"We're here to flip it the bird," Fox finished.
"Come on, Lump, come on with me. "
The dog shivered at Cal's command, but rose, and with its side pressed to Cal's legs, walked down the trail toward the Pagan Stone.
The wolf-Cal would never have referred to the thing as a dog-stood at the mouth of the clearing. It was huge and black, with eyes that were somehow human. Lump tried a halfhearted snarl in answer to the low, warning growl, then cowered against Cal.
"Are we going to walk through that, too?" Gage asked from the rear.
"It's not like the false trail. " Fox shook his head. "It's not real, but it's there. "
"Okay. " Gage started to pull off his pack.
And the thing leaped.
It seemed to fly, Cal thought, a mass of muscle and teeth. He fisted his hands to defend, but there was nothing to fight.
"I felt. . . " Slowly, Quinn lowered the arms she'd thrown up to protect her face.
"Yeah. Not just the cold, not that time. " Cal gripped her arm to keep her close. "There was weight, just for a second, and there was substance. "
"We never had that before, not even during the Seven. " Fox scanned the woods on both sides. "Whatever form Twisse took, whatever we saw, it wasn't really there. It's always been mind games. "
"If it can solidify, it can hurt us directly," Layla pointed out.
"And be hurt. " From behind her Gage pulled a 9mm Glock out of his pack.
"Good thinking," was Cybil's cool opinion.
"Jesus Christ, Gage, where the hell did you get that?"
Gage lifted his eyebrows at Fox. "Guy I know down in D. C. Are we going to stand here in a huddle, or are we going in?"
"Don't point that at anybody," Fox demanded.
"Safety's on. "
"That's what they always say before they accidentally blow a hole in the best friend. "
They stepped into the clearing, and the stone.
"My God, it's beautiful. " Cybil breathed the words reverently as she moved toward it. "It can't possibly be a natural formation, it's too perfect. It's designed, and for worship, I'd think. And it's warm. Feel it. The stone's warm. " She circled it. "Anyone with any sensitivity has to feel, has to know this is sacred ground. "
"Sacred to who?" Gage countered. "Because what came up out of here twenty-one years ago wasn't all bright and friendly. "
"It wasn't all dark either. We felt both. " Cal looked at Fox. "We saw both. "
"Yeah. It's just the big, black scary mass got most of our attention while we were being blasted off our feet. "
"But the other gave us most of his, that's what I think. I walked out of here not only without a scratch, but with twenty-twenty vision and a hell of an immune system. "
"The scratches on my arms had healed up, and the bruises from my most recent tussle with Napper. " Fox shrugged. "Never been sick a day since. "
"How about you?" Cybil asked Gage. "Any miraculous healing?"
"None of us had a mark on him after the blast," Cal began.
"It's no deal, Cal. No secrets from the team. My old man used his belt on me the night before we were heading in here. A habit of his when he'd get a drunk on. I was carrying the welts when I came in, but not when I walked out. "
"I see. " Cybil held Gage's eyes for several beats. "The fact that you were given protection, and your specific abilities, enabled you to defend your ground, so to speak. Otherwise, you'd have been three helpless little boys. "
"It's clean. " Layla's comment had everyone turning to where she stood by the stone. "That's what comes to my mind. I don't think it was ever used for sacrifice. Not blood and death, not for the dark. It feels clean. "
"I've seen the blood on it," Gage said. "I've seen it burn. I've heard the screams. "
"That's
not its purpose. Maybe that's what Twisse wants. " Quinn laid her palm on the stone. "To defile it, to twist its power. If he can, well, he'll own it, won't he? Cal?"
"Okay. " His hand hovered over hers. "Ready?" At her nod, he joined his hand to hers on the stone.
At first there was only her, only Quinn. Only the courage in her eyes. Then the world tumbled back, five years, twenty, so that he saw the boy he'd been with his friends, scoring his knife over their wrists to bind them together. Then rushing back, decades, centuries, to the blaze and the screams while the stone stood cool and white in the midst of hell.
