by Ilsa J. Bick
But Chris was among the living, and the living needed help. And Peter, Wolf, Penny … what do I do, what should I do? She was still turning that over as she neared the square, dodging from house to house, slinking through backyards. As she remembered the square’s layout, the church was on the northwest corner. Jess’s house was west of the square, which meant she was coming up behind the village hall. What she’d do once she got there, she didn’t know. Was there a back entrance, a way into the building? If so … what then? Make her way to the roof? Could she even do that? How would that help?
You’d better figure this out, honey. The fug of all those Changed, altered and otherwise, bled through the air, growing stronger the closer she got. Finn’s people must be nearly to the square. Their stink made the hackles rise in a Mohawk along Buck’s spine. She felt her monster suddenly perk right up, too—and, a split second later, understood why as she teased out an odor of shadows and cool mist and rot.
Wolf. She parsed more smells, got denim and wintergreen, hard steel and desperation mingling with the stench of chemo: Peter’s there, too.
So tempting to give the monster a little leash, see if it might slip behind Wolf’s eyes. What if I could control it? Send it out to very specific targets? That was … a little creepy, and crazy, too. Let the red storm set its hook, and she’d be as helpless as a swimmer in a rip current. Yet the idea of actually letting the monster go, making it work for her … Can I do that? Her hand snuck to caress the wolfdog’s neck. God, this would be like naming her monster, which her cancer docs encouraged: fighting back by thinking of the monster as something separate and apart. One guy even gave his cancer a Twitter account. She had wanted no part of her tumor: not to name it, draw it, visualize it. She’d only fought until she couldn’t fight anymore, and left for the Waucamaw, where her tumor became a monster with slitty eyes and needle-teeth—and had saved her life, a couple of times over now.
Face it, Alex, the monster is a part of you, whether you like it or not.
“So what are you saying, you nut?” she murmured. “You want to jump off Blackrocks? Gonna send out the monster with a message?” It was crazy sci-fry. But Finn does it, somehow. Look at those weird Changed and poor Peter. But what if she got snagged by the red storm and couldn’t get free? What if who she was drowned in it? Somehow, she thought that could happen.
People, all old, gathering in the square. Her schnoz was full of fusty stained underwear and doughy skin. She heard them, too, a low buzz. But no kids. Where could they be? She didn’t smell Chris either, and her stomach tightened with dread. Take it easy. He was on a horse. If he was smart, he was already long gone. With enough warning, all the kids might be, too. Could be why she smelled none. Except Finn made his move while it was still dark. So how would Rule have known Finn was on his way?
A distant crackle, like a string of firecrackers. She glanced north. Someone shooting out there, but far away, easily several miles. The kids? Maybe, and probably not fighting Finn’s people. She’d followed him long enough to know that no one had split off from the main group.
Oh God. What if those were Rule’s kids, and there were Changed out there? Would Finn’s, well … signal bleed that far? That wide? How much range did this guy have?
Range, there’s something about that; that kid, Jasper, mentioned Peter, and how Peter got better whenever Finn was further away. He said if Finn died, the network would fall apart.
She’d thought of the same thing when trying to figure out how Finn managed all those Changed. I know the signal hops because the monster does, and I go along for the ride. And look what had happened to her when Finn’s Changed attacked that plateau: big surge, huge signal, and she woke up on the snow. But what does that mean? How can I use this? What does it mean?
Dead ahead, she spied a short alley, lined with detached garages, that trickled into the village hall’s parking lot. Nosed to the back wall alongside a large green Dumpster were three sheriffs’ cruisers, minus their tires and doors, resting on their rims. To the right was a single driveway that led to the square. The long, stained-glass breezeway connecting the school to the church was on her left. Tall trees marched up to the rectory and school, and, as she recalled, a side door into the church off a courtyard.
Pulling Buck close, she crouched in a drift of old snow behind the last detached garage on the left and at the very edge of the alley. Two choices: the village hall or the church. Keep to the woods, and she and the wolfdog had a much better chance of slipping inside the church. They were ringing the bell, too. Which meant the tower was open. Get up high, scope things out, see where Peter and Wolf and Penny are in relationship to Finn. She might even spot Chris. The Uzi had a scope. Wait, could she shoot Finn? Oh, get real, honey. She wasn’t a sniper. She didn’t know if the Uzi even had the range. Besides—she felt her chest squeeze down—what would happen if Finn died? With all those Changed, she bet: nothing very good.
