It was not the first time Vince had seen this Kin close up: very man-like, small and stocky with no particularly animalistic attributes. He’d spoken with the pombero before; the creature was open about what he was, and although he did not claim some of the more unsavoury aspects of the traditional myth—the sexual predator, the sullied outlook—he admitted that accepting his blood and birthright had given him a sense of freedom that he’d never previously experienced.

Vince suspected the pombero had endured deep loss, but he would not discuss it. Both times they had spoken, Vince’s probing questions about who he’d left behind had sent the man fleeing.

This time it was Vince who was running, and he didn’t know why.

“What?” Vince asked.

The pombero stared at him. Something about his bearing set Vince on edge. There was threat there, violence coiled in his stance, a promise of something in his eyes.

“What?” Vince repeated, voice weaker than before. Fear could do that.

He stood and started running again, flitting between trees and heading back towards the river. He heard the Kin chasing him. This time he did nothing to mask the fact that he sought to capture Vince, though his intentions were still unclear. Vince didn’t imagine they could be benign.

The trees didn’t grow so thick there, and the path worn into the riverbank meant he’d be able to run faster. A few hundred metres ahead was a small gulley where a tributary joined the river. It was overgrown, but Vince knew exactly where it was. He could leap it if he really stretched, and perhaps the pombero would tumble in behind him.

If he reached it without being caught.

He had been hunted before, by humans as well as Kin, but his terror was as rich, his fear cutting. With very little left to live for, he wanted nothing more than to survive. He still wanted to find his way home.

He leapt a fallen tree, skirted around a rocky outcropping, sprinted through a wide swath of long grasses and brambles that scratched his legs through his jeans, then as he approached the river, he risked a look back.

The pombero was less than a dozen steps behind him and closing fast.

Gasping in shock, Vince cut left and went for a rise in the landscape. There were tumbled rocks on the other side, and perhaps he could lose himself in there, or at least confuse his pursuer long enough to—

The hand grasped the back of his shirt and pulled, jerking him backwards so hard that his feet went from under him and kicked upwards. He landed hard on his back, the wind knocked from him. The blue sky blurred and grew darker, and he feared he was about to lose consciousness.