After the Dark (20 page)

The doors flew open and White—in a black suit and a thin black raincoat—stormed out. He stopped at the edge of the top stair, his eyes going to Bostock. He had changed not at all since she'd seen him last—his spiky dark hair looked frozen in place, his face ghostly pale under the floodlight, and his lips seemed to have no color at all, his dark eyes intense, burning.

Alone, he came down the steps, moving within fifteen feet of her.

“My son!” he yelled. “Where is he?”

Voices traveled clearly in the chill night air.

“I don't see Logan,” Max said.

The doors erupted open and two dozen or more Familiars streamed out of the building and down the steps, in flowing reddish-copper hooded robes, monklike, the wind catching the garments. Some wore round metal collars engraved with pagan motifs; others had decorated their faces with black war paint; a few others had tattooed faces, reminiscent of heathen cultures from far-flung Pacific islands. Many, though, were bare of face—cultists who had infiltrated the world of the ordinaries . . . as Ames White had done, with the NSA. They filled in behind White, in a wide arc, a wind-shimmering wall of copper-red.

“Okay,” Alec whispered to her. “We're officially outnumbered . . .”

One Familiar stepped up to White's side, immediately to his right—a tall wraith of a man with angular features and a hawkish nose, his hood back, exposing flowing silver hair; he wore neither markings nor tattoos. His regal bearing combined with the long robe—which included a scarlet tippet—gave him the appearance of a cleric or even a wizard.

Max had never seen this one before, yet his distinctive presence told her that he was their leader—that this was the Familiar who wielded the power.

At least, here at the nuthouse.

“Franklin,” White said, acknowledging Bostock.

Behind his gag, Bostock said something unintelligible.

“Where,” Max asked, “is Logan?”

White's head tilted. “Where's Ray?”

She gestured with open hands. “Look—you've got us outnumbered. We're on your home field. Give us what we came for—how are we gonna get away before you get want you want?”

White considered that, then gave a quick nod.

“Bring him!” the silver-haired Familiar called.

Two more hooded, robed figures burst through the doors, one on either side of Logan Cale, who they dragged down the stairs.

The crowd parted and the Familiars hauled Logan up by either arm; he wasn't bound, but seemed weak, even groggy. They stopped on White's left, maintaining their hold on him.

Logan's eyes met hers.

“Surprising,” he said, “the lengths I'll go to, Max, to get back on your good side.”

For a guy who'd been the guest of Ames White and the snake cult, he didn't look so bad—they hadn't let him shave, and the beard gave him a scruffy cast; his clothes—jeans, pullover blue sweater—were filthy and wrinkled. But there were no obvious signs that he'd been beaten or tortured, and—despite the Familiar at either arm—he was standing on his own two feet; they obviously had not deprived him of the exoskeleton that allowed him upright mobility.

She smiled at him and said, “You're not forgiven yet.”

He grinned and shrugged, and she grinned and shrugged.

“All very brave and touching,” White said, and he withdrew a Glock from under the raincoat, “but if he speaks again before I have my boy, I'll kill him.”

Max held her palms out and up. “White, I need you not to do anything rash . . .”

“
Where
is
Ray?
”

“You need to
listen
. You have the advantage here. Wait until you've heard it
all.
”

White's frown revealed an inner battle between rage and curiosity, impatience and willpower. “Heard
what
, 452?”

Max raised her hand, issued signals, lowered her hand.

“Nothing rash,” she advised him.

White's frown deepened.

Mole and Joshua emerged from the shadows, their arms filled with the terrible cargo; it was as if they were two somber grooms carrying brides over the threshold. Mole put the dead Familiar on the ground in front of the silver-haired leader. Joshua put the smaller, sheet-wrapped body down before the boy's father.

Ames White did not have to lift the sheet to know—the small form said it all. In a voice that he was obviously straining to keep emotion-free, White said, “Ray.”

“Yes,” Max said. “But I didn't do this.”

The gun in White's hand swung up and he leveled the barrel at Logan's temple. White's lips were peeled back over his teeth in a skull's smile, and Logan winced . . .

