WHILE Noah unloaded his backpack, Madeline walked the short distance to the bathroom with a toothbrush and toothpaste Noah had bought for her at the campground’s general store. She had no money on her whatsoever; no gear to speak of except what she’d been wearing when the water hit. Her clothes lay drying next to the little heater in the cabin. She was still wearing Noah’s warm fleece. Luckily she had money nearby, however; she’d stashed her wallet under the seat of her car. Tomorrow she’d get a ride to where her car waited, miles down the Going-to-the-Sun Road at the Loop Trailhead. And then she’d go home.
She had done all she could here. She’d notified the rangers, they hadn’t believed her, and Noah was determined to hunt the thing himself. He’d obviously had prior experience with it, and he was still alive, so hopefully he’d be successful. Madeline was lucky she was in one piece, and she felt anxious to go home.
A nagging feeling preyed on her, and she pushed it away. It loomed back up, though, surfacing repeatedly. She could help. She could use her ability.
This was exactly what she wanted to avoid: working on murder cases, sacrificing any chance she had of living a normal life and enjoying her youth, relinquishing whatever innocence and happiness was left to murder and violence.
Loud laughter brought her attention to a cabin a couple doors down from hers. A group of college-age guys sat around a bonfire in front of their cabin, laughing and drinking beer. They looked like they’d come out for a weekend of partying.
She envied their carefree demeanor. They could afford it. Probably their biggest concern was passing calculus or asking someone out for a date.
She walked by them and hesitated before the bathroom door. Closing her eyes, Madeline made a brief wish for a safe bathroom: nothing hiding in the stalls or behind the trash cans, or under the sinks, and especially no bodies in the rafters. Her wish done, she pushed the door open. It creaked on rusty hinges, admitting her to a large, brightly lit bathroom with a white tiled floor and white painted walls. Immediately Madeline looked up. No rafters. The ceiling came to a point above her. Nothing was up there.
Three stalls stood on one side of the room. All three doors were open. Cautiously Madeline crept past them, peering inside each one. The last door was partially closed, and she pushed it open with her foot.
Nothing.
Just a normal bathroom with normal toilets, two normal sinks, and a couple of shower stalls.
Outside she could hear the college guys getting rowdier and rowdier. She heard a beer can being crushed, followed by more laughter and drunken shouting. They turned up their radio so loud it overpowered the droning of a nearby RV generator.
After she’d gone to the bathroom, Madeline took a deep breath and stood before the mirror. Grasping the length of tape, she carefully peeled the bandage aside. Underneath, an inch-long angry-looking gash nestled amid brown and blue bruised flesh. But it wasn’t as bad as it felt, and she replaced the bandage. She brushed her teeth and recapped the toothpaste. Taking another long look at the gaunt, exhausted Madeline in the mirror, she sighed, then walked to the door, where she paused. Originally a source of fear, the bathroom, having proved clear, now felt like a safe haven. The creature could be out there, even now, its approach muffled by the radio and the voices of the drunk guys across the way.
Noah said the creature killed at random. If that was true, then it was illogical to think it had followed her here. Except that it had intercepted her at the ranger’s station. But now that she was down in civilization, maybe it wouldn’t risk being seen.
She wished she’d asked Noah if it hunted in more populated places. She wished she’d asked Noah a lot of questions.
Opening the door, she stepped out into the night. The college guys were now throwing different things into the fire and seeing what effect it had. One of them sprayed something-Bug spray? she wondered-into the fire. It spat out flame in a long, flowing arc.
When they started talking rudely about a woman one of them had asked out, she slunk by them quietly, hoping they wouldn’t notice her.
“Hey!” one of them called as she began to pass by. “Hey, baby! Come over here!”
She just ignored him and kept walking, as if he wasn’t talking to her at all, but to someone else.
“Don’t just walk by!” slurred another. “We need some company!”
“Yeah,” a third one laughed as if that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “We need some company!” The way they said company let Madeline know exactly what kind of “company” they had in mind.
Great, she thought, a perfect end to a perfect day.
Madeline shot them an unfriendly look, which enabled her to see how many there were, and how far away.
She counted four by the fire. Just as she looked away, she glimpsed one of them get up from his seat and begin walking after her.
Madeline’s mouth went dry. At community college last semester, she’d taken a self-defense class, and she remembered the teacher saying to look around continuously when you were under threat so no one could sneak up on you. She also remembered the instructor saying, “GET him!” which meant strike at the groin, eyes, and throat.
Madeline picked up her pace and glanced behind.
“Shit!” one of the guys said. “Pete’s going after her.”
“C’mon!” another said. Soon all four guys were up, following her along the road. Her cabin was too far away. She didn’t think she could reach it in time. She made a decision and spun around quickly, shouting in a loud, aggressive voice, “What the hell do you want?”
This completely surprised them, and the lead guy stopped. The other three caught up with him.
“Just some company, baby.”
“Not a chance in hell.”
She waited to see their reaction. They looked unsure. She turned to leave, and then heard one of them start to run after her. She whirled around and came face-to-face with Pete. Hostile brown pig eyes glittered under a crop of blond hair.
She remembered what her instructor said about the “reaction range” and stepped back so she was too far away to be grabbed. At least she could see where all of them were, she thought, looking for an advantage.
“You’re a real fucking bitch,” Pete said, “you know that?” He stepped forward, and she echoed his move, striking out with her palm and connecting with his throat. He reeled back, grabbing his neck, a hiss of pain escaping from his lips.
One of Pete’s cronies lunged out to grab her. She darted to one side, and he missed. They all came closer, and Madeline broke out in a cold sweat. She took an aggressive stance, ready to “GET” as many of them as she had to. Holding her hands up ready to strike, she watched them closely.
The guys advanced, Pete still trying to recover but watching the action. “I’m gonna fucking kill you!” he yelled, frowning mouth raining spittle. As they advanced, Madeline retreated, waiting to kick or hit any of them if they came close enough.
And then she backed into someone.
She hadn’t even seen a fifth person-realized he must have flanked her and that she had to whirl around and smash him with every bit of strength she could muster. Madeline spun around, her hand looking to connect with a throat or eyes. But she whirled around in darkness, her hand striking only air, her eyes meeting only the black behind her.
“Someone call for help!” she screamed.
“I can do better than that,” said a voice from the darkness. And then she saw a part of the night come alive, straightening up out of the shadows. Two red, luminous disks blinked into view and narrowed in the darkness.
“Holy shit!” one of the drunk guys yelled. She heard someone stumble back and fall on the ground. She had her back to the four guys but didn’t care now. The creature filled her vision, and she stood staring at it, frozen.
It placed a clawed hand on her shoulder and pushed by her. Madeline whirled around, not taking her eyes off it for a second.
“You pathetic swine,” it growled. “I’m going to slit open your bowels and force you to eat what I find.”
The guys stumbled back as the creature approached. One guy in the back broke away and took off down the road. In an instant the creature was down on all fours, loping after him. It met him a few yards away, leaping onto his back and twisting his neck fatally.
Then it spun around, eyes locking on the remaining three. In an instant it was among them, claws slicing open stomachs and throats, slashing at skin, tearing at meat. When it finished, four bodies lay sprawled around its feet. Then one of its hands suddenly elongated, becoming a sharp, gleaming silver spike. The creature reared its arm back and plunged it forward, driving the spike deeply into the closest body. A sizzling sound filled the night, and Madeline watched as the body melted and sputtered, sparked and flamed, then erupted in a cascade of ashes. The creature leapt to the other bodies, thrusting the spike within, filling the night with the sounds of spitting fire. In under half a minute only ashes remained of the bodies, carried away on the wind and soaking into the pools of blood on the asphalt.
And then she was alone on the road with the creature.
The creature stood up before her, the long spike shortening and re-forming into an ink-black hand. She could see the creature bore no mark whatsoever where she’d struck it with the ax. Its black skin was smooth and unscarred. She marveled at its strange, sharklike skin and lack of features. It was shadow come to life. An ebony wraith.
A solid lump formed in her throat. She stood transfixed, watching the eyes in the darkness. They had no pupils, just pools of ruby light.
“Where is Noah?” it asked, its voice low.
She moved backward and opened her mouth, but at first no sound came out. “I-I don’t know,” she finally managed.
The creature cocked its head and looked closely at her. “He can’t be far away. Not with you here.” She could hear a hint of a foreign accent but couldn’t place it. “After all, he’s still trying to make up for it.”
“For… for what?”
“For letting her die.”
It stepped closer, breathed in deeply, then reached one long-clawed hand up to her hair. The claws combed through it gently, and she flinched away. “Does he know about you?” the creature asked.
Madeline frowned, confused by the question.
“Touch me,” it said.
Madeline didn’t move.
It lowered its hand, reaching to her side and closing around her fingers. Then it raised her hand, placing her fingers on its chest. An overwhelming sensation swept over her-a vast, incomprehensible amount of experiences, thoughts, and emotions-and one extraordinary sensation of age. It was old, older than she could fathom. Heat began to tingle in her fingers, traveling through her hand, up her arm.
And then the visions came, scorching geysers erupting behind her eyes.
A handsome young man, the creature in disguise, she realized, hopping into a hansom in Victorian London, then laughing, drunk in a tavern, conversing with its next victim, a rosy-cheeked young playwright, a linguistic genius…
Stumbling through an alley in Prague, starving, panting, hiding in shadows as a group of Nazi soldiers march by. The last one looks into the alley, sees the creature disguised as a young man in a tattered woolen coat. The soldier, sneering, pulls the gun from his holster and fires into the shadows as a terrible pain erupts in the belly of the beast…
In a parlor in Vienna, listening to an amazing pianist, a young woman, so vibrant, aching to tear into her and devour every morsel, to taste that sweet flesh, as tantalizing as the music itself…
Coughing, staggering, smelling of goat urine and feces, the creature dragging itself out of a barn in a drunken stupor, not drunk on ale, but drunk on flesh, meat from the body of a traveling bard with the ability to spin tales that spellbound listeners. The creature makes its way toward a castle in the distance. It has a hiding place there, a hidden corner of the catacombs where it can digest undisturbed…
Hiding in the shadowed galley of a Viking longboat, waiting for a cartographer to descend into waiting jaws, so eager to devour that knowledge, the thirst for places unseen but for the cartographer’s eyes, soon to be the creature’s alone…
In a grove of trees on the island of Anglesey, stalking a Druidic priest, fires erupting, cries of battle as the Romans invade, all turning to chaos, the Druid lost, wasted, dead before the creature even gets a chance…
Stalking the well at Alexandria, chariots rumbling by, the creature memorizing the routine of the Greek geophysicist, imagining the tasty meats of the brain, salivating, adjusting its garb stolen from a fellow scholar and the laurels crowning its head. Soon. So soon…
Midnight at an Egyptian festival, the full moon bright on the Nile, the young pyramid architect caught unawares in the grove of palms, the rustling of the trees’ fronds muffling the sound of eager feeding…
“What do you see?” the creature demanded.
A vague part in the back of her mind, beyond the visions, the anguish, the searing pain, remembered how to speak. But Madeline could see nothing but the visions. Her eyes filled with them, unable to see the creature, the woods. “You… were shot,” she breathed, “in Prague… and before that, you were in London, happy…”
She wrenched her hand free and gasped, sights of the real world flooding into her once more. The road. The bathroom. Pine trees.
The creature.
It stared at her, eyes wide, silent.
Neither spoke, Madeline forgetting to breathe. Images still swirled in her head, a cacophony of sounds and smells and images from a dozen other times. She could still smell bread baking in an eighteenth-century Viennese bakery, could taste a bitter root pulled from the earth in ancient Norway.
“Stefan!” Noah’s sudden cry cut through the heavy silence between them.
The creature looked past Madeline’s shoulder. Then it backed up, retreating completely into the darkness, just melting away. For a second she saw the red eyes moving in black, and then even they were gone.
