The Ambrose Beacon

  Chapter 27

  Tuesday Night, January 11th

  Cole could smell his father’s scent grow stronger as he drew in each breath. He was closing the distance between them, and it lessened some of the anxiety he felt for his family’s safety. Mingled with the scent of his father, the scents of Billie, Louis, Tim Matheson, and even Aidan grew stronger too. He hoped that it meant he wasn’t far behind them, and not that the wind was merely playing tricks with his senses. He felt a small measure of relief that Aidan had chosen to follow Billie and Louis, though it also made him nervous. If the dog did anything foolish, she could place the lives of his siblings in greater danger.

  The nighttime temperature had dropped, and Cole could feel the slight burn as the air passed down his canine throat and into his lungs. He wondered if he would have felt the cold in his human form, since it seemed like it no longer bothered him. In his wolf form, his thick, multi-layered coat kept the cold at bay, and the warmth of exertion dispelled it completely. The barely perceptible sound of movement ahead in the trees made him slow his pace with caution. His sudden appearance could startle Tim and make him do something rash, and Cole wanted to avoid this possibility at all costs. As he slowed, he crept forward with his body close to the ground, prowling as if he was on the hunt. A small clearing in the trees lay ahead of him, and it was from this direction that he had heard the sounds of movement in the snow. He slunk silently behind a tree as he discerned the shape of a person in the clearing, standing in the snow and facing away from him. The person looked over his shoulder and Cole recognized him a second before the man’s scent hit his nostrils. It was Tim Matheson.

  Cole watched the man as he felt his jaws clench involuntarily, the desire to sink his teeth into Tim so strong. He barely managed to stifle a growl as he watched Tim’s attention return to something that lay ahead of him. Cole inched his head over in the same direction and his eyes landed on something that he recognized instantly as the source of the feeling of wrongness that had been growing the closer he got to his quarry.

  Ahead of him was a small clearing in the trees, with a cave at its far end. Cole scanned the horrible shapes of the trees that looked like they had been infected with some kind of madness and could see the faint lines of dark energy that seemed to be coursing through their twisted branches. But as terrifying as the shapes of the trees were, the cave from which they seemed to be trying to escape was far worse. It was the black hole of a nightmare – the shape that children thought they saw on the other side of their open closet doors after the lights had been turned out. But this was no figment of the imagination. It was a door to someplace terrible, someplace from which you would never return, if you were foolish enough to enter it. He felt the minds of his pack-mates brush against his, and felt the terror in each of them. This place, and others like it, was a part of the collective memory of the wolves. To them, it was a place of death.

  A new scent reached his nostrils, and he broke his eyes away from the cave. His father was nearby. He looked around at the trees, and finally spotted him, crouched behind a tree on another end of the clearing, his gun in his hands. Cole searched the trees for Aidan, and saw her crouched behind another tree at the complete opposite end of the clearing from his father. Her eyes were fixed on the spot where Tim stood, as Cole’s father’s had been. Louis and Billie were being carried in Tim’s arms, and Cole could smell the fear coming from both of them. He had to do something, but what?

  Before he could think of anything, he watched with dismay as the small brown shape of Aidan moved from her cover behind the tree and toward the spot where Tim stood. Tim’s attention was focused on the cave ahead of him, and Cole thought that he heard him murmuring something, though the words seemed unintelligible. Tim couldn’t see the small shape skulking toward him through the snow.

  Cole was horrified. Aidan’s protective, but foolish move could place the lives of his siblings in jeopardy. But if Cole did anything to reveal her presence, he knew that he could only make the situation worse. His only hope was to help Aidan do whatever it was she was going to do.

  With his attention still focused on the cave, Tim didn’t see the larger black shape that moved toward his back. Cole’s own attention was focused on his quarry, but his peripheral vision registered the movement of his father as he slowly stood up and moved closer to the spot where Tim stood, his gun aimed at Tim’s back.

  The trees flew by as Vaughan ran through the woods, his eyes dropping periodically to watch for the tracks that Cole’s wolf-form had left in the snow. He followed his older brother’s path, his sword tucked safely in its sheath that was strapped over his shoulder. Vaughan knew that there were no demons nearby – he would have felt their presence. The only creatures that he could sense nearby were behind him, fighting against Dinah and the others.

  Vaughan felt a moment of guilt for leaving his older sister and the others to face the demons alone. But as he moved deeper into the woods, he knew that he had made the right decision in leaving the clearing where the ring of stones stood. A feeling of dread had been growing within him since he had left to follow Cole. And Vaughan knew that the feeling was coming from someplace ahead and from the same direction in which his older brother’s paw prints ran. He was heading straight toward the feeling, which would have been foolish if it wasn’t for the fact that he knew his family lay in the same direction. He wasn’t sure what help he could offer against whatever dark force was causing the feeling. It was powerful – that much he could tell. Even his superhuman skill and agility with his mother’s magic sword wasn’t likely to be of much help against such evil. But he would not let anyone in his family face that evil alone.

  He skidded to a stop suddenly as a second power grew ahead of him, and in the same direction from which the darkness came. But this power was different. The stirring that it caused within him was not one of dread. It was one of strength. And hope. This power had come to contest the darkness and its desire to destroy. Vaughan didn’t know what the power was, but it felt familiar to him. It was the opposite of the darkness in every way. Vaughan fell to one knee as this power washed over him, overwhelming his senses.

  When he was finally able to stand again, he knew what the appearance of this second power meant. A battle was about to be fought between two forces that had fought this same battle before. And now caught in the middle of the battle was his family. He began to move toward the spot where he sensed the battle would take place, stumbling at first as he struggled to shake off the stupor that had overcome him. But when the sound of gunfire split the air and he knew it had come from up ahead, Vaughan broke into a run. His father would only have fired his gun if his children were in trouble.

  Blackness surged toward the spot where Jason stood, but the barrier he had thrown up to meet it was holding it back. Dinah wanted to ask if there was anything she could do to help him. The strain on his face and the rigid way in which he held his body told her that he was struggling to keep the blackness from breaking past his wall and destroying them. But Dinah worried that if she said anything she would break his concentration and doom them all. The demon-man who looked like her uncle had said that they wanted to take her with them, which should have made Dinah the demon’s only concern. But she had seen the anger on his face when Jason had rebuffed his first attack. She suspected that he no longer cared if she was taken, as long as he defeated the human who had dared to stand against him.

  Dinah heard a groan behind her, and looked back briefly to see Larry shift in the snow, though his eyes were closed and his body was shivering. Movement in the darkness made her tense for a moment before she realized that it was the wolves. Four of them moved toward where Larry lay, sniffed him briefly, and then lay down next to him, two on each side. Their bodies huddled against him, sharing their warmth, and after a few moments Larry’s shivering stopped. Their eyes glowed in the flashes of light that were thrown up by Jason’s barrier as they st
ared back at her. She smiled at them and nodded her head once. She couldn’t understand their thoughts the way Cole could, but she got the sense that they had understood her nod of gratitude.

