As the Worm Turns

by Matthew Quinn Martin

  Kander had explained to them how the collar functioned, at least. In practice, it wasn’t all that different from the “invisible” fences suburbanites used to keep their dogs from wandering. Only instead of a harness, it had been attached to the creature transdermally with an experimental surgical glue. And instead of administering an electric shock, the device injected a dose of saline solution if the creature left its unmarked perimeter. Kander himself was now stationed at the back of the room, monitoring the creature remotely via tracking beacon.

  Ross still held one black Go stone in his left hand. Occasionally he would rub it between forefinger and thumb as he leaned into the center eyepiece. “What are you up to, old friend?” he asked the open air.

  She and Ross had been in the middle of a game when they got word that Jackson had been spotted. It had been Ross’s turn. His Go board sat undisturbed in the far corner. He’d set it up the moment they’d arrived to take their posts. It wasn’t long before he’d invited her to join him. They played while the other agents worked. All the while, she could feel their judging eyes on her, rancor practically broiling from them. They all knew there was more to Ross’s games than stones on a board.

  Ross beat her handily every time, but she could sense her skills improving. And as they played, she learned a bit more about the creature penned up just beneath her. And more about the man they were using it to trap.

  The other agents were armed with long-range Tasers that poked through narrow slits just beneath them. All of them were waiting tensely for Ross to give the order to fire. Lamb gripped the handle of his so hard that Thorne thought she could hear the plastic buckle.

  It had been Ross’s idea to replicate the situation in New Harbor, to make it look as if another nightclub had been targeted. They chose Camden because of its low police presence and plethora of abandoned buildings. They tried to reproduce the incident as closely as possible. Right down to faking the disappearances of three homeless people and an equal number of habitual clubbers. Each had been promised a three-week, all-expenses-paid vacation on the Division’s dime if they just agreed to vanish without telling anyone. Of course, none of them were offered the option of saying no. And Thorne wondered just how many would be coming back.

  “Something’s wrong?” Ross said as he pulled away from the eyepiece. His voice was pitched to the barest of whispers, but it cut through the silence as effectively as his usual baritone. He gestured for Thorne to take his place at the wall.

  She moved in. The eye cup was still warm from Ross’s skin, but she pressed forward, getting her first real look at their quarry. The man was taller than she’d imagined he’d be. Or maybe it was just in contrast to the girl, Becker.

  Other than the fact that Beth Becker had been a bartender before falling in with Jackson, they didn’t have that much intel on her. She had no family to speak of. And while most of the Axis regulars knew her, she had few close friends—two of them dead, presumably because of the creatures.

  “How close is the target now?” Ross asked.

  “He’s just about a hundred feet out.” Agent Lamb adjusted his aim. “I think I can make the shot.”

  “What you think is not important. Do you know that you can make it?”

  “No,” Lamb admitted. “We need to draw him in closer.”

  Ross turned to Dr. Kander. “Give your pet more leash.”

  Kander didn’t so much as lift his eyes from the tablet. “Ill advised. The discipline threshold is already dialed quite low.”

  “I don’t believe I put a question mark at the end of my words, Doctor. Give it more leash.”

  “That would mean courting a containment breach.”

  “Acceptable risk.”

  Thorne wondered what Kander thought Ross was risking. That the thing would get loose and dine on a few members of the Camden population before they managed to contain it? Or that his prize specimen might get killed in the process?

  A static-filled burst came through Thorne’s earpiece. It was from the second team of agents stationed across the street, the ones covering the front of the bank. “Should we move in?”

  Ross lifted his wrist mic. “Not yet. The girl has eyes on the door. It’s a bottleneck. Hold your position.” His voice was as calm as a still lake. It was as if he were simply laying down stones on his Go board. Just marking enough territory to claim his inevitable victory. “What are you waiting for, Jack?” he whispered to himself. “What is it that you think you are after?”

