Palisade Colorado is the kind of place where nature holds spellbound the living to steadfast rhythms and tempos dictated by the constant progression of earthly seasons. Like warm hands from a campfire, the northern hemisphere had begun it's annual pilgrimage favoring outer space, causing sunlight to skip like a flat stone over the open expanse of vineyards and orchards mimicking a glassy pond.

This time of year was usual to a mark. With the busy fruit harvests behind them, both the growers and the fields they tended took a like breath, relieved of their heavy burdens..This Tuesday evening however the Mesa County Sheriff Department experienced no such pause. After a warm summer of keeping the peace, things had suddenly turned white hot. The widow Marlene Burnstone was dead, but not just dead,..partially eaten.

The body of the victim was discovered late in the afternoon by Meals on Wheels driver Amy Logan while attempting to deliver the elderly woman's scheduled evening supper. Amy was surprised to find the front door slightly ajar, swinging open under the slightest provocation of her small knuckles striking against it..Upon viewing the old woman's scattered remains, disassembled about the entry hallway, she rushed outside crutching to the peeling white porch railing, losing her un-wholly digested lunch.

Around 5 PM the first officer to arrive on the scene called dispatch advising the Widow Burnstone appeared to have fallen victim to an animal attack..The Mesa County Coroner's office was immediately called in, and while the Science Investigation Team scoured the home for evidence, the woman's body was transported to a facility located in Grand Junction and immediately autopsied..By 8 PM the coroners report concluded the incident was in fact a homicide of human origin...By 10 PM the forensics lab confirmed a fingerprint match with Herman Gilespie..

Reports of the incident were monitored through the Los Angeles office of the FBI by way of the RISS (Regional Information Sharing Systems) and by 11 PM Agents Denason and Mallory touched down near the Burnstone woman's property securing FBI jurisdiction of the crime scene, and posted themselves there as sentries.

Working overtime never bothered Cyrus Denason. When his young partner began complaining over the already long twelve hour day through scratchy eyes, and a throbbing headache, Denason simply told him to shut the fuck up..Secretly, stuck in what he considered Palisade to be, a bum-fuck farming town, wouldn't have been his first choice..No doubt about it..But after the dead end he and Mallory scored interviewing a barely discernable Iraqi liquor store owner in Blythe, and the onslaught of red tape they experienced in Denver, he was glad to be on the relatively hot scent of Gilespie's trail..For the first time since his assignment to the Mad Muse Case, he felt he was in a position to make something happen in his favor..

They'd been in route back to L.A., when Hal Pigg's call came through..After finally hammering out details for the October 18th weekend music festival, and the expected security measures the FBI wanted in place, Mallory groaned unrestrained discontentment when Pigg advised he and Dey La Cruz would converge with them here in Palisade..The head investigator confirmed he was sending an FBI- EST (Evidence Response Team) stationed in Salt Lake to the crime scene. They should expect their arrival sometime in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

The two agents made their way through the downstairs sections of the house coming to the conclusion in recent years the old woman had exclusively used the first floor of the dwelling as her main living quarters..The kitchen, living room, small bedroom, and off-bath were in clean and orderly condition..Pantries of home canned fruits and vegetables indicated this was once a family of nearly independent means..The aroma of bake goods and spices had permeated the walls of the lower floor so that in every room the sent of apples, cinnamon, peaches, and vanilla, mixed within the investigator's senses with an undertone of smoked wood from a frequently used fireplace.

A piano rest against one wall of the living room. Dark and polished, emanating the sent of lemon oil as was the case with all of the wood furniture. On top of the instrument a crammed array of framed photographs depicted the lives of all those who had once called this place home.

Mallory's voice reflected a strained anxiety as he and Denason carefully worked their way through the old woman's house seeking any oversight of evidence.

"He literally ate parts of that old woman!..What kind of crazy fuck does that?"

The younger man's comment came from directly behind Denason's 9 mm Glock as he'd begun leading them mid-way way up a creaking wooden staircase to the second floor landing.

