Over an hour later, with most of a bottle of Trudy’s fine tequila holding down our beer, we crawled along the black roads through a gauzy blur of fog and steady rain. The storm had brought down tree limbs and swollen roadside ditches with runoff until they disgorged sheets of silted debris across the pavement. Nick wove and dodged, leaning forward over the steering wheel as though his proximity to the windshield would part the mist.
“Jesus, I’m hammered,” he muttered.
I rolled my head on the headrest and tried to focus on him. “You want me to drive?”
He snorted. “You’re hammered worse.”
We bumped along the access road to the lodge, churning up and over the muddy hill in slow motion. I had just closed my eyes when the Jeep lurched to a stop.
“What is it?” I sat up, disoriented.
Nick pointed into drizzly blackness. “The lake. It’s coming up over the road.”
He undid his seatbelt and turned to rummage in the back seat, dragging forth a spotlight. He rolled down his window, stuck the light out into the night, and switched it on. Ahead of us in the hollow fog drifted over a chill swath of lake water where the road should have been. I could hear it lapping and gurgling.
“Can we make it across?”
The prospect of having to wade through it made me shudder. I did not want the lake to touch me, not tonight. I was too tired, and much too drunk. I was about to announce this when another sound drifted through the open window. The low, mournful howl caused Nick to douse the light and raise the window. He put the Jeep in gear.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to try,” he said.
We crept up to the edge of the flood, then into it. It rose in the fender wells and dragged at the vehicle, trying to pull us out into the deep. A stiff breeze raked across the open water, carrying the oceanic sound of the lake drinking rain. Something slapped at the chop with heavy violence. Nick gunned the engine. The rear end shimmied and slid, the lake surge lifting us, and then we were clawing at the sodden clay on the far side.
The lodge wavered into view, hung with fog and dark rainbows in the headlights. An old sycamore lay like a dead king in the parking lot, the long, white points of its crown stroking the cedar hide of the lodge. Nick squeezed by it and brought us to a sliding stop on the gravel near the steps, our lights pointing over the abyss of the lake.
“Look at that,” he said. “Too much more, and Claudia’s going to lose the boathouse.”
Frothing waves lifted and dropped the dock, the empty drums it floated on booming a hollow dirge, and drove it against the side of the small boathouse. The storm had pushed the dock sideways, making a ram of it. Several ancient kayaks, still tethered to their stakes on the rocky shore, careened and danced in the surf, earning new dings and abrasions.
We climbed from the Jeep into the wind-driven rain, staring at the apocalypse of the lake. Nick dashed onto the porch, but I stayed where I was, lifting my face to the wet, letting it drive away the tequila haze. The night swooped and fluttered around me, chilled to an autumnal temperature, rich with a symphony of wild music. Standing there with the rain soaking my clothes, I understood how such a place might slip into the blood, shape the DNA, sleep in the bone. The felled sycamore rustled in its death slumber, its sodden, bat-wing leaves flapping. The wind dropped, but the rustling continued. I opened my eyes, every hair on my body at attention.
“Tess!” Nick’s voice from the porch rail above me made me jump. “You shut the door when we left, right?”
I looked up at him, at his pale face and his wet hair hanging in his eyes. He slung it back with an agitated swipe.
“Of course, I shut it,” I said, still straining my ears for furtive sounds from the downed tree.
“Well, it’s open now, and something or someone has been all through our stuff. Nothing seems to be missing, but every pack is open and rifled.” He glanced toward the sycamore. “You’d better get in here out of the rain. You’ll catch your death.”
Just like that, my romance with the night was over. A wave of adrenalized fear swept me up the steps and past him into the lobby. My teeth clacked and shivers wracked me. Whatever warm fuzziness our drinking binge had afforded me was gone. Nick handed me a beach towel and crossed the room to crouch at the fireplace. We had stacked some of the dry wood from the porch in it earlier, and now he stuffed it with crisped leaves and old newspaper from the litter in the room and set a flame to it. Sweet-smelling smoke rose and infused the air, then the welcome crackle of burning oak. The fire leaped; we stretched our hands out to it.
“God, I could climb in there,” I said.
Nick studied me in the firelight. “Your lips are blue. Let’s find some dry clothes, and then we can clean up this mess. We aren’t going anywhere tonight.”