Madeline heard Noah’s boots thumping on the pavement behind her, approaching quickly. She didn’t dare turn away, afraid the creature might bound back out of the darkness and take off her head with one powerful swipe.
“Madeline!” He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly. “Did he hurt you?” Madeline’s head pressed against his chest, and he felt warm and reassuring. She shook her head.
“But-I heard screaming.”
“It wasn’t me,” she said and pulled away. Silently she indicated the blood on the asphalt.
“Oh, no,” said Noah.
Maybe it was cold, but Madeline just felt relieved. Those guys would never bother her or any other woman again. She felt oddly numb and shaky and just wanted to sit down.
Noah evidently saw this on her face. “What is it? What happened?”
Madeline shook her head. After a long pause, she said, “He… he defended me.”
“What?” Amazement.
“The blood… is from these guys who were attacking me. He just came out of nowhere and…” Madeline thought of the intensity of the moment, of the creature’s claws, fangs, the ferocity of his attack.
Noah looked as surprised as Madeline felt.
“Has this ever happened before?” she asked.
Noah raised his eyebrows in bewilderment. “No. At least, not when I’ve been around.”
“Who-” Madeline swallowed, afraid of the question she wanted to ask. “Who does he usually kill? What sort of person?”
“Two kinds of people,” Noah answered. “Carefully chosen victims, and people who get in the way of his pursuit of those victims.”
A dark, terrible thought crept into her mind as her savior turned back into her killer. “Do you think he killed those guys so that he could still be the one to murder me?”
“Gods,” Noah breathed. “Probably.”
“That’s terrible!” Madeline almost yelled. “What kind of twisted, demented, screwed-up-” She stopped short when she realized how much her voice had raised. “Why me?”
“In the past, he has always chosen victims of extraordinary talent. Something that sets them apart from the rest.”
“You said he killed randomly!”
“I lied. I wasn’t sure if he had chosen you as a specific victim, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Well, I’m worried.” She swallowed back a painful lump that had suddenly moved into her throat and begun to home decorate. “Exceptional talent?”
Noah nodded. “He’s killed writers, inventors, architects, scientists, a classical pianist once…” His voice trailed off.
He knows? she thought, unnerved. This creature knows? “Touch me…”
“Do you know why he’d be after you?”
Madeline quickly shook her head. She just wanted to get away. Go home. “I guess I’m just one of those people who got in the way.”
Noah looked closely at her and then shook his head. “I don’t think so; he’s hunting you. If you were merely in the way, he would have just killed you outright.”
Madeline just wanted to slink away somewhere, make herself as tiny as possible. She looked to where it had vanished, though she knew it could probably leap out from anywhere it wanted, tearing them both down to bloody nubs. “Let’s go inside somewhere,” she said. “Somewhere light.”
“Of course!” Noah said quickly.
He took her arm, and they walked back toward their cabin, Madeline glancing behind all the while.
Up ahead, the cabin lay in the shadows of the pines, shielded from the dusk-to-dawn glow of the campground light posts. Madeline was leery to go toward the cabin, nestled in the dark, and she walked slower and slower, until Noah slowed to a stop beside her. “What is it?” he asked.
“It just looks so… small, so fragile.” She stared at it reluctantly. “Like the creature could tear right through the walls.”
He followed her gaze, studying the shadowed building. “I’ll be with you. Even if we manage to get some sleep, I’ll be right outside the bedroom on the couch.”
Madeline screwed up her face in hesitation. “What if he knows which one is our cabin?” She paused. “He could break in while I’m sleeping, slash your throat, then find me in the bedroom.”
“Glad to know I’ll be so helpful in this dark scenario of yours.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.
She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge, as you can imagine.” Her head pounded. Gently she checked the bandage again.
“I understand. Tell you what, then. We’ll go to the cabin. We can lock the doors, latch the windows, drink a cup of tea. I’ll stay up and keep guard.”
“But you’re already exhausted!”
“He needs to sleep, too, you know,” Noah said. “Not to scare you more, but he really likes to draw out the hunt. We probably won’t see him again tonight.”
“Well, that’s reassuring. About as reassuring as if you’d told me, ‘Don’t worry. We won’t get hit with another flash flood until tomorrow.’ ”
The chittering of a squirrel brought their attention up to a nearby tree. Madeline jumped. “It’s just a squirrel,” Noah said, putting a reassuring hand on her back.
The woods crept in on her, full of creaking wooden arms and reaching limbs. Then the disturbing hush of night fell over them, all animals save the squirrel quiet in the presence of a waiting, virulent predator. The quiet sigh of wind in the pines was alive with the breathing of the creature, and the chattered words of the squirrel were a terrified warning, uttered sharply and urgently.
“Let’s go inside,” she said, peering into the darkness beyond the dim yellow glow of the lights. “Now.”
Without a word, Noah turned and hurried with her to the cabin. Along the way he fished in his pocket for the keys, producing them as they climbed the two steps to the door. The chilly night air crawled down the collar of her jacket, and Madeline turned to keep watch behind them as he unlocked the door. She sniffed the pine-scented air, in case she could detect some unnatural scent on the wind. Only the familiar river and deep earthen tree smells greeted her. But somewhere out there, somewhere close, she could feel it… the heaviness of it staring at her, its red disc eyes narrowed with hunger.
As soon as she heard the lock disengage, she pushed past Noah into the cabin. “After you,” he said in a startled voice.
“Sorry, just anxious to get inside. Lock the door! Quick!”
Immediately, Noah entered, slamming the door behind him and reengaging the locks. Madeline sprinted around the cabin, rechecking locks on all the windows. The air inside was damp and chilly, and she shivered in the fleece jacket. After she was satisfied all entrances to the cabin were barred, she returned to the front door to find Noah staring out one of the windows, pushing aside one of the curtains.
She flipped a wall switch, spilling even more light into the cabin, then checked both rooms: the main room and the bedroom.
Noah turned to look at her as she returned to him. The pit of fear had given up its condo in her throat and opted to move into her belly. It spread itself out there, distributing its weight into one uniform mass of dread.
“I want to get out of here. Tomorrow I’m hitching a ride back to my car.”
He raised his eyebrows in concern. “Nonsense. My Jeep’s here. I’ll take you. You don’t need to hitch.”
“I’d leave now if I thought there’d be anyone on the road at this hour to give me a ride. Can’t we leave now?”
Noah shook his head. “He’s content to sit tight for now because he knows where you are. Leave, and he’ll pursue.”
“How reassuring.”
“You’d be putting yourself in danger again.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I can tell you one thing.” She squared her jaw. “I’d feel a hell of a lot safer hitching a ride to my car than sitting here like a waiting duck.”
“I think that’s a sitting duck,” Noah said, looking frustrated with the situation.
“I don’t care if the duck is doing a goddamn gold-medal triple lutz. Waiting here is suicide, precisely because that thing knows where I am.”
Noah walked to her and put his hands on her arms, trying to comfort her. “Stay here with me,” he said. “I’m your best chance for survival. I have the only weapon that can kill him. As long as you’re here, where I can watch over you, he won’t be able to harm you.”
She pushed the curtain aside just slightly and peered out. “He’s so… powerful. How would you fight him?”
“I have a way. I’ve done it before. I’ve completely foiled his plans several times.”
She looked at him, then, his face determined. Then she looked back through the window. She couldn’t see anything beyond the bright glow of the dusk-to-dawn lights. Replacing the curtain, she turned to face him. She felt lost. Muggers could be tackled. Gunmen could be disarmed. But this creature was beyond anything she’d ever dealt with. Her life up to this point, even with its own strangeness, simply had not prepared her to fight a physical, supernatural being. Before last night, she didn’t even know such a thing could exist. Now she was expected to fight it. “He’s just seems so… undefeatable.”
Noah stepped closer. “He’s not. And I’m going to stop him.”
She looked at him doubtfully, but exhaustion crept up on her as she stood there, uncertain.
“C’mon,” he said. “You look beat. Why don’t you sit down? I’ve got some clean clothes you can change into.”
She looked down at his clothes she already wore, covered in dust from the hike down. “Soon I’ll have the whole set.”
He laughed. “And you’d be welcome to it. Just to see you warm and happy.”
The corner of her mouth turned up in a half smile.
“So how about it? Change into some warm clothes? I’ll make us some snacks.”
She sighed, giving in. She was still shaking from the encounter with the attackers, and even more so from the visions of the creature. The clean clothes, the food, it all sounded great. Especially the food. “Sounds wonderful. Okay. But… what about those guys? Shouldn’t we report it?”
“Haven’t we been through this already tonight?”
She felt angry and hopeless and shook her head. “I guess we have.”
“I’m sorry. I know this is tough.” He walked to his backpack and opened the top. Then he stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. “You’ll get through this, you know. You really amaze me, the way you’ve taken all this in stride, your bravery. I really admire you.”
She shook her head. “Well, we’ll see. Right now I don’t feel so admirable. I just feel scared.”
While Noah unpacked his backpack, Madeline changed in the small bedroom. She pulled on Noah’s clean clothes: a black and purple Capilene turtleneck that zipped up the front; black pile pants, the thin, soft material somehow amazingly warm thanks to the technology of synthetic fabrics; a thick black fleece jacket with a 200 rating-darn warm. She zipped up the jacket, pulled on a clean pair of Thorlos socks, and put on her boots, which were now almost dry. She was glad she’d kept her underwear on up on the mountain. Wearing Noah’s boxers would have been a little too much. The poor guy had already given up most of his wardrobe. But by tomorrow, her jeans and shirt Noah had saved would be completely dry.
As she finished dressing, he knocked on the door.
“Come in,” she said.
Noah entered, then leaned against the doorframe. “Looking good. Want me to check that bandage? You’ve bled through it.”
“Okay.” She looked at herself in the wall mirror. Blood had seeped through the white gauze, and she pulled the bandage aside. The cut on her head looked aggravated and red, the surrounding tissue a dark blue. An image of the tree trunk hurtling toward her head flashed through her mind.
Noah picked up the small bundle of bandages and first aid tape the EMT had given her and joined her by the mirror. He tore open one of the sterile packages. He removed the gauzy patch and gently placed it on her forehead. “Can you hold this in place?”
She reached up and pressed her fingers to the pad.
Quickly he tore off several strips of white first aid tape and affixed the bandage to her skin.
“It looks a lot better already,” he said. “Does it hurt much?”
She gazed at herself in the mirror. “Not really,” she lied, her head still throbbing dully.
“Let’s eat. I’ve got some cheese and crackers… not much, but it’s the only food we’ll find around here at this hour.”
“Sounds delicious.” And it did, too. After hiking, even the simplest food always tasted incomparably good. Cold processed lunchmeat on a flabby slice of white bread became a savory dinner cooked in a French bistro.
He paused at the bedroom door and motioned her through. As she passed him, she caught an alluring scent, along with something else-some indescribable connection-electricity in her stomach diving down to her toes and back up. She glanced back as he closed the door and caught him staring at her. Quickly, he averted his eyes.
From his backpack he’d pulled a small wheel of smoked gouda and some butter crackers in a plastic bag. Rummaging through the pack again, he pulled out a pocket knife. She wondered about the other knife that lay in the pack, the strange silver spike with the elaborate sheath. The temptation to ask him grew as he unfolded a blade and set the cheese on the small wooden table.
“Sorry,” he said with a sheepish grin. “It’s the best I can do.”
“Looks terrific.”
“If I’d known I’d be entertaining a beautiful woman, I’d have brought wine and made my special pasta with mushrooms and cream sauce.” He smiled, his eye contact intense.
“Well, if any beautiful women show up, we’ll just have to let them down gently.”
He laughed, shaking his head.
Instantly she regretted saying it, but having someone call her beautiful was so rare and strange. Usually they desperately tried to avoid her, except George, thankfully. But of course Noah didn’t know about her “gift” yet.
