[Oxrun Station] The Bloodwind (22 page)

She could see his face now
—hard-set and old.

"She isn't doing it for you, you know. She wants me
away so she can have Greg. I don't get it. What's in it for you?"

"I got so I like it," he said with a shrug.

So calmly, so matter-of-fact.
She would have pre
ferred a shouting match, or a voice laced with consum
mate evil
—any emotional tirade just to prove he was
human. But he only stood there, watching her, talking
to her as if they were discussing the results of a test or
the prospects of the upcoming baseball season.
I
got so
I like it;
no apology, just speech.

The breeze grew somewhat stronger.

"Are you going to kill me?" So reasonable, she
thought; I sound so goddamned reasonable.

Oliver shook his head. "Not me, Doc. I'm what you
might call the spaniel in this. I hung out the game, if
you know what I mean." He reached into his jacket and
pulled out the statuette. "Then I set the trap."

It took her a moment to hear Abbey moving, but the
girl was too fast around her, was standing next to Oliver
before she could react. Abbey was smiling, softly, and
pulled her hands from her pockets.

I
was so sad about Kelly,
she signed in the near
darkness,
but she couldn't understand me. Oliver does,
though. And I was so upset until you came in and
started talking about Greg. You were the one, Pat, who
made me see I was right.

"My god, you're crazy."

I
know things, Pat, and that's not the same. You have
your brains to get what you want. I know things. And I
use them.

"I don't kill."

The breeze, stronger still.

Lauren is dead.

Pat's lips drew taut, her hands clenched into fists, "I
didn't kill her and you know it."

You didn't keep her out of the boat.

She was stunned, gaping, could not marshal the imprecations that swarmed round her tongue. And when
Oliver raised his hand she could only stare at him
stupidly, suddenly throwing up her own when he tossed
the statuette at her. She caught it, and held it, a finger
tracing its snout before she realized the others had turned around to run. Her scream, then, was ragged with the taste of blood in her mouth, but she hadn't
taken two steps before the breeze became a wind that
turned the air red and coated the stone grizzly in shim
mering blood.

She ran.

Thought was denied her when fear clawed onto her
back and gripped hard; thought was denied her when she saw over her shoulder the snow spill from the
banks, from the branches, from the forest. Saw the
whirling, the spinning, felt the pressure and the cold,
saw the glimpses of fangs, of claws, of an eye that was
searching.

Taller, now, then she was, coasting effortlessly along
the road, gathering snow no longer white while branches
crashed into splinters.

And the bellowing, the challenge, that almost stopped
her in her tracks.

She wasn't sure; she might have screamed.

She ran
,
that's all she knew, her eyes on the two
figures racing past the twin pillars and cutting sharply to
the left.

Bellowing.
Screaming.
A shadow growing in front,
swallowing her own as the snow lifted to blind her. It
stung, it drew welts,
it
cascaded down her throat until
she finally closed her mouth.
Refusing to look around.
Arms
pumping,
legs reaching, the
bloodwind
and her
own wind freezing the tears on her eyelids, on her cheeks, on her lips.

She tripped.

Just as she reached the campus entrance what she thought was a shadow was a fallen branch on the road.
It snagged her ankles, and she fell forward, rolling
slightly to land on her shoulder so she could get to her
feet again without losing much momentum. Turning and looking at last at the
redbeast
.
Striding down the
road in the midst of its white dervish, a paw thrashing
out of the whirling, a snapping at the air, and eyes that
were golden in spite of all the red.

An engine snapped her head around.

Abbey was behind the wheel of Oliver's pickup, and
Oliver was yanking at the passenger door handle.

Thought returned, and Pat ran. Instinct more than
planning, as the small truck pulled away slowly and she
realized she was still carrying the statuette. With one
sweep of her arm she brought it down on Oliver's
nape, heard him shriek, heard the statuette land beside
him, heard
herself
grunt as she flung herself at the
vehicle and grabbed hold of the tailgate.

She was dragged for several yards before she was
able to pull herself to the bed, sprawled and rolled over
just as the
redbeast
cleared the pillars.

Don't look, she pleaded, but her head would not turn.

It broke onto Chancellor Avenue in a white-and-red
maelstrom that whipped branches and twigs and stones from its center. An arm reached out, a paw opened with
black claws, and Oliver was lifted fifteen feet into the
air.
Screaming.
She could hear him screaming over the roar of the engine, over the bellowing of the beast. And
her eyes would not close when the red jaws exposed
teeth, when the teeth caught the moonlight.
Screaming.
She heard him screaming when the jaws clamped down.

And the
redbeast
was gone.

The
bloodwind
was gone.

A cowboy hat in the road, spinning on its crown.

S
CREAMING.
She could hear him screaming.

Screaming.
She could hear herself screaming as Lauren
was taken from the water and placed gently on the quay.

