The Darkly Stewart Mysteries: Light and Darkly

by DG Wood

  “We need to get inside before the rest come,” Buck said to Darkly with no betrayal of fear.

  “There’s more?” Darkly asked.

  “A legion of them. You shouldn’t have come back.”

  Buck walked to the bank, and Darkly followed. The sky was turning the palest of blue.

  “I’m in the hotel.”

  “Good. We’ll be able to see the whole town from there.”

  “I’m not alone.”

  Buck stopped and grabbed Darkly’s arm.

  “You’ve brought outsiders to Wolf Woods? Knowing all you know, you would put more people in danger?”

  “Hey, I came back to help you,” Darkly said defiantly.

  Buck shone a flashlight in Darkly’s face. He immediately noticed her neck.

  “What have you done?”

  “Don’t worry, sheriff. I appear to be cured.”

  Darkly stormed past him onto the bank. As she did, a whooping sound shot out of the woods behind them. It was a chorus of whoops. Many voices. Buck leapt up the bank to join Darkly, grabbed her arm, and they both ran for the hotel.

  Once inside the hotel, Buck hit the light switch. Nothing.

  “The generator’s burned out,” Buck informed Darkly.

  “I know.”

  Buck bolted the front door and pointed his flashlight at the lobby sofas.

  “We need to barricade the door.”

  Buck and Darkly slid one heavy antique sofa across the floor and slammed it up against the front door.

  “You think that will stop them?” Darkly asked.

  “What do you think?” he retorted. “Who’s here with you?”

  “Marielle,” Darkly answered. “She came back.”

  “Damn. I told that girl never to return.”

  “She was injured.”

  Buck shook his head at Darkly’s words.

  “Who else?”

  “Just one other.”

  Buck and Darkly stood in silence for a moment. Realization dawned on Buck’s face.

  “Wyatt,” Buck said through clenched teeth and made a beeline for the staircase.

  Darkly tried to grab him, but he shook her off.

  “He’s changed, Buck. You have to listen to me.”

  Buck leapt two stairs at a time, and Darkly raced after him. But, he made it to her room before her and managed to kick it in on the first try. The frame splintered, and Darkly heard Marielle scream, as Buck flung himself inside the room.

  Darkly was only a second behind him.

  There, on the bed, was Wyatt on his back, and Marielle straddling him. Candles placed every few feet around the room illuminated the lovers. Marielle scrambled off Wyatt and pulled a sheet around her naked body. But not before Darkly noticed the small bulge. Could that be a baby bump? This quickly?

  Buck reached for Wyatt’s hair, as his brother tried to cover his large erection. Buck dragged him out of bed and pressed him face-first into the wall. The sheriff then pulled his revolver out and pressed the barrel to Wyatt’s forehead.

  “I – I – I,” Wyatt stuttered.

  “Well? Death, destruction, exile. You’ve condemned us all. It must be everything you’ve ever wanted. Tell us all how proud you are of yourself before I shoot this silver bullet through one ear and out the other.”

  “Buck. He’s not himself,” Darkly said softly.

  “His wife and son just killed, and he’s fucking a girl half his age. I’d say he’s very much himself.”

  “Son?” Wyatt asked and slid down the wall to the ground.

  Buck’s gun didn’t leave the side of his brother’s head, and Wyatt began to cry. Darkly gently and slowly placed her hand on Buck’s arm.

  “He doesn’t remember who he is.”

  “He’s a good liar, and you’ve fallen for it.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Marielle chimed in. “He’s lost. In the head.”

  Darkly removed the shaman beads from her pocket and held them in front of Buck.

  “I found him up on the overlook. Tied up. By the time we pulled these out of him, he couldn’t have told you his name.”

  Buck looked from Wyatt to the beads and back again. He reluctantly lowered his gun and walked to the other side of the room.

  “I’m the one who left him up there to die. I don’t know anything about the beads.”

  “Why did you come back?” asked Darkly.

  Buck turned away from the wall to look at Wyatt, who’s head was buried in his hands.

  “There was a time when he was my brother. I decided to put him out of his misery. Make it quick. Instead of eaten by those things out there.”

