Comes a Horseman (4 page)

BREATHING DEEPLY from the fireplace's flue, the flames bit into the wood, found an especially dry section, and flared briefly. The blaze warmed Cynthia Loeb's bare arms as she sat on the rug in her living room, dressed in a summer blouse and shorts. She added the final strokes to what would be listed on eBay as a “hand-painted wastebasket by world-famous artist.” Well,
famous
was a stretch, she conceded to herself as she swirled her brush through two globs of paint on her palette. Her mouth skewed with the admission. At least it was true that her artwork could be found in bathrooms all over the world, thanks to the propagation of online trading. So what if that claim represented only a few hundred sales, each barely enough to purchase a decent meal? Fewer people knew her name than, say, Julia Roberts's, but now you were talking about matters of degree. She nodded at that and dabbed splotches of orange around bloodred flames.

Her head jerked up at a sound from the back bedrooms. She listened but heard only the crackle of the fire. Outside noises were rare this far back from the road, which itself was dirt and infrequently traveled. Occasionally a salesman would find his way to the secluded homes that dotted the wooded foothills west of town, but not at—she looked at the clock on the mantel—not at 11:20 at night. And she would have noticed headlights if a car had driven up the drive. She concluded that the fire had simply made a peculiar noise and turned back to her craft.

She set the brush aside and held the wastebasket in both hands, one underneath and one inside. Turning it away from the harsh light of the floor lamp beside her, she let the fire's glow play against the glistening scene she had created. She nodded. “Snot rags today, the Louvre tomorrow,” she said aloud and jumped. Another noise—just as the last syllable had rolled off her tongue. A quiet scrape, like a window being opened or a shoe scuffing against the hardwood floor.

Slowly she lowered the wastebasket to the floor and narrowed her eyes at the entrance to the hall that accessed the rear of the house. It was a dark rectangle in the corner of the room. She unraveled her legs and rose, grimacing at the achiness of her thighs and the pain in her lower back. Out of habit, she silently cursed her ex, the good-for-nothing who'd taken her best years and then moved on just as Cynthia was coming to understand that middle age paused for no amount of wrinkle cream or tummy scrunches. She guessed that he'd come to that conclusion sooner than she had. At least she was getting the house.

She took a step toward the hall. The noise that reached her at that moment was more puzzling than frightening: a light
click, click, click, click, click, click—
quick and growing louder. Whatever was causing the sound was coming down the hall toward the living room.

The telephone behind her rang, and her heart careened against her chest; a mousy yelp escaped her. Frozen, she stared at the dark hallway entrance. Silence . . . which the phone's second ring shattered along with Cynthia's nerves. Keeping a vigil on the doorway, she backed to the end table, groped for the handset, and raised it to her face.

“Hello?” she whispered.

“Cynthia! I didn't see you at church Sunday.” The voice was whiny, as if Cynthia's absence had been a personal affront. It was Marcie, a quasifriend who needed constant assurance from her acquaintances that they still thought highly of her, regardless of the time. “I brought you that book that we—”

“I think there's someone in the house.”

“What? In your house? Someone's there?”

“I think someone broke in.” She pulled her eyes from the hall entrance to scan the room for something that could be used as a weapon.

“Are you sure?”

“I said I think.”

“Can you hear them? Are they moving around?”

“I heard . . . I think I heard nails . . .
claws
clicking against the floor.”

“A bear!” Marcie lived in town.

“Not a bear, Marcie. A dog, maybe.”

“A dog? Oh my heavens!”

Cynthia could imagine Marcie's next five calls: “
Cynthia Loeb thinks a dog broke into her home. And she didn't attend church on Sunday. The poor thing's not well.”

“Should I call the police?”

The police?
She thought about that. She knew widows and divorcees who wanted so much to think someone still cared that they became completely dependent on anyone willing to give them the time of day. The world was full of needy people. That's not the kind of woman she wanted to be.

“No,” she whispered, “not yet. But can you hold on for a minute?”

“Why, yes. What are you going to do? You can't just . . .”

Cynthia set the phone on a magazine. Stepping around the wastebasket and over the pallet of unused colors, she edged over to the fireplace, where she lifted a heavy iron poker from its stand. The heat from the fireplace rolled around her legs as she advanced toward the hall. Except for the fire's crackle and Marcie's tinny voice still emanating from the phone, the house was still. Drawing courage from the heft of the poker and, inexplicably, from the knowledge that a benign human waited for her return to the telephone, she stepped into the hall entrance.

Past the kitchen threshold on the left and the wide opening for the dining room on the right, the hall disappeared in shadows. The weak luminance from a bulb in the refrigerator's water dispenser caught the edges of the kitchen doorway and seeped into the hall. The light contracted Cynthia's pupils just enough to make the shadows seem blacker.

Then came the sound of breathing, as though the shadows themselves had come alive. Deep and steady, inhale, exhale.

“Who's there?” she called, disgusted by how weak her voice sounded. She cleared her throat. “Who's there!” Better.

Click, click, click, click, click, click.

An animal appeared out of the shadows, its eyes glowing green. It was a dog . . . or a wolf. Despite the shaggy gray-black fur that covered its body, she saw its strength in the hulking muscles of its shoulders and haunches. Its head was lowered, and its black-rimmed eyes were fixed on her through the softer-hued hairs of its eyebrows. Under a long snout, fangs glimmered. Its lips, hiked up over ebony gums, quivered, and the thing snarled.

“Back!” Cynthia yelled. She jabbed at the air with the poker.

