P.C. Cast - Mysteria Nights

Bubba crashed through the dog door, and they jumped apart.

“He’s got something in his mouth.” But Harmony only caught a glimpse of the rat-sized thing in Bubba’s mouth before Damon blocked her view with his big hand. “Hey!” She tried peeling his fingers from her eyes. “I want to see.”

“Nay. ’Tis not a pretty sight.” Damon held her head to his chest with his left hand as he threw something with his right. She heard more water splash and a shriek. Did rats shriek? Several pairs of paws scrabbled on the floor. Then two loud swishes of the dog door and a lot of barking told her that whatever Bubba had caught managed to escape.

Harmony wriggled off Damon’s lap. “I’m going after Bubba.”

“Nay, lass. He’ll be fine.”

“What if the rat bites him?”

“The troll—er, rather, the rat—’twill have disappeared underground before the pup catches up.”

“Underground? What are they—part gopher?”

From outside, Bubba yipped in frustration. Apparently, the rodent had indeed disappeared down its hole.

Harmony tugged on the hem of her blouse to recover some of the modesty she’d thrown to the wind. To forestall any further interruptions of dinner, of kisses, or of anything else, she shoved an empty chair in front of the dog door. Then she plopped down in her chair, clasped her hands under her chin, and whispered a quick and silent prayer to compose herself before saying grace. “Thank you, Lord, for the bounty we are about to eat. Thank you for bringing Damon here to help me.” And thank you for making him the most amazing kisser in the whole wide world! “Amen.”

For the first time in her presence, Damon murmured “amen,” too. It sounded rusty on his lips, as if he’d not had much practice with prayer. It didn’t trouble her; she’d seen inside his soul. He was cleaner and purer inside, where it counted, than some pastors she’d run across.

“Sometimes, lass, I dinna know if I have brought you help or harm.”

She shook her head in confusion.

“Your thanks to God,” he explained. “You gave thanks for my help, such as it is.” He waved at the chair blocking the dog door. “It seems I have brought you more harm than good.”

“You mean the rats? You can’t blame yourself for that. We probably stirred them up when we cleaned out the hayloft.”

He made a scoffing, grumbling sound in his throat.

“We’ll get rid of them tomorrow. Besides, like I told you, they don’t bother me that much. They bother my mama, though, so as long as you eradicate them before she gets here, I’m happy.”

“I will try,” he said with such pained seriousness that she put down her fork and knife to stare at him. “I’ll do everything I can, lass. Everything. Until then, you must promise me never to be alone with them. Never fight them without me at your side.”

“They’re not monsters, Damon,” she said with a laugh. “They’re rats!”

He laughed weakly.

“And I know you’ll slay them for me, brave knight, right?”

“Aye, fair maiden,” he said with more vehemence than what seemed to fit the task. “’Tis my job to slay the beasties.”

Nevertheless, through the rest of the supper, Damon acted edgy. Peering around the kitchen as he ate, he squinted at the corners, studied crevices, kept watch on the dog door she’d blocked.

When they’d finished, they didn’t linger over conversation. Damon appeared too distracted. Harmony walked him to the back door. The air was warm for nighttime in these parts. Distant thunder echoed from somewhere over the Rockies. “It’s going to be a hot one tomorrow,” she observed, trying to act casual though she was acutely aware of his body so close to hers.

He turned to her. “Thank you for tonight.”

“My pleasure.”

“Aye, your pleasure will always be mine, lass.”

Harmony gulped. Sigh. He had no idea. . . .

He stood there for a moment, studying her with a look that pingponged between desire and regret, then, chanting “Good, good, good” under his breath, he bid her good night as any respectable gentleman would a nun and walked away.

It was all she could do not to follow him back to the hayloft.

Behave, Harmony. Although she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to do so.

Pressing a cool glass of water against her cheek, she watched him go, wondering just what it was going to take to bring out the devil in Damon.

The next Sunday the men began trickling into church to see where the women were going. With every passing week more townsfolk came, until Harmony had to ask Damon to build her some more pews.

He did so gladly, though it took him away from his pet project, the installation of an expansive automatic sprinkler system surrounding the church. “The beasties don’t like the water,” he’d explained.

He must be right: ever since the water had been coming on every night, there hadn’t been any more problems with rodents in the house. And as a side benefit, the lawn looked great, too. Unfortunately, they now had a glut of water-loving garden slugs to deal with. But at least those hadn’t tried crashing dinner. Yet.

It was Sunday, T-minus one week and a day until her family invaded Mysteria, and Harmony was in the midst of delivering her sermon to a full house. Standing a few careful steps outside the halfopen door, her loyal knight Damon stood guard, his arms folded over the end of a pitchfork as he leaned against the outside wall. Although he never stepped foot inside the church—“’tis not right,” he’d insist so mournfully—he always listened carefully to her weekly message. Often she’d work in little things she hoped might help him escape his dark, mysterious past, something he remained reluctant to share. “I wasna good,” he’d say in his brogue. Yet, without a criminal record anyone could unearth—and Jeanie had never stopped trying—how bad could he have been?

No sooner than Harmony conjured the thought than an unseasonably cold breeze whooshed inside the church. “Bad, bad,” the wind seemed to whisper, a crackly, desiccated noise like the scratch of crinkled brown leaves on the sidewalk in autumn. With one hand fisted in the fabric of her cotton skirt to keep it from flying up, she tried to snatch back her papers from the whirlwind, but it only blew harder, whipping her hair around her face. “Evil,” it hissed, drawing out the word. “Evil demon, baaaaad.”

Then the wind surged in velocity, gushing between the pews, tossing off hats and whipping hair, until it hit Harmony full on and whirled around her like her own personal tornado, scattering the pages of her sermon. “Bad . . . bad . . . bad . . .”

Something pressed in on her mind, bitter, distasteful, like a taste of bile. She mentally flung it away. “The basement’s unlocked,” she shouted to her dispersing flock. “It may be a tornado. Get inside, take shelter!” But the wind erased her words.

“Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad,” it rasped.

Stay away . Harmony shut her eyes and shoved. She didn’t know what it was that she heard in the wind, only that whenever it touched her mind, she shuddered, repulsed.

“Reverend!” Jeanie Tortellini tried to assist her but the wind blew the woman backward.

“I’m okay!” But was she? She had to squint against the whistling gale in order to see. Damon was no longer at the door. Knowing him, he was outside helping others. “Find Damon. You two make sure everyone’s okay. Get them in the basement if you have to.” Barking the orders, the blind trust, it reminded her of when a missile had struck outside the field hospital in Iraq and she and the doctors were trapped inside. “Go, Jeanie! You know what to do. I’ll be right there.”