He fell against the last outcropping, pushed off, and dragged himself around it with his front feet until his back legs got the idea again. He broke through the circle of trees. A low fire was burning in the pit that Garret himself had built of stones. It shed a sickly red light over two people, neither of whom were Sarn or Molly. Mr. Malvern was moving like a pale automaton, trying and failing to erect some sort of log pile to allow him to reach his wife. Mrs. Malvern was ten feet off the ground. Her old, heavy body hung limply between the skeletal white trunks of a forked sycamore. She had been crucified, nailed spread eagle to the tree.
Garret didn’t move. The log pile Mr. Malvern was making fell apart. He started over. The fire popped. Mrs. Malvern’s dress was shredded and ground with ashes from the mansion fire. She’d been rescued from that fire by the same creature that had crucified her in the light of this one.
Mr. Malvern was grunting, whimpering as he tried and tried again with his soft pudgy hands to awkwardly pile a few rotten logs in a way on which he could stand. Mrs. Malvern was silent and unmoving, her head down. Her blood, black in the red light, ran down the bare, white skin of the sycamore.
Garret crossed the small open space, shifted, and shimmied up the left hand fork. Mr. Malvern continued to pile, climb, fall off of, and re-pile his logs as though he had not seen Garret. Garret’s legs still didn’t work well, but his arms retained wolf strength, so between them, he managed to climb up next to Mrs. Malvern.
When he reached her, he found that she was sitting on a thick branch which had been driven between the trunks below her buttocks to bear most of her weight. It didn’t want to kill her. It just wanted to hurt her. He took his first good look at the nails which held her to the tree. Jesus Christ…
They weren’t nails at all. They were railroad spikes. Huge, rough iron things. Their width had grossly pried her hands and feet apart, forcing her fingers and toes to jut all different directions. It reminded Garret of his mother’s shoulder, pried apart from the inside. Garret fought a rush of nausea. The creature had inflicted tremendous pain on him in the past weeks, but seeing it done to someone else was worse, in a way. Especially when it was done to someone as old and heavy and defenseless as Mrs. Malvern.
Garret blinked his eyes clear to find Mrs. Malvern looking at him. Her head was still bowed, and her face hung like a Halloween mask when she said, “I tried, Powell. I tried to tell her it was all my fault. I only made it worse.” Mrs. Malvern’s face hung more heavily, as if sorrow would slough it from her. “Our daughter’s dead. My little Charity is dead. I killed her.”
Garret let go of the trunk and fell. He caught himself with his legs. Sort of. He groveled for a moment, but remembered to shift a few times and his legs became slightly more useable. Human again, he called to Mr. Malvern as he stood. “Mr. Malvern, which way did it take Molly and Sarn?”
Malvern whined and fumbled wood.
“Mr. Malvern, stop. I think I can pull the spikes out.”
Malvern tried to lift a log that was too heavy for him. He dropped it on his foot, gave up and headed for some sticks Garret had piled for later use. Garret got in his way. Malvern went around him, which surprised Garret. He’d always seemed like the type of man who didn’t go around anybody. “Mr. Malvern!” Garret barked.
Malvern whined and gathered an armload of the sticks, which were too small to be good for anything. Garret seized the older man by the shoulders, ripped the sticks away from him and thundered in his face. “Stop it!”
Malvern did.
“I can get your wife down, but only if you tell me which way it took Molly and Sarn!” He wasn’t going to leave Mrs. Malvern there one way or another, but Mr. Malvern looked like he needed some encouragement to act promptly.
Mutely, the older man pointed away to the southwest, then said, “Get her down, okay?”
Garret shimmied back up the tree. Again on eye level with the crucified old woman, he inspected the spikes. Thankfully, they weren’t driven deep. In fact as he looked at the rough iron stakes, puckering the old woman’s palms, he realized they were barely driven into the wood at all. The creature had intentionally made her easy to remove.
