"I have never liked killing, but I have a talent for it."
Bron realized that this was his last chance to escape. The only way he could stop this Draghoul from firing at Olivia might be to knock him into the swamp.
The gunman who was shooting at Olivia stood in the door frame. Bron's captor glanced toward the shooter.
Bron seized the moment, dodged to the left, so that the laser sights were no longer on him, then shoved the shooter. The man lurched toward the railing, nearly plunged into the swamp, and lost his weapon.
The woman who'd held Bron at gunpoint slugged his neck. He saw a blue flash, heard an electric crackle, and it felt as if Thor's hammer knocked him to the floor....
The gunfire stopped momentarily, and Olivia heard a splash in the water behind her. A Draghoul was coming for her.
She caught her bearings, saw a place far ahead and across the pond where some willows hung over the water. She hoped that she'd be able to find cover there.
She dove and swam toward the willows, guided only by memory. She could not judge how fast she was swimming or how far she traveled. She'd never swum like this in her full clothing before. She didn't dare come up for air early. Right now, she was like a submarine, hidden in the depths, and she could not risk exposure.
So she kicked and swam until her lungs felt as if they would burst, and then she kicked some more. She reached some weeds, pushed on through, and pulled herself along the bottom for a moment.
At last she surfaced, timidly, and struggling to breathe. She had over-shot her mark, and found herself deep beneath the willow's hanging fronds. A small inlet hid here, a waterway that looked as if it might have been dredged away, and it led inland. She gasped, dove, and swam deeper into the swamp.
She had no gun, no knife, and no idea where she might find help. For the moment, she hoped only to escape.
They have Bron, she realized. They must have followed us.
How could they have done that?
She wondered if her phone lines were secure. Had the enemy been watching Monique? Or had they somehow trailed Bron from home?
She couldn't imagine how they'd been found. Nor could she see any way to escape.
When Bron woke, he groaned and fought to recall what had happened. He remembered the sharp sensation of bolts blowing through him. He felt like he'd been hit by lightning, more than once, and as he struggled to recall what had happened, it was like trying to wade through tar. He could make no headway.
He dimly became aware that he was sitting. He had two people holding him, and they had wrestled him onto a wooden chair. His arms were wrenched behind his back and strapped together with duct tape. He could hear tape unzipping, and felt pressure on his legs.
Bron lolled his head up, tried to see. Everything was a blur. His right eye felt swollen, nearly closed, and he wondered if someone had beaten him or if he had fallen.
For several long seconds, he let his eyes adjust, even as his captors finished taping him.
"That should hold him," one man said as he stood.
Bron pulled hard, but the tape only seemed to draw back against him.
Three people were in the room with him—the woman who had first caught him, and a pair of men. They all wore S.W.A.T. outfits, but Bron realized that they couldn't be real police. He'd never heard of policemen who carried fully automatic weapons.
The woman removed her visor, and Bron saw that he was right. Hers was the face of a supermodel, with sparkling green eyes, silky blond hair, and opalescent skin that was absolutely flawless.
She was beautiful, yet she did not look like a masaak. Her eyes were too bright green, her hair too light, her skin tone too white. Though she did not look like a Draghoul in coloration, everything about her warned of danger. She did not smile or show any other emotion. There was a toughness to her that defied description.
She's not tough, Bron thought.She's... murderous. She's a Draghoul in hiding. All it took was contacts, bleach, and a little skin cream.
"What... do you want with me?" he asked. Speaking brought an unexpected pain. His lip had been split.
The woman slapped him so hard that spittle flew from his mouth. "You do not ask the questions," she said. Her accent sounded Eastern European—perhaps Russian.
She slipped into some foreign language then, began scolding masaaks around her. The men cringed like dogs with each harsh word.
From the other room, Bron's mother called groggily, as if rousing from sleep, "Bron?"
Bron was about to answer, when one of the men grabbed him and put a wide swath of duct tape over his mouth. Bron shouted, but all that came out was a wordless grunt.
Sommer moaned and whimpered, "Olivia?" She gasped, as if she was beginning to come to.
Bron heard the electric hum of a taser, and Sommer shrieked once, and then fell silent.
Sweat broke on Bron's brow and dampened his armpits. His captors had him, and there was nothing he could do. Bron thought frantically, but could see no way to escape.
