What?
Movement out of the corner of his eye. Fleeting darkness. Or a sense of darkness. Hard to explain. But it had come from the direction of the Tudor home. Walkers learned to trust their instincts about these things.
While he was processing the danger he seemed to sense on a subliminal level, he slipped out of the driver’s seat and hurried to the back of the Jeep. His gaze flickering back to the seemingly quiet house across the street, Barrett opened the rear swing gate and tossed aside a flannel blanket in the rear compartment, exposing a long burnished wooden case. His fingers were a blur of motion as he flipped up twin metal clasps, opened the case, and from its molded, velvet-lined interior, withdrew his sword of unearthly origin. The graceful blade gleamed as if forged a week ago instead of centuries past.
He slammed the swing gate door and hurried across the street with the sword pointing down, obscured by the line of his leg. Though he heard a car rolling up behind him, he ignored its approach.
Until the car’s occupant yelled “Freeze!”
“Of course,” Barrett thought, glancing back at the familiar police cruiser.
“Drop the sword, Zorro!” Chief Grainger called. He’d jumped out of his police cruiser and left the door wide open as he’d wasted no time reaching for his holstered .40 caliber Glock 23 and aiming at a spot between Barrett’s shoulder blades. “Now!”
Barrett couldn’t outrun a bullet… but he could beat a normal human’s response time ten times out of ten.
Zigzag to the door,
Barrett thought.
No sweat. Or…
He called,“Innocent people are in danger.”
“I’m sure they are. Now drop the sword!”
Gun arm unwavering, Grainger had taken advantage of Barrett’s hesitation, moving several steps across the street, ever closer to Barrett’s position halfway up the walk. Barrett heard the roar of the engine coming up the street and knew who it was without looking.
Grainger spared a quick glance, then an alarmed double take.
The white conversion van had jumped the curb and seemed to be bearing down on his position. Startled, he jumped back and the van screeched to a halt between the two men, taking out the mailbox post and not coincidentally blocking Grainger’s line of fire.
Barrett took advantage of the distraction and raced for the door. Although the screeching tires had nearly masked the sound, Barrett’s keen hearing hadn’t missed the woman’s scream.
He tried the door handle: locked. Pressed against the door and felt the weight of a deadbolt. He took a step back, raised his foot and lashed out. Wood splintered but the heavy door held. Another kick and the deadbolt burst free of the doorjamb, but the door rattled against a protesting chain. One more kick should—
“That’s enough!”
Crashing inside—sound of a body tumbling down stairs.
“I don’t have time to explain!” With his free hand Barrett reached through the gap in the door and clutched the security chain. He glanced at Grainger, who stood less than six feet away. “You won’t shoot.”
“You won’t enter that house with a deadly weapon.”
Barrett didn’t like the look in Chief Grainger’s ice-blue eyes. He shrugged. “Your call. Shoot me.”
“Barrett, no!” Liana yelled.
Gaze fixed on Grainger, Barrett tugged down on the faltering chain, ripping the mounting bracket screws out of the wood. Before the screws clattered onto the hardwood floor inside the house, Grainger was pulling the trigger of the Glock. Might have been a warning shot, but Barrett had decided not to gamble on the chief’s goodwill. He contorted his torso to the side, whipping his head back as the percussive path of the 9mm round lanced the air in front of his throat. The roar of the gun seemed to sound at the same instant the round blasted into the opposite doorjamb. To the normal human eye, it might have appeared that Barrett had just dodged a bullet. Grainger certainly seemed surprised. But all Barrett had done was anticipate the chief’s action and the trajectory of the bullet. At close range, it would have been hard for his enhanced senses to miscalculate.
Immediately after shouting a warning to Barrett, Liana had taken matters into her own hands, literally. She’d thrown back her sleeve and, with the fingertips of her right had, traced a graceful path along the golden sigils adorning her left forearm. The elegant, graceful tattoos began to glow with a warm light. Pointing the fingers of her glowing arm at Grainger, Liana murmured three words in a sibilant language uniquely her own,
“Se ressum lethis.”
Then she spoke a word Barrett and Logan recognized. “Sleepy.”
Grainger staggered, losing his firing stance, his gun arm dropping to his hip as he shook his head and yawned. “What the…?”
