Killing Frost (After the Shift Book 2)

by Grace Hamilton

  “How long is string this week?” Donie asked moodily. “We’re doing our best. Maybe if you weren’t about to take us away from this on a duck hunt for a gangster, we might be able to say.”

  “Okay, point taken. But, genuine question, how is it going?”

  Dave put down the soldering iron and rubbed his tired eyes. “This is a fritzed actuator for the dish on the roof. Needs some more work, but I’m nearly there. Once that’s on, we’ll be able to control the direction on the dish and that might give us a range of satellites to try. Donie’s working on the code we need to handshake and get in. The NSA hack tools will come in handy, and we haven’t found any system yet we can’t get into.”

  “You have NSA stuff? How the hell… no, wait, don’t answer; I don’t want to know.”

  “You really don’t,” Donie said with a wry smile, not lifting her head from the screen in front of her or pausing in her tapping on the keyboard. “Like laws and sausages, you don’t want to know how hacking is made. Just leave it that we got access to this stuff a long while ago, and that might have been why people were shooting at us just before you found us.”

  “Why does everyone have to be a freaking mystery all of a sudden?” Nathan breathed out ruefully. “I’m an average guy, average life, average family, and, you know… I’m average… everyone else around me wants to be extraordinary. What’s wrong with being average?”

  “Nothing,” Dave answered.

  Donie shrugged her shoulders. “Not for me, man; just not my style.”

  Dave snorted and smiled. “Anyway, once the code is completed and we have a new wind turbine set up, one dedicated to the system, I guess we’ll be ready. We’ll need to go out and source a server and some Wi-Fi kits, but we should pretty soon be able to give you coverage for most of the building. Everyone gets internet here. Well, what’s left of it anyway. There are at least servers working all around the world, and some deep stuff still accessible here in the States—God Bless Bill Gates—so we’ll have information and be able to communicate with any groups in the outside world who have the same skills as us.”

  “That’s if the floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis haven’t killed them all.” It was the first thing Syd had said, other than grunting to accept her cup of coffee, since they’d come down to Dave and Donie’s apartment.

  “Well, that’s what we’ll be trying to find out,” Dave said, ignoring the sarcasm in Syd’s voice.

  Syd had never looked so small and vulnerable to Nathan as she did now. Legs tucked under her on the sofa, her hands clutching at her mug, birdlike, sitting there and taking baby sips. And her eyes bulged as if she was replaying horrific stuff in her head. His experience of Syd was that she would tell him what was eating at her in time—all he had to do was make sure she didn’t see him as a threat or believe that he had lied to her. Syd was a person for whom trust was everything. She had that with Tony and Saber, and to a lesser extent, she’d had that with Nathan until today, when he’d gone to deal with Brant instead of making sure she was okay.

  “Well, as soon as you have it up and running, I need you to find something for me.”

  That made Donie look up. “Oh?”

  “Yes,” Nathan said. “Somewhere else other than Detroit for us to live.”

  As arranged, Brant sent two Humvees two mornings later to pick up Cyndi, Tony, and Brandon and take them back to the Greenhouse. The day was a rare clear one, with the sky still pale blue from the ash cloud, but there was enough harsh light to make the snow on the ground hurt the eyes and drain everything else of color.

  Cyndi had packed already, and hadn’t wanted Nathan to help. He’d trolled around the Masonic like he was one of two bears sharing the same sore head, wishing that he didn’t feel so bad about pushing for Cyndi to make this deal with Brant. Logically, he knew it was the right thing to do for the short-term, but the long-term problems it might throw up down the line would be incalculable.

  Cyndi had accepted the idea and she’d told him so, but the idea of being separated from Nathan filled her with dread—even knowing that, with education for Tony and better access to the Greenhousers’ stocks of asthma medication, he’d be better off, and the same would go for Brandon; she hadn’t been away from Nathan for any significant amount of time since they’d married, and it was going to take getting used to.

  “I’ll visit when I can,” he’d said.

