorry we couldn't get a telegram to you sooner," David said. "I hope you weren't too worried."
"Neither could be helped ... my worrying or you getting a message to me."
The first telegram, from the Bahamas, had read Both alive. Trip gone bad. Total failure and worse. The second, from the U.S. east coast, had just given their arrival date and time.
Their misery must have clung to them like a shroud, because Mina was quiet the whole drive home, not asking a single question. She reheated a lamb roast in the oven and they all filled their plates. Max and David ate ravenously. When they were done, finally -reluctantly-they filled Mina in. She sat through it, looking stricken.
When Max had run out of words, when it seemed David could only sit with his head in his hands, Mina asked, "How'd you get out of the country?"
"Skirted past Imbert," Max replied. "Washed up as best we could behind some family's shack at their pump, then stole an old military issue motorcycle and headed to Puerta Plata. Bribed the cook on a freighter with a couple of the silver cartridges we still had on us and our vests' silver plating. That got us to Freeport. From there we sold the handguns and the rest of the cartridges and bullets. That gave us what we needed to bribe our way back into the U.S. We had to be thrifty, but the way we looked, we fit in better at flop houses and soup kitchens anyway."
"You still would," Mina said.
Max tried to smile but didn't do a very good job of it. He couldn't stop thinking of Mezz, abandoned in the cellar. He kept thinking of Sister Veronica, lost in the forest. He wondered endlessly about the people crushed under the Luperón Beast's path. Wondered if any were still alive. If there was another twinned lineage that would emerge in the town. A triplet. A quad.
What a miserable fuck-up he was. A miserable fucking fuck-up. Him and David both.
Mina said something and Max tried to focus. "What?"
"I said get that out of your head right now. Both of you."
Max looked down at his plate and pushed it away with his thumb. "So you're a mind reader now?"
"I don't have to be. It's all over your faces." She propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward. "Convince me you could have done something different and I'll join your blame game."
Max shrugged and crossed his arms. "Could've not gone at all, for starters."
Mina nodded in mock agreement. "You should have consulted your crystal ball before you left."
"You weren't there, Mina." David said.
"Cousin, are you pulling that 'you can't know, you're not a hunter' bullcrap on me? That hasn't shut me up in years."
"We've never failed this badly before," David shot back. "To have to run like beaten dogs, knowing we've left that ... monstrosity behind to emerge again ..." He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face. "I need to get into Stanislov's journals." He sighed. "And I need a good sweating in the lodge."
Shit. Journals. Sweat lodges. Eight long years, only to come up against a freak that none of them knew how to fight. Max rose from his chair. "Sweat all you want, David. Me? I've done plenty already."
"No journals or sweating for anybody tonight," Mina said. "You can start fresh tomorrow, once you both get some rest--"
"Bullshit! I mean it, this is it for me, I'm done! I don't know what the hell that was we left back there, but I know we're no match for it. We're old! We're slow!" He turned on David. "We've been through those journals backwards and forwards and there's nothing in 'em that comes close to what we saw. Bullshit on the journals! Bullshit on trying to figure this one out, I'm just ... I'm done with it."
He didn't really know where he was going, now or later, but he wound up on the house's wrap-around porch for the time being. On his second circuit, David met him at the front door. Max stared at him a moment, then stepped down to sit on the porch steps. David settled next to him.
Max looked toward the manicured desert of their front yard, losing color in the dusk. Finally he said, "I can't any more, David. I can't. I've got to ... go. Somewhere. Any damn where." He closed his eyes. "Shit. The mess we made this time."
"But how can we stop?" David asked, his voice thick. "There's too much left unanswered. What are we up against? And what about how we found Mezz, poor Mezz? Max ... he'd been tied up before he was taken .... "
David leaned into his hands and rubbed his face again, as if trying to scrub the image from his sight. He let go and looked at Max.
"How can we stop?" he asked again.
"Listen ... you and me, we're old and just getting older. And all these years ... I dunno ... when I think about it, I guess I've been fooling myself. Not that I ever thought we could beat it, but .. I thought we were at least making a difference." He turned to look at his friend. "Instead, it's getting stronger, David. It's becoming greater."
"So your solution is to stop? Can you really do that? Knowing what you know, knowing what's out there, what will always be out there?"
"I thought I knew what was out there. Until Luperón." Max looked up into the coming night, mercifully moonless. He could barely keep from weeping when he said, "Jesus, David. Why didn't it kill us? Why didn't it just tear us into so many pulpy bits?"
He closed his eyes, felt the heat of tears threatening, and heard David's voice, weary and defeated:
"Just our bad luck, I guess."
 \*
The lunch crowd at Chuli's, in as much as it could be called a crowd, looked up as Max walked in. Some of the people went quiet. Between the rumors and the occasional trouble that Max and David's proximity caused, the locals were always wary when they came into town.
Chuli was sitting behind the cash register, his elbows propped atop the old wood and glass display case that never held anything but the restaurant's telephone and a couple of boxes of Wrigley's Gum and Tootsie Pops. Max nodded in greeting and Chuli nodded back, adding a noncommittal, "Max, how are things."
The tribal elder's expression made it clear he didn't really want to know. He and Tohatchi's three other merchants were the only ones that ever said more than a few words to Max. The necessity of enterprise.
Max was used to it. He bypassed the tables and went for an empty stool at the counter. He ordered a sandwich, glass of milk, a slice of peach pie and ate his lunch with his back to everyone. After a minute or two, things went back to normal.
While he was eating, he almost changed his mind, almost decided not to make the call. But as Chuli rung him up at the register, he slid a couple of extra bills over the scratched glass top and said, "I need to use your phone, if that's all right."
Chuli took the bills, already knowing the call would be long distance. Max never made a local call. "Sure."
Max dialed the operator, gave her the number and very nearly hung up on the
third ring. But Doris picked up.
"Mrs. Tebbe," she said brusquely.
"That's how you answer your phone nowadays? I feel like you've just fired me and I don't even work for you."
"Max! How are you! Where are you calling from? Don't tell me Tohatchi finally got phone lines to the compound?"
Max couldn't believe he was smiling. The healing power of Doris. "Nah," he said, "I came into town with David. I asked him to drop me here before he headed into Gallup to check on the shop. Thought I'd make myself busy getting some supplies. Just finished lunch at Chuli's and thought I'd give you a call."
He closed his eyes, almost wincing at his shallow excuse. He hoped Doris wouldn't ask why he hadn't just gone with David into the larger town. If she thought it was odd, she wasn't letting on.
"Gallup's the oldest shop, right? Jewelry business good as usual?"
"There and the two in Albuquerque both."
"When did you get back from the last hunt? Mina wrote that you were in some godforsaken place ... Cuba, Haiti ... How'd it go?"
He must've hesitated longer than he realized. Or maybe it was just that Doris knew him too well after all this time. "What is it, Max? Tell me."
He waited too long again. The worry ramped. "Max ...?"
He cleared his throat. "Up for a visit?"
No hesitation on her end: "Give me a day to clear a few things up and then I'm on my way. Did I mention in my last letter? One of the companies I consult for referred me to a couple of real power houses ..."
"No ... what I meant was ... how 'bout I pay you one?"
That one did cause her to hesitate. "You want to come here ?"
Max's face burned like a school boy's. "Unless it's a problem ..."
"Come on, Max, you going coy on me? Of course you're welcome. It's just ... I've never known either of you to leave Tohatchi except to hunt."
He went for a little bravado. "I'm branching out. Expanding my horizons."
Doris laughed, and then turned serious. "Are you going to tell me what going on?"
He fiddled with the phone cord. "I'll call you as soon as I have a flight schedule."
"Answer's no, then." More gently, she added, "Okay. It'll be good to see you."
"Same. I better go. Don't want to tie up Chuli's phone."
"Max?"
"Yeah ..."
"Just you? No Mina ... no David ...?"
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes a minute. "Just me," he said.
Doris Tebbe's House on Mission Avenue
San Buenaventura, California
Spring, 1950
Midday. New Moon.
She looked great. The dark red of her hair was threaded with a little more white than the last time he's seen her, but on her it worked. When he dropped his bags to accept her hug, the lenses in her reading glasses accented new creases at the corners of those small, cool eyes of hers. He kind of liked those, too.
She released him and backed off to look him up and down. He took the chance to score some points. "You're hair's different."
Even a hardballer like Doris had a little coquette in her. She smiled and touched the nape of her neck, giving him a brief profile, so his ruse seemed to work. He really couldn't remember if her hair was different or not, other than he knew she didn't wear snoods any more. Hell, no woman wore snoods nowadays. Whole new decade, brand new styles. Women .
"You like it? It's the poodle cut. Stupid name, good style."
"Yeah." He did like it, even though he missed the days when women wore their hair longer. But Doris had a nice neck, a really nice neck, and the style left the back of it bare. Really nice.
Max cleared his throat. "You look like Lucille Ball."
Doris's eyebrows arched and he wondered if he'd just blown it. "I have never met a bullshitter as shitty at it as you."
"No. Really. You do."
"Pick up your bag and get in the house before you burn my lawn with all that manure." Hair like Lucille Ball's, attitude like Kate Hepburn's.
"No. Really ..." he said, following her inside. She led him through the house, on their way to the guest room. "So this is where you finally settled. City name's sure a mouthful."
"The locals just call it Ventura."
The house was all Doris. Practical, no nonsense. But good taste. The living room had black lacquered woods, maroon fabrics, pale yellow on the walls. Not very big, but Doris wouldn't be interested in more space than she needed.
"Your place is nice."
"Got it for a song," she said, "with all the attention and money going outside the city limits these days. The local papers like to call it 'the suburban lifestyle.'"
She opened the door to her guest room and stepped back so Max could go in. Leaning against the door jamb she asked, "Ever been to one of these suburbs?"
Max tossed his bag on the bed. "Seen pictures in the magazines."
"Bleak as hell," she said. "Nothing but box houses, bare dirt and staked saplings."
"They're new, Doris. Gotta let the grass sprout and the trees grow."
She shook her head. "Reminds me too much of Tulenar. Had lunch?"
"On the plane."
"How 'bout a beer?"
Max feigned shock. "In the middle of the day? You bet."
He followed her into the kitchen where she opened the Frigidaire, pulled out the brews, then stopped by a drawer to get the opener. They sat at the kitchen's little oak table and touched bottle necks in a toast.
"Welcome back to California," Doris said after a sip. "I don't think you or David have been here since the end of the war. Or a little before then. '44, maybe?"
She went quiet as Max took a long pull from his own beer. He took another long one before noticing the way she was watching him.
"Thirsty?" she asked.
Max cleared his throat. "The plane ride dried me right out."
Doris smiled that thin, knowing smile that always amused or irritated Max, depending on if she aimed it at him or somebody else. He took one more long drink, just to mess with her, and then said, "At least you could let me get a little tight before we start getting serious."
Doris considered him a while, probably just to mess right back with him, then said, "Sure, drink up. I'll get you another as soon as you 'kill the spider.'"
She wasn't more than a quarter done with her own by the time Max drained the bottle. When she put the fresh beer in front of him, Max watched her sit and said, "I sure have missed you."
Her brows arched. "You better take it slower with this one."
"That's not the beer talking. It's been too long between visits. Anyway you, me, David ... we gave up all that polite, dance-around-what-we-really-should-say crap 'way back when, didn't we?"
"I thought we had."
Max made a show of looking at his watch. "For cryin' out loud, Doris. I've been here less than thirty minutes. What the hell makes you think I've got something particular on my mind, anyway?"
"Phone call instead of a letter. Wants to come here instead of me go there. Comes here alone --"
"Shit, David's not joined to my hip--"
"Yes, he is. You're like Siamese twins in a sideshow. Never farther from each other than you need to be in case you have to act fast."
"Y'know, it's a new age. Everything's just a car or plane ride away--"
"And while I know this is a vacation for you, and while I remember a time or two when we've both knocked 'em back pretty good in Albuquerque, I've never seen you go at it quite like this in the middle of the day--" Doris mimicked Max by looking at her own wristwatch "-less than thirty minutes after getting anywhere."
She finally shut up and took a pretty good swig of her own, her stare never leaving his. They faced off until both bottles were drained. Then Max dropped his gaze and picked at the neck's label with his thumbnail.
He said, "I'm done with it."
Doris's face tensed; a look somewhere between fear of knowing and needing to know. She said, "Okay, you want another?"
He looked up. "That's not what I'm talking about."
Her expression softened. "Yeah ... I know. What happened, Max?"
"Does anything have to have 'happened'? Except for another hunter, you're the only one who understands how crappy this life is. Not even Mina gets it like you do. Hell, I'm almost fifty. It's a hard life for a man half my age."
"But something did happen. Am I right? Something out of the ordinary ...?"
He could see his eyes reflected in the reading glasses she was still wearing. He saw his own expression, a mix of pleading and refusal.
"I'm serious. I don't want to talk about it."
"If you want me to understand, Max--"
"Who said I do? I came here to get away from it, not to lug it along with me."
Damn it, he was through . Bad enough to have Luperón endlessly spooling through his head, waking or sleeping, without having to indulge Doris's stunted mothering instinct. But she didn't nag or sit in pissed off silence. Instead she looked at him as if she could see inside his head, see the carnage at the church, see him cradling Sister Veronica as she took her last breath, see him gently reassembling Mezz like some giant, torn rag doll.
Finally she asked, "So ... what's next?"
"I was thinking, maybe, some coffee. You've got a point about the beers."
"You're a real wit when you want to avoid something." But she rose to grab the percolator off the stove and filled it at the tap, letting the subject drop.
Max watched her, wondering if Ventura would be a nice place to settle.
South of Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring, 1950
Dusk. New Moon.
David pushed back from the journal and rubbed his eyes, the must of yellowed pages clinging to his fingers. The Ham whistled briefly and he looked up in spite of himself. He knew Max wouldn't be hailing him. Couldn't hail him. Doris didn't have a radio. She had refused years ago, in spite of David's offer to pay. It would have been agony, she had told him. She would not have been able to stay off it. Listening, wondering, worrying, every time they were on a hunt. Better to not know. Better to wait for a phone call from Mina one awful day, telling her that he or Max -or both-had finally lost to the Beast.
He rested his hands on his thighs, leaned the chair on two legs and let his gaze return to the volume opened on the table. Its pages were brown around the edges, its leather cover worn, grainy and cracked. There were six thick journals in all, dating from 1894 to 1932, all written in the sparse, crabbed handwriting of Joseph Stanislov.
Stanislov had already been an old man when he had taken David back from the Beast. By the time his hunts led him to David, he depended on cunning more than physical force. Drugs. Kidnappings. Those had become his main weapons long before the two of them had even met.
Not that it would have been very hard to subdue David in any case. By the time Stanislov came along, David was spending the better part of his time drunk. Most of the elders on the reservation had figured out he was behind the killings long before he knew it himself. But, of course, the police -neither Navajo nor white-believed in werewolves. And the elders relied on the old ways when it came to damaged souls.
David endured every sweating, sing, unction and powder, anything to keep the community peace. Anything to heal the pain of his widowhood. But he always denied he was at the center of it all. And the kills continued. David got drunker. His cursing about old men and their stupidity and superstition got louder. He was branded a witch, a shape-shifter, a man who refused to walk in the Navajo way of Beauty.
The elders pronounced him shunned. He moved like a ghost inside the reservation. The only recognition of his existence was people crossing the street to avoid him. Or their flinching when he yelled at their backs, turned against him when he couldn't be avoided.
He'd been living not far outside the reservation's borders a few months before Stanislov tracked down the lineage that David hosted. By then he was well on his way to being the stereotypical Indian, passed out against the facade of some white man's liquor store.
Then came Fate. A chance encounter. David walks out of the store. A bump, a busted Mogen-David bottle bleeding through its paper bag on the wooden walkway. An elaborate apology from an old hawk-nosed man with an accent that made David think of the "Dracula" movie. An offer to replace the bottle. With his hangover and his shakes, in his eagerness for the first gulp of that dark, sweet, grimace-inducing wine, David hadn't even noticed the screw top's seal had been broken.
It was that easy.
David woke from a stupor the wine had never given him before. Deeper even than the fifth of whiskey that he could, from time to time, get his hands on. He had fantasized about such a deep, cottony daze, but now he realized he didn't want to sink into those depths again. Something waited for him there. Faces waited for him there.
"Those are the memories you share with the Beast," Stanislov said.
David didn't realize he had company until that moment. He pulled himself up from his side, rubbed his face, and looked toward the voice. He wanted to ask, "What did you say?" But all he could manage was a questioning groan.
"In your stupor, you were talking. Trying to find a way to turn from them. Those faces you see. Those are the faces of its victims. It revels in the memories, feeds off them while it lies dormant. They are very like the moving pictures of this new generation, aren't they? They are what sustain the Beast until emergence, these memories of its kills. Their screams. Their pleading. Their eyes. You were not meant to see them just yet, Mr. Begay. But, lucky for us the Beast has, at least, a few limits and weaknesses."
Something else David hadn't noticed before was that he wasn't home in his hogan. This place looked like some dingy jail. Another milestone on my downhill road. My first time in lockup .
At last he found enough voice to ask, "Where am I," before he thought to add, "Who are you?"
"Forgive me. I have you at a disadvantage. My name is Joseph Stanislov."
It must have been night. The only light was from a couple of oil lamps, one sitting on a small table near Stanislov's elbow; the other, coming from behind David's left. He turned, still in a daze, looking for the source. This was a strange setup for a town jail, even in the wastelands around Indian territory. He was sitting on a canvas cot in the middle of a cage. The cage, in turn, sat in the middle of some place large and hidden behind the lamp glow. He reached out to touch the bars, expecting them to dissolve like a booze-induced hallucination. His fingers came back gritty with rust.
Finally, a dose of fear. Adrenaline cleared some of the stupor. He swiveled about, trying to get his bearings, in spite of the ache and vertigo.
"Are you thirsty?" Closer now, Stanislov's voice made David startle. "I'm sure I will have to say this often before you finally believe. But you have nothing to fear from me."
David never did come to believe that. He just learned to believe that Stanislov was his only hope.
His captor bent down about an arm's length from the cage and set a canning jar of water on the floor. He kept a steady gaze on David all the while, then -with the stiffness of age-rose and returned to the stool he had been sitting on.
"Can you reach that?"
David didn't try. He began to sweat, his heart pounding in his ears. Stanislov shrugged, suit yourself on his face. Ever courteous, but aloof.
"Regrettably, this inconvenience is necessary. You and I will remain here until the first night of the full moon. There is still some life left in you, and the Beast isn't ready to move to another host. Like a patient suffering through an attack of malaria, yours will be a difficult time. A poor analogy, but it's the best I can do with my simple English. Your experience will be worse.
"The Beast, you see, is more conscious of us than you of it. The Beast knows what I intend to do, so naturally, it will fight back as best it can. Soon it will share with you more of those memories. What you did in the orphanage, What you did to your wife ..."
That brought David to the bars, his arms stretched, his hands clawing. Stanislov's stony expression never wavered. The pain in David's head surged. Something between a roar and a scream felt as though it would burst his skull. He sank to the cage's floor, clutching his ears. When the noise and the pain ebbed, Stanislov's voice came through.
"Neither of you are quite ready for that, I see."
"Animal attack," David managed to slur out.
"Please?"
"It was an animal attack!" David shouted through the pounding in his head.
"But what you must come to understand, Mr. Begay, is that the animal is in you."
David pulled himself off the floor. "You crazy old bilaga'ana! What am I doing here?! What do you want?!"
"Only to stop it."
"Stop what ?"
"The Beast, Mr. Begay. The werewolf."
David made it to the cot, his limbs heavy as sacks of wet sand. None of this makes sense . He must've gotten a tainted bottle of wine, or a bad can of beans, and this grotesquely real dream was the effect. Maybe he was in a clinic somewhere, comatose, on his last legs, dying from botulism. Could he be that lucky?
Or maybe a skin walker -a real one-had poisoned him and was waiting for him to die so his bones could be ground into corpse powder. Strong magic in corpse powder, they say. Probably all the more so if made from the bones of a witch.
But just in case this wasn't a deathbed fever dream, he stole a glance at the cage door, wrapped tightly at the unhinged seam with a heavy chain and padlock.
Stanislov said, "It is an old but solid circus cage, Mr. Begay, without its wheels and axle. Built for a lion. There is not even a key to the lock any more. I destroyed it after I pulled you onto the cot. So, you see, you are quite confined. Upon First Night, if I do not act quickly, the Beast will come through those bars. But you never will ..."
\*\*\*
The Ham crackled again. David heard a voice beneath the static, but no one he knew. He brought the chair back to all fours, folded his arms on the table and pulled his gaze from the journals. In the quiet, he could hear Mina at the other side of house, readying for bed.
He pressed his palm against the denim of his trousers until he felt the ridge of scar tissue on his abdomen. I'm getting tired, Stanislov. I'm getting old. He tried to picture how Yazhi might have looked in her 50's. Wondered if they might have had grandchildren by now. How many sons, how many daughters? The fantasy made him smile a moment, and then it tightened his throat and stung his eyes.
Doris Tebbe's House on Mission Avenue
San Buenaventura, California
Spring, 1950
Evening. New Moon.
"It's going to be a hard habit to break, I guess."
Max hadn't realized what he'd been doing until Doris spoke. He had leaned forward, peering at a patch of sky between the neighborhood rooftops and the front porch eaves. Looking for the moon. Searching for its faint silhouette during the dark phase. In the New Mexico desert, away from city lights, he would've spotted it easily.
Max leaned back on the three-seated glider. Doris sat with him, her hand resting on the empty cushion between them. Together, they pushed the glider into motion and Max asked, "You don't look for it anymore?"
She gazed toward the street. "I try not to, but ... there's a section in the morning paper that displays the phases."
"Cheater."
Doris laughed, short and soft, and reached for her highball on the side table. She took a drink and said, "So. How're David and Mina taking this decision of yours?"
David's pouting like a four-year-old, sulking in his sweat lodge, burying his nose in those goddamn journals, pretending he's accepted it, but I could see it in his eyes. The bastard'll never give up on me.
Max reached for his own drink. "David rolls with the punches, you know that."
"Hmm. And Mina?"
"Mina's got plenty to worry about besides me. She manages those shops better than David ever did. With her in charge, all he really needs to do is work on his own silver craft and decide what other Native jewelers to display." He looked at Doris and lifted his index finger, pointing at her from around the glass. "That's what he should do. Quit hunting altogether and put his energy in his art again."
"I don't think the two of you could've gotten along without Mina."
"We thank our lucky stars we didn't have to for long. Although, at the time our paths crossed, we sure didn't think of those stars as lucky. Funny how things go, isn't it? If I hadn't almost died of pneumonia when we were fleeing the state, David and I might not have Mina with us today."
"Did she ever ... was she ever able to go back to her family, after following you and David?"
Max shrugged. Between sips he said, "She came and went for a little while. But she hasn't done that for years now. She's never talked about it, at least not to me. Maybe with David. I used to catch them sometimes, talking low in Navajo, but they'd clam up as soon as they noticed me. Like I'd ever understand a word."
"And how are the others? Paul and Amy? Samuel?"
"Paul and Amy are good. Still freezing their asses off in the Canadian northwest, who the hell knows why. Couple of calls ago, Amy said the sea foam was freezing in midair. Samuel ... I dunno. When I left Tohatchi, we still hadn't heard from him. If David doesn't hear from him soon he'll need to do something. We're getting worried. You've never met any of them, have you?"
Max finished his highball, waiting for her reply. But Doris had gone stiff and quiet. He was trying to decide if he had the nerve to ask if he'd said something wrong, when she said, "How 'bout it? Is that enough small talk for now?"
Max set his glass down. "Doris ..."
"Because it's been small talk since you got here. Beer and small talk. Town tour and small talk. Dinner and small talk. Now porch sitting and small talk." She braked the glider's motion with her foot and turned to him. "You know I've never been good at this chatty crap. So now, after all these years, you expect me to turn into a Good Housekeeping model?"
"Doris ..."
"Come on, Max, screw all this."
Max clenched his jaw so hard, his back teeth ached. It was a stupid idea, coming to see Doris. What the hell had he been thinking? He was angrier with himself than with her, because she was right. He hadn't really thought about it that way but, yeah, that's what he'd wanted. And with Doris, he should've known better. What the hell had he been thinking?
His voice was still tight when he said, "You're right. It's not fair. This was a bad idea." He stood. "I better turn in. The long flight, the booze .. what I need most is a good night's sleep."
He started toward the door, but Doris's voice was plaintive when she said, "Max," and grabbed his shirt sleeve. She stood. Her hand moved up to rest near his shoulder.
His eyes burned and got watery. Embarrassed, he looked away, his jaw tensing again. But he didn't move away. Neither did she. Her fingers pressed his arm more firmly and she said again, "Max .."
He brought his arm up to her back. He meant it to be a reconciling gesture, between friends: it's okay ... I'll be okay. But his fingers curled over her shoulder and he pulled her against him and pressed his face against her neck. One gut-deep sob spilled out before he could do anything about it.
She let him hold her. She let him pull his other arm up and lock her against him. When he kissed her neck, she let that happen, too. Her gasp, so close to his ear, hardened him instantly. Her palms came up, fingers clutching wads of shirt, and he pulled his lips up her neck to her jaw line, to her mouth.
Then suddenly she wasn't there. She was backing off, toward the front door, glaring at him with a mix of anger and heartache.
"Damn it, Max!" She turned and charged through the door.
Max followed. "I'm sorry ... Doris ... I'm sorry ..."
She turned toward him again. "Are you? For what?"
"I just ... I'm tired, boozed up, I lost control. I'm sorry, Doris, it won't happen again."
She looked like she was going to slug him. "You ... asshole ! Who the hell do you think you're talking to? You're going to look me in the eye and pretend all you did just now was make a pass at me?"
