Prodigal (Maelstrom Chronicles)

by Jody Wallace

  But mooning over a guy and wishing for something that might never happen wouldn’t help Camp Chanute. Claire shoved all that gooey crap into the darkest recesses of her soul and continued tromping through the powdery layer of fresh snow that had fallen through the night.

  Obadiah himself was waiting by their vehicle when they reached the garage. He didn’t look like much, as skinny as he was, but Claire decided not to argue about whether he could face off against daemons and shades. He’d survived Riverbend.

  The three of them hopped into a Jeep with a Shipborn rifle mounted on a tripod in the backseat. Chains had been installed on the tires, so their speed would be slower than she liked. Adam sat awkwardly beside the tripod, holding onto the roll bars with gloved hands, while Obadiah drove.

  Claire tugged up her hood with its fur edge to keep out the worst of the cold. She wrapped her arms around herself, kept her sensor array live, and tried not to backseat drive.

  The sense of foreboding that had been growing in the past six months was going to explode in some places, but not in Chanute. She wouldn’t allow it. They would control this convergence, and they would save their town. The closer they got to their first location, the tenser Claire became. On the plus side, her tension meant her body heat increased. Her cheeks thawed, and her hands still had sensation in them.

  “Remember, guys,” she said, more to remind herself than her companions. “All we do is search the area, set up the monitors, report in, and hightail it to the next site. Gotta get done by dark.”

  “I’m more concerned that you’re going to take on any shades we find.” Adam leaned between the seats as Obadiah steered around an icy, downed tree. “Seeing as leaving the entities to special teams are your orders.”

  “We won’t take on any shades,” she said, though it was possibly a lie. If she thought they could handle it, she’d change the orders right then and there. “There are no people around for them to eat, and a specialized cleanup team can come handle them. That’s the plan.”

  After yesterday, everyone on patrol knew they could run into the entities anywhere, though probably just shades. When the convergences happened, usually at night, then they’d have to worry about daemons. Lots of daemons.

  After a couple wrong turns, they neared the approximate latitude and longitude of their first site. They hadn’t wasted too much gas, but they had to watch it; recent events had depleted Chanute’s supplies. Their mechanics hadn’t retrofitted all their Terran vehicles to the Shipborn power converters. “Keep a sharp lookout for dregs,” Claire advised her companions. She swept their surroundings with the sensor array, checking for life signs. Animals only, nothing sentient, no shades.

  Soon the GPS pinged. The computer informed them they had reached their location before complaining that it was recalculating, recalculating, recalculating.

  “Ship, my team’s in position at our first site,” she announced. They’d have to wait their turn for Ship’s newly calibrated sensors. Niko had his field techs upgrading personal arrays, but it wasn’t like pushing out a software update. “Whenever you’re ready, we can run the scan and pick the best place for the monitor.”

  A long pause. A steady wind from the northwest whipped across a large field, sending a gust of snowflakes into their faces. The Jeep had no side windows or roof because of the gun turret.

  “My face feels like I’m getting frostbite.” Adam shifted restlessly in the back of the Jeep. In the rearview mirror, she caught a glimpse of him rubbing his cheeks, pulling at them as if he could remove a mask. “It’s prickling like crazy.” He quit massaging his face and stared into the distance. “Hey, there’s something over there.”

  He pointed to the east, but all Claire saw was a silo and a thick fencerow decorated by wads of white. They were near the Isaacson homestead, so the silo might be theirs, if it was in use.

  He hopped out of the back of the Jeep.

  “Can you scan?” he asked, shaking out his arms and stamping his feet. “I know your array isn’t as strong as Ship’s, but it might help.”

  “It shows zip.” She hopped out, too, following him as he strode into the field. Snow blew in eddies around their feet. “Obadiah, we’re going to go check it out. Keep the motor running.”

  Hidden stumps and rows of dirt lurked beneath the snow cover to trip them. The sharp, cold wind was ceaseless and really fucking annoying.