“They’ll be off the leash. They’ll go out of control.” When the wolfdog let out a soft whimper, she stroked his ears. “I know. I smell them, too.” The Changed’s rank fog was getting stronger by the second. “I hear you, boy, we’re going.”
As she scurried past the village hall, she caught a strange odor: just the slightest curl, like a finger of spiced smoke dissipating on a strong breeze. The spice made her falter. No. She battened down on the association before the grief could wind itself up and undo her. Enough, Alex. She centered herself, focused on the beat of her heart. You’re upset; it’s your imagination. You want it to be Tom. “Get through this, and you can cry later,” she muttered.
She took another, deliberate inhale. This time, there was no spice, no phantom of Tom. What she got was diesel fuel and scorched … metal? Like a blackened can of beans set to heat in a campfire. Yet the smell was also oddly chemical: gunpowder and … She flashed to a summer’s afternoon: her dad, cursing, aiming a fire extinguisher. The chalky chemical gush, and her mother fretting about how they’d have to wear masks to clean up the mess: There’s the phosphoric acid to worry about.
Then the village hall was behind her, and she and the wolfdog were darting into the woods around the rectory. After slipping in the side door, she and Buck cowered on the landing, sniffing and listening. Something awful had gone down in the sanctuary and the basement, too. Her mouth puckered at the tang of cold blood and spent gunpowder. The black maw of the basement door exhaled mangled flesh and sweat and fear and a Changed, for sure, an eye-watering reek of stewed, smooshed raccoon.
Dusty bolts of colored light streamed through the stained rosette window at the east end of the church. The pews were empty, although the smell of people and a few spent candles lingered.… Wait a minute. Gathering more air into her mouth, she tongued the aroma, then gasped. “Oh God. Acne … Ben?” He’d come back to Rule after all. And died here, in the church. The aroma was … violent. Wreathed in a mélange of bleach and pine tar, Ben’s smell was everywhere, as if they’d scrubbed and scrubbed, knowing that nothing could erase the stink of this horrific death. The altar cloth was gone, as was the platform’s carpet. Someone had tried scrubbing Ben’s blood from the wall where the cross still hung, but too late. The sight of those ghostly, purple splashes drew a cold finger down her neck. How anyone could still worship here, she couldn’t imagine.
More blood in the vestibule, worked into stony crevices. She couldn’t tell whose, and she had no time to worry the smells. The bell tower door was open. No one up there she could suss out, although the reek of Finn’s Changed cascaded in a waterfall of cold air. The church doors were also slightly ajar, and through the crack, she saw them, as well as Finn’s men and horses, streaming into the square.
Sprinting up the tower’s circular steps with Buck on her heels, his nails clicking on stone, Alex vaulted into a short, stone passageway. Light streamed in through rectangular slots in the wall that reminded her of a castle’s arrow loops, only much wider. From the square, she caught the clop of horses, a low muttering from people, b
ut no screams. Which was strange: with all those Changed, she’d expected hysteria and a fight. Yet there was no gunfire at all, here or north now either. Ahead, she spotted ropes and a wood console, the kind bell chimers used to play melodies. One rope dangled, probably attached to that working bell.
She was so intent on getting a look at the square that she’d already turned aside before her brain processed what she’d seen: a bulky rectangle, in shadow, fixed to the lower left corner of that carillon console.
Oh. Her eyes ticked back. Shit.
A bomb.
118
“What?” Greg heard Chris snap into his walkie-talkie. His voice was very loud in the hush; most kids had stopped crying. Sarah had gathered the youngest into a solemn knot to wait until they were ready to move out. On the bed of Jayden’s wagon, a blood-spattered Kincaid was tending to a boy whose arm had been broken by a bat. They’d been lucky, though. The survivors mostly had bumps, scrapes, cuts, bruises. Except for Ghost, whose right ear was ripped off by a Changed, the dogs had made out just fine.
