***
Mystique woke suddenly to the sound of a twig snapping. She kept still, until she was fully wake and then cracked open her eyes. It was still mostly dark; the fire had burned low but someone had recently put more wood on it. Deciding there was no imminent danger, she sat up and stretched. Paul Fitzgerald was crouched next to the fire, which meant he was on watch, which also meant Craig was supposed to be on watch, too.
Paul saw Mystique sit up and went to get her a cup of the tea that he’d been brewing most of his watch. It was going to be bitter, but he hoped she’d like it anyway. Paul had seen Mystique around town but had never gotten the nerve to talk to her. He knew her mother had a reputation for being a whore. He often wondered if Mystique was, too, but was afraid of insulting her if she wasn’t. He really hoped she was because Mystique had the nicest pair of legs and little round butt in town.
“Are you going to hand that to me or pour it on me?” Mystique whispered, breaking Paul’s chain of thought. He froze in place as he realized he was holding the cup of tea just a few inches from Mystique’s chest. Mystique took the cup from him and thanked him for it.
Mystique took a sip of the tea and set it down while she started collecting her things. Paul moved back to the other side of the fire and watched her. Mystique quickly repacked her bag, only taking time to pull a piece of meat bread out to have for breakfast with her tea. The tea was very bitter but it would help her wake up and the bread helped mask the taste of it.
When she was done, she realized that Paul was still watching her. She’d seen that look many times before, on some of the men who’d come to visit her mother. Her mom had waited until she was twelve before allowing Mr. Franks to have her. Her mother had cleaned her up and tried to comfort her after Mr. Franks left. She’d said that it was the only way they had to make money for food and stuff. The later that day she’d made honey cookies, and each time after that when one of the men wanted her instead of her mother, she’d gotten honey cookies. She hated honey cookies.
Mystique quietly made her way to Paul and whispered to him that she was going to scout ahead some before the rest of the group woke up. She handed him the empty cup before turning and leaving camp. She was proud of herself for not slitting Paul’s throat like she’d done to her mother before leaving to join the hunt. Mystique remembered the shock in her mother’s eyes as she woke to find Mystique holding a knife to her throat. She hadn’t struggled; she’d just closed her eyes again and died.
Mystique almost didn’t spot Craig sleeping against a tree just outside of camp. She wondered what Thomas would do if he found out—probably send them both home. She needed to get away from the camp. Paul had triggered something in her and it would be easy for her to kill everyone in camp. The problem was she might need their help to catch up to Daemon.
It didn’t take her long to find Daemon’s trail around the mountain. She was able to follow it even in the darkness of predawn, thanks to the fact that one of them must have been tired because they weren’t lifting their feet as much as they should have to avoid disturbing the leaves. The path was leading to a clearing, by the look of it. Mystique didn’t like that at all. She would have to try to skirt around and pick up their trail on the other side. There was no way she was going to walk out into a killing field for anyone with a rifle. She crawled carefully up to the edge to get a better look and found the gorge Daemon and the girls had crossed. She lowered her head and lay very still as she thought about what to do next. If she were Daemon, she would be hiding in the woods on the other side waiting for someone to walk out into the open so she could shoot them without fear of being spotted. They were going to have to go up river or down and look for a quick way across, then come back here to pick up Daemon’s trail. It was going to slow them down quite a bit. The townspeople were wrong about Daemon being slow-witted; this was an ingenious move. Faust would have been proud.
The sound of a pistol shot snapped her head around to look in the direction of camp. She had no idea what was going on but she was sure she’d better get back and find out. She also had to let Thomas know about the gorge. Mystique slowly backed well away from the edge of the clearing before getting up and jogging back to camp.
Mystique arrived to find the others slowly packing up and getting ready to move out. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Paul was missing. Thomas saw her and came to talk to her. He was in an even fouler mood than ever. Mystique dropped her hand to rest on the hilt of one of her knives without thinking about it as he got close.
