by Wendy Laine
Danny was busy muttering. “Heart of the unwilling. Teeth of the beast. Bones of one who’d come before. Death of the last.”
“Danny, whatever Critch has talked you into—this is a bad idea.”
“Talked me into?” Danny asked. “You think this was all his idea? Do you have any idea how long it takes to drag something as complicated as this transference ritual outta him? I think half the time he was confusing me with some other Watcher from fifty years ago.” He snorted. “The old coot once tried this ritual to transfer it to his girlfriend. I honestly didn’t think he had it in him to bait you. He kept changing his mind. I was meant to be a Watcher. Then, I wasn’t. Then, I was. I think it was the damn mutts. He has a soft spot for dogs. He’s barely been speaking to me since that damn dog. I’m tellin’ you, I was fixin’ to strangle him. He’d interfere—except when I wanted him to. Then, you survived that house fire. I thought when I saw the smoke I might need to move on to your daddy on account of the ritual needing to be done before the last Watcher’s death and not too far ahead of time, either. But you lived. And y’all are both here. It’s fate.”
“It’s not fate. We followed Critch here.”
That made Danny pause. “He’s here?” A moment later, he yelled, “Critch, come out, come out, wherever you are.”
I’d have sworn Danny wasn’t ambitious enough to do all this planning. Honestly, despite our dire circumstances, I was a smidge impressed. He used to take ten minutes to decide whether he wanted tater tots for lunch.
As if he’d heard me, Danny said, “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it, but it gets easier every time.”
“Every time you do what?” A swirl of cold air whispered around us, and Gris clutched me closer. “Don‘t go into the dark,” he whispered. “Whatever you do, don’t go into the shadows.”
“Killing. I don’t even have to work up to it anymore. Y’all are right out in the open,” Danny shoved something into the knot in the wood.
Gris grabbed me around the waist and bolted into the dark, changing form as he did. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t even start screaming until we were already in the air and the spot where we’d been was peppered with rifle shot. Cold claws grasped all around me nearly as tangible as Gris’s talons pressing into my skin. A rip was followed by breaking glass and plastic. Screaming, I kicked my feet in the air as he carried me up, up into the darkness toward the long beam stretching to the single window.
“Dammit, Gris!” Danny slapped the side of the barn.
When my feet touched the light on the beam and Gris landed behind me, we tipped off-balance as he flipped back into human form.
“Whoa!” Gris said, grabbing the crossbeam and wrapping us both around it. “Hold on, Piper. Hold on.”
“They can’t fly?” I asked. “I thought they could fly or something.” Could they get to us? The shadows had talons, bigger talons than Gris did.
“No. No wings. They can creep and jump, but not this high. We’re safe up here.” He shifted around as he examined our predicament. “Sorta.”
Long scratches feathered across his upper arms and drops of blood pooled along them. The air swam in front of me as I stared at the bright, red blood on his skin. I could nearly taste the metallic smell.
“Piper!” He pulled my arms around the beam in a tight hug. “You can’t faint. I’m no good in the light and I’m not nearly as strong during the day. If you fall…”
“You’re getting blood all over me!”
“Concentrate on that, then. I’m staining your clothes something fierce. Stains all over. Get mad. Get frustrated. Just don’t faint because they’re starving for the chance to kill us.”
I couldn’t faint. I couldn’t faint. It was a long way down to the floor of the barn. A long drop with a short stop. Even if the drop didn’t kill me, the darkness wanted a taste of me. I could feel scratches on my skin, too. If Gris hadn’t been protecting me from the fiends with his body, I might be bleeding stains into my own clothes.
A snort from outside. “I’m hoping so. I was gonna make it quick, but y’all are fighting y’all’s destiny. Those fiends should be good and riled, at least from the powdered bones. That and the sulfur—that’s what makes them spitting mad and calls them. Once I started adding the bones to the curse bags, it was like ringing a dinner bell. I still might have to dig up Silas’s nephew for more supplies. And grave-digging is a nasty business—though I reckon you know that now. How was that Gris? I stopped by and noticed you’d found my little gift.” He cackled this time. As Mama would say, that boy ain’t right. He should’ve been higher up on my list.
