Harvester Page 3

  14

  Dan pulled his archaic mobile phone from his pocket, opened it with a practiced flip of the wrist, and quick-dialed Brigitta. He arched his wings and fell into a hover as he waited for an answer. He cupped his hand over the microphone to stave off the wind.

  “Hello, you have reached me,” said Brigitta. “But, at the same time, you haven’t. Leave your beep after the message.”

  A malignant grin broadened on his face. “Brigitta, this is Dan Delo. I have no idea what lies you may have heard about me, but consider this: someone warned me you were sending LaBouche to get me. After watching the fight at the park, it’s clear that he was your traitor. I’m‍—‍” A long beep cut him off, and Delo cursed while he quick-dialed again. “Hi, again. Sorry about that. I’m watching the hunters who survived. I’m following them west on I-86, and I’ll stick with them all the way home this time. Call me for updates.”

  15

  No one spoke as Mike drove west on I-86.

  Benny fumed in the front passenger seat. He glared at Mike every few seconds, sitting with his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re wrong, Mike!”

  “I don’t think so, Benny.”

  “I want to be there when she…” He squeezed his eyes shut and set his jaw. “When she wakes! I can’t believe you don’t want to be there for Greg!”

  “Benny, we can’t,” said Mike for the third time. “You know that, and you understand why.”

  “I don’t care if the demons find me, Mike,” Benny all but snarled. “I’ll fight them if they come. I’ll kill them if they try to hurt her!”

  “Think, Benny! If we go to Rochester, if we hang out in the hospital waiting room, and they catch our scent, we lead them straight to Shannon and Greg. And neither of them can fight or kill anything!”

  Benny’s already pale face whitened further. Anger thrummed in step with Benny’s pulse. He glowered at Mike. “I could make you take me there.”

  Mike threw a glance his way, his expression unreadable. “You could, Benny, but you won’t. You’re not wired that way.”

  Benny slumped in the seat. “Then let me out! I’ll find my own way there.”

  “That’s even more dangerous.” Mike tore his gaze away from the highway in front of them. “Look, Benny, you helped define the protocols. SPECTRe people will meet them at the hospital. They will ensure Shannon and Greg get the absolute best care money can provide‍—‍”

  “It’s not the same!”

  “And they will keep us informed. At least one of them will be a doctor in their own right.”

  “I don’t care!” Benny slumped in the seat, his gaze turning toward the scenery flashing by. “When you got hurt, we came for you.”

  Mike sucked his teeth. “Yeah, you did. But not right away. Toby stayed with me until the ambulance came, but then he and Shannon did what they had to do. They left me in the care of the EMTs. They left me and got the hell out of there.”

  “She needs me!” Benny wailed.

  “Right now, you are dangerous to her, Benny. Give it a day or two and SPECTRe will‍—‍”

  “SPECTRe!” Benny scoffed. “Why do you get to decide for me?”

  “Yes, SPECTRe. We set it up for a reason, and we set up these protocols for a reason.” Mike grimaced. “Do you really think I don’t want to turn north? Do you believe for one second that I like the idea of driving away while Greg‍—‍” His voice caught in his throat, and he shook his head.

  “No,” murmured Benny. “It’s killing you—I can feel it.”

  Mike grunted.

  “But this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Mike. And that’s saying a lot.”

  “It’s what we have to do.”

  “Yeah,” sighed Benny. “What about Scott? Do we just leave his body there in that lot? Food for the demons?”

  Mike grimaced at his own helplessness and lifted his shoulder. “We can’t go back, Benny. You know that.”

  16

  Lilitu stood in the center of the only intersection with a stoplight within the Oneka Falls town limits. Her gaze tracked from left to right, bouncing from face to face, making slow progress. With a grunt, she stalked away from the others.

  Her eyes narrowed at the expression worn by one of the mazzikim who gawked at her. They couldn’t tell her from a human woman using their eyes, but they understood her nature, nonetheless. They knew who she was.

  The demon staring at her didn’t lower his eyes, didn’t express awe as they owed her. A slow, lopsided grin spread across her face. “Hello, chingado,” she whispered as she drilled into his gaze with her own. Her nostrils flared, and above her, lightning crackled across the sky. A look of abject terror settled on the mazzikim’s face, and his head jerked hard to the left as though he were trying to turn away.