Back to another waning winter where Giles Dent stood with Ann Hawkins as he stood with Quinn now. Dent's words came from his lips.
"We have only until summer. This I cannot change, even for you. Duty outstrips even my love for you, and for the lives we have made. " He touched a hand to her belly. "I wish, above all, that I could be with you when they come into the world. "
"Let me stay. Beloved. "
"I am the guardian. You are the hope. I cannot destroy the beast, only chain it for a time. Still, I do not leave you. It is not death, but an endless struggle, a war only I can wage. Until what comes from us makes the end. They will have all I can give, this I swear to you. If they are victorious in their time, I will be with you again. "
"What will I tell them of their father?"
"That he loved their mother, and them, with the whole of his heart. "
"Giles, it has a man's form. A man can bleed, a man can die. "
"It is not a man, and it is not in my power to destroy it. That will be for those who come after us both. It, too, will make its own. Not through love. They will not be what it intends. It cannot own them if they are beyond its reach, even its ken. This is for me to do. I am not the first, Ann, only the last. What comes from us is the future. "
She pressed a hand to her side. "They quicken," she whispered. "When, Giles, when will it end? All the lives we have lived before, all the joy and the pain we have known? When will there be peace for us?"
"Be my heart. " He lifted her hands to his lips. "I will be your courage. And we will find each other once more. "
Tears slid down Quinn's cheeks even as she felt the images fade. "We're all they have. If we don't find the way, they're lost to each other. I felt her heart breaking inside me. "
"He believed in what he'd done, what he had to do. He believed in us, though he couldn't see it clearly. I don't think he could see us, all of us," Cal said as he looked around. "Not clearly. He took it on faith. "
"Fine for him. " Gage shifted his weight. "But I put a little more of mine in this Glock. "
It wasn't the wolf, but the boy that stood on the edge of the clearing. Grinning, grinning. He lifted his hands, showed fingernails that were sharpened to claws.
The sun dimmed from midday to twilight; the air from cool to frigid. And thunder rumbled in the late winter sky.
In a lightning move so unexpected Cal couldn't prevent it, Lump sprang. The thing who masked as a boy squealed with laughter, shinnied up a tree like a monkey.
But Cal had seen it, in a flash of an instant. He'd seen the shock, and what might have been fear.
"Shoot it," Cal shouted to Gage, even as he dashed forward to grab Lump's collar. "Shoot the son of a bitch. "
"Jesus, you don't actually think a bullet's going to-"
Over Fox's objection, Gage fired. Without hesitation, he aimed for the boy's heart.
The bullet cracked the air, struck the tree. This time no one could miss the look of shock on the boy's face. His howl of pain and fury gushed across the clearing and shook the ground.
With ruthless purpose, Gage emptied the clip into it.
It changed. It grew. It twisted itself into something massive and black and sinuous that rose over Cal as he stood his ground, fighting to hold back his dog, who strained and barked like a mad thing.
The stench of it, the cold of it hammered down on him like stones. "We're still here," Cal shouted. "This is our place, and you can go to hell. "
He staggered against a blast of sound and slapping air.
"Better reload, Deadeye," Cybil commanded.
"Knew I should've bought a howitzer. " But Gage slapped in a full clip.
"This isn't your place," Cal shouted again. The wind threatened to knock him off his feet, seemed to tear at his clothes and his skin like a thousand knives. Through the scream of it, he heard the crack of gunfire, and the rage it spewed out clamped on his throat like claws.
Then Quinn braced against his side. And Fox shouldered in at his other. They formed a line, all six.
"This," Cal called out, "is ours. Our place and our time. You couldn't have my dog, and you can't have my town. "
"So fuck off," Fox suggested, and bending picked up a rock. He hurled it, a straightaway fast ball.
