Blood Moon by Heather Graham

Author:Heather Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

SEVEN

RITUALS

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

56

MEDICINE LAKE

“I HAVE A CONFESSION to make,” Alex said to Sam, the big book opened to a random page on the table before him.

Sam took a seat on the opposite side of what was little more than a folding card table they both figured was among the standard furnishings for the Cabins at Medicine Lake. The cabins were advertised as rustic, another word in this case for run-down. They were located far along Medicine Lake Road in woods that were close to the lake’s northern spur. Raiff had chosen these cabins for refuge precisely because they were off the path normally traveled by tourists. He thought they’d have the place pretty much to themselves, and as far as they could tell from the few other cars parked before the line of cabins, they pretty much did.

They’d driven east from the Klamath Mountains along a road oddly named the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, also to avoid scrutiny. They’d watched the sun sink the rest of the way down the sky during the three-hour drive, darkness bringing a storm with it that intensified the farther they drew east. The cabins were equipped with neither telephones nor televisions, which suited them just fine given that they’d had their fill of electronics for the day. And here they could have their own dedicated cabin, which was much easier to keep secure, from Raiff’s perspective, than individual rooms in an ordinary motel.

Upon arriving, he’d instructed Sam and Alex to check in on their own.

“Three’s a crowd,” he explained, “an adult traveling with two teenagers certain to draw attention. But a young couple traveling together? That’s something else again.”

“Couple?” Alex and Sam had offered in unison, looking stiffly away from each other.

“A disguise,” Raiff elaborated.

The cabin itself was roomy enough and plenty rustic, offering a view of the forestlands that extended a half mile to Medicine Lake itself. It smelled of a combination of rich pine, fabric softener from the bed linens, along with whatever shampoo and conditioner Sam had doused her hair with when she’d taken a shower. With no change of clothes, she’d climbed back into the same ones she’d been wearing through the day that felt more like a week.

Raiff was out in the woods somewhere, keeping watch. Sam figured he feared—perhaps expected—the return of the forces that had laid siege to Langston Marsh’s mountain fortress.

It was all too much, Sam thought, taking the chair across from Alex, and then positioning herself so she could follow his progress with the book.

“I’m listening,” she told him.

“My confession is that…” Alex said, stopping as quickly as he’d started, and then resuming, “that I’ve never read a book before, not a whole one anyway.”

“Wait a minute…”

“I skimmed them, okay? I read the important parts.”

“How can you know what’s important or not, if you didn’t read the whole thing?”

“They’re just books.

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