Rebecca Jane Foster, if you doubt the Good Lord, there ain’t no hope for you, no hope at all …

  Momma, oh Momma, I never meant what I wished when I got so mad, I never wanted you to go away …

  The police were quiet and polite to her, even Bowman’s wife. She gave Rebecca a cup of coffee and touched her fingers very gently. When Rebecca looked up, she saw the police lights catch red in Maggie Bowman’s eyes, and knew. She was one of them, too, or serving them. The Red Whore of Babylon, like the Indian woman.

  Foster threw the coffee at her. The scalding coffee splashed over part of her face and left a red weal; Bowman cursed and mopped at her cheek with her sleeve.

  “I tried to tell you,” Rebecca said quietly. The Styrofoam cup fell to tumble hollowly down the cracked steps and roll back and forth in the breeze on the porch. Maggie Bowman stared at her without expression. “You didn’t want to believe me, but now you do, don’t you? Now you believe.”

  “You’re crazy,” the woman whispered. Foster just looked at her. “Rebecca, somebody killed your mother, don’t you understand that? Don’t you?”

  Mommamommamommamomma

  Something gray and clean like a knife cut across Rebecca’s mind and severed that pain. She was free. She reached down and picked up the Styrofoam cup; it squeaked and squished in her fingers. When she squeezed, it popped like a bone.

  “You’re crazy,” Maggie Bowman repeated, and took a step back. Foster watched her.

  “God is not mocked.” Rebecca said it, but it was William’s voice, William’s pretty singsong accent. She could feel him like a heavy tumor behind her eyes. He liked looking at Maggie, a distant and pure pleasure. It wasn’t lust. William was the dark angel. William did not lust. “Do you want to fuck your husband?”

  Maggie blinked, the briefest flinch of pain. William saw it and made Rebecca’s lips twist up in a smile. Oh, pure, pure joy.

  “Oh, yes.” It hissed out of her mouth on dark wings, growing like a fat carrion bird. “He walks, he talks, he lives. But he can’t fuck you, Maggie-Mae. He can’t ever do that again.”

  Maggie took one long step back. Her face was rigid and frightened. William sucked her fear in through Rebecca Foster’s pores and breathed it back out in a numbing cloud.

  “You come to ol’ William for that,” he whispered. It wasn’t Rebecca’s voice, it was his, grating somehow out of her vocal cords, twisting its way out of her throat. “I’ll just eat you up, Maggie-Mae.”

  One sharp, short sound burst out of Maggie as she backed away. There was fear in her face, but even more than that, there was anger. She stumbled over a garden hose, turned, and walked quickly away.

  “Bye-bye,” Foster said. Her throat hurt, and there was a warm wet sensation in it. Blood vessels bursting. Her voice sounded scratchy and strained. Maggie threw her a disbelieving look over her shoulder and kept walking all the way to where the two plainclothes detectives stood at the end of the sidewalk. “Sorry to leave you, gotta go, time to make the donuts.”

  William faded out of her head like fog, a flash of silver eyes and laughter. Rebecca hugged her knees closer as the screen door banged open and the ambulance gurney slid out. There was something in a black plastic bag strapped on it. She wondered what it was. They rolled it down the sidewalk while she smiled at the younger attendant; he looked away as if she’d scared him.

  He probably didn’t know the comfort of Jesus. Not like she did.

  “Miss Foster?” That was the older detective, graying and grave. He had a friendly face, but his eyes were cold and quiet. “Do you have anyone you want us to call for you?”

  “Call?” she repeated blankly. He glanced at Maggie, who shrugged.

  “A friend, maybe, or another family member.”

  “I really don’t think this is the time to be inviting people over, do you?” she asked indignantly. The idea. “It’s the middle of the night, Sergeant.”

  The other detective let out a little snort of laughter and turned around to face the street. The older one just looked grim.

  “Miss Foster, do you understand what’s happened here?”

  “Surely.” Suddenly, William was there again, a friendly hand under her arm, a supporting arm. All within the warm circle of her head. “Why, my poor momma got killed by that man, that Adam Radburn. He said he’d get me. He killed my momma?

  They looked at each other, the two detectives. Maggie Bowman crossed her arms across her chest, bowed her head, and didn’t say anything.

