“How about water?” Jessie said. “There are bottles in the fridge. Please. I’m so parched I’m losing my voice.”
She cleared her throat with a convincing cough. It was a nice touch.
For a moment, Aiden thought Rosen wasn’t going to oblige and that his plan was DOA. But the merc retreated to the kitchen and returned with a twelve-ounce bottle.
“Catch.”
He lowered his arm, preparing to toss the water from across the room. Aiden’s hopes sank. Rosen probably needed to be closer.
Don’t catch it, Jessie! Let it fall. Make him hand it you.
Rosen threw the bottle. Jessie’s natural instincts skewered the plan – she made a perfect grab. Aiden sensed from her expression that she realized the error the instant she made it.
But she adapted, kept the plan alive. Pretending to be unable to twist off the cap with her fettered hands, she extended the bottle toward Rosen.
“Please?”
The childlike tremor in her voice was flawless. Aiden couldn’t tell whether it was authentic or an act.
The merc took the bait. She handed him the bottle. As Rosen unscrewed the cap, Jessie closed her eyes. Their faces were less than three feet apart when she manifested the dropper.
The brown mass formed in front of her face and flew away from her like a fastball. It splattered across the lower part of Rosen’s head, just below his eye line, enshrouding nose, mouth and upper neck.
The merc staggered backwards, struggling to breathe through blocked orifices. His chest heaved as lungs tried to suck air past the obstruction. But that made things worse. Globs of the manifestation were drawn into his mouth and nose. His fingers clawed frantically at the sticky mass, trying to dislodge it.
Nodules sprouted from the dropper’s surface, instantly grew into five-inch snaking tentacles. Two of the tentacles curled around Rosen’s palms and tightened. Two more gripped his fingers and yanked the digits violently backward, snapping the bones. The merc’s eyes bulged with pain.
Rosen’s frantic efforts to rip the dropper from his face pushed even more of the mass into his throat. What they could see of his expression morphed into panic. He lunged across the room like a madman, twisting and jerking. A flailing arm sent the vintage radio crashing to the floor.
His air ran out. He crumbled, landed face down by the TV. Shudders coursed through him as bodily functions shut down. Aiden didn’t know how much Rosen knew about the manifestations. But there was a fair chance he had no idea what was killing him.
His movements ended. Stillness took the room. Keats returned his attention to the screw eye binding him to the floor. Grunting, he twisted and pried at it.
Aiden looked at Jessie. She was gazing at Rosen with a stunned expression.
“Jessie, do you have any tools?”
“I didn’t think I could do it,” she whispered. “I only made my last dropper this morning. I’ve never been able to create more than one a day. And the tentacles, they were instantaneous this time.”
“Tools,” Aiden repeated with more urgency.
“Something is different in me,” she said, faint excitement in her voice. “Something’s changed.”
“Cut the crap!” Keats hollered. “We don’t have much time. That end-table drawer beside you, can you reach it?”
Jessie snapped out of her reverie. She was close enough to swing her bound hands up to the drawer.
“Screwdriver, scissors, anything we can use to free ourselves.”
“This is all there is,” she said, holding up a thick pen.
“It’ll have to do,” Keats said. “Aiden is closer, chuck it to him.”
Jessie flipped the pen to Aiden. He caught it and slipped it through the screw eye at his feet. Although plastic, the pen was wide around the middle. He hoped it wouldn’t break.
The effort was awkward with his bound wrists. But finally, the screw eye began to turn. He was a few twists away from dislodging it from the wood when they heard an approaching vehicle.
“Hurry!” Keats urged.
Aiden twisted the pen as fast as he could. The screw finally popped from the floor.
The vehicle stopped out front. Its engine shut off.
Aiden threw the pen to Keats and lunged from the sofa. Bunny-hopping around Rosen’s body, he reached the TV cabinet and picked up the Glock.
“Aim for the center of his torso,” Keats calmly instructed. “Squeeze the trigger. It’s a semiautomatic. After you fire the first shot, take a breath, retarget and squeeze again. Keep on firing until he’s down and not moving.”