  She turned back around with Tina Waverly’s hand still clutched in hers, and saw Jason continue to stand against the darkness that surged against him. Finally, the demon-man lowered his arm and the bolt of darkness disappeared. The frustration was clear on his face as he stared back at Jason. But Jason seemed invigorated by his victory, and instead of lowering his hand, he began rotating it at the wrist, creating an invisible circle in the air in front of him. Dinah saw the snow in front of him begin to swirl, creating a vortex of flakes that began to grow until it was taller than the man controlling it.

  When it had grown to twice Jason’s height, he smiled and flicked his wrist in the direction of the demon-man and his two companions. The tornado of snow flew forward, continuing to grow as it ate the distance between Jason and his adversaries. The demon-man’s eyes widened in shock and he only managed to hastily raise his hand before the icy blast slammed into him and his companions. The snow tornado flew apart as it struck the barrier, but its force was enough to throw all three of the enemies back several feet, each of them landing on their back in the snow. Jason shouted in triumph before looking back at them with a huge grin on his face. But then something happened.

  Dinah felt it first, but she could tell from the tightening of Tina’s hand in her own that she felt it a moment later. She saw Jason’s eyes widen as a wave of dread rolled across the clearing. It had finally stopped snowing shortly after they had begun the battle near the ring of stones, and the moon had shone brightly on the snow-covered landscape. But its brightness was quickly dimmed as a sheet of darkness crept over the clearing, blacking out the night sky completely and plunging the clearing into a lightlessness that was like the blackness of the bottom of a deep well. Dinah could barely see more than a few feet in front of her face, and only the softly glowing form of Jason as he stood in front of them allowed her to see at all. He stood against the darkness, the only source of light as it seemed to engulf the world.

  Cole ran as fast as he could toward the spot where Tim stood facing away from him. But Aidan was faster. He would not have guessed that the little dog could move so quickly. She closed the distance and then leapt at Tim, who hadn’t seen her coming. She landed on his back and sunk her teeth into the shoulder of the arm that held Billie. Tim screamed out in pain as he lost his grip on the little girl and she fell to the ground, quickly gained her feet and ran away from him, heading straight toward the cave. Cole wanted to scream out at her, to warn her from the darkness of the cave, but he couldn’t while in the form of the wolf. And Louis was still in danger.

  Tim’s free hand flailed wildly, trying to reach over his shoulder and grasp Aidan. After several attempts, his hand closed on the fur along the dog’s side. With superhuman strength, he pulled Aidan from his back and tossed her aside as if she weighed nothing. Louis was struggling in his other arm, but Tim refused to let him go. Aidan twisted as she flew through the air and landed on her feet in the snow. In no less than a second, she was charging toward the evil man again.

  Cole ran up behind Tim and sunk his teeth into the man’s leg, hoping that the pain of his bite would cause him to release his hold on Louis. He tasted warm blood as it splashed across his tongue, and he was surprised to realize that he liked the taste of it. He had expected Tim’s blood to taste different…fouler somehow, like the man from who it had flown. But the salty taste of it was clean, and the experience of its coppery flavor hitting Cole’s lupine taste buds increased the drive of the predator within him. Tim screamed out in pain, but refused to release his grip on Louis, and Cole could hear his brother crying out as the man’s grip tightened. Cole started to shake his head back and forth, hoping that the pain he caused would cause Tim to finally drop Louis. But Tim ignored Cole’s biting and turned to face the charging form of Aidan.

  Jerry thought that he might get a free shot when Tim threw Aidan from him. But his grip on Louis remained, and Jerry didn’t dare fire at the man as long as his son was nearby. And Jerry recognized the large black wolf tearing savagely at Tim’s leg as his eldest son. He was confident in his shooting ability, but he wasn’t willing to risk either of his children’s lives to bring the evil man down.

  Aidan closed the distance and leapt at Tim again, her lips pulled back and her teeth bared as a snarl broke through the night. Tim smiled as he faced her, his free arm at his side. Just before Aidan would have closed her jaws on his throat, Tim’s hand flew up and he caught Aidan by her neck with a single hand. Aidan struggled briefly, until Tim clenched his fist and a loud snapping sound tore through the clearing. Aidan went completely still, her eyes still wide and staring and her tongue hanging from the side of her mouth. Tim laughed wickedly and then tossed her body aside.

  Jerry stood in open-mouthed shock and involuntarily lowered his gun as Aidan’s lifeless body hit the snow. He couldn’t believe the callousness with which Tim had ended the dog’s life, and he felt an ache in his heart at the thought that Aidan was gone. He had never been particularly fond of dogs, never viewing Cody with more than a patient tolerance because of what the dog had meant to Cole. And Cody had always been aloof toward Jerry, saving his affection for the children, and Cole in particular. But Aidan had been different. She had only been with them for a few days, but had bonded instantly with all of his children. And he had even caught himself absently stroking the fur between her ears several times since she had inexplicably appeared at their house. The familiarity that he sensed when he looked into her eyes had made him feel instantly comfortable with her. And now she was gone.

  Jerry saw Billie stop suddenly in the snow and turn around. As her eyes fell on Aidan’s broken body, they widened and quickly filled with tears. He saw his daughter’s hands clench into fists as she shook with anger. Her gaze moved over to Tim, and Jerry could see that her body was beginning to glow. A white light began to grow around her, dispelling the darkness of night and reflecting back from the snow that covered the ground.

  Tim’s smile widened as he looked at the glowing form of Billie. It was a smile of triumph. He knew that he had found what he had been looking for at last. He threw Louis from him and kicked his leg out savagely, dislodging Cole and sending him flying through the air. He stood up straight, as if the mauling that he had taken from Cole had been nothing. The darkness that had been dispelled by the glowing form of Billie seemed to regain its strength and to gather around the standing form of Tim. His shadow as it was cast by Billie’s light seemed to take on a life of its own, flowing around him as if trying to break free of its owner. Tim seemed to grow along with his shadow, making Billie look small and impossibly vulnerable by comparison. He took a step toward Billie, a single step that conveyed the menace of his intentions.

  “Tim, get down on the ground!” Jerry shouted from behind him.

  His voice held the authority of a federal agent that was used to being obeyed. But Tim ignored him and took another step.

  “Down on the ground, now!” Jerry shouted in an even louder voice than before.

  But Tim ignored him again. Jerry fired at Tim’s back, squeezing off several shots that all hit their mark. Tim staggered forward a few steps and then straightened before turning and staring angrily at the man who had shot him. He snarled as he threw a bolt of darkness at Jerry that hit him square in the chest, lifting him from his feet and throwing him back and into a tree. Jerry fell to the ground and couldn’t move, though it wasn’t because of any injury from his contact with the tree. Something held him immobile, though he was able to raise his head a few inches and see Tim turn back around and continue his slow march toward Jerry’s youngest daughter.

  Jerry could see the determination on Billie’s face. She was going to stand her ground against the evil man, which could mean her death. And Jerry was helpless to do an
ything about it.

  Jason looked around in confusion, unsure what to do against such darkness. He heard voices within it, calling to him, asking him to join with it, promising him the power to defeat the demons once and for all. He knew the promises they made were hollow, that their only desire was to seduce him into becoming something else…something darker.

