was here confirmed, the mausoleums rising house-high around him. Their scale, and, now that he could study them close up, their elaboration, puzzled him. What great families had occupied the town or its surrounds, moneyed enough to bury their dead in such splendour? The small communities of the prairie clung to the land as their sustenance, but it seldom made them rich; and on the few occasions when it did, with oil or gold, never in such numbers. Yet here were magnificent tombs, avenue upon avenue of them, built in all manner of styles from the classical to the baroque, and marked – though he was not certain his fatigued senses were telling him the truth – with motifs from warring theologies.
It was beyond him. He needed sleep. The tombs had been standing a century or more; the puzzle would still be there at dawn.
He found himself a bed out of sight between two graves and laid his head down. The spring growth of grass smelt sweet. He’d slept on far worse pillows, and would again.
The sound of an animal woke him, its growls finding their way into floating dreams and calling him down to earth. He opened his eyes, and sat up. He couldn’t see the dog, but he heard it still. Was it behind him?; the proximity of the tombs threw echoes back and forth. Very slowly, he turned to look over his shoulder. The darkness was deep, but did not quite conceal a large beast, its species impossible to read. There was no misinterpreting the threat from its throat however. It didn’t like his scrutiny, to judge by the tenor of its growls.
‘Hey, boy …’ he said softly, ‘it’s OK.’
Ligaments creaking, he started to stand up, knowing that if he stayed on the ground the animal had easy access to his throat. His limbs had stiffened lying on the cold ground; he moved like a geriatric. Perhaps it was this that kept the animal from attacking, for it simply watched him, the crescents of the whites of its eyes – the only detail he could make out – widening as its gaze followed him into a standing position. Once on his feet he turned to face the creature, which began to move towards him. There was something in its advance that made him think it was wounded. He could hear it dragging one of its limbs behind it; its head low, its stride ragged.
He had words of comfort on his lips when an arm hooked about his neck, taking breath and words away.
‘Move and I gut you.’
With the threat a second arm slid around his body, the fingers digging into his belly with such force he had no doubt the man would make the threat good with his bare hand.
Boone took a shallow breath. Even that minor motion brought a tightening of the death grip at neck and abdomen. He felt blood run down his belly and into his jeans.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ the voice demanded.
He was a bad liar; the truth was safer.
‘My name’s Boone. I came here … I came to find Midian.’
Did the hold on his belly relax a little when he named his purpose?
‘Why?’ a second voice now demanded. It took Boone no more than a heart beat to realize that the voice had come from the shadows ahead of him, where the wounded beast stood. Indeed from the beast.
‘My friend asked you a question,’ said the voice at his ear. ‘Answer him.’
Boone, disoriented by the attack, fixed his gaze again on whatever occupied the shadows and found himself doubting his eyes. The head of his questioner was not solid; it seemed almost to be inhaling its redundant features, their substance darkening and flowing through socket and nostrils and mouth back into itself.
All thought of his jeopardy disappeared; what seized him now was elation. Narcisse had not lied. Here was the transforming truth of that.
‘I came to be amongst you –’ he said, answering the miracle’s question. ‘I came because I belong here.’
A question emerged from the soft laughter behind him.
‘What does he look like, Peloquin?’
The thing had drunk its beast-face down. There were human features beneath, set on a body more reptile than mammal. That limb he dragged behind him was a tail; his wounded lope the gait of a low slung lizard. That too was under review, as the tremor of change moved down its jutting spine.
‘He looks like a Natural,’ Peloquin replied. ‘Not that that means much.’
Why could his attacker not see for himself, Boone wondered.
He glanced down at the hand on his belly. It had six fingers, tipped not with nails but with claws, now buried half an inch in his muscle.
‘Don’t kill me,’ he said. ‘I’ve come a long way to be here.’
‘Hear that, Jackie?’ said Peloquin, thrusting from the ground with its four legs to stand upright in front of Boone. His eyes, now level with Boone’s, were bright blue. His breath was as hot as the blast from an open furnace.
‘What kind of beast are you, then?’ he wanted to know. The transformation was all but finished. The man beneath the monster was nothing remarkable. Forty, lean and sallow skinned.
‘We should take him below,’ said Jackie. ‘Lylesburg will want to see him.’
‘Probably,’ said Peloquin. ‘But I think we’d be wasting his time. This is a Natural, Jackie. I can smell ’em.’
‘I’ve spilled blood …’ Boone murmured. ‘Killed eleven people.’
The blue eyes perused him. There was humour in them.
‘I don’t think so,’ Peloquin said.
‘It’s not up to us,’ Jackie put in. ‘You can’t judge him.’
‘I’ve got eyes in my head, haven’t I?’ said Peloquin. ‘I know a clean man when I see one.’ He wagged his finger at Boone. ‘You’re not Nightbreed,’ he said. ‘You’re meat. That’s what you are. Meat for the beast.’
The humour drained from his expression as he spoke, and hunger replaced it.
‘We can’t do this,’ the other creature protested.
‘Who’ll know?’ said Peloquin. ‘Who’ll ever know?’
‘We’re breaking the law.’
Peloquin seemed indifferent to that. He bared his teeth, dark smoke oozing from the gaps and rising up over his face. Boone knew what was coming next. The man was breathing out what he’d moments ago inhaled: his lizard self. The proportions of his head were already altering subtly, as though his skull were dismantling and re-organizing himself beneath the hood of his flesh.
‘You can’t kill me!’ he said. ‘I belong with you.’
Was there a denial out of the smoke in front of him? If so it was lost in translation. There was to be no further debate. The beast intended to eat him –
He felt a sharp pain in his belly, and glanced down to see the clawed hand detach itself from his flesh. The hold at his neck slipped, and the creature behind him said:
‘Go.’
He needed no persuasion. Before Peloquin could complete his reconstruction Boone slid from Jackie’s embrace and ran. Any sense of direction he might have had was forfeited in the desperation of the moment, a desperation fuelled by a roar of fury from the hungry beast, and the sound – almost instant, it seemed – of pursuit.
The necropolis was a maze. He ran blindly, ducking to right and left wherever an opening offered itself, but he didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that the devourer was closing on him. He heard its accusation in his head as he ran:
You’re not Nightbreed. You’re meat. Meat