Book Two, Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Justin had known all along what they were going to find when they reached Frank Harrison’s house, but that didn’t make finding it any easier. Frank’s corpse lay on the floor just inside the front door, exactly like Shane’s had. And just like Shane, a gaping hole in his chest marked where his heart had been ripped out.

Food for Mari Lwyd. Fuel for Krampus.

“Spread out and search,” Vixen ordered them. “Remember what led us here. Look for anything that could presumably lead Mari Lwyd to her next target!”

Willow made as if to head for Frank’s body, but Justin hurried to get there first. There was no need for her to put herself through that twice in one day. Frank was an older man, Justin guessed somewhere in his sixties. His black hair was peppered with gray, and there were pictures of small children hanging from his walls who Justin assumed must be his grandkids. The thought of Frank dying in a pool of his own blood, alone except for Mari Lwyd, while his family went about their Thanksgiving completely unaware that anything had happened, sent a painful shock through Justin’s heart that nearly brought him to tears.

There was a phone in Frank’s pocket, but it was passcode locked and had no voicemails. Justin considered looking through his wallet, but considering they didn’t need to identify him this time, he decided against it. His other pockets were empty.

“Nothing here,” he said, standing up. “Anybody else find something?”

“There’s a user’s guide for his TV sitting on the coffee table,” Moryta said. “The company that made it has their phone number on the back. Would that be enough?”

“No,” Vixen answered. “Mari Lwyd can’t travel through the phone lines, thank sugar plums. She’ll need a physical address.”

Justin wandered a few steps farther into the house, scanning the walls and floor for anything that would give them the information they needed. Like before, Frank’s house seemed unnaturally dark. Perhaps even darker than Shane’s house had been. Maybe it was because less time had passed since Mari Lwyd had been here, and her presence still lingered in the air. He glanced at a clock hanging on the wall. It was five past one in the afternoon. If Mari Lwyd had struck right when the sun went down—a little after five—then Frank’s corpse had just been lying here, undiscovered, for about twenty hours. Justin shivered.

“Shouldn’t we call someone?” he asked nervously. “It seems wrong to just leave these people here.”

“We will,” Vixen promised him, “but not until we’re long gone. The human police won’t have any idea what really happened, and they’ll treat it like any other crime scene.”

“Crime scenes that we’ve got our fingerprints all over,” said Willow.

“Exactly. The last thing any of us need is to have fingers pointed at us. Once we’re far enough away that they’ll never be able to catch us, we’ll report it to the authorities. Until then, the quieter things stay, the better they will work out for us.”

“A better question is,” Lena said, popping up from behind a recliner in the living room, “how are we going to tell Charlie and Joyce about Shane?”

Everybody paused, and the room fell silent.

“We’re not going to,” Vixen finally said. “They have no idea who we are or what we’re doing here, and that’s how it needs to stay.

“But—” Justin argued, horrified.

“If we tell them, it will lead to questions we don’t have answers to,” Vixen cut him off. “How did we know where to find Shane? Why did we know he would be dead? Who killed him, and how are we connected to all of this?”

“So you want us to lie?” Lena demanded.

“What other option do we have?” the Elder doe challenged her. “Tell them that we’re actually a band of flying reindeer and elves from Santa’s village, and that Shane was murdered by a monster who’s trying to revive the Lord of Darkness?”

“I…” Lena looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “I guess not.”

Vixen’s voice softened. “I don’t blame you all for being bothered by this. You should be bothered. But don’t let your emotions put us, and everyone back in Val Luminara, at risk. There are some secrets that the world is better off not knowing.”

Justin turned away from her and went back to work. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t focus on his surroundings. No matter what he looked at, all he could see was Shane. The fact that the Dawsons were preparing a feast for them at the very moment, and he was going to repay their kindness by lying to them about their grandson and cousin, made bile rise up in his throat.

He felt a hand touch his arm, and he looked over to see Willow standing next to him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I hate this,” he admitted. “How can we say we’re fighting for what’s right when what we’re doing feels so wrong?”

“Things are never as simple as we want them to be,” she said softly. “Being stuck in the middle of a war between Light and Darkness, I know it feels like there should be some clearly drawn line between right and wrong. Sometimes there is, but most of the time there are no easy answers.”

“What are we supposed to do?” he asked. Once again, the overwhelming, suffocating weight of Krampus’ Darkness was pressing down on him. “If we can’t trust our own instincts, how do we know we’re not playing straight into Krampus’ hands?”

Willow reached out and pressed her hand against Justin’s chest. His heart leaped a little at her touch, but then he saw the look in her eyes and those frivolous thoughts vanished.

“With this,” she said confidently. “There’s a light inside your heart—inside all of our hearts. Krampus would love nothing more than to snuff that light out, because he knows that if we listen to it, it will guide us through the night no matter how dark the shadows he conjures are. Justin, if you stay strong, believe in what’s right, and never give up, he won’t be able to come within a mile of you without your light burning him to a crisp!”

She smiled, and Justin found himself transfixed by her beautiful brown eyes. His heart began to pound inside his chest.

“Willow, there’s something I need to tell you,” he could hear himself saying. “Something I should have said a year ago.”

“What’s that?” Willow would ask.

“Willow, I…I love you!” he would say, to which Willow would reply—

“Does it look like something is missing here to you?”

Justin blinked, pulled abruptly back into the real world. Willow was staring at the wall, her eyes narrowing. Justin followed her gaze, and immediately spotted what had caught her attention. He had noticed the photos of Frank’s grandchildren hanging on the wall when they’d first arrived. But now that Willow had drawn his attention to it, he saw that there was a rather conspicuous gap between two of the frames.

“Hey, you're right,” Justin said. “It looks like he took one of them down.”

“Him…or someone else,” Willow whispered.

Justin glanced at her, then his eyes widened with realization. These pictures were all of his grandkids. If Mari Lwyd had taken one of them, then that meant…

“Vixen!” he exclaimed, rushing over to the old doe’s side. “It's a photo! We're looking for a framed photograph, probably of a child!”

“Did you hear that, everyone?” Vixen shouted. “Keep your eyes peeled!

They threw themselves into the search with renewed vigor. Justin and Lena went to the kitchen to check the cupboards. Nothing. They even pulled the refrigerator out of its nook to make sure nothing had been slid beneath it. Shaking his head, Justin went back to the living room.

Willow and Moryta were in a nearby bedroom. The two small beds, a toybox, and a bookshelf filled with picture books marked it as a child's room, though the thin layer of dust that coated everything made it look like it hadn't been used in weeks. Justin guessed it must have been the room Frank's grandchildren stayed in when they came to visit.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Willow answered.

Turning, Justin saw two other doors in the hallway. He pushed one open to reveal a bathroom.

“I'll check here,” Lena said. “You take the other room.”

Justin nodded and headed towards the last door. This one would be the master bedroom, he thought. His stomach did backflips as he reached for the doorknob. They had to find that photo. If they didn't, he had a sinking feeling that the next victim would be even worse than the first two. As horrible as finding Shane and Frank's corpses has been, at least they had been grownups. But considering where that photo had been, and the others surrounding it…

The next victim was going to be a child.

Justin stepped into the bedroom and came face to face with Mari Lwyd.