Alien Hunter (Flynn Carroll) (34 page)

“Well anyways, it was self-defense.”

He thought of what had been happening at the compound, of the fate of the captured. “It sure was. I thought you were a goner.”

“I was acting.”

Flynn recalled that he’d been a terrific Dracula in junior year at Menard High.

But for the crackle of fires, everything was quiet.

Mac looked from one of them to the other. Slowly, a smile came into his face. “Have we won?”

Flynn noticed that Diana’s hand had slipped into Mac’s. For a moment, he felt shock. Disappointment. Then he forced it back inside. He’d been lonely for a while, so he’d stay that way. Fine. Abby was with him and she had no plans to take up with some damn crook.

He reflected that whole worlds can change in a moment on the battlefield, and that had happened here.

He smiled back at the two of them. “Right now, we’ve won.”

Above the sirens, because it was so close, there was a sound that made Flynn freeze. “Back to back, brace the pistols!”

Dogs came leaping and snarling in at them from every direction at once, their bodies speeding like liquid fire, their teeth flashing, their human eyes filled with human hate.

With the care and expertise of a man, one of them grabbed Flynn’s throat with its long claws. Its mouth opened and it was slashing with its teeth when he blew it in half. For a moment, the jaws continued snapping with shark-like fury, then, its blood gone, it dropped away like a stone.

Behind him Diana’s shot went wild. As she screamed and another dog leaped on his back, he turned and blew off the head of the one attacking her, then killed two more at her feet.

All the while others piled on him, until their weight staggered him and he fell forward between Mac and Diana, then forced himself to turn into the ravening pack that was on his back, and fired four more times, taking all of them out, leaving them in pieces on the ground around him.

Then they were gone.

Mac hung his head.

Diana sat on the ground covered with blood and sobbing.

Flynn said, “There are eighteen. We did twelve. The others won’t try again.”

Diana dropped her pistol into her backpack.

“Unless we disarm ourselves. You love your gun, remember.”

“It’s too hot to hold.”

“It’ll cool off. Mac, you okay?”

“I’m alive.”

“We’re done here,” he said. He could hear pumpers churning over at the compound, but great masses of smoke were still pouring skyward, lit by the fires in the underground chambers.

“Those guys gotta be wondering what the hell was going on out there,” Mac said.

“Probably think it was some kinda drug factory. Probably figure it belonged to you.”

“Me? I don’t have any penetration into Travis County. I’m way west of here, buddy.”

“It’s time for us to go on down the road,” Flynn said. “Morris and his operation are done.”

As the three of them walked out to the highway, Flynn saw that Mac and Diana were still hand in hand. In silence, Flynn walked on ahead.

Once they were on the road, Mac directed them to the parking lot of a closed strip mall. The Range Rover was there, pulled up behind a dry cleaners.

“Backup transportation,” Mac said. “We stationed it here last night.”

Last night seemed like a thousand years ago.

Moths and bats swarmed around the floods that lit the parking area. In the far shadows, a young couple necked in a convertible. Music echoed in the distance.

“I thought we’d go on over to the Oasis, knock back a few,” Mac said. “Sounds like there’s a band goin’.”

On the far distance, Flynn heard country music, the wail of a violin, the frantic twitter of a mandolin.

He preferred blues to bluegrass.

They drove to the bar, which overlooked the lake. In the parking lot, though, Flynn hung back. He’d seen a taxi rank, cabbies trolling for kids too drunk to drive, and smart enough not to.

He watched Diana and Mac disappear into the lights and the crowd. He’d thought she was his, and it was going to take him time to get easy with the truth.

This battle had been won, but there was a war going on, and they needed to be prepared for whatever might come. They needed a bigger operation, more and better-trained personnel, more equipment. More of everything, and better.

He got into one of the cabs. “Take me into town. Motel 6 be fine,” he said.

The driver worked in silence, which was good. To Flynn, silence was home.

