“We do understand that,” said Kelly, “honest we do. But you have to understand that we can’t exactly trust you.”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Your honesty is admirable, Lucy, but let’s not forget that the Desolation Hill Police Department has been facilitating child murder since long before you were born. You’ve looked the other way your entire life. Everyone in that uniform has. Everyone in this town has.”
“We did what needed to be done.”
“That’s a terrible excuse.”
“I know,” said Lucy. “I know it is. But you’ve changed all that. Naberius didn’t get his sacrifice. We don’t know what that means. Do you?”
“We do not.”
“It might mean it’s over,” Lucy said. “If that’s the case, you’ve helped this town break free. No one’s going to want to thank you for that – no one except the kids. And me. Kelly, I give you my word that no harm will come to you if you release Woodbury. I don’t give you my word as a police officer – I know that doesn’t mean anything to you. I give you my word as a human being.”
“You’re a demon, Lucy.”
“Only sometimes.”
“I’d love to believe you. I really, really would. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to back away now. We’ll release Woodbury when we see your tail lights.”
Lucy shook her head, and started forward. “I can’t do that, Kelly.”
“Stop walking.”
“Please understand my position.”
“Stop walking!” Milo shouted.
Lucy stopped. “We don’t have a lot of time,” she said. “If the Chief arrives, he takes over. You don’t want to be on the end of that. Ortmann and me, we are willing to let you walk away. Guys, please, this is our chance for everyone to get out of this in one piece.”
Kelly looked at Milo.
“New proposal,” he said. “You back off. We get to my car. When the car is turned around and ready to drive, we let your friend go.”
“You drove your car into the side of a barn,” Ortmann called.
“She’s sturdy,” said Milo. “She’ll be fine.”
There was a moment of low talking outside, then Lucy raised her voice. “We’re cool with that,” she said. “We’re putting our guns away.” One set of headlights cut off. A moment later, the second set died, and Kelly’s eyes began to adjust.
Milo passed the shotgun to her and picked up Woodbury, grunting at the man’s weight.
“Ready?” he whispered.
Kelly nodded.
They walked out. Lucy and Ortmann stood together, hands at their sides.
Kelly smiled at them. “This weather, eh?”
“It always snows on Hell Night,” said Ortmann.
“Is that so?” said Kelly.
“Well … not always. But mostly.”
Kelly laughed. “Look at us, talking about the weather. This is all very civilised.”
Lucy shrugged, but her eyes stayed wary. “Goes to show what can be accomplished with a little common sense. How’s our guy?”
“I headbutted him.”
“You must have a hard head.”
“That’s what my teachers always told me.”
She would have carried on, would have light-heartedly asked for some Tylenol, but at the sound of a motorcycle her heart dive-bombed in her chest.
A single Hound came roaring through the broken fence. Milo dropped Woodbury, started firing the shotgun. The cops spun, shifting into their grinning selves even as they drew their weapons, adding their firepower to Milo’s.
“Forget about the bike!” Milo commanded. “Aim for the rider!”
Bullets hit the Hound, jerking his torso, but not stopping him, not making him fall.
“Back!” Lucy cried. “To the barn!”
Kelly went first, and when the last of them were through she pulled the door shut. The bike roared so close and so loud she was sure the Hound was going to burst through, but he veered at the last minute, forced off by shotgun blasts.
There was a sudden ceasefire. Kelly joined Milo at a window, just in time to see the Hound ride round the side of the barn. Everyone turned, keeping track of the noise, reloading as they did so.
“Woodbury is still out there,” said Ortmann.
“The Hound’s not interested in him,” Kelly said, sliding in her last magazine. She racked the slide just as the bike’s engine cut off.
“Spread out,” Milo whispered.
While the others moved to cover as many entrances as possible, Kelly crept to the ladder, climbing it as quietly as she could. She got to the hayloft and crawled for a while before rising into a low crouch. The wood creaked beneath her weight.
