"I got 'em," Payton announced into the walkie-talkie at Ethan's side. "Approaching precisely due northeast, as expected. Oblivion is still in the lead."
He tacked on that last part after a moment's pause, and Ethan thought he detected a hint of hunger in Payton's voice.
Payton had always been a remarkably single-minded individual. Capable of intense focus where others' attention spans drifted, he could sit and maintain a thought vigil on the same topic for hours.
It was a useful trait for an assassin. He found it particularly useful today, watching the slow but steady approach of Oblivion, followed by two Jeeps carrying the Secretum members, and the enslaved Loci behind that, nearly three hundred in number. Impressive, considering there were less than two dozen of them who'd left the underground city with Oblivion back at the beginning. It was exactly as he'd predicted: The Loci, all around the world, were drawn to Oblivion. They couldn't stop themselves from venturing to wherever he was. Soon, all of them would help him destroy what was left of the world.
Unless Payton acted. Now.
"I can see Nora," Ethan whispered through his walkietalkie. "Mrs. Edeson is near the front of the line, not far from Oblivion. Haven't spotted Hector yet ... the line is so long ... Yeah, that's definitely Nora, pulling up the rear, kind of on her own."
"Perfect," Alex replied into the walkie that the old man held close to her mouth. "You grab Nora. We'll get closer to Mrs. Edeson, see if we can get her."
"Copy that," Ethan replied.
Alex switched off the walkie and carefully rose to a crouch. She watched the tiny figures just coming into view on the horizon, knowing the thing living in Grant's body was right there at the front.
Her thoughts lingered on him for a moment, trying for the hundredth time to think of something-anything-she could do to try to bring Grant back. She wouldn't believe he was really beyond hope. She would not. Grant touched the supernatural daily with his awesome powers, so why should he be irretrievable from the mortal grave?
"You ready?" Payton asked, standing.
"Absolutely," she replied.
"Good. Wait here."
She turned-
And Payton was gone in a blur.
No!
She knew exactly what he was going to attempt, just like she knew there was no way to stop him. She'd been afraid of this.
He'd played her-played all of them-all this time, back at his home. Agreeing to their plans, putting up just enough of a fuss that they wouldn't question it when he finally agreed to do things her way ...
She cursed his lone-wolf tendencies. He was going to get himself killed, and he was going to do it now, when they needed him most.
But Payton was here for one reason, and one reason only.
Ethan and Sergeant Tucker were crawling as low to the ground as they could, approaching the back of the line. Xue stood watch at the tree line behind them, ready to come to their aid if needed.
"Don't let Nora see you, no matter what," Ethan advised.
"Why?" Tucker replied.
"She could wipe clean every memory engram in your brain."
"You're joking."
"We've got to do this from behind. Cut her shoulder or something and press the Stone into the wound."
"And all this without her seeing us, or alerting anyone else," Tucker said. It was nearly a question.
"Yeah," replied Ethan, pulling out his gun. "My strength isn't going to help either. Stealth is the key here. And it has to be done fast, or ..."
The two men cautiously ran up behind the long, single-file line of men and women walking upon the black soil, holding their guns low and hoping to never have to use them. The DarkWorld's properties were working in their favor, masking their approach. They wore black jumpsuits like the ones Payton preferred, and they'd painted their faces with dark grease, so they blended in easily with the ground and the sky above.
"So, uh ... what will she do, exactly, if she sees us?" Tucker asked in a hushed tone as they neared her position by less than fifty feet.
"About five seconds after she sees us, we'll forget who we are, why we're here, how to speak, chew food, and lose all motor coordination we were trained with as infants. Then Oblivion will come and separate our bodies' molecules."
"All you had to say was `we'd be dead,' man," Tucker replied. "That's all I needed to know."
Daniel watched Lisa from the tree he hid behind. She was crouching behind another tree herself, her head peeking out from one side. Ethan and Tucker had left their binoculars behind, and she'd picked them up to look through. Xue's keen eyes traced them from her position behind a tree twenty feet away.
