by Steve Vera
Still sniffing in quick, jerky inhalations, the stranger scanned the woods with both arms locked behind his pistol. Something in the trees clicked and growled. That was no rabbit.
“Tell me what the hell is going on here, man,” Skip said, rising from where he’d fallen, nervous about the Black Grave spiderlight behind him, outright terrified of the clicking in front of him. Not to mention that he’d just been sucker punched. “Who are you?”
“There is something in the trees,” the mysterious stranger said, and to Skip, those were the most frightening words he’d ever heard.
He pulled out his Python. He didn’t point it at the stranger as he should have for striking an officer of the law, for being a suspect in a homicide, but instead pointed it in the same direction, into the forest beyond the graves. There was no stone wall back here or wrought iron fence like there was in front. The trees were the walls. That strange, ominous feeling of being watched hung heavy through the driving wind and images of that perched gargoyle came leaping to his mind.
Skip didn’t know the young stranger, didn’t know why he was there or anything else about him, but standing there in that tiny graveyard, in the middle of a snowstorm, he was sure glad to have the company.
“Unit one to three,” Skip murmured into his radio. A wall of static came warbling back.
“Shut that thing off,” the stranger rasped.
Skip bristled despite his fear but decided to concentrate on one thing at a time—like getting out of here alive. “I don’t know if you’re the superstitious type,” he whispered. “But urban legend says two kids disappeared from this place a couple of years ago after spending a night on a dare.”
Skip wasn’t sure if the man was listening, didn’t really care. All he knew was that his heart was trying to punch its way through is chest, and the sound of his own voice provided him some small measure of comfort.
“There,” the stranger said softly.
“What? Where?” How the hell could he see through all this snow?
Before Skip could get a fix on whatever was clicking and growling in the woods, something much worse jumped out of the dark subconscious of his nightmares and manifested into reality.
It was a shriek, distant and unnatural, wailing into the snowy night. His eyes went so wide his lids might not make it back. Guns still pointed forward, the two graveyard visitors slowly turned around to look at the grave behind them and then at each other. As odd moments went—and Skip had plenty to choose from—that one took the taco. It was like, “Did we just hear that”?
As if to answer for both of them, another scream floated up, closer this time, louder. There was nothing to compare it to in all of Skip’s memories; it was a blend of roar and scream, charnel and guttural while suggesting inhuman intelligence. Like from a nightmare. And it wasn’t coming from the night or the trees around them. It was coming from the ground.
It was coming from the Black Grave.
The soft, vaporous tendrils of ethereal light creeping from the grave’s depths had become more pronounced, like a growing bonfire. It was matched by the same eerie light seeping through the stranger’s overcoat, as if the two bodies of illumination were eager to join.
Skip had seen Poltergeist. He was no fool. When shit started to fly around on its own, that was your cue to get your ass out.
Too late. In front of them another clicking growl came, and this time it was mere yards away. In unison the two of them snapped back and searched the trees through the snowstorm.
“Why are we still here?”
“I see it,” the stranger rasped calmly, as if finding a splinter in his pinky.
Skip strained his eyes and then saw a shadow move, just at the border of his vision. He chased it with his eyes and on contact a sudden violent fear gripped his guts, squeezing with brutal fingers. There it was, in the flesh, glaring at Skip with angry amber eyes.
The gargoyle.
A raw, primal voice in the back of his mind screamed shoot it, shoot it, shoot it while from behind him a bone-crunching thud sent a tremor of vibrations right through his boots, as if something were trying to punch its way out of the grave. Another wail followed, more like a roar this time, and then another heavy thud. Just on the other side of that black stone.
The distraction cost him. Before the electrical pulses of thought could curl Skip’s finger around the trigger, the gargoyle shot its arm out and something streaked out from the trees, hissing as it penetrated the Montana air, one toward him, the other toward the stranger.
Somehow, Skip managed to twist to the side so that whatever it was buried itself in the right side of his chest rather than dead center; he only managed to squeeze off one shot.
Skip was not a weak man. He’d been shot, sliced, burned and beaten through his illustrious careers of both combat operator and cop, but the pain that blossomed through his body was unnatural and freakish. He looked at the long, slender thing protruding from his chest and tried to scream as every living cell in his body was doused in battery acid. He crumpled to the ground, completely incapacitated, gaping and sucking like a goldfish flopping on some frat-house floor. Somewhere in the distance he heard a roar as terrible as hell itself then a rapid succession of gunshots that sounded like disembodied thunder through the haze of his pain. Contorted into an agony-induced fetal position, Skip’s teeth chattered as bile burned the back of his throat and leaked through his mouth. He convulsed so hard he thought his spine would break, and then slammed into a brick wall of darkness.
Chapter Three
There it was—that distant, ageless stare that clashed so wrongly with his easy smile and casual good looks, as if he were remembering something poignant long ago.