Stealthily, he pulled at his bonds, but the tape around his wrists was too tight, too sticky. His heart kept pounding, and air in the room seemed thin.
The woman, their leader, barked a sharp command in that same harsh language. She left the room, followed by one of her soldiers, while the third man squatted on the floor.
He took his rifle and merely pointed the barrel at Bron's chest. The red light of his laser illuminated motes of dust in the air before the red dot settled on his heart.
Their leader brought the lantern into the room, and left it sitting on a dresser.
The guard raised up his cell phone and took a short video of Bron. He narrated in accented English, "This is video of Bron Jones, dream assassin, captured at home of Sommer Bastian."
Bron wondered at that. How did they know that he was a dream assassin? They couldn't have gotten that information from his mother. He hadn't told her. Nor could they have gotten it from Olivia, unless they'd captured her.
They must have messed around inside my head when I got knocked out, he worried. Who knows what they took, or what they've added?
When the guard was done, he punched some numbers on the phone and sent Bron's picture into cyberspace.
Far across the Atlantic, Adel Todesfall studied the video. It was just after breakfast when he raced into the study of Lucius Chenzhenko.
The Shadow Lord was studying the markets, peering at a dozen screens at once as they relayed information on commodities, recent news, fluctuating prices.
"My lord," Adel said, his voice shaking with excitement. "Some hunters in America have found your lost son, the child of Sommer Bastian."
Lucius did not take his eyes from the screens. "You see," he said laboriously, "I told you that the chick would come home to the roost."
He said nothing more. Lucius did not care that his son had been captured. Rather, he was far more interested in being right.
"There is an interesting development," Adel said, savoring the moment. "It seems that this one is a dream assassin."
There was no flicker in Lucius's brooding eyes. No ecstatic shout, not so much as a lift of an eyebrow.
Yet Adel could almost hear his master's heart begin to pound faster, and after a long moment, he betrayed his mirth. "Tell the pilot to ready the Learjet. I want to see this one."
Back in the cabin, Bron worried who might see the video of him. The woman assassin studied the cell phone, flipped it closed, and pocketed it. "Jemny," she said. She whirled and left the room.
A sick fear came over Bron. He didn't know who these people reported to.
Outside, there was no change in the night sounds. The frogs croaked like madness—grunting and squeaking and making deep bull sounds. Whatever happened in the room would go unremarked by nature.
The shadowy room was undisturbed. An old mattress lay on the floor nearby, and all of Sommer's things were stowed in a couple of drawers on an ancient dresser. It was a poor and barren place.
Bron could hear Sommer breathing unevenly, fighting for air, even though she was unconscious.
In the far room, a cell phone bleeped as numbers were punched in, then the leader of the assault team spoke softly and rapidly in her strange tongue. After a brief conversation, she gave some kind of order to Bron's guard, who simply huddled down as if for the long haul.
The wait began. The guard simply peered at Bron, gun at the ready, and passed the time patiently. He hardly seemed to breathe. He had taken off his night goggles, so that Bron could see his eyes—a deep blue, his face framed by dark curly hair. As with the woman, this man was handsome, flawless. He reminded Bron of a young Johnny Depp.
In the sweltering heat, even the guard began to sweat. A mosquito hawk buzzed around the lantern, dipping and stopping for a moment, only to leap away from the heat.
The night was deadly still.
The door to the other room was closed, and Bron could not see into it. He imagined that his mother was bound like him, taped and tased. The old man that she lived with would be dead on the floor, unless they had bothered to drag him out front and feed his carcass to the alligators.
This room had no windows, not even a grimy one to let in a little air or moonlight. There were no other exits.
Bron didn't dare try any harder to break free. He imagined that he could have toppled the chair, tried to twist his arms until he pulled loose from the tape, but he knew that it would be in vain. Duct tape holds people far more securely than rope does.
Even if he could break free, there was only one exit, and it had an armed guard, a man whose laser sight bored into Bron's chest.
That left him only one hope—that Olivia might escape, might have made it past the gators and the quicksand and into the night—and might come back to help.
But that was too much to hope.
Olivia was a singer and a music teacher, not some ninja assassin. If she was alive at all, her best bet would be to keep on running.
That left him no hope at all.
Fear took Bron then, a cold and sickly terror that twisted at his guts and made his breath come shallow. Sticky sweat trickled down his forehead, onto his shirt.
