Captives (15 page)

"What do you think?" he said. "There's only one way in. Might be easier to hold than the whole house."

Carrie moved in behind him, putting her chin on his shoulder. "Can't hurt to look."

He nodded and thumped down the unpainted wooden stairs. At the bottom, he got out his lone candle and lit it with a lighter. The basement was half finished: primered drywall, a concrete floor mostly hidden by mismatched rugs. He was less interested in that than in the filing cabinets set along the wall. They were flimsy metal, but the insides were jammed full of paperwork that might prove relatively bullet-resistant. And in his first stroke of luck since extracting Carrie, a red handcart stood in the corner.

Time to build a fort.

He got three of the cabinets relocated across from the bottom of the staircase before he noticed the upstairs door was closed. As he stared up at it, trying to remember if he'd closed it, Carrie's voice rang out from the front, muffled by the floor.

"It's okay!" she yelled. "I surrender!"

The front door creaked open, accompanied by the sudden barking of dogs. Walt scrambled around the walls of his fortress and ran for the stairs. Above, the door slammed shut, sealing the house in silence.

10

"Show me."

Pill glanced up sharply from the mound of sand. "Know what, I don't think you want to see this."

"He was my friend," Thom said. "Maybe my only one. I have to make sure it's him—and see if there are any hints who did this."

"Well, I won't stop you." He scratched behind his ear. "But don't get mad when I don't help, either."

He returned to the beach station near the foot of the pier where he kept his tools, then came back with gloves and a shovel. Thom went to work pitching sand. It was lightly moist and came up readily. He had hardly begun when the smell climbed from the loose soil like something alive. Thom stepped out of the growing hole to clear his head with gulps of salty air. Once he felt good enough to continue, the smell didn't seem quite as bad; his nose was already adjusting to the constant punishment.

The point of the shovel dug into something resistant. Thom nearly dropped the tool. Gently, he scraped away sand, revealing a blackening arm. In a fog of disbelief, he took hold of it by the elbow, where he'd have a good grip even if the decaying flesh gave way in his gloved hands, and drew the body free.

The hair was right, a wide blond stripe down the scalp. The face was too discolored and bloated to be sure. A black leather cord hung around the man's neck, disappearing into the collar of his shirt. Thom drew it out. A shark's tooth dangled at its end.

"Is it..?" Pill said quietly.

Thom nodded, too choked up and sickened to open his mouth without risking throwing up. When he was ready, he said, "Tell me exactly what happened."

"Isn't much to tell. When he showed up on the path, I was on the pier. Don't think he saw me. A few hours later, I'm coming up the beach to check my traps and I find him next to the strand." Pill lowered his eyes. "He was already gone."

"Stabbed?"

"Shot."

"But you didn't hear anything?"

He stared at the body. "When I came up to him, the smell made my mouth water. Grilled meat. Then I saw the wound and—" He put his hand over his mouth and turned away, ribs hitching.

Thom steeled himself and knelt. It was easy to find: a scorch mark through the breast of his shirt. No obvious blood. He pulled the shirt back, revealing a deep, coin-sized hole through Kolton's heart. The skin was mottled with decay, confusing things, but the edges of the wound were as black as if someone had circled it with a Sharpie.

He stood and backed up the incline to the grave. "Were there any tracks?"

Pill's face was still ashen, but he looked less on the verge of vomiting. "It was on the strand. The bike path. No footprints. I'm not even sure what they would look like."

Thom turned and gazed northwest. Out to sea, the great shards of the mothership jutted from the surface, artificial metal islands so wrong and unnatural that it was hard to keep looking at them.

"Be careful," he said. "Both eyes open."

"Maybe I should move," Pill muttered. "Starting to feel more than a little exposed. But what will my fish do without me?"

Thom took up the shovel and reburied the body, trying not to watch as the sand piled across Kolton's limbs and face. He wanted to bury the kid somewhere proper—the yard of one of the beachside mansions, maybe, or better yet, bear the remains back to the Place—but pulling a cart behind him would double the time it took to get home. Anyway, as strange as the tribe in San Pedro was, he suspected they might have a unique and rigid set of funeral rites that Thom didn't want to disturb.

