by Wen Spencer
The cultists had stopped the boat. Mouse and other male cultists were scanning the rolling waves, presumably as the females worked to save Meta.
"Ukiah! Wolf boy!" Mouse shouted, as another male said, "I don't know how long angels can hold their breath. He might not even be down there anymore. He's an angel!"
Ukiah ducked under the water, kicked off his shoes, and swam until his lungs felt like they were about to burst, then surfaced again. He was alone in vast shifting waters with only the echoes of jets to guide him.
***
It was a lot farther to Boston than he imagined.
***
He found the first lobster trap by accident. A wave was rolling him down a plane of water as he swam and he saw a Tide detergent bottle floating in the water. Four years of Boy Scouts told him that detergent bottles made good floatation devices in a pinch. He detoured and caught hold of it, hugging it to his chest. It was a relief to float there, at rest in the chilly water. It would have been perfect, except the bottle was anchored to something far underwater. It puzzled him for a while until he realized it was a lobster trap and the Tide bottle was a buoy marker.
He bobbed in the waves, panting, weary, nothing but water in sight.
He'd been insane to leave the boat.
He knew he couldn't stay with the lobster trap buoy, but he didn't want to let go. It was starting to dawn on him that drowning was a real possibility. Strange, except for being hit by cars and shot, he'd never pushed his body to its limits before. Max had always been there, reining him in before he'd collapsed, shoving food into him, keeping him safe from his own stupidity. Any normal human wouldn't have jumped off a perfectly fine boat, blithely assuming he could swim to an unseen shore.
Atticus probably wouldn't have been so stupid.
What the hell did he think he could do once he got back to Boston? While the cult had unknowingly supplied him with information on the Ontongard, their plans remained a mystery. He had no money, no shoes, and no weapons. The Pack would have moved dens, making finding them nearly impossible. And it seemed unlikely, now, that he'd even survive to reach land.
He tugged at the knots tying the buoy to the trap, but tension and time had rendered them impossible to untie. He chewed at the rope, hoping to fray it, but several minutes of gnawing produced no noticeable effect.
Nothing to be done but abandon the tiny haven of safety and swim on.
***
There were a surprising number of lobster traps in Boston Harbor.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Atlantic Ocean
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Later Ukiah would recall the boat bearing down on him, and the blare of horns. As it was, though, the Coast Guard officer seemed to appear in the water beside him like magic. He was far too weary to do anything once they hauled him into their boat but huddle around the mug of hot cocoa they gave him.
"We're taking you to Mass General Hospital."
"N-n-no," he forced out between chattering teeth. "No hospital."
While hanging from lobster buoys, he had pieced together a plan. It was filled with things he had originally wanted to avoid, but facing death, they grew less unpleasant. Atticus was one of them.
"My brother—he's at the Boston Harbor Hotel." The Pack had plucked the hotel name from Atticus's memory during his test. "D-d-drop me there."
"We really should take you to the hospital. You're hypothermic."
"I-I-I'm fine," he told them. "P-p-please—hotel."
In the end, they dropped him on the wharf in front of the hotel. He squelched his way into the lobby and stood dripping on the marble floor as he waited for the elevator. It was easy to find out which floor Atticus and Ru were on—running his hands over the buttons inside the elevator, he found the one they'd pushed to get to their rooms. He went down the hall sniffing, smelling mostly the Atlantic Ocean soaked into his skin.
He found their rooms. Atticus wasn't there, but someone was moving around inside. Teeth chattering, he knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" Kyle called.
"U-U-Ukiah."
"Step back from the door," Kyle said.
Ukiah leaned against the far wall.
Kyle had his pistol in hand when he opened the door and scanned the hall. He relaxed once he saw they were alone. "Why are you wet?"
"I-I-I was swimming."
Kyle sniffed at the north Atlantic stench. "You need to clean your pool."
Ukiah laughed weakly.
"So, what do you want?"
"A sh-sh-shower and something to eat—f-f-find the cult—w-w-world peace."
"You mean, like, use our shower?"
Ukiah nodded, sniffing.