I turned and took in the emptied backpacks, the burst files, and items of clothing strewn across the floor. The sleeping bags turned inside out and flung aside; the pillows stripped of their covers and slashed, their guts fluffed out; my camera equipment rolled about in its cases, everything unlatched and pawed over. Only the food supplies had been left undisturbed. The cooler, while it had been opened, was intact. I crossed to it in three bounds and fell to my knees beside it, rummaging with trembling fingers. At the bottom, untouched, I found the small, lacquered box I’d stuffed between the eggs and the chocolate milk. I sat back with a squelch, clutching it to me.
“I’m guessing that doesn’t contain leftovers,” Nick said, squatting next to me. “Care to share?”
I took a breath. All the things I still didn’t know about my partner floated in the murk of indecision, like the faceted prognosticator in a Magic 8 Ball. I peeked at him from under the wet straggle of my hair, trying to divine how he would react. His face was carefully blank, but I read the test in his eyes. If I insisted on keeping secrets, our partnership would be over. There would be no more crazy adventures or ghost hunts, no more road trips, no more writing collaborations. I handed over the little box.
He stared down at the contents. They were a man’s heavy gold ring - the band plain and age-mellowed, set with an impressive cabochon of malachite - and a small plastic bag containing a fat tuft of auburn hair. Nick held the latter up to the meager light.
“Is this your hair?” he asked.
“It belonged to my great-great grandfather. I found a trunk of his belongings in my great-aunt’s attic, including a Dopp kit. I took the hair from the brush and comb inside it.” I reached into the box. “This is his ring, too,” I said. “Read the inscription.”
Nick took the ring to the fire and turned the band to the light. “Lupus est familia,” he read, turning to look at me with a considering gaze. “The wolf is family? What are you planning to do with this stuff?”
I crossed to the hearth and sat beside him on the warm stone. “Nick … do you believe in spells?”
“What, you mean like witchcraft?”
“Well, something like that, yes. The ability to manipulate the seen and the unseen through force of will, word, or talisman.”
He stared at me through the aperture of the ring, his eye as ardently blue as the lick of flame creeping along the flaring underbelly of the oak logs.
“I feel you’re about to tell me something I might only believe on such a night, and in such a place, as this. So, I’ll ask again. What are you planning to do?”
I reached out and closed my hand over his, wrapping his fingers around the ring.
“I’m going to summon and bind a monster ... but first I may need to talk to a dead man. Put that ring on, and don’t take it off for love or money.”
***
The wind swooped through the eaves of the lodge in keening counterpoint to my muttering. I knelt by the hearth, Preston Egolf’s torn flannel in my hands, and rocked between the brilliance of the flames and the blackness of the room, between the realms of the seen and the unseen. Bits of shadow smoked from the ruined shirt, fleeing around me like scurrying insects to join the growing bulk of the dark. Nick sat cross-legged nearby, watching, the crude stick man he’d constructed laid across his knees. The heavy ring gleamed on his finger, the stone absorbing stray sparks of night. Behind me, the press of darkness groaned.
“Tess …” Nick’s eyes fixed on the wall of black. “Something’s happening. Something’s trying to come through.”
I held out my hand for the rudimentary scarecrow, little more than a broken length of fishing pole lashed to an old yardstick. He passed it to me, and I draped the shirt over it, arranging the sleeves along the “arms” of the scarecrow.
Nick hissed at me. “Are you sure this will work?”
I stifled a hysterical laugh. It was too late to worry about such things.
“Yes. In theory.”
I stood and turned to face the room. An inky tide of night had filled and obliterated it, leaving only our scant half-moon of light like an eroding beach. The surface of the blackness shivered and bulged. The groaning sound came again. I thrust forward the shirt on its shaky armature and put iron in my voice.
“Preston Egolf, I grant you form. Come forth!”
The darkness flew to the scarecrow and wrenched it from my hand. For a breathless moment it hung against the black before folding into itself. The wooden supports cracked and snapped. It fell to the floor at my feet, where it began to writhe. A body formed of funneling shadow filled the shirt, and the missing caretaker of Pepekissimo Lodge knelt shuddering before me. Nick leaped to his feet with an inarticulate shout, and in that second of distraction the ghost stood and flitted to press its cold cheek to mine.
“Why did you call me back, cousin,” it sighed. “It hurts to be here. Can’t you feel my pain?”
