She’d liked Poe, though, at least enough so that she could have an interesting conversation with her father about his writing. They’d always had so few interests in common that it made for a nice change, prompting her to delve further into the author’s work. Her father had died two weeks before she’d graduated from college, and after that, she had never read anything by Poe again.
But she remembered his tale about wealthy nobility partying their asses off in seclusion, walled away from the rest of the world while the Great Plague ravaged Europe.
Isenberg kept glancing toward the door. She checked the clear plastic watch on her wrist, radiating urgency and unease.
“We have a lot of theories,” she said. “We’ve discovered evidence to support some of them. For instance, we believe the implosion of the final host mentioned on those tablets led to some kind of sporophyte vegetation growing up inside the body’s remains. We’ve found traces that support this theory. Spores might have blown anywhere or been carried by rodents.”
“Rats,” Rue said, seeing where the theory must be headed. “You think you can trace the plague back to this source with nothing but a single artifact as evidence?”
Isenberg slid her beer to the middle of the table, done with it and apparently ruffled by Rue’s tone. “Who said we only had a single artifact?”
“And Poe? You have evidence to back that up?”
Isenberg faltered. She glanced away, then abruptly began to slide from the booth.
“Dr. Isenberg,” Rue began, reaching out a hand to stop her. She needed this woman—not just her information but her insight into Garland Mountain Labs. If she was going to be able to do anything to help Ted and his surviving children, Rue couldn’t let Isenberg just walk away.
But the woman fixed her with a hard look, flinching from her touch.
“The Poe connection is more than us fantasizing. We’re not inventing things that aren’t there,” Isenberg said quietly. “It’s fiction, obviously, a story. But like so many other stories, the author based it on something out of real life, a tale he’d heard or a piece of history he’d run across. A story of the era of the plague.”
“How can you know that?” Rue asked.
“We didn’t,” Isenberg replied. There were shadows beneath her eyes, haunted by memories. “Oscar Hecht told us. He had … I guess you’d call them visions. And that voice in his head. Whispers about a time when death became a human thing that walked on two legs and hungered for the lives of others. You think I don’t know how crazy this sounds? You think—”
“I was there,” Rue said quietly, hoping her low voice would quiet Isenberg’s rising tone. “I watched Hecht get out of the car. I saw him touch people and saw how ugly their deaths were. I don’t think I can make myself believe Red Hands is some kind of prehistoric deity, but Poe’s Red Death being some kind of parable about an infection that kills on contact and drives the host to madness? I saw it with my own eyes. The question isn’t whether it exists; the question is: What the hell do we do about it?”
Dr. Isenberg stood beside the booth, there in the shadows at the back of the Candlelight Inn, and hung her head. “That’s what we all want to know. It’s all we’ve been working on. Bringing Maeve Sinclair off the mountain is one thing, but making sure it doesn’t spread further is—”
“You’re serious.”
Isenberg stared at her. “What?”
Rue narrowed her eyes. “Your bosses were developing this for a reason. It’s what DARPA does. Your research was about finding the best way to use Red Hands to kill U.S. enemies. However this ends, you know that will still be their plan.”
The knowledge darkened the shadows on Isenberg’s face. “Whatever research I’ve done, it’s always been meant to keep innocent people safe, not get them killed.”
Rue wanted to call her out, remind her that there were innocent people everywhere, not just in her home state or country, but now was not the time.
“Get me into Garland Mountain,” Rue said. “Let’s see what we can do to stop all of this and stop them from killing anyone else.”
Isenberg nodded, but Rue knew neither of them really believed the killing had come to an end.
21
The assholes in the Jeep spoke German. Maybe it wasn’t fair to call them assholes, but given the day Leon had been having, anyone who made it more difficult qualified as an asshole in his book. Exhausted, hungry, soaked to the gills, he forgot nearly everything he had ever been taught about stealth. Still, somehow, he managed to get within forty feet of the Jeep without tipping the Germans off to his presence.
It surprised him, hearing them speak German. He had expected Israeli Mossad or Russians. Any outsiders who were already in the mountains searching for Maeve Sinclair before the quarantine had taken full effect had to have responded immediately when the video of the parade massacre had first gone viral. That meant only individuals or agencies who would see the video and understand its implications and who could get someone there quickly enough to slip into the woods before the flyovers and patrols above and around the mountain. He wondered how anyone thought they would get the woman out, even if they could find her, but that wasn’t his problem.
BND, he thought. The German spy agency was so well organized, so damned smooth, that they hardly left a trace. When things turned ugly and violent, or diplomats died mysteriously, the world thought CIA or Russian FSB or Mossad, even MI6, but BND mostly kept their heads down, their operations quiet and efficient, and their reputation intact.
They’re our allies, Leon thought. It troubled him more than a little. Here was a cell of BND agents operating on U.S. soil. There were three of them in the Jeep—two men and a woman—and they were trying to determine their next move. The engine idled, quiet for a Jeep, and the female agent held a tablet in her hand, tapping the screen as the two men argued in low voices. Leon didn’t speak German, but he heard Maeve Sinclair’s name, and that was all he needed to know.
