Shadowmark (The Shadowmark Trilogy Book 1) (31 page)

They walked back to camp in the fading light. Alvarez nodded to Nelson, and he moved to walk beside Schmidt.

“Corporal, do you think we could find another toothbrush somewhere? I lost mine.”

Schmidt sneezed violently and sniffled.

“Bless you.”

“Thanks.” Schmidt wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Think I’m getting this cold that’s going around camp.”

“Sorry, man. That’s rough.”

Schmidt sniffled again. “I don’t know about the toothbrush. You might have to ask around, but I doubt anyone’s going to be willing to give one up.”

“Maybe I could offer a trade?”

“Like what?”

Lincoln dropped back in step with Alvarez and Carter. “What do you think?” he asked quietly. “Two or three more trips?”
 

They had been stowing supplies—blankets, bandages, empty hydration packs, whatever they could snag—in a brown canvas duffel bag near the entrance on the top of the mountain. They always carried packs when they went up there, and each day one of them made sure something valuable went in the bag. Stealing off to put it in there had been easy. Between the four of them, it wasn’t a stretch for one of them to need to “use the facilities” on every trip.
 

Carter watched the back of Schmidt’s head carefully. “Yes. The bag’s almost full. Now we just need to worry about getting out of camp with a tent or two. We’ll really need them.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” said Alvarez. “Baker and Schmidt will notice if we take ours down, and I have no idea where they'd keep an extra if they have it.” Alvarez nodded toward Schmidt. “Do you think he’d tell us?”

“Maybe,” said Carter. “But he’d figure out pretty quick what we were doing. I’m not ready to blow our plan.”

“I think he’ll want to come with us.”

Lincoln leaned in closer. “Really?” Lincoln had noticed Alvarez and Schmidt talking more often, but had purposely avoided overhearing another private conversation.

“Of course.” Alvarez ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “He rarely leaves our side. He’s always willing to help, even with ridiculous things like toothbrushes. He’s not overbearing like Baker. Schmidt’s a good guy. He’ll want to help.”

Lincoln scanned the trees around them. He always kept an eye out for Halston now. “I don’t know,” he said. “He’s very loyal. I would hate to put him in that position.”

“Ask Nelson later what he thinks,” advised Carter.

“That’s a terrible idea.” Nelson took a seat in front of the tents. “We’re this close to getting out of here,” he said, pinching his fingers together. “What if he blabs?”

Baker and Schmidt conferred a few feet away, giving the group time to talk. After a few minutes, Schmidt walked away.
 

Lincoln shot Nelson and Alvarez a warning look as Baker turned back to them. She walked over and sat in her camp chair beside Carter’s. As always, her uniform remained neat and clean despite their primitive living conditions, and her hair was pulled back into its usual tight bun. She relaxed into her chair, crossing her legs. If he’d met her outside of this place, Lincoln would have thought she was pretty. Perhaps even asked her to dinner.
Bad idea
. He rubbed his eyes and twisted in his seat, stretching his knotted back muscles. His exhaustion was getting the better of him. Baker looked around at the group, and he wondered if their sudden silence had alerted her.

“Find anything today?” Baker asked.

“No,” replied Alvarez.

“A couple more days of hard work and you should have all of it copied. What’s the plan after that?”

Alvarez turned to Lincoln. He said, “Captain, maybe someone else in camp would like to take a look at these drawings. At this point we could stare at them until our eyes pop out of our heads and we still wouldn’t know what they mean. Would you care to examine them?”

“I have looked at them. I don’t know what they mean either.”

“Maybe someone else in camp who has an eye for patterns, then. Why not use some of the people who’ve returned from the recon missions? Let them have a go.”

Baker uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “I think it’s unwise to tell the camp you don’t know what you’re doing.” She left unsaid what everyone else was thinking—several of the recon teams were more than a week overdue.

Lincoln returned Baker’s stare. Dinner? What had he been thinking? “At least you’re acknowledging it. We’ve been trying to tell you for weeks.” He paused, remembering his conversation with Alvarez, and sighed. He would try to be civil. “What do you suggest, Captain?”

“I was thinking about the wall in Corridor A.”

“Do we have anything we could use to tear down the door?”