Kyle paced back and forth, trying to decide what to do. Down the hall the elevator dinged, signaling its arrival. The sound decided it for Kyle. He reached out, caught Ukiah by the shirt, jerked him into the room, and slammed shut the door.
"Okay. Okay. Everything's cool." Kyle motioned toward the adjoining room with a king-sized bed. "You can use Atticus's bathroom and I'll call room service."
***
It felt weird to be using Atticus and Ru's bathroom, the counter strewn with toothbrushes and combs and deodorant, the hotel's shampoo ignored in favor of their own. It seemed like an invasion of their privacy. Out of habit he fumbled through his pants pockets as he stripped. The cult had managed to strip him of his wallet yet again—the only things in his pocket were the gum wrappers and the pebble from Sanctuary Island. He dropped the gum wrappers into the trash, but the pebble slipped through his trembling fingers to land among Atticus's things, disappearing from sight.
Ukiah eyed the crowded counter. Where did it go? Under the toiletry bag? He lifted the corner of the bag and nearly knocked over a bottle of expensive aftershave. With a sigh, he abandoned it; he'd look for it once he stopped shivering.
***
Ukiah stood in the steaming hot water until he heard room service at the door. He stepped out of the bathroom, towel pinned around his hips, drying his hair, to find a stranger in the room with Kyle and the food.
The stranger glanced at Ukiah and made an exasperated noise. "Johnston's been telling me he didn't know when you were getting back."
Kyle looked over his shoulder at Ukiah in surprise. "But this isn't—"
"Zip it, Johnston," the stranger snapped. "Where the hell were you?"
Ukiah guessed that "the shower" wasn't the answer the stranger was looking for. "I was kidnapped by the Temple of New Reason."
"Where is your partner?" the stranger asked.
Partner?Ukiah froze. What did he want with Max?
"Takahashi is with the Coast Guard," Kyle said, making it obvious this man thought Ukiah was Atticus. "Out looking for . . . him. Hikaru will be back in a couple hours."
He felt guilty now that he had misled the Coast Guard into thinking he had only suffered a boating accident. They'd taken his name but apparently not checked if anyone was looking for him.
The stranger looked at his watch. "Fine. Call me when he gets back."
"Who the hell was that?" Ukiah asked after the door closed behind the stranger.
"Our boss. Sumpter. He came in with room service."
Kyle had ordered stuffed rabbit with peppers, pea shoots, and onions, three types of strong-smelling cheeses he didn't recognize even after several years of Max's tutelage; a plate of pistachios, macadamia nuts, and almonds; and lastly, chocolate desserts. Protein, protein, protein with a shot of pure sugar.
Kyle fidgeted in silence as Ukiah ate, and finally fell into report mode, as if he wasn't comfortable with carrying the main bulk of the conversation. "I sent your clothes down to be washed. They said they wouldn't be ready to be picked up until tomorrow morning." Realization dawned on him. "I guess I should get you something to wear until then."
Finally given a task, Kyle ticked down the needed clothes, providing T-shirt, boxers, sweatpants, socks, and a pair of tennis shoes out of Atticus's luggage. None of the s
uitcases were unpacked, only canted open, ready to be zipped shut and taken at a moment's notice.
"Where isAtticus?" Ukiah asked around a mouthful of the rabbit.
"He and Ru are out searching for you. The coast guard is flying them to various islands where the cult might be hiding."
Actually this worked well with his plans. Atticus didn't have Pack memory; he didn't know the dangers that the Ontongard represented to the world, so it was extremely unlikely he would help Ukiah raid one of their dens. Nor did Ukiah want to put his brother's "family" at risk, not when the Pack was available to help instead.
"Can I use the phone?" Ukiah didn't wait for permission, glancing at the instructions for getting an outside line and then dialing Indigo's number while Kyle was still trying to form an answer. Without a vehicle or money, his only hope of contacting the Pack was via whoever was guarding Indigo. Unfortunately, her number dropped him straight into voice mail. "It's me, Ukiah." He paused, not sure what else to say—he wasn't sure how long he'd be staying in Atticus's hotel room. "I got free of the cult and I'm safe. I'll call you back."