Garret scooted down to the level of Mrs. Malvern’s feet and shifted enough to give himself some of the wolf’s strength, but not enough that he would fall from the tree. He wrapped a grey-furred hand around the spike pinning her right foot, and pulled straight out. For a second nothing happened. Garret increased the pressure until he was gritting his teeth and having difficulty clinging to the trunk. With a juicy pop, the spike came out of the green wood of the trunk. Mrs. Malvern’s leg swung free.
He shimmied down, then up the other fork and did the same to her other foot. As he was clinging to the trunk, considering how on earth he was going to pull the spikes from her hands without her falling to her death, he caught a whiff of brimstone.
Heart in his throat, he pushed hard off of the trunk and dropped, calling out as he did, “Mr. Malvern, run!” He landed out in front of the tree, halfway between it and the fire. The fire itself erupted upwards. The creature swelled out of it in a shower of flaming wood and cinders, much as he had seen it emerge from shadow.
That must have been what it was doing in the mansion, mused a detached part of Garret. Moving from hearth to hearth. Just like the shadows. Fire and darkness, that’s what it is.
Garret struggled to his feet. He had been terrified for so long that he was getting used to it. He faced the creature as it rose to its full height. A smile creased the length of its snout. It gazed from its pale-faced father, to its dangling mother, to the skinny, naked blacksmith in the middle of it all.
It let its eyes rest on Garret and said, “One more thing I want from you, young one.” Then the voice softened, and Garret distinctly heard the human personality taking over. “Make love to me, Garret. That’s what I want. Make love to me, or your brother and my darling sister will die.”
* * *
With a sigh, the creature let go and shifted its mass down into a young woman. Its snout shrank away, revealing delicate features full of a soft, feminine version of her father’s pride. The fur retreated as her body shrank, revealing luscious curves of bare skin. She was about Garret’s own height, perhaps one hundred and twenty pounds, and beautiful to behold. This was the first time he’d seen Charity Malvern naked, but as far as he could recall, she hadn’t aged a day since the last time he’d seen her in town. If anything, she was even more beautiful, as if her union with the monster inside her had honed her body to its peak, brought her to the physical paragon of young womanhood.
As Garret looked at her, bare in the fire light, urgent lust exploded inside him, making him drop his eyes in shame and step away from her. She passed him slowly, letting her motion accentuate the flowing lines that made up her form. Though it humiliated him beyond description, he couldn’t help but be reminded of Molly. Of what he and Molly had not finished. Of what he wanted and needed so desperately from her. To be with her. To make love to her. To know that he was wanted and needed, and that he could both satisfy and be satisfied by that which had been used to inflict so much damage.
Somehow, though, the damage had only made his sex drive stronger, in the same way that nothing is more dangerous than a wounded animal.
She sidled past him, swinging close. Close enough that he could have touched her if he had reached out. He didn’t. He dared not look at her, but he caught her scent. It was warm and sweet. She was wearing a perfume similar to what Molly wore. It promised how soft she would feel pressed against him, and his head was suddenly filled with images that weren’t coming from his own mind. Images of her fully aroused, of the things he could do with her, and she with him. Things he’d never thought of before.
It should have made him want. It should have made him desire. But it should not have inspired the raging lust which awoke inside him like a caged monster. Humiliated, needing, and frightened by the strength of the feelings, he stared at the ground and covered himself with his hands, as
embarrassed as if he was standing naked before his Ma. Yet at the same time, it was all he could do to stand there and not rush her and take her down to the dirt under him.
Instead of climbing up the tree, Charity went from ground level to her mother’s height in a single, graceful leap. She still had the creature’s strength, even when its form was tucked away inside her.
So she was stronger even than Garret was. He knew what it would mean when they were in each other’s arms, and as she pulled one spike loose, he heard her voice in his head. Only I can satisfy you, Garret. Only I will never tire or grow old. Only I can take as much as you can give. You see now, don’t you? Only you and I can be everything for each other. You were meant for me, not for my sister.
Garret flinched at the mention of Molly. The lust-beast inside him paused its rumbling.
“Where are they?” Garret croaked.
