by Dana Fredsti
She felt better knowing Cam was keeping an eye on things, and that Merlin had his drones flying on patrol. She wished that Alex and Simon would get back with the water though, if only to stop Professor Harcourt griping about it.
“Why do you suppose they’re not back yet?” Harcourt asked again. He turned to Merlin. “Didn’t you say it wasn’t far at all?” He phrased it almost as an accusation.
Merlin and Nellie ignored him. This left only Amber. She wasn’t hard-hearted enough to blow him off. She wished she was, but she wasn’t.
“It may not be that far,” she said, “but they had to make their way through trees and who knows what. And a bucket full of water is heavy, so it’s going to take them longer to walk back.” She smiled at him, face hurting from the insincerity. She would have gladly thrown him back to the megalodon to shut him up. “I’m sure everything is fine.”
At that moment Simon burst out of the trees, limping heavily, blood running down from a gash on his forehead.
“Jesus! I couldn’t do anything…”
He took a few more stumbling steps, then dropped to his knees.
Amber jumped to her feet and ran forward, Nellie close on her heels. Merlin—sitting Indian style as he concentrated on directing the rovers—looked up in surprise. Professor Harcourt followed a few steps behind, as if making sure it was safe before getting too close.
The first to reach Simon, Amber steadied him as he started to slump forward. She struggled to hold him up, but managed to stop him from doing a faceplant in the grass.
“Simon! What happened?”
“We—” He stopped, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. He had a full water skin slung around his shoulder and she quickly uncorked it, lifting the spout to his lips so he could take a drink. He nodded his thanks, taking another draft before continuing.
“We found the water,” he said. “We’d filled the skins and the bucket. Alex… she wanted to rinse off a bit, you know? Clean herself. Said she felt mucky. She was leaning down there at the water’s edge, splashing water in her face, so she didn’t see it when it came out of the water.”
“Oh my god!” Amber covered her mouth.
“When what came out of the water?” Nellie hunkered down next to her.
“Ah fuck, I dunno.” Simon shook his head as if to clear it. “It was some sort of giant scorpion thing. The one that grabbed Alex was as big as the wagon. Bigger, maybe. Another one—a smaller one—attacked me before I could do anything. I had my knife, stabbed it in its eyes…” He trailed off, swallowed, then looked up, his eyes filled with pain and regret.
“By the time I got away, it was too late. The fucker had stung her, ripped into her. She wasn’t moving.”
Nellie looked at him in disbelief. “Do you mean to tell me that you left her there?”
“Well, I—”
“You left her there, without checking to see if she was still alive?”
Simon shook his head in denial, tears streaking through the mud and blood on his face. “You weren’t there,” he insisted. “Jesus, I barely got away myself. Do you think I would’ve left her if there had been anything I could’ve done to help?”
Nellie shot Harcourt a quick condemning glare. “Not everyone does what they can.”
Harcourt flushed a fiery, shamed red and stayed unaccustomedly silent.
“Merlin,” Nellie called out urgently. “We need to go see if there’s anything we can do for Alex.”
A sudden movement caught Amber’s attention and she looked up, startled. Cam stood at the edge of the clearing, at the same spot where Simon had emerged. He watched them in intense silence, his face unreadable as stone. The fury burning behind his eyes terrified her.
“Cam, what—” she began.
* * *
The Celt suddenly stormed forward, grabbed Amber by the arm and hauled her to her feet. She yelped in shock. Simon tried to hold on to her and Cam shoved him back, hard. He hit the ground with a wince and a whimper of pain, then glared up, furious.
“What the hell, mate?”
“Cam, what the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you see he’s hurt?” Amber pulled away from him and turned back to Simon.
Cam gave a frustrated growl and ran over to Merlin. The doctor sat with eyes closed, deep in concentration. Cam hated to risk disturbing the wizard if he was in the middle of spellcasting, but he had to warn them.
“Mo thiarna asarlaí…” Cam began.
My lord sorcerer…
Merlin shook his head and held up a hand to silence him.
“We have contact from the rovers!” he called out to the others. He put a hand to his ear, even though Cam couldn’t see anything there. “A Roundhead horseman has dismounted and is entering the forest to our north and advancing. May just be a scout, or he might be the first of many.”
“How much time do we have?” Harcourt gasped.
“No time. They’re coming our way. We need to pull things together now and leave.”
Cam threw a brief, almost pleading look at Amber, then took off at a dead run back into the forest.
* * *
“Cam!” Amber turned to Nellie. “I think he’s going to look for Alex. He shouldn’t go off alone.” She started after him, but Simon grabbed her by the arm.
“You can’t go off by yourself,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Let go of me!” Amber shook his hand off her arm and ran after Cam.
Simon turned to the rest of them. “You lot take care of whatever’s coming. I’ll take care of Amber.”
“Just get them and hurry back!” Merlin said. “We can’t stay here for much longer.”
Simon nodded and vanished back into the trees.
Harcourt shook his head. “That one never struck me as a heroic type.”
“Something has our boy Cam riled up,” Nellie said worriedly.
“I’ll talk to him as soon as I can,” Merlin said. “Right now we need to get out of here. Load up!”
