But he already had. Griffin resisted the sudden urge to throw his phone as far as he could. He turned to Carl but the sheriff was talking on his own phone. When he finished his call he said, “That was dispatch again.”
“Any sign of the busses?”
“Not yet, but something else has happened. Calls have started coming in from jails all over the county. Over half of the Blackbournes we arrested have escaped.”
“How the hell did they manage that?”
“Given that most of the cells weren’t ever unlocked, I’m guessing a lot of those boys weren’t as human as we thought. What did Decamp say?”
“Well, before he hung up on me he said that somehow the Blackbournes must have established a place of power inside the old family home.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“No, Decamp figures the place of power is in some other dimension within the house. He hung up before I could ask any questions. I got the idea he had thought of something worse that might happen and wanted to look into it.”
“I would say how can it get any worse, but I know better,” said Carl. “We’d better go for the Hollow and see if we can reach the Blackbourne place before the busses do. Merle and his crew couldn’t have planned things better. My men are spread all over the bluff and no one is watching the Hollow.”
The two men hurried to Carl’s vehicle and Carl hit the blue lights and went flying down the steep road that led away from the bluff. Running Code, the police called it when they drove with the lights and siren. Griffin had almost forgotten what that was like. He glanced to one side and saw an old cabin by the side of the road. A big, grinning Jack O’Lantern sat on the cabin’s front porch. Happy fucking Halloween, Griffin thought.
* * *
“Idiot!” Carter Decamp said, hurrying as fast as his limp would allow across his study. “I’m an idiot.”
“What’s wrong, Carter? Was that Griffin on the phone?”
“It was. Things have gotten worse.”
“Was he all right?”
“For the moment. But I’ve just realized something and if I’m right it could mean that we’re all in more trouble than I thought.”
“There’s something worse than the Moon-Eyes opening a path to the other side?”
“Oh, that’s still the issue, but originally I thought they were just trying to open a permanent gap through which they might allow more of their brethren to enter so they could gain power here on Earth. Or at the most, I thought they might be trying to summon something more powerful. A more ancient and inhuman member of the old race, what we might term a demon.”
“But now you think different?”
Decamp had stopped in front of one of the bookshelves and was scanning the volumes. He said, “They wouldn’t need the extra-dimensional environment they’ve created for that. Like I said, there are other places of power on Earth.” He snatched down an ancient—looking tome and began flipping through it. “As we discussed before, almost all cultures have legends of old folk who dwell Underground. The Blackbournes could have gone to New England or to Scotland or the Great Plains here in the states. Pale ones once lived there too.”
“Okay, so maybe they just wanted something close to home.”
“No, and that’s why I’m an idiot. They never planned to use the bluff. If they wanted to go there they could have killed everyone in their path and just forced their way to the caves or wherever they wanted. Ah! Here!”
He put the book down and pointed to a very stylized illustration that looked to Charon to be a Native American rendition of some gigantic creature looming over a mountain. Something like lightning bolts or lines of power radiated out from the figure. As stylized as the drawing was, almost cartoonish, Charon still found there was something repellant about it.
“What is it, Carter?”
“Something old and dark and steeped in blood.” Decamp said.
* * *
The Wellman town square was alive, filled with a powerful sense of excitement that seemed almost infectious. The band was playing a selection of Halloween related songs—“Monster Mash,” “I Ain’t Superstitious,” “I Put A Spell On You,” and a dozen others. Currently it was “Eye of the Zombie”—and the people were having fun. More fun that usual, it seemed, but that might have been the nearly perfect weather, or the fact that, for the first time in what seemed like forever, the band didn’t suck. In any event, there were a lot of people having fun, and chief among them was Jolene Blackbourne.
She could have told people what was making them so energetic, so happy, but she didn’t want to spoil their fun. She was enjoying herself—her two new boy toys were already doing everything they could to win her affections and she guessed they were less than ten minutes away from starting to swing at each other.
Somewhere down in the Hollow she felt the markings carved into another screaming sacrifice. All of them could feel it to one degree or another, but few of them got quite the same rush as she did. It was her connection to her mother, and to Frank that did it.
Once upon a time, oh, so very long ago, Frank had died. And in his death throes, he had gifted her with a little something of himself.
Beau Rider—stud muffin number one—put an arm around her waist and she leaned into him, watching as Derek Calhoun—stud muffin number two—bought her a caramel apple. In a few moments he would look back, see what Beau was doing, and the fireworks would likely start. The very notion made her all warm and fuzzy feeling.
What few people understood was that the Blackbournes had connections to each other that went beyond the physical and slid straight into the metaphysical. It was both their blessing and their curse.
Take, for instance, the direct lineage of Jolene herself. Really, when she got down to contemplating such things, that was the most important part of the equation. She understood the connections better than most. She had a certain…empathy for the blood relations that most of her kin seemed to not have.
