Fear

A pang of guilt stabbed her without warning. She should have made her case to Sam and tried to get him to agree. She shouldn’t have just run off on her own.

He would never have agreed.

She was doing the right thing. For once she was deciding to act. Not to manipulate or convince. But to act.

With luck she would reach Perdido Beach by morning.

And with a bit more luck she would be back with Sam by tomorrow night.

Brittney knew what she was to do. Mostly. The god that named itself gaiaphage had told her what she and Drake were to do. But the gaiaphage had not given her the power to keep Drake’s memories as her own. Each time she emerged it was into a situation that might be totally unexpected.

In this case she recognized the crack in the bluff and knew she was hiding from Brianna. But now it was night and that was a surprise.

Almost as big a surprise as the fact that when she peered out she saw Orc looming huge no more than fifty feet away from the opening.

Brittney froze. The coyotes were already as quiet and still as statues.

Orc was slowly laboring up the hill, searching as he went in a steady, methodical way that was like nothing she’d ever seen from her former jailer.

He was meticulously scanning the ground, stomping through bushes, shoving boulders aside. Orc would not find them anytime soon, and the coyotes would show Brittney another hiding place if need be, but there was something disturbing in the way Orc was searching. Methodical. Calm. Dangerous.

The coyotes would be no use against Orc. And Brittney would be helpless. Orc was powerful. He could rip her into pieces. Those massive gravel hands could tear her apart as easily as she might tear a piece of bread.

He couldn’t kill her, or Drake; so it seemed. But even now, as far from her old life as it was possible to get, Brittney felt sick with dread at what Orc could do. She might not feel pain like she once had. But she would feel something.

Orc moved on, lumbering past, a starlit beast. She did not understand why he wanted her, or wanted Drake, but she was sure that was his purpose.

Her hand brushed against a smooth rock face and she felt something wet.

“Whip Hand made blood,” Pack Leader said.

“It’s too dark to see,” Brittney said. “Do you—” No, that was stupid. Pack Leader did not read. But still, he might know something. She didn’t have to ask.

“Rock that lives came from there.” Pack Leader couldn’t point, but he could aim his eyes. Through the gap in the rock Brittney could see what might be a small rowboat. She inched forward, silent, afraid of a massive stone hand reaching down from above. Inch by inch, until she was standing outside of the cave. She stood perfectly still. Listened. She heard the monster moving rocks, but the sound was not close at hand.

The moon shone down on the forlorn rowboat. It had painted trim—possibly green, impossible to tell for sure.

She scanned the boats at anchor, bobbing gently at the end of ropes or in some cases seemingly just drifting randomly. A sailboat caught her eye. It had trim that was very much like that on the rowboat.

“We must go,” Brittney told Pack Leader. “I’ll take Orc’s—Rock That Lives—boat. You’ll wait on shore to fight off anyone who comes along.”

Pack Leader’s soulless, intelligent eyes stared at her. “Pack hide from Swift Girl and Rock That Lives.”

“No,” Brittney said. “We cannot hide any longer.”

“Swift Girl kills many coyotes.”

“You’ll have to take your chances. The Darkness commands.”

Pack Leader’s tail flicked. “Bright Hand is there.” He pointed his muzzle at the houseboat. “Rock That Lives is close. Pack Leader does not see Whip Hand. Does not see Darkness.”

Brittney gritted her teeth. So that was it. The coyotes were calculating the odds and not liking what they saw. Cowards.

“Are you dogs?” Brittney taunted.

But Pack Leader was unmoved. “Pack almost gone. And only three pups.”

“If Drake was here, he would whip the fur off you!”

“Whip Hand is not here,” Pack Leader said placidly.

“Fine. Then wait here. I’ll go alone.”

Pack Leader did not argue. Neither did he agree.

Brittney began to pick her way quietly, cautiously down toward the shore. She stayed under the cover of rocks when she could and hunched down low when she had no choice but to cover open ground.

She kept a sharp eye on the houseboat. She didn’t need Drake’s memories to know that was where Sam would be. And she listened carefully for Orc.

The last fifty yards there was no cover, nothing she could do to hide as she crossed the pebbly shore to the rowboat. She crouched and looked hard at the houseboat. She saw no one on the top deck. That didn’t mean eyes weren’t watching from the houseboat’s windows. But if she could only barely see them it stood to reason they could see her only if they were staring in her direction.

Once the boat started moving…

She rushed to the rowboat and crouched in its shadow, eyes on the houseboat. If she tried to move the boat, she would be caught. Maybe Drake could have done it, moving swiftly in a way that she could not. But she had no idea how to row a boat and was likely to make noise.

If she tried to swim, it would be even worse. She knew how to swim, but she knew only the crawl, and the splashing would draw every ear in the small fleet.

Then Sam and his people would hear and they would catch her and Sam would burn her to ashes.