The tension in the air was thicker than ever.

Samantha, Claude and Maxwell reported the death of the constable to his comrades at the jailhouse. There was a shocked response from the remaining officers, but also a drive to track down and stop the people responsible. Chalmers and Jones warned Samantha that it would take another day or two for the reinforcements to arrive – but that the response from the area Chief was quick.

Samantha would have been happy to sit back and let the professionals handle it, but recent events filled her with a sense of unease. A slow reaction would allow the Scuncath to cause even more damage - they would kill more people and damage more personal property. Hearing that the person in charge was trying and failing to stop them was cold comfort.

Samantha stayed by the front porch that evening. She felt isolated without Max and Claude around, even though her family were in the house at that moment. She stared out of the window and into the darkness beyond the fence that ran along the road. She was seeing things in the pitch black of night that weren’t there. The minute movement of something reflected in her own eyes elicited a panicked response.

This cycle played out two dozen times. Samantha would focus on one spot and try to see through the curtain. Nothing would happen. Nothing would continue to happen. Then she would trick herself into believing that a person was moving in the dark. Her heart would race, she even considered running to the closet and taking her Father’s shotgun for protection.

The constables were too busy protecting the main area of the town to worry about the farmers. It was even worse now that one of their number had been killed by the Scuncath. They didn’t even have time to go and recover Fernwell’s body; that was a job left to the mortician, and it had to be done in secrecy.

Samantha couldn’t wrap her head around it. Were they so afraid of provoking them that they were willing to risk the safety of everyone in town? In her eyes, it would have been much better to reveal what was happening to the residents so that they could take precautions and protect themselves.

But no – the constables insisted that the three students had to stay quiet about Fernwell’s murder. They claimed that giving them any hints to the storm that was coming would jeopardize the police operation. They wanted all of the Scuncath to feel secure so that they’d lower their guard before the counterattack, even if more townspeople died in the interim. Who knew how many other bodies were hidden in the ditches and out-of-season fields?

It didn’t feel right. It wasn’t just. The residents had a need to know this information but it was being kept from them for a nebulous reason. The Scuncath weren’t going anywhere, and she had little doubt that they were going to be equally vigilant no matter what rumours started being passed around between the townspeople.

Eugene was sitting at the kitchen table, “What’s wrong, Sam?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You’ve been watching the fence like a hawk for nearly two hours now. I don’t believe there’s anything of interest going on out there in the dark.”

Samantha didn’t respond. He was giving her grief just for standing by the window now? He was the one who was the most shaken by their previous encounter with two of the cultists, but Samantha only then realised that he was also uninformed about how dangerous they were.

Eugene grumbled under his breath and stood up to better understand what Samantha was observing. He was not surprised to see nothing but the pitch black of sundown by the farms. There were no fancy lamps to keep the area illuminated, so by most people’s standards things became dark very, very quickly.

“Are you still worried about those two drunks? They were running their mouths, trying to act tough. You shouldn’t get all wrapped up in it. Talk is cheap.”

“I’m not worried about them,” Samantha responded, but she was never any good at lying to her Father. He saw right through her. There was nothing he could do because she was as stubborn as a mule when a certain idea got into her head.

Tobias emerged from the stairwell and observed the scene with a grimace, “Are you two arguing again?”

“We’re not arguing,” Samantha replied.

“You only say that when you’re having a spat.”

Tobias passed through the kitchen, took his coat, and headed towards the outhouse around the side of the property. The cities were awash with new indoor plumbing solutions for even the lowest-class workers, no such luxuries were coming to Channery any time soon. It was fine so long as the farmers took care in disposing of their waste responsibly and away from any water sources.

“Bloody hell that’s cold!” Tobias gasped. He was wearing his evening clothes and they did little to keep the freeze from seeping in. He stepped into the outhouse and pulled the door shut so he could do his business in privacy.

Meanwhile, Eugene was still trying to make Samantha budge.

“I appreciate the thought – but you don’t need to sit there on guard duty for the whole evening. You weren’t doing this the other night after it happened.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being cautious. I’m more than happy to stand here for however long it takes.”

“You don’t know how long it’ll take. Those two fellers could be halfway across Walser by now and you’ll still be standing there waiting for them to show up. It’s not worth the effort or the worry.”

“Whatever you say, Dad.”

He gave up for the moment. There were still more chores to run before the day was through. In particular, Meriden wanted him to help peel some potatoes for their dinner. It was a time-consuming process and often the only job she delegated to him. Of course, Eugene always tried to do more – given that Meriden also helped with the farm. It was hard to believe that she used to be a woman with no experience in farming at all.

He walked to the sack of spuds and grabbed a knife to begin the frustrating process of peeling the whole lot. It also allowed him to keep a close eye on what Samantha was doing by the window.