My bones creaked as though under agonizing pressure. Bright, searing pain tore through my chest. The ghost’s embrace, cold as the depths of the lake, stole my breath. My lungs emptied a cloud of crystallized fog. It smelled of death, of mud, fish, and rot. I gagged, my eyes rolling up and my knees sagging. Nick moved toward us.
“Let her go,” he commanded, reaching for its arm.
“No, don’t touch it!” I struggled to regain my will. With a word of fire, I shook off the ghost’s damp, clinging hands. “Get back, dead thing. Answer my questions and I’ll release you.”
“You’ll release me,” it sneered. “You can barely hold me, cuz. Maybe I don’t want to go back. Maybe a lick of something warm will ease the pain.” Its baleful eyes turned to Nick. “A little blood always puts things right in this family. Whadd’ya say, bud? Help a feller out?”
I snapped my fingers and reclaimed the ghost’s attention. “You won’t be staying, Preston. But I can help you rest if you tell me what I want to know. Besides, you’re not really family, now, are you?”
The ghost’s malevolent vitality winked out, and it hung its head, moaning. “What do you want, witch? Why do you want to torture me? Ain’t I been through enough?”
“Tell me what happened to you. Who did this? I’ll make sure whoever it was pays for it.”
The ghost shook its head. A violent shiver almost undid it, but it clung to the scraps of flannel shirt and kept its form.
“Nothing you can do to her. Nothing anyone can do. She’s old and strong.” It sobbed, lifting its pitiful face to the firelight. “She killed me. Me! I tried to run. I run into the lake, but she caught me. She ate part of me while I drowned. She’s got no heart.”
Sickness rose in me. I leaned on Nick, and he kept me on my feet.
“Maudie?”
The ghost nodded. “She’s a monster. A cannibal. She made me help her, but I wouldn’t do it no more. When she changes, she don’t care who she hunts.” A sly look came into its eyes. “You think she won’t kill you because you’re kin. Well, maybe you’re right, but she sure as hell will eat that one down to the small bones.”
It grinned and gestured at Nick.
“Do you want my help, Preston?” When I got nothing but sullen silence from the ghost, I pasted on a smile and tried a sweet tone. “I’ll find your body and take care of it. Would you like that?”
It stared at me for a long moment before nodding.
“Okay, then tell me if there are any more like Maudie. Tell me where your body lies.”
“No more,” it said, its voice growing faint. “She’s the last.”
It shuffled and looked over its shoulder at the door. A deep sigh shook it.
“I’m down there, in the lake. Not too far out, wedged under a deadfall. It’s cold there. I can feel the cold coming up from the deep. It wants me.”
***
The rain had slowed to a miserable, misty weeping. Nick and I stood on the wide porch of the lodge looking out at the lake, black and sullen and rolling with suppressed violence where the exhausted wind tugged at it. One of Nick’s frayed and faded sweatshirts hung on me to mid-thigh, the hood flopped over my eyebrows and the sleeves long enough to hide my hands. In my right hand, the hand of my will, I clutched the little tangle of auburn hair that was all that was left of my great-great grandfather. My fingers wove the strands about themselves in their constant, nervous twitching, and I could feel the latent power of transformation licking along my bones like flame.
“Preston, she’s here. Somewhere. Go and see, tell me where she’s hiding.”
My voice was rough, a growl rising in the back of my throat, and I closed my eyes and struggled for a moment with a fierce desire to shed my human form. It was only a memory, burning through me from the hair wound about my fingers. It didn’t belong to me.
The ghost, crouched in the shadow of the woodbox, whimpered. Its own form had thinned and faded as I prepared myself to meet Maudie. I would not be able to hold it in the living world much longer.
“I ain’t going near to her,” it whispered. “The hell I will! You said you’d help me.”
I sighed, and the growl slipped out on my breath. “You’ll do as I say, or I’ll leave your body in the lake for whatever wants it.”
With a glare of ferocious loathing, the ghost swam through the shadows and was gone into the wet night. Nick stepped in front of me and swept the deep hood back from my face.
“Tess?”
Great-great grandfather’s ring, on Nick’s finger, glided along my jaw. The touch of it was like a summoning, and I sobbed with the effort of holding change at bay.
