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  He thought he had it now.

  Rachel was a threat, a major one, so she had to be killed.

  He was a threat, a constant one, and he had to be killed; they were tired of waiting.

  Two birds, one Caddy.

  Cat and mouse, hide-and-seek.

  The rain stopped.

  The wind returned, herding the clouds, clearing the stars, exposing the dying moon.

  He wished he could roll over on his back.

  He wished he knew what the hell Rachel wanted now.

  He wished to hell and God Charlie Acres was here.

  She sat in his chair, legs tucked beneath her, staring at the dark.

  The gun was on the table.

  The rust-pocked car paid no attention to speed limits and curves. It hissed through the storm’s remnants, mist billowing in its wake.

  From the back seat: “I keep telling you, you don’t listen, and this ain’t right. We should’ve called the others. They’re not that far away.”

  The driver shook his head emphatically. “No call.”

  “You’re wrong. We ain’t dealing with road kill, you know. This is Scott we’re talking about here.”

  “Still and all.”

  “This is stupid.”

  The woman in the passenger seat twisted around, folded her arms across the back and rested her chin. “You calling me stupid, Wade honey?”

  Wade Modeen, barely out of his teens, naturally lank and naturally pale, gave her a disgusted look. “What I’m saying is, there’s three of us and five or six of them.” He rolled his eyes in exasperation and stared glumly out the side window. “He’s a Hunter, Ruthann. You keep forgetting, that son of a bitch is a Hunter.”

  Ruthann smiled, tilted her head. “No. He’s human, honey. And the human’s going to die.”

  A snarling in his throat, soft and angry and filled with frustration. He leaned forward suddenly, forcing the young woman back.

  “Momma is dead, you stupid bitch! Willum, all the others! Ain’t you been paying attention here? And who the hell knows what’s happened to Rachel, what she’s up to?” He held the glare, then slumped back, exhausted. “You don’t know, Ruthann. You don’t know.”

  She said nothing for a moment.

  The car sped on.

  With her back to the windshield, she glanced at the driver. “What do you think, Bobby?”

  The driver raised one hand: don’t get me involved.

  She curled her lip at him, and rested her spine against the dashboard.

  “Momma couldn’t kill him,” Wade reminded her sullenly.

  “She didn’t want to.”

  A raccoon wandered onto the shoulder.

  Bobby Modeen ran it over.

  Ruthann turned around. “She didn’t want to,” she repeated softly. “She could have. She just didn’t.”

  Wade lifted a helpless fist. “Ruthann—”

  She stopped him without saying a word, just a subtle shift in her posture.

  “Wade honey, don’t whine. You keep whining like that, Ruthann’s gonna think her little brother is scared.”

  Bobby reached out and touched her leg, a caution.

  She looked.

  He shook his head. Slowly. Just once.

  Her mouth opened to protest and scold, but his hand squeezed tighter.

  “This is stupid,” Wade muttered.

  Bobby nodded. “You’re right. But Momma’s dead.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jonelle overslept.

  When she realized the time, she swore at the ceiling and rushed to get dressed. It was well after 10, and Peter would already be down at the station. Not that there was a real ton of work to do. Ever since he had closed the garage bays down, there wasn’t anything but the food mart, an occasional tow, and doing private, after-hours work on trucks and cars brought to him by friends and friends of friends. Nothing on the books. Cash in the pocket.

  She handled the counter and the paperwork, gossiped with the tourists and truckers, and watched the wheels go by on Interstate 81. She had to admit the site was a lucky one—folks coming down out of Virginia had a chance to fill up before the long stretch to Knoxville, and for those heading the opposite way, Peter kept the prices a bit lower than Bristol. She had also worked a deal with the night manager over at the Ramada Inn in Morristown—late-night travelers looking for a place to snooze before they slammed into a ditch only had to ask, after a little coaxing. She made the recommendation, and took a few bucks back in return.

  Nothing on the books.

  Cash in the pocket.

