Master of the Moors (30 page)

A pitchfork.

Perfect
.

Lightning lit the world,
thunder pounding at the black skin of the sky a heartbeat later,
and she spun around to face the open stable door. She gripped the
pitchfork and held it out, business end aimed at the liquid shadow
that swung around the corner and into the pen, baleful eyes alight
with pale fire.

"
Florrrencccccce
," it hissed then and
the shock of hearing it speak weakened her. The fact that such a
terrible, unnatural thing could
know her by
name
, was almost enough to prompt her to
drop the weapon and concede to her fate, for surely such a
diabolical evil could not be defeated by man or anything fashioned
by his hand. But just as quickly she forced herself to recover, to
call on every ounce of her Christian faith and believe that she
could best, or at the very least deter this horrible, devilish
thing. After all, if she simply let it take her and do its worst,
who would be here to warn Grady and the children when they
returned, unsuspecting, to see their father?

But that thought led to
another and the first inexorable twinge of sadness rose in her as
she pictured the children's faces when she told them what had
happened, what had become of their father after all their years of
waiting for him to return from his catalepsy. They would posit that
a demon had come to take him away and she would have to struggle to
dispel the theory as nonsense, for secretly she thought that
perhaps it
was
a
demon that had taken their father and now stood in the stable
doorway, waiting to take her.

It watched her, jaws split
in a semblance of a grin.

"Get away," she said,
forcing authority into her tone. "Go on, get away from here or I'll
skewer you, I swear I will!"

It didn't move.

"Go on," she said again,
jabbing the pitchfork at the air in front of its nose. "Get
away!"

The air smelled of damp
earth, a scent that grew stronger as the creature took a hesitant
step forward.

"Damn you, get
away
from
here!"

It didn't comply, but
lowered its head, the queer phosphorescent light from its eyes
casting shadows on the earthen floor of the stable. Mrs. Fletcher
jabbed at it with the pitchfork and it casually shifted its head to
avoid the strike.

Devoid of other options,
Mrs. Fletcher knew what she had to do. This standoff could continue
all night, until her strength and will gave out, or until the
creature dismissed the pitchfork as a threat and rushed her, so she
slowly moved to the right, her intention to keep the thing at bay
as she circled it and reached the door. The stable doors were
swinging open; perhaps if she was fast enough she could lock it
inside. It was risky and more than likely she'd fail, but it was
all she could think to do. If it tried to pounce in the meantime,
she would stick it like a pig and leave it bleed to death on the
stable floor.

Good
, she thought, bolstered a little,
a
miserable plan, but a plan at least. Better than standin' here
waitin' for it to figure out that it's faster than I
am
. Adrenaline pulsed through her,
bringing a coppery taste to her mouth not unlike blood. She spat
and continued to move, the creature moving in the opposite
direction, clearly infuriated at being forced to move against its
will when all it wanted to do was savage her.

"That's it," she mumbled,
almost at the open door. "Thaaaat's...it..."

She glanced to her right
to gauge the distance she would have to cover and realized too late
that it was exactly what the dog-thing had been waiting for.
Apparently deciding to disregard the tines held inches from its
throat, it lunged at her, and the pitchfork did nothing but graze
its underbelly. With a roar, it soared into the air, eyes like
moons. With a cry of panic, Mrs. Fletcher tried to back away and
thudded against the wall hard enough to set the tools on the far
wall rattling. Her legs skidded from under her and she fell
heavily, the pitchfork slipping from her grasp.

"No," she whined and saw
those dreadful white lights descend on her. Without thinking, she
rolled. The beast landed in a crouch where she'd lain only moments
before and snapped its head in her direction, mouth wide open,
tongue like a worm uncovered in its lair. Mrs. Fletcher scrabbled
backward, her joints protesting with fiery bolts of pain as she
whimpered and pawed the floor for the pitchfork.

The creature tensed, ready
to spring, and at this distance, there was no hope that she could
avoid it.

Oh God, no!

Her hand touched rounded wood still
warm and clammy from her grip and she snatched at it.

The white fire narrowed,
the beast's ears flattened against its skull and it shrieked at her
as it sprang.

In an instant, she brought
the pitchfork up so that the handle was braced against the floor,
the tines raised toward the ceiling. Her hands were so sweaty she
feared it would not be long before it slipped from her
grasp.
Please, please, please
God...

Already in the air, the
creature could not change the direction of its leap, but it tried,
wriggling like a cat being held over a fire but it was too late.
Mrs. Fletcher steeled herself, eyes wide, heart pounding painfully,
as the creature slammed into the pitchfork, the momentum carrying
it over the charwoman's head and tearing the weapon from her hands.
She cried out, ducked and covered her head, sure the beast would
land on her, crushing her beneath its weight. Instead it thumped
down on the floor next to the stable entrance and thrashed. Mrs.
Fletcher scooted aside and turned. In an instant she was on her
feet. To her dismay she saw that although the pitchfork had pierced
the animal, the thing's last minute efforts to avoid it had paid
off and only two of the four steel spikes had penetrated its flesh,
catching it in the ribs rather than the underbelly. But any
satisfaction she might have felt at the sight of the creature's
struggling was quelled by the realization that even now, it was
slowly shuddering free of the tines, and when it did, she had no
doubt that it would be possessed of a fury she would be helpless
against.