  “Miss Foster, did you see Adam Radburn here?” the younger one asked. He’d gotten over his laughing fit and looked grave and thoughtful. Rebecca smiled at him. She couldn’t understand why he looked so strange.

  “Didn’t have to. He was here. I can smell him? She sniffed at the wind without looking away from the young one. Pretty, pretty. William’s eyes focused through hers, and a cold interest stirred in her stomach. “Who are you?”

  They’d told her once, but they couldn’t expect her to remember details like that, could they? The older detective shook his head slightly, but the younger one didn’t catch the hint.

  “Frank? He tapped his pencil against his notebook nervously and tried a smile. “Miss Foster—”

  “Pretty.” she breathed, or was it William? She couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. The passion was pure and holy and hungry. “You go find Adam Radburn, Frank. You go find him?

  The older one’s lips pressed together in a thin line, accenting the sharp lines bracketing his mouth, and jerked his head toward the driveway. The younger detective trailed after him. Maggie Bowman lifted her head and looked at Foster, and her eyes were strange and glittering.

  “I’m sorry, Rebecca,” Maggie told her quietly, and walked across the grass to where the other detectives hissed and whispered to each other. The three of them talked. Maggie left them and walked back toward Rebecca. Before anyone, even Rebecca, could stop her, she grabbed Foster’s shoulders and pulled her very close, close enough that Foster could see the bruised shadows under her eyes. There was strength coming off her like an electric current.

  “Don’t touch me? Rebecca whined. Every nerve in her body jumped against the contact, but Bowman wouldn’t let go. Her fingers were too tight to shrug off. “Let go of me!”

  “Rebecca, who’s William? What does he want?” Maggie shook her, an explosion of fury that rattled William’s peace and comforting gray presence right out of her head. The pain rolled back in. “Tell me! Who’s William?”

  Rebecca screamed, a long raw grating sound that boiled up and shattered whatever link she had left to William, and collapsed against Maggie. Rebecca’s body twitched helplessly, fighting something she couldn’t even identify.

  She wouldn’t tell. She couldn’t.

  “One of them, he’s one of them, oh dear God, help me, don’t let him have me—” That was Rebecca’s own voice, wailing on without pause, without breath, a thin thread where her mouth pressed in Maggie’s hair near her ear. Rebecca tried to stop it, but the words kept pouring out like blood out of a cut throat. “Dark. Dark angel. I didn’t mean to kill the first one, I didn’t, it was an accident, and the second one she deserved it but I didn’t want him to do that to Julie Gilmore but I couldn’t stop him and then he was in my head—”

  “Shh,” Maggie whispered, and her hand stroked the woman’s tangled hair. “Rebecca, shh, it’s okay now. Tell me what happened. Tell me about William.”

  “Can’t. I c-c-c-can t, he w-w-won’t let me t-tell you.” The pressure behind her eyes was blinding and bright. The knife was coming again. “Help me. He’ll get you too.”

  “No, he won’t. Trust me, Rebecca.”

  The knife was coming up. It caught the light along the razor-edge. Rebecca saw her face reflected in it, knew it was too late for her, that her chance was gone again, gone forever.

  “Mommmaaaa—” she wailed. But Momma didn’t come.

  She collapsed against Maggie Bowman, limp as a rag. Maggie held her, talking soothingly. The sound of her voice was an annoyance like buzzing flies. Rebecca let her head loll back and grinned at her.

  Maggie flinched and tried to pull free. Foster held onto her and kissed her, hard, forcing her tongue between Maggie’s clenched lips before Maggie managed to shove her away. Rebecca fell against the step, laughing, and tasted blood on her tongue where she’d been bitten. Maggie swayed, staring and breathing too fast. Her fists were clenched but still trembled. The two detectives ran to her side, but they were all looking at Rebecca, with identical expression of loathing and no little fear.

  “I think you’re going to have to come with us, Miss Foster,” the older detective said. He came toward her. She held her hand out to him in a graceful Southern gesture; he took it.

  Rebecca twisted his hand and felt fingers give under the pressure. His gun was under his left shoulder; she grabbed it, shoved him forward at his partner and Maggie Bowman, and shot at them. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs, and she turned and ran back into the house.

