She jacked the old shells out of the gun, scooped up the wet ones, and pulled the rod out for a hasty reload. "Here goes," she said, and gave the firing chamber a quick kiss of a blessing.
When she returned to Masera's side, Parker was just below them. Waiting. For her, evidently, considering the way his congenially self-pleased expression darkened as she took up a shooting stance.
"You were in on this together," he said. "I should have known. It explains a number of things."
"We're together now," Masera said. "No doubt there are others who have their sights on you."
"Apt way of putting it." Parker tipped the bat at Brenna and the rifle. "Except surely you've figured out that won't do you any good."
"Let's pretend I'm slow," Brenna suggested. "Slow enough so I'm going to give you the chance to turn around and walk away."
Parker laughed out loud. "Not much chance of that at all."
"This isn't really
you
, Parker. This is whatever you raised here four years ago. Following it got your friends killed, and it'll kill you, too." But he'd hear the desperation in her voice. Could he also hear the hurried thrum of the earth, that reflection of her fear? But the rifle, half-raised, remained steady. Masera, at her side, remained steady. She realized that he held one of the silver knives, a dull but slightly serrated knife that could do plenty of damage with enough strength behind it.
"I understand more than they did," Parker told her. "I
listened
better. And I'm not going anywhere." He scowled, tapped the bat against the ground at his feet. "You think I couldn't feel what you're up to? I can't allow that." He hit the ground again, harder this time, and looked at Masera. "Not that I'd let you live, anyway, after the raids tonight. Mickey's already dead, did you know it? Nothing less than what he deserved, for bringing you into my life."
"The darkness," Masera observed wryly to Brenna, "seems to be somewhat egocentric."
It probably shouldn't have struck her as funny, not at that moment. But she couldn't quite muffle her laugh of response, and Parker jerked his head back, eyes narrowed, stung and angered.
Brenna reacted instantly to his expression, seeing in it the imminence of action. She lifted the rifle and squeezed the trigger, and the pit bull next to Parker—huge of chest, huge of head and jaw, powerful in every hard-trained muscle—gave a child-like cry and collapsed where it stood. Heart-shot.
The tree flared with light, and the world turned suddenly slow around her, even as everything happened at once—the dogs, Parker, the bat, Masera—all in motion. She targeted a second dog, missing the killing shot but stunning it into aimless wandering, nothing more than a dog in shock. By then the rest of them were moving, surging up the hill with Parker in their midst, and Brenna deliberately side-walked away from Masera even while sighting in a third dog—grazing its flank, pumping in a new shell, taking it down. "Over here!" she yelled at them, thinking only that she had the weapon and that she couldn't allow even one of them to close its jaws on Masera.
Rabies
. Parker's finest tools, these dogs, Parker and the darkness.
Rabies
. She whooped at them, an aggravating incitement.
Prey noises
. "C'mon, dogs! Over here!" She took another shot, took another dog down, astonished at her efficiency, her smooth reactions, the way the tingling power of the earth had turned to energy and strength in her body.
"Brenna!" Masera's uncertainty laced the word, and then he had no time to question her; Brenna saw from the corner of her eye as Parker headed for her, laying low a section of standing silver with one sweep of his bat, and Masera leapt before him and went into a crouch, trying to be ready for anything—a duck, a dodge, to grab the bat—
It slammed into his shoulders and took him off his feet.
"Iban!" she cried, even as she put a shot down the throat of the dog who'd gone for her, blowing out the juncture of skull and spine.
Five
.
And the sixth dog, changing course to run along the hill from the other side of Parker, eyeing her with more intent and intelligence than a dog ought to have—
more than dog, dog with darkness
—and she heard the bat land again, heard Masera's grunt of undeniable pain, saw him roll away from the blow and then twist himself around to drive the silver knife into Parker's leg, taking another, more awkwardly aimed blow even as the blade sank in and Parker howled and Brenna took shot at number six—
And the pin tapped dully against the shell. Dud. Too wet, too old, too
something
. Brenna pumped it out but it got stuck in the chamber, stuck enough that she'd never work it free in time.
And then the drumming grew loud in her body, so loud she couldn't hear the snarls, hear Parker's wail as the silver knife—Nuadha blessed—did more damage than any single small blade ought, so loud she couldn't even hear her own harsh breathing and frantic heartbeat anymore. The world slowed and went silent, bathed in the silver light of Nuadha's oak.
Silent, but for the determined gallop of a short-legged dog, launching himself over the crest of the hill. Silent but for his snarling cry of challenge, his fear overcome by fierce and deep devotion. Silent but for the sound of Brenna's own cry, her suddenly far-too-familiar shout of emotional agony as the Cardigan threw himself against a dog more than twice his weight, a dog bred for duck-and-dodge herding offering himself up to a killer. "No, Druid—no!"
"No, Druid—no!"
