Authors: Merrie Destefano
Those who dream by day are cognizant
of many things that escape
those who dream only at night.
—Edgar Allan Poe
Thane:
A chaos of children jostled their way down the street, voices tumbling over one another, all fighting for prominence. Masks and costumes askew, bags brimming with candy, a high level of excitement charged through them. The evening should have been winding down, they should have been heading home soon, but they weren’t. Instead, they veered away from the main streets and ambled toward the edge of town.
I slumped in a doorway, made sure my scent was still that of wet wood and smoke, then I folded my shape back to what it had been before—a towheaded six-year-old boy. I watched the crowd of children approach, my steady gaze running through their ranks, studying them. I was getting particular now, only wanted a certain type of dream, something heady and strong with dark stormy edges. Meanwhile, River stumbled and sang along the sidewalk. Drunk from feeding too fast, he was now having trouble keeping his disguise focused. He repeatedly slipped from a six-year-old boy to a seventeen-year-old girl.
It would have been funny except, at that exact moment, I suddenly realized something wonderful was strolling in my direction.
A young man led the group of approaching children, snickering and boasting—my favorite kind of human, self-possessed and arrogant. I could smell fire and smoke inside the teenager, who carried danger like an explosive weapon.
I thrilled at the possibilities.
I held up a hand to silence my brother. “Hold your skin steady,” I muttered.
“Trying. I am trying.” Then River laughed and his hair spiraled in luminescent tangles.
“Freeze your shape and do it quick—”
River’s eyes shrank to dark spots but his visage still wavered.
I grabbed him by the arm, then yanked him back into the shadows. “I don’t need these humans to feast, you know. I could siphon the dreams right out of you. I could slow down all those children with a Veil and take my time bleeding you dry—”
“You wouldn’t do that, I’m your blood brother, sure enough—”
“Wouldn’t I? You almost cost me everything yesterday,
brother
.” I held him with a strong hand, pressed him against a wall, then watched him for a long, dreadful moment. Finally, I gave River one last warning, “Hold your shape steady and do it quick or I’ll drag you off someplace private and feast on
your
dreams.”
“That’s sacrilege,” he answered, a whining tone in his voice.
“You think I care about Darkling law now that I’ve had a taste of freedom? Do you? Either hold your skin straight or go off into the shadows and stay there until the moon sets—”
My brother closed his eyes, then gave his skin a fierce shake. For a second he was no more than a blur of color. I glanced over my shoulder at the humans, a mere wingspan away. Fortunately, they were distracted, chattering and laughing amongst themselves. None of them even looked in our direction.
“I’ve got it, I do,” River said.
I checked him over, from head to toe. He was an innocent six-year-old boy again, no wavering or distortion or blasts of bright light.
“See that you keep it, then,” I said as I gave him one last toss against the wall, knocking the wind out of him.
Meanwhile, the company of adolescents rumbled past, all sparks and glitter and squeals of laughter. I turned with a grin and fell into step behind the last child, listening now to their confident boasts of winning a prize, all the while focusing on the dark-haired beauty that led them like the Pied Piper away from the village.
Hunter. That was his name. I could smell fire and smoke wafting from his clothes. Danger thudded through the crowd.
And fortunately, I was the only one who could hear it.
Joe:
I peeked out a side window, watched another group of trick-or-treaters drift down the street like wanton revelers, shouting, laughing, occasionally tossing a rock at a parked car, lacing windshields with spiderweb cracks. They were heading toward the outskirts of town, to the old junkyard for their traditional Halloween bonfire. But there was something different about this year. I could feel it charging through the air, electric and sharp.
I almost thought about stepping outside and calling out a warning.
But three things stopped me. One, they wouldn’t care what I said, nobody listened to me in this town; Two, I didn’t want to take a chance on accidentally inviting a Darkling inside; and Three, a woman, a boy and a dog had just scrambled up my front steps.
They hadn’t knocked on the door yet. But they would. Soon.
Meanwhile, the Legend whirled overhead, a tornado of words, tumultuous and quicksilver. It was changing. All legends change as time passes, as the story gets passed from one person to the next, but for the first time I heard a chorus of new voices and names.
And the ending was wrong. Dreadfully wrong.
Ash was outside, somewhere nearby. He always stopped by on Halloween, it had become a ritual. I would nurse another beer, fire raging, Ash would come inside—all the doors and windows opened for him, this was his village, his flock, it all belonged to him—and we would spend an hour or two together, me retelling the Legend, while Ash leaned back in a chair, nodding at all the right places, raising an eyebrow if any detail was missed. He sheltered us from the wild Darklings that prowled Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead and all the other little towns in between.
The curse had been our protection, though neither Driscoll nor Ash saw it that way.
From Blueridge Mount to the Ticonderoga Waterfall, from Castle Rock to Cedarpine Peak, an invisible hedge of protection wrapped around Ticonderoga Falls and it had from the day Lily died. The curse had protected us as well as the fluorescent lights protected the inhabitants of L.A.
