Then, suddenly, something flew at Douglass from the crest of the next falling wave. It was almost as though the plume itself had taken form and broke off, like a cell dividing. The shape shot forward so fast that it was on him before he had even turned to look at it. Douglass was driven back hard. He landed on the sand about four feet from where he'd been standing, his arms flying up as the thing's massive front paws struck his shoulders. As the young man's arms fell back down, the creature's head went up. Its jaw opened ninety degrees, silhouetting a pair of long, hooked fangs against the brilliant moon. Then the animal's head dropped hard and swift between its forelegs. There was a pop, and while Douglass shuddered on the beach, the beast raised its head and rushed back toward the sea.
Douglass's body went with the beast's head, stuck to it. The young man hung limp and uncomplaining.
The attack on Douglass took only a second or two. By the time Vlaskovitz looked back at the other creature, the one that had been walking ashore slowly, there was nothing he could do but that.
Look at it.
The animal had turned while Vlaskovitz had watched Douglass die. It was now racing at him so fast that he only had a moment to observe it in the bright moonlight. He could see now that the thing wasn't a dog. It was a cat-a monstrously large one. Just how large Vlaskovitz couldn't be sure, since it was moving and there wasn't enough light to tell for certain. But two things definitely stood out. One was its large, deepset eyes. They were dark and reflective on the surface with a gleaming white-amber core. The other was its teeth. Up close, in the brief snapshot view he got of them, Vlaskovitz saw that the sleek, ivory fangs were larger than butcher knives and as glistening-sharp.
A wave broke, or was it a roar? There was warm sea wind on his cheeks, or was it angry breath? He couldn't be sure, it was happening too fast-
An instant later Vlaskovitz flew back.
He felt the sand on his palms.
He saw the stars.
He saw three moons in the sky. And then two of the moons moved.
The great head went up and came down. Vlaskovitz experienced two hard, sharp punches just below each shoulder. He felt the air leave him, though not through his wide and silent mouth. His hot breath puffed up at him from where he'd been struck in the chest.
He felt something wet under both arms. He closed his eyes and felt himself being jerked up.
And then he felt nothing.
Chapter Thirty
Hannah and Grand looked at the side-by-side DNA maps on the computer monitor. "This has got to be a joke," Hannah said. "Maybe not your guys pulling it, but someone."
"No," Grand said. "The computer did the analysis. It's working fine."
"But it can't be right," she said. "How long have saber-toothed tigers been extinct?"
"Eight thousand years," Grand said. "This particular species has been extinct for nearly eleven thousand years."
"There can't be an animal that old eating people in Santa Barbara."
"I agree."
"But there has to be an answer to the missing people and strange fur," Hannah said.
Grand had to agree with that. And yet, he thought.
The sun had set and it was getting cold. Grand stood, closed the window, and looked out at the sea.
What if the answer was Haphap? Joseph Tumamait didn't just believe the demon was near. He said that he knew it, absolutely. The Chumash elder had become more spiritual over the past few years but he hadn't lost his mind or his empirical judgment.
"Maybe this isn't a joke but an accident," Hannah said. "Someone in the lab could have run a test on a saber-tooth fur sample and sent you the results by mistake."
"They couldn't have," Grand said. He sat back down.
"Why not?"
"Because we don't have any fur samples from saber-tooths."
"You don't, but someone may."
"I mean scientists don't have any samples," Grand told Hannah. "We've found swatches of fur from woolly rhinoceroses, woolly mammoths, peccaries, short-faced bears, snowshoe hares, dire wolves, and giant sloths. We've got fur, skin, and even organ samples from all kinds of prehistoric mammals from around the world, samples that were frozen in ice or submerged in tar. But we've never found any specimens of fur from a saber-toothed cat. We haven't even found a cave painting that shows a saber-toothed cat."
"Why do you think that is?"
"Probably because no one who ever saw one lived to paint its picture," Grand said. "From everything we can gather-including computer simulations based on skeletal remains-saber-tooths were the greatest hunters that ever lived. Fast, stealthy, powerful. As for why there are no fur samples, we suspect that most of the cats died in open fields where they probably hunted, and that their remains were scavenged by animals or early humans for food, clothing, and weapons. Their fangs would have made excellent knives."
"Good point," Hannah said. "No pun intended. So if our knowledge is so thin, where did the original DNA sample for your fatalis tiger come from?"
"We got that from bone and tooth fossils," Grand said. "The fossilization record has left a very clear imprint of saber-tooth DNA."
"I see. Then maybe someone used that DNA to genetically engineer fake hair," Hannah suggested.
"Why?"
"I don't know," Hannah admitted.
"It would take tens of millions of dollars and a very sophisticated lab to fake something this convincing," Grand told her.
"Besides, if someone did that they'd probably want to make the discovery themselves, get the acclaim and funding that comes with it."
"True," she admitted.
They were silent for a moment Grand couldn't stop thinking about Haphap, about Tumamait's utter conviction, about the caves, about the presence he felt when he was down there. Chumash lore did not describe Haphap. Perhaps the demon was meant to personify everyone's greatest fear. Or maybe he was never seen clearly in visions.
Or perhaps the stories came from real life?
The legends about Haphap could have risen from tales of a fearsome predator that lived inside the mountain caverns and struck swiftly and terribly. And if that were true-
"I wonder," Grand said.
"About what?"
"The caves," he said. "I wonder if there might not be another reason we never found any saber-tooth fur."
"Such as?"
"Maybe they lived and died underground," Grand said. "Bobcats live in dens. Foxes make their homes in underground burrows. Bats roost in caves. Early humans dwelt there as well."
"Sounds reasonable."
"Even more so when you consider that the cats may have gone underground when things froze up during the Ice Age," Grand said. "Generations of them living in caves. And when saber-tooths migrated south, where it was warmer, they stayed in the caves."
"No one ever thought of this before?"
"Not that I'm aware of," Grand said. "Paleontologists believe strongly in 'habitual parallelism,' an assumption that the lifestyles of past and present species are somewhat similar. Ancient turtles lived the same way as modem turtles, ancient birds lived like modern birds, and so on. We've always assumed that saber-tooths were like modern-day lions and tigers. But what if they weren't? What if we haven't seen any paintings of them because, like bats, like many other predators, they hunted at night when prehistoric people were in their huts or caves."