"I did just make a pass ..."
She jabbed her finger at him, firing words like bullets. "Bullshit! You didn't want me so much as you just wanted to change the subject . That was low. " Her eyes narrowed and her voice got brittle. "Well, congrats. It worked."
By now Max was past sorry and well into pissed. But Doris stormed off to her room and slammed the door before he could get satisfaction. He marched down the hall and gave her door a kick.
"Good!" he shouted through the wood. Then stood there for a minute. When nothing happened, he stomped off to his own room and matched her, slam for slam.
 \*
He wasn't sure how long he'd lain in his skivvies on top of the covers, his clothes crumpled in a corner where he'd flung them. Long enough to be sorry about their fight. Long enough to admit to himself that Doris was partly right.
She was wrong about him not wanting her, though.
He sat up and swung his legs over the side. It took him a moment to swallow his pride and screw up his nerve, but he finally got off the bed, uncrumpled his trousers and pulled them on.
Outside her door, he rapped a knuckle against the wood. When he didn't get an answer, he tried again and called low, "Doris?" Still nothing. He took a chance and tried the knob. She wasn't in bed. She had been, from the looks of it, but not long enough to mess it up much. Max closed the door, feeling even worse about his behavior. He went looking around the house, but she wasn't anywhere.
He checked the porch, wound up in the living room, plopped on the couch, leaned back and rubbed his face. She hadn't gone far because her Rambler convertible was still parked out front. Max thought about going to look for her, but decided against it. This was s.o.p. for her. When she was upset she'd walk it off, no matter how long it took.
Max heaved a sigh, glanced at the starburst clock on the wall pointing toward 2:00 a.m., and that was the last he saw until sunlight and the smell of bacon grease woke him.
South of Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring, 1950
Night. New Moon.
David sweats in his dream. He is in Stanislov's cage again, the cot gone. The chain that had bound the door has been undone by bolt cutters. Naked, he feels the cold steel flooring all along the length of his back, buttocks and legs, feels the shackles on his wrists and ankles. Cold, cold sweat. He's trembling so hard the chains connecting his limbs to the cage bars chime against the flooring.
Standing over David, Stanislov is gripping his silver dagger in his right hand. That dagger and Stanislov's pitiless eyes. Over twenty years ago, they were the last thing David saw before losing consciousness. By the time Stanislov had driven it in, David had already been overcome by the Beast's emergence; the iron shackles, meant to restrain any last minute panic in him, in tatters.
But in the dream, David is conscious and sees Stanislov bring his left hand up to join the right on the dagger's hilt, sees him brace, then sees him drop all his weight, use all his strength for the plunge.
David screams and bolts upright, clutching his gut. The shackles are gone. The cage is gone, but he's still dreaming. A fluorescent glow begins fluttering and a chemical tang causes him to turn, hands still mashed against his abdomen, as he sniffs for the source. He's sitting on the prep room floor of Truman and Sons. He sees an ornate, open coffin in the middle of the morgue. He hears the singing and drum of a Navajo funeral.
He won't stand, terrified his intestines will spill from the dagger wound. But when he looks down he sees no blood. When he opens his hands, there's only the jagged, ropy scar he's carried for two decades.
So he stands and walks to the coffin, shameless in his nakedness even though there are people holding vigil just behind the raised casket lid, singing with the drums. He's not surprised to look into the coffin and see Stanislov's pallid, hawk-nosed face. He lifts his eyes to the people. Expressionless, his wife, Yazhi, looks back at him. Mezz, too, beside her. There are two of the orphan boys he slaughtered so long ago. And Sister Veronica. Beside her is a man that David recognizes because of a picture in the Springfield News-Leader . Lloyd Stonehill.
Yazhi says, "He didn't save you because he loved you. He saved you because he loved us."
Mezz drops his gaze to the coffin and says, "Look at there."
So David looks. Stanislov's lips are stretched and bleeding, his mouth too small for the fangs pushing through the gums. There's something jammed between his jaws. David peers more closely. It's a vertebra, perfectly notched where the upper fangs brace it.
Now, a man with only half a right arm stands next to David. A Dominican. David says, "Papo?" The man's shoulders are draped with fishing net. He twists away from David, then wheels back and David bellows as the net, wet and reeking, stings his skin, covering him and the others, Stanislov and the coffin, forcing him face down against the fangs of the corpse ...
David jolted from the nightmare to find himself propped on his elbows, cotton sheeting bunched in both hands. He blinked, then realized someone was at his bedroom door. He sat the rest of the way up with a start. It was Mina.
"What is it?" she asked, sounding breathless, still tugging on her bathrobe. "You were screaming. You called out for me."
David struggled for breath. He mopped his face with the bed sheet then said, "I've got to get into town. I've got to call Max."
Doris Tebbe's House on Mission Avenue
San Buenaventura, California
Spring, 1950
Morning. New Moon.
Max followed his nose to the kitchen, where Doris was making pancakes in one pan and frying bacon in the other. She must have heard him shuffling over the threshold, because she turned to look at him. She was dressed and looked tired. She turned back to the stove.
Max sat down at the table. "Where'd you go?"
Doris flipped a pancake before replying. "Walking around."
"I didn't hear you leave. Or come back."
She nodded toward the kitchen door without turning from the skillets. "I went out the back."
"When'd you get in?"
"Two-thirty ... maybe three o'clock." She cooked for a while, then: "Did you sleep okay?"
"Listen ... the whole day yesterday ... it was stupid .."
With her back still to him, she said, "Max ..."
But she didn't finish. No one said anything for a while. Then Doris laid a few pancakes on a metal cookie sheet, covered them with Reynolds Wrap and put them in the oven. She started on another batch. Max looked down at the table and fiddled with the pepper shaker.
"Y'know, when David and I first started hunting, I never thought I'd last this long. I figured we'd be lucky to make it through a couple of hunts before one or the other of us went down. Maybe both ..." He stopped fidgeting with the pepper shaker and took a deep breath. "Where we went this time ... there's a lineage ... I don't know how to describe it. It's a greater incarnation than anything we've seen." He looked up. "It went after its own kind , Doris. It attacked the same one we were hunting. It ripped the other's chest wide open and why it didn't take us, too ..."
Max leaned on his elbows and gripped the back of his neck with both hands. "We left those people to fend for themselves. We left them that god awful mess. A whole town is in ruins. There was this nun, a young woman, not much more than a girl, probably barely out of the convent ..." His throat felt thick and tight ".. and there was a pilot we hired, thought he was a real hep cat, this kid, and ... we told him to stay put, but he must've followed us, got into some sort of trouble with some bad ass robbers, I guess, and this ... mutant must've sniffed him out, found him bound up and just ... just ..."
He moved his hands fast to his forehead, pressing his thumbs against his temples and squeezing his eyes shut until the burn faded. When he looked up again, Doris stood quiet over the stove, the heels of her hands braced on its corners, her head bowed, her back still to him.
The phone in the living room rang and scared the wits out them both. Doris took a quick swipe at her eyes, turned off the burners, then hurried out. Max heard, "Yeah, this is Mrs. Tebbe," then an awkward, "Oh. David. Hello, how are you ...? Sure ... no, I understand, let me get him. We'll catch up later."
As soon as he heard David's name, Max headed to the living room. He was already walking toward Doris as she covered the receiver with one hand and turned to call him. She handed him the phone.
"David?"
"Max, I've figured something out. About the connection between the Beast's lineage in southern Missouri and the Lesser Beast in Luperón ..."
One side of Max wanted to tell David where to go, but the other side kept him on the phone. David described a dream about Stanislov and Stonehill, Mezz and Papo. When he got to the part about Papo casting a net over them all, Max interrupted.
"Yeah, I get the picture, David. You're thinking the net means you're connected to all these people. So what? Hell, everybody who's been bitten is connected. You're just shell shocked right now and putting too much into --"
"Let me finish, Max. The connection is the vertebrae. Remember? The ones we saw in the dead Beast at Branson. In my dream, Stanislov had the fangs of the Beast. They held one of the vertebras between them. The notch in the vertebra fit the fangs."
The remains in the funeral home flashed into Max's mind: the dead Beast's throat and jaw ripped away. His stomach knotted. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute ... are we talking about ... talking about another Great Incarnation?"
"I'm sure of it."
"Jesus. Oh, Jesus." Then Max got a crazy idea. "What if it's ... whatdiya think if it's the same one that we saw in Luperón?"
David went quiet on the other end of the line. Probably thinking it over. Finally he said, "No. Plenty of lesser incarnations on the main lands of North and South America. Why would the Greater lead its host so far out of the way? They must be two different lineages."
David was right. Max just didn't want to believe there was more than one Great Incarnation. The thought of it made his blood rush to his belly. Especially knowing that he was too worn, too slow, his brain too jammed with failure to think of such a future.
David said something and Max asked, "What?"
"You need to come back."
Max shook his head, as if David were standing in front of him. "Why?"
"Why?!"
"This doesn't change anything. It just proves my point. We couldn't even stop the Lesser Beast when we were in Luperón, let alone the Greater. We're too old and worn out for this --"
"Stanislov wasn't when he saved me, and he was older than either of us --"
"Yeah, he was , David. He was too old and too slow to get out of the way and you bit him!"
There was quiet on the line again. Then David, his voice tight, said, "He wasn't too old, he was too old-fashioned. That's why he was bitten." Then he said, as if he couldn't believe what Max was telling him, "You have got to come back."
Max sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "I am coming back. When I'm ready, for my stuff. David ... let Amy and Paul handle this. Let Samuel. Call them in. Get 'em up to speed. Go ahead and be a coach, but it's time to let them run the race."
David didn't reply. Max rubbed his eyes. "Have you heard from Samuel yet?"
There still was no reply. Max said, "David?" There was an almost inaudible click; the receiver on the other end being set in its cradle. He looked over at Doris. She stood watching him, pale and fighting back tears as hard as any man.
 \*
Max went to put on a shirt while Doris reheated the bacon. They sat at the kitchen table without saying a word, eyes fixed on their breakfast as if they thought they'd forget how to eat if they looked up. They stayed like that for a while until, just at the edge of sight, Max saw Doris put her knife and fork down decisively.
"Max. Maybe you should go back to Tohatchi."
Max chewed, swallowed, then reached for the percolator sitting on the pot holder. As he refilled his cup, he said, "Kind of screwed up my welcome last night, didn't I?"
"That's not what I'm talking about."
He lifted his coffee and blew on it, swiveling his gaze to her. "It's not?"
Color crept up her neck. That nice neck of hers. She got busy with her pancakes again. "You're needed there."
Max kept his eyes on her. He said, "Doris?" And waited until she looked at him. "Did I cross the line last night?"
She held his gaze a moment, her neck still flushed, then went back to pushing her pancakes around. "I don't know."
"Yes, you do."
Those small, cool eyes of hers came back up flashing. She pointed her butter knife at him. "I know that what you did last night was avoid something you couldn't handle. Just like you are now."
"We've got that in common, you and me."
For a minute, she looked like she was figuring out how to slug him from across the table. Then she smiled a little, set down the knife and topped off her own coffee.
Max said, "I'll make you a deal. We'll each take a topic we're avoiding, okay?"
Doris sipped her coffee and said, "Okay," as if they'd just signed on the dotted line.
Max smiled. "Ladies first."
"Suddenly Captain Pierce is a gentleman."
"I have always been a gentleman and used to be an officer." He repeated, "Last night's line ... crossed or uncrossed?"
She set her cup down, stood and began clearing the breakfast dishes. "You don't really think it's as simple as that."
Max nodded, watching her. "Yeah," he conceded, "I know. But, over the years ... you must've sensed ... I mean ... last night couldn't have been that much of a surprise."
"Look, with the monk's life that you and David lead, you'd probably grope a Scotsman in a kilt if you were drunk enough and he had nice legs."
"Bullshit."
Doris pushed the soggy pancake scraps into the trash can, set the dishes in the sink and turned toward him. She leaned against the counter. "Yeah, bullshit. But... the way my life's become ... the way yours is ..."
"Not anymore. That's not how my life is anymore."
"Max ... even if I take you at your word, even if you really believe it yourself ... our history , Max. Yours and mine." She watched him steadily now. "You know I don't blame you for what happened at Tulenar. You know I don't hate you. All that left me when I saw you come back to the world, when I watched the Beast fall away and you emerge. But ... still ... all that happened before that night ..."
It was Max's gaze that faltered. He looked back at the table and reached toward his cup, rotating it slowly. The only sound in the kitchen was the scrape of its bottom on the table's wood. "You still think of him?"
She bristled a little, crossing her arms. "He had a name. You can say his name. Arthur. Of course I think of him. And the others. Don't you?"
He nudged the cup away. "I live with them. And with my wife Annie. And all the ones that came between."
Doris sagged a little and her gaze drifted away. "I don't know if people like us can ever have what others have, Max. We've made decisions. We made them a long time ago."
The drift of their lives meandered past them right there in the room and they both watched it go for a while before Max cleared his throat, and then asked, "You want me to go back to Tohatchi?"
"I think you need to be there."
Doris Tebbe's House on Mission Avenue
San Buenaventura, California
Spring, 1950
Midday. New Moon.
They checked the flight times. Doris offered to drive Max to the airport, but he refused. She said, "You're going to deny me a good excuse to get behind the wheel? How can you turn down a ride in a ragtop?"
She patted the Rambler's pearly white hood, but it was clear she was just trying to mask how awkward they were both feeling. When the cabbie pulled up, it was relief.
Max looked at Doris. "Friends, still. Right?"
"Don't be an idiot." Doris pulled him into a hug.
But it stung to see how relieved she looked to watch him go. He got in the cab, Doris waved and said, "Write when you get back," and he nodded, even though he wasn't going back. Not yet. But he wanted to leave without any new arguments between them, so he clammed up about that. Once he figured out where he was really going, he'd drop both her and David a note.
As the cabbie pulled away from the curb, Max said, "Change of plans. Where's a good place to hole up and catch the sea breeze? Little bungalow, maybe, with a kitchenette ...?"
He didn't have to go far. Twenty minutes north of Ventura was a seaside row of little brick stand-alones called the Sandman Motel, built facing the bluffs over the ocean. Sooner or later, Max would have to go back to Tohatchi for his things. But, for now, this was all he needed while he thought about what came next.
He got a rental car, spent the afternoon driving the coast and spent his first night on the Adirondack chair outside the little bungalow's door. He ate a couple of grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches, washed down with a six pack of Schlitz, and let the land breeze flow across him on its way down the bluffs to the ocean. Cocooned in the dusk and a nice beery haze, he felt as if his future was as spread out, fresh and open as the Pacific beyond the bluffs. He thought about where he'd like to settle, what he'd like to do. Rosemary Clooney crooned something sultry on the radio just inside his open door.
The second and third nights, he ate grilled cheese and bacon again, drank more beer and sat in the Adirondack until he caught himself watching the moon rise, beginning its first quarter. He forced his thoughts back to fantasies about where he'd like to settle, what he'd like to do.
The fourth night, he was pissed at himself for milling around, waiting on the moon. He was tired of grilled cheese and bacon, but not beer, and took his drinking to a dark, local tavern. He spent his fifth night there, too, shielded from the moonrise but not from his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. The more beer he drank the more questions the reflection asked him.
Look at you. What the hell are you gonna do? Get a job? What kind? Nice, easy office work? How? You're legally dead.
That wasn't a problem. He and David had been making fake I.D.'s for years.
How're you gonna fake experience? Who's gonna hire a man that's been out of touch with the normal world for nearly ten years?
Okay, so a cushy office job was never a real option. Max wasn't afraid to work with his hands. He could learn a trade.
Who'd apprentice a man face-to-face with fifty?
There was always ...
Construction work? What have you ever constructed? Handy man? How many years do you have left before your back gives out or arthritis sets in? What'll you live on then, your social security? What social security? The government says you're dead!
Doris might know somebody, she might know a place ...
Doris doesn't want you. That door closed eight years ago when she left you and David in that shack and went back to Tulenar. Leave her the hell alone.
"... Another ...?"
It took a second for Max to realize that last voice was outside his head. He looked up at the bartender. "Sorry?"
"You want another?" The bartender's eyes darted to the empty Schlitz bottle on the cardboard coaster. His expression said he thought Max had had enough, but, hey, none of his biz.
"Nah. Thanks," Max said. He stood, pulled out his wallet and paid.
He kept his eyes riveted to the road as he drove, resisting, feeling the pull of the moon on them. He went straight into his bungalow, closed the door and kept his eyes down as he tugged the blinds over the window. He turned on the radio for company and the light beside his bed, so the glow of a quarter moon moving into half-full wouldn't seep through the shade.
On the sixth night, he was back on the Adirondack, leaned forward, fingers tangled together, waiting on the moon.
 \*
On the seventh night, Max told himself he was going for a drive. Just a drive. Clear his head. Get himself ready for going back to Tohatchi, where he'd start packing in earnest. Patch things up with David and start making some real plans. Maybe California wasn't for him after all. Maybe he should go back to his roots instead, to St. Louis. He pulled out of the motel's gravel lot and popped the bottle cap off the beer nestled in his crotch, tossing the cap and opener onto the passenger seat before shifting to second.
Just a drive, that ended with him sitting in the rental, two doors down on the opposite side of the street from Doris's house. What was left of the six pack had lost its chill, but he opened another anyway. When he saw her come out and sit on the glider, it caught him off guard and he slumped down. His face went hot with embarrassment even though she didn't seem to notice him, and a surprisingly sober thought slipped through the beer barrier:
What the hell am I doing, crouched down like some sicko in front of her house?
But he didn't leave. Instead he watched her until she rose, stretched and went back in, then stayed and watched the moon on its course. The sun couldn't wake him, but some neighborhood kids did as they shouted to each other and sped past on their Schwinns.
He went back to the bungalow and slept most of the day. After nightfall, he drove back to Doris's place; this time, he told himself, he'd walk up and knock on her door. He'd 'fess up to what he'd been doing for the past week and ask her, point blank, for advice. Instead, he parked a couple of doors in the other direction and split his attention between her house and the moon. She didn't come out this time. But at least he didn't fall asleep, and drove back to the motel before sun-up.
The next night, he almost screwed up the nerve to leave the car. The night after that, he actually had his hand on the car handle when he saw her come out, shrugging on a light sweater as she walked east. A little neighborhood stroll. It pissed him off to see her behaving so goddamned normal, so he turned the engine over and drove off, spent the rest of the night in that Adirondack with his beer, facing off with the moon, now more than three quarters full.
 \*
Finally, a decision. Kind of one, anyway, as he sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing at his beard stubble. He couldn't keep doing this. His head hurt. His stomach was sour and complaining that he'd slept through breakfast and lunch. The bungalow's wall clock told him it was time for supper. He wasn't cut out to be a drunk. It was time to go back.
But no way in hell was he going to Tohatchi during a full moon. No way. He'd have to ride it out a few more nights. And he was not going back to Doris's place, damn it. Not to talk to her, not to sit in his goddamned car and pretend he was going to talk to her and he was not going to sit in that goddamned Adirondack on this goddamned First Night waiting for the goddamned full moon.
He took a hot shower, dressed, then went to a diner up the road that had become a favorite and asked where the town bijou was. He sat through the newsreel, a couple of shorts, and the latest Abbott and Costello.
Then he drove slowly past Doris's place. The house was dark and her car was gone. Friday night. She was out, living her life. Maybe with friends. Maybe with a man.
Back in Tohatchi, Max knew, David would be glued to the Ham. He would have begun well before nightfall had come to New Mexico, listening as First Night made its long, tortuous course across the continent. Listening for anything. Listening to everything.
By the time Max was sitting in the Adirondack, having resisted cracking open his six pack until then, First Night's moon was almost set. He watched as the ocean swallowed it and counted up his near successes: he hadn't spent the entire night watching the moon. He hadn't spent it dozing outside Doris's door. And he was only now getting started on his evening drunk.
Twenty Miles North of San Buenaventura, California
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
Early Afternoon, Day after First Night. Full Moon.
He saw it as he was leaving the diner, where you could get breakfast even in the middle of the afternoon. A guy having coffee and pie at the counter had set the newspaper face down on the empty stool beside him. The article was small and below the fold, but still front page stuff:
BIZARRE ATTACKS BEGINNING AGAIN?
OFFICIALS NEVER FOUND KILLER CANINE
Max wanted to keep walking, but his feet were rooted, his stare stuck in place. After a moment, he sensed the pie guy watching him. Max motioned to the paper.
"Are you done with this?"
The pie guy shook his head. With a get-your-own expression, he said, "There's a machine outside the door."
Max dropped a dime in the slot. All the papers except the one braced in the display window were gone. He pulled it, went to his car and read:
The remains of one Howard Kipfer, a known drug pusher, were found before dawn this morning. They were discovered by migrant workers returning to an avocado farm owned by Mr. & Mrs. Ellis Ebbers of Seeley, located in Imperial County, bordering Mexico. According to police, Mr. Kipfer may have encountered the same or similar animals responsible for two deaths during the months of September and October three years ago in northeast San Bernardino County.
Says Imperial County Animal Control Officer Bill S. Limon, "It's not conclusive, but it may be the work of an individual animal, likely canine or lupine. Very, very big. It is too early to tell if it is rabid. By no means should people panic, but we urge caution in the rural areas in and around Seeley."
Max leaned his head back on the car seat. His first thought was to pack his things and make his way to this county on the California-Mexico border, where the attack occurred. No. He should ignore this. No. He should get a telegram to David. He'd make it very clear that he was not going to pursue this lead. But it would be irresponsible to not send word. He wondered if Mina or David had heard anything about it on the Ham. Then he told himself to think this through a little. He started the car and drove to Doris's house.
Her car was gone again or, maybe, she hadn't come back yet. Hey, she was a grown woman. Her business. Don't think about it. But, just in case, he grabbed the newspaper, got out of the rental and walked up to her door. No answer to his knock. Okay. He could wait. He made himself comfortable on the porch's glider.
The neighborhood was Saturday busy. Boys on their bikes, girls with jump ropes. The moms and dads in their yards keeping watch. One couple sauntered by and stopped on the sidewalk. They waved and said, "Afternoon," pretending they were just being neighborly rather than looking out for Doris's house while she was gone. Max put them at ease: friend of hers, visited about a week ago or so. The neighbors said yes, they recalled now. Max explained that he just got back in town. Did they happen to know when she'd return? They didn't, but her job sometimes kept her away for a day or two, have a nice afternoon.
After they left, Max tried her front door, but it was locked. The back door leading into the kitchen was easy to jimmy, though, so he went in, grabbed his first beer and returned to the porch. The afternoon turned to dusk. Kids and parents abandoned the street for supper. Max took a stroll around the block, left to grab a bite at a drive-in burger joint and replace the beers that he'd taken out of the fridge while he'd waited. When he came back, the kids were out playing hide and seek in the dark, using the street light as base.
 \*
He awoke with a start, his neck stiff, his chin on his chest. He felt chilled and a little damp, as if he'd been out for so long dew had begun to settle on him. He uncrossed his arms and ankles and stood to stretch out the stiffness. Not a single light was on at any house. Second Night's full moon outshone the street lamp, and the neighborhood's dark was deepened by the chirp of crickets. What time was it?
Doris still wasn't home.
Max felt like an idiot. What was he doing there, anyway? To "think things through" about the Imperial County attack? To get Doris's take on how he should handle this? What bullshit. Suddenly, he couldn't leave quickly enough. He snatched up the damp newspaper and headed to his car as a fast as his stiffened legs would take him.
At the end of the next block, his headlights caught a white car parked among the blue wagons and black sedans on the north side of the street. He stopped, killed his lights and eased into reverse for a few feet. A snazzy little Rambler convertible. He scanned the houses and saw a dim glow coming from the one just north of the Rambler. Max kept his car dark and in reverse, finding a long, empty stretch of curb a couple houses down.
He parked and sat staring ahead, thinking, feeling jealous and ashamed, but not moving ... except to get out of the car. He closed the door as quietly as he could, then began walking toward the Rambler, all the while telling himself he should go, he should leave.
It was a moment before Max recognized the familiar approach of nausea, the way his stomach was beginning to twist. It slowed him; confused him until he decided it had to do with catching Doris at her lover's house. As he walked up to the Rambler, the twist in his gut gripped harder and it didn't feel like a case of nerves anymore. It felt worse, it felt like ...
That didn't make sense. Couldn't be. Couldn't be. He looked up at the house, where the electric yellow glow was leaking through the drawn curtains, and his heart started hammering hard. He looked at his palm and saw the pentagram.
He didn't want to chance the porch's floorboards betraying him. Keeping low, he circled around the house, away from the dimly lit window, crept up the cement steps and tried the back door. Locked. He could give it a jimmy, but worried about the noise that might make.
The window to the right of the door was high and small, like it might be over a kitchen sink. But the one to the left was larger, the lower edge almost even with his shoulders. He looked around the back yard for something to stand on, but there was nothing there except two metal T poles with clotheslines strung between them. On the other hand, the only thing separating Max from the neighbor's lawn table and metal chairs was a three-foot picket fence.
The chair bowed slightly on its U-shaped legs when Max stood on it, but it held and boosted his chest and shoulders above the sill. Like the door, the window was locked. Max slipped the blade of his pocket knife between the latch and upper frame, a quieter alternative to a jimmied door. Once inside, he crouched against the wall below the window, blotted his sleeve against the sweat of his forehead and listened.
He was in the south end of the kitchen. He heard a radio turned low, someone breathing hard over the music and a sound like water dripping. He waited for his eyes to adjust from the moon-struck outdoors to the filtered light within. Then he stood and moved cautiously through the kitchen into the hall.
