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Lana froze.
The twin lights stared at her. They did not move.
Lana rai
sed the gun and took aim. She aimed at the space directly between the two points of light.
The explosion lit up the night for a split second.
In that flash she saw the coyote.
Then it was gone and her ears were ringing.
From back down the trail she heard a wooden door creaking, slamming. Cookie’s voice. “Lana! Lana!”
“I’m okay, Cookie. Get back inside. Lock the door! Do it!” she yelled.
She heard the door slam.
“I know you’re out there, Pack Leader,” Lana said. “I’m not so helpless this time.”
Lana started moving again. The explosion, the bullet—which almost certainly had missed its target—had settled her down. She knew now that the mutant coyote leader was there, watching. She was sure the Darkness also knew.
Good. Fine. Better. No more sneaking. She could march to the mine and take the key from the corpse. And then march back to the building where Cookie waited with Patrick.
The gun felt good in her hand.
“Come on, Pack Leader,” she purred. “Not scared of a bullet, are you?”
But her bravado faded as she drew near the mine entrance. The moonlight painted the crossbeam above the entrance with faintest silver. Below it a black mouth waiting greedily to swallow her up.
Come to me.
Imagination. There was no voice.
I have need of you.
Lana clicked the flashlight on and aimed the beam at the mouth of the cave. She might as well have pointed it at the night sky. The beam illuminated nothing.
Flashlight in her left hand. Pistol heavy in her right. The smell of cordite from the shot she’d fired. The crunch of gravel. Limbs heavy. Mind in something like a dream-state now, all focus narrowed down to a simple task.
She reached the mine shaft entrance. There above it, perched on the narrow ledge, stood Pack Leader snarling down at her.
She aimed her flashlight and swung the pistol to follow the beam, but the coyote darted away.
He’s not trying to stop me, Lana realized. He’s just observing. The eyes and ears of the Darkness.
Into the mine entrance. The beam searched and stopped when it found the object.
The face was like a shrunken head, yellow skin taut against bones that waited patiently to emerge. The rough, patched denim seemed almost new by comparison with the ancient-looking mummy flesh and sere-grass hair.
Lana knelt beside him. “Hey, Jim,” she said.
She now had to choose between the gun and the light. She laid the gun on Jim’s collapsed chest.
She found his right front pocket. Wrangler jeans. The pocket loose. Easy enough to reach in. But the pocket was empty. She could reach the hip pocket easily enough as well, but it was also empty.
“Sorry about this.” She seized the waist of his jeans and rolled him toward her, exposing the other hip pocket. The body moved oddly, too light, too easily shifted, so much weight evaporated.