Outside, a porch floorboard creaked.
Aiden couldn’t adopt a proper shooter’s stance with his ankles hobbled by the flex cuff. He leaned against the cabinet for balance and took aim at the door. He hoped the adrenalin coursing through him would stop his arms from shaking long enough to get off a clean shot.
The door opened. Vesely took a half step inside, froze at the sight of Rosen lying dead in front of the TV.
Aiden fired.
And missed.
The shot went wide, impacted the door jamb inches from Vesely’s side. The merc’s arm dove beneath his jacket.
Aiden was too wired to follow Keats’ instructions to the letter. He didn’t take a breath between shots. But he did allow himself an instant to take better aim.
He squeezed the trigger. The second bullet tore through Vesely’s shoulder as the merc was drawing his gun. Vesely’s fingers splayed open. His pistol clattered to the floor. Before Aiden could get off a third round, his target lunged back out the door.
“After him!” Keats hollered. “We can’t let him get away!”
Aiden hobbled out onto the porch. Vesely was already at the back of his vehicle, a dark-colored SUV. He was unwrapping a blanket that held something long and cylindrical.
A rifle.
Aiden leaned against the porch post for support. This time, he was able to take careful aim. He fired.
Vesely jerked to the side and dropped the rifle. He collapsed face down in the gravel.
Aiden couldn’t tell if the merc was dead. But he wasn’t about to risk hopping down the steps and hobbling out there in the dark to find out. Seeing no signs of movement, he returned to the house.
Keats had freed himself from the floor with the pen. He was on his knees in front of an open closet, rooting through a toolbox.
“You get him?”
“I think so.”
Keats procured wire cutters, chopped through his wrist and ankle cuffs. He severed Aiden’s bindings and slipped Rosen’s gun from its holster. He was about to free Jessie when they heard the sound of an engine starting.
Throwing Aiden a reproachful look, Keats snatched the Bronco’s keys and dashed outside. Vesely was driving away. Keats leaped into the Bronco and raced after him.
Aiden returned to the living room and cut Jessie’s flex cuffs. She didn’t say anything, just stared at him with that vaguely excited look.
“You OK?” he asked.
She nodded and retreated upstairs. Aiden went back onto the porch. There was no sign of either vehicle. But if the wrong one returned…
Headlights appeared in the distance, interrupting his thoughts. Worst-case scenario, the merc was returning instead of Keats.
Vesely’s rifle lay where he’d dropped it. Aiden snatched it and dashed to the vegetable garden. He took up a defensive position behind a toilet tank and aimed the rifle at the fast-closing vehicle.
THIRTY-THREE
It was the Bronco. Aiden was relieved to see Keats behind the wheel. He stood up and waved.
“Where’s Jessie?” Keats demanded as they entered the house.
“Right here.”
She trotted down the steps. She’d cleaned up and changed into a fuchsia-colored blouse and black jeans.
“Is the other one…?”
“Worm meat. Aiden’s second shot drilled him in the guts. Bled out before he reached the end of your property. But he made it past the dead zo
ne. His phone was in his lap. Pretty sure he managed to make a call.”
“To Red?” Aiden asked.
“Or Nobe. Either way, we have to assume the worst, that he told them what happened. We can’t stay here.”
“Why not wait for them and set up an ambush?” Aiden had no desire for more gunplay. But this might be their best opportunity to end it.
Keats shook his head. “Now that they presumably know the score, one of two things will happen. Either they won’t come at all, in which case we’ll sit around twiddling our thumbs. Or, they’ll come in force. Nobe has a good number of mercs at his disposal. And they’ll have serious firepower this time. I wouldn’t make book on our odds of getting out of here alive.”
He rifled through Rosen’s pockets, relieved the merc of wallet and phone. Jessie hesitated at the bottom of the stairs.
“You don’t want to stay here,” Keats warned.
She nodded and raced up the steps. “I just need to pack a few things.”
