Clean Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles, #1)(6)

The last of the blue cracks melted. The spear, now the dark gray of Teflon, felt comforting in my hand. I took off down the road, keeping to the shadows. The glowing trail faded. I would've loved to rekindle it, but I'd left the inn's grounds and my bag of fun tricks had shrunk.

Avalon Subdivision had been built by a drunkard who couldn't draw a straight line if his life had depended on it. The streets didn't just turn, they curved and looped back on themselves as if they were the whorls of a giant's thumbprint. Camelot Road was the subdivision's main street, and even it bent like a snake slithering through the forest of houses. I passed by the side streets, briefly glancing down each one. Gawain Street, Igraine Road, Merlin Circle... The streets lay empty. Here and there lights were still on, but most of the residents had gone to bed.

Galahad Road.

A floodlight shone bright in the distance. Probably motion triggered. Someone or something was moving outside.

Keep going or check it out? If it was nothing, it would cost me time. But if it was something, I could stop looking.

I crossed the street to the opposite side and ran, hiding in the shadows of mature oaks. It would only take a minute.

A house sat in the shadow of a poplar tree. Gray Texas limestone, two stories, bay window, two-car garage --pretty standard fare for the subdivision. A car sat in the driveway, a Honda Odyssey, both passenger doors and the hatch open, showing white plastic bags in the cargo area, probably from a twenty-four-hour grocery store. The familiar shape of a child's car seat curved in the back. The door of the house stood ajar.

A couple coming home from a trip, maybe? They must've stopped at the store on the way so they wouldn't have to go out tomorrow, come home, parked, and taken their child inside. It was probably nothing, but I wouldn't know until I took a closer look.

The house directly across the street from the limestone offered no cover, but the property right before it had a nice thick hedge. I snuck over to the hedge and crouched to the side of it, resting my spear in the grass.

A car started somewhere deeper in the subdivision and drove away, the sound of its engine fading. Silence claimed the night. The moon shone bright, a glowing silver coin spilling gauzy veils of light onto thin shreds of clouds. Here and there stars pierced the darkness. To the left, a plane left a pale trail across the sky. The air smelled fresh, the night breeze pleasantly cool on my skin.

Quiet.

A shadow dashed across the lit-up driveway, swiped a grocery bag from the back of the Odyssey, and sprinted across the yard to the side of the house before sinking into the night shadows.

Got you, you creepy bastard. If I had blinked, I would've missed it. As it was, I got a vague impression of something simian and large, covered with patchy fur.

The thing on the side of the house ripped the bag apart, tossing the pieces out onto the moonlit lawn. Only its forepaws were visible --ratlike, larger than human hands, with bony hairless fingers armed with sharp black claws. Chunks of a yellow Styrofoam tray followed the bag, and the creature tore into its contents. A crunching noise announced bird bones being crushed. Lovely.

"Baby, did you bring in the groceries?" A woman asked from inside the house.

A muffled male voice answered.

Stay in the house. Stay in the nice safe house.

A woman appeared in the doorway. She was in her early thirties and looked tired, her shoulder-length brown hair messy, her T-shirt rumpled.

The creature dropped its stolen meat.

Stay in the house.

The woman crossed the threshold and headed for the car. The creature melted into the shadows. Either it hid because it was scared or because it was about to strike.

The woman checked the trunk, picked up the lone grocery bag, looked into it and frowned. "Malcolm? Did you take the chicken in?"

No answer.

The monster was nowhere in sight.

Take your bag and go inside.

The woman leaned into the rear passenger door, talking to herself. "I could've sworn... losing my mind."

A flicker of movement on the side of the house, high, about fifteen feet off the ground. I tensed, ready to sprint.

The beast scuttled into the light, crawling along the sheer wall fifteen feet up, like some giant monstrous gecko. It was at least five feet long, maybe five and a half. Spotted black and blue fur grew in patches along its spine; the rest of it was covered with pinkish wrinkled skin. Its skull was almost horselike, if horses could be carnivores. Long jaws, too large for the head, protruded forward, making the wide, flat nose seem ridiculously small. A forest of sharp bloodred fangs sprouted from the jaws, barely hidden by white lips. But the eyes, the eyes were worst of all. Small and sunken deep into the skull, they burned with malevolent intelligence.

The creature gripped the brick wall with oversized digits and dashed across, toward the car, agile like a monkey, too fast for a spear throw. A moment later and it jumped off the wall, clearing the car in one single, powerful lunge, and landed behind the Honda.

Damn it. I hefted my spear and ran.

The woman straightened.

The beast leaned forward, muscles on its four limbs tensing. It looked enormous now. The biggest Great Dane I'd ever seen was four and a half feet long. This beast had a full foot on it.

The creature opened its mouth and growled. A deep, guttural snarl rippled through the night. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. It didn't sound like a dog. It sounded like something dangerous and vicious.