A Feral Darkness

by Doranna Durgin

  We need you. Into the ground went a knife, an easy one. We know what you've done for us already. She reached for the pile of utensils, came up with a fork. I'm sorry it took so long to figure out what you'd sent me in Druid. Druid, leashed but unattached to anything, wandered over to brush his whiskers over her hand, whining softly. We're doing our best to make sure the darkness doesn't win.

  It occurred to her, then, what would happen to Nuadha's beloved dogs if she and Masera didn't stop the darkness, and stop the rabies it had chosen to wield. Strays and lost dogs, killed on sight. Pets limited to those dogs who could stay indoors their entire lives, foxes and raccoons hunted down, their populations devastated...

  She realized she'd quit working, that she was staring blindly into the early morning darkness; she had the distant awareness that Masera had called her name not once but several times. She looked at the utensils beside her, the ones already sticking in the ground. Druid eyed them, his ears perked forward with utmost interest. She reached out to brush her fingers along the top of the line—

  And jerked her hand back when she received a sharp tingle in response, an electric shock but at a lower pitch. To her mortification, she also gave a quick squeal of surprise, and by then Masera was beside her, his hand on her shoulder. And by then, too, she felt it in the ground, thrumming up through her knees and the tops of her feet where her sneakers rested against the ground, humming through her bones and vibrating in her lungs like distant drums. She looked over to him, his face so close to hers, and whispered, "Do you feel it?"

  He looked at Druid—standing on his toes, looking like a dog who expects a rabbit to break from the brush before his nose—and back to Brenna, and shook his head. But before she could suggest it, he, too, reached out to the standing silver.

  He didn't quite snatch his hand away. But Brenna felt his entire body tighten, and he eased back to sit on one heel. After a moment he shook his head. "Not unless I touch them," he said. "You're definitely the Mari here." And at her look, he grinned. "Basque myth. A tall, beautiful, and kindly woman with magical powers."

  "I think you need to have a talk with my family," Brenna muttered, but held tight to the startled little warmth in her chest. Tall, beautiful. He thought that. He said it without hesitation.

  She glanced around, saw they'd almost closed the circle. Another foot or so right where she'd been working and they'd be done. "You want to do the rest?" she asked. "I'll get the chocolate." She'd already noticed the Ghirardelli was gone; she only hoped it had gone to Nuadha instead of a raccoon. Masera squeezed her shoulder in assent and she went for the knapsack.

  Spreading the chips was like sewing seed by hand; she scattered it in the circle, feeling the tingle that fed up through her soles and spread through her body. Done. She rinsed her hand in the damp spot at the spring. When she turned back she found Masera feeling around the ground, reaching for the flashlight and flicking it on to peer closely at the spring grass.

  "Hunting worms?" she said.

  His reply held none of her light tone. "Take a look for yourself."

  Grass. Verdant green washed out by the bright, close light, growing but not yet thick; the resilient ground peeked through, almost covered by last year's thatch. "No chocolate," she said, taken unaware by a sudden shiver. "There's nothing."

  He held a hand over the curving line of utensils, hovering it without actually touching the silver. "No chocolate. And this. You've done well here, Brenna."

  She sighed in deep relief. "Do you think...do you think Parker can get in?"

  He stared over the circle for a moment, then got to his feet, holding out his hand to her. "I don't know. But I think we've done what we can."

  She didn't need the hand up; she took it anyway. And she let him pull her in close, to stand together long enough for her to become aware that his heart beating against her own chest held a curiously similar rhythm to the pulse of the earth at her feet. When she told Masera he just laughed and held her a little tighter. "The pagan gods are generally like that," he said, and then, when she pulled back in question, he added, "They enjoy all celebrations of life, including the one where I hold you." And he held her tighter for a moment, his face against hers, with pulses beating around and through them, until she felt him smile. "There," he said, murmuring. "Now I feel it. It's nothing that will suffer Parker's presence here."

  A soft paw landed lightly against Brenna's knee—Druid, sitting on his haunches. "Silly," she told him, reaching down to caress his head. "Yes, you too."

