The voices grew louder, lights brightening. Alonzo moved back and ducked near a large boulder and Camden fell to his knees, his hand still held to his wound. He was bleeding to death. He’d die here.
The men burst from the cover of trees. One of them caught sight of Camden and pointed. “There he is!” They all turned in his direction, raising weapons when a flash of lightning ripped across the sky, startling them and momentarily diverting their attention. In its wake, their light blinked out, the distinct sizzle and pop of a dying bulb rising into the night.
Several men swore loudly, but there was enough moonlight for them to see exactly where he was and they continued to advance. Thunder roared and Camden swayed as he attempted to catch his breath and rise to his feet. If he was going to die, he refused to do it kneeling before these monsters.
But before he could, a dark, horned shape rose to their right, looming. Several of the men let out startled yells, all of them whipping their weapons toward the creature. With a low growl, it ducked and ran behind a boulder, gunshots ricocheting off of the rock.
“There it is! Did you see it?”
Camden watched as the man they thought was a horned beast darted between objects, ducking and weaving, the shifting pockets of moonlight making it appear as though he was everywhere at once. He began chanting as he moved, the sound rusty and chilling, even though Camden knew the gentle source. He threw his voice in one direction and then in another so that it echoed first on one side of the canyon, and then on another. He knew this place, understood how it worked. He was everywhere and nowhere at all.
The men turned wildly, trying to figure out where he was coming from, firing haphazardly, moving as a group, first one way, then another, yelling one command, and then directly following that, another that contradicted the first.
A second blaze of lightning lit the sky, merging Alonzo with his shadow and making his moving form appear ten feet tall. One man screamed. Thunder rumbled, shaking the earth. Their voices grew higher, more unsure, and woozily, Camden drew to the side as they came closer, right to the edge of the cliff.
He’s herding them. Oh my God, he’s herding them.
With one final booming chant that ricocheted from one side of the canyon to the other, Alonzo appeared from behind a rock, fur-covered arms held wide, head lowered, charging. A few more shots went wild, as the disoriented men turned, the one closest stepping off the cliff and grabbing for the one in front of him. They grasped at each other, floundering in their panic, pulling, falling, their screams billowing upward like the howls of a multi-headed devil descending to hell.
Camden let out a gasp of shock, leaning over as far as he dared and witnessing the men he’d watched rape troubled girls plummet to their deaths, their bodies bouncing off of the jagged rocks of the cliff wall before landing in a heap below.
He rolled to the side, struggling for breath. A fox sat quietly, its eyes trained on the place where the men had disappeared. It turned to him and their gazes held, its ancient amber eyes glinting in the moonlight. Camden blinked as she turned and ran toward the forest, disappearing into the shadows. A few cool raindrops fell, misting his skin.
Barking. Voices. Shouts. The dogs were still coming, being led by the smaller group of younger guild members. They were almost there, driven faster by the chorus of their father’s screams. Five minutes, if that.
Alonzo appeared, horns tilted, shoulders slumped. “Bemme,” his brother said softly, picking him up. He tossed Camden over his shoulder, grunting with the effort.
Then Alonzo ran, huffing with exertion, Camden held firmly against him, the press of his body and the leather bag he still wore staunching the blood flow, but the bouncing movement causing him immense pain. They were far enough away now that they were shrouded in darkness. He heard the sounds of dogs, of mayhem and confusion, but the voices didn’t follow.
Camden raised his head and in the glow of their own light, he saw the group of younger men, standing at the edge of the basin, peering into its dark depths. The dogs were barking, straining at their leashes, but coming up short as the edge of the cliff plunged below. The scent they’d been told to track stopped there. Alonzo had picked him up and carried him. There was no scent to follow. As far as they knew, he’d gone over the edge along with the others.
Alonzo stopped next to a large rock, going to his knees, and rolling Camden from his back. Camden hit the ground with a huff, sitting up as slowly as he could, propping himself against the rock and assessing his injuries. The gunshot wound oozed blood. He felt hot and cold at the same time, drowsy.
Alonzo sat next to him, breath coming harshly, eyes wide with uncertainty. Camden pulled himself up, reaching out and taking his brother’s hand. The slight rainfall had cleared completely, over before it really began.
His brother smiled at him. It was a tired smile, but pure, filled with the open adoration of a child. “I’m going to be fine,” Camden lied.
“Bemme.”
Camden squeezed his hand.
“Bet me,” Alonzo said more slowly, breath still staggered with all the effort he’d expended.
“Bet . . . me,” he said, a breath causing him to pause between each syllable. Bet-ah-me.
Bet-ah-me.
Better me.
Oh. Oh.
No. It was the other way around, Camden could see that clearly.
The world swam around him, and Camden felt a gurgle of blood coming up his throat. He lay down and Alonzo followed suit. Camden curled onto his side next to his twin. Perhaps they’d lain this way once before in their mother’s womb.
His hand hit the ground and his fingers curled, grasping a fistful of earth. . . . till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return.
Everything slowed. The earth. The clouds. The heavens.
He thought of the dream that was really a memory, of his mother running with him through the woods—with them, for it wasn’t a mirror he had been looking into, but the eyes of his brother. She’d somehow found them both and attempted to escape, but like them, she’d been hunted. Caught. She’d hidden her children first though, and the guild had found Camden, but not Alonzo, for they hadn’t even known to look for him. Narcisa must have handed Alonzo over to their mother and then saved him for a second time when things went so terribly wrong.
He’d never know all the answers and maybe that was okay, because he knew this: he hadn’t been abandoned. None of them had. They’d been stolen. His mother had been brave, her last act selfless. She was more than the poor choices she’d once made. So much more. It was the last thought Camden had before the world faded, the dirt falling through his fingers, grain by grain, until there was no more.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Mason sat in the small space behind the hidden wall in the storage area of the basement. He draped an arm over his knees, listening for any sound that might reach his ears from above. Nothing came except the creaks and groans that he still knew well, even after all of these years, as though he somehow shifted right along with the house. His heart beat swiftly, every nerve prickled. He’d waited for Georgia. He’d waited, but she hadn’t shown up before they did, the men of Farrow who came in cars and trucks, touting rifles and handguns, dogs barking excitedly in one of the pickup beds. They’d mobilized quickly. Mason had stood at the window and watched them unload, gritting his teeth with fear and rage, hoping fervently that Georgia had seen them driving toward the road that led to Lilith House and held back.