Blood Brothers Page 0,91

expect a damn Coke."

"You told him to come over?"

"Yeah. So, O'Dell, Cal's in love with the blonde."

"I didn't say I-"

"Tell me something I don't know." Fox popped the top on the can of Coke and gulped.

"I never said I was in love with anyone."

Fox merely shifted his gaze to Cal. "I've known you my whole life. I know what those shiny little hearts in your eyes mean. It's cool. She was, like, made for you."

"He says she's not my usual type, you say she's made for me."

"We're both right. She's not the type you usually fish for." Fox gulped down more soda, then took the box of cereal from Gage. "Because you didn't want to find the one who fit. She fits, but she was sort of a surprise. Practically an ambush. Did I get up an hour early to come over here before work so we could talk about Cal's love life?"

"No, it was just an interesting sidebar. I got some information when I was in the Czech Republic. Rumors, lore, mostly, which I followed up when I had time. I got a call from an expert last night, which is why I told you to come over this morning. I might have ID'd our Big Evil Bastard."

They sat down at the kitchen table with coffee and dry cereal-Fox in one of his lawyer suits, Gage in a black T-shirt and loose pants, Cal in jeans and a flannel shirt.

And spoke of demons.

"I toured some of the smaller and outlying villages," Gage began. "I always figure I might as well pick up some local color, maybe a local skirt while I'm stacking up poker chips and markers."

He'd been doing the same for years, Cal knew. Following any whiff of information about devils, demons, unexplained phenomenon. He always came back with stories, but nothing that had ever fit the, well, the profile, Cal supposed, of their particular problem.

"There was talk about this old demon who could take other forms. You get werewolf stuff over there, and initially, I figured that was this deal. But this wasn't about biting throats out and silver bullets. The talk was about how this thing hunted humans to enslave them, and feed off their...the translation was kind of vague, and the best I got was essence, or humanity."

"Feed how?"

"That's vague, too-or colorful as lore tends to be. Not on flesh and bone, not with fang and claw-that kind of thing. The legend is this demon, or creature, could take people's minds as well as their souls, and cause them to go mad, cause them to kill."

"Could be the root of ours," Fox decided.

"It rang close enough that I followed it up. It was a lot to wade through; that area's ripe with stories like this. But in this place in the hills, with this thick forest that reminded me of home, I hit something. Its name is Tmavy. Translates to Dark. The Dark."

He thought, they all thought of what had come out of the ground at the Pagan Stone. "It came like a man who wasn't a man, hunted like a wolf that wasn't a wolf. And sometimes it was a boy, a boy who lured women and children in particular into the forest. Most never came back, and those who did were mad. The families of those who did went mad, too. Killed each other, or themselves, their neighbors."

Gage paused, rose to get the coffeepot. "I got some of this when I was there, but I found a priest who gave me the name of a guy, a professor, who studied and publishes on Eastern European demonology. He got in touch last night. He claims this particular demon-and he isn't afraid to use the word-roamed Europe for centuries. He, in turn, was hunted by a man-some say another demon, or a wizard, or just a man with a mission. Legend has it that they battled in the forest, and the wizard was mortally wounded, left for dead. And that, according to Professor Linz, was its mistake. Someone came, a young boy, and the wizard passed the boy his power before he died."

"What happened?" Fox demanded.

"No one, including Linz, is sure. The stories claim the thing vanished, or moved on, or died, somewhere in the early-to mid-seventeenth century."

"When he hopped a goddamn boat for the New World," Cal added.

"Maybe. That may be."

"So did the boy," Cal continued, "or the man he'd become, or his descendent. But he nearly had him over there, nearly did at