Eugene understood that Samantha was reaching that age where she wanted to become more independent. He had no doubt that Samantha was mostly capable of looking after herself from day to day, teaching her those skills and instilling confidence were the biggest benefits of sending her to the academy.

But she was still only thirteen — a big thirteen, but thirteen nonetheless.

Eugene remembered his own adolescence well. He could clearly see his own feelings at the time. That bristling confidence and a rejection of the advice that his parents gave him. He thought he knew everything there was to know, but that meant that a lot of harsh lessons were waiting in the wings to surprise him.

Samantha was a girl who valued honesty, and Eugene was always happy to have frank conversations with her about life, work, love and society. Sam took it all in stride and displayed her maturity. Tobias and Benjamin were completely different to her – they never liked listening to what Eugene had to say during their teenage years.

Those were some tough times. Samantha was a real angel in comparison.

Eugene focused on peeling while casting an occasional glance towards his daughter. She was so rarely concerned with dark topics like crime or violence, so it was obvious that their threats had started to make her tread down a paranoid path. Maybe it wasn’t healthy for her to see the world through rose-tinted lenses at her age.

Eugene’s thoughts faded away into the back of his mind as the repetitive food preparation took over. It was mundane enough to tune his attentiveness down but demanded precision from the risk of cutting his fingers in the process. The sound of the skin being pulled away from the inside flesh started to lull him into a tired state of mind.

After almost twenty minutes of tackling the bag, movement in the top of his peripheral vision dragged him away. Samantha was squinting her eyes and leaning very close to the glass.

“There’s someone out there. They have a lantern.”

Tobias had not yet returned from his excursion to the outhouse. No doubt he was being pulled away by a last-minute job that had been overlooked before he came back inside. Samantha’s nervousness continued to build. They were loitering by the front gate but she couldn’t make out who it was.

Samantha’s heart leapt into her throat as they stepped across the threshold and entered the front pasture. She didn’t take the time to explain to Eugene before she hurried over to the door and donned her boots and coat.

“Sam, where the heck are you going?”

His exclamation of concern fell upon deaf ears. Eugene was forced to follow after her, scrambling around in the entryway to find his own shoes and lacing them up tight. Samantha was already halfway across the yard before he came through the door himself.

The strangers, whom Samantha was already certain were the same two men who visited the evening before, were too close to the barn for her to stop.

“Hey! What are you two doing here? Get off our land!”

Her warning only made them move with greater haste. The singular lantern moved through the dark, beckoning Samantha forward to see what was going on. As their figures became clearer with proximity, she observed the second shadow pulling out another lantern and lighting it using a match.

“Hurry up, arsehole!” the man on the right bellowed.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Shut up! I’m doing it!”

He wound up and swung the lantern around his body, revealing the handle at the apex of his movement. Samantha watched the lantern fly through the air in slow motion before it disappeared through one of the openings in the front façade and landed with a shatter inside. The two figures disappeared back into the safety of the darkness for a brief moment.

It was too late to stop them. The barn was already ablaze, the hay inside providing the perfect kindling for the lantern’s flame. Samantha skidded to a halt in front of the doors as the animals inside brayed in distress. Those silhouettes were still lurking by the fence, but Samantha didn’t need to see their faces to know who they were.

“Dad! They’ve set the bloody barn on fire! Dad!” Samantha cried.

Eugene headed out to see what the commotion was. There was still no sign of Tobias.

Samantha knew who they were. She recognised their voices. It was the same two men who acted belligerently towards her Father. They’d decided to follow through on their threat to try and burn their home to the ground. The Scuncath did not retreat now that their scheme was revealed, they continued to stand back and watch the barn burn while laughing and joking.

“Looks like you folks are going to have to build a new one!”

“They’re not going to get the chance once we gut them!”

Eugene had doubled back and grabbed the gun from near the door. That bravado did not last for very long once they noticed that the man barrelling towards them was holding a long arm in his clutches. What happened next was beyond anyone’s control.

One of the men attempted to draw his own weapon and fire back, but Eugene was already aiming at him. A deafening gunshot rang through the yard once he pulled the trigger. The shell struck the man in the shoulder, the force of the impact forcing him to drop his gun and collapse to the floor.

Tobias, who was trying to work with the animals in the barn when the confrontation started, ran through the doors and directly into their grasp as he fled the flames. The other man pounced on top of him and tackled him to the ground. There was a violent struggle between the two, punches and kicks thrown in a desperate contest, but the fight ended once he drew a knife from his jacket and held it to Tobias’ neck. The cold embrace of the metal edge made him freeze in place.

“Don’t bloody move or the pretty boy gets it!”

