“I showed up with you tonight, and that drew attention to me. They were already wondering who you are and how you got here, and what it has to do with me. That’s dangerous enough. People here are suspicious of everyone for the littlest things, and I don’t want knowing you to become a liability!”
“A liability?” He snorted. “What are they going to do? Burn you at the stake?”
“They’ve done it before!” she shouted, then clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Okay, I can sense by your hyperbole that you’re afraid of people here.” Graf nodded, actually looking sorry for something for the first time since she’d met him. “I didn’t think about how showing up with me might affect you.”
“You didn’t think about it, because you have no idea what it’s like to live here. Since It came around and we all got trapped here, all of the malice and bad feelings have just grown and grown.” She took another swallow of the alcohol. “You’ll see. The first time you do something wrong, you’ll see.”
He reached for the jar, and she passed it to him. He took a big swallow and grimaced. “Let me guess…the ‘something wrong’ that you did involved Derek?”
She worked hard to keep her expression neutral. Eventually, Graf would know all about her and Derek, every sordid detail. That didn’t mean she wanted to spill it all right now. Still, if he was going to be living there, he’d have to deal with Derek in the future. “People…don’t like the way I behaved after Derek married Becky. And before Derek married Becky.”
Graf nodded. “You beat her up? Key her car?”
“No.” She took another swig of moonshine. “No, I kept sleeping with her husband.”
“Ah.” There was a hint of judgment in Graf’s tone that Jessa didn’t care for. “Well, from what I understand, he was your boyfriend to begin with.”
“June tell you that?” She shouldn’t have bothered to ask. June wasn’t a gossip, but she wouldn’t withhold information from someone she thought needed to know something. If she’d suspected there was something between Jessa and Graf, she couldn’t have been more wrong, but she would have thought it only fair to warn him what he was getting into.
Graf nodded. “She didn’t give me the full history, but she said that Derek wasn’t exactly supportive after your family died. Which I’m sorry to hear about, by the way.”
Clearing her throat, Jessa screwed the top back on the moonshine and shoved it to the back of the refrigerator. She leaned down, hiding her face behind the door long enough to force back the tears that never failed to flood her eyes at the memory. “Well, it’s better off this way. Becky can have him, for all I care.”
“That’s not how it looked this afternoon. And it’s not how it looked at the bar tonight.” His voice startled her, as it was closer than it had been before. When she turned, he stood behind her, gazing down at her with pity.
Yeah, like she needed his pity. She stood and pushed past him. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Derek comes sniffing around here like a hound dog most days, but I haven’t encouraged him.” It was a bald-faced lie, and she had a feeling Graf knew it. She wanted nothing more than to lure Derek away from Becky, knew she could have him in her bed with a snap of her fingers. But she didn’t want to be that person anymore. She didn’t want the guilt when she saw the kids playing in their grandma’s yard, or when she ran into Becky at June’s Place. She didn’t want to be the town tramp. She just wanted her old life back.
“Well, guys like that, they don’t need a lot of encouraging,” Graf said, and there was a sneer in his voice.
“You don’t know him. You don’t know me. You don’t know any of us, so where’s it your place to judge?” She put her hands on her hips and wobbled slightly. She hadn’t eaten much, and she’d cut way back on her drinking in the past year. Now, the moonshine hit her like a truck. That was probably why she found herself defending Derek right alongside herself.
The booze was making her tired, and she rubbed her eyes with one hand. “You think you have everything figured out.”
“I think you’re in a bad situation with a bad guy who doesn’t treat you right.” Graf fell silent a moment. “But you’re right, it isn’t my place to say anything.”
She opened her mouth to let him know just how much of his place it was not, when the sound of something scraping against the siding stopped her.
“What was that?” Graf turned wide eyes to Jessa. “Seriously, is that—”
“Get down!” she whispered, dropping to the floor. In an instant, the murky drunk feeling fled, replaced with an all-too-familiar fear. She inched cautiously toward Graf, motioning for him to meet her halfway. “Sometimes, It comes sniffing around houses. But if you stay on the floor, and It doesn’t see you, it usually leaves.”