When the Jeep started moving again, he gripped his weapon. He couldn’t let them get to Maeve before the Blackcoats, but he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the vehicle for long. The question was whether he could kill all three of them before they put his lights out. He steadied himself, checked to see how many ammunition magazines he had, and started to slip through the trees, waiting for the sound of the engine revving.
Instead, the Jeep rumbled quietly as the driver pulled it into the trees. Branches snapped, the vehicle bumped over some rocks, and soon it was parked among the trees just off the trail, not hidden but not inviting investigation. The rain had slowed to a light sprinkle, not loud enough to cover the noise of an attack, so Leon crouched and watched from cover as the Germans abandoned the Jeep, checked their weapons, and started to hike through the woods. They had some intel about Maeve’s location, Leon realized, and wherever she was, they couldn’t bring the Jeep in after her.
That was good.
As long as they were on foot, he could keep up with them. He would wait for the moment with the best chance of taking all three of them out, and then he would kill them before they could reach her. His job wasn’t worth dying for. Being a mercenary was far from the same thing as serving his country in uniform. But he understood just enough about the contagion inside Maeve Sinclair to know that he didn’t trust anyone with it beyond the Department of Defense. And maybe not even them.
The Germans set off through the woods.
Leon followed.
The gun in his hand felt heavier than before.
* * *
Inside the cave, Walker felt much more vulnerable than when they’d been out in the open. Even at the bottom of the gorge, they were safer than they were down here in the dark with Maeve—or whatever malevolence lurked inside her.
You don’t believe that story, he told himself. The Red Death. Sentient murder god. Living infection. You cannot possibly believe that.
The way Rose and Priya had looked at Maeve when she struggled to express the torment within h
er, the hunger tearing her apart, Walker knew they didn’t believe her, either. Rose had suggested mental illness, a complete psychotic break to go along with the contagion and fever raging inside her. But the difference between Walker and the others hiding in that cave was that he had met evil before. He’d seen the anguish of those who’d done the worst thing imaginable without any control of their actions.
He’d seen sin and he’d faced monsters.
Walker did not want to believe the things Maeve had told them, but unlike the others, he had no reason to reject those claims. Sherlock Holmes had said that once one eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. In Walker’s experience, the things Maeve claimed were a full and terrifying explanation of everything.
He didn’t want to believe any of it, but he did.
Which was why he put Maeve at the back of the cave. After sharing her secrets and her theories, she had grown unsettlingly quiet. She had stayed quiet while Rose had very carefully bound her wrists with a zip tie from Walker’s pack. Priya had spotlighted her with his penlight—the only illumination they had in here—and Walker had kept his gun aimed at her, but Maeve had not resisted.
Sometimes she seemed to be talking to herself, as if frustrated with their reaction to her story. But then even that noise faded, and now Walker could only hear the rasp of her breathing, and he wondered how much of what she had said was something more than fever and nightmare. He had seen two versions of Maeve with his own eyes, and it worried him that he couldn’t tell which of them might be ascendant right now.
Rose was at the entrance to the cave, listening for voices or gunshots or any sign that they’d been discovered. Walker had set the penlight down on the rocks, aimed at Maeve, so he could watch her out of the corner of his eye while he tended Priya’s wound.
It didn’t look good.
The bleeding might have stopped by now, except Priya had continued to exert herself, climbing down Walter’s Descent, then scrambling through the gorge. Walker used additional strips of the shirt they’d torn up earlier and kept fresh pressure on the wound, glancing at Maeve from time to time. She had remained silent as he worked on Priya. The penlight illuminated just enough for him to make out her body, propped against the wall of the cave. Her shoulders were slightly hunched and the glow of the light cast strange shadows across her face, but her eyes had a dark gleam that did not come from the flashlight.
Priya moaned as he released the pressure he’d been holding on the wound. Walker tossed aside the bloody wad of shirt fabric and reached for the penlight. He hesitated a moment, not wanting to leave Maeve in the dark for fear that when he shone the light on her again, she might have vanished. Or moved nearer to him. He shook it off and turned the light on the wound, leaning closer.
“Looks like the bleeding has stopped again. That’s good. Let’s try not to rip it open again.”
Priya shivered as the nighttime chill of the cave settled in. Walker had a light sweatshirt he would offer, but not until the wound had more time to close up.
“You’re wasting time,” Priya said. “We can’t stay here.”
Walker took the penlight, barely hearing her, and turned it toward Maeve. Had her lips curled back into the merest suggestion of a sneer? Walker thought they had.
“You hearing me?” Priya wheezed. “We have to move.”
Walker cocked his head, listening for movement from the front of the cave. Rose would shout if trouble came, but he didn’t like the stillness. He hoped Rose was just allowing herself a few minutes to rest and recover.
“We need more time,” Walker said.
Priya needed more than the rest of them, but Walker’s main concern was what he would encounter when they finally reached Jericho Falls again. Alena might be trying to wrest control of the SRC from General Wagner, but that kind of internecine conflict never ended well. The best thing for Maeve, and for all of them, might be to wait it out and see how things stood when the conflict between Alena and the general concluded.