Barrett was through the door, with Liana right behind him. He heard her instruct Logan to help the confused police chief. Just as well. That would keep the boy out of trouble. Besides, he was looking a little green around the gills courtesy of his premonition nausea.
Because he’d heard someone fall down the stairs, Barrett rushed past the dining room to the base of the staircase, hoping for a survivor. Instead he found the blood-splattered body of the twenty-something brother sprawled across the bottom stairs, arms crudely amputated below the elbows, neck twisted at an unnatural angle, and vacant staring eyes. Whatever had killed the young man, Barrett knew, awaited them at the top of the stairs.
From above came the hopeless sound of a woman moaning. Barrett shook off the palpable dread that assaulted him, fortified by the knowledge that either mother or daughter, possibly both were still alive.
Edging around the body, he proceeded up the stairs, back to the wall—grazing the staggered row of framed family portraits—as he directed his gaze toward the second floor. Bits of glass crunched underfoot, the result of one dislodged picture frame smashing during the brother’s fatal descent.
Before he reached the second floor, Barrett saw an ashen-faced young woman—Chelsea he assumed—standing forlornly at the end of the hall, her face and clothes sprayed with blood. Her body trembled and her hands twitched as she stared in wide-eyed horror down the length of the hall. A moment later she shrieked, almost convulsing as she dropped to her knees, whimpering hysterically.
Barrett heard several wet, meaty thuds.
Knowing his hesitation had resulted in one death, and possibly a second, Barrett disregarded caution and ascended the remaining steps two at a time, sword held high. His heart sank as he saw the dismembered body of the mother scattered across the carpeted upstairs hallway—awash in crimson, exposed gleaming white sections of bone.
Dark movement drew his attention away from the mutilated remains. A black rift oozed along the opposite wall. A hole in reality—a hole
conjoining
realities—and something on the other side was attempting to cross. Although the rift appeared flat, a sinuous shape roiled across its slick obsidian surface. Snakelike, with a viciously clawed tip, it lashed through the dark opening.
Barrett anticipated the attack on Chelsea and placed himself between her and the Outsider. Mid-strike, the Outsider veered away from the girl and swiped at Barrett’s throat. Arching backward, Barrett avoided the potentially decapitating blow and swung his otherworldly blade at the serpentine appendage. Off-balance, his attack also missed.
“Get her out of here!” Barrett shouted to Liana.
When Liana placed her hands on Chelsea’s shoulders, the young woman flinched and screamed. Whispering soothing words in Chelsea’s ear, Liana helped her to her feet and led her toward the stairs.
Barrett focused on every movement of the whipping, snakelike appendage, attempting to decipher the telltale ripples in its musculature so that he might anticipate the angle and direction of its next attack. This was almost second nature to him when interacting with humans but studying something this alien required heightened concentration. The tentacle seemed to defy inertia and momentum as it weaved a hypnotic but unsettling pattern in the air.
Barrett whispered under his breath, “It watches the watcher.” But he knew the truth was even stranger.
It
senses
the watcher.
Careful of the treacherous—and macabre—footing, Barrett advanced.
The tentacle paused in mid-sway—
—then struck with lightning speed.
Chapter 20
Logan’s stomach had begun performing somersaults soon after Liana drove away from Fallon’s house. When he’d told his sister to hurry, she took one look at his face and floored the accelerator. He’d told her where to turn, praying she didn’t flip the conversion van before they could come to Barrett’s aid.
Down the street from Chelsea Conrad’s house, he’d seen the standoff between the sword-wielding Barrett and the gun-toting police officer and he’d wondered if his stomach had made a premonitory mistake.
“Barrett wouldn’t have his sword out unless he saw or sensed something from the house,” Liana had concluded. Without hesitation, she’d swerved the van on a course between the two men, giving Barrett the cover he needed.
Because he hadn’t been coping with the sudden onset of nausea, Logan had been grateful for the order to stay behind with the police chief. Unfortunately, Chief Grainger was recovering from his Liana-induced grogginess and already intended to enter the Conrad homestead. “No,” Logan said. “Wait here. You’re still dizzy.”
“I am not dizzy,” Grainger said slowly, angrily, shaking his head. “Tired—not dizzy.”
“Even so,” Logan said. “We’d better wait.”
