Master of the Moors (31 page)

She shrugged indignantly.
"I'm sixteen, Grady. You can't
make
me do anything."

He gave her a weary smile.
"Don't I know it, but perhaps if there'd been time to tell you
everythin' you'd have volunteered to stay behind and watch yer
father. Only thing is..."

"What?"

Again he avoided looking
at her directly. "I'm not so sure you'd have been any safer there.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm startin' to
believe that this might be the last night any of us will
see."

Anger and fear brought her
closer to him, the raised lantern all that stopped their faces from
touching. "Why would you say such a thing?" she demanded, eyes wide
in the light.

"Because it's true, that's
why. I don't know what the hell was runnin' through my mind when I
agreed to bring you out here, but there you are. We've left poor
'oul Mrs. Fletcher back home with yer father, who, as we speak,
could be tryin' to kill her---"

Alarmed, Kate said, "Why
would he try to kill her?"

"Because he's not right.
Whatever relief you felt at seein' him up and around, forget about
it. Put it back in that big dark box you've been keepin' yer hope
in up until now, because the disease that's been keepin' him down
hasn't magically vanished, only let him up on his feet with a
scrambled mind and God only knows what else." His face seemed to
age the longer she looked upon it, as if it were merely a painting,
the artist unsatisfied and adding lines and shadowy creases in an
effort to save it. "He says he's a creature, that he was wounded by
one of them the day of the hunt, that he's infected, and that by
the time we get back home, he'll have changed." Rambling now, the
speed of his words perfectly timed to the beating of Kate's heart
and the soaring of her panic. "I left him there because I couldn't
believe him, and didn't know what the hell to do with him even if I
did. So if it turns out he was right, I might as well have killed
Mrs. Fletcher myself." Frantic, he spun around and yanked the
bottle of whiskey Sarah Laws had given him to share with her dead
husband out of a pouch on the saddle. As he opened it, he
continued, "That alone would be enough to make any man feel like
lyin' down and dyin' but no, for me it gets worse, which means for
you it does too. I took you away from that house---and who knows, you
might have died there too, or maybe the sight of you would have
been enough to knock some sense into yer father---and I brought you
out here, into the playin' field of a bunch of monsters I'm still
not sure I believe exist, despite havin' seen 'em with my own two
feckin' eyes!"

"Grady..."

The wind tugged at his
silver hair as he wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and
took a lengthy pull on the whiskey. When he was done, he hissed air
through his teeth and looked at her where she stood trembling.
"Neil is probably dead," he said, "and it's my fault for lettin'
him slip into that man's hands."

"Grady, no. You don't know
what you're saying," Kate pleaded, tears filling her eyes. She
couldn't absorb all that he was telling her. Didn't want to, and
wanted less to think about what he feared still awaited
them.

"I'm afraid," he said,
with a rueful smile and a quaver in his voice. "I've made plenty of
mistakes in my lifetime, Kate, but none as bad as this one. I
alienated my own son and now he hates me. I'm already dead to him.
I knew somethin' was wrong with Callow the day of the hunt, and I
let it go, and people died. I kept secrets people deserved to know.
And now look what's happened. We're walkin' into the dark with guns
that may turn out to be as useful as a blade of grass against a
cannon ball. Everythin' I have left to live fer is in danger and I
don't know what to do to...stop it." He spoke the last two words so
quietly the wind all but obliterated them, but Kate saw his
quivering lips struggle to shape them. The sight of Grady crying
made her want to scream, for up until the tears had moistened his
eyes, she was willing to believe that he'd simply had too much to
drink with Fowler earlier, or that he was overwhelmed by guilt
because someone had taken Neil. But now, all the strength she'd
associated with the groundskeeper had vanished, leaving behind a
frail-looking shell completely robbed of hope, a rickety semblance
of a man whose purpose had been reduced to harbinger of doom, a
shuddering signpost pointing the way to disaster.

"You can't just give up,"
she said. "We're almost there. If something has happened to Neil,
if he's...if he's dead, which I know he isn't, then who cares what
might happen to us? But we need to know. We can't just
leave
him there! You know
that Grady." She reached out a hand and grabbed the collar of his
coat and tugged, as if by doing so she could pull the defeat from
him. "I know you do!"

He looked at her hand on
his coat and for a moment she was afraid he'd ask her to remove it,
and then she'd know she'd lost him. But instead he raised his face
and regarded her with desolate eyes, and nodded. "You're right," he
said and took one last swig from the bottle, capped it, and tossed
it into the dark.

The mare whinnied.

Kate stepped back as Grady
turned to calm it. "Easy," he said, "Yer goin' home."

Kate frowned.
"What?"

When Grady turned back to
her, she saw, with mixed relief, that a little of his old self had
crept back into his face. But not much, and his expression worried
her. "I was an eejit bringin' you here," he said firmly. "But
there's still a chance to rectify things."

Automatically, she moved
away from him. "What are you going to do?"

"What I should have done
earlier." She watched him unhook the Winchester from the saddle.
Next, he breeched the chamber, checking to ensure it was loaded.
With haunted eyes, he snapped it closed and raised it. "Goodbye,
love," he said, cocking the gun and leveling it at her
chest.

***

"Tabby?"

She sighed, relieved that
the voice from the shadow standing in the doorway was a familiar
one. Still, it prompted her to get back under the sheets to hide
her undress, and a flush rose to her cheeks. "What is
it?"

Donald, his features
blackened by the gloom in the hallway, said nothing. At length,
Tabitha frowned, irritated by his staring, for she could feel his
eyes on her.

"Did you want
something?"

