What a whack job. “Sure.” Caden dragged his tongue across his lips, tasting dirt and blood. “But the fire’s dying. You won’t be able to see.”
“Uh. Yeah.” Lyle scrunched his brows together. “I guess you’re right.” He took a few steps toward the flames, then seemed to realize he couldn’t stoke them while holding everything in his hands. Frowning, he glanced from the gun to the stakes, then back again, the decision plainly complicated in his present state. Finally, he dropped the stakes.
To Caden he looked like a kid whose mind had been pulped to mush. Lyle located a few sticks from a pile off to the side, then squatted to feed the fire. The moment his gaze settled on the flames, he froze.
Flicker phenomenon.
Caden launched himself across the igloo. The hard hit of collision ripped the breath from his lungs. He struck the ground with Lyle, rolling over in the dirt.
“Nooooo!” Lyle shrieked.
Caden straddled him, delivering a hard crack to his face. He hammered Mason’s wrist into the ground, trying to loosen his grip on the gun. Lyle jerked the trigger and the .38 exploded. The discharge kicked back a deafening roar, the ricochet pinging off the walls twice before burrowing in the dirt near the entrance.
“Lyle, you asshole. You’re going to kill us both.” Caden drove Lyle’s chin to the side, but the momentum sent him sprawling off balance. Mason pistol-whipped the revolver against his wound, sending pain boomeranging the length of his arm.
Caden clenched his jaw, his vision swimming.
“You’re outta luck, Flynn.” Lyle knocked him to the side. Scrambling quickly to his knees, he shoved the barrel of the gun beneath Caden’s chin. “One bullet left.” His breath dispelled in a hot, fetid whoosh. “Yeah, I know you’ve been counting. You’re a cop. It only makes sense. I wanted to cut out your heart, but I’ll settle for blowing your head off all the same.”
Caden tensed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Lyle—”
The humming started as a low drone, but built swiftly, a thousand angry bees. An audible vibration of vengeance and wrath.
Lyle jerked backward. “What the hell is that?”
A roundhouse kick to the head sent him sprawling facedown in the dirt. Caden wrenched the gun from his slack grip, then staggered backward. The kick had knocked Lyle out cold.
Closing his eyes, Caden pressed his back to the rough stone of the bunker. He wanted nothing more than to sink to the ground and rest, but his predicament had summoned something far more dangerous than Lyle.
You don’t have to come. There’s no need.
How had he ever bonded with such a creature? For a moment, discordant noise threatened to overwhelm him, the harshness nearly as painful as the ache in his arm. Gradually, it receded. A tempest of wind blew into the bunker, swirling dirt and debris into a funnel from the ground. The fire was extinguished in a single, powerful gust, plunging the interior into impenetrable darkness.
Using his hands to guide him along the wall, Caden fumbled his way outside.
The Mothman waited, a demon from folklore, wings arched high above its back. The sight of the alien no longer inspired fear, but as always, its presence filled him with awe. The welts on his forearm burned as fiercely as they had on the day the monster had placed them there.
It had come. To save him. Again.
Exhaustion, weakness, and pain rolled off him in waves, sensations he had no desire to telegraph. The Mothman cast emotion effortlessly, but consumed the same with equal ease. Now that he understood it better, the last thing he wanted to do was add to the being’s misery.
Safe.
He tried to share the concept mentally, hoping the creature would grasp he was no longer in danger. Stepping closer, he was surprised to have no qualms about its proximity. Despite their connection, there had always been a sliver of uncertainty on his part. Bumping against a fallen log, he slumped to a seat three feet from the cryptid.
Immediately a barrage of sensation struck him—indignation, anger, a hunger to hurt and punish, a primal need to terrify. The feelings were not meant for him but for Lyle.
Wearily, Caden scrubbed a hand across his cheek, flecking dried blood to the ground. “It wasn’t his fault. Someone from your planet altered his mind.” He spoke aloud, uncertain if the creature understood him.
It made a hissing noise.
He wondered how far away Lyle had parked. How long he’d have to flounder in the dark before he discovered Mason’s car.
The Mothman hissed again.
He lifted his head and looked into its eyes. Its wingtips rustled.
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
The thing shrieked.
Caden jerked to his feet, the creature’s scream like the razor cut of a sharp knife. Ryan and Lach Evening burst from the trees on his right, Ryan trailing behind.
“Caden.” His brother raced to his side, gripped him tightly by his good arm. Ryan swept the beam of his flashlight from his cut check to his blood-soaked jacket. “Oh, man, brother, you look a mess. How bad?”
“It’s a graze. Looks worse than it is.”
“Where’s Mason?” Evening asked.
Caden jerked his head toward the igloo. The blond-haired man dashed toward the opening and disappeared inside.
Ryan used the flashlight to examine Caden’s arm. “You were lucky.”
“Yeah. Hurts like hell, though.”
“My patrol car is back that way.” Ryan hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I can radio ahead to have triage ready at the hospital.” He paused, searching Caden’s face. “Are you injured anywhere else?”
“Just battered and bruised, and I took a whack to the back of the head.” He glanced to the side, starting abruptly when he realized the Mothman had disappeared. “Hey, where’d it go?” Somehow the cryptid had vanished without the usual fanfare of droning and wing-buffeting. He spun on his heel, nearly stumbling in his haste to look behind him.
Ryan gripped him under the arm to hold him steady. “Would you believe the damn thing led us here? Evening summoned it somehow and communicated with it. We followed in my car.”