The world skidded into motion. Druid tumbled downhill, taking the pit bull with him; Brenna frantically worked the pump, freeing the dud shell and jacking in a new one. And when the pit bull's nature betrayed it, when it hung onto Druid's snowy throat, turning the silvery white fur red and dark, when it clung to Druid's limp and unresisting body, its jaws clamped by instinct and training, Brenna shot it down. Crying so hard she could barely sight in on the dog, she still took it down with one steady shot, and found herself halfway down the hill to Druid before remembering there was one more pit bull. She whirled around, pumping in another shell even as she brought the gun up, but she knew she'd be too late.
She ought to have been. With Parker sprawled on the ground, dragging himself away from Masera, with Masera staggering, barely on his feet, as the last two dogs leapt over their master to charge Brenna—
She ought to have been.
She couldn't see how Masera did it. How he had the chance. How he set himself up in front of the lead dog, jamming his forearm at its open jaws, bracing himself, throwing his other arm behind the dog's neck and shoving with one arm, jerking in with the other—
She heard the crack of its spine from there. And she lost herself entirely, screaming his name, thinking only of the rabies even as the second dog hit him from the side, knocking him back into the circle as it ravaged his neck. Screaming his name as she sighted the rifle, the dog so close to his head, too close for a safe shot. Masera flailed at the animal, reaching for Parker's abandoned bat, his struggles determined but fading, his fingers closing over the handle as all the fight seemed to drain from him
and it's got to be now
—
Brenna slid the ball just to left of the sweet spot on the dog's chest, so close to Masera's head from this angle,
too
close—
And pulled the trigger.
The dog jerked back, gave Brenna a puzzled stare, and folded to the ground with the faintest of whimpers.
"It doesn't matter." Parker's voice was jarring, his harsh laugh even more so. He'd gotten himself halfway down the hill, trailing blood that turned the grass black in Nuadha's light. "It's too late. If he's not dead yet, give him a few days. And then I'll be back for you."
Brenna pumped another round in the chamber. One of the last, most likely; she'd lost count, but knew she'd started with twelve on hold and one in the chamber.
He laughed again. "You won't do it. You know you won't do it. Don't even try to play that game."
She hefted the rifle, then lowered it. He was right about that. He'd always been right. But...around her, the ground thrummed with a different song, one she'd heard only the night before, and this time she didn't think it was of Parker's doing.
The darkness.
She wouldn't have to do it.
The darkness would use him. It would use him up.
A feral darkness, never under his control.
"You're right," she said. "We'll play another game instead." And she tossed the rifle inside the circle. Then she stumbled down the hill to Druid, moving as fast as her suddenly wobbly legs could take her without risking a fall.
She didn't think she could get up if she fell.
There he was. His head lolled back, his sightless eyes half-open and already glazing. Sweet Druid, dog of her heart. Quirky Druid, overcoming his fears long enough to sacrifice himself for her. Courageous Druid, sent through time to give his spirit to her.
She pulled off her vest and wrapped him in it, avoiding the blood, moving as quickly as she could, her body operating independently of her stunned and ravaged emotions. His long body hung flaccid in her arms; the hanging brush of his tail grazed her knee at each steep stride back up the hill.
And all the while the darkness gathered around them, angry and building up to power, with Parker just beginning to realize it.
To see that he didn't have control this time.
He scrabbled his way down the hill, stopping short of the bank as he saw he couldn't navigate it, tried to rise and failed.
Brenna had no eyes for him. Inside the circle, the warmth of Nuadha's earth and light enfolded her, showed her just the right spot to lay Druid. And grieving, fearful, she turned to Masera, where he lay limply, one foot twitching, his uninjured arm moving aimlessly, its goal some purpose she couldn't fathom. Maybe just to move. To prove to himself he was still alive.
She sank to her knees as she reached him, taking that groping hand in hers, and felt new pain tear across her chest when he didn't return the squeeze she gave it. "Iban," she whispered, close enough to see that his other arm, flopped across his stomach and badly ravaged, was too obviously crooked not to be badly broken. Close enough to see his shattered glasses bent beneath the body of the dog beside him.
Close enough to see that his neck pumped steady blood into the earth, that his eyes had rolled back in his head, that his breath was no more than a shallow gasp. "Iban," she said, brushing his cheek her fingers, unable to stop herself from threading her fingers through his thick and ever-ruffled hair. "Don't go, Iban."
Rabies
. Better this death than that. But still— "Don't go, Iban," she pleaded, while the darkness rose around them, raging against the circle, desperate to break through and gain access to the spring and its unlimited power.
Willing and able to use up every last bit of Parker in the doing of it.
Brenna saw it all, silent beyond the shelter of the circle, and yet saw none of it. Dark whirling winds, buffeting black power, raging anger spinning out its stored chaos. It didn't touch her—not its fear or its power or its violence. Only one thing held her now, this face with its expression she'd never seen before. Faded. Without the force of personality Masera had brought to every word he'd exchanged with her. Every touch.