Sounds suddenly came rolling through the darkness. Milo froze to listen, but they were far away down that long, black corridor.
He heard . . .
There it was again.
It was not the clicking sounds of the Bugs. Not the howl of a Stinger, either.
Though it was, indeed, a howl.
It was a wolf.
Howling in agony.
Milo had no choice but to dig out his flashlight. The beam stabbed through the darkness to reveal a tunnel that sloped downward and out of sight. Water dripped from the ceiling and ran crookedly down the walls. Tendrils of mist writhed like the tentacles of some hidden monster.
And the stink was even worse down there.
Milo held the light before him as if instead of alerting the enemy, it could somehow shield him from whatever might be waiting. He could feel his heartbeat in the veins of his neck and head. His labored breaths sounded too loud.
He began moving forward, though.
Into the tunnel.
Toward . . . what?
What new horrors did the Swarm have for him?
The wolf howled again. Louder.
Milo moved more quickly, his sneakers skidding on the slick floor.
“I’m coming,” he said under his breath. “I’m coming. . . .”
He passed a row of doors that were shut and locked. Then another whose door was wide open. Milo skidded to a stop and listened.
No more howls.
But . . .
From inside the chamber, he could hear grunts and growls and the skitter of hard nails on damp metal.
Milo had received a lot of training over the last few years, and it had intensified as he got older. When Barnaby took over the pod, the young Cajun had taught them all a lot of crafty tricks. Milo used one of those tricks now.
Instead of rashly charging into an unknown situation, he knelt quickly beside the doorframe and then reached inside and sent his flashlight rolling across the floor to the left. Then he darted in and cut right, bringing up his slingshot.
The flashlight beam painted the room in pale light, revealing a scene of horror.
There were two shocktroopers crouched in combat stances, their shock rods raised to strike but frozen in a moment of surprise as they turned toward the light. A third ’trooper lay sprawled on the ground, his throat torn out. Huddled between the Bugs was a gray mass of fur and fangs.
Evangelyne!
She stood quivering, her eyes blazing but head hanging low.
She and the ’troopers all stared at the rolling light.
Milo understood the scene at once.
Evangelyne had either come into this chamber or was chased. She’d taken down one of the Bugs, but the others had struck her with their shock rods. The wolf was not bleeding, but Milo had seen the effect of those weapons on the sturdy Barnaby. The fact that the wolf was even able to stand was a testament to her supernatural power.
Or, Milo thought, her fierce will to save her people and her world.
The tableau held for two seconds.
Then the Bugs swiveled their insect heads toward where Milo crouched.
He fired his stone. He’d had more than enough time to aim a perfect shot.
Milo knew from the attack on the camp that the lifelights were too well protected to be an easy Achilles’ heel. So he shot for the head. These ’troopers had body armor but not helmets. They wouldn’t, here on their home ship.
The stone hit one ’trooper in the right eye, snapping its head back, blowing apart the multifaceted lens, staggering the alien killer. He wailed in a series of alarmed clicks as he toppled over.
In the instant that followed, Evangelyne, dazed and hurt as she was, leaped at the second ’trooper. Milo saw a flash of white fangs, and then the crunch of chitinous shell filled the room.
Milo had a second stone out, and he fired at the first ’trooper’s other eye, scoring a solid hit. Then he was up and moving. He kicked the shock rod out of the Bug’s hand, dipped down, snatched it up, whirled, and rammed the tip into the ’trooper’s chest. Once, twice. On the third jab, the shock rod bent and snapped, shooting sparks into the air.
The Bug collapsed back and did not move.
Milo spun around to help Evangelyne, but the fangs of the wolf had already done their work. The lifelight flickered weakly and then went dark.
That fast it was over.
Milo felt like he was inside one of his dreams. He let the broken shock rod fall from his hands, stunned by what had just happened. He had defeated a shocktrooper in single combat.
Him.
Milo Silk.
Sure, the ’trooper was not in full combat rig and wasn’t firing a pulse rifle. But still.
