They moved on toward the silent mansion, their numbers bleeding out. Three more died beneath slashing claws and biting fangs before they reached the heavy front door. Nor were the monsters indestructible. One went down gut shot, grey organs spilling in the snow. Then another fell, half its head blown away by a hearty blast from a shotgun slammed between its fangs. Jamie’s troops rallied, fighting back to back, and letting their boiling blood sweep them through the dance. Gradually, the survivors realized they fought creatures of mere bone, gill, and scales. They did die. Eric looked for Jamie. He half expected to find him as a giant werewolf striding through the gore.
He was there, surrounded by dead and dying beasts, deep within the frenzy, swirling to the dance. His wicked blade slashed out, severing limbs and heads alike, but Jamie remained all human, though he fought as one possessed. Soon the beasts were beaten, a few fleeing into the blanketing snow while most lay shattered at their feet. MacLeod stood surrounded, the blood lust slow to leave his eyes. As his head drooped low, he stabbed a cooling body, allowing Thirst to drink. They’d been eighteen souls. Now they were down to five. And one soulless beast.
Weapons ready, those left clustered close together. Several loaded ammo, one bent aside to puke. Only one prayed, and it wasn’t to a Christian god. Looking up, Jamie saw them beginning to waver, and quickly told them to look sharp. It was far from over. Seeing Eric and Priya staring at him, he realized for the first time he must be drenched in blood. Cringing, he turned and staggered back into the swirling snow. As he moved, he raised Thirst and scrubbed the blade down across his body. Had his friends been able to see him through the snow, they would have noticed most of the drenching blood was gone.
Chapter 51
They passed quickly beneath the disapproving stares of thirteen generations of Paine. Dour-faced Yankees; they all looked like someone had just cut an evil smelling fart and nobody was admitting it. One stared down from his lofty perch with the piety of a witch-hanging judge; another looked like a sneaky weasel, as though he’d just finished buggering a young parlor maid. Several cracked and scowling faced ancestors showed their dark ships lurking behind them, with no clue of the forbidden cargo within. The portrait of Jeremiah Paine showed his Mermaid’s Curse, but revealed no hint of the horrors that crept ashore behind him. On and on the gauntlet of portraits stretched as bony chauffeur, defeated captive and gleeful master filed by. Their candle-lit passing threw huge shadows across the pictures’ faces. More than once the shadows seemed to reshape an ancestor’s visage into a nasty smirk, as though it watched the captive and silently sucked in a sample of her misery.
Lacey fought like a wildcat as soon as Sweetling untied her. His cheek still blazed with the five deep slashes she’d scored in her first explosive attack. Shrieking at the top of her lungs, she’d launched herself at him with the rage of a crazed banshee. If power had matched fury, she might have escaped. Instead, he took the angry blows, waiting until she tired before landing two punches of his own. One to her unprotected belly, the second almost unhinging her jaw. She fell like a bag of bricks and lay still. Sweetling moved quickly, retying her at once, and doing naughty things.
They passed into a bigger room, lit only by the flickering blaze in fireplace. A thousand shiny eyes glared at the trio as they ventured through. Winding their way through the maze of dead things, Lacey’s eyes widened in horror as she took in the horde of animals Sweetling had slaughtered and badly stuffed. She felt dizzy, her head swimming from the wanton murders and the stench. Attracted to a single pool of weak light, she blinked as she spied a familiar face slumping in a pile of sticky gore. Had that been Mrs. Shaw? Oh God, it was her. Her captor rammed the knife hilt into the small of her back, sending Lacey stumbling forward. Struggling to catch herself, Lacey’s bare arm brushed against a dusty Wildcat’s upraised paw, knocking away the stuffed animal.
Sweetling was on them in a second, shoving away his toady and wrenching Lacey to her feet.
“Be careful! I’ve spend weeks on these. I don’t want you lumbering around knocking over my pets!” He raised a fat arm to strike his toady, but she cowered and fell to her knees. Pale and bony hands dropped the knife and wrapped themselves around her master’s knees. Gerald Sweetling‘s bloated face gave birth to a particularly wicked grin as he fastened one massive paw atop his cowering servant’s bowed head. As she whimpered and begged his mercy, he spread his fat fingers wide, exposing the thickened webs between. Flexing his filthy claws, he dug them into the woman’s naked skull. Lacey shuddered, as her captor’s whimpers turned to screams. Abruptly, Sweetling stopped, and wiped his bloodied paw on the woman’s filthy shoulders.