The guard studied him with a cocky smile. Bron could not speak, couldn't beg for a drink, or make small talk. It didn't matter. Nothing that he said would have earned him more than a slap to the face.
They're waiting for something, Bron thought. Perhaps they're waiting for one of their hunters to bring Olivia back. Maybe they're waiting for someone else.
Whoever funded these people had a lot of money, Bron figured. The military gear, the training involved. They didn't need to come in a boat. They'd take him out by chopper.
Another thought hit him. These things, these Draghouls, have been firing automatic weapons. Someone might have heard, and they might report it.
We're in the middle of nowhere, he told himself. Even if someone does report it, will the police come? If they do, so what? They'll find themselves outgunned, and far out-classed.
Olivia crouched in the woods. Here beneath the trees, there was no starlight, no moonlight, only the deepest of shadows. In the distance, she heard a wild boar squeal.
She felt the ground around her, searching for something—perhaps a sharp stick or a rock—that she might use as a weapon. All she found were creepers, and something stung her hand. In the darkness, she could not tell if it was a scorpion, or a spider, or centipede.
She reached up and sucked at the venom, and found that her hand tasted of swamp mud, putrid and dark.
Not far away, she heard a limb crack.
She peered hard, saw a darker shadow moving through the night.
She crouched low to the ground. The enemy had night goggles and laser sights, she knew. She wouldn't be able to see them in the darkness, but they would see her.
Her only hope was to avoid detection—to cling to the ground and hope that the plants and creepers here might provide enough cover. She bit her lip, and prayed.
Time plodded. The night grew long. For hours, Bron did not hear so much as a moan from Sommer, and he realized that their captors had knocked her out good. The room was so sweltering hot, it felt to Bron as if he were in a sauna. The guard swore, wiped his chin, and called out "Potrebuju sa napit'!"
A moment later, the door swung open a few inches. Bron felt a mocking hint of cooler air. A second Draghoul brought a can of beer and tossed it to Bron's guard.
The guard wiped some sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, pulled the tab from the beer, and gave a mocking wink as he downed it.
The guard said in a thick accent, "It is pity you cannot have drink."
He tossed the can to the floor, where it rolled about and settled with a hollow sound.
"You wonder what we do with you, no?" He dismissed Bron's worries with a shrug. "You are special. You have special talent. Our lord needs it. He has grown tired of living. Five thousand years is long time, no? So he needs you to give him the fire in the belly, the will to live.
"This means you are safe. Me, I would love to rip the memories from your head right now, hollow you out like a pumpkin. But we are told, 'no!' The Shadow Lord wants to sort through them first." He shrugged, as if he didn't care whether his master hollowed Bron out or not. "He wants to learn about your friends, find out where they live....
"But for you, is no worry. The master will keep you alive, maybe forever. Who knows? You will get to eat. He will give you long, long life. He will make you breed—every musth, a new woman." He smiled, as if Bron was going to be leading the good life, but then mentioned the downside. "Of course, you will not remember your own name. We will have to hollow you out every few days, just to make sure that you don't get any ideas. You will have lovers, but you will drool upon them as you grope them, and they will hate you for it."
The guard leaned back, rolled his neck so that it popped. "Your mother now, and the woman you came with, they will not be so lucky as you."
Bron's heart hammered.
"I think," the guard said, "they will be given to us as toys. This will be their punishment."
Bron had no idea what he meant by "toys." The worry must have shown in Bron's eyes, for the guard elaborated.
"Ah, you have never had toy?" he smiled. "A toy is person you keep, to do whatever you want. Maybe, for example, I hollow her out, and teach her only simple things, the ways to please me. Or maybe I take all her memories and teach her a thousand ways to kill—and then we put both women together in the arena. Or maybe I lead her around with rope on her neck, like goat, and if any of my friends want to have fun with her... I let them."
A smile stretched across his lips, and for a moment the guard seemed lost in some macabre vision, as if words failed to express how much he would enjoy making Olivia his toy.
Bron struggled to break free.
Yet Bron noticed something. His guard looked haggard, worn, as if he'd spent many long hours on duty and could hardly move from weariness.
But Bron felt strong, ready to pounce. If anything, he felt more energized than ever. It was as if all of his weariness and thirst were draining away.
No, that's not right, he realized. I'm thirsty, but I won't give in to thirst. I won't let it beat me. I'm stronger than that.
