A Feral Darkness (43 page)

      
She suspected that Mars Nodens had never been introduced to chocolate.

~~~

Druid sat on the hillside and looked over the pasture, happy enough with his ritual of waiting in a down-stay just below the spring while Brenna went the rest of the way—not that there was far to go anymore, after weeks of working with him. If she stayed here long enough this afternoon, she might even get him all the way up. But she didn't particularly feel like either pushing him or putting up with the results.

      
So she kicked off her sneakers and pulled her hair free of its binding and finger-combed it as she sat by the spring, easily falling into a contemplative reverie. The sun warmed her shoulders, and her dark hair soaked up its heat; with the unusually mild breeze and temperatures in the seventies, it was easy to forget this was only late April. Almost May.

      
When she remembered the chocolate, she first set it next to the spring, and then decided that Mars Nodens would probably prefer it unwrapped. Tightly balling the paper and foil and tucking it into her pocket, she put the bar right into the ooze of water, where it would eventually melt and soak into the ground.

      
Chocolate for the gods
. At least it was
good
chocolate. Masera's mother would probably laugh herself silly, Brenna thought, and that notion made its way to her face in a wry expression. She sobered quickly enough, wishing for the expertise of this woman she'd never even met, truly wondering what she'd have to say about the chocolate, about the whole situation.

      
And wondered what else the woman would be able to tell her, what life-saving little tidbits Brenna didn't even know enough to ask about, and then wished again that she'd run into this entire mess during the winter, when she didn't have the spring grooming rush to deal with and so would have had the energy—emotional and physical—to do proper research. Not only about Mars Nodens—and here Brenna suddenly remembered Emily's papers sitting on her couch, unread—but maybe into other ancient ways, so she'd have some idea what she was dealing with, and how to go about it.

      
Then again, what she needed to know probably wasn't the sort of thing she'd find in a book. Probably it hadn't ever been written down at all.

      
She wondered if any of it were lurking in Masera's experience, or if it had stopped with his mother.

      
But she
knew
, sitting there staring at the forlorn candy bar in its mushy bed of slowly oozing water, that she was in way over her head. That she didn't have the faintest grain of true knowledge on which to base her actions. How absurd to think that such a person was the only one who stood between her world and a twisted rabies epidemic. How ridiculous to expect that somehow,
she
could be the one to stop the darkness.

      
Then again...

      
As a girl she'd set out to contact Mars Nodens, and she'd done it.

      
Why not this?

      
Below her, Druid whined; one of his thinking whines, the kind she suspected he didn't even realize he'd made. But it served a purpose anyway...a reminder. She
wasn't
alone. She had Druid, a dog who'd somehow shown up at this spring and who offered her tidbits of information and someone else's memories—
his
memories?—and enough mysterious clues so if nothing else, she'd been able to pull Masera from that dog fight the evening before.

      
He discovered her watching him, and gave her a doggy smile—dropping his jaw in a relaxed pant, letting his ears tilt back in happiness—as his tail wagged briefly. He'd given her that, too—companionship, and a quickly deepening partnership that had gone past words and existed almost entirely in the realm of body language and expression.

      
Not alone.

      
And then there was Masera, feeding her tidbits about older powers and opening her eyes to possibilities of this world, possibilities that she hadn't even imagined—and still didn't even begin to understand. Latching on to her. Watching over her whether she asked him to or not.

      
Caring.

      
Whether she asked him to or not.

      
No, not alone.

      
Brenna took a deep breath, deep enough so it triggered a yawn and stretch, although that hadn't been her intent at all. It didn't seem solemn enough for the moment.

      
Then again, neither did chocolate. And maybe Mars Nodens would appreciate a unique approach. After all, for the very first time since her childhood, Brenna was here to talk to Mars Nodens—not in a confused muddle of very Presbyterian prayer and guilt over religious conflict, but with a comfortable notion of how the pagan god fit into her own theologies. "Hey," she said, not having meant to speak out loud but not stopping now that she'd started. "Mars Nodens. I just came by to say hello and bring you something. I'm glad you're here."

      
And oddly enough, that seemed sufficient.

      
Brenna lay back on the hill and spread her arms to the sunshine and fell asleep.

~~~

Goosebumps woke her; she didn't know if they were from the cooling air or Druid's whiskers grazing against the sole of her foot. "Oh, stop," she said, twitching her foot away from him. She didn't bother to open her eyes, but gestured, crooking her arm into an invitation of a waiting hug before she remembered how close she lay to the spring.

      
But before she could change her mind, she felt him creep into place by her side, almost belly-crawling. He tucked his nose under her arm and burrowed into the hug, and she crooned praise for his act of bravery while one of those big Cardi ears twitched against her arm, tickling her.