Well. Greg tossed a look toward the back of the wagon train. Almost all the dogs. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Ellie looked like a kid whose parents were just killed in a hit-and-run. Not far from the truth, what with Tom staying behind. Forefinger corking her mouth, the little girl—Dee?—leaned against Ellie while Ghost, a blotchy bandage wound around his ruined ear in a lopsided turban, sprawled by Ellie’s side. Jet and Daisy sat nearby.
“What’s that?” Chris said. Normally, they used coded breaks, but Pru had come through in an excited sputter of static. So either the message was complicated or Pru was in a big hurry. Plugging an ear with a pinky, Chris walked a short distance away from Ellie and the dogs and held the walkie up to the other ear. “Say again, Pru.”
Can you hear me now? And then Greg thought, That’s not even remotely funny. Clamping a bloodstained parka with an elbow, he bent, hooked the girl who’d been driving the supply wagon under the arms, then glanced up at Jayden, who had the legs. When Jayden nodded, they hefted the body, sidestepped a dead Changed boy with only a nubbin of a nose, and laid the girl out alongside the others. Counting Aidan, Sam, and Lucian—all of whom had booked—they’d lost nine kids total. Not a disaster, but one kid was too many. They were also down the two horses Aidan and Sam used to get away.
Oh, but you guys had better keep away from us, because I will shoot you. Greg really meant that, too. Shaking out the parka, he draped it over the girl’s head and shoulders. There, that was the last. Once they rearranged the supplies, they’d load the dead, including Mina, and move out. The idea of traveling a full day with the dead sent shivers up his spine. They couldn’t waste time burning the bodies here, though. The smell would give away their position. If the gunfire hasn’t already. But no one other than Chris had come storming up the road, and he’d said Finn was close but not yet in Rule.
“Think they found them?” Jayden had come to stand next to him. The other boy had a new collection of bruises to add to the ones he’d gotten earlier. His right eye, crusted with blood, was already swelling shut. “Tom’s kids?”
“Either that or—” He read the sudden stiffening of Chris’s back, heard him bark something into the radio. Crap. As sorry as he was about Lena, he was glad Chris shot her. Sure would be nice for something to break our way for a change.
“Oh brother,” Jayden said. Chris had spun on his heel, but not to head back to them. He was running toward Night and rapping out orders into the walkie.
“Chris, wait!” Greg jogged over, Jayden on his heels. “Where are you going? Did they—”
“I have to go back.” Chris’s bruised and battered face was tight. He swung up onto Night’s saddle. “You guys get out of here. Leave your radio on. I’ll catch up when I can.”
“Why? But you’re here. What—”
“They found the kids about a half mile from where Tom thought they were.” Chris gathered Night’s reins. “But listen to this: Finn also has Peter.”
“Peter?” Greg felt his lips numb. “Chris, we can’t leave Peter—”
“I know that.” Chris’s voice was grim. “But it gets worse. Finn’s done something to Peter, made him like the Changed. Not all the way, but the kids said he’s pretty far gone.”
Greg’s stomach worked itself into a cold knot. “If he’s still Peter, we need to get to him. You and me, we’ll go back.”
“And maybe get yourselves killed?” Jayden put a hand on Greg’s arm. “Think about this a minute. Tom set bombs. How long do you two really have before they blow? Finn’s there by now, or pretty close. Tom will wait until they’re in the square, but that’s all.”
“Look, I just killed a girl I knew pretty damn well. I can’t abandon Peter, not if there’s a chance he can come back to us. You and Hannah and Isaac have your way, and I have mine. Maybe, if I’m really lucky, I grab Tom, too.” Chris took a deep breath. “And I’m not letting Alex go, not again.”
“What?” Greg wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Alex? What does she—”
“The guards were already down when Pru got there. Tom’s kids said Alex helped them.” He wheeled Night around. “And she’s headed to Rule.”
119
A bomb.
A red swoop of terror nearly knocked Alex’s feet out from under. About the size of a small shoebox, the bomb consisted of an oversize alarm clock wrapped to a putty-like block, probably C4, with black electrical tape. Wires snaked from some lead-colored tube to attach to the alarm’s bell and hammer. The bomb was fixed to the console with more electrical tape.