  Lilitu lifted a finger and wagged it at the demon, never blinking, never shifting her gaze. She could taste his terror as she sucked bits of his soul into her core, but she didn’t want him dead. He will serve me better as an example, she thought as she closed her eyes. Twenty paces away, the demon’s bladder let loose, but he only stood there, staring at those around him with no sign of recognition.

  Lilitu spun to face her daughter. “You’ve screwed the pooch, here, Naamah.”

  Brigitta loosed a weary sigh. “Brigitta. And no, I didn’t.”

  “But you have, Naamah.” Lilitu lifted her arm out to her side and swept her hand to encompass the town. “These mazzikim no longer know their place. These humans…” Lilitu shook her head. “Can’t you see what you are breeding here? Can’t you feel the changes to both the mazzikim and the humans in your little town?”

  Brigitta looked at the mixed groups of humans and demons, recognizing the corrupted nature of the men and women who chose to partner with the demons. “And why not? These humans have proved their worth. The demons, too.”

  Lilitu cocked her head to the side, a nasty smile on her lips. “Then why haven’t you raised them up? Why have you pretended at being a mazzikim, rather than elevating the best of them?”

  Brigitta dropped her gaze to the macadam with a slight shake of her head.

  “Oh, of course!” sneered Lilitu. “Too busy pretending to be one of them. Lamia, too!” She shifted her gaze to the djinn, and Lamia whimpered. She turned to Abyzou and stared into the ifrit’s fiery eyes. “And you,” she hissed.

  Abyzou inclined her head. “Yes.”

  “Oh, come off it!” snapped Brigitta. “Whatever has happened, it’s your fault, Mother.”

  With a faint smile on her glistening lips, Lilitu turned once more to her daughter. “My fault, mija?”

  Brigitta sneered, but her lips trembled. “You abandoned everyone while you played your little games in New York City.”

  Lilitu laughed, but it sounded mechanical, like a machine run amok, a monotone heh-heh-heh that never varied in rhythm or pitch, each syllable equidistant from the next. As she did, she walked closer and closer to Brigitta. When she was within arm’s reach, she stopped walking and stood there laughing like a broken robot while her daughter squirmed, her gaze dancing from place to place—anywhere other than Lilitu’s face.

  Lilitu snapped her mouth shut, and for a few heartbeats, the mechanical laughter continued, puffing her cheeks out with each heh. When the laughter ended, an utter silence descended on the intersection—the car noises, the angry shouts of motorists trapped in a long line of traffic, the murmuring of people and demons on the street, all of it falling away. She lifted her hand, smiling a little as her daughter flinched. “You are right to fear me, Naamah. You have earned my wrath in this debacle. From the very first moment you arrived here, pretending to be that charlatan’s daughter, pretending to be one of them, my anger has grown and grown. My outrage, my hurt.”

  Brigitta’s gaze snapped to Lilitu’s. “Your hurt? Your outrage?” She took a step closer, her fingers hooking into claws of red flame. “YOU FUCKING ABANDONED ME!”

  “Did I, hija mio?” Lilitu shifted her gaze first t
o Lamia and then to Abyzou. “Did I?”

  “Yes!”

  Lilitu lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “Let me tell you something, Naamah…” She sighed and shook her head. “No, you won’t listen.” Then, as if dismissing her daughter’s existence, Lilitu turned to Abyzou and clenched her jaw. “You talk to her, Abyzou. She listens to you.” Lilitu raised a hand. “I’ve got to get back, anyway. He will walk himself to death if I don’t.”

  Brigitta sucked her teeth and turned away.

  “I’ll deal with Toby Burton. You three work on corrupting the others.”

  Abyzou nodded. “We will see to it.”

  Still standing in the middle of the intersection with townspeople gaping at her, Lily smiled and turned into a bugbear of black smoke that slowly faded away into nothingness, her evil laughter echoing in her wake.