The Scuncath clambered back to his feet with an arm held around Tobias’ neck. Eugene continued to aim the gun at him, but they both knew that he wasn’t going to pull the trigger with his son in the iron sights.

The injured cultist groaned in agony, writhing in the dirt and trying to stem the bleeding using the palm of his hand. With every second that passed during the standoff, more damage was being caused to the barn, and the animals that were sleeping inside were placed under threat.

“You think you can come onto my farm, burn down my property, and walk away without paying for it? You’re stupider than you look!” Eugene spat.

The hostage-taker was visibly nervous. He glanced at his injured friend and calculated the odds of him surviving his injury, and whether it was even worth it to stick around and try to rescue him. There was no honour amongst Scuncath – and the decision he made was the obvious one.

He pulled Tobias along with him and started to slowly back away towards the gate.

“Drop the gun. I let your lad go, and we all agree that this never happened.”

“I’m not dropping this gun. You’re going to let him go no matter what.”

He motioned as if to stab his neck with the shiv, “I’m warning you! He’s going to be bleeding all over the dirt if you don’t back off!”

Samantha suddenly found herself in the grip of her memories. All of the lessons that Maria taught her about dealing with dangerous situations flooded back into the forefront of her mind. He was using a knife. There was no good way to deal with someone using a knife. He could kill Tobias before Eugene could stop him.

But he was trying to get away alive. They were violent and uncaring, but he was acting selfishly to preserve his own life. Letting Eugene drop his gun would be a terrible mistake. It would allow him to act with impunity in return for nothing.

“Don’t stop aiming at him, Dad.”

Eugene narrowed his gaze, “Why?”

“He wants to get out of here without being shot. Giving him what he wants will mean he has no reason to keep Tobias alive. No matter what, you have to keep aiming at them.”

That was easier said than done. Eugene would sooner take his own life than even risk the smallest chance of letting one of his children get hurt by his hand. He accepted the grim resolve and continued to aim at the pair. Samantha was right. He wanted to leave in one piece, and that was what they had to utilise to get Tobias back safely.

Ben and Meriden watched from the porch as the situation unfolded. Neither dared get any closer should it provoke the man’s wrath. The burning barn illuminated more and more of the property, revealing his panicked expression and heavy breathing. There was nowhere to hide.

“Let him go. I’ll heal your friend and we’ll turn you in to the constables. Don’t make this any worse than it already is,” Samantha said.

“I’m not stupid enough to fall for that!” the man spat, “I know what you country folk are like. Killing a few animals is enough to land a death sentence.”

“And so is getting shot during a standoff! You can take a chance on the justice system, or you can keep playing this game and risk getting killed.”

Samantha felt that this was going nowhere. He was edging ever closer to the fence at the back of the field. He was going to make a break for it when the opportunity presented itself and potentially harm Tobias on the way out.

Burning embers floated through the air.

One small movement would sever Tobias’ neck artery. Samantha watched him like a hawk, waiting for the precise moment during which she could strike back and rescue her brother from his clutches. Tobias had other ideas though. He kept a close watch on where his knife-wielding hand was going, and when he made the error of briefly moving it away from him...

Tobias ducked, tugging himself free from the arm around his neck and dragging both himself and the Scuncath to their knees. He struggled to regain control of Tobias before Eugene fired, but Eugene was never going to risk hitting Tobias using the spread of a shotgun shell.

Samantha didn’t have time to hesitate. If she stood by and did nothing now, then one of her brothers was going to be seriously injured. It went against everything that Felipe and Miss Jennings had taught her during their magic lessons, but it was the only weapon that she had to defend him.

The air crackled. Samantha cupped her hands as if to direct the magical energy swirling around her body. The Scuncath continued to lord over Tobias with a knife held in hand. A rush of adrenaline. The blink of an eye. A bolt of electrical energy shot through the air and pierced him in the chest.

An almighty thunderclap rang out through the yard, the Scuncath flying several feet backwards from the force of the blow. His head hit the ground and he fell unconscious, still twitching as his muscles were seized and pulled taut by the impulse. Tobias squawked in shock and hurried away from the Scuncath before he was captured again.

Meriden and Ben rushed over and opened the barn doors to try and rescue as many of the animals as they could, while Eugene grabbed a length of rope to tie up both criminals before they could escape.

He cautiously approached the two unconscious men and tied their arms and legs so they couldn’t move. The one who was hit by Samantha’s lighting was still smoking – it was highly unlikely that he was capable of getting back up after that, but he wasn’t going to take chances.

Once the injured man was restrained, Samantha used some of her healing magic to stop the bleeding. A doctor would need to extract the bullet later. Eugene patted her on the back with pride, “Bloody hell Sam - you threw him halfway across the country!”

