“What about my eyes?”

  “They’re black. Pure black. Like you’re possessed.”

  Marcus almost laughed. In a sense, he was possessed. Even so, he would never get close to the Sheriff with pure black eyes.

  I will fix it.

  Marcus closed his eyes as they began to itch. When he opened them again, Bauer seemed to relax slightly. “Is that better, Major?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re back to normal. What did you do?”

  “It isn’t what I did,” Marcus said. “It’s what the Grand Custodian did. What the Colonel did. They brought the pod out of the water. They gave it fuel. They woke something up. They fed me to it.” Marcus shot forward, reaching Bauer before he could react, getting his new left hand around the Major’s throat and lifting him easily off the floor. He growled at Bauer through his teeth. “It’s inside me, Major. It’s part of me now. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to be here. But you’re lucky, Major. Because now I do.”

  Marcus flexed his new arm, throwing Bauer halfway across the room. The major landed on the floor, sliding backward to hit the wall. He stayed there, coughing to get his breath back and shaking his head to unrattle his brain.

  Marcus headed for the double doors leading out of the loading dock. “Get up, Major,” he said, the double doors opening as he neared them. “You’re with me.”

  Bauer was on Marcus’ heels before he made it ten feet down the corridor leading to the front of the building. “What are you going to do?” he asked, having to hurry to keep up with Marcus.

  “I need to speak to the Colonel or whoever else might have the latest update on Sheriff Duke’s whereabouts.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bauer said. “Did you say there’s an alien inside you?”

  “A piece of the alien. A moiety.”

  “Sir, if you have a piece, where’s the rest of it?”

  “Still in the pod, gaining strength. Don’t worry, Major, you’ll meet him soon enough.”

  “Who?”

  “Iagorth. Devourer of the Relyeh.”

  The scent of fear coming off Bauer grew even stronger after that statement. The man was right to be afraid.

  Marcus returned to the lobby, stopping there, raising his eyebrows in question. “Where is he?”

  The Major hesitated a moment before pointing, not to the main elevator banks but to secondary elevators leading into the parking garage.

  “Are you trying to trick me, Major?” Marcus asked, confused by Bauer’s directions.

  “What? N...no. Sir. The comms equipment is all below ground. Duke left it here when he fled Sanisco. We fixed it up and got it operational again. We added a terminal for the emergency network.”

  They made their way over to the garage elevator. Bauer tapped the control to summon the cab. When it arrived, they stepped inside and Bauer selected the third floor of the garage. “I don’t know if the Colonel is down there, but Specialist Bruno has full clearance for comms relays. If there’s anything to report, he can report it.”

  “Good enough,” Marcus said.

  The cab dropped to the third sub-floor, the doors opening and revealing the underground garage. Most of it sat empty save for a setup in the corner. Thick wires draped from the ceiling to racks of comms equipment of various makes, models and ages. A computer terminal, a ham radio interface and a hardwired telephone all rested on a desk placed close to the wall, along with a few other pieces of equipment Marcus didn’t recognize. A Custodian sat in the chair behind the desk, reclining while she waited for activity from one of the comms. She jumped to attention as Bauer and Marcus approached her.

  “Major Bauer, sir,” she said.

  “Specialist Bruno,” Bauer replied. “This is Marcus. He’s one of our newest and most valuable operatives. A Courier, assigned to bring Sheriff Duke under control.”

  Bruno looked at Marcus. “Good to meet you, Marcus. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m going hunting for the Sheriff. I need a clue where to look for him. Have there been any new reports since he attacked Fort Hood?”

  “Nothing specific,” Bruno replied. “Fort Hood is still offline, but standard operating procedure in the event of an intrusion like the Sheriff’s is to wipe as much data as possible.”

  “What about something more general?”

  “Like what?”

  Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know. Unexplained violence? Custodians gone missing? Reports of a man matching the Sheriff’s description? What about something out of the ordinary that can’t be directly attributed to the Sheriff?”

