he had each one memorized. And maybe he did. As he ran, he chanted, low and mostly indiscernible, mixing what Camden assumed were Serralino words with garbled English, adding more credence to what Scarlett had said about him being raised by Narcisa Fernando. The horns he wore on his head bobbed and weaved as he ran and Camden had the insane urge to laugh out loud. He’d been afraid of this unknown “creature.” Afraid of the faraway drumbeat and the glimpse of animalistic features, afraid of the low grumbly chanting he’d heard coming from the woods. He’d been fearful not because his gut had told him to be scared, but because Ms. Wykes had made certain he was. Did she know? Did she know that the “thing” roaming the woods was just a shy, abandoned boy? He didn’t want to think about it. The awfulness, the pure malevolence of that was too big to hold.
The man slowed and Camden did too, as the dilapidated house once belonging to Narcisa Fernando came into view. “Hum,” his brother said, but he turned away, appearing not to want to enter. Home. Camden had understood that one.
This had been his home. Narcisa must have rescued him from the forest and raised him there. Then she’d died and he’d been alone. All these years, he’d been alone. Camden walked forward, looking back at his brother. His twin followed slowly, cautiously. Was he acting nervous because there was something Camden should be concerned about too? Or was he simply afraid of the place where he had perhaps found his mother—for that’s what she’d been—deceased in her bed? Voices. The far-off barking of a dog. He paused, listening. They had bloodhounds. Fuck. They had Roland Baker’s hounds, a younger guild member, part of the ten remaining original families, who lived on several acres on the hill above town. He’d seen him in with the sheriff on multiple occasions. Camden figured his father had been one of the men who chased Kandace into the woods that night. He wondered if the family had taken to dog training in case anything similar happened again.
We failed in our mission thirteen years ago. We let that girl get away. And because we fell short, evil gained strength.
No. They were the evil. They always had been.
Camden hoped to God the shouting had caused all of them to turn in his direction, away from Scarlett, but he had no way to be sure. Walk in the stream, Scarlett. Hear those dogs and walk in the stream. He hoped she knew that the dogs wouldn’t be able to catch their scent in the water but his ribs constricted with worry. He recalled what she’d said to him the night he’d helped her feed the baby bird.
I’m a city girl who never owned a pet. I know very little about animals, wild or otherwise.
Maybe she’d picked that information up in a movie or something though. He had to hang on to hope. It was all he could do. “Hurry,” Camden said, pointing into the forest where the hunters grew ever closer. The man blinked at him, looked back and then moved toward the house. He stopped at the doorway and rocked for a moment, doing that strange chanting again, a sort of self-soothing.
Camden pushed the door open and then took him by the arm. “Come on. I’m here.”
His brother smiled. “Bemme,” he said, stepping over the threshold.
It smelled like dirt and mildew inside, and struck him as a long-vacant place that had been left in a hurry. He looked at his brother, eyes darting around nervously and wondered where he’d been when they carted Narcisa’s body away. Had he watched them from some shadowy corner, chanting quietly, not understanding what was happening or why he was suddenly alone? He couldn’t let himself picture that. He couldn’t. “Hurry,” he said again.
His brother did move then, stepping forward and going down on his knees, pushing a threadbare rug aside, and prying a board from the floor. He reached underneath, bringing something out, and then stood, handing the item to Camden.
It was the brown leather bag, the one he’d given to Kandace so many years before. He pulled the flap back and looked inside to see a stack of folders, the proof she’d obtained about their mothers. It was what she’d died for.
He itched to know its contents, but he didn’t have time to look at it, not now.
His lungs burned. He smiled at his brother. He wished