  Behind them, the Jeep’s motor revved before it tooled off road. It wasn’t as hardy as a Humvee. The tires, even with chains, spun on snow, whirring, skidding forward. Adam increased his pace, so she did, too. They reached the silo at a jog. The icy air burned into and out of her lungs. After dealing with the scientists, Kravitz, the Shipborn, GUN, and the fallout of the predictive model all day yesterday, the exercise was welcome.

  Then there was last night. Adam’s hands. His lips. His confession.

  Today was a release of pent-up frustrations—of various types.

  On the other side of the silo and a dilapidated barn were the fencerow and more endless fields. Probably corn, if the jutting, dead stalks were anything to go by.

  “Find a break in the fence,” she called to Obadiah before addressing Adam. “I’m still not picking anything up on the sensor. What do you think you saw?”

  “Something silver. Not supposed to be any vehicles here, right? I hope it’s not survivalists. Damn, I’m tense as hell.” He reached out to boost her over the fence, but she cut him a mean glance and climbed it without assistance. He followed. The Jeep’s motor chugged through the bumpy field.

  “Chill, Adam. It’s probably the aluminum roof of a chicken coop.” Claire scanned the horizon. “Look, there’s some snow. Snow. More snow. And—”

  That was when she saw it, too.

  The sun twinkled on an almost-invisible silver pod in the unblemished white, so pale that it was hard to see. A coat of flakes decorated its surface, further disguising it. If she hadn’t been looking for it, her gaze would have passed right over it.

  “Shit. It’s another damned pod.”

  As if spotting the pod had kindled her sensor array, it lit up with shade signs. She and Adam broke into a run.

  “It’s sealed. There could be someone trapped inside there.” Adam’s long legs threatened to leave her behind, but she wasn’t about to tell him to slow down. She stumbled on a dead plant, nearly losing her balance.

  The cold air made panting painful. “My sensor isn’t showing life signs, just shades.”

  Adam appeared to be experiencing no discomfort from the cold or the running. “How can we get into it? There’s no door.”

  “I threw a rock at it and it made a huge noise before you came out,” she said. “Be careful. Shade traces everywhere.”

  “I smell them,” he agreed. “They’re around. Somewhere.” He wasn’t wearing a sensor, but he practically bristled with urgency. Untiring, he outdistanced her as they neared the pod.

  “Ship, we’ve got another pod,” Claire huffed into the comm. The shade scent was fresh and putrid. “Still sealed. This could be the answer we’ve been looking for. I need a 100 percent scan right here, right now. I don’t care what other people you’re helping.”

  “I am not detecting other sentients, Claire,” Ship answered through the comms. “There are traces of shades. With the new sensor settings, I would approximate that shades have been present within the hour and would comprise one of the small hits, not a convergence.”

  Adam reached the pod, and Claire yelled at him. “Don’t touch it, you bonehead!”

  But he did. He placed his hands on a random spot on the gleaming wall and pushed.

  A door slid open. Blackness roiled inside like the very first pod, but this time no naked humans stumbled out.

  Shades streamed out of the vessel. Adam leaped backward, almost too late.

  “Get out of there!” She whipped up her blaster arm and skidded to a stop so she could aim. She torched the shades nearest him as he stumbled.

  He didn’t h
ave the killer instinct. Didn’t use his blaster bands. He raised his hands to the shades, all right, but it wasn’t to shoot them.

  She’d seen it before—shade shock. When confronted, panicked people tried to hold the entities off physically. It was a natural instinct, and it was going to get him killed.

  “Ship, we have shade verification. Shades in the pod!” She charged forward. She’d never be fast enough. The shades slid easily across the snow, but it impeded Adam’s movement. “Shoot them, Adam, use the blaster!”

  Behind her the Jeep roared across the bumpy ground. The thump and bash of its undercarriage was a distraction she couldn’t afford.

  Adam fell into a deep drift of snow and she lost sight of him. The shades blocked her view, churning with excitement. Claire screamed her rage and started scorching the spot she’d last seen him even though she was running.

  He could heal from burns. He couldn’t heal from the shade touch.

  God, Adam. No.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  “Get up!” She fired wildly. Her boots slipped on the icy ground. The beam hit the pod, from which shades continued to pour in an endless stream.