Got to get out of here. Sweat suddenly pearled in the hollow of her throat. Got to get out of the church. Who knew when this thing was going to blow?
But that was when she noticed two things she hadn’t because of her fear. One, the clock wasn’t ticking. Two, the bomb didn’t smell right.
Now, she didn’t know squat about bombs. That Rule even had crap like this was amazing. That they’d thought to rig a bomb to the church was equally astonishing. But shouldn’t a time bomb be ticking? This was an old-fashioned alarm. Her aunt had one, and those suckers were loud. Swallowing back the flutter in her throat, she crept close enough to study the clock face. The smaller alarm hand pointed to the twelve. The minute and hour hands showed that the clock had been primed for a thirty-minute delay before the ka-boom. This particular clock had a very thin, spindly second hand, too, but that was still.
They never had a chance to set it. She let out a long, relieved breath. Still, might not be safe here. What if the bomb got jarred loose, or some vibration started the countdown?
But then, there was the smell. She worried it. Of all the scents C4 might have … “Bread?” Still on hands and knees, she dropped to her stomach, wormed closer, got her nose to within an inch. She pulled in air. Plastic, from the electrical tape; the steel of the alarm clock; a gunpowder aroma from that lead-colored thing, so a detonator or blasting cap or whatever—and something else, something vital that tugged at memory. But what she got most was flour and oil and lots of salt, an odor that took her back to first grade.
“My God,” she whispered. “It’s homemade Play-Doh. It’s a fake.”
Why would anyone plant this? Just to scare the bejesus out of someone? Got to be another reason. “Maybe they wanted to buy time,” she told Buck. “Make someone think they’ve found a bomb when they haven’t. But buy time for what?” To keep them, Finn’s guys, busy? Or maybe … “You reassure them that you’ve got nothing. Cry wolf often enough, everyone relaxes. They think you’re an idiot.”
She could feel the questions piling up in her brain: How did they know to set the decoys? Who could’ve done it? But the only question she could afford time to consider was whether to get out of the tower. Yeah, but go where? If someone came up, she’d be in trouble, but she was here, Finn was down there, and this was as good a place to hide as—
From beyond the tower came a loud bang. Not a gunshot, but more like the slam of a
door. Scuttling to a slot in the stone, she lifted up on her toes until the square below slid into view.
And felt the bottom drop out of her world.
It was like a mob scene from The Lord of the Rings: a crowd of old people, in puffy parkas and wool caps, gathered before the village hall steps. Surrounding them, like a parade guard, were ranks of boys and girls, about two hundred, in tattered clothing. The Changed were weaponless because they had no need. From the hollow, clawing scent mingling with roadkill, these kids were hungry. Many of the old people were weeping; a smell of water and salt laced the air. That made sense, too. If Ben Stiemke came back, and these Changed had been around the mine, then many of these elderly were looking into the faces of their grandchildren.
Beyond the moat of Changed were horses and the twenty some-odd, white-clad kids who made up Finn’s altered Changed. And were they wearing collars? Surrounding them in a rough, U-shaped fan were armed men in standard winter camouflage.
At the bottom of the village hall steps, she spotted Yeager’s bald head, Ernst’s girth. Two others, Born and Prigge, looking withered. No robes. Considering Ben Stiemke and all that old blood in the church, it was a good bet the Council hadn’t been calling the shots for a while.
Flanked by armed guards on the landing were three others she recognized. Collared and in white, gold mane loose around his shoulders, Peter was rigid. She was surprised to see that his hands weren’t tied. On the other hand, the guns, one jammed to Wolf’s temple and a second to Penny’s, were probably control enough. At the scent of Wolf’s fuming rage, her monster gave her a nudge, wanting to get out, make contact.
Tall and broad and black, Finn was on the landing, too. A square woman, with a very large gun, stood on his left. A boy with dark hair—an altered Changed, clad all in white—hovered to his right, like a pet dog. But it was what and who she saw next that made her heart try to break apart in her chest.
