“Stags,” she said calmly, moving closer to him and studying his body from head to toe. “And you have them already.”
“Stop playing games, lady.” He fingered the trigger, but was disturbed by her unusual, almost otherworldly calm. “If you return them alive, all you and your environmental terrorist organization face are kidnapping charges and federal property damage, and if you tell us who’s behind all of this, you might even get close to a plea bargain. But if you take this bull too far, you’re going down and might get the chair. So, don’t lie—where—”
“I never lie,” she said, taken aback by the charge. “See for yourself!” Unafraid of his weapon, she brushed past him, still clutching her bow, and walked into the glen where the firefight had erupted.
He stood there, mouth agape, watching his men bobbing upside down from vines that had ensnared them. But the thing that paralyzed him was the sheer terror on their faces as they looked from each beautiful maiden to the huge, blond-coat, twelve-point buck that snorted and pranced, seeming bewildered and trapped between the women that had arrows trained on it.
Something very crazy, extremely implausible slithered through Vince as he stared into the eyes of the trapped animal…it had Dutch’s eyes, but that was impossible!
“Where’s my soldier?” Vince shouted, beginning to panic, too.
Female laughter filled the glen.
He locked gazes with Donovan, who had tears sliding down his nose…Donovan? Oh, shit. If he had broken this fast, after dealing with all the madness they’d seen in Miami and in South America, what had the man witnessed? Jermaine’s eyes were closed and his mouth was moving as though he was praying. Lou and Jesse wouldn’t take their eyes off the buck, and stared at it wide-eyed, upside down, not blinking.
“Cut one of them down and show him where his soldier is,” the woman who was clearly the leader said.
Jesse swung a punch that missed as a tall, lithe maiden with flaxen hair approached him and nicked his cheek with an arrow tip. Instantly, Vince reached out and grabbed the leader’s arm, pressing the nine millimeter to her skull. “If he dies, you die. What’d you do, poison him? What kind?”
She coolly regarded Vince as his man began to convulse. “Cut him down before he hurts himself. He’ll be a magnificent creature like the other one, I’m sure.”
Vince’s vocal cords seized as he watched them carefully lie Jesse down on the forest floor. How his clothes began burning, he didn’t know—but the way they burned was from a weird, cobalt blue flame that didn’t seem to harm his skin. The other men were shouting, and the huge, trapped stag was rearing on his hind legs. But Vince could barely hold his gun as he watched a man slowly, painfully, change shape, his bones snapping and body elongating as a wail ripped from his throat.
The sound of Jesse’s skull cracking to bear antlers cut through the forest with a horrifying echo. Red hair from Jesse’s head and beard turned into a thick coat that swallowed his skin, and the sound of a whimper fled his lips when his nose became a snout. As though growing out from his elbows and knees, his limbs extended and fingers fused together. Vince backed away as he watched his squad sniper roll over and struggle to stand like a newborn fawn.
“What the hell is this,” he whispered, blinking hard and touching the place where an arrow had grazed him. He knew there were all sorts of psychotropic drugs out there, but he’d never known of one that could produce an effect like this.
A red stag pranced hysterically in the clearing, making the blond one become even more skittish. Vince looked around. They were outnumbered three terrorists to one. They’d all obviously been drugged somehow…his face was hot, and he felt like he was moving forward against his own will.
“Can we keep these?” one of the terrorists asked, her gaze pleading with the leader. She walked up to the massive blond stag and tried to gentle the frightened creature. Oddly, it bobbed its head, stopped its agitated prancing and nuzzled her as she stroked it. The half-nude women looked back at their commander. “Please, Artemis,” she whispered. “I don’t think they were with the others.”
Another joined the willowy brunette that had spoken, pushing her long onyx braids over her shoulder. “He’s magnificent,” she murmured, going to the animal to lay her cheek against his neck.
“He’s not old like the generals, yes?” a wheat-haired captor said, producing an apple from thin air and feeding it to the animal with a flat palm.