Comes the Night (20 page)

“Oh, okay. Sorry.”

Apparently mollified, she pulled him close for another kiss, her hands framing his face.

Smiling an evil smile, Brooke switched sides again, moved in close and pinched Seth’s ear. Viciously.

She zoomed back as he howled and rolled away, a hand clamped to his ear.

“What the fuck, Melissa? I said I was sorry for trying to get your bra off.”

She sat up. “What are you talking about?”

“You pinched my ear. And not the lobe! The
cartilage
. It stings like a bitch.”

“I did no such thing, Seth Walker. You’re the one who pinched me.”

“Like hell I did!”

“You certainly did. Right on the ass. And I’ll have a bruise to prove it tomorrow.”

“Oh, God!”

Seth dove for a light. The lamp beside his bed must have been one of those that come on if you touch any part of it, because it came on with no fumbling. Much faster than Brooke anticipated. Too fast for her to disappear. And then there they were, looking at each other as the seconds ticked by.

The frozen tableau shattered when Melissa screamed. That seemed to galvanize Seth, who leapt up and grabbed a poker from the fireplace near his bed.

“You! You’re the Heller!”

Brooke felt her heart racing—not here, but original Brooke back in the attic. She could feel her original’s adrenaline rush, feel her screaming to get out of there, but somehow it just fed Brooke’s excitement. She turned to face Seth Walker and his puny poker. She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when it passed right through her. She’d let him swing at her, and when he realized the futility, realized just how vulnerable he was, she would open her mouth and unleash the primal scream. She would flay him alive with it. Melissa too. Damn them both!

“This should fix you,” he said. Lifting the poker, he swung it at her in a downward arc.

To Brooke’s shock, the poker struck her on the neck. The force of it stunned her, driving her to the ground.

Luckily, it must have shocked Seth, too, for he released his grip on the poker. Or maybe it was the effect of Melissa screaming in the background that unnerved him. Whatever the case, he lost his grip on his weapon, which lay propped on her chest. Big mistake on his part. She’d make him pay, and enjoy doing it.

She lifted a hand to brush the poker away, or rather she tried to. But to her horror, she realized she couldn’t lift her arm. The blow must have damaged something. Brooke tried shrugging. All she needed to do was jolt the poker and it would roll right off, but she couldn’t do that, either. Nor could she roll her body one way or the other.

Dammit, she was immobilized! Trapped by a thin piece of cast iron that she should be able to flick off like it was dandruff.

Panicked, she tried sinking through the floorboards, thinking to escape that way, leaving the poker lying harmlessly on the floor. Except—shit, shit, shit!—all she could manage was to sink her lower body through the floor. Her upper body, the part pinned by the iron poker, wouldn’t budge. It was as though the iron had turned that part of her shadowy caster body into corporeal, physical matter, incapable of sliding through the solid floor.

Melissa screamed again. “Oh, God, it’s in the floor!”

“Not all of it!” Seth said. “I think we trapped it!”

Okay, nothing left now but the scream. That would drive them away and give her some time to figure out how to get out of this mess.

She opened her mouth and... nothing! She couldn’t scream. Couldn’t make any noise at all. Defenseless. All her powers stripped.

Oh, God, she was so humped. Too exhausted to keep struggling, her lower limbs floated back up through the floor.

“Jesus, we really did trap it!” Seth’s voice rose with exultation.

Melissa just sobbed harder.

“Oh, man, we gotta get some help.” Seth raked a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll stand guard here and you’re going to run out to the barn and get Bryce. He’s the one who’s read all Grampie’s journals. He knows everything there is to know about Heller hunting. He’ll know what to do.”

Melissa whimpered, her eyes fixed on Brooke’s cast.

He turned on her in a rage. “Goddamn it, Melissa, get your ass out there right now and bring Bryce in!”

Without bothering to do up her shirt, Melissa tore the bedroom door open and fled, her feet pounding down the stairs.

A Heller hunting expert. Brooke would have groaned if she could have.

Oh, yeah. She was humped all right.

