Scent of Darkness Read Free Page A

He was a good man.
    Konstantine respected him. Konstantine feared him. Putting his hands behind his back, he bowed low to the priest.
    Father Ambrose laughed. "I wish all Catholic boys were as respectful as you are, Konstantine Wilder. Someday I'll get you to come to Mass."
    "Not even." Reverend Geisler, the Congregational-ist minister, shoved Father Ambrose aside. "When he comes to the light, he's mine."
    Father Ambrose shoved back, laughing. "You're only interested in his tithes, you self-serving Protestant."
    Reverend Doreen, the New Age minister, walked up behind them. "Everyone knows Konstantine Wilder is already in the Eght."
    The two men rolled their eyes.
    But all three were preachers of the Word, and Konstantine bowed to them all, but did not take their hands.
    At last, the party was over. The last taillights had disappeared down the road. The dust settled. The family stood alone around the bonfire while the flames died down to a huge tumble of red embers.
    A thin thread of smoke connected the earth to the heavens. The crimson glow bathed their faces, and Konstantine felt the first rumbling in his gut, that animal instinct that foretold trouble.
    But they'd lived here for so long. So long. They were safe here.
    "We are a normal American family? Papa, you have guts!"
    Konstantine allowed Rurik's laughter to comfort him. '''What?" He spread his hands wide. "We are a normal American family."
    "Yeah, if normal American families grow grapes, speak Russian, and transform themselves into wild animals at will." Jasha was unsmiling, unamused.
    "So." Konstantine shrugged. "Not so many Americans speak Russian."
    Zorana slipped her arm around his waist and squeezed.
    "I don't transform myself into a wild animal at will, and I'm part of this family." Firebird smiled her old, pert smile, the one that had been missing since she'd returned from college. "Do you, Mama?"
    "No, I don't transform myself, either."
    "Once a month you both turn into bears," Jasha muttered.
    "We do not talk about that. Those are women's matters." Konstantine frowned at his unruly sons.
    "Like laundry, “ Rurik said.
    "Oh, man. You are in such trouble now." Jasha backed out of the way.
    Konstantine thought so, too.
    But Zorana didn't slap Rurik. Instead she looked up at Konstantine and said, "You didn't talk about Adrik."
    Pain stabbed at Konstantine's heart, but he answered steadily, "Adrik is dead to us."
    "No." Zorana shook her head.
    "Dead to us," he repeated. His family watched him, all hurting for the loss of their brother. But Konstantine was the patriarch. He had to remain strong.
    Adrik had disobeyed him. He had reveled in his power to change, and the change had taken him deep into the heart of evil.
    How well Konstantine knew that heart. Sometimes, at night, he felt as if he lived there still.
    Every intimation of sun had disappeared. The moon hid her face, and the stars blazed like bits of broken glass in a black velvet sky.
    The Wilders stood alone in the vastness of the primal forest. Alone . . . and yet their brothers and sisters stirred in the underbrush. The breeze ruffled the tree branches, and the cedars scented the cooling air.
    Zorana broke Konstantine's hold on her. She turned her back to her family and stood with her hands clenched tightly. "I hate that thing."
    "What thing?" Jasha hadn't seen it.
    "Mama, leave it alone." Firebird sensed the wrong-ness, too.
    "It's not right." Zorana tossed the towels away from the figure the artist boy had made. "It's not right." In sudden frenzy of action, she attacked the soft clay, smashing it with her fists.
    "No, Mama. No!" Firebird caught her mother's arm.
    And everybody froze.
    No one knew why. They only knew something had happened.
    Or something was about to happen.
    Slowly Zorana turned and faced the embers, and she was . . . different. A stranger.
    Her voice, when she spoke, was low, deep, smooth.
    Not hers. Not his wife's. Not Zorana's.
    "Each of my four sons must find one of the Varinski