Medium Rare: (Intermix)

by Meg Benjamin

  Rose’s shoulders tightened. At least she was wearing jeans and running shoes. Too bad she didn’t also have a Glock. “Ready?”

  He nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Helen and Lenore were waiting for them outside the car. In spite of what her grandmother had said, at the moment the animals seemed to be more inclined to follow the humans. A winding stone walkway led from the drive where they’d parked the car to broad stairs and a flagstone front porch. Corinthian columns rose on either side, supporting the peaked porch roof overhead. Evan clicked on the flashlight and shone it through the open front door.

  A massive stairway curved to the right, up to a second floor that was shrouded in darkness. A hall to the left led toward what looked like a series of doors, probably living and dining rooms. Rose stood very still, but she couldn’t hear anything. The house seemed to be profoundly empty.

  “What now?” she asked, dropping her voice almost to a whisper. Something about the silence made her edgy.

  “We go inside,” Evan said grimly. Behind him, Helen whined. “It’s okay. It’s what we have to do.”

  He stepped forward across the threshold. Rose took a deep breath, and then followed him, trailed by Helen and Lenore.

  “I’m not sure where . . . ,” Evan began.

  Behind them, the massive front door swung shut in utter silence. Rose stood still for a moment, willing her heart rate to slow, then turned back to grasp the knob. She wasn’t entirely surprised when it didn’t move in her hand.

  Evan shook his head. “Predictable. Don’t let it get to you. He’s just trying to scare us.”

  And in that, of course, he was succeeding. She paused and took another deep breath. Ma. Think about Ma. “What do we do now?”

  “Let’s take the tour.” He started up the hall toward the first door, shining his flashlight inside. A living room stretched at least half the length of the house, filled with couches and chairs arranged into small groups. Evan stepped inside, shining his light along the walls as Helen walked behind him. “Wonder how he got the minions to take the night off. Maybe they’re off doing something miniony.”

  She stepped after him, pausing inside the door to get her bearings. Evan’s light moved farther into the room, disappearing around one of the clumps of furniture. She started after him, then stopped again. The darkness around her felt suffocating. Evan’s light had disappeared.

  “Evan? Where are you?”

  She paused, listening. The thick carpet seemed to absorb the sound of her footsteps. Some hints of moonlight glinted at the windows. “Evan?”

  Her heart gave a solid thump. The silence in the room seemed deeper than it had before. “Helen,” she called. “Come here. Come here to me.”

  No footsteps. No sound of the dog moving across the floor toward her.

  She stood very still. Focusing all her attention on the far side of the room, where she’d seen them just a moment ago. Where they weren’t any longer. She could see the shapes of the furniture, the outlines of the windows, the dimmer outline of the door she’d stepped through a moment before.

  But no Evan. No Helen. No Lenore.

  Rose closed her eyes, biting her lip to keep her teeth from chattering. She was completely alone. She stepped forward carefully in the semidarkness until she bumped against something on the floor. She stopped, staring down.

  Shards of moonlight from an unshaded window glimmered dimly on the floor in front of her, illuminating the undoubtedly dead face of William Bradford.

  ***

  Evan stood still, trying to get his bearings. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn they were back in the entry hall again. He ran his flashlight along the wall, shaking his head. “We must have circled around and come out.”

  Rose didn’t answer. He half-turned to reassure her and saw nothing but darkness behind him. He swung the flashlight back, staring down the now-empty hall to the distant front door, then back again. No one was in the hall with him except the animals.

  Rose was gone.

  He whirled back toward the door they’d come through, only to find a solid wall in front of him. No doors to be seen.

  “Rose!” he shouted. “Where are you? Answer me, Goddamnit!” He ran his hands over the wall, trying to find the opening they’d just come through, but the surface seemed solid.

  “What the hell?” He stared at the wall, then back at the distant door. Or where the distant door had been a moment before.

  Clearly, something was messing with him, with all of them, and the chances seemed very good that something wasn’t human. All the more reason to find Rose.

  In the silence he heard Helen’s faint whine. She trotted a few steps down the hall, glancing back at him expectantly.

  “No, we’ve got to find Rose. The demon’s screwing with us.”

  Helen whined again, more persistently this time. Above him, Lenore fluttered over to the wall, cawing. Something was leaning against it, beneath her flapping wings. Evan raised the flashlight slightly and saw what looked like a hand-carved walking stick, with a piece of leather laced through the top.

  What the hell? More demon crap?

  The staff might be from the demon, something that only looked innocuous. On the other hand, Grandma Caroline had said they’d try to break through the wards. Maybe this was meant for him.

  Just like Dungeons and Dragons—pick up the weapons as you go. He took the walking stick and glanced at Helen.

  “Will you take me to Rose?”

  Helen turned and began trotting up the hall. After a moment, Evan followed her, swinging the walking stick in one hand and holding the flashlight in the other as Lenore settled onto his shoulder.

  Helen seemed to know where she was going—or at least she acted like she did. She moved ahead purposefully, her great paws muffled by the thick carpet as she trotted. Maybe she had an idea about where Rose was. Thank God, Helen at least had a plan.

