Demon Crossings (5 page)

If Grace thought saying goodbye to Aiden might be awkward, she was dead wrong. He parked his truck next to her car, thanked her for breakfast and gave her directions out of town before excusing himself to get to work on his neglected chores.

Without even a hint of the heat she’d seen in his eyes.

After locating Maia’s address and contacting the authorities, she’d find a hotel to stay in for a few weeks and as unobtrusively as possible research what had happened to Aiden’s daughter, Hallie. Grace had accepted, while staring out the window on the drive back, that she wasn’t making it to Hawaii. Not with the image of that smiling girl burned into her brain.

That would mean, eventually, returning to speak to Aiden. Not necessarily though—her gift meant she didn’t need to extensively interview the family. But how would she find the girl without bringing the whole psychic thing into it? The last thing she wanted was publicity. She’d worked hard to cover her tracks and build a normal life for herself. Maybe Aiden would be so happy his daughter was back that he’d help protect her privacy.

She shook her head. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. First, she had to finish the case she was working on.

It took less than an hour to find Maia’s house. Grace got the address off the mailbox along with a last name—Ritter. And she headed out of town, passing another narrow stretch of gravel that reminded her of last night. The dark shape in the road. The lights in the woods. Aiden riding to her rescue. It seemed surreal to her now.

These woods didn’t look haunted under the August sun. Hickory and oak shaded the road and stretched back as far as she could see. She’d seen a sign pointing toward a boat ramp and wondered if Maia had gone kayaking with her dad in that lake. A nice place to go camping. She checked her cell phone again and pulled over when—finally—she had enough reception to place the call.

She rolled down her window to let the breeze in and was startled again by the quiet out here. Just insect buzz and the wind in the corn. She looked up the number for the local sheriff and had just hit send when she saw it.

A hunched black thing sitting a few feet from her car. Heavy shoulders, thick legs and a barrel chest. Eyes, narrowed and locked on her.

Not a fucking deer.

The mouth gaped open and Grace’s whole body went ice cold. The thing was
smiling
. Everything inside her recoiled, a visceral reaction from the most primitive part of her brain. Evil. She could feel it on her skin, choking in her throat as if her body didn’t want to accept the stench.
This can’t be happening.

For a split second she froze, then the adrenaline kicked in and she dropped the phone in her lap, reaching for the drive shaft and the window switch at the same time. The creature lunged forward and if anything it was more terrifying up close. Hollow eyes and a wide snout with weeping nostrils. Black skin, something hot and molten like lava flowed in its veins instead of blood, worming just beneath the surface and glowing red even in the full sunlight.

God it was fast. She’d never seen anything move like that. The car lurched when she slammed the gas, and she clipped the creature. The jolt shuddered through the frame of her car, as if she’d hit a concrete barrier. The thing swayed but kept its feet.

As if happening in slow motion, she saw muscles bunch under black skin in her side mirror and had a sudden flash of certainty that she was about to die. Something told her she couldn’t outrun it. So she jerked the car into reverse and when the creature leaped forward, she hit the gas. Cracking plastic and crunching metal. A heavy weight pushed her rear window right through the frame but the car bounced up when that weight slid off the back.
Now.
She didn’t see anything in the mirror except a huge cloud of dust.

She sped off, racing down the road, spitting up rock and fishtailing wildly when she swung the wheel onto the asphalt road. She’d have a better chance surviving a rollover than letting that thing get close to her.

Keep going. Just get away.
This road would take her all the way to the highway. Away from this cursed town with its strange lights and visions that crashed right through her shields. Away from missing kids. Like Maia, who could be outside playing on her swing set while that thing roamed around. And Aiden…
Fuck.
Grace reached across the seat to make a grab for her phone.

But she caught a pothole and the steering wheel jerked out of her hands, spinning her around. The tires squealed and a pop like a gunshot went off right under her feet. When she tried to straighten out, the car pulled hard to the right and suddenly, she wasn’t moving much faster than she could run.

She beat her hands on the dashboard. “Shit.”

