Those who had died in the past months were no more than peons to the powerful family. Two-bit ass kissers who had carried out orders and begged for favors. A doctor, a police officer, a lawyer, a former sheriff and a former mayor. They had participated. They had helped, but none had done so much to collaborate in that hell as the one that would die this night.
H. R. Alonzo. So few knew who he was, what he was. The great-grandson of the man who had donated his sperm to create the first Breed. A man who should have aided, who should have protected those his great-grandfather had fought to protect.
Vanderale had seen to his son’s rescue, his freedom and his safety. So long ago. More than a century had passed since the escape of the first Leo, aided by his father, a high-ranking member of the Genetics Council. Alonzo should have continued that aid. He should have donated his fortune to protecting rather than destroying. He should have never reached out to destroy the Breeds. He should have never searched for what was never meant to be his.
Drawing Alonzo back here had been so very easy. Laying the groundwork for what was to come had been a stroke of genius. Engalls and Brandenmore had begun their own downfall with their experiments into the phenomenon the Breeds were experiencing known as mating heat. They alone had believed they could duplicate the antiaging that those mated Breeds were experiencing. They hadn’t found the fountain of youth they searched for, but they had found something else. A drug that would deceive those Breed senses, that for a time hid the scent of man from the senses of the animal.
But the secrets they sought still eluded them.
They had failed. The information they had nearly killed to obtain had been denied them. But it was the opening needed. It was the first crack in an impenetrable shield that Brandenmore and Engalls had kept around themselves. It was a shield that would be further damaged by the death of one man.
H. R. Alonzo.
The Reverend Alonzo.
He waddled along the forested path now, a flashlight in his fat little hand, his face sweating, glistening beneath the moonlight. He waddled like a duck, tromped through the forest like a fat little lamb to the slaughter.
How very apt.
“Insane is what this is,” he muttered, the sound of his voice carrying clearly through the night. “Son of a bitch, ordering me to a meeting like this,” he continued to mumble aloud. “As though it would matter if we met at the house.”
The house. It wasn’t a house. It was hell. It was a place of pain, of blood and of death. It was where it had begun. And now the ending was within sight.
The night was a whisper of cool spring air. The trees swayed with the breeze, a ripple of water could be heard as it played along the stones and boulders of a centuries-old stream. The scent of fresh, clean water filled the air, almost washing away the smell of sweating human flesh and an evil, rotting mind.
Alonzo. His vast fortune supported the efforts of the Genetics Council. His rhetoric argued against the humanity of the Breeds, argued for their imprisonment, their death.
“Come alone,” Alonzo continued to snarl as he made his way to the small clearing he had been directed to. “As though it matters now.”
Had it mattered then, so many years ago? Had it really mattered where Alonzo had met his cohorts? They had thought it had. As though it had been some secret little game. Meeting here, in this clearing, where the blood of Breeds had soaked the ground more than once. Where bodies were still buried. Where the screams of Breed children could still be heard. Where one agonized scream still echoed through the mountains.
Alonzo huffed and puffed, his light wavering as he reached the clearing and slowed to a stop.
Right there. How many times had he stood right there, beneath the breadth of a huge oak, and stared into the clearing with a smirk? Chuckled gleefully at the screams that echoed around him. Participated in the torture and in the pain of creatures that hungered only for freedom.
“So where the hell are you?” Alonzo called out. “I don’t have time for games tonight, Phillip.”
“Phillip doesn’t play games here anymore.”
Alonzo’s obese, foul body swung around. His florid features reflected first surprise, then shock.
“Who the f**k are you and what do you want?”
There was a hint of fear now. That provided the needed edge of satisfaction.
“I’m the past, Reverend,” he was informed softly as the satisfaction and pleasure grew. It always did, when the prey finally knew fear itself. They had once played here, and now they could play again.
Playtime. A smile came and went. What was play? What Breed could answer that question or understand that ideal?
Alonzo’s beady little eyes narrowed. “How do you know about this place? Phillip would never have told you.”
“Phillip has actually told me many things.” She shrugged negligently. “Tell me, Reverend, do you still enjoy playing with death?”
Oh yes, death was returning to these mountains. Blood would stain the ground here once again, and it would begin with HR.
The fat little bastard’s face paled. “Phillip wouldn’t dare have me killed. You better check your orders, because he knows what will happen if anything happens to me.”
Ah yes, the ever present threat.