  “Subject is backing up,” Lamb said. “He’ll be out of range in—”

  “He’s out of range now.” Ross once again lifted his wrist. “Prepare for a hard extraction.” The voice echoed loudly in Thorne’s ear bud as it rang out over the common channel. “We still have the element of surprise. On my mark, move in. Take him down. Nonlethal force. Copy?”

  A bevy of copys came back in response, along with one asking, “Nonlethal for the girl as well?”

  Ross paused. “If possible.” He leaned into the eyepiece directly next to Thorne. “On my mark,” Ross repeated. “Four . . . three . . .”

  In the static-filled silence between Ross’s countdown, Thorne detected another sound coming over the common channel. It was faint but urgent. A dog’s bark. Was it just a stray? The bark came again, and Thorne had the nagging feeling that it was a warning—one for Jackson and the girl. “Sir, ahem. Agent Ross?”

  “Hold your positions.” He turned to her. “Well?”

  She held her hand cupped to her ear and gestured to the bank’s front door. “Listen.”

  The bark came again, even more urgent this time.

  Ross balled one fist and just as quickly let it relax. It was the closest Thorne had seen him come to any outward display of anger. He clicked his mic back open, but before he spoke a single word, there was another desperate bark. At the sound, Jackson and then Becker turned and bolted for the exit.

  Thorne felt a firm hand grip her shoulder and pull her back. “Thorne,” Ross snapped. “Get down there. I want you on point to engage the subject.”

  Thirteen

  Jack watched Beth make it to the door. He watched her slip out into the night.

  And then the floor was gone.

  Spasms of agony shot up his leg as his shin barked against the broken edge of a deep hole. The crunch of cartilage thrummed in his head. He pulled his foot free, limping forward and praying it was only a sprain.

  Before he could take more than a few steps, six men in crisp dark suits filed through the door. Each one possessed the waxy look of a Division agent. Each one brandished a Taser. Each one was inching closer to him.

  Jack knew he might be able to resist a single Taser hit; the pain and adrenaline coursing through him could only help. But any more than that, and he’d be theirs. He took a slight step back. His mind bent the way his ankle did—the wrong way. The pain sent his head spinning with vertigo. It was a sprain for sure, a bad one. “Stay back.” He pulled his pistol and took aim at the closest agent.

  They kept inching forward nonetheless.

  Soon Jack was almost back against the teller wall. Why were they pushing him? The only thing behind him was that creature. That would be certain death. If that’s what they wanted, they would have come in with AR-15s, not Tasers. There had to be something else.

  And that was only if they knew about the creature.

  He stole a quick look behind him. Above the vault, cunningly hidden in the shadows, were archer’s slits. And behind those, no doubt, were more Division agents, with more Tasers. They’d either already known about the creature, or brought it here as bait. “Don’t take another step.”

  “Or what? You’ll shoot us with that thing?” one of the agents spat back at him. “What is it, a paintball gun?”

  “Let me put a round through your chest, and you’ll find out what it is.” The sodium silver-nitrate pellets would kill a man as certainly as it would kill the thing behind him. Even body armor wouldn’t be protection enough.


  “Go on. Test me.” Jack took aim at the man who’d mocked him. He was so enormous he strained the seams of his tailored suit. They all did. These were enforcers. They’d rely on muscle before guile. The only advantage he had was his wits.

  “Come on, Jackson,” the big agent said. “You’re outnumbered. You’re outgunned. And that thing behind you hasn’t eaten in days. Bet it’s getting mighty hungry.”

  So they had brought it with them. But how? Jack stole a quick glance behind him, keeping his vision slack. The creature was just at the portcullis wall, less than eight feet away from him, well within striking distance. It should have attacked by now, but it hadn’t. Why? Something was keeping it penned up. In the gloom, it was still nothing but a hazy shadow, but Jack caught a glimpse of something metallic lodged on the back of its neck. Some kind of box.