“That’ll be all, Agnes, I think. Get out of my sight,” he said, waving her to her feet. “Go, go, and welcome our other guests. They’ll be here soon and we must give them a warm welcome. Go. Bring MacLeod to me.”
The librarian fled.
“Jamie’s alive?”
“Yes, yes. Apparently your old lover’s hard to kill. I’ll have him brought here. If he comes soon enough, he can watch us at play. If he’s late, he’ll have to be satisfied watching you die.”
“Jamie will tear you apart. He’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”
“I already do, my dear. Tell me, is your Jamie going to save you, just like every other time? From my dear old grandfather Malachi? Or his pets in the cellar? Jamie does have a habit of letting you down, doesn’t he?”
“He’ll be here! He’ll make you suffer, you monster!”
“Oh really? Let’s give him a reason then, shall we?”
Chapter 52
The move against the old Paine mansion had been costly. The snow finally stopped, making it easier to see the hellish creatures lunging out of the night. They were nearly impossible to kill. By the time Eric neared the front door, he had four friends left. James had disappeared as soon as the full moon struggled into the night sky.
As the leaderless group crouched shivering behind an overgrown Yew hedge bordering the last expanse of unkempt lawn, Larry White succeeded in getting the front door open. All five scooted in, and eased the heavy door shut behind them. They fanned out, checking halls and shadows, but it was from dead ahead they heard the sound of weeping. A pale frantic form raced at them out of the dark and three weapons almost shot her dead. Half naked, Lacey threw her bloodied arms around Eric’s neck and hysterically sobbed out her warning.
“We must get away now! Back the way you’ve come. I-I just managed to slip away. Gerald and all his ghouls are right behind me. We must go!”
The four other survivors gathered round, Eric and the rescued Lacey sheltered in their midst. Eric barely heard her dire words as his body began to respond to her near nakedness. Her full lips brushed against his ear, as she whispered, "Save me for yourself, Eric. You want me, don't you? I know you do. Save me."
He just couldn’t think. Get away. They must get away. She was free. Saved. They must get away. He felt her fingers roaming across his face, his chest. He turned; she smiled and kissed him on the lips. Away. She’d said they must get away. Yet she was holding him, spellbound in her seductive embrace. He must think.
Suddenly, the door burst apart, and he was standing there. His rival. Jamie glared at the embracing couple as the others scattered aside. He scowled and snorted, and Eric heard the agonizing song of pain, as muscle, organ and bone ripped, broke and changed. This time, it was quicker, more fluid, taking mere seconds for man to become beast. As the shape-shift took hold, Jamie spoke, his words more shocking than his form.
“Eric, get away from her. She means to do us harm!”
“James, it’s me. Darling, don’t you see? I’ve escaped from Sweetling.” Lacey began to shove free of Eric’s clutches, ready to float into her lover’s arms. “Come closer, my love.”
“MacLeod, it is her. She says we’ve got to go now. She says Sweetling’s coming with all his
freaks.”
“Stand aside Eric. I swear, she means you harm!”
Eric watched as the werewolf that had been MacLeod attacked his lover. Yelling for him to stop, Eric drew his father’s old revolver. He watched, horrified, as it spit out five silver bullets, each speeding to splat into Jamie with absolutely no effect. All five tumbled uselessly to the floor.
Almost on top of the teenager then, MacLeod stopped, shook his shaggy head, and said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
Eric felt a tugging at his elbow, and looked back as Lacey thrust a syringe into his empty hand. “He’s not what you think, Eric. Silver bullets can’t harm him. This will. Aim for his left eye. He means to kill us both! Do it!”
On seeing the syringe, and hearing Lacey’s words, Jamie stopped, agonizing as his body shifted painfully back toward human form.
“What have you done,” he snarled through tormented rage. “Where is she?”
“Why Jamie, I’m right here, my love,” the woman returned sweetly. “Strike Eric! Now!”
