Part 6 (1/2)

'Emilie? Where were you? I was - we opened the gateway, Emilie, it's wide wide open! But they cheated us. They betrayed us! They didn't want us to join them - they wanted to cross over! And now they're here, they're here, they're here, they're here.' The great man laughed like a frightened kid, then trembled uncontrollably. 'And what they are - oh G.o.d, what they are!' open! But they cheated us. They betrayed us! They didn't want us to join them - they wanted to cross over! And now they're here, they're here, they're here, they're here.' The great man laughed like a frightened kid, then trembled uncontrollably. 'And what they are - oh G.o.d, what they are!'

Mitch wanted to say something, snap him out of it. But Jacks was in command, just about.

She shook him hard to beat the tremors. 'Crayford! How can we have opened the gateway? I've got the key here!' She tugged at the left strap of her backpack. 'We found it. It's the real thing, Crayford. Genuine United States Air Force ET hi-tech - and it's ours! Everything you dreamed of, everything you saw, it's right here in this pack! You can't have opened any gateway. This is the key right here, has to be!'

'Then close it. Use it to close the gateway, Emilie.'

For the first time Crayford was actually looking at and seeing Emilie. And that, for Mitch, was scarier than when he'd been out of it.

'We can stop them. We can stop them sending any more.

The Army can't stop them. No, the Army - the Army,' he yanked at Emilie's coat, trying to bring her down to his level, 'the Army is too busy hunting me. me. They brought a Psi with them, Emilie. She touched my mind. They'll find me. They'll find all of us and they'll finish us before we can stop them.' They brought a Psi with them, Emilie. She touched my mind. They'll find me. They'll find all of us and they'll finish us before we can stop them.'

Jacks swallowed on a bad taste. Suddenly she shoved Crayford off and smacked him hard, a man's punch. Mitch blinked. Crayford squirmed in the snow, squirting blood from his nose.

'What did you just do?'

'If he wants to run so bad,' determined Jacks, hypnotised by the sidewinder rhythms of the fallen man, 'he can carry on. The Army must have hit us and this one cracked like an egg. We're going to pay them back. You and me, Mitch.'

Mitch Lagoy was the one with the bad taste now.

Commanders' speeches were supposed to be inspirational.

'You just knocked Crayford Boyle on his a.s.s! And now you want to take on the Army?'

Jacks didn't like that: she turned on him, and her wild glare drove him back a pace. 'That,' she wasn't satisfied until her face was right into his, 'isn't Crayford Boyle any more. I don't know what that is, but it's all finished. We We are finished. are finished.

Our dream, our mission. It's over, Mitch. Mitch. ' She never called him Mitch. ' She never called him Mitch.

She left him then, spinning around and ripping herself free of the pack. She chucked it onto the writhing pile at her feet.

'We won't be needing this any more. Total waste. Time we were leaving, Lagoy.' When the b.i.t.c.h finally looked his way, she was evil on fire.

'We should tidy up before we go.'

Chapter Five.

Clad in her overwhites, Leela was looking forward to being at one with the landscape. This first stage of the hunt was not about stealth though. It was about speed. For Leela, it was also about hanging on in fear for her life.

She rode with her arms anch.o.r.ed around Kristal's waist.

The vehicle ploughed along, churning up the snows like mushy paper, the sky and trees zipping by in flashes. Her limbs were taut, and the engine sent powerful vibrations through her calf and thigh muscles. Despite the goggles, Leela felt the full blast of wind in her lace whenever she peered over Kristal's shoulder, and yet she felt a frequent need to keep looking. The fierce noise and the occasional b.u.mp did nothing to ease her fears.

'How much further?' she tried to shout in Kristal's ear, but her driver did not hear her.

Ahead and behind, other members of Kristal's squad rode more of these dumpy little monsters. The Captain had allowed seven of the snowmobiles snowmobiles for the hunt, so some soldiers doubled up like herself and Kristal, while the lead troops, some distance in front, rode singly. for the hunt, so some soldiers doubled up like herself and Kristal, while the lead troops, some distance in front, rode singly.

Kristal glanced west. The visibility was fair but Leela saw nothing.

Kristal made a swift motion with one hand though and Leela realised they were slowing, veering around to an eventual halt. Past the trees the ground fell away fairly steeply and the open terrain below looked like a giant thumbprint stamped in the mountain. A gentler hill dropped into the bowl at the north and Kristal's gaze was trained there as she hopped from her seat. Leela dismounted to stand beside her.

Her nose wrinkled and she pulled a strand of hair under her nose for a tentative sniff.

'Smell like a tailpipe, huh?' It was the big sergeant tramping up, carrying the large gun with its jingling ribbon of bullets.

'What is a tailpipe?'

'You're really quite a girl, you know that?'

Leela did not know what to say to that.

'Ignore him,' Kristal advised her, still watching the far hill.

'Hey, I love that smell of gas. Never get enough.'

'Marotta.' she spared him a fleeting scowl, 'when you're done sweet-talking Leela here, take Landers and two of the guys a couple of hundred yards up. Move down slope and hide yourselves in the open down there. Hide yourselves good.'

'You got it, Kris - Lieutenant.'

'With any luck, we can take our man alive. I'm sure he's the one blew his way out of the parlour window.' She closed her eyes and breathed in, long and deep. 'He's three minutes off from that north ridge. Get moving.'

Sergeant Marotta headed off at a trot, collecting his chosen team. Kristal looked back and motioned the others to move up, even as she dropped to her knees. Leela followed her example, and inched closer to the scout's side.

She searched along the crest of the hill. 'I do not understand, Kristal. Do you see this man in your mind?'

'I see him. And I feel him in the pulse of the land. Besides, he has the Stormcore.'

Leela was wary of troubling her friend further, but felt com-pelled: 'What is the Stormcore?'

Ben McKim was the new kid on the block. Just over a year with this outfit, and he'd figured it was one of the reasons he'd drawn guard duty on the vehicles back there.

It was dumb speculation really, because ultimately every outfit was the same: you had to work lights and scenery if you wanted to make centre stage. Now, posted at the house, left behind again, he couldn't decide whether he was being given the b.u.m's rush or his shot at the Oscar. On the face of it there wouldn't be a lot to do here besides more waiting.

Unless some cultist stragglers started rolling in - which was doubtful McKim saw his two sharpshooters stepping through the front doorway. He'd called them in from the perimeter and they'd probably jogged all the way, although they both had their breathing under good control. Falvi was being funny, wiping his feet.

Falvi and Barnes, each a head shorter than him. They took to the waiting game like they were on a diet of time and boredom. 'Glad you could make it, people. Welcome to the House of the Dead. Find yourselves a room, high as you can go, one each flank of the house. I want every approach covered far as the eye can see.'

At least, he added with a look, as far as anyone can see in what pa.s.sed for weather in the Granite State.

'You got it, sir,' the young man, Falvi, acknowledged and the two of them were vanis.h.i.+ng up those stairs like they were keen to start the next round of waiting ASAP. ASAP.

He let them go and moved on to the lounge. He'd seen tidier craters, but his grenadier, Pelham, had shovelled enough trash off a sofa so he could lay back. Eastman kicked the guy's boot and stood to attention. McKim signalled her to rest easy.

He ran through the list, checking it off: snipers up top, three-man patrol stalking the fences, two at the downstairs windows, three - including himself - grabbing some rest and cleaning weapons. It was a system of sorts and they were wired for action, looking out for it; something the cultists hadn't been doing. It bothered him, the way these amateurs had been about as heavily armed as his squad, give or take a grenade launcher.

And where did all that firepower get them? n.o.body knew.