Pill showed him the exact spot he'd found the body. Seeing nothing obviously out of place, Thom thanked him and jogged south down the bike path, continuing to walk after it grew dark. That night, he slept in the lighthouse, moving on as soon as he woke. He was walking up the back trail into the Seat by late morning. He headed straight for Mauser's, pounding on the door.

"He's out," a young woman called from below, a warrior Thom recognized by sight but not by name.

Thom strode down the hill. "When will he be in?"

"Dunno. He's the sheriff. Responsibilities everywhere."

"Then how about you find me someone who
does
care enough to know where our superior is?"

The woman cocked her head. "You're too careless with your words, foreigner."

Thom matched her gaze. "One of our people is dead. If you don't know where Mauser is, I'm wasting my time."

Her face went stony. "Who should I tell him is lost?"

He removed the shark tooth necklace from his pocket. "Kolton."

"Stay right here." She turned on her heel and raced across the dusty ground to the hills leading to the Dunemarket.

Exhausted, Thom sat in the shade beside the entrance to Mauser's house. The afternoon was warm and the coastal breeze hadn't picked up yet, leaving the air sluggish and close. Someone was shaking his shoulder; he'd nodded off.

"Up and at 'em," Mauser said, snapping his fingers under Thom's nose. His words were lively, but the tone beneath them was warily resolved. Like a sailor watching black clouds incoming. "Kolton?"

Thom nodded, rubbing his face as he pulled himself to his feet. "He never made it to Malibu. I found him in Manhattan. With a laser hole in his chest."

"A laser?"

"I don't know that it was aliens. There weren't any tracks or witnesses."

"Not sure I like it any better if it was done by humans." He squinted at the sun. "Suppose I ought to muster the Rohirrim. Care to play tour guide?"

"Of course. Whoever did this, we have to find them."

"We'll do all we can. These things have the frustrating tendency to go cold, though. We've got a ways to go before we can lay any claims to the new Scotland Yard."

He jogged away, barking orders at the warriors gossiping in the grove by the fountain. They scattered. Within minutes, they returned with others. Mauser gathered them to him, his expression unusually sober.

"Kolton has been killed," he said. One trooper gasped. Another cried out. Most retained their silence, faces hardening. "We don't know who did it or why. We have reason to believe it involved aliens, so stay sharp. But do
not
assume this is a bug hunt. Be open to anything."

They'd brought their weapons and packs with them. After a few quick questions, they were on the march south.

"Why not take Western up to PCH?" Thom said. "We could bypass the entire peninsula."

"Because walking's for people who don't know what boats are."

"You've got boats?"

"Oh yes. The Place's proud naval tradition dates back for months."

Thom was imagining speedboats. Maybe even a lightweight Navy vessel of some kind. Instead, when they arrived at the San Pedro piers, he was met with the sight of shirtless men scrambling around the rigging of a long, sleek sloop. The warriors piled aboard. They cast off the lines and poled away from the docks, then trimmed the sails to the steady wind. A woman hoisted a flag: black, with a white semicircle glaring down from its center.

They moved a few hundred feet from the coast, then followed its course west along the hills. Three small vessels drifted further out to sea. When Thom asked, he was informed these were fishing boats. A sailor named Steve fit a telescope to his eye and identified all three. Two were residents who regularly sold their excess catch at the Dunemarket. The third was from Catalina.

"Allies?" Thom said.

"Annexed territory. Hey, I thought you were some sort of historian. How can you not know about Catalina?"

"Because of the fact no one's told me about it."

"But that's where Raina came to be Raina." Steve lowered the spyglass and glanced over his shoulder at the crew and the soldiers, most of whom had finished their tasks and were watching the waters and the tall green hills. "If you'd like to hear it, we've got some dead time."

"I'd love to."

"I wasn't here until later, but my understanding is the market sprung up not long after they knocked down the big ship. It started small, of course. Endured a few squabbles in the early days, but before long, everyone knew the score. Things were peaceful. In time, prosperous."

