Demon Harvest

by Patrick C. Greene

  Candace laced Bravo’s leash around a picnic bench at the next table and sat close to the dog.

  “Did you bring the books?” the deputy asked, as he sat opposite the boys.

  “Nah.” Said DeShaun as he unzipped the backpack. “This is just full of heroin and whatnot.”

  “Didn’t think anybody but us ever looked at these,” said Stuart, helping DeShaun unload the books.

  “Mrs. Washburn at the library must have thought the same. She said she was letting you guys hold onto them indefinitely.”

  “Friends in high places.” DeShaun arranged the books, seven in all, side by side on the table.

  * * * *

  Modern day

  Yoshida found himself avoiding eye contact with Bravo. The mastiff seemed to be studying him like a code, reading his darkest secrets and fears straight from his brain.

  His eye caught the title of the book before him on the picnic table—Men into Animals: A History of Magical Transformation. “Is this a joke?”

  Stuart opened the book to a page he had marked with a folded Chalk Outlines flyer. “Why don’t you ask yourself from a year ago?”

  With this, Yoshida realized how deep was his denial, that he was willing to ignore the battle with lycanthropes he had personally experienced, to avoid the idea of what he was becoming.

  “Why’d you even want to see that stuff if you don’t believe in it?” asked Candace.

  “I’m curious about the biker girl.”

  “But that’s a done deal.”

  “Is it a crime to be curious about something?” he snapped.

  “Yeah, so arrest yourself, Deppidy Doofwad.” The kids were as quick on the draw as ever.

  “Sorry, guys. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Who has? We live in Scarytown, USA.”

  Yoshida skimmed over several passages in a couple of the books, wondering how he could pose his main question without giving himself away. “Is there anything about what happens when a skinwalker bites someone?”

  The kids all blinked in alarm, having skipped to the end. “Oh, shit, Yosh.”

  “When?” asked DeShaun, in a low tone.

  Yoshida sighed with resignation. “When we caught her.”

  “My dad…?”

  “He didn’t get bit, and he doesn’t know,” said Yoshida. “For now, I’d like to keep it that way.”

  The kids circulated a grim look. “All that stuff about the curse being passed on from a bite, that’s just made up for Lon Chaney movies,” said Stuart.

  “Werewolf of London with Henry Hull was actually the first,” added DeShaun.

  Stuart raised a middle finger in his friend’s face as he continued. “On the other hand, I didn’t read anything about anybody being bitten by a skinwalker and actually surviving.”

  “Maybe you’re the first,” said Candace.

  When Yoshida turned to look at her, Bravo gave a low growl, placing his big body in front of his girl.

  “I’ve had some weird incidents,” Yoshida said, giving details about losing control at Aura’s transformation ceremony, sleepwalking, following the moon home—and apparently trying to eat Mr. Purrfect.

  “Psychosomatic maybe?” DeShaun said.

  “You see how Bravo is acting. And these cat scratches…” Yoshida rubbed the pink lines on his arms that looked a week old. “That was last night.”

  The kids gawped.

  “I’m at a point where I can’t take any chances.” Yoshida said. “How long do we have till the full moon?”

  “What’s the moon like now?”

  “Wait, you guys…” Candace began. “You already said it’s not like the movies.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He could be changing a little more every night.”

  “Which means…” Stuart did not want to finish.

  “It means I might turn full-blown wolf one of these nights.” Yoshida closed the book. “And…never turn back.”

  Chapter 14

  Witchery

  Violina had asked Maisie to meet her in the Blue Moon lobby.

  “I want you to come here if you need.” Violina pressed the slip of paper with the address into Maisie’s hand like it was a precious gem. Before Maisie could ask—“I’ve rented a little house in Ember Meadows, just near the church.”

  Her brow furrowed as she slid her hand around Maisie’s elbow and hugged her close. “I was afraid my being at the inn was too stressful for Ysabella, on top of all she’s going through now. I want to do whatever I can to help her, and there’s just too much raw emotion between us. I’m afraid…she resents me.”

  Maisie searched her memory for indications that would confirm Violina’s assertions and felt insensitive that she couldn’t find them. The elder witches had been wary of one another since the coven’s war with a shadowy group that ended months ago. Their numbers reduced, the witches needed one another more than they ever had.

  The rift between the coven’s two most adept witches had to be healed. Maisie couldn’t imagine her saintly mentor, Ysabella, being the one refusing to meet on common ground, rather than the narcissistic and self-indulgent Violina. Yet here was the latter, bending over backward to make concessions and ease the burdens of the former.

  Perhaps Ysabella stubbornly clung to her personal issues with Violina, and it was clouding her judgment.

  “Ysabella might need time to herself. Or you might. Or we can just spend time together,” said Violina, embracing the girl like a daughter. “You’re welcome here anytime,”

  * * * *

  “Are you cold, Ysabella?” Hugging her, Maisie felt the smaller woman shiver. “Can I make you some tea?”

  “No, dear.” Ysabella patted her arm. “I’ll have a nice bath.”

  Maisie said good night and went to her room, next door to Ysabella’s, wondering how long she should wait before calling Pedro.

