Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [194]
The objects were pale and glistening and as Luke Honey approached them, his heart beat faster. He leaned close to inspect them and recoiled, his courage finally buckling in the presence of such monstrous events.
Luke Honey blindly shoved his way through low hanging branches and spiky undergrowth. His clothes were torn, the flesh of his hands and face scratched and bleeding. A rifle fired several yards away. He staggered and belatedly shielded his eyes from the muzzle flash, and a large animal blundered past him, squealing and roaring. Then it was gone, and Scobie came tearing in pursuit and almost tripped over him. The old man swung a battered lantern. He gawked at Luke Honey in the flat yellow glare.
Scobie’s expression was wild and caked in dirt. His face was nicked and bloody. He panted like a dog. He held his rifle in his left hand, its bore centered on Luke Honey’s middle. In a gasping voice, he said, “I see you, Bill.”
“It’s me, Luke Honey.”
“What’s your business here?”
“I came to help you find the boy.” He dared not speak of what he’d so recently discovered, an abomination that once revealed was certain to drive the huntsman into raving madness. At this range Scobie’s ancient single-shot rifle would cut Luke Honey in twain.
“Arlen’s gone. He’s gone.” Scobie lowered the weapon, his arm quivering in exhaustion.
“You don’t believe that,” Luke Honey said with a steadiness born of staring down savage predators, of waiting to pull the trigger that would drop them at his feet, of facing certain death with a coldness of mind inherent to the borderline mad. The terror remained, ready to sweep him away.
“I’m worn to the bone. There’s nothing left in me.” Scobie seemed to wither, to shrink into himself in despair.
“The stag is wounded,” Luke Honey said. “I think you hit it again, judging from the racket.”
“It don’t matter. You can’t kill a thing like that.” Scobie’s eyes glittered with tears. “This is the devil’s preserve, Mr. Honey. Every acre. You should’ve gone with the masters, got yourself away. We stayed too long and we’re done for. He only pretends to run. He’ll end the game and come for us soon.”
“I had a bad feeling about Landscomb and Welloc.”
“Forget those idiots. They’re as much at the mercy of hell as anyone else in Ransom Hollow.”
“Got anything to drink?” Luke Honey said.
Scobie hung the lantern from a branch and handed Luke Honey a canteen made of cured animal skin. The canteen was full of sweet, bitter whiskey. The men took a couple of swigs and rested there by the flickering illumination of the sooty old lamp. Luke Honey built a fire. They ate jerky and warmed themselves as the dank night closed in ever more tightly.
Much later, Scobie said, “It used to be worse. My grandsire claimed some of the more devout folk would drag girls from their homes and cut out their innards on them stone tablets you’ll find under a tree here or there.” His wizened face crinkled into a horridly mournful smile. “An’ my mother, she whispered that when she was a babe, Black Bill was known to creep through the yards of honest folk while they slept. She heard his nails tap-tapping on their cottage door one night.”
Luke Honey closed his eyes. He thought again of Arlen’s pitiful, small hands severed at the wrists and discarded in the brush, a pair of soft, dripping flowers. He heard his companion rise stealthily and creep away from camp. He slept and awakened to the old man kneeling at his side. Scobie’s face was hidden in shadow. Luke Honey smelled the oily steel of a knife near his own neck. The man reeked of murderous intent. He wondered where Scobie had been, what he had done.
Scobie spoke softly, “I don’t know what to do. I’m a man of God.”
“Yet here we are. Look who you serve.”