Solina jumped up and took a step back.
Ned swallowed but stayed seated.
“Think very carefully,” Curran said, his voice a deep rumbling growl. “Be sure this is what you want. Because once I take this land, it will be mine.”
“It’s already yours,” Ned said. “You have all rights, minerals, timber, water, access, everything. We have already registered the grant with the county. I have the paperwork.”
“Does the town understand who they are inviting?” Curran asked. Up close, his voice shook you. It reverberated in your bones.
“They understand,” Ned said.
“Even if I look like this? Even if I will bring others like me?”
“People are always more than one thing. The residents of Penderton know who you are. They know about your friends. Should they move here from down south, the town will not oppose it. Nor could it. The land is yours. Do with it what you wish.”
The sky above us was completely clear, but I could’ve sworn I heard thunder.
“We are small town people, but we aren’t bigots, Mr. Lennart,” Ned said. “And we keep our word.”
Accepting this forest meant our quiet lives would be over. This thing reeked of old magic power. Fighting it would be bloody, noisy, and dangerous. If we managed to deal with whatever evil had spawned in that forest and survived that fight, we’d need to defend that land. Sooner or later Curran would build another Keep, and once he did that, shapeshifters would flock to him, and we would be right back where we started.
Territory, base, money, allies, and connections…
My “low profile” was slipping through my fingers.
“Okay,” Curran said. “You have me. But I don’t speak for my wife. Convince her and you have a deal.”
Ned stood up. “Could you open the gates for us?”
Curran glanced at Conlan. Our son jogged to the gates and swung them open. There were two large SUVs in our driveway, both with bloated hoods to accommodate the dual gasoline and enchanted water engines. Solina walked over to them and waved.
Ned invited me toward them with a sweep of his hand.
Okay. I’ll bite.
I got up and crossed the yard to the gates. Curran joined me.
The doors of the SUVs opened, and people started getting out, one after another. Just normal, regular people in normal, regular clothes, some older, some younger. A young man in his upper teens, still a kid, hopped out, and helped a woman in her seventies exit. They lined up in front of us.
“The women came early this year,” Solina said. “They want their tribute in two weeks. The town already held the lottery.”
Ice slid down my spine.
The older teenager pulled a banner out of his pocket and held it out. On it, woven with wool the color of blood, were ten human figures.
The people looked at us.
Curran took my hand and squeezed.
I could say no. I could walk away right now, and nobody would ever call me on it.
I squeezed back.
“We’ll take it,” my husband said.
2
We waved goodbye as Ned and his people left. I turned to Conlan.
“Follow them and make sure they make it onto the main road.”
“Yes, Dad.”
He ran after the cars. Grendel shot out of his hiding spot in the corner of the courtyard and chased after him.
I waited until he was too far to hear us. We needed to have an adult conversation.
Kate stood next to me, flipping through a thick file Ned left behind. The record of Penderton’s battle with the evil in the woods.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?” Kate asked.
“Agreeing to help. For coming with me to the woods.” I paused. Looking for the right words. “All of it, I guess.”
“He put ten people in front of us and let us know they were going to die. What was I supposed to do? I would have to tell them to their faces that saving them would inconvenience me.”
Oh, it would be more than an inconvenience and we both knew it. “Agreed. That was a dick move.”
She stared at the forest tunnel around the road, watching the SUVs disappear into it. “Ned is a manipulative bastard.”
“Yes. He’s also desperate. We are who we are, baby. And I really do want those woods.”
She groaned.
“I liked Ned,” I said. “He outplayed us. He’ll be a good man to know.”
“Aha. I saw your face when you found them in our courtyard.”
“I didn’t know who they were or why they were in our house.”
She shrugged. “Technically, they were in our courtyard.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. They were in our territory uninvited.”
“When we were picking out this place, you told me that it was perfect because we had no neighbors and that you didn’t like people.”
“I like everybody,” I told her.
I thought I’d get her to laugh, but she just looked at me.
“Name one person I don’t like,” I told her.
“My father.”
“Fair enough.”
“My aunt.”
“We are polite and careful with each other.”
“My cousin.”
“I dislike him less now that he’s several states away and safely domesticated by his wife and kids.”
“And he stopped trying to kill me.”
“That’s the main part of it,” I growled. “Everyone you’ve mentioned has tried to kill you.”
At some point in our lives together, keeping her lovely family from trying to murder her became a full-time job for me. They were powerful, homicidal psychopaths, and they didn’t half-ass it. When they came to kill her, they gave it their all.
Her eyes sparked. “You wanted to kill me at some point.”
“No. The most I promised to do was to throw you out of a window.”
She smiled, then thought about something, and her smile died. Kate leaned back and dragged her hand through her hair. I knew that expression. Something had been eating at her for a while.
“I started this by looking for Darin,” she said.
“You didn’t start anything. It was inevitable. And I don’t regret helping Darin.”
“Neither do I. I’m just acknowledging that I kicked this door open.” She had that calculating look on her face she got when she was assessing someone she was about to take down. “This Penderton problem is going to be complicated. I don’t like it, I don’t want to get involved in it, but you’re right, we need the woods and Penderton needs help.”
“Good. Then we agree.” I thought it would be harder to convince her. Something changed in her, and I’d missed it.
“The bad news is that we don’t know what we’re dealing with and it’s strong,” she said.
“The good news is that it has finite resources. It didn’t want to tangle with the National Guard. The Magic Rapid Response Unit has 75 veteran soldiers in it. That’s the max the National Guard could’ve sent, so we know that whatever is in the forest decided that 75 soldiers were too many. It sat back and waited for them to leave.”
“And it worked.”
“But we won’t be leaving.”
“No. We’ll stay until the end,” Kate said.
We didn’t abandon things half done. Both of us knew that when we said yes.
Kate lifted the file in her hand. “Everything in this file Ned gave us tells me that the evil in the forest is powerful enough to snatch people from Penderton whenever they want. They don’t need to formally request a tribute.”