A hissing roar came through the window and echoed about the high walls and rafters like a swarm of bats. Then another, as several of the twisted appendages cast for prey.
“In here, you guys!” DeShaun and Stuart spread their arms wide as they rushed the kids into the weight room, relieved that none of them saw Kyle’s demise.
Timbo backed against the rear wall and pointed the rifle toward the window. Kerwin opened the box of shells and stood by to hand them off.
“Get in the office!” McGlazer ordered Mayor Stuyvesant.
“I’m the mayor, not the messiah,” Doris told him. “We all fight together.”
* * * *
No sooner had Pedro pushed Ophelia’s bedroom door closed than a crack appeared in it, the pumpkin demon’s angry warbling cry signaling its intention to get in.
“Dammit, do it if you’re going to!” Yoshida said, presenting his back to Pedro and pointing at his neck. “Are you sure you even know how?”
“I’ve seen all of Ed ‘Strangler’ Lewis’s matches on Golden Classics of Wrestling. Paid close attention.” Pedro wrapped his big arms around Yoshida’s head and neck. “You ready?”
Yoshida nodded. Pedro began to apply pressure, wary of breaking his friend’s neck if the thing battered at the door again and startled him.
Yoshida reflexively grabbed at Pedro’s forearm, issuing a distressing gurgle.
“Just relax, bro,” Pedro said. “Only takes about four sec—”
Yoshida’s back and neck grew in mass and density so fast Pedro thought he was exploding. The gurgle became a growl just as quickly.
Pedro released and shoved Yoshida away. “Get in that closet!” he called to Ophelia and her mother.
Pedro charged to open the bedroom door, ducking as soon as it swung open.
He had guessed that the beast Yoshida became would pounce right for his back—and he was right. But his quick move caused the werewolf to smash fangs-first into the pumpkin demon.
Two otherworldly, yet wildly different bellowing reverberations blew out from the entangled monsters, like a sonic mushroom cloud.
Pedro rolled away from the action and toward the closet, glancing at the blur of fur and fangs and vine and rind, relieved the jumble was moving away from the door.
He grabbed the hands of mother and daughter and pulled them out. “Stay behind me!”
When they ran out into the dark demolition of the living room, Ophelia stopped stock-still and screamed at the sight of Yoshida clawing into the pumpkin thing’s face. It sprayed very red blood several yards in all directions.
Pedro picked her up in his arms and ran to the door.
As the first demon collapsed, the second smashed its face through the battered window frame and bit into Yoshida’s shoulder. The werewolf emitted a high-pitched howl of pain that felt like needles in Pedro’s ears.
He ran with the women to the breezeway and pushed them toward the stairway. “Stay at the top!”
As they did, Pedro ran back to the edge of the walkway and once again hauled himself onto the roof.
Peering over the far edge, he saw the bulbous end of the crab-like goblin, Yoshida’s opponent, sticking out of the window of Ophelia’s apartment. Yoshida’s continued shriek of pain told Pedro all he needed to know about what it was doing. “Dammit!”
He glanced around and found the length of pipe Yoshida had used as a weapon, those eternal seconds ago when the lawman was human.
Barely slowing to spot where the damned thing was, Pedro leaped off the edge with the pipe pointing straight down. He buried the pipe into that big, evil orange ass with the force of muscle and momentum, and tore it open from top to bottom. Blood cascaded over his head and shoulders as he hit the ground, flip-rolled forward and came to his feet—which stung like hell.
The creature made a cry of raging pain as it fell apart, spilling intestines, seeds and buckets of blood.
Pedro looked back up just in time to dive away from a twelve-foot-long, segmented leg falling toward him.
“Crap!” he called, checking to see if there was anything else coming at him.
There was—a roaring, toothy, blood-covered nightmare dog-man.
Yoshida smashed into Pedro and drove him onto his back on the muddy ground, knocking him breathless. The musician opened his eyes to see a vortex of teeth and bloody blackness beyond.
“Leave him alone!” called Ophelia.
Pedro felt the briefest instant of relief when Yoshida stopped mid-bite—and then the most despairing of horrors, as he realized the man-beast was now focused on Ophelia.
Yoshida leaped off Pedro, focused on his new easy prey. Pedro lunged to grab his foot. He was dragged face-forward a yard or so, and then left behind in his terrifying failure.
Except Yoshida slipped in the mud as he crouched on his hinds to leap. He fell to his back but immediately scrambled to all fours. As he coiled for another leap, Pedro crashed onto his back and once again sank the sleeper hold.
Yoshida squirmed and twisted and kicked like no rodeo bull ever had. Pedro clinched his legs around the monster’s bony hips and held on, yelling, “Get going, Ophelia!”
Yoshida-wolf rolled stomach-up, putting Pedro on his back against the ground. Its instincts did not tell it this only helped to deepen the hold.
Just as he was sure Yoshida was about to peel his arms away from his neck—and his body—the werewolf went limp.
Pedro shook the rain off his face and saw the eyes of the wolfman roll to white, its bloody tongue hanging from slack jaws.
He released his friend, relieved to see him shrinking—becoming human.
“You okay?” he called up to Ophelia, but the little girl and her mother were already on the way down.
Chapter 28
Unfinished Business
The impromptu healing session for Ysabella had begun optimistically enough. Little Emera’s innocent belief that closeness and love would heal her new friend was infectious among the women.
But Stella, keeping constant check on the elder woman’s pulse and breathing, soon grew gloomy. Her frequent glances toward the phone, the door and the rain-smudged windows gave her away, first to Jill, then to
