A Feral Darkness (50 page)

      
It occurred to her, then, what would happen to Nuadha's beloved dogs if she and Masera didn't stop the darkness, and stop the rabies it had chosen to wield.
Strays and lost dogs, killed on sight. Pets limited to those dogs who could stay indoors their entire lives, foxes and raccoons hunted down, their populations devastated...

      
She realized she'd quit working, that she was staring blindly into the early morning darkness; she had the distant awareness that Masera had called her name not once but several times. She looked at the utensils beside her, the ones already sticking in the ground. Druid eyed them, his ears perked forward with utmost interest. She reached out to brush her fingers along the top of the line—

      
And jerked her hand back when she received a sharp tingle in response, an electric shock but at a lower pitch. To her mortification, she also gave a quick squeal of surprise, and by then Masera was beside her, his hand on her shoulder. And by then, too, she felt it in the ground, thrumming up through her knees and the tops of her feet where her sneakers rested against the ground, humming through her bones and vibrating in her lungs like distant drums. She looked over to him, his face so close to hers, and whispered, "Do you feel it?"

      
He looked at Druid—standing on his toes, looking like a dog who expects a rabbit to break from the brush before his nose—and back to Brenna, and shook his head. But before she could suggest it, he, too, reached out to the standing silver.

      
He didn't quite snatch his hand away. But Brenna felt his entire body tighten, and he eased back to sit on one heel. After a moment he shook his head. "Not unless I touch them," he said. "You're definitely the
Mari
here." And at her look, he grinned. "Basque myth. A tall, beautiful, and kindly woman with magical powers."

      
"I think you need to have a talk with my family," Brenna muttered, but held tight to the startled little warmth in her chest.
Tall, beautiful
. He thought that. He said it without hesitation.

      
She glanced around, saw they'd almost closed the circle. Another foot or so right where she'd been working and they'd be done. "You want to do the rest?" she asked. "I'll get the chocolate." She'd already noticed the Ghirardelli was gone; she only hoped it had gone to Nuadha instead of a raccoon. Masera squeezed her shoulder in assent and she went for the knapsack.

      
Spreading the chips was like sewing seed by hand; she scattered it in the circle, feeling the tingle that fed up through her soles and spread through her body. Done. She rinsed her hand in the damp spot at the spring. When she turned back she found Masera feeling around the ground, reaching for the flashlight and flicking it on to peer closely at the spring grass.

      
"Hunting worms?" she said.

      
His reply held none of her light tone. "Take a look for yourself."

      
Grass. Verdant green washed out by the bright, close light, growing but not yet thick; the resilient ground peeked through, almost covered by last year's thatch. "No chocolate," she said, taken unaware by a sudden shiver. "There's
nothing
."

      
He held a hand over the curving line of utensils, hovering it without actually touching the silver. "No chocolate. And this. You've done well here, Brenna."

      
She sighed in deep relief. "Do you think...do you think Parker can get in?"

      
He stared over the circle for a moment, then got to his feet, holding out his hand to her. "I don't know. But I think we've done what we can."

      
She didn't need the hand up; she took it anyway. And she let him pull her in close, to stand together long enough for her to become aware that his heart beating against her own chest held a curiously similar rhythm to the pulse of the earth at her feet. When she told Masera he just laughed and held her a little tighter. "The pagan gods are generally like that," he said, and then, when she pulled back in question, he added, "They enjoy all celebrations of life, including the one where I hold you." And he held her tighter for a moment, his face against hers, with pulses beating around and through them, until she felt him smile. "There," he said, murmuring. "Now I feel it. It's nothing that will suffer Parker's presence here."

      
A soft paw landed lightly against Brenna's knee—Druid, sitting on his haunches. "Silly," she told him, reaching down to caress his head. "Yes, you too."

      
Masera glanced at his watch, a glow-in-the-dark bright from recent contact with the flashlight beam. "Not quite enough time to be worth catching any more sleep," he said. "But time to get cleaned up and go out for breakfast, if you want."

      
"I want," Brenna declared. "That pizza last night feels like it was two days ago." She bent to retrieve the limp and empty knapsack, taking a moment to run her hand across the ground in a caress much like that she'd just given Druid. "I'll be back," she told it.

      
And Druid growled.

      
"Druid," she said, surprised. "What's up with you?" She followed his alert-eared gaze out over the pasture, but saw nothing in the darkness. Not surprising; she wouldn't have been able to see an elephant in the pasture bottom, not unless it glowed in the dark like Masera's watch.

      
But Druid stood like a statue, growling steadily, no doubt in his hot glare out over the field. Masera thumbed the flashlight on, swept it over the field, though at that distance, the beam dissipated too much to show anything but—

      
Eyes.

      
Off to the right, on this side of the creek. Eyes reflecting back at them, green, winking in and out with the movement of the attached animal, never steady enough to get a feel for just how many there were.

      
"Oh, man," Brenna said softly. "Oh,
man
."