With a deep gulp, Daniel carefully, cautiously left his hiding place and slid over next to Lisa. She didn't notice his approach, her peripheral vision cut off by the binoculars pressed against her face. Daniel bit his lip as he awkwardly extended his right arm and placed it around her shoulders.
Lisa reacted only slightly, the binoculars pulling away from her face by an inch. She realized it was Daniel without looking directly at him, smiled to herself, and then replaced the lenses at her eyes.
Daniel knew her well enough to know that a wild assortment of happy thoughts were thundering through her overactive brain right about now, but he had to hand it to her for playing it remarkably cool. He hadn't expected that. Maybe this wouldn't be so uncomfortable after all.
"What do you see?" he whispered, strengthening his hold on her slightly.
"They're almost there."
"What about Payton and Alex?"
She turned. "Let's see ... There's Mrs. Edeson, still marching in the procession. But if the two of them are anywhere near her, I can't see 'em ... no, wait, I see Payton, he's ... what is he doing?"
With a sharp nod at Sergeant Tucker, Ethan sprinted for Nora.
But Tucker was the faster man and got to her a second before Ethan could reach her, tackling her limp, weary body onto the ground.
Oblivion stopped.
He turned.
He'd felt it. One of his Ringwearers had been shoved to the ground.
With a fleeting thought, he awakened twelve other Ringwearers in her vicinity.
Tucker was sitting on top of Nora, where she'd fallen facedown onto the black ground. He held her arms behind her back. She was writhing about with surprising strength.
But no, that's not her strength, Ethan reminded himself. That's Oblivion.
"I think we woke the neighbors," Tucker whispered, looking around warily.
Ethan dropped to his knees and slid the last foot or so until he was able to touch Nora. He holstered his gun. The Stone fragment was in his left hand; he reached into a pants pocket with his right, only to find it empty.
"I didn't think to bring a knife!"
"Well I don't have one, man!" Tucker replied as Nora nearly bucked him off her back.
Looking around for anything sharp, he had to find something he could use to pierce her skin just enough to get the Stone to touch her bloodstream ... He glanced up just long enough to see about a dozen Loci walking toward them robotically from all directions, like zombies that would arrive much faster than it seemed they could ...
The rocks on the ground were craggy yet too small to cut human flesh. Maybe he could just slash at her with the Stone fragment itself? But this piece was flat and dull, not nearly as sharp as some of the others ...
Ringwearers were coming; he had to do something!
He was still thinking hard and searching the ground around him frantically when a gunshot went off. The blast was so close, his ears started ringing.
Nora's hand had a disgusting, bloody, burned hole going straight through the center of her palm. Tucker held his sidearm tight with one hand, its muzzle still smoking.
"Do it!" he shouted, nodding at Nora's hand.
Ethan pressed the Stone into the hole, and Nora went limp almost immediately.
Tucker climbed off, Ethan hefted Nora easily with both arms, and the two men ran. No good going ba
ck to the trees now; that would give the others away.
Ethan surveyed their surroundings. They weren't far from the small housing community he'd seen earlier, and it looked like it had lots of places where they might hide.
"This way!" he shouted.
"Daniel," Lisa whispered. "Look."
Daniel stole his view away from what Payton was doing to see that Hector was walking alone, less than thirty feet away. Daniel glanced about and saw that other Ringwearers were scattered across the plain in every direction; it appeared that Oblivion had split them up, sending his army out to search for others who might be here with Ethan and Tucker. It was a stroke of luck that Hector had ventured so close to them.
"What do you think?" Lisa whispered, clutching a Stone fragment tightly in her right hand.
She clearly wanted to go for it, and he was leaning toward agreeing with her. He whirled around to get Xue's attention, but she was looking the wrong way, still following Ethan's and Tucker's movements.