"Hello, got a gun here. "
Fox's grin at Gage was wild and wide as the feral wind battered them. "Throwing rocks is an insult. It'll undermine its confidence. "
Die here!
It wasn't a voice, but a tidal wave of sound and wind that knocked them to the ground, scattered them like bowling pins.
"Undermine, my ass. " Gage shoved to his knees and began firing again.
"You'll die here. " Cal spoke coolly as the others took Fox's tack and began to hurl stones and sticks.
Fire swept across the clearing, its flames like shards of ice. Smoke belched up in fetid clouds as it roared its outrage.
"You'll die here," Cal repeated. Pulling his knife from its sheath, he rushed foward to plunge it into the boiling black mass.
It screamed. He thought it screamed, thought the sound held something of pain as well as fury. The shock of power sang up his arm, stabbed through him like a blade, twin edges of scorching heat and impossible cold. It flung him away, sent him flying through the smoke like a pebble from a sling. Breathless, bones jarred from the fall, Cal scrambled to his feet.
"You'll die here!" This time he shouted it as he gripped the knife, as he charged forward.
The thing that was a wolf, a boy, a man, a demon looked at him with eyes of hate.
And vanished.
"But not today. " The fire died, the smoke cleared as he bent over to suck in air. "Anybody hurt? Is everybody okay? Quinn. Hey, Lump, hey. " He nearly toppled backward when Lump leaped up, paws on shoulders to lap his face.
"Your nose is bleeding. " Scurrying over on her hands and knees, Quinn gripped his arm to pull herself to her feet. "Cal. " Her hands rushed over his face, his body. "Oh God, Cal. I've never seen anything so brave, or so goddamn stupid. "
"Yeah, well. " In a defiant move, he swiped at the blood. "It pissed me off. If that was its best shot, it fell way short. "
"It didn't dish out anything a really big drink and a long hot bath won't cure," Cybil decided. "Layla? Okay?"
"Okay. " Face fierce, Layla brushed at her stinging cheeks. "Okay. " She took Fox's outstretched hand and got to her feet. "We scared it. We scared it, and it ran away. "
"Even better. We hurt it. " Quinn took a couple shuddering breaths, then much as Lump had, leaped at Cal. "We're all right. We're all okay. You were amazing. You were beyond belief. Oh God, God, give me a really big kiss. "
As she laughed and wept, he took her mouth. He held her close, understanding that of all the answers they needed, for him she was the first.
They weren't going down this time, he realized.
"We're going to win this. " He drew her away so he could look into her eyes. His were calm, steady, and clear. "I never believed it before, not really. But I do now. I know it now. Quinn. " He pressed his lips to her forehead. "We're going to win this, and we're getting married in September. "
"Damn straight. "
When she wrapped around him again, it was victory enough for now. It was enough to stand on until the next time. And the next time, he determined, they'd be better
armed.
"Let's go home. It's a long walk back, and we've got a hell of a lot to do. "
She held on another moment, held tight while he looked over her head into the eyes of his brothers. Gage nodded, then shoved the gun back in his pack. Swinging it on, he crossed the clearing to the path beyond.
The sun bloomed overhead, and the wind died. They walked out of the clearing, through the winter woods, three men, three women, and a dog.
On its ground the Pagan Stone stood silent, waiting for their return.
Hawkins Hollow
June 1994
ON A BRIGHT SUMMER MORNING, A TEACUP poodle drowned in the Bestlers' backyard swimming pool. At first, Lynne Bestler, who'd gone out to sneak in a solitary swim before her kids woke, thought it was a dead squirrel. Which would've been bad enough. But when she steeled herself to scoop out the tangle of fur with the net, she recognized her neighbor's beloved Marcell.
Squirrels generally didn't wear rhinestone collars.
