The Last Harmon [Complete]

Chapter 32

"How much do you know about project H?" Tex asks me.

He walks me slowly through the dimly-lit camp, I keep my head high and I try not to make eye contact with any of the surrounding Slayers, but I'm drawn to them like a shark to blood. Most of them stare at me for seconds before glancing away, but there is one, a man with no hair and a short, black beard that stares just a little longer. The huts go on for miles, and with the safety of the forest, the camp could be endless. That means a lot of Slayers must be stationed here to guard it. I'm almost surprised that there isn't a shield around it to protect it from outside threats. Like myself. But then human refugees wouldn't be able to seek safety.

"Project H?" I repeat quietly. "Humans?"

"Not much then," Tex says. "Like a few others, it seems you are the subject of another of Sam's tests."

"He does this often?"

"Not often, no. Just occasionally."

"How long have you worked for him?"

Tex stares at me. I cough, realising that was a wrongly phrased question.

"At the camp, I mean."

"Since the project began five years ago," he says. "I run it. I put forward teams of scouts that scour the world for human refugees willing to come and Sam authorizes it."

"How many came?"

"As of today, there are two hundred and forty humans." He frowns suddenly. "Hardly anything compared to the millions that are still out there though. It's becoming harder and harder to separate them since Amara ordered the Red Camps."

I stop suddenly, placing my hand on his arm in disbelief. "What did you just say?"

Tex raises an eyebrow, challenging my knowledge of this. But my eyes cannot hide the sudden sadness.

"You didn't know?" he says. "Sam didn't mention that?"

"The Red Camps," I say. "As in. . . concentration camps? She's imprisoning humans?"

"It happened a couple of weeks ago, ever since a witch was kidnapped from her. Well, so we heard. She's got these camps all over America. Humans were rallied in their thousands and forced into cramped and horrific pens. The gates are spelled so that we can't enter them and they're patrolled by wiccans around the clock."

"She's gone mad," I mutter.

I knew something like this would happen eventually, I just didn't expect it to be this soon. She's doing this to draw me out, even when she knows I've agreed to kill Sam for the sake of the world she still has to commit an evil act in order to ensure it. Now she's given me no choice. She has thousands of innocent lives confined and lined up for the slaughter if I don't go through with it; this is a warning, and it's one that I can't ignore.

"There was a time when it was just us Slayers that had reason to fear her," he says. "Now it's everyone. No matter what species, no matter what blood, we are all her enemy."

I look around a small part of the camp sheepishly. My eyes rest on the sight of a man cradling a little girl on a log. He is softly humming a song to her to get her to sleep and I am caught in a hypnotizing moment of heartbreak.

"Do you have eyes on those camps?" I ask.

Tex nods. "There is one, just on the border of California. It's the smallest we've found, with only a hundred prisoners and ten wiccan guards. We have a team ready for infiltration in a few weeks."

"None of that will matter if you can't get through the spell," I say.

"That's exactly why we've failed in every infiltration so far," he sighs. "There's a high chance the team will fail, like every other."