He’d taken out a shocktrooper.
The knowledge that it was possible, that he could do it, seemed to change something within him. He felt stronger. Not physically, but in some indefinable way.
He knelt beside the wolf, who was still quivering and panting.
“Evangelyne, are you okay?”
She morphed from wolf to girl, but the process was much slower than before. She wobbled and fell, but Milo caught her and helped her sit down.
“I—I’ll be okay,” she said. But she sat for a minute with her head down between her knees, making small gagging sounds. Milo, not knowing what else to do, rubbed her back the way his mom did when he was feeling sick.
The flashlight had stopped rolling by one wall, and the reflected light allowed him to see some of the room. There were tall banks of machines that he figured were Dissosterin computers. They hummed quietly, and Milo wished he had a hammer so he could smash them. He thought about the bag of grenades he had but didn’t know if this would be the best use for them. What if these machines only regulated sewage or processed foods? Probably only crippling the engines would matter.
He said as much to Evangelyne.
“I don’t know computers at all,” she said. “My mother had one when I was little, but after the invasion, there was no use for it. No Internet. No power unless we wanted to use portable generators.”
“We need to get out of here and find the Huntsman,” said Milo. “Did you see where he went?”
She wiped sweat from her eyes and nodded. “Help me up.” When she was on her feet, she picked up his flashlight and walked carefully over to the far wall. The beam revealed a doorway with a hatch like an airlock. “I followed him in here and saw him pull this door closed as he went inside. The Bugs must have seen me come in here and they attacked before I could open this door.”
“Did the Huntsman see you?”
She ran one hand over the edges of the door. “No.” Then she turned and looked at the door through which Milo had come. “Where are the others?”
“We got separated in the tunnels. This place is a maze.”
Evangelyne bumped her small fist against the heavy steel of the door. “I’m not even sure Mook could get through this.”
“Maybe I can,” said Milo as he bent and studied the lock.
“How?”
He removed his scavenger tool kit. “The Bugs are dangerous, but they’re not paranoid.”
“Huh?”
Milo tapped the lock. “Shark and me and the others . . . we’re scavengers. That’s what we train to do. That’s why we were at the crash site yesterday. We find stuff and we take it apart so we can salvage whatever’s useful. The Bugs’ entire tech is designed so all of them can use it. So it’s all pretty simple. We’ve always been able to take apart their stuff. It’s just that their ships are so hard to shoot down that there isn’t much left of them. That’s why we haven’t built any for us to use against them. It’s why I wanted to steal the Huntsman’s ship.”
She nodded.
“Up here, they have guards,” Milo said as he began fiddling with the lock, “but from what I can see, they don’t care much about good locks.”
“Would there be much need for that with them?” asked Evangelyne. “Could there be crime in a
society with a hive mind?”
Milo shook his head. “Probably not. This lock is so lame it’s like they put it here to keep accidents from happening rather than for real security.”
“How lame is it?”
Milo smiled at her and tugged on the door. There was a single sharp click and it swung open.
“Pretty lame.”
They grinned at each other for a moment. Two conspirators whispering in the dark.
“Milo,” Evangelyne said quietly, “I’m sorry for the way I treated you.”
“It’s cool.”
“No,” she said, “it’s not. I . . . I’ve never been around human kids before. Not ever. I spent my whole life with the Nightsiders, and even then it was mostly with my mother, my grandmother, and my aunts, and some of them are—were—very old. Kids like Oakenayl and Mook spend even more time alone than me. Oakenayl sometimes spends a whole year standing in a forest.”
“Like Treebeard?”
“Who?”
“From The Lord of the Rings. He’s a big tree guy.”
“I suppose, though I don’t know that book. I’ve only read a few books written by the people of the sun. Most of what I read are grimoires and ancient tomes. Even some scrolls. Histories of the Nightsiders. Magic. Lore about the lycanthropes and other shape-shifters.” She sighed. “I don’t know how to be a kid.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s overrated.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. I saw you with your friend Shark when I was watching the camp the other night. You were being young together, not trying to be grown-ups.”
