Riverwatch

Chapter Fifteen: A Witness in the Dark

On the other side of town, something stirred.

He awakened slowly, ponderously, like a dragon aroused from its enchanted slumber.

He blinked his yellow, cat-like eyes, once, twice, three times.

A voice was calling to him in his mind, a voice he didn’t recognize.

If it had been the old man, he simply would have ignored it, having already decided he would deal with the old fool when the time was right. But this wasn’t the Elder, nor one of his own kind.

So who then?

As far as he knew, the old man and he were the only survivors of the Age of Creation.

Therefore, it had to be a human.

The notion filled him with mild amusement.

Curious, he closed his eyes and relaxed, sloughing off the earthly restraints imposed on his body, sending his awareness soaring out into that dark realm that separates this world from the next; that place out of time, out of space, where the physical laws of reality no longer have any meaning.

In that realm he was free to travel wherever he willed and he used the summons as a beacon, honing in on it, following it to its source.

What he saw there surprised and delighted him.

It also aroused his hunger.

Taking to the sky, he headed in that direction.

In her dream, Katelynn was standing in the cemetery.

It was late at night.

The moon was hanging in the sky, a baleful eye in the darkness. Its cold blue light touched the edges of the gravestones around her, sending their long, solemn shadows across the dew-wet grass in perfect rank and file, reminding her of an army standing watchful and still.

A grim, motionless army.

The air was heavy with their silence.

Feeling this silence all about her, Katelynn grew afraid.

Without knowing why, she began to run, slipping in and out between the gravestones as she raced desperately across the wet grass. Her heart was thumping wildly and the need to scream rose dangerously in her throat.

She managed to stifle it in time, knowing that if she let it loose that he would hear her.

That thought startled her and brought her up short in her headlong flight to lean against the nearest tombstone.

"He’ll hear me?" she asked herself, with a moment’s rational thought. "Who will hear me?"

She didn’t know. But she did know he was there.

Behind her. In the darkness.

Coming for her.

She had to get away!

A whimper of fear escaped her lips as she pushed away from the headstone and began running again.

The silence behind her changed; became the silence of fear, thick and lazy.

The air grew colder.

She had the unmistakable feeling he was closer now, relentlessly closing the distance between them, and she glanced around frantically, knowing he was out there but unable to find him.

And then she fell.

The night grew still.

Even the trees seemed to be holding their breath, standing immobile, frozen in place.

The light breeze that had been blowing moments before suddenly died.

The crickets stopped their singing.

From where he knelt in the middle of the floor, Hudson Blake opened his eyes and looked around the room.

He was alone.

But he didn’t expect to remain that way for long.

The beast was coming…

The feeling that someone was nearby, watching, struck him suddenly, and he instinctively cringed, reacting to the presence on a primal level, animalistically aware of the nearness of danger.

Coming…coming…coming…

His mind screamed at him to run but he remained where he was, believing he was safe as long as he stayed within the confines of the protective circle he’d created. He grasped the stone tighter between his hands, his knuckles leeched white from the effort, and repeated the name again and again in his mind, calling out to him.

Moloch

Moloch

Moloch

Abruptly, he realized he was no longer alone.

The warmth of life slowly seeped from his frame as he saw the shadow that fell on the wooden floor, the shadow of the large hulking beast that crouched on his balcony rail, its wings swept wide in the moonlight.

Blake could only mutely stare as icy terror swept over him with the swiftness of a cyclone, but it was too late for thoughts of escape.

Moloch had arrived.

The dream shifted, wavered, and then coalesced.

No longer in the cemetery, she found herself standing on a railing. Behind her a thirty foot drop over the balcony stretched away to the ground below. A pair of open French doors faced her, and through them she could see an older man kneeling naked in the middle of the floor. His chest and face were stained with a dark, crimson crust.

Dried blood, she realized, as its tangy aroma reached her nostrils. Her mouth twisted into a wide, cruel grin.

Her tongue flicked forward, caressing her upper incisors, feeling their length and sharpness.

What the hell? a distant part of her mind wondered.

A voice not her own spoke, and a chill ran up and down her spine at the icy menace in its words.

"Give me the stone," it said.

A hand, her own but not her own, reached forward and uncurled its fist.

She saw with growing horror that it wasn’t human.

There were only four fingers, each one tipped with a razor sharp claw, and when they curled into the palm and back out again, gesturing, she heard them clicking together like the rasp of steel on steel.

Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to scream…

She awoke, gasping for air, the sound of her scream still ringing in her ears. Something clutched at her out of the darkness, twined itself in and out of her legs, and she screamed again, thrashing her limbs frantically, fighting off whatever it was with strength born of desperate fright.

With a start she realized she was merely tangled in her bed sheets, the material clinging to her sweat-drenched skin.

"Oh, my God!" she said, her chest heaving as she fought to control the wild beating of her heart.

"It was a nightmare, just a nightmare," she mumbled as she slumped back against the headboard, drained and exhausted.

Unlike most dreams, this one stayed with her; most of the details etched firmly in her mind. It had been shockingly real and frightening. She couldn’t imagine what had caused it; she hadn’t had such a vivid dream in years, certainly not one so violent.

Or so strange.

She sat up and glanced at the clock.

Three-thirty.

Hours before daylight yet.

She lay back down, willing her body to relax. In time her shaking finally stopped and her breathing lost its ragged edge, returning to its normal rhythm.

Though she hadn’t expected to return to sleep that night, her exhaustion worked to her advantage. Eventually the gentle sounds of her own breathing lulled her to sleep as easily as a child listening to a mother’s lullaby.

At her breast the red gemstone shone brightly with a crimson light all its own.

Across town, Moloch, the beast the stone had connected her with, continued with his bloody assault.