He picked up the pace, racing for the goal line with Pratt the jerk blocking in front of him.

The hard part was getting the car. He knew he would have time for only a few good blows before somebody heard him, and after he'd taken care of the bike, he took them standing on the hood. He pretended the windshield was Boyd's face, that the hood was the Duck's chest, and it had been beautiful! And a shame that Brian couldn't be there. But he was acting like an a.s.shole, like the minute after the game the pros were going to carry him away to the Super Bowl on their G.o.dd.a.m.ned shoulders, for Christ's sake.

He rounded another corner and headed for home, taking in air in deep, satisfying gulps. It was going to be like this tomorrow night. He was going to take North apart, and those f.u.c.kers wouldn't know what hit them. It was going to be excellent, and Brian was going to have to show him respect. Absolutely.

Something moved behind him.

He turned and walked backward a few steps, seeing nothing but the empty sidewalk, the porch lights hazed in the crisp air, the cars at the curb silent and black. He turned 242.

again and groaned when he saw a battered pickup in the driveway, blocking his own car-his old man was home early from the factory tonight. That meant he was going to have to put up with the back-slapping and the jabbing and the reminders of how the old fart had been a star in his day, the best quarterback in the state and don't you forget it, boy, when I give you the best G.o.dd.a.m.ned advice you ever had in your life. The trouble was, it's been twenty years since they played the way his old man did, and the jerk didn't know it. He didn't know why his mother put up with it, and him, all these years. He sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to. As soon as he had that diploma in hand, he was gone.

Out of that house and out of this town and out of this whole G.o.dd.a.m.ned state if he could.Something moved.

s.h.i.t, he thought, angry at the way his good mood could be shattered by the simple thought of his father. s.h.i.t!

He looked over his shoulder, his expression daring anyone to say something, to do something, even to breathe wrong tonight. And he walked past his house with his head down and averted, spitting at the pickup, zipping up his jacket and jamming his hands into his pockets. f.u.c.k it, he would walk over to Brian's instead of calling. The story would be better anyway, with him doing the telling in person.

Something ...

He stopped at the boulevard, looked up and down the avenue, and then whirled around, fists at the ready.

There was nothing there.

But something was moving.

"Yo!" he said loudly.

A porch light blinked out, and he could see his breath feathering out of his mouth.

With his head tilted slightly to one side, he stepped off the curb and looked curiously down the block, under the trees that reached over the blacktop and created a tunnel almost 243.

solidly black. He tried to bring to mind a picture of Don's stricken face when he found the dead bird, when he discovered the bike, because suddenly and inexplicably anything would be better than seeing into that dark. But all he could see was the broken and faded white line stretching into the night, and something in the middle moving toward him without a sound.

"Yo, stupid!" he called.

Only one streetlamp worked, and his gaze kept moving toward its light where it caught the front end of a car and the lip of a driveway.

"a.s.shole," he muttered, and turned away, but didn't move. He was suddenly indecisive. Beacher's was already closed, and the idea of going to Brian's didn't seem as much fun as he'd thought. But he couldn't go home. Not yet. Not until his old man had had his beers and was asleep on the couch and his mother had already finished the dishes. Then he'd be able to kiss her goodnight and go to bed, get some sleep. Tomorrow, as the coach kept reminding them, was the Big Day, as if they didn't know it, and he supposed he might as well get all the rest he could.

Tomorrow, he was going to be a hero, and the h.e.l.l with Brian Pratt.

Then he heard something move and he whirled again, and took a deep breath, holding it until John Delfield's fat dachshund waddled into the light.

Don stood in the shower, oblivious to the hot water turning his skinpink. Slowly he pulled the plastic curtain aside and stared again at the jeans lying beside the wicker laundry basket. A bit of red leather poked out from one pocket. His hand released the curtain and it rattled closed, and the steam rose to cover his face while he tried to understand what was going on. He knew who the keys belonged to. He knew what he should have done the second he had found them. Yet he'd 244.

put them in his pocket and had said nothing, hadn't heard a word his father had said about whoever had committed that atrocity, hadn't felt a thing except a slow roll of nausea he only just managed to keep down.

Norman had suggested they not mention it to his mother; she was upset enough about the car, and they needn't bother her with this. He hinted about Brian, about Tar, even about Fleet, and there was something in his voice that made Don stare at him for a second-a realization that Norman didn't like kids.