For a moment, she
entertained the wonderful notion that maybe he had come to
apologize. Maybe his run-in with Grady had finally knocked some
sense into him. Maybe the same guilt keeping her awake had at last
caught up with her brother.

Then he jerked, as if
pulled by a puppeteer's hand from above before slouching back into
his natural posture. Then he slowly straightened. And when he spoke
his voice had deepened, like it did when he had just awakened from
sleep. "...Said you would beg for me..."

All hope diminished at
that, and Tabitha rolled her eyes. "What on earth are you talking
about?"

"...Hurts..."

She squinted, hoping to
see his face so she could read the intent there, but it was too
dark. "Donald, please go away unless you have something
imp---"

"He said you would
beg
for me."

Tabitha's skin went cold.
She had heard anger in Donald's voice more times than she could
count, but this was different, devoid of the hysterics that usually
accompanied his outbursts. He hadn't even raised his voice. He'd
just spoken, but the malevolence in his tone was like a slap across
the face.

"Donald, what's
wrong?"

He took a clumsy step into the
room.

He's
drunk
, Tabitha realized, and quickly
lunged for the lamp beside her bed. It had been turned down low
enough to reveal the shapes of furniture hunkered in her bedroom,
and the menacing form of her brother at the door, but little else.
Now she turned up the flame and warm light washed across the
room.

"You hurt me," Donald said
and Tabitha felt the breath leave her at the sight of
him.

Thick black veins like
leafless tree branches stood out on his face and throat, pushing
against the skin as if at any moment they would break free and tear
it apart. Donald's lips were drawn back in pain, revealing all his
teeth in a hideous frozen grin. But his eyes...his eyes were the
worst of all. White fire had filled them, silver fluid leaking from
the burned, ragged sockets.

Tabitha wanted to scream,
but instead she pulled the covers up so only her eyes and the top
of her head was exposed. "Go away," she mumbled. "Please. There's
something wrong with you."

"I know," Donald said, his
breathing growing tortured the more he tried to speak. "I can't
stop it. Help me."

"I don't know what to
do."

He shook his head and the
muscles creaked. He gasped and a shudder ran through him. There
came the sound of something splitting, tearing, but Tabitha saw no
new wounds on his face or throat. "You must..." he said. "I want
you to help me."

"How?" She was more
terrified than she'd ever been in her life, but there was nothing
she could do. He was blocking her way out of the room should she
dare try and escape him, and the window led to nothing but a long
drop to the yard below. All she could do for the moment was pray,
and hope that if a merciful caring cell had ever existed in her
brother, he would call upon it now.

"What happened to you?"
she asked, as she burst into frightened tears.

He stared, the white fire
fading for seconds at a time, then blossoming again and casting odd
twitching shadows around the room. "
He
did it to me," Donald said, the
rage back in his voice. He looked up at the ceiling and touched a
bruised and blackened hand to his throat where the awful black
veins were thickest. "He grabbed me by the throat. Sss...scratched
me."

"Maybe you should go get
Mum. Get her to fetch Doctor Campbell." It felt odd to be making
such rational suggestions, given that not a single part of her felt
capable of it. Surely her brother had become possessed by the
devil, for she could not imagine anything remotely human looking
like Donald did as he struggled to breathe before her.

He began to move, in slow,
unsteady steps until he was standing at the foot of her bed,
towering over her, his face a terrible mask that at any moment she
fully expected to see slipping off. She fancied she could see his
skull, charred and blackened beneath translucent skin and it made
her ill, while an inner voice screamed at her to flee.

"Donald..." she whimpered,
pulling the blankets tight across her face. "I'm
scared."

He stood there watching
her, in his blue and white striped pajamas, silver ichor dribbling
down his throat, hair stuck up in tufts from restless sleeping, and
a look of uncertainty wrenched tight the skin on his face. She
stared back in horror, knowing she should avert her eyes but unable
to tear them away from the monstrosity her brother had become, and
she saw him smile.

"Tabby..." he said, the
light in his eyes brighter now, his voice surer. "He said you would
beg for me."

"I don't---"

"Will you?"

"Donald...stop."

"Will you beg for me?" He
started to move around the bed, but this time his steps did not
look hindered by whatever ailment had done this to him, rather they
were slow, deliberate...teasing movements. "Will you let me lie
with you?"

"Oh God." Tabitha scooted
herself up, making herself smaller, her back pressed hard against
the headboard. "Please, Donald, don't hurt me."

"I won't," He told her,
trailing one broken-looking finger over the blankets where barely a
moment before, her legs had been. In a sing-song voice, he
announced, "I never meant to hurt you, Tabby. Not at all. But I had
to do something to satisfy the urge. The fire inside me that wanted
to
do
wicked
things to you."

Tabitha would not believe
him. His voice was no longer his own, and that made it easier for
her to look upon this thing, this devilish representation of her
brother, as something out to trick her, to influence her, to weaken
her resistance by hitting her where it knew she was already sore.
Donald would never have thought such awful impure things about her,
even as badly as he sometimes treated her. Of this she was
certain.

But he was still coming,
ever so slowly.

"I want to see what you've
been hiding from me." His fingers ceased their exploring and
clutched a bundle of blanket. He tugged. "I want to see your tits,
Tabby, and all the rest of that delicious meat you've kept beneath
your stuffy clothes."

Now she drew her feet
beneath her bottom until she was half-sitting on the pillow, the
blankets forgotten and bundled next to her. "Donald, please, listen
to what you're saying. These are not your words. This is not
you!"

He continued to advance,
and now she could smell him, a horrible, diseased, earthy
smell.