He smiled wryly. "And that's what brought the hyenas to the camp. To the east, you had the Osseys. From Anaheim and thereabouts. Not so much civilized nor organized—more like a big dog the others are happy to follow. They started to move into Long Beach. Must have been something in the air, because it seems like hardly weeks after that that the Catalinans sailed in. Barbarians, you could call them. Pirates. But they had more to them than the Osseys. Led by a man named Karslaw, they raided up and down the coast. Brutalized those who stood firm and sucked tribute from those who bent. Soon, the place was theirs.

"And that's when Karslaw made his mistake: he killed Raina's dad and stole away her mom."

The sloop swooped through the waves, curving to the right with the rocky bluffs of the shore. With the pace of someone used to wiling away the hours in such ways, Steve spoke steadily, explaining how Raina had joined the Dunemarket resistance. How, along with her friend Martin, and soon after Mauser, they set the Osseys and Catalinans at war with each other, destroying the Osseys and weakening the pirates enough that, when Raina launched a desperate assault on their island castle, she was able to take back her mother—along with Karslaw's head.

"Pretty sure she's still got it somewhere," Steve finished. "I'm not kidding. She's an odd duck. Some people say that after the plague hit, she was raised by coyotes. The crazy part is that I could believe it."

"I've heard Walt Lawson was back here around that same time," Thom said. Steve frowned. Thom gestured at the mound of the broken ship. "You know. The one who stopped the invasion."

"I know the name. Heard rumors he was mixed up in all the fighting. But nobody seems to know exactly how."

As the boat cleared the point, it angled a few degrees east of true north, set to intercept the wide yellow sands of Manhattan Beach. They were a mile from shore and the waves were rough enough to leave Thom clutching tight to his bench. Nearer the sands, pelicans soared on the winds until they spotted something beneath the surface, then tucked their wings and plunged into the water like cliff divers.

They veered nearer to land. Past the Manhattan pier, which didn't actually have the facilities for anything to dock with it, they struck the sails and dropped anchor. The crew lowered a longboat from the side and the warriors descended to it via rope ladder. They paddled to land, the surf sweeping them forward, salty white foam spilling over the gunwales.

In choreographed silence, the warriors jogged up the beach, checking and clearing the small concrete building that had once contained the bathrooms. Flanked by four others, Thom showed Mauser to the grave.

Mauser stood over it, nose twitching. "Please tell me I can take your word that it was him."

"He's not in good shape," Thom said. "But it wasn't just the necklace. I saw his hair, too."

"That death metal strip of his," Mauser muttered. "Shit. Shit on the bottom of your new shoes. I was hoping he could take over
my
job in another few years. He was much better suited to this nonsense than I am."

"Should we… say something?"

"If we don't bring him back with us, Raina will bury us instead." He wiped his nose. "We'll pick him up when we leave. Right now, it's time to hunt."

He had Thom show him where Kolton had been shot, but if Mauser garnered any clues from the site, he kept them to himself. With the crew of the sloop keeping watch on the beach, he brought in his troops and began a series of sweeps through the neighborhoods looking down on the shore. The houses were arranged in long, narrow lots, with one end facing the street and another lined by a wide concrete walkway blocked off from traffic by waist-high metal posts.

Many of the warriors had donned face paint during the two-hour boat ride. A few were barefoot. All carried blades. It was unreal, the sight of them loping up the cement foot paths separating the million dollar homes overlooking the beach. A fever dream. Then again, Thom supposed he didn't look so different.

Thousands of homes were packed into the lots, squeezed in so tight few had any space for lawns. A few blocks inland, they located a sporting complex, two large softball fields flanking a hub of tennis courts. The fields had been plowed under and tilled into uneven rows of cabbage, squash, and pumpkins, some of which were already beginning to turn orange in the predictable Southern California weather. Two of the troops conferred with Mauser, then headed up the jogging path separating the lanes of one of the city's main arterial roads.

Thom had been paired with a woman named Kelly and they scouted across the boulevard into another section of the jam-packed houses. A minute later, men shouted at each other to the north.

He and Kelly ran toward the disturbance. Down one of the footpaths, eight warriors watched in tense silence as an unarmed Mauser spoke soothingly to an older woman standing on her stoop and aiming a rifle dead center on his chest.