“Ma’am?” That tinny muffled voice was coming from the floor, and she released her belt to reach for the phone.

“Is this the sheriff’s office?”

There was a pause and then a businesslike, “Is this is an emergency, ma’am?”

“Yes. Oh God, this is an emergency.”

“This isn’t the emergency line. I can transfer—”

“I don’t care. There’s an animal. It’s not even—I don’t know what the hell it is but it’s chasing me. I hit it with my car.”

“Is it dead or is it chasing you?”

“It’s chasing me,” Grace said, getting out of the car and scanning the road behind her, hoping that the thing was dead but erring on the side of caution.

“What kind of animal?”

“Just send someone out here. Please. Now. Fuck…fuck…”

“Ma’am. If you could please stay calm and tell me…”

She couldn’t help it, a peal of hysterical laughter slipped past her lips. Grace didn’t hear the rest of the question until the woman repeated it, and even then she had to think.

“It’s the road leading in to Ragnarok. The one that passes right by some kind of park. I didn’t see the name of it.”

“Okay, ma’am. The sheriff’s not far from there. I’m sending him now, you just sit tight nice and safe in your car and he’ll be there in ten, fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes. “Is there anyone closer?”

“No. I’ll stay on the line with you until he gets there,” the woman said in a placating tone of voice Grace did not want to listen to for the last ten minutes of her life. She was
not
crazy.

“I’ll be here. White Focus just before the turn onto gravel.”

“Now—”

Grace disconnected the call. She thought about calling directory for Aiden’s number but realized she didn’t even know his last name. And what could he do? He was a farmer. An ax wasn’t going to kill that thing. Maybe a combine would.

It was eerily still. The wind had died down and even the insects had gone quiet. That couldn’t be a good sign. A warbling call that turned her blood cold rose up in the distance from the direction of the park. She thought about getting back in the car but if that thing started for her, she wanted to see it coming. She reached into the backseat and dug out her spare gun, checking the safety and slipping it into her waistband. The other she held onto, ready to go.

Spooking the sheriff was low on her list of concerns.

By the time he arrived, less than ten minutes later, she’d gotten herself under control. The woman who’d answered the phone had probably told him she was a fruitcake, screaming about some animal out to get her. He eyed her warily when he pulled up, saw the gun and reached for his own. She held up her hands and when he started to climb out of his vehicle, she called out, “I have a permit to carry this. I was being chased by a wild animal and wanted to be prepared in case the car didn’t kill it.”

The sheriff looked at her car. She’d lost the back bumper, the rear window was completely gone and there was good sized dent in the trunk.

“What kind of animal?”

She shook her head. “A big one.”

“It did this to your car?” He sounded skeptical, rightfully so, she supposed.

But all she would have to do was show him the thing to make a believer out of him. “Do you have a bigger gun? A rifle or—”

“Let’s go take a look at this beast before we get carried away.”

She started walking in his direction. “That animal just attacked my car.”

He rubbed at his jaw. “Frankly, ma’am, I’m more concerned about you right now than any animal. I’m going to need to see a permit for that gun.”

She produced the papers but couldn’t convince him that they were in danger. She thought about getting in her car and driving her flat tire all the way back to the highway but a strange sense of responsibility compelled her to see this through. She couldn’t shake it, and so she climbed into the patrol car with Sheriff Garrison, trying to keep her heart from racing as they drove down the road.

She didn’t start breathing again until she saw the black lump by the side of the road. The sheriff pulled off to the side. He took one look at her pale face and said, “You can stay here.”

As soon as he climbed out, she reached for the handle. She needed to see this. Needed to know it was really dead. All of her attention fixed on that motionless shape, she nearly jumped out of her skin when the sheriff spoke, only he wasn’t talking to her.

“Was this what you were hunting?”

Her head snapped up. Aiden.

He was walking out of the woods toward them, looking the same as she’d left him except now he held a four foot sword in his hands. It didn’t look like any kind of sword she’d ever seen. Not a plaything or a prop. This was a weapon. Light slid down the sharpened edge as he stepped from the shadows.

