But it’s dead! one side of his mind cried out. You killed it! You saw its final, blazing plunge into the river three months ago!
But the other side, the logical, calculating side that threw away the emotion and faced the facts as he found them, knew that he was right. Somehow the Nightshade had survived, managed to stay hidden throughout its recovery, and had now come back to finish what it had begun back in the garret of Riverwatch.
It had come back to kill him.
The voice of a dead man echoed in his mind.
'When it comes for you, it will come on night’s velvet wings.'
He looked upward, twisting his body around to see behind him despite the pain, straining his eyes to see into the darkness.
He knew the beast was out there, yet the sky was empty as far as he could see. Why had it not circled around for another attack? Was it out there? Watching? Waiting?
Seeing nothing but blackness around him, he decided he’d stayed in one place for far too long. He located his cane, climbed to his feet and headed for the lights ahead as quickly as his legs and fear could carry him.
High above, Moloch wheeled about in the sky, watching the human as it climbed haltingly to its feet, making its way across the park.
His bloodlust was high, but there was time.
The human would die.
And then, Moloch would feast.
Folding his wings tightly against his body, he plummeted toward the earth.
Jake was moving toward the edge of the park when the Nightshade suddenly swept into view immediately in front of him, so quickly and unexpectedly that Jake actually took another step before his brain registered the danger.
The beast hung in the air a foot or so off the ground, the steady beat of its great, leathery wings blowing the cold night air into his face, air filled with the peculiar odor he’d noticed the last time he’d faced the beast, the smell of damp wool and wet fur.
For one long moment they stared at each other.
Predator and prey.
It seemed to Jake the moment would stretch forever, leaving them locked in that timeless space between the world and time itself, until with a sudden flash of emotion in those pupils, the beast lashed out with one clawed hand and struck Jake full in the face.
The blow sent Jake to the ground, his head spinning, his mind still trying to come to grips with the fact that he’d been struck. The blow came so fast that he had only seen it when it connected with his face.
The beast had struck with calculated force; Jake knew it could have taken his head clear off his shoulders had it wanted to.
Jake looked up to find the creature standing a few feet away, grinning at him, its razor sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight.
And then the Nightshade crossed the few feet that separated them and struck again.
And again.
And again. Each time, pulling his blows just enough so that his prey was damaged but not incapacitated.
Jake hauled himself up off the ground. His head was spinning, his vision was blurry, and blood was flowing freely across the side of his face in a thick caress.
The Nightshade stood a few feet away again.
Watching.
Summoning what was left of his strength, Jake turned to face the Nightshade, his silver-handled walking stick gripped tightly in his hand as a weapon.
Chapter Thirty-seven: Requiem
Sam stared down at the body of his friend, rage and despair washing over him.
Jake was dead.
His friend had fought, fought like a demon himself, that much was clearly evident from the tableau laid out before him. Jake’s body lay crumpled where he’d last fallen; one arm lay trapped beneath him, the other flung over his head across the metal rail of the merry-go-round, his outstretched fingers firmly frozen into claws to ward off the evil that had flung him there like a used-up rag doll, discarded like so much waste.
His hands were covered with small plastic bags tied off at the wrists, the crime scene techs having worked quickly to preserve any and all evidence of the struggle, determined to drag from the ruins something to work with, some clue with which to trap the killer. Through the plastic Sam could see the splashes of violet that had dried beneath Jake’s nails, dried blood left behind from whatever injury Jake had managed to inflict on his attacker.
A technician pushed by, jostling him as he went past, causing him to look over at the expression on Jake’s face.
Raw determination and defiance were etched there for all to see, as if his last act had been to spit in the thing’s face. His lips were pulled away from his teeth, frozen now in a vicious rictus of a smile. A smile that even the pain of his death had been unable to erase.
When Sam first arrived, after receiving the call, Damon hesitantly filled him in, letting him know what they had managed to reconstruct of Jake’s last movements and the tragedy that followed.
Apparently he’d been out for a walk, and, as was his habit, he’d chosen to cut through the park instead of taking the long way around. Some hundred yards away from the road, he’d been struck and had fallen; the technicians had marked and measured the spot already, the marks of a scuffle clearly evident in the soft dirt of the ball field. The long ragged track left behind indicated that he’d re-injured his bad leg, dragging it behind him into the grass of the outfield as he tried to reach the safety of the lights in the playground. Halfway there he’d been attacked again, his blood staining the ground where he collapsed the second time. He must have turned to fight at this point, because bright blotches of the Nightshade’s own violet blood colored the grass along with his own. Somehow, and Sam couldn’t understand how, Jake had managed to pull free of the beast one more time, driving his fingers into the soft loam and pulling himself forward, ripping chunks of it free as he dragged himself, vainly believing the light might save him.
It hadn’t.
Moloch had caught him and had dashed his body down on the hard, unforgiving surface of the merry-go- round. From the angle of Jake’s body it was clear that he had struck the metal bars from a height, the shock of the landing snapping his spine like a dry twig. From there, the end had come quickly.
They hoped.
The officers were all around Sam now, trying to do their work, and he backed away, his eyes never leaving his friend’s face.
I’ll find it for you, Jake, he breathed silently. I swear to you, I will find it. He turned away then, unable to look any longer, as the coroner’s team began loading Jake’s body into the dark plastic of a body bag. Tears welled in Sam’s eyes, spilling down his cheeks. He looked around, into the gray light of the near dawn, wondering where the Nightshade had gone once it had finished with Jake. It was out there somewhere, hiding, waiting for the darkness.
He would find it, wherever it was, even if it took the rest of his life.
Then he would kill it.
He turned and walked away from the gathering group, and found Damon waiting for him by the Bronco.
The two men stood in silence for a minute, and then Damon spoke what they both knew to be true.
'It’s back, isn’t it?'
Sam could only nod.