“We’ve got till morning, if that,” Priya said. “You know by daybreak they’ll be down here, sweeping the whole gorge with soldiers, helicopters. We’re dead if we wait that long.”
Walker nodded slowly, penlight in hand, turning it all over in his head. Priya’s thoughts echoed his own, but he hadn’t wanted to lay it out so bluntly. He had not counted on the light-headed young woman with the bullet wound and no military experience to decipher just how desperate their situation had become.
“I’m working on it,” he told Priya. “You should rest while you can.”
She had dark circles beneath her eyes, and even in the darkness of the cave, she looked pale and sickly. Not sick, not yet. But she was in rough shape.
Quiet laughter unfurled in the darkness, echoing off the walls like the hiss of serpents.
Walker turned the penlight on Maeve. When the light hit her, she didn’t blink or flinch, didn’t close her eyes against the glare. She tilted her head, birdlike, studying him. When she spoke, her voice sounded different. New.
Not new, he thought. She sounds old. Her voice held the rasp of crumbling parchment paper. A shudder went through him. Walker had experience in the presence of malevolence, but that only made the fear cut deeper.
“You should set her free,” Maeve rasped. “All that noise you made, the gunfire, the shouting … they’re out there hunting you now. Hunting me. Put me out for them to find. I’ll touch them instead of you.”
Walker felt his throat go dry. The voice hardly seemed to come from Maeve’s lips. It was as if the darkness itself were speaking. He raised his gun hand, made sure she could see the barrel as he aimed again at her chest. If he’d had any doubt before that something else had taken up residence inside this woman, that doubt had vanished.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
Priya shifted, tried to sit up, and groaned with the effort. “Maeve, no. We won’t let you put yourself—”
“That’s not Maeve,” Walker interrupted, penlight and gun both steady.
Priya swore. “You can’t tell me you believe—”
“It’s not her,” Walker said. He glared at Maeve.
She only smiled and tilted her head the other direction as if he were life’s greatest curiosity.
“Maeve?” Priya asked, her voice softer, weaker, less hopeful.
Keeping both gun and light on Maeve, Walker shuffled backward toward the front of the cave.
“Rose,” he whispered hoarsely, hoping his voice would carry. “Come here a minute.”
Until he heard the scuff of her shoes on the floor of the cave, he wasn’t sure she had heard him. But then Rose appeared, hands sliding over the cave walls to either side, guiding herself through the darkness toward the glow from that penlight. The only light they had.
The light flickered. Walker shot a dark look at Maeve, wondering if the thing inside her could be responsible.
“I heard voices,” Rose said. “I think someone passed by, but it’s quiet out there now. They’re moving fast, if that was them, and it almost had to be, don’t you think?”
He did. The Blackcoats were making a sweep, but unless they brought in a ton of heavy equipment, huge lighting rigs, they wouldn’t be able to even find, never mind search, every crevice and cave until morning. Even if they had brought thermal imaging equipment with them, it would take hours.
“I felt them,” Maeve said. “There were five of them. All very strong.”
Rose’s eyes widened. In the glow of the penlight, Walker saw the way she looked at her sister, as if trying to figure out what Maeve had become and how she could destroy that monster without destroying her sister. Walker did not want to be the one to tell her such thoughts were impossible.
“Not sure if you can hear me in there, Maeve,” he said now that they were all together. “We’re going to wait one hour. It’ll be darker and drier by then, and with any luck, the Blackcoats will have made camp. They’ll be waiting for sunrise
, when they can be more thorough.”
He looked at Rose. “We can’t still be here in the morning.”
“Where do we go?” she asked, glancing around the cave in confusion. “In the dark, the rocks will be hard as hell to navigate. Someone’s going to smash their skull open or break a leg, at least. Priya’s in no condition to make the trek down the gorge to town, never mind that none of us wants to be out there in the dark with Maeve.”
“That’s not very nice,” Maeve said, almost sounding like herself, just for a moment.
“Our choices are limited,” Walker told her. “I’d rather take risks than wait for an ugly certainty.”
Rose glared at him. “You called your boss. You said help would come.”
“I still think it will. I just don’t know if it will come in time.”
Priya shifted. “So what’s your plan? No offense, Walker. You look pretty strong, but you couldn’t carry me that far even on a paved road.”
“I’m not going to carry you,” Walker said. “The river is. It’s going to carry all of us.”
Rose gaped at him. “You’re out of your mind. Priya can’t use her left arm. There are huge rocks in the middle of the river and places where it drops off, stretches of white water—”
“No, he’s right,” Priya said. “Whatever it takes, we can’t just wait around.”
“We could all die!”
“If we stay here too long, we will die. The Blackcoats will kill us.” Priya glanced at Maeve. “Or she will.”
Rose stared at her sister in despair. “So instead we float down the river with her? Walker can’t keep a gun on her if he’s halfway drowning.”
Maeve began to shift in the glow of the penlight. She bent over, coughing, and moaned. When she glanced up again, a sheen of greasy sweat covered her face. Her eyes, however, had cleared.
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