Shadowfires Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1 - SHOCK

  Chapter 2 - SPOOKED

  Chapter 3 - JUST VANISHED

  Chapter 4 - DOWN WHERE THEY KEEP THE DEAD

  Chapter 5 - UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

  Chapter 6 - THE TRUNK

  Chapter 7 - NASTY LITTLE GAMES

  Chapter 8 - DUMPSTER

  Chapter 9 - SUDDEN DEATH

  Chapter 10 - NAILS

  Chapter 11 - GHOST STORY

  Chapter 12 - SHARP

  Chapter 13 - REVELATIONS

  Chapter 14 - LIKE A NIGHT BIRD

  Chapter 15 - LOVING

  Chapter 16 - IN THE ZOMBIE ZONE

  PART TWO

  Chapter 17 - PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

  Chapter 18 - ZOMBIE BLUES

  Chapter 19 - SHARP AND THE STONE

  Chapter 20 - COPS ON SICK LEAVE

  Chapter 21 - ARROWHEAD

  Chapter 22 - WAITING FOR THE STONE

  Chapter 23 - THE DARK OF THE WOODS

  Chapter 24 - A SPECIAL FEAR OF HELL

  Chapter 25 - ALONE

  Chapter 26 - A MAN GONE BAD

  Chapter 27 - ON THE ROAD AGAIN

  Chapter 28 - DESERT HEAT

  Chapter 29 - REMADE MEN

  Chapter 30 - RATTLESNAKES

  Chapter 31 - FEEDING FRENZY

  Chapter 32 - FLAMINGO PINK

  Chapter 33 - VIVA LAS VEGAS

  PART THREE

  Chapter 34 - CONVERGENCE

  Chapter 35 - SOMETHING THAT LOVES THE DARK

  Chapter 36 - THE MANY FORMS OF FIRE

  NEW AFTERWORD BY DEAN KOONTZ

  Rachael’s request for a quick and clean divorce enraged her husband. She had never seen Eric so angry, so consumed by pure and terrifying hatred. Then, in the heat of the moment, Eric was struck down in a traffic accident. His death was instantaneous. Shocked and relieved, Rachael had nothing left to fear. Until Eric’s body disappeared from the morgue—and Rachael was stalked by someone who looked like her dead husband …

  SHADOWFIRES

  “Koontz is a master at constructing vivid, eerily realistic worlds that hold readers spellbound.” —Booklist

  The Eyes of Darkness

  “Koontz puts his readers through the emotional wringer!”

  —The Associated Press

  The Key to Midnight

  “A master storyteller … always riveting.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  Mr. Murder

  “A truly harrowing tale … superb work by a master at the top of his form.”—The Washington Post Book World

  The Funhouse

  “Koontz is a terrific what-if storyteller.”—People

  Dragon Tears

  “A razor-sharp, nonstop, suspenseful story … a first-rate literary experience.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

  Shadowfires

  “His prose mesmerizes … Koontz consistently hits the bull’s-eye.”—Arkansas Democrat

  Hideaway

  “Not just a thriller but a meditation on the nature of good and evil.”—Lexington Herald-Leader

  Cold Fire

  “An extraordinary piece of fiction … It will be a classic.”

  —UPI

  The House of Thunder

  “Koontz is brilliant.”—Chicago Sun-Times

  The Voice of the Night

  “A fearsome tour of an adolescent’s psyche. Terrifying, knee-knocking suspense.”—Chicago Sun-Times

  The Bad Place

  “A new experience in breathless terror.”—UPI

  The Servants of Twilight

  “A great storyteller.”—New York Daily News

  Midnight

  “A triumph.”—The New York Times

  Lightning

  “Brilliant … a spine-tingling tale … both challenging and entertaining.”—The Associated Press

  The Mask

  “Koontz hones his fearful yarns to a gleaming edge.”

  —People

  Watchers

  “A breakthrough for Koontz … his best ever.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Twilight Eyes

  “A spine-chilling adventure … will keep you turning pages to the very end.”—Rave Reviews

  Strangers

  “A unique spellbinder that captures the reader on the first page. Exciting, enjoyable, and an intensely satisfying read.”

