Then he sat back and waited for a response.
For his part. Damon had been running a gauntlet of emotions ever since Sam had started speaking. Now, forty-five minutes later, he didn’t know what to think. He’d started with disbelief, moved to sarcasm, then developed a deep-rooted conviction that they had both gone crazy. As Sam had continued speaking, this gradually gave way to a surprising sense of belief.
As crazy as it sounded, God help him, it also made a weird kind of sense.
Provided you believed in monsters.
“What, exactly, is it you want me to do?” Damon asked Sam.
“Go with us to Riverwatch. That’s where Jake is headed. If my story is true, you’ll get your shot at the killer that’s been terrorizing this town. If it’s not, I apologize for wasting your time.”
Damon thought about it for a few minutes.What would it hurt to go with them? he asked himself. It was likely they really had seen something out by the river; Sam had not displayed even the slightest sign of lying, something Damon’s trained eyes would have detected instantly. And the fresh wounds on his back and shoulder were certainly proof they’d run into something. It was entirely possible that they had seen the animal Strickland had been talking about after the autopsies, and had simply let their imagination run away from them.Could he blame then for that, considering the present circumstances?
Damon didn’t think so.
If there was a chance they had actually seen the thing, he was duty-bound to look into it.
Besides, it was the only lead he had.
“Okay. I’ll go with you.”
He stood up and moved to the gun cabinet on the opposite wall. Taking the key ring from his belt, he unlocked the doors and selected a high-powered rifle from the rack within. He reached inside a second time and filled his pockets with spare ammunition for the weapon. If it turned out that Sam was right, Damon did not want to be caught unprotected.
When he was ready, he turned to face them.
“Let’s go have a look at this thing,” he said.
33
FIRST STRIKE
Jake stared at the Nightshade with a mixture of awe, fear, and dreadful fascination. It was hanging before him, suspended by its feet upside down from one of the ceiling rafters in the garret, its claws gripping the rough wood securely, its body swaying slightly in the light breeze that entered through the open window. The low light from the lantern glistened off the creature’s form, the beast’s scaled hide wet with the dew that gathered during the early-morning hours. He could see that it was large, probably over six feet when standing. The multiple folds of its wings meant they would probably be something over ten feet when fully extended. Now they curled gently about the creature’s body like some kind of protective screen, making it seem that the beast had wrapped itself in its own awesome embrace. The Nightshade’s head was tucked down against its chest, the edges of its wings against its temples, and Jake was suddenly glad that he wasn’t going to get a good look at the creature’s face.
Jake set the lantern down slowly, gently, taking care to be as silent as possible, not knowing how good the creature’s senses actually were.Does it know I’m here? he wondered.Can it sense me? Smell me?
With his right hand Jake reached behind his back and slowly withdrew the pistol from the waistband of his jeans, never once taking his eyes off the beast. So far it hadn’t moved; that was good.Maybe I was right, he thought to himself with sudden hope,maybe the damnable thing goes into hibernation during the day after feeding so much at night. Maybe I’ll be able to end this right here, right now, before it even has a chance to defend itself.
Adrenaline kicked and surged through his system, forcing him to take a more secure grip on the pistol as his hands began to sweat. Slowly, he shifted into the classic shooter’s stance; legs slightly bent and shoulder width apart, left hand cupped over the bottom of his right, arms extended before him. His sneaker scuffed the floor as he shifted weight and instantly he froze; but the beast never moved, never even flinched. After a long, fear-filled moment, he released the breath he had been holding and prepared to fire.
He surveyed the beast’s form for a moment, settling on the head as his best possible target. He knew he had to make the first shot count, hoping it would be enough to slow the creature down long enough for him to empty the whole magazine into the thing. If nineteen bullets weren’t enough to stop it, then there wouldn’t be much else that he could do except to say a quick prayer and run like hell for the staircase behind him.
The Nightshade still hadn’t moved.If it was going to wake up, it would have already done so, he told himself.
Steadying his aim, Jake crouched slightly lower in his stance and locked his arms in their current position. He drew in a deep breath and slowly began letting it out, squeezing the trigger as he did so, the motion one long steady pull just the way he’d been taught at the range, his eyes never leaving the target.
The creature opened its eyes and looked at him in the same instant that the gun fired.
The Nightshade took the shot high in the space between its shoulder and its neck, snapping its head back with an audible crack. As force of the shot slammed its body against the wall, its feet suddenly lost their grasp on the crossbeam overhead, causing it to drop to the floor.
Jake adjusted his stance, sighted, and fired again before the sound of the first shot stopped echoing around the small room, putting the second bullet cleanly into the side of the beast’s head. The passing slug tore a hole through the creature, taking a large chunk of skull with it as it tore its way back out, spraying the wall and floor with a grisly mixture of blood and bone.
Silence filled the room as the echo of the two gunshots faded away.
Jake held his ground, waiting for the beast to move.
It’s dead, it has to be. Nothing can take that kind of damage and survive,he thought to himself. Even so, he held his ground, his breath frozen in hopeful anticipation, the adrenaline surging through his body like a raging river.
The minutes slipped away.
Neither he nor the beast moved.
Jake waited a full five minutes before lowering his arms, his muscles shaking with the sudden release of tension and the overload of adrenaline in his system. It seemed he suddenly remembered to breathe again, and the air came rushing into his lungs.
Relief flooded his system.
Then the sudden rasp of a claw on stone sent his heart slamming into overdrive.
The Nightshade was moving!
The beast had pushed upward on its arms while at the same time drawing its feet underneath itself for support, forcing its body up into a crouch, its claws scraping the floor as its limbs fought to obey the commands its damaged brain was sending out to them. Yet that wasn’t what made Jake stare in dumb amazement; it was something far worse.
The Nightshade’s skull was slowly beginning to heal right before his eyes.
The bullet had left an exit wound the size of a grapefruit, as he knew it would. The edges of this cavity were slowly drawing themselves together, new flesh and bone flowing out of the skull like clay, mating themselves to the other sides and knitting them together. In a matter of moments there would be no evidence that the wound had ever existed.
And then the beast again opened its eyes.
In the space of a second, Jake realized two things with cold, hard certainty.
The first was that the creature was laughing at him.
The second was that he was about to die.
It was a testament to his stubborn pride that the first fact unfroze him from his pose of immobility and got him moving again, his right arm swinging back up, his finger tightening on the trigger even before the gun was in line with its target.