Demon Child

that upset them? They didn't find a wolf the first time, either.”
        “Three will be dead now. They'll make an all-out effort, over the entire area, until they have a dead wolf. And if they don't find a wolf, they're going to start thinking about the possibilities-and someone will remember that dogs sometimes are trained to kill.”
        “It's academic anyway,” Hobarth said. “Because they will find a wolf when they have the next hunt.”
        Richard looked surprised. “They will?”
        “Of course. We've already considered this. Malmont has access to laboratory animals. He has already obtained a wolf for us. Yesterday, in fact. We only need turn it loose on the grounds tomorrow before the hunt. Once it's been killed and there are no more maulings, everyone will be happy.”
        The inhumanly methodical planning was almost too much for Jenny to bear. They were going to die here, and they had no hope of escaping or even of leaving a clue to avenge their own deaths.
        Hobarth began speaking to the dog.
        It turned its glare on them, bared its teeth, snarled deep in its throat as it considered them.
        Richard began pulling her backwards across the rough terrain. But they had only put another fifty feet between them and Hobarth when the doctor gave the dog it's final command.
        “Kill,” Hobarth said quietly.

----

    18
        
        The horses sensed the evil that was loose in the darkness and reacted to it from their posts by the woods. They snorted and whinnied, crying like children, scuffed their hooves on the earth and tested the leather which held them to the elm trees. Tulip rose on her hind hooves, danced in place, kicked her forefeet in the air as if slapping at some invisible opponent. She struck the ground hard when she came down, making sparks on stone, and rose almost immediately into the air again.
        Hobarth still knelt on the ground, smiling that wicked smile that Jenny did not believe could appear on his handsome face. He petted the dog one last time.
        Brutus was on his feet.
        His yellow-red eyes, the color of fire and blood, glared malevolently at them. He was a huge animal, approximately sixty or sixty-five pounds of sinew, teeth and claws. No man could hope to stand, for long, against his natural grace and power.
        Tulip continued her dance, rattled her reins against the small tree to which she was tethered.
        The hair on the back of Brutus' neck raised like wire bristles. Its head was held low between its shoulders as if it were brooding, and it swung its head slowly back and forth like a pendulum as it searched for the best way to get at them.
        It threw its head back.
        It howled.
        Many nights, they had listened to that forlorn wail and had quakingly envisioned what manner of monster might have made it. But in all of those conjured pictures, they had never imagined any beast more vile or more terrifying than this Vietnamese guard dog transferred from his natural environment.
        “Kill them,” Hobarth said.
        Jenny refused to believe he was saying such a thing, that he could repeat it with such obvious enjoyment.
        But Brutus did not need further encouragement. This was not a task to the beast, not a chore to be done as swiftly as possible, but a distinct pleasure, the reason for his existence. Brutus must have looked forward to the feel of flesh between his teeth and the smell of spilled blood in his nostrils the same way an ordinary household pet might look forward to being scratched behind the ears.
        His head still held low, his eyes still fixed on them, he trotted forward, moving faster as he came.
        “Call him off!” Richard shouted.
        Hobarth only laughed.
        Lightning and thunder filled the sky behind the ever-falling rain. The wind whipped against their faces, made their raincoats flap out behind them, and Brutus came on as if it were the wind which drove him inevitably onward.
        Jenny screamed.
        It did not sound like her own voice, but like the cry of another woman far away in the forest. She was detached, floating above this nightmare rather than a part of it.
        The horses stamped, whinnied, danced nervously as death approached with the wind's pace.
        Jenny wanted to run, but Richard's arm imprisoned her and would not let her go. He stood his own ground, watching the beast rush at them, as if he were