  —Mary Higgins Clark

  Demon Seed

  “One of our finest and most versatile suspense writers.”

  —The Macon Telegraph & News

  Phantoms

  “First-rate suspense, scary and stylish.”—Los Angeles Times

  Whispers

  “Pulls out all the stops … an incredible, terrifying tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Night Chills

  “Will send chills down your back.”—The New York Times

  Darkfall

  “A fast-paced tale … one of the scariest chase scenes ever.”

  —The Houston Post

  Shattered

  “A chilling tale … sleek as a bullet.”—Publishers Weekly

  The Vision

  “Spine-tingling—it gives you an almost lethal shock.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  The Face of Fear

  “Real suspense … tension upon tension.”

  —The New York Times

  Berkley titles by Dean Koontz

  THE EYES OF DARKNESS

  THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT

  MR. MURDER

  THE FUNHOUSE

  DRAGON TEARS

  SHADOWFIRES

  HIDEAWAY

  COLD FIRE

  THE HOUSE OF THUNDER

  THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT

  THE BAD PLACE

  THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT

  MIDNIGHT

  LIGHTNING

  THE MASK

  WATCHERS

  TWILIGHT EYES

  STRANGERS

  DEMON SEED

  PHANTOMS

  WHISPERS

  NIGHT CHILLS

  DARKFALL

  SHATTERED

  THE VISION

  THE FACE OF FEAR

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Originally published under the pseudonym Leigh Nichols.
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  SHADOWFIRES

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Nkui, Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Dark Harvest edition published 1990

  First Berkley mass-market edition / June 1993

  Berkley afterword edition / August 2008

  Copyright © 1987 by Nkui, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

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  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-0-425-22385-7

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is dedicated to

  Dick and Ann Laymon

  who simply can’t be as nice

  as they seem.

  And a special hello

  to Kelly.

  A gasp of breath, a sudden death: the tale begun.

  —The Book of Counted Sorrows

  PART ONE

  DARK

  To know the darkness is to love the light, to welcome dawn and fear the coming night.

  —The Book of Counted Sorrows

  1

  SHOCK

  Brightness fell from the air, nearly as tangible as rain. It rippled down windows, formed colorful puddles on the hoods and trunks of parked cars, and imparted a wet sheen to the leaves of trees and to the chrome on the bustling traffic that filled the street. Miniature images of the California sun shimmered in every reflective surface, and downtown Santa Ana was drenched in the clear light of a late-June morning.

  When Rachael Leben exited the lobby doors of the office building and stepped onto the sidewalk, the summer sunshine felt like warm water on her bare arms. She closed her eyes and, for a moment, turned her face to the heavens, bathing in the radiance, relishing it.

  “You stand there smiling as if nothing better has ever happened to you or ever will,” Eric said sourly when he followed her out of the building and saw her luxuriating in the June heat.

  “Please,” she said, face still tilted to the sun, “let’s not have a scene.”

  “You made a fool of me in there.”

  “I certainly did not.”

  “What the hell are you trying to prove, anyway?”

  She did not respond; she was determined not to let him spoil the lovely day. She turned and started to walk away.

  Eric stepped in front of her, blocking her way. His gray-blue eyes usually had an icy aspect, but now his gaze was hot.

  “Let’s not be childish,” she said.

  “You’re not satisfied just to leave me. You’ve got to let the world know you don’t need me or any damn thing I can give you.”

  “No, Eric. I don’t care what the world thinks of you—one way or the other.”

  “You want to rub my face in it.”

  “That’s not true, Eric.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Hell, yes. You’re just reveling in my humiliation. Wallowing in it.”

  She saw him as she had never seen him before: a pathetic man. Previously he’d seemed strong to her: physically, emotionally, and mentally strong; strong-willed; strongly opinionated. He was aloof, too, and sometimes cold. He could be cruel. And there had been times during their seven years of marriage when he had been as distant as the moon. But until this moment, he’d never seemed weak or pitiable.

  “Humiliation?” she said wonderingly. “Eric, I’ve done you an enormous favor. Any other man would buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate.”