“What is he talking about?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Gris snarled. “You only need me for your stupid ritual—why go after her? Why torment her? Was it because you knew I wouldn’t let anything happen to Piper?”
“Oh no, getting rid of her was always part of the plan. I made a few mistakes the first time I killed. I’d only needed the one heart, but then she snuck out as if they hadn’t just said good-bye. So I had to kill Trina, too, and the car was a mess by then. I’d thought—the creek, nobody will find them at the bottom. There I am, driving them to their grave, right by Piper Devon, with her staring, staring eyes—like my worst nightmare come to life.”
“I was sleepwalking! I don’t remember any of it.”
Danny snorted. “I heard you did that.”
“Hank told you I’ve been sleepwalking out to the fence since that night?” For some reason, I hadn’t expected Hank to run around telling people all my secrets, but I should’ve.
Another patch of hush from Danny.
Gris held me tighter and leaned down to whisper, “I’m gonna figure out how to get us out of here. Keep him talking.”
I nodded.
“Well, I didn’t hear it directly from him,” Danny said. “Maybe if I hadn’t pissed him off, he’d have told me, and I’d have known you didn’t remember.”
“I reckon Hank might be pissed that you murdered his sister,” I said.
“Don‘t be stupid. He doesn’t know that. Although he might guess as much. Only a few of us here with the guts to do it. I might have to deal with him after I’m done here. I had to deal with Jared knowing too much already.”
He might be killing everybody in Hidden Creek by the time the sun went down.
“I think I might be able to walk along this beam out to the window and jump out,” Gris whispered.
The beam we were on was only eight inches across, and he’d need to make it twelve feet to the window. There was no way. Then, there’d be the fifteen-foot drop from the window where he’d break both his legs, right before Danny shot him while he was down or the fiends ripped him to pieces. I might be overly careful, but that was plain ridiculous. “No, you can’t.”
“I might be able to.”
“No. Gris, we can wait up here. Somebody is bound to come looking for us eventually.”
He groaned and whispered, “We can’t. The fiends tore my pocket and my new phone is in a hundred pieces down there. Nobody knows we’re here. The sun is going down, and it’s taking the light with it.” He didn’t need to say what would happen when we ran out of light—we’d be trapped on the beam for sure. The arctic temperature of the barn and the scratches and blood all over him said that. “Plus, I’m not sure my cousin won’t try to shoot us again. But it’s gonna be okay, Piper.”
I was less than certain of that.
Gris sniffed and then exhaled sharply. “Gasoline. I can smell gasoline.”
“In a second, you’ll smell smoke,” Danny said. “I wasn’t planning on burning this down, but somebody left me some gasoline.”
Critch. That’s what he’d been carrying.
“It’s funny,” Danny said, “did you know this old barn used to have bats in it? I guess it does again, Grisham.”
I could see the spark near the back wall of the barn where Danny was. Danny was whistling as he walked around the barn, and the back wall started to
crackle and pop. I wasn’t even sure it needed the gasoline. This old place was a pile of matchsticks.
Gris and I were holding onto a crossbeam in the light, and Gris shifted from foot to foot, looking around, making the beams groan. I tried to shut out the fear of us plummeting to our deaths ‘cause, quite obviously, we were going to burn to death. If I had to choose, I’d pick the plummeting to our deaths option. Then again, somebody would have to clean that up, and that didn’t seem right. Burning to death was probably much cleaner. Maybe.
Gris grabbed me by the shoulders. “Hold tight to these beams, Piper. You hear me? Hold tight. Don’t let go.”
I nodded and blinked. Behind him, the barn was starting to smoke, and the air was already feeling hot and thick with it.
Gris tore off the remains of his shirt and dove toward the ground. I screamed, but there was a flash of movement in the darkness he’d flown into. He’d changed. He’d changed. He was okay. He was fine.
“What’s going on?” Danny shouted right as Gris tore clear through the side of the barn. A second later, Gris was back with a still-shouting Danny. I could see them moving through the barn below me.