  Lenore flexed her claws into his shoulder as if to remind him she was there, too. All right, Helen and Lenore had a plan.

  He held the flashlight up a bit higher, staring into the darkness ahead of them. The wall was still solid, but Evan had an uneasy feeling they’d crossed over some other dimension. Maybe one where the demon was waiting. The reality around them seemed to be shifting. Of course reality in this place seemed to be a sort of shaky concept. He was pretty sure they’d left his kind of reality behind once they’d stepped inside the front door.

  On his shoulder, Lenore flapped her wings, muttering. Helen’s pace slowed.

  Evan raised his flashlight again, peering into the darkness. Somewhere far overhead he thought he heard a sound, a rustling, a faint disturbance in the air.

  Helen growled low in her throat, while Evan turned the flashlight toward the ceiling. A ceiling that was suddenly much farther away than it had been a few seconds ago.

  High overhead, the surface seemed to undulate, as if it were alive. The rustling became a whirring, then a shrill discordant chirping. Evan caught his breath. He recognized the sound from his own nightmares. Oh, shit!

  The darkness seemed to coalesce, to become a series of fluttering shapes that became more distinct as they moved nearer. The sound was sharper, too, and Evan tightened his hand on the walking stick, raising it protectively in front of him. At least now he knew why it had been left for him. He glanced up again to confirm what he already knew—hundreds of rapidly descending bat wings beat through the air just above their heads.

  A bat dived toward him, and he swung his staff in its general direction. He heard its high-pitched squeak, almost like batty laughter, as its wings brushed his shoulder.

  He grasped the gnarled top of the stick and swung the base at the bat swarm in a rough circle, which seemed to send the bats fluttering higher. For a moment, he wished he had Skag’s broom again, but the stick was better than nothing. After ano
ther couple of feints, he switched hands and swung the flashlight in a swooping arc that caught a bat directly above him. It disappeared, shrieking, in a puff of dust.

  He alternated between stick and flashlight, slashing them back and forth. Another bat swished by his head and he felt a quick pinprick on his ear. Something warm dripped down to his neck. He touched the side of his face. His fingers came away wet.

  He gritted his teeth. In his dreams, the bats had confined themselves to diving at his head. They’d never bitten him. Don’t make the mistake of thinking of this as a dream. The reality they were currently inhabiting might be shaky, but it was solid enough to kill.

  He thrust the walking stick upward again, trying to drive the bats back toward the ceiling. Beside him, Helen bared her teeth, leaping up to snap at the nearest leathery wings.

  Another diving bat collided with the flashlight and went poof. But as he looked up, he could see the air above them dark with flapping wings. Dozens of bats, hundreds, maybe thousands. More than he could whack with a stick and a flashlight, anyway.

  Two more bats dived at his face, and he slapped them away. He felt a quick flare of pain along the side of his hand where bat fangs had punctured.

  Lenore hovered uneasily behind his shoulder as the bats swirled closer. Another bat made a quick dive at his head, sending him staggering backward.

  And Lenore took wing.

  Her cry sounded more like an eagle’s than a raven’s, a wild shrieking call to battle. She flew into the center of the swirling mass of bat wings, her talons extended. And then she was wheeling overhead, pecking, tearing, slashing at the mass of bat bodies.

  Evan saw a bat fasten onto the raven’s shoulder, sinking its teeth into her wing. He grabbed the staff again and swatted it away, then another and another. Bats exploded, screeching, writhing from Lenore’s talons.

  Somewhere beside him, he heard Helen barking, and then he felt her teeth close lightly on his pant leg.

  He looked down. Helen stared with glowing eyes, then began to drag him inexorably down the hall, away from the swirling mass of bats.

  “No, Helen! We’ve got to help Lenore.”

  Helen growled softly, pulling him further around a curve. Behind him the bats swirled, closing in on Lenore.

  Ignoring Evan.

  Helen jerked his pant leg again, insistently. He looked back once more. Lenore had disappeared in the churning scrum of bats, their squeaking cries drowning out her caws. Helen jerked again.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “Okay, I’m going.”

  They turned a corner and Lenore disappeared from his sight.

  ***

  Rose screamed a few times, she wasn’t sure how many, before she got herself under control again. Her heart hammered and her knees felt weak, but this was definitely not the time to take a break.

  After a moment, she forced herself to lean down and place her fingers on the side of Bradford’s neck. His skin felt cold and slack; his face seemed oddly shrunken, as if it no longer had anything behind it. In a way, of course, it didn’t since Bradford’s soul had undoubtedly gone missing, probably long ago.

  She backed away, trying to avoid the furniture in the room, all of which seemed to have suddenly been placed in her path. Glancing down, she saw a black shape silhouetted against a tabletop by the moonlight. She reached down and felt metal. Kneeling in the darkness, she ran her fingers over a small but very efficient gun.

  Rose blinked. Guns and demons didn’t really seem to go together. It seemed like it should be something a little more exotic, like a scimitar. On the other hand, she wasn’t inclined to turn down opportunities to defend herself. She picked it up and tucked it into the waistband of her jeans. She had no idea whether the gun was Bradford’s or whether it had been left for her by the spirit helpers, but she was hoping for the latter.