Amanda leaned toward him, her apple-glossed lips brushing his lobe. “You gonna win that walrus for me or what?” she whispered.
His cinnamon brown eyes blinked as he returned to the present. Looking down at the dented, battered knife between his fingers, he spoke in a voice that was rich and soothing, like musical caramel. She could listen to him talk all day. “I fear such a feat may be beyond my meager abilities, fair lady.”
Amanda took his face into her hands, gazed into his fathomless eyes and spoke with solemn gravity. “Do not fail me. I need that walrus.”
“All right, all right,” he said, laughing, his accent more pronounced than usual through his mirth. “The walrus shall be yours.” He looked at the amused vendor behind the booth, who was clad in the flowing garb of a medieval liege. “Anything I need to know, like a trick to this whole thing?”
The vendor was in his early thirties and seemed perfectly comfortable in his costume. “You’re holding it okay,” he said in a teacher’s tone. “But take a step back or you’ll hit with the handle.”
Gavin raised his eyebrows as if he’d come across some tidbit of profound knowledge.
As he prepared to win her prize, a group of teenage boys wandered by, strutting like peacocks with no one to impress but themselves. They stopped. One tapped his friend and within seconds a pack of hungry, ogling eyes descended upon her. Amanda turned her back and tried her best to ignore them, but she could feel their gaze groping her body, the leering and pointing. She suddenly wished she’d chosen jeans that didn’t flatter her figure so well.
Gavin turned around just then. He looked at Amanda, then at the group of teenagers, who’d stopped in the middle of the throngs of people to stare. The aromas of fried dough, cotton candy and shish kabobs wafted up her nostrils.
Without saying a word, the easy smile that usually adorned Gavin’s face vanished, and his eyes frosted over.
He ran his thumb along the dull, dented edged of the knife in his hand and in one fluid motion tossed the blade in the air, caught it and hurled it dead center of the bull’s-eye, like he’d done it a thousand times before. The hilt of the knife vibrated as it protruded from the target.
Gavin looked back at the group. They moved on.
“Do you have any idea on how turned on I am right now?” Amanda whispered as she turned to face him. “And just where exactly did you learn to do that?”
He smiled. “I never told you I was a panther-ninja?”
“I think I would remember that.”
“As I recall, my life depends on whether I can win that walrus or not.”
“Changing subjects, are we?”
“That we are,” he answered then turned to the vendor, who was looking at him like Gavin had grown a horn out of his head. “Two more, right?”
The vendor nodded, eyes fixed suspiciously on Gavin.
“Good enough.” Gavin then picked up the next knife, regarded the target. “One walrus, coming up.” A second later the knife bounced off the faded, straw-filled target with a hollow thump. Gavin shrugged sheepishly. “Voopsy daisies.”
“You missed on purpose,” Amanda accused him, eyes narrowed.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” he said, eyes on the next knife. “Why would I miss on purpose?” Even though he spoke perfect American English, his soft accent sometimes went singsongy when he was trying to deflect her. He was an awful bluffer.
“You don’t want me to know that you’re an expert knife thrower.”
“True. Then my cover as a CIA agent would be compromised and I would have to kill you.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said suspiciously. “I got my eye on you. Now win me that walrus or it’s off with your head.”
He smiled again. God, she loved that smile.
“Shall we try that again?” he asked, looking at the target. “How many do I have to get in the middle?”
“Three,” the vendor answered.
“But I only have one knife left.”
The medieval liege shrugged. “You could still win one of those,” he said, pointing at two sadly deranged-looking bears slumped abandoned on a shelf.
Gavin looked at her questioningly. Amanda responded by drawing a line across her neck, ear to ear with her index finger. That wasn’t going to fly.
Gavin wrinkled his lips and handed over another couple of bills. The vendor smiled, took the bills and then handed him two more battered knives. But not before he pulled out the bull’s-eye he’d already made.
“Thanks,” Gavin said, bearing his teeth in a false smile.
The vendor returned a similar one.
“All right, let’s try that again,” Gavin said and then, as if he’d been rehearsing it for a month straight, threw all three knives in rapid succession, each thudding dead center, all three in a neat little row.
The vendor blinked and stared. So did Amanda.
Gavin shrugged. “I’m awesome.”
Shaking his head, the vendor suddenly leaped onto the counter. “Hear ye! Hear ye! By the power vested in me by the royal crown of the Hebron, Connecticut Renaissance Fair, I hereby dub this man…” He leaned forward. “What’s your name?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“Gavin,” Amanda answered.
“Sir Gavin! Knight of the Crown!” He finished his proclamation with an elaborate bow, and Amanda clapped her hands in glee as she accepted the giant stuffed walrus.
“My hero!” she cooed.
Though an amused smile decorated his face, the distant gaze had returned.