"I don't know—" Kyle managed to get out as Ukiah pressed the reset button and dialed Max.
"Bennett." Max answered the phone with a snarl worthy of the Pack.
"Max, it's me."
"Ukiah! Where the hell are you now?"
Ukiah explained about his kidnapping and escape, which got an "Oh, Jesus, Ukiah, you didn't!" from Max and a "You just jumped off the boat?" from Kyle, who up to this point had been pretending not to listen.
"You're lucky you didn't drown," Max snapped. "Who's there with you now?"
"Kyle," Ukiah said. "He's one of Atticus's best friends. He knows everything. Max, I know where the Ontongard are holding Ping."
"You want to rescue Ping? After what she and Core did?"
The curse of a perfect memory meant it took only one mention of his rape to shove Ukiah back to the night that Core drugged him with Invisible Red and shared him with Ping.
. . . candles lit the mom to a soft glow. Ping knelt on the white satin sheets of the king-sized bed, dressed in a black robe so sheer it seemed to be only shadows. Core checked Ukiah just short of the bed, and Ping stretched with false casualness, the candles silhouetting her lithe form as she arched her back, lifting her breasts. To Ukiah's disgust, his body responded. He wanted to say no, but his mouth wouldn't shape the words. The breeding drug held his will captive, freeing his body to its artificial desires. He started to growl instead. Ping parted the gauze robe aside enough to reveal her sex, and it glittered with Invisible Red.
She stroked herself there, and lifted her damp, glittering fingers to him." Come to me."
Ukiah's legs stoned to move, carrying him to her, while he could only snarl in helpless anger. A moment later, he felt Core's nude body beside him . . .
Ukiah pushed the memory away. "Yes, I want to rescue her."
He had had lots of time to think, out in the ocean. He hated her for using him, and that the child she carried could destroy his ties with the ones he loved most—Indigo and the Pack. But he didn't hate her enough to wish what the Ontongard planned for her. "She was part of the cult's inner circle. She knows all their secrets. She'll know where Ice has the Ae, and what his plans for 'the Cleansing' are."
"You're not thinking of doing this alone?" Max asked.
"I'm taking the Pack—once I find them."
"Good," Max said. "So where's this den?"
"I just have a street name, no number: Totten Pond Road."
Kyle sat down at his computer and started to type as Ukiah spelled it out to Max. "That's in Waltham."
"A fairly short segment of road," Max added.
Ukiah switched over to speakerphone and said, "According to the cult, there will be six nests in a hexagonal pattern. I've got street names for all six but none of the street numbers."
"So if we find the points that link all the street addresses into a hexagon—" Kyle started.
"—we'll be able to pinpoint the nests," Max finished .
***
Atticus had been building to a bitter rage for hours.
Much to his disgust, they'd spent the night with Zheng, sifting through the victims from the cremation site, building a profile. Kyle had been reduced to puppy love silliness with delight. The FBI agent, however, retreated behind her unreadable mask as they sifted through police reports and grisly photographs. Normally Atticus would have been only mildly annoyed by the two, but he found himself trying to fight off growing concern for Ukiah. He didn't want to care.
Nor was he happy with the shades of moral gray his team was drifting into by working with the Pack. With undercover work, the danger of sympathizing with the criminals ran high; having met the Ontongard, though, he was no longer sure that the Pack were the bad guys. He tried to keep in mind that their job in this mess was to find the drugs and get them off the street.
They pinpointed a surveying company in Watertown, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, as a possible den for the Ontongard. Three of the victims worked for the company, and from there, relationships spiraled outward. The police already suspected the company, citing "odd reactions to the news" and "seems mentally unbalanced" in reports of surviving employees. Even with Zheng's reassurance that the Pack would be able to tell the difference between humans and Ontongard, it felt wrong to turn the information over to them without first checking into it themselves.
But they'd run out of time.
