Pedro snatched the chain and tried to jerk it away from the ruins of the bed. Hopelessly entangled, it yielded only two or three useless feet.
Pedro dropped it and launched himself to tackle Yoshida. The impact would have driven those nail-point teeth straight into Dennis’s face if the singer hadn’t bobbed to the side.
Pedro briefly felt bad about smashing Yoshida’s face into the floor—until the beast wriggled and rolled like a fresh-caught trout, trapping him under its back. The monster scrambled, stomach-down, with agility more befitting the rounder physique of a wolf.
Now Petey was the prey.
Dennis tossed the torn sheet over the deputy’s head and yanked it up and away from Pedro, who used the weight shift to shove him off.
In less time than Dennis had taken to ensnare him, Yoshida tore the sheet away like tissue and tossed the singer into the dresser.
Pedro glanced at the chain. In grabbing the sheet, Dennis had untangled some of the slack. Pedro lunged for the nearest section.
Shaking away the cobwebs, Dennis knew what his friend had in mind. Yoshida crouched to pounce on the bassist’s back.
“Hey!” Dennis dove for the door. “Come and get me, boy!”
Hunter instincts drew the beast like a moth to a flame. He leaped across the room, as Dennis ducked and yanked the door in his path.
Yoshida smashed headfirst into the flimsy wooden panel with wrecking-ball force, blasting through it.
Pedro, knowing the monster would recover fast, slid the end of the chain across the floor to Dennis. As Yoshida started to charge, Dennis entwined his furry left wrist. Pedro grabbed the right. The boys butted shoulders as they met to switch ends, drawing Yoshida’s wrists together.
Pedro bobbed his head to the side to avoid a snapping bite, while Dennis dropped to his knees to loop the chain around Yoshida’s feet.
Pedro took the end from him and jerked hard, putting the beast on its back and bringing its razor-clawed hands and feet together. Hog-tied, Yoshida jerked hard, nearly sending Pedro headfirst into the hallway. Dennis, still kneeling, caught Pedro’s leg and kept him steady.
They pulled in opposite directions, taking away all of Yoshida’s leverage.
“Now what!?” called Pedro.
“I don’t know!”
Yoshida’s roars of rage pitched up, becoming squeals of pain. Smoke rose from the chain’s contact points at his wrists and ankles.
“Ah, shit!” said Pedro. “We’re hurting him bad!”
“You gotta hold him!” Dennis said, handing Pedro his end of the chain.
Pedro doubted he could, but he wasn’t about to let go.
Dennis went to the dresser and yanked it to fall facedown to the floor.
Tears of blood ran from Yoshida’s amber eyes. The chain was melting through his bones like hot steel.
Pedro coughed at the stench of burning flesh, feeling his gorge rise.
“There you are!” Dennis picked up the trank dart and dove over Pedro to land on Yoshida’s chest. He plunged the dart into his friend’s neck as hard and as fast as he could, hoping it was with enough force to open the plunger and release the sedative.
“Unwrap him,” Dennis called as he rolled to the side.
Pedro did, his eyes stinging from the smoke of sizzling skin; then he leaped in front of Dennis with the chain held out, the first line of defense against the monster they had just caught—and released.
Yoshida tried to stand. His weakened ankle snapped at a sickening angle, drawing a deafening cry of pain.
“Dammit, what can we do?”
There wasn’t much. The musicians took positions on either side of Yoshida to keep him from hurting himself any further, until, after two excruciating minutes, he finally fell still, panting hoarsely as a veil of forced slumber fell upon him.
* * * *
En route to the church, Maisie gave a crash course on her method of accessing the Akashic records.
“I know the Akashic records are literally the past, resonating through our collective consciousness, but I confess I’ve never tried to access them,” Violina told Maisie.
“I’ll feel better just knowing you’re there,” Maisie explained. “All you have to do is pay attention while I tell you what’s happening…did happen.”
“I’ll be right beside you.”
* * * *
Dennis, Pedro and Bernard had already run power cords into the basement from a generator and set up a string of lights, which switched on at the top of the stone stairway. The foreboding gloom of the witches’ introductory visit was gone.
Nonetheless, Violina tensed with apprehension upon setting foot across the doorway. “Those poor people!” she almost whispered. “What it must have been like to face all those terrors down here.”
“They are a brave bunch,” said Maisie.
“You’re just as brave, my dear.” Violina touched her new protégé on the shoulder. “Lead the way.”
They went through the archway, along the corridor and into the chamber where the stone coffins had lain. Their shadows stretched across the high ceiling. Their breath rode on wispy steam.
Near the farthest wall, they cast a circle with white chalk, lit candles, called on the directional spirits.
Maisie took Violina’s hand. “Let’s sit.”
They took cross-legged positions facing each other. Maisie closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, while Violina waited for the flow of information.
Maisie visualized a book—thick, heavy and ancient—and saw on its dark brown leather face the title Chronicles of Ember Hollow, flaked gold paint filling the hand-tooled letters.
She looked up to envision the moon as she had seen it just before they stepped down the stairs, sending from the heart of her astral self a silver cord to attach to it and another to tie her to the earth. Spreading ethereal arms, she rose out through the ceiling of the basement, passing into the sanctuary, then out into the sky.
She opened the book to its first few pages and saw something in troubled script: the beginning of the settlement’s problems.
A wild land from which rose pillars of chimney smoke and the vapory colors of various auras opened up far beneath her.
Descending, she saw cabins, fields, barns, streets of dirt, herds of livestock.
A dense stream of light off to her right shocked her. In her Akashic travels, Maisie