  Not Momma’s house anymore. My house. Mine.

  William was with her, running, part of her forever now. As she was part of him.

  Stupid human fools. Couldn’t they see?

  Rebecca Foster was William’s now, and she intended to feed on Adam’s blood in the moonlight.

  Interlude

  Maggie

  Shit, Maggie thought very clearly, utterly amazed, and then the gun went off and the world got very confused. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground at the bottom of a tangle of bodies.

  Maggie tried to push Frank off her with one hand while she reached for her gun with the other. That didn’t work, because Frank wasn’t cooperating. He was a dead weight on top of her.

  “Frank? Frankie?” McDonnell rolled to his hands and knees and moved Frank enough that she could slide out from under him. McDonnell’s eyes widened when he glanced at her; Maggie looked down and saw that her shirt was plastered wetly against her body. Since it was black, she couldn’t see the color, but when she wiped her fingers on it they came away red.

  “It’s his,” Maggie said after doing a quick panicked check of her chest. They both reached for Frankie’s trenchcoat and folded it back at the same moment. The bullet wound was pouring a bright red fountain from his thigh. “Shit!”

  The ambulance hadn’t left; the attendants were still sensibly hugging the grass. McDonnell twisted around and grabbed the nearest one; he didn’t bother to get him up, just dragged him prone over to Frank. The attendant, obviously shaken, hesitated long enough for McDonnell’s face to harden.

  “Do something,” he simply said. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in anybody’s mind that he meant it. The attendant’s hands steadied very quickly. “You. Bowman. Get that bitch.”

  He didn’t have to tell her. She took the steps two at a time. Two of the uniformed officers followed her. Maggie’s instincts told her Foster was already gone, but she did it by the numbers anyway—if the numbers were counted by a hyperactive on speed—and she stood at the back patio door in time to see the flash of white skin as Foster disappeared down the alley.

  In time to see Foster raise McDonnell’s gun and fire it at her. The bullet spanged off the concrete patio and raised a little puff of dust before thunking solidly into the side of the house. Maggie ducked, went low, and ran for the fence. One of the uniforms got there before her and waved her on; she kicked the gate open and dived out into the dark alley. Fear nibbled around the base of her skull, too timid to jump out and take the stage; most of her mind was busy remembering the raw pulsing wound in Frank’s leg and the wild white look on Foster’s face. The bitch.

  Too dark. Maggie couldn’t see a damn thing. The alley was pitch black, shaded with trees and far from what lights there were in this neighborhood. What outlines she could make out were chalky and indistinct—trash cans, amoeba-like blobs of garbage bags, empty shells of boxes. The smell of rancid diapers and rotting meat hung in the stiff air like a physical presence; even though it was cool, even a little cold, she felt sweat in her hair and trickling between her breasts.

  The uniform across from her stood up. Maggie instantly reached out and waved him down; another shot whined overhead. One small point for the good guys: Foster wasn’t exactly a crack shot. Maggie was amazed she’d missed the idiot. He hugged the cracked rutted dirt as if he didn’t intend to ever get up and embraced an overflowing garbage bag like a life preserver. Maggie considered firing back, but couldn’t tell where Foster had gone. Damn, she hated family-neighborhood shootouts, any minute now there’d be some idiot come running out to see what was going on who’d freeze right in the line of fire. No firing until she saw the whites of Rebecca Foster’s eyes. Maggie wasn’t about to let a bystander stop her bullet.

  A patrol car screamed to a halt at the other end of the alley. The flashers lit the place up, but that wasn’t much of a help; the alley was piled with plenty of junk that could hide somebody Foster’s size, and the strobes distorted as much as they revealed. Nothing moved. Maggie felt something crawl up her spine, something unpleasant, and exchanged a look with the sweating uniforms. They waited for her to do something. Seniority.

  She eased cautiously up. Nothing. The flashers strobed, red, blue, red, blue, regular as the pulse in her ears if one hell of a lot slower. She pulled in three quick breaths of the rancid air and went around the trash cans to the next pile of boxes.

  Nothing. The uniforms scampered after her. There were two more uniforms advancing at the other end; if Foster showed herself now she’d be caught in a crossfire. That was nice, but right about now Maggie’s nerves screamed to just spray the goddamn alley with bullets and get it over with. This was one of those setups cops died in.

