“I do.” Stupid, he thought, stupid way to propose, and a ridiculous place for it, too. Then again, when they couldn’t be sure what was around the bend, it made sense to grab what you did now, tight and quick. “As it happens, I agree with you. More thoughts on the idea would be that my mother, especially, will want the splash-big deal, big party, bells and whistles.”
“I happen to agree with that, too. How is she with communication by phone and/or e-mail?”
“She’s all about that.”
“Great. I’ll hook her up with my mother and they can go for it. How’s your September schedule?”
“September?”
She studied the winter woods, watched a squirrel scamper up a tree and across a thick branch. “I bet the Hollow’s beautiful in September. Still green, but with just a hint of the color to come.”
“I was thinking sooner. Like April, or May.” Before, Cal thought. Before July, and what might be the end of everything he knew and loved.
“It takes a while to organize those bells and whistles.” When she looked at him he understood she read him clearly. “After, Cal, after we’ve won. One more thing to celebrate. When we’re-”
She broke off when he touched a finger to her lips.
The sound came clearly now as all movement and conversation stopped. The wet and throaty snarl rolled across the air, and shot cold down the spine. Lump curled down on his haunches and whined.
“He hears it, too, this time.” Cal shifted, and though the movement was slight, it put Quinn between him and Fox.
“I don’t guess we could be lucky, and that’s just a bear.” Layla cleared her throat. “Either way, I think we should keep moving. Whatever it is doesn’t want us to, so…”
“We’re here to flip it the bird,” Fox finished.
“Come on, Lump, come on with me.”
The dog shivered at Cal’s command, but rose, and with its side pressed to Cal’s legs, walked down the trail toward the Pagan Stone.
The wolf-Cal would never have referred to the thing as a dog-stood at the mouth of the clearing. It was huge and black, with eyes that were somehow human. Lump tried a halfhearted snarl in answer to the low, warning growl, then cowered against Cal.
“Are we going to walk through that, too?” Gage asked from the rear.
“It’s not like the false trail.” Fox shook his head. “It’s not real, but it’s there.”
“Okay.” Gage started to pull off his pack.
And the thing leaped.
It seemed to fly, Cal thought, a mass of muscle and teeth. He fisted his hands to defend, but there was nothing to fight.
“I felt…” Slowly, Quinn lowered the arms she’d thrown up to protect her face.
“Yeah. Not just the cold, not that time.” Cal gripped her arm to keep her close. “There was weight, just for a second, and there was substance.”
“We never had that before, not even during the Seven.” Fox scanned the woods on both sides. “Whatever form Twisse took, whatever we saw, it wasn’t really there. It’s always been mind games.”
“If it can solidify, it can hurt us directly,” Layla pointed out.
“And be hurt.” From behind her Gage pulled a 9mm Glock out of his pack.
“Good thinking,” was Cybil’s cool opinion.
“Jesus Christ, Gage, where the hell did you get that?”
Gage lifted his eyebrows at Fox. “Guy I know down in D.C. Are we going to stand here in a huddle, or are we going in?”
“Don’t point that at anybody,” Fox demanded.
“Safety’s on.”
“That’s what they always say before they accidentally blow a hole in the best friend.”
They stepped into the clearing, and the stone.
“My God, it’s beautiful.” Cybil breathed the words reverently as she moved toward it. “It can’t possibly be a natural formation, it’s too perfect. It’s designed, and for worship, I’d think. And it’s warm. Feel it. The stone’s warm.” She circled it. “Anyone with any sensitivity has to feel, has to know this is sacred ground.”
“Sacred to who?” Gage countered. “Because what came up out of here twenty-one years ago wasn’t all bright and friendly.”
“It wasn’t all dark either. We felt both.” Cal looked at Fox. “We saw both.”
“Yeah. It’s just the big, black scary mass got most of our attention while we were being blasted off our feet.”
“But the other gave us most of his, that’s what I think. I walked out of here not only without a scratch, but with twenty-twenty vision and a hell of an immune system.”
“The scratches on my arms had healed up, and the bruises from my most recent tussle with Napper.” Fox shrugged. “Never been sick a day since.”
“How about you?” Cybil asked Gage. “Any miraculous healing?”
“None of us had a mark on him after the blast,” Cal began.
“It’s no deal, Cal. No secrets from the team. My old man used his belt on me the night before we were heading in here. A habit of his when he’d get a drunk on. I was carrying the welts when I came in, but not when I walked out.”
“I see.” Cybil held Gage’s eyes for several beats. “The fact that you were given protection, and your specific abilities, enabled you to defend your ground, so to speak. Otherwise, you’d have been three helpless little boys.”
“It’s clean.” Layla’s comment had everyone turning to where she stood by the stone. “That’s what comes to my mind. I don’t think it was ever used for sacrifice. Not blood and death, not for the dark. It feels clean.”
“I’ve seen the blood on it,” Gage said. “I’ve seen it burn. I’ve heard the screams.”
“That’s not its purpose. Maybe that’s what Twisse wants.” Quinn laid her palm on the stone. “To defile it, to twist its power. If he can, well, he’ll own it, won’t he? Cal?”
“Okay.” His hand hovered over hers. “Ready?” At her nod, he joined his hand to hers on the stone.
At first there was only her, only Quinn. Only the courage in her eyes. Then the world tumbled back, five years, twenty, so that he saw the boy he’d been with his friends, scoring his knife over their wrists to bind them together. Then rushing back, decades, centuries, to the blaze and the screams while the stone stood cool and white in the midst of hell.
Back to another waning winter where Giles Dent stood with Ann Hawkins as he stood with Quinn now. Dent’s words came from his lips.
“We have only until summer. This I cannot change, even for you. Duty outstrips even my love for you, and for the lives we have made.” He touched a hand to her belly. “I wish, above all, that I could be with you when they come into the world.”
“Let me stay. Beloved.”
“I am the guardian. You are the hope. I cannot destroy the beast, only chain it for a time. Still, I do not leave you. It is not death, but an endless struggle, a war only I can wage. Until what comes from us makes the end. They will have all I can give, this I swear to you. If they are victorious in their time, I will be with you again.”
“What will I tell them of their father?”
“That he loved their mother, and them, with the whole of his heart.”
“Giles, it has a man’s form. A man can bleed, a man can die.”
“It is not a man, and it is not in my power to destroy it. That will be for those who come after us both. It, too, will make its own. Not through love. They will not be what it intends. It cannot own them if they are beyond its reach, even its ken. This is for me to do. I am not the first, Ann, only the last. What comes from us is the future.”
She pressed a hand to her side. “They quicken,” she whispered. “When, Giles, when will it end? All the lives we have lived before, all the joy and the pain we have known? When will there be peace for us?”
“Be my heart.” He lifted her hands to his lips. “I will be your courage. And we will find each other once more.”
Tears slid down Quinn’s cheeks even as she felt the images fade. “We’re all they have. If we don’t find the way, they’re lost to each other. I felt her heart breaking inside me.”