Looking at her, the dog growled long and low.
'Did you find it?' Sam asked. 'Did it work?'
Katelynn didn’t answer.
She turned her head, slowly looking at Sam, then at Damon.
Loki scampered back, growling again.
'What’s wrong with him?' Sam asked, still not realizing that Katelynn was reacting strangely.
Damon had noticed, however. He’d noticed Loki’s response to Katelynn as well. He didn’t like either one. Something had gone horribly wrong.
The fear rose like a spectre in the night and threatened to overwhelm her. The Nightshade had used the power of the link against her, reversing the connection. The beast had taken control, using his mental powers to assume control of her form.
While the Sheriff and Sam were waiting for her to divulge the beast’s location, the beast was using her to spy on them!
It only lasted a moment, but that was long enough.
Just as Damon stepped toward her, just as Sam was reaching out to her, just as Loki was about to attack, the Nightshade released his hold and the connection between them was broken.
Darkness descended in Katelynn’s mind for a second time that night.
Katelynn came to in Sam’s arms, a cold cloth pressed against her forehead. Loki was standing next to the sofa, trying desperately to lick her face while being held back by Damon stood with a hand wrapped around the dog’s collar and his gun pointed in her direction.
'Are you all right?' Sam asked, concern etched on his face.
Katelynn didn’t trust herself to speak so she nodded instead.
Damon still looked suspicious, but lowered his gun nonetheless. 'What happened?' he asked.
Katelynn took several deep breaths, doing what she could to get her heart back under control. She was bathed in sweat, her long hair hanging in limp strands about her face. Her hands were shaking when she answered him.
'I found it,' she said. 'At the University. It’s using the old clock tower as an aerie.'
'Yes!' Sam cried, exuberantly.
Damon had not yet taken his eyes off Katelynn. 'And?'
Katelynn continued to meet his gaze. 'The link worked both ways this time. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. Before I could get free, it took control of my senses and got a good long look at the two of you. We discovered where it is hiding, yes, but it knows now that we’re coming after it. We don’t have much time.'
Grimly, Damon nodded.
He had suspected as much when the dog had gone crazy, ready to rip Katelynn’s throat out when she opened her eyes the first time.
'What do we do?' Sam asked, his excitement stifled in lieu of what he’d just learned.
Damon turned to face him. 'Do?' he asked. 'Same thing we had planned to do. We find it and kill it.'
'But it knows we’re coming. We won’t stand a chance,' Sam said flatly.
Damon gave him a steely look. 'Do we have any choice?'
Chapter Forty: Preparations
They moved quickly. While it might prefer to travel at night, that didn’t mean the Nightshade wouldn’t travel by day and simply take to the air, disappearing again, only to find another resting place elsewhere. Who knew if they’d be able to track it down again? The next time they might not be so lucky. They didn’t know the range of Katelynn’s talent. It was also obvious that Katelynn had survived the encounter because she’d already been trying to break contact when the beast had become aware of her presence. What would happen if it threw the full weight of its mental powers at her the very instant she sought contact? Would she then have the power to free herself? They didn’t know and couldn’t take the chance. If they could reach the campus before too much time passed, they might be able to stop the beast from leaving, or at the very least, follow it when and if it did.
'Okay,' Damon said, a look of weary resignation on his face. 'We know where it is, but what good does that do us? We still don’t have a clue as to how to stop it.'
When Damon looked up, however, the gleam in Sam’s eyes made it obvious that that might not be the case.
Sam had a plan. Taking a deep breath, he let them in on it.
As Damon sat and listened, something totally unexpected and all but forgotten bloomed in his chest. For the first time since the killings had begun, Damon felt a surge of hope.
When Sam was finished, Katelynn expected the Sheriff to object. What Sam was proposing was as crazy as Jake’s original plan of facing the Nightshade on his own. They simply were not equipped to handle such a task. They should be calling in the National Guard, not trying to assault the beast’s latest lair on their own. She waited for Damon to verbally echo her thoughts.
Katelynn was in for a surprise. With a vengeful light in his eye that matched the one in Sam’s, Damon simply said, 'Let’s do it.' Using his radio, he called one of his deputies and ordered the man to meet them at the Sheriff’s station with the items they needed. Leaving Katelynn’s, the three of them drove to the station, making a brief stop at a gas station along the way.
A short time later, Katelynn and Sam were pouring old-fashioned soap flakes into mason jars and passing them on to Damon, who filled them the rest of the way with gasoline and screwed on spill-proof lids. While Sam and Katelynn packed them carefully into two black knapsacks, Damon moved over to the gun cabinet behind his desk and selected a rifle. Loading up on ammunition for the weapon, he asked them, 'Either of you know how to handle a firearm?'
'A little,' said Sam. Katelynn shook her head.
Damon sighed, weapon in hand, he turned to face them, a grim expression on his face.
'Let’s end this,' he said.
The three of them left without a word to the rest of Damon’s staff; they simply had no time to explain.
Like a flashback to that evening three months before, the three of them climbed into Damon’s Bronco and headed across town as the sun descended and a light rain began to fall.
When they arrived at the university campus, Damon made a quick stop at the security office to obtain the keys to the campus buildings. About once a month he personally patrolled the grounds, seeing and being seen, so the guard on duty found nothing strange in his request.
Once Damon returned to the vehicle, he drove them over to Keating Hall.
The building loomed above them, and the very sight of it sent chills up Katelynn’s spine. She knew what was hiding inside its cold stone walls. It will be a miracle if we make it out alive, she thought.
Sam, on the other hand, stared at the structure with fierce expectation. He, too, knew what awaited them there, but he welcomed the challenge. That thing had killed his best friend, threatened a woman he cared deeply for, and terrorized the town he called home. It was due for a reckoning and Sam intended to be the one to deliver it.
It was ironic that the Nightshade had chosen this place for the final showdown. Keating Hall had been built in the late 1800s and was constructed in a Renaissance style. It looked like a medieval castle, the clock tower rising over the roof like a keep rising over a castle’s battlements. He had written it into many a short story, the building’s very nature firing his imagination.
Now, fiction would become reality.
Sam was determined to write the ending his way.
Once out of the car, Katelynn and Sam huddled out of the rain on the steps in front of the entrance while Damon retrieved his rifle from the trunk. Damon knew the weapon wouldn’t stop the beast; the night they rescued Jake had proven that. It would slow it down, however, and that’s what the plan called for. Damon was to use the