  Buck looked at his gun with what appeared to be regret that he didn’t get to use it, and then holstered it.

  “You got any food?” Buck asked, changing the subject.

  Wyatt was dressed, but still sat on the floor, not looking at anyone. He had withdrawn into himself, no doubt trying to find what was there. Darkly, for one, hoped he never found it. Buck ate pickled cauliflower from a jar and looked Marielle up and down. She sat by the window, watching for movement outside. She felt Buck’s eyes boring into her.

  “Darkly said you were hurt.”

  “Shot. Then burned by a farmer.”

  Buck walked over to Marielle and pulled the curtains closer together and looked down at her stomach. Marielle pulled Darkly’s jacket around herself tightly.

  “I did what I was supposed to.”

  “And the father. Where’s he?”

  Marielle shrugged.

  “Then you didn’t do what was asked of you. You were supposed to build a family after whoring yourself out.”

  “Hey! That’s enough.”

  Darkly shut Buck down and put her arm around Marielle, who looked genuinely wounded by the statement.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Darkly continued.

  Buck looked outside. The sun was very low on the horizon.

  “What happened here before now?”

  The question came from Wyatt. His eyes were red, but his face was alert, and he was seeking answers.

  “You don’t want to know,” Buck shot back.

  “Yes, Buck. We do. What happened after you assured me it would all be okay?”

  Darkly waited impatiently for Buck to answer. She also had a right to know what threats the outside world, her world, was now facing. She was technically a wolf. One that could not turn. But a wolf. Buck surely respected that. Okay, so she was back to thinking that home was the three-bedroom house she grew up in, with people in it who were only human. It was hard to feel attached to a place that her own kind had abandoned.

  Buck ate a few more pickles, then began to speak at length.

  “Wyatt’s men had taken hostages. Shields. When I caught up to him, he had a knife to Trey’s throat.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wyatt smiled at Buck, as he dragged Trey into the church. Victoria, as wolf, growled at Wyatt, pacing back and forth in front of the entrance to the holy place. Buck could hear the shots behind him, the screaming, the wolves fighting to the death. The war for Wolf Woods was underway.

  Buck leapt into town, attacking one of Wyatt’s horde and killing him almost instantly in self-defense. This bold act bolstered the townsfolk. The prodigal son would not be welcomed home. Wolf Woods had chosen its alpha. Buck was with them, and they were with Buck to the end.

  But there was another. Neither of Buck’s or Wyatt’s clan. An old man. The last of his tribe, who had been waiting in the woods for just such a time of chaos, when the wolves would turn against each other. His people had last defended their home and hunting grounds from the wolves when he was a small boy. His father and his uncles were killed, along with most of their tribe. His mother and he fled north, deeper into the woods to wait.

  It was during that time he learned how to call his ancestors from even deeper in the forest and from the mountain tops. Through dance and song, he lured them from their purgatory. The lost ones who fed their famin
e with the flesh of their kin. But not his flesh. He controlled them with the lullabies of past lives they almost forgot.

  Now, with his army of sasquatch, the old man would finally take his revenge and rid his forest of the wolves. There would be justice for his mother and father and all those who came before them.

  He had been watching, as Buck left his people. He watched as the killer brother returned to reclaim Wolf Woods, and then he waited for war to erupt. When it did just that, the old man knew how to strike fear into the already rattled wolves. His army would target their children. And they would start with the killer’s own son.

  Wyatt slammed the front doors of the church shut and locked them, never loosening his grip on Trey.

  “Now you listen to me. My brother is not your father, boy. I am.”

  Trey struggled against Wyatt, who pressed the knife closer against his neck.

  “Stop!” Wyatt commanded. “Think about it. Why do you think he’s so opposed to you mating with my daughter?”

  Trey stopped struggling.

  “That got your attention, didn’t it? I don’t care if you fuck your sister, aunt or brother. You can fuck whoever you want. Eat whoever you want. I’m back for you. To make sure that you become the alpha. It’s your birthright. But, your birthright through me, not Buck. Are you listening?”

  Trey stared into Wyatt’s eyes.