“Sure,” answered Baker. “We have explosives. A little risky, though, considering the instability of some of those tunnels.”

“Maybe we should try to pry it open first.”

“What do you think is down there?”

“I have no idea.” Lincoln rubbed his hands together. “I’m hoping we’ll find some answers. Maybe a storage room.”

“That’s it? Storage?”

“Just a guess. I can’t really think of anything better I’d like to find, aside from some kind of alien manifesto explaining what the heck they’re doing.”

Nash walked up and stood next to Alvarez’s seat. “What would you like to find?”

“Research, explanations, anything to tell us what’s going on around here.”

Nash furrowed his brow. In the twilight, he looked tired, his face lined and sagging. “So would I,” he said.

“Nothing on the radio?” asked Alvarez.

“Nothing at all.” Nash sat on the ground, brushing dirt off his boot.
 

“Here, sir.” Baker stood and offered her chair.

Nash waved her off. “Sit down.”
 

An expectant mood circled through the group. Although Nash had expressed more interest in the team lately, communicating mainly through Alvarez and Carter, this was the first time he had joined them at their tents.
 

“I don’t mind admitting things could be better,” he said, looking around at the team. “This whole op’s pointless. Food’s scarce. Soldiers are muttering. Three recon teams never returned. At this point I think it’s safe to say they deserted. Not that I didn’t expect it to happen.”

“Do you want me to go find them, sir?” Baker asked.

“No. I need you here.” He looked Baker in the eye. “Unless you want to move on yourself?”

“No, sir!”

Carter fiddled with a short pencil. “Colonel, can you tell us what the recon teams found? Maybe it’ll help us.”

“They found more refugees. Looks like some of ours holed up at an abandoned hotel in the next valley, so they’re doing alright. Other teams found burned towns, destroyed roads and bridges. No power anywhere, of course. No sightings of the invaders that we know about, either. Unless the missing teams ran into them.”

“Are the Glyphs gone, do you think?” asked Alvarez.

“I seriously doubt it. The invaders didn’t travel trillions of miles to Earth to destroy it and then move on. I don’t know anything about aliens, but I do know invading forces always have a purpose.”

Nelson quietly interjected. “What’s the point, Colonel? What are we still doing here?”

Alvarez shook her head and whispered, “Nelson . . .”

Nelson held up his hand. “No. Hear me out. Even if our wildest dreams come true, and we find heaps of research and manuals and explanations behind that door, what are the chances we can use them for anything? Even if we got detailed instructions on how to destroy the invaders, how would we carry them out? We’re crippled here.”

Nash nodded slightly as he listened, staring at the ground. “Depends on the instructions. Why are you in such a hurry to leave?” He turned to Nelson. “You have something better to do?”

“I’m not interested in being a hero. Besides, we have family to look for. Friends.”

“And I don’t have a family?” Nash’s voice rose and he paused for a moment. “You think that’s what all this is about? The rest of us want statues and monuments named after us? Aliens invaded Earth. They’ve taken over. We’re fortunate to be alive. Did you ever think, Nelson, that we’re alive for a reason? If we somehow find a way to drive off the largest and most intelligent invading force in the history of mankind, the likeliest scenario is that we’ll die in the attempt. No one will know it was us. I’m not looking for glory, just a little payback. That’s the only way I know to help my family.”

Alvarez blinked back tears. “Do you know where . . . ?”

Nash turned his steel-blue eyes on her. “No. I do not.”

Lights burned through Mina’s eyelids. A machine hummed. She felt groggy, weighed down. But her chest no longer hurt. She tried to open her eyes. At first, she didn’t see anything except blue light. And a shadow. Her eyes focused on something—a complicated swirl. As she watched, it moved. Terror rose up inside her. Despite the grogginess, she tried to sit up, wanted to run. She flailed her arms and something tangled around them.

“Mina! Don’t struggle. The blanket’s not attacking you.”
 

The symbols in front of Mina’s eyes didn’t go away. In fact, they came into sharper focus as her eyes adjusted. Then they disappeared. Mina looked up at Doyle. She stopped struggling and relaxed.

“I thought you were a Glyph,” she explained weakly, her head sinking down.