  But there were other voices in the darkness, voices that strove against it. They were the voices that had spoken to him when he had approached the ring of stones. They had welcomed him as one of their own, a power like them that would stop at nothing to end the invasion of their world by things that had come here only to take what they could and leave it an empty husk. Those voices had shared knowledge with him, knowledge that he had used to fight the demon-man and its companions. And the voices had shared with him a power that was older and deeper than anything Jason could have conceived. It was a primal power that had formed as the Earth had, and had recognized what the invasion of the demons truly meant. The power knew that its fate would be shared with the world to which it was tied, and was determined to protect it at all costs.

  But the voices from the darkness were persuasive. He felt his will weakening as he tried to resist them, heard his own thoughts trying to convince him that only they could offer what he truly wanted – the power to protect Tina. He had been in love with the pretty young teacher since the day he had first seen her, but had been unable to tell her about his feelings. He had always felt awkward and inadequate around her, like he was beneath her notice. And the voices from the darkness promised that they could change that, as well. They told him that they could change him, make him the man that she would want. They promised to make him stronger, more handsome, and to give him the power that would allow him to protect Tina from anything. And he believed that they could do what they promised.

  The other set of voices continued to strive against the voices of darkness. But where the voices from the darkness promised that they could make him better quickly and with little effort, the other set of voices promised to do nothing for him. The second set of voices said that only he could make himself stronger, and that it would not come quickly. It would require him to work hard and spend hours learning from others who had chosen the same path to become the magic-user that he wanted to be. And they made no promise that he would ever gain the ability to protect Tina. Instead, they told him that as long as he pursued the course of becoming a powerful magic-user, anyone he loved would be in constant danger. The voices told him that he would become an enemy of the darkness, and that it would stop at nothing to destroy him and everything he cared about. But they also told him that he would never stand against the darkness alone – that as long as he chose to fight it, there would be others to fight beside him.

  And then a third voice spoke to him. He recognized it instantly. It was his own voice, the voice of his conscience, the voice that had helped him make the difficult decisions in his life since he had been a child. It always spoke the true words that were in his heart, and it had never been wrong. And now, the voice told him that he must pick the more difficult road. It said that that road would be filled with obstacles and would make him want to quit it many times before he reached his destination. But at the end, he would become the man he truly wanted to be. And it also told him that this was the only kind of man that Tina Waverly could ever love.

  A hand gently took hold of his and he looked down at it in surprise. When he looked up again, he was looking into Tina’s eyes, which looked back at him and seemed to convey a strength that he desperately needed at that moment. She smiled slightly at him, and that smile was enough for him to finally listen to his own inner voice. He smiled back and then looked back into the darkness as his mind broadcast his refusal of the offer made by the voices within it. The anger that was the response to his refusal was palpable, pushing against the barrier that he had erected to protect himself and the others with him. The darkness raged against the barrier, and Jason could feel its desire to reach him and punish him for what it perceived to be his arrogance at refusing its offer.

  But Jason was not alone. The inner strength that Tina had given him was boosted by the ancient power that had come from the circle of stones. And he knew now that the second set of voices that had spoken in counterpoint to the voices in the darkness was the same set of voices that had spoken to him within the circle itself. The strength of that ancient power stood behind him, buoying the barrier that he maintained.

  Jason felt someone take his other hand and he looked over to see Dinah looking back at him. She nodded once before facing the darkness beside him. He felt that both Tina and Dinah had somehow sensed the choice that he had made, and both had approved. And both of them were now confirming that he would not face the darkness alone.

  Billie ran toward the cave, remembering what her mommy had said and how it must be destroyed, though she had no idea how she could accomplish such a feat. But she knew that her mommy wouldn’t have asked her to do something so important if Billie couldn’t do it. She ran through the snow as quickly as she could, ignoring the sounds of struggle behind her. She had seen the brown, streaking form of Aidan as the little dog had charged Tim Matheson, and had used the moment he had released his hold on her as her opportunity to break for the cave.

  A loud cracking noise behind her stopped her in her tracks. It had sounded like the snapping of a tree branch, but Billie knew that it was something else. Billie turned around, and watched with fear-widened eyes as Tim threw aside the lifeless form of Aidan. The dog hit the snow and didn’t move, its brown eyes staring ahead but seeing nothing. Billie felt a great weight on her chest as a sob escaped her lips. She couldn’t believe that anyone could do something so cruel and heartless to such a gentle creature. Though Billie had only known the dog for a few days, she had managed to work her way into Billie’s heart. She felt the tears start to fall down her cheeks as sadness hit her, but another emotion she felt was even stronger. It was anger.

  Billie was furious. And as the anger at everything that Tim had done to her and her family surged through her body, she felt a strange sensation pass through her. It was a kind of vibrating that reminded Billie of the feeling she got when she rode in a car, though this was much stronger. It ran through her limbs, up her neck and through her head, making the hair on her arms stand up and her teeth itch. Billie wanted to stop Tim from hurting anyone else, and as the thought crossed her mind, she felt an answer speak to her from somewhere just beyond her awareness. The answer didn’t come in the form of words. Instead, it was a feeling – the feeling that a power greater and older than the world itself was there to stand with her. And it confirmed to her what she had finally come to accept. She was the one who the prophecy spoke about, the one who could lead others against the forces of darkness. She was the beacon. She was the Solas.

  The vibration that coursed through her turned into a feeling of warmth, the kind of warmth that she felt whenever her mommy came to her in her dreams. It filled her body and made her feel stronger. It took away her fear and turned her anger at Tim Matheson into pity. She pitied someone who had received so little love in his life that it had turned him into the man who stood before her. But as much as she pitied him, she had had enough of the pain that he caused and it was time that he was stopped.

  Billie vaguely heard her father shouting, and when she looked behind Tim, she saw her father standing there, his gun raised. Tim ignored her father’s shouting and took a step toward her. Billie flinched slightly as the sound of gunfire ripped through the night. Tim staggered forward and then turned, hurling a bolt of darkness at her father, throwing him through the air.

  “No!” Billie screamed as he slammed into a tree and then fell to the snow. She watched him for a moment and was relieved to see her father raise his head, but it looked like he couldn’t move.

  Tim turned back around to face her and grinned evilly at her, and she stared back, her exp
ression neutral as she refused to look away. As she watched him, he began to change. He seemed to grow as a nimbus of shadow surrounded him, slowly increasing in size until the very clearing around Billie seemed to fade away. They continued to stare at each other as the darkness grew until it was just the two of them, standing in some lightless space that seemed to go on forever.

  Everything was replaced by the darkness. There were no sounds from the wind or the others who had been in the clearing with her. The smell of the wintry air and the pine trees that had surrounded her had also disappeared. And she could no longer feel the cold that had surrounded her, only the warmth of the power that now filled her body. But the darkness wasn’t complete. Billie realized that the reason she could see Tim standing several yards from her was that there was a light emanating from her body, casting its somewhat feeble warmth in a wide enough arc that Tim’s evil form was dimly illuminated.

  Tim stared back at Billie, his eyes glinting in the light that she cast. “I never would have guessed that it was you this whole time,” he said softly to her. His voice seemed to slink through the dark, like a snake through the grass, and just as deadly. “You’re the youngest and there’s nothing…special about you. At least, nothing I can see.”