She watched as he leaned over the table, muscular arms slicing away at the cheese, strong hand working the knife, cropped blond hair giving way to his lean, tanned neck-
“Thick or thin?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you like your slices thick or thin?”
“Either way.”
“Gosh, you’re so picky,” he said, grinning at her over his shoulder. “My clothes aren’t good enough, my cheese isn’t the right thickness. Give a guy a break once in a while.”
She laughed and walked over to the table, eager to nibble at the feast. He returned to slicing, and she peered over his shoulder longingly as he placed a slice on a broken cracker.
He turned his head slightly, inhaled. He stopped moving. “You smell good.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
“It’s the scent of your skin, your breath. You smell-” he leaned forward, breathing her in, “ambrosial.”
“Ambrosial?”
“Mmmmm.”
“Isn’t that what people eat to become Greek gods?”
“Hmm…” He looked down at her, his eyes sparkling. “Let’s find out.” He leaned forward, flexing his teeth, and she grinned and took a step back.
“Noah!” She stopped a few feet away, still facing him.
“How can I find out if you run?” Closing the distance between them again, he said, “Yes, ambrosial… as in delectable, savory, delicious.” His hand found hers, and a rush of excitement tingled through her at his touch.
“Cheese?” she asked suddenly, her old fear rushing into her. She wanted this part to last-this part where he didn’t know she was a freak, where he might just be able to enjoy her company.
His eyes widened, and he leaned back. “Cheese?”
“We were about to eat cheese.”
“We were?”
“With crackers.”
“I see. Well then.” He dropped her hand. “We’ll have to do that. I suddenly feel compelled.”
He turned back to the table and continued placing the slices on the broken crackers.
“Gouda. My favorite,” she said.
He regarded her schemingly out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll have to remember that.”
They ate in silence, hunger overtaking them. Madeline felt a little strange, too, wanting to stare at Noah but afraid of what might happen if she did. Teetering on the edge of a change, she feared it and wanted to lean back from the brink. Everything that had happened since she’d come to the mountain was so startling and amazing, even considering her already unusual life.
Noah glanced up from his crackers and met her gaze briefly, the green of his eyes eerily the same color as his sweater, almost glowing with intensity. She held his gaze for what felt like a full minute, a vague buzzing inside her creating a pleasant sensation as their eyes met. Then she returned her attention to the crackers.
They finished eating in silence, but the tension between them was so thick, Madeline could feel it hanging over the table like a mounting tropical storm. As she finished, she stood up, brushing crumbs off her shirt. Noah stood up, too, staring at her. He came closer, standing before her less than a foot away. She stood her ground, fighting off her desire to flee. He studied her face, his eyes so intense she couldn’t look away.
Then he stepped closer, mere inches away, so close Madeline could feel the heat from his body. Something in his eyes was so powerful she felt her heartbeat pick up, almost as if she anticipated danger.
Noah brought his hand up and touched her shoulder, then ran it along her neck and around the back of her head, curling his fingers gently around the curve of her neck. His touch sent shivers of delight down her back. She felt him move closer, his leg against hers, then his stomach against her own. Every fiber in her being was aware of his closeness, and she relished the sensation.
He leaned down, placing his lips against her cheek, then moved gently along her jawline toward her lips. His breath was sweet and intoxicating, and she drew it in. His mouth drew closer to her lips, the slight roughness of his whiskers brushing along her skin.
He reached the corner of her mouth and kissed her there, sending waves of pleasure through her. And then he kissed her full on the lips, pressing in passionately. At last she moved, bringing her hands to his shoulders and clutching them tightly. He wrapped his arms around her, closing the distance between them, his kisses wild and unrestrained.
They went off balance, knocking a chair over, still kissing. Her hands moved over his back, pulling him closer to her. His hands moved down, cupping her butt and lifting her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and they fell against the wall, her tongue tasting him, kissing along his neck and salty skin. He pulled away from the wall, turned toward the bedroom, knocking a lamp over in the process.
In the ensuing darkness, she felt his fingers on her back grow sharp and wiry, felt claws piercing through her shirt.
Gasping, she pulled her head away and looked at him.
He had changed.
His eyes gleamed red, flashed in the shadows like the eyes of a night creature caught in the light.
She unwrapped her legs and jumped down, but still he held her close to him.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, and as he talked she could see all his teeth had gone sharp. “Kiss me.” And then he brought his lips to hers again and kissed her still more passionately. Her mind reeled as she tried to take everything in, feeling both afraid and still drawn to him in the same moment.
He must have felt her reluctance, for he pulled back and said, “It’s still me. I won’t hurt you. It’s just that in moments of extreme… emotion… the change comes over me.”
“What change?” she demanded, panicked. His eyes glowed fiercely now, a look of hunger gleaming there. “Noah, I-”
“I’m not like him,” Noah said.
“Who, the creature? Your eyes… you look ravenous.”
He paused, thinking. “I am. But not like you think. It’s just that being near you, the way you smell, the way we talk so easily. You’ve faced this all unflinchingly. I’ve never met someone so brave. You amaze me.” He caressed the side of her face. “I am ravenous, yes, but it’s for you. I desire you. I haven’t been drawn this way in a very long time.”
“But, Noah…” Her voice trailed off. She felt a tremble deep within her. What had she gotten herself into?
He pulled away. “Do you feel… nothing?”
“Oh, no. I feel something. Believe me, I feel something. But I don’t understand.” She pushed him away. “You… that thing… What are you?” she asked finally.
He sighed, dropping his arms. In an instant his green eyes returned, the red fading. Claws gave way to normal fingers. She couldn’t believe it. They just transformed before her eyes, the gleaming sharpness changing to soft flesh and skin. She stared at him, feeling the urge to bolt out of there. Slowly he took her hand, and she cringed at first. But his touch was so gentle, his eyes so pleading, that she let him lead her back into the main room. He slumped down into one of the wooden chairs. Sighing, he put his head in his hands. She pulled up the other chair and waited. “I’m old,” he began. “Very old.”
He fell silent then, and she wondered if he was going to continue. “What?” she finally said. “You’ve reached the ancient age of twenty-four?”
“No. Older.” He looked intently into her eyes. “I was born in 1739. In London.”
Madeline stared. “What?”
“Yes. And when I was twenty-four, something terrible happened.”
He went quiet again for a long time, and she realized how hard it was for him to talk about this. His eyes cast downward, and his brow creased. She wondered if he’d ever even spoken these words before.
He swallowed hard. “I encountered him.”
“The creature?”
Noah nodded. The rims of his eyes turned red. “But before that, before my life was torn apart, something wonderful happened.” He fell silent again.
“What?”
“I fell in love.”
She waited.
Noah’s eyes grew distant. He looked beyond Madeline, toward the window. “Anna. I first saw her at the opera. She was gazing down at the performers, her eyes bright and excited. I learned later that was her first visit to the opera house. I was immediately enchanted. My family was very wealthy and knew almost every other family of means in Vienna. I begged them to throw a ball so that I could meet her, and they agreed. On the twenty-sixth of May, she walked into my house, that same look of youth and excitement glowing on her face. I stole her dance card and wrote my name down for most of the dances, then placed it back by her fan when she wasn’t watching. She laughed when she saw the card.” Noah cast his eyes down. “I still remember her laugh so vividly.
“I courted her for two years, and when I became successful as an investor, I was ready to propose. But I wasn’t the only one. She had a slew of suitors who regularly called on her. All this time she’d been learning the pianoforte, and came to play it amazingly well. She began playing at parties and gatherings, and many people took note of her exceptional talent. One such person was a newcomer to Vienna, a wealthy entrepreneur with some distant relative who was an acquaintance of her family.
“He took an intense interest in Anna, often visiting to hear her play. I thought his interest was purely romantic at first. But as it turned out, it was far worse than that. He feeds upon exceptional people, you see. He craves new strengths and abilities and ingests his victims’ knowledge, their experiences, and then uses it to infiltrate yet another group and continue the cycle.” He clasped his hands tightly together, till his knuckles grew white. Madeline resisted the urge to comfort him. She wanted to hear the story, wanted to understand. Though at first he’d begun merely to explain to her, now she felt he was exorcising ghosts of the past.
“One night, Anna’s family was away in Salzburg and had left her behind with her brother, Gregor. He spent most of his time drinking and carousing and brought all sorts of unsavory types back to the house.
“On this night, he brought home several men to play cards with. They were all drunk. Anna was playing the piano in the sitting room. I came by to call on her. She was happily playing; her brother’s habits seldom affected her adversely, though she hated to see him drink so much. A Welshman, Ffyllon, had passed out on the settee, and Gregor asked me to carry him to one of the bedrooms. When I got back, he was standing over her while she played, and Madeline, you could feel the lust coming off him. His eyes filled with it, gleaming as he watched her play. He didn’t even see me enter. The other guests had left the room to play cards in the parlor.
“I had been watching for only a second when he began to… change. He opened his mouth, revealing a hideous row of sharp teeth, and he lunged down, sinking into her neck.
“I cried out-and that’s when he realized I was there. He tore away from her and sprang toward me on all fours, his body becoming more squat and animalistic, his skin darkening till it was completely black. Then he was on top of me, his gray eyes enlarging to red orbs that glowed fiercely. He clawed at me, raked my chest and neck like he was in a frenzy. I fought as best I could, punched and kicked, but it was useless. He had so much power! I knew he was going to kill me, and the thought was terrifying. And then above the scuffle, I heard this gut-wrenching sob. He stopped attacking me and turned to the piano. Anna had fallen from the bench and was trying to stand. Blood covered her yellow dress, staining it scarlet down the front.
“ ‘Get away from him,’ she hissed, and I’d never heard her like that before. Her eyes were narrow and threatening, her face contorted in anger and pain.
“He left me there and stalked over to her as I struggled to get to my knees. As he reached her, she lifted her hand high. Something gleamed there, but I couldn’t see what. I tried to get to my feet. And then she brought it down on the creature, driving it deeply into his neck. He screamed and bolted away from her, red eyes wide with surprise. He burst from the room and crashed through one of the French doors.
“Anna collapsed. I rushed to her side and cradled her head…” Noah’s voice cracked painfully. “I could see how bad… how bad she was hurt. I took off my cravat and pressed it tightly to the wound. ‘The metal,’ she started to say, and then she choked. Blood bubbled on her lips.” He bit the corner of his mouth. “I remember she said, ‘Oh, Noah, I wanted to marry you…’
“And then she was gone. Her eyes just went vacant. I clutched her to my chest and kissed her lips and hands, her blood in my mouth. I begged to have her back, begged God, the earth, begged time itself, but still she lay there, lifeless, pale, and limp.”
Noah broke into tears, and this time Madeline did get up and put her arms around him. She held him tightly while he cried. He wrapped his arms around her. “It was so long ago, but the pain is still so fresh that the very thought of it breaks me down.” He continued to cry, and Madeline brought him closer.
After a while, Noah said from her shoulder, “It was the blood.”
Madeline’s brow wrinkled. “What?” Gently she pushed him up so she could see his face. His expression was dire, his eyes cheerless and empty.
“The blood,” he said again. “When I kissed her hand, I tasted blood. What I didn’t realize was that it was his blood-the creature’s blood. When she stabbed him, it spilled down her hand, and I had ingested it.”
“What happened?”
“At first nothing. Full of grief and obsessed with revenge, I wandered the underbelly of Vienna, trying to find someone who knew of the creature. I had one drive: to find the thing and destroy it. Polite society, save one person, ostracized me. That one person was one of Gregor’s frequent visitors to the house: Ffyllon. He knew of the creature and its weakness, a certain type of metal. It was this friend who had given Anna the metal, in the shape of a letter opener, and told her of the creature. He wasn’t specific, but at the time I got the impression he’d been following the creature for some time. He said Anna had laughed at him when he offered the letter opener for protection, but she had taken it in appreciation of his good story about a roaming, voracious creature.