“What happened? I heard a gunshot,” she asked.
“There was a disagreement about what to do with Leo so I put him out of his misery. Paul is taking care of his corpse while the rest of us get ready,” Thomas said, challenging Mystique to argue about what he’d done. “You got a problem with that?”
Mystique started to ask why he’d shot Leo, but stopped herself before saying anything.
Thomas stared at her, hoping she’d say something he could hit her for.
Mystique turned to look up the trail toward the gorge. This was not the time to kill him, not yet. “I found a gorge up ahead. It looks like they crossed it somehow. I don’t like the look of it. Daemon or his sister could be waiting on the other side for us to break cover and shoot us.”
“Show me,” Thomas ordered as he motioned her to lead the way.
Mystique took one quick look around camp before heading off toward the gorge. She figured the rest of the group would be following them within a few minutes.
14
Daemon reached the gorge in time to see Thomas ducking behind a tree near the edge of the clearing. He cursed himself for taking his time getting back as he dropped to the ground. He was also annoyed he’d not been more careful and had let Thomas see him. At least he was far enough back in the woods Thomas wasn’t going to get a clear shot at him. Daemon started to crawl to a nearby tree with a thick trunk that he could hide behind. The underbrush was going to make it hard for him to get a good shot but it would also help hide him.
Mystique was surprised to see Daemon running through the woods toward the clearing. If she’d had a rifle she would have been able to get at least one good shot at him. Thomas had seen him about the same time Daemon had seen Thomas, of course. Neither of them seemed to have a clue about stealth and how to hide his movements. Thomas had just stepped behind a tree and crouched down; Daemon had dropped prone and was now crawling behind a tree. Mystique was sure that Daemon didn’t know she was there and was more than happy to keep it that way.
Thomas waited a few minutes before looking around the tree. He had lost sight of Daemon and was having a hard time spotting him. He could hear the rest of the group talking as they made their way up the slope to the gorge. Thomas readied his rifle. He still wasn’t sure where Daemon was but if Daemon shot at the group as they walked into view, Thomas would be ready to return fire.
Mark Bench was leading the group and hadn’t seen Thomas or Mystique hiding near the clearing. He was just about to step into the clearing when Mystique yelled for him to duck, but it was too late. Daemon had tracked Mark’s progress to the clearing and fired as Mystique yelled her warning.
Thomas easily spotted the muzzle flash from Daemon’s rifle in the dim, overcast light of morning, and fired five shots as fast as he could at Daemon’s location. He would have kept firing but the magazine in his rifle only held five shots.
Daemon had expected someone to shoot and was rolling back behind the cover of the tree before Thomas’s first shot hit.
The bullet hit Mark’s leg causing him to be thrown off balance and fell into the clearing. Mark, confused and in shock, started to crawl frantically back into the brush. The rest of the group dove for whatever cover they could find. Steven Bosworth and Eleanor Bender had been right behind Mark when he got shot. They had simply dropped to the ground for cover. They grabbed Mark as soon as he got close enough and pulled him deeper into the underbrush. They dragged Mark back to the tree line, where the un
derbrush started to thin out. They stayed as low as they could, and when they thought they were far enough back they stopped to check Mark’s wound.
Eleanor cut open a larger slit in his pants where the bullet had torn through. She gave a sigh of relief when she found that the bullet had only grazed Mark’s leg. The wound would hurt for a while but it shouldn’t slow him down much. They were going to need to cauterize it to stop the bleeding and hopefully prevent infection. Steven helped Mark hobble farther down the slope away from the clearing.
Daemon waited until he was sure they had stopped shooting before he cautiously started crawling back into the woods, carefully keeping the tree between himself and the group on the other side of the gorge. Once he was back a good fifteen feet, he yelled to the group, “Turn around and go home. I don’t want to kill you, but I will.”
“Nobody’s going anywhere until you and that bitch sister of yours are dead!” Thomas yelled.
The rest of the group spread out and took up firing positions so the next time Daemon showed himself they would be ready.