The hole in the roof was more than big enough for her to pass through. It opened up on to a dark sky laden with clouds. She jumped for a broken beam, pulled herself up, and balanced on one knee while she reached for the hole.
And the Hound’s face appeared right in front of her.
She cried out, fell back, fired blindly and hit nothing, and the Hound landed before her as she fell on her ass. She shot him in the shoulder, then switched targets, aiming for his leg. He wobbled, almost fell. She fired again, and again, keeping him off balance, making him totter, and then she went for the final shot, the shot that’d force him out of the hayloft, that’d send him crashing to the ground, and the gun clicked on empty.
“Aw hell,” she said.
The Hound straightened up, that calm expression never leaving his face. Christ, she hated that calmness. What she wouldn’t give to see some anger, or hatred, or even some goddamn annoyance flicker across those features. But no. All she got was calmness.
“Kelly!” Milo yelled, and threw his shotgun to her. She grabbed it and fired and the Hound flew backwards and was gone.
Her ears ringing, she crawled to the edge, as more gunfire erupted. The Hound was back on his feet, but being peppered by bullets. He stumbled against the wall, and then Milo was there, plunging a pitchfork through the Hound’s arm, pinning it to the wood.
Lucy grabbed the second pitchfork while Ortmann took hold of the Hound’s other arm. Once it was flattened against the wall, the middle prong skewered it.
Kelly climbed down the ladder as the others paused a moment to catch their breath. The Hound didn’t struggle. He just stood there, arms splayed, looking at them.
“So how do we kill him?” Ortmann asked. He, like Lucy, had reverted once the immediate danger had passed.
They all looked to Milo, who looked at Kelly. “Could I borrow your phone?”
She handed it over and he paused, trying to remember a number. He punched it in, held the phone to his ear.
“Gregory,” he said, “it’s me.” He paused. “Who else would be calling? Yeah. Anyway, you have any idea how to kill a Hound of Hell? We’ve got …” He paused, listening for a moment. “I’m sorry, are you going to continue this conversation on your own, or would you like me to contribute? You’re the closest thing we’ve got to an expert, so I’m consulting you. We’ve got one of them. Yes. Don’t worry about that, he’s not going anywhere. He’s … No, I … All I want is … Jesus, do you know how to kill one or not?” Milo listened. “Yeah,” he said. “That seems like a good enough place to start as any. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
He hung up, tossed Kelly’s phone back to her.
“So?” Lucy asked. “What is the expert opinion?”
“The expert opinion is that the Hound is unlikely to survive without a head.”
Kelly frowned. “That’s it?”
“It would seem to be.”
“I could have told you that.”
“Any one of us could have told you that,” said Ortmann.
“But yours would not have been an informed opinion,” Milo said. He walked up to the Hound. “You hear that? We’re going to take your head off. How’s that make you feel?”
The Hound’s expression didn’t change.
“Christ,
you’re annoying,” Milo muttered. He held out his hand. “Someone give me a shotgun.”
Kelly gave him hers, and walked outside. Woodbury was moaning in the dirt. A shotgun blast filled the night, and then another. And then another. Three shotgun blasts to obliterate a skull. Another hard head.
Milo and the officers walked out of the barn.
“So?” Kelly asked.
“Turns out Hounds really can’t survive without their heads,” Milo said.
Lucy looked at them both. “So what happens now?”
“Now you go one way and we go another,” said Milo, “and if we see each other in town, we pretend we don’t. Can you live with that?”
Lucy and Ortmann exchanged glances, and Lucy nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “We can.”
AUSTIN HAD NEVER MET Cole Blancard’s stepdad, and now he was glad of that fact. Oscar Moreno was looking at him like they shared a secret, and totally ignoring Bill, Betty and his own wife.
“What’s that you’re holding?” Oscar Moreno asked. “A key, is it? What a nice key that is.”
“It’s ours, actually,” Betty said. “We just came to retrieve it from your son.”
“Stepson,” said Cole.