Denason stopped resting his left foot on yet another soughing stair step turning to his partner with scorn in his eyes.."Maybe an invisible sick fuck that's still somewhere in the house?"

Mallory's eyes widened..He nodded pulling his own side arm.

Although every lamp in the place had been left burning by the county forensic team, the inner structure of the old dwelling was that of a series of alcoves and galleys that's twisting corners and minor hallways left much of the upstairs in shadows. Shadows that now move in time to the progression of the two men as if deliberately instigating against any possibility of surprise on their behalf..

Coupled with the unnerving squeaks and moans reverberating under the bigger man's weight, Denason was caught up in a state of muttered swearing and cautious double takes as he slowly continued to advance. Checking and double checking to make certain the moving shadows were in fact designs of his own reflection, or that of his partner.

"What now?" Mallory whispered when they finally stood on the bare oak flooring that ran up and down the course of fragmented hallways serving access at the second floor.

To their left, dark paneled walls broke to a framework of sliding doors on the right indicating a walk-in closet might be the cause..The doors were closed leaving Denason to wonder just how thorough a search had been conducted by the former investigators..Eight feet beyond the sliding doors the hall dead end to a T shaped intersection. It's wings perhaps serving entrance to a couple of bedrooms, or a bedroom at one end and a bath at the other..From their current location what lay beyond the junction at the end of the hallway was beyond their field of vision.

"You go that way," Denason advised shaking his head left.."I'll check down here," indicating the hallway leading to their immediate right.

The younger man complied nudging his way down the right side of the hall towards the sliding doors. He warily slid open the closest to him, and looking back over his shoulder, noticed his partner had already moved on, fixing his attention on the area at the top of the landing to their immediate right..Here the hall ended some twelve feet away to a L-shaped right turn..Approximately eight feet down the hall an door-less opening at left appeared as an entrance to a alcove with no lighting of it's own. A carved out addition that seemed to Denason especially capable of housing a stealth intruder..He moved forward using the right wall of the hallway to afford a better view of the room's entry on his approach..

Agent Mallory found the walk-in closet to be empty except for some bare metal clothing hangers that clinked against each other like wind chimes set in motion by vibration and air displacement while opening the sliding doors..He grabbed a handful, squeezing them to silence, as beads of sweat trickled down the side of his face..After one more assuring glance at his partner, and the knowledge he was not alone, he crept forward closing distance on T-junction directly ahead.

With the Glock held in both hands Denason bent his knees and pushed through the door-less opening of the alcove which proved to be a small den of sorts. A desk and chair covered in dusty white linen stood as forlorn as an orphan against the back wall. A book case, a broken mirror, and one 4 x 6 foot bay window framed into the exterior wall made up the entire contents of the room..The den appeared to have no current use to the old woman judging from the moth eaten condition of heavy drapery that sagged against the bay window's glass pane.

Satisfied the den was vacant, Denason turned to exit the room when a thumping sound followed by a noted scratching broke the silence..Startled, he turned toward the noise which seemed to be originating from outside the window..His mind filled with the imagery of a person clinging somehow to the exterior wall of the house attempting to change their current position. As if whom ever was there had stationed themselves peering in at him, and now clawed in a right hand direction against the outer face of the structure like a spider scurrying away, some twenty-five feet above the ground.

Mallory squat at the T formation in the hallway, and after a quick check in both directions as one might yielding at an intersection, he turned the corner left to what was indeed a half bathroom..The opposite end of the current hallway exposed a partly closed door, most likely to a bedroom..The door there gave him some needed reassurance that his back was not entirely exposed..The bathroom facility was in a state of disrepair, seemingly unused for a long time..Cracked vinyl flooring, peeling wallpaper, and the obvious smell of water rot reminded him of pictures he's seen in National Geographic Magazine of the abandon medical facilities on Ellis Island, where early 1900's immigrants were subject to health clearances before allowed to merge with the general population.