  17

  Shannon felt terrible—worse than she’d ever experienced in her life. At the same time nauseated, headachy, and assaulted by wave after wave of excruciating pain. The very air surrounding her seemed to attack her nerves, thrumming and stabbing at her ears. Worse yet, she was both shivering and burning hot at the same time.

  She tried to open her eyes, and blistering, searing pain erupted from the left side of her face. She groaned and tried to raise her hand to her cheek, but it wouldn’t lift higher than a few inches from the cold vinyl it rested atop.

  “Doctor Walker? She’s coming to,” said a gruff male voice Shannon didn’t recognize.

  “Let me in there,” said a woman.

  Shannon’s right eyelid opened, and a bright light seared her retina. It hurt as though the woman had shoved a hot poker in her eye. She moaned and tried to close her eye, and when that didn’t work, she tried to turn her head, but she couldn’t do that either.

  “Relax, Mrs. Benjamin. Do you remember what happened to you?”

  Shannon squeezed her eyes shut. The image of something dark colored and powerful charging at her flashed through her mind’s eye. He’d slammed her into the Suburban, and then everything had gone black. “Something…attacked…me. Big. Claws and teeth.”

  The doctor gazed into Shannon’s right eye, something unreadable in her expression. “Do you remember what?”

  Shannon squeezed her eyes shut. All of her hurt, all of her seemed ripped apart, scattered, broken. The only thing in New York State she imagined had the ability to do that much damage was a black bear. “Black…bear.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  A machine started beeping at a frantic pace somewhere off to Shannon’s left, and she sensed the doctor moving away.

  “He’s crashing!” the doctor said.

  Who? Shannon wanted to ask. She opened her eyes, and again, only the right eye responded. She caught a glimpse of sunlight and blue sky when she rolled her eye toward her feet, but she couldn’t turn her head to see anything on her left side.

  The sounds of a frantic medical intervention played out on her blind side, and Shannon let her eye drift closed. Who else got hurt?

  She prayed it wasn’t Benny—from the sound of it, the chances of whoever it was surviving to the hospital seemed grim. Benny? She tried to send the thought far and wide, but the effort brought on a wave of agony the likes of which she’d never experienced. “Who?” she muttered.

  Shannon tried to turn her head, pushing against the red thing that sandwiched her head. Who is it?

  The flurry of activity died down, and the doctor returned to her side. She cracked her eye open and peered at the woman’s face. “Is…”

  “He’s out‍—‍”

  “He?”

  “Your friend.” Doctor Walker leaned closer. “Not your husband.”

  A sigh of relief gusted out of Shannon, followed at once by an intense sensation of guilt.

  “As I was saying, he is out of immediate danger. Your friends say someone mugged him in the same park where a magic bear attacked you.” Her eyebrow lifted.

  Shannon blinked. “Must have been in another part of the park.”

  “But you know him? Joe Stephens?” She glanced around. “Is that what your friends called him?”

  Shannon nodded against her restraints. “He’s a friend. Can you… Can you tell me what happened to him?”

  The doctor peered down at her for a moment, then turned and glanced across the helicopter. “Yes, I can do that. His attacker stabbed him between the ninth and tenth rib, and I’ll bet you a steak dinner it ruptured his spleen. He’s lost a lot of blood and has been unconscious the entire time he’s been in my care. Your friends said his attacker clubbed him in the back of the head, and without scans, I can’t speak to any potential damage there.”

  Shannon let her good eye slip closed.

  “How do you feel, Mrs. Benjamin?”

  “Horrible. I can’t see from my left eye.”

  “It’s covered in a patch. I don’t want you to try opening it. I want you to stay as still as possible.” She fiddled with something on Shannon’s left side. “You are lucky to be alive.”

  “What…”

  “What are your injuries?” asked Doctor Walker with a nod. “It’s not a short list, however strange it might be to receive such wounds from a bear.” She pointed as she spoke. “Lacerations down your sides, puncture wounds in the shoulders. The ‘bear’ tore the flesh from your left cheek and fractured both your cheekbone and the orbital bone of your left eye socket. You have‍—‍”

  “Enough for now,” said Shannon. “No more.”