The cell phone buzzed. He looked at the number, did not recognize it.

“Yeah?”

“Flynn, where are you?”

“Kicking back,” he replied. “Catch up soon.”

“You don’t want to celebrate?”

“I’m good.”

“Flynn—”

“Diana, you be careful. I know Mac well. He’s a professional criminal and he breaks hearts for fun.”

“Flynn, I love you.”

“I love you.”

Silence fell. Extended.

Finally, Flynn added, “But you want him.”

“He wants me.”

Pretty as she was, she was too hard along the edges to have been wanted very much in her life. Mac went for powerful women, though. He enjoyed demolishing them.

“I’m here,” he said, “and you’re gonna want a shoulder in the end.”

“Mac is a lovely man, Flynn, that’s what you can’t see.”

“If you say so, Diana.”

He hung up as the driver pulled up in front of the Motel 6’s tiny lobby.

He checked in with his own credit card, a small but sweet satisfaction. In the room, he flipped through the channels. Nazis, cartoons, girls, the usual late-night stuff. Still, he left it on in the background. The mutter of artificial excitement relaxed him.

Toward three, he decided that sleep was not in the cards for him tonight.

He pulled on his jeans and a sweatshirt and went out into the parking area, then up onto the shoulder of the empty highway.

He walked, listening to the rhythmic whisper of his shoes on the tarmac. When an eighteen-wheeler thundered by he didn’t vary his pace or even glance at the drama of its passing, so deep had he gone into his thoughts.

His memories of this extraordinary experience followed him as shadows in the wind. Whatever happened, he was going to stay with this thing. In the end, whatever these creatures were, he would banish the bad ones from Earth, and create conditions that would enable the others to share the richness of their minds openly with mankind.

Flynn Carroll walked as he henceforth always would, with his secrets buried in his silence. He walked his own path, but not alone. Abby was there by his side. He chose to believe in the prevalence of the soul, and that she was, as are all decent people, part of the essential goodness of creation, of which he was soldier, servant, and ally.

In the silence of his heart, he embraced the people he had loved, and those he had lost. The moon had set, and the Milky Way in its majesty spread across the great vault of the sky.

He paused, looking up into the vibrant beauty of it all, and imagined other eyes and other minds perhaps returning his gaze, and thought on the richness of the weave of good and evil he had touched, and what dark secrets must still be undisclosed. Had Morris been the only criminal of his kind? Were there more, as yet unsuspected, or would there be? And what of the alien police? If there was more crime to fight here, would they be willing, this time, to send enough support? And if not, then how would he proceed on his own?

He walked on down the dark highway, alone and content to be alone. His battle was won, and that was good. A good feeling.

A meteor flashed in the sky, then descended in blazing grandeur.

Or was it a meteor? He stared along the horizon where it had fallen, looking for some new glow or some other hint that it had been, perhaps, a conveyance from the deep beyond.

Nothing glowed, though, and no more meteors appeared.

Fine, then he would go on down the road, and see what might develop. The questions, however, of who these creatures were and where they had come from and what their true motives might be—these questions had not been fully answered, not in his opinion. He had wrecked the enterprise of one of their criminals. But the greater mystery that they represented had not been solved.

But that was tomorrow’s problem. Today’s had been solved. Whoever they were, their good guys now knew they had a friend here on Earth, and their criminals that Flynn Carroll was somebody to be reckoned with.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WHITLEY STRIEBER is the bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including the legendary
Warday, Nature’s End,
and
Superstorm,
the basis of the movie
The Day After Tomorrow
. His most recent books,
The Grays
and
2012: The War for Souls,
are both being made into films. His website,
Unknowncountry.com
, is the largest of its kind in the world, exploring the edge of science and reality.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ALIEN HUNTER

Copyright © 2013 by Walker & Collier, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Cover photographs by Getty Images

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-7653-3153-3 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4299-2271-5 (e-book)

e-ISBN 9781429922715

First Edition: August 2013