As I struggled, I heard Carrie start to speak in a strange, almost sing-song meter. After a moment, Anne joined in, matching her word for word. “Seeker of truth,” they said. “Lover of barley. Child of the solstice.”

  I thought my swimming head was playing tricks on me, making me hear them wrong. But they repeated it, in the same tones, the same pattern. “Seeker of truth. Lover of barley. Child of the solstice.”

  The harvester was coming closer, its engine tearing apart the calm silence that had engulfed the field at first. I didn’t know what their nonsensical patter was about, but I was no solstice child. I kept fighting, trying to twist out of their hands.

  “Just give in, damn you,” Carrie snarled in my ear. “It’s an honor to be chosen to bring back the harvest. And you won’t even feel anything, thanks to Honey. More mercy than your Puritan kind deserves.”

  She was right. I could feel her nails tearing at my neck, but whatever herbs had dulled my wits also seemed to be doing the same to my other senses, blocking any associated pain.

  Which is probably how I was able to shake her off, plant my foot, and spin around, catching Anne off guard. Pulled off her feet, she slammed into Carrie, releasing me as both women went down in a heap.

  Right in front of the harvester.

  I didn’t bother to see if either of them got up again.

  Instead, I turned and ran.

  * * *

  They were between me and the parking lot, so I went the other way, cutting through the field toward the silo and the road I hoped was beyond it. My feet felt heavy, as if I’d waded through wet cement, and I was aware that I was stumbling in more of a zigzag pattern than charging straight across. The rasp of the barley was loud, as was my breathing, and I could hear my pulse in my ears. None of it, though, was loud enough to mask the roar of the harvester, that sickening squelching sound, or those horrific screams, which ended as abruptly as the engine noise did.

  I didn’t look back. I was pretty sure that trying would ensure that I fell on my face. Instead, I kept going, my gaze fixed on the tree line. I hoped the harvester had reaped, threshed, and winnowed both sisters. But whatever luck had allowed me to escape before the harvester reached me had since fled; I heard someone behind me, racing through the field.

  Moving faster than me, from the sound of it.

  I’d never make the trees. And I still couldn’t tell if there was a road on the other side; if not, reaching them would do me no good.

  I veered toward the silo. It was closer, and I could hide in there, or perhaps find something to use as a weapon. Make a stand, though I could barely remain upright without the world tilting crazily beneath my feet.

  Somehow, I made it, but whoever was coming behind me was catching up in a hurry. I’d been in a grain silo once before, reporting on a story about the dangers faced by children working on family farms. I hadn’t spent much time inside; the air was thick and foul, and the owner’s warnings of methane gas buildup made me more than a little nervous.

  But I remembered some of the basics. I unlatched the lower access door and climbed inside, pulling it shut behind me. It didn’t seem very full—this year’s harvest had yet to take place—but barley was crusted against the walls, as far up as I could see. Fiberglass panels set at intervals in the upper reaches of the tall structure let in just enough light to deepen the shadows. I stepped carefully over a piece of equipment on the floor, a kind of spiral-bladed, pivoting arm, then remembered its name: sweep auger. It whisked grain from the sides of the silo and toward a conveyor system in the floor. It was powered off, and I didn’t think it went that fast to begin with, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Leaning against the far wall was a shovel. I had just taken a last staggering step toward it when the door opened.

  Anne stepped through. In the dim light I could see her face and neck were spattered with blood, presumably her sister’s. She held a steel rod that looked to be at least six feet long. I recognized it as the kind workers used to dislodge stuck grain from silo walls. Suddenly my shovel seemed an inadequate weapon—by the time I could get close enough to hit her with it, she would already have skewered me.

  I had the feeling that if I swung the thing, I would only wind up dumping myself on my ass. But I had to try. Her gaze was fixed on me, her hands tight on the rod. Everything about her spoke of menace.

  I took a step to my right, her left. She turned with me and came closer. I took another step, and she reached the auger. As she stepped over it, she thrust the rod toward me. I swung the shovel, batting it away, but the motion made the whole place swim and I fell back against the wall. Dust rained down on me.

  She charged. I lunged to the right just in time to dodge the rod. It slammed into the silo wall, sending up a reverberation that shook the whole structure with a deep, echoing hum I could feel in my teeth. I tried to catch it with my left hand, hoping to snatch it from her grasp, but I snagged only empty air.

  The rod came at me again, and this time I didn’t move fast enough. The end scraped my ribs, ripping the shirt that by now was completely untucked and filthy. The absurd thought that the Standard didn’t pay me enough to replace my clothes flitted through my head in the instant before pain flared through me. The drugs must have been starting to wear off; my side felt like I had walked into the path of a blowtorch.

  I took two more lurching steps to the right before she thrust the length of steel at me again. I swatted it with the shovel. I couldn’t keep that up forever, though. All she needed was to hit me dead center once, impale me, and I was done.

  The next time she tried to spear me, I hurled the shovel. She dodged it easily, but lost her footing as she did. She crashed into one wall, while the shovel clanged off another.

  More dust fell, and grain now, too, striking the floor like hailstones. I stumbled toward the door as an ominous vibration shivered through the steel walls.

