Relics by Mary Anna Evans Read Free Book Online Page A

side, the faceless beasts could pounce from far up the slope, using the momentum of their heavy and fast-moving bodies to roll their human prey downhill.
    From fifty yards away, Faye spied a sycamore extending its lowest branch to offer shelter, and she focused on that single point. She knew only the pounding of her feet on the ground and the feel of Carmen’s hand clutching hers and the beckoning sight of her chosen tree. Later, she would wonder whether some ancient part of her brain was always watching for escape routes, just in case a predator appeared, but for that moment she simply ran.
    She nearly ran straight into the sycamore’s solid trunk. “Climb!” she bellowed to Carmen, whose response to terror was not action, but paralysis. Faye jerked the hand she held upward, shaking it free of the heavy briefcase it clutched like a talisman. She forced Carmen to grab a branch, and was relieved to see her friend grasp it and haul herself up. Carmen continued climbing and Faye followed, one branch behind.
    Their pursuers bounded out of the undergrowth that had concealed them, and Faye finally saw them for what they were. Hurling themselves at the trunk of the tree were three dogs, tremendous, barrel-chested dogs with dripping jowls and bared teeth. Their pelts were shiny, and their rounded flanks said that they were well-fed. Someone owned these dogs, yet they hadn’t trained them not to treat humans as prey. Maybe it was worse than that. Maybe they had been trained to track human prey.
    Rearing up on their hind legs, all three animals stood taller than a man. Their claws cut gashes in the sycamore’s bark, and the largest one hooked a massive paw over the lowest branch. Faye knew that dogs couldn’t climb trees, but these slavering beasts might be capable of shaking her out of this one. One at a time, each of them backed away a few paces, then hurled itself into the air, howling in frustration when it failed to clamp its jaws into the flesh of her leg. How long would they continue their onslaught? Faye reached around to the back pocket of her cargo pants.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Cell phone,” said Faye.
    “Don’t bother. No coverage, too remote. They’re building a tower but it won’t be ready till the spring.”
    Faye put the phone away. “Let’s hope we’re not sitting in this tree until then.”
    The rhythmic slapping of small feet running down the hard-packed footpath caught Faye’s ear. Someone small was running toward them. Please, God, don’t let it be a child, Faye prayed.
    Irene Montrose was no longer a child, but she was far too slightly built to overpower even one of the beasts baying for Faye’s and Carmen’s blood. “Go back,” Faye yelled. “Get some help! These dogs will eat you alive!”
    “Come, Bull!” Irene called. “You, too, Boss! Get away from that tree, Bruce! You boys should be ashamed of yourselves.”
    The three brutes turned shame-faced so quickly, whining and whinkering as they slinked toward the slender young woman, that Faye would have laughed had her adrenaline level been a shade lower. The hound Irene called Boss reared up on his hind legs, planted two ham-sized paws on her shoulders, and slobbered all over his mistress’ face. “No kisses, Boss,” she said, pushing him away roughly. “You’ve been very bad.”
    “Sometimes Daddy forgets to close the gate good,” Irene said. “He forgets how scary the boys look to someone who doesn’t know them.”
    “What are they? Pit bulls?” Carmen asked.
    “Bull is half pit bull and half Rottweiler. Boss is mostly German Shepherd and part bloodhound. Bruce is part Doberman and I don’t know what else. Something big.”
    Well, yeah, Faye thought. Something big and mean. Could anyone who owned dogs like Bull, Bruce, and Boss ever “forget” to keep them in their pen?
    “You can come down,” Irene said. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
    “That’s okay,” Carmen said from her perch on the limb above Faye.