  The big agent took a fractional step forward. Jack fired once, aiming just above the man’s shoulder. The pellet flashed and sizzled against the wall behind him. “The next one won’t miss. I promise you that.”

  Another figure slipped through the front door and into the lobby. She was tall, slim, and not much older than Beth. Her blond hair was up in a loose bun. Her face had the hallmarks of a debutante. Her dark slate skirt suit fit her curves to runway perfection. And she radiated the type of confidence that only comes from privilege.

  “Stop.” Jack leveled his gun at her. “Do not come one step closer.”

  She froze dead in the center of the crescent formed by the other agents. She lifted both hands to show that they were empty. “Mr. Jackson. My name is Ashland Thorne—”

  “I don’t care what your name is.”

  “We only want to talk,” she said, her voice satin lined with Kevlar.

  Jack caught a flash of movement. The agent farthest from him had slid forward a half step. Jack unloaded a round straight into the man’s shin and watched him crumble to the ground, his Taser forgotten as he clutched his leg and tried to keep from screaming.

  Another agent stepped to help him. Jack wheeled the gun on him. “I said, don’t move. The next shot will be to the face.” The man froze midstride.

  “We just want to talk, Mr. Jackson,” Agent Thorne repeated.

  “Of course you do.” Jack shook his head. This girl had probably still been in middle school the last time he’d dealt with the Division one on one. He wondered what they must have told her. That he was a murderer. A thief. That he was Division property.

  “Mr. Jackson, it doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  The agent on the floor was still writhing in agony. Tears streamed from the big man’s eyes, and his hands gripped his shin knuckle-white. “At least let me get him some help before he bleeds to death,” Thorne asked, almost pleading.

  “The pellet will have cauterized it,” Jack said. “He’ll live. For now.” And he would, unless the wound developed an infection, or sent some foreign matter coursing through his veins on a one-way trip to cardiac arrest.

  “Then let one of the others take him out of here.”

  Jack weighed his options. He didn’t want to appear weak, didn’t want to give them that advantage. But he couldn’t bear another dead body on his growing ledger. “Fine,” he said. “You . . .” He gestured to the largest two of the remaining agents. “Take him out. And no one else comes in or I’ll shoot them the moment they step foot through the door.”

  Agent Thorne nodded slowly, patiently, almost enough to appear as if she were the rational one and not the leader of a Division abduction squad. “Fair enough.”

  Jack waited until they’d hauled the wailing agent out of the lobby and took stock. There were four of them left. He was outnumbered four to one if he didn’t count however many agents were hiding behind the archer slits—or the creature stalking two paces behind him. “The rest of you, put down those Tasers.”

  “You know they won’t do that,” Thorne said.

  “Just let me go.”

  “You know we can’t do that, either.”

  Jack knew. He knew all too well how the Division operated. There was more at stake than just his freedom or Beth’s. He had to stop them. He couldn’t let them take him, couldn’t let them get their hands on what they’d hunted him for for so long. But how? He could shove the barrel of his own pistol into his mouth. Pull the trigger and leave what they wanted so desperately splattered all over the inside of this abandoned bank.

  “Mr. Jackson . . . Jack . . .”

  “Don’t call me that. I’ve said all I need to say to you people.”

  A ringing echoed in the vaulting lobby. “May I?” Thorne asked, gesturing to the phone clipped to her belt. Jack nodded. She quickly unclipped it and put it to her ear. A moment later, she held it out. “It’s for you.”

  “Slide it over.”

  Jack kept his aim on her as he bent down to retrieve the phone.

  “I admit I may have underestimated you, Jack.” Agent Ross’s sonorous voice came through the receiver like an unwanted caress. “You’ve proven to be a most formidable opponent, the only one who was ever worth playing against, really, even after all these years.”

  “This isn’t a game, Ross.”

  “It’s all a game, Jack. I thought you understood that. You of all people. I’m sad that you left our final match unfinished, though. We could pick up right where we left off.”

