And then he was snatched away.
Amber screamed, found herself red-skinned before she knew what was happening. She ran to the window, looked out, saw nothing but heard laughter. She shut the window again, made sure the latch was secure, and closed the curtains. She pushed the dresser in front of the door. Finally, she dragged the bedclothes into the corner and sat, the duvet held tightly to her chin.
Something scraped against her door. Fingernails.
Someone whispered through the keyhole.
Amber waited for morning.
SHE DIDN’T SLEEP.
She was tired and her eyes wanted to close, but she didn’t sleep, not with Glen having been snatched away, not with Milo missing, not with those … people out there. Nor did she change back. She kept her horns and fangs and talons, as much of a comfort to her as a gun to a soldier.
A half-hour before dawn, the silence left the hotel. Amber heard footsteps in the room above. She heard a window close in the room below. They were returning.
When dawn broke the darkness, the curtains let through a few weak strands of early morning sunlight. Gradually, she heard the sounds of normality seep through the floorboards. Doors opening and closing. Voices bidding each other good morning.
She waited until seven, until the sun was up and the day had properly begun. She got up. Opened the curtains. Cascade Falls lay fresh-faced before her.
She pushed the dresser back into place, and unlocked her door. When nobody came rushing in, she took a deep breath, and felt her horns retract.
She stepped out, careful to move as quietly as possible. She crept to Milo’s room, reached for the handle, but the door opened before she touched it.
Amber yelped, and Milo jumped back.
“Jesus,” he breathed, scowling at her.
She pushed by him, into the room.
“Where were you?” she whispered.
He looked at the open door, then at her, and then he closed it. “I’m sorry?”
“Last night, you disappeared. You took the car.”
He nodded. “Veronica wanted to go for a ride. She’d never been in a Charger before. Why?”
“They took Glen.”
“Who did?”
“Varga,” she said. “Varga and the others took Glen.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“They were flying around last night and they dragged him right out the window!”
Milo looked at her.
She glared. “Don’t you dare say I imagined it all.”
“I wasn’t about to,” he murmured. He went to the bed, pulled his bag out from underneath, and removed his gun and holster from a side pocket. He clipped the holster to his belt and slid it out of sight. Then he put his jacket on over it.
He led the way out, and over to Glen’s room. He listened at the door for a moment, then pushed it open. Glen’s gentle snoring was the first thing to greet them.
Milo parted the curtains and Glen woke, turned over, gazing at them both blearily.
“What are you doing in my room?” he asked, his voice thick.
“What happened?” Amber asked.
“Sorry?”
“Last night,” said Milo. “Amber, start from the beginning.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, “so I opened the window. I saw Varga and maybe five or six others climbing down the wall. No ropes, no gear, they were sticking to the bricks. Then they … then they let go and they flew.”
Glen frowned. “They flew?”
“Yes,” she snapped, then ignored him and turned back to Milo. “Then I went to get you, but you were gone. Glen came out, and we went outside to look for the car.”
“That was gone, too,” said Glen unhelpfully.
“But there were people out there with us,” Amber said, “and I could hear more of them flying overhead. They almost got Glen, but we got back inside, went to my room … I’d closed the window before I left, but it was open, and Glen went over to it and he was pulled out.”
Glen frowned. “I was?”
She whirled. “You were pulled out the window, Glen.”
He processed the information. “Ohhh,” he said. “That’s what happened.”
Amber was ready to kill him. “What?”
“I woke up on the ground,” said Glen. “I must have fallen out.”
“You didn’t fall. You were pulled! If you had fallen, half your bones would be broken!”
He shook his head. “Not necessarily. If my body had been completely limp on the way down, I’d stand a good chance of—”
“Shut up, Glen! How can you not remember?”
“I must have blacked out. I remember everything you said, except the bits I didn’t see, like, and I remember getting to your room and then waking up outside. I went back in, knocked on your door, but you were asleep—”
“I was not asleep.”
“Well, then you didn’t hear me, so I just went back to bed.”
“And, if that was you, you did not knock. You scraped.”
Glen’s frown deepened. “Why would I do that?”
“Amber,” said Milo, “you saw Varga, right? You’re sure it was him?”
“Positive.”
“Then we’ll go have a talk with our gracious host.”
She nodded. “Right. Good. Yeah.”
“I have a question,” said Glen. “What kind of a world is it we live in when a man will step between another man and the woman he obviously shares a deep connection and intense physical attraction with?”
“Are you talking about Veronica?” Milo asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.
“Yes, Milo, yes, I am.”
“She doesn’t like you, Glen.”
“That is a lie.”
“She said you reminded her of a startled meerkat.”
Glen went quiet for a moment. Then he responded with, “That makes very little sense.”
“Get up and get dressed,” said Amber, leaving the room. “And bring your bag down with you. We’re not staying here tonight.”
Glen grumbled, but when he was dressed Amber led the way downstairs.
“Well, hello there,” Ingrid said brightly when she saw them. Her eyes dipped to their bags. “Are you leaving us so soon? Did you have a good night?”
