All Jane could do was cower in his chair, curling deeper into herself in an attempt to hide from the horror bleeding before her.
She screamed.
A muzzle burst forth from his mouth, cutting off his howl and sending a shower of teeth and blood to make way for a maw that craved sin. Chunks of a mandible hung from between snarling fangs in gelatinous strings.
The skin continued to unzip down his throat, revealing the gray mane clumped together by globs of blood, as he staggered to his feet.
He lurched forward with a harsh cough and crashedagainst the harpsichord. The veins of the hands gripping the instrument wriggled until nails gave way to claws that splintered into the dark wood. He started to stumble toward the hallway on contorting limbs that were betraying him. Left in his wake, all the way to the entrance hall, was a trail of dripping blood and stripped flesh, and Jane watched him from the window as he threw himself into the rain-slick yard where he continued to writhe and scream.
Each flash of lightning revealed a new stage of the metamorphosis, a new abomination, as the beast unfurled from his back. It tore itself free from the confines of mortal flesh until all that remained of Terence was a puddle of gore the beast howled over.
Its throat rumbled as it bent forward to lap up its discarded pelt of man with a steaming tongue.
Before she could distract it from its morsel, Jane rushed to slam the front door shut, then she turned to retrieve the pin-knife from the guest room. Every one of her stilted footfalls was accompanied by a beastly howl outside, a demonic giggle within and beneath the floorboards.
The blade pierced her palm when she blindly grabbed it from between the folds of the ruined quilts and droplets of blood spotted the hem of her dress as she returned to the sitting room. She was careful to step around the lost pieces of flesh and shards of bone-turned-cartilage.
Claunek’s doll still lay crookedly on the floor, amidst the blood and shattered glass. It was snickering, silently, she just knew it.
She sneered at the thing. All she could imagine was the demon from her nightmare, with its flayed face and bulging eyes that leaked golden tears, standing before Terence’s grandfather as he bartered away the humanity of his son and forthcominggenerations in exchange for petty wealth. She imagined the demon haunting the house, watching over boys becoming beasts, shedding their skins every night and every morning, with a smile upon its inhuman lips.
She imagined that Claunek had beentherewhen she first entered the house, introducing itself to her without her knowing when she’d brushed against it. It was a faint touch, but enough to have the demon set its sights on her and send its beast to investigate this stranger in its domain. She grabbed the idol and gave it a squeeze. Had her blood upon the beast’s tongue deepened her connection with Claunek? Was the beast’s bloodlust its own desire or the demon’s orchestration?
She didn’t know, nor did she care, as either way meant death for her. She had grown exhausted of demons and beasts, and their games.
A scream split the air around Jane, shrill and sending a chill through her blood. The stank of burning flesh curdled in her nose. Smoke rose from the idol where the knife seared deeper into its golden visage. Jane did nothing to stop the screaming or the burning of gold. All she could feel was a morbid awe—and triumph.
Silver.
Was the beast’s aversion to it an extension of the demon’s own weaknesses?
Only one way to find out.
Without a second thought, Jane knelt atop the idol and plunged the knife into it. It was unlike stabbing metal or even wood, but rather like stabbing the mud-like flesh of the beast in Matthew’s grave: slick and slimy, and from the wounds flowed forth blood and gold. She felt as though she were cutting through burnt flesh, peeling it aside and revealing something raw andbleeding beneath.
The house shook beneath a violent keening from outside. Stronger than thunder, and filled with an ire that belonged not in nature.
She didn’t stop her assault on the idol until the house itself seemed to scream. And everything fell deathly still as she plunged the pin into its eyes. Outside, the beast was howling, anguished and starving for vengeance.
The beast would be coming for her, she knew it. She harmed its unholy master. She would need to hunt it before it could hunt her.
Keeping the pin-knife in a fist slick with red and golden fluid, she took the Winchester propped against the fireplace in the other.
But what was she to do once this beast was hunted? Would she be able to somehow rescue Terence from within it, somehow? She thought of the beast in the grave that seemed to have been wearing two skins, Terence shedding flesh to become monstrous, even his nightmare visage that appeared to her flayed itself during its pleasures.
Jane swallowed thickly. Could his salvation—and even her own—lie in her skinning a beast birthed from hell?
Once more, she mused, “Only one way to find out.”
At the front door, she slipped into her coat, stuffed the remaining ammunition into the Winchester, tightened her grip on the knife to assure herself of its presence, took hold of her parasol, steeled her nerves, and stepped out into the downpour.
CHAPTER
Nineteen
When she didn’t immediately spot the beast, searching desperately for the glow of its eyes or the flash of its fangs, Jane opened her mouth and screamed into the darkness. She bared her teeth and howled again, calling for the beast so that it could come to her.
“I’m here, you mongrel! Come at me! Eat me!”