  Was that thunder she heard? All day, the cloud cover had been like a trap ceiling descending to crush them.

  Just before stepping into her room, she took a last look to make sure her mentor got in all right. Ysabella’s jacket hem disappeared past the door—which did not close.

  “Ysabella?” Maisie called. “Are you all right?”

  No answer.

  Maisie stepped over to Ysabella’s door—and saw her collapsed on the floor.

  * * * *

  Thunder was usually a comfort to Brinke.

  While the pilots continued to circle the plane around the peculiar storm, she had laid her head back to relax and again engage in light meditation. But this thunder, this entire storm, in fact, was too strange, too disconcerting to foster relaxation.

  With the latest rumble, several passengers expressed awe, like a primitive tribe witnessing the eruption of a volcano. Something was very, very off.

  Brinke looked out toward the roiling gray blanket and waited for the next lightning burst. She did not have to wait long.

  Bursts of red blossomed behind the billowing density in random sections, revealing what seemed like giant, cruel faces. It was easy to understand why the passengers were so agitated.

  Then, stranger still, the gray plume went solid black, as if the near-insignificant light of the stars and lights from the ground were nonexistent for a split second. It was a negative, the opposite of a lightning burst.

  The maelstrom was focused on, or from, Ember Hollow. The horror there was at its greatest—and growing furiously.

  Brinke’s mind raced. She had to get the plane down somehow—and asking nicely wasn’t going to do it.

  She realized she was looking around wildly when her seatmate, Herve, already nervous from the storm, gave her an alarmed look. “Miss, you’re not about to get all hysterical, are you?”

  “Not anymore,” she retorted. “You’re such a comfort
.”

  “Well, I don’t know how much more of this my heart can take,” he said. “I gotta empty my tanks.” He struggled out of his seat and stumbled toward the lavatory, unaware that he had unwittingly offered a solution, after all.

  The only thing that would make the pilots and flight controllers put the plane down was a greater emergency than the storm. And failing a handy jihadist, what was there?

  She waited for her seatmate to return, already improvising the affliction she would work on him, hating that it had come to that.

  * * * *

  After calling the church, Maisie sat and watched over Ysabella until Stella arrived, sending healing vibrations to the sleeping crone.

  Self-recrimination set in, as Maisie realized Ysabella had been faltering, showing signs of illness before even the roadside vomiting incident.

  Chapter 15

  Magic Circle

  The five-minute wait for Stella felt like a day.

  “I’m so glad you were still at the church,” said Maisie, her eyes swollen.

  “You got her into bed?” Stella asked.

  “I had to carry her. She hasn’t moved at all.”

  Stella breezed through the suite to the bedroom, well familiar with the Blue Moon’s room layout both from her work as an EMT and her brief separation from Bernard.

  By the time she got to Ysabella, the old woman’s eyes were open—barely. “Oh good…It’s you.”

  “No one else knows except Abe.”

  Stella was relieved to feel some strength in Ysabella’s hand when she clasped it. “You understand…It’s crucial that I don’t appear ineffectual.”

  “Your health is more important.”

  Ysabella’s pulse felt normal, but her breathing was shallow.

  Stella patted Maisie’s hand. “Bring me some cool, wet washcloths, please.”

  “Maisie lacks experience,” Ysabella said, taking a deep shuddery breath. “And…judgment. I’m so worried about her.”

  “She will rise to the occasion, if need be,” reassured Stella.

  “Can you?” whispered the crone. “Can Emera? Candace?”

  Stella once again bristled at the thought of involving her little girls. “Is there…anyone else at all?”

  Ysabella gave a small smile and a faint nod.

  Twenty minutes later, Stella sat down with Maisie in the suite’s front room and took her hands. “I understand why you don’t want Ysabella in the hospital. If she gets worse, there won’t be any other option.”

  “I can’t lose her,” said Maisie. “We can’t.”

  “Does she have any kind of condition?”

  “Other than obsessive micromanagement? Physically, she’s healthier than any of us. When she brought that girl back from her skinwalk, it drained her reserves of power, which were still recovering after our previous mission. When this happens, a witch’s vitality begins to drain.”

  “How long till she regains a normal level of…whatever it is that gives her power?”

  “I’m afraid she’s at a point where her sisters have to prime the pump, so to speak,” said Maisie. “That’s the purpose of a coven, to support one another and pick up the slack as needed. To feed our sisters from our own reserves.”

  “You and Violina could help her?”

  Maisie considered her response. “Violina is the last person she would want to have find out she’s weakened. There’s a long-standing misunderstanding between them. But maybe I should tell her.”

  “If it will help heal Ysabella, you should,” Stella said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Maybe if you brought Reverend McGlazer here to offer prayer,” Maisie answered. “Your little girls too, if you’re comfortable with that.”

  “Is it that obvious that…I’m not?”

  “What kind of mother would you be if all this didn’t worry the hell out of you?”

  As Stella rose to leave, Maisie clasped her hand tighter. “We all have to move fast now. Halloween is coming.”

  Maisie took the keys to the Mercedes and drove to Violina’s rented house.

  * * * *

  Yoshida stared at his noisily working coffee maker like it was a crossroads.

