so lost was the boy in his rage and hurt that he was not able to understand it as a warning until he was already aware of being followed. There was a presence among the trees, shadowing him as he unwittingly ran further north. At first he feared that it might be Parker or one of those who stood by him, come to finish him off. He stopped at a copse of low cypress and crouched low behind them, watching and listening.
He glimpsed movement: a flicker of black on green, like burnt paper blown by the wind. He tried to recall if any of those at the plane had been dressed in black, and decided that they had not. Nevertheless, there was danger here: the voice told him so. His right hand searched the ground beside him and found a rock the size of his fist. He clutched it tightly. He would have only one chance to use it, and he would have to make it count. If he could hit his pursuer in the head, then the impact would give him time to pounce. He could use the same rock to beat him, or her, to death.
More movement, closer this time. The figure was small, only a little taller than himself. The boy was puzzled. Could it be an animal of some kind, even a dark wolf? Were there wolves in these woods? He did not know. The thought of being attacked by a carnivorous animal frightened him more than the threat posed by any human being. He feared unreasoning hunger, the sensation of teeth tearing at his flesh, of claws ripping his skin. He feared being consumed.
The girl appeared from behind a tree barely ten feet from where he lay. How she had moved so quickly without being seen he did not know, but he reacted instantly, firing the rock and watching with satisfaction as it struck the girl above her right eye, causing her to stumble but not lose her footing. He prepared to move on her, but the buzzing in his head rose to a crescendo, and he saw that no blood came from the wound in the girl’s head. He could discern clearly where the rock had impacted by the abrasion on her skin, but other than the initial shock of the blow she appeared untroubled by hurt. She did not even seem angry. She simply stared at the boy, then raised her right hand and silently beckoned him to her with a crook of a filthy index finger, its nail long gone.
That unreasoning hunger that the boy had feared to find in an animal was now manifested in another, more terrible, form. This was not really a child, no more than he himself was one: this was loneliness and fear, hatred and hurt, all bound up in the skin of a little girl. Cut her open, the boy thought, and biting bugs and poisonous snakes would tumble from her innards. She was neither good nor evil, and was therefore beyond the remit of the boy and those like him, beyond even the God of Wasps himself. She was pure want.
He backed away from her, and she made no move to follow him. She simply kept crooking her finger, as though certain that, if she persisted, he would eventually surrender to her, but he had no intention of succumbing. The boy, in all of his incarnations, had encountered many threats, and understood the nature of most entities. He saw in this one a tethered beast. She was a dog on a chain, free to roam within certain boundaries, but ultimately constrained. If he could move beyond the limits of her domain, he would be safe.
He turned and ran, heedless once more of the direction, caring only that he put as much distance between the girl and himself as he could. It was growing dark quickly, and he wanted to be well beyond her reach before night fell. She moved again, staying with him, a fleeting blur between the trees. He gasped for breath. He was not healthy, had never been healthy, and although he was capable of summoning massive strength when required, he could do so only in short bursts. Lengthy pursuits, either as hunted or hunter, were anathema to him. There was a pain in his side, and the goiter at his neck throbbed angrily. He could not keep up this pace for much longer. He paused to catch his breath, leaning against a