  Billie thought of what her mommy had said to her so many times. She was special. But to Billie, it wasn’t because of the fact that she was the Solas. She was special because she was loved.

  “I won’t let you do these bad things anymore,” Billie told him. “I don’t want to hurt you, but…I won’t let you do it anymore.” Her voice was no louder than his. But where his slunk, hers flew straight as an arrow, with a strength that was reinforced by the power that flowed through her.

  Though she could barely see him, Tim’s presence in the darkness seemed huge. He seemed to be a part of it and the source of it at the same time, the center of its power. His presence filled the darkness, making him seem as if nothing else existed within it but him. But Billie knew that this wasn’t true. She could feel that she was still within the clearing, could feel the presence of the trees around her. She reached out with her senses, and suddenly felt that there were several living things nearby. She didn’t know how she knew what they were, but her mind identified them as the hibernating forms of rodents that slept in the trees on the outskirts of the clearing. Billie could feel the energy of every living thing around her. And she couldn’t just feel them, she felt connected to each of them. Through the trees, she sensed the slow and subtle growth that they experienced each year. Through the rodents that slept the sleep of winter, she felt the rise and fall of each breath, and the slow pulse of tiny hearts. But stronger than anything, she felt the presence of her family nearby.

  Cole was shaking off the effects of the kick to his head that he had received from Tim. Louis was helping their father up from the snow, and the fact that he was at least moving again made Billie sigh with relief. As she sensed her father, she realized that his life energy, though far more powerful than the animals that Billie had sensed nearby, was nowhere near as strong as those of her siblings. Billie sensed another incredibly strong life force nearby, and recognized it immediately as Vaughan. Next to him, there was a presence that she at first mistook for another person, though its life force was far too powerful to be human. As her mind connected with it, she realized with a shock that it was Cody, though his thoughts were not like the other animals that she had sensed.

  You’re not alone, little one, she heard a voice in her head. With another shock, she realized it was Cody’s voice. We stand with you. Take what help you need from us, for each of us give it gladly.

  Billie didn’t know what he meant, but she was glad that he was there with her, glad that she didn’t have to face Tim Matheson alone. She worried for a brief moment that Tim would return his attention to the others, but as she looked at his face, she knew that it was a baseless fear. His complete attention was focused on her, a smile still on his face.

  A wave of pressure suddenly pressed against her, and Billie could feel the dark magic that had been behind it. Tim was trying to push past the glowing energy that surrounded her, but his magic was not strong enough, even though its strength was nearly enough to knock her from her feet. As it washed over her, she could feel the loathsomeness of it and she shivered with the horrid sensation of it. It was hot and cold at the same time, both slimy and yet drier than the winter air around her. It was awful and she hated the very feel of it.

  The power that surged in response to the darkness was like it in many ways and yet completely different. Its coldness was the exhilaration of the first winter snow, its heat the warmth of the sun on the first day of summer, its moisture the cooling feel of morning dew, and its dryness that of the clear Colorado air. It carried with it all of the scents that Billie associated with being outdoors. And where the power of darkness felt suffocating, overpowering and chaotic, the power that supported her was comforting, supportive and ordered. Billie sensed that neither power was truly more powerful than the other, and that they were alike in many ways. But the darkness did not belong in Billie’s world. It had broken through the boundary that kept its own dimension separate from the one in which her world existed. Billie knew that the light would never have sought to leave its own dimension, that it had no desire to conquer the darkness. But the darkness wished more than anything to smother the light and extinguish everything that it nurtured. And while the light had no desire to battle the darkness, neither would it step aside and do nothing while everything that depended upon it was destroyed. The power of light was the unpredictable, yet wonderful power of life itself, and against the chaos and destruction of the darkness, it had been fighting for eons. As the darkness assaulted her again, she realized that its power was merely the absence of light. And while the light merely wanted to fill the darkness with its warmth, the darkness wanted to devour the light, extinguishing it forever.

  Billie saw lines of light running from the other living things around her and knew that this was the source of her power. She knew that if she were to draw too much from any one of those sources of life, that its life would be extinguished. She released her connection with the smaller creatures, fearful that she would not be able to safely use the power they gave. But from the stronger sources of light, she allowed herself to draw more deeply. The trees had much to give, especially the older ones further away from the cave. But the strongest sources of power were her siblings and Cody. She sensed each of them give their life power over to her, and she used it to push against the darkness, driving it back and increasing the strength of the glow that surrounded her. She saw Tim’s face clearly now, and could see the strain there. He hadn’t counted on his adversary being so powerful.

  As the light continued to push against the darkness, the lines between them began to blur. Suddenly, Billie felt an awareness that hadn’t been there before. It reached through the blended edge of the contesting powers and flew straight toward her. She braced herself, sure that this was some new assault by the darkness. But as it hit her, she knew that it was only another connection to a living creature. She could sense that the presence was nearby, though the connection was weak and she could not tell who or what it was. What she could sense was that it was not yet aware of their connection and did not sense her there.

  The darkness continued to push against the light that surrounded Billie, and while she knew that she had a degree of control over the light, she also knew that it was responding on its own to the darkness’ attack. She felt the light subtly change its approach and instead of pushing against the darkness, it redirected it, sending it around Billie and creating a cocoon of light that protected her from the engulfing black energy. The presence that she had felt moments before grew stronger, and she could sense that it was a man, though she still did not recognize who the man was.

  Billie’s attention focused on Tim again and she could see the tension on his face. Suddenly,
the darkness around him surged, pushing the cocoon of light toward her until it was only a few inches from her skin. She felt the light strengthen in response, but she could also feel that it was only barely keeping the darkness from her. She knew that she could pull more power from the living things around her if she wanted to, but she refused to sacrifice any of them for the sake of her own safety. The light seemed to implore her to do just this, giving her the distinct impression that this was the only way she could keep from being destroyed. And it reminded her that she was the only thing keeping the demons from conquering her world. But in Billie’s mind, taking the life of any of those creatures would have made her no better than the demons and the darkness they served.

  The light seemed to sense her decision and she felt its energy morph yet again. As the darkness made another push against the light, a single shaft of pure light broke through the darkness and flew straight for Tim, striking him in the head. Billie expected him to be killed instantly. But as the light touched Tim’s forehead, she felt something crash through her own mind. And then she was aware of nothing.

  Vaughan had caught up to Cody just as he was entering the clearing where Cole, Louis and their father stood. Cole was still in the form of the large black wolf and he huddled against his father and youngest brother, sharing his warmth with both of them. Vaughan’s eyes quickly scanned the clearing, looking for signs of danger. When he saw the broken form of Aidan lying in the snow, he stopped where he was and lowered his sword in sadness. But what he saw in the center of the clearing nearly made him drop his sword.

  An enormous circle of blackness filled the spot between the trees, its complete lack of color reminding Vaughan of what he had read of black holes. The collapsed stars were so powerful that not even light could escape their pull. He couldn’t imagine that their blackness could be any more absolute than what stood in front of him.

  “Vaughan!” his father shouted with relief.

  Vaughan walked the few feet over to where they stood while Cody trotted beside him. “What is that thing?” Vaughan asked.

  “We’re not sure, but inside that thing is Tim Matheson…,” Jerry answered. “…and your sister.”