“Some of us had a better night than others,” said Glen, strolling over.
Ingrid looked concerned. “Oh, that’s a shame for some of you, then. Anything I can do to persuade you to stay?”
“Dunno,” said Glen. “Do you have a younger sister?”
Milo stepped sharply in front of him. “Could we speak with Mr Varga, please?”
Ingrid gave another one of her smiles. “I’m sorry, Mr Varga is out on business for the day. We’re expecting him back tonight, though, if that’s any use to you?”
“Sure,” said Milo. “We’ll talk to him then.”
“Wonderful,” said Ingrid. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No, thank you,” said Milo, handing over his key.
Amber and Glen did the same, and they walked out to the Charger without saying another word. They got in.
“I don’t like this town,” Amber said. “We’re leaving as soon as we get Gregory Buxton’s location.”
Glen nodded. “So we interrogate his mum. Force her to tell us where he is.”
She turned to him. “What?”
He blinked. “We … we don’t interrogate his mum?”
“She’s, like, a hundred!”
“She’s religious,” said Milo, starting the car. “Today’s Sunday. She’ll most likely be going to church. Which means she’ll be out of the house.”
“We break in!” said Glen. “We’re good at breaking into places! Although technically we didn’t break into the Springton Library, we just hid in the toilets, but the end result is the same.”
“Shut up,” Milo said calmly. “I’ll break in, search through her stuff. There has to be a postcard or a letter or an address book o
r something.”
“What’ll we do?” Glen asked.
“We’ll follow her,” said Amber. “Make sure she doesn’t come back early. If she does, we’ll delay her.”
“How?”
“You said that older women find you irresistible, right?”
Glen blanched. “You want me to … seduce her?”
Amber shrugged. “Only if you have to.”
They parked a few streets away from Althea Buxton’s house, and went walking. On their third time passing her street, they saw her emerging. Milo disappeared behind her house, and Amber and Glen followed her on the five-minute walk to the church.
Right before Amber stepped through the door, she wondered if she’d burst into flames the moment her foot touched the ground.
Thankfully, she didn’t.
They chose a space on a pew near the back, where they could keep an eye on Althea. Amber tried to remember the last time she’d been in a church. Had she ever been in one? Her parents had never bothered with it – surprise, surprise – and her school was pretty secular. Maybe all she’d seen of the inside of churches had been from movies and TV. She looked up at a statue of Christ on the cross, noting how much he must have worked out to get abs like that, and thought for the first time about praying.
Was God the answer? Up until recently, she’d never had to think about it before, but having been faced with the stark reality of demons and devils – she only had to look in the mirror for proof of that – maybe now was the time to start.
Would it help if she got down on her knees and prayed? She contemplated, for a moment, the idea of praying for her parents, praying that they’d see sense, that they’d recover from whatever madness had gripped them. But she dismissed the idea almost as quickly. She might as well wish for a happy childhood where they hadn’t ignored her.
“I don’t feel well,” Glen whispered. “I think I’ve got internal injuries.”
Would a priest be able to absolve her of her sins? Amber wondered what this priest would make of her horns. If she stepped into a confessional box and she told him the truth, the whole truth, and revealed herself in all her red-skinned glory, what would his reaction be? Would it shatter his faith, shake it loose, or renew it? Would he have an answer for her, or would he cast her from this holy place, cursing her existence and damning her in the eyes of his Lord?
Was she already damned in the eyes of his Lord?
Jesus looked down at her, all rippling muscles and skimpy loincloth, and he didn’t give a whole lot away. A sneaky one, that Jesus.
“My friends,” the priest said. He was young and, even from where she was sitting, Amber could see the bags under his eyes like dark rings. He needed sleep. She could relate.
“Today brings us troubling times,” he continued. “We turn on the news and we see civilisation crumble around the world. War and crime and terrorism and hatred. Poverty. Injustice. Everywhere we look, warning signs of evil. It is taking hold. It is taking root. But, you ask, why would I need to turn on the news to see evidence of this? Why would I need to open a newspaper, or go online? Have not the seeds of evil already taken root here in our very own town?”
A ripple of murmurings through the churchgoers, and Amber sat up a little straighter.
“I have God on my side,” said the priest. “He is my shepherd. He guides me. He protects me. But, even so, I am afraid. I am beginning to doubt. Not God, however. He is as strong as He has ever been. No, my friends, I doubt myself. For my flesh is weak. And my heart is weak. Two weeks ago, we buried our great friend, Father Taylor, and suddenly I am standing up here alone. I find myself missing his comforting presence. I miss his words, his counsel. Most of all, though, I miss his bravery.”
The priest glanced briefly to one side, and Amber noticed for the first time a large photograph, propped up on an easel. It showed a smiling, white-haired old man.
“He knew, you see,” the priest continued. “He felt it. I denied it. And now it’s too late.”
“The man in the picture,” Amber whispered to Glen.
“What about him?”
“I saw him,” said Amber. “I saw him last night outside the hotel.”
And then someone started singing. With a low voice, a quiet voice.