“Five minutes. We’ve got to move, put some distance between us and this house.”
“I should have made sure Vesely was dead,” Aiden said. “Then an ambush might have worked.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Bottom line, you saved our butts. Don’t tear yourself a new asshole doing the shoulda-coulda-woulda dance.” Keats headed for the back door. “I want to check something outside. Gather up all the weapons and ammo and put it in the Bronco. Pack us some provisions, too. We’re not making any restaurant stops until we’re far away from here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Wyoming.”
Keats scurried out the door without further explanation. Aiden grabbed Jessie’s shotgun and Vesely’s rifle and shoved them under a blanket in the back of the Bronco. Returning to the kitchen, he slapped together some sliced cheese sandwiches and grabbed a box of crackers and a six-pack of water bottles. He met Jessie in the living room. She had a large handbag and a backpack slung over her shoulder.
“Hope you don’t mind us raiding your pantry,” he said.
“Not high on my list of concerns.”
Keats returned. He was holding a small cylinder. Trailing from one end was a thin rubber hose.
“Found this attached to the outside of the basement window, the one that’s painted over. They must have heard us down there. They used a muted drill to bore a tiny hole in the window frame. The cylinder held Copak-7, a fentanyl derivative. It’s a relatively new knockout gas, fast and odorless.”
Jessie opened her backpack and loaded the food and water Aiden had gathered. She gestured to Rosen’s body.
“What about him?”
“No time to hide him and his friend and do a proper clean-up,” Keats said. “If they are coming, we need to get far away from here fast.”
They headed out to the Bronco. Jessie took the back seat. Aiden watched her turn around to gaze at her house as they drove away. Her expression seemed mournful, like someone who knew they were leaving home for good.
THIRTY-FOUR
Live imagery transmitted through Nobe’s satellite phone wasn’t top grade. The camera was an add-on and could handle only low-res video; the picture on Michael’s phone screen was jittery and freezing. Still, the imperfections didn’t lessen the disturbing impact of what he was seeing.
The video came from inside Jessica Von Dohren’s home. Nobe slowly panned the camera across the living room. He paused for a closeup on Rosen’s face. The hardened brown remnants of the manifestation caked over the merc’s mouth and nose revealed how he’d been overcome.
“A shitty way to go,” Nobe said over the headset, his voice devoid of humor.
Michael sat in the cabin of his private jet parked at North Platte Regional Airport. He’d changed his plans about driving to the Von Dohren house after Nobe had received the call from the dying Vesely. Michael decided it was more prudent to let the mercs handle the incident.
It wasn’t clear who’d shot Vesely. He’d been found in his vehicle at the end of the driveway. But Rosen must have been Magenta’s handiwork. Had Green possessed such an ability, he would have used it in the garage to stop his torture. Targeting a manifestation with that much precision indicated a high level of conscious control. And those strange tentacles… It was obvious Magenta’s manifestations gave her a very different sort of power.
Michael realized he’d been operating under a false assumption, that the six of them were endowed with essentially the same ability. But considering how different Magenta’s ability seemed from his own, it followed that the other quiver kids likely possessed unique skill sets as well. Blue, in his final moments jabbering about penetrating the realm beyond the beasts, might have been talking about an actual physical effect.
More worrisome at the moment was Green, Aiden Manchester. Vesely’s call had provided the identities of Magenta’s late-night visitors. Michael had been stunned to learn that Aiden had survived the fire. It also explained why they hadn’t been able to get in touch with Farlin. Presumably, the merc’s scorched remains were now in the hands of a West Virginia coroner.
And there was the third individual, the man who likely had engineered Green’s rescue. Michael was still trying to learn more about Decimus Dionysius Keats. What was a GAO analyst doing in the company of a quiver kid?
Most disturbing of all was that Green and Magenta apparently had joined forces. Two or more quiver kids united against him had been something Michael had feared from the beginning.