His guard called out to the other room, almost begging. The woman called back. "Da!" Then she began calling frantically on her phone.
She came into the room again. The guard complained, wiped sweat from his brow. She cast furtive glances at Bron and made exaggerated gestures.
In that instant, he realized that behind his back, his sizraels had extended. Olivia had told him that he had killed before, used his powers to draw all of the hope from his foster father. He'd done it by instinct.
Now, he was draining his attackers, and they had done nothing to stop him. Why?
Can't they make me forget how to use my powers, the way that Blair did?
They know I'm a dream assassin. Don't they know that I'm a leech, too? Or is that some big surprise to them?
There could only be one answer. They were under orders not to harm him. The woman was trying to get someone on the phone, explain their problem, and she was being stifled. Perhaps it was poor reception. Perhaps her commanding officer wasn't in.
I'm so valuable to them, Bron realized, that they don't dare touch me.
Their commander snarled something at the guard, then left the room.
Bron wanted nothing less than to kill his captors.
So he closed his eyes, opened his mind, and imagined that his will was like a hand, a huge greedy hand that stretched out with invisible fingers, and drew the will from his enemies.
Bron waited in the sweltering heat, measuring the minutes by the droplets of sweat that stole down his face. His mind tired, and he rested silently, eyes closed, then after a few minutes tried again, and again, until at last he heard a little mewling cry.
He opened his eyes.
His guard sat in his appointed place, trembling, rocking back and forth. The confidence had deserted his eyes, and now he had a pleading look, almost as if he would beg to leave.
Bron noticed that he wasn't sitting cross-legged anymore. He'd pulled his knees up in a fetal position, and had one arm draped around them, while the barrel of the gun now pointed at the ground.
He's like a fly, Bron thought, fighting the effects of bug poison. He's lying on his back, buzzing his wings, scooting around the floor in circles. He doesn't even know that he's dead yet.
Bron felt refreshed, relaxed, confident.
Almost, he would have described his state as serene, but there was too much of a thrill to it. His blood was racing.
Cocky, that's how I feel, he realized. They can't touch me. They wouldn't dare kill me. I'm the heir to their lord. I'm the devil's child.
He laughed inside.
He breathed evenly, in and out, in and out.
Maybe if they act now, they might rid the world of me. But already their own will to live is nearly gone....
He heard a thunk. The guard had dropped his weapon. The man lay trembling, and began to moan.
From the other room, he heard the woman cry out, a little mewling snivel. He heard something scraping on the floor, a body crawling toward him, and then there was a curse, and the woman staggered to her feet and hobbled into the room.
She stood in the doorway, and grasped onto the doorpost. Her face looked like death warmed over, as pale as a corpse, a pitiful frown.
She pulled a pistol from her holster, raised it slowly, and pointed it at Bron. She said, "Damned dream assassin!"
For a long moment she seemed to consider pulling the trigger. Bron planned to kill her. She knew it, and she could not stop him—but she could take him with her.
Bron suspected it was against her orders.
She staggered across the room, placing each foot carefully, and pulled the tape from his mouth.
"Give it back, damn you," she said in perfect English, "or I'll put a bullet through your head!"
He could feel the will seeping off her, like cold sheets of air from an iceberg. The air suddenly crackled between them, and purple sparkles erupted. A thrill coursed down his spine like an arctic wind.
"You're so pretty, I don't want to kill you," Bron said. "Serve me, and I'll let you live."
She shook her head a little, as if horrified by a thought. "Just like your father."
Bron could not stop draining her. She was too close now. He could feel her body heat, warm and comforting. Sweat rolled down her neck, between her breasts.
"I will serve you," she whimpered.
"Good," Bron said. "Tell me what you've planned...."
"I only followed orders. We were told to bring you in alive...."
"Did you look inside my head?"
"No, we were told not to touch you."
"Then how did you know I was a dream assassin?"
"We were warned before we were deployed. Somebody said something over the phone. Even I am not allowed to hear all of the details."
She holstered her gun, went behind him, and stood for a moment, panting, trying to work up the energy to loosen the tape. Instead, she pulled a knife from a hidden sheath at her hip, then sliced his bonds as easily as if she'd used a straight razor.
Did Monique tell my mother that I was a dream assassin? he wondered. It made sense. That kind of information would have made his mother more prone to seek him out.