The house was small like Doris's and built on the same plan: living room at the end, two doors on the right of the hallway, one on the left. The light was coming from the left, the door about a quarter closed, as if it had eked into that position on its own; one of those doors that had to be braced open with a rubber stop. The radio and heavy breathing seemed louder, now that Max was in the hall, but the dripping sound had ended.
The first door on the right was wide open; the bathroom, as Max expected. The second was a few feet closer to him than the one on the left and Max listened near its frame to make sure there would be no surprises. It wasn't quite pulled shut, and Max considered pressing his fingers against it; give it a little shove so he could poke his head in and get a better idea of who or what might lay behind. But all light and sounds were coming from the other room, so he decided not to risk squeaking the hinges. Measuring every step, he moved to the left side of the hall, keeping to the wall.
By now he could hear the rhythmic whir of a fan oscillating on its pedestal. He peeled his right shoulder from the wall, pivoted on his left, and the room came partially into view. He saw the footboard of a bed, the bare feet and hard, wiry calves of a man, twitching from time to time. He saw a large basin sitting on a stool and a woman's legs in stockings and low heels, crossed, as if she was sitting in a chair next to the bed. Then her legs uncrossed, and Doris's profile and arms came into view. She bent toward the basin and dipped in a washcloth, swirling it a few times before lifting it to wring out the excess.
Max knew exactly what she was doing. He had done it himself, when he and David were lucky enough to find a host early in the hunt. Holding vigil, waiting out the seizures of the second and third nights of the full moon. Watching over the host, caught in the beast's struggle to cheat time, to take more for itself than First Night. Max reached up and pressed the door open.
Doris's eyes came up. Her face went white. "Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God." She dropped the cloth and stood, her back to the man on the bed, her arms spread as if to keep Max away from him. She looked terrified.
His heart hammered in his ears and he backed away from the threshold, turning to leave the house. But his legs went rubbery and he bumped against the other side of the hallway. He braced against the door frame there, trying to steady himself with a hand against the door. He'd forgotten it wasn't latched. It eased open.
Across from him moonlight was flooding through the room's window, painting everything in silvers, grays and whites; from the Ham radio, its speaker silent, its dials dark and gaping against the metal facing; to the shelving on the wall filled with bones, crowded with bones. Massive, blanched leg bones. Racks of giant rib bones. Large, teethed jawbones.
Jawbones .
Blackness speckled the edges of his sight. The Ham ... all those bones ... they were above his head before he realized his legs had given 'way. Behind him, he heard Doris sob out, "Max ..."
He managed to swivel around, saw her standing in the other doorway. He groped his way up and stumbled through the hall, into the kitchen and out the door.
"Max!"
He made it down the steps before he fell again. Doris followed him, plunging to her knees beside him and grabbing his arm.
"Max, please! Please!"
He rammed the heel of his hand square against her chest, knocking her back, and gained his feet again. She rolled forward, clutching his pant leg in one hand, his ankle with the other.
She was wailing, she was sobbing, she was begging, "Please! Max! Please!"
He reached down, clamped her arms hard and jerked her up. She was limp in his grip, her head lolling toward his chest, but he snapped her backward.
"He's the one, isn't he?"
Doris' face was streaked and smeared, ghostly in the moonlight. "Max, listen, please listen."
He slapped her. " Isn't he!"
Her head lolled again for a second, then she nodded. He reared back, ready to slap her again, harder this time, he wanted to hit her harder! He sunk his fingers into his scalp to stop himself and pushed his face skyward. Then he grabbed her by both arms once more and gave her another fierce shake.
"Who is he, Doris? Your lover? Hm? Your little loverboy? God damn it , who is he!"
She wheezed as if she couldn't find air. She lifted her face to him, her head bobbing unsteadily. "My son. He's my son."
Three Blocks East of Doris' House on Mission Avenue
San Buenaventura, California
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
Second Night. Full Moon.
"He's an Asian," Max said, looking at him in the bed.
A young man, not much older than Mezz. Late twenties, tops. He was unconscious, his lips cracked and bulging outward, his cheeks swollen as if his mouth was crowded with marbles. But Max knew what lay inside.
Doris was back in the chair. She wiped the washcloth across her own forehead and looked at Max. "You don't recognize him."
Max turned his eyes to the kid again. Better than looking at her right now. "I never saw him, Doris. I only saw the thing he was, ripping into the Lesser Beast."
She didn't say anything else for a minute, then: "That's not what I meant."
He could feel her eyes on him, but he kept staring at the young man in the bed, naked except for a sheet draped over his groin and thighs. The kid was beginning to sweat. Finally, she said, "He's Nisei."
Nisei. Japanese American. And Doris's son.
Max asked, "Is he ... is he Arthur's?"
From the corner of his eye, he could see Doris go motionless. Then she swirled the washcloth in the water again and wrung it out. She leaned in closer, said, "Excuse me," and reached toward the kid's forehead.
Max backed off a step. Without looking up, Doris replied, "Do the math, Max. If he were Arthur's, he wouldn't even be nine. He's my adopted son."
She looked up at him for a moment, but she seemed to have as much trouble keeping eye contact as he did. She gave her attention back to gently bathing the young man's face. "You really don't recognize him, do you?"
Max studied him and memory began to stir. He looked vaguely familiar; the squarish forehead, the sweep of the high hairline and abundant blue-black hair. He tried to imagine what the kid might look like without the distortion at his mouth and cheek line, how consciousness would affect his appearance. The young man made a gurgling sound deep in his throat and rolled his head, exposing a swath of silver that cupped the base of his hairline.
Tulenar. That's what Doris meant. He'd been one of the Tulenar internees.
With his eyes still fixed on him, Max said, "I could use a drink."
She freshened the washcloth in the basin again, and then pressed it to the kid's chest. "There's no booze in the house. Andrew doesn't drink."
Andrew . He looked at Doris. She straightened in the chair, resting her hand on the young man's shoulder, and looked back at Max. Her face was blotchy from their struggle, her hair torn. But her eyes had their spark back, their defiance, in spite of the reddened lids.
Andrew Takei . Angry, frightened and sixteen years old sitting in Tulenar's jail cell. Trying very hard to be the young tough he was expected to be as a member of the Inu Hunters. Inu being the Japanese word for dog. A bunch of boys dedicated to delinquent mischief and grandiose thoughts, trapped in an internment camp, harassing any internee who dared to work for the War Relocation Authority. A bunch of boys that the WRA believed had gone beyond the pale and committed unspeakable atrocities against their own.
Andrew Takei, whom Max had bitten.
He swallowed hard. "You said he died. Eight years ago, not long after we came looking for him. You said he was found dead in Frisco."
She went back to bathing Andrew's face. "I know ... things happened and ... I know. I'm sorry."
If he looked at her now, there was no telling what Max might do. He kept his gaze glued to Andrew. "You're calling him your son. How'd you manage to adopt a boy who supposedly died in San Francisco? And what the hell happened to his real mother?"
"Hana died in the camp a few weeks after Andrew and the other boys were carted off to the Butte County Detention Center. Without her husband, without her son ... it was hard. I don't think she expected to see either of them again. And, once the war ended, the adoption wasn't very difficult. I still had a few connections, a few favors to cash in, and my reputation to recommend me. It didn't take much to convince the courts that his identity papers were lost during the dismantling of the internment camps. On the books, his name is Arthur Tsuko."
He turned to her, his fists clenched. "All this time he's been like this ? Eight years? Why , Doris? Why did you lie? All this time, why didn't you say something?"
The spark left her eyes and she looked away. Her profile was stony. He felt the urge to jerk her to her feet and start slapping her again. Swallow it, he told himself, it won't get you answers.
He forced himself to unclench his fists and, with all the control he could muster, said, "It's gonna be a long night. We've got a lot to talk about. If you want to freshen up a little ..." He looked back at Andrew. It was hard to get the words out, but somehow he managed. "I'll watch him for a few minutes."
When he looked back at Doris, she was staring at him, not budging from the chair.
"I won't hurt him, Doris."
She didn't take her eyes off him and she didn't move, laying her hand on Andrew's shoulder again. A mother, protecting her son. A grudging pity pushed through Max's anger and tangled there. He forced himself to lower on one knee and rested his fingers on her leg.
"I promise."
Nothing changed at first, but then her eyes welled. She blinked it back. "Okay ... I'll put on some coffee. But I'm coming right back, Max. Right back."
She rose with Max still on one knee before her. In the split second before she stepped away, he remembered being on two knees before her, eight years ago, in front of that old shack where David had hidden him. Begging her forgiveness, begging her to stay with them, to help him escape the Beast inside him. Clinging to her and sobbing like the damned soul he was ... and still is.
He looked over at Andrew, quiet for the time being, his eyes closed and his breathing calm. He hadn't had any seizures since Max had broken into the house. He should be about due for a round. Max sat on the edge of the bed and kept staring, listening to Doris run the tap in the kitchen. He reached out and pulled Andrew's cracked lips from the thick, yellow tips of fangs forcing their way in, away from the crowns of immense, bone-crushing molars trying to push through human gums far too small for them, far too narrow for the passage, all tinged with Andrew's human blood.
He looked up and saw Andrew watching him.
He fell off the bed, stumbled backward and collided with the water basin, sending it crashing to the floor. Andrew kept staring.
Doris rushed to the door and Max said, "He's conscious!"
She sighed, walked into the room, picked up the tumbled basin and set the stool right again. "He's aware of us, yes. He'll be like that off and on until moonset."
"That's impossible!"
She pulled a dresser drawer open, drew out a quilt and tossed it over the spilled water. "Maybe it was for you, maybe it is for most hosts, but not for him. From the very beginning, it's been like this. He has a ... an ability. His memory will be patchy in the morning, but he'll have some recall."
He's aware. He's aware! Max felt nauseous with the realization. He got to his feet, his stare fixed on Andrew. Andrew's lids fluttered, his eyes rolled upward and he was gone again. But there was no doubt about it. It had been Andrew, not the Beast, who had been watching him.
 \*
Andrew began to seize, rattling the bed so badly Doris had to lay prone against him until it passed. She didn't let Max help; still didn't trust him. When he was certain Doris wouldn't be hurt during the thrashing, Max went into the kitchen and finished making the coffee.
He brought back a chair for himself, then two steaming cups. He watched her pick the soggy washcloth out of the empty basin and stroke Andrew's face and chest with it. Max noticed the water pitcher sitting on the dresser and took it to the bathroom sink. He filled the bedside basin for her. The more sympathetic he could appear, the better. She glanced over and dropped the washcloth in, then grabbed one of the coffee cups.
"Thanks."
Max sat down with his own cup. He didn't do a very good job of keeping accusation out of his voice when he said, "Why'd you lie?"
She did everything but answer him. Looked at her coffee, looked at Andrew, lifted her cup to her lips, sipped, looked toward the shaded window.
" Doris ..."
"You weren't hunting then, Max, what could you have done? David had his hands full with your recovery; the two of you disappeared for weeks before you even contacted me about Andrew ..."
Max let silence speak for him. Doris looked down at her hands again.
"I can't count the times I almost told you," she said, "how many letters I wrote, then tore up. How often I stood in front of the Ham in the other room with the microphone in my hand." She rubbed her eyes. "A lot of why-nots pile up in eight years. Do you want to hear them all?"
"I got all night."
He brought his cup to his lips, took a long drink and waited for Doris to start.
Tulenar Internment Camp
Twenty Miles North of Disjunction Lake, Eastern California
1942
Morning. New Moon.
The last Doris saw of Tulenar was the red dust of its road billowing behind the chauffeured sedan. It obscured the guard towers, it obscured the high wood-and-barbed-wire gate, obscured the tar paper buildings that were the dormitories and simple apartments of the unmarried, the widowers and the families. It blocked her view so completely as she stared through the car's rear window, she couldn't even see the administration building or the little tar paper house that had been hers for a year.
She hadn't expected to feel this way, as if she was leaving home. She had to be the only one in the entire camp who would pair the words "Tulenar" and "home." Certainly the Issei wouldn't -the aging Japanese Nationals who had long made America theirs-nor the Nisei, their American born children.
She thought of those she was forced to leave behind: her now ex-secretary Harriet Haku and Harriet's husband Jesse, inconsolable over the death of their daughter, their only child, Joy. Five years old, and bloodied and dead She thought of the widow of poor old Mr. Tsuko Ataki, the beast's first victim, and the twin sons of Nancy Tamura, the next, who was still classified as "missing," like Maxwell Pierce, because her body had never been found. She thought again and again and again of Arthur Satsugai and what the Beast had done to him.
She turned from the window. Her government issue driver, performing the last of his government issue services for her, looked briefly in the rearview mirror then back at the road. In the little town of Disjunction Lake, he dropped her off at the Red Shore Inn and, just like that, she was no longer affiliated with the United States government. No longer Center Administrator for Tulenar Internment Camp.
 \*
The Butte County Juvenile Offenders Detention Center had begun its life as a state-owned orphanage some fifty or sixty years before the war. It had been the destination for Sacramento's and San Francisco's parentless and abandoned children. Then, thirty years ago, it became one of the facilities for a new, experimental trend: keeping delinquent teenaged males away from adult offenders.
The Butte County Center was low security. No fencing, no gates. The only reason nine Nisei boys were being held there, charged with such grisly crimes, was because it was the closest facility to the internment camp. It was a stop-gap measure, meant to get the boys out of Tulenar fast and restore calm to the camp.
That all nine boys were sequestered at the juvenile prison was a lucky break for Howard, Ludlow and Gershom, a law firm that had the wealth and power to choose its pro-bono cases on merit. But the luck wouldn't last long. Paperwork to transfer the boys, scattering them among tougher institutions, was being pushed through a fast chute by both federal and state.
This was going to be Doris's first chance to see the boys since they had been arrested and removed from Tulenar, only a day before her own ouster. A. Frederick Gershom's chauffeured sedan picked her up at the studio apartment she'd moved into just days before.
Gershom had a thick folder atop the briefcase on his lap and was paging through it, stopping to look up as she climbed in. "Mrs. Tebbe, good morning. Let me say once again that I appreciate you coming on as consultant and witness on behalf of these boys." He tapped a finger against the paperwork as the sedan pulled away from the curb. "Before the war, my partners and I would have called the government's case against them weak as wet tissue paper. These boys, these Inu Hunters ... am I pronouncing that correctly ...?"
"Close enough. It's Japanese for dog. The Inu Hunters labeled any internee as traitor that accepted a paying position with the War Relocation Authority while at Tulenar. Teachers, doctors, nurses, secretarial ... it didn't matter. But volunteers just wanting to make internee life a little easier were targets, too. Before being carted off, the Inu Hunters' last act of vandalism was destroying the outdoor stage meant for Shibai performances."
"Shibai ...?"
"A kind of Japanese opera."
Gershom nodded and looked back at the paperwork. "There's adequate evidence to prosecute them as the petty delinquents they appear to be. But a prosecutor pressing for their conviction as murderers, multiple-murderers at that, would have been laughed right out of the state of California a couple of years ago. The entire case is based on circumstantial evidence. A few people reporting verbal threats while being attacked ... credible as these people may be, this is all hearsay ..."
He opened the folder, turned several pages and quoted from the report Harriet Haku had filled out for the internee police a few months ago: "They said I had better quit my job as Mrs. Tebbe's secretary or I'd end up like all the other informants. They said I'd end up like Mr. Ataki.'" Gershom glanced at Doris. "Mr. Ataki was the first of the murders? And these so-called informants would be internee residents who reported the boys' general mischief?"
Doris nodded.
Gershom looked again at the page he'd read from. "The reference to Mr. Ataki is disturbing, as no doubt intended. But it reads like a threat, not a confession to murder. Plus the attack on Mrs. Haku came from behind, so she never got a look at her assailants. And those who can identify their attackers never saw or heard anything that could tie an Inu Hunter to such gruesome acts."
There was something in his voice that unsettled Doris; an unspoken "however." She said, "Mr. Gershom, I'm not the one you need to convince," while she was thinking, Mister, I already know. It wasn't those kids, and it wasn't some Japanese loyalist inside the camp controlling them. It wasn't a "who" at all that killed those people. Or slaughtered the man I loved.
Gershom looked thoughtfully at the folder, closed it, and finally spoke the unspoken. "However ... in times like these ..."
Doris felt her stomach go icy and she bristled. "'In times like these?' Only a minute ago, you were saying the government's case was weak as wet tissue paper. Now you sound as if you're rethinking defending these boys."
Gershom's gaze came up quickly from the folder. "If I were rethinking my firm's representation, I wouldn't be driving to Butte County and I wouldn't have asked you to come. Mrs. Tebbe, I'm sure you remember who Richard Hauptmann was ..."
Doris sagged back against the car seat. She nodded. Gershom was talking about the man accused of kidnapping and killing the Lindbergh baby, seven years ago.
"Did you follow the trial very closely? Did you notice the strength of the so-called evidence that sent Hauptmann to the electric chair?"
"You've made your point, Mr. Gershom."
"I hope so, Mrs. Tebbe. Because that man went to his death based on his thick German accent and evidence very much like that against the Inu Hunters. Do you understand? This battle is going to be ferocious. Very long and very tough for these boys and for their families ... and for you."
For me? Counselor, if you only knew.
Doris said, "Those kids should be in the custody of Tulenar's internee police. They've injured people and vandalized property, and should be facing punishment that fits their age and crimes. But they shouldn't be warehoused at the juvenile prison, looking at a future of rubbing shoulders with felons in Folsom or San Quentin. Look ... I know the War Relocation Authority believes they're doing the right thing. But those boys didn't kill anybody."
Gershom opened the file again and paged through until he found what he was looking for. "The WRA's theory is that they were under the influence of someone, as yet unknown. A shrewd and heartless killer, to say the least. A possible fifth columnist caught up in the relocation dragnet and so, finding himself confined in Tulenar, preyed on his fellow internees ... those he pegged as disloyal to the Emperor and their Japanese heritage. As you pointed out, only internees in community service or who applied for work were abused by the Inu Hunters. And the murder victims weren't simply murdered, they were mutilated. The least abused before death was that poor little girl, but even her death is in keeping with the WRA's theory ... she was the daughter of an internee police volunteer and his wife, your former secretary. Everyone in the WRA is on board with this. Even Tulenar's internees are now convinced this terror reign was the work of the Inu Hunters. You seem to be the lone dissenter."
"I know."
"You seem very sure."
"I am."
"Why?"
"Are you testing me for the courtroom, Mr. Gershom?"
He smiled a moment, replied, "That'll come later," then turned serious again. "If you're holding anything back, Mrs. Tebbe ... anything at all ... that you worry may reflect poorly on these boys, don't think for a moment you're doing them a favor by keeping it to yourself. Have you ever been cross-examined in a court of law?"
"This will be my first."
"Do I need to tell you how tough our opponent will be? The government's evidence may be weak, but their argument is viable and the times are on their side. Why are you so certain these boys aren't connected to the murders?"
Doris had been rehearsing a safe, logical answer ever since the Inu Hunters' arrest: one about their youth, about their circumstances, about their lack of even the most minor juvenile record before they were hemmed in by the stark confines of the internment camp. She stuck with that now, as she talked with Gershom.
What else could she say?
I'm certain because I came face to face with the thing responsible for that slow, methodical massacre. I saw the man it controlled and twisted and hid within. I saw it burst out of his body and I saw it with its fangs sunk into a five-year-old girl.
I'm certain because I'm the one who killed that son-of-a-bitch. I took a quiver of silver-tipped arrows and plunged them halfway up their shafts into its goddamn gut. I felt the blood spray on my face and I watched its carcass rot off the newborn skin of Maxwell Pierce.
How's that for testimony, Counselor? Think it'll fly in court?
\*
They were mostly silent the rest of the way to the prison. Gershom pored over the work balanced on his lap. Doris watched the landscape turn from urban to small town, to rural to small town again before the view became scattered farms and, finally, woodland. The woodland stopped abruptly at the beginning of the prison's two acres of pastures and garden plots.
The building was a monolithic, brick-and-mortar Victorian hulk big enough to house staff offices and a hundred youths. Presently there were less than thirty, including the Inu Hunters. It wasn't as bleak as something out of Oliver Twist , but somber enough all the same. There were two single-story dormitory wings jutting from either side of a square, two-storied center. A vacant bell tower rose above the middle, looking as if it had been empty since its orphanage days.
The car rolled up to the double entrance and the driver got out to hold Doris' door for her, then Gershom's. The counselor pressed a button at the prison's entry, sounding a claxon inside, and a rectangular spy hole in the right-hand door popped open. A corrections officer peered out before admitting them.
The reception area was as sterile and institutional as Doris expected, built for function and apparently on a strict budget. What had probably been a plank floor at the turn of the century was tiled over with large, no-nonsense terrazzo slabs. The visitors' chairs sitting along the walls on either side of the entrance were sturdy straight-back pine, footed with rubber.
Other than that, the only furniture was a squarish, U-shaped station in the middle, where a receptionist sat along with a second officer in olive drab. The officer was working on a crossword puzzle, the receptionist busy at a switchboard, connecting a caller to someone in an office somewhere above their heads on the second story. There were worn wooden stairways on the north and south walls, and several feet behind the work station were double doors again with a plaque above them that read Mess Hall. Every sound echoed.
As they approached the station, the officer working on the crossword puzzle laid the newspaper down and stood. While Gershom introduced himself and Doris, and stated their business, the man consulted a clipboard.
"Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. You're scheduled to meet with ... Takei, Murato and Sata. One moment." He turned and walked out of the square U's center. "I'm Officer Cutler. This way, please."
His was the well-honed courtesy of a professional lawman as he led them off toward Doris's left, saying, "We aren't really set up for juveniles accused of felonies. Most of our kids are runaways and five-and-dime thieves. So we've cleared the south wing of all inmates except your nine."
He opened the door to the wing, did a cursory look, then stood back so Doris and Gershom could enter first. The south hall was as institutional as the reception area, plain whitewash and practical floor tile. Fifty doorways, twenty-five to each side, lined the aisle that ended in a window, its glass protected by gray metal grating. The same grating made up the doors to what once had been dormitory rooms but were now juvenile jail cells. Just because a young offender was in a minimum security facility didn't mean he had privacy. The only wooden door left in this hall was the entry's.
Gershom and Doris waited for Cutler to close it and lead them onward. "The boys are separated by two or three cells from each other," he said. "We found it keeps them more orderly and quiet."
Midway down the hall, on the right, Andrew Takei sat on a twin-sized bed, already looking up, having heard them as they had made their way down the hall. A worn book lay open, face down beside him. Without the blue jeans and turned up shirt collar of a street tough, he looked younger than his sixteen years, especially with his hair cut. He was shorn like an Army boot camper, very nearly bald. Scandalous duck tails Brill Creamed into place weren't tolerated here. Without the hoodlum hair, he looked as innocent as any kid ... except for the drab jumpsuit of a juvenile offender.
Before he unlocked Andrew's cell door, Cutler said, "When you're done and ready to see the next boy, just call out. I'll only be a few paces away." Then he turned to Andrew. "You know how this works, son. I want you to stand up, go to the far corner and stay there."
Andrew's expression hardened the way it had the last time Doris saw him behind bars: at the Tulenar jail, where he had landed after being caught scrawling graffiti. He had been I.D.'d as one of the kids lobbing rocks at an internee warehouse worker earlier.
He stood and did as he was told, grumbling, "I'm not your son."
At least his injured arm looked better. She remembered how much worse it had seemed as he had sat in the back of the Army truck, his good arm cuffed by the wrist to the bench. The bandage had been enormous and she had seen blood seeping through the gauze
But the scene around the truck had been all turmoil. Soldiers chucking Nisei youths into the rear, parents running fast as they could, trying to catch up, pleading, screaming, a band of soldiers forming a cordon to keep them back, even trying to keep Doris back. But she had still been Center Administrator then and cowed them with her title and sheer will. With all that had been happening, maybe she'd made out the bandage and the wound to be worse than they were.
As she and Gershom entered the cell, she said, "Hello, Andrew. It's good to see you again." She nodded toward his injury. "Is your arm better?"
Andrew dropped his gaze to the bandages above and below his elbow. The inches-thick wad he had worn a couple of weeks ago was now reduced to two single strips of gauze keeping a couple of pads in place. His answer to her question was a sullen shrug and Doris thought, I've got to have Gershom find out which one of those G.I.s got overzealous in his duty.
Cutler locked the metal grate door behind them and Gershom, looking at Andrew, nodded toward the bed. "Go ahead and sit over there, again, son. Mrs. Tebbe and I need your table and chair."
"I'm not your son, either," Andrew replied, but shuffled back and sat.
Gershom ignored that, gave Doris the chair and dropped his briefcase onto the little table. He said, "I'm Mr. Gershom, Andrew. And, of course, you already know Mrs. Tebbe."
"Where's my ma? You can't talk to me without my ma."
Doris was ready for the question. At their very first meeting, in the attorney's wainscoted sanctuary, she and Gershom had discussed what to do when it came up. From his brief case, Gershom fished a note handwritten by Andrew's mother and passed it to the boy.
Doris told him, "The court's ruled that Executive Order 9066 trumps standard juvenile justice law. I'm sorry, Andrew, but your mother won't be permitted to leave Tulenar. That's one of the reasons I'm here. She and the other parents have requested that I act as their proxy. They trust me, Andrew. I hope you will, too."
The fact was left unsaid that selecting Doris had more to do with slim options than any real trust. Just as the state of Hana Takei's health was left unsaid. Andrew had plenty to worry about without hearing that his mother was flat on her back in the Tulenar infirmary.
As Doris spoke, Andrew fixed on his mother's note telling him that she loved him and that she wanted him to behave and listen to Doris and the lawyers. His face began twitching. His voice quavered when he asked, still looking at the note, "So she's not coming? She's not coming to see me?"
Doris swallowed hard. "She can't , Andrew. As much as she wants to, she can't. But she told me that she's going to write every day. And I promise I'll bring every single letter."