In an instant, the animal bounded twice and leaped at her. She felt the air burst from her lungs as its paws slammed against her chest, knocking her back into the living room toward the front door. Her hip struck a small table where she kept her keys, and she and the animal and the table and the keys crashed to the floor. An odor not unlike a monkey house washed over her, followed by the beast's breath, smelling of rancid meat; nausea cramped her stomach. She covered her throat, knowing that's where the animal would attack. Instead, it backed away. She sat up. Her chin was wet, and she wiped at it.
Not blood,
she thought thankfully as she glanced at her glistening palm. Slobber—hers or the wolf-dog's, she didn't know.

The animal stood between her and the fire, its furry outline radiating white and yellow. When she raised the poker, it quavered like a Richter needle in her trembling hand. The animal simply glared.

Stifling a groan, she got her feet under her and stood. “Go!” she raged.

She heard the clicking again and caught movement out of the corner of her vision. Another wolf-dog broke from the shadowy hall. It was in the air before she could fathom how to respond. Its jaws clamped down on her extended wrist. The poker flipped out of her hand, thudding loudly on the hardwood, banging against the front door.

Pain raced up her arm and turned into a piercing scream when it reached her throat. The weight of the beast wrenched her arm down. Blood appeared to bubble out of its nostrils, and then she realized that it was her blood, gushing out of the deep wound, staining the animal's muzzle, pouring to the floor. She staggered but managed to stay up. Suddenly, her other hand flared in agony. The first animal was chomping on it, trying to gain purchase on her wrist. She tried to flail her arms, to beat away the monsters, but they were too heavy; their mouths gripped her muscles and bones too securely. The effort caused her to stumble into the floor lamp, which toppled. The bulb exploded, leaving the room bathed in the flickering orange of the fire.

Shadows danced everywhere. It took her a moment to grasp that a shadow of one of the wolf-dogs was, in fact, a third animal. It stood, half in the room, half in the hall, watching her futile maneuvers. The other two had stopped tugging and grinding; they seemed content to hold her dripping arms. Dizzy from pain, she moaned at the watching animal and swayed forward, then back again.

She heard her name, dim and distant. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, half-expecting to see it melt away under the brilliance of a celestial hand reaching for her. Her name again . . . and reality floated back. The voice was coming from the phone on the end table.

“Marcie!” she cried. “Mar—”

The third dog stepped completely into the room. Directly behind it came a man. He was not tall but was extremely muscular, with broad shoulders made broader by animal pelts draped over them and clasped in front. It was impossible to tell where the pelts ended and the man began. His beard and mustache exploded from his face in great, rusty profusion; his matted hair hung long but was swept back away from his eyes. Wide, handsome eyes, without a hint of emotion. His face was glacial: deeply crevassed, icily stoic. But he wasn't old, simply
worn
. The mouth was a gash, down-turned seemingly not by anger or displeasure, but by fierce determination. A heavy shirt hung beneath the pelts and was cinched at the waist with rough leather. Pants clung to legs bulging with power and vanished into high boots. He was entirely out of place, Cynthia decided—not just in her home, but in her time, in
anyone's
time for countless generations. The realization added to her confusion, to the surrealism of this intrusion.

Her eyes widened when she saw the object clenched in his right fist: a length of wood, smooth and well used, like a narrow bat or club. Then he shifted, and the fire caught a broad plane of metal attached to the club. She was looking at an ax. The man held it almost unknowingly, the way someone else might hold a briefcase or wear a watch. She took some hope from this casual treatment of the weapon.

“What—,” she started, but his sudden movement silenced her. He strode toward her, lifting the ax over and behind his head. His left hand rose to grip the other end of the long handle. The wolf-dogs growled with excitement as the blade came back around, slicing through the air like a bolt from the fire it reflected. She hitched in a sharp breath but had no chance to scream before the metal found her neck.

The dogs released their hold, and the man watched the woman's body tremble and fall. On the floor, it rolled to one side, draining crimson. He heard a thin voice and saw the phone off the hook. Still clutching the ax, he stepped to the end table, picked up the phone, and listened.

“Cynthia, what was that? Cynthia? I'm calling the cops! Cynthia!”

In a deep voice, heavily accented, he said, “She is dead, you fool.” Then he gently cradled the handset and turned back to the task at hand.

4

S
tanding in the darkened living room, Brady Moore felt the house around him. Still. Quiet. His nose sensed a curious blend of dust and Pledge. He was less meticulous about cleaning than his wife had been, and he would hate to see the size of the dust bunnies under the furniture. Pretty soon, he'd have to get them licensed and vaccinated for rabies. He smiled. Zach would like that one.

Moonlight glowed against the sheer curtains hanging over the three panels of glass that made up a big bay window. The window's bench seat was cushioned and comfortable, but he never sat there. In this hour before bed, he liked to roam. At first, over a year ago, he'd varied his meandering. Now, it always followed the same course: living room, dining room, kitchen, den . . . then along a hallway, through a small foyer, and back to the living room, where he'd start the next leg of his circuit. One hundred eighty-four steps. Ten leisurely laps. Plenty of time to think.

Following his routine, he prefaced tonight's stroll with a visit to the teak credenza that contributed the majority of the lemony polish smell to the room. Crouching, he opened a door panel and withdrew a crystal decanter of bourbon and the only crystal glass the cabinet contained. He set them on the marble top. He and Karen had seldom imbibed. When they did, their preference was wine, an occasional beer. But this was different. Medicinal, he told himself. A sleep aid. Just two fingers.

As a criminal psychologist, he knew all too well the dangers of seeking respite at the bottom of a bottle. He splashed the amber liquid into the glass with the fatalism of a junkie filling his veins with a narcotic he knew would someday kill him. Okay, four fingers. He didn't have to drink it all. He took a sip and felt the fire burn its way to his stomach. At least he wasn't used to it yet. He had chosen bourbon because it was just so awful, like sucking on the planks of an old barn. He didn't want to enjoy it.