Matt gave the tiniest of nods. "I'm sorry. Kevin's alive. I need you to drive to town and get the ambulance crew. Load them up in here and get back as fast as you can. Can you do that for me?"
Eyes wet, Cory nodded.
"Say it."
Cory looked out at Kevin, then back to Matt, his face a mask of grim resolve. "I can do that."
"Good. Kevin's life depends on it. And take care of my dog. Go."
Matt stepped out and got to work while Cory pulled away.
He put his hand on Kevin's neck, warm despite the near-freezing temperatures and covered in dog hair. "Kevin, buddy. Can you hear me?"
Kevin's lips twitched, but no sound came out.
"I can't see where you're hurt. Can you tell me?"
He leaned in close and could just make out the answer. "Chest."
"Can you breathe okay?"
A tiny nod. "Hurts, though. Your Ted. He kept me warm."
"Hush. Don't talk unless you have to." He prodded gently, and Kevin didn't react much. "Ted's a good boy. Does that hurt?"
"No more than usual."
"All right. I'm going to roll you over. Try not to scream."
He dug his boots in as best he could, put his hands on Kevin's shoulder and thigh, and heaved. The giant rolled over with a whimpering sigh.
Matt unzipped Kevin's coat to reveal a flannel shirt beneath, a square object in the breast pocket. Buttons flew as he ripped open the shirt, then tore off the white undershirt to reveal a massive black bruise covering Kevin's entire chest, and not a drop of blood.
Matt pulled the object from Kevin's breast pocket, a polished chrome case he had to wrench open. Inside, a tiny bible lay obliterated, the bullet flattened against the back of the container.
"You lucky son of a bitch," Matt said. He gently prodded Kevin's chest with his fingertips, and tears came to the big man's eyes. Kevin hissed and bit his lip, drawing blood, as Matt assessed the damage. His ribs shifted far too much. A quick check of Kevin's extremities gave him a better assessment. "You want the good news or the bad news?"
"Good." The word came out as a gasp.
"You're a fat bastard and you're well dressed, so between the coat and the dog hypothermia doesn't seem to be an issue. The parka and the gloves protected you from frostbite on your extremities, and I think we can blame Ted that you might have just a touch on your left ear, but that's it." He held up the bible and box. "The Good Book saved you, deflected the bullet and absorbed a lot of the impact. You're going to be fine."
"Bad?"
"Your sternum's shattered. You're likely going to need surgery and won't be up and about for a good while. You need to stay nice and still until the ambulance gets here. Now for the great news."
Kevin lifted his eyebrows. "There's great news?"
Matt grinned and held up a syringe. "This is morphine."
* * *
Light flashed three times. Sakura zoomed in to see Finster lying where the sniper had been. He drew a line across his throat, then positioned himself to draw down on the truck.
Sakura bolted down the slope, feet plunging into the scree under the snow in a series of tiny avalanches. She hit the road at a full sprint and whirled around as she skidded to the front of the truck. Her thigh burned, and red wetness spread across her jeans.
The men inside freaked, the driver diving out of sight, the passenger clutching for a pistol on the dash. She pulled the trigger twice, sending two three-round bursts through the windshield into his center of mass. He twitched and jerked, but Sakura yelled her next command before his dead body had a chance to settle.
"Hands up! Now!" She punctuated the command with a burst into the radiator.
The driver's hands shot up to the roof of the cab.
"Keep them there. I will not warning shoot." She limped up to the side, sneering around clenched teeth. "Now with your right hand you will open the door and step out. Your hands will be in sight at all times."
He got out, a scruffy man in his twenties, eyes wide, cheek spattered with his companion's blood. All color had drained from his face.
"Who are you?" A tickle worked its way down her leg, warm blood trickling down to her ankle and into her sock. She kept the weapon trained on the driver.
He puffed up his chest. "I don't answer to vermin."
An engine revved behind her, and tires skittered across gravel. She stepped back and turned to keep the scruffy man and the approaching vehicle in view, and a shot rang out.