  Bruno considered the questions for a moment. Then she turned to the desk, leaning over the computer terminal. “As you may or may not know, the Southern Reach switchboard is down so we’re limited in relays further south than the Fort. But we did get a report about four hours ago from Lavega. The Governor sent a group out to hassle one of the outer settlements that’s been stubborn about falling in line.” She hit a key and the computer terminal showed a wall of text. “Here it is.” She put her finger to the screen, following it with her eyes while she read. “The Governor said he sent sixteen recruits out to Carcity to harass the locals. They still hadn’t returned as of the last message. It definitely could be the residents that wiped them out. But it might be the Sheriff?”

  “I remember Carcity. It used to be under my father’s domain. They were always a difficult bunch, but they weren’t the type of people to get into a direct confrontation like that. If sixteen raiders are missing, I’m pretty confident Sheriff Duke was involved somehow. You said that message is four hours old?”

  “Yes.”

  Marcus turned to Bauer. “Let’s assume Sheriff Duke was in Carcity four hours ago. He arrived there from Fort Hood, which means he at least knows to move west. The question is, did he move on from there or did he head to Lavega proper?”

  “That depends on what you think the Sheriff’s goals are,” Bruno said.

  “His goal is to find out what we’re doing and stop us. It’s that simple.”

  “Then he’ll find his way here eventually,” Major Bauer said. “We don’t need to find him. He’ll come to us.”

  Marcus glared at Bauer. “Do you think it’s that simple, Major?”

  “Isn’t it, sir?”

  Kill him.

  “What?”

  “I said, isn’t it, sir?” Baeur repeated.

  “Not you, damn it,” Marcus said.

  I said kill him. His fear is tasty, but his weakness is a liability.

  “The Colonel won’t be happy with that.”

  You still fear the Colonel, when I have given you so much already?

  Marcus froze. He didn’t want to kill Bauer just for asking a question. Especially such a reasonable question. Sheriff Duke would find them here sooner or later. The time would allow Iagorth to grow stronger. To prepare. Why did he need to go forward when they could achieve the same result more easily by remaining in place?

  Did I make a poor choice after all? Are you as idiotic as Major Bauer? Sheriff Duke will come prepared. That will make him exponentially more dangerous.

  “I almost killed him once, I can do it right the next time,” Marcus said. “I’m not afraid of Sheriff Duke.”

  You should be.

  “Even with your help?”

  There are no guarantees, which is why we need to take him before he expects it. Now, kill Major Bauer.

  “No.”

  Pain blasted through Marcus’ head, again causing him to cry out.

  You are not in charge of anything, Marcus. You’re a tool for my use. Kill him.

  “Fine,” Marcus said breathlessly.

  The pain vanished.

  “Marcus, are you okay?” Major Bauer asked.

  Marcus nodded. Then he lunged at Bauer, grabbing his head and twisting, breaking his neck as if it were made of straw. He let Bauer’s body drop to the floor and then turned back to Bruno.

  “Please,” Bruno said, putting up her hands, the smell of her intense fear nearly overwhelming him.

  Delicious.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Marcus said. “I still need you. Where do you think the Sheriff is now?”

  “I don’t know. There’s only one way to find out for sure. The chopper is on the landing pad outside, refueled and ready to go. I’ll have Captain Schott meet you there. He’s the pilot. He can take you to Carcity.”

  “Does the helicopter have that kind of range?”

  “There are additional fuel reserves onboard to extend the range. You’ll have enough to make it there and back, or wherever else you need to go.”

  “Thank you,” Marcus said. “I’ll meet Captain Schott there immediately.” He turned away from Bruno and looked down at Bauer. Such a waste. Stepping over the body, he returned to the elevator, planning to take it back to the lobby and from the lobby back to the forty-second floor in search of his father.

  We don’t have time to delay. It is never simple to hit a moving target and less simple to hit a target like Sheriff Duke.

  Marcus considered arguing, but he already knew better. For all the strength Iagorth had already given him, he was right back where he had started.

