Jackals Read online

  He didn’t think.

  He fired.

  She rose shrieking to her feet, fingers clawing at the top of her skull, took one stagger step toward him before he fired again, dropped the shotgun and picked up the preacher’s.

  He didn’t need it.

  She was curled on the ground, one foot twitching, kicking weakly.

  pretty james right next to his ear. He yelled in fright as he turned, and heard Maurice yell as well, his arms up, his mouth wide, as something quick, something fast raced between them, not allowing him to fire in case he hit the preacher.

  It didn’t matter.

  The white jacket changed color, the white shirt turned to ribbons, and Maurice screamed,

  “O Jesus!” just once before he fell.

  Nothing moved.

  Only the wind.

  Only the rain.

  He could end it now. He could follow Maurice over the edge, hoping he’d be able to keep from falling or slipping too much. Move fast, the hell with safety, and if he reached the bottom in one piece, he’d head for the gas station. He had the shotgun and plenty of ammunition stuffed into his pockets. After what had happened up here, she would be forced into caution.

  And if she wasn’t, he would have her.

  He could end it now.

  But he still didn’t have Jonelle.

  The rain eased; the wind didn’t.

  Maurice’s flashlight was dying, but he kept it on anyway, making regular sweeps through the night, fainter but still effective. Every arc passing over the upraised claw of Bobby’s hand.

  Rachel stood at the mouth of the road.

  He didn’t fire, he only watched her, both of them knowing his killing range was a good deal closer.

  She raised her chin a little and called over the wind, “Thank you, James. I knew you would do it.”

  Unthinking, he gestured a don’t mention it with his flashlight hand, and when he found her again, she was ten feet closer, and ten feet to his right.

  Something moved out there, something else, to the left.

  He shifted the beam, saw nothing, and shifted it back, and she was closer still, and shaking her head.

  “I’ll let you climb,” she called, pointing toward the drop.

  “Fine. And then what?” he couldn’t help calling back.

  The rain returned, a little harder, diffusing the weakened beam, blurring her moving figure. His hair clung to his forehead, partly over his eyes; he used a forearm to clear them, the light wild and cut with silver.

  When he steadied, she was still there, but he couldn’t see her face.

  He really didn’t want to.

  “I go away, find the family,” she told him, as if he ought to have known not to ask such a stupid question.

  “But you’ll be back.”

  “Oh yes.” Still moving, she nodded. “Oh yes.”

  She skipped into a slow trot, never looking away, keeping out of range but staying in the light as it tracked her side to side. Faster. A little faster. Wind at her back and now in her face. Faster. A little faster.

  But not moving any closer.

  “You need the rest,” she told him, and burst into quick laughter.

  He could shoot, disrupt her rhythm, and charge her before she regained what she lost. But if he failed …

  Faster.

  A little faster.

  He could barely keep the beam on her, and an accurate shot now was impossible. She knew it, and he knew she was only showing off. This, she told him, was the jackal he would have to deal with for the rest of his life.

  Ruby had been a fair opponent.

  Rachel would be his death.

  Faster.

  The light dimmed.

  A ghost running, spinning once and dropping to all fours.

  Faster.

  Much faster.

  Bobby’s hand still reaching, as if trying to pull the beam down.

  He checked to see how much farther he could go before he fell, and nearly lost his balance. A single step would have done it. And just below the edge a windwhipped bush he could grab to lower himself to the ledge he thought he had seen just below. It would tear his hands open. He could hear water already running down a crack.

  He stopped trying to follow her, but she didn’t stop running, and she didn’t stop laughing, and he knew she had changed her mind.

  It wouldn’t do for him to survive.

  In the night world of the jackals, there was no such luxury as mercy.

  She faced him now, whipping through the beam as fast as he could spot her. White eyes. White teeth. Features smeared by the rain and speed. Feinting toward him, and away, and when the wind paused and there was only the rain against the leaves, he couldn’t hear her moving.

  james

  He watched her.

  james

  He watched her.

  james

  He saw her smiling, and suddenly realized how close she was, how she’d been moving closer all the time, and all the time he’d only watched her, hypnotized, mongoose and cobra.

  He held the flashlight and shotgun in one hand and raised the weapon; she laughed as he struggled to hold the weapon steady.

  One shot; he was only going to get one good clear shot. After that, if he failed, he’d have to drop the light and try to kill her in the dark.

  pretty james

  He brought the shotgun to his shoulder, the light wobbling, his aim untrue.

  pretty

  Suddenly she shrieked more in anger than pain, and tumbled, slamming her head and shoulder on the rocky ground.

  He didn’t question, he only ran, following her as she tried to regain her feet, arms flailing, falling again, screaming again, not anger but in rage, one hand reaching desperately for her right leg while she hopped backward on one foot. Baring her teeth as he approached her, puzzled until he saw the knife buried deep in her thigh.

  She snarled and whirled to run, and fell heavily on her side, crab-crawled and turned again, sitting while she grabbed the slippery handle of the blade and tried to yank it free.

  She screamed and tried again.

  It wasn’t human.

  He didn’t feel a thing when he raised his shotgun and pulled the trigger.