Her shouts, and the splash as Lynne tossed the hapless dog, net and all, back into the pool, brought Lynne's husband rushing out in his boxers. Their mother's sobs and their father's curses as he jumped in to grab the pole and tow the body to the side, woke the Bestler twins, who stood screaming in their matching My Little Pony nightgowns. Within moments, the backyard hysteria had neighbors hurrying to fences just as Bestler dragged himself and his burden out of the water. As, like many men, Bestler had developed an attachment to ancient underwear, the weight of the water was too much for the worn elastic.
So Bestler came out of his pool with a dead dog, and no boxers.
The bright summer morning in the little town of Hawkins Hollow began with shock, grief, farce, and drama.
Fox learned of Marcell's untimely death minutes after he stepped into Ma's Pantry to pick up a sixteen-ounce bottle of Coke and a couple of Slim Jims.
He'd copped a quick break from working with his father on a kitchen remodel down Main Street. Mrs. Larson wanted new countertops, cabinet doors, new floors, new paint. She called it freshening things up, and Fox called it a way to earn enough money to take Allyson Brendon out for pizza and the movies on Saturday night. He hoped to use that gateway to talk her into the backseat of his ancient VW Bug.
He didn't mind working with his dad. He hoped to hell he wouldn't spend the rest of his life swinging a hammer or running a power saw, but he didn't mind it. His father's company was always easy, and the job got Fox out of gardening and animal duty on their little farm. It also provided easy access to Cokes and Slim Jims-two items which would never, never be found in the O'Dell-Barry household.
His mother ruled there.
So he heard about the dog from Susan Keefaffer, who rang up his purchases while a few people with nothing better to do on a June afternoon sat at the counter over coffee and gossip.
He didn't know Marcell, but Fox had a soft spot for animals, so he suffered a twist of grief for the unfortunate poodle. That was leavened somewhat by the idea of Mr. Bestler, whom he did know, standing "naked as a jaybird," in Susan Keefaffer's words, beside his backyard pool.
While it made Fox sad to imagine some poor dog drowning in a swimming pool, he didn't connect it-not then-to the nightmare he and his two closest friends had lived through seven years before.
He'd had a dream the night before, a dream of blood and fire, of voices chanting in a language he didn't understand. But then he'd watched a double feature of videos-The Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-with his friends Cal and Gage.
He didn't connect a dead French poodle with the dream, or with what had burned through Hawkins Hollow for a week after his tenth birthday. After the night he and Cal and Gage had spent at the Pagan Stone in Hawkins Wood-and everything had changed for them, and for the Hollow.
In a few weeks he and Cal and Gage would all turn seventeen-and that was on his mind. Baltimore had a damn good chance at a pennant this year, so that was on his mind. He'd be going back to high school as a senior, which meant top of the food chain at last, and planning for college.
What occupied a sixteen-year-old boy was considerably different than what occupied a ten-year-old. Including rounding third and heading for home with Allyson Brendon.
So when he walked back down the street, a lean boy not quite beyond the gangly stage of adolescence, his dense brown hair tied back in a stubby tail, golden brown eyes shaded with Oakleys, it was, for him, just another ordinary day.
The town looked as it always did. Tidy, a little old-timey, with the old stone townhouses or shops, the painted porches, the high curbs. He glanced back over his shoulder toward the Bowl-a-Rama on the square. It was the biggest building in town, and where Cal and Gage were both working.
When he and his father knocked off for the day, he thought, he'd head on up, see what was happening.
He crossed over to the Larson place, walked into the unlocked house where Bonnie Raitt's smooth Delta blues slid smoothly out of the kitchen. His father sang along with her in his clear and easy voice as he checked the level on the shelves Mrs. Larson wanted in her utility closet. Though the windows and back door were open to their screens, the room smelled of sawdust, sweat, and the glue they'd used that morning to lay the new Formica.
His father worked in old Levi's and his Give Peace a Chance T-shirt. His hair was six inches longer than Fox's, worn in a tail under a blue bandanna. He'd shaved off the beard and mustache he'd had as long as Fox remembered. Fox still wasn't quite used to seeing so much of his father's face-or so much of himself in it.
