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“Can they hear me in there?” Perry asked.

Margaret nodded. “There are speakers in the cell. The microphone in your earpiece picks up your voice. They can hear you just fine.”

Perry nodded inside the helmet. Now he was grateful for the suit, because if he p.i.s.sed himself no one would see. He cleared his throat. For some reason he remembered the punch line to an old joke: It’s sure not gonna suck itself.

No more waiting.

“I’m supposed to talk to you,” he said. “Figure out what you want.”

We want kill you. You are the destroyer.

Full sentences. Punctuation. Soon they would tear free from the woman’s body.

“Where is the next gate?”

Nothing.

“You want to . . . open up the door, I know that. What’s going to come through?”

Ayyynnngellls.

Angels. Coming through the gate. Perry had never heard that from his own triangles, and there was something profoundly disturbing about it.

The angels are coming. People build for them,” just like we do. We’re going to make your life a living h.e.l.l,”just like we do. We’re going to make your life a living h.e.l.l, and that’s what you deserve, you cheating b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

They seemed different, different from his own triangles, the ones he had called the Magnificent Seven. Different from Fatty Patty’s triangles and hatchlings. These three sounded feminine, but caustic, angry. Perry wondered what Bernadette Smith’s personality had been like before the infections. Something told Perry there was one word for it—b.i.t.c.h.

“What did they say?” Dew asked.

“Hard to tell,” Perry said. “I think whatever is coming through wants to make us build things.”

“Build things?” Dew said. He spoke louder, as if that would held him be heard inside the containment cell. “What are we going to build for you?”

You’ll do what you’re told or you’ll get the paddle.

“They’re not going to say what it is,” Perry said. “I can tell. So much hate, derision coming off them . . . I think they want to make us slaves.”

“Oh f.u.c.k that,” Dew said. “The Jewells. Ask them where the Jewells are, see if you get any vibes.”

Kill him. Get the gun, kill kill kill.

Perry stared at them, waiting to feel the rush of violent desire.

But he didn’t feel anything.

He’d beaten them. Dew was right, he could do this.

“Where is the Jewell family?” Perry said, his voice growing a little stronger with each word. “Bobby Jewell, Candice Jewell, Chelsea Jewell.

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