“That’s great,” Tierra said. “I mean, he’s a cocky sonovabitch and he’s definitely going down in a big way—if he’s not already drowned. Still, if he managed to get you to take something for yourself, I might just consider calling the Coast Guard so he can have a proper burial. Ooh! Then I would have a tombstone to spit on.”
“Don’t think you need to worry about the Coast Guard,” Moira said. “Nick Kingswood ain’t dead.”
“How can you be so sure?” Tierra asked.
“Cause he ain’t…” Even as the words left her lips, Moira felt their truth echo in her soul. She could feel him. As surely as she could feel the air she breathed, and with no less insistence. “He ain’t human.”
“I’ll say,” Tierra snorted.
“I mean it. He’s somethin’ else. Somethin’…more.”
“Well, that sucks. Any ideas what he might be?”
“Other than a giant pain in the ass? Not a clue. But I have a feelin’ it might be in our best interest to find out.”
“I think you’re right. But first we need to get you dry and warmed up,” Tierra said, dropping an arm around Moira. “Let’s go home.”
“Home,” Moira repeated. “I sure do like the way that sounds.”
12
“Somethin’ ain’t right.” Moira froze on the porch. A few lone candles flickered in the windows like eyes in the shadows.
“Damn straight,” Tierra said holding up the shredded fabric she had retrieved from the dock. “That bastard ripped my apron.”
The first wave washed over Moira—as thick and hot as tar. Hate. Fear. “No. Somethin’s in there. I can feel it.”
Tierra clasped Moira’s hand, freezing them both in place. “I feel it too. Whatever’s in there is with Aunt Justine.” Unless it is Aunt Justine.
The front door sighed open without their help. “Ugh,” Tierra grumbled, pocketing her keys. “I hate it when that happens in the movies.”
“This ain’t a movie,” Moira pointed out. Though it certainly looked like one. Candles played hide and seek among the plants on the living room’s many surfaces, sending shadows dancing up the dim walls. Wax dripped down the slim tapers and pooled on polished wooden surfaces.
“Aunt Justine!” Tierra called down the hallway. “Are you home?” An indignant squeak echoed through the eerily silent house.
“Cheeto!” Moira cried. Still barefoot, she took the stairs two a time, racing toward the bathroom where she had left him with bowls full of food and water earlier that morning. Scarcely had her hands closed around Cheeto’s warm body, when her own was pinned to the wall by an unseen force.
It was the stuff of nightmares.
She fought to move her limbs, but the air might as well have been concrete. Even the scream in her throat remained frozen in place. Cries built up behind it until she was choking on her own panicked breath.
Had Tierra met a similar fate in the kitchen?
Aunt Justine’s gnarled fingers clawed out of the oily darkness. The hand she held at throat level preceded her like a flashlight in the darkness. Behind it, the pale moon of her face and wild corona of fading red hair floated into focus. Shadows seeped into the hallway after her, additional faces coming into view, their chants a low, threatening hum.
Pain shook Moira’s body. She had never before considered screaming a luxury, but she would have given anything in that moment to send her agony vibrating through the night.
Justine was close now. Close enough that Moira could smell dried herbs, incense, and spices that announced her presence. Something else lurked below the surface. Something metallic. Blood?
“You,” Justine whispered. “You should be dead. As long as you were dead, we were safe.”
The thin skin of hope Moira had grown over the course of this afternoon was stripped away as easy as that, leaving her stinging and sore.
“I should have done it myself,” Justine continued. “She was my sister. She was my responsibility. But I wasn’t strong enough. I’m paying for that now. I’m paying dearly, as will we all.”
A gentle pat, pat, pat drew Moira’s gaze to the floor where a small, dark stain spread at Justine’s feet. The curved, wicked blade of a dagger slid out of the robe’s pocket. The fingers grasping the ornately carved handle were slicked with blood. Dark rivulets branched down her arms like veins on the wrong side of her pale skin.
“I will do now what I should have done then. I will bleed that others may live. And so will you.”
The chant redoubled in power and speed, driven perhaps by the smell of blood thick in Moira’s nostrils.