Oscar’s eyes flicked from Austin to Cole. “You had it? Really? What are the chances?”
The atmosphere in the house changed. All at once it went from staged politeness to all cards on the table.
Oscar took a step forward, but Bill put a hand to his chest, held him off.
“You know what the key is, don’t you?” Bill asked.
“Of course,” Oscar said, smiling. “I own its twin. I never thought I’d see it again, though, not after it was given to that dreadful man who never stopped talking. But here it is, in my very own house. It’s come home.”
He tried moving past Bill, but got shoved back for his efforts. The smile never left his face.
“In that case,” said Betty, “we’ll take yours, too. May as well have the full set, wouldn’t you agree?”
Oscar shook his head. “Oh no, I’m sorry, I can’t give it to you. I need it for my work.”
Bill and Betty turned into demons so quickly that Austin never even saw the change. But all at once there they were, red-skinned and horned, and Cole cried out and Cole’s mom stumbled backwards. She had a strange look on her face, though. It wasn’t shock – it was merely surprise, like they weren’t supposed to be able to do that.
And then Oscar Moreno changed. His transformation wasn’t as smooth as the demons, but it was no less effective. He grew taller, his arms and legs lengthening, his body getting thinner as it stretched. His face changed, too, his hair receding to a wiry mass, his skin getting paler. His eyes sank to each side, widening the space between them. His nose got smaller. His mouth widened.
The Narrow Man.
Violence erupted and Austin fell backwards, twisted, and ran into the kitchen. The back door was locked. Cole’s mom was shouting, and there were grunts and crashes and Cole came running in after him, his eyes wide with madness. He tugged the gun, but it was caught in his waistband.
The key. Austin had heard Linda and Kelly talking about what it could do. It had sounded ridiculous, like magic, but what was going on in that hallway right now was magic, so Austin jammed the key into the locked door and twisted. An image of another door, a dull metal door, filled his mind as he twisted again, then he turned the handle and yanked the key out and suddenly Cole was barging into him and they both fell through.
The door slammed shut behind them and they were in darkness.
It wasn’t the darkness that night brought. There were no stars above. No street lights. This was the dark of an enclosed space. At first, Austin thought the dark was absolute, but that wasn’t true. The darkness lifted to gloom just ahead of him. While he waited for his eyes to adjust, he listened to the only sound he could hear over his own beating heart and shallow breathing. A sucking noise.
“Cole?” he whispered. Cole didn’t answer.
Austin suddenly had the awful feeling that Cole had somehow circled round behind him, that he was standing there with that gun out, that he could see Austin perfectly in the dark and he was smiling as he watched his prey begin to panic.
But then the gloom lightened even more, and Austin could make out someone kneeling ahead of him.
He started forward on his hands and knees. His fingers brushed over something metal. The gun. He seized it, feeling its weight, feeling a rush of reassurance and excitement that passed as quickly as it had come. He sat back on his haunches, raising the gun. He didn’t need to see it to know it was shaking badly in his grip.
He could see the figure better now. It wasn’t Cole. The dim light (dim, but getting brighter) seemed to be coming from within him. It was a man, definitely a man, and he was on his knees and holding Cole Blancard in his arms.
Austin stood, turned, ran straight into the door and jammed the key into the lock. At the last moment, he remembered the twisting rule, and he turned the key and turned it again, all the while picturing the last door he’d come through, the door to Cole’s bedroom, the one with the naked woman in chains on it, and he opened the cell door and stumbled through, into the hallway.
He turned, glimpsed the glowing figure as it sucked the life out of poor Cole Blancard, the psychopathic thug who had bullied Austin since he was eight years old, and right before the door slammed shut the figure erupted with a startling orange light. Then the door was closed and the house was normal again.
Austin stuffed the key in his pocket. He still had the gun, and even though he had no intention of using it he gripped it tighter as he hurried to the front door.
Bill and Betty fought the Narrow Man in the snow outside.