"A dog drowned in the Bestlers' swimming pool over on Laurel Lane," Fox told him, and Brian stopped working to turn.
"That's a damn shame. Anybody know how it happened?"
"Not really. It was one of those little poodles, so think it must've fallen in, then it couldn't get out again. "
"You'd think somebody would've heard it barking. That's a lousy way to go. " Brian set down his tools, smiled at his boy. "Gimme one of those Slim Jims. "
"What Slim Jims?"
"The ones you've got in your back pocket. You're not carrying a bag, and you weren't gone long enough to scarf down Hostess Pies or Twinkies. I'm betting you're packing the Jims. I get one, and your mom never has to know we ate chemicals and meat by-products. It's called blackmail, kid of mine. "
Fox snorted, pulled them out. He'd bought two for just this purpose. Father and son unwrapped, bit off, chewed in perfect harmony. "The counter looks good, Dad. "
"Yeah, it does. " Brian ran a hand over the smooth, eggshell surface. "Mrs. Larson's not much for color, but it's good work. I don't know who I'm going to get to be my lapdog when you head off to college. "
"Ridge is next in line," Fox said, thinking of his younger brother. "Ridge wouldn't keep measurements in his head for two minutes running, and he'd probably cut off a finger dreaming while he was using a band saw. No. " Brian smiled, shrugged. "This kind of work isn't for Ridge, or for you, for that matter. Or either of your sisters. I guess I'm going to have to rent a kid to get one who wants to work with wood. "
"I never said I didn't want to. " Not out loud.
His father looked at him the way he sometimes did, as if he saw more than what was there. "You've got a good eye, you've got good hands. You'll be handy around your own house once you get one. But you won't be strapping on a tool belt to make a living. Until you figure out just what it is you want, you can haul these scraps on out to the Dumpster. "
"Sure. " Fox gathered up scraps, trash, began to cart them out the back, across the narrow yard to the Dumpster the Larsons had rented for the duration of the remodel.
He glanced toward the adjoining yard and the sound of kids playing. And the armload he carried thumped and bounced on the ground as his body went numb.
The little boys played with trucks and shovels and pails in a bright blue sandbox. But it wasn't filled with sand. Blood covered their bare arms as they pu
shed their Tonka trucks through the muck inside the box. He stumbled back as the boys made engine sounds, as red lapped over the bright blue sides and dripped onto the green grass.
On the fence between the yards, where hydrangeas headed up toward bloom, crouched a boy that wasn't a boy. He bared its teeth in a grin as Fox backed toward the house.
"Dad! Dad!"
The tone, the breathless fear had Brian rushing outside. "What? What is it?"
"Don't you-can't you see?" But even as he said it, as he pointed, something inside Fox knew. It wasn't real.
"What?" Firmly now, Brian took his son's shoulders. "What do you see?"
The boy that wasn't a boy danced along the top of the chain-link fence while flames spurted up below and burned the hydrangeas to cinders.
"I have to go. I have to go see Cal and Gage. Right now, Dad. I have to-"
"Go. " Brian released his hold on Fox, stepped back. He didn't question. "Go. "
He all but flew through the house and out again, up the sidewalk to the square. The town no longer looked as it usubeen that horrible week in July seven years before.
Fire and blood, he remembered, thinking of the dream. He burst into the Bowl-a-Rama, where the summer afternoon leagues were in full swing. The thunder of balls, the crash of pins pounded in his head as he ran straight to the front desk where Cal worked.
"Where's Gage?" Fox demanded.
"Jesus, what's up with you?"
"Where's Gage?" Fox repeated, and Cal 's amused gray eyes sobered. "Working the arcade. He's. . . he's coming out now. "
At Cal 's quick signal, Gage sauntered over. "Hello, ladies. What. . . " The smirk died after one look at Fox's face. "What happened?"
"It's back," Fox said. "It's come back. "