The boy's face flushed, and then crumpled with a sob before Andrew could stop himself. Gershom pulled a handkerchief from his inner coat pocket and stepped toward him, but Andrew blocked the gesture and pressed the heel of his free hand into each eye. All Doris could do was hold vigil, awkward and wrenching, until the boy gained control.
After a moment, Gershom cleared his throat and asked, "Do you remember Mr. Yamato, who was representing you in Tulenar on the vandalism charges?"
Andrew, head down, nodded.
"On his advice, your mother has asked my firm to represent you. In fact, all nine of you will be represented by the attorneys of our offices."
Andrew shrugged, listless, still looking at his mother's note.
Doris's stomach twisted with guilt and self-loathing. Here, here was the handiwork of her best intentions. Here were the consequences of the decisions she'd made; of how her actions during four nightmarish months had come to jeopardize the lives of nine teenaged boys.She stood, walked over to Andrew and sat with him. He still didn't look up, but didn't object or move away.
"Andrew," she said, her voice a near whisper, " I know you didn't do this. I know it. Whatever it takes, I swear to God, I'm getting you out of this. I swear it on my life and on yours. And your mother's."
She laid her arm over his shoulders and, ever so slightly, Andrew leaned into her touch.
 \*
She tossed her purse on the telephone table to the right of the apartment door, thought about a beer, then thought about something stronger and went for the fifth of gin over the kitchen sink. A squeeze of lime, a jigger of tonic to balance the gin ... screw it ... another shot of gin. She walked back into the living room, grabbed the mail and the letter opener, then slumped onto the couch.
It went well, Gershom had said on the way back. He said Doris was invaluable, that she was made for this type of work. She should consider becoming a professional consultant now that her position with the WRA was "completed."
She smiled to herself, thinking of his euphemism, and took a good, long drink. She took another to dampen the sting of his referring to her as invaluable. Her . The one who'd set all this in motion, thanks to indecision and bad decisions. Trying to have it both ways: to save Maxwell Pierce's hide -not just from the Beast, but from being charged with the monster's slaughters-while trying to deflect the WRA's growing suspicion toward the Inu Hunters. Now that the ruin of her best manipulations, delays and fast talk was before her, the folly of favoring one man over nine boys was tortuously clear. She should have taken Max up on his offer to turn himself in.
And where the hell was he, anyway, he and Alma Curar? She picked up the first of the envelopes and slit it with the glossy, plated blade of the opener; a quick, irritable motion.
The last she had seen of them, David was loading the semi-conscious Max into his truck and getting ready to flee the state. Just before the Beast's final emergence through Max, they had all agreed that would be the right move; that he should remain "missing, presumed dead." There was no point in him taking the fall. No more Beast, no more killing. Doris had been so damn sure she could stall the WRA long enough for another First Night to pass, long enough for everyone to notice that the killing had stopped. Clearer heads would prevail and suspicion would bypass the Inu Hunters.
But the Beast's last victim had been a five-year-old girl. The daughter of the very man spear-heading the drive to keep the Inu Hunters' petty crimes within the jurisdiction of Tulenar's internee police. All the sympathy and support among the internees evaporated, and the WRA suddenly had hundreds of unlikely allies, happy to see the boys go.
Doris drained her glass. Max and David should have called by now. They needed to know the boys had been arrested, that their best intentions had paved the Inu Hunters' personal road to Hell.
She thought for a moment, maybe they do know. Maybe that's why I haven't heard from them . No. She knew better than that. After everything they had been through together, she knew them better than that. Something was wrong. Otherwise, she would have heard from them by now. It had been two weeks.
Or maybe they had been trying to contact her. Not only didn't they know about the arrests, they didn't know about her ouster as Tulenar's Center Administrator. They didn't know she had been loaded up the morning after the arrests and carted off to the Red Shore Inn, or that she had moved from there into this quadriplex of apartments in Roseville.
Doris wondered if there was a stack of messages from David or Max piling up at her old office. Would Harriet Haku notify her of those calls? She was Leonard Shackley's secretary now, after all, not Doris's.
For that matter, why would the woman extend any courtesy to Doris? By now Harriet and her husband, Jesse, must know that Doris had been retained by Gershom's firm. How could they not hate her for siding with those accused of brutally killing their only child, their bright, darling little girl? What could Doris say in her own defense? But, Harriet, it wasn't those boys. It was a werewolf.
She tossed the mail and the letter opener on the couch and fiddled with her empty glass as she looked over at the phone. She had to make the call, no matter how she dreaded talking to Harriet. She had to know if Max and David were all right. She set the glass on the coffee table, took a deep breath, then walked over and lifted the receiver.
"Leonard Shackley's Office. Whom may I say is calling?"
"Hello, Harriet. It's Doris Tebbe."
A slight hesitation before Harriet replied with icy formality, "Yes, Mrs. Tebbe, how may I help you?"
Doris swallowed. "My phone was hooked up late yesterday and I wanted to leave my number ... Harriet, how are you? And your husband?"
Another hesitation. Doris could feel the frost thicken through the telephone. "I'll take that number now."
So she was right, Harriet had heard. But she knew Harriet wouldn't give one inch to her anger and grief while sitting at her desk, exposed to the hustle and bustle of the stark, open space of Tulenar's Administration Building. She'd sooner grind glass between her teeth.
Doris felt shamed, in spite of herself. In spite of the fact that those foolish, hot-headed boys had not killed Harriet and Jesse's little girl. But Harriet didn't know that. Jesse didn't know that. And neither of them would believe in werewolves any more than Doris had, four months ago.
"Harriet ... you and I never got to talk, after ... I never got the chance to express my condolences, and I'm sorry for that. Everything happened so fast--"
" Don't. "
"Don't," Doris repeated, wondering if she sounded as miserable as she felt. "Of course. I understand." She took a deep breath.
Again, Harriet said, barely in control, "I'm ready to take that number."
"It's, uh ... Woodruff 7-5559."
For a moment, all Doris could hear was the background clacking and rustle of the administration building. Then, Harriet said, "All right, I have it."
"But, don't give it out," Doris said quickly, thinking of the press, already descending on Gershom's offices. The last thing she wanted was them tracking her down. "Maybe you could call, if any messages come in ...?"
Harriet didn't reply.
"Or I can check in, from time to time," Doris said fast, backpedaling. "Just for the next couple of weeks. Um ... have any calls come in for me since I left?"
"No."
"Oh. Good. Then ... I'll just ... Harriet ... please, listen. Those boys didn't do it. It wasn't so long ago that your husband fought hard for them, remember? I'm telling you, they didn't do it--"
It was a moment before Doris realized she was talking to a dead connection.
 \*
The center of Doris's quadriplex formed a courtyard the landlord had landscaped nicely and set up with a couple of wrought iron tables and chairs. In the evenings the tenants often left their front doors open and used their screened ones, so the light from inside the apartments added a glow to the twilight's own. Doris's pre-dinner routine was to sit at one of those tables with either a glass of wine or a gin and tonic. It all depended on the kind of day she'd had at the juvenile center.
It wasn't until the moon had moved into its third quarter that she realized she had fallen into the habit of looking for it as she walked to the lawn tables. Tonight, when it rose, it would be a full moon. First Night. This was the night that should have heralded the exoneration of the Inu Hunters. This would be a gin night.
Around 7:00 or so, just as Doris was pulling the fifth from the kitchen shelf, the phone rang in the living room.
"Hello ..."
At first, no one replied. Then came Harriet's voice, terse and all business. "Mrs. Tebbe?"
"Harriet? Hello! You're working late tonight -"
"A call came in for you."
"Oh ... give me just a moment ..." Doris sat on the telephone desk's little chair and pulled a pad and pencil from the drawer. "All right, I'm ready."
"He only gave a first name. David."
Doris's heart leapt. "David? Harriet, please tell me he left a number."
"Largo 6-2636. He said to ask for Room 5."
Doris wrote quickly. "Thank God. Thank God. When did this come in?"
"One or two days ago."
"What? Why didn't --" Never mind , she told herself and choked back the rest, but Harriet had already begun to bristle.
"Because I work for Leonard Shackley now, not you. My days are already filled, it came the day after your last checkin, and you didn't express any urgency in regard to receiving messages. I'm doing you a favor as it is."
"Yes. You're right. I'm sorry. Thank you, Harriet."
The line went quiet a moment, then: "He did seem ... anxious to talk with you. If this was an important call, my apologies."
"That's all right, Harriet. I understand."
Another quiet moment, but Harriet remained on the line. "Mrs. Tebbe ... if the call is related to the boys' defense .. again, I apologize." Her voice began to tremble. "I only want the right person punished ..."
"I know you do, Harriet ... Harriet? Hello ...?"
Doris sighed and set the receiver on the cradle. Then she looked at the number she had jotted down, picked the phone back up and dialed. The operator came on the line and told her the call wasn't local. It was an Arizona exchange. Did she still want to make the call? She said yes and the number rang through.
A bored voice answered, "Painted Sands Inn."
"Room 5, please."
"Closing up."
"Excuse me?"
Impatiently, the voice replied, "Office hours are seven to seven. Closing up."
"How the hell long can it take to ring me through to Room 5?"
"This ain't the Ritz, lady. Rooms don't have phones."
"Okay, look, sorry, but this is an emergency."
The man's demeanor changed, if only a little. "You that Indian woman that was taking care of his friend?"
Doris knew the answer to that one. "Yes. I really need to speak to David. Please, it won't take long."
"Well ... sure. Hang on ..."
In a few minutes, David's voice came over the line. "Mina? What is it?"
"David, it's Doris."
"Doris! I can't believe you've called."
"David, damn it, where have you been! Where are you? What's going on? Is something wrong with Max?"
"Later, right now, listen to me. You've got to alert Tulenar. There's a boy there, Andrew Takei. Max says you know him. Doris, this boy's been bitten. He became the Beast's Chosen when it failed with you."
Waves of hot and cold rushed through her. Her legs nearly buckled. She leaned against the wall. "What? What did you say ..?"
"We're on our way, we're getting there as fast as we can, but ... Doris, I've been trying to get a hold of you for days and now moonrise isn't more than an hour away. Call the camp. If Tulenar's alerted, if the alarm's sounded, maybe the Beast won't get its chance, maybe with enough commotion, we can force it to starve for this First Night. Call the man that took over your job, do what you can."
"He's in jail."
"What? Shackley?"
"No, Andrew Takei. The Inu Hunters were arrested two weeks ago and sent to Butte County Detention."
"Prison? He's locked in a prison ?" David said something, then, that Doris couldn't understand, probably Navajo. Probably the equivalent of God help us. Then he said, "Can you call there?"
Doris gave herself a mental shake. "Yes. Yes! They'll have guards on night shift. I'll call and then get over there."
"No! There's no point, it's too late. You can't stop it. The best you can do is to call, tell them to evacuate, give them any excuse, but get them to clear the place."
"That means they'll let Andrew out, too."
"It's either that or give the Beast a prison full of caged prey instead of making it hunt down a single victim. Doris, don't leave! We were en route when my truck broke down, but we're getting there as fast as we can. There's nothing else we can do for this First Night. We'll just have to find him before the next one ..."
"Max is with you?"
"Yes ... he's very weak, but, yes, he's coming, too. He's going to turn himself in. He's going to take the Takei boy's place."
"Weak? Why is he still weak?"
"Not from the save. From pneumonia. Doris ... we almost lost him. It hit him before he recovered from the save and by the time he was conscious enough to remember Andrew, the moon was in its third quarter. I've been trying to track you down ever since. Doris, you know you can't stop the Beast, even if you go. But your phone call might save lives."
Doris didn't reply. She was too busy thinking, How much gas is in the car? I've still got a few ration coupons, is there a station on the way? How can I get the night guards to evacuate the center? Can I get to Andrew when I get there?
"Doris, are you still there?"
Then what? If I can get to Andrew before the Beast emerges, then what? I need a silver weapon ... damn it! All her archery equipment, her bow, her arrows -still tipped with the same silver that had slain the Beast while Max was its host-was in storage, thirty minutes away in the wrong direction.
A wave of vertigo pressed her against the phone table. Her gaze fell to the silverplated letter opener. She dropped the receiver into the cradle and grabbed her address book, whipping through the pages until she found the number for the juvenile center. The phone rang again and she knew who it was even as she picked it back up.
"Doris!" David shouted.
She pressed the disconnect with her thumb, hardly able to bear the time it would take to wait for David to hang up again in an attempt to re-dial her. When the hum came to her ears, she started dialing.
The juvenile center's phone rang. And rang and rang. She cursed the receiver as she slammed it down. All she had for the prison was the day number; the public one, the one used by attorneys and parents and delivery men. There had to be another number for after-hour emergencies and contacting the night shift. But it was bound to be restricted.
Her phone was ringing again. She grabbed the letter opener, snatched up her car keys and ran out the door.
North Central California
1942
First Night. Full Moon.
A halo domed the bell tower as the moon rose behind it. Doris punched the gas all the way to the front entrance. She threw the car door open, stumbling as she ran, but skidded to a halt when she reached the entry. The right door was flung wide, a ring of keys sprawled on the floor tiles just below the lock. Spatters of blood led off to the north detention wing and a continuous smear went south. The sight rooted her where she stood. That, and the dead silence.
Oh, God.
Terror bled her mind of all thought, except one: Tonight I die . Then another burst through: Run! It's too late, run! But if she did that, the killing wouldn't stop. She slid one sweaty palm into the pocket of her jacket. Her fingers closed around the silver letter opener and she stepped over the blood.
The need to live just long enough to kill reined in her terror. Every sense sharpened. The lobby lights stung her eyes like sunlight. The grit between tile and shoe felt like gravel. To her right, the door to the north wing -where all the other juveniles were housed-was wide open. She could see the cell doors flung back, but the only sign of violence within was the pattern of blood drops that had separated from the larger, longer smear leading to the south wing. The drops were scuffed and smudged inside the north wing, as if trampled across, and they doubled back to where the keys lay at the detention center's entry. But there were no bodies. A spark of hope flashed through Doris's mind: someone had gotten the kids out.
She looked left, toward the south wing, where the large blood smear led. The door was closed, but the smear continued on beneath it. There still wasn't a sound except her own ragged breathing, the rapid thrum of her pulse and the high, electric buzz of the ceiling lights.
Then a scream came through the door.
Doris didn't give herself time to think. She rushed over and gripped the door handle.
A man burst through. It was Cutler, bed-sheet white, dripping sweat and blood. He grabbed Doris's arm and was pushing her toward the exit when he went down, pulling her with him. He shrieked, clawed for purchase, kicking at the head of the Beast as it dragged him back through the door, taking Doris with them.
Cutler's agony rang off the walls. The Beast worked its way up his leg, ripping and flinging, its eyes full of fever, fixed on Cutler's contorted face. Then suddenly the Beast howled as if in pain, lunging backward, and it was a moment before Doris realized she had struck out, slashing the Beast across its muzzle with the silver opener. She scrambled to her feet, flailing the blade outward as her back collided with the door jamb.
Silvery red blood oozed from the Beast's muzzle. It stood panting, growling, watching her as Cutler lay between them gasping, calling out a woman's name, and then calling on God until what was left of his life spilled from the gap where his hip and leg had once been.
Down the entire length of hallway there was nothing but shattered cell doors, smear, stench and splatter. The only sounds, Doris's rapid panting and the Beast's low growling: as if it was thinking aloud, considering the wisest move, how to get past the silver blade that blocked it from her throat. It curled its long red tongue across its muzzle and lapped at the luminous blood, staring at her through Andrew Takei's eyes.
And suddenly Doris remembered another time, another host. David shouting over his gunfire, hoping to awaken Max trapped deep within the Beast: Maxwell! Maxwell! Over here!
She shouted, "Andrew!"
Not a flinch. Not a flicker of recognition. The Beast stopped its growling mutter. Its shoulders squared and its hind quarters dipped as it readied to spring forward.
Oh, God, please let Andrew hear me, please, like Max heard David, please, God.
"Andrew!!"
The Beast opened its great jaws and roared. Doris screamed and sobbed and nearly dropped the blade as the Beast bent more deeply into its crouch. Then suddenly rage trumped terror, and Doris thought, " All right then, damn it, God, help me plunge this right down the son-of-a-bitch's throat!"
But instead of bolting forward the Beast jerked to the right. Doris jumped away and knocked against the wall. That was a feint, she thought, it's trying to get me to drop the blade.
The Beast flapped its great head. It took a step forward, and then back again, flapping some more, growling, looking at her, and then flapping again like some gigantic hound trying to clear its ears.
She shouted, "Andrew! Can you hear me, Andrew?"
Again the Beast roared, again it flapped its head, swiveling from side to side. Then, as if being pulled from behind, it backed away and Doris didn't realize what it was doing until it had turned and went full gallop toward the grated window at the hallway's end.
She screamed, "No!" No , to her failure. No , she was letting it escape! She ran after it, slipping on the blood, falling, skidding across the gore as the Beast's silvery bulk ripped through the metal grating, and the window's glass burst, as gossamer to its mass as spider web.
Doris struggled upward, blood-soaked from her fall, still clutching the flimsy silver letter opener. She stumbled to each shattered cell door, hoping to find one of the boys, any of the boys alive ... but, no. She found the remains of Cutler's partner flung against the far wall in one of the cells across from Andrew's, along with the boy he must have been trying to save.
In the vacuum of silence came the beginning of a high-pitched whine. A siren, still far off. Then Doris made out a second behind the first. Wait for them. Just make it to the lobby, and wait for them.
That's what she wanted to do, more than anything. Let them find her there, waiting with the carnage. Let them ask her question after question, listen to her answers corrupted by trauma and hysteria -because that's what they would be certain to think-then tuck her into a nice, safe, padded cell. Maybe they'd even try to pin all this on her. She looked down at her mighty, silver letter opener and the thought struck her as so sickly funny that one short burst of laughter popped out before ending in a sob.
The lure of an asylum was strong, but Max and David would need all the help they could get. Andrew Takei would need all the help he could get. She left behind the south wing and its dead, taking off her bloodied shoes and crossing the lobby in her stocking feet, sidestepping the blood trails that streaked the floor.
She tossed the soiled shoes onto the car's floorboard as she fled and, from the cover of a rutted path, densely treed, she watched the ambulances and police cars speed on toward the juvenile center.
 \*
Doris bolted upright, startled awake by something shrill. It was only the telephone. Once she realized that she was lying on her bed with the spread pulled cattycorner over her, she caught her breath and made her way into the living room. Her bathrobe had twisted during her restless sleep, and she tugged it back into place as she reached for the receiver.
It was A. Frederick Gershom, delivering as gently as he could the news about what had happened at Butte County. At least eight of the nine Inu Hunters were dead. Both guards, too; a man named Jacobs and the other, Cutler. Did Doris remember him? He had been pulling two shifts.
They had all been killed like the Tulenar victims. The prevailing thought was that the mysterious man -or men-believed to have controlled the boys while they were in the internment camp, must have gotten to them at the juvenile center. They were killed to keep them silent. They were killed horribly to make a point.
There was a possibility that one of the boys, Andrew Takei, might still be alive and was an accomplice rather than a victim. But that was uncertain. His state-issued jumpsuit was found in tatters in his cell and there were signs of a struggle in the aftermath: a long drag mark through the blood pool that headed toward the shattered hall window. Perhaps Andrew had been the last to be attacked and was pulled through the window. There was a lot of speculation why, if that's what had happened.
There was also a blood trail that began in the south wing and ended at the detention center's entrance, and a series of blood spatters that continued from the lobby into the north wing.
Authorities had managed to round up most of the north wing kids, who said that they had heard horrific screams before Cutler came through the door and started opening their cells, yelling for them to get out. He appeared to be badly wounded, but managed to lead them to the entrance, unlock it and get them through the door. None of them saw who pulled him back. They just knew he wasn't following, and they kept running. A couple of the boys made it to a nearby farmhouse and called the sheriff.
Don't ask questions , Doris told herself while Gershom talked on, don't ask him a single thing . Don't risk giving yourself away, trying to find answers he won't have. Just answer yes when he asks, "Are you still there?" and "Are you all right?" Let him assume your silence is the result of grief and shock. That's not so very far from the truth.
He couldn't answer the only question that mattered, anyway.
Where was Andrew Takei now?
Doris's Apartment, Roseville, California
Seventy-Five Miles Southeast of Butte County Juvenile Center
1942
Midnight. New Moon.
In her dream the moon is blood red, though the light it gives is as white and blinding as a searchlight. Doris is at the gates of Tulenar, flung wide open. Cutler is in the guard tower with the soldiers, all aiming their rifles outward in the wrong direction. Doris is shouting at Max and David to hurry, hurry! They're a good mile away and yet she can see them, pushing a broken wagon -like something out of a western movie-really putting their shoulders into it. Every once in a while David stops to look ahead, as if gauging how much farther they have to go.
"Hurry!" she shouts again, hearing the Beast feeding behind her, hearing its chesty rumbles of ecstasy and the bones of Arthur Satsugai grinding in its jaws ...
Doris pulled out of the nightmare gasping. The sound of grinding bones became a rapid scratching against her bedroom's window screen. It stopped suddenly, then began again.
Her heart, already hammering from the nightmare, kicked even harder. Adrenaline jangled her nerves as she tried to slide quietly from bed, intent on finding something as a weapon, but she wasn't quiet enough. A harsh whisper came from behind the shade:
"Mrs. Tebbe! C'mon, please ...? Let me in, okay?"
"Andrew?"
"Please? Please, let me in?"
She hurried to the window and pulled up the shade. Andrew was hunched below, hardly more than a dim-faced shadow in the moonless night, fingers pressed to the sill. Doris gave the screen a couple of sharp, fisted blows at the bottom corners, Andrew yanked it away and she helped him climb through.
He was filthy and gaunt, wearing an ill-fitting shirt and trousers. Doris closed the window, pulled the shade again, got her robe on, and led Andrew to the little apartment's living room. She sat him on the couch and, with her hands still clutching his arms, asked, "Are you all right?"
He looked at her miserably, his chin trembling. "I'm really thirsty."
She got him a glass of water and watched as he gulped it down, clutching the glass with both hands.
"How'd you find me?"
Between swallows he said, "We followed you."
"What? When? Who's 'we,' one of the Butte County inmates?"
Andrew shook his head. "No ... you know ... us. We followed you. That night."
Doris knelt in front of him. "Andrew, I don't understand."
He looked away, fidgeting. " That night."
Doris began trembling again. She reached over, pulled the little chair away from the telephone desk and sat. "You mean ... you mean the night of the killings?"
He nodded. Doris swallowed hard.
"Who's 'we,' Andrew?"
Still looking away, he became agitated. " Us ," he said again, as if it was the only word he knew and expected Doris to know, too.
"By 'us,' do you ... Andrew, do you mean the Beast?"
He began rubbing vigorously at an ear, but replied, "I dunno ... I guess so ... if that's what you call us."
"No," Doris said slowly, carefully. "That's not what I call you . It's what I call the thing that ... came out of you at Butte County."
Andrew stood quickly and Doris leapt from her chair, frantic to remember where she had put the silver letter opener. But Andrew didn't attack her. He stepped to one side or another, rubbing at both ears now.
"Andrew, what's wrong?"
"It hurts. It hurts when we think about it. Or talk about it ..."
We, again. "It hurts you and the Beast both?"
"No ... just ... me ..." Sweat began to ripple over Andrew's face and he sat back down, clutching his ears.
Doris remembered the Beast in the midst of all that death, the slice across its muzzle still oozing, the monster shaking its head violently ... flapping its ears.
"But you hurt the Beast that night, didn't you? The same way it's hurting you now?"
He lunged away, groaning and pacing around the small living room.
She asked again, "Did you?"
Between gasps, he said, "I guess. I just ... I just wanted it to stop , but I kinda, I kinda liked it, too, but not really, all at the same time ... mostly I wanted it to stop, but it wouldn't stop and it didn't care what I wanted it was so ... strong until you hurt it and then I sort of ... I sort of woke up better ..."
Andrew gritted his teeth and went to his knees. His rubbing and clutching became clawing. Doris dropped down, grabbed his wrists and wrenched his hands away.
"You kept it from killing me," she said as he struggled against her. " You did that, Andrew. You saved me."
He started to scream and she locked him against her, pushing his face into her shoulder to both muffle the noise and hold him like his own mother might. His mother. Oh, God, all this and he still was going to have to learn about his mother. He screamed into her shoulder again, and then went limp.
At first she thought he might have passed out, but he shuddered, stirred and pulled his face away to rest better against her.His voice was heavy with fatigue and, just before exhaustion sank him, he said:
"It'd had plenty, was all. It'd had all my friends and those ... stupid guards ... it stopped starving enough so that when you hurt it, I woke up better. I could ... push at it ... so it left you alone ... and 'cause it remembers you ..."
'Cause it remembers you. Doris remembered, too. She remembered sitting in a shack with Max and David, David saying to her, You better understand who you are to the Beast . She remembered Max looking at his own palm, looking at the pentagram there taking shape, watching it take on a silver sheen that was usually lacking, but not this time. This time it shone, because she was nearby. When Max had taken her hand and opened it palm up, there lay its twin.
It was a meeting of the Beast's Chosen.
David had said, "If this were the prey's mark, it would simply mean you're the next feeding. But the prey's mark doesn't take on a sheen as the moon increases. That only happens to the Chosen. Like me. Like Max."
They had stopped that from happening to Doris. She had become one of the Beast's slayers instead of one of its hosts. All that, only a few short weeks ago; the three of them finding some measure of peace, thinking they had put a stop to one of the Beast's countless incarnations.
But now they knew they had stopped nothing. Here it was, in this sixteen-year-old boy sleeping in her arms. The boy who had taken her place.