  Masera glanced at his watch, a glow-in-the-dark bright from recent contact with the flashlight beam. "Not quite enough time to be worth catching any more sleep," he said. "But time to get cleaned up and go out for breakfast, if you want."

  "I want," Brenna declared. "That pizza last night feels like it was two days ago." She bent to retrieve the limp and empty knapsack, taking a moment to run her hand across the ground in a caress much like that she'd just given Druid. "I'll be back," she told it.

  And Druid growled.

  "Druid," she said, surprised. "What's up with you?" She followed his alert-eared gaze out over the pasture, but saw nothing in the darkness. Not surprising; she wouldn't have been able to see an elephant in the pasture bottom, not unless it glowed in the dark like Masera's watch.

  But Druid stood like a statue, growling steadily, no doubt in his hot glare out over the field. Masera thumbed the flashlight on, swept it over the field, though at that distance, the beam dissipated too much to show anything but—

  Eyes.

  Off to the right, on this side of the creek. Eyes reflecting back at them, green, winking in and out with the movement of the attached animal, never steady enough to get a feel for just how many there were.

  "Oh, man," Brenna said softly. "Oh, man."

  "Stay inside the circle," Masera said, his voice just as low. The grim quality in his words made her wish she was anywhere else but here, inside the circle. Two giant targets inside a bullseye and one small, quickly moving target—for Druid had stopped growling, had skipped back a few steps—and when she went for his leash he bolted, kicking off his run with a sudden yip of fear and clawing up sod with the vigor of his retreat. She lunged after him, but spun abruptly around with the implacable force of Masera's hand grabbing her arm. "Stay in the circle," he said. "You can't catch a dog that doesn't want to be caught."

  "I know, dammit, but—" she stopped just before her voice cracked with frustration, jerking free of his grasp and turning away, reeling inside with the sudden change of atmosphere—although she could still feel the pulse of the earth against her feet, and wondered if Masera could, too. A faster beat, a stronger tingle, a feel of urgency and danger. She didn't know if it was a warning or merely a reflection of her own turmoil. "If only we could see," she muttered, taking a long step to the center of the circle, where she'd left the rifle. Still loaded. Still armed.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steeling herself to turn around.

  That's when she heard Masera's quick intake of breath, and she whirled around, opening her eyes to—

  Light.

  Soft, silver-colored light, washing out over the hill, growing to reach across the creek, trickling out over the pasture below. Baffled, she turned a circle, hunting the source.

  She didn't have to look far.

  The oak looming over the spring, barely leafed out in that slow, taking-things-on-its-own-schedule way that oaks had. A perfectly normal oak.

  Glowing moon-silver, growing steadily in strength.

  Illuminating the field of battle.

  She let her own breath hiss through her teeth and exchanged a quick, wide-eyed glance with Masera. "You know what?" she said. "We're not in Kansas anymore."

  "No, Dorothy, we're not." He looked out over the pasture. "Let's just hope Toto is safe at home." And he shifted his gaze, taking her attention back to the field.

  Of course it was Parker. Parker, striding toward them with all the assurance back in his walk
and a pack of pit bulls spread out around him. He'd bypassed the creek at the road bridge along the house frontage, probably cut through her fence as soon as he was across it. Seven dogs, she thought—no, eight. Eight, when one would have done the job. One powerfully-jawed dog, trained to kill.

  She had wondered if she could kill a dog. She suddenly knew the answer.

  Parker himself carried a bat.

  "A bat?" she murmured out loud, moving close to Masera again. "He knows I have the rifle."

  "Think like the darkness," Masera murmured back; she could barely hear him for the thrum of pulses—earth pulses, her own racing heart—in her ear. "It wants the experience close and personal. It wants to crush and maim and feel the results."

  "And how reassuring you are," she muttered. She gestured with the rifle. "This is what we've got. Do you want it?"

  He shook his head without taking his eyes from Parker—halfway across the pasture now. "As much as I'd like to leave you free to...communicate...with Nuadha, I have no doubt which of us can handle the shooting best. But there shouldn't be any. Don't start anything. Just stay in the circle—"

  "No kidding," she said. "But just what makes you so sure they can't get to us here?"

