“So what?” Crow asked. “Does any of that matter?”
“Well, the vulnerabilities are different. A vampire who has transitioned instead of dying is usually stronger. Much stronger…and the more they feed the stronger they’ll become. So if Ruger transitioned, then he could be even stronger now than he was when you last encountered him.”
Crow sighed and bent forward so he could bang his forehead on the desk a couple of times.
Newton said. “What do you want us to do now? You want us to go with you to meet the cops?”
Crow looked at Val, who shook her head. “No,” he said. “Why don’t you find out everything you can about how to stop these bastards? I mean, can we rely on any of the usual stuff? Crosses, holy water…?”
“No, that’s all Bram Stoker stuff. Fiction.”
“What I figured.”
“Garlic is good, though. It’s deadly poison to vampires. It weakens them and if it gets into their bloodstream it might be fatal. I’ll ask some of my guys about it.”
“Good, we’ll offer them garlic bread next time we see one.”
“I’m sorry, Crow…Val…I thought I’d be able to find something comforting…”
“Actually,” Val said, her voice tight, “you’ve at least told me what I need to know for now. Keep researching this, Jonatha. Right now you’re the most important person in the world to us.”
Jonatha looked at her, head tilted to one side. “But…no pressure, right?”
Val actually smiled. “No, of course not. Another sunny day here in Pine Deep, America’s Haunted Holidayland.”
“I should have stayed in Louisiana. All we have there are killer hurricanes.”
Crow and Val turned to Weinstock, who had been silent throughout, his face buried in his hands. “Saul?” Crow asked.
Weinstock raised his head and gave them the bleakest stare they’d ever seen. “I need to get Rachel and the kids out of this godforsaken place.”
Val nodded.
“Can we stop the Festival somehow?” Newton asked.
“No,” Crow said. “Sarah Wolfe won’t even discuss the matter. All she says is that the town lives or dies on this Halloween.”
“Christ,” said Newton, “she’s not joking there.”
2
Mike fled into the night as if all the demons of hell were in close pursuit. His life seemed to be nothing but horror and flight from it. No matter how far he went, no matter what direction he took, it always seemed to circle back around to another, far worse horror.
And now this, the worst of all.
Legs pumped the pedals, hands clutched the ribbed rubber grips, lungs heaved, and pulse hammered furiously. His shirt snapped and fluttered as he rode, and though he was unaware of the chill of the air against his bare forearms, his heart was heavy with black ice.
With each hill he climbed, his legs ached more and more.
He could not think. Could not bear to think.
All he could do was fly. From horror toward nowhere, through the shadows that opened wide to receive him.
The Bone Man stood in the road and watched the boy fly, feeling the eerie déjà vu that was actually memory. He had stood here before, had watched the boy flee before. It had ended badly that time.
It would be worse this time. Halloween was in two days. There was no turning back for anyone now.
3
When the manhunt for Ruger and Boyd was at full burn, all of the town’s former and inactive police officers had been called back to duty, but just as the threat diminished the Halloween season kicked into full gear and most of the officers remained on the job. Tow-Truck Eddie Oswald liked working as a part-time cop, partly because he loved his town—despite its tradition of celebrating the pagan holiday—and he hated the wretched excesses of the un-Christian tourists who had to be kept from running amok. The other reason he liked the job was that it gave him yet another reason to be prowling the streets and roads of the borough in his hunt for the Beast. He needed to complete that task to both honor and appease his Father, whose wrath had turned to a cold and disappointed silence in Eddie’s head.
He drove the main drag now, alone in his cruiser, neat and tidy in his crisp uniform, his sidearm a comforting weight at his hip. His mind, however, was an untidy mess—a ransacked room where hope and trust in his own judgment had been thrown to the floor. Doubt seemed painted inside his brain like some vandal’s graffiti. For a while he thought he’d known the direction of his purpose; for a while he thought he’d known exactly who the Beast was and in which body he was hiding. Now the only thing of which he was certain was that he was now completely uncertain…and uncertainty in his holy purpose filled him with shame.
“Base to four.” The sudden squawk of the radio made Eddie twitch and he snatched the handset up.
“Four,” he said, “what’s up, Ginny?”
“Got a job for you, Eddie. Domestic disturbance.”
Great, just what he needed. Eddie sighed. “Give me the rundown.”