“Wait for what?” Grainger said indignantly, a moment before his knee buckled. He righted himself. “I’m the chief of police!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Logan said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“I—what are you talking about?” Grainger yawned, pressing the back of his gun-hand to his mouth. “What happened? What’s with the sword? And her arm—was it glowing?”
“It’s kinda hard to explain…” Logan began tentatively, not sure how much he could or should reveal to the uninitiated.
“Don’t bother,” Grainger said, shrugging off Logan’s hand on his arm. “I’ll find out for myself.”
Before Logan could attempt to stop him, Chief Grainger hurried through the splintered doorway, gun held high. With a resigned sigh, Logan started to follow him but paused when he heard the roar of an engine. He glanced down the street and saw a speeding blue pickup truck. A moment passed before he remembered where he’d seen the truck before: parked in Fallon’s driveway. And as the pickup swerved to the curb behind the illegally parked conversion van, Logan saw Fallon behind the wheel.
The truck came to an abrupt stop, but not before the left front tire hopped the curb. Fallon sprang from the driver’s seat and raced up the walkway toward him. “It’s happening now,” she said breathlessly. “Isn’t it?”
He nodded.
As she reached his side, Logan caught her hand and imagined himself a tour guide leading her into a grim world she could never have imagined. Seconds behind Chief Grainger, they entered the Conrad house.
Chapter 21
Ambrose was shelving books in his office when he heard her scream. No mistaking who it was since everyone else had left the house. He carefully laid the worn tome, which detailed a third century rift, on the center of his desk, then hurried down the hall to the first floor guestroom. Aside from a cot and a freestanding lamp, the room was unfurnished. Ambrose flipped the light switch on and saw her lying in her paint-spattered smock, thrashing on the cot, still caught in the grip of a frightful dream.
“The dark! The dark! It’s coming!” she shouted, eyes scrunched shut. “Coming again!”
Despite the cone of amber light shining from the pole lamp, the dark-paneled, windowless room seemed to shrug off the electrical attempt at illumination, as if Thalia’s terrified words gave power to the darkness.
“Thalia,” Ambrose said softly, gripping her shoulder to shake her awake. Her fragile psyche teetered in a dangerous place, trapped in the border between dreams and consciousness, balanced on the precipice of insanity. “Thalia, wake up now.”
With a shriek, she grabbed his arms and wrenched herself upright. Her eyes were wide with fright, her body trembling. She looked at him, as if for reassurance.
“Relax, Thalia,” he said as calmly as he could manage with her fingernails digging into the flesh of his upper arms. He tried to sound convincing as he added, “You were having a bad dream. Nothing more.”
“No, not a dream…” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “The dark!”
“What about the dark?” Ambrose asked. Walker dreams were often prescient, but there was little comfort in accepting that. “You said it was coming.”
“I was wrong,” she said solemnly.
“Exact—”
“It’s already here.”
Ambrose supposed it was possible. The rift was definitely mobile. Nervously, he glanced over his shoulder. “Here, you say?”
“Yes. Don’t you feel it?”
Ambrose cleared his throat. “In this house?”
“No,” she admitted at last. “But close.”
Ambrose took a deep breath to calm himself, but also to carefully consider his next inquiry. Thalia’s lucidity could be fleeting at times, especially in stressful situations. “Thalia… do you know what it is? This thing?”
Her wide hazel eyes searched his face. “In… in the dark?”
Ambrose brushed tangled strands of blond hair from her face and nodded reassuringly. “Yes, dear.”
She began to rock nervously. “He’s… he’s the dark one—in the darkness. He has many names.” She nibbled at her lower lip and looked around the room before her nervous gaze returned to Ambrose’s face and locked on his eyes. “You would call him
Messor Carnis.”
Latin?
Ambrose thought. He ran a hand through his gray-white hair. “Meat,” he said. “Reaper… Oh, dear! Reaper of Flesh?”
Thalia nodded twice quickly, then cast her gaze at the floor. “Another, closer name,” she said.
“Carnifex.”
“Butcher,” Ambrose whispered. “What else do you know about this butcher, this executioner?”
“He opens the way,” Thalia said. “He leads them. First before others.
Lacerator!
Reap the flesh. Oh, God! Reap the flesh! Reap—!” The word turned into a shriek as she began to convulse on the cot.