      
"Stay inside the circle," Masera said, his voice just as low. The grim quality in his words made her wish she was anywhere else but here,
inside the circle
. Two giant targets inside a bullseye and one small, quickly moving target—for Druid had stopped growling, had skipped back a few steps—and when she went for his leash he bolted, kicking off his run with a sudden yip of fear and clawing up sod with the vigor of his retreat. She lunged after him, but spun abruptly around with the implacable force of Masera's hand grabbing her arm. "Stay in the circle," he said. "You can't catch a dog that doesn't want to be caught."

      
"I know, dammit, but—" she stopped just before her voice cracked with frustration, jerking free of his grasp and turning away, reeling inside with the sudden change of atmosphere—although she could still feel the pulse of the earth against her feet, and wondered if Masera could, too. A faster beat, a stronger tingle, a feel of urgency and danger. She didn't know if it was a warning or merely a reflection of her own turmoil. "If only we could see," she muttered, taking a long step to the center of the circle, where she'd left the rifle. Still loaded. Still armed.

      
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steeling herself to turn around.

      
That's when she heard Masera's quick intake of breath, and she whirled around, opening her eyes to—

      
Light.

      
Soft, silver-colored light, washing out over the hill, growing to reach across the creek, trickling out over the pasture below. Baffled, she turned a circle, hunting the source.

      
She didn't have to look far.

      
The oak looming over the spring, barely leafed out in that slow, taking-things-on-its-own-schedule way that oaks had. A perfectly normal oak.

      
Glowing moon-silver, growing steadily in strength.

      
Illuminating the field of battle.

      
She let her own breath hiss through her teeth and exchanged a quick, wide-eyed glance with Masera. "You know what?" she said. "We're not in Kansas anymore."

      
"No, Dorothy, we're not." He looked out over the pasture. "Let's just hope Toto is safe at home." And he shifted his gaze, taking her attention back to the field.

      
Of course it was Parker. Parker, striding toward them with all the assurance back in his walk and a pack of pit bulls spread out around him. He'd bypassed the creek at the road bridge along the house frontage, probably cut through her fence as soon as he was across it. Seven dogs, she thought—no, eight. Eight, when one would have done the job. One powerfully-jawed dog, trained to kill.

      
She had wondered if she could kill a dog. She suddenly knew the answer.

      
Parker himself carried a bat.

      
"A bat?" she murmured out loud, moving close to Masera again. "He knows I have the rifle."

      
"Think like the darkness," Masera murmured back; she could barely hear him for the thrum of pulses—earth pulses, her own racing heart—in her ear. "It wants the experience close and personal. It wants to crush and maim and feel the results."

      
"And how reassuring
you
are," she muttered. She gestured with the rifle. "This is what we've got. Do you want it?"

      
He shook his head without taking his eyes from Parker—halfway across the pasture now. "As much as I'd like to leave you free to...communicate...with Nuadha, I have no doubt which of us can handle the shooting best. But there shouldn't be any. Don't start anything. Just
stay in the circle
—"

      
"No kidding," she said. "But just what makes you so sure they can't get to us here?"

      
"This circle is stronger than it was before. He couldn't reach you then."

      
"That's just the point," she said. "He
couldn't
reach me. He was stuck on the other side of the creek. It was the
darkness
that got repelled by the circle. I have no idea whether Parker himself will care the least about our silver marching men."

      
His response was silence, while Parker grew close enough so the glow of light painted his gold hair silver, sparking off it like bright sunshine. Then Masera swore a low curse, accepting her argument...but not, Brenna was glad to hear, with the
goddamit
against which she'd cautioned him.

      
"Yeah," she said. "So I'd rather—Iban, if they get any closer and they start running, I won't get them all in time. I'm not used to a moving target."

      
He nodded. "Start something, then."

      
Brenna raised the rifle to her shoulder, finding the old ball and notch sight, settling it on a broad white chest. "I'm sorry," she whispered, following the approach of that chest, shifting the ball just to the left of the notch to account for the quirky sight...she held her breath and gently squeezed the trigger.

      
Never a loud weapon, the rifle shot seemed somehow muted by the pounding of the earth, the subtle pulsing of the oak's glow. And the dog didn't flinch. Didn't hesitate. Still sighting in, Brenna quickly pumped in a new shell and took the shot again.

      
Nothing.

      
"Buck fever?" Masera asked, suspicion in his voice. Not suspicion aimed at her, as he looked out over the field to Parker's big grin.

      
"No," Brenna said miserably. "He's protecting them, somehow."

      
"Don't waste the bullets, then."

      
"I can't just sit here and wait." On an impulse, she spun away from the edge of the circle, took the rifle back to the center, right next to the spring, and thrust it flat against the ground. "Please," she said to the spring. "We've got to fight the darkness." She jammed her hand into her pocket, fishing out the fresh shells, and scattered them in the ooze of the spring—a crazier thing, she'd probably never done.
Wet ammo
. But they weren't any use to her as they were...