“It was just called in a few minutes ago. FedEx guy heard a fight, someone screaming, and then saw this kid go running out of the house, face all bloody.”
So what? “Give me the address.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to go there. Polk’s already there. He called in and told me to tell you to go looking for the kid. Jimmy said you’re the only one free, so you catch this one. Lucky you, huh?”
“Yes, lucky me. Okay, Ginny, do you have anything on the kid? Name, description…”
“Name is Sweeney. Michael Sweeney. Age fourteen, red and blue, five-six, slim build. Probably on a bicycle.”
Eddie jerked upright. “Repeat that name, please?”
“That was Michael Sweeney. Last seen wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt with some band label, FedEx guy thinks it might have been The Killers. The neighbor said the kid had a bloody nose and there was blood on his hands and the front of his shirt. He was reported to have left the scene on a black mountain bike.”
“Michael Sweeney,” Eddie said, tasting each honey-sweet syllable.
“Last seen heading south toward A-32. Probably making for a friend’s house.”
“Out into farm country,” Eddie murmured. “How long since he fled the scene?”
“Say ten minutes. If he’s heading out to one of the farms you should have no problem finding him.”
“I’m on it,” he said and hung up.
Michael Sweeney. Covered in blood. The image was so delicious that tears filled his eyes.
In his mind it was as if a series of relays clicked into place and a current of pure cognitive energy flowed uninterrupted for the first time in weeks. Of course it was Michael Sweeney. Vic Wingate’s stepson. Eddie had even seen the boy at the garage once or twice. So why had it been so hard to identify him at Crow’s shop? A devil’s mind trick, that had to be. The Beast was, after all, the Father of Lies…it wasn’t so hard to assume those lies could have been more subtle than words. Hadn’t the air shimmered like heat vapors from hell? That was all part of a glamour put on him by the Beast. He hadn’t seen it then, hadn’t grasped it fully, but now everything made sense. Now everything was crystal clear.
Michael Sweeney was the Beast and he was out there now, soaked in blood, probably laughing as he fled into the farmlands. The soulless bastard!
No wonder God had sickened of him and turned His back. How could He not when His son was so weak that the Beast could thwart him with such a simple conjuring trick.
“Forgive me, Father, for I am most heartily sorry for my sins.” He recited a dozen different prayers of humility and confession, then threw his car into gear and headed out of town.
4
Vic Wingate chain-lit his eighth cigarette and between puffs probed experimentally at his nose and ear. A plastic bag of ice cubes lay on the floor by his feet. He saw Polk’s stare. “What?” he snarled.
They were alone in the living room. Lois was upstairs, and the neighbors had been shooed unceremoniously back to their houses. Polk had taken the call alone, making very sure that no other deputies set foot in Wingate’s house. That would lead to all sorts of complications. He perched on the edge of Vic’s overstuffed wing chair and jiggled his uniform cap in his hands.
Polk cleared his throat. “How bad is this going to be for us?”
Bitterly, Vic said, “Dumb bitch helped him get away. She showed herself to him.”
Polk’s eyes went wide. “She…showed her…? I don’t get it, if she’s one of them why’d she help him?”
“She ain’t gone over to Him, yet. Bitch has been living on neighborhood dogs and beef blood from the butcher’s. Still got her frigging soul, as if that matters to her. Shit, she never used it before.”
Polk swallowed the rock in his throat.
The door banged open and Polk leapt to his feet as Ruger walked in from the kitchen carrying the limp body of a teenage girl in his arms. The sight of him made Polk’s balls climb up into his body.
“Hey hey, welcome to the funhouse, Polkie.”
Polk couldn’t answer. He was staring at what Ruger held in his arms—a teenage girl, head lolling, eyes closed, her face and throat smeared with bright blood.
“Oh, Jesus,” Polk whispered and almost—almost—crossed himself.
Ruger ignored Polk and glanced up the stairs. “She still acting out?”
Vic took a drag, eyes narrow and hard, said nothing. Smoke leaked out of his nostrils. Ruger snorted. The girl he carried could not have been more than thirteen. Her T-shirt was torn, exposing one cup of a functional white bra. Her blond hair hung over Ruger’s arm and nearly to the floor. He hefted her like she weighed nothing. “Well, maybe we can whet her appetite.” He put one foot on the bottom step and glanced back at Vic. “Your face looks like shit.”
“Blow me.”
“Maybe the kid’s turning into something like his old man after all.”