The Hunted -- Part 16
by Martin H Slusser

Terry Marie Donnelly gave Benny the very most chaste kiss of his adult life.

"Myers and Boyd are going out of their collective skulls for worry about you."

Confusion rampant on her face, Millie glanced over the pair.

"Mama, Benny's a Marine. He . . . had a bad accident and was in Reed for just months and months." With no little pride Terry Marie said, "Myers and Boyd are my superior officers at the hospital." The two old war-horses were about as loveable as shoe leather, but they were friends.

"Oh." Millie nodded. Her eyes narrowed. "And, pray tell, how did you get the nick-name Sweet-" she choked "- Bottom?"

Millie's eyes snapped at Benny. He was flushed - with guilt - or she wasn't a cop's wife. A sure sign they had been up to something they shouldn't of, Terry Marie's face pinked and her nose began to run. She stared at Benny. Under her sad anger he wilted.

"'Cause she's real good at . . . uh, making coffee, Mrs. Donnelly."

Terry Marie's boot glanced off Benny's shin. He winced and glared back. Reaching for her sewing, Millie sighed.

"Much as Ron loves his children, even he won't drink her - Terry Marie's - coffee." She looked at Benny and almost smiled at a dark, steamy blush creeping up his neck.

"Go on, now. Out of those pants, Benny." Eyes snapping in anger and embarrassment, Millie flushed. In a tight, controlled voice to her daughter, she said, "It's the manure." Millie glared at Terry Marie for choking. "I want you to put these on, young man. No arguments mind, now. I'll soak yours tonight." She tossed the pair of jeans at him. At the mention of Benny's pants her daughter, she noticed, had acquired a mused, hungry look.

"Terry Marie."

Before she knew what she was doing, Lieutenant Donnelly snapped to attention. Benny snagged the chair as it spun away. Terry Marie caught herself. She relaxed a scant inch. One look at Mrs. Donnelly's cold face and Benny felt like dropping and doing twenty. Terry Marie's face was pale under the remains of fading summer tan.

"Ma'am?"

Her mother crooked a finger and Terry Marie scurried for the living room.

Out on the porch, Benny stripped off the dirty jeans and tossed them in a washtub.

The ice sheathed water looked almost inviting in his present state. Sweet-Bottom, Ma Donnelly's kid. Wow. He really was doomed. The jeans she gave him were a little roomy, but way better than having the nasty-stuff squashed up the crack of his butt. Benny reached down the front of the jeans and did a little delicate adjustments. Man, but maybe he had better start wearing a hat or something. He cocked an eye down and grinned. Ten gallon. Def'netly got to be a ten gallon, for Sweet-Bottom.

Whistling 'Buffalo Gals' in a low tone, he darted up the stairs to the rear bathroom to take a long, cold bath.

It didn't help. The water heated faster than his blood. On ice-glazed panes sleet turned to snow, darkening the red and gold squares of leaded glass that edged the windows. Benny guessed that was why. Up home, in the hills, winter's real name is Tsi:l:V:kuo:di, the Time of the Beloved. Snuggle-up Time. In the genes, man. Eye glum, he resigned himself to be nicknamed Woody. Shoot, not his fault. Sweet-Bottom did that to everybody. Even some of the lady nurses.

Benny drained the tub, gave it a careful wipe with the towel, and walked to the bedroom.

Benny lay down and grinned at the ceiling.

Too soft. He rolled himself in the quilt and onto the hard wood floor.

Pain.

Def'netly in pain. Dang, Sweet-Bottom. Of all the suspicious and beady-eyed mothers in the world, why did you have to have Millie? Geez-us, but the lieutenant was sweet. Sweet in every way a man could want.

Memory of Ron's vast gun collection downstairs in the den cooled Benny's ardor by maybe half a degree for several seconds.

"Steel dicks that shoot lead come," he grumbled about the police he knew and rolled over on his stomach.

"Geezis-God."

In mortal agony, Benny groaned.

It dragged feet of bone through the night. The axe trailed from stiff, frozen hands. The man-thing was tired, hungry. It tried the barn to get to wait for Benny. Fear-maddened horses screamed, hoofs pounding on the floors, ringing off the walls. The cow bellowed. She ripped the lead from the wall, spun, and rammed the door of her stall, snapping the latch to fragments of metal. No bull stood between her and this evil. She rumbled a deep-throated warning, lowered her head and challenged death.

The decaying remains of Grandfather Greylov pounded the axe on the doors but they were sealed with ice. He was starving. He needed to feast on the blood of the animals and recover something left of his strength. Owl's power was weakening with the storm. Along the pond it found the raw bones of the mallard and feasted on them.

The house was dark, smelled of food. Raw blood. Hot. Coursing through warm flesh. Greylov could smell the blood. It invaded the minds of the inhabitants. Sniffing the air, it sought a way in.

Benny was here, and Benny was prey. Then the other two would die. He and his grandson would feast on the women's brain matter before they, too, were enslaved by the dark gods of the twisted cross and distant steppes. Many great-grandsons had been provided by the Project. It raised the axe. Half grass sickle, half hammer, it was the perfect symbol of Master Owl's new regime.

May the blood flow and the old gods feast. Scythia would live again.

Owl promised that through Benny, the Great Kahn would ride the plains of America and the world. The Greylov Clan would rise again to power. They would regain the mountains and grasslands of Central Europe and the wine of blood would flow.

With one hand, it pushed up on a window.

A faint noise, a presence that didn't belong, yet did. A smell that was out of place in this house brought to his dreams a worried hunger.

Something crept out of the night. It invaded Benny's senses. It hovered above his sleeping body. Tall, handsome-as-hell, pale skin and eyes of red amber drunk on human blood, Owl swept through Benny's dreams.

Benny's nose twitched. No matter how hard he tried to hide it, Owl stank of grave rot and the decaying blood of past victims.

Benny smelled cloves. Benny snapped out of a light doze. His hand slid out, away from the binding covers, the knife clutched gently in his fist, the blade flat against his arm. A faint sound betrayed the position of the intruder. Old man Greylov? The knife snapped open and hacked at the intruder's midsection.

Benny lurched back. The quilt tangled with his legs and he thumped to the floor, a giggling Terry Marie on top. She chuckled in his ear, a low, throaty sound. Hot breath and tongue lashed at him.

"What's the matter, baby? Lose your nerve?" Teeth scraped his ear. "You didn't seem to mind the time we got caught in the linen closet. Or the men's lav . . . ." She captured his hands and held them above his head. "Now I got you, creep."

Terry Marie reached between them. Benny gasped at the shock of a cold hand.

"No. Uh, yes. I mean, please, baby." He was strangling. "Millie . . . Your mom. She'll kill us. Please . . . .don't . . . Don't stop . . . More."

His words ended in a low growl, and Benny returned her kisses.

Gasping for air Terry Marie pulled away. Benny snarled at her.

"My wolf," she said in a husky murmur. "How I missed you, Benny. We all did." Her tongue slid into his mouth, teasing, tickling, and Sweet-Bottom found herself on her back, his eye clouded and red.

The thing pushed again. A small crack appeared in the kitchen window.

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