She cowered beneath the cab's window, knees drawn
to her chest, eyes still open, the wind taking the muffler
from her hair and looping it down over her chest. Her
hands were fists pressed hard under her chin, her elbows squeezing tightly against her ribs.

And the cold in two assaults: from the air that sucked
the breath from her lungs; from within, where a sheath
of dark ice had settled around her heart.

Silly thoughts: Ford Danvers twirling his mustache
like a vintage Edison villain; Greg stomping around his
classroom studio searching for the paintbrush lodged
behind one ear; Harriet and Ben appearing one day at
her office door, arm in arm, dressed (as Ben put it) to the nines for a night at a college dance; her station
wagon in need of a wash and a waxing; the canopy over
her bed sagging in its frame; the workroom wanting
dusting; Kelly swooning and laughing over a man she'd just met;
Linc
arguing with Stephen over the value of
chianti
, while Janice stood to one side and raped the
pianist with her eyes.

Silly thoughts that swamped her while her tears turned
to
ice; silly
thoughts that prevented her from remembering what she'd seen until the pickup began to slow, the
jarring of the small truck subsiding and bringing back
the world.

And once the images had faded, thought linked again
with coherence, she knew how she would die if the
redbeast
came again.

She slid, then, toward the low sidewall as the pickup
swerved as close to the verge as the plow-born
snowbanks
would permit and maneuvered clumsily into a wide
U-turn. Pat crouched even lower, her chin on her knees,
watching
the
trees swing
until
Abbey was headed back
toward the college.

The statuette.
Pat knew it had to be retrieved, though
she didn't know if Abbey had seen what had happened
to Oliver. There was no time to decide, however; Ab
bey streaked to the entrance and
braked
so hard, Pat
was thrown against the
cab's
rear wall before she could
grab hold. The door swung open, and Abbey stepped
cautiously to the road.

Pat leapt.

She had gathered her legs under her as she crept
toward the side, and just as Abbey passed her she flung herself over and grabbed the woman's neck. They went down silently, shoulders and hips thudding hard on the
blacktop, legs kicking and free arms thrashing. A grunt,
a curse, and an elbow rammed into Pat's stomach. The
topcoat absorbed most of the blow, but her grip loos
ened nevertheless and she found herself flung to one side viciously, a knee slamming into a hubcap and
sending lingering streamers of sparkling fire up toward her spine. She reached out desperately and took hold of
Abbey's ankle, slowing her until Pat could scramble to her knees and yank. Abbey
fell,
hands taking the spill while her foot slipped from Pat's fingers, lashed back
toward her face.

They stood, Pat leaning against the
wheelwell
and
gulping for air, Abbey swaying by the tailgate, her hair dark with perspiration and plastered like fissures across
her forehead.

"Abbey."
A gasp.
"It's no good."

Abbey smiled.
Slowly.

"You're alone. Oliver's dead."

Abbey laughed.
Silently.
And pulled from her coat
pocket the marble
redbeast
grizzly.

Pat's mouth worked mutely, her throat constricted
and her head shaking disbelief. Then she turned toward
the school entrance and saw the other image on the
blacktop, caught just at the reach of the pickup's
headlamps. When she looked back, Abbey was caress
ing the grizzly's cocked head, her face in the glow of the taillights a demonic, dreamlike red.

And Pat understood. An intuitive leap based on half-
formed impressions that suddenly, here on the road at a time long past midnight, coalesced like a kaleidoscope
finally making sense.

Oliver was wrong in part of his assumption: not all
that was inanimate had the life force he'd assumed. And
she'd been wrong, too, in thinking the same
—the two blocks she'd found in the quarry were not identical save
in texture and color, so what Oliver had been carrying
was not the
redbeast
at all. Abbey had kept it, and
Abbey had been the one to slip into the apartment to
gather up the pieces chipped off the statuette. Oliver had been a dupe, and Pat had almost fallen into a similar trap.

Abbey moved, then.
Had been moving so slowly
while Pat was thinking that she hadn't noticed it, until
the woman had already passed her and was running for
the image lying on the road.
Pat broke into a sprint and
threw herself on Abbey's back, spilling them both out of the reach of the headlamps' thrust.

Almost unheard: the sound of stone rolling across the
blacktop.

Heard all too well: the sound of Abbey's forehead
slamming hard against the road.

But Pat would not relent even though she felt the
woman slump into a temporary daze. She struck out
with her fists, struggled to find an effective way to use
her boots, finally rolled out of the way and lunged
frantically for the grizzly. Had it and rose, passing a
bruised and bleeding hand wearily over her eyes, then
holding the statuette suddenly over her head when Ab
bey pushed herself to her haunches.

No!
was
a command and a plea, hands held out,
fingers spread, face contorted into something feral and
defeated.