The man twisted and fell to the side, his hand still on the pistol tucked into the back of his jeans.
White-knuckled, Pastor Joe gripped the wheel with both hands, careening to a stop in front of the body. He gaped out the window at her leg. "You've been shot!"
Sakura looked down at the dark stain spreading across her thigh, then back up at the idiot. "And you were instructed to stay back and cover our retreat! Now give me the keys."
"I heard gun—"
She choked up the REC-7 and drew a bead on his face. "Give me the keys. Now."
He yanked the keys from the ignition and held them out. She snatched them from his outstretched hand and lowered the weapon just as Jed Callaway rounded the corner below, slogging up the snowy road with his AR-15 cradled to his chest. She shoved the keys in her pocket and limped into the maintenance shed.
The generator sat idle but intact. A minute's tinkering got it running. Ten seconds later her phone beeped, showing full service, so she stepped out, closed and re-locked the door.
Finster had dragged the other body down from his roost, a ragged red line sliced across his neck. They exchanged nods, then Sakura sat on the snow-covered concrete. She pulled out a knife and sliced through her jeans with one expert move.
Her trip down the slope had shifted the bandage and dislodged the gauze, exposing several stitches that had separated in her exertions. It bled more than it should, but not arterial—with a little care she'd be fine. She re-wrapped the bandage, cinched it tight, and looked up.
They'd laid the bodies out in a line. Callaway held three wallets, Finster arranged their weapons on the hood of Callaway's truck, and Pastor Joe sat behind the wheel, hands on at ten and two, face white.
Finster spat. "Sorry about that. I figured you wanted that one alive, but with your back half-turned and him going for that pea shooter, I figured safe's better than sorry."
"You made the right call." She glared at Joe. "His fault, and Callaway's for letting him get the keys, but not yours."
Jed looked from the weapons to Sakura to the dead men. "What now?"
"I'll report their identities and leave two of you here to guard the tower from further incursion. The pastor will come with me back to town."
Joe opened the door and threw up, the messy splatter darkening the snow.
* * *
Jason Rees ploughed St. Martin's utility van through the snow-covered streets and thanked the Lord the snow had finally stopped. His head swam with fatigue and the last vestiges of withdrawal, and most of all with the vision that had stopped him cold in mid-sermon.
Monica slept in a bed of giant brambles, the thorns piercing angry red welts through her skin. She thrashed and they tightened, lifting her into the air, still unconscious. Beneath her Adam sat in a small ring of bare Earth surrounded by feathers of ice, just beginning to melt under a black sun. Just outside the feathers, black wormlike forms writhed and slithered through and over the ground, probing forward and shying back just before contact.
He'd walked out, the ceremony unfinished, and drove south without explanation. He still had none, other than that the love of his life needed him.
Across the state line he turned on the radio, and caught the news of White Spruce. But despite the gnawing anxiety in his gut, he could drive no faster than conditions allowed.
Chapter 9
Light drifted in rainbows across the room, a silent lullaby given form. The angel smiled as Monica opened her eyes, stroked her hair and folded her in its wings of ice. Sh
e sighed and returned the smile, sinking into the soothing warmth. She knew its face; it looked like her dad, but had her husband's brown eyes—or maybe Adam's—but flecked with brilliant green.
It spoke to her, a million words and none, a swirling vortex of comfort that held promise but no meaning.
She opened her mouth to respond, and water filled her lungs. She jerked upright, coughing and gagging, sloshing cool water over the sides of the tub.
"She's awake!" The female voice came from the hallway, nasal New England vowels like fingernails across a chalkboard. Monica gagged and took stock of the tiny bathroom, just large enough to fit a tub, toilet, and sink, all in white as stark as the tile walls.
A wood-framed cross-stitch hung above the toilet. "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." Gross. Water conservation had never been that much of a problem in Tennessee.
A brunette stepped through the door into the tiny bathroom, a teenager with dazzling, golden-brown eyes, her high cheekbones and prominent chin lacquered with too much makeup. She uncrossed her arms, revealing a green T-shirt emblazoned with the words Division By Zero in stark white letters. "You had a close call there. Sorry about the bath. Feeling warmer?"
