Blood Moon (Book Three - The Ravenscliff Series) (12 page)

The plan was to meet at Rolfe’s shortly before sunset. So D.J. pulled up in his Camaro, which he called Flo after his grandmother. Devon and Cecily told Mrs. Crandall they were going to a movie; she would never have allowed them to head over to Rolfe’s with her blessing. Devon found it definitely weird to sit in Flo’s backseat while Cecily, up front, kept making a point to reach over and stroke D.J.’s hair or rest her head on his shoulder. Devon sulked as he stared out the window. Why should he care? Besides, he had a lot more important stuff to worry about than Miss Cecily Crandall.

“Where are the other two?” Rolfe asked as they converged in his glass study overlooking the sea. The windows had all been repaired, and the setting sun had turned the waves into a wash of golds and oranges.

“Natalie and Marcus were planning to walk over together,” Devon said. “I didn’t want to say anything to freak them out yet, but they’re the ones I’m most worried about.”

“As if
that
wasn’t obvious,” sniffed Cecily.

Devon ignored her. “You know I’ve seen the pentagram in front of Marcus’s face. Well, it’s been there almost constantly the last few days. And now I’ve seen it on Natalie as well.”

“Oh,” Cecily said, and a flash of fear crossed her face. For all her surliness toward Natalie of late, Cecily was clearly concerned for her friend.

They waited. And then they waited some more.

“She’s not responding to my texts,” Cecily announced.

“Marcus either,” D.J. echoed.

The sun sank over the hills.

“Where
are
they?” Devon asked, pressing his face against the window. “I don’t like them walking out there alone in the dark.”

Cecily whipped out her cell phone and called Natalie. She got her voicemail. So she rang Natalie’s house. She was told by Natalie’s little sister that Natalie had left an hour ago to meet Marcus.

“That’s way more than enough time to get here,” D.J. observed.

Devon tried Marcus’s house. There was no answer.

“We’re going out looking for them,” Devon announced, standing up.

“What exactly are you concerned about, Devon?” Rolfe asked.

Just then, from the distance, came the long, low howl of the beast.

“That,” Devon replied.

“I don’t want you going out there alone,” Rolfe said. “We’ll go in my car.”

Roxanne promised to stay at the house and keep a lookout in case Natalie and Marcus showed up. Rolfe rolled out a Range Rover from his garage instead of his usual Porsche sports car. They all piled in.

Devon noticed Rolfe had a gun strapped to his waist. “You’re thinking you’ll need that?”

“Silver bullets,” Rolfe said. “Specially made. Just in case.”

“Don’t shoot it,” Devon insisted.

“We might have to.”

Rolfe was right, of course. But Devon felt certain that to kill the beast would be a tragedy none of them would ever get over.

From somewhere in the woods outside the village they heard it again: an agonizing, horrible, fingernails-on-blackboard kind of cry.

“Drive in the direction of the sound,” Devon said, shuddering. “I’m going to try to find them in my mind.”

They started off down the road into the village. Devon concentrated. He couldn’t see Natalie or Marcus, but he could see the beast. It was lumbering in the shadows. But just where it was, he couldn’t determine quite yet. “Keep driving,” he told Rolfe. “Maybe I’ll pick up something as we get closer, like radar or something.”

But they didn’t get far. A police barricade prevented them from reaching town. Flashing red lights from six cruisers parked in a V sent shivers through the night.

“What’s going on?” Rolfe asked from his car window.

A sheriff’s deputy shone his flashlight into the car. “Oh, hello, Montaigne.” The beam of his light caught Cecily, sitting up front next to Rolfe. “Oh, hey there, Cess.”

It was that annoying Joey Potts, a pimply twentysomething who was always giving Cecily the eye. Devon sneered. They ought to have thrown the creep in jail.

“What’s going on?” Cecily repeated Rolfe’s question. It was more likely that Potts would answer her than anyone else.

“Some wild animal, the same one that was around here last month.” The deputy made a face. “Don’t know if it’s a bear or what, but it apparently got some girl.”

“No,” Devon said, feeling the fear inside him rise up like bile.

“Where do they think it is?” Rolfe asked.

Potts shrugged. “In the woods somewhere. We can hear it howling from time to time. But I’m afraid the road is closed.”

“Well, I need to get back to Ravenscliff,” Cecily said, clearly trying to flirt her way through the barricade.

“Sorry, Cess, but you’ll have to go the long way around.”

“That could take an hour! Please, Joey!”

He stood his ground. “They won’t move those cruisers for no one.”

“Then I’ll just have to go around them,” Devon said under his breath.

“Dude,” D.J. whispered, leaning into him, “are you about to pull one of your disappearing acts?”

Rolfe overheard. After the deputy backed away from the window, Rolfe turned around in the seat to glare at the teen sorcerer. “You don’t have power over this thing, remember,” he told Devon. “Don’t be charging in without thinking.”

“I have to,” Devon said, suddenly absolutely certain about what he was about to say. “The girl the beast has with it—it’s Natalie.”

“What?”

“I’m sure of it. It just came to me. I have to go, Rolfe.”

“Devon.” It was Cecily. Their eyes met over the seat. “Please be careful.”

“Wait, Devon,” Rolfe urged. He unstrapped the gun at his belt. “At least take this.”

Devon accepted the weapon, looking at it with revulsion. But he would have been a fool to refuse it. “I’ll meet you back at the house,” he said, and then he disappeared.