And so she dashed forward,
yelping as she dodged the claw it swiped across the gap between
where it lay and the doorway. Then she was past it, and out into
the cold rain once more, hurriedly slamming the stable door closed
and fumbling with the bolt, even as the thing inside pounded weakly
against it. Then, the bolt slid home and Mrs. Fletcher crumpled to
the ground, relieved, but all too well aware that the wood behind
which the creature was contained was old, and would not hold for
very long.

She quickly rose and in a
stumbling run, made her way back to the house.

***

The wind sent rain
streaking across the glass. Tabitha listened to the animal howl of
the storm and shivered, though her bedroom was warm. Inside the
house, all was quiet. As she lay on her side in bed, she thought of
Neil out there somewhere, possibly in the clutches of a maniac who
might be doing untold things to him, and she felt a cold jab of
guilt in her stomach. She realized that her part in this nightmare
was much more than she'd allowed herself to believe up until now.
Donald might have engineered some kind of a trap for Neil by
himself, but it would undoubtedly have been something crude and
clumsy, and therefore destined to fail. His total incapacity to be
discreet would have guaranteed that. In short, only her involvement
had made his plan work, and even then, it hadn't been a complete
success. Donald had hoped to humiliate Neil in front of everyone.
Wear the poor boy down. But it hadn't turned out that way, not
exactly, though the end result had been achieved. Neil was gone,
presumed taken by the man with the bandaged face and, while she had
no doubt that Donald would sleep easy tonight (aided in no small
part by the alcohol the stranger had given him as a reward for his
services), Tabitha feared she might never sleep again, not with the
knowledge of what she had done.

Then why did you do
it?
she asked herself---a question for which
she had no answer. That the situation had, from the very beginning,
seemed unbelievable, and unlikely to ever spiral into the nightmare
it had become, was a feeble defense, and she knew it. At most, she
had feared Donald would terrorize Neil for a while until he got
bored, or until Grady came knocking at their door demanding he find
a new focus for his ill-bred cravings.

Abruptly she sat up, her
legs dangling off the side of the bed. The rain lashed against the
window, as if disputing her burgeoning resolve.

She tried to tell herself
that it was entirely reasonable to assume that Neil was fine, that
even now he was safe and warm at home after being rescued by Grady.
The groundskeeper was a kind, gentle sort, but tonight in the
cloakroom she'd seen a side of him she'd never seen before. He'd
seemed lit by an inner fire, a dangerous flame that threatened to
spill out and consume everyone within reach if it wasn't satisfied.
His eyes had been like pools of oil, cold and filled with threat,
the kind of look one might expect from an animal whose young have
been threatened. She knew he would stop at nothing to find Neil.
But none of them knew anything about the bandaged man, or what he
might be capable of. Would an old man like Grady be able to reason
with him? And if that failed, would he be able to defend himself
against a man obviously demented?

She didn't think
so.

In the meantime then, was
she to sit and wait, enshrouded in blankets that reeked of guilt,
for confirmation that all was well, that ultimately she hadn't
doomed an innocent boy to unthinkable horrors?

No. She knew the waiting would drive
her mad.

She had to know for
herself.

Decided, she sat
up.

And had one foot on the floor when
something scratched at her bedroom door.

***

Neil ran, the night
seething with life around him in a phantasmagoria of silver and
black. The ground sounded like the beating of a drum beneath his
clawed hands and feet as he loped with the others, their breathing
echoing the sound of his own. Wet earth sank and flew in his wake,
the sensation like the splitting of the skin he craved so badly.
Hunger infected him and it was the most natural thing in the world,
despite the lingering confusion that scintillated across his brain
that he had not always felt so hungry, or so desperate to be sated.
The cold scythed over him, making the faintest whistling sound as
it sliced over his fissured skin. He felt as if in an instant the
weak flesh he'd languished beneath all these years had hardened,
become impenetrable. Become armor. He opened his mouth, his
jaws
and laughed with
delight, and the sound was not at all like laughter. For a moment
it unnerved him, but the sheer power that rippled through him soon
dispelled it. He was alive. Dear God, he had never felt so alive in
his life. There was nothing that could hurt him now.

But there was
plenty
he
could
hurt, and intended to.

The night, the storm, was
like a curtain, billowing in the wind to reveal the strange new
world beyond, a world full of prey, a world he had been born to
rule. A world he'd been blinded to until he was ready for it. Until
it was ready for
him
.

He raced on, dizzy with
the euphoria of this strange new life, drunk on the implications of
his new form and its implications.

And eventually,
inevitably, when vague, foggy thoughts of his old life leaked back
into his brain, bringing with it images of the people who had
shared it with him, he was most relieved and encouraged that they
did not inspire love within him, but disgust.

26

A flickering orange-red
rectangle of light floated through the storm. At first Grady
thought it might be a lantern, but after a few moments spent
squinting into the rain, he straightened and quickly urged Kate to
dismount.

"What is it?" she asked,
obeying his prompt with more than a little irritation. He had all
but pushed her off the horse.

"A fire," he told her and
descended, with obvious difficulty, from the mare. "Inside the
Callow House."

"Are you all
right?"

He nodded curtly. "Fine.
Old bones."

She watched him brush an
open hand across the horse's flank, study his boots and tend to the
lantern. He was looking everywhere but at her, and clearly
delaying.

"What's wrong with you?"
she said, raising her light to study him.

"Nothin'."

"You're lying."

"I shouldn't have brought
you out here." He sounded pained and the expression on his face
when he turned around confirmed it.

"I wanted to
come."

"I know, but I still
should have made you stay at home."