Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(62)

It had Lizbeth by the arm, and I reached for it, seized it by the shoulder and flung it backward—or that’s what I attempted, to only modest success. I was stunned by how little I was able to move it, how it jerked itself out of my grasp and remained, feet planted, a high-pitched howl whistling from its ruined mouth and leaking from what passed for its nostrils.

“No!” she cried, and bless the poor woman, she tried to put herself between us. “You don’t understand . . .”

And that was an understatement, wasn’t it? But I was in the fray already, and there was no time to pause or regroup, not when the monster slathered and grimaced, seizing me and wrestling with me—grappling with its iron-hard fingers, crushing at my ribs and my arms, pushing against my belly in blows that would’ve stunned a seasoned boxer—blows that stole my breath and left me winded.

I am growing older, a fact that I do not contest or bemoan—but I am still a large man, and a strong one, too. No seasoned boxer, but well able to withstand a beating should one be delivered, or so I’ve told myself all these years.

So I stood against the thing, though its hands wandered and hit with such astonishing rapidity that even in the bright light of day, its motions would have seemed a blur. I was shocked, but not incapable of blocking and protecting myself with my arms; all my thoughts of assault having folded back in upon themselves, collapsing into the more immediate task of defense.

“It’s the iron,” Lizbeth wheezed. “Our bodies won’t stop them, but the iron . . .”

I did not see her, because I did not dare raise my head. I now bore the full brunt of the creature’s attention, and I would’ve told my companion to run for safety—if it would’ve mattered in the slightest. I’d interrupted her, and perhaps complicated her plans; except that no, she’d faltered and missed with her axe. I must have been some help, surely?

But not in that moment.

No, it was all her . . . when I heard the slice of the axe splitting the fog as neatly as a razor, and when the weapon came striking down—a vicious blow that took the creature in the shoulder, cutting past the collarbone and down into the lungs, if the thing had lungs at all.





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(There was no time to examine it more fully, but I’ll come around to that. I feel like I’m saying this too much, about too many things at once, but what can I do? There are too many things to say, so I must say them here and now, or remind myself to say them later. This is all I can do, and in this way I hope I’ll come around to everything, in time.)





? ? ?


The creature stumbled forward and released me even as it crashed into me, knocking me backward and to the ground, where it jerked atop me, clawing at me—or clawing for purchase on the ground, I can’t say which. It flailed and seized, and I lifted one leg and used all my weight, and the weight of my boot, to leverage it away in a mighty kick.

The creature fell backward, and Lizbeth’s axe caught it on the downswing, striking the base of its neck and almost completely decapitating it.

Its head lolled to the side, and back, and down to dangle against its chest. The creature fell to its knees, and Lizbeth struck it some more, again and again, well past the point at which it must have been dead.





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(But . . . once I thought I knew of death. Now I’m not so sure. The line is finer than I would have ever guessed, and with these inhuman things? Are they mortal enough to die? And if so, do they die on the same terms as the rest of us?)





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Finally the monster lay on the ground, looking like some bony pulp with a loosely humanesque structure. I climbed to my feet and stood over the mess, wishing for all the world that we had a light and I could see it better—for this whole battle had been fought in pitch-dark, save what slivers of ambient glow the small town afforded us. The whole thing took place in silhouette, in outline, in vague impressions like strokes of paint intended only to suggest an event, not portray it with any real accuracy.

Half of what I’ve composed here has likewise been conjecture, informed by those brushstrokes. Conjecture, combined with Lizbeth’s account. Between us, I think we’ve recorded it with as much truth as we could muster.

We’ve done our best, and then some.

But the creature . . . it lay flat upon the earth, oozing onto the grass. I thought perhaps it twitched, but again, the light was so poor that I would not swear this was the case. Lizbeth was panting, leaning on the axe for support, and clutching at her stomach as if she could scarcely catch her breath.

“Lizbeth,” I called her by the name she suggested, the one I always tried to remember, but didn’t, And my own breath had hardly been corralled enough for even that lone word.

“Doctor?”

“Are . . . are you all right?”

Grimly she informed me, “Not yet.” She straightened up, sniffled hard, took a deep breath, and brushed her hair out of her face—for all the good that did. “We have to get this thing inside.”

I thought I had misheard her. “Inside?”

“Yes, inside. You wanted to see the laboratory, didn’t you? No—” She gestured with the axe and shook her head. I’d been leaning down to touch the thing. “Don’t touch it,” she told me. “Not with your bare hands. It’ll only hurt later. We’ll . . . you and I, Doctor. We’ll put this thing to rest for good.”