  Anne scrambled to her feet, but her rod had slid beneath the auger and she was trying to wrench it free. My last glimpse, just before I fell outside into the dirt, was of her just as she yanked it loose. But doing so slammed its back end against the wall, and the vibration grew more intense. I heard bigger chunks of crusted barley hitting the floor, and Anne gave a cry as—from the sound of it—another hit her, knocking her once again off her feet.

  I made it to my hands and knees and saw the power box right in front of me. Throwing it open, I jammed my finger down onto the switch. The motor engaged instantly. Inside, Anne started screaming. “Shut it off!”

  Judging by the racket, she was still trying to regain her footing. Larger quantities of grain were falling with a noise like an entire marching band full of drummers, and her cries were interrupted by grunts of pain. “Come back!” she shrieked. “Come back here, John Barleycorn!”

  I stayed where I was, breathing hard, dizzy, seconds away from puking. Anne’s shrieks became wails of agony, and I thought maybe I could hear the sound of the sweep augur chewing through her legs, but the falling grain had turned into a rumble. The vibrations as it hit the floor spread through the silo, working more off, and the rumble became thunder. Barley dust puffed out through the open door, followed by a spill of grain. I sat there, a dozen feet away, until the din stopped. Almost reluctantly—sitting felt so good—I found my feet and went back to the door.

  All I could see was barley, mounded up high on the floor.

  * * *

  The sun was on the last leg of its slow descent, its rays catching the harvester still sitting in the field. I didn’t want to go near it. I could have called somebody—911, sheriffs, anybody—but I had just participated in the deaths of two local businesswomen and I was under the influence of some unknown drug. I didn’t want to put myself into that kind of meat-grinder until I was free of its effects. I didn’t see Honey anywhere, but I couldn’t imagine her calling the authorities. Not after what she and her partners had tried to do to me.

  I made my way across the field again, toward the brewery and my car parked in front of it. As I walked, the awns poked at me and I batted them wearily away. If I never saw barley again, it would still be too soon. For once, I didn’t even crave a beer.

  * * *

  I’d intended to circle around the brick building and make straight for my car, but as I neared the closest corner, I thought I saw a flash of movement in the shadows gathering there.

  Honey?

  I couldn’t afford to take the chance. If she was at the corner, going through the building would get me to my car faster than trying to go around the other way.

  I changed direction, heading for the brewery’s service entrance, the one we’d all walked out of so cheerfully just a short while ago, a dry drunk improbably surrounded by a trio of beautiful, attentive women, like something out of a dream.

  Or, in this case, a nightmare.

  Either Carrie or Anne had left the door wedged open with a cinder block, which I shoved inside before pulling the metal door closed behind me. I hoped the click I heard was it locking and that the fact that it had been propped open in the first place meant none of the three women had bothered to take a key. Not that I planned on sticking around long enough to find out.

  As I hurried through the darkened brewery, past the two fermentation tanks, I thought I heard footsteps echoing behind me. I tensed and whirled, expecting Honey.

  No one.

  Christ, John. Get a grip.

  I turned back around, picking up my pace. The echoes increased in response, and this time I thought I heard whispers, too.

  “Seeker of truth.”

  I spun so fast I made myself momentarily dizzy.

  Nothing but shadows.

  I peered into the darkness, trying to see, but it was impossible. If Honey was hiding there, the only way I’d know was if I walked back and bumped into her, and that was not happening.

  I resolutely turned my back and headed past the long bar for the foyer, just able to make out the flickering light from the candles still burning there. I was running now.

  “Lover of barley.”

  I refused to look, kept my eyes on the arched entrance, ignoring the impossible echoes of many feet, the whispers, the movements at the edges of my vision.

  “Child of the solstice.”

  I fetched up hard at the arch, not because of some unseen wall—though with all the other strangeness tonight, that wouldn’t really have surprised me—but because of what I could see, just beyond, in the foyer.

  Honey knelt there, naked, chanting words I couldn’t understand in the center of a circle inlaid in the tiles. Thick black candles stood at five points along its circumference, white lines of . . . salt? . . . connecting them across the circle’s interior, forming a star.

  A pentagram.

  No. A pentacle. I remembered them from my ex’s Tarot cards, recalling the distinction only because of her frequent pontification on the topic, something I never thought I’d be grateful for. I guess I owed her an apology.

  Assuming I ever made it out of here.

  So, a pentacle. And if Honey was kneeling naked in the middle of one, that could only mean she was a . . . I couldn’t quite bring myself to think the word, despite what I’d already seen and heard. Been through.

  Because I could handle three psychotic women luring me here, drugging me, and trying to kill me for some insane reason that only made sense to them—unfortunately, we lived in that kind of world, and I’d covered worse and more bizarre stories back in New England.

  But three . . . witches—because that’s what they had to be, right?—choosing me to be their . . . harvest sacrifice?

  I’d had booze-fueled fever dreams that made more sense.

  But I couldn’t deny the reality—the awns stuck in my pants, the burning pain across my torso, the lovely woman before me.