Mystique stealthily slipped back to where Steven and Eleanor were tending to Mark’s wound. “How bad is it?” she asked as she got to them. Eleanor was starting a small fire while Steven stood guard. Mark looked a little pale but seemed alert.
“It’s just a graze, but we need to stop the bleeding,” Eleanor replied as she put her knife in the fire. “What’s going on up there?”
“Daemon is on the other side of the gorge waiting to shoot anyone who walks into the open. He might be a dimwit, but he’s staying hidden now that he knows we’re here.”
“He ain’t that stupid. He set a nice trap for us to walk right into,” Mark said as he watched the blade of the knife start to change color from the heat. He put a twig in his mouth as Eleanor grabbed his leg with her left hand and brought the knife down onto the wound. Mark screamed into the twig as he tried to hold still through the pain. Eleanor got a twinkle in her eye and a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she held the knife to Mark’s leg a few seconds longer then she needed to. She finally pulled the knife away and examined the wound again: It had stopped bleeding and showed no signs of starting again.
“Daemon was just standing in the woods on the other side when Thomas and I got there. I think he was as startled as we were. We all dove for cover and waited,” Mystique lied, assuming Thomas wouldn’t bother telling them what happened.
“You mean to tell me you and Thomas both knew he was there and you didn’t warn us? You just let us walk right into his trap?” Steven stated angrily as he turned to Mystique, the barrel of his rifle swinging in her direction as he did.
“She’s the one that did warn us. A little late, but at least she said something. If you want to shoot someone, I’d say Daemon would be the right target—or Thomas, before he gets us all killed,” Eleanor observed as she pulled a spare blouse from her pack and tore it up to make a bandage. “You owe me a new blouse,” she told Mark as she applied the bandage.
“Shooting at Daemon is going to be a waste of ammo unless someone else is willing to walk out into the clearing as a target, and even then the chances of hitting him are slim. We need to get across the gorge somehow, before Thomas starts looking for volunteers to play target,” Mystique commented, trying to shift the conversation and attention away from her.
“Mystique, can you go find my dad and bring him back here? He’ll know what to do.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back,” Mystique said.
Daemon and Thomas were still yelling at each other when Mystique got back up to the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. Alan Bench was sitting calmly with his back to a tree, listening to the exchange. Mystique threw a small piece of a branch at him to get his attention and waved for him to come to her when he spotted her. Alan carefully belly-crawled over to her. He didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. Mystique guessed that he hadn’t seen Mark get shot and didn’t know he was injured so she decided not to tell him.
“What?”
“Mark wants to talk to you. He’s back down the hill a little.” Mystique turned to lead the way back to the trio. Paul and Arnold saw them moving back and decided to join them. Paul Fitzgerald grabbed his brother, Craig, by the boot and pointed in the direction the others were going, but Craig wasn’t interested, so Paul came stumbling down the hill alone.
Eleanor had Mark’s leg bandaged when the five arrived at their little fire. Alan spotted the bandage and went immediately to check on the wound. He didn’t say anything until he was satisfied it had been treated properly, then he turned to Eleanor and demanded to know what was going on. Mystique answered for her relaying what she knew. When she was done, he asked a few questions to clarify one or two points before coming to a decision.
“All right, Steven, I want you to take Paul, Eleanor, and Mystique downriver. Look for a place to cross. Mark, Arnold, and I will go upriver. If you don’t find a way to cross in an hour, turn around and come back here.”
“What about Thomas? Shouldn’t we tell him what we’re doing?” Eleanor asked, looking up the hill nervously.
“Let me deal with Thomas. You four get moving,” Alan replied, more than a little annoyed.
“Let’s go,” Steven commanded, trying to establish his place as leader and get things moving. He led the way north through the woods, parallel to the gorge for about two hundred yards before climbing back up the bank. As they got to the underbrush at the edge of the clearing made by the gorge, Steven turned again and started to follow the clearing.