“Bet you didn’t have this much fun in London last week,” she said as she hugged the walrus. It was soft and smelled like candy apples. Gavin had been in London for the past week and had only arrived just this morning. Benefits of being a pilot for one of the wealthiest men on the East Coast.
“Not even close. Ask and you shall receive, my lady,” he said, imitating the flowery bow the vendor had offered with surprising elegance.
“Really?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Tell me how you learned to throw knives like that.”
“That’s classified, dahlin.”
“You just said, ‘ask and you shall receive.’ You trying to tell me you’re a liar?”
“I prefer the term ‘fibber’ myself.”
“C’mon, Gavin. I want to know.”
Sometimes she could read him and sometimes she couldn’t. Right now she didn’t have a clue.
“When we were young, my brother and I used to throw knives at…pumpkins and watermelons for hours, or anything else we could get our hands on, for that matter.”
Gavin very rarely spoke of his brother. All she knew about him was that he’d died some years ago. Aware she was breaking ground here, she tread lightly.
“Not big Nintendo kids, were you?”
“No,” he said simply with a cryptic smile. And there it was again. The look.
“Boys,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes.
“Men,” Gavin corrected.
“So sorry. Men,” Amanda repeated. “So how long does it take to get good at throwing knives any way, Mr. Man?”
“Have you ever had walrus meat before?” Gavin asked her.
“Huh?”
“Walrus meat—have you ever tasted it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I ask only because I was considering cooking your prize.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Amanda breathed, mortified, clutching the walrus protectively.
“Sure I would. There’ll be walrus kabobs for everyone.”
“You’re evil.”
“Dastardly.”
What was it about him that drove her crazy? Suddenly all she wanted to do was get him alone. A week was just too long to be apart.
The vendor had listened to their banter, quite entertained. “Have you tried the throwing axes?”
Amanda grabbed hold of one of Gavin’s hands. “How ’bout we go home and play, instead?” she asked, widening her eyes.
Gavin looked at the vendor. “Forgive me if I decline, good sir, but it would appear I have other…engagements.”
The vendor once again demonstrated his practiced bow. “By all means, sir, by all means.”
*
Amanda savored the patter of pleasure that washed over her body like the spray of breaking waves. He kissed her tenderly at first, sliding his tongue through her lips, exploring her mouth delicately as if he might find some hidden treasure inside.
Her heart pounded and sent torrents of blood rushing to every nerve ending, her breath trembling as his fingers traced an invisible path down her body, from the V-shaped notch at the bottom of her neck to the valley between her breasts. Ever so slowly his fingers slid down, gliding across her skin until they hovered just above her navel. Gently he drew rhythmic circles around it, leaving trails of tingling nerves and evoking a soft, moaning gasp.
Amanda arched her back, bit her lower lip as his fingers drifted further south, teasingly to the outside of her thighs and down her legs.
“Hey, you shaved today,” he said as if he’d just found a beer hiding behind the milk.
Amanda opened her eyes. “Do you want to die?” she asked, not knowing whether to laugh or smack him.
“I was giving you a compliment. Women love compliments—I thought you knew?”
Amanda continued to stare at him, mouth still open. “Are you trying to tell me that my legs are normally not smooth, you big tease?”
“Don’t be silly, my dear Amanda,” Gavin said, shaking his head at her as if she were some poor, pathetic child. He took her chin in hi
s hand. “It would be impossible to improve upon such perfection.” His rich, soothing voice was enough in of itself to set her on fire. He winked and grinned, his charming, unexplained accent lending an exotic flair to his words.
“You are so good.”
“It’s true,” he lamented.
“But your timing leaves a little to be desired.”
Gavin grabbed her by the legs and pulled her toward him, rolling her onto her back as easily as if she were a doll. He did like to play with fire. “Forgive me?”
She looked up at him, his dark, dusky eyes dancing with mischief. Two years, and still they hypnotized her, mysterious as they were full of life. Not only did she love to stare into them, but at them as well—they were a light reddish brown toward the rim of his iris but darkened into chestnut near his pupils. She’d never seen eyes like them. They were like art to her.
“Perhaps if you persuaded me,” she whispered.
“I think I could manage that.”
From downstairs a telephone rang.
“Don’t even think about it,” Amanda growled.
“Easy, dahlin,” he said, amused. “Feisty little thing, aren’t you?”
“You call six feet little?”
“You’re five-ten. Let’s not start chomping at the bit now.”
“So now I’m a horse?”
Gavin neighed obnoxiously by way of response.
“You are so dead,” she said, smacking at his shoulder, then went for a chomp on his arm.
“Hey now!” Gavin said, snatching his arm away before she could bite him.
Worse than a submarine klaxon, the digital ring of the phone blared relentlessly through the house.
“Why doesn’t your answering machine pick up?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know. It should have picked up after four rings.”