Turk’s face was drained of color.
“Find a way to get him here. To me, Turk. Bring him to me. Then it will be just the three of us running things.”
“What do you mean, three?”
Penny smiled and with Diana’s lips said, “You, me, and Diana.”
Howard smelled them before he saw them. The coyotes smelled of rotten meat.
He quelled the urge to run in panic when Pack Leader slouched onto the road ahead of him. He couldn’t outrun a coyote. But the coyotes hadn’t attacked anyone in a long time. The rumor was that they had been warned off by Sam. That was what people said, that Sam had laid down the law and threatened to go medieval on the whole coyote population if they messed with anyone.
The coyotes were scared of Bright Hands. Everyone knew that.
“Hey,” Howard said with all the bluster he could summon, “I’m a good friend of Bright Hands. You know who I mean? Sam. So I’m just going to walk on.”
“Pack hungry,” the coyote said in his slurred, high-pitched, mangled speech.
“Hah, very funny,” Howard said. His mouth was dry. His heart was pounding. He swung his heavy pack down. “I don’t have much food, just a boiled artichoke. You can have that.”
He reached into the pack, fumbling noisily among empty bottles, searching for the feel of metal. He found it, closed his hand around the heavy knife, and pulled it out. He waved it in front of him and yelled, “Don’t do anything stupid!”
“Coyote not kill human,” Pack Leader said.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’d better not. My boy Bright Hands will burn you mangy dogs down!”
“Coyote eat. Not kill.”
Howard tried a couple of times to speak but the words would not come. His bowels were suddenly watery. His legs were shaking so hard he feared they would collapse. “You can’t eat me without killing me,” he said finally.
“Pack leader not kill. He kill.”
“He?”
Howard felt a prickling on the back of his neck. Slowly, horror draining the strength from his muscles, he turned.
“Drake,” he whispered.
“Yeah. Hi, there, Howard. How’s it going?”
“Drake.”
“Yeah, we did that already.” Drake unwrapped the whip hand. He looked more wolfish than the coyotes that now emerged from cover to form a circle around Howard.
“Drake, man, no, no. No, no, no. You don’t want to do this, Drake, man.”
“It’ll only hurt for a while,” Drake said.
His whip snapped. It was like fire on Howard’s neck.
He turned and ran in sheer panic, but Drake’s whip caught his leg and sent him facedown into the dirt. He looked up to see one of the coyotes looking at him with greedy intensity and licking his muzzle.
“I’m useful!” Howard cried. “You must be up to something; I can help you!”
Drake straddled him and slowly, almost gently wrapped his tentacle arm around Howard’s throat and started squeezing.
“You might be useful,” Drake allowed. “But my dogs gotta eat.”
Howard’s eyes bulged. His whole head felt like it would explode from the pressure of blood. His lungs sucked on nothing.
Mohamed saw the circle of coyotes.
He ducked quickly behind a scruffy bush that wouldn’t really hide him if anyone was looking. But it was all the cover he could find. He had come across a slight rise in the road and, reaching the top, was practically on the coyotes before he saw them.
Then he realized he was seeing more than just coyotes. Drake.
Mohamed took a sharp breath, and the ears of the closest coyote—maybe a hundred yards away—flicked.
There was something … no, someone … on the ground. Drake had his whip hand around someone’s neck. Mohamed couldn’t see who it was.
Mohamed had a pistol. And a knife. But everyone knew Drake couldn’t be killed with a gun. If he tried to play hero, he would just get himself killed, too.
There was no right answer. No way to stop what he was witnessing. There was only surviving.
Mohamed backed away, crawling like a crab on hands and knees. Once he was out of sight of the bloody horror he got to his feet and ran back toward the lake.
He ran and ran without stopping. He had never run so far or so fast in his life. He reached the blessed, blessed lake, pushed past kids who said a pleasant, “How’s it going?” and ran for the houseboat.
Sam was on the deck, sitting with Astrid. Mohamed registered the fact that he had set out to tell Albert she was here and realized how completely he didn’t care about telling Albert anything.
He leaped aboard the boat, spun as though half-convinced the coyotes had followed him, and fell panting and gasping on the deck. Sam and Astrid both came to him. Astrid pressed a water bottle to his parched lips.
“What is it, Mo?” Sam asked.
Mohamed couldn’t answer at first. His thoughts were a tangle of images and emotions. He knew he should think about controlling the situation, at least find some kind of way to put himself in a better light, but he didn’t have the heart for it.
“Drake.” Mohamed gasped. “Coyotes.”
Sam was suddenly very still. His voice dropped in volume and register. “Where?”
“I was … on the road toward PB.”
“Drake and the coyotes?” Astrid prompted.
“They were… They had someone. On the ground. I couldn’t see who. I wanted to stop them!” Mohamed said this last in a pleading voice. “I had a gun. But… I…”