Their claws tore through the Narrow Man’s clothes and raked his flesh, but while his clothes remained torn his flesh closed up over the wounds, like putty. The demons, on the other hand, weren’t nearly so quick to heal. They had black scales growing on their skin, like armour, and while the scales were enough to deflect swipes, when the Narrow Man jabbed straight at them, those long, thin fingers of his actually slipped between the scales, and drew blood. From the looks on their faces, Austin could tell that Bill and Betty hadn’t expected this. They circled him warily, snarling their hatred. The Narrow Man stood ready between them.
Cole’s mom stayed on the lawn. She wasn’t shouting anymore. She just stood there, not even looking at the fight. Her head was raised slightly, and cocked to one side like a dog listening to a sound in the distance. She turned, then, and Austin could see her smiling face. Her eyes were closed. Her arms were out to either side. She looked like she was waiting for God to reach down from heaven and pick her up. Austin realised the hair on the back of his neck was standing up. There was something in the air, a charge, and it was building. Intensifying.
Then something rippled.
Austin couldn’t tell what it was. It wasn’t the ground, not really, and it wasn’t the buildings, it was the space around him, around them all. The space rippled, just for a moment, just for an eye-blink, and the whole town rippled with it, and Austin recognised the sensation. He felt it every year when he was down in the panic room. This was the feeling that preceded every Hell Night.
It was beginning.
Cole’s mom laughed. It was a short, sharp laugh, cut off by a cry of pain. Her spine arched and her hands splayed and her legs snapped rigid. Her skin deepened to a rich yellow in the street light, and she grew taller while her hair lengthened and knotted. Her T-shirt tore as a ridge of white bone jutted sharply from her shoulders and along her arms. The angles of her face were sharper now, her brow more pronounced, her jaw wider. She laughed again, a laugh of pure joy, and Austin saw her teeth, packed into her gums like a shark’s.
Austin watched this transformation and almost missed what was happening to the street. The road cracked and the grass grew, turned coarse and wild, briars sprouting like weeds. The houses creaked and groaned – the creaks of Cole’s house
sounding like screams to Austin’s ears – as they lengthened and narrowed and twisted. Street lights and house lights alike turned orange and red and flickered like flames.
There were real screams now, screams and shouts and laughter, and demons were emerging from houses up and down this street.
AMBER WAS DYING.
The pain had simultaneously faded into the background and regrouped to jab at her with every beat of her heart. A whole lot of blood that she needed to stay inside her body was now on the outside. It was drenching her clothes and dripping to the snow-covered ground. It was smearing on branches and splashing on leaves. She was cold. She was so cold that she would never complain about the heat again. Her fingers were numb. Her head was light. She was dizzy. And even though she was dying she was aware of one thing: Hell Night had begun.
She felt it. The energy flowed through the ground, the air. It flowed through her battered body, through her trickling blood – it would have forced her to shift if she wasn’t already in demon form. Through the trees, from where she was hiding, she saw what it did to Benjamin. In the moonlight, she could see how tall he had gotten. His skin looked red, a dirtier red than her own, and he was standing straight. He looked bigger, healthier. Stronger. He held the rifle with the butt resting on his hip. His laugh drifted up to her.
“Amberrrr …” he called, like they were playing a game.
Gritting her teeth, she started moving again, no longer going up the hill, but circling him, doing her best to get back to the farmhouse. She needed his truck. She needed to get away.
She lost sight of him, but every few seconds he’d call her name, allowing her to track his position. So far, it was working. She was moving sideways and he was moving up. Hopefully, he’d keep going. Hopefully.
She almost fainted. The blackness came on so suddenly that it rocked her. But she kept her eyes open, fought against it, and the feeling passed and when she looked up she could see the farmhouse. Along the side was a tall stack of chopped wood, held in place by an old gate Benjamin had rigged up. Beside the gate was a large wooden block with an axe buried in it. The last time she’d swung an axe, the Narrow Man had taken it away from her. This time would have to be different.