Monica stood from the almost warm water, snatched a towel from a bar on the wall, and wrapped it around her naked body. "Where's my son?"
The girl turned around while she covered herself. "He's okay. My boyfriend's got him. What were you doing in the woods all alone, and after all this snow?"
"I'd like to see him, please."
"Sure. I got you some clothes that should fit now that you're all warmed up. Come on downstairs and we'll get you some tea. You hungry?" She turned around and smiled with dazzling white Hollywood teeth.
The gnawing pit in Monica's stomach weakened her knees. She nodded.
"I'll make you something and meet you downstairs. Take your time."
She dried off, threw on jeans and a man's T-shirt too big by half, and walked out of the bathroom on wobbly legs. She passed a bedroom where a pair of men played cards on a king-sized bed. They ignored her as she walked by, and the hair rose on the back of her neck.
Curved wooden stairs led to a large living room complete with a stone fireplace, the workmanship closer to the American Revolution than the new millennium. The girl sat on a large couch, a gaudy 70's throwback of stylized flowers on faded ecru. On the coffee table in front of her sat a tea tray with two cups and a steaming bowl of grits with butter and brown sugar. Saliva sprang unbidden to her mouth.
"Sit, please." The girl patted the cushion next to her.
Monica sat and shoveled a spoonful down as the girl poured the tea. It burned her mouth, but she didn't care. She used the scalding tea to wash down gulps of hot grits, buttery and too sweet, and didn't stop until she'd finished both. She leaned back, still hungry, and gave her host a thin smile.
"Thank you so much. Now I'd like to see my son, please."
"In a minute." The girl turned so that they almost faced one another. "What were you doing way out there in the woods? Seems a weird place to be during a travel ban."
Monica closed her eyes a moment at the memories, then forced them open, still woozy from the mental and physical trauma. "You heard about the fires in White Spruce?"
She nodded.
"Well some men, terrorists or something, they come looking for me." She held up a finger to forestall the interruption. "They killed my friends, but I managed to hurt one of them and run with my boy."
"So after you hurt this man, you just ran off into the woods? We found you eleven miles from White Spruce."
"Eleven miles? That's not . . . it couldn't have been. I walked, but no way it was that far. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to see my son now."
"Hold on a minute. I'm still trying to figure out if we need to call Child Protection."
"Child Protection?"
"We can't be sure it's your child. Maybe you took him, and that's why you were running through the woods."
"You're out of—" Monica stopped and studied the girl, scrutinized her as Sifu taught her to analyze an opponent. She seemed relaxed at first blush but kept her hands in front of her, her weight shifted toward the front of the couch, ready to strike or run. Even through a haze of shock and hypothermia, Monica recognized the potential for violent action. "Honey, I don't see my son right quick you're going to need a mortician."
The girl patted her hand, and a tingly electric jitter shot up her arm. "We already need one. That man you hurt, he suffocated when you crushed his throat. His name was Ben. Ben Carpenter. He kept bees, ran a store. He'll never see his wife again. Never pet his dog. A good man, dead. Because you killed him."
Monica jerked her hand back with too much effort, too slow. A million words in her defense came to mind: they'd killed her friends, attacked her, burned her town. Self-defense. Defense of her son. She shook off the haze, smiled as sweet as tea, licked her lips, and said, "Sweetheart, I'm giving you two seconds to bring me my son, or I'm breaking your twiggy little neck."
The girl's expression didn't change but for a flash of anger in her eyes. "Your devil-spawn's not here, Missus Rowley. For some reason we found him just impossible to cut up, and I thought maybe you could tell us why."
Monica struck, or meant to. She jerked to the side, snarling, and slid down to lay on the couch.
"Shit," the girl muttered, then leaned down to whisper in Monica's ear. "Yeah, that paralytic in your grits acts pretty fast, so you're not going to be able to do much more than talk, and not even that very well. So let's try this again."