 \*
She couldn't keep the words out of her mind as she watched Andrew eat: wolfing it down . She looked at the wounds on his arm, turning from pink to white and healing abnormally quickly. Medical thread lodged in the skin where the stitches' tied ends must have burst during the Beast's emergence. A few of the threads were completely trapped beneath.
He rose from his breakfast plate to help himself to more milk from the fridge, and she saw the silver hair at the nape of his neck. It was beginning to show, now that his hair was growing back after the Butte County shaving. If she reached across the little kitchen table when he sat down again, if she took his hand and laid it palm up in the early morning beams, she wondered if her presence -as a former Chosen-would tease out the faintest tracks of a pentagram, waiting to darken as soon as the moon renewed its phasing.
She said, trying to sound as normal as possible, "We should get as many of those stitches out as we can before the skin grows too well around them."
His mouth stuffed with omelette, Andrew angled his elbow to look, and then nodded. Doris went into the bathroom and got a pair of tweezers. When he had finished, she told him to put his dishes in the sink, then pulled her chair around and had him rest his arm on the table. She leaned in and gave the first of the broken stitches a firm tug. He winced.
"Hurt?"
"S'okay, just do it."
She went back to work. "Andrew. Where did you go after Butte County?"
"Like I said. We followed you, first."
"But I was in a car."
"So? We ... I ... it can smell stuff really good. You were easy to track."
Doris's hands went clammy and she had to stop for a minute. "I should've washed my hands first," she said, then went to the sink and scrubbed them to have an excuse to dry them. She sat back down and began tweezing again. "Then why didn't it come for me? Did you stop it again?"
Another stitch popped out, Andrew sucked in his breath and jerked his arm away to rub it. "I don't know ... kinda, but kinda not ... it's hard to explain."
"Do you talk to it?" She motioned for him to lay his arm back down. He did.
"No, it's not like talking, we ... it's like if you want to do something and you just decide to do it? You wanna go for ice cream, you don't think, 'geez, I want ice cream.' You just get up and go. It's like that. When I woke up inside the Beast that night ... it was like that. Only I had to really, really want it really bad."
"Sometimes when you talk about it, you say 'we' and sometimes you say 'I'."
He watched her tug out another stitch, then said, "It's just ... it's tough to feel apart sometimes. I gotta think about it hard."
Doris stopped and looked into his eyes. "Do you remember much about that night, Andrew?"
He looked down at what was left of the reachable stitches and massaged the scars. "I remember I got real sweaty and sick feeling. Then I don't remember much for a while. Then parts of it, like feeling heavy and watery kinda and knowing ... knowing what was happening, what the Beast was doing, but like it's way far away, then hearing you and seeing you there, like I was maybe closer up ... I don't know. I don't know if I so much knew it when it was going on or if I'm just sort of remembering it now ... like remembering chunks of a dream."
Was his story the same as Max's? They had never talked details, about what happened to him during emergence, where his consciousness went, how it altered. But Doris had gotten the impression from both him and David that their experiences were more like a total black out, as though the Beast kept them smothered to the point of near death. Their sense of a shared consciousness only came toward the end, when the Beast needed to move on to the next host, abandoning the old one to their common memory bank. As if even that part of the host's humanity is usurped, is never the Beast's own and is left behind with the rest of its ruin.
Andrew, though, was speaking of only a partial black out. She watched him sitting there, looking so much like the kid he really was. Eyes down, brows knitted, trying to explain the unexplainable. Just a boy. A motherless boy, now, and without a single friend except Doris.
She reached out and lowered his arm again, plucked out the last pluckable stitch, then pressed her palm against his wrist as she looked into his face.
"Andrew, I know someone who can help you."
He glanced up, both wariness and hope in his eyes. "You mean like a doctor or something?"
Doris shook her head. "This isn't something a doctor can help with. But I know who can. Two people. They've gone through what you're going through."
His face scrunched up. He reached up to rub an ear. "Two? You know two other people like me?"
Doris reached up with her free hand and pulled Andrew's away from his ear. "You're going to have to listen to me very carefully, Andrew, because the Beast isn't going to like what I'm telling you. Yes, I know two people. Men who were just like you."
She felt him tense in her grip, wanting badly to rub at what must be a fast growing discomfort. But he asked, "Who are they?"
"They're friends of mine. And they'll be your friends, too. They can ..." Doris struggled to find the right word, the one that wouldn't frighten him "... separate you from the Beast. They can make it leave."
Something shifted in Andrew's tension, she felt it beneath her hands. It happened in his eyes, too. Something of the boy faded. Something else leaked through.
"I know 'em, don't I? At least one of 'em."
Her first impulse was to lie. But she sensed he would know if she did. That thing leaking through ... unlike its host, it remembered everything. It remembered everyone. Doris started talking fast now, hoping against hope.
"Maxwell Pierce."
He jerked free, standing, looking at her as if she had lost her mind.
"You kidding me?"
"Andrew --"
"The guy who grilled me so bad back in Tulenar? The guy who wants to get me executed?"
"He doesn't want any such thing --"
"Why should I trust him? Why would he want to help me?"
"Because he is you, Andrew. He just didn't know it then, he didn't recognize what was in him the way you do. But someone was able to help him do that and get free. He's with that man now and together they can help you. And I'll stay with you all the way, I promise. I won't leave you alone. The three of us will do everything we can to help you."
"What a load! What a crock!" Andrew was pacing now, becoming angrier, more frightened. He rubbed his ears vigorously.
Doris stood. "Andrew, do you know what's happening right now? It's the Beast that doesn't like what I'm saying, not you. Andrew, you know me from our Tulenar days together. You know how hard I fought to keep you and your friends from being taken from your families. And you know me from these past weeks at the detention center, before the Beast emerged in you. I promise. I won't let anyone hurt you. I will never leave your side."
Andrew stopped pacing and drew his hands from his ears. He looked at Doris, his expression, his whole body, pleading. "But it wants to come back so bad. What if it comes back?"
"It can only emerge during the first night of the full moon. You and I have all that time to plan. I'll teach you everything you need to know. But we need help, sweetheart. We need Max and his friend David."
She saw how badly he wanted to believe. She reached her arms out to him.
"I wanna see my ma," he said.
"Andrew --"
He nodded, as if nodding to himself, and began pacing again. "I gotta see my ma. She's gotta be worried sick."
"Honey, you can't go back to Tulenar. You can't go anywhere. Every lawman in the state is looking for you, trying to find out if you were abducted from Butte County or an accomplice to the killings."
He looked at Doris. "She needs to know I'm okay. We gotta get her out of there and take her with us to your friends. You help me get her out of there, Mrs. Tebbe, and I'll do like you say."
"Andrew." Doris went to him, held him by his shoulders. Her voice tightened. "Honey ... she's not there anymore .."
"What do you mean? Where'd they take her?"
Doris shook her head. "They didn't take her anywhere. Andrew ... sweetheart ... she became very ill after you went to Butte County. But she didn't want you know until your trial was over. She was sure she'd be better as soon as you were released. But ... a couple of days ago .. word got to her ... she couldn't hold on anymore ..."
In the time it took Doris to draw her breath, to draw up the words, she saw the horror of understanding in his eyes.
He bellowed. He pushed her away. Then he came at her. He slammed her against the kitchen cabinet, his hands on her throat, bending her backward over the sink. Yellow and black burst across her vision and she jammed her thumbs into his eyes.
Breath returned, vision returned. Andrew was wailing and stumbling back, his hands to his face, and then he bolted out of the kitchen. Doris's knees buckled as she pressed a hand to her throat and heard the apartment door slam back against the living room wall.
Andrew's House on Mission Avenue, Three Blocks East of Doris's
San Buenaventura, California
Spring/Early Summer 1950
Second Night. Full Moon.
Max went to the bedroom window. "The moon's set. The worst of it's over." He looked at Andrew, head lolled to one side, and remembered his eyes open, lucid and staring. "Will he sleep through the night?"
Doris nodded. "He should."
"Let's get out of this room for a while."
Max took Doris's empty coffee cup from her and led the way to the kitchen. As he refilled their cups at the stove, he said, "When we made it to your place in Roseville, you told us you didn't know where he went after he ran off."
"I didn't."
Max resisted calling her a liar. But when he joined her at the table, his thoughts must have been writ large on his face.
"I didn't ," Doris repeated, and then the heat went out of her voice. "I didn't hear from him for several months. By then you and David had given up looking for him. His trail was stone cold."
"Or just well covered."
"Damn it, Max, quit accusing me."
He leaned over the table. " Eight years , Doris."
"I know! I know it's been eight years, I'm the one who's been living this with him!"
" Why , Doris?"
She rubbed her face with both hands, then dropped them to the table. "The first time he came back, I was afraid if I talked about you, he'd run again. Max ... you've got to understand. He didn't come back because he liked or trusted me. He just didn't have anywhere else to go. He was a Nisei boy, no family left to him, running loose in California in 1942. It's a miracle he didn't wind up back in jail or in another internment camp during the months he'd disappeared. I needed time to earn his trust."
"How long did that take?"
"Well, let me check my calendar, Max. I know I have 'Anniversary of the Day Andrew Finally Trusted Me' marked somewhere."
"Okay ... All right, just ... tell me what happened."
Doris looked at her coffee. "When he showed up again, he was in even worse shape than before. Thin, filthy. Miserable. He wouldn't talk about where he'd been or what he'd done at first. It wasn't until he began staying with me for longer periods that he told me he had spent those months trying to hide among the Chinese population. It didn't work very well or for very long. He kept on the move until he managed to become a hanger-on with a group of stray kids in San Francisco's Chinatown. They treated him like crap, but they liked having someone around they could use as a go-for and to kick around. So they let him sleep on the floor of an abandoned house they'd taken over. Not long after Andrew joined them, their leader disappeared and the rest of them scattered."
"Let me guess. Their leader disappeared on a First Night."
Doris nodded. "He was found later, the police just didn't know it. Too mutilated for a solid I.D. Andrew said that he and the boy were about the same age. Even the same build. The state quit looking for Andrew after that."
The back of Max's mouth tasted sour. "Clever boy."
It was Doris's turn to lean over the table. "It wasn't him , Max, any more than it was you at Tulenar. It was the Beast making sure it got as much out of its host as it could."
"And it's gotten eight years out of this one! "
Eight years. Unheard of. Impossible! Hosts didn't last that long, could not last that long. The Beast was lucky to get several months out of one before having to move on. How could this be?
Max felt weak and dizzy, still reeling from the discovery. Still reeling from Doris's betrayal. Doris , of all people! He wanted to upend the table. He wanted to grab her and slap her to the floor. He wanted to grab her and clutch her against him, so they could sob into each other's shoulders. He wanted to wail and grieve for what they'd both done to make all this happen.
He stayed rooted in his chair and waited for Doris to continue.
Her hand shook as she brought her cup to her lips. She took a long drink, then said, "He came back, on and off, for several more months. Showing up after Third Night. Sometimes right after, sometimes much later. It depended on where he'd wandered and how long it took him to make his way back. Gradually, he stayed with me for longer periods of time, but always disappearing again before First Night. He would never tell me where he'd been or where he was going. But he did say that, since he couldn't stop the Beast, he was influencing its choice of victims."
"That's impossible, Doris."
"Maybe it was impossible for you. Maybe it was impossible for David or for your network of hunters. But it's not for him."
"How do you know?"
"Because, I ... because sometimes ... I helped him find them."
Max swallowed hard. He wanted to cry out don't tell me this , but instead heard himself saying, "Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus, Doris."
She looked at him, her eyes wide, pleading and desperate. "I was trying to get him to stay here, stay in one spot long enough to listen to me, to give me time to get a message to you and David, get you here or get us to you ..."
Max pushed away from the table, his stomach twisting. He strode to the kitchen's back door, opened it and leaned on the jamb, gulping large doses of cool air and staring into the back yard as Doris continued:
"I'd ... take Andrew to study the wanted posters at different counties' post offices. Pick out killers, rapists, let the Beast track them down. We'd wander different cities, find where the street walkers and drug fiends were. We'd turn the Beast toward the pimps or the pushers. We did a lot of traveling to avoid a pattern, but ... mostly the victims weren't people that were noticed when they vanished."
She took a deep, shaky breath. "And ... that went on for about a year, I guess. By then you and David were getting organized. You had some failures, then your first success with Samuel. I finally got up the nerve to talk to Andrew about you, again, telling him about how you were learning to do what you were doing."
Weariness spread through Max, a soul-deep exhaustion. He walked back over and sat across from Doris. She looked up. Fresh tears brimmed her eyes.
"I remember ... I was reading one of your letters when he came through the door one day and I thought, 'now or never.' I told him about your methods and how things were developing. He went stone quiet. I was sure he was going to leave. I thought about ... about waiting for him to turn his back ... wondered what was close at hand, heavy enough to hit him with. But, instead, he reached for your letter and read it for himself. I could hardly believe it when he asked if I thought you and David could do that for him ... save him . And he asked if I thought he could be a hunter, too. I said, 'yes, of course,' to both questions. But then he looked at me and said ... 'Or I might die. There's a good chance they won't be able to save me.' And ... I had to say 'yes' to that, too. He was gone the next morning, and I didn't see him again for months."
Doris's gaze drifted from Max and settled where the kitchen met the hall. The doorway to the room that held the radio could just be seen: the radio, and all those bones. "When he came back, he brought the first of those with him. A jawbone, to prove to me that he had tracked down a lineage and killed it. He'd never looked so ... fulfilled. Everything about him was different. He'd taken the Beast and turned it against itself. No one had to die anymore, not even the most wretched of the wretched."
"Except the hosts, Doris. They never get a chance. Not even the slimmest."
Doris closed her eyes and insisted, " It wasn't supposed to go on for so long. He talked about going to Tohatchi some day and joining you. But ... there was always one more lineage to track ... he kept putting it off ... always on the move ... always hunting ... keeping tabs on you and the other hunters ..."
Max leaned toward her. "What about you , Doris. What was stopping you ? You know we would have come to you!"
"What good would that have done, when he was away? If he had come back and you and David tried and failed with him, he would have disappeared forever."
"And when he wasn't away?"
"Then ... I was afraid that I'd fail. Max, he's my son . The first time he called me 'Moms' ... He's my son , Max, as surely as if I'd given birth. You don't know what it's like to love like that ... and know that you're the reason he is like he is." She pressed a hand to her mouth for a moment, swallowing hard. Then she said, "Sometimes I'd stand over him at night while he slept .. I'd have something ... heavy ... in my hands. Nothing silver, nothing that could kill him, only something to knock him unconscious so I could bind him, but .. God, Max ... I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I kept thinking, what if I fail? There would be no hope of saving him then." She looked at Max, her eyes pleading again. "He always had a reason for hunting one more lineage before coming to you and David. Always."
Max reached over and took Doris's hand. He was squeezing too hard, but he couldn't help himself. " And why do you think that was, Doris? Think about it. What was his real reason for putting it off?"
A metallic snick, a soft exhale from the hallway, and a plume of smoke ghosted past their faces. They looked up. Andrew Takei stood there, barefoot and shirtless, one hand pushing a Zippo and a pack of Luckys into his trousers pocket.
"Because I'm better at it than you," he said.
 \*
Max had never seen a host like him. If he could get to them early enough, the hosts looked as ordinary as any pedestrian on a street corner, wholly witless to what they carried inside. If he got to them late, almost used up, the hosts were gaunt, at the brink of insanity, their bodies withering with their minds.
But Andrew was anything but ordinary. His bearing was placid and regal. He wasn't particularly large, but his frame had the look of body armor in soft saffron leather. When his eyes met Max's, the knowledge of who he was to the Beast nested there: a fledgling fattened on the kills of its predator parent.
The man whom Doris called son. The boy whom Max had bitten.
Everyone stayed very still; Max and Doris in their chairs, Andrew standing in the entrance way. Finally, Andrew took another drag off his Lucky and sauntered over to the stove. He grabbed a cup out of the cabinet. "I don't know about you," he said, as he poured, "but I have very mixed feelings right now."
Max didn't say a word, didn't take his eyes off Andrew for a second. He kept to his chair but turned in it so he and Andrew were face to face, keeping his feet flat on the floor. When Doris spoke her tone was clear and flat, the voice of reason in a dangerous situation.
"Andrew ... come sit with us. Please."
He leaned against the counter and lifted the cup to his lips. "I'm fine right here, Moms," he said, before sipping. He slid his gaze toward Max. "So. General. You come to take me away?"
Max didn't trust himself to speak. Andrew pressed his lips together and pretended to wince. "Man. If looks could kill. How'd you find me?" His eyes turned straight to Doris.
"She never said a word," Max said, quickly. "I didn't even know you were still alive until tonight. Much less what you've become."
Andrew took another drag. "And to think I've never thanked you for that."
Everything in Max screamed against what he was about to say. "It doesn't have to be this way. It's not too late."
Andrew said nothing, sipping his coffee, smoking his Lucky, swiveling his gaze between Max and Doris. When Doris spoke again, what calm she'd mustered was failing. "Andrew, please don't go. Please just stay and listen."
He shrugged. "If I was going I'd already be gone. And you two wouldn't have even known until you were done with your little lovers' spat."
Max affected a heavy sigh, as if troubled and resigned. He lowered his gaze to his left hand lying on the table and placed his right against his trousers pocket, pretending to rest it there. He could feel Andrew's eyes on him. He could feel the change in his pants' pocket, hoping he had more silver in there than copper. Then he looked back up at Andrew and did everything he could to seem sincere.
"Come back with me to Tohatchi. Both of you. You think you're a strong hunter now, Andrew? You'll be even stronger without the Beast."
Andrew chuckled under his breath, finished his Lucky and dropped the butt into a dirty glass sitting in the sink. "You don't really expect me to believe that. What's your kill rate now? About a dozen, a little more? Mine's at least twice that."
Max shook his head. "It's not about how many lineages you kill. It's about how many people you save."
"People. As in hosts? Okay, I'll give you that one. Hosts don't make it, my way. But think of the victims . Every time you and David let a lineage slip away, waiting for the chance to nab back one lousy host, more victims suffer and die. Every missed opportunity. Every First Night. And half the time, the host dies, too. My way? All hunts are successful." Andrew pulled out his smokes and Zippo again.
Max's shoulders began to tense, his throat squeeze. "You can't tell me you take out a lineage every First Night, Andrew, I don't care how good you think you are. What about the people the Great Beast slaughters between your so-called 'successful' hunts?"
Andrew squinted at him over the flame of the lighter. His face softened as he snapped the Zippo shut. "Moms already told you how that's handled. I do what I can. Listen ... I accept that my way isn't perfect. But neither is yours. And when I can't make it to a hunt on time, at least I can keep the Beast turned toward lowlifes. Been able to for years." He took a long drag off the Lucky. "You're ex-military. You understand collateral damage."
Max's voice sounded hollow and deadly inside his head. "What about Mezz? Was he collateral damage?" And he came out of his chair.
Andrew came to meet him, his cup crashing to the floor. Doris leapt between, yelling their names, pushing her shoulder into Andrew's chest and stiff-arming Max.
"Stop it! Stop it!"
Max lunged, crumpling Doris's barricade and forcing her to the side. He pinned Andrew against the counter, Andrew's left arm bent backward in Max's grip with his right arm trapped by Max's weight.
"You son-of-a-bitch! You piece of shit! It was you , wasn't it? You're the one who trussed him up and stuck him in that hole! You wanted the Beast to kill him! Mezz wasn't one of your 'lowlifes'. He was just in the way!"
He felt Andrew strain, but there was no room to strike or kick. Max fished into his trousers pocket with his free hand and pulled out a dime. He raised it to Andrew's eye level and watched the sweat trickle down his temples. "All I gotta do is thumb this into one nostril and ram the cartilage of your nose right into your brain, silver and all. How 'bout it, Andrew? You ready to be collateral damage?"
Doris was sobbing, screaming, clawing at his shoulders. But he kept Andrew bent back against the counter. He looked into those eyes filled with hatred and something welled in his chest. His voice cracked as he said, "You think you're in control? You ? I saw how it hunts, Andrew, I saw what it did in Luperón. It waits for the lessers to have their kill before it kills, doesn't it?"
Andrew didn't reply. He just kept glaring, silent, hate filled, testing his strength against Max's weight.
Max said, low and deadly, "And I saw what you did, too, Andrew. You're not a hunter. You're an addict."
Doris had stopped struggling and was clutching Max's shirt sleeve, begging, "Max, please don't, please don't, please don't kill him, Max, please!"
"He's never coming with us, Doris. He doesn't want to be saved ..."
"We don't know that, we won't know that while he's so tangled with the Beast."
"I'm being a hell of a lot kinder to him than he was to Mezz!"
"Max! He would have never become this, if not for us! He's ours, Max! He's ours !"
The dime was getting slippery in his fingers. He thought of Mezz and Sister Veronica. He thought of Papo Salvador and Lloyd Stonehill. He thought of the last time he'd seen Andrew Takei: a terrified teen staring at him through the bars of Tulenar's little jail, before the lineage that Max had carried inside him found its way to the boy.
His eyes still fixed to Andrew, Max asked Doris, "What've you got in the medicine cabinet?"
Doris let go of Max's sleeve and touched a shaky hand to her forehead. "Uh ... I don't know ..."
Andrew said, pleadingly, "Moms ..."
"Any codeine?"
Doris headed for the bathroom.
Andrew struggled harder. "Moms!"
"Shut up! Hurry, Doris! And get something to tie him with."
Andrew turned his head and snapped at Max's fingers, silver or no silver. Max snatched his hand away, but Andrew kept trying: going for his nose, his chin, anything.
"Hurry up, Doris!"
Max was losing his advantage, jerking this way and that, avoiding Andrew's bite. The next time Andrew lunged at his fingers, Max jammed the dime against his tongue. Andrew screamed, jerked back, and butted his head hard against Max's nose. The pain was as bright as the star bursts dazzling his vision, and the room tilted.
The stars cleared as quickly as they came. Max saw Andrew spit the dime out as he stepped over him, holding his mouth, ignoring his own bloodied forehead and heading not toward the kitchen door, not toward escape, but down the hallway. Doris . Max forced himself off the floor.
He stumbled toward the hall, hearing her scream, hearing a horrid, choked gurgling, then clattering and crashing. But then another scream, this time a man's. And Andrew was staggering backward, swiping at his eyes. Doris charged forward slinging liquid out of a broken bottle. The tang of rubbing alcohol rushed into Max's nostrils.
He lunged at Andrew, slamming him against the wall, pinning him with his forearm against Andrew's throat. His eyes still burning with alcohol, Andrew lashed out blindly but made contact, punching Max's kidney, jamming a thumb into his eye. Max thrust back into his pocket, found more coins and ground them into Andrew's face before pain and vertigo sent him to the floor.
He was aware of Andrew shrieking. He was aware of someone yanking at his shoulders and he flailed outward in defense.
"Max, it's me! It's me!"
His senses cleared enough to realize Doris was trying to pull him into a sitting position. He struggled up until his back was leaning against the wall, damp with sweat, alcohol and blood. Nickels, dimes, quarters and pennies were scattered around him on the floor.
"He ran," she said. Her voice was hoarse and she was wheezing.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded, pressing her hand to her throat as she leaned against the wall next to Max. She wept as she said, "Oh, God. Oh, God .. We have to hunt him now."
Max reached over and pulled her against him. "No. He'll come back for us."
Doris lifted her head as they both heard a siren's wail.
"Coming our way," she said, the pain of her injured throat obvious. "Neighbors must've heard the commotion. Called the cops."
"Can you make it to the door?"
Doris nodded.
"Do what you can to make things harder for Andrew. It's not likely they'll find him, but maybe we'll get lucky." Max looked toward the room where the Ham sat. "I'm going to try to raise David. When Andrew comes back for us, he'll have to come to Tohatchi."
Thirty Miles South of Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
Twilight. Full Moon Receding.
Max and Doris turned off Highway 491 and onto the blade-straight road toward the compound. The sky's dusky blue was deepening to violet and, a half mile ahead, the first gate caught the Rambler's high beams. Before the car had even rolled to a stop, a dark figure on the other side of the two gates stepped away from the bramble and cactus barriers and aimed a rifle right at the windshield.
Max squinted, rolled down his window and called out, "Samuel?"
Samuel lowered his rifle. He pulled a flashlight from his belt, turned away and blinked a code. In the distance a pulse of light replied. Samuel disappeared briefly behind the barrier, and then unchained the gates. Max drove through the first one and Samuel locked up again before coming to the driver's side window.
Max said, "Where the hell have you been!"
Samuel grinned. "Good to see you, too, Maxwell."
Then he did a double-take and brought the flashlight up for a better look. "Damn! You look like something the Klan drug in." He looked past Max. "So do you. The two of you all right?"
Doris nodded and waved away his worry.
"You must be Doris," Samuel said. "Nice to meet you after all this time. I'll bet under better circumstances, you're a handsome woman."
He popped off the flashlight, went to the second gate and held it while Max drove through, securing it again and flashing another code toward the house. There was a brief crackle as Samuel reconnected the gates to the battery cells, sending electricity surging through the metal, then hopped on the Rambler's trunk for the drive onward.
David and Mina were stepping off the porch as the three pulled up, Mina going to Doris's door while David opened Max's. Mina ushered Doris into the house while Max gave David a one-armed hug of relief.
"You look terrible," David said.
"Funny, that's what he said." Max cocked his head toward Samuel. "Now how about it? Where the hell have you been? And how long have you been here?"
"Few days or so."
Max repeated, all the more irritated, "Where the hell , Sam! We were scared to death."
"Later for that," David said. "Right now you need to catch us up on everything. Anything in the trunk?"
Max shook his head. "We got in the car and hauled ass as quick as we could. About 50 miles out of Ventura, we stopped at some flea bag and got a couple hours rest before driving straight through on shifts."