“My people did not do this terrible thing!” Max screamed. “Or don't you really care who
did
do it!”

White remained poised there, ready to shoot, for several long moments. Then the gun came down, his eyes narrowed, and he turned his homicidal gaze on Max.

“If you didn't, 452,” he said, “who did?”

“Ask
him
!” Max said, and pointed at Bostock.

Alec ripped the duct tape from the man's face. Bostock spat the rest of the gag, the knot of cloth, onto the snowy ground.

White said, “Do you have something to say, Franklin?”

Bostock stood frozen.

Max said, “He was talkative before. Maybe he's a little intimidated in the presence of the father of the child he ordered killed.”

“Explain,” White said.

The silver-haired leader gripped White's arm and whispered in his ear. But White shook his head and yanked his arm away.

“
Explain!
”

Max quickly told White that she'd first encountered Bostock trying to get ransom aid from Lyman Cale.

“That makes sense,” White said, astonishingly self-composed, but not looking down at the little sheet-wrapped corpse. “Approaching Lyman Cale for the ransom . . . but how did you recognize Franklin as a Familiar?”

She explained tracking Ray down. “When we got to the house, we were too late, only by moments, but too late—two men had executed Ray and his aunt. One got away, but we stopped this one . . .”

She gestured to the dead Familiar in the snow.

She went on: “I recognized him as one of the security guards employed by Bostock.”

Mole stepped forward and flipped the corpse over, giving White a good look at the face of the Familiar.

Almost gently, she asked, “Recognize him?”

White nodded.

Max said, “He was assigned to Lyman Cale, wasn't he?”

White nodded, his gaze on the secretary now.

“We're enemies, White,” Max said. “But I wouldn't have killed your boy. For one thing, I needed him, to get Logan back. For another, I'm not a sick son of a bitch, like Franklin, here.”

The secretary tried to break away from Alec, but the X5 grabbed him by the arm and shoved the gun back in his ribs.

“What do
you
have to say, Franklin?” White asked, in a tone that was all too reasonable.

Bostock said nothing.

“Is it true, Franklin? Did you kill my son? Why would you do such a thing . . . to a Brother?”

Ignoring White, Bostock turned toward the tall, silver-haired monklike figure. “Matthias! You know I would do anything to further the goals of the Conclave—
anything!
And White, here . . . he's failed so many times. Open your eyes, Matthias! Look who I have delivered unto you! How many times has White failed, and who is it that brings her to you—the One!”

Disturbingly, White was smiling, his arms folded, the gun casual in his grasp. The robed figure—Matthias—listened to Bostock's pleas impassively, his expression blankly unreadable.

Bostock was saying, “And when she's gone, there will be nothing that can stop the Conclave's directives from being carried out. I brought her to you—on this, the night of nights!”

Bostock's voice echoed across the grounds.

“The Coming,” he was saying, “is but minutes away—we are close to final victory, total victory . . .
because of me.
I brought her to you! Not White. Not this . . . spawn of Sandeman, the father of all of our problems.”

Still, Matthias said nothing—his eyes bright, as he stared at Bostock. A hint of approval . . . ? Max wondered.

Finally, the secretary said, “Yes, I had Ray White killed, another weak spawn of Sandeman—but it was part of my design, the plan to bring her to you . . . and here she stands. She is here. She is ours—
yours
. Kill her now, and the future is ours.”

White glanced, almost casually, at the silver-haired man. Their eyes met for a brief instant, and Matthias—almost imperceptibly—nodded.

White raised his pistol and shot Bostock in the head.

Bostock went straight back, flopping onto the snowy ground, sending up puffs of white; the black hole in his forehead was ringed with red, and he lay looking at the sky with wide, empty eyes, as if even in death he was anticipating the arrival of the comet.

White brought his pistol to bear on Max. “The fool was right about one thing, 452—you do need to die.”

“The comet!” someone in the crowd shouted, and others blurted the same. They milled, wide eyes raised, arms and hands upraised, a sea of faces salted with the ritual markings, some paint, some inked flesh.

White's eyes went to the sky, too, where a stream of sparks flew across, exploding in a shower of color.