He heard the thing before he saw it: a low, angry growl. Deep in the woods the moonlight was blocked by the tall black pine trees. Covered with a thick carpet of needles, the earth smelled rich and new, spring unthawing the frozen crust. Devon stood completely still, breathing in and out, concentrating all his senses on the beast. He heard it again. A raspy breath. The gnashing of teeth.

“Show yourself,” he demanded.

He knew the beast didn’t have to obey him. Whatever it was, it was no demon, bound to the will of the Nightwing. But he was pretty certain it wouldn’t remain in hiding. It wanted to confront Devon.
We’re connected
, Devon knew.
Just how is uncertain. But we are.

“I’m here!” He turned his head to look through the dark shadows but kept his feet firmly placed on the ground. He held the gun tightly in his right hand. “Come on, I’m
here
! Don’t keep me waiting!”

In front of him there were eyes.

Red eyes, blinking once, then twice, in the dark.

“Hello, ugly,” Devon said, keeping his voice calm and steady.

Then came the roar, a deafening sound, causing Devon to pull back, gripping the gun even more tightly in his hand.

The beast was suddenly looming over him, its twisted, hairy body a cross between an ape and a bear and a wolf. And, Devon recognized once more, a man. Saliva dripped down onto Devon’s face from the creature’s yellow teeth. Lifting its snout, the beast howled into the trees.

And in that moment Devon was suddenly encased in a solid silver armor.

“Hey, nice work,” he muttered to himself. He hadn’t even planned it. It had just happened instinctively.
That’s the way good sorcery works
, his intuition told him.

The beast wasn’t nearly so pleased with his handiwork, however. It hissed at Devon, recoiling from the brightness of the silver. It lumbered backward into the bushes.

Devon followed.

“No, no, get away from me!”

A girl’s voice from somewhere in the darkness.

Natalie’s voice!

Devon could see her clearly now, her clothes torn, terror burning in her eyes, as she tried to crawl away through the pine needles.

“Natalie!”

The beast bared its fangs, ready to bite down upon her.

And suddenly Natalie was gone. The beast, outraged and confused, reared up to its full height and roared.

“Yeah,” Devon said as the thing turned to look at him. “I did that. That was me. Natalie is now back with my friends, safe at Rolfe’s house. In the future, you ought to pick on somebody your own size.”

The beast leaned back, faced the moon, and let out a long, horrible howl.

“Who are you?” Devon demanded. “What connection is there between you and me and everything that’s been going on?”

The beast lowered its face and leveled its eyes with Devon’s.
Yes, something familiar there
, Devon thought. Definitely something familiar …

“The cops want to kill you,” he told the creature. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I have a gun right here that could do the job, too. If I can’t make communication with you I may have to turn these silver bullets over to the police and let them do what they want. Because I can’t let you keep threatening my friends.”

He studied the thing.

“Speaking if which, where is Marcus? If you’ve hurt him, I swear I’ll pump you full of silver myself.”

There was no recognition, no flicker of understanding, in the thing’s brutish black eyes. It was a beast, nothing more. If it had been a man at some point, as Roxanne supposed, then all human intelligence had departed. It was nothing more than a dumb animal, with an instinct to kill—a realization confirmed when it suddenly leapt at Devon, his silver armor be damned.

With one elbow Devon sent the thing sprawling into a tree, but it was back on its feet again within moments. It went down onto its haunches, ready to lunge again, like a coiled spring.

This time Devon was ready for it. He jumped into the air in a preemptive strike, bringing the soles of his silver feet crashing down onto the thing’s hairy chest, knocking it to the ground before it had the chance to pounce.

“Face it,” Devon said, standing over the beast, one foot planted on its rib cage, “we are not evenly matched.”

The creature was enraged. It grabbed Devon’s ankle, no matter that the silver was scalding its flesh. It took hold and wouldn’t let go, upsetting Devon’s balance and sending the teen sorcerer sprawling down onto his silver butt.

Now it leapt at him in blind fury.
It will tear me apart, even if the silver kills it in the process
, Devon thought.

Devon raised the gun. He had a clear shot, straight through the heart. He could kill it, right here. Of course, he could also just disappear, but that would leave the beast still roaming the village. Better to take it down right now …

But he couldn’t pull the trigger.

He couldn’t kill it.

Instead he deflected the beast with his feet once again, slapping them against its torso at it lunged, and sent the creature back into the trees. The thing was on its feet quickly, but this time it simply retreated, howling back into the woods until Devon could hear it no more.

“I was waiting for Marcus,” Natalie said, her whole body shuddering, “and this thing just came out of nowhere and grabbed me.”

Bjorn had come down from Ravenscliff, and he’d treated her cuts and bruises with the salves and potions from his medicine bag. They worked much more quickly than traditional Western treatments. A cut along Natalie’s shoulder healed visibly in front of their eyes.

“Where
is
Marcus?” Devon asked.

Natalie’s eyes flashed with fear. “He never showed up. You think he’s in danger, too?”

“I do,” Devon admitted. “I’ve tried to hone in and find him, but I can’t. It’s like he’s nowhere.”

“Oh, God,” Cecily cried. “Does that mean he’s dead?”

No one answered her, because that was what they all feared.

“Somehow that thing knows who my friends are,” Devon said, overwhelmed once again by the danger his sorcery brought to the people he cared about. “It wanted to confront me, and it knew that going after my friends would bring me out.”

“I just tried calling Marcus’s house again,” Cecily said, “and still no answer.”

“Then the whole family must be out,” Rolfe said. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions yet.”