“I guess.”
“I . . . don’t know how to do that.”
Milo laughed. “Stick with me. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be immature my whole life.” He paused. “However long that is.”
She touched his arm. “If we get out of this . . . maybe we can be friends?”
“Aren’t we friends now?” he asked.
The question seemed to startle her. “I don’t . . . know.”
“Well, I think we are, and I swear on a stack of Bibles that I will never, ever try to conjure with your name.”
“You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Probably not.”
She punched him on the arm.
“Ow,” he said.
Then Evangelyne stiffened. She sniffed the air, and a look of mingled fear and anger twisted her features. She gripped Milo’s wrist.
“He’s close,” she said.
“How close?” asked Milo, reaching for his slingshot.
And a deep and ugly voice said, “Too close.”
They looked up.
The Huntsman stood there, just inside the door, massive, powerful, and infinitely dangerous.
With a smile that twisted his face into a mask of hideous joy, he reached for them.
Milo and Evangelyne both tried to shove each other out of the way as the Huntsman grabbed for them. The resulting double shove knocked them both aside and the grabbing hand missed.
The Huntsman laughed.
Somehow that made it worse for Milo. It reminded him how twisted this killer was. In the past, when he was a human serial killer, the Huntsman had enjoyed the chase as much as the actual murder. It meant that the victim had more time to be afraid. More time to despair. It was a strange and appalling way for a person’s mind to turn rancid.
Milo fell onto his back and kicked up with both feet, knocking the grasping hand aside. Evangelyne rolled sideways and midroll stopped being a girl and became the wolf again. She snarled and scrambled to four feet, then lunged up at the Huntsman.
Her attack was lightning fast, and it knocked the man a full step back into the adjoining room; the Huntsman clubbed at the wolf with the stump of his left wrist. Evangelyne yelped and crashed to the floor. The mutant raised his good fist to smash down on her. Milo got to his knees and fired his slingshot. The stone hit the Huntsman on the shoulder of the raised arm. It did no real harm except that it spoiled the blow, and the Huntsman’s fist struck the floor instead.
That hurt. He hissed in pain and kicked at Milo, missing only because Milo flung himself flat on his back, then twisted into a sideways roll as he fished out more stones. He came up to a kneeling position, fired two stones and hit the Huntsman both times. Once in the chest and once on the cheek.
Green and red blood flowed from the wound, and for some reason, the two colors would not blend, as if somehow the alien and human blood refused to accept that they flowed through the same veins.
Evangelyne came at the Huntsman again, nipping at his legs, trying to damage a tendon in order to drop him, but he kicked out and knocked her back.
Even so, the werewolf’s attack drove him back into the other room. Milo raced forward and dove inside, finding himself in a chamber that was forty feet across and twice as high. The walls were lined with exotic machines that were much more sophisticated than anything Milo had so far seen. Central to the room was a device that was the size of a troop truck. It had a bucket-shaped body and a big glass dome to which all manner of pipes, wires, and hoses were attached. The glass was opaque with condensation, but a pale blue-white light emanated from inside. The smell in this room was incredibly bad; it was worse, if that was possible, than anything he’d smelled so far. Milo gagged as he stepped inside.
The Huntsman was fighting with Evangelyne near the glass-domed machine. Milo fired another stone and another and another; then he fished for one more and came up with his lucky black stone. He grinned. This one had always found its mark. Every single time.
He fitted it, aimed, fired.
The stone flew like a black blur toward the Huntsman’s right eye.
And the mutant caught it.
He snatched it out of the air like it was a slow line drive by a weak batter. The Huntsman glanced at the stone, snorted, and tossed it away.
“You’ll have to be a lot better than that, boy,” said the Huntsman.
“Let me try,” snapped Milo as he dug into his pouch again. His scrabbling fingers found nothing.
Not so much as a pebble.
“I’m out!” he yelled to Evangelyne, but she was already in motion. The wolf snarled as she leaped past Milo to try for the Huntsman’s throat.