Then, they were in the patch of sunlight below the window. Both were covered in bloody scratches.
“What are you doing?” Danny yelled. “Now we’re all gonna die!” He coughed as the smoke filled the barn. Even the sunlight was about to be blotted out by smoke. I wasn’t sure what that meant for the fiends. If smoke was the same as shadow, there was nowhere we’d be safe. “You’re going first, though.” Danny dove toward Gris and the two of them grappled.
Reaching down, I yanked off my shoe and threw it at Danny’s head. My aim was perfect, clipping his head, right above his ear.
Danny looked up. Gris shoved him off, straight into the darkness.
I was glad I couldn’t see well. Danny’s screams were enough. He screamed and screamed. These were the same creatures in my room night after night. I might not ever have a good night’s rest again. I tried to cover my ears, but I needed to hold onto the beam. Horrible. Horrible. As much as I hated Danny, shudders racked through me as the noise went on and my fingernails tore into the wood from the beams. Tearing. Ripping. And the screams—the wet and ugly screams—and then they stopped and the silence was so much worse.
“Gris?” I gasped. Let him be okay. Please, let him be okay. My world was jack-knifed and a wreck from what I’d just heard. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t. Gris had to be okay.
“We need to get out of here,” Gris shouted to me.
And I exhaled shakily. Alive. He was alive. My eyes stung from the smoke. It was hard to keep them open.
Gris coughed below me. “I can probably get outside again, but I’m not sure I can get up there. If I fly into the dark, they’ll tear my wings off—they’re that mad.”
“Don‘t go into the dark.” Having heard what they’d done to Danny—I might never go into the dark again. There were large patches of light he could bolt between, now that he’d broken in and out of the barn. “Don’t you dare fly back up here.”
“If I thought I could get to you before they did, I would. I just don’t…” He coughed. “Can you climb along the beam to the window”—he coughed again—”and jump out?”
“I can try.” I took a quick look down. “It’s only eighteen steps.” I was right above one of the hay bales I used to touch.
“I swear I’ll catch you.”
“You better.” I took off my other shoe and threw it. No use for it now. I could do this. It was a long way down, but if ever there was a time to just embrace all the dark things that might happen and do it anyway…this was it. I took my first step, sliding my foot along the eight-inch beam as I did. Seventeen more.
“I’m outside. Keep coming,” Gris called, coughing.
I took another step and another. And another.
“Talk to me. Tell me you’re okay,” he said.
“What am I supposed to talk about?” I took another two steps, coughing. My throat burned.
“Whatever the hell you want to talk about.”
“Gris, my mama would’ve washed your mouth out for that!” I took another two steps.
“Really? My dad would’ve let me get away with anything in the Bible before I got my mouth washed out, that’s for damn sure.”
“Gris!” I took a couple more steps. I was gonna give him a piece of my mind when I did get outside. It was hot inside the barn and my eyes were starting to water like a garden hose. I coughed. Behind me, more wood crackled and popped.
“Yep. My dad lets me say whatever the hell I want to as long as I’m not in a lady’s presence.”
I took another two steps. Oh, he’d be hearing from me about this. “Just ‘cause I’m in the barn, I don’t count? Is that what you’re saying?” It was getting harder to talk, and I stopped to cough.
“Yep. Do you want hear all the words I’m allowed to say? I can list them off.” And he did. He swore and he swore.
I sped up and took several more steps.
He laughed. He actually laughed. “I can see you now.”
That was good ‘cause my eyes were watering so bad I could only see a blur ahead of me.
“One more step, and I’ll need you to jump so I can catch you.”
“Two,” I coughed out, feeling around for the edge of the window. I took the last two steps. They were small. Apparently I stepped differently on a wood beam than when I was on the ground.
“I can see from the look on your face that I’m about to get a fierce lecture—the likes of which I’ve never received. I’ll count for you. You gonna jump on two or four?” he asked.
“Four.” I gasped out the word. The air was so hot and thick.