Charity pulled the other spike from her mother’s wrist and let go of the tree as her mother fell. Charity wrapped herself around her mother’s back and became a monstrous mound of black-fur-cushion. Garret heard them hit the ground, but did not see it in the darkness behind the tree.
Charity’s voice came softly. “There mother, ten minutes for every year you tortured me. Am I not more compassionate than you?”
Charity emerged from behind the tree, her smooth figure awash with firelight. Garret took a step back, and another as if he had to physically resist her pull. “Just tell me where they are,” he said unsteadily, studying a stone at his foot as hard as he could. Then he added quietly, “Please. I don’t know why you hate me, but just let them go.”
Charity laughed and there was nothing bestial about it. It was a young woman’s laugh. It was clear and free, and it rang of all the simple things that had made his life so good before the madness began.
It sounded simple, and fun. It sounded real. Garret dropped his head.
“I don’t hate you, Garret,” she said gently. “I want you to make love to me.”
And then she was standing in front of him, right in front of him, her breasts an inch from his bare chest, seemingly without having covered the distance between. Eyes wide, he hesitated a fraction of a second before beginning to step away, and in that time, she laid a hand on his chest, slid it down his side. It was simply a touch. That was all. He had been touched before in that way. Several times. They were both his best and worst memories.
But this time it was different. The moment her skin touched his, she was inside him. His lust and need became uncontrollable. The curve of her hip became the only thing in the world he wanted to touch, her breasts and stomach the only thing he wanted to touch him.
He fought it until he shook. But didn’t have the sense to step away, to run. She slid her hand down over his right buttock, around his thigh, and lightly between his legs.
“Get away from him!” It was Molly. No it wasn’t. It was Mrs. Malvern again. She had crawled around the trunk, stringing blood and singed fabric behind her. Her arms quivered and her voice was as sallow as her face, but she tried to keep coming.
“Get… away from the boy. You won’t… corrupt him too.”
Charity laughed, turning to her mother. This time it was not the same laugh it had been. “Corrupt him? If only you’d seen what just went through his mind, mother.” She paced towards her mother, and contempt began to overrun her. “Men are all the same.” She shot a hateful look at her father, who was still standing, pale faced, doing nothing. “Aren’t they, Daddy? They promise and pretend to love when all they want to do is take and use.” She stopped and bent down so she could scream in her mother’s face. “They don’t love you! None of them! You can give them everything. You can love them with your whole heart.” Her voice rose to a shriek. “You can come back from the fucking dead for them! And find them with—”
She couldn’t finish.
Garret did. With my mother.
There was a protracted silence. Garret was still shaking with the unsatisfied beast inside him. Mrs. Malvern was shaking from weakness and blood loss. Charity was shaking from a host of things Garret probably didn’t want to understand.
She straightened and turned away from her mother. Garret tried to avert his eyes from her again, but found himself unable to do so. She approached, and he stumbled a step backwards, making his right leg tingle with nerve pain again. He grappled for focus. Struggled to think of a way to pry Molly and Sarn’s location out of her, but all he could think about was her. What he needed, what she could provide. The images poured into his mind as she came.
“And you,” she cooed, and the barest hint of the creature’s voice entered hers. “I’ll happily let your brother and my sister live. I’ll even take you to them.”
She’d spread the fire around when she came out of it, but the coal bed was still mostly intact. She stepped into it and walked across it as if the orange embers were no more than sun-warmed brook stones. “Just give in to what you want. No one ever need know.”
She stepped out of the coals and across the low wall of stones Garret had set around the fire pit. She crossed every boundary he’d set up as if it was not there. She stepped into a shadow and vanished. Garret realized he was standing on the edge of another shadow just before she emerged from it, her hand out. Her fingers brushed his shoulder, tingling with tantalizing promise. He fell away, made himself run from her. At the edge of the circle, he pressed himself against a tree. He couldn’t think clearly enough to form any sort of plan. It took every ounce of his strength not to crawl back to her, like a lamb to slaughter.
“Garret,” she cooed from somewhere near the other side of his tree. “Make love to me. Let me feel your passion. I want it. All of it. I want you.”