As Bron pulled his hands free, his captor crumpled to the floor and just laid there. "Please...." she begged.
Near the door, Bron's guard went into convulsions, as if his heart were about to stop beating. He gasped for breath, but barely stirred, sucking air like a drowning man. He could not even crawl.
Bron felt invigorated. In fact, he'd never felt so much ... energy. He almost felt as if he should be shining, and some inner light ought to be illuminating the room.
If I stretch my arms wide enough, he thought, I might take flight.
Instead, he pulled the tape off of his legs and ankles, where he was bound to the chair, and then looked down at the dying woman. He picked up her revolver, took her dagger, and then taped her hands behind her back.
She opened her eyes as he did so, staring at him sullenly, full of hate and resignation. Her eyes had been bright and lustrous a few hours ago. Now they were dull, lifeless. She didn't have the energy to move, or to fight him. She struggled simply to draw her next breath, then exhale, and draw another.
Olivia crouched in the darkness. It had been hours since she'd last heard the noise of stealthy movement.
She shivered in her wet clothes.
She crawled, but got only a few feet before her hands sank into the mud, and realized that it was too soft to sustain her weight. She was on the edge of a patch of quicksand.
She backed up a pace or two, but heard a little splash at the edge of the water behind her. It could have been nothing, a catfish jumping, or a frog.
Her heart pounded at the sound. It seemed to have been caused by something quite large.
Behind her, an alligator gave a low growl. It climbed from the water not fifty feet away. With each step, its feet splashed, and she heard scraping as it lowered its belly into the mud.
It was massive.
Olivia could not see it, and she didn't dare move, for fear that she would attract its attention. She wasn't sure if it had come after her, or if it had merely come here to rest. For all she knew, it could have been a mother, protecting her nest.
Yet Olivia had to worry. Alligators have a keen sense of smell, from what she had heard, and their eyes, which were adapted to seeing in murky swamp water, were especially good at night.
She didn't dare move.
She found herself feeling sick, nauseous with fear. Her whole body shook from cold and terror.
She waited, heart hammering, for nearly half an hour.
Suddenly, not far ahead, she heard a branch crack.
"Put your hands on top of your head!" someone ordered dangerously. A bright red dot blossomed on the ground in front of her, moved up to her eye.
She saw a pinpoint of red at eye level, just a dozen yards away.
Olivia silently put her hands on top of her head, laced her fingers.
The Draghoul was focused on her entirely. He halted for an instant, and then marched forward, stepping into some shallow water.
Suddenly he yelped, and there was a larger splash as he plunged into quicksand.
She heard violent thrashing as he gasped and fought to escape. The red laser on his rifle swung about wildly.
Olivia heard the lowest of growls behind her, like distant thunder, and then the alligator lunged past in the darkness. It slammed into the back of her leg. Olivia twisted and fell.
But the Draghoul had the reptile's full attention as it went rushing in for the kill.
Olivia pulled herself to her feet and raced away. Behind her, the Draghoul assassin screamed in terror.
As Bron finished taping, he leaned close to the Draghoul huntress. She peered up at him, with eyes fall of rage. He whispered into her ear, "I'm not afraid of you anymore. There is nothing that you can do to me. You can't hurt me. You can't even touch me. So you'll live."
The woman was struggling for every breath, and now she surprised him by speaking. "If you knew me," she gasped, "you would be afraid."
Bron grinned. He went to the next guard, and wondered if he should cut the man's throat. It seemed like the wisest course. These people were killers after all, but Bron had never knowingly taken the life of anything larger than a mosquito.
Only days ago he'd spoken callously of letting Galadriel die, but now he found that wishing someone would die wasn't the same as executing them.
He didn't have the heart for it.
So he disarmed the dying man, taped his hands behind his back, and went into the other room.
He found three more Draghouls, lying in disarray on the floor, as if they were human debris. They were all decked out in S.W.A.T. gear. They had no lantern in here, and so wore their night-vision goggles.
Bron taped them all up, found his mother strapped to a chair. She too was fighting for air. He put his hands on her head, brushed back her hair, and shoved the will to live back into her. Electricity crackled, and purple flames seemed to fly from his fingertips, bathing her.
The effect was instantaneous. Her eyes widened, and she inhaled deeply, as if coming to life under his touch.