  That same horrible noise rang through the air, but she didn’t stop to protect her ears. She screamed and couldn’t hear herself.

  Adam struggled to his feet, surrounded by shades, miraculously alive. Around him, the shades had gone flat, as if deadened by his presence. How was he still standing?

  And did she care?

  Claire yelled again and tried to shoot her way to him. He tried to run, stumbled, and fell again.

  Fucking hell! No manner of screaming she did was louder than the shriek of the silver pod.

  The Jeep roared past her, shaking the ground, and cleared a small rise. It hurtled into the air and foomped into the snow with a huge spray of white. It jounced, too fast, across the landscape, skidding, swerving. Obadiah slammed on the brakes.

  The Jeep spun into the shade pool. Obadiah’s mouth opened—presumably he was shouting—and he fumbled at his seat belt. A fucking seat belt? Claire fired at the shades around the Jeep, trying to give him a chance without blowing up their ride.

  The awful noise from the pod grew. Pierced her head through and through. Her eyes watered.

  But she was nearly there. Nearly there. Still firing.

  The shades enveloped the front of the Jeep. Obadiah stood in the seat, tried to access the gun, but they oozed around him.

  He fell off the Jeep, into the shades.

  Claire blazed a path for herself through the shades and to the Jeep. She leaped, landed on the back, and grabbed the Shipborn rifle. All she had to do was pull the trigger. Her hands shook with cold and fear as the head-pounding shrill of the pod finally died away.

  She fired in an arch, blasting shades like she was sweeping dirt. Humans could survive a shade touch for several seconds, but only if they could get clear. She sprayed aside shades and snow, demolishing the ground cover.

  The laser fried it all.

  Steam billowed. Shades keened and evaporated, their stench nauseating. They surged beneath the Jeep, trying to sneak up the sides. The rifle beam was so intense she could feel its heat on her cheeks.

  Unlike Adam, Obadiah didn’t get back up. She caught a glimpse of his body, unmoving and still, before shades covered it again. Fuck.

  She whirled—could see a spot on the opposite side of the horde where the shades had gone flat, but no Adam. The rifle didn’t rotate freely, and once the shades got behind her, she was in trouble.

  She sizzled them off the hood, breaking the windshield into a thousand pieces. Swept left. Swept right. Still they poured from the silver pod. How many did it hold?

  Her sensor continued to signal, and she was dimly aware of Ship recommending a retreat, over and over, advising her to save herself for Frances.

  Frances.

  She’d failed here—Obadiah was dead, Adam was probably dead, and she was about to be dead, too. She couldn’t fail her daughter or the people of Chanute.

  Numb with cold, fury, and something that might have been grief, Claire focused on shooting her way out of her predicament. As long as the shades remained in a large clump, she could outrun them until reinforcements arrived.

  First, though, she had to get free of them.

  The Jeep was a hillock at the edge of the stinking pool of black. She pried the rifle off the tripod and scorched a clear trail toward the fencerow. But when she hurled herself off the Jeep into the smoking path, something inside her foot popped.

  Hot agony lanced up her leg. She crumpled. Started rolling. Then crawling. She let go of the rifle and swept the blaster band in a circle like a lasso. She tried to scramble to her feet, but since one of them was kaput it didn’t work so great.

  Her blaster band seared her arm as she maintained a continuous beam of protection, a shield of fire.

  “Claire, you do not appear to have retreated,” Ship said. “Please retreat. Please. Help is coming. Please retreat.”

  “I broke my fucking leg,” she snarled. “Tell Frannie her momma died killing monsters. God. Tell her I love—”

  The dark, icy touch of a shade cut off anything else she’d been about to say.

  …

  She hurt way too much to be dead.

  “Claire. Wake up. Please.” A warm hand patted her cheek. Arms held her. She wasn’t particularly cold, which was a shame. Cold would have numbed her fucking ankle.

  Nope. Not dead.

  She opened her eyes to see Adam’s green gaze staring down at her. He cradled her in his arms, a white ceiling above them. Smoke tickled her nostrils, as well as the lingering odor of shades. Blankets covered her and Adam both.