“Usually? How often does this happen?” He put an arm over her back, and she shrugged it off. Though it felt good beyond belief to have that little bit of comfort, she didn’t need him getting used to rescuing her. She definitely didn’t need him getting used to casually touching her.
“I don’t know. Every now and then. It’s not a nightly occurrence, if that’s what you’re asking.” She nodded toward the living room. “I’m going to crawl out there and get my gun.”
“You didn’t bring your gun back from the bar!” Graf whispered, his voice going almost comically high in fear. It would have been a lot funnier if she wasn’t terrified, herself.
He was right. She ran through her memories of the night. She’d had the gun with her when she’d gone inside June’s Place. She’d leaned it against the bar, like she always did. She’d broken up the fight. She’d been admonished. And then they’d left. In her memory she could see the shotgun, from the corner of her eye, sitting right where she’d left it. It mocked her, because it would have been so easy to pick it up and carry it away with her, but there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it now. She leaned her head against the cool linoleum. All that was left to do now was pray that It moved on, but she’d been doing about as much praying as she had been drinking lately, which was not a lot.
It scraped against the siding again, the screech of bony spikes against metal vibrating through the kitchen.
“What should we do?” Graf demanded. “Should we go into the basement?”
“It isn’t a tornado!” she whispered back. “Just shut up, I need to think!”
There wasn’t a lot of time for thinking. He grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. She shrieked in protest, and the sound was swallowed up by the roar of It, the rending of metal, and the splintering of wood. One wall of the kitchen was gone, and suddenly they were plunged into darkness, the only light coming from the moon outside and the broken wires whipping sparks out of the hole in the house.
Before she could blink, they stood on the lawn, her head swimming. Graf shook her by the shoulders. “You hit your head and blacked out—” a strange thing to tell someone in the midst of an emergency “—run and hide! Do it!”
She wanted to argue that she had definitely not hit her head, but she couldn’t account for the missing time between being in the kitchen and being in the yard. It burst from the wound in the side of the house and charged across the lawn, and she ran, too, every breath that pushed out of her raw throat a cry of terror. She made it to the barn, turned to slide the big door closed, and saw It run past Graf, who stood directly in the thing’s path, toward the barn. Toward her. She pushed the door closed with all her might and sank to the ground, leaning against the weathered wood, expecting It to thrust its massive claws through the wood and grab her at any second.
“Hey! Hey!” Graf shouted. Jessa, certain that It would shred Graf to pieces, pressed her eye against the crack between the boards and looked out.
It stopped, turned from the barn, and seemed to sniff the air. Its long, curled horns grazed the ground as it lowered its head. One clawed, humanlike hand ripped grass and soil up in a clump, and its forked tongue snaked out for a taste. No, a smell. That was what s
nakes did with their tongues. It was scenting the trail of its prey.
“Forget about her!” Graf shouted, waving his arms. “Forget her, she’s nothing. Come here! Come and get me!” He pulled his shirt over his head, his muscles rippling, tense for a fight. Like an animal.
Jessa gasped and pushed back from the door, then, unable to stand the suspense, pressed her face against it again.
Graf hunched over, like a football player bracing for a tackle, and cracked his neck. “Let’s go,” he growled at the creature, his voice lower, rougher, than normal.
It tossed the clump of dirt aside, bent into a similar posture, and rushed at Graf. Jessa squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the screams.
They never came. Instead, there were feral growls, more animal than man, and when she opened her eyes, Graf was on It’s back, biting and clawing. It had an impossibly long reach, though, and swiped him down with razor-sharp claws. A spray of blood showed black in the green mercury light, and Graf howled with rage. But he didn’t fall. He didn’t seem to be concerned with the long strips of torn flesh hanging from his chest. In fact, he pounded his fist against them and roared, “Is that all you got?” before he leaped at the monster again.