Here, in the mountain crevices, there was room for dark magic and moonlit nights. Here, the Darklings practiced the fine art of harvest and interpretation and inspiration. And as a result, Ticonderoga Falls was brimming with artists, musicians, writers, craftsmen and inventors. From the turn-of-the-century plein air painters to the twenty-first-century rapper who lived in the hills to that war-poet who had just sold a screenplay, artists were drawn here like slivers of steel to a magnet.
Kismet. Destiny.
I took another slug of beer, finished off the bottle and set the empty on a nearby table. I didn’t want the Legend to change, but I had learned long ago that I was just a cog in the Darkling machinery.
Like the rest of the town.
My opinion didn’t matter.
But I wished that it did, because an uncontrollable fear surged through me, so strong that even the alcohol couldn’t numb it. Something was going to happen tonight, something dark and unexpected, and no one in Ticonderoga Falls—not even Ash himself—would be powerful enough to stop it.
Maddie:
Fist clenched, my knuckles struck wood once, twice, three times, and the knock echoed with a dull thud. I glanced down at Tucker. He turned away from the door and stared back in the direction we had come, probably watching the crowd of trick-or-treaters as they disappeared around a distant corner.
Samwise stood at attention, ears forward, listening for movement on the other side of the door. Just then the dog cocked his head and looked up at the sky, as if he heard something.
I glanced back toward the sky too, still shrouded with cloud, moon peeking through, snow tumbling down. Sometimes the snow drifted up, as if it had changed its mind, white flotsam caught in an unseen eddy of wind. I hoped there wasn’t something lurking out there—something I couldn’t see.
Like another one of those shape-shifting chupacabras.
Standing on the porch, with all the other trick-or-treaters gone, I suddenly realized how vulnerable we were.
I should have stayed home like Ash suggested. I should have realized something was off-kilter in this Thomas Kinkade village.
A shadow drifted behind me, moved ever so gently, and when it did I saw the outline of a man in its midst—almost invisible except around the edges. The unnatural warmth returned and the snow around us began to melt. I instinctively draped one arm around Tucker’s shoulders.
Would the dog attack if I told him to? I’d never tried anything like that before, but then he’d never been a werewolf-hybrid before either.
Would you turn into a werewolf if I told you to, boy?
Samwise gave me a piercing glance, then answered with a hearty, “
Wrrooof!
”
The door swung open just then, revealed a light-filled room and a tall man dressed in flannel shirt and jeans. Joe Wimbledon, an unopened bottle of beer in one hand. He glared outside, eyes hooded, head tilted down as if he didn’t want to see what might be prowling beyond the edge of the porch.
Nobody said anything for a long moment, then Tucker started his trick-or-treat rap song.
“If you wanna trick or if you wanna treat,
I’m the one to folla ’cuz I can’t be beat,
If you do your part an’ give me somethin’ sweet,
Then I’ll leave you be an’ move on up the street—”
He opened his bag right on cue and flashed a bling-studded grin.
But Joe just stared at me, a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.
“You’re that woman from the vet’s office today, the one that claimed chupacabras were in her house last night. But it was the wrong night, don’t ya know. They don’t come out ’til tonight. See”—he pointed to the sky, a black canvas where the clouds had pulled back to reveal a glorious moon—“full moon is tonight.”
He retreated a step, hand on the doorknob as if he were about to slam it closed. Just like I had done to Ash earlier.
“I think ya made the whole thing up,” he said.
I knew I had about a second or less to convince him to let us in. I grabbed my coat sleeve, hitched it up to my elbow. Exposed bare flesh on my forearm and a six-inch jagged wound. “Did I make this up?”
He cursed, eyes narrowed.
Then he reluctantly widened the door for us to enter. “You better get inside,” he said. “Whoever made that mark is probably lookin’ for ya right now.”
Chapter 63
The Darkness of His Soul
Ash:
The Hunt called, strong and sweet, just like it had for thousands of years. I crouched in a corner, behind a house, listening, trying to resist. I didn’t want to take Maddie against her will, but she was fair game as long as she was out in the open. I could swoop down from a rooftop, cast a Veil, put the boy and the dog to sleep while I harvested. None of them would even remember.
But the Legend was too loud tonight, and the version that curled through the trees was wrong—it was painting me too dark, with brushstrokes too broad. All the nuances of love and torment had been erased, the paint had cracked and bits had fallen off. I was no longer a noble creature who had cursed the village for a horrid wrong, I was now an evil captor who kept his sheep from roaming free, who kept Driscoll prisoner.
It said that madness was the cup I had offered the Driscoll family on that night, that mercy and hope had died with Lily. And now, the darkness of my soul was spreading throughout the village, it leaked down alleys and streets like dark oil, contaminating everyone. They all walked with my stain on their brow, all marked for my pleasure.
But none of it was true. Not really.
The curse had bound
me
here—I was the prisoner. Unable to hunt anywhere else. Unable to return home.
