Duck Duck Ghost (20 page)

Something inside of him rebelled at the quaking tremors Cin Kincaid seemed to bring up in him, and Tristan ignored the slab of black and white granite tipped with wary gold eyes. Instead, he turned his attention back to the flower child who’d conjured herself out of the shadows to talk to him.

“Ray’s inside the house,” he informed her. Her face lit up briefly, then fell into a despair he could almost taste as the waves rolled off her. “What’s wrong? Can’t you get into the house?”

“There’s something… dark in there.” She nearly sobbed as she spoke. Distressed, her body danced in and out of sight, thinning in places as she stalked into a short pacing circle. “Oh God, I don’t know if I can. I tried earlier, you know? To see if Missus Kincaid was around. She didn’t mind me coming ’round to talk to Faraji—Ray—while he was working up here. She didn’t agree with my dad about a lot of things but mostly that Ray and I shouldn’t be together because—”

“Did your dad worry Ray wasn’t going to be able to support you?” Tristan scowled as Cin walked through Petal’s circling body. Even more annoying was the small device Cin pulled out of his pocket. A second later, an undulating, squeaky whine rode roughshod over the lowing cattle’s moos.

The asshat Kincaid camel not only didn’t seem to mind the noise but appeared to be encouraged by it, if Tristan could judge by the smirk in the beast’s curled-lip expression.

“Some elevation in electro-magnetic activity, but not enough to be indicative of spectral interference,” Cin rattled off in his strong, fierce growl. “Are you trying to fuck with me, Pryce? I’m not going to fall for your—”

“Do you think you can sublimate the asshole behavior you Kincaids seem to have in your genetic material and get the fuck out of Petal’s left arm?” Tristan shooed Cin back with a wave of his hand. The pencils on his drawing pad nearly rolled off, and he snatched them up before he lost them in the folds of the horse blanket he’d found to sit on. “Maybe you can even shut the fuck up for a moment so I can finish talking to her?”

If Cin had an answer for him, Tristan didn’t get a chance to hear it. One second Cin Kincaid was opening his mouth to retort something probably insanely clever, and the next, they both were being blown across the barn floor.

Tristan tasted hay, a mouthful of dank yellowness on his tongue with a hint of old bread. Then it was gone, swallowed up by a rough grit shoved through his parted lips as he struggled to stop himself from moving. His hip hit one of the beams, jarring his bones and teeth loose, and the flash of pain careened a red wash over his vision. The wall came at him fast, and Tristan barely had enough time to throw his arms up over his head before he slammed into its solid planking. Something cracked, and for a moment, he suspected it was one of his limbs, until a sharp kick to his ribs and a panicked wailing made him open his eyes and stare up at the ass end of a very scared and pissed-off male camel.

The creature’s toed hoof flew out, nearly striking his head, and Tristan rolled over, ignoring the pangs of agony shooting through him in order to get out of the hole he’d just made in the stall. He was out before the camel could land another blow, but his side hurt every time he took in a short breath, and there was a now all too familiar metallic sting in his throat. His spit tasted of blood, and when he tried to clear it out, his mouth filled again, filaments of shredded cheek ticking the flat of his tongue.

The crackle of fire fought to dominate the screaming rambles of fear coming from the camel, and beyond the stall, Sey’s Highland cattle shifted and spun, agitated by the growing flames. His eyes were still spinning about in their sockets, but Tristan could see Cin standing up, seeming unfazed by whatever had exploded behind them.

Or at least he seemed unperturbed until they both heard a sharp crack of something giving way, and then the world went black and thick for Tristan as Cin threw himself over Tristan’s body and shoved them both up against the remains of the camel’s stall.

“What the fuck is it with you Kincaids?” Tristan tried to shove Cin off, but somewhere near where he’d been sitting, there was an echoing pop. “What—”

Cin ducked down over him, tucking Tristan’s head down against his chest as he tried to get loose. A half moment later, their world rushed into an eerie, odd faux silence as every noise around them hushed to a back note of sound beneath an ear-bleeding boom, and then Tristan felt nothing but the throb of percussion in his ears and the rattle of his skull slamming into the barn’s hard concrete floor.

