Demon Harvest Read online

  Nearing the end of twilight, their inertia was violently shattered when their sights fell on a hulking, dark shape stealthily approaching the fawn.

  The shape was familiar. It raised a terrifying memory Hudson and Yoshida had shared with a pair of punk rockers, a memory less than a year old.

  Hudson drew the breath that braced his body to take the shot.

  The skulking black hulk got set—and made a leap. It covered over twenty feet, landing upon the fawn. Following deftly with the luminous sights, Hudson pulled the trigger; no more than a mute clink.

  “You got her!” Yoshida said, breaking the three-day silence. “She’s moving!”

  “Keep eyes on her!” Hudson rose and hurried to the trapdoor, clicking on the radio clipped to his belt. “Maybe I won’t have to chase her too—”

  “Get away from that hatch!” Yoshida sprang up and aimed his rifle at the square door. The way the weapon shook in his hands, he might have stepped on a live wire. “She’s coming to us!”

  Hudson leaped back from the hatch and reached for the knapsack slung across his back. The sound of scattering leaves in the wake of something massive—coming lightning-fast, and snarling with carnivorous rage—sent their adrenaline soaring.

  Hudson’s hand went to the silver chain in the sack, found the lock that coupled the links. He pulled the loop taut, as he had practiced hundreds of times.

  The hunter’s blind quaked when the bulk of the beast hit the elm. The growing volume of its growl told them the creature was climbing the trunk as deftly as a spider.

  The enormous wolf’s head burst through the plywood hatch like a torpedo, sending convulsions of terror through the seasoned deputies. Then the beast was upon Yoshida before he could pull his trigger.

  Hudson lunged toward the monster with the chain loop held out—and missed, landing awkwardly across the monster’s sinewy back.

  The werewolf sprang to her hinds, sending Hudson face-first to the floor. Seeing stars, he thought for an instant that he was ascending into the night sky.

  “The chain!” Yoshida’s cry and the beast’s ear-shattering roar brought him back. “Now!”

  Hudson posted his foot to stand—and stepped right through the shattered hatch.

  He caught himself on his hands, as he made out, in the dark mass of movement, Yoshida on the creature’s back, pulling the rifle across its throat. He was sure to be tossed off at any second.

  Hudson got his footing and launched himself again, aiming the chain loop for the pointed ears that nearly touched the ceiling. This time the hoop found home—only to get stuck halfway down the werewolf’s thick head. Hudson cursed that he had made the loop too small. He had to push hard against the monster’s head to get it over her ears.

  Smoke rose where the silver made contact, giving off the sharp stench of burning hair. With a yelp, the wolf sank to all fours, shaking her head violently in an attempt to toss off the burning lariat. Hudson and Yoshida both backed against the walls to get a safe distance from the flailing marauder.

  Hudson picked up the flashlight and tore off the wax-paper diffuser, focusing on the monster’s clawed hand. She dropped the trank dart on the floor, looking up at Hudson with glowing eyes that promised annihilation.

  Then the eyes softened, and the creature formerly named Aura gave off a keening whine.

  “Easy girl,” Hudson said, extending a comforting hand, well clear of her fangs.

  * * * *

  “Aaaagh!” DeShaun Lott’s cry echoed in the rafters of the Community Center’s basketball court. “I can’t see! I’m…blind!” He fumbled around until his hand fell on his best friend’s face. “Stuart!? Is that you, ol’ buddy?”

  “Ha,” answered Stuart Barcroft. “And also…ha.”

  DeShaun roughly ran his fingers across Stuart’s mouth. “Yeah, it’s you, all right. Big goofy grin and all. That must be what blinded me.”

  Stuart didn’t push his friend’s hand away, just walked away from it to the Community Center’s loading doors, where his brother Dennis’s tricked-out hearse sat with the rear door open. Truth was, Stuart was soaking up every minute he had with his lifelong friend, uncertain how many were left.

  He couldn’t resist a barb. “Maybe you can grope your way over to the freeway and stand around over there a bit, if you’re not going to help me with the gear.”

  “Nah. You’d miss me, bro.”