  After a quick shower, she yanked on T -shirt, boots, and jeans, grabbed breakfast in the kitchen, and stood at the back door while she ate, watching the trees brush off the last of the night’s wind. The sky was clear. The air mint beneath the cedar and pine grove. The yard needed mowing but wasn’t awful yet, and a trio of crows strutted single-file through the grass left to right, looking for all the world like they were heading for the garage, ready for an outing. She smiled at the fancy, and, thinking about the garage, wondered if Peter would have time for a change to take a look at her bike. It hadn’t been firing right these past two weeks, but despite her daily nagging, he kept putting her off

  He didn’t like her owning it, didn’t like her riding it, and told her the reason the guys she liked didn’t like her was because sooner or later they got the idea she was some kind of biker chick. Tennessee was the wrong state, honey, for a reputation like that.

  But mainly it was because the work would get him all greasy and sweaty, and he always, but always, wanted to look right for the ladies.

  She loved her brother dearly, pain in the butt that he was, but sometimes she had to wonder just where in hell he came from because he sometimes sure didn’t act like real kin.

  An apologetic look at her garden, vegetables and flowers straining for care, and she decided to make some calls. Peter could wait on the market customers himself. After last night, he deserved it, all that fool drinking, leaving it all in the john. Idiot.

  The first call was to UT in Knoxville, her alma mater, source of once in a while once-a-week night classes to keep her hand in and her brain from turning to mush. A moment later she scowled and hung up. The prof wasn’t in, and she’d been hoping to get some hours in during registration, helping him with course guidelines, student lists, donkey work that only minimally involved dancing away from his hands.

  Nothing on the books.

  Cash in the pocket.

  More than once she had considered asking Jim for a loan. Nothing much. Just enough to get her relocated anywhere but here. Her brother was her brother, after all, but Potar Junction and the interstate were not her idea of making best use of a liberal arts education. Too bad she hated kids; she could have at least been a teacher.

  She hesitated before dialing again, a forefinger drifting into her hair and twisting strands, tugging, twisting them again. A glance over her shoulder as if she’d find him there, waiting on the back stoop, or a massive thunderhead blotting out the sunlight. No such luck.

  She dialed anyway.

  That woman answered.

  “Jim there? This is Jonelle.”

  “Sorry. He’s in the shower. You want me to tell him something?”

  Jonelle glared at the wallpaper, disgusted at herself for the reaction. “No, no problem.”

  “You want him to call you back?”

  “I—no, that’s all right.” She turned, put her back against the wall, the coiled phone cord twisting around one finger. “Thought you’d be gone. Home, I mean. Rachel, right?”

  The woman laughed pleasantly. “Yes. And so did I, but he said he had something to do today, I think it has something to do with his friend. Charlie? So I guess I won’t be out of here until late this afternoon.”

  “Oh. Well, look, you want some company, a free lunch, give me a holler. Call down to the station, I’ll be out like a shot.” She lowered her voice, sharing a secret. “You have no idea how boring it i
s there.”

  “You know, I just might take you up on that. We really didn’t get to meet last …” The words faded.

  Jonelle nodded. “Just give me a call. And tell Jim, he’d better call, too, I’ll have him strung up.”

  She reached over her shoulder to replace the receiver, not moving her gaze from a portly blackbird she spotted, grazing the back yard. It shifted as she watched, shimmered, grew larger, became a dog, then a huge dog that turned on her and bared its fangs.

  Dripping blood.

  She started, and the illusion vanished.

  When the phone rang over her head, she yelped and stumbled away, holding one hand to her throat until she knew her heart wasn’t about to leave her. Chiding her skittishness, she took the call and told Peter, no, she wasn’t lounging about in the tub or painting her damn toenails, she’d be down in a few minutes, suffer, you dipshit, hungover bastard.

