Master of the Moors (29 page)

No, these are not---

"Your brothers," Stephen
said. "Come to witness your rebirth. Each and every one of them
once a man, flawed and vulnerable, lovelorn or heartbroken, until
the day of that fateful hunt. Now they're your brothers, your
family, all gathered here to see if the myth is true, if in dying
Sylvia provided them with the key to their future."

Neil shook his head,
though he had no idea what he was denying---the insanity of it all,
perhaps. He should be dancing with the girl of his dreams, a girl
who in his heart would never betray him, not sitting in the ruins
of some old house listening to a madman grandstanding to
shadows.

Shadows that hissed, and
scrabbled at the walls.

"The Strigoi with Silver
Eyes," Stephen said. "Sylvia's last words, and I believe she was
telling us how to survive, how to find a king who would herald the
end of mankind's reign and the beginning of ours."

Something heavy shifted
against the wall behind the boy. He felt the hair rise on the nape
of his neck. Elsewhere, a mouth snapped shut, as if in the
aftermath of a yawn.

"You'll recall," the man
continued, undaunted, "that I asked you if you'd accept your sight
if I offered it to you."

Neil said nothing, but of
course he remembered. It had been a cruel taunt, an impossible
offer he had turned down only because it was clear there was no
worth to it. There couldn't be, unless the man worked miracles, and
while there was no doubt in Neil's mind that this lunatic
believed
he could work
miracles, there had been no evidence to substantiate such a
claim.

"Well...now I offer it to
you again. It does, however, come with a price."

He's the
devil
, Neil thought.
I'm alone with the devil and he's attempting to take my soul.
Just like Faust.

A snapping hiss, a low
grumble and a growl from close to Neil's ear and he jerked away
with a startled yelp. "Go
away
!"
Dogs
, he thought with increasing
panic.
He's got wild dogs here. The hounds
of hell in the flesh!

"Leave him be," Stephen
said, and Neil sensed their obeisance. Breathing heavily, he looked
in the direction of the man's voice. "I want to be away from here.
I want to go back to them."

"I want you to
see
," Stephen told him.
"I want you to be what you were always
meant
to be. I want you to regain
your place in this family, to lead your brethren on the hunt. I
want you to be my son, your mother's son."

Neil squeezed his eyes
shut. Behind him, the dogs circled impatiently. He could hear the
ticking of their unclipped nails against the flagstone by the
entrance, the whuff of their frenzied breath. "I'm
not
your son."

"Yes...you are." His voice
was getting closer. Neil stiffened. The heat from the flames was
cut off as the man stepped before them. "And once you see again,
you'll realize that." The voice was in his face now; he could smell
the sour breath. "I promise."

Then Neil screamed as
thick-fingered hands clamped the sides of his head, the thumbs
moving to rest beneath his eyes. He thrashed, his fists connecting
with damp bandages, pulling, tearing away swaths of sodden
material. He lashed out with his feet, felt the satisfying thud as
his blows connected. The dogs, hounds, creatures, monsters---whatever
they were---roared in orgiastic delight, the sound like a thousand
saws cutting rotten wood. Rage and fear erupted within Neil,
pushing against his skin from the inside, whirling through him
until he felt as if he might explode, and with a yell, he let go,
releasing all the hate, pain, and frustration he'd ever felt in his
life. He snapped with his mouth, tore flesh with his teeth, bucked
and flailed and screamed bloody murder. Yet the thumbs remained,
pressing gently against the lower rims of his eye sockets, as the
rest of the fingers cradled Neil's jaw, throbbing as if some
mysterious energy pulsed through the stranger's hands.

"Let me
go
, damn you!" He balled
his fists and pummeled the sides of the man's head, aching to hear
the sound of skull caving in, not caring that even if he managed to
get the upper hand, Stephen still had the hounds on his side. The
room was filled with the stink of them. But then, suddenly he was
on his back, fuming, raging against empty air, the source of his
fury gone, the fingers removed. "
Where are
you, you bastard?
" he seethed, breath
hissing through his teeth. "Where did you go?"

"Open your eyes and see
for yourself."

"You know I
can't."

"Try."

"I told you,
I can't
!"

"Try!"

Neil did...

I can't---

...and screamed in utter
agony as his eyeballs split open with a faint zipping sound like a
knife slicing through pumpkin hide. Fluid wept from the wounds and
the boy halted his shaking hands just before them, terrified to
touch them but desperate to feel the damage, to know what the man
had done to him. "
Oh
God!
"

"Go on," Stephen said,
amusement in his voice. "
See
."

"You cut them open!" Neil
shrieked in horror. "You cut my eyes open! Oh God, help
me!"

"
See
," Stephen repeated, as if it were
a chant.

The hounds growled.

"Oh God," Neil said again,
and felt as if he was going to vomit. He doubled over, bile filling
his mouth and saw his hands floating before his face, wet hands,
soaked by the---

He froze.

His hands. Soft white
blurred things, the fingers moving with a dreamlike, submarine
quality.

His hands. He flexed them,
felt and
saw
them
respond, albeit with a slight delay between action and
result.

My God...It's a trick. The Devil's
trick...it's got to be...

But if it was, already he
knew he would do anything to keep it. No matter how selfish, or
dangerous, no matter what the cost, he would never relinquish the
miracle that had just been granted him.

Not a miracle.

A gift.

He looked up in amazement,
momentarily unable to breathe, and saw the fire, the flames silver
tongues, the tendrils of smoke like dark arms swimming
upward.

The world was black and
white and silver, and above the flames floated a face, a bleached
orb with dark smudges for eyes and a black crescent moon for a
smile. Neil blinked, felt the jelly-like liquid ooze down his
cheeks, and stick to his eyelids, making his gorge rise again, but
now he thought of it as something that had been occluding his
vision, the release of some viscous long pent-up poison responsible
for his blindness.