  Stuart looked back at DeShaun, who smiled as always, but with a hint of sadness. Stuart leaned into the hearse, grabbed the handle of his brother’s coffin-shaped guitar case and pulled it toward him. It was a much easier task now than the last time, some months back, thanks to a growth spurt during the band’s extended hiatus. “Maybe not.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t, what, miss me?”

  “Maybe I won’t have to.”

  “Don’t talk about it right now, dude.” DeShaun reached in for bassist Pedro’s case. As the teens lugged the instruments toward the center’s stage, the clean purr of an antique Indian motorcycle rose in the parking lot, bringing the goofy grin back to Stuart’s face

  DeShaun burst out laughing.

  “I can’t help it, man,” Stuart confessed. “Right now, everything is just so…”

  “Perfect,” DeShaun finished. “That’s just your meds talking, sonny.”

  “Change of plan, losers,” Pedro Fuentes called out as he leaped off the stage, where Dennis—aka Kenny Killmore, vocalist and lead guitarist of Ember Hollow’s resident horror punk band, The Chalk Outlines—and engineer/chemist Bernard Riesling, an odd pairing if ever there was one, intently discussed something undoubtedly so technical in nature that Stuart and DeShaun often commented they should get college credit just for showing up.

  “Dennis says we’re setting up dead center of the joint,” Pedro said.

  “Dead center, huh?” Stuart repeated. “Bet he really hit the emphasis on ‘dead,’ didn’t he?”

  “Says he wants a ‘cavernous’ sound.”

  Stuart set his big brother’s guitar case down against the wall, next to a spanking-new portable Yamaha keyboard, and glanced expectantly toward the open door. He should have known better.

  “Ooooooh, Caaaaaandaaaace!” squealed DeShaun. “I neeeeed youuuu!”

  Stuart punched him in the shoulder. “Shut it, ass brain.”

  “Well, it’s not a big secret there, Stewie,” remarked Outlines drummer “Thrill Kill” Jill Hawkins as she sashayed in, her hair dyed for the first time in months, jet-black this time. She carried a helmet airbrushed with the band’s “voluptuous victim” Chalk Outline logo in one hand and a backpack covered in punk band patches in the other. Red drumsticks jutted through the zipper.

  Carrying Jill’s spare helmet, fourteen-year-old Candace followed. “You neeeed me, Stewie?” She set down the helmet and clasped her hands, casting a dreamy smile at him. She fluttered her eyes, swooned and “fainted” dead away on the glossy hardwood floor.

  Her big mastiff, Bravo, leaped down from the stage to greet her, tail slashing the air behind him as he made his way to lick and sniff his girl back to giggly life.

  Stuart loved this, as he did Candace, as he did this moment, this event. His brother’s band back together—at least for rehearsals—after a painful breakup, his best friend, the girl he loved and her big ol’ dog, all in one place and not terrified for their very lives, for a change.

  Dennis came to the microphone at stage front, took one look at Jill and made an expression of lust so intense it resembled pain. “Tell me something, lady. How’m I supposed to get any work done with a smokin’ hot number like you slinkin’ around?”

  Jill turned her blackened lips into a sultry smile and gave herself a spank.

  Dennis shook his head. “I might have to sit down a lot.”

  Pedro and the teens rolled their eyes and groaned.

  The
troubled, yet loving couple, on advice from Dennis’s rehab counselors, had vowed to remain platonic, purely bandmates, for at least six months or until their new demo album was finished. The sexual tension between them was a tightly wound spring; pent-up energy they did their best to channel into their music.

  But the flirtation and innuendo flowed nonstop, to the extreme annoyance of anyone in earshot.

  “Thanks for helping, everybody,” Dennis said. “It’s been a rough road.”

  Applause, a whistle from DeShaun. Bernard intently straightened cords behind the singer.

  “I have to say how proud I am of you guys. All of you. We’ve all been through hell.”

  Bravo trotted up to the foot of the stage and sat watching Dennis with ears perked, curious about the microphone and what his friend was doing with it.

  “I wrote a lot of stuff while I was in rehab.” Dennis drew a folded sheaf of papers from his back pocket. “We’re going for a new sound. You’ll find out in a minute.”

  Stuart smiled for his brother.