  Then she ran up to her bedroom, slipped the knife into a molded leather sheath she’d made herself four summers ago, and clipped the sheath onto her belt at her right hip. A quick pose before the mirror, a few practice snarls and glowers and as many menacing squints as she could manage; a three-note laugh at the ludicrous reflection that didn’t so much as grimace back; another knife she slipped into a sheath she had sewn to the inside of her left boot.

  Four years ago and a day, such a gimmick would have been unthinkable, a stunt for the movies.

  Four years ago and a day, she had picked Peter up in Tampa, and had a flat on the way home, at the edge of a swamp. Her brother had just finished replacing the tire when a pickup pulled onto the shoulder behind them, high beams on, a man opening the door as he wanted to know if they needed a little help. Peter had said, “No,” and the man had said, “Too bad.”

  That was the first time she’d heard the laughter.

  There had been two, but Peter had the tire iron and temporarily cut the number to one before she’d gotten out of the car, glove-compartment pistol in her hand.

  The second one was fast. Ghost fast in the swamp mist, and Peter was down, moaning, and a hand was around her throat, lifting her off the ground, the gun twisted from her hand.

  “Pretty,” the man said, turned easily and showed her to his partner climbing up from the shoulder.

  That was the first time she had seen the eyes.

  And for the first time saw the giant, who stepped out of the dark, heard a curse, heard the fire, and the next thing she knew she was in a huge automobile with Peter stretched unconscious across her lap, a makeshift bandage across his mouth, and the automobile was floating silently north through the dark.

  “You would have killed them,” the giant had said without turning around.

  “Damn right,” she answered hoarsely, throat still burning from the man’s grip.

  The giant nodded, and an hour later said, “There’s someone you should meet.”

  Four years ago.

  Now she wanted to tell Jim what she had heard the night before. She wanted to tell him right away. She knew as well as Peter—who had complained about it from the second he had walked in the door—that Ruby had more blood kin, she wasn’t sure just how many, and since all those others had been taken care of, the rest might have gotten here much sooner than she feared.

  But she didn’t know how they had known.

  She did know, she was positive, that they hadn’t already been around at the time the Modeens had been trapped. Ruby would never have allowed herself to be caught like that, not if there were others and she’d been planning an ambush.

  So they hadn’t been here already.

  But they were here now.

  And if that were true, someone must have made a call.

  On the other hand …

  She groaned aloud to shut off the speculation before she made herself dizzy.

  “Lord,” she muttered as she hurried out the front door, “you do go on, don’t you.”

  Nevertheless, she made a careful circuit of the house, knowing the search for prints was futile, but doing it anyway. Relieved when she found nothing, she pushed through the shoulder-high evergreen shrubs that lined the top of the slope, and slipped-ran down the grass, entering the mart through the back door, closing out the light on a cluttered office just large enough to hold a plywood table she used as a desk, a bulky safe beneath it, and a few shelves packed with Peter’s junk.

  As she checked the delivery schedule tacked to the wall by the inner door, she heard voices, Peter’s and someone else. Since the door was closed, she used the peephole he’d installed two winters ago, then shook her head slowly.

  Lord, she thought wearily, you just don’t ever stop, do you?

  A quick fuss with her hair, and she stepped out into the store. Peter leaned on the counter, making eyes and small talk at a tanned and blue-eyed blonde not, in Jonelle’s opinion, worth writing a song over. When the woman saw her, she sputtered, dropped some bills on the counter, and hurried outside. Her car, sleek and shiny, was parked at the farthest of the two self-serve islands, and she didn’t look back when she climbed in and drove away. Jonelle grinned. The woman had no doubt come in, all a-flutter, red-cheeked, just smiling up a spring storm, she had no idea how to work one of those gas pump things, would Peter mind helping her out, just this once?

  Her brother didn’t even look around. “Nice work,” he grumbled, scooping up the money.

  “Just keeping you honest.”

  He snorted, straightened, and put the bills in the register. “Just keeping the customers happy.”

  “Ha,” she said. “And ha, I’m impressed.”

  He slammed the drawer shut, fingerdusted the counter. “Sorry about last … you know.”