The three of them mounted the porch, and headed to the kitchen. Mina had already begun filling plates with roast chicken, fry bread and potatoes. Doris's injured throat was still too sore for her to manage more than the fry bread soaked in gravy, but she ate as eagerly as Max. Everyone dug in.
"I radioed Paul and Amy right after you called us," David said as he scooted up to the table. "They're on their way and said they'd wire us with their progress. Now fill us in."
Max tried to think through the haze of his fatigue. "What'd I tell you on the Ham?"
"Something about the Great Beast and that an Oriental man named Andrew is the host. That you and Doris were in danger and had to move fast. For us to hunker down, take no chances 'til you could get here and to shoot silver at any Asian male who approached the compound."
Max took a couple of large gulps from his milk glass and looked at David. "You tell Samuel about Luperón?" David nodded. Max said, "You were right. The Great Beast there ... it's the same one that killed the Lesser in Taney County, Missouri."
Mina asked, "How did you find this out?"
Max stopped his fork midway between plate and lips. He looked across at Doris before he could stop himself, then back down at his plate.
Doris cleared her throat, and then rasped, "My son."
Everyone stopped eating. All eyes were on Doris. Puzzled, David repeated, "Your son?"
Doris nodded. David asked, still utterly bewildered, "Doris .. you have a son?"
She nodded again.
"And he told you about the Great Beast?"
"No," she said as strongly as she could, shaking her head. Then, more weakly, "He is ."
None of them understood at first. David, Mina, Samuel ... their faces were contorted with confusion. David was the first to realize. His face went ashen and he leaned back in his chair. Max cleared his throat and started talking. He wanted to spare Doris the pain; from both her injury and the telling itself. By the time he finished, the half-eaten supper plates were cold.
He watched David and Mina, looking stricken and betrayed. He saw Samuel's expression grow tense as he eyed Doris, distrust coming from every pore.
"Stop looking at her like that," he told them. But they just kept staring. "I said stop it!"
Doris reached across the table and laid her hand on his. "No. Don't. I would, too. If I were them."
She started to say something else but stopped, stood and left the kitchen. Samuel rose, but Max came out of his chair and grabbed his arm.
"Leave her alone."
"I'm just gonna keep an eye on her, Maxwell."
"No."
Samuel yanked his arm away. "You really trust her? After everything you just told us?"
"You don't know her like we do."
"And none of us knows what she may be up to."
"Leave her alone , Samuel."
"Samuel ..." Mina leaned from her chair and touched his side. "Let it be. I'll go."
Max turned his wariness on her. Mina rose, holding a hand up to stop his objection. "I'm just going to see if she's all right."
 \*
Beyond the wrap-around porch, the compound grounds were a soft, dim wash beneath the dusty glow of the moon, its fullness receding. Under the porch's roof, all was black silhouette.
Doris sat forward in the rocking chair, arms crossed on knees, listless and staring. She heard footsteps coming from inside, then the creak and clack of the front screen door. She looked over her shoulder as Mina came up and sat in the rocking chair next to hers. After a moment of quiet rocking, Mina asked, "Are you okay?"
Doris shrugged. She didn't want to say aloud what she was thinking, it shamed her so. But her throat burned with the words until she couldn't hold them anymore. "I've betrayed everybody."
"No argument there."
Doris nodded, not caring much if Mina could see the gesture or not.
"I did that once, too. Betrayed everyone," Mina said.
Doris made a guess about where Mina was going with this. "The reservation. When David brought Max."
She knew the story. All those years ago, while worrying about Andrew and the other kids at the detention center, Doris had also been worrying about Max and David, too, and thinking the worst. And she had been right to worry. Max falling comatose with pneumonia on the run to Tohatchi, David terrified they couldn't make it to the nearest hospital before Max died. Taking him to a distant cousin's Arizona hogan and begging, begging through a door that was shut in his face. Shunning lasts a lifetime. When Mina, that cousin's daughter, took pity on them, seeking them out in the nearest town's two-bit motel, she was shaming her family by aiding an accused witch.
"I don't know if I can explain how great a betrayal it was for me speak to David," Mina said, "much less help him and Max. And then I did it again when I left the rez altogether and followed my cousin here. Once I made that decision, there was no going back."
"Betrayed everyone but Max and David," Doris said. "Me? Snagged all of you. Including my son. I know where you're going with this. You can stop."
Doris rubbed her bruised throat, irritated from all this talking, and then rubbed her arms against the growing chill. Mina rocked a moment more in silence, then said, "Where I come from, intention means a lot. It's weighed against any offense."
"Really. So you can go back?"
Mina just chuckled and ignored the sarcasm. "Well ... sometimes it's more an ideal than a reality."
"Gotta point, Mina? Make it."
A moment of chilly silence, then a curt, "Okay." Mina got out to the rocking chair and crossed her arms. "The struggle between the Way of Beauty and the Way of Chaos never ends. I don't understand why that must be and I don't understand why sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. But I recognized the Way of Beauty when I saw David begging at the door, even if my father couldn't. Even if my whole community couldn't.
"You've walked in Chaos for a long time now, Doris. But when you chose Max over Andrew Takei, something in you finally remembered which is which and your shift back to Beauty began again. You'll need time to grieve your past foolishness. But you can't afford that now. Chaos is too close and it's coming at us fast."
One Half Mile North of the Alma Curar Compound
Thirty Miles South of Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
Sunrise. Second Day of the First Quarter Moon.
Andrew lifted the binoculars and watched the compound awaken. Mina, watering can in hand, walked off the porch. She set the can down, dipped her hand into the pouch on her hip, and then gestured around, sprinkling something toward each compass point. It was the same thing every morning. Some kind of Indian ritual. She dusted off her hands, picked up the watering can and turned to the flower bed.
The colored guy that Andrew assumed was Samuel was starting a circuit around the perimeter and Max, at the end of his watch, was walking back to the house. He couldn't tell who was at the makeshift perch on the roof top. A sun canopy had been rigged for it that blocked his view. He hadn't seen anyone mount the ladder, but that only meant the watchman had already climbed into position in the predawn gloom. Could be David. Might be Moms.
Andrew lowered the binoculars, tugged the brim of his slouch hat back over his brow and fished out another Lucky. He hid the Zippo's flame behind a cupped palm, and then rested his arms across his knees as he exhaled. He was just north of the compound, sitting cross-legged on a mesa where he'd been spying for the past three days. So far, it didn't appear they knew he was there. It sure looked like they were ready for him, though.
He hadn't spared a single day getting here, holing up only during the night he'd fled from his house, injured and betrayed. The non-silver injuries had healed virtually overnight. It was the silver wounds that had burned and throbbed for days, even though they hadn't left a mark greater than some redness and swelling. Silver wounds always had lingering pain. As did the pain of losing his second mother as absolutely as he had his first.
He sat there smoking, thinking, scratching his patchy beard stubble, his skin feeling a little raw from days in the desert sun. He wished he had a Ham so he'd know what to expect from the two hunters from Canada. Were they making their way to Tohatchi or staying put, preparing to hunt him down after he was done here? He took a couple more drags before raising his binoculars again.
He had to hand it to them, the compound was locked down. He hadn't expected anything less, from Moms' past descriptions of the place. But it was another thing to see it for himself. Electrified gates. Thick cactus and bramble grown against each other, packed tight, concealing the triplet of hot wire he knew ran through them. He couldn't make out the tarnished silver laced through the barrier or nailed to the gates, but he knew they were there. Knew they were buried beneath the barrier, too, along with more electrified wire.
The house sat dead center, about a quarter mile of open area all around. There was a chicken's coop and confine about thirty yards or so off the southwest corner. To the north, about fifteen yards, was a small hut layered with rugs and blankets. A smoke hole in the center of it. That had to be David's sweat lodge. Off to the right of that were a couple of uprights with silhouettes painted on them: one human, one large and wolfish. Target practice for the least steady among them, like Moms.
The compound's massive generator and the big, silver propane tank weren't far behind the house. Andrew had watched a utility worker top off the tank yesterday. He'd watched as Max and Samuel lugged several large fuel cans out of the truck the day before, stowing them under the back end of the wrap-around porch. Extra diesel for the generator, was Andrew's guess.
He unfolded his legs and rose, but kept low until he was well to the other side of the mesa, sloped like a broken shoulder. He controlled his skid downward, fifteen feet on the mesa's low side, to the Buick he'd boosted back in Ventura. He tossed the binoculars in the rear seat with the supplies and hardware he'd stolen from a gun shop and an Army surplus store as he had passed through Flagstaff.
Lying amongst all this was a particular memento Andrew had brought with him. The trophy he had carried away from Luperón : a Herculean effort for any lesser host, even wrapped in its plain cotton cloth. He had risked a great deal to bring it here, stealing back into his house in Ventura. It was that important to him. He was going to find a way to make a special present of it for Max.
It was time to stretch out on the car's front bench seat and get a little shut eye while the mesa's morning shadow lasted. Andrew thought things through as he drifted into a doze. After a few days and nights of biding his time, watching the compound, getting a sense of their routines, he was certain no Lesser Beast would ever get through the compound's barriers. Not during the fleeting, precious hours of First Night. And a typical host would be too witless to be of any use to the Beast in finding a way through. But when Max and David had built those defenses years ago, they hadn't planned on someone like Andrew. They hadn't known he, or the likes of the Great Beast, even existed.
He thought of Moms again. He thought of the Canadians once more and hoped with all his burning heart they were on their way. His only obsession now was to see the moon set on the corpses of the hunters. Every. Single. One.
 \*
The sun hit its zenith and it was David's turn to walk the perimeter. Max stepped onto the porch, leaned his shotgun against the railing and plopped down in the chair next to Samuel, legs out-stretched with his ankles crossed. For the first time in days Samuel stayed put instead of finding an excuse to avoid a one-on-one with him.
Max looked him in the eye for a minute, and then said, "Huh. Not leaving. I must smell sweeter than I have been lately."
"C'mon, Maxwell. You know we been busting our asses to get prepped."
"Yeah. That must be it. 'Cause I can't imagine you've been avoiding me for any other reason ... like talking about your little disappearing act."
Samuel propped his elbow on the chair's arm and pulled everything up, resting an ankle over one knee. His gaze drifted to the front grounds, his thumb stroking back and forth below his lip. "Yeh .. about that. It wasn't the way to be, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have worried everybody. Thing is, I left Mexico City for a little village west of there. It took me a while to set back up."
"You were out of touch a hell of a lot longer than it would've taken to set back up."
"Yeh ...see ... the reason for the move ..." He looked at Max again and shrugged, sheepish. "Her name's Consuela. She lives in that little village west of the city."
Try as he might to keep from it, Max couldn't help cracking a smile. "That sounds more serious than just a roll in the hay."
Samuel quit running his thumb under his lip. "It is . She's a good woman, Maxwell. And when I leave here, I'm gonna be married."
Max felt squirmy and his own gaze drifted to the compound grounds. "She's already said yes?"
"Yeh."
"Does she know about you?"
"No. Doesn't know what I do, doesn't know what I once was. And I'm not gonna tell her, Maxwell."
"So you're giving up the hunt."
Samuel sighed, and then looked back at Max. "I kept putting off telling you all. More to the point, if I'm honest with myself, I was hiding out. Once I got my nerve back, considering how long I was out of touch, I figured the least I owed everybody was a face-to-face with the news."
It took a moment for Max to recognize what he was feeling, that the reason he didn't like hearing what Samuel was saying went beyond the loss of a good hunter. He was jealous. Jealous of Samuel walking away and starting a wonderful, normal life.
He was clenching his jaw. And his long silence must have given him away, because Samuel sighed again, rubbed a palm awkwardly over his short, nappy scalp and went back to grounds gazing.
Max said irritably, "Well, hell ... aren't we even invited to the wedding?"
Samuel met his eyes and grinned.
"Because, if we're not, you know we'll just come crash the damn thing."
The screen door creaked open then clacked shut as Mina came out of the house, a canvas shopping bag over her arm. Max twisted in his chair and said, "I guess you already knew Samuel's a marrying man."
"It was a day or so of stuffing him with tequila and my fry bread, but he finally came out with it."
"Shit." Max turned back around and hooked his hands behind his head. "I'm always the last to know anything around here."
"I've finished up casting the bullets and cartridges. It's all packed and waiting in the radio room along with the silver shavings ... all in all, we'll have three citrus crates' worth. Where we putting them?"
"We'll set 'em all through the house, so we can get to them quickly. Need help?"
Mina nodded. "Later for that, though. Right now I need to go into town to check for Paul and Amy's wire. Which one of you wants to ride shotgun?"
Max stood. "I'm restless, I'll go."
He grabbed his gun off the railing because, when Mina asked who wanted to ride shotgun, she meant that literally. They were taking no chances between now and First Night.
 \*
Andrew watched the truck leave. Samuel closed the gates and electrified them again before hopping in Moms' Rambler for the drive back to the house. The truck was headed north, a safe assumption they were off to Tohatchi. Andrew reasoned that, by the time he scrambled down the mesa, got in his car and pulled onto 491, he'd be just far enough behind them to not be noticed.
Sure enough, as he came to the junction of 108 and Loma, he saw the truck parked outside the town's feed store. He didn't turn, but kept on 108, pulling off the road only after he was sure the sparse buildings of the town blocked the Buick from immediate view. In a dusty Indian backwater like Tohatchi, a strange car rolling down the main street would catch everyone's attention. So would a newcomer on foot, but not nearly as much or as quickly. Especially one that blended in like he did: rumpled plaid and denim, a shadow of patchy stubble across his jaw, sun-darkened skin. As long as no one got close, he could probably pass for Mexican. He got out of the car, pulled the slouch hat low over his eyes and started walking.
Max and Mina were crossing the street from the feed store to Chuli's, that diner where they used to make phone calls to Moms. Andrew stayed on the feed store side, keeping his eyes down as he sloped along, stopping in the gap between the store's loading dock and the five-and-dime next door. Max shouldn't be able to sense him close by, not while the moon was phasing and the Beast was dormant. But there was no point in taking chances. After all, Max wouldn't need a twist in his gut to look up and recognize him.
In the middle of a bright New Mexico midday, Andrew couldn't see much through Chuli's window other than the stickers plastered on it: Western Union Available Here ... Greyhound Bus Stop. But when Max and Mina came back out, he could see the telegram in Mina's hand. She was reading as they stepped onto the board walk, Max peering over her shoulder. After a moment, she stuffed the paper into her canvas bag and she and Max crossed the street, heading toward the truck. Andrew stepped behind the feed store corner, pressing his back against the wall.
He caught all he needed from their conversation as they got into the truck. He smiled to himself. The Canadians were on their way.
 \*
As the truck rolled up to the house, David waved to Max and Mina from the makeshift perch on the roof. Doris came out the front to meet them.
David made his way over to the edge nearest the truck and called down, "Did you hear from Paul and Amy?"
"The telegram was waiting at Chuli's," Max said. "They're in Denver now and should be in Albuquerque a little after dusk tomorrow."
David nodded. "I'll feel a lot better once they're here."
Max, Mina and Doris grabbed boxes from the truck bed and headed up the porch. "How are they getting from the airport to Tohatchi?" Doris asked. "You're not going all the way to Albuquerque, especially at that time of night ..."
"Not unless we get to Andrew before he gets to us."
"So what, then? Taxi?"
"Nobody's going anywhere at night, including Paul and Amy," Max said. "They'll bus in to Tohatchi the next morning." He dipped down, hooked an index finger around the screen door handle and tugged, letting the women pass through.
"Then two of us will still need to go get them ..."
"Just to Tohatchi. During broad daylight."
Doris went quiet and Max could almost hear the wheels cranking in her head. He let the screen door clack shut behind him and followed them through the house to the kitchen.
"If Andrew's here," he said, "he's probably not going to make a move until closer to First Night."
"Uh-huh ... the operative word being 'probably.'" Doris set the supply box on one of the kitchen counters and started unloading it, Max and Mina doing the same. "Look .. every time we send two of us out it's a big risk. We weaken the compound, and the closer we get to First Night the riskier it is to do that. We need to start keeping as many of us here as possible. Especially our strongest guns. I should go get Paul and Amy."
"Good idea," Max replied, "and just before you leave, we'll paint a big, red target on your back. Andrew'd love nothing better than to get you separated from us."
She didn't come back at him with an argument quick enough, and that's what tipped him off to what she was really thinking.
"He won't be happy with just you, Doris."
She tried a feint. "Did I say he would? But, okay ... fix me up so I look like Mina. Or Samuel or David. I'll only be alone on the way there. Besides, maybe seeing one of us take off alone will draw him out a little."
"Foolishness," Mina said. She turned away from her work, resting her knuckles against her hip. "We're not falling for that any more than he would. No one is going to make any drive alone. Max is right. First Night is still about a week away. Andrew won't risk silver until he has to."
Doris started to tick off some logical rationale or another to back up her argument, but Max walked over and popped a couple of fingers over her lips. Mina went back to unloading her supply box.
"You didn't lead him here, Doris," Max said. "Even if he'd gotten to us before we made it, you know he still would've come for David and Mina. He would have had to. So stop worrying. All the way to Tohatchi and back, there'll be at least two guns to train on him and a lot more than that once we're here. And don't forget he'll have to get through the compound's barrier first."
"I hope he does try something early," Mina said. "Until First Night, he's still just a man."
Mesita, New Mexico
Fifty Miles West of Albuquerque
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
Sunrise. Third Day, First Quarter Moon.
Dawn spread across the windshield, turned opaque through the night by Andrew's body heat. The Buick lay hidden in a shallow wash that was walking distance behind a ramshackle building, part food store, part gas station. Andrew propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed a peep hole through the condensation. No one seemed to be around.
Once out of the car, he stretched out the stiffness then ducked inside to get the hand gun off the floor board. The gun went between his undershirt and trousers, back against his spine.
He had to mentally prepare himself to pick up the Bowie knife wrapped, sheath and all, in a cotton cloth. He pulled on a pair of leather gloves, took a couple of deep breaths, then grabbed it out of the cloth, looping its sheath over his belt and pushing it back against the gun. Moving fast, he worked the cotton cloth into a tight roll and jammed it between his undershirt and the knife's handle, leaving his flannel shirt unbuttoned and untucked.
With the barrier made by his undershirt and the roll of cloth, Andrew could breath a little easier. It was only the sense of silver, the risk of it so close to his skin, which he had to deal with now. He lit up a Lucky, snuggled the hat's slouch brim over his cold ears, then crossed his arms against the morning. He hoped there'd be coffee once the store owner showed up, and walked a few figure eights to get his blood pumping and keep his mind off the knife.
When the sun was about a hand above the horizon, a battered old utility truck rattled in from the east and Andrew heard it come to a stop in front of the store. He started walking and rounded the corner in time to see a tubby, gray-haired Navajo woman unlock the door.
"Good morning," he said.
She stopped with the door half open and eyed him up and down. "Help you?"
Andrew kept smiling as he reached behind him. He grabbed his wallet.
"I need a bus ticket. And a coffee, if you're putting any on."
 \*
First came the flash of sunlight against a windshield, then the Greyhound shimmered up behind the heat waves coming off 66. Now that it was almost here, Andrew's hands went clammy.
It's not too late. I don't have to board.
But he'd have to, to be certain it was the right bus.
All I have to do is see if they're on it. If it stops long enough, maybe they'll get off and go inside for a Coke.
He could hear the engine as the Greyhound rose through the road heat. Andrew smoked his Lucky until it nearly burned his lips, and then doused it in the cold dregs of the paper cup crowded with butts. He crushed its sides and, to avoid being memorable for even the least transgression, tossed it in the rusted barrel between the two gas pumps.
Maybe fifteen minutes or so earlier, a middle-aged man and woman had pulled up in a dusty, dented Ford straight out of the Great Depression. They had gone inside, where they were talking with the old lady storekeeper in a sing-song kind of Spanish. Now, apparently hearing the bus, they stepped out to watch it, chattering at each other and craning their necks as if that could help them see better through the heat waves. The Greyhound whined down on approach and the air brakes hissed.
The door flapped open. The bus driver called to his passengers, "Mesita. Drop off and boarding only. All others, remain seated, please."
The couple hurried over. A young Latino in Army drab stepped off. The driver followed him, went to the undercarriage and yanked a hatch open, pulling out a duffle bag that matched the soldier's uniform. Andrew tugged one glove off. He swiped his clammy palm against his trousers, lit another Lucky and pulled his ticket from his back pocket. He kept his arms close to his sides as he walked over, to stifle his shaking. The name badge on the driver's official, gray jacket read, Mr. Chapman .
Chapman looked up briefly, nodded absent-mindedly and took Andrew's ticket. The soldier left the woman's welcome-home hug to grab the duffle and the driver asked, "Got everything, son?"
"Yes, sir."
"Okay, then, take care." Squinting, Chapman held Andrew's ticket at arm's length, then tore off his copy and handed the rest back. "Any empty seat," he said pleasantly enough, but didn't give Andrew much more than a glance.
It's not too late. I can get back off if they're not here. Say I made a mistake ... say I forgot something and will have to wait for the next bus ...
His eyes had to adjust to the filtered daylight inside the Greyhound. Chapman shut the hatch to the cargo bin and walked over to the store front, sticking his head through the doorway and saying something to the old lady shopkeeper.
There were five people in the bus, not counting the driver. Two Latinos, one Indian. In the back, two others. A man and woman. He, blonde-haired, head tilted back, eyes shut, mouth slightly parted, faintly snoring. She, a ponytailed auburn, head on the blonde's shoulder, stirring a little before settling back again to close her eyes. They looked even more Caucasian than the bus driver. So pale, they practically glowed.
It's still not too late. Maybe this isn't the best move after all. A lot of unknowns, a lot of risk. I can get back off ... But something gripped him, more impulse than thought, forcing its way through his doubts, rooting him in place. No. Stay.
Chapman was back behind the wheel. "Find a seat, my friend."
Andrew took another drag, wiggled his glove back on and chose the seat next to the Indian because it was one of the pair directly behind the driver. His companion glanced at him, obviously irritated that Andrew went for that seat when so many were open. He kept quiet, though, pressed his shoulder against the window and turned to watch the road as the driver clapped the door shut and pulled back onto 66.
 \*
I don't know that they're really the Canadians. If I'm wrong, people die for nothing. Worse than nothing. I give myself away. Maybe I'll be the one who dies here, right on this bus, if they've got silver with them.
Andrew's car was now five miles behind him.
It's not supposed to be this way!I'mnot the killer, thebeastis! Goddamn Max! Goddamn my mother! It's not supposed to be this way!
His undershirt was clammy, soaked with sweat. He felt unnatural warmth growing, where the roll of cotton cloth was wedged between his back and the knife's handle. He was shaking so badly, he didn't trust himself to light another smoke. Behind and ahead, nothing but sage and chaparral and the straight, narrow ribbon of 66. A single car whizzed past, going the other direction. A road sign surged into view, then receded. The bus was less than ten miles from the next town and his car, and certain escape, kept falling farther behind.
They've got to be the Canadians. His pulse throbbed in his ears, all sound lost but that boom. He began rubbing his gloved hands together and only then did it occur to him ... look at my palm . He pulled off a glove. The pentagram was faint, but it was there.Andrew turned slowly, daring to look behind, trying to obscure his eyes by peering just beneath the slouch's brim. The woman was awake. She was looking right at him. She stood.
Andrew turned back, drew the knife and plunged it into the base of the driver's skull.
\*
A hazy consciousness dawned. Amy's first thought was, Stupid! Stupid, stupid! But it took a moment before she could remember why she was scolding herself. Then: Yes .. right ... stupid to let our guard down, public bus or no public bus.
She tasted blood. She couldn't move. She smelled diesel fuel and smoke. When she coughed, pain shot through her chest like a hot, pointed poker. She strangled on something warm and thick and realized she had to spit or drown. But her mouth just filled back up.
She turned her head and discovered a new agony. It coursed through her neck and jaw, but the blood that had been choking her could at least drain, spilling to the right and toward her temple. The side of her face was pressed against something that felt smooth and sharp all at once.
Busted window. She recognized now why everything was at an odd angle. Greyhound's on its side. Where's Paul?
She told herself to move, but nothing on her body paid attention and that really pissed her off. She rolled her eyes to the left and nearly passed out from the vertigo, but once it settled she saw a man leaning over her, using the seat backs ahead of her as a brace, blood streaming from his nose. Latino. No. Oriental. See, under the hat. He's Oriental. Oh, God. Has to be the host ... the man Andrew . Has to be.
And Amy's gun, Amy's silver was in the bus's cargo hold, with Paul's.
The man disappeared from view. While Amy was screaming inside her head for her body to move, move , she heard a sluggish protest. A strangling sound, then hrk ... hrk . The man reappeared, bloodier than before, and Amy never took her eyes off him as he angled himself into position, braced a Bowie knife tip-first under her broken jaw and drove the blade home.
 \*
Every muscle in his body was shaking, but his mind was surprisingly still and calm. Once the decision had been taken out of his hands, Andrew found that killing was much easier than he had thought. He had been so afraid, and for what?
One of the Canadians, the man, hadn't needed any knife to boost him over. But the woman and the Indian did. The bastard had managed to pull himself over to the upside of the bus and was yanking open a window before Andrew noticed him.
The fire feeding along the chassis could turn into a lucky break, if it took the whole bus. Andrew couldn't afford to wait and see, let alone try to help it along. But, he wasn't worried. As long as he could put enough distance between him and his handiwork before the smoke drew attention, or a car came by, he'd be fine. Autopsies wouldn't be likely when the cause of death was so obvious. Not without suspicion of foul play.
But it wouldn't really matter, even if the odds were to turn against him. By the time something strange about the driver and two of the passengers might be noticed; by the time the authorities might suspect not everyone died from the crash; by the time a manhunt catches up to Andrew, First Night will have come and gone. And so will have Andrew.