Jessa had seen many unexplainable things in the past five years. This definitely had to be one of the stranger ones.
It grabbed Graf by the neck and slammed him into the ground, then hurtled its fist toward the back of his head. Graf rolled, but he wasn’t quick enough, and there was a crunch as It fractured the back of his skull.
“Oh!” Jessa cried before she caught herself, and It turned as if having heard her. But Graf, impossibly, got up. He swayed on his feet, and his scalp hung from the back of his head like a torn dishcloth, but he jumped on the monster’s back again and bit its neck, tearing a huge chunk of the scaly flesh away. It roared and shook him free, then made a ground-shaking retreat through the cornfield.
Trembling, Jessa watched as Graf touched the back of his head, swore, and started for the barn. Her first instinct was to go to him and help him, but the extent of his injuries, the way he’d taken on It…none of it seemed right. She stood, not really feeling the ground beneath her feet, and pushed the door open.
“Jessa,” he said, almost guiltily as he walked toward her. The bones of his ribs showed through the slashes on his chest.
“Stay away from me!” she screamed, and ran. It was possible that he would catch her, if he tried. No, more than possible. He’d gotten her out of the house so fast. She hadn’t even felt him move. But he didn’t come after her. Maybe he’d fallen down and died. She didn’t care. All she cared about was that she made it into the house, up the stairs, and into the bathroom before she vomited up the little dinner she’d eaten.
Doubled over the sink, the moonshine burning her throat again with every retch, she remembered the hole in the house. He could get in. There was no way of keeping him out.
“Jessa?” He was right outside the door. She hadn’t even heard him come up the stairs.
Wiping her mouth, she straightened. She could lock the bathroom door. If she dove for it right now, she might be able to lock it before he came in. Her stomach disagreed, and she gripped the edges of the porcelain sink and groaned.
Graf, whatever he was, opened the door. He’d put his T-shirt back on, covering the wounds in his chest, but blood still flowed down his face and neck from the back of his head. “Oh, God,” he said quietly. “You’re bleeding.”
She shook her head, and it felt like the inside of it had been put together too tightly. “No, you are.” Still, she pushed her hair back from her face, and her hand came away wet with blood.
In that horrible moment, she knew that Graf was dangerous, not to be trusted. And that she was about to lose consciousness.
Six
Idiot. You’re a fucking idiot. Always have been. Graf whipped a towel off the edge of the claw-footed tub and wound it around his head, turban style, to try to hold his scalp in place, or keep his brain from falling out, or something. Then he knelt beside Jessa and examined the bloody patch at her temple. It wasn’t a serious head injury, or at least, it didn’t look like it. The vomiting and passing out weren’t great, but she had drunk a lot of moonshine and had a pretty big scare. He was no doctor, but he guessed she’d probably passed out from shock.
He lifted his fingers to his lips, but didn’t taste her blood. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop. She smelled so sweet, and her body was so warm. He’d probably sink his fangs right into her skull. And that would be very bad.
While he had intended to eat Jessa, that had been before he’d called such massive attention to himself at the bar. Now that everyone in town knew that he was staying with her, it would be the dumbest idea in the history of dumb to kill her. If he were staying somewhere else, or had some other alibi, a little nibble would be no problem. Of course, the giant hole in the kitchen, that could be a good alibi. A couple of whacks to the head. Whoops, the creature, whatever It was, got her.
That was a dangerous line of reasoning. It would look too suspicious, a death right after he’d arrived in town. And if Jessa had been serious about the burning-at-the-stake thing, he didn’t want to anger locals. He wiped her blood on her tank top and lifted her in his arms. In the hallway, he examined his choices. The door with the cheerfully painted wooden sign proclaiming JONATHAN’S ROOM probably wasn’t the right one. He kicked another door open to find a queen-size bed with an ugly, upholstered headboard and a thick layer of dust on everything. The next room he checked out was soft and white, with an iron bedstead painted to match the walls and fluffy white pillows piled on top of it.