* * *
Cam sprinted through the ancient forest, charging between the trees with reckless speed. He hated to leave Amber, hated that he couldn’t explain his outburst, but there was no time to waste. He was frightened, but his fear was for the woman, Alex, not for himself.
He feared it was already too late for her.
Daylight was almost gone, though a full moon had risen, adding some illumination as it filtered through the trees. Following the route Simon had taken, he ran straight until the foliage changed, and he could detect the scent of water ahead. He burst out between two fern trees, coming to a skidding halt to avoid stumbling into the middle of a nightmare.
He was too late.
Giant clawed beetle-things, half a dozen or more— some the size of badgers and others larger than wolves— scuttled about at the water’s edge, fighting over the mutilated remains of a human body. Cam recognized Alex by the clothing and a brief glimpse of her face, frozen in an expression of dazed horror.
No one should die this way, he thought. A warrior with as much courage and heart as this woman should leave this world with honor and the keening of her loved ones to send her on her way.
One of the smaller things sat on top of what was left of her chest, chewing at one shoulder with its disgusting mandibles. Then another clawed horror—at least three times the size of the one that was feeding—smacked it away with furious chittering sounds. The little creature tumbled into the claws of a yet another larger relative, only to be snatched up and swiftly devoured while it squirmed and wriggled to escape. The biggest monster proceeded to drag Alex’s corpse into the water. As it did so, her head lolled back drunkenly, giving Cam a good look as the red line in her neck opened like a second mouth.
As Cam stared in horror, her body slid into the water, vanishing along with the monster. The smaller creatures regrouped and scurried toward him with purpose. He backed away from the creeping, scuttling nightmares, his mind reeling with horrible realizations. Any doubts were now gone.
> If Simon had truly witnessed her death in the clutches of these chittering abominations, he could never have looked as carefree as he had in the forest. The show he’d put on for the others was clearly false.
Simon was lying.
Alex’s throat had been cut, not torn by the coarsely serrated claws of these beasts, but with a sharp metal blade wielded expertly.
Simon was a murderer.
And he had just left Amber and the others in Simon’s company.
Cam turned to race back to the clearing, praying to all the gods he worshipped that he would not be too late this time.
37
Amber did her best to follow Cam’s trail, but hadn’t gone very far into the prehistoric forest before a hand came up from behind to grab her arm and stop her.
“Hold up a bit,” Simon said. “You can’t go haring off into the forest all on your own like Little Red Riding Hood.”
“There are wolves all over the place now, not just these woods,” Amber shot back. “Cam shouldn’t have to face them alone.” She tried shaking him off again, but he was ready for it this time, and held on tightly.
“Look,” he said reasonably, “I’m not saying don’t go after him. I’m just saying don’t go after him alone. I’ll go with you. It’ll—” His voice cracked and he swallowed hard. “It’ll give me a chance to make up for losing Alex, you know?”
Amber stopped trying to pull her arm away, thinking of the little girl who’d been dragged off by those wolf creatures in the Romford Arms Hotel. How there’d been nothing she could have done to stop it, and yet how gutted it made her feel, like she’d somehow failed.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” she said. “You know that, right?”
He gave the barest hint of a smile.
“It’s true… really. I’ve been there,” she added. “It’s not easy. Now let’s go find Cam, please? It’s going to be dark soon.”
“Yeah, let’s do that.” Simon let go of Amber, instead offering her his arm by way of support over the uneven terrain. She shook her head.
“I’m good,” she said, and they set off again.
As they went deeper, it became harder to discern Cam’s route. The shadows were deep, and Amber kept the flashlight pointed at the ground, scanning for signs of where he had passed.
Simon tried to hurry her along, but she shrugged off his efforts and slowed her pace, focusing on following Cam’s tracks. A faint white form gleaming just ahead made her look up for a moment, thinking it might be him.
A huge skeletal face streaked with red appeared in the beam.
She screamed and dropped the light.
Simon gave a low chuckle and scooped it up.
“It’s just an old cave bear skull,” he said, the obvious amusement in his voice making Amber feel like an idiot. He straightened and shone the beam back on the skull to give her a better look. “See? Look closer.”
“No thanks,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I’ve already seen as much of it as I want to.” Shaking her head, she tried to convince her pounding heart to slow things down to a normal rate, angry at herself for being startled in the first place.
Simon grinned.
“Here, I’ll get rid of it.”
He pulled the skull off the pole and tossed it away into the bushes. Then he pulled the wooden stake out and tossed it out of sight, as well.
“Is that better?”
That undercurrent of mirth was starting to disturb Amber more and more. How could he find anything funny, after witnessing Alex’s horrific death? Then again, people dealt with trauma in different ways. Maybe it was Simon’s only coping mechanism.
Who was she to judge?
Still, he was creeping her out. She’d be glad when they reached Cam.
“Thanks,” she said, reaching for the flashlight, only to flinch as he shone the beam directly in her eyes, momentarily blinding her. She lifted a hand.
