Midnight Moon (Vampire for Hire #13)(35)

But he's the devil, Tammy reasoned. Maybe he could bring the hunky guy back? From the dead and all that.

"Tammy-do you hear it?"

She did. Whispering. Lots of whispering. Hundreds if not thousands of voices whispering. Foul whisperings, too. Dark whisperings, hate-filled whisperings. Tammy was suddenly certain that she was hearing a legion of demons.

She couldn't move. Vaguely she recalled her phone in her pocket. She knew she should call her mother. But she couldn't move. Couldn't think. The whispering... so evil, so vile, so determined to destroy.

"C'mon, Tam!" said Anthony, rolling up to his feet effortlessly. As he dashed forward, he grabbed her hand and pulled her along. His strength was undeniable. Tammy couldn't have resisted if she wanted to. As it were, she followed behind, sometimes stumbling. Aware that her brother moved like a jungle cat. Aware, also, that evil seemed to be pouring out of hell itself and showing up here, in their cul-de-sac.

She was back outside in the setting sun. Correction, the sun had just set. Her mother, she knew, would be at full power now. She blinked into the still-bright sky. The single tree in their yard swayed. Wispy clouds streaked the sky, like a paintbrush stroke. The street was empty, even of parked cars. Correction, not empty. There, down the street, maybe seven or eight houses away, was a lone jogger. A lone, female jogger, whose ponytail sashayed from side-to-side as she ran, whose hips moved in perfect rhythm to her churning arms. A jogger who kept her elbows in and hands up. To Tammy, the woman looked like she might have had some kick-boxing training or something. Then again, her mother had never bothered to take her to boxing or kickboxing lessons at Jacky's gym. After all, the universe didn't revolve around her, but it sure as heck revolved around her little brother.

"I don't see anything," said Anthony. "But I hear something, I think."

As the woman approached, her long shadow stretched out before her. To Tammy, her shadow seemed maybe a little too long. And too narrow. And oddly shaped, too. Were those claws where her hands should be?

"It's her," said Tammy.

"Who?"

"The jogger!" she heard herself scream.

After all, the woman's very strange shadows had literally risen up from the sidewalk and became anything but shadows. They morphed into something three-dimensional and huge and far, far scarier in real life than she could ever imagine. Yes, Tammy had seen the three-headed hellhound in her brother's own memory-and even vaguely in her mother's memory, although her mother's memory had been a memory of a memory, and those were never very clear.



       
         
       
        

This was clear as day. This was real and it was happening now.



***



She heard her brother say, "Oh, my God," as what had once been a shadow grew in size, and its massive claws dug deeply into the sidewalk, tearing up concrete chunks and flinging them everywhere. The creature rocketed toward them and all Tammy could do was scream.

Or try to.

In fact, before anything could escape her lips, something massive loomed over her. Something massive and fiery and towering over the house itself. Tammy knew what it was, but she was too frightened to look. Too frightened to think. Too frightened to do anything but close her eyes and finish that scream she had seemingly started so long ago.

The ground shook. A thunderous, cavernous roar froze her heart in place.

And as the ground shook harder and the cacophony of growls rattled her teeth-three growls, in particular-something superheated and bright flashed overhead. It could have been a lightning strike. It could have been a guardian angel racing to their rescue. But Tammy knew what it was. She had seen it before. It was the flash of a fiery sword.

And as it charged overhead, it was followed by an ungodly shriek that turned immediately into wails of agony. So loud, Tammy was certain that her eardrums would split open.



***



When Tammy cracked open her eyes, she saw the three-headed dog was now a two-headed dog and it was running in circles in her cul-de-sac.

The severed head lay not too far from their driveway, it massive bloody jaws snapping over and over. Jaws that finally stopped snapping. And not too far behind the injured mythological monster was the female jogger. To Tammy's eyes, the jogger had never missed a beat, and had continued her easy pace unerringly toward them.

There was a monster in front of her, a gravely wounded monster running circles in the cul-de-sac where she had played soccer as a kid, and baseball, and learned to rollerblade. Where Daddy and Anthony had played catch. Now, a devil dog ran seemingly blindly, shrieking loud enough to wake the dead.