Another wail, and the forest around them got incrementallybrighter—not from the lights, but from witchmarks carved into tree trunks. Cillian tried to make sense of it, brain thinking up excuses on why they might beglowingall on their own, but the impossibility of it seemed insignificant when they were being chased by the lights.
By monsters.
“Hurry!” Bran called over his shoulder. “The cabin is close by!”
Another scream behind them, sounding closer than all the others, and Cillian chanced a look over his shoulder. What he saw would live in his nightmares forever. “Bran!”
“Keep running!”
The creature hunting them was limned in ghostly light, thin and tall, with elongated arms and many legs. Horns grew from its head, curved in a way that reminded him of a crescent moon. Even with the rapidly closing distance between them, Cillian could see that its face had no eyes, that the gaping bit of darkness there on its head was its mouth, and what glinted in it was teeth.
How Ray’s body had looked flashed through his memory, vivid and horrible. Cillian knew now why Ray’s ravaged face had been twisted with such terror in death. The creature screamed again, gaining ground on them as the twilight settling in got darker with every second that passed. Even the light emanating from the witchmarks wasn’t enough to offset the darkness.
Something glittered out of the corner of his eye, and Cillian looked to the left, seeing another light cutting its way through the trees. He didn’t know what monstrosity followed it, and he didn’t want to know. “There’s more lights following us.”
Bran swore, looking over his shoulder. Cillian didn’t like the way his eyes went wide, how he stumbled to a stop and let Cillian run past him. Cillian skidded to a stop and spun around, bringing up his rifle and bracing the buttstock against his shoulder. Before he could even warn Bran to get out of the way, Bran drew his arm back as if he were tossing a baseball and snapped it forward.
Something left his hand—glittering and golden like the witchmarks that surrounded them—and Cillian’s finger spasmed hard over the rifle’s trigger guard. The creature that was almost upon them shrieked from the ensuing explosion, knocked back by a concussive force thathad Cillian gaping for a moment in the fading light. It was odd, he distantly noted, how the force of the explosion had only been one way.
Then Bran turned and grabbed him by the elbow, yanking him back down the path. “That won’t stop it for long.”
Cillian stumbled into a run again, clutching his rifle close. “Was that abomb?”
He wanted it to be because that would maybe make sense amid everything else that didn’t. Bran didn’t answer him, just kept running, and Cillian followed in his footsteps because that was the sane thing to do instead of interrogating the other man. His lungs burned from the exertion, but better that sort of pain than death.
Maybe a minute later, Bran let out a cry of relief and pointed ahead. “There!”
Cillian squinted through the dimly lit darkness, catching sight of a shadowy shape looming up from between the trees. The cabin was the best thing he’d ever seen in that moment, worth more than a million-dollar property in Boston. Bran reached it first, slamming against the door and wrenching at the knob. He shouldered it open and stumbled inside, one arm reaching back for Cillian, hand grasping at open air.
Cillian didn’t think twice about taking Bran’s hand and pitching himself through the doorway into the cabin. He got inside, and then Bran slammed the door shut with a bang. He turned the lock right as something heavy crashed against the door on the outside. They both stepped back, and Cillian brought his rifle up out of instinct, aiming at the door as the monster outside screamed in fury. He braced himself because there was nowhere to run in the tiny cabin, no window to see out of, and he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
Light flickered on, and he flinched, staring around wide-eyed at the space he and Bran huddled in. The single light overhead hummed in time with the tiny generator in the corner that couldn’t be drowned out by the creature screaming beyond the cabin’s walls. Its furious voice was joined by another, and something heavy slammed against the right side of the cabin. Cillian jerked around, pointing his rifle at the wall, trying to get his breathing under control.
“They can’t get inside,” Bran said in a low, tight voice.
Cillian could barely hear Bran over the rushing sound in his ears. “They got into your Shoppe.”
“They had help.”
“Yeah? Is that help out there?” Bran’s silence was answer enough to that possibility. Cillian drew in a breath, then another, forcing himself to find a calm that was as elusive as a butterfly in winter.
“You can lower your rifle. We’re safe for now in here. I promise.”
Bran’s words weren’t a comfort, and Cillian didn’t let go of his rifle. “I’d like to be prepared.”
“This will be a better weapon.”
He half turned, seeing that Bran held one of his strangely curved knives out like an offering. “I don’t exactly want to get up close and personal with whatever is out there.”
“And if you lose your rifle? What else do you have on you that you can fight with?”
Nothing, unfortunately. Cillian had hoped his rifle would be enough. Glancing back at the wall, noting how it still stood despite the heavy thumps on the other side, he finally lowered his rifle. He reached for the knife Bran offered, but the second his fingers almost touched it, he jerked his hand back. A warning clawed at his mind out of nowhere, instinct telling him not to touch that cold iron. “Keep it. I’ll take my chances with my rifle.”
Bran frowned at him, looking like he wanted to argue. Cillian turned his back on the other man and crossed the cabin in two strides to reach the bed. He leaned his rifle against it and sat down.
“Are you sure?” Bran finally asked after a moment.
“Very.” Cillian looked past Bran at the cabin wall. “Those things out there are the lights.”