They had missed the cult. Luckily, so had the Ontongard. After several cautious flybys, the coast guard pilot landed their Jayhawk helicopter on the cult's island refuge. The cult had left dangerous presents behind, and the Ontongard had tripped several. The boathouse in the small bay burned, a charred body occasionally visible among the flames. The walls of the living room were riddled with grapeshot, and dried blood flecked the floor. Too little blood. Something scurried on tiny feet among the overturned furniture and Atticus sensed small and vicious eyes watching him.
In the basement they found a windowless cell. Ukiah's scent was on the bare foam pad. The cult had provided only a litter box to use as a toilet. Of his brother, there was no sign whether he left the island alive or dead, alone or with others.
Agent Zheng lived up to her reputation, cold and distant and unreadable as a frozen lake. On the flight back to Cape Cod Coast Guard Air Station, the hopeful Coast Guard copilot proved immune to her chilly silence and grated on everyone's nerves with his attempts to break the ice. The moment they touched down, the FBI agent fled the helicopter.
"Zheng!" Atticus ducked under the still-whirling blades.
"Later, Atticus," she shouted without so much as looking over her shoulder.
He jogged to catch up with her. "We need to talk."
"Not now." She focused on getting to her rental SUV parked next to his Jaguar, walking in long, purposeful strides.
"Wait." He caught her arm and pulled her to a stop. "Talk to me."
"I can't." She turned her head away from him, covering her face with her hand. "I can't even look at you!"
It felt like she'd slapped him. She had seemed so accepting of his alien heritage. What had happened to change her mind—or had she always felt this way, and everything had been a lie to get his team to help her?
She took deep, cleansing breaths. "I need some time alone," she cried into her palm. "I'll talk to you later."
He drove back to Boston, barely holding his anger in check. Knowing him well, Ru waited until they were no longer trapped in the small confines of the Jaguar before talking.
"You're worried about your brother, aren't you?"
"No!" Atticus snapped as they stepped off the elevator. "I don't know where the little brat is, but I'm sure he's fine."
He slid the card key into the lock of Kyle's hotel room, pushed open the door—and there was Ukiah, sitting in the corner wing chair. Thrown off balance, Atticus lost control of his anger. "What are you doing here?"
"Atticus," Ukia
h said, as if surprised to see Atticus in his own room.
"How the hell did you get here?" Atticus slammed shut the door behind him.
"I swam."
"From the island?"
"No, out in the bay someplace."
"How long have you been here?"
"About an hour."
Atticus glared at Kyle, who flinched under the look.
"I tried calling you, Atty, but you must have been out of the range of any cell tower."
"Out in the middle of the ocean, yes." Atticus took in the fact that Ukiah was dressed in his clothes. The room smelled of roasted meat and expensive cheese. A room service cart set for one was shoved into the corner, well-gnawed bones the only evidence of what the meal might have been. "You've made yourself at home. Why did you come here instead of to the Dog Warriors?"
"I'm not sure where they are," Ukiah admitted. "And the Coast Guard—after they pulled me out of the water—were afraid I was hypothermic and wanted to take me to the hospital. When I told them you were here . . ."
"Useless fucks," Atticus said of the Coast Guard, to have found someone with an APB out on them and let them walk away.
"Are you okay?" Ru crossed the room to press a hand to Ukiah's forehead. "You're still a little cool."
"I'm fine." Ukiah took the mothering in good grace.
"You had us worried." Ru tousled his hair and Ukiah leaned against him, soaking in the affection. Atticus realized that the boy was emotionally raw after days of battering and isolation among his enemies; now with Ru, whom he counted as a friend, Ukiah sought solace.
Jealousy flared through Atticus. "You have a lot of nerve to come asking help from us after what you've done. The ambush at the beach house. Stealing the Pixie Dust."
Ukiah flinched as if struck. "I'm sorry about that." He stood up. "I'll pay you back for the food, and I'll swap you clothes once I get something else to wear."
"What are you going to do about Ping and the dens?" Kyle asked.
"What's this?" Atticus asked.
Ukiah stared at Atticus with his feral gaze that looked the whole way through him, and said nothing.
"We were pulling together information on the dens." Kyle held out a printout of an aerial photo, one building circled in red. "Using information your brother skimmed from the cult. We—he thinks they're holding Ping at an engineering firm in Waltham."