And then there was the fact that Aiden had overheard them discussing Tarantian in that garage. By now, he and Princess would have put two and two together and concluded that Michael was after the quiver for a second infusion. They might already have warned Tau Nine-One about the impending assault.
A fit of rage overcame Michael. He pounded his fists on his chair’s leather armrest. Mere days away from his ultimate ascendance to godhood and now this!
“Are you all right, sir?” JoJo asked, entering the cabin from the flight deck.
“I’m fine.”
Michael buried his anger beneath a cold smile. It was something he’d learned to do as a child when forced to deal with the asinine demands of his adoptive parents.
JoJo slipped into a seat up front and opened a magazine, Model Airplane News. His bodyguard-chauffeur flew drones as a hobby.
Michael would have to try contacting the insider. If Tau Nine-One had been alerted, she’d know. In that case, last-minute adjustments to the plan would need to be made.
His attention was drawn back to the phone imagery. Nobe had entered the basement. He panned the camera across the toilet bowls, revealing manifestations in various nascent forms. Princess’ method for growing them was crude yet effective. At Michael’s lab in his Montana chateau, medical-grade containment vessels costing twelve thousand dollars apiece were used to cultivate and keep his manifestations alive. He had to admit, Princess had done an impressive job on a pauper’s budget.
Nobe broke his train of thought. “So, what’s the plan, mate? Want us to pursue them?”
Michael checked his watch. It was nearly 3am. Several hours already had been lost over this incident.
“Forget it. They’ve got too much of a head start. Do you have explosives?”
“Some PBX, a few incendiaries.”
“Set charges in the basement. Make sure the fire consumes everything, especially the manifestations. The bodies of your men and their vehicle need to burn as well.”
“No problem.”
Michael had another concern. Nobe had lost three mercs in the past twenty-four hours.
“Are we going to be undermanned for Wednesday?”
“I overbooked. You always anticipate battle losses. Nature of the brute.”
Michael liked the symbolism of that last phrase. Nature of the brute. For the first time since landing in North Platte, he permitted himself a smile.
THIRTY-FIVE
Faint violet streaks colored the eastward horizon in the rearview mirror as they
drove toward Wyoming. Dawn was approaching on this Monday morning, the start of a new workweek for millions. For Aiden, it signified the end of the most frightening weekend of his life.
He’d taken over the wheel to give a break to Keats, who slumbered in the back. Jessie was out too, curled into a fetal ball in the passenger seat.
Keats had provided directions to Casper, Wyoming. He’d said little else about their destination other than that it would provide temporary sanctuary. Presumably, it was the domicile of another old army buddy.
Aiden had snatched a few hours sleep earlier. He was still tired but beset by enough unsettling emotions to keep him alert. It was the same mix of feelings he’d experienced after leaving Rory’s yesterday, a sense of being caught up in forces beyond his control, being swept toward some distant horizon where perhaps the strange abilities of the quiver kids somehow intersected.
He feared what awaited him on that horizon.
The pain from his burned arms had abated somewhat after popping another of Rory’s pills. Or maybe he was simply getting used to it.
“Alexandra,” Keats mumbled, stirring in the back. “Can’t find it… can’t find our painting…”
Aiden glanced in the mirror. Keats was in the throes of some painful dream.
“It’s gone, Alexandra. It’s gone…”
Keats bolted awake, awash in confusion. It took him a moment to realize where he was.
“You OK?” Aiden asked.
He recovered his poise. “How far yet?”
“Two or three hours.”
“Want me to take the wheel?”
“I’m good.”
“I was talking in my sleep?”
“Uh-huh. Something about Alexandra and a missing painting. Who is she?”
Keats gazed out at a passing field.
“A friend or relative? A lover?” Aiden had a hunch it was the latter.
He nursed a desire to know more about Keats. For better or worse, he was inextricably linked to this assassin who’d saved his life. The extraordinary nature of their relationship made him needy to learn who Decimus Dionysius Keats really was.
His entreaties drew only silence. Aiden gave up the effort. But a mile later, Keats surprised him.
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