  Maggie peered over the top of a pile of boxes and looked into a pair of wide unblinking eyes. Not Foster’s. It was the most terrifying sensation, as if her body had just melted and she was just a dry skeleton held together with rubber bands. She couldn’t move.

  The thing came at her through the boxes and threw her on her back. Cold mud squished under her as its weight drove her down, and Maggie instinctively raised her hands to grab its throat as it lunged for hers.

  The pistol was in her right hand. She fired, four quick pops, and blinked against the afterimages and sting of powder. Jesus, sweet Jesus, it could not still be moving. It scrambled on her body, front paws clawing at her breasts, rear dragging bloody furrows along her thighs. Maggie’s mind kept screaming something, but she didn’t have time to heed it; she was too busy trying to get her wrist to twist a way nature had never intended to put the gun in the thing’s mouth. With her other hand she ripped big patches of fur away. A fall of silver drifted on the still air, but the thing didn’t even notice. She finally succeeded in getting her wrist around—the longest seconds of her life—and shoved the gun in its mouth when it stretched for her throat; its long teeth clicked and grated on the metal. She pulled the trigger. The powder blasted back like hot wind over her face; she had just enough time to close her eyes before it hit. When she opened them, the thing was still there.

  It took a minute for it to fall. It just looked at her with those huge horrible eyes while its brains leaked out over its face, and collapsed gracefully on her chest. Maggie pushed it off and rolled on her side, pressing her burning cheek into the mud, and saw the uniforms staring at her.

  “Fuck,” one of them whispered. “Big fucking dog, man.”

  “Couldn’t have been rabid. Look, it’s got tags,” another voice said.

  Yeah, Maggie saw, it did, glimmering in the flashers like party jewels. La death it looked a lot smaller, but it was a big dog, some kind of silver-furred Husky cross that looked a lot like she imagined a wolf would look.

  At least it didn’t look like Lassie.

  “Oh, man, we’re gonna have to explain to some old fart why we shot the damn family dog. The lieutenant’s gonna have our asses.”

  “My ass,” Maggie managed to croak, and grinned a little crazily. “What’s left of it, anyway.”

  One of them reached down and helped her up. She looked at her gun in the irregular blue and red light and saw bright fresh scratches all along the barrel.

  “What about Foster?” Maggie asked. They looked at each other again, which was all the answer she needed. “She get away?”

  “We’ll get on it,” the oldest of the uniforms said soberly, and nodded at his partner. They jogged back down to the end of the alley and disappeared. Maggie glanced at the other two, who were looking apprehensively behind them every few seconds.

  “You two, help me go through these yards.”

  “I think we ought to wait for backup,” one of them blurted. A laugh bubbled up inside her, which she swallowed.

  “Baby, one crazy dog is enough for one night. I don’t think we’ll run into another one. Come on or don’t, but I’m going.” She twitched her shoulders and wiped at the mud on her face; it was thick and gelid. Her hair was plastered with it. It was a good thing she was wearing black; it didn’t show the blood except where it was torn and skin gleamed through. The dog had ripped right through her shirt and bra and dug red furrows along the right side of her breast. Maggie touched it with fingertips that weren’t nearly as steady as she wanted them to be, then reached out and lifted she latch on the gate.

  The uniforms were so tense they’d snap in two if they turned too fast. Maggie eased into the yard and looked around. Nothing. A big cracked concrete dab that must have once been the foundation for a garage; a plastic patio set covered in a fine mist of dirt and bird droppings; wire clotheslines strung like a fat spiderweb between trees. Nothing.

  Something big and black with four legs trotted out from the side of the house. The uniform next to her dropped into firing position; she knocked his arm up as the dog flinched and growled.

  “It’s the family dog, asshole, take it easy. Easy.” Maggie talked to the uniforms as if they were Dobermans, gentling them. They made the circuit of the yard and found nothing, not a drop of blood, not even a hair. They found exactly the same thing in every other yard. By the time Maggie went back to the Foster house she was exhausted, shaky, and aching, and the two uniforms looked as if they were ready for psychiatric treatment.