“So much for the fallen woman’s boudoir,” he said to the unconscious woman in his arms. He dropped her in the center of the bed and slid to the floor, head throbbing. Whatever that thing was that he’d fought, it wasn’t anything he’d want to see again. Easily fifteen feet tall, its chest and arms made him think that a human and a dinosaur made a baby together, and then that baby grew up to be Dinosaur Mike Tyson. Huge muscles and slimy scales, not a good combination. Then, there had been the long tail, and the bony spikes down the spine. The head could have belonged to a particularly ugly bull, or maybe a dog with a smashed-in face that had grown horns like a handlebar mustache out of its head. It was like a monster built out of entirely spare parts. But the worst thing about it had been the stink.
Once, Sophia had called in a favor with Graf. One of her other “babies” had gone off the deep end and holed up in a house with some ghouls, humans who survived off vampire blood, and, as a result, had became dangerously insane. She’d wanted Graf to go in and kill the ghouls, retrieve the vampire, and return him to her, so she could make sure that it didn’t happen again. When Graf had gotten to the place, though, the vampire had been one up on him. The ghouls had been dead. Long dead. Tarry black stuff seeping out of them and into the carpet dead. The house had been completely shut up, in June, in Utah, with six dead bodies in it for God alone knew how long. The smell had been unbelievable, a combination of rotting meat and the sweet scent of almonds and the stink of human excrement.
This hillbilly creature had smelled ten times worse.
Cursing, Graf unwound the towel from around his head and gingerly felt the edges of his torn skin. The bleeding had stopped, and things had started to fuse together. He needed a shower to get the stink of blood—It’s and hers—off him.
He didn’t know how long Jessa would be out, but he could guess that it would be a while. As far as he was aware, she hadn’t slept all day, or all the night before. And there was no chance of her waking up and hightailing it back to town, if he judged her right. She would be too afraid of It to leave the house.
Really, the only danger was in her staking him while he showered, he thought as he turned on the taps in the ancient tub. First, she would have to figure out that he was a vampire, and then remember, in her state of shock, how to kill one. He would hear her if she tried. The house was so full of squeaky bo
ards and loose joists that it was a miracle the whole thing didn’t come crashing down around them. With a missing wall now, it just might. He would have to try to do something to shore that up, he realized. The house, and the girl, would be no good to him if either fell apart.
Not that the girl was much good to him in the first place. He stepped into the tub and pulled the shower curtain closed along its oval track. He had to duck under the arched shower head to sluice water over his hair, and he wiggled his toes in the bloody pink stream that cascaded toward the drain. Jessa really was a waste, now that he couldn’t eat her.
Well, not entirely useless. She was hot, in a girl-next-door way that drove Graf crazy. The rush of blood that headed straight for his groin argued valiantly for her usefulness. But Jessa was damaged goods. Dead family? Ex-boyfriend? Definitely not something he was interested in dealing with. He grimaced. Jessa: not good for sex or food. All he really needed was her house, but now, unfortunately, she was there to stay. And he had a lot of explaining to do.
When he’d scrubbed the blood from his scalp, which was still tender but healing into place nicely, and soaped the smell of the creature from his body with horrible homemade soap, he dried, dressed, and headed downstairs to survey the damage. He felt as weak as a human, with the amount of blood he’d lost.
The creature had been big, but it had created damage ten times its size. Nearly an entire wall was missing. The kitchen door was gone. Cabinets were strewn across the yard, broken dishes in their wake. Electrical wires hung, deceptively calm, from the ragged edges of the hole.
Graf was no independent contractor. The biggest building project he’d ever done was a birdhouse he’d made in sixth grade. And the roof of that had fallen off in a stiff breeze. Still, he knew that the splintered wooden beam in the center was some kind of framework, and its absence would probably be missed by the rest of the house. With a sigh, he hopped through the hole and walked toward the barn.
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