  “This studio in Asheville will invest in us and produce this album—if this demo is any good. Pedro, Jill, we gotta work our asses off like never before.”

  Stuart’s excited smile spread to everyone else.

  “DeShaun, Candace, little bro—thanks for pitching in. Now, let’s kill it.”

  * * * *

  “You’ll just have to make do without me, Maisie,” Violina said into the phone, as she traipsed to the bay windows to check the roundabout drive. “I have bookings into the middle of next year.”

  It was an exaggeration. Violina had become wealthy and successful through the craft. Indeed, she was truly set for life. But when it came to the others in her business, and especially what was left of her coven, inflation of even her formidable success was mandatory.

  Violina Malandra had to be the most famous, the most in-demand, the wealthiest, the best, and in due time—The Only Witch.

  “What can I say to change your mind?” asked the younger witch.

  Violina was both contemptuous and resentful of Maisie’s humility. The girl was young, well aware of her own lack of knowledge and experience. At thirty-five, well-established in both business and social circles, Violina could never allow herself to be so humble.

  “Ysabella wants you here,” Maisie continued. “She says we can’t do this without you.”

  The sitting room of her three-story Victorian, with its occult trappings, was meticulously designed to ride the fence between theatrical and inviting.

  Violina waved a hand over the table she’d prepared for her expected guest, with an ornate, gilded tarot deck and velvet-lined tray of crystals. “Me specifically?”

  “All of us,” the girl answered. “Those of us left.”

  This was not what Violina wanted to hear. “Like I said dear, I’m very busy.”

  “Violina, I have a feeling this might be too much for her,” explained Maisie. “I’d feel better having you here.”

  Violina strolled to the window. In the driveway, the expected gleaming-white Bentley crept over fresh-fallen New England maple leaves.

  “I have a client, Maisie,” Violina said. “Sorry I can’t help.”

  “Would you at least call me back when you’re free? We’re at the Blue Moon Inn in Ember Hollow, North Carolina.”

  Violina raised a manicured eyebrow, her interest suddenly sparked. “Did you say Ember Hollow? Where they had that parade disaster? And all those awful murders?”

  “Yes. Matilda Saxon was here, up in the hills. We think there’s a connection.”

  “Give me the number there,” Violina allowed. “I’ll consider it.”

  “Oh, bless you, Violina!”

  Violina wasn’t interested in the naïve apprentice’s gratitude or “blessings.” But she had wanted to get out to Matilda Saxon’s isolated farm since meeting the solitary witch some years ago. She wished she had learned of her fellow baneful practitioner’s death earlier, in time to scour her substantial inventory before the police or anyone else got to it.

  Nonetheless, Violina’s elegant nostrils flared at her favorite scent: opportunity.

  With Ysabella weakened and supernatural forces clearly at work in the troubled town, Violina realized she could easily come away from the job with greater power than any witch. Ever.

  Chapter 2

  She Wolf

  Covered in a blanket that was bound with Hudson’s silver chain, the monstrous gray wolf lay motionless on her side. Though her head remained uncovered, a leather strap was tied around her snout, and this strap was wrapped with a Saint Christopher medallion on a chain. The necklace had served a similar purpose on Bravo’s collar a year ago.

  The wolf’s eye lolled from Hudson to Yoshi and back. She displayed her long, gleaming teeth in an eerie, silent snarl.

  “That’s starting to freak me out,” Yoshida admitted. “You sure she can’t move?”

  “Well, I skipped the day they covered skinwalker biology at the academy,” Hudson deadpanned, “but the boys have been reading everything they can get their hands on about werewolves.”

  “The boys” was how Hudson Lott referred to both his own son DeShaun and DeShaun’s best friend, Stuart Barcroft, whom he considered just as much a son. “But I doubt she’s playing dead just to see if we’ll give her a doggie treat. So stay alert.”

  As they squatted to grasp the edges of the thick mover’s blanket on which the chained beast lay, Yoshi gave a faux-bitter laugh. “Now I know where DeShaun gets his smart-assery.”

  “Honestly, I think I caught it from him,” Hudson said. “And it’s probably contagious, so…”

  “Now you tell me.”