“A few days later I found Ffyllon’s body, murdered by the creature. His journal was on him, and I read it. He had followed the thing to Vienna, worried that it intended to kill a musician named Anna. In his journal, he wonders if the drinks he had the night Anna was murdered were drugged. With the hunter passed out, the creature had open access to his target.”
“Did you still have the letter opener?”
“No. When she stabbed him with it, it must have stayed embedded in him when he ran off that night. Everything happened so fast-” He exhaled shakily.
“Did this friend help you find another weapon?”
Noah shook his head. “No. He disappeared right after that and was killed before he could help me further. I vowed to take up his quest, but spiraled ever downward. Eventually I found a piece of the special metal, though, and had a knife made out of it.”
Madeline considered for a minute, then said, “Is it the same knife that’s in your pack?”
Noah raised his eyebrows. “Going through my things?”
“I needed to look at the map.”
“Ah. Yes, it’s the same knife.”
Madeline resisted the urge to tell him she’d felt how old and important it was when she’d touched it.
“I thought once I had the knife, I’d just find him and kill him. But it was far more complicated than that. I don’t think he has an inherent human form. He can look like anyone he’s eaten. Anyone at all. I realized that the hard way when a stranger attacked me in an alley in Cardiff. The creature had taken on another appearance, but I didn’t realize it until then. He’d been stalking me not only because I was a witness, but because he had been unable to eat Anna, and he wanted revenge. I slashed him with the knife, but only shallowly. He flew into a rage, twisting and screaming. He tore out of the alley and into the streets.
“For a long time after that I didn’t know where he’d gone. He covers his trail well. But little clues, like accounts of people with exceptional talent gone missing or murdered gave me his whereabouts.
“And so I’ve been hunting him. Across four continents, for over two hundred years, it’s all I’ve done.”
He sighed and put his head back in his hands.
Madeline just stared at him, not knowing what to say. Finally she asked, “But how are you still alive?”
Noah stayed silent for several moments, then he looked up at her, his eyes tired and bloodshot.
“The blood,” he said. “Over time I noticed… changes. I was able to see in the dark. I rarely needed to eat. I was more energetic and started noticing that I was aging quite well. Then I realized it was a little too well. Fifty years went by. On those rare occasions when I returned home, I saw that my friends had gotten wrinkles and grown stiff, and I still looked the same. Then they started to die of old age. And I still looked twenty-four. Later, when I was very emotional, when feeling anger or”-he looked at her-“passion, I began to change physically. The more time goes by, the more I change, the more abilities I gain.” Noah fell silent.
“What abilities?” The tremble returned within her.
“The power to heal quickly. To see in the dark. To not need much sleep. To change small parts of my appearance, like growing claws. I’m not nearly as powerful as the creature, but I’ve been learning as I go.” He paused. “The usual things won’t kill me anymore. I found that out through accidents that have happened over the years. I was hit by a train once. And while it didn’t kill me, it took me weeks to heal completely. Still, mere weeks after having my body pulverized isn’t bad.
“I began to get completely absorbed with it. I didn’t have to fear death anymore and became obsessed with that fact. I even tried to kill myself in a few different ways, just to see if it would work. It never did. But I’ve longed to die a few times over these last centuries. I just didn’t want the responsibility anymore. I just couldn’t keep on hunting him fruitlessly, year after year.”
They sat together for several long moments.
“What is he?” Madeline asked at last.
Noah shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s either completely nonhuman, a creature all his own, or he’s a man like me-a man who was attacked by the same kind of creature, a long, long time ago.”
“Why long ago?”
“Because what you’ve seen me do-the claws, the eyes-has taken me two hundred years to develop. At first I couldn’t even do that. I’d try to grow claws, and instead freakish things would happen. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to undo them for a while. Like once I grew fingernails in my leg, and another time a finger sprouted out of my stomach. It was excruciating learning how to control the power, and I still know next to nothing. I think if I’d gotten a larger dose of his blood, I might have more power and be able to control it better, like him. He can shape-shift, adopt the features of other people, change his flesh to metal. If he was ever a man, he was so thousands of years ago.” He paused. “But there’s something else that makes me think he’s nonhuman.”
“What’s that?”
“He eats people. Has a terrible appetite for them. But I don’t feel anything like that. This change that’s happening-it isn’t bringing with it a desire to eat human flesh. And maybe that’s because I was human to begin with but he wasn’t.”
“Or maybe,” Madeline added, “it’s because that change hasn’t happened to you yet.”
“Don’t say that!” he snapped. “I’ll never be like him.”
She was taken aback. “I’m sorry,” she said after a pause. “I didn’t mean it like that… I know you never would have…” She thought of Noah cradling his love in his arms as she slipped away, and immediately regretted what she’d said.
“Whatever he was to begin with, creature or human, he was evil. I’m sure of that. And I’m not like that.”
“I didn’t think you were, Noah. I know you’re not. You saved me, remember?”
He closed his eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so defensive. It’s just… I’ve asked myself that same question so many times. ‘Am I going to turn out like him?’ I have to tell myself no. And I have to keep believing it.”
Madeline looked at him intently. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him… to be aging and not know how he’d turn out, if he’d become a beast, to lose someone so special and live hundreds of years without her. “I’m sorry for what you went through,” she said, and the words felt inconsequential in the face of such loss. But she could understand what it was like to be different, to be a social freak. And Noah was hiding it from her, just like she had hidden her own ability. But now he’d been honest with her. And maybe she should return the favor. “Noah,” she said, after they’d been quiet for a long time. “I lied before when I said I didn’t have any exceptional talents.”
He looked at her with surprise. “You did?”
She looked down. “Yes. It’s just that I came out here to get away from it… the negative attention, the imposed segregation. I just wanted to be normal.” She sighed, thinking about the traumatic experiences of the last two days. “It hasn’t been terribly successful.”
Noah arched his eyebrows with curiosity, watching her expectantly.
She was silent for a moment, thinking how best to tell him.
Finally he urged, “What exceptional talents do you have?”
“Well… give me your watch.”
“What?”
“Don’t say anything about it; just hand it to me.”
“Okay.” He began unbuckling it, and Madeline took in its physical characteristics. It was a digital watch with a green nylon band. He handed it to her, and she opened that door in her mind, letting the images flow. As each one came, she told Noah what she saw.
“You bought this watch in Missoula, Montana,” she told him. “It was a hot day, and you’d really wanted a watch with a built-in altimeter, but it was too expensive. After you bought this watch, you drank coffee in a little café called Cool Beans. Once you thought you’d lost the watch, but it turned out that you’d just left it in the net pocket inside your tent. The next time you pitched the tent, there it was.” She was quiet for a moment, still holding on to the watch. “Oh, and there’s something else… your grandfather…”
Noah’s face went white.
“That’s why you were so upset about losing the watch. You thought, ‘Can’t I have a watch without losing it?’ Your grandfather had given you a pocket watch, and you lost it. Just last year. You held on to it for two hundred years, and now it’s gone. And you resent yourself for it.” She paused. “It’s in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. You stopped to drink tea with an older woman, a relative, no, a descendent of your family. You left your pocket watch on her side table. She’s still got it. You just have to call her.”
Noah just stared at her. She handed the watch back. He didn’t put it back on, just held it with wonder as if it contained magic itself. Then he said, “Madeline, that’s amazing! How did you know all that?” He sat back and stared at her in astonishment.
“It’s a talent I’ve had for as long as I can remember. I get images, feelings, from anything I touch. I can tell who touched it last, what they were thinking about at the time, where they were, sometimes even where they were planning to go next.”
“It’s amazing!” Then with a thoughtful look, he added, “Up on the mountain, when I pulled you free of the driftwood, you murmured things about a house in Vienna. I thought it was strange at the time. But now I understand.” Then: “So my pocket watch is really in Scottsbluff?”
Madeline nodded, then had to laugh, a tired laugh. “It’s nice to have someone react positively to this. I’m not very… popular where I come from.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my parents noticed that I had this ‘gift’ when I was really little. My dad came home one night with a bottle of wine for my mom, telling her he’d had to work late. I was sitting at the kitchen table, and when he set the bottle down, I touched it. Instantly I got an image of him kissing this other woman. They’d bought the wine together but had a fight, so he came home. I was only six. I described it there on the spot. I didn’t know how it would tear my family apart. My mom was so hurt. It’s the first time I remember her crying. They got divorced shortly after that and took turns taking care of me. But I could tell both were spooked by me. They didn’t want me to touch their personal possessions. Some nights they’d fight about me, how they felt like they had no privacy around me. They hid my ability, told me never to reveal it to anyone. But it was a tough thing to hide. Back then I couldn’t control it well, couldn’t shut it off. Eventually word got around. I stopped getting invited places. People didn’t like the idea of me being in their houses, touching counters, fridge handles, whatever, and getting flashes of things that were personal.
“I had to teach myself to control it, to block out images when I didn’t want them. I didn’t want everyone’s life to be an open book. I didn’t want to know their sordid affairs or private longings. I hated it.
“But they never seemed to get that. I hate going into town, like when I need to go the grocery store. My town is so small that everyone knows who I am. They don’t want to touch me when they hand me change. Checkers will suddenly close lanes if they see me waiting.
“Only one friend stuck around. Ellie.” She looked down at her lap, the pain still unendurable. “But even that changed when I was fourteen.” She couldn’t bring herself to finish. She’d barely even talked about this with George, the only person she confided in back home. Putting it into words was just too difficult.
“What happened when you were fourteen?” Noah asked at last.
She looked off toward the window, reluctant to answer his question. “A couple years before that, there was a rash of killings in Montana. All the victims were men in their thirties and forties, who were killed while in the outdoors, generally while hunting or fishing. The victims were… flayed. Flayed alive, the police realized after autopsies had been performed. And all the murders happened on the night before a new moon.”
“Hey… I remember this!” Noah said suddenly. “There was a media frenzy! The press dubbed the murderer the Sickle Moon Killer. Didn’t he also-”
Madeline nodded; her hands gone clammy. “Yes. He would eat skin from his victims, then regurgitate it. It was a ritual to separate himself from his abusive father. He killed men similar to his father, then ate them, making the men ‘blood of his blood,’ as he described later in an interview. Then he threw them up to forever divorce himself from those men, in essence rejecting his father on a deeply emotional and biological level.
“The police had no leads. They staked out some likely places, recreation areas, popular fishing sites, things like that, but they never caught anyone. Then suddenly the killings stopped. Police thought something may have happened to the killer, that he himself was killed or put in jail on some other charge. Two years went by.
“But neither was the case. The killer was just reestablishing himself in a new town. A man named Sam MacCready moved in down the street from us, and everyone thought he was pretty nice and quiet, but he gave me the creeps.
“Ellie and I used to go out to this spot near an old dam and hang out and talk. It was one of the few places we could get privacy in that town. We’d go for long hikes and talk about everything under the sun. Our parents. Boys. We both shared a passion for wildlife watching and nature.” Madeline paused, the memory of her friend alive. “She never judged me or was reluctant around me. Never treated me like a pariah. She even defended me at times.”
She stopped talking, wanting to linger in that warm area of good memories, of her stalwart companion. She didn’t want to finish. Finishing meant killing Ellie all over again.
“And what happened?”
Madeline bit her lip. “On one of these hikes, Ellie dropped her bracelet. Her grandmother had left it to her, and Ellie was really attached to it. We backtracked, doing a bit of bushwacking. We’d been eating some huckleberries along the way and had stepped off the trail a number of times. She got ahead of me, went out of sight, hurrying because we didn’t have much time before dark.” Her voice trailed off.
As Madeline told the story, her mind left the room and the little cabin in Glacier National Park. It moved, tentatively at first, back to that day by the river. Then it rushed, tumbling, crashing back to those memories still so fresh. She felt the weight of the grief, the sheer, shocking power of those images, and soon was no longer in the cabin with Noah at all.
She was back at the North Cascade River, in those last few minutes with Ellie.
