Captives (16 page)

"Besides," he was saying, "what kind of rapacious pirate
knocks
?"

After a moment, she lowered her gun and motioned him inside with a jerk of her head. Fifteen minutes crawled by. At last, the screen creaked open and Mauser emerged.

"Appreciate your time," he said. "But after tasting that tea, you can't blame me if I do come back a-raiding."

The old woman smirked at him, watching as he exited the front gate, carefully secured the latch, and rejoined the others who'd been waiting all the while.

"She hasn't seen anything," he said, wiping crumbs from the corner of his mouth. "A couple years back, she heard rumors of aliens in the hills. Meaning Beverly. Since then, though…" He shrugged.

"
Something
killed Kolton," Kelly said. "Blood feeds blood. Only then is the blade sheathed."

Annoyance flickered across Mauser's face. "I'm relaying what I've heard. No more and no less."

They continued the search, but the area was a ghost town of broken windows and abandoned cars. They hunted inland to Sepulveda, then up to Rosecrans. Beyond, a wasteland of round oil refineries occupied everything between the shore and the highway. They encamped in a strip of parkland by the beach. Mauser dispatched a runner to head back to the boat and instruct them to relocate nearer the camp.

The next day, they scouted through El Segundo. It held more parkland, most of it cultivated, but they didn't see a soul until they found the couple sprawled across the driveway of their home. The man had been shot in the chest at the foot of the drive. The woman's wound was in her back; she had fallen in front of the garage. Both were caused by lasers.

No tracks in the grass. No keen of their engines across the sky. No sign of the blue and orange organic structures one of the warriors claimed they liked to live within. At LAX, they found the ruins of two alien jets, but they were caked in rain-borne dust. A family of possums had taken up residence beneath one crumpled wing. They crossed the canal into Marina Del Rey. Wrecked boats clogged the former order of the docks.

In the morning, while Pete the cook was frying fish as fast as the others could catch and clean them, Mauser called in the sentries. "I am unhappy to announce that it's time we headed home."

Kelly frowned hard. "But we found more dead. Killed in the same fashion. I can feel the murderers' presence."

"Then feel us in the right direction. No dice? Well, in case it's slipped your mind, we've got a civilization to protect back in Pedro. The longer we stay out here, the more we put our people at risk."

"Blood feeds blood."

"At what point did I say this was up for discussion?"

The two of them stared like animals meeting on neutral ground. The others glanced between each other, waiting. At last, Kelly let out a long breath. "All I want is for Kolton's soul to be released."

Mauser closed his eyes, nodding. "I can assure you, that's my top priority as well. I'll speak to Raina as soon as we're back. Do you really think she'll give up so easily?"

"That is all that needed to be said."

The ship had shadowed them to the harbor. On the windy beach, Mauser waved a black flag. The sloop launched its longboat. They boarded and paddled back to the waiting vessel. Onboard, Thom whiffed decay. They'd already picked up the body. On the passage home, its smell was a steady reminder of their failure.

As they berthed in San Pedro, Mauser informed them they had the rest of the day off and were to resume normal duties in the morning. Thom woke on time and carried his sword and bow to the Dunemarket, but keeping watch on the good-natured bartering was more dissatisfying than ever. Two days later, hearing Mauser was just down the street at the tavern, he left his post and headed downhill. It was early afternoon and the bar was quiet. Mauser sat at a table with a tall glass of cloudy golden beer.

"Ah, Guardsman Thom." Mauser sipped, licking foam from his lip. "Except that's something of a misnomer at the moment, isn't it? Unless you've come to protect our ales from the imminent threat of me."

He stood beside the booth. "What's been done for Kolton?"

"Matters of state security. In other words, kept secret as a matter of course."

"Is that your windy way of saying 'nothing'?"

With his beer halfway to his mouth, Mauser snorted, blowing a crater into the frothy head. "So our mission wasn't a total waste. Seems you've brought home a spine."

"He was killed, Mauser. Murdered."

"I knew him a lot longer than you, little man. That's why I have the patience to make sure he's avenged. Something that's more likely to happen if we employ a bit of subtlety rather than bumbling around the suburbs with a fully armed war band."

