And then, though the voice had not told him which way to go, though he could see nothing in the pitch blackness of the barn, Michael began moving through the darkness, knowing with the passage of every second that he was coming closer to Nathaniel. It was as if Nathaniel was reaching out to him, guiding him, showing him the way through the darkness with his own eyes.
And Michael's headache was suddenly gone.
He drifted down the aisle between the rows of stalls, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness. Then he paused. Though he could still see nothing, he reached out a hand, and immediately touched a door handle. Lifting the latch, he pulled the door open and stepped into the tack room that lay beyond. He was close now, very close. He could feel Nathaniel's presence.
"Here," the voice of Nathaniel told him. "You can see from here." Michael crossed the room, his senses vibrating with a strange kind of awareness, a feeling of sharing himself with another, and sharing that other as well. Then he was standing near the outer wall of the barn, and Nathaniel was with him.
"Closer," Nathaniel urged him, his voice no longer filling the little room, but seeming to emanate from inside Michael's own head. "Stand closer, and see with me."
There was a tiny gap in the barn siding, and Michael pressed his eye against it. The moonlight outside seemed to have grown brighter, and suddenly Michael could see clearly across the fields to the cottonwoods along the river.
And near the cottonwoods, he could see the lights. Three of them, oil lanterns, their wicks turned low, set in a triangle. And inside the triangle, the form of a man.
"Who is it?" Michael whispered in the darkness.
"My father."
"What's he doing?" he asked.
"Do not speak," Nathaniel's voice commanded. "If he knows you are with me, he will try to kill you."
Michael fell silent, knowing deep within himself that the words, though incomprehensible, were the truth. He waited. In a moment the strangely toneless voice came to him again. "I have been calling you. Why did you not come before?"
Michael was silent, but his mind was working, remembering.
His father's funeral, when he had seen this barn, seen something here that no one else had seen.
Watching the barn from the window of the room that would be his, knowing what it looked like inside, though he'd never been here.
Night before last, when he'd come to the barn, knowing that there was something waiting for him.
And now, tonight.
When finally he spoke, he spoke only within himself. "I couldn't hear you. Did you call me tonight?"
And the answer came back, also from within. "Yes. I saw him in the field and felt you near. I called you here so he would not see you."
"But what's he doing?"
"Sending one of us away. One of us was born tonight, and he is sending him away. Just as he sent me away. He does that to all of us… if he can." And in those words that sounded only in his head, Michael could feel a terrible loneliness. Then the voice came again. "I have been waiting for you a long time."
"Why?"
"I need you. And you need me. We are alone, Michael. There is no one else. Do you never feel the loneliness?"
Michael trembled in the darkness, but then Nathaniel touched him, and he felt calm again.
"Will you take me outside?"
Michael frowned in the darkness. "Now?"
"Yes."
"He'll see us."
"It does not matter. He cannot hurt us, if we are together. He hurt that one, though."
"Who?"
"The one who was born tonight. I felt it coming, and called out to it. It was a little boy."
"There was a foal…" Michael whispered, then fell silent. Once again, that strange vision flashed into his head, only now the faces were clear, and he could see what was in Dr. Potter's hands.
"Not a foal," Nathaniel's voice came. "A boy. A little boy. But he knew that the boy was mine so he brought him here. Now he is burying him. Look."
Michael gazed out into the night, but the light seemed to have faded slightly, and he couldn't see exactly what was happening.
"Take me out there," Nathaniel's voice echoed in Michael's head. "Take me out there, so we can kill him."
"K-kill him? Why?"
"Because he kills. It is for us to punish him, Michael. He hates us, and he fears us, and he will kill us. If he finds us, and if we are alone."
"But-"
The oddly disembodied voice seemed not to notice Michael's interruption. "He does not know about you yet, but if he finds out about you, you will die. Unless you stay with me. Stay with me, Michael."
Michael turned and for the first time saw Nathaniel's face, lit softly by the moonlight filtering through the weathered siding of the barn.
It seemed to be his own face-the same dark blue eyes and wavy brown hair, the same angular cheeks and strong jaw. But the blue eyes were without light, and Nathaniel's skin was pale, almost translucent, like his father's had been at the funeral, and his face was as expressionless as the voice Michael had been hearing in his head. "How long have you been here?" Michael asked. "A long time," Nathaniel told him, his voice resonating softly through the large, empty barn. "As long as I can remember. Will you take me outside?"
"Why can't you go out by yourself?" Michael asked with no note of challenge in his words.
Nathaniel stared at him for a long time, his dark blue eyes cold and empty. "I cannot do that," he whispered. "I can never go out by myself. Only with you, or with the others if I find them. Not by myself. It would not be safe."
"Why not?" Though the words formed in his mind,
Michael didn't utter them. Nevertheless, Nathaniel answered.
"Only together will we be safe, Michael. Alone we have no power. Alone, they can destroy us. If they find out about me, I will die, and you will die. Unless we are together. Remember that, Michael."
Michael frowned in the darkness of the barn, trying to fathom the meaning of the words, the odd, almost chantlike cadence of the flat-toned speech. Then, as he turned away and peered once more through the crack of the siding, Nathaniel spoke again.
"Never speak of what you saw tonight. If they ask you, tell them what they want to hear. But do not speak the truth. If you tell them the truth, if you tell them of me, you will die."
The moonlight seemed to be fading faster now, and in the distance Michael could barely make out the glimmering light of the lanterns. He strained his eyes against the darkness, and became aware once more that his head was aching. "I-I can't see," he said, turning questioningly to Nathaniel.
But Nathaniel was gone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By the time Michael left the barn, the moon had disappeared below the horizon, and the night had taken on a blackness that made the last of the lanterns gleam with an almost unnatural brilliance. Michael carefully replaced the bar on the barn door, then with Shadow beside him, moved slowly through the darkness, his hands extended, feeling for the barbed wire fence.
He found it. Holding the strands apart as far as he could, he put his left leg through the fence, then bent down to duck under the top wire.
A barb snagged the flannel of his shirt, and Michael reflexively tried to jerk free. The barb worked further into the material. He reached back with his right hand, feeling for the wire. A barb pierced his skin, sinking into the ball of his thumb. Suppressing a cry, he yanked his hand back. Shadow whined sympathetically and tried to lick the injured hand, but Michael brushed him aside and inserted the thumb in his mouth, sucking hard on the wound. As the salty taste of blood filled his mouth, his eyes instinctively went to the single lantern that still glowed in the field. As he watched, it went out. With the disappearance of the light, Shadow's whine turned into a warning growl.
A moment later, Michael heard a car door slam and an engine grind, cough once, then catch, quickly settling into a reluctant hum.
Ignoring the barbs, Michael forced his torso through the fence, pulling his right leg behind him. The sound of the car was louder now, and even though no lights were showing, he knew the car was coming toward him. He twisted frantically against the fence, but several of the barbs were now firmly embedded in the shredding flannel of his shirt, and he was held fast.