In the blinking of an eye, a spellbound Eric lunged forward with the syringe raised high, ready to plunge it into Jamie’s eye.
“Stop!” slashed through the chaos. “Nomarnum Chut Cuthluloggau Slithruum!” Distracted by the stern command from an unknown woman, Eric missed his mark, the bubbling syringe searing a path just outside Jamie’s eye. Caught halfway to human, Jamie smacked Eric across the head with one powerful claw-studded hand. The teenager flew into the nearest wall, collapsed to the shadowy carpet and lay still. Jamie was on Lacey in a breath, Thirst drinking deeply from her throat. The woman stared at her murderous lover, ran her long green tongue across bloody lips frozen in a mindless smile and dissolved into a stinking spray of fine black mist.
As the other survivors stood aside in open-mouthed shock, two newcomers strode into the room and rushed to their friends’ side. Kalini swept into Jamie’s arms as Reggie bent to tend the fallen teenager.
“Honestly MacLeod, you can be such a brute! Did you have to take such bestial pleasure in swatting this gallant young man aside? He thought he was defending your lady love from certain slaughter. Really, Jamie, sometimes I despair of ever teaching you any self- control.”
Extracting himself from Kalini’s welcome embrace, Jamie turned to Reginald, shook his head and replied, “Nice to see you too, Doc. You want to talk about bloody self-control? As you can see, I ran out of the damned serum about three days back. I’ve been practicing self-control ever since. You can see how well that’s working.”
“We brought plenty of the serum, though by the look of you, we’re too late this time. You’re already halfway down the path. I’m guessing each change will come easier, quicker now. There’ll be no stopping or slowing the cycle until after the moon.”
“Full moon? But there’s a full moon now.” Eric had recovered enough to sit up, chime in with eager questions. It was obvious that “Lacey” hadn’t really been her. He felt stupid. Like a kid. A kid in a lot of pain. The top of his head felt like somebody had dropped a whole nest of hornets on it. “Jamie’s a werewolf. Why didn’t my bullets work? And if not the full moon, then what moon?”
Reggie smiled at Eric as he worked. "Such a bright lad, so many questions." His fingers moved across the deep lacerations streaking across Eric’s forehead, deftly taking away the deep furrows, soothing away the pain.
“Is he going to be all right, Reggie?" Jamie turned away from the scowling old witch as Reggie dug through his bright orange knapsack for more potions, and turned to face Eric. “Thanks for not taking my eye out, Eric. Nice scar I’ll have now,” Jamie pointed to the jagged white line running from the corner of his left eye half way back to his ear. “Little token of our friendship.” He smirked, his lips curling back enough to show sharp fangs. “I think we need to talk about trust.”
Finishing up on Eric, Reggie added a little finger twitter that took away Eric’s bothersome acne, and turned to scowl at his wayward child. “Give the kid a break, Jamie. You should be so perfect. You’ll still get more than your share of bed-mates. Or have you finally settled on one?” He looked into the shadows, spied a pouting Kalini hovering there, fiddling with the red fur edging to her cloak. “Why don’t you and Kalini take the others and see if you can find this bothersome Lacey of yours. I do hope she’s worth it.”
* * * *
With very little banter, Jamie mustered Kalini and the others to fan out and search for Sweetling and his plaything. In seconds Eric and Reginald were quite alone.
Reggie sat down next to Eric, their backs against the wall, weapons ready by their sides, and took a couple of eggplant and onion sandwiches from his knapsack. He offered one to Eric, who wrinkled up his nose and declined. Reggie made a face, and began to devour the first one with all the delicacy found at the center of a shark feeding frenzy. It disappeared in seconds, followed by a stylish belch. Reggie eyed the second sandwich, but put it back in his knapsack untouched. He examined his long fingers, carefully checking each nail, and then folding his hands in his lap, turned to the waiting teenager, and opened up.
“So Eric, I am Dr. Reginald Bradford, the III, late of Salem. The lovely young woman with me is Kalini. She’s–”
“She’s beautiful. She’s Indian? She looks like a Bollywood actress.”
“I wouldn’t tell her that if I were you. Actually, it’d be Sri Lanka. But you wanted to know about Jamie. You thought he was a werewolf.”