  He thought of the film DeShaun and Stuart had coaxed him into watching, the only horror film that had utterly scared the hell out of him—The Exorcist.

  But it wasn’t the demon Pazuzu that worried him. It was himself.

  It hurt Yoshida to his core that he had caught himself trying to kill Mr. Purrfect.

  The faces of his friends—Stuart, DeShaun, Hudson, The Outlines—appeared in his mind’s eye as mangled corpses, a glimpse of the future and the victims of savage impulses he could not control.

  A fist battered his door. “Open up, already!” Dennis Barcroft, polite as ever.

  Yoshida found Dennis at the door holding his keyboard case, and Pedro with his bass, regarding Yoshi like he was the rudest host they had ever met. They entered without invitation, knowing they didn’t need one.

  “You look pretty hairless to me,” said Pedro. “Like a twelve-year-old girl.”

  “What?”

  “Stuart and DeShaun told us,” explained Dennis. “But don’t get sore. They were worried.”

  Pedro muscled past Yoshida on his way to the kitchen. “Yippee, it’s a sleepover!”

  “Took the liberty of calling in to work for you,” Dennis continued. “Hud says for you to get some sleep, even if we gotta knock your ass out.”

  Yoshida followed Dennis to the kitchen, where Pedro was busy extracting beers from his refrigerator and emptying them down the drain. As with the invitation, no explanation or apology was needed.

  “You guys are staying over?”

  “Duh,” answered Pedro. “You got any soft-core? Full penetration makes me squeamish.”

  “Some…Japanese pinku,” answered Yoshida, catching on fast. “What are you dudes hoping to accomplish, exactly?”

  “Keep an eye on your ass,” said Dennis. “Figure out your malfunction.”

  Pedro tossed two empty bottles in the trash can. “You really think you’re hulking out at night?”

  “…I don’t know.”

  “Let’s find out together,” said Dennis, handing Yoshida a bag of candy corn. “You’ll have the privilege of hearing us practice our new tunes.”

  “Where’d you stash those silver chains?” Pedro asked. “’Cause you’re about to get ‘blinged,’ as the young folks used to say.”

  * * * *

  Reverend McGlazer’s dream was frightening, distressing, confounding—but not surprising.

  He was at the altar of Saint Saturn’s, giving communion and tending his eager flock, like Jesus at the Mount, as they stood in line to receive his blessing.

  First came Hudson with his family: Leticia, DeShaun, Wanda. They stood side by side and looked up at him with sad expressions. “We’re leaving now,” said Hudson. DeShaun extended his hand. “You come too. We’ll drop you off.”

  When McGlazer did not take his hand, DeShaun smiled with understanding and withdrew it. Hudson patted the reverend on the shoulder, and they shuffled off.

  Then came Dennis. McGlazer spun fast to take the silver tray of communion wine to the side exit, where Stella took it, opened the door and dashed away toward his office.

  Dennis waved and walked away.

  Next was Candace. She was holding Emera, who had regressed to infanthood. Candace pointed toward the wooden cross mounted on the back wall.

  He faced front to find Elaine and Stuart Barcroft standing there. McGlazer held out his hands to touch them and found thick mud on his fingertips. The Barcrofts closed their eyes and waited. McGlazer gently rubbed the mud around their eyelids. The mud dried and fell off, then mother and son nodded their thanks. McGlazer started to make the sign of the Euc
harist, but Elaine stopped his hand halfway through and kissed it.

  “Abe,” called Stella. When he turned toward her voice, he found himself sitting in his office, looking at his phone, which rang like church bells.

  McGlazer woke from the dream in his parish bedroom and answered the telephone on his nightstand.

  “Abe,” Stella repeated. “Please come to the Blue Moon. Ysabella is very ill.”

  “Oh…”

  “We need to form a prayer group for her, but…judiciously.”

  McGlazer understood the need for discretion, but…“Prayer group, you say?”

  “I’m gathering the girls. Bernard too.” McGlazer was relieved by this. He had wanted to speak with Bernard for some time. “I’ll call the Lotts. Please get here quickly.”

  McGlazer hung up and stared at his coat and collar hanging on the closet doorknob, then left without them.

  * * * *

  Ever the gracious hostess, Violina mixed light drinks and raised brows of concern, directing Maisie to sit in the rental home’s antique rocking chair. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Doing so was going against Ysabella’s wishes. But there was no other way. “Ysabella collapsed.”

  “Damn. I was afraid of something like this.”

  “Stella came to look her over. She’s resting in her room.”

  Violina came back and knelt before Maisie on the rocking chair, taking the girl’s hand.

  “I need your help,” Maisie said, her voice cracking. “We need to do something. We have to help her.”

  Violina hugged her, stroked her hair, commiserated. “She’s too valuable to us. To the world.”

  “Will you come and help me chant over her?”

  Violina considered. “She doesn’t want me to know she’s weakened. If she sees me—do you really think it will help her?”

  “She’ll see, like I do. She’ll see that you care.”

  “And then what? She’ll go to work trying to save the town. And she won’t stop till it’s done. Or she’s done.”

  Maisie slumped with despair.