Maryanne

M
ARYANNE FELT THE
heaviness of the late night. Nothing overwhelming, but she was starting to feel the press of it, from being out for so long. And the night wasn’t over yet. For any of them. They—she and Alex—were hovering up over the roof of the Walker house. Not sitting on it, of course. That would be impossible; they’d sink right through it if they tried. But still, they were quietly resting close to it. Beside her, Alex hovered quietly, lost in her own thoughts as they waited for Brooke.

They’d followed her. At a distance, because neither she nor Alex had wanted Brooke to think she had the upper hand—that she could force them to tag along as she took off on her own. Poor Brooke. Maryanne shook her head. For such a lonely girl, she did everything she could to push the world away.

But still, they had to watch over her. The dogs had scuttled into their doghouses inside the kennel at their approach. The girls—even Brooke—avoided the horse barn. None of them wanted to frighten those poor animals further. It might kill them. Besides, the barn was well lit tonight. Maryanne and Alex had watched as Brooke made a beeline for the Walker house. Watched as she slipped boldly inside Seth’s house, right through the front door.

But what the heck was keeping her?

As soon as Maryanne’s mind formed the question, it started forming potential answers. She imagined an assortment of scenarios, each involving Brooke wreaking havoc, and each more disturbing than the last. But, oh wow, not nearly as disturbing as they should have been! Not nearly as disturbing as the old pre-casting Maryanne would have found them, considering what revenge Brooke was capable of reaping. Or, as Maryanne had to admit, she herself was capable of reaping. Like running Mr. McKenzie off the road. But Alex’s warning from the gazebo was sticking in her mind, at least. And Alex was right. They had to keep this under control, and watch out for Brooke. They all had to cast with caution or else—The train of her thought derailed when the light snapped on below them, and a terrified scream cut into the night.

It wasn’t a caster shout that only another caster could hear. Nor was it a primal scream that the world could hear and fear. This was a very high-pitched, frightened, human female scream coming from inside the house.

“What the hell!” Alex straightened beside her.

“That wasn’t Brooke!” Maryanne said, rising.

Within seconds the yard light snapped on, and Maryanne saw the screamer all too clearly. A girl. She was screaming Bryce’s name now, her pale, bare feet nearly blurring as she beat it across the frozen lawn, long black hair streaming behind her.

Melissa
, she realized. Seth’s new girlfriend.

Melissa’s open shirt fanned out behind her, and her arms pumped wildly as she raced toward the shed beside the horse barn as though the hounds of hell were on her heels. The fear on her face was unmistakable. She’d seen a Heller. Oh crap, she’d seen Brooke!

“What’s Brooke done now?” Alex’s snapped.

“More importantly, where is she now?” Even as Maryanne asked the question, Alex was already moving down toward the lone lit window. Maryanne followed. A second floor bedroom, she noted immediately. Seth’s bedroom, no doubt.

Brooke should be out here. As soon as that light snapped on, she should have fled the house to rejoin the night.

“We have to stay out of the light!” Alex warned.

Maryanne nodded. “If we can.” They both stopped outside the window and peered in through the glass.

Brooke! The fear that gripped Maryanne upon seeing Brooke trapped on the floor shocked her. Being out here had done nothing but dampen her emotions, stilling her fears and distancing her from her grief. But now, terror took hold. But not just terror. Seeing Brooke so helplessly entrapped by Seth, hurt and broken on the floor at his feet, cold rage began to burn in her chest.

Back at Harvell House, her body broke into a cold sweat. She felt Brooke’s body struggle to move in that attic, just like Brooke’s cast struggled on Seth’s bedroom floor. But Brooke was helpless in both forms. Trapped with Seth Walker standing over her. The boy was trembling with his own fear, but he stood over Brooke nevertheless.

Maryanne peered closer. Brooke’s black cast lay helpless beneath what appeared to be an old-fashioned poker. The depthless, empty blackness of her form didn’t detract from the helplessness of it. She could barely move beneath the fire-blackened object, not even to lift a hand or twitch a finger. But she did roll her head to the side to seemingly look to the window. Even through the glass, Maryanne could hear her weakening voice utter its desperate cry.

Help me.

Maryanne moved forward.

“Don’t go through the glass!” Alex cried.

Maryanne held up. “Why not?”

“We don’t know what it’ll do to our casts!”