“I saw him–that night outside Kat’s apartment. She’s his other girlfriend.”
“So we’ve heard. Two lovely ladies. How like our Jamie. And I heard he was having trouble with just the one.” Reggie wriggled his back against the wall, trying to alleviate some of his nagging back pain. Finally, he blinked, just making the pain vanish. Hey, perks are good. “But we digress. Just exactly what do you want to know?”
Eric had good questions. There were only a few that Reggie side-stepped. He explained how it all began when Grandfather MacLeod’s ship had been torpedoed and the Sri Lankan woman nursed him back to health. Only she wasn’t really a woman. She was more of a beautiful demon. She and he had a couple of half human kids. In spite of his demonic curse, Jamie’s half-human father married well. A human. His wife died screaming, giving birth to a brood of kids. Jamie was one. The necklace he wore came from his mother. Reggie didn’t tell Eric that the blood drenched beads were all Jamie had of his mom, after he and his enfant siblings chewed their way out of her body. Unable to cope with his curse and his loss, Jamie’s father took his own life and followed his wife to the grave within four months. If there was any magic in that tooth and beads, it was because Jamie believed, and Reginald had worked a little protective magic; mostly, it was just a disgusting cursed albatross hung around his neck. Jamie was only a quarter demon, yet already he’d killed ten deserving men.
Feeling almost himself, Eric got up and paced around the room. He stopped and watched as a worried looking Kalini crossed the hallway and disappeared down another passage, now searching alone. He turned back to Reggie, his obvious question plastered across his face. As he sat down next to him, Reginald took a deep sigh and answered his unspoken question.
“Yes, she’s very upset. Kalini loves Jamie very much. They’ve been through an awful lot together.” Eric huffed; as though sensing he was only getting part of the truth, but Reggie wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise and continued with his tale.
“You could call them shape-shifters, though Rakshasa is more precise. Read your Hindu legends, not all Rakshasas are evil. During the battles in ancient Sri Lanka, some fought on the side of man. Jamie is descended from those. They can take many shapes, sometimes ugly as pus; sometimes as beautiful as a butterfly. You saw Jamie as a werewolf because that’s what you expected to see.” Reggie paused and scratched his head, wondering what more he dare tell. “There’s a cycle, like your movie werewolves, only Ja
mie’s begins around the full moon. Now. He’s started changing, but he’s weakest now. The closer he gets to the new moon, the more bestial he’ll become. Unlike your werewolves, he won’t howl at the moon. Rakshasas are too smart for that; they hunt in complete silence, in the dark of the moon. For centuries, they’ve been used very effectively as unstoppable assassins. Jamie will be deadly. We have to restrain him before that–when the new moon comes, there’ll be no “Jamie” left.”
“Doesn’t he know all this? Won’t he surrender himself willingly?”
“Each time the beast forces its way out, the change comes quicker, with less pain. You saw how swiftly he’s changing now. It will go quicker and smoother as we approach the new moon. Eventually, he’ll just flow from form to form effortlessly. None of that awful grinding of bone, ripping flesh or muscle.In the end, he’ll be all beast. We have to have him bound before then. If we don’t, then this has all been a waste.”
“A waste? Why?”
“He’ll kill this Lacey. Rip her apart. I didn’t want to tell you this, but since you ask, and appear to be a bright lad with such a good handle on adulthood–”
“Just tell me! What is Jamie going to do?”
“There are different kinds of Rakshasas. Like I said before, some bad, some good. But they specialize more than that. Some haunt graveyards or temples, some harass travelers. The males of Jamie’s clan are irresistible to human women. They collect sexual partners like coins. Only, because Jamie’s mostly human, he falls in love with the women he attracts. That’s why he can honestly love Lacey and Kat, as well as Kalini.”
“What’s so bad about that? He just has to make a choice. That doesn’t mean he’s going to kill anyone.”
“Ah, but there’s the rub. In his terminal phase, the beast will exude a musk that any female within twenty feet will find irresistible. This Kathleen or Lacey will be defenseless to resist him; in fact, they’ll impale themselves on him. And impale is the right word I’m afraid, because as a beast, Jamie's body—all of it—will be far from human. He'll have a very nasty sting. We’ve definitely got to keep them apart, my friend.”