  Jerry looked down at his middle child and saw his eyes widen as he stared into the darkness.

  “We’ve got to get her out of there,” Vaughan said softly as he looked up at his father.

  He couldn’t believe that his little sister was inside the thing that had covered most of the clearing. The sense of evil that poured from it was so strong that Vaughan wanted to move away, to run in the opposite direction until he couldn’t feel its influence any longer. When he looked at his father and younger brother, he could see the tension in their bodies and knew that they felt it too. Even the large black wolf that was his older brother seemed tense and Vaughan could see Cole’s lip curled back in a snarl, his large white teeth gleaming dully in the moonlight that barely managed to break through the trees. The only one who seemed unaffected by the darkness was Cody, though he watched it intently, his ears tilted toward it and his body motionless.

  “We’ve tried,” Jerry said to Vaughan. “But every time we get near it, it just pushes us back.”

  “We’ve got to do something!” Vaughan shouted.

  “I know, Vaughan,” Jerry told his son as he placed his hand on his shoulder. “But we don’t know what. We need your uncle.”

  Vaughan felt some of the tension in his body release as he felt his father’s touch, but the inner turmoil that the darkness caused was only increased by the fear Vaughan felt for Billie. He hoped that Uncle Harper was nearby and that he would get there soon. Otherwise, he feared that there was nothing they could do for his sister.

  Billie’s awareness returned suddenly and she opened her eyes to a scene that was completely unfamiliar. A man with a cruel face stared back at her, a man she had never seen before. He was sitting in a threadbare old armchair that was next to a scratched and faded end table. On the table sat a lamp that cast its dim light on the lower half of the man’s body, leaving his face partially in shadow. The man took a sip from a glass filled with an amber liquid, sneered at her and then looked away. Billie tried to look around her, but her head and eyes wouldn’t obey her mental command. She felt a moment of panic as the thought that she had been paralyzed crossed her mind. But then her eyes moved on their own, taking in another section of the room. Dingy beige curtains were open over dust-covered windows that looked out to a moonlit sky. There was a strange smell in the room that Billie didn’t recognize at first, until she remembered the cigarette smoke that she occasionally smelled when they went into the city. Her eyes moved back to the man and he stared back at her as he took another sip from his glass.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” the man asked softly. He hadn’t raised his voice, but it contained a quiet menace that would have made Billie flinch if she had had any control over her body.

  Billie’s eyes moved again, and this time they landed on another person in the room. A slightly overweight woman with lank brown hair slouched on a sofa, staring with glazed eyes at the TV set in front of her. The flickering light of the TV threw bizarre shadows across her face, softening its features and then sharpening them so that she looked young one moment and ancient the next. She raised a glass to her mouth that contained the same kind of amber liquid that had been in the surly man’s glass and sipped from it. As if sensing that someone was watching her, she turned to look at Billie, but it looked like she didn’t even see her. Her face hadn’t even registered Billie’s presence, as if she had been looking through her, and her eyes were dull and lifeless.

  Billie had never seen either person before, but her mind somehow recognized both as her parents. It was at that moment that she realized that she was not actually seeing what was taking place before her. She was looking through the eyes of someone else. Her panic was quickly replaced by curiosity as she wondered why she was seeing what she was seeing. She remembered that she had been standing in the clearing before her eyes had opened to the unfamiliar scene before her, facing Tim Matheson as darkness surrounded her.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and her eyes were drawn upward to stare into the emerald-green eyes of a beautiful teenaged girl who smiled down at her. Her smile had a light of its own, transforming her face from beautiful to angelic. It was dusted lightly with freckles and framed by long waves of auburn hair that seemed to catch the light around it. Billie knew as she looked at the face of the girl that the person whose eyes she was looking through loved the girl very much. She was the person’s sister, and her name was Evan. And there was no mistaking the love that Evan felt in return as she stared back.

  Her eyes shifted again to the cruel man sitting in the chair. His eyes softened as they looked at the beautiful girl, and for a moment Billie could see that he loved the girl too, as the woman in the chair did, as everyone who met Evan did. But then the man’s eyes looked at Billie again and the softness disappeared, replaced by the hardness that had been there before.

  “Come on, Timmy,” the girl said softly. “It’s time for bed.”

  Billie finally realized as the girl spoke whose eyes she was looking through - these were the memories of Tim Matheson, memories from his childhood. Billie had no idea why she would be shown the memories of the man who was trying to destroy her and her family, but she sensed that this was somehow important. Something tried to push her from the vision, almost desperate in its attempt to keep her from seeing what she was seeing, which only increased her resolve to see it. She held onto the connection somehow, her mind refusing to lose hold of the picture. Finally, the thing gave up, and Billie thought that she heard a sob come from somewhere in the mind she shared with the juvenile Tim. The panic that had initially filled her left completely as she relaxed and allowed herself to become one with the memories she was seeing.

  The vision faded to black but was quickly replaced by the same living room, tho
ugh during the daytime. The furniture that had seemed merely worn during the night looked positively shabby in the daylight and motes of dust floated through the air, glowing in the sunlight that struggled to shine through the filthy windows. Timmy sat huddled in a corner of the small room as his parents screamed at each other.

  “I know you’ve been sleeping around while I’m at work!” Timmy’s father screamed. He pointed at Timmy as he added, “I know that boy’s not mine! Just look at him!”

  Timmy put his hands over his ears as tears fell down his cheeks and he rocked slowly back and forth, his eyes staring forward but trying not to see the fight in front of him. He hated when his parents fought. They didn’t usually hit each other, unless they had been drinking too much, but he didn’t like the screaming…or the things that they screamed at each other.

  Evan appeared suddenly in front of him and she reached down to pick Timmy up. “Come on, Timmy,” she said softly before kissing him on the cheek. “Let’s go outside and play, okay?”

  Her voice was soft and soothing and though it shouldn’t have drowned out the voices of his screaming parents, it did. Evan’s voice had the purity and clarity of a mountain stream. When she spoke, people stopped to listen – not because there was anything especially interesting about what she said, but because they wanted to hear her voice.

  She carried Timmy outside, and he felt a slight breeze brush across his face. The air was still cool, as spring had only started a few weeks before. But Evan’s skin was warm, smelling clean like soap. And he always felt safe around his sister. She could make him forget all of the yelling and unkind words that were spoken in their house. It was almost as if she could make them disappear.

  The area around their house was flat, with the Rocky Mountains visible in the distance, snowcapped with late spring snow. There were several large, old trees around the house, and Evan moved toward one of them, and toward the rickety and paint-stripped bench that sat beneath it. She sat down with Timmy on her lap and wiped the tears from his face with her sleeve.

  “Don’t you listen to what they say, Timmy,” Evan said to him as she lifted his chin with her finger. “No matter what anyone says, you’re my brother. And nothing and no one can change that, you hear?”

  Timmy nodded and then buried his face in his sister’s chest as she hugged him close. He looked out at the mountains, wondering what it would be like to live there. They had only left their small town in eastern Colorado once, and it had been a day trip to the mountains. He had remembered the cold mountain air that smelled so different from the air around their house. He had loved it there.