With a roar that only the casters could hear, Alex flew in through the wall. She cried out in pain this time—a pain Maryanne couldn’t understand.

Until she shot through the wall herself.

It felt as if tiny knives ripped right through her and she cried out just as Alex had. Her original moaned back in the attic.

What the hell just happened?

Then she forgot to wonder, as Alex flew at Seth, menacingly close, then pulled back only to rush at him again. She paused out of Seth’s reach, pointing to him with a sharp, meaningful finger, then pointed to Brooke on the floor. Repeatedly.

She was trying to scare him! Scare him into freeing Brooke. And he sure as hell looked scared!

Well, while she did that, Maryanne would grab Brooke. She was reaching to knock the poker aside when Alex shouted at her.

“Don’t touch the poker! It’s iron. You can’t move it. And it’ll weaken you, or hurt you.”

Oh, crap! Alex
knew
about this? And she hadn’t shared it? Was that why she’d felt pain going through the old walls? Iron nails ripping through her cast? “More you haven’t told us, Alex!”

“We don’t have time for that now!”

Alex was right. They didn’t have time for it. But they’d damn well
make
time for it later. Right now—
right freakin’ now
—they had to get Brooke out of here before Bryce came in. While Maryanne and Alex might be able to fight off Seth if he suddenly attacked, bent on capturing more Hellers this night, their chances with Bryce here would be greatly diminished. Right now, with Seth alone in his terror, they had an advantage—they had a chance. But Alex’s gestures weren’t working. Seth was scared, looking at her with unblinking wide eyes and trembling as she soared and pointed. But he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t releasing Brooke. He was on edge—but not over the edge.

Maryanne knew what she had to do. She
felt
what she had to do—the pure instinctive, beating, growing, living
urge
of it. The only thing she really could to save her sister, Brooke. Terrorize this boy some more. Bite at his sanity, shake him to his core. He was hurting her sister—she’d do what she had to do.

She screamed. Maryanne screamed with every dark bit of her being. The walls shook with the sound of it, and so did Seth. He covered his ears with his hands. He closed his eyes tightly and fell to the floor and curled down toward his knees, as if to dampen the sound from every sense.

Alex stood still now, directly across from Maryanne so the two were facing each other. She opened her mouth and unleashed her own unearthly cry. Maryanne looked at her as she did. And their eyes met.

Their eyes!

Maryanne could see Alex’s eyes! Though etched in gray against the black cast, she could see all her facial features in these moments as they vented their fiercest cries. But she could see more than Alex’s features. More than her dark eyes and her snake-bitten lip. She could see her
pain
. The
all-consuming
pain lined her face as she wailed with her deeply drawn-down mouth. Maryanne could see the depth of her hurt, somehow could see the loss, the anger, the fear on Alex’s dark cast face. Gray tears were etched deep into her cheeks.
Oh she’s been so wronged!
And her eyes
...
God, her eyes were staring straight at Maryanne’s own. And Maryanne had to wonder—she had to know—just what dark depths Alex must be seeing in her own eyes.

Seth screamed. He reached out a hand toward Brooke—
to free her
—then withdrew it again. “No, dammit! I... I won’t do it! I won’t let a Heller go!”

His words were frantic as he lay on his side on the floor. But he wasn’t freeing Brooke. Their cries—their two primal screams weren’t enough!

But then there was another primal scream, joining in the black cast chorus.

It started from outside, but like lightening, shrieked into the Walker house, through Seth’s bedroom wall.

Maryanne and Alex were startled into silence as they watched. The dark cast flew in and hovered directly over Seth and for the moment, they couldn’t see its face. The strange cast hovered there—arms outstretched as if to grasp his body, her hands locked in ready claws as if to steal his soul.

Seth looked up. He screamed into the shrieking face before him. The cast turned toward Maryanne and Alex, and Maryanne knew immediately what she had to do. Alex did also, and now simultaneously the three dark casts raged their gut-wrenching screams into the night.

Maryanne was transfixed by the gray-lined cast face before her, revealed with the stranger’s cries. As clearly as she’d seen pain and loss and everything else on Alex’s cast, she saw the features just that clearly in this strange cast before her. There was a madness. A wildness. An anger struck so deep.