Prowlers - 1 (17 page)

Human. Male. Frightened.

The scent had not been there when they went in, she was certain of it.

An aging Prowler named Vernon, whose hair when he was hiding beneath the mask of humanity was as silver as his fur, trotted back to where she had paused.

"What is it?" Vernon asked.

"Go back to the lair," Dori told him, her voice a low growl. "I want to check something out."

Vernon loped away.

Dori sniffed the air again and began to track the scent.

It was long after dosing that Jack returned to Bridget's Irish Rose. The chairs were up on tables and the floor had been mopped. The fans still turned lazily overhead, more for atmosphere than temperature at this time of year. At the bar, in front of the long mirror, Bill Cantwell poured two fingers of Chivas Regal for his only customer, who also happened to be his boss. Courtney shifted on her stool, smiled at Bill, and sipped tentatively at the whiskey.

Jack watched all of this through the frosted window. He stood on the street corner and pressed his face against the cool glass, and his heart at last began to slow to a normal beat.

Normal.

All right, it was true he'd never seen Courtney drink Chivas Regal before, and her conversation with Bill seemed surprisingly intimate—a closeness that fed into Jack's recent suspicion that the two were slowly becoming more than friends and co-workers. Still, the quiet of the pub, the relaxed, tired smiles of the two of them, that was normal.

This was home.

And what had Robert Frost said about home—that it is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in ... no matter how crazy they think you are.

A sound carried across the street, a tinkling of metal. Jack started nervously and turned to search the night for its source. A dog. Its metal tag clinked as it trotted by, roaming far from its home. It was a big animal, a German shepherd, and any other time Jack

would have noticed it with a certain amount of trepidation. Dogs were unpredictable. Tonight, though, he silently urged it to move along, to go on home, get off the street.

It was an animal, after all.

And there were predators about.

With a sigh, Jack steadied his nerves, dug out his keys, and opened the door to the pub.

Courtney and Bill glanced over and smiled as he locked the doors behind him. Then his sister got a clear look at his face.

"Jack, what's wrong?"

Courtney fell silent. Jack figured she did not know how to put into words the things she saw on his face and in his eyes.

That made two of them.

"Jack?" Bill echoed.

A tight knot of anxiety and leftover fear formed in his stomach. He felt... not nauseated but hungry, as if his belly were empty and dried out, tight as a drum.

Without a word, he hugged Courtney as she sat on the stool. His foot bumped her cane, and it slid to the floor with a clatter, but she made no move to retrieve it. Instead, she hugged him back, then held him away from her and studied his eyes. "What is it?"

Jack swallowed hard, smiled, and shook his head. Then he glanced at Bill.

"Court's already got a drink. You might want to pour one for yourself," he said, and chuckled. The little laugh sounded a bit unhinged to him, but Jack wasn't

surprised. That was how he felt. "Bartender, beer thyself."

Whatever Courtney had seen in Jack's eyes, Bill obviously saw it too, for he poured himself a stiff shot of Chivas and topped off Courtney's. He tipped the bottle toward Jack, who shook his head to indicate that he wouldn't be drinking. Bill left the bottle on the bar, just in case.

"Something tells me beer's not going to cut it," Bill said.

"Talk to me, Jack," Courtney urged. "You've got me worried."

"I don't think what I've got to tell you is going to make you feel much better," he said, his low voice carrying across the dimly lit pub. He wondered again about bis mother's spirit. She had moved on, or so he believed, but he wished she were there watching over them, even if he could not see her.

Courtney took a sip of her drink. "Well?" she asked.

Jack told them.

By the time he finished, Bill and Courtney had killed half a bottle of Chivas.

"Prowlers?" Courtney said in wonder, her face slack. "Ghosts, Jack? You know how it sounds."

Jack nodded. "Look at me, Courtney."

She did, stepping awkwardly away from the stool. She leaned on him, sister and brother face-toface. Nobody in the world knew Jack the way Courtney did.

"I saw them," he said. "For real."

"Oh, my God," she whispered.

After a moment they both turned toward Bill. He had paled considerably, and yet Jack was surprised to see that his expression was one of concern, maybe even fear, but not disbelief.

"Bill?" Courtney prodded.

He did not look at Courtney, though. Instead, Bill locked eyes with Jack. "This isn't the first time I've heard of these things."

"What?" Jack muttered. "Where—"

"I was on the road on a vacation the year before I started playing pro ball. In a bar north of Sedona, Arizona, I heard a couple of guys talking about a local girl who'd been murdered. One of them was convinced it was these Prowlers, these monsters. Gave me the creeps. I didn't hang around there very long."

Courtney scoffed. "Bill, come on. I'm not saying I don't believe Jack saw something awful, maybe even talked to Artie's ghost. I've got a pretty rich imagination, and I've seen an odd thing or two myself from time to time. Maybe there really are monsters out there, I don't know. But a drunk in a bar? He might as well have blamed that Mexican goat-sucker thing, what is it? El Chupacabras."

"And maybe these things are the reason for the existence of legends, like El Chupacabras and werewolves and whatever else." Bill tossed back a shot of Chivas, then poured another before gazing steadily at Jack again. "I've known you a long time, Jack. You've

pulled a few pranks in your time, but I know this isn't one of 'em. Like your sister, I'm not about to doubt you on this. But I've got another reason to believe you.

"The guy in the bar. The one who talked about the Prowlers? He was the town sheriff."

CHAPTER 8

Kate Nordling was buried during a rainstorm on Saturday, in a grave her parents had bought for themselves. The cemetery was in the wealthy town of Newton, but other than the fact that the cars in the procession were more expensive, Jack thought Kate's funeral was a lot like Artie's. Students, teachers, family—all grieving, all now missing a part of their lives.

One main difference was the presence of the media. Artie's murder had been news, but not the kind that brought swarms of reporters and cameramen.

In the previous forty-eight hours, however, everything had changed. The morning newscasts had been boiling over with reports of the slaughter in Fenway Park on Thursday, and that was only part of the story. In a parking garage in downtown Boston, mafia boss Francesco Rizzo and an associate had been murdered Police were downplaying Rizzo's murder as mob

related, but the reporters had their noses to the ground, and they knew something didn't smell right. Jack had seen two separate television news reports that morning in which the reporter had wondered aloud if the two cases were related—and if they were connected to several other area murders in recent weeks..

"God, I hate all the media," Molly muttered angrily.

Jack had a protective arm around her, and with the other hand he held up the large black umbrella that protected them from the rain.

"I know what you mean," he said as he glanced about. "It's all rain and umbrellas. What do they think they're going to get on film here?"

Molly stiffened and gazed up at Jack. "Who cares about the rain?" she whispered. "What are they doing here? This is... I mean, Kate's family shouldn't have to deal with this. It's private."

'Absolutely," Jack agreed.

Though she did not seem satisfied with his response, Molly sighed and turned her attention back to the graveside service. Jack was glad. All morning he had been waiting for Artie to appear, but there was no sign of him or of any other ghosts. If Artie was right, and he had begun to be able to see the Ghostlands, it was apparently an ability that came and went unexpectedly. Jack would have been greatly relieved if that had turned out to be true. He thought he might go more than a little crazy if he was surrounded by ghosts all the time.