"Then we'll go where you are, when we can. We're always going to be best friends." Nothing would change that, Cal thought, and took his own, personal oath on it. Nothing ever could. He looked at his watch. "It's going to be midnight soon. I have an idea."

He took out his Boy Scout knife and, opening the blade, held it in the fire.

"What's up?" Fox demanded.

"I'm sterilizing it. Like, ah, purifying it." It got so hot he had to pull back, blow on his fingers. "It's like Gage said about ritual and stuff. Ten years is a decade. We've known each other almost the whole time. We were born on the same day. It makes us...different," he said, searching for words he wasn't quite sure of. "Like special, I guess. We're best friends. We're like brothers."

Gage looked at the knife, then into Cal's face. "Blood brothers."

"Yeah."

"Cool." Already committed, Fox held out his hand.

"At midnight," Cal said. "We should do it at midnight, and we should have some words to say."

"We'll swear an oath," Gage said. "That we mix our blood, um, three into one? Something like that. In loyalty."

"That's good. Write it down, Cal."

Cal dug pencil and paper out of his pack. "We'll write words down, and say them together. Then we'll do the cut and put our wrists together. I've got Band-Aids for after if we need them."

Cal wrote the words with his Number Two pencil on the blue lined paper, crossing out when they changed their minds.

Fox added more wood to the fire so that the flames crackled as they stood by the Pagan Stone.

At moments to midnight, they stood, three young boys with faces lit by fire and starlight. At Gage's nod, they spoke together in voices solemn and achingly young.

"We were born ten years ago, on the same night, at the same time, in the same year. We are brothers. At the Pagan Stone we swear an oath of loyalty and truth and brotherhood. We mix our blood."

Cal sucked in a breath and geared up the courage to run the knife across his wrist first. "Ouch."

"We mix our blood." Fox gritted his teeth as Cal cut his wrist.

"We mix our blood." And Gage stood unflinching as the knife drew over his flesh.

"Three into one, and one for the three."

Cal held his arm out. Fox, then Gage pressed their scored wrists down to his. "Brothers in spirit, in mind. Brothers in blood for all time."

As they stood, clouds shivered over the fat moon, misted over the bright stars. Their mixed blood dripped and fell onto the burnt ground.

The wind exploded with a voice like a raging scream. The little campfire spewed up flame in a spearing tower. The three of them were lifted off their feet as if a hand gripped them, tossed them. Light burst as if the stars had shattered.

As he opened his mouth to shout, Cal felt something shove inside him, hot and strong, to smother his lungs, to squeeze his heart in a stunning agony of pain.

The light shut off. In the thick dark blew an icy cold that numbed his skin. The sound the wind made now was like an animal, like a monster that only lived inside books. Beneath him the ground shook, heaving him back as he tried to crawl away.

And something came out of that icy dark, out of that quaking ground. Something huge and horrible.

Eyes bloodred and full of...hunger. It looked at him. And when it smiled, its teeth glittered like silver swords.

He thought he died, and that it took him in, in one gulp.

But when he came to himself again, he could hear his own heart. He could hear the shouts and calls of his friends.

Blood brothers.

"Jesus, Jesus, what was that? Did you see?" Fox called out in a voice thin as a reed. "Gage, God, your nose is bleeding."

"So's yours. Something...Cal. God, Cal."

Cal lay where he was, flat on his back. He felt the wet warmth of blood on his face. He was too numb to be frightened by it. "I can't see." He croaked out a weak whisper. "I can't see."

"Your glasses are broken." Face filthy with soot and blood, Fox crawled to him. "One of the lenses is cracked. Dude, your mom's going to kill you."

"Broken." Shaking, Cal reached up to pull off his glasses.

"Something. Something was here." Gage gripped Cal's shoulder. "I felt something happen, after everything went crazy, I felt something happen inside me. Then...did you see it? Did you see that thing?"

"I saw its eyes," Fox said, and his teeth chattered. "We need to get out of here. We need to get out."

"Where?" Gage demanded. Though his breath still wheezed, he grabbed Cal's knife from the ground, gripped it. "We don't know where it went. Was it some kind of bear? Was it-"

"It wasn't a bear." Cal spoke calmly now. "It was what's been here, in this place, a long time. I can see...I can see it. It looked like a man once, when it wanted. But it wasn't."

"Man, you hit your head."

Cal turned his eyes on Fox, and the irises were nearly black. "I can see it, and the other." He opened the hand of the wrist he'd cut. In the palm was a chunk of a green stone spotted with red. "His."

Fox opened his hand, and Gage his. In each was an identical third of the stone. "What is it?" Gage whispered. "Where the hell did it come from?"

"I don't know, but it's ours now. Uh, one into three, three into one. I think we let something out. And something came with it. Something bad. I can see."

He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them to look at his friends. "I can see, but not with my glasses. I can see without them. It's not blurry. I can see without my glasses."

"Wait." Trembling, Gage pulled up his shirt, turned his back.

"Man, they're gone." Fox reached out to touch his fingers to Gage's unmarred back. "The welts. They're gone. And..." He held out his wrist where the shallow cut was already healing. "Holy cow, are we like superheroes now?"

"It's a demon," Cal said. "And we let it out."

"Shit." Gage stared off into the dark woods. "Happy goddamn birthday to us."

CHAPTER Three