Once upon a time, her mother was born to one Abigail Elizabeth Crawford. Abigail was a woman of striking beauty by all the stories, but she was also a mite bit on the flighty side. Funny how people forgive that sort of thing when a woman has the right sort of looks. Sometimes it worked for men folk—her cousin Micah, for example, tended to make women melt like butter when he smiled at them—but for women, in Jolene’s experience, the right smile, the right expression and the right body would open an amazing number of doors and forgive tremendous sins. In her defense, her mother was her number one role model.
Beau leaned in closer and she felt his warm breath blowing across her neck her pulse surged, and she shifted just a bit, letting him have slightly better access. Her hair half covered his face as his mouth sought to kiss her flesh.
Derek was still in line and he was distracted by a couple of girls dressed in clown outfits and wearing little enough clothing to almost guarantee hypothermia if they didn’t keep moving. The good news for her plans was they were moving a lot and the best parts jiggled enough to keep Derek distracted, but not too distracted.
As the story went with the family, it was Abigail and her sister Angeline who wound up wandering in the hills above Wellman, wandering around on Mooney’s Bluff, actually, where the family had a nice little mansion to call home.
The two had wandered the woods many times, always careful to get back home before they could get themselves in trouble with the Moon-Eyes, because back in those days most people still acknowledged that the white-skinned critters were still roaming after dark.
And then one day, well, one night, the two failed to reappear. The family went a little crazy looking for them, spent the night with their torches and dogs and guns calling for the girls and not finding them. Not until the next morning, when Angeline came wandering out of the woods, disheveled and half frozen from the cold October night she’d spent in the woods. She had no idea where her sister had gone, of course, and being as she was merely a young girl she was not expected to be strong enough to assist in any r
eal way.
Abigail was not found that following day. Nor for several days afterward. The weather turned sour and slowed down the attempts to find her. Just for kicks, Jolene had actually looked up the information about the odd incidents that happened in Wellman at that time. The information was there for anyone who wanted to look, and some of it could even be found online on a couple of sites that specialized in the strange and allegedly incredible. For seven days the weather was perfect in Wellman and in Brennert County. For seven nights the weather was perfect in Brennert, but not in the town of Wellman or up in the hills above the town. It wasn’t just rain, either, oh, to be sure there was a great deal of rain, as well as some nearly catastrophic thunderstorms and enough lightning to burn away half the trees in Crawford’s Hollow. But it was the other things that caught her attention and made her chuckle. Other things, like the claims that the ground along the bluff oozed blood in different spots, or the claims that literally thousands of small, black frogs fell from the sky and covered Wellman’s streets. The frogs allegedly ate flesh, had too many legs and were blind. The one sketch she saw claimed that they had no eyes at all, merely bulging flesh where the eyes should have been. The frogs apparently melted into goo at the first light of the morning. Not a one of them was ever photographed or captured in a jar. There were other things, naturally, odd, screaming noises, thunder that roared down from the bluffs and echoed over all of Wellman and a dozen others. Nothing that could be verified of course.
And then, a week after Abigail disappeared, she wandered into Wellman proper, naked as the day she was born and covered with welts, odd markings and half painted over in a black mud that looked like nothing that was local.
Not too surprisingly, Abigail was never quite right after that. The doctors confirmed first that she had been raped, and later that she was pregnant. And who do you suppose took care of her after that? If you’d guess her family, you’d be wrong. No, Abigail had a suitor the entire time she was of an age where courtship could happen, a man who was several years older than her who took her as his wife, despite her pregnancy. That man was Virgil Blackbourne, who seemed to care not at all if she was pregnant, so long as she would be with him.
They were wed, and later Abigail gave birth to a beautiful young daughter named Siobhan.
That had been a hundred and fifty-seven years ago.
Jolene smiled at that thought. If anyone knew how old her momma was, they’d shit themselves.
Beau got a little more insistent and Jolene let him, but she kept her eyes on Derek. Derek was almost done scoping out Bouncy and Jiggles the clown girls. He ordered the apple and pulled his wallet. Almost time.
Now, the thing about Siobhan and Abigail was this: Abigail was the mother, yes, but she was also a mental case. She never quite recovered from her week in the woods—well, actually, her week in the lair of the Moon-Eyes. She spent a lot of time singing nonsense songs to herself and as little time as she could actually dealing with her daughter. That task fell to Virgil Crawford, who loved the girl as his own flesh. He raised her, cared for her, and schooled her in the ways of her other family, the pale people who feared even the faint light of the moon.
And while that was all happening and everyone was all happy and cheerful like, Angeline quietly had her own child. Seemed she hadn’t quite gotten away unmolested either, but she was kept away from the public eye. Angeline was never as pretty as her sister, and she was young enough that the rape would have been considered scandalous. So they hid her pregnancy and hid her away, a dirty little secret.
And when she gave birth, who do you suppose took that child and raised that homely little girl as his very own daughter?
No one.
But in due time Angeline’s girl grew old enough to have a child of her own and that child was Frank. The Crawfords didn’t want anything to do with Frank. In exchange for taking the shamefully homely boy off their hands, the Crawfords offered the Blackbournes a permanent right to dwell in the Hollow. As they were already squatting there, it seemed a perfect solution.