"Come on, he's right there-we'll never get a better chance!" Lisa whispered again.
Without waiting for him, she jumped out from behind her tree and entered a dead sprint toward Hector, who was facing away from her.
Daniel took off behind her, but she had a ten-foot head start on him, and he couldn't run with his permanently damaged ankle. The best he could manage was a fast limp, leaning on his aluminum cane for leverage.
As she was nearing Hector, the gigantic man turned at the sound of her running footsteps. He stuck out a hand and grabbed her by the neck just as she came into view. His enormous arm lifted her off the ground easily, and Daniel struggled to reach them as Lisa's features contorted into anguish. She couldn't breathe, but that wasn't the worst of it.
Daniel understood what was happening from what Ethan had told him: Hector's touch was draining Lisa's body of health, causing her intense physiological grief.
She was unable to stifle a bloodcurdling scream, and the sound echoed throughout the barren plain.
Alex dared to step out into the open.
She couldn't help herself. Grant was only a hundred or so feet away. She didn't care that the last time she saw him, he'd flung her into a wildfire. Didn't care that his skin was gray and hard, or that his eyes were on fire.
He was still Grant.
He had to be.
She was about to move when the old man appeared in front of her, his expression different than she'd ever seen it. It had softened, but carried heavy creases around those sharp, bright eyes.
His lips formed a grim smile, a pained expression of love. He slowly reached out with his one hand and placed it flat over her beating heart. He nodded slowly at her as if wordlessly speaking an unspoken message, and she read the myriad emotions running through him in that instant as warm and caring, yet regretful and determined.
Reluctantly, he withdrew his hand. And then he turned on his heel and ran. Away from Oblivion, away from where Payton had disappeared, away from the truck where the others were hiding.
Alex stood in stunned silence, watching as his elderly frame grew smaller on the flat open ground, until he rounded a distant mound of black ash and was gone.
He'd left her. Left them. Abandoned them all.
Confused, her thoughts drifting, Alex subconsciously directed her feet to begin carrying her forward.
And suddenly all of her thoughts snapped back to attention as her eyes landed on Oblivion. If only she could get closer to him, maybe she could flood him with feelings of love, of compassion and joy and hope-maybe it would be just enough to give Grant a chance to return to the surface ...
Her line of thought ended when a scream pierced the silence from somewhere in the distance, far off to her right. Oblivion turned toward the sound as well, looking-
A hand snapped over Alex's mouth from behind, an arm around her shoulders.
She tried to shout, but only a muffled sound came out.
"Alex!" Payton whispered into her ear. He turned loose and grabbed her by the hand, dragging her off.
It was only after they rounded a small hill and Oblivion was no longer in sight that she noticed there was an unconscious man slung over Payton's left shoulder. Which didn't seem to be slowing Payton down in the slightest.
She recognized the sleeping man.
"What are you doing?" she asked, a little louder than she'd meant to. "This isn't what we came for!"
Payton held her tightly by the hand and continued to drag her half running in a direction opposite of Oblivion and his army. "Pencil me in for a good row over that once we're far away from here."
Daniel whacked at Hector's head with his cane, but it only resulted in putting a dent in the metal walking stick. Hector backhanded Daniel, and he landed with a harsh thud against the black ground.
Xue appeared, using her powers of magnetism to draw Daniel's cane to her. Once the cane was in hand, she tried to sweep Hector's feet out from under him, from behind. But he was too big a target to be felled so easily, and soon she too was on her back on the ground.
Hector dropped Lisa and looked around, looked down at his own two hands, looked at the two people lying at his feet. He was utterly mystified, bewildered, as if he'd lost his-
Nora.
Daniel's head spun and he saw the black woman being carried in Sergeant Tucker's arms. Her dazed, barely conscious gaze was focused on the three of them, a bleeding hand outstretched and trained on Hector.