Madeline was sure Ellie had lost her bracelet while picking berries. She stopped at a huckleberry bush they’d spent a lot of time at while Ellie moved farther up the trail to look near a thimbleberry bush. As Madeline bent over, searching the ground, a gleam of metal caught her eye. It flashed in the sunlight, some four feet from the path. Madeline walked to it, sure it was the bracelet. But instead she found a knife, recently dropped. The blade was clean, no dirt or sign of lengthy exposure to the elements. She stooped and picked it up, and images rushed into her.
Sam MacCready torturing a man, making slices in his skin and peeling it off like sheets.
The victim screaming as MacCready bent forward for more flesh.
The victim lifeless, cast to one side, wet muscles gleaming in the sunlight, the skin completely gone.
MacCready picking up a handful of skin and pushing it into his mouth, stifling the gag reflex and swallowing, the sweet sensation of the act momentarily overpowering the anguish of his life.
Then vomiting up the skin, MacCready thinking of his father and his cruel eyes, the sting of the old man’s hand across his cheek, the pain of his father’s fingers digging into his skin as he hurled insults at his little boy.
Euphoria sweeping through him as he looked at the pieces of regurgitated flesh, a ritual to purge himself from his overbearing father and save other sons from their own oppressors.
Madeline threw the knife aside as she fell forward, landing hard on her knees in the dirt. She tried to separate her own mind from MacCready’s, but for a long and horrible moment they were one. She forced her eyes to close and tried to dispel the images. But they were too strong, as if she’d been there with him, reveling in his crimes, eating the flesh of his victims.
She stood up, the forest swimming back into view. And before her stood MacCready, his face contorted in fear. He held Ellie in front of him, a knife to her throat. Tears streamed down her face.
MacCready looked down at the knife Madeline had thrown aside, then back up to her face. “You’re that girl from town,” he said, and Madeline felt the weight of his statement hit her like a punch. “What did you see?’
She shook her head. Ellie started shaking uncontrollably. Madeline noticed then that Ellie had blood on her hands, knees, part of her shirt. MacCready was covered with it.
She tried to formulate a plan, some kind of escape, but her mind was numb. She didn’t know how she could wrestle the knife away from him, but there was no way in hell she was going to let him take Ellie. In a rush of anger, she ran straight at him. He jumped back in surprise, and Ellie twisted free.
They ran, crashing through the underbrush with MacCready close behind. In a few moments they hit the river trail, taking off at full speed with Ellie in the lead. Madeline could hear her friend’s ragged breath, their footsteps muffled by the blanket of fallen pine needles.
As they rounded a large boulder, a flash of movement streaked down from above. MacCready landed violently on top of Ellie, and she went down hard. Madeline barely stopped short of colliding with them. She darted around MacCready, who struggled to regain his balance. Madeline had almost reached her friend’s side when she realized Ellie wasn’t moving. She lay on the riverbank, her head against a rock and a stream of blood trickling onto the sand. MacCready leapt toward Madeline, and she dodged out of the way. As he turned, he clumsily bumped Ellie’s side, rolling her into the river.
As the current took Ellie’s body, Madeline ran downstream and dove in, muscles instantly robbed of warmth. MacCready followed, hitting the water at the same time she did. Coarse hands grabbed her in the icy water and shoved her head under. The roar of the river grew louder as they tumbled through a rapid, Madeline’s shoulder hitting a submerged boulder. The jarring bump tore her out of MacCready’s grip. She gasped for air and kept swimming, searching for Ellie.
Struggling to keep her head above water, she didn’t see Ellie at all. Instead, the cement of the old dam loomed up before her, a barricade across the river. Rocketing fast toward the wall, she put her feet out first and collided with the cement, doubling over and hitting her head on the dam. Gripping the stone with fingers gone numb, she pulled herself out, fighting the rush of the water. Ellie was still nowhere in sight, and Madeline hoped desperately she’d climbed out farther upriver. She stood there for a few tense moments, not sure if she should run back to town for help or keep watching for her in the water.
When MacCready bounced into sight, aiming for the dam, Madeline ran upriver, searching for Ellie. Finally, worried that her friend could die if more people weren’t brought into the search, she ran for town.
Madeline went quiet, one hand resting on her silver bracelet. Noah watched her silently, momentarily placing a hand on her shoulder. The forest faded away. The roar of the North Cascade River grew distant, and her heart beat dully, her mind returning to the present, to the little cabin in Glacier, and to Noah. “It’s all so vivid still,” she said.
“You don’t have to finish.”
“I know. I want to.” She closed her stinging eyes for a moment and then went on. “At the police station, I told them about MacCready and Ellie. They sent out a search party. Searchers found a new Sickle Moon Killer victim in the woods and called in the Feds. But it wasn’t until four days later that they found Ellie’s body.”
“Oh, God,” Noah breathed.
“She’d been caught in one of the old turbine holes of the dam. But she was dead before that, probably on impact with the rock, they think.”
“I am so sorry.”
“A week later, I went back and found her bracelet.” She held up her wrist. “I keep it inside this little silver box. I haven’t taken it off since.” Madeline felt her throat constrict. “I killed her.”
“What?”
“If I hadn’t been there, if MacCready hadn’t known about my ability, he wouldn’t have freaked. She’d still be alive.”
“No,” Noah said firmly. “You can’t think that. You’re no more responsible for her death than I am for Anna’s.” He took her arms and frowned at her. “Do you hear me?”
Madeline didn’t respond. It was her fault.
Noah released her. She met his eyes. “The Feds got a search warrant for MacCready’s house. In a closet they found skin from all the Sickle Moon killings. They’d got him.”
“I remember that… his trial… the media sensationalized it. He’s still in prison, isn’t he?”
“No. He was killed in a prison fight last year. I still can’t quite believe it. For years I was afraid he’d break out and find me. Now he’s gone.”
Noah shuddered. “That was a terrible case.”
“A lot of people got scared about the whole thing,” she said. “Even after he was caught, there was still an air of fear in some campgrounds and fishing spots. They kept me out of the newspapers, but the townspeople knew I’d played a part in his capture. I think a lot of them blamed me for Ellie, too. That experience permanently tainted my gift for me. It cost me my only friend. After that, when I was sixteen, my parents suggested I move out on my own. They still helped me with money, because no one in town would hire me. But they asked me around less and less. I rarely see them now. Until a couple weeks ago, I didn’t even think they knew exactly where I lived.”
Noah took her hands in his and squeezed. His touch was warm and comforting, full of good energy. She leaned forward and placed her head on his shoulder, and he gently stroked her hair.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said softly.
“Your life sounds as lonely as mine.”
She pulled away and looked at him. “I’m sorry you experienced such a loss. I can’t even imagine…” Her voice trailed off.
He closed his eyes and nodded. “We’ve both been through some pretty terrible stuff.”
“Including the last twenty-four hours,” she put in.
“Including the last twenty-four hours,” he agreed.
A second flesh eater. Madeline closed her eyes in horror. Finally she opened them, regarding Noah closely. “I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you, hunting him all this time, seeing one person after another killed. How many victims?”
“One hundred and sixty-four that I know of. A hundred and sixty-four whom he targeted and hunted. Maybe more. And then there are people, like that ranger, who just got in his way. It’s hard to say how many of those. He covers his tracks well. He can completely destroy a body.”
Madeline nodded. She thought of the silver spike plunging deep into the body of the men who had harassed her. Once again she felt conflict. Though he terrified her, she was relieved he had been there. She thought about the hundreds of victims over the years, bodies reduced to ashes.
“This is strange,” Noah suddenly said. “He’s blown his cover to you. Usually he insinuates himself into a person’s life as a friend, then hangs around frequently, learning more about them until he makes his move. Like he did with Anna.” Noah looked away painfully. “This whole situation with you is different. Why appear to you as a beast first?”
“Touch me.” She’d seen his true self, not a mimic. “How long has he been hunting me?”
Noah furrowed his brow. “For months, I think. At least, that’s when he first showed up in this area, though I didn’t arrive here until just a few weeks ago when I picked up on his trail.”
He grew silent, watching her openly, his secrets laid out.
She stared back. Months. And the first indication she’d had of being watched was just before the flash flood hit. They both went quiet, looking at each other, nothing hidden between them now.
At last he stood up, took her hand, and led her to the bedroom. He stretched out on the bed, rolling over on his back, and reached out to take her hand. Gently he pulled her to him, and she laid her head down on his chest. Madeline lost track of time there, feeling his chest rise and fall, hearing the deep thud of his heartbeat. Though they didn’t speak, they were united in their thoughts of their pasts, presents, and futures-how all the events leading up until now had brought them to this one moment in time.
Then Noah rolled over on his side, wrapped one arm around her, and pulled her flush with his body. She turned her head to face him. The light from the main room bathed half his face, while the other lay in shadow. Her eyes moved to his lips, and he pulled her closer, mouths inches apart. She could feel his warm breath on her and tilted her head slightly, bringing them closer. Slowly their lips met, and she felt desire bloom within her. She drank in his scent as they kissed still more passionately, their mouths meeting perfectly again and again as if they’d been kissing each other for years.
He rolled on top of her, and her stomach thrilled to the feeling of him. She wrapped one leg around him, and he brought his knee up, half kneeling over her while he kissed her deeply. His lips left her face, tongue darting out over her neck and bringing a moan to her lips. She could feel that his teeth had gone sharp as they grazed against her skin, but she didn’t flinch.
He pulled up and looked down on her, eyes gone red and gleaming in the dark. She touched his face, and he stared down at her with passionate hunger. Then his hands traced down her face to her neck, collarbones, then chest. Gently he ran his fingers over her breasts, pausing on each nipple, stroking them, making them erect. She opened her mouth in pleasure, eyes fluttering in her head, and arched her back beneath him.
His hands on her breasts caused the warmth between her legs to erupt into a fire, and he lowered his hips over hers. She could feel the heat of his erection through his jeans, pressing first against her inner thigh, then blissfully between her legs. He moaned, wrapping his arms around her and writhing against her, their lips meeting again. When the kisses grew so intense she felt herself melting away into a fiery abyss, she pulled away.
She needed a moment. Needed to digest everything. Breathlessly she said, “I’ve got to think about all of this.” Just processing that he still wanted to be close to her, even knowing her ability, was a lot.
Noah looked at her with desire, his smoky eyes making it hard for her to turn away. But she had to think, and being this close to him made that hard.
He sighed. “I suppose you’re right… Despite this strange connection I feel to you, we have only just met.” He gave her one more long kiss before meeting her gaze again with resignation. “And we do have a lot of sleeping to catch up on. I didn’t get any last night-spent the whole night creeping through the forest looking for you.”
Madeline felt a twinge of guilt at that, Noah searching for her while she slept away in the rock crevice. But she hadn’t intended to fall asleep in there. “Guess I’ll go change into my PJs,” he said.
“Okay. In the meantime, I’ll check all the locks.”
“Again?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Can you blame me?”
He sighed. “No. I can’t. In fact, I think I’ll check them when you’re done checking them.”
“And then I can check them again.”
Noah smiled, then held her gaze for a moment in silence, his eyes still burning, his lips so kissable-
She turned away, stood up, and left the room. Noah followed her out, got clothes out of his pack, and returned to the bedroom, partially closing the bedroom door behind him.
Madeline couldn’t help but glance through the crack in the door. Noah peeled off his long-sleeved cotton shirt in favor of a black T-shirt. As the cotton left his body, her eyes took in the smoothness of his skin, his muscular sides and chest, his flat stomach. His bare arms, working now to pull on the T-shirt, were muscular and toned, his biceps alone as big as a calf muscle. He was perfectly proportioned, inviting collarbones accentuating his already fiendishly attractive chest. And then the T-shirt covered him up.
Madeline swallowed and looked away, feeling oddly embarrassed for gawking. She supposed constantly being on the move, constantly pushing himself kept him in shape. And what a lovely shape. Oh my.
“I think I’ll take the couch,” she said.