“One…two…three…four…”
I jumped and crashed into Gris’s arms, elbowing him in the face and tipping him off balance so we fell to the ground. He didn’t seem to mind ‘cause he hugged me tight against him. I coughed into his chest and took in lungfuls of the much cooler air.
“Are you okay, Piper? Tell me you’re okay.”
I kept coughing. I figured that was answer enough, and mostly all I could manage. I felt like I’d been standing in a campfire.
“Danny?” A voice asked from behind our sprawled bodies, and I squinted my eyes open enough to see Danny’s daddy with a rifle in his hand. He wasn’t pointing it at us, so that was good.
“In the barn,” Gris said, gesturing.
“Is he dead?” his daddy asked.
“I think so. I’m sorry, sir…I…”
Gris’s uncle shook his head once and said, “I’ll just go make sure” and headed toward the barn, cocking his gun.
“What does that mean?” I tried to whisper, but the coughing and my croaking voice made it louder than was polite.
Gris shook his head and held me tighter, dropping onto his back with me in his arms. In the distance, there were sirens again—heading toward another fire here. Maybe Gris had the right of it with the swearing. Hidden Creek would never be the same after this. It might be worth swearing over. I wouldn’t do it, but it might be worth it nonetheless.
The barn crackled, popped, and smoked, and Gris hugged me tighter as our nightmare burned to ashes behind us.
Epilogue
Gris
It was Piper’s idea to tell the police that Danny had died when he’d changed his mind and come into the barn to save us from the fire. The lie didn’t sit right with her, I could tell. I’d had to hold her hand to stop the tapping.
My uncle told the police he’d seen his son trap us in the barn, and he’d already been sure Danny was behind some of the other mischief in Hidden Creek.
My uncle said “mischief,” but I’d have used the words malicious violence—especially since we’d told my aunt and uncle what Danny was after and about his killing spree.
It’d been a long week since then. A long week where I’d hardly seen Piper. Well, I’d seen her, but not without other people around. I’d kissed
her on the cheek once in front of both our parents, but that was it. I hadn’t kissed her—really kissed her—for a week.
Here we were, in Piper’s room, a whole week after my cousin’d tried to kill her, acting like total strangers. I leaned against the wall beside the window she’d just let me in. Piper stood a few feet in front of me, her arms wrapped around her middle, looking both defiant and unbearably fragile.
“So the Porters are moving?” She licked her lips, and the gloss shone in the light, making her mouth sparkle like magic.
“They don’t feel right staying here with Hank and his family after what happened with Trina. My aunt and uncle knew Danny wasn’t right and had suspected he had something to do with a few of these things. They’d planned on confronting Danny with my dad’s help.” My dad had arrived with the paramedics. His horrified expression as I told him everything said that most rookies didn’t typically face death to that degree. Dad said he was proud of me, but he would have been less proud of me if I’d gotten my stubborn ass killed. “I like to believe my Aunt Jess didn’t know about the murders and believed that an animal killed your dog, but we didn’t ask.” I hadn’t wanted to ask. Sometimes you wanted that ignorance.
She nodded her acceptance. “Your great-uncle is staying, though?”
“He says he wants to watch over the house.” Though he hadn’t been specific about which house now that I thought on it. “Dad reckons he’s harmless enough without Danny here. They’ve hired somebody local to keep an eye on him.” And I’d be keeping an eye on him while I was here.
“Mattie’s mama,” Piper said. “She used to work as a home health nurse. She’s keeping watch over him.”
“Yeah, I think that’s about right.”
Piper twisted her fingers in her lap. “So, that’s it then.”
“What is? You mean with Critch?”
She lifted her gaze. “No. I mean with you. You’ll be leaving.”
I couldn’t for the life of me tell what she thought of that. Her eyes were solemn, but dry. “Is that what you want?”
Abruptly, Piper took off the sweatshirt she was wearing, revealing a tanktop. She pulled the right strap aside on her shoulder and pointed to a pale white line. “That was my first cut.” Her fingers travelled along to a different pink cut. “This was my last cut I’ve done. Everything in between are payments against my debt for living.”