  She waved a forget it hand and walked the aisles, four of them, each shelf jammed with every kind of junk and device any motorist might believe he needed for a long trip, a short jaunt, a ride from here to gone. She checked the refrigerated sections in back, mentally toting the number of beer cases and six-packs, soda, milk, those new fruit drinks every kid seemed to have to have.

  For a change, Peter had already put the new newspapers and magazines where they belonged, and had bundled up the old ones for pick-up the next morning.

  Guilty, she thought cheerfully; the dope, he’s really feeling guilty.

  Then he said, “Jo, did you hear anything last night?”, and she had no choice but to tell him.

  Jim bellowed until she came in, taking her time, although he noticed how she snapped the fingers of her left hand, realized she didn’t know she was doing it until he stared and she jammed the hand into her jeans pocket.

  “What?”

  “I don’t care how you do it—hogtie me, hamstring me, put a goddamn pillowcase over my head—but I am not going to piss on this bed.”

  It pleased him when he saw she hadn’t thought about mundane things like that, pleased him further when she kicked his jeans to the middle of the floor and said, “When I untie you, put these on.”

  Then she showed him the gun she had tucked in the small of her back.

  “I’m fast,” she reminded him flatly. “But you have no idea how quick I really am.”

  Maurice awoke groaning, every bone in his body protesting, every muscle demanding movement and a dozen magnitudes of atonement. Several fuzzy seconds passed before he realized he was still propped in his chair, facing the front door, his shotgun balanced across the armrests. A blanket had been draped over his lap.

  “Oh Lord,” he whispered, rubbing sleep from his eyes, massaging his upper arms. “Oh Lord.”

  His angels were gone. He knew that before he even tried to move. The huge house was empty, and he could no longer hear the echoes of the wind. He blinked at the fierce sunlight unpleasantly distorted through seven stained-glass windows arched over the lintel, turned his head and set the weapon on the floor, his back so stiff he could barely lean over.

  “Lord.”

  He yawned mightily.

  He scratched hard across his chest and thi
ghs.

  He tried to push himself to his feet, but his legs refused to work, and he braced himself with his arms until the painful tingling eased and he could stand without swaying. The heels of his hands roughly molded the bone and padding of his face as he staggered to the door, took a breath, and opened it.

  The color out there slapped at him, the smell of bygone rain wakened him further, and he stood there for nearly a full minute before he realized he was naked.

  “Oh, Jesus!”

  He slammed the door in near panic and hurried upstairs to shower and dress, refusing himself permission to think of the night before until he was back down in a kitchen large enough to feed the Junction at a single sitting, coffee cup in hand, eggs and sausage on the stove, tinny gospel music on the radio. He hummed as he sat at the white marble table, white wrought-iron legs, and when the meal was at last spread before him, he offered grace and sighed.

  It was a bad thing, all that commotion outside. Bad enough he had had to cut down the Devil in four parts, bad enough he still hadn’t been able to make James understand that whatever they were. those things were living creatures and not to be slaughtered as if they were cattle raised as fodder, just for slaughter. From the very beginning he had felt there ought to be some ritual, some gesture, some of what he had once told Peter would amount to “preemptive absolution.”

  It didn’t seem right, done the way it was now.

  Bad enough. all of it.

  But worse was the commotion last night.

  Never before had any of them come directly to his home, to the home of his flock.

  Never.

  This time they had done it twice.

  The second time, it had taken some convincing and some loud singing to believe the banging and soft laughter hadn’t been a ghost.

  He wished it had.

  Lord, he wished it had.

  But although there were spirits, and a few minor devils making mischief, he didn’t believe in any ghost, damned or otherwise.

  What he believed in, once he’d calmed down and remembered, were the rest of Ruby Modeen’s close kin, drifting out there without their momma, knowing what had happened and looking for revenge. He couldn’t remember their names, and wasn’t sure now he ever knew them. It didn’t matter. They had visited him last night and had told him they weren’t going to take this without a fight.