“Guns,” I demanded, holding out a hand.
He placed his service weapon in my left hand and I shoved it into my waistband. He lifted his leg, pulled out the tiny ankle-holstered .380, and placed it in my hand. His eyes were slanted, his brow furry, his jaw nothing like a human’s. He made a growling, clicking sound and licked his jaw. Then he dropped his pants. I looked away and out into the linear, straight-lined trees. Weapon extended out and steady. As a shooting position it was well anchored, perfect tripod, though I might abrade my wrist on the stone with the recoil of each shot. And my body was protected by rock that I could duck behind when I ran out of ammo. The snakes I had tossed whipped into the trees and disappeared.
Beside me, bones snapped and cracked, breaking and reshaping. A strangled sound of pain, half whine, half growl, came from Occam’s throat. And then he leaped past me, into the branches of the nearest tree, a graceful shape of spotted gold and long sleek tail.
I pulled my cell and set it on the stone. “You still there?” I murmured.
“I’m here,” Rick said. “We have deputies in two marked units, ETA from the pond about four minutes.” In the distance I saw two figures. Racing after us.
“It’ll all be over by then,” I said. “All but the blood and the mopping up. We have two armed suspects, male.” I strained, squinting against the glare. “Carrying indeterminate long guns, heading to my twenty. I’m hidden in some boulders. Occam went furry.”
Rick cursed, and there wasn’t much I could say in reply. I had saiddamnearlier. I was pretty sure I had never saiddamnin my life until I became part of Unit Eighteen. Of course, I had never been chased like this, or not when off my land. If I took the two humans, I’d claim these woods as my own. And I’d kill two people, though I didn’t really care about that since they were hunting me, and not to give me a Publishers Clearing House prize, but to shoot me dead. Here I had only a gun for protection and no chance to pull on the earth or feed the land, because if I did, the infinity loop below the ground would see me. And trap me. And learn from me.Damn, damn, damn,I thought, my breath too fast.
“Why did he drive the two of youthere?” Rick asked, as if that choice was the stupidest thing ever. “Why did he take you to where the magics are strong and you both could be trapped by the land? Did the land make him come there? Did it draw him to itself?”
That was something I had considered, but it would have to wait. I watched, seeing human shapes come nearer, bending, and looking ahead, and I realized they were tracking us by following Occam’s discarded clothes. We had been stupid. I could hear their voices now, hissing whispers and mutterings. Thecrackof a stick. They were moving fast, now taking cover, rushing from tree to tree, protected by the trunks. They had some training. But... they didn’t look up.
“Tell me what’s happening,” Rick said.
I steadied my aim on the man closest and murmured. “Two males. One Caucasian, under six feet, in jeans, ball cap, and azipped hoodie. One African-American, well over six feet, in jeans and a Windbreaker-type jacket, hair in multiple braids to his shoulders.”
“Who are they? Why are they chasing you, Nell?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know. They aren’t churchmen.” A laugh tittered in the back of my throat, where I smothered it, saying, “That’s a first.”
Occam perched high, about twenty feet above the ground, as the men maneuvered toward the rounded rock outcropping. Where else could we go, anyway? It was the perfect defensive position and the perfect lure. And Occam’s clothes pointed them straight at me.
They came closer. I started to sweat. My vision went blurry and I forced my breathing to slow and blinked my eyes, trying to clear them.
“Stay calm, Nell,” Rick said softly, as if he could smell my fear, hear my breathing.
But what he didn’t know was that I wasn’t afraid of the men stalking me. I was afraid of the land. And its awareness of me. I was standing on stone, surrounded by stone, unmoving. No raw earth touched me. Yet the land was attentive. It knew I was here from the scant reading I had done and the trace of my blood on the dirt. It knew Occam was here, in the trees. It was pulling on me, a slow tug to the pond. Rick was right. The magic of the pond was calling me. I looked to my left. Through the trees I saw the water, calm and still, reflecting back the sun. An oily darkness rested just at the surface.
As we ran, we had somehow circled around and headed back to it. Which meant that it was summoning me. Occam too. And there was nothing I could do about it.
The men had worked their way to within thirty feet of Occam’s tree. I had seen a wereleopard leap, and the trajectory was just about right. The werecat tightened his body over the branch. He looked from the men to me and snarled silently, showing teeth so sharp they were like knives. He was trying to tell me something. He looked at the man closest to me, the one my weapon was centered on. Snarled again.
Oh. Right.I shouted, “Stop! PsyLED. Put down your weapons! Put! Down! Your! Weapons!”
Instead the man farther back fired at the rocks. I ducked. Shrapnel flew, bits of rock peppering down on me.
Cover fire.
I lifted my head just high enough to see. The closest man was racing toward me. The long gun was an automatic rifle. With an extended mag. He saw me. Raised his weapon, the barrel coming across his body.
I aimed at him. Squeezed the trigger. Fired. The blast stole the silence from the world.
The shot went wide. But the man ducked and crouched behind a trunk without firing. The other man raced out to the side, as if drawing my fire. Occam leaped from the branch. Landed on the man who had fired at me. I raised up and fired at the man rushing to the side. He returned fire. The sound was thunderous. Rock chips and shrapnel shattered around me. A hail of gunfire. I could do nothing but crouch and wait it out.
The rain of gunfire stopped, and I stood up, spotting the man, hunched over his weapon, half-hidden behind a tree. Changing out the magazine. My only good shot was about three inches of his backside, poking out from behind the tree. I steadied the weapon, breathed in. Out. Held my breath, lungs about three-quarters empty. Squeezed the trigger. Fired. He landed on one knee, his lower leg and foot exposed on one side of the tree, his head on the other. I aimed at the foot and fired twice more. Three shots total. I felt the man’s blood hit the ground in two places. Something lightless and empty opened within me.
I could take him for these woods. I could feed him to the earth.
The space inside me was deep and black and starless. And full of longing. It rose within me. Filling me with nothingness. I had his blood. I had his life. He had been trying to take mine. This was my right.
I tried to draw a breath. Tried to breathe past the desire, thick and hot and needing. To take. To kill. To feed the earth. That was my sole gift. To send life into the earth. To nourish it.
I was gasping. Mouth open. My belly cramped, wanting. “No,” I whispered. “No. Not gonna...” I forced myself upright. The body of the man Occam had taken down was flat. Unmoving. Out cold. There was no sign of Occam.
