Eight
Jerry was frantically poking at the wood stove, trying to make it burn brighter— and the pile of firewood had already shrunk horribly, revealing the hilt of a sword which had been hidden behind it.
She felt a strange calmness, a sort of inevitability that was probably an effect of shock, like Maisie had. She wandered over to the room where the children were and looked in. Maisie was kneeling by the bed, praying, the words undistinguishable under the gibbering and obscene mutterings from the window. Alan and Lacey— she thought she could make out their shapes, little bundles on the bed in the gloom, but she couldn’t be sure and she couldn’t go and give them a farewell kiss because she might waken them, and that would be the most unkind thing to do right now. Perhaps they were innocent enough that demons would have no hold over them… but werewolves?
Good-bye, darlings. Mommy is very sorry she got you into this.
Then she looked into the other bedroom. The youth was sitting on the floor, leaning against a wall, visible in the stream of light from the doorway, and tied up with strips of bedsheet. One eye followed her angrily; the other was half closed by swelling and his mouth equally puffed on the other side, smashed by Jerry in his fury.
Something was gnawing loudly at the window frame, making harsh rasping and tearing noises.
Graham was squirming around on the bed, also bound, and with a gag over his mouth. She leaned over him.
“If I take off the gag, will you be quiet?” she asked, and he nodded strenuously. She fumbled for a long time with the knot. What had she ever seen in him? Her mother had asked her that. “He is a man who knows what he wants,” she had answered. Silly little bitch— she should have trusted a mother’s instincts, because a man who knows what he wants can easily become a man who will do anything to get it; charm becomes a weapon and charisma corrupts. Then the gag came loose “There,” she said.
“Untie me, Ariadne! Don’t leave me tied up like this!”
She had never heard him beg before and despised herself for the momentary pleasure that thought gave her.
“It isn’t going to matter soon,” she said and noticed how flat her voice sounded. “The oil has all disappeared from the lamps. Jerry thinks we’re going to be attacked by monsters.”
“No!”
“Maisie is praying like a conclave of cardinals,” she said, “and I’m sure she won’t forget you. I just wanted to tell you that I didn’t mean to get you into this. You’re not blameless, Graham, but you didn’t deserve this. Not quite this…”
“Oh, that’s very comforting,” he sneered. “I would have been more careful if I’d known that D.T.s were infectious.” Why couldn’t they just talk together, like human beings?
“Evil is infectious,” she said. “Which one of us was the vector, Graham?”
“It was my fault, was it?” he snapped. “Nothing like a wino for self-pity.” He would never admit an error— he never had.
“No,” she said. “In the end I was much more at fault than you; all those things you said tonight were true, except that you blamed only me for Lacey. If that was where we went wrong, then you were as much at fault as me… and you were the one who pushed for an abortion.” That would hurt him.
“Always that!” he snarled. “I was waiting for it… All right, for that I’m grateful. I love her— and see where you’ve got her?” What else had been his fault? Plenty, she thought. The long absences, the strange friends, the sudden incredible prosperity— feast after famine— and then the steadily growing realization that a young lawyer couldn’t possibly be making this much money by honest means “How about Alan, then?” he said with a sneer. “If we’re going to chew over the old bones, he was all my doing, wasn’t he?”
“If you mean that you virtually raped me that time, yes,” she said. “I suppose you get the credit for Alan.” That was a night she would never forget; even now she got cold shakes at the sight of a cowboy hat. She had left him, taken Lacey and gone… and that had perhaps been her last chance for sanity and sobriety, the last ray of sunset before the dark and the storm. He had tracked her down to her sister’s cabin, a cabin not unlike this one, and they had had a most glorious fight. Shredded and tattered, she had gone off to bed, and he had stayed in the chair and finished the bottle She could still remember the crash as the bedroom door opened, him standing there, ready for her, his intent obvious, his mind made up… and the cowboy hat. Looking back at it, the cowboy hat should be funny, but the events of that night had never ripened into funniness. He had arrived wearing western dress, having come from some ranchmen’s affair or other, and all night long they had screamed and argued, and he had never taken off that hat. Even when he finally came roaring into the bedroom to slake his lawful lust, he had still been wearing the hat— nothing else, just the hat. No, somehow that was not funny, even now. Too much pain, too much humiliation. She had left again with Lacey before dawn, before he awoke, and had stayed away until she had realized that she was again pregnant He broke the silence. “Well, at least he looks like me,” he said. “To begin with I worried, but I had the blood groups checked— which doesn’t prove anything, but didn’t disprove anything— and we’re a rare type, he and I. And the little beggar does look like me.” Obviously he still wasn’t sure. She could try once again.
“I suppose this is a deathbed repentance, Graham, so I’ll assure you again that there is no doubt. I was never unfaithful to you.” He snorted.
“Not consciously, then. When I was on a bender… but that came later, after Alan. No, he had to be yours.” Pause, as though he were gathering ammunition, but then he said, “All right, deathbed repentance. Maybe all of it wasn’t a hundred pecent your fault. Ninety-five, maybe, but not a hundred.”
“My, you’re gallant!”
“Go back to your demon lover, then.”
“He’s a better man than you’ll ever be.” But that was just going to start the shouting and tearing again. She stepped backwards and almost fell over Carlo.
“Who is this character?” she said. “Where did you get him?”
“Just a friend,” Graham said, suddenly cautious.
No, not a friend. An electronics expert with a switchblade, one of the new generation of all-rounders.
“What’s his speciality?” she asked, curious.
“Revenge,” said a distorted whisper from the floor.
“Meaning you’d better not get between him and that Howard man tomorrow,” Gillis said. “If the devils don’t get him, then Carlo will.” Not very likely— Jerry Howard could handle that little punk. It didn’t matter now, anyway.
“If this is good-bye, Graham,” she said, “then good riddance.” Nice exit— he hadn’t had a reply ready for that. She went out and closed the door on the chewing noise coming from the window— maybe both men would be gnawed to death by werebeavers before morning, and she wasn’t sure she cared.
Jerry had created a good blaze in the stove; a cheerful glow and crackle were streaming out its open door. The noises outside were dying away— was that a good sign or a bad sign? He was back on the sofa, checking out the guns, two of them sub-machine guns and two that looked like hunting rifles, with small clips for six or so bullets. She went around in front of him and looked down at the barely visible shape of Killer and the wand in his dead-man’s grip, shining brightly as though fluorescent.
“He’s still alive?” she asked.
“No change,” Jerry said, snapping a gun back together. “I suppose he could stay that way for quite a time, if the opposition left us in peace.” She stepped over Killer and sat down next to Jerry, moving a couple of guns to do so. “Show me how they work,” she said.