  “The good, then. No bite marks, so no need of a rabies shot.” Doctor Walker treated her to a single nod. “The thing is, Mrs. Benjamin, I don’t think these wounds came from a bear.”

  Shannon snorted. “You don’t say! I’d have never guessed…”

  “Yeah. My husband says I have all the subtlety of a charging rhino.” The woman smiled. “Occupational hazard, I expect.”

  Shannon let her right eye slide closed.

  “Do you want to tell me what really caused these wounds?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  For a moment, Doctor Walker didn’t reply. Then she brushed Shannon’s hair away from her eyes. “It might surprise you. You see, I grew up in Oneka Falls in the seventies.”

  Shannon’s eye flew open. Doctor Walker leaned over her, staring into her face.

  Yes. I remember you, Shannon, sent Doctor Walker.

  18

  Why don’t you do it? asked a thin voice at the back of Benny’s mind. Why do you always defer to Toby or Mike? They don’t have your abilities—hell, Mike has no ability! You are more suited to making the decisions.

  Benny’s lip curled at the greenery flashing by his window. The voice spoke the truth. Even as kids, even playing at his house, Mike always took charge. Mike was always the squad leader, the lieutenant. He had always expected Benny to follow Mike’s orders. I could make him go along with me this time. It would be easy.

  Then why don’t you? asked the reedy voice.

  He heaved a sigh and willed himself to go numb, to stop thinking, to stop arguing with himself.

  Don’t be weak.

  “What about Toby?” Benny asked.

  Mike glanced at him and lifted his shoulder. “I’m all ears if you’ve got an idea.” He rolled the fingers of his free hand. “Can you…”

  Benny heaved a sigh. “I can try, but I’m a mess, and I have no idea where to look.”

  “Try,” said Mike with a quick nod.

  19

  Mike stole a peek at Benny. His friend still slumped against the passenger door, his shoulders turned so his back faced Mike. I should say something.

  Sure, you should. You’ve always been so good at ‘saying something,’ haven’t you?

  The thoughts brought a shiver of fear, but also a shudder of anticipation. Mike knew the voice; he knew it well. The voice belonged to his old drinking buddy—that puppet master that lifted his arm and poured alcohol down his gaping maw.

  God, I want a drink, he thought.

/>   His mouth watered at the prospect.

  20

  “She’s such a bitch!” snapped Brigitta, turning back toward the other two.

  “Don’t say such things, Mistress.”

  Naamah rolled her eyes at the whine in Lamia’s voice. “Your Sally is showing, Lamia.”

  Abyzou tutted and tapped her foot. “Naamah, no‍—‍”

  “I’ll take it from her, Abby, because I must.” She glided forward a menacing step. “But I don’t have to take it from you!”

  Abyzou narrowed her eyes. “Remember your place!” she snapped. “What is wrong with calling you by the name your mother gave you?”

  “I repudiate that name! I reject it!”

  “Such a petulant child. I’d have thought you would have matured at least a little in all these centuries.”

  Brigitta glowered at her. “Then turn your back on me, as your mistress has! Task this one with watching out for me again and go back to your own games!”

  “Adopting their form and living amongst the mazzikim for such an extended time has taught you bad habits, generated weaknesses within you. You’d do well to remember who is eldest here.” For a heartbeat’s time, Abyzou’s flames grew brighter, almost bright enough to rival the sun, and Lamia shaded her eyes. As Brigitta’s own fire began to brighten in kind, Abyzou sighed. “Can you stop?” she asked in a soft voice. “Can you not try?”

  “Why is it always me? Why am I always the one to stop, to try?”

  “Come, come,” cajoled Abyzou. “You are as my own flesh, my own daughter to me. Have I mistreated you? Name my crimes.”

  Brigitta stamped her foot. “You always take her side!”

  “I see both sides, and I tell either of you when you are acting like a spoiled adolescent, but I try to do so in private.”

  “Such as now?” scoffed Brigitta.

  “Yes, Brigitta. Just like now.”

  Brigitta threw a glance at Lamia, but the djinn had focused her attention on the pavement.

  “You say your mother abandoned you. I say you also abandoned your mother. That makes you even, and it’s up to you to decide whether you waste this time together, too.”