  “What’s going on?” She tried to sit up, but wooziness rushed through her.

  Adam caught her to his chest in a hug that almost hurt. “You’re alive.”

  She bumped her cheek against his. The faint bristle of his whiskers abraded her reassuringly. “I gathered that. Stinks too much for this to be heaven.”

  “Obadiah Gentry is dead,” he said gravely. “And the Jeep. It got shot and it won’t start.”

  She pushed away so she could see his face. They were…on a couch. In somebody’s house. A fire crackled in the hearth. The air outside the blankets wasn’t frigid, but it wasn’t warm.

  She examined Adam for wounds and bruises. Her head throbbed like a mother. “How are you alive? I saw you go down under the shades.”

  “I think you broke your ankle. It’s crooked and weird.” Adam positioned her in the corner of the couch. Underneath the blankets, she realized her boots were missing. And her pants. And her coat. He gingerly propped her legs on cushions, and the jolt of discomfort in her ankle was only half-terrible. “I found a bottle with some aspirin in it, if you want to take them.”

  “I asked you a question,” she reminded him. Her ankle could wait.

  “It’s a good question,” he said after minute.

  She adjusted herself into a more comfortable position. “Then give it a good answer.”

  “You won’t like it.” He sagged at the end of the couch and rubbed his hands over his face. “It’s kind of fuzzy.”

  She puffed out an exasperated breath. “What are you saying? More amnesia? That’s pretty convenient.”

  He turned to stare at her. “I’m not trying to be convenient. I’m trying to figure out the truth. The shades were in that pod. I got touched. I felt it—I recognized it from Riverbend. Now the shades are gone.”

  She thought about the last blank in his memories, from the night of the Shearer’s barn. “Did you get knocked out again?”

  “Not exactly.” He fingered his scalp from front to back. “No sore spots, no blood. I’m physically drained, but not lightheaded.”

  Was he hiding something or was he as confused as she felt? “How do you know the shades are gone? Did they crawl away?”

  “Ship can’t sense them anywhere. They’re definitely gone, but the pod’s not.�
�

  He was wearing an array. She touched her temple and located the sore spot where hers was missing. “I see you’re able to use a sensor array.”

  “It wasn’t a problem.” He hefted a fireplace poker out of the iron rack. “Does this look like a normal poker to you?”

  “What?” Confused by the abrupt topic change, she took the heavy item in her hands, weighed it, and handed it back. Soot rubbed on her skin from where he must have used it to stoke the fire. “Sure. Why?”

  He nodded twice, set his fingers on either side of the poker, and bent it nearly double.

  Claire straightened. “The hell?”

  “Told you I was stronger than I should be.” He offered her the poker, but she waved it away. “There’s something going on with me, Claire, and it’s related to the shades—to me having been on the other side.”

  She eyed him from head to toe, while considering his abilities. Various incidents drifted to the forefront of her mind—small observations, confirmations. He’d fallen beneath the shades, stood back up, fallen again. Stamina. The probability that he was fully enhanced—a Shipborn-style super soldier—made him more of an asset than she’d realized.

  She felt too shitty to high five him, so she said, “It’s not shades. Sarah was just wrong about your enhancements being dormant. We can use this in our favor.”

  He didn’t seem placated. “There’s no record of me having strength and stamina enhancements.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says Ship.” He sat down in the middle of the couch, near her knees. For a guy who’d just discovered he had superpowers, he didn’t seem pleased. She’d love to be enhanced to the point she could bend iron pokers in half. “My body was given standard enhancements so I could use Shipborn technology. I wasn’t like the angeli. They had to keep the Chosen One normal. Terran. There’s also no record of me sleepwalking.”

  “Why did you ask Ship about sleepwalking?” It did seem odd that Ship wouldn’t possess information about Adam’s extensive enhancements. “Do you think you sleepwalked yourself to Sarah one night, and she souped you up?”

  “I don’t know how much longer we have before they get here.” He indicated a ticking clock on the wall. “You know how I keep waking up fully dressed but totally out of it? Sleepwalking.”