“I’d like to see her,” Christian said. “The sleeper. Hey, Mr. Stockton. You never said. Is she a little girl or like, a grown-up girl?”

“Well, I’ve only seen her from a distance, but I’d say—”

Fallows reached back with one hand in a gesture that called for silence. Peter stiffened, staring through the slot that faced the slope below. Without looking back, Fallows beckoned Christian to join them at the window.

Three figures mounted the steps. One of them, the tallest, held a torch that blazed with blue fire. Ram’s horns rose from either side of his skull, and he walked with his hand on the shoulder of his kid, a child in a loose, flapping vest, with fuzzed budding horns of his own. The doe was close behind them, carrying a basket.

“It’s all yours, Peter,” Fallows whispered. “I loaded your gun myself.”

“Nail the big one,” Stockton said.

Peter stared out at the targets with inquisitive, thoughtful eyes. “If I shoot the kid, they’ll stop to look after him, and we can nail all three.”

“Oh, that’s thinking,” Stockton said. “You got a good head on your shoulders. And in a minute you’re going to have an even better one for Charn’s wall.”

“Do it,” Christian said.

Peter pulled the trigger.

The Hunter Racks Up His First Kills

The gun made an unsatisfying clack.

Frustrated and confused, Peter threw back the bolt. The rifle was empty.

“Fucking thing,” Peter said. Behind him a chair fell over. “Mr. Fallows, this isn’t loaded.”

He looked back over his shoulder. His face darkened, then went pale, and Christian tore his gaze away from the fauns to look for himself.

Peter’s father had toppled over in his chair, the black rubber handle of a combat knife in his chest. His red, heavy, souse’s face was perplexed, a man reading a bank statement that suggests somehow, impossibly, his savings have been wiped out. Christian had a distant, distracted thought, that it was the knife Peter had been unable to find in the morning.

Peter stared at his father. “Dad?”

Fallows stood over Stockton, his back to the boys. He was tugging Stockton’s rifle off the dying man’s shoulder. Stockton didn’t make a sound, didn’t gasp, didn’t cry out. His eyes strained from his head.

Peter lunged past Christian and grabbed for Fallows’s big CZ 550, which was leaning against the wall. His fingers were stiff and clumsy with shock, and he only knocked it over.

Fallows couldn’t pull Stockton’s rifle away from him. The strap was still snagged over his shoulder, and Stockton himself was clutching the butt, in a last, failing effort to resist.

Fallows glanced back at the boys.

“Don’t, Peter,” he said.

Peter finally grabbed the CZ. He slid open the bolt to make sure it was loaded. It was.

Fallows stepped over Stockton and turned to face them. Stockton still had the strap of the rifle over his shoulder and was clutching the butt, but Fallows had one hand under the muzzle and a finger on the trigger and the barrel pointed at Peter.