  Her half-smile had told him she knew that survival outside the Greenhouse was a full-time job, and that it was hard work, tiring and dirty, especially when it came to keeping the wheezing old heating system going in the Masonic, and not least of all with them going on a manhunt. “Concentrate on staying alive. Everything else will work out,” she’d told him.

  Cyndi had slept both of the last two nights with Brandon in the nursery. There’d been no reason to, though, other than to start to acclimatize herself to their being apart. Nathan had had to fight his demons alongside his better angels to not complain to her. The bed had been cold and the space next to him had felt deep and wide and empty. He’d found himself rolling over several times in the night, expecting the warm curves of her body, and then waking up confused, this to be followed by the sinking feeling of remembering what they’d decided. During the day, they’d passed like ghosts of each other in the apartment, nothing that reached the heady heights of conversation passing between them—just the niceties needed by two people sharing the same space. At least Brandon had seemed to be taking the bottle better, and had more color to his cheeks.

  Tony, however, was a different matter. The last thing he wanted to do was leave his dad, even if it was to go into the relative warmth and safety of the Greenhouse.

  “But I want to stay with you, Dad. Don’t make me go with Mom.”

  “Tony, it’s not up for discussion. You have to go. It’ll be okay. There’ll be school and other kids.”

  “I don’t want other kids.” His face had begun morphing in the past months, shifting from little boy to pre-teen. Perhaps it was all the time he was spending around Syd and her sullen teenage ways. If he didn’t have the influence of kids his own age, he was going to chameleon off of those around him. “I want Saber and I want Syd. I don’t want stupid friends and stupid school!”

  Cyndi had vacated the room to go see to Brandon’s bath and diaper change, but Nathan had suspected she’d been leaving him to deal with Tony alone—she might have accepted the move into the Greenhouse, but she didn’t have to like it, after all. That was a whole other ball game.

  Nathan had considered playing the bad guy with Tony, telling him that this move was happening and that he’d have to get with the program whether he wanted to or not, but even though his son had been stomping about like a hormone-turbocharged teen, Nathan had caught the glistening of tears in the boy’s eyes. It was easy to forget everything Tony had been through in the last few months and not cut him the slack that he needed.

  “Come here.” Nathan’s voice had been soft and level, coaxing his son to accept what was happening. “Come on, buddy, come here and let me tell you something that I haven’t even told Mom.”

  Tony’s shoulders had dropped, but his eyes had come up. “What?”

  “Well, if you don’t come here, I won’t be able to tell you without Mom hearing in the next room and it won’t be a secret anymore, will it?”

  “S’pose not.”

  “So, come here.” Nathan had held out his arms with that, and Tony had come across the room, arms folded across his chest since he wasn’t ready to take the proffered hug yet. But he’d gotten close enough for Nathan to lean forward and whisper in the boy’s ear. “I need you to be my guy on the inside.”

  He’d moved away then and put a finger to his lips to convey this was deeply secret stuff. “Mom’s gonna be busy with the committee and Brandon. But I need someone who’s going to keep an eye on them. Normally, I’d go myself—you know I would, but I can’t. There’s important stuff out here for me to do. But you… you, Tony, can hel
p by not only looking after Mom, but also keeping an eye on what they’re doing in there. You, Tony. You’re my guy.”

  “I’m not a stupid kid, Dad. You’re just bl… bl… motional blank-mailing me.”

  Another line he’d pick up off Syd? Probably. She had more than enough reason to recognize all the tricks adult used to get kids to do what they want. “No, of course I’m not, son. Cross my heart. I really do want you to look out for Mom. I need you to be my eyes and ears. Can you do that for me?” Nathan had whispered again.

  The boy had considered that.

  Perhaps, Nathan thought, caught between wanting to please his father and what Syd had told him about the motivations of adults. And perhaps because the hormones weren’t yet coursing through his body, and he wasn’t yet seeing his father as a rival for the affection of his mother. There was still enough of Tony left after the way things had gone for him to accept what Nathan had been saying. But Nathan had been able to see the boy growing up right in front of him, there and then. So, he’d just reached out, pulled the boy in for a hug, and kissed the top of his head. The smell of his hair and the warmth of his skin, and the bony elbows digging into his broken ribs, had brought out tears in his own eyes that had been formed both by physical pain and overwhelming love.