  “You shouldn’t have run, John,” Honey said softly, her chant finished. She looked up at me with those incredible green eyes, her hair falling about her shoulders in a way that drew my gaze downward . . . I jerked my head back up, met her come-hither look with a glare of my own. “Running only ever makes things worse.”

  “Only if you get caught.”

  Honey laughed aloud at that, a sound that still thrilled me, even though I knew she wanted me dead and would do anything in her power to make that happen.

  And that was the question, of course.

  What exactly was in her power?

  “Oh, I’d say you’ve been caught. Quite handily, too.” Honey rose as she spoke, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes on her face and not lose myself in the sight of her curves. “The doors are locked, windows barred. And you won’t find me as unprepared as you did the others.”

  She gestured with her hand, taking in the circle and the candles. Behind me, there was a rush of sound, as if a thousand birds had taken flight at once, all of them intent on a single target.

  Me.

  I winced, bracing myself for an impact that never came.

  Honey laughed again, then held both arms out, as if in welcome. A rattling noise sounded on the walls to my left and right, and then suddenly the metal disks flew off the walls and into her waiting hands. In the candlelight, I could see now that the edges of the moons—one half, one a crescent—had been sharpened.

  “Are you ready to die now, John Barleycorn?”

  In reply, I turned and ran back the way I’d come. As I did, candles I hadn’t noticed behind the bar and on the tables flared to life, like lights on a runway, leading me to something I was pretty sure wasn’t safety. But what choice did I have? I could hear her bare feet slapping against the wooden floor behind me.

  And then I could hear the whoosh of something slicing through the air. I couldn’t know if she’d aimed left or right, high or low, so I ducked behind the nearest table and heard the thunk of metal sinking into wood, right about where the small of my back had been just moments before.

  Not quite center mass, but enough to get the job done, if it had connected.

  I had little doubt the next one would.

  I tried to keep low, working my way through the tables and toward the back of the brewery, where the fermentation tanks were. I thought there were bathrooms there, too, and if any of the windows had escaped the rebar treatment—used in actual urban environments to keep the bad guys out, but here in small-town Montana, as a form of hipster ornamentation—it would be those.

  The tables slowed me, but they also kept Honey from getting a clear shot with her Xena Warrior Princess chakram, or whatever the hell those things were supposed to be.

  Of course, I had no idea if those were the only weapons at her disposal. I had a bad feeling they weren’t.

  On cue, the echoes started back up, masking her footsteps.

  And the whispers, too, though they had a few new refrains this time.

  “Are you ready to die, John Barleycorn?”

  “Just give in.”

  And the last, most insidious one, repeating over and over.

  “Is your life really so worth living?”

  Maybe not, but I’d made it this far, despite myself. I wasn’t about to give up now.

  And then I was out of tables, and there was nothing between me and the door to the men’s room but a long stretch of open floor and the twin silver cylinders of the fermentation tanks.

  I’d never make it without something to distract Honey, slow her down.

  I looked at the tanks again, considering.

  Judging the distance.

  Then, with a wordless prayer to my higher power, I took off.

  * * *

  I made it to the tanks and had just managed to squeeze myself between them when the higher-pitched thunk of metal piercing metal rang in my ears; she’d been going for my head that time, and she’d barely missed.

  I had no idea if she was out of throwing moons now or not—she could have pulled the other one out of the table, or even summoned more off the walls as she walked. I had to assume she was still armed and dangerous.

  So I did the only thing I could think to do.

  I reached around, felt for the valve, and opened it up to full. Then I did the same with the second tank.

  The heady scent of beer flooded my nostrils as the cool liquid poured from the tanks in a frothy rush. Hoping that wading through a river of lager would slow her down some, I peeked around the curved edge of the tank to look for Honey. She was standing back near the tables, half moon in hand, ready to throw as soon as I stepped out of my hiding place, unmindful of the beer already sloshing around her ankles.

  Damn it. Now what?

  As if in answer, the tank that she’d hit with the crescent moon groaned, shook. Weakened by the puncture and with thousands of gallons flowing out from it unchecked, the cylinder was losing its structural stability. Seeing my chance, I wedged myself in between it and the wall, and heaved.

  At first, nothing happened, but after a handful of eternities, I felt it give.

  Redoubling my efforts, my back and legs braced against the brick wall, clothes ripping and skin tearing, I pushed as hard as I could.

  And slowly, like a tree unwilling to admit it had been felled by a logger’s axe, the tank toppled.

  As it started to fall, I slid out from my hiding place. I watched as it crashed down on the floor and part of the bar, the top splitting open on impact, the remainder of the golden liquid within bursting out across the tables like a flash flood. I saw Honey go down as tables collided with each other. Candles fell from their perches, igniting the alcohol-soaked wood, and flames flared to life across the brewery, turning it into a virtual lake of fire. I watched Honey struggling to rise, her hair brushing up against a burning table, bursting into a fiery corona. She screamed as I turned and ran again, slamming into the men’s room door and rushing over to the window above the urinals, chased by fire and ale and a dying witch’s curses.

  The window was small, and as suspected, unbarred. But I could squeeze through it.