  The sound of breaking glass shattered his moment of fantasy, and the screaming voices of his parents drifted out to where they sat. He hugged his sister closer and she began rocking him gently as her beautiful voice lifted in the clear notes of his favorite song - a song that she had written for him.

  I’ll stay here beside you

  ‘til dreams come and take you

  And every night after

  Hold you in my arms

  Your fears will not touch you

  I’ll keep them at bay

  I’ll take all your worries

  And kiss them away

  I will never leave you

  Forever will I stay

  You have nothing to fear

  Because I love you my dear

  And the screaming voices of his parents and the terrible words they were saying disappeared as Evan’s voice and the words that she had written for him allowed him to drift off to sleep in her arms.

  The next memory that flashed through Timmy’s mind was the one of the day that his world had begun its spiraling descent into despair.

  He was older in the memory, twelve or thirteen, though he couldn’t remember exactly which. He had tried so hard to block as much of the memory from his mind as he could, in the hope that his mind would find a way to heal itself and the hole that had been left in his heart. But the only things that had disappeared were the irrelevant details of that day. The pain and loss that he had felt had not only remained, they had grown stronger.

  He was sitting on the couch, staring at the TV even though it was switched off. His mind was numb to nearly everything around him, though he could still hear the deep voice of the police officer as he stood in their living room.

  “I’m sorry, Joe,” the officer said as he spoke to Timmy’s father, his voice full of sympathy. “There was nothing we could do. That drunken fool ran the red light and slammed into Evan’s car. She died on impact. They…they told me there would have been no suffering.”

  Evan had been driving home from her job at the local diner the night before and had been killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light. The drunk had been passing through town after getting off the highway at the wrong exit. The only thing that had made his childhood bearable had died because a drunk driver had gotten lost and passed through town the moment that she had been leaving work. Had Evan left five minutes earlier or later, she would have still been alive. Timmy looked over at his mother, looking for some sign of reaction from her, but she stared forward numbly as he had been. What little life had been left in his mother’s eyes was now gone.

  He wanted to cry, wanted to scream at the officer who had told him that Evan was dead, wanted to do…something. But he couldn’t. He felt like his life had ended instead of his sister’s, and when he looked over at his father and caught him looking back at him with a strange look in his eyes, he knew that his father was wishing just such a thing had happened. He would have gladly exchanged the life of his son for Evan. And if Timmy had been able to give his life in exchange for his sister’s, he would have.

  “We need you or Connie to come down to the morgue and identify the…identify her,” the officer said as he looked down at the ground.

  Timmy’s father looked over at his wife for a moment and then back at the policeman. “I’ll come down as soon as I get cleaned up,” his father answered. “Thank you for coming out to tell us, Jonny.”

  “I’m truly sorry Joe, Connie,” the officer said. “We all loved that girl.”

  Timmy’s father didn’t answer, just nodded as the officer turned around and walked out the front door. As the door slammed shut, Timmy couldn’t help think that it was closing on any chance that he had for happiness.

  Billie’s connection with Tim was suddenly disrupted and her awareness was brought back to the clearing. She saw the look of sneering contempt on his face as he glared back at her, but this time she saw something else in his eyes. She saw the sadness and confusion that had been a part of him for so many years. It was the same sadness and confusion that she had seen in her own eyes once when she had been looking in a mirror after having a dream about her mommy. At that moment, Tim’s eyes were the eyes of a child – a child who felt scared and alone.

  Billie looked back at Tim as he continued to try to use dark magic to break down her barrier of light, and she felt sympathy for him. What he had done to her and her family had been inexcusable, and she had wondered with the innocence of a child how anyone could become so evil. And now she understood.

  A voice in the light whispered that there was more that she needed to see. She sensed that there was something else in Tim’s mind, something that didn’t belong there, though she didn’t know what it was. And then the connection with Tim was reestablished. This time, he didn’t fight against it at all. Billie knew that he wanted her to see, wanted someone to know his story.

  Tim stood on the edge of a cliff, facing a huge series of canyons that seemed to go on for miles. He was sixteen, and had run away again for the fourth time that year after a fight with his father over some chore that he had forgotten to do. His father never hit him, but the words that he screamed at his son on a regular basis had grown increasingly cruel as Tim had gotten older. After Evan had died, he had never touched a drop of alcohol again, and for a brief moment, Tim had hoped that his father’s
inexplicable hatred toward him would dissipate. Instead, the bitterness and grief that his father had felt at losing Evan had grown and been directed at Tim.

  Tim’s mother had died just a few years after Evan, literally drinking herself to death. His father had been convinced that they needed a change, so they had moved to a town in the mountains called Evergreen. They had found a small apartment, and Tim’s father had found a job nearby. Their financial stability had improved a great deal and he had bought Tim a used car, which many people at his school thought was a generous gesture. But Tim knew the truth. He had bought the car so that he wouldn’t have to spend time alone with his son in a car. And their relationship with each other had only grown more contentious as the years went by.

  They had fought again that day, and Tim had had enough. He had gotten into his car and headed down Interstate 70, not sure where he was going. When he finally stopped, he was almost through the mountains. He stopped at a lookout, the only one that had been empty of tourists and travelers.

  As he stared at the stunningly beautiful vista, he decided that he had had enough. He no longer wanted the life that he had been given, and couldn’t think of any way to change it other than to leave it. He moved to the edge of the cliff, ready to jump and to finally end his pain.

  It doesn’t have to be this way.

  Tim nearly fell forward in surprise as the voice entered his mind. It had been a sympathetic voice, yet somehow forceful at the same time.

  You don’t have to do this, the voice said. I can help you. I can give you the power to change your life, to force your father to see you differently…to treat you differently.

  The voice was seductive, and Tim felt the hair on his arms stand up as a thrill of ecstasy ran up his spine. A part of his mind screamed out in warning that what he was hearing and feeling was not right. It told him that no one could fix his problems but him. He knew that the easiest ways to fix those problems was to jump.

  But as the voice had spoken of his father, he had felt a brief desire for revenge against the man that had made his entire life miserable. It was unlike him. He was not a mean-spirited person, unlike his father. He had always had a generous and gentle heart, like his sister Evan. And in that brief moment of weakness, when he had wanted to exact some kind of vengeance against his father, something had entered his mind.

  It had started to influence his thoughts immediately, forcing him to think of every slight, real or imagined, that anyone had ever made to him. The shy, quiet child that had never felt a desire to harm anyone suddenly wanted to make everyone pay for any harm they had ever caused him. He stepped back from the cliff and got into his car, turning it back around and heading home to Evergreen.

  His life changed after that day, and it had started with his father. He returned home and his father immediately started yelling at him. Instead of stoically bearing it as he always had, this time he grabbed his father by his neck and pinned him against the wall. His strength had somehow grown greater and he had nearly killed his father. He stared back at Tim in shock and fear at the murderous rage he saw in his son’s eyes. And from that day on, he had left Tim alone.

  But the change hadn’t only affected his relationship with his father. His interactions with everyone had become like a game to him, a game in which he used persuasion and coercion to get whatever he wanted. He quickly became the bully at his high school, terrorizing many of the students who were too afraid to stand up to him, and too afraid to report him. And as time went by, the things he did, the way he went about getting the things he wanted became darker and darker.