“I can’t,” Garret gasped, sinking to the dirt, grabbing handfuls of his hair so his hands didn’t start clawing at the ground and drag him around the tree to her. “I can’t. I can’t!”
She gave a small, sad laugh. It was pure and simply human again. “You ask too much of yourself, Garret. I did too, and look what it made me. Do you not know why I want to be with you?”
Garret stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Charity’s tone had something in it he’d heard only from one other person. The tenderness. The love. He’d thought only Molly could speak to him that way. He heard Charity sit down on the other side of the tree. Her tone became hesitant. Vulnerable. Garret was a sucker for vulnerable, even without roaring drives.
Why is it sex? Garret wondered frantically. Why is it always sex? What’s wrong with me?
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Garret. You’ve been lied to.” She paused and when she finished, her voice was weak as a mouse. “Like me.”
Mrs. Malvern was saying something in background. Screaming it, actually, but it was all so far away. Garret heard her crawling around the tree. He crawled the opposite way, though he didn’t want to. Another image crept into his head. This one he felt. He felt her pressed against his skin, her hands sliding down the small of his back while he pressed into her warmth.
“Stop it!” Garret screamed, curling up and gripping the side of his head. “Stop it, stop it! I love Molly!”
But when he curled up, she caught up to him. Her breasts touched his shoulder blades, her soft stomach settled against his lower back, her warm leg draped over his hips, her hand slid up his neck into his hair, feeding his lusts every sensation they had desired, and many more exotic ones they had never encountered.
Trembling, mindless, wild, Garret rolled over atop Charity and kissed her deeply. She wrapped her legs over his hips, locking him in a trap that made him tingle with pleasure from head to toe.
Chapter 21
If Mrs. Malvern hadn’t reached them at that exact moment, all would have been lost. Charity suddenly arched away from Garret, screaming an ear-splitting shriek that quickly rose into the creature’s chilling octaves. Garret recoiled from her, fell against the tree in a wash of guilt and panic.
Holy God, oh Jesus, what did I do?
Garr
et crawled, flailed away, his hips jerking and sending pangs up into his back. Oh, Jesus, Molly…
Charity was no longer Charity. She stood at least eleven feet tall now, dark with oily fur and menace. She held her mother aloft by the throat. Mrs. Malvern hung helplessly in the creature’s six-fingered hand. The silver clip she’d pulled from her hair fell from her hand to the dirt. A small patch of the creature’s shoulder was rising in angry, white blisters where Mrs. Malvern had pressed the clip to her daughter’s skin.
Eyes burning brighter than the fire embers, the creature shook the old woman and roared in a tangle of its own voice and Charity’s, “You are a despicable hypocrite! I may be a monster, but I hide nothing!” It flung her to the ground. Her heavy old body hit with finality.
It turned back to face Garret and all of Charity was gone from it. “You do not wish the way of pleasure, then you shall have the way of pain! You and I will have a child such as this world has never seen. My master has demanded it! It is the price of my freedom, and so it is the price of yours! You will mate with me, or both of those you love will die in fear and darkness. They will fall just as I have fallen. They will be torn asunder by the rocks as I was torn apart by his hands to be flung, half alive, into this wretched world of yours!” Its voice rose to a thunder that shook the trees. “You and your kind have cost me everything, and left me in agony since before your grandfather’s grandfather trod this soil, and I will suffer you no longer!”
The creature rose to its full height and came towards him. “Your seed freely given, and the child from it, or suffer as I have suffered. No matter how this ends, you will not be with your beloved. I will not allow it. I will kill you first and begin again with the one who will inherit your curse.”
Sarn, Garret thought.
“Choose now, bitchborn. Give me your child, or die, and condemn all those you love.”
That was when the answer came, as if it had been dropped into his heart from on high. Whether the creature had given him the information intentionally, or whether it had finally, in a moment of blind emotion, made a mistake, Garret saw a way out. It was a tiny chance. A faint and quickly fading glimmer of light, but he seized it. He sprang off his behind, turned in the air, and hit the ground running as fur jetted across his back.
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