The rocket provided the diversion Max needed—she would kiss that spudhead Dix the next time she saw him—and, as White realized the ruse of the fireworks and swung the gun back around, firing it at her, the shot sailed wide, Max diving toward the two Familiars holding Logan's arms. She flung one off, kicked the other in the head, and held her hand out to Logan.

He took it.

More rockets streaked across the sky, and not all of the Familiars were wise yet, though several had taken time out from the display to attack Joshua, Alec, and Mole in a flurry of martial-arts moves, bizarrely awkward coming from the robed warriors, yet formidable. The snow-dusted grounds glowed yellow and orange under the momentary daylight.

“It's fireworks, you fools!” White yelled.

And then all of the Familiars were on them.

The quartet of transgenics fought hard, but it was clear that the Familiars' numbers were just too great. The only plus—other than White—was that the cultists did not seem to be armed; they had gathered at Big Sky to party, not fight.

Logan was slugging it out, too, but he was weak and no match for Familiars.

Then, echoing up through the woods, came battle cries.

Dix had brought more than just fireworks from home.

A hundred transgenics stormed out of the forest and joined in the fray—Dix and Luke and so many strange, familiar faces. A few brandished weapons, but mostly it was just a wave of sheer mutant force, sweeping onto the wintry landscape.

She stepped in and helped Logan, who was battling the two Familiars who'd held him captive before, and her kicks to the throat and groin and every other dirty tactic that could actually get through to a Familiar were enough to put the two down, at least long enough for her to grab Logan by the hand again and look him in the eyes and say, “
Run
—Logan, go to the woods and wait!”

He shook his head and went for another of the Familiars. She loved him for wanting to stay and stand to fight at her side, but it was a decision as stupid as it was brave. Within seconds he was on his back on the ground, the Familiar looming over him, choking the life out of him.

She head-butted a tattooed face in front of her, the man's nose exploding in a scarlet shower; he wobbled but did not fall, and it took an elbow in the throat to convince him to do so. She got behind the one strangling Logan, grabbed his head and gave it a good hard twist, snapping his neck. Before the dead weight could fall on him, Logan rolled out from under.

She knelt next to Logan, who was groggy, face red, from the near strangulation; a gunshot cracked the night and something hot erupted through her shoulder, knocking her back. She lay there, looking up at an enormous sky, seemingly filled with stars, but it was just Dix's fireworks display continuing to go off. Turning her head to the right, she saw Logan reaching out to her—he was dazed, his eyes wide in horror—and their hands touched and she felt peaceful, happy, a quiet settling over, banishing the battlefield . . .

. . . but the sensation lasted only a moment, as White jumped on top of her, straddling her, pulling her up to him by her vest. In a way, he did her a favor, snapping her back to full consciousness and a world much bigger than just her and Logan; again she was cognizant of the sounds of fighting around her, the explosions in the sky . . . and Ames White's tortured, demonic face inches from her own.

“Bostock may have killed Ray, 452,” he said, and he was smiling though there was pain in it—Familiar or not, he was a father who'd suffered the greatest loss—“but you caused it, didn't you? Like every misfortune that's been rained down on me in the last year and a half—
you.
”

He raised the barrel of his pistol toward her face to deliver the kill shot.

Lips peeled back over that terrible smile, he said, “My son won't live to rule . . . but I will. Your death at my hands assures me of that immortality.”

She watched in seeming slow motion as his finger squeezed down on the trigger. She could almost see the bullet ready to ride the black tunnel from firing pin to her skull. In that instant a thousand thoughts coursed through her mind, all at once and yet each one clear, concise, easy to see.

The people who were important to her, the things that made her happy, what she would do with her life, her life with Logan Cale, if just somehow in the next second this bullet failed to blow her brains out . . .

Above the cacophony of the battle, she heard something primal and horrifying, and then a beast loomed above and behind Ames White . . .

Joshua.

The gun fell with a thunk next to her, and she heard the cry from White . . . Was it pain? He couldn't feel physical pain . . . could he? Was it rage, or sorrow, or just some gargling horrible sound that a man might make, should a beast grab him by the skull . . .