“Don’t get too close, it’s not safe.” I raised my left hand and grasped his, my fingers gripping the malachite ring. “Listen, she’s coming. I think this will protect you, but you’ll need a weapon.”
Nick’s gaze raked the porch and came to rest on the wickedly grinning axe leaning by the woodbox. He strode to it and hefted it, testing the balance. I felt as though we had stepped into one of the darker fairy tales. I reached out and stroked my thumb along the blade, leaving a thin smear of blood. Blood seeped into the hair wrapped around my fingers as I clenched my right fist.
“Well, it will have to do,” Nick said. He looked out at the Jeep parked in the drizzle. “Or we could just go. I mean, what are we trying to do here?” His blue gaze searched my face. “You’re scaring the hell out of me.”
I didn’t have time to think about what he’d said, or to formulate a reply. Preston’s ghost flew to me like a crow on the wing, and the icy shock of its grasp emptied my mind for a breathless moment.
“She’s here! She’s been here all along,” it screeched, and then was gone in an inky burst of shadow.
The energy I’d expended to hold the phantom flowed back to me. I drew in a deep breath, and the smell of corruption on the air was thick enough to taste.
“Come out, Maudie,” I said. “Come out and fight.”
She rose out of the darkness of the laurels and made her way to the foot of the steps, fast and lithe, her bare feet silent. Her nakedness was terrible, her body lean and ropy with muscle, her limbs long and built for swiftness. Age had touched her little, and she rolled her powerful shoulders in something like ecstasy under the caress of the murky moonlight. She looked up at me with her leafshadow eyes, and the cognac rings around her irises burned golden.
“Well, pup. Come to take on the old wolf, eh? Don’t know as I think you’re ready for it. I’ve put down stronger ones than you.”
She slid her foot onto the first step, as slowly and gently as a feather floating to the ground. She looked at Nick, standing in shadow with the axe in his hands.
“And this one. He’s a handsome one. Brave, too. What do you think you’ll do with that wood chopper, handsome? You ever killed anything before?” She stared into Nick’s eyes, then chuckled. “Didn’t think so. Got my grandpappy’s ring on your finger. I feel it burning from here. But I don’t need that hand. The rest of you will be plenty.”
Her red tongue came out and swabbed her lips. In an instant, she was on the porch. I never saw her move. Her long, strong fingers grasped my throat, her claws lying cold and deadly against my skin. I choked in terror and surprise. Nick shouted and raised the axe, but Maudie turned toward him, dragging me in front of her. She held up a taloned finger and wagged it at him like a chiding schoolmarm.
“Uh-uh, handsome. Don’t be hasty.” She licked the side of my face and spoke in my ear, her breath stinking of old blood. “Maudie’s got a lesson for you, pup. Maybe you’ll even live to learn it.” She nodded at Nick. “I’m going to show you what his kind are for. Run. Hunt. Chase. Eat.”
With each word, Maudie’s voice grew rougher and more guttural. I felt her form changing against me, shrinking and shuddering.
“You run now,” she growled at Nick. “Run for Maudie.”
Nick stepped forward, steady despite the terror in his eyes, holding the axe like a baseball bat.
“I don’t run from mangy dogs,” he said.
With a snarl, Maudie shoved me from her, sending me sprawling onto the porch. She sprang toward Nick. The axe parted the air with a whistle but found no target as she twisted and completed her change in mid-leap. The wolf came down on the broad pine planks, claws scrabbling and skittering, and turned its hot jaws toward Nick as he pulled the axe around for another swing.
The creature’s flank turned toward me, close enough to touch. I rolled onto my belly and reached out, clamping my right hand onto the thick pelt. I spoke the word of binding, and great-great grandfather’s hair tangled about my fingers melded to the grizzled fur of the wolf, locking Maudie in animal form, and denying her the supernatural strength of her transformative power.
She turned on me, slavering, an expression of human astonishment in her eyes. I saw the silver grin of the axe glinting as it sliced the misty air. Maudie had begun to swing her great shaggy head toward Nick when the axe caught her in the neck. Blood jetted over me in a hot wash. A sound, half enraged snarl and half choked howl, forced itself out on Maudie’s last breath. She crashed to the floor, the blade of the axe still buried in her flesh, thrashed her long legs once as though running, and was still. Nick fell to his knees in front of me and scooped me against him, the blood binding us together. The night bloomed and opened to receive me.
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