Blood Trail

turn on the emitter, he scanned both fields, registering nothing more than the sheep. The sheep were innocent. They had no control over the masters they had. Then he came back to the trees.

    They hunted the conservation area on occasion. He knew it. Perhaps tonight they would hunt and he would. ...

    He frowned at a flash of red between two trees. Showing too dim for the size, he had no idea what it might be. Moving slowly, silently, he flicked on the emitter, playing the beam of infrared light over the area. Although the naked eye could see no difference, his scope brightened as if he'd turned on a high-powered red flashlight.

    The creature he'd scanned should be. ...

    With an effort, Henry brought himself back to the woods. It was infinitely pleasanter replaying the earlier part of the night, but he knew he must be getting close to the pine. He lifted his head to scan the treetops ...

    ... and snapped it back snarling as a beam of red light raked across his eyes.

    "Holy shit!" Mark Williams raised his uncle's shotgun in trembling hands. He didn't know what that was. He didn't care. He'd had nightmares about things like that, the kind of nightmares that jerked you awake sweating, scrabbling for the light, desperately trying to push back the darkness.

    It didn't look human. It didn't look safe.

    He pulled the trigger.

    The buckshot had spread enough that it did little real damage when it hit, tracing a pattern of holes down the outside of his right hip and thigh. The light had been an annoyance. This was an attack.

    Henry had warned Vicki once that his kind held the beast much closer to the surface than mortals did. As blood began to slowly seep into his jeans, he let it loose.

    A heartbeat later, a slug hit him in high in the left shoulder and spun him around, lifting him off his feet. His skull cracked hard against the trunk of a tree and he dropped, barely conscious, to the ground.

    Through the pain, through the throbbing of his life in his ears, he thought he heard voices, men's voices, one almost hysterical, the other low and intense. He knew it was important that he listen, that he learn, but he couldn't seem to focus. The pain he could deal with. He'd been shot before and knew that even now his body had begun to mend. He fought against the waves of gray, trying to hold onto self, but it was like trying to hold sand that kept seeping out of his grasp.

    The voices were gone; where, he had no idea.

    Then a hand reached down and turned him gently over. A voice he knew said quietly, "We've got to get him back to the house."

    "I don't think he can walk. Go for Donald, he's too heavy for you to carry."

    Stuart. He recognized Stuart. That gave him a place to start from. By the time Nadine returned with Donald, he'd managed to grab onto his scattered wits and force them into a semblance of reason. His head felt eggshell fragile, but if he held it carefully, very carefully, he could keep the world from twisting too far off center.

    In spite of rough handling, Henry's head had almost cleared by the time the wer got him to the house. A number of gray patches continued to drift up from the swelling at the base of his skull but, essentially, he was back.

    He could see Vicki waiting on the porch, peering anxiously into the darkness. She looked softer and more vulnerable than he'd ever seen her. As Stuart and Donald carried him into her reach, she stretched out a hand and lightly touched his cheek.

    Her brows snapped down. "What the fuck happened to you?"

    "Of course I followed you!" Mark Williams gulped a little more whiskey from the water glass in his hand.

    "I get back a little early from a friendly poker game and see my aged uncle sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night carrying ..." He waved a hand at the rifle now lying in pieces on the kitchen table. "... that, off to do God knows what. ..."

    "God knows," Carl interrupted quietly, working the oily rag along the barrel.

    "Fine. God knows. But I don't. And," he slammed the now empty glass down on the table,
    "after what I just went through, I think I deserve an explanation."

    Carl stared up at his nephew for a moment, then sighed. "Sit down."

    "Okay. I'll sit." Mark threw himself into a kitchen chair. "You talk. What the hell were you planning on hunting out there and what was that thing that attacked me?"

    Ever since the Lord had shown him what lived on the Heerkens farm and had let him know where his duty lay, Carl Biehn had been