Page 53 of The Buck Stops Hare

Through ground water we moved, me nothing more than silt in his flow, dust in cloud as we rose to the surface and leaped pieces of ourselves from one drop of water, to dust to the next, compounding our ability to travel as we homed in on the area of the country they’d be in.

I wanted to murder, to cut and rend, but as someone who resonated with stone, silt, earth, and the ground itself, it was Brook’s duty to tap into something he was far more comfortable with.Death.

We have a name, a notion, a goal. Feel that energy we’ve locked into and it becomes a beacon. It’s not omnipotence, but it’s fucking close.Brook’s thoughts swam in my mind, his voicewatery, like the melody of water playing over rounded stones, but a deceitful cold lay beneath it.

Like he said, I could feel something drawing me south and west, following ley lines that drew me ever closer to my goal.

I lost myself to the flow as Brook aided my travel until we entered soil once more in tandem and spiraled through groundwater to surface at an RV park not six hours west of Thunder Acres. Madness lay within. Anger.

Brook and I solidified our forms as we walked a gravel path into the park, surveying dilapidated RVs amid newer ones, searching out the scent of boar and that familiar feel of Buck’s power that surely would have still lingered on the witch. I wondered, idly, what she’d done with the power, and if it was truly worth it.

“Have you killed before?” Brook rolled his shoulders as the bits of humanity he wore on himself faded away. The placid ginger I’d come to know held his head high as his ears pointed, teeth lengthened, and lips thinned. Sharp teeth amid a gash-like wider mouth bared. His skin paled, a rainbow sheen over it like scales shone in all the places his clothing didn’t cover. His hair, though, remained the same, the shaggy mop of red, only it was needlessly wet, dripping as his clothing was.

“Not a human. Hit a squirrel with my car once on accident.”

Brook leaned over and sniffed me, drawing some conclusion with a grunt of approval. “Your hands. Show me.”

I lifted my hands, turning the palms up. Brook studied them for a long moment before lifting his, turning them, and glancing down purposefully to get me to look. As I did, I paid attention to a myriad of dark, red-mottled stains that riddled his hands from fingertips to wrists, going all the way to his elbows. “Blood on my hands. I may not notice a few more stains, but you will, and Buck will. Do you wish to get blood on your hands? Rayne bears blood on his hands, now, too.”

With that in mind, I stared down at my hands and shook my head. “Buck and River have so much more on their hands. What’s one stain?”

“First one’s the hardest, but it gets easier and easier. Blood for revenge is the darkest.” I swallowed hard, knowing Buck would resent it. Because he held so much blood on his own that they dripped, I knew my own clean hands were a constant sign of guilt to him.

“Soon it won’t matter.” I sighed and glanced around us, my gaze drawn toward a nearly new RV toward a more abandoned end of the park. Buck’s power seeded the area, emanating from the RV as well as the scent of boar and madness. As much as I wanted revenge as fast as possible, I made myself patient.

“How are we going to do it?”

“The best way for water to kill. Draw arsenic from the soil for me.” Brook stared the camper down as a shadow wafted past the window, a portly snub-nosed asshole that when I squinted, had a bandage across the bridge of his nose from recent surgery. Likely from the damage that Eve had done. Too bad that it was all in vain. He wouldn’t need the nose much longer.

“That jerk’s kid killed my brother. He had me kidnapped and nearly assaulted. He tried to kill my boyfriend—mate. And he turned my new bestie into a fucking bird!” As Buck had taught me before, I brought about the image of something in my mind.

The best source of it I knew was arsenopyrite, a yellow crystalline form that occurred in inclusions among rich metal sources like precious metal mining. Because I had a good idea of what it was and how it looked, I could make clearer images in my mind than most. So, when I drew up the image, the surrounding ground lit up like fireflies in the night with small flecks of it that called to me as I called to them. Which, considering what arsenic was and could do, was mildly terrifying.

Brook fished in his pockets and pulled out a small glass vial, filling it from the air itself with pure water. I guided the motes of arsenic that called to me, letting them flow into the bottle, tainting it just the right amount.

“Ordinarily, I’d want to use my bare hands, to hurt them in a way that let everyone know. But everyone will know no matter what we do, and we are silent. We are calm and reserved. But we are vengeful.” Brook sighed heavily and melted into the earth, a puddle that soaked the ground with the bottle. Arsenic could do little to us, so I didn’t worry about him absorbing it.

I stood afar, watching the RVs as I sensed Brook’s power traveling from one to the other, three in total. Behind each stop, he left an aura of death to come, as that would take a day or two. Arsenic poisoning wasn’t something that happened right away, insidiously slow.

A door opened to one of the RVs and a woman stood there, moon-faced and pale. Narrow eyes focused in on me and she frowned, inhaling deeply.

Witch. Boar born.

I stood straighter as she reached for a staff inside her RV but sank into the earth when Brook’s presence under my feet alerted me.

When the symptoms hit, she’d know who her doom was.

Is it done?I thought in question to Brook and received a sensation of agreement.

It is done. Let’s get you back to your mate.

Like we’d done before, we traveled together, both our minds silent and burdened by the weight of what we’d done. It was a long while before I could make myself communicate.Doesn’t feel better.

Usually doesn’t. But it’s what needs to be done. Gods don’t want to control our worshipers. But worshipers want to control gods. This country is rife with people who want to be andshould never be gods. We’ve stopped that. That is what we did. Vengeance comes on its own time, in its own way. We’re preventative maintenance.

That felt better to think of, but I mentally prepared myself for what was to come. I’d have to tell Buck.

As we approached my old apartment, nearing Mrs. Pemberlin’s land, we found Ransom in the car waiting for us.

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