Not alone, he’s not, Malichai said.

As the guard opened the gate, two other guards ran up to join him. Neither of the others had a dog, but they were heavily armed. They came outside the fence and immediately spread out, keeping about five feet apart as they moved toward the grove of trees where Wyatt and the Fortunes brothers had taken up residence.

That dog has the scent of something, Ezekiel said. And it isn’t us.

Wyatt inhaled deeply, taking in the odors of the night. Jasmine hung heavy in the air, mixing with the smell of the swamp, the moss hanging in ropes from the cypress groves and the mix of wild flowers. The pharmaceutical field had its own perfume from hundreds of varieties of herbs and flowering plants, some poisonous, some not, but all with their individual scents.

He caught the odor of the alligator. A bobcat lurked close. Somewhere a little farther off was a small herd of deer. Raccoons caught fish near the riverbank and a family of opossum trailed through the vegetation seeking dinner. Nutrias, originally from South America, traveled in a small group as well, wandering around destroying the plants as they devoured the stems and roots.

The wind shifted just a fraction and he caught the same scent the dog had. Elusive. Beckoning. Mysterious. Impossible to identify, but there. It made every hair on his body stand up. His heart beat faster and blood ran hot through his veins. He felt an itch between his shoulder blades as if someone had a scope and a rifle with their centers on him.

The dog burst from the gate and, slipping its collar, sprang away from his handler, rushing across the clearing and low-level plants straight into the cypress grove. He made no noise at all, but he moved fast with purpose. His handler raced after him, calling his name, clearly alarmed at the dog being off the leash. What was out there that might harm his dog? The other two men moved much more cautiously, exchanging a quick signal with one another before they followed into the grove, maintaining a five-foot spread from one another.

Wyatt ran lightly along a heavy branch that nearly touched another tree next to the one he was in. He leapt for the tree, landing lightly and quickly moving to the next. He used the branches as a highway above the swamp, following the three guards. He knew their exact positions but he couldn’t always see them through the thick vines and foliage.

Someone shouted – the dog handler, he was certain. The guard fired his gun in short bursts. The dog yelped. In the distance, through the tree branches, Wyatt caught a glimpse of something moving fast – too fast for anything human. It was small, no more than a foot or so tall. It ran, zigzagging as the guard fired at it.

Movement drew Wyatt’s gaze back to the guard as something hit the dog handler hard in the back, knocking him forward and down. For a moment, Wyatt thought he might actually be catching his first glimpse of the Rougarou – shapeshifter of the bayous and swamps – but this was no tall creature with a wolf’s head. It was small in comparison to the guard, but not tiny like the first creature. He was fairly certain whoever had struck the guard was human.

He moved carefully, knowing he would draw fire from the other guards if they spotted him in the trees. By the time he was able to see again, whoever it was had smashed the guard’s gun into pieces against the trunk of a tree. The dog hurled itself on the smaller figure, driving it to the ground. Animal and human rolled for a moment and then, to his astonishment, the dog went flying backward with such force that when it landed, the blow was strong enough to knock the wind from the animal.

Whatever it was that had attacked the guard ran in the direction of the much smaller creature, just as fast, with blurring speed, leaping over fallen logs and yet never once running into an obstacle in spite of the speed.

The other two guards laid down fire, spraying the swamp with bullets, but none appeared to strike their target. The two small creatures, one no more than a foot and a half tall and the other maybe hitting five feet or an inch or two above, ran through the dense vegetation without hesitation or a hitch in their strides.

None of the guards gave chase, and that was significant as well. The guards, as armed and as well trained as they were, didn’t want to follow the two figures into the swamp at night. They were afraid.

One of the guards reached down to help the dog handler from the ground. He immediately rushed over to kneel by the dog.

“Is he alive, Larry?”

“Yeah.” The dog handler sounded grim. “She didn’t kill him, but his rib might be cracked. We were lucky.”

“You shouldn’t have let him loose, Larry.”

“Go to hell, Blake, he slipped his leash.” The dog handler gathered the animal into his arms and lifted him gently.

Wyatt liked him better for that. Still, the man was due a good beating, and he wasn’t getting out of that.

“Gentlemen, put down your guns,” he advised softly. “I’m only goin’ to tell you once. If you don’ comply, I’ll shoot you in the leg. If you still don’ comply, it will be the other leg. We’ll just keep goin’ until you run out of blood or I run out of bullets.”

“Don’t you worry, my friend,” Malichai said, his voice coming out of the night low and purring. “I’ve got enough ammo to keep on shooting long after you’re out.”

“And then I’ll start,” Ezekiel added.

Surrounded, the guards put their weapons on the ground, stepped back away from them and linked their fingers behind their heads.

“You’re making a mistake,” the one named Blake said.

“No, I think you’re the ones who made the mistake.” Wyatt leapt from the tree, landing in a crouch on the balls of his feet, right beside Blake’s gun. He tossed it up into the tree where Ezekiel was concealed and then threw the second one to him as well.