  “I love the bones of you, Tony Tolley.”

  “Love you, too, Dad,” the boy had said into his father’s shoulder, and the acceptance had been made. “I’ll look after her for you, Dad.”

  “I know you will, son. I never doubted it.”

  And now they were heading down the steps of the Detroit Masonic Temple into the bright chill. Cyndi holding Brandon, and Tony walking with Nathan.

  The others followed them out, Lucy clinging onto Freeson’s arm like her life depended on it, Dave and Donie eyeing the five Detroit PD officers avariciously as they lugged their equipment out of the back of the second Humvee and dumped the crates and bags in the snow. Saber took up the rear with Syd and Stryker. The mood was solemn, and there wasn’t an ounce of celebratory promise in the faces behind Cyndi or in her own. She passed the blanket-wrapped Brandon to Nathan and climbed up into the Humvee. Nathan kissed his youngest son on the forehead and then passed the precious bundle inside. The cops took Cyndi’s two rucksacks around the open back of the truck and put them inside.

  “Dave and Donie should have the comms set up soon; maybe we’ll be able to get together by webcam—you never know.”

  Cyndi smiled thinly at Nathan’s optimism. He knew her well enough to see that there were a million pent-up words between her mind and her lips, but she wasn’t going to let the dam burst now. This wasn’t the time or the place. But similarly, she wasn’t going to give him the affirmation he so desired from his attempt at positivity.

  Tony hugged Nathan. “Don’t worry, Dad. I got this,” he said, and it damn near broke Nathan’s heart to hear the boy say it; it was as much as he could do to put a hand on Tony’s back and draw him close as his eyes remained locked on Cyndi’s.

  Tony climbed into the Humvee next to Cyndi and smiled back at Nathan. And then, as if he thought his father needed it, he gave him a double thumbs-up.

  “Enjoy the vacation,” Stryker called out from the steps, with just about every sense of inappropriateness he could find. Nathan turned to tear several strips off him by telling him it wasn’t a damn vacation, but Lucy had already lifted her leg and kicked him in the ankle.

  “Ow!”

  “Not the time or the place for levity, Stryker. Next time, I’ll aim for somewhere softer. And I’m not talking about your brain.”

  Stryker looked wounded and mouthed “Sorry” to Nathan. Nathan refocused on the Humvee, but the Detroit PD officer—dressed in full black uniform, SWAT helmet, and mirrored shades—was thumping the door closed. Before Nathan could speak, the Humvee roared to life, bit into the snow, and skidded away back the way it had come.

  Nathan watched the Humvee for as long as he could, until it turned at the intersection, its widows glinting in the sunlight, taking his family away.

  6

  “Captain Harmsworth.”

  The leader of the five Detroit PD officers Brant had sent to defend the Masonic Temple while Nathan and the others went in search of Tasha and the rest of her gang was the same cop who had greeted Nathan three days before at the Greenhouse. Out of his parka and in his winter SWAT fatigues, Harmsworth was an impressive figure. Middle-aged, but with muscle not yet turned to fat, his eyes were clear and his jaw was set. Nathan took the proffered hand and shook it.

  Harmsworth looked up at the building. “I’ll need some intel on the exits and entrances, and what security systems you’ve already put in place.”

  “We’ve been covering the door on a rota and have lookouts on the top floor beneath the roof.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it,” said Nathan.

  Harmsworth’s face said that if he could have reached his hand beneath the Kevlar SWAT team helmet he wore, he would have scratched his head. “Okay, who’s available to show me around to get a feel of the place?”

  Stryker stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

  “Ah, the otherwise engaged Mr. Wilson. Glad to see you’re stepping up to the plate at last.”

  Stryker’s face reddened at Harmsworth’s sarcasm, but he offered nothing to counter the comment.