The powerful mutant stepped into the lunge and clamped his hand around Evangelyne’s throat. The wolf yipped in pain and surprise and hung there, feet working, nails clawing at the creature’s armored body.
The Huntsman pulled her close and studied her with great interest.
“I was right,” he murmured as if speaking to himself. “A werewolf. An actual werewolf.”
He laughed.
“Let her go,” demanded Milo. “Don’t hurt her.”
“Hurt her? Now, why would I do something like that? This little pup is worth far more to me alive. She reeks of magic. I thought so when we fought at the bayou.” He tapped Evangelyne on the snout with his stump. “It’s worth even this to keep her alive for a long, long time.”
Evangelyne slashed at him with her nails, trying to do enough damage to make him let her go. Milo dug his knife out of his pocket and flicked it open. It was a small utility lock-blade knife with a two-inch blade. It looked and felt pitifully small in his hand. Even so, he began circling the Huntsman, looking for an opening. The killer smiled and turned with Milo, keeping Evangelyne between them.
“How’d you do it? Stow away on my ship?”
Milo shrugged and didn’t answer.
“Stowed away,” said the Huntsman, nodding to himself. “You probably thought it was something brave. Why take the risk? You’re from that camp we burned. Your people were squirrely and weak. A bunch of mice hiding from the big, bad cat.”
He shook Evangelyne, making her yelp in pain. She kept clawing at him, at his clothes and weapons. A pistol tore loose from a shredded holster and clattered to the floor. The Huntsman didn’t even bother to look at it. Other gear popped off, and he ignored it all.
“And this lot. The Nightsiders. Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’ve known about the supernatural world since I was a boy. Why do you think I destroyed their shrine and took that stone? I’ve spent my life searching for proof that they existed. Now . . . now imagine how disappointed I am. We burned them, you know. Our ships found their covens and grottos, their caves and fens, and we burned them. That does it. Oh yes. Fire purifies.”
He shook her again. She was getting weaker, though she kept trying to slash at him. Milo could tell that she wanted to slash open the pouch with the Heart of Darkness, but she was getting too weak. Her nails had ripped his gear to rags. For his part, the Huntsman didn’t seem to care.
“Let her go!” begged Milo.
“No. Between you and me, boy, I expected the Nightsiders to be pretty fearsome. I wanted them to be, you know? Vampires and werewolves? I wanted them to be like gods. Instead . . . Ah well.” He shook his head sadly. “But . . . even though they disappoint me, what they represent does not. You see, they prove that magic is real. Their very existence is my key to the secrets of countless centuries of magical knowledge. It is my pathway to becoming a god.”
You’re freaking nuts,” said Milo, gripping his knife in his fist. “You know that?”
The smile on the Huntsman’s face grew wider. “Oh, I know that very well. I know the scope and dimension of my madness. Just as I know that madness and genius are two sides of the same coin. Did you know that? Madness is not a weakness, boy. It is proof that a mind is too vast for the organic cage in which it is trapped. It is proof that the mind has unlocked a treasure trove of vast potential. So . . . yes, I know that I’m insane. I embrace it. And I will use that power and marry it to the infinite power of magic.”
The knife seemed so tiny, so useless. He let his arm fall to his side, the knife hanging in slack fingers. Milo wanted to run away and hide from this. He’d glimpsed enough of this creature’s memories to know that the Huntsman truly believed what he was saying. That’s how deep his insanity went.
Miles and miles deep into the black well of his soul. To a place into which no light has ever shone.
“The black jewel is the key to my immortality,” continued the Huntsman. “When the Swarm took me, I was already becoming something more than human. They thought they were making me into their weapon, but . . .” He paused to chuckle. “You’ve been in my head, boy, so I think we both know how that turned out. They shared their secrets with me, thinking that I would be another mindless part of the hive. If anyone ever needed proof as to why they’ve become a stagnant race, that’s it. They made me into something that now they don’t understand.”