  "This circle is stronger than it was before. He couldn't reach you then."

  "That's just the point," she said. "He couldn't reach me. He was stuck on the other side of the creek. It was the darkness that got repelled by the circle. I have no idea whether Parker himself will care the least about our silver marching men."

  His response was silence, while Parker grew close enough so the glow of light painted his gold hair silver, sparking off it like bright sunshine. Then Masera swore a low curse, accepting her argument...but not, Brenna was glad to hear, with the goddamit against which she'd cautioned him.

  "Yeah," she said. "So I'd rather—Iban, if they get any closer and they start running, I won't get them all in time. I'm not used to a moving target."

  He nodded. "Start something, then."

  Brenna raised the rifle to her shoulder, finding the old ball and notch sight, settling it on a broad white chest. "I'm sorry," she whispered, following the approach of that chest, shifting the ball just to the left of the notch to account for the quirky sight...she held her breath and gently squeezed the trigger.

  Never a loud weapon, the rifle shot seemed somehow muted by the pounding of the earth, the subtle pulsing of the oak's glow. And the dog didn't flinch. Didn't hesitate. Still sighting in, Brenna quickly pumped in a new shell and took the shot again.

  Nothing.

  "Buck fever?" Masera asked, suspicion in his voice. Not suspicion aimed at her, as he looked out over the field to Parker's big grin.

  "No," Brenna said miserably. "He's protecting them, somehow."

  "Don't waste the bullets, then."

  "I can't just sit here and wait." On an impulse, she spun away from the edge of the circle, took the rifle back to the center, right next to the spring, and thrust it flat against the ground. "Please," she said to the spring. "We've got to fight the darkness." She jammed her hand into her pocket, fishing out the fresh shells, and scattered them in the ooze of the spring—a crazier thing, she'd probably never done. Wet ammo. But they weren't any use to her as they were...

  She jacked the old shells out of the gun, scooped up the wet ones, and pulled the rod out for a hasty reload. "Here goes," she said, and gave the firing chamber a quick kiss of a blessing.

  When she returned to Masera's side, Parker was just below them. Waiting. For her, evidently, considering the way his congenially self-pleased expression darkened as she took up a shooting stance.

  "You were in on this together," he said. "I should have known. It explains a number of things."

  "We're together now," Masera said. "No doubt there are others who have their sights on you."

  "Apt way of putting it." Parker tipped the bat at Brenna and the rifle. "Except surely you've figured out that won't do you any good."

  "Let's pretend I'm slow," Brenna suggested. "Slow enough so I'm going to give you the chance to turn around and walk away."

  Parker laughed out loud. "Not much chance of that at all."

  "This isn't really you, Parker. This is whatever you raised here four years ago. Following it got your friends killed, and it'll kill you, too." But he'd hear the desperation in her voice. Could he also hear the hurried thrum of the earth, that reflection of her fear? But the rifle, half-raised, remained steady. Masera, at her side, remained steady. She realized that he held one of the silver knives, a dull but slightly serrated knife that could do plenty of damage with enough strength behind it.

  "I understand more than they did," Parker told her. "I listened better. And I'm not going anywhere." He scowled, tapped the bat against the ground at his feet. "You think I couldn't feel what you're up to? I can't allow that." He hit the ground again, harder this time, and looked at Masera. "Not that I'd let you live, anyway, after the raids tonight. Mickey's already dead, did you know it? Nothing less than what he deserved, for bringing you into my life."

  "The darkness," Masera observed wryly to Brenna, "seems to be somewhat egocentric."

  It probably shouldn't have struck her as funny, not at that moment. But she couldn't quite muffle her laugh of response, and Parker jerked his head back, eyes narrowed, stung and angered.

  Brenna reacted instantly to his expression, seeing in it the imminence of action. She lifted the rifle and squeezed the trigger, and the pit bull next to Parker—huge of chest, huge of head and jaw, powerful in every hard-trained muscle—gave a child-like cry and collapsed where it stood. Heart-shot.