  A prisoner.

  29

  Marcus

  “We’re approaching Carcity now, sir,” Captain Schott said, glancing back over his shoulder at Marcus. A slightly overweight, older man with graying hair and a thick beard, the chopper pilot was a total contrast from Rogers in both his overall demeanor and willingness to talk.

  After everything Marcus had been through since arriving in Sanisco, he was thankful for the quiet professionalism.

  Marcus unstrapped himself from one of the two seats in the rear of the helicopter, getting to his feet and leaning out slightly through the open sides of the aircraft to get a better look at the landscape below. It took him a few seconds to spot the junkyard city. Its majority composition of rusted sheet metal blended with the drab browns of the arid ground it rested upon, helping to unintentionally camouflage it from the air.

  He had been to Carcity with King once before, when he was nine years old. He still remembered the place, not so much for its unique anti-trife defensive structure, but rather for the way the mayor of the settlement had stared at him for the few minutes King had remained to demand fealty. He recalled how Pig had joked about the incestuous tendencies of the mayor, the comments generally in strong agreement for the way the man treated both his offspring and the people beneath him as a whole. There was one girl Marcus remembered distinctly from the other children. Casey. She had been pretty enough that even nine-year-old Marcus had noticed her, and the way the mayor’s hands had taken liberties with her during the interaction.

  It made him sick to think about now.

  “Bring us down close,” Marcus said to the pilot, leaning toward Schott’s shoulder so he could be heard. “Just ahead of the front gate.”

  “Roger,” Schott replied.

  The helicopter began to descend, dipping downward toward the small town. Marcus kept his eyes fixed to it, searching for signs of activity. He spotted a couple of people near the center of the settlement as they disappeared into the side of an old school bus. The only other proof of occupation came from a fire burning a few hundred meters beyond the eastern walls. With his enhanced vision, Marcus was able to discern the shapes of human bodies inside the flames. It had to be the corpses of the raiders who had been sent to harass the town.

  Carcity’s gate remained open as the chopper touched down in front of it. Marcus hopped out and began walking toward the opening, his hands draped close to the pair of plasma blasters he had taken from the Custodian’s portable armory in Sanisco. While he had traded his damaged combat armor for more typical clothing—a dark shirt, dark jeans, black boots and a worn leather jacket—he had bolstered his defenses with a bodysuit beneath, making himself more resistant to small arms fire. He had come here to talk to the residents, not kill them. He hoped it was protection he wouldn’t need.

  Nobody came out to greet Marcus as he passed through the open gates. He squinted slightly as the wind carried the smoke from the fire back across the settlement, creating a haze and offering a too-acute smell of cooking meat that made him want to retch as much as his memories of Carcity’s former mayor had. He pressed through it, eyes sweeping the maze of crushed cars and other metal debris around him as he made his way to the center of the town. He could see the residents hiding within the deep shadows of the nooks and crannies. He could smell their fear. It wasn’t overpowering like Bauer’s had been. It was uncertain. Hesitant. They didn’t know what to make of him.

  “That chopper is familiar,” a woman said, stepping out of the shadows a few meters in front of him. She had thinning blonde hair and a large face on an even larger frame clad in a patchwork floral-print dress. She carried a shotgun cradled in bare arms weathered from the sun. “Though I haven’t seen it in a long time.” She paused, eyes shifting to his blasters. “What’s your business here, stranger?”

  “I’m no stranger,” Marcus replied. “I’ve been here before. A long time ago. I was only a child then. And I came in a car that time. You had a mayor here. I don’t recall his name, but as I remember it bad things happened here because of him.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, exploring his face, trying to recognize it. “I’m sure I don’t know you, mister. And I’ve been here since I was a baby. I would remember.”

  “Would you? There was a girl here when I came. Her name was Casey. I was only nine, but I had an instant crush on her. Is she still here?”