A current of disbelief buzzed through
him.

"I..."

He swiveled round and saw
dust rise from the floor, a haze of black stars. He smiled. "I
can
see...
" And he
rose on unsteady legs, studying the explosion of colors wrought by
every move he made. Ahead of him, beyond the door, the night was a
white square, black insect-legs of lightning occasionally piercing
the veil.

And guarding the door,
were the dogs. Only, now he could see they were not dogs at all,
nor did they intend to do him harm. Rather, they stared at him in
awe with eyes as silver as the fire.

"Welcome to the world,"
said Stephen, coming round to join him. When he reached out a hand,
Neil saw it writhe through the air between them.

"How is this
possible?"

"It's who you are,"
Stephen told him. "Who you've always been."

Neil waited to wake up and
find he was dreaming. Although he could see clearly enough to find
his way outside, he took the hand Stephen offered and slowly moved
toward the door.

"How?" he asked, feeling
everything change, feeling the confines of his dark world shred
beneath the weight of this bold new power, this miraculous
gift
. The walls seethed
with strange shapes and mysterious shadows that streaked across
their surfaces. Sometimes he fancied he saw faces, but when he
looked upon them directly, they were gone. The room pulsed,
vibrated with color like veins beneath the monochrome
veil.

"It's all yours," Stephen
said, gesturing expansively at the moors. "All of it, and anything
foolish enough to walk it is your prey."

"What about my father? And
Grady? Kate? What about them?"

"That, my child, is up to
you to decide, but think of them no longer as your family. He
tilted the boy's face up to look at him. "We're your family
now."

Suddenly, there was light
and fire and an explosion of pain he felt sure would tear him to
pieces. He shrieked and fell to his knees, only vaguely aware that
the crowd in the room was standing, shifting, changing, their necks
craned forward, watching his agony. His spine crackled and he
sprawled on the floor, his lungs in flames, every breath scorching
the roof of his mouth, his tears like acid burning trails down his
cheeks. He pleaded for the pain to end, for one of those silently
watching shadows to kill him and end the misery. He convulsed and
invisible hands spun him over on his back. His heels drummed
against the floor; he gasped and felt the skin on his body
tighten.

He cried out behind teeth
clenched so hard they must surely shatter. His muscles spasmed,
every bone in his body splintering, as his newfound vision wavered,
darkened, then settled into focus as the agony abruptly left him
and his back slammed against the hard floor.

Neil coughed, but the
sound was horribly wrong. Breath returned and emerged in staggered
hisses from all the wrong places. He lay still and listened,
mesmerized by the alien sound of his respiration.
Sss-k-k-k-k-sss. Sss-k-k-k-k-sss.
Sss-k-k-k-k-sss
.
It sounded more machine than man---like steam escaping from a
ruptured funnel---or the amplified sound of an insect.

His skin felt heavy, like
armor.

He sat up, his vision even
clearer than it had before the merciless pain had erupted in him.
Stephen, a figure of radiant silver and drifting shadow stepped
close. Other figures moved into view behind him.

"Now," Stephen said. "We
are ready to hunt."

25

It landed before her,
white eyes glowing, mouthful of needle-teeth bared, and Mrs.
Fletcher, terrified, and with no consideration for the consequences
of such an act, did the only thing she could think of, and kicked
it. Hard. Her heel connected sharply with the creature's jaw and it
recoiled with a grunt, its head whipping to the side and spraying
the wall with translucent slime, and in the few seconds it took for
the thing to recover, the charwoman dodged past and ran screaming
into the hall.

There was no time to
wonder what the hellish creature might be or where it had come from
but she was sure it was responsible for her master's disappearance.
However it had gained entry into the house, it had done so
stealthily, and probably while she'd dozed, then ripped the door to
the living room open and---

She didn't want to think
what it might have done to her employer, and there was no time to
grieve. Already she cursed the precious moments she'd wasted
watching the bizarre creature's hypnotic descent from the ceiling
to the floor.

She reached the front door
and risked a glance over her shoulder. The creature was following,
albeit with a languid crawl that suggested it was in no hurry to
run her down, that it would catch her no matter how fast she ran,
and that this was a part of the hunt it enjoyed. It moved like a
huge cat, its shoulders rolling, narrow head lowered, but had no
fur, rather a dark hide that seemed to absorb the light rather than
reflect it. Thick white claws clacked against the parquet floor as
it casually made its way toward her.

She tugged the door open
and raced out into the storm, her heart thudding so hard and fast
she feared she might drop dead of a heart attack. Only the thought
of the slavering beast feeding on her cooling body propelled her
onward.

The icy wind and rain
blasted against her, slowing her flight and freezing the skin on
her face. A short distance ahead, the low stables waited, each
stall a mass of shadows. For a moment she hesitated, struck by the
awful notion that the monster might not have come alone. A whole
pack of those things might be watching her from the dark. A low
rumbling growl from behind her forced her to dispense with the
fear, and she ran on, to where she knew there were more places to
hide, and plenty of weapons to defend herself with.

Behind her, the open
doorway of the house showed the silhouette of the beast, slowly,
ever so slowly descending the steps. She prayed it wasn't taking
its time because it knew she was about to run straight into the
claws of its brethren. Holding her breath, she reached the stables
and hurried inside. The air smelled of hay and old manure never
quite washed away. Quickly, she felt her way in the gloom to the
back wall until her hands brushed a wooden handle. She grabbed it
and tugged, until it came free of the copper bracket, then felt
along the handle until wood became thin steel tines that curved
away from her.