  The first time he killed someone, it had been because they had tried to fight back when he was trying to steal something from them. It had been a middle-aged man that he later found out had a wife and child. For a moment, Tim had felt guilty for what he had done. But the voice in his head had told him that he had only done it because the man had fought back. The voice absolved him of his sin as surely as any priest in a confessional would have. The voice always told him that his actions when he hurt others were necessary, convinced him that they were really the fault of the person he was hurting. Before long, he believed the voice unquestioningly.

  By the time he killed his father in his sleep, he had felt nothing other than satisfaction. His father’s life insurance policy at work had been paid out to Tim and it had allowed him to travel the world for several years, increasing the number and cruelty of the dark deeds he performed. His unusual strength had grown to include the ability to manipulate matter with a kind of dark magic and he believed himself to be unstoppable.

  Finally, the voice had told him that there was something he must do. A power had been discovered in his old hometown. It was a power that wanted to destroy the voice in his mind and all of the gifts that it had given him. The voice needed him to stop that power or it could no longer provide Tim with the gifts that had given him all of the things he wanted. He had accepted the mission of the voice in his mind and returned to Colorado to destroy the power, and was determined to let nothing get in the way of doing that.

  And yet a part of him still rebelled against everything he had done and continued to do. It was the gentle heart of his childhood that knew what he was doing was wrong, and tried to convince him to stop. It was also the voice of Evan in his head - knowing how disappointed she would have been. But the voice in his mind, the one that had invaded his mind so many years before on the rim of the canyon as he had contemplated suicide, had grown too strong to resist. He no longer had the ability to make his own decisions. He had become a puppet to the voice.

  As the connection with Tim was broken again, Billie realized at last what she must do. The only way to stop Tim was to help him. For the first time, Billie reached out and took control of the power of light that surrounded her. It obeyed her instantly, sensing what she meant to do. She gathered it about her and then hurled it at Tim, but instead of trying to injure him, she had it surround him, cutting off his connection to the darkness before he realized what she was doing. Tim screamed out and fell to his knees, writhing in apparent agony, but Billie refused to release the shield she had placed around him.

  The darkness continued to push against the light surrounding Tim, trying desperately to pierce it and return to his body. But everywhere the darkness flew, the light was there to meet it, all the while maintaining its shield around him. It pushed against the darkness, keeping it away as if the two were polar opposites. Finally, the darkness seemed to give up its assault on the light and began to gather in upon itself.

  As Billie watched, the clearing became visible again as the darkness coalesced into a column of obsidian that was so dense it looked solid. It seemed to be searching the clearing for something, and when it finally faced Billie it seemed to have found what it searched for. There was a primal scream of anger and frustration before it hurtled straight toward her, where she stood no longer protected by the light that still surrounded Tim. Billie raised her arms as she prepared for it to end her life, but before her eyes shut she saw something move in front of her. She opened them again and was both shocked and relieved by what she saw.

  Uncle Harper stood in front of her, his spear held in front of him and his body glowing brightly. The darkness slammed into him and he nearly buckled under its onslaught, though somehow managed to stand against it. It tried to break past him and get to Billie, but Harper wouldn’t let it. The glow that surrounded him managed to keep it at bay. Billie was dismayed to see the numerous wounds that covered her uncle’s body and could tell from the slump of his shoulders that he was exhausted, but he refused to surrender. Finally, the darkness seemed to give up and with another scream of frustration it moved off to the side. Billie ran to her uncle as he sunk to his knees, dropping his spear into the snow beside him.

  A second scream, this one sounding strangely human mixed with something unearthly made Billie and her uncle turn their head in surprise to where Tim l
ay writhing in the snow. He grew very still all of a sudden, and a black mist slowly rose from his body. A second scream pierced the night, and this time Billie and her uncle could see that it had come from the mist and not from Tim. It hovered over Tim’s prone form for a moment, as if contemplating a return to his body. But the light surrounding Tim pulsed brightly, making it clear that this would not be allowed. With a final scream, the mist dissipated until it was gone completely.

  Billie helped her uncle to stand as a feeling of dread suddenly flowed across the clearing. The feeling was so strong that Uncle Harper and Billie both fell to their knees again; both struggling to raise their heads to see what was the cause of the feeling. Billie looked around the clearing and saw her father and Louis down on all fours, struggling for breath. Even Cole in his wolf-form was crouched on all fours, snarling and crying at the same time. Cody did not seem to be cowed by the dread feeling, but he stood in front of the others near him, his hackles raised as he growled fiercely at the center of the clearing. Billie turned her head to look in that direction and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  A figure stood where the darkness had fled to just moments before. It was a figure of such evil that Billie could look at it for no more than a few seconds before she would have to look away for a moment. It had the vague shape of a man, cloaked in the very night itself. The hood of its cloak was up and where a face should have been, Billie had seen only a pale smudge with two pits of shadow where its eyes were. Darkness rolled from it in waves, passing through the clearing like fast-moving clouds.

  “What is that, Uncle Harper?” Billie whispered as she looked over at him. She saw the look of determination on his face, but he was still nearly as affected as she was by the evil creature.

  “I don’t know, Billie,” Harper answered. “It’s something I’ve never seen before.”

  This creature before them was unlike anything Harper had ever faced, and he had never heard of any of his people facing such a thing. He knew nothing of any kind of demon hierarchy, but if there was such a thing, the creature before them would be some sort of lord or king. And if there was an embodiment of the evil that the demons represented, it was standing before them.

  Billie looked at the creature again and saw with horror that it was slowly walking toward the spot where she kneeled next to her uncle. The menace in its stride was clear and so was its intent. It was coming for Billie. Uncle Harper groaned with the effort of standing and moved in front of Billie, though she could see from the way he stumbled that he was ready to pass out. Billie knew that he didn’t stand a chance against the creature. She knew that she had to do something, but didn’t know what.

  The creature continued its slow march toward Billie and her uncle, and as she watched its approach, she noticed that the darkness that surrounded it and rolled from it in waves was coming from the cave. She remembered suddenly what her original mission had been, what her mommy had told her she must do. She looked at the cave, wondering how she could destroy it quickly enough to stop the creature from reaching her and Uncle Harper. As she stared at it, the strangest thought popped into her head. She remembered the small snow cave she had made once with Louis. They had played raucously in and around it for nearly an hour and it had held its form the entire time. But then Louis had grown angry at her for something and had kicked the top of the entrance in frustration. The entire cave had collapsed in on itself. She wondered if the same thing would work with this cave.

  Billie gathered the remaining power of light that surrounded her, though she could immediately feel that it had diminished. She hoped that it would be enough, since she still refused to use any more of the life energies around her. She picked a spot on the top of the cave’s opening and willed the light’s energy at it. It flew from her, straight as an arrow at its target. The creature screamed in rage, recognizing instantly what she meant to do. In futile anger it threw a wave of force at Billie and her uncle, throwing them through the air to land several yards back to land in the snow. But it was too late.

  Billie raised her head in time to see the bolt of light crash into the top of the cave’s opening, shattering the rock there and sending sprays of stone in every direction. There was a rumbling of a few seconds and then the entire cave collapsed into a pile of rubble. A second scream of rage tore through the clearing, this one so loud and piercing that Billie covered her ears and cried out in fear. The scream lasted for several seconds and then ceased abruptly.