  “Good. Now, I’m going to let you go. Don’t run. If I have to kill you, I will. I have a spare. He’s not much in the brain’s department, but I’m sure Victoria could fuck him into shape.”

  Trey twitched at that. Wyatt slowly pulled the knife away and released Trey. The boy moved a few inches away, and Wyatt held his knife at the ready. It was then that the faint sound of drums found its way through the church doors. Wyatt pointed at a bend in the entranceway.

  “Sit.”

  Trey didn’t move. The drums grew louder.

  “Sit,” repeated Wyatt more forcefully.

  Trey sat, and Wyatt took a glimpse out of a window. The color drained from his face. He ran back to Trey, grabbed the boy’s arm and ran into the sanctuary.

  Wyatt raced down the aisle, dragging Trey behind him. He pushed Trey up onto the altar and then began feeling the panels of the wall behind the altar. Finally, one gave way, just as the wood of the front doors shattered in an almighty crack of thunder. The whole building seemed to shake.

  “Shit. Judgment day. Just my fucking luck.”

  Wyatt pushed Trey through the panel, followed him in, and shut the panel behind them. In the panel, at eye level, was a small grate, disguised on the outside by artwork. On the inside of this storage cupboard, the grate was the only source of illumination. A small shaft of light fed by the lightbulbs in the sanctuary fell on Wyatt’s and Trey’s eyes. Wyatt pulled Trey in front of him to look through the grate. The boy gasped, and Wyatt immediately covered the boy’s mouth with his hand.

  Trey’s eyes teared up as the sound of grunting and snorting grew near to the hiding place. Then it stopped and was replaced by a slow, long inhale. Wyatt pulled Trey back into him, keeping his hand firmly planted on the teenager’s mouth. They sank into the back wall of the shallow space and watched the tips of three black, leathery fingers push their way through the grate and then withdraw.

  Wyatt let his hand fall away from Trey’s mouth, just as a hairy fist broke through the panel and opened its hand. It wrapped itself around Trey’s throat and pulled him through the panel like it was made of paper.

  Wyatt tried to burrow backwards through the wall behind him, as he watched the sasquatch throw Trey onto the pews below the altar. Trey’s body cracked, and he tumbled to the floor unconscious. The sasquatch turned it’s not quite human face to Wyatt. It stood on the outside of the panel and simply jutted its neck into the storage space, moving its face to within a few millimeters of Wyatt’s. It opened its mouth in a smile of crooked brown teeth and drool. The smile grew wider.

  Then the howl came.

  The sasquatch pulled its head free and spun around to face five wolves tearing down the aisle of the sanctuary. They leapt over Trey’s prostrate body and tackled the sasquatch. One wolf suffered a shattered jaw from the sasquatch’s punch on first contact and dragged itself whimpering behind the altar. But the four wolves remaining were enough to bring the ancient beast to its knees.

  That was exactly the circumstance needed for Wyatt to turn wolf and remove himself from the equation. He left the church to find a town overrun and his son, Roland, being dragged by the hair into an alleyway, where the beast that had him began pummeling his body until it burst open. Wyatt the wolf turned in circles, losing his human mind, while screams filled the air above the town.

  The attack was house-to-house. Families barricaded themselves inside their homes. Outside, those damned drums threatened to knock down walls with their booming. The wolves were on the defensive, and the old man knew he had won. But, the wolves remembered their fairytales. They hid their children in overflowing baths and turned garden hoses on the invaders. To lure them out, the old man would need to take hostages.

  Lily heard the howling and screaming from her bedroom window. She watched her father’s, now her sheep, run in one wave for higher ground up the fields at the edge of town. The best place in danger, she knew, was the fruit cellar at the end of the garden. She would wake Serena and take her there, until the sheriff came to report the all-clear. Whoever the sheriff ended up being.

  She and her new mother would not make it to the cellar. As fast as they could run, the creatures were faster. Though, the feared death did not come. Lily and Serena were scooped up like pets and carried away. In the woods just across the Moon River, they were dropped by a fireside, where an old man danced a forgotten rhythm to ghost drums, and wolf pups huddled together.