  “Shut up . . . you just shut up.”

  “I’ve memorized the position of every stone,” Ross said. “Isn’t it time you gave us back what belongs to us, Jack? Isn’t it time you came home?”

  “Why, so I can be your science project? That’s what you want, right? That’s what Wilcox had in mind, right?” Jack felt the beginning of another cough trying to scratch its way out from his lungs.

  “But Dr. Wilcox is dead. Almost ten years in the ground.”

  “I know that.”

  “Of course you do. You put him there.”

  “He put himself there. I just wish I could have made sure you joined him.”

  “Don’t be such a sore sport, Jack.” Ross’s voice remained as light and sweet as an angel-food cake and just as hollow. “You have to admit that I’ve played my turn expertly. We drew you out with the one thing you could never resist, a chance to play hero. Now, put down the gun and come home, before I’m forced to give our pet expanded range.”

  Jack cranked a look over his shoulder. The creature was still there, waiting, a ravenous shadow. “How are you controlling that thing? What did you do to it?”

  “Let me show you.”

  Jack heard a rapid scuffle. He turned to see the shadow advance a step, then just as quickly pull back, with a shrill howl that Jack felt as much as heard. It was like a file being dragged across his teeth. Even the agents surrounding him winced at the sound.

  “We’ve made considerable advances since you were our guest. Why don’t you just come home, and we can discuss it over tea and a game of Go? We’ll give you your old room back, if you like,” Ross said, his voice somehow sounding closer, an intimate invitation. “We’ll even put in a double bed for you and your lady friend to share.”

  “You leave Beth out of this.” And the instant the words left his mouth, Jack knew he’d just handed Ross the leverage he’d been grasping for since Thorne had offered him the phone. He’d been played, and played by the master.

  “Leave her out of it? Why on earth would we do that?” Ross asked. “You are the one who put her on the board, Jack.”

  “Do you have her? Is she with you?”

  “Why don’t we just suppose that the answer is yes?”

  Jack would have bet that the answer was, in fact, no. The odds were in his favor, but they were emaciated odds.

  “It’s good to see that you’ve found some company,” Ross continued. “I can’t imagine how lonely you’ve been. I know how tough losing Sarah was for you.”

  “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare speak her name.”

  But Ross k
ept right on. “I know you blame yourself, Jack. I would, too, if I’d done what you’d done. If I’d believed in magic and rammed a stake through my fiancée’s heart. If I felt her lifeblood, hot and wet and final, gushing through my hands. The woman I loved—”

  “You’ve never loved anyone.” Jack’s voice had been reduced to nothing but a torn whisper.

  “You have me there,” Ross admitted. “But that doesn’t change facts. It would be a shame if history were to repeat itself. Such a shame for you to be responsible for another death.” Jack could almost feel Ross’s breath on him through the receiver. “So much blood on your hands. And I promise you, it won’t be quick with this one, Jack. No. No, we will take our time. We’ll be certain your Beth has told us everything before she breathes her last.”

  He was bluffing. He had to be. He was pushing too hard. It was Ross who’d taught him to always be on the offensive. To attack, even when you felt at your weakest. “I want to talk to her. Let me know you have Beth.”

  “Sorry, you aren’t exactly in the best bargaining position.”

  “If you’ve got her, bring her to the door. Let me know you haven’t killed her already.”

  Nothing on the line but dead air.

  “Let her go, and I’ll come quietly. I’ll give you what you want.”

  “What we want? What we want? We’ll have what is ours, Jack. You will give us what belongs to us. What has always belonged to us. And we’ll keep the girl, too, if we so choose.”

  “No,” Jack said finally. Beth was safe, at least for the time being. He knew that as well as he knew each scar that marked his body. If they really had her, they would have proven it by now. She was safe. He needed to make sure she stayed that way. And to do that, he’d have to keep all their attention fixed here. He’d have to keep it fixed on him.