  After bellowing to his four men to secure the perimeter, Harmsworth followed Stryker up the steps and into the building, flicking his chinstrap and pulling off his helmet as he went inside.

  “Well, he seems to know what he’s doing, at least,” Freeson said, falling into step with Nathan as they went up the steps behind the other men.

  “I hope so, Free; I really hope so, because we’re not going to be here to make sure.”

  Freeson drove the Humvee with Nathan up front, Stryker and Dave behind them. Lucy, Syd, and Donie hadn’t been too happy about being left behind, especially as Syd and Lucy knew how to handle themselves in a fight, but Nathan had been adamant that he wanted them back there keeping an eye on the Detroit PD and Harmsworth—he wasn’t completely in the thrall of Brant, and there was still enough doubt in Nathan’s mind for him not to see this as a done deal. One day at a time. Neutralize the gang, capture them if they could, and deliver them to Brant, and after that… who knew? Get the satellite uplink working, find a new place to go, and get the hell out of Detroit before the winter weather worsened—hopefully. It was late August now, and Detroit should have been basking in long hot summer days, but the streets were clogged with snow, storms still blew blizzards in with alarming regularity, and the wind could gut you like a slaughterhouse knife. Who knew what would happen when the real winter came, assuming there’d be one? Two years without spring had been bad enough, added on to the shortening of the days as the crustal displacement had caused the U.S. to slide up the side of the planet into the Earth’s Artic Zone. The shortened days were bad enough on their own, actually, but were they just an indicator? Perhaps the Earth’s crust had been displaced so far now that the winter months would start to bring months of complete darkness. At the moment, night only lasted a few hours as it was, but as September and October approached, what would happen?

  The thought of months of almost permanent darkness terrified Nathan. Who knew what kind of people would try to take advantage of such a state of affairs? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  But they had other things to take care of before they could think that far into the future.

  Their first destination was the tenement block on the way to Trash Town. It was where Tasha had ambushed Nathan and Stryker with Frankie and the now dearly departed Billy.

  In the room where Tasha had explained to Nathan the nature of the deal they’d tried to make, they found evidence of occupation. Someone had lit a fire, and although it was out now, the ashes weren’t completely frozen. There were bloody rags in the corner that looked reasonably fresh. It seemed some rudimentary first responding had taken place, and that Frankie�
�s leg wound had likely been tended to.

  While Donie and Stryker searched the rest of the ground floor, Nathan and Freeson took the upper levels.

  The stairwells, like everything else in the place, had seen better days. The first-floor landing’s wooden banisters had been kicked out and taken for firewood, Freeson surmised, as had some of the doors.

  The rooms without doors were empty, but there was one room at the end of the corridor where the door was shut. Nathan tried it, but it was locked. He placed his ear against the peeling blue paint of the door. No other intact doors that they’d so far tried in the place had been locked.

  Freeson pointed at the lock on the door. “New.”

  Nathan nodded. Everything else in the tenement building was decrepit with age, but this lock was shiny and new. The blue paint of the door had been chipped away when the mechanism had been fitted.

  “Why would you have a locked door in a deserted building?” Freeson asked.

  “Shall we find out?”

  Freeson drew his Beretta and put a round in the chamber, covering Nathan as he raised his boot.

  It took three kicks to get the door open and splintering out of the woodwork, squealing and protesting as the bottom of the door scraped across the floorboards within.

  Dave called up from below, “You guys okay?”

  “Fine,” Nathan called back as Freeson went first, flicking on his flashlight and beaming it into the room because it was so dark.

  Nathan followed, and immediately noticed that the smell of the room didn’t feel right. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it didn’t jibe with the rest of the tenement. It smelled… new… fresh. There wasn’t the attendant smell of damp and decay. He could see edgings of light around the drapes at the window, too, and as Freeson’s flashlight danced across the walls, the beam alighted on a large wooden packing crate. Nathan edged forward and made his way towards the bright thin lines of light illuminating the edges of the drapes. As he pulled the heavy velvet material aside and let the sunlight flood into the room, Freeson was already saying, “Wowsers, Nate. Wowsers.”