Tucker ran until he stood face-to-face with the big man. "Sorry, man," he whispered. He brandished his gun and shot Hector in the shoulder, creating a tremendously loud sound that would draw the attention of everyone in the area.
Daniel didn't bother to watch what happened next; he crawled over to Lisa, who had turned red in the face. Now she was clutching her head with both hands, as if her brain were about to explode and she wanted to contain the blast. He sat cross-legged and pulled her close, until he could hold her in his arms. She cried out in pain as he rocked her back and forth.
A hand extended down from above and touched her on the shoulder. Lisa's hands fell away from her head and she looked up. Daniel followed her gaze.
Hector, unharmed and smiling, beamed down at them both.
"Good to have you back, big guy," Lisa mumbled wearily.
Hector placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder and he instantly felt a lift, a boost in energy, and the calm centeredness that always came from the man's healing touch.
The two of them got to their feet and saw that Nora was standing as well, with just a little help from Ethan for balance. Her hand was mended, no longer bleeding. She still appeared wobbly, but she was definitely in control of herself again.
Daniel was about to ask what they should do now when Alex and Payton appeared, running toward them. Payton carried a man over one shoulder, unconscious.
It was Devlin.
"Follow me," Payton said, and he turned and ran toward the housing development in the distance.
There was no choice. They'd gotten two of their best fighters back, but they were still outnumbered and thoroughly exposed. The Ringwearers possessed by Oblivion's will were closing in.
They had to hide.
The housing development stood all but abandoned. Daniel quietly speculated that the residents were in hiding elsewhere. Or, Lisa added, maybe they'd fled when it was apparent that Oblivion was coming their way.
Payton prepared to slice through a doorway to grant them access to a random house deep within the neighborhood, when Tucker stopped him. The Army man pointed out that any enemy on the hunt would notice something as obvious as a door that had been hacked open. It didn't escape Daniel's notice that such an oversight was out of character for the assassin.
Ethan knelt next to the door and picked the primitive lock in impressive time.
The door opened into a dingy living room bearing the distinct smell of, as Lisa put it, "old people." Off from the main room there was a separate bedroom, bath, and tiny kitchen. They couldn't afford to turn
on any lights, leaving them to feel their way through the room past vague, blocky shadows.
Contact with anything in the room gave off a musty odor. Nora found her way to a linen-draped sofa and lay down; Hector sat on the floor at her feet. His touch had repaired the wear and tear done to her skin, muscles, bones, and ligaments, but she had gone on miniscule food and water for far too long, leaving her body nearly desiccated.
Payton slung Devlin's unconscious form on the floor without grace or pity. Devlin grunted softly and began to stir awake; Payton swiftly kicked him in the head, and Devlin slumped, asleep again.
"You abducted him?" Daniel asked.
Payton gave one curt nod.
"But why?"
"You wanted to fight Oblivion smart," Payton replied. "This man is our one chance at doing that. Wouldn't you like to know if Oblivion has any weaknesses?"
"Where's Julie?" Nora asked weakly, barely able to stay awake.
Hector was about to administer his healing touch on Alex when he froze, hand outstretched. Instead of looking at Nora, his eyes met Alex's; he knew she would have the answer.
"She's not here," Alex replied. Her words didn't express the truth, but the tone of her voice had.
Hector seemed to withdraw into himself. His usual dogged smile, his most prominent feature, faded. His eyes searched the ground as they grew bigger.
Alex put a hand on his round shoulder. He didn't react.
"You loved her. . ." Alex whispered. "Oh, sweetie ... I had no idea."
Lisa blinked to life, squeezing Daniel's hand harder. "Hey, where's the old guy?"
"Wait, the one Payton was talking about, or somebody else?" Nora asked, still dazed.
"He left," Alex replied.
"The man without a hand," Lisa explained to Nora.
Nora's mouth opened, but she said nothing. Flummoxed, she grappled for words. "The guy Grant met back in L.A. during the riots? That old kook was with you? But. . ."
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