T
HE
FIREBALL
lit up the morning sky. Its glow threw sunset streamers of light through the foggy drizzle, and Wolf’s heart lurched to a stuttering stop. The boom preceding the blaze had drawn Wolf to the window, but the lick of flames he’d spotted through the open double doors got him running toward the barn.

“Sey! The barn!” He burst out through the back door, nearly ripping the screen from its hinges. Flying over the soaked grass, Wolf skidded when the ground gave way under him. It was too wet from the downpour, and his bare feet dug into the mud when he hydroplaned over the lawn. A second later, his panic hit the stratosphere when he remembered his lover’d fled to the barn for peace and quiet. “Shit, Tristan!”

He was through the doors closest to the house in a full run.

It was like being in the middle of a war zone. It was easy to find the fire. Oddly enough, it was a small blaze but was eating through a hay bale set against a vulnerable wooden wall. He had a slight panic at the sight of Tristan’s abandoned sketchpad and pencils scattered over the floor, and Wolf was torn between fighting the fire and finding his lover. A soft moan from behind him answered his question about Tristan’s whereabouts. He and his cousin were splayed out a few feet away, their bodies pinwheeled against one of the horse stall’s outer walls.

More alarming was Cin’s brief shock and widened eyes, then his cousin twisting about to land on Tristan’s long body. Tristan groused something about Kincaid men, but Wolf was already diving for cover, driven more by Cin’s instinct than anything else.

A half beat and a suck of breath was all the time Wolf had before another one of the hay bales burst in an explosion of sound and heat. Smoldering straw bit into his exposed flesh, welting and burning his skin. The backs of his hands took most of the damage, and as soon as the crackling echo of sound faded in his ringing ears, Wolf was up on his feet and running toward the flaming hay bales.

It’d been a long time since he’d last hefted bales, but Wolf figured he wasn’t going to be judged on form. With one bale fully engulfed and another one on its way to being consumed by the rapidly spreading fire, he wasn’t going to waste time on appearances. Wolf snagged up one of the horse blankets from a nearby stack, then tossed it to Sey as she came in.

“Soak that in a puddle or some mud,” he shouted over the shushing rain. “I’ll clear a way in.”

Thankfully, Sey didn’t argue. She was outside in a flash, leaving Wolf to work through the center of the pile, where the two bales were beginning to spread their fire.

Seizing a bale in front of him, Wolf felt his shoulders burn with the packed straw’s weight until he shifted his hold to balance out the load. The flames were spreading quicker than he liked, and it took him only two more bales in to reach the growing fire. The smoke choked him, and he reached down to hook his T-shirt’s collar. Dragging it up over his nose, he dove into the hay pile.

Wolf grabbed one of the newly smoking bales’ bindings, hoisted the block of hay up, and threw it as hard as he could toward the door. It cleared the rest of the stack, landing with a squishy plop on the damp ground. He was reaching for another one when Sey returned, her arms full of dripping wet blankets.

“Over there!” Directing Sey toward the other end of the bale the flames were stretching to, he picked up one of the thick wool throws and began beating at the bales.

“Where’s Cin and Tris?” Sey shouted through the smoke. “Shit, the livestock.”

“We can get this out!” Wolf caught a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye. It was Tristan emerging from a pile of Cin and board bits from the camel’s stall. “Tris! Cin? You okay?”

“I’m good, Kincaid,” Tristan said loudly. Wolf’s insides turned to a sweet pudding when Tristan gave him a weak smile.

The barn could have burned down around them, and Wolf wouldn’t have cared—much. He nearly cried with relief at seeing Tristan rise up relatively unharmed. He was moving a bit slow, too tenderly for Wolf’s liking, and he almost dropped the blanket to go check on his lover when he was pulled back to reality by Sey’s alarmed screech as the fire leaped to another bale.

