Suddenly, a flashing red light intrudes from the other side of the carnival. A light so sharp, so insistent, that Katelynn is drawn irrevocably toward it. Jake fades into obscurity behind her as she moves out of his reach. The light draws her forward, and the cacophony on all sides slips away into oblivion as all of her attention is tied up in chasing that insistent beacon.
In reality, Katelynn tosses and turns beneath the sheets, the ruby red stone about her throat pulsing with light.
She sleeps on, and the carnival fades away, replaced by a thick gray haze that swirls around her in lazy spirals, shifting and churning. The light shines before her, even closer, hidden somewhere in the depths of that mist.
Katelynn stumbles in after it.
The haze shifts, and Katelynn finds herself standing before the light as it hangs motionless in the air before her. It shines vividly, cutting through the murk, pulsing with an eerie life. Katelynn watches as her arm lifts of its own accord and reaches to touch it…
She soars high above the ground, carried aloft like a glider tossed into a storm. The wind is cool, flickering across her flanks in a silken caress. The sky around her is dark with heavy rain-laden clouds extending out to the horizon, shutting out the afternoon light, for which she is thankful.
The storm comes on fast, without warning, and she rejoices in the opportunities it could bring.
She drops lower, riding one of the storm’s savage currents in a swift, sickening drop that plunges her several hundred feet in seconds, the air screaming past her ears with a shrill, bestial shriek. She recovers easily, swooping along just above the treetops, following the trail she sees below her, knowing that it was often used by those she sought.
Movement catches her attention.
She shifts lower, descending to mere feet above the ground, and angles off to the left in order to intercept whatever it is. A moment or two and the thing comes into view.
It is an antelope, with long curving horns atop its head and a brown-and-golden coat. It is part of a herd, which comes into view as she sails over the head of the first animal. Her presence starts them milling about, nervous but not panicked. As a group they collectively wait to see what she will do, watching her closely with upturned heads.
She has better sport this night, however, and she glides over their heads without giving them another thought.
She regains some altitude and uses the warmer currents to glide and detect movement on the plain beneath. A dark, scorched section of earth can be made out to the west, and she notes it with a sort of grim satisfaction. Her enemies once lived there, in a great sprawling city that stood as a fortress against her kind, but had finally fallen in a glorious battle. The streets of that city had flowed red with the blood from those fed upon that night.
Not long after she passed the city, she spotted what she was looking for. A thin column was moving along the path, at her height little more than specks in motion. She had hunted there before and knew that she had found her target.
She swooped closer, and counted fourteen of the herd moving in tandem the way the Elders had taught them. They found a certain level of protection in this fashion, occasionally managing to fend off an attack with the help of the four-legged animals that traveled with them. It didn’t happen often, but it also didn’t hurt to assess the situation before attacking.
Another of the Na’Karat was trailing the same group, she noticed, a large male, hanging off to the side, watching just as she was. From the haste of the group below, they had obviously seen him, and were trying to reach a sheltered location before he attacked.The fool, she thought.He allowed himself to be seen too soon and is now simply compounding the error. He will lose his chance if he doesn’t engage soon.
She decided to make her move before he could.
She flew overhead and began to circle the group. Below, the cattle swiftly pulled in their ranks, moving to form a large circle with the weakest in the center and the strong on the rim, just as the Elders had taught them.
It would do them no good.
She spotted a straggler, an offspring by its size, tens of yards away from the group and moving slowly. She smiled, her tongue flicking across her teeth. That would be the one.
She folded her wings and dropped toward the earth.
Her victim was twenty feet from the group when she struck.
Unfolding her wings, she used the resistance of the wind to slow her descent abruptly, so she seemed to appear out of nowhere directly in front of it. As expected, it froze in place for a moment.
That was all the time she needed.
She swung one of her arms around in a blinding fast arc, the talons on the end of each finger extended.
She shrieked with satisfaction as flesh tore, blood flew, and the stench of pain rose into the air…
Katelynn awoke screaming in her bed.
She knew instantly she’d had a nightmare; her heart was thundering in her chest, and her body was soaked with sweat.
She had only a fleeting recollection of what it had been about, however, and that quickly slipped away as she tried to get herself under control.
She got up and went into the bathroom. Using a face-cloth soaked in cool water, she wiped her upper body down and splashed some water on her face. Her heartbeat slowly returned to normal.
By the time she climbed back into bed, the dream was no more. It had slipped away as swiftly as the morning dew under the summer sun.
Five minutes later she was fast asleep.
It had been the first of the dreams, but it would not be the last.
Across town, the beast turned in its sleep, its dream disturbed by an unwanted presence.
It lasted no more than a moment, however, and the creature never fully awoke, preferring to sink back into its memories of another time and place.
It gave the presence not another thought.
13
GRUESOME DISCOVERIES
The ringing of the phone jarred him awake.
“Wilson here.”
“Sorry to disturb you, sir. But we’ve got a bad one.”
Damon listened for a few moments and hung up. He was dressed and out the door in less than ten minutes, using both the sirens and lights as he climbed the hills into Harrington Falls. As he made his way down Chestnut Street, it was easy to see the activity that surrounded the house at the end of the block.
The house was a beacon, shining in the darkness, calling out to him, demanding the justice he could supply, commanding him to avenge those who lay still and silent inside.
Though he was still half a mile away, he could see the house clearly. It stood out from the rest because it was the only one on the block with every window bathed with electric light, like a blazing torch in an empty field, and he moved toward it reluctantly.
The unspeakable had occurred. For the first time in over twenty years, there had been a murder in Harrington Falls.
Damon didn’t want to see what lie waiting inside those four walls, didn’t want to smell the freshly spilled blood or see the wounds, didn’t want to stare into lifeless eyes and wonder what they had seen in those last few precious moments before death.
Despite his resignation he continued on, if for no other reason than it was his job. There was no one else to do it.
He’d only gone to sleep moments before the call had come, and as he put down the receiver he realized he hadn’t been surprised to learn that someone had been killed. All evening since leaving the office he’d been nervous, watchful, unable to relax and settle down the way he usually did after a day’s work, his conversation with Strickland playing over and over again like a Top Forty record in his mind. It was almost as if he’d been expecting something to happen.