The region's wide open spaces and poverty were playing in his favor. Not a single vehicle had come by, other than the car that had passed earlier. Nevertheless, he hobbled far enough away from 66 to avoid as much notice as possible, then turned east and started the long walk back to his Buick, picking his way through the juniper, sage and chaparral, going for the added cover and easier walking of the occasional dry wash when possible. He was dehydrated, banged up and his ankle was badly sprained, if not broken. His nose definitely was. His injuries might slow the trek, the pain might be horrific, but as long as he could make it to the car, none of it mattered. In a few days, maybe four, he'd be good as new.
Two dead. Five to go.
Thirty Miles South of Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
Afternoon. Second Day, First Quarter Moon.
Sitting on the roof's makeshift perch, Max watched David open the gates for the truck. Mina and Samuel were hours late, and the relief he had felt when he first spotted them dwindled as David stood at the driver's side window, taking too long, talking earnestly. Max lifted the binoculars. He saw only Mina and Samuel inside the truck's cab. He saw David's expression.
He climbed down as fast as he could. Doris was already on the porch as the truck came to a stop in front of the house. Mina got out of the cab, her face ashen.
She said, "They found the No. 8 bus on its side, burning. About three hours ago on 66, nine miles east of Seama. Everybody's dead."
"An accident?" Doris asked, her voice so tight it was almost a whisper.
Mina couldn't seem to answer. David was sitting in the truck bed, his eyes squeezed shut, his forehead pressed into his hands. Samuel was still in the cab, staring ahead, grinding his palms against the wheel. Finally, she managed, "That's what they're calling it."
"How'd you find out?" Max asked, hoping against hope that maybe -just maybe-the information wasn't reliable.
Mina blinked rapidly, looked away a moment, then replied, "A state trooper came by Chuli's. One of the bus passengers had some I.D. in his wallet that hadn't burned all the way. The trooper was looking for the next of kin, figuring they would be waiting for him in town ..." she shut her eyes, pressed her hand against her lips for a moment before finishing. "They were. And ... um ... and we asked about Paul and Amy. Described them to him. He said there were two people ... in the back ... one, believed to be female. He told us he wouldn't say for certain without positive I.D. But ... his eyes told us everything."
Doris collapsed. "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God ...!"
Max knelt and she looked into his face, her eyes wild. "I should've told you, Max. I should've told you about him when I had the chance ..."
"Doris -"
"The first time he came to me, when he was sleeping on the couch -Oh, God!- maybe I should have killed him then? Was that the only way, was that his only chance? Oh, God, Max, what have I done! I should've saved him from this! I should've saved everyone from this, I should've saved him, I should've saved him ...!"
 \*
Max walked into the kitchen to get his supper. Mina looked up from her own and motioned to the stove. "It's in the oven."
Max opened the oven door, peered in, and then grabbed a pot holder off the counter. "How is she?" he asked, pulling out the foil-wrapped plate.
"Same as she's been all day. I took some dinner to her room a few minutes ago. At least she was dozing. Or pretending to."
Max brought his supper over to the table and sat with Mina. He didn't have much of an appetite but he ate everything, then took his empty plate to the sink and said, "I'll go spell David."
The sun had set hours ago, but Max still felt like he could be spotted for miles as he mounted the ladder to the roof's lookout. At the top, he un-slung the rifle from his shoulder and scuttled quickly under the little canopy rigged with two-by-four posts and an old paint-spattered tarpaulin.
"Take a break and eat," he said.
David nodded but didn't reply or move. So Max sat back-to-back with him and took up half the watch. Below them spread the compound's russet earth, pristine and landscaped, bounded by the bramble and cactus barrier. Beyond that, the endless crazy-quilt of sage and chaparral, yucca and juniper. It spread from the edge of the compound's barrier to the mesas at the horizon.
Plenty of cover. Plenty of hiding places. Andrew could be just outside the compound, tucked behind tumble weeds, watching their every move; or pressed against the shallow, sharply sloped sides of a dry wash, peering out at them; or wedged into the tight branches of a juniper, sizing them up through a gun sight. Under a sky dusty with starlight, nothing brighter up there than a thin crescent moon, Andrew would be next to impossible to pick out.
David asked how Doris was doing.
"Mina said she thought she was sleeping a little," Max replied.
"I hate to think of what she's going through. To raise a boy like her own, to look back on all of her good intentions, seeing what he's become ... You and I, we never had the chance to be parents. Most of my years since being bitten, that's haunted me. But, right now, it seems like a blessing."
Max nodded, forgetting David couldn't see with his back to him. For the umpteenth time, the thought of Paul and Amy lying charred and unclaimed in the county morgue came to him. He saw movement toward his right and startled -which in turn startled David-then realized the movement came from inside the compound. It was Samuel, passing the chicken's coop and confine.
"You really should eat," he told David. "We all need to be as fit and alert as possible."
"In a minute," David replied. Max heard him sigh, deep and heavy. "How could we have not seen something like this coming?"
Max's mind went back to that kitchen in Ventura. Andrew leaning on the sink counter, smoking, smug, talking about collateral damage. "It's my fault. He told me things that gave away how he thinks. I'm the one who should've seen this coming."
"I'm not just talking about Amy and Paul. I'm talking about the Great Beast. All these years ... how could we not know something like that existed? And for a host to be conscious of it ... let alone nurture it. Can a lineage become great without the host's awareness?"
"Maybe this is the first," Max said. "Maybe this is something new."
"In all the history of lineages and of mankind, in all the world? Rare, perhaps. But I can't believe Andrew's abilities or this Great Incarnation is the first."
"But there's nothing in Stanislov's journals .."
"We've grown too dependent on them, as if they're the end all and be all. He was a good historian, but he was still just one hunter, just one man, like any of us, living just one lifetime." David breathed another sigh and Max felt him shift. "I'd better get a plate. Then I'll relieve Samuel."
Max glanced over his shoulder as David rose and left for the ladder. Before his head disappeared below the roof David called, "Max?"
Max twisted around to look at him.
"I meant to say this earlier on ... I'm glad you came back."
Max's throat tightened. He gave David a wave. He wanted to quip, "Yeah, let's see how glad you are after all this is over." But he wasn't certain any of them would be left alive to feel glad about anything.
 \*
Max thought it was the pale gloom of predawn that had awakened him. Then he realized someone was standing in his bedroom doorway. A woman.
"Mina?" He propped himself up on one elbow, ready to reach for the shotgun leaning against the night stand. "What is it?"
She walked closer and as the fog of sleep cleared, he realized it wasn't Mina but Doris. She stopped at the side of his bed for a moment, then sat on the edge.
"What is it?" he asked again.
She didn't answer. In the soft gray light, there was no sign of the past eight years anywhere on her face. Except in her eyes. They were glossy from only God knew how many hours of crying. But the dim glow of a morning not yet here, and a night not yet gone, masked the red that he knew would be there. Her hair was unpinned. She wore a man's shirt that Max didn't recognize, borrowed to sleep in, maybe one of David's. She reached out a hand and stroked his cheek with her fingertips.
God ... God ...
She leaned over and kissed him. He was afraid to move at first, afraid of doing anything that might make her pull away. And she did pull away, but only to look deeper into his eyes, then leaned in to kiss him again.
Max pressed his hand to the back of her neck and pushed her harder against his mouth as he sat up. But before he could stop himself, tears spilled though his lashes and he sobbed against her kiss, pulling his lips across her jaw to her neck, clutching her tightly against him. Doris wrapped her arms around his naked back and held on as if she thought he'd be ripped away.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, thinking at first he meant for crying, but wasn't really sure. Then Doris was crying, too, her tears merging with his and he brought his mouth back to hers, felt his sex swell and ache, felt her nipples harden under her shirt and press against his chest.
He pulled her arms down, yanked the cloth away from her shoulders, buttons popping, tangling her wrists and not much caring. All that mattered was the feel of his mouth against her skin, the way she swooned across the bed, the way her nipples fit the curl of his tongue.
He opened her legs, pressed his palm against the softness there, the pelt and the bone. Lifted his face to gaze at the sight of her wide open to him, of his hands stroking her thighs, and then coming back to the center where she was slick with sweat and need. He stroked her there, and stroked and stroked until she arched and shuddered and collapsed against the bed. He yanked his shorts down, knelt between her legs, slid his palms beneath her buttocks and pushed himself inside.
Aching ... Groaning ... Doris wrestling her arms free of the wadded shirt, pulling herself up, wrapping around his shoulders, pushing him deeper inside her, shuddering, sinking into him tooth and nail. Shuddering again, shuddering again, her body gloved and pulsing around him until his groin pulled hard up against him and he was shuddering with her.
 \*
The sharp rap of knuckles on wood came an hour later, startling Max out of his doze.
"Wakey, wakey, Maxwell. It's your grounds watch."
"Yeah. I'm up."
He glanced over at Doris, who slipped out of bed on the other side. Max got up, pulled on his shorts and got dressed.
"I'll go first," he said, meaning to spare her embarrassment.
She looked at him the way she did when he'd tell her one of his corny jokes. "Go first?" she repeated. "What are we, seventeen, sneaking out of daddy's basement?"
She held the shirt together where the buttons had popped off and walked out, glancing to her left. "Morning, Samuel."
 \*
Andrew wasn't sure which woke him first: the pain or the sunrise. As was his habit he peered out the car window, checking to make sure all was clear before sitting up. It was a task done stiffly, with a grimace, every muscle protesting. He pulled his arm out from under the sleeping bag that lay over him and prodded his nose as he looked into the Buick's rearview mirror. So purple, it was almost black, so sore that the gentlest touch brought tears to his eyes, rimmed with the same dark bruising. But the swelling that had stymied his breathing yesterday as he drove back to the mesa was already gone.
His injured ankle hurt worse, but was healing just as quickly. With his legs stretched out on the Buick's bench seat, he could see there was little swelling in the foot below the splint he'd fashioned out of a couple of dead juniper sticks and his undershirt. But it was throbbing mercilessly and sending shards of pain up his leg at the slightest move. If anyone found Andrew now, he'd be hard pressed to defend himself.
In spite of it all, he knew he had taken the right risk by boarding the Greyhound. Andrew eased his legs off the seat so he could reach the car door. The same juniper that had provided the splinting during his long march from the burning bus had also yielded a walking stick. Once he had the door open and his legs maneuvered, he grabbed it off the floor board. He got a boot on his good foot, levered himself up with the makeshift crutch and pondered how to make it to the top of the mesa.
He pondered other things as well. As soon as he had laid eyes on the compound, he knew he couldn't hope to flush the hunters from it. Even if he could have, it was better to have them corralled than scattered. What he needed was to find a way to deny them as much advantage as possible, make the way in easier for the Great Beast. Until yesterday, he hadn't been sure how to go about it. But as he was walking away from the Greyhound, all had become clear.
For now, he'd lay low, hide out and heal. Do some prep work, map things out in his head. And wait for the last sunrise before First Night.
Thirty Miles South of Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
Dawn. Full Moon.
Max was walking the north perimeter when he heard it: a sharp crack, an echo, a sharp crack, an echo. He saw Samuel, on the roof, jerk to his left and return fire. Max started running.
Samuel trilled out three sharp whistles, meaning from the west .
David burst out the front door, rifle in hand, two ammo belts draped on his arm. Max yelled at him as he passed, "West!"
David heaved an ammo belt toward him and dropped behind the porch railing, using it to steady his rifle, ready to cover everything east. Now Mina was out. Now Doris, both women still in their night wear, but also with shotguns. Mina ran south, Doris went north, bracing her gun on the porch railing like David. David let go with three sharp whistles as they ran past him, giving them the direction of danger.
Crack, echo . Crack, echo . Samuel returned fire as Max ran. But it didn't make sense, what Andrew was doing: firing on the house in the dim light of dawn, with no clear target. Max heard another crack, echo , and then the ping of a bullet glancing off metal. And another. Suddenly, Samuel stopped returning fire. Instead he was yelling, yelling and running along the roof toward the front of the house, yelling at Max, "Get back! Get back! He's not aiming at us; he's aiming at the tank-!"
Nothing around him but a white, hot ball. A burning blow to the front. Nothing in him but nerve endings shrieking. A bone jarring slam to the back. Max realized he'd been sent airborne, and then hit the ground. He rolled to his right. The world came back in focus. The rear of the house was all flame. Andrew had struck the propane tank, and the diesel stored below the porch had gone up with it.
There was a body lying in the flower bed near the northeast corner of the porch. Doris had already jumped the railing and was kneeling there. Max pulled himself up, found his rifle, and stumbled toward her. The body in the flower bed was Samuel.
David was there now, but he kept his rifle raised, watching all directions at once as Doris rolled Samuel onto his back. Mina rushed to David's side and took up half the guard. As Max knelt next to Doris, she looked up at him and yelled above the roar of the flames, "He's alive!"
David pushed Mina toward the vehicles. "Get the cars away from the house! Max, are you okay?"
"Yeah--"
"Stay here and keep your guard up. I'm going in .."
"The hell you are!"
"We've got to get what ammo we can out of there! Help get Samuel away from the house!"
"David!"
David was already up the front steps. Doris had Samuel under the arms and was dragging him away, yelling at Max, "Go with him!"
Max helped her drag Samuel into the relative safety of the sweat lodge then ran after David. Cold air sucked past him through the open door, flapping his shirt as it rushed toward the back of the house and into the flames. He lifted his arm in reflex, heat and light tearing his eyes. He found David in the living room, where the nearest citrus crate of weapons waited. They grabbed it and manhandled it through the house and down the porch steps. Max bounded into the house again, David on his heels, headed for the radio room where a second crate waited. But the heat and flames forced them back.
The last dawn before First Night came up in the east as Max followed David, staggering toward the sweat lodge where the women hunkered, guns drawn. The smell of his own singed hair was thick in Max's nose as Doris pressed against him, and they all watched helplessly as the house burned to the ground.
 \*
Max stayed put by the truck's passenger side door, staring at what was sticking out of the gate post, not daring to say a word. His attention was divided by what he saw there and David leaning against the state trooper's cruiser. Max's gun lay out of sight, inside on the truck seat, and he mustered enough bluff to give the trooper a friendly wave, doing his best not to seem like someone on the lookout for a killer. But the glint of the Bowie knife wedged in the gate post was almost too much to bear.
The trooper was young and local, with the Navajo surname of Descheny. Looking uncertain, he stood with his arms resting atop the frame of his open car door and squinted in the house's direction. Smoke rose gray and lazy from the ruins, just beyond the edge of sight.
"I'm glad everyone made it out okay, Mr. Alma Curar, but I still say we should have the brigade come out and hose down the ashes. A wind kicks up, picks up sparks ..."
"Well ... if you think so. But spread thin as they are, having to service the whole region, I hate to put them to the trouble when we're already dousing with buckets. We've got a hand pump next to the coop. The fire didn't reach there. Call me superstitious, but seems to me trouble comes in threes. The damage for us is already done. What if another call comes in and the brigade's all the way out here? "
Descheny pursed his lips. "Everyone's okay? And you're not leaving until it stops smoldering ...?"
"Everybody's good. Maybe you can have the brigade come help us sand the ashes tomorrow morning."
The trooper cocked his head and looked at David, again. "You got a place to stay?"
"Family. A few miles west of Albuquerque. But we'll stay here tonight, so we can keep dousing."
"You're sure you don't need help ...?"
"There's not much left to help with, trooper. I'm sure you've got places where you're needed more."
Descheny pursed his lips again, as if thinking things over, and then nodded. He said he'd cruise by as often as possible during the day. David made an empty promise to hang something white on the gate if they changed their minds about help. They exchanged a few pleasantries in Navajo, and then Descheny went on his way.
David waited until the trooper was well down the road before walking up to the gate post. Max met him there, reached up and yanked the knife out. Lloyd Stonehill's Bowie. He swallowed hard. The leather hilt was festooned with ornate silver plating and caked with blood.
Sick, miserable, fucking bastard. I will not die tonight without taking you with me.
David's jaw was locked and pulsing as he secured the gates. But there was no point in re-attaching the gates' batteries. A smaller, second fire had burned a gap through the western barrier while the house blazed, destroying the triplet of wire within the cactus and bramble, breaking the loop, melting the silver, making a way in for the Great Beast. More of Andrew's handiwork.
David sat behind the wheel, hesitated, and then started the truck. Max stared at the knife in his hands and asked, "You think we should go after the trooper, have him take Samuel with him?"
"If we do, and Andrew's watching, he might go after them ..."
"Not this close to First Night."
"But he'll go after Samuel later, in the hospital. After he's done with us. And he'll go through whoever he needs, to get to him."
Max closed his fingers around the blood stained handle.
David muttered something in Navajo, slowed the truck to a stop and leaned his forehead against his fingers, gripping the wheel tight. "We've got to keep people away from here today. We can't let anything stop Andrew from coming for us. This has to happen tonight ... "
Max kept staring at Stonehill's knife in his hand. Finally David pulled back in his seat and started motoring again, grim-faced and staring ahead. Rats in a trap , Max thought, nowhere to go. There was nothing they could do but wait in a burned out compound. If the hunters ran, if they scattered, they'd put anyone around them at risk.
And the thought of the Great Beast hunting them down, one by one, was too much to bear.
 \*
The Rambler was about midway between the ruins and the north perimeter. Mina and Doris were in the front seat, the convertible top closed, all windows down with gun barrels poking out the driver and passenger sides. Samuel lay prone in the back.
Max and David pulled up, driver's side to driver's side, but stayed in the cab. "How is he?" David asked.
"In and out," Doris replied. "He came to a few minutes ago, but he's lost consciousness again. Who was honking at the gate?"
"State trooper," David said. "He saw the smoke on his rounds and came to check things out. We got there just in time. He was already out of his cruiser and approaching the gate when we pulled up. If he'd gotten in and seen Samuel, I don't think we could've kept him from calling for help or from taking him with him."
From the back seat of the Rambler came a slurred, "Naawww." Samuel tried to struggle up, but Mina twisted around and placed a hand on his chest. He didn't resist, slipping back onto the jacket that served as his pillow. "Not goin' anywhere ..."
"Samuel," David called, "how're you feeling?"
Max couldn't see well from where he was, but he didn't dare leave the truck's cab. Several seconds passed before he heard: "Like ... shit ..." Then Mina commanded, "Stay put, Samuel." She turned away from him, bent down to rummage somewhere around her feet and came back up with one of the sweat lodge canteens. She kneeled on the car seat, leaning over the back to help Samuel rise up enough to take some water. He sputtered a little, gulped a few times, and then sank back down, out of view.
He repeated, "Not goin' anywhere ..."
"Okay, buddy," Max called to him, "it's okay. We'll keep you with us as long as we can."
"Not anywhere," Max heard him say again, but not as strongly. He was losing consciousness. He murmured something. It sounded like "Consuela."
They all went quiet, looking tired, looking beaten. Max felt the weight of Stonehill's knife in his hand.
No! Not beaten!
"We can't hide in these cars all day," he said.
He looked over where the single, saved citrus crate of silver lay, its thin boards singed; most of the bullets inside warped and useless. But not all of them. Some in the center were still intact, and the bag of silver shavings that had been tucked inside was only partially burned. It wasn't much, but it was all they had and it needed to be protected.
So did the cars, their only shelter from the New Mexico sun and from Andrew, if he returned before First Night. Unlikely, maybe, but he had caught them off guard too many times already. They had a wounded man to care for and the women, forced from the house in their sleep wear, would need something warm after sunset. He looked over at the sweat lodge.
"Let's pull the cars to either side of the lodge," he said to Doris. "David and me'll keep lookout while you and Mina break it down. We'll move everything over by the coop where we can be near the water pump and at least boil a chicken and some eggs."
Doris had the Rambler in gear before Max had finished.
 \*
Safe atop the mesa, Andrew smiled as he looked though his binoculars.
They were scurrying like prairie dogs forced out of their holes: heaving a small crate into the truck bed, tearing down the sweat lodge, blanket by rug by frame pole, Max and David's rifles sweeping in every direction. Andrew fantasized getting close enough to take pot shots again, but held his ground. It was one thing to approach in the dark and aim for the propane tank. Quite another to risk silver now, in broad daylight. First Night was less than twelve hours away, and the Great Beast could do so much more than Andrew ever could.
In the middle of the compound the house was reduced to a smoldering black rectangle, nothing left upright but its two chimneys and a handful of charred timbers. Behind it, the fire Andrew had set against the barrier while the house burned had eaten a gap through the cactus and bramble. The electric fencing had been destroyed within the gap, but it hadn't been the juice Andrew wanted to interrupt. It was the breadth of the barrier itself, not an impossible jump for the Great Beast, but one that could slow it down and give the hunters an edge.
And, of course, there was the silver, woven through the cactus and bramble; the silver, now just black, spotty droppings on the red earth, just as most of the hunters' arsenal must be within the house's ashes.
He didn't care that Moms or the others probably realized why he'd done that. There was no way they could plug the hole effectively with First Night less than twelve hours away and the compound in ruins. In any case, Andrew believed in the superiority of the Great Beast. His sole purpose had been to eliminate as much of their advantage as he could. He was proud of how well he'd done.
He lowered the binoculars, lit another Lucky, and mindlessly rubbed his left ankle, completely healed now except for a little stiffness. Probably sore because of the predawn hike to a ridge that overlooks the wash just west of the compound. There, he'd been within comfortable firing range and had just enough elevation for a clear view of the house and, more importantly, the propane tank.
The colored guy, Samuel, had been a good marksman. He'd come a little too close for comfort a couple of times. But with the east just beginning to lighten, Andrew had had the dark western sky on his side. He'd kept low, moving and shooting, moving and shooting, giving Samuel nothing to aim at except a brief flash where Andrew's last shot had come from.
Thinking of Samuel made Andrew raise his binoculars again. He hadn't seen him since they'd exchanged fire. Maybe dead. Andrew could only hope. But he didn't see anything that looked like a body ... unless Samuel's ashes were one with the house's.
It would have been nice if the fire had taken out more than one, especially David or Mina, leaving Moms and Max for the Great Beast. But Andrew wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. For now, it appeared the hunters were down to four. And only two of them were real hunters. Andrew yawned, coughed, and then took another drag as he watched the loaded vehicles drive away from the cannibalized sweat lodge toward the chicken coop. They were getting close to their only source of food and water, of course. In short order, they had raised a kind of pavilion over the Rambler and the truck.
Digging in their heels. Just as Andrew expected.
 \*
The setting sun was against his back as Max finished braiding the lanyard he was making from some leather tie-downs. Lloyd Stonehill's Bowie deserved a proper sheath, but this would have to do. He threaded the lanyard through one of his side belt loops, tied it into the form of a ring and slipped the knife through.
He walked over to the Rambler and leaned into the driver side window. With the makeshift pavilion above the vehicles, the convertible's top was lowered and Doris was in the back, one of the left over sweat lodge blankets draped like a shawl over her night shirt. Samuel's head was in her lap as she helped him sip broth from an old cake pan that, just yesterday, scooped chicken feed from burlap sacks. Now it was their only cook pot.
"How you doing, buddy?" he asked.
Samuel swallowed, and then nodded sluggishly. He seemed to want to doze, but Doris touched the pan to his lips once more. He forced himself to swallow again, barely able to keep his eyes open.
"From the looks of his eyes, it's a concussion," Doris said. Her voice was low and bland, like a doctor's. "And Mina's guess is that he must have some busted ribs, at the very least, the way he cringes when he's conscious enough to move."
Samuel's eyes fluttered open and he slurred, "Fingers 'n' toes okay. Legs 'n' feet, too, but ... left arm ... not sure. Hurts. Like hell. Breathing hurts. Head's killing me."
Max reached in with the handgun he'd brought to the window and gave it to Doris as he nodded toward Samuel. Doris asked, "Can you drink a little more, Sam?"
"Naw ..."
"Just a little ..."
"Naw ..."
Doris handed Max the pan and pressed the gun into Samuel's right hand.
"The sun's rimming the mesas," Max said to him. "David'll put out the cook fire just before dark. We don't want anything messing with our night vision. Samuel ... you hearing this?"
His eyes still closed, Samuel nodded once, gripping the gun.
"Here's how it's gonna happen. David's got some tricks up his sleeve, but we won't work on them until after dark. By then, Andrew should be holing up to prepare for emergence, so he won't be able to see what we're doing. We'll tear the shelter down, too, so it won't interfere with anyone's sight or aim. Me, David and Doris'll move away from the cars and try to draw the Beast toward us. But no matter what happens, Samuel, you stay in the car. Mina will stay with you. Don't move, don't try to help. No matter what. Samuel? Do I have to tell you, in your shape, any heroics out of you could put us all at risk?"
Samuel opened his eyes and looked at Max, but didn't say anything. He managed one nod of his head. Max stared at his own hands a moment, at the pan he clutched as he leaned into the open window. "If the Great Beast gets through the rest of us, it'll be up to you and Mina to finish this. You know it'll come for you. So don't try to move. Just point the damn gun and fire."
Samuel's Adam's apple bobbed, and then he said, "I go, Beast goes. I swear."
Max mustered a smile and started to leave. But Samuel added, "Maxwell. You'll dance ... at my wedding. After this. All of us."
Max's throat tightened. He reached down, patted Samuel's leg, and then walked around to David and Mina, perched on the wheel wells inside the truck bed.
Earlier, David and Max had tapped holes into the meager clutch of eggs found in the coop and blown the contents into the cook pot. A few had broken under the men's pocket knives, but the surviving five were being filled with silver shavings, using a scrap of tin as a makeshift funnel. It was clumsy work. Mina was catching the spillage in the lap of her nightgown. She pulled lint from the rug wrapped around her bare feet to plug the top and bottom holes of each egg.
As she completed each, Mina set them on a pile of old burlap feed sacks folded on the truck bed. Beside these sat piles of sharp silver shards, gouged out of warped ammo.