Samantha started at the burning husk of what used to be their barn.

“Samantha, are you okay?”

Samantha shook her head, “I should have said something. This is my fault.”

“Your fault? How is this your fault?”

Samantha stared at her feet rather than admit the truth. She knew this was going to happen. If she had just told her Father that it was dangerous to deal with these cultists, then Tobias would have never been put into this situation.

Tobias approached and put a hand on her other shoulder; “Sam – don’t beat yourself up. I’m fine. You saved my arse. I didn’t know you could use your magic like that!”

The barn was done for, but at least they’d managed to save some of the livestock before they burnt to death. Meriden and Ben couldn’t risk going inside again with the structure so compromised from the flames. Soon enough, the structural beams gave way and the entire thing collapsed in on itself. All of the movement came to a sudden halt as the family stepped back to reckon with the destruction of the barn. It was now nothing more than a burning pile of timber.

But the worst part was that Eugene’s beloved harvesting machine had gone up with it. There was no realistic chance of it surviving the intense heat. It had cost him nearly three years’ worth of profits to buy originally. It paid itself off fairly quickly, but the upfront expense was still too much for him to swallow. The only silver lining was that it was the off-season, and harvesting the crop was still months away.

“Is everyone okay?” Meriden fretted.

“It looks like it,” Eugene sighed, “I’d better go and wake the constable.”

“You can’t,” Samantha revealed.

“We can’t? Why not?”

“...He’s dead.”

Eugene double-took, “He’s dead?”

Samantha nodded silently. She bent over and cradled her knees, the smell of burnt wood filling her senses. This was her fault. She should have said something about how dangerous they were. Tobias was almost killed because of her indecision.

Tobias threw up his hands, “What the heck are we going to do with these two? We can’t leave him with a bullet wound for the whole night. He’s going to die.”

Eugene wanted to say ‘yes we can,’ but letting one of the suspects die on his watch when there was something to be done about it would not endear them to the constables. They’d have to haul both of them into town and alert one of the other officers.

“Are you sure that Fernwell is dead?” Eugene asked.

“Definitely,” Samantha replied, “We saw some of these people throwing his body into an empty field.”

Eugene was outraged, “And you didn’t tell us? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”

Samantha’s voice was subdued as she explained, “They told us to stay quiet. They’re afraid of them catching on to what’s happening and fleeing the town, or causing more damage to keep them busy. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t expect them to come back and really try to burn down the house.”

“You have to take them into town, Eugene,” Meriden declared, “We can’t keep them here.”

Eugene backed off from pressuring Samantha and straightened himself out. There was no need to put too much pressure on her after a stressful event like this. He turned to where the cart was usually kept by the side of the house; “Are the horses okay?”

“They’re fine,” Ben nodded, “I think we lost one of the pigs though.”

“Bastards. Did they have to do this on a cold night?” Eugene complained. Normally the animals were kept in their own areas, but on colder nights he would move them into the barn to keep the wind away.

Samantha stood on the sidelines and watched her family navigate the messy consequences. Her mind wandered. How would Maria have handled this situation? She was always two steps ahead of everyone else. She probably would have spotted them from a mile away and shot them dead before they even thought about touching the barn or her brother.

Samantha felt angry, and that was almost foreign to her. She detested the men who barged into their home, took away their security, and threatened to kill Tobias. She wanted them to suffer even more than they already had. But Samantha understood that it was a passing emotion. Not even Maria truthfully acted with that kind of malice, not unless she was exceptional at concealing it.

“I like to believe that everyone has a good reason for what they do – but the unfortunate truth is that some of them do not. Some people merely wish to cause harm for harm’s sake.”

Maria said that in the aftermath of the theatre shooting, this was the first time Samantha had met one of those dangerous breeds. The Scuncath faith encouraged them to express their darkest and most violent impulses – it was not a motivation, but an excuse. They enjoyed harming others simply for the rush it gave them.

Meriden snapped her back to reality, “Samantha – let’s go inside. You’re going to catch a cold if you sit there any longer. Let Eugene and Ben take care of it.”

Samantha hesitantly got to her feet and followed her and Tobias back into the house. Her mind and pulse raced, and she wondered if the pair would be safe heading into town alone at this time of night. But at the same time, casting the bolt that struck one of the attackers down had drained her physically, on top of the already heavy emotional toll. She couldn’t go on any further than this.

All Samantha could do was marvel at how Maria managed her nerves in times like these. She sat down at the kitchen table and stared blankly at the opposite wall for several minutes while an uneasy feeling started to boil in her stomach.

Marvel. Marvel. Was that really the right word? It sounded almost complimentary.

No. It wasn’t a marvel at all.

It was terrifying.