“You’re…wrong, Aglaé. No matter…what you’ve done to him…he’ll never be a monster.”
She screeched, again baring teeth far more frightful than the beast’s fangs, and Elizabeth closed her eyes at the sound, the pitch hurting her ears. Then his roar, deep and booming: her eyes snapped open to the best sound she’d ever heard. He came into the clearing from her right, his leg in a limp and blood caking his fur. The light of the many lanterns lit the gash across his chest, showing muscle and other pink matter, and the crowd gasped.
He approached Diableron in a ready crouch with fangs bared, and she met him, releasing Elizabeth and leaving an oily mist to hover. Panting desperately, Elizabeth allowed oxygen to revive her. The demon laughed an awful sound as she began circling Henry, but he leapt for her. His fangs tore through the air, the action startling and abrupt, and the people Elizabeth once called friends flinched beside her.
The fight—nothing but a blur of rolling blackness and mass—transpired too quickly to catch, but Elizabeth heard the cries of pain coming from both. Tied against the tree, utterly helpless, her wrists became raw from the cuffs. But before she could beg Taggart to free her again, the scene changed before her.
Henry and Diableron came to a standstill—his body in a crouch, his breaths labored and raucous, blood and debris clinging to his fur—and a light came from within the demon, blinding and white. Then she wasn’t Diableron at all, but the most beautiful woman Elizabeth had ever seen, more beautiful than the illustration in her book. Her wavy and flowing red hair appeared to actually glow.
“What…the…?” Taggart breathed beside Elizabeth.
Aglaé didn’t seem to notice her audience as she sauntered toward the beast. “Poor, pathetic Beast,” she said, her voice raspy, and sensual in an unearthly way. “Look into my eyes, Monster. Come to me.”
“No!” Elizabeth shouted, and Aglaé’s eyes shot to her with an abrupt sharpness, allowing, in her distraction, for Henry to attack. His fangs took hold of Aglaé’s shoulder, staining her silky gown with red instantly. But with a scream and a flip of her palm, she hurled him as though he weighed nothing, and he fell to the grass with a thud.
While he labored to stand, Aglaé ran to the crowd and sobbed, kneeling before Taggart and pleading in a way so real even Elizabeth almost believed it. God, even in distress she was exquisite. “Please,” she cried, grasping a fistful of Taggart’s polyester pants. “Please don’t let him kill me.”
“I…won’t,” Taggart said, almost in a trance.
“She’s not real, Sheriff!” Elizabeth shouted.
Aglaé’s glare was subtle at best. She rose, gently placing her hand on the side of Taggart’s face, her other on his arm. “Your gun. Use it, Sheriff. You’re so strong and brave. Save us all.”
“Don’t.” The two of them blurred, swirling. Even though it would always be fruitless, she struggled with the cuffs.
Taggart picked up his gun, though with difficulty since he was shaking, and aimed it at the beast, who managed to stand on all fours. Before Elizabeth could plead again, he fired, startling her more than he had the first time; but the beast was gone, standing at the opposite end of the clearing. Taggart’s bullet had missed entirely, and Elizabeth released a sob of pure relief.
Henry stared at her with his animal eyes, brown and ringed with gold. “Go!” she said at him. “Get out of here!”
Aglaé growled, dropping some of her pretense, and just when she turned back to Taggart, Eustace lifted his shotgun. It took a moment for Elizabeth to realize what was happening.
That it wasn’t aimed at the beast.
***
Eustace had never been a man to fall for a ruse. Especially when it came to conniving and devious women. He’d known a few in his life, could always pick them out of a crowd. And this, whatever she was, had manipulation all over her. He couldn’t explain it exactly, but knew one thing for sure: she wasn’t what she appeared to be. And with the way she seemed to come from nowhere—first appearing as a decaying corpse that he realized was himself, then as a demon, and now this—he had nothing but the deepest of sinking feelings all throughout him. While viewing her from the end of his double-barrel, reality hit him: she was the one responsible for everything. Sheppy, the screaming, the terror, and even Gina Gray’s cats.
A wave of guilt rolled through him and he wished he would have realized this sooner, before Brian had tied Elizabeth up. She’d been right, about everything. And the most unsettling thing was that in the back of his aging mind, he’d known it all along.
“I’d watch where you point that,” the woman said, the corner of her mouth lifted in a seductive smile. She was a sight to see, that’s for sure, but that’s where it would end for him.
“I’d shut your mouth, woman, before I pull the trigger.” Eustace backed her up and she lifted her hands. His neighbors mumbled around him and Taggart asked what in Hell’s sake he was doing. But he wouldn’t fall for it like they had. Her back met the needles of a fir, and unlike a moment ago, when she’d been a sobbing, frantic mess at Taggart’s feet, she was cool as a cucumber, lifting a brow in fascination. As though his Betsy could do nothing to her. Probably it couldn’t, since the slash in her shoulder didn’t seem to affect her like it would a normal person with a soul and feelings.
“I see age has dulled your male appetite.”
Grinding his teeth, Eustace shoved the barrels into the soft spot on her chest, just between her breasts. Her skin was supple, he allowed himself to think in a moment of stupor. Alabaster, shimmering. He shook his head. “My appetite’s fine. I just won’t be fooled by a temptress.”
“A temptress? Is that what you think I am?”
“I don’t know what you are, but you’re something not far from the Devil.”
She threw her head back and cackled, the sound as grating as nails on a chalkboard. In his disorienting distraction, she took hold of his gun. But just as she twisted it from his grip, the monster attacked her from the side, trapping her beneath him. Eustace backed away, watching—seeing the thing for what it was, for the first time ever. How had Elizabeth been right this whole time? How had she seen it in the beginning?
The red-haired woman’s eyes hardened, changing her face, and as she struggled with the weight atop her—the weight that would crush a normal human being—somehow the beast was thrown from her again. She lunged for him, hands curled like claws and teeth bared like an animal, and with a roar of her own she was atop him, the two of them rolling in another struggle impossible for Eustace to see.
“Eustace!” It was Elizabeth, and he’d never seen such desperation.
He turned to Taggart, who watched the brawl with a dumbfounded expression. In fact, everyone did. No one could take their eyes away from the enigma they couldn’t explain. Nicole stood back with her arms over herself, and Brian was nowhere to be seen. Probably he had run away like the coward he was. Eustace yanked the keys from Taggart’s belt and found the small cuff key. While fidgeting for the lock wedged behind Elizabeth’s back, he looked down on her. “Beth…I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Eustace,” she said with distraction. Probably his apology was the furthest thing from her mind. The cuffs clicked, loosening. She brought her wrists in front of her, touching them tenderly, and he swallowed at the raw, bloody abrasions. When she nodded, an understanding passed between them, a kinship much like the one they’d shared in this same forest on the night they’d met. Funny, how back then he’d been the one convincing her to believe in magic, and tonight she was the one who had to do all the convincing. Back then he’d felt there was something about her, something that would save them all. And now he knew she would.