But the secrets they sought still eluded them.
They had failed. The information they had nearly killed to obtain had been denied them. But it was the opening needed. It was the first crack in an impenetrable shield that Brandenmore and Engalls had kept around themselves. It was a shield that would be further damaged by the death of one man.
H. R. Alonzo.
The Reverend Alonzo.
He waddled along the forested path now, a flashlight in his fat little hand, his face sweating, glistening beneath the moonlight. He waddled like a duck, tromped through the forest like a fat little lamb to the slaughter.
How very apt.
“Insane is what this is,” he muttered, the sound of his voice carrying clearly through the night. “Son of a bitch, ordering me to a meeting like this,” he continued to mumble aloud. “As though it would matter if we met at the house.”
The house. It wasn’t a house. It was hell. It was a place of pain, of blood and of death. It was where it had begun. And now the ending was within sight.
The night was a whisper of cool spring air. The trees swayed with the breeze, a ripple of water could be heard as it played along the stones and boulders of a centuries-old stream. The scent of fresh, clean water filled the air, almost washing away the smell of sweating human flesh and an evil, rotting mind.
Alonzo. His vast fortune supported the efforts of the Genetics Council. His rhetoric argued against the humanity of the Breeds, argued for their imprisonment, their death.
“Come alone,” Alonzo continued to snarl as he made his way to the small clearing he had been directed to. “As though it matters now.”
Had it mattered then, so many years ago? Had it really mattered where Alonzo had met his cohorts? They had thought it had. As though it had been some secret little game. Meeting here, in this clearing, where the blood of Breeds had soaked the ground more than once. Where bodies were still buried. Where the screams of Breed children could still be heard. Where one agonized scream still echoed through the mountains.
Alonzo huffed and puffed, his light wavering as he reached the clearing and slowed to a stop.
Right there. How many times had he stood right there, beneath the breadth of a huge oak, and stared into the clearing with a smirk? Chuckled gleefully at the screams that echoed around him. Participated in the torture and in the pain of creatures that hungered only for freedom.
“So where the hell are you?” Alonzo called out. “I don’t have time for games tonight, Phillip.”
“Phillip doesn’t play games here anymore.”
Alonzo’s obese, foul body swung around. His florid features reflected first surprise, then shock.
“Who the f**k are you and what do you want?”
There was a hint of fear now. That provided the needed edge of satisfaction.
“I’m the past, Reverend,” he was informed softly as the satisfaction and pleasure grew. It always did, when the prey finally knew fear itself. They had once played here, and now they could play again.
Playtime. A smile came and went. What was play? What Breed could answer that question or understand that ideal?
Alonzo’s beady little eyes narrowed. “How do you know about this place? Phillip would never have told you.”
“Phillip has actually told me many things.” She shrugged negligently. “Tell me, Reverend, do you still enjoy playing with death?”
Oh yes, death was returning to these mountains. Blood would stain the ground here once again, and it would begin with HR.
The fat little bastard’s face paled. “Phillip wouldn’t dare have me killed. You better check your orders, because he knows what will happen if anything happens to me.”
Ah yes, the ever present threat.
“Yes, Phillip knows well what will happen.” A breath of a promise, of death, filled the air.
There was no secret there, not because Phillip or his insane little wife had told it, simply because the Deadly Dozen, as they had once called themselves, always protected their own asses against one another. That fact had been learned the first time the blood of a member had been shed. The others should be worried by now. HR should have been concerned enough to use caution in coming here.
Tonight, death would lose another member of its evil little group.
Alonzo could sense it, it was there in the waves of fear beginning to fill the air. His heartbeat echoed in the night, the stench of his cowardice wrapped around the senses.
“You’re not going to kill me.” The bastard tried to bluff. He should know better.
Canines flashed in the night. Alonzo’s gaze locked on the sight as his heavy jowls trembled.
“You were here. You smiled.” Agony twisted and bloomed in colors of red. “You laughed as they died. I’ll laugh now as you die.”
Forcing back the pain didn’t always work. It was always there, always spearing the soul like a poison-tipped sword as the voice weakened and became hoarse.
Alonzo swallowed; a whimper nearly left his throat.
“You’ll never get away with it.” Terror was thick in the mountains once more, but this time, it wasn’t a Breed’s terror. It was just a human’s. A human of no worth.
“Perhaps getting away with it isn’t my aim.”
“You’ll destroy the Breeds,” Alonzo charged furiously as he began to back away. “My death won’t go unnoticed.”
“They don’t even know who I am, why should I care about them?” It was a hiss of fury, of hatred. “Let them deal with it however they will. You are no longer an equation in their battle.”
He stumbled, then righted himself. His eyes widened. His face went white.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“I did the others. The doctor, the lawyer, the sheriff and the mayor, the police officer.” The words were a sigh of pleasure, almost of ecstasy. “It was good, Alonzo. I tasted their fear, I feasted on their blood. And it was good.”
He froze. Like a deer caught in the brilliant rays of a headlight.
“You,” he breathed. “You’re the one that killed them.”
A chuckle filled the night. The last Breed they could have suspected. It was perfect. It was just perfect revenge. Just a study in exacting revenge.
“It was I.” It was a soul stained with blood, with death, with the need for more. “And now it’s your turn.”
His head shook. His body shook. What was the saying? Like a bowlful of Jell-O? It wiggled and trembled and swayed with terror.