Noah appeared at the crack in the door. “No way! You get the bed.”
She shook her head. “You’ve done so much for me, paid for this place, even, and I would just be too racked with guilt if you slept on the couch.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she added quickly, “I insist.”
He shook his head hopelessly and gave a little smile. “Okay.” Then he turned away to resume getting ready for bed.
Madeline sighed and looked down at the couch, forcing her body to cool down. Parts of her ached for Noah, and she told those parts to cool it. Even though they’d been through a lot together, she barely even knew him.
As she took the cushions off the couch and pulled out the hideaway bed, Noah appeared from the bedroom. “Ready to go brush our teeth?”
Madeline started. “Out there? Again? Where that thing is?”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I think I’d rather be irresponsible and not brush my teeth tonight. Damn. Why couldn’t they make these cabins with bathrooms?”
“Too cheap?”
“Can’t I just use a cup and some water from your canteen?”
Noah relented. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll do the same.”
They brushed their teeth in silence, Noah doling out water from his Nalgene bottle, and Madeline just glad to stay indoors, away from the creature.
“Madeline,” he said when she was finished brushing, “help me catch the creature.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “What?” Her gut sank.
“Help me catch him. With your gift and my knowledge, we could stop him. I can feel it.”
She shook her head, her gut wrenching at the thought. “No. I’m just a college student. I’m no vigilante.”
“But how can you ignore your gift like that? Especially after you already caught one killer?”
“My gift?” she spat. “It’s no goddamn gift. It’s not some knitted handbag my grandmother gave me. It’s made my life hell. You think I wanted to see those terrible things the Sickle Moon Killer did to those men?” She threw her toothbrush and the little tube of toothpaste into Noah’s backpack and stalked away. If that thing weren’t out there, she would have stormed out of the cabin right then.
Fear. Plain old mind-numbing fear swept over her.
“Madeline,” he said. “I know you’re hurting. I know it’s been hard. I’m just saying that this is your chance to turn that ability around, make it work for you.”
She exhaled sharply, turning to look at him. “This is exactly what I don’t want. What I came out here to avoid. Don’t ask me to do this. That thing almost killed me! You can’t expect me to go up against it!”
He shook his head. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I asked too soon.”
“Too soon?” she raised her voice again. “No, please don’t ask me again. I’m sorry, Noah, but I just can’t. I came out here to try to scrape together a semblance of a normal life. Now my life is in danger and frankly… I’m terrified.”
He stared at her, then his eyes narrowed, and he went into the bedroom, leaving Madeline outside with her ghosts of Ellie and the Sickle Moon Killer. Before he shut the door, he said quietly, “I can see you’re terrified. But if you could just think about it-I can take you to his latest hideout, a cabin near here. You could touch his belongings.”
Madeline felt so opposed to the idea that she was shaking her head before he even finished.
“Please,” he said. “Think about it.”
Then he shut the door between them.
With Noah breathing softly in the bedroom, Madeline lay in the main room, unable to sleep. Why had she insisted on taking the foldout bed? Her face still felt flushed in anger at his request. She’d never escape this cursed ability. For a while she’d felt almost like a normal person with Noah. Now her “gift” loomed between them, just like every other relationship she’d tried to have.
Her mind wouldn’t rest, kept sweeping over the story he’d told her.
Noah was over two hundred years old.
She thought of the old journal she’d found in his backpack. At the time, she’d never dreamed it was his journal, just some keepsake he’d picked up on his journeys. The temptation to peek inside now was overwhelming. She glanced over at his backpack, which still sat on one of the chairs. But she couldn’t invade his privacy like that.
Throwing a worn, yellow blanket aside, a blanket she suspected had been living unwashed on that couch for nigh on thirty years and had probably developed its own rudimentary sense of logic and arithmetic, she crept to Noah’s bedroom.
“Noah?” she whispered when she got there.
He stirred.
“Noah?”
“Yes?”
“Sorry to wake you.”
“No problem.”
“It’s just I…” She faltered.
From the light filtering in from the main room, she could just make out his shadowed form on the bed. The sheets draped over his body, and he propped himself up on one elbow.
“Your journal… is it a record of hunting the creature?”
He nodded. “A spotty record. I’m not very good at journaling. When I first began, I wrote almost every day. Now I write once a decade if I’m lucky. Two hundred years, and I never had to buy a second book.” He smiled.
She felt uncomfortable, nosy. “I know this is a terrible thing to ask, but I was curious to look at it. Just to get a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”
“Hmmm… well… I guess that would be all right. Just don’t pay much attention to the whole ‘girl in every city’ theme. And that barmaid in France? It was just a fling.”
Madeline began to doubt if she wanted to read the thing after all.
“And the herd of goats in Greece was really more of a roll in the hay. Heh.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m kidding. There was no barmaid. No girl in every city. I may look as dashing as Captain Kirk, but I don’t have a gorgeous alien lover on every planet. Not even on this planet.” He stared at her from the shadows, a thin slice of light falling across half of his face. “But suddenly I’m not opposed to the thought of being with someone again…”
Their eyes locked, and she smiled.
“The journal is in my backpack. Have at it.”
She could think of two things at that moment she’d like to have at but opted for the journal. It was a little less daunting and would give a clearer idea of the other thing if she read it.
He winked devilishly at her, and she turned away with difficulty, intent on at least making it to the backpack. When she reached inside and her fingers closed around the diary, though, a great sadness swept over her, the same as on the mountain.
She returned to the sofa, climbed under the nearly sentient yellow blanket, and began to read.
July 14, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
I feel that I should keep a record of my tribulations so that, if I am found dead, and someone else takes up the cause, they will at least know something of the creature which I pursue relentlessly, and will be better armed with information in order to stop it.
I find it too painful to relate the details of how I came to be on this desolate mountain trail, weary from exertion, following a killer. Perhaps later I will be able to write about it. But suffice it to say that Stefan, this thing, this terror, killed my beloved, and I will stop at nothing until he is destroyed.
For days I have been tracking the vile beast. I spotted the fiend in an alleyway in Vienna and have been following him ever since. Now I trail far behind, however, the high elevation of this mountain pass robbing me of my stamina. My head pounds, chest heaves. I am not used to moving so quickly, carrying so much weight, or steadily climbing upward across slippery, gray talus slopes and melting snowfields.
The crumbling slope to the right of my path is nearly vertical, leading down to a steep valley far below. On the other side of the narrow, tree-filled ravine lie more peaks, the snowy Alps stretching to the horizon.
I struggle on, stomach rumbling with hunger. Repeatedly I attempt unsuccessfully to rearrange the uncomfortably heavy assortment of objects on my back: a clunky pot, a heavy bag of rice and coffee beans, an unwieldy canvas tent and its splintery wooden stakes. It is really just a lean-to at this point. I had to abandon the wood for its frame when I lost a handcart wheel over the edge of a precipitous section of trail yesterday. Realizing I would have to leave the handcart behind, I piled what I could into the tent, transforming it into a makeshift pack for my back and continued on, trying to follow the creature’s footprints in the mud and melting snow.
Today as I stumbled across the crumbling stones of a rock field, the sharp whistles of some nearby rodents caused my head to snap violently in that direction. I know they are just rodents, watching me from their hiding holes in the rocks, but my nerves are frayed. Any sharp noise has me starting anxiously.
I am not used to such hardship. An English aristocrat raised in the heart of London, whose parents moved me to Vienna at the age of 22, the most arduous task I have ever undertaken before this was stumbling home dead drunk from Herr Grusschen’s pub, the Heart and Feather, on Bär Strasse. One night two rogues tried to rob me as I tripped and swayed over the cobblestones on a darkened street. I brandished my sword, nicked one of the seedy, bearded perpetrators, though more through drunken clumsiness than skill, and managed to drive them off by spewing a stream of slurred obscenities at them and threatening to call for the authorities.
At the time I bragged about the encounter, embellishing the story without mercy, telling my friends about the murderous fiends I had driven off that foggy night.
That life feels a thousand miles away now. I was so carefree, so naive. What did I know then of “murderous fiends”? Nothing. My entire lesson on murder has been taught by the creature, on that dreaded night two months ago when he tore out my love’s throat and nearly ended my own life on the cold, tiled floor of her manor house, as unknowing friends slumbered peacefully a floor above.
The rodents whistle again. I think I am growing accustomed to it. I know nothing of alpine fauna, though it would be nice to catch a juicy, fat rodent and cook it up. I am so tired of rice. My life was once the symphony, the opera, the taverns. I have never hiked this high before. Certainly never carried my own baggage. My feet ache and are covered with blisters, my hands callused and covered with deep, bleeding cracks from the dry air.
July 17, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
Earlier today a rock shifted beneath my feet. Off balance, I leaned forward to compensate, but instead swung forward heavily under the weight of my pack and pitched toward the ground violently. With a painful crunch, I landed face-first in the field of stone, edges of sharp rock cutting gashes in my freezing hands.
I did not rise immediately. I lay there, face pressed against the cold, sharp points, and tried to catch my breath. I am growing so weary, getting clumsy in my fatigue. I have to stop to rest.
It is too dangerous up here to take any chances with exhaustion. I must find a sheltered spot up next to a granite outcrop and set up my pathetic lean-to for the night, even though it is only early afternoon.
I have not been able to sleep. Oh, what I would give for some beefsteak and a stein of ale. Instead I have only salted meats, which I am dreadful sick of, and the never-ending rice.
I must stop now and make a fire, melt some snow, boil the rice… My stomach growls now at the thought of it.
July 20, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
Night comes close behind, blanketing the eastern mountains in darkness, while above the clouds burn bright gold, and then intense pink. On the highest peaks, alpenglow shines, painting the mountains an intense shade of magenta and scarlet.
Too exhausted to go on, I have been watching the brilliant play of light. How beautiful it is up here. How I would love to have watched this sunset with Anna.
But I will never have the chance to. That sudden sickening realization presses in on me. My whole life will be filled with moments like this, beautiful moments made hollow by the lack of her presence. There will be a countless stream of things I will never do with her: picnics in the country, carriage rides in the heart of Vienna, making love beneath a canopied wedding bed.
The brilliant red fades to gray on the peaks. A few minutes ago, I clenched my teeth so hard I bit myself severely. Then unable to control myself I screamed, blood spilling from my mouth and flecking the stone beneath me.
I have not seen signs of Stefan in days. I fear I may have lost his tracks for good. How ever will I find him now?
At least I still have plenty of rice, though I am so sick of it I sometimes feel like pitching it over the mountainside and dancing about like a madman.
I have been feeling stranger and stranger as of late. Whereas first I was full of many aches and pains and cuts, I now find I do not have a scratch on me and though tired, I no longer ache. Perhaps I am just growing fitter, or more careful not to cut myself on the sharp rock, but it feels more than that. I feel braver, stronger, more fearless. And ever more mad than the day before. I fear for my sanity.
July 22, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
An amazing thing happened today. I had all but given up hope of catching up to the creature. I was ready to head back to civilization, eat a real meal in a tavern, when I came upon a narrow crevice in the cliff face along which I was traversing.
A putrid smell issued forth from the shadowed recess, and I peered inside. I gasped. Lying there in a stripe of sunlight was Stefan, or what I thought at first was Stefan.
On its back, pure black as it had been the night it attacked Anna and me, sprawled a dead thing with tremendous claws and hideously pointed teeth. The clothes of an aristocrat adorned the body. I bent low, sure it was my quarry.
The killing blow had come from a ten-inch gleaming stake protruding from the creature’s belly, pinning it to the ground below.
I touched the weapon, a smooth metal spike that felt cool to the touch.
I shall never forget the visage of that dreadful creature there in the crevice. Its eyes (what were left of them, as one had been partially eaten by some animal) were opened wide as if in terror, and the mouth lay open and twisted as if in a scream.
For a long time I stood in the entrance of the crevice, staring down at what I was sure was the murderer of my Anna, feeling at once relieved he was dead and also intensely curious as to what had killed him.