"Samuel doesn't want any more," he said, handing them the pan. He swept the chicken bones left over from their communal meal off the tailgate and tossed them into the fire.
Mina accepted the pan, took a few drinks, and then passed it to David, who did the same before giving it back to Max. As Doris got out of the Rambler, he offered it to her. She drank all but the last few gulps, and then returned it to him. He drained it, set it on the Rambler's trunk, and then pushed himself onto the truck's tailgate.
Doris joined him, and they all watched the sun set without saying another word.
 \*
How beautiful, how grand it would have been, to let the Great Beast greet the moonrise from the mesa's plateau. But Andrew was no fool. The time for risk-taking had passed. His goal was too close now. Emergence would have to take place in the shadow of the mesa.
He spread his sleeping bag between the Buick and the mesa's wall, set his handgun and rifle within arms reach, then stripped and lay down. Above him, the sky's color turned slow as a mill wheel: powder blue, peacock, turquoise, azure, ultramarine. Stars began winking through, and then the heavens blackened against the glittering dust of countless stars. The night deepened. Andrew wept for both his mothers.
He felt the moonrise before he saw it. He felt that familiar surge of nausea as cold sweat burst through his pores. His head began to throb. Shivering, he groped for the loose end of the sleeping bag and pulled it across him, and the wrenching pain he'd felt over Moms' betrayal was hardly more than memory now, replaced with such a fine, aching hatred that his fantasies of her death changed his shivers into anticipation.
His consciousness ebbed. He struggled to keep his eyes open, fixed to the east, hoping he could hang on long enough to see the moon crest. Hoping the Great Beast would let him look into her eyes as she died.
"Let me see," he murmured, he begged, as he felt the Beast gnawing, twisting, lurching upward. "Let me see, let me see .."
Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
First Night. Full Moon.
Normally, by this time of night, Chuli would've had his feet propped up in his hogan, sipping a strong cup of spiked chicory and listening to his wife gossip over her needlework. But several members of the Folded Arms Clan, kinsmen to that poor young man who died in the Greyhound accident, had come all the way from Four Corners. They had gotten into town around sundown, just as Chuli was ringing up the day's last customer. No way he was going to chase them off until their people could find a way into town to fetch them.
So he was already tired, a little grumpy, and in no mood for strangers when a dusty station wagon drove up while he was locking the diner's door. At first he thought they might be more of the kid's clan. But then a white man poked his head out the driver's side window and said, "How there, Chief. You happen to know the way to the Alma Curar ranch?"
Chuli glared at him for a moment, and then finished locking up. "Never been."
He started walking. But the man got out of the station wagon and strode over to him with a piece of paper and stuck it under Chuli's nose.
"Got a map-a sorts, drawn out pretty good. Just wanna make sure we're pointed right, is all."
Chuli was no friend to those people at the Alma Curar ranch. He didn't like how trouble found its way there from time to time, and frequently came to town while it was at it. But he didn't count himself an enemy either. He wasn't a superstitious man, so he had never believed that David was a skinwalker, and had a well developed sense of fairness.
He lifted his gaze from the paper and looked toward the station wagon. The sun was long gone and the moon was only just now rising, so he couldn't see inside well. It looked as if there was someone on the passenger side, slumped, maybe dozing. And every once in a while, there was movement in the back seat, like the top of someone's head popping up, then settling down below the windows again. Chuli gave the man a hard look, trying to figure out if these were friends or foes to Alma Curar and his lot.
"If the one who drew it knew what he was doing, it should get you there," he finally said, and started walking again.
One Half Mile North of the Alma Curar Compound
Thirty Miles South of Tohatchi, New Mexico
Spring/Early Summer, 1950
First Night. Full Moon.
The wall of the mesa swam before the Great Beast's sight, and then solidified. Panting, it heaved its mass onto all fours, swiveling its head about, making certain it was alone. Then it shook itself from ears to tail.
It recognized where it was now, not only from the fractured pieces of recall it stole from the host, but from its ageless memory. It had been here many times before, through many hosts, through many incarnations. But few as great and powerful as this one.
Now, to the top of the mesa, to meet the full moon. To taunt its host, struggling within for some semblance of consciousness. To look down on the Ones Lost and present its unnatural majesty.
To make sure they saw the Great Beast coming for them.
 \*
The howl of the Great Beast.
Eight years of hunting, and Max had never heard anything like it. Never. His blood went icy in his veins. Everyone looked up.
Doris half-sobbed, "My God ...!"
It perched on a mesa. Massive, arrogant, fearless. Twice as large as any incarnation Max had known. Its great hide flared under the full moon, as if its hair not only bounced the lunar glare back into the night but burned from within, fueled by the blood-borne terror of its own kind. It all but burst the tortured casing of its host, its head too large, even for its unnatural bulk, its great forelegs and shoulders bulging to the point of deformity.
In a lesser incarnation, there was an awful beauty that caught a victim unawares, just before terror dawned. But there was no beauty in the Great Beast, and there was no doubt in Max's mind that it wanted them to see its grotesqueness. It wanted them to hear its bone-grating howl. I'm coming for you.
"Mina, get to the cars!" David yelled.
Instead she bent down again, pushing sand and red soil over the last of the burlap sacks that marked the boundary of a large circle. David yanked her up and pushed her hard toward the vehicles. She stumbled as she ran. In a flash of silver, the Great Beast disappeared from the mesa.
Inside the circle of burlap, Max, David and Doris raised their guns, forming a triangle within. Mina made it to the truck's bed, kneeling behind the right wheel well, her handgun trained toward the east. Samuel had pushed himself into a sitting position, double-fisting his gun and steadying his grip on one knee, pointing west.
They waited.
Max's pulse hammered in his ears. Another howl, long and scraping. It came from the northwest. Doris jerked toward it.
"Don't!" Max snapped. "Hold your direction!"
Doris pulled back into position, her voice trembling. "Oh, God, oh, God ..."
Max kept focused on the hole in the barrier beyond the house's ruins. But he asked, "Are you all right? Doris, can you do this? We need to know now, right now."
The shake in her voice was strong enough to rattle Max's nerves. "I've never seen him like this ... I've never .. seen it since ... not since Butte County. My God! How did it become so ... so .."
"Doris! Can you do this !?"
Her breathing was too rapid. He wondered if she'd collapse before the first shot was fired. But he heard her take a deep breath, then one more.
"Yes," she finally said. Her voice strengthened and she repeated, "Yes."
Another howl. Closer. Yes, I'm coming for you.
They waited. Max's palms went clammy. He wanted to check them for the pentagram, but he didn't dare lower his rifle. He wanted to close his eyes and focus on the twist in his gut, try to figure out if it was a telltale of the Great Beast's approach or just raw, wrenching fear. But he didn't dare.
"David. You feel anything?"
It was a moment before David replied, "No."
"Samuel," Max called, "You feel anything?"
Samuel didn't answer.
"Samuel?"
Mina called back, "He's out! I'm going to check on him."
Can't be closer than half way here, Max thought. No more than that. Can't be closer than half way.
Waiting was agony. Time ebbed in and out of existence. He heard David singing a prayer under his breath, then the prayer was done and the cold vacuum of silence stretched out in every direction.
"Come on ," Max murmured, "come on, you steaming pile of Satan's shit."
He saw it! In the burned out gap of the barrier. He yelled and very nearly fired until he realized it was just a coyote. A coyote, for cripe's sake! It skittered back out into the night. Sonofabitch!
Eternity replaced minutes. The coyote returned and followed its nose to the henhouse. It started digging under the fence wire.
Mina cried out. She fired. Before he realized what he was doing, Max turned in her direction, glimpsed her standing between the truck and the car, her gun raised toward the chicken coop. He caught a blur from the corner of his eye: the coyote, ducking for cover behind the henhouse. He cursed himself for turning from his post and jerked back into position.
" Damn it , Mina! Leave the coyote alone!"
"I saw something!"
"Save your fire! Save it 'til you're sure!"
"I am --!"
"Max," David interrupted, " ... I feel it."
Fresh, cold sweat trickled down Max's temples. "You sure?"
A high-pitched, strangled yelp came from the henhouse. Mina stammered, "Behind ... the coop ... It's behind the coop !"
Couldn't be. It couldn't be! It couldn't move that fast, it couldn't already be here, not from a mesa a half mile away, couldn't have rushed through the barrier's gap in the time I looked away, not with its bulk, not with its size. God in Heaven! If it can, how do we stop it?
He felt it now, knew the convulsing wrench in his gut for what it was. With his rifle still fixed toward the barrier's hole, his eyes tracked to the chicken coop. The hard, white light of the moon spread over the compound, cutting deep shadows behind everything standing. What he saw had to be a trick of the eye: a silvery, cast-off glow within the coop's shadow. Max blinked to clear his vision. A trickle of blood escaped the shadow and pooled in the moonlight.
The Great Beast burst through the henhouse.
Shattered wood and birds, shrieking and clawing, blew out like shrapnel. Mina threw herself over Samuel. The Beast charged the circle and Max, David and Doris opened fire.Then Max yelled, "Drop!"
All three hit the ground, grabbed the edges of the closest burlaps and flung them upward, scattering needle-sharp shards of silver into the face of the Great Beast. It yowled, rolling as it landed, shaking its massive, misshapen head, bolting due east, out of range.
Max, David and Doris were already up and had their weapons trained in its direction, David yelling, "Hold your fire, hold your fire! Not yet!"
So damned near and, yet, too damned far! It knew their ammunition was limited, it knew they wouldn't risk what precious silver they had until they were certain of their chances. The very size of the thing tempted Max. Exposed to the full moon, the Great Beast's pelt flashed and rippled like no Lesser Beast Max had ever seen. As if the bastard was still glowing white-hot from Hell's own furnace.
"What are we waiting for?" Doris yelled.
"Hold your fire!" David yelled back. "It's not as close as it looks." He called out, not taking his eyes off the Great Beast, "Mina! Are you all right?"
"Yes ..."
"Samuel?"
"Still out," Mina said, "but ... yes ..."
"Wake him! Do your best and wake him! But, whatever happens, do not fire again, you understand? Either of you. Not unless the Beast comes for you. No matter what!"
Max heard Mina start coaxing Samuel, calling his name, urging him to consciousness.
The Great Beast finished pawing the last of the silver shavings from its face and ears and was pacing. It let go with a deep, tremulous snarl and feinted a lunge, taunting them, tempting them to waste silver. The three didn't move, weapons raised and waiting. The Beast sank back on its massive haunches, looked left, then right, then back at them. It stood and began a slow, northward circuit, its eyes fixed on the three.
Then it charged.
Again they fired, again they dropped, jerking more shard-strewn burlap upward. Silver and sand flew skyward, but this time surprise wasn't on their side. The Great Beast ignored the sting and yanked David out of the circle.
So much screaming, Max couldn't tell which cries were his and which were the others. Everything in him was rage and terror and panic. Gun fire from everywhere, bullets zinging past his head, his feet pounding the earth as he ran after the Great Beast. He saw David grapple inside in his pants pocket as he bounced across the ground, an arm and shoulder caught in the Beast's jaws. His hand came out clutching something oval ... one of the eggshells filled with silver shavings. He smashed it across the Great Beast's eyes.
With an ear-piercing yowl, the Beast dropped him and bolted through the ruins of the house, dancing with pain, kicking up embers and ash as it went. Doris was screaming right behind Max, then next to him, then in front of him, firing her shotgun, reloading and firing again in the Great Beast's direction. Without realizing it, Max had pulled David past her and back into the circle. She picked up Max's rifle and kept it trained in the Great Beast's direction as she backed up, following him.
Mina, clinging to Samuel, was screaming David's name.
"Stay there!" Doris yelled to her. "Don't move, stay there!"
Max looked up as Doris backed into the circle with his rifle braced on her hip and clinging to her empty shotgun with her free hand. As she dropped the shotgun next to him, he brought his attention back to David. His head lolled across Max's legs.
"He's alive," he told her and she shouted to Mina, "He's alive!"
But, God, the blood, all the blood! Max ripped open David's shirt and mashed the heels of his hands into the deepest wounds. David was gasping and his eyes, rolling crazily, finally focused on Max.
"Bitten," he rasped, "I've been bitten."
"Yeah, buddy, I can see that."
"No ... no, Max ... I've been bitten. Don't. Don't do this."
"Shut up. I'm doing this."
"No ..."
"Shut the hell up, David! Screw your Indian bravado! It's a shitty day to die, so you're gonna have to wait for a better one."
"No ... I'm bitten ..." He lost consciousness.
The Great Beast was once again out of dependable range, on the other side of the ruins, smoldering more heavily along the track of the Beast's mad dash. Max could glimpse it behind the smoke screen, shaking its massive head, pawing at its eyes and snarling. He gauged the likelihood of getting David over to the Rambler and decided against it. He scanned the grounds for David's rifle, but didn't see it. The force of the Great Beast's attack could well have flung it into the ruins.
The circle was down to two guns, now. With Doris still keeping watch, he tried to figure out how much ammunition was left. Couldn't be much. They had all gone crazy when the Great Beast took David. And look at the bastard, pacing out there, chuffing and growling. For all of that, not a single spot of silvered blood marred its fur. Too fast. It's too damned fast. Max swallowed against the tightness in his throat.
Keeping his eyes fixed on the Beast, Max called out, "Mina! You still have bullets?"
Her voice was thick with anguish when she replied. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Max. When it took David ... I'm empty."
"I'm not," Samuel said. Conscious again, thank God. "Gotta couple."
"Remember what I said, Samuel. Remember ..." His words caught against hopelessness. "You're our last chance."
"Understood."
Max looked at David once more and dared to lift his hands from the wounds. The blood was beginning to clot. Max pulled David's tattered shirt back over his chest and wriggled out from beneath his head. He grabbed the shotgun and Doris said warily, "Max ..."
He looked up. The Great Beast was edging closer. Doris let out a shaky sigh, planted her bare feet more firmly and brought the rifle's sight to eye level. Max grabbed the bag of shotgun silver and felt around inside. Two left. He loaded them and stood next to Doris.
He made sure the Great Beast saw the barrels trained on it, then asked Doris, "What's left in the rifle?"
She hesitated a moment, then lowered it so she could check the chamber. "Four."
Max was the better shot. "We're going to switch guns. The last two cartridges are in the barrels."
He brushed a hand over his two front trouser pockets, where he had placed a pair of the eggshells filled with silver shavings. They'd been crushed during the skirmish. No doubt, the one remaining in David's pockets had been, also; useless, even in the impossible likelihood Max could have reached it in time.
"Doris. Check your shirt pocket."
Slowly, Doris pulled her hand away from the rifle's trigger and pressed it against the breast pocket of the nightshirt, feeling for the last egg shell. "It's broken," she said.
All they had now was Samuel's gun -to be saved at all cost for his suicide mission-plus the six shots left to Max and Doris. And Lloyd Stonehill's knife.
"On the count of three, we're going to switch guns. One ... two ... three ..."
They switched. The Beast charged. Max started firing. A spray of blood erupted, glittering under the moon, but the Beast kept coming, pounding down on them. A shotgun blast rang in Max's ear, a bigger, brighter spray of blood peppered his face and, shrieking, the Great Beast careened into them both, then tumbled out of the circle.
Max rolled, heard another shotgun blast, aimed and fired at the Beast's retreating haunches. A trail of silver-tinged blood followed the Beast. He felt Doris's hand on his shoulder and he struggled up.
"It's hurt!" she said.
It had made it out of close range again, but the Great Beast's hind legs lay limp against the ground. Against its glowing fur, near the tail, a broad, dark blotch spread. They could see the Beast's sides heaving as it lowered its head toward the wound and began licking.
Gasping for breath, Doris pointed and said, "It's got a head wound, too."
Max nodded. "But the one at the haunches is worse."
For one, precious moment, hope returned. Go after it! Now or never . He checked his rifle. Hope evaporated. He looked desperately to Doris. Tears rimmed her eyes. She shook her head. Both the rifle and the shotgun were empty.
The Beast struggled back onto its feet. It was watching them. They were done.
"It'll realize soon," Max said, his voice sounding hollow and defeated in his own ears. He reached to his side and laid his hand against Lloyd Stonehill's knife. "Doris ... I want you over with Mina and Samuel. Don't try to take David with you."
"No ..."
"You can't get to them in time if you try to drag David --"
"No, I'm staying."
"There's no point. If you have any chance at all--"
"I don't have any chance. None of us do." Her voice caught. "We're used up."
She stepped out of the circle and started walking toward the Beast.
"Doris!"
She called out, "Andrew!"
"Doris, stop!"
"Andrew! Can you hear me?"
 \*
A voice, calling. We should know the voice. We should know the name its calling.
"Andrew! Son? Can you hear me?"
The voice was plaintive, filled with anguish. Andrew, detached and yet bound, floating and yet crushed, struggled to rise, struggled to be Andrew, struggled to open his eyes.
But his eyes were already open and used by another.
Let me see. Let me see.
"Andrew! Please! Please, hear me!"
Darkness lifted. Images swam, lurched and tilted. Where am I? Who is that? Ma? No ...not Ma ... but like her .. someone ... I loved her. Moms. He tried to say that, he tried to call to her. Moms . But when he did, everything went black and he heard something altogether different. Not even a voice. A snarl.
Pain made its way to him now, deep and searing. Images swam again until he focused on where his legs used to be, his own legs, buttocks and spine. But what pitched and wavered before him was a great, glistening haunch, the glowing fur matted with silver-tinged blood. A deep tear exposed muscle.
Pain and blood came from above him, too, in what should be his head. But it wasn't as bad. Once more, everything tilted and Andrew found himself looking ahead again, at the woman in the distance, walking toward him ... toward us.
Who was she, again? He had already forgotten. Her arms were open. To welcome him back? To embrace him? No. She was showing him she didn't have a weapon. And then he remembered who she was, where he was. Anguish flooded him. Anguish and hatred.
Kill her , he said. Kill her, and let me see.
 \*
Max caught up with Doris. "I know what you're doing," he said. "It won't work with him like it did with me. He's too far gone."
She ignored him and called out, "Andrew! Leave the others! All right? I'll come to you if you leave everyone else."
The Great Beast stopped snarling and took several limping steps in her direction, then eyed Max and began a swing toward the north. Doris stopped walking.
"Go away, Max."
Instead, Max brought his lips close to her ear, whispering urgently, "He's not yours anymore, Doris! They're bound together and, together, they're going to kill us all."
"No. If Andrew can hear me, we can bargain ..." She began walking again. The Beast, still moving, watched as she kept coming.
Max stayed with her. "The Beast doesn't bargain, Doris, you know that. Look at it! Look !"
She hesitated. This close to her, Max could feel her tremble as he spoke. He saw tears spill over her cheeks. "Andrew!" she shouted, then once more. But the second time, his name came out strangled. The Great Beast tilted its misshapen head, its stare cold and hollow.
"Andrew," she whispered. Her shoulders sagged.
Max felt her take his hand and squeeze it.
Clasping back, he brought his free hand to the knife's hilt and slowly drew out the blade. He stepped away, letting the Great Beast see Doris's fingers curled over his one hand and the knife in the other. The Beast was still making a limping circuit, north by northwest, putting itself in a position to see everyone: Max and Doris, front and center, David lying unconscious on the ground, Mina and Samuel, with their last two bullets, in the car. It stopped short, took in their clasped hands, Stonehill's knife and uttered a low, rumbling growl.
Max stepped in front of Doris. He held his arms out and shouted, "What's the hold up, you fucking flea bag!"
The Great Beast snarled. Its gaze flitted over Max's shoulder and fixed on Doris. It took several limping paces to Max's left, but he stepped between the Beast and Doris again.
"Oh no. Uh-uh. You want her? You come through me."
The Beast belted out a blood-curdling roar and moved back toward Max's right. He blocked the way to Doris again.
"Not gonna happen, Andrew!" Max raised his free hand and made a goading, come hither motion. "Come on, buddy, whatiya say! You 'n' me. Arm and arm, right into Hell!"
The Great Beast charged. Max planted his feet and thrust the knife forward. He heard Doris scream, he saw the Beast leave the ground, its jaws stretch wide, opening to take him, Great Almighty God, make my hand strong!
The Great Beast's chest exploded .
Bone, blood and tissue sprayed across Max as he hit the ground, the Beast's head cratering the soil in front of him. Its eyes - Andrew's eyes-glared at him, outraged, the Beast's jaws working, snapping, struggling to drag in breath or reach Max, he wasn't sure. Then the pupils dilated and the Beast's great, red tongue -steaming in the night's chill-dropped against the earth.
Max sat up, disoriented and uncertain, trying to get a fix on what just happened. He looked at Stonehill's knife, bloodless, still in his hand. Doris was sobbing behind him, pulling at his shoulders and he heard Mina nearby trying to rouse David. He looked to the east and saw two people some twenty yards away standing like statues, their big-barreled guns still trained on the corpse of the Great Beast. It took a moment for him to realize who they were.
The taller, thinner of the gunners lowered his weapon and let out a whoop.
"Not so fast, son," the other said. Then, to Max, she called out, "Would you call that dead?"
Max struggled to his feet. "Yeah, Millie ... I'd call that dead."
She lowered the gun, pulled a bandanna out of the back pocket of her Levi's and mopped her face as she and her son hurried over to them.
"Sweet Jesus, I thought you was a goner!"
Max grabbed Doris, held her tight for a long moment, and then joined Mina next to David. Mina had him roused to a groggy consciousness. Millie dropped her gun and knelt next to Mina.
"How bad-a shape's he in? You his woman, honey?"
Mina looked at Max. "Who is this?"
"It's ... Millie," Max replied, still dazed, "... and her son, Jackie." A rush of soul-deep joy flooded through him as it finally sank in: My God! My God! It's over!
He yanked Millie up and into a bear hug. "Millie! Millie! What the hell are you doing here!"
Millie squirmed away, looking somewhere between disgusted, embarrassed and pleased. She took her bandanna and wiped at the gore Max's hug left on her. "Got lost lookin' for the local Tasty Freeze. Whatiya think we're doin' here?"
Max went for Jackie next, grabbing his hand with both of his and pumping it hard.
"Ow, godamighty, Mr. Max, easy does it, awright?"
"Sorry. Sorry, Jackie, it's just ..." He stepped back, and ran a hand through his spattered hair, still not daring to really believe. We're alive! We're all alive! Doris was closest to him again and he pulled her against him once more. Over her shoulder he shouted for Samuel.
"He's all right," Mina told him. "We all are. We're all ... alive!"
Doris pulled away from Max, lay her hand against his heart for a moment, then walked away to kneel next to the remains of the Great Beast. She buried her face in her hands.
Not all of us , he thought, as he watched her there, grieving for her son.
 \*
Huddled around a fire, no one said a word as the full moon sank below the horizon. Doris watched it leave, then leaned against Max and pressed her face into his shoulder. He tucked the old army blanket more snugly around her shoulders, and then wrapped his arm around her. He knew what she was thinking. He was thinking it, too. If the shots that had torn through the Great Beast's heart had, instead, been to the pelvic basin, would Andrew be swaddled in blankets right now, resting with David and Samuel, reconciled with Doris?
Or, bereft of the only thing that had ever made him feel powerful, would he have waited until they had all fallen into an exhausted sleep, then finished the job for the Great Beast?
Millie looked over at Doris, then toward her own son, then back at the camp fire, her eyes troubled. Max had a good idea of what Millie was thinking, too. She cleared her throat.
"I'm ... I am sorry about your boy ..."
Doris stiffened and righted herself. Millie tried to look at Doris without taking her eyes from the fire. There was a moment of awkward silence, then Doris rose and left for the front seat of the Rambler. She coaxed David up, settled his head back onto her lap and leaned against the seat, closing her eyes.
Max looked at Millie and said, "She's just going to need some time."
" 'Course. 'Course she is."
"We owe you our lives," Mina said, "She knows that."
"Nuh-uh," Jackie replied. He was rubbing the barrel of his bear gun with a chamois he had fetched from his and Millie's station wagon, now parked near the other cars. Buttercup was sprawled at his feet. "We was the ones with a debt to square."
His hair had grown back since the last time Max had seen him: a carrot top, like his mother. A broad stripe of silver stretched from his left temple and disappeared into the curly red mop toward the back. He seemed much older. Fiercer.
"Is that why you're here? To square up? " Max asked.
Jackie shrugged. "Sure. That, and we thought hard on what you 'n' David said. About bein' hunters. But we ain't gotta Ham radio, so we took the map you drawed for us and decided to just come on."
A weak voice, from the front of the Rambler, asked, "You couldn't have ... written?" It was David.
Mustering a smile, Millie twisted around in his direction. "Neither of us is much good at that, other'n to make our marks. How you feelin' in there?"
"I shouldn't ... be here."
Max got up, dusting off the seat of his pants. "Yeah, well, none of us should."
David's voice found some strength. "You know what I mean, Max."
He walked over to the Rambler and leaned on the car door. David looked at him, his eyes filled with a pain Max knew had nothing to do with his injuries. Doris was petting David's forehead, trying to calm him.
"I know what you mean," Max said, unrepentant.
"You should've let me --"
"Bullshit. No, I shouldn't. What the hell do you think we'd do without you?"
David's jaw tightened. He swallowed hard and a tear tracked away from one eye.
"What would we do without you?" Max said again, his voice cracking.
Doris leaned down and kissed David's forehead. He reached for her hand.
"I'm putting you all in danger," he said.
For a few moments, there was nothing to hear but the crackle of the campfire. Nothing to say, because they all knew David was right. Nothing to say because, in spite of that, they would not let one of their own die bitten.
Then Samuel struggled up from the back seat. "Listen to me .. David ... you gotta dance at my wedding."
"Weddin'?" Millie exclaimed and burst into a wide grin. "Why, Buttercup loves weddin's! Don't she, Jackie?"
THE END
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