  Aided by the moonlight, she moved out into another hall. A row of windows lined the opposite side, giving her enough light to walk. She started moving forward, breathing deep to slow down her hammering heart.

  One passage seemed to feed into another, leading down long, twisting hallways to nowhere. She was guessing the demon was somewhere nearby. He’d shed the human shell that had been Bradford. How long he could function without a vessel, she didn’t know. Nor what she’d do if she actually ran into him. She took a tighter grip on the gun. Not that a gun would be much help against a being that was largely transparent and wholly supernatural, assuming the demon was like Skag.

  Moonlight spilled out onto the floor ahead of her—not enough to see much beyond her feet. From a long way away she thought she heard muffled shrieks, and something that sounded like a wild bird’s cry. She shuddered. Definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

  She peered down the hall, hoping for Lenore. Or maybe Helen. Or, best of all, Evan. A dull pain throbbed in her chest. They’re all right. We’ve just been separated. They’re all okay.

  “Evan?” she called. “Helen? Lenore?”

  She heard a scratching as brittle legs tickled along the wall to her left. She jumped away, brushing her shoulder against the other wall. Cobwebs.

  She shivered. She’d expected the hall she was following to intersect with the one they’d used when they’d come in, but nothing was where it was supposed to be. Clearly she couldn’t rely on her normal sense of direction. She wasn’t even sure direction applied in this place.

  And the air seemed to be getting colder.

  ***

  Long after they’d moved beyond the sound of the bats, Evan still had an ache in his chest and a tightness in his shoulders.

  Helen still trotted ahead of him purposefully, as if she knew exactly where they were headed. He was willing to believe she did, although he didn’t have a clue himself.

  His flashlight beam seemed slightly dimmer. If he didn’t find Rose soon—or at least get a clue about where she was—they’d be in darkness. He didn’t like to think about what could happen then.

  He raised his flashlight slightly, checking for doors, and almost ran into Helen.

  She was standing frozen in the middle of the passage. A low rumbling sound from her throat made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Her lips were pulled back, exposing her massive teeth and jaws.

  An answering rumble came from the darkness in front of them.

  Helen stalked forward slowly, her eyes fastened on something ahead. He raised the flashlight high, illuminating the passage.

  A massive gray wolf crouched ten feet ahead of them, waiting.

  He was bigger than Helen, which meant he was considerably bigger than he’d ever been in Evan’s dreams. The animal’s shoulders might have touched his rib cage, assuming that Evan would ever be stupid enough to let the wolf get that close.

  It opened its mammoth jaws, snarling more loudly now. Helen answered him, her back hair bristling, her legs tensed in a crouch.

  Evan’s heart thumped painfully as he watched. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can talk you out of this.”

  The snarling reached a crescendo, both animals baring their fangs. And then Helen leaped, her long legs pumping upward.

  The wolf was ready for her, fastening his teeth in her shoulder and pulling her down. Their two immense bodies rolled across the floor, filling the hallway with the sounds of their struggle.

  The animals separated briefly, baring their fangs again, their snarls echoing, then flew back together, jaws snapping, each trying to catch the other by the throat. The bodies rolled away in the dust.

  And suddenly the way ahead was clear.

  Evan stared at the empty passage and then back at the struggling canines. “No, Helen,” he whispered. “No. I can’t leave you here.”

  For a moment, he almost thought she glanced at him. And then she was pressing the wolf back again, her coat dappled with blood, trying to herd him back down the passage away from Evan
as the animal tore at her flesh.

  Go.

  He stared. For a brief moment, Helen glared back at him with burning eyes.

  Go now!

  He took a quick shuddering breath, then turned and ran up the passage, away from the sounds of death. Around one corner, then another, then one more. Until he could no longer hear the fight. No longer see what Helen was doing to save his miserable life. And Rose. Remember Rose.

  He stood in the middle of the passage for a moment, his eyes closed tight, gasping for breath. “Okay. I understand. We’ll stop him.”

  Chapter 27

  Rose could swear she heard animals growling, closer now than the bird cries she’d heard earlier. The hallway seemed darker, too, the windows further apart than they’d been before.

  A part of her wanted to stop, to stay right where she was and hope that Evan would find her. But she knew that couldn’t happen. “Got to save yourself, Rosie,” she murmured. “Can’t wait for somebody else to do it.”

  She came to another turning in the hallway that opened out into a V. From one branch, she could still hear some distant animal noises, while the other seemed to turn back in the general direction from which she’d come.

  Oh, marvelous. She didn’t particularly want to face whatever was snarling up ahead, but going back was definitely not a good idea.

  She stood poised at the intersection, listening to the growls crescendo deeper in the passage. Something screamed in agony—and then silence. She shuddered.

  Clouds drifted across the moon, casting the floor in near darkness. Rose moved forward cautiously, sliding her feet along the stone floor, trying not to trip.

  Now that would be an ignominious end—flat on her face in a hallway. She turned another corner and saw someone standing just ahead.

  She could just make out the shape of his shoulders and head. He was holding a light in front of him, throwing his figure into silhouette. Rose slipped back against the wall, trying to make herself as flat as possible.