Was this metal spike made of the very same metal Anna swore was able to injure the creature? If so, who had carried such a weapon?
I leaned in closer for a look and was suddenly seized by curiosity to go through the creature’s belongings. I unbuttoned its waistcoat and searched the pockets of its breeches. I came away with several letters and a small pocket-sized journal much like this one.
Retreating from the crevice to read by the bright sunlight, I flipped through the journal.
What I found there left me dumbfounded and amazed.
After reading the entries breathlessly, I learned that this wretched beast in the crevice was not the creature I have been pursuing, but was Ffyllon, the man who had given the letter opener to Anna.
The journal told an impossible story. Ffyllon was impossibly old, and had somehow been alive since the twelve hundreds. One night back then, he and his brother had been working on a written version of the Welsh text, the Mabinogi. As they labored into the wee hours of the night by candlelight, a desperate knock came at the door.
Ffyllon leapt up to admit a bedraggled traveler who complained of starvation. The scribe lived with his brother, Gywnfar, who was a brilliant linguist. The two brothers invited the traveler in and fed him. For three months the traveler stayed with them, talking to both, but mainly to Gywnfar about his work translating ancient texts and his ability to speak over nine languages.
Then one frightful night the scribe came home to find the traveler sitting atop his brother’s dead body, tearing flesh off the bones and devouring it. In a fit of rage, Ffyllon fell upon him, pounding the traveler with fists, cups, plates, and anything else he could find. He even bit the traveler, tearing a great hunk from his shoulder.
But the fight was in vain. One strike across the scribe’s temple knocked him senseless, and the traveler dragged off the brother’s body to eat it elsewhere.
When Ffyllon awoke, only blood remained where his dead brother had once lain. The scribe vowed revenge and left his trade to pursue the mysterious traveler.
Over time, Ffyllon noticed he healed much faster than before. He stopped aging. Years went by, then decades, then centuries as he pursued the creature. He learned important facts about the creature, studied its patterns and habits in order to better destroy it. On several occasions he tried to kill the beast, but nothing worked. Not sword, not musket, not drowning. During one of their confrontations in an alley in London, the creature summoned two gleaming spikes from its forearms, and impaled Ffyllon with one of them. A group of theatergoers passed by, and the creature ran off, withdrawing the spike as it did. It took Ffyllon nearly a year to recover from the wounds, instead of his usual few days. He became convinced that this metal, summoned from the creature itself, was the key to destroying him. If it could wound Ffyllon so, with his special healing abilities, perhaps it could wound the creature, as well.
During Ffyllon’s recovery from the grievous wound, he met a group of nomadic storytellers, with whom he stayed while he healed. He told them the story of the creature. In hushed voices they drew away, whispering among themselves. Ffyllon grew full of fear that he had offended and that they would finish him off in his sleep. But instead they produced a gleaming letter opener and gave it to him. The weapon of a hunter, they told him, made from the special metal. He asked where they had obtained it, and they told him many decades ago they had come across the twisted, rotting corpse of a monster, and that knife was sticking out of its belly.
Ffyllon reasoned that, since the blade was left in the body, and the body was indeed dead, in order to kill the creature, the metal had to remain in its body for some unknown extended period of time. Ffyllon himself had only recovered because the creature had run off after wounding him.
Ffyllon’s last entry, dated June 20, 1763, stated that he was closer than ever before.
He had trailed the creature to Vienna, where he learned of its next victim, a young pianist named Anna Gordova. Ffyllon had contacted her, posing as a friend of her uncle. He had given her the letter opener made of the special metal so that she could defend herself if he was not there when the creature attacked. To prepare her, he told her the legend of the creature.
I lowered Ffyllon’s journal and wondered at the tale told therein. He had not been there when the creature attacked, was instead drugged and incapacitated in the rooms above. And the creature had killed Anna. At least he was not able to eat her body.
I think of this poor man crammed in the crevice of rock. He must have continued his quest, leaving Vienna after Anna’s death, and pursued the creature, just as I do. But now he is well and truly dead. His theory must have been correct; the creature stabbed him with one of its gleaming spikes and then left the metal in the wound. The hunter now dead.
My mind cannot grasp the scope of this journal.
Even as I was hunting the creature, so was this poor soul, this man who had turned into a creature after ingesting the beast’s blood.
My heart pounds. I myself have noticed my increased healing speed, my energy and power growing daily. Could it be that I myself somehow ingested the creature’s blood? Could the blood that entered my mouth when I kissed Anna’s hand actually been that of the beast’s from when she stabbed him?
I am terrified.
Will I end up as this poor soul did? Murdered centuries from now in some lonely crevice in the high country, failing in my one mission to bring justice?
Eternal life… even just a few months ago, the thought would have enticed me, seduced me. To be young forever, to feel that powerful, that invulnerable… would have been a blessing indeed.
But now, like this? To endure this eternity without Anna? To be a monster? The thought revolts and terrifies me.
What am I to do?
July 23, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
After a great deal of consideration, I have decided to persist. I will take the mysterious metal stake and fashion a knife out of it at the next town.
All yesterday I searched in circles for any sign of the direction which the creature has taken, but to no avail. The terrain up here consists exclusively of rocks, with no soil to leave tracks. And I know almost nothing of the art of tracking.
Tomorrow I will head down and find a town where a smith can fashion a sharp weapon for me of this metal.
If still I have found no trace of the creature, I will use the scribe’s journal to hunt for other clues. Perhaps the creature has some sort of pattern it follows when choosing victims.
Perhaps I will be able to guess its next move and stop it before it kills again.
July 25, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
I think I am finished. As I was breaking camp yesterday, a small rain of pebbles landed on me from above, where a tremendous granite cliff rose. No sooner had I rolled up my tent canvas than the rain became a torrent, pounding me with ever larger boulders. I lost my footing in the rockslide and careened down the mountain in the wake of it, landing harshly against a stunted tree, my legs devastated by the rocks.
I have lost the use of them. I fear they are badly broken, so swollen and black and blue.
I have lost all my camping supplies, and have only the metal spike, this journal, and my pencil left, which happened to be in the breast pocket of my waistcoat. The remainder of my food is now lost among the sharp-edged rocks.
At least there is water in the form of snow this high up, and a few trickling streams. I shall not want for water. But I cannot drag myself very far. The pain in my legs is great indeed.
Night draws on. I shall have to make myself as comfortable as possible, perhaps in a large crevice in the rock to keep the wind off.
Tomorrow I shall think of some plan of action.
July 26, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
I am stunned. It is a miracle. My legs, broken just two days before, have healed. I have only bruises where once torn flesh and broken bones resided.
I can walk, run, even jump on legs that yesterday were spelling my doom.
I shall start for town immediately.
August 12, 1763
Vienna
I returned to Vienna and to my home to regain strength. I have eaten till I gorged myself, drinking down ale and beefsteak, savoring the delicious flavor of both.
I have been reading the journal left by the scribe, and it has put me in a good state of fright, I assure you. This man, Ffyllon, was but a normal, average man before he ingested the creature’s blood. Over time, he developed certain abilities, including, as I wrote before, the ability to heal quickly.
This must be why my legs rejuvenated themselves so. I now fear more than ever that I am destined to become a thing like the creature and Ffyllon.
Even now I continue to feel better than ever before, full of energy and vigor. Two nights ago, I cut myself shaving and was completely healed in just an hour. Last night I cut myself purposely, far more deeply, on the arm. Today there is no sign of the gash.
Truly, I have inherited some of this creature’s remarkable ability. But its power to change shape? To turn into a shadow? To suddenly grow claws and fangs? I cannot do those things.
Over time, Ffyllon learned to control more and more of his abilities. He writes that the creature can look like anyone it has killed-can change its very countenance to that of another person. Ffyllon could never look like someone else, but he was able to grow claws in emotional moments when he had to defend himself, and over time he could make his skin grow black as shadow, enabling him to move undetected in the darkness.
Can this beast really take on the appearance of other people? The very thought causes hopelessness to bloom inside me. How ever will I kill it if I cannot recognize it?
If I am afflicted with the tainted blood of this creature, then I am more determined than ever to put a stop to its evil. I will use my invulnerability as an advantage and track the beast until my exhausted body breathes its last breath.
August 15, 1763
Vienna
I am not sure where to go next. I have studied and studied the journal of the scribe and have noticed patterns with the creature. Apparently he assimilates himself into the life of his future victim, always someone of exceptional talent like my beloved Anna. Once he has won their trust, he… eats them.
A truly gruesome thing. By digesting the flesh of his victims, he can then possess whatever talent they cherished in life. He also gains certain memories and emotions of the victim.
I will build upon Ffyllon’s considerable knowledge and assume that the only thing that can kill the creature may be the special metal which it used to kill Ffyllon. Last week I paid an armorer to fashion a grip on one end of the spike I took from Ffyllon’s body. I am ready to resume my hunt.
I have the tool to kill him; now I just need to find him.
August 16, 1763
Vienna
I have made further study of Ffyllon’s journal. If only I had access to his earlier writings. I wonder where they could be? If not for the summary in the front of the journal, I would be quite puzzled indeed by the diary’s contents.
I have pieced together a few facts: the creature can summon a metal from his very body and use this metal to utterly destroy the victims he does not wish to eat. Ffyllon himself was able to form small bits of this metal. It is gruesome indeed, but he could turn each finger into a metal spike, and then break off that finger if he wanted to fashion a weapon independent of himself. The finger would grow back.
In this way, he could mimic small weapons like the letter opener the nomadic storytellers had given him. The one he gave Anna…
Anna… if only Ffyllon had been there that night. If only he had stepped in instead of being in a drunken stupor on the upper floor of her house. He wrote after Anna’s death that he had not drunk that much that night and that he suspected the creature had slipped sleeping powder into his ale when he was not looking.
Ffyllon speculates on an interesting idea: he wondered if the reason why he could summon only small amounts of this strange metal was because he had only ingested a small amount of the creature’s blood. Had he drunk more, perhaps he would have been able to summon the deadly spikes from his arms as the creature can.
He also recorded this interesting fact: he had managed to wound the creature several times with the small spikes of his fingers, but the creature always recovered, though badly wounded. This further proved his theory that the metal would have to stay in the creature’s body for an extended period of time in order to kill it, not allowing it the chance of rejuvenation.
This would also definitely explain why the creature had left its spike in Ffyllon’s body on the mountain. Perhaps he planned to return and claim the metal. Perhaps even now he is somehow not whole, as I possess part of his body.
Madeline flipped ahead, skipping several entries. Noah had been getting used to the idea of a creature like this for more than two centuries. It was his life now, hunting Stefan, a daily routine. Madeline’s mind still reeled at the thought of other creatures sharing her world. She’d always loved the thought of magic, and as a child had read every book on fairies, dragons, and mythological beings that she could abscond away into her room. But none of that had prepared her for the absolute knowledge that such a thing could exist. And Stefan was no mischievous fairy or griffin with gleaming wings. He was a killer-an intelligent, relentless killer-and a kind of beast too dark for the books that had thrilled her as a child. Stefan was a monster that belonged in forgotten volumes, heavy with age and sealed with a rusting lock. Dark records of hideous creatures described and then hidden away for none to find, as if the sealing of the tome could seal in the beast’s power.
She found another entry and resumed.
June 15, 1765
Copenhagen, Denmark
I can scarcely believe it. I have actually caught up with the brute. I followed a rash of killings leading to Copenhagen over the last two years. Four murders in all, all of people with exceptional talent.
A poet here is to be honored by King Frederick V of Denmark, and reports have been in the local and larger gazettes. This is just the sort of opportunity to which the creature would be attracted.
I have started following the poet myself, studying his friends, hoping the creature will reveal himself. I have decided upon a particular friend who watches the poet with a hungry gleam in his eye and who looked quite startled when I strode by him one day.