  Then, the attack was completed. The drumming ended abruptly, and the sasquatch simply sank into the mist. They disappeared.

  Buck stood as man once again over the mortally wounded sasquatch in the church. It gurgled and spit up blood. It looked around at the other naked townsfolk. It was confused, alone, not comprehending death after God knows how many years of cheating it. Its eyes glazed over, and its body went limp.

  Gus kneeled by Geraldine, whose mouth was bleeding and jaw dislocated. He pulled a cloth from the altar and tied her jaw to the top of her head. What a sight. She was in great pain, but her concern was with Trey’s body. Buck followed her gaze to where Victoria was kissing his son’s face.

  Buck kneeled by Trey, who moaned.

  “He’s alive,” Victoria said with relief.

  Buck nodded.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Buck left the church to find a quiet street. Only one man was there. Wyatt stood in the middle of the road holding his son’s irreparably broken body. Drifting on the air, Buck heard the sound of crying. It was building and came from all directions to replace the drumming that had stopped. He knew what it meant.

  “They’re gone,” Wyatt told Buck. “His heart burst. He won’t heal. I need to burn his body.”

  Buck nodded his head, and Wyatt walked past the brother who was firmly back in charge. Buck turned to see Victoria helping Trey out of the church.

  “Son,” Buck said, as he approached the two.

  Trey stopped Buck with his eyes. They were wounded, cold. They communicated, we’re not alright. Buck would sit Trey down another time. Right now, Buck needed to add up the wounded and the dead. And the number of children who had been taken from their inconsolable parents.

  Buck went house to house that night. It was five. Five missing children. All of them not yet thirteen. The price to get them back was going to be high. He needed to speak with Geraldine. It was time. Fate was forcing their hand. That same fate was brought on by the foul wind Wyatt road into town. He’d pay for this. Blood or no blood, Buck was ready to become a killer.

  Buck returned to his office and began rifling through papers. He was throwing everything on the floor, tearing up his
own office. Geraldine walked through the front door. Her face was bruised, but she had removed the Scrooge bandaging.

  “What are you doing?” she mumbled.

  “There was an Indian. Someone my grandfather told me about. A shaman he said could command the dead.”

  Geraldine put her hand on Buck’s.

  “Stop. Pour me a drink.”

  Buck continued to look through papers, but eventually dropped most of the sheets in his hand and dropped his ass into his chair to look at a black and white photograph of an old First Nations man sitting in the cell a few feet away. Buck turned the photo over to see a date written in pencil. 1932. And the words, The last one. He reached into a drawer and pulled out an unmarked bottle and a couple of glasses.

  “Huh. Wyatt didn’t drink it all yet.”

  Buck poured Geraldine and himself a shot of moonshine. Geraldine swallowed the spirit in one gulp and winced in pain.

  “Hurts?” Buck asked.

  “Yes,” Geraldine responded, forcing her injured mouth to turn up in a smile. “There’s too many of them. We can’t win. You know that. The children are the bargain. It’s over.”

  Buck swallowed his shot.

  “Okay. But we’re leaving one bastard behind.”

  Geraldine knew exactly who Buck was talking about.

  Buck walked out into the Moon River under a bright morning sun. A loon drifted on the current a few yards away. Behind him, Geraldine, Gus, and several other brave souls had Buck’s back on the town-side riverbank. Standing in the middle of the ford was the old Indian. Buck couldn’t see them, but he knew who had the old man’s back.

  Buck stopped about six feet from the man. They nodded at one another.

  “What do you want?” Buck asked the old man.

  “What I have always wanted. What my ancestors wanted when you drove them off our lands. To come home.”

  “I can provide you with a house of your own. Food,” Buck offered.

  “I don’t think so.”

  The old man smiled.

  “Are the children safe?”

  “Of course. I have kept them close.”

  With great flare, the old man flung open his long hide coat, and the five children, including Lily came running out. Splashing through the water, they ran to hide themselves behind Buck. The old man then turned in a circle, his front disappearing from Buck’s view for a couple of seconds and reappearing again, with Serena holding tightly to the Indian’s midriff. She ran to join Lily.