It wasn't just the troublemakers, the sn.o.bs, the ones with influential parents who made being a princ.i.p.al a vicious sort of h.e.l.l-it was kids, period. And he remembered his father saying once that he wished all children could be born adults, without the parents having to do anything but show them the front door. Don had thought it a joke then; now he knew, perhaps more than Norman did, that it wasn't a joke at all.

That, more than anything, had stopped him from fixing the blame. His father, in the mood he was in now, would have gone over to the Bostons and had Tar arrested-after he had slammed him a few times into a wall.

Because of the car; you win some, you lose some was the only epitaph for the bike.

He backed out of the spray and wiped the water from his face, sat on the cool edge of the tub with his hands dangling between his knees. Tracey was right; but it wasn't just Brian who was jealous, it was Tar as well.

He doubted that Pratt had put his friend up to it tonight, because it wasn't Brian's style. But he guessed that Brian had said something today to give Tar the idea that something had to be done to put Don in his place, retaliation for being called into his father's office.

He moved the curtain again and looked at the key case, and he smiled.

There was power of some kind in that bit of cheap dime store leather. He knew it, and now all he had to do was figure out how to use it.

245.

The simplest thing would be to threaten to show it to his father. And if that didn't work, he could bring it to the police. Tar would protest, of course, and claim that he'd lost it or something, but there'd be enough ha.s.sle, enough problems, that- "He'll beat the s.h.i.t out of you."

The words were soft in the room's steamy fog, but harsh enough to make him sigh.

Someone rapped on the door, and he turned off the shower, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist. His mother called, and he yelled back, telling her he'd be only a few minutes more. And when he was dry,he held the jeans to his waist and slipped into the hall. A light was still on in his parents' room. The downstairs was dark. Shivering at the shock of cool air on his skin, he hurried into his own room and closed the door behind him, dropped the jeans where he stood and dropped onto the bed.

A few minutes later he stirred, stood, and padded to the window.

The backyard was empty.

All right, he thought to his friend in the dark, now that I know you're there, what do we do next?

"Stupid mutt," Tar said. He approached the dog with one hand out and waving. The fat old thing had gotten out again, probably through the flap Delfield had put in the back door of his house. Sometimes the old man forgot to latch it at night, and the dog would spend hours roaming the neighborhood, getting at garbage cans, digging up flower beds, until someone spotted it and brought it back. Tar had always ignored it before. The last time, however, he'd been p.i.s.sed on beer and grabbed it up and took it back himself before he knew what he was doing. Delfield had given him ten bucks for the trouble. Crazy. Just like the dog.

246.

But h.e.l.l, he thought as he bent into a crouch, ten bucks is ten bucks.

"C'mon, stupid," he said in a pleasant voice. "C'mon to Tar or I'll cut your head off."

The dachshund recognized his voice and stopped in the middle of the streetlamp's fall, its rat's tail wagging furiously, its tongue lolling from the side of its mouth.

"C'mon, baby, come to Tar."

The dog sat on its haunches.

"Ah, Jesus."

He straightened and took a step forward, and stopped when he saw a shadow on the other side of the light.

The dog yipped once and jumped to its feet, its head down now, its tail snaking contritely between its legs.

Tar squinted and moved to his right toward the middle of the road, snapping his fingers in an effort to bring the dog to him while he tried to make out who was standing there in the road.

The wind rose.

A trailer truck coughed and thundered down the boulevard behind him.

Then a hand swooped into the light and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the dog, and John Delfield followed, shaking the animal lightly before hugging it to his side.

"Foolish beast," he said with a slight German accent, and smiled at Tar.

"You try to catch him for me?"Tar nodded, wondering what in h.e.l.l was wrong with his heart that it wouldn't stop pounding. h.e.l.l, it was only old man Delfield and who the h.e.l.l was scared of him?

The dachshund squirmed in the man's grasp, but Delfield managed to reach into a hip pocket and pull out his wallet, finger out a bill. "Take it,"

he insisted when Tar protested with a wave. "You try. That's good as doing."

Tar accepted the money with a nod and a smile, and watched him waddle off around the corner. Crazy, he thought; 247.

the two of them are G.o.dd.a.m.n crazy. Then he raked a hand through his hair and decided to drive over to Pratt's anyway. Walking now was out of the question. He reached for his keys, and couldn't find them.

"What the ... ?"