I have introduced myself into the poet’s circle. Once again my aristocratic status has its advantages. My only doubt is that perhaps I have the wrong fellow. Doubts visit me in the small hours of the night… I wonder if the poet is indeed next, and if his friend Jesper is indeed the creature in disguise.
What if I am planning on killing an innocent man?
Though I have tracked the killer tirelessly over the last two years and get little sleep, racked with worry, I do not feel the worse for it. In fact, I feel more energized than ever before. I fear I do indeed have the same malady that afflicted Ffyllon, though such a fantastic malady I could never have hoped for. To feel so powerful, youthful, to be able to heal quickly. It is a miracle, though perhaps a dark one.
June 17, 1765
Copenhagen, Denmark
A terrible thing has happened! I can scarcely write it down. Damn my hesitation. Jesper was indeed the villain, posing as the poet’s friend. Jesper invited the poet to the opera, where he had purchased a box for the evening.
I followed, repeatedly checking the box nervously during the course of the opera. I saw the creature make its move, dragging the poet down below the lip of the box. I leapt up from my seat and ran to the box, where the creature was already feasting upon the poor man’s throat. The unfortunate fellow had not even time to cry out.
I dashed into the box and grabbed Stefan, who had shifted into what I have come to think of as his true form: a shadow of a thing, all black with no features save a pair of red saucer eyes and a mouth full of vile teeth.
As I rushed forth, hand inside my waistcoat to produce the weapon, the creature met my rush, lifted me up effortlessly over the lip of the box, and flung me down.
I crashed painfully into the seats below, injuring several operagoers. A commotion stirred up, the orchestra and singers still attempting to proceed with the performance in spite of it. One woman I had landed on screamed, and I struggled to right myself.
In the end, by the time I had returned to the box, the poet was gone, leaving a bloody trail. I can only assume Stefan dragged off the body to devour in some secret place.
I feel responsible.
How can I take up Ffyllon’s sword if I cannot save even one life? And I fear this may be the first in a string of murders I will be unable to prevent.
Spooked, Madeline closed the diary. She didn’t want to know this-didn’t even want to consider that the one person who knew what was going on had failed in the past.
She flipped through the rest of the journal. The entries grew further and further apart, sometimes only one or two every twenty years.
The last entry, dated February 22, 1922, read, “Hate myself. Hate myself. Hate myself. Hate myself.”
Blank pages followed. In the back, a number of pages were filled, listing names she assumed were victims. One column contained the name and the other the fate of the person. “Couldn’t save” was written after each name in a scrawling hand. The list went on for pages and pages, almost all with “Couldn’t save” written next to them. Only three entries differed. One read, “Died of natural causes before creature could kill.” Another read, “Incarcerated in H.M. prison before creature could kill,” and the column next to the last name was blank. She froze as she read the name: Madeline Keye.
Horrified, she realized Noah had never saved a victim. Not even once. Some had escaped being eaten, but only through coincidence.
Her safe haven suddenly seemed as dangerous as going it alone.
But where else could she go?
At least Noah was knowledgeable, even if he hadn’t been successful. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him, discovering everything as he went, both the horrible with the good.
She sat for many moments with the book closed on her chest, unsure if she should stay or flee and hope for her chances. She debated for a long time, feeling the terrible sadness of the book sweeping over her.
Madeline checked her wrist, ensuring she still wore the bracelet. She unhooked the latch and lifted the tiny lid. Inside, coiled and gleaming, was Ellie’s thin silver bracelet, the one she’d lost that day. She rarely touched it herself, and would never wear it. Locked inside the metal were such powerful images of Ellie that when Madeline touched it, she almost felt her friend was there, like she could talk to her and Ellie would hear her. She touched the bracelet gently, just the tip of one finger resting on its surface.
Images swept over her. Ellie sitting next to her in math class. Ellie and she watching movies on a Friday night, popcorn strewn around them. They’d met when they were five, on the first day of first grade. Huddled outside the gray stone school building that chilly morning, waiting for school to start, they’d begun a conversation with each other, comparing their similar woolly hats. The talk turned toward age and birthdays. Being only five, neither could remember their exact birth date (they left that and the toy-giving to their parents), but they were both sure they’d been born in late October. It was close enough, and they became instant friends.
When the other kids teased Madeline or tried to pick fights because they were scared, Ellie was always ready to jump in and let her fists fly. An intense flash erupted of Ellie standing over one bully on the jungle gym, shaking her five-year-old fist threateningly after shoving him into the monkey bars. Another image sprang up of Ellie thrusting a tree branch into the spokes of a bully’s BMX bike as he tried to flee the area after calling Madeline a series of unflattering names. The jerk had flipped up over the front of his handlebars and landed with a terrific smack in the middle of the street. It was a hot July day and the bubbling tar on the street had stuck to the boy’s face.
“Ellie.” Madeline breathed softly. Her friend shimmered and swam into view, sitting next to her on the foldout couch.
“Hey, Mad,” she said softly.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“I know. And that’s okay. You’re a good person. You’ll figure it out.”
“I think you’d want me to help.”
“You’re probably right,” Ellie answered, a wry smile turning the corner of her mouth.
After a stretch of silence, Madeline said, “I think I really like this guy.”
“I can see why. He’s hot.”
“And nice. And he has a noble quality about him, too.”
“Your knight in shining armor come to take you away from all this madness?”
“Or maybe to take me into all this madness.”
“That’s not as good.”
“I know,” Madeline answered, nodding in the darkness. She watched her glimmering friend, remembering the curve of her brow, the mischievous look she could get in her eye, all the years of happiness they’d had, and all the years that had been taken.
“I miss you.”
Ellie met her eyes, sadness glistening there.
They sat in silence then, Madeline not sure of what to say, not needing to say anything. That had been their way in life. They understood without needing to say much.
Finally Madeline closed the latch on the small silver box, Ellie’s image shimmering, then vanishing into the darkness. She set the journal aside, her mind drawn back to the Sickle Moon Killer, the story fresh now in her mind. She could distinctly picture his face, that terrible knowledge that he’d been caught, the desperation, needing to get rid of them. She lay awake nights sometimes, terrified he’d escaped from the penitentiary and was on his way to her house. Or worse, already there, breathing laboriously outside her bedroom door, seething with hatred and waiting to crush the life out of her in revenge. The fear hadn’t stopped until she learned he’d been killed in that fight.
Her mind traveled over what was to come tomorrow if she agreed to Noah’s plea for help. They’d drive out to the cabin where the creature was holed up for its “digestion period.” She cringed inwardly. She’d feel any belongings it had there, see if she could get a fix on any future victims. Maybe she would, and then they’d go to the police. They’d contact her hometown police station, or maybe they’d remember reading about her from the Sickle Moon Killer case files. They’d either ridicule her or ask her to participate in the investigation. Maybe they’d even save the next victim’s life and catch the killer. What if they wanted more? Piles of dead-end grisly cases, one after the other? This time she couldn’t use the excuse of being fourteen years old. Now she was twenty-one and was supposed to be deciding her future. People would expect her to “do the right thing,” to give up her innocence and happiness in the service of others, to use her “gift” to identify other killers. They wouldn’t consider the horrific images and acts she’d have to relive while acquiring visions. They wouldn’t consider the empty black-hole ache that consumed her after she’d encountered the Sickle Moon Killer. She’d become a hollow, bleak shell.
She alone had to consider herself. And she didn’t want that kind of life.
She wanted to transfer to her new college, engage in normal college activities. Go to parties, take fun classes, hell, even write term papers and cram for biology finals on hydrophilic cells and mitochondria. She wanted people to know her for who she was, not her bizarre talent. She wanted people to act normal around her.
She glanced toward the bedroom door. Noah had been hunting this thing for two centuries. He had a weapon but had been unsuccessful thus far. She thought of the endless list of victims he was unable to save. Why would she be any different? She didn’t need to hang around him, waiting to be murdered, so much bait waiting in a tackle shop.
Looking out the window at the darkness beyond, she suddenly thought of the goat in Jurassic Park, the one tied to the post in wait for the Tyrannosaurus rex.
The urge to run suddenly became intolerable. Listen to your instincts, she thought. Know when to get the hell out of here. Lying still for a moment, she listened for sounds from Noah’s room. Silence. Turning her head, she looked at the door. It was still open a crack, and darkness lay beyond. She was almost sure he was asleep. Quietly she peeled the yellow blanket back and swung her feet to the floor. Her own clothes, the pair of jeans and long-sleeved cotton shirt, lay draped and damp over the back of a chair. She dressed quickly in the dark, putting one of Noah’s fleece jackets on top. Lacing up her boots, she glanced again at the bedroom. Still silent. Still dark.
Creeping silently across the floor, she reached the front door and pushed aside a curtain. Only trees and a Dumpster met her eyes. No creature in sight. She disengaged the bolt and slipped outside. Turning the lock on the inside knob of the door, she made sure Noah would be locked in safely and then closed the door behind herself with finality.
A chilly breeze blew over her, and she zipped up the fleece jacket as high as it would go, partially covering her face.
She needed to reach her car. She didn’t fancy the idea of waiting out on the road at this hour for a car to hitch a ride. Hardly anyone would be driving by, and she’d be out in the open, vulnerable to the creature.
Then she thought of Steve, the naturalist who had helped her earlier. She was in trouble and needed to leave the park. He would understand that. Maybe he’d give her a ride to her car.
Making up her mind, she set off down the paved path, the pines creaking overhead as her boots crunched on loose pebbles. The ranger residences lay only about a quarter mile away, on a parallel road. She’d reach them in no time.
The moon overhead shone bright enough for her to see the path, and she navigated quickly to the main road. She tried not to think about the dense shadows around her or what could be hiding in the black beneath the trees. If the creature was there, it was not attacking, which was fine with her. And if it wasn’t there, she didn’t want to slow herself down by checking every shifting shadow beneath the pine branches. With her ears tuned sharply to the sounds around her, she pushed on quickly, her eyes darting around furtively. If it did jump out and she caught a glimpse or heard a shuffle, she’d be ready. She could dart aside, or maybe even turn and strike out at it. She’d wounded it before. She could do it again.
Up ahead she could make out another road turning off to the left. In front of it stood a small wooden sign that read Private Residence.
She was almost there.
A sharp, snapping twig brought her to a halt. She spun around and heard another snapping branch. Her breath coming fast, fear consumed Madeline. Her feet became lead bricks, her mouth went dry, and though she wanted to run in terror, she couldn’t move.
Her eyes wide, she stared into the trees and brush on that side of the road. Another twig snapped. Then the shrubbery began to part, and a dark shape emerged. Madeline ran. Not looking back, feet pounding the pavement, she raced toward the rangers’ houses. “Somebody help me!” she yelled, though the plea came out hoarse and not as loud as she’d hoped. Almost at the other road, she dared a look back.
And saw a bear standing in the middle of the road.
She had never been so relieved to see a bear in all her life. She stopped running and turned to face it. Meandering along the pavement, it was a huge, hulking mass of shaggy, powerful limbs and a tremendous head. Its nose sloped distinctly from the forehead, and she took in the dish-shaped face and large shoulder hump. A grizzly. One look at the tremendous white claws scraping on the pavement confirmed it. It looked at her with disinterest and crossed the road to the bushes on the other side. Branches cracking and bending in its wake, the bear pushed into the thick of them and reared up on its hind legs. Placing its mighty paws together, it shucked the berries off a branch and devoured them.
Madeline laughed, breaking the silence, relief bubbling up inside her. Then she stopped short, feeling a little embarrassed, and hoped no one had heard her call for help.
The grizzly moved to the next bush, shucked off some berries. Then it dropped to all fours and pushed farther into the bushes, into the forest beyond and out of sight.
She sighed as she watched it go, but the minute it disappeared she felt the woods press in on her again, every piece of darkness hiding the creature. The presence of that huge ursine predator had comforted her.
But now it was gone, and she turned and hurried toward the ranger’s house.