A Desolate Hour. Mae Clair
handle bore the same strange spider marking as the case.
Shawn licked his lips, his breath shallow. Closing his fingers over the grip, he stood and pulled the knife from the box. A tingle raced up his arm.
The blade was coal black.
* * * *
Caden read the letter through and set the paper Eve had given him on the table. Other than Tucker, who wiped down the bar, and Nancy, who’d disappeared into the kitchen, they were the only two in the café. It was too late to down a regular meal but he nursed a piece of cherry pie along with his coffee. Eve did the same with a slice of lemon meringue. “You say Sarah found this in Shawn’s stuff?” He motioned to the slip of paper lying between them.
Eve nodded. “Remember Suzanne asked Sarah to dig into Shawn’s family tree? It was in with a bunch of stuff Suzanne gave her.” She leaned forward, eyes wide. “You know what this means, don’t you? It means the Mothman had to be around as far back as the days of Fort Randolph.”
Caden didn’t mirror her surprise. “We’ve known that for a while. Lach told us his people visited Earth before the time of the dinosaurs, and Maggie—” He hesitated. It was still hard imagining his dead sister communicating with Eve and his mother, but her ghost had relayed as much to Eve last summer, telling Eve the Mothman had lived for “a thousand yesteryears.”
Eve reached across the table and touched his hand, seeming to hone in on his hesitation. Even now it was hard to talk about his sister. He’d once considered her death his fault.
“But, Caden—” Eve plowed ahead, letting the ghost of Maggie rest. “Don’t you think it’s odd the creature has been here all this time yet it wasn’t until the late sixties that people became aware of its existence?”
“We don’t know that. According to this”—he tapped the paper with a forefinger—“Preech must have seen it, and so did the author of this letter.”
Leaning back in her seat, Eve fiddled with her fork. She poked the rich meringue layer on her pie. “It’s vanished again, hasn’t it?”
She didn’t have to identify the “it” for Caden to know she referred to the Mothman. He considered telling her how the creature had reacted during their last encounter—agitated, hostile—but saw no reason in making her worry. Better she think the cryptid had simply vanished into the wooded domain of the TNT. For something so large and grotesque in appearance, the creature had an uncanny ability to disappear when desired. He wondered if it had powers he didn’t realize. Lach Evening was certainly an untapped source of supernatural abilities, and he was descended from the same alien race as the Mothman.
Caden swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “I didn’t see it.” He regretted the lie, but until he better understood why the creature had reacted the way it did, he wanted to keep everything low key. Even from his wife. The fewer people who knew, the better. Some of the townspeople had a habit of taking matters into their own hands when they thought the Mothman was on the prowl. “How about this letter?” He motioned to the paper again. “Does Shawn know about it?”
Eve shrugged. “According to Sarah, he was pretty clueless Suzanne had given her anything. Sarah dropped off a box of stuff earlier, and Shawn loaded it in his car before he started drinking.” She frowned, obviously thinking of the story she’d heard from Tucker and Caden about how Shawn had to be driven home by the Bradley brothers. “I wish he’d get his act together. He seems to be drinking more now that Suzanne left him. I really hate the fact he started to get huffy with a guest.”
“Marsh seemed okay. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Hmm.” Eve looked down at her plate. Another poke at the pie.
Caden laughed. “Are you going to eat that thing or not?”
Eve’s gaze flashed to his face and she smiled tightly. “I was imagining it as Shawn. That jerk could use a poke or two.”
He didn’t disagree, but Shawn was young, not quite twenty-five. Preech could be a class-A douchebag, but he still had time to pull it together and learn from his mistakes. Hopefully, he’d pass out when Duncan and Donnie got him home, and wake up tomorrow with a different outlook on life.
Assuming he didn’t have one hell of a hangover.
* * * *
Shawn clutched the knife tightly in both hands. He wandered from the porch and the plastic tub that lay open on the grass. From the papers and photographs strewn across his lawn. His sneakers scuffed against macadam as he blundered into the driveway. He licked his lips, suddenly dry, his throat tight with emotion he couldn’t explain. His thoughts had been jumbled before, muddled and fogged by alcohol, but now they were sharp, brittle like glass. He could almost taste them in the back of his throat, an acrid smoke that lodged there, whispering of a time long ago.
Of a thing that had taunted him. A creature of evil.
Hate.
Oh, yes, how he hated the demon. From that first moment he’d seen it blot the sun from the sky. His heart had faltered, his innards coiling up inside him. Unable to move, he’d gazed up at the monster, terrified beyond reason. It had bewitched Willa, brought the fever on her. His bladder had released and the warm stream of his shame trickled down his leg. He, a man who had stood before the savages in Lord Dunmore’s War, who’d faced the heathen and survived. How could a thing born of sorcery and chaos turn him into a whimpering craven?
Shawn blinked, confused by the memory. It didn’t belong to him, yet it did.
Anger warred with shame.
You are my descendant, a voice whispered in his head. Do what I could not. Kill the demon.
The spirit that possessed him, awakened by the knife, had no name for the demon it sought. But Shawn did.
Mothman.
He wrenched open the car door and dropped inside.
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