He slapped at his pockets, turned them all out, then rolled his eyes skyward and slammed the heel of his hand against a temple. "f.u.c.k. Jesus ... f.u.c.k!"

They must have fallen out at Boyd's while he was doing the station wagon. Christ, all he needed now was for someone to pick them up and his a.s.s was gra.s.s. d.a.m.n, he had to go back and find those stupid keys. He started for the curb, and stopped again.

Down at the end of the block, barely lit by the streetlamps on School Street, something was standing. And watching.

Delfield, he thought; the stupid dog must've gotten away again and the old man was out prowling.

It moved, then, out of the light, into the dark, and Tar heard the distinct sound of something breathing. Something large, and breathing heavily.

He half-turned toward the boulevard, and swiveled his head back slowly.

He was mistaken; it wasn't Delfield and it wasn't his imagination.

It was there, and it was darker than the shadows, moving slowly toward him straight down the white line. He could hear it breathing, snorting once, and could hear the sound of something hard striking the blacktop, rhythmically, steadily, and unless he was as crazy as Delfield, it sounded just like a horse.

He blinked and took a side-step toward the avenue.

He shuddered, unable to shake the feeling that whatever it was, it was coming for him, not toward him. That was stupid. It was all stupid.

There were no horses in Ashford, 248.

and it was only Delfield for G.o.d's sake looking for his stupid fat dog.

Closer to the light, and he saw a glint of dark green hovering in the air; two of them now, and a long second pa.s.sed before he realized theywere eyes. Green eyes. Large, and slanted, and staring right at him.

The streetlight didn't reach to the middle of the blacktop, but when it pa.s.sed the white on the ground, Tar could see a ma.s.sive black flank, and the side of a ma.s.sive head. One green eye flaring. A flash of long white teeth.

And steam, maybe smoke, drifting from its nostrils.

"s.h.i.t," he said, and started to trot away. He didn't know what it was, but he wasn't going to hang around long enough to find out. He'd go somewhere else. Maybe Brian would know.

The sound picked up speed, and when he reached the middle of the empty boulevard, he looked over his shoulder and saw it.

Running, forelegs high, hooves casting greenfire and greeneyes dark with hate.

The hope it might have been some sort of joke, Don getting back at him for the dead bird and the bike, faded to an ember. And something inside told him he was dying.

Running, galloping, and seemingly moving in slow motion.

He broke into a panicked sprint, slanting across the avenue toward the inlands in the center, leaping the curb and ducking around the trees, the bushes, toward the center of town. Sooner or later he'd see a car, the cops, and everything would be all right.

Don't look; and he did.

It was pacing him ten yards behind, fully visible now and terrifyingly huge. Green eyes staring, greenfire snapping, the steam from its nostrils raising a cloud that it moved through, an ebony ghost flying through the boiling fog.

Tar whimpered and ran harder, leaping over a fallen branch, 249.

plowing through a bush he couldn't swerve around in time. He stumbled and grabbed a tree trunk, spun around, and ran again.

Hooves on the blacktop, iron striking iron.

A U-turn break in the island surprised him, and he fell shouting to the street, the skin on his palms sc.r.a.ping onto the tarmac, one cheek slamming down and bringing tears to his eyes. He lay for several seconds gulping air, wondering where all the traffic was, the people, why couldn't anyone see what was going on? He swallowed and tasted blood; he pushed himself to his knees and staggered to his feet.

A snorting; he spun around, and it was standing right behind him.

Tar screamed for his father.

And the stallion reared in a cloud of greenfire and white.

The telephone rang, and Tracey hurried into the kitchen to grab itbefore it woke her mother or one of her nosey sisters. She hadn't been able to sleep, had come downstairs to do some studying, which she knew would make her tired sooner or later. A knee banged against a chair and she swore as she yanked the handset off the cradle, taking a moment before saying h.e.l.lo.

"Trace?"

"Don?" She fumbled for the chair and sat down in the dark.

"You awake?"

"Yeah, sure." She tried to see the wall clock in the dark, but there was only enough light from the front room to tell her it was close to midnight; how close she couldn't tell.

"No, you weren't. I woke you. I'm sorry."

"I wasn't asleep, Vet," she said almost angrily. "I was studying." She inhaled slowly and rubbed a knuckle across her eyes. "What's the matter, something wrong?"

"Why should anything be wrong?"

250.

"Well, it's nearly twelve on a school night for one thing. And you're whispering for another."