CHAPTER
Sixteen
Terence, as still and rigid as a chipped gargoyle, was waiting for the pair when they emerged from the hidden cemetery, and the three of them returned to the house in silence, tension hanging too thickly between them to be broken.
Afternoon was already bleeding into early evening, and after a bath and a supper of vegetable soup, Terence asked if he could help Jane to bed.
With the pin-knife clutched in her palm, she let him.
As he carried her to bed, a hand braced between her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, confliction returned to Jane, once more accompanied with guilt. The tenderness in which he handled her as he set her down in bed, as though she were a china doll that’d shatter beneath a poorly placed breath, andtucked her beneath layers of fresh, lavender-scented duvets and quilts, betrayed the brutality of the beast.
The beast wouldn’t have done thatforher. The beast wouldn’t have locked the door behind it to protect her from itself; surprising herself, she was sad to see Terence go, and nearly begged him to stay by her side.
Jane sunk further into the old mattress and she snuggled deeper into the protection of Terence’s nest of blankets, but she couldn’t bring herself to fall asleep despite her exhaustion. The ache in her leg was felt throughout her body, reminiscent of monthly cramps, and an itching fear persisted in her brain as she watched the light of day fade into the darkness of evening. Toying with her silver pin-knife did little to ease the anxiety. It worsened as familiar screams wormed their way through the Drowning House’s pipes. Screams that morphed into growls that were utterly nonhuman.
Jane tried to seek security in her blankets, anxious that the beast could smell, hear,tasteher from its prison in the meat-stained cellar. Her unease, the pain in her leg, throbbed fiercely as she heard the echo of wood splintering from somewhere downstairs, the thundering of something dragging itself up steps, and the gallop of something coming down the hall, accompanied by the clinking of metal against wooden planks. Her heart was in her throat at the familiar rhythm of claws scratching at her door. She gripped her knife, prepared.
Then the room shuddered and bowed as something smashed against the door.
Jane didn’t know whether it would be best to hide or prepare to run, but all she did was remain frozen right as she was and tightened her fist around the knife—and hoped for some kind of protection in Old Man Hayes’ wards.
It only took one more crash against the door for it to break down, sending oaken splinters flying into the air to shower Jane in bed. The beast shook itself in the doorway, manacles and chains hanging broken from its throat and wrists.
Jane’s blood ran cold at the sight.
Christ—It broke free to get to me—
The beast snarled and trained its yellow eyes on her, baring teeth that were slick with the fluids of hunger.
Just as it lunged for the bed, Jane rolled onto the floor and, as swiftly as her body would allow, she scrambled to her feet and out into the hall while the beast tangled itself in her mass of blankets and pillows.
All that occupied Jane’s mind was finding a place to hide. But if the beast could break free of chains, then where else was there in this infernal marshland shecouldhide?
Her nerves steeled themselves upon realizing the need to fight back, but when she clenched her fists, she noticed the absence of silver in her palm. Looking down, both hands were empty, and she swore. She must’ve dropped the knife in her escape.
She was struck with a cold arrow of hopelessness that dampened her pace. Unless she could find a weapon, especially one of silver, and somehow find a way to hide from the seemingly invincible strength of the beast, then she would have to accept the fact that she was to be another corpse to add to this marsh’s landscape of death, mangled or shot—
Shot.
Suddenly Jane saw an image of a gun—a hunting rifle. The Winchester in the sitting room. The bullets displayed along with it likely weren’t silver, but what creature would survive a shot to its muzzle?
With as fast of a pace as she could muster, Jane continuedher mad stagger down the hall, stumbled and partially fell down the stairs, and hurried into the sitting room where the Winchester rifle was waiting for her on its perch over the mantle. With a hiss, she smacked the idol aside to silence its snickering and a shock jolted through her hand. Upon hitting the statue, the beast screamed upstairs.
Jane grabbed the gun, its slim body fitting comfortably beneath her palms, and she snatched the bullets displayed underneath it. Her fingers fumbled to load it to the beat of claws pounding down the stairs. The beast’s maw was agape with a slobbering snarl as it rounded into the sitting room; dangling chains jangled, but dried blood muted the sound.
Amidst her panic, she dropped all but the one bullet that she managed to load into the barrel, and she barely had time to cock and fire it just as the beast pounced across the threshold.
The room was illuminated with a blinding flash and the whole house reverberated beneath the resounding shot. The power of the rifle kicked back into Jane’s shoulder with a crack, sending her flailing into the fireplace. She winced, both at the sharp pain in her chest and in anticipation of the beast’s teeth in her flesh once more.
But she must have hit her mark because she didn’t feel the beast upon her. The thing reeled back with a fierce whine as blood spilled from the juncture of its shoulder blade and thick neck.
Blood splattered the walls, the flowering horn of the phonograph, as the beast shook its head with a gurgling scream. Even more of the muddy blood stained the guts of the house as it turned and ran, finding its escape into the night through the kitchen side door.
No sleep was had the rest of the night.
Even if she wanted to or tried, Jane didn’t know if shecouldsleep. Every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was snapping teeth stained with her blood, the sound of hungering to taste her once again, the laughter of the burnt-faced demon that wept gold, the odor of its organ-room and the death-pit.
She remained in the sitting room, stationed before the windows she propped opened despite the rain, with the Winchester aimed toward the darkness as every one of her senses strained to catch any sign of the beast’s presence. She didn’t dare to move to retrieve her knife.