“Down in the willow garden, where me and my love did meet.”
Disquiet spread softly.
“As we sat a-courtin’, my love fell off to sleep.”
Amber could see him now, the man who was singing. He sat with his head down.
“I had a bottle of Burgundy wine. My love, she did not know. So I poisoned that dear little girl, on the banks below.”
The people on either side of him started to shuffle away.
He continued to sing. And then a female voice joined him.
“I drew a sabre through her, it was a bloody knife.”
A third voice now, and more shuffling away, and the singing got a little stronger.
“I threw her in the river, which was a dreadful sign.”
Another person joined the song, singing with his head down, and a fifth, and a sixth, and now people were getting up, their pushes becoming shoves in their attempts to create distance, and the panic was rising with the singing voices, and a seventh and an eighth person joined the song and the priest backed away with a look of horror on his face and people were crying now and running for the exit.
Amber saw Althea, pushed from behind and falling to her knees. Amber sprang off the pew, barged into the surging crowd and was nearly knocked off her feet herself. But she made it, and she gripped Althea’s arm and pulled her up, and now Glen was in front, clearing the way to the door.
“My race is run, beneath the sun. The scaffold waits for me.”
Amber looked back, saw ten or twelve people now standing, but still with their heads down, and still singing.
“For I did murder that dear little girl, whose name was Rose Connelly.”
And, just as Althea fainted and her whole bodyweight collapsed into Amber’s arms, they burst out into the sun.
BETWEEN HERSELF AND GLEN they half walked, half carried Althea up the hill and back to her house.
She was, despite her modest height, quite a heavy woman, and the journey was slow and difficult. Althea came out of her faint twice, started muttering, then succumbed to it once again, the cross around her neck dangling beneath her chin. They got to the house and Amber knocked, calling Milo’s name. A few moments later, the door opened and he let them in. On their way upstairs, they filled him in on what had happened, then laid Althea carefully on her bed. All at once the muttering stopped and Althea was sleeping deeply.
Milo and Glen shared a glance, then left the room. Amber frowned until she realised that she was expected to take care of the undressing.
Ten minutes later, she joined them both in the living room.
“Next time an old person needs to be readied for bed,” she said, “one of you is going to do it.”
The living room was modest, with a low-hanging faux-chandelier and wallpaper that hadn’t even been in style when it was made. Rugs lay atop the carpet and the curtains were heavy and old. A sofa and an armchair huddled round the cold fireplace, the armchair facing a TV so stocky it would have crushed the old lady if it had fallen on her. Beside the window there was a small, circular table covered with a tablecloth. Framed photographs stood like privates in a parade. There was a painting of Jesus over the mantelpiece.
“I’ve been to church,” said Glen, standing at the window and peeking out from behind the blinds. “That is not supposed to happen. That was creepy. It was more than creepy. It was … it was very creepy.”
Milo was flicking through an address book, but paused long enough to glance at Amber. “Think it’s got anything to do with what you saw last night?”
“Probably,” she said. “The priest was talking about how the seeds of evil have already taken root here. I’m pretty sure those were some of the seeds he was talking about. Did you find anything?”
“Not yet,” Milo replied. “But maybe Althea will be more willing to talk to us after this.”
“She’ll probably need one of us to be with her when she wakes, though,” said Glen. “Just to make sure she doesn’t freak out. I’ll take first watch.”
“Wait,” said Amber. “You think waking up to find a strange Irishman in her bedroom will reassure her?”
Glen frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”
Amber didn’t bother answering. She just went back upstairs. She sat in an armchair, watching Althea sleep. After a few minutes, she closed her eyes. Just for a moment. Just to rest them.
When Amber awoke, the sunlight had a red tinge to it, like drops of blood in bathwater. She yawned, sitting up straighter in her chair. Mid-yawn, she froze. The bed was empty.
Alarmed, she hurried downstairs to find Althea sitting in the living room with Glen.
“Amber,” said Glen, smiling broadly, “you’re finally awake!”
“I didn’t have the nerve to disturb you,” Althea said. “You looked exhausted, so I thought to myself I’ll let this poor girl sleep.”
“Uh, thank you,” said Amber. “I hope I didn’t frighten you, or anything.”
Althea smiled ruefully. “Takes more than a young girl to frighten me, let me tell you.”
Milo came in, holding a saucer with a delicate cup of steaming tea. “Here you go, Althea,” he said, passing it over.
“A saint, that’s what you are,” Althea said, taking it from him and sipping.
“Not too strong this time?”
Althea chuckled. “No, dear, it’s perfect, thank you.”
Milo sat in the armchair and looked at Amber. “Althea was just telling us who those people in church were. Some of them have been ill recently.”
“That’s right,” said Althea. “I know Tom Prendergast hasn’t been in work since Monday, and Rachel Faulkner didn’t show up for her shift in the cafe yesterday or the day before. She didn’t even call in sick. And I’m not one to listen to gossip, but that Stevens boy hasn’t been well all week. They say he’s got an infection.”
She nodded when she said it, like Amber would know what kind of infection she meant.