  And didn’t blink when the shotgun jammed. He only tossed it aside and walked toward her, staring at those eyes caught and glowing in a new beam, a little stronger, that flared from just behind him.

  Rachel gave up trying to get the blade out from the muscle that held it, and tried to get to her feet instead, but he reached down before she could escape him, and took her wrist, yanked her up and pulled her toward him while he stepped out of the way and pulled her toward him again.

  She was strong.

  He was stronger.

  He yanked, and she screamed and tried to slash his eyes and flail for balance with her free arm.

  He yanked and pulled, she screamed and stumbled, and he yanked and pulled her one more time.

  Stepped aside, and let her go.

  And watched her pinned in dying light as she spun over the Ridge’s edge. Then the light went out, and she was gone, and there was nothing left but the crying wind.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jonelle came up beside him, limping badly, blood on her cheek and chin. “What do we do now?”

  “Maurice,” he said.

  “‘What about her?”

  They would leave her and her kin to be found for the police to make something of it if they could.

  Suicide, murder, he didn’t give a damn.

  She slipped an arm around his waist as they headed for the road. “For balance,” she explained. “I think my ankle’s torn.” She had cut Bobby as she’d raced past him, but lost her footing as she realized one of his claws had gashed her foot. Into the woods, then, and a makeshift bandage, waiting until she could see again without fire. “l was afraid when you called.”

  She had done the right thing; answering would have brought one of the women on her.
r />   At the foot of the Ridge he climbed behind the wheel of Maurice’s car and used the spare keys under the seat to start the engine. Jonelle began to shiver, and stayed inside when he drove around the Snake and found Maurice on his back, staring at the rain. He put the body in the back seat, and made a quick search for Rachel.

  He couldn’t find her until he looked up, and saw her looking at him.

  He started, closed his eyes, and opened them again to watch the blood and rain drip from her hair across her eyes. White eyes no longer glowing.

  He tilted his head and saw the dead branch thrust through her stomach.

  He smiled grimly as he walked away; she may have been quick, but she sure couldn’t fly.

  They buried Maurice beside Nola and Peter as the sun rose and the rain still fell.

  He brought Jonelle to the Junction clinic, saw the concern in the doctor’s face, and the blank look in hers. He waited for nearly an hour while they debated sending her on to Knoxville, and didn’t like their tone when he was told she’d have to go.

  “Stay here,” she said as they loaded her into the ambulance.

  He had one foot on the bumper, ready to climb in.

  “Please,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  There were things to do, but he didn’t want to do them. He sat in the living room and watched the clouds thin, watched the rain fall, watched traffic drift by in shades of grey. He would give Maurice’s house to his angels, as long as they promised to let him in now and then; he would find a way to help Cider replace what they both knew was irreplaceable; he would tear this house down and build something a little larger, definitely more solid.

  Appropriate stones for the graves of the boy and his best friends; when the right time came, and he would know when it was, he would move them so they’d be able to rest beside Charlie.

  The rain stopped, and sunlight brightened.

  Shortly after five the telephone rang.

  A doctor in Knoxville explained that Jonelle’s foot had been badly mangled, muscles and tendons torn; some repair was possible, but there’d be a long and painful period of recuperation and therapy, and even then she would walk with a bad limp for the rest of her life.

  “When can she come home?”

  “A few weeks. “We’ll see.”

  He thought about the pack.

  By now, he supposed they knew what had happened up there on Potar Ridge, and there would be a time of fierce in-fighting as one or another of the females sought to take Ruby’s place.

  By this time next year, he supposed they’d be back on the roads.

  What he didn’t know was what he would do about it.

  The telephone rang.

  “lf you don’t come get me next Friday,” Jonelle said, sounding a little groggy, a little pained, “I’m going to walk home, and it’ll be on your head.”

  He propped his feet on the sill. “The doc said a few weeks.”

  “I convinced them otherwise,” she answered, Southern belle in her accent. “These boys are just helpless, Jim, you know what I mean?”

  He nodded. “l think I do.”

  Something in the field across the road.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “l don’t know,” he admitted.

  “I see.”

  He didn’t think so.

  “You will,” she said at last.

  Something large.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  She yawned; he laughed.

  “Remember what that bitch said?”

  He waited.

  Something fast.

  “The natural order of things, Jim. You will because it’s what you do. It doesn’t matter what happened.” A muffled voice interrupted her, she snapped at it, and said,

  “They’re going to make me go to sleep, Jim. I have to go.”

  He wished her sweet dreams, but she wouldn’t hang up. Instead she argued for a few seconds with the other person in the room, then said quickly, “But don’t you damn dare do it without me, you understand?”

  The line went dead.

  The receiver dropped onto its cradle, the phone was placed on the floor beside his chair.

  It was nightfall before he smiled.

  At what Jonelle said, at the memory of Maurice and his godawful sermons, at the memory of Charlie’s hound, at the memory of Nola Paine.

  At the low mournful whistling he heard out in the field.

  He would wait, Jonelle was right; there was healing to be done.

  But there would always be cars abandoned on the road and people would always vanish without a trace, without a sign.

  There would always be eyes out there, eyes that glowed moon white.

  And there would always be a Hunter.

  Charging out of the herd.