Pat hesitated, but only because the sight was so
repellent. Then she spun around and slammed the grizzly against the road, once, twice, grunting satisfaction
when the arms split off, the teeth shattered, the pedestal
cracked as she pounded it mercilessly, furiously, until
all she held in her hand was the grizzly's midsection. A
moment for a breath, and she stamped on every piece
she could find, crushing some into dust, kicking others
into the
snowbank
. Panting, blinking perspiration from her eyes, licking at her lips like, she knew, an animal
savaging its prey.

Turning.
Glaring.
Reaching down and picking up
Homer and holding it to her chest.

Abbey had sagged, all fight drained and all resem
blance to the woman Pat had once known lost in the
strain that produced acid lines about her eyes and
skull
like
shadows to her cheeks. She lifted her head after
several seconds' dry
weeping,
searching the branches and cloudy night sky for something Pat knew with a
warm rush could no longer be conjured.

She laughed once and shortly, and the sound startled
her into a realization that from the moment Oliver had
stopped his screaming the next few minutes had been
spent in silence. She had spoken, but she hadn't heard
herself; the pickup's engine still idled, but its rumbling
passed unnoticed.

And unnoticed until now were the headlamps jounc
ing in the distance, growing and flaring brighter,
pinning Abbey to the road and draining life from her
eyes.

Pat staggered but kept her place. She felt no joy when the vehicle slowed and pulled up behind the
truck, felt no elation when a sudden whirling red broke
over the patrol car's roof. She only watched as Wes
jumped out with handgun drawn, watched as Greg joined
him to stare at Abbey, kneeling.

And then there was Ben, abruptly at her side with his
hand deep in his pocket and his face ashamedly averted.

"I couldn't do it," he muttered. "I ran all the way into town."

Greg was before her as Ben shambled away, holding
her arms and searching her face intently with a gaze that
finally forced her to look up.

Empty. She knew her eyes were empty when Greg
gnawed on his lower lip and turned back to Wes. But
the policeman was handcuffing Abbey and pulling her
gently to her feet. Greg told him he would bring Pat in
with the truck, said nothing as Ben passed them, Oli
ver's hat dangling from his hand. Wes did not protest;
he only nodded curtly.

And once they were alone he slipped his arm around
her waist and led her to the truck.
Opened the door.
Helped her in.
Engaged the gears and gripped the wheel.

"Ben found me home," he said, glancing sideways,
looking front. "I left early." He raced the engine. "I
wanted to make sure it was
...
I had to think, Pat. In
spite of everything you showed me, I had to think."

"Yes," she said, looking down to Homer and strok
ing absently his head.

"We thought you'd be at her place. You weren't. We
went upstairs and looked around, and Ben found
...
he
found Kelly there, Pat."

She closed her eyes tightly.

"Abbey was apparently going to try to pin a murder
on you, as well. Kelly was
—hell!"

Pat knew. The bed's canopy had been sagging.

Then Greg shifted and stared at the statuette in her
arms. "Are you sure that's the right one?"

It took a long time, a great effort, before Pat could say, "No." A longer time before Greg wrenched the truck around and they drove back to the village.
In silence.
Each alone.
Greg worrying at a knuckle be
tween his teeth while Pat remembered the afternoon she
had seen Homer in the flesh, the care she'd used to
bring him to her home, the mornings she'd grinned at
him, the evenings she'd made wishes. And it was less
the horrors she had faced that finally brought quiet tears
than it was the death of her talisman, the snatching away of her crutch.

A hand on her knee, and she was quick to cover it with her own.

"You'll be all right, Pat."

She wondered, though she supposed she would. But
in all of those dumb movies they never showed her the after
—like how she would face each rising of the wind,
how she would drive Oliver's screams from her sleep,
how she would explain to Greg that she didn't want him
to touch her.

She would be all right, but she would be different.
And with half a lifetime to go, she wondered if she could stand it.

Then the thought formed, only a vague impression
while she'd been watching Wes take the woman away.
"Greg," she said.

"Hey, you feel up to it?" He took his eyes from the
road and watched her, slowed then when a car turned
out of Centre Street and gave him the benefit of a horn.
He parked in front of the police station and put a hand
to the back of her neck. "We can always tell him
—you should go to the hospital, you know, for a checkup or
something."

"No," she said, bringing Homer's head to her cheek.
"I'm okay. I'm not hurt." She stared at the double doors, at the blocks of marble on the facade. "It's Abbey."

"You're really not going to tell him about
—what did
you call it, the
bloodwind
?"

"No," she said.
"I just . . . Greg, if she can do it once, she can do it again."

"She'll be in prison for murder, Pat.
For the rest of her life."

She turned to him suddenly, Homer slipping from her
grasp and sliding to the floorboard between her feet.
"She'll have a lawyer, Greg, a good one. She's not stupid; she knows. She'll be jailed, I know that, but sooner or later she's going to get out. One way or another she's going to get out."

Greg could not meet her stare. Instead, he waved off
her fears with an insincere half-smile and opened the
door, and as he passed in front of the hood, now in the
light, now in the dark, she knew what she'd be doing for the rest of her life
—