I covered my ears, bowed my head, but I could still hear every footstep Maddie took and each one took her farther away from me. Yes, I might be able to seduce her, to enchant her for an evening.
But in a few days she would leave and go back to the world of humans, she would return to her place of prominence. I knew what she truly was—a master storyteller. In my world, she would have been royalty, she would have been the one to rule this village and I would have been the peasant, even lower than Thane.
If she knew what I had done, she would hate me. If she knew what I was . . .
I stood suddenly, with a snap of wings in the brittle cold, lifted my head.
I could feel
him
now, pulling on the tether that connected us—Driscoll, climbing in his car, tires grinding gravel, running away.
A sharp ache tugged at my chest like a grappling hook, pulling me unwillingly toward the fleeing human. I didn’t want to go, but the curse had wearied me, burned down my resistance. I felt as if I had been dipped in wax, all senses deadened to the world everyone else inhabited.
I longed to follow Maddie—the storyteller—I wanted to see where she would go this last night when she walked through my world. Wanted to see every blade of frost-crusted grass that she touched. Wanted to drink the fragrance of her ideas trailing behind her like pale ghosts.
But I couldn’t.
The curse demanded that I follow my prey.
And stop him from escaping.
Sheriff Kyle:
I sat in my patrol car with Rodriguez, both of us eating the roast-beef sandwiches I had picked up over at the Steak & Ale about an hour and a half earlier. So far it seemed like a quiet night, unusually tame for a Halloween. Even the kids’ pranks had been toned down this year. No animals locked in the garage or eggs splattered on new cars. A few complaints had sizzled through on the police radio: rocks in mailboxes, flattened tires, and apparently a spray-painted barn. But old Mr. Hudson had needed to paint that barn for years. Served him right for leaving an eyesore like that right on Main Street where everybody could see it.
The radio crackled to life again.
“Kyle, you there?”
I sighed.
“Here,” I answered. No need to follow protocol when Alice was working dispatch.
“I just got a bunch of weird calls, Sarah Duncan over on Timberline, Jane Culpepper on Creek Wood, and the Walkers on Mountainview—that new couple that just moved to town, remember them?”
“I remember, Alice. What happened?”
“Oh, yeah, well, each of the women just walked into their living room and found their husbands asleep on the floor.”
Deputy Rodriguez looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Do they want us to go over and make sure everything’s all right?”
“Well, you could, but then I got a call from Bob Miller. He says Agnes hasn’t come home yet. Guess she’s like clockwork, locks up the Steak & Ale at nine, drives home, in the door by nine fifteen. He tried calling the pub, but no answer. No answer on her cell either.”
I glanced at my watch. 10:08
p.m.
I set my sandwich on the seat and started the engine.
“Tell Bob we’re on our way.”
The streets were deserted, all the trick-or-treaters had either gone home or headed over to the annual bonfire. The patrol car fishtailed in the snow on the corner of Main and Running Springs Road. That was when I noticed the string of Buicks and Hondas and Mazdas with cracked windshields, all leading toward the junkyard.
The kids had taken it up a notch after all.
“We should stop at the bonfire after we’re done with Agnes,” I said. “See if we can figure who’s been up to trouble.”
“Good idea,” Rodriguez said, then she stuffed the last bite of roast beef in her mouth.
I glanced at my own sandwich with longing, realized I probably wouldn’t get to finish it. We drove slower through town, giving it a visual once-over just in case anything else was amiss. Saw a flurry of overturned trash cans, picket fences kicked in and a broken picture window on Charlie Mitchell’s house.
“Kids have been busy,” Rodriguez noted as we pulled into the Steak & Ale parking lot. One car waited for us, covered in snow.
Agnes’s car.
I stepped into the cold, felt an uncharacteristic shiver run over my back. I walked toward her car—a Honda Element. “Check the front door of the pub,” I told Rodriguez. Meanwhile, I brushed the snow off the windshield, stared through the tinted glass. Empty, all doors locked. No purse or coat inside, just a few empty Diet Coke cans and a half-eaten package of donuts. “Agnes!” I called out, sweeping the nearby bushes with my flashlight. No footprints in the snow out here, no evidence that she’d been to her car recently. I paced around the lot, stared into the thickening gloom that had settled like glue amid the shrubbery.
“Hey, Kyle, you need to come see this!” Rodriguez shouted from the front of the pub.
You need to come see this.
My least-favorite expression when investigating a crime. It never went well after somebody said that.
I reached the edge of the building, was just about to swing around the corner when Rodriguez grabbed my arm.
“No, stay where you are,” she said. Her flashlight pooled on the ground right in front of the door. “Look at the marks in the snow.”
A pair of footprints, probably Agnes’s, faced the door. She must have been closing up because the key was still in the lock. But then the footprints slid backward, formed two solid lines, like somebody had dragged her away from the door halfway into the street.
But that was where they stopped, and there were no other footprints beside hers. It was almost as if something had swooped down from the sky and carried her off.