Jolene felt Beau suck at the flesh of her neck like he was a vampire. She supposed he was trying for sexy and maybe it even worked a little, but what worked even better was when Derek turned around with her caramel apple in one hand and a big old Coke in his other hand, along with two beers in little plastic cups. The Coke was for her. The boys were supposed to drink the beers.
As soon as Derek’s eyes started to track for her in the crowd, she pushed Beau hard and watched the college boy stagger away from her. “I said no!” She made sure to put the right edge of panic in her voice, because the best way to make sure that Derek did his part was to insinuate that Beau, who probably played a bit rough with his dates if she was reading him right, was trying to force matters. Just in case the point wasn’t made by that simple motion, Jolene made her eyes wide and put on her best frightened face as she covered her breasts with her arms and shook her head. Oh, that edge of betrayal on Beau’s face. And that little touch of anger, because he thought for sure he was going to get a chance to get rough all over her ass.
She looked to the crowd and spotted Derek already charging, the apple falling from his left hand, the tray of drinks from his right, his face already reddening, his eyes bulging. This was what he had feared, of course, that the girl who kept looking at him with a promise in her eyes might get stolen by Beau, the womanizer. But to make it worse, Beau had tried to force it.
Frank was a sickly boy when he was born, but his aunt took care of him. When he fell sick at the age of four, Siobhan ran away with him. She was all of twelve at the time. She hid in the woods and cared for him for several days. And when she brought him back, Frank was much healthier, even if his skin had taken on an odd hue. After that the two of them were often inseparable. Frank tended to protect his aunt, tended to do whatever she asked, really. There was only one exception, one person who could call the boy to her side and have him respond immediately and that was his grandmother, his Meemaw, Abigail, who would sing to the boy every night and would tell him stories and keep him from getting into trouble.
Right up until the time she died. After that, Frank answered only to Siobhan until he died.
The thing was, no one really knew that outside of the family. Most people thought Frank was a younger man, just as most people had trouble believing Siobhan was old enough to be Jolene’s momma.
The Blackbournes were a well-preserved people.
Jolene stepped back and shook her head. “No means no!” her voice cracked and broke into a small sob as Derek charged. And then she stepped back a second time, watching the expression on Beau’s face. He couldn’t believe this. He’d been ready to make a move, had fully expected that she would be in the back of his little car or his SUV or wherever else he could find to give her a little poke and maybe slap her around a bit and instead she was backing away and calling attention to him, enough attention to cause embarrassment. She read all of that on his face as he started to look around, trying to see if her calls had caught the attention of the cops.
Not that he should have worried. Jolene knew good and damned well that there weren’t any cops here. The sheriff had done his job and sent everyone up to Mooney’s Bluff.
Beau had exactly enough time to see Derek, to do the mental math and realize that he was about to get fucked up by his best friend, enough time to know that he couldn’t get the hell out of the bigger boy’s way before he got slammed by the collegiate wide receiver nicknamed “Freight train.”
He had enough time to know he’d been set up before Derek rammed into him and broke his jaw with a right hook.
Jolene stepped back again, her eyes alight with pleasure. Beau tried to say something, to defend himself, but the first blow had already left him sluggish. The second blow knocked him into a complete stupor. Testosterone boiled through Derek in a thick enough stew that she could practically smell it coming off him like cologne.
She suppressed the desire to lick her lips.
The night was just getting interesting.
Derek hit his best buddy one more time and stood up, panting. It was surprising how much effort went into beating a man down.
Jolene ran to him and he put a protective arm around her, looking down at Beau and maybe wondering if their friendship could possibly survive this. Looking at the bloodied pulp of Beau’s lower mouth, his busted nose and the swelling along the left side of his once-pretty face, Jolene had her doubts.
That was okay. She’d make Derek feel a little better, if only for a while. To the victor, the spoils.
That was something her family was about to learn the hard way.
Her mother always said that some plans required careful nurturing. Jolene agreed completely. What her mother didn’t understand was that Jolene already knew all about that philosophy. She’d been living it for most of her life.
She’d been practicing for years and years and honing her skills.
Just for tonight.
* * *
The body spasmed one final time and the woman on the altar bleated out her last breath as she died. The power from the sacrifice spilled into Siobhan and all of those present, and from them flowed through the ground, through the very stones on which they stood, and then into the atmosphere.
And from there, into the universe, the multiverse, calling to the One, the purpose for which Siobhan had been born. She was a fertile, passionate woman, a reflection of the One she called forth, the One who had been waiting patiently for this moment for untold eons.
Around her they gathered, the pale ones, the malformed, the almost human, the nightmarish. They called their words of power, chanted their requests, begged to be noticed and pled to adore the One, the Great Mother, The Great Father, the Great.
Some called the One female, others male. Siobhan knew better. The One was beyond gender, beyond comprehension by most.
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