"So what are you doing instead?"

Mauser set down his glass and rolled it between his palms. "Up at the marina, we scouted a park off PCH. We're sending Jason up there. That bridge is the main access to the coast. If anyone or anything comes down it, he'll be positioned to see."

"One man? What if the enemy comes through while he's asleep? Or out gathering water? Send me with him."

"Jason's worth four of you. Make that five—he knows better than to complain. Maybe you think you're being wasted at the market, but has it ever occurred to you that the reason it never has any fights is that we've got watchmen patrolling it every hour it's open?"

"Answer me one thing," Thom said. "Was Kolton's last patrol your idea? Or his?"

Mauser pinched his upper lip. "The Malibu circuit was something he'd been talking about for months. He was concerned we weren't more vigilant in keeping up with things beyond our borders. I had the feeling he suspected something was out there, but he didn't want to say what until he'd seen it himself. I'd learned to trust his gut."

Thom thanked him and returned to the market. At the close of his shift, he headed to the fountain for the group meal, then waited in his shack until nightfall. With the wind nipping through the hills, he slipped out and headed one hill over, where Kolton had kept his home.

Thom had been inside it on a couple occasions. Its two earthen rooms were as simple as a monk's cell. One that doubled as an arms locker, with swords, axes, bows, and spears occupying various racks and pegs around the walls. Other than these, there appeared to be nothing else to occupy Kolton's time.

But Thom had once spotted a notebook stuffed behind a sword rack mounted on the wall.

The shack's door didn't even have a lock. The inside was dark. Silent. Thom shut the door, toed his way forward, then flicked his lighter and advanced to Kolton's room. As he neared the rack—three Japanese swords arranged in descending order of size—the lighter's wheel grew too hot. He turned it off and groped his way forward. Blindly, he reached behind the rack. Felt the worn edges of the book.

Back home, he lit the candle next to his bed and opened the notebook. Kolton's writing was as childish as it was misspelled, as if his education had stopped somewhere around the fourth grade. Which was probably exactly what had happened. But his records were impeccable. Scout logs dating back for two years. These were brief and Thom started off reading each from start to finish. Finding nothing of interest, he began to skim, then to flip pages. Every now and then, an entry was marked with one to three rusty X's. Most occurred several months apart, but as he paged along, moving nearer to the present day, they grew more frequent. By the end, most bore the rusty ink. As he reached the final note, he was suddenly certain it was Kolton's own blood.

He got up before the sun and headed north. By the time he crested the endless hill in the middle of Western, it was dawn. Miles and miles ahead, the skyscrapers glittered pink, framed by the blue mountains behind them.

At PCH, he hung a left, following it all the way into the beach cities, where he struck west until he hit the pedestrian trail on the hillside above the beach. It was another couple hours before he reached Pill's pier. He walked down its length, glad for the wind buffeting him from all sides, drying off the sweat of his travel.

Outside the building at its end, he stopped. Pebbled safety glass glittered on the cement outside the front door. He drew his sword and stepped inside. It stank like dead fish. The ground was wet. Two of the medium-sized aquariums had been broken. Small fish scattered the floor, flies buzzing on the remains.

A quick look around confirmed the place was deserted. He saw no blood, no hastily scribbled notes, nothing to indicate what had happened. Outside, after a glance around the beach, he headed to the back of the building, dreading the idea that he'd find the body there. A brownish stain marked the cement near the edge of the platform. He knelt to examine it, but after scraping it with his knife, determined it was rust from a metal object left outside for seasons.

Male laughter sounded toward the beach. Thom moved beside the building. Footsteps scraped from down the pier, accompanied by low talk, distorted by the strong winds. He peeked past the round edge of the aquarium. Two-thirds of the way down the pier, three men strode forward. Two carried pistols. The third held a double-barreled shotgun.

He rolled behind the aquarium. Another peal of laughter, closer yet. He carried a sword he almost knew how to use and a bow that might take down one man if Thom fired first. He moved to the end of the pier, hauled himself up the railing, and dropped over the side.