“Simon, what the—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Simon grabbed her wrist, pulled and spun her around. One arm latched around her body while his other hand clamped painfully tight across her mouth. She tried to scream but the sound was muffled beneath his fingers. He yanked her off balance and then half dragged, half carried her up the incline, toward a destination she couldn’t see.
She did her best to struggle, but he was stronger than he looked—all lean, wiry muscle combined with a frightening willingness to hurt her.
“Let’s just make this easy, my girl,” he said softly. “You can try and fight me, but then I’ll have to smash you over the head with this torch. That’ll give you one hell of a headache, and trust me when I tell you you’re going to be in enough pain as it is.”
His words made Amber’s blood run cold, but she wasn’t about to stop fighting him. She tried to bite the hand that covered her mouth, dug her heels into the ground, clutched at anything she could to slow him down, to stop his progress up the hill. She grabbed at trees, the rough bark scraping her fingers, yet couldn’t get enough purchase on anything to hold on for more than a few seconds before he pried her away.
Suddenly they were on level ground again, at what looked like a cave entrance. Amber caught a whiff of funky, musky leather as Simon pulled her past a canopy of animal hide. The smell of the leather was nothing compared to the stench inside the cave itself.
The fridge had died one hot summer day while Amber and her family had been away on vacation. They’d come home to a freezer full of spoiled meat. She’d thrown up when she first smelled it, and it had taken several days and lots of bleach and air fresheners to get rid of the lingering odor. Amber recognized that same rancid smell now and had to fight the urge to vomit, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat.
“That’s nasty now, isn’t it?” Simon sounded positively cheerful as he muscled her inside the nearly pitch-black cave. He forced Amber toward the ground, kicking her legs out from under her when she tried to resist. The impact drove the air from her lungs, and something small but hard—a rock, maybe— dug painfully into her lower back. It ground in even further when Simon straddled her, pinning her arms down with his knees.
Before she could take a breath and scream, Simon grabbed her chin and shoved a wadded cloth into her mouth, quickly tying it off with another strip of fabric. He lifted a knee enough to seize one of her wrists and wrap some coarse rope around it, repeating the process on the other side. He then secured both wrists together and sat back, his weight resting on Amber’s thighs as she lay there in stunned disbelief.
“Now then,” Simon said, the sheer happiness in his voice turning Amber’s blood to ice. “I’m so glad Stearne didn’t hurt you.” He leaned in close to her ear. “I never did care for leftovers.”
* * *
Cam sped through the trees as fast as the dim twilight would allow. When he reached the clearing, Nellie, the blowhard, and Merlin were packing up camp. Amber and Simon, however, were nowhere in sight and Cam’s heart sank. He went straight for the magician, the only person who could understand his tongue.
“Noble druid, I must ask you—where is Amber?”
Merlin answered him in the same language.
“She went after you, and with her went Simon, to keep her safe.”
Cam grabbed his arm. “You must listen to me. That filthy traitor Simon, he killed the woman Alex.”
Merlin looked up sharply. “How know you this?”
“I saw him return without her. He did not see me, but I saw him. He walked with a light heart, smiling and pleased with himself—until he knew others were watching him. Only then did he cry, but the tears were false.”
“Simon told us Alex was killed by some monstrous creature.”
“He lied,” Cam said fiercely. “I went to the lake where they sought water. Aye, monsters lurked there, that much was true, but her throat had been sliced open with a killer’s blade, not ripped by claws or teeth. He killed her and left her corpse behind for those creatures to feast upon.”
E
ven by the light of the moon, brighter in the clearing, Cam could see Merlin’s face drain of color. He quickly barked out something to Nellie and the blowhard in their language. Nellie gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth while the man looked outraged.
Merlin clapped a hand on Cam’s shoulder.
“Come. We need to find them swiftly. Our enemies are already coming for us.”
38
“So what shall we do first?”
Simon was little more than a moving shadow in the near-perfect blackness of the cave. He sounded almost relaxed—except for an undercurrent of dark glee in his voice, which spoke of enjoying things best done behind locked doors and thick walls. How had she missed hearing it before? Amber was almost glad she couldn’t see his face.
“No suggestions?” he said. “Not to worry.”
Amber heard a snick sound.
“We’ll have plenty of time to play.”
She felt the warmth of his fingers on her neck and then the chill of steel as he pressed something sharp right under her throat.
His switchblade.
She froze, hardly daring to breathe for fear that the steel might cut into her flesh.
“The others are going to look for you at the lake. If there’s anything left of that rozzer bitch’s body, maybe they’ll figure those giant scorpions got a hold of you, too. With any luck they’ve already made a meal out of your prehistoric Romeo.”
Amber gave a muffled cry. Simon chuckled.
“Aww, now don’t worry too much. He’s strong, that one. He might take a few out before they eat him alive. Now then…” He shifted his weight forward, changing his position to one that was uncomfortably intimate. “That’s better, isn’t it?” He pressed his groin into hers. “Yeah, that’s nice… We’re going to have fun, you and I.”
His breath was warm and sour against her face, and the knife bit into her throat. Amber fought the impulse to kick, to try and throw him off. Instead she lay perfectly still as Simon proceeded to feel her up while describing what he planned on doing to her in horrifically graphic detail.