      
He couldn't bring himself to do anything else, to turn around and sit with the breeze in his face or even to lift his head. So she had no idea what had warned him when he startled her with a muted woof, but when she sat up, she knew immediately what had triggered it.

      
Parker.

      
A glance at her watch showed her she'd slept longer than she'd ever intended to be out here, and a look at the sky confirmed it—the sun hung low, and the rising breeze held the chill of impending twilight.

      
And now here came Parker, still a small figure in the far corner of the pasture, but undeniably Parker. She knew that casual swagger, that particular shade of gold-laced blond hair. Hair that belonged on an angel, and not on the head of someone who could call up a darkness to threaten the world.

      
She sat, uncertain what to do—to go or to stay, to pretend his enmity and attacks hadn't affected her. Or that she'd been too dense to puzzle out who lay behind them. In the end she decided to do nothing but sit. Not to turn tail and run, not to throw out angry words or drive him off the land. Not to tip her hand in any way.

      
Just sit there. A woman next to a spring with her dog, the rifle at her side.

      
She could see the moment he realized she was there, the way his body stiffened and the brief hesitation in his stride. But he, like she, was not about to run away. They'd bluff this one out together, she thought, each pretending more innocence than they had.

      
To her relief, he didn't come to the footbridge. He went straight to the creek, opposite her spot on the hill and with the little island between them. The water ran lower today, down from its earlier spring swell, quieter and easier to speak over.

      
"Does this mean you've changed your mind about having visitors at your place?" she asked him, an oblique reminder to her declaration of closed boundaries on her side until he opened them on his.

      
He shrugged, smiled that charming smile. "Not to speak of." Then he tilted his head slightly, another charming maneuver. It let him look at her from angled and shadowed eyes, but she suspected there was no warmth in those eyes. There certainly wasn't any in his voice. "Seems to me you've found ways to step into my business anyway."

      
That took her right off guard, baffling her. He couldn't have had any news from Russell about the house sale yet; even if her mother had immediately called Russell, her brother simply wasn't that easy to get hold of during the work day.

      
"I told you I had ways," he said. "You might be a little easier to get along with."

      
What did he know
? Her conversation with her mother, her phone call to Masera the night before, her awareness of the rabies? About his
ways
, she didn't even want to think. He certainly seemed to have obtained a comfortable relationship with the powers he'd helped call up years earlier, unlike her own blundering ignorance.

      
In an attempt to avoid revealing that blundering ignorance, she kept her silence. Beside her, Druid's throat vibrated in a barely audible growl.

      
Parker seemed unperturbed by her lack of response. "You were here earlier," he said. While she was sleeping, and deeply enough so any response Druid might have had to his presence didn't rouse her.
While she was sleeping
. The very notion made her shudder. Not that Parker appeared to notice her reaction; he tossed a stick into the creek and watched it float away. "Not your usual day off."

      
He'd been keeping track, all right.

      
"Nothing's usual at work these days," Brenna said, unable to keep the edge from her voice.
Elizabeth, dead
. "How's your girlfriend feeling? I hear she had that cat put down. Too bad they didn't do any advanced testing on it."

      
He gave her a sharp look, completely distracted from his twig-throwing. "Those close to me are safe," he said. "I can't say the same for you and yours."

      
"Don't underestimate me and mine." So much for pretending innocence. So much for avoiding angry words.

      
His expression came alive, his body alert and intent and all but leaping out of its skin. The gloves were off, the battle enjoined...and he liked it. "I want this land," he said. "I'll get it, too. And by the time I have it, you won't really be in a position to care any more."

      
"Or maybe not," she said, but she didn't like that shift in his posture, the way his shoulders seemed to fill, and how his slanted gaze grew full of condescending confidence. Only years of standing down aggressive dogs allowed her to look back at him without evidence of the fear that tickled between her stomach and spine. To even look back at him with her own disdain.

      
But beside her, Druid's growling rose in pitch and intensity, and beneath her, she felt a responsive tingle between herself and the ground—as if it felt her fear and responded to it, rippling outward like pebbles thrown in a pond.

      
"Oh, please," Parker said, and she wasn't entirely sure to what he reacted. "Don't even try. You think I don't know you haven't got a clue?"

      
"I'd come back with some equally clever response if I even knew what you were talking about," Brenna told him. Casually, she felt for the rifle by her side.

      
"That's the whole point, isn't it? And don't bother with that rifle. We know you won't use it."

      
"Do we?" Brenna said, lashing out at him with the very fear of how right he was. She couldn't even bring herself to
point
the thing at him. "Do you really want to find out? Why don't you just run home instead? Or do you plan to stand there and pretend to intimidate me all night?"

      
She knew the words—their challenge—were a mistake the moment they came out of her mouth, even before she saw Parker's sudden dangerous grin, before Druid whined...