  They had just left the offices of Eric’s attorneys, where their divorce settlement had been negotiated with a speed that had surprised everyone but Rachael. She had startled them by arriving without an attorney of her own and by failing to press for everything to which she was entitled under California’s community-property laws. When Eric’s attorney presented a first offer, she had insisted it was too generous and had given them another set of figures that had seemed more reasonable to her.

  “Champagne, huh? You’re going to be telling everyone you took twelve and a half million less than you deserved just so you could get a quick divorce and be done with me fast, and I’m supposed to stand here grinning? Christ.”

  “Eric—”

  “Couldn’t wait to be done with me. Cut off a goddamn arm to be done with me. And I’m supposed to celebrate my humiliation?”

  “It’s a matter of principle with me not to take more than—”

  “Principle, my ass.”

  “Eric, you know I wouldn’t—”

  “Everyone’ll be looking at me and saying, ‘Christ, just how insufferable must the guy have been if it was worth twelve and a half million to be rid of him!’”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone what we settled for,” Rachael said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “If you think I’d ever talk against you or gossip about you, then you know even less about me than I’d thought.”

  Eric, twelve years her senior, had been thirty-five and worth four million when she’d married him. Now he was forty-two, and his fortune totaled more than thirty million, and by any interpretation of California law, she was entitled to thirteen million dollars in the divorce settlement—half the wealth accumulated during their marriage. Instead, she insisted on settling for her red Mercedes 560 SL sports car, five hundred thousand dollars, and no alimony—which was approximately one twenty-sixth of what she could have claimed. She had calculated that this nest egg would give her the time and resources to decide what to do with the rest of her life and to finance whatever plans she finally made.

  Aware that passersby were staring as she and Eric confronted each other on the sun-splashed street, Rachael said quietly, “I didn’t marry you for your money.”

  “I wonder,” he said acidly and irrationally. His bold-featured face wasn’t handsome at the moment. Anger had carved it into an ugly mask—all hard, deep, down-slashing lines.

  Rachael spoke calmly, with no trace of bitterness, with no desire to put him in his place or to hurt him in any way. It was just over. She felt no rage. Only mild regret. “And now that it’s finally over, I don’t expect to be supported in high style and great luxury for the rest of my days. I don’t want your millions. You earned them, not me. Your genius, your iron determination, your endless hours in the office and the lab. You built it all, you and you alone, and you alone deserve what you’ve built. You’re an important man, maybe even a great man in your field, Eric, and I am only me, Rachael, and I’m not going to pretend I had anything to do with your triumphs.”

  The lines of anger in his face deepened as she complimented him. He was accustomed to occupying the dominant role in all relationships, professional and private. From his position of absolute dominance, he relentlessly forced submission to his wishes—or crushed anyone who would not submit. Friends, employees, and business associates always did things Eric Leben’s way, or they were history. Submit or be rejected and destroyed—those were their only choices. He enjoyed the exercise of power, thrived on conquests as major as million-dollar deals and as minor as winning domestic arguments. Rachael had done as he wished for seven years, but she would not submit any longer.

  The funny thing was that, by her docility and reasonableness, she had robbed him of the power on which he thrived. He had been looking forward to a protracted battle over the division of spoils, and she had walk
ed away from it. He relished the prospect of acrimonious squabbling over alimony payments, but she thwarted him by rejecting all such assistance. He had pleasurably anticipated a court fight in which he would make her look like a gold-digging bitch and reduce her, at last, to a creature without dignity who would be willing to settle for far less than was her due. Then, although leaving her rich, he would have felt that the war had been won and he had beaten her into submission. But when she made it clear that his millions were of no importance to her, she had eliminated the one power he still had over her. She had cut him off at the knees, and his anger arose from his realization that, by her docility, she had somehow made herself his equal—if not his superior—in any further contact they might have.

  She said, “Well, the way I see it, I’ve lost seven years, and all I want is reasonable compensation for that time. I’m twenty-nine, almost thirty, and in a way, I’m just beginning my life. Starting out later than other people. This settlement will give me a terrific start. If I lose the bundle, if someday I have reason to wish I’d gone for the whole thirteen million … well, then that’s my tough luck, not yours. We’ve been through all this, Eric. It’s finished.”