  The tree flared with light, and the world turned suddenly slow around her, even as everything happened at once—the dogs, Parker, the bat, Masera—all in motion. She targeted a second dog, missing the killing shot but stunning it into aimless wandering, nothing more than a dog in shock. By then the rest of them were moving, surging up the hill with Parker in their midst, and Brenna deliberately side-walked away from Masera even while sighting in a third dog—grazing its flank, pumping in a new shell, taking it down. "Over here!" she yelled at them, thinking only that she had the weapon and that she couldn't allow even one of them to close its jaws on Masera. Rabies. Parker's finest tools, these dogs, Parker and the darkness. Rabies. She whooped at them, an aggravating incitement. Prey noises. "C'mon, dogs! Over here!" She took another shot, took another dog down, astonished at her efficiency, her smooth reactions, the way the tingling power of the earth had turned to energy and strength in her body.

  "Brenna!" Masera's uncertainty laced the word, and then he had no time to question her; Brenna saw from the corner of her eye as Parker headed for her, laying low a section of standing silver with one sweep of his bat, and Masera leapt before him and went into a crouch, trying to be ready for anything—a duck, a dodge, to grab the bat—

  It slammed into his shoulders and took him off his feet.

  "Iban!" she cried, even as she put a shot down the throat of the dog who'd gone for her, blowing out the juncture of skull and spine. Five.

  And the sixth dog, changing course to run along the hill from the other side of Parker, eyeing her with more intent and intelligence than a dog ought to have—more than dog, dog with darkness—and she heard the bat land again, heard Masera's grunt of undeniable pain, saw him roll away from the blow and then twist himself around to drive the silver knife into Parker's leg, taking another, more awkwardly aimed blow even as the blade sank in and Parker howled and Brenna took shot at number six—

  And the pin tapped dully against the shell. Dud. Too wet, too old, too something. Brenna pumped it out but it got stuck in the chamber, stuck enough that she'd never work it free in time.

  And then the drumming grew loud in her body, so loud she couldn't hear the snarls, hear Parker's wail as the silver knife—Nuadha blessed—did more damage than any single small blade ought, so loud she couldn't even hear her own harsh breathing and frantic heartbeat anymore. The world slowed
and went silent, bathed in the silver light of Nuadha's oak.

  Silent, but for the determined gallop of a short-legged dog, launching himself over the crest of the hill. Silent but for his snarling cry of challenge, his fear overcome by fierce and deep devotion. Silent but for the sound of Brenna's own cry, her suddenly far-too-familiar shout of emotional agony as the Cardigan threw himself against a dog more than twice his weight, a dog bred for duck-and-dodge herding offering himself up to a killer. "No, Druid—no!"

  "No, Druid—no!"

  The world skidded into motion. Druid tumbled downhill, taking the pit bull with him; Brenna frantically worked the pump, freeing the dud shell and jacking in a new one. And when the pit bull's nature betrayed it, when it hung onto Druid's snowy throat, turning the silvery white fur red and dark, when it clung to Druid's limp and unresisting body, its jaws clamped by instinct and training, Brenna shot it down. Crying so hard she could barely sight in on the dog, she still took it down with one steady shot, and found herself halfway down the hill to Druid before remembering there was one more pit bull. She whirled around, pumping in another shell even as she brought the gun up, but she knew she'd be too late.

  She ought to have been. With Parker sprawled on the ground, dragging himself away from Masera, with Masera staggering, barely on his feet, as the last two dogs leapt over their master to charge Brenna—

  She ought to have been.

  She couldn't see how Masera did it. How he had the chance. How he set himself up in front of the lead dog, jamming his forearm at its open jaws, bracing himself, throwing his other arm behind the dog's neck and shoving with one arm, jerking in with the other—

  She heard the crack of its spine from there. And she lost herself entirely, screaming his name, thinking only of the rabies even as the second dog hit him from the side, knocking him back into the circle as it ravaged his neck. Screaming his name as she sighted the rifle, the dog so close to his head, too close for a safe shot. Masera flailed at the animal, reaching for Parker's abandoned bat, his struggles determined but fading, his fingers closing over the handle as all the fight seemed to drain from him and it's got to be now—