“Oh god,” Malcolm gurgled, clutching his middle.

Lawson let off the gas. “How far?”

The deathly ill look on the younger boy’s face told him all he needed to know. He put the car in neutral and let it roll. With the lights off and the engine out of gear, the car whistled quietly down the steep incline like a sailboat cruising on smooth black water. Lawson watched and listened as they drifted down the slope, studying the trees and tall grasses for any sign of movement. Crickets chirped and fireflies flickered in the distance.

The car slowed until it stopped, and Lawson turned off the engine.

“Where’s the guard? Do you see them?” he asked.

Rafe swept the landscape with a pair of binoculars. “They’re on patrol, on the other side of the ridge.”

“There,” Edon said quietly, pointing to a blinking light through the trees.

“I see it.” Lawson nodded. “Stay in the car,” he told Malcolm. “The rest of you, come with me—you wanted to help, so you know the drill. If you get into trouble, let me deal with them. Don’t be a hero. Leave them to me.”

“Sure thing.” Rafe smiled, his sleepy eyes lighting up. “You get your ass kicked, we’ll stay out of it. Let them slap you around a little.”

Lawson stretched his neck and cracked his back, flexing his arm muscles, preparing himself for what lay ahead. “I just want to have a little chat. It’ll be a cakewalk, I promise.” He slammed the door and led the rest of the team closer to the light. No time to think of whether this was the right thing to do now. He just had to make it through the next few minutes. He had to concentrate. Get in and out before those hounds nearby caught their scent. “Ready?” he asked, preparing the boys for the ritual.

One by one the brothers whispered the words that bound them, the pact they had sworn to each other. As they recited their words, a small blue crescent appeared on each of their faces. The sigil of their pack, the pulsing sickle throbbed in time with the beating of their hearts, giving testament to the bond they shared. When the testimony was over, the blue marks faded from their cheeks.

“All right, then,” Lawson said, preparing himself for battle.

Next to him, his brothers were doing the same, their shoulders squared, blood pumping, eyes narrowed to squints, ready to attack if hounds appeared. Ready to fight. Edon balled his fists while Rafe cracked his knuckles. They were trained warriors, lean and ready.

The light blinked on and off through the dense forest of trees. Lawson struck out ahead, Edon next, and Rafe pulling up the rear. They fanned out in a triangular formation, keeping just enough distance from each other that they could easily come to each other’s defense while having space to get away so that not all of them would be captured if it came down to that.

Lawson left his brothers at the base of the hill and followed a trail to the top until he was standing just outside a dim pool of light centered in a clearing of the trees. Tall shadows radiated in all directions from the circle. The ground was newly cleared, covered with a fresh bed of leaves and ringed with tree stumps.

“I’m going in,” he called.

“Go on, then,” Edon said.

“Get it over with,” added Rafe.

“Relax,” Lawson chided. The hounds were far enough away. In the silence he could hear only the rustling of the leaves and the soft quiet slithering of snakes in the moss, the sniffing and scratching of woodland animals.

He stepped into the light of the oculus. Edon had briefed him on how to use it, and it sounded simple enough. Let the light shine on him, and then command it to show him what he wanted to see.

When he entered, the forest and hill and trees disappeared, and his vision filled with a blazing light, white-hot like the center of a star. Lawson shielded his eyes and blinked. At first he was dazzled by the light, surrounded and engulfed by the white glow, but then he felt a familiar sensation and he realized that it was not light he was seeing at all, but its polar opposite. The beacon was made from a darkness that was complete, the darkness of the abyss, his former home. He had grown unused to it since their escape.

Inside the oculus he was overwhelmed by images from every place and time; he could see into the past and the present, into all corners of the universe. He had to make it stop, make it show him what he wanted to see, what he needed to see.

“Show me my mate,” he ordered. “Tala of the Wolves, Born of the Underworld, Slave to None.”

The whirring images stopped and a vision of a girl appeared.

Was it Tala? Lawson couldn’t tell. He squinted into the light. If only the oculus would show him more—but the image remained vague and fuzzy. He was beginning to feel frustrated when it suddenly snapped into focus. He took a sharp breath. There was a girl in front of him. But she was definitely not Tala.

She was beautiful, though, with curly red hair and green eyes. She had a forthright, arresting grace about her, but her eyes looked a bit sad, as if she had been through some hardship.

She stared at him.

“Who are you?” he whispered. Then he noticed the amulet around her neck. The Heart of Stone. She carried the Black Fire of Hell. He jerked away from her, his mind racing. She was not a hound, he knew that much—her eyes were green, not crimson—but the charm she wore marked her as one of the underworld. A spy! Romulus’s spy! She had to be a human tracker—he’d heard the masters sometimes used Red Bloods as eyes and ears aboveground.

Lawson cursed under his breath. She had seen him—looked directly at him. He couldn’t panic. He had to do something—what? If she was a spy, then let her come to them—Let her find us, he thought. She was close by—he could sense her presence—perhaps only a few miles away.

He sent her a vision of the butcher shop, let her see him as a wolf. He felt her satisfaction. He was right, then. She was looking for them. That much was clear. She answered to Romulus. He released her from his vision.

The darkness returned and the oculus went black. Why had it shown her to him? To warn him? It had to be. But where was Tala? The oculus hadn’t given him the answer he sought.

Lawson didn’t know what to do. He was wasting time; the longer he stayed in the light of the oculus, the greater the risk that Romulus would see him there. He hesitated, and while he was vacillating, the oculus came back to life and a low, powerful voice rumbled from hidden depths.

“Speak your name, hound.” It was a command. Romulus.

Lawson backed away from the light, trying not to panic. The voice filled him with fear and loathing, and it took all his strength not to run. So far, it seemed that Romulus had not recognized him. But he had to get out of there.

“Speak your name.”

Think.…He had to say something…or it would become suspicious…he could not stall for longer…he had to do something…say something…he waited too long…

The oculus went dark and as the earth opened up beneath him, he was thrown into the void.