  Hudson couldn’t know that the word “contagious” made Yoshida bristle with dread.

  They hoisted the monster and slid it into the chain-link cage—essentially an oversized kennel—they had fashioned two weeks earlier.

  “I’m still not sold on this dinky pen,” Yoshida said.

  “If those silver chains don’t hold her, the cage is meaningless anyway.”

  They closed and locked the cage door, dropped the heavy canvas tarp flap over the front and raised the tailgate.

  “The fawn’s okay?” Hudson asked.

  “Scared shitless, but not a scratch. She ran off without so much as an ’Eff you.’”

  “Good work, my friend.” Hudson offered his gloved hand.

  Yoshida clasped it. “That’s what I’m gonna say to my shower, because it sure has its work cut out for it.”

  They climbed into the front, and Hudson started the engine. “We’ll stop and look in on her in ten or twelve miles.”

  Yoshida checked the chamber of the trank rifle and propped it against his leg. “You really think the witch’s farm is the best place to take her?”

  “We damn sure can’t put her in the drunk tank.”

  Yoshida chuckled at the image. Not so much of a gigantic wolf in a cell full of sots, but of Hudson explaining it to the chief. The wisecracks were a welcome diversion. But his thoughts would not stray far from the tiny tingling nick on his arm, where the werewolf’s fang had pierced his skin half an inch deep.

  * * * *

  Flipping black locks out of his eyes, Pedro cocked his head sideways and grimaced. “What do these words mean…‘too loud’?”

  “Just your backup vocals,” explained Dennis, as he muted the preprogrammed rhythm track on the new keyboard. “Understated. Not screamed.”

  “Am I even audible?”

  “You will be,” reassured Dennis. “That’s why we’re so wide open.” He arced his arm to indicate the Community Center’s vastness. “To get a good echo effect.”

  “What about me, babe?” asked Jill. “I mean…Dennis.” Though her tone was playful, it carried an edge of frustration. “You sure you even need m
e? You could set the keyboard to…”

  Jill didn’t finish, and she didn’t need to. Dennis hadn’t mentioned the addition of a keyboard to any of them before this very session. She might even have harbored an ounce of jealousy toward it.

  Dennis just looked at her the way he always did these days—like she had just walked in naked. “Even if I didn’t need you on the skins, I’d be a sad little sicko without you around to gawk at…”

  Holding eye contact, Jill parted her black lips and narrowed her eyes, playful and sultry.

  “…and the hypnotic purr of that sexy-ass voice.”

  Sitting together nearby on folding chairs, Candace, Stuart and DeShaun gave dramatic reactions—Candace giggling, Stuart covering his eyes and shaking his head, DeShaun launching himself to a stand to simulate a violent vomiting attack.

  “I swear you’re making me celibate over here,” griped Pedro. “Your shrink is gonna have to start giving me hazard pay for my chaperone services.”

  “Look, I know it’s a learning curve, guys.” Dennis reached for the sleeve of his Mephisto Walz T-shirt and the pack of cigarettes that used to live there. “Damn this oral fixation…” He smoldered at Jill again, and she smoldered back.

  “Get ’em, Bravo!” ordered Stuart. “Go for the throat! Kill!”

  Bravo hopped up and wagged his tail, but that was all.

  “Dude, it’s just not who we are,” Pedro said. “The kids love our songs. And our shtick. No apologies. We’re horror punkers! Not…Goth…death rock…bat cave…cold wave…”

  “It’s like I told you, Petey. The studio guy wants it dark and stark. These songs are our biographies, bro. Shit that we went through was not fun, or fun-ny.” He raised the new song sheets, clutched like a stick of dynamite. “This is genuine. And we have it in us. Let’s just roll with it and see what happens.”

  Pedro swiped his hand through his unruly, neck-length mop and shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  “Hey, that’s right.” Dennis narrowed his eyes at Jill yet again. “Are you ready to submit to my will, drum slave?”

  Candace bumped Stuart and scooted into his chair a little, laughing like Dennis’s allusion was the funniest thing she had ever heard. DeShaun got up in a huff, dramatically stomped to the exit, and slammed the door behind him.