His attention was pulled from a rust stained porcelain sink that hung high off the wall in comparison to today's standards, to the muffled sound of something banging up against the house in the general direction of Denason's location..He stepped from the bathroom still deciding if he should call out to his partner when the sudden explosion of gunfire rippled through the hall..

"He's coming your way!" It was Denason shouting followed by yet another blast of gunfire reverberating through the hallways mixed with the sound of shattering glass.

Mallory's first expectation was that his partner's warning meant someone was approaching his location from down the hall most likely flushed out by Denason..He brought his own Glock to bear turning toward the main hall hoping to avoid a crossfire situation..No one was in the hallway however, and a moment later Denason emerged from the alcove running toward him.

"Back there!" He screamed waving his pistol to the right.."He's on the side of the house!"

Mallory turned and ran for the ajar bedroom doorway.

Denason yelled, "I'm heading outside to cover the back!"

He could hear the big man lumbering down the stairs as he lowered his left shoulder and punched the bedroom door sending knob handles crashing through the side wall plaster. He stumbled into a nearly pitch black room only faintly illuminated by ambient night that leaked the edges of a shadow covering a window mounted in the exterior wall..His eyes failed him unaccustomed to the dark, and tripping his way into the room he landed face first over a single bed mattress that lay sprawled over the floor. His trigger finger jerked in reaction to the fall, and the Glock bucked in his hand sending a missile straight up into the ceiling. The barrel spit white fire like a camera flash further blinding him, but in the silver wake of illumination he found himself seeking a light switch somewhere against the walls of the room.

Averting his eyes from the window had been a mistake..It would prove to be his last..Mallory heard two sounds in what he imagined were squeezed into the tiny space of a split second..The muffled cry of Denason warning, "halt FBI", and the implosion of the bedroom window as a thing with glowing red eyes came through it..It's head was the size of a pumpkin with ears liken to a cat..The profound beating of leathery wings agitated the thick black air, and to his astonishment, a long appendage twitched through the window frame bestowing the beast a source of stable navigation liken to the tail of a kite..

"Dragon," he croaked raising the handgun as the thing descended onto his face..It's jaws spread open to drooling black liquid and a cage of razor teeth that tore away the man's face in one fatal chomp.

Before reaching the back of the house Denason heard gunfire and assumed Mallory was following suite shooting out a window to create himself a better position on the intruder. He yelled "halt, FBI," when finally turning the corner, but was momentarily stalled failing to ascertain exactly what had attached it' self seemingly like a suction cup to the outside of the second story window. He froze there a moment tossing the impossible image his brain insisted computing as an unacceptable conclusion..For the first time in his career he found himself incapable of action when an ugly horned toad figure of a head complete with glowing eyes turned slightly toward him regarding his presence..With one swift motion the thing caved in the window glass and disappeared into the house.

"Son of a bitch!" The words escaped Denason's throat with no conscious prompt of his own volition. He stood straining his ears for any communication on Mallory's part, fully expecting the stillness of the night to erupt in a salvo of gunfire from within the upstairs room. The shots never came. Only the perceptible flutter of rustling, like clothes lined sheets snapping against a stiff arid breeze.

"Mallory?...Mallory!"..He called out but the only additional sound returned from the dark rectangle of window frame was a gurgling noise that fed his imagination the graphic image of his partner standing up there in the dark, a full floor above him, sucking through the straw of a nearly exhausted refreshment.

He held the Glock trained at the window waiting for the thing to re-appear..Instead what came to Denason's attention was a commotion of such violent intensity it bore within his being a premonition of intuitive knowledge previously unknown to him..The thing, whatever it was,..was currently thrashing it's way down the staircase seeking an alternate means of exit..What caused the man's bowels to suddenly turn liquid was the portion of this newly intuitive awareness that spoke to him in a quickened panicked voice. The thing was not seeking a means of escape..It came to him as an insight..There was no longer any possibility of doubt..Mallory was dead...And now,...the thing that had killed his partner, was coming for him.