The girl shoved the coffee table with her foot, then rolled Monica off the couch and face-down onto the floor.
Monica banged her head and saw stars but couldn't catch herself or even roll over. Blood stained the floor in a widening pool, a cut on her head or maybe a bloody nose. It didn't hurt like it should, more a vague throb than a concussive blow. The girl's weight on her back felt dull, a vague pressure in her lungs.
"What sick, twisted shit did you do to your son?"
Her defiant scream came out as a groan.
"I asked you a question."
Monica's tongue filled her mouth, thick and sloppy. She tried to swear around it, but nothing intelligible came out.
"Answer me, you bitch!"
"Hey," a male voice said, soft and deferential. "How much did you give her?"
"Two pills."
Monica tried to turn her head to see the man, but her neck wouldn't respond. She strained to stand and kill them both, but nothing happened.
He snorted. "Those are for hundred-kilo sows, and you just gave two to an eight-stone girl. She's not answering any questions. We got to go, anyway. Company's coming."
"Stone" meant ten or twenty pounds or something in England, but he didn't sound English. His accent couldn't be more generic, middle America or maybe southern Canadian.
"I'm not done." Monica felt more than heard the petulant pout in the girl's reply.
His voice lost its velvet glove. "You gave her too much. She won't feel anything anyway, and she won't be able to talk. C'mon. They just called Homeland Security. It's run time."
The girl sighed. "Car thick, you don't always have to ball so hard."
Monica tried to make sense of that, but couldn't. She tried to open her eyes, realized she'd closed them, and couldn't do anything about it.
"They'll take care of her. C'mon. Let's go."
"Car thick—"
"Now."
The pressure lifted from Monica's chest. Her next breath came slower, and the next slower still. The world hazed white in the memory of beating wings.
* * *
Matt's helmet beeped as he bolted down the ATV tracks through the woods, chewing up the miles at a dead sprint, his boots sucking mud with every step. "Rowley. Go ahead."
"Service is restored," Sakura said. "Three casualties, no friendlies." She briefed him on the operation as he ran.
"Thank you. Janet?"
"We have multiple hostiles active in the White Spruce area. At least three civilian casualties, probably more. Suspected Humans for Humanity terrorist cell, heavily armed with personal weapons, RPGs and explosives. Suicide bombing already in evidence. Requesting DHS counterterrorism support, and right now wouldn't be too soon."
"Wow. Sounds like you kids are having fun. You running? Go ahead."
"They have Monica and Adam. I'm tracking suspects through the woods a few miles south of town. If the uplink's working route GPS to my helmet. And get me that backup!"
"Roger. Requesting support."
He ran another several miles through peaceful, white forest, every step a fight against the giant globs of mud that adhered to his boots. He spooked a doe that ran off, white tail bouncing through the thickets, and in the distance a fox stalked a rabbit through the snow. Worry destroyed any enjoyment he might have gotten from the peaceful scene.
The GPS icon popped up on his HUD, so he brought up the map as an overlay.
"Do we have real-time satellite on this position?"
"In Tennessee?" Janet asked. "Not a chance. I can put in a request, but it'll probably have to go through a judge. It'd be a few days, if ever."
"Forget it. Call Arnold. See if you can't scramble a surveillance drone."
"Who the fuck is Arnold?"
"Air Force base, Janet. Southern Tennessee?"
She sighed. "Arnold AFB hasn't had an operable runway since two thousand nine."
"Then call somewhere else, dammit!"
"Yeah, okay. Request for aerial reconnaissance up-going. Hold your nuts."
An enormous farmhouse came into view, red brick surrounded by acres of lawn, with a hundred yards of clear field in every direction. The ATV tracks led to a huge barn, red paint faded and peeled from years of neglect. Matt stopped at the wood line, stepping sideways to deny a clean shot.
"Janet, can you see this?"
"Uplink's clear, go ahead."
"See what you can figure out about this house, please."
"Give me a minute. I'm on hold with the Air Force."
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