  The woman’s face changed, and the odor of fear grew stronger from her. She didn’t trust him, even more so because he knew about the town’s dark history. “There’s no Casey here. Who are you? What’s your business with Carcity? Did the Governor send you?”

  “I don’t give a shit about the bodies you’re burning out past your walls. What I do care about is how those bodies wound up dead. And more specifically, who killed them.”

  The woman’s lips formed a tight line as she considered the statement. “We ambushed them. Took them out fair and square. Not that it’s of any concern to you.”

  “You’re lying,” Marcus replied.

  The woman’s face flushed. “Who are you to tell me I’m lying? You weren’t here.”

  “I can see the tension around your eyes. I can hear your heart beating faster. I can smell your fear. You didn’t kill those men. Who did?”

  “I told you already, we—”

  “You lie!” Marcus shouted, taking a step toward her. She leveled the shotgun toward his chest in response.

  “Don’t you come any closer, mister,” she said. “I don’t care who you are or what you want, you aren’t welcome here. You have five seconds to get back in your helicopter and fly away.”

  “You haven’t told me what I need to know yet,” Marcus replied.

  “One.”

  “It was Sheriff Duke, wasn’t it?” Marcus said. “He killed the raiders.”

  The woman swallowed hard. “Two.”

  “He was here. I know he was. I need to know where he went. Lavega? Or somewhere else. Tell me and I’ll go.”

  “Three.”

  “Nobody has to get hurt. I’m looking for Sheriff Duke. Tell me where he’s headed.”

  The windows on the bus to Marcus’ left began to drop, gun barrels emerging from them. More guns appeared on the other side of the settlement, and a handful of residents moved out into the open, aiming their rifles at him.

  “Four,” the woman said, her voice taking on a sharper tone, her fear diminishing with the backup.

  Kill them. Kill them all.

  “Just tell me where he went,” Marcus said. “That’s all you need to do.” He didn’t want to kill any of them.

  “F—”

  Marcus drew his blasters and fired before she could finish the count, one plasma bolt through her chest, the other penetrating her forehead and blowing out the back of her skull. Before she could finish collapsing, he turned his guns on the residents moving in behind her.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Marcus quickly put six more plasma rounds into the trio of townsfolk on the woman’s left, rotating and dropping the other three on her right before her body had even hit the ground. He was aware of the muzzle flashes from the school bus windows and from the windows of an RV on the other side of the open space. The flames off the exploding gunpowder seemed to spread so slowly it left him feeling as though he had all the time in the world to evade the slugs that followed.

  Instead of retreating, Marcus sprinted forward, angling toward the rear of the bus. He could see the individual bullets moving away from their respective rifles, tracking them all as they converged on the spot he had abandoned moments before, missing him by feet, not inches. The shooters tried to follow him with their weapons, struggling to keep up. By the time the next volley arrived, Marcus had already reached the back of the schoolbus, holstering his left-hand blaster before grabbing the door with his alien hand and ripping it easily from its rusted hinges.

  The shooters in the bus reacted with fearful panic, trying to turn their weapons on him and struggling to get a clean shot at him without shooting each other. Marcus didn’t have the same problem. He drew his second gun and opened fire, sending a rain of plasma bolts through the cracked and worn seats and into the bodies behind them. Seeing the assault from across the street, the gunners in the RV began shooting into the bus, shattering the windows, their rounds always arriving too late.

  Marcus reached the front of the bus, turned and jumped out through the side door to the ground. He crouched low, able to watch the bullets zip over his head, his reflexes and visual acuity beyond his own belief. He heard Iagorth laughing in the back of his mind, enjoying the destruction as he laid waste to the settlement.

  Running across the open space, easily avoiding the path of the incoming bullets, Marcus fired through the RVs windows, taking out the shooters there. He turned again when he reached the side of the vehicle to face more residents pouring out from the hiding places among the wrecked cars. Brandishing homemade spears and machetes, they screamed like the howler monkeys he’d once seen on an old video, their faces twisted in rage and grief.