“Hey, Kyle, you need to come see this!” Rodriguez shouted from the front of the pub.
You need to come see this. My least-favorite expression when investigating a crime. It never went well after somebody said that.
I reached the edge of the building, was just about to swing around the corner when Rodriguez grabbed my arm.
“No, stay where you are,” she said. Her flashlight pooled on the ground right in front of the door. “Look at the marks in the snow.”
A pair of footprints, probably Agnes’s, faced the door. She must have been closing up because the key was still in the lock. But then the footprints slid backward, formed two solid lines, like somebody had dragged her away from the door halfway into the street.
But that was where they stopped, and there were no other footprints beside hers. It was almost as if something had swooped down from the sky and carried her off.
Chapter 65
Shapeshifters
Maddie:
Pine logs crackled and spit in the fireplace, filled the room with flickering light and woodsy fragrance. Family mementoes covered the walls and mantel, black-and-white photos mixed with sepia tones and turn-of-the-century tintypes. The Wimbledon resemblance ran strong—I thought I could pick out Joe’s mother and grandmother, possibly a sister or two. Tucker sulked in an overstuffed chair, while Samwise paced the room curiously, lifting his head whenever Joe started to speak.
“I want to go to the bonfire—” Tucker said in that whine all children have perfected by the age of three.
“Later, sweetheart.”
“But, Mom—” He dragged the word Mom out for three syllables.
“No.”
Then Joe walked back in the room with two cups of hot chocolate and a bowl of water. In a minute, both Tucker and Samwise were slurping their respective drinks. I leaned forward on the sofa, elbows on my knees.
“What do you know about the local chupacabras?” I asked.
He shrugged, took a long sip of Coors. “Not much.”
“Now I think you’re lying. One of your shape-shifters got into my cabin last night and then today, two of them attacked me in the woods.”
He bristled, then shook his head. “I don’t know how you got that mark on your arm, but if two Darklings attacked you in the woods then you wouldn’t be here tellin’ me about it.”
“Darklings, huh. I knew they had another name. Chupacabras never quite fit.” I pulled a small pad of paper from my pocket and started taking notes. “I found a dead body in the woods today.” I paused to see how he would react. So far, he was still acting like I was making everything up, just like Sheriff Kyle. “The body was almost completely flat—”
His eyes found mine, studied them.
“—and there were two holes, just like all the blood had been drained out.”
“Not blood. They’re not vampires. You really found a body?” He stood up and walked to the mantel, his back to me. “Where is it? How come Kyle hasn’t called me?”
“Why would he call you? He acted like you were the local nutcase.”
“Some folks think so.” I noticed that he held a small picture frame in his hand when he turned to face me again. A young woman, maybe his wife. “But whenever things turn sour around here, everybody suddenly remembers what I been tellin’ them over the years.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re an outsider,” he said. “Ain’t no reason for me to tell ya the Legend.”
At that point, Samwise lifted his head and barked, his body shifted and grew, fur got longer and thicker, his eyes turned silver, his chest and back expanded.
“Whoa! Cool,” Tucker said. “Do you see what Samwise just did, Mom?”
Joe retreated behind a chair.
“He isn’t going to hurt you,” I said.
“What the hell is that thing? It’s not a dog.” Joe had backed into the corner now, his eyes wide, a look of terror on his face.
“My dog bit one of your precious Darklings,” I explained. “What you see is the result.”
Joe continued to stare at the dog, an expression of shock and horror on his face.
“Then it’s a werebeast,” he said. “But he told me they were just a fable, he’d never even seen one before—”
“Who told you that, Mr. Wimbledon? Where did you hear about werebeasts?” I asked.
Before either of us could speak again, the front door swung open and a river of cold air rushed in. Outside, the wind mourned through the trees; sagging limbs, twisting clouds, and all the colors were suddenly wrong. It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room.
Then a lone silhouette stood poised on the threshold. A tall, black shadow framed by swirling snow and moonlight.
Ash.
Unlike the other Darklings in Ticonderoga Falls, he didn’t need to be invited inside.
Chapter 66
Footprints in the Mud
Sheriff Kyle: