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"What's all this?" Quinn frowned as the men retreated. "What are they up to?"
"It's more what haven't they told us," Layla said. "Guilt and reluctance, that's what I'm picking up. Not that I know any of them that well. "
"You know what you know," Cybil told her. "Get another bottle, Q. " She gave a little shudder. "Maybe we should light a couple more candles while we're at it, just in case. It already feels. . . dark. "
THEY LEFT IT TO HIM, CAL SUPPOSED, BECAUSE IT was his house. When they were all back around the table, he tried to find the best way to begin.
"We've gone over what happened that night in the clearing when we were kids, and what started happening after. Quinn, you got some of it yourself when we hiked there a couple weeks ago. "
"Yeah. Cyb and Layla need to see it, as soon as the snow's cleared enough for us to make the hike. "
He hesitated only a beat. "Agreed. "
"It ain't a stroll down the Champs Élys¨¦es," Gage commented, and Cybil cocked an eyebrow at him.
"We'll manage. "
"There was another element that night, another aspect we haven't talked about with you. "
"With anyone," Fox added.
"It's hard to explain why. We were ten, everything went to hell, and. . . Well. " Cal set his part of the stone on the table.
"A piece of rock?" Layla said.
"Bloodstone. " Cybil pursed her lips, started to reach for it, stopped. "May I?"
Gage and Fox set theirs down beside Cal's. "Take your pick," Gage invited.
"Three parts of one. " Quinn picked up the one closest to her. "Isn't that right? These are three parts of one stone. "
"One that had been rounded, tumbled, polished," Cybil continued. "Where did you get the pieces?"
"We were holding them," Cal told her. "After the light, after the dark, when the ground stopped shaking, each one of us was holding his part of this stone. " He studied his own hand, remembering how his fist had clenched around the stone as if his life depended on it.
"We didn't know what they were. Fox looked
it up. His mother had books on rocks and crystals, and he looked it up. Bloodstone," Cal repeated. "It fit. "
"It needs to be put back together," Layla said. "Doesn't it? It needs to be whole again. "
"We've tried. The breaks are clean," Fox explained. "They fit together like a puzzle. " He gestured, and Cal took the pieces, fit them into a round.
"But it doesn't do anything. "
"Because you're holding them together?" Curious, Quinn held out her hand until Cal put the three pieces into it. "They're not. . . fused would be the word, I guess. "
"Tried that, too. MacGyver over there tried superglue. "
Cal sent Gage a bland stare. "Which should've worked-at least as far as holding the pieces together. But I might as well have used water. No stick. We've tried banding them, heating them, freezing them. No dice. In fact, they don't even change temperature. "
"Except-" Fox broke off, got the go-ahead nod. "During the Seven, they heat up. Not too hot to hold, but right on the edge. "
"Have you tried putting them back together during that week?" Quinn demanded.
"Yeah. No luck. The one thing we know is that Giles Dent was wearing this, like an amulet around his neck, the night Lazarus Twisse led that mob into the clearing. I saw it. Now we have it. "
"Have you tried magickal means?" Cybil asked.
Cal squirmed a little, cleared his throat.
"Jesus, Cal, loosen up. " Fox shook his head. "Sure. I got some books on spells, and we gave that a try. Down the road, Gage has talked to some practicing witches, and we've tried other rites and so on. "
"But you never showed them to anyone. " Quinn set the pieces down carefully before picking up her wine. "Anyone who might have been able to work with them, or understand the purpose. Maybe the history. "
"We weren't meant to. " Fox lifted his shoulders. "I know how it sounds, but I knew we weren't supposed to take it to, what, a geologist or some Wiccan high priestess, or the damn Pentagon. I just. . . Cal voted for the science angle right off. "
"MacGyver," Gage repeated.
"Fox was sure that was off-limits, and that was good enough. That was good enough for the three of us. " Cal looked at his friends. "It's been the way we've handled it, up till now. If Fox felt we shouldn't show you, we wouldn't be. "
"Because you feel it the strongest?" Layla asked Fox.
"I don't know. Maybe. I know I believed-I believe-we survived that night, that we came out of it the way we came out of it because we each had a piece of that stone. And as long as we do, we've got a chance. It's just something I know, the same way Cal saw it, that he recognized it as the amulet Dent wore. "
"How about you?" Cybil asked Gage. "What do you know? What do you see?"
His eyes met hers. "I see it whole, on top of the Pagan Stone. The stone on the stone. And the flames flick up from it, kindling in the blood spots. Then they consume it, ride over the flat, down the pedestal like a sheath of fire. I see the fire race across the ground, fly into the trees until they burst from the heat. And the clearing's a holocaust even the devil himself couldn't survive. "
He took a drink of wine. "That's what I see when it's whole again, so I'm in no big hurry to get there. "
"Maybe that's how it was formed," Layla began.
"I don't see back. That's Cal's gig. I see what might be coming. "
"That'd be handy in your profession. "
Gage shifted his gaze back to Cybil, smiled slowly. "It doesn't hurt. " He picked up his stone, tossed it lightly in his hand. "Anyone interested in a little five-card draw?"
As soon as he spoke, the light snapped off.
Rather than romance or charm, the flickering candles they'd lit as backup lent an eeriness to the room. "I'll go fire up the generator. " Cal pushed up. "Water, refrigerator, and stove for now. "
"Don't go out alone. " Layla blinked as if surprised the words had come out of her mouth. "I mean-"
"I'm going with you. "
As Fox rose, something howled in the dark.
"Lump. " Cal was out of the room, through the kitchen, and out the back door like a bullet. He barely broke stride to grab the flashlight off the wall, punch it on.
He swept it toward the sound. The beam struggled against the thick, moving curtain of snow, did little but bounce the light back at him.
The blanket had become a wall that rose past his knees. Calling his dog, Cal pushed through it, trying to pinpoint the direction of the howling. It seemed to come from everywhere, from nowhere.
As he heard sounds behind him, he whirled, gripping the flashlight like a weapon.
"Don't clock the reinforcements," Fox shouted. "Christ, it's insane out here. " He gripped Cal's arm as Gage moved to Cal's other side. "Hey, Lump! Come on, Lump! I've never heard him like that. "
"How do you know it's the dog?" Gage asked quietly.
"Get back inside," Cal said grimly. "We can't leave the women alone. I'm going to find my dog. "
"Oh yeah, we'll just leave you out here, stumbling around in a fucking blizzard. " Gage jammed his freezing hands in his pockets, glanced back. "Besides. "
They came, arms linked and gripping flashlights. Which showed sense, Cal was forced to admit. And they'd taken the time to put on coats, probably boots as well, which is more than he or his friends had done.
"Go back in. " He had to shout now, over the rising wind. "We're just going to round up Lump. Be right there. "
"We all go in or nobody does. " Quinn unhooked her arm from Layla's, hooked it to Cal's. "That includes Lump. Don't waste time," she said before he could argue. "We should spread out, shouldn't we?"
"In pairs. Fox, you and Layla try that way, Quinn and I'll take this way. Gage and Cybil toward the back. He's got to be close. He never goes far. "
He sounded scared, that's what Cal didn't want to say out loud. His stupid, lazy dog sounded scared. "Hook your hand in my pants-the waistband. Keep a good hold. "
He hissed against the cold as her gloves hit his skin, then began to trudge forward. He'd barely made it two feet when he heard something under the howls.
"You catch that?"
"Yes. Laughing. The way a nasty little boy might laugh. "
"Go-"
"I'm not leaving that dog out here any more than you are. "
A vicious gush of wind rose up like a tidal wave, spewing huge clumps of snow, and what felt like pellets of ice. Cal heard branches cracking, like gunfire in the dark. Behind him, Quinn lost her footing in the force of the wind and nearly took them both down.
He'd get Quinn back into the house, he decided. Get her the hell in, lock her in a damn closet if necessary, then come back out and find his dog.
Even as he turned to get a grip on her arm, he saw them.
His dog sat on his haunches, half buried in the snow, his head lifted as those long, desperate howls worked his throat.
The boy floated an inch above the surface of the snow. Chortling, Cal thought. There was a word you didn't use every day, but it sure as hell fit the filthy sound it made.
It grinned as the wind blasted again. Now Lump was buried to his shoulders.
"Get the fuck away from my dog. "
Cal lurched forward; the wind knocked him back so that both he and Quinn went sprawling.
"Call him," Quinn shouted. "Call him, make him come!" She dragged off her gloves as she spoke. Using her fingers to form a circle between her lips, she whistled shrilly as Cal yelled at Lump.
Lump quivered; the thing laughed.
Cal continued to call, to curse now, to crawl while the snow flew into his eyes, numbed his hands. He heard shouting behind him, but he focused everything he had on pushing ahead, on getting there before the next gust of wind put the dog under.
He'd drown, Cal thought as he pushed, shoved, slid forward. If he didn't get to Lump, his dog would drown in that ocean of snow.
He felt a hand lock on his ankle, but kept draggin
g himself forward.
Gritting his teeth, he flailed out, got a slippery hold on Lump's collar. Braced, he looked up into eyes that glittered an unholy green rimmed with red. "You can't have him. "
Cal yanked. Ignoring Lump's yelp, he yanked again, viciously, desperately. Though Lump howled, whimpered, it was as if his body was sunk in hardened cement.
And Quinn was beside him, belly down, digging at the snow with her hands.
Fox skidded down, shooting snow like shrapnel. Cal gathered everything he had, looked once more into those monstrous eyes in the face of a young boy. "I said you can't have him. "
With the next pull, Cal's arms were full of quivering, whimpering dog.
"It's okay, it's okay. " He pressed his face against cold, wet fur. "Let's get the hell out of here. "
"Get him in by the fire. " Layla struggled to help Quinn up as Cybil pushed up from her knees. Shoving the butt of a flashlight in his back pocket, Gage pulled Cybil to her feet, then plucked Quinn out of the snow.
"Can you walk?" he asked her.
"Yeah, yeah. Let's get in, let's get inside, before somebody ends up with frostbite. "
Towels and blankets, dry clothes, hot coffee. Brandy-even for Lump-warmed chilled bones and numbed flesh. Fresh logs had the fire blazing.
"It was holding him. He couldn't get away. " Cal sat on the floor, the dog's head in his lap. "He couldn't get away. It was going to bury him in the snow. A stupid, harmless dog. "
"Has this happened before?" Quinn asked him. "Has it gone after animals this way?"
"A few weeks before the Seven, animals might drown, or there's more roadkill. Sometimes pets turn mean. But not like this. This was-"
"A demonstration. " Cybil tucked the blanket more securely around Quinn's feet. "He wanted us to see what he could do. "
"Maybe wanted to see what we could do," Gage countered, and earned a speculative glance from Cybil.
"That may be more accurate. That may be more to the point. Could we break the hold? A dog's not a person, has to be easier to control. No offense, Cal, but your dog's brainpower isn't as high as most toddlers'. "
Gently, affectionately, Cal pulled on one of Lump's floppy ears. "He's thick as a brick. "
"So it was showing off. It hurt this poor dog for sport. " Layla knelt down and stroked Lump's side. "That deserves some payback. "
Intrigued, Quinn cocked her head. "What do you have in mind?"
"I don't know yet, but it's something to think about. "