11

Dogs barked outside. Walt's head spun. She'd given herself up. Walked out, just like that. To save him, knowing there was no way out for herself. He admired the clarity of the decision, its lack of sentimentality or delusion. He didn't know what she'd been like in the old world, but the Carrie he knew was pragmatic to the core. A good person to have around.

At the same time, he was annoyed as shit. He'd had a plan, and no matter how half-assed it looked from the outside, it wasn't about that. It was about how you handled yourself
after
the plan met reality and was dashed into a million little pieces. And that, as they said, was where he was a viking. He would be sure to yell as much at her later.

Because this was a long ways from over.

He memorized the path to the stairs, then blew out the candle. The smell of the smoke filtered through the air. He bumped the first step with his toe, then started up them, grimacing at each creak of the treads. As he neared the top, he reached out, fingers brushing the grimy paint of the door. He groped for the handle. Locked. He rolled his eyes. Did she think that was enough to keep him trapped while she sacrificed herself? She knew damn well about his best friend Mr. Laser. As he reached for it, the front door of the house squeaked open.

That ruled out carving open the door. Not if he wanted to preserve the element of surprise. In the darkness, he headed back downstairs, walking next to the wall to try to minimize the protests of the treads. Upstairs, floorboards groaned as the scout crossed the foyer, went through the living room, and entered the kitchen. The Abyss member moved quickly, pausing at what Walt assumed were the entries; in his mind's eye, he could see the man sweeping inside them, gun in hand.

Walt got to the bottom of the stairs, shuffled behind the filing cabinets, then decided they'd be too obvious and relocated to the cover of an armchair. Upstairs, the steps moved to the back door. It clicked open, shutting a few seconds later. The Abyss member crept along the rear hallway, checking closets, bathrooms. The knob to the basement rattled. Clicked. The door creaked, spilling the faintest shaft of moonlight down the stairs. Walt breathed through his mouth, laser in hand. The door closed. The steps withdrew to the front of the house. A door opened, then shut, leaving him alone in the black.

Walt didn't head upstairs until he'd given plenty of time to ensure the man was gone. It wasn't like he didn't know where they were headed. He didn't even need to follow them. All he had to do was get back to the reservoir and wait for things to calm down enough to extract her again. He went to the front window and pressed his face to it, his nose fogging the glass. No sign of anyone in the yard. No barking or howling. No lanterns or flashlights.

He exited the back door, just in case, and circled around to the road. At a straightaway, dim shapes walked down the road hundreds of yards ahead. Leery of running into a rearguard or a lingering beagle, he veered off the road into the fields, following ditches and draws whenever possible. After a few minutes, the party came to a stop. Walt counted eight, maybe nine people. It wouldn't have been wonderful odds, but if he and Carrie had barricaded the basement, he thought they would have had a shot.

Then again, after he'd killed the first two or three of them, the remainder probably would have set fire to the house, walked off to where the smoke wasn't so bad, and trained their rifles on the doors, ready to shoot whatever tried to run outside.

The group moved on, a pack of dogs trotting at the vanguard. Walt kept one eye on the Abyss and the other out for sources of water or food. By the time he got Carrie back, he wouldn't have more than a day or two of either. At least it was early spring. By summer, the valley grew murderous with heat.

Forty minutes after he'd left the house, a car engine rumbled in the distance. Headlights swept between the trees along the highway. He swore. They must have had a radio, called ahead. New plan: as soon as they were scooped up and borne away, check every house he passed until he found a bike. It would get him and Carrie away much faster and he thought it might prevent the dogs from being able to smell them.

The noise of the engine mounted steadily. A few minutes later, the van came to a stop in the middle of the road a short ways from the hunting party. Two more lights glowed behind it, small and indistinct. Walt got out his binoculars. Fog lights. A second van. It had been following on the tail of the first; either its headlights were broken, or they'd left them off to reduce the two-car caravan's light profile.

The significance of this didn't strike him until the men piled into one van and tossed a lone passenger into the back of the second, slamming the doors behind them. As soon as its doors were shut, the van pulled around the first one and headed south down I-5. The hunters loaded themselves and the dogs into the other vehicle. It swung a wide U-turn, then drove north, on its way to the reservoir.