* * * * *
About fifteen miles north of the New River, down a one-lane road off Route 60, a motionless U-Haul straddled the gravel curb, tilted sideways into a grassy ditch. Three ambulances and a total of five speed bikes were converged around it, parked and unmanned. A quarter mile in either direction, someone stood in the road to turn away traffic. So far, there hadn't been any. It was still very early in this particular corner of nowhere.
Both of the U-Haul's back tires had been blown out, and the driver's side window had been smashed in with a crowbar. Most of the cab's interior was now incinerated. The latch of the rear door had been dealt with similarly to the aforementioned window, and the door itself was now rolled completely up, revealing the truck's hideous contents to the light of day and to the thin spatter of rain.
Among those contents was a floral patterned love seat, which had been pulled out into the grass. Part of the love seat was on fire, and a hunter was busily dousing it with an extinguisher.
The love seat belonged to Charlotte Pickens, soon to be Charlotte McCormick.
Charlotte soon-to-be-McCormick Pickens stood at a removed distance from the U-Haul, holding a pack of ice to the side of her head that she'd banged against the windshield. Her hair was blackened and singed in places, but she had not otherwise been burned. Charlotte wore an awful lot of hairspray. It had to do with her upbringing.
Beside her stood Jeff McCormick, dutifully holding Jelly, their miniature Pomeranian. Jelly had absolutely peed all over him, or so Jeff contended. As for Biscuit―well, there wasn't much of Biscuit left to mention.
The hunters hadn't said very much. They'd put out their fires and they'd given Charlotte an ice pack, and that's about it. Everyone seemed terribly embarrassed.
These sort of mistakes are bound to happen, the beta hunter reminded himself, breathing in the smell of charred upholstery―with a hint of dog. Everyone drives these damn things now.
Another hunter approached him, carrying a satellite phone and a rather strained demeanor.
"It's our alpha," she said, handing the phone over. "She's pissed. Been trying to get us for over twenty minutes."
"Well of course she has," said the presiding hunter. "But before we give her any details, we need to redirect―"
"The hostage is no longer an issue," the young woman interrupted. "We've got a bigger problem."
"Oh?"
"Yes. The targets have ditched. Alpha believes they've gone after Hollows."
"Oh."
"Ran over her foot apparently."
"Ah."
"Indeed." The junior hunter pushed the phone at him persistently, expressionless. He took it and watched her stalk away for several seconds before lifting it to his ear. Grimacing, he pressed down the button.
"Beta speaking," he said, scarcely getting a syllable out.
"How quickly can you track down the ambulance I was driving?" Stella Rosin demanded from the other end of the connection. The sharp calm of her voice thinly veiled the hottest wrath of multiple hells.
The beta hunter surveyed the small mess around him. His colleagues were already gathering around their vehicles, quite aware that it was time to move on. A cluster of them, including the woman who'd handed over the phone, were gathered around a GPS server mounted on one of the bikes, no doubt locking down the location of the ambulance in question.
"Already on it," he confirmed.
"Good. Send a bike to pick me up, just one. I want the rest of you after the targets immediately. Your little mishap is not of consequence at the moment. Just leave it."
"Will do."
"I expect Sharma will be in touch with us shortly, if our divine idiots haven't gotten him killed already. He's quite aware that they're not capable of ...." There was a screech on the line, an extended interruption."... god knows how many ... unless we catch up to them."
"Sorry, bad connection," the hunter cut in. "Can you repeat that?"
He could hear Stella responding, but her words sounded as though they were coming through a sponge. More static followed, and then a voice that was definitely not Stella's. This voice could have belonged to a moldy, rattling shower drain.
"They will seek him," it said, rusty and metallic and wet.
Color drained from the hunter's face. It was the oldest voice he'd ever heard―and he'd heard some pretty old ones. Several yards away, Charlotte was rubbing her forehead, hoping her eyebrows would grow back in time for the wedding. Jeff was thinking about fire and machetes and his dad's Vietnam flashbacks. Jelly was pissing on a speed bike. He was the only one who comprehended how very small his problems were.
"Alpha?" the hunter said. There was silence on the other end, a pop, and then Stella, cursing. "Alpha? Did you hear that, too?"
"Of course I did," Stella snapped. "God. I hate it when they do that."
There was another screech, a piercing one, but the hunter could not take his ear away from the receiver.
"They will seek him," the voice said again. "And he will seek them."
C H A P T E R 1 9
Vessel, Book I: The Advent Page 55
