His father was afraid. Petrified. These creatures weren’t loyal, but hungry, and his father was an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Rafe looked around, caught Emilie’s eyes. Although her hands were tied in front of her, she could still move her fingers. She held up her index finger, then nodded as if giving him a secret message. She or Jeremy must have a plan.
Rafe said, “One.”
“One round?”
“One arrow.”
“One arrow? Just one?” His father sounded aghast.
“Just one.”
“No one gets it in one, son.”
“So you win,” Rafe said. “Right?”
“You can get it, Boss. We’ll be mighty disappointed if you don’t,” said Snake Teeth.
“You can do it, Big Man,” the Gray Ghost said.
“Go on,” Ripper said. “We can’t wait to see this. Show ’em why you’re the king around here.”
With the Bright Boys goading him on, his father had no choice but to step forward.
“I’ll go first, son.”
Rafe stepped back as his father stood on the shooting line. He pulled an arrow and nocked it. As a boy Rafe had loved watching his father shooting targets. Rafe wanted to be just like him. He’d wanted to be that good. Every day he practiced, trying to be that good. Strangely, the better Rafe got, the less his father seemed to enjoy their games. Rafe didn’t understand it then. He did now. Trying to be as good as his dad was one thing. Being better than him was another.
His father drew his arrow. It seemed an eternity passed between the draw and the release. The arrow flew and hit the target with a soft thud.
“Dammit,” his father said.
“You aimed,” Rafe said. His father turned to him, fire in his eyes, but maybe it was just the torches of the Bright Boys. “You taught me to never aim.”
“Just shoot, son.”
“Two seconds, Boss Man,” Ripper said. “Gotta make a little adjustment. Don’t mind us.”
Two Bright Boys emerged from the basement door, dragging Jeremy between them. His cheek was bruised, his shirt torn, but his eyes were still defiant.
Rage swelled in Rafe’s heart, threatening to overwhelm him. But he couldn’t give in to it, because now they were forcing Jeremy to sit under the target. On the ground, back to the trunk, the top of his red head touched the bottom of the blue ring. They didn’t tie him to the tree, however. Why not?
“Even on my worst days,” Rafe told his father, “I don’t miss the bull’s-eye by a foot.”
“You think you can kill spiders. Kill a spider then, son.”
In disgust and horror, Rafe watched Ripper’s mouth open wide, wider, until his face nearly split in two. He reached down his own throat and pulled from his gut a spider. A red spider. A red sleeper spider.
Gently, he placed the spider on the target.
So that’s why they hadn’t bothered to tie up Jeremy.
Rafe stared down the line. Jeremy sat motionless, barely breathing. But though the Bright Boys were immune from the spider’s venom, they still kept their distance from Jeremy as if they were repelled by him.
Jeremy wasn’t afraid. That was why they didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Fearlessness was poison to them. Love. Light. Trust. There was one and only one reason Jeremy wouldn’t be afraid with a sleeper spider eight inches from his head.
He knew Rafe could make the shot.
Rafe pulled an arrow from his quiver. He nocked it. His only regret was the necessity of killing the spider, a creature that hadn’t asked to be a pawn in this game.
He raised his bow. Now he remembered that day in the backyard so long ago…
“Remember that day we were shooting spiders, and I thought I almost got it, but I said it was off-center?” Rafe asked. “It wasn’t off-center. I killed the shit out of that spider.”
Then he released his arrow. He didn’t even have to look. The silence said everything.
A voice broke the silence, one Rafe didn’t remember but recognized at once as the voice of his queen.
“West—by God!—Virginia!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Queen Skya stood on the roof of the house, tall and fearless. With her bow she released arrow after arrow at the Bright Boys. They turned to dust before her arrows had even passed completely through their bodies.
Rafe felt a surge of pride that this was his queen, and he would have died for her with a smile on his face right then and there, if he didn’t have so much to live for. He grabbed his quiver and nocked another arrow. He shot Snake Teeth as the Bright Boy ran toward him, club in hand.
From the corner of his eye, Rafe saw Jeremy get to his feet and yank the arrow from the target. With it he stabbed one Bright Boy, turning him instantly into a puff of smoke.