Sommer looked up at him weakly. Compared to the rest of the people in the room, she now seemed to be in excellent health. Bron pulled the duct tape from her mouth, quickly unbound her hands.
"They must have followed you!" she worried. "You led them right to me."
It didn't make any sense. "It's me that they were after, not you." Bron said. "And if they'd known where I was, they could have come for me anytime—yesterday, a year ago. No, I don't think that I led them to you. I think they were watching you all along."
Sommer didn't argue. Her face was a study in wonder.
She stared around in shock as realization dawned on her. There was a smear of blood where the old man had fallen, and one of his shoes still lay in the middle of the floor, but the body had been dragged out and dumped into the swamp.
"Oh, Pappy!" she moaned. Sommer just sat there, weeping, and swiping her face.
I had a grandfather? Bron wondered. He felt sad. The only memory Bron would ever have of the old fellow was of him training a gun on Bron as he drove the truck and boat and marched through the swamp for hours.
Mosquitoes buzzed around Bron's face but didn't land. He felt exposed. He worried that a Draghoul might be out in the swamp, under the trees, still hunting. They could come back at any moment.
He took the night-vision goggles from one of the Draghouls, snapped them over his face, and peered about.
The room looked as if it was daylight inside, everything in shades of green. He checked one of the Draghoul's cell phones. It was 2:14 a.m. Bron found himself worrying.
I can't afford to waste a moment; he thought. I need to find Olivia. But what chance did he have of finding her? The Draghouls all had night-vision goggles. If she was out in the swamp, they'd have seen her, unless she'd run as fast and as far as she could.
He headed out the door.
"Be careful," Sommer said. "There may be more out there!"
Bron stepped out cautiously, peered around. No one seemed to be near the porch. The goggles magnified the light, but the brush outside was so thick that it formed a living curtain. In many places, one couldn't see a dozen yards into that jungle.
He crouched outside on the porch, peering into the night. The swamp had begun to cool, and the croaking of frogs, while still a dull roar, had lessened. He looked up. Bright stars pierced the night, and he watched an owl soar over the cypress trees, hunting on silent wings.
He searched down in the water. His grandfather was floating not forty feet from the dock. There were two rubber rafts down on the dock, too, with quiet little electric motors. Everywhere there was movement—frogs croaking like madness and making small waves, alligators floating like logs in the still swamp. They were no longer hunting, no longer sliding up behind frogs in the darkness. Apparently they'd had their fill.
Off to his left, Bron spotted a pair of raccoons tripping along on a rotten log that poked out into the water. They were dabbling about, hunting for crayfish or minnows in the shallows.
Bron wondered if he should go search for Olivia, but decided against it. There was no telling where she had gone, which direction. He might search, but even these goggles wouldn't help much. They magnified the starlight, but they didn't show the heat of living bodies, like some military goggles might.
Bron didn't know how many Draghouls might still be out there, but he reasoned that they were under orders not to kill him. That gave him a huge advantage.
Maybe there were none. He decided to take a risk. "Olivia," he shouted. "If you can hear me, come on in!"
For just an instant, the nearby frogs went silent, and then they sounded again.
He wondered if Olivia could hear him. With so many frogs croaking, his voice wouldn't carry far.
Even if she did hear him, would she come? Or would she be afraid that he'd been possessed?
Bron went into the shack, brought the lantern out. If Olivia was within sight, she might spot the light, and she'd see him standing beside it, and that would beckon her as well as anything that he might say.
He tried waiting a few minutes, and then remembered something that Mike had said. Bron went into the house, took one of the pistols, and brought it to the porch. He pulled the trigger, and it wouldn't budge. He looked at it closer, realized that the safety was still on. He flipped it into the off position, and fired into the air, three times slowly.
That quieted more than a few frogs.
He hoped that Olivia was alive, and that she had heard.
He waited for her on the porch for long minutes, and Sommer came out of the cabin. There was a look of fear and awe in her face. "You sure put those Draghouls down."
He nodded.
She handed him a drink, and Bron realized that though it felt a tad cooler outside, he was still sheathed in sweat. He pulled the tab, drank it down. Applebeer.
"We don't have a lot of time," Sommer said. "Lucius will get here before dawn. We don't want to be here when he comes."
"One of the prisoners tell you that?" Bron asked in surprise. He hadn't heard her questioning anyone.