“Yeah, I’m good too, Wolf. Thanks for caring!” Cin extracted himself from the mess and wiped at the trail of blood coming from a cut on his forehead. “Quit making cow eyes at the kid. He can help me get the animals out. Sey needs—”

“Fuck, you’re a dick.” Tristan didn’t wait for Cin, ducking into the camel’s stall. “You go get the other guys out.” Cin tried to grab at him, but Tristan growled over the remains of the wall, “Get a move on, Cin! I’ll take care of the camel.”

“He outweighs you by about five tons,” Wolf heard Cin arguing. Satisfied Tristan was okay—and Cin appeared to have emerged with his grumpiness intact, Wolf returned to beating out the flames.

“They okay?” Sey called out.

“Yeah, they’re arguing. Right as rain.” The blanket he’d been using was already dry, and he threw it at the open doors, hoping it would land in some water in case they needed it again. Grabbing one of the wet covers, he started in again, shouting at Sey as he worked the fire. “Can you turn the hose onto this? Might have to lose the whole batch to save the barn. It’s spreading too fast.”

“If you can hold it back long enough for me to get to the spigot. The hose is on the other side, but it’ll stretch.”

“Go!” Wolf pounded at another section. “Because if we don’t do it soon, we’re not going to have a barn anymore!”

T
RISTAN
NEARLY
lost his tongue down his throat in a choking fit. As soon as he could get the world to stop spinning, he tried to get up. Large hands were wrapped around his arms, and he shook them off. He coughed again and stood. At first he couldn’t seem to find his own feet, but Wolf’s shout brought him around. Wolf was beating at the growing fire with a blanket, stopping long enough to study Tristan for injuries.

“I’m good, Kincaid,” Tristan called out. Next to him, Cin worked loose of the debris and reassured his cousin he was fine. There was a brief domination game from Cin about getting clear of the barn, but Tristan shoved back.

“Fuck, you’re a dick. Go get the other guys out. I’ll take care of him.” Tristan eased into the stall through the hole he’d made with his body. His head hurt, and he was pretty sure some of his ribs were now in different places, but everything seemed to be in working order. “Can’t be much different than a horse.”

Or at least he hoped it wouldn’t be any different.

There were Kincaids shouting behind him, but Tristan focused on the camel. His eyes were rolling, sliding white with panic. He shed his shirt and hoped to hell someone’d taken the time to desensitize the animal to blindfolds. Tristan patted at the camel’s neck, trying to soothe him, then reached up to loop his T-shirt over the animal’s forehead. He remembered Sey telling him the camel’s name was York, more of a description of the noise he made when he spat than an actual name, but it was better than calling the animal Spitting Smelly Asshat. York stamped, narrowly missing Tristan’s foot, but shifted back when Tristan snagged the leading rope around the camel’s neck.

“Okay, dude, let’s do this.” He moved quickly, unlatching the door to the stall while keeping one eye on York.

Cin was working the far side barn doors as Tristan guided the animal out. The ground beneath their feet was slightly wet from the rain and mud they’d tracked in, and Sey nearly barreled over Tristan as she ran past with a wide-mouthed hose in her hands. It sprayed a thick spout of water, splashing everything in range, and Tristan paused, pushing York as far into the stall wall as he could manage so his legs wouldn’t be tangled in the twisting hose.

“I’m going to go open the gates. They hook into the barn doors. You should be able to just lead him out,” Cin yelled through the barn at Tristan. “Move him slowly. It’s really wet over here. If he goes down and lands on you, Wolf will kick my ass.”

“I might just kick your ass on principle,” Tristan muttered under his breath. “Okay, after I club you over the head from behind. Jesus, what the fuck did they put in your corn flakes when you were kids? Steroids?”

Highland cattle were unflappable beasts. As soon as Cin got the gates connected and opened the door of their inside paddock, there seemed to be a short meeting held by the larger mounds of red fur before they paid even the slightest bit of a attention to the enormous Scottish man trying to herd them out to safety. With a bit of shuffling and head tossing, they ambled outside, the fuzzy calf kicking up his heels as he bounded out into the rain.