  When Billie raised her head again, the creature was standing where it had been seconds before. She could feel the rage coming from it, and called the power of light back to her. What remained was feeble and she knew it would be no match for the creature. But she stepped in front of her uncle as he fell to his knees, hoping to buy him and the others in the clearing enough time to escape.

  The creature took a step forward and a sudden wind blew through the clearing, whipping its cloak back and forth and nearly knocking Billie over. It blew in the direction of the cave, and when Billie looked over at it, she could see that the wind was actually blowing into the rocks that had been the cave, as if it had become a giant vacuum. The wind intensified, and Billie felt her uncle pull her down next to him. She looked around the clearing, and saw her father and brothers huddled against each other next to Cody. Tim had recovered, but was laying face-down in the snow, his head raised as he stared at the creature of darkness in horror.

  Billie looked at the creature again and could see that it was struggling against the wind, its body immobile as its feet slid in the snow, heading slowly toward the cave. The wind grew even stronger, and the creature was finally lifted from its feet, its cloak spreading out like wings which caught the wind and increased the speed of its flight. It slammed against the pile of rocks where the cave had been and its cloak was quickly sucked into the cracks between the rocks. Billie caught a brief, horrific glance of pale skin covered in scales and patches of black fur as the creature struggled against the force that was holding it against the rocks. The creature screamed in frustration, but this scream sounded like a chorus of hundreds of horrific voices, snarls and screeches. Finally, it dissolved into black smoke that was quickly sucked into the cracks between the stones. Within seconds, all that remained was a steaming pile of rocks where the cave had been.

  Billie looked over at her uncle, but his eyes were closed. She had a moment of panic until she saw the breath steaming from his nose and mouth. She gently pushed away from him and stood up, staring at the collapsed cave in shock. When she heard snow crunching behind her she turned around, expecting to see her father or one of her brothers. Instead, she saw Tim Matheson standing near her, staring down at her with an unreadable expression on his face. She looked up at him, tensing in expectation of some kind of attack.

  Instead, he smiled down at her with tears in his eyes and said, “Thank you.”

  The relief in his voice was obvious. Billie had freed him from the darkness in his mind. She opened her mouth to respond, but was shocked into silence as a bright silver light burst through Tim’s chest and something warm and wet splashed across her face. Billie saw Tim’s eyes widen in response and her hands flew to her mouth in horror as the silver disappeared. Tim fell to his knees as he continued to stare at Billie in surprise and then fell backward into the snow. When he fell, Billie could see Vaughan standing behind him, his bright silver sword smeared with Tim’s blood.

  Billie sobbed as she ran to Tim’s side, ignoring Vaughan’s cries for her to stay back. Tim’s eyes were searching frantically as she kneeled beside him, but when they landed on her they seemed to calm. She took his hand and he smiled before coughing lightly. Blood poured from his mouth and Billie felt him squeeze her hand. She squeezed it back as tears rolled down her cheeks, and Billie saw Tim’s eyes soften with sadness. He reached up and gently brushed one of the tears from her cheek, resting his hand there for a moment. Billie thought of Tim’s memories of his sister a
nd how they had always soothed him. And she started singing.

  It was the song that Billie had heard Evan singing to her little brother, the song that she had written for him and that always made him forget his fears. Tim smiled again at her as he listened to the words of the song. She knew that her voice could not compare to Evan’s, but she could tell from Tim’s expression that it didn’t matter. His lips moved in a silent thank you before he closed his eyes. He breathed only twice more and then went completely still. Billie’s tears continued to fall as she leaned in and kissed Tim once on the cheek. The sorrow that she felt for Tim was tempered by the fact that she knew he was finally free – free from the pain of what he had done and the suffering he had caused in others.

  “I thought he was attacking you,” Vaughan said softly.

  He watched his sister crying over the man who had caused so much pain for his family and their friends and couldn’t understand why his death would cause such sorrow. He looked down at his sword and for the first time noticed the blood that covered it – the blood of another human being. Vaughan dropped the sword in horror, as if it had suddenly turned into a snake. He had taken the life of another human being. Killing demons hadn’t had the same effect on him, but this was different somehow. He wanted to vomit, but managed to push the feeling down.

  “I’m so sorry, Billie,” he said impotently to his sister.

  Billie heard the pain in her brother’s voice and looked up at him and smiled. “It’s okay, Vaughan,” she told him. “It’s what he wanted.” As Billie said it, she knew it was true. Tim had wanted his pain to stop for years and it finally had.

  Billie stood up and took Vaughan’s hand, leading him over to where Uncle Harper lay unconscious in the snow. Billie released her brother’s hand and knelt next to her uncle, calling the power of life to her again. She was careful to only draw enough to pour some of it into her uncle, healing his injuries. He opened his eyes and smiled at her as he stood up, all signs of injury gone. Billie then moved to where the others sat in the snow, healing any injuries they had and taking away their exhaustion. But there was one in the clearing who she couldn’t heal.

  Billie walked over to where the lifeless body of Aidan lay in the snow, her broken neck bending her head at an unnatural angle. She kneeled down and then kissed Aidan’s muzzle, crying the entire time. It was the heart-wrenching crying that only a child could do, and everyone in the clearing felt her sorrow. The dog had done everything it could to protect Billie and her siblings, and had finally given her life in their defense. She stroked the fur behind Aidan’s ears as she stared at the brown eyes that could no longer see, until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  She looked up and saw her uncle looking down at her with sympathy in his eyes. “We need to get back to the others, Billie,” he told her. “They might need our help.”

  Billie stared back at him in silence for a moment before nodding. “We can’t leave her here like this,” she said as she looked at the peaceful face of the dog. “We can’t leave either of them like this.”

  Harper looked over at Tim’s body and then back at his niece. He didn’t know what had taken place between Billie and Tim that would have made such an impact on her, but he didn’t question it. “Okay,” he said to her. “We’ll come back and bury them here. Will that be alright?”

  Billie nodded as she answered, “We’ll bury them together.” She stood up and took her uncle’s hand as she told him, “Let’s go check on everybody else.”

  As they walked away from the clearing, Billie looked back – first at Aidan’s body and then at Tim’s. She thought of the pain that the demons had caused since they had invaded her world, of everything her uncle had told her of the people they had hurt. She didn’t know if she had stopped them by what she had done, but if she hadn’t she vowed that she would never rest until she did.

  Cody came running up to them suddenly and stood in front of Harper, staring up at him expectantly.

  “What is it, Uncle Harper?” Vaughan asked. “What’s he saying?”

  Harper didn’t answer Vaughan. Instead, he looked up at Jerry, who had met them at the edge of the clearing. “Something’s happened to Larry,” he told his brother-in-law. “We need to get back to the ring of stones as soon as possible.”

  Jerry could see from the look on Harper’s face that he wasn’t telling him everything that Cody had said, but he could tell that it wasn’t good. He was grateful for the energy that Billie had given each of them. It made it possible for them to jog rather than walk back to where the others waited. Jerry only hoped that they weren’t too late.