She lay on a bed—no, a table. A coarse white blanket covered her. Doyle stood next to her, mud clinging to his shirt and hair. The dirt contrasted sharply with the room, which at first she took to be in a hospital, except something about the place seemed wrong. Or everything. A long metal arm beeped and retracted above her. Her eyes followed it to a stone wall. She couldn’t see any other equipment. The ceiling was lit—not with firelight, nor any kind of light she had seen before. Instead of lamps or bulbs, the entire ceiling glowed blue.

“Did you find a hospital? Where are we?” she asked.

“Just somewhere safe,” said Doyle. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know yet.” Mina tried to sit up, but her body still refused to cooperate. Doyle helped her. Realizing she wasn’t wearing a shirt, she clutched the blanket to her chest. A slight twinge shot through her side when she inhaled to speak again. Then Mina remembered the Glyph. And Doyle carrying her. Maybe she had dreamed it. Her head was still fuzzy.

“What happened?”

“A broken rib punctured your lung, but you’ll be okay.”

“I don’t feel like I broke a rib.” In fact, she felt stronger every second she was awake. “Where are we?” she asked again. A nagging sort of suspicion began to take hold of her. Mina tried to shrug it off, but the harder she tried, the more unsettled she became. The Glyph. He killed it with just his knife. How?

Doyle tossed Mina’s shirt to her, and she caught a glimpse of a faint tattoo through the large tear in his shirt.

“Where are we?” she asked again, sinking down under the blanket to slide on her shirt.
 

When Doyle didn’t answer, Mina said, “For once would you explain things without me having to pry them out of you?”

“It’s not easy to explain.”

“Try.”

Doyle ran his fingers through his shaggy hair and looked directly at her. “On one condition,” he said.

“And that is?”

“You hear me out. After that, if you don’t want anything to do with me, I’ll respect that. But let me tell you everything first.”

Without waiting for an answer, Doyle took a deep breath and pulled off his blood-stained t-shirt. At first, Mina stared at his chest and lean stomach, uncomprehending. Then her mind focused, and she saw that what she had mistaken for a tattoo were patterns drawn on his chest. No, not drawn on him.
Part
of him. Complicated circles of raised skin covered Doyle’s chest below the collarbone, extending to both shoulders.
 

Mina eased off the table and reached out her hand. She glanced into Doyle’s eyes, and when he didn’t object, she brushed her fingers over the patterns. They were almost like scars. But not accidental, instead perfectly formed and intentional. As she touched him, flashes of trees and sky popped into her mind. These beautiful designs were the same as the ones on the Glyphs. She retracted her hand.

"What did they do to you?"

“Nothing. I’ve always had them.”
 

Mina glanced around the room again, trying to make some sense of his words. But the strange, sterile room only intensified her discomfort. “You’re like that man I saw on the road. You’re working for them. And they’ve done something to you.”

“That man you saw on the road wasn’t a man. And I’m not just working with the Glyphs—I’m one of them.”

“What?”

“I mean, I am not just a man who is helping the Glyphs. I came here with them.” Seeing Mina eye the only door in the room, Doyle quickly continued, “Except I have been questioning the Condarri for some time now.”

“The . . .”

“Condarri. The real name for the Glyphs.”
 

Mina focused again on the patterns on his chest.

“They are called
adarre
. On the Condarri, they are called
adarria
.”

“What are they for?” She could not think of anything else to say.
 

“Mostly for communication. A few have significance only to me, like tattoos on humans. When you touched me, you saw what I was transferring.”

He put on his shirt again. She could still see the adarre through the large tear in the fabric. Doyle seemed to be waiting for her response, but all of Mina’s questions jumbled together in her head until she could not distinguish between them. After the way he had fought the Glyph, obviously he was not a normal human being. But as her initial shock turned into anger, her head cleared.

“You said you were military.” She wanted to question him, to understand.

“Technically, Condarri military.”

“You’re working for the Glyphs?” Her voice rose, despite her attempt to control it.

“Not anymore, though they still think I am. After today, they may figure it out.”

“What are you, then, a Glyph that can change into a human?”

Doyle shook his head. “I am an engineered hybrid. Half human, half Condarri. Able to integrate with Earth’s population for reconnaissance, to bring down Earth’s infrastructure.”