She glanced at the sheriff who didn’t seem to find this at all unusual. He tipped back his hat as he crouched down over the body.

“Leah called and said a feral dog killed Toby,” Aiden said. “Dragged him off into the woods.”

The sheriff frowned. “Toby…that’s her little terrier isn’t it?”

“I found what was left of him in the woods and was tracking this. The kids will be heartbroken.”

Aiden was talking to the sheriff, voice pitched low and easy, but his eyes were fixed on her and there was nothing casual in the look he was giving her. She couldn’t stop staring at the sword, which he sheathed in a scabbard attached to his back.

He looked pointedly at her gun but she gave a small shake of her head and held onto it. The sheriff stood up from the corpse and dusted his hands off on his pants. “Looks like Miss Fisher took care of it for you with her car. Scared the piss out of her though.”

“She’s from St. Louis.”

She glared at Aiden but the sheriff only nodded as if that explained everything. It didn’t make any sense. Aiden’s appearance with a fricking sword, the sheriff’s lackadaisical reaction to finding a monster sprawled in the middle of the dirt road surrounded by butterflies and corn fields. Maybe she was the one losing it.

Grace crept closer. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe she’d just been seeing things again. When she was younger, before she’d learned to block it, a sudden vision would occasionally shadow the real world, confusing her about what was real and what wasn’t. She’d always blamed the drugs but…

Legs trembling, she took another step forward. All she needed to see was one black, hairless paw, fingers oddly long and articulated like a human hand, with three inch long razor-edged claws and she stopped in her tracks. That was not her imagination. The dread spiraling up her legs was not from a vision.
It was real.

The radio sounded from the patrol car, the thing’s leg twitched and she cried out. Aiden stepped in front of her at the same time, drawing the sheriff off. “I’ll take care of this one, Carl. Why don’t you go see what Shelly needs?”

When Carl moved off, Aiden placed a hand on her shoulder. To anyone on the outside, it would look as if he was comforting her. But she could feel the steel in his grip. He bent his head so close his breath brushed against her cheek. “There’s a difference between what the eye sees and the mind can accept.”

The sheriff turned halfway to the car, shook his head and told her, “Every once in a while we’ll get one that comes down from the Wisconsin packs. Usually, they’re old and sick.
Usually
, they don’t make it this far south. We’re more like to get a cougar than a wolf actually.” He looked at Aiden. “Like the one last year over at the Olsons’ place, you remember that?”

“I saw it on the news. I’ll check for tracks and spread the word, Carl,” Aiden offered while Grace stared at the sheriff, trying to make sense of what he was telling her. Didn’t he see that thing? No way could anyone mistake it for a natural creature. She felt sick just standing this close to it.

Aiden held her back when she moved to follow Carl. “We have about five minutes before it resurrects, Grace. It’s in everybody’s best interest to get Carl out of here before that happens.”

What the hell was happening here? She half wanted to know and half wanted to forget she’d ever rolled into this sick fucking town. The one thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t want the sheriff leaving without her. But that choice was taken from her when Carl pulled his legs into the car and slammed the door behind him.

He rolled down the window and called out as he pulled onto the road. “Accident on 76. Aiden will see you to your car, ma’am, and help arrange for a tow truck.”

Aiden’s hand tightened on her shoulder but she jerked free only to run into a cloud of dust as the cruiser took off.

When she turned around, he was staring at her. His eyes were cold and his jaw set hard.

“What’s really going on here?”

“I told you,” he began calmly, but she cut him off, pointing after the sheriff.

“That was more than just denial. He didn’t even see it.”

Aiden scanned her face. She didn’t know what he was looking for but whatever it was he didn’t seem to find it. He walked over to creature and nudged it with his steel-toed boot. “But you can,” he breathed.

She thought about denying it but what was the point? Aiden wasn’t an idiot and she’d already as much as admitted it. “I’m not crazy. You can see it too.”

“Of course.” He swung the sword loose of its scabbard and sliced the back of the thing’s neck open, hauling back for another swing to break through chalky white bone and then reaching down to yank the head forward to saw through the remaining connective tissue.