Sommer tapped the side of her skull. "The girl knew, their leader. Now she can't remember...."
"What else does she know that I need to know?" Bron asked.
Sommer peered out into the darkness. "Too much," she whispered. "She knew entirely too much of evil."
They stood in silence for a moment, serenaded by the myriad calls of frogs, and Bron suddenly realized that the world had changed around him.
"They underestimated you this time," Sommer whispered. "They underestimated you by far. They should have put you out. You can't fight them when you're sleeping. Oh, you might leech them a little, but not enough to hurt. They won't make that mistake next time, though."
"Who said there's going to be a next time?" he asked.
Bron suddenly had an urge to hide, to get far away from here, possibly to go somewhere he'd never been before. The Outback in Australia sounded good just now.
Sommer's eyes filled with tears. "Lordy, boy, the things that you don't know!"
He glanced at her.
She said, "You can hide from someone like Lucius for awhile, but not forever."
Behind the house, a cry sounded above the clamor of frogs. Bron turned, and Olivia called out, "Bron? Are you all right?"
"Yeah," he said. "We're clear."
Olivia crashed through the brush.
He lowered his weapon as he shined a flashlight. She stepped out of the forest, then clambered along a thin trail.
"There was one more following you," Sommer told Olivia in alarm. "Did you lose him?"
"Yeah," Olivia said. "Yeah, I lost him permanently."
"How?" Bron asked.
"Let me put it this way," Olivia said. "If you ever get stuck in quick mud at night, don't thrash around too much. It just makes the gators hungry."
Olivia walked past him, peered into the house, and covered her mouth as if she might retch. All of the prisoners were down, but the expressions on their faces revealed utter horror, as if each of them were peering into the depths of some private hell. "Oh." Olivia went in, came out with a pistol in hand.
"They're all alive," Bron said.
"Not that they'd thank you for that kindness," Olivia said.
Just behind the cabin, in the brush up on the hill, a coyote began to howl, joining the chorus of frogs, the hoot of owls. The noise of the swamp was maddening, so different from anything that Bron had ever imagined.
"We should get going," he warned Olivia, but she looked at the Draghouls and just shook her head.
"We can't leave them," she said. She looked up at Sommer. "She should have told you that."
Bron suspected that he knew what she was suggesting, but he shied away from it. "We can't take them with us."
Olivia shook her head, looked down at her pistol, and gritted her teeth. "I don't know if I can kill them. Can either of you?"
Sommer looked to Bron. He was the man of the group, and somehow he knew that it made him the designated shooter.
"No," he said, in fear and revulsion. He'd been carrying a weapon now for half an hour or so, and he imagined that if it came to a gunfight, he'd use it. Exchanging shots at someone out in the dark, hidden behind trees—that would be a fair fight. But sticking the barrel of a gun up to a man's skull when he was tied up, and then pulling the trigger? "No," Bron said again.
The women looked at each other, and Sommer said, "I can do it. Heaven knows, they all deserve to die for what they did to Pappy. You two stay out here, if you like. I wouldn't want you getting your hands dirty."
Sommer was already holding a rifle strapped over her back. Now she took it off wearily, began to walk into the cabin.
"Wait!" Bron said desperately. "Isn't there something else we can do? Can't you, can't you just make them forget what happened here?"
Olivia gave him a patient look, as if Bron were still just a child.
"They're Draghouls," Olivia said. "You don't leave them alive. If you do, they'll just breed more of their kind—or worse, they'll come after you with a vengeance. Sure, I could rip their memories—empty them down to nothing. But Lucius's men would just load their own memories back in, possess them all over again."
"Then why don't we do that?" Bron demanded.
"No time," Sommer said. "Possessing even one of them would take hours at the least—days if you want to do it right."
Olivia pleaded with him. "You don't know what kind of people you're dealing with. They're not...." words failed her.
"Let's show him," Sommer suggested.
"What?" Olivia asked.
"We have time, an hour or so. Let him interrogate the prisoners."
That's what I came here for, isn't it? Bron thought. I came to learn about my heritage, about the Draghouls.
"I'll ask them some questions," Bron suggested.
Olivia gave Bron a pained expression, as if surprised at how dense he was. "You could ask questions all night, and they'd never tell you a thing. We have better ways to interrogate a prisoner, and they don't involve water boarding."